#as phil said he loves the CONCEPT of women so.... no one to step in between really

[yonpote]

like the only thing that makes me uncomfortable about straight boy ships is the like. "female cuckoldry" aspect where ppl are like yeah theyre cheating on their bitch girlfriends bleh bleh like theres always misogyny embedded there and ESPECIALLY if their irl gf/wifes are not content creators or just arent as much in the limelight its like. weird! i realize the phannie is saying this but i do actually have morals with rpf lol and it turns out my moral line is misogyny

[sahidchettair]

DENOUNCE part I

The story of how Sahid became the town’s least loved individual. 

Sahid’s interest in Hinduism had started on a random day, thinking about their father, about what little they could still remember of him. Dark eyes, dark hair, a radiant smile, and the stories. The stories were what still haunted them, even though they could only remember small imaginative images, little extracts of a complete saga. When they closed their eyes they could envision a lady with blue skin, or a man with blue skin and swords. They could see a man with the head of an Elephant, and a man with two women looking like they had just descended from the sky. It was vague, all of it was vague, and in that moment they wanted to be able to remember everything. 

It wasn’t hard to find information on Hinduism, the first time Sahid had pretended it was an assignment for school. Their step-father checked the browser history and found the many websites that Sahid had opened over the course of the week, and raised an eyebrow. The second time they had focussed their attention on books in the library, even if those were few and far between. The third time Sahid had promised to fix someone’s car in exchange for using their computer for research. The more content they consumed, the clearer it became to them. 

They found believing in Brahman was easy, it was a concept that spoke to them on a level that nothing else had spoken to them before. They knew they had been keeping up with their Dharma in a terrible way. They were not a good son, not a good student, only a good singer on occasion. However, they did believe that Moksha was something that they could obtain if they changed their behaviour. Rituals were not a part of it, but they gave them a sense of contentment, a sense of belonging.

Puja was something they tried to do on a daily basis, it helped them focus, feel closer to their father and at the same time believe that a better life was possible for them. God understood, they knew that. But it had to be done when their parents weren’t home, it had to be done when they were certain they had the place to themselves. They left later for school, the afternoon and early evening lessons and after school daycare gave them more time at home. 

They had hidden a few things in their room that they would get out every time it was time for Puja. Their step-father had gotten rid of all the things that had once belonged to their father, so they needed to create something new. 

They closed the door to their room and sat down in front of their bed-side table, where everything was carefully arranged. They closed their eyes, hummed lowly, repeated a few words in Hindi that they could remember, mashed them with an English translation they had found somewhere. It was a mess, but they didn’t think the words mattered much, it was their soul that spoke after all.

They had settled into a trance, not hearing the door open downstairs, not hearing the footsteps on the stairs, only hearing the presence of another human being when their door was opened. 

Sahid turned quickly, only to see their mother watch them in horror. She understood of course, she only needed a single glance to make the connection. It had been her religion too once. Horror made way for rage. “How dare you!” she snapped, her Hindi accent had never left her voice, but it was clearer when she was angry. 

“Mum,” Sahid replied quickly, pushing themselves from the floor and heading for the door. But she pulled it close before they could reach it. They banged on the door, and heard the key being turned. Their heart sank. 

“Mum, let me out, please, I can explain!” They pounded on the wood. But they heard nothing on the other side. She had moved away from their door, but they didn’t know where in the house she was now. 

Panic grabbed them. They wanted to make for the window. Jump out of it, run for freedom. But that would not solve the problem. They hurried to hide their things again, and could feel their heart thumping in their chest with every single step. Their hands were shaking and their eyes felt wet. 

This was not how it was supposed to go. All their life they had tried to gain their freedom. Some part of them had enjoyed starting a ruckus and never getting caught, another part had known that one day it would all come falling down, and their step-father would turn on them, but it would be something they could still mend. It would be something dumb and while they would shun them, they would also be able to see if Sahid did better. They lived with that idea. 

This wasn’t that. 

Starting fights, stealing, cheating, and pranking people was not the same as this. This would have different consequences. 

They were sitting on their bed, body shaking as they anticipated the consequences, when they heard the door open downstairs. 

“Where is he!?” 

Their stepfather bounded up the stairs, and as the sound of the key spoke through the lock, Sahid stood. They thought they were strong enough to face their stepfather, but one look at his rage, and they felt all their resolve falter. 

“I can explain,” they started, but the man had edged closer and with one push Sahid lost their balance and fell to the floor. 

“What are you thinking?!” he said, bending to grab Sahid by their shirt, pushing them further into the floor.

They saw their mother watching from the opening in the door, her face passive. They couldn’t remember the last time they had ever seen her express any kind of emotion outside of Church, except for that rage earlier, that was the only time. 

“We’re going to the pastor, and you’re going to denounce your heathen faith!” He picked them up from the ground, and dragged them out of the room. “Get into the car,” he said, his voice dangerous. 

“I can explain, in Hindu-” 

The fist connected with their stomach and Sahid went down. They started coughing and put both arms around their belly. 

“Don’t you dare. Your mother warned me, she warned me that you might try to convert back to your father’s faith. I told her that we raised a good Christian boy, now look at you, I should’ve listened to her. Now, GET INTO THE CAR!”

Sahid didn’t try again, they stood wobbly, and made their way down the stairs towards the car, still clutching their stomach. It was parked in the drive, the front door still open. They sat down in the back, feeling terrified and weak. 

About ten minutes later their mother and step-father came out, they didn’t look at them, just sat down in the car. Their stepfather drove them to the Church, pulled Sahid out as if they were some criminal and not the child he had raised for the past sixteen years. 

“You’re going to renounce your faith in front of the pastor, you understand?” their stepfather told them, the edge had not left his voice, it was even more dangerous right now, as if every moment he needed to spend in Sahid’s company was a personal offence. 

Sahid did not denounce their faith. They could believe in Hinduism and Christianity at the same time, they could believe in God and believe in Brahman, but they could not pretend that they didn’t, they were sick of pretending. 

Their stepfather dragged them into the church, and had to drag them out again, one firm hand on the hem of their shirt. Their mother walked behind them as if she was about to attend a funeral. They had been pushed back into the car, and watched as their mother and stepfather discussed the matter. They didn't fight, of course they didn’t, the two parents agreed upon it without needing many words. They got back into the car and drove home.

Sahid listened nauseated to the car engine as it was shut down. Their house suddenly didn’t look so welcoming anymore. 

Their stepfather got out of the car first, and opened the door for Sahid, he looked in, his eyes filled with fire. “I want you gone before I get back from work. I don’t care what you do, everything you leave behind in that room goes to the trash. Don’t you dare try to speak to me or your mother again. I will not have a filthy Hindu as a son.” 

“That’s unfair,” Sahid said, their voice was tight, they looked at the man who they had never actually seen as a father and despite everything they didn’t want to leave the house. They had nowhere else to go. 

There was a moment of pause before Phil reached out and grabbed Sahid’s shirt again, the fabric ripped, but he still got them on their feet and dragged them into the house, up the stairs, and into their room. “Where is the stuff?!”

Sahid shook their head, they knew what that meant. “No!” they said, tears in their eyes. 

“Stop crying, you freak!” their stepfather screamed, pushing Sahid to the wall. He studied their face, and of course it wasn’t long before their eyes gave enough away. He moved in a direct line to the box that was hidden under the bed.

“No!” Sahid yelled again, following the larger man and trying to push him out of the way to get to the box. 

Phil fell into the side table, it broke under his weight. “You-!” He got up quickly enough, kicked Sahid in the shin before they could reach for the box. His hands grabbed for the box and threw it on the bed. Meanwhile Sahid had already regained their balance and wrestled their stepfather away from the box again. “Leave that!” 

Sahid grabbed the box and jumped over the bed, hoping to put some distance between the two of them. They could never count on their stepfather playing fair however. Soon as they bolted for the door, Phil threw a piece of the table at them. It hit them against the side of their head, and they lost their balance, crashing against the wall. 

Their stepfather grabbed for the box, ripping it from their hands and throwing the contents on the bed. He grabbed the small postcard of Shiva first, holding it in front of Sahid. “Are these your fake gods?!” he roared, then ripped it in half. 

Rage washed over them, they tackled their stepfather right into the wall, who grunted at the impact and almost went limp. Sahid grabbed the two pieces of the postcard from him, and then quickly threw the contents back into the box. 

“Phil!” Their mother was standing in the doorway, looking at Sahid as if they were no longer hers. “What have you done to him!?”

“He attacked me,” Sahid said, moving out of the way so their mom could go to Phil. “He-”

“Get out!” their mother shouted. “Get out now! I don’t wish to see you ever again!” 

They reached for their school bag and held the box against their chest before they ran out of the house, jumping into their car and driving off with no destination in mind.

[aion-rsa]

The 25 Best SNL Holiday Sketches

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The holidays are a special time around 30 Rock. While tourists flock to see the towering Christmas tree, the Saturday Night Live writers room is busy thinking of holiday sketches you’ll reminisce about as you put up the stockings for years to come. Some of SNL’s all-time great sketches illustrate the best of the holiday spirit or lack thereof as show’s biggest stars often shined the brightest just before the New Year. 

From unlikely Santas to unorthodox gift-giving, we’re looking at 25 of our favorite Saturday Night Live holiday sketches. We’ll be going in chronological order here. There is a big dose of modern stuff in there, but what can I say? The show might be more miss than hit these days, but they really hit it out of the park year after year with the Christmas sketches.

Santi-Wrap (1976)

Very early in the show’s run, we get this classic where an adult woman (Laraine Newman) is all about sitting on Santa’s lap like when she was a little kid. The initial laugh is that before sitting down, she puts pieces of toilet paper on Santa’s leg for protection, like one would do in a public bathroom. Dan Aykroyd, her companion on this trip, seems shocked by this. Not that she’s trying to protect herself from germs, but because she’s not going far enough!

Suddenly, it turns out to be a commercial for Santi-Wrap, a festive and plasticky take on toilet seat covers. Not only do those two sell the product concept so well, but John Belushi as the mall Santa pushes it further by coming off as a complete disaster of a man who is probably riddled with disease.

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One of the show’s all-time best line deliveries is Belushi’s drunken, “Ho ho ho…” which has both defiant gusto and the sense that he’s seconds away from vomiting all over himself.

Mr. Robinson’s Christmas (1984)

Saturday Night Live has been a stepping stone to superstardom ever since Chevy Chase became a household name during its first season. In the 80s, Eddie Murphy’s recurring roles on SNL helped raise his profile as he eventually became one of, if not the biggest star of the decade. It was around Christmas time when Murphy’s spin on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood became one of the sketches that came to define his tenure at Studio 8H.

Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood isn’t quite as nice as Mister Rogers’ but at Christmas time you have to make the best with what you have. Mr. Robinson was able to do that with a chunk of lettuce and a headless doll and Murphy was able to make the most of every opportunity he had on SNL.

It’s a Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending (1986)

If you’ve seen the 1946 American Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, odds are you’ve been inspired by its heart-warming ending. Thanks to SNL and host William Shatner, we now have footage of the “fabled” lost ending to Frank Capra’s Christmas epic and it’s anything but heartwarming. Rather than end the film with everyone coming to George Bailey’s aid in his time of need and celebrating his lifetime of selflessness and kindness, it decides to give Mr. Potter a fate more explicit than being doomed to failure and loneliness. Phil Hartman pops in as Uncle Billy and not only remembers what happened to the missing money, but knows exactly who has it!

Dana Carvey makes the sketch as a George Bailey hell-bent on revenge. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without seeing him give Mr. Potter a beat down alongside his bloodthirsty loved ones.

Master Thespian Plays Santa Claus (1987)

Jon Lovitz’s characters were usually very hammy by design. Whether he was a pathological liar or the Devil himself, he always went to 11. One of his better recurring characters was Master Thespian, a scene-chewing Shakespearean actor who takes himself and his roles far too seriously.

In this installment, he would be playing the role of a mall Santa Claus.

Thespian doesn’t seem to have heard of Santa, but he’s down for the part. Finding out that there’s no actual script, he improvises and figures out the character via making mistakes and getting scolded by the Macy’s manager (played by Phil Hartman, choosing to base his performance on Frank Nelson because why not). To his surprise, Santa Claus actually LIKES children! These are notes a performer needs to know, man!

Seeing him play off the kids and Hartman is a blast. Speaking of which, one of the better gags is a fart joke that somehow proves how great an actor Master Thespian truly is. THANK YOUUUUUU!

Hanukkah Harry (1989)

Santa Claus (Phil Hartman) is violently ill with the flu, so it seems Christmas might be cancelled. Luckily, there is one man capable of fulfilling his obligations through the same kind of holiday magic. Hanukkah Harry (Jon Lovitz), Santa’s Jewish counterpart, is called in to help.

At its core, it’s a lengthy sketch about Jewish jokes and how lame Hanukkah is outside of it lasting eight days. Springing off of that, it actually makes for a really good, if a little touching, holiday story. There are definite laughs in there, but what was created to be a parody hits a little too close and becomes a genuine gem celebrating both holidays and the spirit of togetherness.

“On Moishe! On Herschel! On Schlomo!”

Motivational Santa (1993)

What started as a pep talk for troubled teens turned into Chris Farley’s iconic recurring character. Matt Foley, the thrice-divorced, sweaty, overweight man who lived in a van down by the river, crashed into our living rooms in 1993 and remained a fixture on SNL until Farley was fired from the show in 1995.

Sometimes a sketch is so successful that the writers are almost forced to bring one or more of its characters around again and Matt Foley was no exception. In one of the funnier times Matt Foley returned, he was hired to spread Christmas cheer as a motivational mall Santa, offering up this gem:

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the van Your ol’ buddy Matt fell asleep on the can. His children were nestled two time zones away, With his first wife and her husband, in sunny L.A. Matt woke up and realized with a chill and a quiver That he was living in a van down by the river!“

Though many of the same jokes and physical gags are recycled, Farley’s effort, from the painfully high pitch of his voice to crashing down the chimney, earns the Motivational Santa a place in SNL Christmas lore. 

Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song (1994)

Yes, we’ve heard Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” a million times over, but we shouldn’t let that cloud our judgement. It’s one of the first clips that pops into your head when you think “SNL Holiday Sketches” and it will go down as a landmark moment when the history of “Weekend Update” is written 200 years from now. Sandler didn’t use his time to evoke images of being a Jew at Christmas, rather he chose to praise the Festival of Lights and name-drop all the famous people who celebrate it. Since debuting the song in 1994, Sandler’s updated it for his comedy albums and standup routine and given Jewish kids something other than “The Dreidel Song” to belt during during the holidays. Sandler’s clever, original moment is about as influential as it gets for any not-ready-for-prime time player.

It did lead to the movie Eight Crazy Nights, so it isn’t free from sin.

TV Funhouse: Fun with Real Audio (1997)

It’s rare for SNL to get poignant, but here’s a fantastic example. In this animated short, Jesus Christ returns to Earth and spends the first opening minutes being ignored and shoved into the background for disagreeing with televangelists who use his name to line their pockets with donations or to justify their hatred of homosexuals. These bits are, of course, animated over actual audio of said real life sociopaths. Jesus is able to give them their just desserts with his divine magic, but it bums him out.

Walking the city streets, unnoticed by the public at large, Jesus watches Christmas-themed TV through a store window and is disappointed with what he sees. That is, until he comes across Linus’ speech at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas and we get a final moment that’s adorable, uplifting, and pretty hilarious.

NPR’S Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls (1998)

The dry, NPR-host banter between Ana Gasteyer’s Margaret Jo McCullen — who cheerfully admits that she leaves tap water and rice out for Santa because “Christmas foods really wreak havoc on the ol’ digestive system” — and Molly Shannon’s Teri Rialto as they discuss delectable Yuletide “balls” with Alec Baldwin’s Pete Schweddy is a can’t-miss skit. The trio makes monotone an art form, while remaining dedicated to the naivety of the characters involved. (In response to Alec Baldwin’s, “But the thing I most like to bring out this time of year are my balls,” their faces barely twitch.) It’s double entendre at its finest, and never fails to leave me in stitches.

Pete Schweddy returned in another episode where he introduced the women to his hotdogs, but having them show so much interest in putting his wiener in their mouths was a little too easy a joke to pull off.

I Wish It Was Christmas Today (2000-the heat death of the universe)

On one December episode, there was a short segment of Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, and Tracy Morgan playing a catchy, albeit incredibly stupid song about Christmas being on the way. Sanz played a skinny guitar while singing, Fallon occasionally pressed an elephant noise button on the keyboard, Kattan held the keyboard while shaking his head, and Morgan danced with a look on his face like he got dragged on stage against his will. It was silly and would have probably been forgotten soon after.

Instead, they returned a week later and insisted on playing it again despite being explicitly told not to. Soon they would start playing it during non-December months to show Christmas’ superiority over other holidays. After Simon Cowell insulted the group, he sheepishly agreed that he wanted to join them and broke out some maracas. One year, when Sanz was the only one left in the cast, he replaced his buddies with Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Animal while Kermit the Frog danced in a way that you have to wonder if a Muppet is capable of snorting coke.

The song still gets brought out now and then, usually on Fallon’s show. It’s even been covered by Julian Casablancas and Cheap Trick of all people!

They did sing a completely different Christmas song one time, but nobody cared.

Glengarry Glen Elf: Christmas Motivation (2005)

Alec Baldwin seems to be the go-to host for classic Christmas sketches. Playing on his iconic Glengarry Glen Ross character Blake, Baldwin (in a way) reprises the role as 615-year-old “elf from the home office” sent to straighten out the subpar work of Santa’s elves. There couldn’t have been a more perfect break in character than when Baldwin says “Always Be Closing” instead of “Always Be Cobbling” as scripted. It’s a slip-up that makes for a perfect holiday sketch, full of deep-bellied laughs. 

TV Funhouse: Christmastime for the Jews (2005)

Not only is the witty “Christmas for the Jews” written by comedy legend Robert Smigel, but it’s sung by David Letterman’s Christmas angel Darlene Love. In “Christmas for the Jews,” the characters see “Fiddler on the Roof,” grab an early dinner, and enjoy dreamland Daily Show reruns. It’s an intriguing and catchy look at the other side of the Christmas season, complete with a very Rankin-Bass animation style.

Digital Short: Dick in a Box (2006)

Justin Timberlake is one of the most entertaining, versatile hosts that SNL has been gifted. A member of their prestigious Five-Timers Club, “Dick in a Box” is Timberlake’s most memorable sketch, filled with skeevy, disgusting come-ons from Andy Samberg and Timberlake, which has been viewed just millions and millions of times. In 2006, Timberlake had already impressed critics and viewers alike with his acting range in Alpha Dog, but his comedic turns on SNL solidified him as an actor. Timberlake has done a lot of impressive things in his time as an entertainer, but there are few more enjoyable (or laughable) than “Dick in a Box.”

These two R&B weirdos would return later on to sleep with each other’s moms as reciprocated Mother’s Day presents and later swear that being in a two-guy/one-girl three-way isn’t considered gay.

John Malkovich Reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (2008)

As quipped by the man himself, no one emits Christmas spirit quite like John Malkovich. This admission yields the self-reflexive irony of Malkovich reading “The Night Before Christmas” to the children of SNL’s staff. Malkovich, pausing during his reading of the holiday classic, asks the children about the suicide rate rising during the holidays, talking about how shooting a home invader in California is “perfectly legal,” musing about how the tonnage of Santa’s sleigh and reindeer would (scientifically speaking) burst into flames, how in Portugal their version of Saint Nicholas steals children’s toes, as well as reciting the gem: “You know what they say about hopes; they’re what we cling to when reality has left us nothing else.” If you’re in a lighthearted Christmas mood, Malkovich’s monologue is certainly one to enjoy.

Stefon on Holiday Travel (2010)

Bill Hader was highly respected for his versatility and range during his time at SNL, but it was his improvisational skills that turned a Weekend Update bit into a must-see recurring segment. Stefon, likely the defining character for SNL during the 2010s thus far, informed New Yorkers and tourists alike of the city’s hottest nightclubs – with Hader almost always breaking down in laughter as his cue cards were frequently changed from the rehearsal to throw him off.

Stefon knew how to get weird and you can imagine he’d save some fun things for the a “classic New York holiday.” Make sure to check out the Lower, Lower East Side dump hosted by Tranderson Cooper or find a club with the right amount of Puerto Rican Screeches or Gay Aladdins. Just don’t run over the Human Parking Cones.

Stefon would return with more Christmastime insight three years later, where he’d discuss a club called [loud Tauntaun noises], founded by Jewish cartoon character Menorah the Explorer.

Under-Underground Crunkmas Karnival (2010)

Good God, I wish there were more Under-Underground Records sketches. As a parody of the Gathering of the Juggalos, we’d regularly see DJ Supersoak (Jason Sudeikis) and Lil Blaster (Nasim Pedrad) excitedly talk up huge concert events that are needlessly violent and inexplicable in their randomness. For instance, there’s the Crunkmas Karnival, which features such musical acts as Dump, Boys II Dicks, Scrotum Fire, and…Third Eye Blind for some reason.

It’s just a bunch of loud humor that goes back and forth between being stupidly hardcore and being meekly out of left field. Yes, you can go check out a “dong tug-of-war,” but you can also see a special 2D screening of the Owls of Ga’hoole or meet Spaceballs star Pizza the Hut. Not to mention the return of their most fondly remembered running gag, the endless undying and dying of Ass Dan.

This Christmas-based event will take place in February. Sounds about right.

Ornaments (2011)

Every now and then, SNL will do a sketch towards the end of the show where the guest will talk about whichever holiday is coming up and awkwardly go into one of the aspects of it, such as Easter eggs or Halloween candy. In this instance, it’s Steve Buscemi unloading a box of Christmas ornaments and commenting on each one. All the while, Kristen Wiig plays Sheila, his girlfriend who appears to be more than a little off and doesn’t quite grasp tree decorating.

Buscemi’s descriptions range from delightful non-humor to outlandish and disturbing. He might make an intentionally lame joke about one ornament before holding up another and matter-of-factly letting you know that, “I put this one up my butt.”

And somehow he’s still the straight man in this bit.

You’re a Rat Bastard Charlie Brown (2012)

This sketch is centered on Bill Hader playing Al Pacino, playing Charlie Brown. The rest of the cast turns out bang-up impressions as well: Jason Sudeikis playing Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Pigpen, Kate McKinnon as Edie Falco playing Lucy (as Charlie Brown’s drug peddling therapist, causing a holiday-blues Charlie to say, “Oh yeah…I want something to take me sky high!”), Martin Short playing Larry David playing Linus, Taran Killam doing Michael Keaton as Schroeder, and Cecily Strong as Fran Drescher as Charlie Brown’s mother, all performed in front of a baffled childhood audience.

For anyone who grew up watching Charlie Brown and Co., watching Bill Hader/Al Pacino/Charlie Brown unleash the expletive-laden “You’re gonna hold that f***ing football?!” towards Kate McKinnion/Edie Falco/Lucy, and saying, “Ow, you bitch!” after she pulls it away is absolutely to die for.

Jebidiah Atkinson on Holiday Movies (2013)

For a time, Taran Killam played Jebidiah Atkinson, a Weekend Update character based on how an old newspaper editorial was discovered that panned Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Atkinson, somehow still alive, would appear and read review snippets about other big speeches he hated.

One of his return appearances had him discuss holiday specials and movies. Every single one of them he hates. Every single one of them gets roasted. His vicious energy is so over-the-top that the good jokes land and the bad jokes still get a laugh from the misplaced confidence. Over these several minutes, he screams about how much of a depressing bore A Charlie Brown Christmas is, how the Grinch stole a half hour of his life, and how every time they play It’s a Wonderful Life, an angel blows its brains out.

This one is admittedly a bit dated with its biggest joke, where his distaste for Snoopy is so great that he wishes Family Guy killed him off instead of Brian. The horror from the audience still makes it worth it.

St. Joseph’s Christmas Mass Spectacular (2014)

Ah, Christmas Mass. The drum solo for every childhood during Christmas time. It’s uncomfortable and especially boring. Ergo, liven it up by framing it as a big, in-your-face event via what amounts to a monster truck rally commercial!

It’s a brilliant use of contrast. Take an event that is so mundane with so many familiar and shared experiences and treat it like it’s some extreme thing. The familiarity of the pastor making corny jokes that get the most minor of laughs is treated like a once-in-a-lifetime event. It shines a light on the weird tics of the prominent people you see at church and feels amazingly universal.

The SNL cast is fantastic here, but the MVP is Cecily Strong as the middle-age woman who is way into doing a reading in the loudest, most overly articulate speaking voice possible.

Sump’N Claus (2014)

Getting gifts from Santa Claus is great and all, but when you grow up, you realize how hard it truly is to be nice all year round. Luckily, there’s an alternative. Introduced via an extremely catchy song, we meet Sump’n Claus (Keenan Thompson), a pimp-like offshoot of Santa who not only used to work for St. Nick, but also appears to have some dirt on him.

Sump’n Claus sings several verses about people who have had breakdowns and would be thrown onto the naughty list. Sump’n Claus doesn’t care about that. You be you. Every December, he’ll still be there to hand you an envelope full of twenties and fifties. He’s the holiday mascot for adults, basically.

One of the highlights is how he mentions that Santa is not your friend as friends don’t watch you while you’re sleeping.

The Christmas Candle (2016)

Christmas has been saved by many different things: ghosts who see through time, an angel trying to earn his wings, a reindeer’s glowing nose, New Yorkers singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and so on. Then again, sometimes you need a savior for something with lower stakes.

In the form of a mid-1990s all ladies group that gives me kind of a Celine Dion vibe, we’re given a wonderful song that starts with the tale of a woman who had to get a coworker a gift for Secret Santa. She found an old peach candle in her closet and just gave her that. The second verse is a similar situation where not only is a peach candle given as a throwaway gift to an acquaintance, but it’s THE SAME candle. Yes, somehow this one peach candle is re-gifted across the globe through latter December by women and gay men who couldn’t be bothered to put thought into their presents.

Truly a miracle.

First Impression (2018)

Beck Bennett plays a guy about to finally meet his girlfriend’s (Melissa Villaseñor) parents and he’s nervous as hell. She assures him that he’ll be fine, but he really wants to impress them. Sure enough, he tries to impress them in the weirdest way by hiding somewhere in the house and speaking in a high-pitched voice in order to dare them to find him. Her parents (Jason Momoa and Heidi Gardner) are notably confused, as is she.

It’s already a strange and silly bit, but Jason Momoa shifts it into gear by suddenly being COMPLETELY into it. Removing his jacket with purpose, Momoa excitedly starts searching the house for this guy. The fact that Momoa is playing an overweight 60-year-old man is enough of a novelty, but he brings this oddball zest to the role as he starts to literally tear the home to pieces in order to get a look at his daughter’s elusive boyfriend.

The boyfriend’s plans here are both overly complicated and half-baked, culminating in an ending that’s as happy as it’s inexplicable and off-putting.

North Pole News Report (2019)

When Eddie Murphy returned to SNL, there was much fanfare. A completely solid episode, it admittedly spent too much of its runtime revisiting his old recurring classics like Mr. Robinson, Gumby, and Velvet Jones. The final sketch of the night goes full blast with his manic energy as he plays an elf eyewitness on the elf news, screaming bloody murder about a horrible tragedy. Mikey Day is reporter Donny Chestnut, looking at the destruction of a toy factory. As he tries to make heads or tails of what’s going on, Murphy bursts onto the scene, screaming about a polar bear attacking the elves and eating them like Skittles. And just screaming in general.

The best line comes from the elf (who keeps declaring, “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT MY NAME IS!”) bringing over one of the survivors, and noting that, “This white, teenage elf girl ran out here, straight up to me – a black elf in sweatpants – and asked me to keep her safe. That’s how bad it is!” Despite this elf being right about the situation, Donny Chestnut keeps trying to sideline him for being increasingly erratic about Santa’s potential role in the slaughter and what it means for Christmas. Even as he trips over some of his lines, Eddie Murphy is so damn precious here.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

December to Remember Car Commercial (2020)

It might be in bad form to include a sketch from this very year, but man, this joke is not only long overdue, but the acting is top notch. Heidi Gardner’s barely repressed rage is something special.

You’ve seen the commercial a million times. It’s Christmas morning and someone reveals a brand new car to a loved one. As part of Lexus’ December to Remember, Beck Bennett reveals a brand new Lexus with a giant bow to his wife (Gardner) and their son (Timothée Chalamet). What initially appears as shock turns out to be fury and confusion over what is a selfish and short-sighted decision. Buying a car is a huge deal and isn’t something you don’t tell your significant other. More than that, Bennett’s character hasn’t been employed for about a year and a half and has no way of affording such a thing. The thread is pulled away, unraveling both how much of an idiot he is and how doomed their family life happens to be.

Then neighbor Mikey Day shows up and it hits another level. Beck Bennett is the expert at playing guys with misplaced confidence who haven’t come close to thinking things through.

The post The 25 Best SNL Holiday Sketches appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[scifiphan]

Unspoken Rules

Summary: Since the beginning, Dan and Phil have been best friends with benefits and to them, their unique dynamic makes perfect sense. Over time unspoken rules and unanswered questions have built up until one day Dan realises that he can’t continue with the way things are. Love is weird but what Dan and Phil have is a whole lot weirder. Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: angst (with a sappy ending), alcohol mentions, v slight smut A/N: hey it’s me, ur local gif maker hitting you with some more fic. this may be one of the most self-indulgent things that i have ever written and i’m not even sorry. this was really fun to write because i’ve never done any angst (so this was a challenge lol) and i never intended for it to be so long,,, it just kinda happened. i hope y’all enjoy my take on the fwb trope 

[read on ao3]

Unspoken rules grew like weeds in the cracks of their lives. They’re just two broken people stuck together by a force greater than the sum of their parts; adult lives had been shaped around teenage whim and now neither could escape from the poisonous weeds.

Dan had joked one night, as they curled up on the lounge (their bodies much too big to fit comfortably but neither minded), that the first rule of fight club is that they don’t talk about fight club. Phil had just rolled his eyes and pressed a haphazard kiss on the exposed skin of Dan’s shoulder, mumbling that they were weird. He was right; they were definitely weird. That one little exchange of words all those years ago had been a rare verbal acknowledgement of the mess they made. They fell too deep too quickly. Both were young and reckless and now eight years later, the first rule of fight club was still being adhered to.

They were best friends (in the most liberal sense of the term) even if sex had been thrown into the mix from the beginning. They didn’t really know what the definition of their relationship was but one thing was certain: they weren’t boyfriends. Even if the Lester clan had started sending joint Christmas cards a couple of years ago, they dodged the word as if it was a lethal bullet.

Although they spent most nights wrapped in each other’s arms, trailing soft kisses along familiar skin, they were nothing more than friends who loved each other but weren’t in love (a fact Dan stressed to himself quite often) and their quirky dynamic had worked perfectly for almost a decade.

It had started out as Dan’s idea.

He was so young; bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with the urge to explore a part of him he had spent years ignoring. It would’ve almost been a crime for Phil to say no. Dan’s warm chocolate eyes had glimmered in the dim lighting of his childhood bedroom and his smile had been framed with endearing dimples. He couldn’t resist leaning over and sealing their fate with a kiss. Dan’s lips were soft and fit perfectly against his and whatever second guesses Phil may have held about their complicated friendship had dissipated; they could talk about it in the morning because, in that moment, he could only think about the softness of Dan’s skin and how he could almost cry about how perfect Dan’s lips felt against his.

It was exciting in the beginning; the concept of fucking just because they could. There was something exhilarating about making out for hours in their bedrooms, becoming familiar with each other’s bodies, learning every little detail about how to make the other unravel. It was their little secret hidden almost perfectly from the rest of the world.

They had been caught only once, pressed against each other as Phil peppered kisses along Dan’s neck, grinning into his skin every time Dan let a small moan escape his lips. It had been reckless, filled to the brim with stupidity, but they had been too drunk off Long Island Iced Tea to care. Phil had pulled them into the bathroom at a Vidcon after party and his mistake had been not locking the door. They never indulged in something so risqué, it was too dangerous but Dan’s hands had wandered throughout the night. Phil couldn’t wait until the privacy of their own hotel room to feel Dan against him. Their drunken plan had almost been executed perfectly but when Phil’s hands expertly unzipped Dan’s pants with a sense of urgency, the bathroom had gained one more occupant.

“Holy fucking shit,” an American accent they were all too familiar with reverbed off the bathroom walls and they both froze; not out of fear or shame but out of sheer horror.

After five years their secret had been discovered due to reckless behaviour.

Dan’s chestnut eyes were blown wide as he stared back at Anthony, holding in a whimper when the pressure on his crotch vanished and Phil’s arms went limp beside him.

“We can explain,” Phil stammered although he didn’t pull himself fully off the younger boy.

“You don’t need to,” Anthony shot back a bit too quickly; his cheeks were a rouge and his dark eyes landed everywhere but the two of them. He hovered at the bathroom door for several agonisingly long moments before stepping back, “I kinda expected it but I’ll uh, I’ll go pee somewhere else.”

When the door swung shut and it was just the two of them once again, Dan turned his head to nudge Phil’s cheek, “what do we do now?”

Phil moved his hands up so he could link them around Dan’s waist, “nothing.”

He placed a soft kiss on Dan’s lips and whatever tension that had been built during the night had vanished with Anthony’s interruption.

Dan melted a little into the sensation of the kiss, “Anthony is gonna to think we’re together,” he mumbled.

“Let him,” Phil replied.

Confusion furrowed Dan’s brows; they had spent years determined to make sure outsiders didn’t see them as a couple. He didn’t know if it was just him getting caught up in the moment or if their dynamic had shifted with Anthony’s discovery but a lot of questions had whirred in Dan’s mind and he kept them all buried in silence. They could talk in the morning between mouthfuls of waffles and maple syrup tainted kisses.

The questions were left unsaid.

A rule that had gone unspoken since the beginning was that they were free to date other people. It was hard to break into the dating scene as their YouTube careers grew exponentially so the lulls between romantic escapades were lengthy and their dates never lasted long enough to ever be considered serious.

On rainy nights, as they curled beneath Phil’s duvet with a bottle of rosé running through their veins, Dan would joke about how they were too blinded by their love for each other to properly date anyone else. Phil would always scoff and insist that the younger boy was mad but as the years wore on and their lives as singles grew more permanent, he started to not bat away the jokes. Instead, he clung to Dan tightly, afraid of the feelings whirring inside him; afraid of the warmth that ran like honey upon his skin whenever Dan touched him.

Love is weird but what they had was so much weirder.

They were nothing more than friends who loved each other but weren’t in love (a fact Phil reminded himself with increasing frequency as time wore on as if he was trying to convince himself).

Another rule that had never come up in conversation was something they had danced around on thin ice since the beginning. Although neither cared too much about who the other pulled into their beds, they had never brought back another man. Sexuality was something they hadn’t spent long pondering but from their own messy history, they were both well aware of how far from straight they were. However, when it came to dating other people, they had only brought women back to their apartment.

It was a quirk neither could fully understand and they had only made one fleeting comment on the observation. Dan once said that it was a subconscious urge to spite each other and Phi had just giggled around a mouthful of cereal, nudging Dan’s thigh with his knee and jokingly reassured him that it’s only because he didn’t satisfy Phil’s needs. The younger boy had almost choked on chamomile tea before leaning over to push the cereal bowl from Phil’s hands and proving that he could satisfy him better than anyone.

That was the last time that particular facet of their broken life was mentioned.

For eight years they had found a balance that worked and as time grew, their quirky friendship had become second nature; they had found harmony together.

Long ago they swapped singular words for their pluralistic variation without even second guessing the vocabulary migration. It felt natural for the two of them to be a single entity. They were Dan and Phil. Two halves of a whole. Best friends who loved each other but could never be in love. It just wasn’t their thing.

They had never put too much effort into dissecting the nature of their relationship; questions and rules had been built up and pushed to the side. It was too complex. Too interwoven. The limitations between them had faded until everything about them was blurry and plural. They resisted definition so much that they lost definition entirely. For eight years they had played an endless game of cat and mouse; sidestepping the questions that required answers. They were in too deep and neither knew how to even begin defining their complicated life they had built for themselves until they could no longer avoid the inevitable.

Dan had found his head on Phil’s lap while they both absentmindedly watched an episode of Buffy that they had seen dozens of times. He mumbled the dialogue without even realising it (a sign that they spent too much of their spare time indulging in absolutely nothing). Not that he’d have it any other way; he counted every lazy night with Phil as a blessing.

Phil carded a hand through Dan’s curls, tugging lightly because after so long together he knew just how nice the younger boy found the sensation. For someone who said he loved bites and bruises, Dan was just a big softy for all the gentle and affectionate actions that had worked their way into their dynamic.  Phil had been wanting to bring up something that had been niggling inside him for weeks but whenever he had gained the courage, they would melt into domestic habits and he couldn’t bring himself to see Dan’s heart shatter behind his perfect chocolate eyes.

He couldn’t evade the inevitable any longer; he had to rip the Band-Aid off just as Buffy slayed yet another vampire.

“I want to start dating again.”

He felt Dan stiffen. His breathing stilled for what felt like aeons but were only mere moments. It had been well over a year since either had ventured outside of their unspoken agreement and although the first rule of fight club still stood, they had fallen into something so comfortable and natural and Phil was shattering their creation.

“Getting bored?” Dan’s words were hushed. He rolled back into Phil’s lap so he could look up at the face of the man he loved but was too stubborn to accept how smitten he actually was. Dan refused to believe he was in love; their dynamic didn’t allow it.

Phil sighed, shifting his hand so he could stroke Dan’s cheek, letting his fingers linger on the slightly red patch that bloomed upon his jaw, “I could never get bored of you,” he replied with a fondness that took both of them off-guard. “It’s just that I’m in my thirties now, I need to make the most of my fleeting youth before I end up adopting fifteen dogs.”

“You can never have too many dogs,” Dan smiled back but it was vacant. Whatever thoughts were whirring in the brunette’s head refused to be verbalised but Phil could see the pain seeping into Dan’s warm eyes, dampening them.

“Don’t cry,” Phil whispered. The longer their more-than-friends-but-still-friends relationship went on the worse it became whenever they chose to venture into the dating scene but he hadn’t expected tears.

“I’m not crying,” Dan shot back, he drew his bottom lip between teeth in an attempt to distract his mind that was racing a mile a minute.

The older boy smirked, “all men do is lie.”

Dan couldn’t help but let a laugh escape. Even if the fragile world he had shaped was beginning to shatter for what seemed like the hundredth time, he couldn’t be mad at Phil. He always knew that one day they would go their separate ways; create families of their own with pretty wives and pretty kids in a pretty London borough and they would walk their dogs together in the afternoons while reminiscing about their youth. What he desperately clung onto would one day just be a distant memory he would recall fondly when his skin was wrinkled and his hair turned grey.

He shifted his position so he could pull Phil down beside him, “kiss me,” Dan asked with an urgency that could be analysed when the sun climbed above the city skyline and the reality of their future could be comprehended. Their nights together were limited and as Phil kissed away the tears that rolled down the brunette’s cheek, Dan could almost forget that his life had just been shattered like glass.

Their unspoken rules had never been broken; their silent agreement had remained strong for close to a decade so when Phil dragged his date through the front door three weeks later, the broken pieces of Dan’s heart were ripped to shreds once again. It wasn’t that Phil had bad taste (he had exceptional taste) but it was more the fact that his date wore a red flannel, round glasses and had a well-trimmed ginger beard; the stereotypical hipster he probably found somewhere near Shoreditch. Dan wanted to wave at the man but when his bright smile lit up the room he realised that a part of Phil that had only ever been reserved for Dan had been pulled from his grasp. He had to hold onto the kitchen bench to stop him from crumpling to the ground like discarded paper.

“Dan! You’re awake!” Phil said between giggles; he was definitely intoxicated. It was well into the early hours of the morning yet Dan didn’t feel even a tendril of sleep pulling at him.

The other guy held Phil’s hand, gently swinging it as he giggled alongside him. Dan couldn’t help but notice how his hand was too small for Phil. They didn’t fit the way Dan’s hand melded perfectly; everything about Dan fit perfectly with Phil yet it was too late to contemplate such intricate thoughts.

“Hi,” Dan managed to spit out with a bit more vehemence than he was meant to but he couldn’t retract. The man was cute. His ginger hair fell in waves to his shoulders and brown frames accentuated pine green eyes; he was conventionally attractive and a few inches shorter than the two of them. If he wasn’t holding hands with his Phil, Dan would have found him incredibly cute but all he could feel was overwhelming jealousy.

“This is Liam,” Phil tugged at the ginger’s hand.

“Hiya, you’re Dan yeah?” Liam’s words were coated in an accent that Dan couldn’t place. Kiwi? Australian? South African? Dan’s jealousy was almost at melting point and all he could do was nod in response; well aware that anything he said wouldn’t work in his favour.

“We’re just heading to my room,” Phil announced, picking up on the tension filling up the kitchen at an alarming rate.

Dan just nodded, turning his head towards the fridge to hide a scoff. Phil’s bedroom was nothing more than a glorified filming set in their new apartment; he hadn’t spent a night in there since they moved in.

“G’night,” he mumbled, not caring if his lack of hospitality gave Liam a bad impression because that was exactly what he was trying to achieve.

He felt Phil’s gaze linger on the back of his head before giving up in favour of giving Liam a grand tour of their apartment.

When the door to Phil’s room swung shut, Dan allowed himself to slide down to the foot of the fridge. He had spent countless hours in this position; pondering life and all the bad decisions he had made. The worst decision he had ever made couldn’t help but rear its ugly head; forcing tears to fall down Dan’s cheeks in a wave of violent sobs. He didn’t care if Phil and his attractive date could hear; they were the catalyst for his fragile future, his hope of holding onto Phil for reasons he could not entirely explain had been annihilated.

The worst decision he had ever made was kissing Phil back for the first time. On a good day, he may have said it was his best decision but good days were just distant memories.

They had been in Phil’s room and heavy snow fell outside, helping form a memory that felt almost too magical to be real. Dan had quickly discovered that kissing Phil was a necessity; he needed it as much as he needed air to breathe and blood in his veins. His entire body had come alive in that moment as if all the stars had aligned and fate had cast its benevolent hand over them. Although, it had been too good to be true. Their bodies fit together perfectly, it was as if they were one soul shaped as two beings finally finding their other half. Every nerve had come alight as wildfire blazed throughout their bodies. Inexperienced hands fumbled across pale skin, exploring every inch and laying claim. Phil was his first and his best; they had been so dumb but it was when they were in each other’s arms afterwards that their insipid fate had been sealed.

“You’re my best friend, I don’t want what just happened to change that,” Dan’s voice had been soft but his words were laced with fear. He had fallen deep into something that he didn’t know how to get out of and he didn’t even know if he wanted to get out of it.

“It doesn’t have to change,” Phil had mumbled into his hair. At the time those words had come as a relief; Dan had spent too much of his life avoiding labels. He hadn’t been ready. He hadn’t realised that eight years later he would be on the kitchen floor, a broken mess, as his best friend and love of his life broke his heart just down the hallway.

Dan was in love with Phil and it had taken eight years to acknowledge the pain that had been in his chest since the beginning.

He must have drifted off to sleep in his position below the fridge because the next thing he knows, dim morning sunlight is pouring through the windows, warming his tear-stained cheeks. For a moment, he could almost forget his downfall last night but then he hears footsteps enclosing on the kitchen and his eyes flew open; it would be pathetic if he was caught in his vulnerable state.

“Oh Dan…” If Dan still had a heart left to break, it would have splintered into tiny pieces with the sincerity those two simple words fell from Phil’s lips. His best friend was standing before him in emoji pyjamas and a graphic tee with his black-rimmed glasses slightly askew. He reached out a hand to pull Dan up, “were you there all night?”

A lot of ways to react to Phil’s softness flickered through Dan’s mind. He thought about yelling and screaming, crying even though he was too dehydrated to do so, even fucking him on the kitchen counter. Every scenario under the sun played in his mind but when Phil pulled him up so they were level, Dan could only fall into his arms with a silent sob.

Phil’s arms tightened around Dan instinctively and the younger boy could sense uncertainty running through Phil’s thoughts, “what changed?” was all he managed to ask next to Dan’s ear.

Dan wanted to laugh, he wanted to let all the bitterness pent up inside him get released as sadistic laughter. He wanted to ask Phil if he was fucking serious because his eyesight may be shit but he isn’t blind; their predicament was obvious. He wanted to confess that he was undoubtedly in love and couldn’t deny it. However, he chose none of those options and instead closed the gap between their lips with a greedy kiss.

Phil pulled away almost instantly but not quick enough for Dan to miss the conflict that was bubbling up inside the older man.

“Liam’s still here,” Phil hissed.

“Fuck Liam,” Dan’s breath was hot against Phil’s skin and when Dan swooped back in for a second time, licking hotly into the kiss with fervency, Phil couldn’t help but succumb to fate’s twisted plan.

Dan pressed his body flush against Phil and the unexpected weight caused them to stumble back into the kitchen island in a tangle of limbs. Their kisses were erratic; a clash of greed and familiar desire coming alive in a flurry as Dan lifted Phil onto the island, pushing himself into Phil, delighted to find him already half hard.

“Didn’t fuck yourself senseless last night?” Dan asked while trailing small nips down Phil’s neck and applying just the right amount of pressure where his pyjama pants tented.

A soft moan escaped Phil and Dan hummed with approval, repeating his actions.

“We didn’t have sex,” Phil told him through breathy moans and Dan stopped in his tracks, lifting his lips from Phil’s neck so he could look him in the eyes.

“What?”

“We didn’t fuck,” Phil said as if swearing would get the point across, “we just talked and kissed for a bit.”

Dan kept his eyes trained on Phil’s for what felt like an eternity. In the morning sunlight, he noticed that the flecks of yellow became more prominent as if he had liquid gold glimmering in the pools of green and blue.

A part of him felt guilty for assuming and a part of him felt relieved but the jealousy still remained; someone else got the chance to feel Phil’s wondrous lips and Dan felt the urge to kiss away the lingering feeling of the other man. This time their kiss was tender, the beginnings of an unspoken apology they knew all too well. It was repetition of all the other times they had found their way back to each other after countless failed dating attempts. Dan’s hands reached up to card Phil’s raven hair and he tugged lightly, delighted when Phil moaned into each kiss.

“We can’t do this, not now,” the older boy pulled away when their kisses shifted into something more heated and a whine escaped from Dan.

“We can’t keep running away from this,” Dan mumbled, leaning forward to entrap Phil in another kiss but he tilted his head so Dan’s lips met a pale cheek.

“I’m not trying to run away,” Phil whispered, “once he leaves we’ll talk. I promise that we’ll work this mess out.”

Dan sighed, leaning his head onto Phil’s, “I’ll be waiting. I always am.”

With that, they broke apart and Dan’s arms fell to his side as if he was a puppet and his strings had just been cut. He was tempted to fall back into his spot below the fridge but as Phil left the kitchen, Dan allowed his feet to take him in the other direction. He grabbed his coat and shoved his phone into a pocket, tempted to leave it at home but decided against it. He couldn’t fully avoid reality even if it could lead to even more heartbreak. He couldn’t keep being invisible whenever his heart was trodden on.

He was used to absent walks to clear his head but now his mind was anything but absent. He kept replaying every action that led up to the present, every kiss stolen in the darkness of night, every tear shed when he saw Phil with someone else. They had spent years avoiding the situation between them and now Dan found himself in the shadows waiting for Phil, the embodiment of light, to pull him back into the sunshine.

Dan ended up in a nearby park, a black coffee cradled in his hands (a vacant decision while walking past Pret a Manger), savouring the feeling of warm steam reaching up to caress his face. Although the sun was shining, London was cold. Trees had lost almost all their leaves and the last lingering red and brown foliage clung onto bare limbs as if they were too stubborn to let go.

The park was empty aside from him and maybe that was due to it being midmorning or maybe the icy touch in the air had kept everyone inside. He found a spot beneath a gazebo and allowed himself to take a seat. He did this often; sit and think in parks. There was something about the falling leaves and a gentle breeze that calmed him. His mind slowed down just enough to force it into silence; focusing on the bitter taste of the coffee and harsh heat that hit his tongue instead of his broken life that was in dire need of fixing.

He felt his phone buzz a few times but chose to ignore it in favour to sweeping the dregs of his coffee out of the cup, grimacing at the temperature which was slightly too cool for comfort; a sign that he had been thinking for too long.

Dan felt as if a part of him had been laid to rest at the realisation that his feelings had run astray. For years he had been certain that they could remain in their tangle of weeds; allowing unspoken rules to blur what they were and strangle the feelings he buried so deep.

Love was weird and love was blind but he had been blinded by stupidity to realise that his heart was only meant for Phil.

His feelings had only once come to the surface in a Freudian slip on a drunken night during their Australian leg of the tour. They had spent the hours after their Sydney show drinking with the crew but when they stumbled into a taxi their hands found home upon each other and Phil’s lips had laid claim to Dan’s jaw.

If the driver could see what was unfolding in the backseat he never expressed discomfort.

They shared kisses coated with the weight of intoxication and hands lazily traced familiar patterns. Dan had consumed one margarita too many and as Phil dragged his mouth along his collarbone, words betrayed him.

“Love you.”

He never knew if Phil heard him in that moment or if he had been too preoccupied with Dan’s exposed skin to notice but the younger boy’s eyes had blown wide with alarm and he forced himself to backtrack.

“Lo-love being here with you. Sydney is amazing.”

Phil hummed into the crook of Dan’s neck, not seeming too fussed with what his friend was saying before shifting upwards so he could focus on the sweet spot upon Dan’s neck.

Whatever fear that had been born in the wake of Dan’s slip up was momentarily forgotten as pleasure ran through him like lightning.

Phil had never questioned what was said within the taxi that night so Dan had repressed the memory alongside his undying love until it pushed its way to the surface of his mind; reminding Dan of just how messy his life had become.

It wasn’t until the sun became hidden behind looming clouds that he was joined within the gazebo. Dan didn’t turn his head, he didn’t need to. He knew the feeling of Phil’s presence all too well.

The older man sat at the opposite end of the bench, his hands shoved into coat pockets and his eyes trained on amber coloured leaves that felt languidly from a nearby tree. His hair was swept neatly to the side and glasses were gone in favour of contacts. Dan could feel his heart skip a beat and he hated knowing that Phil had that effect on him. Even after so long he still got giddy when looking at the man. In Dan’s eyes, he was perfection, the embodiment of Adonis but even his beauty couldn’t hide the pain that radiated from his chest.

They didn’t speak straight away, it wasn’t their style if the last eight years of avoidance wasn’t enough proof of that. Time fell away from their own little slice of reality and hours could have passed or just mere moments but when Phil extended a hand out to Dan, he didn’t refuse the invitation. Phil’s slender fingers were warm (a stark contrast to the cool air) and his thumb ran comforting strokes across the back of Dan’s hand; an action that had become second nature.

“I’m so sorry,” Phil was the first to speak. His eyes remained trained on falling leaves but Dan could see that they were red. He had been crying and that fact broke Dan more than anything else that had come between them.

“You don’t have to be,” he replied tenderly, afraid that his voice might crack if he spoke too loud.

“No Dan,” Phil said, “let me apologise for once. I got us into this mess, the least I can do is say sorry.”

“I’ve been afraid,” the younger boy admitted, “what happened to us?”

“Come here,” Phil tugged lightly and Dan followed the pull, folding into Phil’s arms just as a silent sob spilt out of him. He let go of Phil’s hand in favour of wrapping his arms tightly around him and nestling his head upon his chest.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Dan mumbled, unsure as to if it was in context to the hug or their lives as a whole. Both were plausible.

“It was stupid of me to think I could spend my life with anyone but you,” Phil whispered into chocolate curls, “It just took this morning for me to realise it. Seeing you hurt like that, it broke me.”

“What about your redhead?” Dan tried to push jealousy to the side but it refused to remain hidden.

“Liam isn’t the man for me,” Phil paused to place a soft kiss in his curls, “you are.”

Dan almost melted at the softness of the kiss but the words that followed turned his limbs into jelly. He moved his head up slightly so he could look up at Phil. His blue eyes seemed grey in the now overcast weather.

“Why did we complicate our life?” he asked with furrowed brows.

“You have a dramatic flair,” Phil allowed a smile to race across his lips that remained when a small chuckle escaped the brunette.

“What are we?” Dan asked, moving a hand from Phil’s back so he could trace pale cheekbones out of intrigue. All the questions they had ignored and kept for morning afters were finally allowed to be asked yet all he could think of was the most basic questions that probably already held obvious answers.

“Dan and Phil,” the older boy replied before placing a small kiss on the tip of Dan’s nose. “To me, you are everything even if we’ve resisted definition for so long. I can’t imagine spending a day without you let alone spending a life without you by my side.”

The feelings that had surfaced back in Sydney bloomed in Dan’s stomach as a manifestation of butterflies, “seeing you last night with someone else made me realise that I only want you. I’ve only ever wanted you and I was a fool to think otherwise.”

Phil laughed and his warm breath tickled Dan, “to think I’ve spent years trying to find someone to replace the happiness I feel when you’re in my arms.”

“When did you realise this?” Dan asked with curiosity, “you make it sound as if you’ve known for ages yet I don’t think I realised until last night.”

Phil smirked as if the memory he was recalling was fond, “I fell in love the moment I met you but it just took me a little bit to realise that I loved you more than a best friend.”

“Love…”

“Is it really such a strange concept?” Phil asked.

Dan shook his head, blinking back tears as a smile forced its way onto his lips, “I love you too.”

“Don’t cry,” Phil responded with a hushed whisper.

“They’re good tears,” Dan reassured before leaning in to connect their lips. The kiss was soft as emotions that they had buried now flowed freely between them and all the unspoken rules dissipated the moment Dan sighed into the kiss. It was bliss. Kissing Phil was always perfect.

They stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms sharing tender kisses, not caring if other people within the park saw them. Love was weird but what Dan and Phil had was so much weirder. The nature of their relationship still remained undefined but as Dan let his hands run through raven hair, he knew that whatever was yet to come would undoubtedly be perfect.

“So, what now?” he asked when they finally pulled away from the kiss, nuzzling into Phil.

“Let’s go back home and watch some Ghibli. How about Spirited Away? And we can order takeout?” The older boy pulled away from Dan so he could stand up, extending his hand to Dan. Last time he did that action, heartbreak had pulled at them but now all the years of needless pain had been torn from them by the roots and love bloomed in its place, “does that sound like a good start of our forever?”

“Ponyo,” Dan amended, standing up beside Phil with a grin unable to leave his lips, “and yes, forever sounds nice if I get to spend it with you.”

[okimargarvez]

BAD TIMING

Original title: Cattivo tempismo.

Prompt: fluff, fear of love.

Warning: post 13x5.

Genre: comedy, romantic, angst, friendship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, JJ, Derek Morgan, O.C. (Luke’s mom).

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 12 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💏😘👓🎈.

Song mentioned: Difendimi per sempre, Tiziano Ferro.

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

This story is dedicated to my sister of delirium @theshamelessmanatee

BAD TIMING

 He has been waiting for this moment for a century or so. The ability to replicate what had already happened months ago, going beyond. And it's (was) all sadly perfect.

It's shabby, indeed, really sad that he needed to find out that Penelope's date was ended with a gunshot, to decide to find the courage to face his feelings and finally ask her out.

Technically he hadn't asked her anything yet. But he had prepared everything else.

Flowers. It took a whole day to decide first whether to buy flowers or if such a gesture would be interpreted in negative; he remembered Garcia's words perfectly when she admitted to practicing non-violence in her food choices, but he didn't know if this concept was true for plants as well. So, he had opted for a circumspectly collection of information. Starting from JJ. He had simply asked her if Will had given her flowers often, before they married, if it had been a gesture woman would have appreciated nowadays or if it had become a retro romance. The blonde of course had looked at him strangely, but the man was quick to explain that one of his cousin was in a very bad mood and he just wanted to help her. He was not sure that Agent Jaerau had been bought his story.

Then he had done the same thing with his mother. He had called her and had asked her more or less a similar question. But the old woman had been much more alert and straightforward than her colleague. -Ninito, if you want some advice to ask a date with a girl, tell me clearly! Don't make fun of your mother, don’t treat me like I were a stupid and naive lady!- so, Luke found himself with a more serious problem to solve, to apologize to his mother and regain her love. And there had been no better way than to admit everything.

-Ok. There's a woman, I've already told you about her...- she had interrupted him almost immediately.

-Penelope.- she had simply limited to saying. If he could have looked at her, he would probably have looked at her like an alien creature. But he had had to make do with a strangled cry, followed by a prolonged silence. -Son?- the other had asked.

-When you have taking a profiling course? How do you know it's about...- he was almost afraid to say the name of the computer technician -...Penelope?- his mother had let herself go to a short, liberating laugh.

-Ninito, you came out of my belly! Don't forget it.- if his father had still alive, he would surely blush. Despite the Catholicism in which she was born and grew up, and in which she believed deeply, Adriana was a woman capable of pungent and witty jokes, to go beyond a simple morality and didn't have trouble saying what she thought. Never, not even at her child. -I certainly don't need to take a course to psychoanalyze you. It's the colleague of which you told me about most. And it's not just a question of quantity, but also of quality. You should listen to yourself, really, I'm not kidding, you should try. You should really hear yourself talking about her, her skills that made you solve a case brilliantly, you should be able to hear your enthusiasm when you told me about the moment she met Roxy "the smile she did... the whole world was absorbed from that smile", your words. Or when you told me that you tried to console her and bought her that anti-stress puppet, or... - hearing a different point of view, of a person who was completely extraneous because too distant, had given a decisive shock to agent Alvez.

-Ok, enough, enough. I get your drift.- Adriana had laughed again.

-You deal with bombs, serial killer every day and a sweet blonde makes you shake like a schoolboy on his first day of school?- she had slightly teased him, as only a parent is authorized to do. -You're exactly like your father.- and this was certainly not the first time she told him.

-So, how Dad did get married to you?- or that Luke asked her this question.

-I had to make the first move, you know very well. Now, gather all your courage and try. Which woman could resist my child's charm? I still want so many beautiful nephews and I feel I have never been so close to realize the dream... please, don't ruin everything.- while he listening to the voice of the woman, he had noticed out of the corner of his eye a great movement. It was Roxy who wanted to go out for a walk.

-Well, mom, now I have to go. My girlfriend claims me.- he had distinctly heard Adriana's snort.

-Look that mine wasn't a suggestion, but an order.- a last attempt.

This time he had been the first to laugh. -I know. I love you, don't go to sleep too late!- while the old woman closed the call he had managed to hear her still mumble something like "Look if at my age I have to be treated like I was the daughter”.

 His mother's words had bounced in his head for a long time. He had finally decided that the flowers would be a good choice. After all, JJ also confirmed that women still liked that kind of attention. So, weeks passed, from that telephone conversation, and several occasions presented themselves before him.

The first was undoubtedly the time when Garcia decided to change his nickname, from Newbie to "Cool Hand Luke", provoking in him a tumult of emotions; first because he had asked himself the reason for this nickname, she had had no way to find out if his hands had a classic hot temperature or the opposite, then he had visualized clear immediately the image of his own hands that passed form her shoulders and back in other areas... But next to him was JJ, who had looked at him and she had also asked "What did you do to her?" after the bespectacled blonde had greeted them with yet another ambiguous joke "I'm the genie in genealogie, just rub my lamp".

He could go to her, after the case was over. And finally ask her out. But he had backed up. Any excuse was good not to take that fateful step. The terror (not fear) to receive a no was louder than any good perspective would open with a yes.

 When, however, Luke sees Garcia almost running away, during the exposure of the case of the cannibal of Bridgewater, he understands that this time the situation is different. There is something serious behind a similar output. He stays perhaps longer than the others staring at the spot where she disappeared. But he turns in time to hear the explanation given by their leader.

The words come to him broken, confused, as if his ears refuse to accept this fact.

A man (call him that) had shot to Garcia while, ten years ago, they had worked to this case.

His first thought is precisely about the timing. Ten years earlier, when I still didn't know her. When I don't even know she existed. And where was he, what was he doing while she tinged with red the steps to her apartment building? JJ was in fact the one responsible for adding details. The name, for example, but this doesn't ring a bell; his profession: ranger, policeman with a several medals. Ranger, like him. He could have known him, talked with him, had lunch at his table, became his friend... not. It's not an acceptable prospect. It makes him too human, and this it can't be said of someone that had made a similar crime.

How someone can do harm, physical, moral, of any kind, to a creature as Penelope Garcia?

This is the big question that arises him, but also for the colleagues that are equally ignorant of the facts, that Luke however can't perceive. The only echo are those words, fragments of sentences. Until he fails to recover himself enough to ask for something in his turn.

-Where is he now?- in a damned prison, he hopes her answers. With his connections it would take very little to get an interview. At least this way he could put the question directly to the person concerned.

But JJ deprives him of this comfort. -He's dead.- he is partly angry that he was deprived of that privilege, partly relieved to know that it's no longer a threat for her.

From his mouth come out a -Good.- that could very well says a damned soul that Dante meets in his pilgrimage to Hell. How much darkness in his soul, just barely visible. Cullen, the sorrow caused to Phil and by extension to him, confusing flashbacks of the war and the same number of flash-forward about what he could have been if he hadn't adopted Roxy. He still turns again to look toward the door, but Penelope doesn't reappear. He would raise happy, sending the case to the hell, because he can't concentrate. He would do it and he wouldn't caring of what others may think of him, because it counts only that she's okay. This is love, not just love, but those with capital letter. He would be willing to cancel himself for her, and this isn't necessarily a good thing. However, he remains there, in his place.

But even when, on the plane, the angelic face of the blonde not appears on the screen and in its place, peeps an equally attractive woman, with the wheat-colored hair too, Luke decides that it's time to do something.

He would willingly remain in place of JJ. But she is the best friend of Garcia, is the one who shot Battle and sent him to his reward, she was there when it all happened, knows everything. It was the best choice leaving her at Quantico. At the same time, he can't look the other way when, gathered in the police station room, Emily call the computer technician and the expert in communications in the press answers. Rossi asks how Penelope is and the other beat around the bush, then say she is recovering, but slowly.

Luke passes the first night in Bridgewater buying a flower pot, booking it for date to be determined and a puppet heart-shaped, without any written above, but soft (as he imagines her curves are), a pillow that she could embrace in moments of sadness, and that would make her think of him.

During the second night he elaborates the strategy how to dress. He asks Jenny to prepare a white shirt and dark blue pants, along with the most elegant shoes and serious that he possesses, which he didn't use at a funeral. He also asked her to take care of Roxy a bit 'longer. The lady agrees, but first he must reveal her the reason for all this movement, including those strange parcels he received. And Luke has to put up with the enthusiastic cries of his neighbor, who is a prelude to those of his mother, when she'll knows that he finally decided.

 Everything is so perfect, in the mind of Luke Alvez, when he crosses the threshold dressed like a man, if he would look in the mirror, wouldn't recognize in himself. Yet he isn't only the ranger with boots and sports jackets. He can be even more, he can also be the one that makes the hurt heart of Garcia beats, he must be.

Outside it's raining, just little, just what its needed to give a certain atmosphere to hugs and cuddles on the couch, with a blanket to hide the bodies and movements.

He doesn't think about anything, while the elevator headed up floor by floor up to them. He doesn't think anything or at least he strives very much, while he walks throw to his fate, he tries not to feel like a condemned man who goes to meet the gallows. This isn't about court Penelope to take her to bed, the issue it's much more serious. His only objective must be to make her smile again. Make her understand that not all men are like that bastard who dared to take advantage of her. That wasn't her fault, because surely, she thinks it, that nothing justifies what he did.

He doesn't want to repeat the sentences he will tell her, the way he wants to start out. But eventually he succumbs and finds himself moving his lips without making a sound, mentally testing the part. In the noise of his thoughts, however, something new sneaks up, which he doesn't immediately recognize. A feminine, silvery, unmistakable laugh. Penelope is laughing out loud. He tries to find the source, then hears that other to make her echo, masculine. He looks up at the chiefs' offices and takes the stairs until he reaches the door, ajar, of the ex-office of Agent Derek Morgan. And he sees them, in there, sitting on the leather sofa, close, hands intertwined and eyes shining. He hears him showing his son's video, Hank, calling her "Aunt Penelope". He feels the happiness and the emotion of the woman.

And certainly, he would stay there indefinitely, dazed, until they would discover him by going out. But JJ arrives to stop hypnosis. Only when she pronounces his name the man realize that he has tears in his eyes, that he is one step away from crying.

It was all so fucking perfect. He was ready, this time he wouldn't back out, he would have done it. He was, he was; implies a past time, bygone, and no longer recoverable, changeable.

-Luke, are you okay?- the woman looks at him, she notices the droplets on the sides of his dark eyes, the mouth slightly ajar and the look lost in the void of her colleague. Just as she had noticed the interest in her friend, from the beginning, since the remote control passed after some trick of dexterity, perhaps even earlier. JJ knows perfectly well that Luke is deeply interested in Penelope, perhaps even in love. She certainly doesn't need confirmation. And because she is the one that has called Morgan, she understands that something serious has happened, that Luke is in crisis and who knows if it will be possible to solve.

He doesn't even seem to see her, he brushes her with his eyes. He is panicked. -I .. I have to... Roxy needs me.- and how it would happen in a movie, he flees. Less than ten seconds later, Garcia and her dark chocolate come out happily, arm in arm. Both immediately notice the upheaval, which has now passed on JJ's shoulders.

-Hey, blondie, what's that face?- in the beginning Derek tries to seems ironic, but the concern is revealed in his tone.

-Nothing, nothing...- she can't convince him, but however he has to take the plane, Savannah and his baby are waiting for him, so the man greets her and leaves them alone.

-JJ...- Garcia certainly doesn't intend to surrender. She has nothing better to do than to torment her poor friend. -OhMyGod.- she pronounces everything attacked, as in her best moments of anxiety. -Don't tell me that... it's about the children?- she asks first. -Or did something happen to Will?- she can't imagine what could upset JJ outside of her family.

-No. They're fine.- the other woman feels guilty for making her worry. She has just emerged from a much more serious trauma; her emotional balance is still very fragile. So, at least, their manuals teach. -It's not about me.- she adds.

Penelope opens her eyes protected by lenses and a colorful frame. -And what concerns?- the tone of voice is lower and flickering. She is afraid of what she already knows.

-You.- she swallows. -And Luke.- hearing the name of Newbie on the lips of her best friend, in a context that not certainly regards the work, cases to be solved, it's a strange experience for the computer technician. It makes her think of him as a well-rounded, real man.

-Alvez? What's he got to do with me?- she be careful to call him by surname, to keep her distance, although lately they were become a little 'closer, or for the less she has granted a bit' of truce to him. However, she blushes anyway.

-What do you really think about him, Penelope?- is the serious tone, the stern look and devoid of any kind of irony or mischievousness, and the use of her proper name, alarm the shapely woman. Why she is asking her a question like this right now? Did something happen to Newbie? No, they would have warned her in this case. There would be also the others, at this moment they would be heading towards the hospital and... Why the hell do I feel a pang in my heart at the thought that something bad could happen to him? The excuse that she loves everyone isn't enough for her, each as a member of her family. He is different, he was always being a thing apart. -I mean- JJ resumes when she understands that the other isn't going to reopen her mouth. - Do you like him?- she gets this straight, this time.

-But...!- she puts her hands to the face, in a very theatrical way. -What treacherous question!- she hides behind those exaggerated gestures, tries to protect her soul, to preserve for herself that feeling that she believed unripe, that she thought was a crush and instead she discovered in an instant is much more serious. -I have just got back from a shock, and you...- the other woman shakes her head, there is no more time for these farces, these little games.

-Garcia, please.- she limits herself to saying. And it's more enough than a thousand reproaches.

-Ok. I... I don't know.- she admits sincerely and her friend believes her. She reads the sincerity, the loss, the hope and the terror in her eyes, all mixed together. -Why are you asking me?- it's her turn to ask a question.

-He was out here.- she responds very frankly, ignoring Penelope's pupils widening as she listens to her explanation. -With a vase of flowers and a package, maybe a pillow, shaped like a heart.- she so easily can imagine this, all too easily, imagine those objects in his hands and for a moment she lost herself in trivial issues such as Which he had held in the right hand and what with the left? Then she recovers.

-What?!- there must be some other logical explanation to justify such a gesture. She can't afford to consider that hypothesis. It's the only one which she rejects a priori. But still she decides to test it, bringing it out from her world of anxieties in the real one. -You think he wanted to ask me out?- JJ can't take it and burst out laughing in her face, just a chuckle, but sufficiently strong.

-I don't think it.- she gives her that look, the one that she reserves her from Kevin's times. -I know it!- she almost screams.

-But... but... it makes no sense.- Penelope stutters. -Why then he went away?- she has denied so many times, but it took only a glimmer of hope and already she has agreed it.

-He saw you with Morgan.- her friend reveals, last surprise. Even the final piece falls into place. She can't imagine Alvez jealous of her best friend... or yes? The only time those two stalwart men had shared the room, for less than five minutes, returns in her mind. When Scratch had sent a false message to Derek, hacking her (her!) telephone. He had looked at them with that wry smile, that made her always ask what flavor could have those lips so cheeky.

-Oh, damnit.- JJ nods sympathetically. But staying here and talk to her, to summarize everything, not help anything. She glances, and they already have agreed. -I'm going.-

 He didn't cry at the end, he there was very close to gone, but hasn't dropped even a tear. Not that he was held himself in the name of some stupid stereotype, that real men don't cry. Simply he had the lump in his throat there in front of the office of Morgan, in front of the woman he loved, whose happiness had been returned by another and not by him. And along the road from the elevator to his home, the river was reduced to a trickle, just a few drops when he had finally closed the door.

Roxy, the breath of his dog was doing him to sleep. The television, never used much in this house, it enters in his head with a phrase, a series of phrases that seem written especially for him. A sing, impersonated by an Italian singer, famous in Latin America, which is certainly not a case that his mother and to his imaginary cousin, he likes to think, liked him so much.

...for those who know how to respect the time and prefer to feel bad, they don't need drugs and can speak... and recognize himself in the mirror to many seem indifferent, I recognize the dignity to those who can feel sometimes nothing...

He doesn't believe exists in the world someone who feels more nullity of him right now. Because in the end it was fair to have gone like that. Derek is better than him, He knows Garcia a lot longer, knows how to make her smile even calling her. He's not on him level.

He snuggles closer to Roxy, who moans in protest. He hugs her and dreams Penelope.

At one point the dream must be get out of hand, because he feels her heartbeat getting louder and louder, or was it his? He strives to remember the last thing he "lived" before he opened his eyes and finally succeeds: the computer technician was showing him the scar testified the gunshot she wound received, without any mention erotic implications. She allowed him to lay his hand to feel her pulse...

But what he hears it's not a heart, someone is knocking at the door.

The man walks, still dazed, uncertain. He looks through the peephole and almost faints. On the threshold of his house there is the creature of his dream.

-Hey.- she tells him as soon as Luke opens the door.

-Garcia.- he hopes to call her by name makes this less personal. Obviously, it doesn't work. He rolls his eyes, blinks his eyelids several times. No, she is always there, watching him, probably she thinks him is the idiot he is.

-I can come inside?- the tone of the woman is very sweet, mild and delicate, like it was rarely when she talks to him. The man moves away, watching her cross the threshold, and come to his mind a stupid thing, that should not concern with this situation. Vampires must ask permission to enter the house of their victims. But Garcia isn't a creature of the night, despite the pale skin... although, dressed as Dracul wife, she would be so beautiful...

-Yes, yes, sorry.- the phrase comes out with a slight delay. After all, being late is his specialty. Penelope looks around, of course she notices the aspect not lived-in feel of the home, yet she knows that Luke lived here for almost two years, there is hardly an identifying sign, only the things of Roxy, including the well-known stuff she had donated for her in the time. They are the only signs of disorder, for the rest feels like they are in a barracks. And then she notices them. A jar of flowers, balanced precariously on the edge of the table, and a heart shaped object, exactly as JJ had described them. He follows her gaze up to those things, which now appear to him as evidence, the substance of his failure. He would have to throw them in the trash, but he couldn't. He purchased them, even before he had choice them, thinking about her. He can’t get rid of it so easily as he would like.

-You had a date, with some nice girl.- the phrase she says doesn't seem a question and maybe it's not. She doesn't sound even ironic, sarcastic at times bordering on the bad, like when she told him to tell Roxy to warn her when she came in her senses, breaking up with Luke. Instead, it sounds genuine, clear. Her eyes don't seem to judge him.

-Yes... no.- the super special agent no longer in training answers stammering. -She is a beautiful girl, definitely- the only moment when he smiles -but I didn't have a date. I still had to ask her.- she isn't profiler, although she has repeatedly touted that she was profiler "by association"; but she doesn't need that skill to notice the use of a past tense, that indicating the disillusionment to have another chance.

-Why didn't you, then?- they move in two way. For those who don't know anything, she might seem like a friend, a colleague nosey who just wants to get a little 'gossip for the next day, to sauce the next day's work ahead of them spicy. But the girl whose Luke is talking is the one that he has in front of the nose, and Penelope has to repeat it herself several times, not to be jealous of herself. -What mad woman might not accept your invitation?- is the first step, the first attempt on her part to expose herself, feeling that the situation isn't balanced. She knows what she feels for him, but the man didn't, and he doesn't even know that she know... What a mess!

-I know one, and she is more than enough - Luke says bitterly. She would slap herself, for making him feel bad, but she didn't it in purpose, she didn't know...

-Oh, this bad girl broke your heart?- if she had the opportunity to observe herself from the outside, to practice the estrangement so loved by Bertold Brecht, she would laugh at herself. It's so strange perhaps she thinks herself crazy, and now in the beautiful words she thinks herself as an asshole. But she feels such, and so it's right that she describes herself in this term. She must let him know that she knows. But how big can ingenuity of a lover be?

-I think she doesn't knows how I feel about her.- he defends her promptly. Good guy to the end. She wanted to ignore it, but now can't. -She always makes everything so hard...- Penelope bites her lip, restraining herself not to stop him, now that he seems ready to open up and break the game. -... and it's for this reason that all I do is think of her... - better than JJ is right, because she wouldn't bear to discover that the unfortunate one who has turned him in this way is another woman, the one who cooked him up good. The intensity of the male gaze makes her think that maybe he has finally understood. His look literally perforates her. It's extremely sexy and serious.

-Maybe she behaves this way because she is afraid of hurt herself..-- she falters, speaking of herself in the third person. She tightens the arms to her body and does exactly that she has described. She is surprised that Roxy hasn't yet arrived to greet her. But perhaps those who seem to her hours are nothing more than few minutes and maybe that dog is so smart that she understood that this is a time that she and her master must live alone.

-I'm scared, too.- Luke bluntly admits. -But... - she makes him shut up while her voice overlapping his.

-Why you didn't ask her a date? - now the two know they are referring to her. But the play must go on again for a while.

-I wanted to comfort her, make her understand that in order to make her smile I would be willing to do anything. Although I don't know if I'm worthy to make her happy. I was able to snatch her a smile only once, when she met Roxy.- hearing appoint herself the dog raises her head, but lowers it when understanding that it's not yet time to take action. -But the only thing I can promise is that I always will do everything at best to make her happy, every day to paint a smile on her face.- the man ends his confession. That is worth almost more of an "I love you" or, considering their dialogue on a double wire, "I love her."

-So... - it's all she can say a heavily dazed Penelope.

-There was already another. I have been anticipated. I arrived late, I was on borrowed time...- now he sounds ironic and bad, to himself. -He is married and there isn't any kind of romance between them- almost more strange is to hear him describe Morgan -but I'll never live up to a such feeling.- he seemed to have partially approached, now, with the latter phrase, he is totally away, even giving her shoulders, unable to meet the woman's eyes, after he stripped in front of her, not understanding why she came to his house, why she did this theater of speech in the third person.

-Maybe you should leave her a chance to judge?- Penelope's voice caresses his shoulders, is balm for his bleeding heart, pepper simultaneously, which teases him in another way. -Prove yourself, my handsome SSA.- just an adjective, eight letters, one word. Handsome.

Luke turns around and his hands end up on the woman's face, those of Penelope do the same thing, their lips come together without anyone of them ask who was be the first to begin.

Something similar is what Penelope tells him, about an hour later, while dozing on his chest, on that same couch where less than an hour before he was maudlin from himself. -It doesn't matter being first, but getting.- Luke's hand strokes her hair, the other arm rests limply on her side. Roxy is at the bottom of their feet and seems to be asking them if they would be more comfortable on the bed. But neither of them wants to get up, even separated for only a moment, though the reconnection would be immediate.

And then they remain there, suspended in an instant without time.

TAGS: @theshamelessmanatee @itsdawnashlie @talesoffairies @janiedreams88 @kiki-krakatoa @yessenia993 @teyamarra @c00lhandsluke  @gcchic @arses21434 @orangesickle @entireoranges @jarmin @kathy5654 @martinab26 @thisonekid @thenibblets @perfectly-penelope @ambrosiaswhispers @maziikeen92 @lovelukealvez @reidskitty13 @jenf42 @gracieeelizabeth27 @silviajajaja @smalliemichelle99 @charchampagne14 @ichooseno  @ megs2219 @rkt3357 @franklintrixie @thinitta @chewwy123 @skisun @maba84 @saisnarry @myhollyhanna23 @thenorthernlytes

[simmonsjosephine1991]

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How To Save Relationship In 30 Seconds

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[dippedanddripped]

There’s only one problem as the growing clothing rental market inches toward offering men’s wear: Guys may not buy in.

By Jessica Testa and Jonah Engel Bromwich

Jan. 8, 2020

A little more than a decade ago, a pair of Harvard Business School students founded Rent the Runway, a platform for renting special-occasion evening wear that has since expanded to all kinds of wear: leopard-print blazers, bright red ski pants, Swarovski crystal necklaces and leather fanny packs.

By the spring of 2019, the company was valued at $1 billion and had spawned multiple competitors.

But Rent the Runway has never carried men's wear. Despite the popularity of renting, there are no companies of its size that offer men’s apparel. Because aside from prom or wedding tuxedos, men do not rent — for now, at least.

Why don’t men rent? Are they fearful that borrowed clothing carries the unsanitary residue of other men? Do they dread the logistical planning required to return a pair of cuff links? Or is it just that their renting options are so few and little known that they didn’t know they could?

The New York Times asked a dozen stylish men across the United States (and one abroad) about their attitude toward renting clothes. Nearly all were dubious, and not because of hygiene or laziness.

Through their explanations, they provided a window into how fashion-aware men think about clothes in 2020. Their stated values — individuality, ownership and longevity — were at odds with the ever-rotating closet pushed by the rental market.

Still, leaders and new players in that market are plotting expansions into men’s wear, each on slightly different paths. Whether men know it — or want it — the race to make them rent is about to begin.

The Post-‘Metrosexual’ Moment

Sometime around 2007, it became easier for men to talk about their appreciation for clothing, according to Volker Ketteniss, the director of men’s wear at the trend forecasting firm WGSN. Marketers began pushing a more “technical approach” to shopping for men, he said, placing the idea of heritage brands and craftsmanship front and center.

“This became a guy’s way of being into fashion,” Mr. Ketteniss said. “The same way you could be into cars, stereos and other gadgets.” (Before that time, men who liked clothes were more often called “metrosexuals.”)

Their interest often starts with flashy accessories, like sneakers and watches. That’s how it worked for Ty King, a shoe enthusiast in Nashville.

“Especially early on, with shoes, you didn’t want the shoe that other people were wearing,” said Mr. King, a 43-year-old music and sportswear writer known online as John Gotty.

In mid-December, when Nike released the new Air Jordan 11, Mr. King decided to skip the drop. Too many people were lining up for the $220 red-and-black retro sneakers.

“Even if I did buy them, I’m probably not going to wear them for a year or two,” he said. By then, he expects everyone else will have moved on.

Mr. King’s individualist attitude extends to renting clothes, which he said he would never do. Through years of digging and researching, he has developed his own “strong sense of style.”

“I truly know what I feel works best for me,” he said.

Mr. King fears that renting will lead to herd mentality, and he’s not alone.

“How much of truly being stylish or expressing oneself with clothing is going to be left?” said George Lewis Jr., the 36-year-old Angeleno who makes music as Twin Shadow.

Mr. Lewis said he was familiar with the concept of renting clothes, and he knows women who rent clothes, but that he  personally thinks the concept is strange.

Mr. Ketteniss of WGSN has a theory about men’s skepticism toward renting: Women are accustomed to the idea because they have been swapping clothes with their friends since they were teenagers.

This pastime never really caught on with men. And the women’s wear market has always grown at a faster pace than men’s wear. Why would the renting phenomenon be any different?

Pride in Ownership

On Instagram, under the handle ThePacMan82, Phil Cohen has amassed 770,000 followers, with posts that show a neat collection of clothing and accessories, styled as if for an advertisement.

Though Mr. Cohen appears on lists of prominent fashion influencers, he prefers to leave himself out of the pictures. The spotlight belongs to the clothes themselves.

In an interview Mr. Cohen, 37, expressed pride in his clothing and the work it took to obtain it. He said that renting a nice pair of boots or a hard-to-find jacket may thwart the proper way of things, which for him is a four-step process: Man wants garment. Man saves up for garment. Man purchases garment. Man wears garment.

“I like the idea that you save up and buy something that then becomes part of your life, part of your wardrobe,” he said. “I think that there’s a genuine sort of appreciation for the product when you’ve put yourself into it.”

Several men agreed. A few said that being outed as a rental customer may be embarrassing. It would be as if they were pretending to have more money than they did.

Jason Ryan Lee, a 38-year-old editor at the black celebrity gossip website Bossip, said renting feels almost like cheating.

“I would hate to walk out in a rental and get all kinds of compliments and in my mind be like, ‘This is cool, but this isn’t mine,’” he said. “‘Now I feel like an impostor of some kind. I’m not as cool as people think I am. This $2,000 jacket, I just rented for $35.’”

Through clothing, people project their wealth, status and work ethic. For men, being caught in clothes they don’t own could threaten those projections, and their masculinity.

Mary Blair-Loy, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego and the founding director of the Center for Research on Gender in the Professions, said that men often still see themselves as breadwinners. Owning their belongings helps support that image.

“Ownership is a sign and a signal of wealth and status and success in a precarious capitalist competitive world,” she said.

A Double Standard

There is also less pressure on men to own extensive wardrobes. At work, they are less likely to be scrutinized for wearing the same outfit every day. And they take pride in wearing their clothes for a long time.

Dylan Walker, a 20-year-old welding student who lives in Georgia, said that he owns about 10 pairs of cowboy boots and would never think about renting an additional pair.

“Boots last for a really long time,” he said. “One pair of boots for six years. When I buy clothes, I’m buying them for the long haul.”

Stanton Coville, a 29-year-old software developer in Ohio, said that he takes a utilitarian approach to his clothing, to the point that he calculates the cost-per-wear of individual pieces. After wearing a $300 pair of Japanese jeans for four years, its cost was justified, he said. His wife makes fun of him, but he has had to get the jeans repaired only once.

Gert Jonkers, the 53-year-old editor in chief of Fantastic Man and a publisher of The Gentlewoman, spoke of the double standard women face when they repeat outfits. For women, it’s thought to be a faux pas. For men, it’s unremarkable.

Women also have a harder time getting away with informality, he said; they are more liable to be judged for ignoring fashion trends.

“Last night I was wearing a Missoni jumper I’ve had for 10 years, and people were saying ‘Oh, wow, I love that jumper,’” Mr. Jonkers said. “Nobody notices that it’s from fall or winter 2008. It just really doesn’t matter.”

Pride in ownership and longevity combine to create sentimental value. Mr. Lewis said that he appreciated the way personal possessions become “weathered by the energy of your household, or physically weathered by you wearing it.”

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Of the white jeans he was wearing during an interview for this article, he said: “I love them and hate them, because two days after wearing them I have to wash them to make them fit the right way, and every time I wash them they get a little bit worse, and my mom overbleached them so they’re looking slightly pink now.”

“But it’s important to me because these have a story to them,” he added.

Thinking About Men

Major rental companies nevertheless look at men as an untapped market, even if they’re not quite sure how to go about tapping it.

Nuuly, a Rent the Runway competitor founded in 2019, is “actively looking” at expanding into men’s apparel, said Sky Pollard, the head of product.

Owned by URBN, the parent company of Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, Nuuly is “talking to customers and trying to figure out a program that would work for them,” Ms. Pollard said. “We really see no reason to believe that they wouldn’t respond to it and love it as much as our women customers.”

Rent the Runway said it has also been thinking about men for a long time, albeit less urgently. The company believes men want variety in their closet, but it is still determining the best way to introduce men’s wear.

For example, should it advertise to men directly or target existing female members who buy clothes for the men in their lives?

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Either way, Rent the Runway could give style-conscious men what it has already given to women: the ability to cycle through trendy clothes at a reasonable cost (its cheapest plan is four pieces for $89 per month), without resorting to lower-quality, questionably sourced fast fashion destined for a landfill.

Unlike other men interviewed, Khalid El Khatib, 34, was enthusiastic about the idea of renting. Ever since Mr. El Khatib, a marketing and communications professional in New York, learned about Rent the Runway from his two sisters, he has wished he had access to something like it.

A few years ago, when he went to Cuba on vacation, he brought a brand-new Reiss floral button-down shirt.

“I never wore it again,” he said. “I bought it for Cuba, I wore it in Cuba, and then I retired it.” He appreciates fashion, but he isn’t attached to owning pieces no one else owns, or owning them for a long time.

In November, a New York start-up began experimenting with renting men’s wear to a list of 50 family members and friends. The company, Seasons, was founded by Regy Perlera and Luc Succés, who were also behind an app that allowed users to text each other Drake lyrics.

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In an interview, Mr. Perlera said that “men are very ownership oriented.” But, he said, “the concept of ownership is changing drastically and very quickly. We used to think that we needed cars, and now we have Lyft and Uber and Car2Go. We used to need homes, and now we have Airbnb.”

Mr. Perlera hopes to make fashion more available to people for whom the cost has traditionally been prohibitive. The Seasons website says it has inventory from Yeezy, Off-White and Gucci.

But at the moment, it plans for its cheapest subscription package to be $155 per month, which lets the renter get three pieces.

Mr. Perlera said he has been studying Rent the Runway’s successes and missteps. When asked if he was concerned that these lessons may not apply to men, he said that the Seasons inventory is actually not particularly gendered, despite the language on its website: “A members only rental subscription service for menswear & streetwear.”

“It’s really a category of fashion that really doesn’t have gender boundaries,” he said.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #113 - Groundhog Day

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) This film is a holiday classic associated with one of the less popular American holidays out there. Hell, this film probably made Feb. 2nd an even bigger deal than it was before.

2) The first thing we experience as an audience member of George Fenton’s quirky score over the opening credits. Fenton’s music I think is one of the more underrated aspects of the film as there is a lot of range to this particular score. There is the quirky comedy music, the kinda faster actiony stuff, but my favorite part is the romantic score featured in this film. You should give the soundtrack a listen if you have the opportunity, it’s pretty damn good.

3) Bill Murray as Phil Connors.

Director Harold Ramis, who frequently collaborated with Murray (mostly notably in the two Ghostbusters films) originally wanted Tom Hanks to play Phil but thought he was, “too nice,” and hired Murray instead. That’s great for us as the audience, because the role is one of Murray’s best. He is able to believably take us through this journey of character, playing the lovable but jerky Phil in the beginning with just as much believability as the guy who’s actually trying to do some good at the end. Murray’s improv is on full display with the film and that helps with the reality of his character.

Unfortunately, this would be the last film Murray and Ramis would collaborate on. An ongoing debate between whether the film should be more dramatic (Murray’s stance) or comedic (Ramis’ stance) was a contributing factor. As well as this, according to IMDb:

Bill Murray was undergoing a divorce at the time of filming and was obsessing about the film. He would ring Harold Ramis constantly, often in the early hours of the morning. Ramis eventually sent writer Danny Rubin to sit with Murray and iron out all his anxieties, one of the reasons why Murray stopped speaking to Ramis for several years.

I don’t know if they ironed out their issues before Ramis’ untimely death in 2014, but I hope so.

4) Chris Elliott as Larry.

This is probably Elliott’s most famous role, which is saying something considering he’s mostly the comedic camera man who’s tired of Phil’s bull. But Elliott’s performance makes it funny and memorable, delivering some of the best lines in the films (more on that later).

5) Andie Macdowell as Rita.

Rita is actually a character who is surprisingly well developed but in a lot of little ways, and I’ll elaborate more on that as I go. MacDowell is wonderful in the part, making Rita a positive upbeat person but believably so instead of just a “life force” character. She plays Rita (and it is written) with some flaws too which helps make her interesting, but again more on that later. Her biggest asset is probably that she can hold her own with Bill Murray in a scene. You can tell (or at least I can guess) in certain scenes that Murray is improvising and that MacDowell is sharp on her toes with a comeback. It makes their relationship a believable one. Especially considering there is a line later how Phil fell for Rita as soon as he saw her. You can sort of see that when you look for it. It’s small, but it’s there. A testament to both actors.

6) Although this film takes place in Punxsutawney, PA it was actually filmed in Woodstock, IL. I was there back in fall of 2015 and the town square where they filmed most of it is pretty much still the same. They even have a black on the corner where Bill Murray stepped into the really bad puddle. It was pretty cool. (Only this time however did I realize one of the signs style reads “Woodstock Jewelers”.)

7) Remember how I said Larry has some great lines/observations?

Phil [after Rita says she booked him a nice hotel]: “You know I think this is one of the traits of a really good producer: keep the talent happy.”

...

Larry [to Rita, after Phil has left]: “Did he just call himself the talent?”

8) “I Got You Babe”, the Sonny & Cher song that plays every morning when Phil wakes up, was the song that was in the very first draft of the script and carried through until the end. The song probably became more popular (or at least, popular for a longer time) BECAUSE of its use in this film.

9) Ned! Ryerson!

Like a lot of characters in this film, Ned Ryerson could have just been a throw away and forgettable little gag. This guy who supposedly knows Phil from high school and is an insurance agent now. But actor Stephen Tobolowsky totally MAKES this role. There’s nothing insincere about Ned. He doesn’t feel like a leech, he feels like an overly enthusiastic and genuine guy who’s absolutely hysterical. Tobolowsky plays Ned over the top in the tradition of Abbott & Costello and it works wonderfully!

Also Ned has the best lines.

Ned: “Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right? Right right right right!”

Ned: “Watch out for that first step there, it’s a DOOZEY!”

These lines on there own are not necessarily interesting but Tobolowsky just gives them such life it is a treat to watch.

10) This film has so many great lines.

Police Officer [when Phil is out in the street in a blizzard, trying to get to Pittsburg]: “Now you can go back to Punxsutawney, or you can freeze to death.”

[Phil takes a minute to stand in the snow. He looks back at Punxsutawney and then at the road ahead.]

Phil: “I’m thinking.”

11) There is never an explanation given as to why Phil is relieving Groundhog Day over and over again. I think in one draft of the script it was a spell cast by a jilted lover, but in the final film and for most drafts there’s no explanation. I think that’s the reason the film works so well. It’s not some Harry Potter fantasy. It’s just a comedy/drama with one fantasy element.

12) It’s fun rewatching this film again because you get to realize that characters who just have a throw away line earlier in the film end up being like Phil’s piano teacher or the drunks he meets a few Groundhog Days later.

13) I love that when Phil asks Rita for a good hard slap across the face she doesn’t hesitate and he’s not pissed about it. They’ve got each other. ;)

14) This line.

15) I like that Phil always goes to Rita for help with his Groundhog Day problem. She has no experience with this! There’s no reason for him to go to her with his problems other than he trusts her and respects her.

16) Hey look, it’s director Harold Ramis!

17)

Phil [to two drunks]: “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and nothing you did mattered?”

Drunk: “That about sums it up for me.”

18)

Phil [after one of the drunks decides not to drive and stumbles]: “You wanna throw up here or you wanna throw up in the car?”

Drunk: “I think...both.”

19)

Phil [while driving towards a train on train tracks]: “I’m betting he’s gonna swerve first.”

20) When Phil realizes his actions don’t have consequences the film gets fun real fast.

21) I find it a little pretentious that Rita’s reaction to this:

Is to quote a Sir Walter Scott poem at him which says he’s egotistical. Like, really? You’ve got this whole poem memorized JUST to call people egotistical? I mean I like it from a writing standpoint, it makes her kind of flawed, but also she comes off as pretentious. Not that she’s wrong, it’s just she’s very in your face with it.

22) The original plan for this film is that we as the audience would not see the start of the loop, instead just picking up on an “average” day and wondering how Phil knew the things he did. Harold Ramis promised he wouldn’t change this to the screenwriter but ended up changing it anyway (I think with the screenwriter’s blessing, but maybe not). I think this works better. It allows us to invest in Phil as a character more.

23) Phil’s attempts to seduce Rita - I think - start out with him trying to genuinely get to know her. He asks her about her life and only then goes down the route of, “Who’s your perfect guy?” I think he does have real feelings for her he just doesn’t know how to handle them in a healthy way so he uses this time loop to his advantage.

24) It’s interesting to see the repeated attempts of Phil trying to win over Rita, with each mistake done over until it’s not a mistake. You can tell that each time is a little less sincere, and the times when they connect the most are typically when he’s being honest with her and just letting things happen.

25) Another flaw of Rita’s:

Rita: “What should we drink to?”

Phil: “To the groundhog!”

Rita: “I always drink to world peace.”

THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU ASK HIM WHAT YOU SHOULD DRINK TO!?!? I like it, it fleshes out her character, but it’s an annoying thing to find in a real person (and I know men and women who act like this).

26) I have so many questions.

Rita [on her ???? date with Phil]: “Do you ever have deja vu?”

Phil: “Did you just ask me that?”

This is the only time we EVER have another character show a hint of someone being aware of something is going on. WHY RITA!?!? WHY NOW!?!? WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?!?

27) The best example of what I was talking about in note 24 is the snowball fight Phil & Rita have with the kids. Phil didn’t know that was going to happen, he didn’t know what Rita was going to say, that’s the first time he ever got that far. And he’s being honest with her! It’s such a nice scene between the two of them. And then when he tries to recreate it the next Groundhog Day it feels super awkward, incredibly forced, and wildly uncomfortable.

28) I think this is such an incredibly important concept.

Phil [after Rita says he’ll never love anything because he only loves himself]: “That’s not true! I don’t even LIKE myself!”

Keeping this in mind as Phil begins his downward spiral tells you A LOT about his character. And it’s that downward spiral that pushes this film from fun comedy to great movie.

29) And you thought this would be a light hearted comedy!

Phil: “I’ll give you a winter prediction. It’s gonna be cold. It’s gonna be gray. And it’s gonna last you the rest of your life.”

30) At one point Phil throws his radio on the ground and the speaker/song is still going.

According to IMDb: 

The scene where Phil picks up the alarm clock and slams it onto the floor didn't go as planned. Bill Murray slammed down the clock but it barely broke, so the crew bashed it with a hammer to give it the really smashed look. The clock actually continued playing the song like in the movie.

31) The entire scene with the car chase and the quarry, where Phil kidnaps the groundhog and attempts suicide (which is a more entertaining scene than it sounds), is very well done. It shows just how desperate Phil is to end this nightmare. And it also gave us some pretty great lines.

Larry [after Phil drives into the quarry and the car crashes]: “He might be okay. (Car explodes) Well no, probably not now.”

32) The montage of Phil’s attempts at suicide is good for two reason: it gets across where he is at this point in the film, and it’s short. If it were too long this scene would get too depressing too fast.

33) I love this fucking scene.

Phil has relieved the same day over and over again for what has probably been years and he’s so damn tired he just wants to talk to someone about it. So what does he do? He goes to Rita. He tries to convince Rita and succeeds wonderfully. This scene is a prime example of this film’s beating heart, of why it’s a great feel good movie. Phil knows everybody! He knows all their stories, their names, everything about them, because he’s been living the same day over and over again. It’s wonderful. Even without trying it all just sinks in. And guess what? He knows Rita the best.

Phil: “You like boats but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There's a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You're a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You're very generous. You're kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.”

THIS is why I love this film! This emotion! This heart! And there is a beautiful piece of score on the soundtrack called, “You Like Boats But Not The Ocean,” which sums those feelings up perfectly in music and I love that too! Everything about this just makes me feel good! Also how strange and insightful a little detail about Rita like, “you like boats but not the ocean,” is! 

34) And so begins the good Phil tour. The amazing final act of the film where Rita has convinced Phil that he can maybe do some good with this “curse” of his and which carries the same wonderful emotion that was present in the diner scene where Phil convinces Rita he’s serious.

35) Bill Murray improvised this:

Phil [after Ned comes up to meet him and he hugs Ned]: “I don’t know where you’re going but can you call in sick?”

36) But even as Phil works to helps people’s life, he can’t save everyone.

This old homeless man is someone who Phil passes everyday and, when he starts acting kind, gives a ton of money to everyday. Towards the end of the film Phil meets the man and takes him to the hospital where he dies. So the next day Phil tries to save him. He takes him to a restaurant, gives him a big meal, and the man still dies. The man dies everyday. And that scene is heartbreaking and adds such weight to the film and I love how sad it makes me every single time.

I wish I were this kind, but honestly I’m scared to be. I’m scared to be taken advantage of but there are people out there who need help and hopefully I’ll be better about giving it in the future.

37) If you pay attention to the people in the background at the hospital you’ll see this kid:

Remember that kid. You only notice him when you’ve watched the film ten times (that’s not a hyperbole either), but remember him.

38) The final Groundhog Day is a wonderful thing to behold. It starts with us hearing the end of Phil’s report on the groundhog.

Phil: “When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. Put standing here amongst the people of Punxsutawney, and basking in the warmth of their hearts and hearths, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter. From Punxsutawney, it’s Phil Connors. So long.”

And EVERYONE is paying attention to it, hell rival news networks are recording it! It’s THAT moving!

39) Do you remember the kid?

Continuity! (Boom)

40) The final party is a great scene too. It’s the culmination of probably Phil’s best Groundhog Day yet. He helped as many people as he could and even plays for their pleasure at the party. It is his least selfish and the only time in the film we ever see the party, even though it was happening every single night. And also Rita spends $300+ to win Phil in a bachelor auction when the highest bid before that was $60.

41) Kneel before Zod!

42) I love this.

Phil [after ice sculpting Rita]: “I know your face so well I could’ve done it with my eyes closed.”

43) And then tomorrow finally happens.

A great end to a great film.

Groundhog Day is just amazing. It has a heartwarming story, a feel good vibe, an intriguing concept, and a wonderful cast. It is just so good for so many different reasons and if you haven’t seen it yet you should. Right now.

[ymoviesuk-group]

10 iconic movies with DARK hidden meanings

You may think that most Hollywood blockbusters are designed purely to entertain punters and make a load of cash. Well, you may be surprised that some of the most popular movies ever made often have hard-hitting political messages woven throughout them.

Below are seven hidden meanings in films that might surprise even their biggest fans.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Star Wars Is Really About The Vietnam War

In a 2005 interview Lucas confirmed that “’Star Wars’ was really about the Vietnam War.”

Lucas said that he thought of the tiny, peaceful Ewoks as like Viet Cong fighters battling against the might of the American war machine saying: “That was the period where Nixon was trying to run for another term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.”

The Lord of the Rings Is Really About The Battle of the Somme

J. R. R. Tolkien’s army unit was sent to the Battle of the Somme in 1916, where 60,000 British soldiers died one day during the infamous ‘over the top’ trench assault. Overall, nearly a million people were killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

Speaking later of his experiences in France, Tolkien simply said, “It was like a death.”

As he recovered in hospital, Tolkien wrote his first Middle-Earth story: ’Fall of Gondolin’ a strange, stand-alone tale featuring dragons which were half beast and half machine. These dragons are a metaphor of the tanks, which the British used in the mud of the Somme. Peter Jackson’s depiction of Saruman’s orcs being created recalls this imagery of animal fused with metal, as does his metallic, robot-like depiction of the villain Sauron.

In letters to friends, Tolkien admitted that the hellish marshes which the heroes of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ splash through were directly inspired by his experiences of France. In a letter, he wrote, "The Dead marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme."

Observers have also commented on the significance of the One Ring, which is widely considered to represent the atomic bomb.

Godzilla Is Really About Hiroshima

The original black and white ‘Godzilla’ film was made in Japan in the early Fifties when the country was still reeling from the twin nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The first ‘Godzilla’ film includes scenes with scientists carrying Geiger counters taking radiation readings from Godzilla’s radioactive footprints, and the monster is revealed to have been created in a nuclear explosion.

When this news comes out, some characters immediately argue that it must be kept secret. 

For Honda and his Japanese audience, the real villain would not have been hard to discern: the escalating Cold War, and in particular the arms race between America and the Soviet Union.

The War of the Worlds Europeans Colonising The Third World

Written in 1898, the science fiction classic ‘The War of the Worlds’ has been filmed many times, but in none of those versions would a viewer suspect that the aliens represent white Europeans hell-bent on colonising the world.

The book was written to horrify readers with a vision of what it would be like if Europe were confronted by a contemptuous, technologically superior force – much in the manner the British Army had as it colonised countries around the world. Wells, a lifelong socialist, was particularly horrified by the war of extermination waged against the Aborigines in Tasmania by British colonial forces.

In the novel, Wells writes, “The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination. Are we such apostles of mercy, as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”

The Dark Knight Is Really About The War On Terror

In Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’, despite a truly chilling villain in the form of Heath Ledger’s cackling Joker, it’s no longer clear who the bad guy really is. Is it the psychopathic terrorists who attack Gotham, or is it the increasingly draconian authorities? Parallels with America’s War on Terror run through the film.

The first parallel is the shift from the regular comic book bad guys that shoot lasers from the moon in order to take over the world. This time the threat was more sinister. The Joker blew up public buildings (including a hospital) and convinced weak criminals to become suicide bombers.

Once this realistic threat was established, more similarities can be compared. The Harvey Dent Act is a direct echo of the Patriot Act and there’s the questionable ethics of Batman’s bank of surveillance equipment that enables him to spy on everyone. There’s also the forcible extradition of Lau from Hong Kong, echoing the CIA’s tactics of “extraordinary rendition”.

RoboCop Is Really About Jesus Christ

Director Paul Verhoeven has admitted that his 1987 sci-fi classic is basically “the American Jesus” story and the similarities are easy to spot.

"It is about a guy that gets crucified after 50 minutes,” the filmmaker told MTV, “Then is resurrected in the next 50 minutes and then is like the super-cop of the world, but is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end."

He’s a resurrected man on a quest for justice who is violently killed when those closest to him betray him. To earn his redemption he must confront those who betrayed him, and the final scene with Murphy seemingly walking across water is the icing on this thickly-laid metaphor. 

Of course, Jesus in the Bible didn’t mete out justice with a handgun, but let’s ignore that for the moment shall we?

Alien 3 Is Really About AIDs

Rolling Stones’ film critic Peter Travers called David Fincher’s feature film debut “the first $50 million thriller that also functions as an AIDS allegory” and it’s a layer of subtext that bears up to scrutiny.

AIDs was a hot topic in the late 80s and early 90s and ‘Alien 3′ is a damning indictment on how America reacted to the so-called “AIDs epidemic”. The deaths of Hicks and Newt highlight the disease’s seemingly random nature. There’s the imagery of shorn hair, Ripley’s “infection”, and an enemy that takes down the weak and strong with ease.

Add to that a reviled colony of men ostracised from society, who’ve taken a vow of celibacy, and a pharmaceutical company that arrives to profit from their pain, and the message is quite clear. As Dillon says: “Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren't any promises. Nothing certain. Only that some get called, some get saved.”

Groundhog Day Is Really About Zen And The Path To Enlightenment 

There are many different ways of interpreting Phil Connors’ story. Some say Punxsutawney Phil - the groundhog - is a metaphor for Christ resurrected, while some say the town is Purgatory, but the most compelling explanation for the film comes from director Harold Ramis’ mother-in-law, a Zen Buddhist.

Ramis explained at a lecture in 2009 that she’d called to tell him the abbots and senior monks at her Buddhist retreat had seen the film and loved it, saying “they thought it expressed a fundamental Buddhist concept.” The theory goes that Connors is what Buddhists call a “bodhisattva”,  someone “who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.”

And you just thought it was Bill Murray fooling around. 

Toy Story 3 Is Really About The holocaust

Guardian film critic Jordan Hoffman first wrote about this interpretation of Lee Unkrich’s seemingly harmless animated threequel back in 2010 while writing for UGO.

He argues that the toys left behind by Andy when he goes off for college represent the Jews abandoned by their host nations when the Third Reich conquered Europe. The toys discuss their options echoing a scene in Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama ‘The Pianist’ where they say “We won’t just be abandoned, we can be useful to them”. Buzz steps forward and even suggests hiding in the attic.

Instead they’re sent to Sunnyside, the film’s concentration camp, where they meet Sonderkommandos like Ken who aid the guards and lead the innocent to their deaths. It’s a very grim reading of the film, particular when you consider the incinerator scene, and definitely not the message promoted by Pixar at the time of release.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit Is Really About Gentrification And Segregation

Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 live action animation hybrid was a groundbreaking piece of work and not just for its incredible seamless visual effects. The story of the encroachment of Toon Town can be read as a metaphor for the gentrification of Los Angeles where many poor black people were forced out of their neighbourhoods.

The theory, first discussed on Reddit, argues that the ‘toons, like black people, are largely seen as performers - a nod to Minstrel culture - and Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom is a typical Uncle Tom trope, a ‘toon who sells out his own people for his personal benefit.

Jessica Rabbit is “a symbol for women of mixed racial heritage and the way that white men frequently felt confused about their desire for them”, while even the word “‘toon” which is a slur against the cartoon folk, is worryingly similar to a horrific racial slur of years gone by. 

Read More - Ridley Scott Accused of White-Washing The Martian - John Goodman Reveals Dramatic Weight Loss - Stars With Helpful Family Connections In Hollywood

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 3:23 pm sunny/cold/WIHM

Welcome to “8 Questions with…..”

It was the last week of January and someone mentioned that it was almost time for “Women In Horror Month” which happens in February. Feel a bit inspired I quickly tossed out a “interviews wanted” in my faithful casting group and got a very nice group of talented actresses who have worked in horror films who agreed to answer some questions. Its time to meet our next guest,Liz Drummer. Liz is one of my favorite kind of artists,not only Liz a good actress but she also is a form believer in going behind the camera in order to make sure a film is the best it can be. Not only is Liz at home on a film set but she is equally at home in from of a typewriter as well as she is also a fine storyteller,well as long as the story doesn’t have any frogs in it. (I’m sorta bummed,Liz could never meet my brother Phil…). Liz’s bright and cheery personality really comes out even when you’re exchanging messages,its clear she loves her family and her life. How can you not but believe in someone like Liz? As always,let me step aside and let Liz answer her “8 Questions”.

  Please introduce yourself and tell us about any projects you are working on.

Hey! I am Liz Drummer. Actress, published author, screenwriter and director.

I have so many projects out right now that I am very proud of, everything from my 3 book series Internal Conflict, a Christmas story I released this year called Going home for Christmas, and a new book series on the way. I also was to directed a few films last year including one that I also wrote called Tribute Night that is currently in post production and we are hoping to release by the summer. Along side of that I also a cohost of a great YouTube channel called Spooky and The Bats. We do everything from product review, comedy and challenges. It is just a really fun channel. 

What was growing up in your house like? Is your family artistic by nature?

Growing up was crazy. My parents were young and living in New York City. My mom was a model and my dad was a dancer who loves to sing, so I have entertainment in my blood.

What was the defining moment when you knew you wanted to act?

Besides reading, movies are my life. I could just let time go buy getting lost in movies. Every since I was young I would watch some of my favorites and I knew it what I wanted to do. I love to entertain and did a lot in my very own home going up. 

  What three people influenced you the most in becoming an actor and how did they do it?

Growing up I watched in living color and SNL and  was influenced a lot my Jim Carrey , Adam Sandler, and all the old favorites. I just loved watching them make people laugh and be happy. I knew I wanted to do the same.

What scares you?

I hate frogs!!! I know that is a weird one but I have no idea what it is about them but fear does not even cover it. It is more like a phobia.  I always worry about telling people this because 1.) they look at me crazy and 2.) I feel like they might try to scare me with a frog to be funny. I have had that happen to me a lot in life. 

Which three famous horror directors would you want to work with and why?

1) Rob Zombie- he just pushed the envelope and that is what I am all about. getting people out of their comfort zone. 

2) Eli Roth – a lot like Rob Zombie with pushing the envelope…..hostel…enough said.

3) Tim Burton- I worship him!

After acting in horror and also working behind the scenes doing make-up and costumes,do horror films still scare you?

Honestly horror movies never scared me, I was always fascinated by them. However, now being involved in making them, both in front of and behind the camera, there is an appreciation for all that goes into it. I think horror is one of the hardest genres to make because sociality is being desensitized so much that nothing scares or shocks them anymore. Also a lot of the same concepts are being remade over and over again. I personal enjoy the indie and b-rated horror films more then mainstream because they are more original. I have an idea for a horror movie that I am currently working on and it is something that I know is going to blow peoples minds. it is not like anything that is out now and it will bring fear, the nightmares, the looking over your shoulder that horror movies use to do to people. 

How do you prepare for a on camera and have you ever been scared while shooting a death scene?

When shooting my last death scene I just went all in on it, I told the actor opposite of me to go for it as well. We spoke up with what we were both comfortable with and when action was called we just went at it. The cast was watching in awe. They were scared that because no-one said anything that the scene looked bad because the whole day after shooting scenes everyone had something to say or feedback but when we were done no-one said anything. I later was told they were in awe and thought we were really fighting and said it was the best scene of the film. 

As a working mother of three,how do you balance being a parent along with being a working actor and author?

It is very very difficult. They are all under 10 and need mommy very much. However they are so very supportive of what I do. Always asking me questions on what I am doing,bragging to people they meet and even giving me ideas of their own on projects or videos they would like to see me do. They truly are my biggest fans and I am so very lucky to have them. They are the best thing I created and the reason why I smile. TO MY BOYS, MOMMY LOVES YOU!!

You co-host a podcast with Darin Foxx called “Spooky and the Bats”. Share with us about your podcast,how it got started and its format. How many episodes have you done so far?

    It started out as a podcast and has now turned into a YouTube channel. Bats use to have a radio show and I was a guest on the show to promote the book, we also had worked on a few films together. We spoke about making a podcast, did a few episodes and then decided to move it to YouTube because we wanted to do more physical stuff like the challenges and other things. Our YouTube channel is still fairly new and growing but we love making the videos and hope that the channel continues to grow. 

Where do you want to see your career in five years? Do you any interest in becoming a director?

    I want to be happy, healthy and with my boys. However,when it comes to film, I love directing. I never even thought it would be something I would do. But now that I have a few films under my belt I couldn’t imagine not directing. So within the next 5 years I would like to direct and act a lot more. I am working on that horror movie as I said earlier in the interview as well as a tv series about addiction and mental health. I would love to pitch those projects and have them come to life. 

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch your latest film but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide, what are we doing?

Well I am currently in Orlando,Florida so there is a lot to do. From theme parks (Universal studios, Disney, Sea World and more), nightlife, amazing restaurants and the beach. I mean it definitely would be a day to remember. 

  I like to thank Liz for taking the time from her schedule to chat with us. I hope you enjoyed meeting Liz as much as we did. Feel free to share this interview with your friends and peers,we both would be very grateful.

You can keep up with Liz via her social media pages 

You can see what film projects she has upcoming on her IMDb page. Check out the Spooky and the Bats YouTube Channel. You can join Liz’s Facebook page by clicking here. She also has a InstaGram page as well. Please check out Liz’s Writer Page on Amazon.

If you are new here to the blog and our interview series,you can catch up by clicking on the “8 Questions with…..” list.  Thank you for your support and feel free to drop a comment below.

Its 3:23 pm sunny/cold/WIHM Welcome to "8 Questions with....." It was the last week of January and someone mentioned that it was almost time for “Women In Horror Month” which happens in February.

[kathrinwithak]

L-O-V-E

I’m nervous and antsy because I’m not sure what is the story I’m trying to tell. Is it about love? Is it about my skeleton-filled closet that I’m valiantly trying to clear, day in and day out? Is it about the beautiful conversations I have had over these past few days? Is it about the few women and men I know who remind me that we are not alone, we are a community, that we all feel the same way? Is it about my family? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Nevertheless, let me try to tell this story. It has been brewing for so long; it needs a release.

I write a lot about love. If you follow me on Twitter, you will see that the little anecdotes I share, the little quotes that I post, the articles that I retweet, are inadvertently linked to this grand, old concept. I am a romantic, and an idealist, but these facets of my personality are not the main reasons why I keep coming back to this seed of thought over and over again. I write so much about love because truthfully, I don’t understand it.

And that is how I deal with things I don’t understand. I write about them, rearrange words on blank sheets over and over until there is some semblance of order to the mess in my head (or heart, these days, they are both the same, I tell you). It’s my way of feeling that I am in control of what I don’t know. I am aware it is quite farcical, but it helps in soothing the anxiety in my mind. And so, another day will pass.

I also write a lot about love because I have an abysmal, abysmal, abysmal track record with it. (Even as I write this statement, I know it is not altogether true. But let me come to that in a while). I spent most of my teenage years being in love with someone who never quite felt the same way about me. Then I was in a long-term relationship that, as most of these tales go, ended badly and left me half the person I was. I am not blaming this on my partner; I was young, and I had many other things that contributed to the slow whittling of my person and my heart. By the time I got out of it, I had spent close to ten years on two people who were, simply put, no longer around. By the time a decade passed, and by the time I figured out it was time to start putting myself back together, I felt older and more tired than ever before. I was also deeply miserable, and yearning, but for what, I didn’t quite understand.

As a rule, I don’t date much. I am terrible with small talk, I can’t stand fake niceties, and I’m a forced extrovert. Dating generally is a conglomerate of the above, and it takes more out of me than the satisfaction it gives. The only reason I even began, was because my best friend Phil reminded me that I had to give life a try again. I couldn’t be sitting in a cave and moping. I had been doing that for a long time, you see.

I met a few men, all of whom exhibited similar patterns of behavior. Enamored on the first date, around for a few weeks, and then radio silence. An event happening once could be one of chance, the same event happening twice could be a strange incident of coincidence, but anything more than that is a clear sign of a pattern being played out. I talked about this with Phil.

“Is there an inherent flaw?” The unsaid part of the question was whether this was a flaw in me. I couldn’t bear to say it to Phil, but he knew exactly what I meant.

“No. It is not you. But, Demi, in a way, it is also you.”

I was quiet. My heart was hurting.

“You need to understand why this is what you think you deserve.”

Trust Phil to ask me to ask myself the hard questions. Perhaps that is why we are friends. Because he is never afraid, to be honest with me. Never afraid to break down the carefully constructed glass walls that glisten with what most would think to be awareness, but is mostly fragility, vulnerability, hurt.

I didn’t have an answer that day. But the question remained. Because it was true. We allow into our lives the people we think we deserve. We allow ourselves to be treated in a certain way because we feel we either deserve that much or that little. What was the reason I was constantly shortchanging myself, letting myself be a kind of waterhole where people came, received, and left? Why did I feel that I only deserved a part of someone’s attention? Why was I so goddamn afraid to ask for time or for an answer?

I was sharing my frustrations with another friend, Katie. I asked her, why was it that men were so strange. (Forgive me, this was not a sexist question, but one that was just borne out of weeks and months of perplexity). She said she didn’t know, that she asked herself the same questions herself. We shared our mutual exasperations and then I went, “You know, Katie, if women did it for me, I would have asked you out by now.” She laughed and told me that she felt the same. We agreed we were soul mates. I felt happier, content that I could share my honest thoughts with someone and not be judged. Someone who would ask after my day and after my heart, the two things that got to me each and every time. Here, was love. This too was love. Just not the kind the world was used to hearing about, or understanding.

A few weeks ago, I met a friend from Twitter whom I have been meaning to meet for a while. These online friendships are always a worrying thing, aren’t they? You know these people’s words and the shades of their lives that they so readily share on social media, you build impressions of them in your head which you hope and pray are similar to the real deal, and then you take the friendship to a next level by meeting the living, breathing heart behind that person. Sometimes, you hit the nail on the head and find a friend for life. Other times, you leave the scene shaking, and wondering how completely disparate a person’s online personality is vis-a-vis their real person.

Sydney was a case of the former, a complete and utter gem of a person. We sat by the river and exchanged snippets of our lives before the conversation inadvertently turned to love. (Really, sometimes I think it is the only thing worth talking about, worth thinking about, but this is me. You may wish to disagree). We talked about love, and we talked about men, and we talked about ourselves, and wherein we tried to deconstruct why we were the way we were, we ended up talking about our mothers.

I expressed the same frustrations that I had earlier shared with Phil and Katie; Sydney and I found ourselves agreeing with each other that we had both exhibited similar behaviors. This fear to ask, this inability to demand, this need to give, this assumed facade of being strong all the time, this deep sense of disappointment we carried when the few expectations we had never came to fruition….

It was mindblowing. It was mindblowing because as Katie had rightly asked me earlier, it had to do with me. It had to do with the roles that I had assumed as a child. It had to do with the fact that my mother basically abandoned my younger siblings and me when we were very young, and I had no choice but to step into shoes that I had not altogether been prepared for. My siblings, at that time, had needed me to be strong. They had needed me to be there for them. They had needed me to give. And like any other older sister who just wanted to make her sibling’s pain go away, I had taken it into myself, swallowed the responsibilities whole without quite digesting them, and let them build into these little boulders that sat in the pit of my stomach. It meant that I was constantly in a state of helplessness because I didn’t know what more I could do for my siblings, I didn’t know how much I could help, I didn’t know why I couldn’t just take all that pain away.

This helplessness, this need forgiving, then manifested strongly, and unhealthily in my relationships with men. It meant that I was willing to give, and give, and do and do, and be afraid to ask or demand things in return. It meant that the thought of loss and helplessness was so difficult for me to deal with that I would be okay with putting up with sub-standard behavior because really, that was all I thought I deserved. It meant that I attracted men who wanted to take, and who were selfish enough (I don’t say this with spite, just matter of factly) to not give much in return. And I had convinced myself that I was okay with it.

When, really, I wasn’t. At all. I was not okay with it at all.

I realized how not okay I was with this while I was talking to another friend, James. My conversation with James was so strikingly, uncannily similar to the one I had with Sydney, that I knew this was something that had to be shared. As James kindly, and lovingly reminded me, the awareness of why certain habits manifested the way they did was the first step in dealing with said habits. He also reminded me, ever nurturing that he is, that developing new habits was not that hard, that all I had to do was start. Like asking for what I wanted. For being unapologetic about the desires I had. For not being afraid to admit that I was angry, or unhappy, and to expect others to compromise for me. I agreed with James. Told him I loved him, and that I had needed to hear this.

And here I am, trying to write it all out so that there is some sense in this cacophony.

It all boils down to love. I wrote earlier that I have an abysmal track record with it, but the truth is, for all the disappointments and heartbreaks that I have gone through, I have also hit the damn jackpot with the people who continue to remain in my life. There is a community of men and women here who remind me that I am not alone, that they have got back my back, who have cleaned up my vomit on drunken days and fed me food on depressed nights. There are girlfriends who have never given up, even when I have. There are good men, who remind me that there are good men out there (not that the ones I met were not good, they were just not what I needed in my life) who would understand and appreciate what people like me would have to offer. Then, there is my family, which remains an oasis of comfort, strength, and support despite the different levels of asshole-ishness I exhibit on various days.

In my rabid, narrow-minded attempt to understand romantic love, I forget the daily blessings that are delivered to me on a plate every other hour. So this, this is my note of reminder to myself.

That I am healthy, that I am loved, and that I can and will receive completely, as I am.

And if your story carries shades of mine, I urge you, from the bottom of my heart, to start with me. We need to begin somewhere, after all.

[andranikolayi]

Phil Minton - The Untamed Voice

Phil Minton is no regular artist - the revered improviser has a spectacular career spanning over four decades, whose collaborations include Audrey Chen, Tom Cora, Radu Malfatti and Mike Westbrook and a vocal improv quintet, Five Men Who Sing, with Jaap Blonk, Paul Dutton, Koichi Makigami and David Moss.

While deeply rooted in his solo practice, Feral Choir is a unique approach to improv, stripping down the concept to the very bare elements of the human voice, beyond language and music.

Dubbed as “an improvisation workshop for everyone who ever wanted to sing but was afraid to”, Feral Choir invites amateurs, professionals and shower singers to step out and rediscover their voices.

During the 20 years of doing the workshop, Phil had groups ranging from 10 to 60 people, including actors, improvisers, fans, children and even mentally challenged participants. Its nature transcends language and cultural barriers, offering a raw, primal communication system.

Participating in the workshop is a highly entertaining, often transformative experience. Under Phil’s direction, people blend humming, whistling, shushing and other bodily noises into a wild, cacophonous symphony.

In anticipation of the Feral Choir workshop at ODD, Phil was kind enough to answer a few questions about the project.

Andra Chitimus: I know you get asked this a lot, but I wanted to know how did the Feral Choir idea originate, especially in relation to your solo work. It is quite brilliant how you managed to strip down vocal improv to the essence and create this incredibly inclusive performance.

Phil Minton : I was asked to do a solo in Sweden, but as is often the case, its conveniently helpful with funding to combine performances with ‘reach out" projects that involve a community. So I had no initial big idea for the feral choir, the choir helped fund my solo or group gigs and i was very reluctant at first to accept offers. I had no teaching experience and i found It difficult to tell people what to do. This all changed one day when a partner of one of the choir singers told me ‘I have never seen her so happy’.

AC : You’ve been doing the choir for almost 20 years now; what have you learned from the experience over the years? 

PM : That I love the sound of people breathing, bubbling, whooping, laughing and singing many more wonderful sounds together. I’ve heard some the best music that I have ever heard on many of the feral choir concerts. 

AC: Do you believe participants in the last few years are more open to the experience? 

PM: Yes, but that does not mean the worlds a better place.

AC: When we met in Paris you told us this story of the muslim women who came to the workshop as part of a cultural integration program and didnt really know what to expect. I remembered you said you were having a hard time getting through to them, but once you showed them the rocking the baby/lullaby sign they immediately understood and opened up. Do you believe the workshop is a way to transcend language barriers?

PM: Most humans love singing. Fuck the words.

AC: What is your most memorable/favorite moment from the workshop?

PM: Being told after a performance that someone had called the police from outside the venue, they thought there was a Riot going on inside. The police had arrived but took no action because they could not 'understand’ what was  happening. 

AC: You’ve had countless collaborations over the years, recently with young improvisers. Is there anyone in particular you would like to work with and haven’t had the chance yet?

PM:The trumpet player Peter Evans.

AC: This will be your first time in Bucharest; its musical heritage ranges from the work of spectralist composers like Iancu Dumitrescu/Anamaria Avram to gipsy manele music and wild electronic explorations. Do you think this background will influence your approach to the workshop?

PM: I’ve done workshops all over the world, in prisons, with homeless people, with composers and drunks, with autistic and Down syndrome singers, scientists, opera singers, rappers and plumbers and with anyone who’s wanted to be part of it. So I try not to adjust initially to the multitude of cultural backgrounds that any group could have. But as the workshop progresses I hopefully integrate all these in performance. Like the man who told me he did not understand what to do when asked to join some free vocal improvising. He loved singing, but could only sing parts of Ukrainian pop songs that he could remember, all cool, he was wonderful.

AC: In Paris you used to punctuate the rehearsal breaks with yodeling; Romanians are also mountain people - do you plan to teach us to yodel?

PM: I use yodelling as a vocal exercise to relax my voice. I can give some tips and point in the right direction to those who want to yodel but find it difficult. Looking forward to hearing some Romanian mountain yodel.

AC: And, lastly, since I have participated in the choir, I know how much fun it can be but Romanians can be quite shy when it comes to participatory practices. What would you tell someone who is still on the fence about joining?

PM; Many people who come to the workshops do not make a sound for maybe an hour, but I know they are loving it and they do join in eventually.  One in a thousand who come leave after the first 10 mins??… I just thought, maybe they are all cops or soldiers and don’t understand.

AC: Thank you Phil!

The workshop takes place July 10th-12th, with rehearsals Monday and Tuesday, followed by a performance on Wednesday. Please sign up at info@oddweb.org