#goon named jeff my beloved

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Red Hood Enterprises

Jeff: Okay, here’s the deal. Boss is unexpectedly unavailable tonight, so it’s up to us.

Assembled Red Hood Goons: *nodding*

Jeff: And we are NOT going to screw this up, right?

Goon: *more nodding*

Jeff: Good. Now, who has the posters?

Later

Mrs. Abarca, High School Physics Teacher: Can I help you, gentlemen?

Jeff: Hi, yes, we’re here for the career fair?

Mrs. Abarca: Do you have your confirmation forms?

Jeff: Oh, yeah, right here.

Mrs. Abarca, reading the form: “Red Hood Enterprises…”

Mr. Garber, High School History Teacher:

Ms. Patel, High School English Teacher:

Mrs. Abarca: *clears throat* May I see your display materials?

Dan: I gott’em. *holds up one of the posters*

Ms. Patel: Those look… very lovely.

Dan, beaming: Thank you, ma’am.

Mr. Garber, reading a flyer he just got handed by one of Red Hood’s…employees: “How to read and understand a benefits package…”

Jeff, nodding: It’s important sh- … uh, stuff to know when looking for a job.

Victor: Yeah, otherwise you might end up with some kind of fu- … er, lame insurance coverage or something.

Ms. Patel: Insurance coverage…

Aiden: Yeah, like my first job? Total shi……… really lousy. Benefits. Pretty bad. Didn’t even have dental.

Ms. Patel, reading over the flyer: These are actually all really good points…

Mrs. Abarca: Well. Why don’t you boys just go on in and get your things set up.

Jeff: Thank you!

*a dozen or so red hood goons head towards the gym*

Ms. Patel: Do you think this is okay?

Mr. Garber: Do you think he’s hiring?

Mrs. Arbaca: Was that Aiden Sergeant?

Mr. Garber: Huh, I think it was.

Ms. Patel: Who?

Mrs. Arbaca: Oh, he would have been here before you started teaching.

Mr. Garber: What, six years ago or so?

Mrs. Arbaca: Hmm. Yes. Nice kid. Very good at math.

Ms. Patel: Huh.

Later, at the manor

Duke: Okay, you would not BELIEVE who I saw at the career fair.

Steph: What? Who?

Duke: Jeff.

Steph: Wait, like-

Duke: Yeah. THAT Jeff.

Steph: Wow.

Duke: Right?

Steph: What was he there for? Demolitions?

Duke, shaking his head: HR representative.

Steph: Huh.

Duke: For Red Hood.

Steph:

Steph: Huh.

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Yes

I mean yeah he’s evil and all but what if I were his favourite

[dmydfilmreviews]

MARVEL MOMENTS

 So what they really did, as well as making a good load of films, was actually make a vast tapestry of genius interwoven moments like flicking through a big comic book! Ten years! Twenty something movies! A load of rubbish images at the end of the list because the last three films weren’t officially out on Blu Ray! Avengers assssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Tony Builds the First Suit

 Really it was a stroke of brilliance to start the whole shebang with Iron Man the self-made superhero. The backbone of the whole universe is that of Tony making himself and that all kicks off here, in a sequence that’s hugely thematically satisfying given what comes later. There’s also the fact that back in the day all this construction stuff was just fucking cool, a Nolan-lite bedrock for a blend of realism and fantasy that comic-book cinema had never quite nailed before. Seeing Tony improve his tech step-by-step is a quiet pleasure of these movies, the suits getting more and more outlandish but staying absolutely believable, just like the films, and that all kicks off here with one guy and a non-magical hammer.

Pepper Pulls Out Tony’s Heart

 I noted these all down before Endgame, honestly. Sob. It was always his story really. The best example of the foundational relationship of the MCU: They finish each other’s sentences!

‘Truth is… I am Iron Man.’

 They knew what they’d got from the very first. This ballsy coda sets the tone for the whole MCU, one of backed-up swagger, a willingness to fuck with the source material in the name of story and the general feeling that Robert Downey Jr. was God. All in like two hours. That they flipped the egotistically iconic line into an era-defining declaration of responsibility, growth and heroism a decade later is nothing short of remarkable.

Hulk and Betty in the Rain

 It’s uh… it’s a nice comic-book visual of a classic comic book romance, I guess? Look, Hulk came a long way later, but his forgotten love for Betty was the closest they ever came to the source material outside of the Hulk generally smashing and being awesome. It was sweet!

The Bit Where Hulk Suplexes a Giant Zombie Wolf on the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard

 wait was this in the Incredible Hulk

I’ve Successfully Privatised World Peace!’ ‘Fuck you, Mr Stark.’

 They got Garry Shandling in these movies!

The Suitcase Suit

 Now that is a cool-ass adaptation.

Black Widow Kicks Asses

 Yeah, after a whole movie of being reductive eye-candy she was still reductive eye-candy here. But the scene as a whole’s basically a perfect realisation of her moves in the comics, and showed Marvel were capable of doing someone who wasn’t Iron Man. Then they did EVERYYYYOONNNNNNEEE bonus points for Happy taking out that one guy and yelling ‘I got him!’

Tony and Rhodey in the Japanese Gardens

 Look, they just look cool, OK? No one said this was going to be deep.

Tony and Pepper as the Stark Expo Explodes

 They haven’t managed a lot of great romance, but this one hella works: Tony’s overblown mess of a movie expo exploding behind the true love of his life is a visual so great that Shane Black nicked it wholesale for the climax of Iron Man Three: Christmas in Croydon.

The Frost Giant Throwdown

 Wait, what’s happening? I thought these were the movies where Jeff Bridges rode a Segway? Are we in SPAAAAACCCCCEEEE?

Thor Can’t Pull It Off

 Out of the big three Thor’s arc of mythology to humanity might be the deepest and most satisfying of all. That starts here with his tearful inability to be worthy of his father, his world and, crucially, himself, leading directly into the first great Thor/Loki exchange, then a whole host of movies that eventually put him through the emotional wringer to self-acceptance. Hopefully?

Thor and Loki Battle on the Rainbow Bridge

 Yeah, it looks kind of goofy, but this is pure sixties Kirby, shorn of the irony the series would develop later. Beautiful.

Erskine Points To Cap’s Heart

 That’s it. That’s the character.

The Star Spangled Man!

 Who’ll hang a noose on the goose-stepping goons from Berliiiin?

That Whole War Montage That Ends With Bucky Falling From The Train

 Just smash after smash after smash of wartime Cap goodness that we’d never see again, ending with the ‘death’ that’d define the rest of his story. Steve lost as much as Thanos in his quest for peace but, y’know, he wasn’t a total fucking intergalactic dick about it.

‘I gotta put her in the water!’

 Man alive he waited for that date... whether you think the ending of Endgame ruins the moment somewhat (it doesn’t. sort of), this was still the biggest heart-tugger in the MCU at that point, and defined the characters of Cap and Peggy for years to come. Watch Agent Carter! Just bloody watch it!

'Lemme Put You On Hold’

 The stand out moment of The Avengers is basically all of it, but let’s start with the moment Black Widow finally becomes a character, a sequence of broad-strokes skill from Scarlett Johansson and Joss Whedon that begged for a movie she finally got way too long later. Bonus points for possibly the greatest Coulson reaction shot in a history of great reaction shots.

The Helicarrier Ascends

 OK, shit – this is series is big now.

The Whole of Stuttgart

 Whedon’s love of classical posh entertainment is seen in Angel’s superior ballet episode and his fondness for Sondheim, and he even gets a bit of the ol’ jewellery rattling in here in a perfectly pitched Loki-loving sequence that culminates in some fantastic bits for Cap before Iron Man AC/DC’s all over the place. This is where the comic book stuff really kicks off.

‘YOU COME HOME!’

 This Hemsworth’s fella’s really got something...

Forest Bro Down

 Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. The first real Avengers mash-up is just wonderful. This is where the wish-fulfilment really begins, in a quiet clearing, where three superheroes nearly beat the shit out of each other in classic comic-book style. The Avengers assembled.

The Whole Fuckin’ Helicarrier Sequence

 An absolute masterpiece of blockbuster juggling that had never been done before, this could be the third act of any other film. Over what plays out weirdly like a piece of theatre we get terrifying Hulks, mewling quims and awesome heroics, all expertly laced with wonderful character mash-ups and action we’d never seen before. Then Coulson dies. This is what Joss Whedon does.

‘There was an idea…’

 Fuck shit yeah there was, and it made for a hell of an Infinity War trailer six years later.

ALL OF NEW YORK

 Yep, all of it, but if we’re being picky it’s Hulk v Loki for the comedy side, the tracking shot for the action. As a sequence it’s never been bettered in the MCU, even in the open-mouthed joy-gush of Infinity War and Endgame. FIGHT ME

Go Fish

 Iron Man Three is a wonderful movie that works best as the sum of its parts, but there’s one bit that’s up there with the pantheon: the sky-diving rescue above the bay is such a joyous subversion of the usual third-act super-fisticuffs that it’s like something out of a 70’s Superman movie, only with a hilarious capper at the end where Iron Man explodes under a truck. Beep beep!

Running the Lemurian Star

 The Russo Brother’s action calling-card for their incredible MCU run, this sets up their vision of Cap’s super-subtle-super-serum-super-moves. From the off it’s a game changer in the way action’s shot across the MCU, clean-cut raid-alikes becoming the order of the day. AND THEN HE FIGHTS BATROC ZE LEAPER

Elevator Throwdown

 Yeah, yeah, we all know the actual bit in the elevator that’s spoofed to tremendous effect come Endgame, but remember this sequence ends with Cap TAKING DOWN A FUCKING QUINJET SINGLE-HANDED. The look on his face at the end says it all.

The Winter Soldier Street Fight

HE FLICKS A KNIFE MID PUNCH

Come and Get Your Love

 We’d seen a lot of cool shit from the MCU by this point, but this was something else again. It’s funny! It’s funny as fuck! What the fuck is this movie? And again, they know their own best bits: the return to this in Endgame is top drawer. What a moron.

The Kyln Sequence

 This whole breakout is the Guardians at their very best; squabbling in space, reluctant teamwork, loads of cool shit and leg theft. The bit where it all goes anti-grav is a treat.

WE ARE GROOT

 That’s it. That’s the movie.

…Stark…

 It’s a shame they didn’t delve deeper into Scarlet Witch’s hatred for the man who murdered her parents, but her barely contained rage is the keystone for Age of Ultron: deeper, nastier, more questioning of it’s heroes and their heroism. This one they brought on all by themselves.

Sun’s Gettin’ Real Low

 Yeah, maybe it’s for the best the slightly bumbled Hulktasha relationship was forgotten about, but this moment was pivotal in the character development of both. Beautifully shot, and leads to a primo Ragnarok gag.

Lift That Hammer

 You genuinely could have made a whole movie of these characters hanging out at an open bar. The Stan cameo’s great, the War Machine story bit gets an Endgame alien planet boost much later, but it’s the drunken worthiness competition that’s the real highlight, a seemingly fun throwaway that actually almost single-handedly sets up the whole character of Vision and the most fist-pumping moment of Endgame, a movie nearly entirely composed of fist-pumping moments.

Hulk vs Hulkbuster

 Pure comic-book wish fulfilment again, and how. From Hulk spitting out a tooth to Tony desperately pleading ‘go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep’, this mad clash of science pals knocks every Transformers movie straight through a freshly-bought-building. Veronica!

Well Done.

 Alright, Vision’s no one’s favourite Avenger, but he’s one who’s the satisfying product of several movie plots, one beloved supporting AI and the combined brains, magic and cool red capes of his team. Whedon performs his own mad-skillz level script trick to make us accept this fucking weirdo, first by giving him Jarvis’ voice, then having him stare out at a world and see his reflection in it, then having him lift an unliftable character-establishment hammer. None of this could be done by any other film series.

The Geometry of Belief

 Ultron’s climactic church-a-maggedon is short but perfect, a swirling mass of splash-page insanity that culminates in a glorious trinity of Vision, Iron Man and Thor blasting the shit out of their mad son like a magic triangle. The Avengers at their peak.

Vision and Ultron Have a Chat

 Whedon pops out these gems of detached humanism from time to time, and his sundown final exchange between The Avenger’s success and failure is a doozy. The most poetic little scene in the whole MCU, voiced by two creatures who look like nightmarish dildos. ‘A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts’ is an all-timer.

Big Bathtub

 Ant Man’s bedrock might be its family values, but it’s the shrinking that makes it stand out. The first time Scott drops into tiny-town is a Pixar-esque fun-burst akin to Stephen Strange’s nutso jump into infinity later, with deadly bath taps, thunderclap vacuum cleaners and mid-day apartment raves (?) all bringing a new level of threat and adventure to a series already teeming with variety. They should carry these ones on foreverrrrr

Cassie’s Room

 There’s something about this scene that sums up Scott’s whole character and hopefully sets up his daughter for future ant shenanigans: he is (was) unique as a hero with a family, and no matter how many Pym Particles he stuffs into his suit he’s always looked like a giant to his daughter. Plus, y’know, Thomas the Tank Engine.

Some Guy Crashes a Car at Night

 The catalyst for the great middle schism. Civil War is a masterclass of twisting, gut-churning reveals, and this is the quiet moment that starts it all.

QUEENS

 The perfect Marvel character, introduced into the perfect realisation of the Marvel Universe, perfectly.

Running Into Each Other At The Airport

LITTLE MAN IS BIG NOW I’M CLINT WE HAVEN’T MET YET I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU FROM KID QUEENS BROOKLYN I’M YOUR CONSCIENCE WE HAVEN’T SPOKEN IN A WHILE YOU GUYS KNOW THAT OLD MOVIE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK HOW OLD IS THIS KID ETC ETC OH MY GOD MY BRAIN HAS EXPLODED

Cap vs Iron Man

 ‘I don’t care. He killed my mom.’  

The Big Brain Burst

 They keep doing bits to expand themselves, and this is one of the best, with the most potential for the future. Fleeting, but dazzling.

New York Mirror Fest

 If the next Strange movies delve into this deranged nonsense then they could end up the greatest of all of them. This is the tip of the iceberg, and it’s still unlike anything else being done in mainstream cinema.

Mr Blue Sky

 In a movie that frequently reaches big and misses, at least it hits the spot at the beginning. This glorious celebration of family, space-craziness and genre subversion is everything Guardians does best. The Gamora / Groot bit is adorable.

Peter’s Civil War Adventure

 The perfect tone-setter for the story’s most-average joe, this ground-level view of the universe’s biggest clash acts as a whippet quick intro to Peter Parker’s world in the big bad MCU. It’s always a thrill to see him where he belongs.

The Homage to Getting Buried Under a Tonne of Crap

 Homecoming’s riffs on classic Spidey-lore are generally pretty subtle, but when it comes time to show what Peter’s really made of Watts rips directly from the best, first with the iconic Parker/Spidey face split and then with him holding up a whole fucking building like he’s nerd Hulk or something. The added ‘come on Spider-Mans’ are the adorable icing on the homage-o-cake.

Anytime That Immigrant Song Plays

Another!

Thor vs Hulk

 Yeah, it’s not perfect and it’s a little CGIey. But it’s Thor fighting the Hulk in a fucking galactic gladiator arena place run by Jeff Goldblum and it smashes and it’s full of fun callbacks to previous movies. Yes! That’s what it feels like!

Thor and Loki Do Get Help

 The perfect encapsulation of Waititi’s irreverent-but-with-tonnes-of-heart freshgasm on the story of Thor, this bit of hilarious dumb shit acts as amusing action beat and neat character resolution all in one. They’re friends again! They’re brothers! Thor throws him around like a rolled up carpet!

What Are You The God of Again?

 Oh right, so he’s the best Avenger now.

Killmonger in the Afterlife

 The bloody heart of the most emotional Marvel movie, when Erik Killmonger enters the Wakandan afterlife he finds himself in his own tiny Compton apartment, exiled with his father forever with the plains of eternity just out of reach beyond the window. Heartbreaking, and brilliant.

Thanos Arrives

 The opening of Infinity War is another example of their absolute mastery of tone; after the megaton funblast of Ragnarok we’re thrown into the end of that movie being ripped apart, before Thanos appears, dragging a battered Thor into frame, beats seven shades of green shit out the Hulk and murders two beloved supporting characters, all without breaking a sweat. If you weren’t excited before you were now.

New York Tussle

 The opening New York section of Infinity War is all very clever, acting as the only grounding Earthy moment in what’s a pretty out-there narrative in terms of existential stakes. You get Tony and Wong helping people off the sidewalk and Strange winking after halting the space-death-machine, but from there on out it’s full-bore comic-book smackdown fun, clashing characters who’ve never met and providing top-drawer banter about wizards and children’s parties. This is the page, up there on screen.

BRING ME THANOS!

 BRING ME THANOS!

The Thanos Fight

 Jesus fucking Christ. Up there with the end of Avengers and the Civil War airport battle, this is a perfect realisation of superhero action, with a bigger dose of high-level insanity courtesy of the Infinity Stones and Doctor Strange. Sublimely realised, incredibly satisfying, with real weight and thought put into the spectacle, it’s also fantastic in the narrative of the film, the culmination of its themes of desperation and inevitability. The first time you saw them try to rip off the gauntlet was unbearable.

The Snap

 Well, yeah. You’ll never get back the first time you saw this. And imagine seeing it as a fucking kid.#

Just a Girl

 Sure the big level-up CGI fest at the end is good, but it’s the comedy smackdown on the Kree ship that’s the most satisfying part of Captain Marvel, the shit-eating joy on Carol’s face as she discovers she’s way more powerful than the assholes who’ve been holding her back. It’s corny sure, but it’s hella fun.

Thor Goes For The Head

 Endgame is a shocking, disorientating blur to begin with, all the characters you loved acting in strange, desperate ways in a super-hero version of post-traumatic stress disorder. Tony’s meltdown is bad enough, but it’s when Thor just straight up fucking murders Thanos that you know this is going to get dark and serious. It doesn’t, it remembers it’s a Marvel movie, but the shot of him walking out into the blurred alien sun, cape aflutter, is a fitting goodbye to a more innocent time of heroics.

Ant Man and Cassie

 A moment that could be worthy of a whole movie itself, a desperate Scott Lang meeting his five-years-older daughter gives a joke character a serious moment in the same way Infinity War did for Guardians. It’s very odd, very sweet and very Marvel.

Love You 3000

 Morgan H. Stark is almost a little too on the nose as a wrap-up for Tony, but hell, she’s still sweet as all hell and a perfect capper to his story of fatherhood and responsibility. It’s a mark of the work they’ve put in that we’ll almost immediately accept the tired trope of kid-taking-over-mantle when she inevitably puts on the armour in a few years.

Steve and Peggy / Tony and Howard

 This is the bit in Endgame where I finally started tearing up: a lot of it is too-neat fan-service, but fuck it, they’ve put in so much effort that it works. This is the scene where you realise both of these long arcs are coming to an end, the resolution of Steve quietly making his decision to go back to Peggy and Tony getting the closer of discussing parenthood with his unknowing father. It’s corny sure, but so are comic books, and setting the whole bit at the height of seventies Marvel Comics mania is a loving nod to the imaginations that made all these crazy possibilities possible.

Widow and Hawkeye

 There’s a theme here. All of these moments are kind of cheesy and rely heavily on callbacks to previous bits… but at the moment it doesn’t matter because ENDGAME WOW. Maybe we’ll look back at it as a corny misstep, but for the moment, Clint and Tasha having one last, ludicrously overblown tussle for who gets to live is a sweet capper that never goes as deep as the others because they’re supporting characters. It still stings, and it’s a neat mirror to Gamora and Thanos in Infinity War. The red’s gone from her ledger! It’s on the rocks! Urrrgh

Nebula Kills Herself

 Again, they’re so good that they can spend a big chunk of time in what’s ostensibly the last big movie for their most beloved characters on making a lesser character beloved. Endgame spotlights Nebula even more than Infinity War did Gamora, using her self-hatred and fear of her father for compelling, wibbly-wobbly plot and character beats. The resolution of her story and her newfound place with her team should make for a whole different Guardians before we even get to Fortnite-Thor joining up.

Cap Wields The Hammer

 ‘I KNEW IT!’

Thanos’ Army

 One last escalation of scale. When Thanos’ army finally arrives it’s like something out of those apocalyptic Turner paintings, where the hordes of a ship-wrecked hell confront eternity under skies ripped from heaven. Only this time they’re facing one guy called Steve, and they’re fucked. Incredible.

Avengers… Assemble

 It almost lives up to what you always had in your head. The Marvel Universe, somehow done right.

Tony Hugs Peter Back

Awwww!

New Avengers Run the Gauntlet

 A surprising amount of Endgame’s grand finale is given over to the future hopes; while Strange gets stuck in with holding back a Biblical flood it’s up to Black Panther to grab the Infinity Gauntlet from Clint in a delightful callback to Civil War, before embarking on an intense relay race across the entire battlefield that begins with Scarlet Witch crushing the shit out of Thanos’ testicles and ends with Captain Marvel engaging the Mad Titan in a bone-crushing show of super-strength. And along the way if finds time to have Peter Parker dragged through the air by Thor’s hammer which was thrown by Captain America before landing on a Pegasus flown by Valkryie across an exploding sky of alien whales. Maybe the most satisfying run of action since the first Avengers.

I am Iron Man

 It was always going to be him really. Bonus points for Downey Jr. originally telling Thanos to ‘Fuck off’. Did anyone else keep thinking he was going to wake up and quip and everything would be OK? That’s how you make movies.

The Funeral

 It looks a little weird actually, like they weren’t all on set. But they were! The Marvel Universe again, holy smokes.

The Kiss

 Now that’s how you end ten years and twenty one movies. They’re movies! It was romantic! It was exciting! It was fun!

For TEN FUCKING YEARS.

Swing a Ding Ding Sir

 After five movies of fresh shit they've finally starting dumping some classic Spider-Man on us; the Euro stuff's fun and all, but it's Far From Home delirious climax that sees Spidey and MJ thwipping through the canyons of New York before bumping into ugly ol' J. Jonah JJ Jay Jay likes it's a freakin' comic book or something. Delightful, and also serves as a wonderful image of hope and joy post-Endgame.

What a fuckin’ ride. Here’s to the next... seventy six? Seventy seven?

wait did I leave any out

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-last-days-of-diarrhea-planet-a-band-thats-too-weird-to-live-but-too-rare-to-die/

The Last Days of Diarrhea Planet, A Band That's Too Weird to Live But Too Rare to Die

For three straight days last week, the symptoms of serious gastrointestinal upset arrived in a flash epidemic to the Midtown area of Nashville, infecting hundreds of people. To the untrained eye, it looked like a mysterious flu had sent 20-something punk kids into delirium: heavy sweating, aching bodies, sore throats, the occasional runny nose. But to the trained eye belonging to any doctor of shred, the sickness was as obvious as the antidote.

The city of Nashville had a serious case of diarrhea.

Playing sold-out shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Exit/In, beloved local guitar heroes Diarrhea Planet had been the ones responsible for putting both natives and out-of-towners into this sudden feverish state. With their style of raucous performance—where the band crowd-surfed as much as the crowd, where pitch-perfect AC/DC covers were as much a guarantee as their own songs, and where even the most arms-crossed-and-clearly-over-it ticket holders became beaming kids again—no one left feeling the same as they had upon arriving. Diarrhea Planet shows induce an uninhibited madness, a madness for which the only remedy is more Diarrhea Planet.

Unfortunately, the antidote will soon be hard to come by. Though the band announced one final “victory lap” opening for Jason Isbell in October, the headlining shows on September 6th, 7th, and 8th served as Diarrhea Planet’s proper long goodbye. After thousands of gigs over the course of nearly a decade, the scatalogical punk six-piece announced in July that they’d be calling it quits.

It was the end of the planet as we know it, and no one felt fine.

The crowd at Diarrhea Planet’s last show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Bob Orrall suggested that this article be titled, “With the Demise of Diarrhea Planet, Is This Truly the End of Rock and Roll?” It was the Friday of the second-to-last show and we were in his office in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood of Nashville. Orrall runs Infinity Cat Recordings, which has put out every single Diarrhea Planet release, starting with 2009’s Aloha EP; from there, the band made two more EPs and three full-length records, the most recent of which, Turn to Gold, came out in 2016. He is both the spiritual and literal dad of the underground rock scene in Nashville—spiritual because of the bands signed to the label (DP, Daddy Issues, Music Band, White Reaper) and literal because his sons are Jake and Jamin Orrall, the two founding members of JEFF the Brotherhood. Technically the label is Jake and Jamin’s, but since the duo’s ascent early this decade, day-to-day responsibilities have fallen on dad.

“I think that people are always going to make loud noises with guitars, but [Diarrhea Planet] certainly were”—he stopped himself, remembering it wasn’t quite over yet—“are a great, great rock band. I’m 63 years old and they’re one of the greatest rock bands I ever saw.”

His favorite show of theirs took place in Chicago on his 35th wedding anniversary with his wife, where they both found themselves pressed against a barrier at the front of the stage, his wife telling him after the fact that Diarrhea Planet was the best band in the world. Uh, what about her sons’ band? “She told me they were going to have to step their game up.” Orrall’s favorite DP song is “Kids,” a scream-along anthem about the hard-to-capture innocence of youth. “The first time I heard it, I cried. What an incredible message.” For a brief moment as we talked, he teared up again. On Saturday, I saw Orrall screaming “we’re just kids!” a foot from the stage. Watching him, I cried a little, too.

Anyone will tell you that it’s not just the songs that get you—Diarrhea Planet’s live shows are infamous. Maybe it’s the onslaught of guitar harmonies—not one, not two, not even three, but four beautiful axes shredding in tandem—or the almost impossible energy that each member gives off until the very last second on stage, even when they’re only the opener. “Someone told me yesterday that they had seen one of the shows [when they opened for the Darkness]. DP had the place going crazy,” Orrall told me. When the Darkness took the stage, it was a different story. “They complained about the audience talking through [their] songs.”

From left to right: DP’s Mike Boyle, Emmett Miller, and Evan Bird during the last show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Or maybe it’s Diarrhea Planet’s fans that make them who they are. “If you read any article about DP, they talk about the crowd constantly because the crowd is our seventh man,” said guitarist and singer Jordan Smith during an emotional thank you speech Friday. He had just watched The Sixth Man, a 1997 film about a basketball team that gets a ghost as a ringer. Like Marlon Wayans playing alongside that ghost during the NCAA championship, Diarrhea Planet couldn’t have done what they did without the assist of their devoted fanbase.

At the top of that set, Smith had negged the audience. “Last night was a little bit like a Tame Impala show: a lot of people standing around and smelling their own farts.” It was time for the crowd to show up, which they did in immense proportions that night and the following. In the balcony, the bands’ parents, aunts, and uncles were exuberant: taking photos, singing along, buying rounds of PBR tallboys.

After having seen Diarrhea Planet play at least a dozen times myself, nothing compared to seeing them play their final hometown run, with not just a crowd of locals but kids who had come from all over the country. I spoke with fans who had come as far as Indiana, Georgia, New York, California. One Instagram I caught came with the caption, “22 hrs in Nashville with no bags and no hotel to see these goons play one last time.”

“It’s really hard to describe how I’ll continue my life without Diarrhea Planet, but these three shows really will hold a special place in my heart,” Michael Rivera, a 25-year-old cardiologist, told me. He first saw the band at Bonnaroo in 2014, where he said he heard the faint sound of electrifying guitar solos in the distance and turned to his friend to say, “I need to see this. I need to.” I watched Rivera, who has the same long, curly hair as Slash, completely lose it on Friday and Saturday nights, and by the end of Saturday night, he was up on stage with the band during their encore, screaming a song actually called “Ghost With a Boner.”

Which is another thing. It could be the humor in their songs that makes the band such a cult favorite—the juvenility can be a put-off to many, but it’s also the reason that others are drawn to them in the first place. “Ain’t a Sin to Win” is about challenging God to a motorcycle race; “White Girls (Student of the Blues, Pt. 1)” is a love song with the lyric, “I will always save the last slice just for you,” a reference to the Papa John’s that employed several of the guys over the years. “I don’t have one negative thing to say about them,” Laura Lee Volkerding, the manager of the store for 21 years, told me when I visited her. “They were very loyal. You couldn’t ask for better. They started to get much bigger and pretty soon they weren’t able to work as much, but I was so happy that they were able to do something they loved.” Volkerding still can’t say their name, though. “Diarrhea and the restaurant business don’t go together. I call them the DP Band to this day.”

Breaking up when they did felt natural, Smith told me Monday by phone. “It was a sprint from the start. We never really took time off and we never really slowed down. Most bands break up because they get mad at each other,” he said, which he affirmed wasn’t the case for DP. “Everyone was starting to get to know depression, not because of any specific turmoil, but because the lifestyle really ground us down. We just want to be happy and experience life in a normal way again.”

The finale of DP’s last show, in which fans crowded the stage; spot Michael Rivera upfront in the NHL jersey. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Diarrhea Planet represented a different time, and not just the era of hair metal they sometimes drew from. The band came up in the early 2010s, long before Trump had been elected president, before we began to live in an age of disturbing parody that continues to eat itself. Now that they’d decided to break up, there was an element of “too weird to live, too rare to die” in their passing, for better or for worse. They were funny, ridiculous, and necessarily innocent of the world around them. To pull off the kind of music they made and the shows they put on, they kind of had to be.

I remember a woman guitarist I’d spoken to years ago who lamented the popularity of Diarrhea Planet, arguing that the last thing the world needed was a throwback to cock rock, which was considerably hostile to women. I had always seen Diarrhea Planet’s shows as a rejection of those ideals, like their deference to Marnie Stern’s guitar skills and their insistence on the pit being a safe space for all. “The whole point of DP was building culture,” Smith told me. “I think we made something really special with this community. It was just really cool to see that overall message of positivity and love manifest itself so intensely.”

The face of the DIY scene in Nashville had been changing for a while anyway, according to Olivia Scibelli, guitarist and vocalist for Idle Bloom (Friday’s opening act). Scibelli was a huge fan of Diarrhea Planet as both musicians and people, and she knew that they’d leave a hole in the scene when they retired. While male fans appeared to outnumber women roughly three to one at DP’s final shows, Scibelli acknowledged that something was in the air—a shift away from all-male bands with a predominantly male fan following. “I volunteer at the Southern Girls Rock Camp, and every year I see more and more young women and nonbinary kids wanting to start bands.”

In that moment, the focus was not on the rock scene to come but what everyone could enjoy right here, right now. Julia Martin, owner of an eponymous gallery in Nashville, told her friend Stephanie as DP’s set began that she was gearing up to head for the pit. “You might have to hold my purse.”

The sweaty close of the final show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Five hundred people were chanting “DIARRHEA PLANET! DIARRHEA PLANET! DIARRHEA PLANET!” at the highest possible volume. Nearing midnight on Saturday, the band left the stage after covering Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade,” and they hardly even pretended that a blowout encore wasn’t coming. “There is literally no tomorrow for this and that’s the best you got?” a ghost voice announced over a microphone from backstage. The crowd began to sound legitimately desperate.

“This is really weird, it’s really surreal, it’s a really emotional thing,” Smith said after he bounced back on stage. “Thank you for keeping people safe in the chaos, thank you for creating an atmosphere of love and acceptance, thank you for enduring years of social strain for going to see a fucking band called Diarrhea Planet.” With that, they launched into a heartbreaking rendition of “Kids.” “I looked out and everybody was bawling, and half the dudes on stage were bawling, too,” Smith told me later. The experience itself felt like the pains of growing up and moving on.

They closed with “Ghost With a Boner,” one of the first songs they’d ever written. By the very end, the band and the crowd had sort of swapped positions: On stage, 50 to 60 fans crowded around the chaos, while Smith spent the song crowd-surfing around the room. He requested that those carrying him hoist his body up until he reached the venue doors. By the merch table, he looked like rock‘n’roll Superman.

“Maybe this sounds dumb because their name is Diarrhea Planet, but I just think that they’re a really inspirational band,” Ale Delgado, former lady of all trades at Infinity Cat, told me after the final show had ended. It was at 12:30 a.m. and she and her friend Michelle were standing in the center of the room looking shell shocked. “Yesterday, there was somebody about to crowd-surf and a guy turned to the girl next to her, who was much younger, and covered her head. They’re so good and the people they attract are so good. There’s none of that rock‘n’roll bullshit.”

Say it ain’t so. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

By last count on Sunday morning, I had seen one man cry, five say they were about to, at least 200 people with clothes so soaked through with sweat that they looked like they’d been caught in a biblical flood, one shirt with a well-endowed ghost drawn in Sharpie, and no fewer than 50 emotional embraces. I’d been shown one Diarrhea Planet tattoo, watched one woman stage dive with a broken foot, heard one guy ask a friend if his ear had fallen off, and been given one horrified look by a future bride out in a very different part of Nashville when asked if she was a fan of Diarrhea Planet. My favorite part of the entire weekend was looking back into the crowd as stage lights lit up fans’ faces: every single person was either singing or smiling, and most often, both.

As fans filtered back out into the humid city in the early hours of Sunday, the fever that Diarrhea Planet had caused finally broke—this time for the last time. Hundreds of people had screamed until they were hoarse. The aches of being tossed around in a pit or stage-diving into a sea of fists would subside by Monday, and persistent ear-ringing was sure to pass after a few days.

The only symptom that would remain after all was said and done was the one that was hardest to cure: heartbreak over the fact that a band that had really meant something to a lot of people had hung up their guitars for good.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-last-days-of-diarrhea-planet-a-band-thats-too-weird-to-live-but-too-rare-to-die/

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Red Hood: Okay, everyone good on the plan?

Everyone: *nods*

Red Hood: Great. And what are we not going to do?

Everyone: Bring up Robin’s science project.

Red Hood: Good.

Elsewhere

Jeff the goon: Okay, see, dynamite is kind of basic.

Robin: And?

Jeff: Well, this is for science, right? So doesn’t it need something a little more, I don’t know, exciting?

Robin: Go on…

Later

Red Hood: I can’t believe you’ve corrupted my minions.

Robin, staring at the recently exploded remains of Black Mask’s warehouse: Hey, I’m the child here. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Red Hood: Oh so NOW you’re a child.

Damian: *grumbles*

Red Hood: I can’t believe you used all my PETN.

Damian: Oh, so you don’t want to see the video?

Red Hood: Hey now, I never said that.

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Yesterday I pulled up a fic I’d started a few months ago that I’m really interested in actually writing and not just, you know, abandoning 2k words in. I wrote maybe 300 words. I then decided that since this was probably going to be a multi-chapter thing it needed a notes document of its own. So I made a new document and began making a few of the headings so I can more easily navigate through. First section? Character list for Red Hood’s goons. What did I get done last night? Write a few hundred words tops and then made a spreadsheet for all of red hoods goons featuring names, ages, backstories, job details, who knows who and why, and other miscellaneous notes like the one person who isn’t actually a goon they just kind of showed up and never left. Top of the spreadsheet? Jeff. Now I just need to harness that enthusiasm for my (currently) 58 different OC goons and apply it towards writing the fic. Suggestions?

[psychologeek]

My favourites are "rabies" and "miss batman ma'am"

Criminals react to Batkids

Dick:

Loyal Henchman: Oh no, not this guy.

New Guy: What? Why? It’s not like it’s the Bat.

Loyal Henchman: Yes but the PUNS.

New Guy:

Loyal Henchman: Honestly I think I’d rather go to Blackgate again.

New Guy:

Nightwing: Okay, first of all? Rude.

New Guy:

New Guy:

New Guy: what the hell

*a few minutes/eternity of puns later*

New Guy: Okay yeah I get it now.

Nightwing: *slapping the handcuffs on* See? Puns ARE effective combat measures. Batman never believes me.

Jason:

Red Hood: What the hell, man?

Thug: Sorry, boss.

Red Hood: Not your boss, Jeff.

Thug named Jeff: You say that now, but Dan’s working on a PowerPoint that I think you’ll find very interesting…

Red Hood:

Thug named Jeff:

Red Hood: Just put the nice lady’s purse back.

Thug named Jeff: Right, sorry, boss.

Red Hood: Not your… oh, forget it.

Red Hood: [grumbling] …KNOW I……better than……freaking PowerPoints……nerd bird……corrupting respectable minions…

Thug named Jeff: So this means you’re coming to pizza night, right?

Cass:

Black Bat: *stares*

Criminal: ohmygoshimgoingtodie

Black Bat:

Criminal: *sweating*

Black Bat:

Criminal: *on the verge of a nervous breakdown*

Black Bat: Leave.

Criminal: Yes sir, Miss Batman, ma’am.

Steph:

D-list Villain: [horrified gasp] YOU!

Spoiler: Aw, you remember me.

D-lister: DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GET GLITTER OUT OF THIS OUTFIT???

Spoiler: You call THAT an outfit? Please.

D-lister: Hey, now just you wait one second. This is a…

Spoiler: *knocks out distracted villain wannabe*

Tim:

Very Evil Minion: I’ll just be on my way then. Have a nice night, Mr. Red Robin, sir.

Red Robin: what

VEM: Oh, we’re not allowed to fight you anymore. Boss’s orders.

Red Robin: Huh. Tell Luthor I said hi, and hey, if you ever want to make a career change, you know, to something legal, you can always try Wayne Enterprises. They have a good ex-criminal work rehab program.

VEM: I think this is why we’re not allowed to fight you anymore…

Damian:

Robin: *unsheathes weapon*

Criminal No. 1: oh hell no

Criminal No. 2: Just once can’t we get a non-feral bat?

Criminal No. 1: ‘Come out East,’ they said.

Criminal No. 2: Did it have to be freakin swords?

Criminal No. 1: ‘Plenty of opportunities,’ they said.

Criminal No. 2: I’m going to get rabies or tetanus or something.

Criminal No. 1: Well SCREW THIS. I’m going back to the guy with arrows.

Criminal No. 2: Where do they even FIND these kids?

Duke:

Signal: ‘Sup.

Bank Robbers:

Bank Robbers:

Bank Robbers:

Bank Robber No. 4: I thought you were all vampires.

Bank Robber No. 2: Yeah, it’s like two in the afternoon. How’d you even get here?

Signal: That’s kind of my thing.

Bank Robber No. 5: I hate this place.

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

@wordsfromaqueer this is beautiful

In a bid to get Red Hood to come back to crime-bossing(1)(2), his former goons get together and plan a nice surprise for him.

The next day: BREAKING NEWS: JOKER CONFIRMED DEAD

They did good. Boss is happy and didn’t even contradict them once when they called him boss. He even shooed Batman and the little stabby Robin away from them.

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Okay I so very much want criminals thinking Red Hood is not killing then because Batman offered him cookies. And what if they think Red Hood started working with the bats because of cookies in the first place?

I now want this

as some criminal trying to explain how red hood ended up working with the bats

And then I want my beloved thug named Jeff to, as Dan is putting together the PowerPoint, go recruiting and find a baker to bring into the fold because they need all the enticements they can get their hands on if they’re going to get their boss back

Or just one of Red Hood’s goons to straight up go to culinary school or whatever because apparently boss likes cookies enough to work with Batman so surely if they can do better…

Jason: So.

Jason: How many murders did you refrain from committing today?

Damian: Thirty two.

Jason: Good for you.

Jason: Here, have a cookie.

[psychologeek]

I love them so much 😍💕

Red Hood Enterprises

Jeff: Okay, here’s the deal. Boss is unexpectedly unavailable tonight, so it’s up to us.

Assembled Red Hood Goons: *nodding*

Jeff: And we are NOT going to screw this up, right?

Goon: *more nodding*

Jeff: Good. Now, who has the posters?

Later

Mrs. Abarca, High School Physics Teacher: Can I help you, gentlemen?

Jeff: Hi, yes, we’re here for the career fair?

Mrs. Abarca: Do you have your confirmation forms?

Jeff: Oh, yeah, right here.

Mrs. Abarca, reading the form: “Red Hood Enterprises…”

Mr. Garber, High School History Teacher:

Ms. Patel, High School English Teacher:

Mrs. Abarca: *clears throat* May I see your display materials?

Dan: I gott’em. *holds up one of the posters*

Ms. Patel: Those look… very lovely.

Dan, beaming: Thank you, ma’am.

Mr. Garber, reading a flyer he just got handed by one of Red Hood’s…employees: “How to read and understand a benefits package…”

Jeff, nodding: It’s important sh- … uh, stuff to know when looking for a job.

Victor: Yeah, otherwise you might end up with some kind of fu- … er, lame insurance coverage or something.

Ms. Patel: Insurance coverage…

Aiden: Yeah, like my first job? Total shi……… really lousy. Benefits. Pretty bad. Didn’t even have dental.

Ms. Patel, reading over the flyer: These are actually all really good points…

Mrs. Abarca: Well. Why don’t you boys just go on in and get your things set up.

Jeff: Thank you!

*a dozen or so red hood goons head towards the gym*

Ms. Patel: Do you think this is okay?

Mr. Garber: Do you think he’s hiring?

Mrs. Arbaca: Was that Aiden Sergeant?

Mr. Garber: Huh, I think it was.

Ms. Patel: Who?

Mrs. Arbaca: Oh, he would have been here before you started teaching.

Mr. Garber: What, six years ago or so?

Mrs. Arbaca: Hmm. Yes. Nice kid. Very good at math.

Ms. Patel: Huh.

Later, at the manor

Duke: Okay, you would not BELIEVE who I saw at the career fair.

Steph: What? Who?

Duke: Jeff.

Steph: Wait, like-

Duke: Yeah. THAT Jeff.

Steph: Wow.

Duke: Right?

Steph: What was he there for? Demolitions?

Duke, shaking his head: HR representative.

Steph: Huh.

Duke: For Red Hood.

Steph:

Steph: Huh.