#but I really think this show would be a shitty way to start dmc

[vngful]

im sorry this made me laugh so f*cking hard i had to share it here too

[ssson-of-sparda]

A Dozen Ice Cream Cones (Dante x Fem!Reader)

Summary: Patty wants to know what happened to the girl who offered Dante his very first strawberry sundae. But to know the rest of the story, she must erase the dozen ice cream cones from Dante's tab. (Part 2 of A Tab To Erase) (Part 1)

Tags: Pre DMC3 Dante / Dante is Tony Redgrave / Flirting / Lost Friends to Lovers / Implied Sexual Content / Explicit Language

Author’s note: You wished for Part 2, there it is ;-) If you want to place this part of the story in the DMC timeline, I'd say that it is shortly before DMC3. Dante is roughly eighteen (and so is Reader) and still goes by the name Tony Redgrave. Again, the Dante who is talking to Patty is definitely post DMC Anime. I decided not to give many details about him so that he could be the one of your choice. Can definitely do a part 3 if you want.

MISSION 2

Dante was about to get fleeced. He could feel it in his guts, which had somehow developed this strange ability to knot tightly in his stomach each time he was about to lose. Probably the result of so many years of bad luck in gambling. And yet, Patty’s eyebrows were weirdly furrowed as she was quietly eyeing all of the cards in her hands. She had to have a straight flush. Dante had no doubt about that. So why wasn’t she playing? “You know, Dante. I was thinking …”       “Not again.” The man grumbled, wondering why she was taking her time. But Patty had learned to ignore Dante’s sudden irritations long ago, knowing they were always brief and harmless.       “You didn’t stay friends, right?” Dante arched an eyebrow and stared at the girl in front of him as she was sitting still, big blue eyes fixed upon his face, patiently waiting for the answer to her unexpected question.   “What are you talking about?” A sigh escaped his mouth. He knew what she was talking about. He just wanted to elude the answer. But the little blonde was not one to easily give up. “With the little girl. The one who made you first strawberry sundae. You didn’t stay friends. Why?”                   “What makes you think that?” Using a question to avoid an answer. Yes, could work.             “Well, if you had a friend making you strawberry sundaes for free, then you would not spend an unreasonable amount of money on them. So, I’m guessing she must not be around anymore.” Patty was perceptive. Dante could give her that quality, for sure. Though right now it was more a bother than anything else. “What happened?”       “She moved on with her life.” was the only thing that he felt like answering as he quietly stood up to take a beer in his fridge, certain that this was just the beginning of another long questioning.               “So you never saw her again after that night in the diner?” Patty asked as she watched Dante slouch back in the couch, taking his cards back in his hand to cover whatever expression Patty was trying to spot on his face.       “Yes, I did saw her again.” He finally confessed, eyes on the dog-eared Queen of Hearts he was grazing with his thumbnail.             “Then tell me!” The girl begged, unable to resist the excitement growing in her body any longer. “ Why would I? Don’t you have any stupid soap opera to watch?”       “ The TV’s broken… AGAIN.” She complained but he couldn’t care less. He had no money to afford buying a new one or fixing this one. Plus, there was nothing worth watching on TV so …“Come on. I’ll erase the dozen ice creams cones from your tab if you do.” Dante looked away from his cards with a sudden tiny smirk as he noticed Patty on the edge of her chair, impatiently waiting for the new part of his story to begin. “Now you speak my language, Patty.”         “ You never do something for free! It’s annoying!”       “Are you kidding me? I do a lot of things for free. That’s why I’m so broke and live in this hellhole.” He waved at the place with open arms before taking a gulp of his beer with a grimace. Yuck, it’s hot! And of course it was. He hadn’t paid the bills yet again.           “So we have a deal, then. Now tell me.”

A DOZEN ICE CREAM CONES

                 It was the nineties – perhaps the most awful period for anyone who had even just a small sense for fashion or music - and as the city of Red Grave was still lovingly dancing on ridiculous love ballads on Friday nights, wearing tight crop tops, colourful scrunchies and platform sneakers, Dante – now named Tony Redgrave - was trying to make his place as a young mercenary in the rough areas of the city, hanging in bars serving some drinks stronger than strawberry sundaes (though he would always order one at some point) and in clubs where women would gladly take their clothes off if asked too, mind a few bucks of course (except for Venus. Venus would always flash her breasts for free for her sweet Tony).

“Not sure I want to know that.” “ Oh yes. Forgot the story must be PG-13, sorry. Anyway …”

He was looking for jobs, something that would help him pay for a proper roof over his head and the fancy long red leather coat he had just bought (five hundred bucks but worth every single dime) and luckily for him he knew the perfect man to find him that.

His name was Enzo Ferino. A short and chubby Italian-American broker, probably the best informant in the neighbourhood, one who could smell high-paying jobs for miles around especially those Dante loved to refuse.

“Where was Morrison?” “Can I tell my story please?”

“Come on Tony! You can’t refuse that job. Not another one. Not again.” He almost threw a fist on the counter before he remembered the last time he did so. Two bullets had whizzed the top of his black curly head and he had had thanked his mama for making him so short. “Haven’t you heard the reward? Don’t you see all the zeros on that check, my friend?” Yes, there were four and enough to pay the bail and few rents of the place he wished to rent to create his own agency. But Dante didn’t want that check nor did he want that job.             “If he wants to recover a stupid necklace, he can call the cops for that … or a bailiff. I don’t go after silly poker players. I have better things to do.” He took a sip of his whiskey, the third of the night, not even looking at the two men sitting next to him and begging him to take that damn job with pleading eyes.               “You have nothing better to do!” Enzo shouted, throwing his hands in the hair like a living Italian cliché. “Please Sir. It’s my girlfriend’s necklace. One she offered me on our anniversary. It’s very precious to her.” The man who wished to hire him declared as he started rummaging in the pocket of his designer coat.               “And you bet on it?” Dante scoffed. “Damn. What a perfect boyfriend you are. But that’s still a no.”

The man pressed a piece of paper next to Dante’s drink. A photo, a polaroid, judging by the quality of the paper, carefully placed face down like a poker card, showing that that man was most probably a pro-gambler or at least was used to card games. Another reason not to help. He would probably lose the damn necklace right after recovering it.         And yet, Dante took the picture in his hand. Though he didn’t really know why he did. Certainly the curiosity to know what kind of chick that prick could have in his life or maybe the will to use the picture to taunt him about his taste in women. He imagined a prude church girl, some daddy’s girl probably as rich as him, not very pretty but fancy, wearing pearl earrings and silk headscarves matching her shiny shoes. The type of girl that swaggers in the street and roll her disdainful eyes when they see men like Dante (though they might secretly wished he would rumple their sheets).  

Patty cleared her throat. “What? Every girl loves some good bad boy once in a while... And how do you even know what that means?”

He couldn’t be more wrong. And he couldn’t be more surprised. He would recognize those big (colour) eyes and that sweet smile among thousands, despite the time apart, despite the years that had turned a fearful little boy into a daredevil mercenary and an adorable little girl into a magnificent young girl. He would recognize them always because they were the first that had made in smile when he thought he would never smile again.                 “Her name is Y/N. She’s the sweetest girl in the world. Innocent. Pure.” Dante cringed at the man’s words, finding them rather repulsive and somewhat perverted. Something in the way they were rolling off his tongue.       “Come on, Tony. You can’t say no to a sweet girl.” Enzo’s sentence was met with a glare that made him shiver but when he saw his partner stand up and empty his glass of whiskey, he somewhat relaxed. “You’re pieces of shit. Both of you.”         “Does that mean you take the job?” Dante didn’t bother answer.

                 But he took the job. Not for Enzo. Especially not for his shitty client. And even less for the cash. For her. Just for her. To finally return the favour after so many years. Because he owed her one. Because she was possibly one of the few humans he’s always respected in his ten years wandering the nighty street of Red Grave. And because she didn’t deserve an asshole like the one she dated to lose something apparently so precious to her in a silly game of cards. An easy job for someone like him but one he despised nevertheless. He hated to deal with humans. They were sometimes worse than demons and you can’t fix problems with them by using a sword.

“Don’t tell me you won the necklace back?” “ I did. Fair and square. Well … almost. I ended up using my sword. Turned out the Mafiosi who had Y/N’s necklace were a bunch of demons who had made a few bars in downtown Red Grave their lairs.”

But once Dante had Y/N’s necklace in the palm of his hand he did something only Dante could do. He refused the reward, refused all the zeros on the check and the chance to finally buy that agency he wanted so badly. “The things you do for beautiful women.” Gunsmith Nell Goldstein had said when she had given him back his guns, all polished and fixed, after he had wrecked them on the job again. “They’re your weakness, Tony. Always leading you around by the nose … or something else.” Perhaps, but he never minded.        

And as he watched Y/N approaching the door to her home out of the corner of his eye, a bunch of books under her arms, looking for her keys in her bag, Dante knew he would not regret his weakness for women or his decision to refuse the money.      

She looked as sweet as he remembered, as delicate as in the picture if not more. And just as her shitty boyfriend had said, she indeed seemed rather innocent and pure. Almost fragile. Nothing like the girls he had met before, especially those he had seen undressed at Love Planet or in one of the magazines he kept in his drawers.       “Goodness grac…” She almost dropped her books as she jumped, surprised and somewhat scared, and put her hand over her heart that had certainly missed quite a beat when she noticed this insanely tall stranger on her doorstep.   But her sudden fear disappeared immediately when she recognized the silvery white hair covering the icy blue eyes of the man before her. “Tony?” She arched an eyebrow and he smiled with the same childish joy she had witnessed on his face years ago. And just like that, she was certain it was him.       “Hello, Y/N” He offered his hand and she briefly stared at it, remembering for a small instant the time she held out her tiny hand to him the same way, the night they met. And so she grabbed it, genuinely happy to see him again and yet curious to know how he had found her and why he was back after so many years.       But when she fell something cold and metallic in his hand she got her answer. “My necklace. How?” “Won it back for you.” He simply answered but that was enough for her to understand what happened. “[Boyfriend] lost it on a poker game, didn’t he?” And even though that didn’t really surprised her as she knew how much he loved gambling despite her telling him not to, it disappointed her anyway. “You shouldn’t date boys who have a streak of bad luck in gambling… Except those like me.” She looked up at Dante’s piercing blue eyes, unsettled by his flirtatious humour, thinking he accidentally let that slip but he definitely did not. Those last words, impulsive and yet somewhat well thought out, had rolled off his tongue with a scandalous smoothness and a self-confidence that had rooted her to the spot, speechless, but in a weirdly pleasant way that made her want to slap herself. “Or especially me. Depends if you like trouble.”     With a smug smirk, he stared at her, deep in her eyes, almost … hungrily? She didn’t really know. All that she knew was that never a man had looked at her that way. Certainly not her boyfriend. And who knew such icy eyes could set fire to her cheeks like that? “But, judging by that place and your guy, you seem to enjoy some well-ordered life.”

Not really. Not at all. Her life was boring, plain and dull. Nothing like in the books she read. Nothing like what she had dreamed of. But exactly what her mother had wished for her.         She was an adorable daughter, a top student finishing up high school, ready to leave Red Grave with her well brought up boyfriend to start a life many would envy but that she cared little about.     She wanted adventure. She wanted excitement. Passion. Frivolity. Freedom. And maybe even some danger. She wanted all that and more.           And as she looked at the self-assured man in front of her, she couldn’t help but believe that he had somehow managed to obtain all that. And she wanted to know how. How did that life feel? How could he live such a life? How could she have the same?         And Dante noticed that small fire, that tamed lonely flame burning deep in her eyes that needed just a drop or two of gasoline to rage and shine brightly. Something he could easily provide if she let him, if that’s what she wanted.

“Take care of yourself, Y/N” He nodded her goodbye and as he shifted to walk away, she opened her lips to say. “Would you like a strawberry sundae?” And she cursed herself for this, so damn loud in her head. You have a boyfriend! A voice repeated on and on, feeling the temptation in her heart and the ideas of what some people would call unfaithfulness seeping in her brain. But as she opened the door to her apartment, ready to finally kick the boredom out of her life for something else, for something more, the voice seemed to fade.           Guess the Devil truly finds work for idle hands to do.

[sui-senka]

The dumbest post

I think y’all should be here to witness the dumbest post I’ll ever make, as I’m not all about getting into discourse and that, and any other self-identifying Vergil lovers please come here:

@creepyscritches, @brasspetalsx, @fandomhell97, @breezeinmonochromenight, @kaldea88, @xalmasyx, @hornyangrybean, @noir-sorrow, @catspook, @xenontrioxide, @zilla-may-cry, @boobble, @vergilshusband, @tifaroni, @littlebluewraith, @im-a-clown, @genovaempera, @neodicronus, @thelessiknowtheworse, @thriilsy, @jestermania, @bunny-girl-sweetseek, @darka3363, @witchkiid, @45, @manadebutt, @magsamaire, @spaghetti-queerghetti, @clairexredfields, @204863-yunglynn, @yuri-subtext, @miss-soso-25, @josuke-kujo, @cameguisada, @trionfi, @glitteryhumanfiretrash, @lewdbunbun, @journalofsparda, @complacentdevil, @infernokid, @emogodmatthew, @brit-o-raptor, @salsa-and-chips, @gemstone-enema

I’d like y’all to bear witness, as I take down this bitch-ass clown. As I’ve blocked the person in question that I want to call out - please tag them into this post to have at them ;) Also - to the other people that didn’t get this, tag your mutuals and get them here.

I’d also like to announce that @thephantomporg84 is now masquerading as @derelict-stranger, and I got a few messages a few days ago about how she was gonna take down her account, and how she wants me to block all of you, which is ridiculous as you are all blogs that I have known and followed way before her and also I don’t know you either. I told her that I didn’t want to be involved in her drama, but here I am. 

It’s kinda hard for me to make this post, as I genuinely thought that she was cool in the beginning - she helped to give me more DMC asks in my inbox, and she always reblogged my stuff, as I’ve been trying to make it with the big guys - like @myfairmidnightladyspade.

But I saw the stuff that she says online to you all, and I think I got some anon messages from her asking if I was a terf or not... and yeah - my heart broke. I feel like I have been deceived in some way. What I wanted to be there was someone who was cool, and funny to talk to, but turns out that person is petty, heartless, immature and straight up spiteful.

I may have to justify myself in why I got messages from her - I was only trying to console her, but to do it in a neutral way as I wanted no part in her drama.

Also - i’m probably not gonna show any evidence for how much she sucks cause there’s tags and anon posts dedicated to that sort of thing

I want you on tumblr, and you on Reddit to find her, and in the /v/ section of 4chan to block her and report her for all she’s done. I want you to wipe her existence from the internet until there is nothing left.

Now - I need to change the flow of the conversation by directing it to you, @derelict-stranger.

I’d like you to kindly log off, take a breather and think, for a second about the actions that you’ve done to the people that I’ve mentioned above. 

I’d also like to tell you that your suggestion to block all those people above is complete nonsense. Why would you make me block blogs who have perfectly decent and awesome content, and to those who I have talked to longer than you? why would you make me block blogs who I don’t know? Quit trying to get me on your side. I want no part in your drama like I said before, and stop trying to manipulate me into getting me to give a shit about you.

I’d also like to tell you that your situation is entirely self-inflicted. That you trying to talk to me won’t work, the only reason that people are apparently “attacking you” - is because you, in fact, are the instigator, are the catalyst of all this hatred.

You - @derelict-stranger, lack any ability whatsoever to disagree well. From where I’m looking, all of this started because you don’t like Vergil from the Devil May Cry games and you don’t like the plot of 5, which seems extremely stupid to me, as he’s only a small-ish part of 1, one of the best boss-fights in 3 and just a mere mention in 4. The fact that you need to incessantly attack content creators who merely like him is stupid. Either keep those opinions to yourself, ignore them, or do my favourite -> stick ‘em up your big stupid ass.

It’s also stupid that when people merely like him - you have to bring in your own shitty opinions. No one asked you what you thought, and I’m pretty sure you’re actively seeking out fights with people just to feel good about yourself. It’s also super hypocritical of you ragging on about how much Vergil sucks, when you go crazy for Kylo Ren, as they share some similarities in terms of their vibes and traits. (Yeah - I see you asking for smutty Kylo Ren x Reader requests online.....) Why do you get pissy when people like villainous fictional characters - do your knickers

What I just want to know is what kind of personal gratification you get when you actively hate on a character, and what kind of gratification you get when just because someone disagrees with you - that you have to result using death threats, rape threats, pedophilia threats, racism, slurs, and ableism,  transphobia, alt-right rhetoric, neo-Nazi shit, pro-Trump, and homophobic comments to content creators just doin’ their own thing. Is it just to feel like the bigger man, is it to make yourself sound smarter than the other person (Cause you don’t) - like what actually motivates you, what actually makes you want to shit on other people’s parades, huh? Sounds to me like you need to get a life.

The fact that you always need to play the victim is sad and pathetic too:

- That you’re on the spectrum: - Okay, there are a lot of people who are on the spectrum here on tumblr. But they don’t use it as an excuse to justify shitty behaviour especially if it’s unitentional. as I’m sure they and the people they know are. I’m sure they apologise and try to get on with life like how NT people do. As you know - a lot of people of the spectrum feel like they’re being treated as sub-human being babies that do nothing but screech all the time, and they’re taking action to change those perceptions. Your behaviours are not helping their cause.

- That you use depression as an excuse - I’m kinda sympathetic to the whole mental health issues thing. I have them too. In fact, I am a hot mess. But I don’t use that to excuse me hurting other people with intention, and I’m sure many others don’t either. At least 1/4 or 1/3 will have some mental health issues in their life, and yeah, it sucks, and it’s common but it doesn’t make them exempt from them being called out on their shitty acts. the fact that so many people are and can be mentally ill doesn’t make you special, and it doesn’t give you a free pass to attack others.

- The fact that you try to bait people into making anti-semitic comments, so you can call them anti-semitic. Dude, that’s low. I’m pretty sure that’s gaslighting and manipulation as well. You don’t get the right to use your religion/race in that way as a defence when you’re feeling attacked so that you come off a better person. I’m friends with many jewish people, and they’d never have the gall to do that. I know that your peeople have had it rough, but you can’t use that in an argument just to prove that the other one is a piece of shit, when it is in fact you. I’m muslim, a WOC, and ancestrally speaking, from a country that your so-beloved president essentially banned their right to seek a better life in the states. For as long as I can remember - I’ve seen news about my kind being universally hated, I’ve been brought up in a post-9/11 world where for as long as I can remember that me and our kind are the enemy (so I can sympathise) - but you don’t see me and other muslims here using those petty tactics that you use, because unlike you, we’re not myopic and we know that won’t get us anywhere.

I mean, this behaviour sounds bratty and childish - so I was thinking, she’ll probably grow out of it. Then I find that you’re in you’re mid-twenties, and I think “you really haven’t grown up at all, have you?”, and honestly it just makes the behaviour worse as you are resulting to middle school/high school tactics -> especially making me block all those people, calling them sociopaths and evil bitches. This ain’t high school or Mean Girls, moron, this is a fandom. A place where people can create, share, like and comment on content that makes you happy. I don’t think you understand what that means - cause all I see, and everyone sees is you spewing hatred everywhere. Fandoms are supposed to make you feel included, feel happy, feel safe, be a place to make friends. I don’t think you know that, and I don’t think you are even smart enough to realise that you are the reason why our fandom isn’t happy.

And honestly, at this point, the hatred you are getting is well deserved. You deserve to feel like shit if all you are going to do is make others feel like shit.

I don’t know what else to say but:

1. Get the hell away from our fandom

2. Get rid of your internet connection.

3. Get a life.

4. We don’t want you here.

5. You’re scum.

6. Go suck a dick, or flick a bean, whatever gets you off you troglodyte.

I liked you man, I really did. Then I saw how you treat others, and now I know I made a dumb life choice in making friends with you. If only you weren’t such a piece of shit, we could have been good friends.

I don’t want you here on tumblr. They don’t want you here. No-one wants or needs a toxic parasite like you on this website.

Yours sincerely,

sui-senka, who just sucked Vergil’s dick yesterday, and liked it.

[rilojetty]

a haunted man who can't out run his ghosts

Doe Madeira was the same as she had always been.  Short, but loud.  Hands on her hips, sunglasses perched atop her head.  A girl on a mission, and it occurred to Rilo then and there, seeing her from across the venue, that he’d never really known her as anything other than Preston’s.

Why was she here?  That was the real question.  That was the child tugging the sleeve of his oversized sweatshirt, nagging him with a query he couldn’t answer.

She was tapping something out on her phone, blowing a pristine bubble with her gum that he could even see from where he was hovering in the wings of the stage.  He did this before every single show.  It didn’t matter how large or small the crowd was, the sheer fact that anybody would ever be here for him was enough to knock him on his ass.

But, for Doe to be here?  Here in Santa Monica, when he knew for all too well of a fact that she was in college on the east coast?  Why?  What was her motive?  Was she alone?  Was he here, too?

Of course he wasn’t.  Preston Raimi was nothing more than a ghost in his hallway at this point.  A glimpse of a past life, a former Rilo that didn’t exist anymore.  He wouldn’t dive under his sheets and find him waiting for him, not anymore.  Not for a long time.

When he was younger, twenty and high on life, Preston was the harbor lights that he always found his way back to.  Warm and comforting, like a much-needed embrace after a long day.  Preston was eighteen, a freshman, and somehow he’d gotten it into his brain that he’d lucked out with getting Rilo to look his way.  If only he could have realized how backwards he’d had it all.

It occurred to him, then, that he didn’t really know Doe.  He knew the Doe from Preston’s stories.  He knew the girl who had flashed her tenth grade English teacher so that Preston could slip late into class undetected.  He knew her as Preston’s first kiss, first time, first love, really – even if Preston would never say those last few words out loud.  And yet, just from looking at her, it was like he’d met her a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago.  Instead, he’d only met her once, right near the end of his and Preston’s romantic residency.

She’d surprised him with a visit, and Rilo was convinced in that moment that he could have been blind as shit and still been able to detect the magnetism that existed between the two of them.  Doe wedged her way between the two of them, staking back her rightful claim as Preston’s person.  Suddenly, she was the one adjusting his hair, the one dragging him this way and that way, and Rilo slipped back into the shadows of his apartment just long enough for them to get reacquainted.

It was during that time that he took another look at the offers he’d been getting in from record labels.  Somewhere between Doe prattling onto Preston about how he had to transfer schools to save her before she dropped out and Preston shuffling awkwardly on his feet as his hand found its way to the small of her back when he didn’t catch Rilo looking his way, Rilo accepted the offer to record a demo with an indie label in Los Angeles.

After that, he and Preston were becoming two ships passing in the night rather than anything else.  He could see the expiration date on their relationship even if Preston was trying to put a sticker over it.  He saw the NYU tabs open on Preston’s phone before Preston could swipe away from them, Preston could see Rilo slipping away from them, spending more time in the studio and less time in the cramped twin-sized bed that was more comfortable than the queen mattress on Rilo’s apartment floor just because it was Preston’s.

“We’ll keep in touch,” Preston was promising against his mouth as April turned to May, as his room became stripped of his Hoodie Allen posters (yes, seriously) and his headphones and stacks of mixtapes that nobody besides Preston still made – replaced with boxes and boxes and more boxes.  “I’ll spend the whole summer making tapes for my rock star boyfriend, writing you love letters and shit.  It’ll be disgusting.”

Preston sounded so hopeful and sure of himself, sure of their chances, that Rilo almost believed him.  Almost, but not quite.

The last time Rilo Jetty saw Preston Raimi was at LAX.  Preston had a beanie of Rilo’s atop his head, damn near chewing a hole into is lip.  Rilo wanted to hate Doe, wanted to hate her with every vein in his body, for taking Preston away from him, for being able to sweet talk Preston into a time zone three hours ahead of his own.  He couldn’t, though, because it wasn’t her fault.  Preston didn’t have to follow her.  No.  No, it wasn’t Preston’s fault, either.  Maybe this was never supposed to be a permanent thing, only temporary.  Rilo was a stamp in Preston’s passport and Preston was a chapter in Rilo’s life story.  God, he wished he didn’t want him to be the whole book.

Preston’s hands slid up to rest on either side of Rilo’s cheeks, and Rilo reciprocated by hugging him tightly around the waist.  “Tell New York to be good to you,” he murmured against Preston’s temple, pressing a kiss there shortly after.

“Tell LA I hate it for getting to have you,” Preston grumbled back, and Rilo could have kissed him a thousand times.  Wished he’d taken him out of that airport and to the cocoon of his apartment.  They could make it their apartment.  He could get Preston signed to the label when he had enough seniority to make that sort of a move.  Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

Preston slipped into airport security, and Rilo followed him until he lost him as the glass window turned to a wall, until he was out of sight.

His best friend, Darcy, would tell him it was just the latest of many fuck-ups he’d accomplished.  Afterwards, she’d pour him a shot – or five – and they’d put on the same shitty Netflix movie they’d watched a thousand times before.  Preston sent pictures from the plane, from the airport, from the ride to his new apartment that Rilo knew better than to ask with whom he’d be sharing it.

“You know, people do long distance relationships all the time and survive them,” Darcy pointed out, looking over at the kicked puppy staring down at his phone, brows furrowed.  “Like, all the time.  There’s, iMessage, and FaceTime, and even that dumbass app that lets you send your heartbeat to another person.  Apple is tailor-made for LDRs.”  She reached into the bowl of Lays, popping a few into her mouth and not waiting to keep going, her words coming through crunches.  “You’ll be fine.”  A beat later, and she was continuing.  “And also, you’re, like, twenty-one.  Calm down.  Stop looking at apartments in New York,” she wrangled the phone away from his house, and he realized that she’d been kidding until she actually saw the tabs open on his phone.

A pat on her shoulder, a gentle, “Oh, buddy,” and then she was back to the movie staring ahead of him – sitting on his phone.

Anyway, that had been a long time ago.  A whole ‘nother Rilo had lived through that first heartbreak than the Rilo standing backstage, looking at Doe Madeira in the crowd.

She wasn’t alone, he quickly noticed.  She was with a tall blonde and a girl with short cropped hair, each of them nursing a glass and Doe peering around the stage like she expected to see somebody looking back at her.

He averted his gaze before she could get to his silhouette, the stage lights dimming a moment later and his guitar finding its rightful place around his shoulders.  He was at the freaking El Rey Theatre, for crying out loud.  He was celebrating a new album release tonight and doing a “hometown show” as his agent called it.  LA wasn’t his hometown.  His hometown was a small-town way up fucking north in Washington, where nobody ever visited.  But this was the first big venue he’d ever booked, six years ago (six. years. ago.) so “in a way, it’s like going home again!”

Rilo wasn’t sure where home was anymore, but he went on that stage anyway.  Eyes sparked with tears as soon as he heard the crowd waiting for him.  It happened every time he went on stage, every time he was reminded of the fact that this was his life now.  People actually gave a shit about him.  People actually wanted to see him, hear him.

Everyone, that is, except the one person he wanted to be there.

He ignored the knot in his stomach, started strumming the chords to the first song that had ever gotten him anywhere.  I Want to Write You a Song, the first thing he’d ever written for Preston.  It was like, despite everything, he was here on stage with him after all.

✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤ ✤  

Rilo had stopped doing stage doors a long time ago, once his team had decided it wasn’t really something he could safely get away with anymore, but tonight, he was making an exception.  He signed every autograph, posed for every selfie and every boomerang and recorded video messages for moms and brothers and boyfriends.  He was out there for well over two hours, he was getting to everyone.  If nothing else, it was a good distraction from who’d been in the crowd tonight.

He tried really hard to not think about Preston more than he had to.  It didn’t matter if he was the muse for every aching song he’d written in the past few years.  Preston was someone he kept buried inside a mental filing cabinet.  Preston was just for him.  Not for the girl who was still fucking hovering alongside the brick wall, giggling with her friends and stealing glances Rilo’s way.

Why.  Was she.  Here?

Where was Preston?  He could argue with himself that maybe Preston and Doe had fallen out of touch, but he would know just the same that that was absolutely not true – not only because they’d been friends since they were damn near in diapers, but because he’d… maybe looked Preston up on social media when he shouldn’t have.  He still saw his life in the fragments that Preston chose to share with the world.  He saw him in Union Square, had screen recorded a video of him flawlessly rapping Ice Ice Baby to his followers and another of him and Doe dancing to “It’s Tricky” by Run DMC at their friends’ wedding.

So, why wasn’t he here?  Where was he?  Did he know Doe was here?  Here, in California, at his show… did he know?

He finished up with the last round of fans, telling them to get home safe as they dispersed down the side streets in every which way.  He was turning back for the door, and then he heard her.

“Good show tonight, Jetty.”

He paused, hand hanging in the air from where it was reaching to head back inside.  He turned to look at her, at Doe.  Cute as shit, looking back at him expectantly.  If he was a narcissist, he’d assume that she figured he didn’t remember her.  But he knew that she knew he did.

And so, he didn’t play dumb, even though he was great at doing just that.  “You’re pretty far from New York.”

Her eyebrows raised, impressed.  “Long story,” she said dismissively, lifting her shoulders into a shrug.  “I mean, I couldn’t miss the Rilo Jetty’s homecoming show.”  A beat, and she was continuing.  “Not because, like, I couldn’t, but because Tedster over here wouldn’t allow it.”

The tall blonde at her side was blushing, face breaking into a smile when Rilo met her gaze.  “Big fan, bigger loser.  Hi.  Teddy.”

“Rilo,” he responded autonomously, and she gave him the most bewildered face in response.  Of course you’re Rilo, he could hear her words bouncing around his mind without her having to say a word.

“We’re not actually in LA for your show,” she spilled out, blushing even under the streetlights.  “Our friend’s getting married and taking her to Disneyland seemed like a safer bachelorette party than Vegas.”

“Because I’d never go to Vegas,” the third girl, the one with the short hair, crowed in an unmissable Irish accent, looking at her two friends in disbelief.  He realized that she looked familiar, as did Teddy.  Maybe they’d shown up in Preston’s Instagram posts – he knew he’d never really spent much time checking through Doe’s pages, only ever if he was too drunk, reflecting on the past too much.  “I’m much more content with Chip and Dale than Chippendales.”

Doe scrunched up her nose.  “As if anyone goes and watches Chippendales when Thunder from Down Under is right there.”

Rilo felt out of place in the conversation, smiling shyly back at them.  “Well, congrats.  Chip and Dale are…definitely the better option.  You’ve got a point.” Doe rolled her eyes, smirking between the two of them.  “You know, Cait, you should probably send him an invite.”

The girl, Cait, apparently, looked at Doe in shock.  Her eyes flicked between Doe and Rilo in embarrassment.  

“Obviously I wouldn’t send you a wedding invite,” she argued.  Her blush went deeper.  “Not that you don’t deserve…” she whipped back around to Doe.  “Why would I invite Rilo Jetty to my wedding?”

Doe had a glint in her eyes, one of mischief, and her eyes flicked back over to Rilo.  “He’s old friends with your groom.”

It pieced together, then.  Why she looked familiar.  Where he’d seen her.  The last time he’d looked on Preston’s page had been a particular weak moment just after his birthday, just after Valentine’s Day.  Her hair had been longer, then, and she’d been the focus of a film photo on Preston’s page, laughing at him, weakly holding her hand in front of her face like she didn’t want her picture taken.

He didn’t need to ask who the groom was.  He knew.

Maybe he did hate Doe Madeira.  Just a little.

[culturalgutter]

Death metal is often the only solution, even for the cutest and nicest among us. Perhaps, especially for the cutest and nicest among us, like say red pandas–my go-to for the cutest among us*.  It is for Retsuko, the red panda protagonist of Aggretsuko. She is an accountant in a large company based in Tokyo. Retsuko is nice and cute. She’s good at her job and tries hard. Her friends thinks she is “responsible.” She does more than her share of work in the office. She gets roped into organizing social functions. She gets taken for granted. She tries hard to make things work that just won’t work. When she got the job she felt she was taking her “first step as a true member of society.”

Five years later, Retsuko hates her job, her boss and her boss’ misogynist crap so much so that sometimes the word rage glows on her forehead. Her rage can only be exorcised by singing death metal. Corpse paint appears on her face as she sings what she cannot say. She sings her fury in her imagination, in the bathroom or in an after hours karaoke sanctuary where the mandrill attendant knows her simply as, “party of one.” I appreciate how Retsuko’s songs appear karaoke-style on the screen. Sing along about your shitty boss!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Though Retsuko tries a variety of solutions for her unhappiness at her job over the course of ten episodes, Death Metal is the only solution. As is so often the case, it’s not only a release for Retsuko, it’s a revelation of her truest self.

Netflix’s Aggretsuko expands on elements from Aggressive Retsuko / Aguresshibu Retsuko, a series of 100 one-minute shorts that aired on Japanese television from 2016 to 2018. Both  produced by Fanworks using characters created by Japanese cuteness conglomerate, Sanrio. Both series were written and directed by Rarecho using characters created by Japanese cuteness conglomerate, Sanrio. Rarecho and his wife Kaolip voice Retsuko, with Kaolip doing the speaking and Rarecho singing for Retsuko. The flash animation is charming with the stripped down character design. And it’s apparent simple cuteness and very stylized world is a nice juxtaposition with the intensity of Retsuko’s songs and some of the more adult-not-in-the-euphemistic-sense content.

Aggretsuko has the structure of children’s animation, at least in terms of length. Adventure Time, We Bare Bears, The Powerpuff Girls are all about eleven minutes in length, not including ads. Aggretsuko is about fifteen minutes, without ads. Animation meant for adults on American television tends to be longer. But Aggretsuko is not meant for anyone younger than eighteen and not because of adult language. It’s because of adult situations like: a sexist, abusive boss; co-workers sticking you with their work; an inattentive, utterly passive partner; being trapped listening to boring stories; keeping a terrible job because rent needs to be paid; wearing cute shoes that hurt; falling in love with the idea of your relationship with someone; and, not being safe in revealing what should be innocuous parts of oneself.

Children would be bored and it is possible adults will be distressed, except there’s cuteness and catharsis.

I like both series, though I find Netflix’s Aggretsuko a bit more appealing than the one-minute shorts. This slight preference is probably a combination of getting to see more of the characters’ lives in an episode; the intensity of watching 30 one-minute shorts at a time rather mixed with other programming over the course of two years; and being a member of the English-speaking audience Netflix’s Aggretsuko was aiming for. And in Netflix’s Aggretsuko, her songs are often longer. We see more of her friends Washimi and Gori.  Her relationships with her literal pig boss, Director Ton, and her co-workers, Fenneko and Haida, are fleshed out. Her yoga instructor takes on a much larger role. And some characters, like Buffalo Boss, disappear, though he might re-appear in season two. Also, I enjoy seeing more of Director Gori, the gorilla marketing director of Retsuko’s company, and Washimi, a secretary bird and secretary to the company’s CEO.

The shorts rely on the universality of Retsuko’s experiences to convey character: The misogynist boss; the boss’s lackey; the gossipy co-worker who overshares; the viciously passive-aggressive supervisor; the drily sarcastic co-worker who creeps on everyone’s business; the apparently friendly yet secretly vicious co-worker. And all contained within a frustrating world where the only release is through death metal karaoke, because anything else has unpleasant consequences or, possibly worse, everyone pretends nothing happened. When Retsuko confronts her boss in a drunken karaoke battle, both pretend not to remember, but both do. And it makes things more difficult for Retsuko.

Retsuko is a nice person and wants to be a nice person. She is trapped by a confluence of work and gender roles. Some of these are particularly Japanese–say, pouring booze for her boss at an afterwork mixer–but most are things that are pretty universal. Retsuko is understood by her co-workers as a responsible person–one who can be taken advantage of. The series opens with Retsuko smacking her alarm clock  and then saying to her self, “After I count to ten, I’ll be a model citizen.” Mid-way, enduring her bosses’ abuse, she tells herself, “After I count to ten, I’ll be a model employee.”  Later as she hides from her boyfriend and her own feelings in a mall bathroom, she says “After I count to ten, I’ll be a happy girlfriend.”

The pain of cute shoes.

Repressing the rage.

But Retsuko does have friends who do consider her feelings: fellow accountants Fenneko and Haida; Director Gori, the gorilla chief of marketing; and Washimi, the secretary bird and secretary to the company’s CEO. At work Washimi and Gori are careful to be poised, confident business women, but they recognize their own precarious position. Gori is more emotionally open with Retsuko than Washimi, but Washimi uses her fearsome chopkick to motivate the company’s CEO to address abusive behavior in the workplace.

Washimi and Director Gori

The price of maintaining the front.

Fenneko and Haida

Retsuko is an interesting direction for Sanrio to take–the juxtaposition between Sanrio cuteness and death metal truth. I have heard criticisms of Sanrio’s globally dominant ambassador of cuteness, Hello Kitty, that start and end with, “She doesn’t even have a mouth.” And, yes, there is something there. And, yes, it is more complicated than that because of gender, culture and design. Most of the time, Retsuko tries hard to be nice and it would be too easy to see her as a victim of her own niceness. But it’s easy to blame the victim and to just assume shitty bosses are going to be shitty bosses, and that can imply everything should change for the convenience of shitty bosses and the shitty world they create around them. But Retsuko has a mouth and she sings brutally when she’s had enough.

Sanrio knows what it is doing in appealing to adult women. It always has. Children aren’t buying all those Hello Kitty toasters—no matter how much kids might enjoy Hello Kitty’s face on their breakfasts. Not to mention Hello Kitty coffee makers, cyclonic vacuum cleaners and shoulder massagers***.  Sanrio is clever in creating a character who combines the cuteness with the repressed rage of adult women. Aggretsuko is the kind of show that cannier writers than me will write clever headlines for–”Not your Mother’s Hello Kitty!” (For my part, I feel awful writing that even as a joke).

Retsuko is far more Johannes Krauser II than Sanrio’s badly behaved Bad Badtz Maru. In Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City ,* mild-mannered Soichi Negichi would really prefer to wear trendy mushroom hair cuts and sing songs inspired by perky and sincere Swedish pop songs, but his talent lies in singing death metal as Johannes Krauser II. Like Retsuko, Krauser has a character on his forehead as a part of his corpse paint. His says, “Kill.”

“Kill”

Retsuko is more ambivalent about her nice side than Soichi is, but she doesn’t want to be abused for it. And where Soichi is upset by and detached from his talent, Retsuko is anything but detached from her own brutal singing. When she sings, Retsuko reveals her feelings and revels in her dark depths. Her corpse paint is her real face. Well, that might be going a bit far. It’s just that Retsuko’s death metal singing face is real, too.

*I have no idea if red pandas are the nicest among us, but maybe?

**Whichever way you use “massagers.”

***Go to DMC!

~~~

Carol Borden thinks Retsuko would defeat Johannes Krauser II in a karaoke duel.

Aggretsuko: Death Metal is the Only Solution Death metal is often the only solution, even for the cutest and nicest among us. Perhaps, especially for the cutest and nicest among us, like say red pandas--my go-to for the cutest among us*. 

[twistednuns]

January 2021

Creating art is about growing the world and increasing its reach, and it has more to do with the act of creation itself than what is actually made. Anything that animates us creatively in a positive way — be it the grand design of a great architectural wonder or the Big Bang of a child’s drawing — is a re-enactment of the original creation story. Whether we realise it or not, making art is a religious encounter as it is our attempts to grow beyond ourselves that energise the soul of the universe. (Nick Cave on shitty art)

Seeing the old library guy having dinner table with his wife. They even lit a candle. How celebratory.                                                                       

Writing a birthday message for Frank about my new beginnings and first days of the year.

Making my nails look as if I had dipped my fingertips into a jar of silver glitter.

How black and glossy blueberries suddenly become after being coated in my warm coconut porridge.

Shinto does not strictly divide the world between material and spiritual, nor between this world and an alternative perfect realm, but instead emphasises that intuitive spirituality facilitates the fusion and equilibrium of all realm. - Why Haruki Murakami is so very Japanese

Sporting a hickey on my neck like a basic 16-year-old.

Going new paths (on my daily walk).

Feeling really grateful for the habits I established last year. A daily walk, taking helpful supplements, flossing, hair and face masks before every shower. Cold showers! A reasonable bedtime. I'm incredibly excited about forming new habits this year! The first ones to tackle are meditation, strength training and a daily creativity practice.

Suddenly imagining the taste of strawberry sauce. Anticipating the first spaghetti ice-cream of the year.

Loving kindness meditation (!) and smiling meditation. Spotify's Wake Up/Wind Down podcast is really quite good, too.

Cracking the impossibly hard to reach spot in my back by twisting and stretching my right leg (who knew).

The first tulips of the year on my nightstand. I chose a dark yellow, almost ochre.

Sparkling water with passion fruit juice. All I could think of during the last minutes of a long and cold walk. Getting undressed. Stretching. Meditation.

Vivid dreams of diving. How I miss being underwater. At least I got to do it in the nightly virtual reality show, eh?

Walking in a winter wonderland. I hate snow but I do admit it's quite pretty when the whole forest is covered in white.

A friendly nod from the delivery guy with the amazing curls.

Running into the neighbourhood's wild cat. Giving him a good scratch.

My new salt crystal lamp. I love its warm light.

The random house on a street nearby with the word nest next to its doorbell. Is that really the family's name? Or just what they call their house? (I would totally get that as nest is one of my favourite words)

Kalimba covers. With cat. Wholesome.

Sinking my face into a pair of warm tracksuit pants which had been drying on the heater. The warmth and the fresh laundry smell were so nice.

Plucking icicles.

The fact that the sidewalks aren't quite as icy and slippery anymore (I hate having no proper grip when I'm walking).

A gorgeous animal atlas with really pretty drawings in one of the boxes with free stuff people often put out these days.

Sarah Wilson. I could hardly put her new book down and immediately started reading her book about anxiety when I was finished. In a way I feel really connected to her. What an inspiring woman! Another thing I love is how she structures her books. She merely numbers her paragraphs, some only a few lines long, some a few pages.

The taste of strawberries. It's hard to describe but somehow it lights up my brain? Can I say that?

Osteopathy. I don't know what she does or how she does it but Laura has magic hands. My body feels completely healed after a session with her.

Simply walking everywhere. I get my steps in and don't have to deal with annoying public transport or my shitty bike.

Peeking out of my shell: looking at people I came across on an early walk and saying good morning.

Little yellowhammer birds on my balcony. I've never seen them before around here. And the tiniest bird on one of my walks through the forest. Perhaps a wren?

Dreaming of India. Visiting a local family, inquiring about a "somatic reading" (whatever that is) but deciding that it was too expensive and watching them prepare food instead. Talking to the grandmother. Riding to their restaurant on the market in a little wagon together.

Lying in bed after taking a shower, bathing in sunlight.

Dorky donkey confetti paper tissues.

A very soothing video of a cat purring loudly got me through a lousy Thursday. I kept coming back to it every couple of hours and it actually helped.

I'm currently watching Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix. It was a bit hard to get into it at first because it's SO different from the series with Melissa Joan Hart I used to watch as a teenager but ever since that cheerleading scene where Sabrina and Ros perform to RUN DMC's It's Tricky I'm absolutely sold.

The other day there was a lady just standing at the edge of a field, watching her dog run around in the snow, enjoying the sunset. A very peaceful image.

More tulips: red ones this time, a smaller variety. I loved watching them blossom.

Collecting ideas and yellow objects for a yellow-themed letter.

These baby blue and pink sunrises I have been seeing lately.

A new magic trick: summoning dogs by simply holding their gaze for a while.

I hate snow. I really do. But I love how bright the light suddenly is. I smile apologetically at people shovelling snow when I walk by. The other day I stood under a branch when a couple shook the tree and let the snow fall down. I would have been mad if it hadn't been for my umbrella.

When the first and last bits of light colour the tree tops in a warm, gold and orange colour during sunrise and sunset.

The smell of my armpits (have we all stopped using deodorant during lockdown and are suddenly able to smell our armpits or is it just me) made me remember kids carnival parties at our local sports club. We wore cheap costumes made from synthetic fabric and were all super sweaty from running around all day as princesses, vampires and cowboys on a sugar high.

Learning the reason why snow melts faster under trees.

Listening to the New York Times' The Daily podcast. More speficially the Sunday Read (which mostly seems to feature the topics I'm really interested in). There was the wonderfully whimsical episode about the Cloud Appreciation Society. I'd never realised that Joni Mitchell's song Both Sides Now is about seeing shapes in clouds ("pareidolia"): Rows and flows of angel hair / And ice cream castles in the air / And feather canyons every where / Looked at clouds that way. Then there was this other episode about Moonstruck, a movie starring Cher and Nicholas Cage. At the end they keep playing the film music for a while before the episode slowly fades out. I was walking down a snowy alley and felt like the heroine in a late 90's movie (which I could also describe as end-of-century now, how peculiar).

Pelvic floor training. I have more strength, I'm taller and it somehow keeps straightening my back? I'm really impressed of how effective it is and am planning on learning more about the Cantienica method.

I know I'm late to the game but last night I watched the whole first season of Emily in Paris in one go. I needed something to cheer my up and, oh my, did Emily deliver. Well, not really her, but Paris. Everything about the serious can only be described as delicious. The food, the man candy, the fashion, colours and backdrop. While watching I kept thinking about outfit planning, exotic cuisine, roadtrips, kissing strangers, enjoying the good life. Oh how much I miss it. I feel awfully trapped in my apartment these days. One last thing I need to highlight: Sylvie, played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who is the real star of this series for me. She is just SO chic.

More light! I actually stand a chance to get home before sunset now when I head out late-ish for one of my daily walks.

A good talk with Lena. Home-made ramen. Watching en episode of Planet Earth and Blue Planet each.

Sourdough pizza with goat cheese, honey and fresh truffle.

[pankopop]

Berry in the Scheme of Things

As the giants of 20th century pop music are ending their graces with out mortal coil, backwards schemas of musical evolution are showing themselves in the way we remember them.

Let me first of all get this across – I’m not here to be cynical about anyone’s mourning.

Any kind of mourning is valid, and mourning in online spaces makes absolutely no difference to how unique, deep, shared or private your grief might be. Mike Rugnetta of PBS Idea Channel sums it up really beautifully and kinda furiously in this video.

Yet still, I have an uneasiness that I’d like to articulate, if you have the patience for me. Most of all, I feel that there’s a teaching moment here.

As of this writing, Chuck Berry died yesterday. Chuck Berry has so often been synonymous with titles like “the grandfather of rock and roll”, along with numerous artists who have been culturally associated with “inventing” new musics that influence our current day to day.

In one way, this is trying to celebrate someone’s importance and influence. It’s a manner of finding that bridge into the past that connects us to a mythological figure.

But in another way, there’s something that this obfuscates about the musicians as people. So much of their humanity and personhood becomes abstract next to their works. Especially if their songs are “foundational” works.

This is where things start to feel wrong to me.

The standard, canonical history of pop music sucks. It reads like a shitty fable. Let’s review:

***

THE EVOLUTION OF POPULAR MUSIC

(AS I HAVE OFTEN HEARD IT)

Part One: From Blues to the Beatles

First there were blues musicians. Just swathes of them. They apparently came from Africa and were given guitars and then blues music happened.

Elvis snuck into a house and stole the blues while it was cooling on a window sill, and thrust his hips on TV. Priests were mad because they liked country. He did a Jailhouse Rock. Chuck Berry was there, but he was black, so technically he was playing blues first but then played it faster and did Johnny B Goode. (Source: Grease, Back to the Future)

Then The Beatles came and they were English and much better. Lots of girls screamed. There was a shitty ripoff called the Rolling Stones but the Beatles were really the best for some reason. They did acid and made went to India.

After that, hippies happened in San Francisco and they did drugs and protested the Vietnam war. Woodstock was a hippy party and Bob Dylan played folk music and who is Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix was there to reassure us black people still exist. The Beatles also split up so music wasn’t good anymore.

Part Two: Everything Sucks Now

Don’t know where it came from, but seventies had disco (Source: Saturday Night Fever).

After that, maybe prog rock like Rush and also ACDC is in there somewhere? Then the Ramones didn’t know how to play instruments good like Rush so a bunch of angry poor people with ripped clothes who weren’t smart enough to play music showed up and were too loud and that was punk.

After that, some punk got faster and louder and heavy metal happened and went goth and priests were mad again. Oh! Remember black people? They made Rap music, it was like poetry but to record scratches. RUN DMC did a music video with Aerosmith and ended racism. Rap started off good but now it’s all about gangstas and hoes and bling.

Then… Techno? Did we forget to talk about Eighties music? Anyway Nirvana died and pop music is a bad culmination of all these things and the only thing we listen to is BOY BANDS and JUSTIN BEAVER and SPICED GIRLS, which is evidence of why mainstream music sucks now. Except like Adele and people who listen to the music I listen to. They’re my fav.

The End.

***

Okay, so I might not have portrayed it in the most intellectual of lights. Nonetheless, doesn’t something seem off? 

This history includes almost no women at all, and largely erases non-white experiences, and involves only the English-speaking Western world. Obviously we have a problem with representation, but most of all the biggest issue I have with it is this linear path of history. In many ways this linearity is down to people’s understanding of pop music history being down to shareable quotes and cinematic story arcs that curiously feature John Travolta.

We really need to let this story die and unfuck ourselves here. In it’s linearity, it paints people of colour as a precursor to a white legacy. The Beatles are celebrated because they are the consequence of white people improving black culture, and women as entirely absent creatively. When The Beatles aren’t in the scene any more, they’re often credited with inventing everything that came after (punk and metal in Helter Skelter, rap in Get Together), or those musical genres aren’t given any context whatsoever. Worse still, degradation narratives are a constant, specifically robbing rap and hip hop from legitimacy. We celebrate black culture for being part of the process that made The Beatles, but we spit on their works when we don’t think it helps white assimilation.

When we talk about foundational artists in this scope, we are really just lumping their work into another artist’s success. Generally, if we don’t have context for them beyond the “from-blues-to-Beatles” half of the story, they appear to be anomalies or cheap imitations. No past, and no impact. They just did a good song and I saw them on Robot Chicken that one time.

The canon fable of pop music crams everything on a chronological path from the 40’s to the present.

But like, people don’t work like that. Music doesn’t work like that. It’s not like people sat down with a guitar and asked themselves “What’s the next step”. There are communities – not just singular innovators. There are political, geographical climates and identity for fuck’s sake. All of these disparate parts are replaced with a void that paints everyone who’s not a stepping stone for the Beatles

The “evolution of music” concerningly aligns with the folk misunderstanding of the way actual evolution works – as a singular path from worse to better. Like an Animorphs book cover going from monkey to human. From primitive to complex. From black to white.

So when Chuck Berry dies, people talk about how rock and roll wouldn’t be the same without him. How pop music wouldn’t be the same without him. That’s a weird thing to say. Obviously he had influence, everyone who got a song on the radio has some influence. But is he just a brick in the foundation? Is he a simply hoisting a corner of the throne that the Beatles sit on?

This is what feels weird about people being remembered as foundational. What about them was actually special? How do they exist outside of the “evolution” as humans and individuals?

There’s value to Berry’s story that we can talk about today, throughlines that go beyond “I like Springsteen and he liked Berry so I guess he’s pretty important”. What might be  really learn from Berry’s successes? His history and influences? How have things changed and how have they stayed the same? Are there intersectional artists we’re neglecting now that would have been his contemporaries in the fifties? How does his influence go beyond Jack Black’s power hour?

Honestly, for as long as I remember, Chuck Berry was having publicized medical troubles on stage. A guitar teacher of mine noted that he was known for demanding a specific set up of amps and gear before he went on stage. He’d never rehearse with the local backing band beforehand (because they goddamn should know his shit through and through). And yeah, he demanded cash up front.

Apparently he was a bit of a bastard as well – I mean, having to cut your teeth in an America that hated you, they fought for their pay and their recognition. But his sound is warm and punchy, with a Memphis shuffle chug providing background to his cheeky accounts of distinctly young, othered experiences. He was living proof that you can claw your way through a shit world doing your craft how you please. Unfortunately, his story is kind of common. There were far too many artists in a racist, sexist, Jim Crow America who ended up truly emotionally damaged in their fight.

I think most importantly right now is we can glean insight into the sacrifices made to make the art you want in a political climate that hates your body. Because there’s a lot of people right now who likely hate your body, and hate your art because of it. How do we learn from the past struggles to survive in this one?

Recently during an interview, Ed Sheeran talked about African/Caribbean music as being the foundation for music “forever”. It was bollocks, it was racist, it was portraying Africa as a monolith historically and geographically. But he we was just spouting the folktale. Black music influenced white people to make black music (but better).

Even if he was a bit of a bastard, we at least afford Chuck Berry real personhood in our little twitter obituaries. God knows he fought tooth and nail for it.

(image sources, are from metalsucks.com, beatlescollege wordpress and the New York Times respectively)

[mysteroads]

Same! I was enjoying the alternate universe, thought it could be interesting... until the last five minutes. (-_- )ﾉ⌒┫ ┻ ┣

im sorry this made me laugh so fucking hard i had to share it here too