#I synthesized the information. and then I got a song stuck in my head and now nothing exists in the whole world except that song

[star-crossed-lizards]

I don’t like this post bc I do actually forgot every time. If I forgot I’m not lying. I probably remembered it every time I drove to work for the last month but I can’t write notes while I’m driving so it flew away by the time I got there. At any time that I actually could do something about the important thing I was supposed to remember, it simply did not occur to me that such an important thing even ever existed in the first place. I was just too busy thinking about my house and my car and my job and my pets and my favorite tv show and my favorite game and my three favorite albums all at the same time and as you can imagine it’s very easy for other things to fall through the cracks when you are always thinking about 10 things at the same time

[planetbass]

Explain computer wife lore and theories

OKAY SO .

computer wife (song) is obviously about computer wife. very few lyrics to go off of.

these lines in particular are all that we know about computer wife specifically: (1) she was programmed/built by the narrator (who i'm going to assume is sung), (2) she loves dancing and nightlife, and (3) she leaves sung – for a new operating system, whatever that means.

NOW the rest comes from songs that similarly seem to be about a robotic woman. there's no way of knowing if the robot referenced in these songs are intended to be the same entity, but for the sake of piecing together lore for my own enjoyment, i'm going to decide it is. these songs are synthesize her and built 4 love.

synthesize her is the most clearest because of its simple lyrics. the verses and pre-choruses give the most info:

synthesize her is clearly about the narrator (again, assuming sung) designing his ideal girl, with the pre-chorus possibly representing her startup. the first verse also gives me the impression that sung is looking for somewhere to go and incredibly lonely doing so.

but then... something seemingly goes wrong? the verse seems (to me) to imply that the computer girl is now gone. he's desperately trying to cling onto her memory. and the robotic pre-chorus clearly reflects some sort of malfunction. something happened that her systems could not process, resulting in an error.

FINALLY we have built 4 love. this one's harder for me to decipher bc the lyrics are much more involved. from the lyrics it's pretty easy to gather that there is a girl, presumably robotic, who was quite literally built for love. i'm not gonna include lyrics of this because the references to electricity, circuitry, etc. are everywhere. i am going to include some other lyrics though cuz it raises questions.

the main thing about this song that gets me stuck is the beginning of this verse, where the narrator refers to his own programming. also the fact that the vocals are by dan on this song – can we still assume the narrator to be sung? it could possibly be a brief moment from the girl's pov, but that's doubtful, or if we assume the narrator is still sung, could refer to him also being slightly bionic in some forms (digitally yours 👀?). Or it could simply just be a metaphor about how head over heels he is!

but the most telling line is when he calls her his fiancée. this would make sense if this is the same girl as computer wife, since, well, she had to become his Wife at some point! :]

THIS PART really gets me though. the girl was literally built for love, yet the narrator's surprised that she can "feel the love." he then says that knowing this, that she's genuinely reciprocated his feelings on a romantic level, her "model might be discontinued." the line "the spirit will deceive you" could maybe refer to how she was not supposed to (not programmed to) feel love on such a deep level, too. the narrator knows this is a flaw in her design and her model type could be discontinued. a robot built for love, but not allowed true love.

so. where does that leave us in b4l alone? perhaps some sort of sex bot that the narrator got attached to, but then her ai developed feelings back? i think that's a pretty reasonable assumption to make.

but then again, if we were to assume that said robot is computer wife, the main problem is that in this song, CW seems to already be an entity, one of Many, rather than someone designed and built by doctor sung as the other two songs establish. so there's some disparities if we wanted to consider all the songs to b about the same robot woman. the good thing is that it's doubtful there's any conscious, consistent lore being put behind these songs, so this is all basically conspiracy theory connecting strings - meaning we can Make Stuff Up if we want to.

SO. MY THOUGHTS.

taking information from all three songs, this is the sort of narrative i've pieced together:

doctor sung is traveling through space, lost and alone. he's looking for somewhere to settle down, but the trip is long and lonely, so he uses his time to design the ultimate companion, his dream girl. someone built for love, built for loving him. he, of course, is enamored, while she, obviously, is an artificial intelligence. but she learns to love him back anyway. and it's real! they have an incredible time together. but eventually, something goes wrong - she's technically not capable, or not supposed to, develop these kinds of feelings, reach this level of autonomy. her system's noticed a problem and causes an error. her software resets. "i'm leaving you for a new operating system" could not just be a computery play on words for sung getting dumped, but taken literally: her software updates and overrides any feelings that have developed for him. and it can't be fixed.

regardless, just with the intro of computer wife (song), there's a lot you could interpret from it. the very concept of designing and creating someone meant to love you and them still not being able to do that. what does that say about both of you? the idea that sung was alone and just needed someone and eventually even she leaves him. the idea that CW was built for the sole purpose of loving him and yet she couldn't even do that. as funny as i think the "haha cringe divorceman gets dumped by the robot He Built" jokes are, i still think that sort of narrative is tragic, regardless of the backstory or why she left him in the end.

or maybe computer wife really DID leave sung for danny sexbang who knows /j

[mikauzoran]

Lukadrien: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Twenty-One

@lukadrien-june

Read it on AO3: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Twenty-One: Heartbreak

Adrien hadn’t intended to eavesdrop.

His only aim in coming above deck was to ask Luka what he wanted to make for dinner, since it was their turn to cook for the family.

In the upstairs living room, he found Luka and Xavier-Yves, curled up conspiratorially on the couch and looking like they were having a serious discussion.

Not wanting to interrupt, Adrien turned to go, but, just then, he caught XY saying, “I wrote a song about you”. Adrien froze, interest piqued.

“Er…actually, about us. Our relationship,” XY revised sheepishly. “Would you wanna hear it?”

Adrien certainly did.

He mentally kicked himself for never thinking to serenade Luka before as he began to fret over what his love rival had come up with.

“You wrote a song about us?” Luka chuckled, wide-eyed with delight and looking thoroughly touched at XY’s romantic gesture. “That’s so awesome, Xavier-Yves. Of course I want to hear it.”

XY perked up, a goofy grin spreading across his face. “Yeah?”

Luka nodded. “Yeah.”

That was all the encouragement Xavier-Yves needed. He whipped out his laptop and cued up the song.

Adrien hadn’t listened to XY’s music much over the years. Chloé had a fondness for it, so he’d heard some when he was in his early teens, but after XY and Bob Roth’s stunt of stealing Kitty Section’s song, Adrien had made a point to avoid XY’s music when at all possible.

The song Xavier-Yves played for Luka now didn’t really resemble what Adrien remembered. It was still electronic, synthesized music, but it was nothing like the brain-rotting drivel Adrien had listened to with Chloé five years previously.

It was still repetitive, but instead of being relentless and grating, it put Adrien more in mind of the work of Philip Glass. There was a point to the repetition. It grew and changed subtly, building on what had come before and evolving with each layer XY added.

It was amazing to witness how transformed XY’s music was from what Adrien had heard previously, and the debt Xavier-Yves owed to Luka’s influence was obvious. With Luka’s guidance, XY’s music had become complex and sophisticated even.

The song started with a tense passage in the strings with percussion striking like thunder and flutes playing slippery, serpentine melodies reminiscent of lightning fliting across the sky.

“This is when we first met,” XY narrated, nervously watching Luka’s face, tracking his reactions.

The storm in the music quickly abated and took on a bouncing quality as a new theme was introduced.

“And this is us becoming friends,” Xavier-Yves informed, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

The passage kind of reminded Adrien of the chorus of Sweet’s Fox on the Run. It was an odd shift, but XY’s song was filled with weird juxtapositions of genres and styles like that that somehow managed to blend together and work to tell the story XY wanted.

Adrien tensed as an electric violin played a leitmotif that sounded exactly like Luka’s laugh.

Luka recognized it too and, caught off guard, started to laugh, only highlighting how exactly XY had captured the sound in his song.

“That’s brilliant, Prune. You got it just right,” Luka praised, clapping XY on the back.

Adrien tried to quell the spike of jealousy that shot through him, but it was so hard to fight the negative feelings when it felt like XY’s success was at Adrien’s expense.

The melody gradually morphed again, slowing down and taking on an achingly vulnerable pining quality.

A light crease developed between Luka’s brows as he struggled to place the emotion in the music and then tie it to something in his relationship with XY.

Adrien recognized the emotion right away, though. It was soul-baring longing so raw and honest that Adrien couldn’t help but be moved by it.

He wished he could be so honest with Luka about his own feelings.

Before Luka could puzzle out what that part of the song meant, the music changed again.

A shimmering, breathtaking piano solo emerged from the pining theme and took off at a run, its heart so full of hope that it brought tears to Adrien’s eyes.

The melody broke free and soared triumphantly until it disappeared over the horizon, sparkling out of existence with a graceful flourish.

Luka was left speechless as a single tear trickled down his cheek.

XY smiled tentatively. “…So…what did you think?”

“Xavier-Yves…” Luka breathed, “…that was truly beautiful.”

XY’s hesitant smile bloomed into a wide grin of pride and delight. “Yeah? You thought so?”

Luka nodded emphatically. “I loved it. I just… What was…what was that last part? What came after the part about us becoming friends? I’m not sure if I…”

He bit his lip, trailing off as he searched XY’s face.

Xavier-Yves’s grin softened, and a warm look came into his eyes. “That was me falling in love with you.”

Luka’s breath caught in his throat.

“I really like you, you know?” XY explained, reaching up to cup Luka’s cheek.

Adrien willed his feet to move and his voice to come unglued from where it was stuck in his throat, but he found himself mute and fixed in place like a decorative sculpture.

“People don’t really treat me so good,” XY elaborated earnestly. “I mean, I know I’m kind of dumb and obnoxious, but…but you’ve always been kind and patient.”

“Xavier-Yves…” Luka whispered, still dazed at this revelation and trying to sort out everything he was feeling.

“You believed in me and told me I could amount to something when my dad said I was useless and stupid and talentless,” XY stressed passionately. “You made me think there was something good about me after all…so I don’t think it’s weird, me falling in love with you.”

Luka’s eyes zeroed in on Xavier-Yves’s lips as their faces slowly drew nearer and nearer.

Adrien watched as Luka’s eyes slipped shut and he closed the distance between them.

Adrien felt something crack inside of his chest. It was a lot like being impaled.

Silently, he backed away and slipped back below deck. He made a beeline for his cabin, deaf to Plagg’s attempts at comfort as he buried his face in his pillow and sobbed.

It had been hard enough to accept that there was no future for him and Marinette. Being star-crossed a second time felt too cruel. He didn’t think he had it in him to put himself back together and fall in love a third time.

His shattered heart couldn’t take it.

 Luka was just about to deepen the kiss when his brain caught up with his body.

He pulled back with a gasp.

“Sorry. Did I do something wrong? I’ve never done this before,” Xavier-Yves hastily rushed to explain.

Luka shook his head, mentally cursing himself for screwing everything up. “No. No, you’re a great kisser. That was awesome. I just…”

He winced. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. There’s a part of me that wants to. I mean, I really do like you, but… It’s complicated,” Luka finished with a groan, looking up, ashamed, at XY, his eyes pleading for forgiveness. “I think we should just stay friends. I’m sorry.”

A wry smile curled up the corners of XY’s mouth. “Because of Adrien?”

Luka’s whole face went red, but he forced himself to look Xavier-Yves in the eyes as he nodded. “Not for the reason you think, though.”

XY quirked an eyebrow, settling back against the couch cushions. “Oh, yeah? Are you going to try to tell me that you’re not in love with him? Because, if you’re gonna turn me down, Six Strings, I’d like you to be honest about it.”

Luka’s face scrunched up in a grimace. “No. I wasn’t going to lie. I do have feelings for Adrien. I have for a long time, and, I mean…I do get the sense that he might be starting to reciprocate at least a little, but that’s not the reason I’m saying no to you. I’m not picking him over you. It’s not like that.”

XY nodded, seeing that Luka truly believed what he was saying. “Okay. So? What is it like?”

“Adrien’s been kind of rough lately with everything that’s happened. He’s in no shape to be in a relationship anyway, even if I did tell him how I feel and he felt the same,” Luka explained. “Adrien doesn’t have a whole lot of people he feels like he can count on in his life, so I really need to focus on being there for him. I can’t date right now, Prune. Not anyone.”

XY hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I mean…it’s kind of messed up to put your whole life on hold for someone like that, but…I get it.”

Luka blinked, surprised that this conversation was going so well. “Wait. What? You do?”

XY nodded. “I know how you are. You always put yourself last when someone you care about needs you. You’d do the same if it was me having the meltdown or one of your sisters or your ex, Jacob, or whoever, you know? You’re just like that.”

A sheepish smile gradually made itself at home on Luka’s lips. “I do have a bit of a martyr complex, don’t I?”

XY held up his thumb and pointer finger, bringing them so that they were only a few centimeters apart. “Just a teeny, weenie bit…but I’d put my life on hold for you too, so…I get how you feel about Adrien, even if I don’t like it.”

Luka winced again as guilt weighed down on him. “Prune, I’m so sorry. I—”

XY held up a hand. “Just answer me this: could you love me, do you think?”

Luka bit his lip, not wanting to lead his friend on but not wanting to lie either. “Xavier-Yves, I don’t want you waiting around for me.”

XY shrugged. “Tough. Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Isn’t that what you taught me? Just answer the question.”

Luka sighed. “Oh, all right. Yes, but please don’t wait around for me.”

“I do what I want,” XY snickered. “I know you’re picking Adrien, but there’s no telling when he could screw it up and give me a chance to sweep you off your feet.”

“Xavier-Yves,” Luka groaned.

XY tussled Luka’s hair with an affectionate smile. “All joking aside, I hope you change your mind about me, but I just want you to be happy, Six Strings. Okay?”

Luka’s eyes narrowed as he tried to discern any hint of deceit.

He found none.

“For real?” he asked in amazement.

Xavier-Yves nodded. “For real. So…can we still be friends? How does this work?”

“Absolutely,” Luka assured vehemently. “I never want to lose what we have, Prune. If we could just go on like we have been…?”

XY nodded in agreement. “I’d be down with that. Besides, who knows? Maybe one day I’ll get lucky and you and Adrien and me can be a threesome. The kid’s kind of cute when he’s not being a brat.”

Luka burst out laughing.

He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Adrien’s cute especially when he’s being a brat.”

“You can have him when he’s in brat mode, then,” XY snorted, starting to pack up his things. “But I should skedaddle. I’ve got to meet up with my dad to talk about my next album. Want me to text you when I’m done?”

“Please,” Luka responded, leaning in to press a whisper of a kiss to XY’s cheek. “Thanks, Prune.”

Xavier-Yves grinned, winking as he got to his feet. “Sure thing, Six Strings. Check ya later.”

“Later,” Luka echoed, waving after XY as he went.

As XY disappeared from view, Luka took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to process everything that had just happened.

He sat for a few minutes, waiting until he felt more grounded to get up and head for his room. He needed an instrument to help him sort through everything. Maybe his guitar or violin. He always processed best through those.

He stopped in the narrow hallway just outside his door when he thought he heard something.

Frowning, he listened hard, and it wasn’t long before he heard the muffled, choked sound again.

He took a few steps and stopped outside of Adrien’s cabin door to listen again.

It was now more apparent that the strangled sobs were coming from within.

“Adrien?” He knocked perfunctorily before opening the door and finding Adrien curled up in a ball around his pillow, bawling his eyes out.

“Adrien,” he breathed, rushing to his beloved’s side. “Hey, what’s the matter? What happened?”

Adrien gasped, sitting up and gawking at Luka in horror.

“N-Nothing. I—Nothing,” he insisted even as he gritted his teeth in his effort to stop the tears.

His lip trembled, unable to help itself in Adrien’s distress.

“Oh, P5,” Luka muttered, kicking his shoes off and climbing up onto the bed with Adrien. “Come here.”

He pulled Adrien onto his lap and squeezed him tightly, cooing, “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just let it out.”

To both of their surprise, Adrien did.

He clung to Luka as a fresh wave of grief washed over him.

Dutifully, Luka held him, rocking him from side to side and making reassuring noises. He didn’t let go until Adrien had worn himself out.

Adrien didn’t have the strength to fight as Luka gently cleaned up his face for him afterwards. He also found himself unable to protest when Luka tugged him into the main cabin and snuggled up on the couch with him.

It barely registered when Luka started Castle in the Sky, and Adrien remained nearly catatonic through dinner.

The fog of misery only cleared at bedtime when Luka tried to herd Adrien into his own cabin, saying, “Why don’t you come sleep in my room tonight?”

“I want to be alone,” Adrien insisted petulantly, trying to pull away.

Luka’s grip on him tightened. “I don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”

“I said I want to be alone,” Adrien growled, finding the strength within him to break away.

He turned on his heel and fled to his cabin, taking refuge under his covers from the world.

His solitude only lasted a matter of minutes.

Luka entered and silently made up a sleeping bag on the floor as Adrien glared him down.

“…I’m sorry,” Luka finally sighed, taking a seat on top of his blankets and meeting Adrien’s hostile gaze. “I won’t talk to you or anything, so just pretend I’m not here.”

“What do you want from me?” Adrien demanded half testily, half sulkily.

Luka shook his head. “Nothing. I just want to make sure you’re all right. I’m really worried about you, Adrien.” He hesitated before adding, “Whatever’s going on, I’m here, okay? I love you. I hope you know that.”

It was too much.

Tears spilled freely down Adrien’s cheeks, and he quickly absconded back under the covers.

Half an hour passed in relative silence as Adrien struggled to get his emotions under control and Luka stared up at the ceiling, feeling helpless.

“…Orpheus?” Adrien called, voice raw and plaintive as he peeked out from under the covers.

Luka sat up. “Yeah? What is it? Are you okay?”

Adrien swallowed audibly. “…Could you come up here and just…just hold me, please?”

Luka breathed out a sigh of relief, smiling indulgently as he climbed over Adrien to take his place by the wall.

“Happy to help,” he assured, slipping under the covers and pulling Adrien close.

Adrien wrapped himself around Luka like a vine, burying his face in Luka’s neck. “Sorry. And sorry about the way I’m acting. I’m not being fair. It’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

“It’s okay,” Luka replied reassuringly. “Thank you for the apology, though. I appreciate it…. Do you maybe want to talk about it?”

Adrien shook his head definitively. “No. Thank you.”

“Okay,” Luka agreed, backing off the issue.

In the morning, if Adrien still didn’t want to talk, Luka would encourage him to go see Nino or Marinette or check with Doctor Katsuragi to see if she had an opening for them to discuss Adrien’s sudden turn for the worse.

“…I…I love you too,” Adrien hiccupped.

Luka squeezed him tighter, giving his hair a nuzzle. “I know. Don’t worry, Angel. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to get through this together, all right?”

Adrien nodded, but his tears started to fall faster.

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Why YOU should give Rush a chance

Okay, so right off the bat, this is not going to be like my other posts on my blog. This is not a post about some show that has captivated my interest or anything at all related to animation. If that's not your cup of Dot rambling coffee, than I would highly recommend you take your L right now and come back for your regularly scheduled programming in a few days.

Are they gone? Okay cool! For those of you that stuck around past my forewarning let me tell you about my newest special interest to join my now growing music love affair with 80's and 90's Rock n Roll. For those of you that don't know, I'm guessing that most of you do not know what Rush even is. If you are not somehow on the autism spectrum or know a lot about music in general than this band will be entirely unknown to you. Rush is a three man progressive rock band born in Canada made up of three incredibly amazing men Gary "Geddy" Lee, his best friend since he was 11 years old Alex Lifeson, and last but most certainly not least, the amazingness that was Rush's drummer and songwriter Neil Peart. Together, the three of them changed the world of progressive rock through Geddy's unique vocal qualities, Alex's incredibly underrated shredding guitar skills, and Neil's immaculate drums and lyrics. I am here to tell you, yes YOU reading this length rambling message in three sections to keep this fair. Each member will get their own sections and I will try my hardest to keep personal bias out of this. I also just watched Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage yesterday with my mom so I will mention some things that we talked about during it to try and sell people.

Geddy Lee:

* Geddy has one of the most unique voices in all of rock music. This will most likely be the thing that turns off the people that do listen to me and wind up listening to a couple of songs. He has had a lot of critics for his higher pitched voice usually yelling lyrics. However, I love his singing voice. It is filled with energy and power to it. His voice has a weight to it that not a whole lot of other people can really nail if they really want to.

* You want to talk about sheer talent? How many of you all know lead singers that are a one and done kind of singer? They can play one instrument and they're done? Well shove them aside because Geddy can play not only bass guitar but a double neck bass, synthesizer, and piano. Yeah I think all you haters can stand aside because this man will always be amazing technically.

* So many of lead singers in my opinion, think that they own the band. Because they get to sing the songs right? That means that they get to make all the important decisions and they can't ever do anything wrong. Well for those of you that know Rush, you will remember the synthesizer era. The era of new wave Rush where Geddy shelved his bass guitars for his synthesizer. This caused a small rift between Lee, Lifeson, and Peart who were not at all fans of the way that the synthesizer was going. While Geddy was having a fun time with it, he shelved the synthesizer almost for good and went back to his roots. I don't know many other lead singers that would put up something that they were legitimately having a good time with just for his bandmates.

* Geddy's just general goofball personality is something that continues to make me chuckle. Since he and Alex have known each other for practically ever (they met when they were 11) and have been there for each other for most of their lives they have very similar energy's.

Alex Lifeson:

* Alex Lifeson is an underrated guitarist. There I said it. I feel like of the three of them (Geddy, Alex, and Neil) Alex gets talked about the least due to the fact that Geddy also plays guitar. While it might be a different brand of guitar some people forget just how genuinely face melting his solos are. I could listen to his riff in Tom Sawyer all day long I swear. I'm still working my way through every Rush album in chronological order (I'm just now finishing A Farewell To Kings an absolutely beautiful album.) But his skills are not one to be downsized and I think he is an amazing, amazing guitar player.

* You want to talk about the group goofball? If Geddy is goofy, you look in the dictionary this man is the pure definition of a hilarious and quirky character. When Rush was FINALLY indicted into the Rock N'Roll hall of fame in 2013, after Neil and Geddy's beautiful and moving speech's about how important this means to them, Alex gets up there and his entire speech is spoken in very animated BLAHs. But what's really funny is that if you watch carefully he is actually trying to tell you a story. It's a story about how they all got there past the critics that tried to stop them along the way.

* I love the relationship between Alex and Geddy especially. They're just both such unique kinds of people but they have similar quirks and traits that are evidence of decades upon decades of friendship. I get massive big bro vibes from watching the three of them play together and it's really touching that they never let the fame go to their heads.

* While watching the documentary, I found myself in awe of just his general personality. He was a jokester and the life of the party, and even if sometimes Neil was exhausted by his presence it was obvious that he loved his bros.

Neil Peart:

* If you are asking me, the heart and soul of Rush, was their drummer Neil Peart. Neil wasn't just their drummer though, he also wrote all of Rush's songs after their first album together. Neil grew up probably the biggest bookworm to ever bookworm. He was a socially awkward kid it seemed since he was always reading as his parents explained in the documentary (more on this laster). This resulted in lyrics that are absolutely gorgeous in any context and sound like literature themselves. One of my favorite Rush songs is their song Rivendale themed to Lord Of The Rings.

* Peart was one of the most technically amazing drummers of all time. I don't think I'm saying new information when I say that. He has been praised for not only his technical prowess but the intensity of how he played as well. He was a force of nature when you put him in front of a drum kit. The drum solos in Rush are not easy. They are technically extremely difficult and always leave me to collect my jaw from the floor.

* Lyrically speaking, his lyrics were so intelligent and beautifully worded that it's hard to focus on them sometimes. I've listened to Fly By Night I can't tell you how many times just within the last few months. They are so unique, so beautiful, just so Rush. I can't think of any other word to describe them other than Rush. Nobody else could have written lyrics like these other than Neil himself. Even though he's gone now (Rest In Power you absolute Mad Lad.) I still feel like his music will resonate with millions of future generations to come. It could be the year 3000 for all I care and people will still be jamming to Tom Swayer, just you watch.

* Lastly about Neil himself, this is of the opinion of my mom and I, and you heard it here first, I think that Neil was aspie. He was the quietest of the three of them, he hated getting spotted by fans while the other two seem to tolerate it, he was constantly stimming with his drumsticks on and off the stage by spinning them around his fingers, he was totally nerdy and antisocial, he loved literature more than anything else growing up and would rather have a book in his hands than go out to a public place with his classmates, and he grieved in a different way than most people do. When his wife and daughter passed away, he hit the road with his motorcycle and most often Geddy and Alex wouldn't hear from him for months at a time. They had cute little nicknames for each other that Neil would always sign the postcards with. It was a different one every single time.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on this day guys! I really appreciate it, I know that this hasn't been your regularly schedule Dot programming but I really appreciate you sticking around! Give Rush a listen to if I've piqued your interest you will not regret it.

[pip-n-flinx]

30 Questions

tagged by @natsora, preeminent writer of whump and purveyor of fine f!trevelyan / cassandra pentaghast content the internet wide.

I’ll tag @berryshiara @liveinink @ljandersen @crqstalite, no pressure as always and if you wish you were tagged and weren’t inform me of my oversight and it shall be corrected!

Name/nickname: Gordon, Pip here on tumblr

Gender: Male

Star sign: see birthday if you’re curious

Height: ~180cm or around 5′11″

Birthday: The Ides of March

Time: I plead the 5th

Favorite bands: Snarky Puppy

Favorite solo artists: John Mayer (cringe I know but he’s a phenomenal guitar player,) Victor Wooten, Ichika Nito, Kamasi Washington, Adam Neely, Niia Bertino, Avi Kaplan, Trixie Whitley

Honorable Mentions go to Charlie Puth and Dua Lipa

Song stuck in my head: blessed silence reigns tonight. I am free.

Last movie: to my great disappointment The Rise of Skywalker

Last show: Sirius the Jaeger (which I highly recommend)

When did I create this blog: around the end of 2012

What do I post: any art, writing, or political commentary that catches my eye. Also cats and landscapes because of course.

Last thing googled: Asari Spectre

Other blogs: None

Why I chose my url: the works of Alan Dean Foster, a prolific sci-fi writer. you should definitely check out For Love of Mother Not

Following: 170

Followers: 160

Average hours of sleep: anywhere from 3.5-12 it just depends on the day

Lucky number: I usually say 13 but I have no idea why

Instruments: I own 4 or 5 saxophones, a synthesizer, 2 bass guitars, a guitar, and I’ve played every brass instrument, piano, clarinet, and flute. To be fair I did graduate with a degree in music.

What am I wearing: grey sweats

Dream job: I’d love to own a distillery or a bar & restaurant someday

Dream trip: I feel like I’ve got a lot of ground to cover... Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington,) Grand Canyon, Chile, Japan....

Nationality: American (sadly)

Favorite song: There Will Never Be Another You - Chet Baker’s version is phenomenal but there are many good renditions

Last book read: working on In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson at the moment

Top three fictional universes I’d like to live in: most of the fictional universes I’ve grown to love are deep in the throws of world-thinning/great violence/wordly upheaval and I’m just not prepared to deal with more of that at the moment, but it would be nice to live in whatever fantasy world is spun on Fox news where radical leftists are taking over the country and stealing money from ‘honest’ ‘hardworking’ billionaires while accepting refugees and immigrants in droves while decimating our greenhouse gas emissions. that’d be swell.

[tentoriwrites]

Set Adrift: The Charbee Remix

For Charbee week day 4 for the song Back to Life by Hailee Steinfeld

I always played around with the idea of there being multiple factions of Cybertronians with specialized tasks/functions. I really latched on to the scientists/engineers because someone had to develop all that super advanced tech. But also they would have so much drama because both sides would want them. I found a great way to write in 2 of the main characters but never had a great way to bring in the third as she was completely a non-combatant. ENTER CHARBEE!

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Bumblebee’s optics went wide as he thought back on the time he stuck his finger in the outlet at Charlie’s house. He looked away embarrassed by the stupidity of the action. Little did he know the ramifications of such a simple act would be so widespread and… ongoing…

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Prologue:

The universe is full of innumerable stars. Rotating around those stars are even more planets. What makes this one so special? At first I didn’t understand, but then I finally went there. It was full of organic life and energy. I knew the moment I landed it would be perfect for the experiment. So, I released them: enough nanobots to make thousands of Energon batteries. Enough to power a Cybertronian colony for far more cycles than would ever be necessary. This whole system was a proof of concept. No matter where we Cybertronians went, we would always have a source of Energon.

As soon as the nanobots were released on this pale blue dot the results were immediate. I was extremely optimistic. I left the experiments to run as I retreated to the observation bunker established on a moon in the far reaches of the system. I went into stasis to conserve energy and woke up periodically to check on the experiments and receive reports from home.

As you might imagine I missed a lot existing like this. But I knew about the war and that it was escalating at a frantic pace. The war and my experiment seemed to be poles that could not coexist. The better my experiment went, the worst things seemed to go at home. The transmissions kept coming until one day they spotted altogether. I denied it for as long as I could, but I understood what that meant. The Prime Constructors was gone and the only reason for that was denying the Decepticons. I took precautions against those who would try to use my experiments for their own ill deeds. In my processors I said I was neutral, like all Constructors, but in my Spark I hoped the Autobots would win. that hope to hold on to, I went to sleep for the last time.

A bot tall and slender in frame but devoid of all the color floated gently up and down in a cryo-stasis chamber. The frost on their silvered metal panels tinkled as it melted away. It was time for the annual check on their experiment. They had created a countless number of nearly imperceptible nanobots and flooded all the planets of this solar system with them. It was a first of its kind experiment for the Cybertronians. Each bot collected energy from any and all available sources and converted it to Energon. Once the bot was fully charged, it floated towards the collection point on the planet and deposited it. Once the batteries were full, they could be collected and transported back to Cybertron.

The Cybertronian stretched out their arms over their head before floating over to the console on the far side of the room. Tiny boosters on the tips of their transparent wings gave them the propulsion they needed to move in the zero-gravity space. Once they were seated, they slid their hand against a flat space marked off by a frame on the console. It lit up with a gentle yellow glow a moment after they touched it.

“Constructor designation.” A synthesized voice filled the darkened room.

“C-377.” A less synthesized female voice answered.

“Project Identification number.”

“1284092186.”

“Hello, C-377. I hope you slept well.”

“I did, thank you.” She looked up at the screens as they buzzed to life.

“I have compiled the latest data on all 10 planets in this system.”

“I see them on the screens now. The numbers for some planets are a little disappointing, I must say. However, planet 3 has been an extremely lucrative source of energy.” She put her free hand to her chin a moment. “There has been a very large spike in the last 100 years. But then it drops off steeply.”

“Yes.”

The Cybertronian started to speak again but the computer cut her off.

“There was a huge spike in Energon detected. The spike caused the nanobots in the area to realign with the Cybertronian responsible for the spike and become unresponsive to outside communications. This caused a cascade effect until all the nanobots on the planet had become realigned.”

The Cybertronian’s purple glowing optics went huge. “W… wh… what… faction?” She was shaking so violently her hand almost pulled free from the console.

“The surge was caused by an Autobot designated B-127.”

The Cybertronian visibly eased, sinking into her seat at the news.

“The Decepticons can never have this technology… They’ll just use it to destroy ev…” Her chilled declaration was cut short by an alarm blaring. The security system was alerting her to a breach. “Activate emergency protocol alpha.”

“Understood. Preparing full transfer to remote station Beta.” The small, underground base started whirring with life.

The Cybertronian’s hand was released from the console as the computer listed each step in the protocol being fulfilled in the background. “Launch the backup and my escape pod to Earth then full wipe.”

“Understood. Preparing to launch decoys. Randomizing decoy coordinates. Power and memory transfer to ARC initiated.”

“Time to breach?”

“Irrelevant. Please proceed to escape pod.”

“But… Yes… Understood…” She couldn’t argue with the computer as power was already being diverted to a black monolith. The lights dimmed and the alarm turned off. The bot drifted into a random escape pod. The black monolith joined her in a different, random pod.

“Transfer complete. Launch sequence activated. Final shut down commencing. Creator protect you.”

The tube shook violently as it hurtled towards space. Moments before cresting the top of the tube, the screen in the escape pod started blinking errors. A camera on the outside of the pod showed fire surrounding it. Something likely set off the self-destruct trying to disarm it. While she was happy no one could get anything out of the base, she hoped against the odds the pod survived the trip to the third planet. Much to her dismay, the alarm blared on…

 The sky burned as a Cybertronian pod streaked across the blue expanse over the planet Earth. Pieces broke off and burned away in the atmosphere causing a showy display of friction's power. It came to rest in a dry field in the middle of nowhere at the base of a tree. The scorched dirt pit left in the wake of the landing alien smoldered and it wouldn't be long before humans found the site. With great effort the figure rolled over and pushed themselves to their feet. The journey had taken far longer than they had thought but soon it would all be over. The mission was the only thing that mattered now.

“Halt!” A voice called with a musical quality and the figure turned around slowly.

“Auto...bot... Thank goodness...” The clearly female alien replied weakly just before falling to her knees. Any scans indicated that she had been severely damaged from the entry. She was dying before his very eyes! He immediately disarmed and moved to her side. “I have a very important message to deliver to you Autobot. I am one of the last of the Constructors and charged with an experiment put into motion on this planet... No time...” She explained as quickly as she could with her dying body.

Bumblebee dropped her and backed away. A look of disdain colored his normally genial features.

She chose to ignore the familiar coldness her faction afforded her and pressed on. “After I die the information must be pulled from me. They are on their way... Decepticons... Not sure... how much... they got out of lab...” Her optics flickered so dim light could barely be seen within them as Optimus and the others arrived.

“Bumblebee! Report!” Optimus barked as he transformed and ran up to his ally. “A neutral?” He gasped in a voice stricken with an ill feeling as he kneeled down next to the ailing creature. “A Constructor?” She nodded slowly before falling to the dirt completely.

“A Prime...? How fortunate...” A smile was clearly written on her face as her life faded away.

“Out of the way!” Ratchet grumbled as he gingerly moved between Optimus and the slain. “Her injuries are grave. I haven't seen anything in this bad of shape in awhile...” He looked her over briefly before shooting her three times with his special regeneration laser. She jumped and twitched and he quickly set to work attaching a thick cable to a port in her back. “She needs an energy transfusion... What's this?” He wondered spotting a foreign black cube deep in her back. “It's a retrofitted piece connected on a molecular level with nanomachines... It appears to be some sort of energy collection or converter... But it's been disabled.” He awkwardly reached a finger into her back and poked the unharmed box.

Suddenly, her wings spread out and became covered in a transparent film. After a few moments she gasped and her eyes shot open. “The energy converter worked!” She half shouted as she twitched back to life.

The Autobots in attendance looked at her dumbstruck.

“I need to find the monolith…” No sooner did the words leave her mouth she passed out again.

“She's not very stable at the moment... We'll have to be careful...” Ratchet explained checking her status. “Right now, that converter is the only thing keeping her functional.” With that being said he got to his feet and started hauling her away unceremoniously over one shoulder.

“All right you heard Ratchet! We have to get her back to the base!” Optimus ordered as he started to transform into a semi-truck. “I’ll carry her in the back.”

A flurry of whirring radio dials punctuated Bumblebee’s reaction as he searched for songs to speak with. “Something… you need to know… easier… if… she's… dead...” Bumblebee looked up at Optimus with his displeasure clear on his face. “Shouldn’t… we… let it be?”

“No information could be worth her life... She's been through much to get here and I'm certain once she's had time to recover, she can tell us everything we might need to know.” Optimus replied as the hum of a plane grew closer. “Autobots! Roll out!” It was clear Optimus was ignoring the callousness of the comment.

“I… will… guard… her…”

As they rolled back to the Autobot base on Earth, the being stirred weakly. “You.” There was a long pause before the Constructor went on in a quiet voice. “You are the one who started all this.”

Bumblebee tried to ignore her, but her persistent staring finally prompted a response. He cocked his head to the side. “Misunderstanding” by Phil Collins started playing.

“You have lost your voice?” She looked up at the open roof wistfully. “It must have been an accident then.” She took a deep breath. “You created an Energon surge that interfered with an experiment I was conducting on this planet. It caused the nanobots I brought here to align with your energy so they no longer respond to me.”

Bumblebee’s optics went wide as he thought back on the time he stuck his finger in the outlet at Charlie’s house. He looked away embarrassed by the stupidity of the action. Little did he know the ramifications of such a simple act would be so widespread and… ongoing…

“That means we must protect you at all costs until the nanobots can all be removed from the planet.”

“You should rest now. You can explain yourself later when we can all hear it. But I would prepare yourself now, Constructor. Not all Autobots have a favorable opinion of your kind.” Optimus commented stoically.

“I… I can understand that sentiment.” With that she closed her eyes and went into stasis again.

 After returning to the base, the newest Cybertronian was offloaded for repairs. Optimus and Bumblebee waited patiently nearby as they discussed their next move.

“What do you think, Bumblebee? Is she someone we should trust?” Optimus turned to the yellow bot.

“Danger Zone” started blaring loud enough to wake the dead.

“I understand your feelings on Constructors. However, they only did what they felt was best for Cybertron. Is that really any different than what we did?” Optimus tried to reason with Bumblebee.

Bumblebee shook his head wildly. “So, what difference does it make? It makes none.” A line by The Smiths accompanied the action.

Optimus sighed heavily. He started to say something but was cut off by Ratchet.

“Well I can safely say this is my best work...” Ratchet sounded quite full of himself as he came out with the Constructor in tow. He had replaced her missing plates with smooth steel. “She explained that box to me as well so we'll have to move her while she recovers. She needs a place with more light.” He added cracking his hands as he stopped where Optimus and Bumblebee had acquainted themselves.

“What is it?” Optimus asked looking over to him.

“It's a miniature version of an experimental system the Constructors implemented here on Earth in a closed circuit.” Ratchet explained with a smile. “It was developed on the off chance the experiment failed. She brought many unused copies with her!”

“So that's the black box we picked up not far from her crash site.” Optimus added thoughtfully.

“YOU FOUND THE MONOLITH?!” The Constructor nearly collapsed in her relief. “Th… that monolith is very important to me.”

Bumblebee’s optics narrowed sharply and “Danger Zone” started blaring again.

“Bumblebee…” Optimus chided him gently and the yellow bot huffed.

The Constructor looked a bit hurt but went on. “I am Constructor C-377. I specialize in nanobots. I developed nanobots that absorb energy in all its forms and delivers it to batteries. The batteries were to be sent back to Cybertron…”

“Cybertron… has fallen.” Arcee answered solemnly offering her comrade a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“Oh…” All of the Constructor’s excited energy evaporated like fog in the sun. “I… see…” Sparks lit up as her fingers dug into her hand. “Well then… I guess… a new end goal for the experiment is necessary.” She nodded solemnly as she walked over to the monolith. She placed her hand on the surface and it immediately lit up with a gentle purple light.

“Should this experiment yield the desired results then we will be able to build a new home planet for our race.” Ratchet began with his smile beaming wider with each word. “It is capable of converting solar energy into Energon!” The news completely shocked everyone in the gathering.

“This is great news!” Arcee cheered in uncontained happiness.

“It’s not that easy.” The Constructor injected quickly. “The nanobots are designed to seamlessly integrate into whatever they are gathering energy from. So, they can become anything. If you cannot see why that might be a problem then you had better reconsider your intelligence level.

“We should give you a code name.” Wheeljack finally interjected.

“Familiarity with me is not advisable. I will only be on this planet long enough to remove the nanobots and any threat they may cause. My association with this planet will only serve to endanger it further.”

“She is a true Constructor...” Ironhide shook his head bitterly. “I've never met one but I would bet they're all just like this. Loners who don’t think they need anyone and don’t care about anyone.”

The Constructor deflated a fraction, but it was still enough to be noticeable. “I will need an energy sample from B-127 so I can start reprogramming the nanobots. Please place your hand on the monolith.”

“No sugar tonight.” Blared through Bumblebee’s radio.

"I don't think you understand what's at stake here." She started with hurt in her voice. "The nanobots can be reprogrammed to do anything... become anything. Power supplies, weapons, defenses..." The meekness in her voice faded as she spoke, replaced the a genuine passion. "If the Decepticons get a hold of them, they would be able to destroy anyone who opposes them!"

"Why would you put such a dangerous experiment into action at a time like this?" Ironhide voiced his suspicions openly.

A perfectly logical question she gave an honest answer to. "The experiment was started before the war." She started to deflate once again. "Had I known it would come to this... I... never would have..."

Just before her voice faded into nothing the monolith whirred loudly before disappearing completely. Her optics went huge and she started shaking. The plates of her body clinked gently, but audibly. "A Decepticon is here..."

An uproar immediately erupted from the Autobots. Some went on the defensive, seeking out the enemy. Others went on the offensive against the Constructor.

"I knew she couldn't be trusted!"

"Constructors only care about their experiments and creations!"

"She probably is a Decepticon herself!"

"She must have led them here!"

"I'm not a Decepticon!" Though she was quick and vocal in asserting this, she deflated quickly again. "But I may have led them here without meaning to." She shrank away from everyone, clutching her arms around herself.

"Enough!" Optimus's resonant voice silenced all others. He placed a firm hand on the Constructor's shoulder. "We will judge her guilt based on evidence after we eliminate the Decepticon threat."

The familiar whir of a plasma gun charging and firing in the distance ended any further discussion. Optimus did a quick head count and looked confused.

"The threat has been eliminated." The Constructor whispered looking over in the direction the sound came from.

"How can you be so certain?"

"My monolith is back." She pointed toward the source of the shot. Sure enough, one could see a peek of the monolith floating lazily in the air. Closer investigation revealed a small, smoking crater with the remains of a small Decepticon spy at the bottom. Her whole countenance grew grim as the monolith wafted to her side. "I warned you the nanobots are dangerous. Now the Decepticons likely know B-127 controls them."

“Your monolith is made of nanobots then?”

“Yes.” She answered quietly. “But they only respond to me. They cannot be overridden like the ones on this planet.” She turned to look at Bumblebee resolutely. “The Decepticons will stop at nothing to gain every advantage they can. If you will not help me save the experiment here. Please help me shut it down. The nanobots can be ordered to permanently fuse. Order them to fuse into batteries and all of you will have a viable source of Energon for the foreseeable future. Once it’s done, I’ll leave and never come back.”

Once again, Bumblebee pulled away.

“They will stop at nothing. The place where your Energon surged was a residential area. They will start there first.”

Bumblebee’s face instantly snapped back to hers.

“They will take hostages and once they do, those hostages will die. It doesn’t matter if you agree to help the Decepticons or not.”

Bumblebee looked visibly distressed now. His optics swiveled around for a moment before he shoved past the Constructor and turned into a bright yellow car with black stripes. As he did, the monolith disappeared again.

“We have to protect him at all costs!” The Constructor yelled and she took off after him on foot. A moment later she spotted an old, beat up truck from the 40s roll by. She quickly scanned it and used it as her cover. Following a faintly iridescent line of nanobots, she was able to follow Bumblebee even if she could in no way keep up with his reckless driving. Eventually she pulled in at a house at the end of a cul de sac. Bumblebee was honking his horn trying to get the attention of someone in the house.

“I wondered who could possibly be honking so much!” An older women excitedly declared as she rush out of the house. “Charlie’s going to be so excited to see you when she gets back, Bumblebee.”

Bumblebee struggled through finding the right song lyrics to convey the urgency of the situation. Seeing him struggle so, the Constructor spoke instead.

“Where did she go and when will she return?”

“Oh? A girl…” The older woman gave Bumblebee a knowing smile. “I’m so glad you found someone special, Bee~~~ I was just telling Charlie it would be nice if you found you a nice lady bot and settled down. She didn’t seem to like that for some reason.”

“It’s not that kind of arrangement. I am in need of his assistance.” The Constructor answered simply. “Where did Charlie go and when will she return?”

“She went to the store for me and should be back anytime now. Is… Is something the matter?” The woman was clearly worried now.

“No. I simply wanted a name. Bumblebee said Charlie gave him his name. She might select one for me as well.” It was pure fabrication to minimize collateral damage.

“Awe… That’s so sweet! I’m sure Charlie would be so happy to meet you and give you a name!” The older woman bought the explanation wholesale as a smile crept across her face that spoke to how adorable she thought the situation was. “There she is now!” She flailed her arms in a wave.

The pair of Cybertronians backed around to see a red car coming down the street. An arm reached out and started waving wildly. Suddenly, a shimmer on the air caused the view to be distorted.

“That vehicle…” The Constructor whispered.

The vehicle came to an abrupt stop causing Charlie to slam into the steering wheel. Bumblebee revved his engine in a hostile display. It was clear he already knew what the Constructor was about to say.

“That vehicle is a Decepticon.”

Bumblebee’s engine revved loudly again.

“B-127 if you would like this human returned unharmed you will come to the coordinates indicated on this tracker.” A map shot out of the glove box and fluttered to the ground, almost comically slow, in front of the Decepticon. With Charlie still inside, they turned into a plane and flew off.

Bumblebee shifted out of car form and pointed his plasma gun at the retreating plane. He quickly thought better of it since Charlie could get hurt if the Decepticon crashed or jettisoned her.

“We should regroup with the Autobots and plan our next move. There… there has to be a way to get her back safely without putting you or the planet in danger.”

The Constructor tugged on his arm but Bumblebee pulled himself free once again. Punctuating his disdain with a glare, visor still down. The radio blared static and it got the point across aptly.

“I lost everything and everyone I cared about.” She said quietly as she clenched her fists, metal scraping on metal showing just how tight her grip was. “I don’t like fighting, or war, or the Decepticons. If we’re being perfectly honest, I don’t really like any of you Autobots either because YOU’RE the ones who were doing all the fighting!” Her feet ground into the pavement causing it to crack and chip.

There was a long silence as Bumblebee stared at her taken aback when confronted with the fact there isn’t just one side in a war.

“But…” She started more calmly now. “Even though you couldn’t save all the innocent lives lost in this war…” She looked up at Bumblebee with determination. “You aren’t the ones who deliberately put them in danger to begin with. I could stop you from going. I could imprison you with my nanobots because you would be doing the EXACT same thing as the Decepticons. Deliberately putting all the innocent lives on this planet in danger for that one human. Are you prepared to bare the burden of responsibility if we fail? You and you alone?” She gave him a challenging poke to the chest.

His optics darted back and forth rapidly as he tried to process his response.

“Why do you fight, B-1… Excuse me…” She shook her head. “Why do you fight, Bumblebee?”

That single question seemed to harden his resolve. His optics focused on the Constructor before he nodded his head, radio whirred through stations until it spelled out his reason. It didn’t blare loud for all the world to hear. It was quiet and sincere.

“In that case,” She smiled slightly. “I’m not asking you to trust me, but let me help you.”

Bumblebee looked down at her outstretched hand and hesitated.

The Constructor smiled ruefully. “It is asking a lot, I suppose. Let’s go before it’s too late.” She glanced off where the Decepticon had gone briefly. “Please lead the way.”

Bumblebee shifted back into car mode and peeled away. Unlike the last time, he made sure the Constructor could nominally keep up with him. Traffic gradually gave away to open roads as they sped down a nearly abandoned access. After turning down a rough access road, the forest opened up to an abandoned mine. Standing cockily at the edge of the pit mine was the Decepticon. They bent over and picked up Charlie from where she sat bound in chains on the ground. They rattled ominously as the Decepticon held her in the air by the waist. Bumblebee’s radio whirred wildly as he skid to a stop by changing into his bot form. He was clearly worried for Charlie.

“We have come as you requested. Please release the human as agreed.”

“The agreement was for B-127 to cooperate with us. I have no use for you.” The Decepticon sneered as a needle shot up from the end of a slender digit. “Let’s make this interesting…” He stabbed the needle into Charlie’s neck.

Charlie let out a momentary scream of pain before gritting her teeth. “Don’t, Bee. Don’t help them.”

The Decepticon snickered before yanking the needle out. “Those are your Nanobots, C-377. The imperfect ones you left behind, but they’ll still drain this girl of all her energy.”

Bumblebee immediate bristled at this comment. His visor locked into place and his plasma gun primed.

“Ah… none of that. Shoot me and you won’t be able to stop the nanobots.” The Decepticon wagged a mocking finger at Bumblebee with a wicked grin.

Bumblebee lowered his gun rather begrudgingly.

“You are not in this alone.” The Constructor whispered encouragingly. “I will be very convincing.”

“So, what’s the verdict?”

Bumblebee sighed deeply and started walking forward with his hands up.

“B-127…” A sharp voice from behind him made him stop. “Would you really sacrifice all other life on this planet for one?”

Bumblebee spared her a sharp glance over his shoulder. It was then he noticed the shimmer and remembered what happened the last time her monolith disappeared. He gave her an understanding nod before focusing on Charlie again.

“Then you leave me no choice.”

Bumblebee didn’t look back again. One slow step in front of the other he marched towards the Decepticon. With his sole focus on Charlie, he missed the unsettling way they behaved. The Decepticon was very excited every time Bumblebee took a step forward. They did a happy little jig, jostling Charlie in the process.

The Constructor watched careful from behind until she noticed something. She soon noticed the Decepticon was only looking at the ground. That had to be important…

“Bumblebee! Do not take another step forward!” Using his real name signaled to him to stop. “It’s a trap! There’s something in the ground!”

Bumblebee looked around but didn’t see anything immediately in his path. He picked up his foot and set it down in a slightly different place. That slight movement was all it took to spring the trap. A burst of electricity rippled through his body overloading his circuits and sending a huge Energon burst out.

“BEE!” Charlie screamed desperately as she watched her friend fall to his knees. She kicked and screamed but couldn’t free herself.

“Perhaps you should start concerning yourself with your own situation. Your value as a hostage has been spent after all.” The Decepticon jeered as they eyed Charlie with a wicked jeer. Without a second thought, they tossed her into the pit.

Bumblebee tried to call out to her but his radio just bogged down and flickered like a car trying to start when there isn’t enough power. The last thing he saw before blacking out was Charlie disappearing over the edge.

The words of the Constructor echoed in his mind. “You are not in this alone.”

“I trusted you… That was a mistake.” The warnings flashing on his screens suddenly stopped. His optics snapped open. Before his very eyes, Charlie was levitating in the air, bounds removed. A faint shimmer covered her whole body and he realized she was covered in nanobots. He looked around wildly and saw the Constructor kiting the Decepticon around as they fired at her. She was fast, but extremely clumsy in her movements. He knew it was only a matter of time before she got hit.

He staggered to his feet, sensors still not fully recovered, and stumbled towards Charlie. After just a few steps, an electric jolt shot up around him. He prepared for another frying, but the shock never came. Instead, the electricity seemed to be diverting around him then disappearing completely.

“The nanobots can take any kind of energy and turn it into Energon.” The audio played back in his head. His gaze darted to the Constructor quickly. The horrible realization settled in: If her nanobots were helping him and Charlie, she was truly defenseless.

“I’m fine, Bee. I’m fine.” She smiled brightly for him as she looked up into his optics for a moment that seemed like an eternity. The trance seemed to break for both of them at the same time and they both collapsed into a hug. “I missed you so much…”

Bumblebee nuzzled her cheek as if to say he missed her too. He finally pulled away when a nearby explosion caught his attention.

“You should help her. I’ll just go hide over there.”

Bumblebee nodded stoically as his visor clicked into place. He turned towards where the Decepticon had the Constructor pinned to the ground. He fired his plasma gun to break them apart before charging forward.

Charlie watched for a moment before heading towards the cover of the trees. It quickly became apparent something was wrong as she had to push harder and harder just to move. All her limbs felt sluggish and heavy. The tiredness quickly started spreading to her mind as an overwhelming urge to sleep took her. The last thing she saw before darkness consumed her was the tree line and a fistful of leaves in her hand.

“Now how did you get free?” The Decepticon pondered as they squared off with Bumblebee. “Was it my vacillating former colleague?” They glanced down at the Constructor as she tried to drag herself away. “You are just full of tricks, aren’t you? But I think you’ve used them all up now!” They gave her a swift kick that sent her rolling towards Bumblebee.

“I will… take care of Charlie.” She pulled herself up and started retreating towards the fallen human.

With no other distractions to come between them, Bumblebee focused on the Decepticon. “You have a codename now too. My codename is Doppel. I have a twin named Ganger.” The Decepticon went on to explain they used to be Constructors too but now they work for the Decepticons.

After a few moments listening to Doppel’s prattling Bumblebee started firing.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?!”

If ever Bumblebee wished he had his voice back it was now. Unable to deliver any sort of retort, he just kept firing. Unlike the other Constructor, Doppel clearly had some combat experience. Only some. This was not going to be as easy as he hoped, but still doable.

“Miss Charlie. Please wake up.” C-377 gently lifted Charlie into her arms.

“Just 5 more minutes…” Charlie muttered absently as she swatted at the air.

“Well she still has basic functions…” A quick scan revealed a glimmer of hope. “These nanobots are very old and extremely inefficient. It seems her body’s energy generation is outpacing their ability to absorb it as long as she is in maintenance mode.” The Constructor gave Charlie a troubled look as she tried to shut down the nanobots. “Not them too…” Her gaze shot up to Bumblebee.

“STOP! Don’t destroy him!”

Bumblebee looked back at C-377 incredulously.

“We need him to shut down the nanobots inside Charlie!” She scooped Charlie up and started walking toward the fighting pair. “You have control of my nanobots. Order them to isolate a sample of his Energon.”

“Like I would ever let that happen…” Doppel jeered from his place under one of Bumblebee’s feet.

Suddenly, Charlie let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“He overloaded the bots. We have to hurry or they’ll drain her dry then blow up!” She was frantic now as red warnings flooded her screens.

Blood red optics glared down at Doppel as Bumblebee grabbed his neck with a crushing grip. A long, thin needle grew out of his knuckle. He jabbed it into Doppel’s chest with far more force than was needed. The needle took on a red hue quickly as it filled with Energon.

“It’s not going to be enough…” Doppel jeered as he fell back to his knees. Those were the last words he ever said.

“Bumblebee! Hurry! I have to use that sample to hack the nanobots before they explode!”

Bumblebee turn and saw Charlie encased in the monolith. The monolith was taking on a red glow. C-377‘s expression became increasingly grim. “I… not enough time. Preservation protocol Alpha!” An explosive flash of light momentarily blinded them both.

“The nanobots created a pocket dimension where time moves at a fraction of what it does here.” C-377 explained as Bumblebee’s optics locked on the glowing sphere before him. “As you might imagine, that requires a large volume of energy. I need your help keeping it stable for a few more moments while I finish disabling the nanobots.” To emphasize this point, her energy collection wings were spread open wide and Energon coursed down her arms into the sphere.

Bumblebee tentatively reached out to sphere and solid plates former beneath his hands. Even before his hands touched the plates he could feel his energy to be pulled to his hands. He hesitated for a moment before pressing his hands to the plates. Instantly, the Energon started to drain from him in massive waves. His sensors indicated an eminent shut down in a matter of moments but he focused on Charlie. Suddenly, she was no longer obscured by the veil of energy and nanobots.

“Charlie?” He started at hearing his own voice.

“Who’s there?” Charlie spun around quickly. “BEE!” She ran up to him happily.

He scooped her up in an embrace. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Same, buddy. But… where are we and what’s going on?” She looked around confused by their surroundings.

“You were infected with Nanobots that were draining your energy and then were going to explode. That other Cybertronian put you in a pocket dimension while she shut them down.”

“Oh. No big deal then.” She seemed to take that news in stride. “And the Decepticon?”

“Destroyed.”

“So… I guess we just have to wait for her to finish and we’ll get out of here.” She sat down and patted the place besides her.

“Probably.” Bumblebee answered opting to settle in behind her and hug her midsection.

“Probably? You mean you don’t know?” Charlie looked a bit alarmed as she gripped Bumblebee’s hand.

“I’ve never worked with her before. In fact, we just met earlier today. I’m still not entirely convinced I can trust her.”

“She saved my life.” Charlie said simply. “She said every life is precious.”

“You trust her then?”

“I have no reason not to.”

“Then… I guess I can trust her too.” Though he said this begrudgingly still.

“How long have you been able to talk, by the way?” Charlie spun around to look him in the eyes again.

“How long have I been in here with you?”

“Does that mean you might not be able to talk once you get out of here?”

“Yeah.” Seeing the disappointment she was trying to hide made him regretful. “But I’ll always have the voice you gave me.” He tapped the radio gently.

“That’s true.” She seemed content with this as she settled her back against the plates of his chest again. “I don’t suppose you can pick up any stations in a pocket dimension, can you?”

“Probably not.” He sounded amused as he answered. Still, he gave the dial a spin anyways.

“B-127!” Familiar voices flooded the space. “I mean Bumblebee! Listen you have to let go! Your Spark is being absorbed!”

“That sounds bad.” Charlie mirrored the Constructor’s worry.

“It is. Our Spark is the thing that gives us life and makes us who we are.” He paused to look around. “I don’t know how to go back.”

Charlie immediately jumped to her feet and put her hands on his shoulders. “Bee! You… you have to find a way to go back! Your soul… Your soul is here and if you can’t get back your body you’ll be gone forever!” Tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

Charlie doesn’t cry for just anyone… She only cries for the people she really cares about…

“Don’t worry!” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with gentle thumbs.

“What did you do to C-377?!”

“I’m not going to leave you.” He took her hands from his shoulders and wrapped her in a warm embrace.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“No matter what…” He nuzzled her head to his chest.

“Who else could have done this?!”

“I’ll always be with you.” A barely audible whisper.

“I think… he did this himself.”

“Because I…”

The arguing voice over the radio faded to static all at once. A blinding flash ripped through the space and then, nothing. It took a long time for Charlie to resister the cold feeling of metal on her limbs. But once she did, her whole body went into hyper-drive. Her eyes snapped open and were greeted with the Autobots weapons drawn and pointed at her in the distance. In foreground was the blunt end of some very sharp looking spikes floating in the air. She spun around and saw the very haggard looking Constructor looking back at her with barely glowing eyes.

“Wow! What happened to you? Oh yeah a fight! If we go back to my garage I could fix you!” It was all one word spoken at an almost incomprehensible speed.

“Miss Charlie.”

“We could give you an awesome paint job too! OH! What kind of vehicle do you turn into?! I bet it’s some snazzy sports car!”

“MISS CHARLIE!” C-377 grabbed her by the arms carefully. “I need to focus right now, hard as that may be.” Her voice was failing and the glow in her eyes flickered. “Everything Bumblebee ever was, is, or will be is inside of you right now.” The Constructors cold hands slid down Charlie’s arms making the human focus on herself for the first time. Her whole body was glowing blue.

“His Spark?”

“Yes. You are the only one who can bring him back now.” She gestured to Bumblebee’s lifeless body beside them.

“You big idiot.” Charlie whispered in exasperation as she crawled up next to his head. “When you said you weren’t going to leave me, did you really think I’d be happy with this?” She rested her hands on his faceplates and put her forehead to his. “If you’re not here, what’s the point?” Her whole body started to glow brighter. The glow travelled up her body and grew brightest where she touched Bumblebee. Once all the glow had faded, there was a long moment of uncertainty.

Radio static broke the silence and Bumblebee’s optics slowly lit up. A collective sigh of relief filled the air, none louder than the Constructor’s. She slumped over on her side and rolled short distance away as the spikes her nanobots created melted away to nothing. As the revelry around her reached a fever pitch she tried to summon up the strength to form her monolith again. The transparent wings on her back flickered dimly but could not generate any power.

“Overheated…” She muttered bitterly. She let out a tired sigh. “Bumblebee.” She called out to him but he couldn’t hear over the celebration. “Bumblebee.” A bit louder this time. “BUMBLEBEE!” She yelled as loud as she could finally garnering the attention of the others. The looks were not entirely kind but she endured it anyways.

“I cannot access my monolith at this time. You are the only one who can shut down the experiment on this planet.” She reached up weakly and offered him a small stick made out of nanobots. “This has all the instructions you need to order the nanobots to permanently fuse into Energon batteries. I suggest having them coalesce in a secure location. It will take quite some time for all of them to fuse.”

Bumblebee was quick to shake his head.

“You still don’t trust me. I cannot blame you on this.” She replied defeated.

He quickly shook his head. The radio spun through countless stations and static but nothing of use for what he wanted to say came up. Now it was his turn to sigh. Then his head quirked up and he looked a bit disturbed.

“Please speak your mind now.” C-377 said wearily.

“Hello?” Bumblebee spoke tentatively. Everyone looked shocked. “You… should be the one to finish it. See this through to the end. That is… one of the principles of the Autobots.”

“You have shown yourself an ally. I hope in time we can come to some kind of better understanding.” Optimus spoke clearly and definitively.

“With all due respect, Master Prime, I have no interest in siding with the Autobots or the Decepticons. I would like to try to remain neutral. However, it is clear the Decepticons and I do not share one important core value.”

“Every life is precious.” Charlie answered quietly.

“Yes. Hate me if you must, but I refuse to be a tool of destruction.” She clasped her fingers around the bar in her hand. “That’s why I have to shut down all the experiments.” She dropped the bar into Bumblebee’s hand. “And why I can’t join you right now. Please finish this for me so I can move on to the next planet.” She gave him a wry smile. “Besides, they won’t respond to me anyways.”

Bumblebee looked suddenly bashful, perhaps because he remembered why they would only respond to him. Still, he took the stick this time. With that out of the way, the Constructor shut down.

 “Couldn’t she at least pick a 40s streetrod or something? No. She picks a rusted out… Something…” Charlie groaned as she wiped the sweat from her brow. “But she cleans up great once you give her a nice buff and shine.”

Bumblebee beeped with approval from the driveway.

“Do you think she’ll ever wake up?”

The chorus to “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey started playing.

“Yeah… It’s only been a few days.” Charlie wandered over to Bumblebee and climbed in the driver seat. “How about you? How long are you going to be in town?”

The chorus to “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell started playing.

“Yeah. I figured you could only stick around until she left. Optimus filled me in on Constructors and how they got their bad reputation. Not siding with anyone made a lot of people think they were turning a blind eye to all the death and destruction. I bet some of them were just scared of getting used to do bad stuff.”

“Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie started playing.

“Why… is there so much noise?” There was a loud thud and the pair looked into the garage. The Constructor was in bot form ducking to keep from hitting the ceiling seemingly for a second time.

“She’s a wake!” Charlie beamed hopping to her feet.

“It would seem I have been repaired as well. Do I have you to thank for this, Miss Charlie?”

“Looks like you picked up some country when you scanned that pickup. What with the Miss Charlie and all.” Charlie poked fun of the Constructor with a fake Southern accent.

“I suppose my speech patterns were slightly altered. I will correct them.”

“Nah, it gives you character! Like all those, uh, dents and stuff!” Charlie vaguely motioned to a large dent on the bot’s posterior.

“I see. I did just scan the first vehicle I came across.”

“How about something like this?” Charlie showed her a full spread of a street rod in a magazine.

“It does have a certain aesthetic appeal. However, it will have to wait for another time. I must leave now and complete my mission.” She looked to Bumblebee grimly. “Did you?”

“The battery thing?” Charlie looked between them quickly. “Yeah there are already so many of them!”

Bumblebee turned around and popped the trunk to reveal two batteries. The Constructor reached down and took one out. A faint smile came across her face.

“I’m glad to see my proof of concept was valid. But in making the nanobots so adaptable so they could gather energy harmlessly… I created something truly terrible. I cannot apologize enough for all the danger I put you both in.” She carefully put the battery back in his trunk.

“So how many more experiments do you have to shut down?” Charlie asked looking to the Constructor.

“Nine. But they can be shut down remotely assuming my back up bases weren’t found and destroyed by the Decepticons. Then it’s just a matter of collecting the batteries.” A desolate air settled over her. “Though, I have no idea what to do with them now that Cybertron has fallen.”

“Collect them for the day when we reclaim Cybertron. Or, for when we make a new home for our people.” The brightly painted and ostentatious Semi tractor said from the street.

“Master Prime.” The constructor looked startled for a moment but quickly regained composure. “I will look forward to that day.”

She took a few steps forward and turned back into a truck.

“Hey wait!” Charlie grabbed her tailgate to keep her from moving. “You need a codename! That way you can communicate and no one will know it’s you!”

“A codename? Like Bumblebee?”

“Yeah!”

“I wouldn’t know how to decide on such a thing. Please call me whatever you wish, Miss Charlie.”

“Then I’m calling you Seraphim!”

“When I return, you will have to explain to me it’s meaning and why you chose it for me.” With that she pulled away and followed Optimus down the road, a faint shimmer distorted the air as she went.

“Aren’t you going with them?” Charlie looked to Bumblebee expectantly.

“Push it” by Salt-n-Pepa started playing as Bumblebee slowly drove towards her. She backed up into the garage with a confused expression.

“Do you know what that song is about, Bee?” He didn’t answer as the garage door slid down. “Don’t you tease me, Bee.”

[the-backspin-alchemist]

Get To Know Me Tag

Alright I know this is like a day and a half late but I’ve been semi-busy doing stuff and that’s a vague as hell excuse but it’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it!

Shout-out to @simplyghosting for the tag.

Rules: Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you wanna get to know better.

1. Nickname: Backspin in digital space, otherwise my name on its own is my nickname in meatspace.

2. Zodiac sign: I think I’m technically a Capricorn?

3. Height: 5’7 (about average)

4. Hogwarts house: No idea. Given their propensity for dumbassery from what little I remember of the books, probably a Gryffindor.

5. Last thing I googled: “Korg NTS-1 price”

6: Favorite artist(s): Ooooof there could be a lot here. Uuuuuh let’s see...Rush, Pendulum, Jade Cicada, Skrillex, Au5, Smashing Pumpkins, Daft Punk, Porter Robinson, FLOW, GRiZ, Hainbach, Linkin Park, Jeff Williams, Vulfpeck, Foo Fighters, Andrew Huang...I could go in for a while, but I’m pretty sure y’all don’t want four-paragraph/long lists.

7. Song stuck in my head: Tesselate - alt-J

8. Favorite time(s) of day: nighttime. Things are nice and quiet and it’s really pretty when the moon is out.

9. Favorite color(s): blue, purple, black, silver. Golden-yellow gets an honorable mention.

10. Following: 283 (that number feels kinda high...)

11. Followers: 749 (I have no idea when that number got that high but I can tell not a lot of them are actually paying attention to me. Plus I have probably close to that many bots blocked...)

12. Do I get asks: Occasionally. I have a few dedicated friends on here that send me stuff every so often. (You guys know who you are, and you’re the best!)

13. Amount of sleep: Either 5-6 or 10-12. Drought or flood.

14. Favorite number(s):3, 7, 9, 343

15. Wearing: BOSS “Analog Distortion” DS-1 shirt (yeah I know I’m enough of a need that I wear shirts with guitar pedals on them, I’m lame like that), black Goodfellow jeans (which are INSANELY comfortable, and I’m not usually a jeans person, FTR), ace ring and Triaxial pendant.

16. Dream job: full-time creative person. Music production probably specifically, but author or podcaster would also be really neat. Technically working on all three at the moment.

17. Instrument: I “play” varying synthesizers (my synths of choice are the Korg Monologue and the Novation Circuit Mono Station, but the Teenage Engineering PO-20 is also quite fun to mess with). I am in the process of attempting to learn to play mandolin and electric bass.

I also dabble with playing keyboard every so often, but so far my skill on that is mostly “hey look guys I can use this to figure out chords! :D” and “look, guys, I can play Vulfpeck’s Hero Town and the intro to Dire Dire Docks! :D”

I can also “play” my Seagull Totally-Not-A-Dulcimer/Guitar-Hybrid, but that’s doesn’t take talent because you literally can’t play a wrong note on that thing.

18. Language: English. I am monolingual because I didn’t get any decent linguistic education during my younger days. (I do still wanna learn Gaelic at some point, and possibly Japanese so I can actually properly sing along to the varying FLOW songs I like)

19. Favorite song(s): My stated favorite changes from day to day (my current statement would probably be Cherub Rock by The Smashing Pumpkins), but the one song I always get drawn into whenever it shows up, ever, is Waiting For The End by Linkin Park. Something about that song speaks to my soul.

20. Random fact: I apprenticed under the recording and mixing engineer that did Aerosmith’s Pandora’s Box album for like...a week.

It was a very informative experience.

21. Aesthetic: Uuuuuuuh dark colors with bright highlights. Lots of handmade stuff, otherwise.

Like...I dunno. I guess you could say my aesthetic is, like, edgy hopepunk? Lots of me trying to be optimistic, but being deep and using dark colors and stuff based around that.

I dunno, I’m really bad at describing my aesthetic with words. It’s...just whatever it happens to be.

Tagging: Uuuuuuuh oh boy. Don’t think I’m gonna have 21 folks to tag for this...

@lilybugarini @grandduchessgemini @tumb1rprincess @spookyakamaru @flying-suitcase @parteehardy @thepreciousem and @charlezarrd are all I got for now.

[millimallow]

kirburbia ch. 10 - you and me alone

this is the first kirburbia chapter that’s getting announced via tumblr! i had a really great time writing this chapter and it’s one of my favourites so far, look forward to something else a bit more unconventional next chapter though. referencing music i like in what i write is my lifeblood, honestly.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686793/chapters/40770308

read from the beginning: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686793/chapters/39133111

full text below the cut! and if you’ve enjoyed it, please drop a like or a kudos. it really does mean so much to me.

The private karaoke room Meta Knight and Dedede stand in flickers with fluorescent light during the middle of the day. There are no windows, creating the illusion of darkness and the reality of it inside. Two plush leather couches oppose each other in a sunken pit, framed by two karaoke machines fitted with the same magenta light. Entering it, Meta was almost stunned at the difference between this and the rest of human society. Humans relished living in the light, but they retreated to the night even during the middle of the day for recreation. How visually energetic- how strange! And it was just embarrassing to sing out loud in front of other people.

 But… Dedede seemed to be having fun.

He was belting out a song by an artist Meta Knight didn’t quite remember hearing before. Dedede had mentioned her before when he offered to play his music in the car, an offer he retracted when he joked that he only really listened to this musician and a few others. He said that Kirby might like them, but they weren’t to Meta Knight’s taste at all, and he was the guest. And he didn’t know much human music, so they listened to the radio. But it wasn’t bad music, really, albeit too energetic for him to listen to in his free time. It was the sort of thing he would associate with the strange, enchanting lighting of their current abode.

Dedede could sing loud and clear when he wanted to. Right now he was taking on the chorus of his current song, harkening back to the title of the song itself, repeating its message over and over again.

“I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling-“ His face is flush with determination and energy as the words leave his lips. “I wanna dance on the roof, you and me alone” Meta Knight can’t help but wonder if this is addressed to anyone. If Dedede has a current love, or if he just likes what he likes. “I wanna cut to the feeling, oh yeah I wanna cut to the feeling, oh yeah!” Dedede wasn’t the sort of person who got too deep into his feelings, so I don’t know if he’d even relate to this very well, but…

The beat gets steadier and more intense as it builds up towards what Meta Knight assumes is the end. The chorus breaks off after a few more lines into its penultimate section-

“Take me to emotion, I want to go all the way Show me devotion and take me all the way Take me to emotion, I want to go all the way Show me devotion and take me all the way”

 Definitely a love song. And I thought Dedede was always fine with the royal marriage his family had always intended for him. The sort of marriage where meeting before the wedding date was almost sensationally taboo. The devotion, though… A very kingly sentiment. A lover like a knight.

The song peters out after a few more lines. Dedede’s breathless at the end, gasping audibly from the intensity of his participation. And Meta Knight, unsure of how to react at the end of his performance, gives him a few hesitant claps and smiles when Dedede looks back at him.

“Whew- ah- I got really into it, I think.”

“You’re a good singer. Better than I would have taken you for.” Dedede flashes a smile back, face red.

“I’ll- I’ll take that as a compliment, hah.” He foists in his pocket for a few seconds and pulls out a handkerchief that he proceeds to wipe over his face to soak up a few beads of sweat.

“You were having a good time as well.”

“What can I say? I just have a lot of fun doing it.”

“Do you like romantic songs?” Meta Knight asks, then immediately regrets asking, worrying it’s the sort of thing that’s just too personal to ask someone of such a high status.

“Romantic songs? Well, I… I don’t really think of this song as being romantic. Sure, it’s about a relationship, but romance is stuff like candles and back massages and roses. And those songs are good, sometimes. This one is about leaving your limitations behind to connect with another person.”

“Hmmm… This is the “Carly Rae Jepsen” person you mentioned previously, right?”

“Well. I don’t know if she wrote the song from her own perspective, but it’s her music. Her work is always excellent.” There’s a silence of a couple seconds. “Do you want to use the machine next?”

“I don’t know any human music.” Meta Knight says. It’s not a lie, really, though it’s hardly his main reason for reluctance.

“I’ll introduce you to another Carly song. That way we can sing along, and I’ll cover for you if you can’t follow it quite right.” Meta Knight sighs, but changes his tune when Dedede looks disappointed at his response.

“Can I do it like this?” He gestures to the leather sofa that he’s currently slack against.

“I… I don’t see why not. The microphone stretches, so…” Dedede picks up the second microphone, which until now remained turned off on the small wooden table also within the depression in the room’s layout. He hands it gingerly to Meta Knight, who accepts it with a similar sense of trepidation. “Maybe you’ll like one of her more popular songs better than the others. Can’t get too deep too quick.” Meta Knight nods, trying to psyche himself up internally for the singing that was about to begin. It takes Dedede less time than Meta Knight thought to select the song and inform him that it’s about to begin. It was now or never for the both of them, Dedede mouthing “one, two, three, four” hurriedly under his breath.

The song begins with an instrumental of blasting synthesized bass, electronic and triumphant, where Meta Knight tries to collect himself and tap his foot along to the beat. The determination and enthusiasm in Dedede’s eyes is hard to miss and frighteningly sincere- Meta Knight can see it as clear as day, and feels like he’s watching an entirely different side of Dedede that he’s never been wholly privy to. It gives him confidence, to see him alight like this.

Then, like a tidal wave, the lyrics kick in.

“You're stuck in my head Stuck on my heart Stuck in my body, body I wanna go Get outta here I'm sick of the party, party I'd run away I'd run away with you This is the part You gotta say All that you're feeling, feeling Packing a bag Leaving tonight While everyone’s sleeping, sleeping Let's run away I'll run away with you Cause you make me feel like I could be driving you all night And I'll find your lips in the streetlights I wanna be there with you, ooh Baby, take me to the feeling I'll be your sinner in secret When the lights go out Run away with me, run away with me Baby, every single minute I'll be your hero and win it When the lights go out Run away with me, run away with me Up in the clouds High as a kite Over the city, city We never sleep We never try When you are with me, with me I wanna stay I wanna stay here with you, ooh Cause you make me feel like I could be driving you all night And I'll find your lips in the streetlights I wanna be there with you, ooh Baby, take me to the feeling I'll be your sinner in secret When the lights go out Run away with me, run away with me Baby, every single minute I'll be your hero and win it When the lights go out Run away with me, run away with me Hold on to me, I never wanna let you go, ooh Over the weekend we could turn the world to gold, ooh Hold on to me, I never wanna let you go, ooh Over the weekend we could turn the world to gold My baby, take me to the feeling (take me to, take me to it) I'll be your sinner, in secret (oh, when the lights go) When the lights go out Run away with me (just run away) Run away with me (with me) (Oh, yeah yeah) baby Every single minute I'll be your hero and win it When the lights go out Run away with me, run away with me Run away with me, run away with me Run away with me, run away with me”

[cdrforea]

Amazon Echo Studio review: Gorgeous Bass Meets 3D Sound

New Post has been published on https://bestedevices.com/amazon-echo-studio-review-gorgeous-bass-meets-3d-sound.html

Amazon Echo Studio review: Gorgeous Bass Meets 3D Sound

"The best Amazon speaker you can buy literally takes music to a whole new level."

Class leading bass

Chic and simple setup

Support for Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio

Large, spacious sound stage

All Alexa smart

Occasionally subdued middle class

Brittle note for lighter instruments

3D music is still limited

Amazon's new Echo Studio Smart Speaker is not only good – sometimes it's fantastic. It is also one of the few smart speakers that you can buy that actually compete with the Sonos One. This is partly due to impressive functions that you won't find in any other intelligent loudspeaker on the market, not least thanks to the surprising support from Dolby Atmos.

Even putting the Echo Studio in the same sentence as the One is proof of how far Amazon has come in recent years. With products like the studio and the new Echo Buds, Amazon has proven that it can no longer be left out of the audio conversation.

With the studio's 3D sound stage and a burgeoning new Amazon ecosystem that feeds it, Amazon is starting its own conversation, in which other loudspeaker manufacturers will certainly participate.

Roll out the barrel

With a large, rounded housing and an oversized CD feed cut through the base, the Echo Studio offers a unique profile. It is by no means repulsive and the exterior of the acoustic fabric offers a certain seal of approval, but is many times larger than the Sonos One and Apple's HomePod. The well-known Echo LED atrium on the top of the studio is wide enough to actually fit on an angel's head.

There are good reasons for the size of the studio. It is equipped with hardware, including two 2-inch drivers on the sides, a 1-inch tweeter on the front and a full 5.25-inch woofer for firing basses. There is another 2-inch driver on board, pointing up towards the ceiling to enable the hemispherical immersion, for which 3D sound formats such as Dolby Atmos and the new 360 Reality Audio System from Sony are valued. More on that later.

On the round top of the studio are control buttons, including the action button to manually call Alexa (if you don't want to call the speaker using the "Alexa" command), volume buttons, and my personal favorite, a mute button that rotates this rainbow-blue Alexa LED Darth Vader red, which ensures that the speaker doesn't listen to you.

As someone with a natural reluctance to allow listening devices in my house, the red hoop is a comforting reminder that my conversations are safe. It is also part of Amazon's ongoing efforts to restore confidence in its discretion.

As with all Echo loudspeakers, a microphone array in the housing enables voice activation via the “Alexa” voice command (or some other information) and acoustic calibration to adapt the sound signature of the loudspeaker at any location.

Ready, hired, streamed

Sonos, the undisputed king of simple speaker configuration for a long time, has real competition. Setting up the studio couldn't be easier. Sorry Sonos. You learned it by watching you.

After installing the Alexa app on your phone, follow the on-screen instructions and you can start streaming in no time. You can quickly add your favorite streaming service, including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and of course Amazon Music (among others).

It's not just the setup that's intuitive. Amazon's Alexa app makes it easy to customize basic audio settings, control playback, and connect to other devices, from an echo subwoofer to other echo speakers for a multi-room speaker system.

Again, the Sonos app feels very similar, which makes it user-friendly and, in my experience, much more stable and intuitive than Google Home. I also like the fact that unlike Sonos products, you can easily connect to the studio through other apps, including Spotify Connect.

There are more ways to connect than just Wi-Fi. The Echo Studio offers a Bluetooth connection if necessary. There is a dual-use 3.5mm optical / Toslink connection on the back of the speaker for connection to a TV or other device.

Unfortunately, you cannot decode Dolby Atmos movies over an optical link, but there is a workaround. If you have a newer Fire TV device, you can pair the studio with it to stream Dolby Atmos content from selected apps.

This is a fairly specific use case, and it means that you can't get Atmos from the biggest source to the speaker right now. 4K Blu-rays. Although you can certainly set up the Echo Studio as a soundbar replacement, this isn't the best way to use it for your money. Amazon also has other plans for its new 3D speaker.

Alexa stuff

Before we get to the audio extras for those new to the world of smart speakers, let's talk about how much the Amazon Echo line, including the studio, can do. There is a lot to discover, from connecting and controlling a smart home system to checking the weather, shopping and numerous other smart home skills. In fact, the Alexa app offers a whole range of new and old abilities to try out.

This includes controlling the playback of the speaker with your voice. This is easy and works better now than it did a year or two ago. The speaker had few stumbling blocks when he was put through his paces, even with music. With Spotify, the studio seemed to know what I wanted to hear more often than not.

As part of the Echo family, the studio can also do things that most third-party Alexa speakers can't. B. Intercom calls throughout your home through your Echo Collection. However, the Sonos One can speak both Alexa and Google.

Amazon Music is growing

You can't talk about Echo Studio without mentioning Amazon Music, as both parts are important to Amazon's plans to lead Spotify and Apple Music.

In early fall, Amazon announced that it would add high-definition music to its subscription music service for just $ 5 more. This undercuts the price of all these competing services and adds something that Apple and Spotify don't have at all.

Just as important for our purposes are "millions" of tracks with a resolution of up to 24 bit / 192 kHz selected songs mixed in Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio (or newly mixed). Dolby and Sony also appear to be realizing their new plans and adding important studio partnerships.

Chills at 360 degrees

The biggest question I had after Amazon unveiled Echo Studio in its latest Alexa product extravagance was simple. What does Dolby Atmos actually mean in an intelligent speaker?

Most Atmos systems surround you with a barrage of speakers to get the 360-degree audio effect, including at least two uploaded speakers to bounce the sound off the ceiling. Even mentioning Atmos for a humble intelligent speaker seems bold. After tracking down the few tracks on Amazon Music (which thankfully have a 360 audio playlist), I was impressed with what this speaker can do.

It gave me something that I've never had from a $ 200 piece of plastic. Chills.

The first song I wrote was Elton John's Rocket Man. At first it was just a few slide effects that spread like a sound aura over the speaker. But as the song started up, the piece's expansive synthesizers stretched from the top of the speaker to the walls and finally blossomed into a cloud of swirling sounds at the front of the room.

The studio couldn't completely submerge me, but it gave me something I never got from a $ 200 piece of plastic: chills.

Stage against signature

While the side and up firing drivers are paramount to the studio's 360 tricks, the powerful, authoritative bass must be the speaker's best asset for everyday listening. Any great speaker can boom, with Google's Max being one of the best examples. But the studio's bass isn't just great. It's clean, tight, and well controlled.

The second song on Amazon's 360 playlist was Ariana Grandes 7 Rings, and although I'm not a Grande super fan, I was impressed by the tight jackhammer bass that the studio reproduced as a chorus beat hit. This powerful bass in combination with the bubbling 360-degree stage ensures a brilliant ride through the entire playlist.

However, the studio is not perfect. Because of the only tweeter in the front, the speaker has a little bit of a problem when it comes to delivering detail and clarity in the midrange, especially when singing. It can also become thin at heights when lighter mixtures are fed.

In this regard, the Sonos One and also the Apple HomePod are clear of the ground. This becomes clear when you move away from 360 and high resolution tracks. And let's face it, most of us are stuck listening to compressed music every day.

You can get more clarity in the mid-range by disabling the studio's Stereo Spatial Enhancer, which may choke the mid-range on some tracks, but which also brightens the upper registers, which is sometimes uncomfortable. I found it helpful to reset the highs in the settings.

Regardless of this, the studio's sound signature takes a back seat to the soft, rich and detailed sound of the Sonos One. In addition, the 3D effects of the studio depend on the interior of your living room (especially on the walls and ceiling). 3D blends are currently limited. On the other hand, the sound stage and bass of the Sonos One are more reserved and compact compared to the spacious studio.

guarantee

Amazon's Echo Studio comes with a one-year limited warranty, and you can purchase an additional year.

Our opinion

The best smart speaker Amazon has ever made keeps its promise and offers a new way of listening in combination with Amazon Music. The Echo Studio is one of the most enticing new smart speakers on the market, offering premium bass and solid sound across the board.

Is there a better alternative?

For an Amazon spokesman, no. And if you want to immerse your toes in the world of Atmos Music, this is also your best choice for speakers. If you're looking for a rounded, everyday speaker with the versatility of Google and Alexa (and a more balanced sound signature), the Sonos One is the obvious alternative.

How long it will take?

The speaker seems to be well built and has an expanded decoding for 3D audio formats that are just beginning to take shape. If anything, it's a bit ahead of its time.

Should you buy it

Yes. If you're looking for the best Amazon Alexa smart speaker you can buy – and especially if you're thrilled to dive into the latest musical limits – the Echo Studio is an easy choice.

Editor's recommendations

[notangislist-blog]

Remembering Carlin

George Carlin played at my house as a child. Both my liberal arts educated artists, meh-on-government parents loved him, and I loved him. Mornings, I bombed down the hills of San Francisco, 45mph on a bike, weaving through Market Street traffic, throwing up the finger to honking cars. Later, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue comedy, take a comedy class, and bring up Carlin. I told the teacher that I wanted to rant like him, and she said, "You can't be George Carlin. You're a woman and have to act a certain way. You don't know the crowds. Look, you're just a smiley girl. You've got to be careful. " I replied, "I know I'm not old and white and a man, but I can take what I've learned from him." And gave the "Bitch, you don't know, me," face. Her trauma resurfaced in her body, a shudder, a knowing look, perhaps wanting to protect me from something that had happened to her or maybe recognizing part of herself in me. Then she said, "Maybe times have changed."

The female comics in the room let out an exhale.

Saying, but not not saying, times have not changed.

Yet, here we are, being seen. Defiance comes in many forms.

Expectations sometimes shift. And Carlin shifted many.

The last recorded interview from Carlin, conducted by Jay Dixit, Friday, June 13th, 2008 from Psychology Today. 

 The Interview

What follows are edited highlights. They represent a little over half of the interview.

How do you think about comedy and self-expression? Expressing what’s within vs. looking at the outside world and making observations? Self-expression is a hallmark of an artist, of art, to get something off one’s chest, to sing one’s song. So that element is present in all art. And comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts—it’s a vulgar art, it’s one of the people’s arts, it’s the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form—it’s certainly artistry. So self-expression is the key to even standing up and saying, "Hey, listen to me." Self-expression can be based on looking at the world and making observations about it or not. Comedy can also be based on describing one’s inner self—doing anecdotes, talking about your own fears. Woody Allen taps into a lot of self-analysis in his comedy. But I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. I think self-expression is present at all times, and whether or not you’re talking about the outside world or your responses to it depends on the moment and the subject. Do you go around observing and trying to collect funny things? Or do you just live your life and then say how you feel about what you happen to have seen? I’m 71, and I’ve been doing this for a little over 50 years, doing it at a fairly visible level for 40. By this time it’s all second nature. It’s all a machine that works a certain way: the observations, the immediate evaluation of the observation, and then the mental filing of it, or writing it down on a piece of paper. I’ve often described the way a 20-year-old versus, say, a 60- or a 70-year-old, the way it works. A 20-year-old has a limited amount of data they’ve experienced, either seeing or listening to the world. At 70 it’s a much richer storage area, the matrix inside is more textured, and has more contours to it. So, observations made by a 20-year-old are compared against a data set that is incomplete. Observations made by a 60-year-old are compared against a much richer data set. And the observations have more resonance, they’re richer. So if I write something down, some observation—I see something on television that reminds me of something I wanted to say already—the first time I write it, the first time I hear it, it makes an impression. The first time I write it down, it makes a second impression, a deeper path. Every time I look at that piece of paper, until I file it in my file, each time, the path gets a little richer and deeper so that these things are all in there. Now at this age, I have a network of knowledge and data and observations and feelings and values and evaluations I have in me that do things automatically. And then when I sit down to consciously write, that's when I bring the craftsmanship. That's when I pull everything together and say, how I can best express that? And then as you write, you find more, 'cause the mind is looking for further connections. And these things just flow into your head and you write them. And the writing is the really wonderful part. A lot of this is discovery. A lot of things are lying around waiting to be discovered and that's our job is to just notice them and bring them to life. Do you think that the richness you described comes from just being able to access more experiences, having information on file? Or is it judgment? Well, that's true, too. The machine that does all this learns what it is you want—it learns what it is that serves your purpose and it begins to tailor the synthesis. It synthesizes these observations and these comparisons. Comedy’s all about comparisons and contrasts and congruities and incongruities and heightenings and understatement and exaggeration. The mind has all of that stuff built in, and it learns which ones pay off the best for you. It's probably related to the pleasure center. You get so much pleasure finding good observations and finding which things are the richest things you can say, that probably the brain remembers how that happened and learns to provide the best stuff. Maybe you have a little silent editor in there. You talked about how comedy's all about incongruities, contrasts, exaggeration. Do you think about those techniques or those principles of humor consciously? It happens automatically. Sometimes there’s a conscious heightening, you'll recognize you've just chosen an image to make a point. Then your mind will just suddenly throw something at you that's stronger—a heightening, to raise the stakes, a stronger word, a more visceral image, something that lights up the imagination, much better than the original thought. So you’re aware that you’re heightening and exaggerating further but you don't use the word exaggeration or anything like that. All that stuff is just happening. And sometimes, afterward, I’ll look at something and say, “If I were giving a comedy lecture, that would be a good example.” I often think in those terms. Do you think there are any downsides to having gotten to the point where you are, where all of this is happening automatically? Or are there some advantages a 20-year-old would have? Well, I would imagine there are some that I can’t put my finger on because I don't remember what it was like. I was a different man. I don't know—the advantage that a 20 year old would have would be more longevity to look forward to. You talked about how wonderful it is, this feeling of writing. So what is your process like? I take a lot of single-page notes, little memo pad notes. I make a lot of notes on those things. For when I'm not near a little memo pad, I have a digital recorder. Most of the note-taking happens while I’m watching television. Because the world is undifferentiated on the television set. You may be watching the news channel, but it’s going to cover the breadth of American life and the human experience. It's gonna go from suicide bombings to frivolous consumer goods. It's a broad window on the world, and a lot of things are already established in my mind as things I say, things that I'm interested in, things that are fodder for my machine. And when I see something that relates to one of them, I know it instantly and if it's a further exaggeration and a further addition, or an exception—if it plays into furthering my purpose, I jot it down. When I harvest the pieces of paper and I go through them and sort them, the one lucky thing I got in my genetic package was a great methodical left brain. I have a very orderly mind that wants to classify and index things and label them and store them according to that. I had a boss in radio when I was 18 years old, and my boss told me to write down every idea I get even if I can't use it at the time, and then file it away and have a system for filing it away—because a good idea is of no use to you unless you can find it. And that stuck with me. And what's your filing system? There’s a large segment of it devoted to language, which is a love of mine. And a rich area for my work talking about how we talk. One of the files is called “The Way We Talk.” And it's about certain voguish words that come into style and remain there. But then there are subfiles. Everything has subfiles. There's one that says "Crime." There's "Crime" and there's "Law," there’s "Sex" and there’s "Race." And there’s "Humans"—that’s obviously a big folder with a lot of smaller folders in it, it’s about the human race and the human species and experiences and observations I have about that, or data that I've found about it. You know, 6 million people stepped on land mines this year. Those things interest me.

And there's "America," and America is a major category, of course. It breaks down into the culture, and the culture breaks down into further things. It’s like nested boxes, like the Russian dolls—it's just folders within folders within folders. But I know how to navigate it very well, and I’m a Macintosh a guy and so Spotlight helps me a lot. I just get on Spotlight and say, let's see, if I say "asshole” and “minister," I then can find what I want find. What's the process of going from something that's true about the world—observing it—to actually making people laugh? I begin with the knowledge that my audience knows me thoroughly. I know the things they will trust coming from me, and I know they'll allow me to do exposition that’s necessary to set the stage for the piece of material. The funny—that’s part of the genetic package. The genetic marker for language came through my family. My grandfather, whom I didn’t know, was a New York City policeman. I did not know him. During his adult life, he wrote out Shakespeare’s tragedies longhand just for the joy it gave him. And he asked questions about language at his dinner table, my mother told me. My mother had a great love of language, and a great gift for language. The Irish have a genetic tradition, it seems, an affinity for language and expression. And so I got that. The Irish say: "You don’t lick it off the rocks, kid." It comes in the blood. So, I have that and I don’t have to do anything about it. As Noel Coward said, “All I ever had was a talent to amuse.” I have a talent to amuse and I have a way of finding the joke, a way of expressing things through exaggeration, interesting images, whatever goes in, whatever the parts are that go into making these things work. I try to come in through the side door. One of the voguish terms, which is so repellant to me, “thinking outside the box.” To settle for that kind of language is embarrassing. But that's a very useful picture. I try to come in through the side door, the side window, to come in from a direction they’re not expecting, to see something in a different way. That's the job that I give myself. So, how can I talk about something eminently familiar to them, on my terms, in a new way, that engages their imagination? The jokes come. You don’t look for them. It’s all automatic, and, I think, genetic. My father was an after dinner speaker, was a great raconteur. He was an ad salesman for space in newspapers during the 1930s, when that was the primary medium of advertising, and my mother was in advertising her whole life. They both were very funny, and they both were very gifted verbally. So, those things come to you automatically. It's like being a child prodigy with the violin or the piano. It's not something you try for or you have to do too much about except work at it. And that's what I try to do. How is it that you find things that are unexpected? I don’t know. But I want to add an element I overlooked. Psychology. We're talking about a magazine called Psychology Today. As a child, my father was gone. I had no grandparents; they were all dead. Had no real cousins to play with, and I didn’t give a shit, frankly. I experienced my life in a very happy way, but, what I want to say to you is, I was alone as a child. My father was dead. My mother left him when I was 2 months old and he died when I was 8 years old. He drank too much and he was a bully and she had the courage to take two boys, one of them two months old and one of them 5 years old and to leave him in 1937 and get back into the business world and get a job and raise us through the end of the Depression and through the Second World War. She did a great job, but she was at work until 7 or 7:30 at night many nights. So I spent a lot of time on my own. In the house or out around the neighborhood or sneaking in the subway, going down to 42nd street, traveling around Manhattan Island, learning it as a youngster. And I experienced that—because psychologists ask you not if something's good or bad, but how do you experience it—I experienced that as freedom, independence, autonomy. And I was brought up on that feeling. That’s what made me, I think, able to quit school, and go out and try to start my life and career early, because I had that strength. And my mother had that strength. I witnessed it. I mean, what she did was she took us away from him and saved us. So, those qualities of being alone like that fostered in me a need for adult approval and attention. Now they say that it's kind of a common cliché that comedians just want attention. But it's an element that's very important. The job is called "look at me." That's the name of this job. “Look at me. Ain't I smart? Ain't I cute? Ain't I clever?" I needed to be—not the center of attention—but I needed to be able to attract attention when I wanted it, through my stunts and my fooling around physically with faces or postures or voices I would do. Then it became funny the things I would say, and I became more of a wit than simply a mimic and a clown. And so, those things were all important in this. The fact that I didn’t finish school left me with a lifelong need to prove that I’m smart, prove it to myself, maybe to the world. “Ain't I smart, ain't I cute, ain't I clever.” “Listen to me, listen to what I got to say.” So, those things are important elements in the drive behind all of this. You made an analogy to playing the violin. I wanted to ask you about mastery. You’ve been doing this for, as you said, over 50 years, and it seems like you've only gotten better with time. So I'm wondering what you think has enabled you to do that. Is it like playing the violin? Is it just practice? Is it getting good feedback? Is it—you know, what is it that allows you to hone your craft? The feedback that I’ve gotten has been through the success of the career. That’s a reinforcing factor. I say: Oh, that works, oh that’s what I do, I see. I think with anything you do over a long period of time, you should be getting better at it. I'm talking about craft, art, or drive that comes from inside. What is your philosophy about physical performance? You walk around a lot, you make a lot of gestures. It’s just second nature, you don’t think about it at all. And I don’t pace as much on stage as I used to, maybe it’s my age, I don’t know. I don't feel limited physically, in that respect, but it's just something I’ve grown into. Were you always making people laugh, sort of automatically, just because of your personality? Yeah. As I was describing, this is a job for a showoff. In those 8 years of grammar school that I had—the 9th year was kind of a it was a Irish catholic Christian brothers, and it was a much more brutal setting than these lovely nuns we had. So I think of those 8 years as my education. I got the work very easily, I didn’t have any trouble grasping the work, and so I had time to clown, time to signal to my buddy, make a face, make a fart under the arm, I was a bit of a class clown, I was a neighborhood cut-up. I eventually started doing routines when I was about 14, 15 16. I would do routines on the street corner for my buddies on the stoop. My mother wanted me to finish high school, go to college, be an advertising man, be a businessman like the men at her office whom she admired. But she couldn’t stop this other machine that was revving up. I had an 8th grade graduation from the grammar school—it was the only graduation I ever had. And in 9th grade, while I was at that school, I had a Brother, one of the brothers who taught, his name was Brother Conrad. My mother had said to me, now George, I didn't get you a graduation present, and this was June 1951, this was now the fall of 1951, when I'm in first year of high school. She said, “I didn't get you a graduation present, so you be thinking about what you might want.” Brother Conrad was telling the class one day that because he had a clergyman's discount rate, he could get cameras for people. Then he mentioned tape recorders and man, the bell went off in my head! Tape recorders at that time were virtually unknown to the average person. They may have heard about them here or there. They were not consumer items. She bought me a tape recorder, a Webcor. And that became a tool for me to put some of these verbal impulses to work. I began to produce little radio shows on it at home by using the phonograph. Playing a record on the phonograph, like playing the Dragnet theme. Dun da dun dun. Dun da dun dun duuun. Then I would fade the phonograph down and I would come in and I would do my make-believe announcer. I did newscasts, I did sports. A lot of the things that I ventured into professionally in my first stage of comedy I was doing on that tape recorder. I recorded a whole half hour of story—it was like a vignette, like a series of vignettes, a drama, about my neighborhood. And guess what: I made fun of authority figures. So my mother—in spite what she wanted me to do for her, to be a great reflection on her, go to college and be a businessman—she knew this was something I needed. And she got that for me, and it helped accelerate the beginnings of my putting this dream together that I had. I was 14 when I got that tape recorder. They were the size of a Buick. They were not little handy things. And she was smart enough to get me one. That's an important part of my development. Can you remember the first joke you ever told? No. But I do remember the first time I ever made my mother laugh. And unfortunately, it’s lost on me what it was I said. But I noticed the moment, I knew something had happened, this was when I was very young. My mother laughed fairly frequently. But I knew the difference between her social laugh and her really spontaneous laugh when she was caught off guard—which is the key to laugher, being off guard. And I said something to her, and I saw that in her and it registered with me. And it made the point. I wouldn’t have remembered it as well as I do if it hadn’t meant a lot to me. It was a kind of a little mark along the way, a little badge of honor. It meant I had said something witty. I didn’t clown, I wasn’t making a face or standing in a funny angle. I had said something witty. I had probably turned some situation around, exaggerated one element, and made a joke. I want to talk about the transformation that you did in the 60s when you went from what you once termed the “middle-American comic” to this different persona—it was much more subversive. How did that happen and why did that happen? I was always swimming against the tide. I was always out of step. Not only did I quit school, but I got kicked out of three schools along the way. I eventually got asked to leave the air force a year early—it wasn’t dishonorable, but it was a general discharge, which is a step down—because I did not shape up, I didn’t like authority, I had three court-martials. I was kicked off the alter boys, I was kicked off the choirboys, I was kicked out of the boy scouts, I was kicked out of summer camp. I never fit and I didn’t like conforming. And sometimes it just broke through the membrane, and I was out. By the end of the 60s, all of my friends, the musician friends of mine, had gone through a transition in their dress, and especially in their music, and what I noticed was that all of these great artists—Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, Joan Baez—all of these people were using their art to express themselves politically and socially. And I was not. I was still doing people-pleasing. I was 30, and I resonated much more truly with the 20-year-olds. I was more in line with them than I was with these people I was entertaining in nightclubs. I began to notice that. I began to be affected by it, and along the way, the judicious use of some mescaline and some LSD managed to accelerate the process. It gave me more of an insight into how false the world was I was settling for, and to see that there was something much richer and better and more authentic. And those changes happened, they just—they happened naturally and organically. It took about 2 years for the total changeover to occur. My beard got a little longer, the hair got a little longer, the clothing changed, and then I suddenly found myself being as—the best combination of both, this person I really was who was kind of out of step, antiauthoritarian, who also had these skills and talents that he was honing to express himself. And so I started expressing those feelings. In what way did the mescaline and LSD give you the insight and the confidence to make this transformation? What role did the drugs play? Well, It was just passive, I don’t know. See, I had always been a marijuana smoker, a pretty heavy user of marijuana, all these years I’m talking about when I was in this other world of mainstream television, nightclubs. So marijuana is a hallucinogen and it is also a value-changing drug, as are acid and mescaline. They are hallucinogens and they are value-changing drugs. They alter, assist in shifting one’s perspective on the world which usually is informed by your values. And so I had already, my body, my mind, and myself—I already had a kind of a thick layer of this out-of-stepness. And so I was already across that street. And I just hadn’t, you know, bought a house on that side yet. So, the LSD was a much stronger experience, and the mescaline, and I don’t know what they did or how they did it, I just know that going through that gave me the confidence in these changes I was feeling, in this direction, this metamorphosis, I was in the middle of. I gained confidence in it and I took strength from it, feeling that I was right that I was really on the right path, that I was being true to myself. And that was what counted to me, to be true to myself—my mother had always said that. To thine—Shakespeare—“To thine own self be true.” She loved quoting the classics, and she quoted Emerson or Shakespeare or whoever it was she thought was appropriate for her lesson. And to thine own self be true. And I just—I just had to be who I felt like I was, not who I had led them to believe I was. So after that transformation, to what extent is the persona that you have on stage—to what extent is it your real personality? I know you’re making jokes and some of that involves exaggeration, but do you feel that you’re acting angrier, more bitter, more caustic on stage? Or are you just being yourself as accurately as possible? I’ve addressed this before when the question is asked more bluntly: Are you an angry man? What are you angry about; what are you so angry about? I don’t live an angry life, not an angry person. I rarely lose my temper, can’t remember the last time, never had a physical fight in my life, don’t carry grudges, don’t carry resentment either. Very very lucky in those respects. But I feel a very strong alienation and dissatisfaction from my groups. Abraham Maslow said the fully realized man does not identify with the local group. When I saw that, it rang another bell. I thought: bingo! I do not identify with the local group, I do not feel a part of it. I really have never felt like a participant, I’ve always felt like an observer. Always. I only identified this in retrospect, way after the fact, that I have been on the outside, and I don’t like being on the inside. I don’t like being in their world. I’ve never felt comfortable there; I don’t belong to that. So, when he says the “local group,” I take that as meaning a lot of things: the local social clubs or fraternal orders, or lodges or associations or clubs of any kind, things where you sacrifice your individual identity for the sake of a group, for the sake of the group mind. I’ve always felt different and outside. Now, I also extended that, once again in retrospect, as I examined my feelings. I don’t really identify with America, I don’t really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don’t really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don’t. All the definitions are there, but I don’t really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices. But even if I am a cynic, they say if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist—that’s what’s underneath. That’s the little flicker of flame, has a little life in it, the idealist: I would love to be able to entertain that side of me, but it doesn’t work like that. I don’t see what’s in it yet, I mean I just like it out here. I’m not an angry person, just very disappointed and contemptuous of my fellow humans’ choices—and on stage those feelings sometimes are exaggerated for a theatric stage—you’re on a stage you have an audience of 2500 or 3000 people: you need to project the feelings, the emotions it’s heightened, and people mistake it for a personal anger but it’s more dissatisfaction, disappointment and contempt for these things we’ve settled for. So it sounds like it is your true personality, but it’s heightened for the stage. It is my true personality, but it’s not an angry personality. Anger is a handy term and boy words are tricky, as we know. What one man perceives as anger, another person—in my case the deliverer of material—is, “Don’t you see it, don’t you see how badly you’re doing?” It’s like shaking a child—which you’re not supposed to do. So let me latch onto that feeling. You’re grabbing somebody and you’re saying, “Don’t you see it?” But if you really don’t care about America, then why are you doing it? Why are you on stage? Is it just because you want to express yourself? Do you hope you can influence people in some way? You’ve hit on the contradiction, and it’s one I don’t understand the resolution to, if there is one. Sometimes people say, do I try to make audiences think? I say: No no no, because that really would be the kiss of death. But what I want them to know is that I’m thinking. It’s part of that showoff and dropout syndrome. I think I need to show them that I have brought myself to a cleverer, smarter spot than they have. In doing so, “Can’t you see this? can’t you see?” And a lot of them do. I get amazing things said to me. And they’re frequent enough that I know these things are multiplied by those who have never encountered you. One person who says, “You really changed my outlook on things or the way I view X Y or Z,” for everyone who says that to you, there are a thousand, ten thousand who’ll never get to tell you that. There are people who take something away form what I do, and I know that and it pleases me and I am proud of that. And it means the student is a bit of a teacher. But yeah, of course I care. Of course I care. My daughter has pinned me on that. She says of course you care, can’t you hear it? And I say yeah yeah yeah, but they gotta prove it to me first. Show me you care people and then I’ll let some of it out; right now I just want to scold you a little bit. So how would you say that you feel towards people? You say on the one hand you are sort of contemptuous but on the other hand you want their approval in some way? Is that not a contradiction? Yeah, it sounds like it has the makings of a contradiction; I guess by definition it does. I am contemptuous of the mass. That’s the thing I need to explain. One on one with people, I have great capacity and great compassion. I don’t like standing around 20 minutes talking to somebody, but when I see individuals, I see their individual beauty. I’m aware of the potential—and I don’t mean this happened every time I meet someone—but when I see people, I sort of see the potential for the whole species. When you look in their eyes, you can see a hologram of the human species and you kind of know what we could have been. It’s the group behavior that I’m talking about on stage. Let’s switch gears a little bit and let me ask you about religion. I mean you were talking about it decades ago. Now, atheism and religion bashing have gone mainstream: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. You were way ahead of the curve. What’s it like hearing them saying many of the things you said in the 1970s? I’ve read some of the books you’ve mentioned and some of the reasons of existence and God and what a bad name religion has given God. I just kind of do this, I just keep moving along. I don’t really judge it… I reserve my evaluations and judgments for the parts that I do, the lines I add. I don’t think about myself in the larger world very much. Richard Dawkins did use an excerpt of mine for a chapter heading. I noticed that. It’s nice. Not to overdo this thing, but when you’re a dropout and the culture accepts you and begins to quote and they teach some of your stuff in communications class and communications law and I hear this all the time and professors ask to use things in their textbooks, this is kind of my honorary baccalaureate. When these things happen I think good, well, there’s a little thumb on my chest, feather in my cap. I notice those things, and I feel good about what I’ve chosen and how I do it. As Lily Tomlin once said, and I am going to get this wrong so it’s a paraphrase, she said to be considered a success in a mediocre culture doesn’t say a lot for you. You were central in the Supreme Court case in which justices affirmed the government's right to regulate your “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” act on the public airwaves. How do you think about the role of vulgarity in your humor? I used to point out that when I was a little boy in the 40s, I was told to look up to and admire solders and sailors, policemen, firemen, and athletes, were objects of childhood hero worship. We all know how they talk. So apparently these words do not corrupt morally. This was the thing I couldn’t put together. I use the words because I’m from that ethos. I’m from the street in New York, hung around in a tough neighborhood. It was common to curse, you make your point. It’s a very effective language. I try not to overdo it. It’s never to shock. I know where it fits, it’s never to shock. There’s no shock value left in words. Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock. It’s surprise that makes the joke. What’s the funniest bit you’ve ever heard? Sometimes jokes have a wonderful logic to them. I’ll give you one that, even to people that don’t mind mild cursing, bothers some people—especially women. Short joke. The wonderful thing about it is the logic of the joke, the ingenuity. Father and son, little son are out on the back porch, passing the day, father says to son, “Do you have perhaps any questions for me about sex?” And he says, “Well, yeah Dad, what is that hairy area on Mommy?” And the father says, “Well, that’s her vulva.” And the boy says, “Well then what’s a cunt?” And the father says, “That’s rest of Mommy.” And that joke strikes a nerve, hits a chord—men who’ve been divorced more than twice really like that. It makes beautiful use of that man’s thought. To arrive at that distinction—to take it from the real to the figurative. From cunt as a sexual part to cunt as a term of derision for women, just as men are called assholes by certain women—and they deserve it. It’s funny how we use words. The fact that a mean woman is called a cunt and a mean man is called a prick. I have a long thing I’d like to write someday about language and the way we address each other. How has your comedy changed over the years? You know for a guy who didn’t do homework, the thing that’s happened is this: that 6th grade showoff that kid who had to sing a song at meetings, who won the medal at camp for being funniest guy at amateur night 5 years in a row. He didn’t do his homework then. I didn’t do book reports, but now what’s happened is that showoff has a partner who does his homework and the left/right brain are allied, united, now in a way they weren’t. I’m using my organizational ability, and my writing ability which is careful process, informed by art, but still a craft of putting things together, I’ve somehow become more integrated. I do my homework now but I stand up and show off. So I got both, I got the best of both sixth grade worlds. You asked me to remind you to tell me about Arthur Koestler. That was another impact. I was doing nightclub comedy down in the Village. I was down there in ’63, ’64, and my friend told me about Arthur Koestler’s book about the act of creation and it had a section on humor. He was talking about the creative process. There was an illustration on the panel that showed a triptych. On the left panel, there were these names of artistic pursuits. There were poets, painter, composer. And one of them was jester. I was only interested in the jester. What he said about each of these, he said these individuals on the left hand side can transcend the panels of the triptych by creative growth. The jester makes jokes, he’s funny, he makes fun, he ridicules. But if his ridicules are based on sound ideas and thinking, then he can proceed to the second panel, which is the thinker—he called it the philosopher. The jester becomes the philosopher, and if he does these things with dazzling language that we marvel at, then he becomes a poet too. Then the jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically. I didn’t see that and say, “That’s what I am going to do,” but I guess it made an impression on me. I was never afraid to grow and change. I never was afraid of reversing my field on people, and I just think I’ve become a touch of each of those second and third descriptions and I definitely have a gift for language that is rhythmic and attractive to the ear, and I have interesting imagery which I guess is a poetic touch. And I like the fact that most of my things are based on solid ideas, things I’ve thought about in a new way for me, things for which I have said “Well, what about this? Suppose you look at it this way? How about that?” And then you heighten and exaggerate that, because comedy’s all about heightening and exaggerating. And anyways I guess I was impressed that there was another thing from my early life that probably at least influenced me to some level. It sounds like you think of yourself much more as a writer than a performer—is that true? How do you think about performing? It’s my primary delivery system. I used to, in my early years, when I would do an interview I was always proud to tell the writer that I wrote my own material, if they asked me or even if they didn’t. I wanted to be distinguished from the ones who didn’t do that, and I was proud of it, so I would say I am a comedian who writes his own material. And then at some point, I discovered what I really had become was a writer who performs his own material. This was a really important distinction for me to notice—it happened way after the fact. I’m a writer. I think of myself as a writer. First of all, I’m an entertainer; I’m in the vulgar arts. I travel around talking and saying things and entertaining, but it’s in service of my art and it’s informed by that. So I get to write for two destinations. The writing is what gives me the joy, especially editing myself for the page, and getting something ready to show to the editors, and then to have a first draft and get it back and work to fix it, I love reworking, I love editing, love love love revision, revision, revision, revision. And computers changed my life, the fact that you can move text as easily as you can move text, and say, “Wait a minute, these two things belong together, these two things go together, page 2 and page 5: similar ideas, put ’em together!” But the person who is most a part of me is the performer, is the standup, the guy who says, “Hey look at me, listen to this!” I do that because that’s what I do, I love doing it. And I love the feeling I get in my gut when I’m watching on the computer screen that is close to being realized the way I would like it to be. the feeling I get in my gut is “Wait’ll they hear this, wait’ll I tell them this, I can’t wait to tell them!” It’s like the guy on the end of the bench: “Put me in coach, put me in!” They call to me, I can tell which ones are pregnant, which ones need to be moved up to a higher level of readiness, and it’s because I can’t wait to say them, I can’t wait to share them with people. You know, you get 2500 people, acting as a single organism: the audience is a single organism and it’s you and it. And to have that feeling of mastery up there—it’s an assertion of power: here I am, I have the microphone, you came here for this express purpose. You’re sitting not in tables at nightclubs with waiters and glasses, you’re seated all facing forward in order to enjoy this and here I am, and wait till you hear this! There’s nothing like it in my experience that I could aspire to. It has as much a payoff as writing, which has a big payoff. So, sitting in front of a computer, “Wait till they hear this, this is great material.” What’s the difference between that and actually standing on stage hearing the audience roaring with laughter? The difference is, at the computer you can stop, think back, think forward, look around, turn the page as it were, you can see the whole world all at once. On stage you’re only in a single moment ever—your mind can hear what you just said. This is a funny thing that happens for me: when I’m up there doing something I’ve memorized perfectly, and it has pauses in it—and of course the laughs are all the pauses. As you’re going along, you’re thinking of what you’re saying, you want to give it the proper vocal values, so you are kind of thinking about it, not reaching for the words, but kind of thinking about them. You’re also aware of the echo of what you just said, and whether it worked or not, and what that might mean. It’s all part of the trigonometry, I guess. And then there is the faint anticipation of what comes next. It’s like the feeling of conducting an orchestra. It’s like conducting an orchestra, this group of people who already like you, predisposed to appreciate you, at your service, at you’re command, and you’re just waving the baton and bringing them in, leading them forward and it’s just a nice kind of feeling. Let me ask you about your influence—how do you feel that you have influenced other comedians? I hear that from some of them, who say, “I wouldn’t be doing this were it not for you.” I talked to a very prominent name in comedy today who wanted to pay me some kind compliments about the recent HBO show, he hasn’t been able to catch up with me, I won’t mention him, but everybody would know his name. He said also in passing, “You know, I wouldn’t be doing this without you.” There have been people, who, I don’t know, because I came along at a certain time. Richard Pryor and I went through our changes at the same time, he became prominent at the same time. I had this kind of reemergence. I’m sure Richard Pryor would hear those things. I’m sure Woody Allen hears those things. I don’t take them as singular to me. But I know they’re true when I’m told, I realized I could be myself, could talk about this and that and not be afraid; I’m sure all artists hear similar things, especially ones who have lasted a while.

[Note: Jerry Seinfeld has since identified himself as the prominent comedian who spoke to George Carlin just before I did. "I called him to compliment him on his most recent special on HBO," writes Seinfeld in a New York Times op-ed. "Seventy years old and he cranks out another hour of great new stuff. He was in a hotel room in Las Vegas getting ready for his show. He was a monster." —JD]

Do you mentor other comedians? No. I’m not collegial, I don’t hang out. I’m soloist, I like my solitude, I don’t really hang around with comedians—this person I talked to today, I now have his phone number. I have maybe five phone numbers. I’m not in show business because I don’t have to go to the meetings, I’m just not a part of it, I don’t belong to it. When you “belong” to something. You want to think about that word, “belong.” People should think about that: it means they own you. If you belong to something it owns you, and I just don’t care for that. I like spinning out here like one of those subatomic particles that they can’t quite pin down. Has your sense of humor helped you in other areas of your life, besides your career as a professional comedian? Meeting people? Making friends? Dealing with loss? I don’t know about any of those aspects. But I know that the art of not taking things seriously often bleeds over into the self, to not take yourself too seriously. You can tell from my answers that I take what I do very seriously, and I think about it. But I don’t really take myself that seriously. I know that I’ve accomplished a good deal. I was just nominated for this year’s Mark Twain prize at the Kennedy Center, so these things over the years mean, "Yeah, good job, George.” I don’t take myself very seriously, though, at least I don’t think so. I try to see the reality and not get carried away with the emotion. What’s the reality? What's going on here? What’s the ground floor? What’s the reality? Let’s look at the situation: "So he’s dead, she’s hurt, and you don’t feel good." OK, so let’s figure this out. I like to say two things in life that mean the most: genetics and luck. When you look at it realistically, genetics is luck too. Because you could have been born in some really terrible situation and never had a chance to realize yourself or see who you were. And so the luck of genetics and then after that, circumstances, those are the two guiding things. Knowing what to do about it, taking advantage of it, that’s fine, that's good, good for you. But still, those two elements mean everything.

My arm is getting tired here. The crook of my arm.

I guess I'm pretty much done. We've been talking for a long time and I really appreciate your taking all this time. Was there a good question you thought people should ask that never got asked?

No, because you covered some of the ones, as they came along. As I looked at the list yesterday, I thought the list gave me an opportunity for several places where I want, need to be heard—such as the anger thing, development, and the changes I went through in the late 60s. They were all in there so I feel good.

So the last question is: What are you working on now? I have a piece of material that I’m doing on stage these days. I'm in Las Vegas now. I do weekends here, I do four nights on weekends as part of my year of touring. I go mostly to concert halls and theaters, around 80 or 90 of 'em a year. But I come down here around three or four. So I’m down here. This piece of material called, “There’s Too Much Fucking Music,” which is my way of looking at… how much music there is, I guess. It’s just my way of looking at the world and saying something that people don’t notice and figuring out a new way. And it’s filled with exaggeration and stuff. I'm doing that on stage a little bit. I’m not giving myself any pressure. The lady in my life Sally Wade and I are waiting for our house to be finished remodeling. We’re in temporary quarters. It's kind of onerous. We’re lucky we found a place right down the street but the price we pay for being right down the street is that it’s not really suitable in terms of space and structure for our needs. So we’re really in combat duty. It’s been a tough time. Not so tough you can’t work it out, you know, but just enough so it’s broken some of my work habits. And I’m enjoying my break from them and I know where I have to go on the next book, I have a book that I'm going to start organizing the files, reorganizing, renaming, reclassifying, putting things together, taking things apart. And there’ll be another HBO show as these pieces on stage begin to take form. Is there anything else you want to add? No! And I really appreciate all the thought you’ve put into all these questions. Really, it’s the most complete interview I’ve ever done. Is it tomorrow yet? I think it is.

[usstatesofsong]

Countdown to #Eurovision: Yearly Reviews - 1982

We’re approximately three months away from the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and while we’re waiting for more of the 2017 songs to be released before reviewing them (as we did last year), we’re going to revisit Eurovision song contests from the past and rank our favorites in each contest.

Welcome to Harrogate! Well, where is that? In North Yorkshire, apparently... as if all people should know where that is, of course... It’s in England, where I participate in watching the last contest that I’m not too familiar with - for a while, that is. From 1983-1996, I’m well-informed about the songs and the presentation. However, I’m curious enough to watch this edition in full; it’s only a little over two hours long. British efficiency – but of course! Jan Leeming (I think that’s her name) would lead a very structured and quick songs presentation and voting sessions; the first song is already starting about 8-9 minutes in! When we get to 1997, it’ll be an entirely different era of Eurovision starting to take form, and I’m interested in seeing that, too. Her French is a bit awkward and clumsy, but so will be 1983’s English and French, soo… what can we say. They didn’t try to pull anything crazy, but the presentation of 1982 wouldn’t be very memorable as a result. Moreover, there were only 18 countries – Greece, Italy, and France all jumped ship. For shame!

Again – I only know a few of these songs. I also know that everyone’s immediate reaction to Bucks Fizz winning the year previously was to start dancing and actin’ a fool. But I’m ever-so-eager to learn what else will surprise me here. Let’s go!

(Click the titles of the songs below to listen to the full-length songs.)

1. PORTUGAL – Doce, “Bem-Bom” - 13th place, 32 pts

God damn, Portugal! For two straight years you sent really fun and interesting music! They don’t usually do ‘wacky’ entries, but this was as close as they got back in that day. I love the thumping drums that keep the song moving and interrupt this from being a true disco-beat. The four ladies who sing the song have fun dance moves, all black and white ensembles, and the “Hey!” shout followed by two claps during the choruses enhances this song. The only thing I could fault them for is the vocals themselves, which are very basic. It’s just fun, and a great start to the contest.

2. LUXEMBOURG – Svetlana, “Cours apres le temps” - 6th place, 78 pts

With a name like Svetlana, I’m going to guess she is not a native Luxembourgian. Well, whatever – she’s beautiful, and her voice soars high into falsetto-land. High and above the heavens, at the end! She is attempting to fly like a bird and starts prancing like a ballerina. I’m not sure how I feel about the song itself, given it’s simple pop feel, very typical for that era. But I think it holds up well for what it’s setting out to accomplish. This is much different, and much better than, their 1981 entry – but they would perfect it even more in ’83.

3. NORWAY – Jahn Tiegen & Anita Skorgan, “Adieu” - 12th place, 40 pts

Gah, they’re back!  Actually I read somewhere something interesting about this – apparently Norway was getting tired of being relegated so lowly in the voting, so they put forth some ridiculous amounts of effort in ensuring the lyrical and musical quality of the song would sound less ‘Norwegian’ and be more accessible. I think it paid off! I am fonder of this than Luxembourg’s song already, and it’s simple but steady… at least, steadier than Jahn’s microphone. Calm down, dude, no need to be nervous! It’s cute, it’s cuddly, and very loving. Good on you, Norway!

4. UNITED KINGDOM – Bardo, “One Step Further” - 7th place, 76 pts

Alright, so you’re at home in the UK, watching your act take the stage and thinking how awesome it is that your country is hosting the biggest television show in the world. Two singers, a male and female, proceed to sit on the stage. Then this tribal drum sound starts up, the title comes stuttering up the screen, and the dancers start rolling and … air-humping? Wow, Mom and Dad, we sure are a great country! The problem with this song is that it tries to do EVERYTHING at once. It’s over-the-top. There are great parts, and horrible parts. Her singing is more inconsistent than the guy’s, too. I wanted to really like this, but all I can remember is how the first 10 seconds of the song were completely unnecessary.

5. TURKEY – Neco, “Hani?” - 15th place, 20 pts

“Not there, honey!” Okay, then where? Well, it’s obvious to me that the 1970’s aren’t completely over yet in Turkey. Now, Neco has a great voice; it takes a lot of confidence and experience to lead an effort like this. Also, the sounds that take over toward the end – the electro-disco synthesizers and drums - make this song so much better than the year before. A solid effort from the country that had yet to see a Top 10 placing.

6. FINLAND – Kojo, “Nuku pommiin” - 18th place, 0 pts

Oh… This is that song… LOL. Well, Finland makes sure to expand your idea of music, that’s for sure. I don’t know how they expected to score well with this song; the first two lyrics (in English) sound like “Yo sir Kunaka, eating cock-aaaa” and the credibility flies out the door. The chorus is “Bomb me – bomb me – nuku bomb me – lean on help a bomb”… It’s a rock song in Eurovision, and it’s very new-wave 80’s rock. Now, this is one of those “so-weird-slash-bad-slash-odd-that-its-good” entries. I’m having a hard time doing anything but making fun of the song. But in 1982, this was too progressive, and he literally screams half the song. The breakdown at the end is very cool, and he has a Bruce Springsteen vibe. He loses that rep when he makes a snore sound at the end. I don’t care if this was part of the original composition, it’s dumb. Why do the Finnish insist on making awkward sounds in the last five seconds of their music? (See 1980.) The man at the giant drum does this pirouette move and fails to pretend to hit the drum on queue. Watch it, it’s hilarious!! I will have to balance these things towards the end with my voting. Summary: this song is awesome. But it’s challenging.

7. SWITZERLAND – Arlette Zola, “Amour on t’aime” - 3rd place, 97 pts

Well this pondered right into the hearts of the 50 and 60-year-olds watching from home, huh? I get a weird half-Aunt vibe from Arlette; not to mention, she’s trying to be Kate Bush a-la Wuthering Heights during her ESC performance, dress and all. She has the right voice to take this song to new heights, though, and it’s very schlager. But it’s not in a category of song that I wish to pursue after I’m done watching this song contest.

8. CYPRUS – Anna Vissi, “Mono i agapi” - 5th place, 85 pts

This has a very melancholic feel for a ballad, and I sure do love it. It harkens to “Johnny Blue” but carries a true sense of lament. This song shows off Anna’s vocals so much more than “Autostop” did, not to mention, her intonation is flawless. Literally not even one note was out of tune! I can definitely feel something going on here, and it’s probably the best ballad of the night thus far!

9. SWEDEN – Chips, “Dag efter dag” - 8th place, 67 pts

There was supposedly a band named Chips in the Irish National Selection, which could have caused the very interesting and odd situation of two groups with the same name in one contest! This is so lame, I’m sorry. Interestingly it’s similar in design and content to the 1985 winner, but for whatever reason I could feel the energy and jubilance of that song. This just looks lame, and outdated. Maybe it’s those loser saxophone players; I don’t know. There’s also some weird thing going on toward the end that lends influence by ABBA themselves. And ABBA you are not. Get off stage, please.

10. AUSTRIA – Mess, “Sonntag” - 9th place, 57 pts

You named your song ‘Sunday’? You... named your group “Mess”? This song is a mess. Well, this is the reverse of the UK – the female singer is much better than the male. But again, it’s a lame throwback song. Are there any redeeming qualities to it? Uhhmmm… well, they look colorful on stage? And the man did a good job at catching the girl? No, this is definitely a candidate for the big goose egg from me, which hurts – I really like most of Austria’s songs from the 1980s.

11. BELGIUM – Stella, “Si tu aimes ma musique” - 4th place, 96 pts

Yes! We have officially entered the world of 80s pop! It’s a bit schlager, but not too bad. And dare I say that Stella is knock-dead gorgeous. Yes, I do love your music! Now the lyrics end up coming off as a bit corny, and I’m not sure how well the Francophone countries scored this, but the composition boosts this one for me. It has a very sunshiney feel that was missing from the previous two songs, since those came off as so fake. This actually makes me happy!

12. SPAIN – Jan Lucia, “El” - 10th place, 52 pts

I was listening to the Spanish commentary leading up to this entry, and it was really conserved – but I imagine the hype was there! Lucia is such a diva on stage, and she controls the audience with her delivery. It’s very Spanish and it’s basically tango music, but I have to love the dance breakdown halfway through the song. What an interesting way to enhance its uniqueness. Spain has recovered from an otherwise dull past two years! So, knowing that ethnic can work, what do you think they’ll send in ’83? …. :D

13.  DENMARK – Brixx, “Video-video” - 17th place, 5 pts

Oh my god, Denmark, you actually sent new wave music to Eurovision!!?!?!? YES! The music television era has begun! Now, let me guess – the song did horribly with the juries. It is a tad short, and the front-man’s voice is a bit cringe-worthy at times. But talk about a song that can get stuck in your head… “Video! Video! Ja, video mej”. I’m definitely rewarding this some points if I can!

14. YUGOSLAVIA – Aska, “Halo, halo” - 14th place, 21 pts

Okay, I was watching the first 15 or so seconds of the beginning of this performance thinking, “Okay, so the only really bad comment I have so far is their clothing. Not a deal breaker!” but then they started singing, and I put my hand to my face. Not only does the orchestra have to literally quiet down so that these ladies’ voices can be heard, but then you’re welcomed with a bunch of 45-year-old housewife voices grooving and sidestepping to a schlager-fest. No thanks. There are… okay elements to this, especially towards the end, but it’s too late. The lady in the black dress looks so bored. It’s too bad because I recognize one of the singers (the one in blue) – she’d return in 1983 as a backup singer for a much better song.

15. ISRAEL – Avi Toledano, “Hora” - 2nd place, 100 pts

This is one of the other few songs I’m aware of (save for the winner) for a very hilarious reason. Problems with the design of the British stage become evident during this performance; at about 1:27 in from the beginning of the song, the female dancer on the back-right knocks over her microphone, making a very audible fall. You don’t actually see it fall, but when they cut to the next shot, you see it on the floor. The female dancer on the back left is looking over to her like, “God damn it you messed this up for us!” and I laugh it off. There’s just not enough space to do those dances on that stage. But listen – the song itself is fantastic, perhaps even the best dance song of the night. Very Israeli, but powerful, driving, and led by Avi, who sings it with all he’s got. An excellent entry! And just when you think it can’t get any louder and bombastic, it does! Whoever composed this song for the orchestra deserves a gold medal. For real.

16. NETHERLANDS – Bill van Dijk, “Jij en ik” - 16th place, 8 pts

Okay. I had to pause this video and get over some laughter – what is it with people not realizing how their lyrics could be interpreted in other languages? Surrounded with girls, Bill runs up in surprise, points to the audience, and croons, “Cake!” As for the song itself, it’s so 80’s. And then the female drummer winks at you with total honesty. And then Bill grinds against the magenta-dress-wearing backup singer. And then Bill gargles a Dutch lyric. Then he screeches a bit. And then he does the reverse splits. And points some more. And pirouettes. Good luck winning, guys. Now I want cake.

17. IRELAND – The Duskeys, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” - 11th place, 49 pts

The Irish brought disco schlager to Britain. Fitting! Given what the Irish have accomplished in all the years they’ve been doing this contest, prior and later on, this seems so lame and effortless compared to others. The only thing I can think of is that this music was big at that time in Europe. For what it sets out to accomplish, it’s not the worst thing in the world – I like the harmonics of the voices during the “Here today, gone tomorrow” lyrics. But it has not aged well. And the “la-la-la”s are a cop-out.

18. GERMANY – Nicole, “Ein bisschen Frieden” - 1st place, 161 pts

You know, this is a quite peculiar song to end the series of songs prior with! The order of the songs was always random in these days, so only one could wonder how Nicole would’ve finished if she were placed differently amongst the other tunes. Despite all this, this song rocked the show so hard because everyone felt the need to capitalize on what Bucks Fizz’s win brought to Eurovision; even Britain. Germany stripped it all down and sent a girl with a guitar to center stage, sit down, and sing a song about peace. And it was a great song, too; probably the best folk song ever entered into Eurovision. Definitely deserving of the win; Germany’s first win!

Just another anecdote - Israel and Germany would trade each other the douze points on the night, which was seen by many as a sign of putting past histories aside for the sake of music and peace. If only some of the countries participating today could do such a thing! Ahem, Azerbaijan...

My votes:

12 - Germany 10 - Israel 8 - Portugal 7 - Cyprus 6 - Belgium 5 - Denmark 4 - Norway 3 - Spain 2 - Turkey 1 - Finland 

(Luxembourg and Switzerland come close to scoring, though!) The “Big Fat 0″ award: Austria Honorable Mention: Luxembourg Worst Dressed: Sweden 

And here is the overall count of points thus far:

1st - 26 - Germany (1982) 2nd - 19 - Portugal 3rd - 18 - Greece (1981) 4th - 17 - Belgium 5th - 13 - Ireland (1980) 11 - Denmark 11 - Norway 10 - France 10 - Israel 8 - Luxembourg 8 - United Kingdom 7 - Cyprus 6 - Spain 5 - Turkey 3 - Finland 2 - Sweden

- 50SS