#listen...Speaker Johnson is piece of shit

[youareprobablywrong]

I don't think Sarah McBride has forgotten anything. We all need to calm the fuck down and understand that not every interaction needs to be a goddamned fight. She was elected to tackle issues that go far beyond bathrooms in Congress.

Serious question, what do you expect her to do?

Speaker Johnson's authority allows him to set rules on how the grounds are used. It isn't up for a vote.

Now, she could submit a resolution that supersedes this, but there is less than 1% chance that it would pass, much less make it to a vote. So why waste the time knowing she's going to lose, when that time could be spent focusing on other issues that impact more people than herself? That's not just utilitarian ethics here, it's servant leadership.

She did the right thing by saying she'd follow the rules so that she can focus on the needs of her constituents.

Knowing when to stop a fight is just as important as knowing when to pick a fight.

It seems to me that you don't know the difference.

I think McBride took her stance, she knows it's going nowhere, and her odds of getting to speak for the rest of the trans community - and the people that elected her - remain very much intact having exercised discretion by saying "okay, I'll follow your rules."

Her decision goes beyond your feelings, and your absurd notion that she's just "laid down and taken it," is without fact. It's absurd. Contrary to your fuckin' feelings, compromise does in fact lead to results, and if she wats to retain any potential means of survival for the next two years it's wiser for her to use her stamina on other problems with more potential for gain for more people.

Fighting the speaker's rules on this is going to make her next two years even more miserable.

Learn what tact is, and why it's important. Then, go learn about how policymaking works, and why it is important not to burn bridges, especially before being sworn into the office for the first time.

The timing of this was not accidental

[thatfanficstuff]

Feelings - Tony DiNozzo

Pairing: Tony DiNozzo x reader

Warnings: canon typical violence and situations, language.

A/N: 3500 words. Way longer than I’d intended. First time writing Tony x reader. Hope you like it. 

***

Gibbs had his rules for a reason. You didn’t ask about those reasons. It was hard enough just remembering the damn rules without worrying about the back story that went with them. There was a rule for just about anything: dealing with attorneys, putting family first, not annoying Gibbs. There was even that one rule about not dating your co-workers that you were dying to know the origins of but were in no way brave enough to ask.

Unfortunately, there was no rule about falling in love with your co-worker. Sometimes you wondered if there was, if you could have avoided all this. I mean, you were so careful about following the rules to the point that Tony often made fun of you for having them memorized. If you were honest with yourself, you knew it wouldn’t have mattered. Hadn’t you tried everything you could think of to keep your heart from falling for his hazel eyes and lazy smile?  

He was a player. But that didn’t stop your gaze from following him as he headed to the elevator and his latest date.

You reminded yourself he never took anything seriously even while you laughed at his latest prank.

He talked about movies way too much. It was obsessive really. That didn’t stop you from watching every film he mentioned, a bowl of popcorn in your lap and an empty space beside you on the couch.

Maybe that was the problem. Perhaps you were just lonely. Maybe—

“Y/N,” Tony’s voice pulled you from your thoughts and you realized you’d been staring at the same piece of paper on your desk for the last half hour. Shit.

You glanced up, eyebrows raised in question. “Yeah?”

His brow was furrowed and his gaze was filled with concern. “You okay?”

Your cheeks heated and you turned back to the papers on your desk. “I’m fine.”

Tony huffed. “If there is one thing I know, it’s that a woman is never fine when she says she is. So, what’s going on?”

You shook your head. “It’s nothing, Tony.”

The next thing you knew, he was right beside you, perched on the corner of your desk. If Gibbs and McGee were here you wouldn’t have to deal with this. McGee would tell him to leave you alone and Gibbs would smack the back of his head. They both respected your privacy. Your need to not share every aspect of your life. Why couldn’t you have fallen for one of them?

 As you leaned back in your chair, you ran your gaze over him until you met his eyes. “Can I help you with something, DiNozzo?”

“It’s never nothing, Y/N. You’re always zoning out lately. Something’s bothering you.”

“I just didn’t sleep well. It’s not a big deal. Everyone has off days, today’s one of mine.”

He hummed as he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Normally I’d give you that, but this has been going on for weeks. So, what is it? Money? Are you sick? Have a fight with Abby?”

You just leaned back in your chair and kept your eyes on the man sitting on your desk like he owned it. He continued to list topics, pausing between each one to gage your reaction.

Suddenly, his brows shot up as he frowned. “Is it a guy?” The tone of his voice said that it couldn’t possibly be the right answer. It would have been so easy to fool him, but you couldn’t stop your eyes from moving away from him, afraid he’d see everything you were too afraid to say.

“It is!” There was an undertone to his voice you couldn’t quite place.

You ignored it, and him, to turn your attention back to the paperwork on your desk.

“I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“There’s nothing to say, Tony. Now can I please get back to work? I really don’t want Gibbs chewing my ass again.” You were far enough behind on your paperwork that Vance had said something to your boss. That had earned you a head slap and an admonishment about you knowing better.

Tony grabbed the pen from your hand and dropped it on the desk. “Come on. You know Gibbs doesn’t care about paperwork. He’s just passing along the ass chewing he got from Vance. Quit avoiding the question. Is this why you’ve been skipping out on our dinners?”

You sighed. Tony liked to eat and you liked to cook so you’d started inviting him over once a week. Lately you’d feigned other plans to keep from having to spend an evening concealing your feelings. “Actually, yes.”

“Nice. You start getting laid and leave me to starve.” He moved back over to his desk with a scowl on his face. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

His affronted tone had you rolling your eyes. “I didn’t say anything about getting laid. And you’re hardly starving.”

“Tell that to my scale. I’ve lost five pounds since you quit feeding me.”

His disgruntled tone bothered you. “Are you okay, Tony?”

He shook his head but said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just miss your cooking is all.”

His phone rang before you could respond. After a quick conversation, he hopped to his feet. “Johnson hasn’t showed up at home. Gibbs wants us to try his mom’s place while they sit on the apartment.”

***

Despite your suspect’s mother claiming she hadn’t seen her son in months, it was your experience that people tended to run home when scared. You hoped that’s precisely what this suspect had done as you were more than ready to close the case.

Tony parked along the curb at the end of the driveway so no one could pull out while you two were otherwise occupied. He took the front while you went around the back. He gave you a moment to let you get into position before knocking on the door. As you listened to the hum of him talking to someone, you kept your weapon trained on the back door. A moment later, the unmistakable feeling of a gun pressed against the back of your head. Shit. You should have done more than your cursory examination of the backyard.

“Easy there, sweetheart. Hands up.”

You did as instructed, and he yanked your weapon from your hand. “Phillip Johnson, I presume.”

“That’s me. Give me the keys to the car.”

“What car?”

He slammed the side of the gun into the back of your head. Not hard enough to knock you out but hard enough to give you an instant headache. “Don’t play stupid.”

“I don’t have the keys. I didn’t drive.” You forced the words through teeth gritted in pain.

He stepped up behind you to pat down your pockets. “Fuck,” he growled when he discovered you were telling the truth.

“Look, just go. It’s not like I can shoot you as you run away, you have my weapon.” You wanted to diffuse the situation, to try to control the fallout from your fuck up. He was angry and armed and was the type to start shooting people if he felt trapped.

“So you can scream for help before I get two blocks away? I don’t think so.” He pushed you toward the back door. “In you go.”

You gave a brief thought to yelling for Tony but kind of liked your brains where they were. Johnson had already killed once, what was to keep him from killing again? He shoved you through the house causing you to stumble more than once. You could hear Tony still arguing with the mother at the front door. Johnson stepped up behind you and pinned you against his chest with a thick arm, the gun now shoved against your temple. He walked you into view of the front door though you couldn’t see anything as his mother blocked the opening.

“Look, Mrs. Johnson, while I appreciate your position, the fact remains that we have a warrant for your son’s arrest. You’re gonna need to let me in to make sure he’s not here or we’ll come in anyway and won’t be nearly as nice about it. I’ve already called backup. They’re on the way.” Tony was using the placating tone he always used when trying to convince a suspect or a witness that he was harmless and reasonable.

“You come in and your friend dies,” Johnson yelled.

His mother was pulled from the doorway and onto the front porch behind Tony who had his gun drawn and aimed in almost the same moment. His eyes were glued to the weapon pressed to your head. His face lost what little color it had. “Let her go, Phil. You don’t want to do this.”

“Oh, but I do.” He moved forward and slammed the door in Tony’s face. He shoved you and put some space between the two of you. “Close the blinds and the curtains,” he ordered. When you dared to look at him, he waved the gun as if to bring your attention to it. Like you could forget for a minute the situation you were in. Your eyes flicked down, spotting your sidearm tucked into his waist band.

Your brain worked through scenarios even as you did as he’d ordered. As you closed the last blind you caught a glimpse of Gibbs stepping from his vehicle. Your team would get you out of here. They had to.

***

It had been almost two hours. Once you’d secured the house to his satisfaction, Johnson had used your own cuffs to restrain you. Fortunately, he was an idiot and left your hands in front instead of placing them behind your back so you’d have less mobility. He was using your phone to talk to Gibbs periodically. He’d put the calls on speaker and you could tell Gibbs’ patience was wearing thin. You’d tried to talk to him during the first call and Phillips backhanded you with the gun still in hand. The whole right side of your face felt tight and sore. Asshole.

“What the hell is taking so long?” he muttered as he peered through a gap in the blinds. He glanced over at you. “Call him.”

You reached forward and pressed the button to call Gibbs and put it on speaker. “Gibbs,” he answered.

“Where’s my money and my car?”

“I told you it was going to take some time. If you want to forget about the money, you can leave right now. I’ll even give you a police escort out of town. Just let your hostage go.” You could hear the anger simmering in his voice.

“You have thirty minutes or I start sending her out in pieces.” He slammed his finger down on the disconnect.

“Well, that was monumentally fucking stupid.” So was pissing off the man with the gun but you were running out of time. You’d been waiting for an opening, but thus far hadn’t found one. It was time to make one of your own.

He shoved the barrel of the gun against the temple on the sore side of your face and you winced. Fucker. “What did you say?”

“You just confirmed that you have no problem hurting me. And you put a timeline on it. They’ll try to take you out now.”

Uncertainty flashed on his face and he glanced toward the windows.

“You were smart covering the windows, but they’ll be getting ready to send in a tactical team now. They’re probably already out front.”

After a second of indecision, he moved away from you to peek through the gap between the blind and the window. His gaze kept darting back to you. “I don’t see anything.”

You shook your head. “They’ll be prepping further down the street so it’s harder for you to see.” You gestured to one of the other windows. One that would put him close to you with his back turned while he tried to get a view of his impending doom.

As he moved to the new viewpoint, you leaned forward, shifting your legs so you could get to your feet quickly. The moment his attention was elsewhere, you launched yourself at him. He grunted as he slammed against the wall and window.

“Bitch!” He tried to turn, to get the gun up, but you didn’t give him even a single moment to recover. You couldn’t or that would be the end of you. Instead, you shifted your weight to come at him from a different angle. You drove him toward the ground, grabbing your gun from his waistband as you went.

The impact knocked the weapon from his hand. You pushed yourself to your feet and aimed your weapon. Johnson didn’t even notice as he scrambled for his own gun. You fired a round into the floor by his head and he froze instantly. “Give me a reason.”

He rolled over, hands raised in front of him. Your phone began to ring but you kept your attention, and your gun, on Johnson. “Couch,” you instructed.

The call had barely had time to go to voicemail before it began ringing again. If you didn’t answer it soon, things would get a hell of a lot more chaotic. Still, you waited until Johnson sat on the couch to move over and grab the other gun from the floor. You laid it on the table beside you.

Your phone started another cycle of ringing and you heard Gibbs on the bullhorn. “Answer the phone or we’re coming in.”

You answered the call on speaker phone, needing to keep your hands free for your gun. “You can come in, but I’m going to be real pissed if someone shoots me.”

A sigh of relief was the immediate answer.

“Johnson has been disarmed. I’m the one that fired the shot. See you in a second.”

It wasn’t even a breath later that the front door opened and people swarmed around you. You kept your weapon trained on Johnson even as he was pulled to his feet and placed in cuffs. A hand settled on top of yours and you followed the length of the arm to find Gibbs standing next to you. “We’ve got him. You can stand down, Agent.” His jaw tightened as he took in the injury to your face. His eyes found yours and softened. “Give me the gun, Y/N.”

You nodded and loosened your grip so he could take the weapon from you.

“DiNozzo, get her out of here,” he ordered.

You turned to your other side to find Tony. The smile he gave you was strained, but it was good to see it just the same. “Hey.”

His smile widened, became a little more genuine. “Hey.” He unlocked the cuffs and took them off before tossing them to Gibbs. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders to steer you out the door and you relaxed against him, content to simply be in his presence after the last couple of hours.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said as he led you to a waiting ambulance. “Let’s not do this ever again, okay?”

“But I was so looking forward to making it a weekly thing.” You sat so your feet dangled out of the back of the ambulance while the medic looked you over. Tony stood silently, arms crossed over his chest as he watched them work. You grit your teeth and flinched as they pressed against bruised skin checking for broken bones. You cursed outright when they found the bump on the back of your head.

“It wouldn’t hurt to have this checked at the hospital to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

You waved him away. “I’m good. Promise.”

“Y/N/N, maybe you should—” Tony interjected but you cut him off.

“I just want to go home, Tony.”

He looked uncertain.

“Please.”

He thought a moment more before saying, “Yeah. Okay.”

Your shoulders sagged in relief and you took the hand he offered you. Once you were on your feet, he stayed close but released your hand. Instead, he settled his at the base of your spine to steer you through the scene until you stood in front of your boss.

“They clear you?” Gibbs asked, looking between you and Tony.

“Sure did, boss,” Tony answered for you, sounding entirely too upbeat. You resisted the urge to smack him in the stomach.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes but nodded just the same. “All right. Take her home. I’ll see you both in the morning for debriefing.”

***

Tony was unusually quiet on the way home, which was fine since you didn’t really feel like talking. After the third time you caught him looking at you, you turned your attention out the window. It wasn’t until he parked the car that you focused enough to realize he hadn’t taken you to your home at all. You followed the familiar path to his apartment.

“Have a seat,” he instructed once you’d made it inside. He disappeared into the kitchen while you made yourself comfortable on his couch. When he emerged, he held a beer in one hand and a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel in the other. He placed the beer on the table beside you and handed you the makeshift icepack. You held it to the side of your face, flinching at the contact.

“Thanks.”

He nodded absently and began to pace the floor. Your gaze followed him for a couple of minutes before you interrupted. “What is it, Tony?”

He turned to you, his eyes wide. His gaze darted down then back up and he licked his lips. He pulled something from his pocket and set it on the table. It took you a moment to realize it was your phone. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and pink dusted his cheeks. “I should have given that to you earlier. You probably want to call this boyfriend I knew nothing about. But if you could wait a minute, there’s something I need to say first.”

“Only if you sit. The pacing’s driving me nuts.”

He grinned at that and sat on his coffee table. He was close enough your knees touched. You resisted the urge to press closer. When several minutes passed without him saying anything you spoke up. “Tony—”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m getting to it. I just usually don’t do this sort of thing.”

“Talk?”

“Cute, but no.” He licked his lips again. “Look, I lied to you.”

You frowned as you tried to follow what he was trying to tell you.

He sighed. “When we were talking about this guy and all those canceled dinners and you asked if I was okay. I said yes when that was the furthest thing from the truth. In my defense, I thought I would be okay. I mean, if he makes you happy, that’s what’s important, right?”

He pushed to his feet before you could respond and started pacing the floor again. “But then you had to go and get yourself held hostage. When I saw you with that gun to your head, I knew I’d never be okay again if something happened to you. If I lost you before I ever had a chance to tell you.” He stopped pacing and turned to face you. “I’m crazy about you, Y/N/N. I have been pretty much from the moment Gibbs introduced you to the team.”

You blinked as you tried to process the fact that Tony DiNozzo had just admitted to having feelings. For you.

“Right, well, that’s done. I’ll just go see what I have for dinner.” He fled to the kitchen before you could stop him.

Rather than calling him back, you followed him. You stepped into the doorway to find him leaning on the counter with his back to you and his head bowed. Your heart ached at that thought that he’d apparently been pining after you as much as you had him. “It was you.”

He looked over his shoulder. His brow furrowed as he met your gaze. “What?”

“The guy that I cancelled all the dinners for? That was you.”

He turned to give you his full attention. “That doesn’t make any sense, Y/N/N.”

You shrugged. “Well, see, I would have dinner with you. We’d watch a movie together. Maybe have a few drinks and I could fool my heart into thinking that maybe, just maybe we could have more. Then a few nights later I’d watch you hurry to the elevator so you wouldn’t be late for a date.” You closed the distance between you but didn’t touch him. Not yet. “My heart couldn’t take me playing pretend anymore. It hurt too much. So, I started making excuses.”

“And I was doing the same thing, only I was making dates, hoping someone could make me forget about you.”

“How’d that work out for you, DiNozzo?”

He rested a hand along the uninjured side of your face and ran his thumb across your cheek. “Not great. How about you, Y/L/N? Did you manage to get over me?”

“Not even close.”

His smile was radiant.

“Hey, DiNozzo.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Kiss me already.”

[livesincerely]

[Bits & Bobs] it’s so easy (too easy) to love you

Here’s the latest progress report/update from my javid domestic!au, formerly known as The One Where It’s Domestic. It ended up having too much plot for the Tease Series, but I’m still in love with the idea. (And there will probably still be a smutty epilogue, lol)

00000

Davey’s just gotten out of class—literally just walked out the door—when his phone starts ringing.

“Davey,” Racetrack says the moment he answers, not even giving Davey time to say hello, “Can you swing by the apartment real quick?”

Davey sighs. “Are you locked out of the house again?”

There’s a guilty silence. Then, “Or maybe I just wanna see you, huh? You don’t know.”

“Racetrack.”

“Crutchie’s the one that lost the spare,” Racetrack capitulates immediately, there’s an indignant “Hey!” somewhere in the background, “and I left my keys in my locker ‘cause I thought Crutchie had his—”

There’s a scuffle of noise, then Crutchie’s voice breaks in, “—don’t listen to him Davey, I asked him before we even got on the subway if he had his keys and he said he did but he didn’t even check—”

“—well, I thought you had yours, didn’t I?—”

“—and he was twenty minutes late picking me up from band practice because he was too busy flirting with Spot Conlon to come help me carry my oboe—”

“—that was supposed to be a secret you little shit!”

“—you started it!”

Davey pulls the phone away from his ear as the other side of the line descends into a mess of indistinct yelling. He thinks about trying to get their attention, but he decides to just start heading towards the apartment, muting the call while he waits them out—they’ll remember him eventually.

In the meantime, Davey sends a quick text:

Race and Crutchie locked themselves out of the house again

He’s not expecting a response, but Jack must be in-between projects because he gets one almost immediately.

jc again? 

And you’re going to have to get a new spare made

fuck okay i’ll take care of it. are you heading over?

I’m walking there now

ur the light of my life dave

Davey can’t help but smile at this, a soft feeling fluttering in his chest. Before he can write back, Jack sends a second text:

how did the ochem midterm go?

I feel good about it! Def did better than I thought I would!

duh youve been living in the library all week ofc ur gonna do great. ill swing by the grocery on the way home, pick up some ice cream to celebrate. do we need anything else while im there?

Get a bell pepper and some tomato paste, I’m going to make spaghetti for dinner. And we need laundry detergent.

fuck yes im starving. can we do garlic bread too?

Get home on time and we’ll see.

you drive a hard bargain sir. kerian owes me a favor so ill make him stay late. ill be home in a couple hours 

Grinning, Davey goes to respond but is distracted by a tinny, muffled sound emanating from his phone’s speakers. He unmutes the call and lifts his phone back to his ear.

“Davey?” Crutchie says hesitantly, and it sounds like he might’ve been calling Davey’s name for a while. They must’ve put him on speaker because he can still hear Race grumbling nearby. “Are you still there?”

“I’m still here,” Davey confirms, feeling a little guilty for forgetting about them, even though they forgot him first.

“So are ya comin’ or what?” Racetrack asks, ever impatient, “because I’m roasting out here.”

“Well, I was thinking about leaving you to ruminate on your poor life choices,” Davey responds dryly, “but I guess I can come let you in, since you asked so nicely.”

“Thanks, Davey,” Crutchie says.

“Hurry, will ya? Much longer and I’m gonna get heatstroke and die,” Racetrack calls.

Davey rolls his eyes. “Goodbye, Race.”

00000

Davey starts rifling through the bags almost before Jack can finish putting them down. “Did you get the—?”

“I got the tomato paste,” Jack says, pulling out a gallon of ice cream and sticking it in the freezer. “I also got some more of that fancy cheese you like so much, even though it costs half the grocery budget.”

“It balances the dish,” Davey insists around an armful of vegetables, “the salt cuts through the richness of the sauce.” He makes quick work of washing a green pepper and peeling an onion, then starts dicing both into small, neat pieces.

“All I know is, the shredded stuff works just as well and it doesn’t cost a fortune.”

“Watch your mouth, Kelly,” Davey says, wagging his knife at Jack teasingly, “smartasses don’t get dinner.”

“That so?” Jack asks with a grin. “Then why the hell are we still feeding Racetrack?”

“I heard that,” Race grumbles from the kitchen table.

“Yeah, you were supposed to,” Jack says, moving over to Racetrack and slinging an arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a side hug. Race bats at Jack’s hand but makes no real attempt to get away. Then Jack says, “So, I hear you and your brother lost another set of keys.”

Race gives Davey a look of the deepest betrayal. “You told Jack?”

“Of course he did,” Jack says. “Someone’s gonna have to get new ones made, and it sure ain’t gonna be either half of the dynamic duo.”

“Crutchie lost the spare,” Race says, throwing Crutchie under the bus while he’s not in the room to defend himself. “And I didn’t lose my keys, I just left them in my locker.”

“Uh huh, save it for the judge,” Jack responds, ruffling Race’s hair. “Just know if I end up having to change the deadbolt, it’s coming outta your subway money.”

“Jacky, leave Racetrack alone,” Davey comments mildly over Racetrack’s spluttering protests. “He needs to work on that paper and you’re distracting him.”

“Yeah, Jack,” Race repeats, a little smug. “You’re distracting me.”

Davey turns to look at him, one eyebrow raised. Racetrack quickly busies himself with his homework.

Davey goes back to the stove-top, adding the chopped vegetables to the ground beef that’s browning in a pan. He feels more than hears Jack sidle up behind him: the familiar weight of his gaze, the solid presence at his back. He stands there quietly, leaning against the counter-top and just watching Davey cook; unbothered, Davey lets him be for the moment and moves toward the pantry. With a bit of searching he unearths a can of tomatoes, then adds it and the tomato paste to the sauce pan and turns it down to a simmer.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Davey says, “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me with this?” glancing over his shoulder at Jack, a mock challenge. “You know there’s no loitering in my kitchen.”

“Well, I’m nothin’ if notta law abidin’ citizen,” Jack drawls in answer, the corner of his mouth quirking up. He rolls up his shirt sleeves, exposing the long, muscular line of his forearms, and washes his hands in the kitchen sink. “Where do you want me?”

Davey licks his lips. “Think you can handle boiling the pasta?”

...

“I’ve got to head back out,” Jack says. “Johnson’s got me working a night shoot and I have to be downtown by 9.”

“How long is the session?” Davey asks.

“We’re scheduled for five hours, but we might get to wrap it up early if everything goes well.” Jack’s hand brushes against the small of Davey’s back and they trade spots again, Davey stepping back up to the stovetop and Jack taking his place at the cutting board.

“Are ya spending the night or are ya headin’ back to your place?”

“Depends on how much help Racetrack needs with his history paper,” Davey replies. “We might be at it a while.”

Jack huffs out a laugh. “Well, if you do spend the night, go ahead and take the bed. The extra blankets are in the usual place.”

00000

Davey notices the time and frowns. “Jack,” he calls, “it’s already 7:30. If you don’t leave soon you’re gonna be late for work.”

There’s a clamor of noise from down the hall, then Jack appears, freshly showered and fumbling to put on his socks and button his work shirt at the same time.

“Fuck, Mr. Johnson is gonna kill me,” Jack grumbles. He pats down his pockets, then groans. “Christ, has anyone seen my—”

“Your wallet and keys are on the counter by the microwave,” Davey says. “And take a jacket, it’s supposed to rain later.”

…

“Jack—”

“And Dave cooked, so you shitheads better do the dishes, get me?”

“Jack, you’re gonna be late,” Davey cuts in firmly, holding out Jack’s jacket for him.

“Alright, I’m going,” Jack says, shrugging it on, and he finally starts making moves towards the door.

He gives Crutchie one last pat on the shoulder and cuffs Racetrack on the back of the head in a slightly rougher, but no less affectionate goodbye, which is per usual. Then he turns to Davey, tips his chin up, and kisses him right on the mouth, short and sweet.

“Lock the door behind me and don’t forget to—” Jack stops mid-sentence, then turns bright red.

“Um,” says Crutchie.

“Holy shit,” says Racetrack.

Jack’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly. Finally, he sputters out, “I u-uh — I-I d-didn’t mean—“

Davey doesn’t respond. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to—he’s frozen in place, his mind a sudden wash of static. For a moment, they just look at each other. Then Jack blurts, “gottagoseeyoulaterbye” and bolts out the front door.

Davey’s not sure how long he stands there, staring blankly into space, utterly dumbfounded.

“Davey?” Crutchie asks hesitantly. “Are you okay?”

There’s a horrible, strangled, choking noise. A split second later, Davey realizes it’s coming from him.

[iggy-licious]

Camera Eye

This will be a multichapter story. I'm the type of writer who flies by the seat of her pants, so I can't tell you how long it might be, or when I will update next, but I do want to come back to it. ❤️❤️❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fern finished her last sip of coffee and wished she had put something stronger in it. Any minute now, her photoshoot with Iggy would begin. She was excited to film him. She had never attended one of his concerts, but she knew his reputation. Sexy. Unpredictable. Incredibly physical.

For those reasons, she was concerned he might be more than she could handle. Some of her friends and colleagues told her story after wild story of The Stooges’ concerts when she mentioned her assignment. Some of them wished her good luck, with sympathy in their eyes. Others jokingly debated whether she should have a jar of peanut butter or some antiseptic and bandages on hand, in case he decided to take the photo shoot to the extreme.

In the end, curiosity won out for Fern when she was asked to take on the assignment. A photo shoot with Iggy sounded like a good challenge that could end up with amazing results. As long as everything went well, she thought.

There was nothing for her to do until he arrived, because she'd set and checked the lighting, picked out and cleaned the lenses she thought she'd need, scouted out a few scene options inside and outside of the studio, made sure the stereo speakers were loud and clear if he wanted music, and put a few rolls of film at hand so she wouldn't have to kill the mood scrambling for more.

She wished he would come already, but he wasn't her first rock star subject, so she knew the drill. He could be anywhere from minutes to hours late. Or a total no-show. But she had no choice; Creem needed a quintessential Iggy cover photo for the latest issue being developed.

She left the rented studio room to get more coffee from the kitchen. She'd find out later whether it was a good idea--walking off some nervous energy and putting her hands around a soothing, warm mug--or if it would be a bad idea because she would be far too jittery.

She realized she was on edge because of the unpredictable situation, but also because something about Iggy called to her primal instincts and she liked it. He had something special about him that would not be denied. It came through in the stage prowling and crawling that she had seen in photos, as well as the feral screams that she'd heard on the albums and bootlegs.

The fact that a couple of her friends had seen his cock, mid-concert, on separate occasions and described it as legendary also made her curious. "Iggy has a biggie," one of them said dreamily. She'd even heard that a couple of his fans put their mouths to his member in San Francisco once, after he dove into the audience. She inhaled sharply, thinking of that story. She drifted off into fantasy for a minute, imagining it had been her bracing her hands on his athletic thighs, barely covered in tattered denim, and welcoming his length between her lips until he tore away in a fit of spastic dancing.

With coffee in hand, she returned to the studio. She was surprised and confused to hear swinging jazz rock blasting in the room.

She crept to the doorway and saw Iggy putting the sleeve for Miles Davis's Jack Johnson album on top of her pile of records while nodding his head to the music. She was surprised that he was right on time. He had silver hair and was wearing a tight t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

He stiffened as though he knew he was being watched. He turned and saw her. "Are you the photographer?"

"That's me. Fern." She approached him and extended her hand to shake his.

"Uh uh, none of that formal bullshit." He hugged her in a friendly embrace.

She was taken off guard. She had expected a savage practically foaming at the mouth, but instead she got a sweet, gracious guy so far, even if his pupils betrayed the presence of some drug in his system.

She stopped tensing her body. His strong arms meant a strong hug. Rock solid, like his chest beneath the clingy shirt. "You're right on time!" she exclaimed.

"Fucking straight, doll. I'm not one of those lazy, cream-of-the-crop, piece of shit rock stars. I don't take these things lightly. I need this as much, if not more, than the magazine does, you know? I'm here for as long as you need me." He stood with his arms across his chest. His blue doe eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and his mouth was set in a defiant pout.

His gaze held Fern’s hostage, but his flare of passion burned away quickly and his sunny disposition returned. “Aside from all that boring public relations stuff, though, I enjoy doing photo shoots. It’s another way to perform, another way to connect in an unexpected way with the audience, you know? I really respect what good photographers do to make heathens like me come to life in the newspapers and magazines. It’s an art. And you, my dear, are in the artist category. I went snooping and found some of your work. Yeah, it's real fucking creative.” He caught her gaze again, but this time, his expression was soft, and his smile was infectious. Positive sincerity looked good on him, she thought.

She sensed there was nothing to fear, as his outburst seemed more directed at his music contemporaries and the industry gatekeepers than her. She hoped she was right. Either way, it only made him more interesting, she had to admit. He was as arresting when angrily passionate as when he was in good spirits.

"I like your spirit, Iggy. I'm sure we'll get some great photos of you."

“I think we'll make a great team, Fern."

He stooped down to take off his shoes and socks. "Whatever you need from me. And I hope you’ll indulge me on any ideas I come up with.” He looked up at her again and winked before standing.

And then his instincts took over. He had been busy making a good impression, to the point that he hadn’t noticed how cute she was. He observed her and hoped it wasn’t too obvious.

Her fine features were enrobed with pecan-colored skin. Her Afro was high and wide, bursting forth from a green bandana tied into a headband. She wore baggy overalls with a tight navy tank underneath, and worn white sneakers. His face lit up with a smile that was somehow pure and lewd at the same time.

"Miles Davis, though?" she inquired, deflecting the effect of his smile, which she was sure was masking impure feelings underneath. She wondered whether he was a tender lover, or if he was prone to chaotic, high-energy trysts.

It surprised her how much she hoped to find out someday. But not today. She vowed to block the thoughts out and put her best professional face forward.

He padded toward the backdrop on bare feet, and she inhaled deeply while his back was turned, hoping to steel up her professionalism. "You sure you don't want something else to listen to?"

He turned to face her. "I listen to this album just about every day. It’s good shit. And I like to think of Miles as, uh, a mentor in some ways. He was at one of our shows--"

“Really? What was he like?”

“I don’t remember any of that night, but Ron said we all went through a big pile of white with Miles. They told me he enjoyed himself. Said we were original, and he liked our spirit. Despite the fact that I apparently whipped out my dick and threw up on stage. Fucking Miles Davis!” Iggy shook his head, still in disbelief.

Fern was starting to get a sense of why some of her friends had taken pity on her, but his earnest surprise and joy was contagious.

"My last boyfriend got me into Miles. I love all of his different periods. But this album is something special. I love Bitches Brew and Sketches of Spain, too."

“Mmmm… Both great albums. Fern, I admire your taste in music. And you’re a beautiful girl. Real beautiful.”

“Thanks.” She smiled and turned to get her camera off of the table. It gave her time to hide her blushing.

“OK, ready?” She turned around to find Iggy lying on his back on the floor.

“Ready, willing, and able,” he said with a seductive rumble before closing his eyes.

“OK…” She was thrown off by the deepness of his voice and how it made her feel. She fought to sober up quickly. The thought of the photos they might come up with did the trick. Their conversation flowed easily, and she hoped that it would translate to artistic chemistry. She sensed that Iggy really would do anything to give her a great series of photos, but the connection she would establish with him would make all the difference. She hoped that she, and Creem alike, would be ready for Iggy.

She stood above him. His stomach curved inward under his shirt, thanks to his prone position, and that made the bulge in his pants seem more prominent in comparison. His eyes were closed and his made-up eyelashes stretched surprisingly far toward his cheekbones. He was like a sleeping, muscular, mythical creature. He held all the cards as to what would happen once he opened his eyes. It was as thrilling for Fern as it was nerve-wracking.

“Let’s begin.”

[rainydawgradioblog]

Rainy Dawg Radio’s Best of the 2010s!

ALBUMS

Palberta - Bye Bye Berta

Palberta is a band that somehow manages to scratch almost every musical itch I have. Nowhere else have I heard a band successfully hold three part harmonies over squeaky atonal guitar riffs and abstract drum thrashing. Although I wouldn’t categorize them as twee, noise rock, post-punk, indie pop, no-wave, or any other genre name for that matter, they distill everything I love from all these types of music and mush it into something beautifully stinky. In my eyes, their 2017 album Bye Bye Berta stands as the definitive statement of what Palberta’s all about. With 20 tracks clocking in at under half an hour, the album wastes no time on filler. Skronky punk riffs burst apart at the seams and a sweet little lo-fi love song comes out of the wreckage, only to be replaced by an abstract tape sample collage. The band also has an incomparable mastery over lyricism, as evidenced by such classics as Finish My Bread (Finish my finish my finish my bread, finish my finish my finish my bread, etc…) and Trick Ya (HEY! Don’t trick me, I’m gonna trick you! HEY! Don’t trick me, I’m gonna trick you!). Highlights include the endearingly ramshackle and stupid pretty “Honey, Baby” and their cover of “Stayin’ Alive” (Jenny’s eating burgers and everybody’s shakin’ and stayin’ alive!)

- Elliott Hansen

Alex G - DSU

Shit if you know me you know I live for that sad bastard indie music. That’s exactly what DSU does best. Probably my most played record of the 2010s, this album’s lo-fi indie rock overfloweth. The opener, After Ur Gone, is on the noisier side of the album’s spectrum along with the squealing guitar of Axesteel and Icehead (peep the scream vocals in his live performances), while songs like the instrumental Skipper exemplify why Frank Ocean tapped Alex for the Self Control riff on Blonde. The emotional core of the record, Sorry, gets right back to the Elliott Smith comparisons that we know and love: lyrics of trauma, drugs and apologies included. My favorite song is Harvey; it smacks me right in the younger brother emo spot, with “run my hands through his short black hair I say / ‘I love you Harvey I don’t care’”. While not as chaotic as House of Sugar, twangy as Rocket, or psychedelic as Beach Music, this record is Alex G comfort music at its finest.

- Max Bryla

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

Picture this: J Dilla, Madlib, and Aphex Twin all come together to create an album with little more than some old Coltrane records and an original Xbox at their disposal. The end result is like a trip through the universe. Yet the album comes from the mind of a single individual, who sits in the cockpit with a mischievous grin on his face: Steven Ellison, known professionally as Flying Lotus. The opening track, ‘Clock Catcher’, feels like Ellison slamming his foot onto the ignition so hard that it snaps out of place, shooting into the heavens at the speed of light before the listener can even strap in. Whirling through the stars, the rest of the album is the journey home from the expanse, often melancholic, often wondrous, always changing. From the punchy, off-kilter rhythms of tracks like ‘Nose Art’ and ‘Computer Face//Pure Being’ to the fat synth melodies of ‘Dance of the Pseudo Nymph’, ‘Recoiled’, and ‘Do The Astral Plane’, Flylo is always striking the listener from a different sonic vantage point. You can tell he’s having the time of his life with each of these songs, wanting to share every bit of it with our eardrums. After countless listens, I’m still finding new things about this album to appreciate. A complete masterpiece of cosmic epiphany fuel.

- Trey Marez

Ott. - Fairchildren

People throw so much music at me. And I remember this album was recommended to me back in high school, and I listened to it for the first time in zero-th period -- I think it was someone who went by the name “phryk” on IRC. And dang, it’s still such a good album! In what sense? It’s so well-mixed; that’s the first part. Secondly, it is just a wonderful listening experience from start to finish. If you need a good album of reggae, dub, electronic, here it is. One thing you shouldn’t do with this album: use it to test out speakers at Goodwill. The bass of this album was so good that I bought home a pair of speakers that turned out to be so bad.

- Koi Nil

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Bandcamp has been known for hosting some of our wildest dreams this decade, and when 2011 lobbed William Toledo’s first rendition of Twin Fantasy down my ears my life changed. Emotions are crushed to death in the back of parking lots, the lo-est of fi’s, and lyrics that trigger far and melancholy memories of the early 2010 zeitgeist swarmed with insecurity and Skype calls. The album is Toledo’s first cohesive piece, finally creating work with developed central themes, dedicating the first concept album of his life to falling in and consequently out of love. The album speaks as a mirror to itself, reflecting Will’s own joy and confusion towards falling conservatively and completely in love, until the sobering downward spiral back into isolation. I was only eleven when I let the album own me completely, and am only nineteen as I hold onto it for dear life. Twin Fantasy was never a perfect album, and Toledo recognized this as he re-released Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) in 2018, reinventing the album’s sound with a much higher fidelity, lyrical updates, and redone instrumentals that turn the original into an overture or prologue to be enjoyed separately for more context. Searing solos, cute doo-wop moments, sentimental lyrics, slap-happy drums, fish wearing business suits, dogs, coming out over Skype, smoking, not smoking, nice shoulders, waitresses, the Bible, the ghost of Mary Shelley’s frankenstein, cursive, they might be giant’s rip offs, not knowing SHIT about girls, stealing alcohol from our grandparents and grandparents, bruised shins, cults, fish, getting the spins, and being really really really sensitive to the sunlight. I’d fight for this album, listening to “Cute Thing” as I get RKO’d. Take the time to enjoy the ride, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. (It technically used to be a gay furry album, but now it’s techincally a straight trans furry album.)

- Cooper Houston

Sabaton - The Last Stand

Sabaton is every history teachers dream band. These Swedish power metallers educate the listener about the history of war by discussing various battles, conflicts, and figures. They do this through anthemic choruses, riffs that make your fist pump, and oddly enough synths that work surprisingly well. Since history interests me and I really like metal, Sabaton was pretty much made for me. This album will always have a soft spot in my heart and evoke fond memories as it was one of the first CDs I picked up after getting my license back in 2016. As I gained more independence and freedom as I approached adulthood, this was my soundtrack. This album lived in my CD player during this time as I listened to it over and over again, never once losing its replayability. Ranging from the American battalion that got lost in the Argonne Forest during WWI to Allied and Axis forces joining together to fight at the end of WWII, this album tells of various historical last stands. While this is certainly isn’t the best metal release of the decade, it’s still an extremely solid album. In this case, the sentimentality plays a larger role than anything. While it may not be found on any “Best Album of the Decade” lists, Sabaton’s The Last Stand will always hold a place in my heart and in my car’s CD player.

- Jack Irwin

CONCERTS

07/20/19: What the Heck? Fest @ Croatian Club, Anacortes, WA

Choosing a single favorite concert from the entire past decade seemed insurmountable until I decided to define it by the overall experience rather than exclusively the music. This past summer, I was lucky enough to be one out of barely over a hundred people at the first What the Heck? Fest in 8 years. The festival took place annually from 2001 to 2011, featuring PNW indie legends, K records icons, and all manner of dorky indie folk kids. WTH laid dormant until this past spring, when Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie) announced its return along with the revival of his long-dead initial moniker, the Microphones. I made the trip up from Seattle alone by train and bus, spent a little while wandering Anacortes (the Business was closed :( ) and made my way to the repurposed church which houses the Unknown and the Croatian Club. I ended up seated a few feet from Calvin Johnson in one direction and Kimya Dawson in another. I felt a little out of place at times, like a stranger in the middle of a 90s indie family reunion, but the atmosphere remained consistently welcoming. D+ opened the show, fronted by Bret Lunsford (formerly of Beat Happening), the founder and main organizer of WTH, and backed by Phil Elverum and Karl Blau, who played their own sets later in the night. K Records mainstays Lois and Mecca Normal were on next, delivering stripped down, socially-driven whisper punk/indie pop. Karl Blau led an outdoor sing-along and covered a Pounding Serfs song, who played the next set (their first in [a lot of?] years) for a total of two renditions of “Slightly Salted,” a song I could have listened to in every set that night. Phil hopped back onstage again alongside Lee Baggett to back Kyle Field from Little Wings, an indie-folk favorite of mine, with rambly half-nonsensical lyrics and plenty of soft strummed warm twangly guitars. Black Belt Eagle Scout delivered (comparatively) heavier sounds, coupling slow, soft sung melodies with fuzzed out shoegaze tones, building tension until the Microphones (Phil backed by Kyle, Karl, Lee and keyboardist Nicholas Krgovich) came out for the final set of the night. They opened with what I interpret as a 25-minute rendition of the then-unreleased Belief, which was later shortened to 7 and a half minutes as the opener to the new Mount Eerie record, Lost Wisdom pt. 2. Phil then played a handful of old Microphones tracks alone, including a version of The Glow pt. 2’s title track with reworked lyrics, as well as its closer, My Warm Blood, excerpts from the final Microphones album (confusingly titled Mount Eerie), and what I believe to be another unreleased song. I left with the most limited merch I’ve ever managed to snag: one of two Ziploc bags of lettuce with “the Microphones” and a small K records logo sharpied on the front. I felt bad eating my merch, but it sustained me through the cold Anacortes night as I wandered to and from poorly lit parks, killing time until my 4AM bus back to Seattle.

- Elliott Hansen

03/09/19: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Solo) @ Vermillion Gallery, Seattle WA

Was really not sure what to expect from this one going in, but CYHSY’s s/t from 2005 has always been one of my favorite records. I hadn’t ever been to Vermillion in Capitol Hill, but it was hosting CYHSY on a “living room tour”, where Alec Ournsworth (vox, guitar, harmonica[!]) hit tiny spaces around the country. Vermillion sat 40 at most, and I got to check out some cool local art in the space as well. Alec’s trademark voice that (according to p4k) sounds “as if someone were pressing his vocal cords to a fret board and bending them” which is pretty damn accurate. Amongst CYHSY’s greatest hits (In This Home On Ice and Cool Goddess in particular), he also covered Pixies and Tom Waits through lively and exciting banter. Great dude, great music, great venue. My favorite of the 2010’s for sure.

- Max Bryla

11/14/18: Milo @ Vera Project, Seattle, WA

Milo, and the ruby yacht house band are poetic alchemists that constantly dish out hefty servings of succulent syllables with each new release. Kenny Segal who does the beats for a few of Milo’s songs (and other hip hop artists) opened by transporting the crowd into the ethereal realm with a few classics from his album: happy little trees. Once Kenny Segal finished, Milo accompanied by the ruby yacht house band jumped on stage. I was close enough that I could make out Milo’s squirtle tattoo on his bicep and waited for his vivid and veracious vocabulary to leave me in a state of decapitation. Crispy, potato chip like static (a Milo-live signature) was consumed ferociously by the crowd as he hit us with one banger after another. About halfway through the set Milo dropped the mic and went off stage into the back room. The ruby yacht house band was left Milo-less; their beat lingering in the air, festering with each hit of the snare. Milo returned a while later, wielding a pair of tap dancing shoes in one hand and a ukulele in the other. He put on the tap dancing shoes on stage, everyone in the audience screaming with his return. Donned with the tap dancing shoes and positioning his ukulele on his chest; he began to dance. Holy shit he was good too. Strumming the uke and tap dancing away I was utterly mesmerized. My eyes glued to his performance. Suddenly, as if stricken by some divine intervention, Milo seized the ukulele by the neck and smashed it against the ground, splintering into a thousand pieces. After his destructive fit, he picked the microphone back up and whispered into it emotionlessly: “Think about that”. I did. The whole experience was transcendental and instantly triumphed as my greatest concert of the decade. You KNOW I snagged a sliver of uke on my way out.

- Rocky Schaefer

08/07/17: Metallica @ CenturyLink Field, Seattle, WA

While Metallica has had its ups and downs throughout their career, they do one thing well, and that is putting on a damn good live show. Metallica built the best line-up I have ever seen, given the popularity of the bands they chose. With them they took Avenged Sevenfold, who I greatly dislike but are still a huge band, and Gojira, one of the best modern death metal bands on the scene. The sheer size of this concert was absolutely and extremely inspiring as Metallica was able to fill up CenturyLink Field, a venue usually reserved for pop artists who draw in thousands of attendees. The amount of people that attended signaled to me that metal is far from dead. While this tour was in support of their newest album Hardwired to Self Destruct, Metallica made sure to incorporate classics into their setlist including “Seek and Destroy,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and “Battery.” James, Robert, Kirk, and Lars delivered a killer concert will tight playing and outstanding individual performances. Being able to see my music hero, James Hetfield, play live was truly a special experience. The one thing that stood out during the performance were the visuals. Each song had a unique and individual video effect on the large screens behind the band which made each song special and memorable it its own way. While I wasn’t close to the stage by any means, the crowd interaction created a unique experience that made me feel much closer than I really was. This concert wasn’t just a concert, but also a life-changing experience. Seeing the band that truly got me into metal, the thing that I rest my individuality on, is something that defined the decade for me and will live with me forever.

- Jack Irwin

SONGS

“You Are Here” - Yo La Tengo

This one I don't think I can fully explain. By miles, this is my most played song of all time. It is the opener of Yo La Tengo’s 15th album, There’s A Riot Going On. The album, and song, starts with the meditative synth line that builds into a pulsing rhythm over the course of the first minute. The rhythm maintains through the rest of the song, as casual guitar strumming is added and another synth that doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to Jonny Greenwood’s Ondes Martenot. My favorite part of the song, though, are the drum fills of the latter half: they crash and roll like the ocean. With or without the title of the song, the audio conveys a degree of presentness and contentedness that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere quite yet. I’d recommend it.

[howyoutalktostrangers]

So,

One of the stories in my novel manuscript is called “Doubting Thomas”.

I wrote this piece back while I was still an undergrad at UVic, and named the main character Spencer after my best friend and roommate. It was ultimately published in Island Writer, complete with illustrations. 

Spencer is one of the most important people in my life, and he’s known me since I was a Bible-toting high school Christian. While many of us Tsawwassen kids were teenage evangelicals, he never bought into our religion — and he then watched, amused, as one-by-one we fell away from the church.

He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known, and I love him forever.

This story has changed a bit over the years, and the main character is now named Eddie Bishop (father of Joel Bishop from “Post-funeral”), but the main thrust of the narrative is completely intact. It follows an isolated widower as he contemplates suicide following the death of his wife.

I’ve published the new version below. I hope you like it.

The Literary Goon

*

Doubting Thomas

by Will Johnson

EDDIE BISHOP watches the frozen lake beyond the trees. He listens to the quiet moan of the wind while he sucks on a skinny brown cigar. He barely tastes it. It’s a bright afternoon and sunlight reflects off the snow. Every now and then he spots a cross-country skier in the distance, a tiny dark figure carving a line through the slush, just to prove he’s not quite alone.

Every day for the last month he’s spent the afternoon sitting in his deck chair, sometimes shin-deep in snow. The cold prickles his cheeks and bits of frost get stuck in his thin grey beard. Each time he tries to last a little bit longer before retreating back to the fireplace. He sees how long he can sit still without flinching or moving. He suppresses the urge to wipe the back of his hand across his face, to itch behind his knee or scratch his neck. It’s not quite punishment. He likes to think of it as self-discipline.

This is just sensation.

Most mornings he chops wood behind the cabin. He’s surprised by how quickly it disappears once he tosses it in the fireplace. Back in the city he never thought about heat, never worried about the temperature of his house. He likes shovelling the walk, filling the birdfeeder, making sure to turn off the water pipes each night. Without these chores he’s not sure how he would fill each day. He dreads the half-hour trips to the grocery store each week, the sudden rush of music and excited conversation whenever he walks through the sliding glass doors. There are so many colours. Children run up and down the aisles, people brush by him to reach for the cereal, the checkout girls always want to talk to him. Sometimes he idles in the parking lot for twenty minutes before he heads inside. Often he drives back to the cabin without even getting out of the car.

While he sits on the deck, his cigar smouldering close to his ungloved fingers, a small squirrel scampers along the railing and tentatively approaches the birdfeeder. Seeds are scattered around it, pock-marking the snow. Eddie loves to watch the birds swoop down and peck at the cracked corn, at the sunflower seeds and the dried up bits of fruit. He wishes he knew how to tell them apart, how to tell whether he’s looking at a chickadee or a sparrow or a cardinal, but he doesn’t. He’s got a rifle resting against the arm of his chair, and as the squirrel slowly nudges closer to the feeder he stubs out his cigar, lifts it out of the snow and raises it to his shoulder. The tiny animal is only three, maybe four feet away. He looks down the long barrel, through the scope, and aims the gun at its neck. He rests his finger on the trigger, but doesn’t apply any pressure yet. The squirrel begins to nibble.

He’s never taken time to look at a squirrel before. Not this closely. To examine the delicate hairs on its tiny grey face, to look at the way its glazed black eyes blink. He thinks about the cartoons he used to watch as a kid. As it begins to eat he tries to see what kind of teeth it has, whether or not they’re over-sized buckteeth like he remembers from TV. It has a long, curled tail with a white blemish at the tip. Eddie wonders how many years it’s been alive, wonders if it’s an old squirrel or a young squirrel. Does it live far away? Or maybe it has a home in his yard. He has no way to know.

Just be here.

Eddie knows that every moment is inexplicably linked to the next, that there’s no way to stop or even slow time. If he pulls the trigger the squirrel will burst into a cloud of singed fur and leave nothing but spatters of blood. There would be no way to take that back. In this moment he has the power to end this creature’s life. It has no idea what he’s thinking, no idea that he could evaporate it at any moment. All it knows is the taste of sunflower seed, the satisfying crack as it chews. All it knows is this moment, right now. Eddie watches the crumbs spill from the squirrel’s mouth, watches it cup its food in its small grey paws. It is so beautiful that for a moment he forgets where he is, what he’s doing. He just watches.

***

Not long after his wife Jolene was diagnosed with leukemia, Eddie took a month-long leave of absence from his company, Solomon Development Ltd., and renovated their living room. He punched out one wall, stripped the carpet and sold their furniture. He put in laminate flooring and an enormous window overlooking their backyard. He mounted speakers in the corners and bought all the yoga paraphernalia he could find—mats and blocks and incense and little figurines. By the time he wheeled her into the house, after her first round of chemotherapy, her yoga studio was done.

When she first saw it, Jolene sat with her wrinkled hands in her lap for a long moment. Then she began to cry. Eddie kneeled in front of her and looked into her eyes. He stroked her arms and held her bald head and kissed the moist trails running down her cheeks.

***

Eddie is hauling a load of firewood around the side of the cabin when he spots a man tromping down his driveway. He drops the wood beside the door and watches as the figure slogs through the snow. The guy is broad-shouldered, with a curly brown beard and a toque pulled low over his eyes. His winter jacket makes him look like a husky bear walking upright.

“Mornin’,” the guy says.

Eddie mumbles a response under his breath. He has to fight the urge to retreat, to slam the door in this guy’s face and refuse to come outside. It’s been weeks since he’s spoken to anyone.

Remember to breathe.

“Is this a bad time?” the guy asks.

Eddie shrugs.

“Listen, I don’t mean to bother you. I just got a call from Cody and he asked me if I’d swing by.”

Eddie can see the guys’ breath. He watches the cloud swirl then dissipate in the air. After a moment he realizes he has to say something, that they’ve been standing there silent. He pulls out his cigar pack, knocks one into his hand, and raises it to his lips. He holds out the pack, but his visitor shakes his head.

“Listen, I’m Tom. We live just up the road and we’ve known Cody for probably fifteen years. He says you two work together?”

Eddie nods. “One of my partners.”

“Well, I know it’s not my business. But he told me about what happened, told me you were going to be up here for a while, and I thought maybe you’d like to come over for dinner sometime.”

Eddie exhales. “Okay.”

Tom rustles around in his coat for a moment, then pulls out a piece of paper. “I wrote down a few numbers there. That’s my office number down in Kamloops. I also put down our home number and my cell phone. You need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”

Eddie pulls off his glove and takes the piece of paper.

“It’s Eddie, right?”

He nods.

“Well, I’ve got to get my daughter off to school here, but we’d love to hear from you anytime. We’re just about five minutes away, whatever you need.”

Eddie watches Tom slog away. He blinks at the creaking trees and the soft mist drifting down from their branches. For a moment he wonders if he just imagined the whole interaction, if maybe he’s starting to invent things. But then he looks down at the note in his hand, and there it is. He folds it twice and tucks it carefully into his wallet.

***

Each morning while Eddie drank his coffee in the kitchen, Jolene would sit meditating in her yoga studio. He could hear the otherworldly music through the wall. Sometimes he would creep into the hallway and watch her silhouetted against the window, her long shadow cast along the floor by the rising sun. She sat with her hands open on her legs, her eyes closed, facing the ceiling.

One day he unrolled a mat beside her, and she talked him through her process. It was like learning a new language. He wasn’t used to feeling the throb of blood in his neck, of listening to each breath. It made him uncomfortable. When Jolene wasn’t paying attention he would open his eyes and watch her chest rise and fall. He wanted to touch her, to gather her up in his arms.

“The divine in me recognizes the divine in you,” Jolene said. “And bows to it.”

***

Eddie’s small car is struggling up the hill from town, spraying a tidal wave of grey water in either direction, when he spots a teenage girl sitting on a stump on the side of the road. He notices her bare, pink-splotchy legs. It’s drizzling rain and she’s lifted her flimsy rain jacket over her head. When she sees him approaching she jumps up and waves her arms.

All you have is this moment.

“Shit,” he whispers.

He knows he can’t leave her there, so before he’s had time to really think about it he’s pulled over. She grabs a backpack from the ground and excitedly tiptoes through the snow towards him.

“Omigod, thank you for stopping,” she says, the door pinging as she holds it open. “I thought I was going to die.”

She sinks into the passenger seat, relieved. Eddie studies her face from the rearview mirror as she settles, stuffing her bag down at her feet. There’s a swath of irritated looking pimples along her hairline, and she’s wearing neon blue eye shadow.

“You’re that guy up the road,” she says. “You live in Mr. Solomon’s cabin.”

Eddie nods.

“My Dad told me about you.”

“Okay.”

“I’m like two minutes up the road. Like I was almost there but then my boyfriend was being a fucking dick and yeah, you can just take a left at Peak.”

Eddie shifts into drive.

“I’m Evelyn,” she says.

“Eddie.”

Eddie notices how far her skirt has bunched up on her legs as she leans over and starts fiddling with the radio. Her legs are goose-pimply. She looks Korean, or maybe Japanese. He cracks the window to get some air.

“I don’t know why my parents can’t just live in town like normal people,” she says in a sing-song whine. “The radio stations are all crackly. What do you listen to, like what type of music?”

He shrugs.

Eddie is relieved, a few moments later, when he pulls into Evelyn’s driveway. They pass under a wrought-iron gate, follow a long curve along an impressively landscaped rock wall, and then reach a small turn-around with overhanging cedar trees. The entranceway to the house, after a steep stone staircase, boasts a giant oak door framed by imposing pillars. On the second floor is a wrap-around verandah that faces the snowy forest.

“Thanks,” Evelyn chirps, but before Eddie can pull away Tom has appeared at the top of the steps. He’s wearing sweatpants and slippers, but he comes running down the steps to greet him. Spencer reluctantly rolls down his window.

“You can make it up and down the hill in this little thing?” Tom says. “Now how could I guess you’re from the big city, huh?”

He leans into the window a little too close, then clasps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie holds his breath. “I see you’ve met my daughter.”

“Yup.”

“I’m glad you swung by, actually. I was going to come by and invite you to church on Sunday. Have you seen St. Luke’s Anglican, down in town? It’s kitty-corner to the Superstore there?”

Evelyn stands behind her father expectantly. She rolls her eyes.

“I’m not really…”

“Listen, I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. I just think, in a time like this, faith can be a real healing and positive force in your life. And it would be a nice way to meet some of the folks from around town. I’m the Rector and Evelyn here, she volunteers with the youth group. We’d really love to see you there.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say.

“How about this? It’s at 9:30 but I need to be there a little early to set up. Why don’t we swing by and pick you up around 8:45?”

Eddie looks at Evelyn, then back at Tom. He really wants to swat away the hand on his shoulder, but he forces a smile. “Sure, okay,” he says.

“Super,” Tom says. “We’ll see you on Sunday.”

***

Whenever the nurses came to visit Jolene, Eddie hated how helpless he felt. His wife was getting thinner, the skin around her ears and along her fingers was starting to crust and flake off, and her eyes were always bloodshot and half-closed. But he savoured the times he could run her a bath, undress her carefully, then carry her to the tub and sink her into the steaming water. Most days he kneeled down beside the tub and softly massaged her arms, her shoulders, her legs. Every now and then he would climb in with her.

One day, while he sat with her slumped in his arms, he felt her start to lose consciousness. He trailed his finger along the soft, wet flesh of her skull down to her ear, and then he began to cry. Just a few tears at first, but then full sobs until he choked for air. Jolene woke up and twisted in his arms. She looked into his eyes.

“Don’t think about it,” she whispered. “We have this moment, and that’s all we need.”

Eddie couldn’t speak.

“Just be here with me,” she said. “Just be here.”

***

Eddie lifts the Common Book of Prayer, a small green hymnal, out of the pew in front of him. Everyone around him is standing up, so he rises too. He can’t believe he’s here. Evelyn has wedged herself beside him, and beside that her mother Miriam sits in a puffy purple dress. Miriam is an enormous white woman with a swath of black hair elaborately ornamented with flowers. Her face is doughy and bulges out in strange places, so her eyes almost seem like they’ll sink down and disappear behind her cheekbones. She reeks like lavender.

At the front of the church, Tom is standing in front of the congregation in flowing white robes.

“The Lord be with you,” he bellows.

“And also with you,” the congregation responds.

“Lift up your hearts.”

“We lift them to the Lord.”

Evelyn keeps glancing in his direction. She helps him flip to the right page in the hymnal, then smiles mischievously at him. Miriam taps her on the shoulder and Evelyn quickly straightens up.

“Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”

“It is right to give our thanks and praise.”

Eddie decides to stay behind while the rest of the sanctuary empties into the aisle. They line up before the altar for Communion and take turns sinking to their knees at the railing. Tom swishes across the stage, plunking a small tuft of bread into each pair of cupped hands. Volunteer women follow him and offer a sip of red wine from bright golden chalices.

Later in the service Evelyn searches through her purse for an eyeliner pencil, and when Miriam isn’t looking she quickly jots down a note in the church bulletin and slips it into his lap.

Don’t need to be forgiven for your sins? it says.

Eddie folds the bulletin and tucks it into the inside pocket of his coat. Evelyn huffs theatrically, then starts kicking the pew in front of her. At the front of the church Tom is strutting from one side of the pulpit to the other, sweeping his long robed arms through the air. Miriam pokes Evelyn again, and she stops.

At the end of the service Eddie stands in the cold parking lot, watching well-dressed families head back to their minivans and trucks. They’re not far from the highway, and he watches people rumble by from Vancouver on their way to the ski hills. He takes long drags from his cigar and tries to stop his hands from shaking. He feels like he might vomit.

***

Jolene passed away less than six months after her diagnosis, and suddenly Eddie found himself inundated with strangers asking him questions. There were funeral arrangements, life insurance policies, paperwork he had to sign and places he needed to be. Her family swept into town and moved into his house for a few weeks and they wouldn’t leave him alone. Every morning he was ushered out of bed, encouraged to shower, shuttled around from place to place.

“So a traditional Catholic funeral, then?” the funeral director asked. Jolene’s sisters and her mother sat on either side of him.

Jolene had been a Buddhist for nearly a decade, though she never attended a temple or declared her faith to anyone. She just stockpiled on books and attended meetings with her yoga friends. Eddie didn’t understand her religion, but he knew she wasn’t Catholic.

“I think Jolene wanted to be cremated,” he mumbled.

Her family started to chatter angrily, but he couldn’t listen. It was always the same with them. Jolene was gone and nothing they could do would make any difference to her. Their moment was dead. Her mother started crying, and while one sister hugged her the other one shot Eddie a dirty look.

Eddie sighed. “I can just wait outside.”

***

Eddie is struggling down the driveway with two bags of groceries when he spots Evelyn sitting beside his front door like a lost animal, and as he gets closer he realizes she is crying. Her jeans are soaked and she’s pulled the strings of her hoodie until it’s tight around her face.

“Hi,” he says.

“Oh hi, sorry. I like, didn’t know if it would be okay but I don’t want to go home and I thought maybe I could crash here for a couple hours?”

Eddie hesitates. For nearly two weeks he’s successfully avoided Tom and his family. A few times he hid in his bedroom and pretended he wasn’t home while someone pounded on the front door. At the grocery store he spotted Miriam across the produce section, and he simply left his basket on top of a pile of apples and jogged out to his car.

“You look cold,” he says.

Once inside Evelyn tosses off her coat and drapes it over the back of the couch. She skips around the room, spinning in circles to check everything out. She opens and closes the doors to both the bedrooms. She leans down to inspect his wood stove. She laughs.

“This place is tiny,” she says.

“My partner just uses it as a summer cabin.”

Eddie starts loading the groceries into the fridge, and hears Evelyn rattling around. When he turns around she’s loading firewood into the stove and searching around for newspaper, kindling and a lighter. The fire had died while he was at the store.

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” she says.

For half an hour Eddie finds different ways to put a locked door between himself and the teenage girl lounging in his living room, first sitting on the toilet of his bathroom to have a smoke and then sitting on his bed and looking out the window. But finally he can’t come up with any more excuses, so he pads into the living room and sits down across from her. She’s reading an entertainment magazine.

“Do you like movies?” she asks.

“Not really.”

“I heard your wife died.”

“Yes, she did.”

Evelyn puts down her magazine on the coffee table and looks him in the eyes until he glances away. She scratches a large red blemish by her nose, searches for a distraction, then dances across the room to the large window overlooking the lake.

“That’s a pretty view,” she says.

Eddie shrugs.

“Do you want to smoke a joint with me?”

All you have is now.

Eddie sighs and picks absentmindedly at some fluff on his pants. He hasn’t smoked cannabis for nearly twenty-five years; probably not since before he met Jolene. He thinks about his younger self, and feels like he doesn’t even know that person anymore. He looks up at Evelyn.

“Sure,” he says. “Okay.”

***

Once the funeral was over Eddie had the house to himself again, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in the bedroom. Instead he set up a cot in the yoga studio and went to sleep listening to Jolene’s music. For years he had been skeptical of her new religion—her obsession with mindfulness, the moment, meditation. He hadn’t necessarily doubted her, but he wondered if her new faith was just a phase. Now that she was gone he found himself obsessing over her books. He watched her yoga DVDs and tried unsuccessfully to do the poses. He could hear Jolene’s voice in his head.

All you have is this moment.

He extended his leave of absence from work, and pretty soon he barely left the house. He couldn’t escape from his mind. One day Cody came by and they drank coffee at the island in his kitchen. They shrugged a lot and couldn’t find much to say. He brought a casserole his wife Melissa made, and it sat covered in Saran Wrap between them.

“Eddie,” Cody said, after a moment of silence. “I’ve been thinking. I got this cabin up in Kamloops. It’s out of the way. We thought you might like to stay there for a while, clear your head, you know. We’re all concerned about you.”

“Right,” he said.

Cody pushed some keys across the counter, along with a map. “Take some time, okay? And take care of yourself.”

***

Eddie listens to the rhythmic crunch of the snow as he tromps into the grey evening mist. In the distance a seemingly endless forest of evergreens reaches up the mountainside, but for kilometres in front of them there is nothing but ice and a thin layer of fresh snow. He drags the barrel of his rifle along the ground, leaving a meandering trail behind him. The setting sun casts long shadows in front of them—his silhouette enormous compared to Evelyn’s. She skips beside him, humming under her breath.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

He shrugs.

Eddie thinks about things that haven’t crossed his mind in years. He thinks about his parents, who have been dead for decades. He thinks about his first car, and the time he crashed it as a teenager. He vaguely thinks he can hear music, and long-forgotten lyrics are suddenly right there. But mostly he thinks about Jolene, about the way her hair used to get caught in her sunglasses, the way she bit her lip when she cried, and the vacation they took to Mexico a few years after they were married. He thinks about their five sons and feels warm.

“Did you know I’m from Burma?” Evelyn asks.

Eddie stops and looks at her. For a moment he’d forgotten she was even there.

“I was in an orphanage until I was three, and then my parents adopted me while they worked as missionaries. Sometimes I try really hard to remember what it’s like, but all I can remember are certain smells or certain songs. Like this one lullaby the nannies used to sing to me.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything. The whistling silence around them is epic.

“I’m going back there one day,” she says. “Once I graduate from high school I’m going to go visit, and maybe even live there. I mean, I’m grateful for everything my parents have done for me, but most of the time I feel like I don’t belong here.”

The darkness creeps in around them.

“I think you belong here,” Eddie says.

Evelyn gapes at him for a moment, then looks at her feet. They start walking again. Eddie reaches into his jacket and pulls out a flashlight. When he shines it directly ahead it catches the flakes of snow and makes them momentarily glow.

“What do you think of my Dad?” Evelyn asks after a few minutes.

Eddie thinks about it. “He seems like a good person.”

“But you’re not a Christian?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

“Me neither,” she says. “I made the decision like months ago.”

Evelyn sighs. She kicks up tufts of snow with each step. Then she breaks into a jog and screams. She flails her arms and spins around and laughs until she falls in a heap. Eddie watches her, bemused, then catches up and shines his flashlight down at her prone body.

All you have is now.

“I’m really high,” she says.

Eddie struggles to sit, huffing a little, then sinks down beside her. There’s a series of sharp cracks, and he instinctively shifts to one side, but the ice is solid beneath them. He laughs to himself.

“The ice is crazy thick,” Evelyn says. “Don’t even worry.”

They sit there without speaking and night descends. Mournful loons sing to the darkness, their voices echoing across the ice. The breeze layers frost on their jackets, in their hair, and on their faces. He can’t understand what’s changed in his mind, but suddenly everything around him seems exactly as it should be. Just be here. Evelyn’s breathing slows until she’s whistling gently by his side. Eddie stands up and looks at the stars. He raises his gun to his shoulder and looks through his scope at each one. They’re magical. He thinks about the distance between him and the universe. He swoops the barrel down until he can see the lights coming from his cabin’s windows, bright spots in the blackness. He points the gun at the shadowy silhouettes of the mountains, and then finally back into the black eternity above his head. Evelyn sits up, startled with the first bang. Then she walks up behind him and watches as he fires shot after shot into the night sky.

[oneweekoneband]

Why Did It Take Me So Long To Notice That The Word Is “Fury” Not “Furry”?

Hello again. While I must admit to mild surprise at Dinosaur Jr.’s absence from the constantly growing roster of artists covered on OWOB, I should also state my attempted approach to writing about a band with no lack of wordage already available on its behalf. Though potentially futile, I will be trying to write something that benefits a cross-section of readers, from the unfamiliar but curious to the currently dismissive therefore purposely detached to the self-appointed superfan. All of this being stated, please understand that “attempted” carries one hell of an implied emphasis.

As covered in the previous post, I’m an active writer with many years in the trenches, though at least a half-decade in between my first toe-dips into this endeavor and the formative teenage moment when exposure to two Dinosaur Jr. albums (1987’s You’re Living All Over Me and 1991’s Green Mind, their second and fourth, respectively) combined to transform a fervent interest in underground music into a terminal, all-consuming obsession that almost seems to have dictated, in some way, shape or form, each lifting of a finger since. 

I’ve had a fair amount of writing published on the subject of this band, but most of it appeared during the first half of my now 18 years in this racket, barring the entries about several Dinosaur Jr. albums did make it into my second (and most recent) book, which carried the subtitle of 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981 - 1996 and a title that I absolutely hate so it shall not be revisited. On that note, attacks of full-body cringe have become as reliable as Christmas upon revisiting older writings, therefore I did not in order to guarantee no points or angles reiterated. But for what it’s worth, at some point in the early-00s, I did a long and embarrassing tribute to You’re Living All Over Me for the Perfect Sound Forever website as my first piece of writing on the band. Then once the spotlight was aimed backwards and topically in 2004-2006 for that period’s two-tiered reissue and reunion activity, I wrote a bunch of features about the Homestead and SST years (plus the early run of reunion shows) for several outlets. I interviewed both Mascis and Barlow, twice each if I remember correctly, and essentially felt like I said everything there was to possibly say about this band whose music more or less put me on a personal and professional course that continues to this day. I don’t feel like that anymore.

Two things to take into account before we move on: First, none of the subsequent entries will be this long, or at least that’s the plan. Secondly, this week will feature very little writing on the four albums of new material Dinosaur Jr. has released since the original lineup of J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Emmett Jefferson Murphy III (almost exclusively known as “Murph” but I find his full given name to be amusing) reunited in 2005…will be of the unflattering comparative variety. However popular it might be to jump to black-and-white, definitive conclusions, do not take this to mean I consider these albums to be bad or boring or anything of the sort. But do know that they are, despite what the rest of the world seemingly believes, inferior when placed against what I will be trying to push into your ears and lives going forward. And understand that Dinosaur Jr.’s major-label era (1991 - 1997) will be explored in a nooks-and-crannies fashion (meaning, we’re going to get into Mike Johnson’s discography), as I feel there’s a nice chunk of amazing music hidden in there that has been largely overlooked or misunderstood.

I am about as obsessed with music as I am the non-fiction ghetto in which I operate.  Therefore it might or might not behoove me to do something no one outside of this little world should waste their time with, and that would be lot of overthinking about a couple of crucial elements of artistic criticism and appreciation that appear to be under constant attack these days: context and nuance. There is no such thing as good-to-great creative nonfiction or journalism that lacks or misuses either, and the most difficult to translate of the two is, of course, context. 

These days it seems every talking head (or every record-store loiterer or live show barnacle) of similar vintage to myself should be wearing a t-shirt or rocking a bumper-sticker that says, “Ask Me What It Was Like Before The Internet!”. This is something for which I harbor a visceral and distinct distaste if not great embarrassment. Any historically-precise party line of assumed profundity is going to fail at transmitting the intended impact for two reasons. First is the obvious neutering of any meaning or relevance when beating a cultural audience over the head with something, year after year, generation after generation. The second is more problematic, as I’m not certain that being present during its heyday or for a following period of linear influence is necessitated so as to provide fundamental context needed to understand how or why a band was groundbreaking or brain-rearranging or whatnot. 

For example, Dinosaur Jr. was four albums and seven years active once its music entered my life in earnest. Still, when it comes to blanket mantras of the reality-removed like, “This Was Before The Internet!” or “We Didn’t Have Cell Phones” battle stories, usually issued as some delusional badge of struggle or evidence of authenticity, we’re talking something that means far less than is assumed to a recipient without the same experiential history. I usually cringe when I witness someone else trying to get this across to a younger generation, though I have yet to figure out myself how to do it effectively. 

Conversely, there are examples of past underground rock prescience (well beyond the legendary trio of albums released by Dinosaur Jr. between 1985 and 1988) such as Mission of Burma, Black Flag, NEU!, Brian Eno’s “Third Uncle”, The Feelies, The Embarrassment, Can, This Heat, The Fall, mid-period Sonic Youth, Husker Du’s SST years, Black Sabbath, Slayer, mid-80s Swans, and Miles Davis’ 1970 - 1975 output, to name but a few, that occurred long before I developed anything close to refined taste or the ability to let music have an impact on a deep emotional and intellectual level. Or, for that matter, the ability to breath air outside of the womb in some of those cases. 

Still, once properly blown away, I could easily wrap my head around how each example was way ahead of the curve, or scared the shit out of most listeners who came in contact with it in real time. Of course, it helps if the music in question resides in the exclusive canon reserved for that which is genuinely timeless. If it falls short of timeless it sure as hell better be a high quality, well-aged specimen of music that’s nonetheless easily identifiable as being from a certain era of yore. Much of material released by Dinosaur Jr.’s during the band’s first two phases of activity, which together span 1985 until 1997, fits into one of those two categories.

My first meaningful introduction to Dinosaur Jr. essentially played out in similar a similar fashion to formative life-altering moments spun by many writers, musicians, and fans of my generation or older. I suppose a warning should now be issued that you’re about to read yet another account of someone taping episodes of MTV’s 120 Minutes. I had a habit of setting the recording time to the shittiest quality of six hours and fitting three episodes of said show onto my parents’ VHS copies of HBO and Cinemax films like The Cotton Club and Bill Cosby’s Himself. Some time after its parent album (You’re Living All Over Me) was released, on a Christmas night when I was in my early teens, the video for “Little Fury Things” ran between a Michelle Shocked number and The Cure’s infuriatingly awful “Let’s Go To Bed” (that goes for the video and the song). At first I focused on other future life-alterers like the clip for The Fall’s “New Big Prinz” and Sonic Youth’s iconic “Teenage Riot” video, as Dinosaur Jr.’s idea of a video and that song were just too fucking dark and ominous for my young teenage mind. 

But because I had to fast forward or rewind through multiple Christmas-special live-in-the-studio tomfoolery from hosts They Might Be Giants along with crap that was somehow already “not for me” like Fishbone, Camouflage, Translator, and the not-that-bad-but-long-as-hell video for Love And Rockets’ “Dog End Of A Day Gone By”, I eventually came around to the three minutes and change that was the “Little Fury Things” video….like a moth to flame. I still have the very VHS tape I used to play and rewind repeatedly while my parents were at work during the day, blasting it through the shitty speakers of our 27” Sony Trinitron and running all over the floorplans of the three houses (well, one house and two apartments, if we’re to split hairs) I lived in during my high school years. The beginning of the video goes blank for a few seconds because I accidentally hit “record” on the remote amidst some furious bouncing all over the couches and chairs.

I seriously doubt there’s a song I’ve listened to, on my own accord, more times than this one and it still delivers a palpable, albeit much different due to time passed, charge as it plays at this very moment. The sonic dichotomy that makes this track exciting- powerful noise/distortion married to a huge, highly emotive pop hook-happens to be another dragon I chase to this day and in general has been one of the crucial elements of forward movement undertaken by post-hardcore, proto and first-gen indie-rock, punk rock, shoegaze and underground metal over the last 30 years. Because I still run into music obsessives, mostly younger, who are unaware of Dinosaur Jr.’s legacy and historical place as a paramount force of innovation, influence and well-aged listening excitement, I’ll close this entry with the aforementioned video despite it visually communicating far less than it does musically. 

Much has been written (years ago by myself and more recently in Nick Atfield’s 33 ⅓ book on the album it opens) about attempting to decipher or assign one’s own meaning and words to what is probably a bunch of lyrical nonsense. I think that’s organically symptomatic of anything that hits with this kind of power and non-cheesy melancholic punch. A personal fave, however, would have to go to the one-off “Hallelujah, the sunlight brings the red out in your eyes” line that opens the gate for an instrumental mid-section of riffs (where a guitar solo might normally be).

“Little Fury Things” official video from 1987′s You’re Living All Over Me

And here’s a couple of clips that hopefully illustrate how insanely loud and air-moving Dinosaur Jr. Mach I must have been as a live band, especially considering the average age of the members was 20 to 22.

1986 at UMass…

Germany, 1988, full set. Pretty good sound given the age/era.

[flauntpage]

One Man’s Quest to Watch the First Day of the NCAA Tournament, Against All Odds

Three months ago my boss came to me and told me I would be covering a conference beginning on March 21. I’m sure I blankly looked at up her with my dead, beady eyes and agreed to it. It was three months away. Who cares about something that’s going to happen in three months.

Two weeks ago my wife asked me if I had put any thought into a March Madness bracket.

Oh shit. Does that start on the third week of March or the fourth? THE THIRD WEEK OR THE FOURTH?!

Of fucking course. March 21. First day of the tournament. Basketball, alcohol, legalized gambling….. CONFERENCE?!

That dog won’t hunt.

So here I am, in some God forsaken state, in a God forsaken convention hall, listening to much more successful men and women talk about their accomplishments that I couldn’t begin to understand. But am I a quitter? Am I just going to sit here and let the greatest four days of the year slip through my fingers?

Am I not going to watch any of the first two rounds of the March Madness tournament? Of course not. I’m no communist.

I decided to keep a running diary of my trials and travails of the first day of the tournament and my desperate attempts to stay connected on one of the greatest sports days of the year.

And yes, I’m well aware this is a complete ripoff of a Bill Simmons creation, but I’m sure he never did one for the first day of the tournament (don’t Google that please).

7 a.m. – Alarm blares. Wake up in the heartland in a terribly humid Marriott. It’s the best day of the year, baby, and being stuck in a conference will NOT stop me from indulging in my basest desires of losing money, making rash, last-minute decisions, and watching exploited college athletes perform for my amusement.

7:30 a.m. – First hurdle of the day. I’m not registered for the conference. After a 10 hour trip yesterday that included a three hour delay in Philadelphia and a 3 hour delay in Charlotte, I’m ready to quit and go home. Nobody would miss me here. I could drop dead in the lobby and they’d roll me into the nearest dumpster. Sadly, the person checking me in is accommodating and non-combative, and she quickly rectifies the situation and gets me checked in for the next four days. God damnit. I could taste sweet freedom for a mere moment.

7:35 a.m. – First presentation of the day begins. Did you know there are treatments that could be the next big thing when it comes to treating inherited diseases?! Who cares! (unless you have an inherited disease, in which case I’m sorry) I’m already exhausted. How is that possible? Five minutes down, only 65 million more to go (approximately).

8:02 a.m. – Successfully get my laptop online with the shaky convention center wifi. I am surrounded by hundreds of industry leaders. I immediately regret my decision to sit in the second row of a 600 person amphitheater. Why couldn’t I have been one of the cool kids and sit in the back. DAMN MY DEDICATION TO MY PROFESSIONAL CRAFT.

8:03 a.m. – Open a web browser and fire up the two brackets I’ve filled out. I minimize the browser so it’s just a small square in the top-left of my screen. Dutifully pretend to take notes on a presentation. Nod solemnly and crinkle my brow during lulls in a Power Point presentation I don’t understand at all. Give a few “Hmmms….” And “Wows!” to show I’m very invested. Fascinating insights.

8:04 a.m. – Brackets looks good. I immediately panic because both have way too much chalk. Duke, Michigan, UNC, Virginia final four in one; Duke, Michigan State, UNC, Virginia final four in the other. Virginia winning it all in one, UNC winning it all in the other. Not exactly taking a huge leap with either of these.

8:05 a.m. – Try to compensate for my cowardly Final Fours by picking some earlier upsets, which always go well. It’s best to tinker with your brackets, I find, mere hours before the tournament begins on a whim. Always a formula for success.

8:06 a.m. – I’ve heard great things about #13 Vermont. I pencil them in for a first round upset and feel very confident in my decision to do so. They seem RIPE to shock the world. Of course, I’m probably just daydreaming about Gus Johnson’s call of Taylor Coppenrath hitting one FROM THE PARKING LOTTTTTTTTT in 2005 against Syracuse. I know nothing of this year’s team (other than them beating my Alma mater SUNY Binghamton in the second round of the American East tournament). Fuck it. Vermont for life baby.

8:10 a.m. – Changes Vermont pick back to FSU.

8:46 a.m. – Sure, these speakers are rich and successful, but can they tell me if UCF stands any chance against Duke in the second round?! Probably.

9:01 a.m. – I keep getting notifications from my phone about gambling. I’m not in Jersey right now, phone, please stop reminding me. It’s really all sinking in now that during the first year of legal gambling I STILL won’t be able to gamble on the first two rounds of games. I’m like Tantalus in Hades, dying of thirst and hunger while standing in a pool of water and standing just under a tree of low hanging fruit. Each time I reach for a piece of fruit, or bend to drink from the pool, they move tantalizingly out of reach. I’m a tortured soul. I JUST WANT TO LOSE MONEY BETTING ON TEAMS I’VE NEVER SEEN PLAY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

9:34 a.m. – I’m hunched over my computer, debating the merits of Cincinnati and agonizing over a potential second round matchup with Tennessee, when I look over and see my boss is sitting no less than 10 feet away from me. DEAR GOD. He could have been there for 20 seconds or the last two hours, I have no idea. Need to put a bell on him so he can’t sneak up on me again.

10:02 a.m. – Look at my brackets again. I’m hearing good things about this Vermont team! Real scrappy underdog squad. They’re good for an upset over FSU, fuck it.

10:35 a.m. – Changes Vermont pick back to FSU.

11:15 a.m. – Only 45 minutes left until the tip off to Louisville and Minnesota. If you think I didn’t watch a second of either of these teams play this season, you sir would be right. If you think I don’t have strong opinions on this game, YOU SIR DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL. REVENGE GAME FOR MINNESOTA AND THE PITINO’S, BABY! What did Rick Pitino ever do to Louisville? Oh yeah, all that horrible sex stuff to that woman and the massive amount of corruption over years in the program. Yeah, but still!

12:15 p.m. – The lunch break couldn’t come quick enough, a glorious hour of uninterrupted NCAA March Madness basketball in lieu of eating lunch with potential sources for future articles and career success. Going back to my room and eating a bag of chips I bought from Starbucks for lunch is the morally correct decision.

12:25 p.m. – There’s no tradition like completely overreacting in the first minutes of the first game of the tournament. WHY DID I PICK MINNESOTA?! WHAT WAS I THINKING?! Minnesota 5, Louisville 7 after 2 minutes of play.

12:26 p.m. – Minnesota hits a three to go up 8 to 7. I AM A BRACKET STAR. A BIG BRIGHT SHINING STAR.

12:31 p.m. – Body Armour sports drink? Perfect, there aren’t enough sports drinks on the market already. You mean to tell me this one tastes great AND REPLENISHES VITAL BODY NUTRIENTS AND ELECTROLYTES SO I CAN WATCH BASKETBALL ON MY ASS AT PEAK PERFORMANCE? I am sold, baby. Plus James Harden endorses it, so you know it’s great. I can’t wait to see this commercial 10,000 times over the course of the next three weeks.

12:33 p.m. – Jarvis Omersa on Minnesota has a shockingly frosted blonde curly afro. It’s….odd, to say the least. I feel weird commenting on it. Forget I mentioned it.

12:34 p.m. – God that afro is amazing. Omersa was just subbed out. I’ll miss him.

12:35 p.m. -Just realized his afro is bleached blonde because Minnesota are the GOLDEN gophers. I am an idiot.

12:37 p.m. – Louisville is up four. I’ve already metaphorically ripped my bracket to pieces. The lesson, as always, is Minnesota and all of its denizens can go straight to hell.

12:38 p.m. – Minnesota cuts the lead to one after a gorgeous steal. SKOL SKOL SKOL SKOL!

12:40 p.m. – I’ve paid more attention to half an hour of this game than anything else I’ve done today.

12:41 p.m. – Dupree McBrayer nails a three to put Minnesota up by 1 after a 9-1 run! Fuck yeah, Minnesota. Maybe you’re all not a bunch of morons and losers like previously thought! McBrayer, of course, is the brother of famed 30 Rock actor Jack McBrayer (unconfirmed).

12:44 p.m. – I had no idea there was even another game going on. LSU is trouncing Yale after 5 minutes of play. Hmm…who would have thought a team of finely tuned LSU athletes would put a hurting on five nerds from Yale who miss their abacuses? Combine that with the voodoo curse undoubtedly levied on the Yale program by a Louisiana valedictorian who was denied admission because they needed room on the wait list for Lori Loughlin’s dimwitted daughter and it’s bad news for the Yalies.

12:47 p.m. – Nine to nothing for LSU now. One of the Yale forwards collapsed at center court and started speaking in tongues as black blood spewed forth from his eyes. He coughed up an entire skull as several EMTs wearing ratty tophats with crows on their shoulders carted him off the field. Great sign for the Yalies!

12:49 p.m. – Omersa takes a huge charge! IS THE FRO OK? PLEASE GIVE US AN UPDATE.

12:55 p.m. – The afternoon sessions of this conference are about to start. Boo. BOO I SAY. I turn off my room television and let a out a hearty SIGH to nobody. That was fun.

1:15 p.m. – Walking back to the conference I pass another guest who is wearing a Louisville hat. I give him a knowing nod and point to my head as if I’m wearing the same hat. I am not, nor am I wearing any hat at all. My nod goes unreturned.

2:15 p.m. – I’m now reduced to checking the scores on my phone as the meeting is more and more crowded and I can’t risk looking on my computer. After rooting on Minnesota for the last two hours, I check both of my brackets and find that I had actually picked Louisville to win in each. CRIPES. I’m guaranteed to make this mistake no less than 200 times more over the course of the tournament.

2:20 p.m. – Louisville down 10 with 40 seconds left. They’re about to be prematurely ejected from the tournament, a huge bust that disappoints everyone as always. The ghost of Rick Pitino still haunts the program.

3 p.m.  – JESUS CHRIST, the voodoo curse held on just enough for LSU to stave off Yale’s push and win by five. The gumbo pots will be a boiling tonight in the big easy. Yale fans probably had no idea there was even a game today. WHO COULD CARE ABOUT SPORTS AT A TIME WHEN THE ECONOMY IS IN SUCH SHAMBLES? LSU notches me my first win of the day. Now we’re COOKING baby.

3:12 p.m. – Those goddamn Vermont hippies are tied with FSU at halftime. Hopefully they’ll listen to the great Phish song “Bird Vacuum” at halftime to pump themselves up and forget they have to come out to for the second half. Playing in all-hemp uniforms must be itchy as hell.

3:13 p.m. – Trying to get updates on my phone and computer without actually watching these games absolutely sucks. It’s just the worst. Prisoners of war aren’t subjected to such torturous conditions. When is the Geneva Convention ever going to work in my favor for a change?

3:43 p.m. – AUBURN…what it is you doing, baby?! I go away for 30 minutes and come back to this? TO THIS?! I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. I can smell Bruce Pearl’s flop-sweat from here. 77-76 with 8 seconds left….do we have the first huge upset of the day?! New Mexico State University, will you pull this off? Si or no?

3:49 p.m. – Twitter tells me Auburn fouled a shooter taking a three point attempt with 1 second left. I’m sure this isn’t as exciting as it sounds. I’m probably not missing a whole lot, right? I’m having just as much fun as everyone else.

3:50 p.m. -And the NMSU bastard promptly misses two of three free throws to bail out fat faced Pearl. You blew it, kid, I’m sure that moment won’t haunt you forever. By the way, I want to die. This is awful. Even my phone is sending me notifications asking me why I’m a loser and not watching these games on TV.

4 p.m. – My computer is dead. Long live my computer. The battery gave out after a nearly 7-hour struggle. She was a good computer and she’ll rise again when I get back to my room. I’m reduced to writing updates on my phone and EMAILING them to myself like I’m in a Conestoga wagon train heading West on the Oregon trail. Our supplies are low. That NMSU kid who missed the free throws has died of malaria. My brother Fartface is in ill-health.

4:10 p.m. – FSU holding off the unwashed masses of Vermont University despite the overpowering stench of patchouli oil emanating from the Vermont bench. Looks like Vermont’s performance down the stretch wasn’t too “groovy” as they’re down 8 with 2 minutes left.

4:11 pm – Just noticed MSU is down 1 at halftime to Bradley. That certainly wouldn’t be too crunch if they lost. If you gave me 10 chances to win a million dollars to tell you where Bradley is I wouldn’t come close. is it a trick question? Is it in American Samoa? Maybe the real Bradley University has been in our hearts all along?

4:15 p.m.– They’ll be crying CBD oil tears in their bongs tonight up in Vermont. Get a job, hippies. Part-time ski instructor at Killington doesn’t count if you’re only paid in weed and gummies. GROW UP.

4:28 p.m. – MSU pulling away now from American Samoa’s Bradley University. Tom Izzo and NCAA Tournament success are as consistent as John Harbaugh losing to Notre Dame every year! FOLKS! LET ME TELL YA!

4:29 p.m. – I’m so, so tired. I’ve been in this horribly lit convention center going on 11 hours now. What news is there of the outside world? Who’s the president?! WHAT YEAR IS IT?

4:39 p.m. – I swear to god this presenter gave the same presentation in the morning. I feel my soul rising away from my husk of a shell body.

4:40 p.m. – My decades dead grandma appeared before me and is urging me to let go of it all. Is that bad? She looks glorious.

4:41 p.m. – Tell my wife and son I love them.

4:42 p.m. – I’m so cold.

4:43 p.m. – I can barely breathe. I feel my heart slowing. I let out a prayer for forgiveness for my tortured soul before it leaves this ethereal plane.

4:44 p.m. – MSU up four. Sweet.

4:45 – My eyes shut for a mere moment….and the presenter finally stops blathering on and the director says the days events are over. Is it true? Could it really be true? I burst through the doors of the convention center and grab the nearest person I can find.

“Tell me, what day is it? For the love of god what day?” I ask.

“Today? Why, it’s NCAA Tournament day, sir!” He responds, as I run through the halls of the convention center, set free from my shackles to return to my hotel and watch the remaining slate of games unfettered. What joy! What freedom!

Until I realize I have to stay in this conference until Sunday.

Kill me now.

The post One Man’s Quest to Watch the First Day of the NCAA Tournament, Against All Odds appeared first on Crossing Broad.

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[jonboudposts]

Winston Churchill and the British Fear of History

This piece is adapted from a broadcast of All the Rage due to be played on Trax FM on 20 February 2019.  It will then be available for streaming and download; I thought it was worth putting into a readable piece too but please excuse the tone if it sounds like a radio show.

Sometimes when the deadline for a radio show approaches, I can be rather panicked.  It can be a struggle to address interesting subjects in the right detail, or at the right time and I often have weeks wandering around stressing about what we should talk about.

This is not one of those weeks; because often, especially in Britain, anything from a serious issue to a seriously-not one drops into my lap from the wider world and our wonderful media - this week it has been that ghost of British history’s appalling past in the shape of one of Britain’s worst sons, Mr Winston Churchill.

The reason he is back in the news is because a few people recently have mentioned how he was not a wonderful person unlike his historical profile; the one getting the most attention is Labour Shadow Chancellor John MacDonnell, who was asked if Winston Churchill was a hero or villain; he replied villain and qualified this as being based in his actions as part of the Tonypandy riots. It caused the usual bullshit response from the usual people and lots of pathetic apologetic behaviour too.

Personally I wish they ha asked me because my response to Churchill would cause mass pearl-clinching hysteria in these circles no doubt.

Now, this will not be a biography on the bloke; I am not going to note his school life, every position he ever held or what so-and-so said about him. This is about facing some of Britain’s most terrible history and how it affects life in the country today – and what position Churchill takes in all this.

Straight out the gate, he is my position:

I hate Winston Churchill.   I hate the things he believed, the things he did based on those beliefs and how he holds a heroic position in much of British culture.  As a working class political activist and believer in the importance of knowing our history, he is a figure of oppression. As an active anti-racist, he is a figure of evil.  He is class privilege personified and someone who has become a Jesus-like figure to the far right and centre and an example of the cultural inertia we face today.

More importantly, I hate the way it has become taboo to raise any question about him or anything about the Second World War, including setting certain facts straight.

If you are someone who feels saying such things about people like him or feel any criticism of the generation he supposedly represents is not acceptable, we will never agree but I would ask you to listen and hear a totally different view that while perhaps repellent to you, is sincerely held and formed.

Churchill represents so much that I hate about British culture and society and he was a terrible man.  Let’s look at his worst hits:

Racism – Churchill was a white supremacist and is today considered a hero by people who have the same opinions.  He saw Indians, whom he starved and Kurds, who he wanted to gas as ‘beastly people’ of a lesser worth and talked of wiping out the Japanese.

Whites were a stronger race according to him; better than blacks or quote ‘red Indians’ and this justified taking their place an land, mass slaughter, etc.  Ironically for his modern supporters, he had more respect for Islam then they like to admit but one does not cancel out all the others.

He was also not opposed to fascism; he in fact had admiration for Franco in Spain and spoke admiringly of Mussolini in Italy.

Famine – most acts of mass starvation are caused by human action and Churchill was fundamental to the Bengal famine in India where 4 million or more died and it is estimated the Indian population suffered the equivalent of a loss up to 100 million.

Ireland – he suppressed Irish people, their culture and anyone who believed in independence including sending the brutal Black and Tans to subject the population to violent suppression, with thousands killed during the War of Independence.

Miners – during the miner strike of 1910-11, where strikers attempted to improve their terms and conditions that were being kept deliberately low.  Mr Churchill decided to send in the troops and many in the working class community and especially Wales have never forgiven him.

He was a racist, extremist and enemy of the working class – simple as that.  He was totally led by ego and getting his name into the history books just like some of his political decedents, although most of them have not managed to rack up the bodies that Winston has on him.

This of course feeds into the subservient attitude of today’s British (or more specifically English) culture that detests change and difference and while refusing to show decency and respect to so many types of people and viewpoints, demands obedience to the things they hold dear – such as war and dominating other parts of the world.

Every far right group, politician or general gobshite uses the war and ‘respect’ for soldiers as a shield usually for their own racism or similar hatred.  It is a mindset like many religions or cults try to enforce – of not thinking or questioning what you are told.  This foul representative of the ruling order somehow becomes a ‘man of the people’ through the power and privilege bestowed upon him by his class position.

In the modern context, we now see ludicrous comparisons with Brexit to the ‘Blitz spirit’ and a need to believe in Britain to get what you want; this was of course what won World War 2 and nothing to do with the Soviet army smashing the shit out of the Nazis at the expense of around 27 million soldiers and civilians on their part.

Worse, some people seem to like the idea of the Blitz; when bomber planes randomly took out houses and people every night; this is something that can only be thought by the dangerously ignorant and disconnected, not to mention a great insult to those who survived it, not to mention those not so lucky.

Winston Churchill did not win WW2; he did not even fight in it.  He toured the sites of warfare after the bodies were cleared away and after the war, when the British electorate put him out of a job, he spent time writing himself into the history books; in fact many of his quotes are quite useful here – ‘history will be kind to me for I intend to write it’.

What he did is make speeches calling for unity and strength, which he acted on by leading a coalition government.  But this was his job and not the only speeches he made.  He also praised Mussolini, Franco and even seems to have admiration for Hitler.  In fact his view as we noted earlier is that fascism was only a problem if it invaded Britain; it could do what it liked on the continent.

Winston Churchill did not save Britain in the war; everyday people fought, planned, sacrificed and died.  Most importantly, the generation who fought in the war knew this.

Post-WW2: Birth of the Welfare State

The generation that fought in the war, who we lionise more than we ever talked to, had far less delusions about Winston Churchill; so much in fact that upon returning home and perhaps remembering how badly the returnees from WW1 had been treated, they demanded a better country to live in with a welfare state that took care of it’s people rather than privileged the rich.

Churchill was up for none of this – so they voted him out.  A ruling class thug could never bring himself to allow the rabble to have any control over their own lives nor the country they had just fought for.

Fortunately the Labour Party was offering free healthcare via the NHS and all the benefits of a decent welfare system that treated people with decency and respect – and fortunately for all of us, the public voted for it.

Churchill’s Cheerleaders

Boris Johnson – this bell-end has written a book on the man and has nothing but unqualified and uncritical praise.  For those of you not in the know, Boris Johnson is another egotistical upper class prick who has come into politics as his birthright – he is also utterly useless and never takes responsibility for his actions; sound familiar?

During the last week, when it was announced that the budget for a planned garden bridge that was never build during his time as London Mayor ran to £53 million of public funds, you would think the media might have been chasing him over this and a few other gaffs.  But no, he was able to flap about John MacDonnell and the great insult to daddy Winston.  Talk about a snowflake.

Also like Churchill, our Bodger Boris loves to indulge in racism such as against Muslim women and their ‘letterbox’ face vales, or claiming that when President Obama said Britain would not get preferential treatment for trade deals upon leaving the EU, that he was motivated by his ‘Kenyan roots’ to ‘hate Britain’ – so at least Boris has some understanding of British history.

Jacob Rees-Mogg – the living epitome of class privilege and the awful right wing politics that goes with it.  Old Jacko cuts a ludicrous figure and that is probably the most dangerous thing about him; for like Mr Johnson he comes across as someone not to take seriously – but we really should.

Along with his retro-views on women and LGBT rights, he loves the Victorian era and was once exposed attending a dinner hosted by The Traditional Britain Group, who among other things feel no one non-white can be British and advocates other ethno-nationalist themes.  They have advocated for the deportation of non-whites including Doreen Lawrence. They also hosted Simon Heffer and Richard Spencer as speakers.  

His recent hit was to claim that the British invention of concentration camps during the Boar War was for their own safety and all those who died were just part of what happened years ago when more people just died…this was part of his answer to the question of Churchill.

All of which slots nicely into his hard right political position

Sadiq Khan – I don’t like to take a pop at the London Mayor as in a lot of ways I like him; but he is a centrist and on issues like this, he is a little too cautious for my liking; not perhaps a cheerleader but part of those who have equally failed to tackle the true meaning and human weight of the actions that Churchill committed.

While co-hosting a regular phone-in last week on LBC Radio, the question came up and he talked about understanding Churchill ‘in context’. What exactly the context for understanding a mass murderer who hated non-whites and the working class is, Sadiq did not go on to note sadly.

In fact this liberal unease at condemning Winston Churchill is probably more disgusting that the right wing open praise and hero worship; after all, it is their nature to cheer a right wing white supremacist whose actions led to the death of thousands – what’s your excuse liberal boy?

No doubt it relates to the hatred in liberal centrist circles for the left; during the Blair and Brown years they thought the political inevitably of capitalist realism meant we had been cast into history forever.  But that is not the case and they have been having daily breakdowns ever since Corbyn became Labour Party leader.

Perception

Earlier I referred to the perception of Winston Churchill in this country and what I am specifically talking about is how he has become an icon who cannot be criticised; when people do criticise him, responses can range from complete dismissal of you as a person to outright death threats.

But it was not always such because once again we have seen a cultural movement that has taken even more drastic hold in the last thirty years’ class war.

Despite what media and modern discourse might have you believe, it is not uncommon – and was more so for the war generation – to find working class communities and people who have no time for Winston Churchill, my family included. He was seen as the elitist rich boy he was and all the things he did were informed by that and the need to preserve the status quo.  People from Wales to India have no trouble assessing him based on everything he did, not just his hyped-up war record.

So many of the ideals of the far right come from Churchill; his belief in the lesser worth of other nations’ people and religions; his belief in mass slaughter; that ethnicities like Indian people ‘bread like rabbits’ and even closer to home, his contempt for the Irish and working class in general.

Subservience

All of this is also tied into British history in regards Empire and all the evils done there.  Too much of English-dominated society either does not want to face this history, or has no problem with it; this is the reason for racism, xenophobia and the silly idea of English exceptionalism

Now I have my theories about why this is but none of them are complete so I may have to conclude with a question rather than an answer; why are people so subservient to power?  We can look nationally, in which case no doubt it involves the class system but then America is just as bad if not worse.  They of course have a class system that is rarely talked about traditionally but also the overt worship of position in hierarchy, which they probably inherited from the British.  It does not matter how you got power, just that you have it.

So is it a western problem?  Not entirely although that may be a particular type but plenty of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, anywhere you choose to mention has a love of ‘strong man’ leaders.

But then again many other parts of the world – from Europe to wider – have also had working class-led revolutions and Britain has not.

Recently Lord Finkelstein – a Tory Lord – published a piece in The Times saying that Churchill was a racist and life-long white supremacist.  Even someone on the political opposite gets this, so what’s the problem?

Conclusion

Winston Churchill was one of the worst people Britain ever produced who cynically wrote himself into history as a more important man than he was.

I feel no affinity to country or nation and I will not surrender my critical faculties for anyone especially a self-serving member of the elite.

This brings us back to the culture war again and links into wider blathering about ‘Western Civilisation’ and how anything foreign (read non-white or Jewish) is degrading the greatness of our beloved culture – that would be the thing whose biggest exports in the last 20/25 years have been a game show about becoming a millionaire and a supposed-talent show about torturing my ears. ‘Western Culture’ is again a concept with roots in colonialism, anti-Semitism and racist assumptions about impurity brought about by mixing.  

As Owen Jones pointed out, our rights and freedoms were not given to us but won by everyday civilians demanding them; suffragettes, trade unionists, political campaigners and today kids striking for the future of the planet.

The hero worship of Winston Churchill is a way of airbrushing out the work done by all these people; real people like you and me who give and gave everything as oppose to Churchill who only ever acted for himself.  Hero worship and patriotism will get you nowhere and require wiping out large swaths of actual fact and history in order to make your side look better – a side to which you have added nothing, merely been born into and taken for granted that you have a right to certain things above others.

Now, for the first time in my life, we have the chance to really change society – to make life better with stronger rules and laws governing working; the opportunity for a foreign policy that does not involve terrorising weaker countries; to make life more equal and demand those with the most pay their way. We also need to get with the programme in regards climate change otherwise we will not be here much longer.

Ditch the worshipping of anyone but especially these appalling establishment toads.  The class war has not managed to destroy us despite throwing everything at the job; now we need to stop doing it for them.

Recommendations

Winston Churchill by Clive Ponting (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994)

A far more honest and comprehensive study of the man’s career

Contrpoints video on The West was very informative and funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyaftqCORT4