#for the famous-ness(?) or that they’re both rich families

[veronadragon]

tycutio this tycutio that, what about tybalt x tank or tybalt x puck? tybalt x ripp even

[mst3kproject]

The Astral Factor

This movie has a great deal to offer the MSTie. It was written by Arthur C. Pierce, who did the same job on The Human Duplicators, and it can boast the presences of Leslie Parrish of The Giant Spider Invasion, Frank Ashmore of Parts: the Clonus Horror, and Rayford Barnes from Mitchell.  The premise is ludicrous but presented with a perfectly straight face, and the whole thing just oozes 70’s-ness.

Roger Sands is a man of many talents, the most important of which for our purposes is his ability to become invisible in a shower of disco sparkles.  This allows him to escape from prison, argue with his mother’s ghost (who apparently throws bangin’ parties in the afterlife) and go on a killing spree. The cops know who they’re hunting because he’s left fingerprints all over the place, but they have no idea how he’s moving around unseen.  Fortunately, the prison psychologist knows some psychics who might be able to help them out… but will they be in time to save the various celebrities Sands is stalking, women who remind him of his own neglectful mother?

The main impression one gets from The Astral Factor is that it’s a parade of clichés.  The first victim is killed in a bubble bath.  Chuck the detective gets dragged out of bed to come investigate the case, which makes his girlfriend pout because she was hoping for sex. The killer is obsessed with his mother. Dogs and birds can sense Sands’ presence when he’s invisible.  Chuck’s girlfriend is a terrible cook.  That sort of thing.  None of this needs to kill a movie, of course… clichés become clichés because they work.

Much worse for the movie is that it isn’t very interested in its characters.  Sands’ backstory is that his mother was a movie star who thought it would ruin her career if it came out that she’d been briefly married and pregnant at the age of seventeen.  She therefore distanced herself from him, leaving him feeling unwanted and invisible (insert giant blinking neon sign that says METAPHOR) until he finally got fed up and strangled her.  This isn’t a bad setup for a movie’s serial killer, but the narrative doesn’t do much with it.  Sands has a list of women he wants to murder, but we never find out what makes them good potential victims beyond simply being famous blondes.  Surely there should be some moment of recognition, some sin they’ve each committed against their own families, but apparently ‘famous and blonde’ should be enough.

Opposed to Sands is, of course, Chuck the detective. He comes across as kind of a jerk but he does seem to love his empty-headed girlfriend Candy.  I think his arc is meant to be that he starts off skeptical of the paranormal but is eventually forced to believe, but this is pretty badly mishandled – when the prison psychiatrist talks about Sands’ interest in psychic phenomena, Chuck seems bored rather than disbelieving, and when a man demonstrates telekinesis in front of him, he accepts it but looks entirely unimpressed.  He never seems to be really affected by the phenomena he encounters.  Instead of a man whose worldview is shaken to the core, Chuck appears to be merely annoyed that this is yet another thing he has to deal with.

The other possible arc Chuck has is that Candy suggests he get a job with ‘normal hours’ so that she no longer has to make coffee for his co-workers when they come to tell him about a murder in the middle of the night.  He says he’ll think about it, but there’s no follow-up.

Finally, there’s Christine, the potential victim that we’re supposed to get attached to and worry about.  She’s a spoiled trophy wife who hangs around in her mansion drinking while her husband, who lost all interest in her once she turned thirty, is out of town.  The problem with her is that she doesn’t have much by way of a personality. In one scene she’s grateful for the cops protecting her, in the next she’s telling them to piss off and let her go shopping in peace, and then suddenly she’s sobbing in her room.  Are these supposed to be mood swings?  It feels more like neither the writers nor the actress cared enough to figure out who she is.

I guess that brings us to the movie’s misogyny, which is as rich and gooey as the inside of a lava cake but does not taste like chocolate.  First of all, Sands’ problems are said to be his mother’s fault – she abandoned him, leaving him no choice but to murder women who remind him of her!  The prison psychologist specifically absolves Sands of responsibility for his own crimes.  He cannot be reformed, he cannot be helped, he must be locked up because his mother’s selfishness (more interested in her own career than in raising her son) destroyed his mind.  Never mind that there are people with neglectful or even abusive parents who don’t grow up to be serial killers.

The women Sands kills are celebrities – models, dancers, actresses, socialites – because they remind him of his fame-obsessed mother.  But as I previously mentioned, they’re not really all that like her.  We don’t see any signs of any of them having families they neglect.  The only one who even seems to have a husband is Christine and it’s him who neglects her.  Perhaps the point is supposed to be that Sands has misjudged them, but we don’t see any signs of them being better than his mother in this respect, either.  Most of them seem to have avoided children in order to focus on their careers.  Perhaps in the mind of a male writer in the 70’s, this is itself a sin.

Certainly the movie is not interested in these women as characters.  I’ve already discussed Christine, but there are others.  The first one comes home, takes a bath, and dies.  The second one is working on a painting when her dog runs off – she chases it, and she and the dog both die.  The third is the dancer at her rehearsal.  She has the creeps for no reason, does her rehearsal, and dies. The emphasis is always on their bodies: they’re sexy, then they’re dead.  The sequence with the dancer is particularly weird, with her male partner representing the devil dressed in some kind of bondage getup.

The most frustrating thing about The Astral Factor, though, is that it really doesn’t know what to do with its premise.  It keeps bringing up interesting ideas about what a psychic murderer might be able to do, and then just drops them.

The opening scene, in which Sands escapes from jail after telekinetically beating up his cellmate with furniture, seems to promise us a much more exciting movie than we get.  After escaping, Sands visits the cemetery and his heart-to-heart with ghost mom is interrupted by a security guard. Sands uses his powers to push the guy into an open grave and bury him alive!  I wanted to see more of this kind of thing, but after that Sands seems to forget he can do anything besides the ‘becoming invisible’ thing.  Later victims are either beaten or strangled, as if they were killed by some loser who doesn’t have any psychic powers.  Perhaps he has to strangle the women because that’s how he killed his mother, but he does the same thing to bodyguards and boyfriends when we know he has more creative means at his disposal.

The rest of the movie is also at odds with the title, which suggested this would be a movie in which Sands sits in jail the whole time, astral-projecting himself into his victims’ homes to strangle them. This idea is discussed, but it is in no way what happens so I’m not sure why they brought it up.  There are a couple of reasonably effective scenes, as when it’s implied that Sands is invisible inside his first victim’s apartment but we can’t be absolutely sure until he starts interacting with objects.  The bit where the dancer is strangled onstage and people don’t intervene because they think it’s part of the show… that’s another cliché but it works all right.

The Astral Factor also has no interest in how psychic powers work.  They’re shown to require great concentration for the guy demonstrating them at the institute, but Sands seems to throw things around effortlessly.  Why is that?  Where did he get these powers?  Just by reading about them?  Can anybody learn to do this or just certain people?  If the latter, what makes Sands special?

In trying to catch his invisible killer, Chuck shows very little creativity.  I can think of a bunch of ways to try to thwart an invisible man.  What about filling a room with mist or smoke?  What about scattering flour on the floor to show his footprints? What about physical tripwires? None of these are ever suggested. Nor does anybody ever come up with the idea of fighting back psychically.  If anybody can learn these powers, that could have been a cool thing for Chuck to have to do – not only come to terms with the fact that this exists, but having to figure out how to do it himself!  Or if only special people can do it, why not hire one of those psychics the scientists were working with?  If a parrot knows there’s an invisible man there, surely another psychic could figure it out!

The way they do eventually catch Sands is by having Christine speak to him as if she is his mother, which prompts him to reply, and the sound of his voice tells the cops where to aim their guns.  This works, but it’s not nearly as interesting as some of the other possibilities and does not reveal anything new about Sands himself.

Watching people get ‘strangled’ by something invisible is always fun, and The Astral Factor has a couple of really funny special effects (I especially like the cellmate pretending to be in a fight with his mattress), but mostly the movie is a disappointment.  It had potential to be way scarier and way more fun if it were willing to explore its premise a little more deeply, but all it really wants to show us is blonde women getting killed.

[luvreyn]

My Manhwa List (2019) Part 9

The end of my manhwa recommendation list for 2019. Check them out! 

The Secret Life of Empress Isana

Summary:

Sana, an ordinary Korean woman, gets transported to another dimension and finds herself in the body of Isana in Titan Empire, a daughter of Count Castilla. She soon learns that she has a secret - not only is she a royalty in this Empire, but she is also a witch with great powers. A chance encounter with Crown Prince Ludwig takes Sana on an unexpected journey to combat the evil Duke Barbossa as she navigates this new world to find her way back home.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ:

- isekai-sh story

- plot = 4/5

- artstyle = 3.5/5

- interesting

- f u n n y

- conclusion, interesting read w/ aesthetic-ness!

Dear My Girls

Summary:

Elizabeth March is one of four daughters from a prestigious family. The only reason she stands out from her sisters' extraordinary beauty and talent is because she's talentless. After her acceptance into the same academy all her sisters are at, Elizabeth encountered a chain of interesting things including getting off at the wrong start with a rich boy named Adrian.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ:

- plot = 3/5

- artstyle = 3/5

- ugh i love the leads!

- to conclude, an okay read~

One of a Kind Romance

Summary: Gong Yoo-Il is an aspiring writer on the hunt for a job and a die-hard fan of the idol, Ryu-Min. Tak Moo-Yi is a top actor with legions of fans. Add a mysterious stalker, and chaos ensues. This is the story of a one-of-a-kind romance!

WHY YOU SHOULD READ:

- an idol x normal girl story? count me in

- plot = 3/5

- artstyle = 3/5

-ml is a fanboi

- conclusion, an interesting read!

My Fair Footman

Summary:

As a child, Avery became a count's famous footman, a master of his work... But "his" work is secretly more like "her" work, as Avery is in fact a woman. So, every day, she wakes up at 6 AM, conceals her chest with bandages, and carries on her duty. And she will continue to do until "On my 18th birthday, I will quit my life as a footman and live as a woman!" 

Yet, a sudden proposal comes: "Avery, you should dress up for the ball and become my partner." A perfect dress, never-before-seen makeup... and the gentle Count Albert as her escort. 

How will destiny unfold for Avery?

WHY YOU SHOULD READ:

- they r aesthetic

- plot = 3/5

- artstyle = 4/5

- lot of moments that will make you swooon

- conclusion, an interesting read w/ lots of goodlooking characters!

A Royal Princess With Black Hair

Summary: 

Caruel and Euricienne have a lot in common: they're both 16 years old, belong to royal families, and absolutely hate the idea of a political marriage! Both are determined to make the other beg for divorce. But enemies on the sidelines are also scheming to tear them apart and even threaten their lives! As Caruel and Euricienne overcome various obstacles together, perhaps they're more drawn to each other than they initially thought… Will they follow through with the original plans to end their arranged marriage? Or does fate have something else in store for the reluctant couple?

WHY YOU SHOULD READ:

- comedic gold

- from the same writer as miss not so sidekick

- plot = 4/5

- artstyle = 3/5

- ml & mc r both match in soooo many way lmao

- ml is hart i stan

- a gem

- overall, highly recommended!! 

[moviemagistrate]

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD review

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD is my favorite movie of the 2010’s. 

I’ll give you a minute to put your recently-blown mind back together.

So why do I love this movie so much? The overall response to Quentin Tarantino’s supposedly penultimate opus has been very positive if not rapturous, but I’ve seen some surprisingly lukewarm and even negative reviews, with people criticizing it for being slow, meandering, lacking in depth or *shudder* boring. Obviously the quality of any movie is subjective, as I’m quick to remind anyone who hates Michael Bay movies, but I honestly don’t understand people who dislike OUATIH. Maybe it’s a matter of expectations, because I didn’t know how to feel about the film for much of the first time I watched it either.

The year is 1969, a time of great political and cultural change in the country and in the entertainment industry. The star-driven films of yesteryear are giving way to grittier, artsier, more auteur-driven works as we primarily follow Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a popular cowboy show whose failed attempt to start an A-list movie career has left him relying on guest spots as TV villains-of-the-week to stay afloat. This is wonderfully laid out in the opening scene where he meets casting director Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino, easily his best role since JACK & JILL), who lays out Rick’s lowering hierarchical status (“Who’s gonna kick the shit out of you next week? How about Batman & Robin? PING. POW”), while offering him an opportunity to be a leading-man again in Italian pictures.

Tagging along is Rick’s best, and maybe only, friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Rick’s go-with-the-flow stunt-double who in the slowdown of Rick’s career has effectively become his driver and gofer, as well as Rick’s sole source of emotional support. Rick is also neighbors with Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), the beautiful young actress and wife of then-superstar director Roman Polanski (whose inclusion in the film is minimal and handled tastefully), as she lives out her idyllic life, beloved by those around her like the ray of sunshine she was in real life. Her gated, hillside home looms over Rick’s, as he ponders aloud about how even meeting her the right way could resurrect his career.

For almost two-and-a-half hours, we follow these three characters as they just live out their lives, Rick nursing hangovers and having emotional breakdowns in front of his 8-year-old co-star on set while contemplating his future, Cliff going where the wind blows him while taking care of his adorable and highly-trained dog, and Sharon as she drives around Old Hollywood, spends time with her friends, and sneaks into a matinee showing of one of her movies, her eyes and infectious smile beaming with pride when the audience laughs at her comedic timing and cheers her martial-arts prowess.

I think it’s safe to say it’s not the film any of us were expecting from Quentin Tarantino. Having only made loud, gory, over-the-top genre pastiches for the last 15 years, you’d expect from the trailers for this to be about an actor and his sexy stunt-double getting mixed up with the Manson family before teaming up with Bruce Lee to save Sharon Tate from her horrific real-life fate, mixed with the filmmaker’s usual self-indulgent homages to films of yesteryear. While some of this is true to some extent, it’s surprisingly a much more relaxed, easygoing dramedy that follows a trio of funny, charismatic people as they just…exist, as people living in the moment instead of relics.

OUATIH is much more concerned with atmosphere, character, and capturing the feeling of a bygone era than the traditional narrative structure. It’s more effective than pretty much every nostalgia trip movie I've ever seen because you can feel Tarantino's affection for this era of his childhood bleed through every character, car, song, radio advertisement, TV show, background poster, etc. It’s through this meticulous level of detail and willingness to just hang out with these characters and take in this world that he reconstructed, Tarantino successfully resurrects the era in all its 35mm glory, but with the knowing twinge of real-world melancholy.

I guess the reason I love it so much is because the love that Tarantino has for everything and everyone in it is so tangible that it’s infectious. Watching OUATIH I honestly felt like I understood him better as both a filmmaker and as a person. He shows a level of restraint and maturity I haven’t seen since JACKIE BROWN. Even most of his trademark foot fetishizing is tasteful and subdued (I say “most” because I recall at least three close-ups of actresses’ feet that definitely made him a bit sweaty behind the camera). He’s a weird, shameless nerd with a big ego, but he’s 100% sincere about expressing his love for film and its rich history. And it’s this love, and the skill and style with which it’s expressed, that just put a big smile on my face each of the 6 (SIX) times that I’ve seen it since it came out. 

Tarantino offers a tantalizing contrast between reality and fantasy. Throughout the film, as the characters of Hollywood live in their own idyllic world, relaxing in pools or driving around in bitchin’ cars, we also see the disquieting eeriness and griminess of the Manson family. The soundtrack and accompanying old-timey commercials for tanning butter or Mug Root Beer that plays through a lot of the film is a joy to listen to, but we also hear news bulletins of the war in Vietnam or the aftermath of the Bobby Kennedy assassination. You could argue this is just to set the scene for the era, but it feels too deliberate, because even after that joyously fantastical ending, we remember that it was just a fairy tale and real life didn’t turn out as pleasantly. Tarantino’s ability to make his world and characters so meticulously detailed and lived-in works to great effect in instilling a bittersweet melancholy to this film in a way I was really taken aback by. It feels like a window into his soul, someone who yearns for the fantasy of the world he grew up in but remembering that not all good things last and not everything in your nostalgic past was good to begin with.

One beautiful, spellbinding scene is Rick and Cliff coming back from their excursion into the world of Italian filmmaking. In this montage, we see Rick, Cliff and Rick’s new Italian wife arriving at the airport and driving home before unpacking their baggage, interspersed with Sharon Tate welcoming a guest at her home and having lunch, before cutting to a series of shots of famous LA landmarks like Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Taco Bell, and Der Wienerschnitzel all meticulously resurrected in their retro glory as they light up the night. “Baby, baby, baby you’re out of time”, sings Mick Jagger as we’re watching multiple stories about people who are each embodying those words: Rick’s career, his friendship with Cliff, Sharon Tate, and Hollywood itself.

Tarantino himself feels like one of the last mainstream auteur filmmakers, as well as one of the last and biggest proponents of shooting large-budget movies on film (even Scorsese’s embraced digital now, the fantastically-talented traitor). And with the rise of streaming services, one can’t help but feel like the movie-going experience itself is also becoming obsolete, especially recently, what with theaters going to war with distributors over fucking TROLLS: WORLD TOUR, not to mention that global pandemic we’ve been having lately all but killing general audiences’ enthusiasm for the movie theater experience (Christopher Nolan’s TENET certainly didn’t help). If all these things, both real and fictional, are indeed out of time, then at least with Tarantino’s penultimate film they get one hell of a bittersweet sendoff, a great time that’s more of an Irish wake than a funeral, and it’s a film I have no issue calling a truly introspective, late-career masterpiece.

And that’s without mentioning uniformly incredible cast. Leo DiCaprio, an actor I normally don’t care too much for, gives the best and funniest performance of his career as a dependent prima donna actor clinging to his remaining fame. Brad Pitt earns the hell out of his Oscar as an embodiment of old-school masculinity and charisma with an amazing set of abs (and everything else) whose outward coolness masks his mysterious past and complete badass-ness. Margot Robbie shines in her depiction of Tate, a beacon of warmth and likability who in many ways symbolized the love and carefree attitudes of the swingin’ 60’s. I’ve heard people criticize her character for not having a lot of dialogue, but to me it feels like they’re ignoring the visual storytelling, which just gives way to them assuming the film is sexist just because the female lead isn’t constantly monologuing. Every member of the supporting cast is memorable with their own quirks and great lines, no matter their screentime.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino joint without some truly hilarious and shocking violence, and without going into spoiler territory, the last 20 minutes delivers on this promise to such a degree that I feel comfortable calling it the best thing he’s ever done. Some may decry the climax as unnecessary or over-the-top, but the way it leads to an alternate world while subtly acknowledging what happened in the real one is cathartic beyond belief. And if you’re paying attention, every scene in the movie has been quietly building towards this finale, which to me takes away any potential of feeling meandering in the story. If you saw the movie and didn’t much care for it, I recommend giving it another watch. Having the context ahead of time makes it feel so much more rewarding, and even on the fifth watch I’m noticing clever, subtle set-ups I missed beforehand.

It’s also just super cozy and really easy to watch. The two hours and 45 minutes fly by. I could watch a 4-hour version of this.

Quentin, if you’re reading this, please don’t let your last movie be Star Trek.

[theficpusher]

The Morning After the Night Before by LadyLondonderry | nr | 4838 Harry and Louis have more or less grown up together, even now as adults it's tradition for their families to spend a few weeks in the summer at a beach house together. Problem One: Louis has been in love with Harry forever. Problem Two: It wont stop raining.

The Charles Compass Trilogy by SadaVeniren | E | 8671 Louis Tomlinson is a successful writer who rents a beach house on the Cape to try and finish the final book in his successful Charles Compass trilogy.

Hoping You'll Come Around by mmaree | M | 11066 “I’ve always considered you the clever one, Malik,” Louis clucks, “but from what you’ve just told me, it’s clear you’re not batting on the full wicket.” “Look, I was pissed. I’ve no idea what I was thinking.” “Well that makes two of us,” Louis huffs back. He seems far from impressed with Zayn’s apology, seems more likely to strangle him than anything else. “And don’t you think it’s a bit naff using your best mate’s photo to catfish random blokes on Tinder?” “Only one bloke,” Zayn corrects, “and I wasn’t catfishing.” “Hey, Siri,” Louis says in a bored monotone, “define ‘catfish’ for this bonehead.” “'Catfish. Verb. To lure someone into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.'” “Fine,” Zayn relents when the automaton shuts up. “Technically, I guess it is catfishing, but it’s…different, like. Not quite as bad.” Louis smirks as he folds his arms across his chest. “Why? Because you’re rich, fit, and famous?” ~*~ Or the one where Zayn’s a famous singer who looks sod-all like Louis Tomlinson, and he’s definitely going to explain all that to Harry. (Soon.)

Those Summer Nights by YesIsAWorld | M | 11791 Nick’s whirlwind summer romance ended when he left his dad’s beach house. Now it’s the first day of senior year, and Nick needs to avoid both the most popular boy at school and his friends’ probing questions.

Love is like this; not a heartbeat, but a moan by angelichl | E | 13150 "He hates this, more than anything in the world he hates this. His title, his rank, his DNA. Unchangeable. Fated. And then there’s Harry, born to be unobjectively superior to Louis and all other O’s. Unlike other A’s, Harry doesn’t wear his alpha-ness very well. He’s clumsy with it, like walking around in a pair of shoes a size too big. His life is defined by uncertainty and tentativeness, and those are definitely not qualities alphas should have. Sometimes, when Louis ponders it for too long, he thinks that maybe Harry resents being an A just as much as Louis resents being an O." In which Harry loves Louis, but Louis has been cold to him ever since he presented as an omega at age fifteen. Eight years later, Louis approaches Harry with a request, and who is Harry to deny him?

Dive by allwaswell16 | E | 21128 Newly retired football star, Louis Tomlinson has left Manchester for Malibu. Along the way, he finds music, friendship, and love in the form of his pop star neighbour and the very fit movie star hiding out next door.

Don't Want Shelter by FullOnLarrie | E | 76627 Louis and Harry have known each other all their lives. Friends as children, they danced around each other as teenagers, and have spent the last twenty-five years either screaming at each other or not speaking at all. Except for that one time ten years ago… When Hurricane Nicole threatens the coast, they end up stuck together in their families' old vacation home that they begrudgingly co-own. During the storm, and in the months after, they’re both forced to reevaluate their history and what they mean to each other.

[woodworkingpastor]

Sabbath

I began my final year of seminary studies in the fall of 1998; I also met with my District Executive to fill out a Pastoral Profile. Jim also gave me permission to look at all the Congregational Profiles from churches looking for a pastor.

It was a very interesting process, because even as our congregations all share a heritage, they each have their own flavor. But even so, the profiles began to sound the same after a while, so one of the things I started doing was to note details that sounded different.

That came in handy when I received a call about a church in Ohio that wondered if I’d come for an interview.  Their profile had a statement that I hadn’t seen on any other: “we expect the pastor to dress appropriately in all circumstances.”  I read this and thought “there is a story here.”

1998 was also a National Youth Conference Year.  NYC finished on a Sunday morning that year.  As our youth group was driving through Fort Collins on the way to the Denver airport, we passed a church that seemed to have a reasonably full parking lot.  That church was next to a sports field that had a parking lot filled with cars that had brought children and their parents to that morning’s soccer games.  There’s a story here, too.

Noticing the little details that seem out of place to us in Scripture and in life can often be a helpful way to understand things more completely. That is true of the 10 Commandments, especially the 4th Commandment, “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.” You’ll notice from our Scripture reading this morning that the 10 Commandments are included twice in the Bible:

In Exodus 20, the Hebrew people are three months removed from slavery in Egypt, but they are 400 years removed from a close relationship with God. So God has Moses assemble the people at Mount Sinai and gives them the 10 Commandments and a whole host of other laws and details about how to structure their lives. Nearly all of Exodus 20 – 32 is focused upon this.

In Deuteronomy 5, the people have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and are poised to enter the Promised Land. The generation of people who left Egypt has died, and Moses gathers this next generation to instruct them on how to live in this new place as God’s people.

The interesting detail that should have jumped out at us is that while the fourth commandment is the same in both places, the reason given for the commandment is different.

 There is a story here! What do we learn from this?

 In Exodus 20, God wants the people to remember the sabbath.

We tend to forget that the way things are today is often because of decisions that were made in the past.  For the 10 Commandments, they would certainly remember what life was like three months ago.  But they might remember all the way back in Genesis 41—over 400 years before our story today—a different Pharaoh had a dream about seven thin cows came up next to seven fat cows and ate them, and about seven stalks of ugly, blighted grain eating seven stalks of healthy grain. Joseph told his Pharaoh that the dream meant a famine was coming. That set things on the course to slavery. Pharaoh began gathering resources to feed the people, but it wasn’t so very long before gathering resources became hoarding resources. The massive Egyptian infrastructure required slave labor to build and maintain. Pharaoh was determined to rule the world; because of this he could never rest.  Production could never cease—there would always be more bricks to make, more barns to build, more grain to harvest, more borders to defend.

As the people remembered their days of unceasing labor—they’re just three months removed from this—God tells them to keep remembering all the way back to creation, and the stories they’d been told. Pharaoh had been trying to rule the world, but God had created the world and still found time to rest. God did not need to work constantly and enslave others to create the heavens and the earth, and neither would they.

And in their remembering, they would begin to imagine how they were to be different.

In Deuteronomy 5, God wants the people to observe the sabbath.  This is an interesting word in the Hebrew: it means to guard, keep, protect, watch over. You might think of it as that thing you’d want to take with you if you had to leave your house suddenly due to an emergency.  The people are to “observe” the Sabbath: not watch it from a distance, but protect it and practice it, make provision for it in their life.

This new land they were to possess would have everything they needed to become prosperous.  If they remained faithful to God, their lives would not become the “lifestyles of the rich and famous,” but there would be enough for them to enjoy life, family, friends, and faith.

But God recognized that prosperity might breed spiritual amnesia. They might forget God in their new-found well-being and begin dominating others just as Pharaoh had them. So God tells them to not forget where they’d come from.  They were to protect the importance of the sabbath as an anchor that would root them to their spiritual heritage.

Part of the story here is that the people were to remember and to observe the Sabbath. We might think of the Sabbath in terms of the blue laws that used to exist—all the places that were required to be closed on Sundays. But what did God want the people to realize as they remembered and observed the sabbath?

If we had read the all 10 Commandments this morning, we might have noticed

that the first three commandments define our relationship with God: there will be no other gods, no idols, and don’t use God’s name in vain.

the last six commandments define our relationships with others: honor your parents, no murder, adultery, theft, false witness, or coveting among us.

It is a very early indicator in the Bible of something we have known to be true for a long time—we cannot separate our love for God and our love for one another, because they are different aspects of the same thing.  The sabbath is the hinge point that connects the two.

Because the people were working all the time in Egypt—even using their “free time” to gather straw—there was little time for them to be neighbors to one another. Under those stressful circumstances, neighbors become competitors. But in this new land where the sabbath was to govern their lives, the needs of the other could be given greater priority. The people could be neighborly to one another because they were serving a God who isn’t anxious, who lives and loves us by grace, not law; hope, not fear.

When we are rushed or anxious with no margin in our lives, we have little time for the possibilities of relationship. Other people become a hindrance to what we want.  Things like theft and character assassination become a possibility. But sabbath-keeping opens the possibility to become sisters and brothers to one another. I have time to practice forgiveness, because I recognize a renewed commitment with life together is better than my dominating them or forcing them to behave in a certain way so that I can “get even” with them.

When we are rushed or anxious with no margin in our lives, we can have little time to nurture the primary relationships in our lives. Other people attract our attention, and things like coveting and adultery become possible. But sabbath-keeping creates space to care for our primary relationships.

Sabbath-keeping is designed to strengthen relationships.  This is why in the disciplines booklet, sabbath is paired with hospitality.  Relationships are about more than enjoying one another’s company (although they certainly are about that!), They are about enjoying an openness and honesty and depth that comes when we are free enough from clutter and busy-ness to truly see one another as friends and family, not competitors.

One of the interesting parts of our culture right now is how much we watch other people do things: from sports to reality shows. We watch people play a game, launch their singing career, survive in the wilderness, or remodel a home.  We can even be deeply touched by a moving testimony in a devotional book or movie.  But we really can’t watch people be Christian, and think we’re doing anything for ourselves. The whole purpose of creating margin in our lives through the discipline of sabbath keeping is to move from reality shows to real life.  We begin living life as God intended it. There’s a story there, too, and we’re the ones writing it.

[all-of-the-imagines-for-eve]

Meet and Greet - Part 2

We all piled into the bus and the driver revved the engine, the bus roaring to life without any problem. Everyone cheered and I laughed. We sat on the couches, Alex next to me. I scooted over as our legs touch and an electric shock ran through out my body. Man did I have the biggest crush on him, too. Was it cliche to like the lead singer of a famous band? Was it cliche to like someone in a famous band period? Yes to both of those questions. I wondered if he had a girlfriend… or more. A wife or a fiance. It would make sense. He was charming, rich, famous…

  But I don’t think he did?

  I usually didn’t look too far into the personal lives of the people I had a crush on. I gave them their privacy and such. Now I was majorly regretting that decision. I was in the fandom for the dorky interviews that brought some light to my day and the music that brought some light to my work. That’s what I was here for. But it would pay to know if Alex was single or not right about now. Who’d have thought I’d ever really need to know? Crazy I guess.

  Lunch, unlike I was used to, came to us. However, I did go in to order with the driver. Between the two of us we got it all back. The boys felt guilty for not coming in to help us, but the driver seemed to be used to it, since they wanted to avoid going out where they could be recognized. Probably didn’t help that the bus had “All Time Low” on the side, forcing us to go a little bit out of town to a park in order to be alone without people.

  We ate our McDonalds in the bus, laughing, joking, and talking as we went. I admitted only that I was twenty-two, finally admitting that I knew Alex was twenty-five when he told me. The boys all teased my fangirl-ness and I rubbed the back of my neck yet again, my ears even red at this point. I told them that I’d been working on cars all my life when they asked. That I lived with my dad. I tried to avoid other questions, but they seemed to be ever so slowly getting it all out of me. Exactly what I’d been scared of…

  “So why was your dad busy today?” Alex asked. “That many customers during school hours?” I tensed and everyone looked at me. How did I answer this without having to explain everything?

 “During the day he… sleeps,” I worded slowly, carefully, trying not to lie but also not give anything away.

  Alex looked confused. “He takes night customers?”

  “Um, no,” I told him, fiddling with my empty wrapper.

  “When does he take customers then?” Alex asked, looking ever more confused as he continued asking questions.

  “He doesn’t,” I answered simply. “He has none to take,” I added before he could ask. They exchanged looks and I sighed. “The town doesn’t like us,” I admitted. There was no point in trying to hide it anymore. “None of them even pretend to not like us and go to extremes to make it clear. NO one in the goddamn town actually knows how a car works even at a basic level, so even if my dad sucked t his job, he’d be better than anyone here. The thing is, he’s genius with cars. Even better than me. So, instead of wasting time and gas to go to the next town, everyone just buys new cars the second anything goes wrong. It’s ridiculous, but they all do it. Our town is small and fairly wealthy, I guess, but we don’t have many things keeping us that way. Most people here don’t even have cars, so they carpool.” I didn’t look at them as I explained. “Since they don;t like my dad, they don’t like me. He doesn’t have customers and I go to school to give him space and keep up a good reputation with the other kids at my school. To prove that he’s a good dad and he can upbring a good daughter.”

  There was a long moment of silence, then, “Woah,” Alex whispered. He scooted closer and put an arm around my shoulders. I didn’t look anywhere, too ashamed. “What do they do to you? I mean, if they don’t like you, and they’re obvious about it…”

  “How else do immature adults make a point about hating someone?” I asked bitterly. “They bully me. And they get away with it because the sheriffs don’t care, and neither does the staff. As long as it’s me…”

  “Why do they hate your dad so much?” Zach asked.

  My shoulders sagged. “Our town is a dot on a map, invisible and uncared for. Every small town wishes for the day someone famous comes along, or someone in the town becomes famous, and we get put on the map. Our day, a movie producer came to our town and his car broke down. Everyone was overly nice to him and tried to get him to notice the town’s sweetheart, Amanda Book, who is actually a fairly impressive actress, for never having gone to classes in her life. She’s a bit older than me, but this was a very long time ago. My mom had just left my dad and he was a wreck, so when he cleaned himself up as the town asked and got himself together to help this man, he was put off when the man started insulting him. His work, his home, his family… Me. So my dad blew up and the man, self righteous as he was, cursed the town, and left in a hustle, refusing to even pay my dad for the job. Everyone got tired of him lazing around and pining over my mom, who left because he was a drunk, and who also took the happiness from this town with the dust behind her car… They blame him for everything that went wrong because they need someone to blame so here we are, and they hate me because I’m related to him.” I shrugged and crossed my arms and the guys were silent.  

  “Don’t you want to get away from all of this?” Alex asked quietly. I pursed my lips then nodded slowly, purposefully.

  “Of course, but I have nowhere to go. Nothing to do with my life. I mean, I can play guitar, but that’s literally it. I can fix cars and play guitar, and neither of those talents really get me anywhere. I’ve tried to form a band and get it all going, but -”

  “The whole town hates you, right,” Jack mused.

  “I would run away and try to restart anywhere but-”

  “You have nowhere to go,” Rian piped in.

  My body relaxed and I threw my arms up. “You see my problem.” All four guys looked between each other, each going back and forth in some silent conversation I couldn’t quite decipher. Finally, Alex looked at me very seriously.

  “What do you think about coming with us?” He asked. I quirked an eyebrow. “We could help you hone those guitar skills, maybe introduce you to a few people. Help you take off. Get you away from here. None of us can settle with leaving you here to suffer all by yourself, and hey, you might go somewhere. Touring can be kind of tiresome and shocking until you get used to it, but it’s super fun and you could help around. We always need more help…”

  “You could totally chill with us, all day everyday, and keep us laughing and such. Things can get so dull and boring here, just us four guys. Having a new face and a purpose would be super fun,” Jack added.

  “You’re already part of the family,” Zach added.

  “Definitely,” Rian agreed. “What do you think?”

  Allowing myself to process, I thought about that for a second. I had nothing really keeping me here. My dad didn’t even want em these days. I could help with the bus if it busted down again or anything. It would be a ton of fun, and I’d be part of a real, albeit different kind of family. Surrounded by people that cared about me, instead of being in the middle of a town that hated my guts. I could put my stupid town on the map, and if all else failed, they would all get their wish and might even forgive me and my dad. My dad would be able to deal with it all, knowing that someone wanted him alive. That someone cared. There was so much good that could come out of this…

“Sure.”

[inverted-sheep]

Have you ever heard of Graemsay? If I was a gambling woman I’d put good money down to bet that the majority of you hadn’t.

It’s such a gem of an island, especially on a sunny day, that if it were further south or more easily accessible there would be hordes of people visiting.

As it is, it’s a tiny island off the coast of Mainland Orkney, which itself is an island off the very north coast of Scotland. A ferry goes every day, but the timetable means you have to be prepared to spend the whole day. This is great on a nice day, but as it doesn’t take long to walk round the whole island, and apart from the ferry waiting room there isn’t anywhere to get indoors, this might be a bit daunting on a miserable day.

Leaving Stromness behind

The ferry is a small boat with some indoor seating as well as seating on the deck. Most people who catch the ferry are going to Hoy, a bigger island on which can be found a famous sea stack called the Old Man of Hoy. The ferry stops on Hoy at a convenient place for people to start the hike to the Old Man and this is what most of the passengers on the ferry were planning to do. A few passengers got on at Hoy, but they were all going back to Stromness. Hardly anyone was going to Graemsay. Not surprising really considering Graemsay only has 24 residents!

The Graemsay ferry

When the ferry docked three older women got off with me. They were planning to do a short walk and then catch up with a friend they buy sheep fleeces from. For the first hour we kept catching up with each other, but after that I barely saw anyone for the rest of the day.

There was a pretty good tourist map of the island on the waiting room wall. I snapped a photo on my phone so I could keep referring to it during my walk. I hadn’t bothered with my OS map as I knew there wasn’t much chance of getting lost! There are toilets and plug sockets in the waiting room, but not much else. If the weather turned bad at least you could sit inside, but unless you had a good book it would soon get boring. You can also fill up your water bottles here, but note that there is nowhere to buy food on the island so bring enough for the day plus a flask if you want coffee.

Graemsay is only 4.09 km² so I knew I wasn’t going to get lost.

My walk started with a bit of uphill which soon levelled out. I decided to walk anti-clockwise as that way I’d get to see the things I wanted to see most first, just in case the weather turned later on. This far north you have to always plan for changeable weather no matter how the day starts out.

Gramesay has two lighthouses. I came across the first one – Hoy Sound High Lighthouse – soon after I’d started walking and began to realise just how small this island really is. If I didn’t slow down I’d have walked all the way round it and be back at the ferry pier six hours early!

Hoy Sound High Lighthouse – that’s Stromness in the background

Just past the lighthouse is a beach I was really interested to see. Sandside beach is, as you might expect from the name, very sandy. But … it’s also covered in shells and coral. The fine white sand is covered with so many shells and so much coral (called maerl) that in parts I couldn’t see the sand at all.

Can you spot the chunks of maerl amongst the shells?

I hadn’t heard of maerl before, but the text on the map I’d photographed explained it to me:

Maerl is a chalky encrustation, laid down on pebbles by some species of red algae. Maerl beds like the one offshore here are rare and fragile habitats, but once washed onto the beach the calcium rich maerl was used as a good lime fertiliser for the island’s acid soils.

The three ladies from the boat were at the beach, collecting shells or sitting along the concrete pier having coffee. I chatted for a while and then spent quite a bit of time looking for perfect shells and bits of maerl and drinking my own coffee. There was no point in rushing after all.

Sandside beach

Next  I walked along a lane enclosed by high grasses and dunes. When I came out the other side I was alongside another beach with views looking back towards the beach I’d just been on and the lighthouse. I could also see across the water to Stromness, the small town on Mainland Orkney from where I’d caught the ferry.

The three ladies from the boat are walking ahead of me near Hoy Sound High Lighthouse.

I’d already noticed that there were picnic benches placed regularly around the island and there was another one here. As I’d only just had coffee I carried on walking. The lane took me slightly uphill and past the small shack that is the community centre. There are toilets round the back, but no access to the building itself. The waiting room at the pier really is the only place to get inside or fill up your water if need be.

How white is that sand? And how dramatic do the hills of Hoy look in the background?

In hardly any time at all I came to the second lighthouse – Hoy Sound Low Lighthouse. Both lighthouses are private houses and so you can’t access the grounds, but can still get up to the gates and see them quite well.

Hoy Sound Low Lighthouse – in case you haven’t worked it out, the High lighthouse is tall and the Low lighthouse is short.

It was when I spotted the lighthouse I realised I’d missed the turnoff for the coastal path I’d been hoping to pick up. There were several rough tracks leading down to crofts and houses so I assume one of these was the access path to get to the coast. Later on as I walked further round the island I did spot signs pointing out the ways to the coastal path, so maybe there was one here too and I just missed it. It wasn’t a problem as the lane goes so close to the coast anyway it wasn’t as though I was missing out on anything.

Just behind this lighthouse is the Point of Oxan. It was here, on New Year’s Day in 1866 the sailing ship Albion was wrecked. She was on her way to New York from Liverpool and had 43 passengers on board as well as 24 crew. Eleven people were drowned, but with help from people on the island, the rest were able to survive. One island man, Joseph Mowat, was drowned whilst trying to help. He is buried in the local churchyard. Apparently you can still find broken pottery from the boat on the beach. I didn’t find any, but I may not have been looking in quite the right place.

WWII lookout tower behind Hoy Sound Low Lighthouse at the Point of Oxan. I wonder if they turned the lighthouse off during the war?

In more recent history, the Point of Oxan was used for a coastal battery during WWII. I spent a bit of time poking around them – having recently visit Ness Battery and HMS Tern on the Orkney Mainland and having guided tours at both, I felt I knew a bit about what I was looking at and what the building remains would have been used for.

WWII gun placement at the Point of Oxan

I followed a sign and tried to pick up the coastal path here, but the ground was so uneven and full of bumps and hollows I gave up and went back to the lane. The path only went a short way anyway, before turning back to the lane so again I hadn’t really missed out on anything.

Graemsay doesn’t have peat so has a different look to the other islands. It seems much greener and has grass rather than moorland. It also has plenty of picturesque roofless old croft cottages.

I had been told before coming to Graemsay (and it was mentioned on the map) that although there are coastal paths round some of the island, they’re not maintained and so can be quite difficult to use.

It was still really early and I’d already walked round half of the island and seen most of what I wanted to. Time to slow down a bit more. I walked up the lane to a slightly higher point, found a picnic bench and sat down to eat my lunch whilst gazing across at the hills, coves and beaches of Hoy. Hoy is the only really hilly island in Orkney. From where I was sitting the dark peaty hills made a dramatic backdrop whilst the Hoy Sound ran a deep blue in the foreground. Bright green grass rolled down to the sea and the few small beaches formed splashes of white in amongst the rocks.

Coffee time. That white speck near the horizon is the Hamnavoe – the ferry that sails between Scrabster in Scotland and Stromness.

After my lunch, I got my flask out again and poured a coffee to drink whilst reading my Kindle and enjoying the view. It was so calm and tranquil, warm enough to be in short sleeves. I spotted the Hamnavoe making it’s way across from Scrabster in Scotland to Stromness in Orkney. This is the car ferry that makes the journey a couple of times a day and that evening I would be on it.

Had I mentioned this was my last day in Orkney? I was so lucky to get a lovely day. There weren’t even any midges! Coming to Graemsay on my last day would have been special no matter the circumstances, but it was actually even more special than just my last day. Graemsay was the last inhabited island I had to visit on both Orkney and Shetland. Now that I’d made it to Graemsay I’d seen them all. At least that was what I believed until I got back on the ferry and the three ladies from earlier pointed out that there are a few islands that have one couple or one family living on them. As they have no ferry links and you need your own boat to get to them, I hadn’t thought to count them. But I suppose I should. So I’ll change my boast to ‘I’ve visited every inhabited island that has a ferry link in Orkney and Shetland’. I’m still pretty proud of it!

The old kirk (church) and graveyard and some dark clouds forming over Hoy.

After a while I continued walking and turned off towards the old church and graveyard. The church is derelict and not safe to enter and the graveyard is very small, so it didn’t take me long to see both.

I found another bench and sat with a different view of Hoy. A car came down the lane with two older ladies in it. They’d come to visit the graves. As they arrived I was getting up to leave and they were concerned they’d disturbed me. I assured them that it wasn’t them that had disturbed, but the heavy black cloud that had appeared over Hoy and seemed to be heading in my direction.

This was a part of the island where I did want to walk along the coast as the road climbs and goes across the centre rather than sticking close to the coast. But although the path was marked it seemed to be blocked off. I thought maybe erosion had made it unsafe and I’d better not try it especially with those heavy clouds speeding towards me.

Walking over the top of the island back towards the High Lighthouse

Instead I headed across the top of the island and ended up near the first lighthouse again. As I knew I wasn’t that far from the ferry waiting room if it did start to rain, I took the opportunity to sit on the bench I’d passed earlier. The clouds were now behind me and seemed to have changed their mind about coming to Graemsay anyway.

Sandside beach looking towards Hoy

I sat looking out on the most perfect view. A gorgeous house with a white beach and crumbling old stone barns to the side and the lighthouse behind. I could live here. Apparently there’re also usually seals on the beach, though I hadn’t seen any. I actually think they’ve all been eaten by orcas this year as I haven’t seen nearly so many as I usually do and there have been several pods of orcas spending a lot of time around Shetland and Orkney.

The perfect house by the perfect beach with the perfect lighthouse behind it. All on the perfect island. What’s not to like?

I tried to think of disadvantages of living in the perfect house. I suppose the lighthouse flashing and the seals barking all night could create quite a bit of disturbance, but you know what? I wouldn’t care.

I sat on the bench gazing at the view for quite a long time until I felt the sun really start to burn the back of my neck. Then I slowly wandered back to the pier to take shelter in the waiting room, not from the rain, but from the sun!

You know a place must get windy when the telephone box door has to be tied shut!

On my way past the perfect house, the same car as had been at the graveyard drove past me, with only one lady in it this time. She stopped to chat for a while. She had been born on the island, and without any prompting, told me it was a pretty perfect place to live.

“We’ve got peace and quiet, but Stromness is only over there and there are ferries, so when we need something we can just go over. We don’t feel isolated at all.”

I noticed near the ferry terminal in Stromness that there is a special parking area reserved for residents of Graemsay so they can leave their cars there to use when they visit Mainland rather than having to pay to take them on the ferry each time. The cars that I saw on Graemsay tended to be ‘island cars’.  These are cars that anywhere else would be condemned. They don’t need an MOT or tax (or at least no-one bothers with it) and have wing mirrors and doors hanging off and bonnets held down with string. As long as it still moves then it’s good enough to be an island car.

I still had about an hour to wait for the ferry. I filled my water bottle, drank it all and refilled it. I’d not realised how thirsty I was. I also took my boots off and peeled my socks off letting my feet cool down on the cold floor tiles. Then I sat and read some more until the three ladies reappeared. I went outside to chat to them whilst we watched the ferry chug over from Stromness. Once we were on board we had to go over to Hoy to pick up the hikers before heading back to Stromness.

Sailing back to Stromness. The clouds over Hoy looked so foreboding, but the rain held off.

As all the hikers got back on board at Hoy they all seemed pretty happy. I knew they would have had a great day because I did that walk myself last year and it really is well worth doing. However, I couldn’t help feeling a little smug because I’d also had a great day visiting an island that really is special and yet hardly anyone knows about it, let alone gets to visit. And I’d ticked off my last inhabited island in Shetland and Orkney (that has a ferry link).

Have you ever been to a little-known and seldom-visited island? Would you like to visit Graemsay if you’re ever in Orkney? Share your thoughts in the comments below. 

Like this? Read this:

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New post: Exploring #Graemsay #Orkney - A Perfect Day on a Perfect Island Have you ever heard of Graemsay? If I was a gambling woman I'd put good money down to bet that the majority of you hadn't.

[flauntpage]

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets?

Encinitas Skate Plaza looks like a parody of Southern California. It's the kind of place where a boombox is always playing early 2000s Offspring singles, where shirtless dads are forever weaving through crowds of shirtless teens, and where, at any given moment, a helmeted eight-year-old stands on the brink and prepares, for the first time, to drop herself down the cement walls of a never-functional pool that's twice as deep as she is tall.

Poods, as locals refer to the park, is a 13,000-square-foot slab of grey and orange concrete planes and waves and ledges, pierced by flatbars and stairways to nowhere, and surrounded by a parking lot, a soccer field, and a few palm trees that don't provide any shade. Show up most days around noon and there's a decent chance you'll notice one skateboarder, Jagger Eaton, standing out slightly from the rest. It's not that he's doing bigger tricks, necessarily, nor anything especially complicated. And it's not that he literally stands out—he just hit 5'7''.

There's just something almost effortless about the way he cruises around the park. There's an ease in the way he pops his board out of a ramp, the smile as he bails, the pat on the back he gives to check on the well-being of whoever he just slammed into at the bottom of an eight-stair rail. When Jagger does a run of tricks through the park, other skaters stop whatever they're doing, watch, and ask their friends if they saw that.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Though he still has to, as he puts it, "finesse" his way into R-rated movies, Jagger has already taken the top spot at many of the major contests open to amateur skateboarders; this year alone he's won the Phx Am and two gold medals at the X Games, in Amateur Street and Amateur Park. But as the website Quartersnacks often notes, we're in the "everyone is good" era of skateboarding: "Anyone (well, anyone who's good) can nollie flip a fourteen-stair nowadays or switch crook a gnarly rail, but it will be the behind the scenes videos that help us decide where our allegiances with various athletes stand." Jagger might have more contest wins, but there are dozens of other kids who are just as eager to make a name for themselves, who can do (most of) the same tricks and who would like to go pro in his place. For now what really separates Jagger from other 16-year-old skate phenoms—and, presumably, the reason VICE Sports sent me to San Diego to talk to him—is that he is also a TV star.

Jagger Eaton's Mega Life was a Rob Dyrdek-produced reality show that premiered on Nickelodeon late last year. During the show's 20 episodes, Jagger, family, and friends travel around the country partaking in "mega" adventures—outdoor activities like shark diving, jousting, heli-boarding, and playing beach volleyball with the U.S. women's beach volleyball team. The show gets its name from the mega ramp (also the subject of episode 17), an approximately 60-foot skate jump that Jagger has been riding since he was a child. It was on this ramp, when he was 11, that he captured his first major headlines by becoming the youngest-ever X Games competitor. While even Jagger will admit that there are times when he cringes to hear his younger voice—"I'm like, how do people even watch these videos?"—the show is more entertaining than you'd expect a Nickelodeon reality show to be. He possesses a boundless enthusiasm—evident in the way he uses G-rated swears like "gosh" and "heck" to intensify the "unreal"-ness of an activity—that makes me wish I could recapture that pre-cynical YA worldview wherein it's possible to be passionate about things like ziplining.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Since Mega Life ended, Jagger and his brother Jett, 18, have moved from their hometown of Mesa, Arizona, to Encinitas, a suburb in the North County section of San Diego that's been an epicenter of the skateboarding world since the '80s. When I met him at Poods, he was setting up a new board (he goes through one every three or four days, about the same rate as shoes) and eating a plastic cup of Fruity Pebbles. With his sunspots and striped Stussy shirt, he looked like a quintessential California teen—Zonie or not.

"I wouldn't say my life is the typical 16-year-old life," Jagger admits. "I mean I'm living out in Cali by myself. I took my GED so I basically dropped out and graduated. I'm stoked where I'm at." There was a time when having a TV show meant someone was definitely a celebrity, but, thanks to the internet's destruction of what was left of the monoculture, it's easier than ever to be huge in some circles and totally unknown in others. When I ask Jagger if he feels like he's famous, he seems to have a pretty accurate gauge on things. "I get recognized at skateparks and sometimes at, like, grocery stores, but mostly I just focus on what I need to do. I never think of myself like I'm some sort of celebrity. [Having the show] was super cool and I'm stoked to have a following off it, but I don't think I'm famous at all. I hang out with my family and my friends."

When I follow up with a similar, slightly more pointed question—"You're a 16-year-old living a state away from your parents, with 163,000 Instagram followers, many of whom are girls posting emojis about how cute they think you are. You never get into trouble?"—Jagger tells me that, "Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang." And, partially because skateboarding has been his entire life since he was five and partially because he tells me he says he spends time listening to self-help audiobooks like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I believe him. Though, when pressed, he admits to sending the occasional DM. "It's always important to make new friends," he laughs, but adds, "I don't ever let it get to my head. I'm just stoked to have some fans and some people who like me."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Jagger has more contest wins and TV appearances than the average 16-year-old skater, and he's sponsored by core brands like Plan B, Independent, and Bones. But, even among skaters, he's not a household name. To change this, he's spent the last few months filming a video part—basically a highlight reel of a skater's most impressive tricks, set to music (Jagger is hoping that the licensing fee for Parliament's "Flashlight" isn't too expensive)���which he believes will show people that his skating stands on its own. "I have about two minutes of footage right now, I just need to film another minute and a half." He says he plans to submit it to Thrasher, the magazine-turned-website so influential it's known as the "skate bible." He feels confident they'll accept it. (Thrasher owner Tony Vitello told me that they've expressed interest in distributing a video part but nothing is set in stone. "He's obviously a good skater," he says, but their involvement "would most likely start towards the end of the project.")

"Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang."

Most days, he and his friends skate at Poods for a few hours, break for lunch, then head out to spots around town filming tricks. This goes on until it gets dark, unless they're filming with lights, in which case they can stay out all night. (High-level skateboarders spend an inordinate amount of time on schoolyards and grocery store loading docks.), His crew can fluctuate, from his brother Jett and other locals to fellow Plan B riders like Chris Joslin and Trevor McCLung, and SK8 Mafia's Wes Kremer. San Diego is something of a skate mecca, so he's managed to make a big impression on legends like Danny Way, who says, "Jagger has one of the most diverse skill sets and is one of the future legends of this next generation of young rippers."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

There's a foundational paradox in skate culture: It's an industry that runs on advertising—the major websites and magazines are basically trade publications, and anything critical about brands is extremely rare—while priding itself on being anti-establishment. Jagger has the commercial side down, but, with his Nickelodeon show, he's anything but counter-culture. Jagger has heard his share of criticism, but says he doesn't care. "[Jagger Eaton's Mega Life] was one of the coolest experiences of my life and I don't really give a shit what anybody says about it. I would never want to take it back. I had so much fun doing it. I got to meet so many cool people. It was just completely worth it." Despite its underdog mentality, skateboarding has long been a dominant force in pop culture. It shapes everything from entertainment (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Rob Dyrdek's empire, the stylings of Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine) to fashion (skateboarders, once responsible for the tight jeans resurgence, are to blame for the half-decade-long high-waters with Vans Old Skools trend). It would almost be weirder if a super-talented 16-year-old skater didn't have his own Nickelodeon show.

One might think Jagger's contest wins would silence the commenters, but skateboarders are probably even more suspicious of the X Games than of Nickelodeon. Traditional sports (and some purists even bristle at the thought of skating as a "sport") revolve around winning, but success in skateboarding has largely been about getting enough children to buy shoes with your name on them. Being cool is more important than being the best—among skaters, the word style is as common as it is vague—which is part of why so many look down on contests. Jagger knows he has to prove he's more than just a good contest skater, because skating in a contest is fundamentally different from skating in the street, and street skating is what dominates coverage on the skateboarding internet. Contests require an automaton-like ability to manage a series of tricks in a row without falling, so skaters default to things they know they can do. On the street, a skater has infinite chances, not ninety-second runs; it's about pushing yourself rather than beating others. This is why Jagger feels like he has to show his worth with a video.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Watching him tell our photographer which lens and angle will work best for a given shot, it's clear Jagger possesses a level of professionalism unknown to most teens, let alone teen skaters. He has a pretty solid idea of how to bring his plans to fruition, which is good, because he has a lot of plans. Right now, these include filming a street part with skateboarding's foremost cinematographer Ty Evans, turning pro before he's 18, and, most pressingly, getting his driver's license. Three years from now, skateboarding will make its Olympic debut. When I asked Jagger what he thinks of the possibility of skating in the Olympics, he tells me that "I would love to compete for my country." It's true that the name "Jagger Eaton" seems almost designed to appear on a chyron, but he'll be competing against dozens of the world's best skateboarders for just a handful of slots on Team USA. Plus, even the qualifying events for the games are years away. When you're 16, anything seems possible and everything can change in just a few months. Right now, he says, "I just have to prove I can hang in the streets."

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets? published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets?

Encinitas Skate Plaza looks like a parody of Southern California. It’s the kind of place where a boombox is always playing early 2000s Offspring singles, where shirtless dads are forever weaving through crowds of shirtless teens, and where, at any given moment, a helmeted eight-year-old stands on the brink and prepares, for the first time, to drop herself down the cement walls of a never-functional pool that’s twice as deep as she is tall.

Poods, as locals refer to the park, is a 13,000-square-foot slab of grey and orange concrete planes and waves and ledges, pierced by flatbars and stairways to nowhere, and surrounded by a parking lot, a soccer field, and a few palm trees that don’t provide any shade. Show up most days around noon and there’s a decent chance you’ll notice one skateboarder, Jagger Eaton, standing out slightly from the rest. It’s not that he’s doing bigger tricks, necessarily, nor anything especially complicated. And it’s not that he literally stands out—he just hit 5’7”.

There’s just something almost effortless about the way he cruises around the park. There’s an ease in the way he pops his board out of a ramp, the smile as he bails, the pat on the back he gives to check on the well-being of whoever he just slammed into at the bottom of an eight-stair rail. When Jagger does a run of tricks through the park, other skaters stop whatever they’re doing, watch, and ask their friends if they saw that.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Though he still has to, as he puts it, “finesse” his way into R-rated movies, Jagger has already taken the top spot at many of the major contests open to amateur skateboarders; this year alone he’s won the Phx Am and two gold medals at the X Games, in Amateur Street and Amateur Park. But as the website Quartersnacks often notes, we’re in the “everyone is good” era of skateboarding: “Anyone (well, anyone who’s good) can nollie flip a fourteen-stair nowadays or switch crook a gnarly rail, but it will be the behind the scenes videos that help us decide where our allegiances with various athletes stand.” Jagger might have more contest wins, but there are dozens of other kids who are just as eager to make a name for themselves, who can do (most of) the same tricks and who would like to go pro in his place. For now what really separates Jagger from other 16-year-old skate phenoms—and, presumably, the reason VICE Sports sent me to San Diego to talk to him—is that he is also a TV star.

Jagger Eaton’s Mega Life was a Rob Dyrdek-produced reality show that premiered on Nickelodeon late last year. During the show’s 20 episodes, Jagger, family, and friends travel around the country partaking in “mega” adventures—outdoor activities like shark diving, jousting, heli-boarding, and playing beach volleyball with the U.S. women’s beach volleyball team. The show gets its name from the mega ramp (also the subject of episode 17), an approximately 60-foot skate jump that Jagger has been riding since he was a child. It was on this ramp, when he was 11, that he captured his first major headlines by becoming the youngest-ever X Games competitor. While even Jagger will admit that there are times when he cringes to hear his younger voice—”I’m like, how do people even watch these videos?”—the show is more entertaining than you’d expect a Nickelodeon reality show to be. He possesses a boundless enthusiasm—evident in the way he uses G-rated swears like “gosh” and “heck” to intensify the “unreal”-ness of an activity—that makes me wish I could recapture that pre-cynical YA worldview wherein it’s possible to be passionate about things like ziplining.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Since Mega Life ended, Jagger and his brother Jett, 18, have moved from their hometown of Mesa, Arizona, to Encinitas, a suburb in the North County section of San Diego that’s been an epicenter of the skateboarding world since the ’80s. When I met him at Poods, he was setting up a new board (he goes through one every three or four days, about the same rate as shoes) and eating a plastic cup of Fruity Pebbles. With his sunspots and striped Stussy shirt, he looked like a quintessential California teen—Zonie or not.

“I wouldn’t say my life is the typical 16-year-old life,” Jagger admits. “I mean I’m living out in Cali by myself. I took my GED so I basically dropped out and graduated. I’m stoked where I’m at.” There was a time when having a TV show meant someone was definitely a celebrity, but, thanks to the internet’s destruction of what was left of the monoculture, it’s easier than ever to be huge in some circles and totally unknown in others. When I ask Jagger if he feels like he’s famous, he seems to have a pretty accurate gauge on things. “I get recognized at skateparks and sometimes at, like, grocery stores, but mostly I just focus on what I need to do. I never think of myself like I’m some sort of celebrity. [Having the show] was super cool and I’m stoked to have a following off it, but I don’t think I’m famous at all. I hang out with my family and my friends.”

When I follow up with a similar, slightly more pointed question—”You’re a 16-year-old living a state away from your parents, with 163,000 Instagram followers, many of whom are girls posting emojis about how cute they think you are. You never get into trouble?”—Jagger tells me that, “Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We’re not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang.” And, partially because skateboarding has been his entire life since he was five and partially because he tells me he says he spends time listening to self-help audiobooks like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I believe him. Though, when pressed, he admits to sending the occasional DM. “It’s always important to make new friends,” he laughs, but adds, “I don’t ever let it get to my head. I’m just stoked to have some fans and some people who like me.”

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Jagger has more contest wins and TV appearances than the average 16-year-old skater, and he’s sponsored by core brands like Plan B, Independent, and Bones. But, even among skaters, he’s not a household name. To change this, he’s spent the last few months filming a video part—basically a highlight reel of a skater’s most impressive tricks, set to music (Jagger is hoping that the licensing fee for Parliament’s “Flashlight” isn’t too expensive)—which he believes will show people that his skating stands on its own. “I have about two minutes of footage right now, I just need to film another minute and a half.” He says he plans to submit it to Thrasher, the magazine-turned-website so influential it’s known as the “skate bible.” He feels confident they’ll accept it. (Thrasher owner Tony Vitello told me that they’ve expressed interest in distributing a video part but nothing is set in stone. “He’s obviously a good skater,” he says, but their involvement “would most likely start towards the end of the project.”)

“Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We’re not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang.”

Most days, he and his friends skate at Poods for a few hours, break for lunch, then head out to spots around town filming tricks. This goes on until it gets dark, unless they’re filming with lights, in which case they can stay out all night. (High-level skateboarders spend an inordinate amount of time on schoolyards and grocery store loading docks.), His crew can fluctuate, from his brother Jett and other locals to fellow Plan B riders like Chris Joslin and Trevor McCLung, and SK8 Mafia’s Wes Kremer. San Diego is something of a skate mecca, so he’s managed to make a big impression on legends like Danny Way, who says, “Jagger has one of the most diverse skill sets and is one of the future legends of this next generation of young rippers.”

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

There’s a foundational paradox in skate culture: It’s an industry that runs on advertising—the major websites and magazines are basically trade publications, and anything critical about brands is extremely rare—while priding itself on being anti-establishment. Jagger has the commercial side down, but, with his Nickelodeon show, he’s anything but counter-culture. Jagger has heard his share of criticism, but says he doesn’t care. “[Jagger Eaton’s Mega Life] was one of the coolest experiences of my life and I don’t really give a shit what anybody says about it. I would never want to take it back. I had so much fun doing it. I got to meet so many cool people. It was just completely worth it.” Despite its underdog mentality, skateboarding has long been a dominant force in pop culture. It shapes everything from entertainment (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Rob Dyrdek’s empire, the stylings of Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine) to fashion (skateboarders, once responsible for the tight jeans resurgence, are to blame for the half-decade-long high-waters with Vans Old Skools trend). It would almost be weirder if a super-talented 16-year-old skater didn’t have his own Nickelodeon show.

One might think Jagger’s contest wins would silence the commenters, but skateboarders are probably even more suspicious of the X Games than of Nickelodeon. Traditional sports (and some purists even bristle at the thought of skating as a “sport”) revolve around winning, but success in skateboarding has largely been about getting enough children to buy shoes with your name on them. Being cool is more important than being the best—among skaters, the word style is as common as it is vague—which is part of why so many look down on contests. Jagger knows he has to prove he’s more than just a good contest skater, because skating in a contest is fundamentally different from skating in the street, and street skating is what dominates coverage on the skateboarding internet. Contests require an automaton-like ability to manage a series of tricks in a row without falling, so skaters default to things they know they can do. On the street, a skater has infinite chances, not ninety-second runs; it’s about pushing yourself rather than beating others. This is why Jagger feels like he has to show his worth with a video.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Watching him tell our photographer which lens and angle will work best for a given shot, it’s clear Jagger possesses a level of professionalism unknown to most teens, let alone teen skaters. He has a pretty solid idea of how to bring his plans to fruition, which is good, because he has a lot of plans. Right now, these include filming a street part with skateboarding’s foremost cinematographer Ty Evans, turning pro before he’s 18, and, most pressingly, getting his driver’s license. Three years from now, skateboarding will make its Olympic debut. When I asked Jagger what he thinks of the possibility of skating in the Olympics, he tells me that “I would love to compete for my country.” It’s true that the name “Jagger Eaton” seems almost designed to appear on a chyron, but he’ll be competing against dozens of the world’s best skateboarders for just a handful of slots on Team USA. Plus, even the qualifying events for the games are years away. When you’re 16, anything seems possible and everything can change in just a few months. Right now, he says, “I just have to prove I can hang in the streets.”

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets? syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[laughinglistener]

The Vampire Lestat

The Vampire Lestat

(The Vampire Chronicles, Book Two) By Anne Rice

Format: Audiobook Narrator: Simon Vance Length: 21 hours & 41 minutes Genres: Fiction, Adult, Fantasy, Horror, Supernatural Take a Peek:  Audible  |  Overdrive  |  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Goodreads

Story Rating: 4 Stars Performance Rating: 5 Stars Overall Rating: 4 Stars ★★★★

My journey into the Vampire Chronicles continues with round two. Man, so far this series has the ability to overwhelm me and push my thoughts towards the existential like no other book ever has. After my intense love affair with Interview With A Vampire a couple weeks ago, I was hesitantly curious about this sequel. I hated Lestat so much the first time around, I wasn’t sure if I could stand a whole novel told from his perspective. To my surprise (though I shouldn’t have been because Anne Rice is a genius) I really loved it and found this prequel/sequel really fascinating.

via GIPHY

THE REHASH

The story begins a decade-ish after the first one ended, in the 1980s. Our favorite vamp has been “sleeping” underground for quite some time, but is stirred at the new sounds of life happening outside. Upon his wake, the obvious progression of civilization overwhelms Lestat and he is curious about everything around him; clothing, music, religion, pop culture, politics, books, philosophy… You get the idea. He loves this new age where people are free to express themselves and everyone accepts it without batting an eye. The societal rules that once held him back no longer apply and he decides to take advantage this, hunting down a rock band he enjoys and confronting them. Lestat reveals what he is and promises to make the band rich if given the chance. They don’t believe him, of course, but compliment the clever choice of name for his little “act.” This only confuses Lestat and he asks what they’re talking about, only to discover that Louis helped write a book that told their history to the public. He’s completely shocked. Without even trying or knowing, Lestat has become the most famous vampire in history—mostly because he was a big douchebag.

In response, Lestat immediately starts penning his own novel and we dive head first into his origins. It opens with him Hulking out and killing a pack of wolves that had been terrorizing his village. Everyone is extremely grateful that he had the courage to kill them and even bring gifts in gratitude. One of these gift givers is Nicolas de Lenfent, nicknamed Nicki, who was shunned from his wealthy family when he devoted himself to learning the violin. As a secret aspiring actor, Lestat is immediately intrigued by him and his mother Gabrielle encourages her son to make a new friend. After their first dinner, the two are inseparable and even become lovers. Eventually they decide to hit the road to Paris where they will be free to live out their dreams, but Lestat is hesitant because of his mother’s failing health. Gabrielle knows that she’ll probably be dead soon, but she still tells Lestat to go and be happy and live as much as he can for her. With her blessing, the two go to Paris and create a new life performing with a theater troupe. Lestat is finally happy, so obviously that’s when a random old-man vampire comes to his room and steals him away.

Without much preamble or warning, Lestat gets changed into a vampire. And since the poor guy isn’t confused enough, his maker then immediately kills himself by walking into a fire—So. Not. Cool. He’s left with little instruction or help and relies mainly on his instincts as a guide. Despite being warned to stay away from his loved ones, Lestat can’t seem to help himself and uses his new inherited wealth to shower them with gifts. Gabrielle is ecstatic and happy for her son’s forturne while Nicki is….. not. He doesn’t understand why Lestat left and is very bitter, which is torturous for our narrator. In the end, Lestat can’t stay away and eventually visits his theater troupe friends, including Nicki, who welcome him back with open arms until they realize he’s not quite human anymore. At the same time, Lestat’s mother Gabrielle takes a turn for the worse and surprises her son with a visit to see him one last time. Initially he tries to hide his vampy-ness, but can’t stand the thought of watching her die and offers her eternal life, which she very quickly accepts.

To make a very very very long story short, after Lestat turns Gabrielle and eventually Nicki too, they face great adversity that drives wedges between them all. Armand and his band of religious vamp-followers are not happy with how they’re conducting themselves, and eventually split Lestat’s coven apart. He is completely miserable and hopeless, finding brief relief with an ancient vampire named Marius, before he’s forced to leave him too. This horribly bitter state is how he finds Louis, and the rest we already know.

In the epilogue, we finally get to see Louis and Lestat reunited, giving me warm-fuzzies that I didn’t know I wanted until it was already happening. Plus, we get to see Lestat play a stadium show with his now famous rock band and it quickly turns sour when pissed off vampires decide to attack. Until next time…

THE GOOD

*Opens mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.* ……….Well. Hmmm. A lot to ponder this time around.

If I had told myself at the end of Interview With A Vampire that I would ship Louis and Lestat AND hate Armand’s guts by the end of this one, I would have laughed in my own face. No way. But somehow Anne Rice managed to completely turn my own opinion and I can’t help but like Lestat’s character. I’m not entirely sure when the switch got flipped, but I find myself at the end of a transformation I didn’t even know was occurring. In the first novel I wanted to wring his neck. Now whenever he does anything vaguely evil I laugh like I’m watching a mischievous kitten.

“Oh Lestat! He’s so CUTE when he’s trying to dismantle the entire vampire structure!”

During the first novel, I fell so hard for Louis with his big heart and brooding nature that I hated Lestat for him. To me, it seemed completely logical that Louis and Claudia tried to kill Lestat by setting his ass on fire. So you can imagine my surprise when Lestat manages to undermine the ENTIRE first book in a few short sentences, saying Louis has his own perspective on events and conveniently omitted all the good times they had together. Lestat even goes on to explain some of the horrible things he did, somehow making it okay. It was a brilliant move on Rice’s part that left me completely speechless with a burning need to re-read the first novel again.

And this is a little macabre to discuss in a lighthearted book review, but I would feel remiss not mentioning it. I have never had my own fear of death described quite so accurately before. It struck a chord inside of me. Fear of death is something we all share, but it’s a vast, baser kind of terror that’s hard to grasp or put in words and I think Anne Rice captured that fear amazingly. Somehow, after reading this, I feel like I have a better grasp on myself—like I know that part of me a little better. That’s both good and bad. I think everyone would rather remain in blissful ignorance when it comes to death, but it also made me feel not so alone.

THE UGLY

Similarly to Interview With A Vampire, this book felt looooonnnnnnng since Rice shoves hundreds of years into a few chapters, but it’s lenth was a little more tedious this time around than it was before. Despite the whole being-an-immortal-vampire thing, I can see a lot of myself in Louis, which played a big role in winning me over the first time around and put a positive spin on it’s long length. I was just happy to be spending more time with a character I really cared about. Even after Lestat won me over in this second book, I wasn’t invested and held him at a distance. My attention wasn’t completely captured and tended to drop in between major plot points.

Plus, it didn’t feel like I was reading about the same Lestat. The Lestat in this novel felt completely different than the one I experienced before. Maybe that’s because my feelings for him changed so drastically, or maybe this was done on purpose since the first book is in Louis’s perspective. Whatever the reason, it felt like I was reading a story about some other completely different vampire. It wasn’t until his reunion with Louis at the very end that I connected the two Lestat’s together in my mind. This is probably my problem and no fault of Rice’s and I might solve it for myself by re-reading the first novel, but I wish there had been a better way to bridge the gap between the two.

FINAL WORD

Personally, I just don’t think this book is as strong as the first one, but it’s still a good read. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think—it has everything! I would definitely give this a try if you loved the Interview With A Vampire as much as I did.

The Vampire Lestat was originally published on Laughing Listener

[krissysbookshelf]

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  A Walk on the Haunted Side by Rose Pressey: When a famous author comes to town for a book signing, Ripley shows him a spooky house in Devil’s Moon, Kentucky. But when this guy later turns up dead, she must figure out if he was cursed by the old woman haunting the place, or killed by a real-life murderer.

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  Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series: Novellas 1-3 by Anna Celeste Burke: Help yourself to a delicious trio of cozy culinary mysteries in this box set by USA Today bestselling author, Anna Celeste Burke.

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  Sleepers Awake by Patrick McNulty: An undead bounty hunter, Bishop Kane, is sent by the mysterious Ministry of the Wraith to a small town in Alaska to kill the town Sheriff’s wife before she can unleash an apocalyptic uprising destroying all the people in the town and beyond. The only problem is the woman is Kane’s own daughter, long thought dead herself.

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  The Hunted by Tarn Richardson: The Hunted is the free prequel to the acclaimed Darkest Hand trilogy. A fantasy horror unlike any other, one that spans the torment and terror of World War One in huge detail.

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    Hit the Road Jack by Willow Rose: After several grisly murders in Cocoa Beach, Jack Ryder begins an investigation to find the killer — a grudge-holding butcher with a taste for pretty women. A gritty and dark thriller.

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  ABIGAIL – SPY OR DIE by Rose Fox: Dive into adventure and suspense in the world of espionage. Mossad agent Abigail is on the run from a professional killer, and she’s assumed a new identity. Meet Lucy.

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from Blogger http://ift.tt/2vXsHDc

[flauntpage]

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets?

Encinitas Skate Plaza looks like a parody of Southern California. It's the kind of place where a boombox is always playing early 2000s Offspring singles, where shirtless dads are forever weaving through crowds of shirtless teens, and where, at any given moment, a helmeted eight-year-old stands on the brink and prepares, for the first time, to drop herself down the cement walls of a never-functional pool that's twice as deep as she is tall.

Poods, as locals refer to the park, is a 13,000-square-foot slab of grey and orange concrete planes and waves and ledges, pierced by flatbars and stairways to nowhere, and surrounded by a parking lot, a soccer field, and a few palm trees that don't provide any shade. Show up most days around noon and there's a decent chance you'll notice one skateboarder, Jagger Eaton, standing out slightly from the rest. It's not that he's doing bigger tricks, necessarily, nor anything especially complicated. And it's not that he literally stands out—he just hit 5'7''.

There's just something almost effortless about the way he cruises around the park. There's an ease in the way he pops his board out of a ramp, the smile as he bails, the pat on the back he gives to check on the well-being of whoever he just slammed into at the bottom of an eight-stair rail. When Jagger does a run of tricks through the park, other skaters stop whatever they're doing, watch, and ask their friends if they saw that.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Though he still has to, as he puts it, "finesse" his way into R-rated movies, Jagger has already taken the top spot at many of the major contests open to amateur skateboarders; this year alone he's won the Phx Am and two gold medals at the X Games, in Amateur Street and Amateur Park. But as the website Quartersnacks often notes, we're in the "everyone is good" era of skateboarding: "Anyone (well, anyone who's good) can nollie flip a fourteen-stair nowadays or switch crook a gnarly rail, but it will be the behind the scenes videos that help us decide where our allegiances with various athletes stand." Jagger might have more contest wins, but there are dozens of other kids who are just as eager to make a name for themselves, who can do (most of) the same tricks and who would like to go pro in his place. For now what really separates Jagger from other 16-year-old skate phenoms—and, presumably, the reason VICE Sports sent me to San Diego to talk to him—is that he is also a TV star.

Jagger Eaton's Mega Life was a Rob Dyrdek-produced reality show that premiered on Nickelodeon late last year. During the show's 20 episodes, Jagger, family, and friends travel around the country partaking in "mega" adventures—outdoor activities like shark diving, jousting, heli-boarding, and playing beach volleyball with the U.S. women's beach volleyball team. The show gets its name from the mega ramp (also the subject of episode 17), an approximately 60-foot skate jump that Jagger has been riding since he was a child. It was on this ramp, when he was 11, that he captured his first major headlines by becoming the youngest-ever X Games competitor. While even Jagger will admit that there are times when he cringes to hear his younger voice—"I'm like, how do people even watch these videos?"—the show is more entertaining than you'd expect a Nickelodeon reality show to be. He possesses a boundless enthusiasm—evident in the way he uses G-rated swears like "gosh" and "heck" to intensify the "unreal"-ness of an activity—that makes me wish I could recapture that pre-cynical YA worldview wherein it's possible to be passionate about things like ziplining.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Since Mega Life ended, Jagger and his brother Jett, 18, have moved from their hometown of Mesa, Arizona, to Encinitas, a suburb in the North County section of San Diego that's been an epicenter of the skateboarding world since the '80s. When I met him at Poods, he was setting up a new board (he goes through one every three or four days, about the same rate as shoes) and eating a plastic cup of Fruity Pebbles. With his sunspots and striped Stussy shirt, he looked like a quintessential California teen—Zonie or not.

"I wouldn't say my life is the typical 16-year-old life," Jagger admits. "I mean I'm living out in Cali by myself. I took my GED so I basically dropped out and graduated. I'm stoked where I'm at." There was a time when having a TV show meant someone was definitely a celebrity, but, thanks to the internet's destruction of what was left of the monoculture, it's easier than ever to be huge in some circles and totally unknown in others. When I ask Jagger if he feels like he's famous, he seems to have a pretty accurate gauge on things. "I get recognized at skateparks and sometimes at, like, grocery stores, but mostly I just focus on what I need to do. I never think of myself like I'm some sort of celebrity. [Having the show] was super cool and I'm stoked to have a following off it, but I don't think I'm famous at all. I hang out with my family and my friends."

When I follow up with a similar, slightly more pointed question—"You're a 16-year-old living a state away from your parents, with 163,000 Instagram followers, many of whom are girls posting emojis about how cute they think you are. You never get into trouble?"—Jagger tells me that, "Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang." And, partially because skateboarding has been his entire life since he was five and partially because he tells me he says he spends time listening to self-help audiobooks like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I believe him. Though, when pressed, he admits to sending the occasional DM. "It's always important to make new friends," he laughs, but adds, "I don't ever let it get to my head. I'm just stoked to have some fans and some people who like me."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Jagger has more contest wins and TV appearances than the average 16-year-old skater, and he's sponsored by core brands like Plan B, Independent, and Bones. But, even among skaters, he's not a household name. To change this, he's spent the last few months filming a video part—basically a highlight reel of a skater's most impressive tricks, set to music (Jagger is hoping that the licensing fee for Parliament's "Flashlight" isn't too expensive)—which he believes will show people that his skating stands on its own. "I have about two minutes of footage right now, I just need to film another minute and a half." He says he plans to submit it to Thrasher, the magazine-turned-website so influential it's known as the "skate bible." He feels confident they'll accept it. (Thrasher owner Tony Vitello told me that they've expressed interest in distributing a video part but nothing is set in stone. "He's obviously a good skater," he says, but their involvement "would most likely start towards the end of the project.")

"Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang."

Most days, he and his friends skate at Poods for a few hours, break for lunch, then head out to spots around town filming tricks. This goes on until it gets dark, unless they're filming with lights, in which case they can stay out all night. (High-level skateboarders spend an inordinate amount of time on schoolyards and grocery store loading docks.), His crew can fluctuate, from his brother Jett and other locals to fellow Plan B riders like Chris Joslin and Trevor McCLung, and SK8 Mafia's Wes Kremer. San Diego is something of a skate mecca, so he's managed to make a big impression on legends like Danny Way, who says, "Jagger has one of the most diverse skill sets and is one of the future legends of this next generation of young rippers."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

There's a foundational paradox in skate culture: It's an industry that runs on advertising—the major websites and magazines are basically trade publications, and anything critical about brands is extremely rare—while priding itself on being anti-establishment. Jagger has the commercial side down, but, with his Nickelodeon show, he's anything but counter-culture. Jagger has heard his share of criticism, but says he doesn't care. "[Jagger Eaton's Mega Life] was one of the coolest experiences of my life and I don't really give a shit what anybody says about it. I would never want to take it back. I had so much fun doing it. I got to meet so many cool people. It was just completely worth it." Despite its underdog mentality, skateboarding has long been a dominant force in pop culture. It shapes everything from entertainment (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Rob Dyrdek's empire, the stylings of Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine) to fashion (skateboarders, once responsible for the tight jeans resurgence, are to blame for the half-decade-long high-waters with Vans Old Skools trend). It would almost be weirder if a super-talented 16-year-old skater didn't have his own Nickelodeon show.

One might think Jagger's contest wins would silence the commenters, but skateboarders are probably even more suspicious of the X Games than of Nickelodeon. Traditional sports (and some purists even bristle at the thought of skating as a "sport") revolve around winning, but success in skateboarding has largely been about getting enough children to buy shoes with your name on them. Being cool is more important than being the best—among skaters, the word style is as common as it is vague—which is part of why so many look down on contests. Jagger knows he has to prove he's more than just a good contest skater, because skating in a contest is fundamentally different from skating in the street, and street skating is what dominates coverage on the skateboarding internet. Contests require an automaton-like ability to manage a series of tricks in a row without falling, so skaters default to things they know they can do. On the street, a skater has infinite chances, not ninety-second runs; it's about pushing yourself rather than beating others. This is why Jagger feels like he has to show his worth with a video.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Watching him tell our photographer which lens and angle will work best for a given shot, it's clear Jagger possesses a level of professionalism unknown to most teens, let alone teen skaters. He has a pretty solid idea of how to bring his plans to fruition, which is good, because he has a lot of plans. Right now, these include filming a street part with skateboarding's foremost cinematographer Ty Evans, turning pro before he's 18, and, most pressingly, getting his driver's license. Three years from now, skateboarding will make its Olympic debut. When I asked Jagger what he thinks of the possibility of skating in the Olympics, he tells me that "I would love to compete for my country." It's true that the name "Jagger Eaton" seems almost designed to appear on a chyron, but he'll be competing against dozens of the world's best skateboarders for just a handful of slots on Team USA. Plus, even the qualifying events for the games are years away. When you're 16, anything seems possible and everything can change in just a few months. Right now, he says, "I just have to prove I can hang in the streets."

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets? published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets?

Encinitas Skate Plaza looks like a parody of Southern California. It's the kind of place where a boombox is always playing early 2000s Offspring singles, where shirtless dads are forever weaving through crowds of shirtless teens, and where, at any given moment, a helmeted eight-year-old stands on the brink and prepares, for the first time, to drop herself down the cement walls of a never-functional pool that's twice as deep as she is tall.

Poods, as locals refer to the park, is a 13,000-square-foot slab of grey and orange concrete planes and waves and ledges, pierced by flatbars and stairways to nowhere, and surrounded by a parking lot, a soccer field, and a few palm trees that don't provide any shade. Show up most days around noon and there's a decent chance you'll notice one skateboarder, Jagger Eaton, standing out slightly from the rest. It's not that he's doing bigger tricks, necessarily, nor anything especially complicated. And it's not that he literally stands out—he just hit 5'7''.

There's just something almost effortless about the way he cruises around the park. There's an ease in the way he pops his board out of a ramp, the smile as he bails, the pat on the back he gives to check on the well-being of whoever he just slammed into at the bottom of an eight-stair rail. When Jagger does a run of tricks through the park, other skaters stop whatever they're doing, watch, and ask their friends if they saw that.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Though he still has to, as he puts it, "finesse" his way into R-rated movies, Jagger has already taken the top spot at many of the major contests open to amateur skateboarders; this year alone he's won the Phx Am and two gold medals at the X Games, in Amateur Street and Amateur Park. But as the website Quartersnacks often notes, we're in the "everyone is good" era of skateboarding: "Anyone (well, anyone who's good) can nollie flip a fourteen-stair nowadays or switch crook a gnarly rail, but it will be the behind the scenes videos that help us decide where our allegiances with various athletes stand." Jagger might have more contest wins, but there are dozens of other kids who are just as eager to make a name for themselves, who can do (most of) the same tricks and who would like to go pro in his place. For now what really separates Jagger from other 16-year-old skate phenoms—and, presumably, the reason VICE Sports sent me to San Diego to talk to him—is that he is also a TV star.

Jagger Eaton's Mega Life was a Rob Dyrdek-produced reality show that premiered on Nickelodeon late last year. During the show's 20 episodes, Jagger, family, and friends travel around the country partaking in "mega" adventures—outdoor activities like shark diving, jousting, heli-boarding, and playing beach volleyball with the U.S. women's beach volleyball team. The show gets its name from the mega ramp (also the subject of episode 17), an approximately 60-foot skate jump that Jagger has been riding since he was a child. It was on this ramp, when he was 11, that he captured his first major headlines by becoming the youngest-ever X Games competitor. While even Jagger will admit that there are times when he cringes to hear his younger voice—"I'm like, how do people even watch these videos?"—the show is more entertaining than you'd expect a Nickelodeon reality show to be. He possesses a boundless enthusiasm—evident in the way he uses G-rated swears like "gosh" and "heck" to intensify the "unreal"-ness of an activity—that makes me wish I could recapture that pre-cynical YA worldview wherein it's possible to be passionate about things like ziplining.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Since Mega Life ended, Jagger and his brother Jett, 18, have moved from their hometown of Mesa, Arizona, to Encinitas, a suburb in the North County section of San Diego that's been an epicenter of the skateboarding world since the '80s. When I met him at Poods, he was setting up a new board (he goes through one every three or four days, about the same rate as shoes) and eating a plastic cup of Fruity Pebbles. With his sunspots and striped Stussy shirt, he looked like a quintessential California teen—Zonie or not.

"I wouldn't say my life is the typical 16-year-old life," Jagger admits. "I mean I'm living out in Cali by myself. I took my GED so I basically dropped out and graduated. I'm stoked where I'm at." There was a time when having a TV show meant someone was definitely a celebrity, but, thanks to the internet's destruction of what was left of the monoculture, it's easier than ever to be huge in some circles and totally unknown in others. When I ask Jagger if he feels like he's famous, he seems to have a pretty accurate gauge on things. "I get recognized at skateparks and sometimes at, like, grocery stores, but mostly I just focus on what I need to do. I never think of myself like I'm some sort of celebrity. [Having the show] was super cool and I'm stoked to have a following off it, but I don't think I'm famous at all. I hang out with my family and my friends."

When I follow up with a similar, slightly more pointed question—"You're a 16-year-old living a state away from your parents, with 163,000 Instagram followers, many of whom are girls posting emojis about how cute they think you are. You never get into trouble?"—Jagger tells me that, "Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang." And, partially because skateboarding has been his entire life since he was five and partially because he tells me he says he spends time listening to self-help audiobooks like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I believe him. Though, when pressed, he admits to sending the occasional DM. "It's always important to make new friends," he laughs, but adds, "I don't ever let it get to my head. I'm just stoked to have some fans and some people who like me."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Jagger has more contest wins and TV appearances than the average 16-year-old skater, and he's sponsored by core brands like Plan B, Independent, and Bones. But, even among skaters, he's not a household name. To change this, he's spent the last few months filming a video part—basically a highlight reel of a skater's most impressive tricks, set to music (Jagger is hoping that the licensing fee for Parliament's "Flashlight" isn't too expensive)—which he believes will show people that his skating stands on its own. "I have about two minutes of footage right now, I just need to film another minute and a half." He says he plans to submit it to Thrasher, the magazine-turned-website so influential it's known as the "skate bible." He feels confident they'll accept it. (Thrasher owner Tony Vitello told me that they've expressed interest in distributing a video part but nothing is set in stone. "He's obviously a good skater," he says, but their involvement "would most likely start towards the end of the project.")

"Me and my brother both have career goals that we want to accomplish. We're not playing heehaw with the fuck-around gang."

Most days, he and his friends skate at Poods for a few hours, break for lunch, then head out to spots around town filming tricks. This goes on until it gets dark, unless they're filming with lights, in which case they can stay out all night. (High-level skateboarders spend an inordinate amount of time on schoolyards and grocery store loading docks.), His crew can fluctuate, from his brother Jett and other locals to fellow Plan B riders like Chris Joslin and Trevor McCLung, and SK8 Mafia's Wes Kremer. San Diego is something of a skate mecca, so he's managed to make a big impression on legends like Danny Way, who says, "Jagger has one of the most diverse skill sets and is one of the future legends of this next generation of young rippers."

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

There's a foundational paradox in skate culture: It's an industry that runs on advertising—the major websites and magazines are basically trade publications, and anything critical about brands is extremely rare—while priding itself on being anti-establishment. Jagger has the commercial side down, but, with his Nickelodeon show, he's anything but counter-culture. Jagger has heard his share of criticism, but says he doesn't care. "[Jagger Eaton's Mega Life] was one of the coolest experiences of my life and I don't really give a shit what anybody says about it. I would never want to take it back. I had so much fun doing it. I got to meet so many cool people. It was just completely worth it." Despite its underdog mentality, skateboarding has long been a dominant force in pop culture. It shapes everything from entertainment (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Rob Dyrdek's empire, the stylings of Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine) to fashion (skateboarders, once responsible for the tight jeans resurgence, are to blame for the half-decade-long high-waters with Vans Old Skools trend). It would almost be weirder if a super-talented 16-year-old skater didn't have his own Nickelodeon show.

One might think Jagger's contest wins would silence the commenters, but skateboarders are probably even more suspicious of the X Games than of Nickelodeon. Traditional sports (and some purists even bristle at the thought of skating as a "sport") revolve around winning, but success in skateboarding has largely been about getting enough children to buy shoes with your name on them. Being cool is more important than being the best—among skaters, the word style is as common as it is vague—which is part of why so many look down on contests. Jagger knows he has to prove he's more than just a good contest skater, because skating in a contest is fundamentally different from skating in the street, and street skating is what dominates coverage on the skateboarding internet. Contests require an automaton-like ability to manage a series of tricks in a row without falling, so skaters default to things they know they can do. On the street, a skater has infinite chances, not ninety-second runs; it's about pushing yourself rather than beating others. This is why Jagger feels like he has to show his worth with a video.

Demian Becerra/Holy Mountain

Watching him tell our photographer which lens and angle will work best for a given shot, it's clear Jagger possesses a level of professionalism unknown to most teens, let alone teen skaters. He has a pretty solid idea of how to bring his plans to fruition, which is good, because he has a lot of plans. Right now, these include filming a street part with skateboarding's foremost cinematographer Ty Evans, turning pro before he's 18, and, most pressingly, getting his driver's license. Three years from now, skateboarding will make its Olympic debut. When I asked Jagger what he thinks of the possibility of skating in the Olympics, he tells me that "I would love to compete for my country." It's true that the name "Jagger Eaton" seems almost designed to appear on a chyron, but he'll be competing against dozens of the world's best skateboarders for just a handful of slots on Team USA. Plus, even the qualifying events for the games are years away. When you're 16, anything seems possible and everything can change in just a few months. Right now, he says, "I just have to prove I can hang in the streets."

Skater Jagger Eaton is Already a Star, But Can He Hang in the Streets? published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv