#and she was much more strict and more likely to hold mike accountable for being stupid when his own mother didnt

[androcola]

thinking about mike and aunt kates relationship with eachother and how they're both so similar to each other in that they both don't like to outwardly show emotion or affection, but anytime they do show fondness, they both will make up some kind of excuse for why they werent actually showing any affection/concern at all but they're both terrible liars

[seancekitsch]

Making up for Lost Time: The Epilogue

Requested by: eh, a few of you wanted this when i mentioned it and i can’t let Stanley the Manley go

Just to be safe....Warnings for the series include: canon issues including self harm, attempted suicide, emotional trauma, mentioned disordered eating, the clown, anxiety, adult Bill Denbrough’s personality, book and movie canon being merged together because I like to play god, a twin peaks reference?? light smut and my terrible vocabulary, canon events.

But this is lighter and fluffier this is basically just being together forever and gross cute

-You open up your apartment to Stan right away, but relationship wise other than living together you move very slowly at first. There is no fear of death or shape shifting clown making you tear each other apart.

-He finds a job rather easily. Being an accountant, his role is necessary anywhere in the country. He could move out within a few weeks, but it would be pointless knowing he would move right back in eventually. He also doesn’t think he could sleep in Seattle without you in his arms.

-Your first date is at a roadhouse dive bar ten days after he arrives. There’s loud live music, which Stan never really cared for, but the way your face lights up when the band plays an updated version of an old Roy Orbison tune... he couldnt picture anywhere else he would rather be.

-Between the French fries and the beers and you gently singing along to him, it’s a sad kind of happy that he realizes this is what he’s wanted his whole life and that he’s missed so much. He vows from then on to start making up for lost time.

-Stanley Uris truly lays on the charm for the entire six months the two of you can last before a poorly planned last minute marriage that only the losers attended. Taking it slowly is short lived.

-You wore the first white dress you could find. It was vintage and it wasn’t formal, but Stan thought you looked like royalty. He wore a suit he would wear to work on any given day.

-Richie officiated; you had joked with him on the phone about becoming a minister beforehand not realizing he would actually get his minister credentials. Bev was maid of honor, Mike was best man. Ben wrote a beautiful short poem and read it in lieu of vows, and Bill gave the beautiful wedding gift of employment in editing his next book turned tv series scripts.

-The two of you settle into married life like it was meant for the two of you. Maybe it was. You pack each other little lunches for work and give each other back rubs after long days. Weekend mornings running errands and having sex after putting away the groceries. It’s all grossly domestic but it feels like instinct.

-Stan is riskier sex wise than he had ever been in his adult life with you. Sure there’s love making, but neither of you feel pressure when enjoying each other’s bodies. You’re not trying for kids, you’re not trying to prove your attraction to each other. There’s just messy hands and lips all over your bodies and exploring.

-You have car sex for the first time since Stan first got his drivers license in high school. You have sex in mall bathrooms. You’ve done some out on your balcony that you’re sure your neighbors did not appreciate. It’s like you can’t get enough of each other anywhere. And you LOVE IT.

-Some nights there are nightmares for the two of you to get through. You dream of him finishing what he started in the bathtub, and he dreams of that moment in the kitchen when his own corpse attacked you and you let it. You wake up crying into each other’s skin and hold one another close, soothing the pain and sealing it back into the past.

-As glad as you are to remember each other and the losers, the two of you have a pretty strict “the past stays in the past” rule besides them. There’s a lot of trauma and bad feelings that don’t even involve the clown that you both wish you still didn’t remember. But that being said, you’re more than supportive to each other when you can’t block it out.

-You see Richie and Bill most often due to work and proximity. It is a quick flight for the two of you to spend the weekend in Beverly Hills with Richie at his house or to Northern California to the set of Bill’s new tv series.

-Richie ends up coming out as bi and ends up with a man who looks surprisingly like dear late Eddie. His ex wives have a lot to say to the press about this relationship. You and Stan really like his new partner and invite them up to Seattle for holidays from now on. When they adopt a little girl, you become the godparents.

-You and Stan go on a lot of vacations together. You like to travel and experience new things and go to museums together. His favorite place you’ve ever taken him is the bird hall in the natural sciences museum in London. He spent three whole hours in there with his notebook sketching and taking notes on rare birds he had never seen besides in paintings. He couldn’t thank you enough for surprising him with that little detail of the trip.

-It works out well because he handles all of the budgeting and logistics like hotels, and you handle the day to day activities. You fill in all of the details that his logistics lay the groundwork for.

-About a year in, you get matching tattoos. Stan never wanted one or saw himself having one, but the scar on his wrist wouldn’t disappear like the one on his hand did and he hated to look at it. You help him design it. It’s a simple black-capped chickadee taking flight. The state bird of Maine and flight promising future and change. Yours goes onto the opposite wrist than his.

-Stan also starts to take Judaism seriously again after all of this. Mostly when things are hard to cope with, he turns to his faith. You always go to the synagogue with him if he wants you to, but sometimes it’s somewhere he has to go to alone. He always comes back a little clearer headed, the logical level headed Stan you know.

-About five years after your return to Derry, Patty Uris actually sends Stan an email inviting them two of you to her wedding. You go, and just like he hoped, he and his ex wife can stay friends. She understood what they both needed, and he couldn’t thank her enough for being the great person she was. And you couldn’t thank her enough for being there for Stanley when he needed her.

-He loves the fall in Seattle with you, it’s rainy and so much colder than his old home in Atlanta and there’s so much time to sit cuddled up in front of your big window and watching the birds fly and the leaves fall.

-There are moments when the two of you have forgotten how much time has past, and you still see each other as the nervous teens you were when you first fell for each other. You never lose that spark of young love, no matter how comfortable you get around one another.

-And when 27 more years roll by, the two of you don’t even notice. You’re looking forward to your 26th wedding anniversary soon, and there’s a party with all of your childhood friends and their kids and grandkids and you have to get ready.

And that’s a wrap i love Stanley Uris 🧡🧡🧡

[seedfinance]

The world’s big tech firms are gearing up for a massive fight with Modi’s India, IT News, ET CIO

Saritha Rai and Vlad Savov

India is becoming increasingly confident in its efforts to control online communications, challenging the practices of Twitter and Facebook and threatening to set a precedent that could go well beyond its borders.

The largest US internet companies are fighting against new intermediary rules enacted by Narendra Modi’s government in February that restrict privacy and freedom of expression. Officials have urged Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. to remove hundreds of posts this year, divulge sensitive user information, and submit to a regulatory regime that allows for potential jail sentences for executives if companies fail to comply.

While government efforts to exercise more control over user data and online discourse mirror global efforts to control tech giants and their vast influence, Internet firms are particularly at stake in India because – excluded from China – it’s the only billion people market themselves to the market. In contrast to authoritarian regimes like Beijing, critics fear that measures by the world’s largest democracy could offer other governments a blueprint to invade privacy in the name of internal security.

“India has made draconian changes to its rules,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in April. They “create new opportunities for state surveillance of citizens. These rules threaten the idea of ​​a free and open Internet based on international human rights standards. “

Holding internet companies accountable for published content – and in some cases making executives personally liable – goes beyond what many countries require and is a key point of contention. Trapped in this tug of war are hundreds of millions in India whose use of the Internet is now at stake. Facebook’s WhatsApp is on trial, arguing that the new rules would bypass encryption, a key feature the company has touted in global marketing.

Modi’s government has been targeting Twitter for the past few months as it is considered the social platform of choice for politicians and celebrities. Cabinet ministers have accused the US company of defying orders and proposed removing it from its intermediary status, which should make it directly responsible for the content posted by its users. In May, Twitter tagged tweets from multiple accounts linked to Modi’s party as “compromised media”. Police investigators have since called officers and their offices, putting business in the world’s second most populous nation at risk.

“Twitter is in a no-win situation here,” said Mike Masnick, founder of tech policy blog Techdirt. “Giving in to excessive government demands not only suppresses important speeches, but opens the company to even more pressure to silence government critics in India and elsewhere.”

Representatives from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), which oversees regulation, did not respond to multiple calls and emails asking for comments. WhatsApp and Twitter representatives declined to comment beyond previous statements that they were anxious to comply with state regulations.

India has stated that it welcomes criticism and dissent and its new rules are aimed at protecting public order and preventing harmful content such as child pornography and abuse videos. The country has been grappling with an explosion of fake news on social media in recent years, much of it targeting a largely first-time internet audience unaccustomed to sifting through online falsehoods. It came into conflict with Facebook in 2018 when the government asked WhatsApp to curb the spread of news related to two dozen lynchings. Facebook’s response then was to restrict the forwarding of messages and mark them as “forwarded”.

WhatsApp has more than 530 million users in India, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube has about 450 million, and Facebook has over 410 million users, making it the largest market for all three. Twitter, a comparatively small minnow with 17.5 million users, is one of the fastest growing areas in India. But that limited reach makes it vulnerable in a nation that was ready to ban popular foreign services a year ago when it banned TikTok – which had 200 million users registered in the country – WeChat and hundreds more China-made apps after a violent clash on the controversial border between the two countries.

As in the US, however, Twitter exerts a disproportionate influence in relation to its size. It is vital to the political discussion in India, and Modi himself is an avid user and has a following of over 69 million, demonstrating its international reach. While ministers have tweeted belligerently on Twitter, no one has yet openly threatened to ban it.

Even during the conflict with China, India can still draw inspiration from its neighbor’s experiences, where the void left by foreign social platforms blocked to resisting strict censorship has created space for domestic alternatives to develop. In fact, Modi’s colleagues have been actively promoting Koo, a local microblogging rival.

“I have to imagine Modi looking at China thinking it can achieve economic prosperity while exercising a lot of authoritarian control over language and communication,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook director of public policy with the US the country’s officials worked together in the fall of 2013, ahead of Modi’s first election as prime minister, through earlier this year. “So the big question is where will India go?”

An open letter signed by 14 nonprofits urged the government to suspend implementation of India’s new IT rules that went into effect last month.

Much of the current resentment stems from the government’s drive to control discussions since November over peasant protests, which have centered on proposals to tax farm inputs and remove minimum price support. The government forced Twitter to block some popular figures expressing support for the protesters – such as Punjabi singer JazzyB, whose account has 1.2 million followers but is inaccessible within India – although the company does not have all of its Has implemented demands.

US and EU lawmakers should pay more attention to the South Asian country, Harbath said. Like Masnick, she sees few good opportunities for private companies to oppose laws from above, and it would be up to the international community to steer India back onto a more liberal path.

The US has embraced India as a counterweight to China in recent years and has strengthened defense cooperation as part of the four-nation quad group, which also includes the other democracies of Japan and Australia. For its part, Modi’s government has sought to attract companies looking to diversify their supply chains away from China – which gives it an incentive to maintain good relationships with the Biden government and the American business community at large.

Relationships with American social platforms were much warmer and more cooperative in the early years of the Modi administration. In 2015, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invited Modi to a town hall event at the company’s headquarters. The two men hugged and smiled at the cameras. But, Harbath said, whenever the government’s popularity has waned since then – following measures like the sudden currency demonetization in 2016 – it has become more aggressive to steer public narrative.

Most recently, Modi’s government was targeted on Twitter by critics who say it botched efforts to fight Covid-19. In response, she has tried to block recent criticism on Twitter, which shows anger and disappointment with the Indian leader.

“Silicon Valley’s social media platforms have a huge base in India and the confrontation is who controls these users,” said Tarun Pathak from Delhi, research director at Counterpoint. “In the next three to five years, around 300 million new users equal to the US population will go online in India, shifting the balance of power for these companies eastward.”

Twitter appointed an interim compliance officer two weeks ago, long after its colleagues assigned permanent representatives, and that person is due to leave the position. A company spokesman did not want to confirm or comment on the reasons.

Meanwhile, Kenner told ET that Twitter had given the government “in writing” details of its newly appointed interim chief compliance officer. Previously, she had contracted a lawyer to act as a complaint and node officer.

On Friday, the head of MEITY, Ravi Shankar Prasad, temporarily blocked his Twitter account because of a complaint about alleged copyright infringement, according to the company. When the frequent Twitter antagonist regained access, he wrote that his “actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of the freedom of expression they claim to be, only interested in pursuing their own ends.” Twitter declined to comment, but cited its original statement that Prasad’s account was temporarily suspended for copyright infringement.

Twitter was recently quoted by Uttar Pradesh police along with journalists and opposition party leaders for hosting a video provoking communal discord, according to local reports. Delhi police also said they are investigating another complaint against Twitter’s Indian chief Manish Maheshwari related to this video allegedly alleging that majority Hindus are attacking a minority Muslim man. The company has since removed the offensive clip and has left no comment other than its statement of compliance with local laws. The government of Uttar Pradesh has petitioned the Supreme Court of India to have Maheshwari lifted from arrest by a lower court.

Without pressure on India to reclaim its online power – as the Washington Post editors called this month – companies like Twitter must carefully weigh their decisions to avoid being ousted by a huge market while upholding their principles, said Harbath.

It is a delicate dance that is becoming more and more common around the world. Countries as far away as Australia, Poland and Nigeria are cracking down on social platforms, claiming they have undue power to determine what is acceptable and meddling in domestic affairs. Nigeria banned Twitter this month and Germany’s hate speech rules will require platforms to remove illegal content quickly or face penalties.

“It’s complicated. A decision by these companies in India will not apply to India alone,” said Prateek Waghre of Bangalore, a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution who studies digital platform governance serve the rest of the world. “

IT and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was in the thick of it as the new social media guidelines became a focal point for a showdown between the government and Twitter and WhatsApp on privacy and free speech issues.

source https://seedfinance.net/2021/07/05/the-worlds-big-tech-firms-are-gearing-up-for-a-massive-fight-with-modis-india-it-news-et-cio/

[newstfionline]

Headlines

White House, Congress agree on $2 trillion virus rescue bill (AP) The White House and Senate leaders of both major political parties announced agreement early Wednesday on an unprecedented $2 trillion emergency bill to rush sweeping aid to businesses, workers and a health care system slammed by the coronavirus pandemic. The urgently needed pandemic response measure is the largest economic rescue measure in history and is intended as a weekslong or monthslong patch for an economy spiraling into recession and a nation facing a potentially ghastly toll. The economic rescue package would give direct payments to most Americans, expand unemployment benefits and provide a $367 billion program for small businesses to keep making payroll while workers are forced to stay home. (NYT) Americans with direct-deposit bank account information on file with the Internal Revenue Service for tax refunds--about 70 million people--should see their payments arrive within a few weeks of the bill being signed into law. Eligible Americans who do not have such information on file, and thus will be waiting for a check in the mail from the I.R.S., will need to wait up to four months to receive one.

New York is a ‘high-risk area’ (NYT) Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday advised people who have passed through or left the city recently to place themselves in a 14-day quarantine. About 60 percent of the country’s new confirmed cases of the coronavirus were in the New York City metropolitan area, officials said.

Gangs call curfews as coronavirus hits Rio favelas (Reuters) Criminal gangs that have long held sway across Rio’s favelas are taking their own precautions against the virus, according to residents and press reports. The “baile funk” dance parties have been called off. Some open-air drug markets are closed for business. Gangs and militias have imposed strict curfews. Coronavirus is coming, and Rio de Janeiro’s lawless favelas are gearing up for the onslaught.

Prince Charles tests positive for Covid-19 (Telegraph) The Prince of Wales has tested positive for coronavirus and is working from home with mild symptoms. A Clarence House spokesman said he was “displaying mild symptoms but otherwise remains in good health and has been working from home throughout the last few days as usual”. Prince Charles, 71, and the Duchess of Cornwall, 72, are now self-isolating at their home in Scotland.

Coronavirus may have infected far more than estimated (Financial Times) The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated--perhaps as much as half the population--according to modeling by researchers at the University of Oxford. If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study. The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all.

Virus Knocks Thousands of Health Workers Out of Action in Europe (NYT) Across Western Europe, health care professionals have used the language of war to describe the struggle against the coronavirus, which has left some hospitals on the brink of collapse. Out of Spain’s 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, 5,400--nearly 14 percent--are medical professionals, the health ministry said on Tuesday. No other country has reported health care staff accounting for a double-digit percentage of total infections. But the problem is widespread throughout Europe. In Italy, France and Spain, more than 30 health care professionals have died of the coronavirus, and thousands of others have had to self-isolate. The same dynamics are starting to take hold in Britain and the United States, where the contagion is bearing down but has yet to fully bite.

Drone surveillance in France (Worldcrunch) The enforcement of countrywide quarantine restrictions in France just got a tad more dystopian, with the use of drones and helicopters to monitor citizen’s movements, Marseille-based daily La Provence reports. With more than 100,000 police deployed to monitor strict restrictions on movement, drones have already been deployed in the southern cities of Nice and Marseille to film public spaces and announce the details of the new measures over their loudspeakers.

German state to release some 1,000 prisoners due to coronavirus (Reuters) Germany’s most populous state North-Rhine Westphalia plans to release as many as 1,000 prisoners in order to free up cells to be used as quarantine rooms out of concern that coronavirus could spread unchecked in jails, its justice minister said.

Greece pushed to help island refugees at risk of coronavirus (Foreign Policy) Heeding calls from members of the European Parliament, the European Union has asked Greece to get those most vulnerable to coronavirus away from its crowded island refugee camps. Home Affairs Commisioner Ylva Johansson said plans are in progress, “We are working together with the Greek government and the Greek authorities to agree on an emergency plan to help reduce the risk as much as possible in the overcrowded hotspots on the islands,” she said. The EU promised to remove 1,600 unaccompanied children from the island camps at the beginning of the month and has yet to do so.

In Russia, facial surveillance and threat of prison being used to make coronavirus quarantines stick (Washington Post) Russian officials are threatening five years in prison to deter possible coronavirus spreaders. Russia has pulled some tools from its authoritarian toolbox to battle the disease, including the use of facial-recognition technology to track people ordered into self-isolation. The government is also developing a system using geolocation data from mobile operators to monitor individuals.

Fears of Imported Coronavirus Cases Rise in China (Foreign Policy) New coronavirus cases are officially nearing zero within China, except for imported infections--those among people traveling from abroad. The rest of the world is now seen as the threat, and foreigners are increasingly facing discrimination, especially in Beijing. Signs on some businesses in the capital forbid foreigners from entry, and many hotels are refusing to accept foreigners--including residents--unless they are mandated as quarantine sites for recent arrivals. Security staff are even turning away foreigners from offices and apartment buildings. As Chinese officials blame the outside world for the coronavirus, this treatment is likely to only get worse--and residing in the country is likely to become more difficult.

Israel’s parliament speaker resigns, but gavels session closed before replacement elected (Washington Post) Israel’s speaker of the parliament abruptly resigned Wednesday, hours before a court-imposed deadline mandated a vote on replacing him. Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein averted one constitutional crisis, but may have sparked another when he immediately gaveled the Knesset out of session until next Monday, infuriating 61 lawmakers who were ready to elect a new speaker. Activists have accused the speaker and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of exercising a power grab in the name of fighting the pandemic. A week ago, Netanyahu’s justice minister abruptly suspended all court activities two days before Netanyahu was scheduled to begin his own trial on corruption charges.

Tripoli officials say clashes escalating over Libyan capital (AP) Clashes between rival Libyan forces for control of Tripoli have escalated as militias allied with the U.N.-supported government based in the country’s capital launched an offensive on a military base held by their rivals.

Islamists ambush Nigerian forces (Foreign Policy) Islamist militants killed 70 Nigerian soldiers in an ambush in the village of Gorgi in the north of the country. According to Reuters sources, the attack involved rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weaponry. Nigerian military spokesman Sagir Musa confirmed the attack, but has disputed the death toll.

Teaching a locked-down world (Worldcrunch) How will today’s children look back on this moment? Beyond the fears about contagion and rumors circulating on social media, many will no doubt remember the coronavirus outbreak with two words: School’s out. With UNESCO estimating at least 130 countries facing nationwide closures, educators are forced to improvise.

In some parts of the world, schools have set up online classes on platforms like Zoom and Skype that have offered the possibility for the learning to continue in ways that wouldn’t have been possible even just a few years ago. Still, as Le Monde reports, even in France’s robust national education system technical glitches have slowed down classes since the country was put on lockdown last week. And of course many students without digital access simply remain shut out from learning for months at a time.

Beyond such digital divides, television and radio (which more families have access to) has come in handy: Argentina’s public television and radio are broadcasting special educational programming, with a website with e-books, interactive tools and other learning materials was set up to complement the broadcast programs. The Czech Republic’s Ministry of Education also instated educational public television programs--in a mere 5 days. TV editors were originally sceptical as many teachers had no experience in front of a camera, yet the first episodes proved successful with high viewership among 4-12 year olds. In Norway, the prime minister herself lent a hand, holding a national press conference for children, explaining the measures put in place to fight the virus and answering questions ranging from “Can I have a birthday party?” to “What can I do to help?”

Meanwhile, China gave us a reminder that no matter how much young people still need to learn, they’re bound to outsmart us. Students in Wuhan flooded their homework app with 1-star reviews in a collective effort to try to get it kicked off the App Store. School’s out!

[lumpmagazine]

Carla Vanessa was just 15 when she first met Mike Triay and Carlos Alberto DeYarza, later known as the ‘Bayside Boys’, and began recording radio jingles in Florida. Just a few years later she would go on to record the ‘Macarena’, one of the biggest hits of the 90′s. She travelled the world, and experienced both the best and the worst that the music industry has to offer. Following this intense roller-coaster, Carla forged a successful career across the Spanish speaking world with the Emilio Estefan produced ‘Miami Sound Machine’ along with acting and modelling. 

What was life like growing up in South Florida?

I loved growing up in South Florida because I love the ocean! It was also great because it was so culturally diverse. I had a wonderful childhood and my parents raised us within the Latin culture. Spanish was my first language and I grew up bilingual. I have a sister and a brother and we have always been a very close knit family. We are all musical. My sister and I always sang together. I joke that we harmonized before we knew what it meant. Our plan was to be a duo when we were young. We formed a couple groups before I did the Macarena. My brother could also sing but mainly played guitar. He was in a few bands growing up. Both my parents also sing and my mom plays a little guitar and piano. I also play a little of both so we definitely had a lot of jam sessions growing up. 

How did you become associated with the Bayside Boys? 

I was only 15 when I met them. My friend Ashley who was in Menudo at the time introduced me to them. I quickly began doing jingles for them. I also did voice overs for radio stations and demos of songs. 

What were the recording sessions for Macarena like? Was it a 'one take' affair or did it take time to refine and work on? 

The song was originally sang by another studio singer. She didn't want to be the face of the Macarena so I was asked to re record it and become part of the group.  The song is not a hard song to sing. It's all about becoming the character and having fun so it was quick.

At the height of the Macarena’s popularity you appeared on Oprah. How was that experience?

I was so young at the time and being on the Oprah show was huge! I was so excited! We only got to meet her very briefly and she was very nice. I remember how much fun we had teaching the audience how to dance the Macarena. 

Did you party much at that time? What was your life like in the middle of having a global no. 1 hit? 

There really was no time for partying. It was such a strict schedule all I did was try to sleep whenever I could. There was also not much time to enjoy the many places we visited. 

Was the touring and promotion schedule very gruelling and intense? Did it lead to any arguments or disputes?

It was pretty intense. I don't remember arguments but I remember forgetting simple things because of lack of sleep. I think we were too tired to argue. I was also so young and this was so new I didn't know what to expect. 

Did you ever experience burn out/exhaustion or any difficulties associated with success?

Yes but mainly while I was in MSM. Touring in Spain was even harder than the States. They didn't account for sleep time. It was like we were robots so we were always sick and lost our voices. I really took a toll on us. A typical day was wake up at 5 am to do our hair and makeup, eat a quick breakfast and arrive at our 1st radio interview by 7 am. Then usually about 5 more interviews with magazines or newspapers. A quick photo shoot or promo thing then a quick lunch. Back to Hotel to get ready for a gala or evening performance. Then dinner with label executives that lasted till about 1 am or 2 am and then 3 to 4 hours of sleep and we would start all over again. 

If you had the whole period to live over, would you do anything differently?

The only thing I would do differently is try to enjoy it more. Everything was so fast and I wish I could have slowed down a bit. There were so many amazing places we went to and sometimes all we saw was the hotel. I would tell myself to really take everything in. 

Were you disappointed not to be in the Bayside Boys Remix video directed by Vincent Calvet? How did that decision come about?

I really don't know much about that decision. It might have had something to do with timing. I am really not sure. Once the song got so big it was a little disappointing that it said "Bayside Boys" remix but we were not in the video. I was very young and a lot of things were kept from me. I was just happy to be traveling and performing.  

Did you encounter any of the typical financial problems encountered by artists and performers?

Of course... but luckily I lived with my parents at the time so I didn't have the typical bills. 

Did you experience any sexism or sexual harassment in the male dominated music industry? 

I'm sure there were many times I just ignored it or was so innocent I didn't notice. I do remember one time while in MSM I was in an elevator and a gentleman kept making inappropriate comments and asking me for my room number. I told the guy he was disgusting and to leave me alone. Five minutes later he is being introduced to me as one of the label executives that we are having dinner with. I just calmly said "we've already met"  He never said another word to me!

Did you feel that you were treated fairly from a business perspective with regards to the Macarena?

The truth is I was offered to become the face of the Macarena and offered an amount for performing. I took the deal and that's that. I don't know what everyone else was getting paid or if I was being taken advantage of but I agreed to what they offered. So from that stand point I can't complain. 

Did the Bayside Boys have any follow up plans for music, given the success of the Macarena Remix? There was one single ‘Caliente’ but was there anything else beyond this? Was it a collective decision to end the Bayside Boys after Caliente?

The Macarena sort of pummelled Caliente. The record label released Caliente when Macarena was reaching its peak and so it never went anywhere. The label dropped us after that and that was pretty much the end of the Bayside Boys. The Bayside Boys were Mike Triay and Carlos De Yarza and only Carlos performed with me. After we were let go from the label we tried to start a duo project but it never really took off. 

Nostalgia tours are very popular in the UK right now, with many 80′s and 90′s pop artists performing their hits. Have you and the remaining Bayside Boys considered these?

It would be Carlos and I and our 2 dancers from back then.... just like on the Oprah show. We have never talked about it but it would be a lot of fun! I'm always up for some traveling and performing!

How close were you with Mike Triay? Where were you when you heard he had passed?

By the time he passed we had not spoken in many years. We just grew apart and I was living in Colorado which is where I live now. Carlos was the one that told me. I was very sad. 

MSM have had huge success, what have been some of your greatest and worst moments performing/touring with MSM?

There were many cool moments  like meeting some of my musical idols but I would have to say the greatest moments for me were when I was on stage performing. Connecting with the crowd and feeling this indescribable rush! Seeing the Colombian flag in a sea of people and knowing it was for me.  That is what kept me going through the worst moments. The worst moments were losing my voice due to a gruelling schedule and having our tour cancelled at the last moment. There were also some horrible moments because of 9/11. I remember having a sense of fear and sadness. Then there were bombings on the same trains we took in Spain. It was a hard reality check for me. I wrote a poem called "Innocent Pieces" during that time. I wasn't so innocent anymore. 

What do you think of the current state of popular music? 

Pop music is always changing and I tend to go with the flow... I always find something I like. I really like Sia and Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and even some Justin Bieber. I feel like there is so much diversity that you can always find something you like. 

Can you describe your songwriting process?

I usually write on the guitar. I tend to play certain chords and start a melody and then lyrics. It can change depending on what inspires me first and if I co write then it can be completely different. 

When can we expect your next album?

I have been writing and recording for the past couple years but I have also expanded my family and just had my 2nd child so I have had to put some things on hold for a bit. I hope to have something released this year. 

Are your children musical? What would you say to them if they wanted to embark on a career in pop music?

I am married and have 2 children. A little girl that is almost 3 years old and a baby boy that is almost 4 months. My husband can carry a tune so it's going to be in my children's blood. My little girl is already showing signs of being musical. She sings on pitch and plays her little toy guitar. So sweet! I would totally support my kids if they chose a career in pop music. I would try to advise them the best I could and help them enjoy the little things. I would also help them understand that it's a lot of work and it's not all glamorous. At the end of the day you do it for the love of music and nothing else!

What are your plans for the future? 

My plan is to continue making music. Writing, recording, and performing. I hope to get back to doing it professionally again. I love being more involved in all of the creative aspects.  This is my passion and even if I never do it professionally again, it is what makes me happy.

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