#maybe make up a new thing paul wasn’t good at in the 60s to explain his decades-long headstand obsession

[get-back-homeward]

does anyone else wonder whether the beatles did any actual yoga poses in india?

[openheart12]

A New Beginning

Summary: Tony and Michelle are once again thrown back into the chaos that is CTU. The same place that tore their family apart, is the same place where they get their second chance at a life.

WC: 4,441

Michelle never thought she would be standing in front of him in the same place that tore them apart, but here they were. She hadn’t seen him in six months and even though this is the hardest thing she’s had to endure, it was better this way. 

Especially since he was the one who asked her to leave. 

Her heart ached at the memory she tried to bury deep within her but it always found a way to bubble up to the surface. 

They locked eyes and she noticed how much different he looked compared to six months ago, hope fluttered in her chest that maybe he finally cleaned himself up. 

If not for her, then for Avery. She deserved to have her father in her life. 

Michelle had found out she was pregnant just less than a year after they had gotten married. Both of them were beyond ecstatic although nervous. 

Tony had ensured that Michelle stayed out of the field and he only went as a last resort. When they found out they were having a baby girl, a mini Michelle, Tony had been adamant on her name much to Michelle’s dismay. 

But when Avery Michelle Almeida made her entrance into the world, during a national security crisis nonetheless, she was deemed perfect and healthy. At six pounds and seven ounces, and nineteen inches long, she already had her parents wrapped around her little finger. 

Michelle recalled the moment, remembering how Chapelle was pissed that he had to come in as their replacements, but neither of them had cared in that moment. She remembered all the congratulations they received from their friends, how happy everyone was for them. 

CTU had played a big part in the course of their relationship. It was where they met, where they shared their first kiss, where he actually ended up proposing, where they had to come in the middle of their honeymoon, and now the place where their baby was born. 

And it was going to be the place where they reunited, unbeknownst to them. 

Almost everyone knew of their history so they were inclined to see how the day would go. The people they worked with before knew about their daughter, but the newest employees had no idea. Most of them knew that this was the first time they’ve seen each other in a while since the divorce. 

Almost all eyes were on them when she made her way through the bullpen and into the center next to Secretary Heller. 

Secretary Heller asked Tony to bring her up to speed and he told her of the events at McLennan-Forrester and Jack and Paul. After he finished, he started to walk away as she called after him. 

“Tony, I need the access codes for CTU and Division.” 

He nodded and handed them to her, their fingers brushed against each other for a brief second. She thanked him and as she turned around to go, he asked her, “what do you want me to do?”

“Division’s sending over a supplemental list of terrorists who supposedly had contacts with Habib Marwan. Check any names that have been flagged by other agencies, including overseas.” 

“Given what’s happening right now, it doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.”

“It has to be done and I’d like you to do it.” She started to walk away when he reached out and gently grabbed her arm. 

“Michelle, Jack and Paul have information that could be vital to ending this crisis. I should be helping us find them, Michelle!”

“The last time I saw you, you couldn’t stay sober long enough to keep a job.” 

“That was six months ago.”

“This is what I need you to do. If you don’t like it, you can resign.” 

He let out a sigh, scratching the side of his cheek. “I’m gonna need a security clearance,” he relented. 

“I’ll make sure you get a level three.” 

“Level three?” He scoffed. “I used to have a six.” 

“Right now, all you need is three,” she turned on her heel and walked into the situation room where a woman was sitting. She was looking through the files in front of her when the woman started speaking to her. 

“Is there a problem with Agent Almeida?” 

“Not at all.”

“It’s just that Secretary Heller is very sensitive to personal conflicts on the job. I know your history. I know that you guys were married and that he sacrificed his career to save your life, but if this is gonna be a problem-”

Who the hell was this woman, parading around like she knew anything about her and Tony’s relationship. “His being here will not affect my work. I won’t let it. Now, if Secretary Heller wants to speak to me about it, I’ll be more than glad to,” she said, signaling the end of this conversation. 

With Sarah gone and Chloe back in play, the two of them found a way to put their personal problems aside and work as a team again. Michelle regretted not listening to Tony’s insight about Jack, knowing that he knew Jack and his tactics better than she did. But she couldn’t tell if she did it out of spite or not and that bothered her because she never let anything interfere with her work. 

She tried apologizing, saying that she valued his input, which she did, but the damage had been done and the worst of it was yet to come. 

Bill Buchanan strode through CTU and Michelle quickly introduced him to everyone else there. Her and Tony were standing close together talking after their failed attempt at capturing Marwan when Bill walked up next to them. 

“Did you secure Marwan yet?” 

“No, he must’ve slipped through the perimeter,” Michele explained. 

“How the hell could you let that happen?” Bill accused, taking Michelle by surprise. 

“It doesn't matter how it happened,” Tony defended. “What matters is that he’s gone and we’re doing everything we can to find him.” He and Michelle might not be together anymore, but he’d be damned if he let anyone talk to her like that, especially since it was a situation out of her control. 

“What exactly are you doing to find him?” Bill asked, turning his attention to Michelle. 

“We widened the perimeter, set up a search grid, state police and LAPD are conducting a sweep,” she answered as they were interrupted. 

A few minutes later, Bill walked up to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Listen, um, I’m sorry if I snapped.” 

“It’s okay, we’re all under a lot of pressure.”

“You holding up?” He asked softly. 

“I’m fine,” she smiled, hoping to convince him and herself of that. 

Michelle wasn’t aware that Tony had seen their interaction. Tony knew something had probably transpired between the two and wanted to know the extent of it so he made his way towards Chloe. 

“How long has Buchanan been at Division?” He asked her. 

“Well, it took awhile to fill Chapelle’s position… six months.” 

That’s how long ago she left, he thought. That wasn’t fair and he knew it since he told her to leave. “Where was he before that?” 

“Seattle, I think.”

“Seattle?” 

“Yeah, that’s where Michelle was posted while you were in jail, right?” Chloe asked, piecing it together. She was one of the few who didn’t know what had happened between Michelle and Tony, it wasn’t her business so she stayed out of it. 

“Yeah… thanks.” 

Tony had debated on confronting her about it or not and his curiosity ended up getting the better of him. “Michelle,” he called to get her attention, “when were you planning on telling me?” 

“About what?” 

“About you and Buchanan.” 

She immediately became defensive, already knowing she wasn’t going to like where this conversation was headed. “Never because it’s none of your business.”

“Michelle, before you worked with him at Division, you worked with him at Homeland Security restructuring, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“We were still married then.” 

“Legally… yes.” 

“Did you sleep with him while we were married?” 

She stared at him in disbelief. “No, I didn’t.” 

“But you are now?” 

“Like I said, it’s none of your business. You know, it’s not like I have time to do anything between work and raising my daughter,” she retorted. 

That jab took him by surprise and he hung his head low and walked away. She felt guilty, but he accused her of cheating on him while they were still married. She couldn’t even look at another man, even now, she was still completely and utterly in love with Tony. 

Hours had passed by since their encounter and he wanted to clear the air between them, the tension was at an all time high. 

“Michelle,” he began, “I was out of line a couple hours ago about you and Bill. It’s your life and I’ve got no right to judge you.” 

“I appreciate that,” she said sincerely. 

“And whatever tension there is between us, I would like to apologize for my part in it. I’d like it if we could just let it go so we can do our jobs. Leave the past in the past,” he finished. “And if it would be okay with you, I’d like to be in Avery’s life and I know I don’t deserve it, but she’s all I have left,” he added, sadness lacing his words. 

“That sounds good,” she lied with a smile. “I know Ave would love to see you. She misses her daddy.” I miss him too, she thought to herself. Not to mention that she wasn’t ready to let go of their past just yet, she may never be ready to. 

“We can talk about it later,” he said before going back to work and she did the same thing. 

Both of them seemed to be working together better after their conversation, just like they used to. They became one again, putting their time and effort into the crisis at hand. 

“Anything new?”

“Yeah, White House just authorized adding Iowa army reserve units to the ground search.”

“Have they widened the perimeter?”

“Yeah, they locked down a 60-mile radius around the area where the warhead was stolen, but I’m concerned Marwan’s people might’ve managed to sneak it outside that perimeter.”

“Well, we closed all major roads and air traffic immediately, but there is a chance they got it through.”

“Homeland Security’s faxing over casualty projections based on that possibility,” he said just as the fax started to ring.

“That’s probably them right now.”

“Yeah, I’ll get it.”

Another phone started to ring and she answered it, “CTU.”

“I’m calling for Tony Almeida. Who’s this?”

“This is Michelle Dessler, a colleague of his. May I ask who’s calling?”

“The woman he happens to be living with. Is he there?”

She felt as if she had just gotten kicked in the stomach. “Yeah, hold on. It’s for you,” she said, handing him the phone.

“Who is it?”

“The woman you’re living with.” She answered, hurt was evident in her eyes. 

“Jen,” he answered with a sigh. 

“I’ve been calling everyone we know going crazy looking for you. Then finally I thought maybe Jack Bauer took you back there. God, do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I should’ve called earlier. I’ve been very busy.”

“Really busy with Michelle Dessler?”

“I’m working, Jen.”

“Oh, for CTU?”

“On a provisional basis, yeah.”

“I thought you hated that place.”

“Things have changed a little.”

“Yeah, I guess they have.”

“Look, Jen, we can talk about this later. Right now, I gotta go. All right?”

“Tony, what’s your ex-wife doing there?”

“Jen, I’m sorry, but I gotta go,” he said before hanging up. He rubbed his face, knowing how big of a jackass he had been earlier. “Michelle, um, I’m sorry you had to find out like that.”

“It’s really none of my business.”

“Yeah, it is,” he countered. She started to walk away and he followed after her. “I should’ve told you I was living with someone else.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this right now.”

“Yeah, well, I do. Listen to me,” he gently grabbed her arm, turned her around, and backed her into the wall. “When you left, everything fell apart. Jen happened to be there for me.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for your relationship.”

“I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you how it is.”

“Do you love her?” She asked, afraid of his answer.

 He didn’t hesitate before answering. “No.”

“Ms. Dessler, the new protocols from DOD just came in. Should I send them to your screen?” Edgar told him, quite aware that he was interrupting something. 

“Send them to station sixteen,” she answered and with one last look at him, she walked past him. 

She didn’t know how much time had passed since Jen called and she hadn’t talked to Tony since and truth be told, she had been avoiding him to try to sort out her feelings. 

Her phone started to ring and she answered automatically, “Dessler?”

“Hey, Michelle, it’s Allison.”

Allison was Avery’s babysitter and panic immediately started to set in after seeing what time it was. “Is Avery okay?” 

“Yeah, she’s fine. She just misses you and wants to talk to you. I tried to tell her you were at work, but you know how stubborn she is.” 

Michelle smiled for the first real time today, leave it to her daughter to be the reason. “Let me talk to her, I have a few minutes.” 

“Momma?” She heard her daughter's tinge voice say. 

“Hey, sweetheart. What are you still doing up?” 

“I miss you a bunch. When are you coming home?” 

“Not for another couple hours, but what if I told you I have a surprise for you when I get home?” 

“Ooohhh, what is it?” 

“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?” She laughed at her excitement. “But you have to go to sleep to get it.” 

“Okay, okay. I love you, momma.” 

“I love you too, baby. I’ll see you soon.” She reluctantly hung up. She swore she had to have the easiest five year old who actually listened to her. 

“Everything okay?” She turned around to see Tony’s worried expression. 

“Yeah, everything’s fine. That was Avery.” 

“Is she okay?” He asked as worry started to set in. 

“Yeah, she just wanted to talk.” 

“Leave it to our kid to be awake way past her bedtime,” he joked. 

“I wonder who she gets that from,” she teased back with an easy smile. 

“Hey, my sleeping habits have gotten a lot better,” he defended himself with a laugh. “At least I don’t take up half of the bed when I sleep.” 

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it, Almeida,” she shot back. They were treading into dangerous territory by bringing up the past but before either of them could say anything, Michelle was called away and she gave him an apologetic smile. 

After the news of the attack on the Chinese Consulate circulated through CTU, it only made finding the warhead a bigger priority and it didn’t help that Cheng Zhi demanded to come to CTU to get some answers. 

Michelle was just getting off the phone when Tony walked into her office. “This situation with the Consulate is dragging us down. We shouldn’t be diverting resources away from finding that warhead.” 

She was amazed at how they were thinking the same thing. “Well, hopefully this is just a formality and we can get rid of him quickly. If we don’t get information from Lee, Audrey’s husband would’ve died for nothing,” she said, leaning against her desk. 

“What is she still doing here?” Tony asked, staring down at her through the glass panel. 

“I think she wants to stay busy so she doesn’t have to think about it,” she answered softly. She was familiar with the concept herself. 

“It’s funny, when I met Audrey this afternoon, it seemed she and Jack were totally together… a few hours later and everything has changed.” Just like it had with them. He turned to look at her before speaking again. “Michelle, I hate being without you,” he said softly. 

“I never wanted it to be this way,” she answered honestly. “And Avery… she deserves to have her dad around.” 

The phone rang telling them that Chang had arrived and just like that, they were back in work mode. 

Later, they were up in her office once again. “Tactical is at Richard’s house, they’re going through his things right now.” 

“What about Jack?” Tony asked. 

“Jack and Curtis are on their way back right now.” 

“Someone has to tell Audrey that Jack is going to be interrogating her brother.” 

“Audrey’s not going to want Jack near her brother,” Tony pointed out. 

“Can’t be helped… I mean if Richard knows something about that missile…” she trailed off. 

“It’s funny, this morning Jack and Audrey were planning their future, now he’s responsible for her husband's death and he may have to torture her brother.” 

“Yet, every move he’s made has been the right one.” She went over and sat down on the couch. 

“Not if he wanted to be with her.” He took a seat beside her. “Look, Michelle, everything that’s happened today, it’s been hard going through it with you again.” 

“It’s been hard for me too.” 

“I look at what this job does to people in our positions and I realize,” he met her eyes, “I want us to be together again, but it’s gotta be away from all this. We shouldn’t have to put our country over our family.” 

Getting back together didn’t come as a surprise to her, she had been expecting it, but leaving the job completely took her off guard. 

“You want us to leave our jobs?” He nodded. “We’ve spent the last twelve years of our lives doing this. Where would we go? What would we do?” 

“I don’t care… Look, people start over every day if it’s important to them and you are important to me and so is Avery. I want my family back, Michelle.” 

“You’re asking me to leave the only thing I’ve ever done?” 

“Yes, I am,” he answered. She turned her head away from him, her thoughts scrambling all over the place.

 He went to walk out her door when she stopped him. “Why did you want me to leave?”

“I thought it was for the best and plus, Ave didn’t need to see me like that. I wasn’t the husband or father that I needed to be and I was humiliated and ashamed of myself. I thought I was helping you and that you would eventually figure out that you deserved so much more than I could offer you. Prison was the worst time of my life and I just, I don’t know, I guess I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me like I was of myself.” 

“Do you ever regret it,” she asked hesitantly. “Saving me, I mean.” 

“Michelle, I never once regretted my decision to save you. If I had to, I would do it again because I love you. If it hadn’t been for you, I never would’ve had the best three years of my life. Our girl wouldn’t be here either if it wasn’t for you.  The only thing I regret is telling you to leave, thinking that it would help both of us when it only made things worse.”

“But look where we are now because of me.”

“Exactly, Michelle, Avery has both of her parents. I’m willing to fix us, if you are. I love you more than my life itself and I love our little girl. Nothing is ever going to change that fact. This job isn’t worth it anymore, it’s not more important than you or Avery.” 

“Okay,” she smiled, tears in her eyes. 

“Okay?” He mirrored her smile. 

“I’m ready to leave here. I’m ready to go with you.”

He swiftly walked over to her and cupped her face in his hands, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Are you sure? Because I’m not letting go of you again.” 

“I can’t spend another day without you,” she confirmed and that was all he needed to seal his lips over hers. It had been six months since he saw her, six months since he last touched her and even longer since he last kissed  her. The kiss spoke more than words could ever say. 

After a minute, he pulled back, both of them breathless with huge grins on their faces. Stupid love drunk grins. 

“I love you from now until forever,” he told her. 

“I will love you always,” she choked out. He knew repeating part of their vows would make her emotional, but he wanted her to know that he was serious about trying again. 

This is forever. 

“Come on, let’s get back to work so we can go home.” 

Home. It sounded too good to be true, but nonetheless, she was ready to start fresh. A new beginning was exactly what they needed. 

Hours passed by, Marwan was dead, the missile had been destroyed, and they had just helped Jack fake his death with the help of Chloe and President Palmer. 

Dropping Jack off for the last time was hard for both of them, but Michelle could see the toll it took on Tony. They were friends for years and had come to trust each other like brothers. 

She covered his hand with hers and he intertwined their fingers together. 

“Let’s go home.”

“Let’s go home,” she repeated with a smile. She gave him the directions to her apartment and they arrived twenty minutes later. Looking over at him, she could tell he was nervous. “Come on,” she nudged him slightly. 

The afternoon sun bathed the building in a golden glow with white clouds drifting lazily in the breeze. It was a beautiful day in California. 

They got out of the SUV and Michelle led him up the stairs to her front door. “It’ll be okay,” she reassured him.

The keys turned the lock, a soft click was heard before she opened the door. A woman who Tony didn’t recognize was seated in the kitchen. 

She nodded in acknowledgment before turning her attention to Michelle. 

“Avery’s in her room playing and we did all of her homework, she hasn’t eaten lunch yet because she wanted to wait to eat with you,” she laughed softly. “Are you going to need me tomorrow?” She asked, looking between her and Tony. 

“Probably not, but I’ll give you a call if that changes. We’re supposed to have a couple days off,” Michelle explained. “Thank you, Allison.” They bid their goodbyes and Tony wandered over to the living room, where the pictures of Avery caught his eye. 

“I can’t believe I let things get this bad,” he said, choking back tears. 

“Oh, Tony.” Michelle strided over towards him, wrapping her arms around him as he clung to her. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating. 

“Shh,” she soothed him gently, rubbing small circles across his back. 

“Momma?” A tiny voice asked and she felt Tony tense in her arms. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” she greeted, turning around to face her daughter. Her little eyes were trained on the person behind her who was now trying to stifle his sobs. 

“Daddy’s home?” She asked, a hint of hope in her voice. 

“Daddy’s home,” Michelle smiled as her eyes filled with tears. 

Avery tentatively walked up behind him and placed her arms around his legs. Tony stood there for a few seconds, soaking in the feeling of being home before squatting down to her level. 

“Hey, pretty lady,” he greeted with a smile, placing a kiss on her cheek. 

“I missed you,” she cried out, throwing her small arms around his neck. 

“I missed you so much.” He told her. 

Michelle watched the two of them, her heart swelling with joy. Her family was together again, her perfect little family. 

“Can we watch The Little Mermaid?” She asked after a few minutes, making her parents laugh. 

“I see not that much has changed,” he teased, referencing Avery’s favorite movie since she was a year old. Avery led Tony over to the couch where they plopped down on it together, her talking animatedly about anything and everything that came to her mind and Tony listened intently. 

These were the moments she missed the most, just the three of them together. She watched them for a few more minutes until she headed towards the kitchen to make some popcorn. 

She didn’t even know Tony was in there until she felt his arms wrap around her and his chin resting on her shoulder. “Are you already tired of me? It’s only been a day, Michelle.” 

“What?”

“You’re making popcorn… ya know, it requires using the microwave, right? Are you trying to kill me already?” He teased her. 

“I think I can handle a microwave.” 

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I recall a time where you almost set our house on fire when you heated up that Chinese food without taking it out the box.” 

“Shut up!” She laughed, turning around in his arms. “I’ve gotten better since then because-” she stopped, her smile faltering. She learned how to cook, to the best of her ability, after leaving Tony so that her and Avery wouldn’t have to survive off of takeout for three meals a day. 

“I know,” was all he said. 

“We have to be able to talk about it instead of just pushing it aside. Not like what we did last time.” 

“And we will, but now, we have a movie to watch. We’ll talk tomorrow, I promise.” 

“Okay,” she relented with an easy smile, her cheeks were starting to hurt from all the smiling she had done within the past couple of hours. 

They heard Avery come back to the living room, calling for Tony and the two of them together grabbed the popcorn and snacks and sat down on the couch with Avery between them. She was dressed in her The Little Mermaid pajamas to match the movie. 

As the movie started, Michelle stole one last glance at them and smiled yet again. This is what their life was going to start looking like from now on once they left CTU, the place where this all became possible, but the same place that could take it all away in a split second.

This was their second chance, their new beginning, and she wasn’t going to waste it. 

[paulsmashedpotato]

Do you make The beatles fanfics? If yes, can you make one with Paul for me, where y/n has a huge crush on him and all the other beatles know except him because he's always been oblivious? I would like to read it hiihi. You can decide how it ends. Thank you so much!

Thank you for this idea! It's really cute! I'll try my best to write it as good as I can :-))

Masterlist

Midnight

Pairing: Paul McCartney x reader

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: None that I could think of :-))

Summary: The request is the summary :-)) But to elaborate, y/n has been working as the secretary for the band and she became really close friends with the boys over the course — she had a huge crush on Paul which he was very oblivious about.

Year: Mid-60s

You’ve been friends with The Beatles since you started working in their team two years ago as a secretary and you’re usually the one that talks to the press during cancellations when the manager and the band cannot. It wasn’t entirely hard working with the boys, they’re well behaved — well sometimes. Okay fine, not that behaved but they were still a bunch of nice-sometimes-immature-but-funny boys.

You were in a small two-storey cottage where the band hangs out when they feel like taking a break — also to write songs for a new album. You didn’t really need to be around since it was just a casual hang out and didn’t need a professional aura but since they’re really good friends with you, they always tag you along in their plans which you are forever grateful for. You really enjoyed spending time with them and just watching them fool around the place. 

“Come on, just admit it already," John pushily says, puffing his smoke to the other direction — he knew how much you hated the smell so he’d blow it as far from you as possible. “Admit what?” You asked innocently, like as if you didn’t know what he was talking about. He started picking up on your huge crush for Paul, saying he’s known since the first year and he just didn’t want to pressure you into admitting — but now he says it’s been long enough and he was assuming you’ve already gathered enough confidence. “Your big fat crush over —” 

“Did you really call me up here just to talk to me about this?” You butt in before he could even mention the name. You were both seated on the lounge chair out the cottage’s terrace, relaxing under the almost setting sun. The sky was painted with colours of golden orange and splashes of pink were also vivid. The wind wasn’t too harsh, it was just perfect and relaxing.

“Yeah, today’s the only time I can help you out on your crush problem. Tomorrow, we might start writing all day again," he said, finally putting the cigar out on the ash tray. “I have no idea what you’re talking about John," you said, sighing as you got up. “I’m going back in.”

“Maybe you’ll know what I’m talking about if I went into details,” he said, almost in a jokingly-threatening manner, you squinted at him; you weren’t going to give in to his dirty tricks, he’s just saying that, you thought, turning around again, what details is he even talking about? Pfft. You mentally scoffed.

“Like that one time you were taking pictures of him while he was writing, took a bunch, by the way. God, if I just get my hands on that camera I’d be RICH in proofs!” You turned around, sending him a glare. ”You are nosy!” 

“A little, yeah,” he laughed, standing up and putting his heavy arm over your shoulders. “Just tell him already! I’m helping you out here, y/n.”

You were about to say something when both George and Ringo walked in. “Tell whom what?” George asked curiously. You immediately looked at John, who seemed really excited to tell. “Don’t you dare —”

“Let us in on the secret,” George frowned. “Come on, not fair.”

“There are no secrets, George, John’s just playing around —”

“She likes Paul,” John said nonchalantly and a little too loud. You kicked his shin causing him to yelp and curl trying to rub it to stop hurting. “Stop spreading fake news, you a —” 

“I knew it!” George beamed, causing John to laugh. “See, you’re obvious.”

You just sighed, giving up and plopping back down on the lounger, there’s no point denying it to them — you guess you were pretty obvious sometimes. You would always stay up late whenever Paul does just so he won’t be alone, you’d hug him more than you did the other guys, and you loved taking photographs of him — not as creepy as it sounds. “If it were that obvious, how come he’s never said anything about it?”

“You know Paul’s a bit... dumb sometimes," George says, making you chortle. “No, he’s not.”

He nodded his head defensively, putting both hands up in mock surrender. “Oblivious, I mean.”

“Very," John added. “I mean, I think he had every reason to, you also hug the three of us all the time, you bring us same amount of foods and drinks, you complimented all of us often — he’s probably thinking you’re just doing your job.”

“I hug him twice as much,” you muttered sulkingly, your eyes closed and your arms crossed against your chest. “Doesn’t matter, it’s just a small crush. Not really expecting anything,” you lied. You knew you wanted to at least have something more with Paul. Even for a while, see if it works out. “Just try telling him.”

“Can’t, George. I can’t just throw all my cards on the table like that,” 

“You’ve been throwing one card a day since the first time, bird. You’ve long ran out,” John said matter-of-factly. You just groaned. “Whatever. I just want to keep it professional. My contract with you guys is ending in a few weeks anyway.”

“Aren’t you renewing?” Ringo asked, you opened your eyes to look at him, he looked sad. Ringo was the calmest out of the four (Although he can be a bit talkative too unlike George who's really quiet) and he’s treated you like a little sister since the beginning, he’d say ‘your brother is lucky to have you' with a matching ruffling of the hair.

“I don’t know," you mumbled, closing your eyes again. “If it’s about Paul —” 

“It’s not, it’s not. I just... really have a long list of other things I want to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like Paul," you cockily joked and they all turned away with a stifled laugh. “Kidding, I’m kid —”

“What about me?” You froze when you heard Paul’s voice, he was walking towards the rest of you, a glass of whatever alcohol is in his hand. The other three fell silent and they were sharing awkward glances with each other. You mentally groaned, can’t they be any more fucking obvious?

“What were you guys talking about?” Paul asked again after a few minutes of silence and just awkward glances while you were seated, frozen. “Y/n’s contract is ending and she said she’s not getting it renewed," Ringo said, carefully lifting himself up to sit on the barricade.

“Oh.”

Oh? That’s all the reaction I’m gonna get from Paul while I got sad looks from the other three?

“Yeah, oh.” you sarcastically repeated, you were a bit disappointed with the reaction. John immediately noticed, getting up, walking towards the door back inside the cottage. “Help me with something, y/n?” He called, you looked at him, nodding and getting off the lounger, you walked past Paul, your shoulder hitting him. You lazily apologized, not looking at him. 

John walked you to your room, he was seating on the edge of your bed while you were lied down, your pillow over your face. “Y’alright?” He finally asked after debating about it in his head, he didn’t want to trigger your tears but he also wanted to make sure. “Yeah, yeah," you spoke sotto voce, the pillow still on your face. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. He doesn’t really need to care, it’s not like I do. I could care less about Paul —”

“Don’t lie, it just makes it harder, y/n," he murmured, you stopped rambling, sitting up and putting the pillow on your back. “You’re right, who am I kidding? God, I care about him so much, his opinions and all that — getting an oh is just... disappointing.”

“Come on, you know Paul better, he’s not very open about his feelings. Who knows, he may be disappointed as well, just not showing it. He tends to avoid attachments," John explained, you just weakly smiled, bringing up your legs to your chest and resting your chin on your knees. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”

The night still went on pretty smoothly, you were keeping distance from Paul, hoping it’d make you like him less if you just stay away for a bit. You thought you were just liking him because you’re spending a lot of time with him.

“S’fine,” you smiled, not looking at him, “What are you doing still up?” 

It was already midnight and you couldn’t sleep so you decided to go out the terrace, seating on the barricade with your feet dangling down. You were just looking at the bright, silver moon. “I didn’t know it was a full moon tonight,” you mumbled to yourself.

“Me neither.”

The very familiar and your favourite voice startled you and luckily, he was able to grab on to you immediately. “Careful, you’re gonna fall,” he says, finally letting go of you so he could jump up the barricade as well to seat beside you. “Sorry, I startled you.” 

“I should also be asking you that,” he said, you see him looking at you through your peripheral vision. You were trying so hard not to look at him, you’re scared it will just give away all that you’re thinking about at the moment.

You looked back up to the moon, silence engulfing the two of you. The only thing you could hear was the cold wind that was brushing against your skins and each other’s quiet breathing. 

“Can’t sleep,” you replied, putting your hands down against the cement to prop your shoulders higher. “I can’t too."

You finally turned your head to him, he was looking at his hands. “Do you want me to make you tea?” You asked and he just shook his head.

“I was actually thinking about something,” he finally said. You relaxed your shoulders, putting your hands on your lap. “What about?” 

“Just... are you really not going to renew your contract?” He asked, looking at you, his voice sounded miserable than it did when he reacted with an oh a while ago. “I don’t know, Paul,” you sighed. “I really don’t know, there’s really no reason to renew —”

“Are we not enough reason for you to stay and want to renew? John? Ringo? George?” He asked. He sounded a bit hurt. “No —” 

“No?”

“No. No, I mean — no, that’s not what I meant —”

“Then what do you mean?”

“God, let me finish, hush,” you said, making him break into a fit of laughter. You groaned, covering your face with your hands. “It’s just really hard to explain, Paul. I don’t think I’m always going to have that emotional capacity to take care of you, guys —” And watch you flirt with fans all the time or random chicks at the bar. It’s... not making my life any better.

“Are we giving you a hard time?” He asked, you shook your head with a silent snort. “Sometimes, yeah, I mean, John’s always playing around, George would need food every second to function, you’re always all over the place. Ringo was the only break I ever really had — sometimes George too when he's not in the mood to talk,” you laughed. “But I enjoyed it. So, so much. I enjoyed being with you... guys. With you guys." You cleared your throat.

“Then stay.” 

You were going to say something but it escaped your mind, looking at him sadly, you smiled. “I’ll think about it, Paul.”

He didn’t say anything. You fell into another deafening silence, it was getting even colder, he must’ve noticed you shiver a bit so he moved a bit closer, taking your hands and wrapping it with his and pinning it between his thighs. You just looked at him do what he was doing. You didn’t want to give anything meanings as you didn’t want to keep your hopes up. He’s just being nice. You thought, your eyes glued on both your hands. 

“You didn’t talk to me much tonight, are you okay?”

You nodded hesitantly, he didn’t say anything back.

Another long silence.

“I’m just gonna throw it out there, I like you, Paul," you finally said after rehearsing it over and over again in your head. You had nothing to lose anymore, the contract’s ending anyway so if it turned out awkward, you’d only have a few weeks to endure until you never see him again. You were too afraid to look at his reaction, so you kept your eyes on your hands. 

You looked at him when you heard him let out a quiet laugh, you nudged him with your shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m being serious.”

“I know, but — why did you just tell me that now?” He asked. “It was risky. Too risky. But since my contract’s ending soon, I couldn’t care less anymore. Just thought you should at least know before I leave,” you sadly said, it was sincere and vehement. “You’re a really, really, really great person and I admire you a lot.”

“You could’ve told me that sooner, been waiting to hear it since last year." He shrugged.

“What?” Was all that came out your mouth — is he saying he knew? Does that mean he likes me back? What is happening? What is he talking about? Multiple questions came rumbling into your mind. “I always thought you were just being nice because you are, not just to me. But I had this little hope that you liked me more because... well, you hugged me a bit longer than you did with the rest. It’s just one small thing but that extra three seconds really meant a lot to me and I gave meaning to it.”

You just looked at him, not really knowing what to say, you were overwhelming with joy, fear that it’s a dream, confusion, questions, but mostly with joy. He leaned in a little closer and you started to feel heat rush up to your face, the warmth of his breath was all you could feel. He freed his other hand to cup your face, pulling you closer, your noses were basically touching. You were just waiting for him to do it but part of you is thinking he’s gonna pull back and say it was a joke and then laugh at you — you’d be ready to jump off by then.

“Is it okay?” He asked, his voice was barely above a whisper. You took your hand up to his nape, initiating the kiss. It wasn’t aggressive, hungry, or the like, it was sweet and longing. Like something you both have been waiting to do for so long — neither just had the confidence to admit. 

You wondered what stars aligned tonight for you to have the confidence to admit and him saying he liked you back — and getting a kiss — all at the same night. You couldn’t think of any other explanations — all possible constellations must’ve been made.

Random pic bc he looks cute here. :-))

This was requested three weeks ago, I think? Forgive me, yes? :-))

---

Let's be mutuals please!

[ultraglittercat]

Drabble 148

Hornet's Nest

There was a hornet's nest in the orchard. Some of the bigger boys had tried throwing rocks at it to knock it down, but they were unsuccessful. 9 yr old Varian had drawn up plans for a spray gun to coat the nest in chemicals, but his father wouldn't let him actually build it. Quirin said the nest was best left to the beekeeper Paul to destroy, and talked with the man during the afternoon.  Paul agreed to smoke the nest out at night, when the hornets were least active. Varian was a little disappointed- this meant he couldn't watch- but Quirin was adamant about Varian staying safe. Paul had special clothing like the bee hat he always wore and had worked with stinging insects for years, while Varian was still just a kid and prone to leaping into situations he should avoid.

Varian spent the evening after dinner drawing sketches of the hornets and their nest, wondering when adults would take him seriously. His chemicals could be just as effective at killing insects as the smoke would be! Quirin did let him spray insecticide on the pumpkins when they were growing, so he knew he'd been successful before. But apparently pumpkins were considered far safer than hornet's nests.

Quirin came in to tell Varian to go to bed. “The nest will be gone come morning, and you can go over to Paul's and thank him. You can bring him some of our apples, as a gift.” Quirin told him.

“Okay Dad.” Varian said half-heartedly. He knew he was missing out on something exciting. And Varian knew he could have been helpful- he started fires all the time, sometimes on purpose even! But when Quirin made a decision, he didn't budge. Varian would have to wait til morning.

The morning came soon enough, a bright sunny day. Varian ate breakfast with his father, who was pleased Varian hadn't snuck out last night to watch the beekeeper work. (Varian had considered it.) Quirin smiled and gave him permission to go see Paul, handing Varian a bucket of apples father and son had gathered the day before.

“I won't take long Dad, cause I know we've got work to do in the orchard.” Varian said.

“Good boy. Tell Paul I said hi and ask him about his honey.” Quirin replied.

“Okay Dad.” Varian nodded and went on his way. Paul lived towards the outskirts of Old Corona, past the shepherds. Varian waved as he walked past Katie's house. On another day, he might have stopped by, but today he didn't have the time. Quirin expected him to be very quick with his visit to Paul so he could do his chores afterwards. Varian soon saw Paul out with his hives and smiled.

“Hi Paul! Dad says hi and to give you these apples as a thank you for getting rid of the hornet's nest.” Varian called out.

“Wonderful! Nothing beats your father's apples for quality.” Paul praised. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Maybe you could tell me something about the hives.” Varian pointed.

“Ah. Well the hives I have are different from a hornet's nest. Hornets can kill honeybees for starters. They're aggressive. I got a few stings last night, but I managed to smoke them out and then I was able to destroy their nest. Now for my colonies, I use a hive stand. It elevates the bottom born of the hive and keeps it dry. The bottom board serves as the floor of the colony and is open in the front. It's a landing platform for foraging bees. Next is a series of boxes or hive bodies containing the brood nest and the honey supers where the surplus honey is stored. You wouldn't believe it, but when filled with honey they can weight 60 lbs! You have to be strong to be a beekeeper.” Paul bragged.

“Wow.” Varian was very impressed with the engineering behind beekeeping.

“The suspended beeswax comb is held within a frame. Each frame consists of a top bar, two end bars, and a bottom bar. My top bars and grooved and the bottom bars solid. I nail V-sharped metal frame spacers on ledges for reinforcement. The comb foundation consists of thin sheets of beeswax. Thin surplus foundation is used to produce comb honey, while a thicker foundation is used for the brood chamber. I secure these with metal support pins. A queen excluder confines the queen and brood rearing to the brood nest, while allowing the workers to pass through. The inner cover rests on the top of the uppermost super and beneath the outer cover. It prevents bees from gluing down the outer telescoping cover with wax and also provides insulation. The outer cover protects all the hive parts from weather. It fits over the inner cover and top edge of the uppermost hive body. With the inner cover in place, I can remove the outer cover if needed and disturb few bees. It's rather impressive, don't you think?” Paul couldn't resist showing off, explaining things to the boy. It wasn't often than he had an audience, and he wanted to make the most of it.

“It is really neat.” Varian agreed. “I don't think Dad would let me try beekeeping, though.”

“Probably not. It's a very specialized field and I enjoy it. Would you like some honey to take back home, in exchange for listening to me ramble?” Paul offered.

“Yes, please.” Varian nodded.

Paul went and got a jar. “Here you are! Apples for me, and honey for you. A good deal all around.” Paul held out his hand for Varian to shake. “Call me again if you find another nest where one shouldn't be! I'm happy to help.”

“Thanks, Paul.” Varian said. He might have missed the removal of a nest, but he'd learned something new and he had honey to bring back home. Not a bad start to the day. He smiled as he walked home, eager to share both the honey and the knowledge of how it was stored with his Dad.

The End

Varian is braver than I am. I wouldn't want to investigate a hornet's nest, I'd just want it gone.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

A Little Stevie Nicks

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(I didn’t really know what to call this one but it’s the request for Dwayne x a vampire girlfriend who is a lot like him and dresses sort of like Stevie Nicks.)(+Sorry for the long intro if you just wanted dating headcanons)

- Okay so I like the idea of the reader being older then Dwayne or rather was turned into a vampire before him. I’m not quite sure exactly when Dwayne was turned (it could have been in the 80s which would explain why they wear the things they do) but I do think that you’d most likely be turned in the 60s/70s explaining your fondness for the fashion.

- The first time he saw you he thought he died and went to heaven, with all the sheer fabric, the lace and the flowing dresses he thought you looked downright angelic. It took him a good few minutes to recover, you quite literally took his breath away.

- Paul had to snap him back into reality because he’d fully stopped in his tracks to watch you. All he could get out when the blonde clapped him on the shoulder was “her” as his eyes remained fixated on you.

- You were just wandering the boardwalk by yourself when you noticed two pairs of eyes on you, when you briefly turned to look you noticed Dwayne and Paul standing and watching you.

- Dwayne is handsome (which he’s aware of) and when you first saw him he reminded you of one of those “ideal men” who are painted on the front of a romance novel. Long haired, shirtless, and chiseled, it’s hard not to stare especially when you catch a guy like that watching you with the most intense gaze you’ve ever seen.

- You turn away and stalk off after you have your little staring contest, which immediately makes him follow after you even if he knows it’s a little odd himself. He doesn’t want to lose you in the crowd but you want to lose him, not wanting to get involved and inevitably fall for someone you can’t have (not knowing you could have him since he’s a vampire as well).

- You play a little game of cat and mouse with him while you walk along the boardwalk. You’re quite aware he’s following you even though he thinks you don’t know. Finally you decide to sit on the railing of the boardwalk, watching the ocean and the night sky while you waited.

“Your following me.” You said quietly once you heard him approach, lurking behind you.

“Maybe I am.” He replied softly.

“Why?”

“There’s something about you.” He seemed almost confused.

- Neither of you said anything else after that and it was then you realized you couldn’t hear his heartbeat. You were sure he realized the same when he came and sat beside you on the railing.

- Since that night you sort of just found each other everytime the both of you were out. Sometimes you’d talk, othertimes you wouldn’t but you always ended up spending some kind of time together. You started a sort of nighttime fling, nothing really romantic yet but sort of just affectionate. Like old friends navigating their way around each other again while they fall in love with the new version of their previous pal.

“Who are those boys you hang around?” You asked, braiding your hair as he laid between your legs on the sand of the beach.

“David, Paul and Marko, they’re like us.” He replied, toying your sleeve as it swayed above him.

“They seem fun.” You murmur.

“You want to meet them?”

- And you do. They immediately take a liking to you because you’re basically the female equivalent of Dwayne with a little more flowers and frills. You enjoy watching them mess around, it does help that they seem to be trying to flatter you and get you to stick around.

- After you meet the gang you and Dwayne have your first kiss and start your relationship. Soon enough you end up indoctrinated into the vampire crew and can consider yourself a part of the “family”.

- Whenever you’re on the boardwalk with him he always makes sure to have your hand in his.

- He used to think the frog brothers antics were sort of amusing but now that they’re a possible threat to you he’s much less keen on them lurking around.

- The both of you are well aware that it’s pretty difficult for someone or something to kill you but that doesn’t stop him from being very protective of you. He rarely lets you out of his sight and the both of you make sure to always have each other’s backs.

- Everytime the two of you kiss it feels like you’re floating on a cloud. He has this way of kissing you that’s so soft and dreamy that you grow weak in the knees and can hardly stop yourself from swooning.

- Even though the gang likes you and you like them he knows that he himself would sometimes just like to get away from them for a quiet night so he makes sure to bring you on dates at least every week.

- He likes watching you get ready because it’s such a different routine from everyone else in the cave. Like the boys go wild and put on whatever clothes they pick up but you actually coordinate your outfits and do your makeup really pretty.

- You and Laddie take turns riding with Dwayne on his bike. Although Laddie doesn’t mind riding with Paul so you don’t have to feel bad for taking his usual seat.

- He likes his style just fine but he wonders what he’d look like if he dressed “like you”. It’s definitely a much softer look than his and wouldn’t look nearly as threatening as his usual clothes.

- If you want to go with the idea that the reader is older than Dwayne then the boys would definitely tease Dwayne about having a thing for older women.

- He picks you little flowers to put in your hair or wear in your pockets. Your room probably always has at least one vase full of them even though they wilt pretty quickly in the darkness.

- I feel like you would really get along with Star and hang out with her while the boys mess around on the boardwalk. I also feel like Dwayne probably wasn’t really that fond of Star before he met you and saw her treat you with so much kindness.

- Even though he likes you haveing a friend in the gang he does get jealous when you “blow him off” for girls night (although he’ll never say anything to you). When you’re not around he gets into little tiffs with Star for “hogging his girlfriend”.

- He likes that you’re quiet, the two of you get along well because of it. The both of you agree that there’s no need to fill all your time together with useless conversation. But because you rarely talk or at least rarely talk around others many people don’t realize your a couple at first or don’t think your a good one when they find out.

- The more ballsier of guys have tried to flirt with you right in front of him thinking he’s just your friend and have almost gotten their faces on a missing poster because of it. It takes a while but after some time pretty much all of the boardwalk knows you’re off limits and it’s an unspoken rule of the town not to try anything with you.

- Of course Laddie has Star as a mother figure but you are definitely his back up mom. Dwayne thinks it’s adorable to watch you hang out with the little boy and loves when you help him take care of him.

- You definitely have a bright and long future ahead of you two.

[thecoleopterawithana]

Did I Ever Take You In My Arms

[Another instalment in the ‘Touching Is Good’ series, following themes previously explored in ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.]

The gesture of holding someone or being held in their arms is one of the best-known forms of physical affection. It is no wonder then that the concept makes frequent appearances in romantic songs, including the ones where our young Beatles express their idea of being loved:

Hold me tight Tell me I'm the only one And then I might Never be the lonely one So hold (hold) me tight (me tight) Tonight (tonight), tonight (tonight) It's you, you you you

And if Paul was asking for cuddles in 1961, by February 1963 both John and Paul were offering them, in one of those back-of-the-bus, truly conjoined writing sessions. 

I've got arms that long to hold you And keep you by my side I've got lips that long to kiss you And keep you satisfied

So, I think we’ve established “holding” as one of their idyllic expressions of love. And if John seemed to establish “holding hands” as a shorthand phrase for his desires of physical affection, the next step to a proper full-on hug came to be invaluable in the communication of what they couldn’t say in words:

To Taylor's dismay, the three Beatles greeted them with hugs and kisses. "This is the new thing!" Lennon told him. "You hug your friends when you meet them and show them you’re glad to see them. Don’t stand there shaking hands as if everyone’s got some disease! Get close to people!"

— John Lennon, picking up Derek and Joan Taylor at the airport, 28 May 1967. In Joe Goodden’s Riding So High: The Beatles and Drugs (2017).

John dives deeper into the subject some months later, in a heart-wrenchingly raw examination of his feelings of depersonalization, of becoming adrift “alone on a draft in the middle of the universe”, and how contact (and of the physical kind) with the other Beatles – specifically Paul – helps anchor him to reality: 

If I am on my own for three days, doing nothing, I almost completely leave myself. I’m at the back of my head. I can see my hands and realize they’re moving, but it’s like a robot who’s doing it. I have to see the others to see myself. Then I realize there is someone like me so it’s reassuring. We were recording the other night, and I just wasn’t there. Neither was Paul. We were like two robots going through the motions. We do need each other a lot. When we used to get together after a month off, we used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances. Then we got to hugging each other. Now we do the Buddhist bit… arms around. It’s just saying hello, that’s all.

— John Lennon, interview with Hunter Davies (late 1967).

The “Buddhist bit” refers to the practice of “hugging meditation”, as observed by @monkberries in this post. 

Introduced by Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh in the late 60′s, it rose out of the need to adapt his teachings – mutual understanding as the way to spiritual intimacy – to the body language of the West, as he recounts in his book How To Love (2014):

In 1966, a friend took me to the Atlanta Airport. When we were saying good-bye she asked, “Is it all right to hug a Buddhist monk?” In my country, we’re not used to expressing ourselves that way, but I thought, “I’m a Zen teacher. It should be no problem for me to do that.” So I said, “Why not?” and she hugged me, but I was quite stiff. While on the plane, I decided that if I wanted to work with friends in the West, I would have to learn the culture of the West.

At the core of the practice is the very conscious choice to be aware of the presence of this other human being in your arms, and just how they make you feel. Necessarily, it involves a shedding of the usual “Northern men” hang-ups, in order to enter a state of true communicative openness and emotional honesty.

According to the practice, you have to really hug the person you are holding. You have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me.” If you breathe deeply like that, holding the person you love, the energy of your care and appreciation will penetrate into that person and she will be nourished and bloom like a flower.

And this phrasing made me wonder if John started to pick up on his idea that “Love is a flower and you have to water it” even back then.

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to explain the specific procedures of the practice and the philosophy behind it:

Hugging is a deep practice; you need to be totally present to do it correctly. When I drink a glass of water, I invest one hundred percent of myself in drinking it. You can train yourself to live every moment of your daily life like that.

Before hugging, stand facing each other as you follow your breathing and establish your true presence. Then open your arms and hug your loved one. During the first in-breath and out-breath, become aware that you and your beloved are both alive; with the second in-breath and out-breath, think of where you will both be three hundred years from now; and with the third in-breath and out-breath, be aware of how precious it is that you are both still alive.

When you hug this way, the other person becomes real and alive. You don’t need to wait until one of you is ready to depart for a trip; you may hug right now and receive the warmth and stability of your friend in the present moment. (...)

When we hug, our hearts connect and we know that we are not separate beings. Hugging with mindfulness and concentration can bring reconciliation, healing, understanding, and much happiness.

We can see how this technique might have been crucial in helping John come down and become aware not only of others but especially of himself; how it helped him heal and become more confident than usual in the notion that he is indeed loved and not alone. 

For Paul, it was perhaps a difficult, but nonetheless essential exercise in emotional frankness and vulnerability, where he really had to come to terms with his own feelings, and more importantly, open up his heart enough to accept that same love back.

But the perfectly in tune state of ‘67 would soon be disrupted (sadly, but not surprisingly) by a breakdown in communication. 

On the advantages of the new “boat”, John had this to say:

It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists.

— John Lennon, interview with Sandra Shevey (June, 1972). 

So it appears that at some point, John’s need for physical intimacy had been left unsatisfied (due to internal or external pressures remains to be known).

Though earlier, on March of that same year, Paul had made a cover of Gerald H. Nelson and Fred B. Burch’s song “Tragedy”, popularized Thomas Wayne and the DeLons in 1959. It ended up not being included in Wings’ Red Rose Speedway (1973), but the chorus goes as follows:

Oh, come back Have me here Hold me, love Be sincere You've gone from me, oh, oh, tragedy    

What did come out on Red Rose Speedway was a second “Hold Me Tight”:

I've waited all my life for you Hold me tight Take care of me and I'll be right Hold me tight, hold me tight Hold me tight, hugga me right Hold me tight, squeeza me tight Hold me tight, hugga me right Hold me tight, Hold me tight, Hold me tight

Eventually, when re-approaches were made, John and Paul would take up hugging again as a show of affection. 

When I opened the outer door, I saw it was actually Paul and Linda. They’d been singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” I was really surprised and said, “I think you’re looking for the guys in the bedroom.” As they came in, everyone was really happy to see each other. John and Yoko jumped up when Paul and Linda walked into the bedroom. They were obviously excited to see each other again. There was a lot of hugging and catching up, and we had a round of tea.

— Bob Gruen, John Lennon: The New York Years  

They [John and Paul] seemed like giddy school chums. Hugging, patting each other on the back… like high-school buddies who hadn’t seen each other for a long time and really liked each other.”

— Bob Gruen, on the Christmas meeting between the Lennons and the McCartneys (December 1975).

But there was still an ocean between them, and sometime in 1976, John seemed to be in an especially wistful mood, as he sang on a demo of “Real Life”:

Was I just dreaming or was it only Yesterday

I used to hold you in my arms

And now a baby, and a another on the way

[Indescernable] in a farm

Now must we be alone?

If it don’t feel right, don’t do it

If it don’t look right, look right through it

If it don’t feel right, don’t do it

Just call him on the phone

But in the end, just when tentative steps where being taken for there to be more open communication again, the possibilities were ripped from their arms:

If I had known John was going to die, I would have made a lot more effort to try and get a better relationship with him. But when he started slagging me off I was not prepared to say ‘Well, you’re quite right’, because I’m human. My big regret was that I could have told John to listen and put my arms round him.”

— Paul McCartney, interview for the Titbits Magazine (November 1983).

This and other regrets Paul explores in the beautiful song “This One” (first demo recorded on 29 December 1986), where he deals with his past reticence to more clearly demonstrate his love: 

Did I ever take you in my arms, Look you in the eye, tell you that I do, Did I ever open up my heart And let you look inside.

...

Did I ever touch you on the cheek Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile, Did I ever knock upon your door And try to get inside?

...

What opportunities did we allow to flow by Feeling like like the timing wasn't quite right? What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm, Couldn't I have given you a better life?

Did you ever take me in your arms, Look me in the eye, tell me that you do? Did I ever open up my heart, Let you look inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting For a better moment that didn't come. There never could be a better moment Than this one, this one.

Paul would go on to continue using the promise of hugging and physical affection as a demonstration of love in his music, as heard in the chorus of Flaming Pie’s (1997) “Calico Skies” (written in August 1991):

I will hold you for as long as you like I'll hold you for the rest of my life 

Overall, this lesson in bodily affection as a clear expression of your love is one  Paul would indeed treasure for the rest of his life, as he fondly recollects:

You remember little things about people. I remember sort of seeing [John] and he comes in and gives me a hug and says 'Touching is good.' I'll never forget that. Touching is good. So I do a lot of hugging now.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Jim Axelrod for CBS News (17 September 2005).

[nemetonisevilpassiton]

Where we’re going we won’t need Eyes to see - a teen wolf meta

With Teen Wolf meta we have this tendency to name check Event Horizon (1997) and run off without explaining it - especially in regards to the episode “Ghosted” where they were in Canaan which uses a lot of the same techniques and tropes. But before I explain how Teen Wolf got there we have to explain Event Horizon.

A friend of mine once called Event Horizon the greatest horror movie almost made, and that sums it up nicely.

Following the success of Mortal Kombat [1995 starring Linden Ashby] the studio gave give the director Paul WS Anderson [the Resident Evil guy] a budget of 60 million dollars, the large soundstage at Pinewood and Carte Blanche to deliver an R rated horror. The film he delivered was 121 minutes long and X-rated. It was externally editted down to 91 minutes or 96 minutes depending on region and legend has it that most of the narrative exposition went out of the airlock. As gory as it is - and it IS - it was much much worse and it’s entirely possible that this studio inflicted hatchet job is the reason Event Horizon has the cult following that it does.

Anderson did not waste a dollar of the money he was given, everyone in the film is a noted character actor and most of the dialogue makes them feel real [with the exception of one distinct line which is just hilariously bad]. The ship was a set [there is minimal cg and it’s bad as you’d expect for 1997 but it’s things like a floating water bottle] based on actual gothic architecture specifically notre dame. The crew of the Lewis and Clark [the rescue ship] is seven people because they were meant to represent the seven sins - maybe in the longer version they did. The “stranger” in their midst is Doctor Weir, who following the suicide of his wife whilst he built the Event Horizon, became obsessed with the ship is the one who wants to bring it “home”. The shot of the rotating space station where Weir is based was a miniature. As most of the effects were practical, as opposed to CG, they stand up to modern scrutiny.

The film was a critical and commercial bust, but over the years since it’s release it’s been insanely influential on the field of Sci Fi being responsible for IPs such as Warhammer 40k, Deadspace and even the Alien franchise [which Anderson dipped his toe in with Alien vs Predator] and is considered one of the greatest Lovecraftian horrors ever made.

Event Horizon is not a great movie, it’s…. I’m one of the people who adore it, as scary movies go it never fails to make my skin crawl but let’s get into the plot.

The Event Horizon was an attempt at FTL travel, instead of going really fast it punched a hole through the universe creating a worm hole that would allow the ship to exit somewhere else with a device called “the gravity drive”. On its test flight it vanished. Seven years later it reappears where it should have with no crew and only a mild distress signal. Weir (Sam Neill), the original creator takes the crew of the Lewis and Clark, a rescue ship captained by Miller (Lawrence Fishburne), to bring it back.

On finding the ship the youngest member of the crew, Mr Justin (Jack Noseworthy), goes into the drive room in full EVA and is dragged into the black liquid at its heart. He is rescued by Cooper (Richard Jones), but when they confront Weir he denies it’s possible despite that they could not have known what to describe. Justin is comatose. They find a recording of screams which has a latin phrase which DJ (Jason Isaacs) translates as save me. The med tech Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) starts to see visions of her son covered in sores. Weir starts to see his dead wife as she was when he found her but with empty eye sockets. The ship starts to pull at their sanity damaging the Lewis and Clark, Smith (Sean Pertwee) refuses to leave the Lewis and Clark and in the middle of that Justin gets up and puts himself in the airlock, setting it to open.

All of the characters are shown to have a dark history but because of the editting we often don’t know what that is. We know Peters has left her terminally ill son because of her visions. Miller tells us about a crew member he had to leave to die in a burning ship. Weir has his guilt over his wife, but the rest was cut.

They find the ruins of the old crew with a tape showing them dismembering themselves and each other and it turns out the translation wasn’t save me but save yourself from hell. Fans have actually translated it more accurately as save yourself from the fire.

Miller comes to the conclusion the best thing to do is go home and blow the ship from orbit but Weir refuses to go. He takes one of the explosives from the nave hallway and blows up the Lewis and Clark and Smith, this sends Cooper into space [where he has the worst line in cinema, seriously https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUozFOlxVnM] and Miller and Starck [Joely Richardson] confront Weir on the bridge where he has ripped out his own eyes. DJ is found disembowelled over the medicine table. Distracted by Cooper’s return Weir fires a rivet gun at the ship’s window causing the decompression to suck him into space. Miller tries to use the explosives along the nave corridor to separate the ship from the gravity drive which he considers the source of his evil but he is separated from his crew by a burning man who turns into Weir. They fight, the corridor explodes and Miller is sucked into the black hole.

There is a gotcha ending where Starck sees one of their rescuers as Weir but wakes up screaming before the very ominous door closing.

So what happens? what is the one sentence synopsis?

See that’s where Event Horizon sort of wins. On its surface the ship went to hell and became alive and is now luring people in and trying to drag them into Hell. Except even within the movie that explanation doesn’t make sense. The characters talk about the lack of good air, that they are running out of air and it turns them on each other to an extent so did anoxia cause the hallucinations combined with the very gothic imagery to create a mass hysteria? Is it a pseudo Catholic vision of Hell where the characters unable to deal with their own guilt at ultimately tortured? Maybe? Was it all of the above? I don’t know. Other people have amazing explanations of what happened and here’s the reason why Event Horizon freaks some people out and others are meh, it’s not that easy.

It has holes and contradictions and huge chunks obviously missing. It has a narrow focus and it never lies to the audience, it misleads them by assumption but it’s consistent. Weir is the hook character we expect to be the hero, he is the outsider amidst the crew of the Lewis and Clark, he is the one with the answers and the refusal to see alternative answers. He has the most fleshed out back story but he turns into the human manifestation of whatever is going on with the ship yet he is the one who becomes the face of the villain. The ghost apparitions are genuinely disturbing. The quality of the acting could carry a much weaker script. The effects are excellent and the gore is astounding, and best shown briefly [although production stills are available if it was too quick for you]. The Lovecraftian questions are presented and NOT answered. They are isolated in a place where they are in constant danger and the hallucinations mean even their thoughts are unsafe.

Did the ship go to hell? Or was it an explanation Weir made up when he broke? Or is this a purgatorial nightmare where Weir is sent out to fetch more victims for the ship? Is he repeating this ad infinitum with this crew or is it a new crew every time? Is the she Weir speaks of the ship or the manifestation of his wife, Clare?

The film doesn’t answer any of these questions. They are all valid ways to see the movie. And based on Anderson’s filmography the reason that these all DO work is because the film was butchered like one of the ship’s crew.

Recently they found a copy of the uncut film in a salt mine in Transylvania so maybe we’ll see it.

But people who take it on surface value that the ship went to hell and is now evil wooo, generally just dismiss it as poor. It is clearly a mishmash of things Anderson thought was cool instead of deep, sets are so Alien inspired that the xenomorph could pop out of any of the lockers and no one would be surprised. The ship’s set is so gothic Dracula could be drinking tea in the med bay and it would make perfect sense. Yet it somehow, probably despite itself, works.

So back to Teen Wolf.

Event Horizon clearly had its shadows over the production and it’s in the ambiguity more than the cinematography [which owes its debts to Silent Hill]. What Event Horizon managed by accident [Anderson couldn’t have pulled it off deliberately] Teen Wolf tries.

Every character in Teen Wolf, no matter how minor, has a backstory but it is not one we are necessarily given. They have their own stories which intersect with the story we are being told. If we look at the chimera, for example, we saw Tracy’s complicated relationship with her father, we saw Lucas and his boyfriend, Corey, and Corey before we knew he was a chimera told us about Lucas. Caitlyn’s girlfriend Emily was taken by the Darach but she was nervous about her first time having sex so Caitlyn tried to make it special for her. This makes the characterisation rich and this one of the complaints about the show. We learn as much about someone who gets murdered five minutes later as we do about the show’s mains. Beacon Hills feels real because the people in it feel real.

Teen Wolf offers a surface answer which does not hold up to scrutiny - at all -ever and which is often ridiculous. @Sublimeglass refers to this as the show vs tell, Teen Wolf tells us one story and shows us quite another. Solutions to problems are often best guesses with the information that they have and are often contradicted seasons later as characters learn more.

The main character is presumed to be the hero but by the end is very clearly the agent of whatever it is that is going on that wants conflict - however defining that very clear presence in Teen Wolf is like getting rid of glitter, you know it’s there but you’re never going to get it out of the carpet.There is clearly an evil presence, and it is clearly in the water, specifically the lake beside Lydia’s lake house [which Lorraine set up a mountain ash barrier to protect her from] but the character’s don’t know it’s there. I am not saying that Scott is evil or villainous in this - that’s a very different meta - but instead that he is continuing the war that existed before him. He is recruiting a character like him to carry on the story. He is repeating the cycle like Weir sacrificing another crew to the ship.

One of the arguments with EH is that the ship is freeing them from “the fire” which is light and energy, which is complicated, basically that our universe with its physical reactions is Hell, and that by removing the flesh [I did mention Hellraiser was a huge influence, right, and the video game Doom 3] you could be “free”, and there is a similar idea in Teen Wolf where characters try to escape the detriments of flesh - Gerard looking for a cure for his cancer, the dread doctors extending their life, the attempts to build a better beast for their own immortality, the leonmensch trying to capture the Wild Hunt.

Yet if you reduce Event Horizon to “the ship went to hell and is now evil” the two do not match but both are phantasmagorical.

Phantasmagoria is where one or more reality might not be real but is instead a dream/hallucination that is indistinguishable from reality, and thus brings the “reality” in question.

In Event Horizon this is several dream sequences, Weir and Starck both have nightmares whilst in stasis. This means when Clare starts appearing to Weir and the child appears to Peters we are primed to know they are not real and this knowledge means we’re primed for a scare even when the subject is not scary, such as Peter’s visions of her sick son.

In Teen Wolf we have several sequences that are not “real”: Scott’s visions of the school bus attack; Stiles’ visions of the bandaged figure; Scott’s dreams of killing Liam with the mute. Then we have sequences where reality is much more loosely defined in Motel California - where the characters hallucinate - and Ghosted which is the most obvious point for the Event Horizon characters.

We also have flashbacks which are subject to the “Rashomon effect” where several variations of the same narrative are shown and the whole is unreliable [the Fox and the Wolf, Blitzkreig and Visionary] What we are shown in Teen Wolf is only slightly more reliable than what we are told, and the telling is from Scott’s point of view - although it is unclear if it is only the last episode, the last season half or the whole show which is narrated. Personally I think it’s the whole. Either way Scott is an unreliable narrator. We cannot trust the narrative as it is presented even if it didn’t openly contradict itself.

The Lovecraftian parallels have to be mentioned even if when it comes to writing Teen Wolf meta I find him popping up like a particularly obnoxious infestation. Combined with that is the heavy influence of Hellraiser [3 metas later I am quite confident that Hellraiser was involved] and the whole is unsettling if not disturbing or scary.

The visual language of Event Horizon is medieval gothic, with columns, long empty corridors, flourishes and twists and the ship itself is a cross based on Notre Dame. In Teen Wolf colours have meaning, characters have symbolic associations [although unlike the intent for Event Horizon they do not represent anything as overt as the seven sins. They reveal the characters but not general themes.] Each of the first five seasons has a symbol which is represented by Godai, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Void [if six has one I haven’t cracked it yet but it is probably the ethereal or the other] and the cinematography is certainly as deliberate.

I can’t just end this meta because it’s one of those as soon as you see the movie you can see the parallels because they’re pretty much laid out on a plate but the two are so different that unless you sit down and think about it you’d never consider it.

I can’t say that Beacon Hills is a phantasmagorical town that exists outside space and is poisoned by its proximity to Hell - but I can’t say it’s not either because of the ambiguity and contradiction. I can’t say Weir is a victim driven mad by his own guilt or the ship possessed him because of the same contradictions.

Event Horizon managed what it did despite itself. Teen Wolf might have done the same.

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison and Paul McCartney during the recording of Hey Jude (1968)

Peter Doggett on “Run of the Mill”:

George Harrison: Living in the Material World is the title of Martin Scorsese’s epic documentary about the life, music and beliefs of the Beatle who was my original favourite of the group (at the age of six, for no rational reason I can recall). When I became seriously interested in pop, it was October 1970, and the British pop weeklies were full of chatter about George’s forthcoming album, All Things Must Pass.

For reasons that I’ve explained elsewhere on this blog, I had accidentally become infatuated (for life) with the Beatles a few weeks earlier. With the zeal of the fresh convert, I was eagerly awaiting new music from any (or preferably all) of the Fab Four. One afternoon, I came home from school to listen to Radio 1, the BBC’s three-year-old pop channel, and was granted a sneak preview of George’s work. As soon as his name was announced, I pushed the ‘record’ button on my father’s ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was connected up to our equally ancient radiogram. So I had plenty of time over the next few months to replay and appreciate the magic of what I heard: 'Run Of The Mill’.

It was the guitars that pulled me in: that gorgeous, tumbling motif that bookended the song - which was, as I would soon discover when I tried to reproduce it myself, very deceptively simple. Then the voice: somewhere on the emotional spectrum between 'beautifully pained’ and 'poignantly sympathetic’, not the carefree joi de vivre that Paul McCartney would try to maintain, or the naked savagery of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band roar. And the melody, with that subtle elegance and beauty that would become the hallmark of George’s best solo work.

What didn’t really touch me for years, though, were the words. That was partly because it wasn’t that easy to make them out beneath George’s double-tracked Scouse slur, and partly because the tune was so pretty that I didn’t bother to listen. It must have been twenty years or so later that I heard the song one day and suddenly clicked: “He’s writing about the Beatles!”

At which point the whole thing made sense. In 'Run Of The Mill’, George wasn’t writing about the Beatles as an institution, but about his relationship with one particular Beatle (or maybe two of them, swapping the role of target in every other line). This wasn’t the open sadness of Ringo’s 'Early 1970’, or the sly sniping of Paul’s 'Too Many People’, or the outright viciousness of John’s 'How Do You Sleep’. Nor was it the shocking dismissal of Lennon’s own verdict in late 1970: “I don’t believe in Beatles”. No, this was one human being very openly confronting the decline in his relationship with another human being who was still very dear to him, but who he feared was destined to slip out of his life altogether.

The most poignant lines in the song are these: “As the days stand up on end, you’ve got me wondering how I lost your friendship, but I see it in your eyes”. What’s gone wrong between these two men? The clue is in the early part of the same verse, where George says that tomorrow will bring “another day for you to realise me” (in other words, to realise exactly who I am) “or send me down again” (by ignoring me). Which takes us back to January 1969, when George unveiled a series of new songs for John and Paul, and they did their best to ignore them.

So which of these two old friends was the target of 'Run Of The Mill’. Ultimately, as George sings, “it’s you who decides”: both Lennon and McCartney had undervalued and squashed Harrison as a creative force in the final years of the Beatles. But my guess is that it’s Paul who George had in mind - simply because George put so much faith in the reality of his relationship with John (as his comments in the Beatles’ Anthology book proved) that he couldn’t bear, at least in 1970, to consider for a second that he might have lost Lennon’s friendship. He found it easier, in emotional terms, to blame Paul - the boy who’d been a year older than him at school, who had suggested he should audition for the Beatles, and who had chosen to lecture him about his guitar-playing in front of a camera crew during those January 1969 sessions.

And the title? It was only when I was writing You Never Give Me Your Money that it struck me where it had come from. There is nothing in the song about anything being “run of the mill”. But my guess is that one of the other Beatles, at some stage in the 60s, slagged off a new Harrison song by telling him that it wasn’t good enough to record, it was only run of the mill. It’s the kind of comment that trips out of people’s mouths in a second, and which they never consider the consequences of; and which the recipient remembers for the rest of their lives. (2011) [x]

[rallamajoop]

An update on that charity auction thing (or, how I spent several months constructing elaborate headcanons about undercover agent air hostesses instead of just writing the damn fic)

Point the first: I still have not written the auction-winner's fic which I owe from way back in January. Her request called for case fic starring one of UNCLE's recurring female cast, such as Sarah Johnson or Heather McNabb, which was all well and good.

The sensible thing for me to do at this point would probably have been to churn out something starring Sarah, who is My Favourite and the much better developed of the two (I've had half-an-idea for something along those lines for ages). Heather (who, for all her established qualifications, mostly seems to be stuck being the girl back at the office who answers the phone) gives you far less to work with character-wise -- so little that the question of how to make a case-fic starring her work at all struck me as a real conundrum.

Unfortunately, I never can resist a good conundrum, and that's the long and short of how I found myself mentally committed to filling out that auction fic the hard way.

I could ramble on about the process here,* but the bottom line is that I've had the thing basically plotted out since around, oh, May or June or so, minus a few key details that remain sticking points (like a rather infuriating innocent-shaped-hole in the story). It was there that it dawned on me that one of the little details I really ought to have pinned down about Heather herself -- at least in my head, whether or not it came up in the story -- was the dangling question of just who her roommate was.

Some context: among the few things we do learn about Heather in her very first appearance is this bit of dialogue from Napoleon:

Napoleon: Oh, no, Heather's been with us almost a year. She used to be a stewardess. She rooms with--

But Waverly cuts him off there, so we never hear who she rooms with -- let alone why Napoleon might thing it worth mentioning to his superior.

 Knowing Napoleon, the obvious answer is that Heather rooms with some other attractive young woman he has dated, or would like to date -- perhaps another beautiful UNCLE girl (or stewardess). All the same, I spent some time casting for alternate possibilities before my brain inevitably went, "Well, duh, it's Wanda Townsend from S3 -- the other stewardess-cum-UNCLE-staffer, who very nearly became Heather herself? Who else would it be?"

This would call for a little context from what has become my specialty subject in the land of fandom trivia, the women of UNCLE. See, back before May Heatherly was cast as Heather McNabb, the role very nearly went to an actress called Sharyn Hillyer, who had a small role in the UNCLE pilot as the stewardess on the plane with Napoleon in the final scene (pic on the left below). I'm halfway-convinced that line I just quoted about how Heather used to be a stewardess could very well be an artifact leftover from when Hillyer was in the lead for the role, by way of explaining to the audience why a woman we'd last seen playing a stewardess was suddenly working for UNCLE as of episode 2 (it's certainly more interesting than to assume the writers were simply going "how can we make this sexy woman even MORE sexy to our straight-male-target-audience?" -- which it might still be, but I digress).

Hillyer's story on UNCLE doesn't end there, however, because she was eventually cast as a recurring UNCLE girl (the affore-mentioned Wanda Townsend) starting with The Indian Affairs Affair at the end of S2. But by Indian Affairs, Hillyer was actually making her third appearance in the show -- just 4 episodes previously, she'd appeared as another stewardess in The Project Deephole Affair (pic on the right above).

There's nothing remarkable about the same actress getting called back for multiple different roles in a show like UNCLE, of course, but the neat thing about Hillyer's parts is that you can so easily headcanon them them all into the same character. Her stewardess character from the pilot certainly seems to know Napoleon -- perhaps even who he works for -- and though it's subtler in Project Deephole, I always did like the idea she might just have been an UNCLE plant there too, helping keep an eye on the episode's hapless innocent. Heck, if UNCLE (read: probably Napoleon) canonically recruited one stewardess into their regular staff with Heather, why shouldn't there be more?

Now, I reiterate, to this point I have already dedicated north of 4K words to the subject of these characters and their place in UNCLE, from every obvious angle (and a number of less obvious). But so habituated had I become to thinking of the various Wandas as underdeveloped punchlines, and of the 60's stewardess as a one-dimensional male fantasy, that I am ashamed to admit it was only now that it hit me: recruiting stewardesses as UNCLE staff isn't just a convenient backstory for a couple of bit-parts, it's an act of genius!

Not seeing it? Let me explain!

To start with, the stewardess is the perfect courier. She might travel anywhere in the world as part of her daily routine, carrying items on and off the plane without half the fuss facing the average traveler. If there's a person of interest among the passengers, the stewardess is the one person on the plane who can walk by his seat a dozen times in an hour without looking the least bit suspicious, who can "helpfully" take an interest in whatever he's doing. Many in the job speak multiple languages, and what better job to give you familiarity with locations across the country, if not the world? Finally, after all that time in customer service, she'll have ample practice at sizing people up at a glance, quickly remembering names and faces, and maintaining a cheery smile no matter how much stress she's under (which may well include real life-or-death situations, given that air safety in the 60s was not what it is today). All invaluable skills for the budding spy!**

And if UNCLE aren't forward-thinking enough to have put all that together long ago, you can bet your liver Napoleon would be the one to rectify it. What better way to pass some microfilm to a courier than to conceal it in a bunch of roses, to be presented to his latest stewardess-girlfriend over dinner (during which he'll ask if she's ever been to Paris -- oh, you're scheduled to fly out this week? You must try this little shop -- let me write down the address -- ask for Jean-Louis, drop my name if you need to -- you won't regret it, I promise).

Heather may well have been one of his first recruits. This is all ancient history by the time we meet her, of course, as she's long since transferred to UNCLE New York full time (where, if her first bio is to be believed, she's since been promoted to head of Communications). Maybe she even personally recommended Wanda to Napoleon as another recruit. Wanda herself started out in nursing before moving to aviation (which was actually the normal career path for stewardesses back in the 30's, and far from unheard of even in the 50's and 60's -- neatly explaining how Wanda is qualified to give Napoleon all those shots in My Friend the Gorilla). Wanda was obviously spent at least a good couple of years working as one of UNCLE's stewardess-air-couriers, given she's in the same job from the pilot right up until late S2,  But by this point, Heather had long-since disappeared from the office (probably transferred to some other UNCLE office elsewhere in the world), and the New York office was short-staffed, so this would be when Napoleon talks Wanda into transferring to the office full time.

This is also where it all starts to go wrong. Napoleon, inveterate flirt that he is, leaves Wanda with the impression that he wasn't just offering her a transfer, he was also asking her to go steady -- and when it comes right down to it, both of them were a little at fault for that bit of miscommunication. Gentleman that he is, Napoleon did his best not to let her down when he realised the mistake (see: dates mentioned in Monks of St Thomas and Pop Art). But truthfully he just wasn’t that into Wanda, and got far too much use out of charm in the field (see: Do It Yourself Dreadful) to stay faithful very long. (Sharyn Hillyer herself once suggested that the particular joy Wanda takes out of sticking Napoleon with all those needles in Gorilla was a subtle little bit of revenge for all that cheating, and I don't think I can add much to that.) But by the end of the season, she's come to terms with the reality of the situation. (Maybe she has a rebound office-fling with Paul Westcott, guaranteeing maximum shadenfreude when Napoleon inevitably found out about her new beau).

No-one else at UNCLE has any great sympathy for Napoleon through all this. It may not have been entirely his own fault, but he absolutely brings it on himself.

(FWIW, feel free to adopt any part of all that needlessly-elaborate headcanon for your own fic use if you like it. I mean, I’d like to hear about it if you do, but c'mon -- now that I've put the idea in your head, there's just no way Napoleon isn't recruiting stewardesses to UNCLE's cause, is there?)

All well and good, but jumping back several topics, it is now still over 6 months since I promised that fic, and excited as I am by all this backstory, I am no closer to having anything to show for it. What the hell, thought I, even if there isn't a proper fic in all this, surely I can at least get a short prelude ficlet about how Heather was originally recruited to UNCLE out of it. I'll still have the case-fic to write, but I should be able to bang it out quickly as a quick apology to my requester for making her wait so long.

Naturally, this was my cue to... start furiously researching the world of the 60's stewardess, buy two different books, track down a library copy of a third, watch a few documentaries and generally get myself so excited over the research aspect that the fic still hasn't been written.

Over air hostesses. No, I know. I was not expecting this either.

But easy as it is to write them off as an outdated male fantasy, the world of the 60′s stewardess turned out to be a mess of fascinating contradictions -- not to mention a truly enlightening (and frequently horrifying) window into the world of Cold War gender politics. In an era when aviation was still something new, exciting and prohibitively expensive to the masses, it's hard to overstate how much it meant to some of these women just to have the opportunity to fly. So many applied for every opening that the airlines could pick and choose. Many if not most had college educations, spoke two or even more languages -- a small handful even had pilots licenses, but the airlines wouldn't hire female pilots, so they took the next best thing.

Yet for all their qualifications, no-one could hope to be hired if she didn't meet the airline's exacting beauty standards, and girls could be fired for no more than putting on a few pounds or turning up in the wrong underwear. They were 'acceptable' to mores of the day only because they played a suitably servile role, usually for no more than a year or two before leaving the job to get married (wedded stewardesses were, of course, forbidden) -- but a minority still made the work into a lifelong career, used their salaries to buy homes and independence, and their image in the fight for feminist causes. And for all that the airlines had originally hired women in the belief they'd be that much less likely to unionise and make trouble, there seems to have almost never been a time before these women had begun fighting for their rights. My reading list includes two different personal accounts from former stewardesses, both of whom worked 5 years for the same airline, barely a decade apart, and their experiences could hardly be more diametrically opposed. It's fascinating.

...and 2K more words of meta later, I still have not written my fic.

It's coming, I promise. It’s just not exactly written just yet. >.>

(Quite possibly there is yet another post’s worth of shameless history-geek-out over the world of the airline stewardess coming too, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point.)

* Did I mention I also spent some of those months finishing a PhD and starting a new full-time job again for the first time in years? I don’t mention this to boast, it’s just, well, that sort of thing does get a bit distracting. Ahem.

** Lest you imagine I’ve come up with anything remotely original here, I’d point out that while researching the topic, I also discovered that idea of stewardesses as spies was a major plot point in the short-lived 2011 series Pan Am. It wasn’t a particularly great show -- I barely made it two episodes in -- but it did spark enough online discussion that I have seen former flight attendants (and various other commentators) both dismiss it as ridiculous, and suggest there was no way it didn’t happen -- especially once regular commercial Russian flights began. So take that as you will.

[cksmart-world]

       SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

August 16, 2022

TOP SECRET DOCS AND EXPLOSIVE BUSTIERS

Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do — FBI agents or aliens posing as FBI agents have victimized Donald Trump AGAIN! It wasn't enough that little beings in Italian satellites screwed up the election by switching votes from Trump to Biden, but now we learn someone or something has slipped classified documents into Melania's de-humidified walk-in closets at Mar-a-Lago. Whoever it was stashed the top secret  records in the wardrobe containing her lingerie. It's all in the search warrant where it says: “lift and separate.” Very suspicious. In fact, Utah Rep. Chris Stewart even said, “Maybe it was aliens.” No Wilson, he actually said that. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement saying the FBI does not hire aliens. But that didn't quell the anger on the Right. Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar said, “We must destroy the FBI.” And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich compared the FBI to the Gestapo. Of course we know the GOP is pro law enforcement — remember “Lock Her Up!” But this is different on account of... well it just is. Like, why would Donald Trump hide nuclear secrets in Melania's lingerie — it makes no sense unless he had a secret deal with Putin through Valeria, the Russian equivalent of Victoria's Secret. Now that would be one explosive bustier.

PLACENTAS ARE PEOPLE, TOO

If you are traveling by air and have a placenta you can demand two seats in comfort-plus, according to our friends on the right. Dave Alvord, local Republican patriot and Salt Lake County councilman, shot back at Vice President Kamala Harris on Twitter recently mansplaining to her that a fetus is not part of a mother’s body. No Wilson, we are not making this up. Alvord had taken umbrage when the veep said that women should have control over their own bodies. Amid criticism — and despite medical facts — Alvord bravely stood his ground. “The baby floats inside the woman... the umbilical cord and the placenta are part of a new and developing body, with its own unique DNA and gender...” he said. The notion that a developing fetus is part of the mother is just a fake rationale for leftist baby killers. “It is not about the woman’s body,” he explained, “it’s to kill then remove the baby’s body. It is done in greater proportion to black babies.” A consummate conservative, Alvord also uses Facebook to make important cultural arguments, such as this: "[T]he left won't be happy until we each have light brown skin are exactly alike…until there are no males, no females…until we are all bi-sexual and in non-committed relationships." And that's why it's soooo important to keep voting Republican!

MISSING TEXTS — AND WHAT THEY REVEAL

A whole bunch of missing text messages have been found and what they reveal is simply astonishing. The staff here at Smart Bomb has come into possession of missing texts from Utah's congressional delegation surrounding the Climate Bill, a.k.a. the Inflation Reduction Act. Not one single Republican voted for it. Here are the contents of the texts, although we have yet to identify which Utah congressmen is speaking at any time:

  Rep. A — The Dems say the $370 billion investment in a low-carbon economy will be paid for by prescription drug savings and raising taxes on large corporations.

  Rep. B — That's why we're not voting for it — we got friends in Big Oil and Coal.

  Rep. C — The good thing is we can vote against it and then campaign as though we're saving the world. Our constituents won't know 'cause they watch Fox.

  Rep. D — But it includes $60 billion for renewable energy, like solar and wind. It even has tax incentives for nuclear power and electric vehicles.

  Rep. B — It doesn't matter if it's good, we can't let Biden have any victories.

  Rep. A — But what about global warming and climate change?

  Rep. C — Don't worry, it's not like the polar ice caps are melting or anything.

Post script — Well, that'll do it for another week in the Dog Days of summer here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of bears on hallucinogenic trips so you don't have to. This is for real: A brown bear in Turkey came across some great smelling honey and had at it, apparently unaware that it was “deli bal” or “mad honey.” The hallucinogenic sweet stuff has been cultivated for hundreds of years by beekeepers in the Black Sea region. The female cub was found stoned out of her gourd in the back of a pickup. Luckily, the driver whisked her to a vet, where she came down safely from what must have been one long, strange trip. Wilson and the guys in the band are Smart Bomb's staff experts on hallucinogens but not even they had heard of deli bal. Yes Wilson, it would probably go nicely with Turkish waffles. And no, the FBI has not disclosed whether any mad honey was found at Mar-a-Lago. But if Trump had smuggled in some deli bal it would explain a lot of things. You're right Wilson, he acts more like a speed freak or a coke-head. Most acid trippers are pretty mellow — like Mike Pence. It would be interesting if the MAGA crowd that is ready to hunt down FBI agents got gifts of Turkish honey. On the other hand, imagine a bunch of crazies with AR-15s on a bad acid trip. Well, it's kinda like that already.

Alright Wilson, we can read your mind. You're clinging hopelessly to the past and we know where you want to go. So wake up the guys in the band and tell 'em to ditch the Hawaiian shirts and sandals for T-shirts and walking shoes 'cause they're goin' truckin'.

Truckin', got my chips cashed in Keep truckin', like the do-dah man Together, more or less in line Just keep truckin' on Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me Other times I can barely see Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been What in the world ever became of sweet Jane? She lost her sparkle, you know she isn't the same Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame" Sittin' and starin' out of the hotel window

Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again I'd like to get some sleep before I travel But if you got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in

You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel

Get tired of travelin' and you want to settle down

I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin'

Get out of the door and light out and look all around

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me Other times I can barely see Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been

(Truckin' — Grateful Dead)

[wineanddinosaur]

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

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Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/eod-drinks-dan-aykroyd-crystal-head-vodka/

[johnboothus]

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

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Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

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[orbemnews]

Beige on an S.U.V. Will Cost You, but for Pickups It’s Golden In 2017, a new Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, resplendent in Soul Red Metallic paint, listed for $35,901. By 2020 that jaunty two-seater had an average resale value of $24,112. If finished in stolid Machine Gray Metallic paint, however, that same model fetched an average of $1,046 less, thanks to the color alone. Because many other factors influence car value, color is easy to overlook. Yet both paint and car manufacturers maintain international departments of stylists and colorists who not only monitor what consumers are buying but — drawing from the fields of art, architecture, fashion, popular culture and consumer research — predict what people will want up to five years in the future. Decisions are exasperatingly complex. A popular color for sedans might not work for sports cars. A hit color in Florida might tank in Michigan. According to iSeeCars, a search engine catering to car buyers, the worst color for S.U.V.s was beige, which lost 46 percent of its value over three years. For pickup trucks the best color was … beige. Beige pickups lost only 18 percent in value in the same time period. The importance of color to cars is almost singular. It’s nothing to chuck a formerly fashionable fuchsia T-shirt, and you can repaint a room in a weekend. But repainting a car costs thousands and requires skilled technicians. With the possible exception of kitchen appliances, there are few color decisions as costly that consumers live with for as long. In a routinely quoted poll from 2000, 39 percent of car buyers said color was more important than brand. An iSeeCars analysis compared list prices for new 2017 cars with their resale prices in 2020 to see which colors hold value best in different vehicle classes. In addition, some larger paint manufacturers publish annual color popularity reports and predictions for the coming year. Combined, they help draw broad rules for picking the best values in car colors. And while color doesn’t wholly determine a car’s value, if it’s not part of a buying decision, you might get stuck with a gray Miata. Paint is also about durability, not just aesthetics. It was intended to prevent rust. Henry Ford famously offered customers “a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Black paint was durable and inexpensive — and using a single color sped up production, said Matt Anderson, a curator at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich. “Popular myth says black was chosen because it dried fast,” he said, “but there’s no evidence that black dried any faster than dark greens or blues,” both among the colors that Ford initially offered. By the mid-1920s, a DuPont paint formulation helped expand the palette, and color was used as a marketing device; General Motors’ Oakland Motor Car division advertised the True Blue Six model after its bright color in 1924. Even Ford Motor caved in when it needed a marketing boost in 1925. “Colors then returned for the T’s final two model years in an effort to stimulate slumping sales,” Mr. Anderson said. Cars came in more than a dozen hues by the mid-50s — the better to attract the female drivers of the family’s second car, the thinking went. Those colors became more vivid in the psychedelic ’60s. Metal and paint technology upped rust resistance in the ’70s, and then a new process from Europe gained notice, said Clifford Schoff, a paint chemist who spent 30 years at the manufacturer PPG. Clear coating was about to arrive in America. “We started hearing about the ‘wet look,’” Mr. Schoff said. “The color plus clear meant you kept a higher gloss for a longer time.” Over the years, those technologies that improved the longevity of cars and paint may help explain the unprecedented 10-year run for white as the most popular color. Its functional advantages also help. White is good in hot climates and hides scratches and dings well, making it popular with fleet buyers. “Rental car companies love white,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst for iSeeCars. But, as the iSeeCars data shows, there is a big gap between what is popular and what retains value. The 2020 Color Report from the paint provider Axalta (formerly DuPont) said fewer than 1 percent of new cars on lots in America were yellow. Yet iSeeCars data shows yellow retained the most value over all. An overwhelming 30 percent of cars on dealers’ lots are white, followed by 19 percent for both black and gray and 10 percent for silver. It’s the law of supply and demand. “It’s not that yellow is a popular color. It’s that yellow is popular in relation to how many people want it,” Mr. Brauer said. “You can’t go wrong buying the popular colors — black, white or silver — but you can’t go right, either,” he added. The most popular colors generally fall in the middle of the value chart. Rarity alone doesn’t guarantee value. Purple, brown and gold are about as rare as yellow yet retain the least value over all. There are other anomalies, such as the previously mentioned beige paradox. Trucks did well in muted colors, possibly because, as work vehicles, those hues show less dirt and company names painted on the sides are easy to read. S.U.V.s did best in flashy colors, possibly because the drivers didn’t want to feel like drudges. “You are buying the S.U.V. to avoid the minivan,” said Jonah Berger, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with expertise in marketing psychology. A lively color, he said, “makes us feel like: ‘I am driving a fun car. I am a fun, exciting person.’” Apparently minivan owners are focused on utility. Blue retained the most value, losing 39 percent, but that wasn’t much different from the worst, brown, at 42 percent. This makes it difficult to assess the “best” color for a car. It might be better to consider the best color for a type of buyer. “People buy things for different reasons,” Mr. Berger said. “Sometimes we buy them for what they do. Sometimes we buy them for what they say about us.” People who buy cars for utility, like minivan and fleet buyers, seem to value subtle colors that are easy to care for. People who buy a car as a personal statement — sports- and muscle-car owners­ — value glitzy colors. That still complicates the paint choice for vehicles that defy categorization. Jeeps and trucks are utility vehicles for some and showpieces for others, who bolt on lift kits, light bars and custom grilles. The Jeep Wrangler retained the most value in Xtreme Purple, a color usually at the bottom of the overall chart. Purple Wranglers kept $2,398 more value than the same model in utilitarian silver. Color prognosticators agree that the new color to reckon with is blue. Last year it accounted for 10 percent of cars on lots, equal to silver. But which blue? Dark? Light? Metallic? People who make a livelihood from car paint see vast differences between shades of a single hue, even mundane white. “The white we have is not the white we had 20 years ago,” said Paul Czornij, head of color design for car paint at BASF. A carmaker might ask him for “a white metallic that is a little bluish, and from this grazing angle it has this property, and from this angle is has that property,” he added. “That is very exciting.” For consumers, those fine points appear to have little effect on value. The iSeeCars data shows that metallic paint’s value advantage over nonmetallic is insignificant. Ultimately, many buyers may choose paint color disregarding both value and popularity to achieve a third goal, Mr. Berger said: “Maybe having a color that’s different than white makes you happy.” Source link Orbem News #Beige #cost #golden #Pickups #SUV

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23/01/2021 (Anne-Marie, Juice WRLD, Young Thug)

The site I use for this show has refused to update – which is fine, it’s probably run by one guy and/or their bots – which means I had to go on the UK Singles Chart page from the Official Charts Company for information, and man, I hate that site. Anyway, despite a big #2 debut and a big remix at #3, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo stays steady at #1 for a second week, which shows us a little sliver of how much longevity this song could have – and it’s good too, so I’m glad. Anyway, time for more apathy. Let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

I feel like, especially recently, debuts don’t really stick at all. We have many songs gradually falling below the chart this week, and they place into either two categories: songs that I wished would go away already, and songs that debuted last week. Out of the debuts from last week still on the chart, we have three notable gains and four of the opposite, making this actually an okay week for debuts, but it still feels like people have not got time for new music right now, which is honestly understandable. Out of those debuts, “Streets” by Doja Cat surges up to #20, “Notorious” by Bugzy Malone and Chip drops to #39, “Best Friend” by Saweetie featuring Doja Cat is down to #42, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental unfortunately is up to #51, alongside an even more unfortunate gain for “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” by Lana Del Rey at #58 (Please, don’t make this a hit). That’s it for gains for our debuts last week, as “Vibez” by ZAYN couldn’t even gain from an album boost down to #62 and “WW2” by Unknown T makes the expected second-week drill dive to #63. Our other gains aren’t much to discuss either, although I’ll admit I actually kind of like “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and remixed by Drake up to #47 (I do really want to see this as a hit). I don’t like, however, the two deep house pastiches at #15 and #16, “Goosebumps” by HVME and “The Business” by Tiesto. What’s even worse is that “Goosebumps”, a remix of Travis Scott’s song, now has a Travis Scott remix, so that remix remix could land this in the top 10 next week. What might not be is also a remix: “34+35” by Ariana Grande featuring Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion up to #3. It was doing okay before the remix so it could stay here but I don’t see the remix as a replacement for the original so it could falter from #3. Of course, we do have other notable fallers, mostly pointless to list and a couple weeks too long on the chart, so I’ll split it into two once again: “Go away, please” and “Go away, but maybe later”. In the first category, we have “Whoopty” by CJ at #9, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd at #23, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #25, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #28, “positions” by Ariana Grande at #33, “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #41, “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #48. “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #52, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #53, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #54, “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #55, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo at #64, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith at #67, “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit, Mabel and 24kGoldn at #72 and “Lasting Lover” by Sigala and James Arthur at #74. I like a fair few of these songs but I’d like some new blood in the charts, like the second category of songs that seem to have started dropping out prematurely: “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #22, “Loading” by Central Cee at #25, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #45, “Forever Young” by Becky Hill at #57, “Plugged In” by Fumez the Engineer and A92 at #59, “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift at #65, “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion at #68, “pov” by Ariana Grande at #70, “Love is a Compass” by Griff at #71 and, finally, since I only cover the top 75, “Your New Boyfriend” by Wilbur Soot at #73. We have one return here, and that’s for a song that’s a couple years old but from a new star: Olivia Rodrigo’s “All I Want” returning to #32, from the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack which I had assumed was new initially but did peak at #72 prior to this. The song’s fine, but I don’t review returning entries, and honestly it’s even more of a Disney teen-pop ballad that “drivers license” is, so I don’t find much point in making exceptions. Note to self to edit the drop-outs in whenever you know what they are.

Edit: The notable drop-outs are “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X, “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey, “no body, no crime” by Taylor Swift featuring HAIM, “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy, “Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685, “Show Out” by Kid Cudi, Skepta and the late Pop Smoke, and “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

NEW ARRIVALS

#60 – “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” – Riton and Nightcrawlers featuring Mufasa & Hypeman

Produced by Riton

“Push the Feeling On” is a song by Scottish collective Nightcrawlers that is known much more commonly for its classic deep house remix by American DJ MK, which would be known now for how much it’s been sampled in pop music: You’ve probably heard the synth riff or vocal chop in “Hotel Room Service” by Pitbull, “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack, “Wiggle It” by French Montana and City Girls, “House Party” by MIST and Fredo, or even “Nightcore in tha Club” by Viper of all people. So, 20 or so years later, here comes English DJ Riton making another official remix alongside dually-credited Musafa & Hypeman, who I guess are social media influencers from articles I see about them. That would explain why this is charting... but yeah, this is lazy. A female vocalist sings “It’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday again” to the melody of the classic vocal loop, and the rest of the song is a worthless and artless “future house” track made for no-one, with Musafa & Hypeman delivering nothing more than obnoxious skits and faint ad-libs. I’ll admit, the second verse where it suddenly drops into her vocals over the haunting vibration of bass is inspired, but it goes nowhere. It uses the same drop as the original MK remix and if it isn’t, it uses a vocaloid drop that sounds way too similar to blackbear’s “hot girl bummer” for my liking. Once you hear it, you may not unhear it – although I doubt you’d come back to this song for any reason other than clicking the wrong song when looking for the original MK remix, which is still great. This, however, is useless.

#50 – “Skengman” – Ghetts featuring Stormzy

Produced by Ten Billion Dreams

This is actually Ghetts’ first ever track to hit this chart as a lead solo act and that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Whilst Ghetts is very important to grime and his mixtapes are considered classics, he’s not exactly the peak of commercial success – and is somewhat infamous for said squandering as he released a diss track against MTV for not thinking he was that great of an MC – which wasn’t exactly helped by beef with the Boy Better Know collective. It makes a lot of sense for him to ride off the coattails of the new generation of English rappers and make a drill-adjacent track with Stormzy, the track’s namesake. It also makes sense for this to be good: we have some pretty ominous keys and horns that sound great under this cold and minimal trap beat, relying less on percussion than it does the eerie strings. Sure, the chorus is pretty awkward and tired, with Ghetts not selling it nearly as he well as he does the verses, which even then are off-kilter. The second verse – by Stormzy – is where this song really shines, as gorgeous vocal samples combine with the rise of the strings, looming 808s and Stormzy’s deep contrast of a voice before the beat drops and Stormzy lets out his best flows. Honestly, after Stormzy’s verse, not even a beat shift really makes Ghetts’ other two verses worthwhile, as his just seem short and ineffective, even if the beat is going to keep on intensifying with these incredible strings and horns – lest we forget the choir of “Skengmen” behind him on the chorus. I really wish this was a solo Stormzy track, with no disrespect to Ghetts, who just feels out of place if anything. This could have been a lot better.

#49 – “Lumidee” – Chip featuring Young M.A. and Young Adz

Produced by the Fanatix

Most of our new arrivals are hip-hop or hip-hop-related, so of course whenever we see Stormzy, I guess we have to have a Chip song the same day. Is that beef still going on? Regardless, this is a very different song, named after the artist behind the awkward, minimal R&B sample used here. Listen, I like 2000s R&B, but “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” is just a fatal misunderstanding of what makes Timbaland’s production good. Surely that would make any reworking an improvement, especially with these subtle strings and guitars under a dancehall beat just as awkward as the original. Oh, and I call the strings subtle because it’s not like Young Adz could ever be, or Chip for that matter, as both of them deliver stiff, ugly performances about how the sex is spectacular... but also how they want this woman to treat them kindly after they cheat on her because they buy her nice things. “They” of course being everyone here, as Chip plays the same role as Adz – who only grabs the chorus – and hell, I think Young M.A., who could deliver a narrative here that criticises Chip’s attitude, just expresses the same ideas. I’ll admit that M.A.’s flow and cadence is a lot smoother, less nasally Auto-Tuned and honestly kind of good, but this honestly, much like “Skengman”, reeks of missed potential. A dancehall back-and-forth about love that means nothing but sex and materialism sounds fun on paper but nothing’s really done with it here, which is what I’d expect from these guys in all honesty. It’s weird and kind of cool to see Young M.A. on the UK Singles Chart again (She appeared on an Eminem track around this time last year too), though, so I’ll give it that.

#44 – “Pinging (6 Figures)” – Central Cee

Produced by ItchyDaProducer

Well, we can now add Central Cee to the drill guys that spark a top 50 hit out of nowhere every couple weeks. I actually quite like “Loading” mostly because of the fusion of hard 808s with those slick horn samples. As an aside, the Genius.com page for “Loading” has a comment saying the beat is “disgusting” that has a ton of downvotes, probably because of some sort of disconnect between cultures and audiences. This new track is a lot less interesting, though, relying on a really cheap guitar loop, but otherwise I do think the drill percussion works here, especially with the sliding 808s and Central Cee’s pretty constant delivery. I can’t really say he’s saying anything of interest other than the fact he supposedly turned down a six-figure record deal to stay independent, which of course is the chorus, so it’s not like this is great, or even good, but it makes the best out of a bad loop, and I can respect that, especially with piano touches, although this apparently sounds like another beat Itchy’s made so I’m not sure if that deserves much praise either. You know, I really thought Central Cee could have been on to something with the jazzier touches, but once again, this is missed potential.

#37 – “Wellerman” – The Longest Johns

Produced by ???

There aren’t any producer credits for this one, though I’m not sure to how much extent you can “produce” a sea shanty. It’s not often for this show that I can say a song that debuted is from the 1800s, but this song dates back to around 1833, where the Weller Brothers and their “Wellerman” ships became the most important merchant traders in New Zealand, operating mostly through their base in Otago. Naturally, sea shanties are sang at sea but it’s seldom seen that said songs surge up as singles on Spotify. Thanks to TikTok, however, this 2018 cover by the Longest Johns, a folk group from Bristol, debuted in the top 40. There’s no instrumentation, so this is just an a-capella cover, with some genuinely great vocal harmonisation, even if these guys aren’t great singers – not that you have to be to sing sea shanties. The end product is a pretty fun track about wishing for a supply ship to come whilst whaling, and that they hope to come home soon – or something like that. Look, I hope this doesn’t stick around even though I have the feeling it will. It’s not a bad song at all and the guys are talented, but come on, guys, it’s a sea shanty from TikTok. As that damn app still runs a lot of the charts, though, I suppose I should embrace this, because it is harmless, and that’s really all there is to it.

#31 – “Bad Boy” – Juice WRLD and Young Thug

Produced by Pi’erre Bourne

Now, I’m usually cynical about posthumous releases from Jarad, and I was initially for this, but it has been in circulation as a leak and it was also completely finished with a music video produced before his death by Cole Bennett of Lyrical Lemonade, who directed a lot of Juice’s earlier videos (including “Lucid Dreams”). It has Young Thug on the second verse and Pi’erre Bourne on production so I can’t be mad at this at all. As long as these posthumous projects from now on don’t have tacked-on features and are surrounded by collaborations from only his genuine friends who cared for him, I have no issue with them going on – even if I’d prefer for all of his demos to be released with proceeds going to charity (which should be done with most if not all artists after their passing unless they have an album on the way). It helps that this song isn’t just respectful, but it’s incredible. The hard trap beat from Pi’erre has this great squealing guitar and noisy synth blend that kicks ass whenever it comes in, especially when at odds with the more casual bleeping in the verses. Juice’s chorus is infectious and fast-paced, exactly how he should be on his “banger” tracks, but his verses are really a genius blend between his melodic and technical skills that I wish I heard more from Juice when he was alive. Oh, and Young Thug has what might be verse of the year, with smooth flow switches as always, unique inflections as always as well as playing with the beat perfectly as he drops the nasal screech of his “skrrt!” ad-libs amidst a more simple, intense flow by the end – with the addition of that squealing guitar. Is the content unique? Maybe not, as this is mostly flexing over an explosive trap beat, but there are enough quotable rhymes and vocal deliveries that make this more than honestly the sum of its parts, as out of context I don’t think this beat, this feature or Juice’s hook could work nearly as well as they do. As is, however, this is one of Juice’s best songs, hell, even one of Thugger’s best – and he has a strong discography – so, yeah, for the part of me that appreciates ignorant, stupid-hard trap-rap, this clicked. I hope it’s a hit and even if it isn’t, this is one of the best send-offs they could have chosen for Juice, and I’m just glad it’s finally met an official release.

#2 – “Don’t Play” – Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals

Produced by Mojam and Digital Farm Animals

“Bad Boy” seems like it should be the big story here, as it’s a massive lead and/or final posthumous single from one of the biggest rappers in history featuring another A-list that is getting a lot of praise and YouTube views... but alas, this is the UK, so here’s KSI and Anne-Marie. Is this KSI-Digital Farm Animals collaboration going anywhere? He had a similar one last year with “Really Love” featuring Craig David and that was kind of big – still is – and I think also debuted at #2 behind a really strong #1. They also had awkward, ugly cartoon cover arts, so maybe this is a collaborative project between KSI and the EDM producers? Well, “producer”, because Digital Farm Animals is actually just one guy. I think I honestly wouldn’t mind that considering how better KSI pulls off rapping over EDM than hip-hop. Anne-Marie is filling Craig David’s role, although this time with a verse and lead billing, so it could be from an upcoming album that may or may not exist. Honestly, who cares? Is the song good? No, the chorus is lazy, the UK garage-adjacent beat is cheap and KSI gets outshined in his verse both performance and mixing-wise by orchestra hits. Is the content interesting? Well, KSI’s lyrics are supposedly subliminal disses towards other YouTubers, which annotators on Genius have “marked as a stretch”, only to be met with downvotes from fans because of course, they would. Is it catchy? I guess so, that is the purpose. Hence, we have an inoffensive pop song from three artists who have made better but mostly through freak accident. Top 10 material? Probably not, but the charts are weak and it’s the UK so you can’t really expect much more. Also, why does this have an extended version?

Conclusion

Whilst I’m writing this conclusion, the site I use still has yet to update, so I’ll actually have to do a Kanye in 2016 and edit this post-release for the top 10 and drop-outs. For now, though, I can pretty solidly give Best of the Week to “Bad Boy” by the late Juice WRLD and Young Thug, with an Honourable Mention to I guess “Wellerman” by the Longest Johns for at least being different, although most of these debuts reek of missed potential. “Wellerman” could have been a lot more jaunty with actual instrumentation, “Don’t Play” could have replaced Anne-Marie with an actual personality, Ghetts could have gone in harder on “Skengman” and the beat in “Pinging (Six Figures)” could have actually existed. Therefore, the songs with the least potential are the victims here, as Dishonourable Mention goes to Chip, Young Adz and Young M.A. for “Lumidee” and Worst of the Week goes to “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” by like, four complete nobodies, honestly, I do not see the purpose in that song existing at all. Well, here’s the top 10 for this week – or at least it will be here in a couple hours:

I can’t make any solid predictions for next week other than Billie Eilish and ROSALIA, maybe Lil Skies? You can follow me @cactusinthebank if you’re vaguely interested in doing so, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week.

[placetobenation]

Thumbs up!

That’s how I look at this week. First off, some personal news. Sorry I missed everyone last week. Unfortunately, I had a medical situation where I was diagnosed with a minor stroke. Luckily, my wife got me to the hospital in time for the best of care and we are now moving forward. The good news is that it could’ve been a lot of worse and I’m still here, lucky to be back with you this week, giving me great distraction to what’s been a very stressful 7 days.

As for the WWE, that too is a thumbs up good week. The Payback PPV was highlighted by Roman Reigns winning the Universal Championship over The Fiend and Braun Strowman along with Keith Lee’s clean victory over Randy Orton. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles with a bizarre double-submission by Baszler surely sent the former tag champs into a spiral.

RAW was solid too but NXT and SmackDown for me was off the charts! From top to bottom on both Wednesday and Friday nights, both NXT and SmackDown had me glued to my seat. Of course, the highlights being the incredible finish to the NXT Championship Iron Man Match as well as Bayley’s turn on best friend Sasha Banks. We’ll get into those in our show recaps. But it wasn’t just those moments, it was show flow, attention to details and adding personality and personal items into the storyline. It makes a HUGE difference.

Finally, Friday night was my first venture into the WWE ThunderDome. Originally, my daughter and I were confirmed to be on the video wall last Friday, but real life got in the way. So, one week later, we were active participants among the over 900 fans in the ThunderDome. How was it, you may ask? Well, I thought it was a great experience. It’s not something I would do every week because being part of a live event is exhausting. But, every once in a while, I would absolutely do it. In addition to being able to be part of the crowd for 205 LIVE and SmackDown, we got special backstage access to WWE Superstars Jeff Hardy, Cesaro and Drew Gulak. It had that old school live event feel just for us. So, that’s a good thing and I hope they continue to tweak it moving forward because all-in-all, it was fun to be a fan again at a wrestling event, even if it was from my own house.

Now, on to the week that was in the WWE.

Star of the Week:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, @itsBayleyWWE?!?!?! The #SmackDown #WomensChampion just unleashed a relentless assault on her best friend @SashaBanksWWE!!! pic.twitter.com/PZyZAyXjmu

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Bayley – No question here as Bayley upstages Roman Reigns and Keith Lee. There’s no more wondering where and when the BFF’s will break up. The SmackDown Women’s Champion has had enough with Sasha Banks and her heinous attack on Banks puts her right atop the heel chain in WWE and we love it!

RAW

RESULTS

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Keith Lee defeated Dolph Ziggler

Mickie James defeated Lana

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Randy Orton defeated Kevin Owens

The Viking Raiders & Cedric Alexander defeated Bobby Lashley, MVP & Shelton Benjamin

The Riott Squad defeated The IIconics – The IIconics have to split up

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Seth Rollins defeated Dominik Mysterio

Tornado Tag Team Match: The Street Profits vs. Andrade & Angel Garza went to a no-contest due to RETRIBUTION interference

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Match: Randy Orton defeated Seth Rollins & Keith Lee

Loved it:

enTITLEd.@RandyOrton will see @DMcIntyreWWE for the #WWETitle at #WWEClash of Champions! #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/DbXLT0HMo2

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Randy Orton – Not only did Orton regain his #1 Contender’s status, but he didn’t it following a loss to Keith Lee at Payback, used Aleister Black to do his bidding and pinned Seth Rollins to get his WWE Championship Match. Orton is not only getting himself over but getting Lee up the ladder as well. The Legend Killer continues to be one of the top performers in the WWE right now.

Wow. @WWEAleister was not done with @FightOwensFight yet. #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/RqUmO1Z5cp

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Asuka – Give me more! In the ring, on the mic, on commentary, she’s entertaining as hell. Sure, we don’t expect her to lose to Mickie James, Natalya or Lana in the near future, but at least she’ll make it exciting. I wonder if we get her alter-ego clown character as some point too! That would be interesting.

Blow us all away, @35_Dominik! #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/P7BDCwv2U2

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

Dominik Mysterio – It’s still early in his WWE career, but he continues to impress. Getting a tag team win with his father over Rollins and Buddy Murphy at Payback for his first win was awesome. Then, just 24 hours later, he holds his own in a #1 Contender’s Match with Rollins. Even with Rey injured with a torn triceps, it looks like we’ll be getting a healthy dose of the Mysterio family with Rey’s wife Angie and Dominik’s sister now on with on-camera roles. Good stuff so far. Hope it continues.

Why?:

YOU'VE GOTTA BE JOKING US!

@PeytonRoyceWWE just threw @BillieKayWWE into #RawUnderground against @jessamynduke AND @MarinaShafir!#WWERaw pic.twitter.com/XjQ5W0AlKz

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Teach us how to say goodbye.#WWERaw @BillieKayWWE @PeytonRoyceWWE pic.twitter.com/e198SBAB1m

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

The IIconics – Was there a need to split them up? Having Peyton and Billie Kay go their separate ways – maybe against each other after the RAW Underground fiasco – seems a bit forced. Who knows, maybe they will surprise us but a feud between them doesn’t seem that appealing.

No Sasha & Bayley follow-up – They’ve been on almost every show for months yet now, when things are getting intriguing between the besties, we get nothing from them about losing the tag titles to Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax. We needed to hear SOMETHING from them and not let it wait until Friday night. The Women’s Tag Team Championship is on all shows and it deserved a few minutes on Monday night.

RETRIBUTION – Why are they now attacking the tag teams – The Street Profits and Andrade & Angel Garza are this week’s targets after the Mysterios got it last week. Even poor Zelina Vega got beat up too! We need more than a two-minute interruption each week. This club needs some direction, some depth and someone explaining what the hell they are doing there. It’s been over a month now. Also, isn’t it funny how things just go right back to normal after RETRIBUTION attacks? Funny, huh. Finally, how inept is security that they can’t keep 5-10 people out of the building when they run in a pack?

Welcome:

Nobody wants it with these two.#WWERaw #RawUnderground @MarinaShafir @jessamynduke pic.twitter.com/sK3TXTQrJq

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

Jessamyn Duke – Duke makes her RAW Underground debut, alongside fellow Four Horse Women Marina Shafir’s second bout. I know it’s building to the eventual stable, but will it only be on RU or on RAW as well. Just having them on RU seems like a waste since it’s never been explained other than a side show.

NXT

RESULTS

Street Fight: Breezango & Isaiah “Swerve” Scott defeated Legado del Fantasma

Candace LeRae defeated Kacy Catanzaro

Timothy Thatcher defeated Bronson Reed

Fatal 4-Way 60-Minute Iron Man NXT Championship Match: Adam Cole and Finn Balor tied at 2 pinfalls a piece over Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano – Balor and Cole face-off next week in sudden death match for NXT Championship

LOVED IT:

WAIT A MINUTE!!! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?! @AdamColePro & @FinnBalor are tied at 2 as time expired!!

#NXTTitle #WWENXT #NXTSuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/xxtdTqjS5x

— WWE (@WWE) September 2, 2020

The entire show – No fluff. Wrestling in-ring was excellent. I’m sure some will quibble with the tie between Cole and Balor for the title, but I don’t mind it at all. The final few minutes led to a frantic final seconds which is all you can ask for. Now, we get Balor vs. Cole next week for all the marbles and how can you be mad at that?! Personal development with Candace LeRae/Tegan Nox using Kacy Catanzaro/Kayden Carter’s relationship was excellent. Setting up Rhea Ripley vs. Mercedes Martinez in a steel cage next week was short and sweet, exactly what it needed to be. The 6-man street fight was awesome including a double dive off a forklift by Fandango and Swerve which lead to the ultimate pin by Scott over Escobar. Wonderful stuff. Plus, Reed vs. Thatcher moved things along for Thatcher’s eventual NXT North American Championship Match while pushing Austin Theory back into the physical mix with Reed worked too. All-in-all, a very entertaining two-hours.

#WWENXT #NXTSuperTuesday @WWEFandango @swerveconfident pic.twitter.com/PgMracBJGT

— WWE (@WWE) September 2, 2020

Wade Barrett – While we do miss Mauro Ranollo at the NXT announce desk after his mutual parting of ways with WWE, Barrett is a welcome edition with insight and knowledge. Plus, he’s got a few good one-liners to boot. 

SMACKDOWN

RESULTS

Heavy Machinery defeated The Miz & John Morrison

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler defeated Sasha Banks & Bayley to retain titles

Universal Championship #1 Contender’s Fatal Four-Way Match: Jey Uso defeated Matt Riddle, Sheamus and King Corbin

LOVED IT:

With @HeymanHustle by his side, the NEW #UniversalChampion @WWERomanReigns has spoken on #SmackDown. pic.twitter.com/VgLRcQz4dL

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Roman & Paul – Starting the show with an epic shootlike promo from Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns was perfect! Adding some reality to Heyman being bounced from RAW power to the Reigns storyline, saying it was Roman who brought Paul back in was classic. Dropping the reality line about Corey Graves being Carmella’s last boyfriend was hilarious. It’s stuff like that that brings it home.

"Hey Big Dog, I made the family proud too!" – Jey @WWEUsos #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/FfbFd1CmRD

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) September 5, 2020

Roman & Jey – Adding Jey Uso to the #1 Contender’s Match, thanks to Paul Heyman after Sheamus’ attack on Big E, brings in a family, personal matter to the forefront. It’s the best storyline they could’ve chosen going forward. Do we expect Uso to win, of course not. But having Reigns bad mouth his cousin and then ultimately beat him up at Clash of Champions is pure evil and will add to his badass appeal. Plus, the main event was on point giving me everything I could ask from from Uso, Matt Riddle, Sheamus and King Corbin. Good work all around.

OH MY GOD!! #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/BKAoBUvY9P

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) September 5, 2020

Bayley’s breakup – Want more can we say about this one. We knew it was coming, for months, and yet it was still OMG shocking! The way it played out with Sasha Banks having a knee injury and Bayley seemingly there for her BFF and then beating the holy hell out of her is something we thought Banks could do, but not Bayley. Well played Hugger! Now we can look forward to them beating each other’s brains out for months ahead and that’s good for us!

#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/x664UVUPIB

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Who’s that girl – It was only a few seconds but we are intrigued who that leggy, fur-wearing WWE Superstar is. Effective tease to say the least.

Funny:

Otis & John Morrison – Having Morrison steal the money in the bank briefcase had some intrigue and then having Otis hand him his lunch, literally, in that briefcase was laugh out loud funny. Otis is just lovable and plays it well.

Sami Zayn – The dude is just plain gold on the mic. Love him in the middle of this Intercontinental Title feud with Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles!

OUCH:

Wow. @WWEBigE just felt the power of The #CelticWarrior @WWESheamus. #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/ryEcj7OYVX

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Poor Big E – I would love to know how much money a year WWE spends on damaged cars! This time, Big E is the latest victim after a White Noise from Sheamus leaves him hospital-bound and out of the #1 Contender’s Match. There will be a New Day of Vengeance ahead for Sheamus I’m sure whether it be from Big E or the returning Xavier Woods.

Parting shots:

If you haven’t watch 205 LIVE, give it a chance. This week’s episode had some quality in-ring performances from Daviri & Mansoor and was climaxed by a Legado del Fantasma attack on Ever-Rise and Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. Whether it be on 205 LIVE or NXT, simply loving the old school feel of Legado del Fantasma, led by Cruiserweight Champion Santos Escobar. They’re getting it done in and out of the ring these days.

Coming up this week:

RAW: Drew McIntyre’s response to Randy Orton

.@FinnBalor and @AdamColePro are on a collision course for the #NXTTitle after a dead heat conclusion to an unforgettable Iron Man Match on #WWENXT. #NXTSuperTuesday Full results

https://t.co/3pjqYFs1Qf pic.twitter.com/5OY1Ifu06t

— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) September 2, 2020

NXT: Super Tuesday II NXT Championship Match: Adam Cole vs. Finn Balor Steel Cage Battle of the Badasses Match: Rhea Ripley vs. Mercedes Martinez

SMACKDOWN: TBD

Thanks for letting us share our thoughts! Shoot me an email at jcrowe567@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions! You can also check out my blog, The Crowe’s Nest as we delve into more pro wrestling, sports entertainment and the World of Sports. My apologies ahead of time – I AM a Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins fan! If you’re not down with that, I’ve got TWO WORDS for you… NEW ENGLAND

[pkgam]

Wait a sec.... I just thought of something... But first, let me give you the rundown of that article as it’s something people are freaking out over and I haven’t covered yet, lol!

So basically they have raised the threshold from needing 10,000 lifetime views to become partnered up to needing 4,000 hours of watch time/year and 1,000 subscribers. This is supposedly to sift out “bad actors” and whatnot because of the supposed “adpocalypse”. You know, when people would upload videos with extremist views or dangerous/abusive things and monetize them instantly or near instantly. That all sounds well and good, but it goes without saying that it’ll also demonetize those who are good people but are just starting out. So to those who would like a few extra bucks to upgrade equipment are being shut out. Also, If Youtube was ran more with people and less through algorithms, they wouldn’t have a chance of even getting a payout. Their adsense or whatnot would get blocked after a human checks over a reported video and they would be banned. So it seems more like a cop out just to not hire people to look over videos and stick to algorithms guessing.

“Supposedly” 99% of those affected are making less than $100/year though. So since no one gets a payment unless they reach $100, they were getting paid less than once a year, if that as some never got a payment. I have no way to verify the actual percentage for myself of course other than just by what they are saying by their article. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true though because even surpassing the 10k view threshold from before wasn’t enough to net very much. So realistically it’s like having money dangled in front of your face that you can’t get or may never get to begin with just accumulating in Adsense purgatory for millions of channels. Not that money should be what drives you to make videos to begin with of course. Just’ that when a channel suddenly gets future earnings taken away and are issued a check for maybe $20 after a year as a end-partnership payment, it sure feels like getting the shaft even if But the bottom line is that they want to supposedly “protect the ecosystem” doing this to ensure people’s revenue is more stable. From what I figure (because it’s impossible to find information on the inner workings of adsense as they are as transparent as a rock), there are two ways to increase partner revenue: distribute ads (thus revenue) to less people so they have more to give to those who are monetized or to get advertisers to pay more. The latter isn’t likely to happen because Youtube is trying to butter up advertisers to stay, making them pay more won’t help. :P

Oddly this is happening during the Logan Paul dead body issue among other “top” Youtubers with their own issues. So since there will be less ad revenue to give to smaller channels, it of course will be aggregated to larger channels. Not really much of a punishment. But you can’t really expect Youtube to punish those with total demonetization as they love money. So the only thing they have been doing to them is removing them from the “Google Preferred” ad program. :P So instead of advertisers buying special ad packages with them in it, they are booted out to get less revenue as punishment.... only for it to likely be boosted back up now by the demonetization of smaller channels. Pretty dumb right? I mean where’s the “punishment”? That they are making less than they would have made if they were good boys and girls? Not likely considering that creating sensationalist drama and/or clickbait off of trends rules Youtube and thus they wouldn’t have gotten to that “level” without it to begin with. Thus making Youtube bite it’s own tail. It supposedly wants creators to be nice to please advertisers, but created a system where breaking said rules makes you thrive. It also ends up discouraging new people from posting their videos to the platform to potentially replace said rule breakers at the top over time because they “feel” that if they can’t monetize or that the threshold keeps moving farther away (despite what I explained about about the realism of adsense. :P), it seems unobtainable if the goal moves away faster than your channel can grow towards it. I mean surely none of those “top” channels will be banned or demonetized no matter what they do as long as they rake in the dough for them. But a smaller channel? Always at risk. :P So there’s no real rotation.

All this being said, it’s about time I get to the thing I thought of above because the previous stuff led up to it. Is it possible that the majority of channels being monetized are actually COSTING Youtube more money than if they stayed demonetized? How you may ask? Because in order for Youtube to entice people to use the platform with money, they likely need to pay out so-and-so much even at the lowest tier of partnership earnings so people don’t lose interest. Like, could you imagine starting up a channel looking to get a bit of extra income and finding out that you are getting $0.001 per ad view or something? 100k ad views for $100 seems unreachable, lol! But if you bump that up to, say... $0.01/ad view, 10k views for $100 seems doable. Plus that it’s likely advertisers are finding less value in smaller channels because of that whole tier thing between supposed “TrueView Ads” (I really don’t know how a system can determine interest without actually asking you or the person buying something linked from such ad, lol!) and the aforementioned “Google Preferred”.

So it’s quite possible (and even likely) that they are paying out more than they get for an advertiser to show their ad on a video at a channel they deem less important due to lower traffic because it’s spread so thinly. After all, with the split supposedly being 60% to the creator and 40% to Youtube, Youtube’s “actual” cut has a very high chance of being lower than the advertiser’s price for showing ads at said tier. Remember here that despite how big some companies are, they don’t have the money to pay billions for advertising. Which would easily be the case if they evenly paid just a penny per ad impression all across the board for it to be split 60/40 as Youtube videos gets billions of views daily. Given that Youtube still hasn’t made a profit, that may be part of why they want to cut certain channels from the payroll on top of desperately trying to please advertisers because monetizing everything they could still wasn’t cutting it. Discouraging people from posting through demonetization reduces content uploaded too.

If so, then perhaps if people want to stick it to Youtube, it’s actually best TO monetize to cost them more money than if you didn’t monetize! XD But I’m not positive about this as it’s just stuff I have been thinking about as to why they might have made this change from a Youtube-business perspective (Really they bleed money either way, it’s just a matter of figuring what makes them bleed the “most” money if you want to stick it to them more than they stick it to themselves.). Plus explain why the 99+% getting less than $100/year shouldn’t fret such a small loss, if any actual loss. Some people think that the loss of some partner features will impact their creativity though, but it seems like they are only going to cut back on less important stuff to a video like clickable linking to your own website on a video in a end screen or card. Not stuff like video time restrictions which they reserve for the people who get strikes and video blocks or whatnot. So the creative freedom to a video still will exist in the same manner.

The threshold to become a partner will likely probably fluctuate back and forth as they calculate more things. Like when the Youtube Partnership program opened many years ago, the threshold was ridiculously high and they were paranoid about gameplay videos being in it due to the gray area at the time, so it’s still vastly easier to get in it now than back then. But eventually the doors kept getting wider and wider until it reached a point everyone could monetize, now they are narrowing again. I guess in a way that discouragement of people who want to make a few bucks will only sift through them and the people who enjoy making videos the most will stay. Maybe. Hard to say as it’s possible that a “bad actor” or whatnot will be a “good actor” until they can monetize. Then start creating the aforementioned sensationalist drama to grow faster.

Your thoughts? Thanks for reading and have a good one!