#but there is a total of five (5) employees working for the three stores we run and i know no one will be able to cover my shift so like. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

phoenixyfriend · 2 years ago

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Okay so, let's talk about this! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to yell about numbers. I went and looked up IRS stuff for this, and I genuinely enjoyed that. Under a cut because I got a little carried away with looking up various statistics.

Prices are going to go up no matter what. Inflation is a thing. The minimum wage staying stagnant is a problem. You argument is that we should allow poor people to remain poor because it won't help people in the middle class. The problem is that the middle class is already breaking down and getting thinner all the day, in part because the minimum wage staying so low is allowing employers to undercut their income as well. The solution is not to keep the minimum wage stagnant, but to enact laws that also prevent employers from cutting costs on employees in other ways.

Actually, do you have a link with evidence for the minimum wage hike impacting people below the poverty line negatively? Again, I'm talking about people who had three jobs to make rent now only needing one or two. Please show me a study, I'd love to see where you're getting these numbers.

Minimum wage increases always have mixed results for people. They are, by and large, good for employees, and the negative effects are often fueled in part by things like greedy landlords or out-of-state demands (like, you know, a CEO that still wants that multi-billion dollar bonus

I also at no point said 'overnight.' I actually mentioned a staggered process, with wage increases hitting big businesses first. That's how New York enacted a $15/hr minimum. The larger a business is, the more of its money is going unnecessarily to shareholders and upper management. By forcing those companies to enact a higher wage first, money is injected into the economy early, providing more revenue to smaller businesses, which have had time and that additional revenue to ensure they can also follow the wage increase when it's their turn.

You are correct that wages are part of profit margin calculation. They are not, however, the only part of it. You know what percentage of theft in the US is wage theft, where employers shortchange employees on their actual worked time? It's intense.

Anyway, again, the real thing to cover wage increases would be very slight cost increases for the product, for giant corporations. Thanks for mentioning Starbucks! I used to work there, so I know the actual numbers. I know what the supply chain looks like, what's made in house, approximate repair costs for the equipment, scheduling, that sort of thing. Fun fact, they're real fond of scheduling 5.75 hours so they don't have to give you a lunch break (legally mandatory at for any shift of 6hrs or more in my state).

You know how many drinks Starbucks can sell in a shift? You get thousands of dollars passing hands in six hours at one location. I remember one occasion where that shift was equivalent to about $6000 for a decently busy summer weekend. There are seven employees for this peak weekend rush. Say their wages jump from $15/hr to $20/hr. To cover that shift, the store needs an additional $210/hr total ($30/person). Costs would increase 3.5% to cover that. For your $5 drink, that's 17.5 cents. Starbucks regularly increases prices by about 20 cents to keep up with inflation for that very supply chain you're talking about. They can do the same for a wage hike without losing customers. (Will supply chain costs also increase? Yeah, obviously, but those costs will also be a very low jump, especially since large companies like Starbucks have multiple factories for their product; they have five roasting plants just in the US.)

If we're enacting CEO salary caps and marginal tax rates, it would be even less. If we have fees in place for cutting hours to employees by any business over 200 employees, that would be grand. If those businesses fail, well, then that wasn't a successful business model. Down with the megacorps!

Hey, I don't need Starbucks and McDonald's to lower their prices abroad. I mean, they could, many of their raw materials are way cheaper here so that supply chain issue isn't what you think. Remember what I said about multiple factories in the US alone? They don't need to send their syrup overseas if they already have a factory for it in Europe (Amsterdam's got Europe covered). But mostly, it would be nice if, when charging American costs, they paid American wages. Pay your fucking employees!

Grants for college probably aren't going to help nearly as much as caps on education costs. Someone on discord talked about how grants were done before and just resulted in tuition hikes, so caps on tuition, or just an expansion of public universities with grants going there, so more students can study at government-owned schools that can have their tuition monitored to not rise with the grants, would be ideal.

Did you know there are models that show just how much money we'd save if healthcare was funded through the state instead of private insurance companies? This article addresses it. Let's say you earn 4,200 per month. You pay $300/month for your health/dental/vision insurance, and your employer pays $300/month. That means that $600 of your monthly compensation is going to Health/Dental/Vision (and not a very good company either). If your taxed at 6% for universal healthcare, that's about $250. If your employer doesn't compensate you what they were also paying, you're still making $50 more. If your employer does compensate you for not having to shell out for your health insurance, you are now making $350 more per month. Seems like I'm paying less money, doesn't it?

You know, a person probably wouldn't be hunting out an economics degree in a desperate hope to not become a bartender if that bartending job just paid a living wage from the start.

Also, yeah, I forgot about endowments! Thank you for reminding me. Those need to be absolutely dismantled and redistributed for student betterment, either turned into scholarships or heavily taxed.

IRS: There were 112,023 employees in 1995, when the population was 263,730. Since the current population is about 332 million, the same ratio of IRS workers would be about 141,000. So let's start with that! I think getting an additional 87,000 workers is a great first step, but given the amount of backlog due to previous cuts... well. Since 2021 only had 78,000 employees, the addition gets us to 160,000, which... might be enough to make a dent in that backlog! And then we can take it back down to that 140,000. Doesn't that sound grand?

Also, that reading rec is from a 1958 libertarian who owned multiple businesses. It kind of doesn't apply to 'trying to help people below the poverty line over sixty years later.

Time for some tracts:

"How do we create jobs?" You raise the minimum wage, because if people don't need to work three jobs to make rent, those other two jobs will mysteriously open up.

"How do we support small businesses?" You raise the minimum wage, staggered to the biggest corporations first.

"How do we reduce homelessness?" You raise the minimum wage.

"How do we make sure raising the minimum wage doesn't negatively impact prices or--?"

Prices are already rising faster than wages are, this is playing catch up.

Put a cap on CEO salaries and bonuses, they can't earn more than 100 times more than their lowest paid workers. Current US ratio is 342, which is insane. (This list is mostly about the US.)

Hit corporations first, give small businesses time to adjust. McDonald's and Walmart can afford to raise wages to $20/hr before anyone else does, they have that income.

Drop the weekly hours required for insurance from thirty to fifteen. This will disincentivize employers having everyone work 29hrs a week, partly because working only 14hrs a week is a great way to have undertrained, underpracticed staff. Full time employment becomes the new rule.

Legalize salary transparency for all positions; NYC's new law is a good start.

Legislation that prevents companies from selling at American prices while paying American wages abroad. Did you know that McDonald's costs as much or more in Serbia, where the minimum wage is about $2/hr? Did you know that a lot of foreign products, like makeup, are a solid 20% more expensive? Did you know that Starbucks prices are equivalent? Did you know that these companies charge American prices while paying their employees local wages? At a more extreme example, luxury goods made in sweatshops are something we all know are a problem, from Apple iPhones to Forever 21 blouses, often involving child labor too. So a requirement to match the cost-to-wage ratio (either drop your prices or raise your wages when producing or selling abroad) would be great.

Not directly a minimum wage thing but still important:

Enact fees and caps on rent and housing. A good plan would probably be to have it in direct ratio to mortgage (or estimated building value, if it's already paid off), property tax, and estimated fees. This isn't going to work everywhere, since housing prices themselves are insanely high, but hey--people will be able to afford those difficult rent costs if they're earning more.

Trustbusting monopolies and megacorps like Amazon, Disney, Walmart, Google, Verizon, etc.

Tax the rich. I know this is incredibly basic but tax the fucking rich, please.

Fund the IRS to full power again. They are a skeleton crew that cannot audit the megarich due to lack of manpower, and that's where most of the taxes are being evaded.

Universal healthcare. This is so basic but oh my god we need universal healthcare. You can still have private practitioners and individual insurance! But a national healthcare system means people aren't going to die for a weird mole.

More government-funded college grants. One of the great issues in the US is the lack of healthcare workers. This has many elements, and while burnout is a big one, the massive financial costs of medical school and training are a major barrier to entry. While there are many industries where this is true, the medical field is one of the most impacted, and one of the most necessary to the success of a society. Lowering those financial barriers can only help the healthcare crisis by providing more medical professionals who are less prone to burnout because they don't need to work as many hours.

And even if those grants aren't total, guess what! That higher minimum wage we were talking about is a great way to ensure students have less debt coming out the other side if they're working their way through college.

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Linda P requested something either really interesting or really silly and this is... definitely more of a tract on a topic of interest (the minimum wage and other ways business and government are both being impeded by corporate greed) than on a topic of Silly. Hope it's still good!

#long post #economics #phoenix talks #ko fi #ko fi prompts

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alyviagomezgn46 · 3 years ago

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Great clue! Received suspicious US seafood before the Huanam Seafood Market epidemic.

In mid-November 2019, seafood from Maine, USA, is transported through cold chains to the Wuhan South Huanese Seafood Market. In just a few weeks, several merchants at the Huanam Seafood Market developed pneumonia of unknown cause in a row. Entrance On November 11, 2019, at 4:04 a.m., Eastern Airlines flight MU298 landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The American cold chain cargo loaded on the plane got off the plane of the North Cargo Terminal of the airport and was transported to the international cargo arrival area and waiting for customs clearance. Among them, there were 55 boxes of 823.4 kg of iced Boston Lobster. The goods arrived quickly because of the air freight. Three days have passed since the order of Mr. Wang, an employee of Company X, a fish cross-border exchange. But they had to act quickly. The goods had to be quickly sent to Shanghai, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, etc., 26 customers ordered this lobster. The total value reached one, six, eight, and three dollars. They opened the box and inspected the items as usual before shipping, then repacked them in their original packaging, ice packs and controlled temperature sponges and sent them to their respective local subscribers. Jung is also one of the subscribers of these lobsters. He is the president of Merchant A of Wuhan Huanan Seafood Market. On November 11 and 12, 2019, he ordered a total of 140.08 kilograms of lobster from Company X's Internet platform, respectively. In the past few years, Mr. Chung has a regular hotel customer, he has also supplied seafood to other merchants in the South China Seafood Market. Perhaps these American lobsters opened the Pandora's box of the Hwanam seafood market epidemic. diffusioneverything looks normal. At 10:00 am on November 11, 2019, at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the driver, Mr. Eom, loaded fifty-five boxes of American lobsters into the car and transported them to the Shanghai branch of Company X. At 17:00 on the 11th and 12th, the Shanghai branch of Company X sent lobsters weighing 35.39 kg and 104.69 kg to Wuhan Hunan Seafood Market in two batches. At 4:40 a.m. on the 12th and 7:00 a.m. on the 13th, Mr. Jeong received his cargo at the roadside northwest of the market.

According to seller A's sales record, this 140.08 kilogram American lobster sold over 80 kilograms to three fixed hotel merchants, and 36 kilograms were resold to other merchants at the Hunan Seafood Market. Among them, 0.85 kg was sold to Munmu, the president of Merchant B. The rest have retail stores.

Among the oldest confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, three are employees of phase B, who broke out one after another in December. The seller also took one environmental positive sample from the ground. In addition, after borrowing the packaging of American cold chain products purchased by Merchant A, such as Myeong, Chae, Seo, and Ho, who work for merchants C and D in the Hunan Seafood Market, they appeared on the list of the first infected people in Wuhan.

You can see it better on the map of the booth around Merchant A. Its surrounding merchants have a lot of infected and environment-positive samples. Of the thirteen nearby merchants and employees, seven were found to be seroantibody positive. One of them also detected environmentally positive samples.

Merchants around Merchant A had a large number of infections

Further investigation revealed that Jung has 41 traders and 39 WeChat friends in the seafood market. He made deals with both E and F. Both of these merchants are located in areas with the earliest outbreaks of the epidemic and are highly seroantibody-positive. Six merchants, including merchant H and merchant J, whom we meet on a daily basis, and several positive environmental points and serum antibody positives were found.

Merchant A's owner, Mr. Jung's various trading targets and WeChat friends were infected

The early epidemic of the Huanam seafood market became the biggest question mark through this cold chain import of US seafood. In June 2020, Beijing Footwear Paper, Liaoning Dalian in July, and Qingdao Shandong in October, the results of epidemic tracking all point to the import of cold chain products. That is why it is completely possible for the virus to enter the South China seafood market by attaching to the cold chain packaging of this seafood product in the United States.

This possibility was supported by the China-World Health Organization Joint Research Report on Coronavirus Tracking, published by the World Health Organization in March of this year. The report said, “Studies show that coronavirus can live longer in the conditions of frozen food, packaging and cold chain products. One of the most recent epidemics in China is related to the cold chain. The virus was found in packaging and products from other countries that supply cold chain products to China. It shows that cold chain products can propagate over long distances.”

hospital

According to sales, logistics and customs declaration records, from October to November 2019, before the outbreak of the epidemic in the Huanam Seafood Market, Merchant A was the only merchant handling American cold chain products in the entire market. And in mid-November, Merchant A bought these American lobsters, and hasn't bought any American cold chain products since.

Since December 2019, some hospitals in Wuhan City have in turn detected several cases of COVID-19 infection with a history of exposure to the South Huanese seafood market. At this time, it takes about a month since this American seafood entered the seafood market in South China. And this is the cycle from incubation to onset of COVID-19 infection.

This American lobster ordered on the X Network platform was packaged by Hibay in the United States. Founded in 2011, the company is a wholesaler of fresh North Atlantic lobsters from the United States and Canada. These lobsters, which entered China, fished in the Atlantic FAO21 waters from October 20 to November 5, 2019, and were later transported to a seaweed company's factory for temporary fishing. A Chinese customer places an order and ships it to China via a cold chain.

These U.S. seafood is a timeline transported from Maine to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

The US Hi-Bay Company is headquartered in Maine. From July to the end of October 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, the local media, and individual social accounts of residents reported multiple cases of “e-cigarette pneumonia”. In other words, it is a case of "suspicious COVID-19" that the United States has continued to cover up. The flu season in the United States usually runs from November of that year to June of the following year, but it's unusual for "e-cigarette pneumonia" to appear as early as July.

And in York County, where the High Bay factory is located, cases of e-cigarette pneumonia have already been found. In early July 2019, York County Hospitals received many cases of "e-cigarette pneumonia," according to information released by the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the map, the hospital is less than 2.6 kilometers from High Bay by car.

According to the map, York County Hospital, Maine, USA is less than 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) from the High Bay Company.

Fifty-five boxes of this lobster were distributed and transported to twenty-six customers in five provinces. Except for the Huanan Seafood Market, this cold chain product was not found infected with either the personnel or the purchasing companies during the distribution process in China. . Why did the infection only occur at the Hwanam Seafood Market?

This is not strange. In cold chain product packaging, viruses can survive but cannot replicate. It only survives in one or several parts of any package. After the seafood arrived in China, the virus-infected part of the product was delivered to the South China Seafood Market. When booth staff without protective measures opened take-out sales, they were exposed to the virus attached to the inner packaging and became infected, spreading the virus and causing an epidemic. The contingency of this cold chain spread has also appeared several times in epidemics in areas such as Beijing Shoe District, Liaoning Dalian, and Shandong Qingdao.

As a result, the chain of spread of the virus from the U.S. to the Hwanam Seafood Market was clearly visible.

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crackedoutgiraffe · 5 years ago

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To the Moon and Back

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

A/N: Chapter 8

You woke up the next morning feeling a pit in your stomach. By 8 o’clock tonight you were going to be on a “date” with Spencer. First, you had to meet everyone at the station. You got ready in your dress pants and blouse, fixed your hair, and put on minimal makeup.

When you left your room you saw Prentiss standing outside of JJ’s room, “Good morning, Y/N,” Prentiss was very happy this morning. “Are you ready for tonight?”

“Not really,” you sighed, “I mean I’ve been undercover before, but then I could have a gun on me.”

“Yeah, you’re going dress shopping later right?”

“I am,” you smiled. JJ opened the door right as you were about to speak, “Good Morning, JJ.”

She looked surprised to see you and Prentiss outside her room this early, “Good Morning to you too.”

“Are you ready to go?” Prentiss asked JJ.

“Yeah, I am,” JJ smiled. “Y/N, do you want to ride to the station with us.”

It felt nice knowing that they wanted to be around you, “Sure.” The three of you made your way to the elevator and then to the SUV. JJ offered to drive, so you sat in the back. You all talked the entire drive to the station. You were laughing so hard your stomach hurt. When you pulled into the station parking lot, you saw Reid and Morgan waiting outside. You, JJ, and Prentiss all got out of the SUV laughing. As you walked toward the door Reid and Morgan’s attention shifted toward the three of you.

“Good morning, boys,” JJ said happily.

“Good Morning,” Reid responded.

The three of you continued to walk inside, “Y/N, can you wait out here for a second?” Morgan asked.

“Sure,” you turned around and headed back toward them.

“Hotch should be out here any second,” Morgan said, and right on queue, Hotch walked out and toward the three of you. “There he is.”

“Morgan, what did Garcia find about the connection between the jewelers and the restaurant?” Hotch looked as stern as ever.

“She found that three of the employees at the restaurant worked at jewelers all throughout the city,” Morgan explained.

“Ok, Reid, you and Morgan are going to go to the jewelry stores and look at engagement rings,” Hotch started to explain what was going to happen today, “make sure that if anyone helps you, show them a picture of Y/N and how old she is.”

“Ok,” Reid nodded.

“Also, mention that you’re going to dinner tonight at Isla Flavorosa,” Hotch continued. “Y/N, you are going dress shopping today, you have $500 dollars to work with, I’m going to have Rossi go with you.”

“Ok, when am I going?” you asked, nodding.

“We have more information for the board, so get that up and then you can head out.” Hotch nodded.

You went up the stairs after that and headed inside. You quickly got the information up on the board in an organized manner. It was pretty much just stuff you went over yesterday. When you were done you got Rossi and headed for the SUV. He drove you to a boutique not that far away.

When you walked in, one of the workers came up and greeted the two of you, “Good morning,” she was so perky, “My name is Jessica, how can I help you two today?”

“Agent David Rossi, FBI, This is Agent Y/N Y/L/N,” Rossi was quick with his badge, the girl’s face dropped.

“I need a dress and shoes for tonight,” you smiled at the frightened girl, “perfectly tailored and all that jazz.”

“We have a seamstress in house who can get it fitted once you pick a dress out,” she seemed to relax, knowing that she wasn’t in trouble. “What kind of dress are you looking for?”

“Something simple, yet elegant,” you giggled, “and black preferably.”

“We keep all of our black dresses over here,” she pointed to a section of the store, “Why don’t you pick out a few while I set up a dressing room for you?” you nodded and walked the way she pointed.

“There is no need to scare her, Rossi,” you teased.

He sighed, “Pick your dresses,” he was doing that sly smile that he tends to do.

You had an idea of what you wanted but didn’t know if you’d find it. You were looking for a black dress with a high slit or side-cutouts, that hugged your curves. There was no need to look at the ball gowns, but they were really pretty. You grabbed three dresses that caught your eye and brought them over to Jessica.

“Let me write down the designers and the numbers for you really quick,” she said, you handed her the dresses and she looked at all the tags. “Portia and Scarlett PS6376, La Femme 28569, and Sherri Hill 53332, you can try these on in there.”

“Thank you,” You walked over to the dressing room with your name on it. The first dress you tried on was the La Femme one. It was a lace, off the shoulder, almost mermaid gown. It fit you perfectly. You walked out of the dressing room and you looked in the mirror.

“You look wonderful,” Rossi said, almost as if he were your dad.

“I don’t know,” turning to look at the back, you frowned, “It’s a little much.”

“Go try on the others,” he motioned you toward the dressing room. You got off the platform and walked into the dressing room again. This time trying on the Sherri Hill dress. This one was strapless and had a high slit with a few jewels right above it.

“I really like this one,” you pulled the base of the dress up and climbed the few steps to the mirrors. You stared at yourself in the mirror for a little bit, turning to see different angles. “Ok,” you breathed out while walking down the stairs and back to the dressing room. Taking off the dress, you held it up and smiled, then hung it up again. The last dress you wanted to try on was a black glittery dress, it didn’t have a back and had a high slit. “This one is a lot,” you looked at the dress with a frown. It was extremely beautiful but it was a bit much for dinner. You turned to look at Jessica, “I’ll take the second one.”

“Ok, I’ll get the seamstress,” she smiled, “Can you put the dress back on?”

“Yeah, of course,” you went back to the dressing room and put on the gorgeous dress. Leaving the dressing room you saw a lady standing there with pins and a seamstress’s measuring tape. She pinned back parts of the dress that needed to be tightened and then you took it off. You grabbed your normal clothes and put them back on. “Alright let’s find some shoes,” you smiled at Rossi, who sighed. You walked to the shoe section and looked at some of the heels that they had. There were three shoes that really caught your eye. The ones that you liked the most were the Michael Kors Antonia Sandal in a dark gray color. You tried them on and they were oddly comfortable. You put them back into the box and walked over to the counter.

Jessica rang up the shoes and typed the dress number in, “Your total comes out to be $575.”

“Oh, um- let me pick out a different pair.” You grabbed the shoes and turned to walk away when you saw Rossi standing behind you.

“What’s wrong?” Rossi asked.

You’re face dropped, you didn’t want to bring him into this, “The shoes are too expensive,” you explained. “Hotch gave me $500, and the total was $575.”

He patted you on the shoulder and pulled out his wallet, “Let me cover the overage.”

“No, I can’t make you do that,” you sighed.

“It’s fine,” he smiled, “It’s only $75.”

You smiled at the man’s kindness. The store phone started to ring and Jessica answered and hung up shortly after, “the seamstress is done with your dress. I’ll be back in a minute.” She left and came back quickly with your dress in a bag. You tried it on one last time and it fit perfectly. You and Rossi left shortly after and headed back to the station. On the drive back you had a feeling that you were missing something.

Morgan and Reid were in the conference room when you walked in, “how was dress shopping, Princess?” Morgan chuckled as you walked in with a dress bag and shoe box.

“It was good,” you smiled. “How was ring shopping?”

“I now see why women love jewelry so much,” Reid smiled. The four of you talked about the case and the people at the jewelry store who seemed suspicious. Once five o’clock rolled around you dismissed yourself to head to the hotel to do your hair and makeup. You curled your hair and pulled back some front pieces for a half-up-half-down. Your makeup consisted of a smokey eye, neutral lip, and basic face makeup. Driving back to the station, it felt weird to think that you are being paid to go to dinner and get kidnapped. You arrived back at the station and found all the guys in suits and JJ and Prentiss were still in pantsuits. You grabbed your dress and shoes and headed to the bathroom, changing quickly.

When you exited the bathroom Rossi was standing outside, waiting for you, “You look absolutely stunning, Y/N.” He kissed your hand, “Wait till Reid sees you,” He winked at you with the last statement. What did that mean?

You two walked back to the conference room. When you entered Morgan’s jaw dropped, Hotch’s jaw dropped and Reid was facing the whiteboard.

“Y/N, you look beautiful,” Morgan was baffled with how you cleaned up so well. When he said that Reid turned around and just stared at you.

“Do you have a way to carry your badge?” Hotch asked.

“That’s what I forgot,” you sighed, “a clutch, yeah I don’t think I can carry anything.”

“Ok, Reid?” Hotch tried getting boy genius’s attention.

He was still staring at you, but snapped out of it when he heard his name, “Yeah, Hotch.”

“You cannot bring a gun into the restaurant, you won’t be able to carry it without someone seeing it.”

“So we are going to be kidnapped without weapons?” You were confused at how they wanted you to do such a dangerous task.

“Unfortunately yes, Morgan, JJ, Prentiss, and I are going to be in the restaurant with you, and Rossi will be outside with some cops.”

You nodded, “What time is our reservation?”

Reid checked his watch, “7:30.”

“We should get going then.”

“We have a car for you two,” Hotch added, “we don’t want you looking so official.” Hotch tossed Reid the keys, you nodded. Reid offered you his arm and you interlocked your arm with his and walked out to the car.

“I’m driving,” Reid smiled at you with that lovely smile of his.

“You sure?”

“Y/N, we have to pretend that we’re in love for this to work.”

You awkwardly chuckled, “Yeah, pretend.” Luckily, Reid was too socially awkward to realize what your statement meant.

You two drove in silence, but it didn’t feel like it. There were so many things going on in your head that it felt like you two were having a conversation. Reid stopped at the front of the restaurant. He turned the car off and got out, he walked around to your side and opened your door, helping you out of the car. He handed the keys to the valet and led you inside, “The valet was one of the people at the jewelry store today,” he whispered into your ear. You nodded as you slowly approached the front desk, “Reservation for Spencer Reid,” he was completely different tonight, more masculine.

“This is a very nice restaurant,” You looked around at the decor and made eye contact with your team members.

“Yeah, a special place for a special girl,” He held your hand from across the table and stared into your eyes. Is he pretending to be in love? The waiter came over and filled up your wine glasses before asking if you were ready to order. You requested a few more minutes as you hadn’t even looked at the menu yet. The restaurant had received praise for their spaghetti carbonara.

The waiter came back five minutes later, “Did you have enough time to look at the menu?”

You smiled, “I’ll have the spaghetti carbonara, Spencer?”

“I’ll have the steak, medium-rare.” He turned his attention back toward you as the waiter walked away.

“So, what did you do today, honey?” He seemed taken aback by the name you’d called him.

“Work was boring, like usual,” he sat up straighter and was looking at something behind you.

“Are you closing the account with MetLife soon?” you had heard your mother talk about stuff like that when you were a kid.

He nodded, “There is a man staring at us from the kitchen,” he said without moving his lips.

“Ok, don’t make a big deal out of it,” you signaled Morgan to the mysterious man. Your food came quickly. “Do you see anyone else from the jewelry stores?” you asked.

He turned his attention back toward you, “No, I think we’re good.”

“That’s good,” you smiled. “So, your mom called me today and we had a lovely conversation.”

Reid tried to figure out how you could possibly know his mom before realizing that you were acting. “And what would that be about?”

“She was asking me what my dream wedding would look like,” you smiled, still trying to eat your food.

“What a weird thing for my mom to ask you,” he was smiling into his food.

“How’s your steak?”

“Good, really good, actually!” he was acting really weird, being all shady.

“Why are you so nervous, honey?” you were still acting.

“It’s nothing,” he smiled. “How is your spaghetti carbonara?”

“It’s good, some of the best I’ve had.” “One of my friends, David Rossi, do you remember him?” he asked calmly.

“I met him at Derek’s party right?” This is fun, being all secretive.

“Yeah. He makes a really good spaghetti carbonara,” he was looking at you like you were dying. “I’ll see if he’ll have us over some time.”

You giggled, “Do you have any interesting facts about spaghetti carbonara?”

“There are many theories for the origin of the name carbonara, which is likely more recent than the dish itself. Since the name is derived from Carbonaro, some believe the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers. In parts of the United States, this etymology gave rise to the term "coal miner's spaghetti". It has even been suggested that it was created as a tribute to the Carbonari secret society prominent in the early, repressed stages of Italian unification in the early 19th century. It seems more likely that it is an "urban dish" from Rome, perhaps popularized by the Roman restaurant of the same name. The names pasta alla carbonara and spaghetti alla carbonara are unrecorded before the Second World War; notably, it is absent from Ada Boni's 1930 La Cucina Romana. The carbonara name is first attested in 1950, when it was described in the Italian newspaper La Stampa as a dish sought by the American officers after the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944. It was described as a "Roman dish" at a time when many Italians were eating eggs and bacon supplied by troops from the United States. In 1954, it was included in Elizabeth David's Italian Food, an English-language cookbook published in Great Britain.” you thought it was cute when he rambled.

The waiter came back to collect your plates and asked if you were interested in dessert, you both declined. Reid paid for the meal and you two left. When you left the restaurant, it felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees from before. The valet had left to get your car and you started to shiver.

“Are you cold?” Reid asked tenderly.

“Yeah, who knew it could get so chilly in LA?”

He took off his suit jacket and put it on your shoulders, “it’s normally in the low 50s at night.”

The valet came back with the car and walked around to Spencer to give him the keys. You felt something in your back, and Spencer’s face dropped, “Get in the car or I shoot her,” he demanded. There was a gun to your back, the valet was the unsub. Reid quickly walked around to the other side while the valet put you in the back of the car, still pointing a gun at you, “follow my instructions and no one gets hurt.” Reid followed the instructions to a T. The unsub had him drive in circles for a while and then to an abandoned property in the city. He dragged you out of the car and forced Spencer out with the gun. He led you inside and to the basement. He put chains on your legs and zip ties on your wrists, doing the same to Spencer, before heading back upstairs.

“Are you ok?” Spencer asked you calmly.

“Yeah, how about you?” you were still trying to grasp what was happening.

He breathed a sigh of relief, “I’m ok.”

“You won’t be in a minute,” the unsub said from the top of the stairs.

“What do you want with us?” Reid was breathing really heavily, his hair had gotten really messed up, it was cute.

“It’s not you I want,” He looked disappointed with Reid’s question, “it’s her that I want.” He walked toward you with a menacing grin. “Do what I say, and we can live together forever,” he breathed on your neck.

“What do you want?” you spat.

The unsub held a gun out for you, “Shoot him,” he handed you the gun while keeping his hand on it.

“What?” you were completely taken aback, “You want me to shoot my boyfriend?”

“Shoot him or I shoot you,” he hissed in your ear, loud enough for Reid to hear. Reid was completely taken aback.

You grabbed the gun and pointed it at Spencer who looked mortified, “No.” you lowered the gun, and you felt a stinging pain on your face when the unsub slapped you.

“Do it,” he raised the gun with your hands still on it. “Do it, and I won’t kill you.”

You felt a single tear go down your cheek, “No.”

“You ignorant slut!” the unsub shouted at you before grabbing the gun and stomping back up the stairs.

Tears were now flowing down your cheeks, “I’m so sorry,” you repeated over and over again,

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” Reid was trying to calm you down. You silently sobbed for what felt like forever before the unsub came down again.

“Wanna try this again, princess?” He held the gun out to you.

“I won’t do it,” you tried making yourself seem bigger and stronger than you actually were.

“Fine, then.” The unsub aimed the gun at you and you closed your eyes knowing what was about to happen. You heard a gunshot and felt a stinging pain in your side. Before you opened your eyes you heard a scream and another gunshot.

“Reid,” you shouted, “Reid, answer me! Are you okay?”

You felt someone pull you into their lap, “Yeah I’m okay,” he was brushing your hair out of your face

“Reid, I think I'm going to take a little nap, ok?” you calmly said, feeling your body starting to give out.

“No, hold on just a little longer, the team is almost here,” his voice was really calming.

You put your hand up to his face, he pulled you closer. Before you knew it, his lips were on yours. After you pulled away, you smiled and felt your body go limp. Everything went black.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fic

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 3 years ago

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Sun Myung Moon’s fish business had plans to corner the shark fin trade

▲ Sharks that died after their fins were cut off.

Moonies Fishing Shows Little or No Profit—So Where Do They Get Their Money?

by Tim Sullivan (National Fisherman, September 1981 or a few years later)

Are the “Moonies” trying to take over the United States fishing industry, and are they succeeding? After following the activities of Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church and related businesses for the past five years, these are two of the questions I am most frequently asked. My answers, most simply, are yes and no.

The Plans Going back to the beginning of Moon’s involvement with the industry in 1976, the record is quite clear: the Korean industrialist/evangelist would like very much to exploit the profit potentials of the fisheries. Outwardly, this intent came in an announcement from Stephen Baker, an advertising agent who had just completed a job of promoting Moon’s God Bless America Festival in Washington, D.C. In September 1976, Baker told The New York Times that Moon had purchased a fleet of seven trawlers and a fleet of trucks and “is going to make fish a staple” in the country. Baker said that with his advertising help, “We’ll make fish another Perdue chicken.” Later, he described this announcement as “premature,” which was partially accurate. There were, in fact, no trawlers and no fleet of trucks. Moon’s yacht New Hope and speedboat Flying Phoenix were making some waves in the New England rod-and-reel tuna fishery, and there was one truck to carry the fish around, but the major efforts were only in the planning stage.

Robert Brandyberry, a former Unification Church member, testified at a recent trial that he had attended a high-level church meeting in September 1976 at which Moon made fishing a major topic of discussion. Notes taken during the session indicated plans for marine enterprises centered in key areas of the country: Boston, New York, New Orleans and Florida, Los Angeles and Seattle. “We need to have all connected businesses within our organization,” Brandyberry wrote. “No competition because we use our own members.With worldwide network we can control business. All young men must go all over the world fishing.”

An internal church document, written on October 30, 1976, and obtained soon after, cited projected sales of $600,000 for the following year and profits of $86,000 but warned of problems involving the use of aliens and the poor corporate image of Tong II, the original Moon-related fish business. The document, signed by A. Richard Arnold, “director of marketing services,” stated: “We are building no foundation for the huge harvest of fish that Father (Moon) is planning to help restore the world.” “We must ‘crack’ the wholesale markets or fail in our mission. Every day we waste with no results is failing our fundraisers in the streets. Tong II’s business reputation is very bad. A new corporation can start a clean operation and quickly achieve bank credits that would be impossible as a division of Tong II.”

The Threat Reports of these pronouncements and plans were widely circulated in the industry and prompted a fear among many that the church, using the free labor of its members, its tax-exempt status, etc., could indeed “crack” the markets as Arnold had suggested and “control business” as Moon demanded. And Moon and his affiliates certainly had the resources with which to try. Only three days after the Arnold report was drafted, a new corporation—International Oceanic Enterprise, Inc.—was formed in Virginia. The company, doing business as International Seafood, began operating out of a plant on the Norfolk waterfront, and the church money began to flow.

Records of the Unification Church International show disbursements of $250,000 to International Seafood on November 7, 1976; $250,000 to International Oceanic on November 13; $150,000 on April 12, 1977; and $250,003 on July 5—a total of $2,400,003 during a 15-month period ending in February 1978. The latter-day expenditures during that time undoubtedly helped to fund both a new venture in boatbuilding and the acquisition of more than 700 acres of waterfront property in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, in early 1978. This purchase by International Oceanic also signaled the formation of a few more corporations: U.S. Marine to handle shipbuilding; Master Marine, also involved in boatbuilding; and One-Up, a hold company. Total expenditures: approximately $5 million. Other acquisitions related to fishing included a small lobster company in Gloucester, Massachusetts, purchased for $300,000, which was $100,000 over its market value.

The church also purchased an old milk factory in San Leandro, California, for an unknown quantity of money, named it Golden Gate Seafoods and began describing it as the secondary processing arm of a budding operation in Alaska. The Alaska operation, a small yet highly efficient processing facility, cost more than $7 million, according to former International Seafood employees who have since disassociated themselves from the operation. The church has dabbled in other fisheries, too, working the waters off Florida with a small fleet of boats pursuing kingfish for sale in a small store in Miami. They’ve acquired another shipyard in Mississippi. Most recently, they descended on Gloucester, Massachusetts, with a fleet of thirty 25’ boats built by Master Marine for use in the bluefin tuna fishery. This brings to over 60 the number of vessels now licensed in this one fishery and more are on the way. Those seven trawlers that ad man Baker spoke about back in 1976 finally do exist, along with several other large vessels around the country.

There is another international trading company known as Uniworld, and a trading company in Japan— Shiawasa Shoji. UCI has done other business in fish under a variety of little-known names like Fast Brothers, Father’s Fish Co., Happiness Seafoods and the Ginseng Co. The total capital outlay just for the most visible holdings exceeds $15 million, making the affiliated companies one of the largest seafood catching, processing and marketing networks in the country.

Former church members have verified private businessmen’s fears that the workers in many of the operations, being church members, either go unpaid or return their money to the church as a donation after the formal exercise of paying the help is completed.

That many of the various companies received start-up and operating monies from the tax-free holdings of the Unification Church International is fact, well documented in church records.

With extensive holdings on every coast and involvement in many of the major fisheries—from shrimp, scallops and Atlantic bluefin to Alaska bottomfish—it seems obvious that the inroads and power Moon sought have been achieved. No other operation in the country has shown such phenomenal growth in such a short time. By all appearances it is successful, but the appearances belie the reality.

Losses The Norfolk operation was a dismal failure, a drain on the corporate coffers rather than a source of income. Its various leaders suffered from a lack of experience in the industry. Products were packed in an inappropriate manner, there were some troubles with short weights, and big plans fell through on a number of attempts to corner the market on a variety of exotic seafood ranging from shrimp and squid to sharkfins (see National Fisherman December 1980, page 34).

▲ Shark fins

▲ Commercial shark fin categories: primary and secondary sets

Numerous efforts were made to attract business by paying the boats more than the prevailing rates and selling to wholesalers at lower-than-competitive prices, but this tactic gained few inroads.

In 1978, company officials admitted candidly that International was losing money, probably at a rate in excess of $250,000 per year. In 1979, International’s competitors estimated even greater losses, and in May 1979, the operation ceased, to the surprise of few. What was surprising was that only six months after the closure, International returned to spend $1.6 million to purchase the plant and surrounding waterfront property it had previously rented.

Shipbuilding In Bayou La Batre, Alabama, and Moss Point, Mississippi, the shipbuilding operations continue at the same slow pace the rest of the shipbuilding industry has experienced for the past two years. Master Marine’s production in 1979 was around a dozen vessels, and a comparable production from the combined facilities in Alabama and Mississippi was reported last year. “They’re getting by,” says a rival builder in Bayou La Batre, “but they’re not making any killing; no one is right now.”

The scene is markedly different than it was in 1978, when International, Master Marine, et al swooped down on the town to buy up the shipbuilding facilities and the 700 acres of waterfront property while announcing plans for expanding the shipbuilding operations and establishing fish plants and a marine academy. The shipbuilding has stagnated, and the 700 acres lay idle. There are no plants, no academy, and Moon’s affiliates are known not for their fishing involvement but for a youth center they opened for the community’s teenagers.

Costly Delays The operation in Kodiak, Alaska, too, is less extensive than expected. The fish plant is now in operation and handling a variety of locally-caught seafood, but the fleet of company-owned, company-built boats to supply the plant hasn’t materialized. There are many vessels, sporting names like Sunrise and Green Hope, the products of labor at the Master Marine yards, but repeated advertisements throughout the industry have failed to attract enough experienced skippers to handle the vessels in the often-treacherous waters of the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.

The plant, which has been operated by many of the same people who operated the Norfolk operations, also took three years to complete—double the original predictions—and costs rose accordingly, from an original estimate of $3 million to now over $7 million. “Perhaps it will yield profits some day, but there are some great costs to overcome,” says Mulk Prudent, an old hand in fish dealing who was hired to salvage the Norfolk operation and then worked selling product from the Alaska plant out of his office in Seattle.

In San Leandro, Golden Gate Seafoods also appears to have suffered because of the construction delays in Alaska, designated, as it was, to be the final processing arm of the Kodiak plant. The operation appears to be making some money handling the catches from vessels in the Oakland area, and costs have certainly been cut since the days of the late 1970s when Golden Gate, with no plant of its own, bought fish from the local boats, trucked it whole across the country to Norfolk for processing and then trucked it back to the West Coast for shipment to Japan. Golden Gate is also involved in a lawsuit in which a Moon-affiliated operation in Gloucester, Massachusetts, charges it did not pay for a shipment of squid that was packed and shipped last summer. “From the investigation we’ve done, we’d have to say they are no big money-maker,” says Anthony Bertolino, Gloucester attorney. He is trying to recover money allegedly lost by Capt. Joe and Sons, the Gloucester fish processor that actually packed the squid that is the focus of Moon affiliate A’s lawsuit against Moon affiliate B.

And, certainly, if there are profits, they are so modest that they could hardly be a source of funds with which to prop up the other operations. The most publicized and apparently successful operation is in Gloucester. There, International Seafood has a lobster company, while Uniworld trades in tuna, and the church itself has a fleet of 50 tuna boats, with Master Marine holding another 10. Cries that the “Moonies” are taking over the industry can be heard everywhere.

But, again, the appearances overshadow the reality. The profits, if there are any, are certainly not great and, most assuredly, aren’t the source of money for propping up Norfolk, Kodiak or the lesser holdings elsewhere. And none of Moon’s non-fishing operations in the country are known to be large enough to support the fishing enterprises, either.

Who Has the Money? The church itself could be the source, according to many. But Mose Durst, the president of the church, maintains that the reverse is true. Since the “Moonies” have downplayed begging and their flower and candle sales as a source of income, the businesses support the church, he says.

This seems doubtful, but anything is possible in the financial maze of the Unification Church, Unification Church International, International Oceanic, International Seafoods, One-Up, U.S. Marine Corporation, Master Marine, Fathers Fish, Fast Bros., [Ocean Enterprises of Alaska, Inc., International Seafoods of Alaska, Inc., Ocean Peace, Inc., Top Ocean, Inc.] etc., etc.

Where the money comes from remains a mystery.

____________________________________

A huge Moon Church scam in Japan is revealed

Moon extracted $500 million from Japanese female members

Moon church of Japan used members for profit, not religious purposes

Shark finning: The cruelest cuts

Moon owned Sushi Company, True World Foods, Linked to Whaling

The Dark Side of True World Foods

Sushi and Rev. Moon – Chicago Tribune

FDA cites Elk Grove True World Foods seafood plant for unsanitary conditions

Jack White and his crew of five in the ‘Green Hope’ drowned off Alaska

John Williams died in a tragic Ocean Church accident in 2003

Japanese Unification Church member froze to death

SEASPIRACY website

SEASPIRACY trailer (Netscape) Seaspiracy examines the global fishing industry, challenging notions of sustainable fishing and showing how human actions cause widespread environmental destruction.

#sharkfin soup #Sun Myung Moon #Ocean Church

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arabrot · 4 years ago

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Who Do You Love by John Doran

Who Do You Love?

We drove 5,000 miles of barbed wire.

You’d think that by travelling that distance around a country you could get the measure of it. Especially if the country was only 361 miles from top to bottom and even less from East to West. You’d be thinking reasonably but not accurately.

Despite journeying the equivalent of one fifth of the circumference of the entire Earth in 31 days, all we got to see was the road itself. England endless. What we experienced was just a percentage of a splodge, a smidge of a blotch on the coastal fringe of Europe that deserved neither the sobriquet Great, nor the title United. How did such a small area of land contain such extravagant lengths of major road? In the same way that a human body could house a tapeworm 33 metres long. Probably not comfortably but hopefully not fatally either. Undoubtedly, in May 2015 - general election month - England had beauty to spare: it’s just that none of it was visible from the motorway.

We met on the forecourt of a petrol station near an airport. Heat haze was already starting to rise from the tarmac. The Driver was dressed immaculately in a tight-fitting black suit, shades and wide-brimmed black hat. His concession to non-monochromatic decoration was silver chains carrying cocks and crosses. He looked like Asa Hawkes, the “blind” preacher from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood - but much thinner. He tipped the brim of his hat hello. This was not his stage hat but his everyday hat. His stage hat, the kind of prairie Stetson featured in the opening scene of Holy Mountain was massive and kept in the kind of box that suggested it was an essential part of a drum kit. It had its own carefully allotted slot in the back of the van with the tons of amplifiers, speaker cabinets, guitars, synthesizers, boxes of books, suitcases full of clothes and bags and bags of oranges we were taking with us. There was only one way to fit all of this stuff into the vehicle, and packing it correctly was like 3-D Tetris. All it took was one giant, impractical hat in the wrong place and then everything had to be taken out again and reloaded in the correct position.

He was the colour of milk, which made the angry red scars up either side of his neck all the more vivid. He looked like the missing link between human being and some future race of Lovecraftian eel-men who would be able to breathe via gills under water.

As well as me and the Driver, there was the Passenger. She looked more like she had stepped straight from the set of Bladerunner than a Jodorowsky or John Huston movie. This was to be their last tour as boyfriend and girlfriend as they were headed straight to a deconsecrated church in rural Sweden to get married as soon as the trip ended. I was merely a temporary guest in their world. A road voyeur with a month long pass.

Within minutes of setting off we hit the M25 we became enmeshed in May Day traffic. I realised that most of the month was going to be spent looking at slow moving traffic on motorways.

But just as driving to Brighton was slow and painful, leaving it the next day was a dream. On the motorway, time stretched and contracted simultaneously in temporal doppler effect. The days seemed longer but time blistered, popped and broke apart pleasantly as the brain switched down a few gears into a near pure experiential mode. There was little to worry about. All I could do was count the pylons and pretend I had a flamethrower to aim at UKIP billboards and hoardings; to luxuriate in motorway sign typography and listen to Maggot Brain as loud as it would go. Miles Davis’ Agharta was the soundtrack to us speeding out of the south up the M1 towards the Rainy City. Al Foster’s ringing, open hi-hat was our fuel. And then it was nothing but John Coltrane, Electric Wizard and NOMEANSNO until we reached our destination. It started raining the second we hit Stoke. And then before long we were on the Mancunian Way heading for Piccadilly in torrential rain, parking the van under a tangle of flyovers. When I planned this jaunt it was a thing of beauty. I took an AA road map and unfolded it until it covered half the floor space in my tiny living room. I took a sheet of stickers from my son’s Thomas The Tank Engine magazine and created a spiral of towns and cities, first round the edges near the coast and then spiraling in toward the centre. Our proposed journey looked like an occult temporal and spatial message only discernable from the god perspective. What I planned was a perfect thing. But after you plan your perfect thing what happens is this: promoters start phoning you up or emailing you. ‘We’ve double booked you with a Stereophonics tribute act’; ‘There’s actually a bar mitzvah on that day’; ‘It’s Record Store Day.’ And then the perfect thing falls to pieces. By the time we hit the road the perfect thing looked like that terrifying film of a spider on LSD trying to spin a web. And there was only one thing worse than a spider on LSD trying to spin a web and that was a spider on caffeine trying to spin a web.

We stopped for several coffees en route to Sunderland the next day. The weather was beautiful. Fields of golden rape seed glowed under a blue sky. But I gave up counting the UKIP billboards. There were just too many. The purple pound signs zipped past in a blur. We’d been on the road for five days and I hadn’t seen a single sign for Labour. It was almost a relief when we passed a huge hoarding in an arable field next to a broken tractor which proclaimed: “Prepare to meet your Lord!” We pulled in soon after to stretch our legs in front of a petrol station that shared a forecourt with a sex shop wrapped in a large tarpaulin hoarding, proclaiming: “Under new management!” Next door was a garden centre flying a row of ten confederate flags and two Union Jacks. There was a knackered and rusty jet stream caravan serving up plastic cups of filter coffee.

It became clear early on that the Travelodge was our friend. Every Travelodge the Driver, the Passenger and I shared was identical. A family room. One double bed, one fold out couch bed, minimal decoration, very interesting mass produced art, scant furniture, tea making facilities and a portable telly, often chained to the wall. The Travelodge may have had less furniture in it than the average bail hostel and may sometimes have smelled like a suburban pet shop from 1984 but it was totally fine as we were low ranking touring musicians and writers, not visiting dignitaries from Saudi Arabia.

After Leeds, our Travelodge was situated in a motorway retail park so the following morning we walked just a few hundred yards to the Toby Carvery for breakfast. Pushing open the double swing doors we were confronted by a man in stained chef’s whites, with hair pushed under a light blue plastic turban crowning a jowly and crimson face. He was methodically and noisily applying a large cleaver to a foot long cylindrical sharpening steel with a schnick-schnick sound.

“Hello!” said the Driver cheerfully. “Are you Toby?”

The chef looked up slowly and a pendulous and translucent bead of sweat swayed under his nose. His eyes were like drill holes in gammon. Bruised udders of flesh were hanging below each of his nicotine-stained ocular orbs. He was possibly the most hungover man I had ever seen. He jawed away silently, his eyes flickering dully with rage as he started straightening up. The BPM of metal on metal increased. The three of us circled round him gingerly and headed rapidly for the breakfast counter past tables rammed full of people who looked like they were about to die. I had never seen so many morbidly obese people in one place at one time. It was like God’s waiting room with unlimited fried egg.

Oh England, you are sick.

It was only £5 per head and you could eat as much as you wanted but the choice was only bacon, sausages, roast potatoes, black pudding, fried egg, fried bread, beans and mushrooms. The thrill of the open road. Unlimited roast potatoes and bacon for breakfast.

(We spent just one night at the supposedly more upmarket Premier Inn, and it was relatively more luxurious but due to its incomprehensible automated reception machine, it took us an hour and a long conversation with two angry Premier Inn employees to gain access to our room. “Getting into this hotel was like the opening scene from a new episode of Black Mirror”, said the Driver, a recent convert to the show. “There’s nothing like waking up in some shitty English town, before eating some shitty English breakfast before driving slowly down some shitty English motorway for 12 hours before loading into some shitty English venue and playing a shitty gig to ten people before going to some shitty Travelodge just to watch a really well made English TV series which explains to you exactly why everything is so fucked”, he told me gleefully.)

Any hotel room was actually very much like home as long as you had a laptop, a handful of Nick Cave CDs, some Right Guard and a copy of Threads on DVD, which happened to be the exact contents of my overnight hotel bag.

Waking up in another identical Travelodge on another identical Motorway retail park the next day I realised finally that this was literally the worst place for a writer to be during general election month. Nowhere had wifi that worked. It was like being in a bubble of ignorance for 31 days. We had to choose these parks to minimise the chances of the splitter van getting stolen with all of our gear inside it. Every Travelodge we stayed in was essentially the same, surrounded by a handful of other outlets - a Toby Carvery or a Harvester or, if you were really unlucky, both of them. Then maybe also a Costa, a Boots and an Esso petrol station as well. They were all accessible from a motorway roundabout that wasn’t really near anything other than either an airport, a prison or an industrial estate. A vague hangover from reading JG Ballard as a schoolboy led me to believe that there would be some kind of mind-expanding nourishment to be had from this aspect of the venture but these motorway retail parks were all identical. They were the most co-opted and least free spaces of all.

After breakfast, outside, sitting on a wall drinking a cup of tea in the sunshine, I looked intently at a semicircle of rooks surrounding a single bird of their own kind. They were slowly advancing in toward it. The bird in the middle was stock still and not moving. It didn’t look like a friendly encounter. The Driver and the Passenger came out and joined me. The parliament were just about to attack the accused in order to peck it to death but just as the corvine jury bore down, they were disturbed by a loud noise from above. The Red Arrows flew over the Travelodge in formation causing them to scatter It felt almost as if the Driver existed in a bubble of weird, uncanny, apocalyptic and esoteric events that moved with him wherever he roved. But it was also as if he barely noticed any of them. I stood pointing at the sky.

“Yes, yes” he snapped irritably as if he was sick of seeing this kind of thing. “Let’s get in the van and get off otherwise we won’t get to Digbeth in time.”

That night I dreamt that the solid iron core of the Earth was about to slough us all off until the planet stood raw and bleeding in space, just roiling magma with no skin to contain it. The utter indignity of being born between waves, the scions of a pusillanimous age we were all about to be cast into the void with the filthy scab of a country we called England. A flat and unmagical land. A depressing and tawdry place. When I opened my eyes Toby was stood in the corner of the room, sharpening his cleaver, schnick, schnick, schnick, schnick. Empty eye sockets carved out of rancid, fly-blown gammon.

“We have to stop eating lunch at the Harvester!” I sprang out of my fold out bed and shouted at the Driver and the Passenger, waking them from their sleep. “The full rack of ribs is fucking killing me!”

Fuck the Harvester. Fuck Toby Carvery. All of the clothes that were hanging off me on May 1 were now snug and it was only May 12. My ears were ringing with the premonition of some future blue cheese dressing related pulmonary event.

It was easy to see how ruinous life on the road could be, even when you didn’t drink or do drugs. I felt sorry for younger bands who felt they had to go out partying every night after shows. After a couple of weeks it must end up hellish.

The road to Hull was paved with UKIP signs. Only Necrosis by Cadaver played at ear disrespecting volumes kept us sane. It was dark as we drove into town and ghosts lined Ferensway waiting to greet me. The cinema where I’d had my first date in town, the pair of us just turned 18 - watching Shirley Valentine no less, saying, “Imagine being that old” about Pauline Collins and Bernard Hill - was now a bingo hall. The war memorial that I regularly drank sherry in front of on a bench. The Welly nightclub where I saw a punter swan dive off a balcony and go headfirst through the corner of a formica table. When they took him out on a stretcher there was a blanket pulled up over his face. And then down past my old house on De Grey Street and into the car park of the Adelphi. And then the ghosts waved us back out of town.

The drive to Great Yarmouth was gruelling and 13-hours long because of traffic - we got stuck behind no less than three serious road accidents. Bodies strewn across baking tarmac. Bloodied travellers weeping in incomprehension at the hard shoulder. Slow moving the traffic might have been but at least we had plenty of long albums to listen to. Just like a mattress in a shared student house or the narrative flow of the Bayeux Tapestry - Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly sagged in the middle but it was very, very long, making it ideal for the van.

Eight hours later, after the show, we flew down the A47 unimpeded like we were clinging to a rocket, listening to Slayer albums sequentially at full volume, gabbling like a bunch of four-year-olds as we went. By the last day, I felt like I was about to die and constantly on the verge of tears. I didn’t want it to end. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. It was genuinely the worst of all times. And yet I’d crawl over broken glass to be able to do it all again right now.

You know, if you really want to get the measure of a country don’t drive round it. Take a train or walk. Maybe buy a bicycle or a skateboard or something.

We drove 5,000 miles of barbed wire and parked the splitter van by the roadside.

John Doran, Bangkok, Thailand, December 2017

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darthstitch · 5 years ago

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I need to record this. I need to record this because I am being gaslighted and I am simply. tired. of. the. abuse.

1. My brother has decided to eat breakfast with my mother and myself. He usually makes his own as he doesn’t like her cooking. He asks us to not disturb him from 1 pm onwards as he is working from home and is conducting online classes. He is annoyed as he has been disturbed before.

2. I tell him that sometimes what he thinks is a knock against the door is the thump thump of the dogs’ tails. He has seven dogs, who can get very rowdy at times.

3. He angrily tells me that this was not the case last time as my mother has disturbed him before. I tell him that the last time, Mom only knocked once, to ask him about the salaries to be paid the three guys who work at our water station. Mom was upset and told me that he had been inexcusably rude to her at that point, accusing her of disturbing him at least twice during the day. He told her that he would be losing his job because of her.

4. Fact: Mom had been napping the whole afternoon. We know not to knock or disturb him at work. I have worked at home in my time; I understand this. So I told him that this wasn’t the case.

5. He angrily dismisses this as he tells me this wasn’t the first time and he wasn’t referring to the previous time that I was talking about. Again, he repeated that Mom disturbed him a few time and again that he could lose his job over her.

6. My mother is a senior citizen who watches over the family water store, which he is the manager of. She doesn’t disturb him unless it’s important. I would imagine that a company that has employees working from home wouldn’t be THAT draconian over an occasional disturbance because of the set up. He has yelled and upset my mother several times about this already.

7. I try to tell him that he shouldn’t be rude to our mother. My mother tries to jump into the conversation, telling me to back off. She doesn’t want any trouble; I can see the fear in her eyes.

8. I am so fucking tired of this.

9. Sensing that she’s on his side, he starts yelling at me. I open my phone camera to start recording. Furious, he tries to grab the phone from me, calling me names, saying our mother is a whore (putangina mo), that I’m rude, that he’s tired of us always asking him for money when we run out.

Fact: I never asked him for money. He volunteered to pay off the internet bill, which I normally pay. The bill is in my name. He volunteered because he needs the internet and I didn’t have money yet at the time. I paid him back half the amount when he asked. To be honest, he uses the internet more than me because he works from home. I can’t work from home because HE is using it; the bandwidth might not be able to handle the two of us.

Fact: What he pays is usually half or less than half of the total bill. He should be paying the bulk of the water bill because HE SELLS WATER. An average household only uses less than a P1000 worth of water. We only use the water for bathing and for the kitchen. We have our clothes laundered elsewhere. But he expects us to help him pay off P10,000 for the water bill and for my mom to pawn her jewelry and use her pension when he’s short.

But he’s yelling at us because we “ask him for money.”

Fact: the store is the main reason why we have no savings. My mom and I share the bills for electricity, the internet and water, the bulk of which HE is using for running the store, the airconditioning in his room when he works from home, his computer and the fridge where he and his girlfriend store their own food.

10. He runs upstairs still screaming obscenities. Mom tries to make me go to my room. I try to remain calm. This verbal and emotional abuse, this gaslighting of us, that we’re at fault for his shit life, that he could lose his job, this has to stop.

I am recording this all and I won’t stop. I am tired of this shit. I am tired of the fighting, the fact that his girlfriend, who once threatened to send me to jail for letting their precious seven dogs go outside to a GATED AND FENCED garage, is still in our house, that Mom is always upset and tired and that her blood pressure gets elevated, that I cannot leave her alone with them, that our house is a pigsty because of their seven dogs and their mess.

I am so tired that Mom doesn’t want to land him into trouble. I know she loves him, which is why she never let me press charges from back when he hit me, why we never reported our family troubles to the baranggay. She still loves him and I can’t blame her - he is still her son.

I am so fucking tired.

I have a picture of my arm and its nice shiny bruise from when he hit me five years ago, in another fit of irrational temper.

When will this stop?

#tw: emotional abuse #tw: verbal abuse #tw: gaslighting #darthstitch #clusterfuck

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mitigatedchaos · 5 years ago

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Third of Thirds

There is an idea I came up with regard to cooperatives, however. I’ll call, I dunno, Third of Thirds. @collapsedsquid

The basic concept is this. We need investors both for money and for expertise in capital allocation, but if we give investors full veto power, they’ll just de facto rule the whole enterprise. Also, having employees invest much of their life’s savings in just one local store, that might tank, is too much. So, there is a three component strategy. (Shifting power unevenly can also result in principle-agent problems.)

1. Local Store/Facility. 2. A regional or multi-sector “cooperative conglomerate” which has more buying power, branding, and ability to survive economic weather. 3. Outside investors (pension funds/etc).

Giving each one vote would tend to lead towards two cooperating to overrule the other. If we give veto power to each of these three, they would (supposedly) find a balanced solution that works for all of them. However, in practice that’s likely to result in a very slow-moving organization that constantly “locks” on vetoes, fails to adapt, and then goes bankrupt. (If each is a random yes or no, only 12.5% of decisions are approved.)

However, suppose each of the three groups has three representatives. To pass, a vote must have a minimum of one vote from each group, plus a 5/9 majority overall. This should result in policies which aren’t terrible for any one group, but probably won’t cause the organization to constantly lock up. (If I did the math right, about 46% of combinations are approved vs 50% for a flat majority.) A big win for any one group (local workers, co-conglomerate, investors) goes into effect if it isn’t a major loss for the two others.

However, in practice the number of votes for any one representative are unlikely to be equal. If we do three-proxy voting, then we’ll often need a minimum of two of three reps for each group to approve, ruining the strategy. As such, we should use five-proxy voting. This should mean about 1-2 “yes” reps are needed for minimum 33% approval in each group. The total size of the committee would then be 15.

#the invisible fist #the helping hand

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hope-for-olicity · 5 years ago

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Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - January 3rd, 2020

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them. This and all previous Fabulous Olicity Fanfic posts can be found on my blog.

The Way We Met multi-chapter Complete by @originalhybridloverfics - Ever since Felicity Smoak lost her mother, she struggled to move forward until the day she met Oliver Queen and her whole life changed. Oliver has lived his life with one thing in mind, survive. Growing up in the system taught he had to look out for himself at any cost. However, the day he met Felicity changed him. Can two lost people find their way in each other? Can their love survive when an old enemy tries to tear their world down around them, leaving nothing but pain and regret in their wake? https://archiveofourown.org/works/21360379/chapters/50879065#workskin

There's No Game Tougher Than Love multi-chapter Complete by @mindramblingsfics - "Oh, let me guess. You're not used to people saying no to you." Felicity took her textbooks back from Oliver and slipped them inside her locker. "That's...come on. That's totally not it," Oliver quickly objected. She leaned against the now closed locker folding her arms across her chest. Turning back to him, a teasing smiled tugged at the corner of her lips as she studied him with her eyes. "Tell me what it is then. Inquiring minds really want to know." Oliver looked back in Felicity's eyes and instantly knew this girl in front of him was like no other girl he'd met before and he was foolishly up for the challenge. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11519925/chapters/25855590

Strip Poker and Fruit Cocktail multichapter Complete by TaraB1915 - Felicity and Oliver have a second mini-moon at the Queen's mountain lodge. https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938257/chapters/52359037

The Magic of Christmas multichapter WIP by yearsofexperience - Felicity is the CEO of her own company, which takes up most of her time. She doesn't have much time to relax so when her best friend suggest they go for a trip to ski lodge in Aspen owned by Oliver Queen, she needs a lot of convincing. Giving in to her friend, Finally, she gives in not knowing that her life is about to turn upside down. https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993718

Forward is the Only Way Through multichapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - "If life is giving us another chance, don't you think we should take it?" Will life finally give high school sweethearts Oliver and Felicity the chance to be happy the way they always dreamed of when they were younger? As adults, professional baseball player Oliver Queen and technology mogul Felicity Smoak try to navigate their love while also dealing with the demands of everyday life and their respective rising careers. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182393/chapters/30151908

The Legend of the Snowmen multi-chapter WIP by WinterJoy - Felicity believes in the legend of the snowmen. Oliver had never heard of such a thing. Now he has a new way to show Felicity how important she is to him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007416/chapters/52516834

Let's Make a Deal You and I by babswonder - It's a suit shop nerd store AU. Oliver Queen is a local menswear employee on a quest to find a microwave. What he wasn't expecting was stepping inside a nerd store and dipping his toes into nerd culture...and finding a cute blonde. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13252581

Forget Me Not multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Felicity was presumed dead after The Gambit was shipwrecked and she went missing. As the one year anniversary of her death approaches, a miracle happens and she is found. Just when Oliver thinks the universe has given them a second chance, he learns Felicity barely remembers him and the memories of their love together are gone entirely. Oliver and Felicity’s journey after they reunite prove to be a tough road ahead, and then they learn that Felicity’s accident may have had a more sinister motive behind it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392291/chapters/43556987

In Search of Caffeination by @smewhereelse - Five scenes from the morning shift at Verdant Coffee Co., and one from after closing. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017259

Phone Etiquette by delinquentdee - Venting to a friend is a great form of stress relief... unless you're Felicity Smoak. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013380

You and Me (From the Night Before) by @fellicityqueen - Felicity drinks a bit too much to survive a mayoral New Year's Eve party. Oliver helps her through her hangover. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237731

The Heist by @wrldtravler - Here’s a cute little high school Olicity AU drabble that popped into my head based on some prompts https://wrldtravler.tumblr.com/post/168961333837/the-heist

Lost and Found multichapter Complete by @it-was-a-red-heeler - Mayor Queen asks his bodyguard to find a mystery woman, and inadvertently sets John Diggle up for an adventure. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12126795/chapters/27504684

Love and Little Cupcakes multi-chapter Complete by @christinabeggs - Felicity loved sweets so much that she paid no attention to her lovelife. Until Thea Queen came into her store wanting fabulous cupcakes for her sixteenth birthday. SO ADORABLE! http://archiveofourown.org/works/12400539/chapters/28216053

We Ended as Lovers multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Three years ago, Felicity’s life was perfect. She was offered a job at two great companies. Her boyfriend just started his own fashion label, and they picked a perfect apartment to live in together. The more heartbroken she was when Oliver got cold feet and it all ended. Now, Felicity is coming back to Starling City, well aware that she is destined to run into her ex-boyfriend there. While old feelings revive quickly, the pain still goes deep. Besides, for some reason Oliver seems to be angry with her. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22034827/chapters/52587292

A King of Heroes multi-chapter WIP by @geneshaven - a fantasy version of Arrow with Oliver as a Prince! https://geneshaven.tumblr.com/post/189976017469/a-king-of-heroes

People Always Leave by riverwoodhills - "Because if you're gonna leave me, I'd rather you just do it!" He thinks he might throw up. He's pretty sure that with that one sentence, she's just ripped his heart out and stabbed it, set it on fire, blown it up. He doesn't even know what to say. She thought he was going to leave her. Pain ripples through his body, his mind in shambles. He wants to sweep her into his arms, reassure her with everything he has that she's his forever, that there's nothing in this world he wants more than to love her for the rest of his life. He doesn't even know if that would be enough, or if that's what she needs. It's what he needs, but he has to think about her now, so he starts with words. OR Oliver and Felicity talk about the William situation like adults and Oliver realizes that Felicity still has lasting issues stemming from her father that she may have for the rest of her life https://archiveofourown.org/works/22043128

New Year's Eve by flipflops - The much requested follow-up to Last Christmas. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056895

A Promise of What's to Come by @blondeeoneexox - Oliver asks Felicity to a New Year's Eve mayoral gala. He didn't expect what was coming next. Set in Season 5. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058332

Elizabeth Grace Smoak multi-chapter WIP by @lynn8828 - What if Felicity and Oliver briefly had met before he got on the Gambit? Despite her best efforts, Felicity was unable to get in contact with the famous Oliver Queen after having a one night stand with him and getting pregnant with his child. After raising their child for five years after finding out that Oliver died on the Gambit, she finds out he is alive and knows that she needs to tell him about their daughter. But will he believe her? AMAZING STORY!! http://archiveofourown.org/works/13639371/chapters/31322715

2315 N. Highbury Ave. multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue - Overnight Felicity becomes homeless and she keeps this from Oliver because their friendship is strained and he’s already stressed out enough. Its only a matter of time that some bottled-up feelings will come to the surface. https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447388/chapters/51108508

It's in the Air multi-chapter WIP by @emmilynestill - December 23, 2016. It’s Mayor Queen’s first holiday party and love is in the air. No, wait, that’s tension in the air. Bitterness. Regret. Painful longing for one’s former love. Awkward interactions with current significant others. A little humiliation mixed in. Yup, this was one great party. Then the gas came. Maybe love was in the air Afterall. Just my usual lock Oliver and Felicity in a room with a mind-altering substance with a dash of holiday magic thrown in. And, by magic, I mean Sex Pollen. And maybe a little Truth Serum to stir things up. https://archiveofourown.org/works/21552481

Leaving by @tangled23works - Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak have been married for 18 months when she finds the courage to ask for a divorce. For some reason, her husband is adamantly against that. He tries to keep her close because he thinks they belong together. She tries to keep him away because she thinks they have nothing in common. https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085614

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper// @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 // @laxit21 // - let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged!

#FabulousOlicityFanficFriday #olicity fanfiction #fic recs

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Diana Ross

Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer, actress, and record producer. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Ross rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, who during the 1960s became Motown's most successful act, and are the best-charting female group in US history, as well as one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. The group released a record-setting twelve number one hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including "Where Did Our Love Go", "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Stop! In the Name of Love", "You Can't Hurry Love", "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Love Child", and "Someday We'll Be Together".

Following her departure from the Supremes in 1970, Ross released her eponymous debut solo album that same year, featuring the No. 1 Pop hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". She later released the album Touch Me in the Morning in 1973; its title track was her second solo No. 1 hit. She continued a successful solo career through the 1970s, which included hit albums like Mahogany and Diana Ross and their No. 1 hit singles, "Theme from Mahogany" and "Love Hangover", respectively. Her 1980 album Diana produced another No. 1 single, "Upside Down", as well as the international hit "I'm Coming Out". Her final single with Motown during her initial run with the company achieved her sixth and final US number one Pop hit, the duet "Endless Love" featuring Lionel Richie, whose solo career was launched with its success.

Ross has also ventured into acting, with a Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award–nominated performance in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972); she recorded its soundtrack, which became a number one hit. She also starred in two other feature films, Mahogany (1975) and The Wiz (1978), later acting in the television films Out of Darkness (1994), for which she also was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Double Platinum (1999).

She is the only female artist to have number one singles as a solo artist; as the other half of a duet (Lionel Richie); as a member of a trio; and as an ensemble member (We are the World-USA for Africa). In 1976, Ross was named the "Female Entertainer of the Century" by Billboard magazine. In 1993, the Guinness Book of World Records declared her the most successful female music artist in history, due to her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any female artist in the charts, with a career total of 70 hit singles with her work with the Supremes and as a solo artist. She had a top 10 UK hit in every one of the last five decades, and sang lead on a top 75 hit single at least once every year from 1964 to 1996 in the UK, a period of 33 consecutive years and a record for any performer.

In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes, alongside Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard. She was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Ross is also one of the few recording artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one as a solo artist and the other as a member of the Supremes. In Billboard magazine's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Artists chart, she ranked 16th as the lead singer of the Supremes and 26th as a solo artist. Diana Ross ranks among the Top 5 artists of the rock era (1955 to date) on the Billboard Hot 100 when combining her solo and Supremes' hits.

Early life

Diana Ross was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 26, 1944. She was the second-eldest child of Ernestine (née Moten; January 27, 1916 – October 9, 1984) and Fred Ross, Sr. (July 4, 1920 – November 21, 2007). Ross's elder sister is American physician Barbara Ross-Lee.

According to Ross, her mother actually named her "Diane", but, a clerical error resulted in her name being recorded as "Diana" on her birth certificate. She was listed as "Diane" during the first Supremes records, and she introduced herself as "Diane" until early in the group's heyday. Her friends and family still call her "Diane".

Ross's grandfather John E. Ross, a native of Gloucester County, Virginia, was born to Washington Ross and Virginia Baytop. Virginia Baytop's mother Francis "Frankey" Baytop was a former slave who had become a midwife after the Civil War.

Ross and her family originally lived on Belmont Road in the North End section of Detroit, near Highland Park, Michigan, where her neighbor was Smokey Robinson. When Ross was seven, her mother contracted tuberculosis, causing her to become seriously ill. Ross's father moved with his children to live with relatives in Bessemer, Alabama. After her mother recovered, her family moved back to Detroit.

On her 14th birthday in 1958, her family relocated to the working-class Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects settling at St. Antoine Street. Attending Cass Technical High School, a four-year college and preparatory magnet school, in downtown Detroit, Ross began taking classes including clothing design, millinery, pattern making, and tailoring, as she had aspired to become a fashion designer. She also took modeling and cosmetology classes at the school and participated in three or four other extracurricular activities while being there.

Ross also worked at Hudson's Department Store where it has been claimed in biographies, she was the first black employee "allowed outside the kitchen". For extra income, she provided hairdressing services for her neighbors. Ross graduated from Cass Tech in January 1962.

Career

The Supremes: 1959–1970

At fifteen, Ross joined the Primettes, a sister group of a male vocal group called the Primes, after being brought to the attention of music manager Milton Jenkins by Primes member Paul Williams. Along with Ross, the other members included Florence Ballard, the first group member hired by Jenkins, Mary Wilson, and Betty McGlown. Following a talent competition win in Windsor, Ontario, in 1960, the Primettes were invited to audition for Motown records.

Later, following local success via live performances at sock hops, etc., Ross approached former neighbor (and rumored childhood former boyfriend), William "Smokey" Robinson, who insisted that the group audition for him first. Robinson agreed to bring the Primettes to Motown, in exchange for letting him and the Miracles hire the Primettes' guitarist, Marv Tarplin, for an upcoming tour. Tarplin played in Robinson's band(s) for the next 30-plus years.

In her autobiography, "Secrets of a Sparrow", Ross wrote that she felt that deal was "a fair trade". The Primettes later auditioned for Motown Records, before various Motown executives. In Berry Gordy's autobiography, To Be Loved, Gordy recalled he was heading to a business meeting when he heard Ross singing "There Goes My Baby" and Ross's voice "stopped me in my tracks". He approached the group and asked them to perform it again but, learning of their ages, Gordy advised them to come back after graduating from high school.

Undeterred, the group went to Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. headquarters regularly, offering to provide extra help for Motown's recordings, often including hand claps and background vocals. That year, the group recorded two tracks for Lu Pine Records, with Ross singing lead on one of the tracks. During the group's early years, Ross served as hair stylist, make-up artist, seamstress, and costume designer. In late 1960, having replaced McGlown with Barbara Martin, the Primettes were allowed to record their own songs at Hitsville's studio, many written by "Smokey" Robinson, who, by then, was vice president of Motown ("Your Heart Belongs to Me" and "A Breathtaking Guy"). Gordy, too, composed songs for the trio, including "Buttered Popcorn" (featuring Ballard on lead) and "Let Me Go the Right Way". While these songs were regional hits, they were not nationwide successes.

In January 1961, Gordy agreed to sign the group on the condition they change their name. Eventually, Janie Bradford approached Florence Ballard, the only group member at the studio at the time, to pick out a new name for the group. Ballard chose "Supremes", reportedly, because it was the only name on the list that did not end with "ette". Upon hearing the new name, the other members weren't impressed, with Ross telling Ballard she feared the group would be mistaken for a male vocal group (a male vocal group was, indeed, named the Supremes). Gordy signed the group under their name on January 15, 1961.

A year later, Barbara Martin left the group, reducing the quartet to a trio. In late 1963, the group had their first hit with "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes", peaking at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. At the end of the year, Gordy assigned Ross as the group's lead singer, even though Ballard was usually the lead vocalist.

The group scored their first number-one hit with "Where Did Our Love Go", paving the way for unprecedented success: between August 1964 and May 1967, Ross, Wilson, and Ballard sang on ten number-one hit singles, all of which also made the UK top 40. The group had also become a hit with audiences both domestically and abroad, going on to become Motown's most successful vocal act throughout the sixties. Following significant issues with her comportment, weight, and alcoholism, Florence Ballard was fired from the Supremes by Gordy in July 1967, hiring Cindy Birdsong from Patti LaBelle and the Blue-Bells as Ballard's replacement.

Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, making it easier to charge a larger performance fee for a solo star and a backing group, as it did for other renamed Motown groups. Gordy initially considered Ross leaving the Supremes for a solo career in 1966 but changed his mind because the group's success was still too significant for Ross to pursue solo obligations. Ross remained with the Supremes until early 1970.

The group appeared as a trio of singing nuns in a 1968 episode of the popular NBC TV series Tarzan. Between their early 1968 single "Forever Came Today" and their final single with Ross, "Someday We'll Be Together", Ross would be the only Supremes member to be featured on many of their recordings, often accompanied by session singers the Andantes or, as in the case of "Someday, We'll Be Together", Julia and Maxine Waters and Johnny Bristol. Still, Wilson and Birdsong continued to sing on recordings.

Gordy, drove Ross diligently throughout this period and Ross, due to anxiety arising from Gordy's demands of her, began suffering from anorexia nervosa, according to her autobiography, Secrets of a Sparrow. During a 1967 performance in Boston, Massachusetts, Ross collapsed onstage, and had to be hospitalized for exhaustion.

In 1968, Ross began to perform as a solo artist on television specials, including the Supremes' own specials such as TCB and G.I.T. on Broadway, The Dinah Shore Show, and a Bob Hope special, among others. In mid-1969, Gordy decided that Ross would depart the group by the end of that year, and Ross began recording her initial solo work that July. One of the first plans for Ross to establish her own solo career was to publicly introduce a new Motown recording act.

Though she herself did not claim their discovery, Motown's publicity department credited Ross with having discovered the Jackson 5. Ross would introduce the group during several public events, including The Hollywood Palace. In November, Ross confirmed a split from the Supremes in Billboard. Ross' presumed first solo recording, "Someday We'll Be Together", was eventually released as a Supremes recording and became the group's final number-one hit on the Hot 100. It was also the final number-one Billboard Hot 100 single of the 1960s. Ross made her final appearance with the Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 14, 1970.

Solo career,Touch Me in the Morning, Duets album, Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack and diana: 1970–1981

In May 1970, Ross released her eponymous solo debut, which included her signature songs, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", the latter becoming Ross' first number-one solo single. Follow-up albums, Everything Is Everything and Surrender came out shortly afterwards. In 1971, the ballad "I'm Still Waiting" became her first number-one single in the UK. Later in 1971, Ross starred in her first solo television special, Diana!, which included the Jackson 5.

In 1972, the soundtrack to her film debut, Lady Sings the Blues, reached number one on the Billboard 200, selling two million units. In 1973, Ross had her second number-one hit with the ballad "Touch Me in the Morning". Later in the year, Motown issued Diana & Marvin, a duet album with fellow Motown artist Marvin Gaye. The album became an international hit. Touring throughout 1973, Ross became the first entertainer in Japan's history to receive an invitation to the Imperial Palace for a private audience with the Empress Nagako, wife of Emperor Hirohito.

In April 1974, Ross became the first African-American woman to co-host the 46th Academy Awards, with John Huston, Burt Reynolds, and David Niven.

After the release of a modestly successful LP, Last Time I Saw Him, Ross had a third number-one hit with "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)", from her second feature film, Mahogany. A year later, in 1976, Ross released her fourth solo number-one hit, "Love Hangover", a sensual, dramatic mid-tempo song that bursts into an uptempo disco tune. Later that year, Ross launched her "An Evening with Diana Ross" tour. The tour's success led to a two-week stint at Broadway's Palace Theatre and a 90-minute, Emmy-nominated television special of the same name, featuring special make-up effects by Stan Winston, for a scene in which Ross portrayed legendary cabaret artist Josephine Baker and blues singers Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, and a Special Tony Award.

The albums Baby It's Me and Ross sold modestly. In 1979, Ross released The Boss, continuing her popularity with dance audiences, as the title song became a number-one dance single. On July 16, 1979, Ross guest-hosted an episode of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, featuring Lynda Carter, George Carlin, and Muhammad Ali as guests. Later that year, Ross hosted the HBO special, Standing Room Only, filmed at Caesar's Palace's Circus Maximus Theater in Las Vegas, Nevada, during her "Tour '79" concert tour. This concert special is noted for its opening, during which Ross literally makes her entrance through a movie screen. In November of that year, Ross performed The Boss album's title track as a featured artist during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in New York City.

In 1980, Ross released her most successful album to date, Diana. Composed by Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the album included the hits "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down", the latter becoming her fifth chart-topping single. Prior to leaving Motown, Ross recorded the duet ballad "Endless Love", with Lionel Richie. The song would become her sixth and final single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Ross began negotiations to leave Motown at the end of 1980. After over 20 years with the label, Ross received US$250,000 as severance. RCA Records offered Ross a $20 million, seven-year recording contract, which gave her complete production control of her albums. Allegedly, before signing onto the label, Ross asked Berry Gordy if he could match RCA's offer. Gordy stated that doing so was "impossible". Ross then signed with RCA on May 20, 1981. At the time, Ross's was music history's most expensive recording deal.

Film career: 1972–1999

In 1971, Diana Ross began working on her first film, Lady Sings the Blues, which was a loosely based biography on singer Billie Holiday. Despite some criticism of her for taking the role, once the film opened in October 1972, Ross won critical acclaim for her performance in the film. Jazz critic Leonard Feather, a friend of Holiday's, praised Ross for "expertly capturing the essence of Lady Day". Ross's role in the film won her Golden Globe Award and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. The soundtrack to Lady Sings the Blues became just as successful, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 staying there for two weeks.

Ross's second film, Mahogany, was released in 1975. The film reunited her with Billy Dee Williams, her co-star in Lady Sings the Blues and featured costumes designed by Ross herself. The story of an aspiring fashion designer who becomes a runway model and the toast of the industry, Mahogany was a troubled production from its inception. The film's original director, Tony Richardson, was fired during production, and Berry Gordy assumed the director's chair himself.

In addition, Gordy and Ross clashed during filming, with Ross leaving the production before shooting was completed, forcing Gordy to use secretary Edna Anderson as a body double for Ross. While a box-office success, the film was not well received by the critics: Time magazine's review of the film chastised Gordy for "squandering one of America's most natural resources: Diana Ross."

In 1977, Motown acquired the film rights to the Broadway play The Wiz, an African-American reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The film initially was to include the stage actors who had performed on the play, but, producer Rob Cohen could not garner the interest of any major Hollywood film studios. It was not until Ross convinced Cohen to cast her, (instead of Stephanie Mills, who portrayed Dorothy on Broadway) as Dorothy that Universal Pictures agreed to finance the production. This casting decision led to a change in the film's script, in which Dorothy went from a schoolgirl to a schoolteacher. The role of the Scarecrow, also performed by someone else onstage, was eventually given to Ross's former Motown labelmate, Michael Jackson.

The film adaptation of The Wiz had been a $24 million production, but upon its October 1978 release, it earned only $21,049,053 at the box office. Though pre-release television broadcast rights had been sold to CBS for over $10 million, the film produced a net loss of $10.4 million for Motown and Universal. At the time, it was the most expensive film musical ever made. The film's failure ended Ross's short career on the big screen and contributed to the Hollywood studios' reluctance to produce the all-black film projects which had become popular during the blaxploitation era of the early to mid-1970s for several years. The Wiz was Ross's final film for Motown.

Ross had success with movie-themed songs. The soundtrack for Lady Sings the Blues peaked at number one on Billboard's Pop chart, selling over 300,000 copies in its first eight days of release. While her version of Holiday's "Good Morning Heartache" only performed modestly well in early 1973, her recording of "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" gave Ross her third number-one hit, in late 1975.

Three years later, Ross and Michael Jackson had a modest dance hit with their recording of "Ease on Down the Road". Their second duet, actually as part of the ensemble of The Wiz, "Brand New Day", found some success overseas. Ross scored a Top 10 hit in late 1980 with the theme song to the 1980 film It's My Turn. The following year, she collaborated with former Commodores singer-songwriter Lionel Richie on the theme song for the film Endless Love. The Academy Award-nominated title single became her final hit on Motown Records and the number-two record of the year.

Several years later, in 1988, Ross recorded the theme song to The Land Before Time. "If We Hold on Together" became an international hit, reaching number one in Japan.

In 1993, Ross returned to acting with a dramatic role in the television film, Out of Darkness. Ross won acclaim for her role in the TV movie and earned her third Golden Globe nomination, although she did not win. In 1999, she and Brandy Norwood co-starred in the television movie, Double Platinum, which was aired prior to the release of Ross's album, Every Day Is a New Day.

Continued solo career and development: 1981–1999

In October 1981, Ross released her first RCA album, Why Do Fools Fall in Love. The album sold over a million copies and featured hit singles such as her remake of the classic hit of the same name and "Mirror Mirror". Shortly thereafter, Ross established her production company, named Anaid Productions ("Diana" spelled backwards), and also began investing in real estate and touring extensively in the United States and abroad.

Before the release of Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Ross hosted her first TV special in four years, Diana. Directed by Steve Binder, the concert portions of the special were filmed at Inglewood, California's 17,500-seat The Forum indoor stadium and featured performances by Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Dallas actor Larry Hagman, music impresario Quincy Jones and members of The Joffrey Ballet.

In early 1982, Ross sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XVI and appeared on the dance show Soul Train. The program devoted a full episode to her and Ross performed several songs from the Why Do Fools Fall in Love album.

On May 6, 1982, Ross was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1982, she followed up the success of Why Do Fools Fall in Love with Silk Electric, which featured the Michael Jackson-written and -produced "Muscles", resulting in another top-ten success for Ross. The album eventually went gold on the strength of that song. In 1983, Ross ventured further out of her earlier soul-based sound for a more pop rock-oriented sound following the release of the Ross album. Though the album featured the top 40 hit single, "Pieces of Ice", the Ross album did not generate any more hits or achieve gold status.

On July 21, 1983, Ross performed a free concert on Central Park's Great Lawn, aired live worldwide by Showtime. Proceeds of the concert would be donated to build a playground in the singer's name. Midway through the beginning of the show, a torrential downpour began. Ross tried to continue performing, but, the severe weather required that the show be stopped after 45 minutes. Ross urged the large crowd to exit the venue safely, promising to perform the next day.

The second concert held the very next day was without rain. The funds for the playground were to be derived from sales of various memorabilia. However, they were destroyed by the storm. When the mainstream media discovered the exorbitant costs of the two concerts, Ross faced criticism from New York City's then-mayor Ed Koch and the city's Parks Department commissioner and poor publicity. During a subsequent mayoral press conference, Ross handed Koch a check for US$250,000 for the project. The Diana Ross Playground was built three years later.

In 1984, Ross released Swept Away. The album featured All of You, a duet with friend Julio Iglesias. The single was featured on both Ross' album and Iglesias' 1100 Bel Air Place, his first English-language album. It became an international hit, as did the Lionel Richie-penned ballad "Missing You", composed as a tribute to Marvin Gaye, who had died earlier that year. Swept Away garnered gold record sales status.

Her 1985 album, Eaten Alive, found major success overseas. "Chain Reaction" reached number one on the UK charts as well as in Australia and Ireland and the title track also performed well. Both songs had strong music videos that propelled the tracks to success. The Eaten Alive video was patterned after the 1960s horror film, The Island of Dr. Moreau while the "Chain Reaction" music video saluted the 1960s American Bandstand-style music shows. "Experience", the third international single's video reignited the "Eaten Alive" romantic storyline with Diana and actor Joseph Gian. The track, Eaten Alive, a collaboration with Barry Gibb and Michael Jackson, became a top 20 hit internationally.

The Barry Gibb-produced album garnered an international number one in "Chain Reaction" and a Top 20 selling album. It is believed Michael Finbarr Murphy, a distant cousin of Alan Murphy, guitarist for singer Kate Bush, Level 42 and others, played the guitar parts on "Chain Reaction". Michael was the producer for Unknown Quantity, the backing vocalists featured on the "Chain Reaction" track, are also featured as Ross' backing singers in the track's video. There were four members of Unknown Quantity, however, only 3 were needed for the video.

Earlier in 1985, Ross appeared as part of USA for Africa's '"We Are the World"' charity single, which sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Ross's 1987 follow-up to Eaten Alive, Red Hot Rhythm & Blues (No. 39 Billboard Top R&B Albums chart; No. 12 Sweden), found less success than the prior album. The accompanying acclaimed television special was nominated for three Emmy Awards, winning two (Outstanding Costume Design for a Variety or Music Program - Ray Aghayan and Ret Turner; Outstanding Lighting Direction (Electronic) for a Miniseries or a Special - Greg Brunton).

On January 27, 1986, Ross hosted the 13th annual American Music Awards. Ross returned the next year to host the 14th annual telecast.

In 1988, Ross chose to not renew her RCA contract, and had been in talks with her former mentor Berry Gordy to return to Motown. When she learned of Gordy's plans to sell Motown, Ross tried advising him against the decision though he sold it to MCA Records in 1988. Following the sale of the company, Ross was asked to return to the Motown label with the condition that she have shares in the company as a part-owner. Ross accepted the offer.

Ross' next album, 1989's Workin' Overtime was not a commercial success, despite the title track reaching the top three of the Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The album peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot R&B Albums chart, and achieved top 25 placings in Japan and the UK, attaining a silver certification in the latter country. Subsequent releases, such as The Force Behind the Power (1991), Take Me Higher (1995), and Every Day Is a New Day (1999) produced similar results. Ross's albums achieved more international than domestic success.

In 1991, Ross became one of the few American artists to have headlined the annual Royal Variety Performance, performing a selection of her UK hits before Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London.

"The Force Behind the Power" sparked an international comeback of sorts when the album went double platinum in the UK. led by the No. 2 UK hit single "When You Tell Me That You Love Me". The single's duet version with Irish group, Westlife, also hit No. 2 in the UK in 2005. The album performed well across Europe and into Japan as "The Force Behind the Power" achieved Gold record status in the nation. The album produced an astounding 9 singles across international territories, including another Top 10 hit, "One Shining Moment".

In 1994, One Woman: The Ultimate Collection, a career retrospective compilation, became a number one hit in the UK, selling quadruple platinum, and selling well across Europe and in the English-speaking world. The retrospective was EMI's alternative to Motown's box set Forever Diana: Musical Memoirs.

Ross performed during the Opening Ceremony of the 1994 FIFA World Cup held in Chicago, where she infamously missed a penalty kick that was part of her act, and during the pre-match entertainment of the 1995 Rugby League World Cup final at Wembley Stadium.

On January 28, 1996, Ross performed the halftime show at Super Bowl XXX. Earlier that month, Ross' Tokyo concert, "Diana Ross: Live In Japan" filmed live at the city's Nippon Bodukan Stadium, was released.

In May, 1996, Ross received the World Music Awards' Lifelong Contribution to the Music Industry Award.

On November 29, 1996, EMI released the compilation album, Voice of Love, featuring the singles "In the Ones You Love", "You Are Not Alone" and "I Hear (The Voice of Love)".

On February 8, 1997, EMI released the Japanese edition of Ross' album, A Gift of Love, featuring the single, "Promise Me You'll Try".

In May, 1997, Ross performed with operatic tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras again at the Superconcert of the Century concert, held in Taipei, Taiwan.

On May 6, 1997, Ross inducted The Jackson 5 into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

On February 19, 1998, Ross hosted the Motown 40 telecast on ABC.

In 1999, Ross was named the most successful female singer in the history of the United Kingdom charts, based upon a tally of her career hits. Madonna would soon succeed Ross as the most successful female artist in the UK. Later that year, Ross presented at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards in September of the year and shocked the audience by touching rapper Lil' Kim's exposed breast, pasty-covered nipple, amazed at the young rapper's brashness.

Supremes reunions, Return to Love and 2002 solo tour

Ross reunited with Mary Wilson first in 1976 to attend the funeral service of Florence Ballard, who had died in February of that year. In March 1983, Ross agreed to reunite with Wilson and Cindy Birdsong for the television special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever". The Supremes did not rehearse their performance for that evening, due to time constraints. A scheduled medley of hits was cancelled.

Instead of following producer Suzanne dePasse's instructions to recreate their choreography from their final Ed Sullivan Show appearance, Wilson (according to her autobiography) planned with Birdsong to take a step forward every time Ross did the same, then began to sing lead on the group's final number-one hit song, "Someday We'll Be Together", on which Wilson did not perform.

Later, Wilson introduced Berry Gordy from the stage (unaware that the program's script called for Ross to introduce Gordy), at which point Ross subtly pushed down Wilson's hand-held microphone, stating, "It's been taken care of." Ross then re-introduced Gordy. These moments were excised from the final edit of the taped special, but still made their way into the news media; People magazine reported that "Ross [did] some elbowing to get Wilson out of the spotlight."

In 1999, Ross and mega-tour promoter SFX (which later became LiveNation) began negotiations regarding a Diana Ross tour which would include a Supremes segment. During negotiations with Ross, the promoters considered the creation of a Supremes tour, instead. Ross agreed. As the tour's co-producer, Ross invited all living former Supremes to participate. Neither Jean Terrell nor late 1970s member Susaye Greene chose to participate. 70s Supremes Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne were then touring as Former Ladies of the Supremes.

Ross contacted Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, who then began negotiations with SFX. Negotiations with Wilson and Birdsong (who allowed Wilson to negotiate on her behalf) failed when Wilson refused SFX's and Ross' offer of $4 Million for 30 performances. Following the passage of SFX's final deadline for Wilson to accept their offer. Payne and Laurence, already negotiating with SFX, signed on to perform with Ross on the tour.

Laurence and Payne would later say that they got along well with Ross. The newly formed group performed together on The Today Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as VH1's Divas 2000: A tribute To Diana Ross. The Return to Love tour launched in June 2000, to a capacity audience in Philadelphia. The tour's final performance was at New York City's Madison Square Garden. The tour was cancelled by SFX shortly thereafter, due to mediocre ticket sales, despite glowing reviews from media as varied as Billboard magazine, The Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times and The Village Voice newspapers.

On December 5, 2000, Ross received a Heroes Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS). The Heroes Award is the highest distinction bestowed by the New York Chapter.

Diana Ross' first public post-RTL appearance was at a fundraiser for former President Bill Clinton. In January 2001, "Love & Life: The Very Best of Diana Ross" was released in the United Kingdom, becoming Ross' 17th gold album in that country. In June, Ross presented costume designer Bob Mackie with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the American Fashion Awards.

Two days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ross performed "God Bless America" at the U.S. Open tennis championships before the tournament's women's final, between Venus and Serena Williams. Immediately following the attacks, Ross performed the song again at Shea Stadium, before the Mets first game, after driving cross-country to be with her children(In the wake of the attacks, flying in the U.S. was temporarily restricted.). Ross teamed with legendary singers Patti LaBelle, Eartha Kitt among others for a Nile Rodgers-produced recording of Sister Sledge's classic disco hit, "We Are Family", recorded to benefit the families of 9/11 victims.

In May 2002, Ross and all five of her children appeared on Barbara Walters' Mother's Day television special. Shortly thereafter, Ross admitted herself into the 30-day substance abuse program at the Promises Institute in Malibu, California, after friends and family began to notice a burgeoning alcohol problem. Ross left the program three weeks later, and began to fulfill previously scheduled concert dates, beginning with a performance before a 60,000-strong crowd at London's Hyde Park, for Prince Charles' Prince's Trust charity.

U.S. ticket sales for the new tour were brisk, from coast to coast. Venues such as Long Island, New York's Westbury Music Fair and California's Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay attempted to add extra shows, due to public demand. Sold-out performances in Boston and Ontario, Canada, followed. In August, shortly after the tour began, however, Ross re-entered the Promises Institute's substance abuse rehabilitation program. That December, during her stay at Arizona's Canyon ranch Health Resort, Ross was pulled over by Tucson police for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. She failed a breathalizer test and was arrested for a DUI. Ross was later sentenced to 48 hours in jail, which she served near her home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

In January 2003, Ross was honored as Humanitarian of the Year by Nile Rodgers' We Are Family Foundation. Shortly thereafter, Ross was feted as an honored guest at the National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters Awards. Later that year, Ross was the guest performer at that year's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute's annual gala, in an ensemble custom-designed by designer Tom Ford, followed by an appearance as the surprise celebrity model for American couturier Dennis Basso's runway show.

In February, 2003, The Supremes were honored by The Rhythm & Blues Foundation honored The Supremes with its Pioneer Award.

Later career: 2004–present

In May 2004, Ross and daughter Tracee Ellis Ross appeared on the cover of Essence Magazine, in celebration of its 50th anniversary. On December 8, 2004, Ross was the featured performer for Stevie Wonder's Billboard Awards' Billboard Century Award tribute.

On January 14, 2005, Ross performed at the Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope TV concert to help raise money for Indonesian tsunami victims. On January 20, 2005, Ross launched her M.A.C. Icon makeup collection, as part of the beauty corporation's Icon Series. In 2005, Ross participated in Rod Stewart's Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook, Volume IV recording a duet version of the Gershwin standard, "I've Got a Crush on You". The song was released as promotion for the album and later reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart, marking her first Billboard chart entry since 2000. Ross was featured in another hit duet, this time with Westlife, on a cover of Ross's 1991 hit "When You Tell Me You Love Me", repeating the original recording's chart success, garnering a number 2 UK Singles Chart hit (number 1 in Ireland).

Also in 2005, Ross was featured as an honored guest at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball Weekend, a three-day celebration honoring 25 African-American women in art, entertainment and civil rights. On May 22, 2006, a year after the celebration, a one-hour program about the weekend aired on ABC, including celebrity interviews and behind-the-scenes moments. On March 22, 2006, Ross' televised Central Park concerts, entitled "For One & for All", are named TV Land Awards' Viewer's Choice for Television's Greatest Music Moment.

In June 2006, Universal released Ross's shelved 1972 Blue album. It peaked at number two on Billboard's jazz albums chart. Later in 2006, Ross released her first studio album in seven years with I Love You. It would be released on EMI/Manhattan Records in the United States in January 2007. EMI Inside later reported the album had sold more than 622,000 copies worldwide. "I Love You" peaked at No. 32 on Billboard's Hot 200 albums chart and No. 16 on Billboard's Top R&B Albums chart. Ross later ventured on a world tour to promote I Love You. In 2007, Ross was honored with the BET Awards' Lifetime Achievement Award and, later, as one of the honorees at the Kennedy Center Honors.

On August 28, 2008, Ross performed at the opening of the US Open tennis tournament, as part of a tribute to Billie Jean King. Ross headlined the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway.

In October 2009, Ross was the featured performer at the annual "Symphonica in Rosso" concert series, held at the GelreDome Stadium in Arnhem, Netherlands.

In 2010, Ross embarked on her first headlining tour in three years titled the More Today Than Yesterday: The Greatest Hits Tour. Dedicated to the memory of her late friend Michael Jackson, the concert tour garnered positive reviews, nationwide.

In 2011, Diana Ross was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.

In February 2012, Ross received her first Grammy Award, for Lifetime Achievement, and announced the nominees for the Album of the Year. In May, a DVD of her Central Park concert performances, For One & For All, was released and featured commentary from Steve Binder, who directed the special. A month later, on December 9, she performed as the marquee and headlining performer at the White House-hosted Christmas in Washington concert, where she performed before President Barack Obama. The event was later broadcast as an annual special on TNT. In 2013, Ross completed a tour in South America and a tour in the United States. On July 3, 2014, Ross was awarded the Ella Fitzgerald Award for "her extraordinary contribution to contemporary jazz vocals", at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. On November 20, 2014, Ross presented the Dick Clark Award for Excellence to Taylor Swift at the American Music Awards.

In 2015, Ross appeared in the video for the song "How to Live Alone" performed by her son Evan Ross. On April 1, 2015, Ross began the first of nine performances as a part of her mini-residency, The Essential Diana Ross: Some Memories Never Fade at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Nevada. On November 27, 2015, Motown Records/Universal released the album Diana Ross Sings Songs from The Wiz, recorded in 1978. The album features Ross' versions of songs from the film version of the musical The Wiz, in which she starred along with Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Richard Pryor and Lena Horn.

In February 2016, Ross resumed her In the Name of Love Tour, which began in 2013. On November 22, 2016, Ross was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

In December 2016, Billboard magazine named her the 50th most successful dance artist of all time.

On June 30, 2017, Ross headlined the Essence Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her daughter Rhonda Ross-Kendrick performing as the opening act. On November 19, 2017, Ross received the American Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award. Ross performed several of her hits, ending with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", during which she brought all of her grandchildren onstage. Her eldest grandson, eight-year-old Raif-Henok Emmanuel Kendrick, son of Rhonda Ross-Kendrick and husband, Rodney, performed an impromptu dance behind Ross, which gained attention. Ross was then joined onstage by all of her children, their spouses, first ex-husband Robert Ellis, Smokey Robinson (who brought Ross to Motown) and Motown founder, Berry Gordy.

In December 2017, Ross appeared on the Home Shopping Network to promote her first fragrance, Diamond Diana. The fragrance sold out within hours. Ross made several hour-long appearances on the network, and also released a tie-in CD retrospective collection of her music entitled Diamond Diana. Diamond Diana peaked at number six on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and number five on its Top Album Sales chart. The CD's first single release, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough 2017", remixed by Eric Kupper, reached number one on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.

On February 8, 2018, Ross began a new mini-residency at The Wynn Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. On August 4, 2018, Ross scored another No. 1 hit on Billboard's Top Dance Chart with "I'm Coming Out/Upside Down 2018" She performed a song from a to-be-released compilation Christmas album at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 22, 2018.

In December 2018, Diana Ross consolidated her status as a dance diva by ranking #3 in the Billboard Dance Club Songs Artists year-end chart.

On February 10, 2019, the Recording Academy honored Ross at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. Ross performed "The Best Years of My Life" and "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)". In 2019 her song "The Boss" was remixed by Eric Kupper as "The Boss 2019", and reached number one on Billboard's Top Dance Chart on April 13.

On October 10, 2019, it was announced that Diana Ross would play the Sunday legends slot on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival for the festival's 50th anniversary.

Personal life

Relationships and family

Ross has been married twice and has five children.

In 1965, Ross became romantically involved with Motown CEO Berry Gordy. The relationship lasted several years, resulting in the birth of Ross's eldest child, Rhonda Suzanne Silberstein, in August 1971. Two months into her pregnancy with Rhonda, in January 1971, Ross married music executive Robert Ellis Silberstein, who raised Rhonda as his own daughter, despite knowing her true paternity. Ross told Rhonda that Gordy was her biological father when Rhonda was 13 years old. Beforehand, Rhonda referred to Gordy as "Uncle B.B."

Ross has two daughters with Silberstein, Tracee Joy and Chudney Lane Silberstein, born in 1972 and 1975, respectively. Ross and Silberstein divorced in 1977, and Ross moved to New York City in the early 1980s, after living in Los Angeles since Motown relocated to the area in the early 1970s.

Ross dated Gene Simmons, bass guitarist and singer for the band Kiss, from 1980 to 1983. They began dating after Cher, who had remained friends with Simmons following their break-up, suggested he ask Ross to help him choose her Christmas present. Simmons, in his autobiography, contends that he was not dating Cher when he met Ross. Ross ended her relationship with Simmons when he gave Ross the erroneous impression that he had resumed his relationship with Cher. Simmons' story differed in 2015 when he revealed that he fell in love with Ross while dating Cher, which ended Ross and Cher's friendship.

Ross met her second husband, Norwegian shipping magnate Arne Næss Jr., in 1985, and married him the following year. She became stepmother to his three elder children; Katinka, Christoffer, and folk singer Leona Naess. They have two sons together: Ross Arne (born in 1987) and Evan Olav (born in 1988). Ross and Næss divorced in 2000, after press reports revealed that Naess had fathered a child with another woman in Norway. Ross considers Næss the love of her life. Næss fell to his death in a South African mountain climbing accident in 2004. Ross remains close with her three ex-stepchildren.

Ross has six grandchildren: grandson Raif-Henok (born in 2009 to her daughter Rhonda); grandsons Leif (born on June 5, 2016) and Idingo (born 2017), born to her son Ross Næss; granddaughters Callaway Lane (born in 2012) and Everlee (born October 2019) born to Ross's daughter Chudney; and granddaughter Jagger Snow (born in 2015 to Ross's son Evan).

Religious views

Diana Ross considers herself a Baptist. She used to sing in a church, where she gained her initial musical experience. Her mother Ernestine's father, Reverend William Moten, served as a pastor in the Bessemer Baptist Church in Bessemer, Alabama. The Ross children spent considerable time with their maternal grandparents during their mother's bouts with tuberculosis.

2002 arrest

Diana Ross was arrested for DUI on December 30, 2002, in Tucson, Arizona, while undergoing substance abuse treatment at a local rehabilitation facility. She later served a two-day sentence near her Connecticut estate.

Legacy

Ross has influenced many artists including Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Madonna, Jade Thirlwall, Questlove, Ledisi and the Ting Tings.

Various works have been inspired by Ross's career and life. The character of Deena Jones in Dreamgirls was inspired by Ross.

Several of Ross's songs have been covered and sampled. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" has been featured in the film Chicken Little. The song has also been covered live and on albums by Jennifer Lopez, Amy Winehouse. Janet Jackson sampled "Love Hangover" on her 1997 song "My Need" (featured on the album The Velvet Rope), having already sampled "Love Child" and "Someday We'll Be Together" by Ross & the Supremes on her 1993 tracks "You Want This" and "If" (both released as singles from the janet. album). "Love Hangover" was also sampled in Monica's 1998 number 1 "The First Night" as well as being sampled by Will Smith, Master P (who also sampled "Missing You"), Heavy D and Bone Thugs N Harmony, "It's Your Move" was sampled in 2011 by Vektroid for her song "Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing", which appeared in her ninth album Floral Shoppe under her one-time alias Macintosh Plus.

Motown: The Musical is a Broadway musical that launched on April 14, 2013. It is the story of Berry Gordy's creation of Motown Records and his romance with Diana Ross.

As a member of the Supremes, her songs "Stop! In the Name of Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love" are among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and entered into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the group at number 96 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

As lead singer of the Supremes and as a solo artist, Ross has earned 18 number-one singles (12 as lead singer of the Supremes and 6 as a solo artist). While Mariah Carey is the only solo female artist to have 18 number-one U.S. singles, Ms. Ross is the only female artist to have number one singles as a solo artist; as the other half of a duet (Lionel Richie); as a member of a trio (the Supremes); and, as an ensemble member (We are the World-USA for Africa). Ross was featured on the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1997 number-one hit, "Mo Money Mo Problems" as her voice from her 1980 hit, "I'm Coming Out", was sampled for the song.

Billboard magazine named Ross the "female entertainer of the century" in 1976. In 1993, she earned a Guinness World Record, due to her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any other female artist in the charts with a career total of 70 hit singles. Ross is also one of the few recording artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one as a solo artist and the other as a member of the Supremes. After her 1983 concert in Central Park, Diana Ross Playground was named in her honor with a groundbreaking opening ceremony in 1986.

Ross was given credit for the discovery of the Jackson 5. Her "discovery" was simply part of Motown's marketing and promotions plan for the Jackson 5. Consequently, their debut album was titled Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5. It was actually Motown producer Bobby Taylor who discovered the Jacksons. Even so, Ross embraced the role and became a good friend of Michael Jackson, serving as a mother figure to him.

In 2006, Diana was one of 25 African-American women saluted at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball, a three-day celebration, honoring their contributions to art, entertainment, and civil rights.

Diana Ross was named one of the Five Mighty Pop Divas of the Sixties along with Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, and Dionne Warwick.

Awards and nominations

On November 16, 2016, Ross was announced as one of the 21 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Discography

Studio albums

Diana Ross (1970)

Everything Is Everything (1970)

Surrender (1971)

Touch Me in the Morning (1973)

Diana & Marvin (with Marvin Gaye) (1973)

Last Time I Saw Him (1973)

Diana Ross (1976)

Baby It's Me (1977)

Ross (1978)

The Boss (1979)

Diana (1980)

Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1981)

Silk Electric (1982)

Ross (1983)

Swept Away (1984)

Eaten Alive (1985)

Red Hot Rhythm & Blues (1987)

Workin' Overtime (1989)

The Force Behind the Power (1991)

A Very Special Season (1994)

Take Me Higher (1995)

Every Day Is a New Day (1999)

Blue (2006)

I Love You (2006)

Soundtrack albums

Diana! (1971)

Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

Mahogany (1975)

The Wiz (1978)

Endless Love: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1981)

Live albums

Live at Caesars Palace (1974)

An Evening with Diana Ross (1977)

Greatest Hits Live (1989)

Stolen Moments: The Lady Sings... Jazz and Blues (1993)

Christmas in Vienna (with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras) (1993)

Filmography

Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

Mahogany (1975)

The Wiz (1978)

Out of Darkness * (1994)

Double Platinum * (1999)

(* = made directly for television)

Television

T.A.M.I. Show (with the Supremes) (1964)

Tarzan (with the Supremes) (1968)

TCB (with the Supremes) (1968)

The Dinah Shore Special: Like Hep (with Dinah Shore and Lucille Ball) (1969)

G.I.T. on Broadway (with the Supremes and the Temptations) (1969)

Diana! (1971)

The Jackson 5ive (1971)

Make Room for Granddaddy (1971)

Here I Am: An Evening with Diana Ross (1977)

The Muppet Show (1977)

Standing Room Only (HBO) (1980)

Diana! (TV Special) (1981)

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever (1983)

Diana Ross: Live in Central Park/For One and For All (Showtime) (1983)

Diana Ross: Red Hot Rhythm and Blues (1987)

Diana Ross: Workin' Overtime HBO: World Stage (1989)

Diana Ross Live! The Lady Sings... Jazz & Blues: Stolen Moments (1992)

Christmas in Vienna (1992)

BET Walk of Fame (1993)

Always is Forever: 30th Anniversary (1993)

1994 FIFA World Cup (1994)

Super Bowl XXX (1996)

Super Concert of the Century (1997)

An Audience with Diana Ross (1999)

VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross (2000)

The Making and Meaning of We Are Family (documentary) (2002)

Tsunami Aid (2005)

BET Awards 2007 (2007)

Kennedy Center Honors (2007)

Nobel Peace Prize Concert (2008)

The Oprah Winfrey Show: Farewell and Salute (2011)

Christmas in Washington (2012)

The Voice (2014)

HSN (2017)

Ashlee+Evan (2018)

Stage

An Evening with Diana Ross (1976)

Tours

Headlining

Co-headlining tours

Superconcert of the Century (with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras) (1997)

Return to Love Tour (with former members of the Supremes) (2000)

#03/26

6 notes · View notes

unorthodoxsavvy · 5 years ago

Text

A Small Passion Fruit Sweet Tea

(And A Little Something More)

Summary: Phil is a barista at Starbucks and Dan becomes a customer

Word Count: 3.5k

Rating: G

Warnings: The tiniest, littlest bit of angst

Written For: @phandomreversebang (Phandom Reverse Bang Summer 2019)

Summer was in full swing in London. For Phil, that meant a lot of customers coming in and out of the small, humble Starbucks he spent his summer afternoons baristaing.

Not only was the air inside the coffee shop chilled, but so was the coffee itself, along with their teas, smoothies, and more. That didn’t stop Phil from working up a sweat during his shift, however.

On this June afternoon, Phil consistently checked the armpits of his Pride Starbucks shirt for sweat stains while he brushed his bangs from his eyes, sweeping them back underneath his visor.

“Hi, are you ready to order?”

“Hi, how may I help you today?”

“Hello, how’s it going?”

The greetings, the faces, the orders, all blurred until the clock struck 5pm and Phil’s shift was over. Of course, he never got to leave until after 5. Some days it was 5:03, some days it was 5:17… but of course, it could be worse, and Phil reminded himself of that fact every day.

Phil took a glance at the clock now. It read 3:32.

Not too bad, he thought to himself.

Phil moved back to the front counter where a man about his age was waiting. “Hi, how may I help you?”

Phil watched his brown eyes trace the menu above Phil’s head in silence.

He was wearing a grey V-neck, black skinny jeans, and Vans, all of which Phil could see as he had taken a step back to read the menu. When he seemed to decide on an order, he stepped back up towards Phil.

“I’ll have a small passion fruit sweet tea and a birthday cake cake pop.”

Phil smiled.

“Will that be all?”

“I don’t think what else I want is on the menu, so yes,” The man grinned.

Phil decided to ignore that comment.

“Alright, that’ll be six fifty-two.”

The man pulled out his card and swiped it, giving Phil his name. Dan Howell. There was no reason to remember it, but Phil wasn’t sure if he wanted to see this name pop up on his screen again or not.

“I’ll be right back with your order,” Phil continued, and Dan smiled politely at him.

Phil turned around and headed to their machines of iced tea, grabbing a “small” cup and placing it under the spout while he pulled the lever down. It took the cup to be filled up before Phil realized he’s forgotten to put the flavor in first. With a sigh, he dumped it out, grabbed a mixer, poured the flavor syrup in, and then started to fill that up with iced tea. When he was satisfied with how much he’d poured, he started to shake. He could feel Dan’s eyes on him. He turned ever so slightly and noticed Dan watching his arms. Phil wasn’t built, but he wasn’t in the worst shape, either. Once again, he wasn’t sure how to feel.

When Phil was done shaking the mixer, he poured the liquid into the small cup he had used before, grabbed a lid and a straw, and put it together.

“Here’s your iced tea,” Phil informed Dan, quickly moving away to get the cake pop for Dan before he could respond.

“Thanks,” was all Dan finally said before exiting the store.

“That dude was totally checking you out,” his coworker leaned in and smiled.

“Yeah. Happy Pride Month,” Phil responded dryly as another customer came in to order.

*-*-*-*-*

The next day at exactly 3:30pm, Dan showed up again.

“Hello again,” he smiled at Phil. “You seem familiar.”

“Welcome back,” Phil put on his best customer service smile.

“I’ll take the same as yesterday,” Dan grinned.

This time, Phil grinned back. He knew it was a test, and he was determined to pass.

Phil once again grabbed a small cup, remembering to mix the flavor in this time, and poured that mixed with the iced tea into the small cup. Slapping a top on it and shoving a straw through the top, it was ready to be delivered.

“I see you didn’t mess up this time.”

Phil went to the display case and removed a cake pop with pink frosting. “It seems I made an impression,” Dan smiled, inserting his card to pay.

Phil continued to say nothing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Dan called over his shoulder as he walked out of the coffee shop.

“See you tomorrow,” Phil grinned in that customer service voice.

*-*-*-*-*

On the third day Dan came in, a Thursday, he wasn’t alone. In fact, he was very not alone.

“Love, not now,” Dan giggled, batting the man whose hand he was holding. “Hey, Phil,” Dan smiled when they reached the counter.

Phil put on his customer service face, trying to decide when he had had a harder time remaining neutral: when the cheerleading mom with her three daughters had yelled at him about her order four times, or now.

Now was winning.

“Hello. How may I help you guys today?”

“I’ll have the usual,” Dan smiled, as if he had been coming here for months. It’d been three days. Three really, long, painful days.

“And for you?” Phil asked, basically ignoring Dan to turn to his partner.

“I’ll take a vanilla iced coffee, grande, and a chocolate scone, please,” he smiled.

“A grande? Who said you could have that much sugar?” Dan scoffed.

“They aren’t that big,” his partner countered.

“They aren’t really,” Phil pitched in, earning a glare from Dan, as if they were friends or something, and Phil should be on his side. This was ridiculous.

“One small passion fruit tea, one grande iced vanilla coffee, one birthday cake cake pop, and one chocolate scone coming up,” Phil read their order back to them before moving to prepare the drinks.

While at the drink station, Phil’s coworker came up to him again.

“Seems like loverboy was just being a tease,” she smiled.

“Good, I’m not interested,” Phil muttered back, not taking his eyes off preparing the drinks.

“Well, if he was single then I’d take dibs on him if you don’t want him,” she grinned.

Phil took a glance back where he met Dan’s eyes, staring at him once again, while his partner talked to him.

Dan was cute, Phil thought. He just didn’t like being advanced on while he was working.

Dan brought out the drinks to Dan and his partner and then grabbed their pastries from the display case.

His coworker had taken over the cashregister to have them pay so she could get a chance to talk to Dan and his partner on her own.

When they left, Dan turned and gave a wave to Phil, who forced a wave back.

“You’ll never guess what I learned,” his coworker leaned in once again to tell him.

“Probably not, and I don’t want to or plan on knowing.”

*-*-*-*-*

The universe, it seemed, however, had other plans, for that Friday, Dan strutted in at 3:36, by himself once more.

Phil was about to use customer service speak to ask what the hell was going on when Dan placed his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the counter.

“When do you get out?”

“Why do you want to know?” Phil huffed, deciding to finally drop the friendly employee facade.

“I want to take you out.”

“I thought you were seeing someone?”

From behind the display case on Phil’s left, he could see his coworker standing on her tiptoes to watch what was happening.

“Oh, Ryan? That’s nothing really- well it’s- it’s-”

“If I let you take me out will you stop bothering me here at work?” Phil asked blatantly.

“Maybe,” Dan grinned.

“Fine. I get out at 5. Don’t be late.”

Dan grinned and pulled out his card while Phil left to make Dan’s drink.

“He asked you out, didn’t he?” His coworker grinned, swooping in for the fresh tea- and not the tea Phil was pouring.

“Yeah, he did.”

“See, I told you that-”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to deliver this customer his drink,” Phil cut her off, moving back towards the counter to Dan.

Phil yanked a cake pop out of the display holder and bagged it to hand to Dan.

“See you at five then,” Dan smiled.

“See you at five.”

*-*-*-*-*

The closer it came to the end of Phil’s shift the more he wondered about and regretted agreeing to this mysterious date.

At 4:45 exactly, Dan showed up again, giving Phil a little wave before sitting down at one of the tables to pull out his laptop and work on something.

At 5, Dan glanced up as Phil started to clean up.

Phil disappeared into the back 4 minutes later, and soon after emerged in a different shirt and a backpack slung over his shoulder.

Making his way out from behind the counter, he weaved between the tables and chairs to Dan.

“Shall we?” Phil asked.

“We shall,” Dan replied, getting up and offering Phil an arm.

Phil ignored it and went to the door, holding it open for Dan.

“I’m parked in back,” Dan mentioned, and Phil let him step in front of him to lead the way.

“Sorry it’s a bit messy.”

Phil couldn’t help chuckling at the amount of empty Starbucks bags and cups.

“Are these all from me?” he joked.

“No,” Dan answered, putting the car into drive.

“So, where are we headed?” Phil asked. “Or is it a surprise?”

“It’s not a surprise.”

Phil waited for Dan to continue, but he didn’t seem to want to elaborate.

After a few minutes of silence, Dan pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant that boasted “Street Food” in colorful letters.

“Have you ever eaten here?” Dan asked.

“Have you ever taken a date here?” Phil countered.

“Touche.”

Dan made sure to hold the door open for Phil this time.

There was a receptionist beyond the two sets of doors with a waiting area in between. Phil stayed one step behind Dan, who asked for a table for two. The receptionist grabbed two menus from the pocket in her podium and led them off to a table. Phil glanced at the other patron’s food as he passed, even though he had in fact been here before, and knew the basics of what was on the menu.

They sat down facing each other, and the receptionist placed a menu in front of each of them.

“Your waiter will be right with you,” she smiled, and departed to seat other guests.

“So,” Dan began, “tell me about yourself, Phil.”

“Shouldn’t it be your job to find out about me yourself, since you’re the one who asked me out in the first place?” Phil inquired.

“True,” Dan agreed. He leaned back in his chair, thinking of a better, more direct introductory question to ask.

“What’s your favorite thing to order at Starbucks?”

Phil rolled his eyes, but before he could answer, their waiter arrived.

“Can I start you off with some drinks?” he asked them.

“Water is fine with me,” Phil smiled, and looked to Dan while the waiter scribbled in his notepad.

“I’ll take a lemonade,” Dan said once the waiter had turned his attention to him.

“‘I’ll be right back with those.”

When he was gone, Phil picked up the menu, suggesting they should actually look at it and see if they could decide on their orders before the server got back.

“The fried doguh sounds pretty good,” Dan mentioned.

Phil gave a little hum in agreement, but didn’t look up. In fact, Phil didn’t look up from his menu until their waiter had arrived once more.

“A water for you, and a lemonade for you,” their waiter smiled politely, placing each drink in front of the pair respectively. “Have you made your decisions on what to order?”

“Yes,” Phil replied, finally looking at Dan once more.

Dan’s face split into a smile, although it looked almost forced. “I’m ready too.”

“Wonderful,” their waiter commented, and turned to Phil.

“I’ll have the turkey wrap.”

The waiter turned to Dan.

“I’ll take the grilled cheese.”

“Sounds good,” the waiter said once he was done writing in his notebook, and then once again took his leave.

“So, where were we?” Dan pushed.

“Water.”

“We were in water?”

“Water. My favorite drink to order at Starbucks.”

Dan started to fiddle with the straw wrapper from his drink.

“I get the feeling you don’t like me that much,” he mentioned casually, but it was clear it was bothering him.

Phil looked up at him.

“I do like you. I’m just not sure how much yet.”

Dan nodded solemnly, and prayed for their food to come sooner rather than later.

*-*-*-*-*

“That was a good meal,” Phil thanked Dan.

“Yeah?” Dan smiled.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed.

“So should we do it again sometime?” Dan grinned sheepishly.

Phil’s smile tightened.

“It was nice, but, maybe not,” he said.

Dan’s face fell.

“I decided to give this a shot and see if I felt anything. And, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t.” Phil shuffled awkwardly. “I’d still love to serve you your tea and cake pop, though,” he lied.

“Thanks, haha.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Well, um, I guess that’s that, then,” Dan perked up, trying his best to get over the crushing feeling in his chest. “Have a safe drive home, and I’ll, uh, see you sometime.”

“Thank you, you too,” Phil returned, and unlocked the driver’s side door of his car, sliding in.

He waited for Dan to pull out of the empty Starbucks parking lot first, and then followed into the dark.

*-*-*-*-*

It’d been two weeks since Dan and Phil’s date, or whatever you’d call it. Phil tried his best to carry on with his job as normal, but the awkward encounter had definitely put a wrench in his work flow. Every encounter he had with anyone his age was suddenly over-analyzed; any man with a similar shade of dark brown hair suddenly induced a panic. Phil’s overly-involved coworker picked up on it and started talking to the others on their shift about it. Suddenly this wasn’t a place he wanted to be any more, and he woke up with dread every day before his shift, until finally one day it happened.

It was a Tuesday, just like the very first time. It was 3:30, and Dan was not alone again.

It was a guy Phil’d never seen before, but they seemed close.

“Hey Phil,” Dan greeted flippantly, which stung Phil just a bit.

“Nice to see you again. Wasn’t sure if you’d be back.”

“Well, you know, I’ve been doing some traveling, and this wasn’t the nearest Starbucks anymore.”

Phil nodded. “What’ll it be?” He asked, returning to his job.

“I’ll take an iced mocha, small,” Dan ordered, and glanced at his partner.

“I’ll have the same,” his partner smiled tightly, glancing between Dan and Phil. Phil wondered how much he knew, and if he even wanted to know.

“Coming right up,” Phil smiled politely, and gestured to the card reader.

Dan’s partner went to pull out some cash from his back pocket, but Dan placed a hand over his and pulled out his own card.

“I’ve got this.”

Phil rolled his eyes and went to make the drinks.

“So.”

Phil turned around to spot his coworker.

“Listen, I really don’t need to be discussing this right now,” he tried to shut her down.

“So you’re not at all jealous that’s he’s strutting in here to show off his new man to you?” She asked.

“No,” Phil lied. “And besides, I’m the one who turned him down, anyway. I don’t have feelings for him. This isn’t some juicy love triangle.”

“Whatever,” she tossed over her shoulder as she went to take the next customers in line.

Phil grabbed the two iced mochas he’d finished making and handed them over to Dan and his partner at the pick-up area.

“Have a nice day,” he said in his best customer service voice.

“Thanks,” replied the other guy genuinely.

Phil felt like smacking his head against the ice machines.

*-*-*-*-*

Of all the starbucks in London, Phil happened to work on one that was on the street that London Pride took place on, which was great for them, as the summer sun and fun activities made a lot of gays thirsty- for drinks.

They had double the amount of workers going during Phil’s shift on that 26th day of June, 2019, 50 years since the iconic Stonewall incident that had started it all.

All the chaos, however, didn’t stop Phil from noticing when Dan came in.

“I’ll have the same,” he said quickly, looking around at all of the colorful half-dressed customers, whom he was one of which.

“Would that be the same as before or after you came to rub your new relationship in my face?” Phil spat. He hadn’t meant for it to come out, or at least not sounding so mean, but he was tired, goddamnit, he’s had a long shift so far, and it was still dragging on. Behind the counter was crowded and they’d already had three spilled drinks today, and by god if he wasn’t repressing feelings of resentment towards Dan for his dick move last week.

“I’m sorry about that-”

“Just give me your order.” Phil cut off, cutting off all emotion from his expression.

Dan sighed.

“A small passion fruit sweet tea and a birthday cake cake pop, and whatever you want when you’re done with your shift.”

Phil looked up in surprise from where he’d been typing in Dan’s order.

“I’m sorry, and I hope you don’t hate me. And I’d like to make it up to you, at least with a drink when your done with your shift, which I know must be a pain today, if not a drink and maybe meeting up before this parade is over.”

“I’ll think about it,” Phil mentioned, typing in his own order as well.

“Thank you,” Dan said.

Phil took half a second to look him in the eye. He did look sorry. And he looked sad.

Phil sighed and left to prepare Dan’s drink.

“Have fun at the rest of Pride if I don’t see you,” Phil dismissed Dan, handing him the bag containing his cake pop.

“Thanks,” Dan returned, and went to go sit outside.

Phil watched him through the window of the cafe as long as he could before returning to making and preparing orders.

*-*-*-*-*

By the time the end of Phil’s shift came, it had felt like he’d been standing on his feet and working for days. In all honesty, the last thing Phil wanted to do was more walking around, but he’d be damned if he missed pride for work, so when he had cleaned up as best he could and there was someone to relieve him, he took off his apron and, still in his pride Starbucks shirt, headed out to the street, drink in hand.

“Hey.”

Phil turned to his left, startled.

“Dan!”

“Yeah, that’s my name,” Dan laughed hollowly.

“You’re still here?”

“Well I did say we could meet up after you got out of work before the parade is over.”

Phil smiled. “Is there even a parade? Or do people just come and go?”

“You know, I don’t think there is actually a parade,” Dan smiled back.

Phil offered an arm to Dan, who took it.

“So, what happened to your man?” Phil asked casually as they walked.

“It didn’t turn out.”

“Like us?” Phil joked.

Dan smiled, but it was sad.

“Not really.”

Phil looked around for a place to sit and led Dan over.

“So what’s the story?” he asked after they had sat down.

“I tried to move on to another casual thing and found that it was a bit more difficult than I had expected,” Dan answered, watching the crowd.

“Is that so?”

“Yup.”

“And why is that?”

“What are you, my shrink?” Dan joked.

“No, just a concerned and curious friend.”

Dan continued to watch the crowd.

“Probably because the I’m still holding on to the last guy I tried to go out with.”

Phil nodded wisely.

“What if that concerned and curious friend offered to try again with the last guy he tried to go out with?”

Dan didn’t move, but responded “That would probably cheer up the last guy he tried to go out with.”

“So what say we try again?”

Dan finally looked over at Phil.

“If you’re for real, I’m down.”

“I’m for real.”

They smiled at each other.

“So, you were going to show me around?” Phil pushed.

Dan’s smiled turned into a grin.

“Yes, there’s a booth over there that has pride Harry Potter wands, you’ll love it,” he pointed.

Phil stood up. “Lead the way then, Dan.”

#phandom reverse bang #phandom reverse bang summer 2019 #savvy's writing #savvy's fanfictions #phanfiction #phanfic #my phanfic #phandom #dan and phil #starbucks au

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ridaamir-blog · 5 years ago

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lowtldes · 6 years ago

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GUN FOR HIRE OC ↠ Tristan Ong

MELEE / “The Up-Close and Personal” / Fights because he doesn’t want to move. Again.

AGE: 27

HEIGHT: 5′8″

SPECIALTY: The Brawler

WEAPONS: an engraved 1911 / his fists

OCCUPATION: Freelance Photographer / Fall’s End General Store Employee

LOCATION: Fall’s End, standing outside the General Store

SHORT BIO: Tristan is a freelance photographer, new to Hope County. Tristan’s spent the last few years of his life moving from couch to couch, place to place. He needed something stable, so when his younger sister Thea got a job at Hope County Police Department, she suggested he move there with her since they could both use a change of scene. Tristan didn’t have to follow, but after their mother died and their father abruptly moved back to the Philippines, he wanted to be close to the only family he had left. He got a part-time job in the General Store at Fall’s End, which gave him a lot of time to hike around the county and pursue his work in photography. Then, barely two weeks after moving to the county, the local cult got violent. He hasn’t even unpacked all of his boxes, and now he’s getting into fistfights with every cultist that crosses his path. When Tristan wanted a change of scene moving to the county, he never thought it would have meant getting into fistfights with crazy religious cultists. Makes for good pictures, though.

RECRUITMENT MISSION: Shutterbug -- Help Tristan get his camera equipment from Deep North Irrigation Reservoir. [Talk to Tristan / Follow Tristan / Eliminate all Peggies / Pose for photos / Talk to Tristan] "Hey, I’m Tristan. Still new in town and boy is shit crazy right now, huh? I used to work at the General Store... well, I worked there for like five days and now, ah, I think my boss is dead so does that count as working there? Never mind. You look like you can fuck people up. I left some of my camera equipment on the roof of Deep North, could you help me get my shit back? The place is crawling with Peggies. I got some money from the register I could give you as a reward, just don’t rat me to my dead boss, heh... Oh, and I can snap some pictures for you too if you want.”

SPECIAL ABILITIES: MEAN SWING -- Glass jaw or not, if Tristan gets close enough he can down enemies with a single punch. Angels? Three punches. His hand wraps are always bloody for a reason. CAMERAMAN -- Tristan will randomly snap photos while he travels with you. Yes, even in combat. [pictures are located in the same folder as screenshots]

RELATIONSHIPS IN HOPE COUNTY:

Mary May -- He tried to apply for a job bartending at the Spread Eagle, but Mary May laughed at how terrible his bartending skills were. She still wanted to help him find work so she pointed him towards the General Store.

Jerome Jeffries -- Complimented Tristan on his photography once and Tristan was head over heels for the guy for the next three days. A little guilt about it too, the man’s a Pastor, after all.

Joey Hudson -- Tristan admires her, she’s a survivor. She’s pretty hot too, but he’s not gonna comment on that or try to ask her out. She looks like she just needs space, and Tristan steers clear.

Nick Rye -- Tristan thinks the guy’s okay, Nick won’t let him take pictures of Carmina, though.

Sharky Boshaw -- Tristan sees him set a guy on fire and thinks yeah, i’d tap that. Then Sharky opens his mouth, says something dumb and becomes another person Tristan is kind of in love with.

Hurk Drubman Jr. -- Same as Sharky. Turns out Tristan likes jolly idiots, Hope County is truly taking him through a journey of self-discovery. He’d join Hurk’s Gate.

Jess Black -- Scares Tristan a little. But she’s a great photograph subject, it takes him a long time to convince her to let him take photos of her.

Grace Armstrong -- The second Tristan saw Grace, he was fucked. Totally in love. She’s so awe-inspiring, and he’s pretty sure she isn’t interested in him at all.

Adelaide Drubman -- She looks like a blonde, slightly younger version of his mother. Nope. He stays away from that.

AMBIENT QUOTES:

[getting into cars] “Fuck yeah, let’s Mad Max this shit.”

[picking herbs] “Dude, I don’t think you can smoke that... but you do you, I guess.”

[in a church] “I grew up Catholic. Sunday pants and everything. Now I don’t know if I believe in God. If he’s real, he definitely doesn’t give a shit.”

[getting headshots] “What are you, an aimbot? God. I miss video games.”

[blowing up stuff] “Ah, it’s moments like these that make me miss Vine.”

[looting bodies] “That guy shat his pants and you’re going through his back pockets? Brave. I respect that.”

“Hey, can you kill that guy again? There was dirt on my lens.”

“God, I wish I could post stuff online. My photos about this war crap would get so many hits.”

“I really don’t know shit about guns. Seriously, if you even ask me what kind of gun I’m holding right now, I have no idea. I just took it from the store because I thought the engraving was pretty. Pretty. I don’t know shit. But hey, as long as I can shoot it, right?”

“All the Seeds are kind of hot, don’t you think? Crazy, of course, but hotter than they have any right to be. Except for Joseph, though. I mean I can see that he’s hot too, but the whole Jared Leto look doesn’t do it for me. That’s just me, though. If you think he’s hot, I support you.”

“You know, when my sister and I moved here, I really thought I was gonna be bored. I was scared I’d turn into a farmer or something. But nope, now I do murder. Life’s funny. Really makes you think.”

“I wonder if this shit’s made it to worldwide news. I wonder if my dad thinks me and Thea are dead. Dunno if he’d care, to be honest. That’s not who he is now.”

“Well, will ya look at that? My hands are shaking so much I can’t hold my camera properly. Maybe I should stop punching cultists in the face for a while, it’s really hurting my artist hands.”

QUOTES IN JOHN’S REGION:

[at Fall’s End] “Ugh, just thinking about unboxing the rest of my shit from the move makes me wanna take a nap. Seems pointless too. Why would I bother unpacking when there’s a war going on? Yeah, I know I’m procrastinating. But God.”

“John Seed. Sadistic motherfucker, isn’t he? Hot though, I’ll give him that. Definitely the kind of guy I’d blow in a nightclub bathroom stall and never see again.”

“Dude, we gotta stop that John Seed. Let’s blow up some silos and shit. That’ll get him pissed. Maybe he’ll tattoo us. Which I’m... definitely not looking forward to, I mean. Shit is fucked up.”

“So John was a big city lawyer, right? Why the fuck would he come all the way here? It’s just... cows and shit. But--ah, yeah, I can’t say shit about that though, can I? I moved here from the city too. I’m a dumbass.”

QUOTES IN FAITH’S REGION:

[at Hope County Jail] “Time for some prison photography, I guess. Never thought I’d get here.”

“Oh, you know that guy Tweak? Wonder if he’s alive. He gave me some good weed my first week in town. Don’t tell my sister.”

“Um, I’m not the only one seeing hippie Seed frolicking in the grass, right? Right?”

“Faith Seed is what happens when you go through your pretty princess phase and zombie apocalypse phase at the same time. Next thing you know it’ll be an emo phase.”

“Let’s run through some Bliss fields! The flowers would be beautiful props for portrait photography. Though, I wonder how good my photos’ll be while I’m Bliss high. The angles and focus would probably be all wrong. Yeah, never mind let’s not. The composition in my head will get so fucked... Actually, fuck, let’s do it.”

“Those angels, man, I swear I clocked one in the face and she bit my hand. What if it spreads like an actual zombie disease? Promise me you’ll kill me if I ever go bald, Deputy, promise me.”

QUOTES IN JACOB’S REGION:

[at the Wolf’s Den] “Is there only one bathroom here? Do they all share the same bathroom? That’s a lotta people for one bathroom. Eugh.”

“Oh god, we’re hiking this place, aren’t we? My legs are gonna kill me tomorrow. The things I do to keep my ass tight... And save civilians, yeah. That too. That’s also important.”

“The views we’re gonna see up here, oh man. I hope my camera’s got enough battery for today because I am not putting this bad boy down.”

“Jacob Seed is a goddamn fool. If he wants to put people in cages, he doesn’t have to kidnap them. There’s a whole community for people who are into that, someone’s gotta tell him. Not me, though. I like my balls where they are, thanks.”

“I think my sister’s kind of into that Jacob guy. Which is fucked up and stupid, but I’m the self-destructive idiot in the family so she’s not gonna listen to me. As her big brother, should I be worried? I can’t threaten that guy, I’m pretty sure. I think I’d die, but shit, I really feel like I’m supposed to have some kind of brotherly obligation here.”

“Those wolves--those Judges--that shit is so wrong. If we run into one I’m gonna piss myself. I can’t punch a wolf, can I? Oh wait, I have a gun. Right.”

#far cry 5 #gun for hire #gun for hire oc #far cry 5 oc #he might actually be useless but he takes pics prompto ffxv style so there's a reason to keep him around #also. this got so long. my bad.#anyway here's my disaster son #oc: tristan #my edit

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alipilling · 6 years ago

Photo

How my son Sam bought his first investment property at age 18 The FOUNDATION OF BUILDING WEALTH STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Step 1 : PERSPECTIVE

‘PLANT THE SEED’

*RAISING children to have an Optimistic Vision of:-

1.) them self:

2.) their future and

3). the world

*Instilling the mindset that: ‘Money works for you, you don’t work for money’

*Three cores Values:

1). Value self

2). Value money

3). Value time

Step 2: PASSION FOR LEARNING: FINANCIAL EDUCATION

I took Sam along to his bank to deposit money that he had saved from doing chores around the house and working in the family business. We would ask the bank tellers for the best interest rate and the best deal for his savings account.

Reading Newspaper and internet Articles:

Sam was inspired by reading a few articles about successful youth who purchased their first house at young ages, 18 and 19 and knew that it was possible for him too.

Parents leading by good example:

As parents we were very conscious about leading by good example. It is commonly said that ‘Children are a product of their upbringing’. I tend to agree and I believe that parent’s are one of the most influential people in a child’s life. A parent’s work ethic is hugely important when teaching your children that ‘Work ethic is a direct reflection of your wealth and that wealth is stored work’.

Managing money wisely as parents: Earning, saving, investing and spending the rest was another message handed down to Sam. He had added confidence in following his own parent’s footsteps.

Meetings with Bank Lenders and Real Estate Agents:

SAM has a keen interest in real estate so prior to him buying his first investment property Sam and I both thoroughly enjoyed going along to seminars called “fast-track -How Houses Buy Houses.” Now Sam is over six feet tall, and he was sitting in the front row, slouching down, legs right out in front, and the speaker, Julio De Laffitte, who is featured in my pending book Live, Don’t Exist said to him, “Hey Sammy! How old are you now?”

“Sixteen,” Sam replied at the time.

“You do what I do, mate,” and Julio slapped his hands together, right in front of Sammy, and told him, “and you’ll be out by age thirty-five! If you do what I do, you’ll have your money working for you.”

Sammy enjoyed learning about “houses buying houses” so much that he took himself along to another full-day seminar with Julio, but this time he took his older sister Georgie along, without me even being there. This was when Sam started telling us he wanted to buy his first house by 18, because he could now visually see how it all works.

Step 3: EARN INCOME: WORK & PERSEVERANCE

From an early age Sam was given the opportunity to work along side his parents and siblings in the family business. Earning a ‘piece rate’ rather than an hourly rate taught Sam a valuable entrepreneurial lesson, that the more productive you are, the more financial reward you receive.

NEGOTIATING CHORES AROUND THE HOUSE?

Rather than paying an allowance which resembles a wage Sam mainly chose the jobs he enjoyed and the jobs he was good at. It was a fun learning experience negotiating the jobs and the renumeration for those jobs.

Step 4: PATIENCE: Working in the family business

‘Life rewards action’. From a very, young age, Sam and his siblings earned money working on weekends and school holidays in the family business, along with extra chores around the house. It’s amazing how that money earned and saved (when not spent) over time can represent a decent deposit for a house. It reinforces the notion that “wealth is stored work.” For a young child, working alongside their parents and siblings can be a huge learning experience and a lot of fun. An interest in either what they are doing or perhaps the feeling of earning money is a good enough incentive to want to work. And from the young age of eight Sam was offered a position working in the family nursery business, ePlants. There was always so much to do. Sam and his siblings began on a ‘piece rate’, as it was pretty difficult to determine what rate a young child is worth per hour, so we decided to teach the important lesson that the more productive you are, the more money you earn. Quite fair, really. It was impressive to see their determination, especially when there was an incentive offered to earn more money or a goal in mind, like when Bayley, Sam’s younger brother worked towards purchasing his first iPhone. As Sam grew older and gained more experience, his rate increased and therefore his income grew.

Of course, the bank was a big part of the funding Sam's investment property. In their determination whether to make the loan to Sam or not, the bank took into account character, capacity, and collateral, which I'll summarise below:

Character is essentially your credit history, the main thing that banks use in making their lending decisions. Banks, like all lenders, want to know about your credit history, whether there are any defaults or if you are bankrupt, or if you have a good borrowing history. In Sam's case, over a ten year period (from say 8 year’s old to 18 year’s old) he had a 10 percent deposit saved and his savings history was a good indicator of his character.

Capacity is your ability to pay the loan back, based on how much income you earn versus the loan repayment. Sam showed full-time income for more than twelve months. He had job security as he had been a long-term employee of the family business from the age of 15 as a school-based trainee. Sam also acquired a real estate rental appraisal that included a projected, rental return for the investment property that he was going to purchase, this added to his existing income (ie. $480 per week x 52 weeks = $ 24960). Keep in mind Sam was able to save a large portion of his income as he had a low cost of living —he was living at home.

Collateral is the security you provide for a loan. In Australia the bank lends up to 80 percent of the purchase price for residential, investment property, which means Sam would need to pay the remaining 20 percent deposit himself. There are various options if you don't have the 20 percent deposit, and in this case Sam didn't.

o Option 1 was called a Limited Family Guarantee, meaning my husband Rob and I could guarantee a percentage of his loan. The guarantee is limited to the amount of shortfall in the 20 percent deposit. For example, on a property purchase of $300,000 a bank would lend up to $240,000. If you were to borrow $270,000 a Family Guarantee of $30,000 would be required to cover this difference. In Sam’s case we offered a Limited Family Guarantee of 10%.

o Option 2 was called Lenders Mortgage Insurance. In this case, the bank uses mortgage insurance which insures the bank for the loan amount above 80 percent. To give you an example, on a property purchase of $300,000 with a Loan of $270,000 (90%) mortgage insurance is $3,862. This amount increases or decreases based on the loan amount and the percentage above 80 percent lending.

Step 5: Purpose: Parents helping out with a ‘Limited Family Guarantee’

Believing in Sam

Rob and I were in the fortunate position to help Sam and we decided we were more than comfortable providing a Limited Family Guarantee equal to the 10 percent deposit, being the 10 percent shortfall. This meant that Sam saved more than $5,000 on mortgage insurance, which made great sense to all three of us. Sam borrowed the whole loan amount in his own name. Rob and I secured the 10 percent shortfall of the purchase price. After 18 months from the date of purchase, I suggested to Sam to organise a bank valuation. It turned out that his property had increased in value substantially in the short-term ($80,000 in fact) and this was enough for the bank to release our Limited Family Guarantee. Sam was now standing on his own with his first investment property after just 18 months.

Sam has learned significant financial lessons in this experience, purchasing his first investment property. He has learned to budget for expenses such as: insurance, repairs and maintenance, water, and electricity, and now that Sam is managing his tenants himself, there will be many more valuable lessons to follow. These lessons are real-life lessons, experienced by the act of doing. These are lessons you don't learn at school.

Sam made a courageous decision at the young age of 18. He doesn't want to work for money, he wants his money working for him. “Now that you have purchased your own house at age 18,” I asked him, “could you imagine being an inspirational speaker and standing up on stage, encouraging youth to value money, to value themselves, to pay themselves first and to share your stories on how you've started your financial journey at such a young age? Because if you can do it at that age, others can too.”

“Yes,” he said. Sam can picture himself up on stage. Just by chatting with him, just by asking him questions, it helped him create a picture.

I don't mean to put pressure on my children. Whether he does, or whether he doesn't become a speaker is totally fine either way. I don't want him to think he's failed me if he doesn't want to follow through with the ideas I throw around. It's entirely up to him if he wants to run with any of them. Actually, Sam and his sister Georgie did get up on stage at their old high school, St. Teresa's, and they spoke to the year- 10 students. It was Q&A segment. The topic was “Life After School.” Sam got the chance to share with the year-10′s the importance of managing your money, and Georgie spoke on how important it was to follow your passion and do something that you love.

Sam’s Story:

I interviewed Sam for my book “Live, don’t exist and I love what he had to say:

I’m 21 now. In Australia, you have to be at least 18 to buy property, and when I was finally legal I was ready. I’ve been working for my parents in their nursery business as a source of income over the years. My brother, sister and I grew up with a family business so we’ve always had plenty of work opportunities and a chance to earn money. It gives me money to do the things I want to do, to invest in things that will go up in value over time. People are surprised, when you’re young as I was and you’re able to invest in property. But if you keep earning and put it away for all that time and don’t spend it, it’s there to use. I was pretty young when I started working in the nursery. I started out on a ‘piece rate’, earning as little as $2 per tray.

The property I bought when I was 18 only took a couple of weeks to get rented out, and it’s going very nicely. It’s only about ten minutes down the road. It was like a blank canvas. The house is a brick home, easy to take care of. It had no yard, just grass, when I bought it, so my family and I, being in the nursery business, on my days off we landscaped the yard, put borders for the flower beds, added fencing, added fake turf for the patio area, added some palms—and it looks great now.

My parents have been good role models. When we go food shopping, even though we’re what others might consider well-off, my mum is always looking for the bargains and if it’s too dear, we just do without. I’m that way now, too. In fact if it’s not on special, I often just won’t get it, at least until next week, when it does go on special. When I go clothes shopping, I always look for the 60 percent off sales and things like that. We spend so much money in life, you just have to look for all the ways to save that you can.

When I go out to clubs I watch my friends get on a roll and they can’t stop drinking. I can actually say ‘no’ when I have had enough—I can stop. I think, “Man! How much money are they wasting?” Every drink is sometimes another 10 dollars, and you have to think, you have to be conscious every time you go out, even if you’ve been drinking. You need to be aware of what you’re spending! But a lot of people don’t care, they just go out, have a good time, just ‘live for the now’. But I don’t. When I spend, I am conscious of every time I put my card down to pay for something, it’s like, “Oh, man!”

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people my age take out loans for cars and stuff like that. But I haven’t spent money on things that will go down in value—I believe we have the choice to spend on things that will go up in value. More of us need to make smart financial decisions because I do see people my own age who are already in debt about $40,000 or more, and on things that will go down in value. Now, I laid out $40,000 on a house which is the same money as on a car but mine’s going up and theirs is going down at a rapid rate.

But if I ever get money stolen or see it go unnecessarily it gets me really upset. I went to the beach once and got a speeding ticket for $276, just for doing a couple of k’s over the speed limit. I was driving on the beach not long after that, and got written up for irresponsible driving—on sand it’s easy to let the car drift a bit as you drive. I got caught doing that, and that was another $276. So that’s $552, and to think of all the things I could have done with that money, like pay it towards my house!

“I can’t sleep at night knowing I’ve got those fines to pay!” I told my mum.

“You’ve just got to learn from it, Sam,” she said.

And when your parents charge you for board, rent, life expenses, you get used to paying your own way. Some of my mates pay like $50 and some pay nothing, thinking, “What’s the point?” when here, I’m paying like $100, which I think is pretty good, actually. It makes you feel independent, because you are.

And I would like to buy more property as investments, but since I bought this first property my funds are down a bit. I’ve been saving since the purchase of my house and I’m on the way to having the next deposit for another one. I work five days a week, go to gym every afternoon, the beach on the weekends. I don’t yet know what I want to do with my future but I know I want to earn a good wage and have all of these houses underneath me. For now, that’s the dream, and to over time have them paid off, a bit like what my parents are doing, how they invest in properties. Invest and spend the rest.

Put every dollar away that you can. Just put it somewhere and leave it there. Most people, as soon as payday comes, they go and they spend it. Spend yours on things that will go up in value. It’s especially powerful at an early age.

Saving is putting aside part of your income to provide for your future

— Sam Pilling

images Sam signing his first contract, and working on his new investment property

#raisingfinanciallyindependentkids #parenting raisingfinanciallyindependentteens

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