#and i know some pretty redneck queers too

[grimandghoulish]

.

[redsrooftopprincess]

Bird

Raphael x Fem!reader

Warnings: Refrence to guns and animal death

(This is pure catharsis. It happened to me earlier today and I'm still feeling it. Thank you so much @truffle-draws-turtles for the emergency Raph hug. I really needed it.)

"Monsters!!!" You growl as the front door hits the wall so hard the knob leaves a dent. You toss your bag in the corner, ignoring the explosion of boots, heels, and sneakers that scatter from the mud mat.

You storm past everyone congregated in the living room for pre patrol coffee, and down the hall to your bedroom, clearly having been crying. Picture frames shake on the wall as you slam the door behind you.

Everyone exchanges worried glances, before Raph breaks off to head down the hall.

There is a gentle knock on the door.

"Come in," you say, sniffling, wiping your nose on your sleeve. He opens the door to you sitting on the edge of the bed wiping your eyes.

"Hey princess," he says softly, "you okay?"

You close your eyes and shake your head and cover your face with your hands as a sob escapes you.

He's by your side in seconds, pulling you into his lap and wrapping you up in his arms as you cry. When you're calm enough to speak again, he kisses you on the forehead and tilts your face to his. "What can I do?" He asks.

You shake your head, "Nothing. It's over."

"What is?" He asks, wiping a tear away with his thumb.

A few more tears fall, which he wipes away as well. "I cut through the park on my way home and there were some stupid kids firing off an airsoft rifle. At first they were just scaring the ducks, you know? Dick move but pretty harmless. But then they actually hit one."

Your voice thickens as new tears begin to fall, "I tried, I really tried," you insist, "I got them out of the lake and pulled them to shore but they got hit in the neck and gods it took like two minutes. I didn't know what to do, so I just held it until it..." You bury your face in his shoulder and sob.

He tightens his grip around you, resting his head against yours, "I'm so sorry, princess," he rumbles softly, "did you tell anyone?"

You shook your head.

"Why not?"

"Promise you won't be mad?"

His brow furrows at that one, and gives you a look you know very well.

"I may have... followed them."

He sighs heavily, "Y/N..."

"Look, it was three jackass kids with an airsoft rifle, it wasn't like I was in any actual danger. They were basically just off the tit." You insist.

He rolls his eyes, "Okay, fine, still a dumb move, but what happened?"

You hesitate.

"Y/N..."

"I gave him a black eye and broke his gun..." you say quickly, cringe-grinning, hoping he's not too mad, "and his hand," you add quickly

He's quiet for a moment, "...and the other two?"

"One... may have accidently got their shoulder dislocated?"

He nods, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Lemme guess," he says, "You left the third alone so-"

"-so he could drive their stupid moped to the hospital, yeah," you confirm.

He wraps his arms tighter around you , squeezing gently, "that's my girl."

...

A/N

Unfortunately I didn't beat them up, just yelled at them. They were all adults. Not even youngish adults. But I did hold the poor limpkin and contact authorities. Nothing is going to happen because they're white rednecks and I'm a visibly queer, openly pagan monsterfucker, so I'm not the one they're going to believe. They're also my neighbors, so this should be fun...

So if anyone could just send some karma-type vibes to those fuckers, it'd be appreciated.

...

Tag list

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @footninja @daedric-sorceress @sophiacloud28 @iridescentflamingo

[vaticinatrix]

ramblings about family, growing up, and the hunger games under the cut. no trigger warnings just trying to not clutter your dash :)

when i first read the hunger games, i was in middle school. i lived in coastal america, with my parents who were born and raised in appalachia. when i was a kid, the blue mountains and green woods represented grandma and papaw's house, summer and fun and beauty. pretty much until my grandparents' generation, my family was all coal miners and farmers for a long, long time. my mom and uncle (who still lived in my parents' hometown) tried to make it a point to emphasize to me that district 12 was based on our family's home. i kind of ignored them, because i was 12 years old and thought i knew everything. lol. as i got older, into my high school years, i really balked at how close my parents felt to their southern, mountain roots. the trump election had just passed, a lot of left-leaning spaces were trying to blame the south (honestly, with some degree of merit), and the infamous (derogatory) hillbilly elegy had just been published. all of these things impacted the way i saw my family and my home. i phased out the little bit of twang in my voice, i sneered at my mother's pride. i was different than them.

then i went to college close to my family's home, with people who had no roots there. i fell back in love with the mountains, and i learned more about the labor history etched into my bones. i started to chafe more at the people trying to abandon appalachia and the south because they only saw the worst in the people here. oh, don't get me wrong, i'm not saying appalachia is a beacon of leftist ideals. at some point, too many hillbillies and rednecks forgot that corporations are their enemies and decided (wrongly) that POC and queer people were. i am saying that POC and queer people have homes in the south and in appalachia. the belief that everyone should want to live in blue states and blue cities and have no connections elsewhere is. not helpful. and i remember how some of the people who advocated for the "stupid hillbillies elected trump" idea were also obsessed with the hunger games. interesting.

i started rereading the hunger games now, as a college grad most of the way through a master's degree. closer to my roots than i've ever been. reading tbosas for the first time actually flashbanged me, bc i have cousins with family names that characters in district 12 use. suzanne, what do you know??? but suzanne collins's picture of appalachia is. very important to me. it's not perfect, but the impact of a resource extraction economy on a region is, in my opinion, depicted very clearly and compassionately. especially off the heels of the jd v*nce era, collins actually making an effort to demonstrate compassion and diversity of ideas in her characters makes a serious impact. i know it's a sci-fi dystopian ya novel series, but i think there's a reason it holds up when other books in the same genre don't. and i think her depiction of district 12 is a major part of it.

this started as a 3-sentence shitpost. i'm supposed to be grading papers. oops.

[darealeliyellowbear]

I have a gaming friend who is your average cishet redneck, a veteran and a father in his 40s. Like i'm pretty sure I'm the closest queer friend he ever had. He will sometimes say some out of pocket stuff, like queer related or gender specific stuff like that and instead of coming down hard on him me and my other cishet hippie friend would just laugh. Like we know he means well, we will gently explain why xyz is outdated or so so and so actually uses they/them pronouns or how I'll say stuff like 'well fuck you know chicks got dicks ' when he is making gender specific jokes or statements. It's never with any Ill intend.

Sometimes we gotta use outdated terms or terms that came from their time when they were young, to explain shit so that these folks can understand better as long as they are willing too. We are radicalizing them slowly cause with queer issues comes with race issues or women issues that they can have a black and white views on, just gotta be patient and not be so quick to anger. As long as the person really has an open mind and has a healthy curiosity and is willing to understand that's all we can do.

One of my favorite moments my friend group and I have, my redneck friend was excited to tell me how one of his daughter's nonbinary friend came over to visit. He said I remembered to use the correct pronouns for them, aren't you proud of me ☺️ and I said of course! That's huge! It seems like the bare minimum to us but to the nonbinary child, who I'm pretty sure was nervous as hell going to their friends father's house, this old redneck that got the guns and deer meat in the freezer, knowing how that demographic can be towards us. To realize that no, the home they are visiting is a safe one and they are okay to exist because they will be respected as a person and it don't even need a pride flag waving in front of the house to prove that point.

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

[thaywrites]

heyyyyy, GEBF here! sorry, i got swamped by irl commitments, but im finally hereeee again! how has your break been, bestie? also i just wanted to ask you about your favorite muse(s) so far. is there any character you're currently all about? are they in their main character era in your head?

that's completely understandable with the holidays and all, but nice to hear from you again, GEBF! and oh, it's been both amazing and busy all at once but I'm just glad to be able to rest and spend time with my family. hmmmm so I have like a loooot of muses lol bc I'm always coming up with new ideas and love to build characters and stories and worlds. I adore all of them but there are some that I just feel more musey when writing bc they live in my head 24/7 rent free. so here are some of them:

aurora "rory" cohen ( victoria pedretti fc ): rory's a character that came to me when i got back into the rpc and she has been my baby since. she's a baker and pretty much, all sunshine and honey and freshly baked cookies. she's kind of a celebrity in her hometown, since she's the mayor's daughter from a small town, and kinda loves it bc she loves to get to know new people. she also just tends to talk too much. her family fell apart a couple years back bc daddy cheated and the whole town was all over it and then her first love broke her heart so she's currently in her healing era, living with her pitbull and trying to get her own bakery up n running.

adrien zahir ( avan jogia fc ): adrien is a muse i've had for yeaaars and i never get tired of writing him. he's a guitar player in the kinda famous rock band loudmouth ( and i write all the band members too ) and basically his background is that he was kicked out of his family by an overly religious father who hated the fact his only son was queer. so he found himself a new family instead. he went through many revamps and as of his latest one, he went from a sex crazed, addicted, alcoholic, messy rockstar to a soon-to-be daddy, pretty much married, recovered and decent human being. he's still loud, brazen, flamboyant and that's why we love him sm.

theodore becker ( andrew garfield fc ): theo is my broadway star. well, currently on a break. so he's basically a sweetheart broadway actor who was head over heels in love with the man of his dreams and he thought it was time to take things to the next level. he proposed, got a no for an answer and decided he needed some time away from new york, so he moved back home to help his dads out with their small business. he's pretty much a goof, big musical theater nerd, and just has a lot of love to give. i adore him sm.

alev özberk ( alperen duymaz fc ): poor man's version of clyde from the infamous duo bonnie and clyde. his bonnie is written by a friend of mine and we just have sm fun with those two. alev is my badboy, he's been part of a gang and has done some pretty hefty stuff in his life. he's a burglar, a liar, a drug dealer and all around a shitty person. but he's honestly so much fun to write bc he's always getting up to something and honestly, i miss him sm.

bowie monroe ( sophie thatcher / kiana madeira fc ): my little delinquent redneck enby babygirl. so their background is super messed up, mommy was a groupie that partied too much and didn't care about her motherly duties, so bowie was left at the cares of their older siblings (all half, all from different fathers) and was raised by them. they grew to be pretty pissed off at everything and everyone but they do try to be on a good behavior for the sake of their siblings, which is hard considering the friends bowie usually keeps by her side. she also has a pet lizard she's very fond of.

there's like so many others i could add to this list but i wanted to keep it on the shorter side lol

[beaversatemygrandma]

Thoughts about the FL thing, sans money now.

So that one friend who moved to Cali FINALLY texted me. I can't blame her at all for taking that time. It was hectic. Basically suddenly finding your existence illegal and the fact that she was in an accepting household could risk her mom losing her youngest kid. Like FL is fucked up and I'm glad she's safe now. And then me saying that I'm moving back to FL soon and she's just instant panic. Instantly worried about me. Telling me that if i go, i shouldn't come out. I shouldn't continue with that at all. Put the gender fuckery on hold. I think she even offered to help me out to Cali also once she's got her own place out there. Honestly, sounds pretty nice. I mean, the guy I've been talking with for all this time and basically have a long distance, soon to be short distance, relationship with has been listening to everything I've been saying about FL and iirc, Cali is actually a state where his insulin might come cheaper and easier. We've literally been talking about taking our time in town, getting money, saving money, and leaving the state, perhaps even the country. Like, he needs a place with socialized healthcare so he doesn't have a pricetag on his life and i need a place where i can literally be myself. And that place sure isn't FL.

Jeez, going back to FL in this political climate is so damn terrifying but i can't stay here. I'm losing my mind here. I'm stuck in a tiny ass place with too much stuff to fit into my damn 6x8 ft room that has 0 air flow, with a 14yo who acts like she's 7 (she's mentally okay, she's just immature and won't grow. like you give her advice and she starts guilting you about how she's not perfect). I've got my dad who i haven't been with for longer than a month since i was 8, who can't get anything done without at least a month of procrastination. We're all broke. There's planes and trains and trucks that shake the whole trailer every hour 24/7. It's not walkable. Hell, it's hardly drivable with all those axle-breaking potholes and blind intersections. There are even air quality warnings like once a week. And that's not about the smokescreen over the northeast. That's just what it's Like Here. Our water is brown like once a month. I swear like three water mains leading to our area burst since January. There are even shootings basically once a week within five miles of here. I hear guns firing constantly at like 2am like clockwork. I'm broke. I can't deal with it here. The payments needed to keep a car legal are higher in this state than most others. (including mandatory inspections? That YOU pay for??) What the fuck even is this city?

At least in FL, i know the town well. I know the people. I know the roads. It's kept nice because it's a damn tourist trap. Not some still-segregated urban sprawl. Sure, there's annoying rednecks there and snowbirds who act like they own the place, but you're less likely to get shot going to the gas station or break your car's entire front axle after not swerving around the wrong pothole so you don't get hit head-on by a tanker. Sure, I'm going to be terrified to be as gnc as i am. But what's another couple years in the closet, right? right? 🙃 Just have to keep my job, keep that guy close so I seem straight/cis passing, and hold my tongue in public. And maybe not look queer to an emt if something bad happens. Suck up dysphoria for a while and actually wear form-fitting clothes so nobody will try anything.

Holy fuck the entire southeast is so fucked up. Why do i have to be stuck here?

[unstablequeerbitch]

I live in east tn and after some laws was brought up (and now in effect), I had people ask me if I was going to move. “Why?” I asked. “This is my home. I have every right to be here. I am going to stay.“ they continue to push saying that somewhere else would be better that it would be safer.

But what the young trans kid down the street? What about the shy boy staring at his best friend in school? What about the girl sitting in Sunday school realizing she can never have everyone expects of her. What about the child struggling with puberty and not realizing that they are intersex and that’s okay? What about the regions around here who helped us? Thank you ETSU who helped us during the aids crisis and became a home for people who were struggling. Thank you to the “no hate on my holler” folks and “I care who you like, can you fix my brakes or not” guys. Ironically, I’ve always felt safer down here than in bigger cities up north.

I shouldn’t alienate myself to protect myself. And leaving isn’t going to help anyone. Im not anything new. Being a redneck is as much of my identity as being queer. I will not sacrifice one to make someone else comfortable.

Now cause it’s me, I’m going to dump some Intersting info below of timelines and articles of east tn queer history:

“ I had bought into the dominant narrative in LGBTQIA spaces that because I am queer I could never live back home. I was told—in not so many words—that I could not have my queerness and my mountains, too, that I would not be safe there, that I would not be able to survive, much less thrive. This is a common experience for those of us who have left the small towns and rural areas where we grew up”

Country Queers story here

“1864 - Albert D.J. Cashier, serving with the Union Army, fought in the Battle of Nashville. Scholars believe that Cashier, born Jennie Hodgers, was a transgender man, especially since he lived the rest of his life after the Civil War as a man.�� (Here’s some more Nashville and middle TN queer history timelines)

TN decided that Reagan was taking too long to do something about AIDS and made there own groups to fundraise and help assist with living expenses and medical bills (link here)

Here’s a UT teacher making a class of gay history and a photo of her great great aunt kissing a girl from 1920s

Voices out loud project who collect east tn queer history

An article talking about how so much of our history may never be obvious. I love these paragraphs. “Less obvious are the dozens of prominent Knoxvillians who were eccentrics, who often remained single, and about whom an octogenarian lady might startle you with a whisper, “people say he was queer,” or “she wasn’t interested in men, you know.”

And that would be that. A good reporter pries. Often a friend doesn’t.

You hear things, observe things, so much that you become almost sure about your conclusions. It’s not necessarily the duty of the historian to out the dead. I’m pretty sure it’s not mine, anyway.”

I’m going to say it one more time: Being a redneck is as much of my identity as being queer. I will not sacrifice one to make someone else comfortable.

Gay people in the American South

[clatterbane]

Historical, Mythological & Social Origins of the Satanic Panic and How it Nearly Destroyed My Life

Starting in the early 1980’s the Satanic Panic ignited in the United States before spreading through the world. Here law enforcement, psychiatrists, social workers and occult ‘experts’ uncovered a vast satanic conspiracy which predated upon children at daycares, infiltrated heavy metal music, lured in teenagers through Dungeons and Dragons all organized by a grand network of satanic covens. These claims resulted in constant bullying for social non-conformists, hundreds of arrests, prosecutions, compromised guilty verdicts along with accusations which ruined lives and livelihoods for many more. The Satanic Panic is even more shocking when considering that no evidence has come to light in over 40 years to substantiate these claims. Feeding on centuries of demonological lore set into the social and economic degradation of the last quarter of the 20th century, the Satanic Panic continues to have a decisive social impact. Join me as I dive deep into the origins and development of the Satanic Panic and how it nearly destroyed my life.

Another unfortunately excellent video from Justin Sledge, which carries just about all the content warnings you might expect in this context. From medieval antisemitic violence, up through the 1980s ritual abuse craze--and, as he discusses some, more recently getting resurrected to some extent through the QAnon garbage. It's ugly history all the way down, y'all, though he treats it with the usual sensitivity here. (And more soberly than usual, with the multiple levels of obviously still uncomfortable personal relevance there.)

I was 12 when Geraldo Rivera's first mega-trainwreck special peddling this bullshit aired. So yeah, I remember this period a little too well--if thankfully more in the background, growing up in a non-religious family outside the Bible Belt. The White Evangelical Right hadn't made many inroads in our area (yet). I did know some other kids who ran into more trouble at home, with parents who were keeping an eye out for various supposed Satanic Influences. I did also hang out around some of the local Redneck Stoner Metalheads, so yeah. I'm still pretty cool with most of that crowd back home, and have no reason to think it's not mutual.

And I did run into some bullying with that shit used as an excuse--but surprisingly little in retrospect, as a neurodivergent weirdo with an interest in the occult myself, who was getting bullied within millimeters of my life already. Which whole experience honestly helped steer me harder into that punkmetalgoth freak glory, btw. Along with a lot of kids pushed well over onto the margins in those days.

(I also got much less directly caught up on the edges, through what was thankfully a much more straightforwardly secular version of the whole deeply pernicious "repressed memories of nonexistent abuse" fad. As I have talked about some before. Basically because I was obviously ND as hell, no doubt sending off some serious queer vibes, and dealing with plenty of then-ongoing trauma to boot. That whole mess was frankly traumatizing as fuck, but I feel like it at least didn't screw with my head in as bad a ways as, say, actually becoming convinced that you were indeed sadistically abused in Satanic rituals. They also never pulled out hypnosis on me, but stuck to insistent leading questions based on horrible assumptions in the face of my persistent "poor insight" and total lack of recall of any earlier childhood abuse of the sort ever happening. Don't know how well hypnosis would have worked either, tbh, but there was more than enough badness there even without finding out. And without the explicitly "Satanic" elements.)

It is difficult to stress hard enough just how many people did get harmed in some way by this particular load of conspiracy theory horseshit. And in some ways that were still echoing down, even before the QAnon revival. As he goes into some here.

Dr. Sledge, OTOH, is just enough younger that I wouldn't have thought he'd have been at as much risk. But yeah, he was also a similarly geeky weirdo growing up in Mississippi and getting involved in Judaism at the time--who was actually into D&D, some occult special interests, and at least now black metal. (Hard to tell which way any connection there might have run, of course, considering he doesn't mention the metal back when this shit was actively playing out.) And, of course, he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At any rate, this video is indeed a pretty long deep dive, but I would really suggest checking it out.

[gayenerd]

This comes from a 2004 interview Billie did with something called Instinct Magazine, a LGBTQ site/magazine, and it is not archived on their site because of course it isn’t. 

IDIOT'S SAVANT

Thank You Billie Joe Armstrong & Co. For Speaking Out - And Letting Us Sing Along (To Your Nine-Minute Punk Rock Songs)

We couldn’t be more excited that, this past year, Green Day scored their first number one album with the widely praised and ambitious American Idiot. It quickly became one of our favorites of the year—especially when this country needed a punk-rock-boot kick to the arse. And we tracked down singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong on the tour for the album, catching up with him in Boston just a day after the Red Sox had won the World Series.

INSTINCT: Hey, Billie. Let’s hope that Boston winning, especially over New York, means that Bush is on his way out. Boston was where the Democratic National Convention was, and New York the RNC.

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: [Laughs] Yeah, we’re hoping it turns out that way.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being worst, what kind of shit do you think we’ll be in if Bush gets reelected?

Um, I’m gonna have to go with a solid 9.5. [Laughs] It would be a perfect 10 if we got hit by another terrorist attack—or if Bush croaked and Cheney became President. That’s a scary thought.

There are a few times on the new album where you use the word “fag” or “faggot.” Personally, I think you use those words correctly, where you say things like, “Maybe I’m the faggot America,” and “Kill all the fags that don’t agree.” You’re saying that you’d much rather be a “fag” than someone who is ignorant.

Well you know I’m not a redneck. I got called “faggot” in high school and really that word is thrown at people who are different or out of step with what’s popular. Gay people are not the only ones who get called that. But they’ve used it for empowerment, you know, and I do too.

You’re used to censorship of words or phrases from your songs. Did you get pissed that radio and MTV was bleeping out the word “faggot,” even though you were saying it with punk rock pride?

A little bit. I’m more surprised that they didn’t bleep out “redneck” from [the single, “American Idiot”]. It’s just using harsh language to prove a point and give power to those not in power. Except for a few rap songs, I think it might be the first mainstream rock song to ever use that word. Maybe that’s what scared them.

Okay, have you gotten any flack for it?

No. I think people are smart enough to figure out that I’m using it as an empowering word. Anything derogatory that has been used against me, the way I sort of looked at it was, “Yeah, you can call me whatever want.” It just makes me stronger.

Back in 1995, I saw Pansy Division, the biggest queer punk band at the time, open for you guys in your hometown of Oakland. The big difference being, of course, that instead of the Gilman, you were now playing for, like, 10,000 people after the success of Dookie. Since that was your first record for Warner Bros., did they freak out about you choice of an opening act, especially when they had songs like “Fuck Like Bunnies” and “Ring Of Joy”?

[Laughs] No, nobody said anything. For us, we wanted to bring someone out who truly defines what punk rock is and show some sort of diversity. It would have been to obvious to go out with a band like Pennywise. And considering where we came from, we felt like we owed it to the scene and to our original fans. We ended up getting letters from kids saying that Pansy Division opening for us changed their lives.

If you were a gay guy for a week, what would you do differently?

Hmm, I’d probably get laid a lot more, right?

That’s a stereotype and I’m totally offended! Actually, it’s true. But don’t tell anyone.

Yeah, I can only imagine that getting two guys together makes it a little easier. [Laughs]

Speaking of stereotypes, what would you consider your “gayest” traits?

Probably shopping. But in a punk rock, metrosexual kind of way. [Laughs]

What do you consider your least punk rock characteristic?

Shopping. [Laughs] Probably bathing.

What? Your hair looks like it hasn’t been washed in a month.

[Laughs] I know—let me think again. [Pauses] I own a house, and mortgages are not very punk rock. [Laughs] Owning anything is pretty much not punk rock. [Laughs again]

What questions from journalists have been annoying you the most lately?

Probably the ones where they ask me to explain the album, what American Idiot is about. It’s so long-winded, you know, and I’m, like, Just figure it out for yourself and write about it.

Did you guys know, when you were making the record, that it was going to be this successful and have this kind of impact?

We knew we were making something special to us. We’d never had a number-one record, so we didn’t really even entertain that idea. I don’t think that there has ever been a punk rock band that has gone to number one.

The term “punk rock” has obviously morphed. What does it mean to you when you use that phrase?

What I learned from punk rock is to be an individual and to do things your own way. And if you have rules, realize that rules are meant to be broken. You should still grow as a person and I think you do that best when you don’t limit yourself.

Speaking of individuality, how would you describe your dancing style?

[Laughs] My dancing style? Um, I guess Prince meets Pee-Wee Herman.

I can see that, although I thought that was more of your dress style. So you like to slither on the floor?

I do a little bit of slithering, yes, but with platform shoes on. [Laughs]

Okay, what would you really do different if you were a homo for a week?

[Pauses] I’d probably have more female friends. There’s sort of this boundary that comes across with platonic friendships with women.

So is it because of you or them that you don’t have more females as friends? What, do you just keep looking at their breasts?

[Laughs loudly] No, it gets scary out there. It’s more of a trust issue.

What do you think that straight guys need to do to strengthen their relationships with gay men? And you know you need to do this in order to have more relationships with women.

You know, with my gay friends, it was all about just hanging out and getting used to each other’s company. But the burden is definitely more on the straight guy: stop feeling so damn threatened.

[photolover82]

The Masked Singer Season 6 Episode 7: Group B Thanksgiving Episode ft. the last wildcard of the season (Commentary & Guesses)

Hello my fellow Internet peeps! Welcome to Ana’s Masked Singer recap, where I, Ana, recap every single episode of The Masked Singer. Last week we had a bit of a break because of the World Series but we are finally back and so is Group B! So, yeah, let’s get started because this episode was a wild ride…

This time around we had the following perform: Banana Split 🍌🍦, Caterpillar 🐛, Queen of Hearts 🫀, Mallard 🦆, and Beach Ball 🏖.

So, this episode, our eliminated contestant was…

*DRUMROLL PLEASE*

Beach Ball 🏖

Performance: This result I expected, if they weren't eliminated, it would be a crime against music. Like, damn, they were bad… sorry lemme be nicer… they were um… let’s just say they are absolutely not professional singers whatsoever, and their talent lays elsewhere (yeah, let’s go with that, does that sound nice?). I legit was trying to watch their performance to refresh my memory and write this correctly and I couldn’t even sit through the whole thing. They sang Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus, which song choice kinda gave away her age there (or at least one of their ages… oh wait I didn’t even mention, it’s a duo!). Yup there’s 2 voices under there and I was sure was young for sure.

Anyways, having said that, they were revealed to be…

Honey Boo Boo and Mama June

It wasn’t the performance nor the clues that made me guess them, it was their accents under that voice modulation, and I was like wait a minute… that’s Honey Boo Boo and her mama, I know their talking voices pretty well but never heard them sing a day in my life. So, yeah, I’m glad that mom and daughter are together again and mom is sober 2 years 👏, but they gotta go sorry ladies.

Anyways, onto the remaining contestants and their performances (this time around I don’t wanna be repetitive so I’m just gonna tell you who I think it is and what I think of their performances, boom, no explanation/clues because the clues take forever and I’m trying to make this snappy):

1. Caterpillar is Bobby Berk from Queer Eye

Performance: He sang It’s Gonna Be Me by *NSYNC and it was really great wow the guy has vocal chops, idk Bobby can sing like that I’m really impressed. I learned he used to be in a Christian rock group, so you know my mans if home renovating/interior designing doesn’t work out, you got chops, com dour with a boy band rock album. I would buy it in a heartbeat! Anyways, I wanted to touch on Jenny almost pressing the Take it off Buzzer for him and thinking it’s a member of *NSYNC, JC Chasez singing a song by *NSYNC like come on girl. Everybody hated that guess, even Ken, but I kind of wanted to know what would have happened if she did press it and got it wrong… would the person still stay? Thank God she didn’t though because I really didn’t want him to go home.

2. Banana Split is David Foster and Katherine McPhee I’m so sure

Performance: So, the picture above is them with like the cool looking piano 50s car thing, which shoutout to the design team on Masked Singer because wow that thing is beautiful I couldn’t stop staring at it. Anyways, they sang Let er Rip by The Chicks and the vibe was very 50s/60s. Even though vocally it wasn’t their best performance, it was their most fun and it was explosive/memorable. She really showed up and out with the choreography and I absolutely loved it. Probably my favorite performance of the night!

3. Queen of Hearts is Ms. Jewel!

Performance: She sang River by Bishop Briggs and that’s a big song and she delivered in a huge way! She’s got an amazing voice, like she doesn’t have to do too much choreography wise and she kills it every time. I really think it is between her and Banana Split at the Group B Finals. I really think she’s Jewel, like the voice matching is spot on, I’m really excited to see what she does next.

4. Mallard is Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson

Performance: he sang Play Something Country by Brooks and Dunn, and again much better suited for his voice but he did kind of choke up on his words in a few places. Honestly, I’m not a big Duck Dynasty fan nor a redneck country girl… like I ain’t from Texas, Louisiana, or any of those places where country like that is the thing. It’s just not my type of music, some country I do like but the type he sings isn’t my jam. I’m more of a soul, pop, R&B, Latin pop, Broadway music kinda girl. So, he was for me my least favorite besides Beach Ball (nobody can beat Beach Ball for the worst spot).

So yeah that’s it! Let me know if you guys like this style or having the clues included… comment down below, like, reblog, and do all the Tumblr things hehe. Also, I feel like a broken record apologizing for this being late but I swear I have been super busy and am better at live tweeting on my Twitter @photolover82. Anyways, bye guys! See you this weekend hopefully 🙏

[godslayingenthusiast]

https://qgpennyworth.com/portfolio/people-are-strange/

People Are Strange is a work from Holy Nonsense, a Creative Commons project. View Holy Nonsense 2020 here.

Each entry (single page or multiple pages of the same work) is released under an individual CC: Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives license. That means you can repost this work as-is anywhere for any non-commercial purposes.

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People are strange.

I often see people walking around, both in public and on the clock at their jobs, in the strangest costumes.

The guy walking around dressed like a Cowboy straight out of an old Western movie, who has never wrangled a cow or whatever in his life. Who lives in the apartment two doors down from me and doesn’t even know what a pasture smells like. He likes his theme so much he drives the big pickup truck, has a belt buckle the size of Texas (here in Wisconsin), and when he can, he carries a gun on his hip just in case Billy the Kid shows up one day.

The woman dressed like some sort of gothic vampire. With the “I <3 ZOMBIES" keychain. White powdered face with heavy black eyeliner.

The person whose gender I do not know, with their carefully dyed and styled hair and curated collection of buttons and piercings and shirts they stole from a 90s Xena fan’s closet.

The guy in the Businessman costume, not a tuxedo but shirt and tie and "very nice" shoes.

The casual Steve in his old hole-filled ripped up T-Shirt and wholly holey jeans.

The Princess in her stunning dress and accessories and make-up that had to have taken at least two hours to put together each morning.

These are all people I work with. Walking around in costume, covered with the marks of their respective themes. This is fully accepted for the most part. There are exceptions (the redneck likes to poke at the queer one and the casual steve is always ribbing the businessman and whistling at the Princess) but for the most part nobody is ever told to "go home and come back dressed normally". Why? Because that is normal. These are accepted normal ways to dress in modern society, even by supervisors and managers.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not judging or criticizing. Actually I think it's pretty great. But, as fucking ALWAYS, my problem is with INCONSISTENCY. GOD I HATE INCONSISTENCY. My brain latches on to it like a life raft and will NOT let it go.

If I show up to work today wearing a Wizard robe, a wizard hat, carrying a big magicky-looking staff, driving a car painted to look like a dragon, I'm the weird one. Not the Cowboy, not the Princess, me. What makes one theme more acceptable than another? A robe and hat and stick are much easier to set aside, take far less preparation, and are more likely to make people smile, than a full-on Vampire costume. However, if I go to work like that I have absolutely no doubt I would be sent home to change into "regular clothes". And If I went home and put on a cowboy costume and came back, that would be considered changing into normal clothes.

I would like to know who draws these arbitrary lines, and what kind of bribery would be effective on them.

I want to see more wizards, more Monks, more goofy Doctor Who outfits, more people dressed like Neo in the Matrix, driving around my workplace in a forklift. Operating the machine next to mine. Fixing my shear when it breaks down. Instead I get about 30 cowboys and a few of the other mentioned types, and that's it, because anything else is somehow "too weird". Worse, at least half of the fucking cowboys are of the openly racist, kill-animals-for-fun variety. At least the guy in the Wizard robe I know I'd probably get along with.

Or Kill Me.

- Trix

Marginalia: a large, ornate and friendly frame containing the text "Be assured I shall continue doing whatever the hell it is that I do."

[thefaultinourdefault-blog]

What Does Dyke Mean?

So today, as I was eating my honeybun at breakfast (which really isn't that great, but I refuse to have anything else for breakfast for fear of disturbing my food-routine), my grandma asked me a question that took me completely off-guard.

"What does 'dyke' mean?"

I could feel my stomach flip as my heartbeat increased drastically. Now, see, my grandma is a complicated person. I love her, but she's complicated. She's one of those people who aren't too fond of the LGBT community, but firmly believes that there shouldn't be any violence or legal discrimination towards LGBT people either. Now I've tried coming out to my grandma before, and it didn't go well at all. She said some pretty hurtful things. But since then, she's slowly been warming up to the topic (she even iced a cookie in rainbow colors for pride month), however, for complicated reasons that I'll probably describe in a future blog post, I'm going to have to come out to her again - officially this time. And while my grandma has asked other startling questions before; "Do you like girls?" "Why aren't you interested in dating boys?" "You aren't, really gay, are you?", This one caught me off guard the most.

See, okay, my grandma is kind of homophobic, but she's also really innocent and naive. She grew up in a small town that was home to less than 100 people, and up until her mid-adult life, she didn't even know that black people existed, let alone queer people. That being said, she also never knew about the amount of intolerance that was directed towards minority groups. Racial and homophobic slurs don't exist in her vocabulary, unless you count the time she called a lesbian couple on Say Yes to the Dress a "couple of queers." I guess she does know that one.

I wasn't sure what answer I was supposed to give her, so I simply shrugged my shoulders and took another bite of my dull-tasting honeybun.

"Your Uncle called someone that word while he was on the phone with me the other day. I know it's a female term, but I don't know what it means."

I nodded my head. It wouldn't be unexpected from the uncle that she was referring to. You know those scary ultra-conservative rednecks that some people imagine when you say the word "American"? Well my uncle was the cookie-cutter scary redneck. Gun collection? Check. Confederate flag? Check. Works at a shooting range? Check. Thinks women are only good for house wives and shouldn't have an opinion of their own? Check. Uses the n-word freely? Check. Calls the black lives matter and LGBT pride movements a "terrorist agenda"? Check. Has a "I love Donald Trump" sign in his front yard? Check.

My grandma didn't infuse these things in him, he learned them from his father. His father was an abusive asshole with multiple domestic violence charges as notches in his bedpost. It's funny how those things can be generational.

Now that the reason for her asking the question was out in the open, I felt more comfortable giving an answer.

"Dyke is a homophobic slur, usually directed towards lesbians or other gay women." I explained, and then I gave her a little bit of history about the word and the violence that's been directed towards the LGBT community throughout history, and about how some people still hold those out-dated views.

Was that too much information? Did I give too much away? Did I show that I know so much about the LGBT community that I must be a member of it myself? I panicked internally once I had finished explaining. But to my surprise, she didn't take this as another opportunity to question my sexuality.

Instead, her eyes watered slightly and she shook her head. "I'm so naive," She admitted, and then added on with something like "I didn't know that there was still so much hatred in the world. I thought that in 10 years or so there would be no 'white' or 'black'. I thought we would all just tolerate each other as human beings. Gay people are human beings."

My heart warmed at her words, but of course, she didn't finish there.

"It's okay to be upset when someone you know, or your child comes out as gay. You can try to guide them, you can wish that they weren't on that path, but it never gives you an excuse to be a mean person."

My smile faltered. I knew that by "guide them" she meant that a part of her still thinks that gay people can be changed through some grace of God. But then I remembered, a year ago she wouldn't listen to Elton John music in the car with me. A year ago she said that there was "no reason to stand up for the LGBT community”. And now, here she was, acknowledging that what my uncle said was wrong.

It was a pure sentiment, perhaps a little misguided, but I'm proud of the progress that she's made. I'm definitely nowhere near being ready to really come out to her, but somehow, the conversation that I had with her today gave me faith that coming out will be a question of "when will I?" Rather than "will I ever?" And that's good enough for me right now.

Now I'm sitting here, waiting for lunchtime, and wondering why my grandma thought to come to me with that question of all people, and why wasn't she phased by the fact that I seemed to know so much about LGBT related issues? Is it possible that somewhere in her mind she knows? And is it possible that somewhere in her heart she's capable of accepting me for who I really am? But I guess those are questions that I can wonder about on another day.

For now, here's an exit ticket for anybody who read this pointless ramble of mine:

Who were you most nervous to come out to? And if you're still in the closet, who are you most nervous to tell?

Signing off,

~R

[mugsywrites]

Homesteading AU that will never be Chapter 2

This is chapter 2, with Merle. Warning for Merle’s thoughts, his head is an ugly place to be. Racism, homophobia, abusive thoughts, etc.

Chapter 2: Merle

Three days later the busy truck stop has been deserted. There are a few trucks scattered by the side of the road.

[STUFF]

This stillness is shattered by the roar of an engine getting louder and louder as a XXford pickup truck peels off the exit, pulling into the truck stop. A man gets out of the truck with a rifle slung over one shoulder, on edge.

[STUFF]

Merle Dixon has no psychic twinge or premonition that three nights ago his brother dragged his boyfriend into the shadows for a kiss not far from the spot where he’s pissing. If he did would have moved over to the side to be sure and water that little patch of grass. Since he doesn’t he finishes, gives the old joystick a shake, and zips up.

[STUFF, Merle Arrives at the Desus House]

After Merle makes sure that Daryl is definitely gone he goes through the house room by room looking for clues on where to search for his sweet baby brother and his sweet baby brother’s pretty boy roommate. He doesn’t dwell on the fact he would have done this even if there was a map on the wall with Daryl’s exact location circled in red ink. Doesn’t on the fact he’s just plain curious; he hasn’t seen or spoken to his brother in almost three years, something he still has trouble believing. All on account of Daryl’s prissy little roommate. The faggy little roommate who had gotten ahold of Daryl’s brain via his dick. The mouthy little roommate who made Daryl buy this house in this shithole town full of bleeding hearts, jigs, and democrats instead of splitting the insurance money with Merle. Aside from the paltry amount Daryl put aside for “when he got out”. The pussy little roommate who kept Daryl’s balls in a sack ‘round his neck for all Merle knew.

Pansy Palace is only big and fancy if he compares it to Daddy’s place up in Sedalia. If he’s being objective then it’s a modest two story colonial-style house that is good sized for a couple with some space left over if said couple were planning on adding some brats. Not that Darlina and his ladyboy roommate need to worry about that. The staircase to the second floor is just opposite the front door. To the left of the staircase is a small kitchen, to the right is living room that opens into a dining area towards the back of the house. There’s a half bath and an office and sliding glass doors that lead out to a patio.

Merle scans each room, cataloging everything in detail. Aside from the kitchen—with cupboards open and in disarray—the rooms look well-lived in but tidy. Merle thinks of Daddy’s place again, where he has not set foot since he was thrown in the clink over five years ago. He and Daryl lived there ever since Will Dixon, their shitheel old man, had a heart attack while watching Wheel of Fortune over twenty years ago. Casa Fagola, home of Darlina and his roommate, looks to be just about as old but in far better shape than Will’s place with its fraying carpets, peeling paint, and leaky roof. The furniture in Fudge-packer Manor matches, something Merle finds irrationally annoying. It looks newish and store-bought, not snatched from a rummage sale or flea market.

New house wasn’t good enough, he needed new furniture too, Merle thinks to himself, his mouth twisting in an ugly line. He thinks back to this spring, a few weeks before his parole hearing that was a waste of everyone’s fucking time. Merle had been edgy during that time, he knew goddamned well he wouldn’t be paroled. Too many black marks on his record after five years in the pokey. Fights, possession of contraband, destruction of other inmates’ property, mouthing off to the guards. He knew he wouldn’t be paroled, but this small sliver of him kept thinking what if. That was the thing, you could tell yourself all the livelong day that you knew you wasn’t getting out, but there was that little voice. What if. Same cocksucking voice he heard when he bought a scratch off ticket, peeling off slivers of latex while what if what if what if jabbered away in his head. That sliver of possibility was crueler than an extra five years on his sentence. Kept imagining what he’d do on his first night out of this place. Pussy being the number one item on that list, a steak at Texas Roadhouse right behind, and finally some crystal. Once he’d satisfied those appetites in that exact order he would track down his dumbass baby brother and help him find his nut sack again. It was with those thoughts swirling in his head that Merle was told he had a request for a visitor, a Mr. Paul J. Rovia. Merle was about to say he had no idea who Paul J. Rovia was when it clicked.

My friend Paul, the one I told you about. He’s moving in with me.

That last conversation he’d had with Daryl, when his sweet baby brother told him that instead of investing his little windfall with Merle’s help he was going to buy Fag Manor here in libtard central. Daryl had gotten up and left when Merle had made it clear what the consequences would be. After everything Merle had done for him Daryl had chosen some namby pamby little queer. He kept waiting for Daryl to come crawling back begging for forgiveness when the roommate fucked off somewhere after bleeding Daryl dry. But year after year passed with not so much as a letter. There were times he almost broke down and called Boyd down in Sedalia to ask if he’d do a favor for his pal Merle. A little one at that, especially since Merle would’ve gotten less time if he’d snitched on the rest of the gang. Just find out where his sweet baby brother was hanging his hat these days, find out who if anyone he was still living with. Simple. Merle never did go that far, in the back of his mind he knew Daryl would spot Boyd and would figure out instantly who’d sent him and why. There was always the chance that even though Daryl had embraced full time faggotry there was enough Dixon in him to start some shit. Shit that would end badly for everyone involved.

But now here Mr. Paul J. Rovia wanted to come for a visit, wanted to look Merle in the eye and talk to him. Merle didn’t even consider turning the request down, he wanted to look Paulyanna in the eye and talk to him as well. He told himself that it was just so he could tell the roommate to go fuck himself once and for all, and that was part of it, but it wasn’t the main reason.

The main reason was that he hadn’t seen his brother in almost three years, had no idea what he was doing, no idea if he missed Merle or thought of him at all.

[STUFF]

[STUFF]

Mr. Paul J. Rovia was already sitting at the little booth when Merle was escorted in. He didn’t stand,  looked up and met Merle’s eyes with a bland expression that did not match his chilly blue eyes. He was handsome, with bluish-green eyes, high cheekbones over a neat beard, and glossy hair that tumbled down to his shoulders. Merle’s first thought was that the guy looked like paintings of Jesus in his grandma’s sitting room growing up. His second thought was that he hadn’t expected the roommate to be this good-looking. His shirt was fitted tight enough for Merle to see he had the lithe, compact little body of a gymnast with surprisingly well-muscled arms and shoulders. Despite that, without a beard he would have looked like a girl with that glossy hair and a wide mouth framed by full red lips that looked like they’d been designed to suck cock.

Merle’s third thought was to wonder— not for the first time— if Daryl had lied to him about how much money was in his insurance settlement, or how much the lawyers would take, or a combination of the two. No way little Mr. Hot Piece would look twice at a bit of redneck trash with the last name of Dixon unless he had good incentive. So. Money, and lots of it. His sweet little Darlina had told Merle that he got a lawyer via his good friend Paul, the very same guy who swooped in like a vulture when he saw a dying Daryl beside the road. Probably called the lawyer before 911.

They studied each other for a few minutes, Mr. Paul “Jesus” Rovia and his pretty dick-sucking lips and bland expression. Pretty good poker face, but it didn’t take Merle long to guess that he was pissed. When Merle realized that he gave him a lazy grin, and that poker face slipped for just a minute before Jesus grabbed the phone on his side of the glass. Merle’s grin widened as he picked up his own phone, “Who the fuck are you, then?”

Jesus rolled his eyes, “You know who the fuck I am. Paul Rovia, you signed off on my visitor’s request. I thought we should chat.”

Merle sucked his lip against his teeth, “You got me. I know who you are— my sweet little Darylina’s best lady friend,” he was surprised to find himself reluctantly respecting the fact that guy got straight to the point like that. Little fucker. “You’re purtier than I thought you’d be. Still roommates?”

Merle’s reluctant respect shattered when Jesus replied in a bored voice, “Yeah. Plus we’re still regularly sodomizing each other, which is a bonus.”

White hot rage descended on Merle then. “Boy, you don’t know how lucky you are this glass is between us. You should march out of here before I decide to try and break it.”

[stuff, convo is identical to the one they had in Ripples, but with Merle’s reactions.]

“Heard you’re up for parole, that is if you didn’t fuck it up. How’s that going?”

“Why you askin’? Gonna invite me over for Sunday morning shopping trips for panty hose?”

“I’m honestly curious about something, Merle. Do you legit think comparing me to a woman is going to piss me off? Or implying that I’m less of a man or whatever because I like dick? Besides, it’s not like you have room to talk, what with you in here getting dicked down on the regular. Guessing you’re the most popular guy on your cell block.”

“I don’t need to know about your jerk off fantasies, you fucking fudge packer, or the disgusting shit you done to my brother,” Merle snarled.

“Oh Merle, your secret is safe with me. I spent a lot of time in juvie, I know guys like you. Loudest homophobes are the quickest to lie back and grab their ankles or follow you around begging to suck your dick.”

“Ooh creampuff, do you want to wrassle with me?” Merle hissed, “You want an ass beating to get your rocks off you don’t need to go through all this, just say the word.”

“Daryl may be scared of you, I’m not,”

“You lying little cocksucker. I dunno what kinda shit you put in his head, make him run off—“

“Holy shit, do you not know?Thought you’d be pleased, I think he’s more scared of you than he ever was of your Daddy. Apple didn’t fall far from the tree there in your case.”

“I ain’t nothing like our daddy, you candy ass little scrotum. Daryl ain’t scared of me.”

“He is terrified of you; he’s had me spend the past three years learning how to shoot a gun and looking over his shoulder because he’s worried you’ll have your inbred white supremacist buddies come beat him or kill him. He’s been a basket case since he realized you could be getting out soon to beat him or kill him personally.”

“Look at you sittin’ there in your fancy clothes with your yankee accent acting like I’m some kinda monster, to hurt my own kin, my blood. You see a guy like me and see nothin’, see a guy who won’t listen to your bullshit—”

“You know what I see when I look at you?” Jesus interrupted, “Trash. Straight up fucking garbage. And it’s really important that you realize I don’t see that because you’re poor, or from Buttfuck, Georgia, or are into redneck shit like hunting and fucking your cousins. Except for that last one I could be describing Daryl and I think he’s pretty great. No, you’re garbage because of the shit you choose to do. To him especially.”

“So why are you here then, if I’m the bogeyman?”

“I’m here because—even though you’re trash and don’t deserve him—Daryl for some reason still loves you. Which makes you also my fucking cross to bear. In my ideal world you’d fuck off somewhere and never come back, but I think he misses you. If you could choose to stop being a dick for thirty minutes then he wouldn’t mind hearing from you, so feel free to give him a call and let him know you’re not going to kick his ass. But if you show up and hurt him in any way or try dragging him down to your level I’m going to kill you.”

Merle stared at him in disbelief before he chuckled, “Oh sweetheart, I would love to see you try.”

“Please, a child could get rid of your dumb ass. Cut the brake line on your bike. Or set the shack you live in on fire one night when you’re all pilled up. Or just walk in blow your head off instead, cops would find you and think one of your tweaker besties went nuts. Nothing of value would be lost and no one would miss you except for Daryl. He’s used to that by now.”

Merle laughed again: “Oh honey bunch, you are feisty. Hissin’ and spittin’ just like a kitten. You know what I think? Think you the one that’s afraid. Daryl knows I’d never hurt him, I think you’re afraid once I get out he’ll find his balls again and quit buyin’ you houses and whatever else you got him doing.”

“Whatever helps you live with yourself. Saddest thing about you isn’t that you’re trash, it’s that you don’t have to be. You could just, y’know, stop. Like I said, he still loves you for some fucking reason and would be happy to see you if you could act like a human being. But guys like you never do. Goodbye, it wasn’t nice meeting you.”

[STUFF]

That night Merle found Fabrizio in the showers and gave him the nod. Later when the little Guinea fuck had his mouth around Merle’s cock he heard ol’ Jesus mocking words, bet you’re the most popular guy on your cellblock, playing on a loop in his head. When closed his eyes instead of imagining past conquests like Ruby Sawyer or that sexy bitch XXXX, it was Jesus. Imagined how those full lips would look swollen and bruised and red after, and as he did he arced his hips forward and came with the force of a gunshot.

That night he laid awake in his bunk while Ellis Crowder snored and farted in the bed above him, restless and angry, still hearing Jesus’s mocking voice.

What with you in here getting dicked down on the regular.

Fucking fudge-packer and his fucking disgusting fantasies. Fucking Daryl and his tender little heart. Merle should have sat down with Daryl back when he was still young and impressionable and explained a few things to him. Like how getting your dick sucked when you were behind bars-be it juvie or prison—was one thing. Hell, some guys were better at it than women, could make it feel fucking amazing. So Merle understood that part of it, how a guy could give you a blowjob so good you saw stars. How you could maybe get addicted to it, start thinking that thing was ok full time. Easier and more convenient than going after a woman. Especially sweet young ladies like his precious little Darlina. Too late now.

Loudest homophobes were the quickest to lie back and grab their ankles or follow you around begging to suck your dick.

Merle felt a spike of rage, remembering the little queer claiming he sodomized Daryl, and his hands twitched involuntarily as he imagined wrapping them around Jesus’ neck and squeezing. Never, Merle thought, Daryl’d never! His brother might be tender-hearted and sweet but Merle’s time making him into a man couldn’t have been completely wasted. The kid was tough, and the thought that he’d let Mr. Pretty Boy Jesus do that to him was absurd. Getting your dick sucked was one thing, fucking a guy was one thing—after all, a mouth was a mouth and an asshole was an asshole whether they were attached to a man or a woman. A man needed something beside his hand for five years. But by the same token a dick was a dick, and only fags liked those in their mouths or up their asses. Fags got off on doing that kind of shit. Take Fabrizio, Merle hardly ever beat him off afterward as a thank you for services rendered but the guy still came running with his mouth agape when Merle or any other guy with more muscle than fat gave the nod. Fuck, when Merle was back in juvie and didn’t know any better he’d given his fair share of head in exchange for some of his own, but he hadn’t enjoyed it. Some tit for tat, quid pro quo, I scratch your back you scratch mine. That was before Merle realized some guys would…how did Jesus put it? Lay back and grab their ankles or follow you around begging to suck your dick. That’d never been Merle, little queer was probably just projecting; he’d probably be the one in juvie to do all that. If ol’ Jesus was in prison now he’d be the most popular guy not just on the cell block but the entire dang prison. Guys’d be lined up by the dozens to run a train on him and he’d love every second. He’d be good at it too, Merle knew that for a fact, had to be good to get Daryl so whipped he was buying houses and refusing to see his brother who was rotting away in jail.

[STUFF, he’s back in the Desus house looking at their shit]

The walls are covered in collages of photographs of various sizes. Many of them are black and white so at first Merle dismisses them as some arty farty shit they’d gotten at a tourist shop. But then out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of something familiar and takes a closer look. It’s a shot of a rocking chair in the middle of a field, taken at around sunset. Its only when you look at the figure seated in the chair that you realize how big the thing is, fifteen feet high at least. The man in the chair has his arms stretched out like Jesus on the cross and can just barely touch the chair’s armrest and his feet don’t touch the edge. In the light of the shot his features are indistinct and shadowy but the silhouette is enough for Merle to recognize his brother.

[He has a flashback to when Daryl was a little boy, around five or so. Sitting in his rocking chair with a stuffed Kermit the Frog, and Merle telling him that only fags had stuffed animals. ]

On one wall there’s a framed menu of a place called the Sweet Shack Barbecue. It’s designed to look a little like an old-timey newspaper, with inked etchings of smiling pigs dressed in top hats and tuxedos. One drawing has a group of pigs with wide smiles sat down at a dinner table. On the table is another pig, only this one is on a plate with an apple in its mouth and little x’s in place of eyes.

He finds Daryl in another photo. This one is a closeup of a regal moth cupped delicately in the palm of a man’s hand, and Merle can just see the corner of the little blue star Daryl has tattooed on his wrist.

[STUFF]

A pit bull with its mouth open in a wide, doggie grin leaning out of a motorcycle sidecar. Its wearing a red bandana with the University of Georgia logo and matching red goggles. Merle thinks of the “Warning: Pit Bull” sign on the side gate and guesses this is Darlina’s pet dog. They always had a mutt or two around since they was kids, and his sweet baby brother adored them.  Merle felt his fingers close into his fist at the overt faggotry of it, dressing your dog up.

[STUFF, IN THE KITCHEN]

The fridge is covered in kitschy souvenir magnets—St. Petersburg, Tarpon Springs, Cumberland Island, St. Augustine, Savannah, Gatlinburg, Asheville, Helen. There’s also a black magnet with “GO DAWGS!” in bright red, and another one with Uga, the white bulldog that’s the Georgia mascot. On the side of the fridge is a whiteboard with a blue marker on a string. He recognizes Daryl’s chicken scratches that make up the written to-do list.

1)Lou’s rabies shot 2)replace brake lights on Paul’s bike 3)Mow lawn 4)shoot douchebags on Oakhurst St

Underneath the last item is a note written in neat block letters: babe don’t shoot neighbors until I’m back & can bail you out.

[Merle goes through the house some more]

Merle isn’t a man who’s ever understood himself well, so he doesn’t bother to analyze the way looking at Daryl’s house makes him feel. Pissed off, jealous, afraid, guilty. The house isn’t what he expected at all. Not the frayed mess of Daddy’s place, but neat and homey. It's like finding out he never knew Daryl at all. He isn’t sure what he expected to find—he had a vague idea of some faggy shit like rainbows all over everything, nude portraits on the wall, a fucking gimp costume hanging from the hook on the door or a collection of dildos on the shelf. He doesn’t find anything like that, not in the living area or in the master bedroom.

He does find a box of condoms that looked old as fuck and a mostly empty bottle of Astroglide that doesn’t.

[terftouch]

My About. My name’s Tia. I’m 24 this August past as of 2017. I’m trans and I’m in transition. I’ve been officially doing so since I was 19. I’m pansexual. I’m in a relationship for three years now with Jonelle. She’s 25. She’s a cis-lesbian, not bi, not str8. And I will defend her and others like her saying that forever. So yes these relationships do work and do exist. And she started it. And she pretty much saved me from slowly dying of a life in utter loneliness and lonership. And I love her. I’m not into clothes, not into make-up. I’m mostly a sweat and tees and hoodies girl and own a few of the stereotypical things but I’m not into all the cutesy things. Short haired, heavy set, food safe semi-vegan (I’m not but totes respect the choices and food needs.) Ex-short order cook under the table, ex-server, berry picker, almond, olive and mushroom harvester and fish plant worker and about a hundred other things to make living cash to survive including sex work a few times. Currently a student starting my 3rd year of Women’s and Gender Studies with a minor in Sociology and I am looking to get into working with kids like me as from personal experience there’s just not enough people to do any of the work that we desperately need in the community. I’m working part time as a bartender in two places and I am a casual Ward aide worker at the hospital. Ex-drug user though never really went any heavier than weed, oil, acid and molly mushrooms and the few odd times. I’m a dyed in the wool Liberal/3rd Wave intersectional Feminist and a stanch supporter of Trans People and of The Equal Rights Movement. The LGBTQAIPD+ community means a lot to me. Anti-Terf, heavily Anti-Terf and for that matter most of the practices of Radfems and 2nd wavers. More on why later. I’m from rural Nova Scotia, Canada. And I mean that in the most redneck and coming out of racism and bigoted ways. I left home from abuse from being trans when I was 14 and it came from all sides of my family except my older brother who was largely not there in reality because of his one issues and them pushing him to cope with self-medication that became addiction. My hometown wasn’t much better. Really small and mixed religious but strongly religious. I took what things I could carry and went to my cousin’s place three miles away and soul him a lot of my things that he wanted and took the first train out and away to Toronto. I didn’t have a damned thing really just a few clothes and lived off of couch surfing from a few trans friendly folks but those places could only be temporary and after a pretty bad first year there including being homeless, assaulted a few times and an attempted rape to getting a sort of a share place in a really crappy sort of share house close to Brampton I left with two friends after someone in the share house didn’t take no for an answer and raped me. We took off in an old ford escort and headed for Vancouver. Actually that working and living sort of road trip was one of the best times in my life. Scary there’s a lot of things a lot of folks will try to pull of three girls but we made out okay actually. I learned some things though…. The prairies are as flat as a lot of people make them out to be. Regina is a nice city. Saskatoon berries are NOT blueberries. Flapper pie is only good when you’re either stoned or are chasing it with strong black tea or coffee. Churchill Falls has really nice people. Winnipeg is really hard to live in without a ride. I like and know how to make really good pierogi and there’s a silent h behind the r when you say it out west. Get groceries when you’re passing through anywhere out west. Wages are good even under the table and rent’s crazy high but there are things that are wicked cheaper like hamburger or cheese and milk sometimes than in Toronto or they were home. I like the mountains… We stayed in Bamf for three days taking a break and The Rockies were the first mountains that I’d ever seen. I lived in B.C. for two years mostly in and around Richmond and Vancouver except for an extended stint down unto the states with other friends and that was fine even though it was a sort of working thing under the table. I left B.C. because we lost our place because the landlord sold our building and we were plain and simply given the choice of a next to impossible lease or leave. Jen one of my best friends and I left and we made our way to her Aunt’s in Saguenay and stayed there a couple of months until we both got jobs in Montreal through other friends. And that’s when I ended up meeting Nat. My Ex. The Ex….Like that big one we all end up having. The literal worst thing that had ever happened to my life since leaving home. She was smart and she was really smart taking law and she was a feminist but not like I knew and I really knew damned little back then. And I fell hard….and I was so into her that I went full dive into radfem theory. I bought the whole thing hook line and sinker really. Privilege, socialization, GNC stuff and I was more than willing to take all of it and was even spouting all of it with her and her friends in her social circles both IRL as her “GNC Boyfriend” and that she was “showing me how to be free of the patriarchy.” And online with the groups we were both a part of, My friends list was her friends list and I argued gender abolition with the rest of them against trans folks that just didn’t “Get it.” And it was a good long while before I got it. And that was because of this person call Michelle like the French Michelle and they were a non-binary person and we were at a party held but some mutual folks and they argued tooth and nail about TERF ideology and gaslighting and all the things that I was doing, that Nat was doing. Which got me thinking, which had me friending Michelle on FB and us talking. And Nat finding out and demanding I unfriend her. Slapping me when I questioned why and went off on a rant about it being her place and her rules and my privilege. And I unfriended Michelle. And it really was too late at that point. Because I knew it…she had hit me because of having someone that she didn’t like on my phone, on my friends list. Oh yeah she went through my phone…al lot. Threw mason jars at me one night when I had changed my password. Yeah and it just went on from there. Until the night of our biggest fight that was again over nothing but her paranoia and her accusing me of using her. The trans hate just poured out of her that night with every glass of wine that she had and I went from drowning in her constant abuse to shouting back and standing up for myself and a screaming match, me getting hit twice, slapped once as I was trying to get out of our apartment and she raked my arm with her nails as she tried to pull me back inside I literally ran away from her. And with my phone and everything I was literally getting hate message after hate message from her and ALL of “Our friends.” Until the battery died on my phone. By the time the sun rolled around I was more than done…I hit that wall of just a short drop off an over pass that I hadn’t felt as bad in years and I took off and hitched to Toronto where I at least had people I knew. I was her make herself feel good project, her showing me off to her friends project. I was in that relationship and in the TERF community for way too fucking long and I know a boatload of them and seen all the shit that they pull. This is why I’m so strongly Anti-TERF. I didn’t stay too in Toronto, it’s a nice place if you want to visit and some folks are actually really great but me and that city well I really never could get a grip there. So after a while I moved to North Bay. And actually met my Uncle Robert. He’s actually my dad’s cousin but he sort of became a decent bit of stability for me and he knew folks down here in Sackville that’d help me and put me up as long as I helped out at their place. He was the one that got me thinking about getting myself on my feet. Because while not me and way older he did the same thing only in his day it was leaving school to work and leaving home to not get stuck in a crappy job you’ll die doing in a one horse little town. And now I’m here in New Brunswick, having gotten my GED and taking all the other classes I needed to get into actual college, I have an apartment in my name and I’m making the bills work and I have an address and a bed and things…just things and now black garbage bags full of what I could carry. I have an amazing girlfriend and a good community here with a great mix of international folks and I’m in one of the most queer friendly campuses in Canada. I’m lucky…and I know it, I was lucky enough to work for all of it, to have the chances, to get out of the abuse. And that’s why I’m blogging, that’s why I’m not letting TERF’s, TWERF’s, RADFEM’s and really all of those folks go unchallenged. I’m not attacking them I’m challenging their bullshit, I’m saying that there are people that don’t say the things they say and that there’s folks that won’t be quiet and let them. There’s a mix of other things in here too but yeah…it’s because people deserve to hear voices challenging people like TERF’s and other extremists.

[tube-thoughts-blog]

tube thoughts vol. 8

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

Kroll Show: Gigolo H-O-R-S-E *"Horse not whores."* 2 1/2 stars

Cinematic Titanic: "The Wasp Woman" a Roger Corman flick *"Anaphylactic schlock."* close to 3 stars with riffing 2 stars without

Max Headroom: Grossberg's Return *MTV Rocks the Vote for Hillary Clinton by getting its viewers to tune out and tune in to The Jersey Shore / Real World.* 2 1/2 stars

Blind Date (Deluxe Edition) *Raunchy reality show uncensored material and bloopers from the early 2000s. It's strange to see just how much the fashions have changed. That California douchebag & slut 'look' is a real time capsule (1998? - 2004?) of guilty pleasure to gawk at.* 2 1/2 stars

Swamp Thing: The Watcher *Redneck androids and a test tube Alice in Wonderland un-birthday.* 3 stars

Branson Famous: The Brangelina of Branson *In a town that's stuck in a rhinestone americana timewarp, a family of big haired and big belt buckle entertainers step all over each other in pointy boots in order to be the shining star in a fading industry of entertaining a dwindling crowd of retiree tourists.* 2 stars

==== My Big Redneck Family: Redneck Wedding

*Tater salad turned bad, but the "Shamepain" still tastes good, I guess.

Tom Arnold is giddy to host a reality show that's structured and shot like a sitcom similar to Modern Family.

The presentation isn't half bad, but it's the same lowest common denominator behavior for the camera and those tired, cliche confessionals that all reality shows are required to have.

At least Branson Famous is original in its confessionals which are tacky singing confessionals that turn into sing offs.

Also, I want to know how theme weddings like 'Redneck Weddings' are still considered to be traditional.

Sorry, queers, ya'll are weird, but cut off shorts, beer cans on the front row, and written vows about picking up tighty whiteys covered in trail marks so that the wife doesn't have to is considered a sacred ceremony.* sodomy or skidmarks I vote skid

2 stars

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

Newsreaders: How Sausage Is Made *A sausage making factory is turned into one of those pretentious millenials start up companies with a hilariously loose atmosphere, and it's visited and documented by a parody of one of those hipster nerd website's sexy cosplay chick who's one of those tries way too hard to be all about nerd culture wannabes. Also, Stevie, from Eastbound & Down, plays a lottery winner whose newly overly rich lifestyle makes him easy to despise.* 2 stars

X Files: Genderbender *The close knit community of Aphrodite and androgyne.* 3 stars

Hippies: Sexy Hippies *"I'm free. Nothin' worryin' me." Except for the fact that being a male, I think about sex every six seconds.* close to 3 stars

Impractical Jokers: Welcome to Miami *Beached Mer-man struggles in the sand for jelly donuts and an alligator is forced to wear a backpack.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Jonny Quest: The Calcutta Adventure *Jolly Jolly Hadji* 3 stars

Son of the Beach: Fanny and the Professor *"Touch my mouth, Louise!" Heatwave haywire.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Rinse Dream presents "Party Doll A Go-GO #2" (1991) *Jungle boogie sock-it-to-me shin-dig squeal flick.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Love Stinks --------------

 *Nookie with no strings attached because Freddy cut them.* 3 stars

*Re-Animator as a yuppie pizza shop cannibal.* 3 stars

----------------------------------------------

"Meatballs Part 2" (1985) *PG rated sex comedy with E.T. and Pee Wee Herman.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: The Man Who Was Death *After his state overturns the death penalty, unemployed electric chair technician William Sadler takes his executioner's blues to the street.* 3 stars

Morton Downey Jr.: Child Abuse *Mort shows off his devilishly red socks and lets people pour their hearts out about that once dirty secret of the family that has come more to light in recent years as something not to hide.* 3 stars

"The Town That Dreaded Sundown" (2014) *Three different time periods entwined into a true crime homage to drive-in slasher movies like Friday the 13th part 2. It's not perfect, but it's prettier than a postcard with red eye gravy spilled over it. Did I say postcard? I meant porkchop. A porkchop with red eye gravy spilled over it. Well, maybe not that pretty. Porkchop, mmm.* close to 3 stars

From Dusk Till Dawn, the series: Pilot Episode *Aztecs, snakes, Geckos, demons, Texas Rangers, Mexican cartels, and last of all 21 year old white chicks (how and why did they escape so easy? makes little sense.).* between 2 and 2 1/2 and stars

Rifftrax presents "Terror At Tenkiller" *"More like timefiller at Tenkiller." Pointless small talk, routine walking and driving, mundane lake activity, creepy jerks, generic background music, plus slight instances of side-boob.* 3 stars with riffing 1 1/2 stars without

Tim & Eric - Bedtime Stories: Baby *The true horror is seeing Tim & Eric amuse themselves by getting odd looking middle-aged men to perform absurd fetish acts. Dr. Steve Brule's manchild cousin Jordan gets scammed by Tim & Eric, and Roseanne's Laurie Metcalf makes a show stealing cameo.* 2 stars

Finding Bigfoot: Paranormal Squatchtivity *Bobo, Ranae, and the other two dingbats travel to some isolated farms and woods in Pennsylvania that look straight out of Night of the Living Dead. They're searching not just for bigfoot, this time, but boo bumps in the night. They also make a sacrificial offer to the bigfoot by dumping bloody guts and powdered donut dust on a rock.* 1 star for the spook and squatch stuff 2 1/2 stars for the natural lighting, non-nightvision, picturesque shots of rural Pennsylvania

Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Tale of the Lonely Ghost *An early 90s mallrat Tiffany look-a-like bullies her "zeeb" cousin and nanny and meangirls clique until an encounter with a ghost girl from a mirror world.* 3 stars

Gargoyles: Long Way To Morning *gumption versus grouse* 3 stars

Farscape: A Human Reaction *Chricton returns home and finds out he no longer has one.* 3 stars minus maybe 1/2 a star for the twist

Wizards and Warriors: The Kidnap *Black magic and royal blood should never mix.* 3 stars

Friday the 13th, the series: Root Of All Evil *Exchanging currency for blood.* 3 stars

"The Granny" a film by Luca Bercovici (1995) *Stinking rich Stella Stevens has one foot on a banana peel and is pushed into the grave by the greedy inheritors of her wealthy will. An elixir, with a set of instructions similar to the handling of Gremlins, turns her into an Evil Dead inspired demon bitch. It's up to her mousey granddaughter, played by Shannon Whirry (who struggles to hide how sexy she typically is), to send her back to Hell.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: Up In Arms *Citizens against crime. Battlefield lovers. Troublemakers on the 6 o'clock news. Criminal turned Christian. Nude model and her ferocious dog of a man. Corrupt cop killed by razor wielding hooker.* 3 stars

------- Black History Month -- Non-Wayans Scary Movie -------------------

"Tales from the Hood" (1995)

*Welcome to my Mortuary: Some homeboys make a pick up of alleyway discovered drugs at a spooky funeral home ran by an eccentric mortician.* 2 1/2 stars

*Rogue Cop Revelation: Wings Hauser and some other pig cops go Rodney King on a political agitator while Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" plays as the soundtrack. Exactly one year later, the zombified martyr gets revenge.* 3 stars

*Boys Do Get Bruised: David Alan Grier as an extremely convincing and scary abusive stepfather.* close to 3 stars

*KKK Comeuppance: Voodoo dolls terrorize a racist politician at a cursed plantation. I couldn't help but laugh thinking of those Lil' Penny Hardaway doll commercials from the 90s.* 2 1/2 stars

*Hard Core Convert: A murderous gangbanger won't repent when a Maya Angelou type puts him through Clockwork Orange style therapy torture to get him to see he's killing his own kind in the same way white society lynched his ancestors. It does pose the question of whether it's strictly his fault, but I'm not sure if Spike Lee and others involved aren't suggesting that young black men should use violence on whites instead. There's a lot of venom and hatred and propaganda in this piece. Maybe rightfully so, maybe not.* either zero stars or close to 3 stars

*Mr. Simms: A Mexican standoff Day of the Dead style between the homeboys and the mortician who turns out to be Satan. Welcome to 90's terrible CGI hell, muthafuckas!* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

-------------------------------

Red Shoe Diaries: Just Like That *A cute receptionist, who likes to love it up in an elevator, tries to have it both ways with a rich French guy and a pre-Friends slumming it on softcore late night cable Matt LeBlanc.* close to 3 stars

Hannibal: Ceuf *"Norman Rockwell with a bullet." Hannibal Lecter with a daughter. Molly Shannon with a screw loose (not much of a stretch).* 3 stars

--- Duck Dynasty: Bathroom Baloney

*Outhouse racing, because "SOUTHERN!"

We used to not have indoor plumbing, ya'll.

It's pathetic what A & E will go to in order to justify an hour of tv filled with the stupid nonsense these jerks say.

It's all about those advertising dollars, and we morons who give them views.

They're supposed to be down to earth folk and manly men, but the one called Willie acts like he's never used a grill or stove, like most of his audience would  have had to in their lives, when he burns his fingers and squeals like a girl as he ineptly cooks balogna.

Balogna, a cheap and overly processed lunchmeat that has been a part of the diet of that America that they're so quick to latch onto, but most of this millionaire family turns their nose up at the idea of having to eat.

Duck Dynasty, a brand and a family that sell their garbage merchandise at a company (Wal-Mart) that ripped the heart, balls, and innards (all that would go into balogna) out of American smalltown business folk and replaced it with cheap Chinese manufactured goods and sent jobs overseas so that Duck Dynasty's main audience would have to be poor and eat balogna.

Sing it with me, for the land of the freeee and we used to live in caves...*

running from zero to 1 star

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

Weird Science: Airball Kings *Gary got game.* 3 stars

15 Storeys High: Ice Queen *God gave us gas.* close to 3 stars

Game of Thrones: season 3 episode 8 *Lambs seeing the dagger.* 3 stars

"Here Comes The Devil" (2012) *The Kids Aren't Alright after a truckstop Picnic At Hanging Rock.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars or 1 1/2 stars for the awkward and amateurish dubbing. The English speaking voice actors are so bland that they drain the passion out of the Spanish actors' performances.

American Horror Story: Asylum "The Name Game" *Rare birds Roche limit.* 3 stars or 1 star for the Glee style musical number

American Horror Story: Coven "The Axeman Cometh" *Ouija (weegee) and all that j-a-z-z.* 3 stars

"House of Dreams" an adult film by Andrew Blake (1990) *Splooge on the foot of a model wearing expensive high heels in one of those new age architectured Malibu beach mansions captured by an expensive perfume high-art pretentious photographer while a Pure Moods cd plays on a thousand dollar plus stereo system.* 2 1/2 stars

----- Black History Month -- Genre Crossover Bad Movie ------------

Cinematic Titanic presents "East Meets Watts" *"Fact: drugs IS comin' into the ghett-toe." but so IS "Rock 'em sock 'em mofos." And "You can tell by the clothes that they're wearing, that it's a fine line between Kung Fu & Disco."* 3 stars with riffing between 1 1/2 and 2 stars without

-----------------------

The Prisoner: Many Happy Returns *Number 6 becomes The Omega Man, Castaway, Bourne, The Fugitive, Top Gun, and then Total Recall'd.* 3 stars

Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" (2001) *"Let's have a *in quotes* Holy Moment."* either close to 2 1/2 stars if you're open to interesting thinking about life or 1 star if you're annoyed by pretentious people talking out of their ass about philosophy...

Bob and Margaret: Love's Labours Lost *Bob pines over his snotty secretary.* close to 3 stars

Northern Exposure: Soapy Sanderson *"Singing your own song," even if it's a murder ballad.* 3 stars

Fargo: A Muddy Road *Orthodox spiders.* 3 stars

X Files: Lazarus *Scully's old flame is shot and smolders out, at the same time as his Clyde Barrow type suspect suffers the same fate. The suspect's spirit snakes into Scully's flame's body and goes on the hunt for his Bonnie.* close to 3 stars

"The Taking Of Deborah Logan" (2014) *The Exorcism of Martha Stewart. Wow, a found footage flick with mostly sympathetic characters, an actual story, creepy scares, and somewhat decent editing.*  close to 3 stars minus 1/2 a star for the vomit vision shaking cam finale. I don't know why this generation has such a hard-on for found footage. It doesn't make fiction more realistic, it just makes it more painful to try to watch.

Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital": season 1 episode 8 *We didn't start the fire.* 3 stars

"Inferno" a film by Dario Argento (1980) *Like a cat on hot bricks.* 2 1/2 stars

Manimal: Night of the Scorpion *Caper in the Caribbean.* 3 stars

Rifftrax presents "R.O.T.O.R." *Imagine Alex Murphy replaced by Jeff Foxworthy.* 3 stars with riffing 2 stars without

Thundarr the Barbarian: City of Evil *Civilization ends in 1994, and a world of sci fi and fantasy emerges. So, it's like Mike Judge meets Jack Kirby.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: The Voice Of Reason *A paranoid paranormal conspiracy theorist gets a closed door intelligence session with govt officials, where he shows off alien events from the first season of the new outer limits.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Son of the Beach: Eat My Muffin *Luke Skywalker as "Divine" Rod.* 3 stars

Everything Is Terrible -------------------

2 Minute Slaughterhouse Rock: "Death ain't shit. Impress me." - 2 1/2 stars

3 Minute Mankillers: "Ladies, and I use that term loosely." Acting, and I use that term loosely. - 3 stars

Pregnant Men!: "I rolled over and went back to sleep." - 3 stars

Out of the Wild: Teddy bears and Werner Herzog. - close to 3 stars

Ninja Magic Dragon Kid!: "Do you know Don 'The Dragon' Wilson?" Well, he's barely in this, but there's this 12 year old who does karate... - 3 stars

-----------------------

The Ben Stiller Show: season 1 episode 1 *Bono for breakfast. Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk, and others help make this one of the best, and sadly forgotten, sketch shows of all time.* 3 stars

--- Black History Month -- Social Justice zombie classic with commentary ----

Rifftrax presents George Romero's original "Night of the Living Dead" *Apocalypse and Arby's.* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 stars without

---------------------

American Gothic: Meet the Beetles *Sheriff Buck versus Bruce Campbell.* 3 stars

The Greatest American Hero: Here's Looking At You, Kid *Vanishing act with top secret space age equipment. Vanishing act, when it comes time to meet the girlfriend's parents.* close to 3 stars

 ---- Black History Month --- Social Satire movie ---

"CSA - The Confederate States of America" *Slavery, for an economically strong and stable society.* either zero stars or 3 stars

 ----------

American Horror Story: Freakshow "Show Stoppers" *Cooped up rage.* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story: Freakshow "Curtain Call" *This series whimpers to a close like a sad gypsy's fart or a tired hobo's bugle.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Forever Knight: Dark Knight part 1 & 2 *Highlander meets the dawn of Seattle grunge meets Kolchak, the Night Stalker meets MTV's The Maxx.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone *"Dying for dollars." A death defying Houdini act where death isn't actually defied.* 3 stars

"Bad Girls" (1994) *Casserole western. At least Geena Davis isn't the lead.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible ----

Camel Club Network: Joe Camel in tha nightclub. - 3 stars

You're A Hypocrite!: Grumpy theology getting off point and no fun. - 1 star

Watch the Jello Wiggle!: Thirty somethings determine the Teen Set. - 3 stars

Y'Know: No, I don't know, evangelical and or motivational white lady. - 2 1/2 stars

Truth or Dare: A deadly game for unstable yuppies.* 3 stars

--------

Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Tale of the Sorcerer's Apprentice *Canadian junior high kids go "goth" over a Babylonian snake god.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Black History Month -- Prejudice Philosophy flick ---

Sam Fuller's "White Dog" (1982) *"Cure or kill the sickness."* either zero or 3 stars

---------

Morton Downey Jr.: Communism *Loudmouths, intelligence agents, government (U.S. & the U.S.S.R.) sponsored military groups in 3rd world hot-spots, and last of all "TRAITORS!"* 1 star

12:01 Beyond: Illegal Aliens ---------

*A man and his dog, living alone in the desert, are abducted by a ufo. that or the dog is an alien or becomes an alien?* close to 3 stars

*VHS quality trailer for the new War of the Worlds (not Spielberg / Cruise).* 3 stars

*TV rip promo for CBS showing of Sigourney Weaver in ALIENS.* 3 stars

*Mr. Lobo rambles about ancient alien conspiracy theories while an alien fires a electricity blaster behind him.* 3 stars

*Famous Studios' Superman in "Showdown": Superman framed with impostor.* 3 stars

*VHS quality rip trailer for the movie Hangar 18.* 3 stars

*TV quality rip for "Magic" 92 FM radio "The Superstar Space Cruiser" of radio stations playing classic rock albums.* 3 stars

*'The Tony Tomato Show' presents Heil Hipster performing in a Weezer 'Buddy Holly' esque music video.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

*VHS quality rip trailer for "Moon Trap." Killer lunar robots and Bruce Campbell.* 3 stars

*TV quality rip for an 1980s NYC Manhattan comic convention featuring a lot of classic Sci-Fi alien comic books.* 3 stars

*Ninja the Mission Force - Citizen Ninja: No rest for the Ninja. Not even a playground picnic.* close to 3 stars

*TV / VHS quality neon lazer graphics advertisement for Rochester's 95FM BBF.* 3 stars

*TV/VHS quality rip for an old 80s DR. Pepper commercial where a cowboy walks into a space bar cantina filled with alien puppetry creatures and orders a tall one. That is a Dr. Pepper.* 3 stars

*The "Saint of Insomniacs" Mr. Lobo sits by a Tesla type machine and greets a scary looking alien creature who is into probing.* 3 stars

*(feature movie) Cannon films presents - "Alien Contamination": Explosive xenomorph eggs, and a cyclops tentacle creature, in an exploitation flick.* 2 1/2 stars

*Vintage UHF tv advertisement for channel 6 XETV promoting 5, count 'em 5, classic episodes of the original Star Trek tv series.* 3 stars

*Vintage Fox tv affiliate WPGH channel 53 and its promotion of Alien Nation, the series' upcoming episode.* 3 star

*Vintage tv commercial for the OMNI sci fi "fact and fiction" magazine.* 3 stars

*Republic Pictures serial The Crimson Ghost in The Laughing Skull: Heavy water has leaks.* 2 1/2 stars

*Mr. Lobo may have been probed and payed 20 dollars for it.* 2 1/2 stars

*Grindhouse trailer for the flying frisbee alien leeches flick "It Came Without Warning."* 3 stars

*TV/VHS rip quality commercial for Diet Dr. Pepper featuring a Will Forte look alike living in a Raising Arizona / Joe Bob Briggs style trailer park with his sweetie and having a close encounter.* close to 3 stars

*Zolar X - Timeless (music video): The Ramones meets Mork & Mindy.* 2 1/2 stars

*Thumb Snatchers from the Moon Coccoon: Stop motion short about opposable thumb hatin' robot aliens and a Texas cow munching cowboy sheriff squaring off.* close to 3 stars

------------------

Cinematic Titanic: The Alien Factor *"Pissing Skittles."* 2 1/2 stars with riffing 1 star without

Everything is Terrible ----

*The Stinger: Pontiac feels that modern car concepts should be "wacky," "funky,"  filled with useless gadgets, and cost 2 million dollars to create.* close to 3 stars

*The Old New Age!: Puffy clouds and PBS philosophy / aesthetics / tunes.* 3 stars

*That Doll Looks Like Your Daughter!: Wholesome, loving, lifeless, and that uncanny valley...* 3 stars

*Reppies Agenda Revealed: Let's make a rainbow and do the electric slide, all for the glory of our New World Order overlords.* 2 1/2 stars

*Bully Bustin': "Sometimes, you gotta smack somebody."* 3 stars

-----------

USA Up All Night with host Rhonda Shear presents "Porky's 2" ----

*Win a piece of Rhonda's horrible (looks fingerpainted) artwork. Ha.* 3 stars

*Rhonda laments the flow of her particular pink piece of artwork.* close to 3 stars

*An operatic Korbel champagne commercial showing picturesque American life. yeah, maybe if you're drunk on Korbel.* 2 stars

*Turtle Wax magic and science to help shine your convertible using "science and magic." Available at K-Mart.* 2 1/2 stars

*Hurry to Sears for a 3 day paint sale.* 2 stars

*1 800 Collect will help you save on collect calls and it somehow helps a generic fake Yankee baseball player rob a homerun "Whatta save!"* close to 2 1/2 stars

*"Before Arnold, before Stallone, there was Skywalker." USA is showing the original Star Wars 8 / 7 central.* 3 stars

*Rhonda daydreams about 1950s romantic lifestyles and compares it to the 90s where she can't get a date, because all the guys are on dates with each other. Then, she reads fan mail about how much sexual energy she puts into her paintings, then she gives that painting away to said horny fan.* 3 stars

*Rhonda makes fun of male pushups in Porky's 2 as being "safe sex" and she shows off a horribly drawn portrait of her house with dog poop on the lawn.* 3 stars

*Rhonda cools off with a Snapple in a cheaply produced Snapple promo.* 2 1/2 stars

*Bluesy 90s slickly produced Greyhound bus travel commercial. I've taken a Greyhound bus trip. It's nowhere near this glamorous. It stinks, actually.* 2 1/2 stars

*The host of MTV Sports (whose name escapes me) is with Arnold in a Burger King BK TeeVee advertisement for the Summer of 93's biggest blockbuster "Last Action Hero."* close to 3 stars

*While a mom does some home repair, a toddler has a horrible gasoline accident and is shown in the hospital burn unit covered in bandages in one of those awful scary as shit PSA announcements from back in the day.* 3 stars

*GNC the authority on getting musclehead gym rats hooked on supplement taking pill addictions.* 2 star

*"Ever been curious about Hollywood girls?" Well, these babes dance luridly on the hosed down concrete floor of a large suburban downtown flat while dressed in leather and 60s biker hats in this phone sex 1 900 950 WILD commercial.* 3 stars

*Next is yet another phone sex commercial with girls looking straight out of Beverly Hills 90210. Wowza.* 3 stars

*Rhonda shows a classic "cut scene" from the Wizard of Oz "Suck my wand!" that just happens to have made it into Porky's 2. And Rhonda reads another fan letter in it which she continues to win over the hearts and views of fans for her offbeat sense of humor.* 3 stars

*Rhonda makes fishy faces with her self portrait.* close to 3 stars

*Then a hypnotic bumper with Rhonda twirling against a starlit background while wearing a one piece swimsuit / aerobics outfits. Wowza.* 3 stars

*never park your car without the CLUB anti-auto-theft device, especially if you live in a Texas Mexico bordertown. Ha. Whatever happened to those? I guess thieves figured out a way around the device.* 2 1/2 stars

*Beautiful, portrait pretty mornings begin at 8, that is Super 8 motel, and that is also if you're a yuppie business man driving around the backcountry (what business is there out there?) with a cup of steaming hot coffee on top of your Ford Taurus rental car.* 2 1/2 stars

*Murphy Brown is smart, right? I mean... she does have her own witty tv sitcom... and she is spokeswomanperson for SPRINT long distance in this big budget commercial with 90s quirky aesthetics featuring the tops of bald mens' heads with cartoon floating graphics and a thinktank lab with a huge brain in a robotic device... huh?* 2 1/2 stars

*"What could be worse than the cost of a yeast infection? How about the cost of curing it?" Femcare for the cheap lady with downstairs troubles. Wow, did women really skip feminine healthcare because of high cost? Glad I was too young to experience the joys of a woman back then.* 2 1/2 stars for weirdness

*A leading zooologist explains the difference between sparkling polar bears (ones who ice skate in a skirt) and sparkling rootbeer cream soda A & W rootbeer.* 3 stars

*After a terrorist strikes... Silk Stalkings on USA.* close to 3 stars

*Sean Connery is a space cowboy... high noon in outerspace... Outland on USA.* 3 stars

*Rhonda's factoid of the week: close to 3 million gallons of oil produced in America, almost enough to style Jerry Lewis's hair.* 2 stars

*No touch tire care in a can really frustrates blue collar motorheads.* 2 stars

*"There's nothing worse than a foul smelling pair of shoes?" Wait, what about yeast infections? Odor Eaters knocks the skunk right out (literally) of a pair of old men's dress shoes.* 3 stars

*Tri Star pictures presents Weekend at Bernies 2, starting July 9th, 1993.* 3 stars

*"Even the best need attention, know what I mean?" So says a blonde skank on a cheap looking phone sex advertisement.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sluts "love sharing secrets" on another phone sex ad. Now, they just share selfies and butt in mirror photos on twitter / instagram and it doesn't cost 3 dollars a minute.* 2 1/2 stars

*Patty and her orangutan pal Roger try little Caesar's pizza and spaghetti.* 3 stars

*Tough actin' Tinactin for CGI fungal fires on the feet of jocks.* 2 stars

*"America's hot new number, 1 800 Collect." they've even replaced the Hollywood sign with a 1 800 Collect Sign. Boy, will they feel dumb, when they realize no one uses collect calls anymore. Everyone has a wireless plan. Dumb, 1993, get with the times, already.* 2 stars

*Rhonda gives away a foot sculpture to a female fan wanting it for her husband's office. I guess her husband, Al, has a foot fetish.* 2 stars

*Live & Loud Ozzy's new album straight from his 92 tour available at Record Town and Tape World.* 2 1/2 stars

*30 something moms in party cowboy hats use Suave miracle anti-perspirant to survive their rowdy munchkin kids' birthday parties.* 2 1/2 stars

*Nintendo's Kirby comes from Dreamland to the real world to prove that he's "One Tough Cream Puff" in an awesomely animated into live action commercial.* 3 stars

*"It's never too late for an intimate phone adventure." So, dude, bro, pick up your oversized cordless house phone with the extra long antenna and dial up some horny chicks for only 3 bucks a minute, man.* 3 stars

*Rhonda hangs out with her Bart Simpson doll and shows off her "Bart art".* 3 stars

*Models, on a beach, have lips that need protection from the sun's harsh rays. So, they use Blistex. But, they probably should get out of the sun, because they all look so dark that they probably have skin cancer already.* 2 stars

*"Continuous Action Formula!" soft & dri super solid lady deoderant will have the fellas fawning over any high class city chick.* 3 stars

*A sign language lady uses conceal and heal wart remover.* 2 1/2 stars

*"If you use gasoline the wrong way, your dreams will go up and smoke." Your kids will die as it's put in another scary gasoline fire PSA. Was there this huge problem with misuse of gasoline back in the 80s and 90s? Sheesh!* 3 STARS

*A soft saxophone, a tropical window scene with flowing curtains in the wind, and a creepy narrator on camera, in a white tuxedo, let's us know about Eve and her need to forget, which she can't do, on EDEN coming to USA....* close to 3 stars

*Rhonda is sad to say that Robert DeNiro isn't in Porky's.* 2 stars

*Rhonda really doesn't like Porky's 2 and recommends that if you wanna watch Porky's 3, then rent Porky's 1 and change the number.* 2 1/2 stars

*And finally to get to the actual film presentation... for this chopped and censored to the point of little coherency comedy...* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

---------------

Son of the Beach: Miso Honei *Pink beam at Point Break.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Black History Month -- Inter-racial Adult Art Film --

Dark Bros. presents "Black Throat" *A dumbass honky, a new-wave negro pimp, and a trash-talkin' plastic rat go on the hunt for an expert fellatio hoe named "Madame Mambo."* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

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From Dusk Till Dawn: Blood Runs Thick *The original was a good movie, but it could have used a 14 year old girl's i-phone conversation with her boyfriend, an unintentionally funny fist fight between the Gecko brothers, rice-milk refreshment breaks, and cute pink bunny accessories to remind one of just how sweet having a daughter can be... oh, also Fez, from That 70s Show, dressed up like Kool Moe D in Wild Wild West.* 2 stars

Kung Fu: An Eye For An Eye *A woman's right to choose death. Honestly, however, a thoughtful commentary on revenge.* 3 stars

The Walking Dead: What Happened.... *Swing low, sweet chariot.* 3 stars

Everything is Terrible -----

*Aerobic Self Defense: Don't be a victim, attack from the rear.* 3 stars

*Time to get it on, T. Bone: Sidney Party Yeah Uh... or however you spell and pronounce Sidney Pottier.* close to 3 stars

*Tax Day!: I'm not sayin' that we should be anarchists, I'm just sayin' we should commit anarchy.* 3 stars

*Oldies vs. Hippies!: The early bird gets stoned.* close to 3 stars

*Mark of the beast: Government is evil, ignore the patriotic background music. Worldly goods are fleeting, seek salvation, and send us your money.* 3 stars

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Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Painted Hills *Chewin' the scenery with Lassie.* 3 stars with riffing 2 stars without

--- Black History Month -- Black Cowboy Cinema ---

Fred Williamson in "Joshua" (1976) *Who is Joshua? to quote Joshua, "I'm my mother's son." Some bandits make the mistake of shooting his mama, in the back, before Joshua can reunite with her after the Civil War.* 2 1/2 stars

--------------

William Friedkin's "Sorcerer" (1977) *No futuro without risk.* 3 stars

"Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992) *Close the deal, you expletive-expletive-expletive...* 3 stars

X Files: Young At Heart *The curious case of Spooky Mulder.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

The Ben Stiller Show: Season 1 episode 2 *20 so years later, and Nick Kroll has almost the exact same show.* 2 1/2 stars

Everything is Terrible ----

*Learn to Fly: self levitate the expert way.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Hunks Hunks Hunks!: "Smell the protein in this room."* either 1 star or close to 3 stars

*Here's How!: to be a show off.* 2 stars

*Greatest Song Ever Sung: Kathie Lee cares about the kids of genocide. Well, just kids in general, they sure are cute. Fuck adults in need, they're not as cute. Jesus was a kid too ya know. He was cute, too. "Like one of us," as a kid, but way cuter.*  either zero stars or 2 1/2 stars

*4 Minute - The Alien Agenda - Endangered Species: Vote for Pedro for president of the X Files fan club.* 3 stars

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Viper: Ghosts *Reformed criminals, the paralyzed, holograms, and future cars -more than meets the eye.*  between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"John Wick" (2014) *"Everything has a price," but good action / fight choreography and a dead wife's puppy are priceless.* 3 stars

Hannibal: Coquilles *About as much fun as a tumor.* zero stars

American Horror Story: Coven "The Dead" *Satisfaction.* 2 1/2 stars

Black Sails: Season 1 episode 3 *Ship without a captain.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Magic Voyage of Sinbad *"There goes a stupid, stupid man." Fake Sinbad, the father of modern socialism.* close to 2 stars with riffing between 1/2 and 1 star without

Rinse Dream presents "Cafe Flesh" (1982) *"A tableau of desire in decline." The perfect mindfuck Dear John paranoid love letter from the dawn of the AIDS-HIV era to the end of the 'Free Love' era.* 3 stars

True Detective: Who Goes There? *She done gone. Tyrone. Drugged out, deep cover.* 3 stars

Crossballs, the debate show: Reality TV No Survivors *"They fall in love in a hot tub, just like us."* 3 stars

Channel 4 in the U.K. presents Ban This Filth: episode 1 *Prudish, old ladies -the purveyors and "haters" (a term that I despise) of perverted behavior.* close to 3 stars

David Fincher's "Gone Girl" (2014) *An ode to the psychotic climate of hysteria caused by media jackals like Nancy Grace.* 3 stars

The Ben Stiller Show: season 1 episode 3 *To boldly go where Bruce Springsteen has never gone before.* 2 1/2 stars

Justified: season 1 episode 3 *"Seems like everyone here is from someplace else."* close to 3 stars

Swamp Thing: The Hunt *A rolling stone gathers some moss.* close to 2 1/2 stars

"Johnny Dangerously" *An exciting age of criminality.* 3 stars

Everything is Terrible ----

*Dana Carvey Is Rolling Over In His Grave: Have mercy, Church Lady.* 2 1/2 stars

*Creep Scientist Fantasy Karaoke: "It's nice to remember." Just don't make it weird.* close to 3 stars

*Cookin' Up Profits!: Elderly ladies are pie baking and financial experts.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

*Christian Puppets Are Selfish: Share everything, including yourself, with stuffed animal puppets of the faith.* 2 1/2 stars

*BEV!: "She'll kill us." during our middle aged lady step aerobic workout.* 3 stars

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Thundarr the Barbarian: Last Train To Doomsday *Can't keep a Gemini wizard under wraps. Plus, 1960s Marvel comic books become an instructional handbook for sorcery weirdos of the post-apocalypse.* 3 stars

Weird Science: Party High USA *School curriculum for those willing to stay stupid or hoping to become scumbags.* 2 1/2 stars

Max Headroom: Dream Thieves *In an age where people trade their dreams for dreams, Swamp Thing's Arcane is also an old friend / rival of Edison Carter.* 3 stars

"A Scanner Darkly" (2006) *We're all trying to escape, and we're all unknowingly being observed while trying. That's when we're unwittingly put to uses.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Night Stand with Dick Dietrick--- (1996)

*Fashion VIctims - Lowering High Fashion Standards: Getting heavy with emaciated models.*  close to 2 1/2 stars for the topic's performance 3 stars for Timothy Stack's jokes

*Secret Lives... Exposing Ourselves: Hot For Teacher - A teacher moonlights as a porn star. "Say it loud, I'm practically black and I'm proud." - A light skinned  black man is shocked to discover that he's half black and not Italian. The Perfect Mom & Dad turn out to be Dad & Mom* close to 3 stars

-------

Mortal Kombat - Legacy: Jax, Sonya, and Kano *TEST YOUR MIGHT at the Ace Chemicals / Skynet factory.* 3 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Safe Sex  ----

*A picky dweeb's Satanic attraction and death by wet dream.* 3 stars

*An outcast chick's obsession with Freddy goes too far.* 3 stars

------

American Horror Story: Murder House "Smoldering Children" *Familial putridity.* close to 3 stars

X Files: E.B.E. *Piss up an Idian rope trick. There's an 18 wheeler causing alien confusion as it travels a shadowy path across America.* 3 stars

From Dusk Till Dawn, the series: Mistress *Harbingers, whore offerings, and head-shrinking.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Banshee: season 1 episode 1 *A raccoon running from a rabbit. A -just out of prison- thief steals the identity of a deceased new sheriff to a Walking Tall type backwoods corrupt town.* 3 stars

American Horror Story: Coven "The Sacred Taking" *Thrill rides, terminal goodbyes, two way roads, and tingles of the cooch.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Red Shoe Diaries: Another Woman's Lipstick *Girl in guy drag and a David Lynch inspired striptease.* 3 stars

---- Valentine's Three Way Movie Feature ---

John Cassavetes in "Incubus" (1982) *Try a little tenderness. Try a little cursed bestiality.* 3 stars

Paul Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct" (1992) *Torrid 90s trash revisited.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

Michael Ninn's "Fade to Blue" *Get 'yer kicks on Route 66. It's a stylized xxx religious experience.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

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Werner Herzog's "Lessons of Darkness" (1992) *Scorched earth war disgrace, the Book of Revelation, and fossil fuel drudgery, danger, madness -all from an alien perspective.* 3 stars

Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" (mini-series) *Born in sin, the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore, come on in.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Fargo: Eating the Blame *Greenbacks, grasshoppers, gospel, and the gristle of a riddle.* 3 stars

"Winter People" (1988) *Milk, honey, and time a flowin.' Kurt Russell plays against type as a gentle clockmaker / Ichabod Crane type in a Hatfields & McCoys style hillbilly period piece.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Cinematic Titanic: Legacy of Blood *"Tijuana snuff films are more wholesome."* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars with riffing close to 2 stars without riffing

Son of the Beach: South of Her Border *Labia & Johnson. Erik Estrada & Marsha Brady.* close to 3 stars (despite all the stale bean fart jokes, it manages to be funny)

Northern Exposure: Dreams, Schemes, and Putting Greens *"Wine 'em, dine 'em, stick 'em with the tab." ... or leave 'em standing in the rain at the 18th hole... or leave 'em standing at the altar singing showtunes.* 3 stars

Everything Is Terrible ----

Freedom Song: Show us yer tits fer freedom.* 3 stars

Fiddlin' With My...: Would you rather be in Branson with Shoji or would you rather be a mule?* 3 stars

Dreaming of Foxy Boxing: That cloud looks like a cat fight.* close to 3 stars

Dinner With The Abortionists!: "Ask your wife." quoting a slimeball abortion performing doctor.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

The Lottery Guru!: Hint, hint, you'll never win the lottery. Hint, hint, invest in firearms.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

------

Night Stand with Dick Dietrick ---

Illegal Aliens Star Search: Immigrant talent show for the prize of a green card.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars (3 plus stars for the Phil Hartman cameo)

Hooked on Hookers: Sexy Social Outrage.* close to 3 stars

------

Crossballs, the debate show: American Driving, Carmageddon *Defensive drivers on the defensive against aggressive comedians.* 3 stars

"Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" (1991) *"Come on and take a free ride." - John the Baptist $T.M.$ If they make this movie for the millenial generation, it will be called 'Rob Dyrdek and the Starbucks Person,' and it will pack a limp wristed punch.* 2 1/2 stars

Hill Street Blues: Your Kind, My Kind, Humankind *Being true to one's self and the team.* 3 stars

The Walking Dead: Them *A deathdream last episode and now this episode has an exhaustion zombie fight, a pack of wild dogs, worm eating & dog eating, mysterious note and a gift of water at the point of dehydration, a backroad tornado out of nowhere, solace in a shack in the middle of nowhere, and a zombie siege on the shack that seemed to spell the end of everyone in the group (which turns out to be a dream? or did they all just die?). This second half of the season is taking a turn into surreal southern gothic.* 3 stars

"In Cold Blood" (1967) *The point in modern America where we all took a dreaded detour into a conscience of indifferent malice that we've been driving on ever since.* 3 stars

"Nightcrawler" (2014) *Hollywood really wants us to sympathize with their paparazzi plight. A success driven psycho is nihilistic about bringing skid row sensationalism to the Southern California suburban news market.* close to 3 stars

The Ben Stiller Show: Season 1 Episode 4 *Melrose changes people. Ben finds out this when Andy Dick turns into a hipster bitch on the back of a biker dyke's harley.* 3 stars

--- Black History Month --- Cultural Cliches Comedy ----

Melvin and Mario Van Peebles present "Identity Crisis" (1989) *Gianni Versace is my homeboy. Rest in peace, my gay nigga.* close to 2 stars

------

Ban This Filth: episode 2 *"I would rather live in a vast, treeless desert without filth."* 2 1/2 stars

Hippies: Hippy Dippy Hippies *"Painting the house of ideas, shit brown," like a pig would.* 3 stars

"The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue" a Gerard Damiano xxx film (1980) *In the future, in the ruins of a space age commune, survivors hump, day & night, like bunny astronauts. They have this calculator connected to the future internet, and surprise the internet is mostly for sex, where they can dial up and beam up "satisfiers" to fulfill their every sexual need. But is it enough?* 2 1/2 stars

Farscape: Through The Looking Glass *3, 5, prime. Red, yellow, blue. Dizzy, loud, and funny too.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Wizards and Warriors: The Rescue *"I wouldn't want to fight a dragon that I could see, let alone an invisible dragon." Yeah, that's right, an invisible dragon.* 3 stars

Cinematic Titanic: Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks *"It's like Clint Howard and Gentle Ben had a kid, and he's choking me!" It's also like Eegah! meets The Sinful Dwarf.* 3 stars with riffing between 2 and 2 1/2 stars without

American Horror Story: Asylum "Spilt Milk" *Nursing a grudge.* close to 3 stars

"The Babysitter's Club Video #1 Mary Anne and the Brunettes" (1990) *Scholastic and craptastic. Mommy / gossip / relationship training for young chicks who can't even get their darn ears pierced. Weird to see so many kids and zero adults in this Charlie Brown / Children of the Corn town.* 1 star

Jr. Christian Science Vol. 1 *One of Tim & Eric's weirdo friends hosts an early 90s public access educational children's show. A chore to sit through, but almost worth it for the moments where he loses his cool when the production doesn't go exactly his way, and it features some of the most awkward singing and puppetry ever combined.* 1 star

Mortal Kombat - Legacy: Johnny Cage *True Hollywood story, death of the action star.* 2 1/2 stars

"Constantine" (2005) *Keanu Reeves as a wanker. Shy LePoof as a hardnosed cabbie sidekick. Tilda Swinton in guy drag. Hollywood knows what comic fans want. They want their beloved characters americanized and the movie version to be filled with techno music and cgi in every single shot.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

From Dusk Till Dawn, the series: Let's Get Ramblin' *Soul cleansing, soul redeeming, power in the blood.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Forever Knight: for I have Sinned *and sat in judgement.* close to 3 stars

"Exorcist 2: The Heretic" (1977) *Plight of the white wing dove. Not enough mood or scares, and too much of all of the following: pseudo science astral projection / mental flashbacks, jazz tap dance, big over the top special fx, traversing the globe, and Linda Blair vanity project / poor acting. James Earl Jones, Louise Fletcher, and Richard BUrton are great, though.*  between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Hannibal: Entree *"A bunch of psychopaths helping each other out."* 3 stars

American Horror Story: Coven "Head" *Proudly marching to the guillotine of perdition.* 3 stars

"Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror" (1981) *Eye-Talian style maggot-filled weapon-wielding zombies laying siege on a gothic mansion. Gore filled disembowling deaths, shot gun blasts to zombie skulls, smashing / chopping zombies / people to bits, and titty chewing. Gloriously over the top dubbing. And lastly a "child" or dwarf(?) actor that makes Bud Cort look normal.* 3 stars

Tales from the Crypt: Only Sin Deep *Pretty woman on loan from the pawn shop.* 3 stars

The Walking Dead: The Distance *Rick Grimes, the most justifiably paranoid man on the planet of the undead, will watch gay love, from the shadows, just to make sure someone's intentions are legit.* close to 3 stars

"Sticks and Stones" (1996) *Another of those generic mid-1990s coming of age / the dangers of handguns in a family home / absentee parents (too busy being a doctor more than a mom Kirstie Alley) / abusive white trash parents (father of the main bully) / dealing with school bullies and also brothers who are bullies too (Zack from Saved by the Bell. *barf* on both accounts) and the bullied (a young and pudgy Seth Rogen, you would think but the kid's name is Max Goldblatt along with his bully tackling overprotective daddy played by Gary Busey), complete with that wholesome Americana past-time of baseball as a connecting theme for this sentimental tripe.* either 1/2 a star or close to 2 stars

--- Black History Month --- Bon Voyage Film Feature ---

"Trippin" (1996) *A young brutha and perpetual slacker, during his senior year in highschool, is constantly escaping reality into his fantasies that often feature fly booty honeys.* 2 1/2 stars

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[oneweekoneband]

ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN: Contributor’s Roundtable

The very first decision I made about this week (before, in fact, Hendrik had even given me the go ahead) was that if I was going to do it, I wasn’t going to do it alone. Part of that was self-preservation: Green Day are a massive band, with a three-decade-long career and insurmountable amounts of energy. It’s a lot for one person to tackle. Even between the five of us, we’ve barely managed to scratch the surface.

But more than that, there was this nagging feeling that’s only grown more powerful over the course of this week, that it would really just be a shame if only one person wrote about Green Day. They belong to everyone. They’re there for the people who need them, when they need them, for whatever they need them for. Yes, they mean the world to me. The thing is, they probably mean the world to you, too.

So I put out the call on Twitter and my blog (restricting it somewhat to my circle of acquaintances by doing so, unfortunately, but this did make me more comfortable with asking in the full knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to pay any contributors for their work), and I got lucky: most of the people I was secretly hoping would offer to write about Green Day did just that. And, oh man, did they write. I can’t express how proud I am to have been able to give those pieces a platform, and to have myself and my writing associated with them and their writers. I was so impressed with the generosity and honesty of everyone’s writing that I wanted to hear more, and so I suggested the idea of a roundtable, where we could all come together to talk about our mutual topic: Green Day. This is the result.

All of us, this week, have touched on notions of belonging and acceptance in our pieces. There’s been an undertone, throughout, of the notion of Green Day as a safe space of some sort - whether it be for kids to start to figure themselves or the whole punk rock business out, or in the crowd at gigs, or as not-male or not-straight music fans. Do any of you have any more (or more specific) thoughts about this? Is this a feature of Green Day’s music, or the band themselves, or something else entirely? (Despite my piece on punk, I know it’s not as simple as that, as I’ve been in more than one punk space and met more than a few punks who made me feel unsafe - there’s a difference between ideal and reality, always.) What is it that makes a band feel “safe”?

KJ:  I think I thought of Green Day as a supportive space for all sorts of people who were different, and therefore avoided owning up to liking them because I didn't want to be thought of as different? Thankfully, I've gotten over that.

Jessie:  For me, it’s a combination of factors. Some of it has to do with the punk thing. Green Day weren’t the first punk band I heard--that honor goes to another East Bay band, Operation Ivy--but sometimes I call Green Day my first punk band because it was around the time I first heard them that I started thinking of punk as an identity. I have definitely felt unsafe in punk spaces/around certain punks, and I guess Green Day sort of represented some utopian ideal of punk as this super welcoming club for nerds, freaks, and outcasts. I’m not sure why that is--maybe because of the scene they came out of, or maybe, because I said in my piece on “She,” it felt like they understood what it was like to be freaks and outcasts. Which leads into the second reason they felt safe to me, and that was entirely about their music. I was being bullied pretty much constantly during the time when I first heard them, and it just felt like they understood that. Like they’d been there. I mean, Dookie had a song (“Having A Blast”) about getting revenge on the people who bullied you. (More on that song later.) The third reason they felt safe to me is a very personal one, and it may sound weird, but--they felt safe to me because I didn’t have a crush on any of the band members. From the age of 12 to around 17 (or maybe even older, but that would lead into some topics that are beyond the scope of this roundtable), I usually ended up getting a crush on at least one member of every band I liked. I mean sexual fantasy-type crushes. And I was sort of terrified of my burgeoning sexuality (for many reasons). But with Green Day, I thought of them more like cool older brothers than people I wanted to get with, and that made them feel safer to me than a lot of other bands.

Jacqui: Jessie, I’ve never even thought about it the way you put at the end there, but now that you have I completely agree. I’ve also never had a crush on any of them, and it does make a difference. There’s something a lot safer about wanting to swap guacamole recipes with Mike, for instance, than ever having been properly attracted to him would have been. 

Alice:  It was much the same for me, though I think Green Day was my first punk band (or, possibly, The Offspring). But Green Day also was sort of a gateway drug, in terms of pop punk, and I think that in so many ways the pop punk scene of the early-to-mid-2000s was my safe space. It’s like we’ve said, that punk in reality isn’t always the safe space it is supposed to be - and of course, it is different for everyone and we are ignorant, of certain things, when we’re young. But when I was growing up, in Alabama, there weren’t many spaces for me. The pop-punk boom/resurgence of the 2000s was a saving grace, I think. Those bands - Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, etc. - and the people I met through them, mostly online, became a huge part of the ways in which I reckoned with myself and my identity. Between “Well, maybe I’m the faggot America / I’m not a part of the redneck agenda” and Bert McCracken (of The Used) wearing a shirt that said “Gay is OK”, I felt included and comforted by these group of weird punk misfit dudes.

This is perhaps a corollary to the above: as far as I know, everyone who’s written for this week is, in some way or another, not-straight. One of my favourite things ever written about Green Day, Cristy Road’s coming out memoir Spit and Passion, is also, obviously, written by a not-straight woman. I know that when I think of Green Day, I think of a band that is Not A Straight Band, in smaller ways and larger ones (I’m thinking of Billie Joe, of course, and of certain lyrics, and safe spaces, again, and of the secret-community like collection of “Coming Clean” tattoos I’ve seen over the years). What do you think?

Jessie:  I don’t know why so many not-straight people are into Green Day, but it certainly does seem to be true. I didn’t know that Billie Joe identified as bi until way after I got into the band, but when I found out I was like “Hell yeah! Yet another reason to love them!” Dookie came out the year I realized I was bi (though it would be another four years or so before I actual felt wholly comfortable with that label), and though there were no explicitly queer songs on it, it goes back to what I mentioned above--so many Green Day songs seem to speak to that sense of being an outcast, being lonely, being bullied, and one of the things that made me an outcast and that I was bullied about was my sexual orientation and gender expression. Another theory as to why so many not-straight folks love Green Day: they are not an uber-macho band. Billie Joe has often been seen wearing makeup, nail polish, even dresses; I’ve seen Tre in eyeliner, too, and he’s just sort of goofy-looking (I mean that as a compliment!). Mike is probably the most ‘masculine’-looking of the band members, but even he is not some meathead. There are just so many rock and punk bands that are so so into the whole machismo, look-at-me-I’m-a-man thing, and Green Day are not one of them and it’s great.

Cat: So, haha, funny story, Billie Joe is sort of the reason I admitted to myself that I liked girls. I mean, God knows every single person in my life knew I wasn’t straight, I was bullied for it relentlessly from the ages of eight to eighteen, but I was really terrified of this idea of “not being normal”. Small town, small school, white picket fences and 2.5 kids - I had this really clear idea that there was a Right way to live your life, which was “how everyone else was living it”, and that there was a Wrong way. And then I read that Advocate interview - which I was so happy to find again in your post about Coming Clean, Alice! - and Billie Joe says there, I think everybody is born bisexual, I think everybody fantasizes about the same sex. Which I disagree with as a point of view these days - but at the time, it was exactly what I needed to hear, to understand that my thoughts and feelings about girls weren’t just a random fluke that I needed to suppress. And then later I was able to move into a more mature standpoint, i.e., “oh, it doesn’t actually matter if this is normal or not, it’s okay anyway”, and also, “oh, I’m actually way more into girls than guys.” But I really, really needed that Advocate interview to get me to that place.

Alice: Thanks, Cat! Yeah, as I mentioned in my piece, I didn’t read The Advocate interview until much, much later. But I read it - when I was seventeen - exactly when I needed to read it. I don’t think that I ever connected Green Day, and the ways in which their music always meant so much to me,  to my being gay until that moment. It was a moment of satisfaction, reassurance, almost. Like oh this is maybe why they always felt like home to me.

KJ:  I have a very vivid memory of frantically late-night Wikipedia-ing a “list of bisexual celebrities” and feeling utterly relieved when I saw Billie Joe’s name. Like, if this guy who I looked up to could be bi, so maybe could I? Not for the first or fifteenth time, I thought about starting a band.

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We’ve also talked a lot about what Green Day meant to us, about our memories of the band and their songs, simply by virtue of this week being a retrospective of their career. Have your feelings changed, in the present? Do they mean/are they the same band to you now as they used to be?

Jessie: Green Day have drifted in and out of my life. They’ve grown as I have and sometimes I’ve needed them and other times I haven’t. It’s like they’re old friends who I sometimes go years without speaking to, but when we run into each other we pick up where we left off. Some of their albums have come out exactly when I needed to hear them, others have grown on me, others I’ll probably never be that into. But they’ll always mean a lot to me because of the things we went through together (to stretch that “old friends” metaphor), and I adore Revolution Radio--I think it’s their best album since American Idiot.

Cat: I mean, part of it’s just going to be the usual punk problem, i.e., American Idiot was the most important album of my entire life, it defined everything in my life, it was my constant soundtrack and the only thing that explained the world, and then Obama was elected president.

And then Trump was elected president! And suddenly it’s - not the most important album in the world, the Bush era was very specific and unique and I need slightly different content from my punk for 2017, but it means more to me than it did in 2010. It’s like cicadas, it comes out of the earth to scream every 16 years.

KJ:  Funny enough, I was up at my parents’ house the week before this OWOB started and my mother still uses the one mix tape I made her in high school as her alarm clock cd. So, while I'm thinking about Green Day and Having Some Real Feelings, out of nowhere comes the strains of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” my mom's only acceptable Green Day song (all others deemed too noisy). So in a way, Green Day is less a rebellious sound and more a coming home, to me, now.

Is there anything else you wish you’d had the space to say about Green Day? Another song you wanted to cover, maybe, or a story or observation or thought that wouldn’t fit in any of your pieces?

Jessie: There is so, so, so much more I could say. A lot of thoughts and ideas came up over the course of this week. One thing I thought of that I eventually want to explore further is about “Having A Blast.” That song came out before Columbine, and I wonder if it sounds different to people who heard it for the first time after that. I wonder if that song could even be written now. In 1994, it sounded like a harmless way to vent about being bullied, a way to get our your anger without actually hurting anyone. Now that people have actually taken those feelings beyond the realm of fantasy, that song sounds a lot darker. 

Alice: Only that we really, really should have planned for a second roundtable, just to discuss Green Day’s cover of Eye of the Tiger.  

More seriously, I am a bit sad I wasn’t able to write a piece about the musical (sorry Jacqui!) - I had the chance to see it when it opened and it remains, to this day, the only Broadway show I’ve ever bought full price orchestra tickets for. It wasn’t perfect, but sitting in a Broadway theatre between people my age who had obviously been with the band since the beginning and women in their 60s and 70s who still wore gowns to the theatre - and seeing that they were both equally happy to be there - that was a really special moment for me.

KJ:  Oh man, eye of the Tiger! Ditto their “I Fought the Law” cover. Basically, I guess we should have luxuriated in covers.  

Jacqui: I know that I, personally, avoided covers this week because there was already so much to say about their original work. But if I had gone in that direction, it would have been “Working Class Hero”. One of the major ways I had of connecting with my dad was through music - a good 75% of the stuff I know about rock history, still, came from him - and this song and really the whole benefit album it was released on was an actual, tangible bridge between us (I have this incredibly fond memory of waiting for me just inside the door when I came home from school one day, bursting with the need to tell me that “Justin Timberlake is really talented, actually”). I’d also want to talk about the difficulties and complications of things like benefit albums, probably, and about Green Day’s activism in general.

Finally, is there anything you want to say to each other (or me) - responses to posts, questions you want to ask, etc?

Cat: I get the feeling I’m a lot younger than a lot of you - was born in ‘95, Bush’s election is my first real political memory, and you guys talk about American Idiot and the Iraq War and the ‘00s as things you experienced as people who were coming of age, not young kids. Do you all think that makes a difference? Do you need to be a certain age to appreciate Dookie in a certain way, for example? Also, jeez, y’all have been incredible, I’m so honored to be part of a week with such amazing and thoughtful writers for such an amazing and thoughtful band.

Jessie: Hmm, I don’t know if it’s an age thing. I will say that I’m probably the oldest one here--I was born in 1981!--but I know people who are 10-12 years younger than I am who heard Dookie as adolescents and loved it just as much as I did. So maybe it depends more on who you are/what your life was like when you heard it than on your actual age. 

I don't really have any questions for any of you, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being part of this as well. All of you are amazing writers and I’ve loved reading your different perspectives on Green Day. Also, I’m working on a long essay-thing about Dookie (I’ve been mapping it out for about a month already!), and I may want to interview some of you for it, if that sounds like something you’d be interested in.

Alice: I certainly don’t think you need to have been a certain age to appreciate Dookie - like I’ve said, my mother loves early Green Day and she turned 65 this year. But I do think perhaps you’re right about American Idiot, not that it doesn’t hold meaning for people who were too young to remember 9/11 or people who were well into adulthood. But, I was born in 1990 and so my “coming of age” period was literally when Bush got elected. I very much remember watching the towers fall. And, as someone who had the questionable delight of meeting him personally, I certainly remember George Bush. There aren’t words for how important that album was, in that moment in time. Waking up when you’re eleven years old and realizing that world had suddenly and completely changed, and for reasons you don’t really understand - well. Music helped with that, it helped a lot. So, again, not that it didn’t or couldn’t mean the same to someone a bit younger than me (it obviously did!) but for someone who came of age in Obama’s America? I don’t think it’s possible to really get the very specific - and bleak, angry, defiant - zeitgeist American Idiot captured.  

I don’t have any questions either, but like Jessie I wanted to thank you all so much for this! I love doing One Week One Band and I loved it even more doing with it with y’all! And thank you Jacqui for facilitating this. It’s been an absolute blast.  

KJ: Just want to thank Jacqui for the opportunity to write about and come to terms with my Green Day fandom. (I don't think my therapist was...intending? To discuss a pop punk band for 30min this week?) Also re: age, it really doesn't matter, as there are many accessible avenues to Green Day. (Thatsaidamericanidiotisclearlythebestfightme.)Thanks again!

Jacqui: Jessie, I would be absolutely delighted if you decided to interview me, and am going to take a second right now to beg you to let me know when that essay goes live regardless, because I will definitely want to read it. I’ve left your mention of it in, here, so that people will know to keep an eye out for it!

I agree that age doesn’t matter when it comes to getting into Green Day, or even understanding them - there’s a difference between remembering a specific point in time and understanding or finding your own meaning in what came out of it, and I think that’s true of all art. Whatever you love, whatever sparks a feeling of recognition in you, that’s yours and no one can take that feeling away from you. That said, I do think there’s a difference in types of understanding when it comes to huge, world-shaping events like watching the towers fall (or, more positively: the development of the internet and its ability to facilitate both music sharing and community building.) Basically, I agree with Alice. No one is surprised.

Thank you so much again, everyone. It really has been a delight, and a privilege. I’ll be making a round up post that re-introduces you all and collects your contributions to end the week.