#San Francisco is going through a real fucking crisis

[wearingraincoats]

It’s so fucking hot, I wanna die 😭😭😭 10 PM and it’s still in the 80s. And humid as fuck, can’t forget the humidity. I miss living in San Francisco so so much, it really was the perfect weather for me. I love the fog, I love that it’s only really hot about two weeks out of the year, I love that the city is about 10 degrees cooler than the East Bay. If money was no object, I’d move back so fucking fast (even though tbh, it’s not much more expensive to where I am now, and I hate where I live). I’ll be real though, I’ve never been through wildfires, I’ve never experienced drought or water shortages, and that scares the shit out of me. I don’t think it’ll be too long before people have to really think about where they’re going to move due to the climate crisis. God, all of this shit scares me to death, I can’t believe it’s not scaring the people directly responsible for killing our planet. I swear they think that they’ll get by just fine with their billions of dollars, and they will for a while, but what good is money when money is worthless compared to water? Thinking about the future is enough to make me want to crawl into a hole forever. Hell, thinking about the present is enough for that.

[physiqueandfantasy]

I watched a guy almost get killed by a homeless man at work today, so they let me go home early! Woo!

[profoundnet]

Header by @cryptomoon and is available on merch from her redbubble store. You can use all those fancy emojis (and more!) on our Discord server!

The Masterpost is open for all creations by ProfoundBond members which are posted in their entirety during that month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR AUGUST 2020!

Featuring works by Ahurston | @allmystars-i | @a-mandala-rose | @andimeantittosting | ArielAquarial | @destielshipper4cas | DragonSgotenks | Endellion | @friendofcarlotta | @friendofcarlotta | @haybibiboi | @kingbirdkathy | @kitmistry |  @latter-alice |  @maleyah-givemetomorrow | @nickelkeep | @one-more-offbeat-anthem | Shadowkat83 | @sketching-fox |  @spnsmile | @starprincecas | @writerposer

Masterpost below the cut.

DragonSgotenks - DragonSgotenks

Getting to Know You (E, 9.1k)

When picking up his new company assigned laptop to work from home Castiel Novak meets IT tech Dean Winchester, who's a little flirty and a lot drop dead gorgeous. After Dean gives Castiel his phone number Castiel calls for help with his computer and Dean, well, Dean is VERY helpful.

Tags: TopCastiel/bottomDean, strangers to lovers, condoms, anal sex, meet-cute

~

one_more_offbeat_anthem - @one-more-offbeat-anthem -  one_more_offbeat_anthem

A Barely Functioning Adult’s Guide to Beekeeping (T, 10.7k)

Dean Winchester and Cas Devereaux, seniors, are roommates and best friends. Cas is the president of the beekeeping club, and he eventually cajoles Dean into coming to a couple meetings. Meanwhile, Dean is struggling with his relationship with his estranged father, whether or not he’ll get to graduate, and the fact that he’s maybe, kinda-sorta, almost definitely in love with Cas. Pair those things with his lack of confidence, a sudden road trip home to Kansas, a nosy creative writing professor, and the fact that he might be drinking too much—Dean’s a wreck who believes he has no future. But he might be wrong.

Tags: College AU, First Kiss, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, the Impala, Angst and Fluff

~

Lovemuppet - @haybibiboi - lovemuppet

15x03 Where’s your head at? (T, 979 words)

Prompt: take a sad scene and try to make it sadder. 15x03: the breakup

Tags: angst, episode related

~

kitmistry - @kitmistry - Kitmistry

Stumble and Fall (E, 42k)

Castiel was raised to do one thing: serve his country, whether that was fighting a war or becoming an expert spy. But when his lover is charged with treason and executed Castiel defects. He has evidence that can destroy the KGB’s entire spy ring in New Mexico, he has names of scientists involved with atomic weapons who send information to the Soviets, and he won’t stop until he has revenge. Putting all his trust in the Americans, Castiel finds himself under the protection of U.S. Marshal Dean Winchester, who is too cocky and attractive for his own good, but at least seems to know what he’s doing. When a routine transfer to a safehouse goes horribly wrong, Castiel and Dean narrowly escape with their lives. With the Marshals compromised and Castiel being framed for murder, he and Dean are on the run from KGB and law enforcement alike. They have no one to trust except each other, and nowhere to go that their enemies can’t reach.

Tags: Cold War AU, Soviet Spy Castiel, US Marshal Dean Winchester, Enemies to Lovers, Suspense

~

latter-alice - @latter-alice - Latter-alice

pressing the issue (M, 2.2k)

"So," Dean shifts closer, "what's the big one?" It's obvious, and he isn't stupid. There's only one reason to ask this now. To press the issue. His answer is short, to the point. "You." The night before they leave to fight Chuck, Cas and Dean keep each other company.

Tags: First Kiss, Confessions, Cas is stressed

Sweet Insanity (G, 709 words)

"So," Dean draws the word out as he gives Cas a once over. "Did it hurt?" End of series fluff

Tags: fluff, first kiss

~

Maleyah - @maleyah-givemetomorrow 

“Dean” (SFW)

A Cas drawn for Ineffable Impala's DTIYS. Sparked a companion piece Dean.

Tags: Destiel, Mobster!Cas, DTIYS submission

“Heya Cas” (NSFW)

Companion Dean, who may or may not be praying to Cas, while he's busy.

Tags: Destiel, DTIYS submission

~

Kait - @kingbirdkathy - kait

Don’t leave me (SFW-ish)

"Don't leave me.“

Tags: things that Dean can never say out loud, hint of butt

reverse destiel (SFW)

reverse destiel DIY, original by gabester_sketch.

Tags: Hunter Cas, Angel Dean

smut time (NSFW)

just some smut

Tags: bottom dean, riding

~

MandalaRose - @a-mandala-rose - MandalaRose

The Shots You Don’t Take (E, 57k)

Still nursing the tatters of a broken heart and trying desperately to stave off the terror of his impending graduation, college senior Cas Novak decides it’s time to blow off a little steam. Not just any hook-up will do, however. The last thing Cas needs right now is a distraction. On the lookout for someone he can enjoy a steamy night of passion with before leaving them behind entirely, Cas thinks he’s found exactly what he needs in cocky university hockey star and well-known playboy Dean Winchester. Dean is gorgeous, doesn’t date, and is the singular most infuriating person Cas has ever met. He’s the perfect one night stand...that is, until Dean decides he wants an instant replay of what was supposed to be a one-time event. Will Cas’ offer of friends, sans benefits, convince the arrogant love ’em and leave ’em hockey defenseman to find an easier score? Or will Dean wear down Cas’ defenses and lure the sexy nerd in the dorky trenchcoat back to his bed?

Tags: Hockey AU, College AU, Hate to Love, One Night Stands, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Injury/Hospital, Briefly described (non-graphic) violence, Panic Attack, Fake/Pretend Relationship, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.

~

nickelkeep - @nickelkeep - nickelkeep

Sometimes You’re the Sea (M, 10.2k)

When a freak storm overtakes the Lebanon, and Dean is knocked overboard, he's considered lost at sea. That is, until Dean wakes up onshore, with the bluest eyes he had ever seen watching over him. In a matter of days, Dean's world is turned upside down. He's falling in love with the man who saved him. A stranger appears, demanding his hand in marriage. And Dean's pretty sure that bird just called him a Dumbass.

Tags: AU - 1700s, AU - Fantasy, AU - Creatureverse, Sailor!Dean, Cecaelia!Cas, Dean POV, Little Mermaid Elements

Dog Days are Over (M, 7.8k)

It was cold. Dean shivered and reached for a blanket before snapping awake. He wasn't in his bed. He wasn't at home. For fuck's sake, Dean was still shifted. He whimpered, hating how pathetic he sounded, and tried to push himself up onto all fours. As Dean tried to put weight on his front left leg, he yelped out in pain and fell back onto the cage’s cold metal floor. He was either at the shelter or at the Vet. And he was so screwed.

Tags: AU - Modern, AU - Creatures Exist, Animal Shifter!Dean, Animal Injury, Hurt!Dean, Hurt/Comfort

~

FriendofCarlotta - @friendofcarlotta - FriendofCarlotta

A Fear of Falling (E, 40k)

After his partner’s tragic death, Dean Winchester resigns from San Francisco PD to work as a private investigator. Dean’s first case is a make-or-break opportunity: tailing the youngest brother of powerful shipping magnate Nick Novak. Castiel Novak, estranged from his family by choice, lives a quiet life 30 miles north of the city. His lonely but peaceful existence comes to a rapid end when he’s drawn into a plot to fake his brother’s death. As Dean and Castiel’s paths cross and they grow closer, the noose of a dangerous conspiracy tightens around them. Will they discover the truth before it’s too late?

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Private Investigator Dean Winchester, Accountant Castiel, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Discussions of Past Suicide, Discussions of Past Drug Abuse, Minor Character Death, Inspired by Vertigo (1958), Acrophobia, Angst with a Happy Ending

Stranger Things Do Happen (T, 852 words)

Dean invites Cas to experience the human ritual of watching horror movies to get ready for Halloween. Cas soon realizes that watching scary movies with Dean may come with unexpected... opportunities.

Tags: Domesticity in the Men of Letters Bunker, Movie Nights in the Dean Cave, Getting Together, Dean Winchester Has a Sexuality Crisis, Gratuitous References to 70s and 80s Horror Movies

~

Ahurston - ahurston

Yarrow, Lilac, and Foxglove (E, 10.4k)

Dean, Cas, and the magical garden down the road.

Tags: Fluff but give it feelings, domesticity, post-season 15, explicit sexual content, established relationship

~

allmystars - @allmystars-i - allmystars

Feels Like Nothing (G, 700 words)

Newly Human Castiel feels the weight of human existence for the first time. Dean is there to get him through.

Tags: Canon Universe, Human Castiel, Depressed Castiel, Supportive Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Holding Hands, Hopeful Ending

~

sketching-fox - @sketching-fox

The Black Trenchcoat (SFW)

Artworks done for the fic “The Black Trenchcoat”, written by spnsmile in our partnership on spncanonbigbang!

Tags: winged cas, kisses, fic art. Accompanied by fic by @spnsmile.

~

Endellion - Endellion

If Tomorrow Never Comes (E, 1.4k)

Dean promised Cas wouldn't die a virgin and he's going to keep his promise.

Tags: Bottom Dean, Top Castiel, anal sex, anal fingering

What We Want and What We Need (E, 1.3k)

Cas is angry, Dean is sorry. They go to the bar's bathroom to work it out.

Tags: Angry sex, Top Dean, Bottom Castiel, anal sex, spit as lube

~

writerposer - @writerposer - writerposer

Croat-Ville (E, 27k)

When Castiel stumbles into the Winchester's survivor camp, one of the few safe havens left after the Croatoan virus ravaged the earth, he had thought he lost everything. What he found there, who he found, would change his life, and maybe the world.

Tags: Endverse, Age Difference, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Skip

~

Destielshipper4Cas - @destielshipper4cas - Destielshipper4Cas

Fake Bite, Real Love (M, 2.7k)

To show his ex that he has moved on, Cas wants to fake a claiming bite on his neck. Painting it on doesn’t work, but luckily, his best friend and long-term crush Dean steps up to the task. Keeping a lid on his feelings is getting difficult, however, when the alpha is nibbling on his mating gland.

Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Best Friends, Idiots in Love, Omega Castiel, Alpha Dean

~

Shadowkat83 - Shadowkat83

Drowning in Guilt (T, 4k)

Bot Prompt: Dean is having another slice of pizza; Cas is polishing his angel blade; Sam is at the library Summary: When Sam discovers a case of people drowning after leaving the local bar. They head to check it out, what they didn't expect was to lose Dean to the creature. Now Cas and Sam need to find Dean before its too late.

Tags: monster of the week, angst, flirting, jealously, hurt Dean, feeling realization, two parts, confession of feelings

~

goldenraeofsun - @goldenraeofsun - goldenraeofsun

A Thousand Lies (E, 73k)

Dean Winchester is the best con artist in the continental US. Conscripted into the life after a stupid mistake as a teenager, he works for a man only known as the Lightbringer. He specializes in the marriage con, tricking his marks into falling in love with him and bolting after the honeymoon with everything they own. But the morning before his meticulously planned meet-cute with his newest assignment, he runs into an adorably clueless accountant named Cas in a coffee shop, and Dean’s entire view on life implodes.

Tags: con artist Dean Winchester, accountant Castiel, mutual pining, slow burn, Dean Winchester has self-worth issues, minor Dean/Crowley, angst with a happy ending

~

andimeantittosting - @andimeantittosting - andimeantittosting

Honour Undressed (E, 15.3k)

Among his friends, Castiel, Lord Milton is everyone’s confidant and, along with his trusted valet, the fixer of problems. But there is one secret Castiel has never shared: he is in love with his valet and has been for years. Born in the gutters, Dean Winchester was assigned as Castiel’s batman in the war, and when Castiel travelled home to take up his title, Dean followed him as his valet. To assist Castiel, Dean is not above a little burglary or blackmail. But the one thing he wants for himself is Castiel’s heart. When Castiel’s closest friends become the target of a blackmailer, certain truths come out. But while Dean determines to seduce Castiel, Castiel is adamant that he must resist, for if there is one rule a gentleman must follow, it is never to dally with his servant.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Class Differences, Blackmail, Mutual Pining, Happy Ending

~

starprincecas - @starprincecas - cuddlesandcas

Tell All The Truth, But Tell It Slant (T, 35k)

A cursed object gets touched, truths start coming out, and emotions reluctantly with them.

Tags: Canon Divergent - Post Season 8, Truth Spell, Bunker Fic, Human!Castiel, Drama, Humor

~

ArielAquarial - ArielAquarial

Hidden in the Sand (G, 5.4k)

Dean tries to drive down to Palo Alto as often as he can to spend quality time with Sam. This time, things are different. Not only is he secretly apartment hunting only a city away, but he's finally getting the chance to fish on the beach instead of a rickety old pier. Despite Sam's warning about stingrays, Dean insists everything will be fine and heads into the water without a care. What could go wrong?

Tags: Fluff, Cockblock Sam Winchester, Brotherly Bonding, Day At The Beach, Vacation, First Meetings, Flirting, Alternate Universe, Lifeguard Castiel (Supernatural)

~

spnsmile - @spnsmile - spnsmile

Destiel Prompt August Collection 2020 (G, 29k)

Collection of short Destiel stories prompt of August writer's month 2020

Tags: Romance,  AU, fluff,  established Castiel/Dean, First Meet,  Cute-Meet, Profound Bond,  Idiots in Love,  Boys Kissing,  Soul Mate

SKID (E, 24k)

Dean Winchester swore off love after getting dumped and fired from his job the same day. Badly drunk, he ended up balcony-hopping until a pair of hands snatched him inside a darkened room. But it's no hero, it's someone with deep voice whispering threats with a gun pointed at his back. Dean’s too drunk to deal with life but one good look at his hot assailant plus enough beer sold him to his accursed fate. The next morning, he found himself engaged to the most notorious leader of a powerful clan, Castiel Novak. Married life in the compound for a month was not as blissful so when he could, Dean fought for that freedom. Castiel relented and as Dean tried to put the pieces of his normal life together, getting a bike messenger job and dealing with pain in the ass clients, he now also needs to deal with the dangerous presence of his very jealous and very protective husband watching over him. Is his life ever going to get back to normal?

Tags: Alternate Universe-Gangster, MAFIA, Arranged Marriage,  Romance,  Hate/Love, Protectiveness,  Established Relationship,  Domestics,  Hurt and Comfort,  True love

Black Trenchcoat (E, 23k)

When Dean found out Castiel was working with Crowley to open Purgatory, he had no choice but to leave the angel in the ring of fire with nothing less than a broken heart. But instead of plotting against his friend, Dean takes a literal sense of fire vs fire. He decides to kill Castiel with love. Or that story where Dean convinces Castiel to look into their future to see if Castiel's plan against Raphael succeeds, only to find the world in chaos and an angel donning a black trenchcoat emerges to take Dean away.

Tags: Canon Divergence,  Romance,  Time Travel,  Protectiveness,  Possessive Castiel, season 6, Profound Bond, Kidnapped Dean Winchester,  Wings,  Kissing. Accompanied by art by @sketching-fox.

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2020

We’ll start with movies. The number in parentheses is the year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. Here’s 2019’s list. 

01 Little Women (19)

02 The Post (17) 

03 Molly’s Game (17)

04 * Doctor No (62)

05 Groundhog Day (93)

06 *Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (86)

07 Knives Out (19) My last theatre experience (sob)

08 Professor Marston and his Wonder Women (17)

09 Les Miserables (98)

10 Midsommar (19) I’m not sure how *good* it is, but it does stick in the ol’ brain

11 *Manhattan Murder Mystery (93)

12 Marriage Story (19)

13 Kramer vs Kramer (79)

14 Jojo Rabbit (19)

15 J’ai perdu mon corps (19) a cute animated film about a hand detached from its body!

16 1917 (19)

17 Married to the Mob (88)

18 Klaus (19)

19 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (19) If Little Women made me want to wear a scarf criss-crossed around my torso, this one made me want to wear a cloak

20 The Last Black Man in San Francisco (19)

21 *Lawrence of Arabia (62)

22 Gone With the Wind (39)

23 Kiss Me Deadly (55)

24 Dredd (12)

25 Heartburn (86) heard a bunch about this one in the Blank Check series on Nora Ephron, sadly after I’d watched it

26 The Long Shot (19)

27 Out of Africa (85)

28 King Kong (46)

29 *Johnny Mnemonic (95)

30 Knocked Up (07)

31 Collateral (04)

32 Bird on a Wire (90)

33 The Black Dahlia (05)

34 Long Time Running (17)

35 *Magic Mike (12)

36 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (07)

37 Cold War (18)

38 *Kramer Vs Kramer (79) yes I watched this a few months before! This was a pandemic friend group co-watch.

39 *Burn After Reading (08)

40 Last Holiday (50)

41 Fly Away Home (96)

42 *Moneyball (11) I’m sure I watch this every two years, at most??

43 Last Holiday (06) the Queen Latifah version of the 1950 movie above, lacking, of course, the brutal “poor people don’t deserve anything good” ending

44 *Safe (95)

45 Gimme Shelter (70)

46 The Daytrippers (96)

47 Experiment in Terror (62)

48 Tucker: The Man and His Dream (88)

49 My Brilliant Career (79) one of the salvations of 2020 was watching movies “with” friends. Our usual method was to video chat before the movie, sync our streaming services, and text-chat while the movie was on. 

50 Divorce Italian Style (61)

51 *Gosford Park (01) another classic comfort watch, fuck I love a G. Park

52 Hopscotch (80)

53 Brief Encounter (45)

54 Hud (63)

55 Ocean’s 8 (18)

56 *Beverly Hills Cop (84)

57 Blow the Man Down (19)

58 Constantine (05)

59 The Report (19) maddening!! How are people so consistently terrible to one another!

60 Everyday People (04)

61 Anatomy of a Murder (58)

62 Spiderman: Homecoming (17)

63 *To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95) Of the 90s drag road movies, Priscilla is more visually striking, but this has its moments.

64 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (92)

65 *The Truman Show (98)

66 Mona Lisa (86)

67 The Blob (58)

68 The Guard (11)

69 *Waiting for Guffman (96) RIP Fred Willard

70 Rocketman (19)

71 Outside In (18)

72 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (08) how strange to see a movie that you have known the premise for, but no details of, for over a decade

73 *Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (91)

74 The Reader (08)

75 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (19) This was fine until it VERY MUCH WAS NOT FINE

76 The End of the Affair (99) you try to watch a fun little romp about infidelity during the Blitz, and Graham Greene can’t help but shoehorn in a friggin crisis of religious faith

77 Must Love Dogs (05) barely any dog content, where are the dogs at

78 The Rainmaker (97)

79 *Batman & Robin (97)

80 National Lampoon’s Vacation (83) Never seen any of the non-xmas Vacations, didn’t realize the children are totally different, not just actors but ages! Also, this one is blatantly racist!

81 *Mystic Pizza (88)

82 Funny Girl (68)

83 The Sons of Katie Elder (65)

84 *Knives Out (19) another re-watch within the same year!! How does this keep happening??

85 *Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (10) a real I-just-moved-away-from-Toronto nostalgia watch

86 Canadian Bacon (92) vividly recall this VHS at the video store, but I never saw it til 2020

87 *Blood Simple (85)

88 Brittany Runs a Marathon (19)

89 The Accidental Tourist (88)

90 August Osage County (13) MELO-DRAMA!!

91 Appaloosa (08)

92 The Firm (93) Feeling good about how many iconic 80s/90s video store stalwarts I watched in 2020

93 *Almost Famous (00)

94 Whisper of the Heart (95)

95 Da 5 Bloods (20)

96 Rain Man (88)

97 True Stories (86)

98 *Risky Business (83) It’s not about what you think it’s about! It never was!

99 *The Big Chill (83)

100 The Way We Were (73)

101 Safety Last (23) It’s getting so that I might have to add the first two digits to my dates...not that I watch THAT many movies from the 1920s...

102 Phantasm (79)

103 The Burrowers (08)

104 New Jack City (91)

105 The Vanishing (88)

106 Sisters (72)

107 Puberty Blues (81) Little Aussie cinema theme, here

108 Elevator to the Gallows (58)

109 Les Diaboliques (55)

110 House (77) haha WHAT no really W H A T

111 Death Line (72)

112 Cranes are Flying (57)

113 Holes (03)

114 *Lady Vengeance (05)

115 Long Weekend (78)

116 Body Double (84)

117 The Crazies (73) I love that Romero shows the utter confusion that would no doubt reign in the case of any kind of disaster. Things fall apart.

118 Waterlilies (07)

119 *You’re Next (11)

120 Event Horizon (97)

121 Venom (18) I liked it, guys, way more than most superhero fare. Has a real sense of place and the place ISN’T New York!

122 Under the Silver Lake (18) RIP Night Call

123 *Blade Runner (82)

124 *The Birds (62) interesting to see now that I’ve read the story it came from

125 *28 Days Later (02) hits REAL FUCKIN’ DIFFERENT in a pandemic

126 Life is Sweet (90)

127 *So I Married an Axe Murderer (93) find me a more 90s movie, I dare you (it’s not possible)

128 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (67)

129 The Pelican Brief (93) 90s thrillers continue!

130 Dick Johnston is Dead (20)

131 The Bridges of Madison County (95)

132 Earth Girls are Easy (88) Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum are so hot in this movie, no wonder they got married 

133 Better Watch Out (16)

134 Drowning Mona (00) trying for something like the Coen bros and not getting there

135 Au Revoir Les Enfants (87)

136 *Chasing Amy (97) Affleck is the least alluring movie lead...ever? I also think I gave Joey Lauren Adams’ character short shrift in my memory of the movie. It’s not good, but she’s more complicated than I recalled. 

137 Blackkklansman (18)

138 Being Frank (19)

139 Kiki’s Delivery Service (89)

140 Uncle Frank (20) why so many FRANKS

141 *National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89) watching with pals (virtually) made it so much more fun than the usual yearly watch!

142 Half Baked (98) another, more secret Toronto nostalgia pic - RC Harris water filtration plant as a prison!

143 We’re the Millers (13)

144 All is Bright (13)

145 Defending Your Life (91)

146 Christmas Chronicles (18) I maintain that most new xmas movies are terrible, particularly now that Netflix churns them out like eggnog every year. 

147 Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (18)

148 Reindeer Games (00) what did I say about Affleck??!? WHAT DID I SAY

149 Palm Springs (20)

150 Happiest Season (20)

151 *Metropolitan (90) it’s definitely a Christmas movie

152 Black Christmas (74)

THEATRE:HOME - 2:150 (thanks pandemic)

I usually separate out docs and fiction, but I watched almost no documentaries this year (with the exception of Dick Johnston). Reality is real enough. 

TV Series

01 - BoJack Horseman (final season) - Pretty damned poignant finish to the show, replete with actual consequences for our reformed bad boy protagonist (which is more than you can say for most antiheroes of Peak TV).

02 - *Hello Ladies - I enjoy the pure awkwardness of seeing Stephen Merchant try to perform being a Regular Person, but ultimately this show tips him too far towards a nasty, Ricky Gervais-lite sort of persona. Perhaps he was always best as a cameo appearance, or lip synching with wild eyes while Chrissy Teigen giggles?

03 - Olive Kittredge - a rough watch by times. I read the book as well, later in the year. Frances Mcdormand was the best, possibly the only, casting option for the flinty lead. One episode tips into thriller territory, which is a shock. 

04 - *The Wire S3, S4, S5 - lockdown culture! It was interesting to rewatch this, then a few months later go through an enormous, culture-level reappraisal of cop-centred narratives. 

05 - Forever - a Maya Rudolph/Fred Armisen joint that coasts on the charm of its leads. The premise is OK, but I wasn’t left wanting any more at the end. 

06 - *Catastrophe - a rewatch when my partner decided he wanted to see it, too!

07 - Red Oak - resolutely “OK” steaming dramedy, relied heavily on some pretty obvious cues to get across its 1980s setting. 

08 - Little Fires Everywhere - gulped this one down while in 14-day isolation, delicious! Every 90s suburban mom had that SUV, but not all of them had the requisite **secrets**

09 - The Great - fun historical comedy/drama! Costumes: lush. Actors: amusing. Race-blind casting: refreshing!

10 - The Crown S4 - this is the season everyone lost their everloving shit for, since it’s finally recent enough history that a fair chunk of the viewing audience is liable to recall it happening. 

11 - Ted Lasso - we resisted this one for a while (thought I did enjoy the ad campaign for NBC sports (!!) that it was based on). My view is that its best point was the comfort that the men on the show have (or develop, throughout the season) with the acknowledgement and sharing of their own feelings. Masculinity redux. 

12 - Moonbase 8 - Goodnatured in a way that makes you certain they will be crushed. 

13 - The Good Lord Bird - Ethan Hawke is really aging into the character actor we always hoped he would be! 

14 - Hollywood - frothy wish-fulfillment alternate history. I think the show would have been improved immeasurably by skipping the final episode.

[noraroars]

$1700 to Freedom

I used to be anxious about what freedom could buy me. I never thought of freedom as something you could buy either, only something you could earn. I’ve never lived a less than free life but I’ve consolidated my freedom to how much I made. My lifestyle was neither glamorous nor cheap. 

There was a time when I made $13/hr and was living on my own and thought I was having the time of my life, but I was sad because I thought I needed more friends to share my freedom with. Then there was that time $27/hr living on my own in a tiny apartment in San Francisco, with 3 other people and one bathroom. God, I hated my life. I complained and dreaded using the bathroom and how my freedom was spent waiting to pee in my pants. 

All the while I thought back to when I lived with my parents. The horror, thinking my friends were looking down on me because I was a local girl who didn’t have to pay rent, in the beach town of Santa Barbara. How crazy privileged was I? I wanted to know what it felt like to struggle? That mindset didn’t get me far either. I moved to San Francisco. I was a cheapskate who wanted “bang for her buck” and ended up paying only $500 bucks not living out her city girl dreams. 

I was making more money, spending less on rent and I had nothing to show for it. No real freedom I could boast about. Only that I lived in the most expensive city out of all the states. I had no expensive bag to prove I made money, or a group of friends you saw on my IG while we bar hoped, nor did I have a place to host dinner. Not that I even knew how to cook at that time. 

When I turned 30 I thought my life was going to change. I’ve been working that big girl job. I told myself I was going to make 6 figures. And that I did by working 2 jobs endlessly, but when 31 came around and I got the news that 6 figures was no longer a prop dream. I had to ask a lot of questions. Firstly, where the fuck is all my money going? 

The answer was no where I wanted. I finally had money saved up and I finally worked for a financial firm that taught me how important money could be if you saved and invested. Money in the Asian culture is earned then saved. Nothing else. I had to buy new knowledge and spend it like a business. I read books, listened to podcasts and heard my calling. I had to go way back to middle school Nora and ask her what her dreams were and that it was time to bring back that energy.

God, here we go again. The mid-life crisis bullshit again, are we really switching careers again? Fuck no, turned into the only fuck yes I needed. So I had to give it a try. With all that bullshit money I saved for nothing, I moved out of that tiny apartment in SF. I rented a luxury 1 bedroom in a beautiful home in Daly city. You damn right, I moved just outside the city and paid a whopping $1700 with parking to test my freedom. 

What did I learn? Living next to Traders Joes is like a heaven on earth. There are actually streets here where you can park on both sides and still drive down. And not having to squeeze into someone’s driveway to let others pass. It so fucken quiet I could hear my heart beating. The lighting hits different and there’s enough room to have a house plant, although I forget to water it. My neighbors most likely hearing me huffing and puffing through my workouts in the morning. LoFi and tea go better together, fight me on it. I gave up coffee over 4 years ago!

Through so many subtle changes, I noticed that freedom is set by what I want it to be. Grateful journals became a must and I forgot how much I spent to get to this peaceful state I’ve been working on. Its day 16 of 28 of my little experiment and I could say without a flying doubt. I’m making peace with the fact that freedom looks different for other people. Don’t ever tell yourself you need more money or more time. You’ll make money and make time for whats best for you, so do what makes you happy. 

What freedom looked like today. I woke up at 6:50am with no alarm like a fucken champ. I hit snooze for a quick 10 mins of meditation sitting up in my bed. I take those bullshit deep breaths and after 10 mins tell myself, “I’m the shit” and “I’m a boss ass bitch”. Then I ask myself, “who do you want to be today and what do you want to accomplish”? I do it and the closer I become not what I believe but legit living it. I’m free-er than a bird, but that’s another story I want to tell when i get there. Forever grateful for these journeys. I’m back and I’m writing again. I have to tell myself to never stop, cause that’s when my heart stopped and I wasn’t free anymore. 

[blindhim]

LANGSTIVER  WRITING  PROMPT.

what  elite  hero  or  elite  villain  name  would  your  muse  go  by ?

cosmo  goes  by  ‘ arc ’.  since  cosmo’s  powers  are  electricity  based,  it’s  a  reference  to  an  electrical  arc  or  arc  discharge.  it’s  short / concise,  easy  to  remember  &  pronounce.  it’s  also  the  sound  people  make  when  he  electrocutes  them.

describe  the  uniform  and / or  gear  they  wear  when  working.

cosmo  wears  an  all  black  tactical  suit.  cotton  twill  fabric  for  a  pair  of  thick  and  durable  pants  and  long  sleeved  shirt.  the  pants  have  kevlar  protection  on  the  shins  and  the  front  and  back  of  the  thighs.  he  matches  with  a  light  weight  kevlar  vest  and  has  a  utility  belt  that  holds  various  different  tools,  weapons  and  emergency  first  aid  gear.  his  most  utilized  tool  is  a  retractable  wire  with  a  carabiner  attached  to  the  end  that  is  highly  conductive.  he  uses  the  wire  to  anchor  to  any  object  that  it  wraps  around  and  also  uses  it  to  wrap  around  enemies  limbs  and  allows  him  to  deliver  lethal  shocks  to.

do  they  have  a  ‘ catchphrase ’ ?  if  yes,  what  is  it.  if  no,  what  phrase  has  the  public  assigned  to  them ?

cosmo  doesn’t  have  a  catchphrase,  however  the  phrase  “  don’t  ask  stupid  questions  ”  has  become  a  trademark  catchphrase  for  the  public  to  use  after  cosmo  said  it  to  a  persistent  vlogger  that  would  not  get  out  of  his  way  during  a  crisis  situation.  footage  of  the  moment  went  viral  online,  it  was  made  into  a  meme,  video  edits  and  voice  overs  for  musical  demo’s  and  introductions.  what  the  vlogger  actually  asked  him  has  been  lost  due  to  fans,  anti’s  and  other  media  outlets  editing  the  original  dialogue  out  and  replacing  it  with  different  ‘ stupid ’  questions.  he’s  been  asked  to  repeat  the  phrase  almost  as  often  as  he’s  been  asked  about  the  event  and  he  doesn’t  actually  remember  what  the  question  was  specifically,  but  has  been  quoted  that  it  ‘ was  inappropriate ’.

what  event  propelled  them  into  the  spotlight ?

cosmo  came  under  scrutiny  when  his  powers  sent  an  electromagnetic  pulse  through  the  entire  city  of  san  francisco  and  caused  a  citywide  black  out  for  seven  and  a  half  minutes  before  back  up  generators  came  online.  in  a  following  investigation  it  was  discovered  that  cosmo’s  mentor  and  elite  hero  of  anvil  defense  services, shade,  had  betrayed  anvil  and  the  ideology  of  being  a  hero  for  their  own  gain  and  was  working  for  an  underground  terrorist  agency.  cosmo’s  ‘ fame ’  skyrocketed  after  he  apprehended  shade  and  turned  them  over  to  the  authorities.

what  demographic  makes  up  the  majority  of  their  fanbase ?

it’s  split  pretty  evenly  between  under  25  year  old  men,  and  over  60  year  old  women.  cosmo  cannot  STAND  his  male  ‘ fans ’.  the  majority  of  them  are  condescending,  gatekeeping  “ nice  guys ”  who  feel  entitled  to  everything  and  cosmo  does  not  hesitate  to  tell  them  to  shut  the  fuck  up  and  that  he’d  ‘ vaporize  them ’  if  it  wasn’t  illegal.  it  used  to  be  treated  like  some  kind  of  inside  joke,  like  cosmo’s  disdain  for  them  was  just  guys  being  dudes  but  has  begun  to  get  traction  with  over  25  year  old  women  who  started  sharing  videos  of  cosmo  verbally  destroying  women  hating  assholes  after  someone’s  grandma  posted  a  video  of  him  doing  it  to  their  family  chat  group.  cosmo  likes  his  over  60  year  old  women  fans.  they’re  all  polite,  caring,  no  nonsense  radicals  that  tell  him  often  to  keep  telling  useless  people  to  “ fuck  off ”.

what  do  their  fans  call  themselves ?

arcers.  it’s  just  a  play  on  his  elite  hero  name.  though  some  of  the  under  25  year  old  women  call  themselves  arc  babies  which  cosmo  cringes  at  every  time.

what  was  their  strangest  fan  encounter ?

a  fan  came  up  behind  him  while  he  was  on  patrol  and  whispered  ‘ shock  me,  daddy ’  into  his  ear  once.  he  did  not  shock  them.

what  is  their  most  popular  piece  of  merchandise ?

prank  shock  pen.  it’s  actually  an  unofficial  piece  of  merchandise  since  cosmo  hasn’t  actually  signed  anything  allowing  anyone  to  use  his  likeness  for  profit  but  he  also  has  no  interest  in  suing  the  business  for  it.

what  demographic  makes  up  the  majority  of  their  anti - base ?

under  25  year  old  women.  mostly  because  of  his  under  25  year  old  male  fans.  the  numbers  have  begun  shifting  ever  since  more  light  has  been  getting  shone  onto  cosmo  actively  arguing  with  the  asshole  fans  and  publicly  calling  out  the  bullies  etc  but  it’s  a  slow  shift.

do  they  engage  with  the  press ?  if  yes,  what  are  they  like ?  if  no,  why  not ?  how  do  the  press  generally  behave  with  them ?

cosmo  tries  not  to  engage  with  the  press  when  he  can  help  it  but  has  had  no  real  negative  interactions  with  the  media  personally  so  he’s  usually  fairly  civil  when  he  does  get  cornered.  he’s  typically  very  curt  and  straight  forward  which  comes  across  as  a  little  blunt.  the  press  behave  for  the  most  part  professionally  though  do  sometimes  try  to  provoke  cosmo  into  more  entertaining  reactions.

[outweek30]

AIDS Activists Storm Stock Exchange, Halting Trading High Price of Burroughs' AZT Under Fire

NEW YORK [September 24, 1989] — For the first time in history, trading at the New York Stock Exchange was interrupted by protesters last Thursday, when seven AIDS activists slipped past security guards and delayed the start of trading by five minutes with a loud and vibrant demonstration.

Shortly after the seven were arrested and taken into custody, at approximately 11:10 am, a crowd — at one point swelling to over 1500 people — began arriving for a raucous, ear-splitting demonstration in front of the Exchange at 30 Broad Street in Manhattan's Financial District.

The protest, organized by ACT UP, targeted the drug company Burroughs Wellcome, maker of Actified, Sudafed, Neosporin and a host of other over-the-counter drugs. Burroughs holds an exclusive patent on the anti-viral drug AZT, which costs individuals an average of $8000 per year, making it the most expensive drug in history. It remains the only federally-approved AIDS treatment proven significantly effective in slowing the progression of AIDS.

Activists demanded the drug be made available free to the millions of people in the U.S. who are now infected with HIV, the virus associated with AIDS.

"There is a myth out there that we're robber barons, ripping people off," David Barry, vice president, research development and medical affairs for Burroughs Wellcome told the Wall Street Journal. "It would be theoretically possible for us to give away all our drug," he continued. "Everyone would get it for a while, and then we'd go bankrupt."

Fake Name Tags

At approximately 9:25 a.m. seven men, all dressed in suits, entered the Stock Exchange using fake Bears Stearns name tags. According to former bond trader Peter Staley, who is the chair of ACT UP's fundraising committee, he and four others then quickly went up to the VIP balcony which overlooks the trading floor, immediately chaining themselves to a bannister and handcuffing themselves to each other. Staley says he looked at the clock at that moment and noticed that it was 9:29:45.

The Exchange opens precisely at 9:30 am, when there is usually a surge of trading. Staley said the five unfurled a banner which read "Sell Wellcome" and hung it from the balcony. They then used loud emergency marine fog horns, attempting to make hearing anything else impossible. Although the trading boards and ticker machines did not stop, it was impossible to verbally communicate and, therefore, most transactions were halted, according to several traders who were on the floor. The Stock Exchange, however, reported that trading was not interrupted.

Times: No Story

Two of the seven protestors had positioned themselves below the balcony and immediately began taking photographs (using cameras which they had smuggled in) when the banner was unfurled. They then quickly walked outside and gave the film to other activists who brought it to the Associated Press, which sent the photo and the story across the country. Reports of the demonstration appeared in all of New York's dailies, except The New York Times, which has come under attack recently for what activists have called its spotty, inaccurate AIDS coverage. The story ran on the front page of the Wall Street Journal; it was also covered by national television networks and most local network affiliates.

Staley said that the chained, hand-cuffed group on the balcony began throwing fake dollar bills out onto the floor, imitating a demonstration by Abbie Hoffman nearly 20 years ago (Hoffman had used real money). The bills were reportedly printed with the slogan, "Fuck your profiteering, we're dying while you play business."

While security guards tried to remove the protestors, traders and brokers surged toward the balcony in large numbers, booing and jeering, according to Staley. "They were angry. They were screaming things like 'Mace the faggots!' and they were throwing wads of paper at us," he told OutWeek.

"You've Seen Faggots Before"

Eva Andersen, a Swedish tourist who was on a tour of the Exchange, said there was a panic on the trading floor at that moment. "It was a bit frightening," she said. "They [the traders] were rushing at them [the protestors]." There was lots of anger and booing." Andersen said the visitors were immediately hurried out by guards. Robert Hilferty, one of the activists who had taken photographs and then walked back into the Exchange, described the traders as “an angry, mobilized mob."

"They were waving their fists, while one trader was yelling to the others: ‘you've seen faggots before, get back to trading!'"

The guards eventually removed the protesters from the Exchange. But at that point, a "witch hunt" ensued, according to Hilferty. "Some traders were looking on the floor for outsiders." Hilferty said a trader looked at him and yelled, "Who the fuck are you!" and ran for him. Within seconds, Hilferty claims, he was being chased by dozens of "blood-thirsty and violent" traders.

Hilferty, a filmmaker, and performance artist Richard Elovich, the other demonstrator who had remained on the Stock Exchange floor, were eventually arrested.

Ear Plugs and Cotton

The other five arrested were: Lee Arsenault, a clothing importer and a self-identified person with AIDS; Gregg Bordowitz, a video producer with the Gay Men's Health Crisis, who has AIDS Related Complex; Scott Robbe, a film producer; James McGrath, a bar owner; and Staley. They were each charged with a Class B misdemeanor for criminal trespass, a Class A misdemeanor for criminal possession of a forged instrument and Class A misdemeanor for criminal impersonation. The seven were held by police for several hours before being released.

About an hour after the men were taken away, a planned demonstration organized by ACT UP took place outside the Stock Exchange. The group, which grew from several hundred to over 1500, set off hundreds of fog horns which echoed through the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, drawing people as high up as the 30th floors of buildings to their windows. Protestors came prepared with ear plugs and cotton, which they also provided to members of the press.

Inside the Exchange, dozens of workers were pressed against the glass doors watching the activities. Some workers later said they didn't leave for lunch for fear that the crowd, which had taken up the entire street, might attack them.

The demonstration was planned to coincide with similar demonstrations in London, where Burroughs' parent company is based, and where the company's stock is traded, and in San Francisco, where the company's major U.S. warehouse is located.

— Michelangelo Signorile, OutWeek Magazine No. 14, September 24, 1989, p. 10.

[irarelypostanything]

Slice of Life

[Dan]

In an unheard-of little town there was a somewhat well-known company (you probably haven’t heard of it).  This company site was perfectly divided into a halved-off collection of secure facilities, where unknown things happened, and open facilities, where fuck nothing happened.  It was widely believed that the open facilities existed solely to do made-up work to legitimize the actions of the secure facilities.  This theory made a hell of a lot of sense to Dan, who jumped on every opportunity to ridicule everyone and everything dumb enough to cross paths with him.

“How do you like it?” he asked Ryan, the new hire.  They were in a conference room.  He had just finished a back-to-back meeting about something boring, like agile, or software as a service, or the necessity of tracking bug #71337 so as not to prevent hardware component #85858 from doing another #16667.

“Um,” Ryan hesitated, “does everyone here seem a little bit...toxic...to you?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” responded Dan, “people here seem kind of strict at first, but you’ll quickly see that everyone is pretty relaxed.”

Dan un-muted the phone.  “Hey fuck nuggets,” said Dan, “which of you idiots was stupid enough to run software on our card while half of the hardware team was trying to replace it?”

Ryan looked shocked.  Dan muted the phone again.  “Sorry, I thought I was muted,” he said.  “That was supposed to be a joke.”

Dan un-muted the phone, since it was now apparent he was never joking.  “No one?  No one did it?  Brad, I know from the logs and the timestamps that it was you, I just kind of hoped you had the decency to take responsibility for it before I kicked your ass off the team.  Everyone else, you’d better have some good fucking news for me.”

In alphabetical order, Dan cycled through the list of software engineers he oversaw.  In alphabetical order, Dan insulted the competence and basic intelligence of each one.  Ryan observed a flurry of confrontation after confrontation, as if he was watching a Game of Thrones episode written by a 12-year-old who had only recently learned that the F-bomb raised eyebrows.

“By the way,” said Dan, after he had finished, “I just brought on Ryan.  Everyone make Ryan feel welcome: He’s cheaper than all of you, and probably better.  If you do a really good job of training him, I hope he replaces at least one but probably two of you.”

[Kevin]

“You made the right choice immediately quitting Dan’s team and joining Andy’s,” said a nondescript, low-ranked software engineer named Kevin in his monotone voice.  Kevin looked like he was 16, even though he had to have been at least in his 20s.  In a rambling, incoherent speech that almost started to be about software before derailing into a confusing series of digressions about anime, corgis, Undertale, corgis, and how Stannis Baratheon had done nothing wrong until the later seasons, Kevin finally arrived at something that could justifiably be called a point.

“It was nice talking to you,” said Ryan.  He promptly left.

Having finished the process of ramping up the new hire and doing his professional duty, Kevin got up to talk to Andy about their next set of software goals.  This quickly diverged into a rant about how Stannis Baratheon had done nothing wrong until the later seasons.

[Andy]

After a minor one-hour interruption, Andy made it on time to his scheduled presentation for the roughly 50 customer representatives who had flown from the East Coast to hear him speak.

“Software testing,” began Andy, “pretty boring stuff, right?”  He made sure to make eye contact with at least two rows in the front and the one in the back.  He walked around the room with typical ease.  This was not his first rodeo, so to speak.

“But look at these costs.”  He beckoned to the PowerPoint, which was simply a dumbed-down slide displaying bars decreasing in length.  “Most mobile app companies had to invest bucket-loads into literal stacks of test phones, until a more virtualized testbed came along.  Our own site in Baltimore struggled with unexpected integration costs, until they adopted Google Test and changed the game for the rest of us.   This is engineering at its finest, and what I would like to present to you is software’s latest evolution.

“Virtualized hardware, for all our major cards.  Software-defined EVERYTHING.  By leveraging existing models, my team has already managed to completely shift the existing paradigm.  We have cut costs by roughly 37.6%, and all we had to do was use a system I have personally designed with only 2% of my allocated budget so far.  I laid the groundwork.  My team put in the real work.  We demonstrated the added value that this new model creates, and we did so to bring the technology of tomorrow to you.”

He dropped his mic.  The customers applauded and gave him a standing ovation.  As he walked out, they chanted his name.

[Nora]

Nora was finishing up for the day.  Since that morning, sometime in the middle of her drive to work, she had felt an unshakable feeling of sadness coupled with an even more mysterious feeling of absolute loathing.

“How was your day?” Dan asked her.  She hated how he entered her cubicle instead of remaining outside of the invisible lines.  Ordinarily she would have been okay with it, but today everything felt off.

“I don’t like anything about this,” she said.  Her conviction, more so than her quickness, surprised herself.  “I don’t like where I work, I don’t like where I live, and I don’t like who I am.”

“How old are you?” asked Dan.

“25.”

“Quarter-life crisis.  These are the typical signs.”

She and Dan had been friends for three years.  They had learned the ropes together, written and peer-reviewed thousands of lines of codes together.  They had saved demo after demo, flown out simultaneously for efforts in San Diego and DC and even Toronto.  They had proven that two people who worked well together could do more with a shoestring budget than most leads could do with a revenue sea.

None of that mattered to her today.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dan.

“Everything.”

“Be specific.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Nora drove home.  Nora slept with her boyfriend.  She woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of his snoring, and even two midnight beers could not get her to drift off again.  She looked at her boyfriend for a long time...they had been together for a year.  Yesterday she loved him.  Tonight she saw nothing in him.  He just looked ugly, a little overweight, kind of stupid when he spoke.  It didn’t feel like there was any reconciling it.  She wanted to go for a late-night drive but then remembered the beer.

On a whim, outside of the apartment they shared, Nora pulled out her Android and went onto Uber.  Continuing on this whim, she checked Uber and plugged in her parent’s house.  Monterey Blvd.  San Francisco.

She looked at the cost.  $127 and 38 cents.

By morning she was gone.

[renegade2026]

TOM HARDY SAVES THE DAY (NO, REALLY)

One of the most intense actors of our time agreed to take us on a motorcycle tour of his hometown—and then the day spun way off-script.

ERIC SULLIVAN AUG 7, 2018

We're at the first stop on Tom Hardy’s literal tour down memory lane, and he’s already causing trouble. The caretaker of St. Leonard’s Court, an apartment building in the leafy London suburb of East Sheen, comes out to the driveway to say that a tenant has lodged a noise complaint. Hardy leans back in the saddle of the offending source, a Triumph Thruxton fitted with a not-so-subtle 1200cc engine. “Must be hard for someone who’s home at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday doing fuck-all, innit?” he says to the caretaker, who’s already in retreat. Then, overriding his knee-jerk snark: “It won’t happen again.”

“I’m the youngest person to own a flat on this block,” Hardy, forty, tells me, sounding both proud and bemused. He bought the place fifteen years ago, moved out six years later, and now uses it as a crash pad for out-of-town guests. He didn’t choose the location for its social scene, if the few geriatric residents shuffling by are any indication. Rather, he was the prodigal son returned: He grew up in the upper-middle-class community, the only child of Chips, an adman and writer, and Ann, an artist. His parents still live nearby.

“Ready for the five-dollar tour?” he asks. Our plan is to trace the path from what he calls his “privileged bourgeois background” to the upper-upper-class town of Richmond, where he now lives with his wife, actor Charlotte Riley, and their child, his second. (He also has a ten-year-old son with assistant director Rachael Speed.) The journey is short in distance—a little more than two miles—but ultramarathon-long in life experience.

“Behind the Laura Ashley curtains, there was naughtiness and fuckeries!” he begins like an overenthused docent. I point out that’s a line he’s delivered many times to many writers. He shrugs. “It’s easier to say that than to go deep-sea diving into it.” To Hardy, a fiercely private man and a reluctant public figure, the canned story serves the useful purpose of making an unsuspecting person feel like they’re getting to know the real Tom. “Should we fuck off?” he asks as we pull on our gear. Except for the beat-up jeans, his five-foot-nine frame is covered in black, from his helmet to his motorcycle boots. We get on our bikes and fuck off.

Five minutes later, just past the prep school he attended as a boy, Hardy spots a commotion, and we pull over. A woman, blood covering her face, lies faceup, half on the sidewalk and half in the street. A few bystanders are crouched around. As Hardy approaches, he says, “I know her.”

It's Mae, the mother of one of Hardy’s childhood best friends. [Some names have been changed.] He drops to one knee and takes her hand in his. Someone in the crowd tells us that Mae tripped while walking her dog. She’s slipping in and out of consciousness.

“Mae, it’s Tommy,” Hardy says. “Squeeze my hand. Keep talking to us. Can you open your eyes?” She moans. He tries out a joke. “Are you Canadian?” he asks. She manages a word: “No. ” He says, “Not even a little Canadian?” She doesn’t reply. By the time the ambulance arrives, Mae is responding, but barely. Shortly after, her son Albert pulls up on his bicycle. When he sees his mother laid out, he bites his fist. Hardy wraps his arms around his friend, both to comfort him and to keep him at a safe distance.

The paramedics load Mae onto a stretcher, and Hardy asks if they can bring Albert, too, then asks again to make sure they remember. They say yes, but they’ll first check Mae’s vitals.

After the ambulance doors close, Hardy turns his attention back to Albert. “Your mom took a whack to the forehead. But I’m not concerned immediately, ’cause she’s responding better than when we arrived. And ’cause they’re not rushing off. You settle in at the hospital, and then we’ll meet you.” Albert protests, but Hardy stops him. “I’m one of your best mates, and I love you.” He slips money into Albert’s pocket. “Just for now,” he says. As soon as the ambulance leaves, bound for Kingston Hospital, he calls Albert’s wife.

For the half hour we’ve been here, Hardy has not stopped moving. He’s talked himself through each step as if checking off boxes on a crisis to-do list. Suddenly, he turns to me and considers our circumstances. We began the day as writer and subject, but that dynamic dissolved the moment he saw Mae. “There was no interview here,” he says. “We find ourselves in a situation where we needed to put everything on hold.” A smile cracks across his face. “Welcome to my neighborhood. I told you there’s always something to find behind the Laura Ashley curtains.”

Private Tom and Public Hardy: These are the two sides that define him. That his time is split between work life and family life, and that his obligations toward both are sometimes at odds, isn’t unique. However, his steadfast struggle to separate them is; he’d be thrilled if never the two should meet. But they do, with increasing frequency, in ways that are beyond his control.

Public Hardy may be an accomplished actor in the U. S., but in his home country he’s a national treasure. In June, he was awarded the title Commander of the Order of the British Empire, which, while not as prestigious as knighthood, is on the same scale. In February, Glamour UK named him the sexiest man of 2018. Madame Tussauds in London recently displayed his likeness reclining on an oxblood chesterfield couch, one arm perched atop the back cushion like an invitation. (“Cosy up to Tom on his leather sofa and feel his heartbeat and the warmth of his torso in what is surely the hottest seat in town,” hypes the wax museum’s site.) He tells well-worn anecdotes to keep Private Tom concealed, and he’s always on alert.

We meet for the first time the day before the accident, at the Bike Shed, a motorcycle club and café in Shoreditch where, last year, he spent his fortieth birthday. It’s Hardy’s favorite place in London—not surprising, as he’s an investor in the company, which plans to open a location in Los Angeles soon. Every few minutes during our conversation, he nods hello to yet another bearded, inked-up passerby. He’s wearing a loose T-shirt and cargo pants with enough pockets to fit all the world. Brown fuzz dusts the crown of his head. A copper beard stippled with gray blankets the lower half of his face.

He answers my first question—how he’s doing—without missing a beat: “I’m tired.” He’s been working a lot, mostly on Marvel’s Venom (October 5), in which he plays the title role, a reporter named Eddie Brock whose body is hijacked by an alien symbiote. Venom has remained one of Spider-Man’s best-known foes since he first appeared in comic-book form in the late eighties. At times, he’s an outright villain; at others, including in Hardy’s hands, he’s more of an antihero. He can’t discuss the plot, but he says the tone of the movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), is “dark and edgy and dangerous.”

The three-month shoot, which ended in January, took him to Atlanta, New York, and San Francisco, where the movie is set. “I see America by where the tax breaks are,” he jokes. Next, he headed to New Orleans to play a syphilitic Al Capone in Fonzo, directed by Josh Trank (Chronicle). That crew went hard: nineteen hours a day for six weeks. The day they wrapped, he flew home, threw on a suit, and attended the royal wedding with Riley. (All he’ll say about why they landed the coveted invite is that “it’s deeply private” and “Harry is a fucking legend.”) The work wasn’t the hardest thing; it was, he says, spending such long stretches away from his family.

Yet workwise, Hardy has arrived at what you might call a stakes moment, one that’s twenty years in the making. At the dawn of his career, after landing just two small roles, albeit in big projects—Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down—he scored his first major part, as the bald, asexual villain in 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis. But the movie tanked, snuffing buzz over his excellent performance. Five years of forgettable films and a few distinguished stage performances passed before Hardy played lead roles that fully showcased his talents: the homeless drug addict with a heart of gold in the BBC’s Stuart: A Life Backwards (2007), for which he shed nearly thirty pounds, and the most violent inmate in Britain in Bronson (2009), for which he packed on fifteen pounds of muscle.

Physical change is just part of Hardy’s exacting, chameleonlike transformations. “One can embellish with flair or an accent,” he says. “But ultimately you need to ground the character in some form of recognizable truth.” Hardy will talk your ear off about acting theory— Stanislavsky versus Adler, presentation versus representation, the use of clowning and mask work. “I’m a complete geek about it,” he says. But those seams don’t show. At his best, Hardy so thoroughly embodies a character, in both body and spirit, that he all but disappears.

Take a scene from 2015’s The Revenant. Hardy plays Fitzgerald, the coldhearted fur trapper and the target of revenge for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Glass. One night, around a campfire, Fitzgerald makes a veiled threat to a suspicious travel companion. He never raises his voice, but it’s as if he’s ripped out the man’s heart. Hardy’s performance earned him both an Oscar nomination and, after losing a bet with DiCaprio over whether he’d receive such recognition, a tattoo on his right arm that reads leo knows all.

His knack for magnetic unease can inject a blockbuster with edge: Mad Max: Fury Road, Inception, and, most notably, The Dark Knight Rises. But aside from Fury Road, whenever he’s assumed the lead role—Lawless, Warrior, This Means War, The Drop, Locke, Legend, Child 44—the results have come up short critically, commercially, and sometimes both. Venom is Hardy’s most visible role yet.

“Sounds like a lot of pressure, doesn’t it?” he half-jokes. But he says he’s not concerned about box-office returns; as always, he’s consumed with building a good character. He admits he knew little about Venom when he first read the script. “So I spoke to the only person I could really trust in this environment: my older boy.” His comic-book-loving son “was a huge influence on me doing the role.”

Hardy prepped for the movie for more than a year. He undergoes a rigorous process to shape each performance, complete with its own argot. A script is a “case file,” to be “unpacked” via “investigation.” He often begins by using personalities, both real and fictive, as lodestars toward which he guides his portrayal. The voice he developed for Al Capone in Fonzo is based on Bugs Bunny’s; to prove it, he plays me a clip of the raw footage on his phone. Sure enough, he sounds like the cartoon rabbit with a severe case of vocal fry. In Venom, the dual roles of Eddie Brock and Venom reminded him of three wildly different traits of three wildly different people: “Woody Allen’s tortured neurosis and all the humor that can come from that. Conor McGregor—the überviolence but not all the talking. And Redman”—the rapper—“out of control, living rent-free in his head.” Those are not details he revealed to the execs at Sony, which is producing the movie. “You don’t say shit like that to the studio,” he says.

“IF THE ODDS ARE STACKED AGAINST SONY, THAT’S NOT MY FUCKING BUSINESS. IT'S IRRELEVANT.

“If the odds are stacked against Sony, that’s not my fucking business,” Hardy says. “It’s irrelevant.” He burnishes an image of himself as a creative lone wolf, and in the third person no less: “Tom is very mercenary when it comes to work. I cannot give a fuck what the writer, or the director, or Larry in Baltimore thinks about my choices.” (He later clarifies the perspective shift: “Sometimes I talk in the third person because it’s a lot easier to see myself at work as a piece of meat. So when Tommy says he doesn’t give a fuck what you think, it’s only because I give too much of a fuck, and it gets to a point where it stifles me.”) But it’s hard to square his claims of artistic purity with the occasional very non-lone-wolf detail like, “Market research shows that the biggest fan base for Venom is ten-year-old boys in South America.”

If this movie does well, there will be sequels. And if Sony builds its cinematic Spidey universe, Hardy may well appear in those, too. Beyond those commitments, he’s vague about his post-Fonzo plans, most of which don’t involve acting. “What I’d like to do is produce. Write. Direct,” he says. Through his production company, Hardy Son & Baker, he’s working on the second season of Taboo, a moody period drama set in early-1800s London that he stars on and cowrites with his father. The first season was a mixed bag—its premiere ranks as one of the most streamed episodes of any BBC show, but historians criticized its accuracy and U. S. viewers met its FX airing with indifference—yet his stature is such that the BBC green-lighted the second season. He also optioned Once a Pilgrim, a thriller by a veteran of the Parachute Regiment, the elite airborne infantry of the British army; he’s considering directing the adaptation.

Hardy’s future looks rosy. And yet, more than anything, he feels worn down. Physically, sure: He’s walking with a limp. He says he tore his right meniscus on the set of Venom, but he doesn’t know how it happened. “At the end of a job, I normally end up on the side of the road,” he says. “And then carrying the toddler around on my shoulders. . .” He lets loose a two-note cackle. “Things get in the way of looking after yourself.”

But the fatigue is also mental. Maybe it’s because the growing demands of the job, especially the time spent far from his wife and children, are beginning to outweigh its diminishing gratification. When I ask if being forty has changed how he feels about his career, this time he answers in the second person. “You’ve summited Everest. It’s a miracle that you’ve made it anywhere near the fucking mountain, let alone climbed it. Do you want to go all the way back and do it again? Or do you want to get off the mountain and go fucking find a beach?” He tugs his left temple so hard that it looks like the skin might tear. “What is it that draws you to the craft? At this age, I don’t know anymore. I’ve kind of had enough. If I’m being brutally honest, I want to go on with my life.”

After the ambulance leaves with Mae and Albert, Hardy suggests that we stop at a few places on our way to the hospital. Not for my benefit, but for his friend’s. “Albert needs to be alone with his mum and his thoughts,” he says. “He’s going to be taking care of her, so it’s important he pays attention. Sometimes, when there are other people around, that’s hard to do.” Hardy isn’t trying to swashbuckle; he’s thinking of how to best help two loved ones. And, apparently, a guy he just met: Looking me up and down, he says, “We’ve had a bit of a shock ourselves. We could use some sugar.” We set out for a refreshment stand in a nearby park he first came to as a toddler with his mother to paddle around the kiddie pool, and then as a teen with Albert and others to play rugby.

When we arrive, the stand is closed. As we get back on our bikes, a father walks by carrying his son, a chubby boy with an explosion of straw-colored curls. “How old are you?” Hardy asks the boy. “He’s two,” the dad beams.

“When will you be three?” Hardy asks.

“July,” the toddler says softly.

“That’s really soon!” he says. “You’re a bit older than my youngest, who’ll be three in October. Oh, you’ll be a big boy by then. You’re already a big boy. Do you want to sit on my bike?” The boy buries his face in his father’s chest. “I appreciate I’ve made you feel nervous. This is what I will do: I will disappear,” he says, which could double as his two-sentence acting manifesto. He revs his engine over and over. As we depart, the boy watches Hardy, his mouth agape.

We cut into Richmond Park, a twenty-five-hundred-acre expanse that’s equal parts polished and untamed. When something catches Hardy’s attention—stags in the brush, a view of the Thames, a tree with knotted bark—he raises two fingers to his eyes in a V, then points so I see it too, like I’m his Dunkirk wingman.

We pull over at a dead end. With our engines rumbling, Hardy tells me that his parents moved to this part of London to enroll him in the best schools they could afford. The area is among the wealthiest in the UK, but it’s also an economic patchwork where council houses sit blocks away from mansions. “Growing up, you mix and mingle. You can sit in the shit if you want to, or you can make something of yourself,” he says. “Or you can end up under too much pressure and fading out young.”

As a child, Hardy had a strong relationship with Ann, but he butted heads with Chips. Father and son made up years ago, and Hardy resists going into detail about their difficult past. “My father was the most wonderful of teachers in a world that can be cruel,” he allows. “He treated me like an adult, as opposed to changing his persona for his child. There was no filter. Do you understand? No filter.”

In his teens, Hardy wobbled. “The centrifugal force in my life is a natural disposition to not be happy with the way I feel,” he says. That, combined with a robust contrarian bent—“Nine times out of ten, when somebody says, ‘Don’t do that,’ my instinct is to say, ‘That has to be done’ ”—got him into a fair bit of trouble. He hung out with the wrong crowds; he fought in school. “I grew up in the neighborhood being a dick,” he says. “I’ve learned and will continue to learn from being a dick. To try and somehow chisel myself into being a human being so I can respect myself when I look in the mirror. And that’s a procedure that will go on until I die.”

Starting at thirteen, he struggled with alcoholism and other addictions. He still has a soft spot for those with similar demons. In April 2017, when two kids riding stolen mopeds were T-boned at an intersection and tried to run, Hardy, who lived nearby, apprehended one of them. The Sun headline sums up how the press covered the incident: “Tom Hardy Catches Thief After Dramatic Hollywood-Style Chase Through Streets Before Proudly Saying, ‘I’ve Caught the C**t.’ ” He disputes the details of what was reported— “It wasn’t much of a chase; when I found him, he was in fucking rag order”—but that’s beside the point. The tabloids missed the real story: After the incident, he tracked down the kid he turned in and got him help. “He must stand accountable for what he’s done,” Hardy tells me. “But he’s got issues, and he’s in a bad way. Do we just give up on a sixteen-year-old?”

As a boy, Hardy was given second, third, and fourth chances. Along the way, he discovered that acting offered an outlet for his baneful discontent. He attended one drama school, then another, got kicked out twice, and was cast in Band of Brothers before he graduated.

Still, for years, he questioned his chosen path. Hardy even signed up for a Parachute Regiment training course—but never followed through. “Oh, mate, I did so much backpedaling,” he says. “The reality is that where I belonged was not there. The last person defending the realm was Mr. Hardy.” He calls the decision to back out “one of my biggest regrets. I wonder what life would’ve been like. I would’ve loved to have served and been useful.”

In 2003, at twenty-five, Hardy cleaned up with the help of a twelve-step program—he calls it “my first port of call”—and he’s been sober ever since. “It was hard enough for me to say, ‘I’m an alcoholic.’ But staying stopped is fucking hard.” Sitting on his Triumph, at the center of the place that held all the risks and possibilities that would define him, Hardy sounds almost wistful.

We take off through the park. He rides with his legs bowed out, his left hand resting on his knee, and his right hand holding steady on the throttle. When he rips on a vape pen, white plumes swirl around his head and dissipate into the damp air.

We head to Richmond. The town sits within the borders of Greater London, but its roots are as much in the countryside as in the city. Generations of famous Brits seeking refuge have called it home: Queen Elizabeth I liked hunting stags in the park; Charles I relocated his court here to avoid the plague; Mick Jagger lived near the Thames with Jerry Hall, who, though now married to Rupert Murdoch, apparently still co-owns the home they shared.

We stop at a café around the corner from Hardy’s place. The wall between us that crumbled upon seeing Mae—or seemed to, anyway—is fortified just as quickly. When Private Tom reaches playfully for my stack of questions and I instinctively pull them back, he casts a leery eye. “I see I’m not in the circle of trust,” Public Hardy says, when in fact I just got booted from his.

“Can I get a double espresso?” he asks our waiter.

“For sure,” the waiter says. “By the way, big fan. I always know if you’re in a movie, it’s going to be a good one.”

“Thanks. But don’t put your money on that,” Hardy says. “I’ve got to be crap at some point.”

“I would say you’re one of my top three best,” the waiter says. “Action actors,” he clarifies.

“I think I’m a bit too old now for action.”

“Except for the next Expendables,” the waiter jokes.

“I’m tempted to ask who the other two are,” Hardy says after the waiter walks off. “I showed great restraint. Great restraint.” He might claim that the opinions of others don’t matter, but this is driving him crazy. “Who are the fuckers?”

When the waiter returns, I ask. “Mark Wahlberg,” he says without delay, as if he were waiting for the question. Hardy, stone-faced, says nothing. “And Matt Damon.”

Finally, Hardy speaks. “Can I give you this?” he says, handing over a plate, any plate, just to send the waiter on his way. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “Thanks, man. Good company.”

He deals with this sort of thing all the time. “I’ve crossed the line of being a public figure. And I accept that means to a certain degree I’m public property,” he says, “even though I project an image of myself to them,” acknowledging Public Hardy in all but name. Most people he meets are lovely. But “the downside of being overt is you invite darkness,” he says. “It only takes one person to cause real harm.” He defends himself as if someone has called him out. “That’s not being paranoid. That’s just facts.”

“THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING OVERT IS YOU INVITE DARKNESS. IT ONLY TAKES ONE PERSON TO CAUSE REAL HARM.”

By filtering which parts of himself become public, he’s mostly okay with the balance of Private Tom and Public Hardy. Except, that is, when it comes to his children. “I will pose for you, and photos of me and my wife are fine,” he says. “But if someone takes a photo of my kids, all bets are off. I will take the camera off you and beat the fucking shit out of you.” His voice contains no hint of exaggeration. “That’s the one that hurts. My kids didn’t ask for what my job is.” He pauses. “There’s something that really upsets me about the imposition of a grown-up world on a child.”

When we spoke earlier about his relationship with Chips, he said he was working to become a better father by learning from the mistakes of his own. “In trying to protect my children, I’ll probably give them their own dose of problems,” he told me. “But I don’t want them to go through what I went through.”

At Kingston Hospital, we make our way to Mae’s room. She’s feeling better, but dried blood still cakes her face. She and Albert don’t know who or what to expect next, or how long it will be. Hardy asks what she remembers—“Hit the pavement,” she says. “Made a nice sound”—and what still hurts. We unload snacks we brought, and then we wait.

The three relax into a familiar rhythm. Age has smoothed but not erased the boys’ mischief and the mom’s sass. Hardy jokes to Mae, “All right, lovely, want salt-and-vinegar chips with a side of infectious disease? Pick up a little souvenir?” She smirks.

Hardy squeezes some sanitizer onto his hands and rubs it, then reaches for a chip. “Don’t do that,” Mae says. “Wipe off your hands first. It’s not for eating.”

“It’s better than eating disease,” Albert weighs in. “I’d rather be sanitized to death.”

“I’m gonna take my chances,” Hardy says.

“How’s your mum and dad?” she asks.

“Very good, actually,” he says. “It was my mum’s birthday last week.”

“Twenty-one again?”

“I’m glad to see you’re cracking jokes,” Albert says.

“Me too,” Mae says.

When she leaves the room with the help of a nurse, Hardy turns to Albert and delivers a dose of optimism: “She’s walking, mate. That’s a good sign. The next thing we’re going to get is an X-ray, or maybe a CT scan if they’re concerned about bleeding or swelling in the brain. They’ve got to check all the boxes.”

Once Mae is back, Hardy steps out to talk to the nurse without saying why. “Is he using his celebrity powers?” Albert asks me. “Not the first time I’ve witnessed that.” He laughs, then quiets. “But it’s a nice tool to have.”

Hardy returns without explanation. A few minutes later, the nurse comes in. “She’s going to be seen next.”

Like that, Mae is at the top of the list.

Though Hardy is coy about how much he played the fame card, it’s clear his job here is done. As we say goodbye, Mae pulls him in close. “I want you to know that I have plans to see Venom,” she says. “You’ve done something that’s close to my heart. You know I’m a sci-fi freak.”

“You’re gonna enjoy this one,” Hardy says. “This one’s just for you. And for my boy.”

Hardy wants to exert control over his world. The brutal irony is that the more successful he becomes, the more the world controls him. But as we walk out of the hospital, I suggest that while his celebrity might feel like a burden, in the instance of Mae and Albert it was . . . He finishes my sentence: “Perfect.”

At the exit, an orderly chases us down. “Tom! Tom Hardy!” We stop. “I just love your movies. Can I take a picture?” Two more fans follow. He smiles as they gather around in the hospital parking lot and start snapping selfies.

This article appears in the September '18 issue of Esquire.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/amp22627852/tom-hardy-venom-fonzo-september-cover/

[nursefei]

Not everyone can say they’ve been to the Big Apple, but  [ FEI DAVENPORT ], a [ 29 ] year-old [ CIS FEMALE ] has lived in [ THE UPPER WEST SIDE ] for [ 3 MONTHS ]. This is the city of dreams and [ SHE ] knows it, because they came to NYC to be a [ SCHOOL NURSE ]. Living in the city means they meet all kinds of people, but everyone always seems to think they look like [ MALESE JOW ]. They even got away with free cab fare once because of it!

hey kids, it’s em again with yet another idiot child! i’ll link her full bio here once it’s up, but for now here’s all you need to know:

original intro:

she became a school nurse because she hated everything about health classes and sex education that had been taught to her. none of it prepared kids for the changes their bodies would go through, what was normal and what wasn’t, how to know when something is wrong… so she decided to just do the damn thing herself

she moved to from her hometown of Monterrey, California to San Francisco at 18 to study nursing, eventually getting a Masters, and certification to be an RN as well as teaching credentials, and bounced around a few schools in places in and around San Francisco that were… varying levels of satisfactory.

she didn’t hate the last place she’d worked. the kids were annoying, the food was bad, the teachers were useless, but… it was probably her favorite job she’d ever had. because she’d met her best friend Lachlan there.

this is where it gets complicated. this is where i could write six novels. but let me try to be brief about it.

Fei and Lach have always been in love with each other, and have also always been fucking idiots about it. they pretended to be Just Friends, dating other people and pretending it was fine. until Lach had a family crisis and decided to move back to New York. then, realizing they’d fucked up and ran out of time, they finally slept together. Lachlan moved across the country the next morning, and totally ghosted Fei.

he probably thought it was the right thing to do, though, considering Fei had a goddamn boyfriend at the time.

she is still, for some reason, with said boyfriend, whose name is Nick. they are literally always fighting about absolutely anything and everything, and nobody has a clue why they’re still together. 

Nick coincidentally got a job offer in New York earlier this year. he asked Fei to move with him, and her dumb ass did, so here she is. she’s got a job at a high school near their new apartment, and it’s looking like a fresh start for everybody

it’s a big city, so she probably won’t run into Lachlan for years, if at all... probably... right?

august 2022 update: (tw for domestic abuse)

Fei ran into Lachlan almost immediately upon moving to the city, because he inexplicably worked at the same high school where she got her job. the stars aligned, except not really, because she was still with Nick and Lachlan was suddenly dating a supermodel

Lachlan’s dating Rylan Pratt for publicity (on her part, money on his part), but Fei, along with the rest of America, thinks it’s real. 

to no one’s surprise, Nick has continued to be a douchebag in New York, getting into fights in bars and pushing Fei around

he tells Fei where she can and can’t go, who she can and can’t see, what she can and can’t wear... he’s even put up security cameras in almost every room of their shared townhouse, solely to keep tabs on her.

the one bright spot in this hellscape is her new proximity to her childhood friend Blake Madden - even if Nick has done his best to keep the women apart.

she desperately wants out of this relationship, but Nick has made sure that Fei’s still pretty much alone in this strange city, so it’s going to be harder than she thought.

message me here or on Discord, or just like this post if you want to plot!! love y’all.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

The Zookeeper- Ryan & Susie in Conversation

Susie: So Ryan, what do you remember about the Zookeeper two weeks later? What immediately jumps out to you about it?

Ryan: “Show her your puddin’ cup!” jumps out at me.

S: How did I forget about that part? I was thinking about the sad gorilla cake. My number one thing about that movie was that heinous gorilla costume. It was on my top five list of topics “bad gorilla costume” and Kevin James just sitting in the gorilla pen talking to the gorilla. Am I remembering wrong or was that half of the movie?

R: There was a lot of time spent in the gorilla pen. I feel like we have hit both extremes of animal movies. We hit the animal movie where they were making the animals do too many things that ended up being too much and too creepy, like dancing and singing and CGI wiggling… stuff...

S: Wearing pants

R: Yes! Wearing pants and stuff. So, we hit that extreme and then in The Zookeeper, we sort of hit the extreme where animals were just acting like boring people. 

S: Like standing around A LOT, like a ton of animal loitering. The zoo would close, the animals would loiter. They’d confer about Kevin James, decide to take action but their action was to circle around Kevin James.

R: Yeah. You know what is funny? There were no animal-related hijinx, other than the gorilla going to TGI Friday’s which is also really boring. 

S: It’s truly boring but when I tell you there are so many clips of it on Youtube. People love that scene where he is the van listening to the Apple Bottom Jeans song with the gorilla. I was searching…I have to say there are parts of The Zookeeper that I like. I have to say that Rosario Dawson was a champ throughout this film. I don’t feel like we have seen, to date, sort of Kevin James love interest that has been as game as she has for the ridiculous hijinks and pratfalls. She made the most sense so far.

R: Yeah. She was good, actually, and I think because they worked together and sort of had a friendship through work, when they got together, you weren’t like, “Oh, how did that happen?” 

S: Like Paul Blart and the hair extensions woman.

R: Yeah. No. That was weird. That was not appropriate. 

S: So forced and then Salma Hayek who seemed to genuinely hate his character in Here Comes the Boom. Or not even hate but sort of..but yea, revile. She definitely wasn’t a fan.

R: Definitely not respect. I do not know why she ended up jumping on that train, but I have a feeling it was nothing to do with his personality. 

S: It was because he saved just the music teacher’s job. At the end of the movie, the shocking part is… not to talk about Here Comes the Boom again, but I could, forever… it’s not saving the school’s budget, it’s just saving a teacher. In the same way, that in the Zookeeper he stops selling cars to save the gorilla? Is that right? The gorilla, there’s nothing even happening with the gorilla? That was sort of a red herring?The one guy bullied the gorilla but nothing ever came of it?

R: Well, the one guy bullied the gorilla, which I feel like could have been solved by reporting that guy to their boss. 

S: Instead of just kicking him

R: Yeah, he just sort of killed that guy, I guess. I don’t know. 

S: He got murdered

R: Yeah, that guy got murdered. But [Griffon] knew about it before then. I feel like if [Griffon said something along the lines of, “I suspect [Shane] is abusing the gorilla. I think we should put a camera in there.” That probably would have solved that problem. I feel like he never went to Step A before he went to killing that guy. 

S: And also, it’s like the zoo wanted to punish the gorilla, when again, it’s an animal, it’s a wild animal, not even a domesticated animal. So they were like… he kinda,  I don’t even think he bit the guy, so he doesn’t get a nice cage anymore, we put him in  a shitty cage. This is not a moral thing that the zoo is doing. So that is my other question, why is no one ever at the zoo? Did they spend all the money on wedding extras and TGIFridays extras. But that zoo feels closed all of the time. No one is there but the employees and that’s why the animals loiter so much.

R: That’s true. There is definitely a financial crisis happening with that zoo. 

S: And we never figured out what city it was in, we conjectured San Francisco

R:  Didn’t we eventually think they were in Boston? 

S: Oh yea, we Googled it

R: We eventually find out it’s in Boston, and that is also the final song of the movie is [by the band] Boston. 

S: I think it’s so weird to have a movie set in Boston and then not have anything Boston related at all. They could have been anywhere. They might have been anywhere. Probably filmed in Quebec.

R:  I do wonder if people from Boston would recognize that zoo somehow, if it’s iconic enough that if you actually had been to the zoo in Boston, you would be like, “Oh, I know exactly where that is.” 

S: I don’t even feel like we even see that much of it The pudding cup scene that you mentioned where he pisses all over the place. I feel like we’re in the pen a lot, the aforementioned gorilla pen we’re in all the time, we see the eagles, we see Rosario Dawson’s lab but I would be hard pressed to tell you more of that zzo. I can’t even placed in the geography of the zoo where the engagement party was.

R:  It also seemed like that zoo was just one very small area. It felt like everything was very clos to everything else

S: Basically the animals were stacked somehow.

R:  This was a strange movie. I feel like we were supposed to think that Paul Blart was very committed and saving the animals-- 

S: Paul Blart? I love that this is basically Paul Blart, reconfigured, reconstituted

R:  What is his name in the movie, again? It begins with a “G.” He’s got a strange name. 

S: Gordon? I don’t remember

R: No, it’s not Gordon. I’ll look it up. I think it is definitely worth knowing his name because it is so odd. 

S: I feel like I can never hold on to the names of Kevin James’s characters because it’s always shades of Kevin James. I’ve started talking about Kevin James in casual conversation at this point. Where I say things like “I think Kevin James is really happy with his life.” And different aspects of his acting.

R:  I feel like he does have his shit together. *frantically typing and having computer trouble*

S: In the bloopers in the credits where he just, I guess it was in between takes, he just turns to the camera and says all of America hates me right now. I think its funny to think about, Adam Sandler is so mad that people don’t like his movies. Kevin James knows and doesn’t give a fuck. And it reminds me of when Tyler Perry was on Black AF and he’s talking about how people hate his movies and he’s like guess what, I sell a lot of tickets and I’m making movies that are true to my heart. If people don’t like that then fuck that because this is what I’m doing. And that’s why they’re all over the place because Kevin James is a complicated man.

R: Well, I think, like Tyler Perry-- I am actually glad you brought up his name because now I am enjoying this connection-- I feel like you can either relate to it or you can’t. If you can relate to Tyler Perry’s movies, then they’re funny. You’re like, “Yes. I get that. I enjoy this. This feels real to me.” I feel like Kevin James is a little bit like that, too. It’s easy to watch it and go, “Who would ever watch this?” But then when you actually think about  it, it’s like-- no-- this is probably funny if you find something relatable in this situation. 

R: I guess the running joke is that Kevin James is a squat, fat guy who is extremely dorky and awkward and falls in love with every woman he meets and in every movie, he is doomed to be that person, and if that is what you feel like in your life, it is probably funny to watch it. 

S: He’s a millionaire so it’s the total bright side of that. Sure he might be all these things but he’s married to a beautiful woman and has this family and life that seems pretty fulfilling and what we have learned from his shorts is he is a legitimately good actor. He could just be a good actor which I could not get over. Why don’t we see more of this? Why doesn’t this show up in his movies? Is it because the writing is so bizarre?

R: I think the writing is one of the main culprits. We watch these movies and hit those points when Kevin James is funny. The fact that we’ve seen it is proof that [the problem] is not his ability to land a joke. It’s more the script. The script is just too flat in a lot of these movies. In Zookeeper, the script was-- it was hard to grab on to why you care what is happening.

S: Yes

R: His name is Griffin, by the way. 

S: Oh, o yea, it’s like a last name first name

R: It’s probably because it’s an animal name. 

S: I feel the Zookeeper suffers from what most of the movies he’s in suffers from which is tonal confusion. At first we’re like ok we have this guy who loves his job, total Kevin James thing, loves rules, total Kevin James thing, and is hopelessly in love with a woman who is not going to love him back to the same degree, total Kevin James thing. But then all of a sudden of all these red pill MRA shit themes start coming in. And we’re like who is this? This is not my Kevin James. And the thing is that those parts of the film feel icky. Like that part of the film feels so much more Grown Ups than anything else we’ve seen him in. Where I’m like David Spade would someone totally do this. Like you could see this showing up on his Twitter feed like “make a woman feel bad about herself”

R: I think that is one of the things that I find most troubling about Kevin James movies. I don’t want Kevin James movies to be low key sexist or high key sexist. It’s hard to tell where on the spectrum these movies fall.

S: Because of the tonal confusion

R: Yes because of the tonal confusion. It’s a weird combination of he’s putting these women on a pedestal and sometimes he’s forming genuine relationships that you can appreciate with these women. They are always strong. They are not really vapid in these movies. These are smart capable women. These characters in the are interesting people who you are like, yes, I respect this person. And then I think where it falls apart is the way he actually gets women. That’s when it starts to become creepy. So, if you learn how to manipulate women, you can just get them?  

S: There’s no seeing him stick the landing. There’s no reason that the relationship goes from kind of contentious to they’re making fun of each other and there’s no real chemistry like in Here Comes the Boom, the connection between him and Salma Hayek, I’m honestly can’t remember if they actually got together or not but I know the movie was trying to take us by the hand. And I’m like we don’t need this. This can just be about his super intense friendship with Henry Winkler, Henry Winkler’s unorthodox home life and then finding himself through MMA fighting. I don’t need this romantic relationship shoe horned in. Almost in the same way as Paul Blart, the end game in Paul Blart did not need to be a woman and then it wasn’t in the second one but they kinda wanted us to want it to be. That whole plot thread with him, the hotel manager, and the security guard, what was that? I know this isn’t Zookeeper and we keep getting off subject but I think this is relevant,

R: I’m just saying, Paul Blart had a threesome with those people. I’m throwing it out there. 

S: Oh 1000%

S: He’s negging them! It makes sense that he would end up with them. I predicted this. I knew this would happen. I orchestrated the whole thing. Are we then supposed to believe that Griffin also became awakened to this sort of pick up artist technique?

R:  He didn’t use it on Rosario Dawson. They actually did the opposite. They had a rip roaring good time at that wedding and that’s why they got together. I think that is why this is the most painless Kevin James romantic interest matchup because when they get together you’re like, Yeah, I get that. You got invited to this wedding as a friend. You had an awesome time. You both acted ridiculous, probably destroyed this wedding, but enjoyed yourselves, and after that, you decided to be more than friends. That is actually an understandable sequence of events. 

R: The negging thing-- I think we were supposed to be made to understand that it worked on Leslie Bibb because she is a shallow gold digger and those are the only types of guys that she goes out with, specifically. 

S: Ok which is a perfect transtition to why is Joe Rogan in this movie? Are they BFFs why is Joe Rogan in these fucking movies?

R: I would say I think he just likes playing a douchebag in Kevin James movies, but I don’t know. It’s hard to say. 

S: I am not under the impression that he is part of the Adam Sandler cabal so we have determined that Kevin James puts his brothers and his friends in all of his films.

R: And his wife. 

S: And his wife. So he is the light side to Adam Sandler’s dark side. Does that then mean, that Joe Rogan is part of the Kevin James posse? Cause I really feel like we are coming onto something here.

R: Well, they must be friends, somehow. 

S: We don’t see the reoccurrence of actors in these movies unless they’re friends. Because once you’re in a Zookeeper or Here Comes the Boom, you only need to be in one of these. You can just sort of live off residuals. Unless there is a different draw, you don’t really need to be in another.

R: Here is a Joe Rogan tweet from October 11, 2012, promoting Here Comes the Boom: 

https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/256578871380549633?s=20

S: So this is definitely a branding thing

R:  I wonder if it started with Here Comes the Boom, where Joe Rogan was in that movie because it was an Ultimate Fighter Movie, I guess. 

S: Yes

R: And then maybe they did become friends because of that and decided to do more movies after that? 

S: And then Joe Rogan’s podcast only took off later like he didn’t become the podcast guy until maybe 2015.

R: So, yeah, I guess that would kind of make sense is they would come up in their careers together through Kevin James movies, in part. 

S: That’s so interesting though because that puts Kevin James in the power position in his friendship with Joe Rogan.

R: Yes. I actually did find an article. If you Google, “Kevin James Joe Rogan Friendship.” 

S: As I do, every night before I go to bed but go ahead and tell me.

R: I don’t know what sherdog.com is. I don’t know what it is. It’s the global authority on mixed martial arts website. 

S: I’m so glad this is going to be on your web history, your browser history. John’s going to be like “Ryan, are you ok?’

R: So, this is an article from October 11, 2012, entitled “Kevin James’ Friendship with Bas Rutten, Joe Rogan, Inspired Here Comes the Boom”

S: So they were already friends then went and wrote a movie?

R: Supposedly, they interviewed Kevin James. Oh, look-- you can listen to the full interview. 

Interesting

R: So, they went on Sherdog Radio Network’s Beatdown Show

S: I love these words

R: And then they asked him where he got the idea for an MMA comedy and he said It really came from Joe Rogan and I talking. I’ve always wanted to try to incorporate some mixed martial arts into a movie, and Joe and I were talking about how we could make it a comedy. It seems difficult to do without making it goofy and jokey … . The challenge was just kind of getting a blend of real comedy and real moments and also infusing that with realistic MMA.”

S: So that makes so much more sense why Here Comes the Boom was so confusing. They were trying to do a lot. I think this whole project is going to lead me to listening to a ton of Kevin James interviews to just try to figure out what was the kernel that this bizarre movie started as and how the fuck did it end up where it is. And I’m going to definitely look up what lead to the Zookeeper because if this is what led to Here Comes the Boom that means the Zookeeper was Kevin James was a at a zoo and thought what if the animals could talk and give me love advice.

R: It sounds like he and Joe Rogan are friends just because they are both comedians. 

S: So Joe Rogan is big at the Comedy Store and I wonder if Kevin James used to do stand up there? Cause Joe Rogan one of THE people on the LA comedy scene. I feel like we’re going to end up writing a book about Kevin James someday.

R: I would be fine with that. Could you imagine if we actually got the opportunity to interview Kevin James? 

S: I would love that. I feel like… and I’m going to take a big swing right now…he is the connective tissue that holds Hollywood together. But for real, we’re finding out that he low key has just been…and long term fans would think I’m ridiculous for saying this, I feel like he’s been kinda flying under the radar in a way that I’m unaware of. But think about how few actors get to act as long as he’s been acting. He’s been around since the early 2000s that’s like longevity stuff and it seems like he’s always trying stuff.

R: I actually wish that I had known about Here Comes the Boom before I watched Here Comes the Boom. I would love to know the conversation that sparked the Zookeeper. I wish that I was there for the making of before I saw the final product. I think if I knew more about the material beforehand, I would have a different relationship with the movie. 

S: No that definitely makes sense because the thing we’re always questioning is intention. Like ok, so what exactly were we supposed to get out that scene? Or why would they have the characters do that? And I feel like from the little bit that I know about how the formulation of these things happened. They’re just trying stuff. Like we’re seeing what would now be relegated to a Youtube skit or a web series but they got to make a full Hollywood movie. Similar to Kevin Smith, being like I talked about the concept for Tusk on my podcast and then I went and made it. And it seems like Kevin James and his friends are doing that all the time. Like we were sitting around in our rich man’s houses and decided to make this film. By then he was flush with King of Queens money and Adam Sandler money so why not try some shit? And the studios keep signing off on it so he must be good money right? Or was that a Happy Madison Production?

R:  I think that was a Happy Madison Production???? [EDIT: Yes, it is a Happy Madison Production.]

S: Cause that’s the other part if your best friend is going to cosign on your projects very little is risked

R: Let me see. At one point, I thought this was supposed to be a kid’s movie that their parents could watch with them. 

S: Like a family film but so much of it centers around materialism and the compromise that happens when you’re with the wrong person. Even the hokey animal stuff like “show her your pudding cup” and “mark your territory”, I don’t even know how funny kids would think that was.

R: I mean, I’m trying to think back to when I was a kid, if I would have thought it was funny that he was peeing on a tree in front of actual children. 

S: I think I would have felt uncomfortable because I would be like “an adult’s not supposed to do that” like stranger danger stuff.

R: One thing that struck me in the movie is how suggestible Griffin is. You could tell Griffin to do anything and he would just do it. I guess his character was like that because otherwise you wouldn’t have any jokes in the movie. So, like, he is peeing at this party. I feel like in a lot of other movies, they would create some scenario or misunderstanding that would make that happen, but in this movie, he just decided to pee at this party.   

S: And the maitre d is way too understanding about it. Instead of ejecting him from the party, he’s like “hey you know have bathrooms right?” And Kevin James is like “yea” and then the subject is never revisited. And I’m sort of like that is not how that would have happened, the police would have been called. And like imagine being those other diners? So like you’re not going to kick him out? You’re just going to talk to him? Okkk

R: It also didn’t give him a private place to do that. I feel like in another movie, they would have given him a place to do that out of view and then he would have been caught, but he was just out in the open, peeing.

S: He was in the center of the restaurant, pissing in a planter. It was so, that’s the other part, that makes these movies so unbelievable. Kevin James as the main character is almost never the one acting most outrageously. Like he’s acting outrageously but so is everyone else here so it make it feel like it’s taking place in a crazy world. In the same way and I keep thinking about and I don’t know why this keeps coming up for me, the moment in Grown Ups where they’re at the water park. I’m having an issue phasing in and out of these movies at this point because they all have the same problems. But when they’re at the water park and everyone’s acting bananas. Where they have that weird scene where they sneaking onto the water slide the wrong way, and they keep going on the water slide and Steve Buscemi is there for no reason and Kevin James steals that kids milk and no one is behaving properly. So are we to believe that this is just a world where no one behaves properly or is the main characters behavior setting everyone else off like a domino effect?

R: I feel like it also diminishes some of the humor of what’s happening. I feel like if everyone thinks it’s normal to pee in a restaurant, where’s the joke? 

S:I completely agree. With no juxtaposition, without a straight man, where’s the joke? It’s just like everyone acting like an asshole and I just think I’m glad I’m not there. Once the lose of decorum is normalized, it’s no longer funny. It’s just like oh, we’re in a gross out world.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Where to Donate Amid an Avalanche of Need

Food for hospital workers Loren Michelle/Deborah Miller Catering | Loren Michelle/Deborah Miller Catering

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on April 11, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

I’m just going to say straight out I haven’t been doing what I should be doing for the restaurant community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve been a good consumer, buying as much wine and product, merch and gift cards as I can from small businesses, especially in my neighborhood. I feel good about my role as a leader of a news organization and the work my team has done to highlight all the important issues and struggles on the local and national level.

But I’m feeling real guilt about my lack of work on a personal level, when it comes to giving money and time or being vocal about the current crisis on social media. Oftentimes people send me flyers to put up on my Instagram or messages to tweet and it seems so empty and performative. How is a hashtag going to do anything?

But then how is doing nothing and wallowing in despair helpinganyone?

So, I decided yesterday I need to get out of my funk and actually try to help. I’m telling you this in the off chance you, too, are paralzyed by the scale of this problem. My plan of action:

Create a budget for donations, based on my usual annual charitable giving. I’ll keep a reserve of that money to give over the next couple of months as new initiatives pop up.

Choose where I’d like to focus the money. Right now, I’m planning to divide attention between feeding the front line workers (I’m thinking Treats Help and Share a Meal), national charities focused on restaurant workers and owners (Restaurant Workers Community Foundation), community kitchens (The Lee Initiative), and something that’s not about food at all (would love suggestions).

Find ways to offer time. For example, I just learned a restaurant near me is looking for people to transport meals to hospitals and I happen to have a car. I’m also inspired by my interview with Ed Lee this week (please listen) to bring some Easter candy to the community kitchens in Brooklyn this weekend.

And, of course, I’ll just keep buying up as much wine and gift cards from my locals as possible. If we are friends, you know what your holiday gift will be this year.

On Eater

Wonho Frank Lee

Jessica Koslow at Sqirl before shutting down for takeout | Wonho Frank Lee

COVID-19 Coverage

Illness: More coronavirus cases have hit the restaurant community, in what I fear is only the start of a wave that will hit hard. Confirmed illnesses this week include Keith McNally and Nancy Silverton, and deaths include a beloved butcher in New York and restaurant owners in Seattle.

News to know: LA is asking residents to skip grocery store runs; Yelp laid off 1,000 employees and furloughed 1,100 others; major restaurateurs are pushing lawmakers (and the presdient) and suing to get insurance companies to cover COVID-19-related business interuption costs; restaurants are having troubles getting their moneyfrom GoFundMe campaigns; and bakers in San Francisco are leaving sourdough starter all around the city.

Delivery beat: A number of notable restaurants and restaurant groups, including Sqirl in LA, One Off Hospitality in Chicago, Donald Link’s restaurants in New Orleans, and restaurants across Detroit have ceased delivery and takeout after assessing the health risks; meanwhile Caviar and its parent delviery service Doordash will slash commissions for restaurants while Grubhub is fighting SF City Hall to maintain its cut.

Innovative fundraisers: Some out-of-work industry workers in Dallas are selling nudes to raise money; an Etsy seller made Jose Andres prayer candles; a bunch of amateur and pro artists are selling drawings on Instagram; and high-end restaurants are selling off trophy bottles.

Traditional relief: Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah, and Laurene Powell Jobs donated millions to start a new fund that will mainly work with World Central Kitchen to feed people in need; Guy Fieri pledged to raise $100 million; Rachael Ray is giving $2 million; Rick Bayless is feeding 800 out of work industry workers a week; more community kitchens are popping up in Dallas, Oakland and Sonoma, Detroit, D.C., and inside the Nationals Stadium. Meanwhile, relief funds are completely overwhelmed, food pantries are completely overwhelmed, and schools are picking up the slack.

The stimulus: It’s not enough, and banks aren’t ready. Here’s what the Independent Restaurant Coalition is asking for.

And while you’re home

Natoora [Official]

A Natoora fruit box | Natoora

If you would like to know about the best delivery options, wholesalers doing home delivery, and more, we have giant service guides in New York, LA, Portland, and San Francisco and some fantastic maps in every single city site so go check them out.

Once you have your order, here’s how to make your takeout look good.

If you are trying to get into baking, you might be wondering, what is yeast anyway? And if you need a starting place, here are the best Smitten Kitchen recipes and best Ina Garten recipes, according to Eater editors.

This week on the podcast

Daniel and I talk to chef Ed Lee about the community kitchens he’s set up across the country and the heartbreaking decisions he has to make on a daily basis. Then we talk about the biggest stories of the week.

Off Eater

How beloved Texas supermarket H-E-B was well-prepared for the pandemic. [Texas Monthly]

All your questions about grocery shopping answered. [Vox]

Chef Hugh Acheson’s poweful articulation on how fucked restaurants are. [Atlanta Magazine]

Dining along the empty freeways of LA. [NYT]

A new movement to help Chinatowns through this. [Grub Street]

Bodegas are always there for you in a crisis. [NYT]

How the novel coronavirus is impacting the real estate market across the U.S. [Curbed]

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2K3Twxq https://ift.tt/34xsh81

Food for hospital workers Loren Michelle/Deborah Miller Catering | Loren Michelle/Deborah Miller Catering

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on April 11, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

I’m just going to say straight out I haven’t been doing what I should be doing for the restaurant community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve been a good consumer, buying as much wine and product, merch and gift cards as I can from small businesses, especially in my neighborhood. I feel good about my role as a leader of a news organization and the work my team has done to highlight all the important issues and struggles on the local and national level.

But I’m feeling real guilt about my lack of work on a personal level, when it comes to giving money and time or being vocal about the current crisis on social media. Oftentimes people send me flyers to put up on my Instagram or messages to tweet and it seems so empty and performative. How is a hashtag going to do anything?

But then how is doing nothing and wallowing in despair helpinganyone?

So, I decided yesterday I need to get out of my funk and actually try to help. I’m telling you this in the off chance you, too, are paralzyed by the scale of this problem. My plan of action:

Create a budget for donations, based on my usual annual charitable giving. I’ll keep a reserve of that money to give over the next couple of months as new initiatives pop up.

Choose where I’d like to focus the money. Right now, I’m planning to divide attention between feeding the front line workers (I’m thinking Treats Help and Share a Meal), national charities focused on restaurant workers and owners (Restaurant Workers Community Foundation), community kitchens (The Lee Initiative), and something that’s not about food at all (would love suggestions).

Find ways to offer time. For example, I just learned a restaurant near me is looking for people to transport meals to hospitals and I happen to have a car. I’m also inspired by my interview with Ed Lee this week (please listen) to bring some Easter candy to the community kitchens in Brooklyn this weekend.

And, of course, I’ll just keep buying up as much wine and gift cards from my locals as possible. If we are friends, you know what your holiday gift will be this year.

On Eater

Wonho Frank Lee

Jessica Koslow at Sqirl before shutting down for takeout | Wonho Frank Lee

COVID-19 Coverage

Illness: More coronavirus cases have hit the restaurant community, in what I fear is only the start of a wave that will hit hard. Confirmed illnesses this week include Keith McNally and Nancy Silverton, and deaths include a beloved butcher in New York and restaurant owners in Seattle.

News to know: LA is asking residents to skip grocery store runs; Yelp laid off 1,000 employees and furloughed 1,100 others; major restaurateurs are pushing lawmakers (and the presdient) and suing to get insurance companies to cover COVID-19-related business interuption costs; restaurants are having troubles getting their moneyfrom GoFundMe campaigns; and bakers in San Francisco are leaving sourdough starter all around the city.

Delivery beat: A number of notable restaurants and restaurant groups, including Sqirl in LA, One Off Hospitality in Chicago, Donald Link’s restaurants in New Orleans, and restaurants across Detroit have ceased delivery and takeout after assessing the health risks; meanwhile Caviar and its parent delviery service Doordash will slash commissions for restaurants while Grubhub is fighting SF City Hall to maintain its cut.

Innovative fundraisers: Some out-of-work industry workers in Dallas are selling nudes to raise money; an Etsy seller made Jose Andres prayer candles; a bunch of amateur and pro artists are selling drawings on Instagram; and high-end restaurants are selling off trophy bottles.

Traditional relief: Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah, and Laurene Powell Jobs donated millions to start a new fund that will mainly work with World Central Kitchen to feed people in need; Guy Fieri pledged to raise $100 million; Rachael Ray is giving $2 million; Rick Bayless is feeding 800 out of work industry workers a week; more community kitchens are popping up in Dallas, Oakland and Sonoma, Detroit, D.C., and inside the Nationals Stadium. Meanwhile, relief funds are completely overwhelmed, food pantries are completely overwhelmed, and schools are picking up the slack.

The stimulus: It’s not enough, and banks aren’t ready. Here’s what the Independent Restaurant Coalition is asking for.

And while you’re home

Natoora [Official]

A Natoora fruit box | Natoora

If you would like to know about the best delivery options, wholesalers doing home delivery, and more, we have giant service guides in New York, LA, Portland, and San Francisco and some fantastic maps in every single city site so go check them out.

Once you have your order, here’s how to make your takeout look good.

If you are trying to get into baking, you might be wondering, what is yeast anyway? And if you need a starting place, here are the best Smitten Kitchen recipes and best Ina Garten recipes, according to Eater editors.

This week on the podcast

Daniel and I talk to chef Ed Lee about the community kitchens he’s set up across the country and the heartbreaking decisions he has to make on a daily basis. Then we talk about the biggest stories of the week.

Off Eater

How beloved Texas supermarket H-E-B was well-prepared for the pandemic. [Texas Monthly]

All your questions about grocery shopping answered. [Vox]

Chef Hugh Acheson’s poweful articulation on how fucked restaurants are. [Atlanta Magazine]

Dining along the empty freeways of LA. [NYT]

A new movement to help Chinatowns through this. [Grub Street]

Bodegas are always there for you in a crisis. [NYT]

How the novel coronavirus is impacting the real estate market across the U.S. [Curbed]

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2K3Twxq via Blogger https://ift.tt/2Rzor8Z

[foundcarcosa]

ccxxix.

Childhood

Did you spend your childhood time with mostly real or imaginary friends?: >> I spent my childhood time with my Constant Companions of the time. Jacana Heights was a happenin’ place, but the most happenin’ was the theater in the center of town, where every night Eden Long and [whatever my name happened to be at the time] would perform an old favourite story or a shining new story for the enraptured masses. (When I put it like that, being incapable of socialisation with other children doesn’t seem too steep a price to pay.) Did people consider you an odd child?: >> I mean, considering how I answered the last question... but even from an outside point of view, I seem to have struck people as odd, yeah. Do you have memories that go back to when you were only a few months old?: >> No. Do you remember any thoughts you had when you where very young?: >> Thoughts, I’d say not. 

Were they intricate or simple thoughts?: >> Who’s to say, really.

If you answered “intricate”, give an example of one of those thoughts: >> --- Were you dreams very vivid as a child?: >> From what I recall, yes. The mild trypophobia I had through most of my life was directly caused by a childhood dream. What is the strangest memory you have from early childhood?: >> I don’t remember anything particularly strange. Then again, I am not a good judge of what’s strange and what’s not...  Were you a child prodigy or did you display any gifts at a young age?: >> Something like that. For whatever it was worth (not much, it seems). What was the most “grown-up” thing you ever said as a child?: >> I don’t know. What were your favourite TV shows in early childhood?: >> I didn’t really have any, especially considering how little TV I was actually allowed to watch.  Were you afraid of monsters?: >> No. But similarly, I was afraid of the lion motifs my Leo father had everywhere. Some of them were frighteningly realistic and would come to life in my dreams. Did you believe that fictional characters were real?: >> Sometimes they were. Were you more quiet and artistic or loud and physical? >> I was quiet and artistic.  Issues and stuff Do you eat meat?: >> Selectively. I consider myself pescetarian, if pressed.  If you do, what is your justification for it?: >> I don’t need to justify meat-eating. Food is food. If you could legalize 3 things in the US, what would they be?: >> Meh. Do you believe in the death penalty?: >> I’m not too fond of the concept.  Did Mumia do it?: >> Wow, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long while. If you had a choice, which country would you have chosen to be born into?: >> That’s too many variables to account for. What are your opinions of Michael Moore?: >> I have none. Describe your feelings about marijuana legalization: >> I’m in favour of it. Red, White and Blue is a ghastly color combination, right?: >> I’m not fond of it. What television news coverage do you detest the most?: >> I don’t even bother with televised news anymore. What will you do if Bush is re-elected? >> Ha! Which state do you think will drop off into the ocean first?: >> Hmm. Who do you consider “American Heros”? >> Hmm.  Completely Obtuse And Silly Questions Have you ever taken something apart just to see how it worked? >> Sure. Do you ever yell at the television while you are alone? Reason?: >> Oh, definitely. Because I’m really excited, because a character is doing something dumb, because I’m trying to encourage a character to Do The Thing, etc.  Name a few things (if any) that you bought on Ebay recently: >> I haven’t.  Are the Muppetes sinister? Think about it.: >> Are they?  Do you watch the Science Channel (Discovery) on a regular basis?: >> We don’t have cable, so not on a regular basis -- but I watch it on other people’s cable sometimes. Ever gotten into an “in person” argument with a total stranger? Discuss: >> Maybe? I don’t know. Sugar or Honey?: >> Honey, generally. What’s on your desk right now?: >> Heimdall (the machine), its peripherals, and some sundry. How many e-mails do you recieve a day?: >> 5 or so, sometimes upwards of 10. Mostly things I end up deleting right away. Do you think that time travel is a possibility?: >> I mean, sure. Are you slightly addicted to online tests and surveys?: >> Ha! San Francisco or New York City?: >> I know NYC intimately. I would like to visit San Francisco. What are your favorite color combinations?: >> Blues and greys, greens and greys, golds and... well, a lot of things. Close your eyes and type the first random image that pops into your head: >> Trees.  Do you enjoy night or day better?: >> I love both for different reasons. Favorite animal: >> Otters, capybara.  Have you ever been to a protest?: >> Yes.  Aggravated a cop on purpose?: >> Noooo. Ever gone train hopping/ridden the rails?: >> No, but I’ve strongly considered it. If you could choose a time period in which to live, which would it be?: >> I’m fine here.  Ever put your hand through a window?: >> Through a broken one, or...? I mean, probably. List a few words you hate the sound of: >> I can’t think of one now. And a few you like the sound of: >> Meh. Are you sick of this survey yet? >> No. Emotions And Such Have you attempted suicide more than once?: >> Only once.  Cutting?: >> For about six years, with some isolated incidents in the years following. Do you get violent when you are angry?: >> Occasionally. Which emotion are you most consumed by?: >> I’m most often not consumed by an emotion. Are you highly emotive?: >> Nah. Do you discuss problems or keep them to yourself?: >> I am reluctant to discuss problems with anyone outside of Xibalba. Do you fall in love easily?: >> Yes. What age/year was the most difficult for you?: >> That’s impossible for me to quantify. How do you channel your anger/sadness?: >> A variety of ways. Ever been addicted to alcohol or drugs?: >> I’d say not. Ever been homeless?: >> For most of my adult life. List a few simple things that make you happy: >> Can Calah (okay that’s not a thing but listen), the smell of my roll-on oil, watching absinthe be prepared, seeing dogs hanging out of car windows. When were you most recently your happiest?: >> I mean, /shrug  Do you consider yourself empathetic?: >> Not particularly. But it happens sometimes. Friends Describe your best friend as if you were describing a character from a film: >> I don’t even know where to begin with that, lol. Do you have friends that are drastically different from each other?: >> I guess? I mean. List a few key traits that all of your friends have in common: >> First of all, I’m having trouble even figuring who counts as a friend for this purpose. I always have a crisis of understanding whenever I try to figure out who are friends of mine. So I’ll just skip most of these. Do you keep in touch with friends from high school?: >> That would require me having friends in high school. Have you lost touch with many of your friends?: >> --- Are they mostly local or long distance?: >> I definitely don’t have any local friends. That’s easy to figure out. When you go out with friends, what kinds of things do you do?: >> --- Have you ever been betrayed by a close friend?: >> /shrug? If yes, are you still friends with that person?: >> --- Are your friends mostly your age, younger or older?: >> --- Do you have a hard time making friends because most people bore you?: >> That’s not why, no.  Do you like to hang out with friends one-on-one or in groups?: >> I prefer two or three friends. Which of you online friends do you have the most in common with?: >> Who knows. Family Are you close to your family?: >> No. What traits are you glad you inherited from them?: >> I appreciate all the traits I’ve gotten from my father.   What sitcom does your family most remind you of?: >> --- Does your family live locally or far away?: >> People in my family live in several different places. Have you ever stopped speaking to someone in your family?: >> I don’t speak to almost any of them. Have either of your parents died?: >> Not that I’m aware of, but then again, it’d be difficult to even find me to tell me. Is your family very much like you or are you opposites?: >> Most of the people in my family are very different from me. How many siblings do you have?: >> Five. Has your family ever thrown food at each other?: >> No...? IDK. Are the holidays a nightmare or a time of joy?: >> I mean... I don’t spend holidays with family members, so if that’s what this question is referring to, I’ll have to pass. Do you look like your parents?: >> I look a bit like both, I suppose. List one interesting fact about your family: >> --- Lovers Gay, Straight, Bi-sexual or no idea?: >> No idea.  Married/partnered?: >> Partnered, yes. Ever gone out with someone you were embarrassed to be seen with?: >> No. Ever broken someones heart?: >> Maybe. How many serious relationships have you had?: >> Several. Have you ever lusted obsessively over someone you knew you couldn’t have?: >> Oh, yeah. Do you believe in the theory of soulmates?: >> Sure. Ever cheated?: >> Yes. Been cheated on?: >> Not to my knowledge. Thrown someones stuff out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: >> No.  Had your stuff thrown out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: >> No. Most important emotional qualities of a lover?: >> I’m not sure.  Most important physical qualities?: >> Hmm. Food & Drink Non-alcoholic beverage of choice: >> Water. Alcoholic beverage of choice: >> Absinthe. Foods you crave on a regular basis: >> I’m not sure.

Salsa and Chips or Pita and Hummus?: >> Pita and hummus. Meat or Tofu?: >> Meat. Soup or Salad?: >> Salad. Soda or Juice?: >> Juice. Can I get you anything else?: >> Hmm. Favorite candy:: >> Ferrero Rocher. Favorite food to make: >> Nope.

Food brand that you hate?: >> Hmm. Do you try to buy all organic?: >> No. Favorite quick food?: >> Morningstar veggie burgers. Final Questions Ever had a great song ruined for you after it was used in a commercial?: >> No. Ever yelled at an SUV?: >> I mean, maybe. A Hummer?: >> An even more likely possibility. Ever faked being sick to get out of going somewhere?: >> No. If you could turn back time and change one thing, what would it be?: >> No. Bambi or Nemo?: >> Neither. List 3 things that are worrying you right now: >> --- It’s too fucking long, right?: >> The survey? I’ve definitely taken longer. Well, I’m just trying to help you pass the time.: >> I appreciate it. Do you think you’ll ever have children if you don’t already?: >> Maybe. (Raise, not actually have.) Do you think there is life on other planets?: >> Sure. Have you ever broken a leg or arm?: >> No. Would you rather stay in the house or do things outside: >> I prefer a balance. I definitely feel my wanderlust straining at its leash these days. David Letterman or Jay Leno?: >> --- Last words?: >> Deuces.

[dpsjourney]

Studies of Devassos No Paraíso by João Silvério Trevisan - Part II

About the representation of queer people in the Brazilian modern mainstream media

I’m skipping a bit of the vast historic background in Devassos no Paraíso provides to focus on the chapters where Trevisan (2018) describes the appearance of queer personalities and other artists that broke with the heteronormativity from the 70s onwards. It is important to remember that during this period of time, Brazil was going through a military dictatorship that was going to last until 1985. In addition, in 1968 a series of laws named The Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5) was put into action. The AI-5 determined that the president (non-democratically elected) could, without any jurisdictional review, shut down the Congress, discharge congressman, suspend the rights of any citizen for 10 years, suspend habeas-corpus, amongst others. This led to high persecution of anyone or anything considered to be “subversive”: countless arrests of artists and activists - some even exiled, reports of torture from government agents, and heavy censorship on media and entrainment.

Having this said, the chapters start by commenting on the emergence of young liberation movements, not necessarily associated with any political side, but dedicated to a self immersion. The first icon of this movement was the singer and composer Caetano Veloso. He constantly broke with heteronormative expectations of the time, wearing bras and lipstick on stage, kissing his band members and stating a clear identification with a feminine side. Even though Veloso never stated he was gay or bi, there were comments of his admiration of the same sex in some of his lyrics.

Another important mention was the theater group Dzi Croquettes. They were the ones to introduce the gender fuck movement: originated in San Francisco, it consisted of gay men who liked to wear feminine symbols but mixed it with strong masculine traits like beards and hairy chests. The group performed dances and told provocative jokes on stage, they were a fundamental piece in breaking the heteronormativity in the LGBTQ+ community.

Above: (1) two members of Dzi Croquettes performing on stage 

Following the tendency of playing with gender symbols was Ney Matogrosso. He had great success amongst different age and social groups, representing a figure of mystery. Contrasting glitter, makeup, skirts, feathers, and a hairy chest, Ney was a phenomenon as the lead singer of Secos & Molhados and, later on, in his solo career. He suffered plenty of verbal and nonverbal aggression, even being kicked out of the stage at one point (Pereira, 1982), but nevertheless always was a clearly stated homosexual. The singer said once in an interview (1978) that his mission was to “end the tale that [being] homosexual was something sad, suffered, that you need to hide”. Mostly, Ney Matogrosso represented artistic freedom to break with gender stereotypes and symbols; apart from his clothes, he constantly mocked masculinity in his lyrics and performance. To Brazilian society he posed as a mythical figure, provoking shock and curiosity in the audience, which always kept them interested.

Above: (2) Ney in his stage costume (Maia, circa 1970)

Moving over to television entertainment - another very important sector of Brazilian pop culture - it is also possible to start seeing representations of LGBTQ+ subjects, even though television channels also suffered heavily from censorship. One of the first personalities to do so was the Talent show host Chacrinha, who often dressed up as a woman and inserted sexual innuendos in every bit of the show during its exhibition in the 80s. From that onwards, there were more and more queer personalities in soap operas and TV shows.  And the reason for that was simple: the polemic topic helped in the audience numbers - and therefore, profit. Actors that interpreted gay characters became nation-wide famous, all for performing very palatable version of real LGBTQ+ people, to please the public’s voyeuristic desires. The author suggests that this hygienization is mandatory for the continuous exotification of the public towards these ’strange loves’ that stayed in Brazilian’s imaginary.

Above: (3) The couple Niko (right, Thiago Fragoso) and Félix (left, Matheus Solano) in the prime time soap opera Amor À Vida.

In the same logic, LGBTQ+ characters also became the center of the joke. Many popular TV comedy shows had one or another sketch with their male actors cross-dressing or representing a very emasculated gay character. One persona in particular to highlight was Capitão Gay (Captain Gay), a Super-Man parody covered feathers who solved problems “no man or woman could solve” (Capitão Gay, 1981) with the help of a very dubious magic wand. The gay superhero was attacked both by the moralist, who thought this would promote homosexuality and by the LGBTQ+ community, which accused the character of perpetuating stereotypes. More recently, there was Ferdinando Show, an interview show featuring Ferdinando, a comic character who used the art of drag, musical performances and loads of gay slang in his talk show.

Above: (4) Capitão Gay (right) and his helper Carlos Suely (left) in their famous costumes. / Below: (5) Ferdinando, interpreted by actor Marcus Majella. 

The trans community also had its representation on the TV screens. Rogéria was the first to appear, as a guest in Chacrinha’s Talent show. Her fame led her to receive the title of “the transvestite of the Brazilian family”. Nany People, another trans comedian, and actress followed the legacy of Rogéria and has been featured in plays and soap operas. Another celebrity to mention is Roberta Close. She started out as the ad girl for a closets campaign and later on she sold out 200k copies of a Playboy magazine (Kfouri, 1984). Close had the looks of the beauty standards for a woman at the time and, therefore, was an easy target for the objectification and projection of male desires. Nevertheless, Roberta got famous to the point of receiving backlash from both sides: the conservatives were outraged by the idea of having a trans woman as a national sex-symbol, while feminist groups saw on Close a clear representation of sexist male desire.

Above: (6) Roberta Close in the beginning of her career.  

Back to the chronological order, in the 1990s the world suffered from the AIDs crisis and Brazil had its martyrs from popular music who carried out this cross. Cazuza and Renato Russo were famous names in the music industry, adored by the public (mainly the youth) as rock stars and came out as gay during the 80s. They were far from the stereotypical gay man propagated by the media, which allowed them to merge their romantic/sexual life as part of their regular public and creative career. Cazuza and Russo were HIV positive and made public through lyrics their experiences with the disease and sexuality, contrary to what older generations icons -  such as Matogrosso (1992) and Veloso (Fraga, 1993) - did at the time, separating themselves to any comparison to the LGBTQ+ community.

Through this quick flashback, we can glance at the permissiveness of the queer representation in Brazilian mainstream culture. This phenomenon is dependent of a few factors: it is either a “polished” version that is in accordance with heteronormative standards, such as the looks of Roberta Close or the lack of similarities between Cazuza and the advertised gay man; or it represents something exaggerated and different enough to either spark exotification - like Ney Matogrosso’s performance - or to be the pun of the joke - as did Capitão Gay. This so-called ‘acceptance’ is according to the malleability of society to identify similarities that don’t offend the heteronormative system or differences so evident that make those individuals to be treated as something mysterious and possibly beyond-human. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the path that these personalities built to contribute to the integration of the LGBTQ+ community outside of the margins and into pop culture.

References

Capitão Gay (1981) Viva O Gordo. Rede Globo, 9 March.

D'Araujo, M.C. (Unknown) Fatos e Imagens: artigos ilustrados de fatos e conjunturas do Brasil. Available at: https://cpdoc.fgv.br/producao/dossies/FatosImagens/AI5 (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

Fraga, P. (1993) ‘Caetano ataca New York Times no programa do Jô’, Folha de S.Paulo, 30 September.

Kfouri, J. (ed.) (1984) ‘Lídia Bizzocchi (especial: Roberta Close)’, Playboy, March.

Matogrosso, N. (1978) ‘Ney Matogrosso fala sem make up’. Interview with Ney Matogrosso. Interviewed by Vânia Toledo and Nelson Motta for Interview (n.5), May, p. 4-7.

Pereira, E. (1982) ‘Ney, em liberdade moral’, Journal da Tarde, 13 November, p.7.

Vaz, D. P. (1992) Ney Matogrosso: Um cara meio estranho. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Fundo Editora.

Figures list

1 - Para a caracterização, o figurino trazia brilho, meia arrastão e maquiagem pesada (2012) Available at: http://redeglobo.globo.com/globoteatro/bis/noticia/2013/09/relembre-momentos-marcantes-da-carreira-do-grupo-dzi-croquettes.html (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

2 - Maia, J. ( circa 1970) Ney Matogrosso, o showman brasileiro. Available at: https://imagesvisions.blogspot.com/2013/11/ney-matogrosso-o-icone-camaleao-do.html (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

3- Amor À Vida (2013) Rede Globo, 13 January, 21:00.

4- Viva O Gordo (1981) Rede Globo, 9 march.

5- Fernando Show (2015) Multishow, 10 August.

6- Fala cinco idiomas: o inglês, o francês, o alemão, o português e o italiano (2015). Available at: https://entretenimento.r7.com/famosos-e-tv/fotos/musa-dos-anos-80-roberta-close-aparece-com-o-rosto-irreconhecivel-em-rede-social-compare-06102019#!/foto/8 (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

[kevindurkiin]

Ardalan Debuts New Album “Mr. Good” [Your EDM Interview]

What do a parade float, Mardi Gras beads, and a masquerade have to do with camping? When you are at Dirtybird Campout West Coast 2019 in Modesto, they come together to create the perfect traveling stage for a surprise album listening party as DJ/artist Ardalan took to the beaten campground paths to share his upcoming album, Mr. Good.

And just a few short hours before the Parade embarked from the Dirtybird Games HQ, I met with Ardalan backstage to not only chat about the San Francisco DJ’s upcoming album.

Ardalan and I spoke about the meaning behind Mr. Good and the masks people wear through life. We also talked about going on Escapades with Walker & Royce through New York City, experimenting with a new sound for a future album inspired by his Persian heritage and childhood in Iran, attending his first Dirtybird BBQ at 17, and releasing his first Dirtybird track with Justin Martin at 19. Last of all, we talked about what it means to him that Mr. Good will be the final Dirtybird release ever made in the San Francisco home he shared with his label mate and mentor.

So excited to play The Great Northern on Saturday to celebrate my album release AAAAND my birthday!

Be sure to grab tickets before they're all gone!Tickets – https://bit.ly/2ps4mH0

Posted by Ardalan on Wednesday, October 30, 2019

You have an album coming out on November 1st. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

My album is called Mr. Good. I called it “Mr. Good” because I wanted to basically talk about the idea of how we as people always somehow wear a mask… hiding our mistakes or flaws. And this album is basically [saying] We all should just be ourselves. You know. And not give a Fuck. But be a good person. In some ways. It goes deeper than that but… that’s what it represents. 

Is there any particular event that inspired that message?

I guess that what really [inspired the idea of Mr. Good] is just the fact that musically I had a period where I wanted to play different stuff but I felt like I couldn’t. And I felt like people didn’t know who I really was. What music I play or what type of music I make. So I feel like I had an identity crisis and this album I wanted to do something that was completely me. And I just wanted to accept [who I am] and make the weirdest music ever. And also the most musical music on the dance floor. Works for the dancefloor but also music so you can listen to it at home or anywhere else.

Is there a genre you would put it in?

I guess it is like house and techno. But I do have like a hip hop/drum and bass track on there that I made. Walker and Royce closed out with it last night. Which was really awesome. I [have trouble picking out one genre] But it’s between techno house with a little bit of breakbeat and drum & bass.

***the track Walker and Royce closed out with is “Lifted.” Check it out below. Know there was a lot of birdies hunting for this after Campout. Be sure to check out the rest of the album at the end of the interview.

My friend told me you got started with Dirtybird on Holy Ship. But I’ve heard a couple of different versions of that story. Which one is the real story?

I started with Dirtybird… I started way before Holy Ship actually. It was when I was 17 years old. I went to my first Dirtybird BBQ ever [at] Golden Gate Park 2007. I met Justin [Martin], Barkley [Crenshaw], Christian [Martin], and I met Fernando [Rivera].

Were you already making music at this point?

Kind of. That party changed my life. I was like I want to be a DJ but I want to be like this. That was my first ever experience partying. Because I wasn’t 21. So I’d never been to a nightclub. I started off with my own little rave experience with the Dirtybird BBQ. I’m like this randomly and you know everyone’s just got that awesome San Francisco vibe. And I started going to Sunset Parties at the same time as Dirtybird. And that really is who made me. I’ve learned it from those guys. I’m so blessed to be part of the experience of that… energy.

So you started young!

I started when I was 17. I had my first release when I was 19 with Dirtybird called “Mr. Spock” with Justin Martin. And then I moved in with Justin. He really did help me. In so many ways. And I’m really grateful to have him as like my brother.

Did he teach you more of the technical [DJing] stuff or like life lessons?

We were just working and [we had] our studios in our house. We were living on Church Street where he lived for 17 years. Where he made his two albums: Ghetto Gardens and Hello Clouds. That part of San Francisco has so many memories. So many good spirits. You know? I feel really proud [of making my album in that house]. It’s kind of symbolic in an emotional way [for me]. I ended living there with my album and no one lives there anymore. We all moved out. So Mr. Good is the last album coming out of there. It’s a kind of closure to that time.

A lot of Dirtybird artists have also gone on to create their own label. Is that something you are thinking about?

Eventually, I want to do that. But I want to focus on finishing the music and just releasing it on other labels and Dirtybird. And doing more music with friends. So that’s definitely the pipeline but I’m just waiting for the right time. I’m doing my own party right now. Ardy Party. Parties everywhere and some with Walker and Royce as Escapade. Now, this album is over the next step is some more experimental stuff as well.

View this post on Instagram

Thanks everyone for breaking it down with @uniteamusic & myself at Mr. Good's Mardi Pardy Parade during @dirtybirdcamp!

A post shared by Ardalan

(@ardalander) on Oct 30, 2019 at 5:07pm PDT

What kind of music do you like to experiment with?

Well, I’m actually going to dive more into my Persian background. So it’s going to be more Iranian inspired music. Persian inspired music from Iran but with electronic/house and techno. I was born in Iran and moved to the US in 2006 [after] living back and forth from Tehra and the Bay Area. The album doesn’t mention at all my life, but I want to bring along a lot of the experiences [I had] before I moved to the US and put that into the music. Dedicate my music to my people in Iran. That’s what I’m doing right now. It’s a little bit difficult [at the moment]. My studio is not set up yet because I literally had to move out at the same time this album [Mr. Good] was due.

Are there any songs or sounds you remember from your childhood that makes you want to bring that feeling…[to the music]?

There is a lot of sounds. A lot of Iranian melodies. I’m going to do a lot of originally Persian melodies and a lot of traditional Iranian music. And a lot of ’70s Iranian disco-inspired music as well. And I’m just doing a little science experiment to try and get all that together. But I think a lot of it… I play a lot of melodies and I feel like I just remember being in Iran. I feel like I want to some more of that realm. I’m really excited [for the new music]. I haven’t finished it but I think it will be kind of cool to dive into that part of my life. I’ll have more free time [to work on the new music] now that the albums out.

Other than your album do you have anything coming up you want people to know about?

I’m doing some stuff with Walker & Royce as Escapade. We already finished one track and one edit. We’re going to do more new stuff for next year. So looking forward to doing more stuff with those guys. It’s been awesome! I love those guys so much. Gavin and Sam are just like brothers to me and they’ve helped me throughout. Sam really really helped me. I have to give a shout out to Sam Walker and Sebi from Maximono. They help me mixed down my album and without them… it would have been hard to do on my own.

What would you say is the difference between your music as Ardalan and your music as Escapade?

With Escapade, I feel like we’re combining forces and you know we want to mix a lot of different types of stuff. We want to mix a lot of Disco and Funk and Acid. I feel like Escapade gives us the freedom to go to a different… To go through and Escapade. It’s open to interpretation. We can just wing it and take it wherever it wants to go.

Where did the name Escapade come from?

It actually came from the first time I stayed in New York for a long period of time. I would always just go in and out and Gavin [Royce] was like ” I’ll take you on a tour. I’m going to take you on an escapade”. We started off having amazing dumplings in Chinatown and then he took me to Central Park and there was like a deep house rollerblade party happening. New York house music. And we’re really vibing listening to this dope ass felt [music] that really old school. Yeah. And we’re like yeah “We should do an escapade.” You know I feel like that kind of inspired us that day. By day. Yeah exactly. So yeah when it escalated to a lot of different stuff. 

Do you have a most memorable experience as a fan and a most memorable fan experience from when you’re DJing and on stage?

Oh yeah. As a fan it’s… the first time I went to a “rave” before Dirtybird very real with when I saw Mark Friedman play at this rave. And as a fan, I was blown away. I was just 16 years old and then I went to Dirtybird obviously. And I was like man I want to make music. I want to hear my music on the sound system. I just love dancing. At the end of the day. I just wanted to dance. I just want to have fun and dance. I can’t dance. I’m not doing my job.

And most memorable fan experience? As a DJ.

Mannnn. My god, there’s so many. Especially at camp out. People here are so fucking awesome. I think it’s just been crazy. You know like I love being on the dance floor. Being with the crowd. They’re having the most fun. The fans inspire me so much. Like they make me feel so good. Especially in Dirtybird fans. They do such amazing awesome stuff. Make me so many gifts. This guy made me a Pokemon card. [It has] my face on it as Ardalan and then the tracks were the power-ups on it. Dj Pokedecks in Miami. So that was really cool. And then. I had some people from Unity make my album masks. Which we’re going to showcase on the Mardi Gras party. So it’s going to be a masquerade party.

What do fans have to do to get a mask or beads at the party?

I think we’re just handing them out. It’s a parade. Everyone’s welcome. 

 What’s your Halloween costume this year.

Ummmmmm. I’m trying to really relevant but…

Like Mr. Good?

Yeah. Mr. Good. So I’m going to be me. I’m just going to be good. Or you know what? I’m going to be Mr. Bad. I have a track on my album called “Mr. Bad.”

Listen to Mr. Good below and be sure to check out Ardalan’s Facebook for tour info:

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Ardalan Debuts New Album “Mr. Good” [Your EDM Interview]

Ardalan Debuts New Album “Mr. Good” [Your EDM Interview] published first on https://soundwizreview.tumblr.com/

[bluebuzzmusic]

Ardalan Debuts New Album “Mr. Good” [Your EDM Interview]

What do a parade float, Mardi Gras beads, and a masquerade have to do with camping? When you are at Dirtybird Campout West Coast 2019 in Modesto, they come together to create the perfect traveling stage for a surprise album listening party as DJ/artist Ardalan took to the beaten campground paths to share his upcoming album, Mr. Good.

And just a few short hours before the Parade embarked from the Dirtybird Games HQ, I met with Ardalan backstage to not only chat about the San Francisco DJ’s upcoming album.

Ardalan and I spoke about the meaning behind Mr. Good and the masks people wear through life. We also talked about going on Escapades with Walker & Royce through New York City, experimenting with a new sound for a future album inspired by his Persian heritage and childhood in Iran, attending his first Dirtybird BBQ at 17, and releasing his first Dirtybird track with Justin Martin at 19. Last of all, we talked about what it means to him that Mr. Good will be the final Dirtybird release ever made in the San Francisco home he shared with his label mate and mentor.

So excited to play The Great Northern on Saturday to celebrate my album release AAAAND my birthday!

Be sure to grab tickets before they're all gone!Tickets – https://bit.ly/2ps4mH0

Posted by Ardalan on Wednesday, October 30, 2019

You have an album coming out on November 1st. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

My album is called Mr. Good. I called it “Mr. Good” because I wanted to basically talk about the idea of how we as people always somehow wear a mask… hiding our mistakes or flaws. And this album is basically [saying] We all should just be ourselves. You know. And not give a Fuck. But be a good person. In some ways. It goes deeper than that but… that’s what it represents. 

Is there any particular event that inspired that message?

I guess that what really [inspired the idea of Mr. Good] is just the fact that musically I had a period where I wanted to play different stuff but I felt like I couldn’t. And I felt like people didn’t know who I really was. What music I play or what type of music I make. So I feel like I had an identity crisis and this album I wanted to do something that was completely me. And I just wanted to accept [who I am] and make the weirdest music ever. And also the most musical music on the dance floor. Works for the dancefloor but also music so you can listen to it at home or anywhere else.

Is there a genre you would put it in?

I guess it is like house and techno. But I do have like a hip hop/drum and bass track on there that I made. Walker and Royce closed out with it last night. Which was really awesome. I [have trouble picking out one genre] But it’s between techno house with a little bit of breakbeat and drum & bass.

***the track Walker and Royce closed out with is “Lifted.” Check it out below. Know there was a lot of birdies hunting for this after Campout. Be sure to check out the rest of the album at the end of the interview.

My friend told me you got started with Dirtybird on Holy Ship. But I’ve heard a couple of different versions of that story. Which one is the real story?

I started with Dirtybird… I started way before Holy Ship actually. It was when I was 17 years old. I went to my first Dirtybird BBQ ever [at] Golden Gate Park 2007. I met Justin [Martin], Barkley [Crenshaw], Christian [Martin], and I met Fernando [Rivera].

Were you already making music at this point?

Kind of. That party changed my life. I was like I want to be a DJ but I want to be like this. That was my first ever experience partying. Because I wasn’t 21. So I’d never been to a nightclub. I started off with my own little rave experience with the Dirtybird BBQ. I’m like this randomly and you know everyone’s just got that awesome San Francisco vibe. And I started going to Sunset Parties at the same time as Dirtybird. And that really is who made me. I’ve learned it from those guys. I’m so blessed to be part of the experience of that… energy.

So you started young!

I started when I was 17. I had my first release when I was 19 with Dirtybird called “Mr. Spock” with Justin Martin. And then I moved in with Justin. He really did help me. In so many ways. And I’m really grateful to have him as like my brother.

Did he teach you more of the technical [DJing] stuff or like life lessons?

We were just working and [we had] our studios in our house. We were living on Church Street where he lived for 17 years. Where he made his two albums: Ghetto Gardens and Hello Clouds. That part of San Francisco has so many memories. So many good spirits. You know? I feel really proud [of making my album in that house]. It’s kind of symbolic in an emotional way [for me]. I ended living there with my album and no one lives there anymore. We all moved out. So Mr. Good is the last album coming out of there. It’s a kind of closure to that time.

A lot of Dirtybird artists have also gone on to create their own label. Is that something you are thinking about?

Eventually, I want to do that. But I want to focus on finishing the music and just releasing it on other labels and Dirtybird. And doing more music with friends. So that’s definitely the pipeline but I’m just waiting for the right time. I’m doing my own party right now. Ardy Party. Parties everywhere and some with Walker and Royce as Escapade. Now, this album is over the next step is some more experimental stuff as well.

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Thanks everyone for breaking it down with @uniteamusic & myself at Mr. Good's Mardi Pardy Parade during @dirtybirdcamp!

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(@ardalander) on Oct 30, 2019 at 5:07pm PDT

What kind of music do you like to experiment with?

Well, I’m actually going to dive more into my Persian background. So it’s going to be more Iranian inspired music. Persian inspired music from Iran but with electronic/house and techno. I was born in Iran and moved to the US in 2006 [after] living back and forth from Tehra and the Bay Area. The album doesn’t mention at all my life, but I want to bring along a lot of the experiences [I had] before I moved to the US and put that into the music. Dedicate my music to my people in Iran. That’s what I’m doing right now. It’s a little bit difficult [at the moment]. My studio is not set up yet because I literally had to move out at the same time this album [Mr. Good] was due.

Are there any songs or sounds you remember from your childhood that makes you want to bring that feeling…[to the music]?

There is a lot of sounds. A lot of Iranian melodies. I’m going to do a lot of originally Persian melodies and a lot of traditional Iranian music. And a lot of ’70s Iranian disco-inspired music as well. And I’m just doing a little science experiment to try and get all that together. But I think a lot of it… I play a lot of melodies and I feel like I just remember being in Iran. I feel like I want to some more of that realm. I’m really excited [for the new music]. I haven’t finished it but I think it will be kind of cool to dive into that part of my life. I’ll have more free time [to work on the new music] now that the albums out.

Other than your album do you have anything coming up you want people to know about?

I’m doing some stuff with Walker & Royce as Escapade. We already finished one track and one edit. We’re going to do more new stuff for next year. So looking forward to doing more stuff with those guys. It’s been awesome! I love those guys so much. Gavin and Sam are just like brothers to me and they’ve helped me throughout. Sam really really helped me. I have to give a shout out to Sam Walker and Sebi from Maximono. They help me mixed down my album and without them… it would have been hard to do on my own.

What would you say is the difference between your music as Ardalan and your music as Escapade?

With Escapade, I feel like we’re combining forces and you know we want to mix a lot of different types of stuff. We want to mix a lot of Disco and Funk and Acid. I feel like Escapade gives us the freedom to go to a different… To go through and Escapade. It’s open to interpretation. We can just wing it and take it wherever it wants to go.

Where did the name Escapade come from?

It actually came from the first time I stayed in New York for a long period of time. I would always just go in and out and Gavin [Royce] was like ” I’ll take you on a tour. I’m going to take you on an escapade”. We started off having amazing dumplings in Chinatown and then he took me to Central Park and there was like a deep house rollerblade party happening. New York house music. And we’re really vibing listening to this dope ass felt [music] that really old school. Yeah. And we’re like yeah “We should do an escapade.” You know I feel like that kind of inspired us that day. By day. Yeah exactly. So yeah when it escalated to a lot of different stuff. 

Do you have a most memorable experience as a fan and a most memorable fan experience from when you’re DJing and on stage?

Oh yeah. As a fan it’s… the first time I went to a “rave” before Dirtybird very real with when I saw Mark Friedman play at this rave. And as a fan, I was blown away. I was just 16 years old and then I went to Dirtybird obviously. And I was like man I want to make music. I want to hear my music on the sound system. I just love dancing. At the end of the day. I just wanted to dance. I just want to have fun and dance. I can’t dance. I’m not doing my job.

And most memorable fan experience? As a DJ.

Mannnn. My god, there’s so many. Especially at camp out. People here are so fucking awesome. I think it’s just been crazy. You know like I love being on the dance floor. Being with the crowd. They’re having the most fun. The fans inspire me so much. Like they make me feel so good. Especially in Dirtybird fans. They do such amazing awesome stuff. Make me so many gifts. This guy made me a Pokemon card. [It has] my face on it as Ardalan and then the tracks were the power-ups on it. Dj Pokedecks in Miami. So that was really cool. And then. I had some people from Unity make my album masks. Which we’re going to showcase on the Mardi Gras party. So it’s going to be a masquerade party.

What do fans have to do to get a mask or beads at the party?

I think we’re just handing them out. It’s a parade. Everyone’s welcome. 

 What’s your Halloween costume this year.

Ummmmmm. I’m trying to really relevant but…

Like Mr. Good?

Yeah. Mr. Good. So I’m going to be me. I’m just going to be good. Or you know what? I’m going to be Mr. Bad. I have a track on my album called “Mr. Bad.”

Listen to Mr. Good below and be sure to check out Ardalan’s Facebook for tour info:

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Ardalan Debuts New Album “Mr. Good” [Your EDM Interview]

source https://www.youredm.com/2019/11/01/ardalan-debuts-new-album-mr-good-your-edm-interview/