#stoner rick is the last thing i was expecting

[elliotts-personal-property]

It’s 4/20 so I’m legally obligated to show y’all this🍃💨

[bathoarchives]

On The Rise: A Conversation With Tefoffline

Tefo Kosie best known as Tefoffline is a 20-year-old rapper, producer, and upcoming mixing engineer from Kanye, Ga Maila.

With the release of his mixtape 'Tomorrow Might Be Too Late' last December, he has further solidified his place as one of the most exciting new-age rappers in Botswana.

Where did you grow up?

Well, I moved around a lot when I was growing up you know. Initially born in Kanye, I lived in Gabs for a good 8 years before moving to Mahalapye for like a year or so. Then I came back to the south, living in Molepolole for 4 years before moving to where I live now which is somewhere around the city.

How did you get into music?

I think I've always had a musical inclination from a very young age, mostly because of the music my parents was bumping. I was like 4 or 5 when I used to go into their room and play Michael Jackson and Johnny Mokhali CDs. In terms of Rap and Hip-Hop records, my uncles put me on man. During school holidays I used just get dumped at their places and these dudes was playing a whole lotta rap shit at the time. You know your Lil Wayne, Nicki, Drake and Rick Ross, those are the 4 niggas who properly introduced me to this Hip-Hop stuff. In terms of my rapping, I wrote my first ever rap at 9 while living in Mahalapye. But what had urged me to write a verse was the fact that me and my friends at the time had a thing we did after school where we'd rap and just talk about Hip-Hop stuff for hours on end before we all went home. We used to do like other niggas verse's you know like the stuff that was popular at the time and really just stuff we liked until one day i decided to surprise these dudes and rap my own shit that I wrote. It went as well as expected and I been kickin it since.

How did you come up with the name Tefoffline?

I went on a long ass sabbatical in like 2021 just to get off social media and get my mind right and tbh, that was most amount of work I did, music-wise and just life-wise. Basically, thats where it came from. I felt like I worked better off my phone and the internet as a whole, so I just merged that with my name. It just took me back to how I used to make music before I encountered phones and shit. Back then it was just my imagination, pen, and diary, and I was the most efficient working under those conditions. I think I was going through a name change type situation at the time and I just didn't want a regular name that everybody had or some typical white man's name like nah. I needed to bring it home as well. I like that I included my real name in there because it just added to the authenticity. Real shit.

When did you start releasing music?

I only started dropping music in 2021 and to be honest anytime I think about it I can't help but laugh. I was in the kitchen one morning at like 9am and I was like 'Yo kana I did this other joint yesterday, maybe I should drop it, and I did and it went crazy. I think that when I really decided to go all in after seeing all the good things everybody had to say about my shit.

How would you describe your style of music?

Right now I won't lie i'd say I'm making some real stoner music. Like stoner anthems fr but seriously I'd say it's like a mix of alt-rap with jazzy elements and the truth really. That's what I describe it as because it's really music about my life you know, the ins and outs, ups and downs, the weird shit, everything. I look at it more like confessions in a way.

What inspires the style of music you make?

A whole bunch of things tota. I like music combinations and rhythms that aren't conventional. The regular shit is hard as well but I never really wanna limit my references. Niggas like MF DOOM, Earl, and MIKE been inspiring and continue to inspire the music I been making to this point. If you look closely, all these cats have a thing in common: they produce and rap. So that's the school I came from. Tota hela anything goes with me. I'm a big house music fan as well so I'd say that inspires my shit too.+

What inspired your recent mixtape?

Life has a funny way of showing you who the boss is. I guess I was just going through that shit and decided to document it. Like I said I see it as billy would say, Truth Rap, so for me it was an easy thing to write the records. The hard part was outgrowing the tracks. It's like you can't get that first feeling on a track you've been working on for 2 years so it took me a while to get it done but all in all it was a good experience man. I went through some stuff and if you listen to the music you'll hear it. Everything is on the music.

How was the process of creating it?

Man, it was like any project to be honest. It's like you develop a new love for creating and you're almost always excited for the first few months. But then it becomes routine and it gets mixed up with other bad routines in your life prompting you to try to escape or change that. I ain't gonna lie that shit got me off course for a good while. Just focused on living my life. Writer's block became a hassle at a point and I was nearly like 'F this' but you know, that's how it be. I really had fun man but truthfully I've been over that project for a good while.

Vocal layering seems to be a common aspect in a handful of your tracks..would you consider that a part of your signature sound?

Yeah definitely. I used to make tracks without adlibs and backings cause I had a different perspective on what music should sound like. But you know, with time, you grow and learn and I just decided to incorporate all that into the records. I really love music with good backings and adlibs, not even just rap, so it was more of an 'I'm making the shit I like to hear' type of vibe. That's just how I move with my music. I know what I want in terms of the sonic direction, so I just do it myself. Even with the latest project where that kinda thing is prominent, I knew how I wanted it to sound like 2 years ago. I just had to practice and implement that knowledge. 

Is there anything you're doing apart from rapping?

Yeah, I'm a student currently about to get my bag, soon. I do a little music journalism for my school magazine focusing on music, but besides school, I have a couple of business ventures I plan to implement, especially this year. I'm a business dude at heart, even though I never studied it. I've always loved the fact that you could make money from your own ideas on your own terms, so I won't dwell too much on that but yeah. I also recently started officially heading a little label imprint called 4EVAFADED, which comprises the people responsible for the success of my tape and my music in general, my niggas idyllicsoul and Rxssi on production, as well as fellow rapper NovSon who's a young MC trynna make moves as well. I'm what you call a Renaissance man in a way, I just have a little trouble with laying out all the pieces because it gets messy.

Any local acts that you find exciting?

There's tons; I wouldn't even know where to start. My favorite rappers right now would have to be Nikky Dymondz, banzai, Jesonyana, Chrysus, OneTake 267, and my boy NovSon just to name a few. In terms of singers and vocalists, I have been messing with that Magadi single (Backseat Headrush), Sebaga got some really cool-sounding projects, Fourteen'O'Six is hard af, Courtney got that one track, and how could I forget spacerover and Chubbs (Lucas Chubbs). Oh I fuck with Pablo and Xortic as well. Them niggas is crazy like I won't even say much, but I'm sure I'll be able to experience most of these artists because I was privy to meeting some more amazing acts last year. So maybe my list will change in a few. I just had to give you a few because I can't really think of some right now, but I'm a huge fan of local shit. It really is my bread and butter.

Any thoughts on where the music game is going?

I really think everyone is getting to do anything they want especially sound-wise. I feel like we're not confined to doing what pleases labels or whatever so it's more of a whole group of niggas just making music they really mess with not because they have to make that stuff. So I think you know, with that kind of freedom, the landscape changes over time. I also love the fact that dudes like Saigo (saigotheeditor) have been able to do the photography stuff and shows to basically accompany the music, practically building aesthetics for the sonics, so a big shout to my guy Lerroy, that's my guy.

Do you have anything you're working on right now?

Yeah most definitely, but the stuff I'm making right now I wonder if they gon' like it, because it's some weird shit man. That's all i'm going to say for now. Oh! and I did a couple of features that I hope will be out this year with some amazing artists. Sometimes I don't even believe I did that but you know, I did.

Speaking of features, you are featured on 'The World Is Yours' by Nov Son, how was the experience of working on your first collaboration?

It was really cool. One of the easiest and laid back collabs I did. He hit me up and was like 'We need to get in the studio' and I was down fr. My nigga Idyllic was working with him as well, so it just made things easier but yeah he was recording some songs from his upcoming album and we knocked a couple out the park. Watch out for that project btw. That was also when I met my nigga Rxssi; they was moving as a unit back then so I just decided to mess with them and what they did because normally I just keep to myself and do shit on my own or with like 1 or 2 of the homies. It's a very personal thing for me. People probably think I hate collabs or something, but they're so hard to get done because of the different mindframes, schedules, and shit but I always try to make sure I work with other artists because I believe we work better together.

Stream Tefoffline HERE

Instagram: @Tefoffline

Facebook: @Tefoffline

[griefabyss69]

for the WIP Folger game: wede

Hello!!! Thank you I love this one (even if it's a mess <3) I started writing this one while stoned, and wrote some sober and then high again etc. That's mainly why it's a mess, I definitely do my best work while sober!!! LMAO This is another thing that's very different from my usual, but I really enjoy it! It's a College AU, maybe set in like the 90's? Or late 80's? I forget if I did a slight modernization or not (It's been forever since I touched this doc) From the beginning: (contains: Weed, the most obnoxious phone call of Steve's LIFE. Also Devin is Unnamed Freak from CC)

Steve's dealer is a weird fucking guy.

He knows enough about how buying drugs works to know that this isn't rare, that he should expect it and roll with it, but he's met weird stoners before. Hell, his last guy back in Hawkins had been strange, making Steve drive all the way to his place by the lake everytime he wanted to buy.

But this guy, he's eccentric.

His new dormmate Devin reccommended him when he was complaining about the dwindling supply that he'd managed to sneak in from when he stocked up over the summer. The drive outside of town meant he usually bought in bulk, and figured he had enough to last him until the first holiday he made it back home.

Of course, it's not like he'd done the math, or planned for his second year at college to be so fucking brutal.

So he ran out of weed and the dormmate he feels so neutrally about that he keeps a running tally in his mind to try to tip the scales of his opinion one way or another did him a solid and gave him the number of a guy he's in a band with.

Steve didn't know he was in a band until then, and wonders if that goes on the Cool! or the Not Cool :( side of his list.

He's down to one last joint when he decides he should be more proactive, should always have something to calm his nerves if he's gonna make it through this semester, and calls the guy on a Wednesday evening.

He's grateful that he and Devin went halfsies on a phone line in the room, sharing the number but still a lot more private than calling from a payphone, doubly so when the guy answers the phone with -

"Hello hello! You've reached Munson's Mysterious and Magical Medicinals!"

It's so loud he pulls the phone away from his ear, frowning at it as the ear side buzzes. It grates on him and he considers hanging up, but he thinks about having to wait to get more weed until Thanksgiving, if he even bothers with going this year, and sighs.

"Hello?" He asks, wincing in anticipation as he brings the phone close enough to speak into it, keeping his voice at a polite volume.

"To whom am I speaking with?" Calls the loud voice, quieter than before but still making the phone buzz.

"Devin gave me this number," he replies, nose scrunching up in a grimace.

He doesn't even usually mind loud people, his best friends are often loud enough that whenever they're in public someone actually comes up and says something about it.

"Ah, my lovely assistant Devin! Such a Marvellous Miracle of Man!"

He's considering sealing his fate and slamming the phone down when he realizes that if he doesn't need to go back to Rick's for weed, he doesn't need to go back to Hawkins for Thanksgiving at all. He can claim his workload is too heavy this year and that he'll be home for Christmas and hope his parents decide that he's finally making them proud.

His workload is heavy, not that he plans on doing anything about that when the long weekend shows up.

So he kind of needs this guy, at least until he can find someone else.

"…Right."

"What can I do you for?" He's changed up his accent, instead of a wizard type of thing he goes for 1950's gangster, getting Steve's hackles up even more.

"Weed?"

"Weeee've got Weed! Wonderful Wacky and Whimsical Weed, you name it we've got it, delivered right to your door!" He changes again, now sounding like he's announcing the new Monster Jam, and if Steve had no self preservation he'd point out that he should've enjoyed a 'Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday!' in his stupid sentence. That also starts with 'W'.

"…Cool."

He's honestly struggling to reply to him, wonders if he can just ask him to drop the act and let him get through this transaction before the semester ends.

"Look's Like we've got a Laconic Lad on our hands, Ladies and Loiterers!"

Steve's sigh is so deep that he thinks there might be cobwebs spitting out of his mouth right now. He rests his head against the wall and gives himself another little peptalk, trying to remember the carrot to the stick of this conversation.

[cryptid--bunny]

okay I'll post the fanfic here. Take this shitty mouse ricky for engagement (my tablet is not working right now)

IT'S LIKE 15K WORDS AND IS ANGSTY BUT HAS A HAPPY ENDING!!!!!

Ricky huffed as he banged his fist on the wheel of his car, loudly cursing as his hands tightly gripped the wheel. His attempted shaking of the vehicle did nothing to help with the problem of it not starting, but the janky anger filled movements helped get some of the anger out of the stoner's system.

“FUUUCK!” He threw his head back against the seat as he yelled, “SHIT!”

The sound of a door opening and crunched grass filled his ears as Ricky reached into his track pants to grab a loose joint. It was lit the second it touched his lips, lighter already at the ready.

“Jesus, Ricky, what's gotten into you today?”

Bubbles' voice almost soothed his irritation, or maybe it was the dope currently flooding his lungs, he couldn't tell.

“Fuckin car wont start! Son of a whore just broke down on me!!”

“Ricky, did you check the gas?”

“YES I CHECKED THE FUCKING GAS, BUBS!”

Bubbles raised his hands in surrender at Ricky's outburst.

“I'm just asking! No need to get all mad at me because your shitmobile isn't working.”

“Look, I'm fuckin’ sorry okay? I just had this big plan to take Trinity and Lucy out for a family picnic thing and now I fucking can't because of this!” he banged his fist on the dashboard, “Fucking.” He banged again, “THING!” And again.

Bubbles hummed to himself as he looked around the interior of fucked up car. Honestly it was a miracle it lasted this long with the state it's currently in. The two fell into an awkward silence as Ricky puffed his joint, smoke rolling out his mouth with every exhale. An idea popped into Bubbles' mind as Julian exited his trailer.

“Why don't you ask Julian?”

“Ask me what?”

Julian rose a brow as he walked down the stairs of the trailer's deck, signature drink in hand.

“Ricky was gonna take Lucy and Trinity for a picnic but the car’s not working.”

“I don't need Julians fucking help, Bubbles!”

Ricky pushed Bubbles out of the way as he climbed out the passenger side, falling onto the ground as he exited. He was quick to stand up properly after the fall and walk to the front of the shitmobile. Lifting the hood of the car, he bent down to try and get a look at the engine.

“Sides, it's a family day. Just me, Lucy, and Trinity.”

Bubbles rolled his eyes as he walked up to the front of the car and stood next to Ricky.

“Julian's basically part of that family, Ricky. Trinity treats him like a second dad.”

That caught both Ricky and Julian's attention, though for different reasons.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Bubs?”

Ricky stood up and stared at him, his brows knitting tightly as he tried to work his brain around the words his friend just said. Julian walked up to the two and took a quick sip of his drink before he finally spoke up.

“We're both her uncles, Bubs. I'm not her dad, that's Ricky,” he pointed to Rick, who was still trying to think. You could almost hear the gears turning in his head, “Also you're not using my car.”

That got the stoner out of his stupor, “I'm not fuckin' asking for it! That was Bubbles' whole idea!!”

“Oh, yeah, fuck me for making a suggestion! Did you already tell Lucy and Trinity about going?”

Ricky opened his mouth to reply, but closed it and turned his attention back to the engine.

“Yeah. They're expecting me to show up in an hour but this FUCKER wont turn on!”

Bubbles hummed as Julian stepped next to Ricky to try and get a look at the engine. The raven leaned in, arm brushing against Ricky as he pulled out a thin metal sheet. It was dry as bones.

“Ricky, you're out of oil,” Julian squinted at the sheet, “And by the looks of it, have been for a while,” he pushed the sheet back into the hole it came out of, “Shocked it hasn't caught fire yet.”

Ricky groaned as Julian stood back up, taking another sip of his drink.

“Great! Well, that's another fucking thing I'll need to get. Where the fuck is Cory and Trevor?!”

“Sarah has them, remember? She said she's taking them on a vacation away from you.”

Bubbles' reply set a fire in Ricky as he screamed.

“FUCK! THAT BITCH!”

He kicked his car hard enough to make the hood fall back down, cursing loud enough for everyone in the park to hear him.

“Ricky- Jesus calm down! Fucks sake,” Julian rubbed his face as he watched Ricky throw various items around his yard; Bubbles yelling at him to leave his stuff alone, which of course got another angry huff and shit tossed across the lawn.

Julian had enough. He stormed across the short distance to Ricky and roughly grabbed his arm to get his attention.

“Just get the fuck in my car. Passenger side. I'm driving.”

Julian's voice held a distant annoyance to it, but the deep gruffness in it told Ricky all he needed to know about how irritated the raven was with him right now. Although just because he could hear it, doesn't mean he was listening to it.

“Fuck off Julian! I said I don't need your fucking car!”

Julian pushed him towards his car despite the protests, easily able to manhandle Ricky even with one hand. The ginger had a brief thought about just how easily Julian was able to push him around with those bulging muscles of his. With that idea came another of those arms wrapped around him, in a comforting embrace, or maybe grabbing at him in a more desperate sort of way. Ricky was quick to shake his head and push that idea away.

“I said get in the fucking car, Ricky!”

“Fine! Fuck!” Ricky threw up his hands in defeat as he angrily stomped over to Julian's monte carlo, “Big boss Julian always gotta boss me arounds and shit.”

Julian pretended to not hear the insult as he opened the drivers side door and sat down. Ricky flew open the passenger door and all but fell into the seat, clearly still angry about being pushed into Julian's car. He slammed the door as hard as he could.

“Be fucking careful, asshole!”

“Fuck off!”

Julian's own irritation was skyrocketing as he pulled his keys out of his jeans pocket and started the car. He was about to pull out when Bubbles tapped on the window. He rolled it down.

“What is it, Bubs?”

“Just be careful, okay? And tell Trinity I said hi!”

“We're not going to the fucking picnic! Just to the store to get some shit for my fucked up car.”

Julian glared over at his passenger before sighed and looked back at his blonde friend with a frown.

“I'll tell her.”

After that, Julian pulled out of his driveway, and down the road they went. The drive was mostly silent save for Ricky's occasional mutterings of annoyance. It seemed even weed wasn't calming him down this time, which means he was proper pissed. That also meant that Julian was going to have to calm him down, as he usually did, or fix some future fuck up Ricky was going to do, which is also usually did. It's not that Ricky didn't appreciate how much Julian cared for him, quite the opposite actually, he just felt the man's attention would be better spent elsewhere. Now that's a thought that never leads to anything good.

Julian noticed Ricky's silence as they got onto the main road after leaving the park. There was an auto body shop fairly close but there was a bigger store further on that had car shit and other stuff Ricky might need for the ‘family picnic,’ so Julian was going there. A silent Ricky was never a good sign, so with a drink of his rum and coke, Julian was the first to speak.

“Look, I'm sorry I pushed you into the car,” it got a shrug reply. Fuck, Ricky must be really in his head, “I just didn't want you fucking up Bubbles’ stuff,” Julian glanced over to see his friend staring out the window. Shit.

With a deep inhale, Julian bit the bullet. Fuck he hated emotional conversation bullshit.

“Ricky.”

No answer.

“Are you okay?”

Julian noticed Ricky tense up in the corner of his eye. Progress.

“If it's about the car-”

“It's not about the fucking car.”

Those were Ricky's first words since they left the park. Usually Julian would be mad at getting cut off, but he let it slide this time. There was something more important to worry about.

“Then what is it?”

Silence.

“Ricky, cmon bud, talk to me. You know it's not good to let shit build up.”

Julian was keenly aware of the irony in his statement, it was almost painful. Ricky didn't know how ironic it was though, which was the point.

“Just some,” Ricky threw his hands up, finally looking away from the window, “fucking stupid brain words! Shit in my head wont stop talking and it's getting on my fucking nerves!”

Ah, bad thoughts then. That's nothing new to either of them, Ricky especially given his relationship with Lucy. Julian could never understand why he kept going back to her when all she did was berate him, cheat on him, and use him for free dope and a quick fuck. It was irritating to no end.

What the raven didn't know, however, was just how deep those words cut in Ricky's mind. It's why he had moments like this, where his brain 'won't stop talking stupid shit’ and he gets all quiet and moody. Ricky's always struggled with self esteem issues, despite whatever he might say to try and prove otherwise. Even as a kid he would get relentlessly picked on and as much as Ricky loved his dad, Ray was a terrible father. Sure he accepted the changes to his son pretty quick but that didn't change how he basically gave him no respect as long as he was under his roof. Especially when he was drunk. Which was most times.

“What's your brain talking about?”

Ricky debated telling his friend, curious about how he'd react. Would he be mad at him? Upset? He wasn't really sure he was ready to tell Julian how his heart seized when the raven smiled at him or the pounding in his skull when the two were alone passing a joint. Those were his favorite memories. He didn't know what any of this meant, and yeah Julian had a way of saying things that made sense to him, but there was this weird uncomfortable knot in the pit of his stomach that tightened every time he thought about saying it. Maybe he just needed to be drunk and high to do it. Maybe they both needed to be.

“Ricky? Earth to Ricky?”

The ginger blinked as Julian snapped his fingers in his face. Ricky grimaced and pushed the other's hand away.

“What?”

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Duh!” An obvious lie.

“Okay, what'd I say?”

“What's with all these fucking questions!”

Ricky quickly noticed they were parked in front of the mall and opened the passenger door to step out. He needed some fresh air. Julian was clearly having none of it as he stepped out shortly after and walked around the hood to stand in front of Ricky, one hand holding his drink and the other hand on his hip.

“What?! The fuck do you want! Let's just go in and get back home!”

“We're not robbing the place.”

Ricky rolled his eyes, “Yeah? And you have fucking money to pay for shit?”

“I do, actually. We're only getting what we need and nothing more, alright?”

Julians hard stare sent a shiver down Rick's spine. A shiver that ran right to his… Oh dear. He thanked the fact his pants were black as the two of them walked up to the entrance. The stoner watched as Julians muscular arm pushed open the glass doors.

Maybe he'll excuse himself to the bathroom real fast.

“So,” Julian spoke up after they’d entered, “What is it you need?”

Ricky looked around the large building for a brief spell before he met his friend's gaze.

“I dunno, picnic shit? Sandwiches I guess?” The shrug that followed irritated Julian, but he let it slide.

“Right. Sandwiches. We can make that at home. I mean from the store. You got a blanket? Drinks? What are you planning to do out there?”

“Christ, what’s with all the questions today, Jules?!” Ricky threw his hands up in frustration as the two made their way to the produce section, “It’s a fucking picnic! Why’s there so much that goes into it?! We’re just going out into the woods for an hour or some shit!”

“Ricky, stop yelling.”

The stoner opened his mouth to reply, in a yell of course, but the glare he saw Julian giving him made his mouth shut before any noise could escape. He hated how the older man had this control over him. What’s even worse is that Julian knew he had this power and oh boy did he abuse it. He loved telling Ricky what to do and Ricky found himself listening to every word he said… Well, okay, not every word. Sometimes Julian was really stupid and Ricky would go do his own thing because he knew it was a bad idea. So he listened to him most of the time. Ricky wasn’t even sure when he started listening to Julian, it just almost felt natural, which fucked with Ricky since he hated authority and being told what to do. It was just different when it was Julian he guessed.

“Alright, what’s Trinity’s favorite?”

Julian’s voice cut through his thoughts and snapped him back to the moment. Shit, he fell back into his thoughts again didn’t he? Ricky internally cursed at himself as he looked at the various meats on the stand.

“Uhh… Pepperoni?”

“I said Trinity’s, not yours, Rick.”

“Yeah I fucking know that! It’s pepperoni! You think I don’t know my own daughter’s eating habituals?!”

Julian rolled his eyes as he grabbed a fairly sizable log of meat. Ricky gawked as he held it under his arm.

“What are you staring at?”

“That’s not pepperoni.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes. It is.” Julian was getting incredibly annoyed with Ricky by this point.

“No! It’s not!” Ricky waved his hands around as he spoke, “Pepperoni is small! That things fucking huge!”

Julian rolled his eyes and took a drink from his glass to steel himself before replying, “It’s just larger meat, Rick. Here,” He maneuvered the log around his arm to show his friend the label, “See? It says pepperoni. It’s the shit restaurants and food places get so they can cut it themselves.”

Ricky stared at the label, internally cursing his inability to read. He made out the words ‘pepperoni’ eventually among all the gibberish words, which seemed to calm him down.

“Alright, alright. Fine. It’s pepperoni.”

“ Thank you,” Julian shifted the log back under his arm, “Now what else do you need?”

Ricky hummed as he looked around the meat produce, he racked his brain for anything else they might need. Honestly, he had pretty much everything back in the shitmobile and in Lucy’s trailer. After a silent moment, the ginger shrugged at Julian.

“I gots everything already for the picnic back in my car. If it’s not there, it’s at Lucy’s.”

“Great. Let’s go get the oil for your car then.”

The two men made their way out of the food area of the mall, Ricky grabbing a bag of chips on his way out, much to Julian’s chagrin. The rest of the store trip went fine, Ricky was quick to grab the car oil he needed having already known the kind his car took. Ricky may not be the smartest guy when it comes to math or words but he was great with cars. How else would that fucked up vehicle still be running?

“Remember Rick, we’re paying for it. Stay in the line.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Julians got fucking money and doesn’t want to do a little crime.”

Deciding to ignore the condescending tone, Julian walked up to the cashier and put down the meat log to the conveyor belt, signaling for Ricky to put the oil down after. The lady scanned the two items fairly quickly and bagged them, turning to Julian to say how much they owed. Something about the women irked Ricky, he couldn’t quite tell why though. Maybe it was the way she pushed up her tits towards Julian or the slight trill in her voice as she spoke to his friend. To his credit, Julian seemed to pay the girl no mind as he pulled out his wallet to pay.

Once the money was handed over, Julian grabbed the bag and walked out, Ricky following behind. The frown on the cashier’s face was not missed by Ricky.

“Alright, back to the park then.”

“Yep.”

Julian closed his trunk and raised a brow at Ricky as he leaned against the monte carlo.

“You alright, Rick?”

“Just fine,” Ricky turned to face his friend with his arms crossed, “Did you seriously not see at all that she was flirting with you?!”

With a groan and eye roll, Julian walked up to the driver's side, Ricky’s eyes following him.

“Christ, Rick, she was just doing her job . She wasn’t flirting with me, she was just being nice. Now get in the car.”

He did, but not without complaining while doing it.

“She was fucking pushing her tits at you!”

“No, she was not,” Julian sat down and closed the door, “Maybe you’re just seeing what you want to see, Rick.”

The words banged around in Ricky’s head as the car started. He barely heard Julian’s next words as he leaned back in the seat, lost in thought. Seeing what he wants to see? What did he want to see?? That girl was totally flirting with Julian, he knew what he saw, but then… Why did he care? Julian’s had girlfriends before, many of them actually, but it never bothered him. Ricky always had Lucy in his mind. As he watched the world go by out the window, his brain said a weird thing. What if he was bothered by his other girlfriends and he was just too focused on Lucy to notice. Fuck, now that’s something he never considered. Ricky’s jaw locked and his brows furrowed as he tried to remember how he actually felt whenever his friend got a new girlfriend.

When he wasn’t with Lucy, he was… He felt… Damn. Words are hard. We’ll try again later, push that thought aside for now, he’s got more important shit to worry about. Like making sure this picnic goes perfectly for Trinity, with or without Julian there. Ricky pulled out a joint from his pocket and lit it, getting an annoyed retort about ‘not smoking in his car’ from Julian, but he didn’t care. He needed to stop his brain from saying stupid things again.

“Sweet mary jesus, thank fuck you boys are back!”

Bubbles' voice caused both men to turn their heads as Julian pulled into his garage. He turned the car off and stepped out before replying to the man. Ricky stepped out shortly after and walked around to stand next to the two of them.

“What’s going on, Bubs?”

“Well, almost as soon as you guys left, Mr. Lahey showed up asking about any ‘illegal activities’ going on.”

“We’re not doing fucking nothing!”

Ricky’s outburst had interrupted Bubbles, but the smaller man didn’t seem phased by it as he continued.

“I know you’re not! But he seems to think some fucky shit’s going on because I guess he saw you two leaving together!”

Julian rubs a hand down his face, clear annoyance in his eyes as he took in his friend's words.

“Well Lahey can go fuck himself! We didn’t even steal nothin!!”

“Ricky, quiet.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do.”

“Bubs, we’re not doing anything illegal. You know this, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, I know, but Lahey seems pretty fucking convinced. He almost went into your trailer, Julian.”

The raven stiffened as he stared down at his friend, his jaw locking in place in an attempt to keep his cool exterior.

“He didn’t break anything did he?”

“Oh, no, I told him to fuck right off and leave us alone. He did fall onto Ricky’s car but that things been through worse.”

Ricky bristled at the idea his car might have a new dent in it thanks to drunky the fuck clown, but it’s not like it wasn’t already banged up to hell and back as is. The three of them walked back onto the lawn to inspect the damage Lahey’s drunken stupor had done, which was thankfully minimal.

“Sweet fuck, nothing’s missing.”

Ricky sighed as he took another hit from the joint in his lips. Julian nodded in agreement and took a sip of his drink.

“Oh yeah, Lucy stopped by while you boys were gone too.”

“Oh fuck,” Ricky quickly sat up and walked over to hsi friend, “What’d she say?”

“Was asking where you were, I told her that you and Julian went to the store to get picnic supplies and oil for your car.”

Ricky was starting to internally panic as he ran back to his car to grab the blanket he used for sleeping, continuing to listen as Bubbles talked.

“She seemed mighty pissed that you were late for pick up, I told her you’d be over as soon as you got back though!”

“Fucking right, come on Julian.”

“What? I thought you didn’t want me to go.”

“Well, fuck face, I don’t exactly have time to fix my car right now and yours is the only one working! So come on, let’s go!”

Julian looked back to Bubbles who gave him a lopsided smile and a shrug. He was lying right through his teeth, and Ricky fell for it hook line and fucking sinker. With a heavy sigh and another eye roll for the day, Julian started walking towards his car with a waiting Ricky.

“Fine, fine. I’m coming. Make sure you got everything.”

The drive to Lucy’s trailer was short but with an anxiety riddled Ricky, it felt like forever before they reached it. Ricky had jumped out of the car before Julian had even fully stopped and turned it off. He ran up the deck and knocked on the door.

“Hey, Lucy! Trinity! Daddy’s here for family picnic!”

It didn’t take long for the door to swing open to an excited Trinity, who he leaned down to hug as tightly as he could. Julian got out of the car and leaned against the side as he watched the scene in front of him. He took a drink to hide the smile on his lips.

“Took you long enough, Rick.”

“Hey, Luce.”

Ricky stood up and gave the bleached blonde an awkward hug as their child ran down the deck steps.

“Julian!” Trinity excitedly hollered.

“Julian?” Lucy repeated with confusion.

Julian raised his glass as a wave as Lucy finally caught sight of him. Trinity was quick to give her uncle an equally tight squeeze of a hug that she’d shared with her dad. Julian didn’t respond nearly as hard, too scared he might hurt her.

“Rick, what’s Julian doing here? I thought it was family day or some shit.”

“Yeah, my car’s fucked,” The two started to walk down the deck, “Bubbles said some shit about using Julian’s car and he woulnt’d let me just borrow it. It’ll be cool though! Trinity fucking loves him, so there’s nothin weird about it!”

Lucy rolled her eyes and took a drag off her cigarette, “Yeah, just not exactly ‘family day’ with someone not family,” She muttered under her breath. Despite the harsh tone she took with Ricky, she greeted Julian with a wide smile, “Hey Julian.”

“Hey, Lucy. Hope it’s okay I tag along, Ricky’s car’s having troubles.”

“He told me, it’s totally fine though, maybe you can be a good influence on Trin.”

Julian held his tongue as he noticed Ricky bristle at the comment. Ricky, however, was never good at holding his tongue.

“I’m just as good a influence as Julian! Who taught her how to change a tire huh?”

“You taught her how to steal a tire, Rick,” Lucy opened one of the back doors for Trinity to jump in, “But whatever, let’s just get going.”

Lucy went in after Trinity had scooted to the other side, leaving Julian and Ricky to share a look above the roof of the car before both got in.

The drive itself wasn’t too eventful, Ricky and Lucy talked for the most part about shit to catch up on their personal lives. A joint was shared between the two, Ricky had offered it to Julian who declined. He’d also offered it to Trinity but Lucy got mad at him for that one, which led into a small fight which had Julian yelling for them to shut up so he could focus on driving. Aside from a grumble and shuffling of seats, everyone went quiet after that. Julian had asked Ricky for directions a few times to make sure he was going in the right direction, but otherwise it was a fairly silent ride. Ricky puffed his joint, Lucy smoked her cigarette, and Julian made sure everyone had their windows rolled down.

“This is it, Jules! Stop the car!”

Julian took his foot off the gas and gently placed it on the breaks for the car to roll to a stop. Ricky gleamed as he turned around to face the other two passengers.

“Grab your shit, girls, it’s time for one fucking awesome family picnic!” He looked over to the raven, “Plus Julian.”

Julian smiled and shook his head as he turned the car off. It was parked on the side of a dirt road, trees and foliage on both sides of the path. Ricky practically jumped out of the car and opened the door for Lucy to get out. Trinity opened the other door and stepped out as Julian did the same. She smiled up at the big man, who couldn’t help but smile back at the little girl.

“Thanks for coming, Julian.”

“Of course, Trin. Anything for you.”

He gently placed a hand on her head and ruffled up her hair, to which she squealed and laughed at as she pushed his hand away from her. Ricky had watched the interaction as he opened the monte carlo’s trunk to grab their items. He didn’t even notice he was smiling until Lucy hollered for him to hurry up with the shit. The ginger quickly grabbed the blanket, beer, and pepperoni log before clumsily closing the door and jogging after his family. Julian took a drink from his glass and followed behind.

The trek into the woods was a short one, Lucy just wanted to find a patch of flat grass to lay the blanket down, and with everything set up the four sat down. Ricky opened the pepperoni log, pausing for a brief moment before pulling a knife out of his pocket.

“Did you have that in there the whole time?” Julian commented, his expression slightly aghast seeing as Ricky struggled to tear open the plastic with his hands just moments before.

“Yeah I must've, only just now remembered it though. Shit comes in handy when you need to cut some shit.”

Lucy sighed and took a drag off her cigarette, taking a chunk of meat that was offered to her.

“Did you not bring any bread or anything?”

“Well, no, didn't exactly have fuckin’ time for that. Went to the store to get oil for my car and this fucking giant shit log or whatever of pepperoni. When we got back Bubs said you stopped by all fuckin angry and shit so we just left.”

“Wait,” Lucy held a confused look, “Bubbles said I came over?”

“Well, yeah. Said you were fuckin’ pissed that we were late. That I was late, not we, you didn't really. You didn't know about Julian comin' along.”

“Ricky, I never went to Bubbles. I was upset that you were late but I never went over there.”

Ricky stared at the fake blonde with an extremely confused look, his brows knitted tightly and jaw left slightly agape. It almost looked like he was trying to think.

“That fucking ASSHOLE!” Ricky threw his hands up as he yelled.

“Rick, calm down. We were late and he just wanted us to be there on time.” Julian reached out to put a hand on his friend's arm to keep him from freaking out.

“Well he could've just fuckin’ said so instead of lying and shit. That's fucked.”

“Yeah, well, you can yell at him when we're back in the park alright? Right now, have some time with your family okay?”

Ricky groaned and shook Julians hand off him before giving a harsh “Fine” in reply. Lucy stared at the two with her brows raised, pausing to look at Trinity who was eating her own section of the pepperoni handed to her.

“I gotta rock a piss real quick, be right back guys.”

Ricky stood up, log rolling off his lap and onto the blanket, stumbled onto his feet and put a hand on a nearby tree to steady himself before walking a short distance and unzipping. Lucy took this chance to talk to Julian.

“That was impressive.”

“What? The walking?”

“No,” She gave a slight laugh, “The way you calmed him down so fast. It's like fucking magic.”

“Oh, that,” Julian took a drink of his alcohol and shrugged, “Guess when you know a guy long enough, I dont fuckin' know.”

“Julian, I've known Ricky about as long as I've known you, and that's a long fucking while, and I've never been able to reel him in that fast before.”

Lucy had leaned in closer to Julian, making him mildly uncomfortable and wishing for Ricky to come back sooner. He shrugged again.

“It doesn't work all the time, you've seen him when he's all riled up.”

“Well yeah, but you just have this,” Lucy paused to think before waving her hands around, “Thing about you. He listens to you,” She leaned in even closer, “It's kinda hot.”

Julian rolled his eyes and gently pushed her away.

“Lucy, stop. Seriously.”

The crunching of leaves told the party of three that their fourth was on his way back. Ricky came back with a lit joint in his mouth and sat back down onto the blanket.

“Fuck took you so long, man?”

“Had to go back to the car and grab some smokes. Fuckin’ sorry I guess.”

Julian sighed and looked into the woods, away from all three of them. Ricky turned to Lucy and handed her the joint, which she accepted after putting out her halfway finished cigarette.

“Well, whatevers, it's fuckin’ family day man! Let's just have a good fuckin’ time and hang out in nature and shit!”

“Yeah, it's nice Ricky.”

Lucy handed him back the joint as she replied. He took a quick hit before offering it to Julian, who declined. Ricky shrugged and took another before passing it back to Lucy. Sometimes a calm day is nice, not every day needs to be filed with bank robberies and gun fights. Sometimes a day can be just a little cloudy and hanging out with your girlfriend, daughter, and your best friend who's kinda your daughter's uncle but mayne like a second father if Bubbles is to be believed. Ricky still didn't know what to make of that, but he was never good with thinking stuff over anyway.

Lucy was the first to stand up, wiping some dirt and dust off her pants, “Well this was fun and all but I have shit to do back at the park. Think we can wrap this up?”

“Wrap this up? The fuck you mean, Luc?” He glanced up at her with a puzzled look, “We're havin’ a grand ol fuckin's time here, gettin high and hangin’ out with my daughter and the woman I love.”

“And Julian.” Lucy added on.

“And Julian.” Ricky repeated.

“Look, if you don't want me here I can go-”

“No, Julian it's not about-” Lucy started to speak over the raven, but he kept going.

“I know this is a family thing-”

“Julian, c'mon man.” Ricky interjected.

“Ricky just needed a ride and I did my part,” Julian took another sip of his drink. “Besides, I'm almost empty so I wanna head back also.”

Ricky groaned and swore under his breath as he stood up, clearly agitated.

“Fuckin' fine alright. We'll head back. C'mon Trin we're goin' back to the park no more fuckin’ family fun time.”

“Ricky.”

Julian stood up shortly after as Lucy started to walk back to the car. Trinity grabbed another pepperoni piece before she stood up.

“No, man, you wanna fuckin’ go home and shit that's fine, I get it. I just wanted to hang out with my fuckin’ family and shit.”

“Ricky come on, we've been out here for at least an hour and all there is to drink is beer. Trinity can't drink that, I'm sure she's thirsty.”

“Sure she can, why not?”

Julian physically recoiled and dragged a hand down his face, eyes looking away from the ginger before he turned back to him.

“Ricky, she's a kid. Kids shouldn't have beer.”

“Well why the fuck not, we did! We had beers and shit in grade 5 and we turned out fuckin' great.”

“Listen, Rick, just because we had it doesn't mean she should, okay?”

Trinity had already followed after her mom at this point, just leaving the two men standing in the woods. Ricky sighed and shrugged, turning away from Julian.

“I disagree because liquor and drugs are fuckin’ cool but whatever.”

Julian sighed and turned to leave, tugging at Ricky's shirt to get him to follow.

“Let's just go, man.”

Ricky fought against the tug and complained about leaving behind the pepperoni and beer, which Julian said fuck it too, but then the other man said he's not leaving his blanket behind and Julian let him go. Finally getting back to the car after the small skirmish, the group drove back to Sunnyvale in mostly silence. Ricky hated silence when he wasn’t high, so he did his best to smoke all he had on him during the drive, only rolling down the window after Julian had yelled and complained for him to do so if he was going to be smoking in his car.

“How was the date, boys?”

“Fuck off, Bubs.”

Bubbles giggled to himself as the two men exited the black Monte Carlo. Ricky gave his friend a middle finger as he exited.

“I’m just pullin’ your leg, Ricky. Seriously, was everything alright?”

“It was fine, a little awkward but was nice to get out of the park for a bit.” Julian closed his door and leaned against the car as Ricky walked back to his own car across the lawn.

“Oh?” Bubbles turned to Julian after watching their friend waltz by, “You need some fresh air or something?”

The raven shrugged, “Something like that.” He went to take a sip of his drink before groaning at the empty glass. “I need to get a refill, talk to ya later Bubs.”

“See ya Julian.”

Bubbles watched the taller man walk past and into his trailer, humming to himself as the door closed behind Julian. The blonde turned his attention to Ricky, who was inside his car lighting a joint. God knows which number it was today. Bubbles walked over as a kitty jumped onto the hood of the car, he quickly grabbed the small calico and held it close to pet it's head.

“Whatcha want, Bubs?”

Ricky shifted to sit at the edge of the passenger seat, legs hanging out of the car and planted on the ground. Bubbles hummed as he petted the cat. Ricky wasn’t sure how to make out his expression. He was never good at reading people, and that pissed him off and led to many fights due to him misreading someone's face.

“Speak up asshole! You wanna say somethin’ or you gonna fuck off?!”

Bubbles took a step back at the outburst briefly before steadying himself, pausing petting the cat to adjust his large glasses.

“Well, I was just wondering how the picnic went. I know you weren’t too happy about bringing Julian along.”

Ricky rolled his eyes and took a hit from his joint and exhaled before replying, “It went fine. Lucy said some shit but Trinity was happy to see him I guess,” He took another hit and stood, rounding on Bubbles in anger which caused the cat to jump to the ground and run off somewhere, “She said she never fuckin’ came to see you! Why’d you lie to me Bubs?! What the fuck was that for!”

Bubbles gave a nervous chuckle, “Well, you were late weren’t you? You boys were gone for a long time at the store.”

“What the fuck Bubs! I was all freaking out and shit!”

“Ricky-”

“No, fuck off! I’m pissed at you right now!”

Ricky stormed off, throwing his hands up as he yelled. He didn’t really care if he hurt Bubbles feelings, Julian was still there to comfort him if he started crying. Ricky grimaced as his brain trailed at the mental mention of Julian. He needed more weed in his system. The walk to J-Roc’s wasn’t too long, or at least it didn’t feel long to Rick but that may have been the drugs in his system making time go all sideways or something. He was grateful the camera’s had been gone for the past few days as he wasn’t sure he could deal with all that nonsense right now.

“Hey, J-Roc! Open the fuck up!” He banged on the door with a fist, lit joint in his mouth almost falling out as he yelled. The ginger quickly grabbed it between his index and middle finger and took a deep inhale. The trailer door opened shortly after his banging to reveal the exact short blonde he was looking for.

“Heyy, whas good, man? What’s got you all up in my bizzinuss, dawg?”

Ricky shoved his way into the shorter man's trailer, taking a look around and noticing Tyrone sitting on a couch nearby, some show playing on the small TV.

“You got any good shit, J-Roc? I haven’t been able to get good hash in what feels like fucking ages, man!”

“Ay, ay, you know I got that shizzazz, dawg!” J-Roc closed the door behind Ricky, not seeming phased by the other man forcing his way into his home. It was a normal occurrence whenever Ricky visited, so he was used to it. “Whatcha lookin’ for, king, you know J-Roc can hit yous up, knowmsayin?”

“Somethin’ to turn off whatever the fuck my heads doing. It’s been bothering me lately and none of my shits working!” The stoner fell onto the couch next to Tyrone, who shifted to put some space between the two.

“Whattia mean, man? Your heads been doin’ stuff?” Tyrone’s calming voice was a counter to J-Roc’s more chipper and louder voice, one that Ricky much more enjoyed which he would never admit out loud.

“Fuck, I don’t know, it’s just been saying shit that’s pissing me the fuck off!”

J-Roc made a humming noise before walking off to a separate room, leaving Ricky with Tyrone on the couch. Ricky hoped he was getting some drugs that could help him out.

“Sounds like you’ve been thinking, Rick.”

“The fucks that?”

Tyrone huffed a small laugh as he replied, “That thing with your brain saying stuff? That’s thinking. Those are called thoughts, and it’s normal. I think about shit all the time!”

Ricky’s brows tied as he frowned, resting his elbows on his knees as he bent forward.

“What do you think about?”

He watched as the black man leaned back against the couch, eyes trailing up to the ceiling.

“I think about a lot of shit. I think about me and J-Roc finally gettin’ it big, I think about what might happen in the future. Lots of stuff, man.”

Tyrone looked back to Ricky, who’s eyes were trained on him. The gaze was intense and gave away he was trying his damndest to think, his brain clearly not used to actively being used. Tyrone would’ve commented on it, but he figured he’d let Ricky speak when he was ready. J-roc stepped back in with a box but paused when Tyrone put up a hand. Ricky didn’t seem to notice this signal as he looked down at his hands, rolling the half burnt join in his fingers. J-Roc nodded at the hand waving and walked back into the room he’d come out of. Tyrone put his hand down and lowered his gaze back to the stoner. It wasn’t like him to be quiet for this long, and it was starting to worry him.

“You wanna talk about what your brain’s been sayin’? We won't judge you for nothin’, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re a totally non judgemental zone, man!”

J-Roc’s reappearance made Ricky sigh and lean back on the couch cushions, closing his eyes as he rested his hands on his thighs. The white rapper shuffled around them to sit on the other end of the couch, leaning heavily forward to look at Ricky.

“It’s saying a lot of dumb shit right now.”

“Right now?”

Ricky groaned at Tyrone’s question, obviously annoyed.

“ Yes, right now. That’s why I need some stronger shit! That’s why I’m here!”

“Ricky, man, I think you need to talk, not smoke.”

“What the fuck is this now, a theraputist session?!” Ricky threw his hands up and stared at the other two men.

“No, man, we’re just friends trying to help a man out.” Tyrone put his hands up in defense, trying his best to calm the quickly angering man.

“Hyuh, we jus’ tryin’ to make sure yous a’ight, a’ight?”

Ricky grimaced and took another hit from his slowly fading joint, sighing as he flicked the ashes into a nearby tray.

“Can I get a smoke at least?”

“Of course, mans, lemme get that for you right quick.”

Tyrone turned to watch as J-Roc fumbled around with something next to the couch, just out of sight from the door. He pulled out a small bag and smiled as he leaned over the black man to pass it over to Ricky. Tyrone gave his friend a worried glance as Ricky happily accepted the pre rolled joints, making quick work to toss what was left of his joint into the tray and open the bag to grab a fresh new one.

“He’ll be fine, T. He needs this a’ight?”

“I really think he just needs to talk, man, not get high.”

“Nah, nah, he gets high and then he’ll talk, knomesayin? He gets more loose when he’s high, dawg, you know this.”

With a heavy sigh, Tyrone glanced over to their friend who was already smoking one of the new joints handed to him, “I hope you’re right, man. Something’s tellin’ me he’s been suffering with his thoughts for a while.”

“Fuuuck, that’s good. I knew I could count on you, J-Roc.”

J-Roc leaned back over to slap a hand on Ricky’s knee as he smiled, “Hey man, y'know I always got you! Hyuh!” The excited exclamation at the end made Ricky chuckle lightly as he took another drag of the joint.

Finally, he could feel his brain slowing down, the voices getting quieter, the thoughts of his friend getting fainter. Peace at last.

“How’re you feelin’, Rick?”

Silence followed Tyrone’s question for a moment before a wide smile spread across Ricky’s face.

“Fuckin’ GREAT, man! Fuck! This is just what I need.”

J-Roc lightly shoved Tyrone, who huffed a laugh, which caused Ricky to laugh thanks to the heightened giddiness from the drugs in his lungs right now. The black man raised an open hand to Ricky, who placed the lit blunt into his fingers. A quick huff and pass later, J-Roc having done the same, the room was starting to fill with smoke. Time seemed sluggish to the three men as they smoked, Ricky getting the highest of them by a mile. Tyrone and J-Roc shared a look as Ricky finished his second joint. It'd only been an hour since he arrived.

“Hey, Ricky man, you think yous can slow downs a bit?”

Ricky hummed as he took another inhale, smiling as smoke circled up out of his mouth and nose.

“What's that, J-Roc? Sorry I didn't hear you.”

“I said, I think you should slow downs a bit, knowmsayin? I know you and you can outsmoke any of us, dawg, but this is much even for your shizzass.”

Ricky groaned at the chastisement, but the rapper was right, he was smoking a lot even for him. He'd blame it on the drugs loosening his tongue if asked, but he felt so comfortable on the couch. Why not talk a bit?

“Brains been talkin’ a lot lately.”

“You said that earlier, yes.” Tyrone nodded.

“It's been talkin’ about… Shit. Y'know.”

Ricky frowned as he tried to think how to correctly word the next part, but the dope in his system made any sort of thinking a major challenge.

“What kinda shit, man?” J-Roc watched his friend expectantly, eyes flickering between his scrunched face and the loose joint in his hand. He did not want that being dropped and lighting a fire in his trailer. The ginger took another hit before sighing, smoke escaping his lungs with it. He mentally went ‘fuck it’ and bit the bullet.

“You think I'm a good dad?”

The question caught both of the other men off guard, their eyes widening as they recoiled in slight shock.

“What? Of course, man!” Tyrone was the first to speak.

“Yeah, dawg, who the hells been tellin’ you that you're not?”

“Lucy been saying shit again?”

J-Roc clicked his tongue and sat back on the couch, “Aw hell naw, don't listen to her. That bizzatch don't know what she's sayin’, knowmsayin?”

Ricky was silent for a brief moment, letting his friends' words sink in.

“What if she's right, though?”

“Rick-”

“No, listen to me, alright. I had this idea for a family picnic day and it was gonna be fuckin’ awesome and shit! Then my car breaks down cause of some stupid oil whatever and Bubs says to take Julian's car but Julian won't let me drive it so he HAS to come along and I guess that's fuckin… Whatever, not really a family picnic then,” Pausing his ranting for a brief moment, Ricky took another hit off the joint, continuing with smoke in his lungs, “Anyway Trinity was really happy to see him,” He exhaled the smoke, “And that's fucking cool, I guess, she's always happy to see him, but the whole… Fuckin… Day was weird.”

“Weird how?” Tyrone leaned a little closer, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched his friend rant, egged on by the dope he was smoking.

“Just. Weird. It was supposed to be just me, Lucy, and Trin, but Julian was there and it… Fuck, I don't know. I can't fucking wordulate anything correctly when it comes to my head bullshit.”

Tyrone placed a firm hand on Ricky's shoulder, something to ground him before he got too loose.

“Hey, it's okay, emotions are hard to put into words sometimes,” He paused to check his friend's expression, and to look back at J-Roc, “But we're friends,” He looked back to Rick, “And friends help each other, right?”

“Damn straight. BUAH!”

Ricky's eyes flicked between the two men, his brows tightening. He pursed his lips and hummed.

“Okay, fine. Fuck. If you tell fucking anyone about this coversation I will shoot you!”

“You've got my word, man.”

“You gots my word too, dawg, areh areh!”

With a heavy sigh and pinched nose, Ricky conceded to the mens questioning and concerned glances.

“Where do we even fuckin' start with this?”

“Well,” Tyrone removed his hand from Ricky's shoulder, “How about this. You said you had a family picnic day, yeah?”

“Yeah, well, sort of. Family plus Julian.”

“Right, plus Julian, that's the part you're stuck on. How'd it feel having Julian there? Did it feel wrong?”

Ricky clicked his tongue as his eyes squinted, staring at nothing as he did his best to remember how he felt during his time out. Did it feel wrong having his best friend with his daughter and maybe-kinda-sorta girlfriend? When he actually thought about it, no, it didn't feel wrong at all. In fact, he felt incredibly comfortable with Julian there. It felt almost… Natural. Then if it didn't feel wrong, why did it bother him so much?

“I don't know. It didn't feel like a bad thing, we all had a good as fuck time just hangin’ out in the woods.”

Tyrone nodded at Ricky's reply, taking a moment to look back at J-Roc and whisper something while their friend was lost in his head.

“So you guys had a good time, what's the issue then?”

“That's the fucking problem! I don't know! It felt so fucking… Nice having him there! Trinity was so happy the whole time and Lucy bitched at me less, like his fucking presence was just making shit better!”

The stoner threw his hands up in exasperation, anger and annoyance clear in his face and body. It seemed that no amount of dope could calm that deep of an emotion, or maybe he just wasn't high enough. Ricky took another hit.

“You sayin’ that him just bein’ there made all y'alls just more happy or some shit?”

“Fuck, I guess. Is that what I'm saying?” Ricky looked over to the white rapper as a confused began to mottle his angered one.

“That's what it sounds like, man.” Tyrone answered for his friend.

Ricky huffed and stared down at the floor, silent for a brief moment as the other two watched him, worried that his next move might be violent.

“Do you… Fuck this is stupid,” The ginger growned loudly as he ran the hand not holding a joint through his hair, “Do you guys ever feel like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like… Fuck- Like- Hanging out with somebody just makes you happier even if you're fucking pissed at ‘em?”

Tyrone and J-Roc's brows simultaneously rose as they shared a quick glance at each other before staring at Rick. They didn't dare interrupt as he continued to ramble.

“Okay. Shit. Let's say there's this girl, yeah? She's really hot but she's a bitch, like a massive one,” He glanced over to the other men as if looking for approval. They both nodded to show they were listening, “Alright, so let's say she's got this friend, yeah, it's uh…” He paused, mouth hung open as the gears in his head were almost audibly turning, “Another chick. She's friends with another chick, okay. They've been friends for a really long fucking time, and then one day this friend fucking goes ‘Oh hey my friend is super fucking hot despite being a massive bitch’ but she doesn't want to tell her friend this because, like, she's got a, uh, fuckin’ boyfriend or whatever. They're on and off or something but that's whatever.”

It didn't take much for Tyrone and J-Roc to realize what Ricky was actually talking about, and they were both a little stunned by Ricky's story. Tyrone nodded and told him to continue, which he did.

“Well, anyway, would it be fucked or some shit if she said anything, like, she called her friend hot or maybe if she wanted to kiss her or some shit. Would that be fucked or what?”

Ricky ended his rant with a chuckle, clearly forced, and took another hit off the depleting joint. The other two men were silent for a long time, processing the information given to them. Ricky didn't like how quiet they were, he felt like they were judging him and he was just about to get up and leave before one of them spoke. It was J-Roc.

“Listen mahfuck, I think that if that one girl found the other to be tight as hell, then there ain't nothin' wrong wit it. If she wanted to kiss her, maybe even get a little pootang, knowmsayin, then that's chill.”

“Yeah, man, and even if it's with two guys, that's still chill.”

“Might be a lil weird, but we don't judge.”

“Dude.”

Tyrone threw a glare at his friend who shrugged and took the joint from Ricky to have a hit.

“Point is,” Tyrone turned back to their friend, who was avoiding eye contact, “if you have any feelings for anyone, man or woman, we're here for you.”

Before Ricky could rebuttal with an insult, as is his usual, J-Roc's following outburst made any attempt of speech die on his tongue. 

“Hell, if we sharin’ our secrets and shi, I'm a little bi curious myself.”

It seemed this information shocked even Tyrone, especially given the white boy's earlier comment, who froze and turned to his friend with brows knitted.

“What? J-Roc, what are you talking about?”

“I said what I said, dawg. I feel everyone's a lil bi curious to some degree, knowmsayin? C'mon, don't tell me you never thought abouts it, even as a passing idea or some shizz.”

“No, I can't say I have, man. I'm all about them ladies, but hey!” The black man threw on a small smile as he raised his hands, “All the power to ya!”

“So, wait, you've thought about other guys and shit?” Ricky's curious glance over to his friend was met with a shrug.

“Yeah, mans, once or twice. Shit happens when you ain't got no ladies to bang and it's a sausage party ‘round hurr.”

“I'm not even gonna ask,” Tyrone waved a hand at J-Roc, turning his focus back on Ricky, “Anyway, all that shit aside, that story you told,” Ricky gave an ‘mhm’ as the joint was passed back to him and he took a hit, “was that about anything in particular? I mean, obviously yes I guess I should say any one in particular.”

“The fucks parculitar mean?” The ginger's brows twisted as he exhaled smoke, blue eyes staring at Tyrone.

“Particular, it just… Was it about anyone, Rick?”

Ricky hummed and tapped the joint into the ashtray, watching as the ashes gently dusted into the glass tray.

“What if it is?”

“We already said we won't judge, man.”

Ricky grunted and took another inhale, “Fucks sake,” he exhaled and pressed what remained of the tiny blunt against the glass tray to put out the fire. Smoke still freely flowed upward from it as he folded his hands against his lap, “Not a fucking word to anyone or you're both fucking DEAD, you hear me!”

Both men raised their hands as Ricky angrily pointed at them, agreeing that their lips were sealed. He held his glare for a moment before sighing and shifting his gaze to the floor, arms slumped against his legs.

“I've had this thought in my head for a coupla years now. I don't know when this shit started, fuck maybe it's always been there I don't know, but… Shit… I just…” Ricky gnawed on his lower lip, brows creasing tightly against each other, “Fuck, maybe I wanna kiss a guy, okay?! Maybe, I just, don't want to be called a terrible father sometimes and when he says I did a good job it gets to me in this weird fucking way that I don't know how to word it. Fuck! I hate feeling talk shit!” Head hung low, hands gripping into his hair, Ricky's teeth clenched as his eyes screwed shut.

It seems like the weed had the opposite effect he wanted. Instead of making him stop thinking about his best friend and the confusing emotions that came with it, the thoughts almost doubled actually. Whenever Julian smiled at him, rare as it was, and how it made his chest flutter in a weird fucked up way. When they'd get high together and Julian's giggles were finally freed from that harsh exterior. How Julian would give him a hearty slap on the back at a job well done, or a firm grip on his arm followed with a gentle shake. The closeness they shared felt different than any closeness Ricky felt with anyone else, even Lucy, and they had a kid together! A flash of Julians face close against his hit him like a brick and his eyes flashed open with a gasp.

When did he start crying?

“Ricky! Christ, man, are you hearin’ me?!”

“Ricky, cuh, you in there mans? Gimme a hra hra if you can hear me, dawg!”

Ricky blinked a few times and lowered his hands from his face to push Tyrone away from him, the other man’s tight grip loosening.

“What the fuck are you doing? Stop shaking me, christ!” He groaned and rubbed a fist against an eye, avoiding the concerned looks his friends wore, “Stop fucking looking at me like that.”

“Dude, you were out of it muttering some shit we couldn't make out. You okay, man?”

Ricky loudly groaned and stood up, shoving Tyrone in the process.

“Fuck off, T, I'm fucking fine. I'm going back to my car, you guys are no fucking help.”

“You sure about that, dawg? I don't think headin over there right neeaow would be smart, ya feel me?”

“The fuck do you know, J-Roc?! I said fuck off!”

J-Roc rolled his eyes and stood up to better face off against the ginger.

“I'm just sayin’, man, that means goin’ back over to Jules an shit, dawg, and you were just out here cryin’ over his muscle bound ass, knowmsayin!”

“I was NOT crying over Julian!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure ya weren't.” The following tongue click sent Ricky off into a rage.

He grabbed a random box off the floor and threw it towards the pair, who swore and raised their hands in front of their faces to protect themselves as Ricky grabbed their small side table and tossed that across the room also.

“Ricky, man! Calm the fuck down! We just got those!”

Tyrone stood up in an attempt to grab Ricky, which unfortunately failed as the stoner quickly wiggled out of his grip and slammed against a wall, causing several items to fall onto the floor. A shattering sound echoed throughout the trailer. The scuffle didn't last much longer as Ricky was shoved out of the trailer by an angry Tyrone and J-Roc.

“Don't come back till you’d calmed down, dawg!” J-Roc yelled before slamming the door.

“WELL FUCK YOU TOO! ASSHOLES!”

Ricky growled as he turned around, slamming a fist against the deck fence. His gaze went up and spotted an all too familiar sight by this point.

“Oh fuck no, fuuuuuck no.”

He stormed down the steps and shoved the man setting up a camera to the ground. He hoped it was hard enough to break the damn thing.

“You camera fucks need to fuck RIGHT off! We've been having a good fucking time with you cock suckers out of here!” He was about to pull his gun out before the last voice he wanted to hear hit his ears.

“Ricky for fucks sake, calm down! Did you forget about the contract from last week, dumbass?!”

Julian came barreling over, drink in hand, and grabbed Ricky by the arm and pulling him away from the cameraman still on the ground.

“What fucking contract?! Did you fucks trick us into signing another bullshit agreement?!” He rounded on the guy who flinched as he was attempting to stand back up, dropping his equipment back to the ground. Ricky smiled at that.

“No you asshole, the one we all signed together? They'll only be here for a week, that's what it said, and we're gonna get a fuck ton of money!”

Ricky scoffed and pulled his arm from Julians hold. He knew fully well that if Julian really wanted to keep him held then he could have, but his hand loosened at the tug and the stoner was let go.

“What the fuck ever, they better just leave me the fuck alone. You too, Julian. Fuck off.”

“What the fuck did I do?!”

Julian's hands rose in exasperation as he watched his friend storm off, an angry look plastered on his face. Ricky hated the pinch in his chest at the fact he was the one who put that nasty look there, he'd rather it be a smile or laugh, but he was NOT dealing with that right now. Not after the conversation with Tyrone and J-Roc. He only hoped and prayed the camera guy just arrived and didn't get anything that happened in the trailer. He might actually shoot him if that happened.

Ricky stormed off back to his car, swearing at someone who was driving on the road he was walking across. He may have also hit their car, but that's neither here nor there. The sun was going down by the time he'd gotten back, though to be fair it was already setting when he'd left J-Roc's. He rummaged through his back seat, throwing his belongings around before sighing in relief as he pulled out two bottles of alcohol. The labels had been scratched out at some point so he didn't know what exactly they were but upon popping them open and taking a swig, he'd guess one was whiskey and the other was vodka. Vodka wasn't his favorite, that was more of Bubbles' thing, but he needed to get drunk and he needed to get drunk now so he wasn't going to start being picky. He'd also found a few loose joints and pocketed them as he closed the car door. He planted everything on top of his car and grunted as he jumped onto the hood to sit against the windshield. He stared up at the quickly darkening sky, silent as the crickets started to ring around him. The silent shed nearby told him Bubbles must have already been asleep, or he was doing something elsewhere, Ricky didn't really care either way.

He heaved himself onto the top of his car with another grunt, sitting up with his feet planted on the hood. Whiskey was the first of the two bottles he'd grabbed to drink. A few other bottles of various nature were strewn about from previous nights, and here he was adding to them.

As night came, the alcohol in his system was hitting hard as he laid on his car. The whiskey bottle was about empty, vodka not far behind, and Ricky had lit three or four joints as well. He'd lost count a while ago. He was pretty sure he heard Julian yell something at him as he passed to enter his Trailer, but he couldn't make it out in his drunken state. He groaned a reply and lifted his half empty bottle as a reply. A scoff and door slam was the answer to his reply. He didn't care. He couldn't care. If he did care, that would only lead to ruining the best thing he'd ever had. Ricky sat up and put his head in his hand, eyes closed as he tried to steady his breathing. It wasn't working. He took another gulp of alcohol, hoping the burn would stop what he could see coming. It didn't work. He took a hit from the joint in his hand. That didn't do anything either.

The ginger loudly groaned and banged a fist onto his car, the loud bang causing some of Bubbles’ nearby cats to howl and scamper off. A dog started barking somewhere in the distance. He rapidly blinked his eyes as he stared up into the sky, stars twinkling above him in a sick mockery of what beauty could be. The moon was making fun of his miserable state as its light shone down on him, not a cloud to be seen to block the view.

Despite all his efforts, once the smallest crack in the dam was found, the entire ocean began to flood. Tears streamed down his face as he hung his head, hand not holding a joint trying desperately to wipe them away but more kept coming. Ricky had always been an emotional guy, this wasn't news to anyone, but if there's one thing he hated more than anything? It was crying. It always made him feel so weak, so lesser . He especially hated crying in front of anyone, so he was at least grateful no one was around to see his disheveled state.

Thoughts of Julian flooded his mind, his frown, his smile, his gravelly voice, his arms, his drink, his eyes, that tight fucking shirt he always wore. He couldn't stop it if he tried, his brain taking him on some fucked up roller coaster that was only headed down. His body shook as he cried, his throat tightening in an attempt to keep his volume down. It worked for the most part, save for the shattered gasps and sniffles.

The bottles he'd been drinking had fallen to the ground at some point, the rest of its contents spilling on the grass. He couldn't care less, though, as he tightly gripped his hair in a failed attempt to try and ground himself. The joint in his mouth was long gone, having fallen and burnt out onto the metal frame of his car at some point. The roach in his hand tempting to follow suit. His shaky hand found its way to his mouth and he attempted to inhale the smoke, hoping it could calm his racing nerves. The simple act did seem to help somewhat, as he was able to work on autopilot. It was gone before he knew it and the smoke in his lungs dissipated in one final exhale.

Fuck he hated these kind of nights. They've been getting more frequent lately.

The following morning was a rough one, Ricky head pounding with a hangover. He rolled onto his back on the grass, trying to remember how he even got there. He gave up after a few seconds and sat up with a strained groan, hand rubbing his temple.

“What the fuck happened last night?”

“Well, I could tell you but I'm not but I'm not sure if you really wanna know.”

Ricky had been asking himself that question, so Bubbles' response caught him off guard. He looked up at the blonde and squinted at him.

“The fuck you mean I don't wanna know?” He stumbled onto his feet, using his car as leverage, “Course I wanna know what happened, it's my fucking life, Bubs!”

The bifocaled man rolled his eyes and looked around for a brief second before stepping closer to Rick.

“You were crying, Rick. Like, a lot .”

Ricky blinked a few times, staring down at his friend. He scoffed and shoved him away.

“Fuck off, Bubs, no I was not.”

“Yes you were, Ricky! I saw everything from my shed! You weren't exactly quiet in your wallowing. You woke up my kitties!”

“I was not fucking wallowing , whatever that means, and I definitely wasn't crying! I sure as fuck did get drunk last night, though, that's for damn sure.”

“Ricky, for fucks sake, I know what I saw!” Bubs put a hand on Rick's shoulder, his features softening as he looked up at his friend, “If you need anyone to talk too, my sheds open. Not smart to let that shit steam, Rick.”

Ricky rolled his eyes and gently pushed Bubbles hand off his shoulder, “What are you, my theraputist?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Now where the fuck did I put that joint, I know theres one left in here somewhere.”

Ricky quickly turned and bent into his car to go searching, leaving a partially annoyed and confused Bubbles standing outside.

Aside from the cameras making a grand return, the rest of the day went fine if you asked Rick. Cory and Trevor fucked up big time, as they tended to do, which cause their entire plan to go awry. Ricky would never admit or say it was probably him who actually fucked up. Thankfully nobody went to jail and they were all back at home in one piece.

“What a fucking day.”

“You can say that again.”

“What a fucking day.”

“Rick- You don't actually- Whatever.”

Julian heavily sighed as he took a drink from his glass, not having the energy to argue with his friend and his weird brain. The two sat in an awkward silence for way too long for Ricky's brain, so he stood up and told his friend that he'd be back in a bit, to which he got a mumbled ‘okay’ in response. He wasn't gone long, as he promised, walking back into the trailer with a bong and lighter in hand.

“Oh for fucks sake, Rick.”

“Come on, Julian! You need to chill out, you've been super fucking stressed today, just a few hits with me come onnnn!”

Julian did his best to avoid Ricky's wide, pleading eyes, but he always had a hard time saying no to them. He hated how well his friend had perfected the ‘puppy dog eyes’ look.

“Fine. Just a few, I can't handle that shit like you can, man.”

Ricky smiled and quickly made his way back to his previous sitting spot. Julian couldn't help but smile behind his glass as he watched Ricky excitedly get the bong ready.

The two passed it between for a while, Ricky having to coax Julian into smoking more than he wanted. He just wanted his friend to smile and laugh, and this was the best way he knew to get that.

Properly baked out of their minds, Ricky and Julian sat on the couch giggling over the smallest things. Julian attempted to take a drink of his rum and coke, only to find that his glass was empty.

“Ah fuck, Rick. What the hell did you make me smoke, man? I can barely move right now.”

“Good,” Ricky giggles, “That means you're nice and fuckin’ high just like me.”

“Ricky.”

Julian tried to sound intimidating by lowering his voice, but glancing over to his friend and seeing that wide grin plastered onto his face, he couldn't stop himself from laughing. That caused Ricky to start laughing as well, and with that any anger Julian may have felt washed away into a fit of giggles and laughter.

“FUCK we need to get high together more often.”

“Oh hell no, Rick, I can't function like this. I have shit to do, you're just lucky it's late.”

Ricky waved his hand at Julian as he grabbed the bong to take another hit, “Whatever you big baby,” The bubbling was a comforting familiar sound to his ears as he inhaled the smoke into his lungs, “You want another hit?” Ricky exhaled as he held the bong out to his friend.

Julian examined the object for a moment, blue eyes flickering back and forth.

“Rick, I can barely fucking move right now. I don't think I need another hit right now.”

“Oh come ooooon, just one last one! For me? For your old pal Ricky?”

Ricky leaned in close to the raven, his pleading eyes wide as he pressed against his friend. He wasn't mentally aware enough to realize how into Julians personal space he was being, but even if he was, when had that ever stopped him? Julian glared at him for only a brief moment before rolling his eyes and gently taking the bong from Ricky's hand.

“YES!”

Ricky exclaimed and leaned back, already missing the warmth of being so close. He smiled as Julian grabbed his lighter and flicked it. It took a few attempts for the flame to spark, Julians sluggish movements doing nothing to help, but once it was lit and the water was bubbling, Julian pressed his lips against the ring and inhaled. Ricky watched the action with interest, almost studying his friends' moments. He found himself staring at the raven's lips as he inhaled the smoke, his eyes glued to the minor twitches in Julian's face. As Julian raised his head away from the bong and exhaled, Ricky's eyes followed the movement. It was almost like a painting of how gorgeous Julian looked in that moment, bong in hand, smoke gently leaving his mouth, eyes half lidded and mouth only slightly agape. Ricky hadn't even noticed he was staring until the raven's eyes shifted over to him. The smoke dissipated as he turned his head, a smile on his face.

“The fuck are you looking at?”

Ricky didn't respond, he just kept staring at Julians face, eyes flickering between the raven's eyes and mouth. He couldn't stop himself as he leaned in, body working of its own accord. His brain wasn't even registering what was happening, not until a warm feeling met his mouth. His eyes jolted open (when did he close them?) and he flinched back, harshly, almost falling off the other side of the couch. Julian hadn't moved, frozen in place with wide eyes staring at his friend.

Ricky panicked and fumbled onto his feet, stumbling as he quickly raced to the door muttering obscenities as he opened and slammed it behind him. He didn't care that he was leaving his bong in there, he needed to get out as fast as he could. Ricky had just kissed his best friend. Ricky had just kissed Julian . Totally straight and super sexy Julian. His mind was racing, he'd never gone from baked to sober so fast in his life. He stormed down the deck and into some random direction. There wasn't any place in mind, he just walked into the dark night, hands shaking. Whatever state he'd left Julian in was unknown to him, and he tried his best to forget the stunned look on his face. The way Julian had froze when they touched, the way he hadn't even turned to watch him leave, just staring forward into nothing. His eyes burned as tears formed, he didn't even try to keep it in this time. He fucked up. He fucked up bad.

“Ay ay, Ricky man! Whas u- Oh shit.”

J-Roc's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he turned to face the white rapper, who quickly walked across the small yard to stand next to Rick.

“Shit, dawg, you alright? You wanna come in for a bit, have a drink or somn?”

Ricky sniffled and rubbed a fist against his eye, looking away from his friend before speaking.

“I fucked up, J-Roc.”

“Fucked up? Shiiit, man, what you do this time huh?”

It was meant as a joke, but the hard glare the blonde received told him that it was anything but appreciated. He raised his hands and apologized. Ricky sighed and walked over to the trailer's deck, taking a seat on the stairs. J-Roc sat next to him.

“You know that… Shit from yesterday.”

Taking a moment to think, J-Roc pursed his lips for a brief moment before it clicked.

“Oh, shi’ yeah! When you came over tryin’ to cop some o’ my shizz and then fucked up my place. Yeah I remember.”

“Yeah, well,” Ricky groaned, he didn't at all regret trashing his friends house, he deserved it after making him talk about all his emotional feelings and shit. The stoner tended to not regret most things so the emotion wasn't something he was used to, but damn if he wasn't feeling it hard right now, “You said you were into guys, right?”

“Sometimes, yeah, ain't nothin’ wrong wit it, dawg.”

“Have you ever… Kissed another man?”

The silence that followed made Ricky feel like he was drowning. He stared down at his hands as they rubbed against each other, trying to quell the shaking in his bones.

“Yeah, I did once or twice. What's with the sudden interest, man, some shit happen?”

“You could say that,” Ricky mumbled.

It took only a few seconds for the thoughts to click in J-Roc’s head. His eyes widened and mouth fell almost in slow motion as realization dawned on him.

“Oh SHIT, dawg, did you kiss Julian?!”

“Shut the fuck up! Not so fucking loud, asshole!”

Ricky was quick to cover his friends mouth with his hands, frantically looking around to see if anyone was watching. He sighed in relief when he saw they were alone and slowly removed himself from J-Roc's face.

“Yeah, I uh, I fucked up. I ruined everything.”

“The fuck are you sayin’ ruined everything? So you kissed him, big fuckin’ deal, dawg, doesn't mean anythin’.”

“But it does to me , J-Roc! Not even to mention that Julian's not into men! Not into me !” The tears burned against his eyes as they reformed, and he didn't fight it this time either as they freely rolled down his cheeks, “I fucking ruined everything. He's gonna hate me now and probably tell everyone how fucked I am and kick me out of his life.”

Just the thought of Julian never wanting to see him again sent a wave of pain throughout his chest that had him doubling over, fists tightly gripping his shirt on both ends. J-Roc placed a gentle hand on his friend's back, rubbing up and down as Ricky sobbed. The soothing motion unfortunately didn't do much to help the panic in Ricky's veins, blood pumping fast as his heart rate picked up tremendously. He could feel it beating against his chest.

“Listen, Rick, I know you cares about Julian and all, but he cares about you too, dawg. I've never seen him act like he does which you with anyone else! That's gotta mean somethin’, knowmsayin?”

The words slowly sunk into Ricky's head as the tears continued to fall. Never acted around anyone else like he did him? Surely that wasn't true. Memories of Julian holding him close during one of his many break ups with Lucy, carrying him home when he'd pass out drunk on the street, saving him from getting his ass beat in jail when they'd first started going and he was being an asshole. Julian offering his glass to Ricky whenever he asked for a drink, that was rarer but the more Ricky thought about it, the more it dawned on him that no one drank out of Julian's glass except, well, Julian.

“Holy shit.”

He slowly sat up, eyes wide as it all dawned on him. The stoner still has tear streaks down his face but he didn't care as a smile quickly broke out.

“Julian fucking loves me.”

“Well- Hey now, I didn't say that-”

“Julian fucking LOVES me!”

Before J-Roc would stop him, Ricky jumped up and rubbed at his eyes and cheeks with his shirt in an attempt to clean off the tears.

“Thanks a lot, J-Roc! This was a real big fuckin’ help!”

“Uh- You're welcome? Ricky, I really think you should-”

“No time, buddy! I gotta get back and tell Julian what I just realized!”

And just like that, Ricky was gone, taking off back down the road to Julian's trailer. J-Roc sighed and put his head in his hand. Ricky really never did think, did he?

Bubbles was outside when Ricky came back, a confused look on his face. The blonde man adjusted his glasses as he spotted Ricky walking towards him.

“Ricky, Jesus, there you are! What the hell happened here?!”

“Whattia talkin’ bout Bubs? I went for a walk, so what?”

“ So what ?! Julian's going fucking mental in there!”

Ricky's energy instantly depleted as he gulped and tried to keep the smile on his face.

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“Well,” Bubbles threw his hands towards the trailer as a loud bang echoed from it, “I was woken up by that! When I came to ask him why the fuck he's throwing a temper tantrum he says ‘Ask fucking Ricky’ and slammed the door on me!” He glared at the ginger and pointed a finger at him, “So tell me. What the FUCK happened?!”

Ricky chewed his bottom lip as he glanced past Bubbles and to the trailer. Another bang caused him to flinch and Bubbles whined at the noise. He always hated when his friends were fighting, Ricky swore he was about to cry. He hated seeing Bubbles cry.

“Fuck- Shit- Is he that mad?”

“Mad about what?”

Ricky sighed and his arms slumped against his sides.

“I fucked up, Bubs.”

Any energetic joy he had on the way here was now gone and replaced with the previous anxiety and angst that was there before his talk with J-Roc. Bubbles raised a brow and stepped closer to his friend, studying his features.

“Fucked up how? You fuck up all the time and he never reacts like this.”

“Oh fuck off, Bubs.”

“Hey, I'm the one to made Julian destroy his own trailer over whatever the fuck you did.”

“I kissed him”

The statement was so quick and silent that Bubbles almost missed it. The silence between them drew out as the blonde's brain caught up to what his ears heard. Ricky anxiously pulled at his sleeves as he waited for the yelling, for Bubbles to push him away and curse him out. It never came. Instead, what he got almost knocked him on his ass.

“Well, it took you long enough.”

“What?”

Ricky blinked rapidly, almost too stunned to speak. He rubbed a finger into his ear before asking his friend to repeat what he said.

“I'm just saying that you're not exactly the best at keeping secrets. We're family, Ricky,” Bubbles sighed and stepped towards Ricky, placing a gentle hand on the ginger's chest, “I'm just happy you're not wallowing in your shit anymore. You know how tiring it gets listening to you cry every other night over him? It's exhausting,” He smiled up at him, “Besides, I kind of agree with you… To a point.”

“... What?”

Ricky was stunned in silence as Bubbles smiled, a giggle coming soon after as the blonde stepped back.

“Ricky, I'm saying I like you both, and seeing you boys fighting all the time hurts me a lot, so get the fuck in there and fix this shit!”

Ricky blinked and stared at his friend, still shocked. Bubbles groaned and rolled his eyes at the stoner's frozen state. He grabbed the man's arm and dragged him towards the trailer deck, which finally clicked Ricky back to reality.

“You like men?”

“I like you … And pissed Swayze in there. Now go fix it!”

Bubbles shoved Ricky towards the stairs, causing the man to stumble and slam against the wall. He was quick to recover and stumbled up to the door with his feet underneath him. Ricky looked back at Bubbles who crossed his arms and glared at him. There was a lot on his mind right now, but that was for later Ricky to figure out he guessed.

“Uh, hey Jules it's Ricky. Can I come in?”

Quiet.

Silence.

Crickets.

Stomping.

The door swings open to a disheveled Julian, the wall behind him having a few dents in it.

“Ricky.”

Silence.

Stare.

Crickets.

“Julian.”

Silence.

Stare.

Crickets.

Before Ricky could say anything more, he felt himself being dragged forward and the warmth on his lips froze him. Julian's hands tightly held his head still as he kissed him. When his brain finally caught up to the moment, Ricky closed his eyes and hungrily kissed the raven back, his hands tightly gripping onto the other's shirt and pulling him as close as possible. Both of them had forgotten about Bubbles at the bottom of the stairs until he'd spoken up.

“Fucking finally, boys! Now can you stop fighting already?”

They quickly broke away at the voice, both staring at the other with wide eyes and open mouths. They both panted to try and catch their breaths. Bubbles walked up the steps and broke whatever trance Ricky and Julian were in, both of them turning to look at the bespectacled man.

“Now, let's get some drinks and celebrate, yeah?”

“I don't think I can get any more bullshit into me right now,” Julian sighed as he let go of Ricky and took a step back to let Bubbles in despite his words.

“Oh come on, my bong’s still in here isn't it? Let's fucking party!”

Julian groaned and rolled his eyes as the ginger walked in, but a small smile found its way to his mouth once Ricky had passed him. With a quick glance outside to make sure no one was around, Julian closed the door and turned to the two men. Ricky and Bubbles both grunted as they lifted the table to put it back up right. Julian may regret his freak out come morning, but for now? Seeing the two people he cares most about chilling in his trailer, sharing a bong and drink? Yeah. Maybe he can set aside his worries for tonight.

“Come on, Julian! We gotta make up for lost time!”

“The fuck does that mean, Rick?” Julian scoffed as he stepped towards the couch. He grunted as the ginger grabbed his shirt as soon as he was close enough to do so and pulled him down for another kiss. The tug had the unintentional secondary effect of Julian falling onto the couch and therefore onto Ricky, who fell onto Bubbles. All three men gave a small yelp at the domino effect, but Ricky was the first to start laughing after it.

“Dinner and a movie first, Jules!”

“Oh fuck off.”

“Boys! Get off of me!”

“Sorry Bubs, Julian's getting a little greeeeasy.”

“I am not! You pulled me down!”

“BOYS!”

Despite the arguing, laughter filled the trailer over the absurd situation. Even Julian couldn't help but laugh a little. Taking this chance to catch Ricky off guard, Julian leaned up to place a quick kiss against his jaw before pushing himself up on his arms. Ricky's laughter quickly cut off at the movement, his eyes widening as he looked up at his friend (boyfriend?) hovering over him. His throat suddenly felt really dry as his mouth held agape.

“Behave, Rick, and maybe you won't sleep in the car tonight.”

“Jesus, Julian, you sure you're not getting greasy right now?”

“Oh shut it, Bubs, I mean he can have the couch. If whatever…” He gave a vague gesture with a hand between the three of them, “... this is, is going to be anything serious. I don't want the person I'm kissing living in a fucked up car.”

“Didn't you give him that car?”

“That doesn't change anything. I didn't give it to him like that. ”

“I'm right fucking here, assholes!”

Julian rolled his eyes and heaved himself onto his ass, properly sitting on the couch now. Ricky was still laying against Bubbles as the blonde shifted to better sit up, though he didn't bother to remove the other's head from his lap.

“So,” Ricky started after all the shuffling was done, “What the fuck are we now? I mean Bubs said he liked us both when I came back, we kissed, the fuck is all this?”

“You ever heard of Polyamory?”

Ricky looked up at Bubbles with a confused look.

“The fuck did you just say? Pole amouree??”

“Yeah, what is that Bubs?” Julian added in.

“Jesus boys, have you never used the google before?”

“We don't have a computer, Bubs.” Julian deadpanned.

Bubbles groaned and rubbed a hand down his face.

“It's when you have multiple partners at once.”

“Oh like two girlfriends? Didn't a guy in school have that or something?” Ricky looked to Julian for confirmation. The raven thought for a brief moment before nodding.

“Yeah, I think so. Forgot his name though, might've been Craig or something stupid like that.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Ricky nods.

“Boys! Pay attention!” Bubbles interjected the side conversation, trying to get them back on track.

“We are!” Ricky whined.

Bubbles sighed and gently patted Ricky's head in a way to say ‘yeah, sure you are’ without actually saying it. He's sure that Ricky didn't catch on though.

“I'm trying to say, we all like each other right?”

The blonde looked between the two men, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, I think so.” Ricky was the first to reply.

“We care about each other, yeah.” It was the best confession Julian would give.

“Right, so,” Bubs gave a smile as he reached down to grab one of Ricky's hands, leaning further to grab one of Julians in his other hand, “Why don't we try it?”

“Try what?” Ricky liked the feeling of Bubbles hands intertwined with his. It felt normal, and not weird like he thought holding hands with a guy might feel.

“The polyamory thing! Let's all date each other!”

Julian grimaced for a moment as his hand was grabbed, but letting Bubbles words sink in for a moment, he found he didn't exactly hate the idea. Ricky also wasn't against it, as shown by his wide smile as he looked up at him.

“Yeah alright, let's all be boyfriends or some shit! Pole armory!”

Bubbles let the misspeak slide as he looked over to Julian, tightening his grip against the other man's hand. Ricky also looked down at the raven, a smile still on his face. Julian's eyes flickered between his two friends and sat silent for a moment, thinking. Unfortunately with two pleading eyes on him, well, he never stood against. With a sigh, he finally gave in.

“Yeah, alright, we can try being boyfriends.”

Both men cheered at Julian's agreement to the new arrangement. Ricky surged upwards, breaking the hand holding between the three of them, and grabbed Julians face to pull him into a kiss. Bubbles giggled behind him as the stoner peppered his new boyfriend with kisses along his goatee. Julian's face flushed a pretty red at the affection, his hands gently placing against Ricky's shoulders. With a gentle push, the ginger stopped his onslaught with a wide grin on his face.

“Forgetting somebody?”

Ricky turned at Bubbles voice, attention now turned to his other new boyfriend. It wasn't uncommon knowledge that Ricky always showed his love in the purest way, always putting his entire heart into his partners whether they deserved it or not. It's why it hurt so much whenever Lucy berated him. This new adventure would be no different, of course, as he happily jumped over to Bubbles and pulled him into a deep kiss. Bubbles giggled against his lips as he tried to return the fervor, only able to get half as excited as Ricky.

“You're insatiable, you know that?

Ricky broke the kiss and smiled back at Julian, hands still holding Bubbles face.

“And you're about to see just how insatiable I am!”

“I'm already regretting agreeing to this.”

As the three laughed once more for the night, none of them noticed the red light next to the window, signaling a rolling camera. The camera crew on the other side of the window passed around some dollar bills, some excited and some upset.

Whether or not Julian, Bubbles, and Ricky stole that money the next morning after finding out about the tape, who knows, but Julian bought himself a new sofa and Ricky excitedly gave Trinity some new school books, and Bubbles? Well he got some fancy cat food. What else?

Hi I wrote a really long fanfic for these goobers but uh I'm not sure if I should post it (It's sfw dw) but here's the artwork that goes w it. Ricky goes thro a rough time but we love a happy ending :3

[mindlostagogo]

041921

I love cartoons, a lot. Over the pandemic, I’ve spent my sudden surplus of free time reacquainting myself with old loves and pastimes I’d otherwise abandoned. One of those loves being My Chemical Romance, and one of those pastimes being, well, learning about everything that inspires Gerard Way (no point in hiding it, lol).

I finally got around to revisiting the Breakfast Monkey animatic earlier this month; the last time I saw it would’ve been about a decade ago now. Something that stood out was, separating my love of MCR and strictly as a lover of cartoons, the strength of the creativity and humour jumped out at me. I’ve re-watched it dozens of times now, I can’t get “Cruising for Crazy” out of my head, and it always makes me laugh. There are times where I laugh because, admittedly, I’m projecting on certain moments (ie. being a fangirl). But there are times where I laugh and I completely forget this has anything to do with Gerard (and Joe—I’m sorry, I don’t forget Joe Boyle, but I can’t help how I found the show).

I don’t know anything about the industry, but I do know it took Cartoon Network another half-decade before it started putting out the types of weird cartoons (now very much CN’s bread and butter) Nickelodeon would jump onto without question around the same time (late 90s/early 00s).

I know the original pitch was meant for Adult Swim—which was definitely more stoner-friendly humour at the time, especially in the simplicity shared by many of the shows (I love 12 oz. Mouse so much more than I probably should); Comedy Central and MTV’s animated output at the time was similar. All that to say, Nickelodeon, the channel that was bold enough to take on Invader Zim as an ‘all-ages’ nightmare, probably would’ve been a better home for the Breakfast Monkey as far as dealing with producers goes.

Breakfast Monkey, even now, doesn’t exactly scream AS. There’s an underlying ominousness that you get hints of—the moment with the dude telling Lucha to “Do as the Monkey says” says a lot—even more so when you see the production art of the Warp Maggot. And who knows where Gerard and Joe would’ve gone with storylines (I’m also aware it was meant to be short-form, but given the standard, you’d still probably be looking at 11-minute run times).

When it comes to Adult Swim’s output, the most prevalent things you notice (depending on the show) are: sex, gore, swearing, and simplicity—with an emphasis on simplicity. That’s not a negative reflection of the creators in any way, I’m just pointing out what AS is drawn to—it’s partly why Rick and Morty stands out so much. They did, after all, pull the plug on Morel Orel for getting too existential; dark is not the problem, heavy is, and MO definitely got heavier than was initially pitched. (That said, the braver thing to do would’ve been to ride out Dino’s inventiveness at the time.)

I know the reason stated for the show not getting picked up was because Aqua Teen Hunger force had just gotten picked up, and AS “already had a food show.”  Even still, without hitting more, for lack of a better term, ‘edgy’ marks, I don’t know if Breakfast Monkey would’ve been at home on AS. If anything, Breakfast Monkey makes me think more Spongebob-meets-Zim, something I think would’ve blown up, especially around that time. Zim got the plug pulled pretty quickly, despite having an extremely dedicated following; Breakfast Monkey would’ve scratched the edgy itch while also being palpable given Monkey is absolutely adorable.

Where my mind goes, I guess I would describe Chowder as diet Breakfast Monkey. I love Chowder, I love all the different ways they explored art; the moving pallets under the linework on certain characters’ clothes sometimes is burned into my mind, no doubt in part due to the sometimes aspect of not knowing when I’ll get to see them again. But, again, given that Gerard’s mind seems to know no bounds, I can’t help but call Chowder hypothetical diet Breakfast Monkey.

Suffice to say, for CN to look at Breakfast Monkey and not see a potential Spongebob-level success—WITHOUT interfering with the creative intent—says everything you need to know. It comes down to how edgy Gerard and Joe planned on taking the series. Worst case scenario, you’d get the majority of Canada’s adult animated output. Every show Teletoon picked up for their adult animated selection between the early 2000s and the 2010s was so forced in making sure every show had sex and/or just the most low-hanging comedic crass fruit wherever possible. (Side rant: I genuinely liked some of those shows, but they are not what I would objectively call ‘good.’ What do I mean by good? I mean I don’t think anyone at any step of the creative process—writers, animators, producers—could comprehend how milquetoast even their most inventive ideas were. I don’t put that on minds of the creatives, I think they exceeded brilliance as far as Canada’s restrictive original content output is considered. There’s a reason most of our best either go into teaching or move to the States.)

Breakfast Monkey, at the time, could not be shown to CN or AS and not expect to be manipulated with—and that’s really sad, because that animatic is extremely strong.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 08/05/2021 (Billie Eilish, DJ Khaled)

Whilst this is slightly busier than last week, I am genuinely surprised with how little is actually going on here on this week’s chart, a lot less than I expected or predicted. With that said, the top of the chart is where our biggest story comes from and that is “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne taking advantage of a weak chart with its star-studded remix and peaking at #1 for its first week, replacing Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name)”. Not only is it the biggest hit for both of these guys and their first #1s, but it’s the first #1 for the entire UK drill genre, which kind of came out of nowhere for me since I think the song’s pretty worthless but with a TikTok challenge and streaming numbers that have even placed it in the American Spotify chart, it’s gearing up to be one of the biggest British rap songs ever. Let’s hope maybe this one doesn’t stall out as badly as “Don’t Rush” outside of the UK. With all that out of the way, let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Our only new arrival from last week’s UK Top 75 (which is what I cover), “Come Through” by H.E.R. featuring Chris Brown, is gone on the next off of the debut. Well, at least we have more than one new song this week, as well as some interesting chart nonsense lower down, but also some notable drop-outs for “Mr. Perfectly Fine” by Taylor Swift, “Mercury” by Dave and Kamal., “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” by Drake featuring Rick Ross, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man (which will rebound next week as that album makes its impact) as well as “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles finally making what seems to be its last exit. Our only return is in the form of “Confetti” by Little Mix getting a massive surge back at #15 after its Saweetie remix and the attached music video, though Saweetie doesn’t happen to be credited here.

We do have an interesting selection of gains and losses, as with the notable fallers – dropping five spots or more down the chart – we have “Titanium” by Dave at #23, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted getting ACR’d down to #29 (it had a surprisingly great run), “The Business” by Tiesto having the same happen to it at #32, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #40, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo at #43, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #45, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #51, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK hit hard to #54, the same with “Up” by Cardi B at #59, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae shaking off the gains #63, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #60, “Heat” by Paul Woolford and Amber Mark at #66, “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake at #69, “Paradise” by MERDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #71 and, sadly, “How Does it Feel” by London Grammar at #75.

Where it gets a bit more telling about how the charts are going to adapt into the Summer is in our climbers as we have solid gains for “Another Love” by Tom Odell making another run at #60, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous inexplicably at #57 and now we get into the top 40 where we have more potential future hits. “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack is at #38, “Don’t You Worry About Me” brings the Bad Boy Chiller Crew their first hit at #37 (although the song is only ever worth hearing for that chorus) and “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI returns to the top 40 at #30 thanks to a remix with Miley Cyrus who is again not credited by the Official Charts Company. Boney M. are granted their first new top 20 hit since the 1990s, even if it is just a remix of a song that went #2 in 1978, as Majestic’s remix of “Rasputin” is at #18. Our final gain is for a song first entering the top 10 thanks to the remix with Ariana Grande finally making an impact – yet once again not given the official credit by the OCC – as “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd makes its way up to #8, becoming his tenth top 10 hit here in Britain. That’s not the only song to first enter the top 10 this week but we’ll get to that in due time with our... odd selection of new arrivals this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “EVERY CHANCE I GET” – DJ Khaled featuring Lil Baby and Lil Durk

Produced by DJ Khaled and Tay Keith

Two of our new entries are from DJ Khaled’s most recent album Khaled Khaled, an album much like any Khaled album I found cheap and just dull. This record especially is just mixed horribly, with a budget spent exceedingly on getting big-name features instead of any worthwhile engineers to actually mix and master this 50-minute trainwreck. The album doesn’t have many highlights at all but if I had to choose some they would be the two debuting this week, the first of which is basically a Lil Baby cut, “EVERY CHANCE I GET”, with a verse from Lil Durk. Okay, so, yes, first of all, much like the rest of the record, this mix is compressed and just weak, with bizarre bass mastering and drums that sound like garbage, before we get to Lil Baby himself sounding even froggier than ever. I do think that gives the song part of its charm, though, as with a Tay Keith beat, it’s definitely going for a hardcore, old-school Memphis rap atmosphere, and with Lil Baby’s flow switches disguising paranoid lyrics about the typical gunplay and flexing, it does effectively make a pretty intimidating listen... okay, well, it would, if DJ Khaled didn’t have to pop in to convince Lil Baby to “keep going”. We also get a single verse from Lil Durk here, mixed like he recorded his vocals in his bath to the point where it’s clipping against the bass, but delivering a King Von-esque flow that sounds pretty great, and admittedly more detail than you’d expect. I also love that silly “mmm-mmm” flow he uses at the end. I do wish a song like this, clearly supposed to be menacing, did not have the ludicrous personality void that is DJ Khaled on it, and it’s not like they need Khaled to collaborate together – or with Tay Keith for that matter – so I don’t really see why the dude doesn’t just shut up and promote his albums as compilations instead. I understand it comes from his mixtape days, but if this is going to be a studio album, treat it like one and just be quiet for once.

#72 – “Oblivion” – Royal Blood

Produced by Royal Blood

Royal Blood got the #1 album this week for Typhoons and admittedly, whilst I am interested in this band, I haven’t gotten around to listening to it, so I’ll take this album cut as a preview of what to come. If I am doing that, I hope to be surprised by whatever else that album has in store as I’m not really a fan of this. That eerie choppy guitar loop being immediately crushed by this heavily distorted riff and stiff percussion just does not sound unique or interesting, especially if Mike Kerr is going to sound this soulless. The build towards the chorus feels pretty pathetic and unwarranted, and said chorus is just not catchy, before we get to content about how he knows his fate through how arrogant he’s been and he deserves what’s coming to him. I mean, sure, but there’s nothing that makes it obvious that these guys don’t care about what’s coming to them given the pained vocal delivery and monotonous instrumental. It doesn’t feel exciting, rebellious or whatever emotion this tries and fails to capture, just stiff and staggered in its execution. This does make sense for Royal Blood but seems to me like they’re resting way too heavily on ideas ran through the soil at this point. With all that said, this isn’t bad at all, just not as great as those other singles have been from the record. I think I’d be more forgiving if it didn’t come off as a Queens of the Stone Age tribute act writing “originals” that bomb at their shows.

#56 – “love race” – Machine Gun Kelly featuring Kellin Quinn

Produced by Jeff Peters, Jared Gudstadt and Travis Barker

I guess this might actually be a rock-heavy week – not that I’m complaining about more of a rock presence on the chart but God, I wish it wasn’t coming from MGK. I’ll have some choice words to say about this guy’s last attempt at a pop-rock hit by the end of the year, probably, but at least for this song he brought on someone with some kind of legitimacy. Kellin Quinn is the frontman of post-hardcore band Sleeping with Sirens, one of the most successful bands in their genre but not one unlike others that grew out of the metalcore-infused pop rock to anything more unique or experimental. With that said, Quinn is barely here and other than Travis Barker’s typical explosive drums, MGK is the biggest presence here in his raspy but borderline unlistenable vocal tone that I just can’t stand, especially if it’s going to stretch out “run” as long and as far as he did in that longing, desperate chorus. MGK barely even lets Kellin Quinn have his own verse, registering him as backing vocals throughout the entire song, dampening his vocals that sound a lot more unique and enthused, especially when he starts screaming. That bridge did give me trancecore flashbacks – not that I’m complaining if I’m fully honest – so I’ll admit the part of me that eats up emo-pop garbage did let this grow on me a bit, but, man, without a guitar solo to distract from pretty awful lyrics (not that I’d expect much more from this artist or genre) and without really letting Quinn loose on the vocals, it’s lacking a certain grit and punch I expect from post-hardcore. The song did, however, indirectly remind me of New Found Glory, for which I am thankful for.

#53 – “I DID IT” – DJ Khaled featuring Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby and DaBaby

Produced by Ben Billions, Joe Zarrillo, DJ 360, Tay Keith and DJ Khaled

You wouldn’t expect an artist line-up like this to continue this trend of rock in this week’s new arrivals, but you’d be surprised, and personally I’m pretty happy with how much rock seems to be creeping up back into the public consciousness as if there’s one thing I got back in touch with the most over lockdown, it was the rock music I was raised on and it led to me even further appreciating a genre I had kind of lost touch with over the years out of just a lack of interest. With that said, this isn’t a rock song per se, but it does heavily and lazily sample a classic like much of this Khaled album, going for “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos. I’m not going to lie, either, it sets up a pretty effective back-bone for a trap banger about being awesome, especially with those squealing riffs in the chorus. Oh, yeah, and the mixing is horrible as expected, but to be honest to me it does not dampen the boasting, anthemic nature of this track, especially with Post Malone being a perfect choice to croon that infectious chorus. Megan Thee Stallion has a pretty embarrassingly by-the-numbers verse over a switch in the beat that makes it sound oddly stunted, but she does have that swinging rock charisma that people like Lil Baby do not have. With that said, I think I’m at the point where I eat anything Lil Baby says or does, because the flow switches combined with his frog-throat delivery is just impeccable. Content-wise, I think everyone here realises they’re being squashed by the clipping beat as they just go off about complete nonsense that goes in one ear and out the other apart from Lil Baby’s misguided but still pretty funny line about how he contemplated going vegan but sees no point in it because he’s got ten karats in both of his ears. Sure. At least DJ Khaled as something to do as he... harmonises, I guess, with Posty on the chorus. DaBaby is as distant as possible from the microphone to the point where I can barely hear him, not that it matters when his verse is that basic and short. This is kind of a trainwreck in all honesty, but with four choruses and a beat this heavy, it’s hard to be annoyed by it. Overwhelming maybe but these performers are all characters by themselves and throwing them in this three-minute chaos of squealing guitars and trap skitters just fascinates me if anything. Does it count as a posse cut? I don’t know. Either way, this is hilarious.

#5 – “Your Power” – Billie Eilish

Produced by FINNEAS

Decidedly not hilarious is this new single from Billie Eilish looking to be a smash from that upcoming album which now has a track listing and release date, with this functioning as I suppose the true lead single and her seventh top 10 here in the UK. It’s a brave choice too considering the lyrical content which is a pretty scathing attack on her ex-boyfriend and their abusive relationship, making several references to the gap in age and power dynamic that played into something really distressing for the both of them but especially a young, vulnerable Billie Eilish who found herself helpless in this relationship because of that “hero” quickly revealing himself as little more than his projected insecurities. The song’s detailed enough not to detach itself from Billie’s personal struggles but also works as what I suppose is a warning, as it’s retelling a story all too familiar with many girls of her age at the time who end up in these really scary situations. It does help that the song itself is great, relying on these layered acoustic guitars to form some kind of dejected groove behind Eilish’s vocals, whispery and cooing as always but in this case way too loud in the mix for my taste to the point where it kind of takes me out of the song as a whole. With a better master that blends her vocal take a lot better into the guitars, maybe going for a fuzzier, dream-pop angle, could work a lot better but with that said, I do understand the purpose of making it feel this intimate and minimal because Billie’s honest songwriting calls for a delivery like this, even if she ends up sounding shakier or even mumbling at times as a result. This is a big debut for Billie for a song not prepared to do as well as it did given its content and sound that is not exactly radio-friendly and oftentimes requires more heavy of a listen than a pop song would otherwise. I do love that final outro as her humming careens off the gentle guitars with just enough scratch but I do question how abrupt the ending is. Hopefully when the album’s out, we’ll have a bigger picture to as where this single in particular fits in.

Conclusion

With only five new arrivals and not much in the way of anything bad, I guess Worst of the Week goes to “Oblivion” by Royal Blood but giving a Dishonourable Mention would just end up as dishonest. Therefore, Best of the Week goes to Billie Eilish for “Your Power” but – and I cannot believe I am saying this for a 3/10 album with only fluke hits – but DJ Khaled – and Lil Baby for that matter – get a tied Honourable Mention for both of their songs, “EVERY CHANCE THAT I GET” with Lil Durk and “I DID IT” with Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby. Now to distract from the fact I just did that, here’s this week’s top 10:

I can’t really make any healthy predictions for next week. Maybe we’ll get some songs from Lil Tecca, Rag’n’Bone Man or Bebe Rexha? Maybe we’ll end up with some fluke Weezer smash hit, who knows? Regardless, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week.

[slutiisms-a]

drugs 101  :  marijuana

below the readmore is compiled information about marijuana. while i don’t consider it a drug, some people do and it is incorrectly portrayed a lot on roleplay. so, below is some information about the prices, variations, how it feels, and more. this is explained from personal experience; while some people may have slightly different experiences, it is generally all about the same. this took a lot of time to type out so please give this a like if you found it remotely helpful or i'll assume no one wants any others posted for other drugs. 

! PSA !  this post is in no way saying to do the above listed drug.

pricing. 

the price varies depending on your location. some places overcharge because the supply is lower, while some places or legal places are more mandated. the key difference in some pricing is the quality of marijuana. while you could get ‘mid’, it’s not the best strains and to me is not worth it; my friend gets hers for $30 for 8 grams. however, good weed ( the kind i’d hope you’d rp your characters with ), it’s usually $10/gram. if you’re in a bad location with low supply, you could pay up to $25-30/gram. below i will explain how much a gram stretches for each way you can get high from marijuana. 

strains & effects.

what is important to know is that there are different strains of marijuana. each strain has slightly different effects ( both positive and negative ). while you don’t need to know specific strains to write it, you could if you wanted to and a good website for strains knowledge is leafly. the key to know is the three basic categories of strains and what they tend to make you feel. 

indica — couch potato. this is the one people typically think of when they think of marijuana. you tend to get the munchies heavily and you just want to relax and be chill.  sativa — energy. these strains typically put you in a social mood, you’re more likely to dance around and laugh. most of these strains don’t really give you the munchies.  hybrid — as expected, it is a combination of an indica and sativa. most have a dominance, so they will be more sativa than indica or vice versa. 

while each strain gives you slightly different effects, i’d explain the high simply by saying:

your head feels a bit lighter in the sense that you tend to not focus on anything for too long; this keeps you from getting into low points mentally. your body feels tingly; some strains makes you feel like it’s tingling on the outside while some strains make you feel like the inside of your body is tingling. no matter the strain, you typically laugh more than usual. personally, i rarely want to watch serious things while i’m high because it’s hard to focus on all the details, so most stoners end up watching things that don’t need full attention; like rick & morty, southpark, youtube videos, etc. 

please stop saying your character is hallucinating on marijuana; they aren’t. each method of getting high on marijuana gives different levels of high, usually, but even with a dab, you are not hallucinating. 

side note of importance; marijuana is a drug that the high heavily depends on the environment you’re in. different environments can give you different experiences even if it’s the same strain and method of getting high. you can have a depressed high, an angry high, a paranoid high, etc. while different strains give different negative side effects, if you’re around a mean/paranoid/etc someone or simply a bad environment, the high can have more negatives than positives. 

before i dive-in, i want to discuss how some people attempt to hide/conceal the smell of marijuana when they are smoking. there are some little containers that you blow the smoke into that it says it cleans it to rid the smell, but i have never tried those to know for sure. most people i know will get a toilet paper roll, have a drier sheet tied to cover one end of the roll, and then they will blow into the roll. another way, if you live alone like i do, if you know people are going to come around and you can’t have the smell, you can put a tsp-tbsp of vanilla extract in a small oven-safe bowl. put this into the oven or toaster oven; turn it on a low level for a while. your entire house will smell like a bakery.

ways to get high off marijuana: 

smoking through a homemade pipe/bong. 

yes, you read correctly. while in a bind, people often will resort to a homemade pipe or bong. i find this is most commonly used by young teenagers, so i won’t go too deep into details about how to make the pipes. if you want to know the specifics because your character is making one, you can google it. however, some things that people turn into pipes are apples, pens, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, water bottles, tic tac containers, soda cans, etc. if you can imagine it, someone has already tried to turn it into a pipe or bong.

smoking through a store-bought pipe.

store-bought pipes can be found in smoke shops, some gas stations and online ( smoke shop websites, amazon, etsy, etc ). the prices vary depending on the size and the place you buy it. smoke shops tend to be pricier, as well as etsy. 

the size of a pipe changes how much weed it takes to pack a bowl. my favorite pipe has a decently deep bowl; i usually pack in 0.4 grams per bowl, though you could pack up to 0.6 grams into the bowl i have. typically, most pipes tend to hold between 0.2 grams to 1 gram in the bowl; though that’s not always the case. 

for example, one-hitters are a thing. just as it sounds, it’s good for 1-2 hits from it before it needs to be emptied and repacked. if you’re wondering the point of a one-hitter, i’ll answer that right now for you. one-hitters are different shapes and styles, but my favorites are the ones that look like cigarettes. this would allow you to walk around in uncrowded streets smoking from it, or smoking it in the car without anyone noticing ( i’m not saying you should smoke while driving but if you did, or if you were just a passenger ).

process of packing a bowl :

1. ensure that the bowl of the pipe is emptied and clean. ( how often you clean your pipe is up to you. you can use pipe cleaners to do this, but i find the best way is to let the empty pipe sit in rubbing alcohol for an hour or so before shaking it around in the bag and then rinsing it out with water ).  2. take out the weed you want for the bowl.  3. break it into pieces that will fit in the top section of your grinder.  4. twist the top of the grinder back and forth until all of the weed is grinded into the middle chamber.  5. twist off the first and section chamber to reveal the grinded weed being held within the grinder.  6. pick it up and push it down into the bowl. you don’t need to pack it too tightly but you don’t want it not properly pressed either.  *bonus* if you wanted to add kief to the top of the bowl, you can open the last chamber of the grinder and sprinkle some of the fine powder onto the top. ( kief, keef or keif ) is a fine powder made from dried resin glands that are found on the leaves of the cannabis plant. it contains a high concentration of the psychoactive chemical or thc that causes euphoric feelings or opium-like high that can last for hours.

process of smoking from a bowl : 

1. press your finger over the carb; which is the small hole on the side of the pipe. 2. light the top of the weed within the pipe and suck in. 3. stop the lighter and continue to suck in as you lift your finger off and back on the carb.  4. try to hold the smoke in for a few seconds at least before blowing the smoke out. simple enough! 5. once the top is a gray color on top, use something to mix around the marijuana; you can use a bobby pin or something so that you’re not seeing ash on top before smoking more of it.

you typically begin to feel the high after a couple of hits from the pipe. i don’t usually smoke a bowl at once; i smoke on it throughout time, so i couldn’t tell you exactly how long the high lasts for me but it varies per person. on a normal work day, i get home from work and start smoking around 6pm and go to sleep around 11pm; within this time, i’ll have 1-2 bowls to myself. however, some people smoke much more than that, and some people don’t even smoke daily. 

rolling & smoking a joint.

! PSA ! a joint and blunt are NOT the same thing!!!!!!!! 

a joint is with the thin white rolling papers. you can typically buy packs of these for very cheap; a couple of bucks. if you hit up the daily smoke club, you could get a pack of papers for like a buck. however, you can also get different kinds of papers. you can buy colored ones, or ones with designs, even paper made from gold; some smoke shops have them, different online stores; and i know amazon sells them. 

joints are typically up to the person with how large they are. i’m really not a fan of them, so i never roll them or ask to smoke them ( unless offered ). from everyone i know, typically you’d put anywhere between 0.5 grams to 1.5 grams in a joint; could be bigger but i don’t find that people usually do joints with less than half a gram.

process of rolling a joint without a dollar bill :

1. lay the paper down. 2. grind the weed and sprinkle it down the center of the paper, length wise.  3. begin to roll the paper around the weed in the center.  4. lick the trim on one side and press it down. be careful not to use too much spit or the entire joint will be ruined and the paper will rip.  5. ensure that the ends have some empty space and twist them closed. you can leave one end open if you’re going to smoke it immediately.

process of rolling a joint with a dollar bill :

1. grab your dollar bill and fold it hamburger style. 2. grind the weed and sprinkle it down the center of the crease you just made.  3. begin to rub the ends of the bill together up and down, the weed should begin to roll together.  4. press the paper into the bill, the edge on the side of the weed.  5. continue to slowly roll the ends of the bill together until it begins to wrap around the weed properly.  6. continue to roll until it’s completely rolled. then, use your tongue to run it across the edge of the paper to seal it down. 7. ensure that the ends have some empty space and twist them closed. you can leave one end open if you’re going to smoke it immediately. 

normal joint papers and cones are not the same. you can roll a cone or buy pre-rolled papers. unless you want to learn how to roll cones, i just buy packs of them pre-rolled online and all you have to do is push the weed down into the papers. as it sounds, they are shaped like a cone. 

process of smoking from a joint : 

1. put your lips on the filter. 2. light the end of the joint. 3. every few hits, you’ll have to tap the end against something to get the ash to fall ( ashing it ).

you typically begin to feel the high after a couple of hits from the joint. whenever smoking a joint, they burn quickly so it’s hard to not smoke it all at once. the high typically is stronger than from a pipe and it’ll last a couple of hours before it’s down enough to want more. 

rolling & smoking a blunt.

! PSA ! a joint and blunt are NOT the same thing!!!!!!!!

a blunt is weed wrapped in a tobacco leaf. the most common way of doing this is to buy a cigarillo, empty it out and then fill it with weed before sealing it. you can buy tobacco leafs that are empty, but people typically just go buy the cigarillos and empty them. they are $1/pack of two cigarillos. there is multiple brands and flavors to pick from. the two brands i use the most are game and swishers. games are harder to roll/seal but burn slower and smoother. swishers are much easier to roll/seal but burn a little faster. i typically go for swisher sweets green. 

blunts take up more weed than joints and pipes. it’s the only reason i don’t smoke blunts every day. blunts are usually at least 0.8 grams to 2 grams; some people go much bigger than this, but i don’t really see people doing under 0.8 grams unless they are making the blunt very slim or cutting it to be shorter. 

process of rolling a blunt :

1. drag your tongue across length wise on part of the cigarillo where you’re going to cut ( talented people can use their fingers to find the seal and break it, but i don’t find it that easy to do ).  2. cut length wise down the gar. you can use whatever you want for this. most commonly is a pocket knife. not even going to lie, i use eyebrow scissors a lot to make the line straighter.  3. empty out all of the tobacco.  4. drag your tongue over the inside of the gar. when i say this, i mean you literally have to lick all over the inside of the gar to make it easier to roll.  5. grind up your weed or break it up with your fingers. it’s easier to roll when it’s grinded but it burns slower if it’s broken up with your fingers.  6. slowly begin to roll your fingers back and forth to mold the weed into a roll.  7. to seal it, drag your tongue along the inside of the edge and over the top of it as well. add some pressure to the seal to let it try to hold before officially sealing.

process of smoking a blunt : 

1. put your lips on the end you aren’t going to light. 2. light the end of the blunt.  3. every few hits, you’ll have to ash it or it will fall on you.

you typically begin to feel the high after a couple of hits from a blunt; sometimes even just one if you get a big enough hit. whenever smoking a blunt, you can dab it out and restart it later. most of the time, i’ll smoke about half and then smoke the other half later. the high is more than a joint or pipe and half a blunt will last a couple of hours. overall, smoking wise, blunts are my favorite and give the best high, in my opinion.

smoking from a bong. 

bongs are the one smoking method i know the least about. i only typically use a bong with friends. however, it’s a good high and it’s very quick to get to that point. people use anywhere between 0.3 gram to 1 gram in the bong’s bowl; however, most commonly people use 0.5 gram to 1 gram.

process of packing a bong : 

1. grind up the weed, or some people will just put the nug into the bowl. 2. cover the seal of the top of the bong with your lips. 3. light the marijuana in the bowl and suck in. 4. after a few moments, stop lighting it and lift the bowl out of the bong. 5. suck in as much of the smoke that you can. 6. hold it in for as long as possible for blowing the smoke out. 

bong highs are strong; typically only needing one or two hits to be high. i don’t have a lot of experience with these in particular to tell you how long it lasts. whenever i use them, we will take a few bong hits each and then go inside and relax for an hour or so.

eating an edible.

truly, there could be an entire post just dedicated to edibles. there is so many different kind you can have and make. in a way to condense it, the explanation for making them will only be for brownies and i will explain it very vaguely. you don’t need to know all the very specifics to make them on roleplay. if you want to actually make them, you can look into recipes and things yourself.

there is so many forms of edibles. if it’s edible, it can likely be made into an edible. the most common ones that i know of and have personal experience with are brownies, cookies, gummies and lollipops/hard candy. 

the biggest thing to know is the difference in how it’s presented to you if it’s homemade vs dispensary bought. homemade is going to be given to in with dosing in grams. dispensary bought is going to be given to in with dosing in mgs. it is very easy to be confused when it comes to mgs because not everyone has experience with mgs to know what any of that means. 

mg breakdown 

1 - 2.5 mg — microdosing, some first time users. 2.5 - 15 mg — still a small dose, helps to feel more social; restless sleepers. 15 - 30 mg — more seasoned consumers; experienced users looking to help insomnia. 30 - 50 mg — season consumers, higher tolerance to thc. 50 - 100 mg — experienced thc consumers only; medically for cancer or inflammatory disorders. 

as personal reference, most edibles i’ve experienced are between 50 - 100 mg. i’ve had gummies that were 10 mg per gummy; i had three of those and it only really made me relax and not really feel high. for homemade edibles, they are usually around 0.5 gram to 2 grams per edible. 

edible high is unlike smoking marijuana. it’s much stronger, usually. you get the normal effects of weed, but at heightened levels. it usually takes anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours to kick in. from personal experience, edibles are my favorite way to get high with marijuana, but i find it isn’t good for a daily basis. the end of edible highs make you want to sleep for a long time. sometimes you may feel like you’re melting into something you’re sitting on or floating; but it’s still never a crazy enough high where you feel out of control of your body.

my favorite time on an edible is when i went to an aquarium while high on it. i don’t remember almost anything about the aquarium, but i hated aquariums prior to this visit. while there, everything seemed so beautiful to me and it was the most exciting thing i’ve ever done while on an edible to this day. the colors seemed so much brighter and i just remember laughing a lot.

making brownie edibles : 

1. collect the ingredients which are basically just normal brownie ingredients and then you need canna oil.  2. to make canna oil, you just need to take an ounce of ground weed and bake it for around 30 minutes. then, combine the bud with your favorite oil ( olive, coconut, etc ) on the stove on low heat for 6 or more hours.  3. then, you just add the oil into the normal brownie recipe and bake your edibles.  4. cut them into pieces. you want the pieces to be smaller than normal sized brownies, unless you are experienced and you know how much is in that cut of the brownie. it is better to underdose than overdose yourself with edibles. 

having too much of an edible : 

you will think you are dying. i don’t mean that in a fun way. everyone has a slightly different experience with this, but i will give you my personal experience. tw: vomit mention.

the edible was 300 mg and it said to have 1/4 of it for experienced users ( 75 mg ). i had never had mg edibles before so i didn’t really understand and i didn’t read the directions; MISTAKE. — always read your directions on the edible packages if it’s from a dispensary. i ate a little over half of the edible. at first, it was fun. the high kicked in and i felt great. soon, it became too much. lifting my head made me feel lightheaded; my entire body felt tingly and heavy. i felt like i was spinning while i was laying down on my bed. i don’t remember much other than telling my friend i had too much and i thought i was going to die. that’s when the vomiting began. i proceeded to vomit everything out of my system; into my trashcan by my bed because i could not get up from my bed. this continued until the consistency made me think i might actually choke on it because i couldn’t breathe. after vomit everything out, i continued to dry heave for 40 minutes. then, i passed out. i busted multiple blood vessels in my eyes; the whites of my eyes were a deep red and they did not fully go away for a little over a month. however, all the side effects did not go away until almost march; this happened december 8th. the side effects i had were dizzy spells, nausea ( i was taking a nausea medicine around the clock ), some memory lapses and generally feeling exhausted. 

even with this awful experience, i still smoke and i still do edibles. but please ! if you are going to have an edible, be careful with dosing. and if you say your character had a bunch of edibles, know that there is a big negative if you over-do it with edibles. 

as for how long edibles last, it depends on the edible mg and how your body breaks down your foods. it can last usually between 4 hours and 12 hours. most i have tried last over 4 hours, for sure. 

bonus  :  taking a dab.

dabs are practically another language to a lot of people. dab, wax, honey oil and shatter are all the same thing. dabs are a solid, waxy substance of concentrated butane hash oil; most commonly created by a high quality strain is blasted with butane, that is then extracted, these cannabis concentrates approach 70 to 90 percent thc. if none of that made sense, it’s basically a highly concentrated oil/wax that has very high percentages of thc. for reference, some of the best strains out there only have around 25 percent thc.

it comes usually in a wax form, so that is how i will talk about it mostly. firstly, i will discuss the oil. a lot of people are using the oil in vapes so that they can smoke them in public. they do not smell or taste like weed; they taste like whatever flavor you get. i find that the high isn’t as good, however, and that you end up spending more to do that than if you were simply dabbing. 

how to take a dab : 

1. get a small ‘dab’ of the wax onto the end of a thin glass rod, then set to the side.  2. use a torch to heat the metal piece at the end of the glass pipe until it’s glowing red.  3. set the torch down, pick up the glass rod and touch the wax to the hot nail.  4. circle the rod around inside of the metal piece until all of the wax has been vaporized while sucking in. 5. once all the smoke is gone from the pipe, or until you can’t take it any longer before pulling away. 6. hold it in for as long as possible before blowing the smoke out. 

no matter how experienced you are, i’ve found very few people that can take a dab without coughing afterward. i have never coughed harder than i have with a dab. it’s very strong, so you don’t need to have a lot on the rod. however, the size of the dab is up to whoever is doing it.

for shits and giggles, here is some hilarious reactions from taking a dab that i have seen when smoking with people: coughing until vomiting, falling back onto the couch with arms across chest and eyes closed for a few minutes, falling onto the ground coughing until drooling onto the ground, and my favorite experience to witness — she started coughing and began to run around the house coughing until going to the sink, leaning her head under it and letting the faucet run water into her mouth. 

as for the feeling, it’s similar to an edible. there is no down-time after, unlike edibles. however, edibles last much longer than a dab. dabs are great for taking one of them and being high off of your ass, but i’m usually taking another one before an hour is up.

i hope any of this has been helpful to anyone. i plan to do this with other drugs like cocaine, ecstacy, acid, shrooms, xanax, oxy and more. please let me know if this is something you’d be interested in or if this was helpful to you!

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

What We Learned: What's next for the Capitals?

What’s next for the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals? (Getty)

This might be the first year the dreaded Stanley Cup Hangover is actually a real hangover, but the Caps may soon have bigger problems than future liver disease.

Let’s say the salary cap ceiling for next season does go all the way up to the maxed-out level of $82 million the league is projecting. That gives Washington about $18 million to play with this summer, more or less.

Maybe it feels a bit impertinent to talk about this while the Caps celebrate in fountains and so on, but this is frankly stuff the front office should have been thinking about for the entire playoff run. “How much more does every win, every point for a pending free agent, end up costing us?”

And with 16 players already locked in for next season, having $18 million to play with is really not a bad number. You can afford to spend about $3 million per player, on average.

Most of the team’s pending free agents are either pretty close to replaceable (Jay Beagle, Alex Chiasson, Michal Kempny) or RFAs who are likely to be cheap re-ups (Madison Bowey, Devante Smith-Pelly). They’ll have a hard decision to make on Philipp Grubauer, who by the way is the same age as signed-for-next-season Pheonix Copley, but he shouldn’t be too expensive either if they want to keep him as a backup for some reason.

You can probably get all of these guys or some reasonable replacements for like $1.5 million each, which frees up plenty of money for the more expensive pieces. But Smith-Pelly’s Cup Final might be enough to convince all involved that he’s worth more than he is. That might skew things.

The problem, though, is that they have a few big personnel decisions to make. The biggest is obviously what to do about John Carlson, coming off the best year of his career by far at age 28, and due to be probably the biggest blue-line name on the UFA market.

What do you think he gets? Something in the neighborhood of $8 million until he’s 34 or 35 sounds about right, and with a season like this one you can say he earned that money the right way. But that’s certainly not the kind of money the Caps can reasonably afford to throw around, is it?

It’s more than fair to call me a John Carlson skeptic — it strikes me as hard to not-score 50 points a year behind that first power play unit — but the guy had the right “Poor Man’s PK Subban” season at the right time. The problem for Washington is that if he walks, regardless of whether it make an earnest effort to get him to stay, is that there aren’t likely to be many reasonable replacement options that it could just pull off the UFA market. That is to say, unless they make a run at RFA Jacob Trouba (which they should) if/when Carlson goes elsewhere, they’re probably going to be hitting the trade market in hopes of help, right?

The Caps have a not-great D group beyond Carlson, Matt Niskanen, and Dmitry Orlov. And as much as I like Orlov for what he is (an overpaid but good second-pairing guy) you can’t count on he and Niskanen to make up the absence, so you have to spend money here. MacLellan has plenty of it, but not exactly a lot of worthy candidates on whom to spend it. Beyond Carlson, the UFA D crop is probably headlined by, I don’t know, Toby Enstrom, who’s 33 years old. Would you want to roll the dice on Calvin de Haan or Thomas Hickey? Well, they’re both Islanders, so probably not.

It’s a real rock-and-a-hard-place scenario because there’s not really a good solution here. The Caps would understandably be thrilled to get Carlson back, but at double the salary into his mid-30s, especially as the rest of the core ages? Yeah, I’m not so sure. Maybe you can work something out via trade (and maybe that’s where Grubauer comes in?) but teams aren’t generally willing to give up top-pair defensemen in their 20s for 1b goalies. So I’m not sure where that gets you either.

The other problem for Brian MacLellan is that the team needs to re-sign Tom Wilson. We can debate what kind of value Wilson provides this club until we’ve all passed out, and that’s certainly a thing we’ve all done at points this season. But obviously a team would have to look at his contribution with some amount of skepticism just to keep the price down, right?

Then again, Wilson is one of those guys “everyone wants on their team” and he’s an RFA, so no one’s going to come in and outbid you for his services on an offer sheet. This creates a tough circumstance for the Caps because of how their forwards get paid. Lars Eller just signed a nice little “both sides win” contract for just $3.5 million (starting in 2018-19) and Wilson will certainly be looking for more than that.

TJ Oshie got $5.75 million AAV for seven years, but he was a UFA, and Wilson isn’t, which is going to depress his value. He’s also arbitration-eligible but you have to assume the Caps would be able to talk so much trash about his game and value — given that arbitrators can’t exactly make decisions based on intangibles — that Wilson would be irresponsible to go that route.

Likewise, he would be irresponsible to go short-term because he’s not likely to actually play better than he did in the regular season and playoffs. So does he “settle” for something like $4.5 million AAV for five years or something? That strikes me as an overpay, but obviously I’m a Wilson skeptic as well and it’s very likely that the Caps would feel like they did well at that price point.

Most people can agree that the Caps were approaching a crossroads with their organization anyway. Most of their big difference-makers are 30-plus (Ovechkin, Backstrom, Oshie, Niskanen) and guys like Holtby (29 in September) aren’t far behind. This Cup was a long time coming but this doesn’t seem like a team likely to repeat. Is that, too, something the organization can be realistic about?

Intellectual honesty is the best policy when running a team. While the Caps have money to spend, they might need to divorce themselves from their conceptions of what got them to the top of the league. Barring hometown discounts, it’ll be pretty easy to burn through that cap space, or spend it unwisely in pursuit of quick fixes.

The thing with cap space, though, is that you don’t have to spend it if there’s nothing worth spending it on. That’s something MacLellan would be wise to keep in mind if Carlson hits the open market.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Was it smart to give away Shea Theodore to get rid of Clayton Stoner? Well, probably not.

Arizona Coyotes: Man, imagine if Oliver Ekman-Larsson refuses to sign with them. That would be very bad, for them. Very good for the player though.

Boston Bruins: The Bruins need help up front, no question, but if they re-sign Rick Nash (ehhhhh, he’s fine as a rental) how much money do we really expect them to be able to spend?

Buffalo Sabres: The idea that they’d trade Ryan O’Reilly? Hoo boy. I truly don’t understand the logic on that one.

Calgary Flames: The Flames have a lot of problems and I’m not sure Brad Treliving can fix them all after his last two coaching hires.

Carolina Hurricanes: Talking about Andrei Svechnikov as bringing “a physical game” seems to be underselling all his other very strong qualities, but hey…

Chicago: Hell yeah, trade for Justin Faulk and Scott Darling! Do it!

Colorado Avalanche: The Avs are apparently likely to target a defender at the draft. That’s interesting.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Oh HELL yeah.

Dallas Stars:The Caps had a bunch of former Hershey Bears on their Cup-winning roster but don’t get your hopes up about that sort of thing.

Detroit Red Wings: I bet this was a great meeting.

Edmonton Oilers: This is a truly amazing take.

Florida Panthers: Poor Bobby Lu. Need guys like him winning Cups!

Los Angeles Kings: Ilya Kovalchuk met with both the Kings and Sharks in recent days and boy I would love Kovalchuk on the Sharks. That would rule.

Minnesota Wild: Say, speaking of coaches and the Wild “cutting ties” how much leash do you think Bruce Boudreau has this season? I’m not optimistic!

Montreal Canadiens: How confident are you that the Habs will screw up the No. 3 pick? Pretty confident? Yeah, me too.

Nashville Predators: Man, I know Vegas odds aren’t based on anything all that hard and fast but the Preds having worse odds to win the Cup than the Golden Knights is beyond parody.

New Jersey Devils: I mean maybe it makes sense for the Devils to trade down but they should have learned pretty quickly what legitimately good teams do to the papier-mache front they put up behind Taylor Hall last season. They’re not close to being truly competitive.

New York Islanders: The Isles might trade for a goalie around the draft. Okay, have fun out there.

New York Rangers: Interesting to me that the Rangers hired David Quinn, whose system relies so much on defenders getting up in the play, because the Rangers…. don’t have a lot of defenders who can do that.

Ottawa Senators: Just trade Karlsson to Vegas already for crying out loud!

Philadelphia Flyers: The Flyers might move on from Wayne Simmonds if he can’t bounce back next season after being hurt so much? Hey, I get it. But also: Huh?

Pittsburgh Penguins: Imagine if this team can add John Tavares this summer? C’mon man!

San Jose Sharks: A Paul Martin buyout on the way? Just goes to show that like 80 percent of all contracts that get bought out fall into the “mistake on Day 1” category. You can’t give 33-year-olds four-year deals and expect them to work out.

St. Louis Blues: Ownership is apparently opening the pursestrings a little bit, but to what end?

Tampa Bay Lightning: The Bolts as favorites to win the Cup next year just makes sense.

Toronto Maple Leafs: What do you mean by “Dubas must make splash” exactly? This is a good team that’s only going to improve through the simple aging process and by jettisoning your Roman Polaks and so on. They can’t afford to add a significant piece without having to sacrifice ELC guys next summer. Use your brain!

Vancouver Canucks: Imagine thinking the defense is the Canucks’ biggest priority this summer? Yikes.

Vegas Golden Knights: Truly can’t wait for Marc-Andre Fleury’s .909 next season.

Washington Capitals: I don’t want to say this is the “definitive” history of how the Caps got from last summer to now — I’m sure there are at least a few books already being worked on — but this is pretty damn good.

Winnipeg Jets: Make True North pay for the whole thing. C’mon.

Play of the Weekend

No more plays until September!!!!!

Gold Star Award

I’m honestly like 10 percent concerned someone from the Caps is gonna drown in a puddle this week.

Minus of the Weekend

A whole offseason to get through? This stinks!

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “BigFatCat999” had me at the subject line.

“Nashville: Karlsson

Toronto: Subban

Ottawa: Marner plus other assorted futures“

Signoff

Yes.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

More Stanley Cup coverage on Yahoo Sports:

[medicalmarijuana-news]

Stoner Sex: The Club Scene, Oral Passion, Shaving Regrets & Dealing with Abuse

Dear Hyapatia, I’m in a relationship with a very good-looking guy. He‘s super-hot and I love having sex with him. He’s a real gentleman and when we get high and talk at night, he makes me feel like he really understands me. I’d do just about anything to keep him. He has been wanting me to go with him to a sex club he used to go to with his old girlfriend. I’ve never done anything like that before and am pretty shy about it. Do I really need to do this to keep him interested in me? I would hate to think that if I didn’t have sex with him at this club it might mean the end of our relationship. – Donna

Dear Donna, If he used to go to this club with his old girlfriend, he might have more on his mind than just sex. He may want to show you off or send a message to his ex that he has a new love interest. Be honest with him about your reservations. If you decide to go, be sure you let him know it does not necessarily mean you are willing to have sex. That’s a separate decision, made well after you’ve seen the place and people involved. If he’s the gentleman you say he is, he won’t pressure you. Knowing that sex is not expected, visiting the club might turn out to be not such a big step out of your comfort zone. But as I always advise, don’t consent to engage in any sexual activity that you’re uncomfortable with.

Dear Hyapatia, You ran a recent letter from a woman who said she felt like she could almost climax just from giving her man head. I understand that entirely, because I feel the same way. When I’m down between my lady’s legs giving her pleasure with my mouth, it turns me on so much that I could almost be satisfied just from pleasing her in this way. The smell and taste turns me on so much, and knowing how it makes her feel makes me so excited that I could do it for hours! I get good and high off of sticky, dank weed. But nothing compares to the high I get when I’m going down on my sexy gal. – Rick

Dear Rick, I’m sure your lover appreciates your enthusiasm. Many women are particularly turned on by oral sex. It sounds like you’re just what they’re looking for! Enjoy what sounds like a very active and fulfilling sex life.

Dear Hyapatia, My boyfriend and I decided it would be exciting if I shaved my pussy. For the first few times, it was really great. But then I noticed he didn’t seem to want to have sex with me. After awhile, he admitted that he didn’t like it shaved, so I’m growing it back. In the meantime, I still want to have sex, but he says it turns him off. I don’t want to wait until I have a full bush again to have sex! What can I do? – Kim

Dear Kim, Hmm … sounds a little selfish on his part. Wasn’t he part of the decision? Anyway, the good news is that it will grow back quickly. There are several things you can do while you’re waiting for it to grow back. Get high before sex, as that always enhances the experience. It will help get his mind off of the obvious. You could keep yourself covered during foreplay or try positions where he can’t see your missing bush. Doggy and reverse-cowgirl are great positions for sex. You can also take extra doses of Vitamin D to speed up hair growth.

Dear Hyapatia, My boyfriend is really good to me and I love him very much. He’s very sweet and understanding, so I’ve felt comfortable sharing things with him that I haven’t shared with some of my other boyfriends. One of the things we’ve been talking about is the sexual abuse I went through as a young adult. At first, he was very supportive and helpful, but now he says he feels uncomfortable discussing it. When we get high and get to talking, and it’s getting close to time for bed, it just naturally comes up for me. What can I do to help him feel more comfortable talking about it? – Gina

Dear Gina, A boyfriend isn’t the best person to discuss past sexual abuse with. While there can be times when it’s beneficial for them to know what you’ve been through, few people are equipped to help you heal or process the experience. Think of it this way: if he had been beaten and abused in the past, would you be the best person to help him through the residual trauma? While you’d be sympathetic and supportive, would you know what to say if the topic came up repeatedly? Keep in mind, sex is a vehicle for him to show his love for you. You can see how it might make him feel awkward. It’s certainly understandable that you may need to talk about the trauma, but a therapist is better equipped to help you than your boyfriend. Smoke some nice weed with him and leave the past in the past, knowing that you can discuss it later with someone trained to help you. Allow yourself to enjoy the way he loves you.

Ask Hyapatia all of your questions regarding stoner sexuality. Email her at hya@hightimes.com.

Last Week’s Stoner Sex: Oral Joy, Resolutions, Infectious Cheaters & Throwin’ a New Year’s Bash

from Medical Marijuana News http://ift.tt/2ir5Awj via https://www.potbox.com/

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15/05/2021 (Coldplay, J. Cole, Trippie Redd & Playboi Carti)

I’m awful at predicting this chart, I really am, but most of that is probably down to how I only make vague predictions at the end of each episode without even considering most releases that’ll actually chart. Let’s just say I didn’t expect nine new arrivals this week. At the top, however, little has changed as the absolutely huge “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne with a remix featuring whoever the hell is spending its second week at #1. The rest of the chart, however, gets a bit more interesting. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

The biggest story to effect the chart this week is of course 2021’s BRIT Awards happening this Tuesday, which I’m sure boosted a lot of songs during the mid-week. I also actually covered the awards show on that day if you’re curious, with some of my observations, predictions and opinions. We can very clear see – or hear, for that matter – the impact of the BRIT Awards in this week’s chart, as it did cause a lot of gains and new arrivals that shook up the chart right in the middle of the tracking week. Firstly, we do have some drop-outs from the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, only one of them, “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy, being all that important given it was a top five hit but we do have a handful that lasted five or more weeks or peaked in the top 40, like “Medicine” by James Arthur flopping embarrassingly, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith dropping out to prepare for the rebound next week given her album release and “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake.

Speaking of Drake, he also provides the singular returning entry as “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is proving to be the actual hit from that three-pack from March, coming back to #65. Scaling down the chart, we also have some notable losses, songs that dropped at least five spots on this week’s chart. Those that fell include “Your Power” by Billie Eilish dropping harshly to #15 off of the debut, as well as “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #18, “Confetti” by Little Mix to #21 off of the return (with Saweetie, the artist quite literally solely the reason it’s had this second wind, still bizarrely left without a credit by the UK Singles Chart), “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #27, “Titanium” by Dave at #31, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted (yes, THEY’RE credited) at #36, “Patience” by KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G at #42, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon at #44, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #47, “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #49, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #51, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #55, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #56, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #59, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #67, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae at #69, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #70, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber getting ACR’d at #71, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #73 and finally, “6 for 6” by Central Cee at #75.

Filling up the room for those losses, however, are the gains, always a tad more interesting, as the songs that rose at least five spots on this week’s chart – or make their first appearance in the top 40, 20 or 10 – are usually having the BRITs to thank to some capacity. The climbers include “Summer 91 (Looking Back)” giving Noizu his first top 40 hit at #31 (and I’ll admit, the song is growing on me), Griff also getting her first with “Black Hole” at #35 thanks to her win and performance at the BRITs, “WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI rebounding to #13 thanks to that once-again uncredited remix with Miley Cyrus and finally, entering the top 10 for the first time is “Anywhere Away from Here” by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk at #9, getting the boost from a perfect trifecta of gains: Rag’n’Bone Man released his album on Friday then on Tuesday had the closing performance of this song at the BRIT Awards with additional vocals from the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir, who are also now appearing on a new release of the song the day after, prompting a whole lot of sales, of which I assume and hope are going to charity. It’s Rag’n’Bone Man’s third top 10 hit, P!nk’s 21st(!) and interestingly enough, the NHS choir’s second top 10 hit as they had the Christmas #1 back in 2015. With all of that out of the way, I suppose it’s time to get to our varied array of new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Dick” – Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat

Produced by Nius and SoFLY

This week is kind of a weird week if that wasn’t immediately obvious as our new arrivals are kind of all over the place, starting with... well, I think I could say less about the song than the title does. Starboi3 is this SoundCloud rapper from New Jersey who made a song with Doja back in 2019 – I assume she was more accessible for features back then –and it didn’t blow up at all, really, giving Starboi3 some additional traction but not until 2020, in which Doja Cat got her #1 hit and TikTok picked up this explicit single as a new sound. Sadly – or thankfully – the song was never released officially onto streaming until very recently, meaning, surely, the hype’s over by now? The answer to that is no, as it’s climbing up charts in both the UK and the Bubbling Under in the US... so there’s got to be something good about this song, right? Well, no. Not at all. Of course, that is subjective, but I do question your sanity if you’re honestly enjoying this unlikeable nobody shout “Dick!” over a basic, no-melody trap instrumental with heavy 808s not too dissimilar to drill, before going into a beyond basic chorus and verse about, well, you can guess, with rhymes sounding either like an awful freestyle or a kid with a rhyming dictionary. “She not with him tonight, she not with Jim tonight”? Of course, that’s in the post-chorus because if there’s one thing this song needs, it’s a freaking post-chorus. I also don’t think Starboi3 realises that making her scream for her parents is quite the opposite of sexy – or even raunchy and mindless, as it’s actually just creepy and terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, Doja Cat is here and not even she can add a less basic flow with a verse that just ends up going in one ear and out the other, even if I do like the seductive backing vocals that at least try to make this not a slow, joyless slog. However, I do NOT like the Pickle Rick reference. To be fair, this was 2019, but also to be fair, never reference that again, I am begging you. This is a disaster on all fronts and probably one of the worst tracks I’ve had to review in this series. Good start!

#64 – “Freaks” – Surf Curse

Produced by Surf Curse

This new song is actually even older, being released initially as a deep cut from this Nevada duo’s 2013 album. As you’ll probably tell, this is charting off of people streaming after hearing the song on TikTok and, I mean, at least the song’s actually good this time, careening off of a clearly surf-inspired clean riff surrounded by some basic drumming and a good bassline. It’s not great as it does feel increasingly basic as I said, almost like one of those local bands that don’t get much national attention or traction but do play some gigs and get some love at those places, to the point where it’s kind of big if they play shows outside of their region... which makes sense because that is exactly what they are. This is just some band from Reno but here it is charting on the UK Singles Chart and while it’s here, I should say whilst there’s not much here to discuss given how minimal it is, Nick Rattigan’s vocals are fittingly desperate for the theme of social alienation and particularly rejection as it’s pretty obvious he’s aiming venom at himself for a bad break-up, although given the sound and tone of the song, probably his first, with that double meaning of the mantra in the outro, “I won’t wake up this time”, potentially being a crushing line for someone in similar circumstances. That’s not me, exactly, so this doesn’t hit, but I’m glad that Machine Gun Kelly song from last week got replaced with some actually decent alternative rock on the chart. I hope this does well.

#60 – “One Day” – Lovejoy

Produced by Cameron Nesbitt

“One Day” is the biggest track from new English rock band Lovejoy’s debut EP, Are You Alright?, and whilst I was planning on not mentioning the fact that the band is fronted by Minecraft YouTuber Wilbur Soot, that is the only reason it’s charting – and he’s charted with “Your New Boyfriend” a couple months back, a song that I actually kind of liked. It’s also immediately obvious in the writing that this comes from an Internet personality, with some not-so-well-woven detail and increasingly gratuitous self-awareness that eventually cycles back and ends up as seeming like they have none at all... okay, like most indie bands but that’s beside the point. This happens to be Wilbur’s least favourite song on the release – one that I haven’t listened to because even if I’m not too old for mindless pop music, Minecraft YouTuber alt-rock may be where I draw the line – and I can completely understand the distaste for this given that it starts with the line, “Why’d you have to kill my cat?” I also have some qualms with the song sonically as it may be the most derivative rock single I’ve heard on this series, given how obviously it rips from indie rock bands of the 2000s, with an oddly clean mix that doesn’t exactly fit the obvious stream-of-consciousness lyrics and Wilbur’s erratic delivery. Also, there’s a whole lot of trumpet on this song, which I guess is a surprise, but that doesn’t make up for a drummer who can clearly play very well but has to chaotically play over a song with practically no groove. I do like that second chorus in how it builds up to a somewhat anti-climactic guitar solo but as a full song I do not really get the appeal of this that I don’t get out of other post-punk revival bands from decades back who are still pumping out music. This isn’t bad – I swear, don’t dox me – but I just want something more compelling from this. I will always be glad regardless of the quality that we have more rock on the chart, though, even if this’ll be gone by next week.

#57 – “It’s a sin” – Years & Years and Elton John

Produced by Stuart Price and the Pet Shop Boys

One of my favourite performance from the BRIT Awards this year was Olly Alexander of Years & Years sharing the stage with the iconic Elton John to cover Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” which had renewed interest from last year as it was the namesake for a hit TV series about HIV/AIDS, for which this fittingly played a role and has kind of been recontextualised as a gay anthem, which makes complete sense if you look at its lyrics about the Church telling Neil Tennant “how to be”. It’s also one of the Pet Shop Boys’ most camp and theatrical songs, so giving it to Years & Years and Elton John to cover for the BRIT Awards make all too much sense. No, they’re not able to live up to the theatricality of the original, especially if Alexander’s vocals are going to be this clearly manipulated at points, but with Elton John’s piano laying a perfect foundation for the rising intensity of the track, we do get a sense of that original melodrama, with the synth-work and house groove coming in before Elton John’s voice, sounding smokier and wiser with age, and in my opinion, more compelling as a vocalist, especially if they’re both going to sell this song with the most convicted of deliveries. I don’t think a cover could ever live up to that original iconic track but if anyone’s going to get close, it’s Elton John. Expect this to rise next week.

#50 – “Never Left” – Lil Tecca

Produced by ThankYouWill, Taz Taylor and Cxdy

I’ll always be annoyed that Lil Tecca blew up as a rapper instead of a producer, as I don’t think this guy has any likeability or charisma about his flow, cadence or delivery, and that’s only after you get over how dry and whiny his voice can get. However, he can make some great and incredibly infectious beats for other rappers, including a song I see becoming a hit soon in SoFaygo’s “Knock Knock”, which I will bet on at least making the Billboard Hot 100 if not the UK Singles Chart. It’s unbelievably catchy. With that said, Tecca is here in the form of some SoundCloud raps over a boring synth pluck and vaguely tropical Internet Money trap beat, sounding and flowing way too much like Gunna for his own benefit, or Gunna’s benefit, if we’re honest, as this shows how easily he can be replaced. I usually don’t write off this type of rap and will absolutely defend it, but this song isn’t even catchy or unique. I mean, I don’t like “Ransom” either but at least it was kind of fun and I still know the lines in the chorus a couple years later. I’ll forget all about this by next week if it doesn’t stick around. At least he shouts out Chief Keef. God, I hope he charts sometime, that’d be funny.

#45 – “All I Know So Far” – P!nk

Produced by Greg Kurstin

So, P!nk is back but not with a studio album, rather an upcoming live album in which the two new, original songs are about or featuring her daughter. This is the second single from said album and is probably coasting off her appearance at the BRITs in terms of a relatively high chart debut. I’ve never been that big a fan of P!nk but she has her classics, none of which are in the past 15 years but that’s beside the point. This single in particular is an acoustic ballad dedicated to her daughter in which P!nk provides a rapid intensity alongside pretty great-sounding acoustic guitars, pounding drums and strings that sells the content about empowering yourself, with some nice lyrical detail about always being yourself, basically, which would come off as cliché and preachy if it weren’t for some oddly specific lyrics in those verses and the chorus that basically just tell her daughter that despite the fact the world will constantly try to crack down on her and everything she does much like life does to anyone but especially women, she should stand up for herself and what she believes in. However, none of that cuts deep when she’s being raised by a millionaire, huh? There’s little Hell to be put through when you’re born with a silver spoon, huh, Willow? Regardless, this isn’t a bad pop song and its content isn’t as misguided as it is just sang by the wrong singer, although I’d find it hard to get a singer with as much rasp and wisdom in the mainstream to sell this as convincingly as P!nk does – vocally, not lyrically. This is a couple steps above that last single, “Cover Me in Sunshine” at least, which was just insidious. Next.

#32 – “Miss the Rage” – Trippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti

Produced by Loesoe

Okay, so all of our last three new arrivals are in the top 40 and we start with... o-okay, well, it’s 2021, anything can and will chart and I should know this by now, but it’s still surprising to see a song by these two guys debut so high, especially since Whole Lotta Red produced absolutely no charting hits in the UK outside of “@ MEH”, which doesn’t really count. This is Trippie’s highest-charting song ever in the UK that isn’t fronted by KSI, so I guess streaming must have been that good – also, the charts are still weak. For what it’s worth, I do like both Trippie and Carti to their respective extents, and I am aware that this is only as big as it was because of the hype from the leak, which also featured Mario Judah, and that in itself was a big song but it took years for Carti’s feature to be cleared by the label, as is infamously true for much of Carti’s work and even his last official collaboration with Trippie that was actually deleted after release. I’m still hoping on an official release for his verse on Yung Lean’s “Yayo”, but whilst we have this instead, I might as well talk about it and... Well, let me explain to you what I see as the appeal of these two rappers. That appeal is, mostly, that they don’t rap even though they both very much can. Trippie yells, moans, growls, screams and spends most of his work singing in his typical raspy, venomous voice, whilst Playboi Cart spits and coughs his way through substance-less ad-libs to the point where any actual wordplay or lyrical detail gets you excited for that brief moment. In this song, Trippie and Carti don’t eschew the typical role of a rapper and both just... rap normally, which would not be a complaint if they weren’t so bland in that role, which is the whole point of their unique, phlegm-filled deliveries in the first place. As a result, this song just ends up feeling empty, even if this awfully-mixed, bass-boosted beat with some lovely distorted video-game synths and hardly audible trap skitters does go incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong: this is still catchy and Trippie flows very well over a beat that sounds made for him and Carti. Hell, Carti has grown on me so much recently that my fondness for this might just be me eating anything he releases up. With that said, he’s the worst part of the song as his baby-voice style emphasises how lacking this song is in just anything. I do like the wordplay at the tail-end of the verse as, yes, that happens, perhaps not as iconic as some of his other oddly profound or clever lines on his last record but at least it’s something. At least this is some interesting American trap, unlike...

#25 – “i n t e r l u d e” – J. Cole

Produced by J. Cole, Tommy Parker and T-Minus

The pandemic has affected the music industry to the point where big-name rappers release album interludes as lead singles. Said album has songs shorter than this interlude, with most of its dull filler feeling like additional interludes, quite unbefitting for such a big and hyped-up album from Cole which frankly is just another boring addition to an already consistently dull catalogue. I’m just not interested in what Cole has to say because he’s never been likeable and I feel like there’s better rappers that bridge the gap between old and new like how Cole sees himself as doing, the “MIDDLE CHILD”, perhaps, like, you know, Drake? If we want to go for a more direct comparison from lesser-known rappers, the direct comparison I use for this new record is Aminé’s latest, also made up of a variation of trap bangers featuring massive, charting names versus introspective, conscious lyrics, yet Aminé is an interesting character with quotable lyrics that aren’t embarrassing, knows how to write an actual hook and whilst he also brings on both classic and modern features, he’s never out-done by them, creating an actual bridge rather than just some guy who thinks he can write his own role in the industry and culture without his own music backing his case. Unfortunately for me, it works – every freaking time – largely because of his continually loyal fanbase but also a general public interest in the guy that I do not understand, especially when more than a decade into his career, he’s still pushing out mediocre projects. He cuts his album’s length by a ton and still ends up with a bloated record. I barely need to talk about the track itself, right? Even if it has as much structure and effort put into it as his normal songs do, it’s labelled quite literally as an interlude. Sigh, well, in this interlude, Jermaine raps over a drowned-out soul sample and admittedly, sticks to the topic of reminiscing on where he came from, the violence in Fayetteville, a similar violence of which was what killed Nipsey Hussle, who he compares amongst Pimp C and Jesus as they all died at 33. Cole himself is 36 so I guess for once he doesn’t think he’s Jesus. It took him a while to realise.

#12 – “Higher Power” – Coldplay

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Bill Rahko

I assumed this would debut at #3 until the BRIT Awards performance gave it a boost to debut at the top but I guess everyone else had the same opinion of that awful opening performance as I did, because here it is at #12. Well, that doesn’t matter, right? Coldplay’s last album similarly underperformed... but at least that time, they had a genuinely ambitious album for once in their careers with some genuine experimentation and themes I did not expect to come out of Coldplay. It was a better album but not an accessible one, with its only pop single being a bittersweet anti-war anthem which trivialises bombing in the Middle East to onomatopoeia. It’s a great song but it wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s no surprise that their next lead single is a soulless synth-pop track produced by Max Martin. Admittedly, the synth tone in the intro is kind of unique in all its nasal 80s nostalgia, but, man, I thought we moved past just rehashing for a hit, Coldplay. This is pretty obviously just a crap attempt at being “Blinding Lights” which trades in its machine-gun loco-motive drum pattern for one that is a lot more stiff, and its iconic, memorable lyrics for a forgettable set of love-struck laziness. Oh, yeah, and Chris Martin is far from the Weeknd both in the studio and live at the BRIT Awards – seriously, dude sounded half-alive. This isn’t offensive, just a bore that is clearly a desperate label move ready for when they can tour again, and if their last record proved anything it was that Coldplay seemed like they were finally above that.

Conclusion

Well, that’s our week – again, a questionable one at best and kind of a bad one at worst. Either way, this is a strange array of songs and I do like how the UK Singles Chart subverts everything you’d expect of it so often that chaos becomes the trend, even if not all of it is any good. I guess Best of the Week goes to “Freaks” by Surf Curse, with an Honourable Mention to Elton John’s cover of “It’s a sin” with Years & Years. Surprisingly enough, J. Cole actually doesn’t get Worst of the Week as the album gets a lot worse than that interlude, so he gets a Dishonourable Mention alongside Starboi3’s “Dick” being crowned Worst of the Week, and honestly probably Worst of the Year so far, not that I’m keeping track of that. Here’s this week’s top 10:

What’s coming next week? More J. Cole, Olivia Rodrigo’s newest single and probably – and hopefully – some album tracks from Jorja Smith and Nicki Minaj. For now, though, thanks for reading. It’s a big week next week, and I’ll see you then!