#he’s fully still playing but me in my delusion i’m like no he’s a coach

[seriebofficial]

HELLO ???¿

[theshedding]

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

[ehsan-nouri]

Simple Rules Rule: A Confession of Human-Made Misery

This is real. We are stuck in our homes and breathing through our narrow windows, worrying to go out, just in case that death might give us a random visit outdoors. Corona is real, physical and probably a touchable disease. A world-wide catastrophe is caused by this nasty creature, however, we wise human beings are aspiring to show our strength in the battle. But this has just popped into sight, while there were many other diseases out there, ones we were simply unable to see. Their symptoms have been long misunderstood and been referred to other causes. Their consequent effects have been so subtle to address and you may at the end of the next paragraphs, oppose me aggressively due to calling them a “disease”.

I haven’t been able to write and to live in the past few months, or even years. So, this is my most desperate effort to alleviate the pain of resting for more than a hundred days (How dare you want to have a life-time of rest and joy! That’s unbearable). But that’s not how it looks from inside. At least, I am not relieved of a long-time working agenda by this rest. On the other hand, a futile struggle of thoughts has been constantly happening in my mind, draining all the energy and leaveing no other option for better muscles to enjoy (every other part that can feel the real touch of joy, not this imaginary, perception-constrained and deluded machine we call “brain”).

I am asking you to dive with me, hand-in-hand in the endless ocean of thought. You already have done so, sorry not inform you early on. I do it alone everyday, but a companion will probably save me from draining, or maybe we will be swallowed by the monster, which is yet another great adventure. So here we are, watching the wild waves and deep dark blue eyes of our gorgeous friend who invites us to jump off the cliff and embrace her. The charm is irresistible.

Have you ever been re-engineering your self? Have you been successful in identifying your core drives? Sadly, we have a disadvantage of not having a tablet that shows what drives our emotions, in comparison to hosts in the Westworld TV series. Just the same drives that push you in the re-engineering room, prevent you from touching them. What a misery!

The sad ones among us, are consumed by the over-thinking virus. An incurable disease as old as the human consciousness and unfortunately the most ignored one! That’s even a larger misery that we, wise human beings, have stopped finding remedies for such a terrible illness. I guess it has always been the selfish healthy who ignored the danger carried by this virus, and since it was less contagious than the Corona one, they just let it out to infect the vulnerable and bring them slow decay. Who cares? Do you care for the drug addicted up until they cause you any harm or maybe infect you? No, you don’t. Take off your altruistic masks and let your inner monster be exposed.

Overthinking is paralyzing. It’s the lamp draining all the car battery and leaving you helpless in the middle of nowhere. It’s a process that consumes all the CPU and your systems becomes unable to handle simple tasks, like writing into Microsoft Word, as I’m doing now. Happily, my laptop is not traumatized that way and we can still put a few words together. But on certain days, we are both down. He is unable to play a single music track and I am as well unable to do anything other than watching him fail! As a former engineer, I some times make comparisons of the real world entities, with electronic parts, and only my fellow engineer friends get the point. On an expert level, one of my friends, with the same super-atheist level as me, usually quotes from important Muslim figures like Ali-ibn-Abi-Taleb to clarify his points. Can’t deny I love this offensive level of humor.

“We aren’t yet drown, there is hope.” That’s a lie! Let us go deeper to see how scientists and psychologists have failed us for centuries. This is a nasty monster who offers comfort getting away from him, while he’s still breathing out there. And the only remedy offered by our fancy science has been ignorance, let alone the chemical anti-depressants that treat us like the miserable pets we are. I’m in no position to criticize their efforts and not certainly ignore them. Ignorance is their game, not mine. They have been quite successful in curing the mentally paralyzed, but the case has not been fully resolved. The symptoms are vanished by force, but the inner cause lives. Usually these treatments take a long time and there’s still the possibility of a relapse, which puts the ill no other option than taking a life-time increasing dose of pills. Let’s hope they are not changing us in unforeseen ways. The vocabulary these fellow scientists and coaches use includes certain words like “Letting go”, “Vulnerability”, “Adaptation”, “Fate”, “Belief” and finally “Hope”. The most disgusting package of the human-made world of misery!

Indeed, it should be a simple issue. Since it’s rooted in a single monster, all explanations converge. Last year for example, I watched three movies from the amazing writer Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche New York”, “Adaptation” and “Anomalisa”. They were truly brilliant works of art that made me fall in love with Charlie’s works and for the first time I printed someone’s picture and sticked it onto the wall.

They were passionate moments. I tried to find every writing of him, watch all his speeches and movies. That’s how love works, and please spare me a lot of your time if you’d like to know more on how it works. You’ll love the love’s way and that puts you in an exponentially growing loop of feelings. But please don’t fall in love with your thoughts because you don’t want to occupy your brain with an exponentially growing demon. Do it with your heart, which as simply as possible “denies any thought!”

The secret behind my love story with Charlie was simple. He made confessions in an honest and vulnerable way. In his movies, you do really feel how characters fail in understanding the dynamics of their lives, despite their desperate efforts to understand. Caden Cotard in Synecdoche New York for example (named after the Cotard delusion, that one thinks he’s already dead), spends a life-time to build a massive theater representing routine human lives of every actor, letting them play their own story to show the secrets of real life. He wants to decipher them in a truthful way for his own comfort and in the eyes of the audience. But he fails, and Charlie portrays his failure with the ending of his life, having lost every endeavor, every precious meaning and finally “fading into oblivion”. Caden chose titles that could represent his huge theater over and over, but could never feel contempt with any. “Simulacrum”, “Flawed light of love and grief” and “The Obscure Moon Lighting an Obscure World” were among them. This challenge of understanding was likewise presented in his Adaptaion movie, written out of Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief”. The name speaks itself.

When you adapt, you surrender. There’s no radical motive left. Nothing exceptional. You realize “That’s how it should work” when there’s no other option. Brené Brown introduces vulnerability as a symptom of courage. That is stepping into the unknown with all its uncertainties and possible failures, because there’s no other way. Our rational mind is unable to assess all uncertainties and alternatives. The more you push it towards a whole understanding, you find your self more troubled and helpless. But then we invent Courage, which says “If you can’t win with your mind, win with your heart”. If you knew there were strategies in a war that can put soldiers out of the field, you would definitely do, unless you are suffering from another disease called religion, which is irrelevant for now.

Let’s sort all other wise responses of our fellow intellectuals. Letting go of thought, as prescribed in many East Asian philosophies, stands as the most naïve one. Accepting the foolish concept of fate, as the banner of victimhood. Belief and faith as the food for fantasies. And finally, HOPE, the most deceptive force, has appeared in many literary works, paintings, songs and even social movements over time. Hope is like a temporary relief, a small bondage to stop bleeding while the wound is right there. I think we play with hope and protect ourselves when fears rush through the door. That’s a good game by the way. I have been dreaming for many months now, that I can bring this deceptive force back into myself and I’ve failed. After all, if the wound is meant to be there, why not using a bondage? Let’s decorate it with fancy colors, turn it into a piece of clothing and enjoy. The idea of decorating something immovable seems familiar, doesn’t? How many societies, books and doctrines have been built upon? But surely, we know that hope has the same rotten roots as courage. We project success in the future when we have no idea what is going to happen. Yet of course, why not?

The world grows unknown as you grow older. A world-wide false expression is that the elder, given their experience, understand the world better, while they only learn their limitations over time. That’s all. As kids, we falsely believe in our knowledge about the surrounding things and aging comes with the enlightenment of limitations. That’s why the elder hesitates in making decisions while the kid makes in an instant. I envy myself in five years ago, when I bravely made decisions and stood firm supporting them. That’s braveness my friend, however foolish it might seem.

Realm of creation is the realm of god. It’s stepping into the dark, courageously, anticipating various outcomes. That’s how Dr. Rollo May defines creation in his book “The courage to Create”. Once, in a long discussion with Mr. Zia, we both agreed in the comfort of accepting the melancholy caused by fears since it was god-like to be brave. And that’s true, we all like to be gods - The omniscient and powerful creature we invented in our most profound fictions. In him, the humankind has invested his most wild and selfish dreams. But it seems that Dr. May forgot the fact that gods are supposed to be free from constraints like time and limitations of knowledge. Fear of failure and unknown does not apply to those who know the consequences of every act, and believe me, that’s super boring!

We enjoy far more than gods do. The concept of courage is coupled with the concept of unknown. There is no courageous being who knows everything. Besides, when there’s unlimited time and resources available, no penalty for failure and no vision for success, you won’t feel anxious because you can always test other alternatives in your infinite life. How many times have you used cheat codes in a game and later felt regret because infinite cash destroyed the joy of earning it? Silly gods work with cheat codes.

We want wise men who can tell us the best scenarios in our daily decision making. They should be free from feelings and emotional attachments but decide best under time constraints- Time breeds anxiety when the process of reaching a conclusion takes long, and anxiety is a weakening force, if not a stopping one. But that will neither be humane nor god anymore. We have created another fiction, a constrained super-hero. It does not exist.

Let’s finish our miserable search for role-models and take a look at our real surroundings. All we own, is a bounded rationality limited by many elements. The world is complex. Events are the same and so does the relationship between things. Yet, simple rules rule. We know joy is out there and so is sadness. We will someday experience success and fail the other day. But is it a mess? Some of the successful among us may believe so. I guess because they are a mess themselves and have won by chance. Remember, sad losers who lost by chance, never express themselves. Contents published out there are mostly coming from fool naïve successful folks, who in their own terms were gifted with intelligence and wise decisions. Only a true loser can defeat them if he gets a say out there. Otherwise winning by chance turns into a culture and idiots will be ruling us. Oh, am I a bit late to say so?

There’s much left to say but I’m tired of writing. It’s 9PM already in Tehran and we’re in lockdown. Such a terrible complicated time to write about these simple rules. I study economic complexity in my thesis, and everyone should know that most complex behaviors arise from simple rules. Bounded rationality is too one of the core concepts. Actors in a complex system are not gods, but they can feel contempt with their limited decisions. The simple rule is that as humans, we can be contempt. We can accept our boundaries and learn few universal rules about love, expectations, happiness and staying sharp. The more we try extending our decision-making logic, the more we will grow weary of time and greedy of the results. So, am I letting go of all the heavy thought process I’ve defended up to now? No. That’s a gift. A wise man’s approach that should be treated with honor and be understood, while he learns and accepts his limitations. I am reading a book called “Simple Heuristics that Makes us Smart” with a group of friends and most of these notes were inspired by that. Hopefully, I can share a lot more about how these techniques could alleviate the pain of understanding while giving us good reasons to stop endless venturing in the unknown like gods! I wish to be contempt being a human.

[roseate7]

(just know that this isn't me at all saying 'calm down' or how to feel because holy shit, everyone deserves to feel some kind of fuckin way right now)

So there's a reason why I'll start off with this, I promise:

One of my concerns right now is that Gudbranson not bring any dirty ugly hits to a team that has taken care to try and clean that from the team since Matt Cooke. Sidney Crosby fights his own fights. Evgeni Malkin fights his own fights. Modern enforcers - and they hardly deserve the term - cause nothing but chaos and far too much damage.

The Pens don't need big hulking guys who punch hard and take penalties harder. They need defense that is quick with great vision. Which they have, but this season (and honestly last season as well) has seen all of them out injured too long to enjoy them. In their place there's been a rotating door of Rutherford choices who he only ends up shipping right back out again. The only choice he's held hard on is his worst one.

And that's where I'm going with this: the greatest enemy to the Pens is Jim Rutherford and there is absolutely no hiding or 'don't be dramatic' hand-waiving to be done anymore. Every failure this team has experienced since last season is sat squarely at his front door. The Pens as a team are not perfect but they are resilient and resourceful and have a core that's won multiple Cups together. Losses of course happen to this team sometimes but not the outright failures. The failures are in management.

But Jim is a rich old white hockey duffer, the most dangerous breed in the modern NHL. They control just about everything, they belong to a club that look out for each other above all else and they will honestly die without ever having to face consequences for their actions. You know how much I big up what Brendan Shanahan has been doing for hockey? He's considered a greenhorn. He's fifty years old, has a winning legacy that stretches throughout his entire playing career, and he's a  modern guy who can speak the language of the ancients. Yet he's still considered the young buck threatening the good old ways of hockey. We've literally got to fucking wait out the natural working-lives of guys like Rutherford to see them gone and proceed with a modern hockey that is more about playing hockey than the goonery seen from Philly last weekend that squeaked them a "win". A team like the Pens whose current dynasty has worked so hard to be more about skill and play than goons and enforcers are hamstrung by management that doesn't have the modern hockey sensibility to understand that approach and effectively keeps working against it with his trades.

As far as what this season still holds for the Pens, I'm not being remotely overly-optimistic when I say it ain't over til it's over.

- this season has been fucking chaotic across the league - every time a team (besides TBL) thinks they're up and in the clear, either a humiliating loss to a low-ranked team or a losing streak has them sliding face-first on concrete

- the superstars throughout the league are not all having their best seasons, so slumps for guys like Evgeni Malkin are far from isolated to the Pens and not all of the other guys come out of it ready to save entire games like Malkin has

- on the one hand that chaos is all a great sign of cap salary era truly coming into it's own by spreading talent more evenly across teams, but on the other it's made for extremely fraught fans on every team (except TBL)

- TBL are a juggernaut to be sure, but nip out a couple key players with injuries at this stage and honestly? shit could fall apart even for them - dented confidence was their achilles heel last year and this year's losses have proven that issue remains (which isn't unusual for consistently strong teams since getting used to wins makes losses sting all the more)

- the Pens have kept TBL on the run the three times they've met! and with no lucky breaks! quite the damn opposite considering that Jon Cooper cited how few errors TBL made to cost them their confidence in the Pens-winning game and the other two Pens losses to TBL were tight scores and solid games of hockey

- the stadium series farce (both the weather and the appalling play from the Flyers is in fact the Pens number one proof of quality: the refs were too chicken shit about Philly fans to make any calls against the home team, the Flyers saw that they were losing the entire game by the first and decided to crush the head and neck of the Pens' top two defensemen respectively, begged for time out and pulled their goalie in and out like a demented children's toy, and STILL had to rely on the fucking weather turning awful to squeak in one OT goal

So Pens' fans? Rest fully assured in the fact - bitter as it may taste - that the team is incredible. They've got management whose choices are actively working against theirs stability, their needs and their interests and they have been keeping the playoffs alive. This is without a doubt the worst hand they've been dealt in years - possibly a decade? - and the team is finding Ws and staying on the board regardless.

And trust me, while some teams flail around trying to point fingers but with no amount of changes making any lasting difference, Pens fans can point to one man and say 'this is your fault'. If he'd had his hands tied behind his back at multiple points along the way last season and this season, this team would be better off and that is salient fact-based truth that absolutely no one but Rutherford and Sullivan are trying to hide from anymore. I don't care if they're nice guys. Rutherford has a golden once-in-a-modern-hockey-lifetime dynasty held in his hands and he's mangling it for no reason. Take a fuckin tip from coach Scotty Midas Bowman: sometimes when you have more, you should do less.

Anyway, this playoffs are not ready to be called at this moment in time for the Pens (or indeed for most anyone) so for those who want to carry hope to the very end you're totally fair in doing so. The hope is absolutely still there. Equally if anyone wants to just put their playoffs hopes away in self-preservation, have a good old cry and channel their rage at Rutherford to at least get some enjoyment out of the coming games then go for it.

Everybody deals with this kind of sports insanity their own way. Use the X-Kit Mute functions, use blacklists, temporarily unfollow, vent like all hell or do what you need to cope with the madness.

He’s got a contract til 2022 and a delusion of his own superiority and a complete lack of ability to admit he’s wrong (which he’s done before but apparently not anymore) so his intent definitely isn’t to intentionally tank them. 

The Pens have never been in the position for anyone to think management would pull a “Lose for Hughes” so no, this really is just a case of an old man valuing his own pride over all else. His petulant reaction to routine media questioning following JJ’s signing was a big sign and his reactions to criticisms - even sometimes too quickly for anyone to have yet formed any! - is consistent proof. He’s lashed out at everyone except the few players he knows he can’t possibly survive without but he’s never once criticized his biggest mistake. That says it all.

The one and only thing the Pens need to turn around is him. He is not Jason Botterill. All contracts can change and he is not worth wasting the latter years of the Crosby-Malkin era on.

[garden-of-succulents]

in love with the hurricane

Patater, 3k words, adult themes; discussion of suicide, homophobic language, violation of secrecy

(I wanted to fill my own prompt, but then realized I’d have to write out everything that I think happened the last time Tater shared insider information on Jack with Kent Parson. Which was… not good things, and affected their relationship a lot.)

Alexei’s reclining in bed after sex, one arm tucked up under his pillow and one around the man with his head on Alexei’s shoulder, feeling pretty good.  So of course that’s when Parson draws an experimental line down his pectoral and says, “I should swing by Samwell and see my man Zimms. His agent is leaving it pretty late, if he waits much longer to talk to management he’ll have to take whatever salary they give him.”

Kent Parson does this. Routinely, predictably, wind him up and watch him go; Alexei’s talked it over with his mother and come up with a very solid Rule of Parse. Any form of new or novel intimacy is going to make him lash out. Once he’s used to it he calms down; it’s when Alexei pushes somewhere he hasn’t gone before that Parson goes for the hurtful ammunition. Openly ogling or commenting on other men in front of him; flirting or getting handsy with women where Alexei can see; rubbing his hockey prestige in Alexei’s face; voicing his depression and self-hatred. The first time Alexei took his hand Parse had looked across the room and said, “Oh, he’s cute.”

Now Alexei’s brought Parse home, had sex with him in his own bed, and that’s rebounded back on him with the comment about Zimmermann. The reminder that this is the one Parse has been waiting for, the one Alexei’s known about since they first met; the one, presumably, he’d leave all his other lovers for.

It’s a bit more subtle than when a crazy-scared foster child gets moved in with a nice new family and wrecks their house, because they want to end the pain of suspense as soon as possible. I know you’re going to hate me eventually, so it might as well be now. More subtle because Parse isn’t a child anymore, and anyway Alexei hasn’t told him about this tell. If he tells, Parse might change or mask it.

It’s a behaviour that probably has chased a lot of people away. Of course it should; if Alexei weren’t cast-iron in a place that a lot of people are tender flesh, it would chase him away too, because Parse isn’t a child Alexei’s sworn to take care of, he’s an adult Alexei’s fucking recreationally. An adult who never wants someone to hate him before he’s given them reason, and therefore delights in giving reason. (“Delights” is the wrong word, but he’s not in the mood to be too deeply empathetic tonight.)

Alexei’s matured past the time when he would have loudly proclaimed, I’ll be the one who will love you no matter what you do. He’s learned not to swear that he’ll be the one who’ll never leave, no matter what. Kent Parson has a competitive nature; if Alexei threw a challenge like that in front of him, he would find a way to make Alexei abandon and betray him.

So with all this taken into consideration, he doesn’t rise to the bait. He counter-attacks.

“Aces management?” he rumbles, toying with Parse’s hair. “You think he is sign with Aces? I’m think he sign with us.”

“What, the Falconers? Lexi, I love you guys, but do you seriously—?”

“He is come to our morning skate on Tuesday,” Alexei says helpfully. “Laugh and joke with me, old guys. Well, we laugh. He smile. He is talk with Assistant General Manager, schedule meeting next week.”

Parse is very still for a minute, and then pushes himself up to look Alexei in the eye. He looks a little bloodless. “You’re serious." 

Alexei crosses his heart in reply.

"Shit,” Parse says, and pushes himself out of bed. His feet hit the floor with a thump and then he’s squinting around the bedroom floor for his clothes. Alexei turns on the bedside lamp to augment the moonlight coming in the sheers. “Fucking—god—”

A little clinically, Alexei thinks, He really did believe Zimmermann would come back to him. He’s wondered a little over the years whether Parson’s self-delusion really did go all the way down, or if it was just an act to push people away, get a rise out of them. It’s… well, it’s sad.

So he sits up and bed and watches as Parson struggles into his clothes, and then stands there, fully dressed, and meets Alexei’s eyes like he’s just realized that most people would be hurt or enraged or something by this response, by their immediate displacement in his priorities.

Alexei waves a hand. “I know when I tell you, you be upset, worry.” He pauses, then says, “I’m think you get different than what you want, from him.”

Parse shakes his head, and says faintly, “I have to try.” Then he licks his lip and says, “Look, I’m… I’m sorry. I know I’m being an asshole here.”

“You want apologize, you know my number,” Alexei says with magnanimous resignation, and Parson goes.

Parse doesn’t respond to his text a few days later, should I be wishing you congratulations? )) but he does call at the end of the week.

“Alexei,” he says warmly. “Thanks for picking up after what I did to you. That was an asshole move. I’m sorry.”

“I say I pick up,” Alexei says noncommittally, but Parse just rolls right on over him.

“Did I ever tell you what a great guy you were? You’re just so… tolerant. You’re so good to people that way. I’m so glad I met you, man. You’ve been a fuckin’ bright spot all these years.”

“Thank you,” Alexei says. “Party, I like you too.”

Parse laughs. “Party! I love that name. You do the best nicknames. It made me feel special, you know? I just… I want you to know how much you mean to me, Lexi.”

Alexei swallows an icicle, breathes deep, and says, “You want me to know, schedule next time I see you.  Maybe I take maintenance day when we play Stars in January?”

“Don’t, ah… let’s not schedule something yet, but I, ah. You gave me so many chances. More than I ever deserved. You know? You wasted so much time on a guy like me… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay that.”

“How did meeting with Zimmermann go?”

“Ah? Uh. Well. He’s got his own... stuff, you know, so I’m trying to take care of…”

“Parson,” he says, trying to make his voice gentle. “What is talk like this? Like you saying goodbye.” The silence on the line crackles, the sound of faraway breathing. The question on his tongue is an awkward one; he doesn’t know how to make it blunt enough without turning it ungainly, abrupt. But he asks. “What is plan here? You want to kill yourself?”

“Look, don’t worry about me,” Parson says. “You worry too much about everyone else, okay? It won’t, I’m not… I’m gonna fix things. Okay?”

“Because if you thinking suicide,” Alexei presses, “I can help, find ways to make you safe.”

“I don’t need your help,” Parse says harshly. “I’m fine. Leave it alone, okay? You’re not my mother. Or my boyfriend. Jesus.”

After he’s hung up, Alexei chews his lip for a couple of minutes, thinking.  He calls Parse’s friend Troy, gets his voicemail, leaves a text, and considers calling Vassily. He’s an Ace, so he might have a good perspective, except… Vassily is kind of an asshole, unsympathetic to Parse, and not smart about people.  No. Then he checks the time in Russia, and calls home to wake his mother up and run the conversation by her. 

“I would worry,” she replies. “A little because of what he said, more because he has tried before, and because this has been his reason not to for years.” And her judgment is the best he knows.

So he pours himself a glass of water, noting that when this is over he’ll have to take off his shirt and shower. He’s sweating with nerves. He calls Georgia Martin.

When he was sixteen, his friend Masha hanged herself in her closet with a length of rope, and it had been the end of the most helpless fight he’d ever had, because at the end of the day he couldn’t change what was in her head. Since then he’s learned a lot about his limits, about what he can’t do, about when he can only step back.

“‘Lo?” Georgia asked, gravelly with sleep.

“Georgia, is Tater,” he says. “I need the number of someone in Aces staff. Who works with players, every day. After hours, cell phone number. Is important. And urgent.”

She doesn’t say anything; he can hear her getting up, walking through the house, hear a computer booting up. As he waits he switches the phone to speaker so he can call up the notepad app.

“Andrew Waterhouse,” Georgia says, after some clicking and typing. “Assistant coach. Got a pen?”

“Yes,” he says, tersely, and types it out standing on the balls of his feet. He reads it back to her when she’s done, to make sure he’s got it right. “Thank you, George. I go call him now.”

“Welcome, Tater,” Georgia says, and as he hangs up he blesses her in his heart, but doesn’t stop. He just dials the next number.

“Mr Waterhouse,” he says, pacing up and down his kitchen when his call connects on the second attempt. “It’s Alexei Mashkov from the Falconers. I need to talk to you about Kent Parson.”

After a moment the man on the other end of the line says, “Okay?”

“Him and me, we have argument last week. He is in Providence. I say okay, you want to apologize, you call me.  Is normal. But also, I know he is expecting good news, thing he want very much for years.” He struggles to talk slowly, running his hand through his hair as he paces, wanting to get it all out as fast as possible but knowing he has to take time, marshal his English, make a case, be understandable. “Tonight he is call me. Not about argument, just, 'Oh, Lexi, you such good friend, appreciate what you do for me, want to say thank you for all these years’. Not grumpy like I expect. Is… elated? Calm? Peaceful? Mr. Waterhouse, my mother is suicide counsellor. I am knowing it is… he tell me before, he try sometimes, younger. Has not been for years because he is waiting for this good news. But I ask, did you get good news? And he says no, but…”

“Jesus Christ,” Andrew Waterhouse says. “You think he’s gonna kill himself.”

Alexei swallows and says, “Yes.”

“Do you know when?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay.” The man on the other end of the line takes in a deep breath. “Okay. I’m gonna act on this, okay? Right now. I appreciate you calling me.”

“Thank you,” Alexei says. “Please go fast.”

Waterhouse calls him back the next day to thank Alexei, to say Parse is “being taken care of”. Whatever it means, Parse is out for three games due to “undisclosed injury”.

So it’s with some trepidation that Alexei answers Parse’s call the day of the second scratch, and it’s quickly justified.

“You cocksucker,” Kent Parson spits. “I was fine. I know you’re the one who fucking told them. I should call your GM and get you locked in a fucking mental asylum.”

“Party,” Alexei says tentatively. “Good to hear you alive.”

“Don’t you fucking buddy me. You’re not my friend. A real friend wouldn’t have gone fucking over my head and—”

Alexei holds the phone away from his ear so he can think. He’s not a complete stranger to this form of ingratitude; Masha was an expert at it, and bullied him into keeping silence he regrets now. And the other thing is—he’ll put up with a lot from Parse, but this isn’t a little thing. This is a firehose of venom, and it’ll hurt both of them if he lets it continue.

He does the kind thing by removing Parse’s ability to hurt him in a way he’ll regret later. He hangs up.

I am sorry you are angry, he writes. For not believing you and breaking your secret. I understand if you need to be angry with me. But I am ok if you are alive to be angry. Hope one day you maybe forgive me.

“Mama,” he says later, when he’s told her the whole story, “I want to stop losing friends this way.”

“I know, little kitten,” she says, as warm as her fingers curling through his hair. “But you did good by him, all right?”

Alexei holds onto that. Sometimes he watches Aces games, once they get their star winger back, just to reassure himself that Parson is alive. He holds those things like compresses over the aching void of the man’s absence in his life.

They play the Aces again at the very end of the season, and Parse on the ice is a shitshow—so out-of-control and utterly heedless of his own safety that it terrifies Alexei, the way he’s been since he came back to the ice even though Andrew Waterhouse assures him the Aces are “on” his mental health issues. On the ice, he barely spares Alexei a glance.

The week beforehand, though, Parse had sent him a little funny email, just a macro of Alexei’s least-favourite ref and a joke to his disadvantage, and the note, “Found this on Twitter.” Tears had pricked Alexei’s eyes as he recognized it as the olive branch it was. He’d sent back pictures of his neighbour’s cat doing her morning patrol.

The night after the game Parse leaves the arena with his team, but he texts Alexei, Still want to meet up during the summer? I have some apologies to make.

For a minute Alexei just rests his phone against his lips in a silent prayer of gratitude. Then he summons back up the energy to reply, only if u r teaching me still to surf!!!!