#to quote “give you a better internet experience” unquote

[writergeek]

might be just me, but i never let sites access my location. i mean, it should be enough that I'm visiting you. why do you need to know where i live?

except for maps. you might need to know.... but only when i'm driving somewhere. or, you know, actually buying something and i need said thing delivered to me. but other than that?

you can pry my location out of my cold, dead fingers thanks.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: INFP with social anxiety here. I have a therapist but we're focusing on some other issues right now. In the meantime, I was wondering if you had some advice for me. I know you're not a professional (you say that multiple times in your posts) and of course I'm not asking you for a fix for my social anxiety with this - I'm just asking your help to understand what part my cognition could be playing in all of this cause I'm really curious.

Basically, my problem is the time frame right BEFORE I meet someone and, sometimes, immediately after. I don't really have problems socializing in the "middle", if you get what I mean; I'm easily adaptable and once I'm relaxed, once I realize no one is there to attack me, my mind starts getting ideas and I kind of know what to say, even though I'm a bit out of practice and I still have problems convincing other people of my emotions (like, mirroring their emotions so that they know I agree with them and stuff like that; for some reason they never ---believe me when I say it with words).

When I make plans, anyway, and I still haven't met the person, I get this anxiety: like I would rather stay home than go there because it's going to be "boring" and I'm probably going to feel like an idiot or make some sort of social gaffe. I mean, I do kinda get bored after a while anyway, but I also know I tend to overestimate that level of "future boredom" to the point it hurts me to even think about showing up and forcing myself to think of stuff I can-- say.

I get anxious because I start thinking about the way people used to treat me in the past (I've always been the black sheep of my family and/or my social circles and I vividly remember some bad things they used to say to me) and I start worrying that, deep down, they still think of me like that and they're never going to forget that "preconception of my identity" and open their eyes to who I am now, or I guess to who I've always been.

I do realize it doesn't make much sense, this "who I ----really am" part - but I've always had the impression that I was a bit different than the "me" they percieved, maybe because after many, many years of being accused of "selfishness" and "inability to tune in with the emotional atmosphere" I learned that in order not to ruin the "social mood" I should've adapted myself to the group - but the problems is that I suppressed "myself" in the meantime (and with myself I mean, like, my real interests, the things I'd like to talk about for ages without-- having to be interrupted or looked down on because, quote unquote, "ok, cool, but we don't really care").

I understand now that if they don't give me hints of actually caring about the subject I should stop rambling like a fool, but this is making me feel like I have nothing "useful" to offer them and therefore bringing the anxiety I'm struggling with. It makes me scared that I'll never be able to be myself around them because of the "social rules" I want to respect to be accepted, & to make----it worse I'm out of practice like I said before and sometimes it just gets too awkward and I want to get out of there.

I bet I'm doing something wrong because friendships and relationships in general are not supposed to be "boring", am I right? And yet until I don't get distracted by the actual conversation, I feel like it's going to be really boring and uncomfortable and sometimes going through it is SO horrible... most of the time I end up making up some excuse to go home earlier and talk----my internet friends instead (thank God for the internet!!!!). Anyway, thank you if you'll answer! And have a good summer vacation c:

-----------------------

The first thing I notice is that your thought process bears a very striking resemblance to many INFJs who struggle with social anxiety due to poor Fe development (see past posts). As a general rule, if I have good reason to suspect that someone might be mistyped, I won't provide info about function development until they undergo a proper type assessment. Otherwise, they might adopt the wrong method of improvement.

You say you want to understand what part your cognition plays in the social anxiety you experience, so I will mention the aspects of your cognition that seem most significant:

1) No Chill: You overthink things to an extreme, to the point of self-sabotage, perhaps even creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. when expecting the negative actually makes the negative happen). Overthinking means that you're not confronting the real obstacle getting in the way of your socializing. You're constantly trying to envision, imagine, or predict what will happen in a social interaction? WHY? What's the point of that overthinking? It's how you avoid confronting your fear head on.

2) Insecure: Your "predictions" are too often faulty because of being tainted by your underlying insecurities. You're insecure about being attacked, being accused, being misjudged, doing something wrong, being deemed of no value or unworthy of care, not being accepted or acceptable, dying of awkwardness, feeling bored, feeling uncomfortable, and on and on. You've described your thought process in detail. But nowhere do I see you confronting your insecurities, digging deeper into them, in order to understand the root of them. Insecurities are a manifestation of fear.

3) Control: Irrational anxiety is oftentimes about trying to control things that you shouldn't be trying to control or cannot have any control over - it wastes mental energy and leads to futile behavior. As long as you're trying to control social situations and their outcome, you are either trying too hard to make reality match up with your expectations or you're fumbling whenever reality unfolds outside of your expectations - you become rigid and frail. You claim to be "adaptable" but everything you say after that only proves you don't know the meaning of the word. You can't handle unpredictability, hence, the attempt to be in control by trying to "predict" everything. Do your attempts to control actually work? Do they help or hinder you? If they mostly hinder you, then isn't it time to change your strategy? Anxious people often believe that having more knowledge or control is the answer to their fear. But, in your case, the huge cost of being controlling is being incompetent. What's worse, the fear is still right there running the show.

4) Unresolved Trauma: You attribute your troubles to your past. Fair enough. Growing up in a social environment that did not respect and appreciate you is painful, even extremely traumatic for certain personality types. It also makes people too hungry for validation. It's natural that you wouldn't want to feel the pain of it again. However, if that pain remains unexamined and unresolved, you will unconsciously keep seeking to resolve it, which means re-enacting the trauma over and over again throughout life. The proof? Every time you meet someone, your first stance is defensive, because the first thing that comes into your mind is that you don't want to be attacked or invalidated. That old pain is running the whole show because you are deeply afraid of experiencing it again, yet you don't realize that YOU are the one calling it back up and rehashing it. What are you doing to resolve the pain rather than indulge the fear?

5) Self-absorbed: Social anxiety makes people too absorbed in their own thoughts, feelings, hopes, and expectations. They are too preoccupied with what they want, what will happen, how they will be perceived, how they might make a mistake, how they might be attacked, etc. This means they're not truly present with people, so the relationship can't really go far. Driven by fear and insecurity, they are always behind a wall, too difficult to reach.

Even if you happen to meet the right people, do you make it easy for them to befriend you? It seems that you can't open up with ease, you can't go with the flow of the other person when they don't live up to your expectations, you can't keep your emotions in check and misjudge situations, you get bored when it's not about you, you run away instead of making things better. Looking at yourself objectively from the outside, would you want to be friends with someone like that?

If you want to have good friends, you first have to BE a good friend. You want care, love, and validation? We all do. The best way to receive it is to be the first to give it. By being more aware of other people's needs and doing more to show that you care about them, you put them in a better position to care about you and meet your needs in return. This is the difference between actively trying to "make" a friend vs passively wishing for a friend to drop into your lap.

Being a friend isn't about what "value" you have, as though you're some kind of object being appraised and sold. Being a good friend is quite a simple matter of putting out the energy to care and show that you care. When you meet someone who's moved by your care, they will care for you in return. When you meet someone who's unmoved by your care, figure out the real reason why, in order to determine whether you should keep trying or put your energy elsewhere.

You never really know who you'll hit it off with. One of my favorite experiences in life is making a friend in the unlikeliest of places. As an adult, meeting new people is a numbers game. All you can do is keep pushing yourself to meet new people. The more people you meet, the greater the odds of clicking with someone. If you're looking to meet like-minded people, go to places that are likely to have people who share your interests. If you don't hit it off with someone, simply move along. You don't have to be friends with everyone, do you?

Yet, you take every little social interaction so seriously that each step is like life or death - that's what makes socializing tiring, laborious, and unfun. Why not enter into every social interaction with an open mind and an open heart? Why not truly go with the flow, without having to undergo the repetitive ritual of predicting what will happen or fussing over what did happen?

6) Poor Emotional Intelligence: This point is the common thread that runs through the previous points, which is why I keep repeating the word "fear". You have extremely low tolerance for negative feelings and emotions, which means you really need to work on learning how to deal with your emotional life better. Any little sign that things won't turn out the way you want and you start to panic, overthink, blame, or flee. Why do you recoil from yourself and your own feelings and emotions? Why are you so easily shaken by boredom, awkwardness, invalidation, failing, other people's negativity, etc? Why do you react so badly to these things (when others just brush it off and keep going)?

7) Low Self-Awareness: It's not enough to just name the fear ("I'm afraid of____"). Does the label explain why you have this particular fear and not some other fear? It's not enough to blame the past ("It's because of ____"). Why did someone else with a similar past as yours not develop this fear? To get to the root of fear, you have to identify, in exact terms:

what aspect of you has to change to overcome the fear

what aspect of your identity has to "die" (i.e. be let go of) in order to evaporate the fear

Until you answer the fear properly, it won't go away.

[traincat]

I saw your posts about Spider-Man on twitter but I’d rather message you anonymously because I’m shy; anyways, I saw your reaction to that video of Zendaya, Tom and Jacob to the is Spider-Man Jewish question. And their reactions pissed me off so much. They were all so dismissive of the questions and actually laughing at it. I myself am Jewish and was really excited to see so many people talking about Peter being Jewish and now I keep flashbacking to that horrible video 😡

Please don’t be shy! I don’t bite first. But I completely respect your right to be anonymous, particularly on this subject, which has garnered some heated discussion on several sides. If you saw my tweets I’m fairly sure you know my stance on it. I’m going to elaborate anyway for the unaware, free of twitter’s character limit, as to why the MCU Spider-Man cast’s reactions to being asked if Spider-Man is Jewish was frankly very inappropriate.

For those who haven’t seen the clip, it’s here. (Please don’t harass OP for posting it more than they’ve already been harassed for daring to point out the antisemitism in the clip, I just don’t feel like finding the whole Wired video.) I have multiple problems with this, starting with the fact that I personally feel like it’s a setup. The focus of this -- both from the critical and defensive sides -- has very much been on the actors themselves, but I want to walk it back a little bit, because while their reactions to the question were undoubtedly both ignorant and hurtful (there’s nothing inherently humorous about asking if a character is Jewish, so I’m not sure why Zendaya was laughing), ultimately I think the larger problem is why this was allowed on the internet in the first place. The actors themselves may be young -- though I will point out they are all adults and professionals, and this isn’t the first interview for any of them -- but their managers aren’t, and it’s hard for me to believe that if a company with as much range and influence as Disney didn’t want religion discussed in promotional material for the film that they couldn’t have that material blocked. It’s less difficult but much more questionable for me to believe that nobody saw these young stars’ reactions to the question “is Peter Parker Jewish?” and no one decided that the content needed to be refilmed so it came off less mocking or that it should be cut entirely. Let me be really very frank: a group of non-Jewish actors should not have been asked this question, even if their reactions were respectful and inclusive towards the Jewish identity, because their opinions don’t matter. The opinions of Jewish creatives matter. These actors most likely (or, based off their reactions, definitely) don’t have the tools needed to recognize the Jewish coding within the character the way a Jewish creative does, and their opinion on the subject doesn’t matter compared to that of a Jewish person. Take, for instance, Andrew Garfield’s insightful comments drawing on his own cultural experiences as a Jewish person, or Phil Lord of Into the Spider-Verse’s description of Peter Parker. This is not a flat out condemnation of Tom Holland, Zendaya, or Jacob Batalon, but it is fair to say that none of them are experts I would call upon to discuss the Jewish history of Spider-Man, given that none of them are Jewish or, based on the linked interview, apparently have given Judaism and the history of superheroes any serious thought. Which, again, is not their job or a faction of their identity, so I can’t exactly blame them for it. It’s disappointing that they are not more open minded and better spoken on the topic, but not surprising that they aren’t.

That being said: their reactions were completely inappropriate and borderline antisemitic. Let me make it perfectly clear that you don’t have to be acting with malicious intent to be antisemitic; antisemitism is ingrained in our culture, in our jokes, in our popular media, and it is incredibly easy to fall prey to it without realizing what you are doing, and these three young and very influential stars reacted to the notion of Peter Parker being Jewish as if you’d asked them if he was Martian. I’ve seen a lot of people attempt to excuse the comments by saying that the actors were “taken aback” or “surprised” by the “randomness” of the question, but there’s really nothing random about it when Andrew Garfield was quite outspoken about Peter Parker’s Jewish identity and when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had Peter B. Parker very notably have a Jewish wedding, which for me lends some doubt to Zendaya’s claim that she’d “never heard anyone ask” that particular question, all the while giggling like something was funny. It’s quite possible she’d never heard it before, but that means she’s divorced herself from greater discussion involving other adaptations of the story, including discussions that took place six months ago when Spider-Verse was in theaters. I’ve also seen plenty of people attempt to let Tom Holland off the hook for his comments, saying that he only said “I don’t know” when in fact he prefaces that with “I don’t think he is.” 

Let me be very clear: that these young actors lack of knowledge about the Jewish coding of Peter Parker and the long Jewish history of superhero comics isn’t the problem. They are being paid to portray roles, not to know everything about the history of those roles they are portraying. The problem is the language they employed when the question came up. It was dismissive, it was insulting, and it was antisemitic, whether or not that was the intent of the speakers. Again, you don’t have to be actively malicious to be antisemitic. “Is Spider-Man real” was treated with respect while “is Spider-Man Jewish” was hurriedly and thoroughly dismissed. Let me be very clear: I would not have a problem with this clip if Tom Holland had simply said “I’m not sure”, or if Zendaya had said “I hadn’t heard that before, but that’s interesting,” or anything along those lines, being inclusive about the idea of Peter Parker being Jewish even if they weren’t hardline approving of it. The fact was there was no support for the concept of Peter Parker’s Jewish identity, only giggly or confused dismissal, and that is not the way to treat any marginalized identity, and I frankly can’t believe that people would rather side with the actors in a moment of ill-spoken and insulting dismissal of Jewish people -- acting as if it’s a total impossibility that Peter Parker could be Jewish -- than with the Jewish people who rightfully feel hurt by their insensitive comments. They’re fine, people. They still got paid far more than anyone taking offense at their careless words. They didn’t go down a hundred points in the secret Jewish gold stock market. They probably didn’t even notice the backlash from Jewish fans among their 18,000 other social media notifications. Nobody is quote-unquote “canceling” them for being ignorant of Jewish history in superhero media and pop culture and for speaking carelessly. Perhaps there should be greater consequences, like, at the very least, a public apology for their careless language and laughter, but honestly, that’s very unlikely, so you don’t need to defend them. They’re probably fine.

I said this on twitter, but I’m going to say it again: a lack of knowledge about Peter Parker’s Jewish coding or the long history of Jewish creators and subtext in superhero comics, especially when Marvel was getting its start as we know it now, is not a bad thing. It is not bad to not know this. If you didn’t know this, you’re not a bad person and you shouldn’t feel bad or guilty for just learning it. We all have things we are unaware of or that we don’t possess the cultural tools to recognize. That’s part of having an individual human and cultural experience. The problem becomes when this is brought up and instead of being interested or at the very least inclusive in their language, young influential stars dismiss it outright. Tom Holland’s “I don’t think he is” could have easily be “I didn’t think he was, but that’s an interesting point to look into”, whereas Zendaya claiming she’d never heard that could’ve easily been “I didn’t know that.” Simple as that. Minor changes, but a world of difference. These stars may be young, but they are professionals, and they should be expected to act in a professional manner. Instead, they chose in the moment to dismiss it entirely. And like I said, this is not entirely their fault, because I do think that upon their reactions either a reshoot should have been ordered with their handlers giving them tips for more inclusive and less offensive language, or that the question should have been cut entirely if it wasn’t going to be taken in good faith or discussed seriously. But it wasn’t. This was viewed as appropriate discussion and aired. And, as inappropriate as the actors’ words were, and as much as I personally believe they should apologize for those statements, that is not their solely their faults. Someone should have corrected them for their own good and for their own growth. There should have been people looking out for their images who should have said, “hey, this doesn’t look good, this is coming off like you’re dismissing the Jewish identity and experience.” But there weren’t, because the Jewish interest is not viewed as marketable, and therefore insults to Jewish people -- intentionally malicious or not -- are not viewed as things that need to be managed. And that is deeply unfortunate and very telling of how people in Hollywood, an industry that wouldn’t exist without Jewish people, currently views Jewish people. And I have to say, I expect better of young professionals in 2019 than when faced with a question about marginalized identities like Jewish people to either dismiss or laugh through the inquiry instead of paying it the minimal amount of respect by at least pretending to entertain the notion, even if they don’t personally believe it.

Ultimately, I have to say, none of this is surprising if you view Disney as thoroughly managing their own brand (and know that their own brand is heavily antisemitic), when Spider-Man: Homecoming contained several depictions of Jewish people that either unsettled me or struck me as inappropriate. The first is the black hats on the subway who glare at Peter -- poor little MCU Peter, who people are endlessly willing to woobify and excuse -- and then, in his school, the kid in full Orthodox attire, when a child at that level of religious dress would never have been at that school because a secular school could not properly address his religious needs and when the New York Orthodox community is famously insular. No, everything the MCU did in Spider-Man: Homecoming, in my personal opinion, reflected the harmful opinion that you can “spot” a Jew, by having men in full Orthodox dress glare at Peter Parker on subway, by having a child in his multicultural school in full Orthodox dress instead of simply wearing a yarmulke or a Star of David necklace like, say, Kitty Pryde was famous for during her debut. There’s nothing wrong with highlighting the Orthodox community, but when that is all the Jewish representation in your film, with no plot reason for doing so, it strikes me as distinctly odd, as if you’re trying to separate the Jewish contingent from the rest of your audience. When Marisa Tomei, who looks a certain kind of ethnic, is identified in-universe as “the hot Italian woman”, lest anyone think her Aunt May and therefore Peter Parker might be Jewish. The message then becomes: you can spot a Jew. And you can’t. That’s harmful. That’s what led to me in my grandmother’s rented apartment while she was dying while her nurse ranted to me about her landlord the “evil Jew”, afraid to say anything in case she harmed my grandmother while I wasn’t there. That’s how that ends up. So I’m sure Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon didn’t view their comments in the moment as harmful, and I’m sure the people who are defending their naivete and ignorance about Jewish culture and the Jewish history of comic books are only trying to speak out towards their favorite actors, but there are real consequences towards this type of language and this type of behavior and this lack of respect for the Jewish identity, and this isn’t something that can just be brushed off. And those are my thoughts on the subject.

The MCU already took careful decisions to erase to the Judaism from Spider-Man, notably following Andrew Garfield’s open declarations about Spider-Man’s Jewish identity. Now its actor are following suit. It’s hard for me to pretend it is a total coincidence, especially following Into the Spider-Verse’s Peter B. Parker with his Jewish wedding scene, voiced by Jake Johnson, who is from a Jewish family, which came out barely half a year ago. It’s both fine and normal to be unaware, especially if it’s not your background, of the Jewish history of Spider-Man. It is not fair or appropriate, especially if you are not Jewish, to dismiss the notion that the character could be Jewish without any kind of consideration, and it is especially not fair to laugh at the notion. I don’t have a lot of faith that the actors involved will learn from this, but I sincerely hope that they do and that they behave better in the future, because they did hurt and insult a lot of real Jewish people whose feelings should not be ignored. 

[rasoir-national]

@ghostplantss​  tea is such a fine luxury to have! i never know where to start with teas. which ones do you like? oolong is awful lovely i don't think i knew it was blue before

Oh boy, I am as glad you asked as you’re about to be sorry you did. I humbly present to you :

A GUIDE TO MOTHERFUCKING TEA

By Raz

A Very White European

Part I - Basics

Okay the great thing with tea is that you can take any of them and make them taste like crap. It’s like a superpower that everybody has. I’m not going to make a lecture out of this, but there are two basic rules to respect if you want to actually taste what you bought.

1) THE WATER MUST NOT BOIL !

Fun experiment : put a teabag in cold water. Nothing happens. You’ve wasted your time. Tea works because oxygen trapped in hot water opens up the leaf which frees odouring particles. But if you boil the water, then there’s almost no oxygen left. It will still sort of work, but it won’t even be close to the actual taste of the thing. If you’ve had a oopsie, just had a bit of cold water into the teapot.

2) Respect infusion times

I used to think I was too good for those. If you go over, it will still taste like tea, but most of the secondary flavours will be gone, and it will be much more bitter. You don’t have to buy fancy hourglasses like *some* people, but still respect the basic guidelines : 2 min max for white, 3 min for green, 4-5 min for oolongs, 5-6 min for black, 7-10 min for infusions.

That’s it. Contrary to most purists, I’m not opposed to teabags. Yes, loose tea tastes better, but you know, I’m on a budget too. Onto actual recommendations.

Part II - Brands

Look, I may lose my french citizenship over this, but I’m the most basic shopper when it comes to “gourmet” products. To me, there are only four wines (fruity red, bitter red, fruity white, sink-unclogger white) and three cheeses (gruyère, gooey and gross). Tea is the only thing I’m willing to spend money on, because really, if you don’t aim at least a little bit for quality, you might as well be drinking hot wet garbage. Do yourself a favour and stay away from Lipton, which is owned by Unilever - really, all you need to know.

The upside is that it really pays off to go to an actual tea shop and pick something you really like. Also, one of the rare socially accepted opportunities to go around sniffing everything like a goddamn pervert.

When it comes to luxury brands, I don’t know what will be available to you where you live ; personally, I’m most familiar with french brands, of course. My favourites are L’autre Thé, le Palais des Thés, Mariage Frères and Damann frères.

If you don’t want to spend objectively way too much money on loose leaves, there are plenty of middle-range brands : Kusmi Tea, Lov, Clipper. I’m personally not a fan of their blends but they’re perfectly fine.

And if that’s still too expensive, my advice is to look into green/fair-trade brands. In my own experience they have the best quality/price ratio. Also, the mysterious tea from the quote unquote “ethnic foods” aisle of the supermarket with google-translated info on the box ? The one you’ve never seen anybody buy ? It’s good, actually.

Part III - Actual recommendations

I tried to make a ranking of my favourite teas, but that quickly proved impossible, so instead I’m presenting these in increasing order of how insane you’d be to trust me and try them. I’m a stranger on the internet. Remember the PSAs.

0) Infusions !

This one doesn’t really count since it doesn’t actually have tea in it, but for that reason it’s a good entry point into hot beverage + taste. You have classics, like my personal fave apple&cinammon, and less so, like thyme, which feels like chugging a sunday roast. Also, contrary to popular belief, they’re not just for sleeping : I’m fairly convinced those pills they give US seal teams so they stay awake are just concentrated hibiscus infusions. It’s what I use when I do an all-nighter.

1) Perfumed green tea !

It’s light, usually fruity or flowery, and it’s great for everybody. I’m partial to Jasmine and Lily of the Valley, but you really can’t go wrong with green tea.

2) Green mint tea !

I’m putting this one separately, since it’s the only case in which I take sugar in my tea. I was lucky enough to have an Algerian friend who showed me how to make it : you take basic Chinese gunpowder tea, put it in water, then throw the water away to wash away the bitterness, pour again, then put fresh mint leaves in it, and then just a BUTTLOAD of sugar and you don’t stir. Then you pour it by doing the fancy trick with the teacup super high that my friend did perfectly and that I’ve never been able to reproduce.

3) Perfumed black tea !

We’re starting to get in the zone. You can basically make any flavour with those. Sweet, fruity, flowery, spicy, woody, musky... I personally prefer those last three categories, but there are all sorts of fun blends you can find. This is where we find Christmas teas, the best thing in the universe : they usually have a sweet/fruity base with spices (usually cinammon & cardamon). Since it’s the time of the year, I really encourage you to try those. They’re a good indicator of the sort of flavour you might like.

4) Oolong tea !

This is actually my favourite kind. It’s not usually blue, but it’s recognizable by its slightly burned taste, usually coupled with a secondary flavour like roasted chesnut, fried rice or hot milk. My favourites are from Taiwan (especially the Dong Ding) and Vietnam, but the Chinese ones are great too. I’d say it’s a good entry point into tea that mostly tastes like tea, it’s really easy to like and it goes great with any meal. It’s also quite good iced.

5) Rooibos !

This kind of tea has a fun rust colour and comes mostly from South Africa. Its base is very woody, with secondary flavours that are usually “exotic” fruits. It’s caffeine-free, and a good entry point into “harder” flavours.

6) Raw black tea !

This is where you find all the classic British breakfast types : Earl Grey, Ceylan, Darjeeling, Assam... I personally prefer the last one for its spicy taste. Ceylan and Darjeeling are a bit too bland in my opinion, but I do like a good bergamot Earl Grey. If you’re looking for something a bit stronger, I recommend Chinese varieties : Yunnan and Qimen are my favourite.

7) Smoked Chinese tea !

I’m putting this black one separately because I love it so much I could cry. There are a few different varieties, but you gotta try the Lapsang Souchong. It’s what it says on the tin : very smokey, very excellent.

8) Korean Maesil-cha !

I only tried this one recently. You know how I said green mint tea was the only sugary tea I drink ? This one does it one better by adding fucking plums and leaving the skin in the cup. It probably gave me diabetes, but it’s quite amazing.

9) White tea !

This is tea with minimal processing that is only left to infuse for a very short time, resulting in a strong grassy scent. I recommend working your way up to those, but they are of course excellent. I’m basic : my favourite is the Baihao Yinzhen.

10) Raw green tea !

The only reason I’m putting this so high on the insanity list is those freaking Japanese green teas. You know macha ? That thing every white person loves ? Well real macha is thick as hell, it has weird bubbles, sticks to the bowl and tastes like fish. I’m not kidding. I’ve been a vegetarian for 5 years and it gave me whiplash. It’s not my favourite thing in the world, but I’m gaining more of an appreciation of them. I fell in love with the Sencha Yabukita variety last year. Taste the sea.

* I should note, if you’re a vegetarian as well, a lot of those (as well as some black teas) did indeed involve animal products at some point in their making. This is personally the one exception I give myself in my diet, but do check your tea ingredients if that’s a problem for you.

11) Pu Erh !

Technically speaking, Pu Erh is tea that’s rotting in dirt. Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you about Pu Erh, the best thing in the universe. It’s mossy, it’s heavy, it’s powerful, it costs 25€ for 100g. The one I own (Mariage frères’ Pu Erh Supreme) is more expensive than most of my clothes, but it’s really the kind of thing you have to try once. Plus, if you’re that high up the insanity scale and you still trust me, you owe it to yourself to see this to completion. Every single person I forced to try it hated it. It delights me. I’m not hardcore by any means, by the way, I just have very white friends. Also it looks like this :

So that’s my unnecessarily complicated recommendation list ! I know you probably didn’t want something that detailed, but talking about tea is one of the things that make me happiest in the world. Thanks for indulging me !

Also, if I didn’t make it sufficiently clear at this point, I’m very white and therefore open to any and all corrections/additions by someone who didn’t just fall into tea when they were 16 the same way white girls get way too much into hip-hop.

[funface2]

Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire

Blake Griffin landed a dick joke about Caitlyn Jenner at the Comedy Central Roast of Alex Baldwin, which aired last weekend. “Caitlyn completed her gender reassignment in 2017, finally confirming that no one in that family wants a white dick,” he said to roars of laughter. Was the joke offensive? Racist? Hilarious? All of the above? For her part, Jenner took the dick joke in stride. “Caitlyn was down for it,” one of the writers of the roast said. “She was like, ‘Well, you know, I’m gonna hit hard. I want them to hit me hard.’ And so we did.”

Dick jokes have existed throughout history in nearly every culture known to man, from the greatest literature of all time—Shakespeare and James Joyce—to ancient graffiti. “Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!” some anonymous guy scrawled on the wall of a bar in the Roman city of Pompeii around 2,000 years ago. They have been staples of comedy for millennia for a reason: They’re nearly universally appealing.

“Whether you’re rich or poor or black or white, everyone laughs at a dick joke,” says comedian Aaron Berg, who hosts a recurring show at The Stand in New York City. (Berg also hosted a somewhat controversial, entirely satirical show called White Guys Matter that addressed some aspects of white male inadequacy.)

One comedian has elevated dick jokes to poetry, launching them into the realm of high art: Jacqueline Novak, whose one-woman off-Broadway show about blow jobs, Get on Your Knees, manages to make the dick joke both hilarious and high brow. She’s not the first woman to tell a dick joke, nor will she be the last, but she is perhaps the only one to devote a show almost entirely to the penis (with a few minutes sidetracking to ghosts) and be feted by The New York Times for doing so.

Novak, who has been called a “deeply philosophical urologist,” may represent a tipping point in dick jokes, because her show is finally allowing people to see the wisdom (yes, wisdom) in penis humor.

“I don’t even think of myself as like, interested in telling penis jokes. I certainly wouldn’t sit down and go, I’d love to do a show about penises,” Novak says. “I think it’s more like an investigation of my heterosexuality. Does [being heterosexual] mean I love the penis? I’m interested in the language that I’ve been expected to use or accept as legitimate about the penis. Here’s all the reasons that that’s ridiculous.”

Novak’s show is replete with riffs on our “ridiculous” penis language, from the fact that we say the penis is “rock hard”—”No geologist would ever say, this quartz is penis hard“—to the idea that the penis penetrates a woman—”You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up! Spit you out, and you loved every goddamn second of it.” In some ways, Novak is the perfect teller of the 21st century dick joke, not only because she is chronicling our hangups about the penis, but also because without a penis of her own, perhaps she is able to see the dick more clearly for what it is, in all its ridiculousness and beauty.

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

But for the most part, phallic culture remains incoherent. Men are pilloried for exposing their dicks, while Euphoria is celebrated for its 30-penis episode; dick pics are critiqued like Picassos or seen as a public menace; judging a man by the size of his penis is perfectly acceptable or grossly objectifying; porn covers every inch of the internet, yet Facebook won’t accept ads for dildos. Dick jokes are still looked down on as cheap—to be fair, some of them are blatantly bad—but some comics say that isn’t always fair.

“Dick jokes, if you craft something amazing out of them, could be the funniest thing someone’s ever heard. And funny in a way that like, opens your mind up even,” says comedian Sean Patton. “That’s the most important kind of comedy, where you laugh at something to the point where you’re now a little more accepting of it. And that can range from anything to other people’s sexual orientation to accepting your own mental illness.” Patton’s own extended dick joke, “Cumin” on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, has been viewed over 2 million times on YouTube.

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

Novak uses the blow job to critique cultural expectations of masculinity and the pressure women feel to become skilled at sexually pleasing men. “The teeth shaming starts early, of course,” she says in her show. “If you have your full set of teeth…don’t go into a room where a penis is. It’s not safe for him. Why would you put him at risk?”

Patton likens the dick joke to a “Trojan horse” of comedy. “You make them laugh hard at dick jokes, now they’re listening,” he says. “Then you can throw in something a little more meaningful, and they’re on board.”

Not that all dick jokes need to be intellectual to be taken seriously. The song “D*** in a Box” by The Lonely Island, featuring Justin Timberlake, won an Emmy. It turns out the concept wasn’t exactly new. “Decades before The Lonely Island, B.S. Pully was doing that in the ’40s and ’50s,” comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff says. “Pully would be holding a cigar box at his groin, walking down the aisle. [He would] start a show saying, ‘Cigar, would you like a cigar?’ Then he would lift up the lid, and there was a hole cut in there, and his dick was hanging out. The audience would go crazy.”

Dick jokes continue to thrive off audience reactions, according to several comedians I talked to. Bonnie McFarlane, who is best known for her appearance on Last Comic Standing and her Netflix documentary Women Aren’t Funny, began telling dick jokes when she started out in 1995. “You tell dick jokes because it’s a very male audience, so that’s what they want to hear about,” she says. “It’s been a thing since comedy started. People can really kill if they’re just doing dick jokes.” But there is a double standard, she says, when female comics are made fun of “for talking about their vaginas too much.”

That Novak, a female comic, is revolutionizing the dick joke makes sense, considering that historically, “the vanguard for so-called dick jokes and sexual material comes first and foremost from women rather than men,” Nesteroff says. He points to female comics Rusty Warren, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and LaWanda Page as “probably the four quote-unquote ‘dirtiest’ comedians of the ’50s and ’60s, more so than Lenny Bruce, more so than Redd Foxx.”

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

He also says African Americans pushed dick jokes further than any other ethnicity. African-American comedian Page’s albums from the 1970s were rich with dick jokes, referencing “the size of the man, the endurance of the man,” Nesteroff says. As Page recites in her 1973 comedy album Pipe Layin’ Dan: “Husband, dear husband, now don’t be a fool/you’ve worked on the night shift ’til you’ve ruined your tool/you’d better go hungry the rest of your life/than to bring home a pecker so soft to your wife.”

“LaWanda [told] dick jokes for the same reasons a lot of black comics do, because they had to come up in the chitlin circuit, which is basically comedy clubs or bars or places where only black audiences mainly go,” says comedian Harris Stanton, who has toured with Tracy Morgan. “When I started comedy [in 1999] I started in the chitlin circuit,” he continues. “Urban comedy became this big explosion in the United States. A lot of the young black comics couldn’t get into a lot of mainstream clubs, so they would have to perform wherever they could, and dick jokes were welcome to those places.”

African Americans were pioneers of the dick joke, but they definitely weren’t the only ethnic group telling them. Three of the other female sex-joke pioneers Nesteroff mentioned were Jewish. Pearl Williams was known for roasting overweight men when they entered the comedy club by asking, “How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?” Lenny Bruce, one of the most famous Jewish comedians, was arrested for saying schmuck on stage in 1962. Seven years later, another famous American Jew, Philip Roth, published Portnoy’s Complaint, which is essentially a 274-page dick joke, or so some claim.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

“I probably owe a debt to Philip Roth that I’m not even fully aware of,” says Novak, who is Jewish. She references him directly in her show, joking, “I went off to college feeling good. It’s a Catholic-ish college. Lots of virgin boys scurrying around, scrambling for sexual experience at parties. Not me. I’m a Jew and I did the coursework in high school, so I felt like a Philip Roth figure. A Jewish pervert ready to teach.”

Jewish male comics may be drawn to dick jokes, according to Berg, who is Jewish, because, “the fact that our penises were intruded upon at a very young age probably gives us a fixation on it and makes us want to talk about it more.”

Dr. Jeremy Dauber, the Atran professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University and author of Jewish Comedy, traces Jewish dick jokes all the way back to the Bible. The earliest case of laughter in Jewish tradition is Sarah’s laughter when she’s told that her 100-year-old husband Abraham will give her a child. It is “a laughter about male impotence,” Dauber says.

But comedians aren’t just laughing at penises anymore. Novak is going in the opposite direction. “I’m trying to restore [the penis] to true dignity.” Will her intellectual blow job jokes allow the dick joke to be taken more seriously? Will future comedians have to deal with the flack that Patton still gets in his reviews?

“Even like positive reviews, sometimes they’ll still point out there’s also a lot of cock, cock cock,” he says. “Why do you have to make sure everyone knows that you thought some of the subject matter was lowbrow?” He thinks reviewers roll their eyes at his dick talk because “everyone constantly is terrified that those around them don’t think that they’re that smart.”

Comedy is one of the only art forms that allows us to talk about male genitalia so openly and democratically. Whatever form the dick joke takes, from idiotic to intellectual, from poetry to prop comedy, as long as it gets a laugh, it should be celebrated. And there’s no better way to diffuse the angst surrounding the modern-day penis than a well-crafted dick joke. The more we laugh about penises (and not just at them), the happier the world might be.

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”  

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/best-dick-jokes-through-history-why-sexual-comedy-about-men-is-important-esquire/

[lewa358]

Let me tell you about these things I like to call “Rancid Garbage Questionnaires”.

Let’s say that you’re a bright, young high school student looking to enter the workforce and Do Things to get some delicious moolah. You go through the usual troubles, entering your name, address, phone number, and other potentially relevant information into various text boxes. You painstakingly recount every detail of what little previous employment you have, and you stretch your brain thinking of potential references you can list that aren’t just your mom’s friends. But finally, after what feels like hours of typing, reviewing, and uploading, it is time.

You take a deep breath, pray to whatever god or gods are feeling particularly friendly that day, and click “submit”. Whew, you tell yourself, at least that’s over. You get up to stretch your aching fingers, your mind already thinking about the Mario game you’re about to play downstairs when...

The Rancid Garbage Questionnaire rears its ugly head.

The Rancid Garbage Questionnaire is an employment toll designed by grouchy old geezers as a panicked response to the Internet Age. The basic idea is that, since applicants no longer have to physically hoof it to a physical store using their squishy, physical bodies, there will be a tremendous deluge of qualified applicants. Now, a responsible employer would take the time to interview every one of those applicants, but no one has time for that in today’s dystopian cyberpunk society, so now we have to get the robots involved.

Oh, no, not a real robot, that you can punch in the face when they get on your nerves; that would cost money, and no employer wants to do that. No, the only way that the interview process can be automated is with tests. Multiple-choice tests about subjects that have no real answer.

The first part is simple in appearance but absurd in its execution: you’re given a list of opinionated statements, and you’re told to describe how much you agree or disagree with them by filling in the relevant bubble—“strongly agree”, “strongly disagree”, etc.

These statements initially seem like they’re easy to agree to; why yes, I would agree that “My friends think I am a valuable team player”! But then you come across statements that are seemingly designed to incriminate you: “I am known to anger easily”, “I consider myself to be a quiet and shy person”, “I often get frustrated”, etc.

On one hand, it should be my duty to answer these questions honestly and accurately, so as to give the creepy A.I. that will transmit my responses to my employer a good understanding of just what kind of schmuck they’re hiring. On the other, it is also my job to make myself look better than every other applicant.

So with that in mind…who in their right mind would say that they “strongly agree” to saying that they “often get frustrated”? I mean, a reasonable employer might realize that everyone with a pulse gets frustrated frequently, but I doubt whatever algorithm that this test is using will be so understanding. Same with being shy; I’m one of those guys who is about as charismatic as a brick wall when I’m in a new social environment, but give me a week and I’ll be cracking jokes and referencing outdated memes with the best of ‘em. But God forbid that I have a chance to explain it before the test judges me into oblivion for not being a social butterfly.

Eventually, this madness stops, only to be replaced by an even worse variant: The Hypothetical Scenario. In this portion of the Rancid Garbage Questionnaire, the test describes some situation that needs to be resolved, and you’re supposed to choose which of four or five options you would choose. Typically these involve a belligerent customer or conflicting orders from multiple supervisors.

What really grinds my grits about this section is the little message at the start of it, where the test somehow insists that there is no “right” answer to these questions. That changes this from a test like the kind that 16 years of public education has granted me mastery over into some sort of completely unfamiliar nonsense. All my life, I have been trained to look at these types of questions and systematically eliminate the incorrect ones; now I’m supposed to pick the one that, uh, feels better than the rest?

But that’s not the worst of it. Oh no. See, the long and short of the matter is that I should be asking my employer these questions. How can I, a dumb kid who never worked a quote-unquote “real” job in my life, be expected to know how to handle unusual customer requests or thieving co-workers? I am absolutely willing to be taught this information, but it’s being held like some kind of trade secret! Surely employers would benefit by teaching their employees about company policy on the job itself, so why am I being quizzed on information I cannot be expected to know until then?

After what at least felt like a full hour longer than you intended to spend on one simple, stupid, minimum-wage-paying job application, you finally reach the end of the Rancid Garbage Questionnaire, and with it you finally, finally have applied to a grand total of one job. You look back on the experience with confusion and regret. You think to yourself, Should I have really chosen “contact my supervisor” for that one? Or, on second thought, I don’t think I do work well under pressure, but it is too late.

No one will ever mention this application again, even if you get an interview. Somewhere, an incomprehensible algorithm has already sorted through its findings and assigned your personality to some specific, quantifiable value, and has lined up your results against other applicants’ who answered the questionnaire more favorably than you.

But you don’t know that. You’re too busy looking up another store to apply to. You tell yourself, hey, at least I know how to answer these types of questions now.

You are wrong. And you will never know why.  

[mrsrcbinscn]

Script Excerpts: Franny’s Top Albums of 2019

[playlist]

tl;dr: A selection of script excerpts from a video on Franny’s YouTube channel called “My Favorite Albums of 2019″. Pretend I finished this in December like I wanted to and that January isn’t nearly over okay

Her channel doesn’t have a super regular upload schedule. She doesn’t feel like adding ~~~youtube personality~~~ to her long list of wikipedia page job titles. And she keeps her social medias (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram) firmly in the “this is for fun” part of her mind. She doesn’t make any sponsored videos or posts on social media but when the mood strikes she’ll upload videos about music, music history, current trends in the industry she’s noticing and her thoughts on them, album reviews, and her favorite content to make is videos where she signal boosts several lesser-known artists in one video and fangirls over how much she loves them and why y’all should, too. 

INTRO: Susadei*, hello, and welcome to my channel, where I, Franny Sor Robinson, share my pesky lady opinions about music on the internet.”

*susadei is the informal way to say hello in Khmer, Franny’s first language

TOPIC INTRODUCTION: It is almost Christmas, which means! It’s time to talk about my favorite albums of 2019. As always, this list is in no particular order, because I believe that especially when talking about multiple genres of music - which we’re going to today - music isn’t something you rank on a linear bad, worse, worst, good, better, greatest scale. 

RULES: Now, the rules!

The album can’t be one I had a part in “And I don’t just mean not a Franny Sor Robinson, Seoul Hanoi’d, or Dara & Danny album. I am an active songwriter and composer even durin’ years I don’t personally release an album. I have co-written substantial amounts of, or entire tracklists, on several albums where I don’t sing or play an instrument on the recorded album, but I’m all over the credits. I think I do enough shameless self-promotion leading up to, and shortly after, the release of anything I work on. So as much as I loved working with Sariya Ibekwe - who is a fabulous Nigerian-American jazz singer - on her debut album this year, I co-wrote a good amount of that album. But, I’ve already talked about Sariya’s album extensively this year, and will link to it in the description box below anyway.

The album can’t be by a close personal friend of mine “I would spend these videos talking only about my friends’ releases if I didn’t have a strict no cronyism rule in these yearly roundups. I hype up, like, Daniel, Vanessa, Yulia, Delia, Lora, Andreas’s, and so on’s stuff whenever anything new drops, so they already got their signal boosts.”

Beyond those two rules, that’s really it. So without further stalling, let’s get into it.

Traveling Mercies by Emily Scott Robinson

The first album I want to talk about is Traveling Mercies, by North Carolina singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson - no relation, but oh my god, I wish. I’d love to just meet her, once. She’s so talented, I just - ugh! Anyway.

Emily Scott Robinson is a country singer whose first album, Magnolia Queen, came out in 2016 but I didn’t come across it until after I fell in love with Traveling Mercies. Daniel Maitland - the other half of Dara & Danny - sent the Spotify link of this album to me, and I just ate it up. Her songwriting gets me good, y’all. Her imagery is somethin’ else, her voice has the clarity of Alison Krauss, and her ability to deal with some very heavy themes poetically without sort of...glorifying? or trivializing? them is unreal. 

I should trigger warning this upcoming bit for discussion of sexual assault, so if you’d like to avoid that, I’ll put a timestamp right here [points] for you to skip to. I’ll give you oooone more second to skip, and...okay. 

I had a hard time listening to The Dress at first, because whenever I consume any media that deals with sexual assault, I have to mentally prepare myself. Even the song I wrote about my own experience with it, I don’t - I don’t perform it. Very rarely, I will. It was a write it, record it, release it for your healin’, and try to be done with it kinda thing. But once I psyched myself up to listen to it, The Dress pretty much immediately became one of my favorite songs on this album. I do sometimes have to skip it if I’m not feelin’ up to it mentally, but it. It is a beautifully written song about a very ugly thing, and I think- I think its a wonderful thing that she wrote that song.

[...] and then there’s my favorite song on this entire album, the one that honestly gave me a moment of “oh. OH, she went there.” Pie Song. It starts out by literally, she’s literally singin’ about how to bake a pie, and it made me so nostalgic for home, because I remember being taught by my friend’s mom to make a pie just like that. Don’t skimp on butter for the crust, add a little moonshine, but then she just, the next line goes right into the chorus and its, “but nothing you can make, can make you good enough, if you’re cooking for a man that doesn’t love you.” When I first heard that shift in the song - honey, when I tell you my chest just [both hands go up to her chest] it was powerful. Even though it isn’t the saddest or heaviest song on the album, it’s my favorite. The clear imagery - I could smell the pie she was singing about, I could feel the flour on my clothes - , the plot twist. 

Among the songwriting circles I’m in, this album is pretty popular with them for her songwriting. We go absolutely bananas for it.

Her songwriting is gonna take her places. I really can’t wait to see what she comes out with next. I’m a fan. I love her. SO much. 

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WHERE DO WE GO? by Billie Eilish

This is probably the most quote unquote, mainstream album on this list. Billie’s undeniably a known name, and rightfully so! 

This album, y’all? Amazing. Flawless. True art.  I’m always hesitant when my son tells me what the Kids TM are listening too, because I usually- mm. Far be it from me to gatekeep music, to say what’s good and what’s bad, so I’ll just say that it. Usually isn’t. My, uh, my thing. It doesn’t appeal to me, and that’s fine!

But I- the first couple seconds of ‘bad guy’ got me payin’ attention, at ‘all the good girls go to hell’ I was just like Wow, capital W, and ‘bury a friend’ had me floored. Billie Eilish’s album is probably one of the most interesting, unique, and complex albums I’ve ever listened to. I really- I love this album.

Walk Through Fire by Yola

We’re back in the underground country music scene because of course we are! Yola is a fantastic singer from Bristol, England. On iTunes this album is classified as rock, but her EP titled Orphan Offering was under country, and her music has a very americana-indie-country feel.

Yola’s voice is the best part of this album but that’s not to knock on the music and the songwriting because they are also amazing. I can’t talk about this album and not talk about Yola’s voice, specifically, though. Her voice is like a warm cup of ginger tea on a cold day. It’s husky, and bluesy, on some songs kinda jazzy, and the musicality she displays on the album is really dynamic. She’s soft and smooth, then she’s belting out some high notes, but she’s not spending the entire album hittin’ you over the head with her belting. She really gives you a sampling of what all she can do on this album.

My favorite song off this album is Shady Grove it’s just - it’s - I love everything about it. The string section. The sitar sound. The gentle percussion, and ohhh my good god, the melody is just beautiful. It makes me wish this album was out when my son was little, because [pouts] its a song that reminds me of the song I used to sing to him when we first adopted him, and I’d just kinda hold him in my arms ‘n sway and sing to him. It’s such a beautiful song, it isn’t even the deepest or most profound song on this album but it is the most beautiful song to me musically. And I was want to hold a baby and sing it to the baby, so bring me your babies. Gimme.

Seneca by Charles Wesley Godwin

I’m going to get into this album in a second, but first. We all know I am a slut for odes to one’s roots. I made a whole video talking about how despite its memeability, John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads is actually a masterpiece. The short film I co-wrote and co-starred in with the director Lydia Viravong, a Lao-American I grew up with, is filmed and set in our hometown and based on our mothers. The Dara and Danny album ‘Progidal Children of Clayton County’ is a loveletter to me and Daniel’s hometown in Clayton Count, Georgiay. 

And that’s exactly what the album Seneca is. Seneca is an album about West Virginia. Charles Wesley Godwin grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, a coal minin’ town. The Seneca Creek ran through his back yard, his daddy was a coal miner, mama’s a schoolteacher - he had a very quintessential coal mining town upbringing. And you know, your upbringing shapes you and this album is all about his love for where he comes from.

The imagery in his songwriting is just [chef’s kiss] perfection. And as someone whose affection for her roots is just as strong, I really - this album made me emotional as all hell. A lot of it is really sad, if I’m being honest, but that’s also because its so honest. For example,  the song Coal Country, tells the story of how West Virginia’s coal industry was the lifeblood of the West Virginia mountains, praises the union heroes of the Battle of Blair Mountain, and laments that in place of prospects for West Virginians, there’s now only food stamps and opiod addiction. 

Seneca Creek...the full version is beautiful, but the acoustic version gives mechills every single time. He wrote it about his grandparents’ love story from when they met in ‘49 to when his grandmother got sick and died in ‘94. It reminds me of Holly William’s 2013 song Waiting on June. It isn’t the happiest song, but even after the verse where the wife’s passed away, the chorus following it isn’t sorrowful. It just goes 

We built a home by Seneca Creek And raised ourselves a family I worked on the farm, you worked the store We had everything we'd ever hoped for

The narrator of the song is just talking about how he lived a simple life with the love of his life. That’s what the song is about, ultimately. And that’s beautiful. It makes me really, really feel lucky to be married to my husband when I listen to it, because for me, that’s what being married to him is like. 

Strawberry Queen is ro-man-tic as HELL! It’s about his WIFE, and as someone who is also trash for their spouse and writes way too many cheesy-ass love songs about him....I love it. It’s beautiful. I cried a little but don’t tell anybody I have emotions.

The last sad one I want to mention is Sorry For The Wait. It is a beautiful song where the narrator’s been killed in a mine explosion and he’s telling his wife not to cry for too long, that he’s buried in the clay and so will she someday, and he’s sorry for the wait. The third verse gets me bad. 

When you miss talkin' at me, holler t'wards the mine It's amazing how your voice echoes inside When the winter breeze tugs at your hair Jus know that it's me with a grin standing there

I’m not! Okay!

 HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Before I talk about the final album I want to gush about, I do want to mention four albums that I truly enjoyed but in an effort to not make this video go on forever and ever, I didn’t write a whole explanation about why they’re so great. But I really do think deserve a shoutout!

LOVE + FEAR by Marina

Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent by Lewis Capaldi

Closer Than Together by The Avett Brothers

Wildcard by Miranda Lambert

Farmland by Gabe Lee

I can’t believe I haven’t plugged this guy yet because Gabe Lee’s album is fuh-king amazing. Gabe Lee is a country singer from Nashville whose sound you can tell has been influenced by classic country, modern americana, and like classic singer-songwriter types like Bob Dylan. It’s hard for me to interpret 100% of the time what his lyrics are about because at times his writing is pretty abstruse - oooh, pull out your thesauruses, kids - but the imagery in vivid. Its easier for me to talk about what this album makes me think of and how it makes me feel than to outright tell you what its all about. Farmland makes me think about drivin’ out in the woods in my high school boyfriend’s pickup to makeout and drink beer under the guise of deer hunting; or trying to sneaky-clean my muck boots after cuttin’ school to go fishin’  with my brothers; or pulling into a gas station in the middle of nowhere and handin’ some cash for pump one to a clerk that looks like he’s been there since the invention of petrol. There’s this grit to it that’s plain at the same time. Like there’s nothin’ particularly rebellious about skippin’ school to catch some fish, but it’s gonna get you muddy and sweaty. 

The music is very simple and that’s one thing I like about it. It doesn’t feel overproduced, it just feels very classic. Like this album would easily have been made in 1979, 2009, or 2019. The standout song on this album, to me, is Last Country Song. Daniel [the other half of the bluegrass-folk-americana duo Dara & Danny] thinks its Eveline, which is another one of my favorites. The most fun song on this album? Lyra, for sure. I have a lot of feelings about this album, I love this album, and I really hope you give it a listen.

Also, y’all know that as an Asian woman in country music - well, kinda. I got one foot in jazz, and one foot in bluegrass-americana-country-southern-folk, and then I got a hand in indie - [jump cut] LOOK, genre is a social construct, okay? I make whatever music I wanna make and you can like it or hate it. What was I talking ab-- oh! Gabe Lee!

Right, so, y’all know, clearly you can see, I’m very Asian. [*gasp*, puts on a generic American accent] What do you mean you’re not white? [normal voice] Shocking, I know. I like to highlight other artists of color as often as possible, but of course I’ll signal boost whoever I think is fantastic. But whenever I come across another Asian artist in these [air quotes] “white people” genres, I get really excited. And Gabe Lee is Asian-American, which again, we don’t see very often in country music, or like, other genres that we consider “Americana.” So yeah, I think that’s really cool.

[bluegrasshole]

do all the get to know your author questions bc they're all good and i can't pick

ko…. you need to work on your decisiveness (but thank you)

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

i mean.. not really. i had decided not to write any more fanfiction to focus on an original story i started but then… i wanted to get used to the setting, work through some personal stuff… kind of warm myself up while still writing the other one… so i’m writing a nurseydex lighthouse story like i said i would

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

my entire fanfiction.net account is bad. so so so bad. and surprisingly recent. also i HATE my early zimbits stuff, but of course one of them is like my second most popular piece so i can’t delete it. like really hate. and it’s frustrating because i have good stuff from that time period, so i don’t even fucking know what was going through my mind.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

chronological but i tend to go back and add things obsessively. i like getting the skeleton down first just to get the basic plot and know where i’m going, then i go back to add in details – the meat of the skeleton if you will… and you know i like details

4) favorite character you’ve written

any dex is my favourite, but also specifically jack from samwell gentlemen’s hockey because he cracks me up, and i really loved writing parvati in that one parvender piece. 

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

camilla? in strange lovers i didn’t even know i was writing camilla until i realized like 3k in that my character who i’d named millie and was blonde was in fact… camilla. she snuck up on me

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

oh… i do go back and fix things often (in strange lovers i went back to rewrite parts of ransom’s character and his role months after i originally posted it because i realized i had written some pretty shitty stuff regarding black men) but, meh, row upon row is always one i’d like… want to go back and fix, especially the rushed ending, but i can’t go back and change it now because it’s been read by too many people…

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

super embarrassed. only my best friend knows because she’s also a writer but i still don’t feel super comfortable talking to her about it. we’re getting there with each other. she doesn’t write fanfiction ya feel though i think she’s read some

8) favorite genre to write

lmao idk i like writing comedy but plot is hard so i don’t often do it. character studies i guess, AUs, angst

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

music, and listening to people tell stories about themselves or others, just being around people is inspiring to me. i recently went to a show that was a mix of folk music and storytelling about prince edward island? and it was incredible i left there feeling so invigorated

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

i do most of my writing in a café a minute from my apartment, with or without music depending on if my wireless headphones are dead or not, always w a blended matcha latté

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

oh man. i mean since i started writing in like, 2010? i mean, everything, obviously. but since 2015 – christ. still everything? well, definitely verb tenses/points of view/epithets/general structure and technique, definitely better at rhythm though that took some serious work and a couple stories focussed solely on rhythm and flow. i think i’m much better at nuance now – weaving different themes together to make at least a semi-coherent story… and general prose, i think. finding a balance between minimalism and appropriate imagery. i’m more comfortable playing around with grammar then i used to be. idk, i think my voice has just overall developed into something clearer and distinct from others.

12) your weaknesses as an author

plot and dialogue-heavy scenes. i like writing dialogue and i think the lines themselves are good usually, i just have a hard time, like finding the balance between dialogue, dialogue that has to accomplish something, and prose. and writing a neat point-a-to-point-b plot is a losing battle

13) your strengths as an author

i’ve been told setting, and i think that’s about right. i get obsessive about crafting like, a complete world where it feels like there are things that happen outside of the plot and the main characters. building fucking lore into the setting is the most fun for me. i think the details make the story.

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

heeeelll yeah

15) why did you start writing?

idk i spent a lot of time on the internet and all the quote unquote cool kids were doing it. i was in a RP where we were all pretty close friends (still follow them on all social media including fb) and we just like, wrote each other fic. i was pretty good at writing before then (for a kid) and even was runner-up for a national award or something in grade six? i barely remember what it was for but i do remember the piece was called “autumn’s opus” and it was comparing the seasons to an orchestra or a piece of music idk. it was pretty killer for an 11-yr-old if i do say so myself

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

oh i don’t know about haunt but i do get sad about jack and kent all the time

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

read your dialogue out loud to see if it sounds natural (it probably doesn’t) and put dooooown the epithets. it’s lazy writing and you don’t need them. and reread reread reread reread. in different fonts, different colours, on differents days, out loud, by different people… reread!!

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

absolutely anything by fluorescentgrey but especially her historical AUs, familiar’s character designs and rawness, waspabi’s dialogue and humour, montparnasse’s prose and tenderness, misandrywitch’s everything, and this piece which inspired a tattoo and pushed me to start experimenting with my own writing a couple years ago… among many others

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

oh i usually just give up halfway through that’s how

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

usually i go to the café and sit for like 5 hours and if i get a few hundred words out of that i’m happy

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

ugh it’s so bad and shitty and i hate it all

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

well, yeah. i don’t like writing about religion so i just… don’t, much. strange lovers had the most religion of anything i’ve ever written. and i’m cautious about writing about race though i’ve done it a few times… i don’t super like writing traditional coming-out stories because i just don’t care all that much so i’ll usually twist them around somehow if they’re necessary. 

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

all of my life experiences inform my writing. that’s not me being facetious i just mean that i really like listening to people tell stories and telling stories myself and gossiping etc that i think it’s clear that i prioritize that in my writing

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

ah yes coal mining in 20th century nova scotia lmao

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

the very first paragraph from my nurseydex wip: 

There are days where you think you could lose yourself in the fog and there are days where you wouldn’t mind. When you wake and it’s there eating the world up, surrounding it all like a living thing, voracious, and it’s even hungrier at night, and the only thing that reminds you you belong to the earth and are tied to it like the oldest and most solid daybeacon in the harbour is the horn, loud and long and haunting and filling. And the light. The light, the light, always the light.

[jeff-rosenstock-paper-blog]

Jeff Rosenstock, Bandcamp, and “Pay-What-You-Want”: A Better Indicator Than In Rainbows

In Rainbows: A Retrospective

In 2007, Radiohead shook the music industry by releasing their new album In Rainbows as a free download on their website.  Fans could still donate as much as they felt the album was worth, but this “pay-what-you-want” model was seen to be revolutionary in the face of piracy, label control, and the growing ideal of “free music.”  For the first time, the majority of the music world was exposed to a new way for artists to deliver music in the digital age.

As the first major album to use the “pay-what-you-want” model, it’s easy to shape In Rainbows as a revolutionary release that helped predict our current scene where many independent bands do something similar via sites like Bandcamp.  However, when discussing the viability of this model, In Rainbows is a poor case study for how well it would work for smaller bands.  Although it was the first time many had heard of the concept, it’s hard to overlook that Radiohead is the kind of band that’s just too big to fail.  Their past albums OK Computer and Kid A are widely regarded as two of the greatest albums of all time, while Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, the albums that preceded In Rainbows, sold nearly a million copies each.  They’re one of the most widely respected contemporary bands with a rabid fanbase – their albums are going to sell just fine regardless.  Although In Rainbows outsold both these albums – 3 million sales after one year, 1.85 million of which were physical copies – it was unlikely to ever fail simply based on the band’s massive popularity.

This distance from the thousands and thousands of smaller bands didn’t go without criticism.  Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth denounced it, noting that “It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them.  It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever.”  A similar editorial in The Guardian asks “But can [a smaller act] make a living from music in an age when music is free?”  Even Thom Yorke, Radiohead’s frontman, admits this was just an experiment: “It’s not supposed to be a model for anything else…But it only works for us because of where we are.”  He goes on to say that “If you’re an emerging artist, it must be frightening at the moment” to engage with the industry and major record labels.  In contrast, those who have been in the industry for a while have a solid footing to work with.

A Better Case Study

With all this in mind, it’s clear that despite In Rainbows bringing the “pay-what-you-want” model to the mainstream attention, it is not the proper case study to consider how well it could work for smaller independent artists.  Thankfully, there is someone else we can examine: someone who’s been releasing music for free through a digital label for years, even predating In Rainbows.

Meet Jeff Rosenstock, a punk musician from Long Island.  Rosenstock was originally in the punk band Arrogant Sons of Bitches, but broke up the band after they started to face differences in their business ethics.  He went on to form Bomb the Music Industry!, a punk collective that focused on keeping the music free and affordable for their fans.  Most notably, the band released all their music for free online using Rosenstock’s new label Quote Unquote Records.  Quote Unquote calls itself the “first ever donation based record label,” giving users the option to donate what they think the album is worth through Paypal.  This model extended into their live performances, which were strictly all ages shows with ticket prices capped at $10 to keep them affordable.  Fans could bring blank CDs and T-shirts to get free physical versions of albums and handmade shirts at concerts.  

The recent documentary on Bomb the Music Industry!, Never Get Tired, traces the origins of this pay-what-you-want model through Rosenstock’s childhood.  He discusses being a teenager during Napster’s peak and how having a mass collection of free music online helped him and other teenagers explore the music they otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to.  He also cites Fugazi as an influence for this DIY (do it yourself) ethic, an older band who also fought for affordable ticket prices and relied on word-of-mouth promotion rather than turning to larger record labels.  Together, these influences drove Rosenstock to release his music for free and limit merch sales at shows in favor of donations.

The influence of Napster seeps into the overall mission and goals of Quote Unquote Records – the idea is to get heard, not immediately sold.  The label’s website says “We have simple goals which is to put out good music, put out fun music and help our artists get heard…While some people who are very uncomfortable with embracing a new technology swear that this is going to kill rock and roll, I have seen first hand that it helps bands increase their audience and allows fans to discover tons of great bands.  Then, usually at a show, people will buy a CD or something if the band is really good.”  This is very different from what Radiohead were doing.  Quote Unquote Records is focused on small bands who need exposure getting found through the Internet.  One band in Never Get Tired noted that no one was showing up to their shows until Rosenstock put their music online and advertised them.  Suddenly, their shows had over a hundred kids who knew the words to their songs.  Meanwhile, everyone’s heard of Radiohead.  No one needs a reminder that they still exist and still write incredible music.

Amazingly, Quote Unquote Records worked, and Bomb the Music Industry! survived from 2006 until their farewell show in 2012.  None of them ever made enough money to live solely off of the band – in Never Get Tired, Rosenstock talks about day jobs including driving trucks to deliver set pieces for a Nicki Minaj video – but it was enough to live off of during tours.  They never became rock superstars, but they weren’t exactly wallowing in poverty, either.  The point was always to just get the music out there.  In a 2010 interview with Jewcy, Rosenstock reveals, “Most people don’t donate, but the people who do usually donate more than the asking price.  People sometimes donate 50 or 100 bucks.  At the same time 20,000 people downloaded [the album] Scrambles in the first month and we got 70 donations.  But, I don’t really give a shit, because that means 20,000 people downloaded a record I wrote, and some of them might have liked it and that was the whole point.”  So long as the music got out there and people showed up to shows (which they did), the band survived just fine.

In a 2015 Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”), Rosenstock comments on this relative success: “…I could just record stuff for free, throw it on the Internet, and people would hear it.  When I started Quote Unquote, I just wanted people to hear other bands…And luckily I’ve had a few bands (Cheap Girls, Laura Stevenson and The Riot Before…) who have gone on to be pretty successful after getting their music out there to anyone who wants to hear it.  So if there’s some huge roadblock that people who don’t release music this way are AVOIDING, well, I just don’t know about it.  This shit seems pretty rad to me.”  Here, we see that not only is the pay-what-you-want model viable, but several of the artists who started with Quote Unquote went onto become well-known figures in the industry.

In addition to his business practices, Rosenstock’s views on the music industry have always played a prominent role in his art.  Clearly, Bomb the Music Industry! takes its name from this ethos, but this theme sneaks up in his lyrics as well.  “All Ages Shows” ends with the plea “My friends ain’t all that bad / We play all ages shows / And we’ll start on time if you decide to go,” emphasizing the moral value of all ages shows.  Most prominently, his 2016 solo release WORRY. emphasizes his anxiety over corporations latching onto and monetizing the culture he helped to develop.  “Festival Song” outlines this best with the scathing verse:

Take a long look at the billboards That smother the air ‘til you can’t ignore ‘em And glamorize department store crust-punk-chic ‘Cause Satan’s trending up and it’s fashion week But this is not a movement, it’s just careful entertainment For an easy demographic in our sweatshop denim jackets And we’ll wonder, “What just happened?!” When the world becomes Manhattan Where the banks steal the apartments just to render them abandoned

When asked about “Festival Song,” Rosenstock claims he’s not “trying to call anybody a sell-out,” but rather is concerned with the modern mentality of accepting corporations’ roles in music: “I just feel like people, at this point, don’t think that you can do it another way anymore…Do something on your own and do something that you like.  If you don’t want to be involved in that, don’t be involved in that.”  Beyond skewering corporations for capitalizing on punk culture for the sake of money and popularity, the fact that this came out in 2016 emphasizes Rosenstock’s lifelong commitment to his views.  WORRY. was, like everything else Rosenstock’s done, released for free on Quote Unquote Records (with additional distribution handled by label SideOneDummy).  The fact that so little has changed in ten years in Rosenstock’s practices while he continues to fight for the little guy in his art lends him a perfect level of credibility for his fans to crowd around.

Rosenstock’s Model and Bandcamp Today

It’s clear that Jeff Rosenstock is a better model for examining the success of pay-what-you-want in the digital age, and the best place to see its viability for small acts is the website Bandcamp.  Launched in 2008, this online music store allows any artist to upload their music for streaming and for purchasing at prices set by the artist, including a pay-what-you-want option.  The pricing scheme is simple: Bandcamp takes a 15% cut of whatever fans donate, while the artist pockets the rest.  No middle-man record labels are in the way here.  Many budding artists will go for the pay-what-you-want model, focusing on getting their music heard rather than sold in the hopes of awareness and eventually live ticket and physical merch sales.  Sound familiar?  Whether or not the founders of Bandcamp were directly inspired by Rosenstock or Radiohead, it’s clear that the model is much more in line with what Quote Unquote Records was always doing with smaller bands versus the behemoth Radiohead trying out a little experiment.

Interestingly enough, Rosenstock commented on Bandcamp during their early years in 2010: “You have Bandcamp which is a website where anyone can put up anything, and it’s got more options than Quote Unquote does…I don’t know if I see it as something a major label could adopt as their idea for everything.”  What’s amazing is that certain labels have ended up involved in Bandcamp.  In 2014, the site launched Bandcamp for Labels, meaning full record labels have since adopted Bandcamp’s online store for distribution and promotion.  Of course, you’re not going to find the big hitters like Atlantic on here, but many of the most notable independent labels take part in Bandcamp.  This includes Sub-Pop, ANTI-, Epitaph, and more.  None of these are slouches – they’re all very prominent in the independent music scene, and their adoption of Bandcamp proves even larger labels are interested in this type of platform.

There’s reason to believe Bandcamp is succeeding.  When describing their sales for 2016, the site announced “Digital album sales grew 20%, tracks 23%, and merch 34%” compared to the last year, despite the record business only growing 3% in 2016.  Obviously, Bandcamp’s numbers are inflated simply because more people became more aware of the site, leading to more sales, but it’s remarkable that their business practices are still able to thrive in the modern era.  There are also claims that Bandcamp is reducing piracy.  Back in 2012, the site wrote an editorial “Cheaper Than Free” which revealed that people who were Googling specifically for free torrents or Mediafire downloads would come across Bandcamp and purchase albums from there.  The site views this “as proof that Bandcamp can effectively compete with filesharing and other free distribution platforms by a) giving fans a clear, easy way to directly support the artist, and b) offering them a better user experience.”

It seems that Bandcamp can do no wrong, but there is one possible criticism towards the site.  Last summer, the site significantly expanded its editorial department to focus on “Bandcamp Daily,” which brings daily highlights to various acts and scenes around the site.  This could be viewed as a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, these acts are getting a level of exposure that otherwise wouldn’t be possible, which is wonderful for them.  On the other hand, Ben Ratliff argued in a New York Times editorial that this could ruin the neutrality of the site: “People can use help navigating the riches of Bandcamp.  But its estimable editorial project opens an interesting question: When does help turn into tastemaking?”  Rosenstock’s Quote Unquote Records was meant to be a place where people could poke around and find the music they wanted for free, a promise Bandcamp certainly helps to deliver today, but the threat of tastemaking could ruin the perfect music democracy Rosenstock and Bandcamp both strive for.

This is still a very minor criticism, however.  The current success of Bandcamp proves that artists and fans appreciate interacting with each other financially with as few middle-men in between as possible, especially when artists can set their own prices and release music for free if they wish.  Fans can stream and search through archives of music and have shown to be willing to pay artists under this model.  Rosenstock’s early dreams of free music using the Internet for exposure while giving fans more options to support their favorite artists are an actual reality today.  That’s a much more significant parallel than anything Radiohead ever did for free music.

[financialinvestingradio]

FIR 80: Ryan's System For FINANCIAL FREEDOM!!

So you are working a day job and you are wondering what can you do to get to your financial freedom sooner, rather than later!??!!

I met Ryan who is living that life. He has a great day job, but he also wants to do something on the side to help build his financial foundation. Ryan not only figured that out, but he created a system that makes it possible to use his discretionary time wisely.

Tune in on this interview as Ryan shares his secret!!

Grant: Welcome to another episode of financial investing radio, so I'm very excited because I have in the house with me today, a visitor that I just recently met through someone that I know online and they pointed me to this person.

They said, Grant, you need to talk to this person because he's doing a kind of investing that I know a lot of people in the corporate world think about, which is this uncertainty of what's gonna really happen to what's going on in my life, but without going any further. Well let me back up and stop and say, welcome. Ryan. Would you take a moment and introduce yourself?

Ryan: What's up everyone? Ryan Helms here coming to you from right now, dark outside Atlanta, Georgia. But uh, yeah, I've been in Atlanta for about five years now. And uh, you know, I create content to help people with nine to five jobs, create freedom in their life.

Grant: That's really cool. So how did you arrive at this? I mean, you just one day say, hey, this might be a good idea. Are there must've been some sort of impetus that got your attention and said, hey, I better do something about this?

Ryan: Yeah, so for me, I, moved up to Atlanta for my job, which I have no disdain for at all and I came up here and I spent about the first two years I really kind of nose down kind of work, like you know, I'm going to make a name for myself in this company, which has worked out quite well.

It was a good strategy, but it got me to a point where I wasn't burnt out, but when I looked up it was on the horizon and I knew I had to like step back, pull myself back for a bit.

And unfortunately when you're early in your career in corporate America, you get about two weeks vacation and yeah, it's kind of unfortunate, but I'd used all two weeks of that because I sat on the couch which is about eight feet behind me right now.

And I bought a plane ticket to Nairobi, Kenya and had no. Yeah, I had no plans at all. I was literally scrolling the Internet, had no intentions to buy a plane ticket on that Friday night, but I purchased that plane ticket because it was $750 and I thought, man, that's a pretty good deal to go all the way to Africa.

I did that and that was in July of 2016 and I made the trip November of 2017 or no, November of 2016 and you know, while I was there it was just. First of all, it was an amazing experience. It's like going on a safari and spending a week on Zanzibar and all this, all these cool things. But you know, as cliche as it sounds, I really had like this epiphany moment when I was there.

I was meeting all these people that were doing all these great things in their life that we're allowing them to have this freedom to travel. Like I was meeting people from all over the world and oftentimes they had different paths on how they got there and how they were traveling.

Some of them were on vacation like me, but a lot of them were traveling for like two years and I'm in a year and all these things and when I left there I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to do because I'd never had that mindset before. It was always like it was. Yeah. That was like working in the corporate,

Grant: So you are thinking "Hey, I'm being a good employee." So you're in the grind, right? And then you saw a flight where price was away from value. I think they call it a sale, right? There's a sale and you're like Nairobi, let's go! So you run into these people out there that are like, they're traveling around. So this pop that idea in your head. All right. And keep going. What happened?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, I'm on the plane ride back from, from Nairobi, Kenya, coming back to Atlanta and I said I, I need to, I need to create this freedom my life.

Unfortunately I look at my bank account and I was about $55,000 in debt, not counting like my mortgage. So like consumer debt. And I said, alright, so how can I expedite the process of paying this debt off? Because that was the, that was the first thing hanging over my head that I knew if I wanted to be free quote unquote free, however you define that for me, it was financially free.

Like I didn't want the burden of, uh, have that hanging over my head and have to make decisions based on money. So, uh, I said, how can I speed this process up? So the next thing was how can I create alternate streams of income? Right? So when you're working in a corporate environment, you can't just walk up to your boss and say, Hey, give me a 20 percent rate. Is that

Grant: Well, you can try that, but how far does that go? Not far!

Ryan: So, uh, so I just started to, for one pull the reins in on my finances, on my budget, things like that really started to understand it because I made good money for my age being at this time, probably like 28 or so, uh, and made good money enough to where I never had to look at my bank account. And I never did.

I just knew I had enough money to spend and never was like, it was like I didn't know the password to my Wells Fargo account, that kind of thing. I just knew that I could do what I want it to do and not have to look at my bank.

Grant: Maybe you were rich in the world's terms in the sense that you didn't have to look at your bank account, you were free a little bit, right? And you said you didn't have to look too much.

But when you saw these other people on your trip you realized your current salary wasn't giving you the freedom at the next level. And that was the epiphany, right?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So I spent a, I spent some time figuring out how could I, how could I help speed up the process of, of paying this debt down. Uh, and then I came up on, okay, I'm going to start a side hustle, so I'm going to do something outside of my day job to help, uh, put me down this path.

And the first thing I did was always been into fitness and things like that. So I started this a fitness business on the side focused on corporate individuals and it was called corporate fit in.

That was going well in through that process though, I had a lot of people asking me how I was doing everything because at this time I was traveling around the world for my job, so I was constantly on the go and still putting out content, still building this business on the side and I didn't know how to answer people and they said, how are you doing it?

I was like, I don't know. I'm just, I guess I'm doing what everybody else will be doing if they were doing this. Now stepping back though, I realized it was the systems, right? That's what was allowing me to, to manage all these moving parts in my life was how much I had systematize things. So that was a turning point for me.

I said, okay, I don't really see myself doing this fitness thing. It doesn't thrill me. Like I enjoyed fitness because I liked working out. I didn't enjoy it as much when I was helping other people. I created the why. First off I had said, all right, I have a process, I systematized my life in this way to enable me to do this, and I sat down and put pen to paper.

The output of that was a physical product called the side Hustle and journal, which I ended up launching on kickstarter a November, so almost about I guess 10 months ago now. November of 2017.

Grant: Cool. Alright, so 10 months on Kickstarter. So you said something interesting you came up with this system, the system that the intent of the system has to help someone take themselves through the fitness experience. Is that right?

Ryan: So the system that I was referring to was the system on how I was actually a managing my nine to five job, quote unquote, doing all this stuff on the side, hanging out with friends, still still having some form of a social life. That's the system I remember referring to it

Grant: That's your system lead people to help them create their side hustle; while they have another job. So there's a lot of people that are in that situation right there. They've got the day job, they want to figure out the side hustle. You've got the system where you figured this out.

So it's been 10 months, it's been out there. What's been the impact of that? What have you seen? What have been the results?

Ryan: Yeah, it's been cool. So on, on it was really challenging because like I said, I had no audience at all going into this space and I went in it kind of backwards to most people. Most people start like on the content creation side, build some awareness for their, their personal brand, things like that. I like to make things difficult for myself.

And went with the physical product right off the bat. Surprisingly I convinced 600, a little over 650 people on Kickstarter to back the project. Uh, so that was a good start to kind building my list. It was kind of a jumpstart to building my list.

And since then it's been awesome. I've been really focusing on interacting with that community, really giving them an authentic view at me. So making it, like really showing them, I'm not a guy just selling them a product, I'm a guy like them.

I'm a guy on this journey with them, uh, trying not so much to put myself on this pedestal above them. Show them that, hey look, I'm just following what I'm doing. I'm just like you, like if you come on this journey with me, what we're going to cross the finish line about the same time.

So that's what I've been doing the past 10 months is, is bringing people on that journey, uh, leveraging the physical product itself as a way to get people to come on that journey with me. Right? So that's, that's the entry point into my ecosystem right now. Uh, so yeah, that's kind of where I've been at the past 10 months.

Grant: That's amazing. So, so the style of investing, given financial investing, radio style of the investment here is that you have a way to leverage your discretionary time to produce additional income in your life and make a change without rocking the boat in terms of, you know, you're stable work and stable for now all with the intent that you're shooting towards.

So do you have an idea how long it would take for someone applying your system? Regardless of how they apply? Right. I mean they could apply it anywhere from a creating embroidery products to selling books or whatever. Right. You use it for anything, is that right?

Ryan: Yeah, for sure.

Grant: So if they applied the system, what sort of timeframe would they expect as a two year or three year process where you think they could break free financially or get to that next level? Or does that depend hard to say?

Ryan: It's probably too hard to say based on individual factors, but I think what you'll gain right off the bat is the systems that will enable you to leverage this time and actually like it's like finding, you know, you find money in the seat cushions and things like that so that you find time in all of these places that you don't realize you actually have time and it all goes back to just being very intentional about what you're doing and you know, the journal itself and the system within the journal is about discovering like what do you want to be intentional about and then how can you maximize your time around it that could give you time to do a lot of things.

Not only could it give you time to invest in yourself by, you know, creating a side hustle or a business on the side, but I mean you could even, it could free up time to do actual investing. Maybe the stock market is what you're really into, right? This system. So could be the foundation for developing your new investing strategy.

Doing the research, who you want to getting more methodical about those processes that are required to do really anything, whether you're investing in yourself or in the market, so, uh, it could really be applied to anyone in the amount of effort that you put in will determine the speed in which you reach it.

Grant: I heard a seminar recently from a guy by the name of Alex Charfen. You ever heard of him?

Ryan: Yeah.

Grant: And Alex was, he said something that sounded kind of similar where he said that he has this thing called a a time study, I think was the term he used, which was take a moment to think about how you're spending your time.

And he said, I guarantee if you take two weeks to really evaluate and log and write down how you're spending your time, he said you will find places where you are wasting a ton of time and that will free up to then be able to do the kind of system you're talking about. Is that right?

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And I agree 100 percent. If you don't put it down in front of you, you'll think you're efficient with your time, but there's going to be inevitable gaps in the product says, you know, the reason I put out a physical product for this and I've had so many people saying you need to make an APP, you need to do this. It's because there's so much activity going on in your phone, right?

There's so many things and beings and bongs like every two seconds for something like this as important as like getting time back and, and, and creating something great, but out into the world, you need to carve out a section of non-distracted time and really figure out, you know, what, what do I need to do, how can I get there? So that's, that's what I'm all about. Exactly. As you know, putting it down on paper and putting it in front of you and visualizing it.

Grant: How much, how much non-distracted time does a person need in order for, to, to make some effective progress? Is Fifteen minutes enough or does it need to be more?

Ryan: Uh, for me, I think it needs at one given time. I think it needs to be more, I think the, the uh, you know, the length of period of time should be definitely longer than 15 minutes. I would say at least 45 minutes so that you can, it'll take you 15 minutes, get focused on what you want to do and if all you have is 15 minutes and you have 15 minutes every two hours, yeah, you may be getting, you know, three hours worth of work in that day, but you'll probably only get about 15 good minutes worth of work as you will be starting over every 15 minutes.

And as soon as you start to get in your groove, you're going to be, it's going to be over again. So I like to try to carve out a larger block of time of at least an hour so I can make sure I can get focused on what I'm trying to do and actually execute on something.

Grant: I think that makes a lot of sense. I've seen multiple studies where people have identified the cost of a distraction in terms of productivity in every time we get distracted with the amount of time it takes in order to get the context back into your head so that you can begin to be productive again.

That sounds like that's what you're describing. Absolutely. I used to. I used to ride a lot of code earlier on in my life and my career and every time I'd get distracted, right, it pull me away. It would take me a long time, like 15 minutes, get get into mine, mine everything where I was right in solving a particular problem. It was so expensive to do that.

It sounds like you've optimized on that principal to help people invest in themselves, to invest in their future by taking advantage of the discretionary time they have to really reach the real goals. That's cool. You're good. Anything about goal setting as part of this? Is that. Is that a key part of your system provides?

Ryan: Yeah, so the product itself, I always say like the backbone of this tool is what I call it, a molehill system.

Grant: So why, why do you call it the mole hill system?

Ryan: Uh, I was sitting at a Starbucks one Saturday morning working on this and I knew I had this system in it and just from a marketing standpoint, I knew I had to name it something, right? It couldn't just be, it couldn't just live in here.

And I was thinking and I was like, man, I was like, don't make a mountain out of a molehill because that's what a lot of people do. You have this, this little obstacle in your way and you just stay in there for months looking at it because you're just so terrified of it.

So like the, my thought there is, is you're breaking down, you know, this big mountain into these really manageable mole hills that you can just easily surpass on a daily basis. So the mole hills or things that you're doing every single day and the mountain is what you get at the end and you don't actually ever have to climb the mountain. It's just basically the finish line at that point.

Grant: Oh, I see. So the mole hills or series of steps that take you up to the mountain. So what's been the impact of people that have applied the system so far? What have you seen?

Ryan: Yeah, so that's one of the coolest thing for me is the satisfaction from just seeing people use the tool and the community that it's creating. So one of the things I did with the Kickstarter was create where it's like an accountability system.

So I said, you know, if you want to back this tier, one of the things that you'll, one of the offers in this tier will be all partner you up with somebody. And actually just, this has probably been about three weeks ago now, but I got a uh, I got a email with a picture in it from two guys. And at first all I saw was a pitcher and I was like, why are these two guys sending me a picture?

And they were in Milan and I can tell they were in Milan because of the cathedral and the, and one of the guys was from Switzerland and one of the guys was from New York and they were sending me the email to say, thanks for connecting us. This is my accountability partner. We decided to meet in Italy. We'd been working together for the past eight months using the journal. So yeah, things like that are just awesome.

And just to realize that you're impacting people and knowing that there's probably other people out there that aren't sending you those emails that are impacting as well. So it's been very, very cool. Just to, uh, just to see how an idea in my head most nights mostly created in a Starbucks down the street is changing people's lives.

Grant: That is really awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. That's all happened. Just within the 10 months since you put it out there, if someone wanted to go find your materials, wherever they go, did they go find it? Yeah,

Ryan: Sure. GritAndHustle.co; it literally right there on the front page. If you want to check out the side hustle journal, you can get it for free. Just download the free PDF there and if you want to get a hard copy you can get that as well, but feel free to just download the paper version printed out, see if it's for you and if it's for you, awesome. Let me know if you have any questions. I'd be happy to help.

Grant: That's awesome. Very good. Okay. Any last comments, thoughts before we wrap?

Ryan: Just, you know, a lot of people say this, I think it could actually further closing comments, but just take action. Get out there, create freedom, whatever that means for you. Like for me, uh, I think about freedom as being financially free to do what I want to make decisions, not based on money.

Freedom for you may mean something totally different. So figure out what that means for you. And then start taking action so that you can get there.

Grant: Okay. So it's GritAndHustle.co. Got it. Excellent. Ryan, thank you for joining. This is Grant. Thanks for joining another episode of Financial Investing Radio. Until next time, take some action.

Check out this episode!

[uniteordie-usa]

UN Agenda 21: Lesson 4: Smart Growth

http://uniteordie-usa.com/un-agenda-21-lesson-4-smart-growth/ http://uniteordie-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Agenda-2030-600x464.jpg UN Agenda 21: Lesson 4: Smart Growth ALWAYS remember the END GAME that is being sought by folks pushing Agenda 21/2030. The endgame is CONTROL over humans and the Earth’s resources, with the environment being used as the excuse. This is the fourth lesson in a series of ten lessons on Agenda 21, commonly known as Sustainable Dev...

ALWAYS remember the END GAME that is being sought by folks pushing Agenda 21/2030. The endgame is CONTROL over humans and the Earth’s resources, with the environment being used as the excuse.

This is the fourth lesson in a series of ten lessons on Agenda 21, commonly known as Sustainable Development.. Today you will learn…

 How Smart Growth Stategies are Used to Control Human Behavior Within the Human Settlement.

One of the goals of Agenda 21 is to re-wild over 50% (plus an additional 10% for buffer zones around the re-wilded areas) of the United States. Out of necessity, this will force the human population off the rural lands and into, using Agenda 21 language, “human settlements”. Once there, the behavior of humans can be more easily monitored and controlled, thus creating, “sustainability”.

Video: Lesson 4

Sustainability, as defined by the 1987 United Nations report is: “development that meets the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Using the words of Maurice Strong, who was Secretary of the 1992 U.N. Summit that was held in Rio de Janeiro (See Lesson 1), quote, “the consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioners, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” Unquote.

In other words, for Agenda 21/Sustainable Development to be fully implemented, Americans must give up the American dream and embrace the life style foisted upon them by the radical leftist Sustainablists.

To create sustainability in the human settlements, there will be rules and regulations to control use of all resources; air, land, water, energy, and all resources underground. These rules are included under the heading of “Smart Growth”.

Smart Growth regulations fall primarily into three categories that are all designed to modify human behavior.

1.  Regulations to discourage travel and the ownership of automobiles.

2.   Regulations that discourage you from having children.

3.    Regulations that will discourage you from using water, land, energy, and the consumption of materials, whether it be toilet paper or materials to build a home.

Here are some of the ways Smart Growth would control life and development in the human settlements. Note that all of these fall into one or more of the three categories discussed above, and that ALL of the items listed below are impacted if energy resources are rationed.

Establishing boundaries around the city and preventing any development outside the perimeter is a Smart Growth tactic. This creates a situation where land inside the human settlement is at a premium, while land outside the boundary has little if any value. This in turn will cause land prices, land taxes, and congestion within the perimeter to increase, but a decrease in the size of homes and number of children. Smaller homes and fewer children will also decrease energy usage.

Another Smart Growth strategy is to not expand the width or length of highways in an attempt to create congestion and an unpleasant driving experience. Allowing bikes to travel on these inadequate highway systems will further force the issue.

Creating rules to prevent the building of garages on new homes will discourage automobile ownership and save on building materials.

The installation of Smart Meters is a particularly contentious Smart Growth issue. Smart Meters can monitor and/or remotely turn off home appliances when the utility company decides the consumer is using too much energy. Further, the radio frequencies given off by these Smart Meters are associated with a variety of health issues.

Restricting the mining, drilling, refining, and/or transporting of fossil fuels will increase the cost curve for electricity, gasoline, natural gas, etc., which will in turn force conservation by the users.

Smart Growth regulations may eliminate from the market place all appliances except those that radically control energy and resources like water and electricity.  Everyone is familiar with low flow toilets which, while they may save on water, often function poorly.

Sometimes when regulations cannot create the desired change, grants and subsidies are used instead. When the government steps in to drive change in this way, the free market is eliminated.

An example of this is how the government has, through subsidies, encouraged the development of alternative energies while applying onerous regulations on the fossil fuel industry. At some point, when the cost of fossil fuels increase enough, and the cost of alternative energy decreases enough, alternative energy will be cost competitive. However, at that point in time, the cost of all energy sources will be artificially high forcing conservation by consumers.

Then again, expensive energy is seen by the proponents of Agenda 21 as a good thing, as shown by this quote from Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mt. Institute.

“It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”

Smart Growth policies are also being used to design new road projects. Many of the projects are driven by grants from the federal government sometimes funneled down through Regional Government. One of these projects is called Complete Streets. Below is a paragraph, which can easily be found on the Internet, from the Complete Streets Coalition. It reads…

Creating “Complete Streets” means those transportation agencies must change their approach to community roads. By adopting a “Complete Streets“ policy, communities direct their transportation planners and engineers to routinely design and operate the entire right of way to enable safe access for all users, regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation. This means that every transportation project will make the street network better and safer for drivers, transit users, pedestrians, and bicyclists – making your town a better place to live.

There are many things about this single paragraph that are concerning.

First, it says that “transportation planners MUST change their approach to community roads.”  Whatever happened to local government control? What happened? Grants happened! The federal government is using your tax dollars to entice the local government to build the infrastructure for future human settlements where walking, bicycling, and mass transit will be the primary modes of transportation.Further, while sidewalks and bicycles may make sense in a populated area, “Complete Streets“ is pushing for sidewalks and bicycles paths in rural areas as well.

The local government may find that, by the time the cost of the bicycle paths and sidewalks are figured against the added grant money, the grant money went mostly to build road features that were unnecessary for rural use, while in exchange the government sold its autonomy for a too narrow road.

Add one final insult! By the time sidewalks and bike paths are added, even to a narrow road, the overall width of the roadbed will have increased, causing homeowners along the length of the project to lose parts of their front yards. This can have a negative impact on their property values.

Food and Fiber Sheds,Woodsheds, and False Choices

Since much of the land in the United States will be off-limits to humans, it will require that humans be limited to procuring that which they need to survive from the land near to the human settlements. But not to fear, the Sustainabilists have this all planned out.

Imagine a shooting target /bullseye with three consecutively smaller rings. The inner ring represents the area populated by humans. The ring that surrounds the inner ring is called the food shed. That is where all the food and fiber for the human settlement should be procured, of course, only through strictly approved and monitored methods of sustainable farming. The outside ring is the woodshed, where certain environmentally friendly human activities can occur. Beyond that lies the re-wilded land containing the buffer zones, cores, and corridors. These are off limit to humans. Travelling from one human settlement to another may incur fines, as the human will have, by passing through an environmentally delicate area, caused some degree of harm to the environment.

The loss of the rural lands for traditional farming, coupled with the design of future high density human settlements and the relatively small area of land around them for the raising of food, could create quite a dilemma for a human settlement that needs food to survive.

An idea being strongly forwarded by the proponents of Agenda 21 to replace traditional farming is vertical farming in multi-storied greenhouses. The claim is that food could be grown year round, isolated from disease and pests, and there would be a reduction in transportation costs.

If given a bit more critical scrutiny, one might ask how would a multi-storied green house be immune to pests and diseases when anyone who has ever raised a house plant knows that, at times, the plants get mites even under the strictest conditions.

One might also wonder, because this technology is a long way from production, if a lot of folks might die of starvation unless the switch-over from traditional farming to vertical farming is done in an extremely gradual and thoughtful way. However, as population reduction is a major goal of the proponents of Agenda 21, it makes one wonder if a situation resulting in mass starvation is not considered, by them, as a good outcome.

And then there is the never-ending litany over Greenhouse Gas emissions. Let’s take a look at the following quote.

“Buying local food within a foodshed can be seen as a means to combat the modern food system and the effects it has on the environment.

It has been described as “a banner under which people attempt to counteract trends of economic concentration, social disempowerment and environmental degradation in the food and agricultural landscape.”

Agriculture production alone contributes to 14% of anthropogenic (= “manmade”) greenhouse gas emissions. The food system’s contribution of greenhouse gases contributes to the global issue of climate change.  More attention is being paid to possibilities for reducing emissions through more efficient transport and different patterns of consumption, specifically, an increased reliance on local foodsheds.” Unquote. (Peters, 2008)

First, it is easy to see that as usual, the environment, in this case Global Warming and Climate Change, is the supposed excuse for this radical reconfiguring of man’s life style. Yet it remains to be seen if the globe is actually warming, and if so, whether man’s activity is responsible for the warming. A lot of doubt is cast when you see quotes like this one from Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation)…

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”

The second thing worth noting is it is easy to see that Agenda 21’s 3 E’s, social, economic, and environmental justice, are all behind this effort to force a food-fiber-woodshed-human settlement model on mankind.

This is Agenda 21 social engineering at its best-or worst depending on how you look at it. Simply put, the folks behind this (and you might want to Google “the Club of Rome”), are retraining humans like we are lab rats.

In summary, while protecting the environment is a good thing, and if you CHOOSE to get your food close to home, recycle, or use a fuel-efficient car, that is fine. However, it is a false choice being offered here. It is NOT necessary to give up our freedom or our life style and be forced into human settlements in order to protect the environment. It is NOT an either or. We can live or lives in freedom and still protect the planet.

Read More: http://www.agenda21course.com/lesson-4-smart-growth/

[1upmushrooms]

Murder at the Geraldo Hotel Chapter 1 (1up Deadfic)

Yeeeaaaah, not too proud of this one. Mostly because I tried being clever and replacing everyday terms with alternate universe slang and the audience was pretty much on their own in finding out what the hell I was talking about (you know, instead of doing the right thing and giving them at the very least a dictionary of the different terms and their meanings.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this weird little experiment  that’ll probably never get updated. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"WRAAAAA! JACK NEILMAN ALERT! WRAAAAAAA!" Good Chris, that alarm. Never have I hated a noise as much as that abomination. Oh it's not because of the fact that it's loud and obnoxious though that certainly doesn't help! No my undying hatred for that thing revolves around the fact that it reminds of my horrible job and pitiful existence! You've heard of the Geraldo Hotel, haven't you? You know, that 20 story monstrosity in Northlem, the quote unquote fanciest country in the whole wide square?  Well if you do, you'd know that the hotel is known for its great beds, good food, excellent service, and frequent murders/kidnappings/scandals/dealings/etc on a monthly basis. Now, since it's been known that people don't like either of these things, hence why their called "Crimes", the hotel decided to fix this by hiring a detective, namely me. You know, I'm not sure what universe you come from as I only know the ones my teachers talked about in school, but originally in this one being a detective was like the most honorable job you could have. I mean being a detective meant you were on the same level as Lord Chris! But nowadays uh-uh, they don't get that respect anymore. Now it's seen as a common job, like being a Gardener, or a Shop Owner, or a Janitor! Instead of your Child Guardians saying "If you get good reports in school, you'll be a detective!" it's now something like "You better get good reports son, you don't want to be a detective do you?!" It just makes me wish I was born earlier. Anyway, since my profession was now seen as a complete joke the hotel gave a help wanted awareness program for an opening and I just happened to see it while strolling a Film Market, it was that little known.  The highest payment they'd give me was 100 Juts a week, which was barely enough for me to survive but I took it anyway. And now I'm setting here in my little room, trying to read a literature container with that stupid alarm goes off! But, that was life for me. I did what I could only do. Get out of my bed and grab my supplies, a notepad, pens, some bags, tweezers, and a recorder. As I got ready for what I assumed was going to be a regular mystery, I looked outside and saw a huge guy running (or trying to in this case) away from some red bus. I normally would've just ignored it, but the way the guy looked, it was like he was actually hiding something in his shirt, however I liked at my time teller and realized I had to do more important things than wonder what I fat guy maybe carrying under his shirt. With a twist of the knob and the shutting of a room barrier, I left my safe and cozy home and ventured into the large, mysterious, and quite frankly maddening world of the Geraldo Hotel. As I walked down the deserted hallway with only the defunct lightbulbs and vastly empty  snack machines to serve as company, my mind kept thinking of what I had to solve today. A kidnapping perhaps? Maybe a scandal involving funny tasting meat? I hate to sound so callous and pessimistic but when you're forced to deal with stuff like this while getting no respect and being devoid of any friends, you tend to be a little cynical. So as I walked through this depressing hallway of green and black mixture I finally came across an elevator which, thank Chris, worked like a charm. Pressing the direction keys was a little hassle but other than that, the five minute ride it took to get to the lobby was incredibly relaxing. As I closed my eyes preparing  to rest a little while standing up, the doors opened and my attempt at having a relaxing nap was crushed. With a heavy sigh I walked out and proceeded to go to the "Crime Solving Lair" which was simply a meeting room that included internet holders and drink machines. Walking in was probably the only good part of this whole meeting because as soon as I walked through I was greeted by the hotel manager/idiot of the decade Dom Green. He shook my cheerily but I knew he was faking it. This guy was a complete slime ball who couldn't tell the difference between an epic romance novel and trite trash like "Dreaming of Rainbows". But I had to deal with him or else I'd be out of a job, the Lord Chris can be quite cruel sometimes can he? "Hi there Neilman!" he said through an incredibly wide grin, "How was our little rest last night?" I pulled out my classic smirk as I gently remarked, "I'm not sure about our night but I slept like a motionless rock." "Very interesting! Anyway, before I get to the mystery I want you to solve, do you mind telling me of any odd things you saw today?" I was about to say the fat jogging man but realized that he meant anything in the hotel. "Not really, should I have?" Dom merely shrugged and handed me the victim's profile. His name was Nicholas Barnes, a famous photographer known for his controversial "Universally Shocking" series which focused on revealing dirty photos of popular celebrities and companies. Was it any wonder this guy got killed? I'm surprised he lived this long!   I gave Green a little "Thank you" and headed for room 213.

[funface2]

Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com

Blake Griffin landed a dick joke about Caitlyn Jenner at the Comedy Central Roast of Alex Baldwin, which aired last weekend. “Caitlyn completed her gender reassignment in 2017, finally confirming that no one in that family wants a white dick,” he said to roars of laughter. Was the joke offensive? Racist? Hilarious? All of the above? For her part, Jenner took the dick joke in stride. “Caitlyn was down for it,” one of the writers of the roast said. “She was like, ‘Well, you know, I’m gonna hit hard. I want them to hit me hard.’ And so we did.”

Dick jokes have existed throughout history in nearly every culture known to man, from the greatest literature of all time—Shakespeare and James Joyce—to ancient graffiti. “Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!” some anonymous guy scrawled on the wall of a bar in the Roman city of Pompeii around 2,000 years ago. They have been staples of comedy for millennia for a reason: They’re nearly universally appealing.

“Whether you’re rich or poor or black or white, everyone laughs at a dick joke,” says comedian Aaron Berg, who hosts a recurring show at The Stand in New York City. (Berg also hosted a somewhat controversial, entirely satirical show called White Guys Matter that addressed some aspects of white male inadequacy.)

One comedian has elevated dick jokes to poetry, launching them into the realm of high art: Jacqueline Novak, whose one-woman off-Broadway show about blow jobs, Get on Your Knees, manages to make the dick joke both hilarious and high brow. She’s not the first woman to tell a dick joke, nor will she be the last, but she is perhaps the only one to devote a show almost entirely to the penis (with a few minutes sidetracking to ghosts) and be feted by The New York Times for doing so.

Novak, who has been called a “deeply philosophical urologist,” may represent a tipping point in dick jokes, because her show is finally allowing people to see the wisdom (yes, wisdom) in penis humor.

“I don’t even think of myself as like, interested in telling penis jokes. I certainly wouldn’t sit down and go, I’d love to do a show about penises,” Novak says. “I think it’s more like an investigation of my heterosexuality. Does [being heterosexual] mean I love the penis? I’m interested in the language that I’ve been expected to use or accept as legitimate about the penis. Here’s all the reasons that that’s ridiculous.”

Novak’s show is replete with riffs on our “ridiculous” penis language, from the fact that we say the penis is “rock hard”—”No geologist would ever say, this quartz is penis hard“—to the idea that the penis penetrates a woman—”You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up! Spit you out, and you loved every goddamn second of it.” In some ways, Novak is the perfect teller of the 21st century dick joke, not only because she is chronicling our hangups about the penis, but also because without a penis of her own, perhaps she is able to see the dick more clearly for what it is, in all its ridiculousness and beauty.

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

But for the most part, phallic culture remains incoherent. Men are pilloried for exposing their dicks, while Euphoria is celebrated for its 30-penis episode; dick pics are critiqued like Picassos or seen as a public menace; judging a man by the size of his penis is perfectly acceptable or grossly objectifying; porn covers every inch of the internet, yet Facebook won’t accept ads for dildos. Dick jokes are still looked down on as cheap—to be fair, some of them are blatantly bad—but some comics say that isn’t always fair.

“Dick jokes, if you craft something amazing out of them, could be the funniest thing someone’s ever heard. And funny in a way that like, opens your mind up even,” says comedian Sean Patton. “That’s the most important kind of comedy, where you laugh at something to the point where you’re now a little more accepting of it. And that can range from anything to other people’s sexual orientation to accepting your own mental illness.” Patton’s own extended dick joke, “Cumin” on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, has been viewed over 2 million times on YouTube.

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

Novak uses the blow job to critique cultural expectations of masculinity and the pressure women feel to become skilled at sexually pleasing men. “The teeth shaming starts early, of course,” she says in her show. “If you have your full set of teeth…don’t go into a room where a penis is. It’s not safe for him. Why would you put him at risk?”

Patton likens the dick joke to a “Trojan horse” of comedy. “You make them laugh hard at dick jokes, now they’re listening,” he says. “Then you can throw in something a little more meaningful, and they’re on board.”

Not that all dick jokes need to be intellectual to be taken seriously. The song “D*** in a Box” by The Lonely Island, featuring Justin Timberlake, won an Emmy. It turns out the concept wasn’t exactly new. “Decades before The Lonely Island, B.S. Pully was doing that in the ’40s and ’50s,” comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff says. “Pully would be holding a cigar box at his groin, walking down the aisle. [He would] start a show saying, ‘Cigar, would you like a cigar?’ Then he would lift up the lid, and there was a hole cut in there, and his dick was hanging out. The audience would go crazy.”

Dick jokes continue to thrive off audience reactions, according to several comedians I talked to. Bonnie McFarlane, who is best known for her appearance on Last Comic Standing and her Netflix documentary Women Aren’t Funny, began telling dick jokes when she started out in 1995. “You tell dick jokes because it’s a very male audience, so that’s what they want to hear about,” she says. “It’s been a thing since comedy started. People can really kill if they’re just doing dick jokes.” But there is a double standard, she says, when female comics are made fun of “for talking about their vaginas too much.”

That Novak, a female comic, is revolutionizing the dick joke makes sense, considering that historically, “the vanguard for so-called dick jokes and sexual material comes first and foremost from women rather than men,” Nesteroff says. He points to female comics Rusty Warren, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and LaWanda Page as “probably the four quote-unquote ‘dirtiest’ comedians of the ’50s and ’60s, more so than Lenny Bruce, more so than Redd Foxx.”

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

He also says African Americans pushed dick jokes further than any other ethnicity. African-American comedian Page’s albums from the 1970s were rich with dick jokes, referencing “the size of the man, the endurance of the man,” Nesteroff says. As Page recites in her 1973 comedy album Pipe Layin’ Dan: “Husband, dear husband, now don’t be a fool/you’ve worked on the night shift ’til you’ve ruined your tool/you’d better go hungry the rest of your life/than to bring home a pecker so soft to your wife.”

“LaWanda [told] dick jokes for the same reasons a lot of black comics do, because they had to come up in the chitlin circuit, which is basically comedy clubs or bars or places where only black audiences mainly go,” says comedian Harris Stanton, who has toured with Tracy Morgan. “When I started comedy [in 1999] I started in the chitlin circuit,” he continues. “Urban comedy became this big explosion in the United States. A lot of the young black comics couldn’t get into a lot of mainstream clubs, so they would have to perform wherever they could, and dick jokes were welcome to those places.”

African Americans were pioneers of the dick joke, but they definitely weren’t the only ethnic group telling them. Three of the other female sex-joke pioneers Nesteroff mentioned were Jewish. Pearl Williams was known for roasting overweight men when they entered the comedy club by asking, “How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?” Lenny Bruce, one of the most famous Jewish comedians, was arrested for saying schmuck on stage in 1962. Seven years later, another famous American Jew, Philip Roth, published Portnoy’s Complaint, which is essentially a 274-page dick joke, or so some claim.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

“I probably owe a debt to Philip Roth that I’m not even fully aware of,” says Novak, who is Jewish. She references him directly in her show, joking, “I went off to college feeling good. It’s a Catholic-ish college. Lots of virgin boys scurrying around, scrambling for sexual experience at parties. Not me. I’m a Jew and I did the coursework in high school, so I felt like a Philip Roth figure. A Jewish pervert ready to teach.”

Jewish male comics may be drawn to dick jokes, according to Berg, who is Jewish, because, “the fact that our penises were intruded upon at a very young age probably gives us a fixation on it and makes us want to talk about it more.”

Dr. Jeremy Dauber, the Atran professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University and author of Jewish Comedy, traces Jewish dick jokes all the way back to the Bible. The earliest case of laughter in Jewish tradition is Sarah’s laughter when she’s told that her 100-year-old husband Abraham will give her a child. It is “a laughter about male impotence,” Dauber says.

But comedians aren’t just laughing at penises anymore. Novak is going in the opposite direction. “I’m trying to restore [the penis] to true dignity.” Will her intellectual blow job jokes allow the dick joke to be taken more seriously? Will future comedians have to deal with the flack that Patton still gets in his reviews?

“Even like positive reviews, sometimes they’ll still point out there’s also a lot of cock, cock cock,” he says. “Why do you have to make sure everyone knows that you thought some of the subject matter was lowbrow?” He thinks reviewers roll their eyes at his dick talk because “everyone constantly is terrified that those around them don’t think that they’re that smart.”

Comedy is one of the only art forms that allows us to talk about male genitalia so openly and democratically. Whatever form the dick joke takes, from idiotic to intellectual, from poetry to prop comedy, as long as it gets a laugh, it should be celebrated. And there’s no better way to diffuse the angst surrounding the modern-day penis than a well-crafted dick joke. The more we laugh about penises (and not just at them), the happier the world might be.

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”  

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/best-dick-jokes-through-history-why-sexual-comedy-about-men-is-important-esquire-com/

[funface2]

Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com

Blake Griffin landed a dick joke about Caitlyn Jenner at the Comedy Central Roast of Alex Baldwin, which aired last weekend. “Caitlyn completed her gender reassignment in 2017, finally confirming that no one in that family wants a white dick,” he said to roars of laughter. Was the joke offensive? Racist? Hilarious? All of the above? For her part, Jenner took the dick joke in stride. “Caitlyn was down for it,” one of the writers of the roast said. “She was like, ‘Well, you know, I’m gonna hit hard. I want them to hit me hard.’ And so we did.”

Dick jokes have existed throughout history in nearly every culture known to man, from the greatest literature of all time—Shakespeare and James Joyce—to ancient graffiti. “Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!” some anonymous guy scrawled on the wall of a bar in the Roman city of Pompeii around 2,000 years ago. They have been staples of comedy for millennia for a reason: They’re nearly universally appealing.

“Whether you’re rich or poor or black or white, everyone laughs at a dick joke,” says comedian Aaron Berg, who hosts a recurring show at The Stand in New York City. (Berg also hosted a somewhat controversial, entirely satirical show called White Guys Matter that addressed some aspects of white male inadequacy.)

One comedian has elevated dick jokes to poetry, launching them into the realm of high art: Jacqueline Novak, whose one-woman off-Broadway show about blow jobs, Get on Your Knees, manages to make the dick joke both hilarious and high brow. She’s not the first woman to tell a dick joke, nor will she be the last, but she is perhaps the only one to devote a show almost entirely to the penis (with a few minutes sidetracking to ghosts) and be feted by The New York Times for doing so.

Novak, who has been called a “deeply philosophical urologist,” may represent a tipping point in dick jokes, because her show is finally allowing people to see the wisdom (yes, wisdom) in penis humor.

“I don’t even think of myself as like, interested in telling penis jokes. I certainly wouldn’t sit down and go, I’d love to do a show about penises,” Novak says. “I think it’s more like an investigation of my heterosexuality. Does [being heterosexual] mean I love the penis? I’m interested in the language that I’ve been expected to use or accept as legitimate about the penis. Here’s all the reasons that that’s ridiculous.”

Novak’s show is replete with riffs on our “ridiculous” penis language, from the fact that we say the penis is “rock hard”—”No geologist would ever say, this quartz is penis hard“—to the idea that the penis penetrates a woman—”You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up! Spit you out, and you loved every goddamn second of it.” In some ways, Novak is the perfect teller of the 21st century dick joke, not only because she is chronicling our hangups about the penis, but also because without a penis of her own, perhaps she is able to see the dick more clearly for what it is, in all its ridiculousness and beauty.

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

But for the most part, phallic culture remains incoherent. Men are pilloried for exposing their dicks, while Euphoria is celebrated for its 30-penis episode; dick pics are critiqued like Picassos or seen as a public menace; judging a man by the size of his penis is perfectly acceptable or grossly objectifying; porn covers every inch of the internet, yet Facebook won’t accept ads for dildos. Dick jokes are still looked down on as cheap—to be fair, some of them are blatantly bad—but some comics say that isn’t always fair.

“Dick jokes, if you craft something amazing out of them, could be the funniest thing someone’s ever heard. And funny in a way that like, opens your mind up even,” says comedian Sean Patton. “That’s the most important kind of comedy, where you laugh at something to the point where you’re now a little more accepting of it. And that can range from anything to other people’s sexual orientation to accepting your own mental illness.” Patton’s own extended dick joke, “Cumin” on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, has been viewed over 2 million times on YouTube.

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

Novak uses the blow job to critique cultural expectations of masculinity and the pressure women feel to become skilled at sexually pleasing men. “The teeth shaming starts early, of course,” she says in her show. “If you have your full set of teeth…don’t go into a room where a penis is. It’s not safe for him. Why would you put him at risk?”

Patton likens the dick joke to a “Trojan horse” of comedy. “You make them laugh hard at dick jokes, now they’re listening,” he says. “Then you can throw in something a little more meaningful, and they’re on board.”

Not that all dick jokes need to be intellectual to be taken seriously. The song “D*** in a Box” by The Lonely Island, featuring Justin Timberlake, won an Emmy. It turns out the concept wasn’t exactly new. “Decades before The Lonely Island, B.S. Pully was doing that in the ’40s and ’50s,” comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff says. “Pully would be holding a cigar box at his groin, walking down the aisle. [He would] start a show saying, ‘Cigar, would you like a cigar?’ Then he would lift up the lid, and there was a hole cut in there, and his dick was hanging out. The audience would go crazy.”

Dick jokes continue to thrive off audience reactions, according to several comedians I talked to. Bonnie McFarlane, who is best known for her appearance on Last Comic Standing and her Netflix documentary Women Aren’t Funny, began telling dick jokes when she started out in 1995. “You tell dick jokes because it’s a very male audience, so that’s what they want to hear about,” she says. “It’s been a thing since comedy started. People can really kill if they’re just doing dick jokes.” But there is a double standard, she says, when female comics are made fun of “for talking about their vaginas too much.”

That Novak, a female comic, is revolutionizing the dick joke makes sense, considering that historically, “the vanguard for so-called dick jokes and sexual material comes first and foremost from women rather than men,” Nesteroff says. He points to female comics Rusty Warren, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and LaWanda Page as “probably the four quote-unquote ‘dirtiest’ comedians of the ’50s and ’60s, more so than Lenny Bruce, more so than Redd Foxx.”

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

He also says African Americans pushed dick jokes further than any other ethnicity. African-American comedian Page’s albums from the 1970s were rich with dick jokes, referencing “the size of the man, the endurance of the man,” Nesteroff says. As Page recites in her 1973 comedy album Pipe Layin’ Dan: “Husband, dear husband, now don’t be a fool/you’ve worked on the night shift ’til you’ve ruined your tool/you’d better go hungry the rest of your life/than to bring home a pecker so soft to your wife.”

“LaWanda [told] dick jokes for the same reasons a lot of black comics do, because they had to come up in the chitlin circuit, which is basically comedy clubs or bars or places where only black audiences mainly go,” says comedian Harris Stanton, who has toured with Tracy Morgan. “When I started comedy [in 1999] I started in the chitlin circuit,” he continues. “Urban comedy became this big explosion in the United States. A lot of the young black comics couldn’t get into a lot of mainstream clubs, so they would have to perform wherever they could, and dick jokes were welcome to those places.”

African Americans were pioneers of the dick joke, but they definitely weren’t the only ethnic group telling them. Three of the other female sex-joke pioneers Nesteroff mentioned were Jewish. Pearl Williams was known for roasting overweight men when they entered the comedy club by asking, “How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?” Lenny Bruce, one of the most famous Jewish comedians, was arrested for saying schmuck on stage in 1962. Seven years later, another famous American Jew, Philip Roth, published Portnoy’s Complaint, which is essentially a 274-page dick joke, or so some claim.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

“I probably owe a debt to Philip Roth that I’m not even fully aware of,” says Novak, who is Jewish. She references him directly in her show, joking, “I went off to college feeling good. It’s a Catholic-ish college. Lots of virgin boys scurrying around, scrambling for sexual experience at parties. Not me. I’m a Jew and I did the coursework in high school, so I felt like a Philip Roth figure. A Jewish pervert ready to teach.”

Jewish male comics may be drawn to dick jokes, according to Berg, who is Jewish, because, “the fact that our penises were intruded upon at a very young age probably gives us a fixation on it and makes us want to talk about it more.”

Dr. Jeremy Dauber, the Atran professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University and author of Jewish Comedy, traces Jewish dick jokes all the way back to the Bible. The earliest case of laughter in Jewish tradition is Sarah’s laughter when she’s told that her 100-year-old husband Abraham will give her a child. It is “a laughter about male impotence,” Dauber says.

But comedians aren’t just laughing at penises anymore. Novak is going in the opposite direction. “I’m trying to restore [the penis] to true dignity.” Will her intellectual blow job jokes allow the dick joke to be taken more seriously? Will future comedians have to deal with the flack that Patton still gets in his reviews?

“Even like positive reviews, sometimes they’ll still point out there’s also a lot of cock, cock cock,” he says. “Why do you have to make sure everyone knows that you thought some of the subject matter was lowbrow?” He thinks reviewers roll their eyes at his dick talk because “everyone constantly is terrified that those around them don’t think that they’re that smart.”

Comedy is one of the only art forms that allows us to talk about male genitalia so openly and democratically. Whatever form the dick joke takes, from idiotic to intellectual, from poetry to prop comedy, as long as it gets a laugh, it should be celebrated. And there’s no better way to diffuse the angst surrounding the modern-day penis than a well-crafted dick joke. The more we laugh about penises (and not just at them), the happier the world might be.

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”  

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/best-dick-jokes-through-history-why-sexual-comedy-about-men-is-important-esquire-com/