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dankusner · 8 months ago

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Starck contrast

The year was 1984.

A rich kid from Preston Hollow created a Studio 54 for the landlocked on a dicey stretch of McKinney Avenue.

The stories were legendary: People had sex in the bathroom. They did ecstasy, which was legal, and cocaine, which was not. The place was designed by Philippe Starck, aFrench architect who’d given his name to cool chairs that were wildly uncomfortable (the place had a few).

Stevie Nicks was part owner, though people rarely saw her during the club’s five-year run.

They did see Prince, Oliver Stone and Rob Lowe.

Clubgoers lined up to get inside. They wanted the scene, but they needed the music.

Punk, post-punk and new wave, spun on vinyl by real, living humans who knew more about obscure artists and B-sides than Casey Kasem could ever hope to learn.

The live shows were epic: Australian noise band SPK, New York art monster Grace Jones, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Video was projected onto the walls, because avirtual dreamworld still felt like a novelty.

Nobody knew screens and media would rise up like atidal wave and swallow us whole. You should have been there. And for one night only, May 12, you (sort of) can be when the Starck Club returns for a 40th anniversary party, thanks to the good folks behind the Longhorn Ballroom and the Kessler Theater, which is the far more civilized setting for this bash.

Of course, the event is already sold out, giving wannabe clubgoers the familiar experience of getting shut out ofthe best party in town.

Details: 6-11 p.m. May 12 at the Kessler Theater,1230 W. Davis St., Dallas.

Stalling for time FROM THE ARCHIVES In 1985, the now-acclaimed Texas Monthly writer Skip Hollandsworth contributed astory toThe Dallas Morning News about how men's rooms in Dallas were having amoment—avery opulent moment. He noted the upholstered walls ($70 per square yard) inside the gentlemen's lounge atCafe Pacific inHighland Park Village. He praised The Mansion on Turtle Creek's "hand-cast sink fixtures and commodes with comfy seats."Buthewas most gobsmacked by the facilities at the city's hottest dance spot: "The newly opened Starck Club downtown may be the only nightclub in Western civilization that has gotten national attention for its bathrooms. The facilities look like a combination video game, church parlor, hair salon and somebody's idea of a great practical joke. "The mirror-encased lobbies of both themen's andwomen's rooms arecoed. Everybody sits around high-tech couches and talks and smokes cigarettes. Occasionally,someone may get up to actually use the facilities. "There is a television monitor abovethecathedral-likedoor thatleads to the stalls.Likearrival-departure screens at the airport, the monitor tells you which stall is occupied. Each stall is setoff in its own separateroom large enough to startan impromptu game of handball." Hollandsworth spoke with valet attendant Herman Babers, 60, who worked the men's lounge at another showy nightclub, Mistral, inside the then-Loews Anatole Hotel. "I always thought you were supposed to pop inand out of abathroom," Babers told him. "But these men today like to come in and brush their hair and think about things, I guess." Christopher Wynn"The facilities look like a combination videogame, church parlor, hair salon and somebody's idea of a great practical joke."

For One Night Only, the Kessler Theater Turns Into the Starck Club The infamous night club in the West End opened its doors 40 years ago. The Kessler Theater is bringing it back to life, briefly. The scene at the Starck Club during its peak.

New York City had Studio 54, London had the Hippodrome, and Dallas had The Starck Club. The West End venue, named for its Parisian designer Philippe Starck, defined the nightlife scene in Dallas throughout the 80s and reveled in the excesses of the decadent decade, powered by a new and curious drug called ecstasy. DJ Mark Ridlen says there’s more to The Starck Club than meets history’s narrow eye, a cultural touchstone that meant far more than the unchecked libido of the clubgoers. “All they talk about is the drug busts, ‘Who shot J.R.?,’ and the 80s but you’ve never seen a club with such an eclectic lineup over the years whether it was a band, fashion shows, plays, performance art,” Ridlen says. “You name it. They had it.” The Kessler is bringing back The Starck Club for its 40th anniversary reunion by transforming into the venue for five hours on Sunday May 12 into a new version of the influential Dallas nightclub. Kessler Artistic Director Jeff Liles said the event sold quickly: it took less than a week to sell out. It is not dissimilar to the venue’s tribute to the long-gone Video Bar, a room that was influential in the avant-garde scene of the 1980s. “We love paying homage to the venues that made Dallas culture what it was,” Liles says. “It was happening right at the same time as the emergence of the Deep Ellum scene.” Club founder Blake Woodall opened his vision of a hip, technology-filled nightlife spot in 1984 under a Woodall Rodgers overpass near the West End in a converted warehouse space. The first official show for the club’s investors brought Grace Jones and Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks to its stage. They were the first of many celebrities to walk through its doors, early adopters before Rob Lowe and Princess Stephanie of Monaco. Talking Heads’ David Byrne dropped in while in town to film his movie True Stories. Members of the famed Brat Pack who starred in movies like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink spent evenings there. Prince even hosted an after party at Starck one night that went “well into the morning,” according to David Hynds, who ran the club’s video and art department with his then wife, Suzie Riddle. Word of mouth spread mostly by hairdressers to their clients helped build the club’s reputation as a fashion hot spot for the late-night partier. The Starck Club’s popularity started with some exclusivity but eventually, it wasn’t a place where you had to argue with a bouncer to convince them you were important enough to go past the velvet rope. “Initially, it seemed to have an upper-end feel to it but as time went on, we attracted a much broader range of customers,” Hynds says. “Part of the design and desire was to have a complete mix of all spectrums of people.” The space wasn’t just used for live music, dancing, and the occasional hit of what we now call Molly. The Starck Club was one giant canvas that a got a new coat of paint every evening. “We had these funky theme parties,” Ridlen says. “We would make it look like a grocery store or we would make it look like a rodeo. We’d have these fun themes with appropriate music. We’d always have video exhibits, people showing their art videos. We had events just for that.” ADVERTISEMENT

The club’s first theme party took on the psychedelic. Hynds asked Ridlen if he would create a band that fit its far-out theme. Ridlen’s band was named Lithium X-Mas and the group stayed together long after the club’s closing. “It was only meant to be a one-time deal but a few months down the road, they decided they would carry it forward under that name,” Hynds says. The Starck Club served as a kind of zeitgeist thermometer for its time that reflected changing trends and new sounds. “It was the beginning of the DJ culture in Dallas,” Liles says. The events on the club’s calendar weren’t just concerts. The Starck Club would host fashion shows, plays, and all kinds of performance art. “It was a hotbed of all kinds of just really cool activities under one roof,” Ridlen says. “You would come and see that and then, of course, stick around the music.” No ideas was too off the wall for the Starck Club. Hynds had everyone on the staff pitch ideas for shows, theme nights, and artistic expressions. “One of the things we did was a furniture fashion show,” Hynds says. “It had the basic design of a fashion show instead of clothing, we had people dressed as furniture movers bringing up furniture. Me and Suzie and [Greg Snyodis] from Lithium X-Mas had the idea of doing a band but instead of audio or music, it was visual. Instead of musical instruments, we used visual instruments.” So no recreation of the Starck Club would be complete without a reconstruction of its eclectic style. Camron Ware, the owner and founder of Lightware Labs who provided the visual tech for The Kessler’s recreation of the Video Bar, will work with Hines to turn the Kessler into a visual recreation of the Starck Club. “It’s going to feel like it’s all really immersive when you come in,” Liles says. “There’s going to be a red carpet and everything. We’re really gonna trick out The Kessler that night.” The Kessler turns into the Starck Club for one night only, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on May 12. Tickets are sold out, but keep your eye on this page. 1230 W. Davis St.

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lovecatsys · 1 year ago

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Academy X/Hellions/X Kids Band AU

keno and i were talking abt a potential academy x band AU a while back and then I came up w a very elaborate plot with lots of ideas and headcanons so. here we go.

The Hellions

Julian Keller - lead vocals/main songwriter

Noriko Ashida - lead guitar/songwriter/occasional vocalist

Brian Cruz - rhythm guitar/backing vocalist

Laura Kinney - bassist

Quentin Quire - drums/songwriter

Kevin Ford - percussion & synths (as recurring background/guest musician)

Details/Plot/dynamics/etc under the cut!!

The Backstory

the basic story is that in this AU, they're mutants, superheroes and supervillains still exist, the x men and subsequent teams still exist (and their history is somewhat known) but the kids did not go to the Xavier school and are just mutant kids (mostly) unaffiliated with the X-Men

Julian is a good singer and songwriter, a proud mutant young adult, who wants to start a band. So! he starts the band with his girlfriend (Laura, her backstory is the same she just met Julian and they started dating) and best friend (Brian). Laura has been learning bass for a little while, Brian knows a little guitar, they start to figure out the logistics & gain skill practicing Julian's songs, while looking for more fellow mutant musicians.

They find Nori (her backstory is the same) who's a very talented guitarist and also a songwriter, as well as Quentin, a drummer and songwriter. Both these kids are proud mutants and punks, so they fit along with Julian's ideal vibe for the band.

So! the band cuts a record, their first album, they blow up as a political all-mutant band, pissing off all the right people and gathering a large following of youth, punk, mutant, queer, and counter culture alike.

Julian has always looked up to Emma Frost, and names the band the Hellions after her student team, the rivals of the new mutants.

The Music

The band ranges over a few genres, generally categorized as alternative rock, with punk and industrial elements occasionally.

Julian is considered the "main songwriter" of the band, though Nori and Quentin probably contribute an equal amount of songs. I imagine his voice as being fairly smooth but a bit nasally, with a medium pitch range. His songs are lyrically very sound, and generally stick to an alt rock vibe, with occasional industrial elements (usually due to Kevin's influence/backing musicianship). I'm envisioning him as having a very strong voice. Julian will write about a great many things, generally political messages about anti-mutant sentiment and mutant pride, love and sex (he's such a cheesy romantic), or just whatever. Huge influence for Julian song's vibes is Placebo

Noriko adds an element of electric punk to the band. Her songs are lyrically not very interesting, but she makes up for it in the melodies and her musicianship. Nori has a special guitar designed where she can channel her powers into it and doesn't need to use her gauntlets. This gives her a very unique and HEAVY sound. She also writes about mutanthood and its political aspects, along with other political stuff, womanhood and racism, I'm imagining she has something of a riot grrrl vibe going on (which I've always headcanoned her as being into). Her songs and guitar style in my head are very similar to Nova Twins.

Brian adds a steady contrast to Nori's heavy, unusual guitar sound. His playing is a lot softer and more clear. He does a lot of backing vocals, and there's probably a song or two where he gets to do the lead vocals- either Julian or Quentin may have written a song specifically for him to sing. I imagine he has a very soft and beautiful voice. Though many critics would probably call him the "useless" or least important member of the band, he's actually a very important part of their sound– his rhythms make their sound feel whole in a way. He only really became a musician because Julian wanted to start a band and he wanted to be a part of it, because he loves Julian and in a way almost revolves his life around him, but he becomes an integral part of the band.

Laura has a killer bass line, I imagine she has a great level of precision to her playing, strong hands already skilled from her extensive fighting capability. She may not have learned bass until her late teen years but she got the hang of it really quickly and became a phenomenal bassist. Her bass playing is heavy and precise, and her bass lines aren't exactly the most elaborate, but they're effective and fun (Georgia South from Nova Twins vibes).

Quentin is the most punk member of the band, every song he writes is punk, he is actively part of the subculture, and his mutant pride shines through the most out of all of them. almost all of his songs are political, most often about mutant pride and anti-mutant sentiment, he probably has multiple songs that are about the genocide of Genosha. He also writes a lot about his struggles with mental illness, substance abuse, trauma, and his insecurities. He doesn't sing and generally gives his songs to Julian to sing. He is a very good drummer, his drumming is heavy, loud, and fast– he uses his telekinesis to aid his drum playing. I'm imagining he has an extended drumset he put together himself, and uses psionic drumsticks. However, his drum playing is not as precise as he would like it to be, as he's not a very skilled telekinetic (at least, not like Julian is).

Kevin is not an official member of the band, he's a freelance industrial solo musician who makes all his music himself using a variety of forms of percussion and synths. But as he is an active mutant musician in the alt industry, he collaborates with the Hellions a lot, and Julian, Laura and Brian become close friends to him. He generally works on Julian's songs (or occasionally Nori's) and adds an industrial element to them with synths or various forms of percussion unrelated to a drumset.

I'm also imagining a song where Roxy makes an appearance as a guest rapper.

The Story

After their first album blows up, the band goes on tour and rapidly gains a huge following. They experience a lot of anti mutant sentiment, and protesters at their shows. They generally respond with lots of "f us" and flipping them off. Julian, Nori, and Quentin all use their powers to make all sorts of fantastic displays for the show (who needs light shows when you have telekinesis and electricity manipulation?).

Julian, Nori, and Quentin are the biggest names in the band, and the loudest personalities. They may all be incredible musicians and songwriters who work together very well on stage and in the studio, but they do NOT get along and have massive personality conflicts. It can be pretty playful and ridiculous at times, but it can also lead to serious conflicts that are detrimental to the band. They're all incredibly egotistical and in general don't work together when it comes to deciding who's songs go on the album and who's doing this and that and such.

The band manages to put out two new albums, while experiencing a lot of internal drama, AND on top of that, a lot of anti mutant hate at shows, on the news, on the internet, basically everywhere. Laura realizes she's a lesbian at some point and breaks up with Julian, which causes some heartbreak and conflict, but eventually gets resolved and they remain friends. Brian struggles with depression and feeling like he's useless to the band, he also struggles in his relationship with Julian due to the fact that he's in love with him. Brian also becomes very close to Quentin, and Julian gets jealous, feeling like Quentin, who he's never liked, has stolen his best friend. And well, Nori and Quentin and Julian don't get along, obviously. Quentin also struggles with substance abuse, which becomes more and more serious as the band's history goes on. After their third album comes out at they go on tour, they're already considering breaking up the band due to all of these issues.

On the tour for their third album, the band experiences a serious hate crime- anti mutant bigots organized together and got tickets, pretending to be fans, and bombed the stage during their performance. While no one dies, Julian loses his hands, Brian almost dies, and they all sustain very serious trauma from the incident. While Julian and Brian are in the hospital, recovering, the rest of the band agrees to break up the act. when Julian learns of this, he becomes extremely angry and upset that they made that decision without him.

They all go their separate ways, Brian moves back to Puerto Rico and lives with his family, who help him through the trauma, and he gets therapy. around this time is when Logan dies and Laura takes up the mantel of Wolverine, starting her official career as a superhero. Nori and Quentin both go on to be solo acts. Nori's music becomes even more aggressively political and ANGRY because of the event. Quentin's substance abuse gets progressively worse. Julian retreats into himself and becomes extremely depressed, ashamed of his disability and traumatized by the explosion.

The band remains broken up for a long time, around 4-5 years. During this time, Brian tries to reach out to Julian and help him out when he finds out how terribly depressed his best friend is, but Julian ignores him. Nori eventually decides to do something with all her rage and trauma from anti-mutant bigots, and starts doing activism work for mutants and mutant youth especially. She uses her fame to become a huge figure in the fight for mutant rights, and continues to make political music, though it becomes less heated over time. Quentin eventually gets his shit together and goes sober, and also starts doing some minor activism work, he and Brian also reconnect and date for a little, though they don't make their relationship public and it doesn't last very long, they still remain friends and have a much healthier relationship than they originally did when the band was still together. Laura finds Gabby and finds herself in a very good place in her life for the first time ever as Wolverine (the same basic plot of All new Wolverine happens).

Emma Frost has never actually listened to the Hellions' music, as she knows she would despise it and doesn't want to taint the image of the band in her head, but she's always been aware of them and thinks very fondly of them, especially of Julian, who received public criticism when the band was formed for naming them after the Hellions, who were "supervillains." She was rightfully angered when the concert was bombed, and at some point towards the end of those 4-5 years, she wonders to herself whatever happened to Julian Keller. She seeks him out via cerebro, and when she finds him living incredibly depressed on his own, surviving along only with his residual money from the band's years of fame, she refuses to let it stay that way. She comes into his house one day, paying a bunch of people to clean, giving him prosthetic hands to use with his telekinesis that she had made, and insisting that he needs to get his life together already. She helps him get back up on his feet financially, pays for therapy for him, and encourages him to get back to recording music again (and get a life). Emma basically forces herself into Julian's life and becomes his mentor and mother figure.

Julian starts putting together an album, and meets the love of his life through Emma, a dancer named Sofia Mantega. After his album gets released, and the rest of the band hears about it, they all slowly start to reconnect, keeping it quiet at first, hanging out and catching up, having jam sessions where they play old songs and new songs. They all find that they get along so much more now that they're all in much better places of their lives, though they can still be bitchy and mean and get annoyed with each other, they all build healthier friendships and find that they really missed writing and playing music together.

Eventually they officially announce that the band is back together and will be releasing an album and going on tour soon. Their album is a completely different style and tone than their music was previously. It leans more towards punk and regular rock, and it's a lot more uplifting and cathartic. Lyrically its about overcoming their trauma and not letting the weight of it get them down, continuing despite the fact that anti-mutant hate is still happening. (Placebo's Battle for the Sun is the kind of vibe this situation and musical shift is)

Fans are overjoyed, they make sure to take extra security measures on the tour, and they're all incredibly happy to be back making music with each other again. Their career continues after this, keeping the same new style and generally keeping their music more positive than it used to be. Julian eventually marries Sofia and she features in a few of their music videos as a dancer. Julian also writes many, many songs about Sofia and their relationship and his love for her.

Random Headcanons

Julian has a diva phase, he also wears bright red lipstick and/or a dress on stage multiple times

Quentin leans into his omega gang outfit in the early days, also leans heavily into the omega branding thing

They cover Queen Bitch by David Bowie, alt-ify it and Julian puts his whole pussy into it.

I made a playlist with a few songs that I think capture the style of the band– I do have individual explanations for each song but I've already eluded to some of the artists/albums in this post so I'm not gonna go into it more, feel free to ask though!

#originally i was going to have Brian die in the explosion but i figured thats probably not a good idea #even though his death is canon he is the only black member of the band (or this AU at all)#and his death in canon isn't even something i think should have happened #cw substance abuse #x men #new x men #julian keller #noriko ashida #brian cruz #laura kinney #quentin quire #kevin ford #Spotify #if i posted abt this before and forgot im sorry i have amnesia #but this is a much more coherent and descriptive post

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90363462 · 2 years ago

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NINE INCH NAILS' 'THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL': 8 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, 1994

photograph by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

text DAN EPSTEIN

March 8, 2019

On March 8th, 1994, Nine Inch Nails released The Downward Spiral, a landmark not just for Trent Reznor's career, but for hard, electronic-oriented music in general. Featuring harrowing and uncompromising tracks like "Mr. Self Destruct," "March of the Pigs," "Hurt" and "Closer," which managed the difficult feat of being addictively catchy while also being unbearably intense, the densely layered record has sold almost 4 million copies in the U.S. alone, and influenced just about every dark and edgy metal, hardcore and/or electronic act that came after it.

In 1992, NIN's heavily distorted Broken EP had signaled Reznor's move away from the clean and commercial sounds of 1989's Pretty Hate Machine; now, nearly two years later, it was clear that Reznor's artistic vision had evolved even further. "This time I wanted to make an album that went in 10 different directions, but was all united somehow," he told Guitar World in 1994. "I didn't want to box Nine Inch Nails into a corner, where everything would be faster and harder than the last record ... On this record, I was more concerned with mood, texture, restraint and subtlety, rather than getting punched in the face 400 times."

Most of the album was infamously written and recorded at Le Pig, Reznor's home studio at 10050 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills, the same address where actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and four other people were murdered by followers of Charles Manson. Reznor has insisted many times that he had rented the property before learning of its history. "The reason I was there is because it's a cool, nice house on this beautiful green mountainside that overlooks the whole city from the ocean to the downtown," he told Kerrang! in 1994. "It's really quiet and secluded, yet it's also five minutes from the Whisky …"

"If there was any sort of vibe then it was one of quiet, maybe sadness. But the nice thing about the house, which I feel had nothing to do with what happened there, was that I wouldn't leave it for weeks. The house was on its own, gated in, and once I realized I hated L.A., there was never any reason to leave. That perhaps added to the isolation and claustrophobia of the record."

Here are eight things you might not know about the album.

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1. The album was significantly influenced by David Bowie

Recorded at a time when much of the rock world was looking back to Seventies punk and heavy rock for inspiration, Trent Reznor used David Bowie's moody and atmospheric 1977 masterpiece Low as a guiding light for The Downward Spiral. "I got into Bowie in the Scary Monsters era, then I picked up Low and instantly fell for it," he told Kerrang! "I related to it on a song-writing level, a mood level, and on a song-structure level … I like working within the framework of accessibility, and songs, of course, but I also like things that are more experimental and instrumental, maybe. You may still be expressing extreme emotions, but instead of loud guitars it's the silence of restraint. When you think it's going to explode and it doesn't, it's over."

2. Most of Trent Reznor’s vocal and guitar parts were recorded spontaneously

Despite Reznor's reputation for perfectionism, and the fact that it took a year and a half to complete The Downward Spiral, most of his own vocal and guitar contributions to the album were recorded in a fairly off-the-cuff manner. "The music just flows out of Trent like no one else I've ever known," longtime NIN engineer and mixer Sean Beavan told Sound on Sound in 2012. "As with any great artist, there's a lot of procrastination, but while he's playing [video] games, his brain is still working and at any moment he could come up with something fantastic."

Beavan recalled that he and the other engineers working on the album always had been on their toes, in case Reznor suddenly felt a creative urge. "You had to make sure that one or two mics were always available for him to sing at any given moment," he said. "You captured the moment with him. It might seem that there wasn't a lot of thought behind what he was doing, yet he'd obviously been thinking about it for a long, long time and he would lay down maybe three tracks of the vocal without ever repeating himself. He'd always ad-lib stuff, and after you picked one of the takes he would never allow you to punch in anything less than an entire verse … To his way of thinking, whereas the rhythm should be perfect, the emotion should come from the voice and the guitar. So those things were largely performed in a single take."

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3. “Piggy” may have been about former NIN guitarist Richard Patrick

The fact that The Downward Spiral was recorded at the same house were Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by followers of Charles Manson led many listeners to believe that the lyrics to several of the album's songs were written in reference to the killings. The word "Pig" had been written in blood on the door of the house by one of the killers, so therefore the song "Piggy" — with its chorus of "Nothing can stop me now" — was widely interpreted as being about a mass murderer and his "family." However, former NIN guitarist Richard Patrick (later of Filter) believes the song was actually about the dissolution of his friendship with Reznor.

"When a guy writes a song called 'Piggy' about you, there's obviously tension or some leftover shit," Patrick, who left NIN in 1993 during the recording of The Downward Spiral, told the Sacramento Bee in 2010. "My nickname was Piggy. He's writing songs about me … you know, I wish it hadn't been so complicated and so weird. I wish it would have been a little more fun. Maybe one of these days we'll talk and it'll be OK, but it doesn't feel like it's a friendship, that's for sure."

4. “Ruiner” was Reznor’s least favorite song on the album

With its slamming industrial beats and glitched-out layers of sound, "Ruiner" is one of The Downward Spiral's most compelling tracks. But Reznor admitted to Guitar World in 1994 that he wasn't satisfied with how it came out. "There's always one song per record where you work and work and work, and it just takes a hell of a long time for the song to come together," he explained. "Then you get into the trap of saying, 'Well, I spent so much time on this, it's gotta be good. I've gotta make it work.' It's usually one part that's fucking the whole thing up. And that's usually the part that you think is really great. You'll hear a million playbacks of the song and say, "Man, that part is so fucking cool. Why is the song not happening?' Then finally someone hits the mute button for that part and the song's good. And you realize, 'Oh fuck, it's that part I love so much.'

"So on this record, 'Ruiner' was the hardest song to write. I still don't know if I got it right. I have such a bad vibe from that song now — from it sucking in so many different ways."

5. Reznor was originally unsure about keeping “Closer”’s most famous line

The infamous howl of "I want to fuck you like an animal!" has made "Closer" a favorite of strippers — and the bane of conservative pundits — for a quarter of a century. So it's kind of surprising to learn that Reznor originally had severe misgivings about including the line in the song. "Trent was actually worried that 'I wanna fuck you like an animal' sounded too trite, even though it was the thing that everyone would relate to," Beavan told Sound on Sound. "He was always so concerned about making 'real art' that he'd wrestle with the people-friendly aspects. Still, he obviously reconciled himself to that line, because we kept it."

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6. “Big Man With a Gun” includes an audio sample of live-in-the-studio girl-on-girl sex

The Downward Spiral contains a variety of non-musical samples, including audio snippets from the films Texas Chainsaw Massacre, THX-1138 and Robot Jox. "Big Man With a Gun" also includes a sample that's credited to Tommy Lee, though it had nothing to do with Lee's work with Mötley Crüe.

In Tommyland, his 2004 autobiography, Lee recalled bringing several porn stars (including a woman with a well-earned reputation as a "squirter") to A&M Studios — where Reznor was working at the time — as a "birthday present" for NIN bassist Danny Lohner. "I bring the girls across the hall into the Nine Inch Nails studio," Lee recalled, "lay them out on Trent's grand piano, say, 'Dudes, set up the mikes, get some grapes, roll the tape and have a seat. You're not gonna believe this.' The girls take the grapes and stick them in the squirter's pussy only to suck them out and stick more in."

Said "squirter"'s moans of pleasure were picked up by the studio mics, and subsequently appended to the beginning of "Big Man With a Gun." "They reversed it and fucked with the tone of it," Lee explained. "But if you listen closely you can hear her."

7. Reznor didn’t think the album had any commercial potential

It's not uncommon for recording artists to lose perspective on their work, especially after months and months in the studio. When Reznor finally delivered the completed version of The Downward Spiral to Interscope Records in late 1993, he was happy with the finished product — but also completely convinced that it was entirely devoid of hit potential.

"When I handed the record into Interscope, I recall apologizing to them because I thought it had no commercial, 'single' potential," he told Alternative Press in 2004. "I loved the record, but I felt sorry for them having to try and sell it. As soon as [lnterscope president] Jimmy Iovine heard 'Closer,' he said it was a hit. That's when I knew he was crazy, and it goes to show what I know."

Indeed. Not only did the album reach No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — it was only kept off the top spot by Soundgarden's Superunknown, which had been released the same day — and go on to reach quadruple platinum status in the U.S., but "Closer" became a genuine radio hit (albeit in a censored version) in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia.

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8. Reznor was initially weirded out by Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt”

Country legend Johnny Cash's Rick Rubin–produced 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around featured new interpretations of country classics mixed with some stunning reworkings of contemporary material — the most stunning being Cash's moving cover of "Hurt," which received considerable airplay on both country and alternative radio stations, and earned the Country Music Association's coveted "Single of the Year" award in 2003. Though Reznor gave Rubin his blessing to have Cash cover "Hurt," he recalled to Alternative Press that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky to me," and that Cash's interpretation of his song initially "sounded … weird to me."

"That song in particular was straight from my soul, and it felt very strange hearing the highly identifiable voice of Johnny Cash singing it. It was a good version, and I certainly wasn't cringing or anything, but it felt like I was watching my girlfriend fuck somebody else," he said. It wasn't until he saw Mark Romanek's video for Cash's version that everything clicked for him.

"I pop the video in, and ... wow. Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps ... Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore. Then it all made sense to me. It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. Some-fucking-how that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure. Things felt even stranger when he passed away. The song's purpose shifted again. It's incredibly flattering as a writer to have your song chosen by someone who's a great writer and a great artist."

Nine Inch NailsTrent Reznor

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p1xel-1mp · 2 months ago

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Well I suppose if you gonna force me...

The ones I’ve had for the longest, in order of how old they are:

• Art; what can I say? It’s my main personality trait and has been as far back as I can remember.

• Cartoons; as a kid, we had a decent sized collection of dvds that we kept in one of those massive dvd holder things. So while most kids my age grew up on disney channel or nickelodeon, which I did too, I was mainly raised on the classics. Bugs bunny, daffy duck, tweety bird and pretty much all the looney tunes characters, chip and dale, ducktales (that one kind of scared me when i was young? Idk why) old school disney (I remeber we had bambi on bluray), but most of all, tom and jerry. A strong love of cartoons and animation in general has kind of been there my whole life.

• Folklore & mythology; ever since I was little, I loved fairytales and all the stories my mum and her family and friends would tell about brazillian folklore like the Curupira or the Mapinguari. As I got older and learnt that other cultures and places all had their own folktales and mythologies, my childhood fasination grew to include them too.

• Comics; my grandma would always send me and my sister comics, the main two ones were Turma da Monica and Luluzinha, in order for us to practice reading Portuguese. Not kidding or exaggerating or anything, we read them so much that most of them literally ended up distergrating. Eventually it was just a pile of loose pages and covers, half of which were ripped.

• Dragons; All the different kinds from the traditional beast with four legs two wings and fire breathing, to their depiction in most asian countries as spirits with longer, more snake-like bodies and mesoamerican gods described as “feathered serpants“ and all the others I haven’t yet mentioned. How To Train Your Dragon unlocked something in 8 yr old me. I would love to elaborate more but I very much will derail this whole thing.

First ones:

• Pretty much all the ones I’ve said

• I was OBSSESED with Diego and Dora the explorer from infant until like, seven i think? I thinkba part of it was the fact she was also South American.

• Yes I was a horse girl until I was like 12 or 13, yes I made my obssession with horses a decent chunk of my personality, no you do not get to make fun. My dad’s family lived in a rural area and had horses when he grew up, my uncle and his partner still own some. Plus I watched Spirit. I was a kid and I thought it was pretty cool and I will not apologise for that.

• I really liked fairies and mermaids and unicorns (magic horses), they were the subject of most of my picture books and made up games and stories. I’d ask my parents to tell me a “made up“ bedtime story (as opposed to one from a book) except I was in charge of pretty much every decision and would tell them exactly who was in it and what was gonna happen. They always included faries, mermaids and unicorns. Always.

Current

• I’ve gotten pretty into fashion the last year or so, especially alt fashion. Idk I think the culture and history around it is super interesting and I love the values that come with it. Its really good for self expression which I had trouble figuring out before. It’s really helped me come into my own.

• In that same vein, alt subcultures in general, especially punk.

• As for fandoms I kind of drift in and out of them, but dc, especially batman and friendstm (the batgang?), has been a consistant staple since what? 2021?

• Oh and I’ve gotten One Piece recently which is fun

• History; Especially ancient history because modern history is more about political figures whereas I like learning about all the different cultures of the past, some of my favourites that we’ve learnt abt is the rock and roll (which was the first ever subculture btw) phenomenon of the teenagers in the 1950s and the danes (the ’vikings’).

Which ones shaped me the most:

Idk, I think they all kind of contributed to who I turned out to be.

I’ve been thinking lately abt hyperfixations and how they come and go, how they change with you as you grow and discover yourself. So to all my ✨darling mutuals✨ and anyone who sees this and wants to share:

What is your oldest/longest lasting hyperfixation/s?

What are your first ones (that you remember ofc) vs your current ones?

And even if you don’t engage with it as much anymore, which one/s helped shape you the most to who you’ve become?

No pressure or anything tho, this is just for fun and my love of listening to people gush abt things that they find interesting or make them happy. Make it as wordy or short as you want <3

@s0lace-1n-s0l1tude @bananaede @avogadrostoast6022 @maggot-sperm

#tag games

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bikinikillarchives · 3 years ago

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an article by Jill Reiter from Outpunk Magizne, about her 1994 film “In Search of Margo-Go”, that starred Kathleen Hanna.

“ In 1994, Jill Reiter began a feature starring Kathleen Hanna, called IN SEARCH OF MARGO-GO. Her playful synth-punk romp re-envisioned NYC club culture as an acid-hued comic book, equal parts LIQUID SKY and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. Reiter recently collaborated with animator Katie Bush to finish the film after two decades. “

transcript under cut !

1 :

In Search of Margo-Go

The idea for the movie came about when Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill) was visiting NYC a year and a half ago. We got dressed up like total freaks and called ourselves neo-new romantics and ran around the streets of NYC. We were discussing this zine that my friend Iraya Robles had done about the early punk days of the Go-Go's (Mark's in Time). I mentioned that Margot Olavarria, the original bass player for the Go-Go's, lived only three blocks away from my apartment. The title “In Search of Margo-Go” at first was a really random title, but as the movie idea developed, it came to mean: searching for role models that aren't the obvious ones – digging deeper and uncovering information about women who did a lot of cool stuff in the early punk and nu-wave scenes but weren't recognized because they didn't get famous, or maybe just cause they were women. A lot of their contributions are buried or lost because the records or zines are out of print. Some of the music wasn't documented at all, (i.e – film, recorded, written about.) We were all really into the Go-Go's as teens. But there is a lot we never knew about them. They were originally part of the late seventies punk scene, and Margot was the Go-Go that didn't want to sell out, so they kicked her out of the band and became “America's Sweethearts.”

The movie pays homage to a lot of things from the eighties that we were inspired by, such as totally wacked out do-it-yourself low budget music and fashion, and the comic book Love and Rockets. It also references the movies “Liquid Sky” and “The Hunger”. Those two movies were some of the few movies that had actual lesbian images of werido people we thought we could identify with more that those in “Desert Hearts”, but even those movies were sadly lacking in many [?]. In Search Of Margo-Go is also an antidote to the John Hughes movies like “Sixteen Candles”, “Pretty in Pink”, that so many freaky queer youth in the eighties watched, looking desperately to see themselves reflected in the media, but never quite feeling legitimized because on the lack of queers in films at the time. Imagine “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald as a dyke.

This movie is important to do because I want there to be movies for dykes that reflect my lesbian sensibility, which is quite different from mainstream lesbian culture. There are hardly any lesbian movies that are campy a la John Waters. I am really into kitschy aesthetic and it is really fun to make a movie about dykes that is crazy and colorful.

In Search of Margo-Go

is part tragicomedy, part costume drama, part queerpunk porno.

I wanted to talk about the idea of collective film-making that we are creating as we make the film. The whole film, from the writing to the planning and filming is a collaborate effort of many amazing woman (and a few cool boys). Most of the people involved other than some of the tech crew have never made a film before. We were into the process of learning by doing with women who had access to film school or have certain skills teaching other women on the set. It's Punk Rock film-making, proving that you don't have to be a film school graduate to make a film.

The Soundtrack.

Myself, Iraya Robles of the band Sta-Prest and Kathleen Hanna are contributing to the soundtrack. The soundtrack is exciting, because all these cool people are going to Nu-Wave music for the soundtrack, no matter what their normal music style is. Potential contributors so far are Kicking Grant, Cheesecake, Phranc (was in a punk bands Nervous Gender and Catholic Discipline). We want to expose unsung heroes in punk music by having a lot of all-female Nu-Wave bands that inspired us (Bound and Gagged, The Inflatable Boy Clams, and The Varve), on the soundtrack. We'd like to re-release their music from obscure out of print singles or albums. We also wanted to have some of these people do some new music for the soundtrack (Josie Cotton- who did “Johnnie Are You Queer” and was in the movie “Valley Girl”) and Robin Johnson (from the movie “Times Square), and others too exciting to mention.’

2: Kathleen and I did a little self interview about the movie, but I didn't have a tape recorder, so the stuff she says isn't in her exact words...

Kathleen – When I saw the John Hughes movies as a teen, it was really frustrating because the same sex characters always gave each other these longing looks, and so many of them appeared to be gay, but then at the end of the movie it was a total mindfuck and letdown, cause the boy and girl always ended up together. There was never any passion between the male/female characters, and it always seemed wrong that they ended up together.

Jill – Movies are a fantasy outlet to escape into and many mainstream movies have happy, ‘feelgood' endings. But Hollywood's idea of a happy ending is my idea of a horrible one – i.e the fag boy ends up with the tomboy girl. One reason to make this movie is to finally have control and to be able to make a movie end the way we want for once, and have the girl get the girl . It was so frustrating as a teen. I was really isolated from other gay people and I really looked to movies for role models and a legitimization of my freaky lifestyle. It was bad enough that I was surrounded by straight people and I could never end up with the girl, but to see these characters in movies that gave off gay signals or just that I was all crushed out end with a character of the opposite sex just made me feel even more isolated

ON MOLLY RINGWALD Kathleen – When I used to see all the John Hughes movies with Molly Ringwald in them, I had to totally displace my emotions. I had this boyfriend and I was all jealous cause in my head I thought that he wanted to fuck her. Really I did, but I was too unconformable and anxiety ridden about queerness so I had to describe it internally in a het way.

#kathleen hanna #Jill Reiter #in search of margo-go #Iraya Robles #1994 #outpunk #i know this is kathleen not bk sorry :(#writings

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denkisauce · 4 years ago

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hi hi so i like many others have headcanons for next gen kids and i wanted to share my kamishin kid bc i LOVE him and have so many headcanons for him. he's very fleshed out so click that mf keep reading 😤😤🔥✨-> ->

so this all started with my quirk fusion idea — This boy is an instance of quirk singularity combining quirks to a dangerous degree. His quirk is that he can manipulate the electricy in someone else's brain— so essentially “fuck up your brain” The Quirk. this can range short circuiting other people to straight up, on the spot murdering someone with 0 fight at all. Just. Insta-kill. its very dangerous and since it’s sort of impossible for him to train without risk, he is essentially quirkless.

Its hard for him though, to live in this superpowered world where he’s powerless but also secretly incredible powerful? not many people know the truth about his quirk

this is one part anxiety but also a conscious decision on him and his dads’ parts. while prohero kids are out of the spotlight, kamishin is quirkless as far as the public knows, for his own protection bc of the fear that villains would try to take advantage of him/any negative attention he recieve

while all of this definitely gives him angst and issues, it helps that he has two really great and loving dads <3 (and pro hero aunts and uncles ��)

he takes after shinsou a lot with the quirk angst. he's feared turning villainous or hurting people and stuff 🥺. but it helps a lot to have a dad who Gets it and bc shinsou understands him he definitely has an easier time with his issues <3

the first time his quirk manifested was luckily on denki and everyone was very confused. like, is denki bceoming so talented he can short circuit without activating his powers? ehh... nope 🙃 the second time it happened was against his kindergarten teacher — he put her in a coma for like three days and thats when things got serious. i know this is effed up but im sorry that's like his whole deal :/ :/

The other more fun stuff!

deku is his favorite uncle :) between the relatability of growing up quirkless and the positive vibes he just loves him. also deku has brainstormed positive ways to use his quirk but its still too risky to try but kamishin appreciates ☺

he's also really close with eri! she's a very cool younger aunt and their quirk manifestation origins are kind of similar in the hurting people department so she's VERY protective of him. if theres anyone he could train with itd be her, but he doesn't want to risk it. and despite deku's encouragement, his quirk is dangerous

personality wise he takes after shinsou more, but not entirely! he’s definitely more energetic and spunky

oh he’s a bitch in the best of ways

he has Kaminaris pick up line tendencies but it fucking WORKS??? yeah he's a bastard and a flirt

childhood friends with the kiribaku kid but lately there’s definitely been something more between them??? sparks are flying 👀👀

being a hero's not really an option for him but he’s cool with that. he has a pretty deep seeded fear of his own power. i have to make a separate Krbk kid post but kiribakus son is also not interested! they kind of bond over it. they both love their dads but think they’re kind of lame lol

His favorite pro hero is dynamite ☺️ like it says in the pic this is one part to piss of his dads and the kiribaku kid lol but also he loves how headstrong bakugou is

has kamis adhd but shinsous smarts

a real science nerd, in a bookish way but also in a lets-experiment-with-getting-electrocuted-way

he's planning on going into quirk research. he's smart and sciency and is obviously very personally invested in learning and contributing to the quirk sciences!

oh he a music boy!! In a band with momojirou kid -- just look at that fucking punk

its hard to see in the pic but he has gold freckles 🥺🥺

i dunno that's all i have for now!! i love him!!

#ive always vibed the most with kami and shinsou so making this character just felt really RIGHT #not even that this kid is like me bc he's p different #i just vibe with him too ya no??#also i LOVE the kiribaku kid and have to make another post #spoilers i have two kiribaku kids and while this one doesn’t wanna be a hero the younger one does!#kamishin #bnha next gen #shinkami #kamishin kid #shinkami kid #bnha fusions #bnha fusion #bnha original character #bnha oc #mha original character #mha oc #mha next gen #my stuff #my arts

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

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These are “outtakes” from Billie Joe’s 2010 Out Magazine interview. The link is still up, but for some reason they took out his answers about masculinity and femininity????? And those are obviously the most interesting answers! Anyway, here’s the whole thing I had saved in a doc

March 19, 2010

Billie Joe Armstrong Tells All

Photo: Kurt Iswarienko

Our April Broadway issue features Green Day's front man Billie Joe Armstrong chatting about music, politics, and the new musical, <i>American Idiot,</i> based on the band's last two albums. The writer of the piece (and former Popnography editor) Shana Naomi Krochmal filed the following exclusive extras from her interview with Armstrong that didn't make it into the piece. In them, Billie Joe touches on masculinity, his queer influences, and meeting Lady Gaga:

ON MASCULINITY:

Out: Is masculinity important to you?

Billie Joe Armstrong: I think it can come in handy, if it’s used the right way.

What’s the right way?

I think you learn a lot from Little League baseball. Like how to be a good team player, what do you do in situations when you’re at bat and it’s just you and another person. When you lose, how do you deal with losing? When you win, are you a good winner? And a graceful winner? How do you contribute to a team situation selflessly? I think there’s a lot of leadership skills in that. I don’t know if that’s masculinity or just good leadership or just life lessons. I just used Little League baseball because it’s male dominated.

Do your kids play?

They did. My oldest is done now, and my youngest one does. It was a real good bonding experience. I think masculinity is a lot more feminine than people give it credit for. Or it can be. Jim Morrison seemed very masculine to me, but also completely feminine at the same time. That balance in between -- and it’s not those morons on the bus in Borat. That’s not masculinity, that’s insecurity at its worse. Masculinity is something that women can have.

What is feminine about you?

I’m not sure. Let me think. It’s all about being a well rounded a person. I think being a singer is very feminine. Being a singer is a very feminine thing -- performing is definitely. Women have a lot more courage I think than men do, in a lot of ways -- if you think about what Madonna does or Lady Gaga or Beyonce. Women have a much easier time of reinventing themselves than I think men do. Hmm, I think -- a little bit of eyeliner. [Laughs] But I think there’s a big difference between vanity and femininity. I think that feminine side has served me a lot more than my masculine side has in a lot of ways.

ON PERFORMING AT THE GRAMMYS:

That was such a great night. There’s a whole thing where you’re worried about the awards part of it, and it can make you kind of irritable, kind of stressed out. But the great thing is that we had a chance to play with the cast, which has never really been done before.

ON THE MOST EMOTIONAL PARTS OF THE SHOW:

When Rebecca [Naomi Jones] sings “Letterbomb,” that really blows me away. The scene where Tunny’s on the gurneys and they’re singing “Before the Lobotomy.” And “Last Night on Earth” is an amazing scene with the couple doing this heroin dance. Tony [Vincent] is singing the song -- the first verse while they’re slamming smack -- and then the next verse is Mary coming out with a baby that she’s had with a guy who turns out to be a loser father. I get chills thinking about it right now. The juxtaposition between the two scenes is like -- wow.

ON WRITING AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL:

I’d definitely be interested in it. I think we’re in a really rare situation where this is gaining momentum. I don’t want to screw it up by working on something else. I’d love to do something with Michael [Mayer]. I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to score a film -- but this, this is even more special, I think.

ON KNOWING TOO MUCH:

When you start getting into politics, what I’ve realized is that if it seems to be black and white, it’s shooting off into so many different directions. You can’t really keep up with what’s happening in the House of Representatives. Things like Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, troops in Afghanistan, financial crisis -- even Tiger Woods. It seems to be one thing after the next.

ON HIS QUEER INFLUENCES:

My uncle. There were different punk singers, from a guy named Cretin Chaos in Social Unrest to guys like Morrissey. And also guys that would genderbend a little, like Bowie, or Mike Ness from Social Distortion wearing makeup. I’ve always liked music that was non-gender specific, like the Replacements song called “Androgynous.” It was just always those little things or people that were willing to make you think, whoa, that’s not what I’m hearing on the radio these days.

ON MEETING LADY GAGA AT THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS:

She had this outfit on -- she had so much shit on her when she walked by! She couldn’t move her arm because she was going on to do her performance, and it was like shaking hands with someone in a cast. She had this handler that was like, “Don’t touch the costume! Don’t touch the costume!” She said something about how she loved Dookie so much she used to lick the pages. I thought it was really cool. She’s influencing a lot of young people, and she’s doing it in a way that’s provocative. And a lot of people don’t realize that she’s an artist, and she’s been one for a really long time. She’s taking something that Bowie or Madonna did and taking it a step further.

ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “PUNK ROCK”:

That’s like a 10 part answer. I think of it as something that you need to have of your own. For me it’s about community. I think it’s kind of spiritual in its own way, because people fight over it so much and the meaning of it. It’s a sense of self-discovery. But also a new set of ideas and a new poetry, a new music that you discover that you notice that no one else is really into, or goes against what other people are normally into. It’s like you’re free to be an individual and taking on new ideas and challenging old ideas. I think it has a lot to do with burning down the establishment to create something new. But at the same time, you find relationships within that too. It’s something that’s supposed to empower you. It’s about starting something new. Part of the problem with a lot of punk rock is that people believe that it’s supposed to be one thing. Everything for me starts off with punk rock when I’m writing songs -- it’s almost like I’m stripped down to the bare bones of music again. It’s kind of in my DNA in this point.

ON HIS WIFE, ADRIENNE:

She’s great. She’s beautiful. Without her, I don’t know what I’d do. She empowers me to challenge myself in a lot of ways. She inspired the song “American Idiot” by playing me this Midnight Oil song that she really loved. She runs a store called Atomic Garden, all about sustainable living. She’s really active in NRDC, politically. Sometimes I think she’s a hell of a lot more interesting and a cooler person than I am.

ON HIS “MISERABLE” HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

Academically you have to completely re-figure out how to prioritize your life. And suddenly you feel like the whole fucking world is against you because they’re prioritizing for you. And it’s forced on you. And if you don’t get it at that age, if you don’t catch it -- that’s what happened to me, I didn’t prioritize anything. I just got to a breaking point where it was like, by my later high school years, “You’re all full of shit anyway. Everyone’s full of shit. I know what I’m doing, and fuck school, and fuck schoolwork, and I’m not going to go to fucking college anyway, and I’m gonna play in a rock band, and you’re all gonna be sorry.” You get vengeful -- it’s a natural instinct, all those hormones going and shit.

ON BEING HAPPIER AT AGE 38:

I kind of feel like things are getting better. It goes in stages. I loved my early twenties. I hated my late twenties. I was a drunk. I was trying to figure out how to be a father, a husband, but I still wanted to live my life like a crazy punk rock rock star. You start noticing things about yourself. You have to change your health habits. But you don’t want to change. In your twenties, change is hitting you over the head whether you like it or not. Right when I got to about 30 I was like, thank God that’s over. But it gets complicated again.

#Billie: 'Masculinity is something that women can have'#Me: 'OmG hE's TaLkInG aBoUt Me'#article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

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theonlinemuse · 5 years ago

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So @lesbianmaxevans and I have been discussing how there’s very little backstory for Dani Powell on the show and we decided to contribute to the tags by coming up with our own headcanons for her:

Dani is a nickname obviously, but instead of Danielle or Danika, it’s short for Danys, a unisex Haitian Creole name. She only gets called Danys if she’s in trouble

Malcolm giggles whenever that happens and Dani threatens to put her cold hands on him if he tries calling her that

Malcolm learned her middle name the same day he met her middle sister, New York County Court Judge Naomie Powell, who barged into the precinct after an incident where Dani got hurt and went, “Danys Eliana Powell, if you’re going to give our family a heart attack, at least pick up your phone!”

Her dad is Haitian (I still say that episode 5 should’ve delved into this with Dani and her backstory) and her mom is Jewish. Dani and her sisters were all raised Jewish

Dani doesn’t regularly go the synagogue, but it’s tradition for the Powells to go to services during major holidays

Dani and JT explaining Jewish holidays to everyone

Powell wasn’t her dad��s original last name. Her dad and grandma came to New York from Port au Prince in the late 70s and their original last name was Poirot. Grandma Eliana kept the name, but her dad changed it to Powell when he started university

She’s the youngest of three girls in the family. Her oldest sister Mona is played by Meta Golding while middle sister Naomie is played by Sydney Tamiia Poitier

Naomie was the sister who suffered from night terrors after getting into a bad car accident as a teenager and Mona and Dani would often take turns looking after her. This is how Dani knew how to deal with Malcolm

Dani is bisexual. She and Edrisa went on a date before deciding to be friends and Edrisa likes to joke about them being exes much to Malcolm’s confusion

“When did you even break up?” “We didn’t, technically. We just went go karting and had lunch at Zabar’s before we realized Dani was wayyyy too much like an aloof little sister to me.”

And this is totally a crack headcanon, but after seeing Jurnee Smollett-Bell playing Black Canary in Birds of Prey, Dani and Dinah Lance are now cousins. Their moms, Zipporah and Dinah Senior were sisters

Dani and Dinah may be Jewish, but they don’t keep kosher all the time. They don’t eat pork, but they’re absolutely weak against shellfish, much to their moms’ dismay

Chaotic bi Dinah and distinguished bi Dani

Imagine Dani going undercover in Dinah’s band and them singing the Birds of Prey song from Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Dani can rock the punk rock aesthetic. Dinah makes her wear fishnet stockings, red lipstick, a corset over a dark lace shirt, and gold metallic temp tattoos. Malcolm has a heart attack

And then Dani starts singing and he’s a goner because he’s only ever hear her sing old songs from the 30s to 50s and there’s something powerful and sensual about her singing punk rock music. He’s not ready for it

JT teases the hell out of him, but he soon shuts up when Dani and Dinah bring Tally into the mix. Edrisa records the whole thing, as well as Malcolm and JT’s expressions. Gil ends up using it to keep Malcolm and JT from doing anything too outrageous

Grandma Eliana would sing old jazz and méringue songs to Dani and her sisters when they were little so Dani ended up with the habit of singing them absently whenever she’s focused on a task, usually when she’s doing her hair

Dani grew up listening to songs from the 30s, 40s, and 50s due to grandma Eliana always playing her extensive vinyl collection. She didn’t really get to listen to modern music until she was in middle school

In addition to jazz and swing, Dani’s surprisingly good at disco. It didn’t help that her dad often played Boney M and Earth Wind and Fire during her childhood

She used to joke that the Powell family is decades behind in their taste in music. Dani doesn’t listen to many modern songs, but she likes singing along to Yonce as well as Janelle Monae songs like Electric Lady and Sally Ride

Make Me Feel becomes Dani and Dinah’s bi anthem

Malcolm once caught her singing and he keeps trying to catch her again. He’s lucky to listen for five seconds before she kicks him out of the bathroom

Dani’s a bit of a tea expert thanks to grandma Eliana, who taught her many different ways of making tea. Other than Earl Grey, Dani’s favourites include grandma Eliana’s ginger tea and pomegranate tea

And I’m not just saying that last one because I saw tags about a Brightwell Hades and Persephone AU

She loves tea flavoured desserts as well. She often gets a glazed Earl Grey donut for breakfast on Monday mornings when she needs a little pick me up

She changes up the glaze depending on her mood. Lavender for when she’s stressed, balsamic and pomegranate for when she’s in a good mood, blueberry for when she’s irritated or stuck on a case, brown butter for when she’s tired, and caramel with blood orange zest for when she’s ready punch a dick

In the summer, she loves Thai iced tea popsicles and matcha green tea popsicles dipped in chocolate

Dani isn’t as big of a coffee drinker as she is a tea drinker, but if she has to have coffee, it’s always a cinnamon mocha with a shot of espresso

She can cook, but because of her schedule, she mostly sticks with quick to make dishes like grilled cheese and spaghetti. She likes spicing things up though, thanks to growing up with her dad and grandma’s cooking

Every Hanukkah, Dani always gets roped into preparing the desserts with Zipporah since her dad, grandma, and oldest sister are in charge of cooking. Dani’s the first to admit that she’s not a cook, but she’s gotten good at making sweets, even if she doesn’t always have the patience for it. Eight nights a year is her limit

Malcolm as a foodie bemoans this and his trying to broaden her food choices slowly becomes a thing

The look of horror on his face when he sees her chow down on a double beef bacon mushroom burger, poutine, chocolate pecan pie and a strawberry milkshake in one sitting is priceless

And Dani loves seafood, especially shellfish which Malcolm can’t have because it gives him hives

Dani was a bit of a trouble maker in elementary school, but for good reason. She stuck gum in a classmate’s hair because she stole her favourite scratch and sniff stickers and lied about it. And she once kicked a football player where the sun don’t shine because he was being a dick to her

She dressed like Kimberly Hart from the Power Rangers movie in high school, though she did have a goth phase for about two weeks in freshman year. She was trying to channel Wednesday Addams. She was definitely a bit of a rebel style wise. Malcolm was most definitely a nerd

Ironically, Dani’s the one with poor eyesight. She only wears glasses if there’s no more contacts and they’re a chunky pair that’s similar to Edrisa’s glasses

Dani does have some secret nerdy traits, she knows how to code thanks to her sister Naomie going to coding camp for five consecutive summers

And like Kay, Dani has some artistic tendencies too. She grew up with outdoor art programs that encouraged her to paint

She’s fluent in French. She, her sisters, and their paternal cousins went to a bilingual language school thanks to grandma Eliana’s influence

Dani also did competitive figure skating as a kid. She actually made it to the Junior Grand Prix finals. She got silver

There’s recordings of her competition routines on YouTube somewhere and she actually goes undercover as a figure skater for a case. Gil acts as her coach because he actually used to skate as well

She also did some cross training in ballet as well since her godmother is a well known ballerina turned dance teacher. There are a lot of pics of Dani in her early teens of her in a leotard and tights with curls escaping her ballet bun

She has an old injury that often acts up when the weather is cold. She broke her leg pretty badly in high school due to an accident in gym class. She got knocked off the balance beam when they were doing gymnastics and had to be rushed to the hospital for surgery

She prefers horror and thrillers to action movies, but she likes period pieces too. Belle is a recent favourite of hers

Dani likes Star Trek because her dad is the biggest sci-fi nerd and it was a big part of her childhood. She also grew up as a fan of Eartha Kitt because of him after he made her watch 1960s Batman reruns with him

As a result, she wanted to name her first kid after Eartha. She eventually nicknames her first daughter Kit because of this

Dani actually introduced Tally to JT. They were roommates in college (Dani majored in social work while Tally studied chemistry) and they went to the same synagogue

Tally designated Dani as godmother after she and JT had twin girls. She was the sandeket at Noa and Miri’s simchat bat

She practices Krav Maga, she and Dinah both learned it in high school, though Dani always says that Dinah had more of a natural talent for it

Dinah also did kickboxing and gymnastics and Dani ended up tagging along her lessons. She doubled as a coach and sparring partner

She and her sisters dressed up as magical girls for Halloween when they were little and the new Charm reboot is like reliving their childhood

She wraps her hair for sleep with funny and colourful scarves that Naomie always gives as gag gifts, a tradition that started when they were preteens

She’s dyslexic, but she wasn’t diagnosed until middle school. She had difficulty memorizing things so she got into a habit of carrying a recorder with her. She also has her phone and computer set to dyslexia friendly fonts and listens to a lot of audio books

It’s also the reason she sometimes makes mistakes when she’s dancing. She sometimes mixes up left and right

She also had trouble learning French at first because of this

Dani can hold her liquor, but after four drinks, she becomes a giggly drunk who randomly speaks French and sings 90s rock songs

She also suddenly gains a sweet tooth when sober Dani doesn’t usually go for sweets. Luckily Malcolm has a few lollipops stashed away for when this happens

Dani did a brief modelling stint back in college to help out her cousin, who was in fashion school at the time. She mostly modelled for women’s wear and book covers. She even posed for a couple of historical romance covers

Malcolm may have accidentally come across it thanks to his mom. Jessica might have been a little smug when she told him to fetch the book from where she left it. The look on his face was priceless

Dani ends up recreating a cover for a case. Edrisa makes Malcolm pose with her. She takes so many pictures

Given that Malcolm has Sunshine, it’s ironic that Dani owns a cat. It’s a mischievous black cat named Shuri and she loves climbing things, especially Malcolm

#Prodigal Son #Dani Powell

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voidcat · 4 years ago

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– Hostile, Thoughtful

Summary: It is the last gig Micah gets to play with the band, before he returns back to America. Simon has never made it to one of their gigs and promises Penny to be there tonight. – punk band au; Penny on drums, Baz as vocalist and bassist, Micah as the guitarist

Word Count: 1.5k

Characters: Simon Snow / Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, Penelope Bunce, Micah Cordero

A/N: The punk band idea came to mind with CSH songs mostly and I wrote this with Deadlines (Hostile) in mind. The lyrics are in bold and italic.

Dedicating this to B. (just like any CSH related work I do) This AU wouldn’t be a thing without you <3 – ao3

It all starts with the drums and the moment he opens his mouth.

Here is Simon Snow, at a little pub on a Friday night. Finally accepting one of the many invitations Penny actually took the time to write down on paper to attend one of her band's gigs. He knew before she could play the drums and knowing Penny, it was a guarantee she was amazing at it. But he never had the time to see them live until tonight.

“Come on Simon! This is Micah’s last gig with us before he returns back to America. You owe us at least this one visit!” Penny said one day in the middle of their study date and who was he to deny and tell her no. And frankly, he had been wanting to see them live for quite some time, the never ending tales of their rehearsals and gig mishaps…

So he finds a way to escape Dean Mage’s grasp and attention tonight and finds himself at the crowded pub, waiting for his friends to get on stage.

He can see Penny and Micah going up first, setting up their instruments and doing some sound check. As he watches them discuss amongst themselves, it occurs to him that he never met the third member of the band. Was that the vocalist? Or the bassist?

I think Penny had told me the bloke was both of these things, he thinks. Sure, maybe he isn’t that into the whole music act but even he knows that’s quite unusual and sounds a bit stuck up.

Most people in the pub are there to enjoy their Friday evening with friends over a few drinks but he can see the people checking the stage with their eyes every few minute, they must’ve gathered an audience for themselves after all that playing. Didn’t Penny say they usually do song covers though?

He is interrupted from his thoughts he hears the heavy “thud” of a boot stepping onto the stage suddenly. Long stylish hair, dark clothes to surround his figure and fit him perfectly as if they were tailored just for him. Dark paint around the eyes and upper half of his face, what was it that Penny said about that disguise? He cannot remember. The nonchalant walk up to Penny to exchange a few words and then putting on his bas and tapping on the mic to check if it’s on. Yep, that must be the vocalist/bassist. He seems a bit too posh to be in a heavily punk themed band. But Simon cannot deny the fact that he seems to be fit and good looking. The black paint seems to highlight his sharp features under the dim lighting. The purple glitter spread over his cheekbones, adding a pinch of not-so-needed charisma and doing his face wonders.

They begin without a word or a warning. Only Penny hitting her drumsticks in rhythm, an unsaid “and two-three-four!” hanging in the air.

I never see the threat too soon

The moment he starts singing, Simon feels something shift in the air surrounding him.

The blood on the bandage, the ghost in the room

His throat runs dry, as if he is the one on stage, performing in front of hundreds of eyes.

Got a canvas as white as the moon / But when I see it at night, it's a sickening blue

The vocalist’s voice is low so far and it feels a fuzzy feeling on his skin. Leaves Simon aching, searching for something he cannot name.

I was thinking people never change / But there's a new taste of dread that I cannot explain And the thoughts that make up my life / Get reflected in others from time to time

The guitar enters, the voice a bit louder, but it sounds to be lacking something still. Looking for something, searching through the room like a bat echo locating.

Now I've got another question / And if we run out of time, can we make an exception?

A new element enters his singing. Starting to sound more like he means as he signs, as if he was the writer of the lyrics and is the one asking.

Got a piece that needs completion

Every other words seems to trail off, leaving Simon alone with the aching emptiness of his heart, a place waiting to be filled, stinging a little as he sees Penny and Micah share knowing looks and hidden smiles, secret promises and silent words of love.

Oh, temptation / I could be a part of you

Simon finds himself drawn towards the vocalist as the words leave his lips. “Yes!” he wants to shout, raise his hands, make a scene, make a move, to be seen and to be held. “Yes!” he wants whisper to the brooding figure, wrapping his hands around him, taking in his scent. “Yes.” He wants to say to someone he does not even know, does not recognize, someone hiding behind a mask of paint. His ears fell deaf to voice of Penny’s back vocals.

And the next thing he knows, Simon’s eyes are locked with his.

Am I, am I, am I, am I on your mind?

He can hear the mild wonder in his tone, the small hint of amusement too. Almost as if he is directly asking Simon himself. He wonders if they’ve met at the campus before.

The world seems to stop from that moment on.

Everything around him is a blur of colors and voices. Eyes focused on him and only him, ears perking up at his voice, he cannot divert his gaze. Feeling a tug at his soul, he wants to walk towards to stage, to him. To reach out, get lost in his raspy voice, stay wrapped by this bubbly feeling surrounding him forever. In that moment, he feels himself floating in space, with him by his side, eyes never leaving one another, following each move.

The vocalist’s voice tones down a bit, just as the music. They begin the new verse.

Simon remembers Penny complaining about him and his performances. How he can be one with the music they make or sing it so soulless, if it doesn’t speak to him. He figures this song must.

The excitement in his voice is as clear as day, as blue as the sky, as warm as the scones Simon likes to have and as real as the never dying ambition to keep learning Penny seems to have.

He feels more real than anything else Simon has ever laid eyes on; vibrant, beaming with passion and emotion, ethereal, capturing everyone’s attention, making everyone long for him. Yet his eyes are set on one person only and that is Simon.

His voice keeps raising, building up with the song itself. With each word, he raises his head. With each word that leaves his lips, there’s a gleam in his eyes. Burning through Simon, looking into his soul with such care and understanding no one could possibly offer him before.

He is offering him the world, everything he has and does not have. His belongings, titles, his love and his sorrow, his feelings and future. He is offering everything Simon could have wished for and will wish for, every small thing he longed for, every major thing he prayed for. He is ready to give it all up, leave everything behind, to start a revolution overnight. He is ready to risk it all. And all his eyes ask in return is Simon.

He seems to tilt his head in a weird manner as he says the word “hallway”. Does this mean they’ve seen each other before? Have they met in the hallway? Is it possible Simon read his movements wrong and overthinking something that never occurred? The way he looks at Simon says he knows exactly what he is thinking and the questions he is asking.

And when the chanting of “I feel it”s and “You’ll feel it”s start, Simon is enchanted all over. Getting lost in the movement of his lips, his fingers, the piercing looks in his eyes; Simon finds himself drawn to him like a sailor is to a siren.

The chorus begins again, with Penny’s contribution, his voice still dominating the room and Simon’s thoughts. The song, and the rest of the night, passes by without a notice.

A hand hitting his back, Simon is pulled out of his trance. He looks around to see their little gig has come to an end and trails the room for him with little hope, remembering the time Penny had said he leaves as soon as they finish.

“So, what do you think? Pretty good for an amateur band?” Penny asks with a smile on his face, sweat dropping from her forehead.

Simon just nods with a smile, not trusting himself to speak or make any coherent sound. They stay there for a while, having a drink, Micah and Penny packing up their things from the backstage as well as their guitar and drum stick. The bartender waves hurriedly at them, showing them the photos taken from the gig, their last gig together. After that, they leave the pub, returning to their welcoming beds.

Simon cannot stop thinking about long slick hair, gray captivating eyes.

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wearingraincoats · 5 years ago

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13 years ago today, I fell in love with the Beatles. That’s really specific, right? They’re such an omnipresent musical force, I don’t think most people can tell you when they first heard them or when they really started to like them. I don’t remember when I first heard them-- The Beatles just felt like a cultural given. Like, what are the four cardinal directions, what are four chambers of the heart, who are the four Beatles, it felt like something everybody just knew. I don’t remember the first song of theirs I ever heard... The first memory I have of any Beatle is the commercial they used to play on cable for Paul’s greatest hits CD. I definitely remember the first album I listened to. The White Album was ambitious for me as an entry-way into the Beatles, but I just fucking loved “Blackbird.” The nerd that I am, I read the lyrics for that song in a book and I was immediately enamored; listening to the album was another story. It’s hard to explain, but I just got the weirdest vibes listening to it. I wouldn’t listen to it again all the way through for about 5 more years, it really kind of freaked me out. It was... overpowering emotion, and I wasn’t equipped to handle it.

That was when I was 14. I was 17 when I fell in love with the band. In the years in between, I was a total punk/emo/hipster (I don’t really fall in with any of those labels but it’s closer to what I was lmao). I always said, “I can appreciate their contributions to music, but it’s just not what I like to listen to.” I also would say that the Velvet Underground were the true innovators of 1960s rock music because of that hipster thing haha. What changed? I had started dating my best friend.

Lori had been my best friend since I was 9 years old. We were in kindergarten together and reconnected several years later; after that, we were inseparable... Until I moved the summer before 10th grade. Even then, we would spend hours on the phone every week, and I thought, this friendship was made to last, I couldn’t live without Lori. Things started going wrong when she confessed her feelings for me. I won’t go into our whole shitty relationship because then this post would be 10 pages long, but to summarize, she fell for me and I didn’t reciprocate at first. It took me several months to realize, oh shit, I AM in love with Lori, but I was scared to tell her because even then, I knew that it could only end two ways: with marriage or broken hearts. As I am incredibly single to this day, I think you know what happened.

We started dating March 10th, 2007. I remember because it was two days before my birthday. We broke up May 10th, which I remember because it was exactly two months, as well as the day of my driving test which I failed with flying colors. I spent months recovering. I thought that I truly couldn’t live without her. I was very, very close to throwing everything away. But on April 10th, a month before she dumped me, I had a dream that would save my life.

Out of the ephemera of the universe, though I had maybe spent a combined 10 minutes thinking about either of them throughout the course of my life, I had a dream that night about John and Paul making love. That’s it, that’s all I can remember. But I remember that it was so beautiful and meaningful that as soon as I woke up, I knew I needed to listen to them. I didn’t know then that April 10th was the anniversary of their official break-up. I honestly didn’t know anything about them, apart from very basic facts. But they got me through that horrible break-up. These were two best friends who also fell in love and suffered a horrible parting, but they had made something beautiful in the process, something that helped change the world, as well as myself.

It’s been 13 years since that dream, and now I know just about everything about these men and their music, yet they still manage to provide me with new insights and new connections to songs that came out 30 years before I was born. John and Paul’s love comforts me in a way that nothing else really can. I truly feel like John sent that dream to me, that it was a lifeline when he could see trouble on the horizon. If I didn’t have them, I don’t think I would be alive today, and that’s the truth. Through them, I’ve learned so much about life and about humanity... and about myself. I’ll forever be indebted to this band, and to John and Paul’s love.

#the beatles #mclennon #personal

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tomans-darlings-au · 5 years ago

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Adam And The Crow

[ A/N: The First Part Of This Story Will Take Place As A Flashback. The Second Part Will Be The Current Time Axel’s World Is In]

(Tagging @telltalesheepers )

Adam stood outside the gates of school in the cold winter air his, the crisp frost around him made it so his breath was even visible as he loitered around the entrance of the school wary of his surroundings. Adam had been suspended for his “pranks” on other students but he’d be damned if that would stop him, he waited for his accomplice/best friend Morgan to be let out. Unlike him Morgan had been crafty and escaped punishment for her contributions of course Adam wasn’t about to squeal on her, he’d even allowed himself to take slightly more of the blame than was warranted of him.

Finally the school was let out and as Adam scanned the crowd of school classmates rushing out into the cold his eyes met his target. Morgan exiting the building long raven locks draping her shoulders in the wild curls they did, he sickly pale frame covered by the long trench coat and long uniform skirt of their private academy, he loose warm socks covering her army looking boots. The moment she stepped foot outside of the schools brick wall and large gates she was grabbed by the patiently waiting half elf.

In almost an instant Adam realized his mistake in startling his friend as his face was met with a raging fist. The defensive girl had reacted instinctively and her knuckles met his face relentlessly. Morgan looked immediately at her “attacker” and for a moment expressed remorse only to quickly switch gears.

“What the fuck is wrong with you dipshit. I hope I broke your fucking nose!”

“For fuck sake it was a joke you psycho bitch.”

“Yeah yeah that’s what they call me.”

Morgan responded head slightly cocked to the side with the cold look she gave, just 14 years old and Morgan had a reputation as the punk princess. Plenty of students feared her for her proven merciless fists, girls and boys alike had faced her wrath and only Adam dared to tread on her bad side now and again.

“What the fuck are you even doing you’re suspended remember asshole.”

“Yeah I am.”

Adam responded with a smug grin on his face as he leaned towards her, invading some personal boundaries.

“I’m suspended, isn’t there anything you want to say to me. Two little words. Starts with a T ends with a U.”

Morgan glared at the sharp tongue prick she called a friend.

“Fuck you, you were sloppy and got caught. Like hell I owe you shit.”

“Whatever you say princess. So... I’m suspended which means some motherfuckers squealed. What’s the plan for some revenge?”

Adam asked as they walked the cold city streets and the back path they often took home.

“Not revenge dipshit, retribution.”

Picking up the lead pipe Morgan hid, the girl twirled the weapon in her hand.

“Yeah retribution’s.”

Adam grinned with glee, he watched Morgan pull out her mouth covering mask from her bag as they walked towards a classmates home. The two vengeful teens were cautious of cops along their path as well as other people, finally arriving at the classmates home the two listened.

“Nobodies home... Perfect.”

Picking up her led pipe Morgan swung swiftly to dent and destroy their mailbox first. Adam found the students bike and pulled the chain clean off, kicking at the wheels they finally gave and dented.

After the minimum damage of propert Morgan looked up and wiped her forward.

“That should be enough to send a message.”

Suddenly her ear was met with the sound of shattering glass, turning around Morgan’s eyes widened Adam held a large rock in his hand and stared at a gaping hole in the front window of the home ready to make another one.

“WHAT’RE YOU DOING?!”

“Retribution Morgan isn’t that our whole point. This little bastard needs to learn a valuable lesson, maybe he’ll learn through some induced fear.”

Morgan’s mind rushed as she panicked grabbing Adam by the wrist and running full speed away from the area.

“What the hell was that.”

Adam asked as the two finally slowed down to gasp for their breath.

“We don’t break into people’s houses you idiot I can’t get fucking arrested.”

“We were fine stop being a little bitch about it. The little fucker deserves this, should’ve shoved his dumbass into the school pool.”

Morgan looked for the first time at her friend with worry she’d never intended him to do more than moderately inconvenience the classmates who dared defy them. Seeing the look on her face Adam sighed and scowled as he attempted to fix things.

“Alright fine I got ahead of myself, I’m sorry it won’t happen again. So stop looking at me like that princess, let me buy you something pretty to make it up to you.”

Morgan was wary part of her wanted to go home and forget his actions but her adrenaline left her blood cold perhaps and cooling down was all she needed. Pushing the intrusive thoughts to the back of her mind Morgan nodded and followed Adam walking towards the shopping center not far off.

END

#axel’s world #morgan sidhe #Adam Leblanc #my writing #rogue writes #tsp #thesheeplepeople #telltalesheepers

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johnny-depplyloveyou · 6 years ago

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So I found this magazine article about Josh while he was still with Minnie Driver in 2000. You can learn more about his early life, worth reading it!

The Heir Up There: Josh Brolin

Text by John Griffiths | Photographs by Art Streiber Article and photos contributed by the wonderfully generous Dana

It was a full-throttle kind of day, and to the glee of Trevor, 11, and Eden, 6, Josh Brolin has just topped a steep hill with his dusty black Jeep. Now the three are standing among a group of moss-dripping oaks high above their 97-acre ranch near Paso Robles, Calif., taking in the panorama. “When you shout, it echoes for over a minute," says Trevor, just before filling the canyon with a bellow. Dad grins. "There's so much serenity here," says Brolin, "and not that new age kind of peace. It's real, down-home dirt serenity." even if you have to work to achieve it: To get to the spread and the three-bedroom, two-story log house that serves as its locus, visitors must navigate a rocky, twisted, mile-long road, cross a bridge and ford stream (Josh, not everyone has an SUV), all the while trying not to be distracted by grazing deer. Bobcats and foxes roam these parts, too, and there's probably not a talent agent within 200 miles. "This is my world," says Brolin. "I don't trust Hollywood, so I don't take it too seriously."

Presumably he doesn't mind that Hollywood won't be rebuffed. After acting in such indie films as Flirting with Disaster (as the straight-arrow, bisexual Fed) and gamely tackling such roles as a cockroach-battling hero in Mimic and a seductive villain in last year's Mod Squad, Brolin, 32, is pressing into mainstream with this summer's sci-fi flick Hollow Man, as the buddy of Invisibility-prone scientist Kevin Bacon. Josh's dad James, of course, is an entrenched TV star -- Marcus Welby, M.D.; Hotel and the current Pensacola -- while his stepmom of two years is la Streisand herself (Brolin fils calls her Barbra). And Josh's own love? Bright-faced actress Minnie Driver, whom he met at a barbecue in 998 (the pair also heat up the upcoming Mexican-desert drama Slow Burn). But Brolin's surroundings put all those tabloid teasers into perspective, according to actor Anthony Zerbe, a friend since the two gunslinged through the early nineties series The Young Riders. "There's this whole Hollywood aspect to Josh's life, but then he's got his ranch where he takes off his shirt and digs a well," says Zerbe. "The place is a bulwark against the intrusive parts of his profession."

Brolin's father and his late mother, Jane, a "female Grizzly Adams" who nursed ailing animals for the California Department of Fish and game, bought the land in 1975 and built their dream home. Josh grew up here with his brother, Jess, and was an A student at Santa Barbara High, some 90 miles away. "My dad dug the pond," says Brolin, skipping stones on the half-acre body of water. "I was lucky to be around people who appreciate this life." His mom, a "spitfire" who urged him to speak his mind, stayed after the couple split in 1985. Five years ago, she died in a car crash, and Josh, then stage acting and directing in Rochester, N.Y., inherited his childhood home -- and all its memories. In the small office, a shelf of his mom's cookbooks; in the pine-beamed, Santa Fe-influenced living room, cowhide couches and a backgammon table (I broke the glass top when I was Eden's age"); and on a counter in the kitchen, a tin holding his mother's ashes. An unorthodox resting place, maybe, but, Brolin says with a smile, "That's how she wanted it."

Initially, nostalgia inhibited him from making the house his own. "For three years, I didn't move a lamp or change a bulb," he says. Lately, however, he's begun to tinker. Streisand hasn't offered any decorating tips, though Brolin notes that she's "very into her home like I am." She visited once, right after he moved in. "It was falling apart," says Brolin. "She said I should sell it." Instead, he tidied things up, bleached the sun-charred decks, and began combing antique stores for Tiffany lamps and Latin-influenced, carved-wood furniture. Outside, he plans to build a dock over the catfish pond. "When I was growing up, if you slipped walking in, you'd get three fish bones in your foot. It'll be easier for the kids to swim."

But what the one-time pasta chef really wants to master is nonchalant hosting, a la the Europeans. "They have their table outside and take their time," says Brolin, whose specialty is zabaglione. "That's what I want to create." He should have no problem, says Mary Steenburgen, who appeared with the younger Brolin in the recent TV version of Picnic. "Josh has a real sense of beauty." she says, "and he's very nurturing." He's also resolute. While filming Hollow Man, he decided to learn how to play guitar. "He borrowed mine when he could hardly play," says Kevin Bacon. "By the end of the shoot, he played well. If he has an interest, Josh does it." Adds Zerbe: "he's focused, which is why he's good on a Harley and at poetry."

That focus has been trained on girlfriend Driver since the duo's first date (they watched a sunset from his red Dodge Ram pickup). With Brolin's blessing, she has draped antique quilts over worn chairs in the living room, and photos beaming her smile pop up all over the house. And those children's drawings on the fridge? "Those are Minnie's," Brolin says, laughing. Each cartoon has a caption: "Carmine has hysterics when Esmeralda has a tantrum," "Carmine and Esmeralda fight over the remote," and so on. Explains Brolin, "I'm Carmine, the curmudgeon. She's Esmeralda, the beautiful, dancing, Spanish-looking chick who's with the guy with the serious emotional hump on his back." He comes upon "Esmeralda watches Carmine sleep" and grins: "That's nice."

Brolin and Driver seem to have doodled their way into a complementary relationship. "I'm more cynical, she lightens me up," he says. "I can't imagine being with anybody else." He's mum on marriage but admits he's gaga. "Absolutely. One hundred percent." It helps that Driver is smitten with the kids, who spend weekends at the ranch and weekdays with their mom, Alice Adair, an ex-actress with whom Brolin parted in 1995. The London-bred Driver "loves being up here," Brolin says, though the ways of the wild can throw her. When Brolin recently ordered his dog to get rid of a squirrel ("They ruin my property"), Driver turned ashen. "Man, tears -- just wahhh," he says with a wince. "she'd never seen anything so violent ... but that's country life."

These days the former punk rocker with a daredevil streak -- Brolin won the Toyota/Pro Celebrity car race this year (as did his dad in 1978) and he used to skydive -- is sticking to the ground. "Now I think, 'What if the chute doesn't open?' " His current notion of adventure includes checking out the Animal Planet channel with his kids. "This is the first time we've had TV in six years," says Brolin. "We're urbanizing!" He also kicks back by watching Spencer Tracy flicks or spinning Pavarotti on the Wurlitzer jukebox. Or, he'll mend a fence or hit a cattle auction ("Sometimes I'll take home some 30 cows to graze.") Lest anyone confuse him with a character on The big Valley, Brolin does have a slick of slicker in his. When he's down in L.A. for work "I'll go to a museum or to the Mint for jazz," he says. "I need to be in the city sometimes."

But while the dusty-shoed cosmopolitan dreams of someday living in the south of France or in Greece, it's his homestead that inspires. In the stillness, "my imagination can kind of fly," says Brolin, as he takes in the view from his bedroom window, from the wildflowers to the oat fields to the ducks flying above it all. In winter, those hills are Irish green. Fog rolls in from the ocean and hangs like a blanket." A heavy, happy sigh. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

#Josh Brolin #photoshoot #Josh's ranch #Minnie Driver #long post

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madcapmoon · 6 years ago

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The mission to always be in disagreement: Interview with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi)

by Pepo Márquez

«Thanks for your questions and my apologies for the delayed reply, it's been a very busy month here. Here are my answers and I hope they will be ok ».

Could you tell me what you are working on now and what is or has been your connection with music in recent years? I know you played with the much missed Vic Chesnutt and that you have produced some albums, besides writing music that has never been published and participating in improvised jams, either for cinema with your friend Jem Cohen or in improvisation festivals, but I must admit that I am a little unaware of your activity lately.

This question reminds me a little of that verse that said: "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" of the song "Mrs. Robinson " by Simon & Garfunkel. Joe DiMaggio was an American baseball player who, when asked about that verse, replied: "I've been here." I feel more or less the same. I'm here, doing the same things I did when I was 16: playing, writing music and working on the music of others, as well as attending to the business of being alive. Maybe it is not as visible to the public as other things that I was involved in, in the past, like playing in Fugazi for example, but that does not mean that the whole process on my part is not exactly the same. I play the guitar and work in my studio. I work on music, sometimes edited and sometimes not. I produce, mix and assist technically on other artists' albums, which are sometimes edited and sometimes not. For me everything is the same: I'm still linked to the creative process, to the process of doing things.

Before being in Fugazi I was in five other bands [the bands that Picciotto refers to are Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish, Happy Go Licky, Brief Weeds and The Black Light Panthers]. Some of them were never, and still are not, as well known as others, but that does not mean that the work was not serious and real. Things like working with Vic Chesnutt or Jem Cohen movies are not simple elements to add to a resume or any Wikipedia entry and are not evaluable in terms of tours or products. These were and are relationships that are an enormously defining part of my life. For me, music means human relationships: music is friendship. It happens all the time, even when you do not pay attention.

The previous question has led me to the next one: your relationship with social networks. There is no way to find you on any social network. Why this position and what is your opinion about the reality of social networks?

I have no opinion on how people use social networks: I respect all the options that make sense for the rest. Speaking only about me, I do not like the ubiquity that surrounds the concept or the expectation that in a certain way each citizen is asked to participate in them. For me that expectation is very dangerous because it supposes that one does not exist at all without that presence. I think it's a very retrograde way of understanding what is actually a vision of some corporations of what social interactions should be. I understand how useful technology is in terms of disseminating ideas, bridging distances and favoring the creation of communities, but I also feel that it is not the only way to make these things happen, and it is certainly not the only way in which that these things happen I also resist the idea of believing that each person is a "brand" that needs to be elaborated and maintained for some form of public consumption. For some people it may be nice, but for me it is claustrophobic and alienating, so I choose not to participate in it.

There have been times when things have happened in my community - concerts or, unfortunately, friends who have died - of which I have learned days or weeks later simply because I was not connected as the rest are. In a way it is a lonely feeling but I understand that everyone assumes that this type of information is known by the rest immediately. In fact, I feel locked in a primitive state of development: of postal letters and telephone and, to a certain extent, emails. I am not resentful and I understand how quickly people assimilate the change and I assume it is something shared. I have no moral judgment about it, but I have reached my comfort point in this way and I am not obliged to go further.

Do you keep up with what is happening in the music scene today? Are you still buying records and going to concerts? What new groups or solo acts are you currently listening to? Are you still contacting bands to produce their records?

Absolutely yes to all the questions. I still have a lot of fun going to record stores, buying vinyl and going to concerts. It remains an incredible source of pleasure for me. They also frequently ask me to produce records, although I do not say yes with the same frequency. I try only to work with groups that I know well and that are related because I do not trust in my technical abilities enough to consider myself an "available professional" , regardless of the fact that my agenda is usually full of work that I have previously accepted.

One of the groups I've heard the most lately is Xylouris White , a duet composed by the Australian drummer Jim White and the Cretan lutenist Giorgios Xylouris. I have produced two of their albums, Goats and Black Peak , and we have just started working on a third album. For me they represent a horizon in their musical capacity: their work is deep and real, but with an expressivity freed from any limitations. Their live shows are wild and I can not recommend them enough.

When did you write your last song?

I always write things, so I guess the answer is "yesterday". I would not necessarily call it a song because I believe that a song is the final presentation of a band and right now I am not part of one, so I do not have the urgency at this moment to complete my work. But yes, I write things all the time : ideas, sketches, sections. Sometimes they are used for films like Occupy Newsreels or We Have An Anchor , by Jem Cohen; but other times they have nowhere to go, so I simply file them for the future. I should be much more diligent and always record them, because sometimes they just disappear, but that's okay: some ideas always come back.

Those who were part of the first wave of hardcore / punk in Washington DC and who were in their twenties when it all happened, are older and face an adult life with new realities (having children, educating them, having jobs that may not correspond with what they had imagined, etc.). How do you apply the ideas you had in the early 80s about the world and your country to your reality today? What is your position on such particular issues as your child's education, where to live, how to live, etc.?

The people who formed DC's first hardcore scene were even younger than you say: our ages ranged from 13 to 21 years old. It was a very, very young creative community. I would say that it is probably the youngest artistic movement with a highly coherent discourse that has never had such an impact, but maybe I am crazy. In many things I would not say that I have changed so much as to how I see the world: I still think that music is a form of social connection and also of resistance, just as before.Much of the isolation and frustration I felt as a child I still feel now, but in a much more intense and at the same time more oriented way, so I feel that everything is part of the operation of my own machinery. As my friend Ian said [refers to Ian MacKaye, founder of Dischord Records and member of Minor Threat and Fugazi, among many other projects] in one of our songs: "I'm on a mission to never agree"( « My mission is to always disagree » ). I agree with that!

After the presidential elections in the United States, your country seems deeply divided and you face (well, really all of us) the four most uncertain years of recent international political history. How do you face this reality and how do you think people can contribute to changing this trend?

Every day is one more turn of the nut. It is a horror movie and I am very anxious about everything that is to come. That said, the United States has had many years of dark trajectory, so one can only say that the struggle continues. People should use all their talents, all the strength at their disposal, to resist. I do not think that having hope is even necessary: the important thing is to fight to maintain your sanity and your dignity as a human being.

I have read many old interviews that you did and I always notice the same thing: that you talk about books. What are you reading right now? What book or books have ever inspired you? Could you recommend to us three books and explain the reason?

Right now I'm reading Uproot by my friend Jace Clayton (also known as DJ Rupture ) who explores how music is made globally in the digital age. As far as I have read it is superinteresting and completely relevant to the debate in which many musicians are now involved because the technology of production and distribution is changing radically. The book is written with huge amounts of love and respect for a wide variety of musical traditions and there is much to learn from it.

I also recommend any book by Elena Ferrante , from Italy. Her books are very popular here, so I'm not showing anything that is not known on a large scale but, in any case, I think her writing is important and glorious from all points of view.

Is there any musical, cinematographic or artistic collaboration on your horizon that you can share with us?

As I said before, I'm currently working on the production of the third album of the band Xylouris White. I'm also preparing music for another film and direct collaboration with director Jem Cohen called Gravity Hill: Sound and Image , which we will play next year in New York and the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee.

Sorry to ask you this out of context, but I need to share it: while I was researching for this interview, I discovered a version of an Olivia Newton John song that Fugazi recorded with Vic Chesnutt. I did not know about it, so I wonder if there are more collaborations, songs or versions recorded by Fugazi in the past that have gone unnoticed by most of your audience.

The song you're referring to is actually a collaboration between Ian [MacKaye, guitar and vocals], Joe [Lally, bassist] and Brendan [Canty, drummer] from Fugazi with Vic. Actually I was not in the city when the they recorded, so there were three quarters of Fugazi playing with Vic on that song. My work with Vic can be heard on the albums North Star Deserter and At The Cut , and it was seen on a series of tours in the United States and Europe for a period of four years.

With regard to unreleased material of Fugazi , yes that there are enough things that we did that have never been published, but there are not too many collaborations or covers. We did not use to play other people's songs, but we recorded constantly and not everything we recorded ended up going on the discs. Maybe one day we will listen to all this material to know if there is something worth sharing. We will see.

#guy picciotto #fugazi

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tomeandflickcorner · 6 years ago

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The Halloweentown Tetralogy

To commemorate this Halloween, I’ve viewed all four of the Halloweentown movies, as requested by @knightrookjones. Special thanks to @xemmaloveskillianx @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine and @midouriya for helping me locate sources where I could watch them.

Halloweentown- The first movie in the Halloweentown Tetralogy where we’re introduced to the series’ main character, Marnie, and her family. In the first installment of the franchise, Marnie is 13-years-old, and she lives in an unnamed town with her apparently widowed mother, Gwen, and her two younger siblings, 12-year-old Dylan and 7-year-old Sophie. For some reason, Gwen is clearly adamant about preventing her children from participating in any of the usual activities associated with Halloween, from going trick-or-treating to attending costume parties. But when the family receives a surprise visit from Maternal Grandmother Aggie, played by the dearly departed Debbie Reynolds, Marnie ends up eavesdropping on a conversation between her mother and grandmother, which leads her to discover that their family are actually descended from a long line of powerful witches. But, because Gwen’s late husband was an ordinary human from the Mortal World, Gwen had decided to keep her children from ever learning of their magical heritage, in the hopes that they would grow up to be normal. This doesn’t sit well with Marnie, however, and, with her younger siblings tagging along, she ends up following Grandma Aggie back to Halloweentown, a pocket dimension where witches, goblins, monsters and every manner of spooky creature have been living in peace for centuries in order to avoid persecution from the people of the Mortal World. Shortly after they arrive, the children learn from Aggie of a mysterious being known as Shadowman, who is behind the disappearances of many of Halloweentown’s inhabitants. It eventually comes out that the Shadowman’s ultimate plan is to lead Halloweentown’s population in a revolt against the people of the Mortal World, in order to take back their rightful place instead of continuing to live in hiding. The only hope of defeating the movie’s antagonist is by activating Merlin’s Talisman, which Aggie just happens to have in her possession. But when Aggie and Gwen (who ends up journeying to Halloweentown herself upon discovering her children were not in their beds) fall prey to the Shadowman’s evil spell, it’s up to Marnie, Dylan and Sophie to help save the day.

As far as made-for-TV Disney movies go, this one is fun. I particularly like how creative they got in regards to creating the world of Halloweentown and the number of creatures that live there. We got a skeleton who drives a taxi, a werewolf hairdresser, and a literal cat woman who works as an aerobics instructor. They even had the town dentist be the actual tooth fairy. And actress Debbie Reynolds was by far one of the highlights of the movie, as she just took this role so seriously. Not just when she had to play the part of a bonafide witch, but also when she was interacting with her on-screen family. You really got the impression that she was utilizing her experience of being a real-life mother and a grandmother when she was portraying the role of Aggie Cromwell.

Of course, the movie is not exactly a masterpiece. There are a few moments when they resort to obvious green screen technology, and that can be a bit distracting. But that wasn’t my only issue with the movie. For instance, Marnie’s brother, Dylan, comes across as a bit of a pod person. I get the idea is that he’s supposed to be the serious-minded sibling, but come on. What 12-year-old kid talks like that? I’m also a bit confused on exactly why Gwen was so adamant about keeping her children from having anything to do with Halloween. The movie claims it was because of her mortal husband, but that seems like a rather weak explanation to me. It would be one thing if the movie gave any indication that Gwen had experienced some kind of ostracization because of her magical heritage when she first decided to stay in the Mortal World with her non-magic husband, but they never alluded to anything like that. Though, to the movie’s credit, Gwen eventually acknowledges that she was wrong to try and prevent her kids from learning of their family history. As far as the main character goes, Marnie was a pretty believable 13-year-old, right down to the fact that she was clearly at that stage where she felt she was, and I quote, ‘practically an adult.’ Even though everyone over the age of 20 would know that’s not the case. And admittedly, there were many times when she was a bit useless. Not that I’m saying that to mock her or anything, because she was able to figure things out on her own when it mattered the most. But at the end of the day, it actually was the little sister, Sophie, who contributed the most. They wouldn’t have managed to even activate Merlin’s Talisman in the first place if it wasn’t for this kid. Honestly, Sophie was probably the best out of the three siblings.

I also do have to applaud the movie for the reveal of the Shadowman’s true identity. I suppose you could say it was a pretty big Scooby Doo moment when it’s revealed the main antagonist was the town mayor, Calabar. They even have him do this whole bit when he explains that his true motivation was his bitterness over how Gwen ended up marrying a man from the Mortal World instead of him. That’s right, the movie’s antagonist is angry over how he was ‘friend zoned’ by his crush, and that made him decide to turn evil. I can see how this could potentially rub some people the wrong way. Of course, on the other side of the coin is Luke, who is initially Shadowman Calabar’s smart mouthed flunky. At first, he admittedly comes across as this punk kid who thinks he’s all high-and-mighty because of his position of being the main antagonist lackey. But once he figures out that Shadowman Calabar is even willing to harm Aggie and the rest of the Cromwell family in his quest to overthrow the Mortal World, he quickly recognizes the error of his ways and even helps Marnie save the day. On a final note, I think it could be argued that the way they ultimately defeat Calabar seems a bit too convenient, in the sense that it really comes across as a whole ‘defeated by the power of love/friendship/etc.’ sort of deal. Especially when Dylan is suddenly revealed to have magic powers as well, despite there not being anything to suggest he had inherited the magical gene before that point. But hey, it’s clear this was never meant to be this big epic movie, so I suppose I can cut them some slack. After all, for what this movie was, it was pretty good. Though the people who wrote the movie’s script really need to come up with better insults. (Seriously, did Marnie actually call Shadowman Calabar ‘chocolate bar?’ What kind of insult is that?)

Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge- The first sequel to the Disney Channel original movie, this one was certainly the darkest film of the four. But it also brought about a slight issue with how to spell the name of the first movie’s antagonist. The title card for this movie stated it was spelled with a K, but the closed captions and opening & closing credits for the first installment had his name begin with a C. But that’s probably just a small nitpick. Regardless, I’m going to continue spelling it with a C for these reviews. Anyway, the movie opens on Halloween night, exactly two years after the events of the first movie. Right away, we see that Aggie has moved in with her daughter and grandchildren, and Gwen has eased up on her anti-Halloween stance enough to allow her family to throw a Halloween party at the house. Of course, that doesn’t mean things are completely harmonious for the Cromwell family, especially since Marnie is scheduled to spend an entire year in Halloweentown with Aggie in order to focus on her training, as she is first in line to become the next head of the Cromwell line. And if Marnie chooses to follow that path, she’d have to completely give up her life in the Mortal World. Which is something that would deeply affect Gwen. Of course, Marnie is still a bit of an idiot, and when a young boy her age named Cal shows up at the party, Marnie instantly develops a crush on him, like you do. And, in order to impress her new crush, she proceeds to show him around the house, including a stop at Aggie’s room. This, of course, proves to be a mistake, as Cal is actually Calabar’s long-lost son. No word on who the baby mama was, but it appears Cal has decided it’s up to him to continue his father’s work in conquering the Mortal World. Taking advantage of Marnie’s naive trust in him, he steals Aggie’s spell book and uses it to cast a spell on all of Halloweentown, turning the whole place into a warped version of the Mortal World, in which everything is dull and gray and the people of Halloweentown are transformed into caricatures of boring old humans. This, of course, turns out to be only the first step in Cal’s evil plan, as he only casts this spell in order to trick Marnie and Aggie into entering Halloweentown, thereby getting them out of the way while he gets to work on his real plan- turning the humans into the very creatures they dress up as for Halloween, as punishment for always mocking the people of Halloweentown. When Aggie is once again put out of commission because of Cal’s spell, Marnie has to team up with, Luke, the goblin she befriended in the last movie, to try to find a way to fix things while Sophie and Dylan work to assist them from the Mortal World. They even manage to utilize a time traveling spell in their attempts to stop Cal’s plan. While there are moments in the movie where it seems like they’re simply following the formula from the last film, there’s still enough fresh elements to make things seem new and interesting. Including the introduction of the crotchety Gort, who collects and hoards every single item that’s ever lost in both Halloweentown and the Mortal World. Basically, every time something ends up lost, from that last puzzle piece to the left sock, it magically ends up at Gort’s place.

In a lot of ways, this movie often seems to be better than the last one. Especially since the stakes seem a lot higher, as Cal’s plans will effectively destroy both worlds if he succeeds. We also get a legitimately creepy scene where the mother, Gwen, is transformed into a hag and even tries to attack Sophie. And, towards the end, it really seems that Cal actually wins, as the portal between Halloweentown and the Mortal World closes before Marnie, Aggie and Luke can succeed in stopping Cal, which means they’ll be stranded in Halloweentown and won’t be able to save Dylan, Sophie and Gwen, not to mention everybody else, for an entire year. But because of another Deux ex Machina moment, which involves Marnie deciding that they can take advantage of the strength of the Cromwell family’s magic and pretty much rewrite the laws of magic, they manage to reopen the portal despite Halloween being over.

One thing I particularly liked in this movie were the scenes with Sophie and Dylan. And not just because these two really sold the whole brother and sister dynamic. Sophie is more or less the same as she was in the last movie, but she’s become a bit more assertive than the sweet little 7-year-old she was when we last saw her. Dylan, on the other hand, really has improved in terms of his believably. In the original movie, the character of Dylan came across as if it had been written by someone who wanted him to act like a nerdy stick-in-the-mud kid, but had never actually been around a 12-year-old and therefore had no idea how they actually acted and spoke. This time around, Dylan’s characterization was much more believable. He’s still reluctant to embrace his magical heritage, but he actually does act like an average 14-year-old. Especially when he’s trying to find a date to a costume party at the school later that night. (Though that does seem a bit odd, that the Cromwells throw a Halloween party at their house when there’s another party being held later on that night. Exactly how long is this Halloween night supposed to be?)

Now, there’s this one part in the movie that, depending on your sensitivity level, might be offensive. There’s a character in the film named Alex, who poses as Cal’s father before Cal’s true identity as Calabar’s son is revealed. Thanks to Sophie’s intuition, Alex is eventually revealed to be a golem that Cal created out of frogs. Considering the golem is a figure of Jewish folklore, the inclusion of Alex in this movie could potentially offend some people and be taken as cultural appropriation, especially when the golem was created and controlled by a warlock. It’s possible that this was just an unfortunate oversight on Disney’s part (and let’s face it, they do have a history of overt racism in some of their movies, particularly the older ones,) but you could argue that makes it even more offensive. That particular issue aside, however, this was a good sequel to Halloweentown, as it brought back the whole cast and actually connected to the events of the first movie. But the problem is, the sequels that came after the movie never referenced anything about Cal again. That admittedly bothered me a lot, because the movie even had them acknowledging that Cal would probably come back. But if he did, we never saw it happen. Talk about a major loose end.

Halloweentown High- Once again, two years have passed, and Marnie has been commended by the Halloweentown Council (because there’s a high council now) for the part she played in ensuring the portal between Halloweentown and the Mortal World would remain open all year round, and not just on Halloween. But now, Marnie has developed an idea to fully heal the rift between humans and the people of Halloweentown by creating an exchange program of sorts, in which some teenagers from Halloweentown would actually attend a school in the Mortal Realm. Unfortunately, Marnie ends up accidentally wagering her entire family’s magic on the outcome of this, meaning that if this attempt to prove that humans have changed since the creation of Halloweentown and would no longer persecute the creatures that live there doesn’t work, then her entire family would lose their magical powers forever. When Marnie realizes what she’s just done, she is reasonably uneasy, but is still confident that she can make this work, as long as she’s there to help guide the Halloweentown students, which consist of Cassie the witch, Pete the Werewolf, Natalie the troll, Nancy the fairy, Chester the gremlin, Bobby the ogre, and Ethan the warlock, with the non-humanoid students donning human disguises while attending the school. The whole human disguise thing alone was pretty laughable by itself, as they’re basically just wearing human skinsuits like it’s a Men in Black movie. (Wasn’t there a spell that could make them appear human?) Aggie also ends up stepping in to assist Marnie’s efforts by getting a teaching job at the school. But of course, this movie decides it wasn’t enough to just have this be a simple high school themed movie, because we also have to contend with an apparent threat from Knights of the Iron Dagger, a fabled order that sought to destroy all things magical.

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. This movie was terrible! I can’t think of a single scene in this movie that I even remotely liked. In fact, while watching it, I kept checking the time to see how much longer I had to endure this crap. I think the worst part was that they were clearly trying to give the movie this whole underlining message about prejudice and whatnot, but the execution of it was just so horrible. In the climax of the movie, it’s revealed that the father of the warlock student, Ethan, who is actually on the Halloweentown Council, wants the portal between Halloweentown and the Mortal World to be closed permanently. So he conspired with the human school’s principal to expose Marnie as a witch in the worst possible way, by making it look as if she was openly attacking the school with her magic at the school’s annual Halloween Bash. Thereby getting the other students to resort to a mob mentality and try to chase her and the Halloweentown exchange students out of town. But all it takes for everyone to calm down is a whole ‘shame on you’ speech from Cody, Marnie’s new love interest, and then it’s all hunky dory. Even the school principal, who was in league with the movie’s main antagonist, ends up changing his tune because of his apparent crush on Aggie. Okay, obviously, it should go without saying that prejudice is bad. But it’s a very complex issue. It’s not something that can be instantly solved with the substance of an after school special. So seeing the way this movie resolved everything was quite eye rolling. They even have Aggie completely forgive the principal, even though he had been openly persecuting her and her granddaughter moments before. While forgiving someone is obviously admirable, it’s a bit bothersome that the movie is acting as if Aggie should just forget all about what the principal had just tried to do and enter into a relationship with him. Just saying, forgiving someone does not mean you have to let them back into your life. Especially if there was a serious breech in trust between you and the person you’re forgiving.

And even the way this movie portrays characters we’ve grown to love in the first two movies was really bad. Sophie, who was a prominent character in previous installments of the Halloweentown series, is now little more than a background character. And she seemed to disappear from the movie altogether after the mall scene. That alone was annoying, as Sophie was arguably a better and smarter witch than Marnie, and the only reason why Marnie was first in line to be the head of the Cromwell line was because she was the oldest. As for Aggie, she suddenly seems to be more of a senile old woman than a powerful and wise old witch, with the movie playing her up for laughs. I’m just saying, considering she’s supposed to have spent four years living in the Mortal World, you’d think she’d be a bit more careful in regards to her magic and wouldn’t accidently magically create a parrot in front of a roomful of students. Oh, and Gwen, who had made it clear beforehand that she wanted to simply live her life as an ordinary mortal like her late husband and only used her magic in special circumstances, is now using her magic in everyday situations. The only character who seems to have maintained his characterization from the last two movies is Dylan, even though he spends most of the movie sharing a possible romance subplot with Natalie the Troll.

Finally, there’s the fact that they’ve seemingly forgotten all about Cal, the antagonist of the last movie. Even after the last movie implied that he would be back, we never see him do so. They don’t even acknowledge his existence, even though they had the perfect opportunity to do so. At one point, Marnie and Aggie are having a mild argument about Marnie’s latest crush, Cody, with Aggie being suspicious of him as Cody has apparently just moved into the area. So, when they start seeing evidence that the Knights of the Iron Dagger were lurking around the school, Aggie speculates that Cody might have something to do with it. Of course, Marnie isn’t interested in hearing any accusations against her crush, but this was such a perfect opportunity for Aggie to say something like ‘remember what happened the last time you met a boy who had just moved here.’ But they don’t. It’s such a missed opportunity. And by the way, why are the movies so determined to give Marnie a love interest? I know, she’s supposed to be a teenage girl and all. But doesn’t she have enough on her plate, considering she’s training to be a witch while trying to help bridge the gap between Halloweentown and the Mortal World so they won’t have to remain separate anymore? Not to mention the fact that her entire family’s magic is on the line. Does she really have the time to worry about finding romance? I’m not saying that finding love is necessarily bad, but it is bad to imply that someone NEEDS to have a boyfriend to be fulfilled. Besides, what happened to Luke? I know there was never anything to suggest that they were ever more than friends, but Luke clearly had a crush on Marnie ever since they first met at 13. And the last movie had him saying something along the lines of how he believed anything was possible as long as Marnie was there. So I was admittedly a bit of a Marnie/Luke shipper. Thus, I was really upset that we didn’t see him appear in this movie. They could have easily made him be one of the Halloweentown exchange students. Even if they didn’t have him and Marnie end up together, they had a pretty good friendship going on. I would have been satisfied with them simply continuing on as good friends.

Return to Halloweentown- Okay, apparently, Halloweentown High was supposed to be the final installment of the Halloweentown series. But in 2006, someone over at Disney decided to try and squeeze out a bit more milk from the franchise, creating this fourth film. I’m not sure why they thought it was a good idea, as Halloweentown High wasn’t even good. And apparently, Kimberly J. Brown seemed to agree that this was a bad idea, as she didn’t return to reprise her role as Marnie, forcing them to hire Sara Paxton to take her place.

So, in this movie, Marnie has been accepted at Witch University, a college located in Halloweentown, with a full scholarship. This is a bit distressing to Gwen, who had hoped that Marnie would go to college in the Mortal World, but Marnie insists on going to college at Witch University because she didn’t want to hide her powers while attending a human college. Which does present a bit of a continuity issue, as Halloweentown High suggested that everyone now knew all about Halloweentown. And it’s not as if they try to pretend that movie never happened, especially since the character of Ethan Dalloway comes back as one of Marnie’s classmates at Witch University. Regardless, Gwen eventually allows Marnie to go off to Witch University, on the condition that Dylan goes with her. (It’s stated at one point that Dylan ended up skipping a grade). Of course, once Marnie arrives at Witch University, it slowly becomes apparent that she was only given her scholarship because this evil group of witches called The Dominion stumbled across some moldy old prophecy involving an ancient box that had once belonged to one of Marnie’s ancestors, Splendora Cromwell. This box is said to contain the Gift, an extremely powerful magic, and that only a Cromwell can open it. So this evil group of witches, which includes Witch University’s headmistress and the history professor, plan to trick Marnie into opening the box so they can steal the Gift for themselves and become all powerful. Yeah, the plot of this movie is just as painful as the one of Halloweentown High. And to make it even worse, we have to endure the inclusion of the Sinister Sisters, the typical Mean Girl™ troop, the leader of whom Dylan ends up getting a crush on simply because she can speak Latin. Which just really makes Dylan seem extremely pathetic as he doesn’t even care when Scarlet and her sisters treats him poorly. Not even Debbie Reynold’s portrayal of Aggie Cromwell could save this movie, considering she was barely in it, since Aggie was away focusing on Sophie’s witch training and only appeared briefly through magical hologram. Yeah, that’s right. Sophie wasn’t even in this movie, and Aggie only briefly appears twice. Instead, we got a Aggie lookalike in the form of Miss Periwinkle, one of the professors at Witch University.

Of course, one of the most painful aspects of the movie is one I have to go into spoiler territory for. Marnie, at one point through some more time travel shenanigans, ends up finding out that Splendora Cromwell was actually just a younger version of Aggie. And that the Gift was a magical amulet that could be used to grant the wearer the power to control anyone. Unfortunately, after she finds that out, the members of the Dominion try to blackmail Marnie into helping them enslave all the non-magical inhabitants of Halloweentown. Okay, since when was it even hinted at the fact that some witches and warlocks viewed the non-magical inhabitants of Halloweentown as inferior? Wasn’t the last movie’s attempts to send an anti-prejudice message bad enough? Now we got a moral about segregation? Even though these are good points to get across, the Halloweentown films are not exactly the best place to try and convey those messages. Besides, how did we go from angry warlocks who wanted to punish humans for persecuting them to angry witches and warlocks viewing their non-magical neighbors as inferior beings?

It’s just really upsetting that the Halloweentown franchise went so downhill like this. The first two installments were really good. Not great, but really good. They were fun and imaginative and unique. But then they had to go and butcher it by turning the last two movies into generic, formulaic drivel, complete with one-note antagonists who are either lack a relatable motivation or are simply being mean for the sake of being mean. And of course, they’re also trying way too hard to give the movies a relevant moral to teach kids some life lesson or whatever, completely forgetting what made the first two Halloweentown films special in the first place. We watched the Halloweentown movies because we wanted to see something fun with interesting creatures. I don’t think anyone was interested in seeing the franchise turned into bland ‘high school movies.’ Because that’s what Halloweentown High and Return to Halloweentown were. They were just another set of ‘high school movies’ that just happened to feature the characters of Halloweentown.

I don’t know what else to say. By all means, check out the first two Halloweentown movies sometime. Especially if you want to see something fun and lighthearted. As for the other two, just skip them. Because you won’t be missing much.

#halloweentown #halloweentown franchise #halloweentown tetralogy

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