#anime weekend atlanta 2013

[someawesomeamvs]

Warning: Spoilers, flashing lights, sexual imagery

Title: tan(x)

Editor: lolligerjoj

Song: Touch (feat. Paul Williams)

Artist: Daft Punk

Anime: 5 Centimeters per Second (film), Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (film), Chuunibyou demo koi ga Shitai!, Colorful (2010) (film), The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (film), From Up on Poppy Hill (film), Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Garden of Words (film), Genius Party Beyond (film), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (film), Hotarubi no Mori e (film), Hyouka, Nekomonogatari Black, Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion, Nisemonogatari, The Sky Crawlers (film), Whisper of the Heart (film), Wolf Children (film)

Category: Drama

Awards: Akross 2013 - Best Psychedelic Nan Desu Kan 2014 - Winner of Category X Kita-Con 2014 - Best Drama/Romance Video Anime Weekend Atlanta 2014 - Best Artistic Endeavor Another Anime Con 2014 - Best "Other"

[thedollarcrate]

50 Best Albums (That I Own on Vinyl) of the Decade

It’s hard to comprehend how much transpires over the course of a decade or wrap your head around how long (or short) of time that really is.

But what better way to try than to make a list!

Now, I know “Best of” lists like this one are inherently subjective – and probably say more about their maker’s preferences than actually reflecting the best music released in a particular time period. And, I’ll be the first to admit that the list below is incredibly limited, and that I need to widen my exposure to more artists and genres.

But hey, this is all in fun.

So feel free to debate, pick apart or share your own favorite albums from the past decade. But before you dive in, just a few quick points for context:

-I only ranked albums I actually own on vinyl released between 2010 and 2019, which limited my choices to about 170 records.

-I only ranked new music released this past decade, so no reissues or older material released for the first time (sorry Prince’s Piano & A Microphone and Originals).

-I first started buying vinyl around ’09-’10 and started off purchasing mostly new releases before my habits shifted and I started looking for older records. This shows in the list below – nearly a quarter of the albums below were released in 2010 and almost 70% from the first half of the decade.

And we’re off…

50. Centipede Hz, Animal Collective (2012)

Let’s be honest, it was impossible for Animal Collective to top a universally acclaimed and era-defining album – and it was unfair to expect them to. But maybe the continuous onslaught of bizarre and eclectic music found on Centipede Hz was just what we needed after all.

49. Singles, Future Islands (2014)

So much more than Sam Herring’s pelvis busting dance moves and “Seasons (Waiting On You),” every track on Singlesbursts with life and heart pumping  energy. To quote Letterman: I’ll take all of that you got.

48. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, Frog Eyes (2010)

I don’t think I’ll ever understand Carey Mercer’s lyrics, but I’m certain I’ll never tire of getting lost in his hidden words and knotty melodies.

47. Leaving Atlanta, Gentleman Jesse (2012)

Thirty seven minutes of Pure Power Pop Perfection (note the capital “Ps”).

46. Burst Apart, The Antlers (2011)

If there’s another album with a song titled “Putting the Dog to Sleep” that is as haunting and beautiful as this one, I don’t want to know about it.

45. Carrion Crawler/The Dream, Thee Oh Sees (2011)

With John Dwyer churning out record after record in the ‘10s, it should come as no surprise that at least one landed on this list (and they’re all great). Garage rock. Surf rock. Post-punk rock. Psych rock. Noise rock. Rock rock. I don’t care what you call it, Thee Oh Sees put the pedal to the metal on Carrion Crawler/The Dream, taking you for a wild ride that never lets up.

44. 1989, Taylor Swift (2014)

Irresistibly catchy, everyone needs to satisfy their pop sweet tooth every now and then. 1989 is so sugary, it might just give you a cavity or two.

43. City Music, Kevin Morby (2017)

The city. The countryside. A beach. Aboard a train. At the pearly gates. It doesn’t matter where you listen to City Music because Kevin Morby’s jams will immediately transport you to your own laid back, happy place.

42. Remind Me Tomorrow, Sharon Van Etten (2019)

You’ll regret it if you keep waiting to listen this powerhouse – and powerful – synth-soaked record.

41. You Want It Darker, Leonard Cohen (2016)

It doesn’t get much darker, bleaker or sparse than this, but I wouldn’t want it any other way from the masterful Leonard Cohen.

40. American Dream, LCD Soundsystem (2017)

Retirement never sounded so good.

39. Capacity, Big Thief (2017)

Quietly captivating, mesmerizing and elegant, Big Thief knock you out without you even realizing it.

38. St. Vincent, St. Vincent (2014)

Annie Clark’s shapeshifting album won’t only shred your face off, it somehow makes you feel smarter, too.

37. Before Today, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti (2010)

So, so weird and so, so good.

36. Expo 86, Wolf Parade (2010)

Like #50, Wolf Parade might always live in the shadow and expectations of a towering classic, yet somehow Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner still continually craft eccentric and bombastic rock albums. Expo 86 is no exception, and it is an underrated classic in its own right.

35. Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves (2018)

Like a sunset or sunrise, Golden Hour radiates beauty and warmth with each of its glowing tracks.

34. Yuck, Yuck (2011)

Despite their name and its hideous album cover, there’s nothing gross about Yuck’s infectious indie rock.

33. Play It Strange, The Fresh & Onlys (2010)

I once saw The Fresh & Onlys play at a tiny club in D.C. It might’ve been the loudest show I’ve ever been to – my ears rang for days. This record is just as rollicking, hazy and good as that show was loud.

32. Natalie Prass, Natalie Prass (2015)

There’s a reason “Welcome to 1979” is stamped in tiny letters on this vinyl’s inner ring – it’s silky smooth, filled with impeccable soft ballads and finely tuned jams – and just a tinge of funk.

31. I Am Easy To Find, The National (2019)

Few bands matched the consistent output of quality albums in the ‘10s as The National. They had one heck of a run, and I Am Easy To Find was a fascinating way to end it – a 21st rock album that felt more complex and expansive than anything they’d done before.

30. Melodrama, Lorde (2018)

Everything a pop record should be and then some – bold, breathtaking and exuberant.

29. Just Enough Hip To Be Woman, Broncho (2014)

If you can’t tell from its playful title, this pop rock album wants nothing more than to have fun – and it succeeds on every level.

28. Avi Buffalo, Avi Buffalo (2010)

Sometimes all you want is a light, sunny and meandering album to wash over you and get lost in, and this one will do the trick every time.

27. Hippies, Harlem (2010)

Imagine a band practicing inside a garage inside a garage inside another garage and you’ve got Harlem. This is garage rock to the max – and at its rambunctious best.

26. Puberty 2, Mitski (2016)

It’s hard to describe Puberty 2. Sure, it might sound like simple dreamy indie rock, but it ebbs and flows in unexpected ways that leaves you guessing where it’s heading next.

25. mbv, My Bloody Valentine (2013)

Picking up right where they left off – even if it was more than a decade later – My Bloody Valentine reminded everyone why they are the masters of reverb soaked shoegaze.

24. A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead (2016)

Even after all these years and albums, Radiohead still found a way to reinvent themselves and push the boundaries of rock music – and our expectations of them. With gorgeous arrangements and slow-burning, tension filled tracks, AMSP proves that even Radiohead can still take risks – and proves rock bands can make quiet, intimate songs sound epic. Oh yeah, and it has “True Love Waits.”

23. Art Angels, Grimes (2015)

Grimes gave us the future of pop music before most could even envision it. This laid the groundwork for all the challenging and intricate – and danceable – pop music that would follow. And it still sounds ahead of its time.

22. Meet Me At The Muster Station, PS I Love You (2010)

The first sounds out of Paul Saulnier’s mouth on Meet Me At The Munster Station aren’t words at all but two short, ecstatic yelps. And this same boundless energy and passion bleeds through on every fuzzy, raucous second of every track. Did I mention there’s a song called “Butterflies & Boners”?

21. More Than Any Other Day, Ought (2014)

You really ought to listen to Ought if you aren’t already. Tim Darcy and co. sound a bit uneasy, paranoid and self-aware, but they make the most minute challenges sound so exhilarating and life-altering – even the struggle deciding between two percent and whole milk at the grocery store.

20. Lemonade, Beyoncé (2017)

All hail Queen Bey.

19. Twin-Hand Movement, Lower Dens (2010)

This album sounds like 2 am on a dark, rainy Saturday night – in the best way imaginable.

18. Tomboy, Panda Bear (2011)

You can always count on Panda Bear to make hypnotic, loopy electronic music sound so breezy and effortless.

17. Modern Vampires Of The City, Vampire Weekend (2013)

I don’t know why, but I want to dislike Vampire Weekend so much. But that’s impossible when their music is so damn good and every note sounds so neat and perfect.

16. Past Life Martyred Saints, EMA (2011)

Just do yourself and listen to this album please.

15. The Archandroid, Janelle Monáe (2010)

Blending too many genres to count, this is what I imagine music sounds like in space.

14. Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens (2015)

I’ll let you know how I feel about this one after I stop crying.

13. The Suburbs, Arcade Fire (2010)

It’s everything you either love or hate about Arcade Fire. Grand, sincere and sweeping rock that swings for the fences with every guitar chord, drumbeat and horn blast. I love it.

12. Silence Yourself, Savages (2013)

Savages grab you by the throat and never let go – this is one intense album.

11. Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes (2011)

This might be the epitome of ‘10s indie rock – and for good reason. Introspective, sensitive and searching for some greater meaning, Robin Pecknold holds nothing back and lays it all out on Helplessness Blues.

10. Kaputt, Destroyer (2011)

Dan Bejar is an enigma and seemingly reluctant rock star. I saw him perform an acoustic set where he spent a majority of the time playing with his back towards the audience (although in fairness, it was at a free outdoor show on a college campus with people mostly chatting obnoxiously over him), and yet it’s as if his creativity requires him to constantly release new albums and show them off. Kaputt is as equally strange and mysterious – and just as creative – as its maker.

9. Black Star, David Bowie (2016)

Take away the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding this album’s release and it would still be in the top tier of David Bowie’s extensive catalogue. Experimenting until the very end, Bowie morphed into something entirely new one last time. Part jazz, part rock and part I’m not sure what you would call it, the results were once again out of this world. He couldn’t give it all away, but we’re sure thankful for what he could.

8. Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011)

Shedding the cabin in the woods vibe, Justin Vernon took a giant leap forward with Bon Iver and made ‘80s soft rock popular.

7. Celebration Rock, Japandroids (2012)

Perhaps the most aptly named album on this list, no other album exudes the joy of making music and rocking out with your buddy than this one. It’s hard to believe all that noise and energy comes from just two people.

6. Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Angel Olsen (2014)

Angel Olsen’s hypnotic and seductive vocals, lyrics and guitar suck you in immediately, mesmerizing you from the first gentle strums to the peaks and valleys of “Lights Out” and “Stars” all the way to the closer’s pulsing drumbeats and majestic piano.

5. Black Messiah, D'Angelo And The Vanguard (2015)

Oozing with cool, sexy and confident R&B funk, D’Angelo returned after 14 years with an instant soul masterpiece.

4. The Monitor, Titus Andronicus (2010)

It says a lot when a band can a.) make an hour plus punk rock record b.) loosely base it on the Civil War c.) quote Abraham Lincoln d.) close it out with a 14 minute track inspired by a famous naval battle and e.) still make you want to listen to it over and over and over again.

3. Lost In The Dream, The War On Drugs (2014)

The rare album that can feel vast and ambitious and yet deeply private and personal all at once. You really will get lost in these soaring songs.

2. Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter (2010)

At times perfectly melodic and structured and at others feeling on the brink of falling apart, Halcyon Digest is a paradox – sounding peaceful, bright and idyllic while also peering over the edge into something darker. This is a remarkable record from a remarkable band. If not for the abrupt end to the darkly beautiful closer “He Would Have Laughed,” Halcyon Digest sounds like it could go on forever.

1. Let England Shake, PJ Harvey (2011)

A stunning, thought-provoking, and moving – not to mention endlessly listenable – transcendent piece of art about life and the Great War. PJ Harvey doesn’t hold back on the brutality and absurdity of armed conflict, and the album’s devastating closing track – “The Colour of the Earth” – will linger in your mind long after the record stops spinning. As powerful today as it was eight years ago, this album will remain timely and important for years – and decades – to come.

[nikitachikita005]

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! 🎉🐰Maybe one year I’ll make an actual Easter cosplay but have this ancient throwback to AWA 2013... I can’t believe this was so long ago! 😮 Anyone remember this game? It’s a shame I was never able to finish it, maybe I can re-download it sometime. 😩 📸: @spoookyskeletons Jieun: @cartermoonxx Jihae: me #dandelion #jieun #jihae #cheritz #cheritzgame #dandelionwishesbroughttoyou #dandelionjieun #dandelionjihae #awa #easter #rabbit #cosplay (at Anime Weekend Atlanta) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-48kOKjoIO/?igshid=1t26o0t8mgm1c

[wisteriafield]

remember that zun made tenshi’s eyes blue on the t-shirt design the one time he visited the US in 2013 for anime weekend atlanta

[heidiblack]

Convention Review: Gem City

Convention: Gem City Comic Con

Location: Dayton, Ohio

Date: July 24-25 (sat/sun)

Table cost: $75

Table size: 8'

Application: FCFS

Table placement: back corner from entrance in main hall, but visible straight down a long aisle and near 2 other author/artists I've worked with before

Items for sale: 11x17" posters (fanart and original), tutorial artbook, coloring book, original comic (sons of fire), zines (fanart and original; sfw and nsfw), postcards (4.25x5.5", fanart and original), pins (original), resin coasters and jewelry

New items/display: Stained-glass style charm necklaces, organization for my resin pieces

Mask policy: not required for vaccinated people (was CDC guidelines at the time)

Previously attended? Yes (2013, 2014, 2015)

Pros: inexpensive table, close to parents house (20 minute drive), 8' table, a lot of familiar faces

Cons: cheerleading tournament was also happening at the same time so there was a large amount of stomping, artist alley divided and some people were in a separate room, low traffic

Most popular item(s): Posters (20)

Least popular item(s): tutorial art book (0)

It has been since before I moved to California in 2015 that I attended Gem City (back when it was in the Nutter Center at Wright State). The Dayton Convention Center is definitely much better lit.

Unfortunately, the artist alley was weirdly laid out, with some artists in a side room that was actually shut at one point during the show.

I was told I was the only artist with Genshin Impact art, which drove sales, though overall the show was slow. Other artists who had been in previous (more recent) years noted that attendance was significantly down, most likely due to a combination of Covid and the show being at a different time (July rather than the normal spring show). Had a lot of free time for drawing. Still, I did almost twice as well as I had done back in 2015

Gross sales: <$1k

Recommend/will attend again? As my parents live in the area (free lodging!) the cost to me is minimal, so I'll be back in 2022. If you're local or within maybe a 2 hour drive, it's worth considering

Other 2021 convention reviews: Anime Ohio

Inconjunction Gem City AnimaticCon Westwood Art Show/second saturdays Cincinnati Comic Expo New York Comic Con Voltcon Anime Weekend Atlanta Art on Vine Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) Con+Alt+Delete Anime Zap (2022)

These reviews take a lot of time and effort, but I think they are something the artist alley community needs! If you would like to support me so I can keep doing these, please consider donating or buying from my shops! https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=JBTBC5WRMRTJ2 Storenvy Etsy

[aion-rsa]

Bad Trip: Eric Andre Recounts His Wild Experiences On Set

https://ift.tt/31lmx0v

Note: This interview took place in early 2020, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Andre is feeling nostalgic. He wistfully recalls a simpler, but arguably not any less crazy time in his life, as he anticipates the public’s reaction to his upcoming movie, Bad Trip.

“Back in like 2009, I’d dress up like Ronald McDonald and head into a McDonald’s,” Andre tells us about one of the earliest segments for his Adult Swim series. “I’d be drinking booze, crying and smoking cigarettes in there. That was all just with one mic and one camera on me.”

For over a decade, Andre and director Kitao Sakurai have been entrenched in the experimental comedy scene. But the team behind Adult Swim’s The Eric Andre Show has moved from killing time with a bare-bones setup in dingy New York City fast food joints to far higher production values in the feature film world. With those bigger venues come bigger risks, and the potential of infuriating someone not in on the joke. In one harrowing instance, Andre and his Bad Trip co-star Lil Rel Howery had their lives threatened during a confrontation in an Atlanta barbershop.

“It was our second day of shooting [Bad Trip] and this guy pulled a knife on us,” says Andre, with a mix of both joy and concern in his voice. “For this bit, our dicks are caught in a Chinese finger trap. So we’re stretching our junk back and forth. The guy’s like, ‘Oh, hell no!’ He grabbed a knife and chased us out. We could barely run in the thing, and Rel fell down and rolled under a truck. That was terrifying. That was Rel’s second day, not only of filming the movie, but ever doing hidden camera pranks. So he was miserable.” 

There are no limits for Andre; anything goes in the name of comedy. The scope may be wider now, but Andre is still up to his same signature brand of absurdist humor. So enters Bad Trip, an extreme hidden camera film that is also something of a road trip adventure for Andre and Howery, one they’ve been working toward since 2013. In the film, Andre and Howery play two best friends who embark on a cross-country journey of self-discovery. In the process, they subject the unknowing public to radical stunts like faking a prison break (with help from co-star Tiffany Haddish) or menial day jobs that result in gushing blood or embarrassing nudity.  

While Bad Trip feels like a big moment and natural extension of the comedian’s brand, Andre has been an important face in comedy for years. The Eric Andre Show has been a fixture on Adult Swim since 2012 with its much anticipated fifth season finally arriving in October 2020. Andre has also been a bright spot in series like Man Seeking Woman, Don’t Trust The B—- in Apt. 23, and Two Broke Girls. In recent years, he even landed prominent  voice acting roles, appearing in Matt Groening’s Netflix series Disenchantment and Jon Favreau’s The Lion King. 

In many respects, Bad Trip is what Andre’s career has been building toward, as he puts together what could easily be his purest—and craziest—piece of work.

DEN OF GEEK: You’re no stranger to unscripted “man on the street” style stuff, but did you intentionally want to make this bigger or have specific goals since it’s a movie? 

ERIC ANDRE: The weekend Bad Grandpa was coming out, my agent called me and he’s like, “Hey man, this Bad Grandpa movie is testing through the roof. It’s going to make a bunch of money. You do these crazy pranks.” Season two of The Eric Andre Show hadn’t even come out yet, but he’s like, “You should meet up with Jeff Tremaine and you guys should work on something together.” This is how long I’ve been working on this. At that point I barely knew how to slap a television show together, no less a movie.

So me and my team and Jeff and his posse just kept putting our heads together and developing and writing this idea and started going around town pitching it. But after seeing Bad Grandpa we were like, “Holy shit. Hidden camera pranks can work, narratively,” which is groundbreaking. Borat did that too. The only difference between [this and] Borat is that the cameras were part of the conceit because he was a journalist from Kazakhstan. This is hidden camera where the cameras weren’t overt.

In terms of a script, were you guys working off more of an outline, or did you actually have a full script written out? 

Read more

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By Chris Longo

You still need a story that you’re getting across like in any other movie. The actors’ parts were scripted, but it was kind of like an outline in other areas. Obviously we don’t know what the people that we’re pranking are going to say, but once my clothing gets vacuumed off and I’m butt naked at a car wash, we get the idea that the person we’re pranking is going to have an emphatic reaction to that.

We would kind of make guesses based on the severity of the prank on how the person was going to react and sometimes we were wrong and you had to reshoot. You do the prank a few times until you get the result you want and you tweak it each time to yield that result. But it is like an experimental filmmaking process because you just have to shoot way more and you have to hope for the best. You have to get out there and continue talking to the real people until you get the plot points that you want. We’re getting actual exposition from real civilians. That’s what makes the movie so rich.

It would seem that a movie of this nature would have a lot of unused footage when stuff doesn’t go as planned, but that’s interesting to hear that you’d keep filming scenes until you got what you needed.

Every reaction in the movie is 100 percent real. We never ever faked a reaction or asked the person that we’re pranking to say a specific thing. We only use genuine reactions. That was kind of our ethos going into it. Honestly the audience can smell it when it’s fake, you know what I mean? They can sense it and it jeopardizes the rest of the pranks because then they’re like, “Wait, if that’s fake, then is that fake?” Nothing can be scripted.

On The Eric Andre Show you’re usually doing these kinds of pranks by yourself, but here you have Lil Rel Howery with you. Was it nice to have a partner in crime when you were filming this?

Yeah, it was a little like starting over because I’m usually just out there on my own. There are two things that were different from The Eric Andre Show, which is that on The Eric Andre Show I’m just being completely absurd and schizophrenic in public. But for this I had to be more grounded and we needed narrative information out of a random pedestrian on the street. So it was a lot more challenging. This is like an evolution from the performances I was doing in The Eric Andre Show.

And then Rel and I had to figure out our dynamic, not get in the way of each other, plus gel and be believable as this hapless duo. It’s a different feel because you’re going out there and it’s awkward with real people. You’re going out and pissing people off. It’s all to get a rise out of people. It’s intense and it’s dangerous. So, it was like a crash course for Lil Rel, but by the end of it he understood the mechanics of it and how to take people on a ride.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

You’ve gotten to do a lot of voiceover work in animation lately, between The Lion King, Disenchantment, and your upcoming role in Connected. Did you ever expect your career to head in this direction?

Not at all. I always auditioned for this kind of stuff, but I never got it. Then I got an email for a Matt Groening project and I was like, “It’s Matt Groening. He created The Simpsons. I got to audition for this.” I didn’t think I would get it. It was like a Hail Mary pass, and I even did it on my phone. Then they were like, “They want to see you,” so I auditioned again, I got the role, and I kind of broke it all open.

Once you get booked for one cartoon, all these other animation projects are like, “Oh okay, you get it. Let’s get him in there next.” Then I got Lion King and I’ve got a couple of other animated movies on the way. But really, having Matt Groening vouch for you is pretty damn big in the animation community.

I loved what you and Dan Curry did with the KRFT PUNK Special. Was it surreal to see that character get put in the spotlight and how much that universe has expanded?

Yeah, well, there’s nothing more organic than KRFT PUNK. I remember when Dan first pitched the character, in what I think was season three. He pitched it kind of jokingly because it’s such a dumb idea. But we’re in the business of dumb ideas. We’re in the dumb idea industry. It just instantly became a fan favorite and he’s one of the most popular characters from The Eric Andre Show. So, his spin-off was warranted.

Do you think that more KRFT PUNK could happen? Dan Curry was talking about how he wanted to go to Antarctica to do a Flat Earth special.

Yeah, absolutely. We’re expanding our universe in big ways. We’re onwards and upwards.

Bad Trip is available to stream now on Netflix.

The post Bad Trip: Eric Andre Recounts His Wild Experiences On Set appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3tYHCtG

[marvelsagentsofshieldtv]

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Ming-Na Wen has revealed her dream of playing DC supervillain Catwoman. Wen, of course, has been a pivotal team member on the ABC action drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since the show’s inception in 2013, playing Agent Melinda May opposite the likes of Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Chloe Bennett (Daisy “Skye” Johnson). Over the course of the episodes over the past four years and on such shows as SGU Stargate Universe, Wen has not only shown that she has incredible charisma, she’s well-trained to take on any physical challenges her roles demand. And while Wen has at least one more year on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when season 5 kicks off December 1, she clearly likes entertaining thoughts about future roles. Villains Fan Fest in Atlanta over the weekend, a fan asked Wen which DC character she would like to play. Without hesitation, Wen said, “I would make an awesome Catwoman.” Naturally, Wen’s response drew applause from the crowd, as she added a cat noise to punctuate her answer. It’s always fun to get famed actors’ takes on dream roles they’d like to attempt, and getting Wen’s choice of which DC role she’d like to take on is particularly a joy. While she’s long been associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she also has plenty of DC street cred, too, having voiced Detective Ellen Yin on the animated series The Batman from 2004-2005. She’s obviously very familiar with Batman lore, otherwise it’s unlikely she would have readily answered the question as fast as she did when a fan asked her which DC character she’d like to play. Catwoman, not surprisingly, is a character that lots of high-profile actresses have expressed interest in playing Whoever decides to cast the next Catwoman, hopefully they’ll be listening to the wishes of Wen, as well as Batman Returns’ iconic Catwoman Michelle Pfeiffer, who recently said she’d love to reprise the role.

[craigwinslow]

2018: Ripples from Jet Fuel

Oh, hello again friend! It’s been 1.5 years since my last update... 

If you look back, I used to write and share a lot more. I often feel discouraged at the nature of these massive “catch-up” posts where I essentially dump a bunch of images on you. Then again, it’s kind of comforting; I’ve had my hands full, and it’s been some very positive momentum.

Immediately after wrapping up my Adobe Creative Residency in May 2017, my focus turned toward a massive opportunity at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas. For the rest of 2017, I worked on designing an entire, first-of-its-kind, permanent exhibition called ‘Brilliant!’ which opened Feb 2018; a 30 min immersive audiovisual experience, reviving their broken neon signs with digital light.

It was one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve worked on to date; an incredible affirmation in my own abilities, for The Neon Museum to put so much trust in me to enable my vision for the project, and it continues to be a fully collaborative partnership. 2019 will see much more out of ‘Brilliant!’

I’ve often referred to the Adobe Creative Residency as jet fuel for my creative career, and it’s absolutely true— at the time, I had a college degree, 3 years experience at JDK, and 3 years experience working for myself. Landing the Adobe Residency amplified my momentum tenfold, financially enabling me to explore, improve, and share on a global stage. (Applications are now open for 2019 by the way!)

This however, led to a massive amount of stress, which I had to constantly cope with as I pushed myself harder than ever to achieve as much as possible in those short 52 weeks. But, what happens... when the jet fuel runs out? After your dream job ends? 

It kinda... didn’t end. The rest of 2017 led right into working on ‘Brilliant!’ which felt like a massive extension of Light Capsules, but neon, and Las Vegas. Similar stress levels continued, but it was such viscerally, wonderfully, satisfying, fulfilling work.

The people who have experienced ‘Brilliant!’ tell me about their emotional responses, it’s rich with history, nostalgia, and a feeling of childhood magic— I could not possibly be more proud of it.

Following launch, I finally took a proper break: a month in Europe with Maggie to Amsterdam, Haarlem, train to Berlin, train to Copenhagen, and a weekend in Paris. It was incredible. I visited museums. I relaxed. I read a freakin book. (Ready Player One. Yes, I thought the movie fell super flat.) 

Halfway through the trip, I had already started working on my next big opportunity, with the Portland Trail Blazers for the NBA Playoffs. Their CMO saw my SXSW talk near the end of my Adobe Creative Residency, and wanted to bring me in to work on new concepts— ripples from the jet fuel of my year as a creative resident, provided doors to open and opportunities I wouldn’t have expected.

Here’s a selection of 2018 projects I was most excited to create this year, followed by a look into the future at what 2019 might look like.

~

BRILLIANT! A NEON MUSEUM EXPERIENCE

360º permanent audiovisual exhibit at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, NV. — Read more here!

PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS NBA PLAYOFFS

Concept design and creative direction for the pre-game opening of the NBA Playoffs. — Read more here!

LIGHTFORM x GEMMA O’BRIEN

Projection augmented mural at Lightform HQ, collaboration with Gemma O’Brien for Lightform. — Read more here!

INTO THE MOON

Projection design for a music video directed by Micah Dudash for Casey Dubie’s “Into The Moon,” supported with projectors by Canon. — Watch the full music video here!

PICKATHON COSMOS

A massive projection mapped sky canvas for the 20th annual Pickathon, co-curated with Eric Cade Schoenborn, showing various digital artists’ work. — Read more here.

LONDON LETTERHEADS

Collaborative projection mural with Anna Frederick for PVS’s The Grand Exhibition at London Letterheads; also gave a Light Capsules talk, taught two pen tool workshops, and showed a reprise projection of Light Capsule No.009.

THOUGHTWORKS PARADIGMSHIFT

Concept work, specialty lighting, projection mapping, and stage/content design with the core ThoughtWorks P/S team. I was also honored to be a featured artist for their Signature Event, creating multiple graffiti projections and a laser/projection kiln light installation called “Harrop’s Kiln”

WHITE NOISE NOW // HEAT

Our follow up to SALT, we brought the massive, recently unoccupied, surprise location Blodgett Oven Factory to life with a site-specific performance of light, sound, and movement. One night, one experience. Full video & documentation is in the works. — Here’s a peek.

SEATTLE PIER 86

Public art collaboration with Chris Rojas, creating a variety of projection mapped historical and locally-inspired content for Seattle’s largest projection mapping installation to date.

KAMP GRIZZLY HOLIDAZE

Closed out the year with a proper doozy of a party— KAMP brought me onto their core team to create some special light installations for their holiday party: detailed shopping carts with faux neon, commissioned a custom market sign, controlled live visuals on a 4 meter projection-mapped sphere, animated a powerful stage laser— oh, and an entire experiential light room where I created “NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL CYBER” augmenting a designed array of 500 CDs + 17 mirror balls + haze.

There you have it, 2018.

Oh! Also I had some past Speaking Scenarios!

WeMake Celebrates 2017 Keynote Speaker — Portland, OR CIID Open Lecture — Copenhagen, DK Nevada State College — Henderson, NV PSU Show & Tell — Portland, OR NAB Show Panel on Future of AR/VR/XR — Las Vegas, NV AIGA Vermont WTF!? Series — Burlington, VT New Mexico Highlands University — Las Vegas, NM

Reflecting forward.

Back when I started this independent venture in 2013, I started setting annual ‘mantras’ to focus on overarching goals, a mental mind-state— something to balance my gut against when pursuing projects and concepts.

It’s been tough, self-defeating at times, and borderline overwhelming, a pressure to always be sharing, socializing the medias, while balancing getting the work done, and having a personal life. Those who love what they do, know that work/life balance isn’t B&W. It’s oddly comforting though, taking this all as affirmation that these past years I’ve been gaining speed, continuing to actively tumble up the rabbit hole.

Previous mantras: 2013: Do More, Go More 2014: Do More, Go More 2015: The year that moved me. (From The Past, Build The Future) 2016: Go, Hustle, Be. The year of YES. 2017: YES. Let’s do this. (smarter, better, together) 2018: Let’s do this, together.

Looking back at 2018, “Let’s do this, together.” absolutely rings true. Nearly all of the above projects involved heavy collaboration and getting multiple partners together to achieve such lofty projects. No one can do it alone, but also the goal isn’t ‘more people’ it’s bringing together the right people. 

This year I learned the massive benefit of building the right team for each job. I’m now feeling more internally stabilized, striking a balance, and have found a better flow.

2019: Seek, Select, Assemble.

Seek— Pursue the difficult.

Select— Nod to advice I received many years ago from Austin Howe: “Continue to be selective. It will pay off.”

Assemble— Bring people together, contribute to community, enable other creatives’ dreams, build powerful collaborative teams to explore new concepts.

A peek toward 2019...

Winchester Mystery House — I’ve been working on some special concepts with their team and we’re narrowing in on a few to hopefully bring to reality.... Tim Burton — Recently announced by The Neon Museum, I’m hoping to be closely involved... dare I say, “collaborate?” with the legendary director himself in 2019. Light Capsules — I’ve been scouting so many locations, near and far, now it’s time to make it happen. NYC. Vancouver. Colorado. Atlanta. Crookston. New Orleans. Jacksonville (OR). Chicago. San Jose. Salt Lake City. Ireland. Lviv, Ukraine. A whole new website... it is time! Japan — In April I’m heading to participate in Tokyo Letterheads and explore Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara. Incredible new tools —I’ve been fortunate to be testing new tools, ones that have already started to spark entirely new design workflows... Lightform, Torch 3D, The Wild, and Google Earth Studio/VR are four in particular I’m super excited to continue exploring.

Stay focused, stay positive, kick some ass. Hello, 2019.

[letithappeneverafter]

The Year The Mainstream Discovered Tame Impala

by Ryan Leas

Last year, Kevin Parker released Currents, his third album under the Tame Impala moniker. It was the moment where he moved beyond the dense psych-rock of Innerspeaker and Lonerism and embraced a shimmering, humid mix of dance and pop and rock. In our cover story about the making of the album, he described its lead single/mission statement, “Let It Happen,” as initiating “this kind of grand transition of someone.” That was an apt description in general for the version of Tame Impala that would develop after Currents came out. Aside from the stylistic departures, Currents also laid the groundwork for Parker capitalizing on the Lonerism festival jams “Elephant” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” to attain a different level of clout than any of us would’ve reasonably expected earlier on in Tame Impala’s existence.

This year, the music world had such an overflow of excellent, invigorating work, major surprise releases, and tragic, surprising deaths that the significant releases of 2015 can already feel like ancient history. That wasn’t the case with Currents. Tame Impala was on the festival circuit playing these songs all year, now sitting at that second- or third-tier headliner status. Some of these songs had become part of the atmosphere — by the time I heard “Let It Happen” repeatedly blaring from the outdoor speaker of an Italian restaurant in Reykjavik this November, I was already used to encountering that, or “The Less I Know The Better,” or “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” in all manner of public spaces. They’d garnered some degree of ubiquity, even if Tame Impala still isn’t a household pop name. The buzz behindCurrents proved legitimate: There wasn’t a new Tame Impala album this year, and yet Parker and his music seemed ever-present. It was a year where the man who once could’ve remained an insular space-rocker from the distant edge of Australia fully entered the mainstream.

There was that Snapchat commercial featuring “The Less I Know The Better,” following on the heels of a 2015 Apple Watch commercial that had also used the song. That in of itself isn’t new for Tame Impala — “Elephant” found prominence partially due to its appearance in a spot for the Blackberry Z10. And this century is littered with examples of indie artists licensing a song to an Apple or car commercial; sometimes it’s one step in an upwards career trajectory, sometimes it’s just a random blip in an artist’s life. For Parker, it’s surprisingly proved to be the former, signaling the wider proliferation of Tame Impala.

It’s expected for Wayne Coyne to love Tame Impala. Less so for, say, John Mayer to Instagram the cover of Currents and write, “Best record of the past two or three years. Proven many times over in my mind.” (He then compared it to “Radiohead 1996″ and, amusingly, “Coldplay 2003,” before concluding with “Phoenix 2008.”) Mayer wasn’t the only pop star enamored with Tame Impala. Rihanna recorded a very, very faithful cover of Currents closer “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” for Anti — the biggest stylistic departure was renaming it “Same Ol’ Mistakes” — and just as it served as a crucial conclusion to the emotional journey of Currents, it too became an important linchpin in Rihanna’s most personal album. (Meanwhile, Tame Impala’s original also appeared in a teaser for Atlanta, one of the best and most popular new TV shows of the year.)

Elsewhere, you had the Brit-rock doofiness of Last Shadow Puppets’ special Tame Impala song at the 2016 iteration of Poland’s Open’er Festival. Alex Turner — a rock artist with the stature of a pop star compared to many of his contemporaries working in the idiom — sang aseemingly improvised paean to the upcoming headliners, offering up gems like “There’s a storm brewing/ In the form of Tame Impala” before proclaiming, “Kevin Parker controls the weather system.” (Not an unfair statement about much of Tame Impala’s music, if we’re being honest.)

Shout-outs and licensing are one thing, but the bigger deal, and the bigger left-turn, is how Parker has started to have a direct interaction with the pop world. Rihanna covering a band that sounds like the evolution of a ’70s stoner-rock dream is a start, an opening salvo. Then you have Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def) previewing a Tame Impala collaboration for one of his final pre-retirement albums. Then you have an honest-to-God collaboration between Parker and Lady Gaga on “Perfect Illusion,” the lead single from her new album Joanne. The video features Parker in the maelstrom dance sequences, drumming as Gaga pulls back his head by the hair.

There was some precedent for this, but it seemed like an outlier at the time. On Mark Ronson’s 2015 album Uptown Special — the one with “Uptown Funk!,” which also seems like ancient history after 2016 — the British producer enlisted Parker for three tracks. Two of them, “Summer Breaking” and “Leaving Los Feliz,” were plays on late ’70s lite-funk and yacht-rock that fit into the album’s overall hybridized retro aesthetic. The best of them was “Daffodils,” a psych-funk track possessing an irresistible, unhurried swagger. Like “Let It Happen,” this is another piece of Parker’s 2015 output that still lingers. At least in my experience, it’s one of those songs you just seem to hear in random places, without any given logic — that subtle ubiquity a song can have without having been a major hit like, say, “Uptown Funk!” Released earlier in 2015, Uptown Special offered a prelude to the disco-fied Tame Impala we were about to meet on Currents. It’s also what eventually lead to “Perfect Illusion”; Ronson’s the guy who got Parker involved with Gaga.

Parker’s new endeavors are part of a general movement we’ve seen in recent times, with indie-rockers alighting from their niche to try their hand at a bigger canvas. There were little grey areas, like Ariel Rechtshaid straddling the pop and alternative worlds with his 2013 trilogy of albums by HAIM, Sky Ferreira, and Vampire Weekend. Fast-forward a bit, and that’s blossomed into Rostam departing Vampire Weekend to pursue pop music full-time, and Ezra Koenig, James Blake, Jack White, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Father John Misty, and Animal Collective all, somehow, being tied to Lemonade. The latter might’ve been a bit of an extreme reaction — more “Let’s avoid another ‘Blurred Lines’ lawsuit” than “Look at all the inspiration we took from the indie world” — but it still marks a moment where indie artists’ names are mingling with the biggest stars on the planet. Like Parker, after all, Josh Tillman is actually contributing songwriting to these albums – he helped with “Hold Up” on Lemonade, and “Sinner’s Prayer” and “Come To Mama” on Joanne, right there alongside “Perfect Illusion.”

What’s notable about this is that, once upon a time, rock stars and singer-songwriters could’ve been major pop forces on their own. Once upon a time, they would’ve been the more critically respected artists, and their choosing to work with a pop artist could’ve legitimated the latter. Now, it’s something like the other way around. An artist like Tame Impala, for as unlikely a rise as they’ve had on their own, are still not going to totally crack the mainstream on their own. But here’s another path: Make your spaced-out synth-drenched coke-rock comedown album, then work with some pop stars, and a career of some notoriety comes into focus.

It’s specifically notable with Parker, because Tame Impala seemed destined to be the band always playing the late-night tents at Bonnaroo. They might’ve been beloved, they might’ve had a cult following. They might’ve been very successful for their sphere, and they might’ve kept churning out woozy ear-candy like Lonerism. And that would’ve been great! But there’s something potentially more interesting on the horizon for Parker now. In a recent interview, he talked of Tame Impala taking a bit of a hiatus. “What comes next is very much a blank canvas,” he said, “but a blank canvas in a good way — I’ve got all the paint!” He’s also spoken about further collaborations he wouldn’t name. Even after Uptown Special and Currents, this is a surprise: the idea of a Tame Impala recognized by pop stars, and Parker as an in-demand co-writer. Who knows whether that’s the path Parker will follow, or what might come of it. But given the creative bounty he’s already reaped from the unexpected detours in his career, the idea of a future version of Parker known for guesting on rap songs or taking a pop single further out into the unknown is just as exciting as hearing him let loose a mind-warping solo as the sun sets over a festival crowd.

[dannick99]

I just have to give a cheers to my dear Dad up there on Derby Day, who’s probably so thankful he’s exactly where he is today, knowing him and considering all things as they have been lately! Dogwood stable had a whopping eight horses in the Derby from 1991 - 2013.  Second, third, fourth and beyond. My father never got that ultimate gold ring of horseracing. But he got closer than most in the history of the sport.   We won the Preakness (Summer Squall), and we won the Belmont (Palace Malice), and a gazillion other important races with a continuous string of some of the top horses in the world along the way.   Not only did he enter the game at a time when the old guard of American society and finance was well-ensconsed and befittingly claimed the Sport of Kings as their own. But  Cot Campbell found an incredibly innovative way to break his way into the old game, initially much to the dismay of these old American families – the Vanderbilts Whitneys, Phipps, etc..-  but that didn’t slow him down. He was a believer…. in his own dream. Not long after his idea was conceived and implemented and the green and gold silks were becoming a more familiar sight at the top racetracks around the country, the reality hit that he had actually changed the name of the game, and I dare say allowed for racing to continue as a modern sport that it is today.   As he always said, necessity is the mother of invention!   Cot Campbell therefore became known, for the span of his long prosperous career and for eternity in the horse racing world, as the “Pioneer of Thoroughbred Racehorse Syndication.” He always said to the press:  I was the lucky one who stumbled into it! If I hadn’t, someone else surely would have. Second part may be truth, first part not so true. It was what he was built for. What he was made for - his destiny.  His dad, another hero of mine for reasons I’ll go into another day, and his grandfather exposed him to horseracing back in the days of the great Kelso. Dad found his hero in the way of this big hearted, hard-trying beauty of a horse (look him up if you’re interested). With more exposure throughout his childhood, he fell in love with horses, and the risk and energy and every aspect of the classic romantic sport of horseracing that came with those powerful majestic animals barrelling down the racetrack. My beloved grandfather, Wild Bill Campbell, (Who I miss at times almost as much as my dad) had a horseracing stable for a brief stint called Shoestring Stable in historic Franklin, TN. When World War II broke out, there was a ban on unnecessary travel (um, how we all get that now in 2020 :-&!). He had just gotten his stable working on all cylinders and in full blown Go-mode - ready to ship these primed young racehorses off to the racetrack to do what they were born to do. Due to this poorly-timed government ban, Shoestring Stable went bankrupt before they ever broke out of the gate.  But after experiencing days at the track with his grandfather and seeing his own father build and labor over his stable of racehorses (whether they raced or not), the love and passion for the sport was stamped in Cot Campbell’s blood from that time forward.   A lot of history dots to be filled in after that in my father’s quite unorthodox life and early career, but one commonality for these two Campbell men was work in the fields of sportswriting, novel and guidebook and memoir writing, PR, and advertising. Believe me, there are endless (now funny)lesson-loaded stories between the two of them and their respective careers full of stunts and stints working in every possible kind of position and situation but I’ll continue on for now and revisit those on another interesting day. I was fortunate enough to work for my dad for seven years in the Dogwood Stable office (a beautiful white Victorian house with a wrap-around porch) in Aiken, SC as PR Director. My dad did not believe in nepotism. I had to deserve the job and got no special treatment or pay. And it was a highly sought-after job whenever it happened to open up.  I called him 'Cot' when I was on duty, like the rest of his employees. This job was one of the most rewarding and most challenging experiences of my life. A lot was demanded and especially when we had an entry in a Triple Crown race, and even more especially when we had a favorite. Crazy, energetic bustling times. A bonus was getting to know so many members of the national sports press personally who have since become lifelong friends.  That position as one of the Top 10 Horseracing stables in the country for a long time required it.  EightDerby horses required it! My dad was a very smart businessman in everything that he touched....once he stopped drinking. At age 31. That decision changed his life. As it can sure do. That's another accomplishment of his I am inordinately proud of. He went on to help endless friends and strangers make that same decision for themselves. He only attended AA in the beginning of his sobriety but was a strong believer in and advocate for the program until he died, even saying he thought the best 'church' out there was AA. My dad was a sought out speaker at AA meetings his whole life, and I think he would say that stopping drinking for him was the thing in his life he was the most proud of. I've always said I wouldn't be here if he hadn't made it AA that dark night in mid-town Atlanta in 1957.   He wrote about his drinking life (and all the rest of it) in his third published book called Memoirs of A Longshot - subtitled 'A Riproarious Life'.  It's a highly entertaining read.   Anyway, my job as PR Director in the 90's was selling Dogwood (although it was really selling itself at that point) to the assorted colorful lot of top-of-their-game Sportswriters. . I have never learned as much in the business world as I did as PR Director of Dogwood stable, and I’ve done a lot of things in a lot of varied and significant positions (In the worlds of writing, editing, photography, PR, journalism, and nonprofit management and fundraising). And I”ve never been exposed to a classier, more colorful interesting world than that of horseracing. The final truth of the story is that horseracing would not be what it is today if my father had not done what he did when he did it and how he did it. Yes, maybe/probably someone else would’ve come up with it eventually and run with it, but they didn’t. He did ...early on. And he knew what to do with it. And  made the very bold risky decision to sell out of his thriving Atlanta ad agency - Burton-Campbell (googleable if you care) to start forming racehorse partnerships, when everyone in Atlanta thought he were crazy. Except for mom, as Dad was always quick to point out.  He bought some horses at auction,  bought some land in southern Georgia, built a race track on it, a southern black woman stewing up the absolute best of dishes, and houses for trainers and staff and their families, etc. etc.. Then he bought some high-pedigreed horses at auction and brought them back to Dogwood Farm in Greenville, Georgia.   And then he bought another farm one a mile away to entertain guests after they’ve seen the horses breeze (85+% of their full-out ability)  on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Cars and busloads from Atlanta would flock to the farm on fall and spring weekends. They would tour the farm, get to know the horses and then come out to the race track watching area with their cocktails where my dynamic dad would get on the megaphone to explain what was happening with each horse.  Everyone was mesmerized. Groups of horses one set at a time flying by the crowd in all their majesty, hooves pounding, athleticism-at-its-best personified. How can you, If you were a guest for the day at the old Dogwood Farm in Greenville Georgia, not see these flashy powerful animals creating beauty in motion on the race track and not want in on that scene!!  You start to picture your future:  those well-recognized yellow and gold polka dot Dogwood silks worn by maybe Steve Cauthen.....or in more current days Irad Ortiz.  You, with your Owner credentials, get to show up in the paddock, watch your horse get saddled, shake the jockey's hand and listen to the trainer give race instructions. Then you go to the Clubhouse to your front and center box seat, drinking a Mint Julep or a Belmont Breeze or Saratoga Sunrise and watch YOUR horse win their race, at Saratoga or Keeneland or Belmont or Churchill Downs that YOU were there and present for.  And after the race, you run down to the track, congrats and high-fives along the route, to get your picture taken in the winners' circle.  “Count me in!!! I’ll take two or three shares!”   My father brought more than 1500 new people into racing, that (in most cases) couldn't have been in the game otherwise, through their being able to buy a share in a horse (or a group of horses in the beginning days).   Dad was a straight shooter too. He was always known by his clients and people he worked with, the media and everyone in the industry as dealing with total honesty and integrity. It’s a reputation he died with. And deserved to, wholeheartedly. My dad was a man of truth. Whether raw and brutal or warm and fuzzy. He delivered it as it was. And I did and do respect the hell out of that and learned a lot of good things from it that continue to serve me well. In business, yes he was a salesman. He was selling a fun experience (albeit an expensive one), but there were no hidden costs in any Dogwood syndicate. Our clients were treated like gold. They were what made the Dogwood engines keep running, as any clients in any business can take credit for, so they were treated as they should be and most became dear family lifetime friends. These were investors who, win or lose at the end of the day, were in it for the experience. Period. Cot Campbell rubbed people’s noses in the fact that they very well WON’T make money!   “Don’t get into it if you’re looking to make money” he was known to say.   He sold the experience as Crepes Suzette. It’s decadent, it’s extra, it’s rich, you may lose something in the taking (or gain - weight!), but you’ll have a hell of a fun time in the interim! So every time Triple Crown season rolls around on this first Saturday in May, the memories come flooding back of our Derby experiences as a family, and the pride wells up in me to see these owners there (MOST of whom these days are part of a partnership) celebrating and cheering on their horse, and to know that the whole game was changed back in the early ‘70’s by one man – my Dad, Cot Campbell, allowing fans to own a piece of a racehorse and that has therefore allowed the great sport of horseracing to continue to thrive on the level it does. So, I’m raising my Mint Julep to you, Dad. (You always made me a good strong drink....vicarious pouring, i always suspected ;-)). He wasn't perfect, but he did life right in my book. And left an undeniable unusual legacy that stands forever. And provided his family with a fun, interesting as heck life, and I’m one grateful daughter. CHEERS, WCC!! On Coronavirus Derby Day and every other day..... Liloo -- www.lilacampbellphotography.com

[blackkudos]

Fantasia

Fantasia Monique Taylor (née Barrino; born June 30, 1984), known professionally by her mononym Fantasia, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, and actress. She rose to fame as the winner of the third season of the reality television series American Idol in 2004. Following her victory, she released her debut single, "I Believe," which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Subsequently, she released her debut album, Free Yourself, which went on to be certified Platinum by the RIAA and garnered Taylor three Grammy nominations in 2006.

In 2006, she released her second album, Fantasia, which featured the single "When I See U" which topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for eight weeks. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA and received three Grammy nominations in 2008. She then played the part of Celie in the Broadway musical The Color Purple, for which she won a 2007 Theatre World Award. Her third studio album, Back to Me, was released worldwide on August 24, 2010 and features the single "Bittersweet," which peaked in the top ten on the R&B chart. The single won her a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. As of February 2012, Taylor has sold 2,842,000 albums and 1,425,000 tracks in the United States. In 2012, VH1 ranked her number 32 out of the 100 Greatest Women in Music.

On April 18, 2013, Taylor returned to American Idol singing "Lose to Win." The performance dubbed "dynamic, passionate and powerful" won her fervent expressions of approval from the show's current judges and a wild ovation from the live audience. Moreover, she has received rave reviews in the media for the performance. In November 2013, Taylor returned to Broadway in the musical After Midnight. On October 16, 2014, she was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

Taylor has been nicknamed "Baby Patti LaBelle" by her idol Patti LaBelle.

Early life

Fantasia Taylor was born Fantasia Barrino to Diane and Joseph Barrino and raised in High Point, North Carolina. She began singing at the age of five. Taylor cites Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle and Tina Turner as her biggest musical influences. Music runs in her family. R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo, formerly of Jodeci, are her first cousins. Her uncles, The Barrino Brothers, were a 1970s R&B band.

Despite the travels, she attended Andrews High School in High Point, North Carolina. Feeling embarrassed and harassed after she was raped by a classmate, she dropped out of high school. She became pregnant at 16, and on August 8, 2001, gave birth to her daughter, Zion Quari Barrino with her ex-boyfriend, Brandel Shouse.

Career

2004–05: American Idol and Free Yourself

Taylor's show was a heartfelt staging of the Porgy and Bess standard "Summertime" that left her in tears from "feeling the song" and earned praise from the judges and was named amongst the AOL's 2004 list of greatest television moments.

For the final performance of the season, Taylor offered a second performance of "Summertime" that again drew praise from the judges; Simon Cowell remarked that she was the best contestant to ever compete in any competition, including the more than seventy Idol champions crowned nationally and internationally since the show began its first global incarnations. On the finale, over 65 million votes were cast in order to determine the winner on May 26, 2004, up from 24 million in 2003. Taylor defeated runner-up Diana DeGarmo by 1.3 million votes. At age 19, she was the youngest American Idol winner until May 23, 2007, when then 17-year-old Jordin Sparks won the title.

Taylor participated in the U.S. tour with the other American Idol finalists and appeared in the 2004 Christmas special, Kelly, Ruben and Fantasia: Home For the Holidays as well.

Taylor's brother auditioned for the eighth season of American idol but failed to make it to the Hollywood round.

Taylor is one of only four winners, the others being Ruben Studdard, Kris Allen and most recently Candice Glover, to have landed in the bottom three or two, which she did twice.

Performances

^Note 1 : When Ryan Seacrest announced the results in the particular night, Taylor was in the bottom two, but declared safe when LaToya London was eliminated.

After winning American Idol, Fantasia signed to J Records with 19 Entertainment and began work on her debut album. In June 2004, she released her debut single, "I Believe", which later debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This number-one debut made Fantasia the first artist in history to achieve this with a first single. On the sales chart, the single spent eleven consecutive weeks at number one, giving it the longest consecutive stay on top of that chart for an American Idol contestant. The CD single, "I Believe", went on to become the top selling single of 2004 in the U.S., and has since been certified double platinum by the CRIA. Taylor also won three Billboard Music Awards for the single.

Fantasia released her debut studio album, Free Yourself, in November 2004. It debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200, selling 240,000 copies in its first week. To date, it has sold over two million copies worldwide, and was certified Platinum in the U.S. The singles "Truth Is" and "Free Yourself" became R&B hits, reaching number two and number three respectively on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, while the controversial "Baby Mama"—which critics accused of romanticizing single motherhood—reached the top twenty. Taylor did even better on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B Airplay, where she was the first artist of any kind to simultaneously hold the top two spots of the top three, and "Truth Is" spent 14 weeks at the number one position. Taylor was named the number-one artist of the Adult Urban Contemporary format for 2005 according to the December 13, 2005 issue of Billboard magazine.

Through the spring and winter of 2005, Fantasia made many television appearances to promote her album. She played Aretha Franklin in an episode of the series American Dreams, singing "Respect", guest voiced on The Simpsons episode "A Star Is Torn", and guest starred as herself in a cameo role on the sitcom All of Us. She appeared three times as a musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. On March 25, 2005, Fantasia performed at the thirty-sixth NAACP Image Awards in honor of Illinois Senator Barack Obama after winning the award for Outstanding Female Artist. In May 2005, Fantasia went on her first tour with her own live band, with soul singers Kem and Rashaan Patterson. She also appeared as a headliner at several music festivals including the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival and the Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica. In October 2005, she received good notices as an opening act for Kanye West's Touch the Sky Tour.

2006–07: Fantasia, acting debut and The Color Purple

In 2006, Taylor was nominated for three Grammy Awards for her debut album. Though she did not win any awards, she performed at the 48th annual telecast with several artists including Aerosmith, Joss Stone, John Legend, Maroon 5, and Ciara in an all-star tribute to Sly and the Family Stone during the Grammy Award show.

In August 2006, Fantasia played herself in a Lifetime Television film based on her autobiography Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. The film was directed by Debbie Allen and debuted on the women's cable network on August 19, 2006. The movie received nineteen million viewers throughout its debut weekend. The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life is Not a Fairy Tale has also become Lifetime's second most viewed program of all time.

Fantasia had many musical collaborations during the fall of 2006 including a remake of The Clark Sisters' "Endow Me" which featured Faith Evans, Lil' Mo, and Coko of SWV, a remake of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song "I Wish" with Patti LaBelle and Yolanda Adams for the soundtrack to the 2006 computer-animated film Happy Feet, and most notably her duet with Aretha Franklin which was recorded at that time and later released in 2007.

She released her self-titled second effort, Fantasia, on December 12, 2006. The album involved production by Missy Elliott, Swizz Beatz, Babyface, Diane Warren, and others, and has since spawned the singles "Hood Boy" produced by Tone Mason, "When I See U", and "Only One U" and went on to be certified gold.

When I See You" became her first single to top the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, remaining at the number one spot for eight consecutive weeks. The single stayed on the chart for over a year and was named number eight on the Billboard Best of The 2000s R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

In February 2007, Fantasia appeared and performed on American Idol, and announced that she would be starring in the lead role of Celie in the Broadway musical The Color Purple, the hit musical based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker. After appearing on American Idol and The Oprah Winfrey Show, the musical received a boost of over two million in pre-ticket sales in one week. Leading up to her first performance on April 10, 2007 the play garnered a total of 6.5 million in pre-ticket sales.

While playing the role, Fantasia earned rave reviews for her performance. New York Post critic Clive Barnes said, "... there is some elemental quality to Fantasia that is either greatness or something close to it." Upon her warm welcome to the stage Fantasia was asked to perform at the 2007 Tony Awards in a tribute to Atlanta's Alliance Theater in which The Color Purple got its start. In recognition of an outstanding stage debut performance, Fantasia was given the Theatre World Award and the Best Replacement Star Broadway.com Award. Fantasia was initially scheduled for a limited six-month engagement ending in October 2007 but had her run extended until January 6, 2008. The Color Purple box office saw a thirty-four-million-dollar jump in sales since Taylor started in the show, a third of the play's 100 million dollar earning since its debut in 2005. The New York Post reported that Taylor missed nearly fifty performances in the show, causing the producers to give back tens of thousands of dollars in refunds. In the September 2008 issue of Sister 2 Sister magazine, Taylor revealed that the reason for her absences in The Color Purple was because of the development of a cyst on her vocal cords. She was ordered to immediately undergo surgery which later revealed that she in fact had a tumor on her vocal cords. She now reports that after a successful surgery, the tumor was completely removed and she is now well.

2008–10: Back to Me and Fantasia for Real

Fantasia received two Grammy nominations for her sophomore release, Fantasia and subsequently began work on her third studio album in 2008. She stated on the red carpet of the 2008 Grammy Awards that the style of the new album would be a blending of the avenues she has touched musically, which include American Idol and Broadway. She also revealed that she would be writing some of the album's songs and would collaborate again with Missy Elliott, The Underdogs, and Midi Mafia, who produced one of her biggest hits, "When I See U".

Midi Mafia produced the majority of Fantasia's third studio album. Also, hip hop duo Rock City were confirmed to be writing for the new project. At the time, they had recorded four songs together. She also worked with songwriter-producer Rich King which spawned two songs for her third release. KP, Eric Hudson and Raphael Saadiq are a few people that also became involved on the project. Fantasia confirmed that about 75 percent of the album was complete by mid-2009, and that fans should've expected a new single by the fall of 2009, with the album due to be released in early 2010. This was later delayed, and while recording her new album, Fantasia decided to do a great deal of it the "old fashioned way," inviting a live orchestra to record in the studio with her.

Fantasia was then cast by Oprah Winfrey as Celie in the film adaptation of The Color Purple musical, which began production after the release of her third album, as Fantasia confirmed to MTV News on March 5, 2008.

In June 2008, Fantasia parted ways with 19 Entertainment, but remained with 19 Recordings and J Records. She said that after the release of her third album, she plans to release a gospel album. She performed with her mother, Diane Barrino, in a Thanksgiving special on BET's Bobby Jones Gospel. Fantasia also appeared on Jennifer Hudson's self-titled album, on the song "I'm His Only Woman", which was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award, though it did not win.

Fantasia reprised the role of Celie in the national tour of The Color Purple during its Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles stops.

Fantasia also stars in a reality show produced by World of Wonder. Titled Fantasia for Real, it premiered on January 11, 2010, on VH1 to rave reviews and ratings. The show's first season ended in July 2010 with its second began on September 19, 2010.

"Even Angels", a song from Fantasia's third studio album, produced by The Stereotypes and written by Heather Bright, was never released to radio . She performed the song on The Oprah Winfrey Show on February 3, 2010. The album's first official single, "Bittersweet", was released on May 11, 2010 and has gone on to reach number seven on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart as well as number seventy-four on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fantasia's third studio album, Back to Me, was released on August 24, 2010. Fantasia cited Tina Turner, Queen and Aretha Franklin as influences, and like musicians she admired from their era, she recorded with a live band. The album has been promoted by appearances on Good Morning America and The Wendy Williams Show among others. On March 28, 2010, Taylor also performed "America the Beautiful" at WWE WrestleMania XXVI. To promote the album, Taylor embarked on her first solo concert tour, Back to Me Tour in the fall of 2010.

Taylor appeared on Charlie Wilson's album Just Charlie, on "I Want to Be Your Man."

In the summer of 2010, she appeared as a guest judge alongside Wayne Brady, on episode 11, of RuPaul's Drag Race.

2011–13: Grammy Award, return to acting and Side Effects of You

On February 13, 2011, Fantasia won her first Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Bittersweet".

In 2011, Taylor was cast in her first film role, playing gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in a biopic based on the 1993 book Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. It was later reported that the film was fully endorsed by the Mahalia Jackson estate. Fantasia also would receive not only the top salary in the project but a percentage of the box office revenue the film creates. Production was originally planned to begin in October 2011 in New Orleans and Chicago with a release date of late 2012 and a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. In August 2011, organizers of the International Hair Show in Atlanta, Georgia, said medical conditions requiring bed rest had forced Fantasia to cancel her scheduled performance there. Double Dutch Productions LLC, the production company behind Mahalia!, released a statement saying it "extends apologies to Fantasia Barrino for the inaccurate, non-factual and disparaging statements of Ms. Barrino's reputation, character and image."

In 2011, Aretha Franklin expressed interest in having Taylor play her in a planned biographical movie.

On October 7, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding J Records along with Arista Records and Jive Records. With the shutdown, Taylor (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release her future material on the RCA Records brand.

On February 13, 2012, VH1 named Taylor 32nd out of the 100 Greatest Women in Music.

Taylor was featured on a cover version of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" with Kelly Price and Faith Evans from Evans' compilation album R&B Divas, which was released on October 2, 2012.

On December 19, 2012, Fantasia premiered her new single, "Lose to Win". During an interview on Steve Harvey's morning radio show, Taylor revealed that the album's release date would be March 13, 2013. However, on February 28, 2013, via her Facebook page, Fantasia announced that her album would be released on April 23, 2013. The album was available for pre-order on March 19, 2013.

On April 19, 2013, Fantasia revealed that her next single would be "Without Me," featuring Kelly Rowland and Missy Elliott.

In June 2013, Fantasia embarked on a five-date tour with Andrea Bocelli. In an interview on Today in that same month, she revealed that she will return to Broadway in October 2013.

Taylor starred in the musical revue After Midnight which opened on Broadway on November 3, 2013, with previews beginning on October 18 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Her role ended on February 9, 2014. She had received rave reviews from critics for her performance. New York Post wrote "... although I admired Ms. Barrino's heartfelt performance in "The Color Purple," I was surprised at how smoothly and intuitively she slid into the vocal persona of a jazz singer." Taylor was the first of a rotating roster of special guest stars that also included k.d. lang, Toni Braxton and Babyface. On March 20, 2014, it was announced that Taylor will return to the production for a second stint for four weeks, beginning on May 13 through June 8. Taylor performed alongside the cast and Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight at the 68th Tony Awards.

In August 2013, Taylor co-wrote and recorded the theme song "In the Middle of the Night" for The Butler.

2014–present: The Definition Of...

On October 16, 2014, Taylor was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. Taylor appeared on Dave Koz's new Christmas album, The 25th of December, which consisted of a collection of Christmas-themed duets. The album was released on September 30, 2014. In November 2014, Taylor teamed up with former Destiny's Child member Michelle Williams on the remix of Williams' "If We Had Your Eyes". In November, Taylor announced that she had started work on her next album. She posted a short clip of her and R. Kelly in the studio on her official Instagram account. "No Time for It," the first single from the album, was released on January 7, 2016. Taylor is working with music executive and producer Ron Fair.

Taylor toured with Anthony Hamilton beginning on April 21, 2016, in Buffalo, New York. The Definition Of... was released in the United States on July 29, 2016 and debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 Chart, selling 32,000 units The album also topped that week's Billboard R&B Albums Chart and was No. 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album's chart making it Taylor's fourth top ten album. The new album featured two top 10 singles on the Adult R&B Songs airplay chart: "No Time For It," which peaked at number six, and "Sleeping with the One I Love," which peaked at number 9.

Personal life

In September 2005, Taylor published a memoir, dictated to a freelance writer, titled Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. In it, she revealed she is functionally illiterate and was unable to read the text of contracts she signed or to read to her then four-year-old daughter. In 2006, following the release of her autobiography, Taylor's father sued her for $10 million after she said unflattering things about him in the book that he claimed were false.

On December 9, 2008, Taylor's 6,600-square-foot (610 m2), lakefront home in Charlotte's Glynmoor Lakes at Piper Glen community was in foreclosure and would be up for auction. Her 4,500-square-foot (420 m2) home, also in Piper Glen, is unaffected. The home was due to be auctioned in January 2009 by the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office after the company Broward Energy Partners, which had paid over $68,000 of her taxes in 2006, said it had not been fully repaid. The auction earnings were to be used to finish reimbursing the company for the loan, on which Taylor had paid back $10,000. The auction was canceled after Taylor's attorneys and the lender reached an "eleventh-hour deal", the details of which were not disclosed.

Her uncles, The Barrino Brothers, were a 1970s R&B band and her brother is Grand Hustle recording artist Ricco Barrino.

An August 2010 divorce filing in Mecklenburg County District Court alleges that Taylor had a year-long relationship with Antwaun Cook, who was married, bringing up the subject of alienation of affection laws in North Carolina. Taylor claimed the two began dating after Cook and his wife separated.

On August 9, 2010, Taylor was hospitalized in Pineville, North Carolina, due to overdosing on aspirin and an unknown sleep aid. Dickens said, "'Her injuries are not life threatening ... she was dehydrated and exhausted at the time." The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department classified the incident as a suicide attempt. In transcript segments released the day before an August 24, 2010, interview on the VH1 series Behind the Music, Taylor confirmed the incident was a suicide attempt, saying, "I didn't care about anything. I just wanted out. At that moment I wanted out. I wanted it to be over with...." Taylor denied rumors that the incident was a publicity stunt.

Afterward, Taylor said, "Music saved me. When I went in the hospital, I went into the computer room, and I looked up artists who've been through things, artists who sing from their soul. I took my cues from them, and I just put my mind and everything into music." She also relied on her family, something she had not done earlier in her career. Taylor testified in court that she aborted her and Cook's fetus around the time of her failed suicide attempt.

In late August 2010, the ex-wife of Antwuan Cook, Paula Cook, accused Taylor of knowingly pursuing a relationship with her husband despite knowledge of their existing marriage. In December 2010, a North Carolina judge ruled in Taylor's favor, stating the Cooks' separation date was September 14, 2009, and not June 2010 as Paula previously claimed.

On August 1, 2011, Taylor announced a second pregnancy during a charity concert event in Jacksonville, Florida. She did not reveal the name of the father. On September 13, 2011 it was confirmed that the singer would be having a boy. On December 13, 2011, she gave birth to a son, Dallas Xavier Barrino. On July 18, 2015, she married Kendall Taylor, a businessman.

She dated former NFL player Michael Clayton, who was at the time playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. From 2008 to 2009, Taylor dated rapper Young Dro.

Artistry

Voice

Taylor's voice has been described as raspy, gritty and soulful.

Influences

Taylor has said from childhood she has been influenced by soul singers Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan and Tina Turner, as well as jazz singers Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway and Nina Simone. Taylor has drawn many comparisons to her idols. LaBelle affectionately calls Taylor "baby Patti." "[Fantasia's] just a baby me...when you see yourself in someone else, you say, 'God I'm 70, she's 30,' so she's like the Patti Labelle from back in the day and everything and she's so raw," LaBelle stated in an interview. She always credit her church upbringing and cites The Clark Sisters as one of her influences. Taylor is also an admirer of rock music and was influenced by Queen and Elton John. Her fourth album, Side Effects of You introduced a new and much edgier rock-inspired sound which she coined as 'rock soul'. During an interview with Billboard.com, Taylor has stated that she would like to go in more of a rock direction for her fifth studio album. "This whole rock soul direction has been on my heart. I'll always be soulful: I started singing in the church at the age of five. So that will never go anywhere. But there's a certain side of me that wants to tap into that whole rock world. It's hard to come from R&B to that. But it's something I believe in and will fight for," Taylor said in the interview.

Genres and songwriting

Taylor's music is mostly contemporary R&B, heavily rooted in soul music and gospel music. Her lyrics speak of love, pain and resilience. She also incorporates pop, funk, reggae and hip hop into her music. Side Effects of You demonstrated the versatility of Taylor's voice. Taylor introduced a new and much edgier rock-inspired sound which she coined as 'rock soul'. Gerrick D. Kennedy from the Los Angeles Times praised the album as "sumptuous contemporary R&B dipped in vintage rock and soul". Andy Kellman from Allmusic called it "her finest album yet". Taylor further showcased her versatility and expanded her range while starring in Broadway musicals The Color Purple and After Midnight, as well as her mini-tour with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Taylor has received songwriting credits on Side Effects of You. She wrote majority of the tracks along with Sevyn Streeter, Emeli Sandé, Andrea Martin, Al Sherrod Lambert and many others. Aside from her own project, Taylor co-wrote the theme song to the movie The Butler entitled "In the Middle of the Night", which she also performed, as well as a song called "In the Middle" for American Idol twelfth season winner Candice Glover's debut album, Music Speaks.

Legacy

Since winning American Idol in 2004, Taylor has sold over three million records and won numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, three Billboard Awards, three NAACP Image Awards and two ASCAP Awards. Her first single, "I Believe" topped the Billboard Hot 100 at number-one, making Taylor the first artist in history to achieve this with a first single. I Believe remained at number-one for eleven consecutive weeks, giving it the longest consecutive stay on top of that chart for an American Idol contestant. In 2005, Taylor was named the number-one artist of the Adult Urban Contemporary format, according to the December 13, 2005 issue of Billboard magazine. In 2012, VH1 ranked her number 32 out of the 100 Greatest Women in Music. Taylor was the first artist of any kind to simultaneously hold the top two spots of the top three on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B Airplay. Her song, "Truth Is" spent fourteen weeks at the number-one position. Taylor's American Idol performance of the Porgy and Bess standard "Summertime" was named amongst the AOL's 2004 list of greatest television moments.

Over the course of her career, Taylor has inspired other artists, including American Idol season eleven contestant Joshua Ledet who was dubbed "Mantasia" by fans, the media and even Taylor herself. Actress Amber Riley revealed her admiration for Taylor in an interview on The Arsenio Hall Show and cited her as an "inspiration."

Discography

Free Yourself (2004)

Fantasia (2006)

Back to Me (2010)

Side Effects of You (2013)

The Definition of... (2016)

Filmography

FilmsBroadwayTelevision

Bibliography

Life Is Not a Fairy Tale (2005)

Tours

Headlining

2010–11: Back to Me Tour

2013: Side Effects of You Tour

2016: The Definition Of... Tour

Co-headlining

2004: American Idols LIVE! Tour 2004 (with the Top 10 finalist of American Idol 2004)

2016: Fantasia & Anthony Hamilton: Live in Concert (with Anthony Hamilton)

2016: Annual Summer Jam (with Maxwell and Ro James)

Opening act

2005: Touch the Sky (for Kanye West)

2006: Unpredictable Tour (for Jamie Foxx)

2011: Intimacy Tour (for Kem)

2013: 2013 World Tour (for Andrea Bocelli)

Wikipedia

[marilynmansonbootlegtrade-blog]

Update

Marilyn Manson DVD

//Spooky Kids Era 1989 - 1993//

--1990-Xx-Xx

--Boca Raton, FL - Weekends

--1990-Xx-Xx

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Squeeze (Birth of the Antichrist)

--1991-10-26

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Reunion Room

--1992-01-16 Button South in Hallandale, Florida, USA (Thrift)

--1992-02-01 Button South,Hallendale,FL (Proshot 3:15)

--1992-07-31

Davie, FL - Plus 5 Lounge

--1993-04-17

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Squeeze

//Portrait Of An American Family & Smells like Children Era 1994 - 1995//

--1994-Xx-Xx

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Squeeze

--1994-09-13

Nashville, TN - Vanderbilt University Memorial Gym(HI8 Master)

--1994-10-01

San Jose, CA - San Jose State Auditorium

--1994-11-05

Carbondale, IL - Southern Illinois University Arena

--1995-01-11 Houston,-TX The Abyss

--1995-01-14

Austin, TX - The Backroom

--1995-01-15

San Antonio, TX - Players

--1995-02-10

Northampton, MA - Pearl Street Nightclub(Mansonlive)

--1995-02-21

Atlanta, GA - The Point

--1995-03-10

Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle

--1995-05-03

Myrtle Beach, SC - The Headroom(HI8 Master)

--1995-09-15

Dallas, TX - Deep Ellum Live(1st gen?)

--1995-09-17

Corpus Christi, TX - Johnnyland

--1995-10-02

San Francisco, CA - Trocadero Transfer(HI8 Master)

-- 1995-10-27

Toronto, Canada - Opera House

--1995-10-27

Toronto, Canada - Opera House (v2)

--1995-12-16

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - The Edge (v1)

--1996-01-19

Toledo, OH - The Asylum

//Antichrist Superstar Era 1996 - 1997//

--1996-09-05

New York City, NY - Irving Plaza

--1996-10-25 – Burlington, VT – Memorial Auditorium [vht]

--1996-11-22

Santiago, Chile - Central Court National Stadium

--1996-11-24

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Ferro Carril Oeste Stadium (Bizarre Festival)

--1997-01-25

Santa Monica, CA - Civic Auditorium(HI8 Master)

--1997-02-07

Kansas City, MO - Memorial Hall

--1997-03-19

Auckland, New Zealand - The Powerhouse (3min)

--1997-05-02

Hamilton, Canada - Copps Coliseum

--1997-05-05 LaCrosse Center(2.version)

--1997-05-09

Washington, DC - DC Armory (HI8 Master)

--1997-05-11

Camden, NJ - Blockbuster Sony Center(HI8 Master)

--1997-05-20

London, UK - Brixton Academy

--1997-05-27

Nottingham, UK - Rock City

--1997-06-22

Minneapolis, MN - Metrodome

--1997-08-02

Montreal, Canada - The Medley

--1997-08-16

Cologne, Germany - Butzweiler Hof (Bizarre Festival)

--1997-09-16 Mexico City, Mexico

--1997-10-18 – Smashing Pumpkins with Marilyn Manson

//Mechanical Animals Era 1998 - 1999//

--1998-11-23

New York City, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom(VID(M)+40min Interview)

--1998-12-04

Milano, Italy - Palavobis (2cam mix)(SzaszaBootlegs)

--1999-01-08

Tokyo, Japan - NK Hall(Upgrade)

--1999-01-15

Auckland, New Zealand - Ericsson Stadium (Big Day Out Festival)(2min)

--1999-03-03

Seattle, WA - Key Arena (2cam v1)

--1999-03-03 – Seattle, WA – Key Arena (2cam v2) [vht]

--1999-04-04

Philadelphia, PA - First Union Spectrum(Upgrade rare)

--1999-04-16

Pittsburgh, PA - Mellon Arena

//Holy Wood Era 2000 - 2001//

--2000-11-18

Toronto, Canada - Massey Hall

--2000-12-09

Pittsburgh, PA - Mellon Arena

--2001-01-31

Hamburg, Germany - Sporthalle

--2001-02-19

Stockholm, Sweden - Ice Stadium(1st gen)(Killer-Wash)

--2001-03-11

Tokyo, Japan - International Forum Hall

--2001-05-26

Foxboro, MA - Gilette Stadium (WBNC River Rave)(MansonLive)

--2001-08-09

Wantaugh, NY - Jones Beach

--2001-08-26

Reading, UK - Richfield Avenue (Reading Festival)

--2001-08-30

Wiesen, Austria - Festivalarea (Two Days A Week Festival)(Mansonlive)

--2001-09-02

Hildesheim, Germany (M'era Luna Festival)

//The Golden Age Of Grotesque Era 2003//

-- 2003-06-08

Eifel, Germany - Nürburgring (Rock am Ring)

-- 2003-06-08

Eifel, Germany - Nürburgring (Rock am Ring)(FULL SHOW)

--2003.10.20 - Hamilton, Canada, Copps Coliseum(Upgrade rare)

//Against All Gods Era 2004 - 2005//

--2005-02-02

Seoul, South Korea - Olympic Hall

--2005-06-04

Eifel, Germany - Nürburgring (Rock am Ring)(v3)

--2005-08-28

Reading, UK - Richfield Avenue (Reading Festival)

//Eat Me, Drink Me 2007 - 2008//

--2007-06-16

Nickelsdorf, Austria - Pannonia Fields II (Nova Rock Festival)

--2007-06-23

Scheeßel, Germany - Eichenring (Hurricane Festival)

--2007-08-05

Holmdel, NJ - P.N.C. Bank Arts Center

--2007-08-08

Montreal, Canada - Bell Center

--2007-12-05

London, UK - Wembley Arena

--2007-07-27 - Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa, Florida, USA

--2008-01-29

New York City, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom

--2008-02-17

Vancouver, Canada - Queen Elizabeth Theatre

//The High End Of Low 2009 - 2010//

--2009-06-05

Eifel, Germany - Nürburgring (Rock am Ring)(Russian censored broadcast)

--2009-06-06 Nürnberg, Germany (Rock Im Park)

--2009-06-09

Bratislava, Slovakia - Incheba Expo (Full Show)

--2009-07-12 – San Bernandino – San Manuel Amphitheater

//Born Villain 2012 - 2013//

--2012-12-18

Moscow, Russia - Olympisky Arena(dvdrip)

//The Pale Emperor 2014 - 2015//

--2015-06-05

Mendig, Germany - Flugplatz (Rock am Ring)(ts)

//Heaven Upside Down 2017-2018//

-- 2018-06-01 Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany (Rock am Ring)

-- 2018-06-10

Donington Park, Castle Donington, England (Download Festival)

TV Live Performance:

--Marilyn Manson – 1995 – Lunchbox, Dope Hat (The Jon Stewart Show)

--Marilyn Manson – 1997 – Angel with the Scabbed Wings, Tourniquet, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Reading, England)

--Marilyn Manson – 1997 – The Beautiful People (MTV VMA) (Uncensored)

--Marilyn Manson – 1998 – The Dope Show (MTV VMA)

--Marilyn Manson – 1999 – Rock is Dead (MTV EMA)

--Marilyn Manson – 2001 – Disposable Teens (American Music Awards)

--Marilyn Manson – 2001 – Disposable Teens, Surrender (MTV New Year’s Eve Party)

--Marilyn Manson – 2003 – mOBSCENE (Top of The Pops)

--Marilyn Manson – 2004 – Personal Jesus (Comet Awards)

--Marilyn Manson – 2004 – Personal Jesus (Late Show with David Letterman)

--Marilyn Manson – 2006 – This Is Halloween (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno)

--Rammstein & Marilyn Manson – 2012 – Beautiful People (Echo)

[fancons]

Largest North American Anime Conventions of 2017

Every year, in the first week of January, AnimeCons.com takes a look back at the previous year to see which anime conventions were the largest in North America, how the numbers have changed, what may have caused the changes, and if there's any trends that may affect other anime conventions or fan conventions as a whole. As we always remind people, this absolutely is not meant to be a list of the "best" anime cons, but merely the largest.

Before we present the list, an explanation is needed for the different ways that conventions count their attendance:

The most common method for conventions, but one that is very misleading, is used by most non-anime conventions and trade shows. A "turnstile" attendance count method counts people multiple times for every day of the convention that they attend. For example, if there are 10,000 people at a three day convention each day, they would report their attendance as 30,000...as if each of those 10,000 people passed through a turnstile once per day. A four day convention with 10,000 people each day would report a turnstile attendance count as 40,000 people. Although anime conventions are starting to report turnstile numbers, they are often offered in addition to one of the following two counting methods. Although this site considers turnstile counts to be misleading and disingenuous, we've recently started listing them in order to be able to help people distinguish the difference and be able to compare attendance numbers more fairly.

Another method is to count each person who was issued a badge. This is often referred to as "total attendance", "badge count", or a "warm body count". This will include attendees, staff, press, vendors, guests, and anyone else who was wearing a convention badge. If the people attended multiple days, they just get counted once. It does not include people without a badge such as convention center-provided security, hotel employees, or custodial staff.

The final method commonly used to report attendance is a paid attendance count. This simply counts the number of people who paid for a badge. Unlike the warm body count, it doesn't include staff, guests, press, or others with a badge...unless they paid for it. This method also only counts people once even if they're attending multiple days.

All the attendance figures we present in this report and on AnimeCons.com have been provided by convention staff members themselves. They have been announced on the convention's own web sites, on the convention's social media, reported directly to this site, or one of our site's staff have reported back a number officially announced by an authorized representative at the convention (such as announced at closing ceremonies). None of these numbers are guesses by AnimeCons.com staff and none have been pulled from anonymous sources such as unsourced Wikipedia entries. Where attendance is marked as "approximately" signifies that the number reported by the convention is likely rounded and not an exact count.

Our annual list also only consists of conventions with a primary focus on anime. This means that multi-genre conventions are not included. We also do not include conventions such as comic cons or sci-fi cons that have anime programming. To include those in this list would be impossible due to the number of those conventions in existence, the unavailability of attendance numbers for many of them, and the vast differences in counting methods. Anime conventions that share admission with non-anime conventions (such as comic, steampunk, or video game conventions) are also not included on this list because it is impossible to tell how many are attending the anime part of the convention.

Twelve Largest North American Anime Conventions of 2017:

Anime Expo - 107,658 warm bodies (up 7.21%)

Anime Matsuri - 36270 warm bodies (up 20.04%)

A-Kon - 33,102 warm bodies, 25,289 paid attendees (up 11.08%)

Anime North - 32,167 warm bodies

Anime Weekend Atlanta - approximately 31,500 warm bodies, 29,872 paid attendees (up 3.79%)

Anime Central - 30,221 warm bodies (down 3.97%)

Anime Boston - 25,848 warm bodies (down 4.18%)

Sakura-Con - approximately 25,000 warm bodies (up 8.70%)

Otakon - 24,894 warm bodies, approximately 22,000 paid attendees (down 14.49%)

Youmacon - 22,142 paid attendees (up 5.26%)

Otakuthon - 22,065 warm bodies (up 3.52%)

Anime NYC - approximately 20,000 warm bodies (first year)

Anime Expo safely holds onto the top spot for the 14th year in a row. The vast difference between Anime Expo's attendance and the other conventions on the list means that it will likely hold this spot for years to come. In 2017, they grew by 7,238 attendees. Their turnstile attendance count was also up 52,379 to 357,178. While overcrowding and lines remain a common complaints among Anime Expo attendees, it continues to be a convention that many people (particularly those outside California) tend to put on their bucket lists.

For the second year in a row, there's a different convention climbing into the #2 spot. Anime Matsuri in Houston, Texas has reported an increase of 6,055 attendees and yet another year of reporting more than 20% growth. However, as we've said in previous years, the growth rate simply cannot continue in such a competitive market as Texas where popular conventions in nearby Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio markets are also gaining attendees and even more conventions continue to appear every year.

Speaking of Texas, the #3 spot is once again held by the longest continually running anime convention in North America, A-Kon. The convention has reported a 1.42% growth rate over their 2016 convention. They had reported greater than 10% growth rate for the previous three years, so the slower growth this year may be attributed to the convention's 30 mile move from Dallas to Fort Worth. However, A-Kon continues to be a popular destination for anime fans every June.

Anime North in Toronto, Ontario holds onto the #4 spot for the second straight year. This year, they reported a warm body attendance count of 32,167. Last year's attendance was reported as 29,973 paid attendees, so we're not able to compare the two years to calculate a growth percentage, but it would appear to be up.

Moving up another spot this year, Anime Weekend Atlanta, another of the longest running anime cons in North America, comes in at #5. Although we didn't have a warm body count for them last year, their paid attendance count is up 3.79% from 28,789. This is slower growth than the past few years where AWA had reported more than 10% growth.

Although it was in the #3 spot last year, Anime Central near Chicago drops to #6 in 2017. The convention's attendance has dropped 3.97% from 2016's 31,469 warm bodies. The convention had rather significant growth in 2013, but was seeing less than 5% growth since then. This is the first reported attendance decrease at Anime Central.

Anime Boston moves up a spot to #7 this year even with an attendance drop of 4.18%. The turnstile attendance count dropped 5.19% to 74,578, which would seem to indicate that more people that more people were buying 1-day badges. This is the second straight year that Anime Boston's attendance has dropped and it's likely still attributable to increased convention center security following guns that were seized during an August 2015 Pokemon Championship at the venue which resulted in excessively long security lines at Anime Boston 2016. Although the security checkpoints were improved in 2017, a number of attendees had cited the lines as a reason for sitting out a year to see if the situation would improve. For the most part, it has, and hopefully those attendees return again in 2018.

Seattle's Sakura-Con reported approximately 25,000 attendees in 2017. Last year's attendance was reported as 23,000 which is an 8.70% growth rate and puts them up a spot to #8.

By now, you may have wondered what happened to Otakon on this list. In 2015, it dropped to #5 with the largest attendance drop we've ever seen by any convention. It held onto the #5 spot last year and grew to 29,113 warm bodies in 2016. The convention moved from Baltimore to Washington, DC in 2017 and it seems that the attendees did not follow. Otakon lost over 4,000 attendees and dropped to #9 on our list and is no longer the largest anime convention on the East Coast. With Otakon Vegas not reporting large growth over its first few years, hopefully Otakorp has planned for rainy days such as this in order to be able to handle the situation financially.

Detroit's Youmacon returns to our list for the second year in a row at #10 with a paid attendance of 22,142, up 1,106 people from 2016. Last year, Youmacon and Otakuthon were essentially tied for the 10th spot, but Youmacon has now pulled ahead slightly.

For #11, we head back up into Canada for Otakuthon in Montreal. The bilingual convention reported 750 more people than 2016 for growth of 3.52%. Magnifique!

The twelfth anime con on our list just held their first convention in November, Anime NYC. On their site after the convention (although now only available via archives), Peter Tatara, the Event Director, was quite clear about their attendance reporting saying, "Anime NYC welcomed over 20,000 fans. That's not turnstile, but 20,000 unique, individual fans who came together to celebrate what we all love." (This was likely noted due to some other NYC cons which have been known to report turnstile numbers.)

It's worth noting that there is less than a 10% difference (or only 2,881 people) between the third through sixth conventions. There is also a difference of less than 1,000 people between the seventh and ninth conventions on the list, which just about puts them in a three-way tie.

View graph with linear scale - View graph with logarithmic scale

As always, we remind you that these are merely the largest conventions and are not necessarily the best. If past history is any indication, this list is almost guaranteed to be copied and used as some other site's "Best Anime Cons" list. That's a shame because there are some absolutely wonderful small and mid-sized conventions out there that are not mentioned on this list. You can have a lot of fun at smaller events and we strongly urge you to find the conventions near you and try them out.

If you want to compare the growth of conventions over the last ten years, here are some links to our annual reports (either written or as reported by our AnimeCons TV): 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003

To start planning your 2018 conventions, our AnimeCons.com and FanCons.com sites are an excellent resource to find lists of conventions in your area or around the world. We also offer FurryCons.com, SteampunkCons.com, ToyCons.com, and VideoGameCons.com for some more niche interests. For Amazon Echo or Alexa device owners, we also have free Flash Briefing skills for FanCons.com and AnimeCons.com which can audibly tell you what conventions are coming up in the next week. We also have iMessage stickers for iOS users and an AnimeCons TV app for Apple TV.

Patrick Delahanty is the creator of AnimeCons.com and executive producer of AnimeCons TV. He is the host of Anime Unscripted and is one of the founders of both Anime Boston and Providence Anime Conference. Patrick has attended 173 conventions, cosplaying at most of them.

from FanCons.com

[obsessedwiththebatman]

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Ming-Na Wen has revealed her dream of playing DC supervillain Catwoman. Wen, of course, has been a pivotal team member on the ABC action drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since the show’s inception in 2013, playing Agent Melinda May opposite the likes of Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Chloe Bennett (Daisy “Skye” Johnson). Over the course of the episodes over the past four years and on such shows as SGU Stargate Universe, Wen has not only shown that she has incredible charisma, she’s well-trained to take on any physical challenges her roles demand. And while Wen has at least one more year on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when season 5 kicks off December 1, she clearly likes entertaining thoughts about future roles. Villains Fan Fest in Atlanta over the weekend, a fan asked Wen which DC character she would like to play. Without hesitation, Wen said, “I would make an awesome Catwoman.” Naturally, Wen’s response drew applause from the crowd, as she added a cat noise to punctuate her answer. It’s always fun to get famed actors’ takes on dream roles they’d like to attempt, and getting Wen’s choice of which DC role she’d like to take on is particularly a joy. While she’s long been associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she also has plenty of DC street cred, too, having voiced Detective Ellen Yin on the animated series The Batman from 2004-2005. She’s obviously very familiar with Batman lore, otherwise it’s unlikely she would have readily answered the question as fast as she did when a fan asked her which DC character she’d like to play. Catwoman, not surprisingly, is a character that lots of high-profile actresses have expressed interest in playing Whoever decides to cast the next Catwoman, hopefully they’ll be listening to the wishes of Wen, as well as Batman Returns’ iconic Catwoman Michelle Pfeiffer, who recently said she’d love to reprise the role.

[buddyrabrahams]

Ranking the 10 best pure shooters in the NBA

There is one bit of ecletic wisdom that has truly stuck with me over the years. Perhaps it is from the Bible. Perhaps it is advice that was given to me by my fifth-grade teacher. Or perhaps I once saw it tattooed on Nick Young’s left arm. In any case however, it is an adage that has helped guide me through times of uncertainty, self-doubt, and offensive stagnancy alike, and it is this: [clears throat for dramatic emphasis] … shooters shoot. Yes, this is the foundational principle upon which I choose to live my life, and here are the NBA players who best embody it in its purest and most unadulterated form.

*Stats courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball Reference*

10. Jodie Meeks, SG, Washington Wizards

The veteran sharpshooter missed 125 games over the past two seasons due to injury, but let’s not forget what he’s capable of when healthy. Whether he’s hedgehogging around screens or springing free for spot-up opportunities, Meeks changes the geometry of the court as defenses contort to cover him. His reputation has been well-earned. A 2013-14 season where he netted 2.1 treys a night for the LA Lakers on 40.1 percent shooting offered a window into his upside, and it’s only a matter of time before he recovers his pre-injury form now that he is playing with a world-class creator like John Wall in Washington. Blessed is the Meeks, for he shall inherit the earth.

9. Joe Ingles, SF, Utah Jazz

It’s never too early for some Jingles Bells. At least the Jazz certainly don’t think so; they have reaped the benefits this season of Ingles’ team-leading 2.4 threes a game at a 43.7 percent success rate to go along with his supremely underrated passing and ball-handling skills. Sure, the name isn’t sexy. But the southpaw stroke certainly is.

The Australian is putting together quite the follow-up to a 2016-17 campaign where he clocked in fourth in the league in three-point percentage and had All-Star Weekend knocking at his door. Now all that’s left for Ingles to do is to start letting his opponents know just how disrespectful his game really is … oh wait, he’s already got that covered too.

8. Kevin Durant, SF/PF, Golden State Warriors

To many, Durant’s reputation is either that of a scorer, a Twitter troll, or a snake. But his talent as a straight shooting specimen can often be overlooked.

Perhaps it’s the “modest” 38.1 career three-point percentage, but nobody (other than perhaps a certain superstar teammate who we will get into later) strikes as much fear into the intestines of the opposition as Durant does as soon as he crosses halfcourt. And though it’s early, this is shaping up to be the four-time scoring champion’s best season dialing long distance yet (pouring in 2.9 triples a night with 46.7 percent accuracy, both career bests). If aliens invade our planet and they allow us one specific shot from one specific player to salvage our species, give me a Kevin Durant pull-up three from the wing and I’ll see you at the “We Saved The World” parade.

7. Troy Daniels, SG, Phoenix Suns

Daniels may have the least name recognition of anybody on this list, but he still shoots flames out of his fingertips no less. The VCU product catapulted onto the scene with the Charlotte Hornets in 2015-16, posting a league-leading 48.4 percent shooting from deep. For his career, Daniels actually has a higher career conversion rate on three-pointers (40.8) than he does on two-pointers (38.1). He is raising his usual raucous from long-range in Phoenix this season, hitting 3.7 treys per 36 minutes at a 42.6 percent clip. Rumor has it that if you say his name three times fast while staring into a bathroom mirror, Daniels will appear with a bloody basketball and splash a three right in your grill.

6. Luke Babbitt, SF/PF, Atlanta Hawks

Babbitt is the textbook definition of a three-point specialist. He has never averaged more than eight points a contest in a single season, he doesn’t really impact the game as a rebounder or a playmaker, and he often plays defense like he has two left feet. But Babbitt’s left hand is golden, and that’s all that matters. 2017-18 is on track to be the journeyman forward’s fourth-straight season connecting on at least 40 percent of his attempts from distance (topping out at a batty 51.3 percent for the New Orleans Pelicans in 2014-15). That has helped Babbitt produce a higher career three-point percentage than the likes of Ray Allen, Mark Price, and Peja Stojakovic on the all-time list. It’s clear that he has made the most of his lone discernible NBA skill.

5. CJ McCollum, SG, Portland Trail Blazers

The CJ technically stands for Christian James, but it might as well stand for Cash Jumpers. Coming into the league shooting a respectable 37.5 percent on treys as a rookie, McCollum has upped that figure in every single career season since. His 42.1 percent in 2016-17 was ninth-best in the Association, and he has skyrocketed to 52.2 percent through 11 games this year (tops among players with at least 50 three-point attempts). For a guy who regularly flirts with 200 made threes a season and who is just as sugary from the midrange (45.2 percent from 16-24 feet last season), the ex-Most Improved Player McCollum sees dollar signs every time he steps onto the hardwood.

4. JJ Redick, SG, Philadelphia 76ers

I am HERE for Redick’s transition from reviled Duke alum to beloved elder statesman. And to be honest, perhaps the single biggest impetus behind that transition over the last dozen or so years has been the consistency and the accuracy with which he has avalanched in threes during his NBA career. Aging like a fine pinot grigio, the 33-year-old Redick has nailed 44.5 percent of his three-balls over the last four seasons combined. He’s hardly missed a beat whether it’s a Chris Paul-Blake Griffin pick-and-roll that he’s scurrying around on the weak side of or a Ben Simmons-Joel Embiid one. Death, taxes, and JJ Redick making it rain from the perimeter. Case in point.

3. Klay Thompson, SG, Golden State Warriors

Klay Thompson is all of our spirit animals for he is everything that is good and right in the sport of basketball. Mind you, it’s not just his off-court escapades: traveling to China and finding ways to more effectively absorb the energies of the universe, suddenly spacing out in interviews as he attempts to discover the upper limits of human consciousness, or otherwise. But it’s also that he has turned the three-point line into his own personal sniper’s nest. Wielding the catch-and-shoot J as his primary weapon of mass reckoning (scoring 11.5 of his 22.3 points per game last year via that avenue for reference), Thompson has submitted seasons of 211, 223, 239, 276, and 268 made threes the last five years running. And here’s the kicker: this season may very well end up being his magnum opus. The three-time All-Star is finding the bottom of the net on 51.4 percent of his overall shot attempts and 47.1 percent of his attempts from deep, hauling his career triple percentage up to a pristine (wait for it) 42.0 percent. At this rate, we may just have to start petitioning for the addition of an eighth day of the week: Klay Day.

2. Kyle Korver, SG, Cleveland Cavaliers

Korver, who is 36 years old and now in Year 15 of his NBA journey, is hardly a legacy pick. Though he is sure to leave behind an immaculate legacy as one of only 20 players in league history to post a career true shooting percentage north of 60 percent (with 11 of those being frontcourt players to boot), King Kyle has maintained his sizzling pace well into his twilight seasons. He has led the NBA in three-point percentage in three of the last four years, and his 47.9 percent on triples through 48 regular season games in Cleveland is easily the best number he has put up for any one of his teams. Yes, scientists love Korver for hardly any player better proves the theory of gravity. Well except for…

1. Stephen Curry, PG, Golden State Warriors

Surprise. Who else could it be but the man who turned the sport that Dr. Naismith founded with a peach basket and a stitched-up leather ball in the late 19th century into a nightly display of all-out aerial combat? Yes, Curry has not only achieved the unfathomable, he has normalized it. 400 threes in a season? Piece of cake. 50/40/90 for an entire year with over 11 three-point attempts a night? No problemo. Old NBA record was 12 treys in a single game? Pfffshhhhh, please. At just 29 years old, Chef Curry could retire tomorrow and go down as the greatest shooter in basketball history by leaps and bounds, and nobody knows what he’s gonna be cooking up next. Just sit back and behold the beauty, folks. Cats like this don’t come around too often.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2iRUDT4

[kansascityhappenings]

Comedian, civil rights activist Dick Gregory dies at 84

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LOS ANGELES — Dick Gregory, the comedian and activist and who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and used his humor to spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, has died. He was 84.

Dick Gregory. Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Gregory died late Saturday in Washington, D.C. after being hospitalized for about a week, his son Christian Gregory told The Associated Press. He had suffered a severe bacterial infection.

“Years of severe fasting, not for health but for social change, had damaged his vasculature system long ago. He always reminded us, many of his fasts were not about his personal health but an attempt to heal the world,” Christian Gregory said.

“Condolences to his family and to us who won’t have his insight 2 lean on,” Whoopi Goldberg wrote on Twitter.

As one of the first black standup comedians to find success with white audiences, in the early 1960s, Gregory rose from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to win a college track scholarship and become a celebrated satirist who deftly commented upon racial divisions at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

“Where else in the world but America,” he joked, “could I have lived in the worst neighborhoods, attended the worst schools, rode in the back of the bus, and get paid $5,000 a week just for talking about it?”

Gregory’s sharp commentary soon led him into civil rights activism, where his ability to woo audiences through humor helped bring national attention to fledgling efforts at integration and social equality for blacks.

Gregory briefly sought political office, running unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago in 1966 and U.S. president in 1968, when he got 200,000 votes as the Peace and Freedom party candidate. In the late ’60s, he befriended John Lennon and was among the voices heard on Lennon’s anti-war anthem “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in the Montreal hotel room where Lennon and Yoko Ono were staging a “bed-in” for peace.

An admirer of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Gregory embraced nonviolence and became a vegetarian and marathon runner.

Dick Gregory attends the Roger Ebert Memorial Tribute at Chicago Theatre on April 11, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images

He preached about the transformative powers of prayer and good health. Once an overweight smoker and drinker, he became a trim, energetic proponent of liquid meals and raw food diets. In the late 1980s, he developed and distributed products for the popular Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet.

When diagnosed with lymphoma in 2000, he fought it with herbs, exercise and vitamins. It went in remission a few years later.

He took a break from performing in comedy clubs, saying the alcohol and smoke in the clubs were unhealthy and focused on lecturing and writing more than a dozen books, including an autobiography and a memoir.

Gregory went without solid food for weeks to draw attention to a wide range of causes, including Middle East peace, American hostages in Iran, animal rights, police brutality, the Equal Rights Amendment for women and to support pop singer Michael Jackson when he was charged with sexual molestation in 2004.

“We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn’t it either. I’m going to be an American Citizen. First class,” he once said.

Richard Claxton Gregory was born in 1932, the second of six children. His father abandoned the family, leaving his mother poor and struggling. Though the family often went without food or electricity, Gregory’s intellect and hard work quickly earned him honors, and he attended the mostly white Southern Illinois University.

“In high school I was fighting being broke and on relief,” he wrote in his 1963 book. “But in college, I was fighting being Negro.”

Comedian and Social Activist Dick Gregory speaks onstage at the Independent Lens ‘Soul Food Junkies’ panel during day 1 of the PBS portion of the 2012 Summer TCA Tour held on July 21, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

He started winning talent contests for his comedy, which he continued in the Army. After he was discharged, he struggled to break into the standup circuit in Chicago, working odd jobs as a postal clerk and car washer to survive. His breakthrough came in 1961, when he was asked to fill in for another comedian at Chicago’s Playboy Club. His audience, mostly white Southern businessmen, heckled him with racist gibes, but he stuck it out for hours and left them howling.

That job was supposed to be a one-night gig, but lasted two months — and landed him a profile in Time magazine and a spot on “The Tonight Show.”

Vogue magazine, in February 1962, likened him to Will Rogers and Fred Allen: “bright and funny and topical … (with) a way of making the editorials in The New York Times seem the cinch stuff from which smash night-club routines are rightfully made.” ”I’ve got to go up there as an individual first, a Negro second,” he said in Phil Berger’s book, “The Last Laugh: The World of Stand-up Comics.” ”I’ve got to be a colored funny man, not a funny colored man.”

His political passions were never far from his mind — and they hurt his comedy career. The nation was grappling with the civil rights movement, and it was not at all clear that racial integration could be achieved. At protest marches, he was repeatedly beaten and jailed.

He remained active on the comedy scene until recently, when he fell ill and canceled an Aug. 9 show in San Jose, California, followed by an Aug. 15 appearance in Atlanta. On social media, he wrote that he felt energized by the messages from his well-wishers, and said he was looking to get back on stage because he had a lot to say about the racial tension brought on by the gathering of hate groups in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“We have so much work still to be done, the ugly reality on the news this weekend proves just that,” he wrote.

He is survived by his wife, Lillian, and 10 children.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/08/20/comedian-civil-rights-activist-dick-gregory-dies-at-84/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/comedian-civil-rights-activist-dick-gregory-dies-at-84/