#We respect drug use here at The Confessional

[st-alastors-confessional]

al, I overdosed on melatonin perc and xanax yesterday, I just wanted to take a nap. r drugs sins? I don’t feel sorry😒just wanted to ask

Drugs? A sin?

Oh-ho-ho, certainly not.

But safe practices are always paramount when consuming substances. I implore you to take care in future, my dear. I’d hate for anything to damage that wonderful soul of yours.

Your sins are forgiven.

St. Alastor

[isaacapatow]

Ember asked a straight-up question, no hiding her real intent or putting frills all over it to mask the ugliness of the whole thing, and Ike could respect that. She wanted an honest shooting answer ( just like both her parents, just like--) so he gave her one. "I regret being too fucked-up to stick around or take care of you properly," Ike said. He chewed for a moment, on nothing; a habit he'd lost over time while he was getting sober for real, one that had come back in a hurry, all of a sudden. "I don't regret leaving you."

There was plenty he could explain or embellish, to tell Ember that would mitigate the unvarnished truth of it and elaborate on what there was to regret, but what would be the point? They didn't know each other. Him spilling his shit wouldn't change a damn thing now, about how Ember grew up without a daddy. And Ike didn't much believe in confessional just for the sake of it. That kind of catharsis only ever worked in one direction.

"I am sorry to hear about your sister, though. With losing your mom too, that's a fuckin' crap hand you got dealt, kid." And at least Ike was able to offer her that, one moment of unadulterated sympathy sandwiched in between two layers of shit, Ike Apatow-style. And what did Ember have to say to this outpouring of how badly he'd messed up? That Isabella had a type.

Ike laughed, though there wasn't much mirth in the sound. "Well, shit," he said, leaning back against the cinderblock wall. "That don't say much good about the ones who followed after me. Your mom deserved better than that. You did too." Better than some conga line of fuckleheads, better than Ike. He lifted his chin in acknowledgement when Ember said the whole thing was fucked up. "I don't know if it's gonna bring you any kind of peace knowing the reason I left, but -- you asked. And I gotta think that if you're here, and you're grown, and you kept yourself safe enough to get to Redwood, that you're a girl who knows what she can handle. You don't need to like me, Ember. You don't even need to give me a chance, unless you want to. Neither of us counted on this happening."

This, this. A world gone to shit or a reunion in the middle of it, a father who never tried to come back for his daughter. Ike's jaw clicked; he forced himself to stop chewing.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm sober. Not exactly easy to get hold of any kind of drugs anymore, and even if we do get street drugs they go over to the infirmary to see if they can use 'em for when ordinary painkillers won't do anything. But I was sober before. Twenty years now."

Ike wasn't sure if he was allowed to ask anything back, but not knowing had never stopped him from anything before. "You?" he ventured. "You got any ... I mean, I know it happens sometimes. Whether you consider it a genetic predisposition or because of trauma. You got any substance shit goin' on?"

He was a junkie and wanted to try it, wanted to stick at one place, but couldn't do it, not even for her. Ember didn't quite know what to even say to that. It hurt more than she ever thought it would coming from him - knowing that he left and hearing him say it like that was quite different.

And probably her next question didn't really help either, but she couldn't help herself, "Have you ever regretted it? And before you say yes just because you think I want to hear that, don't. I just want the truth, if that's a no, I'd rather hear it than not."

So her mom did mention Willow. "She's--" she glanced down at her fingers for a moment before saying, "she's gone, too. For years now. She was one of the first to get bitten". They barely even could wrap their heads around the fact that zombies were actually thing now, and then they got the call - it was the kind of reality check Ember never ever wanted to get. Gone way too young and way too fast. Ember just hoped that she never realized what was happening, so she never had a chance to be afraid.

Instead of answering her question, he actually told her the story of what the last straw was, and fuck if it wasn't a harrowing story. It was something she's never heard before, this was one thing her mom always refused to talk about, and Ember always wanted to know, and now here it was. All of it laid down bare in front of her.

Memory was a fickle thing, especially a four-years-old kid's. Ember, just like any other kid would, had barely any memories of when she was little, and the ones she did have, she never was quite sure was hers, of it she just heard certain stories too often that she created a memory of it for herself and claimed it as her own. She had remnants of her father like that, a few memories she never could tell if they were actually real or not, but after a while didn't care to think about them. Any memories of him was tainted by him not being around anymore.

And yet somehow, even before he brought up the doll, something scratched from behind the back of her head, and she sucked in a breath as she heard his words. She wasn't sure if he realized that she actually stole that doll that day (only realized it was stealing now, she never could remember where she got it from) and had been stuck to it for years. Her mom hated it more than anything, wanted to get rid of it several times (probably managed to at some point because after a while, she couldn't remember when, Ember couldn't find it anymore). It all made that much more sense now.

When he finished, the silence hung between them for a moment. "Fuck, mom really did have a type," was the first thing that somehow stumbled out of her mouth, unable to keep it in. "I-- I don't know. I am genuinely stumped on what to say to any of this because all I can think about how it's messed up but I'm pretty sure you're also aware of that." And she couldn't help but wonder - her own months-long bender after Willow was gone, was that inevitable? Was it something she was destined to fall into, apple and the tree or some shit like that.

She looked over at him. "So you're sober now?"

[nerdygaymormon]

Why do they bother calling it an "honor code"? The name implies that it's run on the honor system, but they accept tip-offs, even anonymous ones, and investigate based on that. Calling it an "honor code" is an Orwellian use of language.

I like the way you framed the question, you make a good point. "Honor" should be removed from the name, not just because it's not an 'honor system,' but the treatment of LGBTQ students under the Code is not honorable

————————————————————

Here's a brief timeline of the Honor Code & BYU policies, especially regarding LGBTQ people and topics:

Most universities have a Code of Conduct. BYU's Honor Code originated in 1948. It was written by students and originally outlined policies related to academic honesty. In addition to the code, students formed the BYU Honor Committee, which acted as the enforcer of the honesty policies.

Over the years, student support for the Honor Committee and Code waned, with students citing its standards to be a “strict legalistic approach” to honor. This is exactly what anon was saying, it's not 'on your honor' if you're strictly enforcing it.

In 1957, BYU President Ernest Wilkinson suggested the addition of LDS moral standards to the Honor Code.

A "live and let live" attitude had been the leaders’ attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual BYU students. That ended in 1962, school administrators and two apostles decided that "as a general policy...no one will be admitted to the B.Y.U. whom we have convincing evidence is a homosexual." The general authorities would turn over to BYU any information on homosexuality which they might obtain through ecclesiastical channels, and BYU would give the general authorities information on individuals at BYU who were suspected of being Gay.

The Honor Code expanded in the 1960s to become what we know it as today, it includes rules about chastity, dress, grooming, drugs and alcohol.

In 1965, President Wilkinson publicly announced to the student body, "We [at BYU] do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals."

The 1967 version of the Honor Code stated that "homosexuality will not be tolerated."

Also in 1967, President Wilkinson implemented a new plan. A questionnaire was sent to all Mormon bishops affiliated with BYU. The questionnaires required the bishops report to the school lists of students who were "inactive in the church or...not living the standards of the church," effectively breaking the secrecy of the confessional. Because of this new policy, the numbers of students visiting the Standards Office (which later would be renamed the Honor Code Office) soared dramatically. That first year, the Standards Office counseled 72 students who were "suspected of homosexual activity." The questionnaires eventually turned into the ecclesiastical endorsement students would be required to obtain annually (and can be withdrawn at any time) in order to attend BYU.

This dramatic increase in identified Gays and Lesbians led the BYU administration to begin what is often referred to by Gay Mormons as the "Witch Hunts of '68". The administration was convinced a large "homosexual ring" was located on campus. Extensive security files were kept on students suspected of homosexuality, and all new prospective teachers had to be interviewed by a general authority before being offered a position at BYU.

In 1968, the administration took over the Honor Code, making it no longer student-run. The Honor Code Committee and Student Senate were disbanded. This was the height of Vietnam War protests so the Honor Code was rewritten to include requirements to respect national and state appointed authority, to register all student organizations, to not enter or occupy university facilities without authorization, and to not use psychedelic drugs.

Some time in the 1960's, the Honor Code added that students must report any infractions of the Honor Code to the Standards Office, and even allowed them to do so anonymously.

In January 1969, the Board of Trustees adjusted the “no gays allowed” policy by making an exception, they decided that "homosexual students would not be admitted or retained at BYU without approval from the General Authorities".

Dallin Oaks replaced Wilkinson as President of BYU in 1971.

In 1972, the Honor Code and its accompanying dress code received approval of the Board of Trustees. It would be almost 20 years before the Honor Code would again be changed.

In 1973 President Oaks partially undoes the policy banning gay students. BYU would permit students who were not “overtly” gay. BYU would allow students who had "repented of" homosexual acts and "forsaken" them for a "lengthy period of time". However, BYU security stepped up actions to find and entrap gay students.

In the mid-1970's, long hair and beards were made completely against the dress code for men, and women were allowed to wear slacks and pantsuits, but not jeans.

In 1980, President Oaks is replaced by Jeffrey Holland as BYU president.

in 1981, BYU female students allowed to wear jeans.

In 1984, albums by popular singer Boy George were banned on BYU campus because he portrayed "transvestitism and homosexuality"

In 1989, Rex Lee became the next president of BYU

In 1991 a revised version of the Honor Code and Dress Code was approved by the Board of Trustees. Students could wear shorts and sandals to class for the first time and socks became optional. It included the phrase "I will follow all other rules and regulations of the university." Also, BYU's unwritten rule about no "overtly" gay students was incorporated into the Code with language making it against the Code to tell others you're gay.

Merrill Bateman became president in 1996.

In 1997, a poll of over 400 BYU students found that 42% of students believed that even if a same-sex attracted person keeps the honor code they should not be allowed to attend BYU and nearly 80% said they would not live with a roommate attracted to people of the same sex.

In 2000, 13 students were kicked out for watching the television show Queer as Folk

By the early 2000s, university policy had progressed to where students were no longer punished for identifying as gay, lesbian, trans, or "SSA." No "homosexual conduct" or "cross dressing" was allowed, and nor was "advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle" (which included indicating support of gay marriage or going to Pride parades). Also forbidden were "behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature" (holding hands, lingering hugs, and so on).

Cecil Samuelson became BYU president in 2003.

In 2007, BYU reworded its Honor Code policy on homosexual behavior. "Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings."

A policy change implemented in 2010 removed the ban on LGBT BYU students gathering together in a group. LGBT and straight students began weekly meetings on BYU campus as USGA (Understanding Same Gender Attraction but later renamed Understanding Sexuality, Gender, and Allyship) to discuss issues relating to homosexuality and the LDS Church. Attendance was regularly 70~100 students.

In 2011, a revision was made to the Honor Code to remove the ban on "homosexual advocacy." This permitted students to openly support and affirm queer relationships and legislation, and attend Pride activities.

In late 2012, the BYU Board of Trustees demanded USGA be removed from campus. Ever since, Church leaders have continued to deny all requests of BYU LGBT students to form a club on campus.

In 2015 Kevin Worthen becomes BYU president.

In 2020, the Church removes the entire section about homosexual behavior from the Honor Code. Then 2 weeks later issues a letter clarifying that the same rules apply even though the language no longer exists in the Honor Code.

The reversal of the Honor Code changes led to protests on BYU campus and at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

In 2021, Color the Campus lights up the Y on the mountain in rainbow colors in March to mark the anniversary of the Honor Code reversal

In September 2021, Elder Holland gives his infamous "musket fire" talk, which called out the growing acceptance & support of LGBTQ people & issues by BYU faculty and staff. He spoke of his love for the Y on the mountain lit up in white.

October 2021, Color the Campus again lights up the Y in rainbow colors

January 2022, BYU comes out with new policies banning protests on campus or at the Y on the mountain, this is seen as supporting of Elder Holland's talk and a reaction to the protests after the Honor Code reversal.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, KAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of HELENUS. Admin Rogue: I will be honest and say I must have read this app six times since we got it, minimum. There was something about your words that made me want to live in them forever, to tell Hugo all my secrets and let him tell me his. Hugo is so easy to turn saintly or push toward martyrdom, and your Hugo is a good person with all his flaws on display, humanity shining forth so clearly from him that he breaks my heart. He reminds us that sometimes God’s will brings down the crusades; he understands peace the same as he has made war, and Hugo knows the sanctity of blood in how he cannot wash it from his hands. I think I fell a little in love with him in this app, in spite of his Jimmy Buffet obsession, and that’s when I knew we couldn’t go another day without him! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Obiwan Kaynobi

Age | 25

Preferred Pronouns | She/her

Activity Level | I feel like I’m active on the dash at least twice a week, and if I’m not posting replies I’m able to lurk the dash on mobile and plot on discord. But, with the quarantine and finally getting into a rhythm, I think I’ll be able to get on the dash more often!

Timezone | The Twilight Zone jk it’s PST now!

Triggers | REMOVED

How did you find the rp?  | One day Pandora showed up in my brain and I couldn’t get rid of her. Now Hugo also lives there with his Catholic guilt and honestly it’s a nightmare.

Current/Past RP Accounts | Here’s Panda’s blog!

IN CHARACTER

Character | Helenus, Hugo Kim. Hu-go, (German); meaning mind. Kim, (Korean); meaning gold, iron.

What drew you to this character? | Honestly, the thing that struck me about Hugo was that he’s the guiding light for so many people - and it’s ironic. He’s the prophet of the people, telling them each Sunday to do well, to be good and then he turns around and commands the other Capulet soldiers to harm others. And honestly, I think there are times that Hugo questions the good word. His hands are stained with blood and it doesn’t matter how many confessions he sits through because they’ll be stained red forever.

I also love that despite his affiliation with the Capulets, he does hold sermons on Sundays. Religion is the one thing that he has left of his parents - his mother - and Cosimo can pry that from his cold, dead hands. There’s a sort of natural confidence Hugo exudes when preaching and it spills over into his missions. In his bio it says, “They flock and he guides them, a SHEPHERD to Cosimo Capulet’s people.” He’s someone that people will listen to regardless of whether he’s leading the mission or not.

But, the one thing that really stood out to me with Hugo is his devotion. Whether it’s to his mother, God, Halcyon, he’s 100% devoted no matter what. He puts the time needed to do a job well done and I think that’s something most people look over with Hugo. There is no person more devoted to the morals he’s bound to than him. It’s something that makes him stand out from the rest of the gang members.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

a. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. The Cathedral is technically Capulet territory, but Lawernce wandered in one night and let every sin fall from his lips, tethering the two of them together whether the liked it or not. This encounter is something that can and will tear Hugo apart. He’s bound to both the church and the Capulets - neither of which he ever planned on crossing. Watching him struggle between his faiths is something I would love to see happen on the dash.

b. Sister Saint Monica, you’ve got me on my knees. Halcyon, his personal angel sent from Cosimo. She’s his guiding light, his angel of mercy, the one he’ll pray to each night - and I would love to see how far he’s willing to go for her. How much blood will he spill in order to feed the person he sees as a God? And of course, how will that guilt manifest after he’s done it? How often will he find himself on the bathroom floor, shaking and sobbing from the faces that haunt his dreams and the souls that claw at his throat all for the sake of Halcyon?

c. Bathe me in holy water and erase my sins. Killing his own brother is something that Hugo has yet to forgive himself for. The memory of his parents on the floor, the gun in his hand, the sounds coming from his mouth after he pulled the trigger play on repeat in his mind daily. How does he deal with the constant onslaught of this? Does he find himself crying in the confessional over what he’s done or does he simply let the memory play out and avoid thinking about it? It’d also be interesting if another character knew what he did and used it as leverage over him.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | As long as he gets to marry Brat first, feel free to kill him. That can be the first and last thing I do with him, please just let him marry them.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Interview:

What is your favorite place in Verona? | We recommend looking at the location page and reading it over to figure out where your character’s favorite place is – if it’s not their own house/room.

He’s positive that the woman across from him expects to hear the Cathedral. But, the stained glass and golden pews have long since turned sour to Hugo. Now, they remind him of blood and guns and the rush of guilt that burns in his throat like bile. He thinks of the theater, how he and Albert used to hide underneath the seats to sneak into a second showing. The library, once a place that he was able to roam without hesitation and devour any book he desired, now stings in his memory since it became off-limits. Finally, the corners of his lips quirk up. “Twelfth Night Museum holds a dear place in my heart. I can’t say much about the attendees who show up at night, but during the day it’s beautiful.”

What does your typical day look like?

Hugo pauses for a moment, mulling over the words before he speaks. He glances at the watch on his wrist, then his shoes, and finally meets the eye of the interviewer. The interview is for a profile on him, a puff piece to lighten the city when all it knows is death and destruction. “Well, it’s Saturday. I host evening mass then head over to Phoenix and Turtle for the bread donation. My days are typically the same, depending on whether or not the farmers market is here.” He graces her with another smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. What he leaves out is that his nights are filled with the scent of gun powder and his fingers brushing eyelids shut, a prayer whispered under his breath.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

How was he supposed to pick just one mistake? There had been plenty of missteps through the years that would certainly be labeled the worst. The stolen liquor from the bodega, the moans in the backseat of a car, the night he killed Albert. Far too many things have been deemed his biggest mistake. “Even I’m allowed to have secrets.” Hugo glances out the window and watches the couples walk by. They’ll have to try harder than this to get him to reveal what it is. “That one is between me and myself.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

His gut reaction is to say preaching his sermon. The words of the good book that fall from his lips and into the ears of the parish are nothing but lies - but now was not the time nor place to discuss that matter. “There are times I’m asked to stop helping those in need. I have to respect their wishes, but it’s not in my nature to walk away from those who need help.” He thinks of the dying who were left to bleed after he shot at them, of the unfortunate souls who end up injured by falling into debt with them, of the addicts who pump their veins with Theo’s latest experiment and can’t escape the warmth the drug gives them. Ignoring these souls only to have them haunt him later is the most difficult thing he’s done.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

He nearly chokes as he takes a sip from the mug. As the interview continued, it seemed as if the questions were diving deeper and deeper into unsafe territory. Perhaps it would’ve been smart to let one of the emissaries approve the list of questions before he arrived. “As a man of God, I can only hope that no more bloodshed happens.” His lips press into a thin line. “Hasn’t our city seen enough?” His answer is honest, one that he never dared utter before now. The war his boss wages against the Montagues is one that he finds despicable. So much has been lost in the names of each family and yet, they continue to take more and more and more.

Extras: Bold of you to assume I don’t have any extras. Here is his mockblog, a Pinterest board, and as always, let me sprinkle some hcs here:

Hugo’s very into the arts. His favorite artist is M.C. Escher.

This man is not straight. Local disaster bi preacher is at your service.

There’s a photo of his parents tucked into his wallet so he’s able to carry them everywhere.

He does yoga whenever he gets the chance.

Hugo’s a huge Jimmy Buffet fan, I’m sorry but it’s true.

He’s also a huge Florence and The Machine fan so it balances out.

More often than not, there’s a bottle of cheap scotch in his chambers in the Cathedral. It’s hidden inside of a hollowed-out Bible.

[psychobhyun]

S I N N E R  O R  S A I N T

Foreword: Father Kyungsoo’s heart flutters with happiness whenever he sees you. He loves how your breath gets shaky and your voice quivers when you confess and the way your innocent voice says, “Forgive me, Father, I am weak.”

Warnings: priest!au, blasphemy, blowjob, creampie, loss of virginity, mentions of masturbation, dirty talk

Genre: smut

When your family moved to a smaller town hundreds of miles away from your city, you were excited. You hated the kids in the city. All they ever talked about were sex, drugs, and alcohol. The top three things you hated. Even thinking about it counts as a sin to you. 

You knew the new town you’d live in would be more conservative. Your parents told you about the tightness of the Catholic community in the town since there was only one church. Everyone gathered a lot after church. There’s a lot of charity work too, which you were interested in participating. 

Being raised as a Catholic since birth made you know the Bible well. You can recite popular verses, you can sing the songs, and you often served the Lord by singing in the masses. You can feel it in your heart. God is happy He has you as a server. 

The first week you arrived, your family invited all the town to celebrate their new neighbors. You had a very big house, able to fit in all of the town. It was a small town anyway. Everyone came to the party, including the pastor of the church you will be attending every Sunday. 

He looked young. It probably only has been a few years since he graduated seminary school. He had plush lips shaped like a heart and dark, thick eyebrows. Wait. Are you allowed to make mental notes about your attractive pastor? Surely not. 

You slap your cheeks light to help you snap out of it. You’ve never focused on dating and guys. To you, it was something that would come on its own. When God allows you to. So for now, you’re just going to shake the pastor’s hand and try not to focus on your pastor’s doe eyes. 

“I am Father Kyungsoo,” he introduces himself. He notices your nervous stance. The sundress you wore had a low cut, but the hot weather gave it context. He could see a little bit of cleavage, but this shouldn’t tempt him. He had vowed to stay holy like God. These kinds of thoughts shouldn’t be inside his head. 

You reply with him politely with a smile. You bat your eyelashes at him and excused yourself to go to the bathroom. You lock it twice and lean against the door, trying to regulate your breathing. Father Kyungsoo’s hand was so big compared to yours. It was making you sin. The thing you despise of the most!

As the party reaches its end, Father Kyungsoo approaches you before he enters his car. “I heard from your parents you liked to participate in charity activities?” You only nod as a response. Father Kyungsoo flashes a smile and pats your head affectionately. “Good girl,” he says before stepping down your front porch. 

“I’m excited to see you at church this Sunday.” 

You looked at yourself one more time. The yellow sundress covered you up nicely. You decided to bring a black cardigan to cover yourself up more but ditched the idea immediately as you stepped out of the car. Before the service starts, your parents greeted the people around them while you sat nervously.

This was your first sermon in a new church. You fidgeted in your seat and your mom held your hand to help you calm down. You smiled at her sheepishly. Why are you like this? Your clouded thoughts are interrupted when Father Kyungsoo came in to greet everyone. 

The rest of the service passed by normally. Your anxiety completely left you. Maybe Father Kyungsoo’s smile eased your heart. The way he spoke was also calming. You wondered how his voice would sound when it’s whispering naughty things in your ear-

Oh no, you thought. You just committed a sin. Your heart starts accelerating uncomfortably in your chest. A light tap on your shoulder causes you to turn your head back. The person you’re dreading to see the most. Father Kyungsoo. “What’s wrong?” he asks with a concerned look on his face. 

“Father Kyungsoo,” you started, almost choking on the sudden inhale of breathe you took. Should you tell the truth? You should. You definitely should. But for some reason, the response you gave was, “I was just looking for my parents, Father.” Father Kyungsoo cocks an eyebrow. As if he noticed you lied to him. 

“Your parents are at the backyard, talking with a few people. Why are you here all alone, little one?” You gulped at the pet name he gave you. But you doubt it meant anything more than what it is supposed to be. “Everyone is old there, Father. I have no one to talk to,” you explained. 

Father Kyungsoo laughs lightly. “You can talk to me while you wait, little one. I’ll accompany you.” Father Kyungsoo ushers you around the church. Since this town had a rich Catholic history, there were lots of stories he could tell you about the church itself and the Catholic community in it. 

After your heart stops racing, you started to talk a bit more casually with Father Kyungsoo, but still with respect. You asked him why he wanted to be a priest and he told you it was a secret. “You are innocent, little one. You’ll know when it is the right time for you.” 

You pouted and Father Kyungsoo clicks his tongue in disapproval. “You look more beautiful when you smile. So smile for me, little one.” Your lips curl into a tiny grin and for Father Kyungsoo, it was enough. You gathered up the courage to Father Kyungsoo and told him that you wanted to confess your sins. 

“You can request for me personally next time. If it makes you comfortable, little one.” You nodded as a response and said your goodbyes to Father Kyungsoo after you picked up a call from your mom telling you to come to the backyard so you could go home. Father Kyungsoo sighs as you disappeared behind the door. 

Turns out the town you innocent town you thought you lived in was the exact opposite. The school may be a Catholic one, but your classmates fooled around a lot. One night, when you were having a supposedly girls only sleepover, a few guys came over to play truth or dare with you and your friends. 

You got dared to touch someone’s... genitals and it made you panic. You wanted to fit in, but it was wrong to touch someone else out of marriage. The next day, after school, you ran to the church and asked for someone to call Father Kyungsoo to listen to you in the confessional.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” you said with a slight quiver in your voice. Father Kyungsoo notices the difference in your tone. It was not as relaxed as he remembered. “I was having a sleepover with my friends. She lied to me and said it was all going to be girls, but then some boys came over and we played truth or dare. My friend dared me to touch a boy, Father.”

Father Kyungsoo’s blood boiled. You? Doing inappropriate things? He could never imagine. When he thought you were done with your confessions, you continued. “I have also played with myself, Father. I am tainted.” You rubbed your thighs as you imagined Father Kyungsoo at the other side of the fence separating you and him.

Your breath hitches as you started crying. Unfortunately, Father Kyungsoo could do nothing about it. “Do you regret it, little one?” His voice echoed in the tight space of the box. You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. But you answered him anyway. “I do, Father. But it felt so good. I don’t know why God would prevent us from orgasming, Father.”

Father Kyungsoo licks his lips and gets out of the booth. He opens the door you used to come in and pulls you outside. “Forgive me, Father, I am weak,” you murmur incoherently with a shaky voice. You kneel right in front of Father Kyungsoo and look up at him, hands tied together in prayer. 

Father Kyungsoo sits on the bench closest to him and tells you to take a seat beside him. “Lift up your skirt, little one,” he instructs. Your eyes widen, but you didn’t disobey him. You do as he says and bite your bottom lip when you notice the wet patch forming on your white cotton panties. 

He presses his middle finger on top of your clit and rubs it slowly, enjoying the little gasps you’re spilling from your lips. “You’re getting so wet, little one. God is ashamed,” Father Kyungsoo says as he puls your panties to the side, revealing your freshly shaven pussy to him. 

Father Kyungsoo inserts one of his fingers. He feels how tight you are. You’re definitely a virgin. “Let me cleanse you, little one.” You blink your eyes a couple of times in his direction, not knowing how he will cleanse you. But you trust him with all of your heart. Father Kyungsoo unzips his entire attire and lay on the floor. 

“Spit on your fingers and rub it all over your pussy, little one.” You do exactly as he says and spread your saliva all over your bottom lips. You moan when it’s starting to feel good. “This is going to hurt, okay?” Father Kyungsoo warns. You nod and wait for his next instruction. 

“I want you to say ‘Forgive me, Father, I am weak’ every time you sink down on my cock. Got it?” You spread your legs wider and Father Kyungsoo hums at the sight. Your clit is throbbing and your legs are twitching in excitement. When you push the first inch of his length into you, you throw your head back in pleasure. 

“Forgive me, Father, I am weak,” you say as you take the last few inches of his member inside your pussy. You lift yourself up and force yourself down, not forgetting to say the magic words. Father Kyungsoo places his hands on the sides of your hips and guides you up and down. 

Your wetness was enough to lubricate yourself. Even though you were a virgin, your hole accommodated his length well, sucking in greedily inside of you. “Forgive me, Father, I am weak,” you mutter for the nth time that afternoon. 

“God, you feel so warm and tight, little one,” Father Kyungsoo compliments as he watches your boobs bounce from this angle. He sits up straight and takes one of your nipples into his mouth, sucking and biting on it. You run your hands through his hair as you gazed in each other’s eyes. 

Then you feel Father Kyungsoo moving his hips, making his cock get deeper inside you. It only intensified your pleasure, so you’re more than happy to let him take the lead. As his pace gets faster, your legs started to give out. You let him do all the moving as you continued to moan. 

“Forgive me, Father, I am weak,” you say for the last time before Father Kyungsoo comes inside of you. As he pulls out, he can see his own come tricking down your thigh. “Great job, little one. This should cleanse you well.” You flash him a satisfied smile. He leans in to kiss you tenderly and you intertwine your tongue with his in a heated french kiss session.

“Every time you sin, little one, I want you to come to me. So I can purify you again with my holy come. Promise?” Father Kyungsoo sticks out his pinky finger and you wrap yours around his. “I promise, Father Kyungsoo.” He pecks your forehead affectionately before he helps your dress up presentable enough to walk out again. 

You couldn’t stop thinking about Father Kyungsoo. He never left your mind once after the two of you had sex. You also started to explore more and experiment with your girlfriends. You’d rub your pussies together and play with sex toys. 

You also signed up for a charity event your church was doing. It was for a good cause, which is why you did it in the first place. And maybe because you could spend more time with Father Kyungsoo and steal a few kisses from him. 

As everyone started to lift the boxes up for donation, Father Kyungsoo startles you and drags you out of the room into a confessional box. Specifically, the one you first used to confess to him. “So tell me, little one. What sin did you commit this week?”

You started by saying that you’ve been fooling around with girls, trying a cigarette, and touching yourself. “I played with my pussy as I thought of you, Father. Your cock messing up my insides as you come inside me with your holy come.”

Father Kyungsoo grunts low in his throat and undresses enough to reveal his cock to you. He pushes you on your knees and instructs you to open your mouth to take him inside it. “Choke on my cock. Yeah, that’s right.” He encourages. 

As much as you wanted to focus on pleasuring him, you stopped immediately when you heard your parents calling out your name. You detached yourself from his cock and clamp your mouth shut. But Father Kyungsoo had other plans. He lifts up your skirt and rubs the tip of his cock on your clothed sex. 

Your parents kept shouting your name as he whispers to you quietly to take off your panties. After you did, Father Kyungsoo inserts himself slowly into your cunt. He thrusts, slowly at first, but it became relentless when your whimpers started to become a bit messier and inaudible. 

“You like that, little one? Getting fucked by a priest in the confessional? Almost caught by your parents? Tell Father,” he groans into your ear. You throw your head back and lean against his shoulder. “Rub your clit for me. Do it fast.” You follow his instructions and start using two of your fingers to rub figure eights on your clit. 

Your orgasm was nearing every single time Father Kyungsoo thrusts. When he does, you couldn’t prevent a loud scream from escaping your lips. You could only hope it wasn’t loud enough for anyone to hear. “Once again I have purified you, little one.” You kneeled once more in front of him to taste his come that was dripping down the sides of his cock. 

“Clean it up for me, little one. That’s a good girl.”

[voulezvous-rpg]

PATRON: THE KINGPIN

lysander seo 29 years old drug lord played by rhine. 20. she/her. est.

tw mention of drugs, killing, death, blood 

perhaps it is not fitting for the boy to wear a cross around his neck.

(for all the bodies fallen to the ground, for all the widowed women and fatherless children, all the life sunken out of cheeks and tears from eyes, how he barely bats an eye on bad days and smiles on worse; son of god, he’ll say, cold metal hanging around necks, returning angels to heaven dusted with powder like snow)

(for all the prayers he has kneeled in respect towards, for all the sunday masses and weekly liturgies, all the remnants of holy water on fingertips from a childhood of repentance for things that have not yet been done, how he bows his head in confession but does so in silence. forgive me father, he’ll say, communion still under his tongue, for I will sin again tonight)

(and priests can say nothing about the packages hidden in donation boxes, about guns between the pews and boy-devils who wear silver crosses around necks, as if mocking, eyes unblinking and smile as sharp as a knife when he genuflects towards the cross behind the altar, when he leaves with a promise to be back again next sunday)

he never misses a mass. somewhere there is a priest still behind the grates of the confessional, trembling.

-

when we are unsure of where the boy hails from, it is easy to give the answer of hell.

perhaps he was born from the underworld itself, he likes to joke. says that’s why he came back to rule it. to take it as his own.

but that comes later, of course. in the beginning, there was just a baby in the snow, cheeks red and silent despite the cold, features built from cities far, far away from paris – another land he does not know, no one has to say, for the boy has never fit in with the other blue-eyed blonde-haired little boys at the orphanage. skin like snow and hair like ink and far-travelling merchants would say the boy was carried from the silk road itself. doting nuns will say god has carried him over seas for reasons not yet known. one day, the spirit, the light, will show you a purpose for being here with us, mon lis. god will help you understand.

shaking priests will say the devil carried their demons here, for another city already lies in ruins. god save our souls.

but you must know that if we trace history to the only origins we know, the boy is perhaps not born, but raised in a church. it is as close as we can get when his blood does not hail from the parisian soil.

a quiet, bright thing, nuns and caretakers would say. a handful of trouble with his skinned knees and crooked smile, twigs in hair and dirt on cheeks at the age of eight, smoke on tongue and smile that even god could forgive by eighteen.

devious, they have said since the beginning. how could we not see this coming?

he is a quick-fingered, straight-spine thing that never misses mass, that always comes in with his best sunday wear perfectly ironed, never a minute late. the boy carries trouble like a middle name, fond nuns tut after morning prayers. but he is a good son, still.

(here is where people will say only one of those things is true. here is where we must emphasize that both statements still hold, near eighteen years later)

(for all his sins, the boy is still devout, even if it is mocking)

the lines between good son and troubled thing are blurred still, and we won’t know exactly how it began, only that it did.

that there is a boy whose long fingers and easy grin make it easy to pass small packages between quick brushes of gloved hands in dark alleyways, that there is a boy who grows into a tall man whose calloused palms makes it easy to press skulls up to brick walls when payments aren’t made. that there is a boy who has no problem dipping his fingers into holy water as he leaves the church before coating them in blood when uncooperative customers hiss filthy orphan on blood-cut lips.

(we are not sure, we are not sure. perhaps they saw him in the corner of the streets one midnight, boy of fifteen and beat for merely being a tossed-out thing from countries away, eyes red and knees knocking. perhaps they pitied him, or perhaps they saw how he fights back, all teeth and elbow, all howled rage on bruised mouths, taking hits to break bones afterwards)

(likely the latter, one can guess. either way, there are men who offer him ice and teach him how to pull thread and needle through skin, who tell him that they’re looking for boys who can take hits but throw punches better, boys who know back-alley shadows and daylight-patrols equally well. boys like him, street things the closest we’ll get to the wild in the city. street things with nothing to lose)

they offer him a job. he takes it.

(it is a mistake, it’s too late to say. the boy will end up killing these men in a few year’s time, rip them open so that their needles and threads can’t hold spilling guts in – )

(but that comes later. for now, they clap him on the back and cheer as he nods in agreement, not knowing they let the devil in)

-

we will skip past this for your sake.

we do not remember the days of when the boy was nothing but a runner, a dealer, a guard, growing lean and scarred from fists thrown and bloodstained money collected. we do not remember the day he left the church and had a place of his own in the heart of the underworld, where he could feel the city bleed itself dry every night only to revive itself again in the morning.

(we do not remember the day he returned to the church and claimed it as his own, some five years later, guns and sealed bags in tow, asking for a place of mercy, looking into horrified eyes and saying how he remembers the house of god is not to deny anyone of shelter should they come seeking it)

(you monster, holy men half-sob, half-scream. you dare defile a place of worship like this?)

(you foolish man, devil-born boys smile back. you dare go against the word of a god like this?)

we do not speak of how there are multiple hells in this city, that there is not only one king, that he is not the only man who plays judge, jury, and executioner with a single word.

but there is only one who controls no nightclubs, no bars, no back alleys. there is only one who has ownership of the docks the day he gutted a man like a fish and left him hanging after a late shipment from the lands and the seas that the boy supposedly came from. there is only one who has claimed churches as his holy ground, as his base, threading packages through a system of donation boxes and confessional grates.

(mon lis, nuns weep. what happened to you?)

(I understand now, boy-turned-king whispers behind stained glass windows. god’s call for me. is that not what you wanted?)

we skip past the days where the boy learns the power of addiction and turns it into worship. how ports start to turn their favour from old bosses when new bosses appear with an allegiance that is forged from days of running; how he runs no more. how blood is just as adequate as handshakes when signing contract deals.

(boy rises, dethrones old kings with their severed heads in his hands. they had called him a traitor, a bastard boy for betraying a system that has took him in, taught him all he knew since he was a scrawny teen. do you forget that we own this city, own you just because a boat or two has turned to your favour?)

(boy dressed in red from the men he called fathers and brothers, exhales smoke and smiles to terrified new runners, tells them to spread the news that old kings have fallen, that a bastard boy now sits on the throne. tell them to get used to it)

and so, we skip to this:

orphan boy turned troubled thing turned street-wild runner turned suit-wearing monster in between pews.

boy turned king. turned god, even.

(there is enough of a blood sacrifice on his hands to consider it so)

we wait for gods to fall, cheer when they stumble three times with their crosses.

we forget that some are born below the ground. that in such cases, there is only space for them to rise.

FC: Lee Jong Suk

[bobbystompy]

My Top 120 Songs Of 2017

Previously: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

The one saving grace is we do have 12 fewer than last year.

As always, criteria and info:

This is a list of what I personally like, not ones I’m saying are the “best” from the year; more subjective than objective

No artist is featured more than once

If it comes down to choosing between two songs for an artist, I try to give more weight to a single or featured track; not the ultimate factor, but it typically makes sharing the music easier

Speaking of… each song on the list is linked in the title if you wanna check any or every out for yourself

Oh, also, off the suggestion of Mike Gilkes -- and a few others -- I made this whole thing into a Spotify playlist, which you can peep here (includes 114 of the 120):

Let’s go?

120) Big Sean & Metro Boomin f/ 21 Savage - “Pull Up N Wreck”

Some mediocre, listenable rap made by dudes who know a bit better (well, at least 2/3rds of them).

119) Maroon 5 f/ Future - “Cold”

This song makes me feel mostly nothing... but the first minute of the video does have some solid Adam Levine alone-in-the-car acting.

/oh my god it has 119 million views

This was a lot easier to enjoy when I assumed it went unnoticed. Bonus points for the Wu-Tang shirt at the end.

118) Bleachers - “Hate That You Know Me”

Closed out 2017 undecided as ever on one Jack Antonoff. Should we hate him for dating Lena Dunham? Somehow respect him more? Give him mega credit for his big time pop songwriting collabs? Or is that a ding? Is he a nerd or the coolest guy in the cocktail bar? I do not know the answers to any of these questions, and this song is merely OK.

UPDATE: THEY GAWN

117) B.o.B f/ T.I. & Ty Dolla $ign - “4 Lit”

Real bad song with a mindless/terrible/misogynistic chorus. Yet... something about professional musicians sitting in a room and coming up with “4 Lit” as some sort of escalated to catchphrase to “lit” is just hilarious.

116) Prophets of Rage - “Unfuck The World”

Sure, this hits a lot of the same beats as Rage Against The Machine’s “Sleep Now In The Fire” from 18 years ago, but in these increasingly polarized, political times, I welcome their voice.

115) Kacy Hill - “Like A Woman”

This song is so chill and ethereal that it seems almost unfeasible for my punk/hip-hop/XX chromosome havin’ ass to completely sync with its wave.

114) The Decemberists - “Ben Franklin’s Song”

What happens when pop indie teams up with the lyrical stylings of Lin-Manuel Miranda? Well, this. I’m not sure if The Decemberists drop f-bombs in any of their other songs, but it pleases me to think it only happened here.

113) Offset & Metro Boomin - “Ric Flair Drip”

Mostly here for the beat.

112) Hurray For The Riff Raff - “Hungry Ghost”

A cool song that’s hard to put into a box. Indie? Pop? Rock? Forget labels, just enjoy.

(Minus a few points for the low hanging “girl/world” rhyme)

111) Wavves - “Dreams Of Grandeur”

I was pretty let down by the new Wavves LP, but this song sounds enough like the old stuff to be a net positive (despite being, like, 70 seconds too long)

110) Culture Abuse - “So Busted”

Culture Abuse got on my radar with last year’s all-timer, “Dream On”. It was an unrelenting, robotic pulverization. “So Busted” is more of a drug comedown; a ballad, even. While “Dream On” wanted to seek you out and kill you like a terminator; “So Busted” just wants a cuddle.

109) Trey Songz - “#1Fan”

This song is so dumb and funny and pseudo competent. Really not sure how the R&B guys get away with this shit.

108) The Killers - “The Man”

Is this in a movie? It should be in a movie. It’s kind of, like, a better version of what Arcade Fire has been trying to be.

107) New Lenox - “Protest Sweater”

A good song for the ending 2017 -- or any year, really -- and its run time (1:30) would make Joyce Manor proud.

106) Logic - “Everybody”

This is really good, but it reminds me so much of Kendrick that it becomes distracting.

105) Gorillaz f/ DRAM - “Andromeda”

Didn’t spend enough time listening to the new Gorillaz record, but I actually put the blame on them: it was long, man. So while I woulda loved to pick one of the songs with a cool cameo (hi, Vince Staples!), this is the one I actually had around the most. It’s all we’ve come to expect from this cartoon band -- kinda British, kinda futuristic, very undisturbed. Also, if it gets you back to the album before me, I heard that Damon Albarn told all collaborating artists to record their parts like the world was ending tomorrow.

104) Dropkick Murphys - “Blood”

If you know me at all, you know I historically have not been a fan of this band. But for whatever reason, this one connected -- bagpipes and all.

103) Captain, We’re Sinking - “Books”

CWS was never, ever going to top the falling-apart-desperation of 2013′s “The Future Is Cancelled”, but this song comes pleasantly close.

102) IRONTOM - “Be Bold Like Elijah”

My buddy Crooks rec’d this band, and the guitars give me Queens Of The Stone Age vibes in the best possible way. A bio on lastFM compared them to Arctic Monkeys, and you know what? I agree with that, too.

101) Jidenna - “A Bull’s Tale”

This song feels primed to explode and makes you wanna rip the shirt off your chest; only we don’t know if the bomb’s gonna blow in the middle or at the end.

100) Jeff Tweedy - “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”

Yeah yeah, the original version of this dropped in 2002, and yes, it’s just a cover by the dude who originally sang it. I... do not care. It made me appreciate the confessional regret all over again.

99) Talib Kweli f/ Yummy Bingham & Jay Electronica - “All Of Us”

It was all bad just a week ago

Kweli and Jay Elect are a collab made in conscious rap heaven, so this song was more than a pleasant surprise.

98) Rise Against - “House On Fire”

This song could have been on “Revolutions Per Minute”. Or maybe I’m just saying that because of the hand grenade lyric in the chorus.

97) HAIM - “Want You Back”

Can’t imagine there being a lamer song on this list. HAIM and Bleachers should get in a wuss rock beef that ends with pistols.

96) The Bigger Empty - “By Its Own (So What)”

My producer plays bass in this band. This song is super solid, and, maybe most importantly in these completely divisive times, unoffensive and approachable. Kinda Hush Sound-y.

95) Little Big Town - “Lost In California” (note: link is to live version)

From the bros and broettes who brought us “Day Drinking” comes this much more subdued track. If you squint, it doesn’t really even seem like country. Granted, if they sang “Alabama” instead of “California”, you could probably call that claim out immediately.

94) Lana Del Rey - “Heroin”

Another beautiful/dreamy song from an artist who’s near-perfected that niche.

93) Wavves & Culture Abuse - “Up And Down”

Wavves and Culture Abuse have already made appearances on this list, and we haven’t even cracked the Top 80. Fortunately, their collaboration scored a little higher than their individual outputs. Shout out to their uplifting outro “I’ll just get high and I’ll die alone”.

92) The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - “Something Just Like This”

This song played at my gym all the time, and I was positive it was Coldplay. Then someone told me it was The Chainsmokers. Then I looked it up on YouTube, and it says “The Chainsmokers & Coldplay”... so what’s the deal, assholes?

91) Lil Peep f/ Lil Tracy - “Awful Things”

I hadn’t heard of Lil Peep when I found out of his passing in 2017. After looking up some pictures, I was nearly 100% positive his music was not for me. This was incorrect. I haven’t really listened to songs that sound like his; it’s kind of like rap that treads this line of being bad while also kinda sounding like alternative rock; destructive love song that doesn’t flinch.

90) AFI - “Dark Snow”

Nothing new, but Davey Havok can still sing circles around almost anybody.

89) Dashboard Confessional - “Love Yourself” (link is to live, partial version)

Well, Dashboard covered Biebs, and we all lived to tell the tale.

88) Garrett Dale - “2016 Was...”

This song would be a blast as a singalong in a late night hotel room. There’s something calming about celebrating -- or at least acknowledging -- everything sucking.

87) Katy Perry f/ Skip Marley - “Chained To The Rhythm”

Got more than a few issues with this song, but it’s catchy, so they’re mostly forgiven. Even though it’s Katy Perry, I was pretty surprised to see it racked up 444 million views.

And seriously who the hell is Skip Marley?!

86) The Ramblin’ Boys Of Pleasure - “Glug, Glug, Glug”

Now is probably a good time to plug the lead track from my band’s b-sides record that came out this year (ten years in the making, baby!). Mandatory listening if you’ve ever bonged brandy, partied in Champaign, or counted down in a country voice.

85) Charly Bliss - “Glitter”

It’s been nearly a year, but it’s still somewhat difficult to calibrate this singer’s voice. Is it a little too saccharine, too childlike, or just perfect? You be the judge.

84) Emperor X - “Wasted On The Senate Floor”

This singer is real god damn frenetic.

83) Father John Misty - “Total Entertainment Forever”

/obligatory “yes, this is the one with the Taylor Swift lyric” reference

FJM has such a pro’s pro voice and makes super sound music... but it’s also kinda hard to have an overall opinion. The more 50-50 I get, the more I think it’s not all that great. The video is a microcosm. Like... why is Macaulay Culkin paying Cobain? Is this a commentary on capitalism? Oooh, nah nah nahs are nice! As divided as I still am, I’m pretty positive this song is good-if-not-great.

82) St. Vincent - “New York”

This song is further proof that soft, radio friendly music can still benefit from a well placed “motherfucker”.

81) Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness - “Dead Man’s Dollar”

As long as Andrew McMahon’s project is called “Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness”, I will make fun of him like clockwork.

This song is nice. I sometimes sing “I want Thon Maker” when he says “I want to make a” in the chorus.

80) Kele Okereke - “Streets Been Talkin’”

Kele’s most impressive feat was sneaking “bae” right into the chorus without me noticing until literally right now.

79) Rick Ross - “Summer Seventeen” 

How the hell did this dumbass song get so high up on the list? I have no explanation. Classic Roazy though -- aim high, fake it till you make it. When I started my new job in August, IT reset my password to “summer2017″, and I had this song’s hook in my head nearly every time I typed it in. All told, a pretty hilarious way to start a work day.

78) Michelle Branch - “Best You Ever”

This song sounds so dark and sultry, but I’m not totally sure why. Branch rules.

77) Calvin Harris f/ Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry & Big Sean - “Feels”

The best way to ruin this song for anyone is to point out how much the hook sounds like Katy Perry singing “Don’t be afraid to catch fish”.

76) Morrissey - “Spent The Day In Bed”

This is a very low maintenance lyric video. So you can either make fun of that or the “I spent the day in bed / I’m not the type, but I love my bed” line.

75) Red City Radio - “If You Want Blood (Be My Guest)”

The “We don’t need a god damn thing from you” chorus is a little punk cliche to win me over, but the Oklahoma City reference (”where our dreams come true and die”) is the line I’ve been waiting for since I found out RCR was from there.

74) Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs - “Talk 2 Her”

The closest we’ll get to a new Clash song in 2017.

73) Bad Cop/Bad Cop - “Womanarchist”

Factoring in the 2017′s themes (#MeToo, Harvey dead, etc.), this has to be the song title of the year. I smiled ear-to-ear watching this music video.

72) The Movielife - “Mercy Is Asleep At The Wheel”

Hey, The Movielife reunited!

71) The Rocket Summer - “Gone Too Long”

Unlike that lazy ass Morrissey, The Rocket Summer gave us a lyric video that basically passes as a legit music video.

70) Miguel f/ Travis Scott - “Sky Walker”

Me, every time I listen to this song:

“Ooh, beat is pretty solid.”

“Ah yeah, the hook’s good. I thought I really liked this song though...”

/falsetto part

“AW YEAH.”

69) Queens Of The Stone Age - “The Way You Used To Do”

Had never known about the Josh Homme/Elvis comparisons, but after hearing this, I totally get it now. Also: god damn it, man.

68) Macklemore f/ Skylar Grey - “Glorious”

What can we do to make Skylar Grey more famous? She Ginger Rogers’d for Em on “SNL” -- seriously, she played piano and sung Dido, Beyoncé, and Rihanna hooks (that’s a solid ass trinity!) -- has unarguably awesome songs, and never takes anything off the table. I honestly don’t care if she has another hit... let’s just, like, all Venmo her five bucks or something.

One of my fav music videos on the list so far. Be as skeptical of Macklemore as you want, but when his grandma offers him a drink (haha) then says she wants to “do it all” with their day together, it warms the hearts.

67) Direct Hit! - “Blood On Your Tongue”

Direct Hit! continues to be the best modern version of Green Day, The Ramones*, and themselves.

(* - without being Ramones-core)

66) Boyd & The Stahfools - “Party Penguin”

I’ve been in the game for a long while, but, for the first time in my career, I finally was part of a music video. If you told me it was a 2Pac parody that advertised craft beer, I’d, well, I’d believe you. We got Dave Hernandez on the hook, Mike Healy as Dr. Dre, and yours truly as Makaveli.

And all jokes aside, “On vacation like Bev D’Angelo” is one of my favorite penned lines.

65) Rancid - “Telegraph Avenue”

I like when Tim sings about grabbing his left-handed guitar.

64) Big Sean f/ Jeremih - “Light”

Sean Don made a forgettable 2017 album with many throwaway tracks -- but “Light” ain’t one of ‘em. I liked this song even before the touching video cemented its power.

63) blink 182 - “Parking Lot”

This is that weird mix of what makes all new blink really good and really eh at the same time -- Skiba involved (for better or worse), inspired Mark (for better or worse), and Travis’ overplaying (for better or worse). It’s for sure easier if you just turn your brain off and go with it.

Why does he reference Chicago in the verse then California in the pre-chorus?

I SAID “OFF”.

62) New Found Glory - “Your Jokes Aren’t Funny”

This song doesn’t break a ton of new ground, but it’s got this circular, easy chorus that keeps me coming back.

61) Teenage Bottlerocket - “Goin’ Back To Wyo”

Similar to Red City Radio writing about OKC, I can’t get enough of TB writing about their home. Did I blast this song while driving across the entire state alone this summer? Do you know me an ounce?

60) Frank Turner - “The Sand In The Gears”

A little dissatisfied with the current administration? Frank may be from across the pond, but he’s with you on this one, man. One of my favorite parts of this song is when he breaks the rhyme scheme just to angrily say “I thought that we were winning the war against the homophobes and the racists”.

59) Billy Bragg - “Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted”

Billy Bragg is here for all of us, with perspective, wisdom, and insightful guidance in tow.

58) Dave Hause - “The Flinch”

Send this one to an old flame if you’re hoping, you know, to maybe rekindle.

57) Selena Gomez f/ Gucci Mane - “Fetish”

That’s right -- “Bad Liar” got beat out by this significantly less popular single featuring one of my least favorite rappers.

/looks up play totals

”Fetish”... 130 million

“Bad Liar”... 214 million

Comparably popular, I say! For me, this one is all about the chorus -- and that beat’ll get you swayin’.

56) Jay Electronica - “Letter To Falon”

‘Cause who gon’ save them babies? / And finally put a definite to all those maybes

Death, taxes, maybe death again, and Jay Electronica never releasing a full length album. Our man has been on Roc Nation for nearly ten years. I hate him so much. /anxiously awaits his next move

Jay Electricity in his zone on this one; so comfortable, in full operation within the confines.

55) Laura Jane Grace - “Adore”

I don’t know who Amy Shark is, but LJG covered her song and punted my heart into Lake Michigan.

54) Russian Girlfriends - “Antidote”

Upbeat, direct song that starts kinda Metric-y with the riff but then gets more pop punk as it progresses.

53) Brian Fallon - “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”

My fiancee laughed when I looked up how to play this song on the guitar and the guy who tabbed it out wrote “Typical Brian Fallon open chords” in the intro.

52) Cloud Nothings - “Enter Entirely”

If “Womanarchist” is the ‘best’ song title of the year, “Enter Entirely” is certainly the coolest. And please don’t let the very boring music video fool you -- this song gets after it, man. If you are a fan of rock music, it would blow me away if you found this song remotely objectionable.

(After seeing CN open for Japandroids on back-to-back nights this November, it feels criminal to have such a slow song represent the band, as their drummer is the Russell Westbrook of the indie scene. That dude does not tire and comes off as more machine than man.)

51) Conor Oberst - “Napalm”

Oberst released a 10-song album in 2016 that was super brooding and piano-y... then he released another album in 2017 (17 songs) that had every track from his previous record and seven new ones. Kind of a weird move, no? This is one of those seven; suffice to say it’s a little more upbeat.

50) Sorority Noise - “No Halo”

You could tell me this song came out in 2002, 2007, or both -- but not 2017. How is this not a time capsuled rival of Taking Back Sunday or My Chemical Romance? I don’t know, but if you like a lot of death, this one’s for you.

49) N.E.R.D f/ Rihanna - “Lemon”

Let’s lighten the mood back up with some RiRi rap. My buddy Crooks’ take: “That's how every 2017 hip-hop beat should sound.”

48) Kesha - “Praying”

It’s damn near impossible to talk about this song without talking about The Note. It occurs at 4:21, and it will make you a little faint.

Kesha dusts herself off and gets beyond empowered in this one. This song could legitimately soundtrack the entire #MeToo movement. When the drums kick in halfway through, you’ll be ready to fight back too.

When I’m finished, they won’t even know your name

47) The Smith Street Band - “Laughing (Or Pretending To Laugh)”

This soft, hopeful love song is almost *too* respectful when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex. I’m not sure there’s a more endearing 2017 lyric than “And I don't wanna marry you just yet / But at least let me get you a cider / And I don’t even think I’d have to pay for it / Hopefully there’s a couple left on the rider”.

46) Run The Jewels - “Legend Has It”

Whenever I think of this song, I will always have that image of El-P holding up that gun to the bunny’s head. This song is braggadocious, each line one-upping the previous in perpetuity. Man, they probably rule live.

45) Vic Mensa - “Say I Didn’t”

Vic Mensa's Roc Nation debut (CAN YOU HEAR ME AT ALL, JAY ELECTRONICA?!?!?!?!?!?) was real strong, and this one gives you a good taste of what he’s about. He’s intense but controlled and even gets a little soulful. And depending what sphere you come from, you’ll either be extremely more or extremely less interested after he drops a Weezer reference. If that gives you trepidation, maybe the Nate Dogg namedrop will reel you back in?

44) Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.”

I like Kendrick Lamar and will always recognize his talent, platform, and body of work (there’s a real case to be made that his “Control” verse killed hip-hop, and it’s just been an animated zombie ever since). Having said that...

He doesn’t always make it easy. The all caps song titles, the weird high pitched flow, the massive reliance of “bitch” in his choruses... yet, he’s the same dude who begs for stretch marked butts and body positivity. I don’t know, man. By the time he hits the “I make a play fucking up your whole life” line, I’m nearly all the way back in.

Last complaint: that organ-y keyboard thing could be so much louder. The beat almost feels diet because of that decision.

43) PKEW PKEW PKEW - “Cold Dead Hands”

This song is about how you can’t freeze this band to death, because they’ll party their way out of the situation.

42) Weezer - “Any Friend Of Diane’s”

This song puts me in a trance; they sing the same chorus lyric a million times, and I still almost want more.

41) Taylor Swift - “I Did Something Bad”

If this song isn’t a hit in 2018, then I do not know anything. For as uneven and questionable as her new singles were, this song has none of that. By the time she’s rolling on the tremendously magnetic “over and over and over again” part, you’ll feel like it’s 2009.

Maybe the old Taylor is still alive after all.

40) Best Ex - “Someday”

What’s that, you want your pop with a lot less baggage? This song is currently at 1,042 views, which is further proof of no justice in this world. I remember grocery shopping with this in the headphones, and you woulda thought it was the happiest moment of my life by the expression on my smiling, dumb face.

39) White Reaper - “Judy French”

“There are no good new rock bands wahhhhh”

Nah -- you just suck at finding music when it’s never been easier in human history, I guess?

38) Anti-Flag - “The Criminals”

This band has always lived in this dramatic life-and-death world, and it’s been going on for so long, that it’s like their vision of what they were always rebelling against was willed into existence.

37) French Montana f/ The Weeknd & Max B - “A Lie”

My dislike of French Montana is so high that I sometimes think about having to answer for saying something heinous about him. Kinda like when Kevin Garnett was accused of calling Charlie Villanueva (who has alopecia) a “cancer patient.”

KG’s all-time response:

“I am aware there was a major miscommunication regarding something I said on the court last night. My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league,’" Garnett said in a statement to the media on Wednesday.

Hahahaha.

French, you are a cancer to hip-hop and our league. His verse even references stupid Karl Malone, because why wouldn’t it? The good news is we have The Weeknd on the hook *and* in the first verse, so you can basically just pretend it’s his solo song with a few regrettable cameos.

36) The Penske File - “Oh Brother”

The Penske File make it look effortless sometimes. After hearing this song and doing a Malört shot with their singer, I have higher hopes than ever for their 2018 full length.

35) The Front Bottoms - “Don’t Fill Up On Chips”

TFB’s new album didn’t give me everything I wanted in terms of uptempo bangers, but the lyrics, sentiment, and craftsmanship are all still very much present.

34) Vince Staples - “Big Fish”

The Juicy J chorus might not win a Pulitzer (”I was up late night ballin’ / Countin’ up hundreds by the thousand”), but Vince is rapping invincible, and by the time the lyrics call back his monster single (“Norf Norf”), you won’t be questioning anything anymore.

33) Julien Baker - “Shadowboxing” (link is to live version)

I know that you don't understand 'Cause you don't believe what you don't see When you watch me throwing punches at the devil It just looks like I'm fighting with me

I swear, Julien Baker might be one of the only people on this planet with the power to shut us all up and listen.

32) Paramore - “Fake Happy”

Paramore is a band that does dumb shit all the time. Infighting, legal drama, horrible makeover after horrible makeover. Seriously, this is real:

But through it all, there’s that unbreakable Hayley voice, and it’s like everything is gonna be OK again. I mean, no, it’s not -- but let’s still enjoy these fleeting moments, full blown pop transition or not.

31) Nothington - “Cobblestones”

This song briefly sounds like Lucero before turning into no nonsense despair punk.

30) Lorde - “Perfect Places”

Such a phenomenal album closer; great to have her back in the pop music fold. Car, headphones, party, whatever -- this song goes all around you.

29) Remember Sports - “I Liked You Best”

If Kesha’s high note in “Praying” was pop music’s peak vocal moment in 2017, I’d like to nominate the “You made this me-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-hess” (2:37) part as punk’s.

28) Phoenix - “J-Boy”

This band makes such gorgeous music.

27) Drake - “Free Smoke” (no link)

Drake’s full album output, in minutes, for the last four years:

2013: 59 minutes 2014: N/A 2015: 108 minutes 2016: 81 minutes

And this doesn’t include stray singles, diss tracks, or cameos (2014 had “0 To 100″, for example). What I’m saying is, despite high quality material, Aubrey has saturated us with music for nearly half a decade. So even though I dig him lots, it was like “Really?!” when I heard he was releasing 2017′s “More Life” and “WHAT” when I found out it was another 81 minutes (the same length as 2016′s “Views”). Though the record is stylistically very different -- I keep hearing people use the word “grime”, though I have no idea what it means -- it’s still got bars. My favorite stray lines (they add up):

- “More life, more everything” - “I dunk text J-Lo / Old number, so it bounce back” - “Hilton rooms, gotta double up / Writin’ our name on a double cup” - “I fall asleep in sororities / I had some different priorities” - “Women I like was ignorin’ me / Now they like ‘Aren’t you adorable?’ / I know the question rhetorical” - “I make too much these days to ever say ‘Poor me’” - “I wanna move to Dubai / So I don’t never have to kick it with none of you guys”

But, it wouldn’t be Drake without making fun of him some. The song beings with, well, him sampling himself at an award show. The sample: 

And more chune for your headtop So watch how you speak on my name, you know?

Which begs the question: did he do the weird Jamaican accent knowing he was gonna sample it? It treads this weird genius/calculated doofus line. All I know is it makes me laugh.

26) Tigers Jaw - “Favorite” 

This song could make me pensive and unhappy on the sunniest of days.

25) Tee Grizzley - “First Day Out”

Like many, I first heard of Tee Grizzley from a LeBron James Instagram workout video. It was an easy sell: Detroit, ferocious beat, and the dude goes *hard*. I got a little too excited and emailed my hip-hop friends: “What the fuck is this? This is GOOD.”

This was before I realized he kinda sounds the same in every song. It’s no matter -- we’ll always have “First Day Out”, a brief time in June 2017 where I thought Tee Grizzley could be the next to run the game.

I can’t even be in public with my hoodie on

24) The War On Drugs - “Strangest Thing”

It’s very difficult to write about The War On Drugs without mentioning how transcendent it is to listen to them in the car. Everyone is right about that, but, for me, I also have to mention how much this dude sounds like Dylan. People say Springsteen, but I hear so much Bob. You don’t necessarily have to get “past” it, but you do kinda have to get used to it. Once you do, the lead guitar will carry you into the clouds. This music will make you contemplate and reflect.

23) Foxing - “Night Channels”

Let’s keep the mood contemplative; you almost feel sleepless if not completely locked in to this one.

UPDATE: This dropped in 2015, /sigh

22) Craig Finn - “God In Chicago”

This is more of a movie than a song -- and the visuals agree. Focus in on the lyrics, take in the story, and then do it again soon because you’ll catch new wrinkles each time. One of the year’s best videos, for sure. Punk News phrases it well: “Here he’s made a solo album of losers who have no idea they’ve already lost.”

21) DJ Khaled f/ Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne - “I’m The One”

No one wanted you to know he had sex in 2017 more than DJ Khaled. He made his infant son Asahd the “Executive Producer” for this video. Why? Because he’s an idiot. Khaled’s still existing fame continues to confound. He’s more faux-platitudes than man at his point. So why do the best artists in the world collaborate with someone so seemingly unintelligent? I don’t know, but this song bangs and was probably my Song of the Summer. We got JB on the hook, a dumb-but-amusing Quavo*, Wayne trying to gain footing, and Chance running across the finish line backward with Best Verse title belt. But Khaled won’t let you forget about him, blaring DJ tag and all. This song suffers for that, and it’s all his fault. 

(* - his ad lib of just repeating everything becomes charming once you start to get Stockholm Syndrome with the song)

20) Ed Sheeran - “The Shape Of You”

What a 2017 for the man behind the year’s best (super successful) pop song.  At the turn of the calendar, I barely knew who he was, but before we all knew it, there was a legitimate public outcry because he was on “Game of Thrones” for, like, two minutes. What a time. Oh, also, the “Come on, be my baby...” bridge gave me some “Real World: New Orleans” acid flashbacks.

Great meme, take us out.

19) Minus The Bear - “Last Kiss”

If the shattered neon heart didn’t give it away, this is a “the relationship is definitively over” breakup song. Seeing them play it at Riot Fest made me miss my late friend Luke; I wish he could have heard this.

18) Hot Water Music - “Never Going Back”

I’ve always maintained Chuck Ragan plays guitar and sings songs like a running back. Well, this song carpe diem’s me enough to play actual running back*.

(* - jk, would never do this unless it was against very small children)

17) Lucky Boys Confusion - “Good Luck”

My hometown heroes released their comeback album in 2017, and I’m not sure any track sums up the effort better. By the time Adam sings “Burned out, they call us / Screw ‘em, we got endless memories / Punk rock and the polish / I hope it gave you something to believe”, there are no dry eyes left.

(And yes, this could totally be an AM Taxi song, but with Ryan Fergus’ killer-fills-only drumming, I’m glad it wasn’t.)

16) Hodera - “Baltimore”

This song would likely have a Top 5 objective approval rating of any on the list.

...“The Wire” forever.

15) Iron Chic - “A Headache With Pictures”

It ain’t heavy, it ain’t heaven

If Hot Water Music is carpe diem, what is Iron Chic -- seize the life?! My favorite description of the band came from Sam Sutherland, who tweeted: “Whose day has already been derailed by the unavoidably weighty introspection of listening to the new Iron Chic record.”

They are a certified run-through-brick-walls outfit. One of my final 2017 memories of this song was subtweeting “Now I know” the night I got engaged and having my buddy Ricky think she might’ve declined the proposal. May have to include a ring emoji next time.

14) The Flatliners - “Indoors”

Had to listen to this, like, five or six times before its brilliant greatness overtook me like falling into a river. The chorus is so, so heartfelt.

Don’t sleep on the video, either (especially the end).

13) Sylvan Esso - “Die Young”

Though I have tickets to see them for the first time in 2018, I am not mega-versed in the catalogue of Sylvan Esso. But this feels like their best song. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet turned out OK.

12) Oso Oso - “Shoes (The Sneaker Song)”

Jade from Oso Oso would likely want all of the above stylized in lowercase -- but this ain’t Jade’s list. This was my favorite new band of 2017, and I do believe they made the year’s best album. It’s early-2000s emo at times, pop punk at others, and all ear candy.

11) Sincere Engineer - “Corn Dog Sonnet No. 7″

Staying in the new artist lane, I proudly introduce Sincere Engineer. This band sounds like if Modern Baseball had a little sister. By the time singer Deanna Belos sings “I’m still learning how to be”, you want to pat her on the back and give her all your best advice.

Fantastic music video -- and she confirmed to me this past weekend that it’s real mustard, not puffy paint (“I have a towel that is all yellow from cleaning it up”).

10) new.wav - “Girls”

Alright, so stick with me on this: new.wav is the band, covering The 1975′s song “Girls” in the style of “Enema of the State”-era blink-182. Confused? Yeah, I was too, but check it out. Maybe more impressive than the arrangements/performance is how they were able to match blink’s production style -- no easy task.

9) Jay-Z - “Family Feud” (starts around 5:30; partial version)

Shawn Corey Carter wants to get right with everyone -- America, his peers, and, of course, within his own home. And though I may never understand the “New n****s is the reason I stopped drinkin’ Dos Equis” lyric, I’m on board with about all else. Similar to the Oso Oso record, “4:44″ is such an album that it feels unfair to single out a song to represent all of its parts. Stripped from the LP, the song does not hit as hard, but in the groove of the record, it’s the apex. And despite Hov seemingly desiring peace, the song does have more than a few call outs:

- “My stash can’t fit into Steve Harvey’s suit” - “And old n****s, y’all stop actin’ brand new / Like 2Pac ain’t have a nose ring too” - “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby s’posed to help me?”

In the latter stages of his career, it’s hard to call everything Jay does ‘necessary’, but “4:44″ definitely checked that box.

8) Rozwell Kid - “Wendy’s Trash Can”

Vacillated all year between this one and “Michael Keaton” and literally flipped a penny my cousin Maggie loaned me to decide. “Wendy’s Trash Can” was heads.

7) The Weeknd - “Reminder”

This one got backdoored in as a latter single from The Weeknd’s 2016 album. One of my favorite parts about Abel is how little he has had to change to succeed. Sure, it’s silky smooth, but he hasn’t sacrificed the drugs, darkness, or ego that should offend (but doesn’t because it he pulls it off so well). After bragging early in the song about he won a kids award for singing about cocaine, he calls out peers for biting his sound, blings out his entire crew, and, well:

When I travel 'round the globe, make a couple mil' a show And I come back to my city, I fuck every girl I know

/clutches pearls

6) The Bombpops - “Be Sweet”

The guitar riff in this song is why I fell in love with punk music. Also, super cool story behind the lyrics:

“'Be Sweet' is an homage to our dear friend, the late Brandon Carlisle of the band Teenage Bottlerocket," vocalist Jen Razavi told AP. "Back in 2010, we were partying in a hotel room with Brandon and Ray Carlisle. There was a guitar in the room and Brandon was showing us an idea he had for a song. He had written it for his wife, but he told us we should play it and change the lyrics to 'getting rad with my boyfriend.' He wrote down all the lyrics on four sheets of hotel notepad paper. Since then, the melody and the chord progression were forgotten, but I still had the lyrics. So we wrote our own version of the song in the studio and used every single lyric that Brandon had written down.

Did I mention the video has an “In Bloom” feel? Stop reading, go listen.

5) Action Bronson - “Let Me Breathe”

Action Bronson ain’t givin’ nothin’ up. This is my pick for rap song of the year. It’s got TV brags (”I got two shows, I’m about to pitch another”), a tight chorus (”Let me breathe for a minute / White Range Rover blowin’ trees all in it”), and whimsy shit too (“Honey bouncin’ up and down, she nearly broke my dick”). Ghostface’s disciple is having more fun than just about anyone.

4) Japandroids - “North East South West”

Only a Canadian band could get me to care this much about my own country. The Vancouver duo penned an Americana ode to the road -- but there’s a twist... they talk about their cities too. For every New Orleans, there’s a Toronto. For every California, a Vancouver.

Maybe they’ll be the ones to end all the border wars.

3) Alex Lahey - “Every Day’s The Weekend”

This is the only submission on the list I’d feel comfortable calling a perfect song. Relatable themes, a chorus that’ll tangle you up, f-bombs in all the right places, and every part maximized. She has this way of weaving between cool confidence and youthful insecurity, all in the matter of one verse.

2) Carly Rae Jepsen - “Cut To The Feeling”

When it comes to “Call Me Maybe” and its legacy, I do not fuck around. This song gets really, really, really close. Just watch this dude.

Queen Carly blessed us with another one. The chorus soars, arms go up, and clouds are your closest companions.

1) The Menzingers - “After The Party”

It's the little things my mind commits / To etch behind my eyelids

When this song dropped, my buddy Dave Rokos called it his favorite Menzos song ever. That felt like high praise, but man, he might be dead on. “After The Party” rips me in half with its lyrics of palpable desperation:

Like a kaleidoscope in vibrant hues I navigate around your tattoos Said you got that one on a whim when you were breaking up with him And that Matryoshka Russian doll That lines your shelf from big to small What a way to start anew To shed your skin and find the old you 

If Carly’s chorus flies, this one holds us down like gravity. You feel everything, you feel nothing, you feel full yet voided, but after all of this -- the life, the party, the friends, the bars, the experiences, the nights, the lights, the fights, the city you live in -- it’s still her and you. Or him and you. Or whatever it is you come home to at the end, when it’s finally quiet.

[twelveunitsshy-blog]

Confession

R76 AU time?  Okay.  Again, I've gotta get this stuff outta my system before school starts, so I rushed this out.  And I'm totally neglecting my reblogging duties right now, which sucks!

Summary: After the fall of Overwatch, Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were declared dead.  After spending time on the wrong side of the tracks Jack finally comes to the decision that he needs to turn his life around.

Warning: References to violence, drug use and it starts out kinda serious, but then gets a little stupid at the end.

Confession

Thanks to the Soldier Enhancement Program, it was easy for Jack Morrison to stalk his victims until they were in the shadows and rob them of whatever valuables they had.  If they put up too much of a fight, he'd have to kill them.  It was as simple as that.

At first he thought that an even simpler way to go about getting what he needed would be to go directly to the source and take everything they had.  As a matter of fact, he'd done it a few times before.  But killing your drug man was not only in poor taste, it wasn't very smart.  After a few times of doing that, Jack wasn't sure how he'd get his next fix.

So instead, he'd steal what he needed to get the money and then find a reliable dealer so he could have a constant supply.  It was a much smarter way to do business.

Now Jack sat in his little studio apartment, white lines of powder disappearing into the rolled up piece of paper he had jammed up his nose.  With what technology had become, there were easier ways to get the stuff into his body, but he preferred to keep it simple.

It only took a few moments to take effect and despite the fact that he lived alone, he murmured, "This is the best batch yet.  It's almost like it was made for enhanced soldiers."

Due to his enhanced condition, Jack was forced to do more of a drug before he felt the effects, but obviously today was a good day.  He quickly stood, not really sure of where he was going, and knocked over a box that was on his shelf.  Laughing at himself for his blunder, he dropped to his knees to put the contents of the box back where it belonged.

One of the first things he picked up was a picture that nearly blew his high.  It was of himself and Gabriel Reyes during their Overwatch days.  Boy, did they look happy.  Gabriel had been his best friend, after all.  Jack respected the man.  Hell, he'd even loved the man.  And it was in much more than a brotherly way.  As a matter of fact, Jack had been so desperately in love with Gabriel that he could never muster the courage to tell him how he really felt.

And even after all these years, those feelings seemed to come flooding back.

Jack sighed and looked at the remaining white lines on his coffee table.  He could easily override those feelings by snorting a few more of those, but why bother?  He'd been doing this same stuff, and variations thereof, for years and it hadn't erased any of it.  The memory remained and he was somehow still clinging to his feelings for Gabriel.

He'd never told a soul about those feelings either, barely even wanting to admit them to himself.  And regardless of the fact that Gabriel must have hated him to go to the extent of destroying Overwatch, he was still madly in love with the man.

Again, Jack laughed at himself, this time because of his current situation.  "I just turned a perfectly fine day into a pity party for one."

His short-lived high was long gone now, pushed aside by memories of days gone by and missed opportunities.  He'd had plenty of chances to tell Gabriel how he felt, even if it didn't amount to anything.  At least Gabriel would have known.  Maybe it would have even changed the course of events that lead to the fall of Overwatch.

But that wasn't going to change anything now.  Overwatch was gone, Reyes was dead and Jack was now a no good junkie.  It was something he'd thought about time and time again.  He just wanted to stop thinking about it.  So, he went back to his couch, grabbed his makeshift straw and made those white lines on his coffee table disappear.

Even though he'd practically snorted until he passed out, Jack couldn't shake thoughts of the old days.  And he couldn't shake thoughts of what he'd become.

He was suddenly walking down the street with no idea where he was going or what he'd planned to do.  All he knew was that he ended up standing in front of a church.

Jack found himself sitting inside the confessional, staring at his own hands.  What was he even doing?  He'd never confessed a day in his life.  He wasn't even religious.  Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone.  And talking to someone would be a good first step if he wanted to get out of the rut he'd been living in for the past decade.

The priest waited patiently for Jack to begin.  But where should he begin?  Should he begin at the beginning?  Should he begin at the end and work his way backward?  Should he begin at what was bothering him the most?

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," Jack started.  That was how these things usually started, wasn't it?  He paused for a long time, unable to think of what else to say.

The priest waited for a moment before he spoke.  "How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"

"I...I've never confessed, Father...."

"I see.  Please continue," the priest urged.  He had a kind and soothing tone even though his voice was a bit on the rough side.

Jack sighed and tried to think of where to start.  "Well, I'm not proud of the man I've become, Father.  I was well-respected and I helped people a long time ago.  And now I do nothing but hurt people and participate in selfish activities."  Even though this was a confession, he wasn't comfortable giving specific details about what he'd been doing.  He was a criminal after all.

"And why do you think this change came about?"

That was a pretty good question.  Jack wasn't really sure how he should answer it.  Surely this priest knew who he was and the organization he'd worked for.  Just about everyone knew about him.  But maybe the priest was asking the question in order to get him to think about the answer himself.

"I had a very prestigious job many years ago, but the organization collapsed and I began working odd jobs," Jack explained.  "But then I started spending a lot of time thinking about the past."

"And that's what made you selfish and hurtful?" the priest asked.

Jack thought about that for a while.  Dealing with his thoughts of the past had turned him to drugs in order to block out the thoughts and numb the feelings he got from thinking about all that stuff.  But it all kept coming back and he resorted to doing more drugs more often to numb the pain of remembering.  But it wasn't the fall of Overwatch and the memories of his time in the organization that he wanted to forget.  It was Gabriel and his feelings for him that Jack wanted to get rid of.

"A former co-worker...," Jack began as he stared at his hands again.  "I was....  I was in love with him."  It suddenly felt as though a weight had been lifted off his soul when he said it.  He never knew how good it could feel to simply say the words.  He'd been in love with Gabriel back then and even though Gabriel had died years ago, he was still in love with him now.  "I loved him, but I never told him."

The priest was quiet for a long time and Jack wondered if he'd offended him in some way.

"Then you should tell him, my son," the priest finally said.

Jack frowned.  "I can't.  He died a long time ago."

"You shouldn't let that stop you from telling him.  Do it when you leave here.  Visit his grave and tell him how you feel," the priest suggested.

It seemed like a good idea.  If telling a complete stranger felt that good, maybe saying it out loud to Gabriel's spirit would help even more.

It wasn't a very long walk from the church to the cemetary where Gabriel's tombstone stood.  Jack had only been there once since the fall of Overwatch, but he remembered exactly where it was.

As he made his way toward the section where Gabriel's body would have been buried had it not been completely obliterated, he noticed a hooded figure standing near the tombstone.  He couldn't go confessing his love for the dead while someone else was around.  Then he would just seem like a nutjob.  So, Jack strolled over and stood patiently waiting for the interloper to leave.

"Oh, there you are.  I thought you'd changed your mind about showing up," the hooded gentleman said.

It was the voice of the priest!  This man must have been really dedicated to his 'flock' if he was out here to accompany Jack during his visit.

"Go ahead," the priest said.  "I believe you had something to say."

As the priest removed his hood, Jack stood there staring in astonishment.  This priest, this hooded stranger, was none other than Gabriel Reyes himself.

Jack wasn't sure if he should kill the man or kiss him.  "Reyes?"

"Yeah.  I was just as surprised when I saw you sitting in the confessional.  You're looking pretty good for a dead man," Gabriel said with a smile that nearly melted Jack to the bone.

Then Jack thought about the fact that Gabriel was the one he'd confessed everything to, including the fact that he was in love with him.  The blond wasn't really sure what to say at this point.  "The last time we saw each other, we were at each other's throats."

"Jack, I'm a different man now.  And from what you said in church, well, it sounded like you took a wrong turn.  I'd like to help you," Gabriel told him.

Jack noticed Gabriel moving closer to him.  "Gabe...."

"I want to help you, but you have to say what you came here to say."

There was no way this was happening.  They were in a cemetary and Gabriel was standing so close that Jack could feel Gabriel's breath on his lips.

"I love you," Jack whispered closing his eyes.  He immediately felt Gabriel's lips touch his, but it was only briefly.

"Good.  You, Jack my boy, are on the road to redemption," Gabriel said as he flipped his hood back on.  "Come on.  I'll give you a ride back."

Jack stood there stunned.  He half expected Gabriel to at least tell him that he loved him too.

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

Transcript of 1979 60 Minutes Story on Bob Meehan with Dan Rather

Transcript of 1979 60-minutes follow up story on Bob Meehan "PDAP" DAN RATHER: P-D-A-P, PDAP, stands for the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, founded nearly nine years ago in the basement of Houston's Palmer Episcopal Church. PDAP first became known outside Texas when People magazine printed a feature about 15-year-old Carrie Hamilton, the daughter of TV star Carol Burnett and producer Joe Hamilton. Carrie had become a drug addict, and her parents sent her to PDAP, where she kicked the habit. The founder and leader of PDAP when we first broadcast this story last January was a former addict and alcoholic named Bob Meehan. To some, Meehan was a miracle worker, bringing God and clean living back to young people's lives. Others said he just got the youngsters dependent on him and PDAP in place of their former dependence on drugs and alcohol For Meehan himself, the message was: Do it my way, or leave. BOB MEEHAN: Now, I'm saying this is- this program works for a group of people. If it doesn't work for you, try another one. Don't tell me to change this one, because it's already working for this group of people. It's my way or it's the highway. Go find another program. There are 22 Mickey Mouse programs running around in our area. Go to one of them. You don't have to stay. We're not keeping you here. You're not in chains. You walk the doors, you live at home, you go to school. You're not in chains. You know, we're not controlling you in any way, shape or form. You don't like it, leave. RATHER: PDAP operates in meeting rooms donated by more than 30 churches in Houston; has branches in nine other Texas cities, and Denver, Colorado; and starting next month, in Los Angeles. There are no membership fees. The two and a half million dollar budget is raised from the community through an increasingly necessary fund-raising campaign. It is not a residential program. Youngsters live at home or on their own, except for a small number from out of town, like Carrie Hamilton, who stay with volunteer families. A substantial number may spend a month or more in a PDAP-affiliated hospital. PDAP is a drug-oriented, youth-oriented version of Alcoholics Anonymous. The members go to meetings: day meetings, night meetings; even a few times a year, 24-hour meetings. No drugs, no alcohol, as little contact as possible with anyone who uses either. It preaches a way of life, and that outside the chosen path lies disaster. GIRL (at PDAP): This is my 29th day of sobriety. (Cheers, applause) RATHER: The program's tools are peer pressure and peer support, laced with a heavy dose of getting yourself tight with God, with others and with yourself. All of it encouraged and directed by a staff of PDAP trained and paid counselors who are themselves ex-drug abusers. COUNSELOR: It's real easy to get into a negative place, you know. So what we do up here is we learn how to be positive. Does anybody want to share? RATHER: Members are told to steer clear of non-members, and to attend as many meetings as they can, meetings which combine the kind of public confessional popular in certain churches with a dose of amateur group therapy. GIRL: And yesterday, I was in a car accident. I wrecked the only material thing that I had that meant anything to me, my car. And it was the only thing I had that could get me to California. And I- I just sat in the car, and I wasn't angry, where normally I would be angry for what happened. And I didn't want to go get high. For the first time in my life, I did not want to get high. As far as I'm concerned, this is my first day here, because this is the first day I'm giving a hundred percent. I led a meeting yesterday on risk, and I haven't been willing to take that risk. I haven't been willing. I have thousands of people in PDAP that love me, and they- they don't even know me, some of them. And I'm willing to give it all. I'm finally willing. (Applause) RATHER: Some of these PDAP members are well into their twenties. But much younger drug users, some only eleven or twelve, attend other meetings. BOY: I've been having a lot- a lot of

problems, because I- I didn't admit that mind-changing chemicals have messed up at least part of my life. And I know that they have, because I've been stealing from my brother, and doing anything just to get high, you know. RATHER: At just about every meeting, someone gets a monkey fist-a braided leather ball at the end of a leather necklace. GIRL: Get a 30-days fist by staying straight 30 days consecutively in a row. RATHER: Kids who already have their fist bear witness. GIRL: You just came in my life at a real special time. You know, you kind of replaced a void that I was feeling, and I've just watched you grow a whole lot. You're real special to me, and I really like having a little brother. I love you. (Cheers, applause...chanting) MEEHAN: When one walks in the doors he must think that anybody that takes a drink, smokes a joint, is a complete loser. Pick winners is the- pick people that- that you respect, that you look up to, that- that offer you a way of life that you think you'd like. (On phone): See if you can get me Larry Layden. RATHER: Bob Meehan is a winner. From the depths of drunkenness and addiction, he has risen to head a multi-million-dollar program with a paid staff of more than 300 ex-addicts. Judges, ministers, company presidents, sit on his boards of directors and contribute to his programs. Meehan's income has risen as his program has grown from nearly nothing to more than $100,00 a year - in salary from PDAP and from consultant fees from hospitals and corporations as an advisor on drug abuse and its cure. And he says he's worth it. MEEHAN: I have a great head. I know more about this problem than anybody I know. I'm the most together person I know. And if anybody wants to know what to do about the problem in a business, they consult with me, they're going to get the right answers. And I am very expensive. If I wasn't making money, you wouldn't be here today, partner. WOMAN: May we have a few moments of silence. RATHER: Parents, too, are part of PDAP. Something less than half the parents whose kids are in the program are active. In PDAP parlance, these are the good parents. They also support the organization financially. Parents give 30 percent of the cost of PDAP. The other 20 percent comes from donations from corporations and foundations. MAN: God, I love you all. (Groups responds...applause) RATHER: Does the program work? Do the kids get off drugs and stay off? Meehan and his colleagues have repeatedly said that they are 75 to 80 percent successful-but when they are pressed, they day that those figures refer only to the percentage of kids who stay straight for 30 days and get their monkey fist. And when Meehan is pressed further, even that doesn't hold up too well. MEEHAN: What is success? What are we going to use as a definition for success? To me, it's one who has become a dues-paying member of society, has returned to school, no longer has a chemical problem-okay?-is moving on to enjoy life to its fullest, and being part of what you and I consider society. In that area, we are more successful than anybody I know of. What about the bottom line dry statistics? Fine. Mr. Rather, 60 MINUTES, if you care to give me $75,000 to do that kind of study and hire the statisticians necessary to do it, I will. RATHER: Are you saying to me that you don't have any data to back up your claim that you're 75 to 80 percent successful? MEEHAN: We have- the data we have is quite different from data anybody else has. And see, we don't keep records on people. You- if- if your children came to us, they don't have to give us their right name. They want help, they stay. They don't, they leave. RATHER: But- pardon me for interrupting-but that- that's part of the problem. MEEHAN: No stats, yes. We- RATHER: Again, you see, I find that an absolutely astonishing thing, that you would say, "Mr. Rather, I don't even know the names of most people who come into our place." MEEHAN: That's right. We're not here for names. We're here to show people a better way to live. RATHER: Okay, but- MEEHAN: If you

want it, stay. You don't, leave. RATHER: You can't give me a figure: these are the numbers of people that we had come through our doors nationwide? MEEHAN: No, we don't have time. We get 400 calls a day from all over the world. RATHER: Okay. But you don't know how many are coming through the door. MEEHAN: No. RATHER: So, how can you day you're 75 to 80 percent successful? MEEHAN: Because of the times that I ran groups, I knew, when I knew the kids in the group, when I saw how many came in-when I was running a group myself-I saw how many came in, and I knew what it was. RATHER: Mr. Meehan, I don't doubt for a moment that you did that. But when you boil it down, what you've got is a guess. MEEHAN: Oh, definitely. Oh, you're right. Definitely, a guess. RATHER: Okay, so when you say you're 75 to 80 percent effective, you're guessing. MEEHAN: I'd like to say 70. RATHER: All right, let's say 70. Let's- let's take a conservative figure. Do you consider that to be conservative? MEEHAN: No. Conservative, 65 to 70. RATHER: All right, 65 to 70. MEEHAN: Okay. RATHER: I note that we're already down from 75 to 80 percent down to 65 to 70. MEEHAN: I- do- you haven't talked to me. RATHER: All right, you- you say 65 to 70. But I say, is that your guess as to how effective you are? MEEHAN: That's my guess. RATHER: When we talked to someone in Dallas, who was very complimentary about the program, but they noted that, in Dallas, that your people had said they had 2,000 PDAP members in the Dallas area, but when they actually got down to counting heads, it turned out to be 500. Is that true? MEEHAN: Very true. RATHER: You can understand how someone in my position, trying to be an honest broker of information, would come away with at least the impression, number one, their success figures are inflated; number two, their overall membership figures are inflated. MEEHAN: Yes, sir. RATHER: But it's not the truth? MEEHAN: It's really not. It's really not. RATHER: Your success figures are 65 to 70 percent? MEEHAN: At least. At least. RATHER: If Meehan's figures on how many come in, how many stay, and how many actually kick the habit are wobbly, that makes equally suspect his statement to us that he only spends an average $500 per year per member. And that dollar amount doesn't even include the huge hospital costs of an estimated 550 youngsters referred last year by PDAP to this hospital and other hospitals run by the same management company, a company which pays Bob Meehan $50,000 a year as a consultant. Average length of stay in the hospital: four to six weeks. Average cost: at least $10,000 per youngster. That's not paid by PDAP. It's paid by parents and medical insurance. That alone is twice the entire PDAP budget. In the hospital, the PDAP patients get bio-feedback, psychotherapy and other medical treatment. Few of them need detoxification. But what they also get is a concentrated dose of PDAP. PDAP counselors, whose salary is paid indirectly by the hospital, hold PDAP meetings daily. And they treat and manage patients right along with the more highly trained staff. Are all these youngsters really sick enough or addicted enough to need to be hospitalized? Susie Waters was a PDAP counselor at the hospital for five months last year. SUSIE WATERS: I think that the reason why most of those people were in there was so we could make a big impression on them right from the beginning. It's a way of isolating them, to only get PDAP from the very front. It was the troublemakers that ended up in the hospital. It was the people that wouldn't go by the normal rules, that wouldn't stick with winners, or that wouldn't stop going to concerts. It was the troublemakers that ended up there. And a lot of them were just little kids. You know, they were just out having fun. I remember thinking a lot of times, why is this person here?-you know. They weren't- I was just the same as a lot of them. RATHER: The hospital management flatly denies that the PDAP patients they admitted didn't need the medical treatment they got. And they said the

consultant fee they paid Bob Meehan was for his advice on drug abuse, and had nothing to do with the fact that PDAP referred so many patients. Meehan couldn't see the connection, either. And they pay you $50,000 a year. MEEHAN: At this time. RATHER: What do you mean "at this time"? MEEHAN: Well, I plan to tell them I'm worth a lot more, because they've made an awful lot of money at what they- what- because that they listened to me. And- and I think I'm worth more. RATHER: Right on the surface of it, there is a conflict of interest. On the one hand, you sit at the top of the PDAP pyramid. On the other hand, you have a personal service contract with the hospital for whom you are directly-not just in effect-directly supplying patients. MEEHAN: No, sir, I am not. The counselors that work for me are going to put their patients, or are going to refer, to hospitals that they think are doing the best job. RATHER: You don't see a conflict of interest? MEEHAN: I really don't. BOB GAFFNEY: Bob Meehan is just- sits on the right hand of God to most of those people. And to me at one time, that's the way I looked at him. RATHER: Bob Gaffney was a staff counselor for PDAP. He spent five years in the group. This man, who asked that we not give his name, was in PDAP four years, rising to the high staff post of director of the Dallas branch. Does the Palmer Drug Abuse Program prepare these young people for reality? MAN: No. As a matter of fact, we're led to believe that we can't make it without the program, which I think is a- one of the greatest disservices that's done to anybody that goes through the program. Because I think many people who leave, who naturally leave and who could be considered successes of the program, basically fail because the message is there: I cannot succeed without these people and without this program. RATHER: Is that what is said on the inside, from Bob Meehan right on down? MAN: Yes. RATHER: That you cannot succeed without the program? MAN: Yes, yes. RATHER: Well, that makes it never-ending. MAN: Yes. RATHER: They are two of dozens of former PDAP staff members with whom we spoke. They are all sober and straight and feel the program helped them; but equally, they feel, the program has serious flaws. MAN: Power has become as intoxicating to some people as perhaps drugs were several years ago. RATHER: By "some people", do you mean Meehan specifically? MAN: Yes. MEEHAN: I don't even like power. I am a powerful person. That is to-- personal power. RATHER: Well, among the strongest powers is the power to persuade. MEEHAN: That's right. I have that power. I certainly do. I've been a con all my life. I've just- now I'm using it in a good way. See, that's the only difference. (Laughs) People come in to me and want to sober up, I don't say- they say, "Boy, it hurts when you do that." I don't say, "Don't do that." All right? They come in and they try to act cool, I say, "Hey, don't come in here acting cool. Cool people never get to see me, partner, you know. Cool people out there are making it, so don't come in here telling me you're cool. You know, you got problems or you wouldn't be here. Mama didn't bring you in by the back of your neck because you're cool." That's a con. It's using words he's going to understand. It's communicating. What is my purpose? To get him to think for himself, to be his own man, and make him see where he really is. In that way, I am powerful. GAFFNEY: They don't look at it like you're coming into this program to recover and move on. They look at it like you have stepped into a better way of life than everybody else in the world has. That's the problem. And if you want to leave, you know there's something wrong with you. Bob, I think, thought that I was really going to be in the gutter with a needle in my arm or something because I was leaving, you know. And they really think that way, you know. To them, when you get to PDAP you have arrived. MAN: It comes down that major decisions in people's lives-you know, continuing an education, getting a job, getting married,

going steady-all involve other people and what they think about it. Basically, you can- you can lead your whole life in the program and never have to make a decision, except that you're going to let somebody else make decisions for you. MEEHAN: That's a lie. It's very upsetting. I don't know if these people are getting high again and have the need to somehow knock us. I don't know what their situation is. I think if you go and talk to some of the people that are making it and doing fine, you would hear another story. But remember, they're out there making it. They're not sitting around chewing on my tail. They're doing their thing. They don't have time to sit around and talk to 60 MINUTES, because they're trying to stay on the dean's list. You're going to have to hunt them down. Well, you don't have time to hunt them down. So who do you pick on? The losers that are lurked around hoping to get on 60 MINUTES. RATHER: Well, I gather that you're concerned about the line of questioning? MEEHAN: Oh, yes. RATHER: Why? MEEHAN: It's my baby. It's my baby. I know that everything that happens here is the most positive- one of the most positive moving forces in this whole nation today. I know that, without a doubt in my mind. I know that just from the shows we did with Carol Burnett and some people, the calls that we've gotten, that people finally took back control of their homes, told their children love does not mean accepting wrong behavior, threw the dope out, took some hot- positive moves in this country that haven't been done in years. You know, I know what we're doing. My problem is, and my mistake is, I've gotten too successful. RATHER: Being too successful did turn out to be a problem for Bob Meehan. After we broadcast our story, the PDAP board of directors decided Meehan should no longer be the head of the program, although they continue to pay him in his new role in setting up a branch in Los Angeles. The board also banned consultant fees paid to Meehan and other officers of PDAP by the hospitals to which PDAP refers youngsters. However, the organization did accept a-quote-"loan"-unquote-of $325,000 from the owners of those hospitals, a loan which PDAP will pay back by charging the hospitals for counseling their outpatients. They continue to maintain that there is no conflict of interest. As for young Carrie Hamilton, she has returned to her home in Los Angeles and is active in the PDAP chapter there.

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Grant Guy

Grant Guy is a Canadian poet, writer and playwright. He has over one hundred poems and short stories published internationally. He has five books published: Open Fragments, On the Bright Side of Down, Blues for a Mustang, The Life and Lies of Calamity Jane and Bus Stop Bus Stop. He was the 2004 recipient of the MAC’s 2004 Award of Distinction and the 2017 recipient of the WAC Making A Difference Award.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I have only taken up poetry recently as my prime activity. In the past it was a sidebar, an avocation. Before that I was as a playwright, director, designer and puppeteer. While I have written poetry in previous years, published now and then, theatre dominated. I identified myself as a theatremaker. But it was through my work in theatre that brought me to poetry and prose. It was at ADHERE + DENY I began to think of myself as a playwright. I wrote, collaged and adapted the several scripts for the company. Prior to A+D I wrote scripts for The Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba, Video Pool and the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, The Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and elsewhere, but I did not refer to myself as a playwright. I began to enjoy writing more than all other aspects of theatrical creation. Poetry and short stories soon followed. Theatre is now a sidebar.

So it was not so much as to what was the inspiration as it was a progression.

However, still saying all that, my earliest interest in poetry began in my junior high school days. Until then, writing was an alien concept for me as a Canadian. In schools we were taught the poetry of English and American poets. However, it was the discovery of Bliss Carmen that changed all that for me. A Canadian that wrote poetry?  Wow! That led to A. M. Klein, Frank Scott, Stephen Leacock and, of course, Leonard Cohen. My writing ambition suffered a set back in my high school years when I was expelled from school because of a story I wrote for my English class. The piece was a kind of derivative merger of Dylan Thomas and Richard Farina. The high school thought I was a drug fiend. Wounded I never looked as writing as an option until the 1980s. In the 1980s I discovered Milton Acorn, Pat Lowther and Tom Wayman. In the 1980s my first poem was published. The 1980s not only my renewed interest in poetry but also gave me the confidence to write for theatre.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

It was not so much who introduced me to theatre. It was what. In grade 5 or 6 my class went on a field trip to see a Van Gogh exhibit. It was at the exhibition I decided I wanted to be an artist. I went to the library and borrowed what I could find on Van Gogh, including his letters to his brother. His writing had a greater impact on me. But the lack of Canadian content in our education system way back when was still a determent. It was the hippie years when I decided that being an artist was possible. Cohen burst onto the scene. With him a literary history I was blind to, writers like Layton, Birney and others. But it was through circumstances and friendship, and wanting to shortcut my education, I found theatre design to be the immediate recourse to the arts. I have a good sense of space and volume, but because I am a text based person theatre was my earliest path.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I have many friends who are visual artists. In the visual artists one is more inclined to kill their fathers, something suggested by Mark Rothko. But I was a theatre artist. Theatre has a boatload of historical baggage. I never wanted to kill my fathers. Or bulldoze the past. For me my elders and history are material for work. That does not suggest I ignored the their humanity or the humanity of the work. I saw my elders as people and as abstraction. Theatre introduced me to Brecht and Mayakovsky, They in turn led me to Levertov, Ferlinghetti, Vallejo, Whitman and Lorca. They jockey back and forth in prominence but remain vital in my process and work. The influence may not be obvious but sometimes when someone can do things I cannot I have admiration for them. The initial poetic influences have been joined by other older poets and more contemporary poets. I would say Adrian Mitchell, the British poet, is a primary influence for me currently: to take poetry sincerely but less seriously. Bukowski is an influence for the same reason.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

It varies on the project. For my poetry I am open to inspiration. I take a pen and notebook with me everywhere. I write down observations, thoughts and phrases as they pop up in my life. Later I will transpose those ideas into poems, but no regimented time is set up. No getting up at 5 a. m. or something like that. An idea for a short story will pop up in a similar way as the inspiration for a poem. But I will set up time in the evenings to work on the short story. Short stories are painful for me. For playwriting, when working on a new script, I will establish a regimented work time. Playwriting is like going to the office. I also find visiting a coffee bar a good place to write. I try to visit one everyday. The hustle and bustle is energetic. I am a bit of a flâneur.

5. What motivates you to write?

An obsession I cannot shake. Currently it is a theatre piece on the “Beat Generation”. Otherwise, I keep myself open and alert to the world around me. My roots are in theatre. Theatre is a story telling format of the human drama. I remain committed to our human drama, but it is not the epic drama that interests me but in the snippets of human drama. I am keenly alert to the absurdities of our human drama. Earlier on I got entangled in metaphors and symbolism. I realized that is not me. I am the narrative and the comic turn, the vaudevillian turn. Many poets thrive on the metaphor and I admire them. I cannot honestly do it any more for myself.

Others things that motivate me might be a lyric from a song. I am working on a piece about funerals, how we need to assure our immortality by stamping our names on hospital research centres or on sports arenas. The spark came from a song by Lucinda Williams warning us about expensive funerals.

Another inspiration is travelling. I am like the grasshopper in Aesop’s fable. As soon as I have a bit of money in my pocket I am off. In travel you meet people you will never see again. I meet people who are completely different from me. People share their personal narratives more easily if they know they will never see you again. I call train travel a rolling confessional. Travel is a big inspiration for the snippets of our human drama.

Yes, mostly it is life.

6. What is your work ethic?

I have a horrible work ethic. Often I would rather flâneur or anything to get down to work, but once I get started it is hard to stop. I have been known to go for days with little sleep while working on a play.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

While I respect and admire writers I read when I was young their influence has weakened over time such as Dylan Thomas, with maybe the exception of Brecht. It is the poets I discovered in my thirties that have impacted me more and to a degree they still do today. Tom Wayman’s narrative style I found to be refreshing. I still come back to him. Al Purdy I discovered in the 1970s and still admire him today. Someone I dismissed when I was young was Charles Bukowski. Today his unadorned poetics are very significant on me. I mentioned Adrian Mitchell earlier. I was first introduced to him as a playwright. He wrote the English translation of Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade. It was in the 1990s when I read him as a poet. He wrote, “People don’t care about poetry because poetry doesn’t care about people.” He wrote the way he talked, like Bukowski, and I was assured by that. He gave me confidence to write how I talk.

Saying all that I came across in the 1970s and 80s poets like Levertov, Merton and Lowther. Still read them and admire them.

A poet I discovered in my hippie years was Kenneth Patchen. I do not, cannot and will not write like Patchen, he sustains me.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Hard question. In Winnipeg there is the poet Dennis Cooley. He has the eye and curiosity of a child. I admire this in him. In spite of my Groucho Marxism, I tend to be a bit of a skeptic. Also in Winnipeg is the poet Duncan Mercredi. In his poetry there is an anger and rage, but also hope. Another Winnipeg poet is Ariel Gordon. She has a great sense of humor. The same goes for the Pennsylvania poet Barry Gross. I like the work of the poet Jennifer Still. There exists delicate stitching together of text and form. Careful and beautiful. I am more like a sledgehammer. She is another example of a poet who can do something I cannot. I like the poet Red Shuttleworth. I write often Western poetry (not cowboy poetry). Shuttleworth, not solely a Western poet, has written excellent Western poems.

9.  Why do you write?

A chemical disorder? Back in the 1990s I was talking to the theatremaker Ping Chong. We were discussing how we both wanted to write that Broadway hit and make a lot of money, but as soon as we put pen to paper things go dinky. Ping said, “Grant, it’s called a chemical disorder.”

I cannot do anything else well but make art. It is in me and it comes out.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Here I do not have any useful advice. You must have it in you. Don’t let anyone tell you whether you have it in you of not. Only you know, and you have to be your most critical councilor. If it is in you you will do it. If it is in you you will not let the rejection slips get you down (and you will get rejection slips even when you have had over a hundred poems published). And it may take time to be published. I have a friend who had seven novels and four screenplays behind him before he had his first novel published. Use the rejections as motivation for editing. If you become easily discouraged and defeated by the early rejections maybe that is the sign you do not have what it takes. Art is work.

Also, maybe poetry is not your best option. That does not mean you are not a good writer. Maybe your form is the short story, maybe it is travelogues (I like very much subjective travel histories) or journalism. Look at Mailer. His best work, in my opinion, is his essay writing.

Be your harshest critic. And do not be afraid of editing.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

The big writing project at the moment is my theatre piece on the Beats. I am fascinated in the admiration they have mustered, even today. Primarily, at the beginning of the project I was interested in how the four Beat writers became a Generation. Gary Snyder commented three or four people “a generation do not make”. I was interested in how the four prime Beat writers ended being clichés. I contend they believed their own press releases. I was interested in how subsequent writers like di Prima, Kyger, Snyder in time ascended over them. The German poet Heine was referred to as an unfrocked Romantic. Like Byron, who I also consider unfrocked, was able to transcend over his Romantic colleagues because he was because he precisely unfrocked. I am interested in the participation of the women “Beat” era.

Another project I am working on is about Billy the Kid. I am not rehashing old ground on the outlaw but exploring aspects of his narrative never discussed.

I have written Western short stories and poems. I was fascinated by the genre and the history of the Old West in Canada and the United States: how we as a people subdued the West shaped us as people today – our relationship with the land and the indigenous peoples, our psyche, and how our conservative and radical politics in North American merged out of the old West (Eastern Canada and the United States owes a debt to Europe while the West is more libertarian or anarchist). Feminism in North America got its strength from the women of the Old West.

And the Old West is made up of characters and myth. Myth is plastic. We shape it anyway we want. And we did it with the Old West. But in my writing I am avoiding the old interpretations. I am trying to deconstruct and subvert the history and narratives of the Old west as the spaghetti Westerns and Sam Peckinpah did.

Other than that I am constantly writing about the discovered snippets of our human drama.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Grant Guy Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[apsbicepstraining]

Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void?

Between the racist world TV whiz guiding the GOP and an unsettled Democratic Party, “none of the above” could acquire a respectable number of votes right now when it comes to the 2016 ballot.

How about a libertarian whom beings haven’t is aware of?

Gary Johnson wants to find out. At this past weekend’s contentious Libertarian Party convention, he won the nomination together with his running teammate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. A recent ballot indicated Johnson attracting 10 percentage of the legislative elections vote — a highly respectable amount for a comparatively obscure former minister of New Mexico. With continued success, he could get a begrudged spot at the presidential debates. The mainstream press is paying attention.

But even considering Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorable ratings, it’s very difficult to reckon Johnson playing a consequential character on Election Day. Libertarian may learn an admirable register of trouncing budgets, urging foreign policy self-control and preaching for personal freedoms from gambling to drug use. But Johnson is also kind of an oddball( at least to report to other legislators) who is most at ease talking obsessively about his personal fitness.

In an interview with The Huffington Post’s “Candidate Confessional” podcast, Johnson talked about his 2012 White House run, exuding bitterness over the media’s failure to properly recognize his athletic feats.

“I operated a 2:48 marathon and they don’t even report on it! ” he proclaimed at one point , memo the coverage Paul Ryan and others had received for meters much less impressive.

At another point, Johnson “was talkin about a” the 500 miles he rode on his bike across New Hampshire over a five-day span. “Ron Paul, national news is that he go around a lake on his bicycle. And we travel 100 miles a epoch for five days, and the concept was, ‘What do you have to do to get some scrutiny around here? ‘”

At yet another point, he recalled the errands he took across Iowa for an annual motorcycle razz there.

“There is more coverage about[ Romney’s] girls doing one leg of the RAGBRAI than us riding RAGBRAI every day, ” he exclaimed.

Such unconventional notions of what constitutes campaign “moments” stir Johnson a particularly ticklish legislator to extend. How gravely do you report on presidential candidates who’s climbing mountains as frequently as he is issuing plan papers? When he ran in 2012, Johnson got a lot of attention from men’s periodicals. In September 2011, he emerged shirtless atop a motorcycle in GQ for a feature story that requested: “Is this the Sanest Man Guiding For President? ” The subhed wondered why balancing the budget as governor of New Mexico and clambering Mount Everest with a broken leg didn’t “at least give him a shot” at the GOP nomination.

The writer discovered that here was a brand-new version of John McCain’s Straight Talk Express. This version wore bike shorts. “Do not disorient his Zen-like quality for a lack of cojones, ” she wrote. “The guy has brass ones. He’s a five-time Ironman triathlete. He paraglides and hot-gas balloons.( Not hot air, red-hot gas .) He biked across the Alps. And from the right slant, he looks like Harrison Ford.”

But Republican voters didn’t interpret a Han Solo. If they riled to detect Johnson at all, they caught him flailing or making a gag about pup shit( yes, bird-dog shit ). Johnson accuses often of this on reporters who refused to cover him and TV exec who deterred him off most dialogue stages. But he also acknowledges he made some curious selects.

Early in the hasten, he spent the vast majority of his time — 90 percentage, he thinks — doing Internet talk radio because, well, it was free advertisement.

“A mid-4 0-year-old in the basement to hold the interview and … the only beings listening were his parents the next flooring up, ” was how Johnson described it. “It was just horrible.”

And then there was his first campaign stop. Rather than contain a rallying in his childhood hometown, Johnson took a few reporters with him as he clambered a mountain — Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington, to be precise. Simply, the conditions were downright treacherous.

“These guys are like, ‘What the fuck? This is serious. This. Is. Serious, ‘” he remembered. By the time they got down, they were thankful is still alive. “I remarked, ‘Should we do it again? ‘ And everybody looks at me and suggests, ahem, ‘No.’ And I supposed, ‘You know, you guys right now are claim. We are genuinely fortunate to be here in one piece.'”

These guys are like, ‘What the fucking? This is serious. This. Is. Serious.’ Gary Johnson, on clambering Tuckerman’s Ravine the day after announcing his 2012 campaign.

Johnson seemed to bumble at basic expedition capacities where he was simply trying to get some see for his core concerns. Formerly, he showed up at a poker tournament to capitalize on his advocacy for allowing online gaming, exclusively to have bouncers shadow him and the emcee try to keep him away from the players.

“It was demeaning, ” he spoke. “I didn’t get kicked out. But I might as well have been kicked out. I represent, it was just a slap in the face.”

Johnson had paid his own lane to the tournament.

Like most losing candidates, Johnson said he took lessons from his downfalls. He won’t be doing Internet radio again. And he seemed committed to not get quite so caught up in the media’s had failed to spotlight his athletic prowess. But while the 2012 expedition may have had it’s share of dishonours, his self-love remains firmly intact for 2016.

“It’s not a fair process. It is a manipulated process. That’s the reality, ” responded Johnson. “Am I forestalled? Not so much better annoyed as, I seem enlightened. I genuinely do feel enlightened. It’s the channel video games is played. Ok, alright. I’m a good games player. I got to tell you guys. I’m a good chess player. I actually am. I’d love to play Putin in chess. Insure how that turns out.”

This podcast was revised by Christine Conetta. Listen to it above or download it on iTunes . And while you’re there, please subscribe to , charge and review our establish. Make sure to tune in to next week’s chapter, when special guests will be Ron Klain, Al Gore’s lawyer and top aide-de-camp on the 2000 recount.

The post Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void? appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2wKrGh6 via IFTTT

[heliosfinance]

Financial Confessional: I Used to *Hire* Escorts

[So here’s a surprise! Two posts on escorts within a month of each other, haha… Had a reader reach out though wanting to share *the other side* of the business (i.e. paying for escorts vs hustling as an escort), and I just couldn’t pass it up… So just like last time, if this stuff offends you go ahead and avert your eyes now! We’ve got tons of other juicy confessionals you can check out instead. Take it away, Mr. Anonymous Man!]

*******

After reading the post by Lance, “Financial Confessional: I Used to Be An Escort,” I felt compelled to share my point of view as a former client.

It was many years ago when I was in my thirties and unhappy in my marriage. I offer this only as background, and not as an excuse. I take full responsibility for my actions. While I believe men and women should have the freedom to do as they please with their bodies, my sin was lying about what I was doing. If you’re unhappy in your marriage, fix it or leave.

I came across an article by Marc Perkel that was the most influential piece for me. It gave many of the pros and cons for hiring an escort as well as practical advice on how to go about it (link very NSFW). Given the legality of such activities, I can’t share specific details of my hiring, but I can tell you about my personal experiences.

The Escort Industry is Huge

Like anything that’s in demand, someone, somewhere will supply it. Sex is no exception. There’s a reason this is called the oldest profession in the world. For as long as there have been people, there have been those willing to trade resources for sex.

In America, it is currently illegal and generally frowned upon, which only means it is going on behind the scenes. This also means a number of cottage industries have popped up to facilitate the transaction.

Nickie, mentioned in the previous post, chose to post via Backpage. You could find people there, but it was very dangerous and unpredictable. There are better sites where you have to be a member, where they will do a simple background check on you so that women will know if you are who you say you are. They also check that the women are who they say they are, and that their pictures and ads are accurate. The ladies will include pictures, measurements, physical descriptions and a menu of what they are willing to do.

There are review sites that allow men to give whatever details they feel are necessary. As you would expect, many are explicit and some can be a bit rude, but by-in-large, they keep it clean and respectful. If you want to be a part of the community, you have to play by the rules.

The Escort Community is Also Huge

Once you get in, you’ll start to see many of the same players. All have a chosen online name and can be found discussing “the hobby” on message boards. There’s advice for newbies, discussions of who is good to see, what areas have been targeted by law enforcement, which guys have become real d*ck heads and need to be excluded, etc. Like other activities it has its own special terms, so many of the discussions were about definitions. There are even in-person socials if you get in deep enough!

A number of clients and providers meet up at prearranged venues to buy drinks and meet providers face to face. It’s a lot like a sales convention with vendors putting out their best items looking for buyers. There are rules of course like no real names, be respectful, etc.

How Much Have I Spent on Escorts?

Most review and ad sites let you know up front around how much you’ll spend.  Many times, the girls will run specials trying to build up clientele. I learned early on as a novice, do NOT haggle. For most, this is their profession and they know their worth.

During my time, I never paid more than $200 for an hour.  I made appointments about every three months, and this went on for about four years. All totaled I probably spent about $3,200.

I kept this quiet by having a separate bank account where part of my check was direct deposited and I could get to the cash. Appointments were usually in the middle of the day as part of a long lunch. I did have my one and only threesome with a regular and a girl she invited. It was $400 total for the time.

At one of the socials, I met a guy who had over 500 “OKs” from girls. Which meant he had been with at least that many, but probably more. This is over several years, but doing the math, he spent over $100,000 on this “hobby”! I have to assume the guy was single since I find it hard to imagine hiding that amount of money.

Why Did I Do It?

Chances are, you know someone who has paid for sex. I’m a pretty unassuming person. Typical day job as an accountant. If you saw me, you wouldn’t think I had hired someone to have sex. When I was dating, I didn’t have any trouble getting dates or relationships.

But as I mentioned, I was not happy in my marriage. I was deeply depressed, but was raised to believe you stayed married no matter what. This was a way for me to get the intimacy I desired without having to give up the marriage. You’re just exchanging resources. You need human touch, she needs some money. I was able to meet some amazing women that provided a service that came with none of the drawbacks like emotional entanglements. No crazy calls in the middle of the night or showing up at your job. They are professionals and act that way.

It’s an important distinction that you are not actually paying for sex since that’s illegal; you’re paying for her time. She can, at her discretion, decide nothing is going to happen.

My experience was a little different than what Nickie described. I mostly did in-calls (her place), and would make the appointments online and get a general area to meet at. Once there, I had to make a call to get the actual location. When I got inside, I was usually greeted warmly with a hug or light kiss. I was allowed to peak around a bit, just to make me feel safe that we were, in fact, alone.

Money wasn’t ever discussed, and I never actually put it in her hand. If, like Nickie, she brought it up, I would have turned and walked out the door. I was also never “upsold” and was never offered drugs. I brought my own water and I left my valuables in the car. It’s by far more dangerous for them, even with all the precautions, but as a client you still need to be alert.

I was very selective in who I met with, which is the whole point of an escort. My guess is Nickie’s loss of clientele may have been not from competition, but her lack of professionalism.

Independent Business People

Human trafficking is very real and prostitution is an obvious avenue for exploiting people. The fact that giving a person money for sex is illegal is a large part of that. If the industry was legal and somewhat regulated, I feel like women would generally be safer since it is difficult to go to the cops if you are assaulted doing something “illegal”.

All the women I knew were doing it as a choice, and from what I could tell, mostly enjoyed it. They set their own schedules, used services to screen out most of the wackos, had a separate location for business, and were usually prompt and courteous. Some are busy enough to even hire personal assistants to help with screening and making appointments. They had families and lives outside of their work that they kept separate. Her time working was just another day at the office.

They always had back-up too. Any smart girl makes sure she has a partner that knows she’s meeting with someone and has signals for when things go sideways. Given the intimacy of the transaction, it’s easy to see why some would get emotional. If she’s good, you’ll forget this is just a transaction. Some guys do and will mistakenly cross the line.

I admit I got close to a couple of regulars myself. I even exchanged real names with them and had long conversations about my wife. They made me feel exceptional, but of course that was their job. We were not in love. We were not even friends. We were close business associates. I even considered offering my services as an accountant to help them out. Being in a cash based, less than legal profession, many just don’t know what to do. They collect the cash, pay their expenses and spend the rest.

It’s important to note that the IRS mostly does not care where your money comes from.

The thing is, this is not very different than a cam girl, selling her time over the internet. You have something the other person is willing to pay for. Audits are fairly rare for the typical taxpayer since they don’t have the personnel to pursue small money.  They’ll spend their time with people who deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. They didn’t get Al Capone on any criminal charges, they got him on tax evasion. It is easier than ever to keep your cash safe in an online bank. The rules are the same for all entrepreneurs: collect your money, maintain good records of your expenses, and get a good CPA.

If for some reason you’d like a deeper discussion about the mechanics of running an independent sex worker business, I found the following article that spells it out along with links to even more detailed information: You’re A Sex Worker — How Do You Pay Your Taxes?

Final thoughts

I stopped using escort services years ago. I dated and eventually remarried. I get all I need out of my relationship now, but there are times I miss the thrill of meeting a new girl.

The pros of using escorts is that you could reasonably expect to be having sex that day, and you generally knew who you were meeting. You’re both at your very best, most polished, self, and you don’t have to worry about any emotional entanglements. The cons were the need to sneak around, the financial and emotional costs, and of course it’s a poor substitute for meaningful relationships.

All things considered, I think prostitution should be legal and can be fun if done properly.

 – Anonymous

**********

Missed the original article? Check it out here: Financial Confessional: I Used To Be An Escort

Here’s a list of previous confessionals we’ve done as well, if you’re all escorted out by now ;)

“We Used to Blow Our Money on Motorcycles & Airplanes”

“I Turned My Back on My Wealthy Parents to Live a Life of My Own.”

“I’ve Spent over $40,000 on Amazon”

“I Bought a Used Honda for $45,000”

“I Became So Obsessed With Being Rich That I’m Now Sitting in Prison”

Financial Confessional: I Used to *Hire* Escorts published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

Financial Confessional: I Used to *Hire* Escorts

[So here’s a surprise! Two posts on escorts within a month of each other, haha… Had a reader reach out though wanting to share *the other side* of the business (i.e. paying for escorts vs hustling as an escort), and I just couldn’t pass it up… So just like last time, if this stuff offends you go ahead and avert your eyes now! We’ve got tons of other juicy confessionals you can check out instead. Take it away, Mr. Anonymous Man!]

*******

After reading the post by Lance, “Financial Confessional: I Used to Be An Escort,” I felt compelled to share my point of view as a former client.

It was many years ago when I was in my thirties and unhappy in my marriage. I offer this only as background, and not as an excuse. I take full responsibility for my actions. While I believe men and women should have the freedom to do as they please with their bodies, my sin was lying about what I was doing. If you’re unhappy in your marriage, fix it or leave.

I came across an article by Marc Perkel that was the most influential piece for me. It gave many of the pros and cons for hiring an escort as well as practical advice on how to go about it (link very NSFW). Given the legality of such activities, I can’t share specific details of my hiring, but I can tell you about my personal experiences.

The Escort Industry is Huge

Like anything that’s in demand, someone, somewhere will supply it. Sex is no exception. There’s a reason this is called the oldest profession in the world. For as long as there have been people, there have been those willing to trade resources for sex.

In America, it is currently illegal and generally frowned upon, which only means it is going on behind the scenes. This also means a number of cottage industries have popped up to facilitate the transaction.

Nickie, mentioned in the previous post, chose to post via Backpage. You could find people there, but it was very dangerous and unpredictable. There are better sites where you have to be a member, where they will do a simple background check on you so that women will know if you are who you say you are. They also check that the women are who they say they are, and that their pictures and ads are accurate. The ladies will include pictures, measurements, physical descriptions and a menu of what they are willing to do.

There are review sites that allow men to give whatever details they feel are necessary. As you would expect, many are explicit and some can be a bit rude, but by-in-large, they keep it clean and respectful. If you want to be a part of the community, you have to play by the rules.

The Escort Community is Also Huge

Once you get in, you’ll start to see many of the same players. All have a chosen online name and can be found discussing “the hobby” on message boards. There’s advice for newbies, discussions of who is good to see, what areas have been targeted by law enforcement, which guys have become real d*ck heads and need to be excluded, etc. Like other activities it has its own special terms, so many of the discussions were about definitions. There are even in-person socials if you get in deep enough!

A number of clients and providers meet up at prearranged venues to buy drinks and meet providers face to face. It’s a lot like a sales convention with vendors putting out their best items looking for buyers. There are rules of course like no real names, be respectful, etc.

How Much Have I Spent on Escorts?

Most review and ad sites let you know up front around how much you’ll spend.  Many times, the girls will run specials trying to build up clientele. I learned early on as a novice, do NOT haggle. For most, this is their profession and they know their worth.

During my time, I never paid more than $200 for an hour.  I made appointments about every three months, and this went on for about four years. All totaled I probably spent about $3,200.

I kept this quiet by having a separate bank account where part of my check was direct deposited and I could get to the cash. Appointments were usually in the middle of the day as part of a long lunch. I did have my one and only threesome with a regular and a girl she invited. It was $400 total for the time.

At one of the socials, I met a guy who had over 500 “OKs” from girls. Which meant he had been with at least that many, but probably more. This is over several years, but doing the math, he spent over $100,000 on this “hobby”! I have to assume the guy was single since I find it hard to imagine hiding that amount of money.

Why Did I Do It?

Chances are, you know someone who has paid for sex. I’m a pretty unassuming person. Typical day job as an accountant. If you saw me, you wouldn’t think I had hired someone to have sex. When I was dating, I didn’t have any trouble getting dates or relationships.

But as I mentioned, I was not happy in my marriage. I was deeply depressed, but was raised to believe you stayed married no matter what. This was a way for me to get the intimacy I desired without having to give up the marriage. You’re just exchanging resources. You need human touch, she needs some money. I was able to meet some amazing women that provided a service that came with none of the drawbacks like emotional entanglements. No crazy calls in the middle of the night or showing up at your job. They are professionals and act that way.

It’s an important distinction that you are not actually paying for sex since that’s illegal; you’re paying for her time. She can, at her discretion, decide nothing is going to happen.

My experience was a little different than what Nickie described. I mostly did in-calls (her place), and would make the appointments online and get a general area to meet at. Once there, I had to make a call to get the actual location. When I got inside, I was usually greeted warmly with a hug or light kiss. I was allowed to peak around a bit, just to make me feel safe that we were, in fact, alone.

Money wasn’t ever discussed, and I never actually put it in her hand. If, like Nickie, she brought it up, I would have turned and walked out the door. I was also never “upsold” and was never offered drugs. I brought my own water and I left my valuables in the car. It’s by far more dangerous for them, even with all the precautions, but as a client you still need to be alert.

I was very selective in who I met with, which is the whole point of an escort. My guess is Nickie’s loss of clientele may have been not from competition, but her lack of professionalism.

Independent Business People

Human trafficking is very real and prostitution is an obvious avenue for exploiting people. The fact that giving a person money for sex is illegal is a large part of that. If the industry was legal and somewhat regulated, I feel like women would generally be safer since it is difficult to go to the cops if you are assaulted doing something “illegal”.

All the women I knew were doing it as a choice, and from what I could tell, mostly enjoyed it. They set their own schedules, used services to screen out most of the wackos, had a separate location for business, and were usually prompt and courteous. Some are busy enough to even hire personal assistants to help with screening and making appointments. They had families and lives outside of their work that they kept separate. Her time working was just another day at the office.

They always had back-up too. Any smart girl makes sure she has a partner that knows she’s meeting with someone and has signals for when things go sideways. Given the intimacy of the transaction, it’s easy to see why some would get emotional. If she’s good, you’ll forget this is just a transaction. Some guys do and will mistakenly cross the line.

I admit I got close to a couple of regulars myself. I even exchanged real names with them and had long conversations about my wife. They made me feel exceptional, but of course that was their job. We were not in love. We were not even friends. We were close business associates. I even considered offering my services as an accountant to help them out. Being in a cash based, less than legal profession, many just don’t know what to do. They collect the cash, pay their expenses and spend the rest.

It’s important to note that the IRS mostly does not care where your money comes from.

The thing is, this is not very different than a cam girl, selling her time over the internet. You have something the other person is willing to pay for. Audits are fairly rare for the typical taxpayer since they don’t have the personnel to pursue small money.  They’ll spend their time with people who deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. They didn’t get Al Capone on any criminal charges, they got him on tax evasion. It is easier than ever to keep your cash safe in an online bank. The rules are the same for all entrepreneurs: collect your money, maintain good records of your expenses, and get a good CPA.

If for some reason you’d like a deeper discussion about the mechanics of running an independent sex worker business, I found the following article that spells it out along with links to even more detailed information: You’re A Sex Worker — How Do You Pay Your Taxes?

Final thoughts

I stopped using escort services years ago. I dated and eventually remarried. I get all I need out of my relationship now, but there are times I miss the thrill of meeting a new girl.

The pros of using escorts is that you could reasonably expect to be having sex that day, and you generally knew who you were meeting. You’re both at your very best, most polished, self, and you don’t have to worry about any emotional entanglements. The cons were the need to sneak around, the financial and emotional costs, and of course it’s a poor substitute for meaningful relationships.

All things considered, I think prostitution should be legal and can be fun if done properly.

 – Anonymous

**********

Missed the original article? Check it out here: Financial Confessional: I Used To Be An Escort

Here’s a list of previous confessionals we’ve done as well, if you’re all escorted out by now ;)

“We Used to Blow Our Money on Motorcycles & Airplanes”

“I Turned My Back on My Wealthy Parents to Live a Life of My Own.”

“I’ve Spent over $40,000 on Amazon”

“I Bought a Used Honda for $45,000”

“I Became So Obsessed With Being Rich That I’m Now Sitting in Prison”

Financial Confessional: I Used to *Hire* Escorts posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[voulezvous-rpg]

Congratulations, Rhine! You’ve been accepted as your original character, The Kingpin — Lysander Seo, with a face claim of Lee Jong Suk!

A man of god, with a god complex, who’s actually the devil himself. I’m in absolute awe of Lysander — his ruthlessness, his insatiability. He’s exactly the kind of villain I love seeing around, and I’m thrilled to have another antagonistic character joining us on the dash. This club is already breeding ground to a handful of dangerous players, so I’m very excited to watch how Lysander interacts with those who might be gunning for similar thrones. Whether he does end up building that network of his, or if you veer him straight off the deep end, I can’t wait to watch what happens. Welcome, both of you!

OOC name: rhine pronouns: she/her age: 20 timezone/activity: est & pretty active! I can usually do all my replies once or twice a week if I’m not too busy that week and I’m generally always lurking to plot and whatnot :)

IC character group: patrons character title: the kingpin name: lysander seo fcs: lee jong suk pronouns: he/him age: 29 occupation: drug lord how long has your character been at the moulin rouge? – as a patron, probably for about 1-2 years? though he might’ve passed by or dealt to people in the moulin rouge since he was about 18. how did the fire impact your character? – he mostly uses the moulin rouge as half-business, half-leisure – it’s a place where he doesn’t necessarily actively work, but where he builds connections with other patrons and gathers information on what’s happening throughout the city that could impact him. the fire would’ve deprived him of such networking and intel for a short period of time, but it likely isn’t his only source for such things – it would’ve been a nuisance at most, though its re-emergence has him both curious and weary of how its aftermath could help or hinder him.

biography – tw mention of drugs, killing, death, blood perhaps it is not fitting for the boy to wear a cross around his neck.

(for all the bodies fallen to the ground, for all the widowed women and fatherless children, all the life sunken out of cheeks and tears from eyes, how he barely bats an eye on bad days and smiles on worse; son of god, he’ll say, cold metal hanging around necks, returning angels to heaven dusted with powder like snow)

(for all the prayers he has kneeled in respect towards, for all the sunday masses and weekly liturgies, all the remnants of holy water on fingertips from a childhood of repentance for things that have not yet been done, how he bows his head in confession but does so in silence. forgive me father, he’ll say, communion still under his tongue, for I will sin again tonight)

(and priests can say nothing about the packages hidden in donation boxes, about guns between the pews and boy-devils who wear silver crosses around necks, as if mocking, eyes unblinking and smile as sharp as a knife when he genuflects towards the cross behind the altar, when he leaves with a promise to be back again next sunday)

he never misses a mass. somewhere there is a priest still behind the grates of the confessional, trembling.

-

when we are unsure of where the boy hails from, it is easy to give the answer of hell.

perhaps he was born from the underworld itself, he likes to joke. says that’s why he came back to rule it. to take it as his own.

but that comes later, of course. in the beginning, there was just a baby in the snow, cheeks red and silent despite the cold, features built from cities far, far away from paris – another land he does not know, no one has to say, for the boy has never fit in with the other blue-eyed blonde-haired little boys at the orphanage. skin like snow and hair like ink and far-travelling merchants would say the boy was carried from the silk road itself. doting nuns will say god has carried him over seas for reasons not yet known. one day, the spirit, the light, will show you a purpose for being here with us, mon lis. god will help you understand. 

shaking priests will say the devil carried their demons here, for another city already lies in ruins. god save our souls. 

but you must know that if we trace history to the only origins we know, the boy is perhaps not born, but raised in a church. it is as close as we can get when his blood does not hail from the parisian soil. 

a quiet, bright thing, nuns and caretakers would say. a handful of trouble with his skinned knees and crooked smile, twigs in hair and dirt on cheeks at the age of eight, smoke on tongue and smile that even god could forgive by eighteen.

devious, they have said since the beginning. how could we not see this coming?

he is a quick-fingered, straight-spine thing that never misses mass, that always comes in with his best sunday wear perfectly ironed, never a minute late. the boy carries trouble like a middle name, fond nuns tut after morning prayers. but he is a good son, still.

(here is where people will say only one of those things is true. here is where we must emphasize that both statements still hold, near eighteen years later)

(for all his sins, the boy is still devout, even if it is mocking)

the lines between good son and troubled thing are blurred still, and we won’t know exactly how it began, only that it did.

that there is a boy whose long fingers and easy grin make it easy to pass small packages between quick brushes of gloved hands in dark alleyways, that there is a boy who grows into a tall man whose calloused palms makes it easy to press skulls up to brick walls when payments aren’t made. that there is a boy who has no problem dipping his fingers into holy water as he leaves the church before coating them in blood when uncooperative customers hiss filthy orphan on blood-cut lips.

(we are not sure, we are not sure. perhaps they saw him in the corner of the streets one midnight, boy of fifteen and beat for merely being a tossed-out thing from countries away, eyes red and knees knocking. perhaps they pitied him, or perhaps they saw how he fights back, all teeth and elbow, all howled rage on bruised mouths, taking hits to break bones afterwards)

(likely the latter, one can guess. either way, there are men who offer him ice and teach him how to pull thread and needle through skin, who tell him that they’re looking for boys who can take hits but throw punches better, boys who know back-alley shadows and daylight-patrols equally well. boys like him, street things the closest we’ll get to the wild in the city. street things with nothing to lose)

they offer him a job. he takes it.

(it is a mistake, it’s too late to say. the boy will end up killing these men in a few year’s time, rip them open so that their needles and threads can’t hold spilling guts in – )

(but that comes later. for now, they clap him on the back and cheer as he nods in agreement, not knowing they let the devil in)

-

we will skip past this for your sake.

we do not remember the days of when the boy was nothing but a runner, a dealer, a guard, growing lean and scarred from fists thrown and bloodstained money collected. we do not remember the day he left the church and had a place of his own in the heart of the underworld, where he could feel the city bleed itself dry every night only to revive itself again in the morning.

(we do not remember the day he returned to the church and claimed it as his own, some five years later, guns and sealed bags in tow, asking for a place of mercy, looking into horrified eyes and saying how he remembers the house of god is not to deny anyone of shelter should they come seeking it)

(you monster, holy men half-sob, half-scream. you dare defile a place of worship like this?)

(you foolish man, devil-born boys smile back. you dare go against the word of a god like this?)

we do not speak of how there are multiple hells in this city, that there is not only one king, that he is not the only man who plays judge, jury, and executioner with a single word.

but there is only one who controls no nightclubs, no bars, no back alleys. there is only one who has ownership of the docks the day he gutted a man like a fish and left him hanging after a late shipment from the lands and the seas that the boy supposedly came from. there is only one who has claimed churches as his holy ground, as his base, threading packages through a system of donation boxes and confessional grates.

(mon lis, nuns weep. what happened to you?)

(I understand now, boy-turned-king whispers behind stained glass windows. god’s call for me. is that not what you wanted?)

we skip past the days where the boy learns the power of addiction and turns it into worship. how ports start to turn their favour from old bosses when new bosses appear with an allegiance that is forged from days of running; how he runs no more. how blood is just as adequate as handshakes when signing contract deals.

(boy rises, dethrones old kings with their severed heads in his hands. they had called him a traitor, a bastard boy for betraying a system that has took him in, taught him all he knew since he was a scrawny teen. do you forget that we own this city, own you just because a boat or two has turned to your favour?)

(boy dressed in red from the men he called fathers and brothers, exhales smoke and smiles to terrified new runners, tells them to spread the news that old kings have fallen, that a bastard boy now sits on the throne. tell them to get used to it)

and so, we skip to this:

orphan boy turned troubled thing turned street-wild runner turned suit-wearing monster in between pews.

boy turned king. turned god, even.

(there is enough of a blood sacrifice on his hands to consider it so)

we wait for gods to fall, cheer when they stumble three times with their crosses.

we forget that some are born below the ground. that in such cases, there is only space for them to rise.

-

potential plot points – !!! I would love to see him actually have some character regression?? he’s cautious but ruthless but if there was a chance for him to somehow keep on pushing himself & get stuck in his god complex and just end up destroying everything for himself by trying to be/do too much, and lose sight of the carefulness and completely veer off into the deep end – I’m here for it??

+ alternatively, him growing more refined & expanding his business and working with a lot more different people would be interesting? he’s not good with working under orders but has never played with partnership or comradery and I think that’d be something interesting to explore for him too!

[neo-losangeles]

The Oceanic Feeling

Tavia Nyong'

Nineteen-year-old Christopher Breaux fell hard for another straight-acting boy who wouldn’t love him back, confessing his love in a car parked in front of the girlfriend’s house. Like many a millennial, he took to Tumblr to share his feelings about a love he described, with portentous adolescent drama, as “malignant.” But the queerest song released so far by the artist now known at Frank Ocean hasn’t been an ode to boy-on-boy love and lust but a corrosive satire of “traditional” American marriage in the era of Kim Kardashian and Newt Gingrich. If hip-hop is the CNN of the ghetto, then “American Wedding” aims to be its TMZ as well, replete with celebrities and courtroom hijinks, muscle motors, and divorce settlements, with Ocean ruefully rubbernecking at all the car crashes en route to the good life.subscribe to TNI for $2 and get Vol. 9 today

“American Wedding” has attracted the proprietary attentions of paleo-rockers the Eagles, whose radio staple “Hotel California” the track is based on. But the real story here isn’t about the sampling wars. It’s about a scapegoat generation struggling to find a path through the crumbling infrastructure of the American dream.

It has been said that while liberals won the culture wars of recent decades, the right won the political and economic ones. The absurdly elevated status of “marriage equality” as the ne plus ultra of gay rights is a symptom of this unhappy dispensation. Who wants equality, after all, on such threadbare terms? Sensing a bait and switch, Ocean takes down love, American style, in merciless couplets like:

She said, ‘I’ve had a hell of a summer, so baby, don’t take this hard But maybe we should get an annulment, before this goes way too far.’

Like Pretty Woman in reverse, “American Wedding” descends from true love to crass commercial exchange, reminding us on the outro that “we been some hustlers since it  began.”

But this deconstruction of romantic comedy is done in the name of a different, murkier ideal of love, a redemptive love that won’t quite fit into the comforting melodic or narrative resolution of pop culture. We heard strains of such a love on Ocean’s performance at the 2012 VMA awards, where he delivered an assonant, astringent version of “Thinkin Bout You,” the opening track on Channel Orange. He wonders if his beloved is willing to “think so far ahead, cuz I’ve been thinkin’ bout forever.” But such a horizon can clearly no longer find expression in the shelf-worn sentiments of “till death do us part.” The ass-backwardness of the Eagles’ litigious response to Ocean’s meditation on love and commitment is best captured by NCWYS in the SoundCloud comments to “American Wedding”:

If you older people think that the younger generation is out of control and doing everything incorrectly then you should absolutely love this song, but you don’t.

Ocean is a practiced journeyman of popsoul songcraft, as the early demos on the fan-compiled Lonny Breaux Collection prove, but his writing on Channel Orange makes his preceding material for other artists seem like throat clearing. On “Sweet Life,” a sharply observed reverie of black-picket-fence California dreaming, Ocean sardonically queries his pampered date: “So why see the world, when you got the beach?” He elongates “world” to contrast with the punched out “beach” in a way that tells us everything we need to know about his mournful acceptance of life’s cruel optimism. “Sweet Life” makes the extended parable of parental neglect on “Super Rich Kids” almost superfluous, except for the self-conscious scene setting it adds—mixing substance abuse and class snobbery into a potent cocktail of something called “upward mobility”:

We’ll both be high The help don’t stare They just walk by They must don’t care.

This is the way Ocean inherits the past: not by respecting tradition, or Don Henley, but by staring down the foreshortened horizons and complacent inequality that the frantic pursuit of wealth or happiness brings.

Not that Ocean is lecturing, mind you, although Sierra Leone, sex work, global warming, and the hijab all make appearances in his rapidly expanding oeuvre. He is singing over the soundtrack of history, blunting its force with tried and true teenage tactics of insult, grandiosity, and desperate need. At 24 he isn’t quite old enough to know that he shouldn’t care, which is why he can gloat over “expensive news” on a pricey widescreen one moment, and say “my TV ain’t HD, that’s too real” in another. His is a realism that needs to be able to blur out of focus when it’s too intense or not intense enough, and the drugs come in handy. But so does channel surfing; on Channel Orange television is his angel of history, a flickering window onlooking the mounting wreckage of the past as he is blown into the future.

Despite his Tumblr post comparing the intensity of same sex love to “being thrown from a plane,” the theme of Channel Orange is less sexual orientation than chemical disorientation. Recreational substances surface frequently, often as a metaphor for a relationship gone wrong. Or is it the other way around, and addiction is now the core, common experience a generation is struggling to give sense to, turning to romantic clichés like “unrequited love” in a search for a more familiar, respectable language for it?

Frank’s oceanic feelings on Channel Orange crash in waves that obliterate distinctions between gay, bi, or straight. Some of the ostensibly straight songs, except for their pronouns, feel suspiciously same-sex. And when heterosexuality is foregrounded, it never resolves any confusions, it only produces new ones. The artistic showpiece of the album, the ten-minute long “Pyramids,” is an afrofabulation of ancient Egypt and postmodern Las Vegas, centered on a woman dressing for her job as a stripper, while her man looks on, waiting for her to “hit the strip” and “keep my bills paid.” But the song is a far cry from big pimpin’. “Pyramids” is drenched in delusions of the good life in a “top floor motel suite,” cruising on empty confused for the upward mobility that is now as rare as water in the American desert. Ocean has a heartfelt respect for his Afrocentric queen—“we’ll run to the future shining like diamonds in a rocky world”— but the feeling tone of “Pyramids” is closer to Janelle Monáe’s “Many Moons” than Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.” That is, where Jackson celebrated an image of a past in which we were kings and queens, Monáe and Ocean take a fish-eye view of a society where a multihued social apex rests atop masses of brown, black, and beige bodies “working at the pyramid,” like the slaves who built the original ones.

Where CNN anchor Anderson Cooper justified his belated coming out in terms of the reporter’s obligation not to get in the way of the news, Ocean knows better. A black boy is always getting in the way of the news. At 18 he fled Hurricane Katrina for Los Angeles. But as Fred Moten put it, “I ran from it, and was still in it” pretty much sums up the black experience in America. Channel Orange starts in a similarly fucked-up atmosphere—“A tornado flew around my room”—and ends with “Forrest Gump” perhaps the most oddball musical portrait of same-sex love since “Johnny Are You Queer?” A three-legged race featuring Tom Hanks’ dimwitted but fleet-footed hero and Christopher Breaux’s beau, “Forrest Gump” boils Hollwood sap down to a lubricious bump and grind:

my fingertips and my lips they burn from the cigarettes forrest gump you run my mind boy running on my mind boy

“Forrest Gump” is rhythm and blues as dark camp, nostalgia repurposed by a generation too young to remember, a generation whose cultural thefts seem premised on the awareness that anything original they create could be stolen.

But don’t confuse Ocean’s approach for pastiche or retromania, despite his affection for old cars and the vocal stylings of Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Donnny Hathaway. Just when you think he is recycling the familiar, he gives you something incredibly raw and real. On his first appearance on broadcast television, Ocean scaled the national-media echo chamber down to a backseat taxicab confessional, sharing a universal angst at a human level rarely captured by the contemporary celebrity coming out, with its strict protocols for explaining the murkiness of desire away:

He said Allah Hu Akbar I told him don’t curse me Bo Bo you need prayer I guess it couldn’t hurt me.

“Bad Religion” leaves it unclear whether it is his taxi driver’s effusive piety or his own devotion to the cult of true love that is more stunning. Confusing spirituality with a therapy designed to sand our sharp edges into shape for this world, Ocean is awestruck in a way that has little to do, in the end, with either Islamophobia or homophobia.

Rather, “Bad Religion” finds a pivot point in the “and” of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, the book where Freud psychoanalyzed the oceanic feeling of cosmic oneness felt by natural mystics and prophesied that our adjustment to society would only ever leave us frustrated and unhappy. “The price we pay for our advance in civilization,” Freud warned, “is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt,” and “Bad Religion” has plenty of guilt to spare. But it also never fails to convey the sense of striving and resilience Freud grudgingly acknowledges when he notes, “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love. But this does not dispose of the technique of living based on the value of love as a means to happiness.”subscribe to TNI for $2 and get Vol. 9 today

Blown from New Orleans by the unnatural calamity of racist and economic neglect, separated from his beloved by lack of reciprocation, Ocean never stops striving for “the technique of living based on the value of love.” Whatever, wherever that may be. Even a curse, after all, probably couldn’t hurt him.

When Ocean, on his Tumblr, greeted us as “human beings spinning on blackness,” he invited us into that cab alongside him, but also onto the edge of that oceanic feeling of cosmic oneness that Freud could only associate with regression, so convinced was he that satisfaction was something all humans left in the womb.A version of this essay first appeared at Bully Bloggers

But spinning on blackness needn’t be just an image for depression, addiction, burn out, or malignancy. It could also be Ocean sidling up in an undercommons of prayer and malediction, where the singular soul brushes up against the dark night of the universe. Maybe that’s why a conventional coming out, with its endless reiterations of the transparently obvious and anodyne, seems beside the point. Frank Ocean isn’t like you or me; he isn’t even much like Christopher Breaux any longer.

https://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-oceanic-feeling/

[architeuthid-blog]

Books That Have Made an Impact On Me

The Pale King: It’s strange to read a book by a dead man, I mean a book that wasn’t finished because the author died but which was published anyway. In the literary world this is taken as a matter of course; one expects posthumous publications from renowned authors. It’s pathological, and it was hard to shake the feeling when reading one of these artifacts that you’re looking at something unintended for your eyes, like you’ve wandered into a dressing room and stumbled upon a clown who hasn’t finished putting on his makeup. Then again, the novel ends with the same abruptness and feeling of ruined orgasm as Infinite Jest, so maybe the difference is academic for Wallace.

That’s not what made this an impact though. It’s a certain scene, in the chapter from the point of view of the slacker-stoner character, who’s wandered into the wrong classroom and ends up listening to a lecture from an accounting professor. It’s the way he describes, in his airy confessional, the teacher’s attitude, a self-possessed man, without any of the corny jokes he’s used to from the humanities department, an assurance that everything he is saying is true and necessary, no filler, no need for emotional connection, just pure knowledge, a Kantian understanding of the world and its phenomena.

This semester I’m teaching a world literature course in the science & engineering building. Every day I arrive a few minutes early to set things up, and every day the previous professor is still occupying the classroom, either still lecturing about mathematics or staying after to answer students’ questions about the material. Every moment is filled. It’s pedagogy at its most efficient and essential. I bet she never feels the need to justify what she’s doing; the importance of differential equations is self-evident, even if one has (probably) never moved anyone to tears.

I’m sure it’s not always the case. Some of my students do seem to care about the Epic of Gilgamesh; I’m actually surprised how many, this semester around. And everything is more complicated than it first appears. I know nothing of this other professor’s life, her dreams, whether or not she’s happy, whether or not such a question actually matters. But every time I’m up at the lectern and have to fill an awkward silence, every time I’ve run out of things to say about some classical Indian epic and then realize there’s still 20 minutes of class time left, every time I ask a question about the text and am met with a sea of blank stares, I can’t help but think about The Pale King and the way that layabout was inspired by an accounting lecture.

Have I ever inspired anyone?

2666: Ah, and we’re hopping right back into morbidity. Another book that was never finished due to the author’s sudden non-existence. This might actually be, unintentionally, my favorite genre of literature. Few will argue against Bolaño’s genius, and 2666 holds up even incomplete, even incomplete and in translation (for Natasha Wimmer, though less celebrated, is also a genius). Beyond general prose mastery, this book is also remarkable for being telepathic: About halfway through The Part About the Crimes, I was sitting in a coffeeshop, thinking to myself, “Wow, all this violence is really starting to become a chore to get through, I wish something else would happen for a change,” and lo and behold, on the next page, the book suddenly lapsed into a bizarre, extended parody of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I have to respect that.

Bolaño has also been one of the largest influences on my writing style, mainly because I decided to write a story that imitated his prose, and, it turns out, imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery, but also the best way to learn from someone. I swear less in my writing though. I’ve been uncomfortable with swearing, I don’t know why.

The Story of My Teeth: The first book on the list that isn’t a doorstopper and whose writer didn’t die before finishing it. Wow! Also the first book on the list written by a woman. Double wow!! Actually, I’m not quite sure what impact this book made on me, but it was a good one. It certainly made me fall in love with Luiselli’s writing. Her prose is just the kind of weird and humorous that I adore. (I was originally going to write “She’s just the kind of weird and humorous that I adore,” but I’ve never met her in real life, and so cannot make that kind of qualitative judgement. I was going to meet her, back in 2015, at a conference in Tucson, but I miscalculated when booking my flight and hotel, and so had to leave a day early. On top of that my flight was on Halloween, so I also missed out on one of my favorite holidays. I wouldn’t say that I was inconsolable, but I was certainly in an ill mood for a while.)

I’d talk about how Luiselli is like a reincarnation of Scheherazade, a master of the art of the story-within-a-story, but this isn’t LitHub, and the onanism I’m engaging in here is a different animal altogether.

(Even though I’ve written for LitHub before, I kind of despise them, for reasons that don’t quite add up. I think mainly they seem like yet another vanguard of the fake-woke brigade, and I can’t stand people who seem like nothing more than the masks they wear. Ooh, what to do, you’re being problematic again. And you just used “seem like” twice in quick succession. That’s shoddy craftsmanship.)

Not One Day: I actually just finished this book a few days ago. Actually, it hasn’t even been officially released yet (tee hee, I have an advance copy, well that’s less titillating that you might think). The conceit of the book is that the author, Anne Garréta (a member of the Oulipo, nonetheless!), has decided to spend five hours every day writing about different women she has desired over the course of her life. So it’s a confessional novel, but Garréta is very self-conscious about the fact that she’s writing a confessional novel, she knows how the sordid game is played. I, too, often feel self-conscious about the things I do, like I’m always late to the party. Fortunately, Garréta knows how to innovate. And not all her tales are erotic adventures; actually, very few are. One is about a little girl who develops a fascination with her. Another chapter centers around her learning that someone has a crush on her, but she never figures out who.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say here. I like the style. I’m narcissistic enough that I may steal it for something (just like I’m stealing this from someone--but I’m getting ahead of myself).

The Elephant Vanishes: This was gateway drug into the world of Murakami. Short stories are easier to digest than full novels; there are natural starting and stopping points, along with the sly exhortation that you can walk away at any time if you’re feeling unsatisfied. Of course, I was reading the book for an undergrad course, so that wasn’t really an option for The Elephant Vanishes, but then again I never felt the need to take advantage of that particular safety cord.

(The course was called “The Poet In Asia” and was a general survey of Asian literature, more or less. We also read Rumi, Li Bo, Du Fu, Matsuo Bashō,   etc.)

Actually, there’s not much else to say about this one. I guess it also introduced me to post-modern literature, literature that maybe went beyond the mainstays of plot, characterization, and so on. Does that mean anything? Plenty of writers today would say no, that post-modernism is just privileged navel-gazing. But I do gaze at my navel a lot; it collects a worrying amount of lint over the course of the day.

Notes From Underground: Another required reading from my undergraduate years, twice: first in a mandatory “Narratives of the Self” class, then later in an elective course on Russian literature (Anna Karenina would have also made this list, but, I mean, c’mon). My major, incidentally, was philosophy. All of this is just tangentially related.

Notes From Underground taught me an important life lesson, one I didn’t even realize I needed until I had it. Oh wow, I hate myself a little bit more for writing that. I don’t even want to tell you what it is now.

Okay, I’ll give you a hint.

I saw some of myself in the Underground Man, and correctly understood that to be a bad thing.

Pale Fire: Did this book actually make an impact on me? Thinking about it, I’m not really sure. Formally it does something I think is cool. Moving on.

Minor Angels: The first Volodine novel I read. Of course that carries significance. It certainly delivered on its promise of its effect hiding not in the text itself but within the reader’s dreams. After finishing Minor Angels I woke up locked outside my apartment, around midnight, in January, barefoot in the snow, braving my way over slippery ice and pointy rock salt to reach the emergency phone. I need to stop talking about this event, or at least stop pretending that it somehow makes me interesting. This isn’t even the post-exotic novel that made the biggest impact on me. That honor would belong to. . .

We Monks & Soldiers: Everything comes around in great circles. Or small circles. Fuck, I don’t know. Everything is at least repeated here, and by here I mean in We Monks & Circles, er Soldiers. I like how we see the narrative twice, with slight variations the second time. It’s a genuine post-exotic form, the Shaggå, a series of seven sequences, repeated, and interspersed with commentary, impenetrable to the outside reader, any of which could be the enemy of post-exoticism.

Yes, this is hell of pretentious. No, I don’t care. Shut up. I hate you. I’m going to kill you. Oh noble son or daughter, you who are reading this, you shall die by my hands. Think on the Clear Light, though you will not reach it. You are doomed the wander the Bardo for forty-nine days until you are reborn into another miserable existence.

Also, the scene with the spider-girl in the burning hotel is pitch-perfect.

The Soul of an Octopus: This book made me jealous more than anything. Here Sy Montgomery is, going backstage to prestigious aquariums across America, getting to meet firsthand the octopuses in their care (not to mention a rather handsome-sounding marine biologist), and then she goes and writes a best-selling, award-winning book about the experience! Whenever I go to an aquarium, the octopus isn’t on display. Or they’re hiding. I can’t blame them for hiding, I’d be shy too if I were on display like that, but the former just seems like rotten luck. I was so looking forward to seeing the Enteroctopus dofleini at the New England Aquarium two Decembers ago, and her handlers had spirited her away that inauspicious winter day for some well-deserved r&r. At least I got a t-shirt.

I have gone to the following aquariums:

~Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta) ~Tennessee Aquarium (Chattanooga) ~New England Aquarium (Boston) ~Mystic Aquarium (Mystic) ~Tybee Island Marine Science Center (Tybee Island) ~South Carolina Aquarium (Charleston) ~Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco) ~Shedd Aquarium (Chicago) ~National Museum of Play (Rochester) ~Aquarium (Endless Ocean: Blue World)

Our Lady of the Flowers, Echoic: It’s not the book itself that made an impact on me here, but rather its translation, by Chris Tysh. She takes Genet’s Notre dame des fleurs, a prose text, and transforms it, in her interpretation, into a poem. The effect is striking and opened the door to a vast array of translatory possibilities. Things were no longer one-for-one (nor had they ever been, but before this, it was merely an academic matter, shadows on a distant wall).

Granted, I’ve never translated a prose text into a poem, but then again, I’m not a poet. Poets have an easier time going crazy with translations, I think. The older generations didn’t even bother learning the source language. That’s probably taking things too far. But if Quine is right, then it doesn’t matter either way, I guess. Is Quine right? Who the hell would have a special word for “rabbitness instantiated”?

Autobiography of Red: Another book of poetry, another liberal interpretation of an earlier work. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, etc.

I’ll come out and say it: This book made me cry. I straight up teared up. I bet it made other people cry too. If you say you read Autobiography of Red and didn’t cry, I’m going to assume that you’re lying. Or that your literary sensibilities are far more refined than mine. Probably that second one. (Putting aside the fact that it’s hard to get more refined than Anne Carson, but rationality rarely enters my autoevaluative equations.)

Why did I cry? For all the normal reasons. Even when we identify with them, tragic characters will always be way cooler than we could ever dream of ourselves.

In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods: I’m including this book here specifically because it did not impact me the way I thought it would. While reading it, I often felt tired, like I was running a surrealist marathon (especially once the narrator stopped transforming into a cephalopod). I can’t begrudge Matt Bell’s style; he does some interesting things with his prose. I get the feeling that he’s an ace when it comes to unreliable narrators. But things have to come to a close at some point, and so many times I thought I was finally reaching some sort of conclusion, only to discover that, nope!, we were just going a layer deeper, into the house, or the protagonist’s psyche, or the married couple’s past. So, even though this book was kind of a let-down, I still talk about it, because every condition contains the seeds of its opposite nature, and I’ve read Hegel too, Sam. Maybe Cataclysm Baby is better.

The Pillow Book: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention to book to which I am indebted for the form in which I wrote this whole shindig. I admire the way Sei Shōnagon writes about whatever seems to capture her fancy at any given moment. It’s incredibly intimate (and with reason: we’re essentially reading her diary. Why do people think it’s okay to publish others’ private writings? What would Anne Frank say if she knew her personal thoughts during a time of great trauma were now required reading for middle school students?). Her poetry is beautiful, yes, but it’s the lists that get me. They’re just lists of things, a show about nothing. But they convey so much about her, about her compatriots, about courtly life in Heian Japan. Last semester my students weren’t huge fans of this text; they preferred the Tale of Genji. They found the Pillow Book “too hard to follow.” I think maybe they just didn’t like how long the selection in the anthology was. But then again, judging by their research papers, many of them had no problem reading the New Testament Gospels (even if they had no idea how to write about said Gospels--it turns out, coming as a surprise to no one, that devout undergrounds have no fucking clue how to do Biblical exegesis). So here I am, taking up the one-woman literary tradition of a courtier who lived over a thousand years ago, for no reason in particular beyond a habitual shrug and a muttered “just because I felt like it.”

A Google search reveals that TV Tropes has an article on the Pillow Book. According to the anonymous author or authors of the page, Sei is an example of the “Alpha Bitch” trope. So, that’s enough of that web adventure.

Post-Scriptum: Reading over what I’ve written so far, it would be tempting to ask (like the rote commentator of any list on the internet), “Are these really the only books that have impacted you? What about The Dew Breaker? What about If on a winter’s night a traveler? What about Horror Recognition Guide?” That’s all well and good; plenty of other books have certainly stirred something inside me. The practical answer is one of laziness: I’ve written what I felt like writing about, and now I’m done. Or maybe, if I didn’t mention some book, then I didn’t inspire me as much as you might think it did. Or, I only wanted to include one book by any given author (with one obvious, but pre-eminent, exception).

Incidentally this entire exercise also borrows heavily from not just the Pillow Book but also Not One Day: Anne Garréta ends her confessional narrative with a P-S that’s essentially an apology and a shrug. Which is what I’m doing here, explicitly so.  

Okay, I think I’m done.