#l.a. riots

[vizrecon]

[abi-eads]

Tumblr Blog Website

80's (tumblr.com)

I post 80's content, specifically of rock bands such as Motley Crue, KISS, L.A. Guns, Twisted Sister, Queen, Quiet Riot, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses . Every once in awhile I will be posting singles like Amy Winehouse, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Eric Carr or SLASH.

[boricuacherry-blog]

The Trickle Down of the Trial of the Century

Some said the country saw a major shift on a subject that had historically been framed as a private matter.

More broadly, advocates reported at the time that the number of donations to battered women's shelters and other women's organizations rose nationwide. The numbers of calls to shelters also increased, indicating that more women were comfortable coming forward about their abuse.

"When we think about the warning signs, especially for progressing to lethal violence, the absolute top early warning sign is strangulation," said Angela Hattery, professor of women and gender studies at the University of Delaware and co-director of its Center for the Study & Prevention of Gender-Based Violence. "Many domestic violence homicides are preceded by strangulation."

Though media coverage of the Simpson trial widely portrayed Black Americans as being supportive of him, some say that Black people had a complicated relationship with Simpson and that generalizations about the community should be avoided.

"If you remember, Black people had said, 'Well O.J. is not one of us. He's not Black. He's transitioned out of being a Black guy because of who he is, because of the women he dated, because of the woman he married, because of where he lives, because of his notoriety,'" said Davis. "So, it couldn't have been just Black people being happy that O.J. got off."

If Brown-Simpson had been Black instead of White would her murder have led to a media frenzy?

"I doubt it," she said. "I see those murders all the time, and they're not televised."

In the political space, nonprofits that serve survivors, such as the Jenesse Center, have to constantly lobby politicians for funding to provide transitional housing and other services. Moreover, survivors who call law enforcement for help too often have their children removed from their homes and placed into the child welfare system.

[safety-pin-punk]

Punk History Resources: Vol 2

This is a compilation of resources found and recommended by various alternative bloggers, each of whom are credited for their contributions. This started because I was getting SO MANY asks about resources such as videos, books, and websites to use to learn about punk history. Admittedly, my own list wasn't that long, so I thought it was best to reach out to some others and share their knowledge with everyone. Now, I'm hoping to make this an annual occurrence, where we all share our knowledge with each other. So thank you again to everyone who helped out with this!!

Link to Volume 1

@whatamibutabutteredcroissant @unfriendlybat @ghost--in-a-machine @mushroomjar

YOUTUBE:

Part 1 of The Decline of Western Civilization (It recieved mixed reception from people in the scene) (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

Part 3 of The Decline of Western Civilization (Focuses on the gutter-punks of 90s LA) (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

BOOKS:

Some Wear Leather Some Wear Lace by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje (It's mostly goth/horror rock/post punk/deathrock but I feel like it's adjacent enough for it to merit a read) (unfriendlybat)

Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag by Stevie Chick (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

Kids of the Black Hole: Punk Rock in Postsuburban California by Dewar Macleod (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk by Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

Left of The Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons by David Ensminger (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth by John Robb (A comprehensive history of Goth) (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

Punk Zines by Eddie Piller and Steve Rowland (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

The High Desert by James Spooner ( A graphic novel memoir of how the authro came into the scene) (ghost--in-a-machine)

Let Fury Have The Hour by Antonio D'Ambrosio (About the band The Clash) (anonymous submission)

MOVIES / DOCUMENTARIES:

Masque (A 10 minute doc about the Masque club in LA) (whatamibutabutteredcroissant)

ARTICLES:

History of Anarcho-Punk and Peace Punk (mushroomjar)

Late 80s and Early 90s Puerto Rico Hardcore Punk (mushroomjar)

The Jewish History of Punk (mushroomjar)

Japan's Impact on Punk Culture (mushroomjar)

The Forgotten Story of Pure Hell, America's First Black Punk Band (mushroomjar)

The Black Punk Pioneers Who Made Music History (mushroomjar)

Why Poly Styrene is Punk's Great Lost Icon (mushroomjar)

Alternative to Alternatives: The Black Grrrls Riot Ignored (mushroomjar)

Abandoning The Ear? Punk and Deaf Convergences Part II (mushroomjar)

Race, Anarchy, and Punk Rock: The Impact of Cultural Boundaries Within The Anarchist Movement (mushroomjar)

Street Medic Handbook (safety-pin-punk)

ZINES:

Sticking To It (safety-pin-punk)

So You Say You Want An Insurrection (safety-pin-punk)

All Power To The People (safety-pin-punk)

How to Survive a Felony Trial: Keeping Your Head up through the Worst of It (safety-pin-punk)

Collectives: Anarchy Against The Mass (safety-pin-punk)

Social War on Stolen Native Land: Anarchist Contributions (safety-pin-punk)

A Civilian's Guide to Direct Action (safety-pin-punk)

Critical Thinking as Anarchist Weapon (safety-pin-punk)

Security Culture: A Handbook for Activists (safety-pin-punk)

Betrayal: A Critical Analysis of Rape Culture in Anarchist Subcultures (safety-pin-punk)

ETC:

The Anarcho-Stencilism Subreddit (people upload stencils for others to use for free) (mushroomjar)

I would love to make a Vol. 3 post next year, so if you have resources and want to share, PLEASE message me!! (Preferably DMs)

[omgthatdress]

United States of America! Part 1!

Zoot Suit, 1940-1945, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

They’ve needed reform for a long time, since the mid-90s-ish (when the 24/7 media cycle first became problematic (and I have theories on that too which I’m happy to discuss if anyone else wants))

Yes, please.

I mean, the 24/7 media cycle probably makes sense for crucial world news, but when it was applied to celebrity gossip it turned a relatively harmless pastime of being distantly titillated by (or judgemental over) the glamorous (or scandalous) affairs of ridiculously good looking people into unprecedented levels of media intrusion and loss of privacy.

I'd love to read your analysis. Honestly I love this blog because it's not Sussex or Wales bashing, it's reasoned analysis.

At long last, my theory on 24/7 news and media cycles.

So for me, there are four incidents in the '90s that are responsible for the devolution of media coverage. (Okay, so it's technically 1 incident in the late '80s and 3 incidents in the '90s, only because I keep misremembering when the '80s incident happened.)

Incident #1: Baby Jessica, 1987

Baby Jessica was a toddler (2 or 3) who was playing in someone's backyard and fell down an uncovered well and got trapped. Her rescue was/is considered the "origin event" of the 24/7 news cycle as coverage of her rescue was broadcast around the globe, live in its entirety. This is also the event that put CNN on the map in terms of international media - they had an on-site in-person presence the entire time (versus using affiliates or just checking in intermittently).

In other words, the journalists who report live from Ukraine or Afghanistan where bombs are dropping or the stormchasers that report on hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards - they're where they are today because of Baby Jessica.

Incident #2: Rodney King/LA Riots (1992) and the OJ Simpson Trial (1995)

I always associate these two events together because you don't get the OJ trial without Rodney King.

Rodney King was beaten by the police after being pulled over for a DUI in L.A. His beating was recorded by bystander witnesses, who later gave his footage to media, who broadcast it around the country. Public outcry led to the police officers being charged with excessive force and April 1992, they were acquitted. The riots began that afternoon and lasted a period of 6ish days, leaving around 60+ people dead, scores more injured, and thousands arrested. Four years later, Nicole Brown Simpson (OJ's wife) and Ron Goldman are killed. The evidence implicates OJ Simpson, who leads the LADP, media (via traffic reporters in helicopters), and the globe on a now-infamous car chase through LA before he's arrested. Simpson is later put on trial, which is fully televised and broadcast, and is acquitted of the murder charges. It's been alleged that OJ's acquittal is "payback" for the Rodney King acquittal in that OJ was acquitted to prevent LA from rioting again - YMMV on that but there's a collective societal understanding (especially more recently) that OJ actually did do it.

So, anyway, why these events are important:

the King beating was the first time that mainstream media popularly used bystander witness footage to augment their own reporting tactics and it really seemed to have cemented the significance of witness footage in media and history.

the LA riots were the first time that modern mainstream media broadcast images of 'the revolution' (if you will) to that extent, certainly around the US.

the Simpson trial was the first time that modern media televised a full court proceeding like that, ultimately leading to modern reality television (and in more ways than you probably think - the Simpson trial brought us court TV and programs like Judge Judy, but it also led to the Kardashian empire).

Of course, there are other instances where the media used bystander footage to tell their stories before Rodney King and there are other riots/revolutions that were televised before LA and there were other sensational trials televised before OJ - but these three events are seminal to pop culture and media in ways that earlier events weren't.

Incident #3: Centennial Olympic Park Bombing, 1996

During the 1996 Summer Olympics, a pipe bomb detonated, killing 1 and injuring about 100 others. A security guard, Richard Jewel, found the bomb, reported it to the authorities, and then helped with evacuations. The FBI named Jewel as a person of interest, which the media decided meant he was the suspect and the media treated him accordingly with intense scrutiny, surveillance, and harassment. Because the media treated him like that, so did members of the public. Eventually the FBI exonerated Jewel, he sued everyone, and the bomber was found after he bombed two more places.

I consider this noteworthy because this was the first time that the media led the witch hunt and then absolved themselves of any responsibility towards inciting public sentiment. (This happens again in 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing, this time by Reddit and social media, who wrongly accuse innocent men of being the bombers.)

Incident #4: Diana, 1997

Diana's death and the immediate aftermath, for me, is the culmination of all these toxic behaviors by the media. We have the media chasing their subject (the OJ Simpson chase), the 24/7 coverage of the accident and mourning (Baby Jessica and the LA riots), the use of bystander witness photos and footage (Rodney King), and the witch hunt to cast blame (Atlanta).

I really do genuinely think that if there had been institutional reforms on the media every step along the way when their behavior was problematic - specifically, when by reporting the news they put themselves into the news - then potentially Diana probably could have survived August 31, 1997, since the media wouldn't have been chasing her or potentially the public condemnation of the BRF wouldn't have been as consequential.

Don't get me wrong - the public still would have blamed the BRF. Mohammed Fayed still would've perpetuated the rumors that he did. But without the media, or the media running certain stories and certain claims without any fact-checking, I don't think it would've been this 25-year evolution for everyone to realize "okay, she's not totally blameless and they're not totally at fault."

But that's also the issue, too. When the public is feeling things so deeply, when is it appropriate for the reporter to interrupt with "actually, she didn't wear her seatbelt and got into a car with a drunk driver, that's why she died" or "actually, are you saying that it's more important for The Queen to comfort you and your feelings than to comfort her own grandsons, the actual children of the woman who died?" Grief makes people do and say very odd things so on the one hand, it can be excused but on the other hand, the media completely abdicated their responsibility to inform the public, choosing instead to exclusively inform the BRF.

So for me, the proper response after Diana had been laid to rest or the mood softened (or any time something cataclysmic happened like the riots, like OJ, like Atlanta) should have been the media's evaluation of the role they play in their reporting. The 24/7 media cycle means that when there's no news to report, the press becomes the news or the press directs how and where the news should be reported, the result of which is today's hyperpolarized news environment - full of bias, full of skepticism and disbelief, full of sensationalism, full of intense personalities, and full of big, hot feelings.

But of course, the challenge with that is we don't know when something is an inflection point in "the timeline" until long after it passes. On rare occasions we know right then and there - as in the case of Diana's accident, her passing, and the aftermath (I would also name, in US history, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2016 election as "we know we just had an inflection point" moments - not sure what equivalents are in the UK or in other countries or on the scale of international journalism). But in most cases, it takes years to fully realize and understand what had happened and what needs to change and in media specifically, no one has that kind of time because everyone has to move forward to bigger, better, newer things to keep audiences engaged.

I mean, there's a reason why traditional newsreaders like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings have gone the way of the dodo bird - no one wants facts anymore. They all want to be the first ones to break the news, who cares about the full story, and the public has been trained to demand opinion and perspective instead of fact. Which I feel can be traced back to the 24/7 media cycle and the unchecked behavior of the '90s media.

Anyway. Sorry it took me so long to get this out. I just kept forgetting. And also apologies for being a bit rambly.

[dragoneyes618]

L.A.’s largest Jewish neighborhood was the site of an anti-Jewish riot on Sunday, as a pro-Hamas and Hezbollah mob attacked Jews and blocked access to a synagogue where an Israel real estate fair was taking place. At around 11 a.m., rioters gathered outside Adas Torah Synagogue in the Pico-Robertson area and came mask/kefiyyeh-to-face against Jews who had come to rally in support of Israel, responding to a call on social media to turn out after recent Israel real estate events in other cities, including Teaneck, NJ and Toronto, drew antisemitic hordes, and one in Brooklyn was preemptively canceled because police would not guarantee the safety of attendees.

LAPD riot police responded to the chaotic scene and eventually cleared the area in front of the synagogue. But what happened in between is drawing ire from Jewish community leaders.

Political consultant Noah Pollak posted on X that he was at the synagogue and that the LAPD “let the Hamas supporters take over the sidewalk in front of the shul and block its entrance. In fact, LAPD had formed a cordon around the front of the shul to keep Jews out and Hamas supporters in. I tried to enter with my kids through the front door and was turned away not by Hamas supporters but by the LAPD. Anyone who wanted to attend had to use a secret back entrance.”

Shouting now familiar slogans including “Long live the intifada!” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” the crowd quickly grew violent, punching and shoving and weaponizing bottles, sticks, and even their sign handles to attack Jews. Bear spray was also used, including against journalist Cam Higby, who posted videos of the attack on social media.

Police made only a single arrest – for carrying a prohibited “spiked flag.” They are reportedly investigating two allegations of battery.

Echoing coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, many news outlets framed the incident as a spontaneous “brawl,” “outbreak of violence” and “violent clash” (CNN’s take was “Violent scuffles break out between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and counter protestors in Los Angeles”) – yet this was anything but a random, unforeseen occurrence. Community activist and former Los Angeles City Council candidate Sam Yebri posted on X that “these terrorists told us when and where they were coming. For a week, we pleaded with our elected leaders to speak up. Not one made a public statement condemning these extremists.” He said elected officials “told LAPD to stand down and not intervene… Fortunately, proud Jews and well-organized Jewish groups stepped up to prevent a mass casualty event and the total destruction of the Pico-Robertson.” The Palestinian Youth Movement LA and Code Pink LA were among those behind Sunday’s riot.

“It’s like the media [are] bending over backwards to be politically correct,” the founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, told The Jewish Press. “The people that appeared at the synagogue [in Los Angeles] were radical Palestinians, Arabs, others who were there to disrupt. There are no two sides to that story. There is only one side, there are the good guys, and the other, the evil guys.”

Yebri said what occurred in front of the synagogue is “a dark stain in the history of Los Angeles. Violent extremists who proudly praise Hamas and Hezbollah marched outside an Orthodox synagogue in America’s most heavily Jewish neighborhood outside of New York – where my kids go to school, where my family worships, where my family eat and shop – and brazenly terrorized Jewish Angelenos with impunity and without any consequence. These violent masked domestic terrorists bludgeoned Jews, vandalized synagogues, schools and stores, keyed cars, assaulted anyone who appeared Jewish blocked Jews from entering their synagogue, and chanted for the genocide of the Jewish people. These violent masked domestic terrorists are now dispersing into Jewish neighborhoods hunting Jews and causing more destruction and vandalism.”

Indeed, videos of so-called “Jew-hunting” on the on the streets of L.A. that same day have circulated on social media, one showing stick-wielding thugs exiting their car to attack Jews, and another showing a mass of screaming protestors, having moved on from outside the synagogue, making their way down the block of a Jewish neighborhood threatening residents.

“Pro-Hamas and Hezbollah extremists violently attacked American Jews in Los Angeles and the politicians ordered the police to do nothing to defend them,” wrote Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Radical leftists and Islamists are ruining our country.”

Late Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass issued statements denouncing the morning’s violence, specifically condemning the targeting of a house of worship. President Biden also issued a statement of condemnation.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, a Jewish woman and her husband were attacked and beaten at their children’s graduation at a Brooklyn elementary school last week. Members of an Arabic-speaking family at P.S. 682 in Gravesend threw the man to the ground, grabbed his legs, and kicked and punched him. To the tune of “Free Palestine!” “Gaza is Ours!” and “Death to Israel!” the man was put in a chokehold and assaulted with a sharp stiletto heel the couple alleged.

The Jewish mom and her husband, a Dominican who is Catholic, shared their story with the New York Post after police refused to classify the incident as a hate crime. The NYPD is now investigating the incident further. “They targeted my family because we are Jewish,” said the woman, whose 10-year-old twins witnessed the assault, and whose 16-year-old was punched in the face after trying to help his father. While trying to video the assault, the mother was also attacked, pulled by her hair from behind and knocked to the ground by a woman shouting, “I will kill you.”

“The other side is saying, ‘Oh, they started it,’” Hikind said. “We in the Jewish community should be very, very concerned about the future…I say that because unfortunately, there’s no leadership as far as I’m concerned. These incidents happen, there’s no plan, there’s no plan to deal with everything going on…There are so many situations that don’t even make the news, so things are even worse than what we think they are.”

In an incident which did make the news last week, a mob of teens attacked a 41-year-old hasidic man late one night in Williamsburg with traffic cones and bottles while shouting antisemitic slurs. The NYPD hate crimes task force is investigating.

As of May 21, antisemitic crimes were up 55% in New York City compared with the same time last year – amounting to 143 incidents, according to the NYPD. Nationally, the Anti-Defamation League reported a record high of 8,873 antisemitic incidents in 2023 – a 140% rise over 2022 – with 5,200 of those occurring after October 7. The period of October 7 through January 7 saw a 361% rise over the previous year. Figures for 2024 are not yet available.

“There are no consequences for antisemitism,” Hikind told The Jewish Press. The message violent demonstrators get, in his words: “You’re free. Go ahead and do it tomorrow again.”

[heavymetal]

This week in 1983, Quiet Riot learned that METAL HEALTH had officially hit #1 on the US album charts. It was the first heavy metal album in history to achieve that level of success, and it is widely thought to be responsible for bringing the L.A. music scene into the national spotlight.

[eretzyisrael]

by Noah Pollack

How hard would it have been on Sunday, given the quantity of police on hand, to move the Hamas group a safe distance away from the entrance to the synagogue and ensure freedom of entry and exit? And it’s not just that this was entirely possible—it’s that this would have been the right thing to do, consistent with basic American values. We don’t do heckler’s vetoes here, or mob rule, and we don’t let masked thugs push around good citizens in broad daylight. Or at least that’s what I thought.

It was only in talking to people on the outskirts of the protest that I learned that the event was still on—you just had to find the alleyway behind the synagogue and knock on the right door, and there’d be an armed security guard who would let you in. So we did end up attending—but through the back door. 

In the midst of all this, my wife arrived, and also first tried to go in the front door. She was also stopped by the police and told “You’re not going in and you have to leave this area.”

I guided her via text messages toward the alleyway entrance. It was only as we left the event that the street fighting really picked up in front of the synagogue and, later, in front of Jewish restaurants and establishments along Pico Boulevard. A friend of ours who owns a small kosher restaurant a block from Adas Torah texted us a picture that afternoon of her and her staff standing in front of their restaurant holding baseball bats and knives, ready to protect their business. I immediately thought of the rooftop Koreans during the L.A. riots. Why did it have to escalate like this? Because, as they have realized on elite college campuses and in blue cities across the country, anti-Israel activists understand that they enjoy something like immunity. They can’t murder or severely beat people, but pretty much all other criminality—vandalism, graffiti, trespassing, harassment—will go unpunished. It’s one thing to understand that from watching the news. It’s quite another to witness it—to have to rush your kids away from a synagogue because Hamas supporters are getting violent outside and the police are letting it happen.

The groups organizing and carrying out these regular campaigns of violence across the country are well known. They fundraise for and promote their criminal enterprise openly. They boast on social media about carrying out violence. Their assaults are documented on video from a dozen angles. They routinely break numerous state and federal civil rights and hate crime laws. They could be prosecuted under a half-dozen different statutes. But it never seems to happen. So it is very difficult to reach any other conclusion than this is all quite intentional.

If you think that’s unfair, just look at the statement released yesterday by Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. She pledged to take three actions in response to the Pico pogrom: convene meetings, increase coordination between the LAPD and Jewish institutions, and ask for more state money for security. Notice anything missing? The mayor of Los Angeles isn’t even pretending that she will ask law enforcement to prosecute criminals who target Jews.

[mcgnagallsarmy]

Top 10 Spuffy fics I’ve read (Feb 2024)

Dear Slayer by Elsa Frohman [PG-13]

Season 7 AU, based on the speculation that Spike might come back as a "living" vampire.

Drive by Holly [NC-17]

Freshly turned and very grumpy about it, Buffy finds herself in a weird place. One where her friends smell like food, her former mortal enemy smells like heaven, and the so-called love of her life has made it clear that killing her is on his to-do list. Throw in some overly zealous army guys and this is not Buffy's idea of a party. So she and Spike decide to hit the road at least long enough to figure out why neither of them can hit anything else. And since they're both single and free, well, Buffy wouldn't say no to a distraction from the never-ending laugh riot that is her life. And Spike can be very, very distracting. Good thing soulless vampires can't fall in love or she might be in trouble.

Fireworks by RavenLove12 [NC-17]

The gang is throwing a beach party for the 4th of July in hopes it will lift Buffy’s spirits and help her find a new love. Trouble is she’s already falling for someone they don’t expect.

Found by CupcakeCute [PG-13]

Begins between TGIQ and Power Play, continues post-NFA. Buffy learns of Spike's resurrection from an unlikely source and immediately sets out to make things right as The Apocalypse breaks out in L.A. Spike/Buffy pairing, some Angel/Cordelia.

The Kind of Anticlimactic that's… Not by EllieRose101 [PG]

Hellmouth activity has been almost worryingly absent of late, and with less trouble in Buffy’s life, she’s had nothing stopping her from spending extra time with her lover… Except maybe she has that backwards? (Alternative Season Six.)

Phoenix by EllieRose101 [NC-17]

Spike saved Buffy at great personal cost—something she hopes to repay. (Goes off-canon near the end of Once More with Feeling.)

Ready by sweetprincipale [NC-17]

AU early season 5. Riley and Buffy are still together and something big happened over the summer- a little bundle of joy is on the way. Buffy is not so joyful about how Riley is now treating her. She's ready to be seen as the Slayer and woman she still is, and Spike doesn't object to lending a hand (or other parts).

Spike's Girlfriend by EllieRose101 [PG]

Spike’s in love and the Scooby Gang are sick hearing about it—Buffy most of all. (Alternative Season Six.)

Under The Influence by NautiBitz [NC-17]

A few nights after their engagement spell, Buffy has to watch Spike. Problem is, a psychedelic demon may have just spritzed her with a mind-altering substance. Will Spike seize the moment? Or will they just end up naked? HMMM.

You've Got The Look by Geliot99 [NC-17]

“Buffy?” he mumbled as something soft brushed delicately across his eyelid. “Don’t open your eyes,” she said quietly, her voice flat with concentration, “or you’ll get poked with the eyeshadow brush.” He paused, motionless beneath her. “I’ll what now?” “Just hold still.”

[falloutboylyricss]

Fall Out Boy and Places

note: this post only includes names of specific places, both real and fictional

Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

"I'm deep with futures like Chicago / No, Glenview never meant a thing to me, she never meant a thing to me" - Growing Up

Take This to Your Grave

"Pete and I attacked the laws of Astoria with promise and precision" - Saturday

"Landing on a runway in Chicago, and I'm grounding all my dreams of ever really seeing California" - Homesick at Space Camp

Chicago Is So Two Years Ago (title only)

"But there's a light on in Chicago, and I know I should be home" - Chicago Is So Two Years Ago

From Under The Cork Tree

none

Infinity On High

"Put love on hold, young Hollywood is on the other line" - The (After) Life Of The Party

"And everyone's looking for relief, United States versus disbelief" - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave

"New York eyes, Chicago thighs, pushed up the window to kiss you off" - I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers

Folie à Deux

"Erase myself and let go, start it over again in Mexico" - I Don't Care

"Let's hear it for America's suitehearts, but I must confess, I'm in love with my own sins" - America's Suitehearts

Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet (title only)

"Plant palm trees on Lake Michigan before it gets cold" - The (Shipped) Gold Standard

"Said, 'I'll be fine 'til the hospital or American embassy'" - What A Catch, Donnie

"And you're a bottled star, the planets align, you're just like Mars" - 27

"A Roman candle heart, keep us far apart" - Tiffany Blews

"Have you ever wanted to disappear and join a monastery, go out and preach on Manic Street?" - 20 Dollar Nose Bleed

West Coast Smoker (title only)

"Got my degree in the gutter, my heart broken in the dorms of the Ivy League" - West Coast Smoker

Save Rock And Roll

"Did you trip down twelve steps into Malibu?" - The Mighty Fall

"Bel Air baby, did you get dressed up?" - The Mighty Fall

"But we are alive here in Death Valley, but don't take love off the table yet" - Death Valley

"When Rome's in ruins, we are the lions, free of the Colosseums" - Young Volcanoes

"Americana, exotica, do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?" - Young Volcanoes

PAX AM Days

"Cargo and despair, all American made" - American Made

American Beauty/American Psycho

"You know you look so Seattle, but you feel so L.A." - Irresistible

"She's an American beauty, I'm an American psycho" - American Beauty/American Psycho

"Take me down the line, in Gem City, we turn the tide" - Uma Thurman

"In between being young and being right, you were my Versailles at night" - Fourth Of July

"There's a room in a hotel in New York City that shares our fate and deserves our pity" - Twin Skeleton's (Hotel In NYC)

MANIA

none

So Much (For) Stardust

Heaven, Iowa (title only)

"6 AM, Mulholland Drive, Moonlight Sonata and I" - Heaven, Iowa

Misc.

"I wanna put the Midwest home again" - Alpha Dog

"Sometimes, when I'm in Heaven, I get forgetful of the Earth" - Lake Effect Kid

"And joke us, joke us 'til Lakeshore Drive comes back into focus" - Lake Effect Kid

"I love you, Chicago, you make me feel so summer fling" - City In A Garden

"You know the world can get my bones, but Chicago gets my soul" - Super Fade

"Captain Planet, Arab Spring, L.A. riots, Rodney King" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"Oklahoma City bomb, Kurt Cobain, Pokémon" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"Nuclear accident, Fukushima, Japan / Crimean peninsula, Cambridge Analytica" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"More war in Afghanistan, Cubs go all the way again / Obama, Spielberg, explosion, Lebanon / Unabomber, Bobbitt, John, Bombing, Boston Marathon" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"Stranger Things, Tiger King, Ever Given, Suez" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"Elon Musk, Kaepernick, Texas failed electric grid" - We Didn't Start The Fire

"Great Pacific garbage patch, Tom DeLonge and aliens / Mars rover, Avatar, self-driving electric cars" - We Didn't Start The Fire

[mercurygray]

HBOWW2 Rewatch: June-August 1943

Since Week 2's episodes really only take us through 3 months of 1943 there's not a lot of big picture stuff to get caught up on.

But man, oh man, are there some big things happening elsewhere.

June: The Zoot Suit Riots take place in Los Angeles when a group of sailors on leave get into a fight with Mexican American youth near the waterfront, leading to retaliatory action from many more sailors and soldiers in the following days. The riots last ten days, and are only stopped when the Army and Navy declare L.A. off limits to military personnel. (This is not the only race-related act of violence this month, but it is certainly the most well known.)

Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud are named co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation. This institution would challenge the legitimacy of the Vichy government and provide a unifying force for French forces abroad and at home. It will also function as a provisional government in Algeria, which has recently been liberated during the North Africa campaign.

The Tuskegee Airmen have their first encounter with the Luftwaffe as six P-40 Warhawks are attacked over the island of Pantelleria by 12 German Focke-Wulf 190 fighters. Pantelleria has recently surrendered and will serve as a jumping off point for the invasion of Sicily, which begins in July. (Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz is currently serving as the head of Mediterranean Air Force Command.)

The invasion of Sicily starts on July 9th as a combined US, British and Canadian force lands at points around the island, starting a month-long race by General Patton's forces to move from Licata in the south to Messina in the north in an effort to catch the Germans before they can evacuate to the mainland. (Sadly, most of the Germans do make it off the island.) Both this campaign, and the North Africa campaign that preceded it, are launched to redirect resources away from the Eastern Front - a move that largely succeeds.

Speaking of the Eastern Front, the battle of Kursk begins on July 9. It is the single largest battle in the history of warfare, and is a turning point for the entire European war. The use of air support in what is largely a tank battle leads to one of the single costliest days of aerial combat.

On July 19, Allied Air Forces bomb Rome, which leads, in some large part, to the resignation of Mussolini as Prime Minister on July 25th, ending a 17 year dictatorship.

On July 27th and 28th, the RAF bomb Hamburg. High winds and drought conditions lead to the greatest single-day loss of life in wartime as more than 30,000 city residents burn to death after bombs set the entire town aflame.

Also in June, the new town of Oak Ridge, Tennesee, which will house workers for the Manhattan Project, officially receives its first residents, and "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer" by The Song Spinners tops the Billboard singles chart.

Heading into August, Operation Tidal Wave, the bombing of Ploesti, Romania, begins as 177 B-24 bombers attack the oil plant. This will be the first of many, many bombing runs on this target, which is a sigificant source of fuel for the Axis. (And you can't outrun Patton in Sicily or fight tank wars in Russia if you don't have fuel)

The United States Women's Air Service Pilots, or WASPS, is officially formed under the auspices of Jackie Cochran and Nancy Love. The program consolidates 2 previous groups in an attempt to leverage civilian pilots for ferrying duties.

So. It's August of 1943. The Allies are eyeing mainland Italy for their next assault. The Russians are slugging away in Kursk. The 8th Air Force has just gotten through the Regensberg- Schweinfurt raid. September will probably hold much of the same. Or ...will it?

[metalhealth-willdriveyoumad]

Hottest Drummer Tournament Round 1

Dennis Wilson

Band(s): The Beach Boys

Albums/EPs as drummer:

Surfin’ Safari (The Beach Boys) Surfin’ U.S.A. (The Beach Boys) Surfer Girl (The Beach Boys) Little Deuce Coupe (The Beach Boys) Shut Down Volume 2 (The Beach Boys) All Summer Long (The Beach Boys) The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album (The Beach Boys) The Beach Boys Today! (The Beach Boys) Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) (The Beach Boys) Beach Boys’ Party (The Beach Boys) Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys) Smiley Smile (The Beach Boys) Wild Honey (The Beach Boys) Friends (The Beach Boys) 20/20 (The Beach Boys) Sunflower (The Beach Boys) Surf’s Up (The Beach Boys) Carl and the Passions — “So Tough” (The Beach Boys) Holland (The Beach Boys) 15 Big Ones (The Beach Boys) The Beach Boys Love You (The Beach Boys) M.I.U. Album (The Beach Boys) L.A. (Light Album) (The Beach Boys) Keepin’ the Summer Alive (The Beach Boys)

Pacific Ocean Blue (solo) Bambu (solo)

Propaganda:

He was the chick magnet of the band, and for good reason- he's the classic troublemaker with a heart of gold, loved his brothers more than anything, was the only one of the band who actually surfed (very sadly ironic considering drowning was how he died) and was actually very troubled beneath his cheeky exterior. He's also a good drummer and a big goofball, which I love

Mitch Mitchell

Band(s): The Jimi Hendrix Experience // Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames // The Dirty Mac // Ramatam // The Riot Squad

Albums/EPs as drummer:

Are You Experienced (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) Axis: Bold As Love (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) Electric Ladyland (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) The Cry of Love (Jimi Hendrix) Rainbow Bridge (Jimi Hendrix) War Heroes (Jimi Hendrix)

Sweet Things (Georgie Fame)

Ramatam (Ramatam)

Count to Ten (Wishful Thinking) Fiends and Angels (Martha Veléz) Mail Order Magic (Roger Chapman) Black Dog (Greg Parker) What Means Solid, Traveller? (David Torn) Long Walk Back (Junior Brown) Midnight Daydream (Bruce Cameron)

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from GQ Hype

Filled with cozy, Hemingwayesque signifiers of midcentury masculinity (think: taxidermy and artfully-tattered boxing gloves), the restaurant seemed perfect for a breezy, late-autumn hang in the West Village.

But there’s one problem: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey have burgers on their minds. And while this place boasts a surplus of dead animals nailed to the wall, it somehow only serves snacks and salads in the afternoon. And as Bomer points out, Corner Bistro—a pub that, in his opinion, serves some of the best burgers in town—is just a six-minute walk away.

The British-born Bailey—who, in his black sweater, floppy beanie and overstuffed backpack, looks more like a backpacker who just rolled out of his hostel rather than one of the streaming era’s top heartthrobs—waxes rhapsodic about In-N-Out, the California burger institution, which he recently tried for the first time.

He asks the suave, Old Hollywood-handsome Bomer, who spends most of his time in L.A. with his husband and three teenage sons, where In-N-Out falls on his personal burger index. “Our boys are really good judges of burgers,” Bomer says, and for them, In-N-Out is up there—but so is the burger at Corner Bistro. And how can we send Bailey—the Viscount of Bridgerton himself—back to London without tasting New York’s best?

Our location, midway between Stonewall Inn and Julius, two of New York’s most historic gay bars, is apt. The project we’re here to talk about—the epic new Showtime series Fellow Travelers, in which the pair star—tips its hat to the legendary 1969 riots that happened in Stonewall, but goes even further, telling the story of gay liberation in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part epic love story, part political thriller, Fellow Travelers begins in 1950s Washington, D.C., with an illicit affair between the strapping Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Bomer), a State Department official savvy to the ways of power, and the earnest, energetic Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Bailey), the kind of wide-eyed idealist who goes to D.C. wanting to change the world. When they first meet, Tim is a conservative Catholic boy; his passionate, intensely erotic affair with Hawk both liberates him and throws him off his path.

Through the decades-spanning run of their relationship, the series takes us from the Lavender Scare of the 1950s—when a McCarthy-era policy that institutionalized homophobia expelled many “sexual deviants” from government, resulting at one point in a suicide a day—to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

The series is based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name. But where Mallon’s book generally focuses on the 1950s and the explosive romance between Hawk and Tim, the series expands the Fellow Travelers universe to reach through the decades and cover the Vietnam War protests of the '60s and the White Night riots of 1979.

“It's been taught that LGBTQIA+ history begins at Stonewall,” says Jelani Alladin, the actor who plays queer Black journalist Marcus Hooks in the series. “It’s a kind of false narrative. Queer people have been around taking a stand for themselves since the beginning of time.”

It feels like a disservice to call a series so sexy and so compelling as educational. But Fellow Travelers does serve as an important history lesson for younger generations who may not fully understand the battles fought before their time. “It was a really dark period in American history that obviously we're not taught in school,” says executive producer Robbie Rogers, who prior to his work in film and TV was the soccer player who became the first openly gay man to compete in a North American professional sports league. “We're not taught LGBT history.”

When the first episode of the series came out in late October, a viral clip showcasing Bailey and Bomer in a particularly kinky sex scene had Gay Twitter shuddering with excitement. In the scene, Bailey’s Tim uses his power as a sub to persuade Bomer’s Hawk to take him to an important D.C. party. “I’m your boy, right?” he tells Hawk. “Your boy wants to go to the party.” In surely one of this year’s hottest scenes on film or TV, we see Bailey hungrily suck on Bomer’s toes and gamely attempt to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier in the series, Hawk gives Tim the name “Skippy” after thoroughly dominating him in bed, a gesture of affection as much as of ownership.

Sex is a powerful, world-shifting force in Fellow Travelers, but it’s also a Trojan horse. While the early episodes bristle with erotic energy, every exchange between Bomer and Bailey is about power as much as it is about sex. And the further you go into Travelers, the more you realize what’s really at stake when these two hit the sack.

“Even in the ‘50s, they had joy,” Travelers creator and writer Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Philadelphia, says. “You might be struggling, but that doesn't mean every moment of your life you're a victim of oppression. Behind closed doors they had a life—it's just that at any moment, the police could come through those doors and ruin that life.”

That unapologetic approach to queer desire is still pretty revolutionary in a big-budget prestige series on a major network. Gone are the days when gay characters were allowed to exist onscreen as long as they adhered to respectability politics. In Fellow Travelers, the queer characters are allowed passionate, unapologetically freaky pleasures.

“There's no shame attached to that,” Bailey says. “And I do think Matt's character detonates something in Tim. It's a gift to meet someone [who does the] radical act of helping you feel less shame and understand that intimacy that can be explored in so many different ways.”

Religion is a big theme in Fellow Travelers. Hawk is bound by covenant to his wife; Tim struggles with Catholic guilt. And like many queer people, Bomer and Bailey themselves have both had to negotiate religion within their queer identities.

“It took me a long time to dismantle it and to question what I was being told,” Bailey says. “Religion is interesting because it’s the voice of the shame but also [a source of] relief. There was this person that I could speak to—and I definitely did have that full conversation with a higher power. But the contradiction is brutal. To really lean into that as a gay kid who's not born into a gay family, you see both sides of what religion can provide, which is scathing judgment—as I felt it looking back—but also a real space for catharsis and nourishment.”

Bomer says he has an individualized approach to religion: “It's something that I've found for myself over years and years of exploration. It's just highly personal that way.” Bomer is proud to have raised his kids in a truly intersectional environment. “They go to an Episcopal school, but they're in school with Muslim kids, with Jewish kids,” he says. “We gave them that experience and then let them find their own way from there.”

On the way to Corner Bistro, Bomer gives Bailey a capsule tour of gay West Village. “That’s an iconic lesbian bar,” he says, pointing out Cubbyhole on West 12th street. Later, he asks if we’ve ever been to Fire Island. “You can have any experience you want there,” Bomer tells me, when I confess my anxiety around Speedos. “It's not just one thing.”

These streets bring up certain memories for Bomer. He tells us about coming up as an actor in New York in the early 2000s, at one point living in “a renovated crackhouse in Brooklyn.” Later, he worked two jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment he split with a fellow aspiring actor—none other than Lee Pace, the famous, and famously tall (6′ 5″, if you don’t know), actor and Internet Boyfriend who Bomer has known since high school. “I’ll tell you how long I've known Lee Pace,” he says. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.”

As gay men are wont to do, trust that the group veered off-topic to talk about vocally-prodigious divas. Bomer has just seen the Broadway production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. And when he finds out that I grew up in the Philippines, he tells me how much he loves Lea Salonga, the Tony-winning Filipino Broadway star who appears in the production.

We ask Bailey if he’s familiar with her. “Do I know Lea Salonga?” he asks. “She was Fantine!” he retorts, referring to her role in Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary.

From there, we fall into a Filipino diva rabbit hole, talking about former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (currently appearing in a well-received West End production of Sunset Boulevard that Bomer tells Bailey they must catch together), Mutya Buena of the Sugababes (an iconic U.K. girl group that Bailey and I separately saw live recently), and Darren Criss (who Bomer directed on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—technically a straight male, but one who earns diva status for his formidable vocals and the dance he did in a red speedo on Versace).

As we near the pub, a thirty-something woman walking hand in hand with her man does a hilariously convincing impression of the Distracted Boyfriend meme at the sight of Neal Caffrey and Anthony Bridgerton casually strolling through West 4th Street.

“Her neck!” Bailey says, audibly concerned.

In Corner Bistro, with sandwiches and coffees in hand (Bailey decides on a classic burger and a grilled chicken sandwich), we settle down in a cozy booth and talk about the points in their careers where Fellow Travelers found the actors, the hard-won representation Hollywood’s queer community has been fighting for for decades, and the LGBTQ+ talents of color they’d like to support on their own projects.

Bomer, of course, has been famous since the early 2010s, when he became a star on the series White Collar, and along with Neil Patrick Harris, proved that openly gay actors could become leading men. Since then, he’s conquered Broadway (The Boys in the Band), won a slew of awards (Golden Globe and Critic's Choice trophies for The Normal Heart) and become a producer and director.

In the past, Bomer has discussed the way doors closed on him even as he was being celebrated for being an out gay actor. When asked about that now, he says, “I choose just to never look back in anger about anything. Ultimately, my career is a lot richer because I decided to be open with who I am.”

“It’s a wave of progress that Matt's been surfing and is at the front of,” says Bailey. “And it's been a real honor to be able to get on my boogie board next to him.”

Before he became a global star mid-pandemic playing the grumpy, furry-chested Anthony Bridgerton on the Netflix juggernaut Bridgerton, Bailey was an award-winning actor in both the West End and British television. Huge fame didn’t find Bailey until his early 30s, so when it did, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with his platform.

“I feel the responsibility immeasurably,” Bailey says. “I get it when people are saying you create a chair and bring people [to the table].” He talks about the connection between the civil rights movement and the queer liberation. “The Black queens are the ones who really started to fight,” he says. “It's amazing to feel politically activated. And if there's any project to do that, it's going to be Fellow Travelers. It will change the way I see myself in and the world I live in.”

The intersectionality makes the story Travelers is trying to tell even richer—most of all in Alladin’s scene-stealing portrayal of the conflicted Marcus Hooks, a pioneering Black journalist who pushes against segregation as he grapples with his own sexuality. “When I look at older men today, I'm like, You guys have endured so much,” Aladdin says. “From the Second World War all the way through to the AIDS crisis, it was nonstop life crisis after life crisis. To have been able to survive through all that, there needs to be a real, solid weight on the feet of [these characters].”

Part of the pleasure of watching Fellow Travelers is picking up on the cinematic references hidden in each scene. Hawk and Tim’s first interactions evoke the forbidden affair in David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter. When Hawk’s family settles in suburbia, the show evokes the Technicolor repression of the great Douglas Sirk melodramas. When Hawk and Tim run through the beaches of Fire Island in the ‘70s, that iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach in From Here to Eternity may flicker in your mind. And in some ways, the series plays like a gayer, hornier The Way We Were—an epic love story tossed on the tides of political change. (In this version, of course, the Barbra Streisand character is an eager foot-licking sub and Redford���s Hubbell Gardiner is a daddy with a pit fetish.) Fellow Travelers allows us to imagine an alternate timeline where queer love has always gotten as much screen time as cinema’s great heterosexual romances, giving other kinds of stories the chance at celluloid immortality too.

In the book, Hawk is described as being more handsome than Gregory Peck. But seeing Bomer in period-appropriate clothing, the Old Hollywood leading man I thought of was Montgomery Clift, the talented and ultimately tragic gay actor who starred in classics like Red River and A Place in the Sun. For a time in the mid 2010s, Bomer was attached to star in a Montgomery Clift biopic for HBO, to be directed by the great gay director Ira Sachs. “Ira is a genius,” Bomer says. “[But] I think that ship may have sailed.”

Still, when I press him about doing it in the future, he lights up. “You know, I’m [now] the same age Monty was when he passed away,” Bomer says. “I always thought it'd be really interesting to do a play about the last night of his life, when he's watching one of his old movies on TV. And he had this man who lived with him and took care of him for the last chapter of his life.There's an interesting play in there somewhere…. Maybe Liz Taylor swings by.”

What’s changed since the mid 2010s is that a lot of Hollywood’s current gatekeepers are queer people who were fighting from the bottom a decade ago. “It's the people, the gatekeepers who are now going, ‘We are going to make this [queer] story,’” Bailey says. “This narrative that gay people have to be closeted in order [for a project] to be commercial and in order for things to be interesting to people—it's been dismantled. But it's slow because it's not just straight people who think that—I think everyone believed that in the system of Hollywood.”

Nyswaner, who has been working in Hollywood since the early ‘80s, has seen that shift up close. “When I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ spoken aloud,” he says. “There was no conversation that I ever had with anybody about homosexuality. It was not just bad, it was the unspeakable thing—that's how terrified people were of us.”

And while he agrees that, in some ways, it feels like the LGBTQ+ community is once again losing ground on some rights, Nyswaner refuses to accept that there hasn’t been change. “Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Well, we haven't gotten anywhere.’ And I'm here to say, ‘Oh, yes, we have.’ Because actually you can turn on the television and find gay characters.”

Fellow Travelers is the culmination of a dream for a number of the men involved in the series.

“When I met Ron, he was talking about how he thinks about this as his lifelong legacy project,” Bailey says. “And I just said to him, ‘Whoever ends up going on this journey with you, I think it'll be the same [for them] probably.’”

“In some ways, Fellow Travelers is a span of my life,” Ron Nyswaner says. “I was an infant in the McCarthy era. And then I came out of the closet in 1978 and just danced and did cocaine and had multiple sexual partners—we didn't know what was coming, which was the AIDS crisis.” Nyswaner was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1993 for Philadelphia, the landmark drama about an AIDS patient who sues his employers for AIDS discrimination. In a way, the historical span of Fellow Travelers gives the battles fought in Philadelphia their context.

Rogers remembers being a closeted soccer player in the late 2000s, watching Tom Ford’s A Single Man and hoping one day to be able to find love and take control of his own narrative. And Bailey recalls, post-Bridgerton, realizing that he could suddenly write his own destiny and vowing to seek out “a sweeping gay love story.”

Bomer, meanwhile, says—laughing, but seemingly dead serious—that it’s his goal to play a queer character from every decade of the 20th century. “A queer Decalogue,” he says, referencing the Krzysztof Kieślowski classic.

Bomer’s next project might just help him do that. He’s currently producing a Steven Soderbergh film on Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned the sodomy laws in Texas in 2003 but started in the 90s.

There are many more stories to tell. And as our interview winds down, Bomer and Bailey start spitballing dream projects.

We talk about All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh, who’s revered for his portraits of gay intimacy. “Andrew Haigh has been a special filmmaker for years,” Bailey says. “I think [his film] Weekend informed actually how I approached the sex scenes in [Fellow Travelers].”

“I’d love to play Jessica Fletcher's queer grandson who moves back to Cabot Cove,” Bomer says, referencing Angela Lansbury’s iconic role in Murder, She Wrote. “He's inherited her house and he finds an old journal in her library, and it's a case she never saw and he takes up her mantle.”

And moments before the restaurant speakers suddenly start blaring George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” Bailey comes in with a killer pitch: “I’m obsessed with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an army of 300 gay lovers in [ancient] Greece. They partnered in pairs, this gay army, and they overthrew a Spartan army… I want to do that as a comedy.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bomer says.

“Just get all the queer actors together,” Bailey says, laughing.

“Lee Pace, everyone,” Bomer says.

“Where would we film it?” Bailey asks.

“Mykonos?” Bomer suggests.

“Flaming Saddles, down the road,” Bailey counters with a chuckle, referring to a gay bar in midtown.

“Oil us up and let’s go!” Bomer says.

Source

[askaceattorney]

Dear J'Luc K. Star,

You'd be surprised of the connections I've obtained and, at the time, Ms. Misham was only a child. Do you believe anyone would believe a forger would be a child, let alone arrest her for such criminality?

Perhaps, if the District of L.A. is filled with cold-hearted individuals that wouldn't riot about "protecting the children."

- Kristoph Gavin