#but they were SO convinced that i showed the stuff to a couple jewish friends to ask if i HAD someone done anything wrong

[rebellum]

I remember when "piss your pants" got popular and some people started saying "this person is committing an ableist hate crime AND sexually harassing me because pissing your pants is a kink"

One implication of the fact that social media companies go out of their way to stoke hate and conflict is that everyone should probably get in the habit of thinking twice before diving into online controversies, because there’s a very good chance that they’re being deliberately taken out of context, exaggerated, or otherwise framed in an intellectually dishonest fashion

[julio-claudian-saberface]

Some Other Women, Part II

Previous post, now with extra crackfic discussion and corpse disposal. Same disclaimers apply. 

Domitia Lepida (the elder): Caligula’s cousin, Nero’s paternal aunt. There’s a story that when she was bedridden, she told Nero that she wanted to stay alive long enough to see the coming-of-age ritual of his first shave. According to this story, Nero said he’d shave posthaste - and then poisoned her and took her stuff. 

In Fateverse, of course, Nero wasn’t going to have anything to shave up there but her eyebrows, so I wonder how it would have translated. That, and the arts festival that historical Nero threw when he did have his first shave. I’m picturing something with an obviously fake beard, Hatshepsut-style. 

Domitia Lepida (the younger): Caligula’s cousin, Nero’s paternal aunt, mother of Empress Messalina. She raised Nero once his father (her brother) died and Agrippina was exiled. After Agrippina’s return they came into conflict, not least over her influence on Nero. Apparently Lepida was the honey to Agrippina’s vinegar. But when Agrippina, now Empress, brought trumped-up capital charges, she got the teenage Nero to testify against her. Lepida was subsequently executed. 

Claudia Octavia: Daughter of Claudius and Messalina, Britannicus’s sister, Caligula’s first cousin (though far younger than him). Nero’s first cousin once removed, stepsister, and unloved first wife. She was a couple of years younger than Nero and their marriage was arranged some years after their parents’, when she was thirteen and Nero was fifteen. 

A bit over a year later, her father died and Nero became emperor. A few months after that, she witnessed Britannicus die of poison at a dinner party while Nero dismissed his death throes as an epileptic fit. 

(Also present, by the by: the future emperor Titus, who was Britannicus’s BFF or at least liked to say that he was in the years afterward, and also said that he had a sip from Britannicus’s cup and was deathly ill for a while)

(Also: The ever-virtuous Seneca wrote a nasty little RPF about her dead father called the Apocolocyntosis. You can find online translations of a work that historians are reasonably convinced is the same one. It trashes Claudius as a deformed mass murderer and Caligula’s whipping boy, and shamelessly sucks up to Nero)

By all accounts Octavia was an ideal virtuous Roman wife despite all this, with a lot of practice at holding her tongue and hiding her feelings, but Nero didn’t care for her and busily carried on affairs with first Claudia Acte, then Poppaea Sabina (see below). She was popular with the people, probably because of the ideal virtuous Roman wife thing. Seven years after becoming emperor Nero finally divorced her to marry Poppaea, leading to protest in the streets. Nero kept escalating, exiling her further and further away, accusing her first of being barren and then of committing adultery - first of doing it with a random slave, then with his admiral Anicetus (who had previously killed Agrippina for him, and who he paid off for his assassination and perjury with a cushy retirement of an “exile” in Sardinia). He threw in an accusation that she’d aborted an illegitimate child, never mind that he’d previously said she was barren. Her slaves were tortured to provide more “evidence,” but most of them refused to break. Eventually, on the encouragement of Poppaea, who was nervous at her popular support, the executioners came for her. 

By now Octavia was imprisoned on Pandateria, one of the go-to exile spots for women of the imperial family. Augustus’s daughter Julia had died there, and Caligula’s mother/Nero’s grandmother Agrippina the Elder, and Nero’s aunt Livilla. She begged to be allowed to live as not Nero’s wife but merely his sister, to no avail. It’s said they tried to bleed her to death, but she was so frightened the blood wouldn’t flow heavily enough (I have no idea about the biological veracity of this), so they suffocated her instead and brought back her head to show Poppaea. She was about twenty-two years old. 

Headcanon time: Britannicus took after Messalina in looks, and Octavia took after Claudius, so Claudius was far more certain she was his. Hence he eventually agreed to a marriage between his daughter and his “stepson,” with the understanding that they’d be engaging in the good old Roman custom of adoption. The seemingly more sensible measure of a marriage between Britannicus and a female Nero was dismissed because of his doubts about Britannicus’s paternity. 

Historically it’s speculated that Nero poisoned Britannicus so that Agrippina, who he was already quarreling with, couldn’t hold him over his head as a threat. But in Fateverse Everything Is Agrippina’s Fault, so she probably poisoned Britannicus too, to make sure he didn’t challenge Nero as he got older. Maybe he really did have epilepsy, and Nero didn’t take it seriously until it was too late - and maybe Octavia didn’t believe that she hadn’t known. 

And the slander? The murder? It can’t be blamed on Agrippina, who was dead for three years by then and in any case wanted him to stay with Octavia for political reasons. Shall we switch gears to Everything is Poppaea’s Fault? FGO Nero in Septem is from 60 AD, the year after Agrippina died, and the divorce/remarriage was in 62. Were the effects of Agrippina’s poison really kicking in at this point, leading to Nero’s paranoia ramping up? 

Claudia Acte: Nero’s first love, a freedwoman formerly owned by the Claudian clan and afterward under their patronage, indicated by receiving the name Claudia upon her manumission (headcanon: Nero met her because she was one of Octavia’s attendants). From her name, she might have been a performer of some kind (alternate headcanon: Nero noticed her after she played the role of Andromache in Seneca’s Trojan Women). Nero fell for her so hard that he sought to fake a genealogy that made her a long-lost princess of Pergamum, presumably so she would be a suitable wife. The relationship was a source of conflict between Nero and Agrippina, who presumably thought putting aside an emperor’s daughter to marry a former slave was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard of. As such it was encouraged by people like Seneca and Burrus, to lessen Agrippina’s influence. Some of Seneca and Nero’s friends helped run interference. One of them pretended that Acte was his mistress; Nero would slip him presents to pass on to her. There’s a story that Agrippina, desperate to recover her influence, starting trying to get incestuous with her son. Seneca nipped that in the bud by getting Acte, who herself was alarmed by this development, to go tell Nero to please don’t get down and dirty with your mother, it’s gross and the soldiers won’t like it. 

You would think she’d be cast in the role of the Grasping Gold-Digging Whore, but that wasn’t the case. The likes of Tacitus regarded her as far better than Poppaea -  to them, she was a nice inoffensive girl who knew her place and followed the instructions of good influences. Eventually even Christians began to claim she had been one of them. Why would Nero take so much to this Nice Inoffensive Girl and take so much against Octavia? Romantic chemistry is weird and unpredictable, and that he was never accused of being anywhere near the killing of any of Acte’s family probably helped their relationship. Maybe Acte, the common girl, was supportive of Nero’s artistic endeavors when Octavia, the proper Roman lady, wasn’t. 

Being all virtuous and noble doesn’t mean you can’t amass oodles of money, as Seneca can attest (in an age before mass production, he had five hundred identical fancy tables). Nero eventually moved on to Poppaea, but Acte did very well from the affair, and retained her wealth after it ended. There are inscriptions indicating that she owned multiple properties and funded a temple to Ceres (I hear things floating around the Internet about one of those inscriptions being a prayer for Nero to love her again, but haven’t seen any actual source). She would use that wealth after Nero’s death to fund his funeral, presiding with two of his old nurses. 

Poppaea Sabina: Nero’s second love and second wife. She was named after her mother, a famous beauty who was driven to suicide by the accusations of Messalina, and took after her in looks. She had red hair, which Nero rhapsodized about and compared to amber - “amber” hair dye became fashionable afterward. 

She was married three times. First was to a guy named Rufrius Crispinus, resulting in a son who Nero was accused of having drowned on a fishing trip after her death for supposedly having imperial pretensions (i.e. playing at being the emperor; he was still a kid). Second was to Otho, one of Nero’s buddies who’d helped him with the Acte thing. Third, Nero fell for her and packed Otho off to Lusitania (modern-day Portugal or thereabouts). 

All the potential nasty things they didn’t say about Acte? They said them about Poppaea. Josephus is the one historian I know of to have anything nice to say about her; according to him, she was a “God-fearing” woman who sympathized with the Jewish people and influenced Nero to go easy on them. There are claims that she pushed Nero to kill his mother so that he would be free to ditch Octavia and marry her - but, as noted, there was a three-year gap, so if that was the case Nero took his sweet time about it. Then there’s going to extravagant lengths to maintain her beauty i.e. milk baths a la Cleopatra, marrying Otho just so she could get close enough to grab Nero’s attention, and gloating over Octavia’s decapitated head.

She and Nero had a daughter, Claudia Augusta, who died at a few months old (infant mortality’s a bitch). She was pregnant again two years later, at the time of her death. Nero is the prime suspect, being accused of kicking her in the stomach or else jumping on it, possibly after an argument about his time at the chariot races. Modern historians are more inclined to think it was a miscarriage or childbirth complications; if it was childbirth, the child died with her. 

At any rate, Nero took her death hard, threw her a grand funeral, and had her declared a goddess. One of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has a poem of uncertain vintage in which the deified Poppaea is greeted by Aphrodite and reluctantly whisked off to the heavens to be with her children. Later, Nero “took up” with Sporus (a very unfortunate young man who has a whole other sad story) because of his uncanny resemblance to her, and sometimes dressed him in women’s clothes and called him by her name. 

Headcanon: Nero, the admirer of Paris, decided she’d rather have a Helen than an Andromache. 

Unless Simon Magus had penis-attachment magic, baby Claudia Augusta and the unborn child would have been adopted in that good old Roman tradition. Who was the sperm donor? Otho, perhaps?

Nero would marry a third time, to Statilia Messalina (having her husband bumped off to do it), who survived his fall, was briefly engaged to Otho during his own bid for emperor, and apparently disappeared into obscurity afterward. 

---

Anyway, hope some of you were entertained by my rambling. 

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 1: 2x25 Bread and Circuses

Today, the Classic ep, Bread and Circuses aka Star Trek: Ancient Rome AU.

Literally all of the bridge is just standing around, watching Kirk, watching Spock.

Another missing ship hmm? The S.S. Beagle. With a crew of 47--that’s small. And surprise surprise, the Captain is someone ELSE that Kirk knows. Does he know everyone in the galaxy? Truly excellent at networking.

Feels like it’s been a while since Spock called him “Jim.” Possibly because this was written early in the season, when he still did that a lot?

Another Merchant Marine, or equivalent. Interesting.

He was kicked out of the Academy in his 5th year. How many years is the Academy? I always assumed 4 but maybe it’s longer if you count like extra trainings and stuff.

Kirk is so in love with Spock talking about the planet. His face has gone all soft again.

Excellent roads--the first clue it’s Rome. (The big televised gladiator fights is the second clue.)

“I believe they called it ‘video.’“ If there’s no TV in the 23rd century, what is their entertainment? Netflix?

“We’re beaming down”--dramatic shot--dun dun dun.

Yeaaaah triumvirate!! They’re really going hard with this dynamic at this point in the series and I’m here for it.

I feel like this is the first time they’ve called the Non-Interference Directive the Prime Directive but I could be wrong. It’s certainly the first time they’ve spelled it all out.

“Behold! I am the Arch Angel Gabriel!”

“We come from another...province.” That’s a very convincing delivery. Especially paired with those outfits.

You can tell this guy’s important because he’s the only one wearing cut offs.

“We have many beliefs.” I feel like McCoy is a Southern Baptist.

Flavius: “I know killing is evil. But maybe just this one time? As a treat?”

“That’s our ship, somewhere... at sea. Yeah, our ship at sea. Not in space. That would be wacky.”

This episode is LITERALLY  “Rome AU.”

I love Spock looking through those “Elite” magazines. Doing a little research.

"Captain, I thought you might find this interesting." Hands him a magazine with a buff man on the cover. Yeah, Kirk is definitely canonically bisexual.

And he likes that car, too.

Why do all of Kirk’s friends and/or heroes lose and it and become tyrannical? At this point, it’s becoming a distressing pattern.

The SPACE ACADEMY? Damn why didn’t they keep that name?

“My dear Mr. Spock.”

And Spock’s like “You got me there, that was an example of Logic.”

Oooh, nice knit hat. Spock needs more beanies.

The son/sun pun is inspired honestly and it makes the Enterprise crew look so silly like "So you heard the words of the sun, you crackpot?" whereas he means, "I heard the words of the Son," which makes so much more sense on its face.

This Spock and Bones banter is also inspired. “Doctor, you are stealing my word, please stop.” “Medical man are trained in logic.” “I had no idea they were trained.”

Flavius is a really good character. I feel like I really understand all the sides to him: the warrior who can’t quite untrain himself from the killing instinct, even after he’s converted to Christianity and vowed to be a pacifist who loves mankind.

The triumivrate would have had so much fun together in college. If Jim they were all the same age, knew each other then, and Jim weren’t a stick in the mud at that time. “He’s sick, he’s about to double over!” “I am? Oh, yeah, I am! So sick!”

Spock immediately grabs the sword. That’s that Vulcan Warrior instinct. He does love old weaponry.

I’m considering the possibility that Merrickus is another ex-boyfriend. The vibes aren’t as strong as with that guy from A Private Little War, but there was a charged sort of look between them just then.

“He knows who and what we are.” Aliens. You’re aliens.

Oh, you want 50 Vulcans? Fifty Vulcan pacifists for the arena? A rollicking good time.

“Beam... come ashore.” Kirk’s very good at the Prime Directive.

Haha Spock said it was “interesting,” not “fascinating.” McCoy stole his word so now he needs a new word.

Classic Bones and Spock philosophical debate.

“My word is my vessel, my oath, my crew.” I love him your honor.

His two dear friends! Don’t threaten them!

They really think they can threaten Jim into doing the wrong thing. Never! He’s too good!

Honestly, it’s not really the Prime Directive (which they have broken before) that stops him from just annihilating a whole city with his ship...it’s that that would be immoral in and of itself. He’s not obliterating a society lol. That’s not an option.

Uhura is very interested in Scotty and his plans.

I love the whole concept of Roman Gladiator Television. The fake-ass background and the sound stage. “Empire TV.” The fake applause, boos, and catcalls. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see in fanfic tbh.

“Two highly aggressive barbarians.” Aka Spock and McCoy looking confused.

Good thing Spock definitely trained with Vulcan swords for fun when he was a small child.

The pro consul  is obviously in love with Kirk. Who wouldn’t be?

I don’t know if I believe these not-so-ancient Romans are so strong or so smart. This is pretty standard threats and kidnapping. Also Merrick can cry me a river about how hard this all is and how sad he was to see his men die. He’s the First Citizen ! It worked out well for him. Except that he appears to be the pro consul’s bitch.

That was a real missed opportunity for “I’m a doctor, not a gladiator.”

Spock only knocks the guy out when he needs to get rid of him to help Bones!!

Okay, that Spock and Bones scene is one of THE BEST in the entire series. Between anyone! The tension. The emotion. The complex friendship. ...The way Bones 100% knows Spock has a thing for Kirk and there’s pretty much no other way to read that exchange. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a warm, decent feeling” and then Spock’s like ‘ah, got you there,’ eyebrow raise, ‘Really, Doctor?” and then Bones is IMMEDIATELY like oh, right, you’re in love with Jim, forgot about that.” Have they discussed this or is it just that obvious? How does Spock know that McCoy knows??

In other news, a gratuitous Kirk kissing scene. They’re not even trying to come up with a pretext for this at this point.

This TV Execution is about to be pre-empted...by Scotty.

“What did they do to you, Captain?” Spock is so worried!! This would be a good time to call him ‘Jim’ but he used up his quota earlier. And Kirk doesn’t want to explain. “They threw me a few curves. A few blonde curves.”

Flavius was killed?????????? NOOOOOOO.

...And Uhura finishes up the ep by explaining the pun. Honestly, I get that Spock wouldn’t get “they’re Christian actually” as the explanation for all this and I’m going to give Kirk a pass also because I headcanon him as Jewish but McCoy, who is almost 100% certainly some kinda Christian AND was the most interested in this ‘sun worshiper’ confusion should really have put that one together on his own.

So overall, a good episode! I’ve seen it quite a few times, I think, and it doesn’t disappoint. I enjoy the concept of ‘parallel Earth but what if MORE ROME,’ I think the son/sun pun confusion is nifty, and it’s an awesome triumvirate episode that really shows off Kirk’s leadership skills. So no complaints!

Next is Assignment: Earth, which is a complete cheat of an episode because it’s a back door pilot to a show that doesn’t exist, but it does have Spock holding a cat in the beginning, so I guess I’ll muddle through it. Then...starting S3 off with Spock’s Brain. A rough couple of weeks ahead. But the reward is The Enterprise Incident.

[childishrevolutionary]

Klan Ribs

Just so we’re clear, I’m not racist, the klan just makes really good ribs. And believe it or not, some of the klansmen are halfway decent people. Aside from the whole ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ thing of course. But you have to believe me, I’m not racist. About two years ago my work buddy comes in gleaming about a meeting he attended the night before.

“What are you in such a good mood for?” I ask.

“Dude you’re gonna think I’m crazy if I tell you this.”

“Try me.”

“I went to a KKK rally last night.”

“The fuck!?”

“Ok first of all, I didn’t know what it was. I only went on accident.”

“How the fuck do you go to a meeting full of dudes in white hoods on accident?”

“See that’s the thing. I joined this motorcycle club that meets at one of those halls at the Sheraton. I walked into the wrong room but I didn’t even know it until I was halfway through the meeting. I walk in and ask the first guy I see ‘hey you’re the guys with the bikes out front right?’ And I mean he’s a klansman so there’s already a 50/50 chance he rides a motorcycle, so he says yes. And I’m like, sweet, and I see there’s a nice spread of food, a bunch of barbecue and soul food type stuff. And I’m starving, so I make myself a fat plate and this stuff is absolutely delicious, it got me thinking maybe the most racist thing the klan does is keep their barbecue recipes a secret from the rest of the world.”

“Hold up hold up hold up, the white hoods didn’t set you off?”

“Dude, the meeting is at a fucking Sheraton, they can’t book that place if they all show up in hoods. So anyway the first half of this meeting, everyone is just chilling, talking about whatever, I’m chatting with that guy about my Harley. Then we all sit down and a guy gets up on stage, and even at this point I still don’t know what I’m in for. He’s looking around the room, saying he sees a couple new faces, and he singles me out. He’s like ‘I see we have a new brother, and I see you’re enjoying the food.’ And I’m like, yea totally, shit’s amazing. That’s when shit gets real. He starts talking about white power and everyone is saying amen and all that like it’s fucking church. That’s when I knew I was in too deep.”

“So just leave the goddam place.”

“Nah man, cause I mean it, I had a LOT of food. Even had a to-go plate ready. I couldn’t just leave, that’d be rude.”

“Oh of course, you have to fake being racist to avoid being rude. Makes sense.”

“Please, just shut the fuck up and listen. So I gotta sit through thirty minutes of these racist ramblings because the last thing I need is to be on the klan’s bad side. But with that barbecue they had, it was bearable. You should come next time.”

“Next time! Motherfucker are you telling me you’re gonna go BACK to a klan meeting?”

“I don’t think you’re understanding—not comprehending—how great this food is. Plus if you think about it, the more we eat, the less food there is for the klan, so we’re kinda doing the world a favor.”

“Dude, even if I was depraved enough to go with you, I don’t think I’m gonna fit in too well, you know, cause I’m fucking Jewish.”

“See that just makes it all the more beautiful. You’ll be pulling one over on them and they don’t even have to know. As long as you’re not black, you can hide every other thing those fuckers hate. No one has to know you’re Jewish or Catholic or if you suck twenty dicks a day. Just don’t wear the damn yarmulka and eat the Kosher options.”

“Ok first of all, you’re an asshole, I just hope you know that. Second, I don’t practice being Kosher, only the strict Jews do that. My sect of Judaism is pretty chill but I’m still Jewish.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure the owner of that hotel is a black dude too. The klan doesn’t even realize that every time they book that place, they’re putting money in a black man’s pockets. What harm is it gonna do to come with me and increase the irony just a bit?”

So anyway he convinces me to go with him the next week just because I thought it’d be funny, and the man was not lying. Those ribs and that brisket were ON POINT. And he had already made a ‘friend’ there and they just talked about their common interests, bikes, football, regular coworker kind of talk. Every time the guy brings up racist shit we kinda just danced around the subject and brought it back to normal conversation. And I know what you’re thinking, how do we make it through the rest of the meeting. Well it’s easy when you can’t even hear what they’re saying over the sound of you munching on the best, most racist plate of down home cooking. And yea, they meet up outside of the Sheraton for other stuff where they actually have the burning cross and hoods and all that shit, but it’s not like they know whether I’m there or not because you can’t tell who’s under those robes. So yes, I’m technically in the klan because I’ve been attending their meetings religiously just to demolish their short ribs and bratwurst and country fried steak. But I’m not racist.

[johnrossbowie]

LEAVING TWITTER

I wrote this earlier in the fall, before the election, after dissolving my Twitter account. I wasn’t sure where to put it (“try up your ass!” – someone, I’m sure) and then I remembered I have a tumblr I never use. Anyway, here tis.

How do you shame someone who thinks Trumps’ half-baked policies and quarter-baked messaging put him in the pantheon of great Presidents? How do you shame someone so lacking in introspection that they will call Obama arrogant while praising Trump’s decisiveness and yet at the same time vehemently deny that they’re racist? How do you shame someone for whom that racism is endearing and maybe long overdue?

You don’t. It’s silly to think otherwise.

Twitter is an addiction of mine, and true to form, my dependence on it grew more serious after I quit drinking in 2010. At first it was a chance to mouth off, make jokes both stupid and erudite and occasionally stick my foot in my mouth (I owe New Yorker writer Tad Friend an apology. He knows why, or (God willing) he’s forgotten. Either way. Sorry.) I blew off steam, steam that was accumulating without booze to dampen the flames. Not always constructive venting, but I also met new friends, and connected with people whose work I’ve admired for literal decades and ended up seeing plays with Lin-Manuel Miranda and hanging backstage with Jane Wiedlin after a Go-Go’s show and exchanging sober thoughts with Mike Doughty. When my mom passed in 2018, a lot of people reached out to tell me they were thinking of me. This was nice. For a while, Twitter was a huge help when I needed it.

I used to hate going to parties and really hated dancing and mingling, but a couple of drinks would fix that. Point is, for a while, booze was a huge help, too.

But my engagement with Twitter changed, and I started calling people my ‘friends’ even though I’d never once met them or even heard their voices. These weren’t even penpals, these were people whose jokes or stances I enjoyed, so with Arthurian benevolence I clicked on a little heart icon, liked their tweet, and assumed therefore that we had signed some sort of blood oath.

We had not. I got glib, and cheap, and a little lazy. And then to make matters much worse, Trump came along and extended his reach with the medium.

There was a while there where I thought I could be a sort of voice for the voiceless, and I thought I was doing that. I tried very hard to only contribute things that I felt were not being said – It wasn’t accomplishing anything to notice “Haha Trump looks like he’s bullshitting his way through an oral report” – such things were self-evident. I tried to point out very specific inconsistencies in his policies, like the Muslim ban meant to curb terrorism that still favored the country that brought forth 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. Like his full-throated cries against media bias performed while he suckled at Roger Ailes’ wrinkly teat.  Like his fondness for evangelical votes that coincided with a scriptural knowledge that lagged far behind mine, even though I’m a lapsed Episcopalian, and there is no one less religiously observant than a lapsed Episcopalian. But that eventually gave way to unleashing ad hominem attacks against his higher profile supporters, who I felt weren’t being questioned enough, who I felt were in turn being fawned over by theirdim supporters. If you’re one of these guys, and you think I’m talking about you, you’re probably right, but don’t mistake this for an apology. You suck, and you support someone who sucks, and your idolatry is hurting our country and its standing in the world. Fuck you entirely, but that’s not the point. The point is that me screaming into the toilet of Twitter helps no one – it doesn’t help a family stuck at the border because they’re trying to secure a better life for their kids. It doesn’t help a poor teenager who can’t get an abortion because the party of ‘small government’ has squeezed their tiny jurisdiction into her uterus. It doesn’t help the coal miner who’s staking all his hopes on a dying industry and a President’s empty promises to resurrect it. I was born in New York City, and I currently live in Los Angeles. Those are the only two places I’ve ever lived, if you don’t count the 4 years I spent in Ithaca[1]. So, yes, I live in a liberal bubble, and while I’ve driven across the country a couple of times and did a few weeks in a touring band and am as crushed as any heartlander about the demise of Waffle House, you have me dead to rights if you call me a coastal elitist. And with that in mind, I offer few surprises. A guy who grew up in the theater district and was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage or felt you should own an AR-15? THAT would be newsworthy. I am not newsworthy. I can preach to the choir, I can confirm people’s biases, but I will likely not sway anyone who is eager to dismiss a Native New Yorker who lives in Hollywood. I grew up in the New York of the 1970s, and that part of my identity did shape my politics. My mom’s boss was gay and the Son of Sam posed a realistic threat. As such, gays are job creators[2] and guns are used for homicide much more often than they are used for self-defense[3]. I have found this to be generally true over the years, and there’s even data to back it up.

“But Mr. Bowie,” you might say, though I insist you call me John - “those studies are conducted by elitist institutions and those institutions suck!” And again, I am not going to reason with people who will dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view as elitist or, God Help Us, fake news. But the studies above are peer-reviewed, convincing, and there are more where those came from.

“But John,” you might say, and I am soothed that we’re one a first name basis - “Can’t you just stay on Twitter for the jokes?” Ugh. A) apparently not and B) the jokes are few and far between, and I am 100% part of that problem.

I have stuff to offer, but Twitter is not the place from which to offer it.

After years of academically understanding that Twitter is not the real world, Super Tuesday 2020 made the abstract pretty fucking concrete. If you had looked at my feed on the Monday beforehand – my feed which is admittedly curated towards the left, but not monolithic (Hi, Rich Lowry!) – you’d have felt that a solid Bernie surge was imminent, but also that your candidate was going surprise her more vocal critics. When the Biden sweep swept, when Bernie was diminished and when Warren was defeated, I realized that Twitter is not only not the real world, it’s almost some sort of Phillip K. Dickian alternate timeline, untethered to anything we’re actually experiencing in our day to day life. This is both good news and bad news – one, we’re not heading towards a utopia of single payer health care and the eradication of American medical debt any time soon, but two, we’re also not being increasingly governed by diaper-clad jungen like Charlie Kirk. Clouds and their linings. Leaving Twitter may look like ceding ground to the assclowns but get this – the ground. Is not. There.

It’s just air.

There are tangible things I can do with my time - volunteer with a local organization called Food On Foot, who provide food and job training for people experiencing homelessness here in my adopted Los Angeles. I can give money to candidates and causes I support, and I can occasionally even drop by social media to boost a project or an issue and then vanish, like a sort of Caucasian Zorro who doesn’t read his mentions. I can also model good behavior for my kids (ages 10 and 13) who don’t need to see their father glued to his phone, arguing about Trumps incompetence with Constitutional scholars who have a misspelled Bible verse in their bio (three s’ in Ecclesiastes, folks).

So farewell Twitter. I’ll miss a lot of you. Perhaps not as badly as I miss Simon Maloy and Roger Ebert and Harris Wittels and others whose deaths created an unfillable void on the platform. But I won’t miss the yelling, and the lionization of poor grammar, and anonymous trolls telling my Jewish friends that they were gonna leave the country “via chimney.” I will not miss people who think Trump is a stable genius calling me a “fucktard.” I will not miss transphobia or cancelling but I will miss hashtag games, particularly my stellar work during #mypunkmusical (Probably should have quit after that surge, I was on fire that night, real blaze of glory stuff I mean, Christ, Sunday in the Park with the Germs? Husker Du I Hear A Waltz? Fiddler on the Roof (keeping an eye out for the cops)? These are Pulitzer contenders.). Twitter makes me feel lousy, even when I’m right, and I’m often right. There’s just no point in barking bumperstickers at each other, and there are people who are speaking truth to power and doing a cleaner job of it – Aaron Rupar, Steven Pasquale, Louise Mensch, Imani Gandy and Ijeoma Oluo to name five solid mostly politically based accounts (Yes, Pasquale is a Broadway tenor. He’s also a tenacious lefty with good points and research and a dreamy voice. You think you’re straight and then you hear him sing anything from Bridges of Madison County and you want him to spoon you.). You’re probably already following those mentioned, but on the off chance you’re not, get to it. You’ll thank me, but you won’t be able to unless you actually have my email.

_______

[1] And Jesus, that’s worse – Ithaca is such a lefty enclave that they had an actual socialist mayor FOR WHOM I VOTED while I was there. And not socialist the way some people think all Democrats are socialist – I mean Ben Nichols actually ran on the socialist ticket and was re-elected twice for a total of six years.

[2] The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, “America’s LGBT Economy” Jan 20th, 2017

[3] The Violence Policy Institute, Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self Defense Gun Use, July 2019.

[moiraxknight]

@knightsarmor

Moira sat back more comfortably, legs folded in lotus position, a coffee cup resting on her hands as she waited for the recording light to poop on the Zoom call. Her very first podcast interview. It still felt odd to her, Moira had done some interviews for art journals, spoke in art events for universities and illustrator panels on conventions, but this felt weirdly personal. Micah had been the one to convince her to do it, it could help people feel more connected to her work. She saw the pink haired girl on the screen silently count down from three on her fingers and nodded, adjusting her headphones and mic.

“Hello, hello, and welcome to episode fifty seven of So That’s Art.” Bianca greeted loudly and Moira held back a chuckle. “The podcast that exists to prove your parents that it is possible to be an artist and still retire on a beach in Europe”. She continued, bringing a smile to Moira’s face. 

Moira moved the laptop slightly to divert from the reflection of the windows behind her, not wanting to pull the curtains back completely. She was sitting on the kitchen desk now. Oliver was working in their office and she didn’t want to distract him with all the talking. 

“We have a very special guest today, my very favorite Instagram creator, illustrator, Skillshare instructor, artist, painter. The one and only Jewish icon, Moira Lieberman.” Bianca introduced her. 

Moira Lieberman-Knight, she thought, but didn’t correct the girl. “Hi, Bianca, thanks for having me here.” Moira greeted back, nodding her head politely before taking a sip from the coffee. Wolf came waltzing down the stairs and went straight to her lap, curling up in a hairless ball there. 

“Thank you for agreeing to be here, it’s a fucking honor.” The girl insisted, bringing another smile to Moira’s lips. “How are you today?”

“I’m perfectly fine today, thank you for asking! How are you?” Moira asked, cup halfway to her lips again. 

“I’m great, really excited to talk to you today, Life of Liebs is one of my favorite series ever.” She said. “Which I guess takes me right into my first question today, how did that come about for you? No, wait, my first question is: is Liebs actually you, one hundred percent you?” 

Moira was expecting that question because she knew most of the questions here weren’t going to actually be about her art and its details. “Well, she is and she isn’t.” Moira thought of a way to explain. “Life of Liebs came to me when someone in my life suggested that I drew some of the things that happened in my life, you know, growing up Jewish, being an artists and everything. And before it became a series, sometimes I would draw comic version of me and my best friends in college...”

“The Exhausted Four.” Bianca added and Moira nodded.

“Yeah, I’d make those comics to lighten up finals week and stuff, so I already had this hand for turning people into characters. Then I got this push and I started seeing how some situations I went through could be fun and relatable and that’s how Life of Liebs was born.” She grinned. “But all characters in there aren’t the exact people in my life, they are a comic version of them, some sort of alternative universe, Liebs included. When I draw a scene, that drawing was probably twenty percent of what was actually going on in real life.”

“That’s awesome.” Bianca seemed really mesmerized. “All the characters then are actual people? Based on those people, I mean.

“Yeah, I don’t usually create completely fictional characters, I like real stories and that’s one of the most beautiful parts of my job. Getting to recreate an artistic version of people’s lives.” Moira spoke with a proud grin on her lips, catching Oliver at the corner of her eye, coming into the kitchen to grab some coffee.  Staying as far as he could from the camera while wearing only a pair of grey sweats. 

“I think Naenae might be my favorite character.” Bianca added with a laugh.

“She is pretty amazing, yeah.” Moira couldn’t disagree, Naina was a gem.

“You know those comics brought a lot of followers to your friends, right? Why did you stop tagging them?” Bianca asked.

“Well, while my friends agreed to be a part of my work, some people were getting a little out of hand.” Moira said sincerely. “They have families and lives they wish to protect and I respect that so now I only tag people that I work with or clients that allow me to do so.” She added. 

“I get that, yeah.” Bianca nodded. “You still tag Mystery Boots man, though.” The girl added with a devious smile and Moira glanced at a smirking Oliver leaned against the counter, watching her while he drank his coffee.

“I do, yeah.” Moira said simply.

“Where did that come from, by the way? The whole mystery?” 

“I don’t know, I still don’t understand.” Moira admitted with a laugh, trying not to stare at him while she talked. “I posted a drawing of two people’s feet and I tagged him and I guess because his account has no pictures of him, people started freaking out. It was never supposed to be a mystery, just me keeping aspects of my life private. Eventually I just took the opportunity and got in the game so people would stop asking invasive questions.” She shrugged.

“So Knight’s actually a person, then? People think the faceless pictures you’ve posted were all staged to keep the mystery.” Bianca said and Moira laughed wholeheartedly.

“I love that people think I have that time and energy.” She shook her head. “No, he’s a real person, he exists.” Moira glanced at him and lifted her cup, mouthing for him to fill it up. Oliver came without showing up on camera and filled it up to her, taking her smile as a thank you and going back to the counter, sitting on it now. 

“Liebs and Knight are a couple on the comics, right?” The girl pushed and Moira snorted, nodding. She had never hid that, not even the fact that Oliver was real and in her life daily, she simply didn’t show his face or posted comics of them kissing, but she knew where the questions were going. “So what you put there is relatable couple moments? Your moments with him?”

“Twenty percent of the moment, yes.” She nodded. 

“Mystery boots man is based on your real life boyfriend then? For real?” Bianca insisted. 

Moira looked at him and Oliver nodded gently, a small smile hidden behind his cup. People had noticed her engagement ring first and then her wedding ring on the videos she did when she was drawing. But the comics hadn’t followed the perfect timeline of her life with Oliver, not with other series coming in between, other comics uploaded daily. Liebs and Knight were still getting earfuls from her grandma about living together before marriage. Moira and Oliver had come back from their honeymoon a month ago. 

“My husband, yes.” Moira looked back at the camera and laughed when she heard Bianca’s loud gasp.

“Is that him you keep looking at?” The girl asked and Moira just sipped from her coffee. “Okay, okay, you all heard it here first, Liebs and Knight are endgame.” She announced.

Moira laughed, shaking her head, glancing at Oliver as he rolled his eyes, a smile on his lips. 

“Do we get a wedding comic soon?” Bianca inquired.

The Knightman Chronicles did, a beautiful comic that hung on the wall above Oliver’ side of the office, Moira in a beautiful black and silver dress with a long tail, Oliver in the most beautiful medieval wedding attire, fit for a king. No uniform, no bear skin. Only one last medal on her veil and a bear claw on his lapel. But that was just for them, as it had always been. Oliver stared into her eyes from where he was and then smiled, sliding from the counter and leaving his cup in the sink. Come to me when you’re done, he mouthed to her and Moira licked her lips discreetly, nodding. She knew well what that look he gave her meant. 

“Twenty percent of it.” Moira smiled back at the camera, already thinking of how she could end that interview soon to go unveil the mysteries behind that Mysterious boots husband of hers. 

[photolover82]

The Masked Singer Season 4 Episode 7: Group A Finals Commentary & Guesses

Hello my fellow Masked Singer lovers! Welcome (or Welcome Back) to Ana’s Masked Singer recap, where I, Ana, recap every single episode of The Masked Singer. So with this recap, it’s going to be different from my normal ones, where I usually start with the eliminated contestant, I am actually gonna go backwards since we had the smack down, by recapping first the performances, revealing who lost/had to be unmasked, and then at the end giving my guesses. I also did this on season 3 so it will make sense if you’ve seen them... but it will make sense as I go on I promise... so that said: let’s jump into it (please remember to like, comment your guesses/what you think, and follow for more Masked Singer fun)

The Group A finals consisted of 3 contestants going head to head with 1 going straight to the super six and the remaining 2 facing the smack down...

The 3 contestants were: Sun, Snow Owls, and Popcorn

First up was Sun ☀️ who sang Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin

Performance: I absolutely loved this performance, she is so powerful and omg her voice gives me chills for real. She started super strong and didn’t falter the entire song, it was amazing! She is absolutely one of my favorites, and I have such a good feeling that she’s gonna win it all, because she is that good! For sure, best performance of the night.

Next up were our love birds the Snow Owls 🦉 who sang The Prayer by Andrea Bocelli & Celine Dion

Performance: I love them a lot, like a lot, I really do, so what I am about to say hurts me. This wasn’t their strongest performance, I think the song choice wasn’t the best for their voices. Ok, hear me out, it was still so beautiful and emotional and ngl it’s not like I am saying they were horrible, I just wished they could have picked a different song. It suited more her voice than his, his was a bit shaky in the song, but it was still a beautiful performance. They are honestly such a wonderful addition to the show, I really love the Snow Owls, but they didn’t wow me this time unfortunately.

Lastly of the performances, we have Popcorn 🍿 singing Domino by Jessie J

Performance: Vocally, this performance was not as great as the others honestly speaking. It was great, none of these 3 are bad by any means, there isn’t anyone who is glaringly bad of a vocalist compared to the other ones in this group. It’s just Popcorn also didn’t wow me unfortunately. The song choice was ok and I get she was trying to have fun and be more upbeat, but it kind of fell flat for me.

So, the result came in & the winner of the round was (not surprisingly):

Sun ☀️

So that means that Snow Owls 🦉 and Popcorn 🍿 are in the SMACKDOWN... Here’s how it went:

This smackdown was more of a love ballad kind of smack down with:

Snow Owls singing Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion and

Popcorn singing (Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams

Owls commentary: It was beautiful and much better than their first performance, I wish they would have sung this song instead of The Prayer, but whatever I guess

Popcorn commentary: Meh, it was also better than her first performance and it was a different tone to her voice which was really pretty, but of the 2 I felt like she should have gone home/been unmasked

But having said that, the ones who did go home (you probably already got it from the fact that I said “ones” and that last sentence haha) were:

Snow Owls 🦉

who were revealed to be (as I previously predicted):

Clint Black and Lisa Hartman-Black

OMG thank you to YouTube comments for helping me guess these 2 but I am really happy I did... (5/7 right woohoo 😆).. however, I am super sad that they went home I really loved them like a lot... they were super cute and sweet and I wish they would’ve gone to the super six instead of Popcorn *sigh* ...

Anyways here are the clues from the last clue package that gave them away:

Rocking Horse: the movie they were in together Flicka: Country Pride

NASA shuttle: he recorded a PSA for NASA

Roy Rogers: Clint had a song with Roy Rogers

Parthenon in Nashville= they lived in Nashville since 2002

Clue from the branch friend (each person had a friend or family member giving a special clue): snow owls k-i-s-s-i-n-g in a tree= they are a married couple not siblings ofc

Anyways now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at guesses for the 2 remaining contestants going into the Super Six:

1. First we have ☀️ , who I still am convinced is LeAnn Rimes

Omg like this is so her, I am tripling down on this answer, I knew it ever since week 1, here are the clues to try to convince you:

The “Sol Mate” dude= referring to her husband, actor Eddie Cibrian (I know the guy from playing Ross on Baby Daddy but look him up, he’s been in other stuff too)

Angel wind chime= can be a reference to her song On the Side of Ángels or her 2002 album Twisted Angel

Cows= reference to either her being a country artist or her song Cattle Call

The Clue her hubby gave= she has a gold record= that, she does, my friend, her song Blue went gold

2. Last but not least, we have the 🍿, who I am doubling down on my guess for: Taylor Dayne

The Queen BFF= been on this show before: one of her best friends is Leah Remini, who was a guest judge on The Masked Singer in Season 3

A male deer aka referred to as a hart= she has a ton of songs with the word heart in them

Matzo Ball Soup= lady be a Jew... and that’s a Jewish delicacy and she made it when she was on Rachael vs Guy Celebrity Cook-Off in 2012

Alright so that’s it! I hope y’all enjoyed, please don’t forget to like, comment, and follow for more... I will see you all next week for the Group B finals where there will be a *gasp* DOUBLE... that’s right, I said DOUBLE... ELIMINATION! You don’t wanna miss it, bye guys!

[crispy-crowley]

Ketubah (Aziraphale/Crowley)

Aziraphale grabbed the mug by its porcelain wings. In the next second, it nearly went falling towards the ground. Above the desk, there, by the window, hung a lively and ornately drawn Ketubah. The only problem with that was… well. He didn't really remember getting married.

Thanks to the lovely @theirdarkreturning for the prompt! Hope you enjoy :D

After things went sideways and the Ineffable Plan overtook the Great Plan, things were supposed to go back to normal. They went back to exactly how Adam had viewed them before. No horsemen, no Gabriel, and no antichrist involved.

Some things were different, admittedly, and Crowley was pretty sure he was the first person to notice.

He was sitting in the back seat of Mr. Young’s car, five minutes past the “end” of the world, after he’d begrudgingly agreed to give him and Aziraphale a ride back away from the air base. There was a faint buzz of the car as he looked out the window towards the darkening fields around them.

“My. To think what would have happened if the young boy really had been Warlock,” Aziraphale said. Crowley took a sharp intake of breath at that. Well. That certainly was a thought. He pulled his hand up, going to grab the bridge of his nose, when his reflection in the car mirror caught his eye.

His eyes. Specifically his eyes. They were blinking, his usually snake-shaped golden eyes, and yet the pupils were more… round. More human-like. They had the same color irises, and the pupils were still kind of slits, in a way, but rounder than they were meant to be. His head tilted in the reflection. Well. That's awful strange, isn't it?

Some things, like the Bentley and the Bookshop, were a Godsend. Their own little slices of home were returned to where they were meant to be. Some things, though, weren't quite so black and white.

The people killed by the Kraken were still dead, but the government was trying to cover that up as a “mass illusion.” Probably cell phones, insisted the Prime Minister. Aziraphale had been certain she had to be having a laugh at that, but then again. Who could tell these days. Heaven and Hell weren't quite as clear cut as they used to be.

It was Crowley who had suggested the body-swap idea to bring back some more normality, and frankly, Aziraphale couldn't be happier that he did. The whole matter was rather stressful, but that didn't mean it didn't spruce up the day a little. He was very proud of his performance, actually. He did do a mean Crowley impression. In fact, there was no one he knew better.

So, finally, things were going to be okay. He could return to the bookshop, left alone by angels and demons alike, just him and Crowley. Finally. As it was always written.

Aziraphale shut the door behind him, leaving the streets of Soho and the Bentley behind. A few weeks had passed already, and he and Crowley had just gone for some truly scrumptious pastries in Greece. He rather missed Greece sometimes. True, Rome was where he made his home most of the time during that era, but the ancient Greeks? They were quite a people.

There was a certain smell the bookshop possessed. Aziraphale took a moment, letting it wash over him as he walked past the doorway. He couldn't help but smile at his new books Adam had made appear. Prophecy books were always his favorite. It was rather sweet of him, really, to think of him like that. Perhaps it was an oversight, but Aziraphale saw it as a thank you of sorts. A way of saying he was valued.

He gently removed his coat, placing it on the back of his chair. Oh, dear, he'd left his cocoa out again. He really should learn to clean up after himself. After all, it had been over 200 years since he'd been living here, and it was about time he began to act like it! He grabbed the mug by its porcelain wings. In the next second, it nearly went falling towards the ground.

Above the desk, there, by the window, hung a lively and ornately drawn ketubah. The only problem with that was… well. He didn't really remember getting married.

It is of note that Adam Young was indeed raised Jewish. His father, of course, with a surname like Young, was a Jewish man. His mother was not, and that technically made him goyishe, or legally “not Jewish.” That said, he grew up in the Temple in Tadfield, and he was raised like any other Jewish boy in the town. Wensleydale in particular would get confused, sometimes, when he spoke about things like a mezuzah, or Hanukkah, or specifically the Ketubah. Adam didn't mind explaining. He thought it was kind of cool, in a way.

His mom and dad had theirs proudly displayed in the kitchen. It's a handwritten document, all the way from Israel, stating the true and faithful nature of his parents’ marriage. As far as eleven-year-old Adam was concerned, every married couple had one.

This, coupled with the fact that he was entirely certain that Crowley and Aziraphale were his godfathers, lead to a fairly simple conclusion: They, of course, were married, and as such had a ketubah in their living room.

Truth be told, it was a lovely ketubah. Adam’s imagination must really be something. Not that surprising, considering he was the antichrist and all. But really, it was something beautiful. A large black oak tree stood on one side, a silver-white birch on the other. They intertwined together, the Hebrew text on either side. There were ruby red leaves on both trees.

And underneath, in his very own handwriting, Aziraphale recognized his own signature.

On top of that? He recognized Crowley’s.

His phone was in his hand before he even had taken off his shoes. It rang once, twice, before Crowley picked up. “Miss me already, angel?”

“Not… quite. You, erm, may want to see this.” With that, he hung up, eyes still lingering on the wall. If Hell found out about this-- if Heaven found out about this-- there was no way the bodyswap trick would work twice. They were doomed.

So they wouldn't find out, then.

Crowley opened the door to find Aziraphale pacing in the front of the bookstore, several books on religious lore scattered around his feet. He was holding one open in his hands as he walked, nervously scanning over the words.

“My, angel. What's got your panties all in a twist?” Crowley asked. Truly, the little store looked like a construction zone.

Aziraphale’s head jerked up. “Crowley. You are a Sheyd, correct?”

“Well, I suppose. I mean, most people use the blanket term demon for all of us at some point, but I am one of the sh--”

“But you are experienced in Judaism, yes?” Crowley narrowed his eyes.

“Yes?”

“Right. Good. Right and good. Now, um, how does one cancel a ketubah?”

Crowley paused. His confused expression grew to rather incredulous. “I'm sorry, cancel a ketubah? It’s not an Amazon order, dear, you can’t just—“

Aziraphale shut the book in his hands with a sigh. Well, if he couldn’t tell Crowley, he couldn’t tell anyone. That person could read him quite like a book, if he had ever read.

“I, um. Funny story, really, we, heh. You know about the whole apocalypse?”

“Yeees?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. Of course he knew about the bloody apocalypse. It had only been last week, for Satan’s sake.

“Well, as Adam arranged things, it seems he sort of, hm, bridged a gap of logic? I suppose? And he… well, he sort of--”

“Spit it out, angel.”

“Crowley, we’re married.”

Wait. Married. Married? Oh, come on, Adam. Crowley had at least wanted to break a glass and throw a party at his wedding. Then again, considering who his and Aziraphale’s in-laws were, it was probably best they didn't.

A courthouse wedding suited him anyways. He always wanted to run off and do something wild and rebellious, but now, during their “lay low” period, probably wasn't the best time.

“Well, I suppose it is a long time coming,” Crowley said with a shrug. “I mean, I would've assumed it would happened ages ago.”

“You what? Crowley, we are not in a-- in a relationship of any sorts! That's preposterous!”

“Is it though?” Crowley asked, giving Aziraphale a moment to think. Well. There was no one else he could really trust or relate to, and the humans lived such tiny lives, and Crowley was his best friend, and he had been madly in love with him since the early 1940s. So… wow. Maybe he did have a point.

“Well what will we tell Heaven and Hell? Surely they would disapprove.”

“Oh, angel, please tell me you don't care what they think. They’ve revealed their true colors, who cares if we reveal ours?”

Aziraphale looked slowly around the mess the room had turned into. His glance meandered up to Crowley with a sigh. “Say. How's about we get drunk?”

A smile cracked over Crowley’s face. “Oh, my dear, I thought you'd never ask.”

Two hours had passed, and they had made their way over to Crowley’s home in attempts to find more alcohol. Of course, being a demon of sorts, he was loaded with the stuff. Amber scotch bottles sat empty around them, and knowing the situation, it was a minor miracle they weren't numbering in the double digits.

“And don't get me started on Gabriel. He's such a shvantz… a schmuck. A putz. A…” Aziraphale trailed off, a giggle falling into his voice. “A penis .”

“Wow. You sure showed him, huh? Is that the best insult you've got?” Crowley asked. He casually threw a leg on the table, taking another sip of his whiskey.

“Yes, I rather think it is,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “At this rate, I could be a proper demon, even!”

“Sure you could, Zira,” Crowley remarked. “Y’know, I'm fairly certain two demons can't get married, so then we'd be in even more of a ruddy mess. Can you believe the Duke of Hell trying to fill out paperwork on that one? I think Hastur would gouge my eyes out.” Aziraphale nodded solemnly, his smile slipping just a little. Crowley, who was convinced he knew everything about the angel, noticed straight away.

“You alright, dearest?”

Aziraphale shrugged, his eyes set rather steadily on his glass of scotch. “‘M fine.”

“Ah-ah, angels can't lie darling. Tell me what's the matter.”

Aziraphale momentarily met his gaze before his eyes sunk down again to the drink at hand. “I just wish we could have done this differently.”

Crowley paused, lowering his foot off the table. Oh, shit. This was going to be serious, wasn't it?

“You know, the whole marriage thing. It's supposed to be special, isn't it? A ceremony, a bouquet, a lovely gown. Seven circles, a father walking a betrothed down the aisle. Not just… I don't know, my best friend and me framing a marriage certificate. I wanted to--!” Aziraphale trailed off. He set his glass down with a start. “I wanted to kiss you, Crowley! On my own terms! I wanted to be the one to confess to you, and I wanted a lovely little honeymoon down in New York, and maybe a nice little stop in Vienna. I wanted things to play out slowly, nicely, not… so fast. Why is everything so fast ?”  Aziraphale’s voice was cracking now, his gaze steadily on his drink. He didn't think he could say any of this looking Crowley in the eye. He thought he just might break.

Crowley slowly reached for his sunglasses, pulling them down off of his nose. He put his other hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, giving a small smile. “Hey. Hey, there. It's alright, I promise you.” Aziraphale looked up slowly, their eyes finally meeting.

“Your eyes. They're… they're human,” he muttered, looking at the round pupils, the amber irises.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley continued, glossing over the comment. “You and me. We have an eternity to figure this out. We don't have to take it my speed, doll. I'd slow down time for you.” Aziraphale nodded, his fear all but melting out of him.

“You know,” Crowley said, “you're the bravest, the most interesting person I've ever met.”

All of a sudden, Aziraphale couldn't take it anymore. He leaned forward, firmly pressing Crowley’s lips to his. Crowley floundered for just a second, surprise and astonishment taking over. But then he pressed back, eyelashes fluttering closed and heart leaping in his chest.

They'd take things slow. One step at a time, always, until they're both as happy and content as any married couple.

And maybe one day, Crowley would dawn a long black dress and watch as Aziraphale walked down the aisle in a suit of white. Maybe he'd circle his husband seven times, before a glass is broken and they're both hoisted up on chairs among friends. Well, they'd need friends first for that, but maybe. Only the future would tell. And ever since Anathema burned the new ones, no prophecy could predict what would happen next.

But as Crowley leaned forward to kiss Aziraphale again, his strange and ineffable husband, nothing that far ahead mattered. What mattered was this very second.

Crowley was done moving too fast. For Aziraphale, he'd slow down time.

@litttlebrave @madhbh

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 93: Alone at Sea

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?”

Something I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before is that both of my parents are ministers. I myself am not religious (not because of trauma or anything, my folks are great), but I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a mom and dad who often saw things through a “hey, that could be in a sermon!” lens, and that tends to rub off on a kid. Not to oversell the value of these posts, but it’s not lost on me that I ended up writing something to share with people every Sunday. I can think of worse people to emulate.

So it’s hard for someone like me not to notice that Gems take crucial steps towards becoming Crystal Gems through some pretty baptismal circumstances. I’m not saying the symbolism is intentional, because neither aquatic rituals nor the show’s crew are uniquely Christian—Rebecca Sugar, for instance, comes from a Jewish background—but we’ve yet to see a Gem fall in love with Earth without being reborn through water. Peridot first bonds with Steven in the rain. Ruby and Sapphire land on solid ground together in the rain. Pink Diamond and Pearl first realize they need to rebel as a storm brews.

And then there’s Lapis Lazuli. 

Lapis literally entered the series because Steven broke a mirror, so it’s no wonder she’s misfortune personified. Bad things happen to Lapis. Bad things happen because of Lapis. And sure enough, she might control the same waters that herald rebirth for other Gems, but she’s also consumed by them. Her old life can’t get washed away because she’s still submerged. So an episode about Steven trying to reconnect her with water is bound to be a bit more complex than a joyous scene in the rain.

Alone at Sea takes us to a dark place for Steven Universe, even compared to its preceding episode, the harrowing Monster Reunion. Plenty of bad things have happened to our characters, but for the first time since the Week of Sardonyx we must confront that one of our characters has herself intentionally done a bad thing. Not day-to-day meanness or misguided acts of loyalty to Homeworld, but something truly awful. Almost as if we’re priming for some big reveal about a core character’s moral ambiguity at the end of the season. 

This isn’t to say that Lapis, who also entered the series by stealing the ocean and battling the Crystal Gems, is a stranger to doing bad things. But there’s a gulf of difference between seeing magic antagonist stuff and the learning that she was abusive to her ex. Not many kids are gonna cause marine catastrophes, but way too many kids are gonna have to deal with abusive relationships one day, so Alone at Sea can’t help but feel more raw.

The first moments of the episode show that Lapis is more than her suffering; she’s capable of having genuine fun, especially with Steven. She hints at her deeper issues by insisting she doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely, but she’s just as quick to snort with laughter. And even after boarding the rechristened Li’l Lappy, she’s willing to give happiness a shot. While she’s uncomfortable about dipping her toe in the water, she still finds moments of joy (particularly when it comes to horns). But more often than not, this positive outlook is hindered by her crewmates.

Greg, bless him, hurts more than he helps. He introduces himself as the guy whose leg Lapis broke, his discomfort around her water powers stifles her floundering self-confidence, and he bores her to death with regular fishing. Likewise, while Steven means well, he’s overbearing in his attempts to make Lapis happy. As awkward as it is, I’m glad the show acknowledges how easy it can be to mess up when trying to cheer up a friend in the dumps. Despite Steven’s apology about pushing too hard, we don’t get an explicit lesson about paying attention to how your friends are feeling instead of steamrolling them with fun. This isn’t a criticism: it’s okay to not get explicit lessons all the time, and it’s a nice change of pace from the show’s recent string of episodes that outright tell us the moral, even though these morals are sound.

Everything comes to a head when the rudder is thrown off, veering Li’l Lappy and her namesake off course. Steven gives that apology, but Lapis reiterates that she doesn’t deserve his help, and this time we learn why: as brutal and bullying as Jasper is, in some twisted sense Lapis learned to love their toxic relationship, using it to take all her grief and rage out on Jasper. We saw a hint of her aggression in Chille Tid, but in Jennifer Paz’s best delivery of the episode, Lapis reveals that she misses Malachite. And right on cue, the opportunity to fuse with Jasper again reveals itself.

Jasper’s last lines that weren’t just shouting “YOU!” at Steven were all the way back in Jailbreak, but Kimberly Brooks is worth the wait. Her hungry correction that she was “looking for you” instead of the crew as a whole is perfect (the woman knows her way around second person pronouns), and she manages to become even scarier when she transitions from menacing to begging. All at once we see that Jasper is still monstrous, but has been changed by Lapis. Not in the way she’s saying when trying to convince Lapis to fuse again—there’s little indication that Malachite would be any healthier if she came back—but in the way this massive warrior is on her knees pleading to essentially be made a prisoner again.

From her debut, Lapis has been the most powerful being on Earth by a country mile thanks to her mastery of its most abundant resource. She effortlessly bested the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem, and had the mental fortitude to overcome Jasper’s iron will and wrest control of Malachite. But only now, in Jasper’s pleas, does a character finally acknowledge Lapis’s power. It speaks volumes to their relationship, because it’s not just about control and manipulation: at some level, beneath all the toxicity, Jasper understands Lapis in a way others don’t. It’s not enough to make them a functional couple, but it shows that there’s an uncomfortable level of nuance even in relationships that are obviously bad. It would be much easier to write either Jasper or Lapis off as totally rotten, but Malachite wouldn’t work without a hint, however small, of real affection. 

Malachite made both Jasper and Lapis feel stronger, but they weren’t strong in the real way: they were suffering, and instead of trying to fix this problem, they each learned to like the suffering. And it might be easy to place more blame on Jasper than Lapis, because even here we see how manipulative and violent she can be, but Alone at Sea doesn’t shy away from Lapis’s complicity even when presenting her in a more heroic light. Steven doesn’t call her out on her behavior, but he doesn’t exactly correct her when she reveals how terrible she’s been.

Back in It Could’ve Been Great and Message Received, we got a taste of uncertainty in terms of Peridot’s future. Sure, a promo spoiled that she was staying with the Crystal Gems, but otherwise there was no telling whether she was a temporary addition. Lapis has the same quality, but amplified to a thrilling degree due to her rockier stance with the Crystal Gems. When I first watched Alone at Sea, I legitimately didn’t know what would happen next. Lapis was such a new and tenuous ally and had so much baggage with Jasper that it wouldn’t have shocked me if she had gone back to being Malachite, especially considering how underused Malachite ended up being. It gives the episode way higher stakes than, say, the Week of Sardonyx, where despite the turmoil you could pretty much guarantee that the Crystal Gems would come out of it okay. Lapis is fundamentally not okay, so anything could happen.

And that actual chance of returning to Jasper makes Lapis’s rejection so much more triumphant. She seems to sincerely consider Jasper’s offer, even when she sounds sickened by the prospect, but when given a true choice she’s able to see past her longing for that life. Malachite began with Jasper’s forceful “Just say yes,” and she can’t come back if Lapis says no. It might be alluring, but unlike Jasper, Lapis refuses to take the bait. 

I haven’t gushed about Aivi and Surasshu for a while, have I? I’ll be honest, a big part of that is that with the release of Steven Universe’s first soundtrack, the composers stopped releasing background tracks on the internet, and only several years later have these tracks finally popped up again. Access to their music got scarcer and scarcer, but I’m so glad that before it dried up, we got the instrumentation of this final sequence, because it’s really something.

As the clouds gather and she talks about her time fused with Jasper, we hear the buildup of Lapis’s darker theme, and the moment she reveals that she misses being Malachite, the fusion’s ominous two-note motif clangs just once. The track is soon overtaken by Jasper’s synth drum war march, with only hints of Lapis’s celesta leaking in (just like in The Return), but as Jasper begs to fuse again we get the very first quiet version Malachite’s motif (at 1:49, it’s so easy to miss); the fusion’s theme is no longer a force of nature, but a desperate plea. 

A piano rendition of Lapis’s theme drowns out Jasper as she considers her options. Strings build to the same fever pitch that we got when Lapis first agreed to dance, but they fade to a quiet conclusion as she refuses to go back to Malachite. Jasper’s drums make one last appearance as she lashes out at Steven, but Lapis’s counterattack is as musically calm as her rejection. Lapis could have gotten loud, dramatic variants of her theme for her one-two punch defending herself and then Steven, and it would have sounded awesome, but instead both big moments show that she’s shunning loudness for peace. Tying all these musical themes together is impressive enough, but that restraint ties the whole scene together.

Jasper is about to dominate the final arc of the season in a story that has nothing to do with Lapis, but everything to do with Lapis. It’s safe to say Jasper doesn’t handle their breakup well, and her collection of Corrupted Gems is less a matter of a soldier raising an army and more a jilted lover looking for acceptance after being abandoned for what’s likely the first time in her very long life. This is the first in a string of blows that knock Jasper down more than her fight with Garnet ever did: it’s one thing to lose, but it’s another to be rejected, and until Jasper learns to make a change, rejection is the only future she’s got.

Lapis goes right back to being an angsty teen after this, despite getting more comfortable around Peridot. But Alone at Sea makes me appreciate her eventual abandonment of Earth when the going gets tough again, because while it’s not the right thing to do, it makes sense that a character with massive unresolved trauma would follow the most defensive instincts possible to avoid further pain. I’m not huge on the show just saying Lapis did something awful and not following it up with much soul-searching, but she does plenty of work outside of Jasper and perhaps it’s for the best that she focused on less toxic parts of her life for self-improvement.

The big bummer of Lapis and Jasper’s story is that it never really resolves: even when Jasper halfway reforms, she and Lapis will never share a screen again, let alone have a conversation. I’m not saying I want a reconciliation, but apology is good for the soul, so I hope that someday Little Homeworld sees a moment where Lapis says she’s sorry for her part in Malachite’s agony, even if Jasper was worse.

Still, seeing Lapis refuse to re-fuse still works as a resolution to the episode, if not the arc. And she does work on her issues in other ways, even if Jasper doesn’t. But even though this is their last interaction in the series, admitting your mistakes and choosing not to repeat them is itself a noble step.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

She’s not even in the episode, but Pearl and her swim cap are the winner of this entry. Does nobody else care about their hair?

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is our second excellent feel-bad episode in a row. We may not ever get an acknowledgement about the abusive nature of Lars and Sadie’s relationship in Island Adventure, but at least we have this episode addressing the issue.

(Bear in mind I’m not champing at the bit for more abusive relationships in children’s media, but if you’re going to have them, I just think it’s irresponsible not to use them as an educational tool, is all.)

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[showtimeben]

Mixcommunication, or a Very Happy Accident

Here’s my @it-secretsanta-2018 gift for @areyoureddieforit ! I hope you enjoy it, darling, and happy holidays <3

Summary: Eddie can’t figure out what to get Richie for Christmas. Little did he know, the answer was right there all along.

Read it on ao3 here x

Eddie Kaspbrak had a problem. In the grand scheme, it wasn’t that big of a problem, but to him it very much was. It wasn’t life threatening by any means, but in his mind a friendship was at stake. The thing was, he couldn’t figure out what to get his best friend for Christmas to save his life.

He had already gotten presents for the rest of his friends; they were much easier. He got a small cardinal ornament for Stan (though he was Jewish, he still enjoyed a holiday gift exchange with his friends), a set of crystals for Bev, an ink and quill set for Bill, a knit sweater for Mike, and a new history book for Ben. He had been able to pick those out easily. As soon as he saw them, he knew they were right for his friends.

However, no matter how much he looked, he couldn’t find anything good enough for Richie. He found tons of stuff that he would like, but none of it seemed like it was right. He could get him a new record, or a colorful shirt that wasn’t completely hideous, but it wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to get Richie something special. He needed to get him something special.

As his mother was out of the house for the day, he set out for another day of shopping. He bundled up in his winter coat and a nice warm scarf and pulled his hat over his chocolate brown waves, covering the rosy tips of his ears. It was a chilly day in Derry, snowfall impending by the looks of the gray clouds in the sky.

He got into his car, a ‘67 ford mustang that had belonged to his father. It had taken a lot of convincing for his mother to allow him to use get his license, but when he threatened to try and leave, again, she let him take the test. It was even harder to get her to let him use the car, so he usually only drove it when she wasn’t there to stop him.

He made his way downtown, somehow finding a parking spot. He got out and put quarters in the meter, buying himself an hour of shopping. He hoped that would be enough, since he was only shopping for one person. However, if history repeated itself, he would find nothing yet again. He walked down the street, peering through shop windows.

He decided to stop in a clothing shop, seeing some shirts that Richie might like. He looked through the racks, softly humming along to the music playing overhead. A few shirts were considered, but he still felt as if it wasn’t a good enough gift for him.

A heavy sigh fell from his lips as he left the shop empty handed, resigned to shop some more. He stopped inside a music shop next, knowing Richie would be a fan of a new cassette or record. He grinned as he remembered Richie talking about an album he had wanted and bounded over to the section it should be in. His eyes scanned over the rows, his finger moving along with them. He paused once he found the spot it should be in, only to find it empty.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself, disappointment seeping into him from having the perfect gift, only to have it snatched from under his fingertips. He didn’t let himself lose hope completely yet, seeing as there was still a week until their Christmas Eve gift exchange. He asked the worker when they would be restocked, only to have the flame from the candle of hope burning within him blown out yet again.

He shuffled out of the shop dejectedly, the news that the album wouldn’t be back in the store until after Christmas bouncing around his head. Sure he could tell Richie that he had to get his present late, but it just wouldn’t be the same. He sighed as he noticed the time on his watch, realizing how long he had already spent shopping already. He walked back to his car, deciding to just go home now rather than refill the meter and shop more.

He walked inside as he got home, taking off his shoes and hanging his coat. He gave his mother a vague answer when she asked where he had been, practically challenging her with his eyes to try and question him further. He had grown a lot more confidence against her since he was young, having realized how she had manipulated him and bent him to her will.

He went up to his bedroom, shutting his door. He decided to work on some homework, having nothing better to do. He worked in silence for a few minutes before deciding he needed some music and walking over to his radio. He pulled open his drawer, smiling slightly at the sight of the many mixtapes he had been given from Richie. He shuffled through them, finding his favorite and popping it into the slot.

That was when it hit him; a mixtape! That would be the perfect gift for Richie. The taller boy often loved to make mixtapes for his friends, Eddie especially. And as much as he liked to deny it and claim he put random songs together, Eddie knew each tape had a story. Making his own mixtape for the other boy would be perfect to show him how much he truly cared about him.

He pressed play on the radio, in much higher spirits than he had been mere minutes earlier. He went back to doing his homework, singing along off key to the songs Richie had handpicked. He half focused on the chemistry work, much too focused on building a soundtrack in his head.

He woke up early the next morning, a smile already on his cheeks. He hopped out of bed, taking a quick shower before getting dressed to go out. He ate breakfast with his mother, buttering her up before asking if he could go out again. She reluctantly let him go, but not without warnings of the ‘dangers’ of the outside world. He resisted rolling his eyes, simply nodding along with a promise to be careful.

He drove back downtown, walking into the music shop from the day before. He got himself a couple of blank tapes, deciding it would be better to have more just in case. He also got himself a tape recorder, knowing from Richie’s rambling he would need one to create the mixtape. He bought the items with a smile, not even blinking at the price as he was too excited.

He drove himself back home, locking himself in his room once he got there. He set up his radio, taking a while to figure out how to attach the tape recorder to it. Once he had it figured out, he turned to Richie’s favorite radio station. He sat at his desk for hours, recording songs that he knew Richie liked. It took him awhile to figure out, having to rewind and re-record many times. Once he was finally happy with it he grabbed a marker, doodling all over it.

He looked back up as he heard a love song coming on, a light blush coming to his tanned cheeks. He glanced back to his bag from earlier, biting his lip before pulling out the extra tape he had bought. He put Richie’s to the side and put the new one into the recorder. He sat waiting for another love song to come on, which didn’t take all that long, before starting to record it.

He sat like that until late evening, changing the station a few times until he had filled it up with cheesy love songs including I Wanna Dance With Somebody and I Want to Know What Love Is. He pulled it out of the recorder, uncapping his marker and writing on the back for him. He left it at that and set it to the side, still blushing lightly.

He had no intention of actually giving the second mixtape to Richie, the thought of the other boy finding out about his true feelings absolutely mortifying to Eddie. Because of that, it sat in a drawer of his desk until Christmas Eve, next to the one he actually planned to give to Richie.

He didn’t realize he had forgotten to wrap Richie’s gift until the morning of the get together, causing him to scramble around the house looking for present wrapping supplies. He managed to find a small gift bag and some tissue paper and ran back up to his room, throwing them together haphazardly. He pulled open his drawer, grabbing the tape and tossing it in the bag carefully. However, unbeknownst to him, he had managed to grab both tapes.

He didn’t realize this as he grabbed the other, previously wrapped gifts, carrying them down to his car and putting them in the backseat. He got in and drove off to Bill’s house, excitement thrumming through him at the thought of how his friends would react to his gifts.

He parked outside of Bill’s house, getting out and facing the cold. He took his presents out of the backseat before locking the car and going up to the house. He knocked on the door, balancing the gifts as well as he could. He grinned at Bill as he opened it, walking into the warmth the house provided.

He said a hello to everybody, setting the presents down before taking off his shoes and coat. He walked into the living room, sitting on his favorite armchair and curling up. The losers all talked for a while, not as concerned about presents as they were with simply enjoying each others company.

Once it finally became present time, Eddie watched along nervously as everyone opened their gifts. Everyone had enjoyed theirs so far, seeing as they had known each other for years it was easy to know what they would like. He bit his lip when it was Richie’s turn to open his present, not sure how he’d react.

He watched Richie reach his hand into the bag, pulling out only one of the tapes. He saw his eyes grow wide and his lips stretch into a goofy grin- one which showed off his colorful braces. Richie flipped over the tape in his hands, a look of happiness and disbelief on his face.

“Aww, Eds! This better not just be one of mine repurposed!” He teased.

Eddie couldn’t help the light blush that rose to his cheeks, though he picked up a small throw pillow and did exactly that- threw it at him. “Oh, fuck off! Of course I didn’t regift, you asshole. And don’t call me Eds.”

Richie laughed, getting cut off when the pillow hit him square in the face. “Okay, okay! Jeez, no need for violence, Señor!”

Eddie rolled his eyes, though he still wasn’t too sure how Richie felt about it. “You don’t have to like, listen to it if you don’t want.” He said with a shrug, trying to backpedal slightly.

Richie scoffed, shaking his head. “Oh, please! Of course I’ll give it a listen, governor!” He said, putting on one of his awful British accents.

This forced a laugh out of Eddie as he nodded, shooting Richie a grin. The other losers shared a knowing look but didn’t say anything, not wanting to embarrass the two boys.

Eddie didn’t realize his mistake for a few days. As far as he knew, the love mix was still tucked neatly into his drawer. He was blissfully unaware of its actual location until he decided to listen to it one night while he was pining particularly hard. He pulled open the drawer it was hidden in, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he didn’t see it. He figured he had simply put it in another drawer and went to open another.

However, no matter how many drawers he pulled out and bags he looked through, the mixtape was nowhere to be found. He searched every inch of his room, grabbing his inhaler when he couldn’t find it anywhere. He took a couple puffs of the air, the action helping him calm back down.

Physically, the inhaler didn’t actually do anything. He had found out long ago that he didn’t actually have asthma, and it was all just another one of his mother’s schemes. Psychologically, however, it provided a great comfort to him. It may not actually do anything to settle his breathing, but the familiarity of it always helped bring him back down to earth.

He laid down on his bed, picking at his nails anxiously. He came to the obvious conclusion that Richie had his mixtape, as he knew his mom didn’t snoop through his room anymore. He couldn’t believe how stupid he had been. How did he manage to give Richie the one thing he said he would never?

He flipped over on his bed, burying his face in his pillow and muffling a frustrated scream into it. He felt overcome by emotions, the worst not being embarrassment like one might assume. He was mostly upset at the thought of how Richie would react, and if he would lose his best friend because of it.

He sighed as he turned back over, trying to push it to the back of his mind. Richie wouldn’t drop him over this. Besides, he could probably just play it off as a joke and get away with never talking about it again.

He somehow avoided seeing Richie for the rest of the holiday break, coming up with excuses as to why he couldn’t every time he tried. He felt bad, but he needed time to come up with what he would say if Richie tried to confront him about it.

By the time school came around, he felt he was sufficiently prepared for whatever was to come. (He wasn’t.) He got to school a bit later than usual, having slept in longer than he should have. He parked his car in the lot before rushing into the school, making his way to his locker.

He twisted the lock easily, muscle memory helping him unlock it within seconds. He pulled it open, furrowing his eyebrows as he saw something fall down and bounce against the floor gently. He crouched down, picking up what he now saw to be a cassette tape.

He felt his heart pumping in his chest as he picked it up, wiping his palms on his jeans from his nerves. He looked it over, seeing nothing on it but the words Eddie, my love sharpied onto it. That showed him that it was from Richie, as he was the only person to ever call him that.

He flipped it over in his hands a few times, finding nothing else written on it. He didn’t even question how Richie got into his locker, sure he had known his combination for ages now. He slipped off his backpack and put it in the front pocket of it, being careful that it wouldn’t be crushed. He tried not to think it would be Richie turning him down, as it could really be anything when it came to Richie. He simply grabbed his books and walked to his history class, talking to Stan for the few minutes they had before class started.

He went through his day like normal, though his mind kept wandering back to the tape sitting in his locker. He saw Richie for the first time in days, but since the other teen didn’t bring up the tape, neither did he. They joked around like usual, something which left Eddie immensely relieved. Clearly Richie had listened to the tape, but by the way he was acting he didn’t seem to mind all that much.

Eddie couldn’t get out of class quick enough once the final bell finally rang. He jumped out of his seat and practically ran to his locker, his smaller frame making it easy to weave through the sea of students. He sighed in relief once he reached it, shoving his books into his bag haphazardly. He made his way to his car, getting in and carefully driving home.

He said a quick hello to his mother once he got inside, though took no time in running up to his room. He shut the door behind him before walking over to his desk, the boombox still sitting on top of it. He was suddenly nervous again, the anticipation over what it could be being taken over by his worries.

He took a deep breath before unzipping his bag, pulling the small tape out of it. He pushed it into the slot, closing it with a small click. He pressed play, relaxing a bit once music started to play. The mixtape was not unlike his own, filled with some love songs. It had Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley slipped in there, considering that was Richie’s favorite song at the moment.

He was smiling giddily by the end, hope blooming in his chest once more. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he heard something coming from the radio, having thought the tape was finished. After a second of shuffling noises he heard someone clear their throat, and then Richie’s voice crackling through the speakers.

How the fuck do you work this thing? Oh! There we go. Uh- hey there Eds. Bet you’re wondering what this cheese fest of a mixtape was. Well, I-uh, I listened to your second mixtape. I wasn’t sure if you meant to give it to me or whatever, but I listened anyways. Pretty strong signals you’re sending there, my guy. So uh, I’m not that great at words, so I figured I’d make you this tape to say I felt the same or whatever. And if that tape was meant for someone else just pretend this never happened, yeah? Thanks for the gift, Eddie, my love.

Eddie’s eyes were as wide as saucers by the time Richie had finished speaking, and a wide smile was tugging on his lips. Richie liked him back, Richie liked him. He could hardly believe it. But it was true, clearly, He took a moment to process before jumping back up, grabbing his car keys and rushing down the stairs. He told his mom he was going out, slipping on his shoes and coat and leaving before she had any time to protest.

He drove to Richie’s house, tapping on the steering wheel anxiously. He parked outside of his house, taking a deep breath to steady himself before getting out of the car. He noticed that his parents weren’t home, figuring they were both at work still. He didn’t bother knocking, he never did at Richie’s house. He stalked up the stairs before he could back out, walking over to Richie’s closed bedroom door.

He pushed it open, just now hearing Richie listening to the mixtape that he made him. Richie jumped slightly as Eddie burst in, having not even heard him walk into the house. He recovered after a moment, giving him an easy grin.

“Oh, hey Eds. Couldn’t stay away for lo-,”

“Did you mean it?” Eddie blurted out, effectively cutting him off. “What you said on the tape, did you mean it?”

Richie’s eyes widened slightly, a light blush taking over his cheeks and making his freckles more pronounced.”Oh,” he breathed out. “I mean, yeah. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.” He finished with a shrug.

Eddie nodded slowly, taking a moment to watch Richie carefully. The boy looked more vulnerable than he had ever seen him. Richie almost never let his true emotions show, usually hiding them behind a crude joke and obnoxious laugh.

The last time Eddie had seen him like that was when they were both 15 and Eddie had stayed over Richie’s house for a sleepover. It was about 2am when Richie spoke up, asking Eddie if he was still awake. He had nervously admit that he felt the same way about boys that he felt about girls that night, nerves clearly pouring from him as he awaited his friend’s reaction.

Eddie had of course accepted him, it would be very hypocritical if he hadn’t. Even after his friend’s confession, Eddie could never muster up the courage to tell him that he himself was gay. Well, until now it seemed.

Richie had started to fidget nervously, seeing as Eddie had yet to say anything more. Eddie finally snapped out of his stupor, walking back over to Richie. He didn’t say anything as he cupped his cheeks, taking a deep breath before shutting his eyes tightly and pressing their lips together.

Richie sat frozen in shock for a moment, making Eddie question whether or not he had made the right decision or not. His worry melted away as Richie finally responded, moving his lips against Eddie’s.

The kiss was awkward, as many first kisses are. Richie’s braces snagged against Eddie’s lip after a moment, making them both laugh softly as they parted. Eddie let his eyes flutter open again, pink lips stretched into a shy smile as he looked down at Richie on the bed.

“I guess I like you too, Trashmouth.”

Richie let out a laugh, smiling with his teeth and showing off the metal brackets proudly. “Eddie Spaghetti likes me,” he teased, lisping around the words slightly and drawing out the ‘e’ in me.

Eddie rolled his eyes, deciding to quiet Richie down by kissing him again. Things wouldn’t be perfect, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be easy, but they would make it work. They would work out the logistics later, for now they were simply content to share each others company (along with a few more kisses). And to think, all of this happened through a mistakenly given mixtape. Maybe Bob Ross was right after all. There’s no mistakes, just happy accidents.

[dailyaudiobible]

06/17/2019 DAB Transcript

1 Kings 18:1-46, Acts 11:1-30, Psalms 135:1-21, Proverbs 17:12-13

Today is the 17th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it's great to be here with you, great to be here with you today as we settle into the flow of this week out in front of us, kinda get back to work and move through the middle of the month here. So, we began reading from the Amplified Bible yesterday because it was the beginning of the week and some pretty monumental things going on in the Scriptures. We met Elijah the prophet in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the apostle Peter had seen a vision, had been summoned by a Gentile Centurion, he has gone into the house of a Gentile, which is…which is frowned upon at best, and he has seen the Holy Spirit fall upon Gentile people, which is messing with him pretty good and is definitely going to mess with the early church as we will see going forward. In fact, it's so monumental, this shift that's taking place, that it it's going to change everything. And it'll take some time, we’ll see this over the course of Paul's writings and so forth. So, we’re gonna be spending some time with this sub theme before us. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We are right here, right now and the Scriptures are going to lead us today in the next step and the next step will take us into first Kings chapter 18.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of first Kings we’re seeing why Elijah is a famous prophet now, and we’re seeing the power of God that's being displayed through him, especially here at this show down on the top of Mount Caramel with the prophets of Asherah and Baal versus basically Elijah, the God of Israel. And, so, when we saw this dramatic story…I can read this story now and see it so vividly in my mind because we've been to the top of Mount Carmel so many times and just exploring this story. I mean, it would seem like the stories over, right? The prophets of Baal and Asherah, they’re no longer with us. The people's hearts have turned back to God and God is now sending rain on the land. So, it would seem like end of story, good job, but it's not the end of the story and it's got a bizarre twist to it and we’ll get to that tomorrow.

Then in the book of Acts, I mean I’ve said this a couple times as we've gotten into this story, that these are fundamental formation things in the early church that are taking place that affect us until today. And that's not an understatement in anyway. You see the Peter was in Joppa and then he went down the coast to Cornelius's house where the Holy Spirit fell upon a Gentile family and they received the Lord and they were baptized in the name of Jesus. Once Peter got back to Jerusalem and the mother church, right, the Jerusalem church, there were plenty of people going, “wait…wait…that's against the rules. We don't do those kinds of things. We don't associate with those kinds of people. We don't want those kinds of people in our church.” And we might think, “well that stuff doesn't really happen these days” but that's not true. It happens all the time. I was talking to a pastor friend the other day who was helping strategize for another church who wanted to plant a sister church, plant a new church in a different part of the community and he was basically just saying, “your strategies fine, but you have this beautiful building you are using for two hours a day, one day of the week basically and why…like why wouldn't you plant the kind of community you're wanting here in this beautiful building.” And he said one of their deacons was like, “because we don't want those kinds of people in our church.” I was surprised that would be spoken out loud in that kind of environment, but this kind of stuff happens all the time. We segregate ourselves into like-minded people where we can all be right, and we can all convince each other that we are right. And, so, Peter’s coming back to the Jerusalem church with information that is absolutely and completely disruptive because now Jesus, the Hebrew Messiah that they are believing in that He came and offered them new life and hope for the people, well now this isn’t exclusive. Now this is open to all of the world, whereas originally the people were thinking, “well, Jesus was Jewish and he taught the Torah and you follow the customs. He certainly critiqued the religion without a doubt, but he was never saying like you shouldn’t be Jewish or Hebrew, I mean, like you shouldn’t do this anymore. He was just unveiling how it had gotten sidetracked and He was setting things right, but we were never thinking like everybody in the world could get in this.” The first believers in Jesus were Hebrew people who were following a Rabbi. They were following his teachings. They were following the Way. They were processing His critique on their traditions and their rituals and their religion. They were following the Way. They weren't leaving one faith and converting to another faith. And, so, for Gentile people to begin to convert or follow Jesus teachings without first converting to Judaism was messing with their minds and we will certainly see how this plays out, but we will eventually be able to see how this faith in Christ that was borne out in this little patch of land within a Hebrew context grew to become far and away beyond the Hebrew context and it is largely made up of Gentile people. We’ll see this story before our eyes and the implications of it because there are significant implications for us to examine today and we’ll be examining this stuff for the rest of the year whenever the Bible brings it up. And it brings it up often.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us into this new week. We invite You fully and we see that there is disruption happening in Old and New Testaments and we realize that disruption is a part of life. And, so, Father help us this week that as we are disrupted, before we immediately label it a bad thing, help us to take a breath and to consider, “Are You in this? Are You shaking things up? Are You pulling us forward?” Come Holy Spirit we pray. As You did on the family of Cornelius, fall upon us we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi DAB family, It’s James here from the UK. Haven’t called in for a while but just coming in this morning. Heard the prayer request from Marcella from Brisbane. And Marcella you really touched me, you really triggered something in me that just compelled me to call in. I heard in your voice the burden that you’re carrying right now and the financial hardship that mentioned that you’re facing into. And there’s a few things that just really triggered in me, things that I wanted to convey to you. And I think this is the Spirit’s work. Marcella, you talked about starting afresh, and I know that right now that is very hard thing to contemplate. What the future looks like is really uncertain and as a provider, as a man, there is a burden on you regarding your family and how you’re going to care for them. And you need to know that God is going to care for you Marcella, that God has got plans for you and that when you start afresh and when you start to move into this new space, albeit that it’s going to be a painful process to go through, He will provide riches that you’re not…you’re not envisioning right now. It might not be financial riches, but they will be things that you can’t comprehend at this moment in time. And I just needed you to hear that Marcella. Thank you so much for your call and I’m praying for you.

Good morning brothers and sisters in the Lord. Thank you so much for your continued faithfulness and praying for each other. This is Southern Belle from Canada. My children who farm have been living in a drought the summer and it’s ironic that the people in the states in the Midwest who are drowning in mud and up here in Canada we are dry as can be. I’m asking for prayer for them. They are so fragile in their relationship due to extended circumstances with my daughter who passed away and they’ve been looking after for her estate for four years already and an abusive ex-husband that my daughter had and the children and the estate. I just don’t even want to go into it, all the convoluted mess of it all. But my son and daughter-in-law with three children of their own who are trying so hard to be faithful in their walk with the Lord and they try putting the seed into the ground and we all know what it’s like to put seed in, into our lives and to not have anything come from the fruition with it Lord. I just pray in the name of Jesus that You would send rain for their crops, that You would protect their harvest and that You would bring it to such an abundance that they wouldn’t be able to realize it. Not only my children God but for all the farmers out here in Midwest Canada. And Lord, for all those around the world God who are facing their own drought whether spiritually or relationally or whatever. We need You Jesus to be in our life, we need You to pour out Your rain. Come Lord, fill our hearts overflowing that we would reflect You, that we would be faithful regardless of the circumstances. And I pray for…

Hi, my name is Roslyn. I live in Louisiana. I have a very, very important prayer request. This is my first time to ever call and I’ve been listening since 2006. But we have a newborn, she was born a little bit early. And this week she was picked up. An ambulance came from Vanderbilt to take her up there to do heart surgery. And they couldn’t do it until she weighed 4 pounds. And she’s at 4 pounds right now. So, I’m just praying that everybody that listens to the DAB would pray for Willow. And thank you so much. I love you all. I listen every single day and I’m not going to mention any names but everybody that calls in on the prayer request, your prayers are heard and I’m sure a lot are answered in some way or another. Thank you so much for praying for Willow and I love you all. Thank you, Brian and Jill. And it has been wonderful to have this, and I hope…and I told my Bible study teacher that people around the world would be praying for Willow. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Bye.

Hi everyone, it’s Doug from Alabama. I meant to call in the past several months because it’s been a while. I always have that urge and then for some reason I don’t. But I’ll go ahead and get to the point because I only have my two minutes here. Please keep me in your prayers as far as my mental health. The last two or three months, I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t been really sleeping well or what, but my anxiety has really just been through the roof. I’ve been having a lot of anxiety, __ attacks, I think that’s really what it is. I’ve just been really sensitive the last couple months. I’ve been trying to get into see a doctor. My psychiatrist had to cancel for an appointment on Monday because he had to go to back to India where he’s from. So, I can’t see him for a few months and I have to make a separate appointment to see a new therapist, which is money I really don’t have. So, there’s a lot of different things. I’ve got a bedbug infestation too. And, so, I wonder if that’s why I’m not sleeping very well and maybe that’s the root of it, but please just keep me in your prayers as far as my mental health because there are some days I feel like I’m going crazy, where, you know, I feel like I just need to be locked up in a room __. And also a couple of other points. Please keep me in your prayers as far as jobs because I’m extremely burned out at this current job I work at. I work as a donation tenant for a food store. So, I sit outside in the heat all day and take donations and it’s very lonely. And I haven’t really been able to handle the heat well. And, so, I’m still looking for a job too and I feel like a job would really help me. __ about up here. So, I really appreciate all your prayers. I listen to all of yours and I try to pray…like when my mind allows me. So…

[chiseler]

THE GREATEST FILM COMPOSER NO ONE’S EVER HEARD OF

Over the course of roughly two decades, from the early Fifties to the late Sixties, Herman Stein composed the music for nearly two hundred films and television shows. If you’re of a certain mindset, he wrote some of the most memorable music for some of the greatest films ever made, including Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. You’d never know it, though, as he only received credit on about half a dozen of the pictures he worked on. Trying to find a complete filmography can be a daunting task. Even his IMDb page is sorely incomplete and rife with inaccuracies. 

In the mid-Nineties, while planning to launch a small record label devoted to releasing soundtracks from forgotten sci-fi and horror films from the Forties and Fifties, David Schecter set himself the task of tracking down some of the composers who’d worked on those pictures. Fully understanding most of these composers would have been in their eighties or nineties, at the very least he would contact their families or estates in hopes of gaining access to their written scores. One of the first he tried to find was Herman Stein.

“I don’t remember where I found the information,” Schecter recalls. “But Herman Stein had apparently died in 1984. His obituary was in Variety. So I began placing calls around town to every Stein I could find. Given there are a lot of Jewish people in Hollywood, I think this took up about a month of my life. I left messages all over town saying, ‘If you are a child of Herman Stein, please call me back. I’m trying to find out where his archives are.’ Then I moved on to other composers. One day the phone rang and my wife Katy came up to me and her face was white, and she said ‘That dead guy is on the phone.’ And I said, ‘Which dead guy?’ And she said ‘Herman Stein.’” 

When Schecter picked up the phone, Stein, who had a reputation for being a bit cantankerous, demanded to know why Schecter was trying to get in touch with him.

“I said, ‘You’re THE Herman Stein?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, but how could you have heard of me? No one’s heard of me.’ I explained that he had four cuts on that Dick Jacobs record, Themes from Horror Movies, from 1959, and I’d always loved his music. He seemed really suspicious and curmudgeonly. I explained we were thinking of starting a label and wanted to record some of his film music. He wanted to know what titles, and I told him his science fiction stuff—It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Tarantula and on and on. And he said, ‘Why would you want to do that crap? Do my Westerns.’ And I said, ’Nobody cares about your Westerns.’ I mean, he scored dozens of these Audie Murphy Westerns, Rock Hudson Westerns, and you have to remember those were the prestige pictures back then. Those were the ones the composers were proud of. The science fiction stuff was just disposable. So I tried to convince him people still knew who the Creature from the Black Lagoon was, and he didn’t believe me.”

Upon leaving the movie business two decades earlier, Stein and his wife Anita retreated to their home in the Hollywood Hills. He didn’t go to the movies, he didn’t read about movies, and if one came on the television he’d snap it off. That was all part of his past life, and it didn’t interest him anymore. In fact, Schecter says, he was happy to hear about that Variety obituary, as it meant he had an excuse for not dealing with people anymore.

“I remember one thing that was really interesting to me and kind of put things in perspective,” says Schecter. “I told him I wanted to record some of the music from The Mole People, and he said, ’Did I do that picture?’ Even though every time that movie came on when I was growing up, whether it was five in the afternoon or four-thirty in the morning, I’d be up watching it. For Herman, it was a job he worked on for three ore four days in between a Ma and Pa Kettle movie and a swashbuckler, and that was it. And he probably only saw the part of the movie he scored—the opening scene. It would be like me asking you, ‘What did you do on July 17th, 1984?’ Chances are you have no idea, and Herman didn’t remember it at all. It made me realize I was coming from a very different perspective than the people who actually wrote that stuff. For them it was just product they were cranking out. It doesn’t mean they weren’t doing brilliant work, just that they didn’t obsess about this stuff.”

At the time Schecter contacted him, the only bits of Stein’s music to be recorded and released on an album appeared on that legendary 1959 Dick Jacobs record. Truth Be Told, it was a pretty shabby recording, performed by what was probably a seventeen-piece ensemble which, lacking a harp, substituted an organ instead. Schecter wanted to record his music properly and faithfully. As gruff as he was, it seems Stein still had some interest in the proposition.

“So he said he wanted to give me a test. I asked him what sort of test, and he said basically ‘to see if I can trust you with my music.’ I thought, oh boy, I’ve chosen the wrong composer. Bernard Herrmann had a reputation for being difficult, and Herman Stein was difficult in his own way. Anyway, he sent me a cassette with three pieces of music on it. The instructions were to listen to it, then call him up and talk to him about it. I had no idea what I was supposed to talk to him about, but I listened to it, then called him up and just gave him my two cents worth. Apparently, and I still don’t know to this day why, I passed the test with flying colors, and he said ‘Okay, tell me what you want and I’ll get it.’”

Stein began coming over to Schecter’s home with music, Schecter began releasing Stein’s scores on his Monstrous Movie Music label, and the two remained friends for the next dozen years, until Stein’s death at age 93.

Herman Stein, born in Philadelphia in 1915, had been an astounding child prodigy. He began playing piano at age two, and first performed with an orchestra at age six. In his teens he was selling compositions to jazz ensembles, orchestrating for the likes of Count Basie, and through his twenties was composing and arranging music for the radio.

“How he learned music was, he went to the library, and he’d look at the classical scores there. Just study them,” Schecter says. “He was entirely self-taught until he came to Hollywood, and he was already in his mid-thirties by then.”

After scoring an industrial film called Career for Two, Stein took a job with Universal’s music department in 1951. His first assignment involved arranging some classical pieces for the Boris Karloff picture The Strange Door. The first things he actually scored himself were a few musical cues for a 1952 Ozzie and Harriet vehicle, Here Come the Nelsons.

“Thing about Herman, he was…different,” Schecter admits. “He had a brilliant, brilliant mind. People talk about perfect pitch, but he said perfect pitch isn’t important. If you’re a composer what’s important is having relative pitch. He would hear everything orchestrally in his head before he wrote it. Most of the great composers couldn’t do that. They would sit at the piano, hit a note, write the note down, hit another note, and so on. Herman would just sit out in his car in the parking lot at Universal and write the scores out.{Fellow Universal film composer} Irving Gertz said he and Henry Mancini would walk by, and they could see Herman in the car transcribing the music he heard in his mind. They would just shake their heads. He was taught by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who taught everyone in Hollywood how to score films—Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, so many others. Castelnuovo-Tedesco taught Herman to think everything out before he wrote it, and to write his scores in ink. You see sketches written by other composers and they’re in pencil and there are a million cross-outs and erasures, and that was just normal. It’s like being a writer like you and I are, you need to edit things. Herman wrote things out in ink, and apparently did not need to change them.”

The other thing about Herman, Schecter says, was that he was, even into his eighties, something akin to a human computer.

“I remember one day when I was doing some research on something. Herman had all his cue sheets and musical manuscripts in a closet at his home in Hollywood. I called him up one night and asked him about a piece of music he’d written for a Western in 1954. And I said, ‘It’s a piece called ‘On to Socorro’ or something like that. I told him I was wondering about why he did something the way he did there. And he said ‘Hmm, let me think about that for a second.’ He went over to the piano, and all of a sudden I heard this full orchestral version coming out of the piano. He’s not just hitting the notes with one finger, he was playing with flourishes and everything. You could hear the brass the way he was playing. It was about a two minute piece, and he’d played it perfectly, so far as I could tell because I’d been watching the film version. He got done with it, and I asked how he’d found the music so quickly. He said ‘Didn’t—I did it from memory.’ I asked him when he’d last heard the music, and he said ‘Only at the recording session.’ He’d written literally thousands of pieces of music, he’d written this one back in 1954. It was performed once, put away in his closet, and that was it. But he could play every single nuance of it fifty years later. He could do that with anything he’d written.”

In the early Fifties, Joe Gershenson  was the head of Universal’s music department, and his second in command was composer Milt Rosen. Stein, Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini and others were mere contract composers. When a new picture was finished, it was determined how much time was left before the scheduled release, and how much money was left in the budget for music. Then Rosen, a couple of the composers, and the music editor would get together for a screening.

“They would decide which parts needed music and which didn’t,” Schecter explained. “They’d be doing that with the music editor, who’d be writing all these things down. Then depending on how much time they had and what the budget was. They would decide which parts needed new music, because that would take more time given the composer would have to write it, as they’d have to derive parts for the orchestra to play. All that versus how much older music they could use, maybe re-writing it slightly, or just re-using it as is. I’m not talking about using original recordings. But the written music. They already had the scores and the parts there, and wouldn’t have to spend the money on the copyist, and they wouldn’t have to spend the time. Some films would be completely scored, others would be a mix of new and old music, some would have nothing but older music. Then one or more of the composers would rearrange that older music to make it fit with the new music.

“Let’s say a few composers—Mancini, Gertz and Stein—were working together on a picture like The Monolith Monsters. For some reason, Irving Gertz scored most of The Monolith Monsters. Eighty percent of it. Some of the music came from earlier pictures, but the majority of it was written for that picture. And The Deadly Mantis, too—they were both the same score, so to speak, written at the same time. But then there were a few pieces Mancini wrote. Maybe Irving was running out of time, or maybe he had to work on something else. I have no idea. But someone told Mancini ‘Here are your three pieces,’ and they’d give Herman his three pieces. Sometimes the composers would talk to each other, sometimes they would play each other the themes they were using, so they’d have some kind of continuity. Sometimes the scenes a certain composer would be writing were so discreet from what the other composers were doing—maybe they just had to do with a certain subplot—so they could score their own things and it wouldn’t conflict with the rest of the picture. That’s one of the appeals of the Universal scores from the Forties and Fifties—there’s so much musical material in them. It wasn’t just one composer writing a couple themes and then doing endless variations on them. You listen to Creature from the Black Lagoon, even though the Creature theme is in there, Hans Salter’s music sounds like Hans Salter, Herman Stein’s music sounds like Herman Stein. Henry Mancini’s music sounds like Henry Mancini. Then there’s some older music by Milt Rosen that sounds completely different because it came from other pictures. There’s also a cue by Robert Emmett Dolan from Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, which had nothing to do with any of the other pictures that provided music. You end up with an incredible wealth of musical material from these grade-B horror films.”

In the end, however, particularly if there were multiple composers involved in scoring a picture, as music director it was Joe Gershenson  who got the sole screen credit. This explains why Stein’s contributions went uncredited for roughly ninety-five percent of the films he worked on. So maybe it’s easy to comprehend why Stein would be a bit cantankerous.

“Herman was really something,” Schecter says. “Unfortunately he was his own worst enemy. He was a curmudgeon, and he had reason to be. Some really terrible things happened to him over his life that probably would have destroyed many a weaker man. So Herman could be bitter at times, and I understood that. But he was also very funny and incredibly smart. He should have done so much better in terms of his career, but again he was his own worst enemy. He was very opinionated, and very ethical. In Hollywood, there are not a lot of people with ethics, and Herman would call you on it. That’s why we got along so great, because I’m honest all the time, and Herman knew he could trust me. But he burned a lot of bridges, unfortunately. After the music department was taken down in 1958, Joe Gershenson wanted him to score John Huston’s Freud. I won’t tell you what Herman said, but it was very insulting to Gershenson . It was also very true, but he shouldn’t have said it. Gershenson told him, ‘you’re never gonna work on another film again,’ and Herman didn’t, except for {Roger Corman’s 1962 feature} The Intruder. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he liked The Intruder so much. 

When the music department was dissolved, Stein, Irving Gertz, Hans Salter, Mancini and the others suddenly found themselves out of work. Gertz moved over to 20th Century Fox, and managed to bring a few others with him, including Stein. For the next decade, Stein would compose the music for TV shows like Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. A young Jerry Goldsmith, meanwhile, snagged his first high-profile job by scoring Freud back at Universal.

“Mancini was and unbelievably talented composer,” Schecter says. “Herman was also unbelievably talented. I think Herman could have had a much better career than he did. Mancini early on had the reputation for being the tunesmith. Whenever there was a song, they would ask Henry to write it, or they’d bring in one of their staff songwriters, or they would go to a freelance person. But Herman could write some really, really, beautiful melodies  that he had hoped would be turned into a record so he could have a hit. But Universal didn’t allow him to do that. He got kinda bitter over that, and I can understand why, because I’ve heard some of his tunes. Just listen to ‘Sand Rock,’ the cue that opens It Came From Outer Space right after the main titles. Just absolutely gorgeous music, and you could have easily thrown lyrics on that and had a hit song, but they weren’t going to do that for Herman.”

Stein and his wife lived quietly for two decades, Herman focused on his commodities investments, until Schecter lured him back out into the world by calling attention to his music.

“It was both good and bad,” he says. “He always let you know how much you were putting him out, but you could tell how much he liked it beneath the rough exterior. When someone would call him up from a TV or radio show, he’d just light up. He felt he’d been forgotten, as a lot of these composers did. It was kind of difficult at the beginning. And I think there was a little resentment there—‘Oh NOW they’re discovering me, now that I’m too old to get jobs out of it.’ You can understand that, you don’t want to be recognized when you’re on your death bed, you want to be recognized when you can still produce.  Herman was well aware of the career he could have had. I’m glad he lived long enough that I could show him books that make reference to him and his music.

“He still did amazing things,” Schecter went on. “To my mind he was the sound of 1950s science fiction. As wonderful as the other  composers were. Herman was involved with a lot of the bigger, more important films. The scenes that he scored and the way he scored them, that’s what you think of when you think of the science fiction films of that era. One thing about Herman’s style that set it apart from the others, he could use dissonance to his advantage. He didn’t write atonal things like Alex North, where sometimes you don’t want to listen to them because they’re so harsh. But he could push the envelope, especially with the brass, to where it bordered on being dissonant, but it wasn’t. So he could create these sounds that sounded like horror and monsters, but were also fun to listen to. They didn’t repel you, they didn’t hurt your ear drums. I think that was his strength. You listen to the cue ‘Visitors from Space’ from It Came From Outer Space, and you can hear him pushing it so close to where it’s gonna hurt, but in the end it’s beautiful. You could probably slow dance to that piece, but it’s definitely strident. When you listen to all his music from all those movies, you say, ‘Yup, that’s 1950s horror.’”

by Jim Knipfel

[christiancomputerstudent]

this is a cool article about, Christians needing to be more like Jesus, when did Christianity become far from being like Jesus, Jesus is our Role model and we should be more like him

The Article can be found at https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a6646/shane-claiborne-1209/

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn's Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn't quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don't know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, "I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ." A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.

Now for the good news.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it... it was because "God so loved the world." That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven... but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our "Gospel" is the message that Jesus came "not [for] the healthy... but the sick." And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God's Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." On earth.

One of Jesus' most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan... you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I'm sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine... but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David... at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: "The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you." And we wonder what got him killed?

I have a friend in the UK who talks about "dirty theology" — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man's eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, "Nothing good could come." It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society's rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors... a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, "I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you." If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.

Your brother,

Shane

[chunsoftie]

Bri Watches South Park - Season 1 Overview

So, a couple days ago I made a post about how I was going to watch every single episode of South Park since I’ve never seen every episode. I managed to watch the entirety of the first season in a day a half, so I’m going to go ahead and talk a little about every episode individually - what I liked, what I didn’t like, etc.

Keep in mind that when I review these episodes, I’m going to try to stay on a critical side. This isn’t to say I won’t gush about certain things - It’s South Park. I absolutely adore the show and will find many positive things to say. However, you learn to take the good with the bad in stuff that you like. It’ll be pretty interesting to see how my opinions have changed from episodes that I’ve seen before, to how I feel about them with this rewatch.

Season 1 won’t really be as long as the others, just because I didn’t write notes this time around (next season’s overview will be longer, just because I’ll have written stuff to go back on). If there are people who follow me that are interested, I can also make a similar post for the movie, as well.

(Also, for the sake of having these posts be specific to seasons, I won’t be covering the pilot here. I might do that in another post).

But let’s go ahead and start with Cartman Gets an Anal Probe.

(Overview will be having a ‘keep reading’ after this point.)

Cartman Gets an Anal Probe:  Cartman tells his friends Stan, Kyle, and Kenny he had a dream about being abducted by aliens.

I feel like it would be pretty redundant to talk about how this episode contrasts from the others. There are obvious differences, and the stop motion aspect does make me impressed with how well the animation held up in that style. This was the only episode from the first season I had watched up to this point (except for maybe some of Big Gay Al, but we’ll get to that later). 

This episode focused on a lot of things from South Park that I enjoy more than others - priority with the cast of kids rather than adults, a narrative that doesn’t feel too slow, and great introduction to the main cast. I feel like earlier episodes of South Park are charming for being able to hold up on their own without resorting to political satire - not saying that part of the show isn’t interesting, but it definitely makes the writing drag. This episode was one of the better-written episodes that felt like it knew exactly what it wanted to do from the start. 

This episode was also hilarious. I laughed more for this episode than some of the others this season. The association with the cows and the aliens was especially enjoyable.  

This was also one of my favorite Cartman episodes. There are plenty of great contestants for the character throughout this season, which I was really surprised to notice. Stan also was enjoyable this episode - I find that I am liking him more as a character after seeing him be more active in this episodes (which is probably why I didn’t really care for him too much beforehand).

Overall, not my favorite episode of the season, but a great start.

Volcano:  Stan's uncle Jimbo and his friend Ned take the four boys on a hunting trip in the mountains.

Considering that I’ve watched more modern South Park compared to earlier seasons, I definitely will say that Jimbo and Ned were hilarious characters and I loved their little mantra about the importance of hunting just for the boys at the end to be like, “Hunting sucks.” I liked the tone where for the boys it wasn’t much about the hunting as it was getting away and spending time to themselves in a different place. Stan’s conflict with Jimbo and how he viewed Kenny was also more than they needed to put in the episode, but something that gave the writing more volume.

I also really liked how Randy was introduced in this episode and how it didn’t really drag with his characterization. Randy overall this season was pretty tame, I kind of felt relieved with that...but not for long, I know. Not for long.

The episode did have good moments but overall didn’t pack as much of a punch as the first episode. I kind of felt it was dragging at points and when I look back at season one, I probably won’t think more of this episode compared to the others. But I will say that Mayor McDaniels is an awesome character, I love her.

The improvement of animation was a change, though.

Weight Gain 4000:  The town prepares for an event involving Kathie Lee Gifford presenting an award to Cartman.

I didn’t know who Kathie Lee Gifford was until I watched this episode. I love Cartman, but I didn’t see this episode until yesterday, and this has to me one of my favorite episodes for him. I found myself scrolling through Beefcake shirts on Redbubble afterwards just because, I mean, that’s what you gotta do.

Wendy and Cartman going against each other this episode with regards to the essay was hysterical to me. Wendy is a lot different this season compared to future seasons, but I really like her. I had only seen earlier versions of her with Anal Probe, and I won’t be surprised if she ends up my favorite character by the end of my rewatch.

This episode was a lot funnier than Volcano, and Mr. Garrison’s deal with trying to take Gifford down was great. They really add more meat than they need to with characters, and I’m so glad that they actually take the time to develop them, even with an episodic sense. 

Both sideplots are great, but I definitely enjoyed Garrison’s more. Something tells me I’m going to like Garrison a lot the first few seasons before he really starts to annoy me, like Randy.

Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride:  Stan's new, gay dog runs away and finds the town's most flamboyant, gayest man, Big Gay Al.

I had seen a lot of this episode years ago when South Park was still on Netflix and I was waddling my way through earlier episodes just based on their plots. I did find the side-plot with Stan and Sparky to be compelling, but the rest of the episode felt very hit-or-miss with me. However, I realized I had been quoting Big Gay Al for a very long time without recognizing where I got it from. The actual boat ride based on It’s a Small World made me chuckle.

The other plot with football and Jimbo and Ned was alright. I didn’t think it was nearly as fun as the central plot, but I was glad to see more from those two characters, as I really liked them from Volcano. 

I honestly felt this one bored me more than made me laugh, but the references that I caught with this episode were enough to make me glad I watched it again.

My favorite part from the episode was when the kids brought the female dog to try to convince Sparky he isn’t gay, just for Sparky to take her collar off so he could wear it. Sparky has some good taste, man.

Overall, it was a good episode, just bored me to tears with some scenes.

An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig:  The boys try to breed a pig with an elephant and look for Dr. Alphonse Mephesto's help.

It’s pretty repetitive to say a plot is good if I find Stan really enjoyable in them, but this episode is one of my favorites that star him. I really like what he’s going through with Shelly, and in the next episode, his grandpa. One things that makes me laugh with South Park is just how the violence is portrayed with the animations - just how Shelly flings Stan like she’s literally throwing him across the room. I know that was a smaller thing, but I find those scenes funnier than a lot of the other kinds of jokes.

Anyways, I really liked Kyle’s persistence in this episode, and how Chef helps the kids with thinking of a ‘pocket-sized’ elephant pig. When Chefs tries to get the mood right for the elephant and the pig, I could not stop laughing. I loved that scene, so much. It is one of my favorites from the entire season.

I also found Dr. Alphonse to be pretty funny at parts. I found him funnier in the season finale, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. 

The last scene when the clone of Stan and Shelly made this episode solid for me. I would definitely mark this in my top three episodes for the entire season.

I realize I haven’t talked much about Chef this season either, but I feel like if you’ve seen Chef, you know Chef. I love him as a character, and this episode made me love him even more.

Death:  Stan's grandfather attempts suicide and tries to enlist the boy's help.

I’m not really going to spend much time talking about the Terrence and Phillip side-plot, but I will say that seeing Sheila in this position earlier on in the season was a pleasant sight. I was wondering if there was going to be any Jewish mother rage before the movie, and I’m glad to see that there was. 

This episode had a good plot going with Stan’s grandfather, but I feel like depending on the person you are, you’ll either find this episode brilliant or boring. I personally found it more boring than anything, even though there was a great scene where the boys call Jesus on his talk show and Stan asks about whether he should take someone’s like when that person wants it gone so badly. That point in the episode was what it needed, and definitely was what I would say to be the highlight. 

Didn’t really think much of the episode after watching it. I guess for that one scene, I’d come back to it, but for anything else, I’d probably pass.

The way that Kenny dies in this episode was pretty funny, though.

Pinkeye:  Kenny is killed by the Mir space station and becomes a zombie. This goes unnoticed as he is thought to have dressed up for Halloween.

When I went back to look at the episodes after watching the first season, I actually forgot this episode was a thing. I would say it’s the more forgettable episode of the entire season.

It wasn’t as if the episode was bad, it was just really bland. Kenny acting as a zombie is a funny premise, especially on a Halloween special, but the execution wasn’t played that well but only for a few things.

The side-plot with Cartman dressing up as Hitler and eventually a KKK member was really funny. That was probably the one thing I remember from this episode.

Not really going to go into too much detail with this one, but even though I love a lot of episodes this season, there are also a lot that could definitely be skipped.

Starvin’ Martin:  A starving Ethiopian child is accidentally sent to South Park. Cartman is sent back to Ethiopia instead, while mutant turkeys begin rampaging the town.

This episode was absolutely a joy to watch. I loved the commentary with Marvin as well as the tone of the episode. It could have easily slipped in the discomforting direction and I’m so glad they didn’t take that route. The actual design of Marvin was excellently done, I am not going to forget the way Marvin looked. And the way that the boys behaved around Marvin (except for Cartman, of course) was super sweet. 

it also reminded me of the toy-craze regarding watches in the late 90′s, earlier 2000′s. 

My favorite scene from the episode was when Cartman walked into all the food being stowed away by Sally Struthers (who I also had to look up...I’m not good with celebrities, okay?). It made me want to eat cake. 

The ending to this episode was also fantastic, and I really loved it overall. I definitely will be finding time to watch it again.

The music was already really good in this season. I really love how Matt and Trey are putting in their musical talents for the show, it’s awesome.

Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo:  As a Jew, Kyle feels excluded from the rest of the town during Christmas and is comforted by Mr. Hankey, a talking, singing feces.

I love this episode and definitely put it next to a future episode as my favorite of this season. Kyle is my second favorite South Park character, and I enjoyed everything about his characterization. The holiday episodes of this season were a lot better than some of the others in this season, and this one was my personal favorites. 

My favorite part was when Cartman sang about Kyle’s mom (like he did in the movie, which I thought was kind of cool that the song was in the series, as well), and they all thought Mr. Hankey was actually Kyle’s poop that he threw on Cartman. The Kyle and Cartman interactions in this episode were great, I love how they actually talk more like kids earlier on than in later seasons. 

The entire debate regarding religious incorporation into schools and performances was something really interesting. I am sure they’re going to tackle it again in a future season, but this was a really good way to take time for this topic. I like how the controversial things they talk about in this season aren’t blown up compared to later seasons, and they can take the time for more jokes with the satire rather than establish their points of what they’re making fun of. It’s great.

If anything, I would recommend this episode from any other besides Anal Probe in this season. It was a great holiday episode, and I hope we’ll see Mr. Hankey again.

Damien:  A new student arranges a boxing match between Satan and Jesus.

This is going to sound pretty strange, but I felt as though I preferred the Satan and Jesus boxing fight to any characterization from Damien.

Damien isn’t a bad character, but I found him uninteresting in this episode, even though his interactions with Pip were pretty funny. It’s kind of humorous to know that people ship him with Pip even though I can’t really see much of the dynamic, but I know that they’re both in the movie and when I rewatch it, I’ll get more of a liking towards Damien - probably? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the actual movie in many years. Either way, I found him a tad bland, but hopefully it’ll change.

Cartman’s side-plot in this episode with his birthday was alright. I felt like if they spent more time with Damien, it would benefit the episode - how Damien works with the others kids, or maybe if he was more of a threat at Cartman’s party. I will say the scene where Kyle gave him the game instead of the action figure was hilarious. I don’t really see how telling your friends what you want for your birthday is too much of a selfish thing, I mean, it is your birthday and they’re going to be asking what you want anyways, so...

The Jesus and Satan stuff was pretty great, though. Chef and Jesus training together was one of my favorite scenes, and one that I’ll definitely remember.

This episode was alright with one plot, but pretty freaking solid in the other.

Tom’s Rhinoplasty:  Mr. Garrison gets a rhinoplasty and quits teaching to become a model

The past few episodes spare a couple were not as great as I felt these next three episodes were. I absolutely adored this episode. Natasha did a great job on her role as Ms. Ellen and oh my god, if I could fall in love harder with a voice...

I guess that’s Ms. Ellen getting to me, too.

I loved Wendy in this role. Kind of reminds me of a certain someone when their man got taken from them...(Basically I’m getting at her similarities to Cartman in Cartman Finds Love, but whatever. I’ll be getting to that one, eventually).

I laughed the most at Mr. Garrison though. I take it that he looks like Hasselhoff, but I didn’t know when I watched it (Looking it up, I was right, thanks Spongebob). This episode was a great laugh after a few boring episodes, and I loved when the boys were trying to be lesbians by licking Cartman’s carpet from what Liane said. 

Definitely a great episode. I can’t really think about anything negative except that sometimes Wendy would annoy me with her yelling, but it could just be the voice acting.

Mecha-Streisand:  Mr. Garrison takes his class on an archaeological dig where Cartman finds a mysterious triangle.

This episode was just as well-written as the previous one. 

I really liked how Cartman and Kyle were at each other’s throats this episode - and how Cartman snuck in just to get the triangle. Looks like old habits are going to die hard, or never die? Who knows. 

I don’t listen to much of her, but I did recognize Streisand with this episode, and her turning into an Evangelion-like robot at the second half of the episode was hysterical. I loved with Sheila came up to her to ask for an autograph during the attack on South Park - she would be the type of person to adore her. Overall, the second half of this episode was a lot more enjoyable than the first. I found that actually letting the crazier stuff unfold and the boys trying to figure out what to do about it was pleasant. This isn’t  my favorite episode of the season, but I really liked what they did with it.

Can’t really say anything else than it was great, just like the last episode, and one I’ll definitely watch again.

Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut:  Cartman attempts to find his real father only to find that his mother slept with just about every man in town.

This episode was a good watch. I really liked the concept of Cartman wanting to know who his father was, just because it was kind of weird going through the season not having that brought up. The pilot was its own thing, but not everyone is going to know about it when watching the season, so it felt off. However, I’m glad they at least got to address it.

Cartman is my favorite character of the show, so of course I found this episode enjoyable just because he was in it for most of the screentime. I kind of found it annoying how Kyle and Stan put the video of Cartman for 10,000 dollars and didn’t really apologize for it when Cartman found out (even though he got to use the money), and I mean, I get it. Kyle isn’t really dug out to be his morally righteous self yet, and as of right now, they have plenty of the same characteristics, but it still felt weird and didn’t sit well.

Considering I am actually in the process of writing a Cartman-centered fic of the moment, knowing more about Liane from this episode was a great thing. I really loved the flashback scenes with her and the men she had slept with. The thought of Mr. Garrison being Cartman’s father was really weird though, I’m glad he’s not actually his dad.

My favorite part of the episode was when Cartman first thought that Runningwind was his dad and he dressed up as a Native-American. It was hilarious and now I’m not going to get the image out of my head.

This episode was a tight way to end the series, even if the ending made me shake my head a couple times.

If you guys think I should do more of these for other shows (I’ve been thinking Hey Arnold or Bojack), please let me know. I’d be interested to see what you guys think.

[switchedatbirthspoilers]

Switched at Birth EP on Finale's 'Family Triangle,' Reunion Hopes and More

Switched at Birth concluded its five-season run on Tuesday in much the same way it started: with a strong sense of family as the Kennish-Vasquez clan laid on their front lawn together, gazing up at a rare comet.

The final sight of unlikely sisters Bay and Daphne splayed across the grass was meant to evoke the “iconic image��� of the show’s early key art, executive producer Lizzy Weiss tells TVLine, adding that she hopes the series finale leaves viewers feeling “the same way when you shut it off as you did when you started, that this is a very special family that you wanted to be part of.”

The show’s central love triangle also took a familial turn when, rather than moving to Japan with her boyfriend Travis, Bay asked her ex Emmett to accompany his “brother.”

“That was very intentional,” Weiss says. “There was a lot of discussion about Bay as a young woman and that the conversation kept getting framed as, ‘Which boy was she going to choose?’ and we were are all very sensitive to that. She’s a young woman in her own right.”

Still, Bay and Travis reaffirmed their commitment to each other as a long-distance couple, while Daphne and Mingo reunited. Elsewhere, Regina convinced Eric to turn himself in so they could one day be together, and Kathryn discovered that before the switch was unearthed, John thought Bay wasn’t his daughter, but stuck around anyway.

Below, Weiss talks about her vision for the series ender, the storylines that got cut and the possibility of a reunion.

TVLINE | How much of this ending was what you originally envisioned before you got the news that the show wasn’t coming back?

Lizzy Weiss | There were general decisions that were made, like that Bay and Travis stay together. But I don’t know that we knew the exact moves of the story until we were faced with that in the moment. I always knew that we would shake up John and Kathryn one last time and remind everyone that they’re the center, and they will not be moved as a couple. But a lot of it we decided in the moment after many, many weeks of throwing things around.

TVLINE | The news came down while you were in the middle of production on the season. So were there certain things that you had to speed up or that you didn’t quite get to?

Lizzy Weiss | There were decisions we may have taken more time with. I always wanted to have Toby give up music and choose to move into a career with disability. That probably would have been over the course of the next ten episodes. We did it faster; that’s OK. Speaking of Toby, we wanted to explore that family becoming Jewish, and the Kennishes throwing a Passover seder and how fun that would be. It was more like there were stories and episodes we were bummed we didn’t get to do because we thought the fans would love them. But there wasn’t one big turn where I felt like, “Oh God, that will never be told.” All of the key stuff with the key players, we got to do.

Like with Regina, we always knew that Eric was the guy, and that Luca was for now. And I actually like how it turned out. We did it really quickly. It felt urgent; it felt exciting. She had to make that decision really fast. The elegance of her starting the show as a single mom and ending it with a new partner and a new son was just really beautiful to me.

TVLINE | You said you knew Bay and Travis would stay together. There was never any debate about which guy Bay was going to end up with?

Lizzy Weiss | There certainly was debate. But after much debate, the room felt pretty clear this is how things shook out in the course of the series. It’s not like a hundred episodes ago, I knew this. But a show evolves…. It felt like Bay had moved forward and didn’t want to go back. And Emmett’s become a different guy. He’s going through some rough times, and she’ll always be there as a friend. This choice she made to ask Emmett to go with [Travis], first of all, that was intended to honor the whole heart of the show, which is siblings by unusual circumstances, which is what Bay and Daphne are, and so are the guys. So there was a sweet symmetry to that. It just felt like there was a little bit of a triangle without being a triangle. We know that these three will always be connected. They’ll always be having Thanksgiving together, if Bay and Travis end up together in the long run. They will always be sitting at each other’s table, and maybe it’ll be complicated and weird, or maybe it won’t, but for now, the triangle is not quite a love triangle. It’s a family triangle.

TVLINE | Mingo made a late-in-the-game play for Daphne’s heart. Why did you decide she should be with him?

Lizzy Weiss |  You just reminded me Mingo may be one of the only ones that we did have bigger plans [for] in the long run. We definitely were going to take our time and have fun with that story. We wanted the ex-girlfriend to visit and cause some problems. We did have to get there faster. That was one of the things that got shortchanged. But that’s OK.  Basically, just Adam [Hagenbuch] and Katie [Leclerc] had such great chemistry. We created him a little bit because we wanted to get Wilke back, and [Austin Butler] was on that MTV show [The Shannara Chronicles] in New Zealand, literally 5,000 miles away… And then Mingo became his own character and delighted us in his own way, and we all forgot about Wilke and became all about Mingo. … We always did intend that they were The One [for each other]. I just love that scene between them at the end where he says, “I’ll turn down the internship,” and her answer is so surprising. He thinks he’s being magnanimous, and she says, “Don’t do that. Take it, teach him. Teach the world.” So I just liked that as a model for the kind of couple they’re going to be. He’s a very, in some ways, traditional guy. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s going to be talking about disability rights. But if they end up together, he will. And sometimes, those kind of opposites-attract [types] really do work in the long run.

TVLINE | The final image of the show is very sweet — and is not a flash-forward. Are you leaving the door open for a reunion movie or something of that sort?

Lizzy Weiss | Who knows what will happen in ten years, if there’ll be an appetite for it or if everyone will want to do it? But it feels like the door’s open. I would be happy to, if all things point in that direction. If things end up that all you have are 103 episodes to revisit, I’m really proud of those, and I hope that they live on beyond this generation.

TVLINE | Some shows like to go forward in time and show where the characters end up. Did you specifically want to avoid wrapping things up too neatly like that?

Lizzy Weiss | Yes. First of all, we’ve done that a little bit. We did two, even though they were imaginary, very important moments when Angelo died. We saw Daphne in her wedding dress, though we didn’t know who she was marrying, and we saw Bay delivering twins, and we didn’t know if Emmett [was the father] or who.

Secondly, [Pretty Little Liars] was doing that, and they were, of course, quite successful. So we didn’t want to do exactly the same thing since they were doing that at the same network. And — especially, as you bring up, could we maybe have a reunion in 10 years? — I didn’t want to box myself into, “Oh, we already said Daphne’s going to be this kind of doctor.” Or, “We already said Bay does end up with Travis,” or, “Bay doesn’t end up with Travis.” It’s an ending, it’s a period… but there could be a return and a new paragraph in ten years.

x

[sudsybear]

More changes

Something happened at Wooster. These days I don’t remember exactly what that something was. Although, I do remember talking it through with Ross; one of those late night confessionals when we admitted our fears and insecurities, gaining trust in each other. Seems to me there was a story of an unsuccessful suicide attempt; scratching his wrists with razor blades, drawing enough blood to be scary, but not enough to be deadly. I picture him standing in the lobby of the Civic Center, I hadn’t seen him for months, and he had bandages on both wrists. No one else I’ve asked will corroborate that memory. Did I make it up? Is it a figment of my overactive imagination? I honestly don’t know. Later, Ross led some to believe he hacked into the school’s mainframe, and was expelled. With others he joked about eating too many Twinkies and watching too much television. He was good at evasion and kept his own counsel. I don’t remember enough to know what to believe anymore. Whatever the reason, it was a doozy of a sophomore slump and his parents made the three-hour drive on I-71 to the college and brought Ross and his stuff home in January. He needed to sort out what he wanted in life. He needed time to heal. Wooster was not a good experience. I’ll never know all that happened. I just know he came home.

 Along with Liz, my friendship with Shari blossomed in the aftermath of David’s and my demise. We shared choir and Triple Trio rehearsals; and were thrown together for study groups and Teen Counseling sessions. Shari was strong then, She had ideas, plans, dreams. I enjoyed her confidence, a bit amazed by it. Proud of and loyal to her Jewish heritage, she refused to sing the sacred Christmas music our choir director chose for the winter concert. By February we were fully engaged in co-producing the Corral Show together. As producers, Shari and I made sure all the acts had parent sponsors and filled all the show committees (publicity, program, house manager, etc.) Later we followed up with the committees making sure the myriad tasks were taken care of. We had to be at every rehearsal to make sure all the would-be participants showed up. I spent Saturday afternoons with Shari at the Civic Center.

 Since Ross was home from college, he was put in charge of shuttling Scott around. Scott was playing guitar with a re-hash of the band Ross had played with two years previous – some of the same faces, a couple of new ones. They would perform in the show. Ross stayed at the Civic Center and listened while Scott played. He had little else to do. And when Ross showed up, Shari’s and my friendship strained. You remember reader, Ross and Shari had dated a few years back. The three of us tried to joke and laugh together. They had been intimate. I never knew the extent of their attraction. And while I recognized the irrelevance of the relationship, my own insecurity fed my curiosity. I asked questions of both of them, and worried how I compared in Ross’ eyes.

 Ross and I started slow. We really were just pals. Ross drove me home from Corral Show practice. Scott rode in the backseat with his guitar, and Ross dropped me off at the end of our driveway. As the weeks wore on, Ross and I took longer drives home from the Civic Center with detours to an eatery. We were comfortable, natural with each other. No pretense, we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

 I fell for Ross in a big way. Just seventeen, I was sure I could soothe his troubled soul. I knew his struggles. And was smitten with a stubborn case of puppy love that I’m still not completely over. I’m confident declaring that at the time the feeling was mutual.

 *          *          *

 I still had school, homework and rehearsals. So did he. Ross wasn’t home but a couple of weeks, and he was registered for computer classes at Cincinnati Technical College (Now Cincinnati State). That was his Dad’s doing, “If you’re home, you’re going to be in school.” While I never actually heard him say it, the message was clear. “No son of mine is going to be a college drop-out. I don’t care if it is a technical college, you’re going.” So, school it was. He started with just a couple of classes, not a full load. Enough to keep Ross busy, but not enough to overwhelm him. We made time to spend with each other.

 My father was gone much of the time, traveling for work. Mom was busy working to finish up her nursing degree, taking the last class and getting her hands-on training at the local hospitals. Her mother, my grandmother, lived at one of the newer retirement/nursing home villages in town. Mom worked part-time as an aide. She checked in on my grandmother and took her to the grocery store, post office and such. Mom still ran life squad. Sunday dinners were a must-attend, but beyond that, we left messages for each other on the kitchen counter. We were very good at the message system. The back door was never locked; the dogs were let out any time someone was home. Mom fed them and changed their water dishes. We were an active and cooperative household.

 Any time Dad was out of town, I had the Pinto to drive – which was most of the time. And even though we lived less than a half-mile from the high school, I drove half the time. That gave me freedom to ditch class and spend time with Ross. So I did. Not often enough to get in trouble…but often enough to make it worth our while.

 I didn’t take seriously my role as Mark’s first girlfriend, and I dropped him – rather suddenly and inexplicably, I’m afraid. Poor guy, he never had a chance. It was very unfair to him, and I’m truly sorry for the way I treated him. There was nothing wrong – he didn’t do anything to upset me. He just wasn’t Ross. Ross and I had history, friendship, and a connection that Mark could never equal. Mark hated girls for a long time after that, and I should have been kinder.

 *          *          *

 “Boyish Enthusiasm.” That phrase was invented to describe Ross with a new album. Ross picked me up from some activity, either from school after a choir rehearsal or at the Civic Center after a Corral Show practice, and we HAD to get to his house. What was the deal? We pulled in the driveway, ran in through the garage, flew up the basement steps, his mom was in the kitchen. “Hi, Mrs. Jeynes!”

 “Hi, what’s going on?”

 “I don’t know…Ross just bought a new record. We’ll be upstairs.”

 “Okay, have fun!”

 Ross was in his room by the time I finished that quick greeting. “Soozin-X, come up here!”

 “I’m coming, I’m coming! What’s the hurry?” as I ran up the stairs.

 In his room, Ross took the pleasure of slicing through the cellophane wrapping. He inhaled the smell of new cardboard and vinyl, and the delight of a pristine album untouched by a needle. Bliss. The album was Phil Collins’ latest solo release, “No Jacket Required”

 He pulled the album out of the sleeve, holding it carefully, thumb on the outer edge, index finger on the center hole. Placed the album gently on the turntable, put the needle in place (first checking it for dust), lowered it, and cranked the volume. I had no idea music could be played that loud. (The knob must have gone to 11 at least!)  He stood in the middle of his bedroom where the speakers had been strategically aimed to maximize acoustic performance and listened – really listened to the first side. I sat on his bed; sheets and bedspread scattered under me, leaned against the wall and watched him. I was amazed at the intensity with which he concentrated on the music. He stood with his hands by his side, eyes closed, or occasionally glancing around the room, with periodic eye contact and a smile. Air drumming or air guitar…he concentrated on the sound…he absorbed it.

 The first side ended, my ears were ringing by this time, and he turned the album over to play the second side. Entranced by his behavior, I just watched and listened…the album ended, and Ross wanted to play it again. This second time, I convinced him to turn the volume down, and we sat on his bed and listened …together. Then it was time to get home for dinner with my folks and do homework.

 *          *          *

 In April, I started receiving acceptance letters from colleges, and had to decide where to go the following fall. My choices were Ohio State, Augustana, Tufts (I was wait-listed) or UofR. Oh what a decision that was. Money was a huge issue. We didn’t qualify for financial aid at that point, and UofR was one of the most expensive schools in the country. Friends were going to Ohio State, and I thought that might be comforting. I never did take Augustana seriously. I applied on a lark. Basically I had to choose between OSU and UofR.

 While we disagree about it now, at the time, I believed my father pushed for UofR. Dad liked the prestige of the school – he had applied and considered the school back in the fifties. He even pulled out thirty year old slides of the campus that he took when he visited. Dad ended up at MIT. He thought it was neat that his daughter might attend a school he had considered a lifetime previous. He was especially impressed that the dean of Students taught in the Religion Department and was the baseball coach. I had my misgivings, but chose Rochester, and decision made, forgot about it, sort of. More fun to live in the moment.

 *          *          *

 Ross acquired a project car. An old Pinto he bought from a friend for $1, it never actually went anywhere that I ever knew, although others tell of him driving it. Ross worked in the driveway in back of the house, wearing a Rush concert T-shirt overtop cutoff cargo pants, Converse Chuck T’s and no socks. His short bland hair was growing out from the color black he had dyed it. He welded new metal plates to the floor to cover the holes in the bottom, then put in new carpet. Remnants from a carpeting job his parents had done. He repaired the seats and upgraded the sound system (I must say the subwoofers he installed in the back of that thing were "kick-ass") for what’s a car if it doesn’t have decent sound? He tinkered with the engine, learning any and all that he could about cars. I passed tools to him like any smitten female does, but eventually I got bored and found something else to do. If Ross wasn’t working on his own Pinto, he helped his friend Greg with his Dodge Dart.

 The Dodge Dart. Why is it that anyone in High school in the mid 1980s has a friend or acquaintance or drove himself, a Dodge Dart? That was Greg’s fancy. Ross had the Pinto, and Greg had the Dart. They were great friends, and Ross loved to rib Greg about all the time and effort he put into that car. Like the Pinto was such a great car either? They had dreams, and were learning, and it kept them out of too much other trouble.

 *          *          *

 Suffering a severe case of senior-itis, I purposefully gave myself a light academic load. Math was a relaxed affair, social studies required some attention, AP English was supposed to be a tough course, but with the teacher mix-up, I ducked the writing assignments as much as possible. Art and Choir required little effort outside of rehearsals. I had no first period class and standing permission to be off campus for Teen Counseling, I spent my free time with Ross.

 One morning toward the end of the school year, I left for school late and instead of the short ride to park in the school lot, I drove around the corner and up to Jeynes’ house. Our parents were at work. Scott was at school. I parked my Pinto next to Ross’ in the driveway behind the house, walked in through the garage, up the basement steps to the breakfast nook, tiptoed around the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor. Turned right, and sneaked down the hall to Ross’ room. Ross was not quite awake, still in the blessed morning state halfway between, “Do I want to roll over and go back to sleep…or wake up and go take my shower?” Once in his room, I took off my shoes and socks and crawled into his bed. We curled around each other and both fell back asleep.

 We woke up later, enjoying a morning snuggle. We still weren’t motivated to do anything productive. We talked about how much time we were spending together, and how comfortable we were. I asked something about Wooster, and Ross dug around in some boxes and found the letters I sent to him. He kept them in a shoebox. He also had letters from other friends and previous girlfriends. I was thrilled and flattered that he had kept my letters. We re-read them. Sitting on his bed, the covers strewn around us, we started laughing. Oh, how we laughed.

 Ross described walking to his mailbox with his buddies. He checked his mailbox, sorted through the letters, and stuffed the one from me in his jacket pocket.

 “Hey Man, you got mail. Aren’t you going to read it?”

 “Nah, I’ll save it for later”

 “Oh, it’s a good one, eh? From a girlfriend or something?”

 “No, nothing like that. It’s just this girl who writes to me. It’s bizarre stuff.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Alright, I’ll show you.”

 It was one of the coloring book pictures I colored and sent.

 “You get that stuff all the time?”

 “Yep.”

 “Weird. What do you do with it?”

 “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. She just keeps sending it.”

 We laughed so hard that morning, looking through the mail I had sent him. Poor Ross, what I had put him through sending him mail. Yes, he was happy to get it, but what strange mail to receive.

 After we laughed, I lay in bed while Ross showered and dressed. By this time we were ravenous, and it was almost noon, so we left the house and drove to Burger King for brunch. He had to go to afternoon classes, and so did I. I was distracted the rest of the day, in anticipation of seeing Ross again. Afternoon classes, and choir rehearsal…my heart wasn’t in it.

 *          *          *

  I had an Eddie Bauer backpack to carry my textbooks and spiral notebooks. Book packs have been all the rage since the mid-70s at least, and in the 80s having the right label on yours meant everything. I begged my parents to pay too much for an Eddie Bauer bag, and I used it and used it and used it. The thing was, the seams were unraveled and I had a terrible time getting my books and notebooks into and out of the bag. I complained about it to Ross one afternoon. He looked at it, said, “Oh, I can fix that. I need a lighter.”

“What?”

 “It will be okay, I promise. Watch.”

 On the back porch of our house, he sat for an hour melting the seam allowances along the entire interior of the backpack. Tedious and dangerous, burned fingers are no fun. I have a healthy fear of an open flame, despite (or maybe because of) my experiences with teenage male pyrotechnics. I was terrified he would burn himself, but fascinated to watch him work. I used that backpack for another couple of years, took it to college, then summer camp and out to California. A strap finally broke. Mom mailed the pack back to the company, and they replaced it with a new one. When it arrived, I sat on the back porch and melted the seam allowances myself.