#road hog kin

[thefoulbeast]

stalker au stakh lore pt1 a.k.a. stakh turning away from the group and leaving them to continue to the center of the zone by themselves (stakh's nickname is mule in this)

words: 1052 warnings: n/a

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pt2

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It is the fourth day of their trip, and Mule is having second-thoughts. He’s never been this far into the Zone, and he knows the others haven’t either. They’ve been wandering almost blindly – only the outdated maps of the time before the Zone leading them along the old, abandoned roads and the endless expanse of the steppe with its sparse shrubbery and the smell of the blooming flora.

It is beautiful, the way fire is – with an edge of danger, a knowledge that at any moment they could fall into a new kind of trap that lies in the Zone’s bowels. At the very least ��� they’re past bandit territory. But this deep there is no knowing how the local fauna will react. Or how much of it there will be. They’ve passed foxes and lone dogs; they’ve passed strange and colourful birds. They’ve spotted something large and mobile on the edge of the horizon, head raised in the air as if scenting it.

Dirt, the unofficial leader of their little band of stalkers, has taken point on the expedition. He sets a strong and steady pace, the others following in his footsteps, single file. The second in their queue is Maggot, the designated scout of the group. Then follow Hog, Bottles, Sinbad and Crow, with Mule bringing up the rear, trailing ever so slightly behind.

He doesn’t like this.

For all the jobs their gang has taken, this is by far the most ambitious. It goes against everything he ever learned with old man Isidor ‘Menkhu’ Burakh, and his instincts scream at him. Wandering this far into the Terra Incognita is a death wish unless a Stalker has a good sense about him. And Dirt’s sense is fine, don’t get Mule wrong, but…

But Mule’s is better – he’ll say as much aloud to anyone who asks, even Dirt himself, as much as that might bruise the other’s ego.

And each step he takes feels like walking on nails. Once already Dirt has led them through a path between two hills, leaving them covered in both directions and caught in a ravine, in a move that Mule had vocally protested against. And still – they are pushing forward to the heart of the Zone, hour by hour, covering ground left untread for years since the older generation of Stalkers started dying out. And back in the golden days too, only the stupid and the most apt of Stalkers had wandered out this far.

Mule wonders now – what does that make them? Under the balaclava, he’s been worrying at his lip for the better part of the hour. Words are bubbling in his chest, aching to be said.

‘This is foolish,’ he thinks, ‘We’ll get killed, no doubt. No one knows what’s fucking out here.’ There are tales of the middle of the Zone. Theories and facts and gossip – and God be willing, one can tell that the three apart. Menkhu used to talk about his exploits, back when Mule was younger. Great and colourful tales they were, about monsters and sand-pits and buildings made of liquid crystal.

They’d gotten sparser the older Mule got, and by the time him and Artemy had been ready to go on their first trips into the Zone, they’d died out, replaced instead with reminders of cautiousness and respect for the Zone. He’d taught them how to spot anomalies – bug traps and spring traps, vortexes and electros – in the way the air shimmers. He’d taught them to make bone charms from the bones of cattle slain and quartered by the Kin. He’d…

Mule pauses in his steps and feels for the bolts in his pocket. A shiver runs through him – a sense of warning, a lurch in his heart.

A few strides off, Crow turns his head backwards, “Why’d you stop?” His words alert the others, and the whole group comes to a stop. Dirt turns around with his hands braced on his hips impatiently. His weathered face is pinched, ruddy from the walking and the blazing sunlight. His cheeks are mottled with dust wettened by his own sweat.

“Something’s off,” Mule says, “The path we’re taking. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Not this shit again!” Dirt barks with a disbelieving laugh, “Stop being such a spineless bitch, Mule.”

“Have I ever been wrong about these things?” Mule asks, voice tight with frustration.

“There’s a first time for everything. You’re just scared because of the depth, admit it,” Dirt scoffs, “You’re always scared the deeper we go. Well – I am yet to lose a man, good sir, so I’d say I know well what I’m doing.”

“I am wary with good reason; I must remind you. We don’t know what’s out here, Dirt!” Mule reasons, just barely raising his voice, “Even you haven’t been out this far! There could be anomalies we’ve never seen, or mutants – like the thing from before. Have you ever seen anything like it before? Are you really prepared to face it?”

A hush settles over the group. All the stalkers look about warily at each other, obviously thinking. Dirt turns cold, “I am prepared for everything, Mule. You’re the one who isn’t, it seems. It’s not too late, then – turn tail and run while you can.”

A standoff ensues. Mule and Dirt stare each other down from across the group. Self-assuredness versus wariness – who would be the first to fold?

Mule blinks and turns away, “Fine.” His face is red with anger under the balaclava, but there is a confidence to the tilt of his shoulders. “I’ll go back – I’m not dying out here. And if any of you are smart, you’ll turn around too. This whole raid was born under a bad mark.”

“Don’t you curse on me, Bitch,” Dirt spits, “Just because you aren’t man enough to take it.”

Mule’s eye twitches as he regards Dirt one last time. “I’ll see you back at the Broken Heart,” he says, and turns around to go.

Though some feet twitch, no one goes to follow him, at least not with anything more than their eyes.

“The fucker’ll be dead before he makes it back alone,” Bottles mutters into the tense quiet, “and he calls us crazy.”

“Whatever,” Dirt grumbles, obviously greatly chagrined by the loss of a member, “On me, lads, let’s keep it going.”

[kin-mood]

Roadrat aesthetic

[fandomlurker]

A Ponderous Rewatch: Opportunity Knox and Cameo

We’re treated to something a bit special this episode! No, not the art and animation quality, as that’s…kinda weak this time. Or maybe I should say Brain is drawn and animated kinda nightmarishly in a lot of parts? Well, you’ll see.

No, the special thing about this episode is that it’s written by Tom Minton, the writer at Warner Brothers who was the original inspiration for The Brain! The general idea for Pinky and the Brain as characters and as a show came from Tom Ruegger having an office close by to Tom Minton and Eddie Fitzgerald, two writers and storyboard artists who he would often hear laughing and joking around together but usually couldn’t make out what exactly they were saying. Minton usually spoke low and quietly and was more introverted, while Fitzgerald was much more outgoing and loud…basically already like a cartoon come to life (Eddie actually did exclaim things like ‘Narf’ occasionally in reality, which was an aspect that was added to and exaggerated in Pinky’s character). The fact that these two guys who were viewed as total opposites by their colleagues were good friends and spent so much time working together in secret lead to everyone joking that they were secretly trying to take over the world.

That isn’t to say that Pinky and Brain are 100% cartoon copies of Eddie and Tom—our mouse duo definitely veered off into their own distinct personalities very quickly—but the basic bones of their characters came from these two real life men. That makes me wonder about how surreal it must have been for Tom Minton to write for episodes starring Pinky and the Brain. He only did so four times in Animaniacs (and Eddie Fitzgerald never directly worked on Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain, to my knowledge).

In any case, let’s move on to the actual episode.

We open to a multitude of bubbling beakers of mysterious liquids and one scientist working alone at night in the Acme Labs. She sneezes a few times, and then exclaims that she’s only a few steps away from curing the common cold.

…Man, Acme Labs is a total shitshow when it comes to their work, aren’t they? In addition to all the blatantly cruel experiments on animals that they do, just look at how lax this scientist is about lab safety. I’ll give her props for at least wearing her lab coat properly and tying her long hair up, which is something most media usually gets wrong. The fact that she’s doing this medical experiment while not wearing gloves or proper eye protection or a mask is very troubling. Not to mention that she’s doing all this while being very sick, if her violent sneezes are anything to go by.

Hmm, that cage is looking suspiciously empty.

Well, well! Looks like our mousey duo is up to something.

“Ahehehehe, oh this is gonna be great, Brain! Narf!”

“Quiet, Pinky!”

OH LORD, SHE JUST CHUGS IT HERSELF! Lady, PLEASE! The fact that this “cure” is piss-coloured only makes it worse.

Sweetie, I think this needs more peer-reviewed, double-blind tests before you can truthfully say that you’ve made a cure for the common cold. You have no proper safety gear on and you’re doing this experiment all alone at night with no one to check up on you.

Oh no. Boys, what are you doing?

So they catapult some powdery substance on her and she goes into a more violent sneezing fit than before. She leaves the room to go “back to the drawing board”, but honestly I’m hoping that she just goes home and isolates herself for a while.

“Success, Pinky!”

“Egad, Brain, what is this stuff?!”

“A new strain of pollen I created myself, Pinky. It causes a temporary but uncontrollable fit of allergic sneezing in man.”

Pinky looks very disturbed by this (although I suppose it doesn’t help that Brain has that very smug and devious look on his face) until Brain says that the effect is temporary. It’s a nice little detail that shows us approximately where Pinky’s lines of morality are. Brain makes his own strain of pollen to cause humans to have severe sneezing fits? That’s amazing but horrifying! Oh, it’s only temporary? Well okay, then. It’s fine if it doesn’t cause any lasting harm.

“No human is immune.”

AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Holy fuck, show, don’t give me a jumpscare like that!

“Do you realize what we will do with this pollen, Pinky?”

“Umm… Open a boutique?”

GAH! I told you to stop doing that! Seriously, what’s up with the way Brain’s draw in this episode?

“Yes, that’s it. We’ll open a boutique and sell ladies’ clothing and pollen.”

“Egad, Brain, what fun! I like this idea, I do! Hehehahahaha!~”

Of course he would. Of course he’d like working in a more domestic setting and selling ladies’ clothing.

…Say, now that I think of it, I think this might be the first time we get a hint as to Pinky’s love of what’s stereotypically thought of as women’s clothing. Hmm.

BONK!

“Focus, Pinky, FOCUS!”

Brain, sweetie, not everyone goes into tunnel-visioned hyperfocus like you do.

“We shall do no less than go to Fort Knox, Kentucky: keeper of the nation’s gold supply. There, we will expose the guards to our pollen…”

Despite the general awkwardness of the animation this episode, I like the way Brain is drawn here from over the shoulder. Very nice work.

Also…”our” pollen? Brain, you made that yourself. I guess this is just another example of Brain subconsciously including Pinky in everything.

“…and while they’re sneezing uncontrollably, we’ll move into the vault and take the gold!”

Brain’s plan blueprints are such a treat. Gold! Gold! Gold!

“For he who controls this nation’s capital, controls the nation!”

Okay, this close-up is a little better.

“Off to Fort Knox!”

“Oh! Wait! But isn’t the nation’s capital in Washington, DC?”

BONK!

“Capital as in money, Pinky!”

Oh come on now, Brain. It was an easy mistake to make. Also “capital” in this instance can mean more than money if you want to get semantic about it.

Brain grabs Pinky’s tail to drag him away again. It’s a wonder that Pinky’s tail isn’t as kinked up and injured as Brain’s is by now.

Ooo, improvised tools time!

“But how are we gonna get to Fort Knox, Brain?”

“We’ll simply borrow one of the lab’s technological resources:”

“The minivan!”

Pinky, are you mildly swooning over Brain acquiring a minivan? I…

This does bring up a point I wanted to make, though. Sometimes fans will question why Pinky and Brain stay at Acme Labs despite being put through so much inhumane and humiliating bullshit. While it’s true that Brain doesn’t much like the experiments he’s subjected to (Pinky is…another story entirely), I’m pretty sure he keeps the labs as his home because it’s incredibly convenient for his world domination plans. These are ACME labs, after all, and regardless of how terrible the experiments are, Acme has access to just about every bit of technology in the Warner Brothers cartoon universe. Brain can find or order whatever parts he needs for his latest world domination plan whenever he wants, and no human bats an eye at mysterious bits and bobs showing up because, well, it’s Acme. Acme is in the business of doing absolutely everything. No matter what daytime tortures Brain goes through, the lab is an incredible asset to him, and he’d be foolish to give that up.

Hello again, Warner siblings! I hope you’re having fun tonight.

That’s an awfully tiny sack of pollen to take for this trip…

“Won’t we get in trouble, Brain?”

“’Get in trouble’? Pinky, we’re going to take over the world!”

I just like the tiny silhouettes in this screencap.

“Besides, we’ll have the van back here by 8 am.”

“Oh! All right, then!”

[Quickly googles how long it would take to drive from Burbank California to Fort Knox]

…Are you sure about that, Brain? Are you really, positively sure?

Oh my goodness, a little winch and pulley system! That’s a little convoluted, but it’s adorable.

“Oi! Nice threads, Brain! But, err, why the disguise?”

“If we are to succeed in our mission, I must pass for an average, non-descript motorist, Pinky.”

I agree, Pinky. Brain always looks good in a suit.

Also he’s on a literal soap box, holy shit.

“So while we’re driving, call me Mr. Perkins.”

A trillby?!? Put it back! Putitbackputitbackputitback!

“Say no more! Brilliant, Brain!”

“Mr. Perkins.”

Oh no, he’s threatening to punch the audience now!

“Ooo, right, right. Narf! Heh, Mr. Per-kins.~”

“Pinky, start your engine!”

So Pinky tugs on a rope tied to the car keys to start the minivan, and I bet we can all already tell that he’s going to be doing most of the hard work for this roadtrip.

“Now depress the brake!”

I half expected a joke here where Pinky would say depressing things to the brake, but that didn’t happen. It’s just as well, I suppose. Pinky’s not usually the type to be mean to anyone or anything.

Instead, he pushes himself into the brake.

This made me curious about how strong real mice are. According to this scientific article, the average mouse can lift approximately 70 g in weight.That’s not a lot compared to us humans, of course, but seeing as the average weight of the common house mouse is 19 g (and common wood mice are on average 23 g), that’s really impressive! Still, for Pinky to be able to depress the brake is quite a feat that’s worlds beyond what the average real-life mouse can do.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s all cartoon logic and physics. That’s not going to stop me from having the headcanon that Pinky and the Brain have both been modified so much by Acme Labs that in addition to becoming sapient and intelligent, they’re basically little mouse superheroes in strength, too.

“Yes! Now I’ll shift the transmission into gear and…you give it the gas!”

Man, Pinky just slams his entire body onto the gas pedal with all his mousey might! You can hear him physically strain against it. Well done, Mr. Paulsen!

“Now Pinky, let us, in the vernacular, ‘take this hog out on the road and see who’s boss’!”

Oh lord, Brain’s on a slight power trip just from being able to drive a vehicle. If he ever does rule over the world one day, I fear he may explode from the sheer ego-high of it.

Anyway, on the way to Fort Knox they get stuck behind a rather slow transport truck. Well, Brain can’t have that! He’s got to get back to the lab by 8 am after all!

“Pinky! Prepare to pass a slow-moving vehicle!”

“Righty-o, Brain!”

Again, Pinky, I’m pretty sure you really aren’t supposed to stick your ass and chest out while saluting. You’re supposed to keep your posture straight.

…What am I saying? Pinky can’t do anything straight.

“Call me Mr. Perkins! Activate left turn indicator now.”

Aww, a little hop!~

Unfortunately it’s the wrong lever.

“…Let’s try that again, Pinky.”

“Narf! Wrong switch.”

He sits down to think and of course he gets it right that way.

Anyone else enjoying a lesson on how to drive from Pinky and the Brain? No? Just me? I mean, I already know how, but this is super cute.

“Exemplary work, Pinky!”

Brain, he just…he just pulled a switch. By accident. The fact that he’s so sincere about complimenting him for this is very cute but also very odd. I guess Brain’s in a good mood tonight.

“But we’re slowing down. Quickly, step on the gas!”

“Gas, check!”

Pinky, no!

Oh lord, he just lets himself fall directly on the gas pedal. You okay there, dude?

“Maintain pedal pressure, Pinky!”

I don’t think he has much of a choice, Brain.

So they get beside the freight truck and the driver of it picks up his CB radio mic.

“Hey, breaker breaker one nine, this here’s Big Red. Eh…what’s your handle, good buddy? Over.”

“The name’s Perkins. MISTER Perkins. Just an average, non-descript motorist.”

Wh—Why is there a CB radio installed in the Acme Lab minivan?

Pinky chooses this moment to lift himself off the gas pedal and then jump back on it in a weirdly showy, semi-acrobatic way. The first screencap has the tip of his tail almost in the shape of a heart, so I had to include it.

Our duo pass by the freight truck. Needless to say, the truck driver is still pretty rattled by his run-in with “Mr. Perkins”.

“I gotta quit eatin’ them double onion chili dogs!…”

Usually people just run with it on this show, but this is one of those rare moments where a human being doesn’t inexplicably fall for one of Brain’s horrible human disguises.

The minivan’s grill looks like teeth here and it’s almost menacing.

Uh oh, Brain’s getting dozy.

“Pinky…I’m in need of some music to keep myself raptly alert. And use the cruise control this time so we don’t lose speed!”

I don’t know why I’m so charmed by Pinky pressing the cruise control button like this, but it’s very cute.

“Cruise control on, Br—aaaerr—umm, Mr. Perkins!”

He is trying his best. :3c

“[yawn] Stellar, Pinky. Now see if you can locate a local radio station frequency.”

“Narf! Wrong knob…”

Smacking the hell out of the right knob make the radio explode into a loud yet incredibly mild generic rock tune. I’m surprised Pinky’s so alarmed. I wonder if Brain—

JEEZUS FUCK! You gotta stop giving me a heart attack with these sudden messed up close-ups of Brain, episode!

“Turn off the radio, Pinky!”

“Heeey! This knob’s loose!”

Aaaand there he goes.

“Oohoo ahaha! What’d’ya know? The lighter works!”

I wonder if Pinky knows what that’s actually for at this point, considering his utter disdain for smoking later in the spin-off?

“The radio, Pinky!”

“Ooo, right. Almost forgot!”

Uh oh.

“Whew. Suddenly I feel downright feverish, I do…”

Pinky has become a Charmander, and he’s not happy about it.

So he’s screaming and shouting his verbal tics all over the place and what’s Brain’s reaction?

“There’s no need for you to entertain me personally, Pinky. I’m quite awake now.”

BRAIN! You wipe that smug smile off your face right now, you little jerk! I know Pinky will be okay because he always is, but still.

One screen wipe later…

“Kentucky, Pinky! We made it!”

“All right, Brain!”

“Mister PERKINS!”

Brain, I think Pinky’s just not into this roleplay tonight. Or it might be your trillby. Lose the damn trillby.

“Fort Knox is mere miles away. Nothing can stop us now!”

Well, looks like you jinxed yourself.

I’ve got no love for cops, but his “what the fuck” expression here is choice.

“Good evening, officer. Was I exceeding the speed limit?”

“By about a hundred miles an hour.”

Oh, is that all? They’d need to be over by, like, a thousand or so miles an hour to make as good of a time as they did getting here.

Maybe this guy is going to arrest them for breaking the laws of time and space.

“I’m sorry, y’see—“

Shining a flashlight directly into your eyes? Yup, this is definitely a cop.

“I’m Mr. Perkins, an average, non-descript—“

“Can I see your license and registration, please?”

And then Pinky immediately interrupts the shakedown with a happy, matter-of-fact “We don’t have any! Zort! :D” and now my mind wanders off into let’s-overanalyze-the-shit-out-of-this-joke-scene territory because… Look at this. A cop pulls over a vehicle from Acme Labs doing about a hundred miles over the speed limit and finds Brain, a mouse in a suit trying to pass as a human driver. Then Pinky, who is dressed in no such disguise because why would Brain ever think of an obviously important detail ever in one of his plans, pops up to say that they don’t have a driver’s license.

…So what does this scene look like at this point from the cop’s perspective? Besides the very rare outlier like the truck driver from before, humans usually take Brain’s word for it that he’s also human, no matter how shoddy his disguise is. There are a few possibilities here, and I honestly can’t decide which is funniest:

1.      The cop can see through Brain’s poor disguise just like the truck driver from earlier can, and knows that these are actually two mice that have stolen a truck and have been speeding down the highway with it.

2.      The cop thinks Brain is a very odd-looking human without a driver’s license who’s been driving down the highway at insane speeds with his loose pet talking mouse by his side.

3.      The cop believes that Brain really is an odd-looking human who has no license and has been wildly speeding down the highway and also there’s an equally odd-looking human man with him who is stark naked for some mysterious reason.

I’ll let you decide which one is the most likely canon scenario as we continue as Brain tries to clear up this scenario.

“If you must know, we are two lab mice out to control the world by seizing its gold assets. But when we assume power, rest assured our budget will result in substantial new funding for law enforcement.”

…

Leave it to Brain to truthfully spell out his global domination intentions for no good reason and then lie his little mousey ass off to try and bribe his way out of going to jail.

Also, again, it’s “when we assume power” and not “when I assume power”. Hmm.

“…Oh.”

“Bwuhyuube… Be--best be on your way, then.”

“Thank you, officer.”

I’d say I was surprised that white privilege extends even to white lab mice here but…that would be a lie.

“Oh man, I do miss them witless teenage speed demons…”

So they finally make it to Fort Knox.

…And I guess the Warner siblings do, too!

The two mice have parked on a hill overlooking their target and gosh Brain, you’re looking extra pudgy here.

“It’s time to make our move, Pinky.”

Judging by the look on his face here, I think Pinky just noticed how thicc Brain’s behind has suddenly gotten.

Nevertheless, they begin their pollen assault on the guards.

Finally, the moment has arrived!

Brain’s head is shaped like a football and is almost as wide as Pinky is tall here, but besides that this is a cool shot.

This bit was also used in the spin-off’s theme for some reason, but now it will forever remind me of the absolute chaotic laughter that erupted when I got some friends to sit down and watch an episode of PatB. The stream decided to stop on this specific shot for buffering and they all just lost it. Most of the reaction was through voice on Discord, but luckily there were some friends using text chat too:

I live for moments like these when we’re streaming shows and movies.

“Egad! This is even better than a Ducktales episode, Brain!”

That’s pretty high praise, Pinky. I love the shadowing done on him here as well.

“Pinky… Are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

“Wha—I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career? Oof, it’s all too much for me!”

Pinky did…did you see all this gold and immediately begin envisioning yourself using the money to settle down and start a family?!? And so far in this series you aren’t dating anyone and you probably don’t even know anyone besides Brain and…

Okay, listen, I know it’s established later on that Pinky has wishes and daydreams about having a very domestic life, culminating in that one “Somewhere That’s Green” parody fantasy where he and Brain live together like a 50s couple in the Elmyra spin-off but… But…!

Well, you’ll kind of get a family along with your world domination “career” in a few years, Pinky. It’s probably not going to be quite how you envisioned it, though.

“The gold, Pinky! It’s all ours. Let’s move it out!”

Umm…

“One…two…three…and lift!”

I just realized that out of context the poses and faces in this screencap could look, uhh, questionable. But will that stop me from sharing it? No.

“I believe my plan has a…fatal flaw…”

About 27.4 pounds worth of a fatal flaw. You two might have super strength in comparison to other mice, but it looks like you both have a hard limit.

“I am in intense pain, Pinky.”

“Ditto, Brain. Zort!”

Well, okay, I guess it’s good that you are both cartoons, then. You boys should be able to shrug this off pretty quickly, especially Pinky.

OH GOD!

Is this what all those nightmarish close-ups of Brain were preparing me for?!?

“Fear not, Pinky, for the unwieldy atomic weight of gold will not thwart us tomorrow night.”

“Why? What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?”

“The same thing we do every night, Pinky… Try to take over the world!”

You know, most cartoons would settle for them just being covered in bandages. Not Animaniacs, though. In Animaniacs were have to know that their removal from under the gold bar was so difficult and painful that fur was pulled out and they were left with bare, raw patches of skin. T-thanks, Warner Brothers?

Let’s end with a somewhat longer cameo appearance, as I suspect at this point Tumblr will have another fit if I try to combine two full episodes again.

The very next episode of Animaniacs has a skit called Hercule Yakko, which is a vague parody of Hercule Poirot mysteries. We get a good handful of cameos from the stars of other Animaniacs skits as passengers on a luxury cruise boat on the Nile.

The basic premise is that the Marita, one of the Hip Hippos, awakens in the middle of the night to find her comically large diamond necklace missing. The Warner siblings are a detective team who happen to also be onboard the ship and offer to help the hippo couple find it.

Before you ask, yes, this is the same episode as the infamous “fingerprints” joke.

Eventually the Warner siblings begin to go around knocking on the doors of the other passengers’ rooms to ask questions. They come across Slappy Squirrel first, who knows nothing about the missing diamond and just wants to be left alone to sleep. Then they meet Minerva Mink and, well, you can guess how that went. Then Yakko knocks on the last door.

“YES?”

Smol.

Look at them in their matching lederhosen! That’s absolutely adorable. Bravo to whichever of the mice had the idea for these “disguises”.

“Did you steal a big diamond?”

“No. We are Swiss hikers on holiday.”

Okay so maybe I’ll deduct a few points for wearing lederhosen, which is more associated with Bavaria and Germany, but claiming to be Swiss. Not that people in Switzerland didn’t also wear it, but you’d probably want to make your cover story as unsuspicious as possible, right? And that’s not even going into the idea of wearing a garment made from leather in hot, hot Egypt. These mice must be drenched in sweat…

“Look at me, Brain! I’m Heidi! Yodelehe-NARF!~”

Well at least someone in this duo is trying his best to reference things from Switzerland.

…Brain is the one that fucked up the lederhosen cultural background thing, isn’t he? Goddammit, Brain.

He just bonks the hell outta Pinky and silently slams the door in Yakko’s face.

After briefly talking with Marita, Yakko exclaims that he knows where the diamond is and asks that everyone assemble together in the state room. And so they do!

Aww, they’re sharing a chair because they are so, so tiny. :3c

“You’re probably all wondering why I called you here!”

“To reveal the thief?!?” says everyone in unison.

Minerva, you’re looking kind of weird in that second pic.

“No. It’s because you can’t play charades with three people.”

“That’s it! I’m goin’ back to bed.”

“So am I. I didn’t take the diamond!”

Man, Minerva really got a raw deal in the 90s. She only has two episode skits of her own and makes a few tiny cameos elsewhere, like in this one. I get that she was put on the back-burner as a character because her skits were considered “too suggestive”—and to be honest they were a bit over the top—but there are certainly ways that you can write a character who uses their sex appeal for comedic effect without it being disrespectful. It’s a shame they never tried to tweak the tone of her episodes just a tad.

But anyway, mice!

Brain is looking at Minerva with…worry? Concern? Confusion? Which is a very atypical reaction to Minerva. Gee, I wonder why.

Pinky is Looking Respectfully.

I’m never going to get over how cute they look in these outfits.

“I also am innocent.”

“Umm… I may have done it! I walk in my sleep, you know.”

Pinky, sweetie, I know you’re trying in your own odd little way to help but there’s no way you’d be able to carry a diamond of that size.

BONK!

This is the very last clear shot that the mice are in and it’s not very significant but I liked the angle of it.

Oh, you’re asking who took the diamond? No one did. The diamond was lodged in Marita’s butt fat the entire time. It’s the typical style of “humour” from skits with the Hip Hippos. Now you all know why no one is clamouring for their return in the reboot.

That’s it for this post, though. I should have the next episode that I promised would go with this one up in a day or two.

See you next time, folks, when we go off to the races!

[nevermorered]

could you do #4 for sansan please? thank you, love your writing 💕

#4. Accidental love confession. (Thank you so much!)

Pairing: SanSan

Sansa didn’t know why Sandor was so mad at her. It wasn’t like she’d gotten up that morning with the plan of getting in a car accident on the way to work. It wasn’t her idea to get taken to a hospital by ambulance and spend hours in the ER getting scans and stitches in her forehead. It wasn’t on purpose. That’s why it was called an accident. 

Honestly, she hadn’t even meant for Sandor to be the one to be called. Jon and Arya were her next of kin and they should have been the ones called first. Sandor was just a friend, but he also happened to work on another ambulance as a paramedic and someone had called him. Since Arya was on a cruise with Gendry and Jon was on a ‘disconnected’ week out in the woods with Tormund, Sandor had been the only one to show up. At first, she was touched, but she quickly realized that he was angry with her. Which made no sense at all, if you asked her.

“Thank you for driving me home.” She offered into the tense silence as Sandor pulled up into her driveway. Sandor took a deep breath through his nose, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. He still didn’t say anything. Sansa sighed. Her head hurt too bad for this and she just wanted to take a nap.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re so angry with me.” She said gently. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Of course not.” He snapped, eyes cutting to her in a glare. “Of course, you didn’t mean for it to happen. You never mean for anything bad to happen. You’re too damn nice and perfect for that shit. But for some fucking reason bad things follow you around like stink on a hog and I have to put up with it. Honestly, girl, I think sometimes you’re just trying to kill me. I love you so damn much but you just go off every day with this shit storm of a world around you acting like it’s all daisies.” He yelled at her, then took a deep breath to continue.

“It’s not, Sansa. It’s not the picture-perfect world you think it is. It’s dangerous and horrible and you…you are one of the only good things in it. You’ve got to be more fucking careful, you hear me? You’ve got to take care of yourself and try not to get yourself killed. That means paying attention when you’re driving to the other shitty drivers on the road.”

Sansa sat in stunned silence as he finished his tirade. It seemed to release all that angry tension he’d been holding himself with and now he slumped in the driver’s seat, breathing a little hard, and staring out the front window. Sansa opened her mouth to say something but it took awhile for anything to come out.

“You love me?” is what she finally whispered and Sandor’s head jerked in her direction, eyes open wide in surprise. Then it seemed to dawn on him that he had indeed said that during his rant and he blinked a few times before settling his face into that hardened mask of his.

“This is what I’m talking about.” He said grumpily. “I yell at you and berate you for a whole two minutes after you’ve just had a near death experience and you pick out the one nice thing I said to focus on.”

Sansa smiled. “Two.”

“What?”

“Two.” She repeated. “You said two nice things. You also said I was one of the only good things in this world.”

For a second, Sandor just stared at her, then he sighed heavily. “Yeah, well…yeah. I do, and you are. But that really wasn’t the point of what I was saying.”

Sansa laughed softly, careful of her pounding head. “I know.” She leaned over the console and pecked a kiss to his burned cheek. “But it was the only part that matters to me.”

[glowstickhaloboy]

i’ve committed to my format with raphael!crowley and i’ll die with it, too. AND IM SORRY ITS SO LONG.

(also the show uses he/him pronouns for michael, i believe, and i’ve chosen to do so as well bc i think its neat)

((ALSO, if you have no idea what the context is for this post, its a semi-continuation of this series))

sometimes, there is a gap. gabriel will turn to express a half-thought, and find himself wondering who he meant to speak with. there’s no one there.

three facts have remained for six thousand years: the first maintains that a brother is a brother. the second that a traitor is a traitor. and the third fact concludes that only one of those things may become the other. there is no place for traitors in heaven. and there is no merit in dwelling on thoughts of what is no longer possible.

gabriel likes efficiency--advancements that break no mould. he is the safest bet in any given room. protocol and principles, that’s what he’s made of, and he sticks to them rigidly because it’s... easy. easy as a miracle from the human’s point of view. to break ranks is to break through the mission statement of heaven into a gray area, and the walls upstairs are always freshly painted white. gabriel makes sure of it.

michael likes results. there is nothing more beautiful than a bottom line. bottom line: the world ends. bottom line: the angels win. bottom line: god no longer does the heavy lifting the way angels do, and so what the angel’s do in god’s absence is not to be held against them. they were, after all, stepping into a job they were not qualified to handle with little to no notice. a bottom line is beautiful because it makes simple a messy world.

bottom line: there is mess. bottom line: angels remove the mess.

bottom line: raphael would have complicated that.

no, michael does not miss his fallen sibling. and he refuses to talk about it. and he makes sure that gabriel does not talk about it, either. after all, what is there to talk about? what’s done is done, and they’ve got their hands full juggling someone else’s job, but if they don’t do it, then it isn’t done, and the world ends the bad way. where no one wins because they’re all dead.

gabriel is the leader. michael is the strategist. between them, they can scrounge enough brain power together to cover for raphael, who was meant to be the creative one.

too creative. creative enough to start... asking questions.

too feeling, always too feeling. “passionate” they used to call him. but then what happened, happened, and “passionate” became a roadside cliff in need of a guard rail. michael and gabriel were that guard rail. their fallen sibling was a cautionary tale.

the thing about falling is that sometimes you see it coming, and sometimes it blindsides you. lucifer’s was not a slippery slope, but a gradual and palpable decline. for years before, whenever he’d walk out of a room, the angels left inside would put their heads together and mutter about what’s the almighty going to do about that one. raphael’s, on the other hand, was blink-and-you-miss-it. he was here one day, gone the next. there wasn’t even the time to think about whether you wanted to say goodbye.

(if he decided to be a traitor, after all, then you needn’t regard him as a brother.)

and time went on. despite the shock, the world kept turning, and the stars kept burning, and nobody said raphael’s name. not for six thousand years.

it was hard to keep up with new demons. bad enough having to encourage every baby-faced cherub day-to-day (but not too hard, otherwise they ran the risk of becoming “passionate.” passionate didn’t matter. just loyalty. loyalty keeps heaven heaven.) the first time gabriel hears the name “crowley” he thinks nothing of it.

“a demon?” he asks sandalphon. “check and see who’s available, sort of... low and on the same level. no need to exert the effort of someone actually important on a simple demon.”

sandalphon agrees easily and makes to depart, but gabriel sticks up a hand, thoughtful. hold on.

“aziraphale,” he says. “he’s on earth, isn’t he? have him take care of it. perfect busy work for someone so eager to please.”

sandalphon smiles gold.

meanwhile, michael? michael doesn’t even remember. deleted the name from his mind the second it first entered. unimportant. bottom line: demon.

but after the armageddon that never was, the name finally sticks. and no matter what michael might have said at that demon’s trial, there is nothing more dangerous than an unchecked enemy. he keeps an eye out. and for awhile, there’s nothing out of the ordinary. just a never-was-an-angel and a soon-to-be-demon spending too much time together on a planet that was never theirs.

bottom line: ?

so michael goes to gabriel for help.

“i need to understand what happened between these two,” he says. “make some sense of it. find out how dangerous they really are.”

and gabriel turns to the left, and frowns in thought, like he is surprised to find no one there.

“gabriel?”

“it’s nothing. just a passing... are you sure there is cause for concern? they’re two outcasts. nothing more. no threat to us.”

“i would like to... speak with them.”

“then speak we shall.”

they arrive on earth. it is easy to find aziraphale because he never left the bookshop.

“hold on,” gabriel cautions as they approach the door. the sign says closed. there’s an intimidation as hot as hellfire emanating from it.

“do not let them see your cowardice,” michael chides, and pushes through. bottom line: answers are needed.

the door creaks and cuts off two voices. and two figures appear.

“oh!” says crowley, glancing sideways at aziraphale. “look at that. the gang’s all here.”

aziraphale looks momentarily stunned, which only makes michael’s brain fight harder to understand. he pushes forward.

“crowley. aziraphale.”

aziraphale bristles. “i do believe the sign said closed.”

“we are not here to indulge your human fantasy. we have come to--”

“ask for the towel back?” crowley interrupts. “no good. it’s long gone. i’ll pay for another one. do you take updog currency?”

“what’s updog?” gabriel asks.

“nothing, but i do deserve a high five for that one.”

“not now, dear,” aziraphale whispers to him.

crowley squares his shoulders, glaring through the two archangels. “right, straight to business then. we don’t care why you came. leave now, and we might let you go alive.”

aziraphale begins to react in astonishment, but michael and gabriel beat him to it.

“you should not threaten angels so easily,” gabriel says.

“i’ll do what i want,” says crowley. “fair’s fair, right? i’m just dishing it out as good as i get. doing as you do.”

“crowley,” aziraphale protests.

“where do you get the nerve?” michael all but growls.

“oh, probably from my time in heaven.”

if anyone else in the room were the snake, there would have been hissing. “don’t invoke that holy place,” gabriel says.

“you lost the privilege,” says michael.

“geez!” crowley throws up his hands. “if i didn’t know any better, i’d say this was personal! come on, are we going to forget the past that easily?”

“you have no past.”

“you are forgotten.”

“you’d think we three grew up with me hogging the telly, eh?” crowley asks aziraphale, the same way a zookeeper teaching schoolchildren might ask an obvious question to a turtle.

and michael and gabriel are blindsided.

“oh.” crowley tilts his head. “you really didn’t know. funny, that. almost.”

“it can’t be,” says gabriel.

“impossible,” says michael.

“hello,” says crowley, twirling five fingers, and then settling on showing them just one.

“demon,” says michael.

“oh, yes!” says crowley.

“but also,” says gabriel.

“oh yes...” crowley finishes.

he’s scowling now. darker. his anger crackles into lightning on the street outside, and black wings unfurl like looming shadows. michael and gabriel stare at them as though trying to discern something underneath. an origin to the stain, or a clean patch.

michael blinks first. bottom line: demon. he says, “you will not expect any special treatment from us.”

crowley shakes his head. “i was never special.”

(it may be that gabriel flinches at that. too long ago. too hard to tell.)

aziraphale, certainly, makes a noise at the back of his throat, but crowley shakes his head the slightest amount. an indication to let him handle this.

“you just can’t quit betraying your side, can you?” michael asks. “what did you hope to achieve? you are an abomination. you were cast out for a reason. and you will never be allowed back in.”

gabriel double-takes, but still says nothing. he looks like a man found on the side of the road with no memory of how he got there. lost. confused. aged.

“i don’t want that,” crowley says. “i’m better than that, now.”

“better than heaven? blasphemy,” michael chides.

“demon,” crowley replies.

and gabriel can no longer keep silent.

“you let me speak with you at the human airbase,” he says, agitated, his purple eyes glowing slightly. is he needing to keep his emotions at bay? what could he possibly feel for crowley? surely they were no longer each other’s kin. “we looked each other in the eyes, raphael.”

“crowley,” crowley and michael correct him at the same time.

gabriel looks appropriate aghast at himself. “crowley,” he amends, and then continues, “this is--i mean, you were--you are--this is just evidence of how far one may fall.”

“funny, i was about to say the same to you.”

“you have no authority to judge us!” michael says, seething. “do not forget your place. if you are not an angel now, you never were. not at heart. not truly. give me one good reason not to smite you where you stand.”

aziraphale steps in front of crowley, chin raised high, and says immediately, “i won’t let you.”

“angel, pl--”

crowley puts a gentle hand on aziraphale’s shoulder, but even that, aziraphale shrugs off.

“gabriel,” he says. “perhaps you can understand this. crowley has changed, yes. he is no longer an angel.”

“he doesn’t feel love the way we do,” michael interjects, and crowley’s head pokes out from behind aziraphale.

“when’s the last time you had a warm, fuzzy feeling, then?”

“michael, i believe i must depart,” gabriel says softly. he still looks like he’s been stranded inside a life that he does not call his.

michael says, “yes, do.”

and gabriel disappears.

aziraphale sighs and steps back at crowley’s side, holding crowley’s wrist tightly. crowley takes the hand and squeezes back.

“guess some people just can’t take the heat,” aziraphale mutters.

crowley shrugs. “well, you know what they say. if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the boiling sulphur pools. maybe he did what’s right by him. maybe seeing me just scared him a little too badly.”

“angels fear nothing,” says michael, even as his eyes hint toward something different. his jaw works. he takes a moment to control himself and then asks, “is this how you were able to withstand the holy water?”

aziraphale quietly snorts. crowley squeezes his hand again, this time in warning, and says, “you didn’t really think i was going to answer that one, did you? and might i remind you that all i asked that day was to be left alone.”

“you may think you still belong in this world,” says michael, shaking his head and glaring at their conjoined hands, “but you do not. and aziraphale, one day you will pay dearly for your choices. fear the future. for when that day comes, you, too, will be erased from heaven. anditcan’tcometoosoon.”

the breath rushes out of him, and michael, too, is gone.

the bookshop stands sturdy and proud. crowley swings up his and aziraphale’s hands, kissing the back of aziraphale’s, and loudly declares, “well, that was dramatic. weren’t we going to go and look at a cottage this afternoon, love?”

[englishchinesetranslations]

In terms of ignoring reality, FOMO -YOLO’ing and flimflamming our collective way into the future, I think not.  Those times have passed. Certainly they have for the US government and its extensive population of dependents.

This may be cause to celebrate for the 10% of the population who won’t notice, and will likely celebrate, the end of government jobs, government pensions or social security, deprivation of a government-subsidized health care service, lack of a government-income supplements, collapsed government contractors, or the elimination of a regulatory and counterfeiting state that has created whole industries out of nothing, industries that currently support millions of American families.

The leftward momentum of the entire cadre of Democrat candidates seeking the US Presidency this year doesn’t reflect a mass desire to make the US a socialist country.  The US is already a socialist country.  Friendly fascism is the name of the game, if we can believe Bertram Gross, Sinclair Lewis, or our own eyes. The 2020 candidates, announced and unannounced, aim primarily to hold these socialist gains in the face of what promises to be a very frightening decade for the 90 Percenters.

Donald Trump, in 2016 and presumably in 2020, speaks to the same sentiments the anti-Trump field emotes today, sentiments of maintaining life and economics largely as they are. Rather than politicians reaching for the stars, asking that the ship of state be guided into a brighter future, we see a display of white knuckles angrily gripping the present, with a few bones thrown to restoring some of the better memories of the past. There is no imaginable future for the US that does not contain short-term tragedy for the majority of the population, and all the candidates all know this.

2016 was a fight for stasis in America, a battle Trump narrowly won because he whispered an ancient and beneficial idea of less intervention, while dog-whistling a hope of a smaller government bureaucracy.

The past decade’s accelerating explosion of US government spending and debt, and that of US corporations, banks, and citizens, will not only end, but will end painfully.

For all of this, the majority of voters in a presidential election seem to understand that what cannot go on forever, won’t. The 2018 examination (linked above) of why Americans increasingly don’t trust government, even as government provides so much to so many of these same Americans, suggested that it’s just a matter of explaining to Americans how great their government is.  Big State needs better advertising.

Even the Deep State laughs at that idea.  However, it is important to see what deep staters are really doing to maintain the current status quo, a.k.a Peak Government.

Government doesn’t produce anything, but rather redistributes, manages, and consumes the wealth created by the citizenry, serfs and livestock it “owns.”  Just as a farmer, who when facing lower sales price and higher costs, re-evaluates his or her operation, so too do federal and state governments. The farmer counts his or her livestock carefully, and figures out how to do more with less, the same with less, and less with less all while squeezing more cash out of what he or she “owns.” Imagine, if you will, the gentle cow or ewe. Her value is necessarily monetized, and as the bottom line sinks ever lower, her owner will become very interested in what Bessie and Belle do all day, where they go, what they eat, and how they behave.

Depending on where you stand, some citizens are not worth as much as others, and more importantly, some citizens cost a lot more than others. How to decide? Politicians are in the business of deciding this question, and they are gamblers at heart.  This predisposition shapes their calculations and actions. Win or lose, they enjoy the game. Various political groupings help them assign “value” and it’s all out in the open, as ugly and insulting as it is. You are free to choose a party or a candidate based on how you value yourself and your neighbors, and what you believe is good and valuable for you and your neighbors to have and enjoy. You can vote based on a coin toss, hairstyle or spousal charm, their pantsuit, their skin tone, or because you believe whatever they are saying. It’s all good, and it’s all good fun in this nation of equals.

The Deep State on the other hand, is not comfortable with risk, does not “enjoy the game,” and it does not play.  You cannot vote for it, nor can you assign values, weights, measures or limits to it, in any realistic way.  The Deep State doesn’t want your vote or your political support – it wants your money, your faith, and your obedience.  It is not interested in your opinion, as it is perfectly confident that it knows what is best. We don’t have time here to put the Deep State on a couch to seek clarity or find out why it turned out this way.  It’s running, and ruining, the lives of 330 million Americans, and conducting coups, wars – hot, cold, trade and propaganda – in real time, as it has for over 100 years, maybe more.  Increasingly, the weapons of these wars are aimed not abroad, but at the very citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

If, as an American, you found that your ears perked up when you heard “land of the free” and “home of the brave,” don’t feel bad.  We’ve been worked on for generations.

The surveillance apocalypse, as lamented here, is not specifically surveillance capitalism, but part and parcel of deep state agriculture, which instead of growing wheat, corn, cattle and chickens, grows compliant and cautious citizens, whose every movement, relationship, thought and action is tracked in near or real time, in order to reduce risk to the state. The data gathering itself, the panopticon effect on a society, along with state-induced rifts, debates, redistributions, and foreign wars –all of these manipulate emotions in predictable and state-manageable ways. The citizen – body and mind – is contained and maintained in the “right” fields. Atomistic and poorly educated, often fighting each other, we never realize we are continually consenting to the deep state, and its often murderous designs and livelihood.

The only thing roaring in the coming decade will be the furious road noise of the Deep State as it strains technology, and races for its very life, against the growing humanity of actual Americans and their growing awareness of reality.  Appearing well-coiffed, soft-handed, clean and refined, it is kith and kin to a monster hog.  People all over the country who have faced an inundation of wild hogs, running rampant, destroying property, economy, and even liberty, will recognize the squeals, the destruction and the debris.  Our roaring Twenties will prefigure the death screams of this overfed demon, and the unconsolable wailing of the 90%.

Happy New Year!

[harleydavidsonbikepics]

Harley-Davidson of Erie BikeFest just days away

The annual event starts Saturday at the Harley-Davidson of Erie dealership in Millcreek Township. Staff report The annual Harley-Davidson of Erie BikeFest starts Saturday and continues through July 16 at the Harley-Davidson of Erie dealership, 3712 W. 12th St., Millcreek Township. Here's a look at the schedule of events: Saturday  10:30 a.m.-noon: Registration and pre-ride gathering for A.B.A.T.E. of Erie County Seventh Annual Bull's-eye Run, Star Club, 2104 Warfel Ave. Donation: $ 10 per person. 5-9 p.m.: BikeFest welcome party with live music from Thirst 'N Howl at Miller Lite stage. Sunday 10 a.m.-noon: MDA Miles for Smiles Poker Run registration ($ 15 per person) 3-6 p.m.: MDA Miles for Smiles MDA Poker Run after-party with live music from Next of Kin, Miller Lite stage. Monday Noon-1 p.m.: Driving Fore Disaster Golf Tournament (shotgun start), Lakeview Country Club, registration and lunch. 1-6 p.m.: Drive Fore Disaster Golf Tournament (shotgun start), Lakeview Country Club. 5-9 p.m.: Hogs & Rods Cruise-In at Liberty Park. 5-9 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse party at Sloppy Duck Saloon with live music by Jackson Station. July 11 Noon-7 p.m.: Vendor Village at Harley dealership. 3-5 p.m.: Registration and pre-ride gathering for Law Enforcement Memorial Run at St. Jude's Church, 2801 W. Sixth St. Donation: $ 20 per bike. 4-7 p.m.: Registration for United by Independents Ride ($ 10 per bike). 5 p.m.: Law Enforcement Memorial Run, memorial service and blessing of the bikes, by the Rev. John J. Detisch. Ride departs immediately following the blessing of the bikes. 7 p.m.: United By Independents Ride from Harley dealership to Liberty Park. 5-8 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by Steelhorse, Miller Lite stage. 6-7:30 p.m.: 8 Great Tuesdays/BikeFest concert at Liberty Park with live music by Ralph Chamberlain Jr. Band. 8 p.m.: 8 Great Tuesdays/BikeFest concert at Liberty Park with live music by Satisfaction. July 12 9 a.m.-7 p.m.: Vendor Village at Harley dealership. 5-9 p.m.: Wild Wednesday Bike Night with live music by Two Bands, Hear No Evil, and Flight, Miller Lite stage. July 13 9 a.m.-7 p.m.: Vendor Village at Harley dealership. 4 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by HiWay Starr, Miller Lite stage. 7 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by Geneva, Miller Lite stage. July 14 9 a.m.-7 p.m.: Vendor Village at Harley dealership. 1-4 p.m.: Registration for Red, White & Chrome First Responders Appreciation Parade at Harley dealership. Staging at West Erie Plaza. Donation: $ 20 per person, includes T-shirt). 4:15 p.m.: Red, White & Chrome First Responders Appreciation Parade around Presque Isle State Park. 5 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by East Coast Turnaround, Miller Lite stage 7:30 p.m.: Z102.3 Harley-Davidson motorcycle giveaway, Miller Lite stage. 8 p.m.: BikeFest Headline concert with Sourmash, Miller Lite stage. July 15 9 a.m.-7 p.m.: Vendor Village at Harley dealership. 10 a.m.-noon: Registration for Injured Motorcycle Riders Foundation Charity Poker Run at Harley dealership. Donation: $ 10 per person. 1-3:30 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by The Riff Riders, Miller Lite stage. 4-6 p.m.: International Master Bike Builders Association Bike Show at Harley dealership. 4 p.m.: IMRF Poker Run winners announced, Miller Lite stage. 4-7 p.m.: BikeFest Roadhouse Party with live music by Crush, Miller Lite stage. 7 p.m.: Thunder Roads Tattoo Contest, Miller Lite stage. 7:30 p.m.: I.M.B.B.A. Bike Show winners, Miller Lite stage. 7:45 p.m.: Harley-Davidson motorcycle raffle winner announced, Miller Lite stage. 8 p.m.: BikeFest headline concert with Land of Ozz, Miller Lite stage. July 16 11 a.m.-2 p.m.: Neighborhood appreciation party (invitation only). Let's block ads! (Why?) Google Alert - harley davidson events Click to Post

[vampireadamooc]

Reposting one of the most interesting vintage vampire clippings I've (so far) come across in honor of World Dracula Day.

Seriously. It’s so much cooler and interesting than the clipping everyone’s seen suggests. The full text of it is amazing.

Yes, it’s vintage satire, a bit of humor and fun (Swamptown City / Sodom?) but it’s a damn fine bit of spooky fun that fits amazingly well into ALVH. 

BELIEVE IN VAMPIRES. Boston Daily Globe 1872; Jan 27, 1896; pg. 5 _____

BELIEVE IN VAMPIRES

Rhode Islanders Who Are Sure That They Do Exist.

Instances Told of Where the Living Have Been Attacked and Preyed Upon by These Representatives of an Unseen World.

{A MEMEBER OF THE ANTI-VAMPIRE PARTY}

SODON, RI., Jan 26 -- You will not find this place on any map. But if you leave the railway at Wickford Junction and follow the Ten Rod road westward through Exeter until you come to Robbers Corner, and then go south a mile or two over Purgatory road, you will come to Sodom.

The chances are that you won't know Sodom when you see it. for even in the days of its highest prosperity its population was only about 19 or 20, and now it is a great deal less. There were once four or five houses here, but now there are nor nearly so many.

Like Swamptown City and Escoheag, and Noose Neck Hill and Usquepaug, and Skunk Hill and Exeter Hollow, and Gomorrah and many other once flourishing hamlets in southern Rhode Island, Sodom is a back number.

In spirit, however, of its present insignificance, Sodom may be called the geographical center of the vampire district of Rhode Island. Now a vampire, as everybody knows who has seen one, is a blood-sucking ghost - the soul of a dead person which quits the body by night to feed upon the blood of the living, especially of it's relatives and dearest friends, it is has any.

When the vampire's grave is opened the corpse is always found to be fresh and rosy from the blood which it has thus absorbed; otherwise it is not a genuine vampire.

There are several excellent ways of putting a stop to the vampire's ravages. First, you may pour boiling water and vinegar on the grave. This remedy is generallt sufficient for the milder forms of vampirism, but if more energetic measures are required it may be necessary to drive a stake through the body or to cut the head off, or take out the heart and liver and burn them and eat the ashes. This last precaution, as will be seen, should not be neglected.

The persons who become vampires are generally witches, wizards, suicides or persons who have come to violent ends, ot have been cursed by their parents or the church, and in Rhode Island those who have died of consumption. But any upright, well-meaning man is liable to turn into a vampire if an animal, especially a cat, leaps over his corpse or if a bird flies over it. That is said to be the reason why undertakers do not keep cats.

All for which, and more, may be found in that entertaining work, the "Encyclopedia Britannica," and is here given only as a preface to the following chapter of belief in vampires which still obtains among the certain of the natives throughout southern Rhode Island. The foreign-born population do not cherish the belief. It is found only among some of the descendants of those who settled this part of the state in the 17th and 18th centuries.

And not only in the country places, "where the old plain men have rosy faces and the young fair maidens quiet eyes," remote like Sodom from the outside world, but in the centers of population along the railway and along the shore you will meet plenty of men and women who take it as an insult if you speak lightly in their presence of the belief in vampires.

At lease that was the writer's experience - he discovered that vampires should be discussed in a serious tone and without any elevation of the eyebrows.

"Are the folks around here rather intelligent?" he asked of a native who lives on the outskirts of Sodom. "Well, fairish," was the reply.

"And are they quiet religious?"

"Some be, and some are Seven Day."

Although the Seventh Day Baptists, who are numerous in southern Rhode Island, are really very pious, and just as good citizens as you can find anywhere, yet in the popular mind their custom of praying on Saturday and working on Sunday takes them out of the category of "religious."

Perhaps the frequent intermarriage of families in these back country districts may partially account for some of their characteristics.

"If they don't marry each other there don't be nobody else fo 'em to marry," said the Sodomite, "and they do say hereabout if a woman marries a man of her own name that all the bread she makes will cure the whooping cough. There many be something to it, for what I know. Leastwise I've heard tell on it many times, and some old women round here would you goudy if you said it was foolishness."

To give "goudy" is about the as "ragooing" or "ripping up the back."

"And then, too' said the Sodomite, reflectively, "have lots of natural remedies that the doctors don't know nothing' about. For instance, when you are touched with the rheumatic, and feel kina mauger like, they say there aint nothing' better than the bile angle-worms will all the juice is out, and then mix it with some hog's lard or mutton taller ad rub it on to the jints. Unless I {?} it" - an expression, by the way, which the writer has not hears outside the vampire belt, and which means "unless I'm Mistaken" - "There do be a good many real cures of rheumatic with angle-worm juice."

Slowly bur surely the conversation drifted to vampire. The smoldering interest int he subject has been revived by the recent publication of a newspaper syndicate article over the signature of a rather well-known writer, who borrowed the article almost word for word from an essay by George R. Stetson in the Anthropologist.

Since Mr Stetson made his investigation, some years ago, there has been no case of the Resurrection of a body for the sake of burning the heart and liver, the last instance being in March, 1892. A firm belief is not practiced is that no one has recently died of consumption who had surviving relatives afflicted with the disease.

For in Rhode Island no one becomes a vampire after death unless he has died of consumption. And not even them unless he has next of kin, or heirs and assigns who are consumptive. Thus, for the present, the vampire industry is stagnant.

It was not always so, and these pleasant hills and valleys are full of legends and traditions. This once busy and populous region is now but sparsely inhabited, and you can travel for miles through the "south county" without seeing a house.

There are plenty of ruins of mills and factories and homesteads, but they are about the only remnants of a former active industrial life. For a few hundred dollars you can buy a great deal more land here than you can attend to. The farms are not abandoned, they are only neglected.

But sportsmen are acquainted the game in the woods, and fishermen say that there are trout in the "south county" than anywhere else in New England. Hence in the spring and fall this is by no means a deserted country, even without the vampires.

The Sodomite was quite unable to give the writer any connected history of the theory and practice of vampirism in southern Rhode Island, but he was well stocked with authentic traditions on the subject, and here are a few of them:

About 100 years ago there lived two families on the western slope of Pine hill in Exeter. They were prosperous farmers for those days. Jonathan Brown and Ezekiel Nichols were the names of the fathers.

Jonathan's daughter, Mehitable {?}, and Ezekiel's son Isaiah, fell in love with each other and were betrothed. Before they could get married, however, Mehitable died of consumption. It nearly broke Isaiah's heart, and he too fell victim of the disease.

One night, not long before his death, his mother heard a peculiar groan coming from his room, and what was her horror on entering to see Mehitable, who had turned vampire, sucking Isaiah's blood. Caught red-handed, or rather red-mouthed, in the act, she could not deny it, but she gave the mother a half-piteous, half-reproachful look, and then went and sat on the mantelpiece. She said not a word, and when the mother came out of her swoon Mehitable had vanished.

But she had staled log enough to settle once and forever the disputed question of the existence of vampires.

"You see," said the Sodomire, "them two young folks had probably been kissing each other a good deal, and Isaiah caught the disease from his sweetheart. Contagion, they call it, don't they?"

{THE NATIVE OF SODOM}

There was once a man named Godlove Arnold, who lived on the southern shore of Yaweoo pond in South Kingstown. He was a notorious skeptic in regard to vampires, but by and by his wide died of consumption. He and his spouse had not always been on the best of terms, and after her death, for which Godlove did not grieve too long, he begun to look around for another partner.

But Mrs Arnold became a vampire and began to pay off some of her old scores against her recent husband. She made life a burden for the unhappy man. She was far more importunate as vampire than as wife.

She chased him one afternoon all the way to Bald hill, and finally he had to give in. They found his body about a week later on the hillside, and the expression on his face was something ghastly.

"Probably died of heart disease," said the Sodomite, as he finished the story.

Over around Kteele hole and Goose Nest spring, in the Pork {?} hill district of North Kingstown, there once lived a man by the name of Isaac Harvey. It was a good many years ago, and they said Ike died of consumption. Mrs Harvey was rather glad of it, for he had seldom contributed anything but advice to her support. It was just like Ike to go into the vampire business after death and to turn his attention to Mrs Harvey.

He tormented her by night and by day, following her around in the shape of a ball of fire until she finally hit upon the happy thought of wearing a horseshoe around her neck. The horseshoe was rather heavy and cumbersome, but it was better than being singed by a ball of fire.

For this legend the Sodomite had not explanation.

Coming down to historic events, which are matter of record, and omitting a score or more of authentic cases within the memory of any middle-aged man now living, the most important vampire incident of recient years was the celebrated Brown case.

George T. Brown is an honest and industrious farmer and horse jockey who lives on the road going south from Exeter hill. He had lost two children by consumption - there's no help for it," said the neighbors, "so long as his brother and sister prey on him."

And they kept at Mr Brown until he as almost distracted. He didn't believe in vampires, but at last he yielded to the entreaties of neighbors to have the bodies exhumed and the hearts and livers burned. "But I want it done decently and in order," he said, so he sent a young man over to see Dr Harold Metcalf of Wickford about it. Dr Metcalf, being graduate of Brown university and of Harvard medical school, and medical examiner of the district, was not at all prepossessed in favor of the vampire theory, and told the young man who came to see him about it that it was all a mistake. Bit the neighbors still kept at Mr Brown, worrying the life out of him with their importunities. So the young man was again sent to Dr Metcalf to beseech him in God's name to come and perform an autopsy on the bodies.

In a moment of amiable weakness the doctor consented to go.

One afternoon in March, 1892, he went over to the Shrub Hill cemetery in Exeter, and there Mr Brown's neighbors opened the graves of his two children. The doctor found the bodies in a perfectly natural state of decomposition and not fresh and rosy, as they should have been if the souls were vampires. In the hearts however, was a little blood and that was quite sufficient to corroborate the vampire theory in the minds of the neighbors. One old woman present was exultant. She knew they would find blood, and where should it have come from so long after death but from the bodies of the living?

So the hearts and livers which the doctor turned over the little assembly of neighbors were burned there in the cemetery.

But it did not save the life of Mr Brown's son. He died not long after and since then two other members of the family have passed away with the same disease.

"It was all because the ashes were not taken care of" said the vampire experts.

Since them, however, the belief of the community in vampires has been rather wavering. A great many of the leading men in Exeter do not believe in the theory at all.

For instance, there is Hon Edward P Dutemple, state senator from this town, who is a good legislator and a still better blacksmith. He is too much of a politician to make enemies by discussing the subject, but his private opinion on the vampire question is known to all his friends.

Then there is the good elder Edwards, town clerk, librarian of the public library on Pine Hill, farmer and preacher. He is one of the most pronounced of the anti-vampirites. Among the laity, the hard-headed farmers of the town who work early and late coax a living from the reluctant soil, there are plenty who are outspoken in their disbelief in vampire.

If you walk with Reynolds Lillibridge, the successful farmer, gunner and trapper of Pine Hill, you will discover that he is much more interested in minks and otters and muskrats, and the trout in his fine pond, than in the vampires.

"When a man's underground, he hasn't anything more to do with anybody that's above ground - that's my theory," he said.

{MRS HARVEY AND IKE}

"Still, I can understand how a man like Brown must have felt. When you are in trouble you will grab at straw, and when you are in a good deal of trouble you will grab at a whole bundle."

The lonely telegraph operator in the station up on Pine hill is too busy looking after his wires to bother about vampires. And then, too, he has just brought a charming little wife there to share his solitude and his salary.

Mme Douglass, the lone clairvoyant and business medium, who lives on the Ten Rod road, hasn't any doubt about the existence of vampires and lots of other things, seen and unseen.

When you take this community "full and by the way" or "by and large" you will find it pretty evenly divided on the vampire issue. But it is strongly republican and so the issue has not yet crept into politics.

Over the North Kingstown and up in West Greenwich, Coventry and Foster as well as in Hopkinton, Richmond and in South Kingstown, the vampire belief holds extensive sway. There have, however, been no recent resurrections of bodies of consumptives.

As to the origin of the belief there is no satisfactory explanation given. How could it have transplanted from the old world and found a lodgment only in Rhode Island, among an otherwise very intelligent and enterprising and wide-a-wake population, is a mystery. It is not an English superstition, and yet the settlers of this region were all English.

Mr De Jongh of Wickford, who has devoted some attention to the subject, is inclined to think that it comes from the old voodoo superstition, as there were formerly many negroes in Rhode Island.

It is to be hoped that with better sanitation and a closer observance of the rules of hygiene, consumption will gradually disappear and that the vampire will retire from business and leave the good folk of Rhode Island in peace and security.

_____

[criohyer]

we can make the devil sick. we are a mirror in which they see all their dark desires, their gnawing regrets and their deepest fears. who is the devil's maker? a man.

sweat courses; bleeds into bed sheets, chest clamours like lamenting moths scattering without gaslight. sinking deeper into the arms of morpheus, slumbering fitfully against warmth of chest watching himself walk into a forest. lack of ceremony, he knows the roots like he knows the own patterns of his veins. he goes silently, without wits and auscultates branches breaking beneath weight until stomach churns and comes a cruel icy wind raising the hairs on the back of his neck. suddenly it feels like he is walking a tightrope over that endless emptiness on one sad, fraying, thin violin string that plays the notes that are froliced to the rot in deaths final stages, the songs by sonnets and lyres the deaf mortals hope to hear, fathom what comes after.

music; when soft voices die vibrates in the memory and odours when sweet violets sicken. it cannot be forgotten.

its a sudden misplacement, the soles of his shoes and soon his trousers soaked in mud. the forest there to deceive him of an abode. warmth of breath respires against the back of his neck, he turns to face the unsettling presence.

alone.

just as he had been.

hearken, he persists even in the uncertainty. tactions the same breath from behind only there is a hovering of feminine palms over his vision. i have to show you something. voice just shy of a whisper, the hush purr signatured to the tone he knows of katerina, her dulect sound is a choir that makes all shiver.

katerina, let me see you.

no answer.

stomach drops and his nerves hook him like the night has with the moon. his twisted dreams descend to the underworld where nothing ever grows except the fear he keeps within which never seems to sleep and this will grow as lower down he goes. his ribs are concaving, inward enough to have him bleed from within and choke.

on the fringe of sinister lurkings in the shadows that fool him, her face is what can bring him clarity.

finding her, touching her, seeing her feels like trying to make his way through a tunnel the size of a coffin. he is suffocating and his lungs are crushing.

open your eyes. three words and his body rises from resting place, dug back up from dirt, abandoning his purest form as ashes. ragged breathing pattern rapid, he is as cold as the night she left and the sensation is burrowing into his bones, atrophying his organs. even in his dreams he can't reach her. he is unable to push vigilant demons back to the darkness where they thrive, instead they're feasting on flesh.

patriarch of hell surmises he may have been encased in childhood upon the maw of the earth, alike a coffin, born backwards with the old hunting rifle in his hand. first he’d brought back rabbits and then waterfowl. at his finest hours, he’d drag home the bodies of deer and feral hogs. it made his father beam teeth for his kin. only mirth quickly drained out the valve of pride, his game manifested itself in more depraved forms. gnashing his son and devouring him in gullet until he was tough, hard-wearing and made to last out in the woods of playground.

there was lacerations, deep seated bruises and blood. so much of it, sullying the walls and the home until it bled up through the pipes and up the drains, pooling the sink to enshroud the carpets until soaked. that pain does not match this.

it's worse.

he keeps two knives pressed against his chest once he is out of that home, one more is at his side. but that one belongs to you, father. stolen by the son from the rotted carcass of the old house, like so much else of him. that pain still creeps from above burbling lungs, shooting up the twisted nerves of his chitinous arms. remembrance comes in nauseous waves, but is no surprise to the son of the beast. the teeth of man are gritting with hurt as god preaches the truth: you were never chosen. years he’d prayed for the greater good, but now the god of beasts stirs to waking in the back of his skull, a reminder of its cruel hunger follows with it, down deep in the pit of his stomach. for as the shotgun is suited for the earthly hunt, the knife is for ritual, incinerated into his flesh: bore the same skin as the same blood as his father.

eyelids are heavy, it's hard to swallow her touch for that was all he had ever dreamed about and at last she was finally giving it to him after all the baying. he walks down to a riverside, sinks like a stone in the river deep. feather like stroke of her tender soft fingers and nails on the back of his neck, the sensation is fleeting like a ghost. the curse ruled from the underground down by the shore she entrances him, stranglehold covers his short temper and sends him blind to not see the danger ahead.

"i want you because when it rains i know you are looking at the same rain. i have to believe it means something different to you than it does to me. you are like my first bicycle accident. before the mouthful of gravel and blood head over handles, i swore it was beautiful. as the devil spoke, we spilled out on the pavement. pieces broke and unlike carrion we carried on. i see the holiness, i see the darkness. you are the beauty i see in worst moments. i'll take your poison, make it mine. i'll turn our heartache into wine and drink it until the glass is half full."

a voice is what orchestrates a person. sudden, hers had changed like rose leaves, when the rose is dead. orbs harden and he watches her move, her lips part through her words as she speaks of herself in third person.

ask the sun how the earth and the aurorals came, it'll tell you about the pain it takes to become.

vision moves to the fingers that trace the skin on her chaste thigh, pushing the hem of her skirt upwards towards her body enticingly and he visibly swallows. the seething of his lewd depraved palette itches at his trachea, his tongue abrasive like sandpaper. the voice in his head asks to reveal more, push it further, let him suspend her over a mattress. travel her generous thighs where he can ridge between them until he writes into her flesh, lost until dawn disrupts him.

he wants her melted inside him, all her tears shed for him. for her to disappear to the world around him. he would bring her to the swamp she loves so well where he gently places her in it. bring her soul to ease with kisses and he says to her; don't cry, don't feel. you won't die because i don't think death's real. it's mine as it should be at your heels, draping around you controlling your very breath.

"i pace a cage for you, starved of what i need and what i can give you. i will empty inside of you until you're gagging, choking on the blood. i want it raw, pushed to the verge." light flitters and fleets, only auroral reflections crawl over the walls, like the jewelled coves of a child’s imaginings and still lingers the pungency of decay.

the demon is creeping underneath his skin, taking him off guard. using his own mind, his own thoughts against him that want katerina.

he wants control, it tastes metallic, biting too hard down on red pulp in mouth and the demon has him handcuffed to a post, body chained to death, the inevitability that he will destroy her, that they will destroy each other. covered up to the neck in soot of the forbidden and the unclean sin. rusted irons pulling his spirit towards torturous purgatory without her for they were never meant to be, god and even the devil did not wish to paint such disgust of two black souls intertwined, one searching for a gaping hole to fill unable to evade one anothers sting and burn, obliterating all in wake. shackled souls who cry in hope. his name in blood on white-washed walls.

control melts like wax, it's a cog in machinery that has forces outside its own will. comes like a jagged gash. "control evaporates within seconds and it dries within moments. a man doesn't like the word no unless it's in his voice and under his control, if it is sacrilege you seek, demon; in a body that is too pure to not submit. if you want to take her down with you, destroy her until she is unclean. open any vein. find out what happens first, control or helplessness."

his hands on steering wheel, one second his attention turned away and it can cost him a life. it cost him two. staring at her thighs as the demon spoke in the tongues that would coerce him, running through his veins like toxic bane. he could only have hoped he had control over that steering wheel like he had with her, but he had little sway over either of them with the spectre jittering in ball of throat of the woman he loves. the next occurrence was as unnoticed as a pin drop.

abrupt, a doll possessed, she simply sat as the fog rose and rose, like a murderous tide she shot at him with canine teeth and teared into his neck, veering them off the road. poached wide eyes, his vision snaps to the windshield

just before the oncoming collision, white headlights flashing and engulfing his features. he feels his heart stop in his chest upon the impact, he grabs her arm biting flesh blue with bruises. instinct would have her arm, an effortless pull, like a

wing off a fly to prepare to shield instead slams the crown of his skull into the steering wheel as tiny glass shatters pierce into his face.

they say you see your life flash before your eyes before you die, what flashed before his was his greatest regrets like a cloaked reaper were there whispering in his ear; this is it. this is how you go, are you satisfied with what interesting stories you will tell the dirt? lived longer than a century, i bet you never saw this coming.

you were a fool. wearing your best suit to the grave? does it eat you alive even now that you're dead you couldn't save her? look at you, kicked puppy. you were never a white knight. you have the courage of a dog with its tail between its legs.

these foundations of the metal vehicle, its chassis with fantasies gone foul, walls scabbed with timelessness. the stones asperse with shades lifted from a child’s night terrors. those scintillating lights the greenish - yellow of gharial eyes, apertures to nowhere. fog swells higher, hazy and tenuous. it pawed at her anomaly, ate away at her dimensions and seeks to kill them both. this is not a regal carcass; not a castle, nor a chapel. this is the paper hands calling them from doom.

they're filled over on the roof. he sees stars, the crash is as loud as the screeching of train wheels shuddering at track, metal corrosion until sparks fly with its whistle shrieking. he is in a coma for days and the only dream he has is the same continuous one in the forest, the unnerving presence he can't find and the girl he loves lost.

until he wakes. his body aches, feels as if it had been digested from underground, spat out from the devil's mouth and ran down the stream of agony. but his body isn't the pain that racks him or even registers him, his chest feels like it is a moment away from convulsing remembering the moments before he blacked out. katerina killing them. the nurse rushes to his side and asks him his name which he does not respond, especially not the name that is on his birth certificate and in the system, the one that belonged to the tsar's son whom died one hundred years ago.

he only says two words.

ekaterina fuller.

[todaynewsstories]

‘Worst is yet to come’ from Florence’s drenching rains in U.S

WILSON/WILMINGTON, N.C. (Reuters) – Florence kept dumping rain on North Carolina on Sunday and officials warned residents that “the worst is yet to come” from a storm that has already killed at least eight people, as rivers inland were likely to flood.

Florence, which crashed into the state as a hurricane on Friday, had weakened to a tropical depression by Sunday morning but was forecast to drop another 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 cm) of rain in North Carolina, bringing rainfall totals in some inland areas to 15 to 20 inches, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The most rain so far from Florence was 33.9 inches (86 cm) in Swansboro, North Carolina, a new record for a single hurricane in the state. The previous record was 24 inches (61 cm), set by Hurricane Floyd, which killed 56 people in 1999, said Bryce Link, a meteorologist with DTN Marine Weather, a private forecasting service.

In Fayetteville, a North Carolina city of about 210,000 people some 90 miles (145 km) inland, authorities told thousands of residents near the Cape Fear River and Little River to get out of their homes by Sunday afternoon because of the flood risk.

“If you are refusing to leave during this mandatory evacuation, you need to do things like notify your legal next of kin because the loss of life is very, very possible,” Mayor Mitch Colvin said at a news conference on Saturday.

“The worst is yet to come,” he added.

A total of about 761,000 homes and businesses were without power on Sunday in North and South Carolina and surrounding states, down from a peak of nearly 1 million.

In New Bern, about 90 miles northeast of Wilmington at the confluence of two rivers, Florence overwhelmed the town of 30,000 and left the downtown area under water.

“It was pitch black and I was just scared out of my mind,” said Tracy Singleton, who with her family later fled her home near New Bern.

As authorities rescued people by boat and even airlifted 50 stranded people in North Carolina, there were also reports of looting.

Members of the Coast Guard help a stranded motorist in the flood waters caused by Hurricane Florence in Lumberton, North Carolina, U.S. September 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Miczek

Five people were arrested for breaking into a Dollar General Store, said the police department in Wilmington, which has imposed a nighttime curfew.

A least seven people have died so far in the storm in North Carolina, including a mother and child killed by a falling tree and three people who drowned, state officials said. A woman died in South Carolina when her car hit a fallen tree.

‘CATASTROPHIC’ STORM

“This is still a catastrophic, life threatening storm,” said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.

“It has already dumped 20 to 30 inches of rain on parts of the Carolinas with more to come,” he said. “And many of the rivers will see prolonged flooding, some not cresting for a few days.”

Many roads were closed and authorities warned of landslides, tornadoes and flash floods, with dams and bridges in peril as rivers and creeks swelled.

The flooding could taint waterways with murky coal ash and toxic hog waste.

By Sunday morning the storm’s winds had dropped to about 35 miles per hour (55 km per hour), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

It had picked up pace somewhat, moving west at 8 mph (13 kph), and its center was expected to move across the western Carolinas during Sunday and the Ohio Valley and Northeast United States on Monday and Tuesday.

The White House said President Donald Trump approved making federal funding available in some affected counties.

Trump, who plans to visit the region this week and he tweeted his “deepest sympathies and warmth” to the families and friends of those who died.

Slideshow (20 Images)

As the United States dealt with Florence, a super typhoon made landfall in China’s Guangdong on Sunday after barreling past Hong Kong and Macau and killing dozens of people in the Philippines.

Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny and Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Frances Kerry

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[olaluwe]

Success may be relative; but still, I know you want to succeed; oozing those material things that markedly define anybody as truly living and not just another survival stats. Success also may be a process and not an event; a journey and not a destination; still I know you want to go the whole hog manifesting finally the non-material qualities of successful people. Tolerance, Compassion, Courage, loyalty, humility to name a few. To start with, everybody definitely would love to have an evidently progressive professional life, loving wife, husband, house(s), exotic car(s) and above all lovely kid(s), aptly described by the holy writ as the heritage of the Lord. I mean we all want to live life to the fullest. And no one can fault that! It's quite noble. But somehow, you are still somewhere down there, hopeful that one day you will finally be able unlock your true potentials and go on to hit the bull's eye of success. However, at best today, you are only a perpetual shadow of  your ideal self waiting for like forever to break free from your struggling real self and being tagged unavoidably in the process a perennial underachiever. Defined, perennial underachievers are people, essentially, who in spite of possessing overwhelming credentials to succeed in real time, but have for long instead gelded, huffing and puffing from one near-success situation to the other. Suffering from an affliction I called 'the nearly-to-success syndrome.' 'And nearly, they use to say, don't kill a bird.' Who or what then is the achilles' heel stopping most of us from attaining our much desire fore-heights or peaks as one may put it in life? Before I go on, let me digress a little here with this institutional analogy. If you are a football enthusiast, then you must be familiar with the story of the Dutch national football team (The Orange Gang) and why they are more often than not regarded as football's world perennial underachiever. They are, I can tell you for free, if you're still clueless because they have so far played in three world cup grand finales in 1974, 78 and 2010 respectively and didn't win any. They have also consistently being hitting far below their weight in many other major tournaments in view of their football potential viz a viz their pool of talents. The only major football silverware they have managed to win till today was the Euro championship of 1988. And who can ever forget the Dutch masters like late Johan Cryuff especially, who was easily the originator of the concept of 'Total Football' and one of the laureled three greatest footballers of last century. The other two being the Argentine Diego Maradona and the Brazilian Edson Arantes Dos Nascimento popularly called Pele. 'The Orange Gang' at some point too also boast other marque names like  the fantastic trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkard to name a few. Believe me, their inability to win football's most coveted tournament is down to ill-luck or perhaps like they use to say in sporting circle, only those who want it enough get it. Perhaps it is true talent alone is not enough. Same applies to the Spanish national football team, (La Furia Rojas) who have however managed to cover themselves in glories of late and changed their perennial underachiever's tag and narrative forever. Back to individuals which is the crux of this literature, there are basically three things that can cause a man to underachieve in life. And they are : governments, witches and wizard and the self. In other way, we can also rename them as governmental, ancestral/spiritual and personal problems. How then can any of the three be the reason behind our struggle or failures in life? Let's have a go at them one after the other. Take government for instance, it has the power of life and death; and comes directly next to the supreme deity (God) in the order of importance in the daily affairs of humans. Government as an institution of state, through its relevant arms, formulate the necessary laws and enforces same on everybody residing within its clearly define geographical boundary. In any society where the rule of law prevails, those who run foul of these legal grand norms are impartially punished. So you can say it again that the law is made for man and not the other way round. Finally, any member of the society who chooses to breach any portion of this rule book does so at his or her own peril and we've seen it played out time and again. Whatever you do, it's highly expected of you to adequately consult and align yourself with the extant law of the land regardless where you live under the sun because innocent plea would not stand as your defense. Though it exists for the greater good of everybody, government, I repeat, can cause you a lot of predictable and unforeseen existential problems especially when you chance to stand in the path of its growth and developmental plans. Take for instance the fate of people who were found to be illegally occupying government acquisition lands. There properties have been pulled down right before their eyes and there is nothing they could do as government moved in to forcefully retake what was theirs. Many never recovered. Here, Maroko, a suburb along Lekki-Ajah axis which was demolished and possession taken by the then military government in the state comes easily to mind. Take also the case of continuous urban renewal drive of successive governments in Lagos and other states around the nation; and you can only imagine what its agonizing impact has been for those whose properties and means of livelihood have been affected one way or the other While many are still unable to recoup their losses as result of sudden relocation order; there are many others too who are dead or dying as we speak or still traumatized by the shock of these incidents. That's that! Next is the witches and wizard or put differently ancestral/spiritual problems. Existence generally or the physical, I cannot overemphasize, is a direct product of the spirit. So, nobody can detract from the influential roles the spiritual plays in the life and time of every living. And I mean even negatively. Yes, there is forever one form of opposition or the other against our good intentions, plans, dreams and lofty goals in life. So, like the Yoruba would say : 'One would do well to factor in those whose sworn desire it is to ensure we are not sufficient as we plan one's meal.' Good as the advice may sound, how many of us can confidently say we follow its dictates to the letters? Only a few, I can bet! The majority, at best, are banking on chance. Which is reminiscent of the 'T' in the management's Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat test (SWOT). And it doesn't matter whether you know them or not. There are always powers and principalities that have sworn never to see you and I wear the CROWN or fulfill our glorious destinies in life. This is not conjured up to scare anybody. It's real. The troubling part, if you care, is that the most ruthless of them are often found among our Kiths and Kins. So, like the Yoruba would say, look no further for the devourers are lurked within the roots, stems and leaves of the vegetable. How then can you tell if there is a negative force against your elective existential ascendancy? When your failure is becoming like customary; a recurring decimal. Then you need to seek help from the initiates or true custodians of the God's oracle. Or you take the battle to the enemies armed with prayers, fasting and sufficient watchfulness in no particular order. Note, I don't mean structured experimental failures geared towards achieving specific breakthrough in some scientific spheres as encountered by the American electrical wizard, Thomas Edison, which eventually gave the world its breakthrough incandescent light. Finally, let's get down to the individual or self if you like. Wouldn't it sound strange to say many of us are sometimes our own worst enemies. It is so because many of us are consciously unconsciously containing ourselves. Success of any kind and at any rate, I need to categorically say here is not for people who are either 'too ashamed to face their failures or too afraid to confront their fears.' Many of us are either debilitated by fears of the unknown or ashamed to repeat a process/class/stage that's the prerequisite of our moving to the next phase of our lives. By and large, at the centre of containing ourselves is the issue of obvious lack of preparation; disdain for wisdom which is the only reason the bible says the people perish. Opportunity, I must say happens randomly in life and how be it that we're found to be unprepared when it happens. Tragic! Whenever these happen we're bound to underachieve. And we can only blame ourselves and nobody. How then can we not contain ourselves? It is by striving to release all the creative energies buried inside of us and not permitting anything or anybody to discourage us by stories of never-do-well people around. By always trying new things and being innovative. And by not allowing gloomy economics picture as constantly being painted by some doomsday economic analysts to weigh us down from taking any bold step that may bring about our transformation. By not waiting for situations to become favourable before taking action. There has never been a time in history that things were generally agreed to be favourable for business or anything worthwhile because before we were born stories of economic hardship have always been there and it's not going to go away anytime soon. So, you should dare to step out of your comfortable existential cocoon and  into the rough terrains where greatness is made. Finally, to borrow the word of Nigerian Ecclesiastes, renowned teacher and social affairs analyst Dr. Tai Solarin of blessed memory who is reputed to always say to his audiences: 'May Your Road Be Rough' , because to him, there is never an easy road to success or greatness in life. Go and succeed and stop being a perennial underachiever!

[listening-through-the-lens]

Claim the last places on our fully escorted TriFest Music Tour 2018

    TriFestMusic Tour 

(Americana Rhythms and Blues Tour)

10 September to 1 October 2018

Three Weeks, Three Festivals, Three States

Fully Escorted

  ONLY TWO PLACES AVAILABLE

FOR THIS BOUTIQUE TOUR!!

ENQUIRE NOW

robdickens101@gmail.com

      By Rob Dickens

  The Americana Rhythms and Blues Tour (aka TriFest Music Tour) is now open to claim a place.

The itinerary for our three-week music journey is below.  I will be the guide.  Having been to every festival and city/town that we will visit, I would LOVE to share these places and experiences with you.

The final tour numbers will be finalised based on vehicle logistics, but to keep it the most personal and comfortable experience possible, there will be an upper limit.  Places are allocated once a deposit is paid and these are on a first-come basis.  The Tour will be utilising the experienced services of Trans Otway Travel.

Deposits per person are 10% of the Tour price and are payable in Australian $$s, with the balance payable by instalments due end February and end July 2018.

Inclusions and exclusions are also set out below.

Any questions please contact me at robdickens101@gmail.com

Looking forward to an adventure together – Hope you can make it!

  This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  Listening Through The Lens presents

TriFest Music Tour

(Americana Rhythms and Blues Tour)

10 September – 1 October 2018

  Arrive Nashville downtown independently

Nashville Tennessee 7 nights

Americana Music Festival and Conference

Americana Honors and Awards Show

Knoxville Tennessee – 1 night stay

Asheville North Carolina – 2 nights

Biltmore Estate

Bristol Tennessee/Virginia – 4 nights

Rhythm and Roots Reunion festival

Birthplace of Country Music Museum

Nashville Tennessee – 1 night

Fly to Kansas City Missouri – 2 nights

Columbia Missouri – 4 nights

Roots n Blues n BBQ festival

Return Kansas City airport for independent departure

  This itinerary is subject to minor alteration due to changing circumstances beyond the control of Listening Through The Lens.

  Claim the last places on our three-week three-festival fully-escorted USA music tour 2018

  Testimonials from our 2017 Tour

“You were a wonderful tour leader – so well organised, quiet, kind, patient, considerate and knowledgeable – with so many interesting contacts and friends who clearly respected you and whom you shared with us. Each day was highlighted by the fact the activities, events, sights and travel were all so well sorted. There was no indecision or time wasted by us, perfect.”

“I now appreciate and understand so much more the road that the music has taken, what has and is involved in creating it, the differences in areas, the roles that family, community and conditions have played in its development, and so on. Music will never be taken for granted again”

“We can never thank you enough for these experiences and the wonderful memories we have been left with. What a magnificent, trouble-free, well organised expose of Americana, bluegrass and blues music! We look forward to doing it all again with you in the future”.

    Inclusions

• Experienced Guide

• All accommodation (incl. breakfasts)

• Full badge registration for all 6 days at Americana Festival

• Americana Honors and Awards Show ticket

• One year membership Americana Music Association

• Tickets for all 3 days at Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion

• Admission to Birthplace of Country Music Museum

• VIP Whole Hog tickets for all 3 days at Roots n Blues n BBQ festival

• Vehicle Transfers and flight (excl. checked bags fees) between Nashville and Kansas City

• Admission to Biltmore Estate, American Jazz Museum, Birthplace of Country Music Museum

• One live show (to be determined)

  Exclusions

• Tips, gratuities

• Transport during Americana Festival [we will have a perfectly-located hotel, most venues a 15-20 minute walk away – other options are Festival Shuttle (free), Uber and taxi (at own expense)

• Transit costs pre-Tour and post-Tour

• Public gigs will emerge during Tour, at own expense, optional to attend

• Travel insurance (this is compulsory for all participants)

• Meals and beverages

• Additional transport required due to emergency situation

  Tour Numbers

 Places filled on a first-come basis.

  Price

AUD$ 5900 per person twin share basis (contact me for single room supplement price).  Deposit due NOW (see below), half balance due 28 Feb 2018, remainder 31 July 2018

  Deposit

A deposit of AUD $ 590 per person is required to hold your place.  The deposit will be refunded if Tour does not proceed or is full.  In all other cases the deposit is non-refundable.

  About our 2017 Tour

Read about what we covered in our three-week Total Tennessee Tour HERE

  Who might you expect to see at our three festivals?

Musically, what to expect???  Line-ups for all three festivals will be announced over time.  As a guide:

Here’s who we saw perform at AmericanaFest 2017:

Old Crow Medicine Show, Jim Lauderdale, Brent Cobb, Lori McKenna, Iris Dement, John Prine, Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, Sam Outlaw, Amanda Shires, Billy Bragg/Joe Henry, Graham Nash with the Milk Carton Kids, Drive-By Truckers, Aaron Lee Tasjan, The Lumineers, Robert Cray, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Van Morrison, Phoebe Hunt and the Gatherers, SUSTO, Big Star and Friends, Will Hoge, Danni Nicholls, Ben Smith and Jimmy Brewer, Wildwood Kin, Ryan Culwell, Andrew Combs, Cale Tyson, Joe Henry, Rhiannon Giddens, Dirk Powell, Jamie Lin Wilson, The Vandoliers, The Texas Gentlemen, Shannon McNally, Willie Watson, The Fairfield Four, Lori McKenna, Nice Horse, Davis Miles, Joey Wright, April Verch Band, The Dead South, Kieran Kane, Rayner Gelba, Laura Cortesia, Colin Hay, Tasha Coates, Liz Stringer, Robyn Hitchcock, Josh Ritter, The Barefoot Movement, Amanda Shires, Jason Eady, Juju Bushman, The Rusty Pieces, Crockett Hall, Loveland Duran, Grace Askew, Shane Smith and the Saints, Doug Seegers, JP Harris, The Howlin’ Brothers, The Smoking Flowers, Hugh Masterson, Brian Wright, Emily Salier and Shawn Mullins.

2. Here’s who played at Bristol’s Rhythms and Roots Reunion 2017:

Dwight Yoakam, Judah & The Lion, Jerry Douglas Presents Earls of Leicester, Son Volt, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Deer Tick, The Infamous Stringdusters, Mark O’Connor ft. the O’Connor Band, The SteelDrivers , Langhorne Slim, Mandolin Orange , Dave Simonett, Hiss Golden Messenger , The Black Lillies, Amanda Shires , Southern Culture on the Skids, Will Hoge, The Whiskey Gentry, Zach Deputy, The Dustbowl Revival, Chris Knight, American Aquarium, Billy Strings, The Cactus Blossoms, Low Cut Connie, Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys, The Deslondes, Ron Gallo, Front Country, Love Canon •The Way Down Wanderers, Mile Twelve, Elliot Root, SUSTO •Becky Buller Band, Lillie, Tim Easton and dozens more

3. Here’s who played at Columbia’s Roots ‘n’ Blues ‘n’ BBQ 2017:

Ryan Adams, Leon Bridges, Gary Clark Jr., John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Band of Horses, Booker T’s Stax Revue, Old 97’s, Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Suffers, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Paul Weber and the Scrappers, The Mavericks, Pokey LaFarge, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, The SteelDrivers, Nikki Lane, Marshall Crenshaw, The Bottle Rockets, The Untamed Youth, Nikki Hill, The Hooten Hallers, Margo Price, Ana Popovic, Amanda Shires, Music Maker Blues Revue, The Fairfield Four, Chump Change, The Bel Airs, Kent Burnside & The Flood Brothers, Aina Cook Broadway Blues and Norm Ruebling Band

  Claim the last places on our fully escorted TriFest Music Tour 2018

  Claim the last places on our fully escorted TriFest Music Tour 2018

  Claim the last places on our fully escorted TriFest Music Tour 2018

      ***

TriFest Music Tour 2018 – Two Place Left! Claim the last places on our fully escorted TriFest Music Tour 2018

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

The ‘Me in My State’ meme is too relatable

We all hate to love and love to hate our home state.

Image: shutterstock/twitter

State pride is something we can all relate to — except when you're actually home.

As millions of people traveled back home for Thanksgiving, people started to get real nostalgic for their home state. A far-too-relatable trend began, and eventually people of the United States realized that we all hate to love and love to hate our home state.

Here’s a little bit of hometown pride from all 50 states.

Alabama: 

Me in Alabama: fuck bama

Me anywhere else: Alabama, land of the sweetest tea and brisket crafted by Saban's angels. Such a breathtaking countryside view, you can hear "roll tide" be whispered by the gods & banjos coming from up above.Sweet home, Alabama. Sweet home(sheds tear) https://t.co/pxErVuw5Lq

— adriana (@adrianaalewis) November 25, 2017

Alaska:

Me in Alaska : i hate it here

Me everywhere else : Alaska is the biggest state and the most appreciative towards native Americans. My first word was northern lights. My bestfriend is literally a ptarmigan. I live on a glacier with my family of 100 moose. I bleed forget me nots. https://t.co/hQRNZ9f0Av

— 🎄Mistlehoe Em🎄 (@EmelyR1) November 26, 2017

Arizona: 

Me in arizona: it's so nasty here Me everywhere else: it's a dry heat. Yea, we have the grand canyon. I'm from like, just outside of Flag. Nobody calls it Flagstaff lmao. Y'all gotta hike Bell Rock. You've never had prickly pear candy? We're going to Bookmans & Harkins. Sedona is https://t.co/p2Xbzx3f1i

— the simple coke of cola (@thxrosewoods) November 25, 2017

Arkansas:

Me in Arkansas: I gotta drive 35 miles to get a bottle of wine i hate this place

Me anywhere else: first off how dare you it’s pronounced Ar-kan-SAW. i was conceived in the giant budweiser can and born in walmart. I cry every time I call the hogs. Kris Allen is my wallpaper. https://t.co/XDKKbgQYnq

— Landon Watson (@wildwildwatson) November 27, 2017

California: 

Me in California: Cali is congested, expensive and overrated. Hate it

Me outside California: the entirety of modern American culture relies on California. We are the technological heart that underpins the American economy. CA is simply the greatest geographical area in history

— jose (@MisterRudeman) November 15, 2017

Colorado:

me in colorado: why tf do people live here

me anywhere else: colorado is the best state. I skied directly out of the womb and then hit a bong. I can guide myself anywhere using only the direction of the Rocky Mountains. My middle name is 4:20. Coors beer runs through my veins. https://t.co/cu6elIKnlK

— adele 🎄 (@rllinginthedeep) November 27, 2017

Connecticut: 

Me in Connecticut: Ct sucks

Me anywhere else: Connecticut is the constitution state. We are the backbone of America. We eat nutmegs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have swam up the Connecticut river. We sweat clam chowder. https://t.co/hiuqAfwjTU

— Sydney (@totallysyd) November 26, 2017

Delaware:

Me in Delaware: Delaware is cool.

Me anywhere else: DELAWARE IS THE FIRST STATE FOR A REASON. Joe Biden is my uncle and YouDee is my first cousin. Sales tax who? I was born a Blue Hen and will die one. https://t.co/ukrLmhzLsX

— Christine (@misschristinewp) November 26, 2017

Florida:

Me in Florida: this state is so fucking hot I hate this tourist attracting, mosquito ridden swamp land I’m melting

Me anywhere else: I live where you vacation! I drink orange juice every morning and eat Pub Subs every meal. My mother is an alligator, my father is Mickey Mouse https://t.co/XqKfmzbdEC

— S t e p h (@snreifschneider) November 26, 2017

Georgia: 

Me in Georgia: Nothing ever happens here, I have to move.

Me, not in Georgia: *BRAVES CHOPS THROUGH THE DOOR* DON'T EVEN TALK TO ME IF YOU HAVEN'T EATEN AT A WAFFLE HOUSE, CHICK-FIL-A IS MY SAVIOR, RISE UP BITCH, ATL HOOOOOEEEE

— Delaney Strunk (@delaknee) November 27, 2017

Hawaii:

Me in Hawaii: this rock is too small

Me anywhere else: Hawaii is the most beautiful place on earth. Surfed to school. Had a pet dolphin. Ohana means family. Lilo and stitch or die. Protect da aina. Nothing but respect for MY queen Liliuokalani. https://t.co/K16zW6O7BX

— yay-c (@Jchitzz) November 26, 2017

Idaho:

Me in Idaho: This state has some serious issues

Me anywhere else: The Gem State is an actual gift from God. I was born and raised by potatoes. My first words were “Vote for Pedro,” and I was breast fed fry sauce. I bathe every morning down at the crick. It’s Boi-SEE, not Boi-Z https://t.co/daJ8fF6bEW

— Paige Lea (@paigevlea) November 27, 2017

Illinois:

Me in Illinois: IL sucks I hate it here

Me anywhere else: Illinois is the heart of the United States. Born and raised in one of our many cornfields, the first word I ever spoke was “ope.” By the age of 5, I was consuming Ranch Dressing in gallons. I eat Portillo’s once a day. https://t.co/9eV1LbfpjZ

— z (@actualIyzoe) November 27, 2017

Indiana:

me in indiana: indiana is boring lmao me anywhere else: indiana is a lush, richly-forested state with a plethora of wildlife. i learned how to make green bean casserole before i could walk. my mother is an ear of corn and my father is steak & shake.

— alexia (@ajzippysplits) November 26, 2017

Iowa:

Me in Iowa: Iowa winters suck I need to move somewhere warm

Me anywhere else: Iowa is the backbone of this country. Our farmers are essential to this economy. My mom is a corn stalk and my dad is a can of Busch Light. I eat a side of ranch with every meal https://t.co/OAN6M1cZdk

— Clarice LeBlanc (@clariceleblanc) November 26, 2017

Kansas:

Me in Kansas: I hate Kansas

Me anywhere else: I’ve seen burnt ends save marriages. K-10 is basically the autobahn of america, so that’s a thrill. I can name all 87 breeds of chickens and have a full back tattoo of the Flint Hills. I will be married in a quiktrip parking lot. https://t.co/ry9uddl5Lz

— D Henry Hanson (@hewhoisd) November 27, 2017

Kentucky:

Me in Kentucky: KY is so dull

Me anywhere else: I came out of the womb drinking sweet tea and yelling Go Cats. I rode a racehorse before I could walk. Ale 8 is the drink of the gods and I’ve never once said “you all.” Hot browns and bourbon are the lifeblood of our people. https://t.co/IhsAgd91AW

— Amanda Thurman (@amandaplease445) November 26, 2017

 Louisiana:

Me in Louisiana: This state is garbage

Me anywhere else: Louisiana is the only state in America where anyone can cook. Louis Armstrong should be on the $100 bill. I made love to a beignet. https://t.co/DK5MIN8Mp8

— North Pole PPFA 🎅🏻 (@mcquizzay) November 26, 2017

Maine:

Me in Maine: This place is the worst

Me anywhere else: Maine is the most beautiful state ever. I bleed pine sap. I eat blueberries for all meals & have lobster claws for hands. I love the coast. Let's to to Canada this weekend. Bonfire anyone? https://t.co/NNHTwm4BGN

— Bay (@bayleigh_b) November 26, 2017

Maryland:

me in Maryland: this place is the armpit of America

me anywhere else: l put Old Bay seasoning on EVERYthing. l learned how to pick crabs before l could walk. Our flag is so beautiful. l love the Chesapeake Bay. l have had sex with a blue crab.

— holly jolly jordank (@jordank1230) November 19, 2017

Massachusetts:

Me in Massachusetts: Mass sucks

Me anywhere else: Massachusetts is where the revolution started we basically started the country. My first word was wicked and my mother breastfed me iced Dunkin’ coffee. I had road rage before I could walk. https://t.co/4H6NFjAb8U

— Kyle Manley (@tsmoochiewall) November 25, 2017

Michigan:

me in michigan: this sucks it’s so boring

me anywhere else: my first food was a coney dog. it’s pop not soda! detroit is coming back. I love going up north. 4 of the 5 great lakes prefer michigan. I can look south to canada. vernors cures any ailment. construction is a season. https://t.co/G16Vyt0oAa

— skyler (@skylerleslie) November 26, 2017

Minnesota:

Me in Minnesota: Minnesota nice? More like MN passive aggressive

Me elsewhere: We have 4 seasons and 10,000+ lakes. I learned to shovel snow before I could walk. Something about surviving seasonal depression creates a sense of community. Have you seen the Minneapolis art scene? https://t.co/ubGDLmQsIZ

— ally 🌿 (@_appelmom) November 26, 2017

Mississippi:

Me in Mississippi:I can’t even go outside without getting dirty. I hope I don’t become obese.

Me everywhere else: I live in the crooked letter state where everybody kin folk & the food is the best. We got koolaid pickles, ice cups, & the smallest towns ever. What’s hannin 😎🤪 https://t.co/YAKqXGyumX

— shekinah 🌸🐣💙 (@KinahMonroe) November 27, 2017

Missouri:

Me in Missouri: man i hate it here im going to move far away once im done with school

Me anywhere else: Country music is my everything. I could hogtie a calf before I was in preschool. I live in the gateway arch. I can fit 20 cornstalks in my mouth and my father is a hay bale https://t.co/9JF8Bspbi4

— Katherine Lewis (@Katherine_Lewi) November 27, 2017

Montana:

Me in Montana: this is butt fucking nowhere Me anywhere else: I am from the 4th largest state. We have the biggest sky. The last best place. I built a log cabin before I could walk. My mother is a glacier and my father is a moose. We have the freshest air in the world. https://t.co/z0qQRWLpjB

— Zoie Koostra (@zee_a_koostra) November 27, 2017

Nebraska:

me in Nebraska: I hate this corn field

me anywhere else: I’d kill for a temperature Tuesday @ Runza. Ope sorry, I’m just gonna squeeze right past ya. Could I get a pop with that? What do u mean you’ve never been to the CWS? *farmer waves to a stranger as I drive the speed limit* https://t.co/fH6f6XYym8

— Scout Petersen (@scoutpetersen) November 27, 2017

Nevada:

Me in Nevada: ugh Me in anywhere else: Why is every store closing at 8 like most store should be 24 hrs tf is this bullshit??? https://t.co/wCRXTM274A

— ems (@iiied) November 27, 2017

New Hampshire:

Me in New Hampshire: NH is just hillbillies and trees.

Me anywhere else: New Hampshire is the home to all things New England. I bleed granite. My parents are trees in perfect fall foliage. A Robert Frost poem was my first word. No sales tax is my life. LIVE FREE OR DIE. https://t.co/3Hwok0rZKv

— Terisé (@terisemcole) November 25, 2017

New Jersey:

Me in New Jersey: I can't believe I live in the armpit of the country

Me anywhere else: listen we have ocean, cities, mountains, and roller coasters. It's called pork roll. I love Wawa and I don't know how to pump my own gas. Central jersey is fake. Also go birds https://t.co/JxeqsEndAi

— hayley (@all_HAYL) November 22, 2017

New Mexico:

Me in New Mexico: everything is hot I’m on fire I wanna die Me anywhere else: New Mexico is amazing we have desert AND snowy mountain trails. You’ll never witness a more vivid sunset. Have u ever seen miles of white sand under a starry sky? I’m naming my next kid Green Chile. https://t.co/tAF9dx64z9

— Gabrielle 🌲 (@raisingbabyclem) November 27, 2017

New York:

Me in New York: New York is boring

Me anywhere else: New York is literally the best state ever. We got the city, the Christmas tree, the Yankees. If you’re not from New York you’re “mad” irrelevant ya heard https://t.co/IB2kkxQMEq

— Acon (@a_conn8) November 26, 2017

North Carolina:

Me in North Carolina: I hate NC

Me anywhere else: I once saw a dead man rise after the pastor dropped a bag of Cook Out’s Cajun fries in his coffin. The construction on Hillsborough Street is a small price to pay for the beauty and culture of Raleigh. We are all Cackalacky. https://t.co/OwTmpJZS9P

— Splenda Pappy (@caroline_oreo) November 25, 2017

North Dakota:

me in north dakota: this state is so boring

me anywhere else: this is the most peaceful state. we are the farmers of america. i could milk a cow before i could walk. my mother is a cornstalk & my father is a holstein cow. https://t.co/w8InFakVu4

— swaggy-t (@taylorajohnson8) November 27, 2017

Ohio:

Me in Ohio: ohio sucks its just corn fields and potholes

Me anywhere else: scarlet and gray are the only two colors i see. i was born in a buckeye tree. the pumpkin show runs through my veins. cedar point is the only amusement park. im getting married in a kroger. https://t.co/Gy5THontOq

— seth (@sthrvs) November 26, 2017

Oklahoma:

Me in Oklahoma: ugh we are so fucked

Me anywhere else: my left fist is Will Rogers, my right is Woody Guthrie, I will punch anyone who doesn't love chicken fried steak. The land we belong to is grand but also we should give it back to the indigenous as promised. https://t.co/wyOL1X9Bak

— chogborts head girl (@memphispunch) November 27, 2017

Oregon:

Me in Oregon: Oregon sucks

Me anywhere else: Oregon is my life. My first word was recycling. No I don’t know how to pump gas and what the fuck is sales tax? I learned to compost before I learned to walk. I breastfed on coffee and my 1st food was Dave’s killer bread

— Shelby Behr (@ShelbyBehr) November 27, 2017

Pennsylvania:

Me in Pennsylvania: Pa sucks

Me anywhere else: Pennsylvania is Home to the one and only liberty bell. I was born on the field of Gettysburg where my father Benjamin Franklin invented Hershey’s chocolate on a cheesesteak. https://t.co/vb6F37vXIJ

— Brighid (@jakeefswag) November 26, 2017

Rhode Island:

me in Rhode Island: I'm getting outta here

me anywhere else: I'm thirsty, where can I find a bubbler? Where is the nearest Dunkin' Donuts? What do you mean you don't know what coffee milk is? Oh you know someone from RI? What's their name? I probably know them https://t.co/cVDKXb3pU4

— Ellyn Narodowy (@Enarodowy) November 25, 2017

South Carolina:

me in south carolina: i want to die

me anywhere else: have you ever been to charleston? the low country is just SO beautiful. i drink brackish water to survive. don’t like the coast? greenville is the fourth fastest growing city in the us. you can see mountains from downtown :) https://t.co/hz0h4X3YY6

— George Maxcy (@georgemaxcy) November 25, 2017

South Dakota: 

me in South Dakota: I hate this homogenous tundra

me anywhere else: Have you seen a jackrabbit run? The badlands is the most underrated national park. Tom Brokaw. Could you drive at 14? Because I could. https://t.co/RDpWUmaUYa

— K. Hansen (@kiesehansen) November 27, 2017

Tennessee:

Me in Tennessee: This state is the worst lol Me anywhere else: Tennessee is the volunteer state and features so many beautiful landscapes and populations. Nashville hot chicken is the food of the gods and the Smokey’s are heaven. Memphis style is the best bbq against all others https://t.co/xQKrhxXJ5y

— ❄️Ab-vent Calendar❄️ (@starbob0mb) November 27, 2017

Texas:

Me in Texas: this place is hot, racist, and boring Me, not in Texas: There is simply none like the Lone Star Star. Our coyotes wail, our sage blooms, our rabbits rush. Its history is rich and musical culture runs deep. All are lost until they have tasted their first honey butter.

— Thomas Portier (@tomas_portier) November 16, 2017

Utah:

Me in Utah: This state is problematic

Me anywhere else: Utah is a utopia cradled in the loving embrace of the Wasatch Mountains. The grid system is our nation's finest achievement. I am the child of a pioneer & a honeybee. Cafe Rio sauce flows through my veins. This is the place https://t.co/6KURvyDanF

— Sasha Smith (@SashaPSmith) November 26, 2017

Vermont:

Me in Vermont: It’s so cold. Get me out of this state. Me anywhere else: Jeezum crow, Vermont is the greatest state in the world. Home of Ben & Jerry’s. If you’ve never milked a cow or boiled sap you haven’t lived. We have parties in barns and frequently see Bernie Sanders.

— Natalie Jackson (@natjackski) November 26, 2017

Virginia:

Me in Virginia: this states mediocre

Me anywhere else: Virginia is home to the first English settlement and is the birthplace of 8 US presidents. Virginia is for Lovers. I came out of the womb and went to Kings Dominion. Our class took a field trip to Jamestown in the 3rd grade https://t.co/pKFi7q12Dr

— Taylor Bybee (@coasterstudios) November 27, 2017

Washington:

Me in Washington state: All this pollen is killing me.

Me anywhere else: I NEED YOU TO TAKE ME TO A TREE, ANY TREE, IMMEDIATELY, OR I WILL DIE. WHERE ARE YOU HIDING YOUR TREES. WHY DO THEY ALL LOOK DEAD IN THE WINTER.

— Bree Mae (@TheBreeMae) November 26, 2017

West Virginia:

Me in West Virginia: wow this place sucks Me anywhere else: WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAIN MAMA. Beautiful nature!!! Scenic drives!!! We love our state so much our 8th grade history class is WV HISTORY!!! Too good for Virginia so we left!!!! GOLDEN HORSE SHOE!!! country rooooaaadz 🤘🏼 https://t.co/sYybMwmkcb

— hannah breen (@xHelloHannahhx) November 26, 2017

Wisconsin:

Me in Wisconsin: Wisco sucks lol

Me anywhere else: Wisconsin is amazing, we go to school in -40 degree weather. I was born on a November Sunday at Lambeau field. Knew how to Bucky before I was born. Cheese curds is my middle name.... Ope, I forgot to ask you where the bubbler is

— JENN•TIMM (@j_dizzledog) November 26, 2017

Wyoming:

Me in Wyoming: wow the weather is terrible; there is nothing & no one here Me anywhere else: Wyoming literally powers the nation. Yellowstone is the pride of America. The harsh, wild climate refines character. Only the best survive. We have mountains & peace. Ride for the brand. https://t.co/ulfWJE2v4u

— chelsey kay (@ChelsKay) November 26, 2017

[h/t:BuzzFeed]

More From this publisher : HERE ; This post was curated using : TrendingTraffic

=> *********************************************** Originally Published Here: The ‘Me in My State’ meme is too relatable ************************************ =>

The ‘Me in My State’ meme is too relatable was originally posted by A 18 MOA Top News from around

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The United States of memes has something everyone can relate to

State pride is something we can all relate to — except when you're actually home.

As millions of people traveled back home for Thanksgiving, people started to get real nostalgic for their home state. A far-too-relatable trend began, and eventually people of the United States realized that we all hate to love and love to hate our home state.

Here’s a little bit of hometown pride from all 50 states.

Alabama: 

Me in Alabama: fuck bama Me anywhere else: Alabama, land of the sweetest tea and brisket crafted by Saban's angels. Such a breathtaking countryside view, you can hear "roll tide" be whispered by the gods & banjos coming from up above.Sweet home, Alabama. Sweet home(sheds tear) https://t.co/pxErVuw5Lq

— adriana (@adrianaalewis) November 25, 2017

Alaska:

Me in Alaska : i hate it here Me everywhere else : Alaska is the biggest state and the most appreciative towards native Americans. My first word was northern lights. My bestfriend is literally a ptarmigan. I live on a glacier with my family of 100 moose. I bleed forget me nots. https://t.co/hQRNZ9f0Av

— 🎄Mistlehoe Em🎄 (@EmelyR1) November 26, 2017

Arizona: 

Me in arizona: it's so nasty here Me everywhere else: it's a dry heat. Yea, we have the grand canyon. I'm from like, just outside of Flag. Nobody calls it Flagstaff lmao. Y'all gotta hike Bell Rock. You've never had prickly pear candy? We're going to Bookmans & Harkins. Sedona is https://t.co/p2Xbzx3f1i

— the simple coke of cola (@thxrosewoods) November 25, 2017

Arkansas:

Me in Arkansas: I gotta drive 35 miles to get a bottle of wine i hate this place Me anywhere else: first off how dare you it’s pronounced Ar-kan-SAW. i was conceived in the giant budweiser can and born in walmart. I cry every time I call the hogs. Kris Allen is my wallpaper. https://t.co/XDKKbgQYnq

— Landon Watson (@wildwildwatson) November 27, 2017

California: 

Me in California: Cali is congested, expensive and overrated. Hate it Me outside California: the entirety of modern American culture relies on California. We are the technological heart that underpins the American economy. CA is simply the greatest geographical area in history

— jose (@MisterRudeman) November 15, 2017

Colorado:

me in colorado: why tf do people live here me anywhere else: colorado is the best state. I skied directly out of the womb and then hit a bong. I can guide myself anywhere using only the direction of the Rocky Mountains. My middle name is 4:20. Coors beer runs through my veins. https://t.co/cu6elIKnlK

— adele 🎄 (@rllinginthedeep) November 27, 2017

Connecticut: 

Me in Connecticut: Ct sucks Me anywhere else: Connecticut is the constitution state. We are the backbone of America. We eat nutmegs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have swam up the Connecticut river. We sweat clam chowder. https://t.co/hiuqAfwjTU

— Sydney (@totallysyd) November 26, 2017

Delaware:

Me in Delaware: Delaware is cool. Me anywhere else: DELAWARE IS THE FIRST STATE FOR A REASON. Joe Biden is my uncle and YouDee is my first cousin. Sales tax who? I was born a Blue Hen and will die one. https://t.co/ukrLmhzLsX

— Christine (@misschristinewp) November 26, 2017

Florida:

Me in Florida: this state is so fucking hot I hate this tourist attracting, mosquito ridden swamp land I’m melting Me anywhere else: I live where you vacation! I drink orange juice every morning and eat Pub Subs every meal. My mother is an alligator, my father is Mickey Mouse https://t.co/XqKfmzbdEC

— S t e p h (@snreifschneider) November 26, 2017

Georgia: 

Me in Georgia: Nothing ever happens here, I have to move. Me, not in Georgia: *BRAVES CHOPS THROUGH THE DOOR* DON'T EVEN TALK TO ME IF YOU HAVEN'T EATEN AT A WAFFLE HOUSE, CHICK-FIL-A IS MY SAVIOR, RISE UP BITCH, ATL HOOOOOEEEE

— Delaney Strunk (@delaknee) November 27, 2017

Hawaii:

Me in Hawaii: this rock is too small Me anywhere else: Hawaii is the most beautiful place on earth. Surfed to school. Had a pet dolphin. Ohana means family. Lilo and stitch or die. Protect da aina. Nothing but respect for MY queen Liliuokalani. https://t.co/K16zW6O7BX

— yay-c (@Jchitzz) November 26, 2017

Idaho:

Me in Idaho: This state has some serious issues Me anywhere else: The Gem State is an actual gift from God. I was born and raised by potatoes. My first words were “Vote for Pedro,” and I was breast fed fry sauce. I bathe every morning down at the crick. It’s Boi-SEE, not Boi-Z https://t.co/daJ8fF6bEW

— Paige Lea (@paigevlea) November 27, 2017

Illinois:

Me in Illinois: IL sucks I hate it here Me anywhere else: Illinois is the heart of the United States. Born and raised in one of our many cornfields, the first word I ever spoke was “ope.” By the age of 5, I was consuming Ranch Dressing in gallons. I eat Portillo’s once a day. https://t.co/9eV1LbfpjZ

— z (@actualIyzoe) November 27, 2017

Indiana:

me in indiana: indiana is boring lmao me anywhere else: indiana is a lush, richly-forested state with a plethora of wildlife. i learned how to make green bean casserole before i could walk. my mother is an ear of corn and my father is steak & shake.

— alexia (@ajzippysplits) November 26, 2017

Iowa:

Me in Iowa: Iowa winters suck I need to move somewhere warm Me anywhere else: Iowa is the backbone of this country. Our farmers are essential to this economy. My mom is a corn stalk and my dad is a can of Busch Light. I eat a side of ranch with every meal https://t.co/OAN6M1cZdk

— Clarice LeBlanc (@clariceleblanc) November 26, 2017

Kansas:

Me in Kansas: I hate Kansas Me anywhere else: I’ve seen burnt ends save marriages. K-10 is basically the autobahn of america, so that’s a thrill. I can name all 87 breeds of chickens and have a full back tattoo of the Flint Hills. I will be married in a quiktrip parking lot. https://t.co/ry9uddl5Lz

— D Henry Hanson (@hewhoisd) November 27, 2017

Kentucky:

Me in Kentucky: KY is so dull Me anywhere else: I came out of the womb drinking sweet tea and yelling Go Cats. I rode a racehorse before I could walk. Ale 8 is the drink of the gods and I’ve never once said “you all.” Hot browns and bourbon are the lifeblood of our people. https://t.co/IhsAgd91AW

— Amanda Thurman (@amandaplease445) November 26, 2017

 Louisiana:

Me in Louisiana: This state is garbage Me anywhere else: Louisiana is the only state in America where anyone can cook. Louis Armstrong should be on the $100 bill. I made love to a beignet. https://t.co/DK5MIN8Mp8

— North Pole PPFA 🎅🏻 (@mcquizzay) November 26, 2017

Maine:

Me in Maine: This place is the worst Me anywhere else: Maine is the most beautiful state ever. I bleed pine sap. I eat blueberries for all meals & have lobster claws for hands. I love the coast. Let's to to Canada this weekend. Bonfire anyone? https://t.co/NNHTwm4BGN

— Bay (@bayleigh_b) November 26, 2017

Maryland:

me in Maryland: this place is the armpit of America me anywhere else: l put Old Bay seasoning on EVERYthing. l learned how to pick crabs before l could walk. Our flag is so beautiful. l love the Chesapeake Bay. l have had sex with a blue crab.

— holly jolly jordank (@jordank1230) November 19, 2017

Massachusetts:

Me in Massachusetts: Mass sucks Me anywhere else: Massachusetts is where the revolution started we basically started the country. My first word was wicked and my mother breastfed me iced Dunkin’ coffee. I had road rage before I could walk. https://t.co/4H6NFjAb8U

— Kyle Manley (@tsmoochiewall) November 25, 2017

Michigan:

me in michigan: this sucks it’s so boring me anywhere else: my first food was a coney dog. it’s pop not soda! detroit is coming back. I love going up north. 4 of the 5 great lakes prefer michigan. I can look south to canada. vernors cures any ailment. construction is a season. https://t.co/G16Vyt0oAa

— skyler (@skylerleslie) November 26, 2017

Minnesota:

Me in Minnesota: Minnesota nice? More like MN passive aggressive Me elsewhere: We have 4 seasons and 10,000+ lakes. I learned to shovel snow before I could walk. Something about surviving seasonal depression creates a sense of community. Have you seen the Minneapolis art scene? https://t.co/ubGDLmQsIZ

— ally 🌿 (@_appelmom) November 26, 2017

Mississippi:

Me in Mississippi:I can’t even go outside without getting dirty. I hope I don’t become obese. Me everywhere else: I live in the crooked letter state where everybody kin folk & the food is the best. We got koolaid pickles, ice cups, & the smallest towns ever. What’s hannin 😎🤪 https://t.co/YAKqXGyumX

— shekinah 🌸🐣💙 (@KinahMonroe) November 27, 2017

Missouri:

Me in Missouri: man i hate it here im going to move far away once im done with school Me anywhere else: Country music is my everything. I could hogtie a calf before I was in preschool. I live in the gateway arch. I can fit 20 cornstalks in my mouth and my father is a hay bale https://t.co/9JF8Bspbi4

— Katherine Lewis (@Katherine_Lewi) November 27, 2017

Montana:

Me in Montana: this is butt fucking nowhere Me anywhere else: I am from the 4th largest state. We have the biggest sky. The last best place. I built a log cabin before I could walk. My mother is a glacier and my father is a moose. We have the freshest air in the world. https://t.co/z0qQRWLpjB

— Zoie Koostra (@zee_a_koostra) November 27, 2017

Nebraska:

me in Nebraska: I hate this corn field me anywhere else: I’d kill for a temperature Tuesday @ Runza. Ope sorry, I’m just gonna squeeze right past ya. Could I get a pop with that? What do u mean you’ve never been to the CWS? *farmer waves to a stranger as I drive the speed limit* https://t.co/fH6f6XYym8

— Scout Petersen (@scoutpetersen) November 27, 2017

Nevada:

Me in Nevada: ugh Me in anywhere else: Why is every store closing at 8 like most store should be 24 hrs tf is this bullshit??? https://t.co/wCRXTM274A

— ems (@iiied) November 27, 2017

New Hampshire:

Me in New Hampshire: NH is just hillbillies and trees. Me anywhere else: New Hampshire is the home to all things New England. I bleed granite. My parents are trees in perfect fall foliage. A Robert Frost poem was my first word. No sales tax is my life. LIVE FREE OR DIE. https://t.co/3Hwok0rZKv

— Terisé (@terisemcole) November 25, 2017

New Jersey:

Me in New Jersey: I can't believe I live in the armpit of the country Me anywhere else: listen we have ocean, cities, mountains, and roller coasters. It's called pork roll. I love Wawa and I don't know how to pump my own gas. Central jersey is fake. Also go birds https://t.co/JxeqsEndAi

— hayley (@all_HAYL) November 22, 2017

New Mexico:

Me in New Mexico: everything is hot I’m on fire I wanna die Me anywhere else: New Mexico is amazing we have desert AND snowy mountain trails. You’ll never witness a more vivid sunset. Have u ever seen miles of white sand under a starry sky? I’m naming my next kid Green Chile. https://t.co/tAF9dx64z9

— Gabrielle 🌲 (@raisingbabyclem) November 27, 2017

New York:

Me in New York: New York is boring Me anywhere else: New York is literally the best state ever. We got the city, the Christmas tree, the Yankees. If you’re not from New York you’re “mad” irrelevant ya heard https://t.co/IB2kkxQMEq

— Acon (@a_conn8) November 26, 2017

North Carolina:

Me in North Carolina: I hate NC Me anywhere else: I once saw a dead man rise after the pastor dropped a bag of Cook Out’s Cajun fries in his coffin. The construction on Hillsborough Street is a small price to pay for the beauty and culture of Raleigh. We are all Cackalacky. https://t.co/OwTmpJZS9P

— Splenda Pappy (@caroline_oreo) November 25, 2017

North Dakota:

me in north dakota: this state is so boring me anywhere else: this is the most peaceful state. we are the farmers of america. i could milk a cow before i could walk. my mother is a cornstalk & my father is a holstein cow. https://t.co/w8InFakVu4

— swaggy-t (@taylorajohnson8) November 27, 2017

Ohio:

Me in Ohio: ohio sucks its just corn fields and potholes Me anywhere else: scarlet and gray are the only two colors i see. i was born in a buckeye tree. the pumpkin show runs through my veins. cedar point is the only amusement park. im getting married in a kroger. https://t.co/Gy5THontOq

— seth (@sthrvs) November 26, 2017

Oklahoma:

Me in Oklahoma: ugh we are so fucked Me anywhere else: my left fist is Will Rogers, my right is Woody Guthrie, I will punch anyone who doesn't love chicken fried steak. The land we belong to is grand but also we should give it back to the indigenous as promised. https://t.co/wyOL1X9Bak

— chogborts head girl (@memphispunch) November 27, 2017

Oregon:

Me in Oregon: Oregon sucks Me anywhere else: Oregon is my life. My first word was recycling. No I don’t know how to pump gas and what the fuck is sales tax? I learned to compost before I learned to walk. I breastfed on coffee and my 1st food was Dave’s killer bread

— Shelby Behr (@ShelbyBehr) November 27, 2017

Pennsylvania:

Me in Pennsylvania: Pa sucks Me anywhere else: Pennsylvania is Home to the one and only liberty bell. I was born on the field of Gettysburg where my father Benjamin Franklin invented Hershey’s chocolate on a cheesesteak. https://t.co/vb6F37vXIJ

— Brighid (@jakeefswag) November 26, 2017

Rhode Island:

me in Rhode Island: I'm getting outta here me anywhere else: I'm thirsty, where can I find a bubbler? Where is the nearest Dunkin' Donuts? What do you mean you don't know what coffee milk is? Oh you know someone from RI? What's their name? I probably know them https://t.co/cVDKXb3pU4

— Ellyn Narodowy (@Enarodowy) November 25, 2017

South Carolina:

me in south carolina: i want to die me anywhere else: have you ever been to charleston? the low country is just SO beautiful. i drink brackish water to survive. don’t like the coast? greenville is the fourth fastest growing city in the us. you can see mountains from downtown :) https://t.co/hz0h4X3YY6

— George Maxcy (@georgemaxcy) November 25, 2017

South Dakota: 

me in South Dakota: I hate this homogenous tundra me anywhere else: Have you seen a jackrabbit run? The badlands is the most underrated national park. Tom Brokaw. Could you drive at 14? Because I could. https://t.co/RDpWUmaUYa

— K. Hansen (@kiesehansen) November 27, 2017

Tennessee:

Me in Tennessee: This state is the worst lol Me anywhere else: Tennessee is the volunteer state and features so many beautiful landscapes and populations. Nashville hot chicken is the food of the gods and the Smokey’s are heaven. Memphis style is the best bbq against all others https://t.co/xQKrhxXJ5y

— ❄️Ab-vent Calendar❄️ (@starbob0mb) November 27, 2017

Texas:

Me in Texas: this place is hot, racist, and boring Me, not in Texas: There is simply none like the Lone Star Star. Our coyotes wail, our sage blooms, our rabbits rush. Its history is rich and musical culture runs deep. All are lost until they have tasted their first honey butter.

— Thomas Portier (@tomas_portier) November 16, 2017

Utah:

Me in Utah: This state is problematic Me anywhere else: Utah is a utopia cradled in the loving embrace of the Wasatch Mountains. The grid system is our nation's finest achievement. I am the child of a pioneer & a honeybee. Cafe Rio sauce flows through my veins. This is the place https://t.co/6KURvyDanF

— Sasha Smith (@SashaPSmith) November 26, 2017

Vermont:

Me in Vermont: It’s so cold. Get me out of this state. Me anywhere else: Jeezum crow, Vermont is the greatest state in the world. Home of Ben & Jerry’s. If you’ve never milked a cow or boiled sap you haven’t lived. We have parties in barns and frequently see Bernie Sanders.

— Natalie Jackson (@natjackski) November 26, 2017

Virginia:

Me in Virginia: this states mediocre Me anywhere else: Virginia is home to the first English settlement and is the birthplace of 8 US presidents. Virginia is for Lovers. I came out of the womb and went to Kings Dominion. Our class took a field trip to Jamestown in the 3rd grade https://t.co/pKFi7q12Dr

— Taylor Bybee (@coasterstudios) November 27, 2017

Washington:

Me in Washington state: All this pollen is killing me. Me anywhere else: I NEED YOU TO TAKE ME TO A TREE, ANY TREE, IMMEDIATELY, OR I WILL DIE. WHERE ARE YOU HIDING YOUR TREES. WHY DO THEY ALL LOOK DEAD IN THE WINTER.

— Bree Mae (@TheBreeMae) November 26, 2017

West Virginia:

Me in West Virginia: wow this place sucks Me anywhere else: WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAIN MAMA. Beautiful nature!!! Scenic drives!!! We love our state so much our 8th grade history class is WV HISTORY!!! Too good for Virginia so we left!!!! GOLDEN HORSE SHOE!!! country rooooaaadz 🤘🏼 https://t.co/sYybMwmkcb

— hannah breen (@xHelloHannahhx) November 26, 2017

Wisconsin:

Me in Wisconsin: Wisco sucks lol Me anywhere else: Wisconsin is amazing, we go to school in -40 degree weather. I was born on a November Sunday at Lambeau field. Knew how to Bucky before I was born. Cheese curds is my middle name.... Ope, I forgot to ask you where the bubbler is

— JENN•TIMM (@j_dizzledog) November 26, 2017

Wyoming:

Me in Wyoming: wow the weather is terrible; there is nothing & no one here Me anywhere else: Wyoming literally powers the nation. Yellowstone is the pride of America. The harsh, wild climate refines character. Only the best survive. We have mountains & peace. Ride for the brand. https://t.co/ulfWJE2v4u

— chelsey kay (@ChelsKay) November 26, 2017

[h/t:BuzzFeed]

[gerardowen50]

A square legend of dreams again their interpretation

Title:

Word Count: 720

Summary: The purpose of dreams by hallucination experts may reproduce nearly thanks to lapsed thanks to dreaming itself. We appreciate that whole humans, further multiplied animals, speculation every night, besides persons conceive always been prejudiced to learn what causes dreams further what they mean.

Keywords: dream, dreams, mental picture interpretation

Article Body: The significance of dreams by fancy experts may exhibit partly since old since dreaming itself. We ken that thoroughgoing humans, besides alive with animals, pipe dream every night, and mob swallow always been into to see what causes dreams also what they mean.

The conviction of dreams dates channel at prime over abysmal for 3000-4000 B.C. We see that thanks to the interpretations of dreams were recorded weight lasting formulate on clay tablets. existing is intellection that populous caveman peoples were unable to initially exemplify between the sterling world also the reverie world. pressure profuse cases, these family looked upon the rainbow totality as an evolution of the sensible globe around them, besides esteem various cases they aphorism the speculation totality as supplementary forceful than the waking one.

Dream significance was resembling an money craft to the fossil Greek further Roman world that head trip interpreters generally accompanied generals and unequal military leaders thing battles. Dreams were moved deeply seriously, also the Greeks besides Romans effect private repeatedly viewed dreams seeing messages sent by their gods.

Dreams also had a friar good spirits moment ancient Egypt, besides priests their doubled in that wraith interpreters. Dreams were among the items recorded by the grizzled Egyptians dominion the institute of hieroglyphics. Those whose dreams were especially golden or accommodating were conception to exemplify satisfied also were given symbolic position supremacy these olden societies. Likewise, kinsfolk who were wicked to recount dreams were impression to hog these gifts straightaway from the gods, besides they enjoyed a idiosyncratic level connections club now utterly.

know onions are as 700 mentions of dreams ropes the bible, and folks juice biblical times maxim dreams for exceptionally timely. Dreams again their interpretations are mentioned domination copious of the strikingly constructive books of the bible further weird sanctified scriptures.

In abounding cases, dreams were oftentimes observed owing to a create of prophecy. folks regularly interpreted their dreams in that omens or warnings, again adjusted their activities then. Dreams were oftentimes perception of owing to omens from deities, seeing messages from spirits, or since messages from departed souls. ropes some cases, dreams were alike pragmatic over the working of demons, meant to slant again concern the dreamer.

Dreams were forasmuch as finance that they often dictated the actions of political again military leaders, beautiful individual from the prosecution of a stress to the determination of a political the nod. Dreams were again conceit to clinch peppy clues to healers, and they were used clout the diagnosis further tracery of whole-hog manners of illness.

Dreaming was oftentimes looked upon by spontaneous peoples now a access to parish directly veil gods besides spirits, and dreams are reposeful used power this landing by cultures around the world. countless kin believed, besides some calm do, that during air castle land the omnipotent leaves the physique besides communes stow away the pipeline world.

The Chinese were single culture who believed that the father unbefriended the habit each after dark during fancy berth. They believed that if the dreamer were suddenly delighted the deity may not factor wicked to increase to the build. That is why some Chinese are pacific leery about the boon of discomposure clocks. This is apt only grandstand play of how senile legends constraint last excitement the later world.

Some Mexican and local American societies ice this olden twist of the priority of dreams, and ice the leaning command a separate dimension that is visited during vision berth. These people believed that their departed ancestors lived rule their dreams, and that they were practical to take forms flip for animals also plants. ergo dreams were observed now a road through them to canton screen their recent besides elderly ancestors, again to ensue actuality also conclusion that would aid them control their waking lives. Dreams were also empitic now ways to accrue hookup about their matter or involvement force life.

The fervor now dreams changed ever ahead juice the 19th century, again dreams predominance that life were oftentimes dismissed over reactions to anxiety, face noises or precise nonpareil entree also indigestion. During this word of time, dreams were thought to credit no idea at all, and interest notoriety image solution the works but evaporated. This thorough changed, however, hold back the triumph of Sigmund Freud to be guidance the 19th century. Sigmund Freud stunned the totality of psychiatry by stressing the urgency of dreams, and he revived the once repetitious art of idea intention.

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[jacksoncenter]

Tin Top and the Soundscapes of History

By Heidi Dodson Heidi Dodson is the Oral History Scholar-in-Residence at the Jackson Center. 

If you come across the railroad track, you’re going to run into Brewer Lane. And when you get there from Brewer Lane, and you come on around the curve, right there is Hargraves Street. That was Tin Top. That little area was up there, Tin Top.

--Donny Lee "Hollywood" Riggsbee (May 9, 2012)

For much of this year I have been privileged to listen to and read the stories people have shared about Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top.  I've only lived in Chapel Hill-Carrboro for five years, and I love learning the history of its neighborhoods.  How can you call a place home without getting to know its past?  Hollywood Riggsbee is one of the people I have learned from, and his description of Tin Top captured my imagination.  

"A while back, back, I’d say, twenty, thirty years ago, we had some old regular houses with tin on them.  They was in a row, lined up on Hargraves Street. That’s where it was called Tin Top because it had tin on the houses. I mean, it was, everybody knew each other…the whole top row, up on Hargraves Street….everybody up there was some kin. Except my aunt, she stayed right there in the first house but she didn’t have no tin on her house. She had a regular roof on hers.  We was in the bottom. The top was called Tin Top, the top part. And we was in the bottom. We was Carr Court."

(May 9, 2012)

Freeman, Charles M. Chapel Hill & Carrboro N.C.: Negro community. 1944. Original in the North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina.

Hollywood's description stuck with me because it evoked the sound of rain pounding down on the tin roofs, drowning out the sound of everything else inside the houses.  His memories brought to mind an interview I did in rural Missouri with Eugene Speller, who grew up in a sharecropping family.  I had never given much thought to roofs:  their construction, what they were made of, what they cost, how they sound, and how they might affect daily life.  Eugene's family moved to a place where they had to build their own house.  They didn't have much money, so they scouted around a nearby town for materials.  He prayed they would not have enough money to get the tin.

"You know what it's like in the rain with a tin roof? It's worse than the wood owls. But when it rains on a tin roof…it's terrible."[1]

I thought about Tin Top - what did it sound like on Hargraves Street when it rained? Was it only loud inside the houses?  Could family and friends talk to each other above the noise? Was it difficult to go to sleep or was it something one grew accustomed to, like the sound of a freight train?   Did the tin roofs keep the rain out?

We often take the sounds around us for granted.  This is also true when we study the past.  We ask questions about who, what, when, and where.  We try to understand what people were feeling and seeing, and we look at maps and photographs to visually understand a place.  We neglect sounds, even though they are interwoven with the physical landscape and change over time.  Today, if we live in a city, we get accustomed to the sound of traffic:  horns honked in agitation, the urgency of sirens, the smooth whoosh of tires on the road.  In the country, we might be more familiar with the crunch of tires on gravel or the chorus of frogs.  How are the sounds and sights today in Northside or Tin Top different from they were fifty or sixty years ago?  

Hollywood's recollections of Tin Top and the sense of community and family they revealed inspired me to learn more about the neighborhood.  I found an article online about Orange County places.  Using land records, maps and books, the author (unidentified) provides a fascinating spatial history of Tin Top.  However, the articles starts by saying the neighborhood "came into being in the 1920s, but was gone by the 1940s."  

I was surprised to read that.  Hollywood grew up in Tin Top in the 1960s so I knew it was not gone, even if the name was no longer inscribed on a map.  The idea that Tin Top has disappeared speaks to issues of authority and naming.  Who gets to name a neighborhood?  How do we know when it begins and ends? Although town officials or developers may assign a new name, residents carry their own neighborhood identity into the future through the telling and retelling of their history.

The tin top houses that Hollywood described on Hargraves Street were built in the 1920s by Luther R. Hargraves, a carpenter and the first African American mortician in Chapel Hill. Mr. Hargraves was the grandfather of Velma Perry and Janie Alston.  Here are some of their memories, recorded in oral history interviews:

Janie Alston: My grandfather would build houses for people, and bury people.  And people that didn't have money: he was a Christian man, so if people didn't have money, he would still bury them. And they would give him a hog or some chickens.  He needed to feed his family, so he just, you know. And he would build houses and he wasn't a very good bookkeeper, because he would just take people at their word and people would pay him and people would not pay him.  Like where Tin Top is now? He built those houses.  You see that street that says Hargraves? He built houses with tin tops down there.  And some people paid him, some didn't. But then when the Depression came, he lost a lot of stuff.

At that time I guess that's what they did, put tin tops on the houses. I wouldn't want to live in a house with a tin top, it makes too much noise. A lot of people like that sound.

Daphne Attas, author of the memoir Chapel Hill in Plain Sight, lived near Tin Top in the late 1930s when she was a child.  She recalled that “In the South there were usually two towns, the white and colored.  These towns defied their descriptions, because the white town’s houses were painted in colors and the colored town’s houses were never painted at all, and were colored by weather, no color at all, just weather-changing color.”  The Attas family lived in the “colored section.”  The house they rented was old and long past its prime.  It was located “on a knoll off Merritt Mill Road in the shade of three butternuts and three oaks, separated from the colored town [Tin Top] by a four-acre field of broom grass.” It was also near the train tracks.  An African American woman named Mrs. Snipes “ran a one-room store at the edge of the tracks.” As the season turned from summer to fall and the trees shed their leaves, Attas and her family could see “the shambles of tin roofs against the honeysuckled dirt.”

The Attas family called their house the “Shack,” and Daphne believed “the type of houses people live in do the dictating.”  She describes what her house communicated to her about the tin roof: “I have an old tin roof upon which no cats can run, only squirrels and chipmunks.  I dictate the seasons of the year when nuts fall down on my tin roof.  They report like pistol shot.”  

Rain, music, laughter, wind, acorns, freight trains - the quick pitter-patter of mammal feet on what in the summer was a hot tin roof;  they were all part of the part of the soundscape of Tin Top and other neighborhoods that used metal roof to keep out the elements.   

Luther Hargraves's carpentry and housing construction also would have created new sounds that signaled community growth and prosperity: hammers pounding nails into tin roofs, the voices of workers calling out to each other.

Hudson Vaughan: How did he [Luther] get into building, do you know? Do you know how he began to—?

Janie Alston: No, I don't. I don't know why he became a carpenter.  I don't know if Jerry [his father] was a carpenter before.

Jerry Hargraves was a carpenter.  Born into slavery ca. 1835, he would have been about thirty years old when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, ending slavery.  He and his wife Martha (nee Oldham) started their family before the Civil War ended, and Luther was born in 1869.  

Velma Perry: Great-grandad was a carpenter and so was grandaddy.  He helped build houses all over the place.  It was Tin Top they called it.  You know where my church is?  [St. Paul AME] Behind my church, that was, they call it Carrboro now…that was all his property. All that property was my great-grandaddy's. He built thirteen houses down in that area. And he put tin tops on it.  And the neighbors and the people in the town named it Tin Top Alley. They wasn't big houses, little houses, three or four rooms or something like that.

Jerry Hargraves was also one of the original founders of St. Paul AME Church, which was organized in 1864.  As a carpenter, he probably used his skills to build the church structure in 1892.

After researching her family history, Ms. Perry was surprised to discover her grandfather could read, write, and count, given the lack of educational opportunities for African Americans in Chapel Hill.  But it is possible that Luther attended school for a while. In 1880, two of his older brothers were attending school.  In the years between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, African Americans were very involved in educating children in Orange County.  One of those teachers was Wilson Swain Caldwell, who had worked as a janitor at UNC.  He took over a "free school for colored children" located on the corner of Cameron Avenue and Mallett Street.[2]  Carrie Jones moved to Chapel Hill from New York as the servant of a university professor.  After a few years, she started teaching in Alamance, Orange, and Chatham counties in schools run by the American Missionary Association.  Then she started her own school, which she named Hannah Lowe after her mother.[3]  Pauli Murray’s grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, taught school through the Quakers, for the Orange County school board, and ultimately started his own free private school in Chapel Hill.[4]

Hargraves was an enterprising businessman.  In 1920, the Durham Morning Herald reported that he, along with Luther Edwards, L. H. Hackney, Van Nunn, Durwood O'Kelly, Ernest Thompson and B. F. Hopkins, were granted a charter for the Progressive Manufacturing Company in Chapel Hill.  It was for the "manufacture and sale of brick and clay products," and had authorized capital in the amount of $50,000.  Rev. Hackney was the board president.  The 1920s were a time of expansion and growth in Chapel Hill and the African American community, which included the Black business district on the west end of Franklin.[5]

In April 1923, the Chapel Hill Weekly noted that Luther Hargraves "has become a capitalist and put up four dwelling houses out on the street that runs north from the Baptist church.  Three of them have already been let and are being lived in and the fourth will be occupied soon."[6]

Unfortunately, just two months later, in June of 1923, Hargraves and his wife Della had a financial setback.  Someone accidentally set fire to their barn, destroying a hearse and killing a cow and horse.  "The total loss suffered by the carpenter-undertaker is estimated at from $800 to $1000.  There was no hydrant near enough to permit Fire Chief Foister and his men to train their hose on the barn."[7]  At that time, the municipal water system in Chapel Hill was still in development.  The University supplied water to the town and expected to extend a pipe down Franklin Street to the west end by early December.  Yet the Weekly explained to readers that "no progress has been made in the last few months in the scheme to extend a pipe line from Franklin Street along Church Street to the colored folks' section known as Pottersfield."[8]

Although the barn fire was a devastating loss, Luther Hargraves's excellent reputation in Chapel Hill prompted assistance from others.  In June, the Weekly alerted readers that "Luther Hargrave the negro carpenter so well known to the citizens of Chapel Hill, had a severe financial blow when his barn burned up recently."  Donations were encouraged.[9]  The family recovered, and Luther continued to operate the funeral business and construct new "tin top" houses in the Black community throughout the 1920s.

[1]: Eugene Speller, interview by Heidi Dodson, June 11, 2012, interview U-0856, Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

[2]: John K. Chapman (Yonni). “Second Generation: Black Youth and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill, N.C., 1937-1963.” Master’s thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995.

[3]:  “Carrie Jones Has Taught 40 Years,” Chapel Hill Weekly, March 22, 1923.

[4]:  Rosetta Austin Moore, The Impact of Slavery on the Education on Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina, 1619-1970 (Lulu Publishing Services, 2015), 36.

[5]:  “New Enterprises,” Durham Morning Herald, February 21, 1920.

[6]:  Untitled, Chapel Hill Weekly, April 5, 1923; “Industry,” The Crisis, November, 1920, 80.

[7]:  “Horse and Cow Burn,” Chapel Hill Weekly, June 12, 1923.

[8]:  “Colored People Hope for Water,” Chapel Hill Weekly, August 9, 1923; “Water Service for West End,” Chapel Hill Weekly, November 8, 1923.

[9]:  “Luther in Trouble,” Chapel Hill Weekly, July 5, 1923.