#the lester junkyard

[st-agatha-city]

Babe wake up new St. Agatha immersive ambient mixes just dropped.

[commoninfected]

Drawing Aculeus for my friends today :3 Meanstreak, Pixiedust, and Junkyard are Aculeusonas for St. Agatha characters, Sailorsong is for @cruelnemesis, and Voidstitch is for an offsite friend :3

[theamazingmaddyas]

I'm not sure how much the Starkid and Percy Jackson fandom intersect, but I was thinking about the different Starkid/TCB musicals, and which songs could alternatively be used to describe Riordanverse characters, and decided to share. This will probably end up being a part 1, since I'll probably end up thinking of more the second I post this, but maybe not. Anyways, here's my first list (and descriptions):

Not Your Seed (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals) - Luke Castellan

This was the first one I thought of, and reason for this post. Alice is literally singing about how she's been possessed and is no longer her father's kid, and how he'd never noticed her.

Also the lines:Why does it hurt to love you, why am I in pain? Why does it hurt to know you, you let me down again. If I turned my insides out, would you even know that I was there. Why does it hurt to love you? Why does it hurt to love? Is literally Luke's motive in the series, he's resentful of his father, and it hurts to care for him. Also, And if you wonder what led your daughter astray? Well, daddy wasn't here to stay. Do I need to say more?

CaliforMIA (Black Friday) - Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, and Annabeth Chase

Thalia: Dearest Gods,

It's been real, real bad. I'd say you tried your best, but I'm not a liar

Luke: It's L I E R, Thal

Thalia: We get it, Luke, you're a good speller

We're taking Annabeth as far away as we can get. I'd give you an address, but I don't want to. Don't write, don't IM, don't ask.

Sincerily,

Thalia

That's all I have to say. Also, that Beryl is, in fact, a bitch, an alcoholic, a meloncholic that Thalia kept afloat.

Black Friday (Black Friday) - Bianca di Angelo

This song is so Bianca-coded, as she reflects on her life and on her relationship with Nico in her final moments. The part that's most her, I think is At first I didn't know what she was to me, at first I didn't know why I cared, or why I wanted, to rock her and hold her to sleep. Did I need her more than she needed me? Maybe I'm wrong, she can go on her own, 'cause I'm leaving.

The way this was probably one of her last thoughts has kept me awake at night. Also, there's the toy store/junkyard similarities and that both Lex and Bianca's 'deaths' have to do with a toy.

The Coolest Girl (A Very Potter Sequel)- Annabeth Chase

The Coolest Girl and My Grand Plan are basically the same song, I have no other notes.

Tonight this School is Mine: Reyna Ramirez-Arellano and Octavian

Obviously, this song is Octavian, he has been trying to become praeter since the dawn of time. I wasn't sure who'd 'run' against him per se, but I chose Reyna solely because we know Jason was raised up to Praeter during war, so Octavian couldn't have tried to vie against him. Reyna, on the other hand, she's barely been at camp for a few years and already became praeter? Octavian definitely had something to say about that.

Guys Like Potter (A Very Potter Sequel)- Octavian and Bryce Lawrence

Instead of being about the want for a partner, change the meaning to be the want for power? This is them to the T. It was probably "Guys Like Jackson" because my man has been at camp for 4 days and is already praeter.

Get into My Mouth (A Very Potter Senior Year) - Literally every monster ever

Self-explanatory, I believe.

The Dragon Song (A Very Potter Musical) - Lester Papadoupalus (Apollo)

This is actually how Apollo beat the Python, he told me himself.

So level with me buddy I can't defeat thee So please don't eat me All I can do Is sing this song for you

Also, the Python never asked to be a snake, and Apollo never asked to be turned mortal. We just jumped on the bandwagon, but all we need is guitar jammin'

If I Fail You (Black Friday) - Hermes

This is Hermes to Luke.

If I fail you one more time, the punishment won't match the crime. 'Cause there's no pain that can ever explain how I let you down. If I fail you one more time, the mountain I would have to climb, is so high up that I would have to die. Oh, I. I failed you once, and I will fail again.

That is all.

Doing This (Spies are Forever) - Jason Grace, Piper McLean, and Hera

I had trouble deciding whether Curt's mom would be Hera or Aphrodite because Aphrodite's well, Aphrodite, but Hera literally changed Piper's memories so she thought they were dating, so she ended up getting the honor.

I mean, the plot of the song is literally two characters, one of whom is canonically gay, thinking they have to be in a relationship before realizing they were better off as friends. That's literally Piper and Jason in TOA?

I guess we're doing this, see that look in your eyes, how can I resist, (Piper)I'm a girl, (Jason)I'm a guy. It's meant to be, because we're both spies, time to move in for this kiss. Just go with it and don't ask why. I guess we're doing this... is Heroes of Olympus and It's great to know we don't have to pretend. (Piper)You're cool with me? (Jason)'Till the end. But let's never do this again. Is them in Trials of Apollo.

To Dance Again (A Very Potter Musical) - Lavinia Asimov

As a tap dancer, I can say with certainty that Lavinia did Voldemort's tap dance for the entire legion, and spent hours making sure the fifth cohort could do the kickline properly. I don't make the rules.

The Witch In The Web (Nightmare Time) - Georgina

The "witch" is Trophonius, obviously, guiding Georgie to the cave in the Dark Prophecy. I feel like this one doesn't need much more explanation.

Rogues Are We and Rogues Are We (Reprise): Kronos' Army

Rogues are we!

Luke is Sweet Tooth in the reprise, obviously.

Adore Me (Black Friday) - Octavian

Also self-explanatory I feel like. Specifically, in House of Hades and Blood of Olympus after Reyna leaves, and he tries to make himself praetor.

I will destroy everything And then I will destroy everything I'll guarantee I'll destroy everything In my path Unless I get what I -

Gerald calling is Reyna arriving.

The Web I Spin For You (Nightmare Time) - Arachne

Do I really need to explain this?

Status Quo (Starship) - Percy Jackson

Percy does push the limits a lot, and doesn't except everything at face value, as shown when he make the gods pay child support.

I kick down the walls around me They don't know how strong I am I'm not defined by boundaries

Yeah, that's Percy.

Beauty (Starship) - Grover Underwood

This song is literally about finding beauty in nature, Grover's whole speil.

If you’re preoccupied with what’s on the outside You get lost in the “how it can seem” But open your eyes and you’ll be surprised To find out how much more something different can mean

It's just wonderful, and so Grover.

Backfire (Firebringer)- Leo Valdez

Leo made a schwoopsie when he blew up New Rome.

That's a joke. I know he was possessed, but also I feel like Backfired is how Leo's brain is when he's trying something knew. I also can see Leo being Fire also from Firebringer, or the predecessor to Backfire, which is What if?

If I Believed (Twisted: The Untold Story of the Royal Vizier) - Nico di Angelo

Just like Jafar being in denial about Sherrazade's death, just as Nico is in denial about Bianca's, and is willing to ignore logic and reason in order to get them back.

Science says you’re dead and gone forever Reason says I’m talking to the air But something in my heart Some secret hidden part Illogically insists that you are there Somewhere

It's how King Minos was able to manipulate Nico so easily in Battle of the Labyrinth, and how the villains were able to get Ja'far to join the dark side so easily.

I Steal Everything (Twisted: The Untold Story of the Royal Vizier)- Travis and Connor Stoll

Want food, but got no money? I'm screwed, or so it would seem That's why I came up with this brilliant scheme

Just steal everything!

Okay, Connor and Travis aren't absolute assholes like Aladdan is in this song, but I found it humorous.

[4dkellysworld]

When you guys say to drop limitations what do you mean?

I think Lester explains what limitations are very well already so I'll let him speak here:

In the ultimate we discover that “I” is God, there's only a singular Oneness in the universe, and we are, we must necessarily be, that Oneness. That's what we discover at the end of the line, or the beginning of the line, whichever way you look at it. We are unlimited Beings covering over this limitlessness with concepts of limitation, the first of which is “I am an individual separate from the All,” that's the very first and a very big error that we make. “I am separate, I am a personality, my name is Lester, I have a body.” and I spiral right down. After we assume a mind and a body, then we assume all these troubles and all these problems and they're nothing but assumptions. They are only a fiction which we see after we go within, quiet the mind, and discover all this truth right there. This whole world as now seen is nothing but a dream illusion that never was. The Truth is just behind the outward world. So why make trouble? The growth is simply the eliminating of all the concepts of limitation. That infinite perfect Being that we are must always be infinite and perfect and therefore is perfect right now. That's one thing we can never change, our unlimited Self. That is all the time. But I, the unlimited Self, can assume that I am limited and that I have a mind, I have a body, I have problems. However, it is only an assumption. The greatest and most difficult thing we have to do is to drop the mind. It's a junkyard full of refuse from ages past; refuse of thoughts of limitations: I am a limited body; I have troubles. All thoughts contain limitation. We pile them up in the thing we call mind. Mind is nothing but the total accumulation of all these thoughts. So mind is nothing but a junkyard of limitation.

When Lester talks about dropping limitations, he means letting go of desires, fears, attachments, aversions, suppressed emotions, thoughts & feelings based in negativity/lack/limitation, habits, tendencies, predispositions, judgments, identification etc including ones we are not conscious of but hold in our unconscious mind. All of them limit our infinite beingness. The more you drop, the more Self is uncovered and revealed. There are many ways to do it and I've covered some of it in my writings and releasing tag. Lester also talks about how to do it in his book Keys to the Ultimate Freedom.

[house-of-slayterr]

Vague Dream

@vincent-sinclair-deserved-better @frenziedslashers

So, I just woke up from a nap and had the strangest dream. So, I was in the House of Wax universe right. And evidently, I was a friend not foe since I wasn't fucking dead. But I was handing out with Lester throughout the day.

We were picking up road kill, I got him some cool rocks, and we just genuinely hung out and had a good time. I got to play with Jonesy, and then we went over to the Twin's house.

But this is where it got interesting, we went over there so I could make him some freshly squeezed lemonade. And maybe steal some of Bo's cooking. But Bo came in from his garage, only mildly more grumpy than usual. Lester avoided him, but my dumbass was like "What's wrong Bo?"

Then he started talking about how tourism was getting high this summer, something about Vincent's wax museum getting on the map. And Bo was worried there weren't enough of us to cover the town, and I was quote "useless" unquote. So I got offended because fuck you Bo! But yeah, he was worried some cops might come to town and notice something was up with the wax figures.

Lester did try to defend, but that was his mistake, cause now Bo was mad at both of us. So I suggested that I could be helpful and Bo rolled his eyes at me. Then I dragged Lester out to the junkyard and made him help me fill up a wheel barrel. Then I sneakily stole some tools from Bo's garage.

Lester and I worked side by side for a few days making various Saw-Esque traps. I told him we'd set them up around town where people weren't meant to go trespassing. Then we'd tell the boys so they wouldn't accidentally get caught up in a trap. And then Bo would be proud of us. So when we were finished, I tried to sneak Bo's tools back into the garage but I got caught. He tried to yell at me again, but I just dragged him over to Lester and I's the makeshift workspace and showed him all the shit we made.

"What is this now, Darlin'?"

"You said I couldn't be useful, here's my use. we don't have enough people, but now we'll have a little extra help around town. These things are nearly impossible to break out of."

Then Bo just cracked a smile and pulled me into a hug. And then I, unfortunately, woke up, which is fucking bullshit if you ask me. I wanna know if any of my traps worked to get Bo and Vinnie some new victims. I want more Bo hugs, and Lester fun time!

[multiversecarnavep]

Howard's first appearance in comics is when he is abruptly abducted from his home planet by an unseen force and randomly dropped into the Florida Everglades by the demon-lord Thog the Nether-Spawn. He meets the Man-Thing, who had been attacked by Korrek of Katharta, and the three of them are confronted by warriors of the Congress of Realities.[22] He then meets Dakimh the Enchanter and Dakimh banishes the warriors and transports Howard, Man-Thing, and Korrek to his castle, where they are joined by Jennifer Kale. They then travel to the realm of Therea and destroy Thog the Nether-Spawn. Howard then accidentally falls off the inter-dimensional stepping stones that the group were traveling on[23] and materializes in Cleveland, Ohio, where he battles Garko the Man-Frog.[24] Howard is arrested at this time for disturbing the peace and is mistaken for a mutant during a strip search, but is released because the police fear he has mutant abilities. Howard also briefly encounters and kills a vampiric cow named Bessie the Hellcow.[25]

Howard makes friends with an artists' model named Beverly Switzler and a bizarre series of encounters follow. He battles Pro-Rata, the cosmic accountant, then meets Spider-Man at the end of the battle.[26][27] He battles Turnip-Man and the Kidney Lady,[28] who would become a semi-recurring character over the years,[citation needed] then learns the fictional martial art of "Quack-Fu".[29] Howard then encounters the Winky Man, who is actually the sleepwalking alter-ego of Beverly's artist friend, Paul Same,[30] who would become a series regular and later become the pair's roommate.[citation needed] Howard also briefly becomes a wrestler.[31]

Howard and Beverly hit the road, seeking shelter in a gothic mansion where they battle a girl named Patsy and her giant, animated-to-life gingerbread man.[32][33] They eventually end up in New York City, where Howard is nominated for President of the United States by the All-Night Party[33] and he later battles the Band of the Bland, alongside the Defenders.[34] A doctored-photo scandal leads him to Canada where he defeats a supervillain, the Beaver, who caused the scandal. The Beaver falls to his death in a battle with Howard.[35] Howard then suffers a nervous breakdown and flees Bev and their situation on a bus. Unfortunately, the bus' passengers are all believers in various weird cults, and try to interest Howard in them. His seatmates are Winda Wester and the Kidney Lady, a woman who believes that the soul of a person lives in their kidneys and attempts to stop anything she sees as "anti-kidney health." After the bus crashes, Howard and Winda are sent to a mental institution. There he meets Daimon Hellstrom, and is briefly possessed by Hellstrom's demonic soul, becoming the new Son of Satan.[36] Beverly and Paul manage to get them both back to Cleveland. Later, while on the S. S. Damned, a cruise ship returning from scenic Bagmom, Howard and Beverly are taken captive by Lester Verde. Verde had known Beverly in college and had a crush on her and had assumed the identity of the supervillain Doctor Bong,[37] who illegally marries Beverly against her will and transforms Howard into a human.[38][39]

After escaping back to New York and being restored to his natural form, Howard is hired as a dishwasher by Beverly's uncle, Lee Switzler. Howard is later reunited with Dakihm the Enchanter, the Man-Thing, Korrek and Jennifer Kale, and they all battle the demon Bzzk'Joh. Korrek pilots the ship the Epoch Weasel and drops Howard back off at Cleveland before he and their allies fly away.[40][41] Howard finally meets up with the cruise ship that rescued Paul and Winda from Doctor Bong, and finds that Paul and Winda have befriended socialite Iris Raritan.

Howard is later kidnapped by the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime. Winda is abandoned by Paul and Iris and Paul is shot and left in a coma.[42][43] After defeating the Circus of Crime, Howard is plagued by pessimistic dreams and goes his way alone, just as he had at the series' beginning.[44]

Writer Bill Mantlo, beginning with issue #30, returned the series to its former status quo, bringing Beverly back into the picture and having her divorce Doctor Bong. Howard's creator Steve Gerber, who left the series after issue #27, originally intended for Beverly and Bong's marriage to be lasting and for Beverly to be written out of the series from that point on. Howard and Beverly's friend Paul, who had ended up in a coma after he had previously been shot by the Ringmaster, awakens from his coma and is released from the hospital. Beverly's uncle Lee brings everyone back to Cleveland and employs Howard as a cab driver, while Paul, back to being a somnambulist after his release from the hospital, becomes Winda's boyfriend. Howard dons a suit of "Iron Duck" armor made by Claude Starkowitz, a man who has delusions of being related to Tony Stark and dreams of being the personal armorer to Iron Man, and battles Doctor Bong in the final issue of the original 70s Howard the Duck series (issue #31).[45][46] Howard later encounters Dracula[47] and even once returns to Duckworld.[48] At the end of the nine-issue magazine series, Howard leaves Beverly (at her request) and is later offered a genetically-constructed female duck mate, whom he does not take to.[49]

On a later occasion, She-Hulk accidentally pulls Howard though a cosmic wormhole along with theoretical physicist Brent Wilcox and they are able to prevent other universes from crowding out Earth-616. During this time, Howard meets a character called the Critic, travels to a dimension known as the Baloneyverse and again battles a group called the Band of the Bland, whom he had previously battled with the Defenders.[50][51][52]

In an encounter with Peter Parker and Ben Reilly (the then-current Spider-Man), Howard gets a rematch with the Circus of Crime and the Circus is defeated. During the fight, Howard and Beverly get stuck in a warehouse full of anthropomorphic ducks, briefly meeting the Savage Dragon and Destroyer Duck. Parker and Reilly leave the warehouse believing that they have the correct versions of Howard and Beverly with them. However, in the Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck companion story that takes place simultaneously and that was written by Gerber, it is explained that the version of Howard and Beverly that left the warehouse with Parker and Reilly are simply clones taken by mistake and that the real Howard and Beverly actually left the scene with Savage Dragon and Destroyer Duck .[53]

The sorceress Jennifer Kale, in a weekly attempt to return Howard to his home world, inadvertently teleports Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy into her New York apartment. The disoriented dinosaur attempts to eat Howard, but spits him out when shot with John Blaze's hellfire gun. Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy then rampage through the city before being subdued by Ghost Rider (Daniel Ketch). Howard says that he relates to the pair being trapped in a world they never made before wandering off.[54][55]

Heroes RebornEdit

After a brief series of adventures with Generation X,[56] Howard gets a job as a department store Santa Claus, which gets him dragged to the North Pole where the real Santa Claus has sold out to HYDRA.[57] Howard goes through several dimensions, apparently through the power of Man-Thing, who can now talk but does not understand this new, unknown ability, and lands on a version of Duckworld where his parents are essentially Ward and June Cleaver, he has a sister named Princess, and he is regarded as a hero because his activities on Earth-616 were recognized by Duckworld's version of Reed Richards. This origin traces the source of these dimensions to be projections from Franklin's mind. Throughout the course of the adventure, Howard has a romance with Tana Nile, culminating in a kiss, after which he apologizes and tells her of his attachment to Beverly.[58][59][60] When Franklin understands that he has shaped all of these worlds, the group finds themselves back in the Man-Thing's swamp. While Man-Thing becomes a self-appointed guardian to Franklin Richards, Howard goes off on his own and is captured by the Cult of Entropy, who wrap him in swaddling clothes.[61] Although last seen in the swamp, Howard states that he was thrown into baggage and transported on a plane. The cult wants Howard because he has part of the Nexus of All Realities, which shattered during Heroes Reborn, inside of him. Man-Thing then enters Howard's mouth, and Howard vomits him back out with the fragment, but Man-Thing is left desiccated and practically dead.[62] Howard then encounters Namor, who thought he had slain Man-Thing, but Howard explains that he would not be lugging his friend's body around if that were the case. Howard sets the Man-Thing down in the water, and he revives during Howard's conversation with Namor. Once he sees that the Man-Thing is alive and well, he bids Namor farewell and says that he is returning to Cleveland.[63]

Years later, back with Beverly, he undergoes further shapeshifting experiences after an accident at a chemical facility of Doctor Bong's. Beverly is hired by Bong's Globally Branded Content Corporation, which manufactures boy bands from protein vats based on the sexual arousal of a focus group of gay men. Attempting to destroy an escapee whom Beverly has taken in, Bong inadvertently knocks Howard into a vat, which changes him, unstably, into a rat.[64] When Howard later showers, he changes his form multiple times before again permanently returning to the form of the giant rat. Verde then goes to the press and claims that his building was attacked by Osama el-Barka ("Osama the Duck" in Arabic). Howard and Beverly are sent back on the road after the junkyard office where they are living is destroyed by a S.W.A.T. team.[65] Denied admittance to every possible shelter due to lack of funds, the pair and their dog find a sign for the Boarding House of Mystery, but are taken to the police station for questioning and strip searches by Suzy Pazuzu, with whom Beverly had attended high school. One of the officers on the case is the same beat cop who mistook Howard for a mutant many years before. Suzy is the inheritor of the doucheblade, which starts to take her over when she wears an enchanted bracelet. In a skirmish, the bracelet is caught by Howard causing him to be the wielder of the doucheblade. The doucheblade causes its holder to grow enormous bare breasts and armor in a parody of Witchblade, and, possessed by this, Howard kills the male lover of a businessman who works with Verde as he and Verde break into Suzy's house.[66]

Arriving at the Boarding House of Mystery, Howard and Beverly encounter Cain and Abel, the latter with a rock stuck in his head that allows him only moments of lucidity. There, they are granted their every wish, including Howard's return to his true form, and Beverly never being poor again, and meet parodies of John Constantine, Wesley Dodds, the Endless, Spider Jerusalem, and Gerber's own Nevada (called Utah), all characters from DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. The downside to the House is that everyone staying there gets their every wish; so Che Guevara can have his revolution, but someone else can easily slaughter him.[67] One tenant, a writer named Mr. Gommorah (a parody of Spider Jerusalem), later takes Beverly and Howard to be on the Iprah show with the topic "Why Women Give It to Men Who Don't Get It", guest starring Dr. Phlip.

Upon leaving the House of Mystery, Howard is once again transformed into an anthropomorphic mouse. It is revealed that Iprah has been merged with an experiment by the Angel Gabriel called Deuteronomy, intended to replace God, because God has been spending all his time in a bar in Hell since 1938. Deuteronomy is a creature half-id and half-superego, while Iprah is an all-ego promoter of self-indulgent pop psychology. Considering her dangerous, Gabriel sends the cherub Thrasher to resurrect Sigmund Freud, whose cigar blasts out half of Thrasher's brains (being immortal, this just makes him act drunk). Iprah destroys Freud, but Howard blasts her with the cigar, separating her from Deuteronomy. Puffing on the cigar, Howard disintegrates and arrives in Hell.[68] He is eventually freed by Yah, a being who claims to be "God".[69]

Civil WarEdit

Sometime later, Howard attempts to register under the Superhero Registration Act during the superhero Civil War, but learns his socially disrupted life has created so many bureaucratic headaches that the government's official policy is that Howard does not exist. This lack of government oversight delights him: "For the rest of my life, no more parking tickets, or taxes, or jury duty. Heck, I couldn't even vote if I wanted to!" In this story, Howard says he was pressured to give up his cigars.[70]

After he defeats the supervillain M.O.D.O.T.’s (Mobile Organism Designed Only for Talking) scheme to control the public through mass media, his attorney, Jennifer Walters, successfully restores his citizenship, including all relevant responsibilities.[71]

Secret InvasionEdit

Howard the Duck is briefly seen as part of the superpowered army gathered to battle invading Skrull forces.[72] He is seen armed with a pistol and wearing a Skrull's hand around his neck.[73] He is later seen kicking a Skrull during interrogation after the invasion.[74] Brian Michael Bendis has commented when asked of Howard: "That character has shown up in six issues I've done, and I've never typed the words Howard the Duck."[75]

Marvel Zombies 5Edit

Main article: Marvel Zombies 5

In Marvel Zombies 5, Howard the Duck of Earth-616 teams up with Machine Man to travel across the multiverse fighting zombies.[76]

Fear ItselfEdit

During the Fear Itself storyline, Howard forms a team called the Fearsome Four with She-Hulk, Frankenstein's Monster and Nighthawk to stop the Man-Thing when he goes on a rampage in Manhattan, due to the fear and chaos he senses on the citizens. They later discover a plot by Psycho-Man to use the Man-Thing's volatile empathy to create a weapon.[77]

Spider-Man: Back in QuackEdit

Howard and Beverly are brainwashed and forced to work for Save Our Offspring From Indecency (S.O.O.F.I.) as Cynical Duck and Swizzle. They promote S.O.O.F.I. at a public speech held for them by J. Jonah Jameson. Spider-Man later interrupts a S.O.O.F.I. indoctrination at the New York Public Library, and Beverly and the other S.O.O.F.I.s see Spidey as a semi-demonic figure and attack him. Spidey escapes with Howard and breaks his brainwashing when Beverly is threatened. Howard quickly explains S.O.O.F.I.'s goals to Spider-Man. As Spider-Man publicly announces his long-standing support for S.O.O.F.I., Howard confronts Bev as she stands beside the Supreme S.O.O.F.I. Howard is able to break through to Beverly, reminding her of their past together. The Supreme S.O.O.F.I. orders the S.O.O.F.I.s to throw the pair into the special Blanditron at Guantanamo Bay, but Beverly keeps them at bay with a whip. Spidey attacks the S.O.O.F.I.s and unmasks the Supreme S.O.O.F.I., while the others escape through their teleporter. Howard states that he believes S.O.O.F.I. will lay low for a while after such a defeat and he also hopes that the group's Florida Everglades base might lead them to meet up with the Man-Thing.[78]

The Ducky DozenEdit

Because of his experience with zombie-infested worlds and his leadership of Machine Man, Howard is chosen as the leader of, as he dubs them, the Ducky Dozen. The team is composed of him, several Golden Age heroes, Dum-Dum Dugan, and Battlestar, who is also a veteran of a zombie incident. Upon entering Earth-12591, the Ducky Dozen fight hordes of zombie Nazis and Asgardians, but suffer grave losses as the team's members are either killed or zombified during the battle. After successfully accomplishing their mission, Howard, Dugan, Taxi Taylor and Battlestar are the only members to survive and return to Earth-616 along with the Riveter, the only survivor of Earth-12591's resistance team, the Suffragists.[79][80]

Wolverine and the X-MenEdit

Howard later teams up with his friend Doop to battle the Robo-Barbarians in Dimension ZZZ. They beat the horde back with nothing but a broken sword, a rubber chicken with nails in it and a gun that shoots bees.[81]

Original SinEdit

After the death of Uatu the Watcher and the activation of the secrets buried in his eye, Howard discovers that he has the potential to be the most intelligent being in Duckworld. After evading a squirrel while driving, he is thrown flying from his vehicle but uses his intellect to calculate a way to land safely in a nearby dumpster.[82]

Back to New YorkEdit

Howard returns to his business as a private eye, working in the same building as She-Hulk, in Brooklyn. One of his first new clients is Jonathan Richards, who hires Howard to retrieve a necklace stolen by the Black Cat. With the help of Tara Tam, his new friend and assistant, Howard manages to recover the necklace. However, on his way to give it back to Richards, he finds himself kidnapped by the Collector and allied with the Guardians of the Galaxy to escape the villain, who was attempting to add Howard to his collection of rare space objects and entities. Upon returning to Earth, Howard is robbed by May Parker, Spider-Man's aunt, and later re-encounters the Ringmaster, who is revealed to have brainwashed the elderly into committing robberies. After recovering the necklace for a third time, Howard is approached by Richards in the middle of his fight against the Ringmaster and Richards reveals himself to be Talos the Untamed, who reveals that the necklace was part of a marginally powerful item known as the Abundant Glove. With help from Doctor Strange, Howard and Tara locate the final piece of the Abundant Glove, but are unable to put it back together when Talos grabs it and proceeds to use it to wreak havoc on the city. Talos is confronted by numerous heroes while Howard and Tara take cover. Howard is able to point out that Tara, who is revealed to possess shapeshifting powers similar to that of a Skrull, could help him defeat Talos. Tara used her powers to impersonate Skrull Emperor Kl'rt (the Super-Skrull), distracting Talos long enough for Howard to snatch the Abundant Glove from his hand. Talos is later apprehended by the Fantastic Four and everything returns to normal.[83]

Afterwards, with the help of new arrival Gwenpool, Howard prevented HYDRA from infecting the world with a deadly virus.[84] He also has a crossover event with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.[85] Howard the Duck is shown to be living in the She-Hulk's apartment building when Patsy Walker moved out.[86]

Civil War IIEdit

During the Civil War II storyline, Howard the Duck is among the building tenants that learn from Patsy Walker what happened to She-Hulk following the fight against Thanos.[87]

War of the RealmsEdit

Howards last name, Duckson, is revealed in War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1.

Young biochemist Dr. Theodore "Ted" Sallis, a native of Omaha, Nebraska,[28] is working in the Everglades as part of Dr. Wilma Calvin's Project: Gladiator team, which includes Dr. Barbara Morse and her fiancé Dr. Paul Allen, and an assistant named Jim. A Dr. Wendell is later cited as being on the staff after Dr. Calvin is shot.[29] The group is attempting to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum that had created Captain America.[30] Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #6 revealed that Sallis at one point treated and worked alongside Dr. Curtis Connors shortly after Connors' arm was amputated, driving the research that would eventually transform Connors into the Lizard.

Though warned that the technological terrorist group Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) has been operating in the area, Sallis breaches security by bringing with him his lover, Ellen Brandt (referred to here as "Miss Brandt", but later retconned to be his wife). He destroys his notes to his formula, which he has memorized. Later, he is ambushed by two thugs and learns that Brandt has betrayed him. Fleeing with the only sample of his serum, he injects himself with it in hopes of saving himself. However, he crashes his car into the swamp where scientific and, as Man-Thing #1 later explained, magical forces combine to instantly transform him into a slow-moving plant-matter creature with large, solid red eyes.[31] Unable to speak, and with dim memories, he attacks the ambushers and Brandt, burning and scarring part of her face with an acid that he now secretes in the presence of negative emotions. The Man-Thing then wanders away into the swamp.[32]

Sallis' mind was apparently extinguished, although on rare occasions he could briefly return to consciousness within his monstrous form, as in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #41 (June 1980), The Defenders (vol 1) #98 (August 1981), and Peter Parker: Spider-Man Annual '99, and even to his human form, as in Adventure into Fear #13 (April 1973), Marvel Two-in-One #1 (January 1974), Marvel Comics Presents #164 (October 1994), and Man-Thing (vol. 3) #5 and 7-8 (April 1998, June–July 1998).

Under writer Steve Gerber, the Man-Thing encounters the sorceress Jennifer Kale, with whom he briefly shared a psychic link and who knew his true identity, in a story arc in Fear #11-13 – the final issue of which established that the swamp had mystical properties as the Nexus of Realities. Through an interdimensional portal in Fear #19, he meets Howard the Duck, who becomes stranded in this reality. The Man-Thing became the guardian of the Nexus, and found himself facing demons, ghosts and time-traveling warriors, while continuing to encounter such non-supernatural antagonists as rapacious land developers, fascist vigilantes and common criminals. He formed a bond with young radio DJ Richard Rory and nurse Ruth Hart. Issue #12's "Song-Cry of the Living Dead Man", about an crazed writer named Brian Lazarus, spawned Gerber's posthumously published 2012 sequel, "The Screenplay of the Living Dead Man", in the three-issue miniseries The Infernal Man-Thing.

In Man-Thing (vol. 2) #1-11 (November 1979 – July 1981), writer Chris Claremont introduced himself as a character in the final issue, as Gerber had in the finale of the first series. Additionally, Claremont temporarily became the Man-Thing after being stabbed to death. His and other characters' deaths were later resolved with the intervention of the War Is Hell series lead, John Kowalski, now an aspect of Marvel Comics' manifestation of Death. In Man-Thing (vol. 3) #1-8 (December 1997 – July 1998), Ellen Brandt Sallis returns to the Citrusville area and encounters a little boy, Job Burke, who is actually the Sallises' son, who had been put up for adoption. Following this series, the story continued in Strange Tales (vol. 4) #1-2, and was projected to continue in the unpublished issues #3-4. Summaries based on DeMatteis' unillustrated scripts appear on the K'Ad-mon and Ellen Brandt pages in Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe.[21][22]

During the "Civil War" storyline, two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents unsuccessfully attempt to register the Man-Thing under the Superhuman Registration Act.[33]

The Man-Thing later appears as a member of the Legion of Monsters alongside Morbius, the Living Vampire, the Werewolf by Night, the Manphibian, and N'Kantu, the Living Mummy.[34] He later gains the ability to speak comprehensibly through the use of the "Universal Language".[35] Phil Coulson subsequently recruits the Man-Thing for his incarnation of the Howling Commandos.[36]

As part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel branding, the Man-Thing appears as a member of S.T.A.K.E.'s Howling Commandos.[37]

During the "Empyre" storyline, Man-Thing falls under the control of the Cotati led by Ventri that were operating in the Savage Land.[38] Doctor Voodoo takes control of Man-Thing to free Matthew and Black Knight. As Matthew and Black Knight fight the Cotati, a Doctor Voodoo-controlled Man-Thing fights the Cotati's control and defeats Ventri.[39] As Doctor Voodoo exits Man-Thing to assist Scarlet Witch after Ka-Zar was stabbed by a Cotati using Black Knight's Ebony Blade, Man-Thing continued the fight against the Cotati. When the Cotati were defeated, Man-Thing takes his leave after being thanked by Black Knight. Ventri claims that what they learned from Man-Thing's energy has been sent to Quoi to fuel the Cotati's invasion.[40]

[whiskehorange]

Lester Requester back again! Could I also have Lester with our Male!s/o (named Roy) that's black and tall and very buff and muscled and he's a flirt and, well, we've already brainstormed this guy, so you know. Romance and roadkill, please!

god damnit I miss doing this prompt with you

Lester, Romance & Roadkill

A lot of people visited the junkpile, it was the closest sort of... dumpsite between the towns. Just a convenient place to throw all your trash to without paying normal landfill or junkyard fees

Lester was familiar with just about every face that stopped to dump from town to town, but today he was more occupied on getting his truck untuck from the mud pile from the day before’s rain shower to notice one of the locals from the town over heading his way

“Hey, bud, need some help?”

Lester practically jumped out of his skin to see Roy, a frequent roadkill dumper from the next town over, making his way towards him with aid. Roy, a very muscular and tall man with the most beautiful, glowing, ebony skin you’ve every seen. It was no wonder that when he lended Lester a helping hand he practically raised the bed of the truck right off the ground himself

Lester had seen Roy many times before but never actually interacted with him rather than a smile and a wave, but boy did this awaken something in his little grimy heart that he couldn’t contain. He couldn’t contain the blood flow to his... well you get the point. Lester gave his thank you’s and walked right into his truck door out of embarrassment

It doesn’t take much to flustered Lester, and Roy could certainly tell. But, this was just the first time that they actually talked to each other

Lester was still pretty shy, even now that they’re pretty serious, but Roy never seems to fail at making Lester just absolutely melt. He’s always watching Roy work and haul things off. Roy loves showing off to Lester with all of the hauling and carrying the roadkill by twos or threes on his shoulders to toss into the pit. And that wink directed at the little skinny boy, lord does he not know what to do

Lester is convinced Roy works with his shirt off just to amuse him. His favorite shirt that he wears out in the blistering heat is a white tank top that has it’s arm holes fringed from all the work he’s done

Totally calls his man “Ste-Roy,” like steroid in his little country accent and Roy couldn’t find it any cuter

“I know a chainsaw is more practical, I have a few but sometimes... you just need to feel the wood in your own hands.”

Lester fucking dies from being flustered

[caltropspress]

Notes on Pink Siifu’s NEGRO

You and anybody else who wants to get their random vicarious kicks off White Power can stay the fuck away from me. 

—Lester Bangs

Tell a nazi he can suck my dick. —Pink Siifu, from “SMD”

My first contact with white america was marked by her violence, for when a white doctor pulled me from between my mother’s legs and slapped my wet ass, I, as every other negro in america, reacted to this man-inflicted pain with a cry. A cry that america has never allowed to cease; a cry that gets louder and more intense with age….A cry? Or was it a scream? —H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), from Die Nigger Die!

it is the hour of conflict, antagonism, struggle the world turning autumn in warpaint everything silently prepares to scream —Amiri Baraka, from “Disorder”

1.  

White institutional power operates to negate or suppress. To that end, white institutional power bestows awards on singular figures when it’s convenient. Let’s call one such example Kendrick Lamar. Pulitzer Prizing DAMN. is white institutional power taking cover. This, in no way, defangs DAMN. But it does provide crowd control. Pink Siifu, meanwhile, won’t be awarded a Pulitzer for NEGRO. If he did, I’m confident he’d pull an Adrienne Rich, telling President Clinton to choke on his National Medal for the Arts, seeing as how the U.S. gov’t drives “the demonization of our young Black men.” Siifu would be PE boycotting the Grammys on the grounds of Black invisibility. Or John Lennon relinquishing his membership in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire because, well, empire (see: Biafra).

2.

NEGRO is what happens when Three 6 Mafia goes full bandolier, full decolonization, full Thomas Sankara. When the emphasis is on the 666 sirening[1] across white cop foreheads, reflecting off Makrolon face shields. Siifu cites and channels Sun Ra, June Tyson, Death, and Bad Brains, but you also hear the mass hysteria of Abbey Lincoln’s vocal cords trembling, of Max Roach’s We Insist! in a street brawl showdown with the LRAD. Basically, it’s Ornette blowing sax in a riot, harmolodics like incendiary devices.

3.

“FK” is the primal scream reaction of hearing the news another one of your people has been killed, snuffed out. Suffer through our screams, it says to the listener. And “out of body, out of mind” distorts what we see with what we witness. It’s the re-played, re-tweeted, re-shared visuals of Black death.

4.

At moments, NEGRO sounds like Aaron Dilloway organizing a chapter of the White Panther Party.

5.

Siifu’s lyrics are a Stokely speech draft. His artistry is prismatic, shattered pane glass: crust punk, jazz cat, marching band drummer, hood ballerina, noisemaker, bareknuckle emcee. His lyrics should be run off on the mimeo and saddle-stitched into a chapbook for Totem Press to publish.

6.

“SMD” samples from Ivan Dixon's 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door (“Do you hear me, man?...I am BLACK!”). Just like dead prez sampled the dialogue before Siifu on “We Want Freedom.” Siifu and dead prez are bedfellows, for sure, but Siifu's head rests on a pillow of static. It’s the friction that electrifies.

7.

NEGRO is the art of de-arresting in audio form. As the comrades at Mask Magazine have stated, de-arrests “are beautiful,” reminding us “the law and the state are not supernatural forces.”[2]

8.

I’ve always felt uncomfortable using the word freedom. It’s a word that’s been co-opted and gutted to the point of parody. I subscribe only to a different form of freedom, one articulated in noise. Suicidal Tendencies’ “Freedumb” cuts it: “Peace through politics is a fallacy—that doesn’t exist.” Liberation more seriously expresses the extinction agenda. Poor Righteous Teachers taught the curriculum out of Trenton, on “Freedom of Death”: “Consciousness—it’s a must / Just avoid the wicked, wicked ways of this pale Caucasoid.”

Regardless, we see freedom, liberation, knife through even with Siifu’s orthography. Revolutionary thought requires revolutionary language. Ask the Combahee River Collective. Come correct. Fuck autocorrect. Remember womyn. Siifu spellings like: nxggas, eye, tyme, iono, and the evergreen ameriKKKa. The abbreviated words—eliding letters wherever possible—don’t reflect self-censorship so much as the mindmaze of a harried man. Deliberate typos demonstrate no faith in the system. It’s like if Bon Iver (see: “22 (OVER S∞∞N)”) decided to forgo BLM symbolic gestures (Mahalia Jackson) and straight-up encouraged looting. Siifu is CAPS LOCK happy, too. We’re witnessing the joy of militancy.

9.

To begin with, it must be said that former African slaves and their ancestors have been the avant-garde of everything in this country. There’s no culture in America, in this American wasteland, without us. There’s no classical music; there’s jazz, and that was invented by us. And besides that, America has nothing to offer the world and it never has. —Idris Robinson, from “How It Might Should Be Done”

Siifu in the audience of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples, and Baraka imploring him like, “Get up, Pink Siifu.” It’s nation time. But on “Nation Tyme.,” Siifu groans, I’m tired…can’t fall…asleep. Black rage, of course—but what of Black insomnia? The French revolutionaries abolished the calendar. CPT, so, is rightly weaponized. “I feel fettered by Western time,” Gregory Pardlo writes in “Colored People’s Time.” Punch clocks need punching, smashing. I saw Baraka roll up to a conference panel late as fuck once, cane-walking right down the center aisle, shameless, commandingly.

In a somnolent slur, Siifu says, “They treat me like I’m wasting away / I know I’m worth more than they pay.” What of these capitalist definitions of work? What of productivity? What does it mean to monetize every waking moment? He’s been quoted as saying, “I ain’t have to work for no white man.”[3] “Nation Tyme.” picks up there.

10.  Feel like deadmeat. They say I’m deadmeat.

“DEADMEAT” is a pig siren stuffed into an industrial-grade slaughterhouse grinder. It sounds the way Alan Vega's sculptures look—hazardous masses of electronic junk, like wires raveled inside a homemade bomb, like buzzing viscera. 

I want to see Siifu perform it at the Meat Locker, a cellar club in the underguts of Montclair, New Jersey (s/o the dramacydal Outlawz). The place is dingy and bedecked with feces—a venue befitting a GG Allin opener. GG Allin, a racist, who also hated cops. Who, on “Shove That Warrant Up Your Ass,” a track that appeared on the posthumous Brutality & Bloodshed For All album, sang, “You say I broke the laws in your state… / Your courts and cops should all be hung.” Allin hoists a headless, legless, armless torso on his hip in the cover photograph—a slab of meat. Like the Beatles with baby doll parts and prime cuts in their laps, bloodless butcher coats on the original Yesterday and Today (1966) artwork. Like the papal kill floor in Francis Bacon’s “Figure with Meat” (1954) with its tapestry of offal. But what you don’t get from Bacon, or the Beatles, or GG Allin is what Siifu needs us to hear. What Siifu tells us is the reality of corporeality is that cops continue to make carcasses of Black people.

11.

That cellar club can be scream therapy, can be cell therapy. Siifu brings us there—to the darkest, dampest corner of the Dungeon Family’s dungeon. Big Gipp, speaking self-defensively: “Try to separate me from the blood / Is disrespect like you coming in my home and not wiping your feet on the rug.” It’s echoed in Siifu addressing the question of his audience: “This [album] is for black people, but I know white people are going to fuck with it. I’m mad cool with that. I just want everyone to know, before they come through the door, that this is a black house and you have to respect my people.”[4] The theme of respect as it relates to a sense of home, to cultural tourism, is paramount in both. Everyone’s got to know their place. No listener should approach ignorant of the auction block. Siifu’s noise refuses the separation of kinsfolk and his stubbornness makes the dungeon shake—he is rightfully “tough, dark, vulnerable, moody,” and, on NEGRO, he has a “definite tendency to sound truculent.”[5]

12.  

“ON FIRE, PRAY!” eventually grinds the brakes to a cavernous slowjam pace. “Blood on my body / Blood on my face.”

13.

The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality and torture of black people, or face the wrath of the armed people. —caption on Huey Newton photograph

NEGRO’s album cover, painted by Junkyard, is a call-and-response. Pink Siifu is a portrait of exhaustion, slouched, shirtless like Huey was when he was released from the Alameda County courthouse in 1970. It’s a tableau like Huey in that rattan peacock chair was. Eldridge Cleaver orchestrated it, right down to the zebra rug.

If you squint, the glimmer of Siifu’s gold fronts looks like his jaw is wired shut. Of course, violent threats are routinely directed at Black people—that's how the system operates. Media is often behind the scope. Relentless orders to “shut up,” to silence yourself, police yourself. We know this from David Wojnarowicz, photographed with his lips sewn shut, blood dripping like shadows, in “(Silence = Death)” from 1989. The violent threats on queer life are kin to those on Black life. But Siifu, like Wojnarowicz, refuses the censorship. After all, those aren't wires—they're the glint of his grill. Siifu is dribbling blood, too, and those black splatters across the flag are like pen bursts—ink poisoning for all. If you squint, the mind’s eye might see the Pan-African flag.

The flag above his head recalls Jasper Johns’ flags: elliptical, non-patriotic, made slop-bucket sloppy from newspaper shreddings and other detritus, i.e. amerikkka is a trash heap. At least the stars are black in the “Flag (Moratorium)” rendition. Bullet hole dead center, too.

If all goes well, the riots going on—bless them—will go on interminably. Sly Stone’s customized flag with black in place of blue[6] and sharp solar-flared suns in place of Betsy Ross geometric stars is yet another parallel to Siifu’s flag. Like Sly, Siifu isn’t opposed to police ambushes. They both know you’ve got to grin at the gun of the devil. (“Don’t you mind people grinnin’ in your face,” Son House sings eternally.) Citizen takes on cop on “Thank You For Talkin’ To Me, Africa”: Bullets start chasin’, / I begin to stop. / We begin to tussle. / I was on the top. Just the same as Siifu on “SMD”: “Iono why eye ain’t shot ya.” Or on “run pig run.”: “Kill a cop / Left a pig dead.”

14.

We can't disparage any aggressive protest on the reductive grounds it's aggro or violent. I think of Pam Echols in Milwaukee in 1968. Siifu’s assertion of you are my enemy on “steal from the ENEMY” corresponds with Paris’s sophomore and shadowy album, Sleeping with the Enemy. Like on the corrode-ode “Coffee, Donuts, and Death”:

You get poached when you fuck with black folk. Said it ’til my voice was hoarse. I ain’t down with excessive force, But of course I wasn’t heard so I’m silent now. Black folk can’t be non-violent now. […] The only motherfucking pig that I eat is police.

Which is to say, try no pork, ameriKKKa.

15.  RE: punk

Think of Bad Brains playing CBGB’s in 1982. Lester Bangs writes of a woman in the scene who referred to Black people as “all these boons.” He tells us a Black friend of his believes the clubgoers “[strive] to be offensive however they can.” Anti-Blackness plagued CBGB’s and nascent punk like vermin, a pestilence. A white woman in the music business claims she “liked [Black people] so much better when they were just Negroes.” These anecdotes are culled from Bangs’ 1979 Village Voice piece entitled “The White Noise Supremacists.” He notes Ron Asheton’s predilection for “swastikas, Iron Crosses, and jackboots.” He cites Ivan Julian, guitarist for Richard Hell and the Voidoids—one of the few Black individuals to grace those inchoate punk stages—as saying “whenever he hears the word ‘n-----’…he wants to kill.” He calls Nico a “dumb kraut cunt” for her brazen, Third Reich-ish brand of racism, which was no industry secret. Bangs even implicates himself, quoting an earlier article: “…it’s the n-----s who control and direct everything just as it always has been and properly should be.” He meant this, somehow, as a compliment.

16.

On “we need mo color. Abundance,” there’s no innocence left in asking “tell me your favorite color.” Siifu answers rhetorically, parenthetically, melanin. Don't settle for forty acres of color—demand abundance. Take, loot in abundance. And don't be contained by the gendered parameters of “pink or blue.” “You can have any color you like” suggests the limitless possibilities if you move your mind beyond the imposed parameters.

The “favorite color” invoked on “we need mo color. Abundance” becomes abundantly clear on the following track, “BLACK!”

17.

“ameriKKKa, try no pork” starts in a slurry of radio static, news reports of Black death. Black, Black, Black, Black. Sped up. Slowed down. Drag the progress bar. “Progress,” ha.

18.

“run pig run.” See the pig / Run away / Run, pig, run. Like a Dick and Jane basal reader. Like picking your favorite color. Like a Three Little Pigs fable. Like huffing and puffing. These are childhood exploits for childhoods that aren’t allowed to be. As long as the Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll experiments keep providing the proof, there can be no childhood innocence. So it's a carnival game in the meantime: See a pig / Shoot a pig. Huffing and puffing: Run, pig, run.

19.

"myheartHURT" is the safehouse after the shooting. It's the cooldown, the chillout. The hypnagogic nightmare. It's vaporwave minus whiteness. We all know Biz had the vapors before Daniel Lopatin. As if DJ Screw was just an apparition, a codeine cloud. The fact remains, Screw's phantasmagoria hovers above all our heads.

20.

The wail of distorted police sirens introduces “Chris Dorner.,” a track gleefully indebted to Ice-T and Body Count’s “Cop Killer.” Repetition was a popular device and it still is: die, pig, die. Chris Dorner has achieved folk-hero status in anarchist circles and beyond since he waged asymmetrical warfare on the LAPD. His manifesto has been published as a zine.[7] “No one grows up and wants to be a cop killer,” he wrote. Begs the question.

21.

“faceless wings,BLACK!” nods to Frank Castle[8], a figure who may or may not be recoverable from militias and thin blue liners, despite Gerry Conway’s best efforts.

22.

White institutional power operates to negate or suppress. Pink Siifu, through NEGRO, refuses suppression and negation. Siifu delivers a hole in the head, and it’s sublime.

Footnotes:

1  “The Law comes sirening across the town.” Gwendolyn Brooks, “THE THIRD SERMON OF THE WARPLAND” from RIOT

2  “De-Arrests are Beautiful.” Mask Magazine.

3  “The Necessity of Pink Siifu’s Rage.” Marcus J. Moore. The Fader.

4  “Pink Siifu’s ‘NEGRO’ is a Riotous Mix of Jazz, Rap and Punk.” Max Bell. Bandcamp Daily.

5  Baldwin, the god.

6  “What did I do to be so black and blue?” (see: Armstrong); light a reefer and listen to the phonograph (see: Ellison)

7  Research and Destroy New York City. https://researchdestroy.com/

8  https://archive.org/details/PunisherPigs

Images:

Emory Douglas work (detail), courtesy of Sean Stewart archives | Makrolon face shield, Google Image Search result | Amiri Baraka performing at the Congress of Afrikan Peoples (screenshot) | Alan Vega light sculpture (photograph) | GG Allin Brutality & Bloodshed for All album cover | The Beatles Yesterday & Today album cover | Francis Bacon, “Figure with Meat” (detail) | Goodie Mob “Cell Therapy” (screenshot) | Splitting up a family at auction, Public Domain | Huey Newton Black Panthers Minister of Defense, photographed by Blair Stapp, 1968 | Andreas Sterzing, David Wojnarowicz (Silence = Death), 1989 | Sly and the Family Stone There’s A Riot Goin’ On album cover | Jasper Johns, “Flag (Moratorium)” | Pam Echols punching cop, 1968 (photographer unknown) | Sid Vicious, nazi (photographer unknown) | Emory Douglas work (detail), courtesy of Sean Stewart archives | Biz Markie Goin’ Off album cover | Oneohtrix Point Never Memory Vague album cover 

[mw-moriearty]

Superman III is an Anti-Capitalist Parable and Way Ahead of its Time

No seriously. Here’s the skinny.

Superman III came out in ‘83 and was directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the markedly inferior theatrical cut of Superman II three years earlier. Lester had a very different approach to the Superman series than his predecessor, Richard Donner: he insisted, ostensibly at the studio’s urging, on taking the series in a more camp comedy direction rather than the Old Hollywood epic movie tone Donner brought to the table. It makes sense, then, that audiences would push back against the goofier, lower-stakes tone of III. They were used to the (comparatively) operatic tone of the original Superman and, to a lesser extent, its sequel.

Superman III was a financial success, but it was negatively received by audiences and by critics, a negative reception that helped send the follow-ups Supergirl and Superman IV: A Quest for Peace to the bottom of the trash heap (not that they needed much help).

But, unlike those two installments, Superman III, when watched today with an unbiased eye, holds up much better than its reputation would suggest. The emphasized comedic undertones don’t stand out so much in this era of light, bantery Marvel films.

And, what’s more, Superman III is probably one of the most plainly anti-capitalist superhero movies of all time. Its maybe not “woke,” but its pretty damn close.

At the core of the film, and perhaps its most controversial element, is the comic relief character played by comedian Richard Pryor. Pryor’s character in Superman III may not be the most nuanced character of color in film, but he is also certainly not the Jar Jar Binks minstrel clown some make him out to be. What he is, is a naturally-gifted computer programmer so brilliant that he is able to hack into a government weather-controlling satellite while completely blitzed and effortlessly design a supercomputer so sophisticated it gains self-awareness. It is obvious the only reason that he lives on unemployment and can’t keep a job rather than being the next Bill Gates and giving the millionaire villain orders is the deep institutional racism upon which capitalism is founded.

The film is well aware of this racism, highlighting it in ways both big and small. Pryor is blackmailed into serving the rich white Trump-esque antagonist, played by Robert Vaughn, after being forced by his ridiculously small paycheck to commit embezzlement (the only victim of which being Vaughn himself, who is so dripping with surplus wealth that he has an artificial ski slope on the roof of his skyscraper). Their first interaction is full of condescending microaggressions on Vaughn’s part, such as cringe-inducingly calling Pryor “my man” in a manner that brings to mind the dad in Get Out.

When Pryor travels to Smallville, Kansas later in the film, he is visibly aghast at how eerily lily-white the whole place is, particularly staring in horror at a trio of porcelain-tinted mannequins in a store window. I’m sure his discomfort would be echoed by many black men taking their first step in rural southern America. Later, to infiltrate one of the businesses that he plans to hack in the small town, Pryor wears one of the awful suits worn by the aforementioned dummies and puts on an affected “white voice” to earn the trust of the drunken redneck that watches the place at night, a fitting commentary on how black men and women are expected to homogenize and “act white” to be above suspicion in white America.

And what happens when Pryor convinces Vaughn to give him the resources to construct his incredible supercomputer? Why, Vaughn and his sister appropriate it for themselves and put its unique capabilities to nefarious ends, shutting Pryor out of any control of his baby and leaving him out in the cold. 

Pryor is much more than a victim through all of this, however. I already mentioned how he took the initiative to bolster his paltry computer programmer’s paycheck by using a clever scheme to embezzle from his greedy millionaire boss. He also doesn’t let said boss kick him around, either. Though his circumstances leave him with little choice but to be a cohort in Vaughn’s schemes, when push comes to shove, he stands up for himself. He refuses to allow Vaughn’s order for complete control of the oil tankers to be irreversible, he fights for his fair cut of the loot when Vaughn starts profiting off of his brilliance, and in the end he stands by Superman against his bourgeoisie bosses. He even saves Superman’s life on multiple occasions, using both his computer smarts and eventually a fire ax to come to the big guy’s rescue. 

Given that Pryor has at least as much screen time as Supes throughout the picture, one is left wondering, who’s the real hero here? Why, its the guy running around in the frilly pink tablecloth, of course!

And Pryor’s not the only example of a downtrodden minority not being allowed to live to their full potential in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalist society. Perhaps the most interesting character in the film is the villain’s girlfriend, who is initially presented as a vapid, gold-digging bimbo until we learn that this is all an act on her part and she actually is a computer-wise, philosophy-reading secret genius herself. She only plays the part of the brainless trophy girl because life has left her few other options. It is a very fun subversion of the typical villain-moll dynamic, and it is a shame we don’t get more of this character, though she like Pryor is ultimately disturbed by Vaughn’s increasingly villainous actions and bails on him in the end.

But lets talk about Vaughn’s villain, and how he’s emblematic of the film’s ideas on rich white privilege as a whole. This is a guy who is so used to getting everything he wants that he sics a freaking hurricane on Colombia just because the country is competing with him in the coffee export industry. If that ain’t capitalism at its finest. He even repeats the tired adage “it is not enough that I succeed, others must fail,” misattributing it to Genghis Khan like an idiot. I mean seriously, who does this sound like?

This is the guy who gives us probably the most immortal line from the whole movie.

And that’s only the tip of the white entitlement iceberg. There’s also the running joke of the old white couple who win the Daily Planet’s vacation lottery and get sent off to Colombia, where we are treated to the wife saying things like, “look dear, a native wedding!” Cut to the most conventional looking church wedding ever. After this parody of cultural voyeurism, we have the couple later threatening to SUE Daily Planet Editor-in-Chief Perry White because A HURRICANE RUINED THEIR VACATION. What a couple of Karens.

The whole film is about the struggle between the working class and the rich. I’ll paraphrase one of the Smallville locals who, after seeing the chaos caused by the gasoline shortage brought about by Vaughn’s forced oil monopoly, says “I don’t know what’s going on, but I guarantee you, someone’s getting rich off of it. Someone’s always getting rich off of it.”

Oh yeah, and Superman is in this movie too a little. There’s a plot wherein Vaughn tries to synthesize an artificial kryptonite in an effort to kill Superman and prevent him from foiling his dastardly deeds. But, this being a kryptonite forged in the capitalist machine, its a lazy, half-assed copy that doesn’t even work right (leading to the above line).

That doesn’t mean that the kryptonite has no effect, though. Indeed, the symptoms of this knockoff kryptonite are fascinatingly similar to the effects of living under the crushing wheels of the capitalist regime. 

We actually see Superman, through this physical manifestation of the exertion of capitalist oppression, deteriorate into a selfish, depressed, bitter shadow of his usual self. As this happens, the colors of his costume subtly grown more dark, drab, and dingy. Superman becomes concerned only with doing what is best for himself without regard to anyone else, giving up the whole “saving people” thing and even letting himself be coerced by the moll into ripping a giant hole into an oil tanker in exchange for a little nookie (the subsequent disturbing image of a massive oil spill creeping across the surface of the ocean is maybe the film showing its hand a little bit). Many socialist and anarchist thinkers have raised the thought that this exact selfish mindset is the natural effect of being socialized in a capitalist society.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t just “evil Superman”. This is Superman so crushed by self-loathing and the futility of his actions that at the lowest point in his decline we see him looking like this:

Indeed, this sad, alcoholic Superman very deliberately mirrors another character in the film: the aforementioned drunken yokel, who is also the former star quarterback of Clark Kent’s high school graduating class. This is a character who found, after graduating, that his celebrity status in school translated to nothing in the adult world, leaving him woefully unprepared for a real life where he is a functional nobody. Cue binge-drinking and pining for the glory days.

This all culminates in the movie’s most iconic scene, wherein Superman crash-lands in a junkyard and splits into two separate individuals: the above Superdick, and plain old Clark Kent. They then proceed to beat the shit out of each other.

Obviously, we aren’t meant to read this scene as literal; it isn’t actually, physically happening. It is a clever visualization of the internal struggle between the character’s two halves: Clark and Superman.

In fact, this very conflict is the heart of Superman’s story throughout the picture. This is examined in the form of Clark’s re-kindled relationship with childhood sweetheart Lana Lang. After the always tragic will-they-won’t-they of Superman and Lois, Clark and Lana’s romance is refreshingly positive and healthy. The obvious reason for this is that, unlike Lois, Lana isn’t just interested in the Superman persona. She loves Clark for Clark. He can be himself around her. Indeed, any romantic incursions between Superman in costume and Lana are portrayed as downright toxic, as in the unsettlingly realistic scene where Superman, first beginning to feel the effects of the faux kryptonite, makes several forceful, sexually aggressive advances on Lana in her own home. The obvious fear and discomfort on Lana’s face during this scene is incredibly telling. She isn’t interested in an inhumanly privileged, aggressive thug in spandex. She likes Clark Kent, the regular guy.

So it is no accident that in this climactic junkyard scene, Clark comes to represent the character’s “good side” and Superman the “bad”. Because this is not simply a struggle between Superman’s good and bad halves, it is a struggle between Clark Kent, the spectacularly unspectacular working man, and Superman, the ridiculously naturally privileged enforcer of statist status quo. Proletariat vs. bourgeoisie. And Clark Kent, the proletariat revolutionary fighting his way out of the bourgeois Superdick’s corruption, wins.

Not that Superman then becomes a perfect champion of the working class for the rest of the film. He does defeat Vaughnald Trump and blow up the evil computer, but he also remains something of a parody of typical movie “white savior” figures. This is mostly clearly shown in the denouement where Superman, obviously thinking he is providing some great act of charity, drops Richard Pryor’s character off at a dirty coal pit far from his home and recommends him for an entry-level computer job there. Pryor understandably decides he’d rather not slave in a coal mine in the middle of nowhere for the rest of his life, and chooses instead to walk the nine miles to the nearest bus station. There is also the final scene where Superman (who in evil mode had straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa earlier in the film in an extreme act of pettiness) returns to Italy and “fixes” the tower, smiling and waving in smug self-satisfaction at the locals below, oblivious to the poor souvenir salesman who has just finished making his setting up his new display of now-straight replica towers.

tl;dr, I think that Superman III deserves reevaluation not as the moment where the Superman franchise began its descent into crappery, but instead as a flawed but biting satire on privilege and capitalist corruption in America.

That’s my two cents.

[81scorp]

Constructive criticism: The Superman film series

(An editorial originally posted on Deviantart Mar 26 2015)

Superman, created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. A popular character that has remained popular through the years and is considered an american cultural icon. He has appeared on the radio, animated shows and live action TV. Then someone thought "Wouldn`t it be neat to see the man of tomorrow on the big screen?". Because of the special effects they had back then, portraying Ol` Supes most well known and iconic power: flying, was hard to pull of without making it look a tad bit silly. From what I`ve heard they were, at one point, thinking about taking it in a direction similar to the campy Adam West Batman universe. But Richard Donner (to my knowledge at least, correct me if I`m wrong) wanted it to be a movie that people could take more seriously. So, with a more serious script, good casting, acting, well made flying effects and the music of John Williams you would`ve believed a man could fly. It was a critical and financial success, and with financial success comes sequels. Superman II was a little more tongue in cheek than it`s predecessor but was still considered good and did well at the box office. Then came Superman III... and after it came Superman IV... Both were not that good. Let us, in my very subjective editorial, take a look at were they went wrong and how it could have been improved. Truth, justice and SPOILERS Superman Not really much to mention about the first movie. It is, for it`s time at least, an almost perfect superhero-movie. The score by John Williams fits perfectly with the tone and story and, this is probably just me but, the space scenes have a bit of a 2001: A space odyssey feel to them. There is of course one thing that makes it end up on this list. Reversing time by reversing Earth`s rotation/traveling backwards in time                                                                                                                   In a way it`s an admirable gesture that shows that he is willing to move heaven and earth for Lois and the scene before it is a powerful one where he holds her body in his arms. But still. If he somehow made the planet spin the other way it wouldn`t affect time, the sun would just rise in the west and set in the east. Assuming that the planet and it`s inhabitans would survive the change. Some say that he didn`t actually change the rotation, that it was just a way to illustrate that he actually travelled backwards through time. It would make more sense if he used a wormhole to time-travel. But if he time-travelled, wouldn`t there be two Supermen? The time-travelling one and the one from that time-period? Oh my, I`ve gone cross-eyed! But to be honest, I wouldn`t like that either, I feel it makes him too powerful. Don`t get me wrong, I want Superman to be powerful. But there should be limits. Instead: He`s holding her body in his arms. Superman: "Lois... please... don`t be dead..." (He COULD try to bring her back with CPR. But maybe he`ll accidentally crush her chest with his superstrength or destroy her lungs with his breath? You could argue that he has learned to control his power and hold it back. Yes, but in this scene he`s in a very emotional state. Is he stable enough to control himself that much?) There is silence for a moment... Then: ba-bump! He hears her heartbeat! she`s alive! She regains consciousness and he takes her to the nearest hospital. This shows that despite his god-likeness there are limits to what he can do. Maybe not perfect, maybe it lacks something, but at least it makes sense. Superman II Donner had a different vision of Superman 2 than the one that ended up on the big screen. However, due to off-screen problems between Donner and the producers over shooting schedule and final cut privileges, Donner (who had shot roughly 75% of the movie) was replaced by Richard Lester (who had to shoot 51% of the film in order to get directors credit). I still like the film but I have to admit it lacks a little of what could have made it great in some areas. Zod being amazed by so many things on Earth. I know, Earth and Krypton are two different planets, but still. He could understand what some things are even if they are different from Krypton. Like when he lands in a lake and goes: "strange surface". What? You don`t have lakes on Krypton? Then again, from what I saw of Krypton I don`t remember seeing any, so maybe they don`t. But at one point in Krypton`s history they must`ve had lakes and oceans, right? Not to mention that he`s confused that humans don`t have superpowers. Less of scenes like these. Zod`s telekinesis powers Not poor writing, just a personal opinion of mine. I like it better if all Kryptonians`s powers are limited to the ones Superman usually has. So away with it. That stupid STUPID kid at niagara falls Now this is poor writing. I know that it`s necessary for Superman to save someone so that Lois can get suspicious, but does it have to be in such a stupid way? The kid could have been leaning to get a glimpse of/trying to photograph something and lost his balance, and he could have been on the right side of the rails! (I assume they`re called rails,correct me if I´m wrong, english is my second language.) Not perfect but at least it makes him look like less of a Darwin-award nominee. Real kids are smarter than him... I hope. That female Daily Planet employee Remember the woman who said that the other ones were just as strong as superman? The way she said it made me think she was gonna turn out to be Nelson Muntz in disguise who mocks Lois for rooting on the losing team. She could have said it like: "Oh my god... The other ones are just as strong as Superman!" As if she`s aware that if Supes loses, everyone on Earth is doomed... including her. I know, it`s a small scene, but still. The unnecessarily thrown-in "comedic" moments during the big fight The producers seemed to have thought "this is based on a comic, as in comical. Let`s force in some comedy!" You know scenes like when the man eats an ice cream and it blows away, and the man who tries to make a phonecall and still stays on the phone even when the phonebooth he`s in gets obliterated. Away with scenes like those! Superman throwing the giant "S"-shield and the holographic doubles People think of the "S"-shield thing as another Superpower, but it doesn`t have to be, it could have been a thing that he had prepared. However, since we never find out if it was a power or not and it didn`t really change much, I`d say: loose it. The holographic doubles: From what I remember (correct me if I`m wrong) this is supposed to be a superpower. Why didn`t he use this in other scenes? I would change it to: Supes and Zod and the others fighting each other by moving around quickly with super-speed. The amnesia kiss Added superpower and lazy writing. Instead of Supes erasing Lois`s memory because she can`t handle that Clark is Superman, how about: She feels that having this knowledge is hard, but she can handle it. It would be more mature that way than to reset everything to status qou. Good performance by Margot Kidder though. Superman III Richard Donner was not involved in the making of this movie. Richard Lester was the one in the director`s chair, and the small seeds that hinted the direction of where this franchise was going in the second movie had blossomed to their full potential in this one. (If you can call it "potential".) In this case I don`t feel that it`s enough to list a few points like the previous ones. I`d change most of the plot. Bad guy Since Superman fought a computer in the climax I`d pick Brainiac as the villain. Since it came out 1983 I`d go with the pre-crisis version of him. Plot Earth is visited by an extra terrestrial A.I. that comes in peace, to gather information about us and then leave to continue it`s fact-finding mission (yes, I know, it`s a lot like that episode from that animated series). The A.I. (Brainiac) exposes Supes to a radiation that makes him evil. Some of Earth`s population put their trust in Brainiac since Supes has lost it. Eventually Supes manage to defeat his bad side in a junkyard (I liked that scene so I`m keeping it) and goes to battle Brainiac who, after being defeated, flees back into space. Subplot Since Lois was mostly absent from the third movie she`ll get more screen time in my version. She thinks it`s a bit much to be Supes girlfriend so she leaves Clark to date a more earthbound man. (But she has no trouble keeping his secret though, just so you know.) There could be some scenes where the three meet that could be a little funny but also a litte sad. However, in the end Lois realizes that she still loves Clark and goes back to him. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace This movie was not directed by Richard Lester or produced by Ilya and Alexander Salkind. It didn`t make it any better though. I still kinda liked this movie more than III though. Partly because of it`s so bad it`s goodness but also because it felt more like a Superman movie than a Richard Pryor movie. Still bad though. First... NO CHINESE WALL RESTORING VISION! Nuff said. Lenny Luthor Remove most, if not all of his goofiness or replace him with miss Teschmacher or come up some other assistant of Lex. Lex breaking out of prison Instead of Luthor being freed because the two guards wanted to see what it was like to sit in an expensive car: Have Lenny/miss Teschmacher/new character come flying in with a jetpack, give Lex an extra jetpack that he/she was carrying and have them both fly away together. Badguy Since Nuclear Man was a clone of Superman I`d use Bizarro. The thing with Bizarro though is that he`s not much of a villain. Wether he`s evil or (trying to be) good he`s always mentally slow. Therefore he could be like Frankensteins monster. He may not be as threatening as Nuclear man, but at least he`s 3-dimensional. So technically, the biggest villain in this scenario would still be Lex. Bizarro would just be an obstacle. Also: He wouldn`t be solar powered. Subplots Clark`s mom would be very old but Lana could be helping her take care of the farm. So that scene where a man wants to buy Clark`s farm but he refuses because he only wants to sell to a real farmer wouldn`t be necessary. Since Lois remembers Clarks secret identity in this hypothetical movie and they`ve gotten back together there`s no point in having that scene with the "double date" with her, Clark/Superman and Lacy. This would give more room to Lois`s conflict with David Warfield over what he`s done to Daily Planet, and in some cases she`d have to have this conflict with Lacy Warfield. Plot After Lex escapes from prison he and Lenny/miss Teschmacher/new character gets a hair sample from Supes just like they did in the movie. But they create him in a lab in Lex`s HQ (no rockets in the sun). Lex fills the clone`s head with knowledge through a subliminal "teaching-helmet". The clone is at first a perfect duplicate of Supes but then turns all Bizarro-y. Lex calls him "bizarre" and adds "Oh!" as in "Oh. What the hell am I gonna do with it now!?" But realizes he can still have use for him. Bizarro causes disasters, fights Supes and wins the first round (Beginners luck?). Supes manages got get a piece of Bizarro`s hair during the fight. He gives it to Prof: Phineas Potter (a friend of Supes in the silver age comics) to analyze. Later Bizarro slowly developes a conscience. Round 2: Supes wears a protection suit and tries to use a bit of kryptonite on Bizarro. (It`s the rock that Lex used in the first movie.) Supes gave it to scientists to use against him if he turns evil again like in the third movie (Continuity!). It doesn`t work on Bizarro, they fight. Their battle puts people in danger, Supes has to temporarily incapacitate Bizarro and help them. Bizarro sees how Supes cares about others and then leaves. It ends in a draw. Round 3: Prof Potter has, by comparing Bizarro`s dna with Supes and analyzing how ordinary kryptonite affects Supe`s dna, created blue Kryptonite. Supes uses it against Bizarro. In their fight, civilians are put in danger. Supes try to keep them safe. Bizarro, even though he`s weakened, helps him. They see that they are not enemies and Bizarro turns on Lex who tries to destroy him and sends him to an ambiguous death. In the climax Lex puts on a super-armor-suit, battles Supes, loses and goes back to jail. It is hinted that Bizarro is still alive and travelling the world, trying to do good. In my version there`s no "Supes gets rid of nuclear weapons", but I hope the subplot with Bizarro`s inner journey is enough to make it feel that there are enough plot-lines. Superman Returns After being absent from the big screen for 19 years, Superman (much like the title says) returned to a world with new actors, a bigger budget and digital effects. Directed by Bryan Singer, it completely ignored the last two movies and was a big love letter to Richard Donner`s Superman movies. And it wasn`t very successful. People were not very keen on Supes having a kid with Lois (based on a scene from Richard Donner`s cut of Superman II where Supes and Lois have some nekkid action after he`s given up his powers). Plus Lex`s evil plan was pretty much the same plan he had in the first movie, except with more kryptonite. Lots and lots and lots of kryptonite. How I would have done it.

Plot Supes returns to Earth after having been out in space for a few years, searching for the leftovers of Krypton. His mom is now dead and the farm (like in the last movie) is being taken care of by Lana. She`s glad that he`s back and thinks that he should take care of the farm now because she has plans for her own life and she`s engaged to Pete Ross. Since Supes never found what he hoped to find in space Lana thinks he should try to focus on his life on Earth. Lois is dating a guy (and if there has to be a kid in this movie he/she should be the child of the guy that Lois is dating) and Lex is out of prison. I`d keep the part about Lois writing the "Why the world doesn`t need Superman" article and the part where Supes prevents the plane from crashing. When Supes travelled in space an alien being noticed him and tracked him to earth. Early in the movie Lex seems to be the main bad guy, but then it turns out to be the alien that followed Supes to Earth, and it should be... Mongul! You may ask: "Why not Darkseid?" For the same reason the Avengers didn`t fight Thanos in their first movie, he should come later. Supes fights Mongul and gets unexpected help from Lex who uses his high-tech weapons against the threat. Mongul is defeated and Supes and Lex are celebrated as heroes. Supes however doesn`t believe that Lex has changed, that the heroic act is just for show (and he`s right). Lois leaves the guy she`s dating but doesn`t go back to Supes (at least not yet). Meanwhile: elsewhere, a man is watching the celebration on a big computer-screen (he`s seen from behind and the computer-screen is the only light source in the room). There`s a butler standing next to him. They`re in a cave. With bats. (Sequel-bait!) And those are my ideas. They`re not perfect but I hope they`re not bad.        

Have to go now. I have to fight a giant metal spider for some reason.

[lillianwrites]

Sad Hearts And Black Eyes (chapter 3)

A/N: It took me so long, but the new chapter is officially here, hope you all enjoy!

Words: 3,524

When Daniel and Phil got back to the old motel, it was dark and cold outside, not a single person outside walking, hell, there was barely anyone in cars. Phil had told Daniel on the drive back his real name, and how he got into the hunting business, and surprisingly Daniel had took it well, whispering a small “Phil” in that voice that just drove Phil crazy. He didn't think daniel was aware of how attractive he really was, and that was amazing to Phil.

The motel beds were old and dusty as Phil sat down, it made a creaking groan under the pressure, but Phil paid no mind to that as he gestured to Daniel to the other bed, before pulling his phone from his duffel bag and dialing the number on his favorites.

“Whatcha need boy-” He heard Bobby say, the slur of his voice a familiarity to Phil.

“Bobby, i'm done in Kingston, i was working a case with a preacher getting killed by a demon, then this ghost showed up, heading after his son since the mother was dead and he was the only close relatives. Just finished this one up and i was hoping i could possibly head down there, visit and check in on a few things.” Phil said, getting up with a huff and beginning to pace around the small motel room. To his left, Daniel was looking through a book Phil had left sitting on the desk in the corner, it contained every known fact and legend on Wendigos, and how to hunt and kill them.

He heard Bobby sigh through the phone, and then the rough voice was saying “Boy you know damn well you are welcome here anytime. We got Dean, Sam, and Castiel down right now actually, and Ellen and Jo will be here by tomorrow, so you'll get to see everyone. Dean says he needs to kick your ass again.”

Phil laughed, happy to hear his family was there and he would get to see them. But something was keeping him from being excited, because Daniel was now a part of his life, and for whatever small reason, the thought of never seeing, or even just leaving Daniel for a day, scared him.And that scared him even more, he's never felt like this before, ad he wasn't sure what to do with the new feelings.

He looked over, to where Daniel Had put the book down and was now looking at Phil with a strange expression. God Phil had to be careful, he could get lost in the soft feature s of the boy, with his pretty brown eyes and permanent rosy cheeks, and wow he needed to answer Bobby.

“sounds great Bobby, i'm gonna pack up and then get some sleep. See you tomorrow morning, bye.”

The sound of the phones dial tone filled the air as Phil looked up again and met Daniels eyes, and Phil was positive there was sadness inside those eyes.  They looked at each other and Phil wasn't sure what to say, how to say bye, how to say anything at all. How was he to say goodbye to the person he only just got.Yet he couldn't say that, Daniel wasn't his, Daniel wasn't his to hold, kiss, or do other things that aren't so Hallmark channel friendly. Phil was confused on his next move, until he remembered a quote his old elementary school teacher had told him.

“Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage, and i promise something great will come of it.”

“Come with me.” Phil said standing up and walking over to Daniel. Daniel looked at him, shocked and confused. “What? Where? What are you talking about Phil?” He asked looking up at Phil through those eyelashes, and yeah, Phil could live with having to protect him for the rest of his life, if it meant looking into those eyes forever, wow was he being lame.

“Come with me, i'll keep you safe, travel with me.” He said looking at Daniel, scared to what the boy was going to say, he was looking ta Phil with a strange expression, but he didn't look disgusted, so Phil was going to take that as a good sign, so he decided to continue.

“I mean, obviously just because it's dangerous out there for you now, i could protect you, you could come with me, you'd always have a place to stay, food to eat, and i would make sure you're okay. Plus, it gets a bit boring out here alone.” He finished. He was pacing now, looking at his suitcase, before looking back at Daniel, who was grinning in the slightest.

“Okay, yes god i'll go with you, but what will i tell everyone? Wouldn't it be suspicious?” Daniel asked, looking up at Phil before standing up, admittedly not adding much height, but better than being at Phils knees.

Phil thought for a minute before nodding “I'll talk to the police station, say i'm taking you to your close relatives, then we just leave, they won’t question me.” He said. He watched Daniel nod, so he said “Go ahead and pack.” before packing a few of his things, so excited but also scared that Daniel was going to be with him. It was unbelievable to believe he had caught emotions for someone who wasn't even trying, he wasn't wearing lingerie and calling him names, he wasn't offering sex or booze, he was just being Daniel, and god did Phil find that attractive. One could hardly blame him for wanting to bend him over the table an do blasphemous things to him. Yet Phil couldn't, he doesnt think he could be the one to ruin something so pure and soft.

Once the two were finished packing everything but the clothes for tomorrow, Phil headed over to the light switch, getting ready to turn it off, but Daniel was walking over, eyes nervous as he stopped in front of Phil. “Phil, could i know more about you? I'm kinda scared to just leave with someone when i've known them for forty eight hours, and only just learned their name.”

Phil wanted to just grab Daniels face and squish it, but he wanted to keep up his reputation, he was Phil Lester, strippers across the nation remembered his name, bartenders and cops, he's saved more people single handedly, than the entire FBI, why was he being a giant fucking sap over some barely not jailbait kid? What was he to do however? Half of him, the better part of him, wanted to see where this could go, see if this could crush could actually be something more than Phils dick talking, but the other part just wanted to shut it down, dont let it bloom because a flower could catch on fire, and turn into a wildfire so beyond controllable it hurts people. Phil didn't want to fall victim to that fire. Feelings were Phils worst attribute, he wasn't like Dean, he didn't have a brother to punch him when he was being an unsensibe

Phil wasn't sure what part to listen to, and he didn't know if he even had a middle ground, god this is what Bobby meant when he said they had as many emotions as a potato. Daniel was staring at him now, eyes brown and slightly untrusting, and god Phil never wanted to see Daniel afraid, most definitely not of him. Sighing he walked over to the bed and sat down, gingerly patting down the spot next to him. Maybe he could spare a few facts if it made Daniel happy.

“well, what would you like to know?” he asked, watching as Daniel slowly walked over to him and sat down. The boy paused for a moment, before saying “Why did you become a hunter?”

Phil forze for a second, not sure how he was going to explain the story. “When my dad died, i took over.” he said, hoping that was a good enough answer. Daniel nodded, before asking another question. “Why are you really letting me go with you?” This one however, Phil didn't know how to answer, sap or asshole, no middle ground. he waited another moment before saying “Look kid, if you stay here alone, you'll be dead meat. I don't wanna see you hanging off some tree dead, or with your guts on the floor. You wouldn't last a day now that monsters know you're out there.” He finished. Asshole it was.

Daniel paused, and Phil could see the shining in the boys eyes, most likely from the reminder of how his father died. Letting out a soft sniffle, Daniel nodded his head, getting up and heading to turn off the light before Phil heard the other bed creak, and then silence. Phil sighed getting under the covers, it was gonna be a long night for him.

____________________________________________________________________________

By the time 10:00am rolled around, Phil was exhausted, and Daniel was almost back to sleep, even after being woken up three times. The sun was beyond bright through the white curtains,and he was so tired he honestly didn't know if it would be safe to drive. He had stayed awake all night, wondering what was going to happen now, they would go to Bobby's, stay there for a day or two, find a hunt, and life would continue on, they would go on, and be normal, well except for Daniel, Phil would teach him how to deal with it, how to protect himself,but he would never ask him to hunt, Phil doesn't know what he would do if he got used to Daniel, only to have him ripped apart by the very thing that took every Phil seems to care about.

When Daniel finally rolled out of bed with a huff, Phil grabbed his duffel bag and went to the car, throwing it in the trunk, before going back into the room and and doing the same with Daniels suitcase. When he was finished, he walked in yet again, this time to Daniel stepping out, fully dressed, but with wet, curly, and unruly hair. He looked over at Phil, before putting on his shoes, and nodding at Phil, whispering a small “I’m ready.” before he was walking out of the room and to the car. With a sigh, Phil looked around the room, before joining him, to Bobby's they went.

____________________________________________________________________________

The drive was awkward, to say the least, they rarely spoke, but thankfully, Daniel liked the music Phil had on, so there wasn't a problem with just driving, riding, and listening. By the time they hit the junkyard he calls home, it was close to 12:00pm, and Phil could feel his eyes weighing down. He pulled the car in, smiling at the 67 Chevy Impala sitting next to them, if he hadn't had such a damn good car, he'd be jealous of Deans baby, alas his car was the best in his opinion, and nothing could convince him otherwise.

Phil opened his door, stepping out and wincing at the brightness, he heard the other door open and then close shut with a slam. Daniel stepped over, eyes scanning around, clearly nervous and unsure. Phil tried to tell himself it was the new surrounding and not being with Phil that made him hold that look.

Deciding he wanted to make amends, Phil held his hand out, trying to ignore the look he got before Daniels small and soft hand fitted into his. He heard him take a deep breath, before Phil was walking them to the door, and knocking with three hard thuds. He heard yelling in the house, before fast footsteps, and then dean was there in front of him, cat grin on his face as he immediately pulled Phil into a gigantic hug. “Whats up Philly?” He asked.

He finally pulled back, and realized there was someone standing next to Phil, looking awkward and scared, ready to run almost. He gave him a strange look, but before he could say anything, Phil was explaining, he really didn't need Dean asking questions with his fat mouth.

“This is Daniel, i helped him with a ghost problem yesterday, he's gonna ride with me for now on.” He said, not liking the look in Deans eyes, as he began to open his mouth however, they heard heavier footsteps, and then Sam was pushing Dean away, and Pulling Phil into an even bigger hug, and damn, when did he get taller than Phil? Daniel must have felt like a goddamn fairy compared to sam, and for all he knew, he probably actually did.

“Dean leave them alone,come in, Bobby's in the living room, calling the world a bunch of idjits again.” Sam laughed out, before leading them inside.

The house smelled like he remembered, like old beer and salt. They walked through the house and into the living room, where Bobby was sitting, staring at Castiel, who looked equally confused, you'd be surprised how often this actually happens. When Bobby and Castiel saw sight of them, they both stood up and walked over, Castiel letting Bobby go first. The last time he had hugged Bobby, he was worried he wasn't going to see him again,with everything happening with the apocalypse, he wasn't so sure either was going to see each other again, the world was going crazy, so he enjoyed the hug, and let himself close his eyes, taking in that all his family was still alive. Once Bobby let go, he shook castiel's hand ‘that strange angel’ before he was looking around to Bobby.

“Wheres ellen and jo?” He asked, looking at  the people around him. Bobby shrugged, looking at his phone. “They should be here by the hour, if not i'll call and make sure they're okay. Now, who is this?” He asked, looking at Daniel, who stood scared, arms crossed over his chest.

“He’s the pastor's son, Daniel, we've decided he's going to travel with me, i hope you don't mind him staying with me here, we’ll be heading off most likely by tomorrow, since i've been meaning to go see a old client for a while.” Phil said, smiling when Bobby nodded, holding his hand out to Daniel, who shook it awkwardly before offering a small smile.

When everyone had calmed down, they all sat down to watch some tv and chat, but by the time an hour had passed, Dean was getting up and walking over to him. “Hey man, can we go for a walk.” He asked, and when Phil nodded, they headed outside, leaving everyone inside. As they got out of the door, Phil became worried, because Dean didn't usually offer to talk, it was always sam, so dean must be worried about something.

____________________________________________________________________________

They had made it to the gate, before Dean finally said anything. “So, there's nothing happening, going on between you and that kid in there?” he asked, looking over at Phil. Phil shook his head. “I won't lie, i want there to be, but he's so young, and he's so innocent, i'm not that good at feelings. How do you date someone who knows a hellhound ripped your father shred to shred? He's just so different man, it scares me, i don't want to get close and have something happen to him.” Phil explained, letting out a sigh.

Dean nodded, placing a hand on Phils shoulder as he stopped walking. “Look, i suck at feelings, ask literally anyone, you know that, but what i will say is that kid looks at you for everything, maybe dont date him right now, maybe see if there's something there, and if there is, let it grow, but man, if you do like me, and you just ignore it, you'll regret it, i promise. Just don't be stupid okay?” and with that, the boys headed back inside. Phil Wasn't sure why Dean brought him out here, to have this talk, but if anything, maybe he was right, maybe in time this could be something, but first, he needed to know if there was anything.

____________________________________________________________________________

When Dean and Phil walked back through the front door, they saw castiel and Daniel sitting on the couch, Daniel Laughing and saying something to cas, While Bobby and Sam sat on the loveseat, handing each other cards.

Phil walked over to Cas and Daniel, Who paused their conversations to look up at him with smiles on their faces. “Daniel, could i speak to you for a minute please?” he asked, holding his hand out to daniel, who looked up at his through his lashes before taking his hand. Once Daniel was up, Phil was dragging him upstairs, to the second bedroom, where they were staying. The old furniture reminded Phil of when he would spend weeks here, a rowdy teenager sneaking out to go talk to the girls down at the drive in.

When the door was safely closed, Phil turned around, looking down at Daniel,at the way the boys chest rose, and the way his eyes seemed to flutter, almost too delicate for Phil to believe he was real. He stepped closer to the boy, the height difference becoming more prominent, but Daniel didn't seem to understand, as everytime Phil got closer, he would back up, eyes growing confused as his back met the wall, barely two inches separating his body from Phils.

Phil finally spoke up after a minute or two of staring at the boy and his lips. “Daniel, if you don't want this, you need to say something now.”

The look on Daniels face was something Phil swore he would see for a lifetime, the boys head fell back, exposing his pale neck, and his eyes fluttered shut,a soft sound falling from his lips before a breathy and soft “Please.” And god Phil didn't need anything else in this world.

With a newfound power he didn't even know he had, he had Daniel in his arms, his small legs wrapped around his waist, and his back slamming back into the wall. His mouth was on his, wet, hot, and powerful, and man if Phil didn't feel like a god with the noises falling from Daniels lips, almost like a prayer to the older man. He couldn't stop himself with Daniels tongue wrestling his own, the boy gave in so easily, so submissive, he’d let Phil do anything to him.

Slowly, Phil was backing up, spinning Daniel around, and then they were falling, Phil on top of Daniel as the soft bed encased Daniels back. Daniel was moaning, and Phils moth was making its way down, and god it was so good, Phil didn't know how he had survived, Daniel was pliant underneath him and Phil was sure this is what heaven felt like.

Phils mouth made its way down Daniels neck, and as he landed under Daniels ear, the boy let out a loud moan, he threw his head back, and suddenly he was speaking. “Phil ah, da- oh, please, please i need, hnng”

“what did you say Daniel, what didn't you finish?” Phil asked, smirking down at Daniel, he didn't expect that word to try coming out out the boys mouth, but he was not complaining. Phil watched as the Daniel let out a soft “Please.” before whispering “Daddy, please!” and who was Phil to deny someone so beautiful.

They continued to make out on the bed, their hips occasionally clashing, but soon enough Phil was panting into Daniels neck, kissing it softly before getting up. Daniel Made a confused noise, getting up to look at him, and how was Phil Meant to make this choice? But he knew what Dean said, he needed to wait a minute, needed to make sure he wanted this, that Daniel wanted this, it was just to early, they only just met, so with a sigh he began to speak.

“I think we need to think about this, about me, and you, and if either of us want that, and then we’ll talk, okay?”  He asked, watching Daniels face as it contotrered into sadness, into anger, and suddenly he was getting up, glaring at Phil.

“you have some nerve! You come in here, make out with me, and then all of a sudden, you're worried about thinking? I haven't known you long Phil Lester, but i can tell you thinking before isn't your forte so what the hell are you on about? I'm not a kid god! I can think for myself, i'm an adult, i wouldn't have said yes if i didn't want this!” He yelled, his glare getting harder as he stepped closer to Phil, angrily pointing his chest.

Wow, Phil was not expecting that from the usually quiet and submissive boy. He was expecting him to cry, and then gree, bit i guess that was daniel to prove him wrong.

“It's not happening Daniel, thats the end of it.” he finished, holding his face in a hard look, before turned around and walked out of the room, ignoring the sigh from behind him.

[st-agatha-city]

New Content!!

Along with a bug fix patch out for St. Agatha, I'd like to introduce you to the Lester Junkyard!

"Someone dropped these off at the junkyard a while ago, and I've been holding onto them since. Any interest?" - Earl Lester

Now you can download the feature demos and bonus content for St. Agatha City here! Any future contributions to the collection will be put here as well, even after it is no longer linked on the game's main page :)

Haven't played St. Agatha City? Give it a shot at the link above! It's a city-exploring mystery game with dating and social sim elements!

Included So Far...

Roger Roger

Untitled Side Project - Bare bones demo for a game that allows you to play as Y/N, with custom name, pronouns, and appearance (reflected through text, Y/N does not have a sprite), and select romantic routes with characters from St. Agatha. The version reflected in the Junkyard is far from finished. Only Baxter and Earl have any progressing story, but Easter Eggs and dialogue are sprinkled throughout :) You just have to snuffle them out. In the future, when USP is done with development (likely sometime after Chapter One is out or coming out), it'll be availble for $5 to help support development. St. Agatha and any demos will be free forever.

[movedyoakkemae]

"You've already shown yourself to be extraordinarily brave and resourceful," Blunt said. "First at the junkyard... that was a karate kick, wasn't it? How long have you been learning karate?" Alex didn't answer so Blunt went on. "And then there was that little test we arranged for you at the bank. Any boy who would climb out of a fifteenth-floor window just to satisfy his own curiosity has to be rather special, and it seems to me that you are very special indeed."

"What we're suggesting is that you come and work for us," Mrs. Jones said. "We have enough time to give you some basic training -- not that you'll probably need it -- and we can equip you with a few items that may help you wish what we have in mind. Then we'll arrange for you to take place of this other boy... You'll go to Sayle Enterprises on March twenty-ninth. That's when the Lester boy is expected. You'll stay there until April first, which is the day of the ceremony. The timing couldn't be better. You'll be able to meet Herold Sayle, keep an eye on him, tell us what you think. Perhaps you'll also find out what it was that your uncle discovered and why he had to die for it. You shouldn't be in any danger. After all, who would suspect a fourteen year old boy of being a spy?"

"All we're asking you to do is to report back to us," Blunt said. "April first is just three weeks from now. That's all we're asking. Three weeks of your time. A chance to make sure these computers are everything they're cracked up to be. A chance to serve your country."

Blunt had finished his lunch. His plate was completely clean, as if there had never been any food on it at all. He put down his knife and fork, laying them precisely side by side. "All right, Alex," he said. "So what do you say?"

There was a long pause.

Alex put down his own knife and fork. He hadn't eaten anything. Blunt was watching him with polite interest. Mrs. Jones was unwrapping yet another peppermint, her black eyes seemingly fixed on the twist of paper in her hands.

"No," Alex said.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a dumb idea. I don't want to be a spy. I want to play soccer. Anyway, I have a life of my own." He found it difficult to choose the right words. The whole thing was so preposterous he almost wanted to laugh. "Why don't you ask this Felix Lester to snoop around for you?"

"We don't believe he'd be as resourceful as you," Blunt said.

"He's probably better at computer games." Alex shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm just not interested. I don't want to get involved."

"That's a pity," Blunt said. His tone of voice hadn't changed, but there was a heavy, dead quality to the words. And there was something different about him. Throughout the meal he had been polite -- not friendly but at least human. In an instant, that had disappeared. Alex thought of a toilet chain being pulled. The human part of him had just been flushed away.

"We'd better move on then to discuss your future," he continued. "Like it or not, Alex, the Royal and General is now your legal guardian."

"I thought you said the Royal and General didn't exist."

Blunt ignored him. "Ian Rider has, of course, left the house and all his money to you. However, he left it in trust until you are twenty-one. And we control that trust. So there will, I'm afraid, have to be some changes. The American girl who lives with you--"

"jack?"

"Miss Starbright. Her visa has expired. She'll be returned to America. We propose to put the house on the market. Unfortunately, you have no relatives who would be prepared to look after you, so I'm afraid that also means you'll have to leave Brookland. You'll be sent to an institution. There's one I know just outside Birmingham. The Saint Elizabeth in Sourbridge. Not a very pleasant place, but I'm afraid there's no alternative."

"You're blackmailing me!" Alex exclaimed.

"Not at all."

"But if I agreed to do what you asked...?"

Blunt glanced at Mrs. Jones. "Help us and we'll help you," she said.

Alex considered, but not for very long. He had no choice and he knew it. Not when these people controlled his money, his present life, his entire future. "You talked about training," he said.

Mrs. Jones nodded. "Felix Lester is expected at Port Tallon in two weeks," she said. "That doesn't give us very much time. But it's also why we brought you here, Alex. This is a training centre. If you agree to what we want, we can start at once."

"Start at once." Alex spoke the three words without liking the sound of them. Blunt and Mrs. Jones were waiting for his answer. He sighed. "Yeah. All right. It doesn't look like I've got very much choice."

He glanced at the slices of cold lamb on his plate. Dead meat. Suddenly, he knew how it felt.

- A/LEX R/IDER , STORMBREAKER.

[timclymer]

Lester Levenson’s Advice on Depression and How to Stop It Before It Starts

The World Health Organization reports that every 40 seconds, someone commits suicide. 800,000 people take their lives. That’s more than wars and natural catastrophes. There is a lot of talk lately about depression and suicides of stars like Robin Williams. Why would a brilliant and successful guy like him take his own life? What would get someone to that point? What was his mind doing at that moment that told him that was the only way to get relief form the haunting pain?

Lester Levenson, the creator of the KISS Releasing System and my teacher/friend for 11 years, had the best solutions for this. He was not only a fully realized Master, but was also a physicist and millionaire. He healed himself of terminal heart disease in 1952 at 42 and lived until 83. “The mind is the enemy”, he told me. What did he mean? It is this. The mind is like a million year old computer hard drive full of a lot of useless and infected files. It can never help us because IT is the problem. We look for answers there, but it will only make things worse. The mind is only a junkyard of the past. It is a recording/replaying machine that will not really help us. It sees the future as limited by what is stored there as our experience. Before I found and used KISS Releasing, I used to have long bouts of depression. I saw everything as dark and negative with ho hope whatsoever. It is extremely painful, and the hopelessness can drive you to end your life. I am sure this is what Williams was experiencing. His life long abuse of drugs an and cocaine exacerbated the issues.

Lester had this advice. 1. Learn KISS Releasing and use it every day. It will keep you out of depression and show the mind is lying to you. The 6 steps of KISS will keep the Truth in front of you. When we start believing the mind, we spin down into a mental vortex of negativity that we will have a hard time climbing out of. 2. Stay in the now. Depression always focuses on the past and the future and gets us into hopelessness. Both are illusions of the mind and are NOT true. Ask yourself if this is true, or is it a mind f_ck. You cannot change the past, but you CAN change your reaction to it now. 3. Read books by Masters and high spiritual people. It will keep you lifted so you can’t be sad. 4. Help others. Be as selfless as you can. You cannot be depressed when doing this. It’s impossible. “Selflessness is the greatest selfishness”, he said. 5. Exercise. It breaks resistance in your body and will lift you.

He told me the people who kill themselves will return and have to face the same problems again. So it’s not a solution, just a temporary escape. 6. Lester said, “Love, love, love. You’ll be so happy, so healthy, and so prosperous.” When you are loving, it’s not possible to get depressed.

So there is a smart man’s answers for how to stay out of depression. I use it all the time, and it works

Source by Stephen Seretan

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/lester-levensons-advice-on-depression-and-how-to-stop-it-before-it-starts/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/185642318630 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

[homesolutionsforev]

Lester Levenson’s Advice on Depression and How to Stop It Before It Starts

The World Health Organization reports that every 40 seconds, someone commits suicide. 800,000 people take their lives. That’s more than wars and natural catastrophes. There is a lot of talk lately about depression and suicides of stars like Robin Williams. Why would a brilliant and successful guy like him take his own life? What would get someone to that point? What was his mind doing at that moment that told him that was the only way to get relief form the haunting pain?

Lester Levenson, the creator of the KISS Releasing System and my teacher/friend for 11 years, had the best solutions for this. He was not only a fully realized Master, but was also a physicist and millionaire. He healed himself of terminal heart disease in 1952 at 42 and lived until 83. “The mind is the enemy”, he told me. What did he mean? It is this. The mind is like a million year old computer hard drive full of a lot of useless and infected files. It can never help us because IT is the problem. We look for answers there, but it will only make things worse. The mind is only a junkyard of the past. It is a recording/replaying machine that will not really help us. It sees the future as limited by what is stored there as our experience. Before I found and used KISS Releasing, I used to have long bouts of depression. I saw everything as dark and negative with ho hope whatsoever. It is extremely painful, and the hopelessness can drive you to end your life. I am sure this is what Williams was experiencing. His life long abuse of drugs an and cocaine exacerbated the issues.

Lester had this advice. 1. Learn KISS Releasing and use it every day. It will keep you out of depression and show the mind is lying to you. The 6 steps of KISS will keep the Truth in front of you. When we start believing the mind, we spin down into a mental vortex of negativity that we will have a hard time climbing out of. 2. Stay in the now. Depression always focuses on the past and the future and gets us into hopelessness. Both are illusions of the mind and are NOT true. Ask yourself if this is true, or is it a mind f_ck. You cannot change the past, but you CAN change your reaction to it now. 3. Read books by Masters and high spiritual people. It will keep you lifted so you can’t be sad. 4. Help others. Be as selfless as you can. You cannot be depressed when doing this. It’s impossible. “Selflessness is the greatest selfishness”, he said. 5. Exercise. It breaks resistance in your body and will lift you.

He told me the people who kill themselves will return and have to face the same problems again. So it’s not a solution, just a temporary escape. 6. Lester said, “Love, love, love. You’ll be so happy, so healthy, and so prosperous.” When you are loving, it’s not possible to get depressed.

So there is a smart man’s answers for how to stay out of depression. I use it all the time, and it works

Source by Stephen Seretan

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/lester-levensons-advice-on-depression-and-how-to-stop-it-before-it-starts/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

[jeremyau]

This Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's

Chloe Sorvino

Forbes Staff

This story appears in the June 13, 2017 issue of Forbes. Subscribe

AN AVALANCHE OF CHEESE pours into the test kitchen at the Denver headquarters of Leprino Foods, the mozzarella supplier to Pizza Hut, Domino's and Papa John's. First, thin wisps of low-moisture mozzarella, then a diced alternative, followed by an "artisanal" version, cut short and wide. Then come flavored cheeses made with a mozzarella base, as well as provolone, cheddar and Monterey Jack.

Cooks bring out a take-and-bake pizza, a New York-style pie and a stuffed crust, fresh from nearly a dozen ovens. Another course features frozen food made with Leprino products, including ham-and-cheddar Hot Pockets, Stouffer's lasagna and Smart Ones baked ziti. Then come the cheese cubes marketed as snack pairings: pear flavor with nuts or Gorgonzola with pretzels. Team Leprino next brings out dessert: salted-caramel-flavored mozzarella wrapped in hot dough, rolled in cinnamon sugar. After an hour, the plastic shot glasses appear for sampling the company's lactose and whey powders, which end up in protein bars, Yoplait yogurt, Pillsbury Toaster Strudel and baby formula consumed by millions of infants annually.

Two floors above this dairy deluge, in a dark-wood-paneled office with white marble floors, Corinthian columns and gold accents, sits James Leprino, the Willy Wonka of cheese. "It's hard for me to believe I agreed to this," the 79-year-old billionaire says. "I really like to keep my privacy."

Getty Images

Camera shy: If you Google James Leprino’s picture, you’ll get fellow billionaire John Malone. This 1978 company portrait is the only known image of Leprino Foods’ founder (right). He speaks with former president Wes Allen (left).

Indeed he does, to a nearly unprecedented degree, given the way he dominates his industry. Leprino has somehow eluded photographers for decades: A Google search picks up photos of fellow Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz and cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder. There isn't a single image of Leprino on his company's website. But after nearly 60 years running the business and more than a decade on Forbes' list of billionaires, Leprino, worth an estimated $3 billion, is finally willing to be interviewed about how his family's grocery in Denver's Little Italy became the world's top producer of pizza cheese--the slightly derisive term competitors use to describe its mozzarella. In all, Leprino Foods sells more than a billion pounds of cheese a year, to the tune of $3 billion in revenue.

Also on Forbes:

The little-known Leprino (he declined to be photographed for this article) rates as one of America's all-time monopolists. He lets others worry about fresh mozzarella balls and pizza that taste like they were made in the old country. His laser focus on large pizza chains has allowed him to control as much as 85% of the market for pizza cheese and somehow sell simultaneously to a set of customers — Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's and Little Caesars — that try to cut each others' throat in every way that doesn't involve where they buy their milk products. Dominating the market has its advantages: He's able to invest in technology that no run-of-the-mill dairy farmer ever could, resulting in more than 50 patents —and an estimated 7% net margin, which dwarfs the dairy-industry average.

Cody Pickens for Forbes

Leprino Foods is the world's largest mozzarella company with sales of more than $3 billion annually.

As the diamonds of his watch bezel shimmer on his wrist, Leprino takes out his beat-up black leather wallet, removes the rubber band holding it shut and reveals a card featuring the four company watchwords: quality, service, price, ethics. "I've got everybody keeping one in their pocket," Leprino says. "The company was growing so fast they were missing this important message."

Quality is listed first intentionally. It's easy to mock his product (Frankencheese, anyone?), but Leprino Foods is one of the few dairy giants that have never had a recall. Every Monday at 11:30 a.m., Leprino walks down to the test kitchen along with two dozen of his most trusted executives for the weekly Monday Melts meeting like the one I attended. The executives test samples of the cheese produced for some 300 clients in 40 countries and check every complaint received the week before. "Your employees have got to know you're not a phony," he says. "They've got to believe in you.

"I support what's going on, but I don't try to lead it," he adds. "My job is to hold them responsible for doing what they said they're going to do."

He wasn't always so hands-off. While acknowledging his "genius," numerous industry executives paint Leprino, in his younger days, as an "aggressive" leader who wasn't above visiting individual franchise owners to pitch his technologically advanced cheese. But very few will go into detail, and fewer still will attach their name to their comments. One pizza entrepreneur puts it this way about the man who owns 100% of this mozzarella giant: "Jim Leprino is a very powerful man."

Leprino Foods

Mike Leprino Sr. stands in the original Leprino family shop selling Italian specialties.

LEPRINO'S OFFICE BEARS testaments to his roots, including a black-and-white photo of his mother on her wedding day at age 16 and a bronze relief of James and his father rolling fresh mozzarella balls. Leprino Foods' genesis lies in the mountains of southern Italy, which Mike Leprino Sr. left in 1914, at age 16. Accustomed to high altitude, he settled in Denver; without much of an education or the ability to read and write English, he began farming. More than three decades later, in 1950, he finally opened a grocery store to sell the produce he grew. Italian specialties followed, including fresh ricotta, mozzarella balls and ravioli made by James' sister Angie.

Meanwhile, James, the youngest of five children, noticed his classmates spending free time at neighborhood pizza joints. After graduating high school in 1956, he started working with his father full-time and shared a revelation: "Pizzerias in this part of the country were buying 5,000 pounds of cheese a week," he recalls. "I thought, This is a good market to go after, so I did." In 1958, after larger chain grocery stores had forced the Leprino market to close, the Leprino Foods cheese empire started with $615.

Leprino Foods

Mike Leprino Sr. makes fresh mozzarella balls in the original Leprino Foods store.

The timing couldn't have been better. That same year, the first Pizza Hut opened, in Wichita, Kansas. A year later, Mike and Marian Ilitch opened the first Little Caesars, outside Detroit. Another year went by, and Domino's began delivering pizza, in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Frozen pizzas, introduced after soldiers returned home from WWII craving slices, were also gaining popularity. After two years in business, Leprino Foods was delivering 200 pounds of block mozzarella a week to local Italian restaurants.

Leprino realized he needed to learn the science behind making cheese on a mass scale. But with a young daughter at home and another baby on the way, he didn't have time for college. Instead, he hired Lester Kielsmeier, who had run a cheese factory in Wisconsin only to find out that it was sold during his stint in the Air Force during World War II, because his dad believed he'd been killed in action. "When Lester came, I went downtown to the junkyard and I bought a couple bigger cheese vats to make it look like we were really in the business," Leprino says.

Leprino's first coup came in 1968, when Pizza Hut was looking for a supplier that could help it cut costs while standardizing portions. After hearing that shredding 5-pound cheese blocks in the franchises was time-consuming and inconsistent, Leprino Foods started selling frozen, presliced blocks. For the first time, pizza-makers could simply layer a few slices onto each pie.

While Kielsmeier made the cheese, Leprino fixated on efficiency. He quickly realized he was dumping half his raw ingredients into the river in the form of whey, the calcium-rich liquid left over after curds are strained. Inspired by the 1964 World's Fair in New York, Leprino traveled to Japan to meet with scientists using milk proteins derived from whey to help the Japanese population grow taller. More than a half-century later, Leprino Foods remains the largest U.S. exporter of lactose, a by-product of sweet whey, and retains a large market share in Japan.

On the cheese side, Leprino hustled to satisfy Pizza Hut, which went public in 1972 with around 1,000 stores and, at its peak in the 1990s, accounted for 90% of Leprino's sales. Pizza Hut franchises would sometimes wait too long to thaw the presliced mozzarella and reported that their cheese would crumble, so Leprino Foods responded with its first major breakthrough: a preservative mist. The scientists there soon realized that this method allowed them to add flavors such as salted caramel and jalapeño. They could even make a reduced fat "cheddar" by using a mozzarella base and then misting on cheddar flavor and orange food coloring. Leprino Foods' production rose sixteenfold, to 2 million pounds of cheese a week.

Leprino Foods

Mike Leprino Sr. stands in front of the original truck he used to deliver fresh mozzarella to local Denver customers.

Just as his timing ahead of America's pizza boom proved lucky, so did his location in the center of the country. In the 1970s, Wisconsin and New York were producing most of the country's milk, but California's nascent dairy industry often priced milk lower. Leprino had the foresight to engage in some arbitrage, locking California dairy farmers into multi-decade contracts at rates that were often above-market locally but below-market nationally. Over the next two decades, Leprino Foods also signed sweetheart deals with co-ops that eventually became the Dairy Farmers of America, securing a lasting milk supply with the country's largest dairy co-op; the company also purchased and renovated some of the older dairy plants, cutting off the options for competitors who wanted to process milk. As Jerry Graf, a former cheese buyer for Pizza Hut, notes, "Jim was always one step ahead of the game."

LEPRINO'S MOST IMPORTANT innovation, ultimately, was marrying science and sales — a combination that met the needs of the four biggest U.S. pizza chains during a period when they were growing exponentially, launching one of the greatest turf wars in the history of American food.

The first key was something called "Quality Locked Cheese"--shredded and individually frozen portions--which Leprino introduced in 1986. Leprino's competitors, still mostly run by Italian-Americans with strong immigrant roots, sniffed. "They didn't believe that was what should go on top of their grandmother's pizza recipe," says Ed Zimmerman, a 30-year pizza-industry veteran. But the franchise-friendly process quickly became the industry standard, both for consistency and scalability. With a patent in place, Leprino made himself indispensable. Graf left Pizza Hut, which was still growing, for Domino's and brought Leprino's business with him, as that chain surged from 200 outlets in 1978 to 5,000 in 1989. Meanwhile, Little Caesars, with more than 3,000 stores, was growing 25% a year with its deal of "Two great pizzas, one low price." And by 1991, Leprino had become the exclusive supplier for Papa John's, which launched in 1985.

Leprino was able to grow with them all by putting them in silos, granting each company its own specs and then troubleshooting as necessary. "We treat every customer like our only customer," says Mike Durkin, a former Pepsi executive who came on six years ago to run day-to-day operations as president of Leprino Foods. "We don't discuss Papa John's business with Domino's — or anybody else's." Domino's agreed to an exclusive relationship in 1996--the contract was just one page. "It was more of a handshake than it was anything else," recalls Michael Soignet, a former vice president of supply chain at Domino's.

Cody Pickens for Forbes

Leprino Foods' ribbon cheese, which is made at its Greeley, Colorado plant.

When Pizza Hut began using a hotter conveyor oven, Leprino Foods changed the formula so the cheese wouldn't burn at higher temperatures. As delivery-focused Domino's expanded, Leprino's head cheese maker, Lester Kielsmeier, manipulated the product so that it retained its fresh-out-of-the-oven look and taste longer. When Papa John's insisted it wanted cheese without fillers--eschewing a new Leprino product that contained some — the big cheese didn't take it well. "His reflected sense of self is his patents, his business," Papa John's billionaire founder John Schnatter says of Jim Leprino. "That really means a lot to him. When I said I didn't like it, he took it personally." Within two months, Leprino switched Papa John's back to the previous blend. "Jim came at me and said,'It's going to cost you three more cents a pound.' "

Price has long been Leprino's biggest advantage, and a large one since cheese accounts for about 40% of a pizza's cost. Leprino's scale begat better prices, which begat more scale. And that scale also led to cost-saving breakthroughs that Leprino's fragmented competitors could neither catch up with technologically nor fight in patent court. "They are a biotech company that is wrapped inside a food business," Zimmerman says.

For example, in the 1990s, Kielsmeier realized that just as the cheese changed when ingredients were sprayed on at the end, certain additives used early in the process could affect how cheese melts--from how big and how brown the bubbles get to how many are on the top of the pie. On the manufacturing side, Kielsmeier cut down the cheese's aging period from 14 days to just four hours, which multiplied the company's production capabilities while cutting costs significantly.

"I would tell people,'Lester is the man that made me rich,' " Leprino says. Notably, though, Leprino never gave Kielsmeier any equity. While Leprino got rich, Kielsmeier — who came to work every day right until his death at 95 in 2012--would have to content himself with being very well paid.

FOR JAMES LEPRINO, the perks of being a billionaire are relatively muted. Yes, the company owns three private planes — a Gulfstream G450, a Bombardier jet and a small 1980 commuter plane — and his house in Denver's affluent Indian Hills suburb has 11 bedrooms, to go with an 8,000-square-foot vacation home in Scottsdale, Arizona. But he's more likely to pick up a hammer than call a repairman: Leprino, who has been known to operate a forklift at the factory, has also personally bulldozed trees around his Colorado home. A devout Catholic, he goes to church every Sunday and donates to charity anonymously. And the immigrant's son has no intention to retire, ever. "My success is a fairy tale," he says.

Leprino's succession plan is simple: He'll split ownership between his two daughters, Terry, 57, and Gina, 55, who have been on the board for years but won't take day-to-day roles. "I don't want them to be living a corporate life resentfully," Leprino says. And for now he'll continue to ensure that Leprino cheese is on as many American pizzas as possible — as well as Asian and European ones (Leprino has a joint venture with the U.K.'s Glanbia Cheese).

America's fifth-largest pizza chain, the take-and-bake Papa Murphy's, remains in his sights. Cofounder Robert Graham says Leprino visited him at least three times to try to get the company to sign on, selling the technology above all else. "It didn't perform well for our pizza, which is cooked in a home oven," Graham says. "Because of the moisture content, you could see the sauce under the cheese. It evaporated." Yet Leprino executives continue to press.

And while Little Caesars uses other vendors--industry insiders say Leprino isn't exclusive with Little Caesars, in part because the chain's blend uses Muenster cheese, too — Leprino president Mike Durkin predicts that Little Caesars will eventually succumb. "Would we want more? Probably the answer is yes, and it'll come at some point," he says.

Cody Pickens for Forbes

The storage warehouse at Leprino Foods newest plant in Greeley, Colorado.

Meanwhile, Leprino will pursue new markets. Leprino has invested $600 million in a factory in Greeley, Colorado, that specializes in "ribbon cheese" — bulky 2.5-pound blocks that are popular among frozen-pizza companies. It's also created an in-house "innovation studio," designed to ride the coattails of food trends. One creation, Bacio ("kiss" in Italian), is catering to artisanal-pizza-makers by offering mozzarella with a kiss of buffalo milk. It's Leprino Foods' most expensive cheese — and its fastest-growing.

Leprino is also rolling out the company's first direct-to-consumer product, a whey protein powder called Ascent, which will have a dedicated wing at the Greeley facility. While Leprino still produces whey protein as a by-product of making cheese for its clients, Ascent is filtered straight from raw milk to protect key proteins and vitamins that help aid muscle recovery. Leprino hopes that will be an edge in the $6.6 billion-and-growing U.S. protein market.

There is plenty of history to remind Ascent's team of their roots. Ascent's space sits atop the original cheese factory's loading dock and warehouse.

"I remember the first day that we had this set up," says Mike Arnold, who is overseeing Ascent's launch. "Jim Leprino walked in here and was like,'Ah, this reminds me of the old days.'" A new, fractured market, primed to be dominated.