#for the record I am old enough to have vivid sense memories of my local video rental store

[marypsue]

Some of you are very young, and have thus not had experiences that I have had, but have had experiences that I have not had. Sometimes I forget this, until I unexpectedly encounter a sentence like 'oh yeah, the Minecraft youtubers you used to watch when you were nine years old' and instantly take twenty points of psychic damage.

[plenilune]

was tagged by @sandovers to do this meme; when u get this u have to put 5 songs 🎵 u actually listen to, publicly. then, send this to 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨ LIKE JACQUI I am baffled by the wording of the meme -- are you trying to suss out Musik Sekrits and not the cool stuff everyone says they listen to all the time? alas, I am always happy to prove I'm the living fulfillment of the old don't-hand-the-trans-folk-the-aux-under-any-circumstances stereotype. anyway here's five songs I've been listening to a lot lately, some new to me, some old.

"So Pale It Shone In The Night" - The Stranger. this is from his album Watching Dead Empires in Decay which I see as a sort of urban mirror to the unsettling rural soundscapes of prior album Bleaklow. you may also know the Stranger from his work as the Caretaker, where he plays a lot with memory and sense of place. I've been cycling around on a lot of half-formed thoughts about dying empires (huh, wonder why) and industry towns after the industry's left and cities and memory lately and this track sounds like -- waking up, or trying to fall asleep, in a thin-walled apartment in a massive apartment block, and the sounds of furnaces, of neighbours moving about, doing dishes, putting the kettle on, radio static, the traffic and the trains outside, all these sounds blur together, the sounds of life, but weary and a little melancholy. anyway I'm obsessed with this entire album but this vivid and tactile little soundscape is one of my chief delights at the moment.

"Are You Going to Leave Me?" - Isobel Campbell. old favourite song from an old favourite album, this arrangement of a traditional ballad that's zigzagged back and forth from the UK to Appalachia for centuries builds layer upon layer, verse after verse, in a way that's incredibly driving and haunting.

"gec 2 Ü" - 100 gecs. feels like every six months a different 100 gecs song I hadn't paid individual attention to before completely takes over my psyche and I listen to it on repeat for hours. love the way this plays with melodramatic glittery early 2000s style ballad format, like Angels and Airwaves crossed with a 90s chanteuse, similar to "xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx" but less eerie, warping and toying with the sound, just detached enough to be a little arch and playful, and then breaks into one of the most wrenchingly sincere and tender refrains I've ever heard. "you're sitting all alone / and you call me on the phone / and you say, I need love / can you get to me now?" I get shivers and my chest aches. yeah. that's what it's like.

"Walk Like A Motherfucker" - Ghost Funk Orchestra. I listen to this a lot on the walk to work, even though it is about being a sleazy con man who is maybe beginning to weary of the grift, and all I do is sell groceries for Jeff Be-- WAIT A MINUTE. anyway, Ghost Funk Orchestra is one of my favourite recent discoveries -- for one, they actually deliver on the vibes promise inherent in the name, and I've been burned by so many bands with cool names promising a specific weird and chewy atmosphere they don't bother to actually create. absolutely great spectral, jammable funk. also while the band is not local, their record label is run out of an old favourite record shop in Loveland, Ohio, whose catalogue Corey and I have been plumbing excitedly since we found out about them last month.

"Myth" - Julie Feeney. I rediscovered this album I used to listen to a lot in 2011 last year when I was going through my old last.fm stats (YEAH BABY) trying to find a couple of obscure lost favourites. it is! so infectious! anyway this song came up on shuffle recently and reminded me about Julie Feeney once again and now I keep returning to it. this feels like watching a creek bubble up, wildly playful and inventive, skipping stones, spinning dizzily, whispering secrets.

[unsettlingshortstories]

The Boarded Window

Ambrose Bierce (1891)

In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier - restless souls who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we should call indigence, than, impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meagre comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of "improvement" - a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the axe. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes.

    The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards weighted with traversing poles and its "chinking" of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded up - nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see.

    The man's name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his ageing. His hair and long, full beard were white, his grey, lustreless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shoulders - a burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day.

    One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story - excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter - that supplied by my grandfather.

    When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his axe to hew out a farm - the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support - he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name; of her charms of mind and person tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt; but God forbid that I should share it! Of their affection and happiness there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man's widowed life; for what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that?

    One day Murlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest to find his wife prostrate with fever, and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbour; nor was she in a condition to be left, to summon help. So he set about the task of nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness arid so passed away, apparently, with never a gleam of returning reason.

    From what we know of a nature like his we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly, and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment, like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep - surprised and a little ashamed; surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. "Tomorrow," he said aloud, "I shall have to make the coffin arid dig the grave; and then I shall miss her, when she is no longer in sight; but now - she is dead, of course, but it is all right - it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem."

    He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically, with soulless care. And still through his consciousness ran an undersense of conviction that all was right - that he should have her again as before, and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief; his capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard struck; that knowledge would come later, and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table's edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long, wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening woods! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast; perhaps it was a dream. For Murlock was asleep.

    Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke and lifting his head from his arms intently listened - he knew not why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see - he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who - what had waked him, and where was it?

    Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step - another - sounds as of bare feet upon the floor!

    He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move. Perforce he waited - waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know, yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman's name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact. A scuffling ensued, and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there!

    There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! Then there were darkness blacker than before, and silence; and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds.

    The body lay near the window, where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear.

[apptowonder]

On the Inherent Chaotic Queer Energy of “Cats” (No, Really)

In Which the Author Relates His Early Affinity For the Musical Cats, And Meditates in Rapt Contemplation On Its Effect On His Own Queer Coming of Age.

Ok, I’ll drop the Eliotian/Victorian pretense. But in all seriousness, this is going to be a long ramble on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, because I saw the recording of the 1998 Broadway performance again for the first time in probably 14 years and it made me Feel Feelings (tm). Plus a comrade of mine expressed similar enthusiasm and it inspired me.

I -- First Viewing

When I was 10 or 11 years old, for a brief period after seeing Cats for the first time at a local dinner theater production, I was enamored in ways I couldn’t put into words. I was not, and have not really ever been a theater queer. I did a few plays up through high school, and stopped doing theater in college when I lost interest and found out it would take time away from gospel choir. But there was something about the way these characters moved, the charisma they carried themselves with that stuck with me. Unlike some of my queer friends, I don’t have the sense that “I always knew” I liked boys as well as other genders. As a tween, I felt very aloof from romantic interest except for one long-lasting crush on a girl in 5th grade that lasted through middle school. But as I continue to look back, I do think I felt a certain stirring in my gut for certain charismatic male figures, almost like an imprinting. Early affection and crushes manifested in a desire to be like the attractive heroes I admired.

I wanted to be Mr Mistofelees, the Original Conjuring Cat. I also wanted to be Munkustrap, the unassuming but brave and suave narrator, unofficial leader of the Jellicle Tribe. Honorable mention goes to the Rum Tum Tugger, whose rock star persona definitely exudes bi energy, but he felt less approachable to me. In any case, though I didn’t realize it at the time, something was very queer about these cats.

II -- On the Naming of Cats -- Munkustrap

Why I felt drawn to this character is hard to sum up. He doesn’t have his own song, his name is only listed in the program. But he does have considerable stage time. Serving as the narrator and Master of Ceremonies for the Jellicle Ball, right-hand man to Old Deuteronomy, and the only cat willing to go toe to toe with Macavity, he had a certain gravitas that I found compelling. He is humble, as I strive to be. Caring and protective of his family, but not overly aggressive. Confident, but not overbearing. He seemed that he would be the perfect gentle lover, someone who could take you to new and unexpected places but would also make sure that you were safe and loved. 

On a deeper level, perhaps my identifying with this character was a kind of rehearsal for the years to come. Munkustrap served as both the boy I wanted to meet and the boy I wanted to be. When I came out and became invested in queer community and queer Christian community especially, I found myself slowly falling into the role of psychopomp and threshold guardian for some of my gayby Christian friends who were either newly coming out or newly trying to reconcile their faith and sexuality. I would direct them to apologetics resources, but I think my greater strength was in being a kind of MC who would invite them into a new queer reality, a celebration of the richness of life and a vision of the vastness of both theology and queer vibrancy. In a sense, I invited them to a Jellicle ball.* I would invite them to dance beneath the moon of our shared experience, and show to them that far from being incomplete or broken, they had their own power and beauty, were possessed of “Terpsichorean powers” which would serve as a mysterious gift to the wider world.

The first boy I dated was a Munkustrap. Gentle, but fun-loving. Willing to meet me where I was, but also encouraging me to new heights of intimacy, feeling and adventure. Though we eventually parted ways, we remained good friends, and I will be forever grateful to him for leading me from an abstract appreciation of my queerness to a deeply embodied possession of it that I can now live out for the glory of God and the good of humanity, like a cat has a deep embodied possession of its third and secret name.

III -- On the Naming of Cats -- Mr. Mistoffelees

“Oh, well I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffelees?”

Coming in at the eleventh hour to save the day, Mr. Mistoffelees employs his magical powers to rescue Old Deuteronomy when all other help fails. In the production I saw, he literally flies down onto the stage (on a wire) and proceeds to produce phantasmagorical phenomena and easily conjures up the kidnapped patriarch of the Jellicle Tribe from the place he’s been sequestered. He is flashy, elegant, flamboyant, coy, “aloof” but always fun-loving. Perhaps more importantly, in all the performances I’ve seen, he seems elegantly attuned to some deeper sixth sense. Beneath the playful surface is a deep power that manifests in impressive ways. The show relays his power through the metaphor of stage magic, but to me he also seemed to have a touch of something mystical, spiritual. I felt both awe and affection for that sensitive attunement, and how it was packaged in such a playful personality.

In my own life as queer clergy, I have sought to develop that kind of attunement. Though spirituality is a bit slower and more messy than conjuring, I have received compliments from colleagues queer and straight that I often speak the exact right prayer for the needs of a given moment. I write poems and try to breathe new life into the life-giving stories of my spiritual tradition, my life and the lives of my queer tribes. I’m always eager to come up with an impromptu liturgical service when circumstance dictates, and I draw on vocabulary from the saints and mystics as well as my own love of language and poetry. Playfulness is, to me, a spiritual virtue, and I love to offer inspiring surprises from the depths of the wisdom I have inherited from those who have gone before. When friends (especially queer Christian friends) are stuck in demoralizing binaries and limited horizons of purity culture, toxic theology, or other spiritual burdens, I will often pull a shimmering anecdote from the lives of the saints, or an ancient word of curiosity that opens up a new way of seeing the world. In a way, I’m pulling kittens out of hats. 

Ironically but also fittingly, when I kept my queerness under wraps, my poetry was vivid but strained. Overwrought, often melancholy but rarely insightful. And I would pray when someone asked me to, but it generally consisted of generic requests that didn’t really mean much to me. I had to become fabulous and be willing to be in touch with the queer wonder of both my loves and my experiences before I began to really tap into that spiritual current that I am still learning how to channel for the life of the world. I’m still a beginner, and in my day to day life I’m fairly quiet and introspective. Aloof, perhaps. But I feel that my openness to queer joy, queer eros and queer vibrancy have begun to throw open a way to my own wholeness and the invigorating and revival of many of my communities. I don’t do this alone, and I am still learning from my many queer elders and forerunners. As I study and practice and bring forth vision, I continue to learn “from Mr. Mistofelees’ conjuring turn.”

At Pride a year or two ago, I met a Mr. Mistofelees of sorts. A pagan boy, playful and flashy, with a golden voice. He ended up being a bit too flighty for me, but he helped me find a bit more of my flamboyant side by getting me to do karaoke, and introducing me to the queer night life in a new city. In our own separate ways, we both helped each other I think be deeper attuned to that electric queer energy that flows into creativity, presence, wonder and resilience like lightning flows from Mistofelees’ fingertips. We pranced about our respective stages and conjured beauty for one another.

IV -- Memory (Some Thoughts on the Queerness of the Musical, and Some Final Reflections)

And what of the musical as a whole. What is it about Cats that struck such a chord with my very young queer self, and still does?

To me, it has an energy to it that resonates very deeply with queer experience. It delights in elevated pageantry, but it takes its own internal logic and way of being seriously. There is something about the mystery and spectacle of it that feels like a queer way of being. Despite the charge leveled against us by demagogues and queerphobes that we’re simply decadent, queer experience to me has always been about experiencing a heightened sense of reality, be that in adventure, sensuality, joy, beauty, celebration or pleasure. As the meme goes, before you say we’re too much, ask yourself, are you even enough?

Furthermore, the show is sensual and embodied in a way that many more conventional Broadway musicals aren’t. It delights in being just a little bit bawdy, while at the same time showcasing an excellence in the choreography and visuals that requires a good deal of skill and physical effort. In coming out and coming to know queer community, I began to listen better to my body and to be more comfortable in my own skin. To delight in the magic of touch and sensory beauty.

Finally, the sensuousness that undergirds the show also displays a very free flowing romantic and affectional subtext between different characters. Two cats may flirt or make eyes at each other, but there’s no expectation that they might not also catch the eye of a completely different cat in the next scene. They perform with a subtle erotic undertone that suggests both tenderness and hedonism, but all in the context of a tight-knit community that cares for its own. The fanfiction community for Cats presents a rainbow of different romantic pairings for various characters, and the lack of consensus as to which ones are “canon” speaks to the show’s affectational fluidity and dynamism.

In the end, the Jellicle cats all present a world within the everyday that is deeply queer and fluid, a “thin space” where personalities are larger than life and anything is possible. In this gay and mystifying romp, I was moved to a consideration in the years since I saw it of my own “secret names” as a future queer seminarian and priest (though I didn’t know it then). While it may seem bewildering to some, I continue to cherish it as a tribute to the great mysteries of queer existence, love and community. And that’s how you address us cats.

*Props to my comrade for extending on and fleshing out this metaphor in his blog post.

[tanyaodebra]

You 2.1: A Fresh Start – The Bitch Is Back

Confession: I fucking LOVED Season One of You – so much so that I decided to write recaps of Season Two! What does this say about my feminism? JUST LET ME LIVE, OKAY??? Let it be known that absolutely no one asked me to do this. I recently moved back to Brooklyn full-time after finishing my degree in Northampton, MA, so I’m using my (hopefully brief) interval sans a jobby-job (please hire me) to write about a show that my partner detests, so now I “have” to watch it. Should I be working on my play or screenplay? Duh. Should you be doing your job or otherwise improving your own life right now? Duh. Let’s call a truce and just enjoy ourselves. Cheers to me and You.

This first episode is a very strong start to the season, and I’m genuinely psyched to watch the rest of the show. Right from the jump we can see that Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is back on his bullshit. A Class-A manipulator, Joe crafts the recap of his Season One misdeeds into a cozy quilt of blame and white knighthood under which he can forever smother the memory of his former lover/victim Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail). At the end of Season One, I wasn’t sure if the reappearance of Candace (Ambyr Childers) was a figment of his imagination or the result of too many blows to the head, and to be honest I’m still not totally sure since dear Joe is so deeply delusional, but real or not, Candace has incited a cross-country move. If we can trust the public locale in the Candace flashbacks, it appears that she is real, and she is super pissed that not only did he tried to kill her, but he succeeded in killing someone else. Of course, Joe would rather be anywhere other than Los Angeles. A perpetual proctor for the purity test of life, Joe detests the vapidity he equates with LA, which is why it’s the perfect selection for his illicit hideaway. But even Joe Goldberg isn’t immune to the seductive qualities of LA in that perhaps even he might be given a fresh start. Wait… Did he just say his name is Will Bettelheim? Squeaky clean credit, no social media presence -- this will be a very fresh start indeed. And yet… whoever lived in the apartment before Joe/Will seems to have left under some duress – all the furniture is still there. I already have that no-so-fresh feeling. Also, am I sniffing glue or is Lonely Boy meeting cute with the landlady (Carmela Zumbado)? Do we have our next victim? Maybe, maybe not. But what I am sure about is that perv-y Joe shipped himself a huge fucking telescope, and he’s allowed himself ten minutes a day to creep. So, we’re definitely not turning over a new leaf. We’re just turning that very same leaf over and over in our dirty little hands.

This new season of You is a series of inversions and remixes of the life Joe had in New York. On the sunny left coast, Joe/Will has a new child sidekick in Ellie (Jenna Ortega), but instead of acting as the mentor, Joe appears to be the mentee. Unlike Paco (Luca Padovan) from Season One, Ellie has a guardian who cares, a fact Delilah makes crystal clear with her delicious threat to “vivisect” Joe’s “individual balls” if he lays a finger on Ellie. (If that was a hint at Joe’s future, I will be so happy.) And though he slips back into a job at a bookstore like a pig on a shit-hill, it’s at a joint with a backwards name: Anavrin (Nirvana). Here we have the first of the literary Easter eggs, the almost too symbolically on-the-nose copy of Crime and Punishment that lands him his gig. On his first day, Joe shelves books about chakra-clearing and the Akashic Record. Does this mean his karma will finally catch up with him? Perhaps it does in the sense that Joe’s new boss, Forty (James Scully), is basically a reanimated Benji. After a weird vegan showdown about Carl Jung, Lonely Boy once again has trouble separating real life from fantasy. He appears to be having a very steamy encounter with the actual meet-cute from the previous scene, but it’s all a very vivid day dream. In real life he commits the very fire-able offence of beating off in the stock room. (Let me just say – and I’ve been seeing your shit online, so I know you’re out there – I don’t know how any of you hoes think this guy is doable. He is the definition of a skeezeball.) Joe is a hetero-normative, lackluster Dr Frankenfurter, creating his own world where he can be a sexual king. He’s determined to not just dream it, but to be it. Make no mistake, both will kill to make their dreams come true.

Let’s talk about Love. Not the state of being, but the female character who seems positively manufactured to capture the attention of one Joe Goldberg. Is it me, or is she a honey pot working for Candace? Is Candace’s game so good that she set all this up before even meeting with Joe at the bookstore? Love (Victoria Pedretti) has the girl-next-door look he loves, and she seems to exist in order to fulfill his every whim. She appears out of nowhere to give him a hippy sunburn cure, she reads books he’d approve of had he read them, she takes him on what is basically the best date ever, a hunt to discover his favorite LA dishes, and ultimately she cooks a meal tailor-made for him. And then there’s her backstory. Her baggage is not a series of shitty exes. Oh, no. She’s a widow, which means she’s perfect in that her love can only be snuffed by death itself. Love is exactly who Joe is looking for. Or… Is she the karmic repayment this episode has been hinting at? Is Joe about to get a taste of his own medicine? She gifts him Joan Didion’s Play it As It Lays, which, according to Wikipedia, is a novel about an LA transplant from New York who goes crazy. But Love had only established at the beginning of the night that Will had never read Didion. When did she get this book? How could she have known ahead of time that he hadn’t read it? Come to think of it, what, precisely, killed her husband? We have nine more episodes to find out.

Even in the face of Love, I am so nervous about Joe’s relationship with Ellie, who is, frankly, a teen so cool I would be honored if she just gave me dirty looks all day. After a very gross exchange where he causes her phone to go careening off a rooftop, Joe apologizes with an expensive bouquet of flowers otherwise known as an iPhone. Men: do not, and I can’t stress this enough, give expensive gifts to teenaged girls. If you fucked up her phone, figure out how to replace it through her legal guardian. Ellie, savvy as she seems, is still just a materialistic child who doesn’t know better, and who is satisfied with the transactional token of being owed a favor in return for her social media tutorial. It sure looks like Ellie has got Lonely Boy’s number when she claims that the only reasons to post online are love and revenge. But Joe/Will does what he always does and lies, lies, lies, claiming those are not his motives. Later, Joe gives off very strong Humbert Humbert vibes when Ellie tells him to blow on her toenail polish. Lo and behold, captured using the very gift Joe gave her, an image of an obviously unwanted guest rests in Ellie’s hot little hands. Thus begins the final twist of A Fresh Start.

Rewind a clip. In an even more Jungian display than the junk pile jerk-off, Joe dreams of his mother leaving him alone at the beach. This is the first glimpse the audience has gotten of Joe’s childhood besides his time with old man Mooney. She is a mash-up of Candace, Beck, and Love – beautiful, charismatic, and a bit of a manic pixie dream girl. Here we find the origin of “you” as a moniker for Joe’s love interests; it’s what his mom calls him during a guilty turn of maternal love mixed with abandonment. She asks young Joe to build her a sandcastle, and in a sense that is exactly what he has done with his life – just don’t dig too deeply underneath, because that’s where all the bodies are buried. I hope we get a little more nuance if these flashbacks continue. It would be a real bummer if the audience ends up neatly being able to blame Joe’s mother, when Joe is actually the criminal.

Back to the final chapter of this episode. Creepy Joe is up to no good, as evidenced by the baseball cap he only wears when he’s creepin’. Turns out you can take the boy of the secret locked room in the basement, but you can’t take the secret locked room out of the boy. Everyone, meet the real Will Bettelheim. So, it wasn’t an identity Joe invented after all. And there was no real meet-cute with Love – he has been stalking her from the get-go. Neither was there a coincidence at the job interview – he planted Crime and Punishment in his backpack to land a job where Love works. The new Joe is the old Will, who just happened to be Love’s neighbor conveniently in telescope-shot of Love’s apartment. And just who is Will? I’ll never tell. XOXO, Gossip Girl. Not really. I’m totally going to tell as soon as I know. See You next time!

[norxis]

When Wagon Wheels Stop

In a wagon, heading toward the town of Dermure, are five very different individuals. Among them, an elf, the likes of which has rarely been seen around these parts; a dwarf, who seems abnormally cheerful for this neck of the woods, and a fair elf who carries themselves with something of a military air. These three travelers have caught a ride with Cohen and Coden Mooncrest, Shadar-kai brothers who are heading to Dermure in seek of coin and glory.

Cohen and Coden are identical twins, and bickering back and forth throughout the ride. "We do NOT have a sister, you dolt." The one that you think is Cohen says, giving his brother the side-eye.

"I'm telling you, we DO. I saw it in the family history books, and I am going to find her. She was sent to this area well before we were brought into the world - and her name was attempted to be stricken from the records for some reason. I want to know why." This one you're pretty sure is Coden. THEY LOOK THE SAME, HOW CAN YOU TELL??? The one who insists they have no sister, says: "I still think you're wrong. Father would have told me. AND HE SURE AS HELL WOULDN'T HAVE SENT US OUT HERE IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO HIS ELDEST CHILD. He does want heirs, you know."The other one snorts derisively. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"What's wrong without here?" Haphthor says, "Seems nice. The air's a wee bit brisk, but 'tis what ah like."

The brothers pause their bickering and glance to the back of the wagon."Haven't you heard about what happens around the cursed lands of Barovia? Even towns that aren't a part of the curse are...affected."

"Really...excellent beer? And pretzels?" Haphthor replies.

One of them smirks. Coden, probably?"Aye, good beer can be had here. At least, you better hope you like it. It may be all you have access to for quite some time."

Haphthor cracks his knuckles. "And tae thinks, the Auld Father said all my drinking would come tae nothin'."

The other one bares his teeth in what you assume is supposed to be a grin. He's not very good at it. Frankly, it's slightly terrifying.

Rin sighs heavily and palms their face. "Yes, dwarf, the excellent cuisine." They turn to the brothers. "The family records you mentioned...it sounds like multiple were altered. Have there been any other family "secrets" you might have wondered about, other than a potential sister? Ones related to altered texts?"

"If he can handle his cups, he should be fine."The brothers look at one another. "Altered texts?"

Haphthor clutches his pearls (he has never worn pearls) at hearing so many words come out of Rin's mouth all at once.

"You say her name was in the family history books, attempted to be stricken from them." Rin eyes the brothers, not particularly sure which had said which because they were more preoccupied with eyeing up the surroundings. "That sounds like altered texts to me."

One of the brothers scoffs, and you notice his eyes crinkle just a little more at the corners than the others - this one obviously laughs more often. "Yes, I saw her name - it started with an I, but the rest was scratched out like whoever did it was very angry. I found other mentions of a female child born to the elder Mooncrests... but there are things missing it seems. Family histories are of little interest to most, though. Including my brother, it seems." 

The other, a more serious one, sighs. This one, you're pretty sure, is Cohen. "As your older brother, I insist you stop this "sister" nonsense." Coden rolls his eyes and pulls a silver dagger from...somewhere? ... to clean his nails.

Rin looks to the more serious one. "What do you think was scratched out of these family records of yours, then?"

Happy is obviously bored and is breaking a stick in half, casting "mend" on it, and the breaking it in half again, ad nauseum. "Ah have so many kin that mah auld mother ran outtae room in the family books." (He just wants to be part of the conversation but has no idea what to do. He liked the talk of beer much better. Alas.)

Coden turns around again, balancing the dagger on the back of his hand and flipping it around. "I don't know. That's what I came to find out. Unless there was something horrible, the Queen wouldn't have wanted a Mooncrest stricken from the records."Cohen snorts. "You came because father told you to." 

Rin looks passingly intrigued to hear talk of such large families. "Must have been noisy," they say to Happy.

This time, a genuine smile. "No, brother. We came because the Queen told us to."Cohen shakes his head slightly. "No, you misunderstand me. We don't come from a large family - in fact, none of our kind have large families. We've been exiled for centuries because..." Coden coughs softly. "...er. Well. Let's just say our kind is not all that common." He nods at Rin. "Rather like yours, I'd guess."

Happy watches Coden (he thinks?) flip the dagger and tries to mimic him with his stick. It falls off the back of the wagon. He heaves a sigh and turns to the elf, "'Twas indeed. Ye should have seen our supper tables. Eh, what's this of a queen?"

Cohen seems to realize he's lost the thread of the conversation somewhere, and Rin was talking to the dwarf. He seems to be lost in his own thoughts enough that his portion of the conversation doesn't always make sense...unless you're really paying attention and can follow the tangled threads. "Dwarf - what did you say your name was again?"

Happy smiles widely, back on solid metaphorical ground. He bends at the waist as much as his sitting position and considerable size allow. "T'name's Haphthor Clashhammer, of the western Clashhammers. Mayhaps you've heard of us?" He says hopefully.

The brothers shake their heads slowly.

Rin nods their head to Happy. "I meant our dwarf companion here. That much familial company under one roof, it'd be too much for one of mine. We prefer safety in...smaller numbers." Rin looks thoughtfully to the night sky, as if recalling a potentially discomforting memory, but shakes it off and looks back to Happy as he speaks his name.

Happy seems a bit dejected, but he soldiers on. "Nevermind that. Yeh lot can call me Happy, if you like. The whole thing's a bit of a mouthful."

"Happy is much easier to remember."The cart jostles, and Coden's dagger is tucked away in a flash. "You're going to lose that thing," Cohen says with a wink."So..." Cohen turns back toward the three travelers. "What are you hoping to find in Dermure?"

Rin smiles. "Greetings, Happy." They nod their head. "You may call me Rin, if it pleases."

A stick drops in Happy's lap.Cohen's smile widens. "I think you lost something."

Rin looks to Cohen. "There are stories that have come been told of this place, both enormously fantastical and those that ring of truth. I want to find which is which and transcribe them for myself."

Coden glares at his brother. "Behave yourself."

Happy's face cracks into a craggy, toothy grin. He tucks the stick into his belt, and then turns to the brothers. "Brother Ragnar, the fool, suggested I come to the region to learn brewing techniques from the locals. He said I "could stand to learn more skills" when it comes to next year's brewing festival." He rolls his eyes as he air-quotes, clearly believing the affront to his beer brewing to be misguided.

"And do you...brew...often?"

"Ah, well. I did the one time!" 

"...one...???"

Rin raises a brow. "What happened the "one time"?"

"Nigh everyone said it was so good that I didn't need to bother trying again, for I had cracked the code! All's except Ragnar."

In the distance, you begin to see what appears to be smoke from chimneys, and the spires of a distant church. The sun is beginning to set, painting the sky with vivid pinks, purples, and golds. "Hmm... that sounds like they were trying to let you down gently, good sir."

Happy flaps a large hand, clearly dismissing this notion. "Is tha' our destination?"

Coden tilts his head toward the spires. "Yes, that is where we are heading. We should manage to make it just before nightfall. Otherwise, we'll be spending the night outside the gates, and I'd rather not start off your journey that way." The forest surrounding the path is quiet, though you can hear the occasional bird call and hear frequent rustling in the underbrush.

"...should?"

"Barring any unforseen issues, yes. Should."

Rin looks to the church spires, then back to the path they've just traversed. "What might be found outside the gates around these parts?" The forest looks as though it were from a story, gilded by the setting sun, but there's an uneasy feeling upon Rin's shoulders that is...well, unsettling.

"Ah guess I should sharpen mah stick then," Happy jokes, making to whittle the stick a bit with his dagger. 

The evening is beautiful, if quickly becoming a bit brisk. You haven't actually seen any wildlife, though you've certainly heard it. The lower the sun sinks in the sky, the more noises you begin to hear. Coden shrugs a bit nonchalantly at Rin's question."Oh, this and that. Nothing to worry about."

Happy looks around and doesn't sense anything amiss. The forest is thick, and the ground is covered with what appears to be a soft moss. There is a lot of undergrowth, and the forest itself appears very old.

"See, it's just when you say that that I get worried," Rin mutters, shouldering their cloak a bit higher and checking that their bag is secure around their shoulder.

Happy claps Rin on the back gently. "Nah, t'looks quite nice around here. Look how soft the moss is down there!"

Coden grins, and the boy is striking. For it's now obvious he's young - Shadar-kai live to be hundreds of years old, but these twins have but a few decades between them. Not necessarily confidence-inspiring, though their particular grace in movements reminds those who have seen seasoned warriors fight of exactly that.

"There are worse places to be that's for certain..." Nox says trailing off, she's been thinking of something else this whole time...

Happy jumps a little when the lady speaks, clutching his not-pearls again.

"You're in good hands, friends. We'll let no harm come to you this night. As for what the morrow brings, well..."

Rin casts a glance back at the moss, somewhat wearily, before turning to the other wagon inhabitant. "And what brings you on this journey alongside us?"

The wagon continues rumbling along the path, the church spires growing ever nearer, and the sun sinking lower. You can now see the city walls beckoning, and a very large gate standing open - flanked on either side by two guards.

Happy, naturally, leans over his side of the cart and waves frantically and, well, happily at the guards.

"Leave...I'm in the army...I needed, a break." Nox replies sounding more than a little mysterious and a touch guarded.

The guards step in front of the gates as the wagon approaches, forcing the wagon to a stop. They eye the boys warily, and peer into the back of the wagon.

"We don't see much of your kind around here," one of the guards says, motioning to the twins. Both boys keep a straight face and nod solemnly. "We know that we aren't often welcome in these parts, but we have a specific purpose for being here." Coden (or is it Cohen?) pulls a rolled-up scroll sealed with wax and hands it to the guard.

"I could think of cheerier, and less mysterious, climates for leave," Rin chuckles, gesturing to the church, the mountains, and so forth. The chuckle has layers, considering the stories they've heard about this place, whether true or not.

"While that is true I could be just about anywhere, this is where I am, and for the moment at least I'm happy with it. Least its not the front lines." She says to Rin.

The guard pales at the sight of the seal, before breaking it open and reading it. He shows it to his companion, and they move hastily out of the way. "Proceed."

Happy leans toward Nox and stage-whispers "What's tha fancy seal?"

Coden salutes mockingly. "Thank you, sirs."As you pass through the gates, the guards move to close them behind you. The sun has set - you are the last wagon allowed through for the evening. You hear a lone howl in the distance - long, keening, and eerie.

"Was that a squirrel er summat?"

The boys glance at each other. "That was a little closer than I'd have liked."

Rin snaps their head back toward the gate at the tone of the howl. Though the gates are closed, they know well that gates are not always as full-proof as those within them would like.

They turn back to the travelers, "don't venture outside the city - this city or any other - after dark if you can help it. The curse that plagues Barovia has done some strange things to the wildlife here, and it is worst at night. Even if you're offered coin - you'd be well-advised to stay in the relative safety of the city walls after dark."

Happy makes a sign across his chest, muttering darkly about were-squirrels and cursed wildlife.

Cohen eyes Nox appraisingly. "Military. I thought so. You might come in handy. Let's get you settled for the night, shall we?"The boys park the wagon at a nearby inn, and grab their packs. Coden gestures for all of you to get out of the wagon.

Nox does one of those finger guns and clicks as though to say "I'm your man."

Happy hefts himself out of the wagon, careful to drag his pack with him on his descent lest he not be able to reach back into the wagon for it. He pats the stick in his belt, careful to make sure it is there.

Rin stands, twisting to the left and right to ease the kinks out of their neck and back before getting down from the wagon with their bag, their traveling cloak secure. They look back at Happy. "Need any help with that bag? It looks weighty."

"Ah, thank ye kind friend, but I'm much stronger than ah-WHAT WAS THA'" Happy exclaims, hand to chest as usual, as the cart becomes a toy.

Once everyone has removed themselves from the wagon, Coden makes a series of quick gestures at the wagon, and it folds in on itself, leaving a small silver trinket where a full-sized wagon stood just a moment ago. He picks it up and tucks it deftly into the leather covering his torso.

"Well, that's a neat trick." Nox says to him

Rin looks impressed. "That's handy."

Coden winks and gives a slight bow. "Thank you. This is the Queen's Way Inn - it's friendly to... well. Our kind in particular, but everyone in general. Your first night's room is covered, thanks to keeping us company on the road. Settle in, get a good night's sleep, and find us in the morning, eh?"

Nox gives a small nod and heads inside. Her long legs make it seem like she jogged off.

The inn is well-appointed if a bit worn. You can tell that the furniture was fancy at one time, and it's still very nice...just well-used. The inn-keeper lights up at the sight of the brothers, and they nod to her before continuing on past the desk as though they know exactly where they are going. She calls after them "Your usual chambers are waiting...." and muttering under her breath "...not that you asked."

Nox heads straight to order a drink, if there is bar seating she would sit.

She eyes the three of you less warmly, but with a friendly air still. "The boys have you covered, I suppose." She eyes Nox in particular. "Typical." She pulls out three keys, and presses them across the desk. Each key bears a remarkable likeness to one of you.

Happy picks up the key with Nox's likeness and says "Hey, the scar's on the correct side!"

Nox smiles and nods to the innkeeper"They usually get that wrong" She says to Happy. Taking a closer look at the key sipping the beer.

Rin looks around and appreciates the aesthetic. The lived in-ness is comforting. They watch as the brothers ascend the stairs, noticing the innkeeper's muttering and smirking. They're not quite ready to head to bed yet, and heads to the counter, accepting the key the innkeeper presented. "Thank you. I wonder, would there be a chance of tea? I'd like to read by the fire before turning in."

A teacup appears on the bar, steamrolling from the top. A pot of honey appears beside it.

"So I like this place," Nox says looking at the teapot.

Happy looks down at the drinks look up into the nothingness of the bar and squint wordlessly. What is he thinking about?

The innkeeper smiles. "Dermure is known for its magic. We wouldn't want to disappoint travelers by being too ordinary."

Rin peers into the cup, breathing in the scent. "The perfect blend." They nod in thanks as they dribble a bit of honey in the cup. "You have my thanks."

"Make yourselves at home, the inn belongs to the brothers for the evening - so their guests are welcome wherever they'd like to wander. A good night's sleep after a bath to wash off the road dirt is my suggestion." She gestures to the stairs at the opposite side of the room, heading down. "Those are the baths. You'll find your rooms up the stairs, and you'll recognize them by your likeness on the doors."

Rin nods. "I'll have my cuppa first. May I know the name of our host for the evening to better offer my thanks?"

Nox's eyes light up at the mention of a bath. She walks off in the direction the Inn Keep motioned to taking her beer with her.

The lady nods "My name is Margaret - the boys call me Maggie."

Happy is holding the key up to the light, eyeing its whiskers and beard braids and fluffing his own absentmindedly. He then leans toward the bartop and whispers "...beer?"

Maggie laughs softly. A beer appears in front of Happy, though once again - the liquid is clear, the smell is what gives away its nature.

He squints suspiciously into the cup, delicately dipping a fingertip into the liquid to taste it. He hopes it isn't a light beer and is happy to find a brew that reminds him of home.

"Thank you, Margaret, this is excellent," Rin nods, sipping their tea, before going to sit in a fine but worn chair by the fire. They remove their cloak, drape it over the back, and settle in to drink their tea.

[bestnewsmag-blog]

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New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/espns-jemele-hills-tribute-to-the-sports-reporters-was-perfect-in-every-way/

ESPN's Jemele Hill's tribute to 'The Sports Reporters' was perfect in every way

Reporters was a sad day at ESPN for many; the quiet of a legendary display that carried a lot sentimental cost for sports fanatics and younger, hopeful journalists.

Can also 7th marked the displaying of the very last episode of “The sports activities reporters.” The near

Sports Law in Cyprus

    The sports industry is becoming more and more commercialized and globalized. As a result, athletes, coaches and other stakeholders engaged in the sports industry are seeking a professional legal guidance so that to safeguard their rights and maximize their profits. Sports law is an emerging area of law that is directly interconnected and overlaps with a variety of legal disciplines, such as contract law, employment law, tort law and defamation, corporate law, immigration law and privacy rights.

The assistance of a professional lawyer who has a thorough knowledge of the aforementioned areas of law is essential both for professionals in the sports industry (i.e. athletes, coaches, physiotherapists, etc.) and other stakeholders, such as the governing boards of sports clubs, investors, etc.

Investors: Sports are not limited only to the regulations of the playing field as they are intertwined with society and economy, especially with entertainment and advertising industries. As a result, sports can be a profitable area of investment, through sponsorship and advertisement. On the one point of view, sports launched opportunities for investment in areas such as broadcasting rights, which is related to the area of Intellectual Property Law. On the other point of view, sports established a new area of marketing that develops opportunities for investment in areas such as sports clubs’ shares as the majority of sports clubs have become companies.

Athletes, Sports Professionals, and Clubs: The continuous mobility of athletes and other sports professionals between teams together with the complexity of the contracts includes a variety of legal concerns. As a result, a legal representation of athletes, sports professionals, and clubs is vital. Lawyers are able to assist you on matters related to contract law, breach of contracts, transfers, etc.

Before signing a contract, athletes and other sports professionals should be sure that they are aware of the various clauses and provisions. Note that a contract between a sports professional and a club might be subject to breach. For example, in case a sports club in Cyprus does not honor its engagement regarding its obligations toward the athlete/sports professional, then the athlete/sport professional may submit a claim for remedies and/or damages to Cyprus Courts or FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber. Consequently, the assistance of a professional lawyer is necessary.

Competent Authority in Cyprus:

The competent authority in Cyprus is the Cyprus Sports Organisation (CSO), a semi-governmental organization. According to the Law, CSO can act as the Supreme Sporting Authority in Cyprus.

Why is legal support necessary?

Sports are considered as one of the most profitable industries with prominent investment opportunities and huge revenues. Therefore, the appropriate legal support may assist athletes, sports professionals, and other stakeholders to maximize their benefits and protect their rights. As it has been explained, athletes, sports professionals, and other stakeholders, before appointing a legal representative in the Republic of Cyprus, should ensure that their lawyer has a deep knowledge and expertise in a variety areas of law.

How ESPN Deportes Saved My Life

    I never knew the relationship I would develop with ESPN deported would grow so strong. Who knew that a Spanish sports channel could do so much for a kid who grew up in Boise…

Anybody that has ever been to Boise, Idaho, knows that the city’s nickname, “City of Trees,” only applies to a 100 foot-wide section that follows the Boise River through the middle of the city. The rest of the city looks more like the set of a John Wayne movie – dry, sagebrush covered, and dry. So I felt right at home in the high mountain desert of Puebla, Mexico, where I lived for two years. Although I love being back in America, there are a few things I miss about Mexico. Here are four things I miss and a few of the things that make me feel better.

ESPN Deportes

Growing up playing soccer, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. In Mexico, I was mediocre at best. It was a pretty humbling experience the first time I played with a group of 12-year-olds and they literally ran circles around me. I’ll never forget the rush of standing in the middle of 45,000 ecstatic soccer fans singing in unison to support their team, which happened to be ranked the last place in the entire country. You just can’t get soccer like that in America. In fact, you can hardly get any soccer at all. To watch the World Cup I had to wake up at 2:00 am every morning, but I counted myself lucky because they were actually showing soccer on TV. For any soccer fans out there who are disappointed with regular TV’s offering of soccer games, you’ve got to check out ESPN deported. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, the soccer coverage is worth it.

Mariachi Bands

I’m not much of a musician myself, so there is no way anybody would ever pay for me to dress up in a black, sequin-covered suit and sing at the top of my lungs to their loved ones. I miss the talented musicians in mariachi bands who wooed young lovers and venerated great-grandparents. Walking down the street on Valentine’s Day almost always guaranteed at least one free concert, and most nicer restaurants featured their own in-house bands. The only time I didn’t want the mariachi band to play in the restaurant was when my Camoteros were playing on ESPN deported.

Fiestas, Pachangas, and Bodas

I lived in a town of only a couple thousand people, so everybody knew everybody. When someone got married, turned 15 years old, or had a new baby, the whole town was invited to the party. The colors, the music, and the sense of community are still vivid memories I won’t soon forget. My birthday party at Olive Garden with a few friends seems completely lame in comparison to even the smallest party I went to in Mexico. The town also had their annual celebration to venerate their favorite Saint, revolutionary hero, or Pope – and the food was always incredible.

Real Mexican Food

Since I moved back to America I have only had one meal that was close enough to authentic Mexican food that I could close my eyes and imagine I was still there. (In case you are wondering, it was not at Taco Bell.) Every tour book and the travel agent will tell you to avoid eating food from street vendors when you’re in Mexico because you will most likely get sick. I would trade a week of Montezuma’s revenge for one good Taco al Pastor any time; and what I wouldn’t give to have a quesadilla not made from cheddar cheese. Unfortunately, state health departments regulate restaurants too closely to allow for any really good Mexican food here in America, so I’ll have to bide my time until I can afford a plane ticket back.

Good soccer, good food, good music, and good times. I grew up American through and through, but spending a few years in Mexico made me think that had I been born south of the border, I would have fit in just fine.

Court Reporter Jobs Disappearing?

  Judicial officials say that replacing court reporters with digital recordings could mean an increased cost to taxpayers, and it could also mean less accurate court transcripts.

The senior resident superior court judge stated that he was not opposed replacing live court reporters with digital recorders. However, he felt that there was a little way to go with the technology to fully implement it.

The National Center for State Courts performed the study.

The Administrative Office of Courts released a report saying that recorders should be used in court proceedings that are more severe in nature, such as, civil and criminal court proceedings in the Superior Court. However, digital recorders are being utilized in many countries for most District Court proceedings.

If digital recording becomes the new standard then it will replace 100 court reporter jobs including 2 in Robeson county.

The office that runs the court system (The Administrative Office of Courts) recently conducted a study of the salary and the demand for court reporters after a request came in from the General Assembly a year ago. There was an estimated $2 million that would be saved if private reporters were hired on a demand basis and recording equipment was installed in the courtrooms instead. According to the Senate plan! The state’s staff of 100 reporters would be cut in half, and it would reduce the state’s budget.

John Smith, the Administrative Office of Courts Director stated that the agency is not for getting rid of live court reporters. However, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh, there should be a “gradual transition to an appropriate mix.” This means that there should be a use of both digital recordings and live recorders. The complex cases should be reserved for live court reporters and the routine matters would be digital recordings.

Robeson County judges, court reporters, the district attorney, the public defender and others representing the local courts met recently with state Sen. Michael Walters and state Rep. Charles Graham, both of Robeson County, and James L. Boles Jr., of Moore County, to air their concerns. Boles is co-chairman of the House Justice and Public Safety Appropriations Committee, while Graham is a member of the committee.

[trobwriter]

To Rosie, green grass and blue skies

I’ve been ruminating today in the wake of Dave Rosenfield’s death last night at 87. The legendary Tidewater/Norfolk Tides general manager was among the first

Norfolk sports figures, and longest-lasting by far, I met in my first week at the Norfolk newspaper in 1983.  

I liked his gruff, kindly, impatient, intelligent, know-it-all, generous, cheap, arrogant, bombastic, infuriating, scowling, needling, racist-joking, filthy-mouthing, kid-hating, never-ever-wrong, hilarious, snarky, deaf-as-a-post, totally genuine, contradictory self well enough — without really knowing him well at all, if that makes sense.

I think in 34 years I saw him once outside of a ballpark or a sports banquet, at a very long-ago lunch. I hadn’t spoken to him in more than two years, although I emailed him a couple of times over that period after he’d had some health scares. I never got a response, but I trust he received my well-wishes.

After leaving the regular sports ramble, I regret I didn’t drop by his office at Harbor Park to say hi, or make it a point to happen upon one of the weekly round-table lunches he enjoyed with other local sports figures. Wrapped up in my own woes and worries, I suppose.

I will miss Rosie – my preferred spelling of his nickname — like so many in Greater Norfolk, and today I riffle through vivid memories of our professional relationship.

It was early August and they gave the really green greenhorn a weekend assignment to cover some summer-league baseball championship at Met Park – known, of course, as Old Met Park since that dump was wrecking-balled in 1993.

I skulked to the far corner of that narrow press box low behind home plate, all of about 30 feet long, to set up shop for the game. It wasn’t a minute before I felt eyes from a hulking and, um, very portly man sizing me up. I gave a sideways glance as that form slowly approached.

“Hi,” he said, extending his meathook paw once employed as a college and minor-league catcher. “I’m Dave Rosenfield.”

Humma-da humma-da humma-da.

They’d told me to look for, and look OUT for, Dave before sending me onto his turf. It was totally like walking into a fiefdom. Dave was already a fixture, 20 years into his local minor-league baseball tenure. He owned a place and a career and a passion as much as anyone I have ever known.

I returned his hello, explained just a little bit about how I came to be in his presence that afternoon, and a relationship was struck. It was one that grew more familiar, and occasionally contentious, when I took over the Tides beat – then still a full-time, traveling, exhaustive grind — from George McClelland in 1988.

It was a fortuitous, for me, and rewarding association. Rosie loved to hear himself talk, and so he enjoyed holding court with coaches, major-league executives and reporters. For the latter, he was forever a go-to guy for honest commentary, unvarnished opinion and franker still, off-the-record truth as he saw it about sports, politics and scads of matters far-afield.

The remarkable, underlying constant was the knowledge that Rosie was one-degree-of-Kevin Bacon from pretty much any individual who ever played professional baseball. Ev-er. Think about that. It’s a hell of a thing. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. His kind is down to a precious few.

I know I pissed him off many times with my reporting and writing. I scooped the Mets’ announcement of September call-ups once and he and the Mets’ GM tore me a new one. He lectured me early in my coverage tenure about describing the Tides’ play as “miserable” in print after they’d played a particularly miserable game.

During a week of rainouts, I quoted the groundskeeper about what a stink dead earthworms beneath the field tarp created around the home-plate seats. Rosie was not pleased.

Another reporter and I bought plane tickets and invited ourselves along to Shea Stadium when he and the Tides president went to talk about the Mets’ demand for a new Tides stadium or else. Rosie harrumphed and vowed to give us no information, but he didn’t ban us from the Shea offices. We ended up sharing an airport cab both ways. And I’m certain he shared plenty of information.

I disappointed him badly at least once, too, although he never said so. I forget the occasion, maybe his 50th year in the business, and I wrote a profile of him that did not emerge as the puffery he expected, but a more warts-and-all recasting of his local omnipotence and contradictions. When I saw him, I could tell it had hurt him. But no one ever said the story wasn’t accurate and fair.

Throughout, and even thereafter, Dave remained a friend, a supporter and an unforgettably engaging character. He cracked himself up with story upon story, usually punctuated with his huge thunder-crack of a laugh. He ripped into employees up and down. It could not have been easy to work for one so demanding and temperamental, or even to be his close friend. I know people who were estranged from him for years before mending fences.

Yet he somehow fostered surprising loyalty. Rosie being Rosie, if you knew him even a little bit, was a great, never-dull and stunningly consistent show. During his full-time run as GM – before emeritus status the last few years – he missed a very small handful of games. I am fuzzy on this, but I think he missed just one – if any at all — in the late ‘80s when his first wife died. The ballpark was his solace and his sustenance, through every workaday chore. He even created and hand-wrote the entire International League schedule for decades.

What the hell? That’s crazy.

I enjoyed seeing him around the ballpark. I enjoyed his pontifications. I enjoyed Rosie being Rosie in its entirety, and I file it as a highlight of my journalistic life.

Regards, and sympathy, to his family, friends and the entire Tides front office.