#like “ill” or “kill” or fuck even “mississippi”

[kierensjpnjourney]

langblr i need help againnn...

does anyone have any tips on memorizing particles (is that the word for them?) and telling the difference between them? specifically る,ろ, そ i am REALLY struggling to memorize those three because they look so similar to me ( ｉ﹏ｉ )

so if you have any ways youve memorized those three..... please tell me ;;

[pesterloglog]

Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde

Act 4, page 1588

TG: im building up your house

TG: by the way why do you live in this weird compound

TG: do you host east european industrial raves

TG: nevermind the point is

TG: im out of grist

TG: so if youre done whipping that ogre like a rented mule

TG: maybe you could convert it into a grist windfall

TT: Right now?

TT: The spoils would sink.

TG: i dont know beach the thing first i guess

TG: unless you were planning on sailing that ogre down the mississippi with a runaway slave

TT: And then what?

TG: what do you mean

TG: you kill it

TG: release a shitload of grist

TG: maybe take one of your needles and puncture the base of its skull

TG: does it even have a skull

TG: or a brain stem

TG: can you find out

TT: That sounds malicious.

TG: what

TG: but you just rigged the thing with an oedipal harness and rode its torso like a log flume ride down a magical rainbow

TT: That was self defense.

TT: Murdering a wounded behemoth in its sleep strikes me as unseemly.

TG: this is bullshit its an unfeeling monster who gives a fuck

TT: Maybe you could replicate a pillow I could use to smother it.

TT: Make it a clean hit.

TT: I would use one of mine but they've all mysteriously gone missing.

TG: wow fuck ok

TG: you can either kill it for the loot or wait a couple hours for gristtorrent to steal more of johns

TG: but then again ill be pretty busy in a couple hours so make up your mind

TT: Does John know we've been sapping his grist yet?

TG: no but hes still got a ton so screw him

TT: Hold on, someone's messaging me.

TG: yeah me too

[ananapanini]

Sicknesses, Disasters, and Weather

Trigger Warning! descriptions of injuries and death! For example: mention of blood, burning, drowning, freezing, heatstroke, etc.

Side note before hand because it's technically relevant

A state that's down south and almost always has hot weather would feel warmer to others and be affected by the cold easier, while a state up north with colder weather would feel colder to others and be affected by heat easier.

Fighting over thermostats and cuddles ensue

(Most people go to Alaska when they have a fever, and to Georgia when they're going through a cold front (they'd go to Florida but he's chaos and Texas is,, Texas. Besides, Geo has blankets))

Wisconsin: *opening all the house's doors and windows to enjoy the nice warm 60 degree weather*

Texas: *on the couch in a bundle of 5 blankets* how the fuck are you not dead

Florida: *next to Texas, trying to steal some blankets* Sconnie, I love ya dude but I will not hesitate to set this house on fire to warm up

Colds/Flus

The states can get sick two ways, outbreaks or just catching it.

Outbreaks

If there are a ton of outbreaks of something, for example: flu season, in their state there's a 50/50 chance they develop symptoms for however long the illness would last for someone who actually caught it. Though they'd suffer through the symptoms, they wouldn't actually have it and wouldn't be contagious or anything. But! Just because they're not contagious doesn't mean the other states wouldn't back up when they hear the news, being coughed on is still gross even if it doesn't endanger your health.

According to last year's report Louisiana had the most influenza outbreaks, followed by Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas. So for that years flu season Louisiana would be sick and at least half of the others listed would also be sick.

Catching it

Now, they probably have really strong immune systems.

Or at least, they should but things can happen in the state that compromises that.

If there's a natural disaster, somethings changing in the state's government (new governor, new law, system change, etc), or there's riots impeding/distracting the state government their immune systems would be weak for however long it takes to readjust or fix the problem. During this time they can actually get sick, symptoms and all.

If this happened then the state would be contagious to the other states, immune system be damned. It'd be like when another person is sick, you have a chance of catching it.

On the rare occasion there'll be a state with a naturally horrible immune system (his name's Washington, someone please get him a cough drop and some water)

DC

He doesn't have people or land for outbreaks to affect him, only the government buildings.

Instead of having outbreaks he has government workers, if a handful of them or just the president gets sick he'll have the 50/50 chance of having symptoms.

Now, if the government is going through big changes or something is happening then DC will have a weaker immune system and would be able to get sick from the states. They honestly don't know if he could get them sick because he always self isolates and denies help when he is.

If there's some serious chaos going on with changes in government then he'll just straight up get sick. No catching it from anyone, nothing giving him a bug, he just develops symptoms of a really bad cold.

Recap:

Humans can't get states sick unless the state isn't at 100%, unless it's just an outbreak states can get other states sick no matter what, states can't get DC sick unless he's not at 100% leaving him as the designated caretaker when no one else wants to help (he would help regardless even if he could get sick, tis his job as parent friend)

Hurricanes + Tropical Storms

The way they affect the state depends how much damage was done and how their population reacts to it.

For example, a tropical storm or low level hurricane would maybe give Florida a bit of head rush or he'll get a little dizzy but nothing he can't ignore with a white claw. His people are used to them and honestly Don't Give A Fuck, if the house is fine and the car's still there we move on with our lives.

Then you have states that rarely get hurricanes and would panic when one hits, even if it's just a weak one. They'd have a headache, feel dizzy and sore.

Then there's higher level hurricanes, for those bruises will appear along with a migraine. Everything hurts and they're coughing up water, it's hard to breathe, and cuts from debris being thrown around by the winds are appearing everywhere.

In the end though, regardless of what scale it was, they're always left soaking wet and cold.

Earthquakes

First there's the feeling of a sea sick like nausea, that's the only warning they feel and only a few states (Literally just California and Alaska, someone please help them, the poor fault line babes) know how to recognize it instantly.

If they're outside of their own state then they'll get dizzy, balance is Gone and they fall over. If they're lucky enough to not hit their head or crash into something when they fall over then depending on the magnitude they could black out any number of times. I say black out and not pass out because while usually mixed up, blacking out doesn't always mean you loose consciousness.

Their vision goes completely, their eyes are open but all they can see is a dull black with staticky darker specks causing, well, static. They can't see if they try and if it's one of their first earthquakes they do try but it hurts to keep their eyes open, only worsening the feeling that their head is splitting open.

Sometimes their skin cracks. Sometimes if a highly urbanized area was hit and buildings go crashing they feel an invisible weight building up on their chest, it can lead to trouble breathing, or a broken rib, maybe multiple broken ribs.

Fires

There's two kinds of fires, fire season which is mostly for the western states and Florida who have the normal yearly stuff that the ecosystems need in order to function, and then there's when fires get out of hand and turn into disasters.

Fire Season:

Fevers that can range from low to high depending on how much land is burning, overheating when things, tiredness, dry skin, but overall manageable symptoms. Occasionally there are bad days but it's usually chill. It's not particularly nice, it sucks actually, but it's a yearly thing and they're used to it.

During the worse parts of fire season, for states with a ton of land on fire, smoke will come off them. They can suppress it but it takes a lot of energy. Statehouse living situation isn't the easiest because now it'd really suck to smoke out the house, others could get hurt, so they get good at minimizing it. (This mostly applies to California)

Irregular, Out of hand, or Man-Made:

A really high fever and burns slowly appearing everywhere. Smoke is harder to control and fills their lungs, making it hard to breathe. Sometimes they'll straight up faint, staying conscious while you're literally burning up isn't easy.

Death

They're immortal for as long as whatever they're a personification of exists. They can die just like any of person and it'll be painful but they always just,,, wake up. In the exact same spot they died except healed. If whatever killed them is still there then they'll die until it's over or someone saves them. If they die multiple times within a short period of time then every time they come back they'll have healed less and less.

Leftover Stuff

Floods = Initial flooding has them throwing up water and sometimes they can't breathe but afterwards it's more of just a cold, murky feeling in their chest (since these usually happen during big hurricanes just slap this on top)

Droughts = dehydration (dry skin, thirsty, insert symptoms of dehydration here)

Heatwaves = just, hot. For no reason. Air conditioning? Ice pack? Fan? Doesn't matter, they're hot.

Cold fronts = same story, different day. Blankets, jackets, and heaters don't matter or help much, they are cold. Depending how cold it gets and taking into comparison the usual temperature for their state they can develop hypothermia.

Tornadoes = Dizzy and disorientation. Bruises if they hit populated areas and destroyed stuff.

Dust Storms = trouble breathing, irritated eyes, more trouble breathing. Afterwards there's that feeling of when you went to the beach yesterday and suddenly there's the crunch of sand in your mouth.

Power Outage = they can't turn on or operate electric things, even living in the statehouse. For example, with the situation in Texas he wouldn't be able to turn on the lights, flipping the switch wouldn't do anything, but another state could do it for him (if they choose to help)

[finn-ray-nal-beads]

GUESS WHO'S BACK WITH ANOTHER FMK?! THIS BITCH. So last week it was Sackler, Altman and Massey. Let's fucking up the ante shall we?😈 Fuck, Marry, Kill: Clyde, Charlie and Flip. BITCH HAVE A GOOD EVENING AND I LOVE YOU!😘😘😘

@historyandfandoms50 YOU TRIFLIN’ ASS HO I KNEW YOU’D PIN ME AGAINST MY TOP GOD TIER BABIES LIKE FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU!

HERE’S MY CAREFULLY WORDED ARTICLE ON THIS IMPORTANT TOPIC: 

FUCK - CLYDE “HORSECOCK” RUSTY LOGAN 

THIS MAN IS A TOTAL SWITCH AND HIS DICK IS THE BEST DICK THIS SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI... PLUS I SEE HIM AS MY SUGAR DADDY IN THIS ENTIRE SCENARIO AND THAT TURNS ME ON LIKE HELLA... LIKE DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HOW HOT THAT SHIT MAKES ME. HE WOULD TOTALLY DO WHATEVER I WANTED TO DO TOO AND I WOULD COMPLETELY DOMINATE HIM NO CAP. LIKE HE IS SO EASY TO MANIPULATE THAT WAY...

MARRY - FLIP “BIG FUCKIN’ DICK ENERGY” MOTHERFUCKIN’ ZIMMERMAN 

I THINK THIS GOES WITHOUT SAYING BUT IMA SAY THAT SHIT LOUDER FOR THE DEAF PEOPLE IN THE BACK.... FLIP ZIMMERMAN IS MY ALPHA I AM HIS SUBBY BABY AND I LET HIM DO WHATEVER HE WANTS TO ME HOWEVER HE WANTS TO DO ME... PLUS HE’S LIKE THE MOST PROTECTIVE, SWEET, CARING, SARCASTIC, ASSHOLE OF A HUBBY AND THAT’S WHAT I LIVE FOR IN A RELATIONSHIP... IM A SAPPY ASS BITCH ON THE STREETS BUT A FUCKIN FREAK IN THE SHEETS WITH MY BABY... END OF SPEECH!

KILL - CHARLIE “DADDY” BARBER 

THIS WAS SO HARD TO DECIDE.... I LOVE CHARLIE WITH ALL MY HEART. HES SO FUCKIN SEXY BUT COMPARED TO THESE TWO MEN LISTED ABOVE I HAD TO DECAPITATE HIM... IM SO SORRY CHARLIE BABY PLZ FORGIVE ME ONE DAY ILL LET YOU STAB ME A MILLION TIMES OVER, BURN A CIGARETTE ON MY SKIN, FUCKING POUR LEMON JUICE OVER A MILLION PAPER CUTS ON MY ARMS, IDFK JUST PLZ KNOW I HAD TO DO IT BECAUSE OF THE MEN LISTED ABOVE... I LOVE THEM SLIGHTLY MORE. 

ONCE AGAIN... HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME... IM GOING TO GO CRY OVER CHARLIES HEAD ON A STAKE IN MY FRONT YARD NOW WHILE I GET DOUBLE TEAMED BY FLIP ASS FUCKING ME AND CLYDE PAINTING MY WOMB WITH HIS SEED.... THAT WILL CLEAR MY HEAD OF THIS INSANITY.... 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABE!🖤

[katehuntington]

Title: November 2nd Author: Kate Huntington Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: Season 8/9 (before Mary comes back) Characters: Dean Winchester, Reader. (Sam, Castiel, John, and Mary mentioned) Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Warnings: Angst, grief over loss of family, fluff, sad!Dean Word Count: 2276 words Summary: The 2nd day of November, the day Dean’s mother died, is always a tough one to get through. This time however, Y/N is by his side to offer him support. Author’s note: This is a sad oneshot, people. But on this day, November 2nd, the day when it all started, it’s more than fitting. Beta’d by @winchest09 & @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish

     The two on the display of the alarm clock flicks into a three as minutes slowly pass. 8.03 PM, it's almost time. Troubled, Dean lets the air escape from his lips and returns his gaze to the ceiling of the bunker. He hoped that after an exhausting hunt like the last, he’d be asleep by now. 

     It took the hunters four days to track down a ghoul in Savage, Mississippi. Add a fourteen hour drive back home to that and you’d think he’d be out like a light before even reaching his bed. Unfortunately, it’s quite the opposite and he wishes they had run into another job on the way over to Lebanon, so that at least his mind would be occupied. But with no new cases lined up, he remains lying on his back motionless, sheets pulled up to his chest, one hand behind his head. 

His jaw clenches as he thinks of the tragedy that struck so many years ago. After all that time it should be easier, right? It should be less hard to deal with days like these, time heals all wounds after all. But not this one. This wound is the foundation of all his illnesses, of all his problems, of his life.

He removes his hand from behind his head and settles back into his pillow, running his fingers through his hair. Again he glances aside at the neon numbers that tell the time. 8.08 PM now. He squirms a little, annoyed by the space he has all by himself. The bed is much cooler than usual, it seems bigger too. It’s because Y/N is missing from it. 

     He had withdrawn into his room a couple of hours ago and failed to invite her to come with him like he usually does. Now that he thinks of it, he has been giving her the cold shoulder for at least a week, so no wonder that she didn’t follow him to his chamber. Why does he do that? Why does he push everyone away who cares about him whenever life gets hard? He didn’t mean to ignore her on the ride home, he didn’t mean to snap when she adjusted the heater on the dashboard when she got cold. He didn’t mean to shove her hand away when she comfortingly laid it on his leg as a sign of support. Yet he did and he feels like an absolute dick. She is only trying to be there for him, to be the supporting girlfriend. But he can’t have it, he can’t accept it. If she witnesses how broken he truly is, why would she possibly want to stay with him? And yet treating her like dirt isn’t exactly delivering the message that he wants her with him either. Shit, he’s such an idiot. 

     Then the timepiece on the nightstand changes again, hitting 8.11 PM. His eyes linger at the display and he swallows back the lump that started to build in his throat. Eleven past eight, the moment the clock in Sammy’s nursery stopped ticking. The moment Azazel set foot in that room and fucked it all up.       Dean averts his gaze away again and shuts his eyes. Four years old at the time, but he remembers so many details. He remembers the intense heat from the fire, his mother’s horrifying screams, the smell of burning flesh, his father handing baby Sam to him. 

     Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don’t look back! Now, Dean! Go! 

     That’s when his mission started, that’s when the four year old grew into an adult. That moment right there changed everything. That moment when his mother died. 

     Soft creaking of the door interrupts his vivid memories and when he opens his eyes he sees Y/N, peeking inside his room.      “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she excuses herself timidly. “Just wanted to check in.”      “It’s okay,” Dean replies, voice raspy.      “I’ll get my stuff.”      Almost shameful, she moves into the bedroom and picks up her duffle bag, but Dean stops her.      “Where are you going?”      His questioning eyes are softer than they have been for the last couple of days. For the first time this week he seems genuinely worried about her and she ceases her actions.      “I can take a hint, Dean,” she returns, fiddling with the handles of the bag. “Look, if you wanna end this, I get it. I'll move out.”      “What? No!” He sits up, regretting every action or word that made her feel unwanted. “C’mere.”

     He can see that she has been longing for his invitation. Despite her efforts to hide it, tears shimmer in her eyes and it’s only now that Dean gets how scared she was. It couldn’t possibly be that she thought that he was going to break up with her, right? Insecure, Y/N moves closer and sits down on the edge of the bed. Bruising has started to surface on her right jaw, visible signs of the fight she had with the ghoul. He didn’t even ask her if she was alright.

     “I’m such an asshat,” Dean muddles, realizing the effects of his behavior as he grabs her hand and squeezes it softly.      His eyes meet hers and beg for forgiveness, but that’s not what she’s after. All she wants is to understand what is going on in that mind of his, why he’s building this Berlin Wall around himself.      “It’s alright,” she assures, glancing down at their locked hands as she moves her fingers over his battered knuckles softly. “Just… Please explain to me what’s wrong. If I did something to upset you, then I--”      “You didn’t,” he promises, trying to soothe her by gently cupping her face. “You think I’m acting this way because of you?”      She shrugs as her bottom lip begins to tremble. Unable to prevent her eyes from welling up, a single tear comes down her cheek, Dean wiping it away when it reaches his thumb. 

     To her, the signs were clear, though. He pushed her off, declined any affection and refused to talk to her. Maybe after being together for five months he got bored with her. Face it, Dean’s relationship track record isn’t very impressive; he hasn’t been able to hold on to a woman for very long. Why should she be any different?      “Hey, look at me.”      A pair of green orbs stare into her soul when she dares to meet them. The warmth coming from his dark pupils takes away some of the doubt, but not nearly all of it.      “You are the best thing that happened to me in a long, long time. You couldn’t possibly do anything wrong. This is not on you, you hear me?” he tells her, remorseful. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

     His eyes bounce between hers before he comes closer and presses a soft and tender kiss on her lips. It calms her down in an instant and she answers him gratefully. It’s amazing how Dean is able to wash away her insecurities, but then again he always had that effect on her. The lack of his love drowned her in doubt so overwhelming that it caused her to question everything she stands for. But the presence of it, well… let’s just say he is able to make her feel so incredibly special, that she could take on the world. 

     When Dean opens his eyes again and creates a little distance, her smile that had faded over the past week is back. He mirrors the expression, but can’t prevent his heartache from showing too.       Although he convinced her that she didn’t trigger his behaviour, it’s clear as day that he’s carrying a burden around that is forcing him on his knees.      “Then what is it, Dean? Please tell me,” she asks again. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

     He nods, but breaks eye contact nonetheless. Talking about the things that keep him up at night has never been his strong suit. He can’t even remember the last time he talked to anyone about his mother, except for Sam, who used to occasionally ask about her death when he was younger. Even then he wouldn’t waste more than a few words, too afraid it would surface emotions that he was glad to have buried so deep. But when he looks at Y/N again, he does the one thing he has never done with any woman: he opens up.      “On November 2nd, 1983, my mom was killed by a demon,” he starts off. “Today is the anniversary of her death and it’s uh - it’s always been a tough day for me.”

     He gazes away into nothingness as the warm light from the lamp on the bed stand shimmers into his teary eyes. She watches him, her mouth slightly opened in shock by this devastating unravelment, as compassion for her partner grows.       “Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas… They’re not really that much of a celebration when you barely have anyone left to spend it with,” Dean continues. “I was right there when it happened. Even though I was just a kid, I remember and… I-I don’t know, I just can’t seem to be able to let it go.”

     As he tells her what happened that dreadful night, she folds back the covers and snuggles up next to him, filling the emptiness that was there in her absence. Turned on her side facing him, she listens to the story, leaning on her elbow as her free hand grips his.      “The thing is… that if she hadn’t walked into the nursery that night, Azazel probably would’ve left her alone. She would’ve seen her kids grow up, Dad would most likely still be alive. Sam and I wouldn’t have learned how to fire a gun at the age of six,” he scoffs as he rubs his brow. “We would’ve had a childhood, a home… We would’ve been a family.”      His voice breaks on the final word and he keeps quiet, knowing that anything else would come out shaky. He tries to focus on the ceiling light, hoping that if he does, he will be able to keep it together. As he struggles to stay strong, Y/N continues to run her thumb over his hand, not letting go of his grip. 

     “I know it’s a dysfunctional one, but you have a family, Dean. Sam, Cas, me… We’re in this together,” she speaks wisely, trying to comfort him. “And I didn’t have the pleasure to meet your mother, but I bet she’d be damn proud of you after everything that you have done for the people you care about, and not just for them. You saved the world, Dean.”      He keeps staring at the ceiling, shaking his head. He’s not a hero. He started the damn apocalypse. He tortured souls in Hell. He did unimaginable things.       After swallowing thickly, he dares to test his voice again.      “This is not the life she wanted her kids to be raised in.” He knows. “It would make her so sad if she knew we're hunters…”

     The tightness in his chest overwhelms him, it pushes the tears that were gathering in the corner of his eye over the edge, causing them to run down his temples. He doesn’t want her to see this side of him, this weak and vulnerable excuse of a man. But he can’t help it, he can’t stop himself from breaking over his mother’s death for the first time since she passed. He fights the shake in his breath, the tears that keep gathering. Even as a kid he would bury it, stuff it all down and hide it for no one to see. It was one of the first things he learned in order to protect himself. But tonight, he can’t keep his grief at bay. 

     God, he misses her. He misses hearing her voice when she sang ‘Hey Jude’ to him before bedtime. He misses how she smelled like spices and cinnamon whenever she was baking pie. He misses how she hugged him whenever he needed comfort. He misses her so damn much. He chokes back a sob, his free hand running over his face to cover it. 

     “Hey, it’s okay,” Y/N hushes. “It’s okay, Dean. Come here.”      Y/N ushers him to roll into her, folding her arms around him. He lays his head against her chest, the steady metronome-like heartbeat coming from it calming him. It helps to steady his breathing, despite her tight cradle. He has never felt so safe with anyone except with the one person he is mourning over, and so he lets himself go. For the first time, he doesn’t feel the slightest uneasiness in their hug and at that moment he knows. He knows that whatever this is between the two of them, as long as Death doesn’t intervene, it is going to last. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Death always intervenes, Death always takes a hold. It’s only a matter of time, like it’s only a matter of time before November 2nd passes. And like every year, tomorrow it will be easier to look up, to get out of bed, to fake a smile. What is different this year, though, is that he has someone by his side who understands why. 

     It takes a while before Dean’s respiration calms, before his eyelids stay closed. Finally, he’s asleep, but she won’t let go of him and continues to stroke his hair, pressing a soft kiss on his head every now and then. She won’t let go until it’s November 3rd.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work or buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page)

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[fourteenacross]

end of 2019

I've done this survey every year since like, 2006 and then missed it last year because I was on a social media break. Whoops! My shitty memory makes it fairly important as a way to track the passage of time, so I'm back on the horse this year.

What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before? I'm sure there's some specific thing, but nothing's coming to me immediately. Oh, I guess I started cross stitching? Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I'm not sure what my resolutions were for last year because I did not write them anywhere because I did not do this meme /o\ Next year: + Set up some kind of writing schedule + Finish my mg novel + Survive moving + Get a new job + Go on more dates

eta: Outside of these sort of concrete, 2do-list type goals, I set some more nebulous personal goals on Twitter: - See my local friends outside of the BFC more often - Do weird, dumb shit - Be nicer to myself - Fix my meds - Bake something fancy(Okay, that last one is kind of 2do-listy.) Did anyone close to you give birth? YES!! @caphairdadbeard had a baby and he's perfect and I love him and it kills me that he's so far away and I only get to see him a few times a year, even more so than it usually kills me having Sarah so far away. Did anyone close to you die? My former roommate's father. I did a lot of family stuff with her over the decade that we lived together and spent a lot of time with her parents and he was super loved and admired by his community. A real shitty loss all around. What countries did you visit? Just the US, but I visited Seattle and Mississippi for the first time! What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019? ~*~Financial security~*~ What dates from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I'm so terrible with actual dates. May 9 was Max's birthday, so there's that? We did a lovely, successful live show on April 18. OH we went to Rent Live and had our wild weekend in LA on January 26. We watched a lot of wild movie musicals at Grace and Jesse's in July. I saw Blair Witch in the woods. I went down to the city to see Octet and Hadestown. Lisa moved in with me. Moby-Dick happened. Now I'm just listing events and not dates, but there you go. What was your biggest achievement of the year? God, do I even have one? I'm not dead, so that's probably something. Oh, I guess we had a really good WBS month where we were interviewed by Forbes.com, had one of our crossovers with IDEOTV, guest edited TBD, and had our live show. That was a really satisfying few weeks. What was your biggest failure? I'm haunted by this work thing I fucked up, even though everyone has told me it wasn't a big deal. I really crash and burned out for NaNo because SAD hit me way harder and faster this year than it has in the past. Did you suffer illness or injury? Lots of brain stuff, as per usual. A couple minor colds. My FAMILY on the other hand.... What was the best thing you bought? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Tickets to Octet, maybe. It was probably my favorite show of the year. The new chair/loveseat is also very good. Whose behavior merited celebration? Some of my friends. A lot of excellent activists. Sarah's baby (he's very good). Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Like, the whole government? Where did most of your money go? Grown-up type stuff (rent, utilities, groceries), cons, and travel. What did you get really, really, really excited about? LA, Octet, Max, DragonCon, Moby-Dick. Galentine's! What song will always remind you of 2019? Probably music from Octet? I don't like.....listen to the radio. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? Probably about the same? Maybe more stressed out by family stuff going on and money stuff. b) thinner or fatter? Same. Also, I hate this question. 2020 Kaitlyn, delete it plz. c) richer or poorer? About to be poorer. What do you wish you’d done more of? Writing. Sleeping. Going on dates. Hanging out with people. What do you wish you’d done less of? Being depressed. Being stressed. Did you fall in love in 2019? Nope. What was your favorite TV program? If we're talking "currently airing" and not "things I bingewatch that are very old," probably The Good Place--OH I almost forgot Good Omens was this year!!! Also that! And I started watching Schitt's Creek and watched all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Oh, and I started watching some videos on the Bon Appetit YouTube channel, mostly Gourmet Makes and Making Perfect and Reverse Engineering. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Mostly just like...........people I don't actually know who are terrible humans. What was the best book you read? Coming soon to a podcast feed near you! What was your greatest musical discovery? Probably Octet? I don't think I listened to a lot of new music this year. OH WAIT, The Highwomen!!! What a good album!!! (Also in doing the theatre section I just remembered Six was this year too!) What did you want and get? Mostly material things--clothes, cons, travel, seeing people, tickets to things, etc. Impeachment. Got that. That was nice. What did you want and not get? Financial security. A new job. Emotional stability. A relationship. More sleep. What was your favorite film of this year? Captain Marvel, although Us, Charlie's Angels, and The Wind were very good too. What was your favorite theatrical event of the year? Probably Octet! The broadway version of Hadestown was kind of disappointing compared to the 2016 NYTW version and Moby-Dick is great fun, but still pretty rough in places. Octet is just.....very good.  Oh, or SIX, that was great too! Octet or Six. Oh, and, jesus, this year was a hundred years long, I totally forgot we saw Denee as Eliza this year!! She was very good!! And I got to see Daniel Breaker as Burr again and I fucking love him. What was your favorite podcast of the year? The Empty Bowl, a meditative podcast about cereal. It is so good for zoning out and being calm. TAZ has been killing it with the one-shots and the Amnesty arc, too, and this was the first year I listened to MBMBaM weekly and also I mainlined all of Sawbones after listening to half of it, then not listening to any for six months, then deciding to start from the beginning again. Unwell is a really good show that I recommend, and Mabel. The Magnus Archives killed it with season four, which was tailored to my exact narrative tastes. MFM and Criminal are perpetual faves. American Hysteria was super interesting to go through and Bear Brook and In the Dark both obviously had fucking fantastic years. Oh, and Who the Hell is Hamish? that was fun too. And I’ll stop now.

I.....listen to a lot of podcasts. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 34! On the day, I went out for dinner and drinks with some friends. That weekend, I bought a bunch of children's Captain Marvel birthday supplies and we played Jackbox games and ate cake! What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Any sort of fix to our current political mess. And/or financial stability. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019? The "Whimsical" section on eShakti. What kept you sane? Friends! Podcasts! Anti-depressants! Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Brie Larson and Starr Busby are the first that spring to mind. What political issue stirred you the most? It’s hard to pick just one when the whole country is on fire. Who did you miss? Pretty much everyone when they are not right next to me. Sarah Bay, a lot, but I feel weird singling one person out. [This is exactly what I wrote for the last four years, but I’m keeping it because it’s still true.] Who was the best new person you met? Did I meet new people this year? I know I internet-met a couple people, but I'm not sure if I in-person made any new friends? We hung out with this girl Jenn at con a bunch, she was pretty cool! edit: oh my god MAX I met MAX this year because he did not exist last year!!! Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019: Do not invite folks to sit on a panel unless you know they'll stick to the goddamn topic agreed on in advance. Quote a song that sums up your year: And no one grew into anything new / we just became the worse of what we were

(I think this is the third year in a row that Dave Malloy has been my lyric of the year.)

Anyway, that’s 2019 for me. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. The last half, in particular, was super rough. Hell, the last week was super rough--guess how many members of my family have been in the hospital in December! If you guessed “six” you would be correct!! (Everyone is more or less fine.) 

But, hey, it also brought me my tiny nephew and two Dave Malloy musicals, so it wasn’t all bad! 

I hope 2020 treats you all well, friends!

[bugsrepellsgant]

OKIE ive been kicking this au around my brain for months so here’s an outline or whatever

WORKING TITLE: toki and pickles travel cross country to california like kermit and fozzie in the muppet movie OR toki and pickles do america

TL;DR toki and pickles are both 17-ish, the year is 199X, theyre hauling ass to socal to audition for SnB, but instead they accidentally get dethklok together and fall in love :-)

pickles has freshly stepped out and couch surfed his way to greenbay, and just managed to scrape together enough cash for a bus ride to minneapolis (going east to go west is counterintuitive and dumb but so is american public transport) BUT THEN

toki’s one-ish year out of home, has scraped together enough money working for runke to apply for a passport but once he gets to the offices oh no!!! he doesn’t have any proof of citizenship! and he’s a minor! aw fuck now he’s gotta stow away on an oil tanker cus staying isnt an option (yes this is paddington now)

he lands in boston harbor, gets far enough inland on foot and by ferry until he reaches GREEN BAY, WI and he’s a day or two of panhandling away from meeting the ticket fee BUT THEN

its friday night which means its fucking college football night which means SHITTY COLLEGE BROS HAVE DESCENDED UPON THE CITY!

pickles gets briefly needled for being short and ginger but u know he Lives hes been getting this kind of shit forever. HOWEVER toki is immediately singled out as a funny lookin, high voiced, gnome hat weirdo with an accent and he’s trying to laugh along ??? ha ha?? but its so Bad and pickles feels Bad but he’s gotta get outta here-

Oh God one of the bros tried to to take toki’s guitar away and toki flipped shit and its a fight now!! he’s outnumbered but our boy pickles intervenes!!! they’re winning? OH GOD SOMEONE CALLED THE FUCKING COPS

escape! safe; breathless in an alley; “hey whats yooooour name???” “toki!” “heheheheh toke-ki >B-)” “?????” “im pickles” “you namesed pickle???? ‘,:-/“ bla bla bla oh u play guitar? i play drums but i like guitar too there’s a band in LA i wanna play for ya wanna come with???

a car is obtained at... some point

and OH BOY DOES HE!

a long series of shenanigans occur! our boys get stopped, turned around, detoured, misdirected, all kinds of classic farce bullshit, later on we make and pick up friends at pitstops! a fellow highschool dropout with a killer voice in kissimmee, the best guitarist youve heard in your life dodging swedish mandatory service in chicago, a dude with the stankiest bassline (and feet) that side of the mississippi in the texas panhandle, a TOTAL buzzkill geek of a harvard freshman on summering at his family villa near denver, a cool headed, smart as hell, fuckin julliard composer in training who produces music FOR FUN visiting her family in downtown phoenix.

oh my GOD what is seth fucking DOING HERE is that lady his GIRLFRIEND is she PREGNANT what the HELL GO HOME IF YOU TELL MOM WHERE WE ARE ILL KILL YOU DEAD

seth’s also hanging out with this other guy who seems...... cool? you think? fun, talented, good at guitar like both our boys, pickles’ kinda guy to be honest? there’s something about him thats hard to trust though.

sharing hotel rooms, sleeping in truck beds, they get curious about each others lives? pickles clocked toki as a weird hick at first blush, and tbh he was right but? he went to highschool with farm kids and knows farm kid-weird from weird-weird and toki’s WEIRD-weird. and sweet. and funny. the polaroid in toki keeps of a man and a woman, the man in a reverend’s hat, makes pickles scared to ask. especially since toki’s been cool enough to mind his own business.

toki’s fascinated by pickles’ bouts of righteous anger. unlike runke, his rage has energy and intent, and the stunt he pulled in green bay was so nice and so COOL! he’s one such real cool guy with a cool leather jacket and cool hair... but Why is he so mad all the time? why does he drink so much, it doesnt even taste good? why does he STEAL drinks when they have no money? what happened to toki’s nice, cool, brand new friend pickle? something like what happened to toki? but? pickles is so Cool and Nice and NORMAL and toki is so Weird and Stupid and Wrong in ways toki’s horrified to let him discover. its better not to ask him, he guesses.

feelings get stronger as all the bad things come to light. crying hugs are had. pickles drops what was going to be bus money on a replacement V for toki and toki drops his panhandling dough on a goldtop for pickles.

WE FINALLY GET TO LA AND......? what the fuck

the glam/hair scene is dead in the water. Snakes n Barrels supernova’ed. no more audition. no more career. shit shit shit.

but all the friends weve made along the way are here for our boys! they’ll just start their OWN BAND!!!! TAMPA! MORDHAUS! DETHKLOK’S A-GO!! everythings comin up milhouse!

our boys are Officially *an item* and they ride into the sunset together, stirrup to stirrup, side by side. big gay kiss. the end :-)

OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPEN:

amber goes into labor during one of seth’s drop in visits and everyone gets emo about family as a concept, pickles and seth gave a heart to heart, no one is too metal for feelings when the baby comes bc life is beautiful

magnus pulls some scary/mean bs but its nothing too awful and theres forgiveness and lessons learnt and stuff.

the duel! but theres THREE GUITARISTS?????!!!!!!!!!! MAYBE FOUR?

toki and pickles will both have religious drama but pickles’ drama is more of a sidenote in his list of Issues (pickles’ family is probably catholic and i was raised catholic and i GOTTA project. i GOTTA)

lgbt themes because IM GAY and THEYRE GAY PRRRRBBBBT

murderface? finds love?? GAY LOVE???

this post is too long g-g-g’byeeeee!

[scoobdawg69]

im so mad,,, i live in fuck-ass mississippi, right? and 5 out of every 2 people is about that "guns dont kill people" bullshit and when i get angry i lose the words i need to make a good argument and usually make myself sound like a dumbass so most of the time when i hear someone say it i have to bite my tongue so i dont make them feel smart and entitled when they "win" the argument but i couldnt right now because i just read an article about this 14 year old in middle school who got his dads gun, killed his dad, and then attempted to shoot up an elementary school, but only shooting a few kids and a teacher and killing a second grader named Jacob before his gun locked up. This kid got the gun from his father, who had kept this gun and a semiautomatic rifle in a safe somewhere, but never though to consider not opening it in front of his kid (who recorded his dad punching in the code), whom he knew had violent tendencies and was obsessed with school shooters. The child who died, Jacob, wore his batman costume at his funeral and had a teenage mutant ninja turtle figurine on his coffin.

Anyway, i was mad, and i knew this one guy who believed that bullshit "guns dont kill people" propoganda and so i snapped him saying "full offense but your ideals on guns are bullshit" and told him abt the elementary school shooting and he said "but did the gun go in there by itself and shoot the kid?" and i swear i almost fucking sold my soul so i could never have to hear those fucking words ever again.

The worst part? Even when i explained to him that no, but the murderer used said gun to kill that child, and truth be told, if he or any other school shooter had only had access to a knife that not nearly as many kids would have been hurt or killed those days, and that if we had stricter gun control like Australia these wouldnt have fucking happened at all, and he agreed like that was his point the whole goddamn time.

And you know what? Our president, Donald Shitlord Trump, doesnt even agree with that. He fully believes that teachers in these schools should have a gun on school grounds for "protection", even though, just last month, a teacher pulled a gun on a student during class. Who's to say that wont happen again? Who is to say that a teacher wont kill a student they find suspicious because of behavior associated with mental illness, culture, or racial bias? Who is to say that a student wont come in and steal a teachers gun, just as that 14 year old stole his dads, and shoot up that school?

Even with special training and gun permits, there is always the risk that a gun may be mishandled or go off, injuring or even killing a student or the teacher that owns it.

Not to mention, school shooters plan their attacks. They intentionally acquire a gun, however they can, and they go in with the intention to harm and/or kill. They are entirely more willing to shoot someone, whether they are innocent or not, than any teacher allowed to have a gun would be. And, if the person cant acquire a gun? They could just as well walk into school, find a teacher unprepared for an attack, kill them with a knife or some-such weapon, and steal said teachers gun.

The risk that comes along with allowing teachers to own and operate guns on school campus is so much greater than the idea of protection it portrays.

Please, for the love of these kids that have lost their lives, and for the love of those that may someday lose theirs, please, do whatever you can to help fight for stricter gun laws. Donate, protest, contact local representatives, whatever you have to do. Lend those already protesting your support in this cause. Every bit counts.

[kari-izumi]

Reblogging because the replies in comments from non black fans are fucking stupid as hell and this really deserves discussion. As a black woman, I agree all "cancelling" does in instances like this is shut conversation down and reinforces the idea that they shouldn't even try. Granted, I don't think this is true of Stevenson as she's made genuine efforts to hear her fanbase and not take undue credit for rep she didn't make explicit in the show (ie, Catra's nationality as one example) so I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. As far as racial stereotypes go, this wouldn't have even registered for me if not for the "working the field" line.

And lemme just point out the big honking elephant in the room: a good number of the non-black fans pitching fits came to THIS show specifically because of a certain other DreamWorks property that didn't live up to their high expectations about a ship they were never making canon, disastrous last season or not do their homework on sensitivity. And one of those creators also gave an "apology" that rightfully got shreaded to pieces. I mean, compare NS's " I take full responsibility" to this rank ass bullshit dedicating two whole ass paragraphs about why they went that route of killing a gay man when all anyone wanted was a reason why they over hyped that nonsense in the first place.

And even now, it's taken nearly a year and a half for this SAME producer to clue in a smidgen on why killing off a black princess was not good. And still no apology for that, a decision that had far more direct impact on children fans than this admittedly ill-advised joke that came at the absolute worst time.

I won't lie, I have well meaning white friends off of Tumblr who stumble to understand shit, too. I had to tell as a trans white woman from the south for days after she defended Biden's gaff about "real black folks will vote for me". She said she calls out her conservative trans friends (what few she still has as to her credit, she purged nearly all her contacts from the state of Mississippi alone) as traitors. I had to say, point black, that she is trans and that is entirely her place to drag them for that. I'm cis. No matter how repugnant I find their views, I don't get to call them a traitor to the queer community. Ever. Said friend finally got it. If I had just unfollowed and blocked, nothing would have been learned.

And no, not everyone deserves that energy. But this is a friend I remember being a Bible Thumping pastor 15 years ago. It took years to work through bad conservative ideals even after she transitioned. She's done 80 percent of the legwork, far more than most white progressives I grew up around in California FFS. So why would I toss all that out over one bad take?

This is all a lotta words to say we need to choose our fights a bit better. Noelle is not perfect, but I've seen honest effort from her to make people feel seen. And unlike other DW creators who leaned in on their fanbase's admittedly rabid, batshit behavior as an excuse to dismiss some very valid criticism, I sincerely hope she'll learn from this. I'd rather she'd use her voice to fight for creators of color and give them space moving forward, but telling non-black fans that she doesn't want to be defended is a promising start.

And if she becomes the animation equivalent to Ryan Murphy after this, then...welp. Fool me once and all that. In 2020, there's a lot of other issues that deserve my wrath way more than this.

Okay, y’all I have a geniune question.

Where do we go from here? 

Like put whether or not we as individuals decide to forgive Noelle aside. 

In this situation where do we go? In a situation where someone has made a mistake and has genuinely apologized. Whether or not you accept the apology or not, you have to admit. They apologized “correctly”. They admitted fault, did not center themselves and told non-black fans not to defend them. 

So where do we go? Is there no room for growth? Is everyone just now waiting to be cancelled because they didn’t fully think about the implications of the words that they are saying? Because y’all, I don’t know if I like that trajectory. Like we are all humans, we make mistakes. So what happens when we make them? Is there no road to redemption? 

This is not me saying that you have to forgive Noelle. This is not me saying that you can not have been hurt by their words. I know that we are in a very very scary time and that we have been in a never ending cycle of trauma since June (before June if I’m being honest, but you know what I mean.) but i don’t know if this trajectory is sustainable. 

I don’t have an answer for these questions as I am not a monolith of the black community, but I think it’s a conversation we need to have. 

[thefleetsfinest-a]

Headcanon: The McCoys

Leonard had been a Jr. in highschool when he started dating Jocelyn Darnell. The lived in one of those small towns where everyone knew everyone, but he had been the shy nerd in school and she had been a popular cheerleader. It was by the average clique standards that the two of them never really crossed paths, that was until Jocelyn had decided to make her ex-boyfriend jealous. It was this desire that had a young Jocelyn picking a shy Leonard out at a high school party (the kind the whole school practically went to.) and dragged him into a dance.

Of course her ex boyfriend Clay Treadway didn’t like that Leonard was ‘trying to steal his girl’ and the next day at school tried to start a fight. Much to everyone’s surprise it had been a fight that Leonard managed to win, and from that moment on Leonard and Jocelyn were considered to be going steady. All that summer, and through their senior year of high school the two were inseparable much to the dismay of Leonard's mother, who did not care for the girl in the slightest.

The two of them started out great, they had enough in common and matching tempers that they seemed like a well enough mix. Enough so that they were even named their school’s prom king and queen their senior year. Most of their graduating class was convinced that despite what seemed like an odd mix at first, that the two were meant to be. Leonard of course had fallen hard, and would do anything to make Jocelyn smile, he was happy and relatively carefree. Any free time he could manage was spent following her around.

When it came time for them to choose a college, the both of them had agreed to go to the university of Mississippi together. Even despite the new surroundings and experiences that came with being undergrads, the two managed to still go strong. It honestly did seem like they were going to stand the tests of time, and Leonard truly believed that he found his soulmate, despite claiming to not have much belief in those sorts of things. Of course the couple wasn’t perfect and they would occasionally get into fights, and it could occasionally get verbally nasty. The two both had a way with words, and knew how to cut the other deep. However they always reconciled within a few days, and to this day Leonard claims that makeup sex is the best thing ever invented.

The two had still been going strong as Leonard eventually started medical school, enough so that Leonard had been seriously considering a marriage proposal, but he had told himself that he wanted to wait until after they were both out of school. The only hitch that the two ever really seemed to fight about was the idea of starting a family. Leonard desperately wanted to have kids once he was out of school and on his feet as a doctor, where Jocelyn didn’t want kids at all.

However the decision was made for them when the month before Leonard graduated from Med School, Jocelyn found out that she was pregnant. It came as a relative surprise since the two of them had always been so careful about birth control, but there had been one night where they had been particularly drunk and one thing led to another.

Once Leonard graduated from medical school, the two moved back to Georgia, moving into a relatively nice home in the suburbs of Atlanta. The two got married in a relatively small ceremony after Leonard finally proposed. Everything seemed like it was going to be okay, despite the stress that came with Leonard’s long hours of working at a hospital. There were unfortunately no shortcuts in the medical field, and he was more than willing to work hard for what he wanted. It didn’t help that he had his father’s reputation as a damn good doctor to live up to.

When his baby girl was born, she became Leonard’s world, from the moment she was born he was wrapped around her little finger. Joanna became a complete daddy’s girl, most of the time preferring the attention and affections of her father over that of her mother’s. All of his very little spare time ended up going to his daughter, which unintentionally  started the strain on his marriage, since by default he didn’t give his wife nearly as much attention as she deserved.

However things were still okay, things were going well enough. Things didn’t take a hard downward spiral until Leonard’s father got terminally ill. Leonard who had always been very close with his dad, became obsessed with finding a cure. All he could think about was trying to keep his father alive long enough for him to find some cure for him, determined not to loose him. However no matter how much time he threw into research, and how close he managed to get.. He just couldn’t find that last missing piece he needed to save his father.

Two years into Leonard’s marriage his father was suffering and with no cure in sight begged his song to just put him out of his misery. Leonard of course had outright refused at first, not only not wanting to let go of his father, but he had taken an oath to do no harm. However his father had finally broken down Leonard, and on October 10th, 2252 David McCoy passes away. Though on the death certificate it clearly states that he succumbed to his illness, Leonard is the only one who knows the truth.. That he had been overdosed on pain medication.

Having killed his father took it’s toll on Leonard, he took up going to the bar after work a bit more and became incredibly distant from Jocelyn, and anyone other than Jojo. He was filled with so much guilt over what he had done, that he couldn’t seem to cope, and it did not help that he couldn’t tell a single soul about what he had done, not only because it would put his medical license at risk, but.. Because he couldn’t take the thought of anyone else knowing about the horrible thing he had done.

Leonard becoming distant from Jocelyn seemed to be the breaking point for their marriage. She felt extremely neglected that her husband wouldn’t even so much as give her the time of day, or let her in on what has been troubling him. She could tell that it was more than just his father passing away, she knew he was hiding something but she could never get Leonard to talk about it, no matter how hard she tried. This led to fight after fight, and though they always did the best to wait until after Joanna went to bed, never liking to fight in front of her.

Eventually it all became much, and Leonard had pushed her so far away, that he ended up pushing her right back into the arms of Clay Treadway. A year after his father died, Jocelyn finally had enough and filed for divorce, which came as a slap in the face to Leonard, who despite having been distant still had the hopes that they could make it work because he did love her very much. With the filing for divorce came the long drawn out custody battles over Joanna. Leonard wanted to have the right to see his daughter as much as he wanted, because that little girl still was his world and refused to let her go, especially to the woman who had never wanted kids in the first place. The whole thing was drawn out over a span of about a year, the two only ever seeing each other at meetings with their lawyers.. Except for once instance, that being May 9th, their anniversary and though despite everything that was happening Leonard had gotten himself relatively drunk and found himself calling her up.

The two spent one last drunken night together, reliving what use to be, just one more one last time. Though it had felt so right in the moment, the two had been together for thirteen years and in a moment of weakness shared one last night together. However when the morning came, so came the feeling of regret over what they had done. Especially since Jocelyn was technically in a relationship with Clay.

Finally in Febuary of 2255 the divorce was finalized, with primary custody of Joanna being awarded to Jocelyn. However Leonard was still given full visitation rights to his daughter, which he had every intention of utilizing refusing to be fully gone from his daughter’s life. Leonard was incredibly bitter and hurt over the divorce, still unable to fully able to let Jocelyn go, and had decided being forced to watch Jocelyn start her new life was too much and the rash decision to join Starfleet happened.

It had been his need to get as far as he could from having to see Jocelyn be happy, his guilt over his father’s death ( A guilt that tripled when a cure was found for the illness was discovered), and the death of a young girl, a patient of his who had the dream of one day becoming a Starfleet Captain had been the final push for him to say ‘Fuck it’ and sign up for Starfleet. That was how one Leonard Horatio McCoy ended up on that shuttle in Riverside, Iowa.

[baxterholmes]

Round-up of fine sentences from This Land:

Josh thought Pastor Bob wanted to say he was sorry for what had happened. He also thought Pastor Bob was taking him to lunch. But it soon became clear that Josh was paying his own way, and Pastor Bob was not there to apologize. Josh ordered a glass of water and watched Pastor Bob eat.

“He quoted scriptures about how I was sinning against God for coming against his church, his ministry,” Josh remembers. But Josh came prepared with scripture passages of his own, about the responsibility of a shepherd to protect his flock. The message fell on deaf ears. Josh drank his water. Pastor Bob ate a big meal and ordered dessert.

-Grace in Broken Arrow by Kiera Feldman

Oral doubled down: If Richard left, he’d walk away with him—arm in arm with his anointed son. Oral called on the faculty to forgive Richard, to take a “fresh start.” He was 89-years-old at this point. His hearing was going, and he needed a walker. But ever the benevolent dictator, Oral demanded obedience. He asked everyone who agreed with him to stand—an old power play from his repertoire. One professor stood and bravely ventured, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘fresh start.’ I can forgive Richard. But I am not going to allow him to come back as president.”

One by one, Oral started grilling the few professors who remained seated. Suddenly, he stopped.

“No, I shouldn’t do this. I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his head in his big, wrinkled hands.

-This is my beloved son by Kiera Feldman

The memory of the Silkwood incident lurks far in the background of life in Crescent–for the most part people don’t particularly care to talk about it, and, polite that Crescent locals are, when they do, most don’t have much to say. Still, the story remains unsettled. When Bradley Manning was growing up it was 20 years less settled.

-Private Manning and the Making of WikiLeaks by Denver Nicks

Jack Taylor does not appear to concern himself with people’s accusations he is a hatchet man for publisher Edward Gaylord. He plods along in his juggernaut fashion, putting in 17-hour workdays, sometimes five, six, seven days a week. He is a sedulous researcher, scouring public records for hours on end, compiling minutiae, interviewing sources (always anonymous and “well-informed”), spending great spans of time at the Xerox machine on the fourth floor of the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Hardly is he a flashy interloper. He is not apt in imitation of Carl Bernstein, to brazen his way into a taxicab, pounce on a public official’s lap, and nonchalantly request an interview. Dramatics like that befit neither his nature nor his bulk.

Taylor, however, is a tenacious journalist, magnificently disciplined and somewhat of a fanatic organizationalist. He diagrams and charts every connection involved in a story, whether it be people or corporate entities. He clips articles from national and local newspapers on the discriminating premise that one day the information might be of some use. He also writes memos of Faulknerian length and files them away in his private office, the sole office at OPUBCO reserved for a single reporter. Jack Wimer, formerly investigative reporter at the Tulsa Tribune and one who cooperated with Taylor on several stories, recalls how “he once wrote a 30-page, single-space, typed memo to himself on a story that he never wrote.” He also once drew up a list of every Freedom of Information Act request that he had ever made, to which governmental agency, how many were approved, how many were denied, how many were denied in part, and what section of the law was cited for denial. These kind of pedantic efforts leave the impression that he is attempting to document, for posterity’s sake, his own endeavors in addition to merely substantiating the stories. Though his meticulousness certainly pays off, the surplus of wasted effort must be enormous.

-Stalking the Smoking Gun by David Fritze

Between statehood and 1923, Oklahoma was America’s largest oil-producing state, and even after it lost its perch to California and later Texas, Oklahoma still managed to increase its share of American output until 1929, when Oklahoma accounted for 750,000 barrels of oil a day and 35 percent of all the oil produced in the United States. Wells in Oklahoma City spat oil ferociously, so high that one out-of-control gusher—the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co.’s Mary Sudik No. 1, aka the “Wild Mary Sudik���—managed to sprinkle droplets on students in Norman, 11 miles away. Cushing alone produced 17 percent of American oil in 1919 and 3 percent of the world’s output between 1912 and 1919. And all of this time there was plenty of appetite for new oil. The world’s economy and its demand for petroleum and its distillates were increasing, and oil prices were holding steady for the most part, making Oklahoma’s goliath output enormously profitable. Scores of millionaires were created. The Osage Nation managed to hold onto their mineral rights during the allotment phase. They charged oil companies a flat 10 percent royalty fee and paid each tribe member annual distributions equivalent to more than a million dollars today, which attracted scalawags and con men from all over the country eager to marry an Osage heir, which kicked off a string of killings that would come to be known as the Osage Reign of Terror. Meanwhile, the high wages paid by the oil industry led hundreds of thousands of former sharecroppers to descend on cities like Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the tiny boomtowns that would pop up whenever a new field was found. Oil money created architectural blooms and secondary and tertiary industries: engineering, manufacturing, insurance. There were counter- flows of capital and labor. Universities and colleges sprouted, which in turn revealed new methods of refining petroleum and natural gas. This stoked the economy even more.

-Petro State by James McGirk

A soft-spoken woman from Oklahoma City first saw the pattern. Terri Turner is a Supervisory Intelligence Analyst with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation. In September of 2003, a homicide case landed on her desk: a body found along I-40. Turner immediately put out a teletype seeking other female bodies found, like hers, nude, near interstates, and with signs of having been bound. Within 72 hours, two responses came back from Arkansas and Mississippi. At that point, Turner knew she might be looking at linked crimes. She had her communications specialists monitor the teletypes for further cases. In seven months, they had seven homicides. She calls them “my seven girls.”

-Drive-By Truckers by Ginger Strand

With Operation Midnight Ride behind them, Walker and Hargis turned their aspirations to the national political races, making it clear that their choice for president was the libertarian senator Barry Goldwater. In August of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his momentous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C.; its hopeful message of peace and unity was in direct opposition to Walker and Hargis’ aggressive calls for civil uprising. Two months later, in October of 1963, Walker attended a conference in Dallas in which he once again bashed President Kennedy and his policies. He was probably unaware that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the audience listening.

-The Strange Love of Dr. Billy James Hargis by Lee Roy Chapman

Contrary to the widespread misconception that it is a late twentieth-century invention, developed as a humane alternative to the medieval barbarisms of the electric chair and the noose, lethal injection hails from older and more ghastly origins. During WWII, Nazi Germany carried out its euthanasia program, granting “mercy deaths” to Jews and Gypsies, the disabled and the mentally ill. In the early stages of the Action T4 program,2 the Nazi regime used an injection of lethal drugs to kill infants and children suffering from physical handicaps and mental impairments. Eventually this method of execution was deemed too slow and expensive, as Hitler would turn to the hyper-efficient gas chambers in his quest for Aryan purity. The experimentation with lethal injection was for the most part lost to history, ceding both spotlight and stigma to the notoriously prolific gas chambers. That is until a few Oklahomans, keen on cutting the costs of Old Sparky and modernizing state-sanctioned executions, resurrected it nearly 40 years later.

-Tinkering with the Machinery of Death by Mike Mariani

One of the detectives just pulled me aside and said he found a syringe in your pocket. I can see Taco, by the way, outside, and he’s still walking around the front yard, mumbling to himself.

He’ll be the next one to die; you know that, don’t you?

Until then, that little fuck, that little shit, gets to go home; he gets to see tomorrow and lie to his parents about needing money for something other than drugs and alcohol; he gets to parlay his grief over you into sympathy and, who knows, maybe more drugs and a blow job from some skanky little whore on meth who will feel bad for him because you died.

The cop who found the syringe told me when he went to ask Taco what happened to you, Taco kept repeating, “I don’t know, I don’t know. He was my best friend.”

-Letter to My Son The Weekend He Died by Barry Friedman

The woman stood with the couple’s one-year-old daughter a safe distance across the sage. Tucs told the man to start wetting down the walls of his home using a 12-volt pump drawing water from a cistern. He sent a bystander down the road to help the fire trucks find their way over the unmarked road to the scene. Then he and another bystander began shoveling dirt in front of the path of the stream of vegetable oil, which shot orange flames three feet high as it crept along the earth. As Tucs shoveled load after load in front of the stream, the fire in the shed grew, and the interior of an old sedan parked nearby caught fire. Tucs’ berm slowed the oil from reaching the home, but the dirt saturated and set alight, and more oil escaped through the flames and poured downhill. He started another berm and the same thing happened. The shed streamed fire. Tucs’ bunker gear lacked suspenders, so he kept hauling his pants up as he worked. As fire trucks arrived from area departments and set up on scene, Tucs heard a rupture and a rush of air, and looked up to see three 40-foot tornadoes of fire whirling above the shed into the sky.

-Firefight Along the Prairie by Michael Canyon Meyer

He stood naked by the roadside with a blanket draped around his hips, feebly reaching out for the glimmering cars as they passed in the morning light. He was almost too hideous to look at: Purple and black tracks streaked across his frail limbs, and his hollow eyes peered out from a pale, gray head shaved bald, eyebrows and all. Brandon Andres Green was not from hell, not exactly. He was from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Over the course of the past six days, Green had been tied up in a Tulsa hotel room, where his mind was loaded with powerful psychoactives and his body ravaged. He was then driven 500 miles south and abandoned in a Texas field at night. Green had crawled through the darkness, the occasional moan of a distant car his only guide. Every few feet, he collapsed from exhaustion. By morning, he reached the road. He grasped at fistfuls of air, hoping that someone might notice him.

-Subterranean Psychonaut by Michael Mason, Chris Sandel and Lee Roy Chapman

Lacking the political power he once held through both the Democratic Party and his Klan affiliations, diminished in his fortune, and aggrieved by his son’s death, Brady began to fall apart. Tulsans reported seeing him dining at his hotel alone, staring into space and leaving his meals untouched. Gone was the steeley-eyed entrepreneur. A portrait published in the Tulsa Daily World around this time shows an aged Brady looking weary and morose.

In the early morning hours of August 29, 1925, Brady walked into his kitchen and sat down at the breakfast table. He propped a pillow in the nook of one arm, and rested his head upon it. With his right arm, he took a .44 caliber pistol, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger. [28] Brady, who worked to divide Tulsa along racial lines, died a victim of his own curse.

-The Nightmare of Dreamland by Lee Roy Chapman

Birdwell’s life reads like a John Wayne script. A story in The Daily Oklahoman on October 17, 1931, details an account of Birdwell kidnapping a deputy sheriff in Earlsboro and detaining him so that Birdwell could go to a funeral home to view his father, who had recently died. If Birdwell had attended his father’s funeral, he would have been arrested for robbing banks in Earlsboro, Maud, Mill Creek, and Roff, Oklahoma. After Birdwell saw his father’s body, he returned the deputy sheriff’s gun on the outskirts of town, and rode into the sunset with Pretty Boy Floyd.

But Birdwell and Floyd’s days were numbered. Their names and faces were routinely in the papers, and the FBI was just waiting for one of them to make a mistake. Boley was Birdwell’s biggest mistake.

“Pretty Boy told the gang, ‘Go anywhere else, but do not rob Boley. The people there need their money and they do not have much of it in the bank,’ ” said Henrietta Hicks, Boley municipal judge and unofficial historian. “They just would not listen. You know how Napoleon met his Waterloo? Well, George Birdwell met his Boley-loo.”

-Bandit in Boley by Jamie Birdwell-Branson

Bad men are drawn to the City of God. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it the meeting ground for America’s most sinister extremists. Many Oklahomans regard it as the most dangerous and mysterious place in the state.

For 30-plus years, a small, isolated community in Northeastern Oklahoma has been the subject of endless scrutiny. Law enforcement agencies and conspiracy theorists insist that Elohim City is a breeding ground for neo-Nazis and anti-government militias hell-bent on overthrowing the “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) of the United States. The most damning accusation suggests Elohim City played a central role in the planning and execution of the Oklahoma City bombing.

-Who’s Afriad of Elohim City? by Lee Roy Chapman and Joshua Kline

At the hospital the day Abby was born, a nurse handed me a booklet about being the parent of a dead child. What’s the cost of a funeral for a newborn? Can you take a tax deduction? What should you name a dead child? Is it OK to build the coffin yourself? The booklet plainly answered such questions. It was my introduction to a realm of knowledge I had never known existed.

The answers run like this:

You can build the coffin if you want. It might make you feel better.

Name the child what you meant to name him. Don’t save the name for someone else.

You can claim the baby as a dependent on your taxes if he drew a breath.

-A Stiller Ground by Gordon Grice

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner draws the line of frontier encroachment at the hands of industrial expanse at 1890. He delivered his theory in an 1893 address to the American Historical Association of Chicago titled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” now known as the “Turner Thesis.” A year later, at the age of 17, Fraser molded his first End of the Trail. He wrote that it came from an idea that had been haunting him since childhood: “Often hunters, wintering with the Indians, stopped over to visit my grandfather on their way south and in that way I heard many stories about the Indians. On one occasion a fine fuzzy bearded old hunter remarked with some bitterness in his voice, ‘The Injuns will be driven into the Pacific Ocean.’”

-The Indian of their Dreams by Mark Brown

Netarsha slapped her hand on the window behind her.

“I said, ‘NOOOOOOO!’ Bust out laughing. I knew. I knew. I sat up. I didn’t know what to do. I kind of balled up, on my bed, in the corner… and my doorbell rang.”

It was the police, come to tell her.

-We Extend Our Condolences by Brian Ted Jones

[613526362]

I Might Live

I remember long ago, I was so excited about the live Peter Pan coming on. I was telling all my coworkers, “Are you going to watch Peter Pan tonight?”

I was living with my dad. I had been fired from my first big job after college. I had nothing, and no one.

When we handed off my rental car keys to the parking lot guy, Belle said, “So I guess that’s it?”

“No,” I said. “They have my passport.”

They also had a very large deposit.

Belle sat in a chair behind me, and to the right. They all kept looking at her, the employees. I could tell she felt the pressure.

There’s always pressure, being with a white man here. I say here, even though I write this over the ocean.

There’s always pressure, although when we’re in the street I do different things to take it off, like tell her a story to distract her from the looks, or stand a bit away from her so people can’t tell we’re together.

There wasn’t any way to help with that in the rental car office though. 

I had forgotten to bring back the deposit slip. I guess.

Belle’s face wasn’t good. That should have been my first tip that things were getting bad. But I didn’t understand any of the language. Gradually I figured out that they couldn’t find the carbon copy of my deposit slip, and since I hadn’t brought in the original, it was creating the ultimate meltdown of all their systems in the last hour of the last day of their work week. 

They weren’t happy.

At one point I said that I could go back to the hotel and get it, and one employee said, “You’d never make it back before we close.” 

“Well I drive real, real fast,” I said, trying to make a joke.

Looking back at Belle to see if she was laughing, she wasn’t. She actually whispered under her breathe, “No……no.”

I guess it was that bad.

That probably should have been her queue to run far away from me. And as we walked out to the nearby fast food restaurant, she seemed a bit shaken up. She needed some coffee, she said.

Sitting at the table in the diner, I made a comment or two about the incident, and then I saw I better make a comeback. So I lightened the mood and made a couple jokes.

She laughed, and smiled.

Ok, I’ve got you back, I thought.

Ok, I can do this.

I played with a little boy at the table next to us and saw the light in her eyes. I reengineered our plan and got us a “new” taxi to the movie. And away we went.

The lady working at the ticket counter told us there was only one ticket left for Action Film. Belle really wanted to see it though. So much, she said we would wait for the next showing. 

“We better not Belle. That’s two hours away. You won’t make it home in time for your dad’s insulin shot.”

She agreed. So it was the Animated Film then.

There were plenty of seats available, so I didn’t understand why Belle wanted to sit in VIP. Actually, I didn’t even know what VIP was. I pictured cocktails and a bar. Maybe a rope separating that area.

But it wasn’t like that at all. And the moment Belle took us to the very far back corner of the theatre - where no one had any reason to look - I knew what I had in mind, even if she didn’t.

I waited a while though. Patience is a virtue.

She had put her head on my shoulder, which is at the top of the list of things that kill me that a woman can do.

As I died inside, to expedite my demise, I turned my head and kissed her forehead. 

A minute later, when I did it again, it was too much for her. She picked her head up and turned towards me, and her lips met mine. Our 3D glasses smashed and prodded at each other’s, but we didn’t care.

The Chinese must be some unfeeling people (racist, I know, but everyone here is racist against the Chinese), as they apparently didn’t realize building a one foot wide armrest in between seats makes it very painful to sit shoulder against shoulder. But my God Belle endured the pain.

Holding hands, shoulder to shoulder, my face on her soft hair. When the movie reached a climax, I kissed her forehead again, and when she looked at me, I took her glasses off. And then mine.

I told her we could take a taxi to my place, and then I would have the driver go to her place after. I said that because she always has me pick her up and drop her off at the University, even though it’s not her home. I think maybe she doesn’t want me to see her house.

But she said it was okay, she could get a separate taxi later. I thought that meant she wanted to come up for a bit. 

It did.

Embarrassment hit me from a number of directions. For one, I knew it would look to the guards like it was a prostitution situation. And I was trying to get in good with the management so I could get their help in the future. Always trying to build relationships here. Never trying to build in the US. Maybe that’s why I’m bankrupt.

But I had more than any millionaire ever did as she walked out of the bathroom into my life.

“Please tell me you’re not cleaning up still.” I had not expected her to be coming back to my apartment, and yes, shit was everywhere. 

“No, I want to show you something.” 

Before I could though, she found her way to the balcony, and out the open sliding door. I had opened it to give some ambient noise, and some privacy while she was in the bathroom. It was the first time I had opened it.

When I went out before her, it wasn’t moments before she was in my arms.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

It felt so right.

We kissed on the balcony, adrift above one of Africa’s largest cities. Adrift in the center of Wakanda.

“I want to show you something,” I said again.  She lied back on the bed, and I turned off the lights. 

“Have you ever seen your heart before?” 

I pulled down her shirt a bit and said, “Now, I donated all my remaining ultrasound gel to the hospital this morning, but hand sanitizer should do the trick.”

I don’t know if it was my nervousness or what, but nothing really did the trick. Oh sit, I thought. This isn’t going.

I did point out something that was moving on screen though, and then I just threw that fucking transducer aside and kissed her. 

We kissed intensely on the blocky mattress, with the scarce light from the ultrasound screen outlining her face in my eyes.

I wanted to kiss on our sides, but when I tried to move her, she was on top of me before I knew it. Belle is indeed a slender girl. I don’t think she will get type II diabetes.

Back underneath me again, my leg between her legs, grinding, eventually I felt her withdraw. I don’t know if I’ve just made out with two many girls now, or, if I just get Belle and her body language.

Either way, I stopped, and laid on my side.

We started to talk, and then kissed, and talked and kissed but kissed more than talked.

I hate it, that I try to replicate moments I’ve had with other women I’ve loved.

I wonder now, if drifting to sleep, lips to lips, nose to nose, was a new feeling for her.

She said she wasn’t a virgin, when I asked. She was a bit upset and surprised I had asked. But she’d told me her dad gave her “the talk” the other day, and I had absolutely no clue exactly how much older than 18 this girl is.

I shouldn’t have asked. And it made it worse when she said, “I want to move slow.” That’s not why I’d asked, but I didn’t tell her that. 

I think maybe I wanted her to be a virgin. It scares me to write that. 

I had to say something. I said, “There were one or two girls that I had sex with, that I wish I had instead waited for the right one. Sometimes we do it too early because we feel pressured to or someone wants us to.”

What the fuck Marshall. Stop talking.

She was quiet after that, and I wondered what she was thinking. Was she thinking, “Oh my God. One or two? Two of how many? Twenty?”

It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter at all. She is Wakandan. She doesn’t get caught up over little things like Americans. When we’re out in public she defers to me, even though I don’t speak a fucking word of the language here. When I say something, she listens. And when she’s with me, she gives me her attention. She’s sweet, and honest, and kind. She doesn’t have any mental illness - not even anxiety (she was so scared of heights and then did great on the mountain and the balcony). She’s not addicted to drugs or alcohol. She’s not bisexual, or gay. She doesn’t pose any of the problems that I have over and over and over and over and over again faced in the women I’ve dated. In the women I’ve tried to love. Belle, just might be the woman I succeed in loving.

I did a good job of forgetting all this over the last two days. 

I looked in the mirror. 

What I saw was different, gradually different more and more.

This was the first time I’ve started to adapt back to hell before even leaving Wakanda.  

Another girl finally messaged me on my way to the airport. I’d been trying to message her weeks before I met Belle. She was gorgeous. Prettier than Belle, by a lot.

Less than a kilometer from the airport, the phone shook out of my hand and my body was suddenly in motion. Crashing noises all around me. 

Someone had rear ended my taxi from behind.

One Mississippi, 

Two Mississippi

My hand was on my wallet, and I had four bills out 

Three Mississippi

The driver was already halfway out his door. I looked at the passenger front seat, and thought about leaving the money there. No, because then when he saw me leaving he would think I was leaving without paying. That would complicate things further.

Four Mississippi.

Opening my door in the middle of traffic, I was instantly nearly hit by a passing car. Traffic was bad on this road, at this time. 

Real bad.

Five Mississippi.

I got his attention, laid the four bills on the trunk. He looked at me and nodded. In the corner of my eye the driver of the vehicle who hit him was approaching.

Six Mississippi.

I was already turned, grabbing my suitcase out of the back seat. I had rehearsed all this in my mind a million times. My first ride in an African taxi was 12 years ago. This was trip

Seven

Mississippi.

I pointed directly at a taxi zooming towards our stopped collision. Pointed like I’d just scored a touchdown and it was an end zone dance.

Eight Mississippi.

And she was gone.

Just like that, Belle was gone. 

I don’t know why we didn’t spend Sunday together. She had invited me to church on our first date. But she didn’t mention it on the second. Eventually I said, “I’ll let you do church tomorrow without bothering you.”

I know she has schoolwork.

I don’t think I miss her. And that bothers me.

I guess it was just a meeting, really. I guess I can even see other girls.

Other wakandan girls, that is. I will never date an American woman again.

That’s the mindset for me. That’s the way for me. That’s survival. 

“You don’t live here, Marshall. The Big City is not your home. You are just visiting, coming to make some money, do some studies, so you can go home. You’re just a foreign worker, laboring here so you can go home.

Home to your family. Home to your wife. Home to your children.

Home to your home.”

I might die this year. 

I might.

But I might live.

[benajahccjoseph]

from gods slit wrist

  Halogen Incense

  Daddy stopped when he left her car seat on the roof.

She was born into it. Early she saw everyone was born similarly  She lived in horror at the world’s endless supply of heretics.

  Consuming confusion was brilliant in her entrance. A blinding that you tried to look through. The star, the yesteryear, the livid hopes; all under her banner. She entered stage center, dazzled and smiled the smile of small deaths and caught breath. Mississippi. A single precious tear from Gods face, a single drop of blood from Gods slit wrist, dropped in th mud. Seemed the whole state was confused, she never understood that. How was all a God’s country so turned around? Sometimes she thought maybe it was in her eyes.

  They were catching a bus Daddy said, but she didn’t figure as much. She held his hand, comforting him. Our Lady of Perpetual Grace was passed without so much as a spit. Daddy wouldn’t look at it. Catholics. Mostly we called em the harlot. She knew what a harlot was. She’d been one.

  Grady was supposed to be around Carthage. Hard boys up there, Momma said. Last time he was around he gave Momma some of his teeth. They were always doing that type of thing. They hugs was long uns.

  Katherine Robertine Elizabeth Toter-Cobb. We was all flummoxed by such a regal name. Mama has some history attached to it but she only showed us the peeking corners and dirty obscurities.

Momma stole books and burned them after ‘eating’ them. She’d whisper that it felt like eating anyway.  She’d say this every time. Perhaps these were only time she wasn’t listing. Momma believed in divine winds. She wouldn’t ever fight em. She wanted a hero, so bad. Her favorites were the ones who died at the end. Nothing confusing about that.

  Katy-Rob they called her. Daddy called Momma pretentious. Or pretty contentious. It was one of the only times she looked at him with love. I magine she thought it witty. I know I did. After that look she went on to the pharmacy and Daddy went to buy tickets.   I caught up to her looking real intent on some new tennis shoes on this dude with a Cat hat n’ those damn sequined jeans.

Know when you gaze up and on a thing…cher, you change it?

I know that mama.

Oh youre so erudite, you.

What?

Momma was Acadian and though she was supposed to be so smart she talked just like everyone else, cept kinda dumber for that couy’on shit. In every picture I every saw of her she was showing her long white teeth, like she was trying to sell something. Later I came to see she was trying to prove to the world she wasn’t poor.

Id seen Mama do some sketchy shit, some wicked shit…one time she rented Grady out for 3 months. Stabbed a girl in Germantown outside a Memphis because she was too high. In the heat of demon attack mama looked sinistral, eyes seemed almost all black and shadows moved about her profile like they was alive. Face would be all fucked up. I hated looking at her like that. You just wanted to put yourself inbetween her and that.

I wote a poem for her. She loved to dance. Long lines a sweat in every right place. Everyone looked at her when she was dancing… like they everyone wanted to hump ’er…momma had dat juju.

We leak through the clicks you clock and mourn for the rocks we see carried about Demure with reverence but cannot rationalize just feel within as we all watch our loved ones spin to try and place an eye on the thing That produces the suffering and in this spinning habitual it metastasized into ritual and the dance in its ignorance is beautiful lenocinant sinistral

and i wish we could all be still

    “Feet pue tan, mi amor”

Mama don’t cuss. Never would.

I loved lines like that. The whole lot of us lived on that line.

    There wasn’t ever gonna be any bus, and she was startlingly not shamed by his lie. Heretics. Small feet kicked at a Fanta Orange. Katy-Rob couldn’t be sure if they was black or dirty so she looked up a bit. Confusing who was proper and who wasn’t. She’d heard some ministers ministerin’ on keeping birds with birds and cows with cows.

  She wanted to scratch when she itched but she never did.

  Holed up at the non-denominational she took a moment to do her 4th dailies while she watched the transactions. Time and money for peace of mind, she knew there was no equanimity in that purchase for how can you sell somin inside the body. Only time she felt that was in the rock and roll church’s, that precious theater inside her heart singing out the most amazing dance numbers. Gold and purple feelings. Like Mamma’s Tigers.

  Bus trip in the none-to-crisp suit pocket, they stayed for the Wed. prayer meetin. “Lord, clarity!?” is all she heard.

She let em. In her mind she wouldn’t say any of them words, though she knew em all. Not anymore. School want ever much of an option. She imagined she’d gone some 86 days counting Sunday school. Down in Delta Daddy drove the pickers and Momma would help her people at the gin. She guessed they also make juniper liquor, but she had never seen anybody so much as talking too much.

  Usually she let em. Long as Grady wasn’t in the county or parish.

      Carthage

  Inside of the pain management clinic Momma wagged a smidgen more than usual.

  The Cave. Yeah she felt like she understood what that peasant man had been on about. Inside of her the beasts walked behind her eyes projecting outward before the flame. Spirit. It was in there, everyone cept the great harlot believed that, maybe the Jews too.

The connection with the nebulous. A shadow moving over the death waters. Spirit. All of us believed in it, we just didn’t know what it did exactly. People loved to say ‘god-bless’ or ‘Lord have mercy’ without any effect registerin’. To my mind that just made it a cuss word.

  She loved the swamp. Would try and draw it out on some papers she kept in a plastic sack. She would rub the expensive paper between her fingers and something stirred.  The cicadas song was richer there, the air tugged back, weightier somehow. She felt like her house would one day be in the swamp, clapboard painted green with mesh to keep out the critters but not else.

    It sounded like a side of deboned meat being hit with a Louisville slugger, he’d been there and few people went around with bats. Guns mainly. Breaking his hand had been a salvation. He thought he’d found religion but he’d found instead a boy from Colombia. Alerts rang. Grady felt drugs were a last option. Open but last on line. Everyone he grew up with said “in line” but Grady was careful with his mastery of what he considered the only separation betwixt man and dog.

Manfreid Israel Romele was Russian. Perhaps German. Older. Beautiful. Cement blonde. How is a fighter so beautiful? Grady knew.

Smoldering halogen incense prayed for them. Pissing on the carhood altar.

The boy was a fucking nightmare. Glowed. Darkness. He’d seen it before. Everything was loose when he prayed, like the boy standing feet away, steam roiling off of his neck, with “Molon Labe” tatted across the front of his windpipe, where he got hit 45 seconds later.

  The Chevelle was purple and Grady wouldn’t lean on it. Surrounding the Big Red Barn choking the purity of the moment were the ‘chickens’.   Grady had said, ”clucking foul” but his folk just spit out the gumbo. Grady did not respect a man who watched blood-sports.

  Ancient and comfortable. It was more than he could bear, of at time he would sit in the pot till he’d eatin it. A marvel of his power, kneeling on the commode in communion. Particles of hay and heat, cicada’s his private herald. Easy 220.   Easy. Against his knees fabric calmed his fingers, he thought of his sister; the smile closed. He thought of Teddy on his horse, the pompous, articulate fool.

  “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

  So fucking obvious, like ham-in-hand. Natchitoches. Ham-in-Hand Festival 94. You could walk across the Sabine on boats, smells of the Cajun Microwave’s buried in the soft loam some 100 paces from the water. Whole hogs stuffed with chickens and doves. Grady wondered if dogs trusted smell the way humans subscribed to sight. It was over tween them and he should have seen it. Grady looked coldly at his need. Only the slightest of scowls. Chemicals he thought, chemicals and blips.

    He didn’t think it much, to go to war. He was plied with Mozi, Xenophon and 1st Chronicles 4:10 early. Daddy leaning over him and pointing to sketches momma had drawn to go with the Gideon Bible which was in constant circumlocution with others of its ilk. He always walked hunkered down, tied firmly to many things that were not tied to him.

She scuttled over the grooved Cyprus, kaleidoscope of man reduced, he saw her; languidly absorbing the violence to come. Beneath her impressive multi-spectacled visage was her load, atwitter. Looked of fine hairs in a sharp breeze, her brood beneath her belly. She leaned back as if to sit or box or pray, front legs circling in the direction of the bigger man’s dead face.

  Lawd have a way, boy you ready?

The man was a fat, suspender framing a whet shirt with nowhere to go came up on Grady’s boy Ara too fast.

Ok we ready?

Ill kill you ifin you don’t step back.

Things was tight, Grady knew all bout this here.

Aight then.

  Theys a bit a nonsense bout that bet?

No. Straight up.

Mine’ll be in money orda?

Ara’d get it after the fight now, cause I’ll be on my way, Briar Rabbit style, gros cul.

    Fat man took on a greasy bugger as backward he moved, “that man fittin to fuck you.”

Tingle. Mmmmmmm. Grady felt like Ehud preparing to assassinate the fat king Eglon of Moab.

Hear that Schvartze, eer dat fat man.

God give me a verse. He chewed a small hangnail.

Ha. He knew it. 2 Kings 9:20, 20 The watchman [a]reported, “He came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.”

The Lord gave this verse a lot.

  Ehud and Jehu. Lawd have mercy son.

    This boy was car black, and it really aint right, that type a black. That sheen of purple that made Grady think of dinosaurs and that painter Turner. Give em almost like invisibility at night. And nobody wants that shit. It’s like that shine you can see you’re reflection in… but it gives pause cause it’s a black you staring back. How fucking mad you’d be.  Grady wouldn’t look at those shiny black cars, he even avoided dark purple.

Fat man giggled into his cerchief and sat down on a bale; he thought, looking toward the unimpressive white boy, that this’d be soon over.

  Grady prayed a bit, squatted and thought of something like a dwarf star painted on a canvas the side of the barn.

He knew the boy’d come over the top and heavy, he knew hed move left and the boy’d come in with a quick step and a lunge at his knees.   All the cat in that man was now cutting its way to the top. the breath was bull-like in intensity but shallow. The red rims mean he’s a drinker probably and he favored his left knee a bit. Grady felt sorry then. Sorry for his life and his momma, sorry for the man who was gonna try a kill him, sorry for the fat man who bet against his own kind, sorry that Mississippi water that he smelled on everything was growing less pungent.   Sorry God was real and poetry was to hang him. Sometimes things seeded afor birth ripen when they aint wanted. He always felt tears was fine where laughter was.

They drummed him out of the military for being too young. Sure at that time it would be the catalyst for a life riding the dark horse, he considered killing himself but didn’t. Grady’d look in the mirror most days to check and see if it was time.

    I read somewhere that poor people typically name their kids names like Unique, Kandy, Sherry and Amber. Later, I read somewhere that girls with some particular names wind up being hookers and dancers and in the porno’s. It bothered me it took two studies to not say that poor girls went to stripping a shade faster than rich ones. Academicians are so fucking stupid. Not only this but everyone knew that strippers changed their names. I thought then and think now I should be in charge of a hair more.

I guess I followed her around some.  I remember the taste of bubble-gum scented shampoo and her face.  We were protective of each other as should be expected.  Daddy woednt too much of a provider, nor a daddy.  I guess she burned out that wild streak cause she came back directly. “I wish I was in Dixie, hurrah hurrah In Dixie land Ill take my stand to live and die in Dixie. Oh way Oh way Oh way down south….. in Dixie.” She loved the word Dixie, long as I knew her though I believe she thought it more of a state of being, like glory or honor.  She may ah never known it was holding all our heads under water.  Grady knew all about it and loved it anyway.  Some things just don’t figure.  Soon as I could I got out. Not sure anyone else ever did, not really.

I remember him takin pictures of her holding onto a lit lighter and a squeeze bottle a lighter fluid. I remember when the men came in and he couldn’t protect us.  He tried.  Grady says, “tryin dyin.”

I read an article somewhere bad things happen to poorer people more often, it was more nuanced than that but that’s what I got. “Katy-Rob, bring us that phone.” “your cellular phone?” “We aint go no…little smart-alec.” She was always doin stuff like that.  I couldn’t ever figure who she was making fun of, Daddy or this Democratic Republic. Maybe Jonny Locke. Momma was a Rhodes Scholar, I do not know how.

    The slovenly way she met my laughter got her a lick. She called herself red velvet, not a nickname, her color. Said mamma was white as the driven snow cept a little Cocoa and a dash’a red food colorin. At a certain age I started realizing that I was gonna be mostly for myself, like my cousin Fay. I took to strippin like anybody’s business. First night in, this little Indian girl told me we do private parties, all naked. I couldn’t see much difference anyhow. It was illegitimate and the girls were indifferent to the men sucking on their titties and stuff. It just suited me fine.

  I told Grady that he was to keep my little sister outta my world. There was only room in Carthage for one Cobb stripper.

      The striker clicked down and something happened but it sure did not fire a round. White slipstream stepped quickly and quietly inside and hit the man with the gun in the throat. That noise is a thing. Everyone knew he’d done killed him. Grady remembered Niccki Bercham getting punched just so and dying. He guessed he coulda just knocked the gun away. Somewhere, someone was probably holding a little nigglet, waiting on daddy to call. It’d be a wait.

  There were eight Cobbs all said but they slithered off, most of em anyway, to Bama and Nam and Peru. Doesn’t matter too much because once they left sight of the Mississippi River, they was good as dead.

        Why’d they decide to try and kill him? Grady had a small warrant out on him that left the Boss little choice. That’s what I heard.

  Theys four of us around and we all came. Amber, Bo, Katy, and me. Grady stood up from a Shaker stool he loved.

Grady said they’d maybe come for one of us.

They got Katy Rob two nights later, sent in her fron tooth wit they diamond set in it. Fucked up but shed done talked about rippin it out her own self.

  Similies was supposed to be a real swanky joint but it was not. Owner by strategery has built a damn motel in the back. Lord have mercy, sulphur factory. I went to pills in the first month. Once you have gonna church and believe, shit gets real hard to do…after the first couple times anyway.

  Grady wasn’t blood related to all the girls and he knew to divide his attentions. You cant just go around fighting the whole wrestling team. Amber was neck-tatted and out from around at 14. Our older cousins had done some strippin down on the redneck riveria and I reckon it called her harder’n dope.

Katy took to the hard life too but came back to me and Daddy, Momma and her never cared to talk to one another. She came back quieter and only wore beige and grey. She wrote long letters to Amber and cried some but I would have had her cry all the time if’n she’d just stay.

  You’se too young buddy.

I knew you’d say that shit.,

Amber drove up in a fucking Infinity with something clanking under the jappy hood. I knew Grady wouldn’t even look at her, not even one time.

Amber and me gonna go talk to Joe-Block. See if we can figure something out.

  There wasn’t any reason to hate Grady for being what he was but I had me a weapon too.

I never knew a way to complete the things that others completed. I reckon I’m slow or I ain’t totally grown up yet.   Somin’. When I saw those men take Katy and beat Daddy, there was some sort of wet click and I seemed of a sudden to be able to see it all. The vast expanse and the precipitous nature of the wealthy and the bright. left us all killing each other over a double wide and an abortion.

  I watched myself, knowin somehow I had made a decision that was about being a man, about being a Cobb n’ a Toten but there wasn’t anything movie about it.  I stole a ladies cruiser out front a the Winn Dixie and played with myself all the way to Biloxi.  I felt greasy and popped a pimple on my back.  Somehow the Ruger felt lighter the further south we went, like it was becoming less offended by its own.

    I was in love with the purity of my little brother. He would never talk to me in front of other people but in private he asked after my girlfriends and me. Once I got a bit too graphic and he white’nd up so I was sure he was gonna kill me. I think he’s still a virgin at 24.

    I had made 1200. I have no damn clue where that fucking money is now. Jessie and I were working on a routine, she had this idea for a ‘concept piece’ with Moors and an allusion to the Hearst family but we just wound up kissing and smoking cigarettes till it was our turn.

They could see her now. More whispers to Letty, “This place gone turn out.”

“mmm”

“Im gone go bump th doe man and see if he got a piece.”

Letty smiled a ray of rancid rainbow.

5’1 or 5’3 he guessed. Wadnt no 5’2. Tatted up like her momma didn’t give a fuck. A little bump in his chest somewhere reminded him of another girl, another stripper, another piece of meat in the wily trades of men.

She caught his eye and may have winked, which sent Letty whom everyone called Lessy to the potty to laugh in the stall.

Men with huge dicks walk a bit different she whispered to a man sticking a 10 in her g. Lets the whole world who cares to know. The roxi’s in her were turning everything a little less than, like life was amped up but she was at regular speed.  She kept seeing > signs. In the glass of the bowl, in her reflective panties, in her eyes in the cracke john mirra. Pulling his head she thought momentarily of licking his ear but these was Halliburton boys, fresh oft the rig and in Hub City to be jackass’s but not to take a good shower.

When she threw up the front row moved toward anywhere that wasn’t there. Same time a rukus in the commode and a gunshot out the back.

  A week later a tall boy walks in and politely asks after Robert-Earl. No one really wanted to tell him.

Everything I did the hardest I ever done. I worked all my life with Daddy at whatever we was doing then so I always knowed I could throw a bale a bit harder than most. I was always taught to be polite even if they weren’t, so I thought Id just ask after Katys old boss. Figured with his lip Id go on ahead. His eye popped out with that first one, his ocular cavity crushed, and I walked toward the back looking at the mirrors for boys coming up on me. I know I punched some girls and I hope to high hell they aint no videotape a me but when it started in earnest it couldn’t be helped. I know one of em kissed me on the back of my neck while I was stomping on this colored boys. Heard later he got paralyzed some. Gottim a check anyway.

I learned that night why mama said them Carthage boys is hard. Robert-Earl. I had a drown his brother in front a him and it wernt no easy thing.

  Amocitea

Your Daddy aint gonna recognize you.

Still that little girl. When under all of it, peach flame tripped along at the word. She wanted so much for him to swoop, it was pure. A clean thing, her vision of Daddy just doing what all real animals did. Maybe he was too human.

That golden blanket that she just expected to keep on being, didn’t; and she stepped out really believing that they was gentlemen in this South, in this here state. One night looking deep in her own eyes while everyone elses in the room were on her crotch she realized that this southern thang was a crock. She spected Margaret Mitchell probably just cold wishin like every other Dixie brat split-tail. It was a precious pity that she thought in that manner, she thought…probably affecting her self-image or the like.

    She’s hurt I felt. Hurt people, hurt people but with such a swirlin tide, a man just got to decide when to jump in, not if.

  Once I heard that Grady involved everybody in his business, I knew I hadda get us outta town. I didn’t really think Momm’d come wit her doctors here and whatever else she was into. Since Id come back from the Wilderness I had taken to wearing full length skirts and not shaving. I know my flesh well and I knew that just like this skirt, I could put it back on rrrrrreeeeeaaaalllllly quick. And that’s the plan, back to the hotel to make us some money.

Half-way from the bus-stop to the club I thought just maybe I was being a bit drastic, but I cant remember what my next thought was after that.

  Bo adjusted the mirror on the 91 Olds to see if he’d indeed gotten dip on his collar. A birth canal in the back seat caused him to blink for a second longer than average. The strip-club owners Daddy used to be a Marine and it showed. Punching and biting his way out of the trunk into the car was a feat, Bo’d be the first to tell ya. He’d blindfolded, zip tied and hit the man with 75000 Watts but this Minotaur was now in the backseat. Fucking Carthaginians.

  They realized quick they’d done fucked up with this one. She prayed aloud all day long, was unfailingly polite and every chance she got she tried to kill em. Lessy had knocked her tooth out purely on accident but after he reckoned the diamond to be fake, he sent it on to the boss.  Almost all his spare time went to kittens. More had received some care from a witch the Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box.   She calmly told em she couldn’t breath.

  I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks, I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

  You aint gonna believe this shit.

Francis-Jean Prichideaux III really could have done without hearing another person say that. It seemed to preface every comment. As a boy he’d felt something akin to the feeling he had now when other nut-brown Acadian boy’s ud say, “Wanna see something…hold my beer.”

Nothing good eva come outta dem type a commentary’s.

What?

Claudius came over with a note. Says here that Similies had another big da-doo.

Whan?

Last night.

  Itd been 2 weeks since they colored boys come up in that terrible place and Blanc Bebbette got taken, now what dis shit?

Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box.   She calmly told em she couldn’t breath. More heard, “I feel free.” thought long and hard about that medicine Melodina gave him, the plan was he was, of a time, to go back. ER out the wustion. She told him he could still sire a brood, if he chose.

  Right now the chose was in nose. That moment, eternal, universal, when you know for certain that thing are bout to get lit.

  I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

      You aint gonna believe this shit.

Francis-Jean Prichideaux III really could have done without hearing another person say that. It seemed to preface every comment. As a boy he’d felt something akin to the feeling he had now when other nut-brown Acadian boy’s ud say, “Wanna see something…hold my beer.”

Nothing good eva come outta dem type a commentary’s.

What?

Claudius came over with a note. Says here that Similies had another big da-doo.

Whan?

Last night.

  Itd been 2 weeks since them colored boys come up in that terrible place and Blanc Bebbette got taken, now what dis shit? Least he didn’t have any crackers around to be yapping about…”oh what now you gonna do colored ssherrff”

  The problem we have with God honey is related to expectations and not based in the hard VERITAS of life. See here, what happens when youo to church?

I listen to the preacher

Right, sure but when you’re singing a good Hallelujah song. Or something real once make you cry every time. That jut Him leeting us know that we are cared for.s like that one goes, “Lord You are more precious than silver…

Lord You are more costly than gold.

Together, “Lord You are more beautiful than diamonds.

And nothing I desire compares to You.”

Lord, honey you have a voice like angel blast-furnace. When you get that deep purple swell….

Purple and Gold.

Yesssa, and that is the real thing and it is a thing that belongs in this world yet has a hand fully in the next. But what you looking for there is that feeling to keep on keepin on.

Yessir.

But it don’t.

No.

Is that Gods problem or yours?

I feel like sometimes it is Him.

Cause you just go home and go straight to sinning.

And I wonder why in all His Greatness, I just can’t get a little help in that department.

But you care don’t ya?

I care a great deal.   I expect it’s my conscience.

Yes. But a conscience ain’t a stopper, it’s just a fuse light indicator.

So then where’s the stopper?

That’s the catch.

Meaning its all up to me.

Honey, you ever look at a real life hero?

Maybe Rooster Carley?

Hmm. Ain’t none. He died 2000 years ago, therebouts. Now we just hunker down. Oh you gone sin.   I’m gone sin. Yo Mamma, Lawd have a way. Its not about ‘not doin’ its about accepting your place in grace.

My place in grace.

  From behind him mamma stepped, lightly, elegant specter. White on white on white, yet the air hovered lightly around it as if mistrusting. Mama’s essence was rebellion. Born with a dead twin boy, she lay never crying once in granny’s arms. Said she wouldn’t look nobody in the eye. They was alarmed from the get go. Mamma was said to have spent some of her teen years in Walnut Gove. She supposed to have found God in there, in the gladiator school. Once when she came home to the Shady Acres #3 after being out for a minute, she took me and we sat behind the dumpster; she told me about the first love of her life while she smoked up a cool bill a rock. Some people get all crazy scared of people on hard drugs, like they got special powers or summin. I ain’t but but a buck and change and I’m telling you I have cold knocked fuckers out who go too close. It’s best just to warn white folks up front, but when mamma slumming or Im at school and we dealing wit regular street niggas, I just stay loose, if mamma grab and go…then well, Im just down wit mine.

Oh Daddy.

I love my Daddy…

  What are ya’ll ssscheming on. Lemme see your billfold.

Daddy’s trying to tell me all the war we got with sin is just an illusion.

Woman, that’s not what I said.

That we have to learn to accept our weakness as part of life. And personally for me, cause I listen to all them preachers and I read all them books and I pray on the Bible…I do it all with a knife in my belt and Im down for the clan but I do not wanna keep on living this way.

Ooh its one of them talks, you…what your daddy is remise in sharing is that there are other forces at work in this world.

NO.

Well talk later honey.

We never did.

I believe Mamma occupies some special place in this world, like a gold key that is made for just one lock, the most magnificent things await behind it; but you put that fucker in your back pocket with a handkerchief and they key is lost in the Misty Mountains.   Myrrh and aloe and decay and female sex and the heat after summer rain and moss and Cyprus and dawn and linen white. Mamma mind was fine. Mammas body was the problem. She worshipped it to hurt her.

She saw a movie once at the Motel 6 in Latham Springs Texas called Jennifer’s Body, she said that though the metaphor was sloppy and the genre “totally LA” a poor excuse, yet she understood that somehow this connected us, because I was watching her becoming self aware.

Of an aspect only I believe, but a crack in the wall blinked a purple light in my eye and I realized that indeed “the affections of the heart are Divine”. If God dropped the veil once in a while, it somehow ran through my mother.

  But even though I am slower than other folks, I can tell you that if Daddy believes that things are moving behind the scenes and mamma sees em too. Man, these things are making them worse…not better.

                Man out of trunk

Boy wrecks.

Runs into St Francisville swamp

The kidnapping event

Tearing the tooth

Too much “arm”   dead girl

Grady gets pickeup

Amber breaks him out

Bo meets someone unexpected

Daddys lie

Gradys brother is Robert Earl.

Daddys bet

    Layerdown. from gods slit wrist   Halogen Incense   Daddy stopped when he left her car seat on the roof.

[trendingnewsb]

How Mad Men Star Kit Williamson Made His Own Gay Soap Opera

The problem, says Kit Williamson, is that EastSidersthe Emmy-nominated LGBT soap opera he created in 2012almost shares a name with EastEnders, the well-known BBC soap opera currently in its 32nd year.

And so when Williamson recommends people check out his drama about handsome LGBT Los Angelenos living, loving, screwing up, and doing what people on soap operas are wont to do, they end up going down totally the wrong rabbit hole on YouTube, and finding instead a group of East Londoners doing their own variation of the same, if at a much louder volume.

My recommendation: Watch both.

Season 3 of EastSiders, released on Nov. 28 digitally and on DVD, takes the shape of a cross-America road trip, complete with stunning skies and endless horizons, beginning with Douglas/Gomorrah Rey (played by Willam Belli) having a blow-up row in full drag and 116-degree heat beside the side of a highway, as his boyfriend Quincy (Stephen Guarino) tries in vain to pacify the situation.

Bellis heels melted in the heat, and Williamson, 32, directed the action clad in cooling wet towels. The glamor of independent web TV, he says, laughing.

Williamsons character, Cal, and partner Thom (Van Hansis) are heading back west after their sojourn in New York City, and have an encounter with a drifter played by model and porn star (and Donald Trump supporter) Colby Keller. Also returning for the third season are John Halbach, Williamsons real-life husband, and Constance Wu, Williamsons longtime buddy, as straight couple Ian and Kathy. (To confuse you even more, a leading mother-son duo in EastEnders is called the same.)

I wanted to create characters that I didnt really see on television, Williamson, who played Ed Gifford on Mad Men, told The Daily Beast. I think you see a lot of cautionary tales in LGBT representation and then hyper- morally-upright representations. Youre either in a couple, living in the suburbs with 2.5 kids, or youre a drug addict in the 1980s. Its rare that LGBT characters are allowed to operate in between, like all human beings operate.

Williamson is heartened by the growing diversity of representation in the TV shows of Shonda Rhimes and on cable, and hopes his EastSiders characters have flaws, make messes, and pick up the pieces, just like straight characters on TV.

EastSiders has been mostly financed through Kickstarter funding, raising $250,000 across three seasons. The third season is also partially funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Impulse Group Global, and the show incorporates both organizations safer sex messaging.

Its incredibly moving, says Williamson of the publics generous financial support for the show, which makes him even more determined that the show does its fans justice. EastSiders aims to be as culturally mixed as a small cast and limited number of episodes can allow. Inclusive storytelling should be everybodys goal, says Williamson.

If Williamson has a dream, it is that one day television will be able to sustain having two LGBT-themed shows on at the same time; or even that there will be LGBT lead characters on TV, whose sexuality or gender identity is part of their identities, rather than defining them.

Until that rainbow shines, we have a smattering of characters and shows like Queer as Folk, The L Word, and Looking, which flicker into life, cause their controversies and debates, then go. The capriciousness of LGBT representation on our screens is down to the capriciousness of mostly straight-run broadcasters.

Hansis himself found fame as Luke Snyder on CBS daytime soap As The World Turns, as a landmark gay character whom fans clamored to be allowed to kiss his boyfriend, Noah (Jake Silbermann). (Oh, have you seen their horsing-around towel wrestle? You must see the towel wrestle.)

EastSiders refers geographically to the parts of East Los AngelesSilver Lake, Los Feliz Echo Park, DTLAwhere the characters live, a boho-y, very different sort of vibe to the muscle boys of West Hollywood, although (as their social media accounts reveal) the extremely handsome and charming Williamson and Halbach look just as hot as any WeHo guy.

Some scenes in the show are filmed at the mens home, and looks attractively ruffled and laid-back, filled with vintage furniture, mismatched cushions and twinkly lights.

Williamson had problems getting straight actors to play gay when EastSiders first began, even though there were no sex scenes in the first two seasons. Any show with gay content is immediately presumed to be exploitative, Williamson notes.

The road trip of Season 3 was filmed on the road itself, with cast and crew starting out in Woodstock, upstate New York, and ending up in Los Angeles, trundling across the vast expanse of America in a vintage camper trailer and another vehicle.

It took two weeks, with an extended stay in Idaho to scout locations and shoot scenes. It was exciting, invigorating and harrowing, says Williamson, laughing. Its no small undertaking taking two carloads of people across the country, and making sure theyre in bed at a reasonable hour.

The team ran afoul of a runaway tire that put a dent in the camper early on. They were snowed out of Yellowstone National Park. They shot on the fly, and in some places permits allowing them to film were withdrawn when it was revealed that it was a gay-themed TV show.

We started telling places where we wanted to film that it was called Go West, and just said it was about two friends driving across the country together, Williamson says.

The Black Hills of South Dakota were especially breathtaking, he says. You owe yourself ten minutes off the main drag to see the Badlands (National Park in South Dakota). I could have explored it all day if I had the chance. I am a huge lover of mountains. Even though it was terrifying driving that fucking camper trailer up and down mountains it was still breathtaking, even if I nearly killed everybody two or three times.

Williamson concedes that he is biased about California where he lives, but recommends the eastern part near Nevada for that big sky feeling, and that moment you get to the coast after weeks on the road to arrive at the Pacific Ocean and put your feet in the sand. It felt like a cool homecoming for the characters and the crew.

It was a really challenging place to grow up gay, and I also grew up very religious which didnt help matters.

Williamson himself grew up in Mississippi, where the countrys most anti-LGBT law, HB 1523, has just taken root. He is surprised as to how little attention the law has garnered nationally, compared to the outcry over similar laws in North Carolina.

I think a lot of people write off Mississippi as a lost cause, says Williamson, who emceed a Pride celebration there two years ago. I understand why, but its still sad to me as a person who grew up there. I really want people to understand there are great people living in Mississippi fighting for their own rights and fighting for their neighbors.

There was a lot of homophobia when he was growing up, says Williamson. It was a really challenging place to grow up gay, and I also grew up very religious which didnt help matters. It was definitely a challenge for my family to understand me.

His whole family are employed in the area of law, and he surprised all of them by wanting to act. They were supportive of me, even if part of them thought Hell get over this eventually and enter the family business. I tell them, One day Ill play a lawyer on TV. Thats all I can guarantee.

As a boy, Williamson was a big nerd. I read a lot of fantasy novels. I had a mullet. I was very socially awkward, and it was difficult at school to be friends with other people. It was really hard for me. I knew I was different, I didnt know why. I was savagely bullied as a kid, people were terrible to me.

Williamsons older sister modeled herself on the cult animated character, Daria. I thought the way you handled bullies was being sarcastic and funny, he says. It didnt turn out well.

He and Halbach once compared notes on childhood bullying. I was Gay Kid and he was Gay Boy. We both had really unoriginal bullies. Williamson laughs softly. Little did they know that Gay Kid and Gay Boy were going to get together.

I didnt really think growing up that it would be possible wed have gay marriage nationally, he adds. To be able to take advantage of it as a citizenhe and Halbach married last yearhas been so incredibly moving to me.

Williamson and Halbach met in March 2007. Williamson was then a bartender at NYC theater-land hangout Angus McIndoe, and the men were introduced by a mutual friend who told each of them separately, Hes single and not crazy. It was a perfectly judged match. That night, the men stayed talking until the bar closed.

Williamson had underplayed the significance of marriage equality because the possibility seemed so far off, he adds. When the Supreme Court ruled, it hit us both. Wed been denying ourselves something that we really did find meaningful. Im so glad we did it.

Williamson has worked successfully as a filmmaker and actor for years. Making Mad Men was a masterclass, he says, watching both those in front and behind the cameras. The sexy pictures on his Instagram account are in service of promoting his work and LGBT rights, he insists, adding with another laugh, and in shamelessly promoting ourselves. Instagram is a tool for good and evil, and we try to use it for good, for the best of possibilities.

Williamson chuckles that the idea was to use social media to direct people to EastSiders and the mens other work, promoting fashion and fitness influencers and LGBT destinations, but now people recognize him and Halbach from social media itself.

How EastSiders fans respond to the inclusion of Colby Keller remains to be seen. His scenes were shot before he revealed his support of Donald Trump.

I was really surprised and caught off guard when I saw that, says Williamson, who, a Hillary Clinton supporter, had been shocked when Trump triumphed in last years presidential election. I was driving to Idaho when the gay blogs erupted in fury over his (Kellers) political leanings. We did make the choice not to replace him. I havent talked to him about what happened.

When it came to keeping Keller in the season, Williamson asked himself whether he would work with Susan Sarandon, another Clinton naysayer who backed Bernie Sanders.

I think were living in really, really divided times, and I dont want to do anything to add to that divide, says Williamson. I also dont think we should be casting people out of the village. Its complicated. A lot of my family members support Trump, not for ideologically pure reasons beyond really liking the guy and what he stands for.

Keeping Kellers role in EastSiders intact presented an interesting dilemma, and I dont have the answer to it, Willliamson admits.

I ask, had he known that Keller was a Trump supporter, would Williamson have still signed him up?

I dont know. When we were planning the season we were 99 percent sure Hillary Clinton was going to be president. Faced with the reality of working with an active Trump supporter right now in 2017 my answer would be no. Its just too much of open wound for me, and friends I know who are afraid of being deported. I do think its a very serious situation.

If Hollywood is to have any leg to stand on in shaping the culture we need to own up to the abuses of power that are very real.

Williamson recently posted on social media his experience of sexual harassment when he was starting out in the entertainment industry.

At 18, he was invited to a party at an agents house. He proceeded to tell me not to come out if I wanted to be an actor, to stay in the closet, and then tried to put his hand down my pants, Williamson recalls. It was this one, two punch of harassment and homophobia that was a bitter pill to swallow, and it soured me on Los Angeles for a couple of years.

He did not suffer any graver sexual assaults, as allegedly committed by the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin fucking Spacey. I think its really important we have these conversations. If Hollywood is to have any leg to stand on in shaping the culture we need to own up to the abuses of power that are very real.

What his experience also shows, again, is Hollywoods powerful gays seeking to keep the closet intact, part of a historyfor Willliamsonof different groups acting as their own morality police and oppressors.

Its very sad and true. Theres still not been a gay movie star. Look at a lot of people who have succeeded on television. Most come out after their big break. Im not here to judge: Its brave to come out at the height of your success, but in 2017 I think we need to look at the paths other people have blazed for us and be brave enough to walk down them without fear.

Next for Williamson may come more EastSiders. He is also writing a series about queer thirtysomethings set in New Orleans.

Id love to get to a place where the leads of a show can be gay where that is normal and not extraordinary, says Williamson, and where the storylines can be both unique to us and more universal in the same breath; where we are allowed to be doctors, husbands, wives, crazy, not crazy, parents, single, slutty, and settled.

The whole incredible range of human experience should allowed to be represented in LGBT characters, where we are not defined solely by our sexuality.

The open road Williamson and his crew traveled for Season 3 of EastSiders perhaps says it all.

The third season of EastSiders will be released on DVD by Wolfe Video and digital platforms on Nov. 28. More details here.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2BcEdfF

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White man pathology: within the fandom of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

Stephen Marche goes on a superhighway expedition and enters the fray at back-to-back Iowa conventions and gets a view of US politics from the perspective of his whiteness

The perimeter

You find your whiteness properly at the American perimeter. Most of the time being white is an absence of troubles. The police dont disturb you so you dont notice the police not riling you. You get the job so you dont notice not getting it. Your children are not confused with crooks. I live in downtown Toronto, in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in one of the most open metropolis in “the worlds”, where multiculturalism is the dominant civic importance and the inert virtue of endurance is the most prominent endowment of the British territory, so if you squint you are able to profess the ancient categories are scattering into a cloud of enlightenment and intermarriage.

Not at the border.

My sons Guyanese-Canadian teacher and the Muslim Milton scholar I went to high school with and the Sikh writer I squabble about Harold Innis with and my Ishmaeli accountant, we can all be good little Torontonians of the middle class, avoiding the differences we have been trained to respect. But in a auto in the carbon monoxide-infused queue waiting to enter Detroit, their beings diverge drastically from mine.

I am lily-white. They are not. They are susceptible. I am not.

Heres the thing: I like the guards at the American margin. Theyre always friendly with me, decent, even pleasant firm. At the booth in between the never-was of Windsor and the has-been of Detroit, the man I happened to draw had a gruff belly and the mysterious air of intentional inscrutability, like a troll under a connection in a fairy tale.

Where are you pate? he asked.

Burlington, Iowa.

Why would anyone ever choose to go to Burlington, Iowa? he requested philosophically.

Im going to see Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Then, because it did seem to require an explanation: Theyre handing rallies within got a couple of dates of each other.

Why would anyone ever choose to go hear Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders?

I didnt argue, because it was the border, but I could have said that the police chief of Birmingham estimated that 30,000 beings evidenced up in Alabama to see Donald Trump in August and that in Dallas, he had replenished the American Airlines Center, and that his equivalent, Bernie Sanders, has generated equally unprecedented quantities enormously more than Barack Obama outlined at comparable instants in the 2008 campaign.

Im strange, I said instead.

At this detail he asked me to roll down my opening. But it was all fine. Like I replied, Im white.

As I drove through the suburbs of the spoils of Detroit, across the I-9 4, one of the ugliest freeways in the United States, the old-fashioned familiar lightness fluttered to my mettle. I enjoy America. America is not my mother. Canada is my mother. But America is an unbelievably splendid, amazingly sugared rich maid who lives next door and believe that there is falling apart. I cannot help myself from loving it.

For people who love to dwell in contradictions, the US is the greatest country in “the worlds”: the country of the free is built around bondage, the member states of law and order where everyone is entitled to a gun, a region of unimpeded advance where they cling to backwardness out of sheer stubbornness. And into this glorious morass, a new inconsistency has recently announced itself: The white people, the privileged Americans, the ones who had the least to fear from the powers that be, the ones with the most wonderful directions to brighter futures, the ones who are by every metric one of “the worlds largest” lucky groups in the history of “the worlds”, has begun to croaking off in stunning numbers.

The Case and Deaton report, Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21 st Century, describes an ever increasing death rate for middle-aged American lily-whites comparable to lives lost in the US Aids epidemic. This spike in mortality is unique to white Americans not find work amongst other ethnic groups in the United States or any other white population in the developed world, a mysterious blight of despair.

In one style, it was easy to account for all this white American fatality medication and alcohol poisoning, suicide, and chronic liver illness and cirrhosis according to the report. It was not so easy be held accountable for the accounting. Why were middle-aged white-hot Americans boozing and medication and shooting themselves to death? The explanations on offer were pre-prepared, fully plugged into confirmation bias: “its been” their own economies or it was demography or “its been” godlessness or it was belief or it was the outage of their own families or it was the persistence of antique qualities or it was the lack of social programs or it was the dependence on social programs.

Case and Deaton call it an epidemic of hurting. Fine. What does that signify?

On the I-9 4, you do find yourself questioning: what the fuck is wrong with these beings? I symbolize, aside from the speedy slump of the middle class certainly. And the rise of precarious run and the fact that the basic way of life requires so much sedation that nearly a quarter of all Americans are on psychiatric drugs, and somewhere between 26.4 and 36 million Americans mistreat opioids every day. Oh yes, and the mass shootings. There was more than one mass hitting a period. And the grey terrorists targeting black churches again. And the regularly exhausted videos evidencing the police assassinating black people. And the police in question never being indicted, let alone being sent to jail.

And you know what Americans were worried about while all this shit was raining down on them? While all this insanity was wounding their beloved country? You know what their number one perturb was, according to referendum after poll after referendum?

Muslims. Muslims, if you can believe it.

The American fantasy is dead but Im going to make it stronger!

My body is white and it is male. It is six hoof towering and weighs 190 lbs. It is 39 years old and it has had to start flowing. It has had to start weighing calories. There is a tingle in the joint of my right thigh, so I try not to think about my torso. The tingling emanates and moves. I know my person is going to kill me.

A man who horror suffering already sustain what he fears, as Montaigne mentioned. Thats one on why males expire very young than dames six years younger on average in America. Ninety-two percent of men say they wait at least a few dates to see if they feel better before they go to a medical doctor, but I know what they mean by a few days. They represent a few more dates that forms sense. It is hard to have a male and lily-white torso and to conceive of its weakness. In the same sigh, my mas cannot accompanying itself to believe it is the personification of power, although it was undoubtedly is in any rational accountancy of social status. It feels like a mere body. It experiences mortal.

Ive never been to a residence as white-hot as Iowa. Thats the honest truth. Picture: Darren McCollester/ Getty Images

Ive never been to a place as white-hot as Iowa. Thats the honest truth. Whenever I go to America its New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or Florida. In Burlington, at Jerrys Main Lunch, the signature dish is the red-hot mess, eggs and bacon cooked right into the hash chocolate-browns. The carbohydrate shakers all have white crackers in them, to prevent clumping a classic bit of common-sense American know-how. The hot mess is yummy. Why dont they construct these everywhere? Why isnt there a series of Jerrys Main Lunches providing hot mess all across the midwest?

The answer is in the rest of the town: everything thats going to leave have so far been left Burlington. The beautiful brick houses downtown are mainly vacant. The most interesting street is the road out of town.

The Memorial Arena, on the banks of the Mississippi, filled up early. Trump wasnt communicating until 6pm but by 4.45 the parking situation was gruesome. Outside the building, the hawkers who follow Trump on the road, occurrence to contest, sold T-shirts and buttons, three for $10. We shall overcomb. Cats for Trump, the time is Meow. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Inside, every fanny had been taken and the storey filled soon with a standing room only bunch. Burlington is 10% pitch-black. The rallying was 99.99% white.

The people who attend political rallies in America are a specific genre of humanity, like the ones who stand outside in lines for nightclubs. They know where theyre supposed to go and how theyre supposed to behave when they got to get. They have gear.

An elderly dame sat beside me wearing a sequined stars-and-stripes-hat she clearly takes out for precisely these parties. Yall from Illinois? she questioned. Im not but I can extend. She goes to all the rallyings, she justified. Shes been a Republican her whole life, an active Republican, an Iowa Republican. For 30 years, shes been in crowds like this one. She plans to go, one time in their own lives, to the national gathering. Like going to see the Stones. When the organizers delivered around mitt signeds speaking The Silent Majority, she grabbed a dozen so she could overtake them around to others.

Cheerful helpful maidens were half the crowd. Furious and absurd followers were the other. They wore T-shirts with whole paragraph written on them: I am a United States Armed Veteran. I formerly took a SOLEMN OATH to represent the CONSTITUTION against ALL enemies, foreign and Domestic. Be advised No one has ever allayed me of my functions under this Expletive!

There were cars in the parking lot slathered with bumper stickers. We the peoples of the territories are 100% FED UP! So if firearms kills people, I guess pencils miss incantation statements[ sic ], automobiles drive drink and spoonfuls see beings fat. Im straight, republican, Christian, and I own a handgun. Is there anything else I can do to piss you off? A picture of Obama with Does this ass stir my gondola look big? The Republican mode for 2016 is furious aphoristic feeling. Behind slapstick, nonsensical storm: America is the greatest country in the world but America is falling apart, government is the problem which is why authority must solve it.

This was a Trump production so naturally there was a VIP section. A door guarded by bald, unsmiling mortals, the bouncers who stand forever as the bored sentinels of indifferent fame. A swinging door at the side of the stage received and gave the best-looking parties, the ones with the buffed neutrality of political professionals, the women whose faces have been tautened to a perma mope, the men who get their whisker slash before every event.

The woman beside me Stars n Stripes Hat was wearing a pewter elephant pendant. A young girl in a shining orange dress passed out of the VIP entrance wearing an elephant pendant encrusted with diamonds. Elephant chandeliers were a theme, I noticed, and elephant pins and elephant sounds and elephant T-shirts. They came in all different rate objects and in all different styles: round elephants suggestive of French cartoons from the 1960 s, and strange pseudo-sexual shimmies, and with 1920 s straw boater hats conducting processions. There was one kind of elephant you couldnt meet. An elephant that actually looked like an elephant. A realistic elephant might serve as a memento to the hundred elephants killed for their bone every day. A naturalistic elephant would be inherently environmentalist. The elephants must all be fabulous.

Like any good show, there was a warm-up behave. In reality, there are two three if you count the recitation of the assurance of devotion. The first was Tana Goertz, an Iowa woman who had been runner-up on the third season of The Apprentice. What a good-looking army, she pandered. She attested for Trump as a woman( He enjoys girls !) and as someone who had returned to Iowa( How could you live in New York City if you didnt desire parties ?). She promoted the idea which is at the core of every last event that Trump does, that simple contact with the man draws boom. When youre in the Trump train youre going places! She marched off to polite Iowan applause. The mob are more likely to, all things considered, instead have listened to the Elton John music playing on the speakers instead, but at the least she made international efforts.

A more standard promotion follower followed. Sam Clovis hosts a conservative radio substantiate and is a tea-party activist who has operated and lost a bunch of Iowa Republican postures. He precisely started right in with it. Trump was one of the greatest servicemen to ever tread the look of this earth, a good front the crowd could have tittered but instead they saluted, thus proving that “theyre not” paying attention or would immerse anything. Clovis compared Trumps recent speeches to Reagans A Time for Choosing at the Goldwater convention in 1964, which must have been, to his way of thinking regardless, roughly like equating it to the Sermon on the Mount.

Clovis knew what the crowd had come to hear and he gave it to them. America and Americans will be first again! A collective shriek shook the Burlington Memorial Arena. They so badly wanted to be first again. First in what was unclear but emphatically first.

After the thunder croaked, the crowd was ready for Trump. But, showmanship. Trump let the tension build; the indignant absurd men as well as the joyou, helpful ladies called. Trump! Trump! Trump! I could just suspect the amusement the softened din of his chanted appoint, from backstage, must have been bringing “the mens”.

When he ultimately took the stage, the crowd surged; their phones surged. It was an debauchery of phones. The humanities behind Trump examined the crowd with their phones. The cameras in the back were recording everyone preserving each other. Trump was the only party not hampering a screen, the absence that raised hunger. He started roaring, as everybody in the crowd stopped to check the footage they had assembled.

Trump started out with the time he knew would appear on the report the next morning Joe Biden had put out of the hasten and Trump approved of his decision because Biden never had a chance and Trump wanted to face Hillary. The mainstream media adroitly handled, Trump embarked his disquisition on the subject dearest to his mettle: his own success.

The Burlington rally labelled the 100 th period he had contribute the canvas. He spoke the polls, canvas after canvas. He paused only to ask the crowd how enormous the polls were. Beating Hillary nationwide do you desire that? The audience approved of his approval numbers. And so he moved on to the more qualitative aspects of his greatness. His adversaries precisely werent wins. I pronounce from the intelligence but I likewise pronounce from the heart, he spoke, rambling like a rich know-it-all uncle Im producing back the jobs from China! with brief digressions into self-pity: Macys was very disloyal to me. They dont sell my ties anymore.

He described, in twists periodically frank and self-deluded, the greatnes of his own capability for political manipulation. He talked to the people “hes been” spinning about how cleverly he was rotating them. So he affirmed Im a good Christian and that if he became chairperson were going to be remarking merry Christmas, but then he couldnt stop himself from recognise the cleverness of his Christian electioneering: I stepped onto a stagecoach with a bible, everybody likes me better. Trump introduced meta to Burlington, Iowa. And he did not disavow the crowd that preference of personality they wanted. What would he say to Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Japan? Youre fired! Youre fired!

A few spectators started to move out to beat trafficking in human beings and Trump shouted about the silent majority and about how he says what nobody else dares to suppose and about how he will end free trade and how Mexicans are car thieves( big shriek) and how he craves a piece of the action from the Keystone pipeline and how hes going to help womens health and how America used to be emulated. The American Dream is dead but Im going to make it bigger and stronger! he hollered. At this moment he appeared to me the route every fame I have met in the flesh does, like a living idolatrou idol awaiting sacrifice, a puff-faced Baal. Were going to acquire so much better, he predicted before leaving the stage to Twisted Sisters Were Not Disappearing to Take It.

Trump followers at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids. Photograph: Scott Morgan/ Reuters

I remained to watch Trump work the line. Up open, in person, the fuzz is still much intricate than it appears on screen. Its building is tripartite, great significance polyvalent. First and foremost, there is the comb-over, although it can be called a comb-over simply in the sense that the mall in Dubai with a ski mound inside it can be called a structure. It is hair as state-of-the-art engineering stunt, with the diaphanous quality of a cloak out of Norse legend or some supernatural near-weightless metal are set out in an advanced German laboratory. It swims over the skull, an deed of disregard not only against aging and loss but against duration and seat, against reality.

Behind the technological presentation of the comb-over, as counterpoint, the back is as conventional and old-fashioned as a haircut is also possible. Its a classic ducktail. Its such a classic that I have just been construed it in movies set in the 1950 s. Not movies from the 1950 s I should be clear, but movies from the 1970 s about the 1950 s. In between the comb-over and the ducktail, between the two follicular cavities representing the modernistic and the atavistic, the fantastical and the wistful, there is a third tranche. Even in person you have to look closely to catch sight of it. It projection, somewhat but only slightly. It is the real the members of the fuzz, the human role, the actual mane. It is the hinge of Donald Trump.

As Trumps campaign for the Republican nomination has unfolded, in all its unlikeliness, he has shaken handwritings with hundreds of thousands of Americans, and posed with numerous thousands for hundreds of thousands of selfies. And among those many thousands , not one has reached up to mess up his whisker. Though he regularly raises up the physical figures of his antagonist , nothing of the other campaigners even mention the fact that he seems foolish. Trumps hair is an act of defiant social pre-emption: announce me a phony. I dare you. I fucking dare you.

A few hardcore followers lingered on the fringes, just like at a concerted effort. Everybody else had floated into the parking lot and the cities middle of Burlington was soon returned to its emptiness. A Trump show is good value for the money, specially since its free. They dont even ask for donations.

The thought from Fun City

The morning after the rally, it has become clear that Iowa may be the bramble in Trumps path. A gossip over an wayward tweet has cloudburst.

He accuses the offense on a young intern. But the eight-point rise of Carson must be galling. Trump possesses the weakness of anyone who lives by the strength of their results. Ensues go. When the results are down , where are you? Who are you? Trump is in the business of acquiring. Does Trump losing even subsist?

I had a daytime between Trump and Sanders, and all I had to read was a pdf of Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me, which I had agreed to look at for a book of the month team. After another hot mess at Jerrys Main Lunch, and a run to blaze it off, I invested a era at the Motel 8 in Burlington reading, while across the street, the Winegard factory, manufacturing satellite dishes 24 hours a day, thudded like a center without syncopation. Did you know you can buy a six carry of brew and a bottle of bourbon for precisely a little over 20 bucks in Iowa? What a big country.

The title of Between the World and Me comes from a Richard Wright poem called White Man, Listen ! and it was never going to get much whiter or more male than me in the Motel 8 sipping bourbon and brew, on my iPhone, with the Jays and Royals spotlights flickering in the background and the thud of the satellite dish factory in the background.

The urgency of the book, the vitality of the historic resource at play, rose like brandishes into crests of temper tumbling over their own force. It was all of a piece. And it all made extremely relentless sense. Between the World and Me is one of those notebooks that possess the strong certainty of a natural phenomenon as if it accrued out of the ether that surrounds us, a crystalline organisation of the scandalize that defines the moment. To criticize is beside the point. Its only there.

To me, the key section in Between the World and Me, originates after Coates has been on television justifying to the multitude the frantic consequences of yet another police assassination of a pitch-black son.

I came out of the studio and strolled for a while. It was a calm December day. Class, feeling themselves lily-white, were out on the street. Infants, invoked to be lily-white, were wrap in strollers. And I was happy for these parties, much as I was heartbreaking for the emcee and sad for all the people out there watching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized so why I was sad. When the journalist asked me about my mas, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most sumptuous reverie. I have seen that dreaming all my life. It is perfect homes with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, blocking associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but preferences like strawberry shortcake.

Right then, speaking that aisle, I knew that white people were going to cherish this volume. What white people implore more, they require it, they require it to live is an alibi from their whiteness, an flee from the unfairnes of their existence. There are numerous alibis available depending on how much idiocy you can tolerate. You can say to yourself or to others that black people are stupid and lazy; you can say that you dont experience pigment; you can call your uncle a prejudiced so everybody knows youre not; you can share the latest critique of brutality on Twitter with the word THIS; and now you can tell a pal that she certainly has to read Between the World and Me.

Because that Dream of Whiteness, the dream of treehouses and rookie scouts that smells like peppermint and can still smell the strawberry shortcake, is a perfect alibi. Who lives that dreaming? Somebody else are now living it but not me , not anyone I know , no one I could see in Burlington. Thats a dream that belongs to somebody else. Always to somebody else.

It certainly didnt belong to the Winegard factory workers who were drifting to their autoes at the end of their change. The whiteness of my macrocosm was my iPhone and the vapours of bourbon and beer, and video games from last-place night and the tingling in my thigh. The tickling in my thigh was my mas the reality I cant look at because Im too afraid of my fatality.

To me, best available doubt ever asked about race in America has always been the one that James Baldwin questioned, when an interviewer wanted to know if he was optimistic or pessimistic about the future of America. What white people have to do is is an attempt catch out in their own centers why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place, he enunciated. If you invented him, you, the white people devised him, then youve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that. The obsession of eggheads over issues of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr active or passive resistance was moot; the pressing question was why white people were blowing up churches filled with children.

Whiteness is a spiritual aberration, obviously by the return ye shall know the tree. And on the question of lily-white pathology, what good reactions has America induced since Baldwin would like to request that topic in 1963? And now that white-hot pathology has returned to waste away its legion, unexamined and strange, a golem.

In the evening, I finished the book and didnt want to think about my white-hot and male mas anymore, or the tickling in my thigh.

Across from my hotel, the Fun City complex contained an resemblance midway, a bowling alley, got a couple of bars, a replication diner and, tucked in between a inn and a spa, the Catfish Bend Casino. The poker chamber is dingy but serviceable. A game started at six. I wanted to play. I wanted to find out how much enjoyable can you have in a home called Fun City.

The youngest person at the table, Curved Baseball Hat, changed beans and corn. A male with an furious mustache led the conversation, a three-day whisker beside him contributing an occasional digression. The rest of us sat cooking softly in the juices of our addictions, like in any casino. Everybody at the table knew everybody else, except for me and a black welder in municipality for a specialist job. It was happy hour in Fun City, and brew was a dollar. Everybody told a mess of them. And I seemed just how luck it is to be in America, despite politics, despite everything. Cheap beer and frank beings and an honestly flowed activity in a clean chamber. Even compared to Canada, the unthinking prosperity of the place is dazzling.

Three Day Beard had appreciated Trump the night before, and Angry Mustache asked his opinion.

I think he could acquire, Three Day Beard suggested carefully, “as if its” a review, as if it were all you could allege of him, that he might have a chance to take the conference of presidents, for what it was worth.

Dont matter, told Angry Mustache. No content “whos got” in, Washington simply devastates them.

He might be different because he doesnt necessity the money.

Angry Mustache paraphrased a statistic, which I subsequently check and will prove to be bullshit, that all congressmen become millionaires by the time theyve been in power for a year. Everybody agrees with Trumps central advantage is that he comes pre-corrupted.

Its not even the money, Three Day Beard said. They get there. They all have these schemes and intentions. They cant do anything. Three Day Beard nearly pitied the legislators.

Its all interrupted, included Angry Mustache as a kind of dedicated, the style youd position any historic detail, like Germany lost the second world war or Frances Farmer was once a star.

The view of American politics in Fun City is snug despair. It is despair not just at who happens to be in influence but at whoever could ever be in power. It is despair not simply that the system is busted but that any organisation, imaginable in the present iteration of the United States, would turn out to be just as ruined. The choice is a alternative between frailty and dures. The reply was not change but a shrug.

Curved Baseball Hat, the person who originates corn and beans and who had fragile discovers of clay in the lanulae of his fingernails, requested information about an old gamble hall that used to be in municipality, and the recollections of the style Burlington used to be flowed constructs that had been knocked down, dames that were once beautiful and were now dead, riches made and vanished.

Eventually the pitch-black participate, who has said almost nothing except his calls and folds and develops, busted out.

Did you see that guys fingers? Angry Mustache expects when he had left. He gestured an inch past his centre paw. We were all, it was made very clear, in a chamber of grey humanities. You know what they say. My friend worked in the prison and he mentions its all true-blue. I guess thats why they say formerly you go black.

The residual of us nodded or smiled or said nothing, searching down at the cards. Now that we had all shown how white we were, it was a friendlier room. We knew that none of us would object to the misery of the others. What if the responses to Baldwins question is as banal as it appeared to be in Fun City? What if it white people draw the nigger to prepare themselves a little less lonely?

And I said nothing. I offered no fighting, though the line between “the mens” in Fun City and the cop killing a black brat in the appearance was not difficult to tracing. Here was my alibi that evening: I am Canadian. Which means I am a snoop from nowhere. Or perhaps I am a coward or something in between a coward and agent from nowhere. Its a reasonably threadbare alibi regardless. Whose isnt?

Conversation strayed back to Trump. It was more respectful.

I can see Trump, articulated Angry Mustache. Hes not the worst that Ive heard anyway.

Im starting to like that physician, Three Day Beard lends as an afterthought.

That doctor, Ben Carson, proposes a flat levy of 10% that would placed the US government, reckoning conservatively, in a$ 3tn-deficit. He believes that Joseph built the pyramids to store cereal, and he believes that Hitler never would have risen to influence if the German people were armed, and that Obamacare is worse than bondage, and that Americans are living in a Gestapo age.

I said that he hoped that Coates had some crazy programme, some utopian fiction for communards in Georgia, or the return to one motherland or another, but he only wants the end of white supremacy. He precisely requires white people in America to grow up, to yield their inhumane sense of illogical supremacy. I cannot imagine why they are able to. Its merriment to suck and to play placards and to dream what Donald Trump would say to the Mexican president the day after he was elected, or whether Ben Carson would prepare the flat tariff at 10 or 12%. The eventual alibi is stupidity it lies closest to innocence but if you cant cope stupidity, craziness does nearly as well.

I aim , nothing of its happens now anyway, right? Whoever gets elected, its just going to be stalemate and outrage anyway, right? Did I mention that beer payment one dollar? A single, lonely buck.

Ellen Degeneres, eat your heart out!

The Bernie Sanders rally in Davenport was the exact antonym of the Donald Trump rally in Burlington and yet precisely the same in every detail. Make America Great Again was replaced by Feel the Bern. Hawkers sold bolts, three for $10. They read Bernie Sanders is my feeling animal and Cats for Bernie and I subscribed Bernie Sanders before it was cool. Davenport, at least near the Adler Theater, “re the same” Brooklyn-outside-Brooklyn that has quelled every corner of the world that is not a strip mall. The tattoo creators of Davenport do not go hungry. The cornfed hipsters at the Sanders rally look like they have probably attended “states parties ” at which person played a bongo. They may even have attended a literary learning.

Bernie Sanders at a town hall session in Ottumwa, Iowa. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/ AP

There were hype servicemen as with Trump, more, although in this case the latter are twentyish women in glasses bellowing Feel the Bern! and Were Going to Improve a Change! Individual with a camera from NBC expected the working group who has brought their precocious juveniles because they want them to be engaged in the political process Can I get you guys to look like youre excited about Bernie? They carefully targeted their glass on the floor, out of see, to oblige.

The same specter of angry white people recurs Saunderss rally, the same appreciation of longing for a country that was, the two countries that has been taken away. The Bernie crowd made homemade signs instead of fabricated ones, because I guess theyre organic. They brandished them only the same. They were going to a display. They wanted to be a good audience.

The fundamental difference between the Trump and Sanders army was that the Sanderss crowd has more coin, the natural significance of the American incongruity system: rich white people can afford to think about socialism, the poorest of the poor can only rendered their rage.

Sanderss opening act was a congressional wannabe, Gary Kroeger. He hadnt been on The Apprentice but on Saturday Night Live, a forgettable lesser performer from the largest date between 1982 and 1985. He started off, naturally, with a half-assed gag: the fresh patchouli in the air is great. The sign language translator offered a mild smile to expres it was a laugh. Then, after a brief foray into left-wingery, calling America a social democracy also known as a republic, Kroeger took a big selfie with the crowd behind him: Ellen Degeneres, eat your heart out! he wailed. Everyones phones rose up to take pictures of themselves in a illustration mimicking a photo from the Oscars: such was American socialism in the year 2015.

A few desultory ensembles followed, performing an mixture of leftwing anthems from various historical leftwing pushes. They harmonized on The Auld Triangle, a prison ballad that was covered on Inside Llewelyn Davis. The vocalist from Alice in Chains( recollect them ?) did an electrical version of I Wont Back Down. An old The Clash song, Jail Clang Doors, was sung by the subject of the first verse, Wayne Kramer. And it was all, so obviously, a nostalgia number, the self-indulgence for a longing of a season when music inspired politics, when activism owned an artistic look, and vice versa.

Eventually Bernie strayed out. The phones disappeared up. The phones went down. Enough is enough, he wailed, leaving blank what theres “ve had enough” of. And then he talked about how he wanted to end the war on drugs and campaign investment improve and government that isnt for plutocrats, and how they were going to build a revolution( such an embarrassing term to listen expressed out loud ), and America was going to be a social democracy, by the people of the people.

Sanderss exasperation was the principal fact to be communicated, more than any political material. Trump was about winning again. Sanders was about having lost. The vagueness of American politics is what amazed the outsider. Its all about sensations and God and bullshit. Sanders actually emitted the following sentence out loud: What were saying is when millions of people are working together to rehabilitate both governments we can do astonishing situations. Nothing asks what he made. None asked for numbers. They applauded. Better to take it in the intent in which its thrown, like a Catskills resort comedian.

Sanders prompted me of a line from Seinfeld, perhaps because Larry Davids SNL parody was only a few days old. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. When Ben and Jerry make a Bernie Sanders ice cream, I hope its chili and ginger: the delicious hot smell of nasal-passage clearing outrage.

Sanderss speech was much shorter than Trumps. There had already been the music, I guess. I had the impression, as with Trump, that I had traveled many hundreds of miles to look at a mortals mane. Bernie Sanderss hair is as much a statement as Trumps. It consider this to be the “hairs-breadth” of a tenured professor whose wife has stopped nagging him to get a haircut because the nagging doesnt handiwork. You couldnt muss Sanders hair. The ill is just as much an aesthetic as the comb-over. I symbolize it ever searches the same. Somebody is cutting it to sink that course over the ears.

The view from Tampico

As despair has suddenly spread like a fantastic mist over the white people of America, as the white people die off in their extraordinary quantities, the commenters are astonished, a little bit, but they have no plan of action. No policy proposals aim at reforming the lives of white people.

How could they? If you believe the Case and Deaton report, white people are victims of their own advantage literally. Their cherished claim to own guns, and the enormous increased number of the ownership of weaponry, means that their suicide strives are more effective. They have more access to opioids because doctors are more likely to trust white people with them. They have the money to draw themselves lonely and booze.

I recollect reading a piece from buzzer robs formerly, the kind that circulates on Facebook because it chimes somewhat unique in its predictable virtue. The first act of violence that patriarchy requests of males, she wrote, is not savagery toward dames. Instead patriarchy requisitions of all males that they involve is psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional specific areas of themselves.

Her compassion is admirable, glorious even, but also inaccurate. No one is more psychological than a piece-of-shit white man. They are sentimentality personified. How else can so many be moved to violence over the absence of a Christmas tree on a Starbucks cup?

That dream, that white reverie that smells like peppermint and penchants like strawberry shortcake, comes with a cost of shit. If you take shit, if you eat shit, if you live through the shit, if you live the stupid wars and the meaningless errands, you should be sure of who you are and what you deserve. And “if youre not” sure and you have not received what you deserved, why did you take and eat and subsist all that shit?

Un-harvested corn stands south of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Image: Nati Harnik/ AP

In the aftermath of that spate, the choice, I belief, is either to be proud to be grey, which is a word of lunacy, or to fantasize a post-racial cosmopolis, which is a kind of make-believe, or to be ashamed. So much easier to forget those choices, or to shelve endlessly the choosing, or to debate the difficulties of preferring infinitely, because grey male flesh is not under mortal threat, as the chassis of pitch-black men or the flesh of the status of women. Our organizations are safe. Our torsoes are the threat.

In medieval empires, the territory involved the existence of a doubled figure, one for the real world and one for the symbolic. There was the flawed and mortal person of the king, which sobbed and shat and screwed and died, and then there was the Body of the King, sacred, pure, indestructible.

Race generates us all double mass, double consciousness in WEB Du Boiss phrase, whatever you want to call having to live mortally through the judgement of others. The brand-new grey distortion, the sickness at heart, the pathology, may simply be the arrival of the awareness of two bodies: the dizziness and nausea that arrive with the onset of doubled eyesight.

Because they have to be like everybody else, their mettles are breaking in half.

The morning after the Sanders rally, I noted enough forte to look in the reflect at my grey and male organization, to probe its mortal and symbolic quality. At the angle of my groin, where it had been tingling, a dark-brown patch spilled like spoiled milk down my scalp. A wide-cut chocolate-brown spot determined like post-climate change Florida in the angle of my thigh. Instant, I knew I would die. And the next minute I started driving back to Toronto, to my bride and children, body of my flesh.

Bernie Sanders wants a revolution to overthrow casino capitalism but the problem, or maybe only the first trouble, is that the American beings enjoy casinoes. They cant construct them fast enough. On the road from Iowa, I transferred at least a dozen, a dozen Fun Cities of various types of shapes and sizings, enduring various gossips about Trump and Sanders. The highways of Illinois are a unique vision of the workings of human rights hope a roughly boundless mart for addiction and its dry. Strip clubs or fried chicken or gambling or faith or rehab or cancer treatment. The I-9 4 communicated right to the unwounded mas the promise of handled carbohydrate and pussy, or saving from them.

There was one other entertainment on the route dwelling: Ronald Reagans birthplace in Tampico. The glamour of the landscape around those towns, for some reason, has never been properly glamorize. There are no tourist buss to these fields, as there are to the ocean or the mountains, but the landscape is every bit as sublime. Reagans childhood extended in the loin of the Continent, the splendid hinge between the industrial core of the Great Lakes and the agricultural heartland. The historical recognition of his presidential tombstones has been consumed by fantasies of small town life but it is a landscape of whitewashed houses against the undulating emptiness, a country roiling with nightmares. You can depict Reagan as a boy in these fields, fantasy of movies and America vast screens on which he had been able to activity himself. The superhighway moves like a flow of praying through an ancient dream.

The ancient nightmares are still so vivid here. In the United States, 240 -year-old writings can be recited by soul by people who cannot be described as trained. Documents written by men who owned slaves are spoken of as if we are able to solve the problems of today and tomorrow and any imaginable future no matter how remote.

Thomas Jefferson was held that the Constitution should expire after 19 times, so that the dead would not have ascendancy over the living. That fate seems to have arrived. The Americans are in constant disputes with haunts and their the talks with dead beings are most powerful, most relentless, at precisely the points where they are most ludicrous. They nation defiantly that all men are created equal when any casual observer of life knows they arent. They claim that men and women should be judged by the content of their reference, when nobody can know the content of anothers character. These dreamings, these inabilities, are the absolute and real organization of their nation. And the reveries are so entrancing that its ambiguous whether the problem is that the Americans think you are, or that they dont. Its supremely childish, either way.

Back in Toronto, my bride took a look at the chocolate-brown spot on my groin and mailed me to a doctor, and medical doctors told me it was a rash from leading too much, and I had been given the greatest gift anyone can hope for, in this time and this lieu. I had been forgiven, for a while, for my body.

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How Mad Men Star Kit Williamson Made His Own Gay Soap Opera

The problem, says Kit Williamson, is that EastSidersthe Emmy-nominated LGBT soap opera he created in 2012almost shares a name with EastEnders, the well-known BBC soap opera currently in its 32nd year.

And so when Williamson recommends people check out his drama about handsome LGBT Los Angelenos living, loving, screwing up, and doing what people on soap operas are wont to do, they end up going down totally the wrong rabbit hole on YouTube, and finding instead a group of East Londoners doing their own variation of the same, if at a much louder volume.

My recommendation: Watch both.

Season 3 of EastSiders, released on Nov. 28 digitally and on DVD, takes the shape of a cross-America road trip, complete with stunning skies and endless horizons, beginning with Douglas/Gomorrah Rey (played by Willam Belli) having a blow-up row in full drag and 116-degree heat beside the side of a highway, as his boyfriend Quincy (Stephen Guarino) tries in vain to pacify the situation.

Bellis heels melted in the heat, and Williamson, 32, directed the action clad in cooling wet towels. The glamor of independent web TV, he says, laughing.

Williamsons character, Cal, and partner Thom (Van Hansis) are heading back west after their sojourn in New York City, and have an encounter with a drifter played by model and porn star (and Donald Trump supporter) Colby Keller. Also returning for the third season are John Halbach, Williamsons real-life husband, and Constance Wu, Williamsons longtime buddy, as straight couple Ian and Kathy. (To confuse you even more, a leading mother-son duo in EastEnders is called the same.)

I wanted to create characters that I didnt really see on television, Williamson, who played Ed Gifford on Mad Men, told The Daily Beast. I think you see a lot of cautionary tales in LGBT representation and then hyper- morally-upright representations. Youre either in a couple, living in the suburbs with 2.5 kids, or youre a drug addict in the 1980s. Its rare that LGBT characters are allowed to operate in between, like all human beings operate.

Williamson is heartened by the growing diversity of representation in the TV shows of Shonda Rhimes and on cable, and hopes his EastSiders characters have flaws, make messes, and pick up the pieces, just like straight characters on TV.

EastSiders has been mostly financed through Kickstarter funding, raising $250,000 across three seasons. The third season is also partially funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Impulse Group Global, and the show incorporates both organizations safer sex messaging.

Its incredibly moving, says Williamson of the publics generous financial support for the show, which makes him even more determined that the show does its fans justice. EastSiders aims to be as culturally mixed as a small cast and limited number of episodes can allow. Inclusive storytelling should be everybodys goal, says Williamson.

If Williamson has a dream, it is that one day television will be able to sustain having two LGBT-themed shows on at the same time; or even that there will be LGBT lead characters on TV, whose sexuality or gender identity is part of their identities, rather than defining them.

Until that rainbow shines, we have a smattering of characters and shows like Queer as Folk, The L Word, and Looking, which flicker into life, cause their controversies and debates, then go. The capriciousness of LGBT representation on our screens is down to the capriciousness of mostly straight-run broadcasters.

Hansis himself found fame as Luke Snyder on CBS daytime soap As The World Turns, as a landmark gay character whom fans clamored to be allowed to kiss his boyfriend, Noah (Jake Silbermann). (Oh, have you seen their horsing-around towel wrestle? You must see the towel wrestle.)

EastSiders refers geographically to the parts of East Los AngelesSilver Lake, Los Feliz Echo Park, DTLAwhere the characters live, a boho-y, very different sort of vibe to the muscle boys of West Hollywood, although (as their social media accounts reveal) the extremely handsome and charming Williamson and Halbach look just as hot as any WeHo guy.

Some scenes in the show are filmed at the mens home, and looks attractively ruffled and laid-back, filled with vintage furniture, mismatched cushions and twinkly lights.

Williamson had problems getting straight actors to play gay when EastSiders first began, even though there were no sex scenes in the first two seasons. Any show with gay content is immediately presumed to be exploitative, Williamson notes.

The road trip of Season 3 was filmed on the road itself, with cast and crew starting out in Woodstock, upstate New York, and ending up in Los Angeles, trundling across the vast expanse of America in a vintage camper trailer and another vehicle.

It took two weeks, with an extended stay in Idaho to scout locations and shoot scenes. It was exciting, invigorating and harrowing, says Williamson, laughing. Its no small undertaking taking two carloads of people across the country, and making sure theyre in bed at a reasonable hour.

The team ran afoul of a runaway tire that put a dent in the camper early on. They were snowed out of Yellowstone National Park. They shot on the fly, and in some places permits allowing them to film were withdrawn when it was revealed that it was a gay-themed TV show.

We started telling places where we wanted to film that it was called Go West, and just said it was about two friends driving across the country together, Williamson says.

The Black Hills of South Dakota were especially breathtaking, he says. You owe yourself ten minutes off the main drag to see the Badlands (National Park in South Dakota). I could have explored it all day if I had the chance. I am a huge lover of mountains. Even though it was terrifying driving that fucking camper trailer up and down mountains it was still breathtaking, even if I nearly killed everybody two or three times.

Williamson concedes that he is biased about California where he lives, but recommends the eastern part near Nevada for that big sky feeling, and that moment you get to the coast after weeks on the road to arrive at the Pacific Ocean and put your feet in the sand. It felt like a cool homecoming for the characters and the crew.

It was a really challenging place to grow up gay, and I also grew up very religious which didnt help matters.

Williamson himself grew up in Mississippi, where the countrys most anti-LGBT law, HB 1523, has just taken root. He is surprised as to how little attention the law has garnered nationally, compared to the outcry over similar laws in North Carolina.

I think a lot of people write off Mississippi as a lost cause, says Williamson, who emceed a Pride celebration there two years ago. I understand why, but its still sad to me as a person who grew up there. I really want people to understand there are great people living in Mississippi fighting for their own rights and fighting for their neighbors.

There was a lot of homophobia when he was growing up, says Williamson. It was a really challenging place to grow up gay, and I also grew up very religious which didnt help matters. It was definitely a challenge for my family to understand me.

His whole family are employed in the area of law, and he surprised all of them by wanting to act. They were supportive of me, even if part of them thought Hell get over this eventually and enter the family business. I tell them, One day Ill play a lawyer on TV. Thats all I can guarantee.

As a boy, Williamson was a big nerd. I read a lot of fantasy novels. I had a mullet. I was very socially awkward, and it was difficult at school to be friends with other people. It was really hard for me. I knew I was different, I didnt know why. I was savagely bullied as a kid, people were terrible to me.

Williamsons older sister modeled herself on the cult animated character, Daria. I thought the way you handled bullies was being sarcastic and funny, he says. It didnt turn out well.

He and Halbach once compared notes on childhood bullying. I was Gay Kid and he was Gay Boy. We both had really unoriginal bullies. Williamson laughs softly. Little did they know that Gay Kid and Gay Boy were going to get together.

I didnt really think growing up that it would be possible wed have gay marriage nationally, he adds. To be able to take advantage of it as a citizenhe and Halbach married last yearhas been so incredibly moving to me.

Williamson and Halbach met in March 2007. Williamson was then a bartender at NYC theater-land hangout Angus McIndoe, and the men were introduced by a mutual friend who told each of them separately, Hes single and not crazy. It was a perfectly judged match. That night, the men stayed talking until the bar closed.

Williamson had underplayed the significance of marriage equality because the possibility seemed so far off, he adds. When the Supreme Court ruled, it hit us both. Wed been denying ourselves something that we really did find meaningful. Im so glad we did it.

Williamson has worked successfully as a filmmaker and actor for years. Making Mad Men was a masterclass, he says, watching both those in front and behind the cameras. The sexy pictures on his Instagram account are in service of promoting his work and LGBT rights, he insists, adding with another laugh, and in shamelessly promoting ourselves. Instagram is a tool for good and evil, and we try to use it for good, for the best of possibilities.

Williamson chuckles that the idea was to use social media to direct people to EastSiders and the mens other work, promoting fashion and fitness influencers and LGBT destinations, but now people recognize him and Halbach from social media itself.

How EastSiders fans respond to the inclusion of Colby Keller remains to be seen. His scenes were shot before he revealed his support of Donald Trump.

I was really surprised and caught off guard when I saw that, says Williamson, who, a Hillary Clinton supporter, had been shocked when Trump triumphed in last years presidential election. I was driving to Idaho when the gay blogs erupted in fury over his (Kellers) political leanings. We did make the choice not to replace him. I havent talked to him about what happened.

When it came to keeping Keller in the season, Williamson asked himself whether he would work with Susan Sarandon, another Clinton naysayer who backed Bernie Sanders.

I think were living in really, really divided times, and I dont want to do anything to add to that divide, says Williamson. I also dont think we should be casting people out of the village. Its complicated. A lot of my family members support Trump, not for ideologically pure reasons beyond really liking the guy and what he stands for.

Keeping Kellers role in EastSiders intact presented an interesting dilemma, and I dont have the answer to it, Willliamson admits.

I ask, had he known that Keller was a Trump supporter, would Williamson have still signed him up?

I dont know. When we were planning the season we were 99 percent sure Hillary Clinton was going to be president. Faced with the reality of working with an active Trump supporter right now in 2017 my answer would be no. Its just too much of open wound for me, and friends I know who are afraid of being deported. I do think its a very serious situation.

If Hollywood is to have any leg to stand on in shaping the culture we need to own up to the abuses of power that are very real.

Williamson recently posted on social media his experience of sexual harassment when he was starting out in the entertainment industry.

At 18, he was invited to a party at an agents house. He proceeded to tell me not to come out if I wanted to be an actor, to stay in the closet, and then tried to put his hand down my pants, Williamson recalls. It was this one, two punch of harassment and homophobia that was a bitter pill to swallow, and it soured me on Los Angeles for a couple of years.

He did not suffer any graver sexual assaults, as allegedly committed by the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin fucking Spacey. I think its really important we have these conversations. If Hollywood is to have any leg to stand on in shaping the culture we need to own up to the abuses of power that are very real.

What his experience also shows, again, is Hollywoods powerful gays seeking to keep the closet intact, part of a historyfor Willliamsonof different groups acting as their own morality police and oppressors.

Its very sad and true. Theres still not been a gay movie star. Look at a lot of people who have succeeded on television. Most come out after their big break. Im not here to judge: Its brave to come out at the height of your success, but in 2017 I think we need to look at the paths other people have blazed for us and be brave enough to walk down them without fear.

Next for Williamson may come more EastSiders. He is also writing a series about queer thirtysomethings set in New Orleans.

Id love to get to a place where the leads of a show can be gay where that is normal and not extraordinary, says Williamson, and where the storylines can be both unique to us and more universal in the same breath; where we are allowed to be doctors, husbands, wives, crazy, not crazy, parents, single, slutty, and settled.

The whole incredible range of human experience should allowed to be represented in LGBT characters, where we are not defined solely by our sexuality.

The open road Williamson and his crew traveled for Season 3 of EastSiders perhaps says it all.

The third season of EastSiders will be released on DVD by Wolfe Video and digital platforms on Nov. 28. More details here.

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