#NYC Black Friday Car Service

[brookston]

Holidays 7.5

Holidays

Arbor Day (New Zealand)

Bank Indonesia Day (Indonesia)

Bikini Day

Black Day (Pakistan)

Bloody Thursday Commemoration Day (International Longshore and Warehouse Union)

Dolly the Sheep Day

Emancipation Day (NYC)

Fiesta do Tapuleiros begins (Portugal)

Fishermen’s Day (Marshall Islands)

Foreign Slovaks Day (Slovakia; Slovakian Communities)

Graffiti Day

Heroes’ Day (Zambia)

International Read Naked Day

Judicial Employees Day (Turkmenistan)

Mechanical Pencil Day

National Guitar Pick Day

National Hawaii Day

National Ian Day

National Injury Prevention Day (Canada)

National Sylvia Day

National Wear A Thong Day

National Workaholics Day

NHS Day (UK)

Peace Day (Rwanda)

Pet Remembrance Day (UK)

Red Currant Day (French Republic)

Rehydration Day

Salvation Army Foundation Day

Secret Service Day

705 Day (Jonas Brothers)

Social Care & Frontline Workers’ Day (UK)

Thong Day

Tynwald Day (Isle of Man) [If 5th a Weekend, Celebrated on Monday]

Urumqi Massacre Anniversary Day (China)

Virgin Islands Day (British Virgin Islands)

Work Without Your Hands Day (SpongeBob)

World Badminton Day

World Bikini Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Graham Cracker Day

National Apple Turnover Day

National Hungover Day

Spam Day

Independence & Related Days

Aeland (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Algeria (from France, 1962)

Cape Verde (from Portugal, 1975)

Caudonia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Constitution Day (Armenia)

Reylan Imperial Triumvirate (Declared; 2005) [unrecognized]

Turdas (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Venezuela (from Spain, 1811)

1st Friday in July

Alice Springs Show Day [1st Friday]

Comic Sans Day [1st Friday]

Drive Your Corvette to Work Day [Friday closest to 6.30]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

International Beer Sommelier Day [1st Friday]

Ra o te Ui Ariki (Cook Islands) [1st Friday]

Ways With Words Festival of Words and Ideas begins (UK) [1st Friday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 5 (1st Week of July)

Roswell UFO Days (thru 7.7) [1st Friday]

Festivals Beginning July 5, 2024

Baltic Jazz Festival (Dalsbruk, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Calgary Stampede (Calgary, Canada) [thru 7.14]

Chicago Craft Beer Festival (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.7]

Contemporary American Theater Festival (Shepherdstown, West Virginia) [thru 7.28]

Copenhagen Jazz Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark) [thru 7.14]

EUROFANZ (Brno, Czech Republic) [thru 7.6]

Finncon (Jyväskylä, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Halal Ribfest (Dearborn Heights, Michigan) [thru 7.7]

London Film & Comic Con (London, United Kingdom.) [thru 7.7]

Love Supreme Jazz Festival (Glynde, United Kingdom) [thru 7.7]

Mariposa Folk Festival (Orillia, Canada) [thru 7.7]

Montreal Comiccon (Montreal, Canada) [thru 7.7]

Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) [thru 7.13]

Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (Oxford, United Kingdom) [thru 7.7]

Rapa das Bestas of Sabucedo (Spanish village of Sabucedo) [thru 7.7]

Roswell UFO Festival (Roswell, New Mexico) [thru 7.7]

Ruisrock (Turku, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Savonlinna Opera Festival (Savonlinna, Finland) [thru 8.4]

626 Night Market (Arcadia, California) [thru 7.7 & 7.12-14]

Feast Days

Amitabha Buddha Day

André Lhote (Artology)

Anthony Maria Zaccaria, priest (Christian; Saint) [d. 1539]

Aphelion Day (Pagan)

Athanasius the Athonite (Christian; Saint)

Bill Watterson (Artology)

Catherine of Regensburg (Christian; Virgin Martyr)

Cyril and Methodius (Christian; Saint) [public holiday in Czech Republic, Slovakia]

Dabucuri umari (Initiation Rites of the Young Men; to Jurupari, South American Guarani/Tupi God)

Day of the Three Fewnesses That Are Better Than Plenty (A Fewness of Fine Words, A Fewness of Cows in Pasture, a Fewness of Friends Around Good Ale; Celtic Book of Days)

Edana (a.k.a. Edaene; Christian; Saint)

Feast of Anubis (Ancient Egypt)

Feast of the Milky Way (Chih Nu; China)

Fernando de Szyszlo (Artology)

Festival of Cargo Cults

Giuseppe Caselli (Artology)

Grace and Probus (Christian; Saint)

Impersonate An Orc Day (Pastafarian)

Initiation into Magick Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Jean Cocteau (Artology)

Jiří Reynek (Artology)

John Schoenherr (Artology)

Ken Akamatsu (Artology)

Louis-Léopold Boilly (Artology)

Modwena (Christian; Saint)

Nicomedes (Christian; Martyr)

Pavel Chistyakov (Artology)

Peter of Luxembourg (Christian; Saint)

Poplifugia (Day of the People's Flight; Ancient Rome)

Sebastian Barry (Writerism)

SHOUTING DAY (Pastafarian)

Suger (Positivist; Saint)

Tanabata (Star Festival; Japan)

Taxi Driver McGillicuddy (Muppetism)

Wendell (Christian; Confessor)

X Day (Church of the SubGenius; Traditional)

Zamling Chisang (Universal Prayer Day; Tibet)

Zoe of Rome (Roman Catholic Church)

Solar Calendar Holidays

Aphelion (Apsis) [Earth farthest point from the Sun]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Butsumetsu (仏滅 Japan) [Unlucky all day.]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [21 of 32]

Premieres

The Alley Cat (MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Art as Experience, by John Dewey (Art Book; 1934)

BBC News (UK TV Series;1954)

Cracked Quack (WB MM Cartoon; 1952)

Cracked Rear View, by Hootie & the Blowfish (Album; 1994)

Debut, by Björk (Album; 1993)

The Emerald Forest (Film; 1985)

Gloria, by Them with Van Morrison (Song; 1964)

Hit the Road Jack, by Ray Charles (Song; 1961)

Hot Lead and Cold Feet (Film; 1978)

Hot Rod Huckster (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1954)

I’m Free, by The Who (Song; 1969)

Institutionalized, by Suicidal Tendencies (Song; 1983)

It’s the Same Old Song, by The Four Tops (Song; 1965)

The Jazz Fool (Ub Iwerks Cartoon; 1929)

L’Amour the Merrier (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1957)

Maybellene, by Chuck Berry copyrighted (Song; 1955)

Pesky Pelican (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1963)

The Principia (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica; Book; 1687)

Red Sonja (Film; 1985)

Seinfeld (TV Series; 1989)

Slacker (Film; 1991)

Them There Eyes, recorded by Billie Holiday (Song; 1939)

Threads (Social Media App; 2023)

The Way, Way Back (Film; 2013)

Weekend at Bernie’s (Film; 1989)

The Worst Witch, by Jill Murphy (Children’s Book; 1974)

You’re No Good, recorded by Linda Ronstadt (Song; 1974)

Today’s Name Days

Albrecht, Antonius, Letizia (Austria)

Antun, Ćiril, Marta, Metod, Zakarija (Croatia)

Cyril, Metodej (Czech Republic)

Anshelmus (Denmark)

Kaja, Kajar (Estonia)

Untamo, Unto (Finland)

Antoine, Antoine-Marie (France)

Albrecht, Kira, Letiza (Germany)

Lampados (Greece)

Emese, Sarolta (Hungary)

Antonio, Filomena, Maria (Italy)

Andzs, Aristids, Edis, Edīte, Edna, Esmeraldas (Latvia)

Butginas, Filomena, Karolina, Mantmilė (Lithuania)

Mina, Mirjam (Norway)

Antoni, Bartłomiej, Filomena, Jakub, Karolina, Michał, Przybywoj, Szarlota, Wilhelm (Poland)

Atanasie (România)

Cyril, Metod (Slovakia)

Antonio, Cirila, Filomena (Spain)

Laila, Melker, Ritva (Sweden)

Agnes, Methodius (Ukraine)

Grace, Gracie, Graciela, Shannon, Sharon (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 187 of 2024; 179 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 27 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Duir (Oak) [Day 27 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Geng-Wu), Day 30 (Geng-Wu)

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

Hebrew: 29 Sivan 5784

Islamic: 28 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445

J Cal: 7 Red; Sevenday [7 of 30]

Julian: 22 June 2024

Moon: 0%: New Moon

Positivist: 18 Charlemagne (7th Month) [Suger]

Runic Half Month: Feoh (Wealth) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 16 of 94)

Week: 1st Week of July

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 15 of 31)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 7.5

Holidays

Arbor Day (New Zealand)

Bank Indonesia Day (Indonesia)

Bikini Day

Black Day (Pakistan)

Bloody Thursday Commemoration Day (International Longshore and Warehouse Union)

Dolly the Sheep Day

Emancipation Day (NYC)

Fiesta do Tapuleiros begins (Portugal)

Fishermen’s Day (Marshall Islands)

Foreign Slovaks Day (Slovakia; Slovakian Communities)

Graffiti Day

Heroes’ Day (Zambia)

International Read Naked Day

Judicial Employees Day (Turkmenistan)

Mechanical Pencil Day

National Guitar Pick Day

National Hawaii Day

National Ian Day

National Injury Prevention Day (Canada)

National Sylvia Day

National Wear A Thong Day

National Workaholics Day

NHS Day (UK)

Peace Day (Rwanda)

Pet Remembrance Day (UK)

Red Currant Day (French Republic)

Rehydration Day

Salvation Army Foundation Day

Secret Service Day

705 Day (Jonas Brothers)

Social Care & Frontline Workers’ Day (UK)

Thong Day

Tynwald Day (Isle of Man) [If 5th a Weekend, Celebrated on Monday]

Urumqi Massacre Anniversary Day (China)

Virgin Islands Day (British Virgin Islands)

Work Without Your Hands Day (SpongeBob)

World Badminton Day

World Bikini Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Graham Cracker Day

National Apple Turnover Day

National Hungover Day

Spam Day

Independence & Related Days

Aeland (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Algeria (from France, 1962)

Cape Verde (from Portugal, 1975)

Caudonia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Constitution Day (Armenia)

Reylan Imperial Triumvirate (Declared; 2005) [unrecognized]

Turdas (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Venezuela (from Spain, 1811)

1st Friday in July

Alice Springs Show Day [1st Friday]

Comic Sans Day [1st Friday]

Drive Your Corvette to Work Day [Friday closest to 6.30]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

International Beer Sommelier Day [1st Friday]

Ra o te Ui Ariki (Cook Islands) [1st Friday]

Ways With Words Festival of Words and Ideas begins (UK) [1st Friday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 5 (1st Week of July)

Roswell UFO Days (thru 7.7) [1st Friday]

Festivals Beginning July 5, 2024

Baltic Jazz Festival (Dalsbruk, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Calgary Stampede (Calgary, Canada) [thru 7.14]

Chicago Craft Beer Festival (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.7]

Contemporary American Theater Festival (Shepherdstown, West Virginia) [thru 7.28]

Copenhagen Jazz Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark) [thru 7.14]

EUROFANZ (Brno, Czech Republic) [thru 7.6]

Finncon (Jyväskylä, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Halal Ribfest (Dearborn Heights, Michigan) [thru 7.7]

London Film & Comic Con (London, United Kingdom.) [thru 7.7]

Love Supreme Jazz Festival (Glynde, United Kingdom) [thru 7.7]

Mariposa Folk Festival (Orillia, Canada) [thru 7.7]

Montreal Comiccon (Montreal, Canada) [thru 7.7]

Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) [thru 7.13]

Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (Oxford, United Kingdom) [thru 7.7]

Rapa das Bestas of Sabucedo (Spanish village of Sabucedo) [thru 7.7]

Roswell UFO Festival (Roswell, New Mexico) [thru 7.7]

Ruisrock (Turku, Finland) [thru 7.7]

Savonlinna Opera Festival (Savonlinna, Finland) [thru 8.4]

626 Night Market (Arcadia, California) [thru 7.7 & 7.12-14]

Feast Days

Amitabha Buddha Day

André Lhote (Artology)

Anthony Maria Zaccaria, priest (Christian; Saint) [d. 1539]

Aphelion Day (Pagan)

Athanasius the Athonite (Christian; Saint)

Bill Watterson (Artology)

Catherine of Regensburg (Christian; Virgin Martyr)

Cyril and Methodius (Christian; Saint) [public holiday in Czech Republic, Slovakia]

Dabucuri umari (Initiation Rites of the Young Men; to Jurupari, South American Guarani/Tupi God)

Day of the Three Fewnesses That Are Better Than Plenty (A Fewness of Fine Words, A Fewness of Cows in Pasture, a Fewness of Friends Around Good Ale; Celtic Book of Days)

Edana (a.k.a. Edaene; Christian; Saint)

Feast of Anubis (Ancient Egypt)

Feast of the Milky Way (Chih Nu; China)

Fernando de Szyszlo (Artology)

Festival of Cargo Cults

Giuseppe Caselli (Artology)

Grace and Probus (Christian; Saint)

Impersonate An Orc Day (Pastafarian)

Initiation into Magick Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Jean Cocteau (Artology)

Jiří Reynek (Artology)

John Schoenherr (Artology)

Ken Akamatsu (Artology)

Louis-Léopold Boilly (Artology)

Modwena (Christian; Saint)

Nicomedes (Christian; Martyr)

Pavel Chistyakov (Artology)

Peter of Luxembourg (Christian; Saint)

Poplifugia (Day of the People's Flight; Ancient Rome)

Sebastian Barry (Writerism)

SHOUTING DAY (Pastafarian)

Suger (Positivist; Saint)

Tanabata (Star Festival; Japan)

Taxi Driver McGillicuddy (Muppetism)

Wendell (Christian; Confessor)

X Day (Church of the SubGenius; Traditional)

Zamling Chisang (Universal Prayer Day; Tibet)

Zoe of Rome (Roman Catholic Church)

Solar Calendar Holidays

Aphelion (Apsis) [Earth farthest point from the Sun]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Butsumetsu (仏滅 Japan) [Unlucky all day.]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [21 of 32]

Premieres

The Alley Cat (MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Art as Experience, by John Dewey (Art Book; 1934)

BBC News (UK TV Series;1954)

Cracked Quack (WB MM Cartoon; 1952)

Cracked Rear View, by Hootie & the Blowfish (Album; 1994)

Debut, by Björk (Album; 1993)

The Emerald Forest (Film; 1985)

Gloria, by Them with Van Morrison (Song; 1964)

Hit the Road Jack, by Ray Charles (Song; 1961)

Hot Lead and Cold Feet (Film; 1978)

Hot Rod Huckster (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1954)

I’m Free, by The Who (Song; 1969)

Institutionalized, by Suicidal Tendencies (Song; 1983)

It’s the Same Old Song, by The Four Tops (Song; 1965)

The Jazz Fool (Ub Iwerks Cartoon; 1929)

L’Amour the Merrier (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1957)

Maybellene, by Chuck Berry copyrighted (Song; 1955)

Pesky Pelican (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1963)

The Principia (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica; Book; 1687)

Red Sonja (Film; 1985)

Seinfeld (TV Series; 1989)

Slacker (Film; 1991)

Them There Eyes, recorded by Billie Holiday (Song; 1939)

Threads (Social Media App; 2023)

The Way, Way Back (Film; 2013)

Weekend at Bernie’s (Film; 1989)

The Worst Witch, by Jill Murphy (Children’s Book; 1974)

You’re No Good, recorded by Linda Ronstadt (Song; 1974)

Today’s Name Days

Albrecht, Antonius, Letizia (Austria)

Antun, Ćiril, Marta, Metod, Zakarija (Croatia)

Cyril, Metodej (Czech Republic)

Anshelmus (Denmark)

Kaja, Kajar (Estonia)

Untamo, Unto (Finland)

Antoine, Antoine-Marie (France)

Albrecht, Kira, Letiza (Germany)

Lampados (Greece)

Emese, Sarolta (Hungary)

Antonio, Filomena, Maria (Italy)

Andzs, Aristids, Edis, Edīte, Edna, Esmeraldas (Latvia)

Butginas, Filomena, Karolina, Mantmilė (Lithuania)

Mina, Mirjam (Norway)

Antoni, Bartłomiej, Filomena, Jakub, Karolina, Michał, Przybywoj, Szarlota, Wilhelm (Poland)

Atanasie (România)

Cyril, Metod (Slovakia)

Antonio, Cirila, Filomena (Spain)

Laila, Melker, Ritva (Sweden)

Agnes, Methodius (Ukraine)

Grace, Gracie, Graciela, Shannon, Sharon (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 187 of 2024; 179 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 27 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Duir (Oak) [Day 27 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Geng-Wu), Day 30 (Geng-Wu)

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

Hebrew: 29 Sivan 5784

Islamic: 28 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445

J Cal: 7 Red; Sevenday [7 of 30]

Julian: 22 June 2024

Moon: 0%: New Moon

Positivist: 18 Charlemagne (7th Month) [Suger]

Runic Half Month: Feoh (Wealth) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 16 of 94)

Week: 1st Week of July

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 15 of 31)

[thepartyinc]

You are invited to The Party Kick Off! This is a 3 night event to introduce everyone to each other and get the party going.  

When: March 5th to March 8th 

Where: New York City, NY

Flights: If you are coming for the whole party, your flight will depart in the evening and you will be arriving in NYC early morning on March 5th.  This redeye flight might be your only chance for some good sleep, so each passenger will have a semi-private sleeper recliner on the jet.  Flights home will be noon on March 8th to give you some time to pack and recover from any hangovers before take off.  

Hotel: We have booked rooms for everyone at The Dream Hotel Midtown.  You will be walking distance from Times Square, Central Park, the MoMA, and just about everything you could want.  We will be the ONLY guests at the Dream Hotel so don’t worry about running into fans or the public when sneaking off to someone else’s room. For downtime, The Dream Hotel comes with a bar and nightclub for you to enjoy. 

Night 1 (Friday 3/5):  The Masquerade Ball. While everyone starts to acquaint themselves with each other, we thought the best way to start was with a masked ball. Guess who’s under the mask and get close to someone you might or might not know.  

Location: Sony Hall; You will be able to catch a limo or black car service from outside the hotel to Sony Hall and back to the hotel when you are ready to leave. 

Dress code: Formal attire in colors of black and gold; a masquerade eye mask is required all night. 

Night 2 (Saturday 3/6): Set Sail Yacht Party. We’ll be on a boat traveling around New York with the lights and architecture as our backdrop. Lots of things can happen on a boat with nowhere to hide, just please try not to jump overboard. 

Location: New York Harbor; A party bus will take Party Goers from the hotel to the dock for an hour prior to departing.  Once on the boat, you will not be able to leave until 2am when it returns to the dock. Party busses will take you back to the hotel. 

Dress code: Cocktail attire.  The yacht has both inside and outside areas so you may want to bring a heavy coat as it will be cold and windy at times.

Night 3 (Sunday 3/7): A (pent)House Slumber Party. After partying hard the last 2 nights, we rented out the 82nd floor penthouse of the tallest residential building in New York.  The 6 bedrooms will be set up with different themes: movie night, self care suite, board game room, karaoke battle, keg and drinking games, and 1990s teen party games. Spin the bottle anyone? 

Location: 432 Park Ave Penthouse. Order a black car service from you ap to take you to the penthouse.  You can sleep there or order a car back when you’re done partying. 

Dress code: casual comfy or sleepwear.  Wear your favorite pajamas- comfy or sexy its up to you.  Or maybe some sweats and uggs.  Stay warm, stay comfy, you do you. 

[crue-sixx]

Don't Mess With The Babysitter

Title: Don't Mess With The Babysitter

Author: tiddly-winx

Fandom: The Dirt (Motley Crue Movie)

Summary:  You are the babysitter to Vince's son Neil.  You are one tough cookie.

Warnings: Swearing, mild violence, attempted kidnapping.

It did come as a surprise to see that your one time bully Vince Wharton asked you one day to babysit his new kid.  You had known that he'd knocked up your cousin Tammy, and after he knew you'd inevitably be part of his life since she was carrying his offspring, so he decided to ease up on the teasing.

The day you moved here from New York, you and Tammi were hanging out and he'd seen you two together and he made the comment of "So the two hookers are hanging out together now?"

Tammi brushed it off, she and Vince had been fucking a few times a week for the past month or so but you defended you and Tammi's honor with "Yeah the only way for YOU to get laid was if you paid somebody" and promptly flipped the bird.

"I'm in a band, baby" he laughed it off "getting laid is part of the deal!"

"When you get someone pregnant, I am going to laugh at you so hard, surfer boy" you hissed.  His cockiness was pissing you off and you had been shipped to this god forsaken place for being expelled from your New York school for fighting too much.  You knew just how to push his buttons, you've dealt with his type before.

"I know when to pull out" he retorted, then you looked over to Tammi, who's expression changed from nonchalant to embarrassment.

"Yeah well Tammi told me that you give whole new meanings to the terms 'dime stack' and 'quick shot'!"  his face dropped considerably and he glared at you.  If there's one thing Vince Wharton would not abide, is his manhood being questioned.  So in retaliation, he dropped his pants and underwear to disprove your claims.

"That's not very impressive" you said truthfully "I've seen bigger on the toddlers I used to babysit" you did have a side hustle back in NYC, that people could trust you with their kids.  You were one of the toughest girls in your school and the only way to get you to behave rationally was to give you something to take care of. 

"Oh it's on now, bitch!" he was running at you, but in his rage he'd forgotten that his pants were down, so he tripped and landed right on his dick.  He screamed in pain, his brunette hair in his face. 

"Put some ice on it, ya big baby" you walked over him, being sure to step on his back on the way.  He gave another weak grunt, Tammi rushing right behind you.

You glanced over at your cousin and asked "Something you want to tell me?" with an eyebrow raised.

She took a while to answer and when she finally did she said "I'm pregnant..." you stopped in the hallway horrified.

"Tammi!  Who's the father?!" you hissed quietly.

She grimaced, and that was all you needed to see "Oh dear god please tell me it's not that asshole's kid!"

"It is...he's the only guy I've been sleeping with lately..."

"How long have you known?" you asked when you calmed down.

"I took a pee test this morning... and I skipped morning classes to go to the clinic to find out for sure and how far I was along..."

"Well?"

"About two weeks, the doctor estimated.  I started noticing when I didn't get my period on time..."

"Does the rest of your family know?"

"Mom does" she looked down, ashamed at herself "she drove me to the clinic..."

"So how are you gonna tell him?"

"Will you help me?" she pleaded.

"Hell no" you stated "I didn't sleep with him, so that's not my job to tell him the good news" you weren't really too fond of Tammi, her being bitchy to you at times and sometimes even encouraging people to pick on you.

When the baby boy did come, he was named Neil Jason Wharton and he was cute as a button.  You didn't even have to threaten Vince to take care of his kid-he was already doing that on his own.  He was the singer in a band, and he was actually pretty good.  He had the voice and sex appeal that was needed to succeed but this was only a high school thing. 

Back to the present he awkwardly came up to you and asked  "Hey, I remember you saying you babysit sometimes.  Can you watch Neil this Friday?  I got a gig, my parents are out of town and Tammi's still  recovering from delivery..."

"Are you gonna pay me?" you said.

"Erm...we don't make much money from our gigs..."

"Then take the most unpopular dude in school and convince him to have a party at his house and when people show up, charge them a dollar at the door to watch you play.  You're hot- use your looks to get what you want.  Lord knows you don't have much in the brains department" you scoffed "but sure I'll watch him for the night.  I want $20 for my services"

"I'm not sure if you're a genius or a bitch..." your idea of charging kids at the door to see them play was a smash hit-the band bought home about $300 that night.  Neil was perfect for you, he was alert when you interacted with him and took to the bottle of Tammi's breast milk like a charm.

Vince came in stumbling early the next morning, drunk off his ass and high on something.  "Lemme take m'boy home..."

"No, Vince" you said getting between him and the baby.  "You're too fucked up to be going anywhere" he tossed the $20 in your direction and tried to push past you.

"Lemme git my son, dammit!" he yelled, Neil stirring in the portable crib Vince had given you when he dropped him off.

"You don't wanna do that, Vince" you warned him.  This would be the first and final warning.  "Try again and I'll knock you out".

He called your bluff and went to grab the baby, but you only did a single punch to his face and dropped him on his ass.  You sighed and called his parents.  "Mr. and Mrs. Wharton?  This is Y/N, Tammi's cousin.  Vince went to play a show at a party last night and left Neil with me to watch him and he came back fucked up and tried to take the baby by force, but I knocked him out.  Can you come get them please?"

Mr. Wharton sighed and said "Fuck...yeah we'll come get them.  Thanks for not letting him take Neil like that..."

"No problem" you said and ten minutes later they came and got the two, you helping put Vince in the car.

The next Monday at school, he came up to you with a blackened eye and asked "Was I fucked up on something and tried to take my kid by force?"

"Yep" you said unapologetic-ally.

"Did you give me this black eye?" he pointed to it.

"Yep" you answered again.

"Did you call my parents to come get us?"

"Yep"

He sighed, ashamed of himself at his foolish behavior "I'm sorry, Y/N...thanks for beating the shit out of me and protecting my kid..."

"No problem" you laughed "I got some enjoyment from it too" you made a fist and lightly touched his cheek playfully.  He laughed and returned the gesture.

Three years had passed and you were the go-to babysitter as a first option.  There was the rare occasion that you couldn't do it due to illness, but most of the time you loved having that little boy.  On one of their father/son outings Vince was teaching his son how to help him pick up chicks.  He'd run up to the ladies in tears, explaining that he was lost.  Then Vince would run up behind him looking scared and lovingly reprimand him with "You can't walk away from Daddy like that okay?"

You were in the park that day, just enjoying a picnic with your boyfriend Nikki, who wasn't turned off at all by your tough exterior.  In fact, it always got him horny and that led to amazing rough sex.  You all were out of high school at this point and had applied to university for the biology program-you wanted to become a pediatrician.   You gotten the acceptance letter yesterday so Nikki thought it would be a good idea to celebrate earlier in the daytime and then again at night in the bedroom.  You had moved in with him right after graduation.

You saw little Neil come running up to a good looking lady with the Lost Kitten routine.  You just rolled your eyes in disapproval and kept watching.  Nikki looked over to see what had your attention, then smiled at the sight of the little boy.  He had met the kid a few times and was very fond of him.  "Are they doing the Lost Kitten thing again?" he asked you.

"Probably" you said, but you didn't see Vince anywhere near him.  That was odd and when the lady took him by the hand and started leading him away.  "What the fuck?" you got up started walking towards them.  The woman saw you making a beeline in their direction and just picked him up and ran with him.

"Shit!" Nikki got up "what do we do?!"

"You go find Vince and call the cops!  I'll go after them!" you bolted in the direction where they went.  You had joined the track team later in the first year at high school and were one of the fastest runners, aside from that bitch Kendra who you swore up and down took steroids to make herself faster.

Vince was looking around the general vicinity when Nikki ran up to him, out of breath "Some...bitch...took...your kid..." he had his hands on his knees and was wheezing.

"What?!" Vince was now officially freaked out and got the information he needed out of Nikki and called the police.  You were quickly gaining ground, the wailing child looking back at you and reaching out to you.  Your legs and chest were aching, but you ignored them, like a cheetah ready to pounce you got close enough to grab the woman by the hair and pull her back.  

"Are you fuckin' crazy?!" you shouted to the woman as you ripped Neil away from her. 

She only screamed like a banshee and pulled all three of you into the street.  You were the first one to see the on coming car and you didn't have time to run so you just pushed Neil to the sidewalk and out of harms way.  The car hit both you and the woman, killing her instantly and you breaking several bones and losing consciousness.  The last thing you saw before everything went black was Nikki holding you in his lap and Vince holding his son away from view so he didn't have to see the bloody mess.

When you woke up, you felt two hands holding yours.  You groaned and stirred.  The movements jolted whoever was next to you awake and saying "Y/N?"  When your vision cleared it was Nikki and Vince.  Both of them looking exhausted, concerned and relieved to see you awake.  You had to take a few long moments to recall the last thing you remembered.  When it hit you, you looked between the two men.

"Where's Neil?!" you were getting yourself worked up, but Vince pushed you back down gently.

"He's with Tammi" he said "He's okay..." then he started sobbing, as if he couldn't believe it himself.  "Thank you...for saving my boy's life..."

"Don't mention it" you stroked his hair with your good hand, your other arm being in a cast.

Nikki brushed your face with his hands and he started crying too "They told us you had died in the operating room, but as soon as you heard Neil scream, your heart started pumping...that woman who took him...she was a child murderer..."

You tried to sit yourself up, but it was painful.  Both of them helped you sit up and get comfortable.  "How long was I out for?"

They both looked at each other, unsure weather or not to answer you, but decided that it would be pointless to lie "About three weeks..."

You eyes widened as you realized "Then I missed the orientation for school?"

"Yeah..." Nikki said "That's not important right now, you are" he bent down and kissed your lips softly "just focus on getting better..."

You had to spend a few days more for observation, you having visitors from Tammi's family, Vince's family tearfully thanking you for saving their loved one.  But the one you wanted to see the most came after they all had left.  Vince bought him in holding his hand and lifted him up onto your bed so he could cuddle with you.  The poor thing looked so tired and weary.  "Hey Squirt" you greeted, the pet name you had for him.

"Hey" he offered, before falling asleep in the crook of your arm.  Vince had smiled and said "He hasn't been sleeping too good since it happened...he said he felt safe with you..."

"That's okay" you nuzzled the top of his little head. 

"Is there anyway I can repay you?" Vince offered.

"No more of that damned Lost Kitten Routine" you said sternly "no more using your kid to pick up girls" he winced, knowing full well that if he didn't let his dick do the thinking for him, none of this would have happened.

"R-right" Nikki looked at him, the two having exchanged words about the situation right after it happened and they were going with you in the ambulance, the paramedics threatening to call the police to restrain them if they didn't calm down.

When you got back to the apartment that you shared with Vince and the drummer Tommy, Nikki helped you into bed and cuddled up next to you.  Neither one of you wanted to fuck, just having each other in close proximity was enough.  Soon you heard Nikki silently crying.  "Hey now..." you said, bringing your good hand to his face "what's up?"

"When they told us you had died..." he sniffled "I lost my damn mind.  I lunged at Vince and started choking him.  Tommy and three security guards had to get me off him..."

You lifted yourself up on your good elbow "What?"

"Damnit" he wiped away his snot and tears, pulling out a small ring box from the drawer.  "I was about to ask you to marry me before the shit hit the fan..." he opened it, and produced a small silver band with a tiny diamond.  "I'm total shit without you, Y/N...will you be Mrs. Sixx?"

You had to laugh at that "Since you so eloquently put it like that, yes, I'll marry you..." you shared a kiss, just a little bit of tongue action.  He slipped the ring on your finger, and kissed you again.

"Did you seriously use the word 'shit' in a marriage proposal?  you teased him.

"Hey you said yes" he teased right back "and when you're all better and out of the cast" he reached down and stroked your womanhood with his palm, making you moan softly "I'm gonna fuck you until I can't cum anymore~"

"You're a dirty fucker, you know that?"

"Damn straight."

[benterri]

Central dispatch login

CENTRAL DISPATCH LOGIN DRIVER

CENTRAL DISPATCH LOGIN REGISTRATION

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Central dispatch facilities that are subject to any local licensing authority (e.g., NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission) must submit to that authority evidence of their membership in the Fund and Registration with the Department of State as a condition for obtaining or renewing their license with the local licensing authority.

CENTRAL DISPATCH LOGIN DRIVER

The purpose of the Fund is to administer payment of workers' compensation to black car operators who are registered owners of a for-hire vehicle or a driver designated by such a registered owner to operate his/her for-hire vehicle and who is dispatched by a central dispatch facility. must become members of a not-for-profit corporation to be known as the New York Black Car Operators' Injury Compensation Fund, Inc.Independent owners working for themselves are not covered under this law must be able to certify that more than 90 percent of its for-hire business is on a payment basis other than direct cash payment by a passenger (e.g., by voucher) and cannot own 50 percent or more of the cars being dispatched.Submit a completed application and the required fee to Marsh USA, Inc.Note - Administrative calls for the Miami County Jail and Miami County Sheriff (jail info, county accident reports, etc.) are handled through the department at 76 and Administrative calls for the Peru Police Department (city accident reports, contacts not requiring an officer dispatch, etc.) are handled through the department at 76. This includes a direct connect phone at the Peru Police Department and a direct connect phone in the lobby of the Miami County Jail. Central Communications also handles non-emergency requests for an officer for all police departments. All 911 emergency telephone calls are answered at the communication center. The communications center is located in the Miami County Annex Building.

[limorentalnyc101]

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[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND April 19, 2019  - THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA, BREAKTHROUGH, PENGUINS

Yay! Another week where I haven’t seen any of the new releases! This is what happens when studios offer a single press screening rather than a few options, I guess.

After a rather dismal weekend, this weekend sees the release of a mixed bag of movies that will wrap-up the winter/spring movie season before Avengers: Endgame comes along and just destroys everything else in theaters. This is also Easter weekend and with no schools and many being off work for Good Friday, we’ll see a large bump with most movies being frontloaded for the weekend. (Easter Sunday is usually reserved for family meals, Easter egg hunts, etc, so not as much movie business.)

Beginning on Wednesday, we have two relatively family-friendly films in Fox 2000’s faith-based BREAKTHROUGH  (20thCentury Fox) and DisneyNature’s PENGUINS  (Walt Disney Pictures), again, neither which I’ve seen. The first is a higher-profile faith-based drama that’s being released in perfect timing with Easter, but unlike the movies of PureFlix, I feel that the marketing campaign could bring in a wider audience, especially with popular actors like Chrissy Metz, Topher Grace, Mike Colter and Dennis Haysbert.  Penguinsis another Disney nature doc, this one a cute story about a penguin named Steve, voiced by Ed Helms, and its G-rating will help make it a choice for family with young kids over the holiday weekend.

Then on Friday (or rather, Thursday night) comes the latest horror film from producer James Wan, THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA (New Line/WB), which looks like another solid scare-fest even if the reviews out of SXSW weren’t as strong as the ones for Pet Sematary (which I still haven’t seen!) and Us (which I’ve seen twice). I’m definitely interested in checking it out, especially the work of director Michael Chaves, who has already been attached to direct the next Conjuring movie (although this one is not related).

Opening in 300 theaters Wednesday is the Bollywood release KALANK (FIP), directed by Abhishek Varman, a romantic drama about six characters looking for love in the town of Husnabad, North India.

Also opening fairly wide this weekend is Michael Berry’s adaptation of Riley Thomas’ stage musical Stuck (Eammon Films), starring Giancarlo Esposito, Amy Madigan, Omar Chaparroand Ashanti as four of six New York commuters stuck on a subway car, as they sing their stories to each other. Sounds more fun than what normally happens in New York when the subway car stops between stations.

Apparently, Bleecker Street plans on expanding Max Minghella’s Teen Spirit, starring Elle Fanning, wider, although I don’t have a theater count at this point in time, so I’m not sure if it’s expanding enough to get into the top 10 or how many areas it will be in.

LIMITED RELEASES

My favorite movie of the weekend is Pamela Green’s doc BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ (Zeitgeist), which will open in L.A.  at the Laemmle Monica Film Center then move to NYC on April 26. If you don’t know who Alice Guy-Blaché is then you really need to see this movie, since she was such an important part of cinema history. She was there from the very gestation of cinema in France as the first female director who was making so many inroads into various filmmaking techniques while being mostly ignored by the men in the industry, including those who documented the history of cinema. This is an amazing film to see all of Ms. Guy’s accomplishments, while also being demeaned by a philandering husband who took credit for much of her accomplishments. I was also amazed to learn while watching this film that Fort Lee, New Jersey used to be the hub of cinema in the early 20thCentury before Guy’s husband and others moved to California and set up Hollywood, mainly to get away from paying fees to Tom Edison. This is an amazing doc that I recommend highly if you consider yourself a film buff on any level.

Another great doc opening this week – New York on Weds and in L.A. Friday – is Penny Lane’s new one HAIL SATAN? (Magnolia), which explores the Satanic Temple and its leader Lucien Greaves, who have created a political movement around the ideas that church and state should be kept separate. They do this by raising funds to set-up statues of Baphomet on the same capital grounds where governments have set-up statues of the Ten Commandments. They also do this with a sense of humor that reminds me of The Yes Men, whose own pranks have been documented well in film. Either way, this movie is not what you might think i.e. it’s not a commercial for Satanism as in the type that sacrifices babies. It’s just a group that uses the name of Satan to fight for religious freedom.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays a woman who goes on the run after her superpowers are discovered in Julia Hart’s FAST COLOR (Codeblack Films). This opens in select cities this week, and I’ve reviewed it over at The Beat.

It Follows director David Robert Mitchell’s new noir thriller UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (A24) seems to be getting dumped with a quick release in New York and L.A. on Friday before debuting for streaming on Amazon Monday.  I guess the mixed reviews it got at its premiere at Cannes last year didn’t help matters.  It stars Andrew Garfield as 33-year-old Sam who discovers the mysterious Sarah (Riley Kough) in his apartment swimming pool, but when she vanishes, he goes looking through L.A. to find what happened to her. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it’s looking unlikely I’ll see it in theaters now.

Dame Judi Dench stars in Trevor Nunn’s RED JOAN (IFC Films), playing Joan Stanley, a widow living in retirement when the British Secret Service arrests her for giving classified information to the Soviets for decades. Based on a true story, it will open at the Landmark 57 and IFC Center in New York as well as other theaters and On Demand.

Tessa Thompson and Lilly James star in Nia DaCosta’s feature film directorial debut LITTLE WOODS (NEON), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, at which DaCosta won the Nora Ephron award. Thompson plays Ollie, a North Dakota woman who was once arrested for smuggling prescription drugs across the border, something she gives up until her pregnant sister Deb (James) shows up needing $3,000 to save their family home. I’m hoping to catch it again sometime this week, since I want to give it another chance.

Currently playing on DirecTV and opening in select theaters and On Demand Friday is Fred Wolf’s DRUNK PARENTS (Vertical Entertainment), starring Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek. Semi-wealthy Frank and Nancy Teagarten are dropping their daughter off at college just before the repo man shows up at their door, so they do some drinking and hold a yard sale as to hide their deteriorating wealth.

Orange is the New Black star Taylor Schilling stars in Laura Steinel’s Family  (The Film Arcade) as career-focused Kate Stone, who is asked by her estranged brother to babysit her ‘tween niece Maddie, as one night turns into a week.

Prolific Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s new movie Grass  (Cinema Guild), will open at the Metrograph in New York. It’s a rather talkie piece that involves a bunch of people talking to each other in a café where a young woman (Kim Min-hee) eavesdrops and adds their characters to her story.  I’m generally mixed on Hong Sang-soo, and this one seems a bit more artsy with less of a narrative, but I assume diehard fans will enjoy it.

Wanuri Kahui’s Kenyan coming-of-age drama Rafiki (Film Movement), the first Kenyan film to show at Cannes, will open at BAM on Friday. It follows the journey of Kena and Ziki, two young woman whose fathers are rival political candidates but who have formed a bond of friendship.

Just in time for 4/20 comes Robert Ryan’s doc Breaking Habits (Good Deed Entertainment) about Christine Meeusen’s decision to leave her cheating husband of 17 years with her three kids, reinventing herself as Sister Kate and setting up a cannabis farming business that would become the Sisters of the Valley medicinal marijuana empire.

Also, a reminder that Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce, is supposed to get a limited release this weekend after its Fathom Events “one night only,” although I have no idea of number of theaters or locations or anything.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

As with every weekend, there’s a lot going on, and in New York, up at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, they’re kicking off this year’s ART OF THE REAL on Thursday and running through April 28. The Opening Night film is Frank Beauvais’ Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, compiling the thoughts and revelations of the filmmaker. I haven’t been able to get to any of the press screenings, but it usually has an interesting and diverse line-up which you can read more about at the link.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Fans of Brazilian cinema will want to check out some of the Metrograph’s new series about Brazilian filmmaker Nelson Pereira dos Santos, which runs from Friday through April 28. The movies range from his groundbreaking 1955 doc Rio, 40º to 2011’s The Music According to Tom Jobim with nine films, few of which have received distribution in North America. This week’s Late Nites at Metrographinclude Sion Sono’s Anti-Porno and Bertrando Bonello’s 2011 film L’Appollonide (House of Tolerance), neither which I’ve seen, but the weekend’s  Playtime: Family Matineesis Disney’s The Love Bug, one of my absolute favorite films from childhood.

THE NEW BEVERLY  (L.A.):

Besides showing Henri-Georges Clouzet’s murder-mystery Quai Des Orfevres on Wednesday afternoon, Tarantino’s rep theater is showing double features of Hitchcock’s Family Plot  (1976) and the thriller Black Sunday  (1977) on Weds. and Thurs, the classic Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau The Odd Couple (1968) and Robert Redford/Jane Fonda’s Barefoot in the Park (1967) on Friday, then Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980) and Ice Cube’s Friday (1995) on Saturday. This weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is a surprisingly recent movie in Universal’s Hop – cause it’s Easter weekend, get it? – and the midnight movies are The Hateful Eight on Friday night and the 1981 John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd movie Neighbors on Saturday. Sunday and Monday are double features of Only When I Laugh (1981) and I Oughtta Be in Pictures (1982). Monday afternoon is a screening of Martin Scorsese’s 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead, starring Nicolas Cage and Patricia Arquette.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

One of the repertory series I’m most excited about since first hearing about it is the Film Forum’s latest series “Trilogies,” which this weekend will show all three of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy, and Sergio Leone’s Western trilogy with Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1966) and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966). This weekend is also the start of Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition, while Monday is a trilogy of films by Jacques Beckere called his “Paris Youth Trilogy,” including Antoine and Antoinette.  Sadly, they don’t seem to be showing Edgar Wright’s Three Cornetto Trilogy as part of the series. :( This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the 1985 crime-comedy Clue, based on the board game.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Word came out last week that Netflix is looking to buy the Egyptian, so hope they retain the repertory programming. Thursday is the new restoration of Bjork’s 1990 movie The Juniper Tree, Friday night there is a Brian Yuzna double feature of Society and Bride of Re-Animator, both from 1989 with Yuzna in attendance. Saturday sees a TRIPLE feature of Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness (1992), Waxwork  (1988) and Fulci’s The Beyond (1985), all in 35mm!

AERO  (LA):

The Aero’s “Classic Movie Clowns” series begins Thursday with a Harold Lloyd-Buster Keaton double feature of Safety Last! (1923) and The Navigator (1924), Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) plays on Friday, as well as a series of Silent Comedy Shorts (with live music!) on Saturday, as well as Laurel and Hardy’s Sons of the Desert (1933) along with their shorts Brats and Helpmates. Easter Sunday sees a collection of Bugs Bunny and Friends animated shorts and a double feature of Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001) and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead  (1981).

IFC CENTER (NYC)

The IFC Center started its spring series last weekend, but I received the info too late to include. This weekend’s Waverly Midnights: ParentalGuidance is Hitchcock’s Psycho, while the Weekend Classics: LoveMom and Dad is Terms of Endearment and Late Night Favorites: Springis David Fincher’s Fight Club.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: B is for Bacall this week shows the 1947 film Dark Passage on Weds, Howard Hawk’s To Have and Have Not  (1944) Thurs, and The Big Sleep  (1946) on Friday. Also the What Price Hollywood series continues with Clarence Brown’s 1931 film A Free Soul and Josef von Sternberg’s 1934 film The Scarlet Empress on Weds, the 1939 film Midnight and 1935’s Sylvia Scarlett on Thursday and more. They’re also showing Franco Rosso’s Babylonover the weekend.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This week’s series is See it Big! Action with screenings of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Seven Samurai, Anne of the Indiesand The Adventures of Robin Hood. On Good Friday, the family program is the animated Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad continues its Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan this weekend with Charles and Lucie, Néa, The Pleasure of Love and more.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Thursday ends the The Anarchic Cinema of Věra Chytilováseries of the Czech film star.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This Friday’s midnight offering is Panos Costamos’ too recent to be repertory Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming on Netflix this week is Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s SOMEONE GREAT, starring Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez as an aspiring music journalst trying to get her dream job at a magazine, even though that would mean moving to San Francisco. Her boyfriend of nine years (Lakeith Stanfield) decides to break up so she and her two best friends (DeWanda Wise, Brittany Snow) decide to go out for one last adventure in New York City.

[askkayleefrye]

http://ift.tt/2pvMFBT

Last weekend at McCormick Place in Chicago, I had the pleasure of attending the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) with Larkspur and Little Dove Cosplay (Matthew and Tess, respectively). It was an awesome way to round out my trip to the midwest which involved two conventions, Wizard World St. Louis and C2E2. The two conventions were very different but both were excellent experiences!

The disorganized coat check on our way in the 1st day

C2E2 is run by ReedPop, the same folks who run Emerald City Comic Con (a con I hope to attend soon!) and New York Comic Con. The latter two are four day events but C2E2 is only three days: Friday through Sunday. Since this con is local to my family home, Tess & I took public transport into downtown Chicago and met up with Matthew in time to catch one of the C2E2 shuttles to the actual convention center. I really like the shuttle service, because it saves me a bunch of money that would be used on parking, but more on that later.    

Friday was our lazy(ish) day. I cosplayed Elizabeth Swann, Matthew cosplayed Flint (from Black Sails), and Tess debuted her Jean Grey cosplay from X-Men Apocalypse. As soon as we got to the con, we had to go through a very frustrating bag check, especially since Tess and I only had very small purses– anything that would have fit in them reasonably would have fit in our pockets! Matthew, on the other hand, brought a real sword, which we have taken to several other conventions since it is not sharp.  While it would be very easy to peace-tie so that the blade isn’t accessible, security confiscated it and told us there was no coat check so they would hold it in security check. We later checked the program and found out there was a coat check but at least we ended up having Matthew’s sword babysat for free all day! In the future, we know not to bring live steel to C2E2, since it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Once inside, we headed upstairs to the opening panel on the mainstage, featuring Wil Wheaton. I recently started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and friends who have met Mr. Wheaton have told me how nice he is. Though I’m not familiar with his recent work, he has an amazing panel presence (coming from folks who consistently run panels at conventions!), turning awkward questions into excellent anecdotes. After the panel, we walked the extensive show floor and artists’ alley. The show floor for C2E2 is smaller than NYCC and it seemed a touch smaller than Wizard World Chicago, which surprised me.

We finished up Friday at the panel “Professional Geek: How to Turn Your Passion into A Career.” I hoped for a panel that would talk about monetizing your passion, since  I am trying to do something similar with Patreon, but instead this panel featured folks who were in the right place at the right time. Their advice amounted to “do internships” and “work hard and sometimes for free,” which are both things I do not support. At times, passion-projects can mean you work for free but artists deserve to be paid for their work.This panel’s advice only contributed to the idea that if you love something, you should not make any money from it. Disgruntled, we left the panel early, picked up Matthew’s sword, and headed home for the night.

On Saturday, I wore my Kaylee coveralls with the blue silk jacket & parasol, Matthew wore Luffy (One Piece), and Tess wore her pink Sansa dress (Game of Thrones). Since Tess’s costume is so delicate and her hair so intricate, we drove to the convention. The cheapest lot was $15, but that amounted to roughly the same price as public transport for the three of us. It also meant we spent a lot less time getting to the con, could bring food with us, and could get home much earlier. Matthew got several compliments on their pants and mentioned I had made them, which I did not realize at all until I looked more closely at them. Hah! The first panel we attended focused  on gender identity in comics and we were happily surprised by the diversity in the panel as well as their recommendations. Since we had walked the floor on Friday, we spent a bunch of time going between the XP stations. I first experienced these at NYCC; you register your badge and then head to prize towers to tap your badge. You can win prizes within the towers as well as autographs, tickets to secret panels, digital webcomics, and more! C2E2 limits your badge to only tapping in once per day per tower, but they also had a scavenger hunt between several additional towers. We each won a small prize and, though not what we had really wanted, it was still fun! At the end of the night, we headed back to the car, munched on leftover takeout, and then went home and to bed.

Sunday, Matthew was not feeling well and stayed home. Tess wore her purple Sansa dress and I wore my screen accurate pink top for Kaylee. We took public transport and, since it was the last day, we decided to do one more thorough walk of the convention floor. At 1:30, we settled in at the Cosplay Center (which amounted to several round tables with chairs, and a long rectangular table with only ONE mic to present from, off to the side of the show floor) for our panel “Cosplay & Consent.” I moderated the panel, which featured Tess, Raggedy Amy, and Rebel Among the Stars as panelists. We talked about our experiences cosplaying, particularly as they applied to situations of questionable consent. We gave advice for photographers & con-goers on how they could ask for consent & get their pictures okayed by cosplayers, as well as what cosplayers could do to make sure their consent was respected. Though a different style panel than I am used to, I enjoyed sharing our information with the C2E2 crowd.

Tess and I finished walking through the convention, made final purchases, took a few last minute pictures before we headed out. Despite a few small things, C2E2 was a really well run convention and we all had a great time. I hope to be invited back again in the future!

My next event is Browncoat: The Musical in NYC and my next potential convention is Wizard World Philly, June 1-4 (or check my up to date convention list here!)

Like this article? Wanna support the work I do? Support me on Patreon or send me something from my wishlist!

[srry-not-srry]

another skam fic yikes

i wrote a shameless au! for skam because i literally couldn’t stop myself. going to post on Ao3 soon, but had to unleash my ~shame~ on the tumblr world first. i hate me more than you hate me. 

Shameless Au!Skam 

Isak - 23

Noora -18

Jonas - 16

Eva - 11

Lea & Liam (twins) - 5

Chris Schistad is the neighborhood drug dealer shamelessly into Isak

William is his best friend and shamelessly into Noora

both are same age as Isak were in his class and were friendly but not friends all from same neighborhood

Isak was hot to trot in high school had big dreams to go to acting school in NYC but obvi has to take care of his fam

Sana & Eskild + Vilde are V and Kev but they aren’t in love or married they are just roommates and neighbors

Even has bored rich Steve/Jimmy who falls shamelessly in love with Isak

basically everyone is in love with Isak

Title: Tell Me You Love Me, Make It Hurt

“Isaaak, he’s back!” Magnus sings, voice bright and sunny and loud in Isak’s ear suddenly.

“Jesus fuck!” Isak hisses as the bacon grease spills over the side of the pan and singes his fingers. He drops it immediately on the hot stove, and brings his fingers to his mouth. Magnus laughs, hard and loud, from where he’s appeared, leaning against the wall. “Fuck you,” Isak says, rushing to run his hands under the cool water from the sink.

“Think he’ll ask you out again?”

Isak rolls his eyes. “I hope not.” 

“Whatever! If I had a fancy fucker slipping me hunnies every time I took his order I’d find out what else he wants.”

“Yeah?” Isak teases. “You’d go out with a dude just for some cash?”

“Gotta feed the children somehow.” Magnus grins.

Isak rolls his eyes again but he turns to watch the tall, lean man slink into the diner. He looks every inch like he doesn’t belong there. As if he’s gotten lost on the wrong side of town and has randomly decided to step in some shitty diner for a bite to eat. It’s been three weeks, and Even has come in religiously every Tuesday and Friday for bitter coffee, undercooked steak, and a slice of lemon meringue pie. Isak runs damp hands through his hair in an attempt to contain his wiry curls. He straightens his apron and grabs a notepad off the stack behind the counter before heading over.

“Go get em tiger,” Magnus whispers.

“Fuck you,” Isak replies.

Even doesn’t look up from examining the menu as Isak approaches, pulling the pen from where it’s been tucked behind his ear.

“Gonna try something new this week?” Isak asks. Even draws his eyes up and looks the boy up and down, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. His eyes dance, almost as if Even is flirting with Isak, as if he finds him attractive. Isak curses himself in his head because he knows he isn’t. How could he be? Isak knows how he looks: greasy apron wrapped around his waist, stained with food spills and old, hair probably wild and gross from his eight hour shift with another two still on the clock. His jeans are hand-me-downs or something, he doesn’t remember, but he knows he paid less than ten dollars for them. His shoes worn sneakers, holes beginning to form where the cloth meets the rubber. Even doesn’t belong here, nor should he be looking at Isak like that: hands twitching and eyes hinting at thoughts of lust. Isak can see his car parked haphazardly on the curb through the window, a shiny black Porsche that reeks of money. He’s frankly surprised the thing hasn’t been stolen. Or that Even hasn’t been mugged at least. He isn’t subtle with his clearly designer jeans, flashy gold watch, and expensive sunglasses. Even looks like he belongs shirtless on some yacht in the Caribbean. Not here, flirting with Isak on the wrong side of Chicago.

“Hmm, don’t know if I’m feeling that adventurous just yet.”

“So the usual?” Isak asks, pen poised to write on his small notepad even though he already has Even’s order memorized.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Even asks coyly, flitting his eyes over Isak’s body. Honestly, Isak inwardly groans because Even’s voice can make anything sound sexy.

“The chocolate cake is my favorite.”

“So, I’ll have the usual except with the cake this time.” Even winks. Isak tries to control the nervousness pooling in his stomach and hopes he isn’t blushing. Though he knows that his cheeks and the tips of his ears are probably on fire. Isak turns to rush into the kitchen to avoid that heavy stare and hopefully get this stupid crush under control. “Isak?” Even calls to his quickly retreating figure.

“Yeah?”

“You look cute today.” Oh god.

——

Magnus won’t quit bugging him and it’s honestly starting to irritate Isak beyond words. He’s tempted to tell Madhi, who’s the main diner coo even though they all pitch in at times, about Magnus’ failed hookup attempt this past weekend just to throw him off his back. Though he swore would never mention cat-tongue girl again to anyone.

“Dude, honestly he so wants you. You need to say yes.”

“God, this again? He only asked that one time.”

“You rejected him so hardcore. I was sure he’d be scarred for life! He’s probably still working up the courage. No wonder he comes back every week!”

“Shut up,” Isak hisses. “Or I’ll tell every one of your tables what you say about them behind their back.”

Magnus goes white. “You wouldn’t.”

“I fucking would!”

“God, would you two quit,” Madhi groans at them. “You’re stinking up my kitchen with your annoying commentary. Magnus, leave Isak alone. He’s had enough on his plate this week. Isak, that Even dude stares at you with bedroom eyes and has watched your ass every time you walk through the room. Stop pretending like you don’t know.” He huffs, turning back to rotating the steaks on the grill. Isak and Magnus shut up.

Or rather, they move to the prep room. Isak attempting to finish some of his chore list and stock inventory so he’s not stuck here past shift end. He has to pick the kids up from school today because Noora has graduation practice, and Jonas has a soccer match. God, he can’t believe the year is almost over. Maybe when summer comes he’ll finally catch a break or a breath. Noora has been hinting to him about getting a GDE. Isak swears he finds one of those goddamn posters for the classes lying somewhere around the house at least once a day. He doesn’t want to tell her that he’s been saving up money on the side for it, because he knows she’ll get excited and it probably won’t work out. Jonas has needed to get his wisdom teeth out for months and the twins are growing out of their clothes faster than he can buy them from the second-hand shop on the corner. He doesn’t have the time or the money to enroll to get some dumb degree. But he can’t help the thrill of want that spikes through his body every time he doesn’t catch himself in time and he’s daydreaming of the future. Always the same: New York City, his siblings comfortable and happy and clean with endless food in their bellies, and him on stage, acting his fucking heart out. He always shakes himself before it can go further that that, no use dreaming of things that will never happen.

“You okay dude?” Magnus asks cautiously. “Didn’t know you had shit going on this week.”

Isak sighs, and rubs his forehead. He can feel the beginnings of a killer headache around the edges of his temples. “Yeah. I just, Liam’s been sick this week and my fucking dad showed up randomly on Tuesday night and crashed on the couch. Threw up all over the fucking rug. Jonas cleaned it up. But the kids were so happy to see him, so I couldn’t bring myself to yell at him or kick him out.”

“Shit. He still there?”

“Nah, Noora screamed at him soon as I took the kids to school and threw him out.”

“Sorry bro.”

“It’s fine. Just another typical week in the Valtersen show.”

Magnus bit out a laugh, though Isak could tell he was trying to lighten the mood for his sake. He’s not complaining, he’s not. It’s just sometimes he wishes his head wouldn’t ache so much or his feet or his back from these ten-hour shifts and he wishes he didn’t have to constantly worry about how they would find the money to pay for the washing machine that will inevitably fail them any day now. Magnus gets it though. He just bailed his brother out of jail last week for those cocaine charges. Fuck, he’s still doing community service hours the judge gave him instead of juvie for that stunt with the Lexus he pulled last year. They all get it, or they wouldn’t work here. Or live in dingy houses in some grungy neighborhood on the east side of the train tracks. Isak’s life isn’t any harder than the rest of theirs. So maybe he gets why Magnus is pushing the Even thing. Everybody has found some rich fucker to take them on a doubt once in their lives. It’s usually some cheap flirting, cheesy hookup lines, a nice dinner and then a long fuck, and then their fancy car peals out of the neighborhood so fast you’d think they were running from the cops. Point is, the bored rich dudes usually don’t stick around except for one small peak into the hard-knock life to ease their curiosity. Isak has tried being rude to Even. Indicating he’s not interested. Yet here he is every fucking Tuesday and Friday ordering his medium-rare steak and shitty coffee. Magnus thinks it’s more. Some Sugar Daddy bullshit scenario. Isak doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He wishes Magnus would give it up. He’s not going to be somebody’s fucking charity case.

Magnus cuts him another sly look. “You should give him your number.”

“Ugh.” Isak groans and goes to refill everyone’s water glass, even the customers that aren’t in his section.

((This is just a snippet of the first part)) 

[ljbarks]

Julien Baker, My Father, Two Decades of Noise, and the Quiet

Soda guns make a funny noise. Like a dozen dentists doing work all at once, some suction and a strange gurgle.

Usually, it’s also a noise that happens nonchalantly, especially in a place like this, the gurgle drowned out by the din and dissonance of the band and the crowd and the night.

Right now though, a couple songs into Julien Baker’s set at White Eagle Hall, the soda gun — and the cracking of a fresh beer, the opening and closing of the standard-issue industrial doors at the back of the room, everything — have become some kind of strange and unwelcome accompaniment, dropping in at all the wrong moments, a laugh-track mistakenly placed over A Very Special Episode.

This, of course, is partially my fault. I’m perpetually late and the kind of short where I’ve had to turn my annoyance at the dozens of phones shooting video that’s never gonna be revisited into an argument for how useful all those glowing screens are as periscopes. Too anxious to push my way to the front under some false “I’m looking for my friends” pretense, because I know my friends are not up there because they’re all at home because it’s Tuesday and we’re in our mid-thirties. And then what happens when I get to up there? Then I’m awkwardly planted next to a person who’s not my friends, inserting myself into this stranger’s night like I just hatched from my pod and am enjoying my first moments in this human body, cumbersome and lumbering, exploring the thing the earthlings call music.

Instead, I don’t move from the spot on the floor that I’ve acquired simply by ordering a beer at the bar and then turning and taking only the amount of steps required to get out of the way of the next person. But the hypothetical awkwardness stays, permeating the room in some other way. As I, from my tippy-toes, and the other 799 people packed into White Eagle watch Baker take the stage, it’s to a strange kind of silence.

The first live music I ever saw that wasn’t my father playing the organ in our house — like the first thing that involved a band and instruments, and an in-hindsight surprising lack of any kind of adult supervision — was a punk show at the Rockaway American Legion.

It was 1997.

I was the kid who wore Nirvana shirts to school every single day. A girl in my first period biology class was passing out flyers.

“I think you like music, I don’t know.”

She tossed the thing on my desk. I was never cool to begin with, but in this moment she was infinitely cooler than me.

I convinced my best friend to come, and my father happily volunteered to drive us, depositing two fifteen year-olds in some random parking lot with only a vague idea about when to return to collect us.

This, that he was so willing to do this, volunteered to do it, was a confusing thing about my father. He was angry and strict, though only about the small and specific things. I never had a curfew, but food falling off your fork at dinner as you awkwardly tried to get this adult-sized utensil into your child-sized mouth would launch some kind of international incident. It always ended with slamming doors and crying and him storming out and me climbing up into the treehouse to write some other life in my head.

The flyer, because it was 1997, had a phone number to call “for directions or sex advice.” I blacked out that second part before I showed it to my parents, marching into our kitchen with this photocopied paper adorned with a giant hand-drawn, bug-eyed and bemowhawked creature with a safety pin through its tongue, the names of a bunch of bands they wouldn’t have known even if their entire record collection wasn’t The Kingston Trio, the soundtrack to The Big Chill and Donald Fagen.

I didn’t know the bands, either, really, but I knew I needed to go to this thing and see it. And so I also armed myself with an argument for why I should be allowed to go. Instead, I just got a “yes.” Simple. Too easy. My father, for all the other stuff, became his opposite self when it came to matters of music.

That November night in the American Legion, I found the thing I didn’t know I’d been looking for for all of the 15 years and four months of my life before it. My home, my people, my thing. My father came to pick us up at the end, and I surely got back in the car, tired and happy and smelling of cigarettes, but really, I never left.

Twenty-one years later that flyer hangs on the wall of my apartment.

Through the rest of my high school life, I’d check out the arts listings in the paper, picking out concerts and pulling out the phonebook so my parents could call Ticketmaster, using the money I’d made from working at the family business and then my job at the mall to finance these miniature adventures. And every time, my father would volunteer his services as driver, dutifully dropping us off somewhere in the middle of Manhattan so that we could enjoy a night with The Offspring.

Once I could drive, we’d spend weekends traversing the state following handwritten directions scribbled on a pick from the stack of flyers we’d been handed at the previous show. Living in all the wonder that comes with the kind of places willing to host an afternoon of complicated-looking kids too into something that was mostly dissonance and sometimes childhood music lessons repurposed into bad Bosstones knockoffs. Elks lodges, VFW halls, American Legions, firehouses, basements, the storefront of a diet food restaurant, high school gyms and random rooms in churches.

Then we’d take the train into the city and see the bigger touring bands that came through. Take a quarter for the payphone to call my mom from Penn and let her know the train didn’t derail on the way. Take the Midtown Direct from Dover for Pennywise, All and Strung Out in the city on Friday, drive to Asbury Park for Blink 182, Silverchair and Fenix TX on Sunday, go to school on Monday. Lars Frederiksen stealing my friend’s lighter outside a Dropkick Murphys show at the Wetlands. Smoking in the downstairs of Roseland as we browsed the tables of patches and buttons that lined the room. Summers with multiple Warped Tour dates, a car accident on the way to Asbury leaving the front passenger side door of my ’95 Golf in a permanent state of not closing right, our nostrils still filled with dust from Randall’s Island the day before.

Then, college, a degree I'd never get and mostly shitty jam bands in a small market city not on the way to anywhere. The other nights, more special. When Rainer Maria came to Higher Ground or AFI played at 242. River City Rebels with Catch 22 at a barn in rural Vermont or Bane in the middle of winter in some school gym. Kill Your Idols and Sworn Enemy and Agnostic Front and My Revenge and the show stopping to throw out some boneheads after they tried to rip a SHARP patch off a kid’s jacket. That night Death Cab played at UVM and someone from the band chased a kid who threw a disc golf disc onto the stage through the halls of whatever building that was. That same place where I saw Q and Not U and I think the only two times I was ever in that building. Our little NJ Scene expat crew, four people strong, watching some punk show on the second floor of the extra-strength hippie dorm.

Post-weird four year exile in Vermont, our little Jersey scene had shifted and died and grown up too much, but the city was still there. I’d learned by then never to take New York for granted. I went to shows.

So many.

Our Wilco/Ryan Adams cousins crew getting too drunk in Brooklyn bars and me as the only one over 21 buying bodega tallboys for everyone to drink from brown paper bags in Greeley Square. Getting lost in Macy’s and losing the car in midtown and getting actually lost on the way back from Camden. Perfect nights walking around Williamsburg and sunny Saturdays in Greenpoint and spending the night on Saint Marks after the War on Drugs got rained out. Happy hours at Matchless and tacos at that spot in Port Chester. The conversation before the Ty Segall show that started with me being excited for my friend and ended up with me on Uncle Einar’s first tour two months later. Too hyped after Run the Jewels and dropping my car key in a rest stop toilet because I hadn’t slept and went to see Rancid and Dropkick anyway. Too much whiskey and the side-effects of a tetanus shot and 13 staples in my leg and a Titus Andronicus show at Maxwell’s that I don’t remember. Getting a contact lens straight kicked out of my eye at that Vandals show at Irving Plaza. The lost weekend that was Punk Rock Bowling.

Plenty of solo trips, too, not wanting to miss what could be — because you never know — some band’s last time, and I’m not even going to bother trying to sell it to my friends. Sleater-Kinney five times in a week, the Piebald reunion, the sweatiest night ever when the AC broke at Webster Hall during the Bouncing Souls, and a fear of frostbite at Sonic Youth after putting a Chuck Taylor-clad foot into the depths of one of those curbside lakes the New York winter creates.

A thousand more that escape me now, but show me the ticket stub and I'll tell you the story.

The one constant is noise. There is always noise. The expected kind, of the band and the crowd cheering and singing along. And the annoying kind, of the full-on conversations everyone’s having as the band plays ten rows up, like the Bowery Ballroom is just an extension of their living room.

There is nothing better than a full-crowd singalong.

There is nothing worse than the people behind me at Sleater-Kinney’s first NYC show in nearly a decade having a full-on conversation — as the band was ripping through ‘Start Together’ or whatever — about an article one of them read about a Maraschino cherry factory that was illegally dumping whatever the byproducts of Maraschino cherry-making are into some Brooklyn waterway. It is a bonkers story that also involves a secret basement pot growing operation, but also, in the words of the great Sue Simmons, “the fuck are you doing?”

But both of those parts are also what make up the show. We’re in a room, simultaneously strangers and best friends. Together, doing a thing. That the gaps between songs are filled by this low mumble, that the band sometimes gets treated like nothing more than a backing track to an evening, because this is New York and we’re still too busy to even take this part out of our day to make it an actual part of our day.

There is some strange comfort in that noise, all of it, together.

This night, back at White Eagle, is different. It is silent. Starkly so. In an hour, I will be — we all will be — spit back out into New Jersey’s endless winter, down the steps and onto Newark Avenue, having learned no more about Maraschino cherries than we knew before we entered. I will hear nothing about who’s lunch Susan stole from the fridge at work today, or just how fucked up it was to get to Jersey from Ridgewood on a Tuesday night.

The only conversations I will hear are ones of faintly whispered commentary about how good this is. About “thank you for bringing me.” About “this is amazing.” And at first, it’s weird and jarring and uncomfortable, and every time another beer gets cracked at the bar the people all around me let out some barely audible groan, because for the first time at any show I’ve ever been to, we’re all sitting in that silence, and none of us know how to behave.

The show opens with ‘Over’ and ‘Appointments’ and no one even knows what to do when that’s over. Like, none of us know if we should even clap. Forever and ever, before and after this, the answer is obvious, but here, we’re all in some kind of silent agreement that there’s at least a question as to whether anything should pierce the quiet. Like we’d be as annoying as another person’s vodka soda order being fulfilled if we did.

Slowly, somewhere around the end of ‘Turn Out the Lights,’ we all agree to figure out if clapping is okay. Then light cheering. Eventually we’ve navigated it, all settled into a balance between the silence and the act of being at a show. Some of the people around me even risk a low singalong during parts of ‘Rejoice’ and that one part of ‘Everybody Does’, though the intermittent activity at the bar is still at least as loud.

And maybe, beyond the lack of talking, that’s why I’m so shaken and uncomfortable with this silence. Life is about noise, even in the background. A podcast, music, the TV I’m not watching. The fan that runs at night just so I can sleep. The silence outside my parents’ house makes me uneasy. I am home with sirens piercing the pre-dawn air. Stop the noise and the quiet can make things deafening in your head.

Shows are ringing ears and not knowing if you’re shouting at each other when you talk about how good it was on the way home. Why in some other social setting you’ll find me nodding in agreement even though I didn’t really hear what you just said. It is inherently about noise and sound taking over a room and taking everyone in that room with it.

Here, we’re trying to navigate that same journey with the quiet. Like turning up the volume on the car radio as you try to find your turn.      

The thing I know about Julien Baker, because maybe I read The New Yorker while I’m brushing my teeth, is that she came up in some kind of punk scene that I imagine was similar to, though at least a decade and many states removed, from the one I did. Sonically, her music, just a guitar and some loops and piano and the occasional string accompaniment, is miles away from the basements and VFW halls and Elks lodges where I spent my teenage years. But it’s familiar somehow, too.

Maybe it’s because she’s here, on Tuesday night that’s too cold for April, mostly alone on stage, with just her songs and a couple guitars, a pedal board, a piano, and someone sometimes popping up to play violin, and she’s gotten this entire crowd to stop, to be quiet and sit in this silence and in these songs and find solace or something like it, in it, in them, in this. And that? That’s about as loud, and as punk rock, a thing as you can do.

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And in Buffalo, while there was a sense of accountability after the officers who shoved down 75-year-old Martin Gugino on Thursday night were suspended without pay, there was another sign of the rift between peaceful protesters and police officers as 57 fellow members of the Buffalo Police Department Emergency Response Team resigned in solidarity with the suspended officers.In Minneapolis, where protesters continued to express outrage over the death of Floyd on Friday, demonstrators were skeptical of police being held accountable. Zeque Davies, a 29-year-old whose parents emigrated to Minneapolis from Liberia, said the cities that have disciplined officers in recent days are “trying to prove a point through the media.” “I don’t think they’re actually holding cops accountable,” Davies told The Daily Beast. “A slap on the wrist and a paid vacation is not holding a cop accountable. Trying him, arresting him and giving him a charge, that’s holding a cop accountable.”Demonstrators in other cities weren't convinced that a simple suspension would solve any problems. “I'm sure there are professional police officers. But what we're seeing is that unlike other departments or other services, when a police officer goes rogue, they kill people,” Tara Smith, 30, told The Daily Beast at a vigil held at Union Square in Manhattan. “A city clerk is not going to do the same kind of damage, so you can't tell me that they should not be held to a higher standard than other industries and other departments and services.” Others pointed out that all the recent acts of brutality by police were happening even while people were filming them—raising the question of what happens when the cameras stop rolling. Carolina Martinez, a bartender in Buffalo taking part in a peaceful protest on Friday, said it only took four hours for video of police officers shoving down a peaceful protester to garner worldwide attention a day earlier. “The only thing we can do now is just continue to just broadcast it,” she said. Residents still came out in droves on Friday to protest. In Washington, D.C., the mayor’s office commissioned “Black Lives Matter” to be painted across a street leading to the White House.Cops Reclaim New York in Massive Show of Force In New York, thousands of residents across the five boroughs took to the streets despite the rain. Upstate, in Buffalo, protesters gathered in Niagara Square demanding police reform one day after an elderly activist was shoved to the ground by officers.The nation-wide demonstrations on Friday also focused on Breonna Taylor, the Kentucky EMT worker fatally shot in her home during a botched March police raid. On Friday, Taylor would have been 27-years-old. From New York to Portland to Miami, thousands of protesters sang Happy Birthday in Taylor’s honor. In Kentucky, dozens of demonstrators gathered in Jefferson Square Park in Kentucky to honor her memory, many writing birthday cards that will be sent to Taylor’s family.In Miami, hundreds of residents took to the streets in a Black Lives Matter protest, forcing officials to shut down several highways and the mayor to change the city-wide curfew. The Miami Police Department closed Interstate 95 in both directions to allow space for the continued protesters chanting “say their names” near Wynwood. “I think the protests are finally getting politicians and police departments to finally listen. Everyday it's a step forward,”  Ashlynn Lee, 20, told The Daily Beast. Her friend, Tanisha Brown, 20, added: “They are definitely listening to what these protests are about. We are taking not only over the streets in the 50 states and different countries, but also social media. All you see when you scroll down is black lives matter. People are starting to shout it is definitely happening. Everybody is fighting for black lives.”About an hour later, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giminez moved the curfew to 10 p.m., after it was pushed back to midnight earlier this week. Alan, one protester who attended the Miami protests, called the mayor’s decision to bump up the curfew due to “unrest” a “bullshit move.”“If it wasn't about Black Lives Matter and police reform, the protestors would be treated differently. There was no unrest,” Alan said. In Minneapolis, the intersection where Floyd was killed has turned into a constant block party—complete with a stage that hosts speakers, spoken word artists, and rappers. Robin Jackson, 27-year-who lives down the street, told The Daily Beast things are peaceful in the downtown Minneapolis neighborhood, for now. He added that while some Americans are reeling from Floyd’s tragic death, the black community is simply witnessing what they have known for years.“I feel like this is just the acknowledgment among people other than Black people, where they can say, “Ok, maybe they have a point,” Jackson said. “They’re at least acknowledging that something is happening.”The ongoing protests have already sparked police reform in two states. City officials in Minneapolis have agreed to ban police chokeholds while detaining suspects and require officers to intervene when they see unauthorized force used by a colleague. Every Buffalo Cop in Elite Unit Quits to Back Officers Who Shoved Elderly Man to GroundIn California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered the “carotid hold,” a neck restraint move that blocks blood flow to the brain, be removed from police training. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Friday announced a ban on the police use of tear gas for 30 days as protests are expected to continue in the city. The ban came just hours after three civilian police watchdog groups urged Seattle leaders to ban the violent tactic that public health officials believe may potentially increase the COVID-19 spread. A federal judge in Denver Friday also ruled that police must limit their use of “chemical weapons or projectiles” and a number of other measures of force against protesters, calling the past actions of law enforcement nation-wide “disgusting.”As demonstrators have continued to take to the streets, one medical worker in New York acknowledged that the health care community is concerned about how the protests will ultimately impact the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “Obviously it worries us because we’re afraid of a spike in coronavirus cases. We all work at a hospital and we know what that means when that happens,” Sushmitha Echt, an attending physician at Northwell Health, told The Daily Beast. “At the same time, we’re wearing our masks... there are certain things we just have to take a stand for. This is one of those things.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 6/11/21 - IN THE HEIGHTS, PETER RABBIT: THE RUNAWAY, INFINITE, UNDINE, HOLLER and More

This is going to be a tough week to deliver a full column just because I’ve been so insanely busy doing other things for my real job. More on that below, but first, I totally screwed up last week. I totally left out a movie I had been looking forward to, without realizing it was released last Friday, since I didn’t have it on my release list. I ended up inadvertantly leaving it completely out of my column. Bad Ed. (This week's column is brought to you by Ian McNabb's new album "Utopian" -- a fantastic new extra-length offering from the former Icicle Works frontman -- that just means that I was listening to it while writing this week's column. No $$$ was exchanged.)

That movie I missed last week was UNDINE (IFC Films), the new film from German filmmaker Christian Petzold, who has made some fantastic films, including Phoenix and Barbara. It reunites Petzold with the stars of his last movie, Transit, Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski. It’s a fairly bizarre film that plays around with myths about water nymphs, but it takes some time before you realize that’s what it’s about since it follows Beer’s Undine, as one of her relationships ends and another begins with an underwater diver. After winning the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Bear for Ms. Beer at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, it’s now playing in select theaters, including the IFC Center and Film at LIncoln Center as well as on digital and VOD platforms.

The film starts with a conversation between a man and a woman, Undine and Johannes, the latter who is breaking up with the former. From there, we watch a rather strange relationship build between Undine and a diver who she meets when a fish tank explodes all over them in a coffee shop. Yeah, it’s one of those kinds of movies. But Undine is one of Petzold’s more romantic films even if it takes an artier and dreamlike approach to show this romance unfold, and then it just gets weirder and weirder and more enigmatic. Water is definitely a recurring theme in what I could only really call a female power fantasy, but you know what? We’ve seen so many male power fantasies, it’s kind of nice seeing this sort of thing from a female viewpoint, and Beer is quite amazing -- well worthy of the accolades she’s been receiving. Undine is a fine addition to Poltzold’s growing filmography, although it didn’t hit me quite like Phoenix did, and I’m not sure I’d race out to see it a second time.

Before we get to this week’s new wide releases, this week also begins the 20th Anniversary Tribeca Festival -- note the absence of the word "Film" -- which as luck would have it opens on Wednesday with the World Premiere of the biggest and widest release of the weekend, the Jon M. Chu-directed musical, IN THE HEIGHTS (Warner Bros.)! I really haven’t seen much from it yet, so I have very little to say at this time. Hopefully, I’ll have time to watch more over the next week and a half.

In case you haven’t heard, In the Heights is based on the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical that preceded Hamilton, and it focuses on the Washington Heights area of NYC, primarily the LatinX community that has lived and thrived there but is dealing with things like gentrification destroying it. The movie stars Anthony Ramos (from Hamilton and A Star is Born) playing Usnavy, a bodega shop owner who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic and reopening his father’s snack bar. He also has eyes on the beautiful Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who wants to move downtown and get into fashion. Meanwhile, Nina (Leslie Grace) has returned to the neighborhood from college and she reunites with her ex Benny (Corey Hawkins) and that relationship is rekindled. Nina’s father (Jimmy Smits) is a big shot in the neighborhood, running the car service, but he’s been selling it off to pay for Nina’s school.

I already reviewed the movie here, but reviews are generally great with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and people have been chomping at the bit for this movie to be released after it was delayed nearly a year from 2020 due to COVID. Although Lin-Manuel Miranda only has a small role in the movie, he’s probably going to be the film’s biggest selling point, especially considering how many people watched Hamilton when it was released on Disney+ last summer -- that, too, was originally intended for a theatrical release.

For director Jon M. Chu, this is his first feature film since Crazy Rich Asians, which was a huge box office hit, but it also had a similar cultural impact of what is expected from In the Heights. It opened with $26.5 million in 3,384 theaters in August, 2018, but then it had massive legs over the course of the summer to gross $174.5 million total. While it didn’t end up getting the awards love many expected, it did help to make the likes of Constance Wu, Akwafina, and Henry Golding bigger stars, as well as boosting the careers of Gemma Chan, Jimmy O. Yang and other Asian-American actors. One can presume that In the Heights will do the same for Ramos and a few others, although it’s still too early to see if it will have legs when it’s so easy to rewatch on HBO Max.

The movie is one of the summer’s big buzz movies that should continue to bring people back to theaters with the positive reviews leading to inevitable positive word-of-mouth among a moviegoing audience that for a long time brought a ton of business into theaters.

I feel like In the Heights could make a play for $30 million this weekend even with the knowledge that it’s also playing on HBO Max. It just seems like a lot of people are going to want to see this in a theater with other people, and frankly, it’s been so hot outside, especially in New York, that it’s going to be a great option to see in theaters in order to get some much-needed air conditioning, if nothing else. But expect it to do well enough among audiences to have some significant legs, although I’m a little hesitant at calling it to make $100 million even with restrictions being reduced and more theaters opening every weekend. I’d love to see it happen but for now, I’ll stick with around $80 million for its domestic gross.

Also opening wide this week is the family sequel, PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY (Sony Pictures), which has also been delayed a number of times since COVID hit. Once again directed by Will Gluck (Easy A), the sequel had a plum Easter release last year or maybe that was this year. Honestly, I don’t remember. In the sequel, Beatrix Potter’s popular literary character Peter Rabbit (voiced by James Corden) has to contend with the couple from the first movie, played by Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson, are getting married, and Peter’s feeling a bit put-out, because he’s considered the “troublemaker” among the bunny family of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Benjamin (voiced by Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Aimee Horne and Colin Moody). He ends up running away (duh) and getting in with a group of London animal crooks, including the rabbit Barnabas (voiced by Lennie James from Fear the Walking Dead), who may have been friends with Peter’s father.

I only first watched the first Peter Rabbit movie, originally released on February 9, 2018, earlier this week before watching the sequel, and honestly, that first movie was much better than I expected and better than it should have been, and I probably could say the same for the sequel. I generally love Rose Byrne, and oddly, I like James Corden voicing Peter Rabbit more than I have other things he’s done. Maybe it’s just that Beatrix Potter’s character works even when put into a modern setting where Byrne seems to be playing a version of Potter who ends up getting a big publishing deal with David Oyelowo (another actor I like) playing the publishing big wig who wants Bea to change things. It’s just as funny seeing Peter fighting with Gleeson’s McGregor for the film’s physical humor to help sustain a second movie.

Actually, I kind of liked that Gluck’s movie is kind of wholesome rarely going for the easy laughs or things we’ve seen in far too many animated movies (slow-motion and bathroom humor, for instance), and also having jokes that only the parents will laugh at. The film is also quite a technical marvel because mixing CG characters with live action ones is something that rarely turns out well (see Sony’s Smurfs movies, for instance) but CG production house Animal Logic, who also did Happy Feet and The LEGO Movie, really now how to give these furry, cuddly creatures real physical attributes that makes even cynical adults like myself completely believe in them.

Let’s get to some box office thoughts. The original Peter Rabbit movie opened with $25 million, which is pretty good for a family film from the before times. More importantly, it made $115 million in domestic theaters as it lasted through the summer, which shows that kids and families really loved Corden’s take on the popular children’s book character. Even though these are different times, and we are not seeing that many movies opening with more than $25 million, the success of the first movie means that kids will probably not be too old to want to see Peter Rabbit’s new adventures.

I think this one can probably open with $14 to 16 million when you realize there isn’t very much competition for family audiences, at least nothing PG, because even DIsney’s Raya and the Last Dragon is now on DIsney+. (Okay, there's also Spirit Untamed, but that proved to be quite a non-starter, and this seems like an easier sell to a wider group of kids and even adults.) That and the fact that Peter Rabbit 2 isn’t simultaneously on streaming should give it a strong play for second place this weekend, and don’t be surprised if it has similar legs to make $60 million plus just in theaters alone.

Also being released fairly wide is the Deon Taylor-directed horror comedy sequel, THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR: MEET THE BLACKS 2 (Lionsgate), which probably wasn’t screened for critics in advance. I’m not quite sure how wide Lionsgate is planning to go with this, but the original movie opened in over 1,000 theaters in April 2016 and made $4 million its opening weekend and $9 million total. One can assume that the first movie was popular enough to create an audience for the second movie that hasn’t really had what we used to call an “urban comedy” in quite some time, particularly since Paramount’s Coming 2 America ended up streaming on Amazon. Since audiences are generally trying to get back out to theaters, it’s safe to assume that the audience for this kind of comedy feels the same. I probably could see this opening with around $3 million, but it’s hard to say without having a definite theater count. I’ve become quite a big fan of Taylor in the years since the first movie, so I might even venture out to see this if I have the time.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Mark Wahlberg, the sci-fi action movie INFINITE (Paramount+) was supposed to get a theatrical release but is instead being dumped to Paramount+, and sadly, dumped is the operative word here, because it pains me to say that the duo behind Shooter and other cool movies I’ve enjoyed have made a very, very, very, very, very bad movie.

The fairly ridiculous premise -- which to be fair is based on a book called “The Reincarnationist Papers” by D. Eric Maikranz -- involves a cadre of people known as Infinites who can remember everything from their past lives. There are “good Infinites” called Believers, and “bad Infinites” called Nihilists who are sick of living through their pasts so they just want to make the whole world burn.

Wahlberg plays Evan McCauley, a good “Infinite” even though he only remembers part of things from the past, and he’s thought to be the reincarnation of one of the Believers’ leaders named “Heinrich Treadway,” who we see die in a car chase through Mexico City in the film’s opening. Treadaway’s mortal enemy is Bathurst, played by Chiewetel Ejiofor, who wouldn’t mind finding and killing Treadaway first because he has an “Egg” with great power that can help end the world.

Okay, the premise could definitely be interesting, despite being an obvious Highlander rip-off, but unfortunately, it becomes very obvious that a movie like this constantly needs to explain to the viewer why this premise is “so cool,” and whenever anyone does try to explain anything, it just sounds incredibly stupid. We’ve seen so many sci-fi action movies like this one, and frankly, I was a little surprised that this one didn’t star Bruce Willis, because it definitely seemed like his thing. (Anyone remember Surrogates? That movie’s director, Jonathan Mostow, is STILL in directors’ jail!!) But more importantly, it reminds me of a much better version of the same idea that was just released, called The Old Guard, which … what the fuck?!? … also starred Chiwetel Ejiofor!! (At least in that one, he doesn't have a ridiculous accent and isn't chewing up every single bit of scenery.)

Yeah, it’s hard to forget that you’re watching an inferior version of The Old Guard when Ejiofor is RIGHT THERE, but this one combines a lame attempt at world-building with some surprisingly decent action scenes, but it’s also hard not to think that Fuqua -- and I say this as one of the director’s biggest fans -- was trying to do his own version of The Matrix. But any opportunity to do something cool in the action realm is destroyed as soon as we get more “splaining” about this world, a lot of it done by Jason Mantzoukas as the Artisan, a mad surgeon who also explains things in a confusing way that it never helps. He’s also the film’s only attempt at humor, and he’s done far better in other things. The film’s only real female character, Sophie Cookson’s Norah, is so bland and generic that you quickly forget what she’s bringing to the movie, if anything. (As you watch the movie, you realize how smart it was for Chris Evans to get out while the gettin' was good.)

By the time it gets to the final climax, we get a somewhat decent final battle on an airplane between Treadway and Bathurst, but by then it’s too late. We get some horrible narration before the movie ends with a set-up for a possible sequel will not make ANYONE (particularly critics) happy if that sequel does indeed happen.

Infinite makes it obvious that remembering one’s past lives could only be made much worse by having watched this movie in one of them. This is horrendously bad, awful crap.

A big release on the streaming series side of things is Marvel Studios’ LOKI (Disney+), the first episode of which is on the streamer now. I’ve actually seen the first two episodes and they’re interesting. Essentially, Loki has been captured by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organization that exists outside time and is charged with making sure that variant timelines and people aren’t created by things like Loki’s stunt in Avengers: Endgame where he got out of the Avengers’ grip using the tesseract, essentially changing his own timeline. I watched the first two episodes and thought they were pretty good but not the OMG THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!! that everything Marvel does seems to get from the rubes calling themselves “film critics.” I liked seeing Hiddleton returning as the characters, because he’s quite good as Loki, although Owen Wilson (as TVA agent Mobius) basically seems to be playing himself and not really doing anything particularly memorable. Because of that, Loki comes off as a buddy comedy with a lot of conversations between Loki and Owen Wilson, so if that’s your thing, then maybe you’ll like Loki, but maybe it’ll also get better over the next few episodes as WandaVision did. (I mean, one thing I can say as a positive is that the Marvel Studios/Disney+ series have been much more watchable than the Netflix/Marvel series, because I didn’t get through a single one of those.)

Chris Appelhans’ animated WISH DRAGON (Netflix) was originally going to be released by Sony Pictures since it was produced by Sony Pictures Animation as a Chinese co-production, but for whatever reason, it’s now going to be on Netflix. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet but hope to get to it soon.

Also now on Netflix is Mark Raso’s thriller AWAKE, starring Gina Rodriguez as Jill, a former soldier in a world that’s been hit by a catastrophe that wipes out all electronics and eliminates humanity’s ability to sleep. Jill realizes that her daughter may be the key to salvation but isn’t sure if she wants to sacrifice her to save the world. Again, another movie that I just couldn’t find the time to watch if I wanted to get my work done for Below the Line. (Things are very busy right now because Emmy nominations take place over the next couple weeks.)

Jessica Barden (The End of the F*** World) stars in Nicole Riegel’s indie drama, HOLLER (IFC FIlms), playing Ruth Avery, a young woman who sees her acceptance into college as a way to get out of her dreary Southern Ohio town. She decides to take a job on a dangerous scrap metal crew with her older brother (Gus Halper) while stealing metal at night in order to pay her way to college, and she finds herself torn between her future and her family. The movie also stars Pamela Adlon as their mother. After premiering at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Holler will be released in theaters and digitally and On Demand this Friday.

I actually thought this one wasn’t bad even though it treads on rather familiar indie drama territory of wanting to get out of one’s town and get out into the world. Obviously, Barden’s presence is what really drives the film, because she is such a fantastic presence. I especially liked her in Jungleland, but this shows what she can do in a full-on leading role. While I wouldn’t urge anyone to race out to their local cinema to see Holler, it’s not a bad debut feature from Riegel, who built it out from a previous short, which feels somewhat obvious.

I was able to see Prano Bailey-Bond’s CENSOR (Magnet) at Sundance earlier this year and found it to be a nice creepy video nasty. It stars Niah Algar as Enid Barnes, a film censor who watches and rates horrible low-budget horror videos but who is also obsessed with finding her missing sister and seemingly finding a clue in a particularly strange horror film. Censor will hit theaters Friday and then be on digital on June 18, but I’ll have to watch it again to remember if I liked it for more than Niah Algar’s performance.

Starting on Friday up at Film at Lincoln Center is a special “Big Screen Summer: NYFF58 Redux” which is basically showcasing a bunch of movies from last year’s New York Film Festival, which was mainly held virtually, but now you can finally see many of them in the FilmLinc theaters, running from June 11 through August 26, and it includes things like Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe Anthology” (which haven’t been screened theatrically in New York other than at drive-ins). Click on the link above to see when any of your favorites or ones you missed will be screening.

I didn’t get a chance to watch Ty Roberts’ adaptation of Jim Dent’s novel, 12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (Sony Pictures Classics), but it opens in Texas this Friday and then nationwide on June 18. Starring Luke Wilson, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Wayne Knight and Vinessa Shaw, it tells the story of the Mighty Mites football team of Fort Worth, made up of orphans during the Great Depression who barely had shoes or football but with the help of legendary high school coach Rusty Russell (Wilson), gave up a lucrative position to teach and coach the orphanage team. Rusty developed strategies that would allow the scrawny team to beat much bigger players on the football field. I’ll probably try to write something more about this next week.

Some of the movies I just didn’t have time to write about include:

QUEEN OF SPADES (Dread) SUBLET (Greenwich) ASIA (Mnemsha Films) UPHEAVAL (Abramorama) THE MISFITS (Highland Film Group, The Avenue) QUEEN BEES (Gravitas Ventures)

Next week’s big release is another sequel, THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD (Lionsgate), but also Edgar Wright’s documentary, THE SPARKS BROTHERS (Focus Features), will be released after its festival run.

[beautytipsfor]

Cops Are Finally Being Disciplined—but Is Anybody Buying It?

Nearly two weeks into protests against the killing of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis police custody, a slew of different cities across the country have been forced to confront the brutal methods used by their own police officers as videos emerged of harrowing incident after harrowing incident. And on Friday, it seemed a reckoning of sorts was in the air: Police officers in multiple cities were suspended, hit with charges, or stripped of their powers after they were caught on camera treating peaceful protesters like combatants. In New York City, where earlier this week authorities had praised the police department’s “restraint” amid protests despite video evidence to the contrary, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea announced that two officers involved in violent encounters with protesters—including one woman who was violently pushed to the ground and a man who was pepper sprayed after his mask was pulled down—have been suspended without pay.New York Cops Beat Protesters for Crime of Being ThereIn Philadelphia, the District Attorney’s office filed aggravated assault charges against police inspector Joseph Bologna after a video showed him hitting a demonstrator with a metal baton. The demonstrator, a Temple University student who was also arrested and detained for 24 hours, needed ten staples and sutures in his head following Monday's incident in Center City. Several states away, two Chicago police officers caught on video pulling a woman from a car by her hair before placing a knee on her neck have been stripped of their police powers pending an investigation, authorities said in a Friday statement. But before the night was even halfway over, the illusion of change began to unravel. NYPD officers rushed dozens of demonstrators in Manhattan that were out past the 8 p.m. curfew, arresting people in droves and hitting several with batons. At least 10 protesters were arrested after the peaceful protest—several of whom chanted “black lives matter” while they were awaiting transport, according to City & State NY.“This is outrageous. We were engaged in a non-violent protest. Stop arresting New Yorkers for no reason,” NYC Council Member Ben Kallos tweeted.Across the river in Brooklyn, one protester told The Daily Beast he was pushed over by authorities—prompting other residents to shout and swear at officers pushing them to go home past curfew. After a tense stand-off in which cops yelled at reporters and pushed people who had been peacefully protesting onto the sidewalks, at least a dozen were arrested and directed into NYPD vans. And in Buffalo, while there was a sense of accountability after the officers who shoved down 75-year-old Martin Gugino on Thursday night were suspended without pay, there was another sign of the rift between peaceful protesters and police officers as 57 fellow members of the Buffalo Police Department Emergency Response Team resigned in solidarity with the suspended officers.In Minneapolis, where protesters continued to express outrage over the death of Floyd on Friday, demonstrators were skeptical of police being held accountable. Zeque Davies, a 29-year-old whose parents emigrated to Minneapolis from Liberia, said the cities that have disciplined officers in recent days are “trying to prove a point through the media.” “I don’t think they’re actually holding cops accountable,” Davies told The Daily Beast. “A slap on the wrist and a paid vacation is not holding a cop accountable. Trying him, arresting him and giving him a charge, that’s holding a cop accountable.”Demonstrators in other cities weren't convinced that a simple suspension would solve any problems. “I'm sure there are professional police officers. But what we're seeing is that unlike other departments or other services, when a police officer goes rogue, they kill people,” Tara Smith, 30, told The Daily Beast at a vigil held at Union Square in Manhattan. “A city clerk is not going to do the same kind of damage, so you can't tell me that they should not be held to a higher standard than other industries and other departments and services.” Others pointed out that all the recent acts of brutality by police were happening even while people were filming them—raising the question of what happens when the cameras stop rolling. Carolina Martinez, a bartender in Buffalo taking part in a peaceful protest on Friday, said it only took four hours for video of police officers shoving down a peaceful protester to garner worldwide attention a day earlier. “The only thing we can do now is just continue to just broadcast it,” she said. Residents still came out in droves on Friday to protest. In Washington, D.C., the mayor’s office commissioned “Black Lives Matter” to be painted across a street leading to the White House.Cops Reclaim New York in Massive Show of Force In New York, thousands of residents across the five boroughs took to the streets despite the rain. Upstate, in Buffalo, protesters gathered in Niagara Square demanding police reform one day after an elderly activist was shoved to the ground by officers.The nation-wide demonstrations on Friday also focused on Breonna Taylor, the Kentucky EMT worker fatally shot in her home during a botched March police raid. On Friday, Taylor would have been 27-years-old. From New York to Portland to Miami, thousands of protesters sang Happy Birthday in Taylor’s honor. In Kentucky, dozens of demonstrators gathered in Jefferson Square Park in Kentucky to honor her memory, many writing birthday cards that will be sent to Taylor’s family.In Miami, hundreds of residents took to the streets in a Black Lives Matter protest, forcing officials to shut down several highways and the mayor to change the city-wide curfew. The Miami Police Department closed Interstate 95 in both directions to allow space for the continued protesters chanting “say their names” near Wynwood. “I think the protests are finally getting politicians and police departments to finally listen. Everyday it's a step forward,”  Ashlynn Lee, 20, told The Daily Beast. Her friend, Tanisha Brown, 20, added: “They are definitely listening to what these protests are about. We are taking not only over the streets in the 50 states and different countries, but also social media. All you see when you scroll down is black lives matter. People are starting to shout it is definitely happening. Everybody is fighting for black lives.”About an hour later, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giminez moved the curfew to 10 p.m., after it was pushed back to midnight earlier this week. Alan, one protester who attended the Miami protests, called the mayor’s decision to bump up the curfew due to “unrest” a “bullshit move.”“If it wasn't about Black Lives Matter and police reform, the protestors would be treated differently. There was no unrest,” Alan said. In Minneapolis, the intersection where Floyd was killed has turned into a constant block party—complete with a stage that hosts speakers, spoken word artists, and rappers. Robin Jackson, 27-year-who lives down the street, told The Daily Beast things are peaceful in the downtown Minneapolis neighborhood, for now. He added that while some Americans are reeling from Floyd’s tragic death, the black community is simply witnessing what they have known for years.“I feel like this is just the acknowledgment among people other than Black people, where they can say, “Ok, maybe they have a point,” Jackson said. “They’re at least acknowledging that something is happening.”The ongoing protests have already sparked police reform in two states. City officials in Minneapolis have agreed to ban police chokeholds while detaining suspects and require officers to intervene when they see unauthorized force used by a colleague. Every Buffalo Cop in Elite Unit Quits to Back Officers Who Shoved Elderly Man to GroundIn California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered the “carotid hold,” a neck restraint move that blocks blood flow to the brain, be removed from police training. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Friday announced a ban on the police use of tear gas for 30 days as protests are expected to continue in the city. The ban came just hours after three civilian police watchdog groups urged Seattle leaders to ban the violent tactic that public health officials believe may potentially increase the COVID-19 spread. A federal judge in Denver Friday also ruled that police must limit their use of “chemical weapons or projectiles” and a number of other measures of force against protesters, calling the past actions of law enforcement nation-wide “disgusting.”As demonstrators have continued to take to the streets, one medical worker in New York acknowledged that the health care community is concerned about how the protests will ultimately impact the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “Obviously it worries us because we’re afraid of a spike in coronavirus cases. We all work at a hospital and we know what that means when that happens,” Sushmitha Echt, an attending physician at Northwell Health, told The Daily Beast. “At the same time, we’re wearing our masks... there are certain things we just have to take a stand for. This is one of those things.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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