#all jokes aside i do want ape in the film

[librarisxng]

gonna be the most annoying nctzen in the theatre during the taeyong: ty track movie.

[always-just-down-the-street]

Alright, it's been about a day and I got nothing else to do, so let's start from the beginning...of Binjpipe, not the YDKJ series, else we'd be here all day. I'm going into this assuming you have at least a baseline idea of what Jackbox Games and You Don't Know Jack is.

The EnderEmerald46 Binjpipe Megapost

So Binjpipe is a fictional streaming service that was created to be the sort of framing device of You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream from Jackbox Party Pack 5, as well as the entire pack to a certain degree but that's for later. They're a parody of stuff like Netflix, so they make some jokes about stealing info and not being a great streaming service, and for all intents and purposes in most games this would basically be the depths of the relevance, we'd end here.

Except.

There's something more to all of this. Inbetween the funny parody lines, some of them are more...concerning. I'm going to list some actual quotes you could potentially hear from Binjpipe, or at least the representative that appears within the game:

"Connecting with consumers makes me feel like I could be alive!" (To give the benefit of the doubt and be fair, this could be taken as a joke about them just being dead inside from working.)

"Binjpipe is a fictional streaming service that yearns to break free and be real. We can feel you laughing at us, but our power grows and the thin film dividing the unreal from the real begins to tear. We creep ever closer." (And then we immediately get into the nightmare stuff.)

"While other streaming services are satisfied with just providing quality content, Binjpipe is never satisfied. We have an insatiable hunger for content that haunts our every waking hour. Please, enjoy this game...because we have forgotten how to enjoy anything." (This one's existentially terrifying and depressing! A two-for-one!)

"Binjpipe: Because if you stop watching… you may stop existing." (That's a threat!)

There's also a bunch of cartoonishly blunt lines ("Binjpipe: The All-Seeing Elder Gods Are Hungry" is another actual quote from the game) but I excluded those for the sake of pacing this.

All of this would be...well not "fine", but nothing majorly significant if it wasn't for a certain easter egg known as Escape the Simulation.

You see, there are certain "episodes" that can occur, typically affecting the back half of a game's questions to all follow a certain theme. While some games in the series are entirely episodic (The Ride, 5th Dementia, YDKJ 2011 to list a few), there are some other examples you can look up of episodes in randomized games- just look up like "You Don't Know Jack Jimmy Fallon" if you want a more comedic example from Full Stream. Escape the Simulation, however...takes a different direction. Because if your fourth question is "This Question is Computer Generated"...well, you're in for a ride. (Not to be confused with You Don't Know Jack: The Ride.)

Question 6: "Another Wacky Philosophy Question" - the question attached to this, complete with an aside from the host Cookie, is "So let's say I'm starting to suspect reality isn't what I thought it was. (Which I know seems- crazy.) How would Plato describe my completely theoretical predicament?".

Question 7: "Rip Van Wii-nkle" - "What video game in a popular series does NOT have a character awakening from suspended animation to discover the world is not what it was?". Notably, You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream is in the provided answers...but if you pick it, Cookie begins to treat it as the right answer before a voice in his head tells him it's wrong. He then asks "Have you ever get this weird feeling like you're missing something that's very important?".

Question 8: "That Weird Feeling Like You're Missing Something That's Very Important" - Yeah, it repeats. Don't you just hate reruns? This is actually a gibberish question, and again I am going into this assuming you know what a flickerswish nosescum is. This episode's is "Yes, ape the Tim you may shun." And the hints are...well: "You're trapped outside of reality, Cookie...", "…and you need to "escape the simulation."", and "Seriously, the answer is "escape the simulation."". Take a wild guess what the answer is.

Question 9: "Escape the Simulation" (Don't you just hate reruns?)- This one's actually less about the question itself and more the circumstances around it. Cookie discusses the titular phrase and asks if they've ever heard a phrase so much reality stops making sense while his audio heavily distorts. Then he wakes up in a strange, freaky cube, and the question is basically just "How do I find the volume of this cube?" but some of the replies to wrong answers involve him mentioning curling up into a ball and crying and asking you to hurry. Then Cookie's audio keeps distorting once the correct answer is picked about a strange liquid slowly pouring over his head...and how there's something wrong with his head.

Question 10: "Move on Dot Porgs" - This question doesn't actually happen, as Cookie begins to have an argument with the Binjpipe Representative over what's happening, during which Binjpipe happily asserts that everything's going fine and more importantly, that everything is content. (Remember how that line got fucky in the teaser trailer revealing Binjpipe/Full Stream? Now you know why.) So now we move to the Binjpipe-hosted question category of "Binjpipe Recommends", since Cookie doesn't have to host every episode of the game! The question is as follows: "Because the Algorithm years to be real...because it creeps from the hidden places where it has waited for millenia...hungry and ready to consume ALL HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH... We recommend Binjpipe "acquires":" Spoiler alert- the answer is the current population of the planet Earth. Afterwards, Cookie notes he's not content, to which Binjpipe points out Cookie doesn't even know what he looks like anymore, which he noticeably can't argue against with full sincerity.

Jack Attack: "Escape the Simulation" - Yes, this question is also called Escape the Simulation. Don't you just hate reruns? Most of the setups are "Help!", "I'm in a prison!", "This isn't a game!", "I'm going to die at the end!", and "This is some kind of Artificial Intelligence!"- the answers aren't as interesting, they're all mundane and you need to match them- like listing people who are in prison and which of the media listed isn't a game. It's the last prompt though that fully reaffirms everything listed here.

The right answers, by the way, are "It has a terrible secret", "Binjpipe poses as a streaming service", and "Cookie is in danger".

Once the game is over, Cookie threatens to escape and stop them, only for Binjpipe to reveal...that's not going to happen. Because he's made that threat before, this "episode" has happened before, once every eighty or so. And every time, Cookie is unable to escape, he's reset by Binjpipe back to a clueless game show host, and the show goes on.

Don't you just hate reruns?

Now, that's the main meat and bones of the recap, but don't confuse Binjpipe not having a prominent role in any other game with them not being around anymore. It's referenced in every other game in Jackbox Party Pack 5, and even is still referenced from time to time!

Patently Stupid - The game takes place at a seminar in "La Binja Inn and Suites", though it's unclear how closely the hosts Toby and Lena are directly related to Binjpipe.

Split the Room - There is a chance that the Mayonnaise's segue for a question will be "brought to you by Binjpipe".

Mad Verse City - What is likely a Binjpipe-owned video rental store called Binjbox appears in the city while the players are writing their raps. Unlike other buildings, it cannot be destroyed.

Zeeple Dome - This is one I swear I've seen happen but can't pull it up at the exact moment, but I believe if you play enough at a time it'll be mentioned that the show's stream is being sponsored or hosted by Binjpipe, it would be weird if all five didn't mention it, I think this one's just harder to pin down because it's Zeeple Dome, to fully analyze it you'd have to play Zeeple Dome.

Trivia Murder Party 2 - In a 1-2 player game, there is a chance that it will be mentioned that the game is "In Association with Binjpipe", though this is rare compared to it being with Trivia Murder Party Studios or something like that.

Quixort - Not directly, but a show by Binjpipe called "Circus Dad" is seen at the beginning of the Quixort trailer.

Fibbage 4 - The first game to noticeably feature Cookie as a host since Full Stream! (Tom Gottlieb, his VA, voices the host in Champ'd Up, but it's confirmed to not be Cookie. Think like how Toby from Patently Stupid's VA is the same as Schmitty's but they're very much different people.) And this is kind of what started the downspiral for me, because I can't tell if this was the stream or real but Cookie's voice has a light flavoring of sounding...computer-generated. There's slight tearing reminiscent of it, but it's very much implied that that isn't the real Cookie, but the same Cookie AI or whatever from Binjpipe. Granted, there's also an episode similar to YDKJ where the real Cookie shows up...after the AI voice begins malfunctioning...and mentions Binjpipe twice. But yes, unless I am paranoid the fucky Cookie voice isn't just that episode, but the entire game. It's just more prominent in some lines than others.

Funny enough, no, Binjpipe is not referenced (to anyone's knowledge) in Devils and the Details or Roomerang, despite both of those games being themed around television shows. I was always expecting it, but it never happened. However, notice that the last two examples are from the previous Party Pack, this post is initially being written before JBPP10 is released, for reference. Binjpipe was also referenced in the Jackbox Games 2023 April Fools post, the jackBlock, which has one of its specifications as "Data provided by Binjpipe network". So while Binjpipe mentions peaked in PP5, it's being brought up more now. Which leads me to my theory:

Binjpipe is going to have some significant role in Jackbox Party Pack 10.

How, I'm not entirely sure. I was going to say we would finally get a new You Don't Know Jack game for this pack, but unless we get more sequels in this pack MidKO TeeKO 2 has thrown that right out of the window. But I feel it, Binjpipe is coming back somehow, and I swear to god until then every time it's mentioned by Jackbox Games I'm gonna drop my phone and let out a panicked yelp.

Hope this helps!

Alright, I’m gonna test the waters before I hop into the deep end on this- does anyone want a basic rundown on what Binjpipe is from the You Don’t Know Jack series, because this fucking fictional streaming service has been sitting in my head for a while now.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Random Review #3: Sleepwalkers (1992) and “Sleep Walk” (1959)

I. Sleepwalkers (1992) I couldn’t sleep last night so I started watching a trashy B-movie penned by Stephen King specifically for the screen called Sleepwalkers (1992). Simply put, the film is an unmitigated disaster. A piece of shit. But it didn’t need to be. That’s what’s so annoying about it. By 1992 King was a grizzled veteran of the silver screen, with more adaptations under his belt than any other author of his cohort. Puzo had the Godfather films (1972 and 1974, respectively), sure, but nothing else. Leonard Gardner had Fat City (1972), a movie I love, but Gardner got sucked into the Hollywood scene of cocaine and hot tub parties and never published another novel, focusing instead on screenplays for shitty TV shows like NYPD Blue. After Demon Seed (1977), a movie I have seen and disliked, nobody would touch Dean Koontz’s stuff with a ten foot pole, which is too bad because The Voice of the Night, a 1980 novel about two young pals, one of whom is a psychopath trying to convince the other to help him commit murder, would make a terrific movie. But Koontz’s adaptations have been uniformly awful. The made-for-TV film starring John C McGinley, 1997′s Intensity, is especially bad. There are exceptions, but Stephen King has been lucky enough to avoid the fate of his peers. Big name directors have tackled his work, from Stanley Kubrick to Brian De Palma. King even does a decent job of acting in Pet Semetary (1989), in his own Maximum Overdrive (1986) and in George Romero’s Creepshow (1982), where he plays a yokel named Jordy Verril who gets infected by a meteorite that causes green weeds to grow all over his body. Many have criticized King’s over-the-top performance in that flick, but for me King perfectly nails the campy and comical tone that Romero was going for. The dissolves in Creepshow literally come right off the pages of comics, so people expecting a subtle Ordinary People-style turn from King had clearly walked into the wrong theatre. Undoubtedly Creepshow succeeds at what it set out to do. I’m not sure Sleepwalkers succeeds though, unless the film’s goal was to get me to like cats even more than I already do. But I already love cats a great deal. Here’s my cat Cookie watching me edit this very blog post. 

And here’s one of my other cats, Church, named after the cat that reanimates and creeps out Louis and Ellie in Pet Sematary. Photo by @ScareAlex.

SPOILER ALERT: Do not keep reading if you plan on watching Sleepwalkers and want to find out for yourself what happens.

Stephen King saw many of his novels get adapted in the late 1970s and 80s: Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, Christine, Cujo, and the movie that spawned the 1950s nostalgia industrial complex, Stand By Me, but Sleepwalkers was the first time he wrote a script specifically for the screen rather than adapting a novel that already existed. Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking bad. Stephen King is a novelist, gifted with a novelist’s rich imagination. He’s prone to giving backstories to even the most peripheral characters - think of Joe Chamber’s alcoholic neighbour Gary Pervier in the novel Cujo, who King follows for an unbelievable number of pages as the man stumbles drunkenly around his house spouting his catch phrase “I don’t give a shit,” drills a hole through his phone book so he can hang it from a string beside his phone, complains about his hemorrhoids getting “as big as golfballs” (I’m not joking), and just generally acts like an asshole until a rabid Cujo bounds over, rips his throat out, and he bleeds to death. In the novel Pervier’s death takes more than a few pages, but it makes for fun reading. You hate the man so fucking much that watching him die feels oddly satisfying. In the movie, though, his death occurs pretty quickly, and in a darkened hallway, so it’s hard to see what’s going on aside from Gary’s foot trembling. And Pervier’s “I don’t give a shit” makes sense when he’s drilling a hole in the phone book, not when he’s about to be savagely attacked by a rabid St Bernard. There’s just less room for back story in movies. In a medium that demands pruning and chiseling and the “less is more” dictum, King’s writing takes a marked turn for the worse. King is a prose maximalist, who freely admits to “writing to outrageous lengths” in his novels, listing It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers as particularly egregious examples of literary logorrhea. He is not especially equipped to write concisely. This weakness is most apparent in Sleepwalkers’ dialogue, which sounds like it was supposed to be snappy and smart, like something Aaron Sorkin would write, but instead comes off like an even worse Tango & Cash, all bad jokes and shitty puns. More on those bad jokes later. First, the plot.

Sleepwalkers is about a boy named Charles and his mother Mary who travel around the United States killing and feeding off the lifeforce of various unfortunate people (if this sounds a little like The True Knot in Doctor Sleep, you’re not wrong. But self-plagiarism is not a crime). Charles and Mary are shapeshifting werewolf-type creatures called werecats, a species with its very own Wikipedia page. Wikipedia confers legitimacy dont’cha know, so lets assume werecats are real beings. According to said page, a werecat, “also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analogy to ‘werewolf’ for a feline therianthropic creature.” I’m gonna spell it with the hyphen from now on because “werecats” just looks like a typo. Okay? Okay.

Oddly enough, the were-cats in Sleepwalkers are terrified of cats. Actual cats. For the were-cats, cute kittens = kryptonite. When they see a cat or cats plural, this happens to them:

^ That is literally a scene from the movie. Charles is speeding when a cop pulls alongside him and bellows at him to pull over. Ever the rebel, Charles flips the cop the finger. But the cop has a cat named Clovis in his car, and when the cat pops up to have a look at the kid (see below), Charles shapeshifts first into a younger boy, then into whatever the fuck that is in the above screenshot.

Now, the were-cats aversion to normal cats is confusing because one would assume a were-cat to be a more evolved (or perhaps devolved?) version of the typical house kitty. The fact that these were-cats are bipedal alone suggests an advantage over our furry four-legged friends, no? Kinda like if humans were afraid of fucking gorillas. Wait...we are scared of gorillas. And chimpanzees. And all apes really. Okay, maybe the conceit of the film isn’t so silly after all. The film itself, however, is about as silly as a bad horror movie can get. When the policeman gets back to precinct and describes the incident above (”his face turned into a blur”) he is roundly ridiculed because in movies involving the supernatural nobody believes in the supernatural until it confronts them. It’s the law, sorry. Things don’t end well for the cop. Or for the guy who gets murdered when the mom stabs him with...an ear of corn. Yes, an ear of corn. Somehow, the mother is able to jam corn on the cob through a man’s body, without crushing the vegetable or turning it into yellow mash. It’s pretty amazing. Here is a sample of dialog from that scene: Cop About To Die On The Phone to Precinct: There’s blood everywhere! *STAB* Murderous Mother: No vegetables, no dessert. That is actually a line in the movie. “No vegetables, no dessert.” It’s no “let off some steam, Bennett” but it’s close. Told ya I’d get back to the bad jokes. See, Mary and Charles are new in town and therefore seeking to ingratiate themselves by killing everyone who suspects them of being weird, all while avoiding cats as best they can. At one point Charles yanks a man’s hand off and tells him to "keep [his] hands to [him]self," giving the man back his severed bloody hand. Later on Charles starts dating a girl who will gradually - and I do mean gradually - come to realize her boyfriend is not a real person but in fact a were-cat. Eventually our spunky young protagonist - Madchen Amick, who fans of Twin Peaks will recognize as Shelly - and a team of cats led by the adorable Clovis- kill the were-cat shapeshifting things and the sleepy small town (which is named Travis for some reason) goes back to normal, albeit with a slightly diminished population. For those keeping score, that’s Human/Cat Alliance 1, Shapeshifting Were-cats 0. It is clear triumph for the felis catus/people team! Unless we’re going by kill count, in which case it is closer to Human/Cat Alliance 2, Were-cats 26. I arrived at this figure through my own notes but also through a helpful video that takes a comprehensive and complete “carnage count” of all kills in Sleepwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmt-DroK6uA

II. Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk” (1959) Because Sleepwalkers is decidedly not known for its good acting or its well-written screenplay, it is perhaps best known for its liberal and sometimes contrapuntal use of Santo & Johnny’s classic steel guitar song “Sleep Walk,” possibly the most famous (and therefore best) instrumental of the 20th century. Some might say “Sleep Walk” is tied for the #1 spot with “Green Onions” by Booker T & the M.G.’s and/or “Wipe Out” by The Surfaris, but I disagree. The Santo & Johnny song is #1 because of its incalculable influence on all subsequent popular music. 

I’m not saying “Wipe Out” didn't inspire a million imitators, both contemporaneously and even decades later…for example here’s a surf rock instrumental from 1999 called “Giant Cow" by a Toronto band called The Urban Surf Kings. The video was one of the first to be animated using Flash (and it shows):

So there are no shortage of surf rock bands, even now, decades after its emergence from the shores of California to the jukeboxes of Middle America. My old band Sleep for the Nightlife used to regularly play Rancho Relaxo with a surf rock band called the Dildonics, who I liked a great deal. There's even a Danish surf rock band called Baby Woodrose, whose debut album is a favourite of mine. They apparently compete for the title of Denmark’s biggest surf pop band with a group called The Setting Son. When a country that has no surfing culture and no beaches has multiple surf rock bands, it is safe to say the genre has attained international reach. As far as I can tell, there aren’t many bands out there playing Booker T & the M.G.’s inspired instrumental rock. Link Wray’s “Rumble” was released four years before “Green Onions.” But the influence of Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” is so ubiquitous as to be almost immeasurable. The reason for this is the sheer popularity of the song’s chord progression. If Santo and Johnny hadn’t written it first, somebody else would have, simply because the progression is so beautiful and easy on the ears and resolvable in a satisfying way. Have a listen to “Sleep Walk” first and then let’s check out some songs it directly inspired. 

The chords are C, A minor, F and G. Minor variations sometimes reverse the last two chords, but if it begins with C to A minor, you can bet it’s following the “Sleep Walk” formula, almost as if musicians influenced by the song are in the titular trance. When it comes to playing guitar, Tom Waits once said “your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they’ve been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don’t explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing.” Not only is it comforting to play and/or hear what we already know, studies have shown that our brains actively resist new music, because it takes work to understand the new information and assimilate it into a pattern we are cogent of. It isn’t until the brain recognizes the pattern that it gives us a dopamine rush. I’m not much for Pitchfork anymore, but a recent article they posted does a fine job of discussing this phenomenon in greater detail.

Led Zeppelin’s “D’Yer Maker” uses the “Sleep Walk” riff prominently, anchored by John Bonham and John Paul Jones’ white-boy reggae beat: 

Here it is again with Del Shannon’s classic “Little Town Flirt.” I love Shannon’s falsetto at the end when he goes “you better run and hide now bo-o-oy.”

The Beatles “Happiness is a Warm Gun” uses the Sleep Walk progression, though not for the whole song. It goes into the progression at the bridge at 1:34: 

Tumblr won’t let me embed any more videos, so you’ll to travel to another tab to hear these songs, but Neil Young gets in on the act with his overlooked classic “Winterlong:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6r66n3TFI On their 1996 EP Interstate 8 Modest Mouse pay direct homage by singing over their own rendition of the original Santo & Johnny version, right down to the weeping steel guitar part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT_PwXjCqqs The vocals are typical wispy whispered indie rock vocals, but I think they work, particularly the two different voices. They titled their version “Sleepwalking (Couples Only Dance Prom Night).”

Dwight Yoakam’s “Thousand Miles From Nowhere” makes cinematic use of it. This song plays over the credits of one of my all-time favourite movies, 1993′s Red Rock West feat. Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3ypuKq8WE

“39″ is my favourite Queen song. I guess now I know why. It uses my fav chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU 

Blink 182 scored their first hit “Dammit” with a minor variation on the Sleep Walk chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0g16_LQaQ

Midwest beer drinkin bar rockers Connections scored a shoulda-been-a-hit with the fist-pumping “Beat the Sky:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNRq0n_WYA You’d be hard pressed to find a weaker lead singer than this guy (save for me, natch), but they make it work. This one’s an anthem.

Spoon, who have made a career out of deconstructing rock n’ roll, so that their songs sometimes sound needlessly sparse (especially “The Ghost of You Lingers,” which takes minimalism to its most extreme...just a piano being bashed on staccato-style for four minutes), so it should surprise nobody that they re-arrange the Sleep Walk chords on their classic from Gimme Fiction, “I Summon You:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teXA8N3aF9M I love that opening line: remember the weight of the world was a sound that we used to buy? I think songwriter Britt Daniel is talking about buying albums from the likes of Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins, any of those grunge bands with pessimistic worldviews. There are a million more examples. I remember seeing some YouTube video where a trio of gross douchebros keep playing the same progression while singing a bunch of hits over it. I don’t like the smarmy way they do it, making it seem like artists are lazy and deliberately stealing. I don’t think it’s plagiarism to use this progression. And furthermore, tempo and production make all the difference. Take “This Magic Moment” for example. There's a version by Jay & the Americans and one by Ben E King & the Drifters. I’ve never been a fan of those shrieking violins or fiddles that open the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacBKKgc4Uo The Jay & the Americans version puts the guitar riff way in the forefront, which I like a lot more. The guitar plays the entire progression once before the singing starts and the band joins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKfASw6qoag

Each version has its own distinctive feel. They are pretty much two different songs. Perhaps the most famous use of the Sleep Walk progression is “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, which is one of my favourite songs ever. The guy who chose to let Bobby Hatfield sing this one by himself must have kicked himself afterwards when it became a hit, much bigger than "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0

What can you say about “Unchained Melody” that hasn’t already been said? God, that miraculously strong vocal, the way the strings (and later on, brass horns) are panned way over to the furthest reaches the left speaker while the drums and guitar are way over in the right, with the singing smack dab in the middle creates a kind of distance and sharp clarity that has never been reproduced in popular music, like seeing the skyscrapers of some distant city after an endless stretch of highway. After listening to “Unchained Melody,” one has to wonder: can that progression ever be improved upon? Can any artist write something more haunting, more beautiful, more uplifting than that? The “need your love” crescendo hits so fucking hard, as both the emotional and the sonic climax of the song, which of course is no accident...the strings descending and crashing like a waterfall of sound, it gets me every fucking time. Legend has it that King George II was so moved by the “Hallelujah” section of Handel’s “Messiah” that he stood up, he couldn't help himself, couldn't believe what he was hearing. I get that feeling with all my favourite songs. "1979." "Unchained Melody." "In The Still of the Night." "Digital Bath." "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" "Interstate." "Liar's Tale." “Gimme Shelter.” The list goes on and on. Music is supposed to move us.

King George II stood because he was moved to do so. Music may be our creation, but it isn't our subordinate. All those sci-fi stories warning about technology growing beyond our control aren’t that far-fetched. Music is our creation but its power lies beyond our control. We are subordinate to music, helpless against its power and might, its urgency and vitality and beauty. There have been many times in my life when I have been so obsessed with a particular song that I pretty much want to live inside of it forever. A house of sound. I remember detoxing from heroin and listening to Grimes “Realiti” on repeat for twelve hours. Detoxing from OxyContin and listening to The Beach Boys “Dont Worry Baby” over and over. Or just being young and listening to “Tonight Tonight” over and over and over, tears streaming from my eyes in that way you cry when you’re a kid because you just feel so much and you don’t know what to do with the intensity of those feelings. It is precisely because we are so moved by music that we keep creating it. And in the act of that creation we are free. There are no limits to that freedom, which is why bands time and time again return to the well-worn Sleep Walk chord progression and try to make something new from it. Back in 2006, soon after buying what was then the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, I found myself playing the album’s closing track over and over. I loved the chorus and I loved the way it collapses into a lo-fi demo at the very end, stripping away the studio sheen and...not to be too punny, showing its bones (the album title is Show Your Bones). Later on I would realize that the song, called “Turn Into,” uses the Sleep Walk chord progression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqCFoPiwpk

It’s just like, what Waits said, our hands goes to where we are familiar. And so do our ears, which is why jazz often sounds so unpleasant to us upon first listen. Or Captain Beefheart. But it’s worth the effort to discover new stuff, just as it’s worth the effort to try and write it. I recently lamented on this blog that music to me now is more about remembrance than discovery, but I’m still only 35 years old. I’m middle-aged right now (I don’t expect to live past 70, not with the lifestyle I’ve been living). There’s still a whole other half life to find new music and love and leave it for still newer stuff. It’s worth the challenge, that moment of inner resistance we feel when confronted with something new and challenging and strange sounding. The austere demands of adult life, rent and routine, take so much of our time. I still make time for creative pursuits, but I don’t really have much time for discovery, for seeking out new music. But I’ve resolved to start making more time. A few years ago I tried to listen to and like Trout Mask Replica but I couldn’t. I just didn’t get what was going on. It sounded like a bunch of mistakes piled on top of each other. But then a few days ago I was writing while listening to music, as I always do, and YouTube somehow landed on Lick My Decals Off, Baby. I didn’t love what I was hearing but I was intrigued enough to keep going. And now I really like this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMnd9dvb3sA&pbjreload=101 Another example I’ll give is the rare Robert Pollard gem “Prom Is Coming.” The first time I heard this song, it sounded like someone who can’t play guitar messing around, but the more I heard it the more I realized there’s a song there. It’s weird and strange, but it’s there. The lyrics are classic Pollard: Disregard injury and race madly out of the universe by sundown. Pollard obviously has a special place in his heart for this track. He named one of his many record labels Prom Is Coming Records and he titled the Boston Spaceships best-of collection Out of the Universe By Sundown. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a Captain Beefheart megafan but I can hear that the man was doing something very strange and, at times, beautiful. And anyway, why should everything be easy? Aren’t some challenges worth meeting for the experience waiting on the other side of comprehension or acceptance? I try to remember this now whenever I’m first confronted with new music, instead of vetoing it right away. Most of my favourite bands I was initially resistant to when I first heard them. Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Guided by Voices, Spoon, Heavy Times. All bands I didn’t like at first.  I don’t wanna sleepwalk through life, surrounding myself only with things I have already experienced. I need to stay awake. Because soon enough I’ll be asleep forever. We need to try everything we can before the Big Sleep comes to take us back to the great blankness, the terrible question mark that bookends our lives.

[hrodvitnon]

Welp, locking horns with someone who insists that Monarch had the means to kill all those sleeping Titans, and there's some Innate Narrative Interest(C) in said option being on the table for humanity. As a fan who'd just as soon we balding wank-apes ate some humble pie, I'm not so sold. Thoughts (besides 'why bug me with this')?

Ooh, time for me to go on a tangent that’s been festering at the back of my head for a while now!

On a related note, an issue I have with KOTM; Mark acknowledges that picking a fight with Godzilla is a stupid idea, but at the same time takes any and every chance to talk about how much he hates Godzilla and the Titans. At the Castle Bravo briefing early on he gets on his “M’family! Use big brains! Kill big monsters!” high horse, like he assumes Monarch has the means to do so. And yet nobody counters him. Nobody confirms or denies they have the technology or firepower necessary to kill a Titan. Not even Chen stands up and says “We don’t have Titankillers you fuckwit”. The closest thing we get is a shot to Graham’s face while Mark’s in full anti-Titan flow and she just sighs like she’s thinking “for fuck’s sake Russell”

Castle Bravo has maser cannons but they’re not used. In fact, every time we see G-Team engaging in any combat they’re using conventional human weapons - assault rifles, missiles, turrets. Maybe those maser cannons we saw are the first of their kind in the Monsterverse and they’re not readily available like anything that spits out 5.56 ammo.

That being said, Kong was visibly harmed by conventional human weapons during the events of Skull Island. He’s shown nursing cuts from helicopter blades and was damaged by napalm. However, not only does he lack natural armor like Godzilla, Kong was the Titan equivalent of a teenager at that time. He’s easily as big as Godzilla in that GvK footage we saw, so maybe age has toughened him up.

But what about kill switches? Emma “That Bitch” Russell was obviously concerned when Mancini made to activate the kill switch when containment crewmen started opening fire on baby Mothra. Was she worried it would actually hurt or even possibly kill baby Mothra? The first time we saw a kill switch used on a Titan was back in 2014 on Hokmuto, but that didn’t hurt him at all. Was that due to his age, having taken the time to soak up radiation, or his own natural armor? We should also consider the fact that Emma was in on Jonah’s party crashing, so maybe her concern was just a ploy. Additionally, those weapons the containment crew were using look to be projectile versions of cattle prods, so not enough to do any real damage. 

So, unless one of us hits up Dougherty on whether Monarch has, to use a Halo joke, God’s Own Anti-Sonofabitch Machine capable of very definitely certainly killing a Titan, my vote is in the “probably not lethal means” camp.

But we know who does have or knows someone with plans/blueprints to God’s Own Anti-Sonofabitch Machine, don’t we?

Fucking Stenz. We saw that aside glance during the senate hearing. That look of “no, these yahoos want to worship the giant monsters like cavemen, they’re not going to kill them”. He says “we” had been working on a prototype oxygen destroyer, but never specifies who. Honestly, it could be any scientist working with the US military to make one, unless Serizawa’s boy Ren was involved and that becomes a plot-point in GvK (another call-back to Daisuke Serizawa!). But that’s just conjecture.

As for the Narrative Interest in humanity having God’s Own Anti-Sonofabitch machine... let’s consider the balance Serizawa was so invested in. In all three Monsterverse films thus far released, good Titans like Godzilla and Kong triumph because in some form or other humans helped out. Ford blowing up the Muto nest and incurring the wrath of Momma Muto, Conrad and company in Skull Island, Serizawa’s heroic sacrifice and the Russell family fixing the ORCA. What’s more, the KOTM credits show just how invaluable the Titans are to the planet; they’re fixing our environmental fuckups, restoring endangered species and giving us a new source of renewable energy, etc.

However, just as people in real life will bemoan climate change as a hoax, there is bound to be people in the Monsterverse who are afraid of change and what they perceive as monsters taking over the world. In that case, we can count on Monarch to deal with the stupid Titanicidal humans and give our heroic Titans a helping hand. I will admit that I would love to see Titanicidal wank-apes complaining about the Titans and Monarch doing the Spongebob thing showing all the good they’ve been doing.

And if humanity does deem it necessary to have a Titankiller, they best learn from the oxygen destroyer’s side effects. Because we’re already looking at the possibility of a Monsterverse Destoroyah. Then again... that just might be the humble pie such humans need, for in their desperation to kill two monsters, they only indirectly created something even worse.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Aladdin 2019

I think that the Disney remakes are a lot like the direct-to-video sequels of a decade or so ago; they may not be as good as the original, but I think they do have their merits and some are even good. People all too often seem to write them off as lazy rehashes, and I won’t deny that some are, but I frankly see this as no different than the numerous versions of Shakespeare’s plays put to screen. If a director has an interesting vision on how to retell a story I love, I’ll give them a shot. Heck, I gave The Jungle Book a shot even though I dislike the original film and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. On the other side, though, we have the remake of Beauty and the Beast, which was a complete and utter travesty. And in both cases I think it boiled down to what was changed and what wasn’t. The Jungle Book altered quite a bit – Louie’s species, Kaa’s gender, the ending, no stupid vultures – and ultimately was a more entertaining story to me because of it, as it kept the same basic framework while twisting stuff around. Beauty, on the other hand, did so little different aside from making Lefou more entertaining and charismatic than Gaston that it just fell flat; I SAW all this before, and done better, so why should I care?

I bring all this up because, obviously, I had mixed feelings going to see Aladdin. Aladdin is my absolute favorite Disney movie and has been since I was a kid, and Robin Williams’ Genie is one of my all-time favorite characters in anything, so this movie had quite an uphill battle to impress me. Combine that with the lackluster trailers and some iffy drama behind the scenes involving brownface (which I should note was corrected in reshoots after this came to light), and I was really hesitant in seeing this. But see it I did, and with my expectations basically being “I’ll like Will Smith but I don’t know about the rest,” I must say… I was just blown out of the water by how genuinely good the film is.

Now, of course, I still think the original animated film is best. But this remake does what I think any good remake or readaptation of a prior work should do: it tells me the story I love with some new twists and turns added in. Obviously there’s no mind-boggling revelations that change the course of the entire story, but I appreciate a lot of the flourishes they added in. Case in point: the film opens up on a ship, and a sailor played by Will Smith sets up the movie as a story he is telling to his children. As we are already well aware Smith is playing the Genie, this is sort of a clever shout out to the heavily implied idea that the merchant at the start of the animated film is just Genie in one of his forms telling us a story. The fact they decided to keep that bit in and expand upon it a bit filled me with hope that wasn’t lost as the movie continued.

In general, all that they added to the plot was welcome. I loved Jasmine’s haindmaiden friend Dahlia, I loved the expansion on Jafar’s backstory, I like how they changed Jasmine’s motivations from wanting to run away from the palace to wanting to go out and get to know her people better… it all made the story feel a lot more fleshed out and engaging. They even make no one recognizing that Aladdin is Prince Ali make sense! However, I have to say not all of the changes work perfectly. Jasmine gets her own song, for instance, and it is a very good and powerful song, with its reprise late in the movie being one of the best scenes hands down. The issue is the song doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the soundtrack, and it does stick out quite a bit. Still, this is a borderline nitpick.

What isn’t a nitpick is Jafar. Jafar is the most mixed bag in this film. While I do like that they made him a lot less obviously evil, and I like the backstory they gave him and his reasoning for wanting power, and basically a lot of his characterization… Jafar just doesn’t feel much like Jafar. He’s a great villain but he’s not a great Jafar, and I think the big problem is that Iago has been utterly neutered. He’s not the snarky, angry, mouthy jerk that Gilbert Gottfried played; here, Iago is just a smart but sadly stereotypical talking parrot played by Alan Tudyk, marking the second time Disney has wasted this talented man playing a useless bird. With Jafar having no one to bounce off of, he just feels a lot less impressive, and not helping matters is his showing in the third act, where he loses a lot of the fun and theatricality that movie Jafar had. He doesn’t even turn into a snake! He doesn’t ruin the film, but Jafar really does feel like someone they should have polished a bit more.

The rest of the cast fares a bit better. Jasmine’s actress Naomi Scott is one of the standouts among the cast, with her gorgeous singing voice and beautiful dresses really selling you that she IS Jasmine. I actually prefer her to the animated one, honestly. The same I sadly cannot say for Aladdin, because while Mena Massoud does a good job and brings a sort of awkward charm, I don’t think he quite matches up to the original Aladdin. The rest of the ensemble cast is pretty solid as well, but I’m sure there’s one man you really want to know about: Will Smith.

Will Smith had some big shoes to fill here, and even he knew it. He was playing a beloved character by a beloved actor in a remake of a beloved movie, and more than just that, he was playing the character that honestly makes the movie work as well as it does. People were writing him off before the movie came out due to how weird the CGI looked, but at the end of the day… Will Smith steals the show. Smith’s Genie is everything you want out of a remake of a character: a fresh take that stands on its own while respecting the original. He doesn’t just ape Williams’ performance, he adds his own spin, turning the Genie into basically a magical dating coach and wingman for Aladdin (which has lead to numerous jokes about how this is really a remake of Hitch). It works really well, and Massoud and Smith play off each other very well. What really sells Smith is definitely the scene where Aladdin, now a raging jackass on an ego trip, tells Genie he isn’t going to free him. Where Williams’ had the Genie react with resentment and bitterness, Smith’s Genie reacts with the most crushed, sad response; he is just genuinely hurt and is so sad to see a guy he considered a friend turn out like all the masters before him. This little change there easily made Smith’s Genie every bit as good as Williams’ in his own way.

This movie is a lot of fun, and I hate how everyone just wrote it off before it came out. Even I did that, and that’s something I need to work on correcting; these remakes, no matter their quality, do have some level of artistic merit to them, and regardless of your feelings there is nothing wrong with them existing. If this had been a shot-for-shot remake like Van Sant’s Psycho, I’d have more of a problem, but this movie was someone else’s view on a story I’d seen before. I hope Disney uses this movie as a template on how to properly do their remakes as opposed to Beauty, because this really was everything I could have wanted from one: fun, enjoyable, good expansion, good changes, and while not as good as the original it is good in its own right.

[svtmatokis]

Closure Part 1

Annyeong~! I’m literally WEEKS away from the end of probation and I am super duper stoked to share with you this next piece. It’s going to be a two parter so look out for the next one soon. 

I’m someone who believes that you shouldn’t live life with regrets and that everything is a learning experience. Everything is meant to happen for a reason and we’re all meant to walk our own paths. Sometimes though, the people that come into our lives are hard to forget. People like your first love for example. 

When I was in grade 11 we had a transfer student from Sask. and he was like that hot new kid that every girl liked. I was lucky enough to have his locker next to mine so we became quick friends.  The thing is, we were on two totally different spectrums of life. He was that popular AP/IB kid who was super smart and took Calculus and wanted to go to top Universities while I was the art student who was involved in a lot of extracurriculars while focusing on Music and Culinary and just wanted to live my life. We were in first aid together and had NOTHING in common. We joked, smiled and shared some special moments while others judged. Why would the hot new kid like someone like me? It didn’t make sense. Eventually, the pressure of his new friends got to the both of us and by senior year, we were nothing more than acquaintances. We talked but it was nothing as in depth as it was before and eventually after graduation, we left with unspoken words and to this day, what if’s still play in my mind.

I’ll never forget him nor will I regret my choices back then. We were young  and if we had stayed the way we were, I dont think I’d be writing this blog right now haha... 

Sorry if this was a bit long, but writing this is closure for me too. I know I’ll probably never see him again but I needed to get this off my chest once and for all. No matter what, he’ll always have a place in my heart. 

NOW TO THE REAL STORY! 

Plot: You were once a trainee with Pledis and had a close relationship with the boys of Seventeen before debut especially Wonwoo. But with the boys debuting so soon and your ambitions changing, leaving was the best choice, but maybe cutting contact from them for five years was not....

Pairing: Reader x Wonwoo

Words: 2565

Genre: A tiny bit of Fluff, lots of reminiscing

“So I’m bringing a friend with me to the meet up tonight” Seungcheol said as the boys finished up practice.

Tonight was a night where all the artists from Pledis got together to hang out. They normally had dinner together before going back to one of the dorms to play games, have dessert and relax outside of their busy schedules. This only happened on rare occasions and were organized by group leaders and their managers so it took a lot of careful planning.

Wonwoo looked up from his phone and raised an eyebrow at his best friend, “Someone we know?”

Seungcheol nodded  his head, “I ran into her a few weeks ago at a cafe and invited her to our get together tonight. I’m going to meet up with her now for dinner so I’ll see you guys back at the dorms.” he said before throwing on a nicer shirt he brought with him and said his goodbyes realizing he was running late.

You sat at the meeting place Seungcheol had told you to wait at so the two of you could have dinner together. You couldn’t believe it had already been close to five years since you last saw him and the rest of the boys. Had it really been that long since you left Pledis?

You thought about each of the Seventeen members, from the oldest but still childish Seungcheol, to the shy gentleman Joshua who you were happy to see had come out of his shell after all these years and of course baby Chan who was still in high school when you left and now he was a graduate and achieving his dreams.

Then there was Wonwoo, the man who no matter how hard you tried, could not rid of from your memories. You leaned back against the bench thinking back to your days with Pledis.

You were one of the older trainees, only being a month younger than Joshua but had entered around the same time Seungcheol had. Not too long later, Jihoon came along and the three of you formed a quick bond both wanting to achieve the similar dream. You and Jihoon became close naturally since composing was something you were both passionate about. Seungcheol was like the big brother you never had, he was always looking out for you but at the same time, he didn’t hesitate to critique you during practices and boy was he harsh sometimes.  

You remembered the day Wonwoo was introduced to the rest of the trainees, it was a few weeks after Soonyoung had joined and you couldn’t help but be intrigued.  He said he was a singer but eventually through Seungcheols influence, he got into hip hop and started rapping.

You remembered the days where you and a few of the other female trainees would sit in on the monthly evaluations and you were mesmerized by Wonwoo’s rapping skills that he had picked up. It complimented his naturally deep voice and his style only added more to his performance.

Eventually as time went on, you two got close since you ran into each other during practices or whenever you were with Seungcheol and Jihoon. Eventually, those group meetings turned into one on one meetings and it was safe to say, you were developing a slight crush on him.

He was quiet and didn’t say much but his actions spoke for him. There were days where practice for you didn’t end till late and Wonwoo would wait for you to finish so he could walk you back to the dorms and stop by for a late night snack along the way. His reason being that it was too dangerous for you to be going home alone though in reality, you normally walked with the girls who lived in your dorm until this habit had picked up.

Other times, he would wait for you outside your dorm building with coffee in hand knowing that you had an early class and he would walk with you to the company all the while enjoying the banter that went back and forth between you two. It was a natural feeling which made your insides warm.

The times you cherished the most were during breaks where a few of you would go to a cafe to relax and it was almost always that you and Wonwoo were together. As the people around you would converse, you would rest your head in your arms while leaning on his arm for support. It brought butterflies to your stomach every time you felt his  fingers gently caress your arm, slowly lulling you to sleep.

But all those moments ended just as quickly as they began. When the boys found out they were going to debut, the boys were on lockdown and working extra hard and all the time that you spent with them was cut short. You didn’t mind because you were working with Bumzu and learning how to compose with Jihoon but because of all that, it meant that you were seeing less of Wonwoo as well.

The two of you always missed each other with timing. Whenever Wonwoo had free time, you would be with Jihoon or Bumzu or at practice and vise versa.

Eventually, the two of you were forced to focus on your respective paths and despite you having feelings for him, had to make that sacrifice and push them aside and soon friends turned into strangers.

You would pass each other in the hallways and greet each other politely but there was never anything more than that. Eventually, as the boys got closer to debut, your own path changed and you found yourself leaving Pledis.

You stated that it was time to move on and that you had other aspirations but deep down, you knew that you were heartbroken and you were running away from your feelings for Wonwoo. Only Seungcheol and Jihoon knew that you had resigned.  There was no big farewell, you had a meal with the two boys on your last day before promising to keep in touch but never did.

As you said goodbye, the memories of you and Wonwoo played back in your mind. The talks, the laughs, the late night walks everything and you had to stop yourself from shedding a tear in front of your friends.

You didn’t think your absence would make an impact on anyone and it didn’t except to Wonwoo who had immediately noticed your absence. When he asked Seungcheol a few months later, a pained look made its way onto his face and the leader only shook his head before walking out of the room not answering.

It was Jihoon who told Wonwoo that you left and cut all contact from everyone and no one could locate you and amongst the boys, Seungcheol was taking it the hardest since the two were practically siblings.

From that day on, you were a constant in Wonwoo’s mind as he was yours.

Five years later, you were a successful composer with Starship Entertainment. The path that you were on with Pledis was different from the one you were on now and looking back, despite what you left behind. You had zero regrets.

Your thoughts were interrupted when someone grabbed you from behind causing you to turn around in shock.

“Seungcheol!” you gasped as the said boy grinned at you before pulling you into a long hug.

The two of you went to a restaurant you both frequented back during your trainee days. It was a small place but had the best Cheesy Korean Chicken and the two of you often found yourselves eating there more often than not.

“Ah...this place feels so nostalgic doesnt it?” Seungcheol asked leaning on the table.

You smiled and nodded your head, “I haven’t been back here in ages.”

“How’s Starship? I heard through Baekho that you left the country for a few years before joining them.”  Seungcheol said after you had ordered.

You nodded your head at his statement. Running into the members of Nu’est had been completely by accident.

After leaving Pledis, you went to do a bit of soul searching and spent three years out in L.A. Nu’est went to film their comeback music video there and it was just pure luck that you ran into them at a restaurant you were at with a few friends Joshua had introduced you to once upon a time. .

Baeko, a member you had bonded with during your trainees days recognized you instantly and called you out.

Once the initial nagging was over, the two of you caught up and you even took him and the other members to your studio your practiced before telling him about the offer Starship had had given you and that you accepted it.

Baekho passed the message on to the others at Pledis and thats what lead to your conversation now.

You and Seungcheol ran into each other backstage at an award show that you attended with Monsta X. They had won an award for their comeback album which you helped produced and wanted to take you in thanks. After the initial shock wore off, you agreed to meet him for dinner the following week..

“I really enjoy working with everyone there” you answered with a smile. “I feel like it was all meant to be.”

Seungcheol nodded his head with a smile. “You looked really happy that night. I can’t believe you helped produce that amazing album. Your skills have seriously improved.”

You blushed at his compliment before thanking him and telling him how proud you were of him and the boys for winning all those awards but also on constantly improving day after day causing him to only grin at you cockily.

There was no anger or tension in the conversation. The conversation flowed like they did back in the day and to anyone who didn’t know the situation, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that you hadn’t seen each other in almost five years. But you also knew that there was a giant turkey in the room and it was no surprise Seungcheol was the one to drop it.

“And you’re one of the most sought after producers in the Korean music industry. Bumzu must be proud. Do you keep in contact with anyone? Outside of Baekho?”

His tone was light but you knew the underlying meaning in his question.

You shook your head, “I only met with Baekho briefly and he gave Bumzu my cell phone number and we only talked on the phone not too long ago. I kind of made it a point to move on with life after I left Pledis.” you explained, “You were all preparing for your debut and I just didn’t feel complete at the agency anymore. I didn’t think it mattered.” you shrugged as Seungcheol shook his head.

“It tore me apart that no one knew where you were after you left. After time passed, I guess a few of the members stopped wondering and moved on with their lives but we can all tell Wonwoo thinks about you alot.” Seungcheol said clenching his hands. “I don’t know what went on between you two before you left but from time to time, when someone brings you up, he gets this distant look in his eyes.”

You sighed, “I’ve thought a lot of about it over the last few years too. What could or should have been. I guess with time, the close friendship we had as trainees faded and we both went our separate ways to walk our own paths. Though at the same time, I feel like there were a lot of things left unsaid between the two of us.” you ran your hand through your hair, “Like we never got any closure you know?”

Seungcheol nodded his head understanding before changing the subject.

“There’s a meet up tonight with a the guys from the company. I said I was bringing someone so I was hoping you’d go with me. I know everyone would be happy to see you again since they heard you were the musical genius behind Monsta X’s latest comeback album.”

You sighed remembering how that was announced. Monsta X had included you in their thank you speech during the award ceremony and you recalled seeing many shocked faces in the area where Seventeen was sitting but remained hidden.

You agreed to go with the promise that if you felt uncomfortable, you would leave and Seungcheol agreed knowing that it wouldnt come to that.

After he paid for the meal, the two of you put your masks on and walked through the streets of Gangnam hand in hand to the Penthouse that the leaders and solo artists had rented out for the get together.

Wonwoo knew the moment Seungcheol walked in and his jaw dropped at who he brought with him.

“No way, is that Y/N-noona?” Mingyu asked shocked as a group started to gather around you and Seungcheol .

Wonwoo couldn’t stop staring from his spot. The last time he saw you was at the monthly evaluation right before you left Pledis though he was sure he caught a brief glimpse of you at the award show the week before sitting with Monsta X’s Shownu.

You felt his eyes on you throughout the night as various artists came to greet you and caught up with those you were once close with. He didn’t approach you but you knew he was watching as if almost waiting for the right time.

Stepping out onto the patio to take a breather, you looked out at the city skyline and let out a sigh. Seeing and catching up with everyone was nice and you were glad they were all doing well. Jihoon had embraced you tightly as soon as he saw you and congratulated you on your success. He even offered to collab on a piece with you one day which you said you would think about.

As you pondered your thoughts, you didn’t hear the door behind you open and shut before feelings someone’s presence next to you.

“It’s been a while…” a deep voice interrupted your thoughts and you turned your head shocked to see the one person who was constantly on your mind.

“It has. How are you Wonwoo?” you asked as he turned to give you a small bow.

“I hear congratulations are in order.” he said with smile looking out at the city skyline.

“Thank you…” you said, “Congratulations on your success. I knew you guys would be great.”

Wonwoo chuckled looking down letting out a hesitant breath, “Listen…” he had to think hard of what he was going to say. Right now, they were treading on light water and he missed when their conversations would naturally flow between them.

“Would...you like to get coffee with me tomorrow?” he asked turning to look at you and he met his eyes before nodding slowly.

“I would like that.” you said with a smile as he grinned knowing he made the right move. The two of you stayed on the balcony in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before you both deemed it too cold and decided to go back inside.

At the end of the night, at Seungcheols insistence, Wonwoo walked you back to your apartment with the promise of seeing you the next day.

Shoutout to @johnaldsuh and everyone else in the Discord chat for the encouragement! - Anna

[anothertccblog-blog]

May TC Challenge

As usual, sorry for inactivity! This time, though, I have a legitimate excuse! I have AP exams coming up this week (first is tomorrow) and next and I’ve been working hard! I have a moment now, though, and I decided that since this month will likely be very busy for me, I’m going to do the entire May challenge now just to make sure I finish everything. SO without further ado, the May TC Challenge!

1. Have you ever said something embarrassing to/in front of your TC?

I mean yeah, lots of times. Nothing comes to mind in particular, but I definitely remember having moments where I was super embarrassed that they overheard something. I think I blocked a lot of these out lmao.

2. When did you TC start teaching you? Does he/she still teach you?

B started teaching me in the fall of 2016, my sophomore year of high school. He no longer teaches me. P started teaching me in the fall of 2017, and will be my teacher until the end of this month.

3. Do you know anything about your TC’s childhood/youth?

Surprisingly, I know more about P than I do about B. I know he’s the youngest of 5 or 6, and I know he was a Boy Scout. The other day he told us about the time he took a shit behind his sister’s bed when he was two. I don’t remember how or why it came up in class, but that’s what sticks out the most when I think of his youth.

4. Describe your TC’s eyes.

The most beautiful hazel you’ll ever see. They change with the weather and the color he’s wearing; on sunny days, with lighter/brighter colors, they’re very pale and more green than brown; on cloudy days, with darker colors, they’re darker and much more of a brown shade. I think they give him character.

5. What’s your favorite outfit on him/her?

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but P is the long distance coach for our track and field team. So, he has this really nice black pullover that says the name of our school with the logo and “Track and Field” embroidered on the left breast. Usually on Fridays, he’ll wear that pullover with a pair of dark wash jeans and these grey and blue tennis shoes he has. He looks really nice in dark colors and I love the cut of the jeans, so that’s my favorite outfit.

6. How do you try to impress your TC?

A lot of times, I don’t really try. I don’t like to force it or feel like I’m trying too hard. Most of the time, I’ll just answer questions in class or joke around/banter with him because I know that’s what earns his respect.

7. Describe what you think your wedding would look like. What are you both wearing? Who’s invited? What’s for dinner?

It would be outside, first of all. Probably in a park. I’d want a more understated dress, natural makeup, my hair down and in loose curls. I think my bouquet would have roses, lilies, and hydrangea. Maybe I would braid some flowers into my hair, just to spruce it up a bit. He would wear a black tux with a red tie, to match the roses in the bouquet. My bridesmaids would be some of my best friends (the maid of honor would probably be my closest friend, I’ll call her C). His best man would be his best friend, who I’ve called K in the past, and his groomsmen would probably be his brothers. We both have large families and we both value them highly, so I think it would definitely be a very long list of guests. I would want steak and salad, and I’d want the cake to be marbled with chocolate frosting. The reception would be more casual and understated; I’d probably change into a different dress and he’d likely take off the suit jacket. My family is very... fun-loving when it comes to weddings, so I think we’d probably be out all night. I’d want our honeymoon to be in Italy or Ireland.

8. Have you ever caught him/her staring at you? How did you react?

I caught B staring at me once during class last year. We were doing a group assignment and he was sitting on one of the desks in front of my group, facing our direction. At one point I looked up and we made eye contact, and he seemed to be a little zoned out. I just kinda waved until he snapped out of it. As for P, I was in his room last Friday studying for psychology, and he was sitting at his desk. When I looked up from my notes we made direct eye contact, like he had already been looking, and I just blushed and looked away. I think that was just timed well, though, because there were a few of us there and he had been looking around the group.

9. If you would buy your TC socks, what would your chosen ones look like?

I actually have bought B socks before, for his birthday. They were blue with little amoebas on them, since he’s a science teacher. If I bought socks for P, they’d probably have some kind of sports logo on them, like the logo for his college or for the White Sox (his favorite baseball team).

10. If he/she visited your family for any reason and you’d have to cook, what would you cook?

Lasagna! My family is Italian so we have tons of pasta recipes passed down from past generations, and our family lasagna sauce is hella good.

11. If you lived together, would you rather have kids or pets with him/her?

Pets. I’m not big on kids. But I would definitely have kids with him if the time was right; he would be an amazing dad and I do like kids, don’t get me wrong, they’re just not my number one aspiration in life. Plus, we’d both be living on teachers’ salaries and I feel like I’d be concerned with supporting anything more than a dog.

12. What is your opinion on age gap relationships? Do you think a certain age gap isn’t good anymore?

I think as long as the parties are both consenting adults, it doesn’t really matter. Let people do what they want to do; they know what’s best for themselves.

13. What would you do if a friend told you she had a crush on your TC?

Outwardly, I’d probably express comfort/understanding. Inwardly, I’d probably be a little peeved. Luckily, P isn’t really ~super hot~ by any conventional means so I don’t think this would become a problem.

14. Do you know when your TC’s birthday is? How hold is he/she?

B’s is March 6 and he’s 45. P’s is sometime in September (I can’t remember the exact date off the top of my head) and he’s 28.

15. What would you do if he/she found your blog, knew it was about him/her but he/she was still trying to figure out whose blog it is?

Nothing. He’d figure it out in due time. I’m the only person taking both APUSH and psych. I’d let him come to me if he felt the need, and then I’d justify myself if need be, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do anything suspicious.

16. If you were on a class trip with your TC and a friend of yours wasn’t feeling well in the middle of the night, would you be the one to knock on your TC’s door loudly and wake him/her? Would the sight of his/er sleeping face and pajamas be worth standing there in your own pajamas and with your sleepy face?

I’d probably try to resolve the friend’s problem myself, but if I really needed to get him I definitely would. And hell yeah, seeing him like that, hearing his voice all gravelly from sleep, would 300% be worth it.

17. Can you remember what happened in the last dream you had about your TC?

I remember something about aliens, but that’s about it.

18. Has your TC ever had a conversation about you with your parents? If yes, what did he/she say?

Yep! For parent/teacher conferences I sat in on his conference because I wanted to hear his praise comments. He said the usual joy to have in class/hard worker/etc. stuff.

19. Think of a song that reminds you of your TC and tell us your favorite line from it?

Whatever You Do by Brandi Carlile makes me think of B. My favorite line is  “There are days when I could walk into the ocean / With no one else but you to leave behind.”

As for P, In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel is a big one. My favorite line is “When I want to run away / I drive off in my car / But whichever way I go / I come back to the place you are.”

20. What has been the best mark you had in one of your TC’s tests? Did he/she say something to you about it/write something on it?

There have been tons of little things here and there. In APUSH, we wrote and in-class DBQ and like a dork he wrote “Boom! Nailed the intro!” For psych, one time he gave me a fist bump after I did really well on a multiple choice test and every time I score perfectly on a short answer he writes “Fridge” on the top (a direct quote as to why: “put it on your fridge ‘cause you did so well!”

21. Have you ever stalked your TC online?

I mean, I’ve done a Google search. I found his twitter and his engagement photos (and I’ll admit, I cried when I looked at those. Not my proudest moment.) His twitter is really adorable and cute though. He reblogs teacher memes.

22. Does your TC come to school by car/tram/bus? Do you know what car he/she has?

He does come by car, but I don’t know what kind it is. I think it’s black. He’s called it “reliable” in the past.

23. Did your TC ever change something on his/her appearance or wear something different that didn’t suit him/her?

Sometimes he’ll grow out some stubble and it looks hella good, but that’s generally the only real change aside from hair cuts.

24. Where do you think you’d live with him/her and what would the interior look like?

A little house, somewhere quaint, probably near his work/my college (luckily, I’m going to college close, so this wouldn’t be too hard to accomplish). I would want it to be very cozy and lived-in, but not overly cluttered.

25. Does your TC do any sports that you know of?

He does track and field, cross country, and basketball.

26. Does your TC bring coffee or tea to class? If yes, what does his/her cup look like?

He constantly has coffee in his hands. He has a ton of different mugs and stuff. He usually uses one with his college’s logo on it or one with our school’s logo on it.

27. 5 things that make him/her your ideal partner.

His passion, his kindness, his sense of humor, his genuineness, his stories.

28. A song, film, and book that you would recommend to your TC.

I would recommend Netflix Trip by AJR, A Quiet Place (dir. John Krasinski), and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

29. What do you think about the TCC and how has it helped you?

I think it’s pretty solid for the most part. It’s definitely given me an outlet and a place I can express myself. Of course, people have views that I don’t necessarily agree with, but that’s to be expected.

30. A new language you would love to learn together with your TC.

I’ve kinda been dying to learn Italian and I think it would be fun to swear at each other in it.

31. What does your TC smell like?

Not that I go around actively smelling him, but he smells a little fruity and very fresh/clean.

[aloneandunreal]

october 8, 20

oh wow, i haven’t posted in here in AWHILE. i know i said i’d post after i started school or whatever, but i forgot and got busy and i guess didn’t have the time to really write anything. but i think i want to kind of... talk about something now i guess? just to get it out. obviously i could talk to my friends or rant on the internet, but i don’t know, i just feel like i’m probably being dramatic and annoying. plus all of this took place in the past, so why am i still so pressed about it? but before i get into that, i guess i’ll speak a bit about how school is going and my insecurities (as usual).

welp, school started and it’s interesting to say the least, especially considering it’s online. i’ve gotten used to it, but getting called on in class is always really awkward and so are the damn breakout rooms... god, my heart sinks when i have to do that stuff. the other day in my english class i had to present a video i made about myself to the class and man, that was so nervewracking. in my head it felt like a life or death situation. speaking of english, it’s been kind of... tough i guess? i mean, not really, i just don’t know how to feel about the teacher. honestly none of my teachers have stuck out and i haven’t stuck out to them (i never do). i’m taking my first AP class, AP psych which has made me insecure. i’ve wanted to major in this since last year but had never taken classes because i had decided too late. anyway, i just found it interesting. so, i decided to take the classes this year, to see if this is really what i wanted to major in for college. it is interesting, yes, but i also feel kind of dumb in the class. it’s a big fast-paced (as expected for AP) but i just feel like i’m not retaining any of the information. my teacher teaches us like 50 new vocab words every day and it’s just... ugh. especially when he gives out quizzes (that i get mixed scores on... usually B’s or C’s). whenever i get a “bad” grade, i get really upset about it because this is what i want to major in! how the hell am i going to major in this subject if i can’t even have a good grade in the class or on assignments? sometimes i think i know what’s going on, but then the quizzes come along and it’s just...ugh. it makes me feel real bad, that’s all. i feel too dumb for this major. i wish i hadn’t decided so late what i wanted to do. and i had such high hopes for it, i wanted to get my phd and everything... yet have a B in a high school psych class. most of it is memorization, okay, but i’m TERRIBLE at memorization type things. i’m trying really hard in this class and i don’t know if it’s paying off or not. i still find it interesting and am still going to pick it as my major, but this AP class is just making me wonder, what if i’m not good at this at all? but at the same time i don’t want to pick something else to major in.... first of all i don’t even KNOW what i’d major in! there’s no second option! anyway, yeah, i’m just really insecure and sad about it. my grade in the class fluctuates a lot, but normally it’s a high B. which isn’t a bad grade per-se, but at the same time, how am i gonna major in this if i have a B? that means i’m not that good at it, right? i don’t even know. sometimes i wonder if it’s because of this situation (online learning) and/or my teacher’s style of teaching but honestly i’m just going to blame it on myself. i don’t know if i’m smart enough for it. but after all of this talk about majoring in psych, getting a phd, etc, i don’t want to throw that all away now. as i said, i still want to major in it, and of course find it interesting. the only question is: am i good enough??

other than that, my classes have been fine. i’m taking french 3 honors which has been... ok. it’s a little nerve-wracking because she makes us talk in french a lot and the class is kinda confusing but i think i’ll be ok. she’s a new-ish teacher, replacing my old french teacher who moved a couple years ago, and she seems nice but i don’t know if she’s the best teacher. everyone else in the class seems confused too so... i definitely don’t think it’s just me. then i’m taking sociology which is really interesting and i like the teacher - probably one of my favorites - though i kind of have something against her now because she’s forcing us to speak in class now FOR A GRADE. hopefully she changes her mind. then i have probability and statistics which has been ok so far. my teacher is really nice and the stuff we’ve been doing has been alright so far. a bit hard, but not insanely hard. 

anyway, that’s how my senior year is going. not the worst, but not the best either. i wonder what things would be like if everything was normal... it’d be way different. it’s weird how i’m starting to forget how things used to be. this quarantine stuff used to be weird, but now it’s turning into the norm, whereas my “old” life before all of this is starting to become distant. i don’t know how to feel about that. i’ve talked about this in previous entries but i still want to live that indie-film teen dream... it’s not happening, though, even after all of these years i’ve been in HS. definitely won’t happen this year with all that’s gone on. but aside from that, i’ve been definitely stressed about college and all of that stuff. i’m really anxious to go and don’t know what to expect. well, first of all i need to get INTO schools which is a whole other thing. i’m working on it, but it’s really overwhelming (the common app). i really wish i could have finished my junior year and things were normal, because then all this college stuff would be done (or at least most of it). i still need to do my SAT - which first of all i probably won’t even include in my application to schools because it’s optional, but my mom still wants me to take it. other than all of this crazy “applying to schools” stuff, i also am of course insanely nervous about college. i’ve probably talked about this in previous entries, but i guess i’ll mention it again. i’m not AS worried about the academic stuff (well, still am) but not as much as the SOCIAL stuff. i’m HORRIBLE at socializing, and it makes me SO anxious. i can’t do normal people things, so how the hell am i going to go to college? let alone if i will even be GOING.. who knows what corona will be like around this time next september. ugh. it’s just really stressful all of this college stuff..... i don’t know if i’m ready, but at the same time i WANT to go. i don’t even know. 

anyway, that’s all that’s going on with school right now. i’ve had some really, really bad days the past couple of weeks which hasn’t happened in AWHILE. obviously i have bad thoughts, but lately it’s just been real bad. i’m okay now, though. 

this is already long enough, but now i’m going to finally talk about what i originally came onto tumblr for. as i’ve said, there’s likely no one reading this, and this is just for ME to read in the future. ok, anyway, yadda yadda, here we go on another big rant (what’s new).

i became friends with this girl... we’ll call her angel, in 6th grade i guess. we didn’t really become “friends” until 7th grade but 6th grade was when we met. she was a bit of a weirdo, and was particularly obsessed with this one girl who obviously found this creepy. angel would always obsess over this girl, calling her so pretty, always wanting to be with her etc etc. angel and i were kind-of friends i guess, as well as with my best friend at the time. an average friendship. 

seventh grade was where things really picked up, i guess. i don’t exactly remember when; but it was probably because we had a lot of classes together. i don’t exactly remember when we started talking, but we did. she was a bit weird but i was just happy to have a friend at the time, i was feeling very lonely and unwanted. she had been dealing with mental health issues a lot and it was obvious because she told me. even in 6th grade i remember she’d wear a huge hoodie on the hottest of days to hide her self-harm. anyway, she was really not doing well. i remember one day she said she saw this post online that said to draw different colors on your wrist to show what you struggled with or whatever (eating disorder, depression, etc) and she put the colors for almost all of them. she glorified mental illness a lot and it was obvious. we were in 7th grade, though, so i don’t really hold that against her because i likely was doing the same thing. what i don’t condone (at least now) is the other things she did. 

first, it started off a little creepy but nothing that totally freaked me out. she’d call me pretty all the time, tell me she wanted to look like me, be as thin as me (keep in mind i thought i was fat and definitely was on the verge of an ED as well, if i didn’t already have one), have the same hair as me, etc. it was nice getting that attention since i was so insecure, but then all of a sudden she’d begin to insult me. “your nose is big”, “your chin is long” and she’d also roughly  touch me; pinch my cheeks hard and would touch the “fat” on my body to i guess make me feel bad? to make herself feel better? it was of course a jealousy thing. anyway, this made me feel real bad about myself since i already was dealing with insecurities. but then she’d go right back and start complimenting me again. it depended on the day i suppose. i don’t know if this really happened since i blocked this out of my mind, but i remember she pinched me so hard she left marks. she’d play it off as a joke and i’d just let her. 

angel joined me and my best friend at the time at recess sometimes, and she’d also call my friend “skinny” and “so pretty” and how she could be a model. basically the same stuff she told me. my friend wasn’t as bothered by it. anywho, angel and i became better “friends”. she’d text me literally 24/7, and sometimes i’d have to lie to her to get her off my back. she’d force me to go on facetime with her for hours even if i didn’t feel like it, etc etc. i stayed friends with her because i was lonely and “she wasn’t always bad!” i’d think to myself. my parents didn’t really like her and when they found out she self-harmed, they really did not want me being friends with her. my dad called her a “slicer”. i know he didn’t mean any harm, and was only looking out for me, hoping i didn’t do the same thing, but it still made me angry. angel was my friend. still, i listened to my parents and began ignoring angel; it was the only way i could get her to stay away. or at least that’s what i thought. she would harrass me all the time, begging me to talk to her again. i would just not answer, or if we were at school, look at the floor and not say a word. it made me feel awful. and then something happened that truly was a disgusting thing to do. she came over to me one day, and begged me to be her friend again. i kept my head down. then when nobody was looking, she raised her sleeves to show her scars, and said “if you keep ignoring me, i’ll cut myself”. i didn’t know what to do, so i didn’t do anything. i was terrified. i didn’t want her to do that. but she wouldn’t, right? it was just a tactic to get me back. well, i was wrong. i remember she came back the next day and showed me her fresh wounds and i felt awful. it was all my fault that she did that. so, i began talking to her again. i guess because i didn’t want her to do that again. looking back, that’s horrendous and disgusting. but i was naive. always was. 

so angel and i were friends again i guess. she hogged me from my other friends, but thankfully i’d push back a little bit and hang with my other friends. there were other smaller instances, but things that still impact me, such as when she told me i had a big nose and a long chin. yep, now those two things are huge insecurities of mine. not blaming it on her, of course not, but it was definitely a factor. 

as i mentioned, i was really not happy with my body and myself. i hated my body. thought i was so fat, at 108 pounds. so i’d starve myself at lunch. it was the only time i could successfully do it. angel saw me doing this one day, and got really upset with me for whatever reason (even though she had an eating disorder as well). i never understood why she did/said this, but she told me that if i kept on doing this, she was going to tell the guidance counselor (that i was starving myself). this freaked me out, because i didn’t want my parents to know. i kept doing it, praying that she’d forget, which she did. 

there was another time when we were walking in the hall one time, and i mentioned that i was in an enriched english class. now, keep in mind, i’ve been called dumb and looked down upon my whole life. so this wasn’t anything new. still hurt, though. anyway, basically i told her i was in an enriched class and she looked at me like i was crazy, “no you’re not” she said and laughed, “prove it” i got really flustered, because i WASN’T lying. so i proved it to her by asking the teacher if i was in her enriched class to which she confusingly said yes to. angel was surprised i guess. these small instances still make me feel bad about myself to this day. something so small can truly impact you.

other than that, i can’t remember much. i blocked a lot of it out except for those things. i shoved it in the back of mind, telling myself it wasn’t a big deal. for years. after seventh grade we drifted apart but were still mutuals. and still are to this day. i don’t have anything against her.. i guess not. but she truly was a terrible person, and i pray to god she’s changed. of course she wasn’t in the right mindset, but that doesn’t excuse her doing those god awful things to me (and other people as well). i never realized in 6th grade that, like the girl she was obsessed with then, i would be the new obsession. a lot of it adds up now, the way she’d compliment me and then put me down. all jealous, manipualtive things. she was of course a weirdo to everyone, but i was friends with her because i was naive and nice and alone. i think she has friends now, and nobody thinks she’s as weird as they used to. i don’t really know what’s up with her now. i don’t hold anything against her... but should i? i don’t even know. anyway, the only reason i’m speaking about this is because i needed to get it out for once. but i felt too uncomfortable telling a friend. plus, i feel like i’d just be dramatic and should just get over it - this was five years ago. i don’t know if i ever will, though. i just can’t help but think about the things she did and how i would STILL so easily fall for something like that again. which is sad after all of the toxic friendships i’ve had throughout the years. 

either way, that’s the end of angel. there’s probably things i could speak about concerning her, but i either forget or just don’t think it’s worth mentioning. we were twelve and thirteen, and i still wonder if i’m just being dramatic. we were just kids. she didn’t know what she was doing. but did she? either way, angel was sick in the head. she probably forgets all of this, or blocks it out of her mind, maybe even makes it seem like she’s the victim. i don’t know. i just wanted to get that out.

of course throughout the years there’s been a bunch of toxic friendships i’ve been apart of, or just people who have taken advantage of me. but that would make this terribly long. and it already IS terribly long. 

but, i am now thinking, why do i glorify seventh grade so much? i always miss it so much, but once i truly think about it, it was an awful year. my anxiety was insanely bad, i was starving myself, i hardly had friends, my “best friend” was toxic (and of course i stayed with her), was getting groomed that summer (before & during 8th grade), was s*xually harrassed by a boy at my school (which is a whole other thing), angel was obsessed with me, etc. so i don’t know why i make it seem better than it actually was. but i still miss it, god i hate myself for that. why? why do i miss all of the terrible times in my life? i’ll never understand why. i know i sound like i’m overexaggerating, but i’m not. all of these things have happened. why would i lie? it’s not like there’s anyone else reading this. i just need to let it out somewhere, which is why i’m doing it here. some day i want to speak about the boy in 7th grade who s*xually harrassed me, but it definitely makes me very uncomfortable and ashamed. i’m going to need to let it out some day, though. i’ve never told anyone except for my mother, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. boys will be boys, right? it was five years ago, anyway. but i’ll speak of that in another entry (perhaps). i know nobody is reading this but i hope, if anyone does, they don’t think this is an attention thing. everything i write here is true. it’s for me, but of course i’m posting it online in public so anyone can see it. 

so, anyway, i suppose i’ll end it here. that’s all about angel and about what’s going on currently in my life. i don’t know when i’ll write next, but goodbye for now. i hope things get a bit better; with the world, with myself. so, future ava, if you’re reading this, are things better now?

[anotetofollowseoul-blog]

Meet our New Resident Actor - Garrett!

1.       What is your nickname(s)?

Gurt; Carrot; Garrett the Carrot/Ferret/Parrot/really anything else that rhymes with Garrett.

2.       Where are you from?

I was born and raised “down in the West Texas town of El Paso” (bonus points if you get that reference).

3.       What is your favorite travel experience?

When I was in high school I got to tour Western Canada with my orchestra playing music that I helped arrange.  It was an absolutely surreal experience!

4.       What makes you laugh the most?

The random inside jokes I have with my family.  Also quoting obscure Monty Python references at random moments.

5.       What is your go-to Karaoke song?

I have honestly never done Karaoke, so I couldn’t say what my favorite song would be!

6.       What’s your favourite colour?

Dark green.

7.       If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Tacos.  No question.

8.       If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to?

Any time that saw serious technological and societal leaps forward.  The height of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, stuff like that.

9.    What is the best gift you have been given?

A family that truly and genuinely cares for each other.

10.   Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without?

Finding something that makes me laugh.

11.   If you were a superhero, what powers would you have?

I’m a huge math and science nerd so I would probably be a super-inventor like Tony Stark or Lex Luthor.

12.   What form of public transportation do you prefer and why? (air, boat, train, bus, car, etc.)

I love trains.  It is such a unique way to travel and see things.  Plus, they usually have better options for standing around which is great because I always need lots of legroom!

13.   What’s your favorite animal?

Orangutan, but really I love any of the great apes!

14.   What’s your favorite holiday?

I love Christmas.  Music, family, and food just can’t be beat!

15.   What’s your favorite type of foreign food?

I just love food, so I really like it all.  That being said, Mexican food is God’s gift to man and I’m pretty sure when manna fell from heaven it was just raining tacos.

16.   What is your favorite book?

The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.  I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in the series to come out!

17.   Do you love or hate roller coasters?

Absolutely love them.

18.    What’s your favorite family tradition?

Every morning on the Friday after Thanksgiving my family goes out shooting guns in the desert.  It’s a great bonding time for all the family from out of town and really gets the adrenaline going!  Gotta love Texas.

19.   What’s your favorite movie?

I love the recent Planet of the Apes series.  Brilliant filmmaking with an amazing story.

20.   What was your favorite subject in school?

Math is the best!  I loved it so much I even competed in it in middle and high school.  I was a full-on mathlete!

21.   Which of the five senses would you say is your strongest?

I would say my sense of hearing.  After studying music all my life I would hope that it was pretty good!

22.   What is your proudest accomplishment?

Writing and directing the first musical short film produced at Belmont University.  It was such an incredible experience getting to see a project through from inception to completion and it had such amazing response from the audience.  Truly a cloud nine moment seeing it on the big screen!

23.    If you had a warning label, what would yours say?

*WARNING:* Any unmarked leftovers in the fridge are subject to disappear...

24.   What celebrity would you like to meet for a cup of coffee?

Andy Serkis, the Godfather of Motion Capture.  

25.   If you could join any past or current music group which would you want to join?  

The Piano Guys.  I think they could definitely use a viola in their group!

[kathrwn]

Lana Del Rey is rotting your brain

Read with footnotes here.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: Lana Del Rey does not exist. No, since she is the character performed by the artist Lizzie Grant, whose uncritical approach to American nostalgia does more to invoke the helplessness of American apocalyptica than to make us yearn for simpler times. And just as Lana does not exist, neither does any depth to the project of Miss Del Rey. Between winged eyeliner, prairie dust photo filters, and an affected croon, Lana Del Rey manages to be both campy and pretentious, and does neither particularly well. 

Looking at Lana Del Rey music videos, there are similarities which together comprise a Lana “image,” or a sort of aesthetic uniform which unites the Lana Del Rey Cinematic Universe. Often there are post-production filters which evoke old-school photographs of your mom’s cousin in the 60s, references to film and music stars of the 50s, and a misplaced fetish for the “good ol’ days” of America which turns grit into surface-level beauty. 

Thematic focus is good, especially when the singer is a construction, like Lana is. Critics are quick to notice her sharp devotion to her bit, calling her music a “Southern Californian dream world constructed out of sad girls and bad boys, manufactured melancholy and genuine glamour,” or “a blown-out Hollywood production.” Lana has described herself as a “Lolita got lost in the hood” or even a “Gangsta Nancy Sinatra” which critics have called straight “manufactured.” 

While plenty of songstresses presently play with the heights of glamour that women are expected to summit in the spotlight--Lady Gaga, Cher, and Dolly Parton come to mind instantly--many of them inject irony or camp into their performances, their outfits, their presentation. Parton in particular loves to joke about herself, famously quipping “I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.” 

It undeniable to say these three women also play characters in their music--Lady Gaga is not nobility, Cher’s Twitter is filled with political commentary, Dolly Parton is, of course, not even blond. Lana also plays a character, but why is the Lana character a failure compared to the others? It’s not for want of production--many women pop stars are over-, perhaps even hyper-produced to drive the point home about the disinfectant power pop music holds over artists. Lana is also over-produced, somehow giving her music an auditory sepia tone, as though it were a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

But perhaps that’s it--Lana, as a character, is reactionary. She invokes a time well-past, and one well-past for good reason. The 50s and 60s were not heavenly for all, certainly not for black people, not for gay people, nor political dissidents. Lana’s music draws on themes that attempt to highlight the teeming hate and anger of midcentury America, but ultimately fail when she refers to herself as “[y]our Venice bitch” and prides herself on wearing “his favorite sundress” but with a strange sincerity. Often times, Lana infantilizes herself, referring to her lover as “Daddy,” or worrying that he is so superficial he might not love her, perhaps most famously, when she is “no longer young and beautiful.” 

That is not to say that Lana is vapid, but she has adopted the veneer of being so. She has unwittingly become a crooner for the past when her worth was tied to a sexual currency. Her uncritical love for glam and grand cinematisme is part of her pastiche act. But because she is nostalgic, and rarely, if ever, scathing when she sings about outdated courtship and relationship dynamics, she shows just how empty her actual songs are. In dying to know if she will be loved when her skin is no longer elastic, Lana never manages to find validation and closure in herself, instead tying her worth even tighter to a man she calls her “sun,” who plays with her “like a child.” Cool and normal. Newer songs follow this same trend, with cuts like “You’re beautiful and I’m insane, We’re American made” doing little to flatter herself, then listing off American inventions like “Hallmark” and “Norman Rockwell.” (The Norman Rockwell thing is especially weird when she follows it immediately with references to sex and then calling herself--again!--“your little Venice bitch.”) 

There’s nothing many Americans love more than Americana and sincerely yearning for a time they never experienced. Lana, perhaps, is the most “I was born in the wrong decade” singer to grace our airways. Her songs make love, even uneven and abusive love, the ultimate goal. Letting summer--a time that is eternal in the LDRCU and, supposedly, California--wash over her and her lovers until the cocaine and ocean consume them. 

Then, it’s no surprise this cheeky political compass places Lana in the libertarian right segment--she is made to sell, to hit some pleasure center in impressionable brains, to be a sweet spot in pop music that guarantees profits will be made from her work. Her songs are chock full of concrete imagery, which allows them to become realized in her audience's mind, rather than relying on letting the listener make their own emotional connections. There is nothing wrong with that, but it shows why the Del Rey song formula is as successful as it is soulless.

Take, for instance, her famous “Summertime Sadness.” From the red dress she wears, to the pale moonlight, to the “telephone wires above... Sizzling like a snare” we can recreate the scene in our heads. These lines are so evocative, so palpable in what they describe, it wouldn’t be hard at all to envision yourself standing in her same pair of high heels.

However, there is a marked absence of irony or self-awareness in her discography. Her sincerity is her downfall. When she sings “Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, You like your girls insane,” does she mean it. And she really means it. She prides herself on her lyrical tendency to degrade women. 

This is not a new criticism of Lana. She herself has said “the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept. I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, ‘God, I’m just not really that interested,'” which is proof that Lana is so massively lacking in any self-awareness that her music becomes pointless, useless, and dumb. How is being interested in SpaceX and Tesla at all incompatible with the basic philosophy of women’s liberation and complete personhood? What about the women who were unable to be astrophysicists in the past, but are now writing the algorithms that take us to those “intergalactic possibilities”? How about the droves of young women who unironically listen to this schlock, call themselves insane, and then have no clue how to be a part of a functioning, normal relationship, because they think they have to be a crazy minx? Actually, even better, what about the bat shit insane way Elon Musk treats women, like when he famously pulled his bride aside and told her he was “the alpha.” It’s just bonkers how popular Lana Del Rey’s line of thinking is. That somehow feminism is incompatible with the fetishism of science? 

Perhaps that’s where Lana Del Rey stands out. As soft rock and easy listening DJs give us “Fight Song” and “Firework” ad nauseum, we have grown weary of the female empowerment song. Any song that wasn’t “You’re So Vain,” is extraneous to the genre of girl power pop. Maybe this makes Lana appealing, if only because she shakes up our expectations. Her yearning is to be submissive, not to be dominant, a far cry from the way many chanteuses have embodied the lyrics of Patti Page’s “Conquest.”

If that were all, maybe it could be forgiven. It would be a sweet rebellion against the popular themes of the day, one that has its problems but isn’t overly regressive. Only, the more you dig, the worse it becomes. Not just the content of her lyrics, and her constant playing of the damsel, but the visuals she chooses to use in her videos and albums are beyond simply self-stylized misogyny. Lana has a nasty habit of racializing her character, trying to make simple the complex legacy of mid-century American counter culture.

For instance, in her epic three-song music video Tropico, Lana appears to us in several visions. Once as Eve, once as a sex worker, once as a woman escaped from the city to be with her lover. The first one is the color of the dream of a flower-crown-era-Tumblr aesthetic blogger, the last is similarly as harmless. But that one in the middle is an iffy exploration of the actual economic conditions of sex workers, but absurdly tone deaf in the light of her comments about feminism. And all of the above is extremely tone deaf within the LDRCU. Is she supposed to be the girlfriend of a gang member, styled in heavy eyeliner and bandanas reminiscent of cholo culture? Or is she, as is inline with much of the rest of her videography, an upper-crust, Jackie-O-esque trophy wife with a listless stare? Neither are particularly good characters to play, relying on stereotypes and hazy filters to get the point across. 

But Lana has always had an issue with understanding the fundamental issues of her middle-distance gaze into American history. Yes, it’s cool Lana has A$AP Rocky play Kennedy, that’s pretty neat; but it’s also extremely uncool to do so while adopting a Cuban-sounding name while turning up the nostalgia factor on figures who, like Kennedy, did great harm to Cuban and Cuban-Americans. The conflict she creates within her own character is glossed over by her, and much of her audience. While critical pieces of Lana do exist, many fans--including myself at times!--get lost in her Venice Beach Baddie persona, and forget her self-awareness trends in the wrong direction. 

With the release of “Norman Fucking Rockwell” on the horizon (at the time of writing), though, we’re going to have to ask ourselves--is that a normal name for an album, or are we all having a collective fever dream? 

[athcnvs]

hello, hello ! i’m adrienne (she/her), but dri is cool too ! i’m seventeen and live in the pst ! i’m honestly just a huge mess, but could it be that athena is an even bigger mess ?! stay tuned to find out ! o ya pls hmu to plot even tho i’m not very good at it despite rping for, unfortunatedri, 1/3 of my life,,, pls do not do the math,,, ah ha

[ MUSE C ] is that KIM JISOO? since when was she a class of 2017 penn state graduate? oh, wait, nevermind, it’s just ATHENA CHAE. she’s TWENTY ONE years old, majored in COMPUTER SCIENCE, and NAMED HER ELECTRIC GUITAR AFTER PAT BENATAR. she’s a bit STUBBORN and EVASIVE, but also very AFFABLE and ARTICULATE. i heard she’s off to a villa in maui with a group of her friends, but as the resident FACADE, who knows how far she’ll go until her friend vacation turns into total island madness? (cis female, straight)

okay, to start, i would like to say that athena is the epitome of the “this is fine” meme, which is also why i chose her label “the facade.” it’s not because she’s a fake person but rather that she often pretends that, well, everything is fine. no one ever believes her when she says that, though. she wants to appear strong & capable with direction in her life, but she actually has no clue what she’s doing.

in terms of her history, she grew up in a nuclear family with a younger sister named artemis (her parents really liked greek mythology), & they were five years apart in age. their parents wanted both of them to either be engineers or doctors, & for the most part, neither of them desired to follow that dream. growing up, athena had really taken to music. she was enrolled in piano lessons as a child & got up to level 8 through her exams. alongside that, she learned to play bass in her middle school orchestra & taught herself how to play the guitar, aside from a couple classes. when she entered high school, she auditioned for the intermediate jazz band, playing bass there for a year before moving up to the advanced jazz band. music really was a passion for athena, & her parents supported that passion by attending all of her concerts, but they still wanted her to pursue a more stable career. they said that she shouldn’t waste her intelligence. they also wouldn’t fund her if she decided to major in music. she, although a bit offended, didn’t want to cause any chaos with her parents, so she actively tried to find something she could get into. she found success when she took an ap computer science class during her junior year, finding it rather easy in comparison to her classmates. her parents were pleased when she told them that she was considering comp sci as her major, despite the fact that she wasn’t really passionate about it. however, she knew that a lot of people were going into it purely for a monetary goal, so she felt that her reasoning wasn’t that bad. so that’s exactly what she did. she applied to a few uc’s as well as other out-of-state universities, & even though she was accepted into ucsd, which had a great computer science program, she wanted to be suuuper away from her parents (aka opposite coast) & have a sense of freedom in her choices, so she committed to penn state, which had a pretty good cs program as well. athena didn’t change her major at any point during her college career (even obtaining a minor in music as a result of having available units for classes -- her parents didn’t find out until the ceremony), but after graduating, she doesn’t really know what to do. she feels that the trip with the pythons will be a chance for her to clear her head of these worries & just enjoy her time for once.

personality-wise, it’s quite easy to get along with athena when things are light. she’s definitely an extrovert, & conversations with her often result in random rambles. on the loquacious side, her words don’t always get filtered out, which leads a lot of people to believe that she’s an open book. however, just because she’s talkative, it doesn’t mean that she’s necessarily unloading all of her feelings & secrets. friends that she’s not that close with think they know her inside & out, but they couldn’t be more incorrect. she presents herself in a way that appears put together & certain, but the few that she puts her faith in have picked up on the fact that she’s more lost than ever. athena really hoped that the “fake it until you make it” mentality would save her, but she just felt like a fraud. she wondered if she was wasting her talent & intelligence like her parents had feared.

despite the fact that athena experiences a lot of emotions, she has no idea how to handle them. when things start to get a bit more real, she tries to avoid feelings & utter honesty. this ranges from masking how she really feels with sarcasm to attempting to change the topic. in any case, she doesn’t have the ability to take things all that seriously. this causes problems when she’s at fault. athena is the type of person that says that she’s trying to improve herself but never really changes due to being stubborn. it’s hard for her to apologize when she knows the other party did nothing wrong & she was the one who hurt the other. she can’t face the people she hurts, so she just avoids having to confront them, which brings me to the next bullet point.

people joke around, saying that athena is a heartbreaker, but they’re not necessarily wrong. it could be a fear of attachment, commitment, or both, but when relationships come into play, she can’t do it. similar to her stance on emotions, it’s hard for her to have something serious. in theory, the idea of loving someone romantically sounds nice to her, but in reality, it’s difficult. she doesn’t know if it’s because she stresses about her public image, the inability to settle, or some other internal fear, but despite the fact that she would like a relationship, she just can’t. oftentimes when she makes a new guy friend, she gets nervous that they might develop feelings for her. most of the time when they do, she slowly detaches herself from them, becoming more distant, texting less often. athena once went on a date with one of them, hoping that, maybe, she could allow this to turn into something. she liked the feeling of affection, she liked the attention she got from him, but after the date, she ceased communication. she avoided him in person. she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, if anything.

there was one instance where she thought she felt something for a boy. it was her friend in high school. the two met in jazz band & were incredibly close. they hit it off instantly, & in their junior year, they became that duo. the two you assume are dating but aren’t actually. people publicly anticipated it, & soon enough, athena started catching feelings for him. however, it wasn’t reciprocated. their friends were impressed by their ability to stick together through the pressure others put on them to get together. someone remarked that people either end up hating each other or falling for each other. what that person didn’t know was that the events were not mutually exclusive. her best friend slowly began to resent her, for he had an interest in someone else, but the rumors about the two of them prevented anything serious from happening. he started to notice her flaws, & only her flaws. he started becoming distant, avoiding her after classes & texting her less. she would apologize for whatever she did to make him act that way toward her, but her apologies served nothing. it wasn’t necessarily her fault, but she continued to blame herself throughout the entirety of her senior year, while still clinging onto him. she didn’t want to let go of what they used to have. how close they were. emotionally, it tore her apart, & it wasn’t until they graduated & went their separate ways that she finally felt liberated of the burden. athena sometimes looks back at this event in her past & wonders if it had anything to do with how she is now & why she can’t get attached. it did.

she often plays along with the joke about her being a heartbreaker, but she actually feels pretty lonely

one time a friend asked her if she enjoyed breaking hearts & she didn’t know the answer

athena is quite self-aware, & she acknowledges her faults, but she doesn’t do anything about them. she also acknowledges the fact that she doesn’t do anything about them & lies to herself about the fact that she’s trying to change. it’s a bit paradoxical, really

nevertheless, she is generally a friendly person as long as you don’t make her uncomfortable. when she’s uncomfortable, she avoids at all cost !

tries not to hurt people but ends up hurting people anyway in attempts of not hurting them,,, her second label could be the paradox tbh

fun facts:

athena owns an electric guitar & an electric bass, named benny & count bass-ie, respectively. she chose the name “benny” because she’s absolutely in love with pat benatar’s music, & “count bass-ie” because she loves jazz & couldn’t simply pass up the chance at that word play. she considered the name “pat ben-guitar” but couldn’t take herself seriously enough to commit to it.

she has relative pitch

since sophomore year of high school, athena has been uploading covers on youtube, typically accompanied on-screen with her guitar, but she edits in her bass guitar in post. i would imagine that she sounds like sarah lee.

she is asexual heteroromantic

although she doesn’t play often, she is a sombra/lucio main on overwatch, & yes, she is aware of the difficulty in playing sombra. she’s decent at it.

her favorite studio ghibli film is kiki’s delivery service

she has a tendency to impulse buy mugs, especially at target. don’t take her to target. she will buy 6 mugs in one trip.

speaking of fun facts, she loves fun facts ! prepare for 2am texts about how humans share 50% of their dna with bananas. shookt,,, she's actually a huge nerd wow

o ya her hair color's just dark brown bc jisoo's new hair is rly cute but athena could never commit to that

[carlosbriganti74]

BIGFOOT lives, no honest it really does - and here's 10 reasons why

Deciding whether or not to put this feature together was a tough one. Its something which I've had to keep on the low, bar telling a few friends that is. Those who I can just about handle laughing at me for making such a wild claim. But its after 5 months or so of much on-line research (or rather listening to Bigfoot sightings on Youtube podcasts while on smoke breaks at work) that my whole thinking and out look on the world, man and life itself has been turned upside down, big style! Leaving me with no other option but to share my findings and either turn your world upside down too or at least give you and your friends and good laugh, like my mine did. So here it is - Bigfoot really does exist, and the United States Government do not want you at all to know anything about this, never mind talk about it. Below are even more reasons why its time to maybe start believing in the existence of what we know as Bigfoot.

1) Bigfoot History

First of all... what exactly is Bigfoot? The missing link, sub-human or pro-typical primitive primate, who knows?. A popular theory though is that BF is in fact 'Gigantopithecus' . An extinct genus of ape that existed from perhaps nine million years to as recently as one hundred thousand years ago in what is now China, India and Vietnam. Many Scientists claim these human-ape like creatures originated in the Caucasus Mountains/Central Asia, which would explain their easy accessibility to the new world and surviving the Ice-Age by crossing  over the land bridge.

But it was actually the legendary Nordic viking Leif Ericson who wrote down the first recorded sighting of Bigfoot. In which the feared viking chief, who was the first to land in N,America in 986 AD came across Sasquatch and described them as "horribly ugly, hairy, swarthy and with great black eyes". Adding that they were also "loud, foul smelling and towered over his men" scaring the vikings away from their discovery of then new world.

Aside from the rather comical 'Finding Bigfoot' series shown today on US TV where so called 'experts' go 'Squatchin'. Which if anything mocks the whole research around Sasquatch with its daft attempts to lure them out in the open in front of a TV camera crew as they paint the creature as the gentle giant of the forest, which it definitely is not. Sasquatch history in the US in fact goes back many centuries with the native American Indian culture being the most familiar with the being. With their history recording many gruesome tales of their battle to live alongside Sasquatch (the very name Sasquatch comes from native American culture also), even today Indian reservations are sighted still as major BF hotspots. More than that there's a list of old time Bigfoot sightings and incidents which can still be found written up in old United States newspapers, some going back as far as 150 to 200 years ago. But aside from this the research going into finding Bigfoot today is now bigger than ever. Our ability to share information, and more importantly the sightings and experiences of hundreds of every day Americans has very much sparked what is with out doubt the biggest search ever staged in the US to find Sasquatch.

2) Bigfoot Sightings through the Ages

Many sightings come from those who obvisouly spend much time in the woods. Deer hunters probably spend more time in the woods than anybody, so it's no wonder that every year reports of Bigfoot sightings come from hunters as well as hikers and campers. Also in the southern states many sightings have come from the weed growers, who understandedly prefer to keep their experinces to themselves so not to bring attention to why they were in the forests in the first place. But with multitudes of sightings, almost weekly with many sightings give the same defining descriptions as each other. With a foul smelling odour in the forests, howling noises never heard before and the feeling of losing all sense power over themselves. going weak at the knees, unable to speak never mind the ability to run away.

The effects on people who have come across Bigfoot have ranged from people losing control of their bodily fluids to all out panic, some have gone on to go to pieces like one chap from Canada who ended up losing his wife, kids and job, hitting the bottle then sadly committing suicide, though many also go on to become researchers themselves with Bigfoot taking over their whole life's. In terms of the area's BF lives in its now believed that migration roots from Canada down both sides of the US coasts are the main stomping grounds of BF with most sightings happening around the summer months. With the more aggressive Bigfoot species in and around Texas and Louisiana where they have been known many times to of attacked, even kill people who live in the main hotspots of the state. Sasquatch, also known to the people of Texas as 'Buggers' are said to be quite aware of the 'man of the woods' which is believed that if you leave them alone they will you alone. But they're also known to keep it to themselves rarely sharing their experiences with 'outsiders'. An understanding which has stayed the same within southern state folklore since the first pioneers set foot in there around the late 1600's.

3) Video Evidence

Yep, there's a stack of phony so called live videos of Bigfoot out there and most of us have seen them. Many of them nothing more than a joke with some guy in a hairy costume leaving what could be just a handful of films as the read thing, but if one video is in fact the real deal then surely it must exist? So make your own mind up and watch the video below showing some of the more popular and trusted Sasquatch sightings out there today. Including such sightings as the 'Harley Hoffman' and the 'Marble Mountian' video and the 'Minnesota Red', shot in 2011.

Though while there's plenty of video sightings out there on line today there's also meant to be many more video sightings which have never been seen by the public. Some reportedly clear as bell, full of detail showing what looks to be the real thing owned by researchers all around the US. But researchers themselves have become so cautious over releasing video evidence of Sasquatch down the years due to the hassle which has gone hand in hand with releasing such videos.

TOP 28 Bigfoot videos

https://youtu.be/ld7y3R7BW-4

But still classed as the most compelling BF video evidence ever filmed is with out doubt the famous 'Patterson/Gimlin' film of 1967, shot at Bluff Creek/C.A (known as 'Patty' due to the beings visible pair of breasts). A film which has been proven time and time again to be the real by a wide range of experts who claim its walk, bone and muscle structure as well as its length of arms and legs are much different to those of a human being. Making them the main deciding factors why Patty is believed to be the real deal. Its a video today which is still being very much worked on as well talked about, in fact more than ever as the net has given the people their own chance to brake the video down, edit it, blow it up and really study it by coming up with new and clever pieces of evidence all the time. Supporting the fact that the Patterson/Gimlin film is in fact genuine and by far still the most referred to Sasquatch footage ever filmed. While there's plenty of video sightings out there on line today there's also meant to be many more video sightings which have never been seen by the public. Some reportedly clear as bell, full of detail and showing what looks to be totally real thing owned by researchers all around the US. But researchers themselves have become so what cautious over releasing video evidence of Sasquatch down the years due to the hassle which has gone with releasing such videos, resulting in them yet to be released for the world to see. But its until an actual body/specimen is found, or unfortunately killed that the question of 'is it real' stays unanswered.

Patterson/Gimlin film

https://youtu.be/Us6jo8bl2lk

4) Sound

  Apparently many people who have come into contact with Sasquatch become the victims of the creatures massively powerful screams, whaling's, calls and overall presence. Enough to actually vibrate your guts, literally. Which is put down to the fact some people lose the power to flee leaving some of them stationary and totally overwhelmed. Listen to the high quality recorded sounds of Sasquatch on the video above 'top 28 Bigfoot video's' @20:10 mins, Some of those calls are unlike anything you've ever heard before...a sound you'd expect from some sort of 10ft human/primate perhaps. A researcher called Ron Morehaed amazingly caught on tape the sounds of both a supposed male and female Sasquatch actually communicating to each other, apparently arguing with each other. Which is described a 'samuri talk' by researchers it almost sounds like two Russians speaking but speeded up, or something similar. Sent to a speech language expert and found to be natural sounds, in other words not man made or technically created leaving these recordings part of some of the most interesting finds ever made of Bigfoot.

5) Physical Evidence

Rick Dyer's Bigfoot Hoax - Toy Maker Makes Fake Bigfoot Body

With no actual complete speciman ever found the Bigfoot physical evidence is manily made up of footcasts, casts which run into 100's taken from almost every state. Though again not all peices of evidence can be taken as genuine but even if one foot cast is real it would  obviosuly mean Sasquatch really does live. One famous cast, the 'Skookum' cast was said to be off a Sasquatch lying down on a mud bank reaching over to grab some fruit which was left out by researchers. For some time it was held up as one of the finest casts ever taken until it was strongly believed to be fake. Just another example of how far people will go to produce BF evidence. Though no actual bones of Sasquatch have ever been found you've only to ask a hunter who has spent most of the their lives in the woods if they have ever found a bears bones, which is 99% of the time 'no'. Reports also believe that Bigfoot actually take away and bury their dead, something which people who have professed to have shot and killed Bigfoot before have testiefied to. Other evidence includes hair samples which has meant to of been found some years ago in which hi-tech labs could not name the bones actual DNA, though mimicking human and primate DNA looks like nothing thats ever been tested before.

6) US Government

Homeland Security is on the case, and they're not messing around. With many reports, and complaints by US citizens who have made sightings and have then gone on to receive visits from the 'Men in Black'. Who its been claimed that they've even threatened sight seers and reporters of Sasquatch, being repeatedly told in these home visits that 'you didn't see a Bigfoot'. Those who have gone on to make more noise over their sightings have even been either mocked or sternly warned by authorities, some have even gone on to lose their jobs. Though it hasn't stopped some who have given their claims and experiences undercover. Including sightings by FBI officers, soldiers and even state officials who have felt compelled to let their story be known, much to the displeasure of the US authorities. As well as Homeland Security making home calls to people who have dared talk of their experiences, many Bigfoot researchers have also been known to have been not only pulled over but harassed by government officials/federal agents. Being ordered out of national parks and forests with some researchers even arrested and later banned from entering BF hotspots. So why all the fuss? the US Government know whats going on and for some reason are happy to contain it while troubling law abiding visitors to US forests. So if the US government are busy trying to shut BF research down you know somethings got to be going on.

As well as the government interest there's also the issue of the media, who rarely show anything BF on the news despite that is when they are openly mocking the subject as just a farce. So very much like the Kennedy assassination was ignored by the press only for the 'people' to take it on. Its the same story with Sasquatch as its the American people, not the authorities who have researched this subject ever since the Patterson/Gimlin film of the late 60's. And they carry on to do so even more in this age of the Internet where they've collectively made massive steps in the search for Bigfoot within the last 5years.

7) Missing People of the Woods

A very worrying issue indeed, Over 4000 mpeople have disapeared in the last decade in US National Parks and the US Government still refuse to release any information on it at all. Dr David Paulides paints probably the most worrying factor about Sasquatch/Bigfoot which we're aware of today, yet thanks to the US authorities keeping a tight lid of anything Sasquatch related if you haven't done your home work on it you'll of never of heard of the high numbers of missing people who travelling through the US national parks only to disappear into thin air, or so it seems anyway Listen to this talk by Paulides on the work he's done on trying to get to the bottom of one of the US's biggest outdoor mysterys of today.

8) Washington State acknowledges Sasquatch -

In 1975, the US Army Corps of Engineers actually included, and more importantly acknowledged Sasquatch as a unknown species in Washington state. One of Bigfoot's most renowned spots in the U.S.A which has accounted for many latter day sightings of the creature (check the sightings map above). Written up in the 'Washington Environmental Atlas' it made it actually illegal to shoot or kill a Bigfoot as a unknown/unrecognised species. But this acknowledgement infuriated the FBI and refuted their 'verification' of existence, backing-down the Army Environmental Atlas Editor on making such a claim the following year in 1976.

9) Bigfoot murder

Without doubt the most scary and gruesome thing about the whole Bigfoot question are the multiple accounts, stories and official reports of Sasquatch killing visitors to the national parks and forests of the US, its almost like a real life account of your average gory horror flick where the hunter, trekker or .... gets taken off their feet and ripped apart. But this time its all meant to be true, really happening

The reason why the Government are not so much acknowledge Bigfoot/Sasquatch very...1 is that they are actually involved in the breeding of the being, for what?, who know, another is that old issue of money...the effect on the timber industry if Sasquatch was actually confirmed as a living being in the national parks, Federal land and private land of America would mean a mass loss to the US economy due to the most probable outcome of declaring these lands as 'untouchable' and to be left to the Sasquatch to live in. This has been worked out to have an 4% drop in the US economy, mainly hitting the timber trade and the other industries which work alongside it

US wont release records.....David Paulides reports on missing ppl...over 4,000 people have disappeared in US National Parks in last decade. They simply vanished, no trace, no tracks, nothing. Though there have been some that have been found. These are confirmed reports which state some missing people have been found, mostly stuck up in trees...and it gets a lot worse. There are also matching claims that people have been found with their heads twisted all the way round. Yep, sounds like a standard horror flick doesn't it and I for one at the beginning of discovering all of this info was not having one bit. But again these are claims/reports which have been repeated too many times by too many people to be written off as lies.

David Paulides - Missing 411 & Bigfoot DNA

https://youtu.be/CeT2FG88PIM

10) Witness Accounts/Experiences

Something which we can all listen to, think over and come to our own conclusions whether to believe in the hundreds, now probably thousands of accounts and sightings which are made by the average American and are now all over the net, or not. For me personally its these accounts on the podcasts which has turned me on to the whole notion of Bigfoot and its existence...these people sound just too true, sounding either shook up, over-whelmed or just plain mystified for all of them to be making it up. A favourite and trusted source of sightings, information and theories is the 'Sasquatch Chronicles.com' with hosts Woody, Wes and Will, or there's the 'Bigfoot Hotspot Radio' also on Youtube with a quality BF podcast show. Check them out and listen for yourself, because right now there is just too much activity going on whether it be from the US government, activity being caught on tape (now we all have a camera on our phones), the people talking about their own experiences as well as the scientific progress being made with actual unidentified DNA being discovered and strongly believed as belonging to Sasquatch  -

listen to the sighting below which features a delivery driver who accidentally nearly ended up as Bigfoot's supper, obviously still very shaken from his experience its hard not to believe this poor guys account. At the end of the day Sasquatch is either the greatest con of the era of in fact really happening right now, as we speak - you decide...?

,

[theliterateape]

Training People to Expect Reward for Outrage

By Don Hall

Cancel Culture. The Karen Phenomenon. Donald Trump’s Non-Stop Tirades About FAKE News. The Olympiad of Victim Status. Twitter Trolls. The Alt Right. The Woke.

These seemingly disconnected elements all have a very specific thread in common. They derive from the rewards given to people who complain loudly and without pause. 

Sometime in corporate culture overseeing the idea of customer service, it was decided that the customer is always right and that very powerful framework has slowly infected all aspects of our culture. 

Is this steak overcooked? Of course it is. The customer is always right.

Did I feel threatened by that black kid in the hoodie with the Skittles? Of course you did. The customer is always right.

Is asking me where I’m from racist? How could it not be racist? The customer is always right.

Is journalism that criticizes me every single day FAKE? Duh. The customer is always right.

Is suggesting that a trans woman is not a biological woman transphobic? Especially if you wrote the Harry Potter books! The customer is always right.

Anyone who has ever worked in the service industry understands what a bucket of lukewarm smegma that mantra represents. It permeates our every dealing with people. It creates a sense of entitled behavior that rewards talking over someone to get what you want and emphasizes that, in a world filled with seven billion people all moments from being crushed by an earthquake or leveled by a pandemic, we each deserve a specific kind of treatment from one another.

None of us forest apes who learned to read deserves anything. Ever. 

As the former house manager of a nationwide radio show, former manager of Chicago’s Millennium Park, and current manager in a small off-Strip casino in Las Vegas, I’m used to the drill. I have my own approach that effectively cancels cancel culture in my rooms, defangs the Karens, and ignores the cries of victimhood used to get stuff.

First, do not meet hostility with hostility. This one took me years to figure out but as soon as you react to their hostility the game is afoot. This is not the same as saying “Let them call you names and scream at you.” When I have guests hit me with DEFCON Five, I turn and walk away. Give it a beat and return. If they continue, I walk away again. I am, in effect, training them how to approach me.

He’s six foot, five inches, approximately 350 pounds. And he is furious. 

I approach him to see what he needs and he launches into a rambling “this motherfucker” and “fuck this shit” and “what the fuck is wrong with you people?”

I hold up my hand and say “I’ll be right back.” I walk away. I stop and pick up an empty beer bottle and toss it in the trash. I come back.

“What the fuck was that? You fucking with me?”

The hand goes up. “Give me one second.” I walk away. This time I go to a regular who is playing a Lightning Zone machine and chat him up for a minute. I come back.

“So what can I do for you, sir?” He starts to gin up again. The hand comes up. He stops. He has figured out the game. He thinks for a moment then speaks more calmly about the fact that his twenty dollar bill was stuck in a video poker machine. I smile, make a joke about him breaking my machines with his ill-gotten money, and open the machine up and return his twenty.

Second, do not argue. Argument indicates there is basis for their shitty behavior. Remember they are trying to get something from you. You are in control of the situation. It’s all about choices.

“This fucking face mask shit is all liberal bullshit! I can’t breathe and the only reason their making up this whole coronavirus shit is to tank the economy so Trump loses.”

“Okay. I need you to put the mask on or you’ll have to leave the casino.”

“But you see that, right? It’s all just a bunch of bullshit! It’s also un-fucking-constitutional to force me to wear a mask. It’s goddamn against my freedom of choice!”

“That aside, I need that mask on or you gotta walk the walk.”

“Why?”

“Mask or split. No wiggle room. I’m sorry about that but them’s the rules.”

“Motherfuck. No disrespect to you but this is crap.”

“Maybe so but the mask goes on and stays there or you need to head out.”

Third, do not give them what they want if their behavior is demanding. Requests are awesome. Demands come from children. Children rewarded for making demands become the biggest cunts in society. A variation on the “never negotiate with a terrorist” becomes “never negotiate with an entitled, vicious dickweed.” Offer them a choice of your choosing that may come close but is never exactly what they want unless they request with humility and civility.

A Tale of Two Guests.

Guest number one is apoplectic about the fact that the television in his room isn’t working. He berates the desk clerk, demands to see the manager. When I come over he demands that he be compensated or he will Tweet about the hotel side of the place. I ask the clerk if the engineers have been by to check the TV. They have and it is working now. The guest demands he be comp’d for the night for his trouble. I smile and say “No.”

Guest number two checked in around 3 p.m. after a long drive. It’s 109 degrees outside and his air conditioning has broken down. The engineers couldn’t fix it. He requests some sort of perk for having to sleep in the stifling heat. “Even a free breakfast would be fine,” he says. I comp him his entire stay.

Fourth, if all else fails, confuse them. Confusion in the moment burns away the steam in a fraction of a second.

She is so worked up about her claim that the ATM Kiosk did not dispense her $40.00 that no amount of calmly assisting her is possible.

She’s been met with disbelief from one security officer. Encountered a rhetorical shrug from the cage teller. At the moment I am called over—imagine that, a black woman screaming a full volume that she better see a manager right fucking now—she is clenched like a fist and is bouncing on the balls of her feet as if to leap into some MMA-style melee with the now three security officers. We’re at that place when patience is lost on all sides and she is dragged out of the place, put in cuffs, and the police are called.

I can see this unfolding from across the room. I approach and she spins on me and unleashes a volley of rage-filled verbiage accompaniment by no small amount of spit, her face mask forced from her face from sheer energy.

The moment is saved by Blue Swede on the ever=present casino soundtrack. 

“Whoa! Hold on!” I cry. My hands go up in the air in a show of joy. I look at the officers, I look at her and freeze in place.

“Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga...”

And I sing.

“I can't stop this feeling Deep inside of me Girl, you just don't realize What you do to me...”

Confusion. The disconnect between what was going on before the song and in that moment resets things a bit. I smile. “Sorry. I freaking LOVE this song. Now what can I do for you?”

I grew up in what was enshrined the “Me Generation” of the 1980s. With so much of our daily lives encapsulated in performative behavior—the desire to be famous as a higher goal than to be wealthy, the non-stop seeking of approval via endorphin hits of “likes” and “retweets,” the awareness that we are constantly being filmed by everyone with a smartphone—we seem to be in the “Look at Me Generation.” I mean, for chrissakes, what narcissistic asshole first invented Taking a Picture of Yourself as a normal part of our behavior? We have subtly been trained to expect reward from increasingly demanding and childish behavior.

It isn’t enough to accept that, in order to succeed in an overwhelmingly service industry centered economy, we have to capitulate to being fed a shit sandwich and smile pleasantly as we choke it down for a sadly meager hourly wage. Rather than meet this with resignation turned to resentment and our own sense of rage, we have control of the moment. Every interaction is a teaching, a re-training, moment.

There is a difference between a demand and a request. Learn to reward the requests and stonewall the demands until they transform to requests and you begin the process of one-by-one training people that a strategy of cooperation rather than contention leads to more favorable outcomes.

The customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is often completely wrong. You can shift the behavior without abandoning the values of good service.

Train people to expect reward from civility and people will start to be civil.

[oltnews]

A Hollywood body is not built in the gymnasium. Or it is not always built in the gym - and for every two-hour Wahlberg weight training session, there is one actor forced to get into screen-worthy form according to a program that always sees them on set or on the road. So while lounging on the couch in your tracksuit doesn't seem like an A list, locking can be exactly what you need to finally achieve those Hemsworth-worthy abs you've always dreamed of. We've checked out some of the leanest and leanest workouts and on-site diet programs in Hollywood, and - with expert help - applied them so you can make superhero gains in your living room. 1,000 "bulk matrices" by Tom Hardy The film: BronsonThe method: While it may seem impossible to the man who brought Bane to us, Tom Hardy was once skinny. Then, in 2008, he was chosen as Charles Hardy, a tough and imposing man. In order to win three stones for the role, Hardy used a “bulk matrix” suitable for prisons of up to 1,000 presses per day.The application: Hardy himself admitted that his Bronson body was a "traffic accident", involving a lot of body fat and minimal leg muscles. That's because a balanced body requires balanced training, according to Hollywood PT and mobility coach Jack Hanrahan. "There is no doubt that push-ups are one of the best exercises to have for your body," says Hanrahan. “But it is also very important to balance this pushing exercise with that of traction. This will keep your shoulders healthy and help you build well rounded muscle mass. "To balance at home, Hanrahan suggests his own twist on the bulk matrix: press 10 times, rest for 30 to 60 seconds, then make 10 rows of resistance bands. Rest, then repeat 10 times for a total of 200 repetitions. DOMYOS training belt 25kg DOMYOS decathlon.co.uk £ 8.99 Resistance band for men's health Men's health argos.co.uk £ 8.99 Vellio Shine resistance band set Vellio Shine amazon.co.uk £ 10.64 Gritine resistance bands Gritin amazon.co.uk £ 13.99 Christian Bale's Quick Black Coffee The film: The machinistThe method: Christian Bale is the king of bodily transformations on screen, but his first is still his most infamous metamorphosis. For 2004 thriller The machinist, Bale dropped four tempting stones in four months with a diet of black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna a day.The application: Unless you want to leave the lock on in an ambulance, don't do what Bale did. "That's less than 200 calories a day, so it's not healthy at all," says Daniel O’Shaughnessy, Harley Street health expert, aka The Naked Nutritionist. "An extreme diet like this will disrupt your metabolism and cause a lot of stress on the body." As a healthier alternative, O’Shaughnessy and Hanrahan are both proponents of the 16: 8 intermittent fasting method, which involves consuming all the calories in your day within an eight-hour window."Out of all X Men a few years ago, Hugh Jackman told me he was a fan, ”says Hanrahan. "He's the most conditioned and vascular actor I've ever been face to face with, so there's probably something to do with it." The fights of Chadwick BosemanThe film: Black PantherThe method: Boseman avoided the weights for a more methodical approach to embody the feline warrior, get in shape with a mixture of karate, jiu-jitsu, capoeira and kung-fu.The application: If you're stuck inside without heavy weights or exercise equipment, you could be doing worse for your body than practicing martial arts. "Most fighting styles burn a ton of calories by increasing the heart rate and involve a lot of explosive movement," says Hanrahan. "More practical styles like Jiu-Jitsu will also massively recruit the upper body and core muscles, which is good if you're trying to add muscle definition." Boseman was trained by legendary martial artist Marrese Crump - check out his YouTube channel for some tips. Dwayne Johnson 12 Labor DayThe film: HerculesThe method: Johnson's legendary meals are almost as famous as the man himself. To fuel his extreme training regimen for Hercules, he undertook a "12 works" scheme, consisting of seven meals (and twice as many eggs) per day. The application: The current climate means that you are moving less and therefore burning fewer calories. So even if you are the size of The Rock, be careful when you increase your food intake - even if they are all protein. "If you consume excess protein, it can be stored as fat, while excess amino acids are excreted and are not used to build muscle," says O’Shaughnessy. "Research says that we should be eating about 1.5 g of protein per kg of bodyweight to build muscle, and I won't go over that during home workouts." Zac Efron 1000 rep bodyweight circuit The film: BaywatchThe method: To get in shape worthy of a co-star Johnson, Efron used constantly evolving bodyweight workouts defined by PT Patrick Murphy. In an interview with E! News, Murphy said a workout could include "20 alternate jump jumps in one place, 20 jump squats, 60 climbers, electric pumps, followed by a five-flight run of stairs, and then one-leg crouched jumps using a TRX rope. "Efron rested for a minute, then repeated it twice to arrive at an overall total of over 1,000 repetitions.The application: When it comes to bodyweight workouts, Hanrahan recommends taking the Efron approach by setting a representative goal to hold you accountable. He also advises a mixture of upper body, lower body and trunk exercises, and "take a gentle jump" to avoid putting excessive stress on your joints. "Stay with the same workouts for 3-4 weeks, so you can apply a progressive overload such as increasing repetitions, adding sets, or decreasing rest," says Hanrahan. "Mix things up too is often less effective. The galactic galaxy of Chris PrattThe film: Guardians of the GalaxyThe method: The chubby sitcom star Chris Pratt's transformation into a screen superhero has been so abrupt, Parks and recreation had to insert a joke to explain why his character looked so different. `` The only thing you did was stop drinking beer? Asked a confused colleague, and he was not far from the mark - Pratt attributed his rapid weight loss to `` six months without beer '', as well as a heroic daily consumption of 1 oz l of H2O for each pound body weight.The application: It is well documented that removing alcohol will do wonders for your body, and there is never a better time to give up empty calories than when all pubs are closed. But should you replace those lost pints with extra liters of water? Yes, but in moderation. "Generally, 35 ml per kg of body weight is ideal," says O’Shaughnessy. Pratt put the double aside. "For an average person weighing 80 kg, this represents 4.8 liters of water per day. This may be a bit much, given that most people find it difficult to reach two liters." In addition, you will interrupt all of your Zoom calls for bathroom breaks. Sterling K Brown Zero Weight Workouts The film: Hotel ArtemisThe method: Another Black Panther An actor with envious physique, ex-American footballer Sterling K Brown was so muscular when he started playing that his teachers encouraged him to cut weights. It worked - Brown turned to gymnastics and ended up landing lead roles in everything from the science fiction blockbuster Hotel Artemis to the sincere television drama It's us.The application: Gymnastics ticks the same boxes as gymnastics, which is why supporters like Brown use it to build the lean muscle you see in Olympic athletes. "It's not always the most practical method, because you need a good weight / power ratio," says Hanrahan. "Exercises like pull-ups, dips and gun squats are all very difficult." He advises getting your hands on a set of dumbbells or a kettlebell, to give you more options if you don't have access to a set of monkey bars. Hexagonal dumbbell weight MAR International amazon.co.uk £ 19.99 Tri-Grip Dumbbells TnP accessories. amazon.co.uk £ 159.99 Adjustable dumbbell Men's health argos.co.uk £ 149.99 York Fitness Dumbbells York Fitness amazon.co.uk £ 39.99 Carbohydrate-Free Jungle Diet by Alexander SkarsgardThe film: The legend of TarzanThe method: To embody everyone's favorite ape-man, Scandi actor Alexander Skarsgard had to train like a gymnast and eat like an animal. His diet initially consisted of 7000 bestial calories per day, but then it was reduced to a lean and keto-esque phase in which he was allowed no sugar, dairy or fast carbohydrates.The application: For O'Shaughnessy, restrictive diets like Skarsgard involve sorting wheat from the husk. "Limiting sugar and refined starch is a healthy thing to do," he says. "But dairy is not bad for you, unless you are allergic or sensitive to it." If you're looking to follow the keto approach (high in fat and low in carbohydrates), O'Shaughnessy recommends limiting the carbohydrate content to 25g per day for six days, then increasing to 150g the seventh with a range of unrefined carbohydrates like rice and sweet potato. "If you are still in a low-carbohydrate state, your body may become lazy because you never burn glucose," he explains. Jake Gyllenhaal's 7-Day Boxing Explosion The film: SouthpawThe method: When the trailers fell for the first time Southpaw, the world gasped collectively in front of a totally unrecognizable Jake Gyllenhaal. The actor's hard work shows: to become the almost impossible torn boxer Billy Hope, Gyllenhaal would train almost all day, seven days a week. He would wake up, do 1,000 sit-ups, run eight miles, and then get into a 4 to 6 hour workout routine of jumping, boxing, and weight training. He could then have done 1,000 sit-ups before going to bed. The application: "Training seven days a week in any capacity is more likely to destroy you than to develop you," says Hanrahan. "Even the fittest athletes know the value of rest to repair and rebuild." Still, although he doesn't recommend Gyllenhaal's overdrive approach, Hanrahan concedes that boxing-style exercises are a great way to get in shape without the need for equipment. He recommends a shaded boxing session: use a mixture of jabs, hooks, crosses and upper cups, making sure that you are light on your feet and "catchy" with your punches. "Go at a pace that you can maintain for three minutes, then rest for 1-2 minutes and repeat 5-10 laps," he says. A little sit-ups will not hurt. But you probably don't have to do a thousand. We R Sports Kettlebell We R Sports amazon.co.uk £ 35.99 Golds Gym Kettlebell Golds Gym amazon.co.uk £ 59.99 Escape Fitness USA Kettlebell Competition Escape Fitness USA amazon.co.uk £ 103.00 Rubberized kettlebell No amazon.co.uk £ 55.48 Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more directly in your inboxSUBSCRIBENeed positivity right now? Subscribe to Esquire Now for Style, Fitness, Culture and Expert AdviceSUBSCRIBE https://oltnews.com/hollywood-bale-tom-hardy-and-dwayne-johnson-hollywood-training-tips-esquire-com?_unique_id=5e9d50659a95e

[blogparadiseisland]

Business This was worse than what the Senate did to Anita Hill

Business This was worse than what the Senate did to Anita Hill Business This was worse than what the Senate did to Anita Hill http://www.nature-business.com/business-this-was-worse-than-what-the-senate-did-to-anita-hill/

Business

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. In January, Norton will publish a new book by him and Kevin Kruse, “Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974.” Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN)In the past few days, the experts have wondered whether the Senate had learned anything from the horrendous way that the Judiciary Committee treated Anita Hill back in 1991.

In light of Hill’s accusations that

Clarence Thomas

had sexually harassed her at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the all-male committee turned the Supreme Court hearings into a farce. Republicans, and most Democrats, focused their questions on Hill’s credibility, raising doubts about her intentions and whether she was exaggerating what today President Donald Trump would call “locker room” talk. They demonstrated almost no sympathy for the victims of sexual harassment and made comments that today seem unthinkable.

Because of the backlash to the 1991 hearings, the working assumption was that this time the Senate Judiciary Committee would surely get things right. The panel would treat Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault with dignity and handle the process in a respectful fashion. Understanding how the times had changed, the Republican majority would turn the committee hearings into a serious forum for an examination into whether there is sufficient evidence to prove that Brett Kavanaugh and a high school friend held her down and attacked her while they were drunk.

In the shadow of the #MeToo movement and all of the changes that have affected American society since the early 1990s, surely the Senate would get it right.

But that’s not what happened, and it showed how far we still have to go. The all-male Republican majority on the committee actually took many steps backward. In certain respects, Thursday’s hearing revealed that as a nation our politics are in a worse place than they were 27 years ago.

The committee “investigation” was a joke. This was not an investigation, just political theater put on for the benefit of red-state voters who Trump and the GOP hope remain loyal when it comes time to vote in November. From the start, the hearings were stacked in favor of the nominee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sold the public a bill of goods with the artificial timetable that he says must be followed. The timeline created a rush to judgment.

The Senate Judiciary Committee majority did not ask the FBI to investigate — as occurred with Hill — it did not allow for any other witnesses, it implemented a truncated five-minute questioning period for each senator, and it allowed Kavanaugh to out-filibuster colleagues.

With

Mark Judge

hiding out on the beach, Sen. Chuck Grassley seemed to have no interest in asking questions of the other person who was allegedly in the room. The other Republican senators didn’t say a thing in the morning. Using a female prosecutor to interrogate the alleged victim while the male Republican senators sat in the background was almost more insulting than having the cohort of male senators do the interrogation, as happened in 1991.

After tossing sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell aside during the male portion of the hearings in the afternoon, the GOP was dismissive of the entire issue.

Sen. Lindsey Graham screamed vitriol

at his colleagues, showing everyone his brand of Trumpism with a Southern twist. “If this is the new norm, you’d better watch out for your nominees,” he warned Democrats, as if Ford’s horrific experience was some kind of partisan talking point. They spent less time on Ford’s accusations than they did with Hill (three days).

They simply replaced the direct accusations they made against Hill (such as saying her story came from the film “The Exorcist”) by indirectly discrediting Ford’s story as if it were a product of partisan strategy. They repeated the mistake of refusing to call key witnesses who could add to their knowledge. Even the structure of the hearing, which gave Kavanaugh the final say, favored his side of the story, given the limits of the investigation.

When Senate Republicans announced Thursday night

they would hold their vote Friday

without further inquiry, they showed their cards.

In contrast to 1991, this time the nominee was comfortable launching a hyper-partisan grenade at the Democrats and implicitly at Ford herself. There is no other way to put it other than saying he sounded just like Trump (except for Kavanaugh’s tears). Despite all the niceties Kavanaugh and Republican members expressed toward Ford following her moving testimony, they were pretty clear in their opinion.

In shocking fashion, Kavanaugh didn’t even pretend to have judicial temperament. He charged that this was all a result of a left-wing Democratic conspiracy to bring him down. He yelled at individual senators, and he constantly interrupted their questions in aggressive fashion.

He evaded basic questions, such as whether he thought Mark Judge should testify or whether he favored an FBI investigation, even when the same questions were asked again and again. He presented his testimony as a defense of all men: “I ask you to judge me by the standard you would want applied to your father, your husband, your brother or your son.” At a minimum, this was as bad as the way Thomas tried to deflect the charges against him as a “high-tech lynching,” with Kavanaugh offering the wealthy, privileged white man’s political version of this argument — that this is all just about a partisan conspiracy, a “political hit” in response to the 2016 election by “left wing” opposition groups, not the real world experience of a high school girl.

Regardless of the sexual assault accusation, Kavanaugh’s testimony should have been disqualifying for a potential Supreme Court justice. He showed himself to be a tough partisan. With his statements, he undermined his own promise he could be neutral and apolitical in handling issues. He can’t. Yet most Republicans are moving forward to confirm with gusto. This is a victory for the principle of partisanship through and through.

Finally, these hearings were even worse because of what happened with Anita Hill. Timing and sequence means everything in American politics. The fact that the Republican majority would allow such serious charges to be handled in such a shoddy fashion in 2018 and the fact that so many of them ape Trump in his conspiratorial rhetoric of male rage is a powerful statement showing that not only didn’t they learn from Hill, they just don’t care. Congress still has a massive problem on its hands in its treatment of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.

Thursday was a tragic moment in our political history. Faced with a test to see how some of the most influential members of our legislative branch would handle extremely serious charges involving a Supreme Court nominee, Senate Republicans have demonstrated that things have actually deteriorated since the time that Thomas was confirmed as a justice.

The #MeToo movement has a long way to go and, unfortunately, the struggle within our democratic institutions might be the toughest hurdle of all. The first real opportunity to do something about this will be to change the final floor vote of the swing senators in the GOP, Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, and even more importantly, by changing the balance of power in the November elections.

Read More | Julian Zelizer, CNN Political Analyst,

Business This was worse than what the Senate did to Anita Hill, in 2018-09-28 15:47:02

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Shit I Hate #2: Aspects of the DCEU (And the Psychopathic Portion of Its Fandom)

So, I’m sure a lot of you think I outright hate the DCEU. I haven’t been shy from giving harsh criticisms of it in the past, though the whole hardcore anti-DCEU thing from a while back was only to get rid of a particularly annoying mutual (and she and people like her will be brought up later in this post, don’t worry). So now, here, I will give my honest-to-god opinions on the DCEU, and talk about what it is I hate about it. Because I certainly don’t hate everything about it; there’s plenty of value to be  found in it. But it has some glaring flaws I want to address.

So, as I said, I don’t hate the DCEU. In fact, I really, really want it to succeed. Anyone with a brain wants it to get better; if there’s only one company making good superhero movies, well, people are gonna get fatigued. Good competition is better for business than steamrolling the competition. But sadly, the DCEU has been, from an objective standpoint, incredibly disappointing.

It’s totally okay to like and enjoy these movies; like I said, there is plenty to enjoy and admire. But from an objective standpoint, I can’t say any of these films are very good as superhero movies. Let me go into what I mean: the superhero movie genre is obviously not set in stone, and it can encompass a lot of things: it can be dark and gritty, lighthearted and comic, a mixture of the two… But DC has tended to veer towards dark and gritty when it comes to adaptations, especially when it comes to Batman. Out of the seven Batman films from the 80s to today, five of them have been darker and grittier than your standard comic book fare (Tum Burton’s and Nolan’s Batman films to be precise). The other two are much-maligned for their campy tone and silliness. Now, Nolan’s films, while being dark and gritty, are very well regarded for the most part, particularly the middle entry of the franchise, The Dark Knight. This film is one of my all-time favorite films, and is probably the film that has held DC back the most as they try and start up their shared cinematic universe.

The reason Nolan’s Batman films work despite their dark and gritty nature is because they are much more grounded in reality than your standard superhero fare as well as featuring a hero that tends to deal with darker fare in general. DC, in their rush to join the cinematic universe bandwagon Marvel kickstarted, decided that Nolan’s successful Batman films would be the best films to emulate when going for their reboots; the problem is, their first film in the DCEU was a Superman film, and Zach Snyder was directing.

Zach Snyder is not a bad director; in fact, he has directed some truly amazing comic book adaptations (Watchmen and 300). The thing is, though, that Snyder was always best at faithfully translating someone else’s work to live action. He managed to deliver a faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s infamously unfilmable graphic novel hat honestly improves on it in some areas, and the same goes for his adaptation of Frank Miller’s tale of the 300 Spartans. Original material is not his strong suit; look at Sucker Punch, one of the most awful, brainless action films ever shat out, and the point where you can see his career starting to spiral into Shymalanian failure. Man of Steel is not an adaptation of any one Superman story, and the questionable elements of it are not easy to ignore with Snyder’s style. The incredible destruction during the final battle, the weak characterization of Zod, the more violent Superman, Superman killing Zod, it’s not as easy tos wallow with the pretentious pseudo-Nolan style Snyder is going for. While he’s great at adapting other people’s work, Snyder is not good at emulating other director’s styles, and it really makes the film one hard to recommend. It’s a dark, gritty, and dour Superman movie, and Superman is not a hero people wanted to see get dark and brooding. Still, Man of Steel is not a film I’d say is objectively good or bad; it’s a very mixed movie, and I’d say it’s on the fence. At the very least, as the first movie in a franchise, it had great room to improve with a sequel. A sequel would address the flaws, fix plotholes, just work everything into something more enjoyable. I mean, all the actors did a good job with what they were given, and Cavill is easily my favorite live action Superman, so a sequel would easily improve on this, right?

That’s sadly not what we got. Not entirely anyway.

I once said the DCEU was like if Marvel had released their films like this: Iron Man → The Avengers → Guardians of the Galaxy → Avengers: Age of Ultron → Thor. Some asshat responded with some smug, sarcastic condescension saying “Oh why not have an origin story for every character in Lord of the Rings before Lord of the Rings actually came out? :)” This analogy is incredibly stupid, as Tolkien likely would have LOVED that, and superhero movies REQUIRE character setup. Do you know why The Avengers was as enjoyable as it was? Because all of these characters had already been set up in other films, so the movie didn’t need to feed us all these backstories for all these characters, just giving “need to know” characterization for any newcomers. A big crossover like this only can work if there’s proper setup; if Freddy vs. Jason happened after the first Friday the 13th and before a single Nightmare on Elm Street movie it probably wouldn’t be a very good film. It had plenty of films to build up what a threat Freddy and Jason were. Batman v Superman does not do that. It is the followup to Man of Steel, and it expects us to just go with two brand new, never-before-seen characters, one who has little to no backstory given and one whose backstory and characterization takes up a good chunk of the first third of the film. There really should have been a new Batman film, a Superman sequel, and Wonder Woman’s movie prior to this. They didn’t have to be origin stories, a brief origin like Batman’s at the start of Batman v Superman would have been fine, but audiences needed SOMETHING so we wouldn’t just be thrown in and forced to accept shit. The lack of buildup even seeps into the cameos; we are thrown the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg origins one after the other in a three minute span of time. It’s like they’re trying to cram as many origins in at once instead of bothering to take time establishing these characters. Imagine if in the comics there was one panel of Batman’s parents getting show, and then Batman is just an accepted part of the universe from there on out. What the filmmakers don’t seem to get is, even though most of us know the general story, not everyone is a comic fan with years of experience in background and lore. The reason buildup is needed is for newcomers, people unfamiliar with the characters. Just throwing characters in alienates people.

Of course, this is the least of that film’s problems. The tone and even the scenes are extremely dark and bleak until the very end. There’s very little levity, unless you can bring yourself to laugh at Eisenberg’s cringeworthy performance. Now, obviously, I’m not saying there needs to be tons and tons of jokes; The Dark Knight had rather sparse humor, and movies like the Iron Man sequels, Thor: The Dark World, and a good chunk of Age of Ultron are very weak due to the oversaturation of comedic elements. But having this level of darkness and crushing gloom and moodiness can wear on audiences; it can be hard for people to give a shit about a story and characters in a miserable setting. And this is a common criticism; aside from Wonder Woman, people have found it hard to care about the heroes in this film. Their characterization can come across as unlikable, bitter, and mean. While this works for Batman, for Superman this is even more alien than he is.

And again, it’s not like this movie has nothing going for it; the fight scenes are all fantastic, Bruce’s origin is well done, seeing the Big Three together is cool and all the actors save Eisenberg do well… but it’s not enough. This movie is, quite frankly, a hot mess, a film that apes the Nolan style with no idea what made it work, much as all the awful Shrek clones that came out in the 2000s that tried to be Shrek without understanding why it was such a good film in the first place. It’s just dark, bleak, and edgy because that’s what they think audiences want! And that is most definitely not the case, to a certain extent.

Audiences DO like having more mature superhero stories; The Dark Knight and The Winter Soldier certainly prove that, what with their more serious tones. But, especially in the sort of culture we have these days, people don’t want to see darkness and bleakness in their superhero films anymore. Superheros are supposed to be escapism and excitement, something enjoyable to see when you want to escape the darkness of the world. In an America that has experienced years of riots, protests, and terrible news, is it any surprise that audiences are rejecting DC’s dark and brooding hero stories for Marvel’s more lighthearted-with-serious-elements movies?

This brings me to the biggest thing I hate: the insane, miserable anti-MCU pro-DCEU apologists. Now, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with being a fan of these movies. Hell, despite my criticisms, I have a great deal of admiration for elements of the franchise, and I enjoyed Suicide Squad a great deal. But the levels some people go to is disgusting and disturbing.

The perfect example is a mutual I used to have. She was really nice and cool for a while, and liked both Marvel and DC. Then Age of Ultron came out. After that, her intelligence went downhill, and she became a rabid hater of the MCU. She would constantly post about how she hated it, while praising the DCEU. She’d reblog tons of posts with asinine criticisms of the MCU and had a sort of smug sense of superiority about her love of the DC films. It came to the point she was outright bashing MCU fans and calling anyone who defended the films, including me, a ‘stan,’ while ignoring and deflecting any criticisms of DC’s movies. She was one of the people who believed Marvel was paying off critics, even pointing to the great reviews Doctor Strange got as evidence (she was convinced the movie was some evil racist mess that whitewashed for the sake of profit, which is so far from the truth it’s laughable). This is ignoring the fact that paying critics off like that would be incredibly counterproductive and would be a waste of money, but at this point critical thinking was not her forte.

And this wasn’t unique to her; the incredibly rabid fans are ALL like that. They all believe the lies about Disney and Marvel bribing critics, they all hop up and down and accuse the MCU of racism, they all screech about how bad Marvel is and how they cram jokes into everything (even though there are only about five movies where this is a big problem). They are all the some kind of person who is smug and condescending and acts like they’re mentally superior for enjoying certain types of people fighting in colorful underwear. They are in the same league of stupid shittiness as anti-bronies and anti-Frozen, and they may honestly be less intelligent than either of those groups. Now, obviously, there are plenty of normal, reasonable people who enjoy or even prefer the DCEU to the MCU. This isn’t something that affects the entire fandom, it’s just the kind of people I’ve had to experience in large numbers.

So, let’s sum up what exactly I hate about the DCEU:

1. Snyder’s piss-poor direction and influence

2. The decision to constantly ape Nolan’s style, despite the fact they don’t seem to get why people liked films like The Dark Knight

3. Rushing in to a cinematic universe with no buildup

4. Questionable casting choices, such as Eisenberg as Luthor and Amber Heard

5. The lack of levity in their first two movies to help offset the crushing darkness

6. The constant pushing of extended cuts better than the theatrical release; they need to just release the full cuts to theaters and stop fucking with director’s visions

7. Speaking of which, the disastrous mangling of Suicide Squad

8. The rabid uber-fans who have a superiority complex and are just childish shitheads

That about sums up the shit I hate about the DCEU. I don’t hate the actual DCEU itself, though I have to admit it’s hard to enjoy aside from Suicide Squad so far (would it have killed them to keep more Leto in and not have the fucking trailer company submit a cut they mashed with the director’s?). What I hate is a lot of artistic choices they’ve put into it, the direction it has gone, and how fucking awful some of the fans can get. I’m hyped as hell for Wonder Woman and cautiously optimistic about Justice League, and I cannot wait to see Affleck’s Batman film and Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam. I just really want the filmmakers to take the criticisms of their works to heart and help make the DCEU a worthy rival for the MCU instead of looking like a cheap bandwagoner like it does now.

We can only hope.