#also if you know what song allen sings you win experience points

[a-trick-or-two-with-lepers]

Hair Song Ranking - by Production!

I'm back again with a somewhat coherent tumblr post! Can you believe it? Anyway, I know I've already done a Hair song ranking, but this time, I'll be talking about multiple productions: the Original cast recording (1968), the 1979 movie soundtrack, and the Broadway revival cast recording (2009). I know, same formula as my Godspell post.

I am aware that the film version omitted a TON of songs, but I'll be keeping those songs in the ranking anyway. I tried to match the songs up as much as possible, so I left out some that only appeared in one version. Also, massive spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the movie- it departs from the original script in several major ways, and I think this impacts the message of the story both negatively and positively. (My asks and DMs are always open if you want to have a conversation about it 👀).

And now: my unsolicited opinions!

Aquarius- Winner: 1979 Movie. I mean. Can you blame me? This is, like, the most ethereal opening to a movie ever. The arrangement in this version is my favorite of any recording I've heard of this song. The extended intro leaves plenty of time for the audience to get excited- the bass and brass hit every time- and by the time the vocals come in, you'd better be ready to be astonished. The soloist is amazing. 'Aquarius' is by far the most popular track from the musical, and Renn Woods, who was just 19 at the time, sings it with such power. I'm a big fan of Sasha Allen, who sings this song (as well as many others) in the revival cast, and Ronnie Dyson's original take is iconic, but Woods only got one song in the show, and I think she deserves all the recognition for it. I highly suggest taking a look at this article if you'd like to know more about her experiences.

Donna- Winner: 1979 Movie. I was 🤏 this close to giving this one to the revival cast; Will Swenson is one of my favorite portrayals of George Berger. But not even he could hit the notes Treat Williams (rest in peace 😔) managed in this song. I also enjoy the instrumentation and backup vocals of this one the most. It's gonna be really hard to compare Treat to anyone else- he's top tier, for me.

Hashish- Winner: 2009 Cast. I almost gave this to the movie again, 'cause I do think it did the best job at what it set out to do, which is, I assume, make the audience feel like they're in the blunt rotation. Only thing with that is, this song is on the same track as 'Donna' in the movie soundtrack, and it pisses me off, because whenever I wanna listen to the former, I have to either sit through the latter (which I'm not too fond of) or use one of my precious Spotify skips! So, I'm gonna go ahead and say I like the revival recording best. Like I said, this track isn't my favorite, but I like that this recording in particular gets straight to the point and doesn't drag it out.

Sodomy- Winner: 1979 Movie. Ok. I know I'm riding high on the movie soundtrack right now. I'm aware of my bias. But it's not my fault they put a fucking church choir in this song. It sounds SO GOOD, and for what?? Also, love Donnie Dacus. He's so damn cute in the movie, and I really like his voice. It's just strong enough not to sound breathy, but not so strong it overwhelms the track. Woof, my beloved 🥰

Colored Spade- Winner: 1979 Movie. Or as I know it: ".....😶..... and president of the United States of Love!" Also, yes, another movie win. I can't defend myself anymore. The recordings are just so clean. Whoever played bass for this one really went at it. Not to mention, Dorsey Wright put his whole Hudussy into his performance. I will say, there's a weird noise at the end of the recording- I can't even explain it, but it's funny as hell. Go listen to it.

Manchester England- Tie: 1979 Movie/2009 Cast. Yeah, I couldn't choose with this one. I'd say the movie has a slight edge over the revival cast- mostly because it's gay as hell and has both Treat Williams and John Savage singing. I do love the revival version as well, though, because I think it's more what the original composition had in mind. The fake British accent-shtick is missing entirely from the film. Actually, this is one of those songs where the meaning in the stage version is completely different from the film version. This makes it really hard to compare them. So, you get a tie. (Side note: I need to watch this clip from the movie at least once a day to stay healthy. Doctor's orders).

I'm Black/Ain't Got No- Winner: 1979 Movie. Shit, man. You can't put Kurt Yaghjian in a song and expect me not to go crazy about it. (Peep the profile pic). Once again, the arrangement of this version rocks my shit to an absurd degree. Every soloist SLAYS it, the instrumentation is crisp as hell, and this version actually combines songs that are usually broken up in most stage productions. I'm not saying it's necessarily better because of that, but it certainly makes it easier to listen to cohesively. Also, I don't know. The choreography for the scene just matches so well with the tune. And yes, I know I shouldn't judge a movie based on its cinematography when comparing it to stage productions, but it's really hard to ignore with this one. Even without that, this is one of my favorite songs from the movie. It's genuinely perfect. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Also, John Savage is just really adorable when he sings "I'm invisible." Sue me. At least I'm honest!

Sheila Franklin/ I Believe in Love- Winner: 2009 Cast. This one isn't in the movie soundtrack, so you're safe from its reign for now. Woo! Anyway, Caissie Levy slays. The original cast may have gotten this one if it included the little intro where everyone sings their bit about Sheila- I love that part. But I think the revival cast deserves this win.

Air- Winner: 1979 Movie. "But tumblr user a-trick-or-two-with-lepers, this one wasn't even in the movie!" Ok, and? It's on the soundtrack, and it's the best one. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. It's a damn shame this didn't make the cut, 'cause Annie Golden did a great job with it! She sounds absolutely adorable. The other two versions are almost hard to listen to for me. It's not like I think the singers did a bad job- they're both very talented and I don't hate their versions- but the song is written to be somewhat annoying, I think. The voice Kacie Sheik puts on for Jeannie can be a bit grating at times. Maybe that just means I'm more of a vocalist-enjoyer than an actor-enjoyer, but in terms of listening value, this one goes to the tragically unused movie version.

10. Initials- Winner: 1968 Cast. An original cast recording win! Yay! I don't even have a problem with the other two versions, I just think it's really funny that this particular recording came out while LBJ was president. Dissing a current president in your broadway production has to be one of the boldest moves I've seen in musical theater history- though, this show broke a lot of musical barriers, so I'm not surprised.

11. I Got Life- Winner: 1979 Movie. I don't know why I spent so long thinking about which version was my favorite for this one. The movie version is like, one of my top tracks on Spotify. The whole scene is fucking perfect. I know this is supposed to be a Claude song, but Treat Williams as Berger owns it. It ranked number two in my 1979 Hair song ranking, and I stand by that placement. It has become one of my favorite movie scenes. The absolute joy that emanates from his performance is really inspiring. I will say, I like how they kept the 1948/1968 bit at the beginning of the OG cast recording, and Gavin Creel sings this song really well in the revival, but I'd be hard pressed to give this win to anyone but the one and only Treat Williams.

12. Going Down- Winner: 2009 Cast. This is another one that wasn't in the movie soundtrack, and I am PISSED that we never got to hear Treat sing this. Regardless, Will Swenson has the charisma cranked up to 1000 here. I adore how he growls out "Lucifer." This has become one of my favorite tracks from the 2009 recording. It is NOT believable that this man, or anyone playing Berger in these versions, is a teenager, but I've never cared about stuff like that. Well, except for the travesty that is the Dear Evan Hansen movie. Yeesh... Anyway!

13. Hair- Winner: 1979 Movie. The title track! I can back this one up, I swear. First of all: this is usually a Claude/Berger song, and while I really wish John Savage sang more in the movie, a second Woof solo is always appreciated. They keep more of the harmony in the intro, which I appreciate. This particular version of "Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees" lives in my head rent-free at all times. I wish they'd used Hud's solo in the soundtrack, but I'm not too mad about it. Treat is, once again, hitting those high notes, and my ears thank him for it. Also, this is the only version that doesn't drag out the "why don't my mother love me" line, and I don't know why, but I kind of like it better that way?

14. My Conviction- Winner: 2009 Cast. This song is so cute. I love that someone of an older generation shows support in this show! And she's(?) trans?? Or a crossdresser. Never was sure which it was. Either way, I think all the performances of this one were really great, but Andrew Kober did it best in my opinion. Still, I'd love to see the unnecessarily horrified reactions to this in the 60s.

15. Easy to Be Hard- Winner: 1979 Movie. Yeah, I knew this was gonna win before I even started making the list. I'm sorry, I truly do love both other versions, and whenever I sing this song I use the original key, but the movie version is simply just. 😚🤌. That plucky thing they do with the guitar is so beautiful. The meaning of the song is amplified by how different the scene is from the stage versions. And the singer. THE. SINGER. FUCKING INSANE. Her name is Cheryl Barnes, and she owns my entire heart. This role isn't in any other version as far as I'm aware, and she doesn't even have a name. She just pops up and is like "hey lemme just blow you all away real quick." Fuck you Hud for being mean to her and her little baby. Still mad that he didn't get more flack for that on-screen. Point is- this performance is the best. I don't even like Jennifer Hudson's version more than this one, which is saying a LOT, 'cause I love that woman.

16. Don't Put It Down- Winner: 2009 Cast. This used to be a 'skip' song for me. But after listening to the revival recording more, I can safely call it one of my favorites. The harmonies are really clear in this version, and I find the satire of it really amusing. Crazy for the blue, red, and white! What a shame that they made it instrumental in the movie.

17. Frank Mills- Winner: 1968 Cast. I just found out this was sung by Martha Plimpton's mother??? I love her! This version is absolutely adorable. I really like her voice, and I think it captures Crissy's character really well. No shade to Allison Case, though; her version is just as, if not more, beautiful. The original just happens to be my favorite in this case. Also, I noticed how few wins they were getting and I felt bad.

18. Hare Krishna/ Be-In- Winner: 2009 Cast. This is one of those where I'd honestly be fine adding any of the versions to my playlist. The original seems like the perfect thing to get high to, and the movie version is accompanied by a literal drug trip scene, but this version is the clearest and most listenable to me. The harmonies are really present. I really like when they all sing, "Burn it, Berger, burn it!" Also, Dionne and everyone singing "Aquarius," is really beautiful and haunting. They're hyping Claude up, and then he doesn't burn it, and hhhhhggngnnnnngggghhh it's just really good.

19. Where Do I Go?- Winner: 1979 Movie. Is anyone really surprised anymore? This is hand-down my favorite song from the movie. Let me tell you why. The instrumentation at the beginning is like an auditory orgasm. The cinematography- I know, I know!- is really thought-provoking. The way every single person walking through New York just turns around, in sync, and stops, like they've suddenly realized how meaningless their lives are... And let me tell you. I fucking a-d-o-r-e John Savage's voice. I know most people won't- it's kind of whiny- but for some reason, I just can't get enough of it. It's so tragic that he didn't get more solos in this movie. Anyway, I have a whole ass analysis of this song on my blog, so check that out if you're interested. I also wrote an almost 40k word ao3 story using it as title fodder. Yeah, I'm shamelessly plugging my fanfiction. If I'm aware that I'm cringe does that make me less cringe?

20. Electric Blues- Winner: 2009 Cast. I almost gave this to the movie, because that really is my favorite version... for the most part. I think it goes on too long- I know that's because it fades into Claude's drug trip, but it gets tiring to listen to (for my short attention span, that is). That doesn't mean I don't really like the revival recording, though. Everyone has great energy, and this recording actually made me appreciate the song a lot more. Also, the end is really funny ("What the fuck! I was singing!")

21. Oh Great God of Power/ Manchester England (Reprise)- Winner: 2009 Cast. As far as I'm aware, this is the only one that actually has this song on the soundtrack. The original just has the Manchester England reprise. Anyway, I love this version to death. The first half is so gorgeous. I love how obsessed everyone is with Claude because, same. Also, I really like how they all sing "I believe in God!"

22. Black Boys- Winner: 2009 Cast. It took me a long time to warm up to this song. What made me finally like it was this recording. The scene in the movie was... strange, to say the least. But the women in the revival cast do such a good job with it. It's a bop!

23. White Boys- Winner: 2009 Cast. I know we're on a revival streak, but it felt wrong to split up the two boys songs. Besides, this is probably the best version of the three. Sasha Allen is fantastic as always. As much as I love Nell Carter's voice, the military recruiter guys singing in the track is too goofy for me to take it seriously.

24. Walking in Space- Tie: All. I knew this was gonna be a hard one to rank. I love all the versions so much. So, I'm just gonna take the easy route and talk about all three of them. The original is such a cohesive tune. It plays so smoothly, and I really enjoy everyone's vocal performance. It doesn't feel overdone at any point. The movie version is a bit long for my taste, but it's so good that it honestly has a right to be long. This part of the film drags a bit, but maybe I just don't like watching people suffer through war training. It's definitely impactful in that sense, though. I really like the first soloist; she has this lilting soprano vibrato that's very pleasant to listen to. I also like how militaristic the men chanting the colors sound in this version. Sasha Allen is the first soloist in the revival recording, and of course, she's perfect. She belts the whole thing, unlike the other versions' soloists. Her voice gives me massive chills, especially when she puts a bit of growl into it.

25. Four Score/ Abie Baby- Winner: 1968 Cast. All the love to Nell Carter and Sasha Allen, but this version is my fav. It's the least serious, which I think is what is was written to be. The soloist is doing this sing-talking thing, which I love, and she's funny as hell, especially at the end. ("Bang?! Ahahah, bang? Shiiiiit, I ain't dying for no white man").

26. Three-Five-Zero-Zero- Tie: All. Again, I'm not sure how to choose which of these is my favorite. It's just a really good anti-war song. Each one of the versions does it justice. I really like when a song makes me learn something, and I learned a lot from this song. For example: I learned what Viet Cong means, and I also learned that this song references a really interesting anti-war poem from the 60s titled 'Witchita Vortex Sutra.'

27. What A Piece of Work is Man- Winner: 2009 Cast. It was really hard to pick my favorite of the three. I didn't wanna hit you all with another tie, so I went with the revival cast. I think it has the smoothest transition into the Walking in Space reprise. The vocals are very clean as well. I wish they had kept this song in the movie; it's so pretty!

28. Good Morning Starshine- Tie: All. Dammit! I lied. I need to add another tie. They're all so good! The harmonies in the original are really, really nice. The movie version just puts me in such a good mood, and Beverly D'Angelo's voice is amazing! What a shame she didn't get more vocal parts in the movie. I really like how the harmonies start layering as everyone in the car gets into the song. This was one of the only moments I actually liked how they characterized Sheila in the film. But it was the revival recording that made me actually like this song- enough to want it in my playlists. Caissie Levy just has such a good voice. I also just love this song because it represents the last moment of hope and happiness in every version. It almost makes me want to cry, but I'll have to save my tears for this next song...

29. The Flesh Failures/ Let the Sunshine In- Tie: All. Welp. There goes my good mood. Fuck. This song... it doesn't matter who sings it. I will cry. Every time. It's so perfectly composed. In the original, when Claude sings his last few lines, he gets drowned out by the chorus, which symbolizes his meaningless death. Of course, the differences between the stage versions and the movie are stark, considering Berger dies instead of Claude, but the power of the message remains the same. The cinematography of this scene in the movie is so genius, it actually hurts to watch. The young men- the teenagers, the children- marching into the gaping maw of the warplane, Berger among them, singing a reprise of Claude's song. He knows now that he isn't seen as an individual by these people. He's a weapon. Disposable. He could be Claude for all they care. Fuck. It hurts just to think about it. The revival recording, though, might be the hardest to listen to. When paired with Aquarius Goodnights/ Ain't Got No/ Yip up the Sun, it never fails to make me sob. And I mean sob. The way Claude sings "Ain't got no" followed by gunshots, the way Berger screams for Claude, the brokenhearted singing of Sheila when she realizes Claude has died... I can't. I literally have to stop at Good Morning Sunshine when I'm listening to any of these albums if I want to continue having a good day, or else I'll be thinking about it all day. I truly believe this is the most intelligent and heart-wrenchingly stunning song ever written. Let the motherfucking sunshine in.

Well Gee Willikers. That was a ride. I love Hair like I love life itself, but BOY does that last song get me. Thank you SO SO SO much if you've read this far. I love you and I am kissing you tenderly on the forehead as we speak. I'm definitely in a bit of a Hair fixation right now- some may even call it hyper- and I had to have a somewhat productive outlet for it, so here you go! Hope you enjoyed ❤️

[howardlinkedin]

Group Project: Part 6

Running Title: Group Project. Part 6 Part 5: Here Part 7: Here (End) Sequel to Shelter Summary: Homecoming! (And Komui is a lovable mess, please keep him well fed). 

���Sometimes,” said Pooh, “the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”

The brother would read to the sister, tucked away at his chest. She would yawn, signaling that she was halfway to dreamland, and the brother couldn’t help but agree.

---

Let it be known, to all who walk this earth, that Allen Walker is a troll.

His family, his friends, and even his fans; no one is spared. Especially his fans, whom the majority follow his instagram page.

The most recent? A photo of the family’s luggage being unloaded at Barcelona’s El Prat airport. Instead of three (Allen’s, Link’s and Lenalee’s), adult sized suitcases, there was another set of smaller, children’s sized cases as well.

“On our way home!” the tagline read.

Within the hour, multiple sources had the image posted on their networks, demanding to know all about the picture and its details.

---

“You really shouldn’t tease like that.” Link admonished, as his husband switched his phone to airplane mode. Said husband shrugged and grinned. “Everyone’s going to know eventually. I’d rather it be on my terms.”

“Know what?” Timothy demanded, more than ask, as he leeched himself at his dad’s side. Lala looked from over their Papa’s shoulder in curiosity.

Allen squeezed his son. “That I have the cutest kids in the entire universe!”

Lala rolled her eyes, while Tim preened. “Yeah, I am really adorable.”

The boy got embarrassing smooches all over his face in public for his ego.

“Blarg! Dad, stoppit!”

---

At 7AM, Cross knocked the alarm off his bedside table and burrowed deeper into the sheets. Atuuda, having become Allen’s small-white-haired substitute, leaped onto his back and began to kneed at it.

The Colonel cursed the creature to hell, but in his half awake state, it was more like his voice became a garbage disposal of words.

A tap sounded off his table, and Cross could smell the familiar aroma of black coffee. “It’s time for all old men to wake up.” Flirted a voice. Cross cracked open an eye.

Anita stood over him, already dressed for the day, a wheezing small dog at her feet. It took the man exactly eighteen blinks before his brain came back on, and he could actually focus on that beautiful smile of hers.

“I am not old.” He groused.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Anita tweaked his nose, then turned heel out of his room, Timcampy following with pattering feet. “Breakfast is ready, by the way.”

After glaring at his doorway with a very wrinkled and offended nose, Marian finally managed to get up and out of bed. Why was he always surrounded by morning people? It was a curse.

Sipping away at the perfectly brewed coffee (a perk of dating a cafe owner), he plopped himself down at the table, not before giving Anita’s crown a morning kiss and a very bleary thank you for cooking.

---

The first morning Anita stayed over at his, she laid down two ground rules:

After every meal she cooks, she is to be given a thank you. No gratitude meant all of said food will end up on your face, your ass on the floor, and the dog trying to eat the mess up.

Cross was not allowed to kiss her mouth until after he’s brushed his teeth.

Cross wondered if his morning breath was truly that bad, or if he just always ended up falling for people who were particular about dental hygiene.

---

Komui Lee was a prodigy. At fourteen he graduated high school, and soon after began taking college level courses online. By the time he was 17 (going on 18), he had gained three science degrees, (pre-med, microbiology, and biochemistry) and a sister.

Just after submitting his application for the forensic science track, Komui Lee held little newborn Lenalee Lee in his long awkward arms, and fell in love.

This was the moment he became a brother.

“As soon as I saw you,” he would read to her at bedtime. “I knew a grand adventure was going to happen.”

---

Making his way to his car, to hassle himself to work, Colonel Marian Cross stopped short to observe the moving trucks just across the street.

“Huh. Someone’s moving in.”

---

“Sir, you need to get off the floor.” Assistant Forensics Chief Reever nudged his boss with a foot. Said boss was laying face down on the tiled floor, spreadeagle.

“What if the plane crashes?” Komui asks, voice deadly serious, but its effect diminished due to his current, physical state.

Actually, it was always hard to take the man seriously, what with the pink bunny slippers and constant state of emotional disarray.

The Assistant Chief rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, as though asking for strength to handle the drama Komui would bring in this morning. “Okay, I’ll bite.” He crouched down in an attempt to look at his boss in the eyes. “What plane?”

Glasses flashing, Komui frowned something fierce. “Lenalee is coming home!” Reever felt a headache coming on, because this was the smartest man he knew, yet Komui insisted on sounding like a pouting child.

In an attempt to defuse the oncoming storm, Reever attempted a cheerful, “That’s great! We’ve really missed her!” Which was the truth. The science hub of the Precinct, and those affiliated with them were liken to a mishmash of family, Lenalee included.

“But!” The Lead Forensics Chief whined. “Thirty-six hours is sooooo looong!” The man squirmed on the floor. Reever wondered when it was last mopped.

“And what if the PLANE CRASHES?!” Komui bellowed.

“It won’t.” Deadpanned the other man.

This is when Komui grabbed his friend’s face with both hands and forced the man to lean down, nose to nose. “But what if it does?”

Reever deduced it was going to be a long thirty-six hours in both the Forensics Department and the Lee household.

---

“Komui, it’s my lunch break.”

“But Bak-”

“No.”

“BUTWHATIFTHEPLANE-”

Bak Chang turned off his cellphone.

Only for his classroom phone to begin ringing.

---

The second image Allen posted to his account was that of the back of Link’s dozing head. Another set of blond and a smaller blue-fading back into brunett heads pillowed on his shoulders. Allen’s own head peaked in the corner of the image, mirth in his eyes.

“Sleepy family waiting 4 our luggage!!!!!!!” said the tagline, followed by a string of emojis.

Later Allen would insist that, yes, that many exclamation points were necessary.

---

Lenalee was five and she couldn’t stop crying. Komui feels their world crash around them as he signs for full custody, and his heart mourns for them both.

Komui is 22 when he and Lenalee are orphaned, and suddenly simply being alive was a lot more dangerous than previously believed. He had just entered into his internship through the college.

Over the course of mere hours, he had become not just a brother, but mother and father as well.

His sister cried for the both of them.

Haggard and broken hearted, Komui read Lenalee to sleep- because even when distraught, the little sister always, always fell away to sleep at the sound of her brother’s reading.

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”

Only after Lenalee fell asleep, did he let his tears fall.

---

Chaoji served his ten-o’clock her mocha and cookies, and watched as she seated herself across from a very engrossed Kanda. Besides him, which was a rarity during his studies, was Alma.

At any given moment, whenever it looked like Kanda was about to bolt, scowl set across his mouth, Alma would yank their husband back. They would give him A Look, and Kanda would very wisely sit back down and continue working.

“Fucking hate math, why do I need this shit for this degree.” The man would grumble and curse, complaining that he was never going to use it.

Or less of a complaint, and more of a vow to never touch the math ever again.

Apparently, Chaoji deduced, Kanda Yuu hated math.

Miranda hesitantly slid her cookies over to the younger man, serious set in her shoulders. “W-work hard Kanda!” She stuttered and encouraged.

Kanda looked from the cookies, to his computer screen, to Alma’s unflappable gaze and let out a noise that Chaoji could only describe as a very angry cat. He watched as Kanda stuffed a cookie in his mouth (Kanda! Of all people! The man who hates anything sweet!) and continued to attack his computer with fever.

---

Staring at the armful of streamers that had been thrust into his arms, Bak arched his full eyebrows at his boyfriend.

“What, no welcome home kiss?” Bak asked, part sarcasm, other part insulted.

Komui pranced by the smaller male, kissed his forehead and flounced away, a long banner following after his tall form. “Welcome home boo-bear! Now put the streamers up in the hallway!”

For the boo-bear comment, Bak Chang dropped said streamers on the ground, because no. He crossed his arms and waited.

It wasn’t as though Komui needed his help anyway, what with the entire forensics hub crawling around his house, decorating the place from the ground, up.

Around the hall’s corner, Komui slowly slithered around, looking for all the world like a wounded child. “Baaaak.”

The middle school chemistry teacher stared the taller man down, waiting.  

“The most wonderful and brilliant Bak Chang, please use your amazing and magnificent knowledge and skill to help me prepare my humble home for precious Lenalee’s return.”

Reever, who was dutifully tying ribbons around balloons, snorted.

Suddenly becoming decidedly altruistic, Bak sniffed. “I guess I can help. You’ll be useless without me anyway.” “Yes!” Komui was practically sparkling.

---

At first, Reever just thought the greenhorn Forensics Chief was actually an idiot who got lucky.

The man always scrambled in through the elevator doors, just two second shy of being late to work. His hair was in a constant state of distress, and it seemed that he owned no shoes except pink, rabbit eared slippers.

When Chief Komui Lee wasn’t inhaling mug after mug of coffee, he was working. If he wasn’t doing either of those things, he was falling asleep at his desk, paperwork piled about.

If Assistant Chief Reever Wenham hadn’t witnessed his boss’ skill first hand, he would believe Komui only got this job through connections.

The rest of the forensics hub was of the same belief. Until they weren’t.

On one such day, when Komui had face planted at his desk, dead to the world until the next investigation, the elevator doors opened and closed. From his desk, Reever saw no one, and wondered if Cross was playing prank on them again. (Last time had resulted in the sprinkler system giving off orange spray)

Instead of Cross and his shenanigans, Reever heard the pitter-patter of little feet. Johnny, who was on the other side of the desk, looked downright delighted. “How cute!” his assistant whispered.

Peering over, Reever laid witness to a little girl, no older than seven, make her way to his boss’ prone form. She had a serious pout on her small face, and a determination in her gait. She was pretty adorable, Reever conceded.

But also. Why was there a little girl in their labs?

This was probably unsafe.

Said little girl had an equally little backpack over little her shoulders, and when she reached the slumbering man’s desk, she whipped it around and pulled out a lunch bag. Dutifully, but quietly, she slid it atop a stack of papers. Nodding, as if satisfied, she put her little hands on her hips and spun around to march back to the elevators.

Stunned, and unable to make heads or tales of what was happened, Reever made a move to follow the little girl. “Um.” He started.

Gasping, the girl jumped, and stared at the man, her dark eyes wide.

Huh. Thought Reever. She looks a lot like the boss.

After an awkward staring match, the little girl bowed. “Please make sure he eats thank you bye bye!” She gave in one breath.

And zoom! Out she went.

---

After that, Reever and the rest of the forensics hub made sure their floundering boss was well fed.

The second time they all were graced with the little one’s presence, her nose was red. Komui, who refused to look embarrassed, announced matter-of-fact, “This is my precious sister princess Lenalee and she has a cold.”

And that was how Lenalee Lee was formally introduced to the Forensics Department, and everyone began to understand why their boss was the way he was.

Apparently babysitters were hard to find on such short notice, and raising a little girl on your own was more than enough of an excuse to be Komui’s particular brand of loopy.

“We didn’t know we were making memories,” their boss had read, stuffed in his office chair, towers of files pushed off to the side, book and sister in hand. “We just knew we were having fun.”

And, okay. Reever decided they made a cute picture. Neglected paperwork notwithstanding.

---

Kanda stared at his computer, expressionless. Which, as far as Chaoji knew, was par for course for the other man.

“I’m done.” He announced.

Kanda Yuu, on this day in history, passed his final math exam. 

Ever.

Miranda clapped her hands, while Alma peppered kisses all over the man’s face. “I’m proud of you.” Another kiss. “So,” they punctuated with another kiss. “Proud of you.”

Kanda took each and everyone one of them like a man receiving a badge of honor.

“Goodness!” Anita rounded the cafe bar to the group. “Wasn’t that you’re last course?” The man grunted in assertion.

Clapping her own hands, the cafe owner looked pleased for Kanda. “Congratulations!”

“Wow!” Explained Chaoji. “You’re graduating college!” After watching the young man come in and out of the cafe, studying away, it was kind of a moving experience to know he had accomplished his goal. “What were you studying for, anyway?” Asked the barista.

With Alma practically in his lap, Kanda looked Chaoji dead in the eye and answered. “Special Education.”

That. Was unexpected. But also cool, in a totally Kanda kind of way. When Chaoji got to thinking about it, Kanda working with children, and helping them, well.

It made sense.

Miranda looked as though she were to cry. Kanda began to look horrified. “Don’t cry damnit!”

“I-I’m sorry. It’s j-just. This is a very happy day!” She wiped her almost-tears away. “Kanda is graduating after working so hard, and I just found ou-out this morning that I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

Then.

“WHAT THE FUCK.”

Alma let out a squeal. “I’m going to have a nibling!”

---

When Noise Marie got the news, he passed out on the lawn.

Daisya laughed at him for hours, while Tiedoll weeped for joy at his growing family.

---

The third picture Allen, singer/songwriter, posted on instagram, was of two little feet sticking out from under a pile of blankets.

“Little guy is all tuckered out. Can’t wait for our new home!”

Explain! The world demanded. We want to know! Blogs posted.

Link watched the internet virtually explode over his phone and harrumphed. His husband really knew how to cause a stir.

On the mattress stacked on their loft floor (a makeshift bed for all four of them until they could get settled in their new house) said husband was cuddled between their two kids, beaming. “A dream is a wish, your heart makes.” He lullabyed.

Crawling under the blankets, Link hoped and promised to make the dreams of  their children come true.

“When you’re fast asleep.”

---

Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come smiling through No matter how your heart is grieving If you keep on believing The dream that you wish will come true.

---

“Welcome home Lenalee!” Everyone chorused.

Confetti popped into the air, and Johnny may have accidentally stepped on a balloon, and in the center of the commotion Komui held his arms out, looking as expectant and jovial as ever.

Lenalee laughed, heart happy. “I’m home!”

---

Timothy yelled in excitement at the sight of his new home. There was a yard!

And windows! Was it normal to be excited over windows? The boy decided it didn’t matter. They were HIS windows now.

He was going to have his own room!

“AAAH!!! This is AMAZING!” Timothy ran inside, eager to investigate.

Already inside, Lala avidly began to inspect every corner.

Across the street, Colonel Marian Cross gaped, shellshocked.

Link took pictures with his phone, while Allen waved. “Hello neighbor!” He sang and mocked, like the troll he was.

Seething, the officer demanded that the brat had better take the piano this time!

---

“ ‘How do you spell love?’ ” read the brother.

“ ‘You don’t spell it...you feel it.’ ” concluded the sister.

[thekillerssluts]

Will Butler explains how his Harvard degree developed into his second solo album

“Yeah, it’s terrifying,” Will Butler says, pondering how it feels to be releasing music away from the umbrella of Arcade Fire.

“It’s the classic thing about all writers,” he continues. “The creative process makes them wanna puke the whole time they’re writing something, then they read something back and it makes them feel worse, then a year later they read it and think ‘yeah, it’s okay’. It’s a glorious experience, but it really makes your stomach hurt.”

On the one hand Will Butler is well accustomed to this writing process, being a multi-instrumentalist in the Canadian indie-rock band fronted by brother Win - Arcade Fire. But on his own terms, it’s an entirely new process. Butler’s second solo album Generations arrives five years after his debut Policy, a collection that rattled with a ramshackle charm and what he describes now as a ‘consciously very unproduced’ sound. Arcade Fire wound down from their Everything Now tour in September 2018, leaving Butler with the last two years of playtime. Most musicians, particularly those accustomed to big album cycles, set aside their downtime for family or other musical projects. Somehow Butler’s managed to do both while also completing a masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard.

“I went to school for a variety of reasons but there was an artistic side to it too,” he says. “I have always tried to let music and lyrics emerge from the world that I’m in; you fertilise the soil and see what grows. It was a way to better understand where we are, how we got here and what's going on. You know, ‘where am I from? What's going to happen?’” Both of these questions explored in his degree are used as fuel for Generations.

It’s easy to imagine an album by somebody who’s just pursued a Public Policy MSt to form in reams of political commentary, probably set to an acoustic guitar. However, Butler instead engages character portraits soundtracked by a broad range of thrilling sonics. Opener “Outta Here” is shrouded by a monstrous bass that lurks beneath the depths of the instrumentation before bursting out midway through. “Got enough things on my plate without you talking about my salvation,” he screams.

While the cage-rattling “Bethlehem” is mania underpinned by a thrashing guitar and bubbling synths that help lift the track to boiling point.While there’s no current world leaders namechecked or any on-the-nose political commentary across the LP, the angst of its contents is instantly tangible, backed by the intellect of somebody who’s spent the past few years studying the ins and outs of government processes. A perfect combination, you could say.

This fuel was partly discovered through Butler reconnecting with the music that defined his teenage years: namely Bjork, The Clash and Eurythmics. While these influences certainly slip into frame across Generations, they were paired with something of an unlikely muse: “I got into this habit of listening to every single song on the Spotify Top 50 every six weeks,” Butler explains. “So many of them are horrible, terrifying and just awful but there’s something inspiring about how god damn avant garde the shittiest pop music is now. Just completely divorced from any sense of reality - it’s just layers upon layers upon layers - it’s amazing. It’s like Marcel Duchamp making a pop hit every single song.”

We turn from current music to current events. Navigating Covid-19 with his wife and three kids in their home of Brooklyn, a majority of 2020 has been caught up in family time for Butler. “The summer’s been easier because everybody’s outside, whereas in spring it was like ‘it’s family time because we have to lock our doors as there's a plague outside.’” While being surrounded by the trappings of lockdown since his second solo album Generations was completed in March, the album itself wriggles with the spirit of live instrumentation, which at this point seems like some sort of relic from a bygone era."I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people."

The source of this energy can be traced back to the way the songs came together; they were forged and finessed at a series of shows in the early stages of the project. “It just raises the stakes. You can tell how good or how dumb a lyric is when you sing it in front of a hundred people,” he reflects. “It’s like ‘are you embarrassed because what you’re saying is true?’ or ‘is it just embarrassing?’ It’s a good refiner for that stuff. I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people.”

Like his day job in Arcade Fire, Butler’s solo live group is something of a family affair - both his wife and sister-in-law feature in the band, alongside Broadway's West Side Story star, and the student of the legendary Fela Kuti drummer, Tony Allen. Together this eclectic mix of musicians conjures an infectious spirit through the raw combination of thundering synths and pedal-to-the-metal instrumentation; an apt concoction indeed for lyrics that are attempting to unhatch the bamboozling questions that surround our current times.

The timing for Butler’s decision to study Public Policy couldn’t have been more perfect, with his course starting in the Fall of 2016. “I was at Harvard for the election which was a really bizarre time to be in a government school, but it was great to be in a space for unpacking questions like ‘my god, how did we get here?!’” he reflects, with a note of mockery in the bright voice.

“I had a course taught by a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur. The class was essentially on race in America but with an eye towards policy. The class explored what was going to happen in terms of race under the next president. The second to last week was about Hilary Clinton and the last week was about Donald Trump. We read riot reports - Ferguson in 2015, Baltimore in 2016, the Detroit uprisings in the ‘60s and Chicago in 1919 - it's certainly helping me understand the last 5 years, you know. Just to be in that context was very lucky.”

As we’ve seen with statues being toppled, privileges being checked and lyrics of national anthems being interrogated in recent months, history is a complex, labyrinthine subject to navigate requiring both ruthless self-scrutiny and a commitment to the long-haul in order to correct things. The concept of Generations shoots from the same hip employing character portraits to engage in the broader picture.

The writing, at times, is beamed from a place of disconnect (“had enough of bad news / had enough of your generation”), from a place of conscious disengagement (“I’m not talking because I don’t feel like lying / if you stay silent you can walk on in silence”) and from a place of honest self-assessment (“I was born rich / three quarters protestant / connections at Harvard and a wonderful work ethic”).

“I’m rooted in history to a fault,” he says. “My great grandfather was the last son of a Mormon pioneer who’d gone West after being kicked out of America by mob violence. He wanted to be a musician which was crazy - he got 6 months in a conservatory in Chicago before his first child was born. He always felt like he could have been a genius, he could of been writing operas but he was teaching music in like tiny western towns and he had all these kids and he made them be a family band and they were driving around the American west before there were roads in the deserts - literally just driving through the desert! He would go to these small towns and get arrested for trying to skip bills and just live this wild existence.”

Butler’s grandma, meanwhile, was just a child at this point. She went on to become a jazz singer with her sisters and married the guitar player Alvino Rey. “The fact that me and my brother are musicians is no coincidence,” he smiles. “It’s not like I decided to be a musician, it’s down to decisions that were made at the end of the 19th century that have very clearly impacted where I am today. The musical side of it is very beautiful, it is super uncomplicated and a total joy to have a tradition of music in our family...but also in the American context - which is the only context I know - it's also these very thorny inheritances from the 19th century and beyond that influence why my life is like it is.

“For me it’s like, ‘I made my money because my grandpa was a small business owner’ or ‘my grandpa was a boat builder and got a pretty good contract in WW2 and was able to send his kids to college’. Both of which are so unpoetic and unromantic but it is an important thing to talk about, that's a personal political thing to talk about; there's horrifying and beautiful aspects there.”

The lament of “I’m gonna die in a hospital surrounded by strangers who keep saying they’re my kids” on “Not Gonna Die” could well be croaked by somebody on the tail end of a life lived on the American Dream. At times, Butler plays the characters off against each other, like on “Surrender,” which chronicles two flawed characters going back and forth played by Butler’s lead vocals and his female backing singers that undermine his memory; “I remember we were walking” is cut up with the shrug of “I dunno” and “maybe so”. “I found having the backing voices there gave me something to play with,” he explains. “Either something threatening to the main character or something affirming to the main character, just providing another point of view.”

Elsewhere, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” explores the feeling of being unsuitably equipped to unravel the complexities that surrounds us day-to-day. “The basic emotion of that song is very much ‘I don’t know what I can do’ which is an emotion we all have,” he ponders. “There’s also the notion that follows that, like ‘maybe don’t even tell me what to do because it’s going to be too overwhelming to even do anything’.”

Some of these portraits materialised in the aftershows Butler began hosting while on Arcade Fire’s Everything Now tour which found him instigating conversations and talks by local councilman, politicians and activists on local issues. “On some of the good nights of the aftershow town halls, you’d feel that switch away from despair and into action,” he says smiling. “The step between despair and action is possible, that sentiment isn’t spelled out lyrically on the record but it’s definitely there spiritually.”

“I learned anew what a treasure it is to have people in a room. Getting humans in a room can be absurd. And we were having from 5,000 to 15,000 people in a room every night, most of them local. I’m very comfortable with art for art’s sake; I think art is super important and it’s great people can like music that's not political. It was sort of like ‘well we’re here and I know a lot of you are thinking about the world and you’re thinking about what a shit show everything is. You want to know what we can do and I also want to know what we can do!’ So I put on these after shows.”"The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change."

Butler would find a suitable location near the Arcade Fire gig through venue owners who were often connected to the local music and comedy scenes to host these events. “The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change. Arguably, the most important way is through the city council and state government. The New York state government is in Albany, New York. The shit that happens in Albany is all super important so I wanted to highlight that and equip people with some concrete levers to pull.

“In Tampa we had people who were organizing against felon disenfranchisement, like if you’ve been convicted of a felon you couldn’t vote in Florida, and something absurd like 22% of black men in Florida couldn’t vote and there were people organising to change that - this was in 2018 - and you could just see people being like ‘holy shit, I didn't even know this was happening!’

“These were not topics I’m an expert in - it’s like these are things that are happening. The thought was trying to engage, I’m sad to not be doing something similar this Fall, I mean what a time it would have been to go around America.”

Understandably the looming 2020 election is on Butler’s radar. “It doesn't feel good,” he sighs. “I’ve never had any ability to predict, like 2 weeks from now the world could be completely different from what it is today. There was always a one-in-a-billion chance of the apocalypse and now it's like a one-in-a-million chance which is a thousand times more likely but also unlikely. It’s going to be a real slog in the next couple of years on a policy side, like getting to a place where people don’t die for stupid reasons, I’m not even talking about the coronavirus necessarily just like policy in general. Who knows, it could be great but it seems like it's going to be a slog.”

There’s a moment on the closing track “Fine”, a stream-of-consciousness, Randy Newman-style saloon waltz, where Butler hits the nail on the head. “George [Washington], he turned to camera 3, he looked right at me and said...I know that freedom falters when it’s built with human hands”. It’s one of the many lyrical gems that surface throughout the record but one that chimes with an undeniable truth. It’s the same eloquence that breaks through as he touches on the broad ranging subjects in our conversation, always with a bright cadence despite the gloom that hangs over some of the topics.

The live show is without a doubt Arcade Fire’s bread and butter. While Butler questions how realistic the notion of getting people in packed rooms in the near future is, he reveals the group are making movements on LP6. “Arcade Fire is constantly thinking about things and demoing, it's hard to work across the internet but at some point we’ll get together. It probably won’t be much longer than our usual album cycle,” he says.

You only have to pick out one random Arcade Fire performance on YouTube to see Butler’s innate passion bursting out, whether it’s early performances that found him and Richard Reed Parry adorning motorbike helmets annihilating each other with drumsticks to the 1-2-3 beat of “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)” or the roaring “woah-ohs” that ascend in the anthem of “Wake Up” every night on tour. It’s an energy that burns bright throughout our conversation and across Generations.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/arcade-fires-will-butler-new-solo-record-generations

[peachesplumsstakesfangs]

Hedgehogs and Raccoons

American High School Elu AU

Eliott sat at the lunch table with Idriss and Sofiane.  He was feeling down and moody, and had really considered skipping school that day but had already missed too many days that semester. Principal Allen had warned him if he missed any more days, he wouldn’t be able to graduate with the rest of the senior class and would have to attend summer school.

Sofiane patted his arm in pity. “You have to be happy for him, Eliott. He had a rough time last year and now he’s dating the most popular guy in school. They are couple royalty here -- top of the social food chain. Lance’s dad owns half of the town. He’s rich and good looking. The girls here fan-girl over them like they’re Hollywood celebrities, and he’s actually popular. Lance is the first openly gay quarterback at Davis High.”

“Gee, Sofiane, thanks for pointing all of that out to me,” Eliott groaned. He looked over at Idriss who was quietly chuckling.  “How do I even compete with all that? He is such a tool; he eats all that attention up. Everyone thinks he’s so brave, but he’s a jerk.”

“He is pretty brave, though,” Idriss said. “He’s taken a lot of abuse for being out and the face of the Bulldogs...the whole team has to face some hurtful, hateful ignorance, especially when we travel. It’s pretty progressive here, not so much in a lot of other places.”

“Well, when you put it like that...I honestly need new friends.” Eliott grumbled. “Look, I fucking support what he’s doing, but I still hate him as a person.” “Are you sure it’s not just jealousy?” Idriss asked. “He’s controlling, I don’t think he’s ever liked me, and he was the biggest bully when we were kids.” “Maybe he knows you’re in love with his boyfriend. You and Lucas are pretty close,” Sofiane pointed out. “The only one who seems blind to your whipped puppy dog eyes is Lucas.”

“I’m not whipped.” Eliott squinted his eyes at his friends...he really had to consider finding new friends. “Lucas never thinks anyone likes him. It’s what makes him so fucking adorable. Half the school wants to get in his pants.” “I’m in the other half...Jinx,” Sofiane and Idriss said at the same time, playfully tagging each other with a punch to the arm and laughing raucously. “Very mature guys,” Eliott chided. “Do I mess with you about Imane?” he asked, looking at Sofiane. “Or Ingrid?” he asked pointing to Idriss.

“Yes,” they both said in unison. “Seriously, though,” Idriss continued, “Lucas is your best friend, and you’ve been crushing on him since middle school. You’ve been his protector since elementary school. I told you to tell him how you felt about him last year.”

“He had just come out, and he was having all those problems at home with his parents,” Eliott explained. “I didn’t want to make things more complicated for him.”

“Ok, that’s understandable, but what about when he first told you about Lance?” Idriss asked.

Eliott shrugged. “Lance is still a jerk,” he mumbled. He looked up. “Shhh....Don’t turn around, Lucas is heading this way.”

Of course, both Idriss and Sofiane turned around at the same time. Lucas fist bumped each of them and then circled around the table to grab Eliott around the neck and kiss him on the cheek. He was relieved that Lucas couldn’t see the googly eyes Sofiane made at the public display of affection. He swung his backpack around and sat it on the table before sitting beside Eliott. “So, Lance is throwing a party Saturday, and we’re pre-gaming at my Aunt Lisa’s house. She’s been letting me crash there and is cool with me hosting this weekend.” He looked at Eliott. “Do you want to go shopping with me Saturday morning? I need new kicks.” Lucas looked down at his shoes, which still looked pretty new. “Lance says I need to get the latest season.”

“I thought you didn’t care about shit like that?” Eliott asked. 

“I don’t,” Lucas admitted. “But Lance does.” Lucas shrugged as if it were nothing to change his whole personality for a stupid jock. “Are you gonna ask Lucille to the prom?” “I don’t know,” Eliott answered. Sofiane raised an eyebrow. “Or, what about Jadon. Didn’t you have a crush on Jadon?” Lucas asked. Eliott moaned. “That was three years ago, Lucas.” “Lance knows him.” “Lance knows him,” Eliott said in a sing-song mocking voice. “What? Are they in the Rainbow Illuminati or something?” Idriss and Sofiane chuckled. Lucas smirked, then squinted his eyes at Eliott. “Why are you acting so weird? Anyway, come shopping with me. I can talk to Jadon for you.” “I don’t need you to play matchmaker for me, Lucas.” Lucas ignored him. “Idriss, are you taking Ingrid?” Idriss frowned, “I’m not sure.” “She and Imane getting along, yet?” “Are you the school Gazette now?”  Eliott interrupted him. Imane was Idriss’s younger sister and Sofiane’s girlfriend. He knew it was a sore spot for both of them, and he didn’t want Lucas to ruin the delicate peace they had brokered when it came to the subject. 

“No,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. “Lance says I should care about all this stuff - know names, who’s dating who, buy people small things...shit like that. He wants to win prom king and king. They’re letting juniors and seniors go this year and it’s open voting for both levels, so he wants to be the first gay couple in Davis history to win.”

“He just wants it for the fame...not to make a real difference,” Eliott grumbled.

“I think you have him all wrong, but either way, it does make a difference. Some kid in Iowa sees us in an article and he feels a little less scared, a little more hopeful...a little braver.”

“Lucas, he used to bully you in grade school. He gave you a black eye in sixth grade. Did you get fucking amnesia before or after he got you off?”

“Hey dude, too far,” Idriss said.

Eliott knew before all the words were out of his mouth that he had gone too far. He hated seeing the pained look on Lucas’s face, hated himself for being the one to put it there, but couldn’t stop spewing negativity. Eliott stood up, felt like he was having an out of body experience. “Did he tell you that he had a crush on you way back then, but all he could do was punch your face in because he didn’t know how else to deal with his wittle gay emotions?” “You’re being a jerk,” Lucas said quietly. “That was years ago, and he did apologize for it.” Eliott had to get out of there before he said something he couldn’t walk back. “I have to go. See you guys later.”  As he was leaving, he heard Lucas ask Idriss and Sofiane what was going on with him. He knew they wouldn’t reveal his secret. He wanted to turn around and apologize, but his hands were shaking and he felt his eyes prick with angry tears. Something had shifted inside him after seeing Lucas and Lance kissing that morning behind the cafeteria. He needed to clear his mind and decided then and there that he was skipping gym class; thankfully, it wasn’t considered a class he needed for graduation. *** Eliott’s phone buzzed. He looked down to see a name that made the butterflies take flight. It had been a couple of days since his tantrum. He could admit to himself that he had acted childishly.  Lucas knew him well, knew he needed a couple of days to cool off.

“Please help me!” Lucas pleaded. “Manon was supposed to help me pick out an outfit and new sneakers, but something came up with Charles, and she’s standing me up.” “Lucas...I really don’t want to go.” “Hedgehogs and Raccoons,” Lucas said.

Eliott groaned; he could almost see Lucas’s smug little smile through the phone. “You’re using one of your favors. It’s only April, you have so many months to go little grasshopper.”

It was their inside joke, but they could only use the phrase three times a year. The other person had to drop everything they were doing and help the other if they invoked it. Lucas had used it quite a bit when he was younger and needed help at home or with the kids who relentlessly bullied him. Eliott had used it quite a bit when he was younger and the depression hit him like a stone to the head, and cuddling with Lucas was the only thing that kept him sane. Lucas once told him that he never needed to use it for that reason, but he still had, although he hadn’t used it in the last couple of years.

An hour later and he was honking the horn of his beat up Camaro outside of Lucas’s Aunt Lisa’s house. She came out to greet and hug him, her long, brown hair smelling faintly of lemon and something metallic. He knew she made her own shampoos and lotions and often smelled of the forest or fruit; it was one of the things he loved about her. He also liked her because she was sarcastic and irreverent, and didn’t care for Lance too much, as she also remembered how much he had tormented Lucas as a kid.  She was also one of Lucas’s biggest supporters.

Lucas kissed his aunt as he opened the passenger side door to get in. He told her to watch the wings he had put in the oven for the party. She nodded and waved them off. 

They spent an hour at the mall, and for a minute, Eliott forgot about everything that had been bothering him. They hung out and joked like they had done years before when it had been just the two of them, before he had met Idriss and Sofiane in high school when Lucas still had a year left of middle school.

“Remember the pizza place that used to be here when we were kids?” he asked Lucas. The place was now some kind of beauty spa.

“Oh, yea...we used to steal all the free pizza coupons from Mr. Ginley’s desk. You know I never got sick of that pizza.”

“It was pretty disgusting, though,” Eliott said, remembering how they always sat in the corner booth near the soda fountain, heads down and touching, pouring over the latest comic book together. “Only after having better,” Lucas admitted. Lucas’s blue eyes were bright as if he too were fondly remembering those times so long ago.

Lucas finally found an outfit and sneakers he thought Lance would approve of and they headed back to get ready for the party.  When they arrived, a couple of their friends from school were playing video games in the living room. Lisa had placed the wings, chips, and dip on the table.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said.

“That leaves a lot that could land us in jail,” Lucas joked.

“Ok, smartass, just don’t burn the place down. I’ll be back in a few hours. Make sure you lock up when you leave to go to Lance’s.” She rolled her eyes at the name, making sure that Eliott saw it but not Lucas. He chuckled as she kissed them both on the cheek before heading out for the night.

Their friends waved them over, but Lucas picked up the bag letting them know he would be out after changing.  He told them to host and answer the door until he returned. He grabbed Eliott’s arm and pulled him to the back of the house where his small bedroom was located.

Eliott sat on the bed as Lucas changed clothes. He averted his eyes but stole glances at him when he thought Lucas wasn’t paying attention. He loved everything about him: the small moles like mini constellations that dotted his lithe body, the light freckles on his nose that were only visible when summer came around, the way his smile lit up a room. 

Lucas finally finished dressing and sat on the bed next to him, his arm brushed Eliott’s own. The touch gave him goosebumps, made him catch his breath.  Spending time with Lucas at the mall and recalling how close they had been when they were younger had made him remember all the times Lucas had been there for him, had been his confidante and saving grace. He barely registered Lucas asking him if he liked the outfit. He only saw Lucas’s mouth and those ocean-blue eyes before he leaned over and kissed him, pulling Lucas’s pliant lips into his mouth. He kissed him, and the years of pining turned into a hungry need to fill himself up with the taste of the boy he had loved for so long. Lucas stilled at first and then began kissing him back before a door slam broke them apart.

They realized it had been Lucas’s door, which had not been closed all the way shut.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Lucas said as he raced out the room.

Eliott was stunned. He didn’t know why he had chosen that time to suddenly make a bold move, but he had no regrets. He would let the chips fall where they would.

A few minutes later and he heard Lance in the living room and then Lucas frantically whispering as their voices neared the room. 

Lance burst through the door. He was wearing his Letterman jacket and a white t-shirt with dark blue jeans. His ash blonde hair was messier than usual, as though he had just roughly ran his hands through it.  His green eyes blazed with anger as they locked with Eliott’s blue ones. Eliott stood, not wanting to meet the bigger boy’s wrath in such an unfavorable position. They were both tall and slim, both about six feet in height, but Lance was wider in the shoulders, had packed more muscle onto his slim frame.

“Did you kiss him, Lucas? Did you kiss him? Marcus told me he was coming to ask you about the beer and saw you two kissing.” He was yelling at Lucas, and Eliott instinctively wanted to protect him. Lance hadn’t been known to punch anyone since middle school, but he wasn’t taking any chances and jumped in between the two of them.

“It was my fault, Lance,” he admitted trying to direct the larger boy’s anger toward him. It worked because Lance turned to face him, their faces mere inches apart. “Lucas didn’t kiss me back,” he lied.

“I never trusted you, never liked you, even though Idriss always vouched for you.” Before Eliott could respond, he felt something land heavily against his face. It had happened so fast. One minute they had been facing each other and the next minute, he was on the floor with Lucas leaning over him, calling his name. 

He was dizzy. He touched his face and felt something wet. He looked down and saw blood on his hands. He looked up to see Lance head out of the door followed by Lucas. Everything was muffled, and there was ringing in his ears. Lucas turned to face him and mouthed for him to stay there.

As soon as they left the room, Eliott pulled himself from the floor and left out the window.

*** When he finally made it home, he rinsed his face and stopped the bleeding. He made an ice pack to hold against his nose. It wasn’t broken, or at least he didn’t think it was broken, but judging by the way it throbbed, it would be swollen and bruised for weeks.

Lucas, Idriss, and Sofiane tried to call him several times, but he ignored the buzzing. They started texting him, but he ignored the pings, finally cutting his phone off and crawling into the bed to nurse his wounds, both emotional and physical. Lucas had left him bleeding on the floor. He had chased after Lance. Eliott knew he had been wrong for kissing him. He should have just told him how he had been feeling, but he had been scared. He was scared that Lucas would reject him because he was only able to see him as a good friend. Or worse, that he wouldn’t reject him, and that a toxic romantic relationship would ruin their perfectly good platonic one. He jumped when he heard a knock on his window.

“Let me in, idiot!” He heard Lucas’s voice and stood up to peer out the window near his bed. He opened the screen to let Lucas in. Lucas threw a bag of something inside before heaving his body over the frame and onto the bed.

“I brought your favorite snacks and some pain meds.”

Eliott reached over to click on the lamp next to his bed. The light was dim leaving most of the room in shadows.

“Are you alright?” Lucas asked. He gently touched Eliott���s face, turning it towards him so he could study Eliott’s nose. “Ok, put the ice back on it. I’ve seen worse...on myself.”   Lucas paused. “Sorry I didn't listen to you. Guess a tiger doesn’t change his stripes. He is still a bully.” “I would’ve punched me, too,” Eliott admitted. He couldn’t believe he was actually defending Lance. “You know...if I were some cowardly jerk who kissed you while we were dating.”

Lucas laughed, “Oh, really?” He placed his hand on Eliott’s leg. “You’re not a coward.”

Eliott huffed. “But I am a jerk?”

“Hell, yes. Why did you leave? I was going to grab the first aid kit and tell everyone to leave. I punched Lance and kicked everyone out, and when I returned, you’d ghosted me.”

“You punched Lance?”

“Don’t sound so shocked...Well, I attempted to, but he blocked it pretty effortlessly,” Lucas chuckled. “I did tear his precious Letterman jacket. I think he was more pissed about that than the fact that we had kissed. Ugh, and that fucking Marcus.”

“Fucking Marcus,” Eliott agreed.

“You know Lance had the nerve to call me and tell me he’s taking Jadon to the prom. He didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”   

“I’m sorry. He was rightfully hurt. You probably did break his wittle heart.” “Shut up.” 

They both sat in silence for a minute, Eliott holding the bag of melting ice on his lap while Lucas opened the bottle of Tylenol and gave him a couple of tablets to take along with a bottle of water. 

“You know you always protected me when we were little...seems like you’re still doing it. If I never told you before, thank you...for everything.”

“You’ve always been there for me, too. I went through some pretty dark times when I was younger. I don’t think I would even be here if it weren’t for you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

He studied Lucas as he looked up at the ceiling. There were a few neon green stars still there, evidence of the time when he and Lucas had stuck three bagfuls of glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling because Lucas had been afraid of the dark when he slept over as a kid. 

“I didn’t know.” Lucas finally said after more quiet minutes had passed.

“Really?” Eliott asked. “We’ve always been affectionate...close. You’re my best friend, but I thought you saw me as a little brother even though we’re not that far apart in age.  You were always so much bigger and cooler.”

“Me, cooler?” Eliott huffed out a laugh. “Maybe I saw you like that when we were little kids, but I think something changed around middle school. By the time I came to terms about how I really felt about you, I decided I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“I don’t want to mess that up, either,” Lucas said quietly. “But we have a problem.”

“What’s that?” Eliott asked.

“I can’t get that kiss out of my head.”

Lucas took the bag of melting ice from Eliott’s hand and placed it on the window sill. He gently grabbed Eliott’s face, first softly kissing the bruised flesh of his nose and then his mouth. Eliott closed his eyes, relishing the moment he had dreamed about for so long. Lucas stilled, which made Eliott open his eyes. They stared at each other, each breathing in the other’s breath, their heads touching.  Lucas kissed him again, first softly and then with more pressure. Eliott returned the kiss, opened his mouth to Lucas’s tongue, tasted his mouth with his own. Lucas groaned, which caused Eliott to deepen the kiss even more. He felt as if he were being consumed from the inside out.  He felt like he would never be able to get enough of Lucas -- of his mouth, his hands, his friendship, his heart.

“Hedgehogs and raccoons,” Lucas whispered into his mouth.

Eliott pulled back, stared intently into the eyes that he knew by heart. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Just you,” Lucas answered. “Just you.”

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #6 (1978)

Is The Secret a story about Cerebus manifesting reality because that's what he winds up doing pretty near constantly, right? Like Elrod and the Regency Elf and the Black Tower and his relationship with Jaka and running a tavern?

I just developed a massive migraine thinking about doing reviews for the Latter Days Woody Allen issues and had to lie down for three weeks. Based on the cover alone, I have no idea which Cerebus story this is. Is it the one where he first meets Jaka and gets drunk on Apricot Brandy? Or is it the one where we learn he's a hermaphrodite and there are three aardvarks? No, no! Probably too soon for that! Dave didn't yet realize he wanted smart and interesting people reading his comic book; he was just looking for us fantasy loving fools hoping for some chainmail bikini side boob with a little black and white barbarian battle gore to go with it. Although for people wanting side boob and gore that was also in color, there was a better option out there: the four collected Elfquest volumes. Especially Volume Four! Elf orgy, baby! Skywise dicks like five elf maidens at once! Although how that's possible, I don't know. It should have been Nightfall taking five elf cocks at once. Maybe six. They're small! Deni announces in the "A Note from the Publisher" bit that she and Dave are getting married! Is that exciting enough for an exclamation point even though we know it ends in tragedy? Is divorce a tragedy? Probably not on the scale of, say, the sinking of the Titanic. But then again, was that really a tragedy? I know a lot of poor people died but don't forget a lot of robber barons did too! If there had been a Schoolhouse Rock song about Astor and Guggenheim and Straus drowning when the Titanic sunk, it probably would have been my favorite Schoolhouse Rock song. The chorus (and maybe title!) would have been about Archibald Butt and, sadly, that, as opposed to the "Eat the Rich" theme, is probably why I would have liked it so much. In Dave Sim's Swords of Cerebus essay, he explains how he came up with Jaka. She represented every girl Dave ever had an unrequited crush on. Not that he knew the crush was expressly unrequited since he never actually spoke to any of the girls he had a crush on. He decided stalking was easier. I get it! That's exactly how somebody who thinks women as objects is a much more attractive package than a woman who can express their own agency and beliefs! Dammit. That last statement hurt my feelings because I also had a problem expressing my feelings toward the ladies. Although that time Marilyn Mendoza came up to me in the library and said, "I hate being stared at," I did stop staring at her! It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life but I stopped! I didn't stop obsessing about her and wishing we could do whatever it was two people in love did to each other (hold hands and drink milkshakes out of one straw while staring in each others' eyes?). Eventually she, apparently, couldn't take not being stared at anymore so she began talking to me again. She also slipped me a note that said, "I love you anyways," and she tried to give me one of her school pictures unsolicited and she convinced her friends to take the phys ed class I was in and she asked for the rose I had on my desk that I was going to give her for her birthday but had chickened out giving it to her. And if that doesn't convince you that by not staring at her, I won her affection because you're a cynical jerk who still thinks the rom-coms where the guy wins the girl through sheer determination is a pox on society (which, I mean, it kind of is but that admission goes against my real life experience I'm relating), this is what she wrote in my 9th grade yearbook:

Sure, it sounds like a 9th grade Yearbook form letter! But check out the kind of jealous shade thrown at Kim and the "Luv ya kid!" up the side!

If you're wondering how I didn't immediately sweep her up in my arms after reading this and declare my undying adolescent love (You know? The kind of undying love that only adolescents can have which, also, dies rather quickly), it's because my friend Sal noticed the "Luv ya kid!" which I had failed to notice. This was halfway through summer and Marilyn wound up going to a different high school than I did. Although Mr. Edwards in my Spanish 2 class called her name for attendance on the first day of 10th grade! Stupid cruel life! After that slight confessional, you'll realize why I was primed for the Cerebus/Jaka will they/won't they drama to come. Cerebus has arrived in Iest and quickly meets a dying man who may or may not have expressed to him The Secret. Judging by the way the guys who were chasing and/or killed him, E'lass and Turg, are fantasizing about a future full of gold crowns, my guess is The Secret is the location of some treasure and not the means to bend the universe to your will simply by desiring shit. They believe Cerebus has learned The Secret so Turg tries to beat it out of him. But as we, the enraptured and attentive readers, have learned from the previous five issues, Cerebus can't be bested in battle. And since force doesn't work like it almost always does 100% of the time which is why America's diplomatic policy is "Don't even tell us your problems because we'd rather just beat the shit out of you until you shut the fuck up," E'lass decides to get Cerebus drunk. People always blab secrets when they're drunk! Which is why I try not to write more than 35% of my reviews while drunk. That way, you can't tell when I'm actually confessing to some gross misconduct I engaged in in my youth or I'm just writing a satirical joke about how reckless and terrible young men are in general.

This scene makes me think of Bill Cosby which makes me think of the Picture Pages song which makes me sad that I can only now sing it as, "Picture pages! Picture pages! Now it's time for Picture Pages! Time to grab your condoms and Rohypnol!"

I'm ignoring the spelling error because I'm above petty gripes. Once Cerebus is drugged, E'lass turns Cerebus' attention to the dancer, Jaka.

Love at first sight of side boob.

Cerebus climbs on stage to watch Jaka dance and nobody cares because he's an animal. Animals can get away with murder around pretty women! They can sniff their crotches and paw at their breasts and put their tongues straight up their noses. It's like, if you're going to scold me for doing it, maybe scold animals for doing it too? Be consistent in your messaging, women! Is it funny and slightly embarrassing when your crotch is sniffed or is it the actions of a sex pest?! Would it help if I wore a dog costume everywhere I went, especially yoga?

I'm going to pretend this doesn't read like a Cerebus getting an erection joke so that I appear more intelligent and sophisticated.

Jaka tells Cerebus he is cute. Jaka also refers to Jaka in the third person exactly like a princess from Palnu wouldn't. But that's what makes her stripping disguise so excellent! What also makes it excellent is that Dave Sim didn't really know who Jaka was yet. Which is fine! It's much harder to come up with a 300 issue story all at once and then remember it and then write it exactly as you conceived it without changing and updating it as you learn and grow with the work. It's much easier to write an off the cuff story about a stripper and a barbarian and unrequited love. It doesn't make it any less entertaining because it wasn't pre-planned. Also, the fun thing about comic books is when a writer takes a story from the past and recontextualizes it. That's why Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison have always been so popular! That's all they fucking do! A brawl breaks out because Cerebus is in a bar. It's the kind of thing that has to happen once the protagonist walks in a bar. And you can even role-play your very own bar brawl in my introductory Places & Predators module, "Welcome to Poorchaghoul!" While Cerebus is distracted by the brawl, E'lass and Turg go backstage to threaten Jaka. If she doesn't get The Secret from Cerebus, they'll make sure she never dances again. So that's how the Cirinists eventually take over Iest! Jaka decides not to help them and instead of breaking her legs like the reader assumes their threat means, they bring in the Cirinist matriarchy to take over and outlaw dancing! They're so clever! Jaka lies to Cerebus and tells Cerebus E'lass and Turg will kill her if she doesn't help them. But that's not what they said at all! Oh, those wily women and their words and sex appeal! Cerebus, desperate to drink apricot brandy out of one of Jaka's orifices (is the belly button an orifice or is it more of a scar? Let me check the dictionary definition: "an opening, as of a pipe or tube, or one in the body, such as a nostril or the anus." Woah, dictionary! You couldn't have chosen a different second example?!), beats the shit out of E'lass. After that, things get sexy (if you're into woman-on-animal action).

Unbeknownst to Cerebus, rich is the last thing Jake wants to be again. Her dream is to settle down with a cuck with a Messiah complex while dancing illegally for rent until she gets her boss killed. Now that's the life!

Cerebus lays out his future plans with Jaka once they're rich. You can read about those adventures in Going Home which won't happen for another two hundred or so issues. Because before that happens, Cerebus has to come down from his Rohypnol trip, forget about Jaka, become Prime Minister, remember Jaka, be rude to Jaka, become Pope, lose everything, live as a guest in Rick and Jaka's apartment, travel through space, talk to "God," and finally run a bar and lose all of his friends. While shopping for a present for Jaka, Cerebus sobers up, forgets about Jaka, and decides to get unsober again as quickly as possible. Meanwhile Turg and E'lass get their comeuppance. It's such a great comeuppance that I think they never again appear in Cerebus. I could be wrong but I think they basically get replaced by the more entertaining McGrew Brothers, Dirty Fleagle and Dirty Drew. Cerebus runs into Jaka one final time but doesn't remember her.

Deni said this final page was her wedding present from Dave.

In "A Note from the Publisher," Deni writes, "This issue is special to me in that the ending is my wedding present from Dave. No joke!! It's different and when you read it, I think you'll understand." Dave, in his essay, writes, "I can remember trying to come up with the ending for a few days. I knew that Cerebus would have to snap out of it eventually. It was at that point that I realized the essence of the problem. I had been thinking of Cerebus' point of view of the situation, but I hadn't stopped to consider how Jaka was reacting to him." So Deni's wedding present from Dave Sim was to give a female character in his book a point of view? To give her agency? To show her as not an object of Cerebus' lust but as a human being with feelings of her own? Nice one! And it was cheap! This month's Aardvark Comment contains a letter from Elric creator Michael Moorcock! Holy smokaroonies! He was entertained by Elrod but just wanted to point out that Elrod looked nothing like Elric based on Moorcock's writing. It was really based on an artist's rendition of another artist's rendition of Elric and the first rendition wasn't based on any written description at all! I have a vague memory of reading the Elric books and referring to the cover and thinking, "Is that supposed to be Elric? Weird." This issue begins the one page of reader art that Sim pays $150.00 for. This one is of a kid doing art while his "lacks discipline" report card lies at his feet. I think Dave Sim might have screwed up this first one because there's no attribution other than the artist's signature which you can't really make out. I'm sure he'll correct that next issue since he made a correction from the previous issue here: he added the rest of the Swords of Cerebus essay that was missing last issue. Cerebus #6 Rating: A-. This is a solid effort and begins to really show Sim's plotting ability and narrative control. It's got a lot of good jokes in it as well, both in dialogue and slapstick forms. One thing I haven't mentioned is just how good Dave Sim is at slapstick. It might seem like the easiest humor to work into a comic book but it takes some really well-crafted writing and careful planning of action across panels which not a lot of writers and artists can pull off. It really helps that Dave's doing both so that one or the other job isn't the cause of it all falling apart. Also, it was Jaka's first appearance!

[the-sweetest-dragon]

Character Sheet

This is the last one of my DC characters that I’ve revised and I really like the amount of detail I put back into this character.  I hope to start writing her story soon, but I’ll have to thank @incorrectbatfamiliaquotes once again for all her help because if it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I’d even consider rewriting any of these.  

_____________________________________________________

Full Name: Ashton Poppy Nazari

Nickname: Ash

Ethnicity: Arabic and German (Her father was Arabic and her mother was German)

Birthday: November 13, 2000

Age: 18

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Basic Personality: Ash would describe herself as a rebel with a heart of gold, which is mostly true.  She’s kind and cares a lot about other people, but often forgets that not everyone thinks as quickly as she does.  Quick to start an argument, or physical fight, to defend what she believes is right.  Ash likes to move around; she constantly taps her foot or drums her fingers against things.  She’s scary intelligent, and may be a better detective than Tim Drake.  

Deeper Personality:

Aggressive:  Ash refuses to leave well enough alone and it gets her into trouble at the orphanage and with foster parents.  Starts fights with other kids, and usually wins, due to her background in boxing.  She wouldn’t describe herself as aggressive, but others would.  

Outspoken: She’s a hardcore feminist, to the point that others can recite her speeches from memory.  Ash believes that her body is her own to control, her sexuality is valid, and that LGBTQ people deserve the same rights and opportunists that cishet people are allowed to have.   

Hyper: Ashton likes to move around a lot.  She got in trouble a lot in school for tapping her feet and drumming her fingers against her desk.  Ash also gets distracted a lot, but once focused, she’ll rarely drop whatever she’s interested in.  

Best Friend: Jonathan Kent 

Her and Jon met while she lived in Metropolis.  She saved him from making a complete fool of himself by tripping and spilling milk on the school bully.  Jon loves her to death and once harbored a small crush on her, but grew out of it fairly quickly.  They kept in touch over the years and are still great friends to this day.

Family: Unknown to her, however, as the author, I can tell you that they were involved in the League of Assassins and were killed because they didn’t want to raise Ashton in such a harsh environment.  They desperately wanted her to have a normal life.  They worked for the League because they were forced to; they had no choice.  When they saw a chance to escape, they took it but at a harsh consequence of Ashton growing up without parents.  Ra’s, as a way to try and keep them under his control, wanted to marry Ash off to Damian when they came of age.  Talia thought it would be a wonderful match and Ashton’s parents knew that it was just another way to control them, prompting them to plan their escape in secret.  Talia was the one to kill them.  

Love Life:  Ashton likes to date, but not seriously.  She’s not one to be tied down.  Ash identifies as bisexual but leans more towards guys than girls.  Her last relationship ended pretty badly, and it left her with a black eye.  She now knows to not trust Gotham street rats.   

Political Viewpoint: Ash is very liberal, but also knows that people are allowed to have different opinions to her own.  That doesn’t stop her from starting fights though.  

Basic Description:  Ashton is pretty but in an unusual way.  Her features are large but somehow delicate.  Ash has heterochromia, with one green eye and one brown eye.  Her hair is cut short and is dark brown, with honey blonde highlights.  She has freckles and moles everywhere.  Jon always used to joke that its because the sun is in love with her.  Her hair never gets longer than shoulder length because it bothers her if it’s too long.  Ash isn’t tall, but she isn’t short either.  She’s curvy and has thighs that would Jason Todd to shame.  Muscular without being boxy; she used to box a lot in her spare time.  She has a lot of piercings; her earlobes are pierced twice each and in her right ear, her cartilage is pierced too.  Her nose is also pierced and she typically wears a stud in it.  Ash has a few tattoos, all of which were saved up for and paid for with her own money from working jobs in coffee houses or babysitting.  On her calf, she has an electric blue skeleton that is skateboarding and wearing a Hawaiian shirt.  She has a blue and purple hummingbird on her left shoulder and a bat hanging upside down beneath her boobs.  (We stan a tattooed queen in this house.)

Short Term Goals: Ash just wants to have a nice summer and to not worry about the future for a few months.   

Long Term Goals: Ashton is determined to become a music teacher and find a home to settle down in.  She isn’t sure if she’d want to get married or even have kids, but likes to think about her future quite often.  

Favorite Outfit: Ash’s dress sense depends on the day, but her favorite outfit is a vintage Queen shirt paired with ripped mom jeans, which have fishnets underneath them, and clunky boots she found at a thrift store.  

Favorite Song: Black Sheep by The Clash at Demonhead

Hobbies: Ash enjoys a number of things.  She used to box a lot, and knows a lot of self defense that she taught to girls in the orphanage before she left.  Ashton can play the guitar and sings a little.  She’ll occasionally write her own songs, but prefers to not share them with anyone.  

Favorite Candy: She’s partial to dark chocolate Crunch Bars or Peeps, but only the pink ones (the yellow ones don’t taste the same)

Favorite Drink: Ashton loves frozen hot chocolate with whipped cream and caramel drizzle; she has a sweet tooth like no other.  

Fatal Flaw: She hates opening up to other people about her feelings.  She’ll tell you her opinion in a heartbeat but when she’s feeling sad, she’ll refuse to talk to people. 

Habits: Ashton chews on her nails.  They’re rarely longer than where her finger is and finds it easier to not chew them if they aren’t long.  

Favorite Color: She’s partial to blood red and black.  

Favorite Food: Vegetarian zucchini lasagna is her absolute favorite.  Ash is vegetarian and loves to experiment with food.  This is one of her favorite recipes that she’s tried in the past few years.  

Fears: Ash is afraid of snakes and dark holes.  She has nightmares of being thrown into the sea from a ship in the night.  Ash is terrified that people will get to know the real her and leave anyways.  

Life Motto: Be the woman who fixes another woman’s crown without telling the world it was crooked.  

Favorite Movie: A Knight’s Tale because it’s awesome.

Weird Talent: She’s managed to figure out a good portion of superheroes secret identities by doing basic detective work.  It’s one of her favorite things to surprise Jon with.

“Hey, I know who Kid Flash is.”

“No you don’t.”

“Dude, it’s obviously Bart Allen, I’m not dumb.”

*Surprised Pikachu face*

Role Model: Batgirl, otherwise known as Stephanie Brown.  Ash admires her strength and resilience.  Coming back after a pregnancy must have been one of the hardest things in the world.  Plus, she has to put up with Tim Drake, which means she’s an amazing person with a great temperament.    

Religion: Ash is agnostic and doesn’t enjoy going to church.  

Prized Possession: When Ashton found her way into her first orphanage, she came with a small golden locket that doesn’t open but is engraved with what she believes to be her parents initials.  

[pravin1224-blog]

Once upon a time I used to know a 13 year old boy who was convinced that he was destined to become something spectacular in life .

Then one day, he grew up.

Soon, the day slipped into years . And the years into decades . Until one fine morning when he looked into the bathroom mirror and found a stranger in there. A stranger who reminded him of a typical non-hero character out of a Woody Allen movie, someone who was standing at intermission and unable to account for the thousands of days that had slipped by, taking all his innocent and absurd dreams with them.

That 13-year old boy used to be me . Or maybe he used to be you. The you, you left behind – at misty bends and messy ends, as you went about earning your scars and chasing illusions you mistook for real life.

Time is indeed a queer commodity that is reconstructed in memories and deconstructed in regrets as it goes by. Most of us sleepwalk through our youth in trying to win some kind of identity . Then we stumble upon middle age & scramble to preserve that identity . And suddenly, standing at mid-point , we realize that somewhere in this medley of all the artificial races we were enlisting in, we have quietly let go of our greatness. Partly by default , partly by design. The first pangs of urgency hit us. We know this is no dress rehearsal. It is our own life that is gliding past. We straighten up and reach for it. 

In many ways, 2019 has been that year for me. The year of pause and reset. The year of recalibration so as to find my personal 2.0. Agree, it might not fetch me that Olympic medal or get me a phone call from Stockholm in this lifetime, but it should at least bring forth the best in the rest of me. Someone had written somewhere that one day in your journey, the you who you became will come face to face with the you who you could have been . This year, and in the years ahead, I have chosen to test this out with my personal toolkit, my realizations from having lived a life of sorts. At least I owe it to the 13-year old who I would like to see eye to eye as we shake hands on the other side of the finish line.

Here’s my 2.0. Do let me know if it matches with yours ?

Find your song – Like Rocky says, ‘Fighters fight..’. Likewise, painters paint. Poets write. You were born with your own song inside you, a song no one else can sing as well as you. Find it. Don’t show up at the finale with your song still unsung.

Toss it up – As we get older, we become suckers for conformity. We join the herd, and get trapped in time capsules that we legitimize as our rule book. And in the process, we lose our fluidity and edge. Find ways to toss your days. Every day is different. Each day has its unique flavor and rhythm. Discover it. Savor it. Live it.

Subtract your busyness – In today’s super connected world, it is very easy to get zombified by irrelevant chatter and numbed by FOMO ( fear of missing out). Get off the bandwagon of manufactured busyness. If anything really needs your attention, it will find its way to you somehow. You don’t need to check your phone every 30 seconds for that.

Be the best first hand You – When people talk of you in your absence, there should be 5-6 consistent things that they recall about you. That is your own personal brand. Work on it, nurture it and protect it. This is what should make people love and respect you beyond your day job title. In 2019, I de-linked my brand from my day job. Its not that I do not love my organization or my job. Far from it. But I prefer an identity that is my own. And I feel glad that I have so many friends, connections and well wishers out there who don’t care what I do as my day job.

Find your well – My favorite among Haruki Murakami’s many metaphors is the ‘bottom of a well’ thing , a place his protagonists often retreat into. We all need a well as we do our 2.0. This is where we need to disappear periodically, to lose ourselves in dark silence every day, so as to find ourselves better. You are not ready to deliver your swansong till you know all that you must know about you.

Don’t be the dinosaur in the room – Keep pace with trends & technology. There is no scientific evidence suggesting that our brains become less capable to embrace newness as we grow older. In fact, I think it is the reverse. We actually develop a wider perspective to apply new things as we have a larger platter of past experiences to draw from. Most people get stuck in the ‘good old days’ syndrome and squander off their precious 2.0 in cynicism and nostalgia. As the saying goes – The good old days were not that good. The good new days are here. And better days are coming.

Don’t be a corporate robot – Most people out there wake up, grimace at the morning news, eat breakfast, drive their Toyota Corolla to work , sit nodding in endless & pointless meetings, grumble about life's unfairness at the vending machine, ‘Like’ their boss’s stupid posts on social media, criticize Trump and Modi, go back home, watch TV and go to bed. Don’t be most people. Your 2.0 should be about finding your unique way to add value. To yourself, to your workplace and to the world you live in.

Find the smaller meaning of life – In pursuit of some unnecessary profound, we often miss the necessary ordinary. Each day is an opportunity to do our own small things for this world. Find few small things to do each day. If each of us took care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.

Stop chasing credit for the work you do - The world is a fair place. Every honest effort gets noticed, recorded and applauded in due course of time. Your time shall come.

Find your Zen - Human beings, by nature, are designed for stability and coexistence. This whole discourse on disruption is overrated and temporary . It will soon pass. And life will go on.

Get fit -If you miss your workout for a day, no one will notice. If you miss it for three days, you will notice. If you miss it for a week, others will notice. One of the things you need for an effective 2.0 is robust health. Respect your body. And it will pay you dividends as you slug it out there and compete in the relevance battle with people half your age.

Dress sensibly - Don’t buy skinny jeans. Donate your light coloured suits. No one might tell you so, but they make you look silly.

Decode love - In 2.0, you discover that love is not a few nice words from a Rumi’s couplet , but rather, it is a person we uncover as we grow older – in someone else, as well as in ourselves. Love during your first innings is often impulsive, hormonal & stupid. Love during 2.0 becomes something that grows & triumphs over time and circumstances. Make sure you love your partner. Also make sure you remember to tell your partner that you love her / him. Nothing silly in that.

Draw out your circle of dignity – Youth is about misadventures and compromises. Hungry to get an appreciative nod from the world, we keep making allowances. Each such allowance leaves us with a vague vacuum within, a discomfort we cannot explain . One of the things about 2.0 is plugging the vacuum by drawing your own circle of dignity, your personal code of conduct. This is the line you won’t cross, no matter how big the repercussions be.

The dude in the sky - Mark Twain ( in his 1916 classic ‘ The mysterious stranger ’) wrote – “Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” Loosen up. Every once in a while, connect with your eccentric friends. Or with your own eccentric self. You are but just a speck in the scheme of the universe which again is only a speck in the larger scheme of a drama being scripted by that brilliant playright in the sky . Don’t take yourself too seriously.

 Live fair. Stay kind. Have fun. Finish well.

============================================

[calzona-ga]

When Grey's Anatomy goes there, it really goes there. Thursday's episode took a break from the soapy dramatics and instead focused on telling an intimate story about what it really means to deal with cancer.

In "The Winner Takes It All," Koracick (Greg Germann) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) faced a daunting surgery to remove a tumor lodged on Catherine's (Debbie Allen) spine in the hopes of saving both her life and her surgeon's hands. They were successful in preserving her life and career but were unable to fully cure her. With 95 percent of the tumor removed, Catherine will now live with the disease for the rest of her life. It was a moving story with a hopeful ending as Catherine looked forward to all of the things she'll still be able to do, including spending time with her family.

Elsewhere, the harrowing hour offered a different perspective through Thatcher Grey (Jeff Perry), who chose to stop treatments and die on his own terms. In an emotional final visit, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and her father hashed out their issues and found closure before he ultimately passed away.

The standalone episode was deeply personal for Grey's writer Elisabeth Finch. She based Catherine's story arc on her own experiences with cancer. In an interview with TV Guide, she opened up about what it meant to tell that very raw story, what Catherine's future might look like and the things she'd like to see changed with regard to how we handle the disease.

This was a deeply personal story for you, so what was it like putting yourself out there like that? Elisabeth Finch: This is my fifth season working on Grey's. Everyone, including the writers and the actors, has seen the various stages of me being sick, so it wasn't about me exposing myself to the people around me. What was challenging to me was figuring out how I could communicate the things that mattered most to me about my cancer experience, which is atypical, out into the world. And figure out how to give Catherine a character arc that was engaging and unique.

Which was the most difficult scene for you to write? Finch: Honestly, I go somewhere in my head where I'm not thinking about it. But when we started filming, it started to filter into my brain how much of my story I put down on paper, how much of my story was being told through Catherine. Watching Catherine wake up and everyone else in the room is heartbroken and she finds out that they got 95 percent of the tumor and her hands still function and she can still be a surgeon, she starts to list all the things that she's still going to get to do with her life because they saved her life. They didn't cure her but they saved her. I started to hear those words over and over and over again. And that was when I think it finally hit me what story I had told. And also, just starting to see myself being reflected back at me. It's something I had never seen before. Never on television or in a movie where someone else's cancer looks like mine, or their disability looks like mine. That's something I think everybody should have the opportunity to see, to see a version of themselves reflected back.

In the end, Catherine will have to live with cancer but she looks forward to all of the things she's going to accomplish instead of dwelling on the what-ifs. What went into the decision to give that hopeful ending? Finch: It's the most honest ending, with regards to my own story. I'm a person who lives with cancer. I'm not dying of it. I am not cured of it. I have it and it's a part of my life and it's not my entire life. That was what I was interested in telling in the first place. That's what [Grey'sshowrunner] Krista Vernoff asked me to consider relating. We've seen patients that live in the cured space or that live in the dead space. We don't see cancer patients who live in a space where they have it and they have their full lives too. So it wasn't just about we'd like to stick a hopeful ending on the end of this episode. It was more about telling a version of cancer that doesn't get told anywhere.

This episode could have been very dark but it wasn't. There were moments of laughter, like when Jackson danced with Catherine. How important was it for you to include humor during this hour? Finch: It's so true to mix in those heartbreaking moments with those moments of crazy laughter and crazy joy because that was my experience and continues to be my experience. There are days where things are not good and I feel miserable and I'm doing miserably. And then there are days where thing are absurd and I'm absurd. And there are days where it's half and half and then any moment, I think those moments of grief and joy come in intermittently and that's true to life. I had in my head for a long time that I wanted to see Catherine singing a song to herself while she was going through the scanner because that's how I measure time in my head when I'm going through MRI machines. I just sing the same songs over and over again and I know an MRI machine is three versions of this song. And so, having those little moments that are odd but true felt really tightly put together. And how could you ever resist having Debbie Allen dance it out on the OR floor? Like who wouldn't want that dream?!

Oh, that was fantastic! Finch: It was my all-time favorite thing I've gotten to do on Grey's.

This episode also touched on the language we use with regard to cancer, those militant terms like "battle" and "fight." How did that language play into the way you dealt with cancer and what do you hope to change about it? Finch: I really hope the thing people take away from this episode is that militarized language around cancer is often hurtful and destructive to the people dealing with it firsthand. I am not the mayor of Cancer Town so I cannot speak for everyone. If someone wants to adopt those words and that's what makes them feel better, that's up to them. But all the conversations that I've had with people that I know that are living with cancer or have cancer, they don't connect to it. And it assigns value to life and death.

I don't understand what winning and losing really means when you're talking about cancer. Because I have seen people who have read every medical text they possibly can, gone to every doctor they possibly can and have lived. I've see people do the same thing and die. I've seen people do nothing and be fine. I think it puts hurtful expectations on patients to somehow gear up or appear stronger than they are. And nothing drives me crazier than to read an obituary of someone who's passed away from cancer and say that they lost their fight. I don't know what that means because there ain't much in their control. They took their medicine or they didn't take their medicine and they died. And I take my medicine and I'm alive. It has nothing to do with my winning spirit or their losing spirit. It has nothing to do with what's good or bad or if I fight harder than those other people. It's luck. It's genetics. It's my doctor. It's my privilege. It's not in my control and so assigning those words as if it is in your control, I think, is harmful to people who are in that position.

Meredith touched on that in her voiceover. Did you at some point consider her to be a conduit for your own voice? Finch: Yeah, I think her voiceover is my thesis statement for the episode. You see it in Thatcher who talks about how he got treatment and it didn't work and he died. You see Catherine who took her medicine, got her surgery and she lived. Neither of them is a winner or a loser, and Meredith gets to give words to that. Hopefully, that will register with people and they'll get to absorb a different point of view because of it.

How will we see Catherine deal with living with this disease and how will that affect the others around her? Finch: What I'm interested in is watching someone living with cancer being normalized. Because I walk around in the world and other people that I know living with cancer walk around in the world and have good jobs and big families and a lot of love and a lot of things to do. And every once in a while, they have to go in and take care of themselves by going to a scan or seeing a doctor. Sometimes they have a bad couple of months and then a good couple of months and it becomes normal. It's not always in crisis mode. I don't live in crisis mode. I live from scan to scan. I appreciate all the time I have in between those scans. But my reality is, honestly, not that much different from anyone else because no day is promised. There's no guarantee that anyone is going to live 'til tomorrow. So I'm interested in watching Catherine live her life and go back to surgery and be with her family and talk about all the other things that are going on in her life and have all the other emotions about what's going on in her life that don't revolve around cancer. Because that's the reality for most people.

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Movies in November 2020: Streaming, VOD, and Theaters

https://ift.tt/3evPPz5

At this very moment, Halloween decorations are coming down, shattered Jack-o-Lanterns are being swept up, and bounties of candy are being traded by the most discerning of Trick ‘r Treaters. Yes, All Hallows’ Eve is done and November is here.

Seasonally that means warm sweaters and warmer, fuzzier movies at the cinema (or streamer in 2020 parlance). Even though we are still nearly two months away from Christmas, a glance at the upcoming November releases reveal it’s already the season to be jolly. But there’s more than feel-good cheer. There are also horror movies, awards contenders, and comedies to look forward to, whether in a theater or from the comfort of your own home.

Let Him Go

November 6 in the U.S. (December 11 in the UK)

Did you walk away from Man of Steel wishing you could just get a film about Kevin Costner and Diane Lane dealing with the seedy side of family life in rural America? Then you’re in luck, because Let Him Go looks like a slow-boiling thriller that actually takes advantage of their talents. In the film from writer-director Thomas Bezucha (pulling from a Larry Watson novel), the pair plays retired sheriff George Blackledge (Costner) and his wife Margaret (Lane).

After their son dies, the Blackledges’ daughter-in-law marries again, taking their grandson into a new family. But when the grieving grandparents realize her second husband is abusive, and is himself the son of even shadier figures (Lesley Manville and Jeffrey Donovan), George and Margret are roped into a nightmare of familial trauma and treachery. Do they let their grandson go, or face the scariest thing in the heartland… Manville’s Blanche Weboy.

Mank

November 13 (December 4 in the UK)

Prior to its December bow on Netflix, David Fincher’s hotly anticipated Mank will have a limited run in theaters later this month. The picture, which is already being hailed on social media as a masterpiece by many, is Fincher’s first film since 2014’s Gone Girl and has the tantalizing setup of being about the sometimes overlooked writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, co-screenwriter of Citizen Kane.

With an apparently sweltering performance by Gary Oldman as the hard drinking and morally ambivalent writer, the picture is shot in much the same style as Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece. Mank also pulls from other styles and seems to investigate the disputed claim by critic Pauline Kael that Mankiewicz deserved sole authorship for Citizen Kane’s script. Either way the film, which also features a screenplay by Fincher’s father, Jack Fincher, looks like one of the most unique and exciting movies of 2020.

Freaky

November 13

Writer-director Christopher Landon did an unlikely thing a few years ago with Happy Death Day: He made the Groundhog Day concept of being forced to relive the same day over and over again into a genuinely clever and amusing horror-comedy. He now seeks to do the same trick twice with Freaky, another Blumhouse Productions theatrical release that reworks the concept of Disney’s Freaky Friday with a blood-curdling twist. Instead of being about a mother and teenage daughter switching place, now the teenage girl is swapping bodies with a serial killer.

It’s a gonzo premise, which gives a lot of room for actors Kathryn Newton, as heroine Millie, and Vince Vaughn, as “the Blissfield Butcher,” to do big, bold things—especially once they switch characters.

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

November 13

Netflix’s first major Christmas movie of the 2020 season aims to be a real showstopper. How can it not be with songs by Philip Lawrence and the immeasurable John Legend? The Grammy winning pair are now trying their hand at a Christmas musical with Jingle Jangle, a toe-tapper fantasy that melds Dickensian Yuletide iconography with a star-studded cast of diverse talent.

At the center of it is Forest Whitaker as the ultimate toy inventor who’s on the brink of unveiling his masterpiece. But after it’s stolen by the dastardly Keegan-Michael Key, two children must go on an adventure to save… look, it’s a family holiday movie with John Legend songs. You’re either in or you’re out!

Ammonite

November 13 (U.S. Only)

After months on the festival circuit, Francis Lee’s much anticipated Ammonite finally arrives in theaters this month. The film stars Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as a pair embarking on a forbidden romance, yes, and it also promises a look at a world on the cusp of change. Some of it will be significant and relatively sudden, with Winslet playing the pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning, who in real life reached international notoriety for her scientific discoveries of Jurassic fossils along the English Channel. Some of it will be painfully slow if nonexistent.

The latter struggle occurs when Winslet’s Anning agrees to essentially chaperone Charlotte Murchison (Ronan), the depressed wife of a wealthy benefactor. But as Anne and Charlotte’s business arrangement becomes a friendship, and then blossoms into something more, their work along the coast becomes a point of interest for not only the pair, but also all those watching from the wings. A definite awards contender, it’s one many have been waiting to see for themselves since the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Fatman

November 13 in theaters, November 24 digital (U.S. Only)

Mel Gibson is playing Santa Claus. To reiterate, Mel “Mad Max” Gibson, is portraying old Kris Kringle.

But you should realize this isn’t your daddy’s Santa. Hell, it’s not even your Santa. But if this grindhouse VOD release somehow works… it might be one you are happy exists.

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The gist is Gibson’s Kris is a bitter burnout who has become disillusioned by the lack of Christmas Spirit out there. He’s even collaborating with the U.S. military to make ends meet. But when a lump of coal pisses off the wrong kid, that child sends a hitman (Walton Goggins) to take Santa’s head. This is like an ‘80s revenge flick, right down to Gibson’s starring role.

For better or worse, we’re intrigued.

The Princess Switch, Switched Again

November 19 (US Only)

Netflix made a sequel to The Princess Switch. You know, the holiday movie where Vanessa Hudgens plays both a posh princess and an all-American everygirl, and then they switch places like in The Parent Trap?

Either you know what we’re talking about or you don’t, and if you do, good news… they’re switching places again this month!

Run

November 20 (US only)

Run is a Hulu original that appears intent on causing teenagers around the world to think twice about their parent’s smiling concern. Because concern and smiles is what Sarah Paulson’s Diane Sherman is all about. A tightly wound “helicopter parent” if there ever was one, Diane refuses to see her daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen) as a burden. In fact, she likes Chloe just the way she is, confined to a wheelchair, helpless, and on perhaps unnecessary medication.

Read more

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Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

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A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

By David Crow and 3 others

But when taken from Chloe’s point-of-view, this is terrifying. Too bad it will be incredibly difficult for her to run away from home. But as the title suggests… that may be what’s best, dear.

Small Axe

November 15 in the UK, November 20 in the U.S.

Rather than a single film, writer-director Steve McQueen follows up the underrated Widows with five movies in this anthology set. The BBC/Amazon co-production, which will see its premiere respectively on those platforms on each side of the pond, provides a nuanced and trenchant study of the Black experience in the United Kingdom. Each film is standalone but traces a different story or era.

For instance, the first film in the “series,” Mangrove, stars Black Panther’s Letitia Wright and tells the true story of the Mangrove Nine, who clashed with London’s Metropolitan Police in 1970, and whose trial resulted in the first judicial acknowledgment of behavior motivated by racial hatred within British law enforcement. Meanwhile John Boyega plays real life Metropolitan Police officer Leroy Logan, who joined the force with the aspiration of changing it after he saw his father assaulted by two policemen.

These promise to be probing and hopefully revelatory works of cinema, whether you view them as a collection of films or a single miniseries.

Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square

November 22

Yeah, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is great and all with its three ghosts and Tiny Tim. But you know what it didn’t have? Dolly Parton as a singing angel. Checkmate, Charlie.

Read more

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The Best Christmas Movie Soundtracks of All Time

By Ivan Radford

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Christmas in The Twilight Zone: Revisiting Night of the Meek

By Arlen Schumer

With Netflix’s Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square, Christine Baranski plays a “Scrooge” styled owner of a small community’s land—and she’s planning to sell it this Christmas. That is until she has an intervention from an angel played by none other than Ms. Dolly Parton.

And did we mention Dolly wrote all 14 songs in this thing? It’s a Dolly Holiday, indeed.

Hillbilly Elegy

November 24

The Ron Howard who won an Oscar for directing A Beautiful Mind appears to be stepping to the forefront again with his first Netflix original. After spending time in the galaxy, far far away, Howard looks determined to offer a harrowing, and heartstring-pulling, account of three generations of “hillbillies” struggling for the American dream in Appalachia.

J.D. Vance (Gabriel Bosso), who is a real-life author, returns to his small town after attending Yale. Back home, he will have a reckoning with his childhood and the mother who defined it, Bev (Amy Adams). Actually Bev’s movie, Hillbilly Elegy see her experiences with J.D. and his siblings over the years from her unexpected teenage motherhood to their current estranged relationship.

Awards chatter will have you believe Adams is a Best Actress frontrunner for her turn, as is Glenn Close who plays J.D.’s grandmother Mamaw, but we imagine many might just be happy to see a family more dysfunctional than their own this Thanksgiving season.

The Croods: A New Age

November 25 in the U.S. (January 29 in the UK)

You remember The Croods, right? The DreamWorks movie about cavemen and a voice cast that includes Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, and Nicolas Cage… No, really, it came out in 2013! We’re serious.  Well, they made a sequel and this one also includes the voices of Peter Dinklage and Kelly Marie Tran, and it’ll be in theaters. So, yeah. There you go.

The Christmas Chronicles 2

November 25

It’s only Thanksgiving and we’re already on our fourth Christmas movie from Netflix. Yet we suspect this is going to be the one to generate the most excitement since it follows up on the first time Kurt Russell played Santa Claus as a burly mountain man of action for the streaming service.

That 2018 effort was cute, but this sequel is taking things to a whole new world—the North Pole to be exact—and will feature CG elves, a Dickensian Christmas village, and most spectacularly Goldie Hawn in more than a cameo role as Mrs. Claus.

Additionally, Chris Columbus has graduated from producer to writer-director status on this sequel. As he’s the director behind Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films, his clout and fantastical eye promises to bring some epic holiday majesty to a film that is still about Russell kicking ass and taking names for his naughty list.

Uncle Frank

November 25

One of the most anticipated Thanksgiving releases of the year aimed at a slightly older audience, Uncle Frank appears to be a substantial film about the ties that bind. Family ties are, after all, what brings Sophia Lillis’ Beth Bledsoe to visit her dear Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany). In 1973, Frank is a charismatic and worldly relation to a small town girl like Beth. But it’s only when she crashes his Manhattan apartment that she becomes the first family member to realize Frank is gay… and a delightful companion for a grim road trip to his native home in rural South Carolina.

Read more

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Hulu New Releases: November 2020

By Alec Bojalad

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Sky Cinema and NOW TV: What’s New in November 2020?

By Kirsten Howard

The film has played the festival circuit to already positive acclaim ahead of its Amazon Prime release, with the word being it’s a return to form for Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball. It also is supposed to have standout performances for both Bettany and It’s Lillis.

Superintelligence

November 26 (US), November 27 (UK)

HBO Max also brings some holiday cheer at the end of the month with Superintelligence, a new Melissa McCarthy high-concept comedy. In the film, McCarthy plays Carol Peters, a woman who believes nothing exciting ever happens to her. That changes when her smart TV, smartphone, and even smart microwave begin talking back to her.

What at first appears to be a prank is actually a test since she’s been selected for “observation” by the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (voiced by James Corden). The AI wants to use Carol as a case study in examining the human condition… possibly as it decides to conquer us. Can Melissa McCarthy save the world?

Black Beauty

November 27

Disney+ has one major narrative film release in November, and it’s a new version of Anna Sewell’s beloved novel Black Beauty. Adapted by Ashley Avis, this is the timeless tale of a teenager and the singular bond she forms with a horse that keeps them connected for a lifetime. The 1876 novel was pivotal for a dawning appreciation of the plight of work horses in Victorian England, and the desire to treat animals more humanely. Indeed, the book is narrated from the vantage of the horse!

The new Disney film appears to be updating things, with the male horse of the novel now being voiced by Kate Winslet. It also appears to feature a modern American setting, but with a promising cast that in addition to Winslet includes up-and-comer Mackenzie Foy as heroine Jo Green and Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen as John Manly.

Possessor

November 27 (UK only)

Brandon Cronenberg’s follow up to 2012’s Antiviral is a sci-fi horror thriller which sees a convert corporation develop tech that allows agents to inhabit other people’s bodies and carry out assassinations. Andrea Riseborough stars as the star operative who finds herself getting lost in one of her quarries, while Jennifer Jason Leigh is her handle. Possessor already played the festival circuit and was scheduled for a UK theatrical release at the end of November until a second lockdown was announced. Now the movie will be released on UK Digital Platforms.

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The post Upcoming Movies in November 2020: Streaming, VOD, and Theaters appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[eurotickets20]

Wales football team Fixit ready to trade Euro Cup 2020

Some players went off to a Cardiff nightspot to savor the moment. Joe Allen and Sam Vokes were spotted in Caroline Street, aka Chippy Alley, singing the 'Wales Golf Madrid' Gareth Bale song with fans in the early hours. The community who love their favorite team they are booking Wales Euro Cup Tickets.

Bale himself had to return to Spain to face the music after the celebration of his flag. Giggs, the radiant smile on his face for 24 hours, had a quiet meeting with his loved ones.

As for Mark Evans, FAW International Affairs Officer, he did something quite innovative: he launched his campaign to become a member of the next general election!

There are many candidates among the 650 seats in Westminster who have fascinating stories to tell, but Evans's is certainly one of the most interesting.

Certainly here in Wales, considering his involvement with the national team over the decades, where he worked closely with a plethora of stars and managers, including Giggs, Chris Coleman, Gary Speed, John Toshack, Mark Hughes, Bobby Gould, and Terry Yorath.

There were briefly a few others, Brian Flynn and Mike Smith.

But although the players have gone one after the other and the turnover of players has gone from Neville Southall to Ian Rush, through Vinnie Jones, Craig Bellamy, Gareth Bale, and Dan James, Evans has remained a constant in the country of Wales, seen the ups and downs.

He was the team, Mr. Fixit. More of that role in a moment. Those who don’t want to miss the entertainment have already bought their Euro Cup Quarter Finals Tickets.

Yet, while Giggs' aces have qualified for the euros and the precious memories of France 2016 are still present in the memories as we look to next summer, Evans is ready to give up when he presents himself in front of Parliament as Plaid Cymru's candidate in his riding of Merthyr and Rhymney.

"Although, if I were fortunate enough to win, I would still like to be involved with Wales as a consultant at the Euros," says Evans, whose vast experience and know-how of the big stage would be nigh-on impossible to replace.

However, sometimes you have to move on and he points out, "Although I'm considered a safe pair of hands, there are bright young people at the FAW these days who are just nailing.

"It will be 30 years that I will be there next week. It would be very difficult to leave, especially since we have just qualified, but become a member of parliament, get into politics, really passionate not happen this time, there would be Senedd elections to hold eventually in 2021.

"But we do not yet know what will happen, wait and see."

He smiled: "This week was a little surreal. One evening, I was celebrating our efforts to reach the euros, the next day I launched my campaign with the leader of the Plaid group, Adam Price, who was very welcoming and who gave a speech that pouted, the back of my neck is rising.

"But I still have a Euro 2020 planning meeting next week as we expect what will be best for us in the final, and I'll be in the official draw with Ryan and other officials. FAW in Bucharest next Saturday There is still a lot of work to be done and, do not worry, I'll be here to do it. "

In his role as FAW, Evans became the trusted man of the players and management of Wales. He takes responsibility for virtually everything that happens off the field - from the organization of the flight and the hotels of the team to visiting the stadiums abroad and organizing the individual movements of the players.

He also regularly deals with matters relating to UEFA and FIFA, as appropriate in Wales. For live-action, you can buy Euro Cup Semi-Finals Tickets online.

Evans and his colleagues in the department practically involved everything in the day, apart from training or crossing the white line.

As such, he has naturally developed close ties with the biggest names in Welsh sport over the decades.

So what are the current Giggs players doing with the sudden career change?

"They're very supportive, wishing me the best of luck," says Evans."

There have been some jokes, you know what a football dressing room looks like. Comments such as "Why are you doing this when you could be with us?" One or two are a bit puzzled, but it has been very positive in general.

"James Chester is another player that I chatted a lot with, Danny Ward too, and when you get to know the players and go beyond football, they like to talk about a lot of things, including politics for some."

The beard, it seems, is another topic of debate behind the scenes. Those who don’t want to miss the entertainment have already bought their Euro Cup Final Tickets.

Evans became recognizable by the dugout before and after the matches because of the hairiness of his face becoming larger because it is considered a lucky charm of Wales.

It started with a little stubble, but the players did not let it shave until they lost. While Wales won so many games, Evans felt he could not endure anybody's anger, kept a beard and much of his money that would otherwise have been spent in razor blades.

"The first three were me, Joe Ledley and goalkeeper Boaz Myhill," he recalls. "You know what people are saying about drinking after Christmas." Well, instead of not drinking beer in January, we decided to wear a beard!

"It had become a kind of superstition, I could not reduce it until we had lost, and as we continued to win we kept a beard.

"To this day, Joe Allen jumps on me every time we find ourselves in the camp and pulls fun on his beard.

"To be honest, Ledley and Myhill have also kept theirs, but Boaz's is definitely more elegant than mine!"

So back to what could become the new day job. Evans hopes that Plaid will be able to break into a Merthyr fortress, owned by Labor for more than a century.

"In any other election, I agree that it is a Labor stronghold, but in this one, I just do not know why people are going to vote, I appreciate and accept that there is a little fatigue in Brexit for some, "he says.

"I do not doubt the enormous task ahead, but maybe it's time to change after 119 years.

"Listen, because of my work in Wales, I've traveled all over Europe in the last 20 years and the change I've seen has been spectacular, and I see how much the auto industry is in Estonia, and I think yes, Wales should also be more interested in it. Euro 2020 Tickets can be book online which makes you suitable to link the Euro Cup 2020.

"This is a very important election that will have an effect for many years and I want to fight to make things better for the people of Merthyr and Rhymney, and Wales in general.

"If I had the chance to win the seat, it would be a big tear to leave the FAW, especially considering what we just achieved with Ryan.

"But whatever happens, Welsh football is in very good hands, what we are witnessing is hard work that is paying off with some amazing players and coaches coming from the system. go backstage a little while, but it's there for everyone to see in the last euros and this time.

"And this team, because the players are so young, will just get better and better."

We are offering Euro 2020 Tickets so; Football fans can get Euro Cup Tickets through our trusted online ticketing market place. EuroTickets2020.com is the most reliable source to book Euro Cup 2020 tickets.

[ricardosousalemos]

Patti Smith Group: Easter

In early 1977, the Patti Smith Group was on tour opening for Bob Seger, as part of Arista Records’ ham-fisted strategy to push Smith into the mainstream. She had just released her second record, Radio Ethiopia, while Seger was touring against Night Moves. While the PSG were steadfast in their resolve to win over the crowds, they were fighting a losing battle. Lenny Kaye—Smith’s guitarist and majordomo—would later say about Radio Ethiopia, “...that wasn’t an album of songs. It was an album of fields.” Fans who paid to hear “Old Time Rock and Roll” were not ready or willing to open their minds to the Smith and her band’s mix of esoteric, ecstatic punk-flavored garage-rock, performed by a bunch of scruffy, black-wearing hoodlums led by a woman who conformed to no one’s gender expectations but her own.

At a Tampa stop in January, Patti Smith whirled into final bars of “Ain’t It Strange.” As the song reached its climax, she spun, lost her balance, tripped backward over a monitor, and fell off the stage onto the concrete floor 15 feet below. Miraculously, she did not break her neck, but she still emerged from the hospital with two cracked vertebrae, broken bones in her face, and 22 stitches to close the wounds on her head. Smith interpreted the incident as God’s response to her constant challenges (“I feel it was his way of saying, ‘You keep battering against my door and I’m gonna open that door and you’ll fall in’,” she told Melody Maker a year later); but in matters more mundane, her fall cancelled the tour and obviated any support for the struggling Radio Ethiopia.

Smith’s injuries would confine her to bed rest for weeks before she entered into intense physical therapy in lieu of spinal surgery. She took to the challenge of PT with gusto and insisted to her doctors and to anyone else who would listen that she would be ready by Easter Sunday. She even had a new poem, called “Easter,” as a representation of her return to battle. 

After the commercial failure of Radio Ethiopia, there was an unspoken understanding that the next record needed to move Smith’s career forward. Smith was the first downtown artist to sign with an uptown label with her seven-album deal with Arista Records. She thought she could handle the Arista’s demands by insisting (and getting) complete creative control, but she also understood that she would lose her access to the kids she wanted to serve if she was not able to translate her vision into something for the masses. “When we started, we believed we had responsibilities that nobody else was taking on, to take this work that erupted in the ’50s and take it somewhere,” she told Circus in 1978. This was the kind of statement for which Smith would be pilloried by peers and the press, but this wasn’t just a front—she meant it.

So after working with John Cale on Horses and Jack Douglas (Cheap Trick, John Lennon) on Radio Ethiopia, she chose to work with a new producer named Jimmy Iovine, because she liked what he’d done as an engineer working with Bruce Springsteen. It was a deliberate business decision, no matter that she would later insist that the album was “more communicative. I don’t like the words accessible and commercial.” Lenny Kaye would back her up: “There was no conscious drive to sell records, that was our last thought.”

It made sense that Smith and Kaye would publicly try to disavow intent. “Ambition” was a four-letter word downtown, even though every single band that ever set foot on the CBGB’s stage hoped that it was a step up. But Smith and Kaye were sufficiently immersed in rock’n’roll history to know better. If Easter hadn’t been successful, Smith would have been dismissed as a one-hit wonder, post-punk also-rans. Even as early as Radio Ethiopia, the Village Voice’s Robert Christgau noted that Patti was “caught in a classic double-bind: accused of selling out by her former allies and of not selling by her new ones.”

The band entered the studio in November of 1977. On the shortlist were songs that were road-tested, such as “Space Monkey,” “Privilege (Set Me Free),” and “Rock N Roll Nigger,” as well as a handful of newly written songs. “Rock N Roll Nigger” was both Smith’s original choice for the album’s title as well as for its lead-off single, which was naturally a nonstarter for the label, much to Smith’s dismay. Unfortunately, out of the material Smith had assembled for the album, it was the only song strong enough to be a single. 

This was when Iovine went knocking on Bruce Springsteen’s door, asking about a certain outtake languishing in his archive. Smith was at first reluctant to even listen to the demo, wanting to write the record with her band. Iovine tried to sell her on the idea by suggesting that he loved the thought of a woman singing from a man’s point of view; Springsteen added that the song was in her key. One night, while waiting for a late-night phone call from someone she was romantically involved with, she decided to listen to the cassette, “...and the words just tumbled out of me,” she told Zig Zag later. By the time she recorded “Because the Night,” Smith already knew she had her hit single, and the rest of the album fell into place.

Smith could try as hard as she wanted to disguise or disavow her ambition, but Easter was not an accidental assemblage of material. It wasn’t an “album of fields,” it was an album of huge songs—songs that would effectively showcase the heart of the Patti Smith Group. So, yes, the album unironically opens with “Till Victory,” the kind of battle cry that made the cognoscenti roll their eyes at Smith and her band, and she doubles the cynicism by also using it as a petition to the mighty, announcing her return, and her intent: “God, do not seize me please, till victory,” Smith sings with the kind of iron-clad conviction that would make you follow her anywhere.

Even the cover concept was Smith’s twist on sex appeal; while it was probably the first major-label album cover to show a woman with unshaved armpits (which Arista tried to airbrush out), it was created with the object of selling records. After that inimitable Robert Mapplethorpe shot on the cover of Horses and the black-on-silver abstract by Judy Linn that graced Radio Ethiopia, for Easter, Smith went with Lynn Goldsmith, who had just founded the first photo agency that focused on celebrity portraiture. Smith would even tell Rolling Stone that she had masturbated to her own album cover: “I thought if I could do it as an experiment, then 15-year-old boys could do it, and that would make me very happy.”

But Smith’s version of “Because the Night” was an absolute monster of a hit. What she forged lyrically out of Springsteen’s unfinished, unwanted demo was an anthem of frank and unapologetic desire. In 1978, a woman wasn’t allowed to be an overtly sexual being in public unless she met the standards of the male gaze; if she did, there were always repercussions, and there would be constant attempts to diminish her power and/or her legitimacy. The fact that it went to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was on every FM radio station, especially the ones who never played her before, was righteousness incarnate, as would be Easter’s eventual ascension to #20 on the Billboard 200.

The other love songs may not be as legendary as “Because the Night,” but their complexity is vital to the story being told on the album. The first line of “We Three”—“Every Sunday I would go down to the bar where he played guitar”—speaks absolute volumes. It is Smith’s history, it is rock’n’roll history, it is a quiet sentence whispered with a veneer of the innocence of early love, then immediately contrasted with a torch ballad, decisive and resolute, the expression of unresolved ardor, the saga of her relationships with Tom Verlaine and Allen Lanier. It’s not tragic so much tinged with the sadness of resignation, but it’s not the type of love song women had been writing.

Smith then flips the switch to “25th Floor.” This is when the woman in “Because the Night” takes out a match and lights the whole damn place on fire. “Love in my heart/The night to exploit/Twenty-five stories over Detroit,” she sings, tales of unabashed emotion in the ancient Book Cadillac Hotel in the Motor City, where she and Fred “Sonic” Smith had taken rooms. “25th Floor” then transmutates its closing ecstasy straight into “High on Rebellion,” the title of which is accurate and illustrative. It is about another important relationship, this time a treatise about Smith and her electric guitar: “...I never tire of the solitary E and I trust my guitar…” The band manifests its own chaos effortlessly behind Smith, before the exemplification of that solitary E fades out slowly.

On the subject of treatises, we come back to the literal black sheep of the album. “I haven’t fucked much with the past, but I’ve fucked plenty with the future,” Smith intones in “Babelogue,” plucked from Smith’s 1978 Babel, which firmly represents her artistic manifesto, issued with the pulsing energy of a heartbeat. “In heart I am an American artist and I have no guilt,” she cries as the music and the energy builds to a crescendo, before crashing head-on into “Rock N Roll Nigger.” The song is intensely rousing and absolutely spits fire, and as a rallying cry for those who feel like they were also “outside of society,” everything about the song is awesome except the title, which is the opposite of awesome.

Even in the ’70s, the slur was not something any reasonable person was going to feel comfortable yelling out loud, or feel comfortable standing in the middle of a large group of people yelling it out loud, even if the music and the performance are otherwise electrifying. Smith has been explicit over the years in her justification behind it: “The redefining of an archaic slang term as a badge for those contributing on the fringe of society was not favorably embraced,” she wrote in 1996. For someone as intelligent and empathetic as Patti Smith, this is the one moment in this otherwise triumphant record that just does make any sense. If, in 40 years, your attempt at the redefinition of a word that is pejorative and hurtful to a large part of society is unsuccessful, how, as an artist, do you not try something else? The legacy of “Rock N Roll Nigger” overlaps with the Patti Smith the iconoclast. Though Smith placed the song an album that embraces and subverts the vast spectrum of rock, underneath all of Easter is Smith’s ambivalence with rock as an art form. It is insufficient. The men for whom she wrote, the women for whom she sang, the labels to whom she catered, all are miniature underneath the soul of Smith which Easter seems to capture in spite of the limits of rock’n’roll. A hint is hidden in plain sight at the end of the liner notes, a quote from the New Testament: “i have fought a good fight, i have finished my course…” are the last words of Paul the Apostle before his martyrdom. Smith may not have known that she would soon retire as “r.e.f.m.” (radio ethiopia field marshall), but the possibility was on the horizon, and it feels like she was trying to make her departure easier by leaving clues, early warnings for her fans that she was getting ready to say goodbye.  

[hiddlesfashion]

#TodayInHiddleHistory 

Tom Hiddleston: ‘I’m fascinated by the private vulnerability of people’

The Observer. 24 January 2016. 

Full article below 

Tom Hiddleston and I are having an argument. It is about who followed who on Twitter first. Hiddleston is insisting I followed him. I didn’t. And for some reason, this is important to clarify. What happened, I explain, is that I woke up this morning and checked my phone and there was a notification saying you had followed me. So I thought it only polite to return the favour. And then I got hounded by several thousand Tom Hiddleston fan accounts, all of which told me how lucky I was.

He shakes his head politely.

“I just woke up and the first thing my phone told me was that you followed me,” Hiddleston says, leaning back in his chair. We are in Côte Brasserie in Hampstead, north London, just up the road from where he lives. He is wearing a grey T-shirt, the hem of each sleeve perfectly bisecting his biceps. The muscles are evident but not overwhelming. They are, like the rest of him, scrupulously amiable and unwilling to announce themselves with too much fanfare.

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” he says. “But it’s fine, by the way. I mean, you were doing your homework.”

And just like that, he wins the argument so effortlessly I almost don’t realise it’s happened. But perhaps that’s what Eton and a double first in classics from Cambridge does for you. It teaches you the ability to charm someone into submission without them noticing they’ve lost ground.

Perhaps it’s also why, in the BBC’s forthcoming six-part spy thriller The Night Manager, adapted from the eponymous John le Carré novel, Hiddleston puts in such an exceptional performance as the suave Jonathan Pine. Pine is a former soldier turned night manager of luxury hotels who goes undercover for the British intelligence services to infiltrate a criminal arms-dealing enterprise. Hiddleston stars opposite an impressive roster of British talent, including Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman and Tom Hollander. To prepare for the role, he shadowed the night manager of the five-star Rosewood Hotel in London.

“I found the performance fascinating,” he says now. “The manager had impeccable courtesy. If somebody asks where the bar is, you say: ‘Allow me to escort you.’ It’s about making every guest feel looked after.”

I can’t imagine it was too much of a stretch. Over the next hour our conversation covers Platonic philosophy, Graham Greene and Bob Dylan. At one point I say he has a titanic brain.

“Which means it goes down,” he bats back. “There are no survivors.”

Hiddleston, 34, is solicitous company. He admits that, in preparation for this interview, he bought my first novel and is 100 pages in. But then he is known for due diligence. To prepare for his break-out film role as Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor, he trained in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. When he took on Coriolanus in a critically acclaimed production at the Donmar in 2014, he would listen to Holst’s The Planets to get himself in the right mood and run up and down the theatre’s fire escape before going onstage.

In I Saw the Light, which is released in March, Hiddleston stars as the American country singer Hank Williams, who died of heart failure at the age of 29. Before filming started Hiddleston embarked on a gruelling diet and exercise regime to lose the requisite weight, spent two hours a day with a dialect coach to master the Southern accent and learned to mimic Williams’s singing voice with such accuracy that he was able to perform “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” in front of 1,500 people at a Michigan country music festival.

Rodney Crowell, the Grammy award-winning country star who coached Hiddleston through it, commented afterwards: “I’m as respectful of the man’s work ethic as I’m mystified by his transformational skills.”

Hiddleston says he is “very” proud of the film. “I mean, that sounds arrogant. I’m just proud to be in such a…” He breaks off. “It was so far away from me; it was really not my life experience at all.”

Performing onstage in Michigan was “absolutely terrifying” but you wouldn’t know it to look at the YouTube clip. He seems calm and confident: the essence of self-possession. What happens when he gets nervous?

Hiddleston smiles. “I think I may have played the song a little fast. My inner tempo accelerates.”

That tension between the frantic inner tempo beating hard underneath an unruffled exterior is, I think, what makes him such a compelling actor. Onscreen or onstage his smoothness hints at psychopathy, an elegance that masks villainous intent.

“I suppose I’m fascinated by the private vulnerability and the exterior of people,” he says. “I think that’s an essential truth. I sort of quite like trying to find what makes people tick behind the construction of their identity.”

It seems to be working for well for him. After a childhood in London and Oxford, he was sent to boarding school at the age of seven and then went to Eton. A lot of actors these days seem to have gone to Eton, I say. Does he ever worry that…

“There are so many successful actors who didn’t go there,” he interrupts.

No, I say, they went to Harrow.

“Like Michael Fassbender and Daniel Craig and Domhnall Gleeson and Luke Evans and Gemma Arterton and Andrea Riseborough,” he continues, ignoring me. “There’s so many, the list goes on and on and on. Idris Elba.”

He says he finds the current debate about the number of middle-class actors in the profession divisive. “It’s socially divisive in a way it shouldn’t be, because I think wherever you are from you should be able to follow your passion. Wherever you went to school, if you have something authentic to contribute, you should be allowed to. There is an acknowledged problem of access and inequality of opportunity – I don’t know how to remedy that. But yeah, I’m on everyone’s side; I’m on the side of the actors. I’m not there to divide the world into pieces.”

From Eton he got a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before studying at Rada. He graduated in 2005 and went straight into his first film role in Unrelated, directed by Joanna Hogg, who later cast him in Archipelago. Numerous television credits followed before Thor came along. From there Hiddleston has starred in everything from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris to Steven Spielberg’s War Horse(he has a special affinity with soldiers and feels “a sense of responsibility and a duty to their bravery and courage”) and Guillermo del Toro’s gothic horror Crimson Peak. Later this year he takes the lead in Ben Wheatley’s hotly anticipated High-Rise, adapted from the novel by JG Ballard.

Despite his stated curiosity for understanding what makes other people tick, Hiddleston is not particularly good at turning his attention inward.

What was he like as a child? He looks down, shifts in his seat. “I think intermittently quiet and playful.”

Did that change when you went to boarding school?

“It must have done. I mean, this is not exceptional. I was very vulnerable when I first went. I went to boarding school when I was seven and then I sort of learned how to deal with it. So I must have somehow got more independent through that experience. I don’t think it was… I’ve never sort of had analysis about this or anything, so I have no idea, but… You just kind of move on. It wasn’t damaging, but I’m sure it made me independent. It must have had some…” he drifts off.

Later he’ll apologise for vagueness over the matter. He wants to be truthful, he says, but it’s “difficult, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s so hard to unpack.”

He looks up plaintively. “Am I making any sense? Am I being extremely worthy and self-regarding? I hope not.”

His parents, Diana, a former arts administrator, and James, a physical chemist, divorced when Hiddleston was a teenager. The experience was clearly painful but, he says, made him “more compassionate”. He is the middle child, with a sister either side. His younger sibling, Emma, is also an actor. The eldest, Sarah, is a journalist. Sensible woman, I say. He grins: “The most sensible.”

He has a four-year-old niece, and when he talks about her the tone lightens and he seems less anxious that I might be trying to psychoanalyse him.

“I’m called ‘Uncle Yay Monster’ because when we run, she basically wants to run as fast as me but she can’t, so after a while I just pick her up and she screams: ‘Yay!’ It’s exhausting, but enormous fun.”

And there is a lighter side to Hiddleston. I know this because if you search for “Tom Hiddleston dancing” on Google, a plethora of videos will pop up showing him busting his moves on various chat shows around the world.

Watching him, it strikes me that Hiddleston approaches his dancing with the same intense commitment he approaches his acting. There is a total immersion in the moment, even if that moment consists of doing the running man in front of a Korean chat-show host for no reason other than having been asked to do so and being too polite to say no.

“God, it’s so embarrassing,” he says. It all started a few years ago in Korea. “It was a big public Q&A, there were 7,000 people there, and I was taking questions from the audience. Somebody asked: ‘Of what body part are you most proud?’ That’s just a wrong question, to which there are only wrong answers. So I said: ‘My feet’ and they said: ‘Why?’ and I said: ‘Without my feet, I couldn’t run and I couldn’t dance.’ And they said: ‘Well, now we have to see you dance.’ So I danced… And I created a monster. There we go.”

He created a monster. But, as with everything, he did so with charm. Later I go to the loo and when I return I find he has paid the bill for our drinks and dinner without my knowing. Still, he definitely followed me first on Twitter.

The Night Manager starts on BBC1 in February

[sinceileftyoublog]

theMIND Interview: The World Is Burning

Photo by Bryan Allen Lamb

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Protest music is not “timely” when what’s being protested is pervasive; we’ve seen as such from music as recent as Run The Jewels’ fourth album. On Juneteenth, Chicago-via-Philly artist Zarif Wilder, aka theMIND, released “A Spike Lee Jawn”, a lyrically blistering, musically funky list of righteous demands: “To Whom it May Concern, FUCK 12 and reparations have been due. This song is a 400 year old invoice. Best, theMIND,” Wilder wrote to introduce it. But the song wasn’t written last month. It was three years old. The difference is that Wilder’s now ready to tell the world what he thinks.

Wilder moved to Chicago in 2007 to study music business at Columbia College, eventually forming a production group (THEMpeople) and releasing a debut mixtape called Summer Camp in 2016, the same year he, up until this point, more publicly started to pop up on music you’ve most certainly heard. He had two writing credits on Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book and appeared on Noname’s Telefone and Pete Rock and Smoke DZA’s collaborative album Don’t Smoke Rock. Last year saw his most prominent feature to date, on Jamila Woods’ brilliant “SUN RA”. His name should gain more recognition later this year when he releases a new album called Don’t Let It Go to Your Head, but partially because he’s not afraid to present the truest version of himself. “A Spike Lee Jawn” is not on the record--the only track released from it so far is 2017′s “Ms. Communication”--but its combination of truth and grooves serves as a blueprint for the type of songs that will appear on it, according to Wilder. Even “Ms. Communication” will fit. Speaking to me over the phone last month, Wilder laughed, “It’s kind of crazy to think that the first single in my project was released in 2017. Once people hear the whole project, they won’t be like, ‘Why are we having this callback moment to 3 years ago?’” Part of the cohesion is because of this dichotomy of honesty: “‘Ms. Communication’ is a song about ghosting someone, and I was in the wrong,” Wilder said. “But who knew that a song about ghosting somebody could be a groove?”

During our conversation, Wilder spoke about the context and inspirations behind “A Spike Lee Jawn”, his relationship with the filmmaker’s movies, protest songs, and the limits of streamed performances. Read it below, edited for length and clarity.

SILY: What’s the history of “A Spike Lee Jawn”?

Zarif Wilder: I recorded it in 2017. It’s kind of funny because I was working with Cam O'bi on his project. I was doing a bunch of songwriting for him, and we did a bunch of songs in that time period. We started working on the production which came to be “A Spike Lee Jawn”. We made the majority of the song that day. I came back and added the guitar and bass to it a couple weeks later or so. 

I felt like I was poking the bear by revisiting topics like reparations or police brutality or social inequalities in general. I wanted to add to the conversation, but I didn’t want to keep on reopening old wounds. 2020 comes around, and the song is still relevant. The issues are still happening. It felt like I silenced myself back then, that I wasn’t trying to bring any light to the darkness we have in this world.

SILY: Obviously, a song like this in context of the protests surrounding George Floyd, it seems like it could have been written last week or last month, which just speaks to the prevalence and constancy of these issues. 

ZW: Continuously, yeah. It’s that truth I wanted to bring light to with this record. I wanted to make sure that at the end of the day, I’m adding to the conversation.

SILY: You’re from Philly--that’s the “Jawn” reference.

ZW: Exactly. Born and raised.

SILY: Is there anything else about the song you think is distinctly Philly?

ZW: I realized after I moved to Chicago that a lot of the experiences were the same [as in Philly]. It’s actually kind of weird to think about people having the same experience at the same time. When I’m talking about literally, “Cadillac with tinted eyes / See my 45 keeps me alive,” and all these different references to cars with tinted headlights. They weren’t just in my city. They were everywhere. All of these references I thought were regional were everywhere.

SILY: What’s your relationship with Spike Lee’s movies?

ZW: [laughs] I love all of Spike Lee’s earlier stuff. I think that somewhere along the line--as most people do--we kind of lose touch with the place that we’re from. The trouble comes with trying to speak for the places that you’re no longer in. Specifically when you make movies like Chi-Raq. Spike Lee is doing the movie from the perspective of someone growing up in Brooklyn. He can do that to a great tee, but to come to a different place and try to paint pictures without directly talking to individuals, it’s a little jaded. But I also believe he’s entitled to his opinion. It doesn’t mean that I have to like it as well. [laughs]

It changes. It varies. I liked Da 5 Bloods, I thought that was a good movie. I enjoyed that. But Spike Lee has his corny moments, as we all do.

SILY: Especially with Da 5 Bloods and BlacKkKlansman, he’s not subtle. He hits you over the head with what he’s trying to say, but at the same time, I feel like it’s almost good in today’s day and age. To a certain extent, what he’s talking about is not subtle at all. It deserves to be spoken loudly.

ZW: Guaranteed. Especially when based on historical instances, we have to be very careful with the creative licenses we take, but also be very open to someone’s artistic expression and how they want to tell the story. I fuck with Spike for that. I think Spike’s a legend and will always be. But that’s the one thing we should get to the point of with celebrity culture as a whole: being able to properly critique each other. We don’t want to get to a point where we can’t critique our legends.

SILY: Why did you decide to include him in the title of this song?

ZW: It’s still an homage to him. He’s one of the super great filmmakers. Spike Lee’s production company is called 40 Acres and a Mule. [Editor’s note: The chorus of the song starts with “I just want my 40 acres, fuck the mule.”] I fuck with his rise and his look, the way he kind of looks at creating a path for himself, especially in a cis white male-dominated industry like film-making. He was constantly pushing through to tell stories of people who look like him.

SILY: The song’s very pointed, but the instrumentation is funky. You can definitely dance to it. Was it important to you to make a “protest” song you can also dance to?

ZW: Guaranteed. Recently, there’s Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”. When that song first dropped, someone said to me, “This is it. This is gonna be the song for the movement.” I was like, “Man, are you serious?” And they were like, “I’m telling you, this is the one.” The next week afterwards, it was everywhere, at every protest, at every march, people were chanting, [sings], “We gon’ be alright!” But it was still a banger. I don’t think protest songs should be sung. They should be chanted. They should be something that pushes us to keep moving, not this super sad thing you want to sit down and say, “Man, the world’s fucked up.” You want something that makes you want to fight.

SILY: Have you been to any of the recent protests?

ZW: Yeah, I went to a bunch, and I went to a bunch of food drives after the CPS shutdown the food program.

SILY: Did you notice any other protest songs that were prevalent in your experience protesting?

ZW: It was mainly the chants we were familiar with, not the song chants at all. Chants of solidarity, like, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win.” I wouldn’t go to a protest and start to sing my own song. [laughs]

"A Spike Lee Jawn" (ft. Krystal Metcalfe); Single Artwork by fifthpower

SILY: Can you tell me a little bit about the single artwork?

ZW: It’s done by my friend fifthpower, and it’s based off the Quasimoto [Further Instrumentals] cover, in which Quasi is sitting inside of a house and it’s burning outside, but it’s in L.A. It also reminded me of the “This Is Fine” meme with the dog sitting there with the hat. When we kind of started this year off, with the end of last year, I was in L.A. during the fires. There was ash coming down. Me and my friend were having brunch, and literally, ash was falling, and I was like, “What is this? Is this snow? What’s happening?” And they were like, “That’s the ash from the hills burning.” And I was like, “Y’all are just okay out here eating brunch?!?” It kind of brought this revelation to me that the world is burning around us, and we’re kind of sitting around and saying, “This is fine.” Some people are yelling and screaming, but the majority is like, “This is cool.” I wanted to point to that, and the best way I could do that was have my two cats staring out the window watching it burn.

SILY: Your debut tape came out in 2016. How have you grown as an artist in the past 4 years?

ZW: I’m not afraid of my own reflection anymore. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Summer Camp was super metaphorical. I was afraid to dive in to topics I really wanted to talk about because of painful memories. As I grew, those topics, I couldn’t escape them anymore. I couldn’t think of the metaphors anymore. If the world is burning, I had to say, “The world is burning,” rather than, “I smell smoke.” There are so many different ways to dig deeper into my art. I’m comfortable being naked in front of the audience that listens to my music more so than I ever was before. The self-love I was yearning for on Summer Camp came to fruition. I’m still working on it, but a lot of the parts that made me uncomfortable who I was, telling those experiences, hoping that somebody else can find themselves in their journey as well.

SILY: Tell me about the video for “A Spike Lee Jawn”.

ZW: We dropped it on Juneteenth as is. It went under the radar purposefully. It went up at 11:00 AM, and the way we kind of promoted it was kind of like a teaser for the song and not a full-blown video.

SILY: What else is next for you? Have you planned somewhat of a roll-out for the upcoming record?

ZW: Yeah, I have. I’m super excited about it, specifically with this project. A lot of these fears I had on the first project were addressed on this one more directly, talking about it.

SILY: Have you planned any live streams?

ZW: The crazy part about this is I went on tour--I’ve been touring my new project for the past couple years, honestly. I went on tour with Ibeyi and a European run with Noname. Throughout that entire time, I was trying out songs I was playing. Of course, I was playing a lot from Summer Camp and a lot of my features, but I was pushing a bunch of these other songs. The response was good from the crowd. I want to do something, but a streaming concert just doesn’t look cool to me right now. I don’t know how to do it right. [laughs] One of my favorite things about performing is feeling people’s energy, and doing that through a stream is really tough. I was talking to my friend Jamila Woods, and she was saying that her stream was a bunch of other artists you could see on a Zoom call, and they were hyping each other up. So that was a cool idea, playing a festival and you could see them but not the audience.

SILY: The time lag is a thing, too. I’ve seen a couple performances where some bands were playing live in different rooms, but it was pretty heavily edited.

ZW: Exactly.

SILY: If people are hyping each other up, though, at least it has some of the energy aspect you’re talking about.

ZW: Exactly. It’s hard to replicate that. I know people who can’t perform unless they hear the crowd.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been reading, watching, or listening to lately that’s inspired you, caught your attention, or comforted you?

ZW: I’ve been trying to stay off of everything, but I’ve been watching documentaries. At the beginning of the video for “A Spike Lee Jawn”, there’s a clip of farmers from the Ivory Coast who have never tasted chocolate. They never even knew that the bean they farmed turned into it. So there’s a small clip of them eating chocolate for the first time. They’re older guys. It completely blows your mind. But the analogy between that and where America is, as far as all of the people who helped build this country not being able to participate in the beautiful aspects the American Dream supposedly offers.

I’ve been having conversations with individuals as much as I possibly can, to gain as much perspective from people as I can. 

[itsworn]

Move Over Sports Cars! Dragsters, Funnies and Altereds Take Over Laguna Seca at Nitro Revival 2

If vintage, nitro-burning dragsters, Funny Cars, and altereds are your thing, Nitro Revival is your event. In just one year, Nitro Revival has gone from an experiment to a must-see happening for historic drag racing machinery.

In 2017, Steve Gibbs, along with a host of dedicated friends and family, had a vision to organize a standalone event that would rival those of the establishment. Nitro Revival was born, and the inaugural offering was held at the Barona Dragstrip east of San Diego. The deal was for one event at Barona, with the Revival’s future being uncertain.

All Smiles: Big Daddy Don Garlits found himself at the center of attention at the 2018 Nitro Revival. His weekend culminated with a trip to the top of the Corkscrew for a photo shoot with Swamp Rat 3.

Buzz started building when Revival 2 was announced, but it was the site that took the drag racing faithful by surprise. WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway was the place. Nitro Revival 2 would merge into the Raceway’s Spring Classic, also in its second year. The deal was inked and the tag line printed, “Where racing worlds collide!” Was the Monterey sports car crowd ready for this?

The event was held May 18-20, with Saturday the 19th being the feature day for Revival. Festivities started early on Friday with registration and a host of random fire-ups. Friday concluded on historic Cannery Row at The Clement Monterey, where Mike Dunn hosted a question-and-answer period with Hall of Fame drivers. The evening culminated with an autograph session sponsored by the Jim McLennan (the Champion Speed Shop founder) Drag Racing Foundation and the firing of Swamp Rat 3 on Cannery Row.

Nitro Haze: By day Bob Lawson works for the man himself, Connie Kalitta. But on the weekend, Bob slips behind the wheel as The Bounty Hunter. This beautiful dragster is owned and built by Allen Bridges of Simpson Safety Equipment.

Things got off to an early start on Saturday, as the popping of nitro-burning engines could be heard echoing through the hills of Laguna Seca. As part of the Revival, participants in Ace’s Hot Rod Hangout car show got to take their cars for a supervised lap around the legendary track.

Around lunchtime, push starts took place along Laguna Seca’s pit lane. About a dozen cars pushed off, showing everyone what Revival was about. The cars then parked nose toward the wall at the end of pit lane and stayed running, giving the crowd a small dose of what was to come later in the day.

No Way: Glenn Way and The Ground Shaker were among the fuel altereds at Nitro Revival. Glenn vacated the seat of The Ground Shaker for the weekend, turning the driver chores over to Dale Kraskey Jr.

The “Line of Fire” closed track activities for the day. Any car that could fire did, putting a big exclamation point on what had become very successful days for the Revival team. Cars were started in succession from one end of the paddock, down the row, and then up the opposing row.

Whether you wanted to get a sense of what this nitro thing was all about, or if you were there to bask in the nitro haze, there was no avoiding the roar or the sweet smell of nitro. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Tears were flowing about as fast as the nitro. Ah, heaven! As the last engine expired and the paddock fell silent, a roar erupted from the crowd, stomping their approval for what they had just experienced.

Tight Squeeze: Jim Cooper, his son CJ, and Boogie the Bassett Hound made the trip to Monterey from Washington. Jim’s Model A is powered by a Walt Austin–prepped Hemi. As a bit of trivia, Jim is credited with coining the nickname “Ace” For Ed McCulloch.

The icing on the cake came shortly after the Line of Fire. Word quietly circulated in the paddock that Big Daddy and Swamp Rat 3 were headed to Laguna Seca’s Turns 8 and 8A, better known as the legendary Corkscrew, for a photo shoot. This would be the first—and possibly the last—time a Top Fuel dragster would make its way onto the fabled hill. Sonny Messner was in the seat as Big Daddy smiled for the cameras.

When the crew tried to figure out how to get Swamp Rat back up the steep incline, Sonny shouted from the cockpit, “Just let go, it will be fine!” Everybody just looked at each other as Sonny sat back in the seat. The car was released, and down the hill went the dragster. In a spontaneous act, Sonny released the clutch and was able to get the engine to light as he drove the car back to the pits. Epic!

Stay tuned to nitrorevival.com for info on next year’s event.

Twins: The ageless Mr. Isky, styling in his new Bean Bandits jacket, holds court with a couple of guys who know a little bit about twin-engine dragsters. John Peters (right), owner/builder of The Freight Train, ran both twin small-block Chevys and twin Hemis. Walt Stevens drove Red Fogleman’s Odd Couple, which had a small-block Chevy sitting out in front of a Hemi.

It’s Alive: The long journey to find and restore the one-of-a-kind Buick-powered Skylark flopper named Ingenue has come full circle. Just days after Nitro Revival, owner John Lipori neared completion of the project as the 430ci Wildcat engine was brought to life. John will continue to bring the tune-up along and have this candy-apple-red beauty ready to sing at full song soon.

Fired Up: The drivers and their attire are part of the allure of an event like Nitro Revival. Being period correct is a must; an open-face helmet, fire/breather mask, and a pair of goggles are key. These drivers are strapped in for the mass fire-up on Saturday night.

Small Stuff: TV Tommy Ivo was the consummate showman, and his beautifully appointed racecars were works of art down to the last detail. The drilled and styled steering wheel of Tommy’s Barnstormer is finished with a personalized bolt cap.

Iconic: Historic memorabilia was plentiful at Nitro Revival, but none more unique than Roger Lee’s Smokers jacket. Roger proudly displays the jacket with his Masters and Richter tribute car.

Long Haul: The tale of Rich Guasco’s ’29 Ford has spanned the decades. Rich built the car when he was in grammar school, improved on it as the years went on, and won America’s Most Beautiful Roadster at the 1961 Oakland Roadster show. (For the full scoop on the car, see “Mr. Roadster,” May 2013.) Rich drove his pristine survivor to Nitro Revival.

Champion: Champion Speed Shop and its founder, Jim McLennan, are synonymous with the glory days of drag racing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jim’s son Bob keeps the legend alive with the Jim McLennan Drag Racing foundation, helping to sustain auto-shop classes in high schools and colleges.

Alias: Drag racer’s alter egos propelled them to great public notoriety and legend status. For Bob Muravez, it was just the opposite. Bob laid low and raced his way into the history books with a very unassuming alias, behind a mask of secrecy. Floyd Lippencott Jr. is seen here pushing off in Tom Hoover’s Fishbowl.

Aces: A big part of Nitro Revival was Ace’s Hot Rod Hangout car show, hosted by none other than Ed “The Ace” McCulloch. Ace took advantage of the early morning quiet to get his hot rod ready for the day ahead.

Honor: Ron Johnson was a big part of Nitro Revival becoming a reality. Ron passed last October, but his contribution to the sport lives on. Ron’s son Kol was in the seat of the TV Tommy Ivo Barnstormer for push starts. We would think the “victory” sign was for the success of something his dad helped create!

Soul Mates: The original Pure Hell driven by Dale Emery is pictured here with the present-day Pure Hell that races in the 6.0 Heritage Series class. The old car has been away from home for quite a while, spending time in museums and private collections. In April, Rich Guasco and company took the old car to Texas for Dale Emery’s funeral and then back home. As they were loading the trailers for Nitro Revival, it occurred to them that the two cars had never been side by side.

Familiar Territory: Big Daddy making some adjustments to the injector on Sonny Messner’s Swamp Rat 3b before a warm-up run on Friday. This is a Garlits-built re-creation of the destroyed SW3b. Of the three original Swamp Rat 3s built, two are restored and reside at the Garlits Museum.

The King: Jerry Ruth wears a hat that says, “I’m the Boss!” There probably aren’t a lot of people who would argue with him. But at the track, he’s known as “The King”—of the Northwest, that is. Aside from his Top Fuel world championship, Jerry is the first person to win Top Fuel and Funny Car at the same event, a feat he accomplished several times.

Sport’n: The Greth and Fisher Speed Sport Special has been starting events like Nitro Revival for many years, for good reason. The car was built in 1955 and retired in 1958. The restoration to race-ready status took place about 18 years ago. Here, the SSP is in a familiar spot, out in front of Steve Gibbs’ Ford for the start of push starts on Laguna Seca’s pit lane.

Reviver: We were surrounded by legends as we joined Steve Gibbs’ driver’s meeting prior to push-start practice Friday morning. When it was said and done, Steve humbly thanked everyone for coming, which was followed by an unidentified voice saying, “No, thank you, Steve!” and a round of applause for the father of Nitro Revival.

Cheers: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca’s Sr. Vice President of Marketing Melvin Record (left) and a crewman prepare to release Sonny Messner for his memorable journey down the Corkscrew in the Swamp Rat 3.

The post Move Over Sports Cars! Dragsters, Funnies and Altereds Take Over Laguna Seca at Nitro Revival 2 appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/move-sports-cars-dragsters-funnies-altereds-take-laguna-seca-nitro-revival-2/ via IFTTT

[michaeldenobile]

When life gives you stop signs and dead end streets...

Time keeps moving on thru the sunshine and the storm

And my dreams are set in stone that someday I'll be who I wanna be

For now I'll wait for the sun to shine again

And for now I'll wait for the rain to pass away

~Leeland, "Brighter Days," 2008

From their 2008 album Opposite Way and the soundtrack to the 2008 film Fireproof, the song "Brighter Days" is a bit of an anthem for me. Since I was a teenager, I loved the analogy of "storms" to describe struggles in my life. Storms often come without warning and are unpredictable, leaving hardship, devistation, and confusion in their wake.

And I'm lookin' for the brighter days

When all my hurts seem to fade away

I'm lookin' for the brighter days

To come my way

They bring floods, felled trees, debris, feet of snow, ice, limited vision, electrical fires, and power outages, both literal and figurative, even cutting us off from the outside world, making us feel isolated, alone, and forgotten. Some of the scars of storms are physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, social, and familial. Storms can make or break our lives. They can make us stuck in the past, obsessed with the future, or focused on the present, for better or worse.

Faces come and faces go but none seem to look my way

And walls have stood and walls have fallen but my heart seems to wait

One of my favorite Robin Williams movies is What Dreams May Come (1998) about Chris Nielson (Williams) who, with his wife Annie, copes with the death of his children and then, when he himself dies in a car accident searches heaven and hell for Annie, who had committed suicide. As dark as the movie is, it is an uplifting drama about the humanity of life and what unites us all regardless of our beliefs. A quote from Annie speaks to the human reality of suffering: "It's just that when everybody's dancing, I feel like . . . I'm alone in a sea of faces."

Well-intentioned "faces" will "come and go," trying to offer support, take advantave of us when we're down, or completely ignore our existence. We build walls and we tear them down. We push people away and we invite them in.

For now I'll sit at the end of the road

And for now I'll wait at the end of the pathway

I'll see the sun one day shine upon me

I'll see the sun one day

And watch the nighttime turn to morning

But for now it all comes back around

In the Adam Sandler movie Reign Over Me (2007), Charlie Fineman (Sandler) is stuck while grieving the loss of his family, five years after they were killed in the attacks of September 11th. At one point in the film, Charlie tries to commit suicide by cop and in the legal proceedings that follow, the judge must determine wheter or not to commit Charlie to an psychiatric facility. His therapist Angela Oakhurst (Liv Tyler) testifies, "I think that Charlie needs to find his own way. Not on our time, but on Charlie's time, and I think that will happen. He'll find people that will fill his life again. Not today, but soon... slowly."

When storms shake our resolve, those well-intentioned faces try to diagnose and treat us. But most often, the remedy of our situations tend to be simply "sitting" and "waiting," in thoughtful reflection, for the "sun to shine upon" us in our own time, not others'.

Gary Allen sings, "Every storm runs, runs out of rain / Just like every dark night turns into day / Every heartache will fade away / Just like every storm runs, runs out of rain."

In our modern world where we can't live without one-minute microwavable burritos, instant fast food Big Macs, cell phone notifications for mail we will see when we get home, and texting for and from people who are feet away from us in adjacent rooms, waiting in times of suffering is an eternity of horror for most of us. We lose sight that the hurricanes of our lives will break and times of recovery will allow us to regroup and prepare, stronger for future storms.

In Jane Yolen's novel The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), a time travel novel set between 1980s Scarsdale, NY, and a concentration camp during the Holocaust, character Rivka, a Jewish teenager in one of the camps, discusses how one of the greatest acts of bravery is survival.

Surviving our storms, in our own time, is courageous. It is also necessary for our health and well-being. It's knowing that brighter days will always come. The dawn will always follow the dark night, and we must patiently carry our crosses through this transient life. If we have goals and dreams, sometimes we must climb the heights of heaven and descend the depths of hell in order to achieve our fullest and truest potential in this borrowed life. Through the storms and the wars, the trials and tribulations, the hardships and sufferings, the deaths we experience (both literal and figurative) can defined our existence or propel us to certain glory. We are not a product of our scars but a legion of our choices, both positive and negative. And we are but a heartbeat away from epic fear and failure or absolute fortitude--that is survival.

When the war gives you a minefield, you push forward and navigate through it. I have dreams and a plan, and I am not letting stop signs and dead ends dictate my end game. I am a champion, and my only opponent is myself. Only I can decide if I win or if I l lose.

But for now I'll sit and wait for the sun to shine again. I'll wait for the rain to pass away.

[rodrigohyde]

NBA star Chris Paul’s key training method for staying strong, and how the Rockets can challenge the Warriors

Despite averaging 50 wins over the last three seasons and employing one of the best scorers in the league in James Harden, the Rockets—and everyone else—have been unable to overtake the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference.

With that in mind, Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who has been quoted saying he’s “basically obsessed” with beating the Warriors, decided to take a gamble on 32-year-old point guard Chris Paul. His thinking being that the former Pelicans and Clippers star just might be the missing piece that the team needs to win a championship.

[RELATED1]

For Morey and the Rockets, the gamble has paid off—big time.

Although he has 12 years in the NBA under his belt and all the wear-and-tear that comes with it, Paul is playing some of the best basketball of his career in Houston. Paul’s play has been fueling some historic offensive production for the Rockets, who have been averaging nearly as many points per game as the Warriors nearly halfway through the 2017-18 season.

[RELATED2]

How has he done it? With an intense focus on body maintenance, nutrition, and stretching, which has helped ensure that Paul is feeling fresh every time he steps on the court.

“One of the biggest keys has been stretching and foam-rolling,” Paul tells Men’s Fitness. “Every night before bed I’ll do a routine, and you can just feel such a huge difference when you get up. I sound like an old man, but there’s a lot less aches and pains. I’ve had knee surgery, so I just do this all year-round. Since I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that maintaining your body is the most important thing, and stretching out and my nutrition are the biggest parts of that. It makes me feel like I’m much younger when I’m on the court. When you’re young, 21 years old, you can get out of shape and then you just get right back. When you get older, you have to work at it.”

Paul’s play has helped turn the Rockets into a legitimate threat to the Warriors—but he knows it won’t be easy to beat them after the success that Golden State’s had the last few years.

“We just need to keep building and trying to get better,” Paul says. “We need to make sure we peak at the right time this season. We went on a big winning streak, but it was early. We aren't satisfied with where we are. We know we gotta be a lot better, and we can be.”

[RELATED3]

Just like he's done for years, Paul is starring in a new State Farm commercial, this time centered around his move to Houston.

Here's Paul's newest ad with State Farm—Paul on the "Grand Tour" with teammates James Harden and Trevor Ariza. and Office actor Oscar Nunez—and it's one of the best he's done so far:

  #ad If my new @StateFarm agent gives you a ride, you AT LEAST sing along to the chorus. Looking at you @JHarden13 👀 pic.twitter.com/sby0CGNnfM

— Chris Paul (@CP3) December 24, 2017

  Paul spoke with Men’s Fitness about how he stays fresh as he gets older, playing with Harden, what Grant Hill taught him about food, and why he loves doing those hilarious State Farm commercials.

How has your training, workout methods, and preparation changed over the years as you’ve gotten older?

It’s changed a lot, absolutely. Earlier in my career I wasn’t as focused on the foam-rolling and stretching, and now it’s a daily thing. Even on the road, my trainer, who is with our team...we practiced in Houston and then flew to Orlando, and he’ll come to the hotel room and go through the stretching and foam-rolling routine with me no matter what. My wife knows, too, she’ll be in bed and I’ll sit there and stretch and foam-roll before I go to bed. It helps me sleep better, and it has really been integral to playing this long in the league.

What’s your workout routine like during the off-season? What are some ways you like to train away from the court?

It's funny, because I always tell people I work out and train year-round, and that's not just because I'm a professional athlete—I do it for my life, too. I’ve had injuries and surgeries in the past, so I know how it feels when something isn’t firing right on my body. I love being able to do those precise movements, and also hang out and play with my kids, so I work out and train all summer so I feel good year-round. Whether it’s hamstring curls or band work before I play or go out, and I like to ride bikes, too. That really keeps my legs strong.

I’ve done boxing in the past when I couldn’t do any weight-bearing stuff, and swimming has been key when I’ve had to stay off my legs for injuries. At the end of the day, it’s all about keeping a routine. It’s just like those people who wake up and go to Starbucks every day and get coffee. In the same way, for me, I don't feel right unless I get up and go to the gym, work out, and do my shooting routine. I don't feel like myself unless I do what I'm supposed to do each day.

[PQ]

The NBA season can be a long one. How do you train to build your stamina and endurance to stay healthy through the regular season and playoffs?

It's a lot of maintenance, and a big focus on keeping that in order. I have a cold tub at my house and after practice I get in the cold tub, or sometimes I’ll do contrast where I’ll get in the cold for two or three minutes, then in the hot for one minute, and go back. I'm constantly just doing different things and seeing what works best for my body. Whether it's needling, whether it's massage, or anything else like that. I think I might be the second-oldest darn point guard in the league now, behind Tony Parker, so I'm trying to keep up with him and everyone else.

What’s your diet and nutrition like, and how has that helped you in your NBA career? How about a favorite cheat meal?

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how much diet is a factor. It's become the most important thing. One of the biggest parts of staying healthy and in shape comes down to diet. I didn’t really get as into my diet and nutrition until I came to Los Angeles. I played with Grant Hill, and he used to talk to me about the 70-30 rule, the 80-20 rule of how the big number is the foods you eat and the small number is the training and exercise. Even during the summer, I’ll have a few cheat days because I'm a guy that loves food, but I stay on top of it. I try to eat as healthy as possible during the season, but during the summer is honestly when you have to probably eat better, because you're not usually doing as much cardio by actually playing games. Cheat meal? It’s french fries—that’s my favorite that I just can’t say no to.

What’s it like playing with someone as exciting and skilled as James Harden?

It really has been a lot of fun. To play with someone with the ability that James has, it’s unbelievable because you don't see it too often. Right now he’s injured, so it’s tough to see that, because there’s not too many people you come across in this league that love the game as much as he does. We have such a great camaraderie as a team, and James is the center of that. We all got together for New Year’s, and we really have a great group of guys. It was an adjustment coming from the Clippers, but we have a great team, a great coaching staff, and I feel blessed and excited to have the opportunity here with the Rockets and to play with James.

[RELATED3]

How has the game changed in your eyes since you first came into the league?

Oh man, it’s changed—and it keeps on changing [laughs]! Once upon a time, you had the big guys that would dunk the ball, and it would go through that. Of course, some teams played a little fast, like you had Phoenix, who was playing like a real up-tempo game back then. We played pretty fast in New Orleans when I was there. The guards were really good when I came into the league, like exceptionally good. It was guys like Baron Davis, Allen Iverson, and Deron Williams, and the guards just kept getting better and better. Now, it's just you know, the league is playing at a faster pace than it's ever been. So, basically everybody plays fast now.

What’s it like working on your always-funny State Farm commercials? What’s been most important to you about that partnership?

Working with State Farm all these years has been an amazing partnership—a lot of fun, a lot of growth, it's crazy. When you're on set, you have a number of people who've been a part of it...and we think about all the different storylines that we've had, whether it be “Chris and Cliff,” or some of the others. It just continues to grow even after being traded to Houston this summer. My favorite thing about the partnership is how much bigger it is than just these commercials. We've had an opportunity to do so many different things in the community, with learning centers and learning labs in the community. It’s great a lot of people see the commercial, but it’s much bigger than that. It’s an opportunity to help kids and bring new things to the community wherever I play. I worked with my son on one of the commercials, and other greats like Kevin Garnett and Reggie Miller, so it's been cool to work with other people throughout the process.

[RELATED4]

What was the experience like this time working with teammates James Harden and Trevor Ariza? Any funny moments shooting your new commercial?

It was great having the opportunity to do the new stuff with my teammates James [Harden] and Trevor [Ariza], it made the experience even better. We had a lot of funny moments. Probably the funniest moment was when we were in the car singing and Trevor belts out the line of the song. My son, little Chris, yesterday, was on my wife's lap and he was singing it the same way. He was singing, "Tell me why" and getting Trevor perfectly. Those shoots can be long days, but when you’re on set with guys that you're extremely close with that you can laugh with, and have a good time with it, it makes it that much more fun, and it makes it easy.

Here's one more look at the ad:

[RELATED5]

Basketball

from Men's Fitness https://www.mensfitness.com/life/entertainment/nba-star-chris-pauls-key-training-method-staying-strong-and-how-rockets-can