#john is actually a better 'big brother' to hal than his actual big brother

[cessmaga]

me when people debating if john stewart or hal jordan should be the default green lantern

[flaminpumpkin]

Happy birthday, Jordan

It wasn’t even 4am when Hal woke up to the gentle green glow of his ring announcing a new message from the Corps. They really couldn’t leave him alone, even on his birthday now, could they? 

He had half a mind to pretend not to notice and go back to sleep. His last mission had been short but exhausting, leaving him completely drained. His dark circles had dark circles at this point, even though he had slept basically all day the day before, waking up only to go to the bathroom and eat half an apple and a toast. 

Unfortunately for him – and fortunately for the Corps – Hal Jordan was a devoted man and an Honor Lantern so he kind of had to. 

With a loud groan, he straightened a bit so he could prop his chin in his hand, not moving from his position on the bed where he was sprawled on his stomach, pillow still half under him. He had been Earth-side for barely two days, if they were expecting from him to look decent, they could fuck right off. 

But when he ordered his ring to open the message, he was greeted by a short and simple: Happy birthday, Hal! Just this. It made him smile (and also breathe a bit more easily, he really didn’t want to go back to space this quickly.) 

Then his ring pinged again and there was a little hologram of his fellow Green Lanterns. He could see Kilowog and Tomar, Jess and Simon. John and Kyle, the younger man grinning like a five year old as he held a notepad with a caricature of Hal drawn on it and come on Kyle, my head is not that big. There was also Guy. Who was… Hal sighed, shaking his head. Guy was harboring a shit eating grin while flipping him off. Typical. 

Before going back to sleep, he sent back a simple thank you note to all of them and then, for good measure, he sent another one to Guy with a hologram of himself flipping the bird. 

He swore he could hear him laugh all the way to earth. That asshole. 

*    *    *

The second time he woke up, around three o’clock in the afternoon, Hal felt a lot less like a zombie. He probably still had a few hours of sleep to catch up on but it was nothing he couldn’t survive without. He had to be up in a couple of hours for monitor duty anyway, so might as well wake up a bit earlier and enjoy some peace before going back to work. 

There was a little cardboard box on his kitchen counter when he emerged from the shower, with a fancy little ribbon and a card. He didn’t even need to open the card to know who it was. 

Firstly, because Carol was the only one, with Barry, who had a spare key to his apartment in case he had an emergency call from the Corps and, secondly, because it just had her name written all over it. He recognized the design on the box being from that fancy French bakery close to her apartment and knew that when he would open it, he’d find a generous slice of their famous lemon meringue pie. 

He ate it in silence with some coffee, responding to the different birthday wishes he had received. Some were from Tom and a bunch of coworkers. There were also several audio messages from his nephew and niece trying to figure out how to work around the feature until their parents probably had had enough and had decided to take family photos instead. Six in total, all of them blurry. But at least Hal could somehow guess what was written on the sign his niece was holding. It made him laugh and he decided to call his brother, just to tease him.

They ended up talking for a while. It felt good, this small bit of normalcy.

*    *    *

Hal was on his way for the monitor room, two cups of coffee in hands, when he heard someone call his name. Ah. He had hoped no one would catch him before monitor duty. He was already on the brink of running late and god knew Batman disliked lateness. But hey, after all it was his birthday. 

“Hal! Hang on!”

He turned around just when Clark arrived at his level. The other man was smiling widely at him, holding a small plate with a cupcake on it in his big hands and looking like an oversized golden retriever puppy.

“Lois made enough cupcakes for an army because she was bored at home yesterday – I’m starting to think that forced leave really wasn’t our boss’ greatest idea but anyway. She told me to bring it here for everyone,” he said before Hal could even ask anything. “There’s a whole plate in the lounge but with Barry around I thought I’d give you one for your birthday before he wolfs them down.”

He snorted at that because, honestly, that was fair. Because of his powers, Barry was basically a walking stomach and everybody knew he had a giant sweet tooth. 

“Thanks, Clark.”

“You’re welcome. And happy birthday!” he said, floating away.

Hal had given up on trying to balance the plate and his two cups in his hands, using a construct instead, when Dinah pounced on him, quickly followed by Oliver and Barry. She was the first one to hug him, kissing his cheek gently.

“Happy birthday, hot stuff.”

“Thanks, Di.”

“Hal, my man! Happy birthday!” Oliver shouted before squishing Hal’s cheek between two big, callous hands, not even waiting for Dinah to be out of his arms.

In retrospect, he should have expected it – it was Oliver after all, the guy didn’t know what “inhibition” meant – but, he couldn’t stop his eyes from going wide as saucers as the blond placed a resounding kiss right on his lips.  

“So? How’s that for a birthday present?” he asked, smug, earning himself an eye roll from both Barry and Dinah. 

“That was my present?”

“Yes. Wonderful isn’t?”

“Truly. I’m delighted. Such a generous present.”

“I’m a generous man.”

“So charitable.”

All eyes turned on Barry.

“Was that sarcasm, Bear?”

The speedster fixed Oliver with a blank stare. He looked even more exasperated than usual, which made Hal snicker. People assumed way too often that Barry was a goody two shoes but Hal had witnessed firsthand how quick witted he really was. “A snarky little shit” Oliver had called him once. And he was right.

“Happy birthday, Harold,” Barry said after a few seconds of silent judgement, opening his arms to embrace Hal.

He returned the hug good heartedly.

“Bear, you can’t wish me happy birthday and then call me Harold. That’s not legal, buddy.”

“Just say thank you.”

Hal simply squeezed him one last time before letting him go, winking at the group as he started to walk down the corridor again.

“Gotta go. Don’t want Bats to be mad at me on my birthday.”

“Like that would bother you!”

“Well yes, actually,” he almost said but he didn’t want to spend the next thirty minutes explaining to Oliver why so he pretended he hadn’t heard.

Truth was, Hal and Bruce were friends. Good friends, even. Recently, the pilot had even caught himself hoping for them to become more than that. They still had disagreements of course, they were both stubborn but they were past that now. Most of the time, it felt more like some weird kind of aggressive flirting than a real fight.

Hal enjoyed the other man’s company, especially now that he was comfortable enough with him to talk about more personal matters, like his family and boy did Bruce had things to say about the weird little clique that was his family. The fond look on his face just made it all the more worth it.

He cherished those hours spent together on the Watchtower, sometimes wishing they could do this outside of their hero work. Maybe he could pretend to need help on the Javelin’s new update to see him. She needed one and the only other person who knew her as well as Hal did was Bruce. He could buy him dinner too. 

Sounds like a plan, he thought, entering the monitor room. 

Bruce was already there, of course. His cowl was pulled back like every time when they were paired up, his hair looking ridiculously good even mussed. The man was always so effortlessly pretty, it was revolting.

“You’re late, Jordan.”

He didn’t even glance in Hal’s direction but it wasn’t like he needed to check that it was him.

“Better late than never, Spooks.”

That earned him a huff and then he saw Bruce slide a cup of coffee towards him on the desk.

Oh.

“It’s probably cold now.”

Lukewarm was probably more accurate – Hal wasn’t that late. But he refrained from mentioning it to the other man, instead grabbing the two still steaming cups from his tray construct and handing his to Bruce. 

“I thought about preparing some too, so lucky us, I guess.”

He smirked at the Bat, oddly proud when Bruce smiled back, even just slightly. 

“Miss Lane’s?” Bruce asked, nodding in direction of his construct while taking a sip of his coffee.

Hal looked back at the still floating, green glowing tray and reached out to retrieve the plate Clark had given him.

“Yep. Wanna share? It was your birthday yesterday after all. And happy belated birthday. By the way.”

It wasn’t lost on Hal that he had completely forgotten to even text him for his birthday but, like he had said, better late than never. He knew it probably hadn’t bothered Bruce, maybe hadn’t even registered with him that Hal hadn’t said anything but it sure did bother the pilot that he had forgotten. Bruce smiled again anyway, something small and secretive. Something just for him to see. Hal could feel an unusual blush creep up his cheeks.

“No, thank you,” Bruce said, turning back towards the screens in front of them, the cup Hal had given him cradled in his gauntleted hands. “Clark actually flew all the way to Gotham yesterday to bring us some. I left it for the kids. Too sweet.”

Hal had to laugh at that.

“Says the guy who takes his coffee with a metric ass load of sugar and cream in it.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

Bruce side-eyed him, half hiding a smirk behind the rim of his cup and Hal laughed again. 

They focused on the monitors after that, a companionable silence between them, and Hal regretted not sleeping those two extra hours earlier. He could feel the bone deep tiredness take over him after a mere half an hour, his body sagging in his chair and relaxing into it despite his best efforts to stay alert. 

He was nodding off, barely even conscious anymore, when he felt Bruce take his cup from his lax fingers.

“Idiot,” he heard him whisper and Hal wanted to retort something but he was too far gone to even form a coherent thought at this point. 

Then he felt fingers graze his forehead, brushing away wild strands of hair, followed by a pair of slightly chapped lips pressing there. He automatically leaned into the gentle touch, sighing long and deep. The lips stayed there a second longer, lingering and warming up his skin, his whole body. 

Hal wanted to wake up, to say something cheeky or, even better, just kiss Bruce. Properly. On the lips. Like he had been longing to do. But all he managed was a weak little whine as he turned his head towards the other man.

“Happy birthday, Jordan,” was the last thing he heard before drifting off completely.

(A few seconds later. Training room. Watchtower.

“Hey, Ollie?”

“What is it, Barry?”

“I think I just saw Bruce kiss Hal.”

“WHAT?!”)

[flashfuture]

I’m a bit of an outsider but it seems like the 90’s were a very paradoxical time for dc because from everything I’ve read Wally and Kyle’s runs are right bangers but like...I’ve also heard...other things about how other characters were written thats...less than flattering.

It’s okay the thing is lol that it depends on the character itself. The 90s was actually going to be a swap over and retiring period that well it didn’t happen. So here is my character break downs of the take over characters.

--

The Flash

Wally was a silver age character. He was Barry’s legacy and Flash was already a legacy from golden age Jay Garrick. Wally took over in the late 80s. Barry was gone and Wally took up his mantle. The Flash Team knew this was coming.

He got an entire series about himself settling into his own without really anyone to help him. Rudy and Mary were terrible. Barry and Iris were dead. It was Wally and some friends he made.

Wally remained the solo Flash until 2010 ish when they brought back Barry. But Wally is currently the Flash again and hopefully DC will stop harming my baby boy. 

--

Batman & Robin

Dick Grayson was growing up. And post crisis Bruce went from a overprotective father who Dick wanted space from to an abusive manipulative father who Dick was essentially running from.

Nightwing was Dick coming into his own. Connection to Clark’s mythos. At this point Dick was both a legacy to Bruce and Clark.

But Robin oh Robin. That was a symbol that didn’t fit with their new dark(er) Knight. So Golden Age Robin had to die. But Dick is busy.

Well who was just Robin right before Crisis? The Dick Grayson copy- Jason Todd.

So they bring back Jason and give him a quick revamp. They make him all chirpy and happy so Golden Age. But dark enough that he’s similar enough to NTT age Dick. Then they kill him. Like okay people say it was the vote but DC always wanted Jason or more accurately Golden Age Robin dead.

Which paved way for Tim Drake’s Robin. Someone who was made for this new darker Bruce. But would have also been paired with Dick’s more efficent Batman. However this failed when Azrael fucked hard with Tim’s character and bolstered Tim’s importance beyond the normal Robin levels. 

He was there to validate every bullshit thing Bruce was doing. He was there to validate child soldiers and reset the narrative from partner to general and soldier.

The issue for many fans comes from Tim’s character being a dork who siphoned off Dick’s chip on his shoulder colder more analytical mind.

Tim was just super eager and happy to help. (His backstory was pretty much just Bette Kane redone as a friend pointed out to me)

So Dick started to morph into happy big brother here. But the Batfam was changed in Crisis so the Batfam angle didn’t fit.

Dick wasn’t as hostile to Jason as some people would think but they weren’t close.

Dick was very close to Tim. I think original Tim paired with non altered Dick was a very good pair who worked well together.

It’s just when Tim became more and more popular he was given the traits that made Dick so popular and work so well.

Dick gave back the mantle to Bruce and Tim well Tim get siphoning more and more of Dick as time went on. 

Barely recognizable to their 90s and before counterparts

--

Green Lantern

Kyle is actually more controversial than I might lead people on this blog to believe lol. Due to my undying and biased love for him.

He came in as a character who was going to put a new spin on Green Lantern. He was younger and fresher faced. But Hal’s Parallax arc as many might not know was quick as fuck. He just turned evil after Coast City and went for Genocide. 

Kyle was yeeted the ring and he went in to try and help save the world. Kyle was the one who talked down Hal. Hal handed him the ring and said you’re the green lantern. The passing of the torch really. 

But Kyle wasn’t beloved by everyone. Many people found his entry too quick. They thought he was too good with the ring too quick. They didn’t like his character. Thought he was too emotional to be a GL not enough Will. Lot’s of different takes. 

Also Guy and John were there and many people would have preferred to see them if it wasn’t gonna be Hal. 

Kyle and Donna was another thing that was alienating. Many people would have preferred to see her with Roy (plus I hate her with Kyle but that’s me) 

Kyle remained the sole GA until 2005 ish so about 10 years. And he continues to be a major player to this day.

--

Green Arrow

Chuck Dixon hated Ollie and wanted him dead. So in came Connor Hawke. Ollie’s bastard son and a really talented martial artist that Ollie met at the Ashram. 

Ollie acted ooc as fuck during this run but he died in a plane crash. 

And Conn took over his place as the Green Arrow. Roy was doing Checkmate and Titans stuff anyways but no one asked him. 

Connor is my baby boy my favorite DC character. But he also wasn’t that popular. 

Obviously racism. They couldn’t even agree on a skin color. Many people were turned away by the perceived ‘preachiness’ of you know bringing up real world issues. 

A lot of people also didn’t like Conn being presented as a better martial artist than a lot of the Batfam (the fanon bias has always been strong) 

He was main GA until 2001 when Ollie came back. 

--

Superboy

Okay we got Kon way back when Clark ate it and then he was sort of here. Younger than the above kids but obviously the intended take over for Clark. 

But then Clark came back. And it was just the take over didn’t happen here. 

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #455

Top Ten Comedy Sidekicks

Ha, LOL, ROFL, guffaw, snort. Comedy, eh? You’ve got to love it, unless you somehow fall through a timewarp into a late-seventies working men’s club in Blackburn and you find yourself choking to death on second-hand smoke, mother-in-law jokes, and a simmering undercurrent of racist violence. Good times!

Anyway, it’s fairly common that even in the most serious of narratives and with the most serious of protagonists, we need a little chuckle very now and again (nobody tell Zack Snyder – actually, no, scratch that, somebody definitely tell Zack Snyder). It lightens the load, makes the world more nuanced and realistic, and even makes the truly dark moments stand out all the stronger. Most films have a bit of a joke every once in a while (and, of course, Shakespeare’s tragedies are full of comic characters or bits of business), and one very common trope is the Comedy Sidekick.

What is a Comedy Sidekick? Well, it’s a supporting character who offers comic relief, basically. sometimes this can be obviously discernible – Luis in Ant-Man, for example, may function as a plot engine from time to time, but has little in the way of actual character development and is mostly there to be funny whilst the heroes do hero stuff. Sometimes it’s harder to define; I mean, are either of the Blues Brothers a comedy sidekick? Arguably Jake is the lead and Elwood is a bit more of a “turn” (he’s almost eternally deadpan and unemotional), but I’d never say one was inherently funnier or “straighter” than the other. And the you get onto films like Aladdin: sure, Aladdin himself is obviously the protagonist, and there’s an argument to be made that the Genie is a comic relief supporting character, but I feel in this case he’s far too integral to the plot, played by a significantly more famous actor, and really just dominates the film to the extent that he becomes the de facto lead (see also: Captain Jack Sparrow). Again, in Men in Black, Will Smith’s J is clearly the “funny” one, but Smith is also the bigger star and the audience entry point; plus, Tommy Lee Jones is hilarious as the deadpan K. So it’s not as simple as it may first appear.

Anyway, the ten in this list are ones I define as definitely being supporting characters. They may be big characters, in terms of plot or development, but they’re definitely there in support of another protagonist. And whilst they may be fully-rounded characters with their own arcs, their primary function is to be funny; they’re the ones who deliver the comedy lines back to the main character, or crack a joke at the end of a serious bit.

Right, I think that’s my usual ridiculous caveats out of the way. Now let’s make ‘em laugh.

Baldrick (Tony Robinson, Blackadder series, 1983-99): Baldrick is one of the supreme comic idiots in all of fiction. Serving as a perfect foil to Blackadder, he is not only supremely stupid but also his niceness and naiveté serves to undercut his master’s wickedness; plus his idiocy is often the undoing of Blackadder’s villainous plans. But he is also charmingly fully-rounded, oblivious to his own stupidity, possessed of “cunning plans”, and with a great love of turnips. A phenomenal turn from Robinson.

Sir John Falstaff (various plays by William Shakespeare, from 1597): is it cheating to include as significant and iconic a literary figure as Falstaff? Feels a bit like it, especially as he's practically a lead (and, indeed, becomes one in Merry Wives). But really he’s the archetype: a supremely vain and self-serving comic foil, but one with vast hidden depths as he’s keenly aware of his own frailties and the inevitable end of his good times with Prince Hal.

Father Dougal McGuire (Ardal O’Hanlon, Father Ted 1995-98): in many ways he’s a slightly watered-down version of Baldrick’s comic idiot; but Dougal is, if anything, even stupider, and less self-aware. He’s like a perfect idiot, a beautiful naïve fool, a supreme man-child with his Masters of the Universe duvet. And he’s divine, just incredibly hilarious throughout; and, like Baldrick, serves as the perfect foil for his more duplicitous and cynical elder.

Donkey (Eddie Murphy, Shrek, 2001): animated sidekicks are very often the comic relief, and I’d argue that Murphy’s Donkey is as good as they come. I actually think Murphy’s prior turn as Mushu in Mulan is probably the better character, but Donkey is just a comic force of nature, a creature who exists only to make everything dafter and funnier. It allowed Murphy a chance to go all-out in a way he hadn’t on screen for quite some time, and it was something we’d rarely seen in animation (arguably only Robin Williams’ Genie is in the same ballpark). Plus, he actually is a good friend to Shrek, bringing out his better nature. Well done, Eddie!

Danny Butterman (Nick Frost, Hot Fuzz, 2007): another of those characters who really skirts the edges of “supporting comic relief” and is really a deuteragonist. But I feel like most of Frost’s characters in his partnerships with Simon Pegg are, essentially, supportive; Pegg is almost always the lead. In this film, despite Danny having some great development and functioning almost as a romantic partner for Pegg’s Nick Angel, he’s usually presented as a beautiful comic foil, his folksy, slobby demeanour contrasting perfectly with Angel’s straitlaced professionalism. And – for the second film in a row – he gets a tremendous C-bomb.

Luis (Michael Peña, Ant-Man, 2015): another comic fool, Luis is the silly, charming, endearing, loveable thorn in the side of Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang. He’s daft, yeah, and comes across as a bit dim, but his permanently-smiling demeanour means we just keep on loving him, even when we can see how annoying he would be. but what cements his position is his rapid-fire OTT explanations, and how the movie presents them; pieces of comedic joy in the MCU.

Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor, Singin’ in the Rain, 1952): Singin’ is one of those great Golden Age movies full of witty dialogue (as well as great songs, natch), and by its nature Gene Kelly is the lead and therefore straight man, whereas O’Connor’s Cosmo can be wackier and funnier, and in doing so get to the truth of what his friend is feeling. But what really gets him in this list is his performance of “Make ‘Em Laugh”, running up walls like he’s in The Matrix or something, and feeling like a Bugs Bunny cartoon brought to life.

Silent Bob (Kevin Smith, View Askiewniverse, from 1994): I guess you could argue that both Bob and his less-silent colleague Jay are, as a twosome, the comedy sidekicks in whichever films they’re in (apart from the two they headline, I guess); but if you take the pair on their own, I’d say Bob is the comic of the duo. Yeah, it’s Jay who’s the mile-a-minute loudmouth, cracking jokes and being explosively filthy. But who really gets the laughs? For my money it’s Smith’s perfectly-judged expressions, punctuating the pomposity or reinforcing the eccentricity of whatever Jay’s on about. And then every now and again he gets to speak, and delivers a great one-liner (“no ticket!”) or serious, heartfelt monologue (cf. Chasing Amy).

Semmi (Arsenio Hall, Coming to America, 1988): Semmi is supposed to be a loyal and devoted servant to Prince Akeem, and he is, I guess; but he’s also a true friend. Akeem’s quest to find love in New York is genuine, and despite the film’s high joke quantity, Eddie Murphy has to be relatively restrained in his lead role. Hall’s Semmi, on the other hand, gets to be acerbic, throwing shade and barbs at his lord, questing their quest and seeking his own share of wealth and, well, women. And we all love his line “you sweat from a baboon’s balls”.

Dory (Ellen DeGeneres, Finding Nemo, 2003): as discussed above, comedy cartoon sidekicks are a cinematic staple. They’re not often female, however, and even more rare is a female character who gets to be both funnier and seemingly dumber/goofier than the lead. Of course, Dory is full of pathos, a borderline tragic character whose chronic memory loss has a dreadful impact on her day-to-day life. It’s her sunny optimism (“just keep swimming!”) that makes her endearing more than her humour, however; and, of course, it’s this optimism that begins to chip away at Marlin’s (Albert Brooks’) flinty suit of armour. Funny, warm, makes our hero a better person, but can be a little bit sad – perfect comedy sidekick.

There are two that I’m annoyed that I couldn’t fit in so I'll mention them here: Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally and Danny Kaye in White Christmas. In the former case, whilst Fisher’s Marie is hilarious throughout, and definitely comic relief when put alongside the relatively straight Sally, the fact that everyone, really, gets a lot of funny lines in what is a consistently funny film kinda knocked her down the rankings a little bit, even though I feel bad about it, because everything is always better if Carrie FIsher is in it, including these lists. Kaye’s Phil Davis in White Christmas absolutely steals that film from Bing Crosby, with fast-paced witty wordplay and some supreme physical comedy, and the running gag about how he saved the life of Crosby’s Bob Wallace is golden. But, I dunno, he just kept slipping down the list, despite being my favourite thing in that film. Sorry, Danny.

[skruffyfairy]

the suicide journalist , Chris Morris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwiA8C6oiJo

Susie and a thin man found me in the park. I was walking slowly round the pond, making the bones in my nose tickle by hooting. Susie said my mother had tipped her off, after hearing my voice while throwing stones at the ducks. I had been there a day and a half. "It's because of my job," I explained, "batch testing New Age CD's." "But Hal said he didn't hire you in the end," she said. "That would explain why he hasn't paid me." The thin man with Susie coughed up a small laugh, and spat it onto the ground. "You'd better come to dinner on Saturday," Susie said. "Clive will be there too." She squeezed the man's arm. "Clive is the suicide journalist." He was ghostly pale, with black hair and a sad wit in his eyes. I'd say he looked like John Cusack, if I could remember who the hell John Cusack was. As he gazed moodily at the pond, Susie explained that Clive had announced in his weekly column that he had six months to live. On April the fifteenth, he would be committing suicide, and until then he would write about how it felt to be staring death in the face. Clive took aout a notebook and muttered something about the blackness of a moorhen. "Do you know what month it is now?" she asked. I thought it might be Martober. Susie dabbed a damp eye, and said that the suicide column was the saddest, funniest, most tragic and uplifting thing she'd ever read. "He has just twelve weeks to go." I looked across the pond and started honking again. Susie turned to collect Clive, who was puffing on three cigarettes and smirking at his notes. "Eight or late with a good excuse," she crooned, and popped a sweet in my mouth. I arrived well after dark. A smart woman opened the door. "I couldn't afford a bottle of wine," I said, "so I've drawn one on a piece of cardboard." I had prepared for the party by eating half a jar of instant coffee I'd found in the bins at Sainsbury's. She took my cardboard and said "That's brilliant. Could I use you in a programme?" When I asked her what sort of programme, she said "I could make a whole series about the things people bring to parties." "What do you do?" I said, thinking of the window at Dixon's. "My name' s Hosanna Bell. I work in the warm arts." We stepped past Susie's yachting gear and into the dining room. Seven people sat noisily round a large bowl of oysters, but Susie wasn't a single one of them. I thought I was at the wrong party, until they explained that the whole point was to be late, but with a good excuse. "Why are YOU late?" they asked. I said I'd had no money for a bottle of wine, and the homeless bloke at the tube station who normally subs me a couple of quid because he says I look worse off than his dog was being mugged when I asked him this time and hadn't given me a penny, and then I'd got lost whether Susie's house was directly opposite some trees, or directly opposite no trees at all. Several conversations had started by the time I got to that bit. Susie arrived to great squeals and kisses. She announced that she had spent the last three hours in bestial congress with a junior cabinet minister. Gobs hung open, because everyone had thought he was gay, and several of them also knew that he was her half-brother. She wore a grin as big as a harbour. "Do you think Clive is still coming?" said a sincere man in glasses, and the talk turned at once to his column. Hosanna Bell said she had seen more truth in Clive's writing than the entire works of any writer she could think of. A woman called Emma agreed. "I'm still reeling. I don't know whether to weep, laugh, throw up or hug everybody." "That's just your protein rush," observed a man called Paddy, pointing to the seventeen shells on her plate. Emma touched his leg. Paddy was Clive's editor, and was busy milking the table by mildly deprecating the praise for Clive's column, so people doubled it in protest. He was just declaring that the columns would have to be polished up for the book, when swearing in the hall announced the arrival of Clive. He looked a bit drunk, and seemed small with his coat off. He said he was sorry he was late, but actually he didn't give a fuck. Everyone laughed, except Paddy. Susie said "This brilliant man has asked me if you would all take it easy on the suicide questions tonight," and helped him liberally to bivalves. We nodded, of course, and I asked him if he thought oysters could commit suicide. Susie glared at me. I said I was just wondering if an oyster could make a decision like that, and if so, how it would die, because it couldn't really hang itself. "Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I didn't know, because I get the two feelings mixed up. She called me a plankton, and started telling Clive about the time she had cut her wrists. "Look at my scars," she said. "They are beautiful, but not as beautiful as your columns." For some reason, Clive looked at me as he said "Only the very ugly is truly beautiful. And if the printed word has any meaning, then it must come from the very edge of fuckybumbooboo." There were titters. Paddy muttered something about Clive alienating his fans, but was cut off by Emma. "No, Clive has every right to be drunk. You are in masses of pain, Clive. You are doing it for us." "Yes," agreed Hosanna. Clive asked her what the hell she knew. "In the warm arts, we're strong on people power," she said, "and what you have done in volunteering to take your own life is illuminate with poignant resonance the self destructor in all of us." There was a ripple of applause. Clive, who had been sousing his oysters in vodka and setting them alight before hurling them down his throat, now added a cigarette to the turmoil, and belched the word "bollocks." Paddy banged the table, and started telling Clive that if all he could do was get pissed and shove drugs up his bum for the last twelve columns, he would lose all his priceless empathy. "This is the finest copy I've ever commisioned," he said, "and I'm not having it ruined by some jumped-up little floozy going all diddums." A man called Stitt said that Paddy was threatening the purity of Clive's columns. "If he uses the bottle, then that should come through in his work." "But he'll end up writing about you lot!" said Paddy. Suddenly all the guests were telling Clive about the time they'd nearly topped themselves. Hosanna Bell described how she'd been suicidal for six months after giving birth, until she'd decided to sue her baby for what it had done to her figure. Clive was insulting everyone and writing notes on his cuffs. "Losers! Crap attempt!" he shouted. "I want something that actually works." Someone said hosepipes work. Clive knew a bloke in a garden centre in Maidstone who actually cuts them to length for your particular car. He said the people carrier length hose was the most popular. "Wow," said Hosanna Bell, now also scribbling feverishly. "So then, Mr Superstar," Paddy was saying, "what is the best way to kill yourself?" Clive said that in fact the best way he knew was to buy 200 foot nylon rope, tie one end round your neck, the other round a lamp post, and get into your car and floor the accelerator. He said that's how his great-uncle had done it. He'd made Clive help him. He was just nine years old. And he'd had to ride in the car and stop it crashing when his uncle's head came off. The blood had made the pedals very slippery. Clive blinked, smarting eyes. The table fell silent. "Really?" said Paddy, genuinely shocked. "Of course not, you moron!" brayed Clive, and went on to explain that we were all idiots, he could say anything and we'd lap it up, just because we thought his pain meant something, how we wouldn't give him a second thought if he wasn't going to kill himself, except that actually he wasn't anyway, because the whole thing was a hoax, and he was going to say so in his column next week. Paddy erupted, and decked Clive with the oyster bowl. Then he stood over him, roaring that this was his f***ing idea, Clive had agreed to do it, and he wasn't going to wriggle out of killing himself now, not now there was a book. Clive crawled from the room. The general opinion was that Clive had just treated us to his most savage and moving cry for help yet. We had all understimated his pain. "I feel choked up now," said Emma, "but if I read about next week, I'll be crying for the rest of the year." "Someone bring me a f***ing fag." Clive's voice sounded glutinous. Susie gestured to me, as everyone else was still debating the meaning of his actions. He lay on the floor, two regurgitated oysters a tongue's length from his leaking mouth - one of them still slightly alive. His nose seemed a better place for the cigarette. The caustic fumes revived him, and he stumbled to his feet. "I'm going out," he said "I'm going to break into a car, and drive around drunk until I crash." As he lunged past me into the hall, his foot snagged on a rope among Susie's boat bags, and he fell on the sea grass. We both looked at the large coil of blue nylon. "Are you good at knots?" he said. Susie's car keys were hanging by the front door. "You might as well use the Discovery," I said. "She'll be so thrilled to have a new story." About an hour later, I revealed that Clive hadn't just gone for a walk. He'd gone to divorce his head. And how I'd helped him with the keys and the knots. I needed to go to sleep, and had correctly anticipated that Paddy would punch my lights out.

[wearesuchstuff1]

Star Crossed

What happens when you take a Star Wars obsessed nerd who is getting a graduate degree in Shakespeare Studies and you put her in quarantine with three essays to write for almost two months?

A Star Wars/Shakespeare AU for every one of Shakespeare's plays!

Read on AO3.

     All's Well That Ends Well  

Kylo as the King and Rey as Helena.  Kylo has been stabbed by a lightsaber.  Who stabbed him?  Totally not Rey, what are you talking about??  Rey offers to heal Kylo with the Force (because that’s apparently a thing you can do?).  Kylo doubts she can do it, but Rey offers to make him a deal - either she fails, in which case Kylo can kill her, or she succeeds, in which case she gets to choose her husband.  Kylo agrees to this, secretly hoping that if she does manage to cure him that she will choose him as husband and not that annoying Rebel pilot or that ex- Storm Trooper.  Rey does manage to heal Kylo, but instead of throwing herself at Kylo, Poe, or Finn, Rey decides she’s a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man and this way none of them can push the issue because she gets to be the one who ultimately chooses who, or if, she marries.  Sorry Shakespeare, this play’s super annoying and I am not inflicting most of this plot on my Star Wars babies.  

     Antony and Cleopatra  

Leia as Mark Anthony, Han as Cleopatra.  Leia is a very busy, powerful, accomplished leader of the Resistance.  Everyone looks up to her and she has lots to do as her Rebel forces battle the Empire.  If only Han Solo weren't so damn sexy and distracting…

     As You Like It  

Ray as Rosiland and Finn as Orlando.  After escaping from Jakku, Ray must seek her family in the Forest of D'Qar.  Finn, in love with Ray and fleeing the wrath of the new, hostile government, also ends up in the Forest.  There, Ray finds her family, learning that family does not begin or end with blood, and learns to find “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.”  

     Comedy of Errors  

Anakin managed to avoid the temptations of Palpatine but when Palpatine discovers that Padme is pregnant they, with Obi Wan’s help, agree that the children must be kept safe from the Sith Lord.  In the wake of Order 66 Padme takes Leia and C-3PO on one ship and Anakin takes Luke and R2-D2 on another.  The twins are raised apart but when Luke comes of age, he sets out with R2-D2 to find his twin.  Hijinks and hilarity ensue, but in the end Luke and Leia, R2 and 3PO, and Anakin and Padme are all reunited.  

      Coriolanus  

Obi Wan as Ophidius, Palpatine as Menennius, and Anakin as Coriolanus.  Palpatine is intent on shaping the warrior Anakin in his political image.  Anakin would much rather stab things with his lightsaber and rail against the establishment than put up with politics.  Obi Wan and Anakin are gay for eachother.    

     Cymbeline  

Leia is Imogen, Anakin is Cymbeline, Palpatine is Anakin’s evil lover, Palpatine's clone son is Cloten, Han is Posthumus.  Leia married Han but Anakin doesn’t approve because Anakin and Palpatine want Leia to marry Palpatine’s clone son.  After Han has been kicked out he goes to Jabba’s palace and sends Jabba the Hutt to try to seduce Leia because Jabba tricks Han into betting that Leia won’t betray him.  Jabba brings “proof” to Han of Leia’s supposed infidelity and Han sends Chewie as Pisonio to lead Leia to the deserted deserts of Tatooine to kill her.   However instead Chewie brings a disguise for Leia to dress up as a boy to keep her safe from Han.  Dressed as a boy, Leia gets separated from Chewie and meets Obi Wan (as Belarius) and Luke (as Guiderius/Arviragus).  Leia doesn’t know that Luke is her brother and after she falls ill she takes a potion given to Chewie by Palpatine that ends up making her fall into a dead sleep.  I can’t be bothered to explain why.  Thinking her dead, Obi Wan and Luke plan to bury her until Palpatine’s clone son, dressed as Han and looking for Leia, arrives and, because he is rude, gets his head cut off by Luke, who lays him (headless) next to Leia.  When Leia wakes up she thinks that Han is dead and, in great despair, Leia goes off and pledges herself as a page to Tarkin, who is leading the Empire’s fleet against the Hutts.  There is a big battle where Luke, Obi Wan, and Han kick ass, and at the end all mistaken identities are revealed, Palpatine dies and confesses his sins (not in that order), Han and Leia discover they were only tricked into thinking they didn’t love each other, and Leia still gets to strangle Jabba.  In conclusion, this is a batshit play.  Thanks Shakespeare.    

     Hamlet  

Well it’s not Anakin because he doesn’t take any time to ponder anything before killing the people who killed his parent.  He just kills them.  And not just the men, but the women, and the children too…

Ben Kenobi tells Luke that Vader killed his father.  Horrified by this information, Luke sets out across to Galaxy to confront Vader.  By act five Luke has stabbed the Emperor through a curtain (thinking him to be Vader), Vader and Luke have both been stabbed with a poisoned lightsaber, General Tarkin has drunk poison intended for Luke, and Princess Leia is knocking on the doors of the death star.  With his dying breath Luke tells his school friend Biggs (who Luke is not-so-secretly gay for) that he gives his vote for Leia to run the Galexy after he is dead.  At this point Ben Kenobi is beginning to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have lied to Luke about his father after all.  Also, R2 and 3PO are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  

     Henry IV, Parts I and II  

Han as Hal and Jabba the Hutt as Falstaff.  Hanging out with Jabba and his other lowlife friends has given Han a bad reputation.   Despite Jabba's insistence that they be partners in petty crime and enjoy all the entertainment and Corilian Rum the credits from their crimes can buy, Han must grow to realize that his friend is holding him back from his true place in the Galaxy and that he ultimately must turn away from his old (large) friend in order to become a General in the Rebel Alliance and to stand by its Princess's side.    

     Henry V  

Jyn and Cassian know, as their small band of brothers lands on the beaches of Scarif, that they are outnumbered ten to one.   Nevertheless, as they prepare to head once more unto the breach they are determined to make ten men feel like a hundred.  They know that if they are mark’d to die, they are enough to do the Rebellion loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour.  They fight valiantly and are able to bring the Rebellion hope by sending the plans for the Death Star to Princess Leia, but in the end none of them outlive that day, nor come safe home.  

     Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III  

Despite the threats posed by the Clone Wars, the Jedi look above all else to their religion, leaving the path open for their enemies to take from them their power and, ultimately, their lives.

     Henry VIII  

Obi Wan is Anakin’s first wife and Padme is Ann Bolyn.  Anakin cheats on Obi Wan and the Jedi Order with Padem.  When the world finds out (youngings’) heads will roll.

     Julius Caesar  

Snoke, Kylo, and Hux as Caesar, Brutus, and Mark Anthony.   Despite his pledged allegiance to Emperor Snok, Kylo turns against his master and stabs him with his lightsaber, inciting a power struggle between Kylo and Hux and some impassioned speeches to the gathered Storm Troopers.

     King John  

Palpatine as King John, Mace Windu as the Pope, and Anakin as the archbishop (and Hubert).  Palpatine, in order to assert his influence over the Jedi and to continue to bring Anakin under his power, insists that Anakin be appointed to the Jedi Council.  Mace Windu is furious that Palpatine would interfere in this way and attempts to “excommunicate” him from the Republic.  Anakin turns on Mace Windu and the Jedi Order, and Palpatine sends him to the Jedi Temple to kill the younglings (specifically a youngling named Arthur).  However, when actually faced with the task Anakin is unable to do so.  Instead he lies to Palpatine and tells him the younglings have been killed.

     King Lear  

Lear/Cordelia as Vader/Luke.  Vader is slightly (maybe a lot) crazy and angry and he tries to give his son, Luke, part of the Galaxy, providing Luke pledges his allegiance to Vader and the Dark Side of the Force.  Luke is not having it so Vader cuts Luke’s hand off.  In the end, after some battles, Vader realizes Luke is in the right just in time to die.

     Love's Labour's Lost  

By swearing off attachments and secluding themselves in their Temple, the Jedi believe they will better be able to learn from and serve the Force.  But then Qui-Gon Jinn meets Shmi Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi meets Satine Kryze, Ahsoka Tano meets Lux Bonteri, and Anakin Skywalker meets Padme Amidala.  Together they learn that attachments are not so easily avoided.

     Macbeth  

The Nightsisters, led by Mother Talzin, predict greatness for Darth Maul.  In fact, when he is apprenticed to Sidious, Talzin predicts that Maul will become the most powerful Sith Lord and that he will soon become the master, no longer the apprentice.  Fueled by this promised power, Maul, encouraged by his wife Lady Ventress, plans to kill Sidious.  However, he is disturbed by Talzin's predictions that while he may become more powerful than even Sidious, it is Sidious's future apprentice, Darth Vader, who’s children will defeat the power of the Dark Side.  Thinking himself invincible thanks to Mother Talzin's predictions he sees no reason to fear the two Jedi who arrive at the Naboo palace of Dunsinane in a ship called the Birnam Wood.

     Measure for Measure  

With the Empire not giving a fuck about the Outer Rims, Jabba is left to his own devices on Tatooine.  When Jabba captures Luke and tries to feed him to his pet Rancor, Jabba proposes a deal with Leia that if she stays with him he will let Luke go.  Already feeling that she is married to the Rebellion, Leia is torn between her love for the Alliance and her love for Luke.  Ultimately Leia decides she’s better off strangling Jabba while Luke blows up his ship.  Even though this isn’t what Mariana actuall does in the script it’s what she should do becasue fuck the patriarchy.    

     Merchant of Venice  

In a last-ditch attempt to save the Republic she loves, Padme comes before the senate and reminds them that 'the quality of mercy is not strained'.  She advises them that mercy 'is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned Emperor better than his robe: his lightsaber shows the force of temporal power, but mercy is above the lightsaber's sway".  Her impassioned speech reminds the senate to see past the blood lust fueled by Palpatine and the Clone Wars and Padme single handedly manages to avoid the death of democracy to thunderous applause.    

     Merry Wives of Windsor  

Jabba the Hutt is Falstaff.  That’s all.

     Midsummer Night's Dream  

Finn and Poe, both thinking they are in love with Ray, follow Ray to a forest planet.  Rose, in love with Poe, follows him.  In the forest R2-D2 and his young companion BB8 use trickery and (Force) magic to help the humans sort out this love triangle mess (yes, this does make C-3PO Titania). Finn and Poe realize that they are actually in love with each other and Ray reaffirms that she is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man.  Rose gets left in the woods because J.J. Abrams forgets about her.  

     Much Ado about Nothing  

Leia/Han as Beatrice/Benedict.  Despite the seemingly daily war of words between Princess Leia and Han Solo in the hallways of Hoth’s Echo Base, it seems every Alliance member except the Princess and the smuggler knows that the two are in love.  While the verbal battles continue (some more sophisticated than others - Han’s only available comeback to Leia’s rather weak “scruffy looking nerf herder” jab being “who’s scruffy looking?”) Chewbacca, Luke, R2-D2 and a relatively confused and unwilling C-3PO ‘undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Han and the Princess Leia into a mountain of affection the one with the other’.  By the end both Han and Leia are separately convinced the other is madly in love with them and relent (purely out of the goodness of their own hearts and not at all because of any feelings they might have) to save the other from their suffering and agree to marry them.  Also Jar Jar Binks is Dogberry - do not question it.    

     Othello  

In order to serve his own purposes, Palpatine manages to turn the righteous and lauded warrior Anakin Skywalker against his wife, Padmé Amidala, with whispered lies and deceits, resulting in Anakin choking and, ultimately, killing the woman he loves.  That’s it.  That’s the film.

     Pericles  

Anakin as Pericles, Padme as Thaisa, and Leia as Marina.  After fleeing from Mustafar with Padme, Obi Wan and Bail Organa watch helplessly as Padme gives birth to twins then, seemingly, dies.  Afraid to bring more attention on themselves from Sidious and his new apprentice, the men place Padme’s body in an escape pod and eject it near Jedha.  What they don’t know is that Padme is only mostly dead (which means she is a little bit alive).  When her escape pod is found by a young local force user named Chirrut Imwe he brings Padme back from the brink.  Knowing that her husband is dead to her and with no way to contact her children, Padme decides to dedicate herself to the Force at the ancient Jedi temple Chirrut and his husband Baze Malbus brought her to.  Meanwhile, Leia is raised by Bail and, when she is old enough, dedicates herself to the Rebellion (sorry guys, I just can’t bring myself to have Bail try to kill Leia).  However, when Leia is captured by the Empire she is brought before Vader.  They talk and compare stories, and through their connection in the Force they realize that they are father and daughter.  At the descovery of his daughter Vader decides ‘you know what, fuck the Emperer’ and casually destroies the Empire.  Then the Force leads Anakin and Leia to Jedha (which hasn’t been destroyed because of reasons).  There they discover Padme living in the temple of the Jedi.  After a tearful family reunion with Anakin, Padme, and Leia, the three eventually decide they had better go save Luke from spending the rest of his life as a moisture farmer on Tatooine.  

     Richard II  

Ben Solo as Bolingbrooke and Luke as Richard II.  Luke, hoping to raise Ben Solo in his image, is heartbroken when he senses the dark side in his nephew.  In a sudden and desperate attempt to keep the dark side from the world Luke banishes Ben (with his lightsaber).  Furious at Luke’s betrayal Ben turns to the dark side and destroys everything Luke has sought to build.

     Richard III  

Turning against his own family, Kylo Ren murders and betrays in order to obtain the position in the First Order he believes his lineage affords him.  Hux is Ann.

     Romeo and Juliet  

Finn has been raised to be a Storm Trooper since before he can remember.  All his life he has been taught to hate the Resistance.   Poe’s parents were Alliance members during the time of the Empire.  They raised him to stand against the First Order.  Finn and Poe thought they knew their beliefs, until the two meet and, despite all they have been taught to believe, fall desperately in love.  They are, quite literally, star crossed.  BB8 gets drunk off fermented oil and delivers a Queen Mab speech in exclusively beeps and whistles.

     Taming of the Shrew  

The Alderaanian Princess is a bit of a firecracker and has no time for anything in her life but the Rebellion.  So when a smuggler shows up and decides to try to win her over Anakin, who did not turn to the Dark Side, laughs and says he’s welcome to try.  Meanwhile, Bodhi Rook, Wedge Antilles, and Biggs Darklighter (yes, this IS his last name…) are all vying for Luke Skywalker’s attention.  When Luke goes to Anakin and wines ‘but daddy, I want to get married’ Anakin makes a new rule: “YOU’RE NOT GETTING MARRIED UNTIL LEIA GETS MARRIED!”.  In order to have a chance at marriage Luke must team up with Chewbacca to help Han tame Leia.  It doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone except Han that it is actually Leia who ends up doing the timing.  

     Tempest  

In (self-imposed) exile a grumpy, gray haired Luke hangs out on an island strong with the magic of the Force.  Ariel is a Porg.  

     Timon of Athens  

Despite the Clone Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi is glad to be well liked and surrounded by friends he trusts.  Then one day his friends (specifically his best friend and a bunch of clones) betray his ass.  So what does he do?  He runs off to the Outer Rim to the sandiest fucking planet he can find (because his ex-best friend hates sand) and spends the next 19 years being poor and grumpy.

     Titus Andronicus  

Seriously, the only story I know with more severed limbs that Titus Andronicus is Star Wars…

     Troilus and Cressida  

When Padme married Anakin Skywalker they exchanged vows, of course, but they also exchanged pieces of clothing.  It’s an old Naboo tradition that Padme’s mother loved and Anakin found cute, so why not?   It was a silly thing, but the sleeve Anakin gives her stays with Padme, folded neatly in a small box, as Anakin fights the Clone Wars throughout the Galaxy and Padme fights them in the Senate.  But then Anakin falls to Darth Sidious’s powers and when Padme confronts him he almost chokes her to death.  Almost.  After giving birth to two healthy children Padme, Obi Wan, and Yoda agree that it will be safest for the twins to be raised apart in order to better hide them from the Dark Side.  Obi Wan takes the boy to Tatooien and Padme’s friend Bail Organa takes the girl to be his adopted daughter.  Padme, seperated from her children, spends the next several years traveling the Galaxy, doing good where she can and keeping herself away from her children, afraid that her presence will endanger them.  But Darth Vader finally catches up with her.  She is captured by the Sith Lord and taken prisoner and her already shattered heart breaks once again when she is brought before him.  Her captor demands that she be his, insisting that she love him and give up her foolish affection for the foolish boy she met on Tatooine all those standard years ago.  To prove her new supposed devotion to Vader, the Empire, and the Dark Side of the Force, Vader demands Padme supply him with a token of her affection.  From her small pack Padme draws out a box with an old but neatly folded sleeve within. She hands it to the Sith Lord, a token of her love, in the hopes that it might remind Vader of the love Padme bears for another man.    

     Twelfth Night  

After escaping Darth Vader with the plans to the Death Star, Luke and Leia, twins raised together as royals on Alderaan, crash in their escape pod on Tatooine.  Believing her twin brother to be dead, Leia dresses as a man to better hide from the Empire.  She is hired by a handsome smuggler named Han Solo, who sends her as an envoy to the palace of Jabba the Hutt, hoping Leia can gain information about Han’s lost love Qi’ra.  Han is intrigued by his new hire and his apparent aversion to the Empire while under her disguise Leia finds she is falling in love with Han.  Jabba is confused about why this petite boy Solo keeps sending wants to know about someone named Obi Wan Kanobi, Chewie is considering changing up his single munitions belt style with some fancy cross-gartering, and somehow Luke ends up at Jabba’s in a slave bikini.

     Two Gentlemen of Verona  

Lance and Crab - Ray and BB8 on Jakku.  Ray, having no family to speak of, designates her left shoe to be her mother, her right shoe to be her father, her staff to be her sister, her hat to be their maid and she is the droid.  No, the droid is herself, and she is the droid - O, the droid is her, and she is herself.  Ay, so, so.  She plays out her imagined family life with shoes and staff, bringing herself to lonely tears. Now the droid all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word; but see how she lays Jakku’s dust with her tears.

     Winter's Tale  

Abandoned after his family exited pursued by a (space) bear, Baby Yoda finds a new protector and adopted father in Din Djarin, the Mandalorian.    

     Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won  

These two are the 6 hour uncut Phantom Menace because they are lost and I would give my first born child to see them.

     Sir Thomas More, The Spanish Tragedy, and Edward III  

All the books/legends - not because of the plot, but because although George Lucas had very little to do with them they are really only known, by those who know them, in association with him and his works.  There is a large debate by ‘scholars’ as to whether they should be accepted as canon or not.

     Bonus  

Chewbacca is ecstatic when he hears that an Alderaanian princess has taken up residence in the detention block of a nearby moon space station.  He hopes that this princess might be the perfect match for his handsome yet headstrong smuggler friend.  After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Alderaanian princess in possession of a good fortune of Credits, must be in want of a husband.

I must give a huge thank you to my friends who put up with me while I did this and contributed fabulous ideas!  Vaxildamn, Dazingparadise, Kaethe, and Eric, I couldn't have done this without you!

[jewishaxelwalker]

Hi. I've been trying to read all issues with Owen in them recently, and I was wanting to know if you have any sibling headcanons for Owen, Bart, and Thad (or just Owen and Thad). I loved Johns's GL run but FUCK if he didn't just butcher everything Impulse-related. Anyways, I feel as though the "oh shit you're my brother" meetings that never happened would've been glorious, and I wanna write shit but I have no idea how they would act around each other.

Please trust me when I say that you don’t want to get me started on talking about GJ and non-sucking-Hal-Jordan’s-dick comics, I’ve got enough venom within me to fuel a 300-episode podcast. But to be fair to poor Owen, I don’t think anyone really knew what to do with him, which is why he was able to bounce between being a villain, hero, and anti-hero, while remaining best friends with Supergirl and somehow only running into any Flash like…once. Owen Mercer’s wasted potential is both one of the things I’m saddest about in regards to mid-2000s comics, and one of the rejected names for my hypothetical band.

Breaking down Owen’s personality to the core basics, he’s a dork with a chip on his shoulder and a strong desire to Belong. He (like both Bart and Thad) wasn’t raised by his biological parents and (unlike Bart and Thad) we don’t actually know what his pre-Identity Crisis family situation was like. The desire to Belong could come from an unfulfilling relationship with his adoptive parents, or it could come from growing up feeling just a bit off. Because of this, he’d probably get along really well with Thad, whose own parent situation was…awful, until he got to experience life as Bart, which is to say, life with Max and Helen. They could also bond over how hard it is to do good, when a lifetime of instinct and literal programming say no, bad is easier. Bad gets results. Circumvent the law, bend the rules to suit your own needs.

Their dual relationship with Bart would be both casual and strained. Owen is used to putting up with Axel and Kara namely, he’s used to putting up with someone who has absolutely no goddamn filter, and someone who is wildly more powerful than him and also like…really good at this whole superheroing thing. Owen’s dorkiness would be a good bonding point for him and Bart (it’s canon that Owen likes movies, both old and new, and even worked in a movie theater before he met Digger and dove headfirst into a life of crime, and it’s also canon that Bart’s other best friend, Preston, is a movie buff and so he knows how to speak the lingo), might even act as the only bonding point at first, until they discover their mutual affinity for Super-people. Keep in mind, Bart only looks 16, while Owen actually lived all 19 of the years he’s been alive, even if the time periods he lived them in are questionable at best. 

The relationship between the three brothers would be strained, at first. Owen and Thad would definitely get along better, but once Owen found more things in common with Bart, Thad would most likely distance himself. Bart’s taking away someone important to him yet again, why even bother fighting it? But what he didn’t count on was how perceptive Owen is. He’s not an animal or a superhero identity, he doesn’t pick favorites, and he can be shared. 

“That’s the thing about big brothers, squirt, we’re this weird middle ground between parent and pet.”

“I am several hundred years older than you!”

“You’re also several hundred millimeters shorter than me, so cork it and go hug our brother before I pick you up and hang you on the back of a door.”

They’re agreed that, even though Bart is the genetic original, he’s their youngest brother. They’ve also agreed to never tell him this.

“Ah, playing the ol’ Slytherin and their Hufflepuff gambit, I see.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Ask Craydl, I gave him the first four Harry Potter books on tape last time.”

“Please stop poisoning my AI.”

My favorite way to write the speed bros, personally, is in non-power AUs where Owen grew up with them. I’ve written Owen as both the older brother and the younger brother, but I kinda lean harder towards the former. I’m literally counting the days until I finally get the time and inspiration to finish this one AU I started back in 2017. It involves Pokemon Go, and Axel is there. Someday.

[lordjohntheshow]

Three Dog Night, Part 2. Part 1 is here. 

Author’s Note: This is a Modern AU John/Stephan fic. I’m pulling from both the LJG novellas and the main books, so I guess this could be considered “spoilery” so proceed at your own caution. Honestly, I just wrote Part 1 as a one shot and more story keeps coming. I hope you enjoy!!! Sorry for any formatting stuff, it might be a little hard to read on mobile. 

Part 2: Strudel, Nudel and JEFF

Stephan pulled the couple’s Ford Fiesta up the circular drive, in behind and assortment of Land Rovers and Volkswagen vans. John got out and stretched in the sunshine, before opening the back door so Strudel, Nudel, and Jeff could hop down and take off for the garden, where voices and the smell of smoke carried. Stephan joined him, wrapping an arm around his waist and they walked in together.

It was the usual family madness. Football had broken out in the back field, what looked to be a boys versus girls match. John could see the red glint of his cousin-in-law Malcom’s hair. His wife, Olivia, had cornered Minnie and Maude near the herb garden. John heard Olivia rhapsodizing about something called moondust and kept walking, ignoring Minnie’s ‘Please Rescue Me’ stare . George and Edgar were standing over the grill in outmost concentration, both trying to outdo the other’s deep understanding of how to make a burger. And the telltale scent of a certain plant meant his brother Hal had retreated to the sunken garden for “quiet time.”

John found his mother in the kitchen, decanting Pimms into a large punch bowl. She hugged him one armed in greeting and gave Stephan a continental kiss. Her blue patterned caftan and silver bracelets made her look like the High Priestess of some cult, and John found fitting.

“Oh John, I’m so glad you were able to make it. I trust work hasn’t been too busy?” Benedicta asked, with added emphasis that implied that the excuse was getting old.

“Nice to see you too, mum.” John replied. “What potion are you making here?” He asked, looking at what seemed to be the varied output of a farmer’s market slowly begin to float in Pimms.

“Oh, it’s from a new cookbook we’re copyediting right now, a summer cocktail. Basically enough Pimms to knock down a horse with some seven pound an ounce fancy juice.” She rolled her eyes. “I wanted to try it out and see if people actually liked it.” Benedicta ran, and had run a highly successful publishing company for nearly forty years, and there was always a new recipe or author at the dinner table.

Stephan’s phone chimed with the Facetime noise, and he slipped it out of his pocket and took it, grinning and waving at the yelling voices on the other end. “Leibchens!” So it was Louisa calling with their sons (Louisa’s from a first marriage and the one she’d had with Stephan). He grinned abashedly at John and Benedicta and moved off into the family room, beginning an animated conversation in German.

Benedicta set the Pimms aside and handed John a small shot glass and a wedge of lime, before taking up her own. They both downed them in a smooth motion, slamming the shots down and biting into the lime wedges. Benedicta pointed to the compost bin. Her next question made him gag as if the tequila had been replaced with grain alcohol.

“When are you going to give that nice man a baby, John?”

He sputtered and started, and began to grow red, but not from the liquor. “Mum.”

“I’m serious. Don’t think I notice him trying to fill that tiny flat you have with dogs.”

“The first problem being that neither of us lack the necessary fac...”

“Adoption. Fostering. Surrogacy.”

“Our lives are extremely complicated right now.”

“You’re thirty six. Your life will continue to grow ‘extremely complicated’ and then you will be in a nursing home.”

That forced John to subside into silence for a moment. “It’s not as if you don’t have grandchildren of your own.” He countered. “You can’t be greedy.” He peered out into the sunshine. “Certainly, a few short of an association team...”

“We are talking about you, John.”

“I see. I think you’re also missing the crucial step where Stephan and I are … married.” The word felt odd to say, as if it weighed more.

“Nonsense, when have I ever been concerned with that?” Minnie, of course, was several months pregnant when she and Hal had eloped, Benedicta hadn’t even batted an eye and simply asked if she wanted help to decorate the nursery.

As if summoned, Minnie appeared with an empty glass. She eyed the punch bowl warily but let Benedicta take her drink and fill it up anyways. “What are we talking about?” She asked, taking a sip and smiling.

“John needs to have a baby.” Benedicta said succinctly.

“John prefers not to have his private matters discussed with an audience.”

Minnie glanced between the two and then shrugged. “With Stephan? It would be cute.”

“That’s not possible, it wouldn’t look like us.” John said.

Minnie took a sip. “Well, you’re both blond. I guess if you both, you know, tossed your hats in the ring,” She suggested, waggling her brows. “You wouldn’t know until he either got tall or stayed short.”

“Ah, yes, thank you, Minerva, for that observation.” John rolled his eyes.

Minnie shot a look at Benedicta. “How did this come up? Is it because Stephan got another dog?”

Benedicta nodded, sliding a carton of berries into the punchbowl.

Minerva nodded back. Something passed unspoken between them and John did not like it.

“We’re both exceptionally bus..” He started, but the founder of a publishing company and the linguistics professor stared at him so intently he felt the words shrivel up and die in his mouth.

“You just hire help, if you need it.” Minerva replied. “God knows you have the money. Are you worried about being a father? Because you’re a very good uncle and a generally good person, so I don’t think you’d make a bad father.”

“This… this is an unhelpful extrapolation from flawed data. Stephan likes dogs. He saw another one, and brought it home. His need for canine companionship does not correlate to our need, or lack thereof, to procreate.” The collar of his shirt felt rather tight, even if he was wearing a polo. “Stephan has a son, he visits him all the time.”

Benedicta looked up from stirring the literal bowl and nodded. “Our family blended together just fine.” She stated, as if confirming a fear John hadn’t even been aware of five minutes before.

Minnie rubbed his arm in sympathy. “We just want you to have a full life, John. No pressure or anything. But if you want to be  dad, it might do to start thinking about it now, since so many of the options take time.” She said, gently, but firmly.

“Thank you.” John said to both of them, picking up a ladle and pouring himself a drink from the bowl. “I appreciate it, even if I don’t appreciate your ambush tactics.”

Hal popped into the kitchen, tucking his vape pen into his shirt pocket. “George and Edgar have cooked all the meat in the county, if you three are ready for dinner.”

“Bring the punch, John.” Benedicta ordered.

  John leaned against the car door, stomach full of hamburgers and Pimms. The countryside flipped by like one of those old films, just fields and fences and sometimes the moonlit body of a cow. Stephan was humming along happily with the music, some new pop sensation. All three of the dogs were slumped in the back, fast asleep.

“Mom cornered me, while you were on the phone with Siggy and Sascha.” He said, to break the silence.

Stephan grinned. “Are you telling me you don’t enjoy doing tequila shots with Benedicta?” He asked, making John laugh.

“No.” He said after a moment. “It was about us. She thinks that because you got Jeff, it means… She thinks we should have kids. Together.” It all came out in a rush, and he looked straight ahead at the road.

Stephan furrowed his brows, thinking. Everyone thought Stephan was endlessly cheerful, because that’s where he usually ended up, emotionally. John knew him better, knew that Stephan was in touch with all of his emotions, moreso than most people, which made it worrying talking about big things. Stephan was always so vulnerable and open, while John was always more reserved. Cracking himself open came naturally to Stephan, and John was always a little afraid he was going to disappoint him.

“Do you want children?” Stephan asked.

That had thrown John for a loop. His first instinct was to shout “Of course! Doesn’t everyone?”, but part of him never really considered the possibility.

“I mean…” He tried. “I don’t… not… want them.” He answered.

Stephan smiled. “I have Siggy and Sascha, yes? And they bring me joy. I would love any child we had.” He added. “I think we should think about it.” He finished, excitedly.

John sighed, somehow relieved and still as confused as he’d been a minute before.

Both men lapsed again into silence, watching the car eat up the lines of the road and the fields flicker by, turning slowly to busier and busier roads as they made their way back into the city.

They were ten miles outside London when Stephan spoke again.

“You know, if we are going to have children, we’d have to get married first.”

[whileiamdying]

Big Brother In The City Of Broad Shoulders

Big Brother — Featuring Janis Joplin

Big Brother & The Holding Company arrived in Chicago in the summer of 1967, not to record an album but to play a month-long engagement — four and five sets a night — at the Mother Blues night club in Old Town. It was the most we would ever play for such a concentrated period. We just kept getting better and better — tighter and tighter. Peter painted a sign for the stage with a large eyeball that read: Big Brother Is Watching You.

The Midwest hadn’t adjusted to hippies quite yet. Some nights we drew only five to ten people in a place that could hold a couple of hundred. One reviewer called us, “the ugliest band he had ever seen,” to which Janis blurted out, “Even Sam?” The same journalist also noted that we smelled bad. And we did. It was patchouli oil, whose aroma hadn’t made it across the Mississippi yet. Unfortunately, the club soon ran out of money and reneged on its promise to pay us.

That’s when we bumped into Bob Shad — owner of Mainstream Records — for the second time. He’d come out to San Francisco that spring to hear some hippie bands, we’d met him at the Old Spreckels mansion on Buena Vista in the Haight-Ashbury. After we auditioned, Shad asked us to record an album, but our manager, Chet Helms — Also running the Family Dog dances at the Avalon Ballroom — turned him down. That was the beginning of the split between Chet and us.

So there we were — two thousand miles from home and broke — when Bob Shad entered the picture once again and offered us a recording contract. We asked if we could get a lawyer to look over the paperwork, and he suggested we use his. So we did. Brilliant.

We were thrilled to do the album. Whenever Janis would think about it she would hop up and down on one foot and say, “What a hustle. We’re going to do something we love, and Bobby Shad is actually going to pay us, PAY US. Can you imagine, man?” We were all laughing with her, but we were secretly excited.

We recorded some of this material later at United Studios in Los Angeles. I remember seeing Glen Campbell working with members of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew: Leon Russell, Carol Kaye and Hal Blaine. Through those glass doors they seemed like office workers, sitting behind their instruments.

LA was fun, but those Chicago sessions were really special. We’d never been in the studio until then, and here we were in this strange city, about to record. Mainstream was a venerable jazz label that had fallen on hard times. Recording there had a very old school feel. Fortunately we’d had ample opportunity — thanks to our night club stay — to polish that rough Big Brother sound. The album sounds almost acoustic today, melodic folk-rock, so sweet and innocent. Below are some comments about the songs on the album.

“Bye, Bye Baby”: This was written by Powell St. John who was in the Waller Creek Boys in Austin with Janis. It was difficult at first to record this because it seemed so unlike us. The alternate version here has Janis’ vocal single-tracked.

“Light Is Faster Than Sound”: Since Peter Albin studied photography, thought this was about photography being faster than music. But Peter says no. When we recorded it, his lips were more rubbery than usual, his face stretching into all sorts of latex shapes. And when he began singing that “Whoa” bit during the bridge we all had to stop because we were laughing so hard.

“Call On Me”: Janis and I sang this ballad as a duet. We would act it out to each other while we were performing it. This is the first song I wrote for Big Brother.

“Women Is Losers”: Janis heard a tune called “Whores Is Funky” when she was down in Texas. She liked the grammar. We had at least three different arrangements for that tune.

“Coo Coo”: Sometimes known as “Jack of Diamonds,” this song is from Peter’s folk days. He played lead guitar here, and on stage it would really lift the band.

“Blindman”: This is an old spiritual that Peter redid. It really exemplifies that folk-rock sound we got on the Mainstream album.

“Down On Me”: I had a tape of this by a white gospel group from the 1930’s, while Janis owned another version from the 1950’s. James suggested we make it a bit more secular so it would sell to the general public.

“Caterpillar”: When I first suggested starting band with Peter, he thought we should go all over the world singing children’s songs. This was the first one he wrote. He had all kinds of different verses, such as: “I’m a Jimmy Dean sausage. Frying for your love.”

“All Is Loneliness”: This fellow named Moondog stood on New York Street corners selling song sheets he’d written. When we told him we did his song, he asked, “Do you do it in 5/4?” We answered: “Well, there are five of us and we do it in four.

Janis was in good spirits for these sessions. She double tracked her vocals on “Bye, Bye Baby” — a novelty to her — and we were pleased with how that came out. The guitar sound, however, was strictly out of the 1950’s. But we didn’t know how to ask for what we wanted. And the engineers at Mainstream — intent on keeping the VU meters from plunging into the red — weren’t going to volunteer any new techniques. Recording technicians would soon learn that some distortion was built into this music.

Those engineers at Mainstream were leery of working with us. They were accustomed to recording jazz — acoustic instruments and beautiful black voices-and we couldn’t have been more different. They were constantly telling us to turn down. It should have been no surprise we wound up sounding different from what we’d expected. I’ve come to appreciate the first album for what it is: a scrapbook of early Big Brother material. In the end, recording turned out to be just as scary as it was performing live for the first time. And when we left Chicago, we still didn’t have any money.

Sam Andrew and Jud Cost San Francisco, CA, 1999

[sagarbiswas]

#MAR #MAKAUT #lockdownactivities #MandatoryAdditionalRequirements Name of Activity: Review a Movie Name of the Movie: Interstellar

My Review: To infinity and beyond goes “Interstellar,” an exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human. As visually and conceptually audacious as anything Nolan has yet done, the director’s ninth feature also proves more emotionally accessible than his coolly cerebral thrillers and Batman movies, touching on such eternal themes as the sacrifices parents make for their children (and vice versa) and the world we will leave for the next generation to inherit. An enormous undertaking that, like all the director’s best work, manages to feel handcrafted and intensely personal, “Interstellar” reaffirms Nolan as the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation, more than earning its place alongside “The Wizard of Oz,” “2001,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Gravity” in the canon of Hollywood’s visionary sci-fi head trips. Global box office returns should prove suitably rocket-powered.

We begin somewhere in the American farm belt, which Nolan evokes for its full mythic grandeur — blazing sunlight, towering corn stalks, whirring combines. But it soon becomes clear that this would-be field of dreams is something closer to a nightmare. The date is an unspecified point shortly, close enough to look and feel like tomorrow, yet far enough for several radical changes to have taken hold in society. A decade on from a period of widespread famine, the world’s armies have been disbanded and the cutting-edge technocracies of the early 21st century have regressed into more utilitarian, farm-based economies.

“We’re a caretaker generation,” notes one such homesteader (John Lithgow) to his widower son-in-law, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA test pilot who hasn’t stopped dreaming of flight, for himself and for his children: 15-year-old son Tom (Timothee Chalamet) and 10-year-old daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy), the latter a precocious tot was first seen getting suspended from school for daring to suggest that the Apollo space missions actually happened. “We used to look up in the sky and wonder about our place in the stars,” Cooper muses. “Now we just look down and wonder about our place in the dirt.”

And oh, what dirt! As “Interstellar” opens, the world — or at least Cooper’s Steinbeckian corner of it — sits on the cusp of a second Dust Bowl, ravaged by an epidemic of crop blight, a silt-like haze hanging permanently in the air. (Some of this scene-setting is accomplished via pseudo-documentary interviews with the elderly residents of some more distant future reflecting on their hardscrabble childhoods, which Nolan films like the “witness” segments from Warren Beatty’s “Reds.”) And as the crops die, so the Earth’s atmosphere becomes richer in nitrogen and poorer in oxygen, until the time when global starvation will give way to global asphyxiation.

But all hope is not lost. NASA (whose massive real-life budget cuts lend the movie added immediacy) still exists in this agrarian dystopia, but it’s gone off the grid, far from the microscope of public opinion. There, the brilliant physicist Professor Brand (Michael Caine, forever the face of avuncular wisdom in Nolan’s films) and his dedicated team have devised two scenarios for saving mankind. Both plans involve abandoning Earth and starting over on a new, life-sustaining planet, but only one includes taking Earth’s current 6-billion-plus population along for the ride. Doing the latter, it seems, depends on Brand’s ability to solve an epic math problem that would explain how such a large-capacity vessel could surmount Earth’s gravitational forces. (Never discussed in this egalitarian society: a scenario in which only the privileged few could escape, a la the decadent bourgeoisie of Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium.”)

Many years earlier, Brand informs, a mysterious space-time rift (or wormhole) appeared in the vicinity of Saturn, seemingly placed there, like the monoliths of “2001,” by some higher intelligence. On the other side: another galaxy containing a dozen planets that might be fit for human habitation. In the wake of the food wars, a team of intrepid NASA scientists traveled there in search of solutions. Now, a decade later (in Earth years, that is), Brand has organized another mission to check up on the three planets that seem the most promising for human settlement. And to pilot the ship, he needs Cooper, an instinctive flight jockey in the Chuck Yeager mode, much as McConaughey’s laconic, effortlessly self-assured performance recalls Sam Shepards as Yeager in “The Right Stuff” (another obvious “Interstellar” touchstone).

Already by this point — and we have not yet left the Earth’s surface — “Interstellar” (which Nolan co-wrote with his brother and frequent collaborator, Jonathan) has hurled a fair amount of theoretical physics at the audience, including discussions of black holes, gravitational singularities and the possibility of extra-dimensional space. And, as with the twisty chronologies and unreliable narrators of his earlier films, Nolan trusts in the audience’s ability to get the gist and follow along, even if it doesn’t glean every last nuance on first viewing. It’s hard to think of a mainstream Hollywood film that has so successfully translated complex mathematical and scientific ideas to a lay audience (though Shane Carruth’s ingenious 2004 Sundance winner “Primer” — another movie concerned with overcoming the problem of gravity — tried something similar on a micro-budget indie scale), or done so in more vivid, immediate human terms. (Some credit for this is doubtless owed to the veteran CalTech physicist Kip Thorne, who consulted with the Nolans on the script and receives an executive producer credit.)

The mission itself is a relatively intimate affair, comprised of Cooper, Brand’s own scientist daughter (Anne Hathaway), two other researchers (Wes Bentley and the excellent David Gyasi), and a chatty, sarcastic, ex-military security robot called TARS (brilliantly voiced by Bill Irwin in a sly nod to Douglas Rain’s iconic HAL 9000), which looks like a walking easel but proves surprisingly agile when the going gets tough. And from there, “Interstellar” has so many wonderful surprises in store — from casting choices to narrative twists and reversals — that the less said about it the better. (Indeed, if you really don’t want to know anything more, read no further.)

It gives nothing away, however, to say that Nolan maps his infinite celestial landscape as majestically as he did the continent-hopping earthbound ones of “The Prestige” and “Batman Begins,” or the multi-tiered memory maze of “Inception.” The imagery, modeled by Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema on Imax documentaries like “Space Station” and “Hubble 3D,” suggests a boundless inky blackness punctuated by ravishing bursts of light, the tiny spaceship Endurance gleaming like a diamond against Saturn’s great, gaseous rings, then ricocheting like a pinball through the wormhole’s shimmering plasmic vortex.

With each stop the Endurance makes, Nolan envisions yet another new world: one planet a watery expanse with waves that make Waimea Bay look like a giant bathtub; another an ice climber’s playground of frozen tundra and sheer-faced descents. Moreover, outer space allows Nolan to bend and twist his favorite subject — time — into remarkable new permutations. Where most prior Nolan protagonists were forever grasping at an irretrievable past, the crew of the Endurance races against a ticking clock that happens to tick differently depending on your particular vantage. New worlds mean new gravitational forces, so that for every hour spent on a given planet’s surface, years or even entire decades may be passing back on Earth. (Time as a flat circle, indeed.)

This leads to an extraordinary mid-film emotional climax in which Cooper and Brand return from one such expedition to discover that 23 earth years have passed in the blink of an eye, represented by two decades’ worth of stockpiled video messages from loved ones, including the now-adult Tom (a bearded, brooding Casey Affleck) and Murphy (Jessica Chastain in dogged, persistent “Zero Dark Thirty” mode). It’s a scene Nolan stages mostly in closeup on McConaughey, and the actor plays it beautifully, his face a quicksilver mask of joy, regret, and unbearable grief.

That moment signals a shift in “Interstellar” itself from the relatively euphoric, adventurous tone of the first half toward darker, more ambiguous terrain — the human shadow areas, if you will, that are as difficult to fully glimpse as the inside of a black hole. Nolan, who has always excelled at the slow reveal, catches even the attentive viewer off guard more than once here, but never in a way that feels cheap or compromises the complex motivations of the characters.

On the one hand, the movie marvels at the brave men and women throughout history who have dedicated themselves, often at great peril, to the greater good of mankind. On the other, because Nolan is a psychological realist, he’s acutely aware of the toil such lives may take on those who choose to lead them, and that even “the best of us” (as one character is repeatedly described) might not be immune from cowardice and moral compromise. Some people lie to themselves and to their closest confidants in “Interstellar,” and Nolan understands that everyone has his reasons. Others compensate by making the most selfless of sacrifices. Perhaps the only thing trickier than quantum physics, the movie argues, is the nature of human emotion.

Nolan stages one thrilling set piece after another, including several hairsbreadth escapes and a dazzling space-docking sequence in which the entire theater seems to become one large centrifuge; the nearly three-hour running time passes unnoticed. Even more thrilling is the movie’s ultimate vision of a universe in which the face of extraterrestrial life bears a surprisingly familiar countenance. “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” harks the good Professor Brand at the start of the Endurance’s journey, quoting the melancholic Welshman Dylan Thomas. And yet “Interstellar” is finally a film suffused with light and boundless possibilities — those of the universe itself, of the wonder in a child’s twinkling eyes, and of movies to translate all that into spectacular picture shows like this one.

It’s hardly surprising that “Interstellar” reps the very best big-budget Hollywood craftsmanship at every level, from veteran Nolan collaborators like production designer Nathan Crowley (who built the film’s lyrical vision of the big-sky American heartland on location in Alberta) and sound designer/editor Richard King, who makes wonderfully dissonant contrasts between the movie’s interior spaces and the airless silence of space itself. VFX supervisor Paul Franklin (an Oscar winner for his work on “Inception”) again brings a vivid tactility to all of the film’s effects, especially the robotic TARS, who seamlessly inhabits the same physical spaces as the human actors. Hans Zimmer contributes one of his most richly imagined and inventive scores, which ranges from a gentle electronic keyboard melody to brassy, Strauss-ian crescendos. Shot and post-produced by Nolan entirely on celluloid (in a mix of 35mm and 70mm stocks), “Interstellar” begs to be seen on the large-format Imax screen, where its dense, inimitably filmic textures and multiple aspect ratios can be experienced to their fullest effect.

[dapperfvck-arc]

BASIC.

FULL NAME. John Constantine NICKNAME. officially, Conjob, mostly from his days on the punk scene. On the esoteric side of things he may be referred to “The Laughing Magician” or, more derisively “a petty dabbler”. BIRTHDAY. May 10 (by original Hellblazer canon, he was born in 1953, but I’ve taken it upon myself to adjust his birth year to some time in the early 70s give or take) ETHNIC GROUP.  Caucasian NATIONALITY.  English (with strongly implied deep Russian roots) LANGUAGE.  English, basic grasp of most major European languages, profound fluency in dead/magical/infernal languages SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Bisexual af RELATIONSHIP STATUS. Verse/continuity dependent, though this blog is fairly heavily multi-ship. However, it should be noted that on the MCU continuity, John is in an exclusive, committed relationship with Matt Murdock ( @dcviltongued ) CLASS. Middle to lower class. Is very good at getting fast money (scams, gambling, dealing in magic artifacts/antiques of questionable quality and veracity) so may appear to be better off at certain times HOME TOWN / AREA. Liverpool, England, but has been living in London since leaving the family home at 17. CURRENT HOME. Heavily verse/continuity/thread dependent. John is a frequent traveller. PROFESSION. Somewhat verse/continuity dependent. Really it’s just a matter of whether or not he charges for exorcisms or magic rituals. My personal endgame for John is legitimacy. Like becoming a preternatural PI (and sometimes mundane) for hire or whatever. As a general rule though, his profession is con artist. He’s never worked a honest day’s work in his life. The closest he ever got was when he was a “rock star”. He could also be considered a professional gambler, patronizing horse tracks, underground card games, legal casinos, and I imagine can hustle at pool. Scams range from blackmail to using his reputation as an occultist to take advantage of people willing to pay for spell work.

PHYSICAL.

HAIR. Short and usually rather messy. He rocks bedhead pretty aggressively. May be shaved and very short on the sides and styled into a faux to actual mohawk. He’s very blonde despite not getting very much sun as a general.  EYES. Electric blue, often almost fever bright. Deep and captivating, extremely intense straight on. NOSE. difficult to pin down due to the range of styles in which John have been drawn. Usually broad and more or less regular, occasionally somewhat crooked from being broken, though by and large, it’s portrayed as straight. Some artists, such as Moriat and Sean Murphy have drawn it as narrow and somewhat aquiline. I guess, I tend lean toward the former despite my deep love for Murphy’s interpretation of John, simply because I feel like my choice in FC is somewhat based on Tim Bradstreet and Leonardo Manco’s artistic interpretations of John, both of which I honestly adore just as well. FACE. Yet another loooong explanation here, I’m sorry. Artists tend to lean between giving him either a square face, classically handsome appearance (Steve Dillon, John Higgins, Ron Tiner, most of artists that have drawn him in the DC titles he’s appeared in), a broader, more every man appearance (Sean Phillips, Leonardo Manco to some degree, though later proved quite capable of drawing him stunningly handsome, and Tim Bradstreet), however still attractive but somewhat more haggard, stubbled, and/or slightly seedy in appearance, and finally a sharper, more diamond shape to his face featuring high cheekbones, a pointed chin and fine bone structure (Sean Murphy, Marcelo Frusin, and Moriat). Once more, in reference to my face claim for John, I suppose I tend to favour a more classically handsome appearance, simply because I like the idea of him having a pleasant, almost trustworthy face given that he is a con artist and considered an extremely good one (sometimes even the greatest con artist alive but idk whatever), and I feel like looking as dodgy as say, Frusin’s interpretation, I can’t imagine him being as successful as he is, you feel me? That guy looks like he’ll fuck you over for a corn chip. LIPS. Sensuous, faintly lined from his his smoking habit COMPLEXION.  Like any good Englishman that tends to move about by night and quite a bit dressed, John’s very pale. I do think he has a faintly pronounced undertone of pink. This colour will get brighter when he gets drunk, aroused, angry, or the exceedingly rare instance that he’s embarrassed  BLEMISHES. None SCARS. Aside from the scarification, which is better off detailed in the next section, and I ALWAYS FORGET TO MENTION THIS, he definitely has a long scar over one eye from a demon trying to cut it out with a blade. Since many magic rituals call for blood, I head canon that he also has faint scarring on his arms because he doesn’t practice human or animal sacrifice and his own blood instead.

TATTOOS. Arse tattoo of pine tree courtesy of Swamp Thing being a punk bitch, ritual tattoos faded into appearing as scarification. HEIGHT. 5′11 (184.34 cm) WEIGHT: prolly ranges between 150-160lbs (140 at his lightest) BUILD.  Long legs, somewhat of a broad upper torso, can be a bit soft in the middle. In general, he’s rather thin but his musculature is not usually very defined. In other words, no big, sexy pecs or cut abs. If anything he’s more sleek lines and narrow planes. ALLERGIES.  none USUAL HAIR STYLE. Freshly fucked USUAL CLOTHING. Dark suits, usually dark blue or black and trench coat, usually tan, has also been portrayed as black, yellow, or a mossy kinda green. In theory it could be said that these aren’t just differing interpretations from artists but that John owns coats in different colours, styles, and fabrics, but his favourite is the tan, longer style

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR. abandonment, amounting to nothing, not being able to protect those he cares about ASPIRATION. survival, making some kind of mark on this world, a measure of contentment POSITIVE TRAITS. Compassionate and determined, above all. Though not about to admit to it, he's still deeply idealistic. Strangely forgiving. He doesn’t really keep grudges. Loving, considerate, understanding, and rarely judgmental  NEGATIVE TRAITS. Those good things up above? They’re encased in a shell of harsh cynicism and apathy. Depending on his mood or particular part of his life depends on how hard a shell he is to crack. He may also experience depressive periods where he doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything and just wants to drink. VICE HABIT.  Chain smokes, drinks, frequency dependent on what’s up in his life, though I do not believe he’s an alcoholic, sorry, because lol look, drinking a lot doesn’t mean you have a dependency. Indulges in drugs infrequently, mostly hallucinogens and weed, though I also tend to head canon that he flirted with a cocaine habit while fronting Mucous Membrane.  FAITH.  It’s complicated GHOSTS? Duh. He sees them plain as any living person AFTERLIFE?  Yeah, but uh, he doesn’t consider them eternal respites. They’re just planes of existence that he can either enter, leave, or pull people out. REINCARNATION? Maybe? ALIENS? I meeeeaannn....technically in DCU he’s acquainted with the concept of aliens and may or may not have fucked Hal Jordan POLITICAL ALIGNMENT. Liberal ECONOMIC PREFERENCE. comfortable  SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION. working class warlock EDUCATION LEVEL.  Predominately self-educated. His frightfully intelligent and has been cited as having genius level intellect. Although I’m not sure I’d go so far as confirm that, I do thing he’s extremely clever and pragmatic. School bored him to tears and he was the type of kid the counselors and teachers say “exceedingly bright but unwilling to apply himself”. He reads voraciously, has an eidetic memory, and isn’t afraid of putting himself in new situations.

FAMILY.

FATHER.  Thomas (dead, murdered by the Family Man) MOTHER.  Mary Anne (died in child birth) SIBLINGS.  Cheryl (murdered by husband, currently residing in Hell), an unnamed twin brother referred to as the Golden Child or Boy, the true heir to the Laughing Magician (stillborn, soul was later absorbed by John in trippy magic ritual, only to be expelled later in life when it was revealed that...uh...he was influencing John’s destiny to be perpetually sabotaged. Hellblazer’s a weird comic, you guys) EXTENDED  FAMILY.  Gemma, his niece. They have a rather stormy relationship. Chas, his best mate. Lovers may also be included in this. NAME MEANING. John: Jehovah has been Gracious/Shown Favour (lmao) Constantine: Constant, steadfast, generally referred to as “The Constant One”

HISTORICAL CONNECTION. Is strongly implied that John’s related, if perhaps distantly, to Constantine the Great.

FAVOURITES.

BOOKS.  Prefers non-fiction MUSIC. Rock music, most notably 70s and 80s era punk rock. Likes the Pogues. Given the stack of evidence that John skirts the edge of the Goth scene cos he likes the aesthetic on women, I have a feeling he’s adopted into his music tastes. The Cure, Smiths, and Cocteau Twins in reference to an 80s mixtape John might make. Which i question the Smiths heavily, but The Cure and Cocteau Twins seems fairly legit. I bet Kit loved the Cocteau Twins. In that same vein of thought, although I tend to think John doesn’t like electronic music, he may have adopted some industrial bands into his preferences but he’s not about to talk about ti any time soon. DEITY.  Whichever one doesn’t hate him HOLIDAY.  doesn’t care MONTH. same SEASON.  Fall PLACE.  London or New York, in the case of sentimentality that he will never be able to get back to, the years when he was bumming around Ireland with Brenden and Kit WEATHER. Overcast SOUND.  He’s a city boy through and through, even if he may get frustrated with society on a whole, so he’s comforted by city sounds more than silence SCENT.  A freshly poured pint, the first cigarette of the day, skin and sex sweat TASTE.  Gin FEEL. He’s a sensualist. Body to body, breathing another person’s breath, his please, another person’s pleasure, his pleasure, all that good stuff. I also feel like he enjoys being drunk or stoned for the sake of having his thoughts dulled to a degree. He’s the sort of man who has lots of thoughts and situational observational input. John is basically perpetually mentally overstimulated and he likes the relief from that in inebriation. ANIMAL.  Fox  NUMBER.  hahaha idea numerology man COLOUR.  warm and neutral tones

EXTRA.

TALENTS. So many. He’s a jack of all trades in a lot of ways. He can pick a lock, displays some artistic talent in that he can draw very intricate magic circles and sigils, if you consider that John wrote Venus of the Hardsell, he’s clearly got some ability to express himself in lyrics and words, i like to think he can play guitar, is apparently good with delicate craftsmanship (he used to help Dani build furniture for her dollhouses. This is canon by the way), suppose you could say he can sort of sing, but that’s debatable, and of course he’s very manipulative and speaks very well, is educated enough to be able to bullshit through various situations. TURN ONS. Total ass man, loves a great ass on a man or woman, dark hair, dark eyes, strong men, he’s a switch, but loves being manhandled and dominated to a degree, by either gender, honestly, danger, open affection, being wanted, loved, and cherished. So many things, honestly. John Constantine is easy. TURN OFFS.   Hardcore kink HOBBIES. Sleep, pub crawls, pretending he’s normal, reading TROPES. Con man with a heart of gold, charming bastard, unrepentant rogue, urban magician, supernatural detective, living legend AESTHETICS. smoke, chalk dust, wind and rain swept streets, London after midnight, narrow, dark alleys, haunted places, rumpled bed sheets, messy hair, dive bars, wicked smiles, deep kisses

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC. Ewan McGregor // comic caps from various issues he’s appeared ALT  FC. Keanu Reeves for my filmverse OLDER  FC. Don’t have one as yet YOUNGER  FC. Ewan McGregor   VOICE  CLAIM.  Jason Stathem

Tagged by: @vamptrampbamf Tagging: lmao fuckin everyone.

[thelifetimechannel]

[shelantern]

We’ve got Wally back. What about Aya?

By now, a lot of DC fans are aware that the amazing Young Justice has been revived for a third season.

It was a long and hard-fought battle, but we did it, and I couldn’t be happier. Finally, it seems, after all these years, JUSTICE. All that binge-watching has finally paid off!

But what of Green Lantern: The Animated Series?

According to this source, GL:TAS was, much like Young Justice, axed because merchandise wasn’t selling. As we all know, animated shows depend heavily on toy sales. But, also like Young Justice, GL:TAS had/has a dedicated fanbase and creators/actors who loved the show:

According to this article, Bruce Timm (co-developer of GL:TAS) “said that the Green Lantern series was one of his favorite projects of all time.”

Jason Spisak, the voice of both Wally West and Razer, occasionally posts YouTube videos featuring Wally reading the Classics and Razer reading Bedtime Stories (seriously it’s amazing, you have to check it out).

Josh Keaton (the voice of Hal Jordan) has reprised his role as a Green Lantern in the new animated show Justice League Action, leading me to believe he’d have no qualms about returning to GL:TAS.

I have little doubt that if the series were to get the green light again, there would be no reluctance to return to it on the part of the actors and creators involved. It was such a great show, who wouldn’t want to come back to that? (but I guess maybe we should ask them; if we get confirmed support from the creators/actors the way Young Justice did, it could be a huge boost to our cause).

So, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, I’m very much going to use Young Justice as a model for creating a movement to renew GL:TAS. The revival of one animated DC masterpiece has instilled in me a new hope, and I plan to spread that hope wherever I can.

According to this article, the President of Warner Brothers Animation has stated on the subject of YJ’s renewal: “The affection that fans have had for Young Justice, and their rallying cry for more episodes, has always resonated with us.”

To me, this is hope. Hope that maybe Warner Bros. does care what the fans want.

But, before I get to the “how to revive the show,” I need to address the “why.” Why should you care?

Obviously, there are going to be those of you who are still invested in the show even after all these years such as myself, and I don’t think it will take much convincing for you.

And then there’s those fans who think to themselves, “Sure, I enjoyed that show while it was airing, but it’s over now, move on.” Maybe you thought the show would only get worse if it got another season. Maybe you thought the cancellation put it out of its misery. I’m here to tell you that, with what the showrunners had planned, that show could only have gotten better. Here are just a few plots and characters that could have been:

Sinestro Corps

Blackest Night and possibly a Black Lantern Ilana

John Stewart

Alan Scott

Fanboy Kyle Rayner

Simon Baz

do you need more reasons at this point

Maybe you never watched the show before, in which case I highly recommend it. It is not currently on Netflix (I’ll get to that) but it is for sale on Amazon in high-def Blu-ray. I guarantee, if you’re into smart dialogue, laughs, heart-wrenching romance, compelling characters, wonderful voice-acting, iconic animation, entertaining fight scenes and an overarching plot which ties everything together into one big beautiful bow, then this show will not disappoint. (Plus, Bruce Timm worked on it, ‘nuff said.) THIS POST actually gives several concise, amazing reasons to watch GL:TAS (especially if you are a Voltron fan)

Maybe you flat-out hated that show; fine. But the very least you could do is reblog this post to help spread the word. Please???

I will be drawing a free Lantern persona for anyone who reblogs this post and asks me to draw them one. (Lantern-sonas? is that a thing or am I the only one using that term?)

So, ah, there’s your motivation. Now onto the “how”:

As with Young Justice, Netflix is our biggest ally in this fight.

As I have stated, GL:TAS is not currently on Netflix; however, it was at one point. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Netflix from the entire YJ campaign, it’s that they’re very receptive when it comes to customer feedback. They have the most courteous, most friendly customer service I have ever encountered, and they care what their viewers want to see.

So, Strategy #1 would be to contact Netflix’s customer service and politely request that GL:TAS be put back on the list of shows available for streaming (the key word here, as always, is politely). If enough people ask, I believe Netflix will take it into consideration.

If we do get GL:TAS back onto Netflix, then we would need to begin the process of endless binge-watching to bring the number of viewers up. Leave positive reviews. Same thing we did for YJ.

I’m not going to lie to you guys, this is an extremely uphill battle. Not only was GL:TAS less popular than YJ, but Netflix isn’t giving it the same kind of attention or watching it as closely. To make matters worse, the Green Lantern movie bombed, so retailers were even less willing to take on any GL:TAS merchandise.

But no one can deny how frickin’ good this show was, or the fact that it has received a lot of support from fans. Even if we don’t get a new season, I would still love to at least see Razer and Aya go on to be in comics or other shows like our girl Harley Quinn. But, I am gunning primarily for a new season, because this show entirely deserved it. So don’t give up hope! Shoot for the moon and fall on the stars.

The most important thing, to me, is getting enough people behind this cause. Because I can’t do it alone. My voice alone cannot be heard above the millions of others. But if we can be loud enough (loud but polite), maybe, just maybe, we can get Warner Bros. and Netflix to notice us. All this YJ hype has opened a window of opportunity, and it’s now or never.

Even just posting GL:TAS stuff all over social media can help. I, personally, am partial to the hashtag #RenewGLTAS. It’s short, sweet, and to the point.

And, of course, if you have other suggestions or strategies about how to support the renewal of GL:TAS, please reblog and add your ideas to this post! Once again, I cannot do this alone and require all the help I can get!

Never, NEVER give up hope, because the moment you do is the moment all is lost.

[theloniousbach]

50 YEARS OF GOING TO SHOWS, Pt. 5: The Anglo-Celtic-HILLBILLY Connection

As it usually does, it starts with a guitar player, somebody doing something amazing that I THINK I understand.  As with the concerts of my rock'n'roll beginnings--Johnny Winter, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and then, Jorma, Dickie Betts, Garcia, on to Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, my way into traditional American folk music was a flat picking guitarist.  

My original concert pal said, "Come up to Lawrence (where he and many other good friends went to college at KU), I've got you a ticket for Norman Blake."  Sure, that guy from those Dylan albums ("John Wesley Harding" and "Nashville Skyline"), okay.  Bluegrass was barely on my horizon and country was but negatively, very negatively.  Blake was probably on his first or second solo tour (his St. Louis show at Wash U is a legend around town) and he was all piss and vinegar, pure flash, bringing the gospel of Doc Watson (I later found out) to us hippies.  He was amazing, so much sound from one guitar, basically from one line.  Within chord shapes, he was playing amazing melodies (fiddle tunes) that had complexity and coherence and variation.  If I hadn't seen it, I would have sworn there were more people than just him.  But it was just him.  I was an acoustic player, a strummer who didn't really know about fingerpicking, but this was from outer space.  It really stayed there too, I'm afraid. 

Blake was on my radar--but just vaguely.  It took being Focal Point regulars to develop a context and to get another chance.  Norman was yet another friend of Judy and Eric and he did a special fund raising show for us at Music Folk (50 or so people in with the instruments resonating with us); there was another show, maybe the next night, maybe another tour, at the actual building in Maplewood.  He was so solid, so tasteful, so seemingly ancient with original songs no less.  He only occasionally put on the after burners (and for that I was more disappointed than I should have been), but there was lots of music there.

By then I'd discovered Doc Watson who did always remind you that he could, well into his 70s, flat out play with stunning fiddle tunes and tasty little fills in the actually ancient songs he sang.  There were two shows at the Sheldon Concert Hall, utterly captivating.  But what was even better was when we made a vacation of the 2001 National Folk Festival in East Lansing, MI, where he did two full blown sets and some workshops, including one with several acolytes.  The one who stood out was David Doucet from Beausoleil who turned Cajun tunes into flat pick tunes.  There was lots of great music there, including Barrachois from Prince Edward Island, but I wanted to soak up as much Doc as I could.

He was a treasure and was one work pals nominee for the most important American musician (yes, ahead of Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Parker, Bill Monroe, and well see that was the problem is it BB King or Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson or...).  I do think he's in there for remaking the music through elevating the guitar and keeping a key tradition alive.

Focal Point brought in other pickers, including Dan Crary (flashy but a real student) and David Grier (technique but that's about it) and, intriguingly, Beppe Gambetta who also had technique galore and the unique love an outsider can bring but also an original conception with amazing revoicings of tunes ("Church Street Blues," "Plains of Waterloo") that became jazzy while staying grounded.

Ah, guitars.

There have also been blues players at Focal Point.  Dave Van Ronk and Geoff Muldaur have long standing 1960s Folk Revival bona fides (and therefore great stories), but let me also include Andy Cohen as yet another direct student of the Reverend Gary Davis.  A thorough acolyte, Cohen, a nice Jewish boy presumably, played more of the religious songs than the blues, picking hard on a big old Gibson.  His singing is also street preacher aggressive.  I like the others more, but he’s a friend of the Steins, so I’ve seen him at some close range and appreciate him keeping alive the tradition.

Van Ronk as the Mayor of Macdougal Street also knew Davis and others.  He was there to welcome Bobby Zimmerman when he got to town from Minnesota.  His singing was at once gruff, gentle, and wry with very solid right handed finger picking.  He helped Davis get to gigs in Boston from New York and recalls him sleeping and playing at the same time the whole way.  I also try to play “Sporting Life Blues” because of his story about this tale of dissipation and world weariness that he got from Brownie McGee.  He showed it back to him and asked how old was he when he wrote it?  23.  Van Ronk had all that history, a fondness for spinning such yarns, and a great ease at being at Focal Point. 

 Muldaur revived his career on either side of the Millenium with some nice finger picking, a nice grasp of the repertoire, and a subtle voice.  He’d been up in Boston with Jim Kweskin but also had stories.  The best one was about a late party with John Hurt where after a time some marijuana appeared.  It took a couple of circuits of the joint for Muldaur to notice that Mississippi John was taking his turn too.  “Did you all have reefer in Avalon, John?”  “Oh sure, all the time....But when we had money, we drank gin.”  I’m glad I’ve got this link to the heritage.

He is now The Tom Hall, but we saw this local hero with his National Standard Resonator guitar at Focal Point but also at bookstore gigs.  He too knows a broad blues repertoire and has been around town through thick and thin for years.  He was in the Geyer Street Sheiks with my former guitar teacher Steve Mote and the bulk of the rest of the band became the Flying Mules who were a great jamming swing band with Marc Rennard leading the way on fiddle.  I got to see Mote up close even as ill health and a generally anxious situation closed in on him.  He was supremely talented with huge ears, giving me a broad palette of guitar technique in blues finger picking, Celtic, flat picking, jazz chords, even some Bach.  I was eager for all of it and sure did appreciate Steve’s wide enthusiasms.

Mike Seeger was another friend of Focal Point.  I saw him once and Ellen and Sam saw him another time on May 19, 1996, so Seeger lead the Happy Birthday for Sam.  There were different stories and different roots and the aesthetic of the country dance, not quite as earnest as his older half brother (who I didn’t ever see), but distinctive and welcoming.  Seeger’s New Lost City Rambler counterpart, Tom Paley, also played Focal Point a few times.  He was twitchy and cranky, sort of professorial too but coasting with tenure more than just being a natural teacher.  

If we didn’t see Pete Seeger, we got Sam to see Arlo Guthrie once, maybe twice.  Certainly at the Sheldon, possibly at an outdoor concert.  Arlo sure has stories but he backs it up with a mix of fine playing and an encouraging manner with young players, including his kids.

St. Louis is a strong old time town with an equally active contra dance community.  I’ve mentioned Marc Rennard from the Sheiks already, but he is one of a first tier that also includes Geoff Seitz, once with the Ill-Mo Boys with Jim Nelson and Curtis Buckhannon.  Mote was in the Goney Boat Band and there have been ongoing iterations.  It is out of a general 20s-30s vibe stretching back at least to the Sheiks that create the tradition that Pokey LaFarge comes out of.  So that’s been floating around in my local music experience.

John Hartford had St. Louis roots, so we got to see him including when he was sick.  I recall both a solo show and a later one with his string band around a single mic.  Both were transcendent with strongly rooted tunes and off handedly brilliant playing, mostly fiddle, but then those oh so smart songs of his.

Sam Bush is a Cardinals fan, so I’ve got to see him play a couple of times and will again.  He is such an enthusiastic and fluid soloist.  He is definitely new grass, so he has a distinctive and original sound. But he is the Sonny Rollins to Grisman’s questing on his own terms John Coltrane on the mandolin,  We saw Grisman on the tour to support his Klezmer album with some members of his band, the legendary drummer Hal Blaine, and not Andy Statman.  I’m glad to have seen him ande value all he has done, but Bush is easier.

But I wrap up with the remarkable Bruce Molsky who I will see anytime he comes to Focal Point.  He is rock solid and brings a distinctive old time fiddle, guitar, banjo, and singing to any project.  He’s only been solo or, two weeks ago, with a string band.  He has Metis tunes, rachenitsas, a Joseph Spence tune, from his albums, but he is right there with the likes of Aly Bain and Ale Moller when they incorporate his music with Swedish and Shetlands or with Andy Irvine in a old time/Irish/Balkan mash up or with Finnish musicians like Arto Jarvela and Anon Engelund.  He is so welcoming, so interesting by being so interested. That’s what the music is supposed to do.

[theloniousbach]

Fifty Years of Going to Shows, Pt. 1: The First Decade in Kansas City (mostly)

A photo of a flyer of Led Zeppelin’s 11/3/69 show at Memorial Hal in Kansas City, Kansas, showed up in my FB feed.  I was there; it was my second concert; and I was 14 years and 6 weeks old.  So the first one, Johnny Winter, was somewhere in the late summer or fall before then.  I declared the 9/4/19 Hot Tuna show as the 50th Anniversary but that’s not strictly accurate.  It will do just fine though.

It prompts this series of reminiscences of the magic of live music in my life.  That was the intoxicant (well, except for that Jefferson Airplane show in October 1970), but it still has been addictive.  But--and this is speaking as a Deadhead--seeing the show has always been more important than the party.  I’ve only recently taken to writing my souvenirs and even setlist curation came along later, thanks to the Dead.But I do have these memories and will indulge myself with a series of souvenirs.That Johnny Winter show got my hooked (blues, guitar solos on top of guitar solos, and loud).  Winter slid along the stage in a trance; I somehow even recall a purple velvet jacket setting off his long white hair.  Brother Edgar came out to play organ, including on an extended “Tobacco Road” that was part of the show in those days.  I would see Winter again a couple of times in KC, mostly with And, made up of Rick Derringer and other members of the McCoys.  Those were more rock’n’roll (hoochie koo, don’t you know) than deep blues but he was a hell of a player.  He was here in St. Louis just a few months before he died.  I considered going but didn’t and so missed closing that circle.

That Led Zeppelin show sucked.  It was short, they used borrowed equipment, and Bonham was drunk and knocked over a cymbal stand more than once.  

Somehow I wasn’t deterred.Memorial Hall--3500 seats maybe, also home to professional wrestling--was the primary venue for my very early days in the 1970s.  Show <5 was Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, including Eric Clapton.  That was my only time to see him and it was right at the time when he just wanted to be a member of a band.  So, he did do “Crossroads” as a showcase but he was restrained and tasty, dammit.  I wish I knew their repertoire and appreciated how those players were interchangeable on albums by Dave Mason, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, and again with Clapton including in Derek and the Dominoes.

We snuck in there to see the end of BB King’s set one night and wished we’d paid for the whole show.  This was pre-celebrity days, so it was a Black crowd and I have to think the show was better for it.

Memorial Hall is also where I sort of saw Jefferson Airplane, hampered by empty stomach excitement, Ripple, and brownies.  At the same time, though I felt very small and the music was very loud, it is the 10/24/70 set list that survives that is the one I remember.  So maybe I wasn’t as brownied as I thought.  The “We Can Be Together>Volunteers” opener was striking and “The Fat Angel” (Casady on a droning rhythm guitar) was hypnotic.  It was enough though to shift exclusively to booze and keep my head at shows.

I also recall a wonderful Dicky (well, actually, Richard for this tour) Betts show with a large band that did bluegrass and country (Vassar Clements was in the band, but I think there were some horns) as well as blues and rock and a gigantic “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”

My one bit of the Dead early was seeing the New Riders of the Purple Sage with Loggins and Messina as a warm up act.  It was an actual date with an actual young woman and, though I saw her for a while more, I was a bit too transfixed by the music.  Misplaced priorities.  I saw Loggins and Messina another time in that venue and the horn section was particularly developed in making the tunes so unique.  A middle show along the lines of their live double album with the wonderfully jammed out “Vahevala” was perhaps elsewhere (I nominate Cowtown Ballroom of which I will say more shortly).

Bonnie Raitt with Jackson Browne was a good pairing, though she was better.  And there was  Poco still doing the core repertoire with that long jam tune that came from Messina and relied on Rusty Grantham pulling magic out of the pedal steel.

I did finally the Grateful Dead in that good old hall twice in 1972 and once in 1977, but there is at least one separate installment on that universe to come.

But what a place!

Cowtown Ballroom, an old skating rink, run by a veteran of Bill Graham’s operation was a slightly later haunt.  It stands  out for 11 pm Hot Tuna shows that went on and on.  That was my regular taste of San Francisco.  Loud, loud, loud and maybe too jammy.  That is, I sensed that between Jorma jamming on and Papa John Creach’s fiddle, poor Jack Casady had to play three dimensional chess to anticipate the note that would pull it altogether.  It was brilliant but not a powerful as him at full throttle.  Still I loved those shows for the promise of the possibilities

The other Cowtown act was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in the classic “Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy” quintet, doing Kenny Loggins songs before he was Kenny Loggins, all sorts of roots music before that’s what we called it, and great versatility with some jaw dropping fiddle excursion and/or with other instruments from John McEuen.  Now their warm up act for 4 shows in 14 months was a comedian named Steve Martin who was really funny the first time and I wanted my friends to hear it the second time.  By the third time, it was stale.  By the fourth time, I started doing punch lines ahead of him first to my friends and then to a wider circle.  I was getting his laughs from 20-30 people just enough of the rest of the crowd to throw off the rhythm.

But, I’d go to lots of Cowtown shows: Badfinger (Beatle tinged, but not the Fabs themselves, and I’ve never seen any of them, not Macca nor even Ringo’s All Starr revue), the KC Symphony playing on the floor to reach a new audience.   Zappa twice--with Flo and Eddie in the band and Steely Dan on its first tour (Zappa was sneering) and the Waka Jawaka big horn section show--enough to convince me that he was quite a guitar player.

Freedom Palace was another venue for a while, bigger than Cowtown, maybe even than Memorial Hall.  It was certainly easier to spread out in.  I remember it for guitar shows, Johnny Winter And and Mountain.

Municipal Auditorium was the big venue of 12,000.  It was cavernous and sound wasn’t good in those days.  Stephen Stills on the tour that included a set with the Memphis Horns was a little clunky.  Neil Young supporting Harvest was better in the same space, but it wasn’t Crazy Horse.  Crosby and Nash were next door in the Orchestra Hall and they were magical with the same show as “Just Another Stoney Night.”  Crosby wisecracked (except there was a standard bit of interchangeable patter it turns out) and the acoustic guitars rang over glorious vocals on the key parts of that fabulous repertoire. I saw Crosby and Nash with Jeff Pevar in Pittsburgh courtesy of Ellen’s brother in the 1980s and that was pretty special.  

But I saw all 4 as part of that groundbreaking 1974 tour, one of the first big Bill Graham national tours.  Jesse Colin Young and then the Beach Boys opened fabulously.  The churning guitars from a dark stage hinting at a tune that I couldn’t quite place before Bam! lights on and it’s “Love the One You’re With” is as dramatic as anything I’ve seen.

I need to get back to Municipal Auditorium but let me stay outside for a lackluster Allman Brothers Band show with the Brothers and Sisters line up.  Dicky at least, possibly Gregg too seemed off and maybe Chuck Leavell hadn’t quite found his place.  But that was a hard time for that band.  Over at the football stadium, the Rolling Stones did not deploy the inflatable phallus for us in 1975 but they kicked it out hard following Chaka Khan and The Eagles as openers.  Jagger’s energy was amazing and Keef had that band, including Billy Preston on keys and at least Bobby Keys on sax, able to turn on a dime.

Okay, I had learned the Municipal Auditorium lesson and knew to sit on the floor as close as possible.  That worked on back to back nights for Stevie Wonder the first night for a heavy “Innervisions/Talking Book” set list with maybe some of “Fulfillingness First Finale” songs being road tested.  It was funky and loose for us hippies but the Motown professionalism was something to behold.  The next night was Weather Report for the first time, Jaco was there but more restrained than a later show at an old movie theater, The Midland.”  Opening for Weather Report was a Richard Thompson-less Airport Convention.  But Dave Swarbrick was leading the festivities and I mentioned this show to him when he was at Focal Point here in St. Louis with Martin Carthy.  It is both true that he barely remembered it but that, yes, it was weird.  I wish I paid more attention.

Besides Weather Report later at the Midland, I best remember there a strong strong Little Feat show building on the momentum of “Waiting for Columbus.”  I guess Lowell George was not that happy then, but that was one of my favorite eras for the band with a double jointed rhythm with guitars, keys, and George’s voice sailing over it all.  For both shows, I was sitting fairly high overlooking the banks of keyboards Joe Zawinul and then Billy Payne had deployed.  My favorite Weather Report era actually is with Alphonso Johnson rather than Jaco, so the earlier show at Municipal Auditorium suited me better.  Jaco’s flash was still unique and “Birdland” was catchy not an ear worm, but on the whole Wayne Shorter was given less and less space.  Still, Shorter and Zawinul together on “Badia” or even “In a Silent Way” leading into “Boogie Woogie Waltz” was a high point at both shows.

Since I’m fusioning, I liked Chick Corea’s Return to Forever tour in support of “Romantic Warrior.”  Though Stanley Clarke showcased “Bass Folk Song” mostly solo and the acoustic but bombastic “Romantic Warrior” grabbed me more than guitar, piano, synthesizer surges.

I saw two Headhunters shows from Herbie Hancock with lots of rhythmic fun/k and even pyrotechnics.  He couldn’t help but play beautiful Fender Rhodes.  But what I really liked was seeing the Mwandishi band at a proper jazz club with sit down dinner courtesy of a friend’s parents.  That band had all the fusion elements, rhythm and electronics, but there were three horns for Hancock to arrange and an acoustic piano so that he could work into and out of “Maiden Voyage.”  

One of my most favorite shows ever but obscure as can be was somewhat fusion-y, The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood playing to 100 people max in a funny little venue in a converted dry cleaner establishment near 39th and Main in Kansas City.  Hahn had played with Gary Burton after Larry Coryell but before Pat Metheny and had been at Monterey with John Handy.  He was playing a Les Paul in overalls and grew a beard.  Mel Graves, bass, and George Marsh, drums and who showed up with David Grisman in the 1990s, were also jazzers gone to seed.  Hahn was from Wichita and they hooked up with an organist/singer who played with Dave Mason and then the 1980s Crosby Stills and Nash named Mike Finigan.  He had been in a Lawrence, KS, band with Lane Tietgen who had a batch of countryish songs that nonetheless had both clever words and similar spaces for soloing.  I was captivated and saw them two nights in a row.  Only a few of us in the world ever saw them, but they were an amazing amalgam of sounds.

I had to leave town to see Bob Dylan, but see him I did by going over to St. Louis to see him on that stunning tour with The Band.  They’d settled into them opening and closing the first set together with a The Band interlude.  The second set was Dylan acoustic, the Band, and then a burning ending.  I recall that our show got “Desolation Row” in the slot that often went to “It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” so that was a treat.  But, the key songs from both of them were there.  I saw a 1979 show in Chicago courtesy of a friend there, a more sprawling set and band, plus more songs from albums I didn’t know as well.  I wasn’t drawn back into the Dylan universe then and really haven’t been back.  I did see a couple of Never Ending Tour shows--2004 and 2007 with Elvis Costello--but I am once again in the midst of passing on what could be my last chance to see such a seminal influence.

But I have my memories.  Dylan and others are part of this first decade of listening.  I never saw a Beatle or Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison.  But I did get into this game when giants walked the earth.

So I have my memories.

Next, probably, more jazz and fusion in KC and Chicago; Focal Point and its predecessors; jam bands; separately, the Grateful Dead cosmos; and jazz recently.  Possibly, European Tradition Art Music (lobbying for this as more accurate than “classical” because only a small part of the tradition is Classical)