#i also just go crazy for any reference to judas ever so there's that too

[propheticjester]

hard to say what i gained from being raised in a christian household, but goddamn can i spot a biblical allusion when i see one

[ladyshilya]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season 3

I watched season 3, while it wasn’t a bad season and I enjoyed it. There are some aspects of the season that were just a let down. 

I really thought it was going to take most of the season to get Nick back.  The fact it happened in the first episode seems rushed.  I would have been much happier with this taking longer to happen. 

Also they make Sabrina, Queen of Hell way too fast.  I feel like that is something though should have happened at the end of the season.  I feel like that aspect of the season felt like too much.  It was just something added in so they could uncover the Unholy Regalia. I am sure they could have found a way to bring those items so they could be used with the time egg differently.  Wait, they could have found something that mentions using the those items to power the time egg.  Yes, I know that is the easy way out but come on they have their own stone circle like Stonehenge under the academy.  

This season really just dropped the ball on some characters like Lilith, The Dark Lord and Father Blackwell.  I get it wanting a different threat but then don’t have these characters involved.  At least don’t give them major aspects in the story line only to barely use them and destroy any characters arcs they previously had.  I would have been fine with them bring the major villains of the season again.  The whole coven losing powers because of Lucifer being dethroned was a big deal.  They could have done some much more with it. Hell, Lilith was so passive the whole season until she got Father Blackwell to knock her up.  Which was a great move to prolong her life.  I really want to see what everyone is going to do about this baby next season and what chaos it will cause.  

I did like the introduction of other kinds of magic since that is a real thing. At the same time they had Pan who is God worshiping another God? I feel like Pan should be able to do more then make people go crazy.  EDIT: as I have learned from some research The Green Man is associated with Pan.  Basically he was getting people to worship himself.  They had a gorgon just to have one running around. A living snake who was no where near as cool as she could have been.  Circe who they basically downplayed her other magic skills because she is great at hebalism. Granted they left in the fact she can transform people into animals, that was good. 

Robin Goodfellow is the other name for Puck.  One of the most mischievous Fae’s out there.  He was so boring.  I happy he was a love interest for Theo and that he did the right things had helped the group in the end. He could have been so much more fun. Also was I the only person who didn’t care if Ros and Harvey had sex?  Really, didn’t need all that screen time.

I am happy they called in the Hedge Witches and looks like we should be seeing more of them.  Mama Mambo is a great a addition and looks like she will be a lot of fun as a character.  I am curious to see where things go now they are worshiping Hecate. 

I was not here for Hilda being turned into a spider and almost killing Dr. Cee.  That was heart breaking because I was happy they got engaged and that she has someone.  It just felt like a forced aspect of the show to give Hilda more screen time. I feel like they could have found something else better.

The whole Caliban thing was annoying.  Let’s be honest he was just there to give Sabrina a possible new love interest since things were failing with Nick.  Who was a major ass when he got back.

I get it he was dealing with a lot and he wasn’t handling it well. At the same time he needs to acknowledge he wasn’t handling shit right and make things right. Sabrina did go through a lot to bring him back.  Back to all the shit going on in Hell. Caliban really was there look pretty and give a reason for the Unholy Regalia.  I liked everything about the Unholy Regalia from having to find them to, to the guards, and having to them. One of the better aspects of the story. 

What I did not like was how without Sabrina, Armageddon basically happens and only she can fix it. That would make sense if Sabrina had more magic then being a witch. She was losing her powers the same as everyone else the coven.  Besides making Sabrina Queen of Hell there is no benefit to her being The Dark Lord’s kid. She has no extra abilities and well know she as celestial blood in her. All she did to save things was teleport everyone away and poison the Green God. Did anyone else think Gargoyle King when looking at it or was that just me?  And Sabrina might have messed with the Space Time Continuum with there being two of her. I am sure that is going to be a huge issue next season.

Also what was Sabrina wearing as Queen of Hell.  Lilith didn’t wear anything like that way does Sabrina have to?

Other thoughts I had while watching the show. Do all cheerleading squads in that area sing and dance? I don’t think I have ever heard any of them do an actual cheer. They basically made a reference to Pop’s, had a Southside serpent show up, mention the Blossom family and got to Riverdale. Does this mean we are going to see some kinda of a crossover? They did have Lucifer show up in the Crisis proving that a Netflix’s character can make an appearance. The creator of the Arrowverse shows does Riverdale and Sabrina. I am just saying it would be cool not to mention Archie is one of Sabrina’s love interests in the comics.

I didn’t like the fact they broke up the weird sisters. While Dorcus was the most boring of them I didn’t want her to die. I like the three of them together. I get it is needed for character growth and change. Prudence is going to be a very different person next season. I wonder what they are planning on doing with Judith and Judas since they were boring and just there this season. I would expect them to be powerful considering who their father is why not use them.

I want more Salem but I know the actress who plays Sabrina is allergic. He could show around other family members like when Ambrose had him guarding Hilda from the banchee. I love the fact this Salem is an actual ghoul or demon. It gives him so much more magical abilities. They need to be explored and used more.

Even with the issues of this season I am looking forward to next season. I am curious what the new coven will look like.  What Father Blackwell released from the time egg. How they are going to deal with two Sabrinas.  What is going to happen with Liltih being pregnant.  

[whatsthenameofthisgame]

Intergalactic Interrogations (II)

"Where am I?"

[What do you mean?]

"Instead of just sitting there moving blood all day, and failing roughly might I add,- Are you recording this conversation? That's disrespectful, I'll have you know we started learning binary and ridiculous little facts about your friend. I don't know who raised you wrong,"

[Hey.}

"I'd- {emmited} have you forget. Speak English numb for brawl! *maybe there is a slap here*"

["Go to the top 10 close or near you everywhere you go that you consider the smartest people in the world & become their best friends foreverest...," I drawl out every one of my answers like a disgusting fountain, yet they aren't happy with any of them. To think it all could have started with a scared girl asking me what I know and warp through timespace paranoia, or that quantum mechanics has caused this all to be real.]

"Here's (apparently) what living sages do they write all of the time. And they secretly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about them."

[I'm listening to someone write the show for me, I don't always connect parts of my brain with other parts so well, but when I don't its's because I'm completely mental that I can make things out as other sounds.]

"He inserted apparently over us. What a dick head."

[I was writing before this as well. Get ready for another roundabout of Intergalactic Interrogations]

["How would you describe this, Fake Judas(2) what kind of situation do we have here? Remember, I'm made to forget and then reremember again."]

"It's very logical. It's simple. You have to have a Marine Corp mindset in infilitrating the cause."

[I am both afraid and completely unafraid of what I am doing. To be afraid of this silly game would be ridiculous and stupid. On the other hand he's been learning from me as I learn from him-]

"He's been completely thinking ridiculous things over what we're saying. He's a whoremonger." ""IT IT,"" maybe demons scream, but I am untethered from the boulder like a chain beneath the ocean, the weight simply presses into the sand. The fishes swim around as I wander in my drowning to the top where the ship is safe in the sunlight.

[On the other hand- quantum questions pose like prose, possessing possibly -  I ignore FakeJudas(2). It is hard to keep up with everything. I need a writer still. I turn to Affiliate. Please have Alliteration do her thing without guiding us into rap for hours on end again, thank you very much. Affiliate looks confused and furious, for I often thought he was on the wrong end of the job spectrum ever since our staycation in the fire bird land of no sounds, place of the falsified Gods, faces in the spaces, The Devil's home of Peter's ignorances ... Anyway where was I? It is really hard to keep up with everybody and everything. There is a whole plot line, that I feel truly matters, and we are all missing it for the amount of activity going on in all of your heads while I've got mine. Is it mine? To start. Or are all of these conversations I'm tapping into the way of the real brain. Every particle of water an ocean? Every idea a world of thought? I already thought so. It isn't time for creative freedoms. I think we are supposed to focus on my suicide. For the sake of suicide. "Aha! Where we were last standing, one of the better reasons why I have roses elegantly and unevenly tattooed on my fingers. They're both cocked and one is in my mouth outright, while the other is at you. It was in your hands, and I gave you the tools necessary to save it. Save your belly aching. Every bit of paranoia, was it real, or were you trying to induce it? Save it for the masses. I know it's always a little bit of both. And that the most obvious answer is usually the truth. Variety is the best spice- and I'll have at my dad's pizza with way too much spice, for the loving good Grace from which Moses parted the water of life into place, (I am making a Tokyo MewMew joke that is a bit elongated) the V for which has He, Friends With Time, Drawer of Lord Excalibur when I actually love myself, rainbow gay pride I've forgotten uniciorn chapter books volume one and two powers activate!) *I start to turn, /now I am not paying attention to anything as I mash jokes into my own life story./

"This is what we paid for. This is disgusting filth. Think you can handle it?"

Think you can handle it? Would Filthy Frank even read this shit right here? We didn't even pay for all of these references. We're just hoping we get so many more people on team blue than team red so that we're able to just diss the suing right out of the waters like a lotus. Hah! Get that. I'm named after water so I'm doing water jokes. Listen, kid. I have heard a lot of jokes from the demons. You really don't want to start with me. I'm trained to accept them as a compliment, which I was saying back before we were all *I'm channeling Filthy Frank's voice in a ricefields sunhat visor right here* simple and shit. Now they are even trying to insult me with compliments and it's working. Listen, you never did knew that evil was good and proper and right. There was a new face of evil on the block, and it was the face of a genius sociopathic borderline child.

"Oh my God, You really do think like you're God."

[Guess what. Bitches, I have Autism so I cannot understand the emotional connotation in your words. Knowing that, I interpret it as fast as crazy, which is why no sweat because I also know that sometimes that's exactly what you're doing. Meaning I think of many ideas and crap. Your every thought could come to me like an intellectual process. I have no way of being.]

"Do you think you're special? Stay on topic please, I've seen we've gone a little socio today lady."

["I am silent. All is the same in my canoe which is made of wood and has travelled from hell through the underground rivers to the open and vast, great sea. Cold, or hot, shivering or sweating, thirst or hunger, war, famine, fire, flood, I know that I must and can navigate through it and 'round, 'round again, for this canoe and its lantern was tethered to my soul, it was tethered to my idea of neutral state meditation through chaotic forces. I was the canoe, one could say. I was the ship. Or the wood. The wood which came from the tree. Maybe The Tree. A Tree of Time, careful creature, making friends with it. And as the tree, and with brainwaves being like a tree, and all things one in the same, I made a hollow for those beyond to perch before they fade to worlds-"]

"This is artinery, itternerary(?) Get to the point."

[Often what I say, I sort of contribute to ghosts and other things.]

"This is what we get out of you? Jesus. (What are you, Santiago?) What happened to the sainthood?"

["Indeed I am Santiago, Another one of my many names, Dare ye say it, (Which they didn't.)]

"Look at what this kid is thinking of completely loaded. I think that maybe it is hilarious. Or perhaps all his excuses for crap."

[Indeed that all of this content was now filler. JENGA was on hiatus since the before times. We cannot remember those Interrogation Negotiations. But they were amazing. We have screenshots of half of them and had to delete the better half because they were too good and terrifying. We will try to interpret the rest of them someday (soon?).]

[The prophet wasn't just an excuse I made up. It was A Dream. A Dream that one day we will live not by the color of our skin, but by the confusing and complex mental makup which propels us towards the best future for us evolutionarily. Forget about that, everything. Like you have made me, by my words, let us start from the beginning.

Two systems learning from each other causes complex interactions to occur, especially when both have different and unfair advantages over each other. One could say each part of the brain that makes up the whole is its own complex system.]

"Stop talking about them to other people. I hope they rot for what they did to those people."

[Here is a classic bit where I have the chance to explain how either The Devil or The Enemy (FakeJudas2) Might try to make me look like the culprit. Reverse Psychology. It works on me. Which is why my card is chaotic. I don't want you to know what I'm doing, and if you do, then why should it matter what I do? It seems the whole world knows and yet no one knows. God knows what nobody feels like, because he is like us, we are made in his image. If I am nobody, he is nobody. So nobody knows just as well enough as anybody knows. But in both parts give or take, there are still bodies. Lot's of bloody and mutilated bodies which The Enemy has made of my Friends' & Loved One.]

/I take le break/

Depending on how serious JENGA gets, we have to use different members of the army through me. How did we get here, how is this all possible. It is a really meaningful story with lots of science, but we do not have infinite time. I will try to get to that at most.

"What about your boyfriend,"

["For the sake of Einstein, for the sake of proving you can go from Autism to full-blown socio, that realizing the brain works in the way that it does, and that it is all of your faults for being stupid assholes. It my fault for being a stupid asshole. And God is My Judge. Not You."]

"So, are you planning on telling him about any of this, or do you not know how important he is?"

["For the sake of insanity, genius is found."]

"Are you still completely avoiding the question? And how is it that he knows we're watching him for? Does he complete God in the blood?"

[Some things I do not understand. Or remember, or reitterate well. Catch me on drugs. Dattebayo! *flashback* Dattebayo was where it all started. The ten men, pandora's box, the stories, the puzzles, the lands across, the signs, a single time fine dining, and it is also there but not completely all-there.]

"So dattebayo was where it all started, huh? How embarrassing for one so wasted on the regular."

["Never giving up. Dattebayo. Believe it." "How about the story of the modulators some more? Before or after they were modulators? I have many stories to entertain you."]

"even when the conversation is all dead he has a way of going more crazy." a girl chimes in "He's probably been listening to what we are saying and considering it as JENGA."

he continues "Tell me a story to entertain me, that is what I am here for, give me a wild ride, show me some lude-icrous, something more, vivid, that shows me your kind of ideal lifestyle."

["You sounded like the villain in Tarzan for a second there. Well that's me, Tarzan. Me. Need. Jane. Didn't think I could play her. Rub the mud on my face, ask my monkey mother why I am not like them, she says to wipe the mud off.]

"I'm getting more curious, about what you're doing... you can write more than pages, you can write a book."

[I have, it's something I've always been working on. I've written loads of books, just lost, unpublished, deleted... How about I get really high and have someone speak through me now that we're getting down to the odds and ends. Let's get to the nitty-gritty of it. Once you find a way to constantly market off of things that might bother you, you have struck gold my son. The idea however, is to make them better, not worse, so they have a reason to last through the ages. Easier said than done...]

"He/She talks like an old wheezer. They can't- Can they hear me? Can they hear over our conversations? *plethoras of someones' breathy Oh my Gods" over everything. That means they know we're here, they can really hear us! Good job,"

[Did the dialogue switch into a ghosts' narration? It is hard to tell without any figures to watch with my eyes, and the words coming with systems built into a natural Ouija of my own. I won't literally raise hell again, yet... it is always tempted. And must be avoided. We're stepping too close to stories of old. The quantum questions must be pressed. Think harder. I don't know what it is you're thinking, I'm only typing. I am a genius if we aren't psychic, and a numbskull for God if we are All One.

The modulators can be set to different configurations, and put into different settings and events to see the initial outcomes in a module. At all of the Modulators worst configurations, M for their last name is capital. A good example of perfect awful configurations is religious reenactments by a family module within my own person. One's nature is that of a dads', Two is that of a moms', Three is that of a sons', four is that of a daughters', And the configurations always leans towards the predominantly biased neutral algorithyms.

Too much math, too may graphs to come, not sure how to organize it all, so we will have to say, partay.]

"So it feels like you're being taken advantage of by everything." my best friend asks me as my mom may also paranoidly be bothering my brother about me in the distance because I am typing so fast in the middle of the night.

[We've has this conversation before, so it's GroundHog day, only bigger, it's a show.]

"That's what we've been trying to tell you, You should write a show instead of bothering, us."

["Where is Jeremy Todd Ewbank?" I am the horseman, or headless, all the numbers, and the dungeon master because we currently already have a dab master, so you can Direct Message me the answer, Because I'm the Daniel Manual you've been looking for.]

"Jeremy Ewbank is not with us anymore. He's literally done. He can barely breath from your shit."

[The interrogations go haywire as soon as they begin again. Which one of us is being interrogated. "What happened to Jeremy Ewbank. Don't make me rhyme a hundred things with master in a bad rap. Aye, you know that gurl was my princess. You know, we know, we would never let go of or throw away one another, so where is he, *I put an invisible gun, but because I have written this, I will always be paranoid of them. We have to avoid them.

Evacuation Strategies: Red dots: Fun if you're a cat, dangerous if it is a gun. Shrodinger's Gun.

I take a break from interrogations because of laziness and lack of drugs. "JENGA," I claim, and the imaginary tower falls. How to explain a thing about creative manifestation to you, about all of the wild possibilities? So hard, I'd rather play Nintendogs for three hours.]

This is breaking bread with thine enemy

[lostinafictionaluniverse]

Riverdale 1 X 06 thoughts

- The first scene with young Betty and young Polly set the theme of the episode - Fear. I think it also tells us that Alice Cooper was a controlling bitch even way back then. What kind of mother wouldn’t let her daughters sleep in the same room because one of them was afraid of the dark?

- Jughead having breakfast at the Cooper’s was good for my shipper heart, I can’t tell when Alice is being really nice, since she’s always such a bitch, but was that her making an effort to be nice to Juggie? Also was it really necessary for Betty and Jughead to cook up such a elaborate scheme to get Polly’s info out of Alice? Betty could’ve gotten it easily by herself. But at least I got some shippy moments. Betty knows her mom so well, she knew that she would jump up to escort Jughead when Betty offered. Alice ‘Control’ Cooper, everyone.

- Archie with stage fright, that was relatable. Reggie was back to being a dick and Moose is in the jock gang too? Archie trying to get Val to sing with him and she refusing bcos ‘have you met Josie’ and my immediate thought was “Another controlling bitch?’ and the scenes that followed confirmed. I changed my mind later though. Poor Josie!

- Bughead were actual blue and gold. I love when they’re not even subtle. The whole scene with them virtually shutting out everyone and having their own little bughead bubble was so telling! Nope, Archie, you lost your chance 3 episodes ago!  

- Ronnie to the rescue, ‘Veronica ex-machina’, “Jay to my Bey”, she just rocks it!

-Val walking out of the Pussycats for Archie - idk how i felt about that!

- Fred and Hermione kissing, mmm, well, Ronnie didn’t need to see that. No wonder she was shocked, poor girl!

- Archie being supportive of his dad was good, but I can’t help feeling this boy is too wrapped up in his own world to really care

- Mayor McCoy is a shady bitch, and here’s where I got a taste of the kind of insane pressure Josie is in. Her mom is using her for ‘brand building’

- Ronnie again with Archie and the ‘Ginger Judas” comment. Seriously this girl gets the best lines. And Archie was kinda being a dick. Your dad is incarcerated? You want your part back? Seriously dude? I loved that Ronnie wanted to channel her anger into something positive and signed up with the Pussycats! Way to go! Also “We got Yoko Ono’d” (I love the dialogue in this show!)

- So did they cut that scene with Juggie holding Betty’s face? Betty and Polly’s reunion was sweet and emotional, but its so heart-breaking that she didn’t know about Jason. Also Betty finding out that she was pregnant and then Crazy bitch mama Cooper walking in in all her psychopathic glory! Those poor girls! Juggie trying to be protective and getting aggressive with the orderly is what I live for!

- Ronnie’s concerns about her mom and Fred are so valid. The poor girl’s entire world is crumbling. 

- The dinner was so weird, Josie’s dad, another member of the Asshat Parents club of Riverdale. And I can relate, because I know people like that, that are close-minded and won’t see things differently. Its always ‘my way or the highway’ with them.

- Betty’s emotional scene with her parents, her outright accusing Hal of murdering Jason and Alice’s hysterical reaction. Makes me wonder if there’s some truth to the speculation that Hal wasn’t Alice’s first choice, that she was in love with Fred Andrews and he turned her down and that’s why the extreme hatred for Archie? And what didn’t Hal have the stomach for before? Other than killing Jason?

- The BUGHEAD SCENE! I’ve already written posts about that here x and here x, so I won’t go into it again. But SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!

- Josie and Ronnie bonding was real nice. These girls both have parent issues and it was good to see them having a heart-to-heart. Josie’s comment about dysfunctional families and there being another side to the story makes me wonder - What is Hermione up to? Does she have a diabolical, secret agenda? Is she seducing Fred for another reason? If Archie and Ronnie ever get together this could be so awkward for them even if Fred - Hermione don’t last.

- Archie, you poor sap, you’ve never heard of BOB DYLAN??? Fred Andrews is truly the best dad, makes him stand out more because of the Asshat Parents Club, and Hermione being the latest addition to the club. Forging your daughter’s signature? Really Hermione? Makes me wonder if there isn’t something else to her wanting Fred to win the contract than her just being with him. What if she intends to use him as cover for something Lodge Industries is planning? I read a spoiler somewhere that Fred gets arrested? What if it is something to do with the drive-in contract?

- Val immediately understanding why Josie was being Catzilla, bcos Myles was in town, spoke volumes abt the Pussycats’ friendship. And Archie didn’t want to be the guy who broke up the Beatles! Good for you! Loved all the 60s pop culture references, makes me wonder if The Archies will ever be a thing on this show? They did play “Sugar, honey, honey” during the Vixens rehearsal.

 Myles, seriously, dude, you couldn’t wait a couple of minutes till your kid had finished her performance? What a dad! WOW

- Wasn’t too impressed with the Pussycats’ performance. Archie’s song, on the other hand, was nice. Fred and Hermione being proud parents was nice to see, and Archie seeking Fred out as his “safe” person was touching. 

- The Archie- Val kiss.. hmm, I don’t know what to make of it. It was okay, I guess, I’m not too invested in Archie or his relationships right now, and don’t read too much into Archie kissing any girl (he kissed Ronnie while he was with Grundy, so yeah)

- Bughead found the car (why didn’t we hear the dialogue that made Betty smile?) and texted Sherriff Keller. Why did they run all the way back? Couldn’t they have called him to the scene? Or stayed with what was obviously important evidence? Or driven the car back to the station?  At least Juggie took a picture of the boot but will that be acceptable as evidence? Also, how did they go back to the home for troubled youths so easily and this time they let Juggie in too?

-I’m worried about Polly, she’s pregnant and there was blood on the broken window glass where she had jumped off. She’s obviously hurt herself. 

From the promo the next episode seems to be Jughead - centric. YAYY! I’m up for all the Juggie I can get!

[shadowlineswriting]

Lee (the fourth)

Our last L author, Tosca Lee, is a writer of religious and historical fiction. Her first novel is Demon: A Memoir, about a demon who explains what happens when they fell from Heaven and subsequently why demons hate humanity so much. After that came Havah: The Story of Eve, which is exactly what it sounds like, and recently she published Iscariot, which is also exactly what it sounds like. I own all three books and I should tell you up front that I’m keeping them all, because Tosca Lee is a genius. However, here’s why I love each of these books and the reasons they make me think.

Demon: A Memoir is probably my least favorite, but it’s fascinating. It’s rather slow and tends to go off on side rants that distract from the overall story. However, it’s still interesting to read because many authors over the years have told the story of “The Fall” from the point of view of angels or other beings, but rarely do authors delve into the perspective of demons (or at least, not very much until the last decade!). Demon and The Screwtape Letters have a lot in common. There are many good points raised that we probably never think about, but we should. For example, in Demon, the main character (ironically named Clay) discusses how guilty he feels when faced with temptation. The demon is quick to remind him that the sin isn’t in the temptation. Ever think of that?

It’s also particularly funny to read my copy of this book because whoever owned it prior to me took notes in the margins. From reading these notes, I can see that they clearly were not a religious person. Some of the notes say things like “How does someone even contemplate writing a book such as this?” Other notes have to do with the more technical aspects of the story, like “Demons aren’t all-knowing, so how can the demon read Clay’s thoughts?” Frankly I think most of the notes stem from a clear ignorance of religious dogma but hey. That’s their choice. Probably shouldn’t tackle a book like this without a strong arm of the Lord to lean on, though.

Havah: The Story of Eve is a surprisingly difficult book to read. Anyone who’s ever delved into Christianity even a little knows the story of Adam and Eve, and the serpent who tempted them with fruit from the tree. So reading that portion of the novel (it’s about the first 30%) is entertaining but we don’t learn much.

The thing is, the Bible doesn’t speak much about what happened to Adam and Eve after they left the Garden. We know about Cain and Abel and the descendants, but we don’t get any real detail about what their lives were like after. This book is stunning for that reason. Tosca writes about the rift between Adam and Eve, since Adam blamed Eve for giving him the fruit and she blamed him for--well, a lot of things, really, but the point is they had a very love/hate relationship. Furthermore, there are things like the desperate fear they felt the first time one of them was ill, or the first time they saw one animal attack another. How they had to figure out how to sacrifice animals to God, and build places to live, and eat those plants but not these plants, etc. There were language barriers, too, due to all the emotions they now felt but could not name. In fact, the first time they realize the extent of what they’ve done, Tosca writes, “I held him in silence. We did not know the language for sorrow or apology. We had no words for forgiveness, for it had never been needed.” Think about when Cain killed Abel--we understand that it was the first murder, which is terrible by any standards. But imagine how that must have been for Adam and Eve, who knew what a world without sin looked like. When Eve’s other children come her, trying to understand, she wonders “How, after all, does one tell one’s children that their hearts are defective because of their parents’ failing?”

Heavy ideas, many of which I hadn’t considered, but I definitely consider them now!

Iscariot was perhaps the toughest one to read, but luckily it read more like a historical fiction novel in places. I cried through Havah but I also cried through Iscariot. Tosca spent several years researching Judas’s life before she wrote this story, and it really shows in the writing. I feel I have a solid understanding of Jesus’s life, which really just means I have the knowledge I’ve collected over the years. But there’s so much of the story that we don’t know, and even though much of what Tosca does is speculate, she does it in such a masterful way that everything in this book seems completely plausible. I didn’t realize this before I read the story, but Judas is actually the only disciple Jesus referred to in the Bible as “friend.”

I especially enjoyed reading about Judas as he watched people react to Jesus. Jesus spoke in the language of farmers and laborers, which had so much to do with the reason the high priest turned against him, and Judas also discusses the fact that if the 12 disciples weren’t put together through their love for Jesus, they probably would have hated each other. That’s one of the coolest things about Christianity though, in my opinion.

The one thing that made me think the most in Iscariot is how Judas sees so many people who are unsure if Jesus is who he says he is. You see, the prophecies that were made about the coming Messiah spoke of a man who would deliver them from oppression and would be proclaimed King of the Jews and would perform miracles. But Jesus wasn’t charismatic. He raved like a madman and broke nearly all of the Jewish laws at some point or another. He performed miracles, but still they begged for signs. It’s why the Jews hated him. Jesus didn’t come with an army to free them from Rome. In many ways, the people felt he was a huge letdown.

Which makes me wonder...

Nowadays, we believe in Jesus Christ and who he was because we already have evidence. We have firsthand accounts of his miracles and the fact that he rose from the grave. There’s enough evidence that it’s easy to believe that he was the son of God. But if we’d lived during that time, would we still believe in him then? I’d like to think we would, but the truth is I don’t know. Would we assume he was a crazy guy who managed to pull off a few stunts? Or would we have dropped everything to follow him?

We’ll never know, but it does make me think.

These books stay!

[johnhardinsawyer]

Family of Origin Processing

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

6 / 6 / 21

Mark 3:20-35

“Family of Origin Processing”

(Finding Grace in Dysfunction Junction)

Has this ever happened to you?  You hear about something odd or crazy happening in someone else’s family and you say, “Well, if you think that’s odd, you haven’t met my family!”  Or, maybe you’re like my wife and me when we say, “I’m just glad our family is perfect and there’s no dysfunction or weirdness at all.”  When, of course, we know there’s weirdness in our family, just like there is in every family.  We just have to laugh about it, sometimes, to keep from crying.

I don’t think you need me to tell you this, but families are complicated.  And there are things about who you and I are as people, that are closely linked to who our families are, and how we were raised, and how our families resolved (or did not resolve) conflict, or grief, or stress.  It’s not that all of our problems can be blamed on our families or our upbringing.  Many of our problems are ours to own and work through, but some of the traits of our family of origin can either help or hurt the way that we own and/or work through those problems.

If you have ever spent any time with a psychotherapist or pastoral counselor, you might be familiar with the concept of family of origin processing – analyzing who your family was and is in such a way that you can possibly identify patterns and personality traits from the past that inform the present.  Maybe your father was too strict or too lax or suffering from PTSD.  Maybe your mother was always nervous and controlling because her mother was always nervous and controlling.  Maybe you’re carrying guilt or shame because of something you did or someone else did a generation ago.  Maybe there was a crisis that completely changed your family and how you related to one another.  Stuff like this can shape us and make us who we are.

No, I am not a trained psychotherapist – and I am not trying to play one on TV – but I have spent enough time on psychotherapists’ couches to know that families are complicated – your family, my family. . . even the family of Jesus.

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes home to Capernaum – a fishing town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee – where he has been staying.  It is becoming clear that wherever Jesus goes, he ends up drawing a crowd.  Imagine if a big celebrity took up residence right next door to your house and there was nothing put in place to keep the crowd of fans, and well-wishers, and paparazzi, and critics away.  According to the story, there are so many people gathered at Jesus’ home – so many interruptions and knocks on the door for healing or advice – that he and his newly appointed twelve disciples are not able to even eat a meal, together.  For Jesus, the need is constant and the disruptions are endless.

To top it all off, the scene in Capernaum is so wild that Jesus’ family from all the way over in Nazareth have heard about all of this and they show up and try “to restrain him.” (Mark 3:21a) In the original language, the word used here is the same word used for “arrest” or “take into custody.”[1]  It’s almost like they’re trying to commit him to a mental institution, because they declare that Jesus “has gone out of his mind.” (3:21b)  Again, in the original language, Jesus’ family is saying that he has “become separated from himself or lost his spiritual and mental balance.”[2]  He is definitely not acting like the Jesus of Nazareth that they know and love – the Jesus of Nazareth who, after living at home for thirty years or so, went off to the wilderness and was baptized by John in the Jordan River and came back. . . different.  “You’ve changed, Jesus,” they are telling him.  “And not in a good way.”

Now, I’ve heard of families holding interventions, but this is something else. . .  And I know that you might be wondering, just who – besides Mary and Joseph – Jesus’ “family” might be.  As today’s passage tells us, Jesus’ mother and brothers and sisters come to see him.  Just briefly, we are told a little later in the Gospel of Mark that, when Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth, the people say, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (6:3)[3]  It should be noted that, in the original language, the terms “brother” and “sister” have a broad meaning, that could mean blood sibling or, simply, someone who is not a blood sibling but is still close to you, even someone sharing your same nationality or faith.[4]  Suffice it to say that we do not know whether Jesus actually had all of these real-life siblings, but the text implies that there were some real people who considered themselves to be Jesus’ family and who are, in today’s passage, very concerned about him.

Now, imagine that one of your relatives has left home and has started stirring up trouble with the local authorities.  You might feel inclined to go and try to help them or stop them in some way before they get hurt or end up on the evening news, or worse:  the local police blotter.  I can imagine reading all about Jesus in the traditional-leaning Galilee Gazette:  “Local man casts out demons and cures untouchable diseases with a touch, on the Sabbath Day no less.  Experts from Jerusalem say that ‘This ain’t good.’”

This is what the experts from Jerusalem are saying about Jesus – that he is the devil, himself.  If he seems to have power over evil spirits, then he must have an evil spirit, himself, or even be the ruler of all evil spirits.

But Jesus pushes back with an interesting set of images – a divided kingdom, a divided house, a divided spirit.  “A kingdom, a house, or a spirit that is divided against itself is not able to stand,” Jesus says in the form of a parable.  He does not go into too much detail, here, but I imagine that those religious experts from Jerusalem might have heard these words clearly directed at them because of their own divided loyalties to their own people and faith, but also, to the ruling Roman empire, who was allowing them to practice their faith as long as they didn’t stir up trouble.  They were already living in a conquered and divided kingdom, anyway.  I also imagine the early church hearing Jesus’ words directed clearly at them, when the Gospel of Mark was first written and read during a time of persecution by the Romans as well as the Jewish religious experts.  The church often met secretly in peoples’ homes.  And the only way for the church to survive was to unite around the good news of Jesus.  A divided house or church simply would not stand.  I also imagine individual people hearing Jesus speaking directly to them about their own lives and spirits that were – and continue to be, to this day – hellishly divided between fear and trust, anger and grief, hatred and love, shame and pride.  And, I imagine Jesus’ mother and brothers hearing Jesus speaking directly to them about their own family – their own household.  Jesus makes this much clear when they stand outside his house and call for him to come out.  “Your momma and brothers are out there – they want to see you,” the people say to him.  “Who are my mother and brothers?” Jesus asks.  And, looking at everyone who has gathered there in the house with him – poor fishermen, and rich tax collectors, and so-called “sinners,” and outcasts from their own families for some reason or another.  And, Jesus says, “Here is the family that God has given me.” (3:32-35)[5]

Ouch!  I think it’s safe to say that the intervention has not gone as planned.  The family from Nazareth – the family of origin – has been replaced by a new and different kind of family.  Perhaps the word “replaced” is a little strong, here, though.  We are told that his family of origin does come around, in the end.  His mother is there when he is crucified[6]and, a little later in the New Testament, there are references to James, “the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19) and to the married brothers of Jesus[7] who seem to have a connection to the early church in Jerusalem.  

The remarkable thing that is really taking place in today’s story is the way that Jesus expands what it means to be related to him and to belong to God.  God’s family, you see, is just as much – if not more – of a family of origin as any nuclear family ever was because God is our origin.  No matter who raised you or who raised the ones who raised you, from the beginning, God has made each of us.  Yes, you may have inherited your daddy’s nose or your mother’s eyes, or your family’s craziness, but each and every one of us has been made in God’s image and called good.[8]  God made us and loved us first.  No matter the dysfunction we think we’ve inherited, God has seen us as good and has made things right with us through the love of Jesus Christ.  It is in the body and blood of Jesus – at this Table, and on the cross, and in the empty tomb – that we find our healing and wholeness and through which we find our true blood relations, here, in the Body of Christ, the church.  

Yes, you and I have families of origin, but our true family of origin is found in the creative, and loving, and sustaining heart of the Holy.  We would do well to remember this – that we belong to God – to internalize this good news and process it in such a way that it comes to define who we are and how we live our lives.  

You know, these past fifteen months of the Covid-19 pandemic have meant that a lot of people have spent a lot of time with their family of origin.  In many cases, this has been a good thing, but in other cases, I know that it has not.  Families are complicated – even God’s family, the church – but, as Anne Lamott writes, “families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness.”[9]  And, in God’s family of origin, there is always uncomplicated forgiveness, and hope, and healing, and grace, especially for those who come looking for it.

May you find and live and share this grace, no matter who your earthly family may be.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

--------------

[1] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 448.

[2] Walter Bauer, 276.

[3] We also find these names in Matthew 3:31-32.

[4] Walter Bauer, 16.

[5] Paraphrased, JHS.

[6] See John 19:25, as well as an implied appearance in Mark 15:40.

[7] See 1 Corinthians 9:5

[8] See Genesis 1:26-31.

[9] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7437191-i-tell-you-families-are-definitely-the-training-ground-for.

[aion-rsa]

Tommy Chong Talks Cheech & Chong Delivery Systems, Old and New

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Smoking more now but getting high less? The iconic comedy duo Cheech and Chong have always had a solution. The very names Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin are synonymous with weed culture. When The Simpsons ran an episode on dispensaries being legalized in Springfield, they referred to stoners as “Cheech and Chongs.” The pair won’t be selling out of the back of an ice cream truck, like they did in Nice Dreams. Cheech & Chong are doing it legal. They even got a license.

Together with Five Point Holdings, they will license the Cheech & Chong Brand to open dispensaries. Right now they’re going for licenses in California, Nevada, Arizona, Illinois and Washington. The dispensaries will feature cannabis products from both Tommy Chong’s Cannabis and Cheech’s Stash brands. The outlets will also be the first place to purchase Cheech and Chong clothing and memorabilia.

The duo goes back to the late 1960s. Chong had been the guitarist and songwriter for the Vancouvers, a Canadian band signed to Motown. When the band broke up he formed the improvisational group City Works. Southern Californian Mexican-American Richard “Cheech” Marin moved to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War and joined the group. They rolled weed culture in a big bambu, toured and recorded massively successful albums. Their bits altered the consciousness and the history of standup comedy at a time when the art form was going through some of its most expansive and experimental period.

Their movies – Up in Smoke (1978), Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980), and Nice Dreams (1981) – most of which were directed by Chong, lampooned the legal limits imposed on marijuana, and defined the paranoia which surrounded pot for non-white smokers. Cheech went on to direct, write, collect art and act in more than 20 films, including Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and television series like Nash Bridges, Lost, and Grey’s Anatomy. Chong did a regular stint on Fox’s That 70’s Show and an irregular one at the Taft Correctional Institution. He’d gotten caught in a government sting on drug paraphernalia in 2003, signed a plea deal to protect his family and served nine months. Chong consistently promoted the medicinal benefits of marijuana while battling prostate cancer, touted its recreational values and fought for its decriminalization.

John Ashcroft may not like it, but now you can score from the Man himself. Tommy Chong spoke with Den of Geek about smoke, mirrors and rock and roll.

DEN OF GEEK: Have you tried all the strains in the Cheech & Chong brand?

TOMMY CHONG: Probably, but I lose track. People always ask, “What’s your favorite strain?” and I say, “Anything handed to me.” My favorite strain is marijuana. My second favorite strain is cannabis.

You’re on your way to being the Paul Newman of pot. Do you see spreading your seeds as a spiritual calling?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, but only if I’m asked.

How is this different from Tommy Chong’s Cannabis or Cheech’s Private Stash?

It’s a combination. People got hooked on Cheech’s stash. It’s there. It’ll be there with the locals and everything. But the whole thing, it’s going to be a store and so we’re going to have everything in there. And then we’re going to have new products that we’ve come up with. Cannabis is the main thing and our names are there to give people assurance that you’re not only going to get the best quality but you’re also going to get a few laughs.

And for those autograph seekers and people that are collectors, autograph collectors, I started sketching little cartoon figures so I’m getting deluged with requests for my sketches. And people are sending me free canvases. I had a postcard made up that says the sketches cost a hundred bucks. If they pay it, fine. If they don’t, that’s even better.

I read that you used to give away pot to your opening acts. Did you actually start the dispensary to liquidate your personal stash?

That’s a good question. Yeah, actually. The thing about weed, it���s got a hell of a shelf life. I mean, I’ve got weed here I think it’s been 30, 40 years old, and I smoke it and it works. But you know what happens is, if you smoke a lot of weed, you become an easy high. You know what I’m saying? I’ve been around people, they can never get enough but they can never get enough of anything, be it weed or food or whatever or anything. They’re just people that have a high tolerance. With me, I’m a lightweight. I’m a one-toker, that’s it.

Lucky you. Where is the legalization battle now?

We’re looking to take the stigma off it. Get it legalized federally so we can bank our money, so we can join the corn and barley and the rest of the cash crops. That’s all we are. We’re just a cash crop. We’re an agricultural product, that’s all. It’s no different. Treat us like aspirin. That’s a product from a tree. So, that’s what we want. Take away the racist quality of it and then we’re fine. You take racism out of the country, we’re going to have a nice country. Because right now there are too many little racist things all over the place and this Black Lives Matter, they’re getting rid of a lot of it. Finally, the Washington Redskins are going to change their name.

I’ve been on that bandwagon for a long time because it’s horrible. You know why they called it Redskins? Because there was a bounty on natives for a long time, and so the red signified the blood. So, in order to show that you had killed a native, you took a piece of the skin. Like they did in the old days, they took scalps, you know? The red blood was the red skin to signify blood. Not the color of the man but the color of the blood. It was a bounty. I mean, back in the day natives did the same thing. They scalped white settlers, white people too, for the same reason, so they had proof that they killed or at least scalped somebody. But no, it’s a very militant, racist memory. And then they got a logo of an Indian on the helmet itself. So, no, there’s no place for that kind of racism.

If pot is decriminalized, where are for-profit prisons going to get their free labor?

Exactly. I mean, that’s what Trump was trying to do with the migrants, stick them in prison. You get that free labor. But listen, the drug laws, the cocaine and all that shit, you’re right, it’s all been done on purpose. A lot of them are designed purposely to create that labor force.

You were the only first-time offender caught up in Operation Pipe Dreams and you went under the Bush policy on mandatory sentencing. First of all, were you ever pardoned?

I turned down a pardon. Obama was going to pardon me, but I turned it down because I think part of the pardon process, I may be wrong, is to denounce your crime and say that you would never do that. The reason I turned it down is because it was a bogus charge, it was a racist law, and I’m very proud to have served that time and I’m very proud, really, to have that on my back. They hinted that if I did some anti-drug commercials or something that they could give me house arrest or something. It was all bullshit. I did an anti-drug commercial one time, but it didn’t turn out very anti-drug.

In the ’80s there was this anti-pot PSA on the subways, something like, “My little Timmy is an A-student. He plays on the football team and he works after school. How could someone like him have gotten into pot?” Something like that. I always wondered, and you can tell me, would he have had the energy to do that if he wasn’t smoking pot?

That’s right. Little A-student. Hey listen, we wouldn’t be talking on this cell phone if it wasn’t for potheads. We wouldn’t have had a computer. The computer would have been some dream, if it wasn’t for potheads. Well, look at Steve Jobs and Wozniak. They were big potheads and they would smoke a joint and they’d go, “Oh my God, yeah, here’s what we do, yeah.” So much of our lifestyle. That’s why the legalization thing, it’s just like any other stupid, racist laws that we have that we’re cleaning up as we change administration. One thing about Trump, you got to admit that he did clear the swamp. He did know that he was the Judas goat that we needed to identify the swamp creatures, but he fulfilled that promise.

I read that the first time you got high was after a jazz player gave you a Lenny Bruce record and a joint. Which was the bigger gateway drug and how did they interact?

Well, I used to go to this little jazz club in Calgary because it was really only after-hours place that provided music. It was a private club. And if you brought your guitar, if you were a musician you got in free. I couldn’t play jazz but I was a blues guitar player, so I used to bring my guitar and set it by the door and come in and listen to the jazz. Just hang out.

This bass player, he was a friend of mine, he was a Chinese guy, Raymond Mah, he came back from LA with a Lenny Bruce album and a joint. He handed both to me and I put the joint in my pocket and he lit up one of his joints and it was the first time I ever smoked. I just took a couple of hits and I got so high. Whoa. Then when I went home I did up my own joint. I would just take one toke and it lasted me a month. I had the best time. I’d take a toke and then I’d listen to Lenny and laugh so hard. Oh my God. I played that record for my son and he could not see the humor. He did not see the humor in it at all.

I love Lenny Bruce. He’s a jazz comic really.

Well, jazz clubs were one of the only venues that he could work. There were no comedy clubs. He worked whatever club he could work. But the jazz clubs, The Hungry I in San Francisco, that’s where Lenny worked. He got arrested for saying dirty words on stage. That’s how racist the laws and the cops were back then, they could tell you what you could say on stage or how you could look, how you could dress. It was crazy.

Cheech & Chong came up at the same time as a wave of comedic change was happening: Richard Pryor, George Carlin. Did you see your pot humor as political?

Not really, no. I mean, I was influenced by Lenny but I never had any ax to grind. See, Cheech and I, we weren’t going to be comedians in the beginning. He’s a singer and I’m a guitar player, so we put a band together. Because we’d been doing comedy for nine months, it was only natural that when we stepped on stage the first thing we’d do would be some funny bits.

Well, one funny bit led to another and led to another and led to another. Next thing you know the show was over and we hadn’t played one note. And I realized that, “Oh man, we’ve got something here.” So, I told the band … The bass player was funny. “Hey, when’s our next gig boss?” Because he sat and watched the whole show. But everybody got paid and then we went home and Cheech and I are driving along home trying to figure out what we should call ourselves. I asked him if he had a nickname and he said, “Yeah, Cheech.” And so that was the beginning of a great, great career.

So, in regular conversation you call him Cheech, not Richard?

Yeah, it’s Cheech now. Cheech. Never Richard. His first wife called him Richard because she didn’t want him to be Cheech, she wanted him to be Richard. “Richard.”

Did you see how you were affecting social change, or did you see yourselves as reflecting it?

When we started doing comedy records, that’s when I started doing social consciousness. Like Welcome to Mexico. That was a political thing because at the time they weren’t letting long-haired hippies into Mexico. So we did a bit about Jesus going to Mexico and being kicked out. “Welcome to Mexico. Where are you going?”

“I came to see my children. I have children everywhere.”

Yeah, yeah. Oh God. We had so much fun doing things. But we would do ethnic jokes, but not jokes but bits. Just crazy, and it all came from pot because we could hoard pot. We always had a joint somewhere. It’s funny, we never went out of our way to buy it. It always was there. It’s weird how people, “Hey, you got a joint?” “Yeah, okay.” That’s the way it’s always been. There’s no organization. Like when Cheech and I would record. The first thing we found out after we did “Dave’s Not Here,” we were rehearsing, Lou [Adler] tried recording it live in a studio, but it lost a lot of things. First of all, we had to reset and all that other shit.

So, after one recording session with Lou we said, “We got to record in a mix down room. All we need is an engineer.” And that’s all we did, we did everything with an engineer and just Cheech and I because we needed that freedom to come up with the craziness. Because when you have a recording session, you have to have the music written out, you have to know what you’re doing, you got to rehearse because it costs a lot of money to have people hanging around.

After we did “Dave’s Not Here,” Lou said, “Okay, what else you got?” So, Cheech and I wrote right then, we did “Blind Melon Chitlin’.” I’m getting a lot of flak from that now. Not a lot, but I’m getting some flak for wearing blackface in Still Smoking.

Both you and Cheech straddled the world of comedy and music. So, which tent was more comfortable and who threw the better parties?

When we were just recording, before we became really a touring group, we were hanging out with the Three Dog Night people and going to whatever parties Ed Caraeff had or stuff like that. No, no, we were never into that party. I had been with Motown and our group was very boring. We never partied. And I had a wife. She was my girlfriend at the time. I was married too, so I had two wives. So, we never really did the parties. Let’s take it back. When we were trying to get a record deal, yeah, we would go to the odd party then, but it never turned out well at all. That’s when cocaine was pretty popular and so there would be cocaine parties and they weren’t fun at all. You get too stoned and too worked up. When you’re trying to make it you’re broke. You don’t have any money. So, what you do, you become a hanger-on. You just leech onto whoever’s throwing the party.

We were never consumers, food or booze or anything like that. Actually, what we were doing was collecting bits. We would talk to people and then people would tell us some funny bit then we’d use it, or we’d get an idea to do another bit. But we were just hanging around just to be in the gang more than anything with the Three Dog Night. They knew a lot of the rockers at the time.

Later on when Cheech and I became Cheech & Chong, there were, I don’t know what you’d call them. They’re not really parties but after the show things. Encounters. But even then, both Cheech and I, we couldn’t get too serious with anything because we had a wife and family at home.

I have your unauthorized autobiography. Can you tell the story about the welcome to the neighborhood you got in Harlem?

Oh, welcome to New York. Yeah, Harlem. We were going to perform at the Apollo Theater. Whoa, it was the biggest deal: An R&B group playing at the Apollo Theater. Especially Bobby Taylor because he was from New York and he used to be one of those kids that would go to the Apollo. So, we were all excited. We pulled up in our car. I guess we had a rented station wagon, yeah. And we’re all looking at, I guess it was Patti LaBelle rehearsing, and we’re all there backstage looking, and then we look over and there’s our roadie, he was supposed to be with the equipment. And, “Joe, what are you doing?” “Oh, watching this.” So, we went running out there and sure enough they’d broken into the car and stole the bass. Wow.

But one time I was walking from the hotel to the Apollo Theater and I come up to this group of people and there’s one guy standing there with a guitar, holding a guitar like he’s going to hit somebody with it. And it looked like he was going to hit me. At first, I kind of looked, “What?” Then I turned around and I seen behind me was a guy with a knife, a bigass knife. Next thing you know, the guy holding the guitar, he takes off running, and the guy with the knife runs and starts jabbing him in the ass with the knife. Oh man. And nobody on the street even looked at it. They just went around their business like it wasn’t happening, like it was so normal. It was whoa, like you say, welcome to Harlem. That was scary.

The Vancouvers’ Bobby Taylor was an amazing singer. I know he discovered The Jackson 5 and you guys toured with them. You co-wrote the hit “Does Your Mother Know About Me,” and it builds to this beautiful chord that changes the entire flow of the song and it comes out of nowhere. When you’re writing something like that, what comes first, the words, the melody or that chord?

It was a poem. I wrote a poem. That’s how I write, I write poetry. And Tom Barrett, our composer, we were doing his songs and he looked at my poetry and said, “Do you mind if I take this with me?” He went home and he wrote the first part.

Then he came back to Wes and I, the bass player, and he said, “Now, I’m trying to do the bridge and Wes says, “How about … ” and he played the note, and it’s a major note. Well, it could have been a minor note but I played the major chord with the note because I’m not that versed musically. I’m more of a poet. And so I played a major chord and Tom Barrett goes, “Oh, I like that, I like that.” And it’s backwards, major minor instead of minor major, and he loved it.

Then that kicked it off for the next chorus and then he did it again. That change itself made that song unique. The Tower of Power, they copied the changes because they loved that major chord. It just resonates and all of a sudden you’re going major. I found out too it’s from a classical music score, that they would do that in classical music.

I was with my daughter’s boyfriend, he’s a guitar player, and we were trying to figure out the chords of this one song and he told me a lot of it’s from the classical, if you have classical training. And I think that’s what Tom Barrett loved about that chord too, because it had a classical music sound to it. But yeah, it worked really good.

It’s a beautiful song and that chord is what really propels the whole thing. Can you talk about jamming with George Harrison and Klaus Voorman and Ronnie Spector on “Basketball Jones?”

Well, I never really did because we would lay down the main track and then they’d come in and do their parts. So we never really jammed. Just like The Jackson 5. We were on tour with The Supremes. But when you get your group, man, that’s all you play is your songs. Unfortunately, we never had a chance to jam except when I had that after hours club in Vancouver. That’s when we jammed with some real fucking heavies. Unbelievable. I’ll tell you one story. My club was downstairs from a hippie club called The Retinal Circus and one week James Browne was in town. He was playing at the big stadium, The Gardens Ballroom or The Gardens. Anyway, James’ whole band was there. He had a big 16-piece orchestra.

So, they all came down to the club after and they’re on stage playing with us, with our band. We had a horn man. We had all sorts of people up there. And upstairs The Rolling Stones were appearing and they hardly got a crowd because James Brown was in town and Vancouver was a big R&B town at that time. The psychedelic music, and especially the Stones, they were just not happening at the time at all.

So, I looked up, my brother gave me a sign, I looked up and there’s Ron Wood standing there trying to get in the club. It was packed. I didn’t see Keith or Mick, but Ron was standing there waving at me and saying, “Hey man, can you get me in?” The club was too packed and I just ignored it. So, the Stones never got into our club that night. Oh man.

You got high with three of The Beatles?

Yeah, I got everybody except Paul. I smoked with George many times, many, many times. Every time we’d see each other. He was a guitar player and I’m kind of a guitar player and he really respected Cheech & Chong. He loved what we did. At that level. Like Bob Dylan, he really respected Cheech & Chong too because he saw what we were doing. We were different, unique. We weren’t chasing some kind of fad, we were creating.

I smoked in front of John Lennon. He was sitting on the floor. He’s so funny. I offered him a toke and he said, “No man,” he’s worried about his immigration problems. And who else? Oh, Rod Stewart came in and he refused to smoke because of his voice. And Ringo. There’s another crazy story, Keith Moon. We were getting high in front of Ringo and Ringo was in rehab. He was trying to get rid of an alcohol problem. Paul was the only one. And I put out the word and I’ve got friends that know Paul, that did his videos and that, and they told Paul and Paul’s ready. Whenever we’re together, we’re going to smoke. The only Beatle I never got high with.

Carl Reiner died the other day. His and Mel Brooks’s “2000 Year Old Man,” along with Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” and your and Cheech’s “Dave’s Not Here” are encapsulations of the duo styles. So, who were you following as a duo and where do you see yourselves in the comedy duo history alongside Laurel and Hardy and Key & Peele and Martin and Lewis?

Well, believe it or not, my influence as a duo was the Smothers Brothers. It was Tom Smothers. He played that dummy. I really liked Tom. I liked the way he interacted with his brother. Yeah, that was the only one. Nobody else. We got one compliment one time from Jerry Lewis. They were telling Jerry Lewis, “Hey, there’s no more comedy teams,” and Jerry said, “Oh yes there are.” They said, “Who?” and he said, “Cheech & Chong.” And it was Jerry Lewis. I like everybody.

But we were never that kind of Carl Reiner/Mel Brooks type of delivery. That was really radio comedy where you get out in front. Although Smothers Brothers, I just liked Tom’s attitude with what he had. Cheech and I, our whole thing was unique. We never really copied. Everybody copied us.

We’ve been told by so many people, moviemakers especially, Tarantino and Spike Lee and all these guys, they really appreciated our movie making skills. In the movies, I was influenced by Jerry Lewis because Jerry Lewis used video when he shot his movies and he was the only one to do it. Then I did it and now they shoot movies with video.

Who do you see as the next generation Cheech & Chong?

I have no idea. Key & Peele, they had a shot but then he made that movie and I don’t think we’ll ever see that duo again. As far as comedy goes, I guess Dave Chappelle is a must-see because he’s so wise in so many ways. But I love Kevin Hart. He was a judge on Dancing with the Stars, and when I did my tango he gave me a 10. It was the only 10 I got, from some other comedian. So, I love Kevin Hart because of that. As far as comedians go, my hero for standup was always Redd Foxx. I knew Redd Foxx personally. That was one show that I made sure I saw. I saw Richard Pryor live when he was in the clubs and I saw Redd Foxx in the clubs.

To this day, I have never seen a comedian like Redd. Redd did two hours when I was there. One hour he had the crowd so high they were screaming, laughing so hard, and then he brought them down. He brought them down so much that they were running, literally leaving the club, getting out of the club. And he did it on purpose. Then he opened the door and people would leave and then he went back on stage and did another hour. To this day, I’m in awe. I could never do it. I got to the point where I’d do a good solid hour, hour and a half if I had to, but never like Redd Foxx.

Do you think it’s different doing standup as a duo? Is there less pressure because you’re bouncing off each other?

Oh yeah. You got more control. You entertain each other. Cheech and I always did. Even to this day when we go now, I’ll do some bits alone and I swerve like crazy, I go all over the place. And Cheech, he’s backstage, like old days. We broke the mold. Now, it’s sort of like our golden oldie set

You can learn more about Cheech & Chong’s branded dispensary at Five Point Holdings.

The post Tommy Chong Talks Cheech & Chong Delivery Systems, Old and New appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[foursproutwealth-blog]

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/keep-going-this-too-shall-pass/

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheTollOnline.com,

Like the weather when a storm approaches, or as the seasons turn, or waves pounding on a shoreline, any deviations are measured and compared by speed and intensity.  The same can be said for headlines:  Omnibus, discouraged Deplorables, rumors of war, prospects of peace, economic bubbles, fluctuating markets, and political intrigue.  Round and round it goes; when it ends, nobody knows. It’s a time of transition; and when traveling over mountaintops, through valleys, and on rough seas, no one has all of the answers.

Even when looking at maps.

The books, “Generations” (1992) and “The Fourth Turning“ (1997), were written by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. These recent explorers identified recorded cycles of history and categorized them across multiple cultures and eras.  In both books, historical timelines were analyzed and populations were correlated to specific life-cycles labeled as generational types.  Strauss and Howe additionally addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives and defined what is called a “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring roughly 80 to 90 years.  Every saeculum is comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 years.

Just as there are four seasons consisting of spring, summer, fall and winter, there are also four phases of a human life represented in childhood, young adulthood, middle age and elderhood.  As each phase of human life represents approximately 20 years, so is each generational archetype identified within the historical cycles, or turnings, as follows.

The generations experience each turning according their life stage; and the Seasons (i.e. order of Turnings # 1 -4) are identified by each generation as they reach middle-age.  Amazingly, history shows a consistent pattern in how the generations both cause and affect historical events.  The patterns develop based upon how each generation interacts with the other and documented consistencies are delineated by the authors.

In America, since the end of the late sixteenth-century, there have been four full “cycles” (i.e. saeculums) as follows:

1.) Colonial Cycle

2.) Revolutionary Cycle

3.) Civil War Cycle

4.) World War Cycle

In every Fourth-Turning, or Crisis period, within all of the above saeculums, American society experienced great upheavals and war.   Moreover, like progressively burgeoning tsunamis rising and crashing upon the sands of time, each consecutive American Fourth-Turning Crisis was more devastating than the last.

America’s last crisis occurred during the years of 1929 through 1945; a turbulent transition period whereby the nation experienced a financial crash, a great depression and a world war.

Now it’s our turn.  Time’s up.  According to Neil Howe, this current Fourth Turning began in September 2008 and is projected to last until around 2030.

All we can do ride it out the best we can. Trying to individually affect a Fourth Turning would be like lassoing the wind or reversing an ocean’s tide.  It can’t be done.  With this in mind, it is best for us prepare and adapt by battening down our hatches and adjusting our sails.

Whether we are climbing mountains, descending into valleys, or being tossed about on stormy seas, know that the Presidency of Donald J. Trump is a storm.  By accident or design, he has shaken the foundations of geopolitics in ways few could have forecasted less than two years ago.

Although I am first and foremost a Better-than-Hillaryite, I was always cautiously optimistic about Trump. This does not make me a Trumpster, per se. I’ve called him the Oompah Loompah Man, a Reality TV Star, the Orange One, etc., and I’ve previously written about him as the manifestation of one of the following three possibilities:

1.) The Real Thing

2.) Serving the agenda of the global financial elite unwittingly

3.) Controlled opposition as a Judas Goat or Trojan Horse

Time reveals everything; and people are known by their actions, not by their words.  The same can be said for events.

Much has transpired in American politics over the past year and a lot of it has been good for Trump voters. Yet, in his recent Omnibus signing speech, Trump acted like a man in a hurry, with more important things on his mind. Obviously, his signature on that steaming pile of shit pissed off a lot of former Deplorables, including one of his most avid advocates, Ann Coulter.

What was Trump thinking?  He signed his name while sounding like Br’er’ Rabbit pleading not to be thrown into the brier-patch.  Trump wanted the military funded.  And now it appears he desires to build The Wall, as a priority of national security, using the defense budget.

Did Br’er Rabbit Trump, outsmart the Establishment’s Tar-Baby?  Or do the globalists have photos of Stormy Daniels spanking him in his underwear?  Could it be the swamp is too muckedand the mountains too high for a lone, art-of-the-deal making, 6-level-chess playing, billionaire wizard and his staff?

What’s going on?

Transitions.

Appearances are not always what they seem and Occam’s Razor, at times, loses its edge.  But, if past history is any guide, it may not be wise to underestimate Trump; even if paying for the $1.3 trillion Omnibus Bill will be like America’s children climbing Mt. Everest in bare feet.

Multiple forces have been aligned against Trump from the moment he first rode down his escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president.  And now, every day, he’s still here driving all of my sworn enemies batshit crazy, one Tweet at a time.

The famous underworld attorney extraordinaire, Roy Cohn, in a 1984 interview claimed Trump was the closest thing to a genius he had ever met in his life.  Thirty-two years after that statement by Cohn, Trump became President of the United States while being outspent two to one, against a rabidly hostile media, in opposition to colluding officials in the United States’ FBI, DoJ, and State Department; plus, with zero support from all Democrats and a significant percentage of Republicans.

Transitions, indeed. Tightrope walking is more like it.

Today, Trump stands high up on the mountain in the middle of a political blizzard.  He is surrounded by the gale force winds of a phony Russian election hacking narrative, a sinister special council investigation, and allegations ranging from obstruction of justice to being spanked by porn star with a Forbes magazine.

I couldn’t make that shit up if I tried.

Now, according to a report in Politico (hardly a conservative publication), a majority of Americans believe the Deep State manipulates U.S. policies:

The majority of the country believes a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate national policy, according to a Monmouth Poll released Monday.

Of the 803 adults polled, 27 percent said they believe the unelected group known as the deep state definitely exists. An additional 47 percent said it probably exists. Sixteen percent said it probably does not exist and 5 percent said they believe it definitely does not exist.

Although most people may consider the Deep State as the “administrative state”, or the “establishment”, one wonders how many of the sheeple would have been half-awakened if not for Trump. I say “half-awakened” because most know nothing of the round table groups as referred to by the historian, Carroll Quigley, or the secret societies as referenced by former president John F. Kennedy.  This means the majority of Americans remain naïve, controlled, and at the whim of True Power.

But what about Trump?

Our president is either who he professes to be, or he is not. You either trust him, or you don’t. It could be he is playing the power game the best he can and prioritizing actualities that we can’t see for purposes we don’t know; or he’s puppet, or imbecilic sell-out leading us down to a dead-end on the primrose path.

Call me quixotic, but I remain cautiously hopeful.  I remain so in spite of the warhawk John Bolton, Trump’s new war cabinet, and his latest hardliner stance with Russia.  Why?  Well, similar to the way I rejected solipsism in college for fear of being too lonely, I now refuse to despair over Trump’s personality swings because I enjoy the view.

Is he controlled opposition? Or controlled demolition?

Either way, I have nothing to lose and nowhere else I’d rather be at this time.  There’s not one damn thing I can do to prevent Russian bombs so I will , instead, wait patiently for the imminent Inspector General’s report; which is said to contain some pure TNT.

What a panoramic scene that will be.

Will the revelations of Michael Horwitz’s report turn the tide for Trump and make America great again? Hope springs eternal.  Or, it could be the global elite will trick Trump into cannonading the Cossacks in order to conclude any conversations on corruption in our country.  Who knows? The elite bankers could also crash the economy, like Kondratieff and Elliot Grand Supercycle waves, on history’s rocky shore; leaving Trump in a rumpled heap right next to the bleached white bones of Herbert Hoover.

The winter of this Fourth Turning’s discontent will undoubtedly deliver war and economic turmoil; and not necessarily in that order.  But what will ensue?  Constitutional Law or tyranny?

Time reveals all things; and, what happens after the release of the Inspector General’s report will be very telling.  Why? Because transitions are roads to revelations.

So keep going, watch, and see.

On the way, however, look for any false flags and know this:  Tyranny wants you controlled or dead; it is, in fact, right behind you, and up just ahead.  It also really, really, really wants your guns.  If you don’t believe me, just look behind to see how fast we’ve traveled from Parkland, Florida to a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

Winter is here.  A chill is in the air.

[foursprout-blog]

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/keep-going-this-too-shall-pass/

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheTollOnline.com,

Like the weather when a storm approaches, or as the seasons turn, or waves pounding on a shoreline, any deviations are measured and compared by speed and intensity.  The same can be said for headlines:  Omnibus, discouraged Deplorables, rumors of war, prospects of peace, economic bubbles, fluctuating markets, and political intrigue.  Round and round it goes; when it ends, nobody knows. It’s a time of transition; and when traveling over mountaintops, through valleys, and on rough seas, no one has all of the answers.

Even when looking at maps.

The books, “Generations” (1992) and “The Fourth Turning“ (1997), were written by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. These recent explorers identified recorded cycles of history and categorized them across multiple cultures and eras.  In both books, historical timelines were analyzed and populations were correlated to specific life-cycles labeled as generational types.  Strauss and Howe additionally addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives and defined what is called a “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring roughly 80 to 90 years.  Every saeculum is comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 years.

Just as there are four seasons consisting of spring, summer, fall and winter, there are also four phases of a human life represented in childhood, young adulthood, middle age and elderhood.  As each phase of human life represents approximately 20 years, so is each generational archetype identified within the historical cycles, or turnings, as follows.

The generations experience each turning according their life stage; and the Seasons (i.e. order of Turnings # 1 -4) are identified by each generation as they reach middle-age.  Amazingly, history shows a consistent pattern in how the generations both cause and affect historical events.  The patterns develop based upon how each generation interacts with the other and documented consistencies are delineated by the authors.

In America, since the end of the late sixteenth-century, there have been four full “cycles” (i.e. saeculums) as follows:

1.) Colonial Cycle

2.) Revolutionary Cycle

3.) Civil War Cycle

4.) World War Cycle

In every Fourth-Turning, or Crisis period, within all of the above saeculums, American society experienced great upheavals and war.   Moreover, like progressively burgeoning tsunamis rising and crashing upon the sands of time, each consecutive American Fourth-Turning Crisis was more devastating than the last.

America’s last crisis occurred during the years of 1929 through 1945; a turbulent transition period whereby the nation experienced a financial crash, a great depression and a world war.

Now it’s our turn.  Time’s up.  According to Neil Howe, this current Fourth Turning began in September 2008 and is projected to last until around 2030.

All we can do ride it out the best we can. Trying to individually affect a Fourth Turning would be like lassoing the wind or reversing an ocean’s tide.  It can’t be done.  With this in mind, it is best for us prepare and adapt by battening down our hatches and adjusting our sails.

Whether we are climbing mountains, descending into valleys, or being tossed about on stormy seas, know that the Presidency of Donald J. Trump is a storm.  By accident or design, he has shaken the foundations of geopolitics in ways few could have forecasted less than two years ago.

Although I am first and foremost a Better-than-Hillaryite, I was always cautiously optimistic about Trump. This does not make me a Trumpster, per se. I’ve called him the Oompah Loompah Man, a Reality TV Star, the Orange One, etc., and I’ve previously written about him as the manifestation of one of the following three possibilities:

1.) The Real Thing

2.) Serving the agenda of the global financial elite unwittingly

3.) Controlled opposition as a Judas Goat or Trojan Horse

Time reveals everything; and people are known by their actions, not by their words.  The same can be said for events.

Much has transpired in American politics over the past year and a lot of it has been good for Trump voters. Yet, in his recent Omnibus signing speech, Trump acted like a man in a hurry, with more important things on his mind. Obviously, his signature on that steaming pile of shit pissed off a lot of former Deplorables, including one of his most avid advocates, Ann Coulter.

What was Trump thinking?  He signed his name while sounding like Br’er’ Rabbit pleading not to be thrown into the brier-patch.  Trump wanted the military funded.  And now it appears he desires to build The Wall, as a priority of national security, using the defense budget.

Did Br’er Rabbit Trump, outsmart the Establishment’s Tar-Baby?  Or do the globalists have photos of Stormy Daniels spanking him in his underwear?  Could it be the swamp is too muckedand the mountains too high for a lone, art-of-the-deal making, 6-level-chess playing, billionaire wizard and his staff?

What’s going on?

Transitions.

Appearances are not always what they seem and Occam’s Razor, at times, loses its edge.  But, if past history is any guide, it may not be wise to underestimate Trump; even if paying for the $1.3 trillion Omnibus Bill will be like America’s children climbing Mt. Everest in bare feet.

Multiple forces have been aligned against Trump from the moment he first rode down his escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president.  And now, every day, he’s still here driving all of my sworn enemies batshit crazy, one Tweet at a time.

The famous underworld attorney extraordinaire, Roy Cohn, in a 1984 interview claimed Trump was the closest thing to a genius he had ever met in his life.  Thirty-two years after that statement by Cohn, Trump became President of the United States while being outspent two to one, against a rabidly hostile media, in opposition to colluding officials in the United States’ FBI, DoJ, and State Department; plus, with zero support from all Democrats and a significant percentage of Republicans.

Transitions, indeed. Tightrope walking is more like it.

Today, Trump stands high up on the mountain in the middle of a political blizzard.  He is surrounded by the gale force winds of a phony Russian election hacking narrative, a sinister special council investigation, and allegations ranging from obstruction of justice to being spanked by porn star with a Forbes magazine.

I couldn’t make that shit up if I tried.

Now, according to a report in Politico (hardly a conservative publication), a majority of Americans believe the Deep State manipulates U.S. policies:

The majority of the country believes a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate national policy, according to a Monmouth Poll released Monday.

Of the 803 adults polled, 27 percent said they believe the unelected group known as the deep state definitely exists. An additional 47 percent said it probably exists. Sixteen percent said it probably does not exist and 5 percent said they believe it definitely does not exist.

Although most people may consider the Deep State as the “administrative state”, or the “establishment”, one wonders how many of the sheeple would have been half-awakened if not for Trump. I say “half-awakened” because most know nothing of the round table groups as referred to by the historian, Carroll Quigley, or the secret societies as referenced by former president John F. Kennedy.  This means the majority of Americans remain naïve, controlled, and at the whim of True Power.

But what about Trump?

Our president is either who he professes to be, or he is not. You either trust him, or you don’t. It could be he is playing the power game the best he can and prioritizing actualities that we can’t see for purposes we don’t know; or he’s puppet, or imbecilic sell-out leading us down to a dead-end on the primrose path.

Call me quixotic, but I remain cautiously hopeful.  I remain so in spite of the warhawk John Bolton, Trump’s new war cabinet, and his latest hardliner stance with Russia.  Why?  Well, similar to the way I rejected solipsism in college for fear of being too lonely, I now refuse to despair over Trump’s personality swings because I enjoy the view.

Is he controlled opposition? Or controlled demolition?

Either way, I have nothing to lose and nowhere else I’d rather be at this time.  There’s not one damn thing I can do to prevent Russian bombs so I will , instead, wait patiently for the imminent Inspector General’s report; which is said to contain some pure TNT.

What a panoramic scene that will be.

Will the revelations of Michael Horwitz’s report turn the tide for Trump and make America great again? Hope springs eternal.  Or, it could be the global elite will trick Trump into cannonading the Cossacks in order to conclude any conversations on corruption in our country.  Who knows? The elite bankers could also crash the economy, like Kondratieff and Elliot Grand Supercycle waves, on history’s rocky shore; leaving Trump in a rumpled heap right next to the bleached white bones of Herbert Hoover.

The winter of this Fourth Turning’s discontent will undoubtedly deliver war and economic turmoil; and not necessarily in that order.  But what will ensue?  Constitutional Law or tyranny?

Time reveals all things; and, what happens after the release of the Inspector General’s report will be very telling.  Why? Because transitions are roads to revelations.

So keep going, watch, and see.

On the way, however, look for any false flags and know this:  Tyranny wants you controlled or dead; it is, in fact, right behind you, and up just ahead.  It also really, really, really wants your guns.  If you don’t believe me, just look behind to see how fast we’ve traveled from Parkland, Florida to a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

Winter is here.  A chill is in the air.

[cabinboy100]

12 MONKEYS SEASON 3 TRAILER

* UPDATE *

I’ve posted a v.2 of this, now with screenshot visual aids *and* more rambling! I know—how’s *that* possible, right?

So…Syfy’s posted a new trailer for season 3 of 12 MONKEYS. Usually, I would do my best to dodge promos before a show or movie is actually released. I like to get hit w/the text without as few hints as possible. Go in with as little pre-text as possible. But, given the paradigm-shifting “linear-binge” release of this season—leave it to 12 MONKEYS to Splinter an entire season (encompassing centuries =) into a single weekend, with all 10 episodes beamed in order over May 19, 20, and 21—I’m thinking I’ll need to get my wheels-spinning crazy talk wherever I can. And thusly, I tumbl…

The first new shot of Cole, from the front and then from behind, has him holding a tech-festooned staff. The design calls to mind a computerized tuning fork, *just* the thing for time/dimension/reality-hopping, or tuning/dialing. Perhaps one of its components is a tank of red tea, reloadable via Keurig-like cartridges? With a regulated IV feed or retractable needles in the handle? Maybe this device enhances or adapts Cole’s mental time travel abilities, allowing him to view specific points in time or even what-if?s. Could it be a way to enable him to physically travel? A staff version of the vests? =)

Titan appears as a complex/city in the distance with a sea with rocks or wreckage or maybe ice floes in the foreground. Does Titan only move in Time and not space (relative to the Earth)? Is it always in Colorado? Climate change is real, people!

We see someone with great posture ascend the steps within Titan to meet w/Tall Man, or perhaps his father, both surrounded by robed figures. RE: that posture…It reminds me of Ethan Seki, but knowing that he’s in this season, I’m thinking Gaius Baltar.

That first shot of the four hat-and-coated figures, silhouetted in the fog or smoke in the dark…The three lights on each of their vests powering on…Gorgeous! Evokes DARK CITY for me (a good thing =), and some kind of clockwork men. I want the tech to be embedded in these people, but a later shot shows us that this is likely tech mounted on a vest. Portable Splinter/Titan units, a la Doctor Who’s Vortex Manipulators? In a future world (like, the future of the future, post-2044) of 12 MONKEYS, that’s where my head immediately goes. Although, honestly, that seems very unfair, no?

Still, if that IS what they are, I'd associate them with some very interesting story/logic that necessitates their not being usable before some year. After all, if the Witness's forces *ever* had this tech, they could have used it in the times Team Splinter has visited, right? Maybe the use of these vests shreds spacetime, and jumping back beyond a certain point would undo their invention in the first place? Or, y'know, something like that. =)

I’m *really* hoping that these figures are Something Else, tho. At the bottom of the season 3 poster, we see them standing in front of a console with the Witness’s/Titan symbol, and so, we want to associate them, right? But what if that’s just a couple of these…Time Shadows entering the Titan city limits? What if these guys are representatives of another player in the war across/for time? Perhaps descendants of the Witness and the Titanians, who know more than W does…Or are using W as their agent in their relative past?

Or maybe they serve a Time Variance Authority. Some organization—who knows under what authority/morality?—that watches over and polices Time and History, countering and punishing anyone who seeks to change too much. Maybe to preserve their own existence, Time’s existence (assuming damage is done by reckless splintering), or their own ideal mission outcome.

Cuz, how great would it be to have everyone we know, set up as enemies and rivals in so many permutations, ultimately be on the same side versus some (apparently) greater Time fascist?

Or greater threat to Time itself? If we take the Red Forest being an End-of-Time paradise as a feint, constructed to get all the splinter chess pieces into the right places to bring about the birth of the Witness, then the Witness was never really about that, right? Maybe he didn’t come up w/that threat himself, tho. What if he adapted it from a greater threat to Time? So…Casserole & Son (*and* Jones, Jennifer, Ramse & Son, Olivia, the Daughters, the X-Monkeys, & Agent Gale, Primaries, Monkeys, Druze et al) are destined to fight someone who truly does want to destroy all of Time and replace it with… Well, nothingness seems like a good ultimate goal, let’s go with that for now.

What if the super-future is amazing, but in a universe in which time travel is ever invented, history must be choreographed in order for it to be realized and persist. So, this paradise future has a black ops arm that manipulates events in the past to keep it safe. The paradise is a wonderful destiny for humanity, but it robs humans in the past and present of free will. Which side would you fight for in that scenario?

Hrm…Looking a little harder at the season 3 poster again…Are there four Time Shadows (that works, right?) holding, like, an Ark of the Witness between them? I thought it was some kind of console/control panel, but now I’m seeing it differently. Interrrresting…

A funeral for Time? For the Witness? 

A Time bomb? 

If the vests aren’t vortex manipulator-y, maybe their portable splinter device? 

A Witness trap or cage? 

Time picnic dinner?

The Word of the Witness is shown preserved in plastic panes or lucite, hanging in a candelabra-lit room, a red-vine patterned banner (or glass pane?) behind it. Its Ramse-torn corner is still absent. Does Ramse still have that swatch tucked in a coat pocket somewhere?

COLE: The man behind the apocalypse is my son?

A clip of some creepy Edgar Allen Poe-y Masque(rade) of the Red Death…Cole and Cassie apparently in attendance. Hrm…Red Death…I had a theory back in season 1 that the Army might be an influence throughout history responsible for all major epidemics/plagues, as a way to thin the herd, perhaps disable or control meddling Primaries, and keep a population manageable via their resources and manipulations.

Cross fade to Cass and Cole going Nicholas Nickleby/Christmas Carol on some cobblestoned street…

KATARINA: It's been about them…

That's Jones apparently referring to Cass and Cole.

<aside> What would Cassandra name her child? I’m guessing, sadly, that Cole won’t be present for the birth. Assuming it’s a boy, maybe she’d go with her father, whom we haven’t met yet. Has Cassie mentioned him by name on the show? If not that grandpa, then how about Cole’s father, Matthew? (I don’t think we have confirmation that he’s James’s bio dad, but we never saw anyone question it.) Or—How about someone important to *both* of them? The person responsible for bringing them together? Katarina Werner Jones! Boy, *that’s* gotta sit well with Katarina, eh? (see/watch above line of dialogue =)

So, how about Jones? Like the space cat in ALIEN! Or Jonas? Jonas Cole. Jonas Railly? Or…Werner? Not so cute, but somehow fitting for a Witness-to-be, eh? Werner Cole, The Witness. Yeah. That’ll look good on his business card. =) </aside>

RAMSE: About time we set things straight…

If that is actual dialogue between Jones and Ramse, it signifies the formation of an alliance, between Ramse (and Olivia and her X-Mon/Orphans of Time) and Jones and Project Splinter. Their goal? To undo and/or destroy the Witness, which would likely pit them against one or both of his parentals. Ramse *does* like to boast about how he eats blondes for breakfast…~

Next we see an eyes-burning return to the Emerson Hotel, sometime in the mid to late 80s.

Will we ever see the lightning storm/strike that freezes the lobby’s clock? =)

Cole is dressed as Marty McFly. O, man! Are we gonna get an in-universe origin/inspiration encounter for BACK TO THE FUTURE? Whoa…

So, how about this? Agent Gale’s granddaughter, Roberta, has somehow inherited his dossier on his wacky misadventures with Cole & the Gang, and is staking out the Emerson in the 80s, perhaps at her grandpa’s direction, but maybe on her own. She meets them, maybe joins them in splintering, if the tech allows (Deacon as Time…ummm…Peter? Paul? Judas doesn’t seem right, right? =) helps them out, but of course, is sworn to secrecy—who’d believe her, anyway?—but hey, disinformation as a 3-movie franchise wasn’t disallowed, right? Story credit: Bob Gale. =)

CASS: Help me save him.

It’s just a pronoun, people. "Him" could be anyone…Junior/Witness, Cole, Deacon, Witness the Time Puppy… =)

Christopher Lloyd, wearing the Titan pendant, apparently standing in an event-y tent illuminated by standing and hanging lamps…a remote location? An excavation site? A wedding reception? A pop-up portrait studio?

The pendant and wardrobe sells the Tall Man's father identity pretty hard. As far as we know, he wouldn’t have any Messenger blood. So, if he’s not enhancedly long-lived, what era/s would he have been operating in? Given the garb, perhaps from within the clergy? Maybe late 19th century into the first half of the 20th, to find/meet Vivian in the 40s. There’s gotta be a story there about why/how Vivian returns to the Army after rejecting the Witness. I still would really love for Tall Man to be playing a long con within the Army, a sleeper agent of revenge upon the Witness for doing his mother wrong.

Maybe Christopher Lloyd's playing TM’s adopted father or Army mentor? Cuz I still *really* want his biodad to be Agent Gale! =)

COLE: If there's something wrong with him, he got it from me…

We see some drawings of gun-pointing Cole, surrounded by arcane, rune-ish characters… There’s also a shot somewhere earlier in the teaser, looking down on a figure in the center of a spiral of similar marks on a floor, suggesting that the figure has drawn them. Jennifer? Young W?

The drawings are followed by a matching image of Cole pointing the gun in reality, the exact some POV. If this were season 2, I’d say the drawings were done by a Primary who’d been targeted by Cole. His mission would have been to kill the Primary before a Messenger could paradox him or her. Could that strategy still be in play by the Witness or another party?

Or are these drawings by the Witness, who has seen that Cole would come for him as a child? Does Cole know at this gun-pointing time that W is actually Jimmy, Jr.? I’m guessing not. Hrm…

We see Katarina approaching the mothballed/covered up Splinter device. When is this? In history and in her personal timeline? Could this be a flashback to when she first arrives at Raritan National Labs from Spearhead? Or a visit that calendar-year predates that (maybe in Kat’s past, maybe her future), after the Army shut down Mr. Dr. Jones when Cole and Ramse went off-Word. Or her return to the lab, in a future (splintered-forward?) visit, post-2044.

OLIVIA: …the very edge of time…an inch from falling over…

I *think* that’s what she says. Is there an End of Time? Following thru on the idea that Time is a living thing, given life by Humanity, the End of Time would be coincident with the end of Humanity. Maybe Titan’s “home” setting is that era? If only Titanians live then, then they (and their one or few Primaries) basically ARE Time, no? Whoever lives then, would essentially *be* Time.

We see Cass approach a pedestal with a Witness plague doctor mask mounted on it…The mask is lit from above, but the space is lit by candles. This may be the same space in which the WotW is hanging.

JENN: Stop talking like a super villain.

Jennifer continues to rock! Olivia and Jennifer seem to be speaking to each other through a chain link fence. Olivia’s lucky there’s something separating them, cuz *that* is going to be an interesting reunion. I wonder how close the nearest stabby item is when that happens. =)

THE COMPLETE NEW SEASON

KATARINA (or the new girl?): Don't make me put you down…

As Jones pushes thru double doors (at Project Splinter?)…Daughters behind her?

JENN: They're coming—they're coming!

This may be Jennifer the Titan-zapped girl-out-of-time dropped into WW1 (or later, 2?), exercising her Primary abilities to warn her unwitting captors or guards of imminent Monkeys Army meddling.

DEACON: Go!

This looks like a shot from the season 2 finale, caught between a rock and robed-and-masked place, facing Witness acolytes in Titan, holding the pass so that Jennifer can escape get coin-tossed into Time. Maybe just cuz that footage is available, but maybe cuz we’ll see it again when we learn how he survived.

Ramse, leading with a gun and firing…Nothing new there, right? =)

IN ONE WEEKEND EVENT

CASS: He's mine…

Cut to Cass apparently giving birth…a new age-y red leaf infused water birth?

Tall Man looking true-believer-ecstatically pleased…Maybe a shot we’ve already seen?

EVIL ANNIE LENNOX: You can't have him…

She's sporting a 3-lights vest vortex manipulator over her MIB/Stranger/Observer/Chosen One/Time Shadow coat…

Jenn and Cole stomping thru a complex (looks like Project Splinter), Cole loading his gun, Jenn following…

A chapel or small-ish cathedral(?), the sanctuary heavily candlelit…Are the walls decorated with gilded red vines? A figure before a table before the altar with his back to the pews…It seems the voice we hear should belong to that figure…

W: Mother…Father…After all this time…

Two people walk down the aisle, approaching the figure at the front of the chapel… Seems like Cass on the left, Cole on the right, possibly in those black coats—in disguise?—maybe wearing Time Vests.

Cut to a figure raising a mask to reveal his face during "After all this time…"

Knowing that James “Gaius Baltar” Callis is in this season, I think it's him and his Brit-ish/aristocratic accented voice. Not sure that the unmasking happens in that same chapel space or as part of that same scene.

Based on W’s choice of words, seems like Cass will be separated from her son at some point in his infancy. Sad. =(

Then again, if that’s the case, who’s to say that this person confronting them *is* actually Jimmy, Jr., huh? =)

12 MONKEYS NEW SEASON MAY 19

It’s later than you think =)

Keep on keepin’ on~