#does that mean Rory is older than 50? yes :)

[peapod20001]

Don’t mind me. Just rewriting ocs again. Anyways did you know Carolina’s other dad was actually Rory’s late spouse? And that they had been together for millennia? Cus now you do!

[godrics]

NCT DREAM BEYOND LIVE CONCERT!RORY

gif made by x

NCT DREAM BEYOND LIVE CONCERT!RORY

UNDER READ MORE  (bc it’s actually really long now that im on tumblr)

okay so the concert started with the vcr/video from the dream show ..

rory's little scene was her as a teacher !!! so cute

OOH and then the transition into her into her teacher clothes into a suit .. thats my girl

her hair is still like this. much more vibrant than it was because she redyed it oops

first song was GO!! change ur ways

she was wearing this [ black cargo pants, a black crop top, belt, along with chains lmao idk how to describe. oh and black boots ] for go, drippin', we go up, and stronger performances!

it was kind of awkward at first but then she saw nctzens' faces so she was happy

"to the world, this is the nct! we are nct dream”

she clapped excitedly, jumping up and down

"beyond the dream show~"

when haechan asked the time where the fans were, she read the comments, squinting funnily at the screen before gasping

"one of the czennies said it was 3am!"

the other boys gasped in shock before clapping slightly

"thank you for watching us even though it's 3am!" rory said to the fans. "but go to bed as soon as this is over~ or whenever you're feeling tired, that's okay too!"

"for our global fans, we prepared something special, right?" haechan said and rory nodded, smiling

"so we prepared our greeting in various languages"

rory's greeting was in french! fans went crazy bc she sounded SO good and her pronounciation was good too

after that she says, "renjun took english from me" in english and playfully glared at the older boy who laughed.

she turned to the fans and said, "but um, wendy-unnie taught me that so .. if it sounds bad it's all her fault." she claps as the other boys laugh

when they were talking about how they felt, rory said "i watched superm and wayv's concerts so i was excited because i knew we'd hear from the fans just like they were here with us in person. they were really loud, too" and laughs

when renjun told them to scream, she hit him lightly and said "yah, don't you remember what i just said? some fans it's 3am there!"

"oh dont scream then," renjun laughed, making her laugh before she went back to waving at the fans as they waved their lightsticks

when the fans appeared behind them, her eyes widened and she immediately ran to the screen, waving in all directions

she noticed when she got close to a fan's screen, they'd start waving their hand/lighstick even harder and it made her laugh

"rory, come back!" jaemin laughed, tugging her with him back to where the other 5 were

"wow, pretty grass" rory mocked mark as she stared at the lightsticks where the audience were supposed to be and on the screens

haechan had to hide a laugh

then there was we go up performance

woo fun

then stronger! she loves that song is2g

okay for the next vcr

she was in a school uniform standing in between jeno and jaemin

"you guys suck," rory laughed, watching the boys try to succeed

when renjun comes over and succeeds in under one minute and one hand, she gasped in shock lightly before watching him walk away coolly and put his head back down on the desk

jaemin nudged her as she laughed, "you guys are just losers!"

and then it ends on her walking over to renjun and bending down to face him and tapping him on the shoulder

he jumps from how close she is and she laughs, grinning at him, "that was cool" before going back over to the boys and he watches her

next video of the vcr oo

she gets hit in the head by the basketball(she's after chenle) and luckily saves it before it falls to the ground and throws it towards the basket, renjun jumping up to hit it in

why is she always getting hit in the head rip rory's head

next performance is dunk shot!!!

she hated the outfits tho jfc

she was wearing white loose shorts that ended midthigh and a pink button up over a white t-shirt

yeah super plain im so sorry rory that the stylists did you dirty like that

(to be fair the boys looked bad too like what was that matching .. there was NONE)

NEXT IS CHEWING GUM!!

AND THERE WERE HOVERBOARDS

SHE MISSED THE HOVERBOARDS SO MUCH

she hyped up jisung so loud during his solo dance

and had a huge ass smile on her face during it

she was in the middle of renjun and chenle at the bottom

AND THEY LEFT A SPACE FOR MARK IN BETWEEN JAEMIN AND JISUNG SHE ALMOST CRIED

"i think chenle changed the most" rory laughed, talking about the difference from now and almost four years ago when they debuted

"you changed a lot, too" chenle poked her and she huffed out a laugh, choosing not to respond to him and shook her head

when it was time for the interactions, she had to hide her wince because since she watched wayv and superm's, she was worried about how it would go because some fans' wifi connections were bad(so were sm's but anyways--)

oh luckily the first fan spoke korean !!

"hi!" she waved excitedly at the fan

when the fan said her name, she quietly repeated it to herself but it was still heard from the mic

"there's a song called 7 days in your album. what do you guys mean to each other?"

rory's mouth went dry at that question as she rubbed her hands together, looking at the boys silently as they ahhed and oohed

she smiled slightly as she saw how big their smiles got at the question

chenle said that the members were his family. they're literally siblings

she laughed at that

hyuck said that the members were apart of himself and that he grew up with all of them

jisung said bc they're older than him, they're like his younger siblings

rory had to look away in order to not laugh at his answer LMFAO

she couldnt contain how big her smile got when jaemin said that he couldn't live without them

she literally almost cried from tears of laughter from jeno's answer "onion"

renjun said that the members are youth to him

and him bringing up the stupid bottle to his face . i s2g she quickly yanked that from him so quick while laughing

and then finally it was her turn

"um, thank you for the question, siyoung!" she clapped slightly before continuing. "to me, the members are .. my childhood" she nodded slightly as she spoke. "we all grew up together so each of them have a piece of my childhood that i dont want to leave"

renjun pulls her into a side hug as jeno says "cute~"

wolfies(rory's stans) cried

when the fan said she'd stick with nct dream seven days a week, she laughed from the sudden overwhelming feeling at her words and bowed towards the fan, keeping her eyes to the ground so the camera wouldn't catch her teary eyes

too bad the camera did once she looked back up

"nct dream have 8 members--" when haechan said that, rory smiled big and nodded her head

"infinity" rory cheered, the members following behind

the next caller was up!

"ooh, poland" rory smiled

the fans question was "what are your biggest dreams" which she translated for them

rory's answer was "i have no doubt that nct dream will stay together forever so ... i my biggest dream is nctzens staying with us forever. even when we all grow up and have our own lives, i hope nctzens will some day think of nct dream and smile"

jaemin literally walked over and pinched her cheek, cooing at how cute she was

rory rolled her eyes playfully but let him

ah yes to this day he's still the only one she'll allow to give her skinship in public

rip other boys

she felt so sad when the third caller's connection was bad

"ah ... difficult technicalities"

she put a thumbs down

anyways next was don't need your love!!!

she LOVES this song so much guys its unreal

her place at the start is right in between renjun and jisung again lmao

shes leaning against chenle and jaemin

she loves hearing the boys' english btw

also in this version she has more lines but im not gonna tell which ones that's too much work

and next is we young!!

watching the part when they take a pic .. made me cry so it made rory very nostalgic

rory's wearing a professional suit but like . with a skirt i forgot what its called rip

she's standing in between hyuck and jeno

when jaemin laughs she laughs

she has that pic in her phone case btw

along with an ot8 pic

when they're talking abt the 50 years later OO im gonna . cry again

"so we can see how we change"

"um, we're gonna look older" rory laughed

btw grandma rory literally still looks good as hell sorry i dont make the rules

rory: "chenle would look like steve jobs but like .. chinese"

chenle was so offended bye

rory: "jisung if you grow a mustache i will never forgive you"

"wHY DOES IT MATTER?????"

"bc you'd look stupid i cant be seen with someone looking stupid"

the other pic where renjun jumps .. her face is literally so genuinely shocked in that pic LMAO she didnt expect that

NEXT IS BEST FRIENDS OH MY GODD I LOVED IT SO DID SHE

SHE JUST WISHED MARK WAS THERE .. AND HE KINDA WAS

btw she was wearing a black blazer but it was shorter .. and another black skirt with a white crop top underneath rip

OKAY HYERI MADE NCTZENS CRY SO HARD

so theyre uneven rn right?

so instead of her being a third wheel(not really)

when it's her part, she's backstage and as she's doing her part, she reached into an open closet and .. pulls out a cutout board of mark :((

yeah she cried too when she thought of it and luckily sm let her!!

at the end of her part towards the end of the song, she smiles and says, "right, mark-oppa?" and forms half a heart up to the camera

(taeyong later sends her a video of mark reacting to her parts and when she does the heart he puts half a heart up next to hers <3)

next is candle light! they dont really have a choreo to this one either

anyway candle light wouldnt have been her first choice bc she'd prefer to perform dear dream .. BUT ANYWAY

next is PUZZLE PIECE and 7 DAYS!!

the camera catches her and jisung doing their little handshake . so cute

she then hugs chenle so he wouldnt feel left out

end posing of puzzle piece, she's in between chenle and jisung AGAIN SLDJDJL

they form a heart with her doing the bottom and chenle and jisung doing the top/sides

when they read the comments after performing jeno reads one that says "rory is so talented, her vocals are so good"

and then hyuck read "rory's parts in best friends was so cute"

she blushes so cute

when they talk abt the album

rory says in english, "thank you for supporting us and we hope you guys enjoyed listening to the album as much as we enjoyed making it .. think of it as our gift to you for always loving us!!" cute baby. and then gives a little finger heart

special guest is mark, jungwoo, and doyoung!!

she expected mark but was surprised about jungwoo and doyoung

she couldnt stop smiling the whole time because literally all she had to do was see 127 and smile immediately like they dont even got to do anything

the technical difficulties .. rory said in english again "i think you need to get your wifi checked, mark"

"no mark-oppa?" he teased and she laughed

when they were complimenting them, jungwoo said that mark really enjoyed rory's parts in best friends and she full out giggled from nervousness, blushing from embarrassment

doyoung complimented her vocals and rap and shes never been so proud of herself

compliments from 127? her greatest achievement

jungwoo then said she was so cute wow more blushing

she found the challenge boring and wouldve preferred if 127 picked the damn challenge themselves bc then it wouldve been funnier and more fun but alas .. sm >:(

she picked puzzle piece tho

THE FUCKING NEXT VCR .. so emotional when she watched over it

she literally just watched her and her friends grow up in literal seconds

there's a clip of her from chewing gum on mark's back while he's riding the hoverboard

.. also somehow they got a clip of her hugging jaemin when he came back sigh

emotional manipulation!! she was kinda pissed that was in there bc it was supposed to be private but what can she do .. it's sm

there's a video of her chasing jeno during we young era while on the mv set

and another one of renjun literally dragging her on the ground because she wouldnt let go of his legs in mfal era

in mfal era she's seen running over chenle when he's out of their little cars

its funny he almost fell if jeno didnt catch him LMAO

but its ok dont fret he was in the grass

mfal era where hyuck tries to make a basket but fails and she steals the ball from him and makes it in .. he pouted FOREVER after that

the video of them in chewing gum era and then goes to ridin' era ..

her clip is her smiling shyly at the camera WITH HER CUTE PIGTAILS OH MYGODDD SO SOFT SO BABY

and then it goes to her in ridin' era with her leaning against the car and a lollipop in her mouth, staring dead straight at the camera somehow intimidatingly

n then ofc the music changes and the videos go more recent

theres clips of her behind the scenes in we young, go, dnyl, and boom

also some of her at that dream show concert

the ridin' stage was prerecorded but anyway she's wearing the same outfit she does in the mv

she saw a clip of the car cg and she yelled at the members jokingly saying it almost ran her over

wearing same outfit for quiet down which was live

they had one more song after :( she was really sad and she made sure nctzens knew that

"i wish we could perform more songs for you guys but .. only one more :(" and then sighed really loudly

"i wish you guys were here in person as well but your health is way more important and until then .. well, hopefully we can see each other again in the future! i miss seeing all your pretty faces" she then pouted as the other members oohed loudly and she laughed

after the other members continue she then reminds them all to "wash their hands and wear their masks over their noses if they have to go out"

when renjun says bonjour her eyes widen and she says "wow, so you stole my english and now my french?" she jokingly raises her hand to hit him but all he does is laughs and grabs her hand to 'stop her'

last is boom!

they shouldve performed dear dream or mfal but i guess booms good too not like they havent had to hear that song for 9 months

anyways

at the end she sneakily gives the camera a finger heart

[jackoshadows]

Yes, it is not feminist to think that strong, independent women don’t need or want love, marriage and kiddies. It is true that women who are not traditionally feminine and don’t conform to patriarchal gender norms are often seen as being not romantic and not requiring love and marriage and this is falsely seen as empowering. And it is true that much of fandom and D&D/cast and crew have pretty much treated the character of Arya Stark this way. 

But it is also not empowering to think that women can only be happy and valid if there is romance in their lives and marriage and children. That’s basically ignoring the existence of millions of happily single women around the world who don’t bemoan the absence of marriage and children in their lives.

The point being that it is possible to make a case for Arya having romance, love, marriage and children in her story without denigrating single woman who are perfectly fine without any of those.

Yeah, GOT was terrible in how they wrote their female characters. But the over correction in the opposite direction about how Arya is now going to be miserable forever because she did not accept Gendry’s offer of marriage or stay in Winterfell being Sansa’s executioner and is instead sailing around the world with lots of money and servants? Yeah, fuck that. There is nothing inherently anti-feminist about the idea of Arya not wanting marriage even if D&D are sexist hacks. There is nothing misogynistic about someone head cannoning Arya as being happy exploring new worlds within the context of the show and it’s writing of these characters.

At least Arya’s ending on the show is actually open-ended enough that it allows for her to come back to Gendry or Winterfell or to Jon or find romance and love or opt to remain single and happy.  There are other characters who fared far, far worse.

Arya ending up with Gendry is a totally possible and valid ending for her. And a 14 year old Arya ending up single at the end of the books? Also a totally possible and valid ending for her - her character does not becomes less than or doomed to a miserable existence just because she does not find love and marriage at 14. It all depends on how GRRM writes her and what she wants at the end of the books.

Currently, book Arya is a traumatized 11-12 year old who thinks that the only refuge she has is with the FM - that’s why she kills the thin man under duress. She does not want to be kicked out of the FM and feels like she has no where else to go. We can only speculate as to where her story is going next in the books. To the riverlands and Ladystoneheart? To the wall and Jon? To the Vale and Sansa? There is also Nymeria and her wolf pack who will be playing a major role in the North and the whole fArya plot.

If we are looking only at the show, which main character got a happily ever romance plot?

Dany? Exploited by the Starks, betrayed by everyone and murdered by her lover. Sansa? Ends up all alone ruling the North. Brienne? Dumped by her lover.

What about  the men. Jon? Kicked out of Westeros. Bran? Turned into an unfeeling automaton who exists with no motivations or personality. Tyrion? All the other Lannisters are dead.

What about Grey Worm and Missandei?

The only two characters who manage to find love and happiness at the end are Sam and Gilly - and that’s most probably because D&D forgot about them and they were not all that important. I think we last saw Gilly in episode 4.

It’s understandable why D&D veered away from SanSan on the show considering that Rory McCann is like 50 and Sophie Turner is 21. There was speculation in book forums when the 40 year old McCann was cast as Sandor Clegane that this was an indication that Sansa and the Hound don’t end up together in the books. And from some of the comments Bryan Cogman has made, it looks like GRRM has not yet decided on whether to bring back the Hound and the show just went ahead and did it because the Hound is a fan favorite. 

So comparisons between SanSan and Gendrya does not make a case for Gendrya endgame in the books. SanSan did not happen on the show either and we don’t know if SanSan is a sure thing in the books. For now the Hound has a conclusive ending in the books if GRRM opts to not bring him back.

If Jon/Arya is a thing in the books, it’s understandable why it’s not a thing on the show. Considering the outrage from the general audience over Arya sleeping with Gendry, imagine the reaction if Jon/Arya happened?

And unlike King Bran, there was actual build up for Arya/Gendry on the show. Gendry was played by an age appropriate Joe Dempsie and Arya was played by a now age appropriate Maisie Williams. So, if Bran became king on the show because that’s his book ending, then why didn’t Arya end up with Gendry if that’s her book ending? A possible explanation being that this is not her book ending?

Arya is also a pretty little girl who is going to end up looking like Lyanna Stark - considered to be one of the most beautiful women of Westeros. Arya’s story is not about becoming a warrior woman just like Jon’s story is not about becoming a warrior man. She has learned how to fight using Needle, like Jon knows how to fight.  But Arya also knows poisons, how to read emotions, languages, politics and leadership. If she does get romance and love when she is older, this is nothing new or unconventional in ASoIaF. After all, wild child, horse riding, weapon wielding Lyanna Stark is one half of ASoIaF’s most romanticized couple. In GRRM’s original outline, the central romance was for Arya. 

GRRM is indeed writing an unconventional romance story in his books - for Brienne of Tarth, with a reversed Beauty and the Beast tale. Brienne, who is taller than Jaime, ugly and a fighter also does not conform to gender roles. Jaime/Brienne is quite popular in both the ASoIaF and GOT fandoms and we still did not get Jaime/Brienne on the show. Maybe because they don’t end up together in the books rather than D&D thinking that Brienne does not need a man?

It’s rather clear that Arya’s story in the books has strong connections to the North. Pretty much all the current female leaders of the North are Arya stereotypes - Lyanna Mormont, Wylla Manderly, Alys Karstark  - who Jon compares to Arya. But the show effectively took away Arya’s book story when they centered the Northern plot around Sansa from season 5 - D&D have admitted to Sansa’s Vale story being too boring for a TV adaptation.

So what can they do with show Arya without book Arya’s story? They could stick her in WF at the end - but this would just turn Arya into Sansa’s bodyguard/executioner instead of an important character in her own right with an ending that’s about her instead of about Sansa.

And again, with respect to the complaints about Arya not being with her family... Sure, book Arya loved her family and wanted to be back in Winterfell with them. But D&D basically destroyed the Starks as a family in the last two seasons and wrote them as Lannister lite selfish, xenophobic bullies who even turned against Jon in the end. So would Arya ending up with Sansa in WF be all that satisfying for Arya fans? In the context of the show, why would Arya stay in Winterfell?

I doubt that D&D sat there and came up with the plan of deliberately isolating Arya because they thought she was a strong, independent woman who did not need love. I get the feeling that she got this ending because D&D’s garbage writing over the last 4 seasons pigeon holed these characters into certain narratives and then they were stuck with that narrative towards the end.  Essentially all the bad writing for these characters from season 4 onwards - after they ran out of book material - is what’s responsible for these endings.

I think they just stuffed these characters into certain slots that is somewhat close to their book endings. I mean, have you guys seen their hilarious behind the scenes comments of the final episode? One of them being that after Jon kills Dany:

“ We did not really realize how much residual drama there was left - once we realized that both Jon and Tyrion were inevitably going to be prisoners, their fate was far from settled. So we went through a number of different versions of how to take advantage of that tension and we finally landed on the version we had in the dragonpit ”

Fans have put more thought, effort and time into trying to understand and dissect these endings and what that means for these characters than D&D ever did. And that’s the sad truth about this terrible show.

And considering what was done to Dany as a character and her ending on the show, the Starks and Jon came out of the whole thing with better endings that was unearned. It could have been far worse.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 9

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 9 - Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

———————————————————————————-

Len’s noticed that there have been more ghosts around recently.

Like, a lot more.

He’s not entirely sure what to do about it.

“Maybe it’s because you’re getting laid regularly,” Julie suggests.

“He was getting laid regularly before,” Nora objects.

“Maybe marriage noogie’s got some extra juicing powers.”

“As someone who was married,” Nora sniffs, “it most certainly does not.”

“Please stop,” Len says to them, pinching the bridge of his nose.

They fall quiet.

“That was sarcasm,” he adds.

“Have you considered that you’re becoming more powerful?” Nora asks.

Len makes a face at that. That does not sound appealing, thanks. “I still only have as much life as I have,” he points out.

“You’re getting older,” Julie says. “You should have, like, less life now, right? Since you’re using it up living it? But instead, it’s like you have…more.”

It has been easier to give extra life to the ghosts, come to think of it. Len hasn’t been so tired out by it recently, even though he’s giving more of it away because there are just so many friendlies around.

“I’m more worried about the fact that your mom said that people like you start to die around this age,” Mick says from where he's supposed to be napping in Len’s lap. They’re on their goddamn honeymoon. Mick needs to relax more.

Okay, okay, the honeymoon’s been going on a couple of months now, but whatever. They’re back in Central – the wedding ceremony was lovely, Lisa was the world’s most kick-ass flowergirl-slash-maid-of-honor-slash-best-man, the officiant rabbi was a Gotham transplant and had the amazing ability to ignore everything but what was going on right in front of him, and the justice of the peace even got over having a gun held to his head enough to clap by the end of it all – but they’d opted for a nice stay-low-at-home vacation for their honeymoon and damnit, Len doesn’t want to let go of the honeymoon mood just yet.

Even if Mick does seem intent on spoiling it.

“I’m fine,” Len says, even though he has noticed an increase in attacks from the unquiet dead recently. Everyone’s noticed the increase in attacks. That’s why they ended up deciding against going to Aruba or Iceland; Mick didn’t want to risk going somewhere where they didn’t have a good supply of friendly ghosts. “I’m not that old yet.”

“You said your family dies when they hit 50,” Mick says darkly.

“I’m only forty,” Len points out. “I’ve still got a few more years. Besides, forget the unquiet dead attacks! There are more friendlies now, and no one’s gotten through the wall yet.”

Even before they got over themselves and gotten back together, Mick was taking advantage of the increase in friendly ghosts, which seem to come in from all over nowadays, to set up a rotating defensive ‘wall’ to protect Len from the unquiet dead. Len would protest, but the ghosts are so happy to help him out. He barely has to do anything for them, though he tries whenever possible to still spread out some life to them where he can.

He is not a necromancer.

“Are we going to go back and take on the Flash again soon?” Mick asks, changing the subject when he senses the downward change in Len’s mood.

Mick’s always known the right thing to say to cheer Len up. “Yep,” Len says, mood lightening already. “We’ll lure him out and set up a big showdown in front of all the cameras, make a big show of it. They won’t be able to deny he exists – or that supervillains like us do – after that.”

“How do we get him to come to a pre-arranged time and place without screwing us in advance?” Mick asks, sounding a touch dubious.

“No idea,” Len says. “Try to steal something really fancy? Kidnap somebody?”

“Let’s call that Plan A and Plan B,” Mick says.

Plan A does not work, so Plan B it is.

They end up kidnapping one of the girls that helped ‘stop’ Len the time before, since apparently trying to steal high-end luxury cars and successfully stealing an intensely modernistic painting worth millions of dollars isn’t enough to catch the Flash’s interest these days.

Len’s not pouting about it, no matter what Mick says.

(Sure, he might've made a comment about certain superheroes getting snobby, but that's hardly pouting.)

“Sorry about this,” Len tells the young woman they kidnap, a doctor of some variety from what Len can tell. “I don’t think vacuum-boy has left his lab in something like a week, so you were my only option.”

“Your only – wait. Vacuum-boy?”

“Long black hair, kinda short, threatened me with a vacuum cleaner gussied up with some LED lights?”

“Uh, I mean, I guess – wait. You knew about that?”

“Well, yeah,” Len says with a shrug. “I have seen industrial strength vacuum cleaners before. Left because I didn’t see any need to finish off the Streak – wait, it’s the Flash now, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, blinking. “Uh. If you don’t see any need to attack the Flash, then...what are you doing now?”

“Establishing my supervillain bona fides,” Len tells her. “Obviously. No one has officially confirmed the superhero yet, which is a pain. Once we have a confirmed superhero, then we can be confirmed supervillains.”

“Just like in the comics,” Mick says gleefully.

“You’re both nuts,” the girl opines, but she’s stopped screaming and she looks a lot calmer now, which was what Len was going for. Slightly incredulous and disdainful, too, but whatever.

“It’s a matter of opinion,” Len says with a shrug. “Any place you’d prefer to be kept?”

“You’re asking me?”

“I really only need you for the video threatening the Flash and naming the place and time,” Len points out. “After that, you just need to sit tight till our fight is over, and you’re good to go. Would you like a nice spooky warehouse or are you more the comfortable coffee shop sort of kidnapee?”

“You’re very strange.”

“You have no idea,” Mick says with a smirk.

Len rolls his eyes at Mick. He’s actually quite proud of that, thanks.

They end up taking her to an unused apartment that Len knows. It’s mostly used by the Feds when they’re phonetapping the local Families, but they don’t have any ongoing stings right now. It’s nice, pleasant, but empty.

Well. Mostly empty.

“Julie, Deena, make sure she doesn’t leave or use the phone,” Len says, and holds out his hands. Each one grabs a hand and shivers into translucence – still invisible to Caitlin Snow, which turns out to be the doctor’s name, but enough power for a decent poltergeisting. They'll keep her inside the room, and if Len knows how to read people, and he does, the mystery of why she can't walk out the open door will be enough to keep Miss Snow from doing anything rash.

“Nora, Rakesh, Eli, you’re with me,” Len instructs, heading down to the car. “Mick, you take George and Betty.”

“I don’t need guards.”

“As back-up, Mick.”

“Isn’t Plan A for us to get captured so we’re confirmed as supervillains?���

“Well, yes. That's not the point. We want to be captured, yes, but we want to be captured in style - well, so long as we don’t end up having to waste the guy. Have some dignity, Mick.”

Mick smirks and pets his gun. “I think we’re probably going to waste the guy.”

“Probably,” Len confirms cheerfully. He’ll learn to deal with a superhero ghost if it makes Mick keep smiling.

Sure enough, the hero shows up to the stand-off and it’s all going well: they’re exchanging quips, fighting in the street – all the police hanging back along with the media to watch with big wide-open eyes as Len and Mick kick the kid’s ass – and then –

Well, that's when it goes wrong.

“Oh, my god,” Nora suddenly shrieks, seeing the kid stumble and rub at his face in what Len would not have taken to be a sufficiently characteristic way to enable someone to identify him under that mask but which apparently works for Nora. “Barry? Is that Barry? Len – you’ve got to stop – that’s Barry – that’s my son –”

“Well, shit,” Len says, and glances over at Mick. They can’t kill Nora’s baby boy, about whom they’ve heard so much over the years.

Guess they're going to have to go for being captured early.

Mick sighs, but nods. “Wanna ghostbusters it?” he suggests. They’ve already learned not to cross their guns’ streams, thanks to some incautious experimenting, but Mick’s not wrong, it would make for a splendid finale to their fight.

“I’ll take left, you take right,” Len says, and they split up, letting the Flash run between them.

The resulting explosion when their guns clash is very impressive.

Len’s very happy he had a few ghosts helping to cushion him when he gets thrown backwards, because otherwise, ouch. It’s totally worth the minimal loss of life it takes to power them up enough to help catch him. Explosions hurt.

“Guess you win this time, Flash,” he tells what had damn well better be Barry Allen under that cowl.

“There won’t be a next time,” the superhero says confidently. Incorrectly, as it happens, but it’s nice to see he has confidence.

They get hauled through the police station in the traditional handcuffed walk of shame. Len’s keeping an eye out on the crowd and sure enough, there he is, Barry Allen, CSI, just like Nora says.

About the right height and size to be the Flash, too.

“You’d better be right,” Len mutters under his breath.

“I’m sure,” Nora says. “Want me to get your guns back?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

It takes Lisa less than ten minutes to break them out of the prison transport with the help of several of Len’s ghosts. No sweat.

Of course, after that, Len can’t just leave it. Nora’s gotten all mopey about her baby boy putting himself in danger and her not able to help, Mick’s incredibly invested in the whole supervillain thing since it’s practically part of their marriage vows – something has to be done.

Some sort of agreement has to be reached, and Len knows just the way to do it. He has a plan.

That plan doesn’t stop him from kidnapping Cisco and his brother the next time he’s in town.

“I need a few improvements,” he says, plopping his gun down in front of Cisco. “And Lisa needs one of her own.”

“You tricked me,” Cisco says sulkily to Lisa.

“I meant it,” she says. “You are cute.”

“And she is a mechanical engineer,” Len says dryly, having heard the entire story from Betty. “Stop judging people by their looks, Cisco – it is Cisco, is it?”

“Yeah,” Cisco says. “And if you think I’m going to –”

“You are,” Len says. “You don’t want something to happen to your brother, do you?”

Once everything is put together, Len examines the new guns and the improvements he’d requested, all in pristine condition since he’d had a ghost alert him every time Cisco tried something squirrelly. The improvements should make the gun harder to track, even by its creator, and Len loves the fact that his ‘cold field’ idea seems to actually be plausible, even if Cisco isn’t entirely sure it obeys the laws of physics. “Good,” Len says. “Thanks for your contribution. Now it’s time for you two to go.”

Both young men gulp audibly.

“So, where would you like to be dropped off?” Len asks, mood lightening because of their visible terror. He’s not usually a ‘better to be feared’ sort of guy, but, hey, he is a supervillain now.

“Uh,” Cisco says, and then, after a few moments when Len doesn’t continue, asks, “Are you serious?”

“Entirely.”

“It’s not like a ‘drop off by the hospital or the morgue’ sort of thing, is it?”

“Not unless you really want to,” Len says. He hopes not; he refuses to go anywhere near the city morgue, for obvious reasons. He has enough ghosts. Besides, it’s not like Cisco didn’t give him everything he wanted. “How about ice cream?”

“What?”

He drops them off at Friedlander’s Ice Cream Parlor and buys them each a cone.

Social niceties and sheer shock keep them there long enough for Len to get away.

Sure enough, Len’s four blocks away before he’s passed by a familiar crackle of lightning. The Flash is no doubt looking for a man in a parka, not a man in a hoodie reading a magazine in the nearby park with a cute girl on his arm.

“Cute,” Len says, shaking his head at the passing superhero.

“Let’s go get that armored car,” Lisa says, lifting her head from Len’s shoulder, her eyes twinkling. “You promised you’d get me a nice necklace, Lenny.”

Len’s not exactly expecting to be kidnapped by an angry speedster mid-heist, but he’s not exactly surprised, either. Some people take a spot of kidnapping and ice cream so personally.

It doesn’t matter. Plan Ally-The-Flash is officially a go.

“You kidnapped Cisco,” the Flash snaps.

“Good to see you again, Flash,” Len drawls. “Or should I say – Barry Allen?”

The Flash frowns, shifting uneasily, then crosses his arms. “I don’t know what you’re –”

Len decides to have pity on him and nods. On his signal, Julie yanks back his cowl, sliding her ghostly hands all the way through the suit, up and down from toes to top, her ghostly interference disabling all the electronics that might serve to record or broadcast this conversation. She probably cops a feel, too, but Len's not going to hold that against her.

“Barry Allen,” Len says, smirking. “I knew it.”

Barry yelps and lifts his hands to his cowl. “You knew already,” he says accusingly, though he does sound somewhat bewildered by that fact. “But Cisco didn’t tell you; he says you didn’t even ask – how did you do that bit with the cowl? Something with Cisco’s improved guns?”

“You can’t blame Cisco for improving our guns,” Len says, ignoring the original question. “I put him in a tight spot.”

“Same kind I’ve got you in right now,” Barry replies, rallying.

“Can’t really stop me now that I know who you are,” Len points out.

“I could speed you to my own private prison where you’ll never see the light of day,” the kid replies cockily.

Len’s eyebrows go up. “Now, now,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s not at all the Barry Allen I’d been hearing so much about.”

“You mean Cisco? Because –”

“You know what I like about this part of the woods?” Len says musingly. “It’s dark, there’s a full moon out. Perfect haunting weather.”

“Haunting? What are you talking about?”

“Ghosts,” Len says.

“Ghosts,” Barry says skeptically. “You believe in ghosts?”

“Says the man who runs at Mach 3,” Len says.

“…point,” Barry concedes. “So, you mean, like possession and raising the dead and stuff?”

“No, not possession. That’s mediums; they’re weird. And raising the dead is necromancy, and I am not a necromancer.”

“Oo-kay,” Barry says. “Sure. No one was saying you were, Mr. super judgy about stuff that doesn’t exist. Besides, why are we even talking about ghosts, anyway?”

“It’s actually quite relevant to the situation, I think you’ll find.”

Barry arches his eyebrows scornfully, crossing his arms. “Right. How, exactly?”

“There’s a house in the suburbs,” Len says. “Very quiet, very nice, not far from where you live now. There was a ghost there. Lovely lady, thirty-something, very dead – one stab wound to the chest.”

Barry’s back stiffens. “So you figured out my name and can read the newspapers. Big whoop.”

“Your favorite book as a kid was the Runaway Dinosaur,” Len says. “You have no space to talk about who can and cannot read.”

“…how do you know that?”

“I told you, kid,” Len says. “Ghosts. Specifically, this one.”

He nods permission at Nora, who’s only been bouncing around waiting for her cue. She steps forward, solidifying.

Well, mostly solidifying; she’s not used to having mass. She’s still translucent and incorporeal. But she’s back on the visible spectrum.

“Mom?” Barry croaks.

“Oh, baby,” she says, holding out her arms to him. “My beautiful boy – look how you’ve grown! I’m so proud of you – so proud –”

“If this is some sort of trick –” Barry says, but his eyes are wide and glassy with tears.

“No trick, baby,” she says. “I’m sorry; I was the one who told Len it was you. I figured it out when you were fighting – I had to get him to stop shooting at you, and he wouldn’t listen if I didn’t tell him –”

“You…” Barry swallows. “You can’t be real. Some sort of holographic projection.”

“Len, could you go away for a minute?” Nora asks. “I want to talk to my son in private.”

Len sighs and walks over to a nearby tree. For good measure, he also closes his eyes, covers his ears, and starts loudly humming something. He’s pretty sure it’s “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This”, but he can’t help his sense of humor.

He starts in surprise when a hand falls on his shoulder, hand dropping automatically to his gun.

“Sorry!” Barry yelps.

Len turns to face him.

The kid’s been crying. He’s one of those unfairly attractive criers, who gets a bit of a red face and tear tracks down his cheeks and maybe a little bit of swelling in the eyes, nothing like the snot-nosed bawling that Lisa used to do when she was a kid. “Um,” he says. “Mom says you can help her – if I wanted to hug her?”

Len refrains from rolling his eyes and pushes the life into her until she shimmers almost solid.

Barry falls into her arms with a choked-off sob.

“Don’t mention this to anybody,” Len says grouchily. “Either of you!”

“Thank you,” Barry says, still clutching at his mother. “Thank you.”

“I told you he’s not so bad,” Nora says, her own face similarly wet.

“I’ll have you know I’m very bad,” Len says. “Liar, thief, murderer, supervillain – probably going to go steal something right after we finish this little chat –”

“I can’t let you keep stealing whatever you want, whenever you feel like it,” Barry objects, pulling away just enough to twist to look at Len without actually letting go of Nora. “That needs to end.”

“Uh, yes, you can let me do it,” Len says. “You just don’t want to.”

“Couldn’t you just stop?”

“No. I’m a supervillain now. I like what I do. The adrenaline, the thrill of the chase – same reason you keep running after guys like me. I love this game, and I’m very good at it.”

“Go play it somewhere else, then!” Barry exclaims.

“I take my ghosts with me when I do,” Len says. Barry’s arms curl tighter around his mother’s waist. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Besides, this city is my home. I ain’t leaving it because you’ve got moral qualms about my chosen profession.”

“Can’t we find a compromise or something?” Barry asks. “I can’t just let you be.”

“I’m not expecting you to,” Len says patiently. “I’m going to keep stealing, you’re going to keep trying to stop me, the best man wins. You make me up my game. I like being a supervillain, but to be a supervillain, you need a good superhero.” He grins. “Like I said. Adrenaline.”

Barry can’t help but smile back. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I guess I kind of see your point. But one thing – from here on out, no one else dies. If you’re as good as you say you are, you don’t have to kill anyone to get what you want.”

“That’s true,” Len says, and sighs. “Fine, agreed. I’ve mostly given up the killing anyhow, unless they’ve explicitly tried to kill me recently.”

“Really?”

“It just makes more ghosts,” Len says. “There’s been a disturbing increase in them lately.”

“…really?”

Len shrugs. It’s not really Barry’s problem. “So do we have a deal?”

“Yeah,” Barry says. “You don’t kill anyone, I fight you – why do we have to fight?”

“Fun.”

“…having a nemesis who doesn’t kill people would be kind of cool,” Barry concedes. "Not going to lie about that."

“I know, right?” Mick says, stepping out from the trees with a bit of a scowl. It took him a while to find them; Lisa must have insisted on cracking the armored car first. “Just like in the comics.”

“Yeah, just like – holy crap, I’m a living comic book.”

“Are you just realizing that?” Len asks. "Now?"

“It’s not the superhero stuff,” Barry says. “It’s more – I’ve been having this problem – there’s this girl, and I’ve been – wow. I’m an asshole.”

Len arches an eyebrow.

“I’ve maybe kinda been treating her like she’s my love interest instead of a person,” Barry says, wincing.

“Barry,” Nora says disapprovingly.

“I’ll be better now!”

“Good.”

“God, Mom,” he says, turning to pull her in close again. “I just – I’ve missed you so much. Mom. Oh, mom…”

“My beautiful boy,” she says, embracing him in return and kissing his cheek. “My beautiful, beautiful boy…”

Barry sniffs. “Can – will you let me see her again?” he asks Len.

“I was planning on sending her along with you as a good faith gesture on my part of the deal,” Len says dryly. “But if you’d prefer to settle for just a no-killing pact…”

“Wait, what? You are?”

Len shrugs. “She’s been moping a lot recently,” he says, understating the situation. She'd fallen into a depression about eight months into the coma and refused to leave his house for weeks and weeks. “I’ve given her enough juice that she should be able to stick around for a while, as long as she stays invisible – you’ll be able to hear her, talk to her, but seeing her…well, you can probably see her in mirrors and stuff. Ghosts can do that easier for some reason. But not all the time like now, or she'll run out.”

“That’s fine,” Barry says. He’s crying again, little sobs and heaving breaths as he tries to keep control. “That's totally fine. She can stay invisible. I don't mind. Thank you. I can’t even begin - I - just – thank you.”

“Just remember you owe me one,” Len says flippantly.

“I owe you a lot more than that,” Barry says, sounding entirely sincere.

Len hates sincerity. It makes him uncomfortable. He looks around. “Don’t suppose you can give me a ride back to the city?” he asks.

“Oh! Yeah. Sure. Uh, I can only take one of you at a time, though,” he says, glancing at Mick.

“S’fine,” Mick says tolerantly. “I’ll float along.”

“Float – wait, you’re a ghost, too?”

Mick smirks.

“But you’re so solid!”

“Lenny would’ve have trouble marrying me if I wasn’t,” Mick says.

Barry’s nodding, and then – “Wait. Before or after?”

Mick laughs.

[iceripperthethird]

I guess tag time?

Rules: Respond the 92 questions and tag 25 persons. I wasn’t actually tagged, but I’m pretending I was 

Last

1.Drink: Half Dr Pepper half Cherry Pepsi

2.Phone call: Pocket dial from an ex doesn’t count, so facetime with a long distance friend that kept getting disconnected

3.Text: “Because it’s stuck in my head, but that’s kinda my fault cuz I keep listening to the same song over and over and over and over and over again”

4.Song listened to: Three-Thirty by AJR

5.Time you cried: About three hours ago

Have you ever:

6. Dated someone twice: Hell naw. Don’t know think I’d ever take any of them back tbh

7. Been cheated on: Nope.

8. Kissed someone and regretted it: Um... no. Not that I can think of.

9. Lost someone special: Lots of times.... 

10. Been depressed: Yeah.... but I’m trying

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Nope. Just got spacey as fuck after a shot and half a cosmo and a screwdriver

List 3 fav. colors:

12. Purple

13. Blue

14. Idk, black I guess

In the last year have you:

15. made new friends: Probably

16. fallen in love: I’ve loved but I don’t think I’ve been In Love

17. laughed until you cried: Tons of times :D

18. found out someone was talking about you: Unfortunately

19. met someone who’s changed you: I don’t know...??

20. found out who your true friends are: Yep.

21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: Uhhh... *checks friends list* No.

22. how many Facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them except one, who happens to be a mutual

23. do you have any pets: Unfortunately, no :(

24. do you want to change your name: Nah

25. what did you do for your last birthday: Did a shot with the fam and went to the bar with my (then) boyfriend, then spent the night at his house afterword

26. what time did you wake up: 6:45am because fuck my life, that’s why

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Growing frustrated with the aforementioned long distance friend’s wifi because our facetime kept getting disconnected

28. name something you cannot wait for: I don’t know, something amazing, I guess...

29. when was the last time you saw your mother: We’re literally sitting in the same room right now? 

30. what is one thing you would change about your life: I wish I didn’t have to deal with depression and anxiety as much

31. what are you listening to right now: Sober Up by AJR (my favorite song right now)

32. have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Yep. My godmother’s ex husband’s uncle (or cousin or family friend or something) brings his poker chips and dice to family gatherings and everyone chips in a dollar and we play Left Right Center and whoever wins gets the money. It gets really intense sometimes, and there was one time we crowded 20 people around the dining room table. 

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: I don’t know... Kind of everything, really

34. Most visited website: Tumblr, youtube, and facebook

35. funniest memory: That one time @piper-rory and I got into shenanigans in English class. We got away with so much shit that we shouldn’t have, and to this day I have no idea how.

36. memory from school: “Big S-curve,” “THE BEAT OF THE MUSIC COMES FROM My LOINS,” and basically anything else that came from band class. Also “Slutty olive oil,” “clear as a diamond at Tiffany’s” and “Carbonated piss” from Environmental Science

37. memories you want to make: I want to go on Hobbit-style adventures and have fun and make friends and I want to go to Disney World and I want to go to the Indiana Dunes again and I want to go on a road trip 

38. natural hair color: Too light to be brown but too dark to be blonde, with too much red to actually decide one way or the other

39. long or short hair: Long, but not long enough. When it’s sopping wet and being pulled as straight as it can get, it’s down to the bottom of my rib cage, but I’m growing it out in hopes that I can get it down to my hips.

40. do you have a crush on someone: Ahhh... residual love from a fresh breakup, and beyond that... I mean, there’s a cute guy that I’m friends with, but at this exact moment, that’s it.

41. what do you like about yourself: I have good curves and awesome legs and sometimes I say stuff that makes sense 

42. piercings: Just my earlobes, but sometimes I like wearing ear cuffs 

43. blood type: Fuck if I know 

44. nickname: I don’t really have one, but my D&D character’s name is Mnemosyne (nim-AH-zen-ee) 

45. relationship status: Freshly single and more bothered by it that I like to admit.

46. zodiac sign: By the traditional star chart, Libra. Mathematically correct, Virgo. Chinese, rat. Native American, raven. 

47. pronouns: She/her. Cuz I’m boring.

48. favourite tv show: Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

49. tattoos: No, thank you.

50. left or right handed: Left

First:

51. Surgery: It’s not something I like to talk about, so if you want to know about it, feel free to send me an ask (but please not anon because, well... I’m still self conscious about it even though it was like... 10 or 11 years ago)

52. Piercing: As previously stated, just my earlobes.

53. Best Friend: Don’t really have one at the moment, but if I had to pick, I’d say either the D&D group or MiniMads

54. Sport: Marching band and show choir all throughout high school, track in 6th and 7th grade

55. Vacation: My grandparents owned a lake house in Michigan that we went to all the time when I was growing up

56. Pair of trainers: Black high top Converse, black low top knock off Converse, black slide on fuzzums, black knee high boots. Basically all of my shoes are fucking black.

57. Favourite snack: Ice cream.

58. Drink you hate: Mountain Dew is fucking disgusting

59. I’m about to: Probably go to bed tbh 

60. I’m listening to: Basically anything and everything you can find on this youtube channel here because I love this band to death they are my absolute favorite

61. Waiting for: I don’t know... something amazing, I guess. 

62. Wanting: A trip to Disney World

63. Get married: I don’t know, tbh.

64. Career: Something that won’t make me miserable.

Your type:

65. hugs or kisses: Cuddles and kisses both

66. lips or eyes: Eyes, but soft kissable lips are nice too

67. Shorter or Taller: Taller than me

68. Older or Younger: Either, as long as it’s a reasonable age difference either way

69. Romantic or Spontaneous: Spontaneous romantic.

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: As long as they’re able to give good hugs, I don’t think I really care

71. Sensitive or Loud: Sensitive and able to communicate

72. Hook-up or relationship: Hookups are fun until you get attached, but relationships are stressful when you’re not good at them. So... relationship

73. Trouble maker or hesitant: Hesitant at first but as soon as you cross me, I can and will make your life hell.

Have you ever:

74. Kissed a Stranger: No. And I don’t plan to.

75. Drank hard liquor: All I had on my 21st birthday was vodka. 

76. Lost glasses/contacts:  No???? That shit’s expensive, why the fuck wouldn’t I keep track of it????

77. Turned someone down: Yes. Quite a few times.

78. Had sex on first date: HELL NO

79. Broken someone’s heart: Yeah, but they broke mine first, so they had it coming.

80. Had your heart broken: Several times.

81. Been arrested: No. I might be reckless, but I’m not that crazy. 

82. Cried when someone died: Everyone does???

83. Fallen for a friend: Yeah.... and then he switched schools and told me it wouldn’t work between us and dated one of my best friends who went to the same school as me and then when they broke up he ended up with another girl that I haven’t met in person but we’re mutuals and I think they’re still together but either way I don’t really care because I just want him to be happy.

Do you believe in:

84. Yourself: Most days, yeah

85. Miracles: I haven’t really thought about it, but my chronically single long distance friend managed to get laid, so I guess that counts as a miracle?

86. Love at first sight: No. It is statistically improbable.

87. Santa Claus: Yeah, it’s a town in Indiana. All joking aside though, I believe Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas. It’s the holiday cheer and spreading joy and the little adrenaline rush of giving presents. It’s the sparkle of Christmas lights reflecting off tinsel and it’s trees in the front window. Santa Claus isn’t a person, but everyone has a bit of Santa Claus in them

88. Kiss on first date: My (now ex) boyfriend and I made out for 4 and a half ours after our first date. 

89. Angels: Yeah, but they’re really complicated

90. Current best friends name: @doctordetectivewinchester @vengeance-is-sworn @a-girl-in-a-place and MiniMads

91. eye color: Green

92. fav movie: Wonder Woman, Howl’s Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky, basically anything Studio Ghibli, and anything Disney.

I hereby tag everyone who’s already been tagged in this post, as well as @vampireapologist cuz all I know about her is that she’s eaten poison ivy and somehow lived to tell the tale. And you know, anyone else who’s actually read this far. 

[aion-rsa]

Deep Purple’s Roger Glover Gets to the Bottom of the Band’s Dynamics

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Deep Purple’s 21st studio album Whoosh! comes with dire warnings and dry wit, all propelled by one of the tightest still-working bands playing today. The record was produced by the legendary Bob Ezrin, who helped Pink Floyd build The Wall, taught Tim Curry to Read My Lips, and brought suspense to the Alice Cooper discography. For their third collaboration, Ezrin invited Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Steve Morse, and Don Airey back to Nashville, where Deep Purple recorded 2013’s Now What?! and 2017’s inFinite.

The first single off the album, “Nothing At All,” is a cautionary observance on what people have done to the planet we’re renting short-term. The second single, “Man Alive,” casts a worried glimpse into the future. The single “Throw My Bones” takes on time and space. The music videos for each of the songs feature a Spaceman sitting in for the band. 

Whoosh! is a timeless timepiece. It doesn’t carry the quantized perfection of 2020 music. The songs are as long as they need to be, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band gives in to what their late, great keyboardist Jon Lord called Deep Purple’s “musical restlessness.”

It’s been 48 years since “Smoke on the Water” was recorded by the Mark II, classic lineup of Ritchie Blackmore, Gillan, Lord, Glover, and Ian Paice. And the current Mark VIII lineup is still pushing musical boundaries.

Deep Purple has its roots as a session band put together by Chris Curtis, the ex-drummer of the British rock and roll band The Searchers. The ensemble found their own sound in March 1968 under the name Roundabout before vocalist Rod Evans, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice named themselves after a grandmother’s favorite classic ballad. Gillan and Glover were pulled in from the band Episode Six to handle vocals and bass for the band’s four-year commercial and radio peak. The new lineup premiered with the 1970 studio album Concerto for Group, which was recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. They turned up the volume and merged prog with a soulful hard rock for the albums Deep Purple in Rock and Fireball and hit their stride.

Deep Purple’s plans to record the follow-up to Fireball at the Casino in Montreux, Switzerland got doused when the venue burned down during a Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention show. Glover came up with the phrase “Smoke on the Water,” and the song entered the iconography of rock music.  It appeared on their Machine Head album. Who Do We Think We Are, which included the hit single “Woman from Tokyo,” ended the lineup’s tenure with the departure of Gillan and Glover. But they did put out the live album Made in Japan. The classic lineup reunited in 1984 for Perfect Strangers and 1987’s The House of Blue Light, but the band once again changed players.

Blackmore left Deep Purple after the 1974 album Stormbringer. He formed Rainbow with vocalist Ronnie James Dio and ultimately pulled in Glover on bass. Deep Purple pulled James Gang guitarist Tommy Bolin, who died of an overdose in 1976. Rainbow’s Joe Lynn Turner sang on Deep Purple’s Slaves and Masters album from 1990. Gillan rejoined for the album The Battle Rages On…, which saw the end of Blackmore’s tenure. He was first replaced by Joe Satriani, and ultimately by Kansas’ Steve Morse in 1994, who has been squeezing guitar strings through his fingers ever since. Don Airey has been on keyboards since 2002. Lord passed away on July 16, 2012.

Roger Glover is a veteran of Rainbow, Whitesnake, and his own solo works, like the concept album and live rock opera The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast. He is the underrated producer of artists like Judas Priest, Nazareth, Status Quo, Rory Gallagher, and David Coverdale. Humor infuses much of what he does and his comic timing in conversation is as spot-on as his rhythmic sensibilities. Glover spoke with Den of Geek about the many shades of Deep Purple.

On the song “What the What,” Ian sings you’re “celebrating the fact that you’re still alive.” Was that the vibe of the band when you got together for this album?

Well, in a way. When we arrived in Nashville to start working on the record, we had a sort of rehearsal studio there and Bob Ezrin came to see us. It was a Saturday, and he said, “Welcome to Nashville, great to be back, I’d like to invite you all for dinner on Monday night.”

“What’s this for?” we said.

He said, “Well, just to celebrate the fact that we’re together again, and we’re still alive.”

And I said, “Well you better make it Sunday then.”

​But I suppose in a way there’s an element of time in the album because it’s 50 years it’s been going. And who knows how long it will go on? So time is definitely an element in the album, and always has been in most albums, actually.

Usually artists go to Nashville to make use of the steady musicians there. What is it about the place that makes it such a pleasant recording experience?

It was unusual for us. We’ve had a history of making records in basements and hotels. It was great to be in a really proper studio, and Nashville is one of the few places where there are loads of studios. Nearly every other house is a private studio, and music just is in the air.

​It’s not just country music. It’s all kinds of music. And there’s something about it that’s very natural to music. We had such a good time there. It was a great album to make. Bob Ezrin, we got used to working with him very quickly. I think we finally found a place that we felt comfortable in, and that’s why we’ve done three albums there now.

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Deep Purple sounding like they enjoy old-time rock and roll so much, as on Don Airey’s piano solo on “What the What?” Which is more fun in the moment, performing intricate arrangements or letting loose and jamming?

All our songs come from jamming. We don’t actually write songs, they just evolve as we play. The first writing session is usually a lot of fun. We just explore different rhythms and riffs and whatever, and then take a break to listen to them, and figure out which ones we really want to work on, and that’s the second writing session. And then we go to the studio and record them, but at this point, we rarely have finished vocals or lyrics.

​It’s usually when the album has been all recorded instrumentally that Ian Gillan and I go off on our own somewhere for a couple of weeks and we write the words. Sometimes he writes on his own, sometimes I write my own. Sometimes we write together. And that’s how it comes out.

​We’ve always done it that way. It’s a strange way to write songs, I know. Most people write the songs before they go in the studio, we write them after we’ve been in the studio. But it was like that in ’69 when I joined the band. It’s been the same ever since.

I was going to ask how the songs were presented. Do you make demos occasionally?

No. You don’t go to a Purple session with anything like that, anything like a finished song. You go with an idea, and we all work on it together. It’s got to be a collective, that’s the point of the band, it’s a collective. So, one person couldn’t write a Deep Purple song. It takes five of us.

But do you ever call one of the Ian’s in the middle of the night with melodies you can’t get out of your head?

Oh sure. Absolutely, yeah. Especially when you’re working on a song, you play the same thing a 100 times maybe, while everyone gets it right. And that’s hard to get out of your head sometimes, which is a good sign.

How much of the record was actually recorded live?

Apart from the vocals, most of it. We recorded it all at the same time, in the same room. That’s what a band should do. We’ve tried that layering business, but there’s no soul in the music then. The subtleties of what you play when you’re actually live with others, it’s different to what you do on your own. And I guess that’s the magic. I guess we’re old fashioned, but we’re very proud of it.

Steve Morse has been in the band longer than Ritchie Blackmore at this point.

Who’s measuring?

Does that make for a more democratic Deep Purple?

Yes, it does honestly. Deep Purple’s always been democratic. It was right from when I first joined the band, we decided that whoever writes any particular idea, we all share, because we all contribute. The way we play is almost as much a part of the writing process as what the riff or the lyrics are. So, we all shared everything.​ It didn’t last that way. When I left the band, and Gillan left the band, it changed. It changed up until when Steve Morse joined. When Steve Morse joined, we said, “Right, let’s share everything.” It takes away stress, it takes away ego, it takes away jealousy, it takes away bad vibes. And I think we all share and we all write for it. We all work our bits. So, that’s the way we do it, and it is a democratic band.

Are you always lyrically on the same page? There’s a lot of subtle social and political commentary. Does the band have to have a unified front?

No, we don’t know what that means. We’re just rudely ourselves. It’s our own instincts, it’s up to us. I suppose as you get older later in life, your lyrics get more profound. But there’s always been a wit, a degree of humor in lyrics. We don’t take it too seriously. But writing songs about cars and girls, which we did in our 20s, seems slightly inappropriate now. In our 70s, we’re taking what’s going on around us. Songs come from life.

In the song “Man Alive,” there’s a line, “The earth was cleansed after the most intelligent became extinct.” Does Purple think it’s time for a planetary reset?

We wrote that last year. The album was recorded last summer. But, you asked about time, I guess there’s a time. And what is time? It depends on how you look at it. To a small insect, they live only a day or two. That’s their life. Our life, in the cosmic terms, it’s here and gone. It’s hard to take in the fact that we’ve been a band for 50 years, and it seems to have gone so quickly in many ways, hence the name of the album.

The planet will last a lot longer than human people will, and there’s a possibility of course, that we’ll become extinct. And lo and behold, here we are in a situation where that is much more of a real possibility than it was last summer. So, that’s maybe a little prescient. A little forward-thinking, but we didn’t know it at the time. It’s only that it’s becoming apparent. We live in very dangerous times.

Deep Purple is famously part of the unholy trinity, along with Sabbath and Zeppelin. But, how evil have you ever really gotten?

I’ve never been asked that question before. Evil is a very strong word, anyway. What do you mean by evil, though?

Well, have you ever tried medieval alchemy or sonic magical workings?

Richie was into séances at the beginning of the band, but that’s about it. We were a band of musicians. We weren’t a band of idiots. Everyone liked to go exploring unknown worlds and smashing hotel rooms up and going crazy. But, I think we were a pretty sane band. Not like, say, Zeppelin. Man, Zeppelin was a pretty sane band apart from Bonzo. And there’s always old Keith Moon, but what is it about drummers? I don’t know.

Is Ian Paice like that?

No, not at all.

Is the most evil thing you’ve actually done producing Barbi Benton?

I wouldn’t say that was evil. You know, as a producer in a studio, it doesn’t really matter what kind of artist you’re producing, it’s the same problem. And that problem is to create an atmosphere in the studio where an artist is comfortable and can perform to their best. That’s the only prime for a producer and how he does it.​Of course, different producers have different means, but that’s the main objective. And Barbi Benton was just something that came along and I was not doing anything else. Why not? Everything’s a challenge. Day by day, you never know what’s going to happen.

How did you get the gig? Did Hugh Hefner tempt you with an unholy threesome?

No, no. There was some connection with my manager at the time, Bruce Payne. I think we did a little tour with them with Cozy Powell. They had a bit of fun driving her and her people around in Scandinavia. I was just asked.

I was listening to Elements, your 1978 album, and it is prog as fuck. Do you write anything out in notation?

I used to know music when I was a kid. I was in choirs and I could read music, but that kind of faded when rock and roll came because it didn’t seem to matter to me. With Elements, partly you work with musicians that offer their own particular talents. And I know with a lot of the tunes on that, I just played a synthesizer line for a tune. And I then gave it to an arranger, who’d then make it into an orchestral piece.

​I’m not that kind of musician, that I can just write bunches of stuff. Don Airey is that kind of musician and John Lord is that kind of musician. But I’m not a keyboard player. I’m a simple bass player. It’s difficult to convey your message across with a bass. If you’ve got other instruments involved, you’ve got to be able to either let them go their own way, which is also a very admirable thing to do, because people bring their own talents to something.

The advance press on the album said Whoosh! was putting the Deep back in Purple. That could be the bass. On what occasions do you lead from the bottom?

I read once that the best leaders are the ones that lead without those being led knowing anything about it. And I suppose I believe that in many ways. It’s not a question of telling people what to do, it’s making them think they thought of it in the first place. And that’s how you get your way, if you like.

​But, with Purple, it’s not like that. We all help each other out. We all respect each other. And usually the first thing you play instinctively, and no one has a problem with it. Occasionally, you’ll change it, if someone says, “Why don’t you play this instead of that?” And how you learn that way, it’s not a challenge, it’s a positive help.

I know that Deep Purple are friends as well as musicians. Did the band mock Ian Gillan when he tried to make Andrew Lloyd Webber cool?

No, not at all.  We’re all individuals. We’re in a band, but we’re all individuals, like most bands. But maybe us more than others. It was a great opportunity for Ian, we didn’t mind that at all. It was great. I did Butterfly Ball. Mind you, I wasn’t in the band then, I’d left the band. But still, it gives you an idea that we all have other avenues that we can explore.

There are classic titles and classic titles. “Deep Purple,” “Stardust,” “Twist and Shout,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Stairway to Heaven.” Very few songs reach the level of iconography as “Smoke on the Water,” and you came up with the phrase. How does it feel to be in the upper echelon of the upper echelon?

About four, five years ago, we did the Montreux Jazz Festival. We’ve played there quite a few times, but this particular time they had some fighter planes flying over the lake, laying smoke on top of Lake Geneva. And I was on the balcony of the hotel looking at this spectacle and it all came from those four words.

​And it feels unreal to me. I don’t feel connected to it. I know how it happened, but somehow it’s taken on a complete life of its own, that’s nothing to do with me. And seeing these jets flying over Lake Geneva laying smoke on it, it was staggering. How do I take that in? It’s very difficult to take that in. I can see it’s happening, but how do I feel about it? I feel humbled. Humbled by other people going about their business and doing things based on four little words.

Because of “Smoke on the Water,” we know Deep Purple is acquainted with Frank Zappa. Does the band have an equivalent to Zeppelin’s mud shark story?

No, in a word. There are a few mischievous moments of course between us, little tricks and stuff, but nothing on that level, no. We weren’t really a band that was so outrageous. We had some practical jokes, of course. Richie would be this sort of person. I remember working, we were doing the first Rainbow album, we were doing it in a castle in France, an 11th-century castle. And there were haunting stories, of course.

​I remember going to the bedroom one night and the light didn’t work. Just a silly thing, but I knew where whatever was, so I started walking. I then realized that he’d put a suitcase down on the floor, so I went tumbling in the dark. And I knew it was him, no one else would do that. Those sort of stories went on all the time. You have to read my book to hear the rest.

We played a gig in South Korea, in Seoul, an open air festival. And it was the last gig of quite a long tour. And the rain came, the weather turned really bad. And when we arrived at the gig, the crowd was soaking wet. There was a roof over the stage which didn’t mean anything because the rain was coming in at such a low angle it was almost horizontal.

​I suppose any other band would say, “Right, we can’t do this.” But we did it. I remember John at the organ, the rain was hitting the organ on the top of the Hammond and coming back into his face, he couldn’t see. And every time Ian Paice hit a drum, it was like Blue Man Group, a fountain came up from it.

​It was ridiculous to actually do a gig in those circumstances, but we didn’t want to stay another two or three days until the rain finished and we could do it again. So, we persevered through it. And we went back four or five months later as heroes because we’d done that. We actually played through a tempest.

What does Bob Ezrin bring into the studio?

When you’re in a band, it’s very difficult to know who you are. I mean you, yeah, you can read the papers, and you can listen to your records, but when you’re in it itself, it’s very difficult to see yourself from the outside. I’ve tried producing this band, and believe me, it’s difficult. Bob Ezrin’s got an overview that we trust. He’s a legendary producer for a good reason. He’s good at what he does.

​He has a lot of energy, ideas, dynamism. And he moves things along. He’s encouraged us to work quickly, so that we capture freshness and spontaneity. Things happen when you’re all playing together that you couldn’t have when you’re playing to a bare drum track, or a click track even, or whatever.

​And I think he brought out us as better song writers. You don’t want to become a parody of your past, you always have to move along, and do new things. When he came to see us in Toronto, before Now What?!, he said, “Stretch out a bit. Stretch out.” ​And we didn’t really know what that meant, but they were two great words. And he encouraged us to explore somewhere to go. I couldn’t have imagined in 1970 writing some of the stuff that’s on Whoosh! The minute you don’t grow and change, you die. So, we’re always exploring ourselves and finding new ways to say the same things.

Ezrin is credited with playing keyboards. When you’re producing a band like Judas Priest, are you tempted to plug in?

I’ve done a lot of tambourine, shaker, percussion, bits and pieces. I’ve done a bit of synthesizer work on a few albums. Most of the albums I’ve produced, first of all, were in the ’70s. Since the ’80s, I was in Rainbow, then back in Purple, and I don’t have that time. And so synthesizers were very new. I bought an ARP-2600 and I was playing with that when I was doing Elements.

​But I’m not a keyboard player. It’s just one way to express and write tunes. Where does creativity come from? People say, “How do you write songs?” I haven’t got a clue. Some songs just appear, just as if they were always in existence, and I just stumbled on them. ​If you’re struggling with a song, it’s best probably to leave it alone, because the best songs always come when you’re not looking. “Hang Me Out to Dry” was written when we were totally drunk, so who knows?

Do you think the recording technology has changed metal as much as it has other genres?

Technology changes everything because technology is basically a list of new toys, and people are always looking for new toys. The electric guitar was a new toy once, as were keyboards, as were pianos. Everything was a new toy once, cutting edge, and they change everything.

​When digital music came along, and drum machines, and synthesizers, and sampling. Yes, it changed everything, but it wasn’t for us. We don’t get swayed by that. I listen to it and I go, “It’s either good or bad.” It either moves you or it doesn’t. But that’s not what we do, we play our instruments. And I suppose in the initial impact of that, I thought, “What’s a drum machine? Where’s the fun in that? You just press a button and it’s perfect.”

​But of course, it did change everything, because people have now got accustomed to hearing music that’s absolutely rhythmically correct. You listen to old rock and roll, and it’s got feel, and movement, and groove. And if there’s a drum fill, the whole band is there with him. You can’t do that if you’re working to a click.

​I know you started as a guitarist. Why did you move to the bass?

Out of necessity. A year or two above us, there was another band, and I was so impressed with them I said, “We’ve got to get a band together.” There were three guitarists, one had an electric guitar, a real electric guitar, so naturally, he became the lead guitarist. And the other one could play power chords, and he knew lots of chords. ​I knew maybe five or six chords, and that’s about it. So I said, “Well, I can’t compete with the guy playing chords, I’ll play bass then.” So, I took the two top strings off my Spanish with a pickup on it, and I played bass on the four bottom strings. It was a while before I got a real bass guitar. And when I got a real bass guitar, I loved it. It felt very natural to me, so why change?

Who were you listening to when you were developing your bass style that drew you into the possibilities of what the bass could do?

Oh, boy. Well, Duane Eddy’s “Peter Gunn.” I first heard that on a jukebox in a fairground somewhere when I was 11. And that twangy, ding, ding, ding came in. And, “Oh, this is interesting,” and then suddenly the bass came in. It was a jukebox, so the bass end was really amplified, and the power of it was awesome. And I just copied. We were in a band, we copied whatever was coming from America.

I think when I first heard Paul McCartney, that blew me sideways. I think he’s very, very underrated as a bass player. He’s a great songwriter and an enormous talent. People think of his image, rather than what he does. I’m a huge fan, and listening to the way he played bass was mind-blowing to me.

​And yes, there are other players. You’ve got Jack Bruce and various people. I listen to bass players from a different point of view if they’re good. Victor Wooten, for example, I listen to him and I’m just staggered. And Jaco Pastorius, they’re just wonderful, wonderful bass players.

​With COVID-19, what is the status of the Wish Tour?

Well, it’s nonexistent, except it’s been moved to next summer. A lot of the same gigs have been moved over, but there’s obviously no guarantee of that. So, it’s a pretty dismal outlook at the moment. It feels like we’re practicing till retirement. But I don’t want this to end like this. I don’t want us to end, actually. I certainly don’t want us to have one big closing gig and make a hoopla about it. I just want to keep working until we don’t anymore. That’s it.

The Whoosh! album, how does it stand in the full spectrum of Deep Purple?

I’m not sure that’s for me to say, really. We just supply the music, other people put their meanings and their status to it. Ask me again in five years and I’ll be able to tell you more. Of course, it’s the 21st album. If I go back through those albums, I think some are better than others. The key ones that stand out, maybe for me, are Deep Purple In Rock, Perfect Strangers, and Perpendicular, because all those were the start of another era.

Deep Purple released Whoosh! on August 7.

The post Deep Purple’s Roger Glover Gets to the Bottom of the Band’s Dynamics appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Tiger Woods returns: Why a little hope isn’t a terrible thing

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Tiger Woods is back, yet again, teeing it up this week at his private tiny-field tournament in the Bahamas after a fourth back surgery and a stint in rehab. And yet again, we’ve got to decide whether we should be excited, or cynical, or indifferent. We’ve seen this so many times before, Woods returning from injury or layoff, talking big about his prospects and expectations only to pinwheel straight into the turf after a few disappointing rounds. What makes this latest hype-filled return any different?

For starters, Woods himself is tempering expectations. During most of his comebacks, Woods seemed to think his talent would return to him in full bloom, like Thor holding up his hand and waiting for his hammer to leap back into his grasp. It’s rarely worked that way; while Woods has had some success in the post-Thanksgiving hydrant years, even returning to No. 1 in the world in 2013, his returns follow a familiar pattern: hype, expectation, disappointment.

We got the hype out of the way early this time around in the wake of Woods’ Thanksgiving-week round with President Trump and current World No. 1 Dustin Johnson. The foursome’s fourth, Brad Faxon, fawned over Woods’ play, even suggesting that Woods somehow outdistanced the monumental drives of DJ. That’s got to be overexaggeration — either that or DJ was swinging the wrong end of the club — but given Woods’ mythical status in the world of golf, people swallowed it without question. And thus the hype hit lightspeed right out of the gate.

At a pre-tournament press conference in the Bahamas, Woods also expressed something we didn’t often see during his years of crush-everything-around-me: humility and gratitude. “I’ve come out the other side and I feel fantastic,” he said. “A lot of friends have helped me. I didn’t realize how bad my back was. Now that I’m feeling the way I’m feeling, it’s just hard to imagine that I was living the way I was living with my foot not working, my leg not working, and then the hours of not being able to sleep because of the pain.”

That’s the key to this comeback, right there: the lack of pain. Woods doesn’t need to win for this weekend to be a success. He doesn’t need to finish in the top 10 of this 18-man tournament. Hell, he can finish dead last and still leap 250 spots in the World Golf Rankings. That’s because all he needs to do is finish. That ought to be his goal for this weekend: four days, 72 holes. A couple rounds in the 60s, a couple in the 70s. Get in, get out, walk away from the course without limping. The bar is so low it’s a paint stripe on the ground.

“I hate to be so mundane on this one,” he said, “but, honestly, I’m just looking forward to getting through these four rounds and having an understanding, a better understanding of what I’m at.”

Tiger Woods is returning. (AP)

Beyond that? Well, that’s where it’ll get interesting. Because this isn’t Tiger’s world anymore, and it hasn’t been for many years. Woods is now classic rock, a relic of a bygone era; he won his first major just months before Michael Jordan won his fifth of six rings. In an era of Snapchatted golf-bro spring breaks, Woods’ attempts at social media relevance — Mack Daddy Santa, look-at-my-lobster — are as endearingly awkward as a minivan dad singing along to Migos in the carpool line.

But Woods isn’t looking to appeal to the millennials, just like he’s not hoping to pile up FedEx points. With all due respect to the Interchangeable Midwest Insurance Company Classic, the compelling story around Woods isn’t whether he’ll one day win some routine October shootaround. No, we’re tuning in to see how he’s going to do in majors, to see if he’ll be able to stalk Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler on a Sunday afternoon, throwing a scare into them the way he did the two generations before them.

There’s precedent here, of course. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters at age 46, four years older than Woods will be should he tee off at Augusta next April. More recently, Tom Watson nearly won the Open Championship in 2009 at age 59. And just last year, Phil Mickelson, then 46, came within a gimme putt of both winning the Open Championship and setting a record for lowest round in a major. (He missed both, and don’t think Woods wouldn’t love to trump Phil one more time by snaring those honors.)

But can Woods still even participate in those majors, a decade past his last victory? Short answer: yes. If there’s one thing golf reveres more than its rules, it’s history. Golf always leaves room for the legends, and Woods still belongs at the very top of that category. Here’s where his former greatness helps Woods immensely. The Masters and the PGA Championship will have a tee time available for Woods for the rest of his life, and the Open Championship will permit Woods to play until at least 2035, when he’ll be 60.

The U.S. Open gets a little bit trickier, but realistically, not much. Woods’ 10-year exemption to play the U.S. Open runs out after the 2018 season. In theory, that means Woods would need to qualify to play in 2019 and beyond. But you won’t see Woods scrambling around a Memphis fairway on a random June afternoon; the USGA will surely offer Woods special exemptions as long as he wants them. As ESPN’s Bob Harig noted, the USGA gave those exemptions to Nicklaus eight times and Arnold Palmer six, and Woods has earned similar status.

Outside of the majors, Woods won’t have to worry about tournament entry. If nothing else, he can use the PGA Tour’s lifetime exemption to get into virtually any event he wishes; the lifetime exemption kicks in after a player has won 20 tournaments on Tour, and Woods did that back in 2000 at age 27. The only wrinkle comes in the World Golf Championships, which only extend invitations to players in the top 50 (top 64, in the case of match play) and don’t offer special or sponsor exemptions. It’ll take quite awhile for Woods to amass enough quality tournament finishes to get eligible for those, should he desire.

But beyond the majors, Woods still has another goal: to kick the ass of yet another generation.

Inspired by Woods, the current generation of golfers divided up TW’s quiver of arrows, each claiming one element. Rory McIlroy has Woods’ competitive fire. Jordan Spieth has Woods’ mountain-in-a-hurricane calm under pressure. Dustin Johnson has Woods’ otherworldly skill set. None of them has the total package, and Woods would like nothing more than to remind them of that.

“In an ideal world, I would like to have them feel what some of my past guys had to go against all those years,” Woods said this week. “I’d like to have them feel that same play.”

After spending most of his career isolated, viewing everyone else holding a club as an enemy to be conquered, Woods has transitioned into a Jedi master role, vice-captaining the most recent Ryder and Presidents Cup teams. He reportedly obsessed over the Ryder Cup lineups so often and in such depth that captain Davis Love III kicked Tiger’s calls to voicemail rather than getting stuck on the phone for an hour.

Sure, Woods played the dutiful mentor, there to help give Team USA that extra dose of confidence. But if you think Woods wasn’t sizing up each and every member of the world top 10, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, observing what kinds of pressures affected them, and storing that data for future use … well, you haven’t been paying attention to how Tiger Woods does business on the golf course.

Imagine that: Spieth, JT, Rory, and DJ rounding the turn on Sunday at Augusta with Woods in pursuit. Or — long as we’re writing golf fanfic — in the lead. It might happen, and it might not. But for the first time in years, we can believe that it could — and that’s what’s going to make these next few days so fascinating. ____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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