#but i did four interviews in feb

[icaruspendragon]

Hey, I am writing a research paper on fanfiction for a Sexuality and Social Media class at my university. Can I use some of the things you have said about fanfiction, citing you of course, in this paper? I almost definitely won't get published but I'll get a grade and I like fanfiction and gay people so I get to choose this topic. (I want it to be on the points of contact between fanfiction and the queer community/their relationship.) I can absolutely send it to you when I'm done with it too if you want to see it.

absolutely!!

i’ve done two interviews for college papers this week and it’s honestly one of my FAVORITE things to do! so you’re welcome to use whatever words i’ve said previously. but i also have a lot of thoughts that i haven’t shared by nature of having SO MANY of them if you’d wanna chat one on one via zoom or whatnot!!

and that goes for all of you proving fandom and fanfics validity and importance in an academic setting. :’)

[tavolgisvist]

Paul and Ringo's conflict in 1969/70

SG: Then, what happened? You finally got to meet with John and Yoko, and there was an all-night session at the Dorchester hotel. And something happened in that all-night session at the Dorchester that totally won their allegiance to you. AK: John said, listen, the Beatles are represented by the Eastmans, will you represent me and Yoko? SG: The Beatles’ legal affairs were represented by the Eastmans? AK: You see, you have to read that piece of paper. SG: The piece of paper the Eastmans had with the boys? AK: Oh yes. All signed. SG: All of them signed it? AK: Yes. And Apple. It never used the word management, but it didn’t have to. If you represent all the negotiations throughout the world of Apple and the Beatles, you have it. The import of that particular piece of document was that everything would have to flow through them.

(Allen Klein, 1980, interview with Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, All You Need Is Love, 2024)

John comes into the office and says, ‘Don’t care about the others, don’t give a shit … but I’m having Klein, he can have all of my stuff and get it sorted out.’

(Derek Taylor, As Time Goes By, 1973)

AK: …We were just trying to get to know one another… Lennon and Yoko, I would rather not say what won them over for me. I would think that a principal thing was the fact that they really wanted someone for themselves. Apart from the Beatles. That’s really what it was. John is a very practical human being and the conflict was there, and it was his band and he was losing control, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to be protected. It was as simple as that. That first evening that I met with John, he said, “Do you want to represent us?” I said yeah.

(Allen Klein, 1980, interview with Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, All You Need Is Love, 2024)

When the four of us entered into our partnership agreement in 1967, we did not consider the exact wording or give any thought to the agreement's legal implications. We had thought that if one of us wanted to leave the group he would only have to say so. On the way in which the four of us had sorted out our differences in the past, I deny that it had been on a three-to-one basis. If one disagreed, we discussed the problem until we reached agreement or let the matter drop. I know of no decision taken on a three-to-one basis. I deny that the Eastmans and I obstructed Mr. Allen Klein in the preparation of accounts. Nor had the Eastmans been contenders for the job of manager for the group. I wanted them as managers but when the rest of the group disagreed, had not pressed the matter. Mr. Lennon had challenged my statement that Mr. Klein had sowed discord within the group, but I recall a telephone conversation in which Mr. Klein had told me, "You know why John is angry with you? It is because you came off better than he did on Let It Be.' Mr. Klein also said to me, 'The real trouble is Yoko. She is the one with ambition.' I often wonder what John would have said if he heard the remark.

(From Paul McCartney’s affidavit, Feb 26 1971, The Beatles Diary. Volume 2. After The Break Up. 1970-2001. Keith Badman)

I was very upset when they said I was just trying to bring in Lee Eastman, because he’s my in-law. As if I’d just bring in a member of the family, for no reason. They’d known me twenty years, yet they thought that. I couldn’t believe it. John said, ‘Magical Mystery Tour was just a big ego trip for Paul.’ God. It was for their sake, to keep us together, keep us going, give us something new to do…

(Paul McCartney, Private Call with Hunter Davies, May 1981)

Klein keeps saying that I don’t like him because I want Eastman to manage the Beatles,’ he said. ‘Well, this is how it really happened. I thought, and still think, that Linda’s father would have been good for us all. And I decided I wanted him. But all the others wanted Klein. Well, all right, they can have Klein, but I don’t see that I have to agree with them. ‘I don’t think I need a manager in the old sense that Brian Epstein was our manager. All I want are paid advisers, who will do what I want them to do. And that’s what I’ve got. If the others want Klein, well, that’s up to them, but I’ve never signed a contract with him. He doesn’t represent me. I’m sure Eastman is better for me.

(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)

In fact, there was one classic little meeting when we were recording Abbey Road. It was a Friday evening session, and I was sitting there, and I’d heard a rumor from Neil or someone that there was something funny going around. So we got to the session, and Klein came in. To me, he was like a sort of demon that would always haunt my dreams. He got to me. Really, it was like I’d been dreaming of him as a dentist. He came round to the session, and he said, “I gotta have this thing signed, I gotta get you guys on a contract,” and then so I said, “Wait a minute, c’mon, it’s Friday night, what’s the hurry? Give us the thing over the weekend, and we’ll let ya know Monday?” Fair enough? And everyone said, “Uh-huh, there he goes.” ... John said, “Oh, fucking hell, here you go, stalling again.” I said, “I’m not stalling, I want it checked out. It’s a big movement, going with a new manager, you know, and maybe we don’t want to go with this guy. What’s the hurry? Why can’t he wait?”

(Paul McCartney, 1980 - All You Need Is Love: The End of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, 2024)

‘Security is the only thing I want. Money to do nothing with, money to have in case you wanted to do something.’

(Paul McCartney (1964) in Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress by Michael Braun, 1964/1995)

They said, “Oh no, typical of you, all that stalling and what. Got to do it now.” I said, “Well, I’m not going to. I demand at least the weekend. I’ll look at it, and on Monday. This is supposed to be a recording session, after all.” I dug me heels in, and they said, right, well, we’re going to vote it. I said, “No, you’ll never get Ringo to.” I looked at Ringo, and he kind of gave me this sick look like, Yeah, I’m going with them.Then I said, “Well, this is like bloody Julius Caesar, and I’m being stabbed in the back!” It’s the first time you realize in our whole relationship that whenever we voted, we never actually had come to that point before—three were going to vote one down. That was the first time, and they all signed it, they didn’t need my signature.

(Paul McCartney, 1980 - All You Need Is Love: The End of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, 2024)

Steve Miller happened to be there recording, late at night, and he just breezed in. ‘Hey, what’s happening, man? Can I use the studio?’ ‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Can I drum for you? I just had a fucking unholy argument with the guys there.’ I explained it to him, took ten minutes to get it off my chest. So I did a track, he and I stayed that night and did a track of his called My Dark Hour. I thrashed everything out on the drums. There’s a surfeit of aggressive drum fills, that’s all I can say about that. We stayed up until late. I played bass, guitar and drums and sang backing vocals. It’s actually a pretty good track. It was a very strange time in my life and I swear I got my first grey hairs that month. I saw them appearing. I looked in the mirror, I thought, I can see you. You’re all coming now. Welcome.

(Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 1997)

The nature of The Beatles’ management deal with Allen Klein remains a source of annoyance to McCartney: “I kept saying, ‘Don’t give Allen Klein 20 per cent, give him 15, we’re a big act!’ And everyone’s going, ‘No, no, he wants 20 per cent’. I say, ‘Of course he does, he wants 30, really, but give him 15. It’s like buying a car. You don’t give the guy what he asks for.’ But it was impossible in the end, because it became three to one and I was like the idiot in the corner – trying, I thought, to save the situation.” “And to Klein it looked like I was trying to screw the situation. He used to call me the Reluctant Virgin. I said ‘Fuck off, I don’t want to fucking marry you, that’s all.’ He’s going, ‘Oh, you know, he may, maybe he will, will he, won’t he, that’s a definite maybe.’

(Paul McCartney, Dec 2003, interview with Paul Du Noyer for The Word)

Q: He was once quoted in New York magazine as saying he was going to roast your ass. А: Yeah, well, he never did, you know, and that’s cool. He wouldn’t get near my ass to roast it, anyway. Punk.

(Paul McCartney, Jan 1974, interview with Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone)

[Allen] Klein came to London with the sole objective of closing the deal, and having had an unsuccessful meeting with Paul in the morning, he left for Heathrow to return home to New York. Paul and I were working together in Olympic that afternoon, and there was a noticeable sense of relief when he heard that Klein had left for the airport. However, Klein had second thoughts about leaving and decided to have one more attempt at changing Paul’s mind face-to-face. Unannounced, Klein walked into the studio, and very quickly it became apparent that as voices were raised a private conversation was taking place. I turned off all the mics in the room and left them to it. The control room of a studio is isolated from the recording room where the musicians play, but even all that acoustic treatment was not enough to prevent me hearing Paul McCartney defend himself against Allen Klein’s attempt at bullying him into submission. It was extremely unpleasant to witness.

(Glyn Johns, Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…, 2014)

I never much liked authority. I didn't like school teachers or critics telling me what I could do. Or myself telling me. I'm alive - do it!

(Paul McCartney, March 2001, interview with Nicci Gerrard for the Observer)

And the thing is, of course, you know that when you’ve got a daddy, it is nice. If you’re a little bit sort of worried as to what to do next, and your daddy says, [claps hands] “What are you worried about? Hey John, what do you want, son? You want a house? [claps hands] You got it.”

(Paul McCartney, November 11th, 1971, interview with Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker)

They talk Klein’s script. John Lennon once said to Allen Klein, “So what do I do now, Allen?” You know, I mean, these are all – I’d say there are certain little things, you know, and… brought together in one big thing, it does look a bit sort of heavily that way. It’s not [inaudible]. But it’s all true, you know. It’s not… John did say that. And it indicates something that he’s just turned to Allen and said, “Well, what do I do now?” And that’s the kind of role that Klein is playing for them all now.

(Paul McCartney, November 11th, 1971, interview with Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker)

The build-up is the thing — All these things continuously happening making me feel like I’m a junior with the record company, like Klein is the boss and I’m nothing. Well, I’m a senior. I figure my opinion is as good as anyone’s, especially when it’s my thing. And it’s emotional. You feel like you don’t have any freedom. I figured I’d have to stand up for myself eventually or get pushed under.

(Paul McCartney, 1970, interview with Richard Merryman for Life Magazine, published in April 16 1971)

When the Bea­tles were falling apart in 1969, he suffered from depression – staying in bed, forgoing shav­ing, drinking too much, taking consolation in little beyond his marriage to Linda Eastman.

(Paul McCartney, Nov 2013, interview with Jonah Weiner for Rolling Stones)

PAUL: As far as I was concerned, yeah, I would have liked the Beatles never to have broken up. I wanted to get us back on the road doing small places, then move up to our previous form and then go and play. Just make music, and whatever else there was would be secondary. But it was John who didn’t want to. He had told Allen Klein the new manager he and Yoko had picked late one night that he didn’t want to continue. … PAUL: And he said, “I wasn’t going to tell you until after I signed the Capitol thing, but I’m leaving the group.” And that was really it. The cat amongst the pigeons. … PAUL: We weren’t going to say anything about it for months, for business reasons. But the really hurtful thing to me was that John was really not going to tell us. I think he was heavily under the influence of Allen Klein. And Klein, so I heard, had said to John – the first time anyone had said it – “What does Yoko want?” So since Yoko liked Klein because he was for giving Yoko anything she wanted, he was the man for John. That’s my theory on how it happened.

(Paul and Linda McCartney, interview for Playboy, December 1984)

For the first time in my life, I was on the scrap heap, in my own eyes. An unemployed worker might have said, “Hey, you still have the money. That’s not as bad as we have it.” But to me, it didn’t have anything to do with money. It was just the feeling, the terrible disappointment of not being of any use to anyone anymore. It was a barreling, empty feeling that just rolled across my soul, and it was… I’d never experienced it before. Drugs had shown me little bits here and there – they had rolled across the carpet once or twice, but I had been able to get them out of my mind. In this case, the end of the Beatles, I really was done in for the first time in my life. Until then, I really was a kind of cocky sod. It was the first time I’d had a major blow to my confidence. When my mother died, I don’t think my confidence suffered. It had been a terrible blow, but I didn’t feel it was my fault.

(Paul and Linda McCartney, interview for Playboy, December 1984)

“At a certain point I asked myself, ‘Are you going to sit around doing nothing, or are you going to make some music again?’ So I’d be at home sitting around, doing some­thing on guitar, and Linda would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do that!’ Then I’d be drumming – ‘I didn’t know you could do that!’ So I got back into it just to impress Linda, really. I wanted to prove my usefulness again.”

(Paul McCartney, Nov 2013, interview with Jonah Weiner for Rolling Stones)

"The thing about Paul," George says, "is that apart from the personal problem of it all, he's having a wonderful time. He's going riding and he's got horses and he's got a farm in Scotland and he's happier with his family. And I can dig that."

(George Harrison, 1970, interview with Al Aronowitz)

Paul was already thinking about recording again. Never happy unless he was making music andwiththe Beatles not functioning, probably extinct, Paul began recording tracks for a solo album… Paul had been given a release date by Neil Aspinall [April 10, 1970 at first and April 17 later when Paul agreed to one week delay for help sales of Ringo Starr’s album “Sentimental Journey“, scheduled to be released on March 27] and he built the project around meeting the various deadlines that entailed: handing in a final mix tape, designing and proofing the cover art, approving test pressings and so on. Working with the artist Gordon House and the designer Roger Huggett, whom he still uses, Paul and Linda put the entire thing together at home. Paul: "I was feeling quite comfortable, the more I went on like this. I could actually do something again. Then I rang up Apple one day and said, "Still okay for the release date?" and they said, "No, we're changing it. You got put back now. We're going to release Let It Be first.""

(Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles)

GEORGE: "But it's more of a personal thing, you know. That's down to the management situation, you know, with Apple. Because Paul, really - It was his idea to do Apple, and once it started going Paul was very active in there. And then it got really chaotic and we had to do something about it. When we started doing something about it, obviously Paul didn't have as much say in the matter, and then he decided… you know, because he wanted Lee Eastman his in-laws to run it and we didn't. Then that's the only reason, you know. That's the whole basis. But that's only a personal problem that he'll have to get over because that's… The reality is that he's out-voted and we're a partnership. We've got these companies which we all own 25 percent of each, and if there's a decision to be made then, like in any other business or group you have a vote, you know. And he was out-voted 3 to 1 and if he doesn't like it, it's really a pity…"

(George Harrison, May 1th 1970, interview with Howard Smith at WABC-FM radio in New York City)

Paul: They eventually sent Ringo round to my house at Cavendish with a message: "We want you to put your release date back, it's for the good of the group" and all of this sort of shit, and he was giving me the party line, they just made him come round, so I did something I'd never done before, or since: I told him to get out. I had to do something like that in order to assert myself because I was just sinking. Linda was very helpful, she was saying, "Look, you don't have to take this crap, you're a grown man, you have every bit as much right …" I was getting pummelled about the head, in my mind anyway.

(Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles)

Dear Paul, we thought a lot about yours and the Beatles LPs – and decided it’s stupid for Apple to put out two big albums within 7 days of each other (also there’s Ringo’s and Hey Jude) – so we sent a letter to EMI telling them to hold your release date til June 4th (there’s a big Apple-Capitol convention in Hawaii then). We thought you’d come round when you realized that the Beatles album was coming out on April 24th. We’re sorry it turned out like this – it’s nothing personal. Love John & George. Hare Krishna. A Mantra a Day Keeps MAYA Away.

(The letter from John and George to Paul, March 31th, 1970)

As a director of Apple, he had had to sign a letter that he wrote with John ordering Paul not to release his McCartney album on a day that would conflict with the release of the next Beatles record, Let It Be. When the letter was finished, Ringo had volunteered to deliver it because he didn't want Paul to suffer the indignity of having it handed to him by some impersonal messenger. At Paul's house, he gave the letter to Paul and said, "I agree with it."

(George Harrison, 1970, interview with Al Aronowitz)

“I went to see Paul. To my dismay, he went completely out of control, shouting at me, prodding his fingers towards my face, saying: 'I’ll finish you now’ and 'You’ll pay.’ He told me to put my coat on and get out. I did so.”

(Ringo, during 1971 Beatles court proceedings)

Ringo Starr said in his statement: “Paul is the greatest bass guitarist in the world.” But he added that he thought Paul had behaved like a spoiled child.

(Daily Mirror, February 24, 1971 - about the third day of the Court Case for the dissolution of The Beatles’ contractual partnership)

Then he had to stand there while both Paul and his wife, Linda, screamed at him. When Ringo returned from delivering the letter, he was so drained his face was white.

(George Harrison, 1970, interview with Al Aronowitz)

[John Lennon and George Harrison] didn’t send me round. They, as directors of the company, wrote a letter to him, and I didn’t think it was fair that some office lad should take something like that around. I was talking to the office, and they were telling me what was going on, and I said, ‘Send it up, I’ll take it round’. I couldn’t fear him then. But he got angry, because we were asking him to hold his album back and the album was very important to him. He shouted and pointed at me. He told me to get out of his house. He was crazy; he went crazy. He was out of control, prodding his finger towards my face. He told me to put my coat on and get out. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I had just brought the letter. I said, ‘I agree with everything that’s in the letter’, because we tried to work it like a company, not as individuals. I put my album [Sentimental Journey] out two weeks before [released 27 March 1970, in compliance with the original schedule], which makes me seem like such a good guy, but it wasn’t really, because I needed to put it out before Paul’s album, else it would have slayed me!

(Ringo Starr, 1971, from “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman)

‘Strictly speaking we all have to ask each other’s permission before any of us does anything without the other three. My own record nearly didn’t come out because Klein and some of the others thought it would be too near to the date of the next Beatles album. I had to get George, who’s a director of Apple, to authorise its release for me. ‘Give us our freedom which we so richly deserve.

(Paul McCartney, April 21-22, 1970, Interview for the Evening Standard)

On the radio, they're playing Paul's album now. George may be the youngest of the Beatles but his attitude toward Paul is the same as a big brother trying to wait out a kid's tantrum because the kid can't get the candy he wants. He talks about the last time Paul spoke to him on the phone. "He came on like Attila the Hun," George says. "I had to hold the receiver away from my ear." It was as if the whole world was waiting for Paul's album and George was standing in its way. "I don't want to say anything bad about Paul," George laughs, "but I can be egged on."

(George Harrison, 1970, interview with Al Aronowitz)

From my point of view, I was getting done in. All the decisions were now three against one. And that’s not the easiest position if you’re the one: anything I wanted to do they could just say, ‘No.’ And it was just to be awkward, I thought. … I got so fed up with all this I said, ‘OK, I want to get off the label.’ Apple Records was a lovely dream, but I thought, ‘Now this is really trashy and I want to get off.’ I remember George on the phone saying to me, ‘You’ll stay on this fucking label! Hare Krishna!’ and he hung up – and I went, ‘Oh, dear me. This is really getting hairy.’

(Paul McCartney, The Beatles Anthology, 2000)

PAUL: I didn't want to do a press conference to launch the album because whenever I'd meet a journalist, they always floored me with one question: they'd say, "Are you happy?"' and it almost made me cry. I just could not say, "Yes. I'm happy," and lie through my teeth, so I stopped doing interviews. Peter Brown, who was at Apple at that time, said, "What are you going to do about publicity?"' I said, "I don't really want to do any." He said, "It's a new album. You'll kill it. Nobody'll even know it's out at all. You should do something." I said "Well, how do you suggest we do it?"' He said, "Maybe a questionnaire?"' I said, "Okay, look, you write some questions that you think the press wants to know. Send 'em over to me and I'll fill it out but I can't face a press conference." So the questionnaire came, and Peter Brown realised that the big question was the Beatles so he put in a couple of loaded questions and rather that just say, "I don't want to answer these," I thought, Fuck it. If that's what he wants to know, I'll tell him. I felt I'd never be able to start a new life until I'd told people.

(Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles)

It is 1970. Paul still doesn’t like Klein but John digs him more than ever and George digs him more than that and Ringo doesn’t mind him. Paul? He is so uptight about Klein he only leaves the Beatles, that’s all. Klein and me meet the press and TV and all that; together we sit on a sofa and talk about Paul. Mr Klein, why doesn’t Paul like you? Mr Taylor, why doesn’t Paul like Mr Klein? I don’t know, don’t ask me, man, don’t ask me. Paul releases his album and Klein releases the Beatles’ album and they both make a million and Klein has had Phil Spector remix Paul’s song ‘The Long and Winding Road’, adding a women’s choir and some violins etc. Paul thinks this is the shittiest thing anyone has ever done to him and that is saying something, but Klein laughs up his silk sleeve and releases ‘Long and Winding Road’ as a single anyway and still with Phil’s new arrangement. Up there in Scotland, Paul McCartney, one of the four owners of Apple, the company formed to give total freedom, artistic control, to struggling performers and writers, wonders what went wrong, when even he can’t control his own work.

(Derek Taylor, As Time Goes By, 1973)

Q: "The album was not known about until it was nearly completed. Was this deliberate?" A: "Yes, because normally an album is old before it even comes out. (A side) Witness 'Get Back.'" … Q: "Is it true that neither Allen Klein nor ABKCO have been nor will be in any way involved with the production, manufacturing, distribution or promotion of this new album?" A: "Not if I can help it." Q: "Did you miss the other Beatles and George Martin? Was there a moment when you thought, 'I wish Ringo were here for this break?'" A: "No."

(Paul McCartney, April 9th 1970, press release 'McCartney')

Derek Taylor, the Beatles' press officer, is with us, talking about how unexpected Paul's attack had been. "He was only supposed to write out information explaining how he made the album,? Derek says. "Instead, he hands us this interview in which he asks himself questions, such as would he miss Ringo? It was entirely gratuitous. Nobody asked him that question. He asked that question of himself."

(George Harrison, 1970, interview with Al Aronowitz)

We’re beginning now to only call each other when we have bad news. The other day Ringo came around to see me with a letter from the others, and I called him everything under the sun. But it’s all business. I don’t want to fall out with Ringo. I like Ringo. I think he’s great. We’re all talking about peace and love, but really we’re not feeling peaceful at all. ‘There’s no one who’s to blame. We were fools to get ourselves into this situation in the first place. But it’s not a comfortable situation for me to work in as an artist.’

(Paul McCartney, April 21-22, 1970, Interview for the Evening Standard)

We all started on a bus and small clubs and things like that, but Paul is that type of person. Paul wanted to do it all over again, and he did. And he went through hell. He went through hell. I mean, now he’s not talking to me and that’s too bad, but he started again from the bottom to do the Paul McCartney show. I don’t wanna do it anymore. I did it once.

(Ringo Sarr, 1980, interview with Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, All You Need Is Love, 2024)

[matan4il]

Do you think Mile remembers Apo from those earlier events?

Hi, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask. Buckle up, I have some thoughts and plenty of info (and pics).

When it was discovered Mileapo were both present at the 24 Jul 2013 event, I mentioned that Mile said there might have been more than one runway gig they did together, because in the Journey interview, he mentioned remembering Apo as walking ahead of him, not behind (*cough* Gee, I wonder what Mile was staring at that he still remembered looking at Apo from behind when doing this interview 8 years later). In the 10 Aug 2013 runway event, the clearer pic of Apo and the vid show him behind Mile, not ahead of him:

We never see Apo in front of Mile in either the 21 Feb 2013 event or the Jul 24 event vids.

But there's another pic showing Apo (in the checkered shirt to Mile's left in the pic below) behind Mile WHILE walking in the opposite direction. Which implies shortly before the pic was taken, Apo was walking ahead of Mile, got to the end of the runway, and turned around. So the pic itself still shows him behind Mile despite Apo having walked in front of him.

(this is based on the assumption Apo is indeed the guy in the checkered shirt. It seems to be him, but it's hard to 100% confirm)

Assuming that that's Apo, the event where Mile remembered Apo walking in front of him might have been the same one uncovered by the fans (10 Aug 2013). BUT it could be that that's not Apo, or that Mile does remember a separate event. If you ever have the chance to ask Mile a question, please let it be about this!

Either way, up until the 24 Jul 2013 event was unearthed a few days ago, Mile def was under the impression that the 10 Aug event was the first time they crossed paths, as he mentioned in a recent interview (remember that when he gave this answer, the only vid uncovered by fans was the one from the August event):

This seems to suggest that even if he remembered seeing Apo at other events, he might not remember which came first (meaning it could be that either the 21 Feb or Jul 24 events had a section where Apo walked in front of Mile that has not yet been uncovered, and that's what Mile recalls). Or maybe he remembers Apo walking ahead of him from modeling events that took place after the 10 Aug one.

In any case, here's an extra touch of destiny. In the recently uncovered 21 Feb 2013 vid, you can see Masu, Apo's friend, holding his hand at the start of the vid.

There was this separate project where they took 9 handsome guys, made them radio DJs, had them record a song together boyband style, had them do some fan events, and then at a certain point they expanded to 13 guys. Masu was one of the original nine, Mile was one of the four who got added on, it appears he was a part of this from Feb 2012 to Apr that year. Here they both are together at an event in Singapore, Masu's the third guy from the right, Mile's the fifth:

So at the Feb 2013 event, there's no guarantee Mile saw Masu, or that he came over to say hi, and even if Mile did, Apo might not have been by Masu's side at that particular moment (or Masu might have seen Mile and walked over to say hi without Apo). But doesn't it feel like destiny was TRYING its DAMN HARDEST to make sure Mile and Apo would cross paths in EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY?

Damn, I had no idea when I started watching Kinnporsche the Series that this is what would lead to me being convinced fate is real. Thank you again for the ask and allowing me to simmer in madness. xoxox

(if you're looking for any of my other Kinnporsche/Mileapo posts, just click here)

And just for the hell of it, 'coz I don't think I'll include this in any other post, here's another pic of Mile from the 21 Feb 2013 event that did not make it into the vid:

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Josh Mintz

In another significant development, Professor Jeffrey Lax, founder of SAFE CUNY, who is heavily outspoken against the university’s vicious antisemitism, confirmed that he was the first to be investigated.

He tweeted: “For those asking, yes, I am one of the four,” tweeted Lax on Monday. “I said from the very beginning that I may have been the first one they did this to, but I would be FAR from the last. And, here we are. A 1930s Germany style purge of faculty in Academia.”

Lax continued: “Since I was the first placed under investigation for the identical “crime” of being a Zionist who dared complain about antisemitism on campus, let me summarize how the process went for me:

1. CUNY repeatedly refused to tell me that I was the target of the investigation. They repeatedly attempted to interview and question me without my knowledge that I was the accused and without my knowledge of anything that was at issue.

2. After much later finally admitting that I was the target of their investigation, CUNY refused to provide me with a copy of the complaint against me, despite their own procedure requiring it.

3. After I was made aware that I was the target and denied a copy of the complaint, CUNY refused to allow me to testify in my own defense. This despite repeated pleas by me to allow me to do so.

4. CUNY completed the investigation against me on Feb. 28th –more than 5 months ago– and to this day refuses to tell me the results of the investigation or whether I will be sanctioned or fired for committing “discrimination” by filing a complaint based on Zionism antisemitism on campus.

[merrivia]

I’m curious about your reading experiences with CaPri, you seem as someone who understands the text so well! Could you share some of your experiences with the text? (When you first read it, how many times you’ve re-read it, do you annotate your copies, do you binge-read the trilogy in a week with each reread [like I do], do you have chapters you revisit a lot, etc.)

Hey, so I'm just going through a little backlog of asks!

I feel this is just a niche conversation between you and I tbh, but I'll answer haha. Feel free to directly message me in the future, I'm so open to conversations about the book.

Thank you for saying you think I understand the text so well! That's really kind.

I first got the books on my kindle on the 17th Feb and just binge read them all the way through. I got really fixated on them instantly and.... read them all the way through again, literally straight after. There was something about the way Pacat writes that really hit the spot for me.

I'll be honest though, I tried the book before ages ago (maybe 5 or 6 years ago?) and I was immediately turned off.

What changed? I think because I got into (a different) fandom and started reading fan fiction. Before then I was a huge bookworm, and read everything- though I did lean very much towards literary fiction, the older I got. My many open tabs on AO3 slowly changed my parameters around what fics should look like, the moral framework of them, the spice factor if you will, and so on. Coming from the lawless land of fanfiction where all is allowed and nothing really censored, meant I could come to the text with much more of an open mind.

When I read the trilogy my brain just lit up immediately- the intensity of events, the depth of emotions, the wit and humour, the political machinations and military warfare, the love story...it all combined to make magic amongst my neurons.

My first meta was about a month later, as my brain was 24/7 CaPri brain rot, and I read it another time all the way through, still on kindle.

Then I got The Summer Palace and finally bought all the books in paperback as well. And re-read the books in paperback! So since February I've read them four times. This is when I started to slow down haha.

I don't use tabs or make notes. I tended to just binge read, but do have a job so that meant pausing while at work. I don't necessarily go back and re-visit chapters unless I want to write a meta.

I think re-reading the text is enormously helpful, as reading it the first time is like a sensorial rush of emotion, and the second or third time you can really pay attention to structure and language and character development. Pacat leaves much unsaid and to be deciphered, a 'negative space' as she's called it in interviews, where we have to see what it not being said or what we aren't being directly told and figure things out.

Fandom is an interesting place, and as someone who approaches metas on the text as sort of experiment in literary analysis, I do find it interesting the way people's opinions on the text seem so disparate or different from mine. There are some very strong-minded people on tumblr, and I've seen different camps of people re-read things according to their biases, in different ways. I would perhaps call some of them (not all, but some...) misreadings, also. And regardless, they tend to try and strong-arm you into agreeing with them! I mean, I'm sure I exhibit biases too, but I hope that the least I do is pay attention, try to think things through carefully and come with evidence! And respect true differences of opinion. All I can say is looping back to the source material is important, but ultimately reading and decoding a text can be very personal.

As a final note, I would also say, I came to the books after years and years of intense reading across lots of different genres, and if anyone wanted to get into writing meta for specific texts, reading and thinking widely is an important foundation for that imo.

Hope that answered your question!

[loveothislife]

Inside Michael Stuhlbarg's Heartbreaking Monologue From 'Call Me By Your Name'

Cry with us, won’t you? As Professor Perlman says, “Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.”

By Matthew Jacobs Feb 3, 2018

If you’ve heard rumblings about any particular “Call Me by Your Name” scene, it’s either Timothée Chalamet fucking a peach or The Monologue.

Those familiar with the movie, or the celebrated André Aciman book on which it’s based, will understand these references. 2017 was, after all, the year fruit sex went mainstream. As much as I’d love to spend the next 1,200 words dishing about that juicy peach, we’re going to talk about The Monologue. Oh, that sweet, picture-perfect monologue.

It’s the moment that clinches the film, delivered by Professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), the father of 17-year-old Elio (Chalamet), who falls for a graduate student named Oliver (Armie Hammer) during one blissful, bittersweet summer at his family’s Italian villa. Elio has just bid Oliver adieu, and Perlman consoles him with delicately chosen words that are the envy of every queer kid who ever longed to hear a parent say, “It gets better.”

Director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter James Ivory lifted the monologue almost word for word from Aciman’s text, excising only a few sentences. Even some of Aciman’s scene-setting prose finds its way into the script’s parenthetical directions, guiding the conversation as it unfolds on a couch in Perlman’s dim study. “His tone says: We don’t have to speak about it, but let’s not pretend we don’t know what I’m saying,” for example, appears in the novel and the screenplay, ensuring they mirror each other’s dulcet timbre.

Stuhlbarg’s speech is best underscored by these words (punctuation and capitalization are the script’s):

When you least expect it, Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it’s not to me that you’ll want to speak about these things. But feel something you obviously did.

You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, to pray that their sons land on their feet. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it. And if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything ― what a waste!

Two sentences nixed from Aciman’s rendering: “Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better,” and “Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between.”

During an interview ahead of the movie’s limited release in November ― it opened in wide release on Jan. 19, a few days before netting four Oscar nominations, including for best picture ― Stuhlbarg told me he delivered the monologue two different ways. His first take was more emotional, more impassioned; the second version, which Guadagnino “rightly” opted to use, was “a little more direct.”

On paper, the speech sounds very literary ― appropriate for an academic like Perlman who studies Greek antiquities, but still difficult for any actor to deliver with an organic cadence.

“You never know how a piece of text is going to live in you when you try to absorb it for all of its weight,” Stuhlbarg said. “I don’t think there was a conscious choice on my part for it to be any more or less professorial. I think the text does a lot of that for me, so maybe I was just concerned with it coming from a true place, and that he was choosing his words carefully. In another actor’s mouth, it would be different. ... I think the language speaks for itself. I tried to let it live in me over the course of the five or so weeks that we had, because we shot the movie in chronological order. [I wanted] to let it resonate with me that way I thought it could be said.”

Throughout the scene, the camera remains mostly trained on Stuhlbarg. He taps a cigarette on an ashtray perched on his lap and picks up a tumbler of whiskey to cut the silence between sentences. Sometimes he peers down, as if to reflect on his own youthful memories, but he largely holds Elio’s teary-eyed gaze. “Elio is dumbstruck as he tries to take all this in,” the screenplay notes, much like the novel’s first-person narration of the same sentiment: “I couldn’t begin to take all this in. I was dumbstruck,” Elio says.

“How you live your life is your business,” Perlman continues as the film’s gentle piano score kicks in. “Remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. Pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”

A pause, Elio nodding as he absorbs the advice.

“We may never speak about this again,” his old man concludes. “But I hope you’ll never hold it against me that we did. I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you’d want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut, or not sufficiently open.”

In Stuhlbarg’s mouth, Perlman’s words are poetry ― vestiges of a weathered existence and guidance for a life not yet touched by the wisdom of adulthood.

The scene reflects Guadagnino’s intentions for the film. Before the shoot began, “we all sat around his dining room table and read the screenplay together,” Stuhlbarg said. “That was all the rehearsal that some of us had. [Guadagnino] said, ‘I want this to be a story of love and light and buoyancy and fun, to be reminiscent of those idyllic summers that, if we’re lucky, we have when we’re young. Our eyes are opened, and perhaps we fall in love for the first time in a deeper way.’ That idea infected the way we told the story, and it made it such a joyous experience in a way that I never would have expected it to be.��

Stuhlbarg, who appears in two other best picture contenders (“The Shape of Water” and “The Post”), didn’t receive the Oscar nomination he deserves, and “Call Me by Your Name” produced middling box-office returns in wide release despite the fawning praise it received.

Regardless, his closing scene is a master class in acting and writing. It’s what sets this apart from most gay stories, where characters are judged or punished (by parents, peers, spouses, mentors, bullies) for their sexuality. Indeed, every graceful pause in The Monologue is calibrated to capture the movie’s optimism. It’s both heartbreaking and uplifting.

“I love the story and was so grateful to be asked to participate in it,” Stuhlbarg said. “It does seem to be having a lot of resonance and relevance and to be moving people, which is all you can hope for, really, because you never know what’s going to happen when you make something. And in different hands it would be a different telling ― it would be a different story. I think Luca’s a master and has masterfully articulated the story he wanted to tell.”

Huffpost February 3, 2018

[shpadoinkle-day]

hi again!! its 1st time cannibal the musical watcher again- i might start signing my asks or somethin cus i keep wanting to talk but like you're always sharing such obscure random stuff.. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE THING YOU'VE DISCOVERED OR FOUND?? specific quote of an interview or a particular photo you've found ???

hiii anon lovely to see you back! feel free to tag yourself if you prefer that way, but either way you're much appreciated 🥰

I have so much stuff I found (I'd say it more like... was lucky to run into while researching 😵‍💫) that I love, but to name a few...

"My lovely wife Matt Stone" aka Trey's BOM speech from Feb 25 2013 at the first west end preview. How I found this: So, sometimes when I'm bored I'll pick a random mattrey blog that's been active for a long time, open an old post from their archive, see if there's old inactive mattrey blogs in the notes, and look through their archive to see if there's any posts I could make resurface that had stopped circulating, right? The funny thing is I'll go on reblog sprees, so I actually hadn't listened to the audio when I reblogged it. I was only informed of what it said when I saw others freak out about it.

Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. Why it's my fav? Well, aside from being adorable and iconic, it landed my youtube channel in the lost media wiki! How I found it is actually quite easy, when you look up fansites on the web archive you can do specific search for the files the web archive has saved from it. Turns out sometimes quicktime files work! Four parts were in canniballovers and one in dtisfu if I remember correctly, I just edited them together and posted it. Still wish someone could find it in better quality though. 😔

I'm gonna list a bunch of pictures now... because there's many. 😭 But my absolute N1 is probably the Halloween Robert Smith Trey picture. How I found it is simple, just looking up random words on facebook. Probably "trey parker", nothing special. This and this from the Ron Jeremy website on the web archive, though I think maybe the second one had already been circulating I'm not exactly sure. Showgirl Halloween Trey. The kiss pictures. Pink haired Trey!! This NATPE (?) picture. These older Trey pics where he's serving absolute cunt. This Lapdance/Sundance (?) pic. And these too. This reverse cap one altho this was from twitter I don't think I was the first to come across it tbh. These three from the "A Million Laughs" fb page... Bowl hat... Trey with the blue umbrella full pic... tho I wouldn't say I "found it" only that I got to it first the day it was posted... Trey in the matching christmas pajama from 2018... I'm gonna stop but my heart is pretty big and I like all pics...

These measly 7 secs of SDCC footage only because of the first mattrey pic included because that pose from Trey is everythinggg.

This oscars clip because Trey does such a graceful hair flip 😭

Le Petit Package pics though all I did was waltz into the lost media thread and see they had been posted...

The forbidden mattrey slides which we may never see... these were all from worthpoint, which is just a website that archives past ebay bids.

Annual Diversity Awards for the Trey serve ofc.

And finally, I'm very partial to "Matt's a cock".

As to how I come across anything... it's lots of free time. Like I'm talking hours daily just picking a random lead and following it. It may be a website you think hasn't been thoroughly searched (I've tried fb, ig, twitter, worthpoint, ebay, wordpress, tripod, weebly, various fansites on webarchive, footage.net, bilibili/baidu, vimeo, dailymotion, flickr, a load of sketchy other websites I don't remember anymore... basically trey parker has brought me to places I wouldn't go with a gun...) a combination of words, a new search engine that may give u different results (I've tried the ones listed in the lost media wiki guide, my favorite is startpage). Using targeted searching like "word" or site:x "word" or "word combo" before:year, basically trying to make google your bitch. I also use gettyimages like a visual wiki of events Trey's been to+the date, it's quite useful... ik you didn't ask the "how" part but aaaa I like talking about it 😭 I have a lot of fun. Even though sometimes I just come up empty handed even after hours of research. More often than not tbh. Also I'm an obsessed weirdo who checks the words "trey parker" daily on twitter, tumblr, ig, fb, yt, web archive and ebay. 🫠

And also the concept of finding is weird because it has happened to me that I thought I had found something and then it actually had been circulating already, so I tried really hard to answer you by only listing stuff I was fairly sure hadn't been circulating before I got to it, but I mean... it doesn't really matter! I'm here to serve, I just like sharing whatever stuff I run into, it'll happen that it's new to me but it really isn't. 😵‍💫 I try...

I like this too also but I didn't find it, it was pretty available already fjdkg you know Jack Shih was at that dodgeball event?

Favorite funfact that I haven't had a chance to share yet, so now you know!

[8iunie]

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Måneskin On Redefining Success, Staying Inspired & Honoring Italy

The Italian quartet first exploded onto the scene with a viral cover of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, but Måneskin have continued to exalt and evolve vintage rock thrills on their own terms — all on the way to their first GRAMMY nomination. (posted on 19.01.2023)

A dizzy smile spreads across Måneskin vocalist Damiano David’s face as he attempts to capture the group’s fervent energy in words.

"Going into a room where there's silence and going out with a song. Stepping on stage and then the crowd screams for you. Doing interviews where you can talk about how you think about music," he says. "It's such an open art language, such an open world." 

While Måneskin’s inimitable swagger have led to a recent international meteoric rise, the Italian quartet have tapped the glitter and grime of rock’s glory days since forming as teens in 2016. Just a year later, the group made a massive leap, winning the Italian edition of reality competition show "X Factor." But it was Måneskin’s hard rock take on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ "Beggin'" was inescapable following their 2021 Eurovision win — a smash success that led many eager new fans to dig into Måneskin’s catalog of chart-topping albums in their native Italy. 

That prowess, ability to connect with the full spectrum of listeners, and a raucous live show netted Måneskin a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs, which take place Sunday, Feb. 5, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and will broadcast live on the CBS Television Network and stream live and on-demand on Paramount+ at 8-11:30 p.m. ET / 5-8:30 p.m. PT. They are also a living rebuke to those questioning rock’s staying power, whose grandiose energy and adventurous fashion begs for a yet wider audience. 

"This combination is really magical. It gives us the opportunity to play something that doesn't exist so much in the charts," says guitarist Thomas Raggi. "We are rock, of course, in attitude, in the music, but we can reach really different people from different places and different ages." 

Global success hasn't changed Måneskin much, as their new record, Rush!, teases. Due Jan. 20, the album only reinforces their bombast via singles like grimy party-starter "Mammamia" and the slinky and suave "Supermodel" — not to mention a guest appearance from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello on the recently released "Gossip."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Måneskin — David, Raggi, bassist Victoria De Angelis, and drummer Ethan Torchio — to talk about the shock of their GRAMMY nomination, how they’ve evolved into their upcoming new album, and trying to find good espresso everywhere on tour.

This conversation has been edited for clarity.

I want to wish you congratulations on your first GRAMMY nomination. After winning "X Factor" and earning various accolades, has this sort of honor started to feel natural?

Victoria De Angelis: Not really natural, but very cool. It's the craziest thing you can possibly think of.

Damiano David: Of course, when we started, we only thought the biggest thing that could happen was being big in Italy. And then everything happened, so of course our dreams got bigger and of course we thought about it as a possibility in the remote future. Not, like, now. [Laughs.]

That's such a beautiful sentiment. The bigger doors start opening to places that you never could imagine. I can imagine that puts a whole new spin on what it is to be a band, what it is to be a musician.

De Angelis:  It really does. Especially touring and everything, even six months makes so much difference. We look back at the things we did six months before and we say, "Okay, now we can add this, we can change this." It's constantly developing. So that's really inspiring and keeps us in a creative process all the time. 

David: We've had so many crazy things happen these last two years. We played for the Stones. We played with Iggy Pop. We met like 50 percent of our childhood idols. At the end, wrapping it all up with the GRAMMY nomination, it's a pretty huge deal. The whole journey has been remarkable and we're gonna think about it for a long time.

It seems that you’ve remained remarkably close-knit as a band, which must be so important in the midst of that. How have you remained creatively inspired by one another and that you are constantly pushing yourselves as musicians through all the fame and success?

Ethan Torchio: Fame and success, it's just a coincidence. We don't really focus on that. It's part of our life, part of our journey. But it's an important point: We've always been friends with each other, and we've shared half of our lives together.

David: It's very important to us to be close because, otherwise, this project wouldn't be what it is now. We are four [individuals], and we are very human and curious about ideas. It's not just about what we are or we feel inside, it's also what we live outside. I truly think that [embracing] the new and something that has not been created before is part of our mindset.

De Angelis: As you said, being four, we actually inspire one another even more. We are very different personalities and also have very different taste. And being four, the amount of music we can discover, it happens every day. And also we love to go see shows, so maybe some of us go to one show and then we are like, "Hey, I got this idea from this show." Being four, it keeps us in this creative environment where everyday there is something new.

Touring constantly and being away from home can make you question your identity. How do you keep tied to your roots?

David: It's still pretty easy for us because even if we travel so much, we still live in Italy. When you move from your country and you live in another country for five, 10 years, then you start changing the way you live. But now we kind of bring this huge Italian suitcase with us. We're still asking for espresso everywhere. [Laughs.] With very bad results. How we interact between us and with people, our clothes, our style in general, it's always Italian in a certain way.

It's a difficult needle to thread, needing to mold to a comfortable stance wherever you are while also standing out. Being nominated for a GRAMMY must be an extraordinary test of that balance, so it's amazing to hear that you're still like keeping so true to yourselves.

De Angelis: I think that's always been kind of easy for us in some way, because we've always had such a strong and clear idea about our identity and what we like to do. Just look at this: [points to her shirt, which reads Italians Do It Better]. We've been lucky to never experience this kind of issue. On the other hand, what we experienced is that we had a very clear idea and then maybe it was hard to keep it safe and not let other people get into it or change it. But when it comes to what we stand for, we're always very sure about that. 

Talk to me a little bit about that process, then. You all seem to find clever ways to reimagine classic genres and scenes while still honoring their essence. 

David: We've been very, very lucky because our only rule has always been being true to what we like — even if we are very, very different one from each other. Vic [De Angelis] and Thomas Raggi especially have a very rock and roll classic background. I'm more into mainstream and low-tempo music. And Ethan [Torchio] actually listens to everything, from very mainstream music, classical music, to crazy experimental [music]. 

We've always tried to keep the balance between the four of us, and especially in the next album. We really wanted to embrace the difference between the four of us. It has created a personality for the group that also made the four of us very recognizable. People can feel represented from [each of the] four of us and from the group. Every achievement that we get, for us it's not, "Okay, we want this so we have to keep doing the same thing." It's more like, "Okay, we want this because this is our mindset. We have to keep this mindset, not because it makes you win awards but because it makes you recognizable and it gives you an identity and it puts you in a specific place in the market and in the industry.

I'm curious whether your writing and recording processes changed much on your new album, Rush! With first albums, sometimes a band will throw everything at the wall to see if it sticks. On the second one, they might shift things based on audience reaction, and then the third record can either attempt to capture a true self again or push to try even more new things.

De Angelis: It was 50-50, because some of the songs we actually wrote a while ago. There's a song we wrote three years ago, for example, on the record. The whole record was written in different moments. Some of the songs we wrote in the countryside in Italy; we went to this home studio and just jammed all together. And then others we wrote here in L.A., but then we also kept doing them in Japan and in Brazil while we were on tour. 

So it's been really crazy. We can hear the moment we wrote the song and the emotion we had in the moment. And it portrays this whole journey we've been through. I think it's cool that we didn't only write it in one month, but it was through the years. It shows the different faces of our personalities and development.

I wanted to ask about the song "Kool Kids", which you recently debuted live. The lyrics have this self-aware edge, where you poke at the idea of whether rock is dead — I'm sure because you’ve been bombarded by that question nonstop.

David: We talk about rock and roll because it's a part of what we do, but I think that you can apply this kind of thought to every music genre. There's no music genre that is actually ever gonna die because trends are constantly changing. The music is developing and sometimes things become other things or change slightly because of the age where they're living. But I think that what we do [is]  a new way to do rock and roll, but it's not the way to do it. There's many different ways to do it. You can be super classic, you can do rock and roll music even without analog instruments and go full electro while creating rock and roll structures.

Raggi: Nothing really ends. Nothing really starts. Everything changes.

De Angelis: It's always in development. The motion that rock music created and that pushes us to do it is just that sense of rebellion towards the norms, or when people try to put you in boxes or limit you. This kind of human feeling will always exist. And that's the reason why all these musicians through the past years have been making this kind of music — to oppose something and to talk about it.

Why was music the path you chose to express that perspective?

De Angelis: I think we all started as kids so we didn't even think it did that much. It was just something in us that we had to get out in some way, to express. It just came natural for us to do it as music. When we started playing together we were like 14 years old. We were struggling, all of us individually, to find other kids that were as passionate about it and wanted to invest all their time in this. 

It was crazy that we were 13 years old and wanting to be, like, six hours in a rehearsal room every day instead of going out with friends or whatever. But for us it was such a fulfilling experience when we got in the rehearsal room that we just went full in and didn't care about anything else. It just took over us. It was just something so pure that we felt in that moment. The passion came out because we felt we were being ourselves and expressing what we had inside that couldn't come out in other ways. Since then, it has developed in so many ways that it's just who we are nowadays. We couldn't even imagine who we would be without the music.

Raggi: I remember also when I saw my first guitar outside of that guitar shop. No one in my family plays instruments or stuff like that. It was something that just called to me. 

Another thing you are all known for is your sense of style. You always go big! Do you have plans for the GRAMMYs red carpet yet?

De Angelis: We're gonna surprise you. [Laughs.] We won't be boring. Promise. 

Writer: Lior Phillips

Photo: Tommaso Ottomano

[3416]

Capitals’ Rasmus Sandin reflects on shock of Maple Leafs trade, finding role with new team

By: Joshua Kloke | Mar 21, 2023 | The Athletic

At first, Rasmus Sandin didn’t want to listen to what he was being told.

On the rink at the Kraken Community Iceplex in Seattle on Feb. 28, Sandin was moments away from his rep in a practice drill when he got a tap on the shoulder from Leafs assistant coach Dean Chynoweth. Sandin was wanted by a Leafs media relations member.

Sandin gave Chynoweth a quizzical look and told him he’d get to the request later.

“You’ve got to go now,” Chynoweth told him.

Beside the rink, Sandin was informed he had to see Leafs GM Kyle Dubas immediately.

“That walk felt very long,” Sandin told The Athletic.

Sandin stood stunned as Dubas delivered the news that the first draft pick he had ever made as Maple Leafs GM, and a player once thought of as a centrepiece to the Leafs’ future on defence, was being traded to the Washington Capitals.

“(Dubas) told me it wasn’t really something he wanted to do. But he felt like this was best for the team and also a good situation for me to go to Washington,” Sandin said.

With that, Sandin’s practice, and time as a Maple Leaf, was over. A whirlwind three weeks has followed for Sandin. He has spent the majority of his time as a Capital on the road, and he has logged over 20 minutes per game on the ice, something he last did in December for the Leafs. With that ice time, Sandin has posted an impressive 11 points in eight games with his new team.

The trade and increased playing time has given the 23-year-old a new lease on life, and an opportunity, in his words, “to show Toronto that they did something wrong with trading me.”

Over the course of a wide-ranging 20-minute phone interview, Sandin looked back on his time in Toronto, the trade that surprised him, and his future in Washington.

Rasmus Sandin wants to set the record straight.

“I did not request a trade out of Toronto,” he said. “I had literally no idea I was getting traded.”

Despite rumours to the contrary, likely a by-product of an emerging talent who didn’t get the kind of playing time that talent might dictate in Toronto, Sandin insists he never once thought about requesting a trade either. After he was drafted in the first round in 2018, Sandin moved from the Soo Greyhounds to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. He had the on-ice smarts, the vision and the puck-moving skills that made him look like a decent grab at No. 29.

And maybe, if his skating and understanding of how to pick his spots defensively came around, he could become a top-four, power-play quarterback down the road too.

There were no serious questions about his development through his first season in the AHL and his second pro season, in which he split time between the Marlies and the Leafs. A foot injury hampered his playing time in 2020-21, though he was part of the Leafs’ playoff lineup for five games against the Montreal Canadiens in 2021. Perhaps the first genuinely concerning questions about whether Sandin could be depended on in important moments were raised during Game 5 of that first-round series, when two of his turnovers led to Canadiens goals in a loss.

In 2021-22, the final of his entry-level deal, Sandin was beset by injuries. He looked like a capable bottom-pairing defenceman, sure, but regular top-four minutes didn’t come.

“In my mind, it was always about battling for a spot,” Sandin said. “They had such a deep defence core, which is a good thing because everyone is battling every single day for a spot in the lineup.”

So coming into this season, it was fair to wonder where Sandin fit with the Leafs long term. He looked on the verge of breaking out, but Dubas had assembled a team capable of competing now. Among Leafs defencemen who were on the team before the trade deadline, Sandin again sat sixth in average time on ice. And though he’d received some more power-play responsibilities, he’d been lapped by his friend and fellow young blueliner Timothy Liljegren in ice time.

Sandin will always be linked to Liljegren in Toronto, fairly or not. Both are Swedish defencemen, first-round picks who rely on their hockey IQ — and were chosen in back-to-back years.

And Dubas was looking for both to sign similar bridge deals this past offseason. Liljegren bit on a two-year, $2.8-million deal in June 2022 as Sandin remained unsigned. Questions about his future in Toronto were amplified.

“What people don’t know is that my mom got sick in the beginning of 2022. She got cancer. She had some serious surgeries. We had a really tough time as a family that summer. That’s a big part of why I stayed at home, so I could spend time with her. People don’t know about that. That’s fine with me because I knew it, and Toronto knew it and they were fine with it,” Sandin said.

So while those questions remained at the start of training camp, Sandin stayed at his home in Sweden, unsigned.

“To be honest, my head wasn’t (in Toronto). For me, family comes first. My head wasn’t in hockey to go back to Toronto to sign a contract (in June),” Sandin said. “It was important to have my mom’s back.”

Sandin’s brother Linus returned to Sweden to play in the SHL after two professional seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers organization, which included his NHL debut in 2021-22.

“Being in Toronto with the market it is, no matter what, everything is going to be a big deal. That was something I wanted to keep to myself and not distract other guys,” Sandin said.

He still isn’t sure how many other teammates knew about his mother’s diagnosis.

As the leaves began to fall on the trees and Sandin said his mother’s health began to improve, she told him it was time to return to Toronto. He signed a deal with the same term and cap hit as Liljegren’s during training camp.

He finished his Toronto career with 48 points in 140 games, averaging 16:40 per game and has few regrets outside of more team postseason success.

“I wish we could’ve gone further in some of the playoffs,” Sandin said. “Otherwise, I don’t think I would have done things much differently.”

And that attitude is part of why Sandin was so taken aback by the trade out of Toronto. He says he believed in his future with the team.

Sandin was surrounded by friends in Toronto, too. Towards the beginning of this season, there were seven Swedes on the Leafs’ roster, the most of any NHL team.

Yet within a matter of minutes, those friendships were put to the test as Sandin was dealt to the Capitals and forward Pierre Engvall was shipped to the New York Islanders. After that Leafs practice in Seattle concluded, Sandin, Engvall, William Nylander and Timothy Liljegren gathered beside the rink for one last chat.

“It was tough holding back tears,” Sandin said. “It’s more than just hockey.”

“It was a nice moment, to have the chance to say goodbye,” Sandin added. “I’m going to have (them) as best friends for the rest of my life.”

Sandin left the rink, and the Leafs organization, walking arm-in-arm with Nylander.

“It’s tough even talking about it. (Nylander) was telling me how much he was going to miss me. We’ve been so close since even before my time in Toronto. He’s one of my best friends, if not my best friend. He wished me the best of luck, and said, ‘Don’t you dare not talk to me after you leave us,’” Sandin said.

It’s a side of the uber-cool and laid-back Nylander the public isn’t often privy to.

“He is the way a lot of people see him with the confidence and all that. But he’s one of the best human beings I’ve ever met. He has a lot of different sides. Sometimes the rest of the guys who don’t know him don’t get to see this side very often. For me, being close to him, I think I’ve seen every single side of him. I wasn’t too surprised about it, but I was obviously very happy that he showed that side as well,” Sandin said.

Still in shock, Sandin headed south to meet the Capitals in California. Having only packed for 10 days primarily through Western Canada in late winter, Sandin immediately found himself in need of a change of attire.

“I ran out of clothes pretty quick,” he said.

Life with the Leafs had been the only life Sandin had known. No more navy blue Adidas sweatsuits to wear to practices and morning skates. No more sneakers to go with suits for games, with ties optional. The Capitals operate a business-casual dress code, which meant one of the first stops Sandin made was to a local mall for dress shoes and a tie.

Once he was outfitted to the Capitals’ standards, he could focus on “showing what type of player I can be, and am.”

“You want to prove (the Capitals) right that they made a good choice in trading for you,” Sandin said. “And you want to prove your old team wrong.”

The Capitals have given him the runway to do just that. He’s averaged a whopping 24:56 time on ice per game, tops among all Capitals position players.

Now, how long Sandin’s production streak lasts remains to be seen. He’s minus-5 as a Capital and his five-on-five expected goals with the team sits at a paltry 41.42 percent. Six of his 11 points have come on the power play. Still, his increased workload is part of the reason Sandin believes he’s producing on the score sheet at an impressive rate. He feels part of the solution for a Capitals team on the outside looking in at the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

“It’s been a lot of fun just to know that your coaches believe in you, and your teammates believe in you,” Sandin said. “That’s a reason why they wanted to pick me up. They see me as a Washington Capital for a long time. That feels good.”

For the young defenceman, the ice time has helped him move on from the difficulty of leaving close friends. He can’t deny that it feels nice to be wanted and to see a way forward into a prominent role on the ice for years to come.

“I hope to stay here for a long time,” Sandin said.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Neirin Gray Desai

Published: Feb 23, 2023

Black Panther communist Angela Davis - who teaches that U.S. was built by racist colonizers - faces calls to pay reparations after genealogy show reveals her white puritan ancestor arrived in America on the Mayflower

• Angela Davis, 79, learned that her ancestor came to the US on the Mayflower • The former Black Panther also discovered she had two white grandparents • She appeared on PBS's Finding Your Roots in an episode that aired on Tuesday

A famed Black Panther who's also a communist has faced calls to pay reparations after discovering her ancestors were white puritans who arrived in the US on the Mayflower.

Angela Davis, 79, was flabbergasted to discover both sides of her family were white, and that her mom's ancestors were slave owners, on PBS show Finding Your Roots.

And the stunning revelations sparked calls for the famously woke Marxist University of California professor to herself pay reparations, having previously called on whites to pony-up in the past. 

Sharing a tweet about the show, conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote: 'It gets better. She's also descended from a slave owner. On her father's side is a pilgrim. On her mother's side is a slave owner. Looks like Angela Davis owes some reparations.' 

Another Twitter user called AK Kamara wrote: 'Angela Davis, the radical Marxist and former black panther, recently discovered she is also the ancestor of colonizers and slave owners. I guess she owes herself reparations. This timeline is hilarious.'

Davis became nationally known in 1970 when guns she owned were used in the holding up of a Marin County courtroom in California which left four dead, including the judge.

After the FBI issued a warrant for her arrest she went on the run and became listed as one of the department's 10 Most Wanted. After her eventual arrest she spent 16 months in jail before being found not guilty.

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944 during an era of segregation and violent racial division in the South.

While studying in West Germany in her youth she was drawn to far-left politics and upon returning to the US became involved with the Black Panthers and the Communist Party USA. 

She appeared shocked during the TV interview that aired this week in which Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. told her of her ancestry.

'No. I can't believe this. My ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower,' she said - only to be later told that they did indeed arrive in the US aboard the famed pilgrim ship. 

The Mayflower was an English boat that brought white English families, known as the Pilgrims, to the American continent to permanently establish the New England colony in 1620.

'You are descended from the 101 people who sailed on the Mayflower,' reiterated Gates Jr., who is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

The one-hour show, in which public figures learn about their ancestry, outlined how William Brewster, who traveled aboard the boat with his wife Mary Wentworth Brewster, was Davis's 10th great-grandfather.

Mary was one of only five adult women from the Mayflower to have survived the first winter after arriving in the US and one of only four such to survive until the 'first Thanksgiving' in 1621, which she was said to have helped cook. 

The revelation caused many to point out the complexity of ancestry and on social media some suggested that by some logic Davis should pay black reparations.

The concept of reparations - an idea she has endorsed in the past - is that people with ancestors who were enslaved should be financially reimbursed by those whose ancestors enslaved them.

'This vividly illustrates the absurdity of reparations as a concept, among other things,' said one person on Twitter, in response to a clip of the revelation. 

'Before any talk about reparations everybody needs to take the ancestry DNA test. I think a lot of people would be shocked to to discover who they were descended from,' said another. 

Davis also made discoveries about her mother, Sallye Bell, who was found to be the daughter of a successful white Alabama lawyer who himself descended from a slave owner.

Bell was a school teacher and grew up in a foster home, never knowing either of her biological parents. Her mother had genetics that traced back to Africa but her father was John Austin Darden, who was also involved in politics, and was born in Rockford Coosa, Alabama, in 1879.

'He has my mother's lips,' Davis said as she was presented a photo of her grandfather. 'I can't get used to the fact this is my mother's father.'

A clipping from an old Alabama newspaper shone light on who Darden had been. 

'The former publisher of the Goodwater Enterprise, who served as both a representative and a senator at various times from 1914 to 1933, had practiced law here 40 years.' 

'Was he a member of the Ku Klux Klan or the white citizens council?' Davis asked. 'That's something I would also want to know. Because in those days in order to achieve that power one had to thoroughly embrace white supremacy.

'I'm both glad and I'm angry. I'm really, really angry,' she added. 

As Gates went back further in time things got murkier still. Stephen Darden, her fourth great grandfather, was born in colonial Virginia around 1750.

He was a patriot who played the drums during the Revolutionary War, according to a muster roll. Afterwards he moved from Virginia to Georgia, where he owned a farm and at least six slaves.

'I always imagine my ancestors as the people who were enslaved. My mind and my heart are swirling with all of these contradictory emotions,' said Davis.

'I'm glad on the one hand we've begun to solve this mystery, we have something we didn't have before, but at the same time I think it makes me even more committed to struggling for a better world.

'This world that could give rise to such a beautiful person as my mother was not the world I want to see in the future,' she added.

Davis's father Benjamin Frank Davis grew in up in Lyndon, Alabama. His mother was Mollie Spencer butm similarly, nothing was known about his father.

Alabama Census records indicated that for at least ten years Mollie lived next door to a white man named Murphy Jones. Records stated that he sold her two acres of land for two hundred dollars and that the two were likely relatively close.

Using genetic profiles of Murphy's known living relatives, researchers found multiple matches to Angela, indicating that Jones was her grandfather.

Mollie Spencer's father was named Isom Spencer and was listed as collateral on a loan document filed by a slave owner named William K. Pauling, who owned a plantation in Marengo, Alabama.  

'I assume that my ancestors lived on plantations as slaves, but of course I didn't know who they were and I didn't know who the slave owners were,' she said.

It transpired that Isom was a remarkable figure who marked the transition of her family from enslaved to free. Court records uncovered by PBS showed he even brought a complaint against the slaver over his nephews, who were being held in the plantation under 'apprenticeships'. 

'I'm happy to find there's a motif of resistance there because that is what I feel I've been trying to do since I was a teenager,' said Davis, reflecting on her grandfather's struggle.

==

Couldn't happen to a better bigger race-baiter. It's even better than the time Henry Rogers blew up his entire schtick with one tweet. It's kind of like David Duke finding out he's the descendant of African slaves. They should do Nikole Hannah-Jones next.

It will be interesting to see how much - or, more likely, how little - integrity she has in the face of this information. Will she reconsider the fraudulent scholarship she's injected into her bogus academic domain, of which she's now on the other side? Or will she adhere to it and admit to the same inherited complicity, benefit and guilt in colonialism and slavery, not to mention the racism her ideology (and historical revisionism) claims is the founding principle and primary inheritance of the USA?

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

New York City judge issued a warrant for the arrest of a Sun Myung Moon disciple who tried to prevent a girl from leaving

“Would-be Moonie says Church plans to kill”

The Reporter Dispatch White Plains, N.Y., Saturday, March 27, 1976

By Barbara Ross, Staff Writer

A New York City judge issued a warrant Thursday for the arrest of a Sun Myung Moon disciple who is accused of trying to physically bar a Hicksville, Long Island, girl from leaving a Unification Church center in Brooklyn.

Judge Jerome Vail acted after the Hicksville girl, Helayne Ordover, 18, and Dr. George Swope of Port Chester told him “there is more involved here than just a case of harassment.”

Miss Ordover said she decided to leave the Brooklyn center alter Elizabeth Williams (the woman charged with criminal harassment) allegedly told the recruit that Moon’s Unification Church will start issuing guns next year for members to “kill” opponents of the cult.

Miss Williams did not appear in court Thursday and repeated efforts to reach her failed.

In an interview, Miss Ordover said she was attracted to Unification after reading about it in Long Island newspapers.

“I LIKED the idea of a bunch of young people living together,” she recalled. Miss Ordover said she was living at home, working “odd jobs,” and studying hard to take an equivalency exam to get a high school diploma.

Miss Ordover said she attended several lectures at Unification’s Hempstead center before deciding to participate in one of the group’s weekend workshops.

On Thursday, Feb. 19, she said she spent three hours selling candy “to help retarded kids” for an interlocking Moon group called One World Crusade. The girl said she collected almost enough money to pay the $15 fee charged her for participating in the weekend seminar.

Friday evening, Miss Ordover left home against the advice of her parents and Rabbi Maurice Davis of White Plains whom the girl had contacted earlier.

The young woman said she was taken to Unification’s Brooklyn center, at 3235 Nostrand Ave. and attended long hours of lectures by group leaders.

“By Saturday afternoon, I was really starting to believe it. They have answers for everything,” she said.

Sunday morning, however, Miss Ordover said she was “shocked” when her team leader, Miss Williams, said that starting next year, “We would have to be prepared to kill anyone not a believer of the Rev. Moon.

“I REALLY couldn’t believe it, she said. “It really scared me.”

Soon after that. Miss Ordover said, she quickly departed leaving her suitcase behind.

A few hundred feet from the center, Miss Ordover continued, she met Miss Williams who she said “held onto my coat and told me to go back now and repent for my sins.”

‘‘I told her I didn’t believe in her religion and that Rev. Moon is full of crap, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. For four blocks she walked with me, holding onto my sleeve.

“Then,” Miss Ordover continued, “she pushed me against the wall of a building, held my arm and asked how dare I walk away. I punched her in the face and ran for the police.”

At the 61st Precinct house, Miss Ordover filed a complaint. She also persuaded the police and her father who had been called in from Hicksville to return to the center to retrieve another weekend recruit who had wanted to leave Saturday but had been persuaded to stay longer.

Miss Ordover said she has received several threatening phone calls since pressing charges against Miss Williams.

“They said I’d be a ‘sorry girl’ if I went through with it,” she declared, adding:

“THEY PREACH love and goodness but they just want to take over the world and they don’t care who they hurt in the process.”

_________________________________

Physically restrained against his will at Barrytown

UC leaders stole passports from guests at California workshops

[tavolgisvist]

The suits

Think, I don't want to clog the idontwanttospoiltheparty's post so put my comments here. @idontwanttospoiltheparty wrote good tags

I was just thinking about the suits too. And I came to the same conclusion: the suits as a way to express dissatisfaction with something else. Look,

1971 (the trial for the dissolution of The Beatles etc):

He was a theatrical man rather than a businessman, and with us he was a bit like that. He literally fucking cleaned us up. And there were great fights between him and me, over years and years, of me not wanting to dress up. He and Paul had some kind of collusion... to keep me straight. Because I kept spoiling the image, like the time I beat up a guy at Paul's twenty-first (birthday). I nearly killed him, because he insinuated that me and Brian had an affair in Spain. I was out of me mind.

(John Lennon, September 5th, 1971, St. Regis Hotel in New York City, interview with Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld)

and 1975 (meeting with Paul in 1974 and after):

Q: How true is the myth that Brian Epstein packaged the Beatles? А: Everything is true and not true about everything. That’s one thing I’ve learned. Both things are both true. Q: That’s a very Yoko answer … But was there a point where you four were very naive? А: Oh, we weren’t naive. We were no more naive than he was. I mean what was he, he was serving in a record shop. And he saw this group of sort of rockers … or greasers playing loud music and a lot of kids paying attention to it. So he thought well, this is a business to be in. He liked the look of us, and thought, I’ll be a manager. It was as simple as that. He said, I think I can manage you, and we had nobody better, and we said, All right, you can do it. Then he went shopping around, getting us work, and then there came to a bit when he said, Look, if you cut your hair… Q: How long was it? А: For then, it was longer than any of the photographs. Normally, in any photograph, it had been trimmed or cut. Even school photographs—have you noticed that— your hair always seemed to be cut the day before they took the school photograph. Or whenever you had a photograph of your holidays, somehow the parents or somebody always managed to cut your hair. But there’s some private pictures where it was pretty long for those days, longer than the early pictures. And it was still greased back, and outside of Liverpool, when we went down South in the leather outfits, the dance-hall promoters didn’t really like us, because they thought we looked like a gang of thugs. So Epstein said, Look, if you wear this suit … and we liked suits, everybody wanted a good suit, a nice black, sharp suit, man … you know, yeah, man, I’ll have a suit. So, if you wear a suit, you get this much money. All right, wear a suit, you get more money, wear a suit, I’ll wear a fucking balloon if they’re going to pay me. He was our salesman. He was our front. If you notice, another quirk of life is that self-made men usually have someone with education to front for them. Epstein had enough education to go in and talk to the hobnobs in their own language, and it’s the same now. If I have a lawsuit, I have to get a lawyer to talk to them. Epstein fronted for the Beatles. He played a great part at whatever he did; he was theatrical, that was for sure, and he believed in us. But he certainly didn’t package us the way they said [he did]. Look, we weren’t picked up off the street, we allowed him to take us. Paul wasn’t so keen [on him], Paul’s more conservative in the way he approaches things, and that’s all well and good—maybe he’ll end up with more yachts.

(John Lennon, FEB 19, 1975, interview with Lisa Robinson)

Different years, different circumstances - and different reactions to the suits.

And we remember Brian wasn't the first person who dressed John in a suit (haha I have a reason to quote Len Garry and add a link to amoralto):

“Yeah yeah, it’s all very well, Paul,” muttered John. “Just because your Dad played in some old time music hall in the thirties doesn’t mean we should go on stage wearing white coats. People will think we’re a bunch of fairies.” “Wait a minute, John, I’m burning the toast.” Paul, clattering about in the kitchen, seemed oblivious to John’s emphatic statement. He then came out of the kitchen with a pile of buttered toast on a large plate for the ravenous horde waiting. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you properly; oh, the white coats, is that what you’re on about? What’s your problem with that? Look John, it’s about time we started smartening up our image because we can’t go on looking like a gang of ruffians just dragged off the streets,” retorted Paul. “We must look professional – we’re on the stage, in the public eye, and appearances are important. If we start looking the part then perhaps you may even be able to get your chords right.” Paul said this last point in a jovial manner, not wishing to rouse John’s temper, as he knew even after short acquaintance with John that he could soon ‘fly off the handle’ if provoked. John seemed unperturbed by the insinuation that Paul was making about his professionalism (or lack of it). There was a silence for a couple of minutes as we all munched on our buttered toast. “Yeah okay – but white coats? I can’t see myself in one of those. Anyway, where would we get them from?” “Never mind that – Nigel will sort that out. Look, it will be you and me up front from now on as main guitarists and vocalists so it’ll look good, the both of us wearing the same gear. It will be white coats, white shirts and black bow ties – the rest of the group can wear white shirts and black bow ties.” John still seemed undecided and looked to me for support. “What do you think, Len?” he asked. “I think the answer lies in the soil,” I said, trying to bring a bit of humour into what seemed to me a contest building up between two strong personalities, each having been used to getting their own way. Continuing in a none-too-serious vein, “But then again I think that you two don’t need us anymore, we’re has-beens.” [...] “Come on, Len, be serious for a minute. What do you think?” repeated John, who was by this time desperate for support. “I honestly think it’s worth a try and it will probably improve our image,” I said half-heartedly. Suddenly John resorted to his lighter mode. “Ooh, eh! We will look smart. Why don’t we hire a limousine and dress up as undertakers instead?” he quipped. “Don’t be thick, John, we’d all have to wear black for that,” Eric Griffiths suddenly interjected. “Okay, we’ll all be in white then – it’s agreed,” said Paul. John then started up with a song that had recently been popularised: “A white sport coat and a pink carnation, I’m getting dressed up for a dance.” With that John did a little dance around the room. The Quarrymen Committee had arrived at another major decision without too much rancour.

(John, Paul and Me: Before The Beatles by Len Garry, 1997)

It's interesting, I didn't know:

1963 was the year of the now iconic collarless suit – created for the band by UK tailor, Dougie Millings, whom we learn went on to make over 500 outfits for the group. His collarless creation was conceived in a brainstorming session involving Paul McCartney, who’d originally proposed the idea. Their suits were modeled on an original design by Pierre Cardin, but tweaked to make it a distinctively Beatles’ garment.

(from review of Fashioning the Beatles – The Looks That Shook the World (2023, by Deirdre Kelly)

And the Paul's reason to wear the same suits (from Conversations With McCartney by Paul Du Noyer, 2012):

Later, not long before he died in April 1962, Sutcliffe visited his former group in Liverpool, with Kirchherr on his arm. “He was looking thin and pale, and he must’ve been taking medication, because, like the letter from him reproduced in the book, which is very James Joyce-y and surreal, he was sometimes just floating, and then all of a sudden, he wasn’t,” McCartney recalls. “There’s a picture in the book of Astrid, with her very short, Mia Farrow-type hair, John and Stu outside the Cavern. Not long after that, we were all down there, in the Cavern, and I remember Stu and Astrid walking in, and Stu had this ordinary jacket, but without the collar. We all pissed ourselves laughing. He was not happy, because we didn’t get it, the style. But then, when he died, those famous Beatles collarless jackets, they’re in homage. They weren’t Beatles jackets. They were Stu’s jacket.”

(Mike McCartney, June 2022, interview with Jeff Slate)

[alanshemper]

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/former-mossad-official-children-in-gaza-over-the-age-of-4-deserve-to-be-starved/

On Tuesday, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster ran a news program for “the 130th day of the war” hosted by the veteran Ayala Hasson. During the program, she interviewed former Mossad official Rami Igra, who had been head of the spy and assassination agency’s “Captive & Missing Division.”

Igra echoed President Isaac Herzog’s claim that there are “no uninvolved [civilians] in Gaza.” Igra emphasizes the point by saying “There is no such thing,” as Hasson disrupts him in agreement with an affirming “You’re right, you’re right.”

Igra then goes on to specify this genocidal axiom in a bizarre manner, exempting children below age four:

“In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter. And our goal at the moment, and this is in continuation of what you said, is to turn them from Hamas supporters to Hamas dislikers.”

This unhinged, delusional message is coupled with a supposedly “humanitarian” approach:

“And the way is supplying the humanitarian aid, through us.”

[...]

So Hasson finds a need to moderate the message a bit, but she first points to her general agreement with the message:

“OK, so look, regarding the uninvolved, every house in Gaza is a Hamas HQ, weapons, Al Aqsa, everything, all the signs are there.” Hasson actually gives him that. This is not in question. “Every house in Gaza.”

But now, some liberalism:

“And still, how did you say, children from the age of zero to four? They are uninvolved – maybe when they grow up they will be [involved]. In the meantime, you cannot starve them – they are children, there’s nothing to do.”

So let’s just summarize this mind-boggling logic. Hasson understands that Igra is speaking about genocidal collective punishment – using starvation as a weapon of war – but argues that those under four should not be starved because “they are children.” Ergo, a toddler who hits age four, is no longer a child and, therefore, may now be starved.

“I agree with you,” Igra states

“This is in the interest of us all,” Hasson adds.

“It’s also against our interest,” Igra confirms.

“Yes, exactly,” Hasson concurs.

15 Feb 2024

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

I can agree all politicians lie but Biden has told some whoppers!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/bidens-ridiculous-claim-he-was-arrested-trying-see-mandela/

I can agree all politicians lie but Biden has told some whoppers! Maybe he suffers heavily from the Mandela Effect. Maybe Biden crossed over from some alternate dimension where he did get arrested trying to visit Mandela? It would also explain why he and Jill have two totally different years of when they got engaged.

Maybe Hillary suffers from a similar effect? I’ll argue till the day I die it was Looney Toons, not Looney Tunes. Maybe in Hillary’s alternate reality there were guns and not flowers in Bosnia.

I’ve started to notice when Biden’s say “I’m not kidding” it’s a big lie.

Direct Quotes:

“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”

“After he [Mandela] got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office. He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said: ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.’”

In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was rocked for days after The Fact Checker exposed the fact that her story of arriving “under sniper fire” in Bosnia was simply not true. Instead of running toward an armed vehicle with her head down, video footage showed she was greeted by children bearing flowers.

We were reminded of that episode when we saw that former vice president Joe Biden has told voters at least three times that he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela.

As the Times noted, Biden’s memoir makes no mention of any such arrest. As far as we can tell, Biden never mentioned this arrest before

He appears to be referring to a trip in 1977, but the U.N. ambassador from 1977 to 1979, Andrew Young, told The Fact Checker that he was never arrested in South Africa.

Biden’s second statement — that Mandela thanked him for being arrested — also is not credible. In 2013, Biden merely said that Mandela thanked him for his efforts to end apartheid.

At one Feb. 18 campaign stop in Nevada, Biden associated the supposed arrest with waiting to hear back from his then- girlfriend, Jill, in 1977 about whether she would finally agree to marry him.

Update, Feb. 28: Biden himself was finally asked about this alleged incident, during an interview with CNN, and acknowledged he was not arrested: “I wasn’t arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go."

Jill Biden also references a 1977 Biden trip to Africa in her own memoir, but both appear to have gotten the year wrong.

After Biden’s remarks to CNN, The Fact Checker reached a white member of the mostly-black congressional delegation - - then Rep. Don Bonker (D-Wash.). Bonker, who said he strongly supports Biden for president, said he had “no recollection at all" of such an incident at the airport.

We will note that Clinton admitted she made a mistake after her Bosnia snafu.

Biden earns Four Pinocchios.

[atlanticcanada]

'I’m just lost': Tenant left without electricity, running water during dispute with landlord

Maimuna Sarah Malek says she’s at her wit’s end dealing with a dispute with her landlord that’s left her without running water in her home for more than a week.

“I’m just lost,” says Malek, “I constantly check to see if my water’s turned on, every morning.”

Malek says she, her husband, and their four children have been showering and doing laundry at a friend’s house and buying bottled water for everything else, including flushing the toilet and washing dishes.

The situation, says Malek, is the result of a tenancy dispute that's gone from bad to worse.

“It's an emergency situation. You have to live with water, you can't live without water,” she says.

Then on Monday afternoon, her power abruptly went off, forcing the family to stay with friends.

Malek says it started last May, when her landlord June Liao -- operating under Sheba Queen International Investment Consulting Inc. -- wanted to raise the rent at her Dartmouth bungalow. Liao appears to also use the name Qun Liao on some of the documents Malek shared with CTV.

Malek says when she received email communication from Liao about her intent to raise the rent from $1,400 a month to $1,600, Liao also attached a new lease for her to sign, which she did.

But after learning through her own research that the increase was higher than Nova Scotia’s current rent cap allows, Malek says she looked back at the first lease she signed in February 2021 to start her tenancy. It was then, she says, that she realized the water bill she'd been paying for a year was supposed to be included in the rent.

She took the matter to Nova Scotia’s Residential Tenancies Board. In November, the residential tenancy officer ruled in Malek's favor.

According to a copy of the decision Malek provided to CTV News, the lease signed in February 2021 was “deemed to have been renewed” on a yearly term.

That lease included water in the rent. The lease from May of 2022 did not. Malek provided signed copies of both to CTV.

The residential tenancy officer also rejected any rent increase on the same basis. The decision states, “in order to comply with the lease, the landlord is responsible for the water.”

“Any water utility paid by the tenant so far can be deducted from the tenant’s next rent payment,” continued the Nov. 8, 2022, order.

After that, Malek says she stopped sending Liao money for the water bill, and also deducted what she had already paid from subsequent rental payments.

So when Malek got a notice on the door from Halifax Water Feb. 10, stating service would be cut off, she was shocked.

Malek says the landlord stopped paying the bill and left her taps dry.

June Liao refused multiple requests from CTV for an interview and instead entered into a lengthy discussion via text message.

In the exchange, Liao alleges the 2021 lease provided to residential tenancies was a “fake lease” and had been forged, but would only provide a copy of the second lease when asked for the original.

She also says Malek can turn the water back on by paying the utility the outstanding balance and insisted the water account is in Malek’s name.

CTV asked Liao by text if she made a disconnect request with Nova Scotia Power to turn off the electricity at the address, but received no response.

Malek says none of Liao’s allegations are true, and that Halifax Water told her she can’t get the water turned back on because she’s not the account holder.

“Even if she thinks I forged the lease, why is she not going to the tenancy board? Why is she not going further? Show me the lease,” says Malek.

According to Halifax Water, 40 days after a bill is issued, regulations allow service to be turned off if the bill hasn’t been paid.

The utility says account information, such as the amount owing, can’t be shared with anyone other than the account holder. But it adds anyone can make a payment on an account if they have the account number.

Malek shared a photo with CTV of a Halifax Water bill for her address from September 2021 that shows Liao as the account customer.

“So now the Halifax bylaw, they're trying to work with the Halifax Water, what to do to get it on,” says Malek.

A spokesperson with the city of Halifax confirms municipal staff visited the home on March 1, and that at the time, “the unit did not appear to have access to running water.”

Public affairs advisor Klara Needler says an order was issued to the property owner that day “to immediately reinstate water supply.” Needler adds failure to do so would result in fines.

“How can we avoid situations where this is happening...to resolve disputes before they get to this point?” asks Joanne Hussey, a community legal aid worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid, “And how do we make sure that issues like water and basic utilities, and really, the basic necessity of housing are being provided for, and that those things are not being taken away from people as part of that struggle?”

Hussey says the orders made by residential tenancies can only be enforced by taking matters of non-compliance to small claims court. She adds such tenancy decisions are not public, so it can be hard to track if a landlord is under multiple orders.

When it comes to bylaw enforcement through a municipality, Hussey adds that process takes time.

“There isn’t a clear, quick way to address a situation like that,” says Hussey, “and I think it really speaks to the pre-existing power imbalance between landlords and tenants, that the landlord has control over your housing and oftentimes over things like your heat, or lights, or water. So that puts tenants in a really vulnerable situation.”

“I feel like the system has failed us,” says Malek. She says enforcement is too slow, and landlords in general need to be held accountable.

Malek says she plans to take the matter to court, while also looking for a new place to live.

“What I want, what my family wants, we just want to live somewhere safe, where we pay to live,” she says, “we want to be able to be respected as tenants and that we don’t have to worry about something like this happening again.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/vaIEbOl

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