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weneverlearn · 9 months ago

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Aaron Lange, Peter Laughner, and the Terminal Town of Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland-based artist, Aaron Lange, tackles his first graphic novel, Ain't It Fun -- a deep dive into the oily depths of the Rust Belt's most influential music town, it's most mythological misfit, it's oft-forgotten artistic and political streaks, and beyond...

Aaron Lange and his book, 2023 (Photo by Jake Kelly)

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There’s a recurring line in Aaron Lange’s remarkable new graphic novel, Ain’t It Fun (Stone Church Press, 2023), that states, “Say the words out loud. The River isn’t real.” The river Lange was speaking of is the Cuyahoga, that infamously flammable mass of muck that dumps out into Lake Erie.

Peter Laughner (the ostensible topic of Lange’s book) was an amazing artist who probably could’ve ditched the banks of the Cuyahoga for more amenably artistic areas back in his early 1970s heyday. Aside from his frequent pilgrimages to the burgeoning NYC Lower East Side scene (where he nearly joined Television) and a quickly ditched attempt to live in California though, he mostly stuck around northeast Ohio.

While desperately trying to find his sound and a workable band, Laughner smelted a post-hippie, pre-punk amoebic folk rock, and formed the influential embryonic punk band, Rocket from the Tombs, which later morphed into Pere Ubu. All of which – lumped up with other rust-belted oddballs like electric eels, Mirrors, DEVO, the Numbers Band, Chi-Pig, Tin Huey, Rubber City Rebels, and more – essentially helped formed the “proto-punk” template.

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Laughner was also a rock writer of some regional renown, and contributed numerous amphetamine-fueled articles to regional mags like The Scene and Creem -- mostly concerning where Rock'n'Roll was going, colored as he was by the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, David Bowie, and Roxy Music playing in Cleveland a bunch of times around his formative years.

Sadly, in June 1977, Laughner died of acute pancreatitis at age 24. Aside from the first two seminal Pere Ubu 7-inch singles, the rest of Laughner’s recorded output was just one very limited self-released EP and, posthumously, a great double-LP comp of demo and live tracks, Take the Guitar Player for a Ride (1993, Tim Kerr Records). A surprisingly large batch of unreleased lost demos, radio shows, and live tapes appeared on the beautiful and essential box set, Peter Laughner (Smog Veil Records, 2019), that brought Laughner’s legend just a few blocks outside of Fringeville, as it received universally great reviews….

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The Dead Boys became the most well-known act of that mid-70s Cleveland scene, though that only happened once they high-tailed it to NYC. Aside from DEVO, Chrissie Hynde, and the Waitresses (all of whom did their own versions of high-tailing it), nearly every other act in that fertile Cle-Akron proto-punk vortex soon dissipated, eventually getting the cult treatment at best.

Cleveland is indeed right there with NYC and London as punk ground zero, but Americans tend to equate buyable products as proof of import, so shockingly, the Pagans and The Styrenes just aren’t the household name they should be.

Decades of tape-trading stories, sub-indie label limited releases, and fanzine debates kept the mythology of those acts barely breathing underneath the end of the milennium’s increasingly loud R'n'R death knell. And as that mythology slowly grew, the fans and even the musicians of the scene itself still wonder what it all meant.

Which, as you dig deeper into Ain’t It Fun, becomes the theme not just about the legendary rocker ghost of Peter Laughner, but of Cleveland itself. Ala Greil Marcus’ classic “hidden history” tome, Lipstick Traces, Lange interweaves Laughner’s self-immolating attempts at Beatnik-art-punk transcendence with a very detailed history of Cleveland, with its insane anti-legends and foot-shooting civic development.

Like much of the dank, rusted, and mysterious edges of the one-time “Sixth City,” the Cuyahoga has been cleaned up since, though I still wouldn’t suggest slurping up a swallow if you’re hanging on the banks of the Flats. I grew up in Cleveland and visit as often as I can because it’s an awesome place, no matter what they tell you. Or maybe, because of what they tell you.

If you are keen to swim down through the muck and mire of Cleveland’s charms, you don’t just get used to it, you like it. As for the “Cleveland” that the City Fathers have always tried so vainly to hype, us hopelessly romantic proto-punk fanatics say to those who would erase Cleveland’s fucked-up past and replace it with that weird fake greenspace underneath the Terminal Tower: “The City isn’t real.”

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Give us a quick bio.

Born in Cleveland, 1981. We moved to the west side suburbs when I was six. My parents didn’t listen to much music, and I don’t have older siblings. So I didn’t really listen to music at all until I was in high school, and I didn’t listen to any of the grunge or ‘90s stuff that was popular. I got real into the Beatles when I was in ninth grade, and at some point I got the Velvet Underground’s first album from the library because I saw Andy Warhol’s name on the cover. I didn’t know anything about them, so that was a real shock. I probably first heard Iggy Pop via the Trainspotting soundtrack, and pretty soon after I started getting into punk and generally more obscure stuff. Now I listen to more electronic stuff, ambient stuff. I also like most anything that falls under the broad “post-punk” umbrella. I really hate “rama-lama ding-dong” rock and roll.

What came first – music or drawing interest?

Drawing. I was always drawing… I’ve been a semi-regular contributor to Mineshaft for many years, which is a small zine/journal that features a lot of underground comix related stuff, but also has a beatnik vibe and includes poetry and writing. I’ve done the odd thing here and there for other zines, but I don’t really fit in anywhere.

Don’t really fit it – I feel that phrase describes a lot of the best / more influential Ohio musicians / bands. Did you feel that kind of feeling about Peter as you researched and wrote the book?

Peter was well liked, and he knew a vast array of people. If anything, he fit in in too many situations. He was spread thin.

When you lived in Philly, did you get a sense of any kind of similar proto-punk scene / era in that town? I sometimes, perhaps jingoistically, think this particular kind of music is almost exclusively confined to the Rust Belt.

I lived in Philly for nearly 11 years. As far as the old scene there, they had Pure Hell. But back then, anybody who really wanted to do something like that would just move to NYC.

So, is there a moment in time that started you on a path towards wanting to dig into Cleveland’s proto-punk past like this?

It was just something I had a vague interest in, going back to when I first heard Pere Ubu. And then later learning about the electric eels, and starting to get a feeling that Cleveland had a lot more to offer than just the Dead Boys. The Rocket from the Tombs reunion got things going, and that’s when I first started to hear Laughner’s name. A few years later, a friend sent me a burned CD of the Take the Guitar Player for a Ride collection, and I started to get more interested in Peter specifically.

Despite any first wave punk fan’s excitement about a Laughner bio, this book is moreso a history of Cleveland, and trying to connect those odd underground, counterculture, or mythological connections that the Chamber of Commerce tends to ignor as the town’s import. Was there a moment where you realized this book needed to go a little wider than only telling the tales of Laughner and the bands of that era? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Very early on I realized that none of this would make sense or have any true meaning without the appropriate context. The activities of the early Cle punk scene need to be viewed in relation to what was going on in the city. I think this is just as true with NYC or London – these were very specific contexts, all tangled up in politics, crime, rent, television, and also the specifics of the more hippie-ish local countercultures that preceded each region. You’ve got Bowie and Warhol and all that, but in Cleveland you’ve also got Ghoulardi and d.a. levy. Mix that up with deindustrialization and a picture starts to form.

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So when did you decide on doing this book? You’ve mentioned this was your first attempt at doing a full graphic novel – and boy, you went epic on it!

I did a short version of Peter’s story back when I was living in Philadelphia. But upon completing that version – which I now think of as a sketch – it became clear that there was a lot more to say and to investigate. I spent about a year just thinking about it, forming contacts with some people, and tracking down various reference materials like records, zines, books, etc. Then my wife got a new job at Cleveland State University, so we left Philly. Once I landed back in Cleveland I started working on the book in earnest.

Page from Ain't It Fun -- all book images courtesy of the author.

By any chance was Greil Marcus’ book, Lipstick Traces (1989), an inspiration, as far as the “hidden history” factor, the trying to connect seemingly unconnected and lost historical footnotes into a path towards the culture’s future?

Yes. I read Lipstick Traces when I was around 19 or 20, and I’d never seen anything like it before. It really blew my mind, all the stuff about the Situationists and Dadaists and all that. Later on, I read Nick Tosches’ Dean Martin biography, Dino, and that was another mind blower. Another major influence is Iain Sinclair.

Ah Dino, another Ohio native. So, Laughner’s one-time partner, Charlotte Pressler’s book is mentioned, and I’ve seen it referenced and talked about for years – any inside word on if/when she might have that published?

Charlotte never wrote a book, though she did co-edit a book that collected the work of local poets. As far as her own writing, she’s done all manner of essays and poetry, and probably some academic writing that I’m not familiar with. As far as her completing “Those Were Different Times”— which was intended as a total of three essays— I’ve got some thoughts on that, but it’s not really my place to comment on it.

Pressler sounds like a very serious person in your book, as you say, she was kind of older than her years. But how was she to talk to?

Charlotte is serious, but she’s not dour. She’s got a sense of humor and she’s very curious about the world, always looking to learn new things. She’s an intellectual, and has a wide array of interests. We get along, we’re friends.

The fact that the town’s namesake, Moses Cleveland, left soon after his “discovery” and never came back – that’s like a template for how people envision a town like Cleveland: nice place to grow up, but you want to get out as soon as you’re legal. Even the musicians of the area might’ve agreed with that sentiment, even if many never left. Do you think that has changed?

I’m glad I left Cleveland, but I’m also glad I came back. First off, my family is here. Second, the cost of living is still reasonable. I don’t know how people live in New York. I never have any money. I’d make more money if I had a full-time job at McDonald’s. That’s not a joke, or me being self-deprecating. How do artists live in New York? How do they afford rent and 20 dollar packs of cigarettes? I’m just totally confused by the basic mechanics of this. So yeah, I’m in Cleveland. It’s not great, but what are my options? I can’t just go to Paris and fuck around like a bohemian. I would if I could.

In Ain't It Fun, you reveal that one of the seminal Cleveland scene dives, Pirate's Cove, was once a Rockerfeller warehouse – these kind of enlightening, almost comically perfect metaphors pop up every few pages. Not unlike the mythology that can sometimes arise in musician fandom, I wonder if these are metaphors we can mine, or just an obvious facts that the town drifted down from a center of industry to relative poverty.

“Metaphor” might be at too much of a remove. These facts, these landmarks — they create a complex of semiotics, a map, a framework. The city talks through its symbols and its landscape. If you submit to it and listen, it will tell you secrets. There is nothing metaphorical about this.

Is it a sign of privilege to look on destitution as inspiration? I’m guessing the sick drunks at Pirate’s Cove in 1975 weren’t thinking they were living in a rusty Paris of the ‘30s. Though I will say a thing I really loved about your book was that, for all its yearning and historical weaving, you still stick to facts and don’t seem to over-mythologize or put any gauze on the smog, like “Isn’t that so cool, man.” You capture the quiet and damp desperation of that era and Laughner’s milieu.

Poverty, decline, decay, entropy – these things are real. By aestheticizing them we are able to gain some control over them. And once you have control, you have the power to change things. This is not “slumming.” “Privilege” has nothing to do with it.

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Do you know why the Terminal Tower (once the second tallest building in the world when it opened in 1928) was named that? It seems somewhat fatalistic, given the usual futurist positivism of the deco design era.

Terminal as in train terminal. It really pisses me off that there was once a time where you could go there and catch a train to Chicago or New York. It’s infuriating how this country dismantled its rail systems. And the Terminal Tower isn’t deco, but I think it is often confused with that style just by virtue of not being a gigantic rectangle. In that sense it does have more in common with a deco structure like the Chrysler building. Honestly, if you are looking for deco you might find more notable examples in Akron than you would Cleveland.

I notice a kind of – and bear with my lesser abilities to describe illustrative art – swirly style in your work that kind of aligns with art deco curves, maybe some Gustav Klimt…? In general, who were some illustrative inspirations for you early on?

That “swirly” style you describe is art nouveau. Deco came after that, and is more angular and clean. Additionally, a lot of underground comix guys were also poster artists, and there was often a nouveau influence in that psychedelic work – so there’s a bit of a thread there. As far as Klimt, I came to him kinda late, but I love him now.

The music of many northeast Ohio bands of that era has been generally tagged as “industrial” (the pre-dance industrial style, of course), cranky like the machinery of the sputtering factories in the Flats, etc… My guess is maybe the musicians were already finding used R'n'R instruments in thrift stores by that time, which would add a kind of layer of revision, turning old things into new sounds. Did you hear about of any of that? Or were there enough music stores around town? I know DEVO was already taking used instruments and refitting them; or electric eels using sheet metal and such to bang on…

I’m not a musician, so I don’t know anything about gear or stuff like that. I do know that Allen Ravenstine made field recordings in the Flats, and utilized them via his synthesizer. Frankly, I wish more of the Northeast Ohio bands had taken cues from Ubu and early Devo, because an “industrial” subculture definitely could have formed, like it did in England and San Francisco. But that never really happened here.

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That kind of music was pretty popular on college radio and in a few clubs in Cleveland, though not many original bands with that sound arrived, aside from Nine Inch Nails who quickly took his act elsewhere… So in the book you mention local newsman, Dick Fealger. My memories of him are as a curmudgeon whose shtick was getting a little old by the time I was seeing him on the news, or his later opinion columns. Kinda your classic “Hey you kids, get off my lawn” style. You rightly paint him as a somewhat prescient reporter of the odd in his earlier days, though. I once had to go to a friend’s mother’s funeral, and in the next room in the funeral home was Dick Feagler’s funeral. I always regret not sneaking over and taking a peak into it to see who was there.

I like Feagler in the same way that I liked Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. These were people that my grandparents liked. So I suppose my appreciation for Feagler is half nostalgia, half irony. I like cranks, grumps, letter-writers, street prophets. I like black coffee, donuts, diners, and blue plate specials – that’s Feagler’s world, the old newspaper world. Get up at 6 am and put your pants on, that kinda thing.

Yeah, I still found Feagler kinda funny, but like Jane Scott, while respect was always there, by the later ‘80s/’90s, both were set into almost caricatures who were kind of resting on their laurels.

Yeah, I remember seeing Jane at some random Grog Shop show back in the ‘90s, and I was kinda impressed. But no, she was never really cool. Jane was pure Cleveland, her career couldn't have happened anywhere else.

I remember seeing her sit right next to a huge house amp at the old Variety Theater for the entire duration of a Dead Kennedys show, taking notes for her review. Pretty impressive given her age at that point.

You also make a point of carving out an important space for The Damnation of Adam Blessing, a band that seems to get forgotten when discussing Cleveland’s pre-punk band gaggle. I find that interesting because in a way, they are the template for the way many Ohio bands don’t fit into any exact genre, and so often people don’t “get” them, or they’re forgotten later.

Damnation worked as a good local example for that whole psychedelic thing. They were very ‘60s. While the James Gang on the other hand, was more ‘70s— the cracks were starting to show with the ‘70s bands, they were harder and less utopian. Damnation feels more “Woodstock,” so they were useful to me in that regard.

I must add – for years I thought it was pronounced Laugh-ner, as in to laugh, ha ha, not knowing the Gaelic roots. Once I learned I was pronouncing it wrong, I still wanted to pronounce it like laughing, as it seemed to fit so darkly correct with how his life went, and Cleveland musicians’ love of bad puns and cheap comedians and such… Of course when I learned that it was an “ethnic” name, it made it that much more Cleveland.

Yeah, everybody says his name wrong. I used to too, and had to really force myself to start saying it as Lochner. But everybody says Pere Ubu wrong as well – it’s Pear Ubu.

I hate any desecration of any artwork, but I always loved the blowing up The Thinker statue story, as it seemed such a powerful metaphor of the strength of art, and Cleveland itself – the fact that The Thinker himself still sits there, right on top of the sliced-up and sweeping shards from the blast. It’s still there, right? And isn’t it true that there are like three more “official” Thinker statues in the world?

Yeah, I don’t condone what happened, but it is kinda cool. As a kid, the mutilated Thinker had a strong effect on me — I couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but I think it gave me a sense of the weight of history. It’s almost like a post-war artifact in Europe, something that is scarred. And yes, it’s still there outside the museum. And it’s a cast. I think there might be five official ones, but I’d have to look that up. If you are ever in Philadelphia, swing by the Rodin museum and check out The Gates of Hell.

I have only become a bigger fan of Laughner’s as the years pass. But there is something to the critique that perhaps he never really found his singular sound; that he was copping bits from Lou Reed and Dylan, and couldn’t keep a band together to save his life. And there was supposedly a feeling among some in the NYC scene that he was a bit of a carpetbagger.

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Everybody has their influences, so Peter wasn’t in any way unique in that sense. I know he has a reputation for doing a lot of cover songs — which is true — but he also wrote a lot of originals, and there are some damn good ones which are still unreleased. “Under the Volcano” is just one such unheard song which I mention in my book, but there are others. As far as finding his own singular sound, he probably came closest to that with Friction. That group borrowed heavily from Television and Richard Hell, but also drew upon Richard Thompson and Fairport Convention. And when you think about it, those were really unlikely influences to juxtapose, and it created something original. Frustratingly though, Friction never achieved their full potential, as Peter was already losing it.

Yeah, Friction is kind of way up there with the “What if” bands… It’s interesting that for all his legend as a proto-punk figure, perhaps Laughner’s signature songs – Sylvia Plath” and “Baudelaire” – were gorgeous acoustic numbers. Though of course those early Pere Ubu songs were proto-punk and post-punk templates, somehow...

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I honestly don’t know what happened with Ubu, as it is pretty distinct from Peter’s other work. Thomas isn’t really a musician, so we can only give him so much credit with how that sound developed. I honestly don’t know. There just must have been some sort of alchemy between the various players, and Thomas understood it and was able to encourage and guide it in the projects that followed over the years.

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You also didn’t really detail Pere Ubu’s initial breakup – was there just not much to say?

Yeah, I think I mentioned it, but no, I didn’t really get into it. Pere Ubu is kind of a story unto themselves. But it might be worth mentioning here that Home and Garden was an interesting project that came out of that Ubu breakup. And Thomas also did some solo albums, but I’m not as familiar with those.

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Yeah, I saw Home and Garden a few times way back, good stuff. You’ve mentioned to me that there were some people that didn’t want to talk to you for the book; and that people were very protective of Peter’s legacy and/or their friendship with him. To what do you attribute that?

It has everything to do with Peter’s early death. Some people are very protective of how Peter is remembered. And I think some people weren’t exposed to Peter’s dark side, so when they hear those descriptions of him it strikes them as untrue. I think Peter showed different sides of himself to different people.

I kind of felt as I was reading that you might say more about Harvey Pekar, as not only is he an interesting figure, but the most famous graphic novelist from Ohio, and I assume an inspiration of your’s.

Pekar’s great. Especially the magazine-size issues he was doing in the late ‘70s up through the ‘80s. It was important to me to include him in the book. But Pekar was a jazz guy, and that’s a whole other story, a whole other tangled web.

So, Balloonfest! Hilarious. I almost forgot about that. But I do remember Ted Stepien owning the short-lived Cleveland professional softball team; and for a promotion, they dropped softballs off the Terminal Tower, and if you caught one you won $1,000 or something. Do you recall that? It’s one of my favorite fucked-up Cleveland stories. Balls smashed car roofs, and cops immediately told people to run away.

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Yeah, I’m aware of that baseball stunt. I generally try and stay away from anything even remotely related to professional sports teams — it gets talked about more than enough elsewhere. Oddly, I am interested in athletes who work alone, like Olympic skiers. I’m attracted to that solitary focus, where the athlete isn’t competing against other teams or players, but more competing with the limits of the human body, competing with what the physical world will allow and permit, that whole Herzog trip. I’m also interested in the Olympic Village, as this artificial space that mutates and moves across time and across continents.

As far as Balloonfest, I still watch that footage all the time. I use it as a meditation device. I’ll put it on along with Metal Machine Music and go into a trance.

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A few years ago, as I am sure you are well aware, noted British punk historian Jon Savage put together a Soul Jazz Records comp of Cleveland proto-punk called Extermination Nights in the Sixth City. I grew up in Cleveland, lived in Columbus for awhile, and I never heard it called “the Sixth City.” Have you? If so, what does it refer to?

Nobody calls it that anymore. It’s an old nickname back from when Cleveland was literally the sixth largest city in the country.

I’d guess Ain’t It Fun was a tiring feat to accomplish. But do you have another book in the works? And if someone wanted to option Peter’s story for a movie, would you sign on? I personally dread rock biopics. They’re almost universally bad.

Yeah, I’ve got an idea for another book, but it’s too early to talk about that. As far as biopics, they are almost always bad, rock or otherwise. Rock documentaries are often pretty lousy too. A recent and major exception would be Todd Haynes’ Velvet Underground documentary, which is just goddamn brilliant. A film about Peter in that vein would be great— but there’s just no footage to work from. He didn’t have Warhol or Factory people following him around with a camera. So unless somebody like Jim Jarmusch comes calling, I won’t be signing off on movie rights any time soon.

Unless there is more you’d like to say, thanks, and good luck with the book and future ventures!

Stone Church Press has a lot of projects planned for 2024 and beyond, and I encourage anyone reading this to support small publishers. There is a lot of very exciting stuff going on, but you have to work a little to find it. Amazon, algorithms, big corporate publishers — they’re like this endless blanket of concrete that smothers and suffocates. But flowers have a way of popping up between the cracks.

Aaron Lange, 2023 (Photo by Jake Kelly)

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cpw-nyc · 1 year ago

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Election at 20: assessing the high school satire's brutal politics

Charles Bramesco Tue 23 Apr 2019

There’s a big M Night Shyamalan twist in the final minutes of Election, Alexander Payne’s searing 1999 high school satire. Tracy Flick, the irritating overachiever indelibly played by a breakout Reese Witherspoon, is a Republican.

Throughout the film, Payne prefers to think about politics in the abstract, as an illusory choice between interchangeable versions of the same bullshit. Odious civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) explains democracy as having the option to select either an apple or an orange, represented with two identical circles on his chalkboard. The closest thing that this comedy of bad morals has to a hero is Tammy Metzler (Jessica Campbell), who galvanizes the student body with a promise to dissolve the school government in toto if elected class president.

Payne narrows his blanket contempt for the two-party system in only one moment, just short of the credits. After McAllister has torpedoed his professional and romantic lives by sabotaging Tracy’s campaign for office at Carver high, after the scandal’s dust has died down, he engineers a second act for himself in New York City as a museum guide. He encounters Tracy years later in Washington DC, where he glimpses her getting into a limo as a staffer to the fictitious Representative Mike Geiger, identified as a Nebraska Republican. A minor detail, perhaps, but for a character as invested in the trajectory of her own future as Tracy, it’s a significant one. Payne doesn’t like picking sides, he’d rather withdraw in disgust, so it stands out that he picks one for her.

In her school days, Tracy Flick is “political” in the same holistic, imprecise sense that Burning Man attendees can be “spiritual” without subscribing to any formal religion. She’s invigorated by the nuts and bolts of the voting process, and as is the case with all of her numerous extracurriculars, she throws her entire self into running for class president. But the dirty secret about résumé-padders like Tracy is that their only real commitment is to the act of staying involved. It’s not like dictating lunch block policy requires a nuanced platform, and still her stump speech goes heavy on upbeat vagaries over substance. She imitates the habits of studied politicians, hitting her cadences and singling out her working-class constituents to score pathos points.

Which makes it all the more curious that posterity has cast Tracy Flick as an avatar for liberalism. At the time of the original release in 1999, audiences already knew to read Tracy as a stand-in for Hillary Clinton; Witherspoon herself has reinforced the comparison, claiming just last year that she would never portray Clinton in a movie because she already had. Clinton herself has told the star that even 20 years out, people still ask her about Election all the time. These details were foregrounded in essays around the 2016 lead-up to the Presidential vote, pieces with titles like The Very Uncomfortable Experience of Rewatching Election in 2016 and Hillary Clinton, Tracy Flick, and the Reclaiming of Female Ambition.

These articles identified Tracy Flick as a vessel for a determination and self-sufficiency that frightens men when not actively offending them, a reading more than borne out by the film’s active interest in exposing the ugliest, pettiest sides of the adults undermining and taking advantage of her. (She’s introduced mid-affair with a lecherous married teacher; later, McAllister fetishizes her severity during sex with his own wife.) Tracy’s been wronged, the argument goes, devolving into a cudgel that male commentators can use to trivialize preparedness and perfectionism in distaff candidates. Tracy’s only sin, by the ethical calculus of this reappraisal? “She cares, about her own interests and those of everybody else, so insistently, and so aggressively – indeed, so ambitiously – as to blur the line between the two.”

That’s a generous assessment of a character who thinks to herself: “Now that I have more life experience, I feel sorry for Mr McAllister. I mean, anyone who’s stuck in the same little room, wearing the same stupid clothes, saying the exact same things year after year for all of his life, while his students go on to good colleges and move to big cities and do great things and make loads of money – he’s gotta be at least a little jealous. It’s like my mom says, the weak are always trying to sabotage the strong.” She’s smug and annoying and surprisingly entitled for someone resentful of the upper class, and yet she has the upper hand by not being a serially dishonest pedophile. Tracy doesn’t have to be good for the men around her to be worse.

That’s the disillusioned soul of the film, entrenching it within the cynicism of the 90s and estranging it from the hopeful revisionism of modern discourse. Election hones itself into a war of attrition between an actively terrible person and one who is just obnoxious enough to keep an audience at arm’s length. A foil for Tracy arrived in the form of Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope, another irrepressible go-getter with an eye for climbing the governmental ladder. Except that her always-on energy and tireless devotion to work earned her lots of friends as it boosted her up the chain of command, a fittingly optimistic rework for the hope-fueled Obama administration and Clinton candidacy. What makes Election special, and thoroughly alien to entertainment in 2019, is its refusal to give Tracy any leeway. If she’s going to gain the political foothold she so desperately craves, she will have to shack up with the neocons to do so. Bleak, sure, but at least Payne’s honest.

Office Space at 20: how the comedy spoke to an anxious workplace

#Election #Tracy Flick #cinema

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cleanwaterchronicles · 2 years ago

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Road salt, a stealthy pollutant, is damaging Michigan waters

In a dim hangar outside of Traverse City, towering piles of white crystals cast a glow in the twilight.

Salts like those stored at the Grand Traverse County Road Commission maintenance facility keep Michigan roads, parking lots, and sidewalks clear of ice in the winter, a prudent safety measure for motorists and pedestrians. The mobility benefits of salt for a car-centric society, though, have an undesirable environmental side effect that has built up over decades of use: extensive damage to ecosystems and infrastructure.

Chloride -- the catch-all term for salts -- does not discriminate. It hurts mayflies and freshwater mussels, taking out species at the base of the freshwater food chain. It acts as a chemical instigator, loosening metals and nutrients that are otherwise bound in sediment and freeing them to flow downstream, thus feeding toxic algae in troubled places like Lake Erie. As with sun on skin, excess salt accelerates infrastructure aging. The metals and concrete in bridges, roads, and cars deteriorate faster when exposed to salts.

The state issued its first water quality standards for chloride in 2019. Not written with infrastructure in mind, the standards are intended to protect fish, insects, and other freshwater species. But the state has not yet translated those standards into a plan for limiting chloride in the eight stream sections that already exceed the limit.

Developing those pollution diets takes years. In the interim, state regulators this year are directly asking municipalities with storm sewer systems to outline steps for controlling salt runoff from roads. Roads, however, are only part of the problem. Salt applied to parking lots and sidewalks also enters streams and groundwater. But regulators say that municipalities do not have the staff or budgets to oversee salt application on private property. In part, this is a consequence of state court rulings that have deterred cities from creating agencies to manage pollutants that are flushed from paved surfaces.

The best way to deal with salt pollution is to bar it entry -- not to allow it in the water in the first place. By and large, that outcome will rely on the widespread and voluntary adoption of salt-reducing practices by road agencies, shopping mall owners, apartment complex managers, and homeowners. Reducing salt use also hinges on societal shifts: public acceptance in urban areas of slower winter driving speeds and less driving in hazardous weather.

“You can think of chloride as a permanent pollutant in the water,” said Christe Alwin of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. “Once it’s there, there’s very little opportunity to treat it.”

(Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue)

Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the landmark federal law that intended to give new life to waterways that were fouled by all manner of chemical and bacterial pollutants. The goal was to make rivers and lakes fishable and swimmable once again. The law, part of a package of national environmental reforms in the early 1970s, was transformative. By mandating pollution controls on wastewater treatment plants and industrial facilities, it marked a new era of environmental stewardship -- an era in which rivers and lakes were viewed not as dumping grounds but as civic assets that fostered recreation, ecological rebirth, and economic development.

Despite undeniable progress, substantial impediments to clean water remain. The law did little to stanch the flow of dispersed pollution that comes from roads, lawns, and farms. More waters today are fishable and swimmable, particularly in major metropolitan regions. But many, especially streams and rivers that drain agricultural regions, still are not. The consequences are measured in toxic algal bloom dead zones, human sickness, and the rising cost of water treatment.

Urban Areas on a High-Sodium Diet

A little salt can cause a lot of harm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends water quality standards for rivers and lakes to prevent death and damage to fish, mussels, insects, and other aquatic species. For chloride, the EPA determined the threshold at which long-term damage could occur to be 230 milligrams per liter. That equals about one teaspoon of salt in five gallons of water.

Michigan has been slow to react to the salinization of its fresh water. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy finalized water quality values for chloride only in 2019, three decades after the federal EPA published guidelines. Based on the numbers, EGLE determined last year that eight stream sections exceed the state threshold for chronic exposure, which is 150 milligrams per liter.

Those streams -- largely in the urban areas of southeast Michigan -- include the Shiawassee River (Genesee County), Thread Creek (Genesee County), Sashabaw Creek (Oakland County), Bishop Creek and the Upper Rouge River (Rouge River watershed), Belle River (St. Clair County), Rush Creek (Ottawa County), and County Line Drain (Arenac/Iosco County), which also exceeded the sulfate standard.

The next step for those stream sections is a regulatory tool known as a total maximum daily load, or TMDL, which caps pollution discharges. However, there is no timeline yet for developing the pollution diet for those streams, according to Kevin Goodwin, an aquatic biology specialist at EGLE.

It’s no mystery where most of the salts are coming from. Water softeners and fertilizers are sources of chloride, but the major contributor, Goodwin and others said, are the salts spread on roads, parking lots, and sidewalks to keep the pavement free from ice.

Salinization of streams is a problem across the United States, where at least 20 million tons of salt were used in 2021 for highway deicing. The U.S. Geological Survey studied 19 streams in eight states and the District of Columbia, including five Great Lakes states. The researchers found that chloride levels related to road salt increased in 84 percent of sampled streams. Increases were especially notable in urban areas with a large percentage of paved surfaces.

Those findings have been replicated at the state and local level. EGLE found chloride hot spots that align with high concentrations of highways and housing developments. The Huron River, a 900-square-mile watershed in southeast Michigan that flows through Ann Arbor, is one such area. For the last two decades the Huron River Watershed Council has tested streams for pollutants. Volunteers and staff now regularly take water samples from about 40 or 50 sites in the watershed, according to Ric Lawson, a watershed planner.

“We see that we have much higher [chloride] levels in our urban drainages,” Lawson said.

Following up on its stream samples, the Huron River Watershed Council did additional investigation at sites with abnormally high chloride levels. Were those salts coming from a particular source? Were there, as Lawson put it, any “smoking guns?”

In short, the council didn’t find any -- no leakage from a salt storage facility, no obvious surface runoff. No smoking guns. “So it does appear it’s been broad-based, long-term application,” Lawson said, referring to the salt source. “And probably, the salts moving through groundwater are how it's getting to the surface waters.”

Broad-based is the classic definition of non-point pollution. It’s the type of threat that the Clean Water Act, which focused on pollution coming from a pipe, is not at all equipped to address. The law exempts most sources of such pollution from regulation and oversight. That’s why non-point pollution is a long-term problem. Curbing it requires, in the case of salt, a voluntary change in practices.

Less Bounce, Less Scatter

Michigan’s ground transportation network is a lattice of roughly 122,000 miles of roads. To maintain these surfaces, the state’s road agencies balance three competing objectives, said Gregg Brunner, director of the Bureau of Field Services for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). Mobility, cost, and environmental protection.

Salt -- the sodium chloride form, in fact -- is the cheapest, most effective deicing agent available, Brunner said. On that measure it beats out magnesium chloride and potassium chloride.

A non-chloride option -- calcium magnesium acetate -- is on the market. But it costs about 40 times more than sodium chloride, which is mined locally, from deposits beneath Lake Erie.

The primary objective for MDOT and other road maintenance agencies is to use less of it. In pursuit of that goal, they participated in a work group to help EGLE develop salt management guidelines. Published in 2021, the guidelines are a compilation of voluntary “best management practices” that road agencies should strive to implement. The County Road Association of Michigan, which represents the 83 county road agencies, published a similar guide based on a survey of its members.

Read the complete article here

Source: Bridge Michigan

#pollution #protectourwaterways #friends of the rouge #clintonriverwatershed #huronriverwatershed #salt #calciummagnesiumacetate #protectourplanet #flintriverwatercoalition #cleanwater #environmentaleducation #pollution prevention

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safyresky · 1 year ago

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don't mind me just going on a wee vent below the cut! enjoy this jacqueline instead of the vent!

(an oldie but a goodie, saved this as "something about being stabbed as good emotional trauma". ok i go vent now)

BUYING A CAR HAS BEEN AN EXPERIENCE?

I know I blog about him every so often but Fitzy is, for context, the very first car I ever drove and have been driving since getting my permit in 20 fucking 11. TWENTY ELEVEN! HOLY HELL! I low key picked him out lmao, my parents brought us kiddos to the dealership when we had to replace the civic as old as me bc it got TOTALLED on the HIGHWAY by a TRUCK REAR ENDING IT, and my mom pointed out the Fit and went ou this one's cute!

And I stood beside it and went holy shit. It's me sized. And I sat in it and went OH MY GOD I LOVE IT. And it was BLUE and had a SPOILER and a lil bug eyed face and looked like it had FEELINGS and I said to my dad "if we get this car I am driving it"

I was 11 or 12 lmao.

My dad was like "We'll see about that"

in my head I was like "it's 4 years! we'll still have the car!"

I guess my dad wanted to trade it in? He didn't, lol, and then I got to learn to drive in Fitzy! AND BOY DID I DRIVE HIM! My siblings did, too, so Fitzy's been a real champ in our lives! We all learnt to drive with him!

I didn't take the car fully from my Dad until about, 2019? I got the car for a year in 2016/17 and it was EXCELLENT, I LOVED having it, the ability to just GO PLACES?!?!?!? BEAUTY! I covered some oil changes and bigger fixes and Fitzy kept. On. GOING.

I named Fitzy in 2017 when I had him for the year, and it caught on then! And he was such a verbal lil car (mostly bc things broke a lot bc he was also 10 at that point and FILLED WITH RUST BEGINNINGS) and he pulled to the left always which was funny bc like, why. We never knew. Honda didn't know. Mechanics didn't know.

He has ALWAYS had a slightly loud muffler, but not obnoxiously. It was very FUN to accelerate on the highway with him.

In 2019 my Dad's work went remote; so I took the car back home with me and became the main driver. It was, in all but name, my car. I had to save him from being declared unsafe by fixing the shocks, but we had many many years after that! My GOD we drove all OVER. It was FUN! It's still fun! but not very safe anymore I'm afraid ):

My duderinos, I fucking LOVE that car. And it has been such a hard 365 days for him ):

About this time last year I learnt that the rust had progressed to the point where the rear passenger seat had a giant fucking hole under it. I was given the ok to still drive it, but the moment someone sits back there? DANGER MOBILE. So, I put the seat down and it became CONDEMNED. Given the wedding, Richard and I kept making trips up and down and we had a HELLA snowy winter so the roads? COVERED in salt. and if you live anywhere like Canada with brutal winters, you KNOW salt is a KILLER on cars.

So, Fitzy's rust got worse. Every time I went for oil changes, they'd remind me hey, rusty car. maybe think of a new one? Then we'd discuss how feasible this is and they'd make it driveable bc it wasn't in the cards to get a car--between shit markets, FITS NOT BEING MADE ANYMORE!!! AND Richard also having to replace his car (rip Goldie you are missed every god damn DAY), it was in our best interest to keep Fitzy going as best as we could.

So I DID

We MOTORED. I've done 120km ish on that car JUST ON ME OWNSOME! And it was FUN! I love that car SO FUCKING MUCH. I know like, it's just a car, blah blah, I GET IT but like. GOD. He's important to me!!!!

So this year rolls around. And Poor Ftizy. My god. He is going through it.

January: wheel well pops off and tire shreds the plastic. I call CAA, they bring it to Honda, Honda tells me to put the car down. Nothing has changed; they just saw the rust and are more SALES oriented as opposed to my mechanic!

February: alternator goes

March: muffler has lost an anchor point; won't stop rattling along. Rust on the bumper finally gets to the point where the bumper pops out of the side. Y'all. I duct tapped that boy. Fucken eh.

April: MUFFLER BREAKS INTO 3 PIECES. FITZY HAS GONE FROM STOCK CAR FUN TIME TO HOLY SHIT SOMEONE HELP THIS CAR. We're planning for the wedding so I cannot fix him, alas.

May: Fitzy is benched ): bc muffler ): Goldie picks up the slack; post honeymoon, mechanic finds some expensive fixes. Asks Richard if they're band-aiding or what? Richard makes the executive decision to leave it, arranges a new used car with his mechanic. RIP Goldie; enter Ruby.

Late May: Given Ruby joining the fam, I get Fitzy fixed. We can't replace both cars anytime soon so. Here we go!

The mechanic recommends a muffler specialist down the street; they fix Fitzy up REAL NICE. He drives like he used to! I was like, we will be SAILING THIS SUMMER! HELL YEAH

So what happened?

Upon Richard getting a new car, I was thinking more and more about Fitzy. And the anxious levels alllll year every time I went to drive waiting for the next shoe to drop (the next thing to break). I started doing research, to see what the best car to replace the Fit would be. I start pricing shit out, seeing if two car replacements in the same year is feasible. June rolls around.

June: I went to the mechanic.

Regular maintenance; they do what they can, and they see how the rust has progressed.

The answer: WORSE. Worse enough that new rust related problems have appeared, and they break down everything wrong with the body:

still got the flinstone hole

anchors for back seat belts are compromised due to corrosion levels back there

spare tire carrier is rotten

left AND right rockers are rotten

left front axle seal is leaking

essentially, if someone rear ends me? I'm crumbling WITH the car. The structural integrity of cars today is such that they crumble AROUND you, keeping YOU safe. Fitzy...didn't have that ability anymore.

So after a month long deep dive into used HRVs vs Fits, and what's around, and what I'd like, I book a test drive for an HRV, and...got it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So now Fitzy is finally being retired. After I've saved him from the brink of death about 2 times. It was BOUND to happen eventually--I just wish it hasn't been the SAME year as wedding and Richard's car replacement and EVERYTHING ELSE going on this year.

But my GOD, am I EVER relieved! I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for the new car and being able to DRIVE! WITHOUT WORRIES! Well, Fitzy worries lmao. The worries of collisions or things are there, but my god is it ever nice to be able to GO PLACES AGAIN WITHOUT FEARING FOR MY SAFETY! And Richard and I have had to coordinate drives and trips bc one car use only for the most part and it was getting hard!

BUT GOD IS BUYING A CAR EVER EMOTIONAL

On top of me pack bonding with my Fit, this weekend was a WHIRLWIND:

test driving the car was fucking NICE

the sales staff was gr8 and didn't rush us or force us to buy. answered all my fit and hrv related questions; all of richard's more financial/warranty sort of q's.

They tell us to take lunch to go talk it over, and we do

we have a 2 hour discussion over omelettes at a ma and pa diner about if we should do this, given what we learnt about the market while there and our own needs

this included: can we function with one car? do we feel financially secure enough for this? Will leasing/fianncing (which is what we did) break the bank? y'know, all that fun adulty shit

ultimately, you can't put a price on A) safety, and B) mental health! and not having a car that works has SUCKED for my own, bc a huge portion of my independence has been GONE, and it has SUCKED

so, Harley, Fitzy's replacement, has been acquiered.

HERE'S THE EMOTIONS PART THO.

SATURDAY:

upon making this decision amongst ourselves, we inform the parental units! my fam: relieved as FUCK. Proud and happy for me. Figuring out what to do with Fitzy now (that's a whole thing)

Mother in Law? not so much

IMMEDIATELY gives Richard the MEANEST lecture on everything he and I discussed over lunch and the past month, berates and guitls and just ruins the vibe

RICHARD gets all upset about it, we spend the drive back home venting about it, mood very ruined, doubts seeded (despite us doing our research and making sure we weren't getting fucked and such)

we get home and he THEN has to call her back and let her yell MORE before she goes "I'm calm and just concerned" and he explains what we did and how it's working and all that jazz and how we are going to be ok

this whole experience was exhausting

SUNDAY

sleep tf in bc we are TIRED

my parents call to chat about Fitzy and tl;dr: they have steel dealers there that'll pay a lot for Fitzy and want to bring him back and scrap him there

this was a whole thing. "can you drive it up?" i could but do NOT feel comfy given the issues cited at the mechanic. "what if we drove it?" same issues! your safety is important to me! "we can tow it" that'll be pricey "we can tow it ourselves!" can the van do that? and so on

turns out they were doing that bc they remembered the van they had, which had the EXACT SAME ISSUES AS FITZY (rust was killing it, then the muffler broke and they fixed it, then the power steering needed replacement but was in such a rusty area it could result in MORE damage they'd have to pay to fix, not the mechanic), and they got 0 money for it. So. My Mom was determined to find a place that'd give us a decent amount for Fitzy

And also, she and my dad are grieving the car too lmao, one of the places was called car heaven and my mom had. emotions about it

so that was a LOT to deal with, on top of MIL's finance lecture we did not need bc YEAH GIRL WE BE KNOW? Yeah

"blah blah PARENTS CARE" THEN THEY COULD AT LEAST BE NICE ABOUT IT. OR STRAIGHTFORWARD ABOUT IT

but we get that wrapped up and my parents find a way to tow the car home safely for all of us, promise to make sure the van is safe enough to do that :)

MONDAY

so after ALL THAT exhausting shit, comes the Big Day: INSURANCE DAY

Richard and I get quotes online when we can at work, to come home and call and settle on the best rates

on lunch, I get YET ANOTHER FINANCE LECTURE from my friend in STATS and it felt AWFUL.

"i dont wanna be like ur MIL," she said, AFTER KNOWING WHAT HAPPENED THERE!

it SUCKED. didn't help that she was tired bc she had a bad night sleep, but man did it make me upset and sad! I KNOW the interest is a LOT but WE ARE NOT FLUSH WITH CASH AND DO NOT HAVE GOOD CREDIT AND HAVE BEEN SPENDING WAY TOO MUCH ON CAR REPAIRS. Everything I've paid into Fitzy this year alone? COULD COVER THE NEW INSURANCE POLICY FOR THE Y E A R

i dislike being talked down too and i dislike people talking to me like i'm stupid bc I feel like a lot of people take my bubbly-ness and like. general friendly-ness as a clue that I've got NOTHING going on up there and I can be taken advantage of

AND SURE MAYBE I'M NOT THE GREATEST WITH NUMBERS OR BUSINESS TALK, BUT I'M NOT FUCKING STUPID AND I FEEL LIKE ALL MY FRIENDS WHO ARE OLDER THAN ME ARE LIKE "haha. you are baby" THE FUCK I AM! I HAVE INSURANCE NOW

not that I didn't before. but now I have me OWN policy

AND THAT WAS ACTUALLY SO PAINLESS? SHOPPING AROUND INCLUDED?

so YEAH.

It's been a very emotional few days between lecture after lecture and trying to make these decisions with a lot of people undermining you and today before coming up to the laptop after we got insurance worked out, Richard turned to me and said "your spirit seems so much lighter now" and it IS! I CAN DRIVE WITHOUT NEEDING TO DO A NERVOUS SHIT AT EVERY ON ROUTE AGAIN! I DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THE NEXT NEW WEIRD NOISE! HARLEY (that's Fitzy's successor's name) DOESN'T DO THAT SHIT! I HAVE A WORKING CAR AND THE MONEY WE WILL SAVE FROM BAND-AIDING OUR BEATERS WILL BE A NICE CHANGE OF PACE! AND I AM TIRED OF PEOPLE TALKING DOWN TO ME AND TREATING ME LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! GAH!

Soooo YEAH. If you've made it this far, that's what I've been doing the last 3 days. CAR STUFF.

Fitzy, you were an absolute G, and I love you so goddamn much, you will always be the BEST CAR I have EVER had, and you will ALWAYS BE in my HEART and I will remember you FONDLY! He's got a space in CS now--he always has but it's even more cemented now (Jacqueline drives Fitzy. And he is. In his PRIME in CS, and I think that's the best thing I could do to remember my lil blue anger machine for forever) and I am going to miss that car so much but THANK YOU, FITZHERBERT. HE GOD DAMN FIT!

(THAT CAR PHOTOGRAPHED GOOD IN THE GOD DAMN SNOW! And dw dw Pate will have a new home in Harley! RIGHT ON THE DASH. Or on the rear view, tho I may go full old portuguese lady and put a rosary on there (we got a very pretty one from a family friend for the wedding and I uh. I'm kinda vibing it)

#dani speaks #personal #fitzy #and cs FACTS so you all now know what car Jacqueline drives #FITZY WILL LIVE FOREVER THERE BC JACQUELINE FUCKING RUST PROOFS #IF MY DAD HAD RUST PROOFED FITZY !!! I'D STILL BE DRIVING THAT CAR SAFELY!#anyway thanks for reading if u did lmao. the car stuff has been A LOT #and i appreciate the vent space tumblr offers and the people who read and give that lil like or reply for serotonin lol #and yes. the vanity plate is what u think it is #it's my dad's so it will be retired given that harley is registered to ME (and richard)#and fitzy was registered to my dad!#out of context jacquelines #dani doodles #those are so i can find the doodles later lmao

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daggerzine · 2 years ago

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Blues Lawyer- All In Good Time (Dark Entries)

I first heard this Bay Area quartet on their debut from a few years ago that the Emotional Response label released. I liked it, but had a hard time putting my finger exactly on what it is they were doing (plus the name put me off a bit).

I missed their 2019 sophomore effort, Something Different, but vowed to try and tackle their new LP, which I did....and it is very good.

The vocals come courtesy of either guitarist Rob I. Miller or drummer Elyse Schrock and both are more than fine (I like ‘em both equally) while musically these four are locked in. First cut “Chance Encounter” revs things up with a straightforward beat and some cool guitar work while “Salary” is smooth and breezy (despite discussing crap wages) and on “Return Policy,” Schrock sings lead and has a lovely coo while the guitars/bass/drums are all in near-perfect harmony.

“Late Bloomer “ (another one sung by Schrock) is one of the finest cuts on here and “Someone Else” (sung by Miller) sounds like the golden days of indie rock. It’s only after the 4th or 5th play that you really realize how well these songs are constructed and how catchy they really are.

It’s still early in the year, but between this record and others (Robert Forster, Civic, The Tubs, etc.) 2023 is already shaping up to be another great year in music. All In Good Time might be low-key enough where you could miss it completely, but do not miss it. It’s a fantastic record!

www.blueslawyer.bandcamp.com

www.darkentriesrecords.bandcamp.com

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kenyatta · 2 years ago

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On the eve of the long-promised electric-vehicle revolution, the myth is due for an update. Americans who take the plunge and buy their first EV will find a lot to love, just as I have. (I purchased a Tesla Model 3 in summer 2019.) They may also find that electric-vehicle ownership upends notions about driving, cost, and freedom, including how much car your money can buy. No one spends an extra $5,000 to get a bigger gas tank in a Honda Civic, but with an EV, economic status is suddenly more connected to how much of the world you get to see—and how stressed out or annoyed you’ll feel along the way. A new Ford F-150 Lightning—the electrified version of America’s long-time best-selling vehicle, and one of the most important vehicles for persuading the majority of the country to ditch gasoline—starts at $55,000 in its most basic form. (Yes, EVs remain expensive. But consider that the average price of any vehicle snuck up to $47,000 by the end of last year, and Americans are already paying luxury prices on formerly utilitarian pickup trucks.) Choosing the F-150’s extended-range battery, which stretches the distance on a charge from 230 miles to 320, raises the cost to at least $80,000. The trend holds true with all-electric brands such as Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, and for many electric offerings from legacy automakers. The bigger battery option can add a four- or five-figure bump to an already accelerating sticker price.

Electric Vehicles Are a Status Symbol Now - The Atlantic

#inequality #electric vehicles

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Editor's Note: This piece was first published by the Los Angeles Times.

A fiscal “doom loop.” A transit “death spiral.” The “office apocalypse.” Since the traumatic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, these pessimistic terms have been applied repeatedly to the state of our cities. Analysis of census data from my Brookings Institution colleague William H. Frey found that from 2020 to 2021, during the peak of the pandemic, major metropolitan areas including New York and Los Angeles lost a significant number of residents. A net 175,000 people left L.A. for Riverside, the Sun Belt, or smaller metro and rural areas.

But new research shows clear signs this trend is reversing. As many downtowns struggle, residential neighborhoods are thriving. While L.A. also lost population in 2022, that year’s rate of population loss was half what it was in 2021. Other cities, such as Seattle and Washington, D.C., have flipped from losses to gains. Yet office vacancy rates continue to rise, and transit ridership remains well below 2019 levels on every major U.S. system. If people are back, where are they?

Not at the office or on the train. Instead, people are enjoying walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods where they can both live and work, in contrast to the 20th century mode of cities and suburbs that rigidly separates work zones from other activities.

This has benefits not just for individuals but also for communities and places. For example, while overall transit ridership in San Francisco is only 54% of the pre-pandemic level on weekdays, the 22 Fillmore line serving the neighborhood of Mission Bay, just south of the historic downtown, is at 107% of pre-pandemic ridership. In L.A., while retail vacancy downtown is 9.3% and trending upward, the citywide rate is only 6.1%, data from CoStar shows. In a diverse range of neighborhoods, retail is close to or even outperforming that average: The vacancy rate is only 5.6% in Echo Park, 6.3% in Inglewood, and 6.6% in Boyle Heights. Elsewhere it’s trending down, even approaching zero: 0.5% on Figueroa Street near USC, 1.5% in Los Feliz, and 2.3% in Highland Park.

Why are some neighborhoods doing extraordinarily well? These are not the richest parts of L.A. Rather, they gather big, diverse collections of economic, social, physical, and civic assets in close proximity. Figueroa, Los Feliz, and Highland Park have some of the highest population densities in L.A. County, as well as access to amenities including the USC campus and Griffith and Hermon parks. They are close enough to downtown to be accessible to and from elsewhere in the region. And finally, all of these places are served by hyperlocal place governance entities, including business improvement districts that provide extra coordination and support, such as clean-and-safe patrols.

Demand in cities remains strong—so much so, in fact, that in many of the biggest metro areas the concern is not abandonment but affordability. Nowhere in the United States is the housing crisis as acute as Los Angeles, the least affordable metro area in the U.S. Citywide, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is more than $2,000. In Los Feliz, it’s $2,250, according to CoStar data. Off Figueroa near USC and in Highland Park, you can get a one-bedroom for $1,400 or $1,600, but those sorts of offerings are few and far between. And even those rents are out of reach for many in a city where half of households make $70,000 a year or less. People are leaving L.A. not to ditch a struggling city, but to find housing.

This crisis is a choice, and the solutions for both neighborhood affordability and downtown revitalization are the same: ending policy and infrastructure that segregate people and most types of land use and create under-resourced neighborhoods as well as downtowns overly dependent on offices.

Policies and practices such as exclusionary zoning and lending discrimination allow some neighborhoods to hoard what they need (e.g., low-flood-risk land and tax revenue to support services) while withholding from others. What if we enabled all people and places to thrive?

Los Angeles and California have recently made progress in advancing policy reforms, such as the city’s expansion of its adaptive reuse ordinance and the state’s Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act, both of which will increase housing production and economic vitality by integrating housing with underperforming retail and offices.

Progress will also require building housing everywhere, including affordable housing as well as transitional and permanent supportive options that meet a broader range of needs than our current one-size-fits-all housing stock. It also makes sense to invest more in basics that proved throughout the pandemic to support quality of life, such as parks and community-based organizations.

The most effective policies to create shared prosperity for neighborhoods and downtowns will raise and share new revenue by explicitly connecting growth with funding to connect historically marginalized communities and places to the regional economy, cultivating their local assets.

Some examples cities are already pursuing include New York’s congestion pricing to fund public transit, Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative to increase economic investment and development in neighborhoods punished by racial segregation, and Seattle’s Equitable Development Initiative, which funnels grant dollars to neighborhoods at high risk of displacement to empower local projects. In addition, L.A. and other cities can directly address the systemic devaluation of Black neighborhoods by enabling new models for commercial real estate ownership that are accessible for local entrepreneurs.

What does the city of the future look like, and who decides? Much of the rhetoric of the current moment is focused on assigning blame for shortcomings. Instead, we need to encourage what has worked to support great neighborhoods and downtowns and make those things accessible to more people—finding common ground, earning community trust, and establishing new ways to work together to build something that lasts.

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rwschmisseur · 1 month ago

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Struthof KL (Konzentration Lager) Concentration Camp

With the Nazi’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine after their defeat of France (May/June 1940), these new lands were open to future KL expansion. Active French resistance was slow to start, diffuse, and poorly organized and integrated into Allied efforts.

Resistance inside Alsace was equally delayed. Many hoped for the best, others feared the worst. Most of the atrocities that had taken place in Poland were unknown. “Re-integration” of Alsace into Germany was swift and, in a totalitarian regime, all-encompassing. Civic groups were disbanded and replaced with Nazi equivalents.

With a war going on, recruitment into the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS was requested, then pressured, and then mandated. Few Alsatians embraced the new regime. Once state coercion was introduced, resistance spiraled accordingly.

Struthof was not a death camp, it was primarily a detention/labor camp. Like Dachau, and the other German KL’s, make no mistake, beatings and killings occurred regularly.

Check my 2019 post for more on this unfortunate chapter in Alsatian history…

#alsace #gute fahrt

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realvisioninfraprojects · 2 months ago

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The real estate market in Hyderabad is booming, with an increasing demand for residential and commercial plots. If you're looking to invest in prime real estate, Real Vision Infra Projects offers some of the best plots for sale in Hyderabad. With a strong reputation for delivering successful projects, Real Vision Infra is your trusted partner in finding the perfect plot that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.

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When you decide to buy residential plots for sale in Hyderabad, you are not just buying a piece of land; you are investing in a future filled with potential and opportunities. Whether you are looking for open plots for sale near me or considering premium plots in upscale neighborhoods, Hyderabad has something for everyone.

Real Vision Infra Projects: A Trusted Name in Real Estate

Established on 8th October 2019, Real Vision Infra Projects has quickly made a mark in the real estate industry. In just a few years, the company has completed 14 ventures, earning the trust and satisfaction of over 3000+ customers. Our projects are located near Hyderabad city and approved by HMDA, DTCP, YTDA, and RERA, ensuring that you invest in legally sound and high-potential properties.

We at Real Vision Infra Projects understand that buying a plot is a significant decision. That's why we meticulously select our projects, keeping your best interests in mind. Whether you are looking to invest in open plots for future growth or buy a residential plot to build your dream home, we offer a range of options tailored to your needs.

Prime Locations for Plots in Hyderabad

One of the key factors to consider when investing in real estate is location. At Real Vision Infra Projects, we offer premium open plots in Hyderabad that are strategically located to ensure maximum returns on your investment. Here are some of the prime areas where our plots are available:Yadadri and Bhuvanagiri in Hyderabad are emerging as prime locations for residential and investment purposes. These regions offer an ideal mix of serenity, accessibility, and rapid development, making them perfect for those seeking premium open plots in Hyderabad.

Why Yadadri and Bhuvanagiri?

Strategic Location: Both Yadadri and Bhuvanagiri are located within close proximity to Hyderabad, offering easy access to major highways and the city’s core areas. This makes daily commuting hassle-free while providing a peaceful retreat away from the city's hustle and bustle.

Rapid Development: The government’s focus on infrastructure development in these regions has accelerated their growth. From new roads to civic amenities, Yadadri and Bhuvanagiri are set to become Hyderabad's next big residential hubs.

ritual and Scenic Appeal: Spir Yadadri, home to the famous Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple, attracts thousands of devotees, adding to the region's cultural and spiritual significance. The scenic surroundings also make it an ideal location for peaceful living.

Investment Potential: Investing in open plots in Yadadri and Bhuvanagiri offers high appreciation potential. As these areas continue to develop, property values are expected to rise, ensuring lucrative returns on investment.

Why Invest in Open Plots?

Investing in open plots for sale in Hyderabad is a smart choice for several reasons. First, open plots offer flexibility in terms of construction. You can build your home according to your preferences and needs. Second, open plots tend to appreciate faster than built-up properties, offering higher returns on investment. Lastly, open plots require minimal maintenance, making them a hassle-free investment option. At Real Vision Infra Projects, we offer a range of open plots for sale near me that cater to different budgets and preferences. Whether you are looking for a small plot to build a cozy home or a larger plot for a luxury villa, we have something to suit your needs.

Why Choose Real Vision Infra Projects for Your Investment?

Transparency and Trust At Real Vision Infra Projects, we believe in building long-term relationships with our customers. We maintain complete transparency in our dealings, ensuring that you have all the information you need to make an informed decision. Our commitment to trust and integrity has earned us the loyalty of over 3000+ satisfied customers.

Strategic Locations All our projects are located in areas with high growth potential. We carefully select locations that offer excellent connectivity, infrastructure, and amenities, ensuring that your investment yields high returns. Our premium open plots in Hyderabad are situated in prime areas that are poised for rapid development.

Legal Compliance When you invest with Real Vision Infra Projects, you can rest assured that all our projects are legally compliant. Our plots are approved by HMDA, DTCP, YTDA, and RERA, ensuring that you invest in properties that are free from legal hassles.

Customer Satisfaction Our success is measured by the satisfaction of our customers. We take pride in the fact that we have successfully completed 14 ventures in a short period, with over 3000+ happy customers. Our commitment to customer satisfaction drives us to deliver projects that exceed your expectations.

How to Get Started with Your Investment

Investing in real estate is a significant decision, and we at Real Vision Infra Projects are here to guide you every step of the way. Here’s how you can get started:

Explore Our Projects Visit our website or contact our sales team to explore the range of plots for sale in Hyderabad that we offer. Our team will provide you with detailed information on each project, including location, pricing, and amenities.

Site Visit Schedule a site visit to see the plots in person. Our team will arrange a guided tour of the project, giving you a first-hand experience of the location and surroundings.

Choose Your Plot Based on your preferences and budget, choose the plot that best suits your needs. Our team will assist you in understanding the plot layout, size, and other details to ensure that you make the right choice.

Secure Your Investment Once you have selected your plot, our team will guide you through the booking process. We will provide you with all the necessary legal documentation and assist you in securing your investment.

Conclusion

Investing in open plots for sale in Hyderabad with Real Vision Infra Projects is a decision you won’t regret. With our commitment to transparency, strategic locations, and customer satisfaction, we offer you the best opportunities to invest in real estate. Whether you are looking to build your dream home or secure a high-return investment, our premium open plots in Hyderabad are the perfect choice.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to invest in one of the fastest-growing real estate markets in India. Contact us today to learn more about our projects and how you can secure your plot in Hyderabad.

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🌐 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞: www.realvisioninfraprojects.com

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lboogie1906 · 2 months ago

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Betty Reid Soskin (Charbonnet; September 22, 1921) is a retired ranger with the National Park Service, previously assigned to the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. Until her retirement on March 31, 2022, at age 100, she was the oldest National Park Ranger serving. In February 2018, she released a memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom.

She spent her early childhood living in New Orleans until a hurricane and flood destroyed her family’s home and business in 1927 when her family relocated to Oakland.

She graduated from Castlemont High School.

During WWII she worked as a file clerk for Boilermakers Union A-36, an all-black union auxiliary. Her main job was filing the change of address cards for the workers, who moved frequently.

In June 1945, she and her husband, Mel Reid, founded Reid’s Records in Berkeley, a small Black-owned business specializing in Gospel music. They moved to Walnut Creek in the 1950s, where their children attended better public schools and an alternative private elementary and middle school. The family encountered considerable racism, and she and her husband were subject to death threats after they built a home in the white suburb.

She took over management of the music store, which led to her becoming active in area civic matters and a prominent community activist. Reid’s Records closed on October 19, 2019.

She served as a field representative for California State Assemblywomen Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock, and in those positions became actively involved in the early planning stages and development of a park to memorialize the role of women on the Home Front during WWII. Those efforts came to fruition when Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park was established in 2000, to provide a site where future generations could remember the contributions women made to the war effort.

In celebration of her 100th birthday, the West Contra Costa Unified School District renamed Juan Crespi Middle School to Betty Reid Soskin Middle School. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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everythingthatsgoingon · 2 years ago

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Re-reading this, I want to explain why this quote is important to me.

My first memories of seeing the news on the television are pictures of the Arab Spring.

When I was not yet 10, I stood in silence with my classmates for children killed by a terrorist.

And I stood in silence again at 12. Arriving in the morning to discover there were some news I'd missed ; and living with the irony of having learnt about and discussed democratic freedoms in a civic education class the previous morning, around the time the Charlie Hebdo newspaper was attacked. And once more at 13. Waking up on Saturday morning to go to a sport competition, only for my mom to tell me there was an attack the previous night during the drive there. The next Monday, morning classes cancelled to spend time with our homeroom teacher instead. My fun, kind, no-nonsense physics and chemistry teacher ranting about how he watched the news for hours, stunned, unable to comprehend such cruelty. I awkwardly put an arm around my friend during lunch time when she starts crying. Months later, our return train from our schooltrip is delayed due to an attack in Brussels. In July, I stand next to my father watching the fireworks in the city he grew up in, thinking about the book my friend wrote, about the attack she predicted would happen that very night on the Champ Élysées. In the end, it happened in Nice.

And many others. A bridge in London. Churches, buildings of worships. Stores. Streets all over the world.

At 9 I learned about climate change. More than that, I learnt that no one care. That the people in power weren't doing anything to stop the biggest threat there was not only to my future, but to that of our entire species.

And I couldn't talk about it, because "you shouldn't worry about these things", "you're too young to understand", "leave that to the grown-ups, okay?" were things I heard too many times already. None of my classmates cared despite the documentary we'd been shown, and the adults would just dismiss me.

I grew up with that fear on the back of my mind, the knowledge of a sword hanging above our heads, feeling powerless. It took 8 years and taking part in a school strike on Friday, March 15th, 2019 for me to finally feel hope ; to finally discover I wasn't alone.

At 14, after my first day in high school, I spent an hour trying to comfort a friend after a boy I'd gone to primary school (and Sunday school) with commited suicide.

I'm numb to all this. I don't feel, I can't. I don't think I can afford to care. I'll crumble.

"watching the world burn around us was expected"

I expected it since I was nine and my teachers showed me a documentary about climate change.

Terrorist attacks are a reality I've grown up with. It happens, like earthquakes or storms. We can only live with the result.

People suffer. Children starve. Women get kidnapped, raped, sold. Wars. Abuse. The destruction caused by a system that believes in endless growth in a world of finite resources. Those are realities we now learn young, for not only is this information available on any phone or computer but these facts are taught in schools. If we care to listen, if we care to look, then we know.

You don't need to be old enough to drive a car is to be aware there are fates worse than death.

"dying was never our biggest fear

watching the world burn around us was expected"

Everyone needs to see this

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nsfwhiphop · 4 months ago

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Incoming Text for @elonmusk and Mike Judge:

Subject title: "Angelo is an alien. You are dealing with a very prolific alien. I will produce vast amounts of creative works, and your duty is to prepare the infrastructure to make the movies."

Hey Elon and Mike!

I want to help you understand that I have a similar work ethic to Elon Musk. He worked 120 hours a week for almost 20 years. That's what I'm about to do, and I need your help to prepare the infrastructure for me.

My creativity will bring lots of money into our film company, and it is your duty to prepare the infrastructure.

Question: "What do I mean by the word 'infrastructure'?"

Answer: "It means that I need a safe place to protect all of my artistic works because I will write non-stop for the next twenty years. I need a factory for my creative works, just like cars need a factory. You know the car factories produce 70,000 cars a year."

You are dealing with an alien. I don't work slowly like them. I produce vast amounts of work per year, and it is your duty to build the film company with Gabrielle Union, Laetitia Casta, and Rihanna. They are the three co-founders of our film company.

Here is the data I found on Google. Read this below:

The production numbers for car factories can vary widely based on the specific model and the factory's capacity. For the Ford Mustang, production numbers have fluctuated over the years due to changes in demand, economic conditions, and production capacity.

As of recent years, Ford produces approximately 70,000 to 100,000 Mustangs annually. This figure can be broken down further:

In 2019, Ford produced around 72,489 Mustangs. In 2020, production was slightly lower due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with around 61,090 units produced. In 2021, production numbers rebounded to approximately 52,414 units.

These numbers are specific to the Ford Mustang and the Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan, which is the primary manufacturing location for the Mustang. The plant's total production capacity, including other models, would be higher.

For other car models and manufacturers, the annual production numbers can vary significantly. Some high-volume models, like the Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic, can see production numbers in the hundreds of thousands to over a million units per year across multiple factories worldwide.

End of this car factory explanation.

This new film company with Rihanna, Gabrielle Union, and Laetitia Casta will produce vast amounts of films per year, and it is your duty to help these three women build the infrastructure.

I will write many movies:

Comedy films.

Action films.

Drama films.

Psychological thriller films.

Mockumentary films.

Romantic comedy films.

Science-fiction films.

African-American topics films.

Hispanic topics films.

Chick flick comedy films.

And many other types of films. I can't remember all of them at the moment.

It's a never-ending job to produce vast amounts of screenplays and books. This is why I need a robust home to protect my films and my books.

Stan Lee was a genius from the 1940s, but I'm the next generation of Stan Lee, so you better expect some high-quality entertainment.

I need the infrastructure. Can you understand that?

I don't make movies like they do. I'm a different breed. I will knock out all my opponents in Hollywood.

There is something that only I noticed about Hollywood that no one other than me has noticed. Guess what I noticed?

The answer is: "Shortage of creativity in Hollywood." They are all making junk food movies. They keep making reboots of old stuff that we already watched since the 90s. Can you imagine the type of shortage Hollywood is going through?

Guess who will win every battle in the film industry from now on? THIS GUY!! It means me. I'm the guy. Angelo will win from now on.

I have so much creativity. You will make billions from it, so don't f*ck this up.

This is a question for Elon Musk: "Without the Tesla Gigafactory, can you make cars?"

The answer is: "No, you can't. You need the Gigafactory to build those Tesla cars."

Well, I need a Gigafactory for my creativity as well, and I have chosen Gabrielle Union, Laetitia Casta, and Rihanna to protect my creative legacy.

All these so-called new generation filmmakers of the 2020s era are lazy. They make the same boring films that we already watched so many times. It's like they feed us the same garbage junk food again and again. No creativity whatsoever.

I will put them to shame soon. I'm the undefeated champion, and I'm coming for their titles, their champion belts.

I just want to clarify that I have a lot of respect for the geniuses:

Chris Nolan is a genius.

Chris McQuarrie is a genius.

James Cameron is a genius.

Martin Scorsese is a genius.

Spike Lee is a genius.

I'm not talking about these geniuses. I'm a fan of their work. They raised me with their movies. I learned so much from the way they do things.

I'm not talking about the geniuses. I'm talking about these newcomers. I'm gonna take their titles from them. I will be their most ruthless competitor. I'm gonna have so much fun competing with them.

Hollywood is a big Olympics game for the brain-sports. A lot of people haven't understood that yet. They watch movies but never understood that the screenwriters are brain athletes. They are playing the brain sports in this big Olympics game in Hollywood.

At least, that's how I see it. No one sees what I see.

I love this game. Brain sports is one of the most rewarding games there is. Get the thrill just like Stan Lee did. He was a genius.

I think I will end my long speech here.

I will let you take care of the infrastructure with the three co-founders, Gabrielle Union, Laetitia Casta, and Rihanna.

The end.

Your friend,

Angelo.

P.S.:

Synopsis of the Letter:

Angelo, the self-proclaimed alien with a prolific work ethic, comparable to Elon Musk's, addresses Elon Musk and Mike. He outlines his ambitious plan to write continuously for the next twenty years, producing an extensive array of creative works, including films across various genres. Angelo emphasizes the need for robust infrastructure, likening it to a factory necessary for car production, to protect and facilitate his artistic endeavors. He appoints Gabrielle Union, Laetitia Casta, and Rihanna as co-founders of the film company and stresses their responsibility in building this infrastructure.

Angelo criticizes the current state of Hollywood, noting a significant lack of creativity and reliance on reboots. He positions himself as the future champion of the film industry, ready to outperform the so-called new generation filmmakers. While he expresses deep respect for established geniuses like Chris Nolan and James Cameron, his focus is on outshining the newcomers. Angelo concludes by urging Elon and Mike to support his vision, ensuring the necessary infrastructure is in place to capitalize on his boundless creativity and secure their financial success.

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