#vinyl and a t shirt and a poster ; my top album of last year!!

[weezerlvr228]

Pinkerton son or blue album daughter

I love Pinkerton and all the songs, but if I ever met a guy who related to ANY of the songs it would be a giant red flag😭 (except for Rivers)

blue album daughter all the way!!!

[ritchieblackless]

My Cozy Powell Collection

I know that nobody cares but yesterday MY Cozy Powell patch came and it's LOVELY and I wanted to show you

Two Cozy Powell T-shirt. The Bedlam one is hand made. The other one is vintage I think... I got it very cheap... Very very cheap, talking about £6 pounds.

I don't know if this is worth to be in my collection but since is a Cozy Powell item I will let it pass. P.S: I am preparing a post explaining why this book is awful.

THE PATCH. Since is vintage is not for the iron so I will have to glue it or, worst case scenario, sew it. I found it lovely because most of the patches that have a person on it are creepy but this is sooo perfect. (WELL it is still creepy but it look fine)

The dad version of the patch. Cozy Powell poster featured on a unknown magazine (because I bought it as a clip) saying thanks to the people that voted him as the #1 drummer for the 5th time (not in a row though)

My Cozy Powell vinyls. I didn't take a picture of the Rainbow ones because you already know that Cozy was in Rainbow 5 years and he is in the most memorable albums.

We have Octopuss his 3rd album. ELPowell (which funnily enough, that was the first Cozy Powell album that I bought without knowing anything about him but just his name. So I have an a affectionate relationship with it). There is Tilt, his 2nd album and one of my favs. Also there is Night Games which is an amazing album, so poppy but good. The mythic Bedlam self-titled, good good album, is on YouTube and is highly recommend if you like pure 70s rock. Bedlam "Demos and Anthology" this album is lovely and there is a rough demo of his iconic 1812 Overture Drum Solo. The one and only Over The Top. I have nothing to say about this album, is just so perfect. And last but not least, Rough and Ready, Jeff Beck Group. WHAT AN ALBUM ok

Don't believe I am rich. I just had luck on finding these on Ebay and record shop at £6 pounds or even less.

More clippings. This is an interview.

On the right there is a Kerrang magazine of August 1981. On the left, is a Cozy Powell poster that came with the magazine and also there is a Rainbow family tree explaining all the members.

On the left we have a Japanese edition that I found ON A CHARITY SHOP of The Drums Are Back, Cozy's solo album of the 90s. The normal The Drums Are Back the cover is an illustration. On the right is The Very Best of Cozy. Bedlam live in Birmingham and Big Bertha live in Germany 1970 (Cozy and Ball brothers's band before Bedlam)

More clippings. Two newspaper promotion cuts of Cozy's albums.

My Cozy Powell bracelets and ome Japanese pin badge that I found on Ebay for £2 pounds. I am telling you, I am just lucky. Not rich or spoiled, just lucky to find these things.

I hope none of you hate me for doing this, I am not trying to brag about the stuff or something.

[copias-thrall]

Cause I'm Young and I'm Here and So Beautiful

A look into the rise and fall of Mary Goore's flash-in-the-pan modeling career.

~12.5K Mary Goore/Reader *drug/alcohol use; mentions of past child abuse; brief homelessness; plot no porn; POV shift*

This fic was inspired by and is very loosely based on Aurelio Voltaire's early days in NYC in the 90s, though I have set it in Boston in the early aughts. 😊

Many thanks to the artists who did commissions for this! 🥰

One Way Streets

Mary stepped off the regional rail and gripped his backpack. He had $72.57 in cash rolled into his socks and a give-em-hell attitude.

When he’d packed his bag the night before, he wasn’t even sure if he’d go through with it, but he couldn’t stand being home anymore. Some of his friends had told him he was crazy.

"Three more months, dude. You got this. Just finish high school, then bounce."

But they didn’t have to live with his dad and the step-monster. Every day was a new indignity. Having them bitch about his music and his style was one thing—that he could have dealt with—but everything else had just kind of…escalated.

Now that the kiddies were older, they’d turned into gremlins. They’d somehow sensed that Mary wasn’t their beloved older brother—he was some sort of half other. They’d stopped questioning why "mom was so mean" to him and had accepted that she was because there was something wrong with Mary. They realized they could be little shits and blame everything on him.

And dad just didn’t care. He’d throw up his hands and say, "I have to live with her"—as if Mary wasn’t in the same boat.

Dad hadn’t stopped her when—in a rage—she’d smashed every single vinyl album Mary had owned because the twins ruined her nice tablecloth. He’d shrugged when she cut all Mary's guitar strings so he couldn’t play "the devil’s music." He’d held Mary back when she took a match and burned all his secret stuff that Mary kept under his bed—action figures, books, guitar mags, journals—in the backyard because he got detention for smoking. He hadn’t said a word when the police showed up after she came at Mary with scissors because he’d dyed his hair black and he’d pushed her away before she could scalp him.

Mary thought for sure he was going to get carted off to jail as she screamed about him terrorizing the family and being afraid he was going to kill her sons in their sleep, but the officers had just looked at her bored and told her being a teenager wasn’t a crime.

So, no: Mary couldn’t wait 3 more months.

He’d scraped together what money he had left from his secret shifts working as a busboy under the table at a local dive downtown, packed his backpack with the essentials, and walked the 5 miles to the train station instead of going to school.

Eighteen was 10 weeks away. He could fudge it for a few months, especially since he could already get away without using his fake ID to get into shows most of the time.

So, to the big city it was.

He shifted his weight and tried to pretend that he belonged here in Boston, but actually facing the busy streets was a lot different from looking at a bird’s-eye view map. He had a printout in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look like a doe-eyed tourist. So he set off down the seemingly labyrinthine streets in the direction he could have sworn was the correct one.

It wasn't.

When he came out a side alley into Faneuil Hall, he almost wondered if he'd gone through a fairy portal, since he was clear on the other side of town. Begrudgingly, he checked his creased map, and set out once more.

And ended up spit out by the State building.

Finding the hostel turned into a fraught adventure, and he got turned around several times more. When he tried to ask for directions, most people pushed past him while one lady shoved $5 at him. He used the cash to buy a hotdog, and it was the vendor who ultimately gave him directions in his thick, Southie accent.

Of course, making it to the hostel ended up being just part one. The rates were almost double what it stated online ("Sorry, honey—that site hasn’t been upgraded since the 90s."), and two nights were practically all his savings. Mary had thought he’d at least have a couple of days to find a job, not 36hrs.

He left the hostel, wondering for the first time if maybe he shouldn’t go back home…but he decided it was a nice day out. Surely there was some place he could hunker down. Just for the night.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the cops at every fucking turn telling him to move along. And any place out of line-of-sight seemed to already be inhabited.

He finally found a place behind some rocks in the Seaport where he didn’t think he’d be murdered in his sleep, curled around his backpack, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Mary woke up damp from the dew and the morning sun streaming into his eyes. The birds were creating an awful racket, but Mary guessed it was as good an alarm clock as any.

He ran his fingers through his bird's nest of hair, and he made his way back to the South Station. The men’s room may have smelled like a sewage treatment plant, but at least it was free. He had expected it to be mostly empty at the crack of dawn, but it was full of commuters making that last run to the head before they had to take the train 2hrs out of the city for work.

And it was a sight: a bunch of suits with their fancy lattes washing their hands, and Mary in the corner trying to surreptitiously wipe down with paper towels under his Misfits t-shirt and his shredded jeans. At school, he’d have probably gotten into several altercations by now—no one would have let him just turn into Mary Goore without a fight—but this was Boston, and no one gave him more than a cursory glance.

Just another college kid.

It emboldened Mary to go full-out in the kind of way he had only done when going out to the punk shows downtown at night: kohl all the way around his eyes, and some on his cheekbones; mascara because his lashes are long and thick, and he knows it (his dad had said it made him look hard, and Mary had sneered that maybe that was what he’d been going for. But maybe it had been because he’d liked the way it had made his green eyes pop.); a smear of the step-monster’s fanciest matte lipstick on his full lips; and airplane glue in his hair to give it that lift.

He made a kissy face at himself in the mirror, and headed back out.

It was a nice Spring day—almost boiling in the direct sun—and it tempted Mary to wear only his battle vest, but even he kind of figured applying to jobs half dressed was a mistake.

He walked all over the city, trying not to get lost, looking for any kind of work—dishwasher, busboy, barback—but all he had to show for it was blistered feet and a raging appetite. The only good part of the day was that he noted any restaurant or bakery that looked like it might toss perfectly good food at the end of the day.

He and his friends had become experts at dumpster diving in his podunk town, and he felt confident that he had a good feel for a jackpot. Mary staked out a bakery and was rewarded with a find of "old" bagels. He shoved as many as he could into the nooks and crannies of his backpack before slinking off to the Commons to inhale at least two of them.

Cold, stale dough never tasted so good.

He watched the tourists and the professionals walk by in ones and in groups while he ran his bare feet through the grass. Some laughed with each other as they sauntered down the path while others seemed singularly intent on their ultimate destination. A pack of dogs ran and played with each other as their owners looked on fondly, and nearby the baseball diamond hosted a casual game.

Mary counted his lucky stars that his first week in Boston was April at its kindest—always mild during the day, even when it turned cloudy, and a few times even downright warm. The nights turned chilly, though, and it had Mary in more layers than an onion. If the birds or damp didn't wake him, his butt cramps from being curled in a tight ball all night did.

He spent those days walking around the city proper looking for work. He wasn't adventurous enough to make the leap across the bridges to Cambridge just yet, but his travels gave him a good sense on how the different sections of Boston connected—and showed him potential places to crash at night. He didn't even mind living off day-old garbage food and drinking from bubblers (he'd bought a water for the express purpose of reusing the bottle), but the barren wasteland that seemed to be the job market was beginning to weigh on him.

At home, he could always find a shit job if he was willing to put up with shit hours and ridiculous requests. Here, though, Mary was just one of many desperate people willing to do desperate work.

And he didn’t look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

@dipendancesld

Hashtag WTF

I’m scrolling through Insta on the T, and I’m way down the rabbit hole of hashtags. New content was at a minimum this morning (how can I follow accounts in triple digits and only see the same 4 posts?!), so I’d started with some art tags and ended up where I usually end up—trolling social media for blurry pictures of my boy.

His band has been a local staple for years—or at least that’s what he told me on our first date. I had just moved from New York after a nasty breakup, ready to start fresh, and I’d seen him at a coffee shop hanging posters for his next show in his leather jacket, asymmetrical Metallica crop top, and stomping boots.

Fresh had never looked so good.

Then, a few months back, an online publication had featured his band in the year’s 50 best bands "you’ve never heard of," and now the band's starting to gain traction.

He’s starting to gain traction.

Finding the new online content of him first has become a game the two of us play. We had to stop counting images posted from the popular fan accounts because Mary's now acquaintances with most of them, and I said it was hardly fair to snipe me that way. Mary had pouted—but it was to cover up his grin. So now we troll for the pictures of his latest gig or at his favorite haunts from either his  casual fans or one of his new ones. I even have a whole range of hashtag typos saved if I really want to triumph, since Mary just doesn't have the attention span.

I usually win, though, by virtue of not keeping Rockstar Hours—and because Mary doesn’t have a smartphone. Mary delights in spending the wee hours while I'm sleeping finding new content, and I'll often wake to one he's pulled up on my laptop and a "suck it" sticky note stuck to my monitor.

(But I’m reigning supreme.)

There’s a thirst tag I sometimes comb through (for reasons), and today I’m desperate for that morning serotonin to keep me from dozing off, which is why I stumble across a particularly convincing cosplayer in some…risqué poses and outfits.

The dude is really good, and I have to admit he really does have Mary’s mannerisms down pat. He’s younger and a little skinnier than Mary is now, but his facial expressions are on point. I zoom in to see the contouring technique because he's using one of those filters to make it look old…and that’s when I sense something off. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but usually there’s an uncanny valley to his serious cosplayers, and this dude looks so real. He’s even 100% accurate with the mole placement, which is something I never see.

My heart does a flip-flop.

Is that…actually Mary?

Foundling

Mary's sixth night in the city, it rained. It was more of a brief Spring shower, but it was still enough to soak him and his backpack through. He shivered through the early morning hours until the sun came up, then he made his way to the Commons to lay his belongings—and himself—out into the sun to dry.

By midday, he had a slight sunburn across his nose, but most of his things were dryish—though the food was a soggy lost cause. He cut his losses and decided to buy a sausage from the hotdog vendor, even if that meant he was down to $52.37 in his sock bank.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life (sometimes he still dreams of it), and he gobbled it down as he sat in the grass and watched the show of people pass by.

He could take today off from his job search.

Just another Groundhog Day of rejections.

A gaggle of kids about his age walked past, and he lit up when he saw them: studs and bright hair and cuffs and combat boots. They ran and shrieked and shoved at each other, and Mary had never felt such longing to be a part of something.

Not that nebulous feeling of "my world is out there somewhere," but "my world is right there if I can just get to it."

And he realized maybe he could.

These were his people.

Mary hopped off the bench and approached the boisterous group.

"Uh, hey…guys."

The pack stopped and looked him over, confused but not hostile.

"Oh hey, man" said a girl with green fins and a studded, leather jacket.

"Hey."

I have nowhere to go. Can I go with you?

"Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Oh, you don’t—"

A guy in a tight striped shirt, snake bites, and blue hair interrupted him.

"Shit, were you in my intro into film class last year?"

Mary was a high school dropout.

"Nah, dude. I’m new and shit."

…But he wasn’t stupid.

A curvy white goth with bleached blonde hair and a cream princess dress smiled at him.

"Aww, that’s rough, honey. If you think about it, they really ought to give transfers on-campus housing. It sucks to be so new and away from the action."

Mary nodded. "Yeah. Sucks."

"Well, we’re going to The Pit, wanna come?"

"If you guys don’t mind…"

"Fuck, the more the merrier!"

Mary smiled as they assimilated him into the group. He found out the goth’s name was Vanessa ("But call me Vanity."), green fins was Alexa ("Or Alex. I’m trying it out."), striped shirt was Billy, and the two other punks were Mandi (Manic Panic red) and Aaron (band tee, spiked collar).

No one laughed at him when he introduced himself as Mary or asked him why he had a girl’s name.

They took him onto the T at Charles MGH, and Mary marveled at the setting sun over the Charles River before the train ducked underground to barrel in Cambridge. At Harvard, they ushered him off the train and directly into The Pit, and Mary almost cried when he saw the pit rats there playing hacky sack, strumming guitars, and smoking cloves. Mary watched as his group high-fived, bumped chests, and hugged nearly everyone there before introducing him as if they’d known him for years.

He was shit at hacky sack, but he accepted a round on the guitar and shared a clove with a white girl who had a rat's nest of hair.

"Fuck their beauty stands," she said when she caught Mary staring.

Mary smiled and pointed to his own mess of hair. "Fuck ‘em," he repeated.

She cackled and handed him a brown bag with what he expected to be whiskey, but tasted like turpentine.

She laughed harder at his face as he coughed, and she pounded him on the back.

"Moonshine, dude. Lenny makes it in his bathtub."

"Which one is Lenny," Mary asked as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, he’s not here. He goes to MIT. We have a strict trade agreement—booze for pot. I’m Katie."

Head fuzzy, Mary had made out with her until Aaron tugged on his arm.

"Shit dude, we gotta go before the T closes. You live close to here?"

"Uh…"

"Aww, I think he got into Lenny’s moonshine," said Vanity. "If he’s a transfer, I bet he’s at some shithole in Allston. You in Allston, honey?"

Mary just nodded.

"All right then," said Alex, taking charge. "We’ll put him up tonight. There’s no way he’s gonna make it back to Allston by himself, and I’ll be fucked if I’m trekking out there without a BU party to crash."

Mary wobbled slightly as Alex took his arm in his and led him to the T.

"Ok, we gotta go now or we’ll all be hoofing it."

They took Mary back to their dorm by the Hatch Shell and signed him in as a guest.

"Is this ok?" Mary asked warily—he didn't want to get kicked out in the middle of the night.

Mandi patted him on the back.

"We do it all time. No one really gives a shit. Vegan Mick dropped out 2 semesters ago and they don’t even check for his ID."

That night, Mary slept in the common room on a lumpy couch that was half as long as he was.

It was heaven.

The next morning seemed like the end, and Mary slumped as Vanity to sign him out. For one brief day he'd been a part of something, and now it was back to Mary, party of one. But Vanity took one look at his face and asked if he wanted to get breakfast at the dining hall.

Of course, he wanted to…but he thought of the dwindling cash in sock bank and hesitated. Vanity, bless her, misread his trepidation.

"It's on me, sweetie. I know most transfers don’t opt in. Too expensive when it’s not bundled. No worries, I got a ton of points I don’t use."

Alex and Aaron were already half done with their food when Vanity and he joined them, and they looked on in amusement as Mary ate half the breakfast buffet.

When the subject of classes came up, he shrugged off questions.

"None this morning."

Alex narrowed her eyes at him.

"What year did you say you were?"

"Sophomore."

"Not a freshman?"

Mary shook his head. "I’m not a freshman."

She seemed about to ask another question, so Mary quickly changed the subject.

"I thought I’d spend the day applying for jobs. You guys know of any place that’s hiring?"

"No work study?"

"No."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Shit, anything. I’ll sweep the fucking floors."

They bandied about ideas, places for Mary to try, but no one had any leads. Too soon, some unknown gong had them scurrying to get to class.

Mary suddenly panicked.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I spend the night again? I mean…"

"Yeah, sure," said Vanity. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, man. Meet me after class and I'll swipe you in."

It apparently was a time-honored tradition, passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen, on gaming the guest system. Most kids used it to essentially move their significant others into their dorm rooms, but a handful every year used it to give haven to others who had questionable housing situations.

So, just like that, Mary had a place to rest his bones.

@dilfpassing

A Deeper Look

I’m so intent on scrolling through the comments on the grainy pics—which I'm sure now are actual scans—that I completely miss my stop, and I have to put my phone away so I can wheeze lightly jog my way to where I work as a receptionist at an alternative hair salon.

It’s really important that I start a good hour before we open so I can return any calls left on our voicemail first thing in case I can fit anyone in today. Which means I have to shelve my find for now, much to my irritation.

Mornings are super-busy because apparently there are some people in the world that like getting up with the sun and want everything done by noon. (June Cleaver’s salon lets me get away with a lot—like coming to work in denim short-shorts and ripped tights, free hair colors, and a snarky attitude—but late start times aren’t one of them.) I honestly don’t have room in my brain to obsess about the pictures because I’m too busy answering calls, making coffee, settling accounts, and giving the new customer spiel for the 57th time to a walk-in.

It’s just after midday, when Penny, the shampoo girl, collects my cash for the salon-wide sandwich run, and I finally have a moment to breathe. And obsess.

I take out my phone again, and I have to retrace my steps because of course the app has refreshed, which is why Sonia has the time to look over my shoulder.

"Missing dream boy’s dick so much you gotta spend your lunch hour ogling pics of him on the internet?"

I zoom in on the one of maybe!Mary in his underwear.

"Who does that look like to you?"

Sonia makes a guh sound in her throat and backs away.

"I don’t need to see your intimates!"

"That’s the thing! It’s not mine!"

"Your boy’s nudes get leaked??"

I wave my arms around.

"I don’t freakin’ know! They may not even be him. Fucking. C’mere and help me out!"

Sonia warily creeps back over, and so does Ryan, since all the yelling has attracted him.

The three of us peer over the phone as I scroll through the images again.

By the time Penny comes back with lunch, we’ve gone back and forth on who’s in the images—Mary or a fake—and I haven’t been able to do any actual research. The afternoon rush starts, and I have to table the whole thing again, having made no progress at all.

It isn’t until near-closing, when most of the other stylists have gone home—and it’s only June who does the post-work crowd—that I can really dig into the matter.

A deep dive and a couple of defunct, decade-old forums later, I find that what I took as an aspirational hashtag was actually the name of a zine called "Heroes."

There’s like, zero online trail about it—except for a few other grainy scans of other pages of articles, poetry, concert pictures, and art—but it seemed to be an early aughts missive for local underground culture and color.

It still doesn’t explain why Mary’s in there in various states of undress and poses.

Or why Mary has never said a word about it to me.

Stripped Bare

Mary settled into a sort of routine. He spent most days looking for a job—any job—with his backpack full of food from their dining hall. Most nights he rotated couches on different floors so the RAs didn’t notice that he basically lived there.

He made friends with Vegan Mick for about 5 seconds until Mary had eaten an entire Rotisserie chicken from 7-11 in front of him. Mick had launched into a whole spiel, and Mary had pointed out that Mick's jacket and Docs were made of leather. He’d only meant it as a joke—a callout in answer to a callout, like he'd do with his friends back home—but Vegan Mick had turned purple, then iced Mary out every time he saw him after that.

Oops.

The brief friendship had lasted long enough, however, for Mick to give Mary some tips and tricks of being homeless.

Homeless.

That had been a tough pill to swallow. Until Vegan Mick had put Mary’s situation like that, Mary had just thought of himself between places.

But it was true: he didn’t live anywhere. He skated by on the kindness of his new friends, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the ruse of "transfer student who didn’t like his shithole apartment and was too busy job searching to concentrate on classes."

He still spent a few nights a week finding an out-of-the-way place outside to hunker down in or huddling in with Katie and a few of the other gutter punks under their boxes in the corners of the T stations. He knew they would have been more than happy to make room, anyway, but Mary always emptied his backpack of all the pilfered dining hall food for distribution amongst them.

It honestly wasn't so terrible now that he had friends and a warm place to go on cold or rainy nights, but.

He needed an actual place to live. To afford an actual place to live, he needed a job. To get a job, he needed a place to live.

It seemed like a catch-22, and he began to despair that he’d never get ahead…until Mandi offered him a leg up.

Mary was sitting on the grass in the Commons in the shade, thinking that with summer coming up, maybe he could fudge it until the gang came back in September. There was always Katie and The Pit, and Mary was sure he could chip in somehow.

Mandi sat down next to him.

"I thought that mess of hair was you, Mare."

"Hey, Mandi. What’s kicks?"

"You still looking for a job?"

Mary put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Don’t remind me."

"You over 18?"

Just last week. But Mary hadn’t said, since they thought he was a Sophomore.

"Yeah."

"Wanna be at least 21?"

Mary grinned at her.

"That’s what my fake ID says."

She laughed, a tinkling thing.

"You got anything against strip clubs?"

Mary furrowed his brows at her.

"Uh…what’s the right answer here?"

She shoved him playfully.

"Do you want a job?"

"Yeah?"

"Then say no."

"No. No problems with strip clubs." He squinted at her. "Are they looking for male strippers?"

She laughed again.

"Definitely not." She canted her head at Mary. "I mean, you're very pretty, Mare. I could probably put you on as one of the girls…even with these triple As," she flicked playfully at his nipple, which had him grunting and batting at her, "but I was thinking more behind the scenes."

Mary held up his arm and made a weak muscle.

"I don’t think I’d be much of a bouncer, Mands."

"You said you’d wash dishes, sweep floors and shit, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the club I work at—"

"The club at you what now?"

Mandi gave him a strange look.

"Yeah. The strip club I work at."

Mary’s eyes bugged out.

"As a…waitress?"

"As a stripper, Mary. Duh." At his dumbfounded look she shook her head. "It’s kind of extra credit, as a dance major. I’m going to turn it into my thesis. Plus, I make hella bank."

She swept her arm across the park that made up her college "campus."

"How else do you think I can afford this rock-and-roll lifestyle? Not all of us are here on scholarship or mom and dad’s dime."

She tilted her head at him.

"I thought you’d get it."

When Mary didn't respond, she touched his shoulder.

"Mare. I know you don't go here."

"W-what…? I…"

He looked at her, wide-eyed as the blood drained from his face.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Not if you don't want me to."

Mary looked down. "Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know that means I've got no address."

Mandi bumped his shoulder and waved his words away.

"A lot of the girls dance. Paddy is used to dorm rooms as addresses. You can use mine."

Mary looked at her, hoping he could convey every ounce of gratitude he was feeling.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder.

"So, you up for it? Sweeping floors and bussing tables?" She leveled a look at him. "Cleaning up puke?"

Anything.

"Fuck, I’m desperate, Mands. I’ll hold their hair back if it means a paycheck."

"That’s the spirit!"

***

Mary was sure Patrick was part of the mob—or at least in cahoots. The guy had taken one look at Mary’s ID and had said, "But how old are you really?" and Mary had said, "Nineteen."

Patrick had thrown up his hands. "Well, you ain’t gonna be serving alcohol anyway, kid. Your job is to do whatever I tell you. Some asshole breaks a bottle, you clean up the glass so the girls don’t hurt themselves. Some idiot ralphs all over the toilet seat, you scrub the shit out of that fucker. A bachelor party leaves a table a hot mess, you better be out there clearing off the table for the next one, got it?"

Mary had nodded.

"You show up at 5 to help the girls set up the bar. You stay til whenever it takes to close down—but you only get paid 'til 2am—and you get an hour to eat, unpaid. You don’t bother the girls, and," Patrick had leaned in, "you don’t steal from me."

Mary had gulped and nodded emphatically.

Patrick had jabbed a finger at him. "That includes the booze. If I get fucked because some snot-nosed, underage kid is drinking with my good friends Jim and Johnnie, I’m gonna be very put out."

"Got it, sir."

"Don’t call me sir. I’m Paddy to my friends, so you can call me Patrick."

"Yes, Patrick."

Patrick had looked him over.

"You get paid as an independent contractor just like the girls, so you gotta deal with your own taxes, you got that? I’ll start you at $10 an hour."

Mary’s eyes had gone wide. Back home he was lucky to get 5.

"Ten…?"

Patrick had tilted his head again.

"No, you’re right, 12. Do a good job, and I’ll think about raising it to 15."

Mary had to physically stop his jaw from dropping.

"You do weeknights for now so if you fuck up it’s not that much of a problem. If you don’t fuck up and the girls don’t hate you, you can get weekends. Deal?"

Mary had sat up straighter. "Deal." He’d held his hand out, but Patrick had just looked at it until Mary pulled it back into his side.

"Ariel vouched for you, so I’m giving you a shot. Don’t make her regret it."

Mary had shaken his head as Patrick had handed him some forms to fill out.

"Come back at 4 tomorrow with these and we’ll get you started. Now, get out, I got shit to do."

Mary had taken the forms and skedaddled.

Mandi was outside waiting for him, all smiles.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but fuck—your boss is scary."

"Nah, he’s a teddy bear."

***

The job was awful.

The puke was an almost nightly occurrence, and by the end of the first week, little cuts covered Mary’s hands from the broken glass. The customers were loud, rowdy, and acted as if their mother was going to clean up after them.

Mary swore he would never get the beer smell out. It now lived in his soul.

One dude punched Mary and broke his nose for no reason Mary could tell before the bouncers dragged the guy away. The girls gave him some tampons to stop the bleeding, and Mary finished his shift.

Patrick paid Mary in cash at the end of every week with a "It’s your job to report that, not mine," and at the end of the month, Patrick bumped Mary up to $15/hr. He worked 5 days a week because, according to Patrick, "The Lord gave us a day of rest, and you get one day off per week."

Mary never reported a single cent to the IRS.

The girls loved him, and joked that Patrick had gotten them a pet. They showed him winged eyeliner and smokey eyes and how to contour. They guffawed when they watched him try out their shoes like a newborn deer. On slow nights, they tried to show him pole techniques.

He saw the gang less and less because by the time they were getting out of class, he was going into work, and when he was done work, they were crawling into bed. Fortunately, the desk sitters seemed to forget that he wasn’t an on-campus "student" and didn’t even bother signing him in anymore. There were a few sticklers, but Mary found that—while back home he was less than scum—here, he attracted all the right kinds of attention…and a smirk with the right compliment went a long way.

By the time their school year ended, Mary had saved up $1,000 (and he needed to transfer his money out of sock bank and into the ripped lining of his jacket).

Even though they didn't know just how much they'd saved him, Mary showed up on the last day as thanks to help them all move their stuff into family cars or rented trucks. They hugged him goodbye and said to ring them next semester.

Mandi bopped him on the nose and told him to keep his nose clean.

Mary took a sublet in Allston with 2 BU kids and a Berkley grad student. The "room" was a closed-in porch with a sleeping bag left by the last resident—but it was $400 a month until September, utilities included.

At first, Mary didn't know why the gang was so snobby about Allston, but the summer seemed to be one continual party. It didn't matter what day Mary got up, there were always broken beer bottles and stale beer on their front stoop, and the apartment had a designated watering can for washing away the vomit that dripped down from the top porches to their own.

But he took it in stride, and when he wasn’t at the strip club or sleeping, he was partying with the BU kids, or letting the Berkley grad show him better string fingering techniques.

Mary still tried to get out to The Pit with what groceries he could spare, but Katie had moved on with some of the others to do a protest tour with an activist street band that had come through town, and without her or the gang, it made Mary feel lonely.

By the end of the summer, Mary had saved up enough money for first, last, and security. He even had some left over to buy more than ramen and some new clothes. To Mary, it felt like a million dollars. He rented a garden-level apartment in the cheap part of Jamaica Plain for September 1st and spent that entire day with the BU dudes driving around in their rented truck for Allston Christmas’s best furniture finds.

Mary ended up with a mattress that he hoped on a wish and a prayer didn’t have bedbugs, a mismatched set of dishes, plastic drawers that were slightly warped, and a broken futon frame he swore he would fix. Throw in a few sets of slightly used string lights, and Mary’s cave felt downright homey.

When the gang got back, he simply told them he’d dropped out.

"Yeah, I just don’t think college is for me. Music’s my real passion, you know?"

Alex had groaned.

"I knew that Berkley kid was gonna be a bad influence on you."

Mary shrugged.

"My grades were shit anyway. But I’m still around, you know. The strip club’s only a block from campus."

"Because we saw you so much then," deadpanned Billy.

"Hey! Stop piling on Mary," said Vanity. "He’s following his path."

Mary shot her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Vanity."

Patrick finally gave him a little more leeway with his days off, and Mary started taking Saturday night to join the gang in Harvard Square for the shadow cast of Rocky Horror. One of Aaron’s classmates, Amber, was in it, and they all wanted to support her.

Mary felt that something again. That thing that told that this was his place and his people. This eclectic group who got up in front of strangers every week in their underwear for free enthralled Mary.

He and Amber bonded immediately, and Mary began going even without the gang. The cast welcomed him in as an honorary groupie, and Mary's friendship with the gang waned. There was still Mandi to cavort with at the strip club, but now when Mary wasn't there, he was at any one of the Rocky crew's apartments getting high and playing dress up.

"You’ve got such a Look, Mare," sighed Amber. "I’d kill for your cheekbones."

"I’d kill for your tits."

She slapped him playfully. "Don’t be gross."

"No, I’m serious. Someone once put it in my head that I'd be a hot chick."

The girls had giggled and proceeded to dress him up in bras and corsets with cutlets. They added a wig, and the glo-up surprised even Mary.

Still buzzed, they went out for girl’s night and hit up all the bars in Fenway and flirted their way to free shots from the dude bros before batting their falsies at bouncers to let them into the clubs ahead of the line and without the cover.

The cutlets eventually became a nuisance—and soon they were all flapping them about above their heads as they danced—but Mary had loved the feel of the lace and satin corsets against his skin.

When they’d all collapsed in a pile at the end of the night, Mary wondered if they’d tell him where to get some lingerie for himself.

***

By August, Mary was ready to quit the strip club.

He was tired of cut fingers (they were making it hard to play the guitar he’d bought), the drunks, and the sick everywhere. Now that he had a little cushion, he thought maybe he could at least find something with better hours.

Mandi had graduated and was well into a summer internship at Disney in hopes they’d bring her on as a dancer.

Alex had also graduated and moved out to LA to make it as a film editor.

Vanity and Aaron had started dating after finals, and they had moved in together in Cambridgeport for their last year.

Billy had stopped going to classes before dropping out altogether. No one seemed to know what happened, and when they called his home, his mother just said he was unavailable.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stick around the Grid anymore, and it was a bitch of a commute back to his place if he wasn’t going to hang out with the Rocky crew. He landed a job at a record store that was walking distance to his apartment.

Patrick seemed surprisingly sad to see him go, saying, "Ah, the good ones smart up," and gave him a $500 bonus for not "fucking up."

Tim, one of the older Rocky people, turned out to not live too far from him, and when Mary started hanging out there, so did the party.

Now that Mary was no longer shackled by the strip club’s hours, his world opened a few more degrees. He spent his nights dressing up while he watched the cast rehearse. (When he showed them a move or two he learned from the women at the club, they tried to get him to do a guest star as Frank. But Mary had shaken his head and said that wasn’t the kind of performing he wanted to do.)

When they weren't rehearsing, they dragged Mary to TT The Bear’s, The Middle East, and The Milky Way Lounge for underground shows. They took him to fetish night at ManRay after a trip to Hubba Hubba for pleather and lingerie, and Mary made a lot of new friends.

Sometimes, Mary would show up to work straight off a night out in his club clothes, eyeliner smudged and lipstick smeared. It should have got him fired, but his boss just shrugged.

"I used to keep rockstar hours too."

Mary still wore all his old vestiges—his battle vest and his ripped jeans—it was just that now he sometimes added a corset and heels.

Wherever Katie was now, he hoped she knew he was still fucking their beauty standards.

ry.omen Insta

Answer Me This

I practically vibrate the entire way back to our place. I'm still trying to wring information out of the internet like it's too-wet clothes, but the only thing I accomplish is making myself motion sick on the bus, so I put my phone back in my pocket and breath through my nose.

When I get home, Mary is sprawled across the couch in his pjs with various limbs hanging over sides and edges as he watches some extreme sport show on my laptop.

I wonder if he just got up, but I see the start of dinner on the stove, so I decide not to snark at him.

"Hey," he says without looking up.

I am, however, gonna need some answers on "Heroes."

I gently close the laptop, and he meets my eyes.

"What?"

I climb onto the couch, and Mary’s limbs recede like vines to make room for me as I scroll through my phone to my photo app where I’ve saved screenshots.

"Lucy," I say in a terrible accent, "you have some ‘splaining to do!"

Mary squints at me and takes my phone, his expression morphing into one of surprise.

"Shit, babe. Where’d ya find these??"

"So they are you!"

He chuckles.

"Christ…I haven't thought about these in fucking years."

"Mind telling me what the fuck?" I ask, my hands on my hips.

I'm only half joking.

Mary grimaces at me.

"Ah."

"I'm gonna need more than that, mister."

He rubs the back of his neck.

"Fuck, you know those were hard times for me."

I know about his family, the homelessness. I know he tried out a lot until he found a life that fit. He'd given me the overviews with occasional anecdotes filled with names I never remembered.

But none of them included naughty pictures.

I worm my way under his arm.

"Yeah, I know, Mare."

His hand strokes down my arm.

"I mean, shit. I was kinda an asshole, you know?"

I wrap an arm around his chest.

"You're still kind of an asshole, Goore."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

When he doesn't say more, I poke him hard in the side.

"I’m literally dying here."

He laughs a little.

"Fine. But you gotta remember you asked."

Model Behavior

One day, Mary was walking down the street on his way to drinks with the new friends he'd made the weekend before. It was a good day. He wasn’t hungover as fuck, his makeup was only smudged artfully, and he was pretty sure he was going to get laid.

A guy in a leather jacket and tight jeans maybe a few years older than Mary stopped him on the street.

"Hey, man! I love your style."

Mary batted his eyelashes at him. "Thanks, dude."

"You ever think of dark modeling?"

Mary squinted his eyes at him.

"Dark what now?"

"You know—modeling but like," he gestured up and down Mary’s form, "for dark beauties. Show the world beauty isn’t cookie cutter."

"For like what? A website or some shit?"

The guy dug into his pocket, pulled out a card case, and handed one to Mary.

Heroes Greg Karson, Photographer/Web Design Butera School of Art

Actually, Mary had heard of this. It was a zine about the local happenings around town—concerts, art shows, parties, etc. There was a stack of them next to "Rrriot!" in the record shop. He’d flipped through one occasionally, mostly interested in the band reviews.

"We’re really on the lookout for anyone with the right look. You know, wear stuff you already own."

"So like a street fashion spread?"

"Well, we might do a little more with it, but—you know how it is. Most of the budget goes toward printing costs."

Mary perked up.

"Would I be paid?"

Greg laughed.

"Peanuts, my dude. But yeah. Even if it’s a T token. You interested, then?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Mind if I take a few test shots."

Mary smirked at Greg.

"How do you want me?"

"Just natural."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Mary arched his back and gave Greg his best snotty hipster face.

Greg dug out a digital camera from his carrying case and took a dozen or so pictures of Mary from different angles while telling him to turn this way or that.

Afterwards, the two of them huddled over the camera and scrolled through the shots.

"Aw yeah, this one. I love the attitude. The guys are gonna love it. You have a number where we can reach you?"

Mary gave him the number of the record shop. (His apartment had a phone, but he’d never gotten around to wanting to pay for service.)

Later, he and Amber looked up the Angelfire website on the back of the card. It was one page that contained the mission statement, bios of the creators, and locations to pick up the zine.

"Omigod—you’re gonna become a famous model, Mare!"

"Yeah, right. You know most of it ends up in the trash, right?"

But when Ben called, Mary said he was game. He directed Mary to a co-op in a converted warehouse in Dorchester, and Mary brought his favorite clothes in a borrowed duffle.

A girl in cat pajamas opened the door and pointed at a set of metal stairs with her cereal spoon.

On the second floor, Mary found Greg setting up a makeshift studio. A girl with multiple piercings and yarn dreads leaned against the wall in her black babydoll dress.

Mary sidled up to her.

"You here to model, too?"

She gave him an unimpressed once-over.

"I’m the art director, asshole."

Mary flushed hard as she turned to Greg.

"Couldn’t find one with brains?"

She turned back to Mary.

"I don’t know if you thought this would be a good way to meet chicks or what, dude. But I’m letting you know right now that I’m here on my day off to make sure this adheres to our aesthetic, so if you're not serious, fuck off."

Mary rubbed the back of his neck.

"Shit, sorry. I was expecting a dude named Ben."

She waved her hand in the air as if dispelling Ben.

"The Bens are morons. Good idea, terrible execution. I’m here to make sure we remain true to the idea of 'Heroes,' so don’t fuck up my shoot." She gave him a once over. "Christ. You have any experience?"

Greg turned from where he was testing the white balance.

"Angelique, stop harassing the talent. We get it, you have a degree from RISD."

Angelique snorted.

"As if I don't hear you going on and on about being a professional photographer. 'Hey, lemme shoot your portfolio, baby.' Whatever. As if we're not your only professional credit."

"Hey—you wanted a photographer for peanuts? You got me. You wanted models for peanuts? You got him."

Mary gave her his full snaggle-toothed grin.

"I take T tokens."

Angelique sighed, then pasted on a smile.

"Hi! So happy you’re here!" Her smile drooped. "You got your wardrobe in there?"

"Yeah."

Mary handed her the duffle, and she handed him release forms.

"Here: sign these"

She pawed through his offerings.

"Not bad, not bad." She pulled out a corset and his heeled boots. "We'll keep you in your jeans and have you wear your jacket over your corset. Cool?"

Cool.

The shoot was as professional as a shoot in a warehouse in what Mary was taking to usually be a living room could be. Angelique directed Greg with what she wanted. Greg called out positions and expressions for Mary to pose in.

It was surprisingly hard work, and by the end of a solid hour, his smirking lip was getting tired. Angelique and Greg scrolled through the shots, murmuring to themselves and nodding.

Mary waited—greeting at the other inhabitants as they squeezed by on their way either up or down—until Angelique approached him.

"That’ll do. You mind if we post on our website?"

Mary preened.

"Yeah, that’s kosher."

She handed him a pen and pocket notebook.

"Write down a quick bio."

He scribbled down a quick elevator pitch

Into general skulking and metal \m/

and handed the notebook back to her.

"Great, thanks."

She handed him a $20 bill, her eyes skimming him up and down.

"Next time we should show off those hip bones. Just jeans, I think."

Mary perked up. "Next time?"

"We’ll call you."

***

"Omigod, omigod!"

Amber perched on the record store counter, flipping through "Heroes," as Jon peered over her shoulder.

"Mary…look at you!"

Mary tried to swallow his smug smile.

Failed.

"Yeah. I’m hot shit, ain’t I?"

She bopped him on the nose with the newsprint.

"Don’t be vain."

He showed her his toothy smile.

"I like to think of it as confidence."

"So did Icarus."

Mary snorted and went back to putting prices on the new CDs.

"The camera loves you," said Jon, who was always quiet and reserved as you please…until he put on Frank’s corset and heels.

Mary had tried flirting with him, but Jon always ducked his head and played it off.

"Thanks, man," said Mary, giving him a softer smile.

"So??"

"So what, Amber?"

"Are you gonna do it again?"

Mary shrugged.

"I mean, if they call me, sure."

But he was kind of hoping they would.

When the next issue came out weeks later, Mary stared at the cybergoth on the pages and felt himself deflate. Listlessly, he thumbed through the delicate print, barely skimming the section devoted to the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s set he’d been at the week before.

He set it down with a sigh before he picked up his guitar and plucked out a tune he was trying to coax into a riff.

By the time a Ben called again, Mary had given up the modeling thing as a one-off.

"Hey, dude—thought maybe you guys forgot about me," Mary said in a teasing tone.

The Ben on the other end chuckled.

"It’s like herding cats to get shit out. Nah, dude—we definitely want you to be one of our regulars. You in for next Saturday?"

He was.

***

Over the course of a year, "Heroes" had Mary come out multiple times for shoots. Mainly, Mary wore his own clothes and did his own makeup, but occasionally, Angelique wanted something specific.

"How comfortable are you with boudoir shots?"

"With what?"

"Like a pinup, but more…saucy than sexy."

I'd pose nude if you paid me enough.

(Sure, he was a noodle boy, but he knew he had the goods.)

"Yeah, I’m cool with that."

Angelique brightened at him.

"Great!"

She picked up a set of complicated leather garters and thrust them at him.

"Put these on."

Mary had only ever worn lace garters—mostly out to clubs, but occasionally under his ripped jeans for an extra pop—but he found he liked these even more, liked the way they emphasized his thighs.

"Hey—where’d you get these…?"

(He was already thinking of what he could pair them with for goth night.)

"Local leatherworker. He mostly does pieces for Renn Fairs, but he'll also do custom. I can give you his info."

She led Mary into what was clearly someone's bedroom.

"Don't fuck anything up, or Joye will never let us use this again."

Mary shot her his best shark smile.

"Hey, I only mess up the sheets if someone asks."

Angelique gave him a flat look and called for Greg.

(But when he draped himself over the bed and told Greg to "Paint me like one of your French girls," Mary could have sworn she almost smiled.)

On one memorable occasion, she brought in a guy whose rope bondage demo she watched at a sex convention.

"Put on some of that lingerie and we'll truss you up. You ok with that, Goore?"

Mary ran his fingers over the coils and gave her a wolfish smile.

"You know I'm game for anything."

She gave him a vulpine smile of her own then, and she looked down at him from the height of her platformed boots.

"Good. I thought you should be submissive for once."

Mary had no witty rejoinder for that.

He listened with interest as the guy carefully explained what he was going to do, complete with pictures, and he relaxed easily into the process. (They put bunny ears on him, and it would be much, much later that he got that particular joke. Well played, Angelique.)

The ropes hadn’t let him do much posing, but Mary had kind of liked the constriction, and his thoughts were already on asking Amber to help him create a more versatile version for fetish night.

He’d left that day with a new kink…and the guy’s number.

"Why not just do one big shoot?" he asked another time. "Get it all done in one big bang!"

Angelique held up his garments to eyeball over him.

"Honey, we never even know if there's gonna be a next issue. The Bens spend most of the time arguing. My god you should hear them—Ben bankrolls the whole thing, so he says he should get final say on shit, and Benji wants total artistic control because it was his idea, because 'he's the graphic designer', and because it's his Kinko's employee discount they use."

She gave Mary a curled-lip smile as she tossed a few items at him.

"In the end it's this bitch you're looking at who gets shit done."

Mary began to change (they were long past modesty).

"How'd you get involved?"

"Went to school with Benji."

"Ben too?"

"Neg. The Bens are childhood friends. Ben works some cushy start-up job, so Benji lets him bankroll them both. Rent, utilities—everything. I love Benji to death, but he's a giant mooch."

"Shit, that must be nice."

Angelique shrugged. She stood back to appraise Mary's look.

"It's fucking lame. But it least it gets us fucking paid."

Mary didn't say I'd do this for free. Instead, he struck a pose and said, "I'm just happy for the exposure."

Angelique rolled her eyes and went to fetch Greg.

***

That year and a half would become a nonstop party with Mary as one of the VIPs; he wouldn't say no to anything—be it casual sex, club appearances, or whatever drug the current pretty thing was offering him in the bathroom.

But recognition started slow.

At first, it was customers who would leaf through the zine and recognize Mary.

Then, it was the occasional scenester who’d stop him on the street in JP as he walked about, and Mary would pose for grainy cell phone pics.

Soon, he was being approached at shows and clubs. The first time it happened, Mary was high off his new infamy and ready to please. A woman in a black bandage bra and pleated skirt with bondage straps approached him, and Mary was already thinking of what he could do with those.

"You look like that guy in ‘Heroes’!" she'd shouted to him over the music.

Mary had flashed her a crooked smile and leaned in.

"Maybe I am the guy in ‘Heroes’."

She'd given him an exaggerated once over before sidling closer with hooded eyes.

"I dunno…you're wearing way more clothes."

Mary had pulled his mesh top down by the collar in a tease as he'd curled over her.

"Take me somewhere more private and I’ll let you do a comparison."

She'd compared him all night.

And that was before he and the other "Heroes" models formed their own posse.

The Bens had thrown a BBQ and had invited everyone they'd ever met. There were people packed into their little 2 bedroom in Brighton, spilling down the back stairs, and equally packed into the little square of shared backyard. Ben had taken the 12-pack of 'Gansett beers Mary had brought, then introduced him to the other dark models.

"Now you're all here!" said Ben. He slung his arm around Mary. "Guys, this is Mary. Mary this is Mayhem, Lesley, Lola, and Bryan."

Mayhem was a rivethead, and Mary took to him instantly, but he was wary of the others. Lesley was the cybergoth who'd been in the first issue after him, and Mary still felt a bit salty at them, even though Mary knew by now the Bens rotated the models. Lola, the romantic goth, reminded him enough of Vanity that he felt guilty for losing touch with her and had him projecting a little. Bryan was a metalhead, so: competition.

Mary had thought they'd get along like cats and water, but weed, booze, and "Never Have I Ever" went a long way to creating a shared bond.

And there it was again. That pull. The magnetic force telling him that he'd found the place he was supposed to be. They quickly coalesced into their own pack, calling themselves the "Deathbutantes" (because they always killed it when they debuted for the night).

It had been rare for Mary to miss Friday and Saturday night shenanigans with the Rocky crew, but now, every night was Friday night. There was always a show or a concert or club that one of them knew about—and if they couldn't get lucky with the local color, they'd just go home with each other.

Mayhem taught Mary what Lola jokingly called the "grab a bat" dance, and the two of them cut quite the picture on the dance floors.

Lesley took to Lola, and the two of them could always be counted on for scintillating conversation in dark corners when Mary's limbst needed a break from flailing about.

The clubs weren't really Bryan's scene—take him to a sticky hole in the wall with concrete floors and a stage close enough to feel the sweat from the bands, and he was in heaven—but he liked to come along to hang. He'd drink PBRs, rub Lola's feet when she invariably abandoned her heels for the evening, and argue with Mary about the purity of death metal.

Mayhem and Lola weren't really into live music of the screaming kind, so—while Lesley, Bryan, and Mary bounced off each other in the mosh pits—they'd save a "home" base at one the bartops.

Amber noticed Mary's diminishing presence and stopped by the record shop to call him out.

"So you're not dead! Could've fooled me."

Mary was organizing the albums into order, and he grunted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cad. I'll make it up to you."

"You missed game night."

"Sorry. Jethro Tull played some tiny venue in nowhere Mass, and Bryan was salivating. I mean, Jethro Tull. Can you blame me?"

He looked at her, arms out wide in supplication. But she just blinked at him.

"You have no idea who Jethro Tull is, do you?"

"Sorry, dude. But christ, Mare. You should have invited me. I'd've gone. Maybe I would have even liked them. Now you'll never know."

"I could just lend you an album."

"Nope! The moment passed. Too late!"

Mary riffled through the stock and shoved a Jethro Tull CD into her hands.

She tapped it against her thigh.

"So, when do I get to hang?"

"I can get us into 80s night free."

"No, I mean, with your cooler friends. Your 'murder models', or whatever."

"You wanna hang out with the Deathbutantes?"

Amber scrunched her nose.

"That's so fucking pretentious."

Mary kind of liked it.

"Dunno if they're really your scene."

"Oh? And what's my scene?"

"Musical theater on crack."

She mock gasped at him, "Called out!" before smacking him with the CD. "Whatever. You love musical theater on crack."

Mary draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't live it, you know? You guys have your niche—and fuck…I love to visit—but it's not mine."

Amber looked up at him, her expression serious.

"So the Dumbutantes are your niche?"

Mary shrugged and went back to shelving.

The Rocky crew had been good to him. They'd taken him under their wing, no questions asked, and helped him realize things about himself. Tim had taken him to the ER when Mary had come down with a serious case of the flu. Matty had taught him the basics of sewing. Gretchen had held him after a bad trip. Omar and he had had many drunken heart-to-hearts about their shitty home lives.

And Amber was his best friend. She'd been his #1 cheerleader for years and had never been afraid to call him out on his shit.

So yeah, he loved the Rocky crew…but they laughed at anyone who took anything too seriously. Mary would show up to game nights in his latest creation—with everyone else in pjs or jeans & hoodies—and they'd tease him about trying to impress the wrong people. He'd try to talk about the newest guitar god he'd been mainlining, and they'd make snoring noises at him.

How could he explain the kinship he felt with the Deathbutantes? That they were as serious about music as he was, that they just…got why he felt the need to dress the way he did to express the way he felt inside on his outside.

Instead, he said, "I'm just trying shit out, Ambs." He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I gotta do something while you guys do your real-person jobs."

(Amber had recently started as a junior marketing assistant at the American Repertory Theater. "Purely mercenary," she'd said. "Maybe it'll give me a leg up during auditions.")

She made a disgruntled scoffing noise in the back of her throat.

"Fuck, don't remind me. I actually gotta go to bed a reasonable hour now."

"Don't worry." Mary winked at her. "I'll keep ya honest."

"That sounds a lot like my head in a toilet, Mare."

"I'll hold your hair back."

She gave him a good-natured shove, and he pretended to cower.

If she wanted to cross pollinate, who was Mary to stand in her way? So, he invited her out the next time the Deathbutantes went to a show, and it went exactly like he thought it would.

They disliked her, and she was equally unimpressed. They thought she was too loud and frenetic, and she thought they had no sense of humor.

"I fucking told you," Mary had snorted as they sat on the curb sharing a clove.

"Shut the fuck up, Mare."

But she'd put her head on his shoulder.

"They make you happy, though. So I guess I approve. Just as long as I don't have to play nice."

Mary still hung out with the Rocky crew—there were still game nights and drug-fueled sex parties and theater games—but the Deathbutantes introduced him to the underground scene. They always seemed to have insider knowledge about the best up-in-coming bands and the secret shows. Theme nights at the goth clubs were always a must, and they rarely missed one. Sometimes, Angelique would crash, and they'd take the commuter rail to Providence to party at Club Hell before collapsing in a sweaty, smeary pile at a friend of a friend's hole in the wall.

As a bit player in the Rocky crew, Mary had been another made-up face in the crowd. As a certified member of the Deathbutantes, Mary became the face.

They all did.

The owners loved them because they bought round after round at the bar, and if word got out that the Deathbutantes were there, their admirers came to spend money as well. The employees loved them because they were fun and talked to them as equals. The clientele loved them because they were pretty young things.

Sometimes, though, Mary wasn't in the mood to party or get laid, so he talked to the DJs instead. He'd buy them rounds and stay past closing to help them pack up while they talked about the history of punk and 80s new wave and nu metal. There was one in particular, Dave, that Mary even considered a friend.

The two of them would sit in the club past closing, sharing a whiskey and talking about life while the bartenders closed down and cashed out. Occasionally, Dave's other friends would be around, and they'd all walk back to his place; he'd fool around spinning in his home studio, and they'd drink box wine as they danced and laughed before Mary would have to sit on the ground in an intoxicated exhaustion, good for only thumbing through Dave's vinyl collection.

Mary was just happy to talk shop with another music aficionado, but Angelique had pointed out that he should leverage his minor clout.

They'd been waiting for Greg to finish setting up, and Mary had been struggle city after a particularly hard night out. It was all he could manage to sit there quietly and hope some god would put him out of his misery.

"You need to get your shit together," Angelique had said out of nowhere.

Mary had cracked a puffy eye and had slowly (as to not bring the nothing in his stomach back up) turned his head to her.

"As if I haven't seen your melted ass on the floor wanting to die."

"Fuck, Mary. You've turned it into an art form."

He'd closed his eyes and given her the finger, but that hadn't stopped her.

"You wanna be a rockstar, boy? You can't just sit on your ass and hope the right person on the right night hears you. You're effervescent and charismatic—heads turn when you walk into a room and not just because of your skinny jeans—but you need more than air, Mary, which is all you are right now."

"Fuck you, Angela."

She'd clapped in front of his face, and she was lucky he didn't Exorcist bile all over her.

"You're a fucking pain in my ass, Goore. I'm doling out the good stuff, try not to bite my hand off, k?"

"All right, all right!"

"You wanna start that band? You wanna get play and amass fans? Well, make that demo you're always droning on about and give it to those DJs you're alway fanboying over. Fucking network, Goore."

At the time, Mary had been too hungover to care, but her advice would sink in…

Eventually.

For the time being, Mary was content. He loved the attention, and it made him feel invincible, made him feel like it was finally His Time. And he was going to make up for every slight, every unfair situation, and every beat down with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

With his newfound nightlife, Mary's day job had become an afterthought. He started sleeping through opening shifts, but with the extra foot traffic Mary brought to the store, his boss seemed resigned to let Mary slide (after a stern talking to and a pay docking).

The shadow cast had started using him as a mascot of sorts, and he was happy to show up on Saturday nights and hype up the waiting line with a pseudo striptease. (Even if it was sometimes to kick off his evening with the Deathbutantes and not hang with the cast after.)

Mary started a band ("auditioning" any and all of the many admirers who said they’d be more than happy to join it), and after a few false starts and a couple of lineup changes, they began working on an EP. (At least, when Mary showed up to rehearsal, they did.)

A Boston Phoenix reporter got wind of the Deathbutantes and called around about doing a story on them. The Bens were excited about the exposure that meant for their zine, and Angelique and Greg were excited about what it could mean for their careers. Mary did a brief interview over the phone where he answered questions about his style and talked about his dream of making his band a household name.

Mary saw his name up in lights, and he was reaching for it, full speed ahead.

But then things turned.

The story fell through at the last minute with no further explanation or contact by the reporter.

His boss finally fired him after Mary showed up too high to function too many times—or not at all.

The shadow cast had a turnover, and suddenly he was old news—a cringey hanger-on.

A trip to the clinic and a round of antibiotics for an STI had him way more wary of who he hooked up with.

"Heroes" lost momentum when imitators popped up and Ben cut off the gravy train.

Angelique moved to NYC for "better opportunities," and the Bens took their brand of counterculture to Portland, OR.

Greg took down the website when he got offered a legit job as an apprentice at a food magazine, and that was that.

The physical zines were cheap things, most ending up papering the sidewalk after trash day or lining the bottom of cages. Without the online presence, did Mary's "modeling career" even exist?

Mary was a little sad to see the era go, but when he woke up in Maine on the hood of some girl's car and only a hazy recollection of how they'd gotten there, he was beginning to see Angelique's point. He needed to get his shit together if he was ever going to become a rockstar. And frankly, he kind of felt like he needed to spend an entire month eating carrots and hydrating.

The 24/7 party had always been an ephemeral thing; it had been sand passing through his hands in a finite amount as he'd tried to hold onto it

He put himself on detox, and waking up sober for the first time in months felt like a revelation. And as it turned out, playing the guitar without badly shaking hands was way, way easier.

He found another job in another music store, and his starter!band was bringing butts into the smaller venues, like Toad.

He still had his old Rocky friends and the Deathbutantes. The club and venue owners still let him in for free, and Dave was always happy to give his demos a spin. By anyone's else's measure, he was steal one of the scene's darlings.

But Mary was beginning to realize that he needed to stop seeing himself as that scared kid who’d arrived in Boston 4 years ago with only a backpack, $72.57 to his name, and void where his family should be.

He needed to stop finding people to please into loving him.

Instead, he needed to live for himself and let them love him for who he was—fuck ups and all.

@slimylayne

Epilogue

"Honestly, that’s probably the reason I even got a band together," he says. "I was still kind of shit at guitar, but people came to see ‘Model Mary’ perform in his underwear."

He shoots me a smirk.

"I’m sure there’re pictures out there of me looking more glam than metal. I kind of played up the whole pinup thing for a while."

"Fuck, I would kill, literally kill to see that."

He pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him.

"I could open up my underwear drawer and show you right now."

"Goore, you temptress."

I lean down to kiss him, and his hands sneak under my shirt, but I pull away again.

"I kinda thought I knew all your torrid secrets by now. Shit, how come Dave's never needled you about it?"

After 2 years with him, I’m surprised I hadn't even heard a peep from his oldest friend.

Mary snorts.

"Dave would miss shit hanging off his nose. Great dude, amiable as fuck, but he's always had fucking tunnel vision for his music."

I smirk at him.

"Sounds like someone else I know."

Mary pulls a face at me, and I apply kisses to every line until he laughs and bats me away.

"But really, Mare—how come you never told me about your brief career in blue steel?"

He blows out a breath, his hands smoothing up my thighs.

"Fuck. Cuz maybe I was a little embarrassed at how off the rails I was then, ok? Didn't want you to know what I fuck up I was." He takes my hand and kisses my palm. "And even I know it's a shit move to pitch woo at someone by telling them about banging half of Boston."

I make a face at him, and he laughs.

"Yeah, that’s what I thought."

His hands rest on my waist.

"Christ, everything about that year's a bit fuzzy, and it was like 10 years ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else, honestly. And shit—most of those people aren’t even around anymore. College kids who moved on and 20-somethings that grew up and moved who knows where. I used to watch Amber have—what is it when it’s four people?—and now she lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania with 3 kids. After she left, I just kinda drifted away from all that."

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

"I’m sorry, Mare," I say as I smooth his eyebrows.

He shrugs again.

"I mean, we all kinda keep in touch. It's like the only reason I have Facebook."

"When was the last time you even signed into that?"

Mary grins at me.

"Lola's birthday."

"One of the models? What happened with them?"

Mary bites his lip and thinks.

"Mayhem found religion after an OD and kinda ghosted everyone. Lesley followed a girl to New Hampshire. Uh…Lola pursued a PhD for something sciencey involving renewable energy with sugar beets in Idaho, and Bryan moved back to Florida to care for his grandma, who raised him."

Mary leans his head back on the couch and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I mean, shit. We were fucking babies back then. Head empty except for a good time and unlimited potential."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"You miss it?"

His eyes pop open to look at me.

"Fuck no. Not for a million dollars. Too many question marks." His eyes glint as he runs his hands down me. "I like what I got going on right here."

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss his forehead. The fucking sap.

Mary picks up my phone and scrolls through the pictures again.

"Fuck. I used to be goddamn adorable, though. Half this shit wouldn’t even fit me anymore."

I squish his little potbelly, and he grunts at me indignantly.

"Do you still have any originals?" I ask.

He shakes his head, his eyes wistful and his smile sad.

"Nah. Got destroyed when my roof collapsed and leaked everywhere. Fuck, landlords are useless. Glad we fucking own now, babe."

He scrolls up, scrolls back down.

"Just these four?"

I nod.

"Yeah. They were the only ones I found—and I did a lot of searching."

"Christ, I think there were at least 10."

I smile ruefully at him. "It’s not gonna be long anyway before they make their way into the popular tags and shit starts coming out of the woodwork."

He tosses my phone onto the table.

"Whatever. Just shows that I’ve always been cool."

And then he’s kissing me again, his hand tangling in my hair.

"You know, I’m your family now, Mare. Just for you."

He brings my hand up and kisses it.

"Fuck, I know that. Why’dja think I put a ring on it?"

[lethal-liability]

Info Dump Time!

So it has come to my attention that the slasher fandom has recently been introduced to Ice Nine Kills, my favorite band (aside from Rammstein, of course). So if you are really wanting to get into them but have no clue where to start, look no further! As I am about to impart my knowledge onto all of you lovely people!

So Ice Nine Kills is an American Rock band from Boston, Massachusetts (but they like to say they’re from Salem). The band was formed in 2002 by high school friends Spencer Charnas and Jeremy Schwartz, though today the only surviving member of the original band is Spencer.

(more under the cut)

The current members are:

Spencer Charnas - lead vocals (main stage character: Freddy Kruger, Jason Vorhees)

Ricky Armellino - rhythm guitar, co-vocals (the extra screaming voice in most songs lol) (main stage character: Georgie)

Patrick Galante - drums (main stage character: Jigsaw)

Joe Occhiuti - bass, keyboard (Main stage character: Eric Draven)

Dan Sugarman - lead guitar, backing vocals (Main stage character: Leatherface)

Justin “JD” DeBlieck is also technically a current member but he's been on hiatus from the band since Warped Tour 2018. His role in the band has been filled in by Ricky since then.

Their original sound was more ska-punk but have, since their first official album, have changed their sound to metalcore, or as Spencer calls it, theatricore.

Their discography is as follows:

Last Chance To Make Amends - 2006 (not currently on spotify and the only one I haven’t heard)

The Burning - 2007

2 Song Acoustic - 2009

Safe Is Just A Shadow - 2010

The Predator - 2013

The Predator Becomes The Prey - 2014

Every Trick In The Book - 2015

The Silver Scream - 2018

Other notable releases:

They’ve been featured on Punk Goes Pop three times and Punk Goes 90s once. They covered Adele’s Someone Like You on Vol. 5, Maroon 5’s Animals on Vol. 6, Taylor Swift’s I Don’t Want To Live Forever on Vol. 7, and Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) on Punk Goes 90’s Vol. 2 (also, side note, Motionless In White covered Rammstein’s Du Hast on that record and it is *chef kiss* horrible. Awful. Listen to it if you wanna ruin your ears. Chris Motionless does not know a lick of German and it shows)

In 2017 they released a re-recorded version of Safe Is Just A Shadow which I personally prefer over the original because it is a much cleaner record. I also like that it only features Spencer’s vocals which I find sounds much better than the mix of his and former bassist Shane Bisnett’s vocals.

Last year, they released a deluxe version of The Silver Scream which includes the new track Your Number’s Up, a cover of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and acoustic versions of A Grave Mistake, Stabbing In The Dark, SAVAGES, and Thank God It’s Friday (personally I only really like the acoustic of A Grave Mistake)

Their two most recent albums, Every Trick In The Book and The Silver Scream follow a similar format where every song on them follows a similar theme, ETITB being all based on classic novels and TSS being all based on slasher movies (with the exception of Thriller).

The songs and what they’re based on are as follows:

The Nature Of The Beast - Animal Farm by George Orwell

Communion Of The Cursed - The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Bloodbath & Beyond - Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Plot Sickens - Alive: The Story of The Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read

Star-Crossed Enemies - Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare (the analyst in me really loves this song because it implies that Romeo and Juliet knew that they were only characters in a play but died together anyway because they knew they couldn’t escape their fate)

Me, Myself, & Hyde - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Alice - Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks

The People In The Attic - The Diary Of A Young Girl by Anne Frank (this song features Spencer doing a very unconvincing German accent which, outside of the context of the song, is very funny)

Tess-Timony - Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Hell In The Hallways - Carrie by Stephen King

The American Nightmare - A Nightmare On Elm Street

Thank God It’s Friday - Friday The 13th

Stabbing In The Dark - Halloween

SAVAGES - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Jig Is Up - Saw

A Grave Mistake - The Crow

Rocking The Boat - Jaws (fun fact! This song features Jeremy Schwartz, the other founding member of the band and the lyrics contain the names of 5 of their 6 albums, excluding The Silver Scream)

Enjoy Your Slay - The Shining (another fun fact! In 2016 they put a vote to their fans to pick what piece of media the song they were working on would be based on, either The Shining or Psycho, I voted for Psycho because they already had a song based on a Stephen King story)

Freak Flag - The Devil’s Rejects

The World In My Hands - Edward Scissor-Hands

Merry Axe-Mas - Silent Night, Deadly Night

Love Bites - An American Werewolf In London

IT Is The End - It (including this one they have 3 songs based on Stephen King stories! His influence, ugh)

Your Number’s Up - Scream

More fun facts!

Aside from INK, Spencer also has a clothing company, Kleaver Klothing, which if they haven’t moved sites again, is at salem666.com

Last Year on their Summer tour they were supposed to play a show at a venue in Orlando, Florida that is on the grounds of Disney World. At the last minute Disney canceled their show because they’re performance was deemed “too violent” for a family park, despite the show already being 18+. In retaliation, the band released a series of limited edition merchandise featuring classic Disney characters as slasher villains, most notably Mickey Mouse as Freddy Kruger. They literally all sold out. I really should have got one when I had the chance

I own more pieces of Ice Nine Kills merch than literally any other piece of media I have ever consumed, including:

3 t shirts

2 tank tops

1 Letterman jacket

1 CD

2 vinyls

1 Kleaver t shirt (that I’m wearing right now)

1 poster

And a red balloon and paper boat from the IT Is The End music video promotion, (the boat is currently serving as a jewelry dish on my vanity)

I’ve seen them twice, Warped Tour 2016 and Warped Tour 2018, both times I met Spencer after the set and despite the whole scary act the band puts on during the shows, he’s very genuine and always really sweet to his fans. Enjoy these fetus pictures of me meeting him at 14 and 16 y/o

The lyric sheet for The Silver Scream is formatted like a spec script with action lines, scene headings, and inter-scene cuts, which screenwriting student me really, really enjoys

I got distracted while writing this because Patrick went live on Instagram, oops. He was setting up his new kit for the show tonight, it looks really cool, they’re painted to look like popcorn buckets

So that’s about it! Thank you for reading and enjoy the music!

[sagehaleyofficial]

HERE’S WHAT YOU MISSED THIS WEEK (1.1-1.7.20):

NEW MUSIC:

·         Angels & Airwaves teased a new song, while providing some information about the new documentary about them. According to frontman Tom DeLonge, the sing is titled “Time Bomb.”

·         Travis Barker of Blink-182 fame and his son Landon Barker took to Instagram to briefly tease the idea of them working together. On Instagram, the drummer classically banged away on his kit and Landon appeared to be nodding his head.

·         Vic Mensa dropped a new video for his song “It’s a Bad Dream.” The song comes from the project 93PUNX and features Good Charlotte, as well as notable names such as Travis Barker of Blink-182 and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

·         All Time Low’s social media, as well as all the members including Alex Gaskarth and Jack Barakat, posted a cryptic video to their respective accounts. We see the iconic panda from the “Birthday” video as he lights a barrel on fire that contains a Last Young Renegade jacket.

·         Green Day‘s newest album track listing might have been leaked online. A fan of the group claims he was sent the Father of All… vinyl sleeve in the mail from someone in California, which is where the band is based.

·         After a surprise track released earlier in December, Set It Off dropped another new song called “So Predictable”. The band previously dropped another song, “Catch Me If You Can,” in mid-December after teasing a new release on Twitter.

·         Post Malone is reportedly going to be a featured performer on Justin Bieber‘s new album, due out later this year. In addition to Posty, Coachella headliner Travis Scott is rumored to feature on the album as well.

·         The 1975’s label Dirty Hit sent out a tweet requesting people to submit some information and a picture of themselves and their partner. The label says they’re shooting in London on January 18th and are searching for couples to star in a new music video.

·         Paramore’s Hayley Williams posted three mysterious black squares on Instagram, sparking theories that the music will soon be here. Fans spotted a poster of Williams and the phrase “Petals for Armor” around the U.S. including New York and her Nashville hometown.

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS:

·         Motion City Soundtrack made their triumphant return to the stage last Tuesday on New Year’s Eve in Chicago, rocking the House of Blues. Before the return, the band posted a hype image, reminding fans to get tickets while they could.

·         Green Day began 2020 with a performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. At the event, the band performed their hit “When I Come Around” in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Dookie.

·         The Academy Is… posted a photo that is strikingly similar to the cover of their debut album Almost Here‘s cover art. The band’s debut record is coming up on its 15-year anniversary in February, leading to speculation about either another run of tour dates.

·         5 Seconds of Summer Ashton Irwin teamed up with Palaye Royale at NYE 2020: A Rock + Roll Carnival at the Taix Champagne Room. The night featured a host of covers of classic hits such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen to “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin.

·         After countless rumors regarding who will be playing this year’s Coachella, several of the speculated artists have now been confirmed after the full lineup announcement. Weekend one is sold out, but weekend two presale begins today at noon PST.

·         My Chemical Romance’s latest post spawned speculation they will announce a show in the UK. The band posted across their social media accounts a cryptic photo of a cloaked skeletal face person with a simple caption containing the UK flag.

·         Halsey recently came under fire for some comments she made while performing at Bay Dreams Festival in New Zealand. She then relayed that it was just crowd banter to get them really going and she would say the same to anyone about their rival of sorts.

·         The surviving members of Nirvana reunited on Saturday in Los Angeles for a show with Beck, St. Vincent and more. The concert was for a charity gala hosted by charity organization the Art of Elysium.

·         Post Malone recently showed off his screaming skills while screaming along to Pantera‘s “Walk.” Recently, videos of Posty were posted by New York-based, indie-rock band Beach Fossils.

OTHER NEWS:

·         Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons took to social media to address concerns about the band recently taking the top three spots on Billboard’s Hottest Rock Songs of the Decade chart. Reynolds laughed off the negative comments.

·         Post Malone showed off his newest face tattoo, an armored hand holding a medieval flail. It takes a sizable spot on his face and was created by Kyle Hediger, who has tattooed Posty previously.

·         Pierce the Veil revealed that their collaboration with Sleeping with Sirens’ Kellin Quinn, “King for a Day,” went platinum. In November 2014, the song went gold and held its own in the Top 40 Rock chart.

·         A very dedicated My Chemical Romance fan compiled all the high-quality footage that everyone posted throughout the band’s return show. They edited them all together and made a one hour and forty-minute video of the entire gig.

·         Jeffree Star posted his first video of the New Year, in which he takes us on a 36-minute tour of his new multi-million-dollar mansion. Star also talks about how he had a dream and made it come true with less than $500 in his pocket after quitting music.

·         In anticipation of the release of Birds of Prey, merchandise for the film has officially dropped via Hot Topic. Among the items is also an impressive jacket from Her Universe resembling the one Harley Quinn is seen wearing in the film’s trailers.

·         New Years Day vocalist Ash Costello made a post on Instagram explaining the ups and downs of 2019 for her personally and professionally while confirming she is now engaged. Costello and her fiancé Jered Boeving made the move together at Disneyland.

·         Lil Peep’s management and label, First Access Entertainment, is disputing claims filed by his mother in documents filed on December 23rd in Los Angeles Superior Court. Liza Womack filed suit against the company over claims they overworked him and encouraged drug use.

·         Billie Eilish launched a sustainable merchandise line with H&M. The line features everything from oversized t-shirts and sweaters to joggers, which are all made from sustainably-sourced materials.

·         We the Kings drummer Danny Duncan announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Valentina Guerrero. The couple have one son, Carter, who adorably posed with the newly engaged duo after the proposal.

·         All Time Low is teaming up with Full Tilt Brewery to create a new beverage called “Beer Maria Count Me In.” Full Tilt founders Nick Fertig and Dan Baumiller originally opened the brewery using Peabody Heights Brewery’s facilities in Baltimore six years ago.

·         Benji Madden of Good Charlotte and his wife, actress Cameron Diaz, welcomed the birth of a baby girl. The couple kept it a secret to protect the privacy of their little one, who is named Raddix Madden.

·         Twenty One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph and wife Jenna continued to invite fans into their world as they prepare for the birth of their first child. The mother-to-be shared a photo with a caption revealing approximately their daughter is due in approximately one month.

·         The Panic! at the Disco track “High Hopes” was used for an epic same-sex skate routine in the UK show Dancing on Ice. During the premiere of the program’s latest season, pro ice-skater Matt Evers and Welsh actor/singer Ian H. Watkins had their first routine together.

·         The iconic venue Koko in the Camden district of London last night. Firefighters worked hard to put the flames out as smoke and flames blow out from the roof scaffolding of the venue, which is currently undergoing renovations.

___

Check in next Tuesday for more “Posi Talk with Sage Haley,” only at @sagehaleyofficial!

[warofshadowstheorder]

Chapter 13

The sudden blaring of “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais” over the iPod/clock radio in Alexis Bledsoe’s room snapped her out of the deep sleep she had been enjoying.  It had taken her a while to fall asleep the night before; she couldn’t help feeling like she was being watched.

She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the idea of not going to work.  The mere thought of spending entire days without the routine she’d constructed for herself left her almost paralyzed inside.  She’d eventually gotten to sleep, the image of the one who jumped her at the pavilion still dominating her dreams, and had consigned herself in the knowledge that she had her investigation to keep her busy.  Her mission in life now was to find him and make him pay for what he’d done.

Her apartment was fairly small, but was all that she needed.  Besides the bedroom and bathroom, it only consisted of one all-purpose room with an adjoining kitchen.  She got out of bed and changed from her pajamas into a sports bra, a pair of blue running shorts and a white tank top before putting on some socks and a pair of running shoes.  She let the radio continue playing while she dressed and enjoyed the music.

Her bedroom was decorated with pictures and other memorabilia.  She had her full-ride acceptance letter and degree from Yale framed and hanging on her wall.  She also had a picture of her with her parents and brothers at her graduation, as well as a similar picture taken at the family ranch in Rory.  There were also framed wedding portraits of her brothers and parents, along with a recent family portrait.

Posters of the “London Calling” album cover, and movie posters for “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten,” and “Way of the Dragon” also adorned her walls.

In the next room, a giant poster of Bruce Lee and a shooting target showing very impressive results with a date handwritten by Bledsoe herself in the bottom right corner decorated the wall adjacent to a black Everlast punching bag hanging from the ceiling, a chin-up bar bolted to the wall beside it, and a Mook Jong.  Some handwraps and grappling gloves were on the floor just below where the bag hung.

Adjacent to the bag was a small table with a large combination radio/cassette player/CD player/record player stereo.  A cardboard box filled with several vinyl records, along with a few stacks of CDs and a shoebox with several cassette tapes, most of which were homemade mixed tapes, were underneath the table with each item inside sorted into alphabetical order.

After she finished dressing, she turned off the radio just as the song was concluding.  She then removed the iPod and strapped it to her left arm, carefully putting in the earbuds.  She got her keychain and used the miniature carabiner on it to clip it onto the iPod strap.  She took a reflective belt and put it across her shoulder, and lastly got some cash and stuffed it into a small pouch on the strap.

She did a few stretches, and then made her way out of her apartment.  She locked the door behind her and went outside.  It was early enough in the morning that it was still dark outside, and she relished the opportunity to run during a time when most people were still in bed.

She did some stretches, walked around for a bit to warm up, and then started running.  Her favorite way to start her morning was with a jog around the mall area, on this particular day she was also using her customary jog to clear her mind and focus on planning the rest of her time away.

“Safe European Home” played in her earphones as she continued on her way and took in the familiar but still captivating sights of the area around her.  She always liked running early in the day because of the quiet and serenity that the area offered at that time.  She ran around the Jefferson Monument and always stopped there to take a break and spend some quiet time reflecting.

She thought that monument had the best location and loved how it was away from the main part of the mall.  She particularly loved it when the Cherry Blossoms were in bloom but always enjoyed her stays there regardless.  She sat on the steps of the Monument and paused her iPod before gazing out over the water.

She figured that the disc and information she’d requested from Andrews would be waiting for her when she got home and was considering what to do first.  Given that she had the whole day ahead of her, she decided that she’d make an appointment with the Coroner, then go over the disc, and then go see the body.

She continued looking out over the water, and wondered if she should leave town for a few days on a real vacation.  She thought of going back to the family ranch and visiting with her parents and oldest brother Matt, who was preparing to take over there.  But she knew that first she had to resolve what had gotten her to the point she found herself in professionally.  After several minutes, Bledsoe started her iPod and ran back to her apartment.

She noticed a few other runners passing her as she returned home, which further reminded her of why she went running as early as she did.  There was one more stop to make before finishing her run.

There was a newsstand not far from her apartment, laden with several magazines and newspapers.  It was run by a husky Polynesian-American man in his late-fifties named Bernard Ka’ahanui but known as Bernie to his friends.  Before he opened his newsstand, he’d served honorably in the U.S. Army for twenty-three years and retired as a Sergeant Major with combat tours in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm.  He served with the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam and their unit crest prominently adorned the back of the newsstand.

He had ended his career serving in an administrative capacity in the Pentagon and grew very fond of the area.  After he retired, he and his wife bought a home near the District and Bernie opened his newsstand mostly to keep from going crazy after retirement.  He didn’t have as many customers as he would have liked, but he did have a few loyal regulars.  The loyal customer whose visits he most looked forward to was Alexis Bledsoe.

Bledsoe’s breathing was labored when she approached the newsstand, she would have been completely exhausted had it not been for her lengthy experience as a distance runner and ability to pace herself.  A big smile came to Bernie’s face as Bledsoe approached, and it only increased when she came to a stop in front of the stand.  Bernie immediately handed Bledsoe a bottle of water, which she stopped to drink while walking in place as Bernie spoke.

“Good morning Alexis,” Bernie greeted brightly, “nice to see you back again.  I’m sorry for all the troubles I’m sure you’re having at work.”  He said the last sentence with a tone of sympathy while gesturing toward The Washington Post with the headline of “Nation Still Reeling in the Wake of Saunders Assassination.”

“Thanks Bernie,” Bledsoe said between heavy breaths and another drink of water, “but I’d rather not think about that right now.  Trust me, you have no idea the kind of shit I’ve been through these past few days.  Right now, I’m just out for my morning constitutional.  I figured I’d catch up on the important stuff if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course,” Bernie said with a smile as he reached down to the floor on his side of the stand and brought up a small stack of Rolling Stone and Black Belt magazines along with the latest copy of The Washington Post.

“Do you want the latest editions as well?” Bernie asked.

“Sure,” Bledsoe answered, “I’m going to be doing some work at home for the next little while and could use some reading material for breaks.”

“Good call,” Bernie answered with his same upbeat tone, adding two more magazines to the stack.

She set the stack of magazines and her newspaper gently on the road as she continued walking in place and chatting with Bernie while she drank her water.  Her conversations with Bernie were about the only purely casual ones she had on a regular basis with her work schedule, especially after joining the protection detail.

“So,” Bledsoe asked after a while, “how was the Luau?”

“Oh,” Bernie said brightening up even more, “it was great.  I think I overdid it on the Pork though.”  Bernie put his hands on his stomach to emphasize his point.  “But it was great having the entire family together and doing something from the islands.”

“I bet,” Bledsoe said with a smile, “it almost sounds like the last time I went to the ranch.  Only over there it was barbeque and stuff from the heartland of America.”

“Eh,” Bernie said, “it’s a Melting Pot Culture.  What are you gonna do?”

Bledsoe laughed and Bernie joined in.  She and Bernie went back and forth until a little while after Bledsoe finished her water.  At that time, Bledsoe bid Bernie a fond farewell and paid him for the merchandise before making her way back to her apartment.

After entering her apartment building, she unclipped her keys from her iPod strap and unlocked her mailbox at the front.  She put a few envelopes of junk mail and a catalog into a recycling bin conveniently located nearby, and to her delight saw a package from Andrews.  She made her way back to her apartment with her mail in hand.

Her first stop was her sink where she filled a pint glass with water and took a long drink.  After draining the glass, she left to take a shower.  Following her shower, she dried and brushed her hair, changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and went directly to the coffee maker in her kitchen.  She poured some water into the reservoir and got her container of Folgers out of her pantry.  She scooped a significant amount of grounds onto the filter, having inherited her rancher father’s penchant for strong coffee.  While the coffee maker did its work, she completed her breakfast by preparing a bowl of Cocoa Puffs; looking at the front of the box differently after Odin’s comment at Gitmo.

She opened the package from Andrews and saw a small DVR in a case, and a piece of paper with a phone number and the name of the Coroner.  She dialed the number and had a brief conversation with him in which she set up an appointment to come over and view the body that evening.

Satisfied, she hung up the phone and turned her attention to her big-screen HDTV.  She grabbed the remote and turned it on, waiting a moment when she saw a news program talking about the Saunders assassination and it’s still powerful aftermath.  The coffee maker having finished, Bledsoe transferred it to a mug and poured a small amount of thick cream into it to complete the mix.  She then poured some milk on her cereal before sitting down and eating while she watched the report.

She couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for what had happened, and guilt came over her hard when she saw interviews with people who’d been affected by her failure.  She continued to eat her cereal and drink her coffee while watching the report, using the guilt and sadness she felt to motivate her to find the people who were responsible.

After she finished her breakfast, she put the DVD into the player, she poured what coffee was left in the pot into the mug to top it off and switched the TV to the appropriate input for her BluRay player.  She stepped back and saw that the disc started from quite some time before Saunders had even entered the Pavilion.  She sat down on her couch and watched closely looking for anything out of the ordinary, occasionally sipping from her coffee.

After seeing Saunders enter the Pavilion, she watched even closer.  She’d been on Saunders’ detail for several months, but this was the first time she noticed how much enthusiasm he inspired in the people.  She watched them stand and applaud for him and felt herself stiffen up emotionally at the prospect of what she knew was about to happen.

She watched the recording, paying close attention to everything that was happening.  She felt herself stiffen inside as every moment that passed on the tape brought her closer to reliving the horribly tragic event she knew was set to occur.

Since she was incapacitated at the time of the event itself, she had no idea as to exactly when it would happen.  The only clue she had was that she knew Saunders had started speaking before he was shot.

Bledsoe could feel her pulse beginning to rise as the event progressed.  Her hand that was holding her remote control was trembling and she could feel her teeth chattering as her lips quivered.  The anticipation of what was coming and the memory of her failure to stop it was bearing down on her.

She stopped the disc and took several frantic and labored breaths.  She felt dizzy and could have sworn that the room was spinning around her.  She closed her eyes and brought her hand over them before resting her arm on the arm of the couch.

Bledsoe’s pulse continued racing as her breathing became heavier.  She didn’t want to continue watching the proceedings, but knew that if she wanted to catch the ones who had done the killing that she would have to pick up whatever she could from the tape.

After a few minutes, Bledsoe calmed down and once again faced the TV monitor.  The scene was still frozen, taunting her.  She could only sit motionless, as frozen as the scene she was facing, and prolong the inevitable.  Relenting, and knowing that the only way to move on was to catch the shooters and that in order to do that she had to witness the terrible event; she took a deep breath, finished her coffee and pressed the play button on her remote.

Although it was very difficult to watch, she did her best to look for anything out of the ordinary going on, regularly pausing the disc to observe every detail of the scene as it unfolded.  She tried to see something, anything that would help her better understand how the assassination happened.

She remembered Taylor’s accusation about the assassination being an inside job and hated to admit that it made a lot of sense.  She began to keep her eye out for suspicious activity among the agents on the detail.  The most suspicious thing she noticed was when Cruz quickly picked his nose.

When she got to the point where she heard the shot, she quickly skipped ahead to a point when the camera turned in the direction of where the shot had come from, not wanting to see the event itself and not thinking it to be necessary.

She remembered the famous incident from the Kennedy assassination where a figure was seen ducking away from a window in the Book Depository building.  She was hoping for something like that from what she was watching, and she scrutinized every frame of it trying to find anything she could use.

She watched it at normal speed first, then in slow motion, and then she watched it frame by frame zooming in as close as she could.  Before she knew it, four hours had passed and she hadn’t found anything even resembling a clue.  Frustration was setting in by this point, and she was beginning to question her decision on how to spend her time off.

When the thought of stopping her private investigation crossed her mind, she remembered seeing the people on the news that had been crushed by the terrible tragedy and her vow and commitment were instantly renewed.  She glanced at her watch and saw that her appointment with the coroner was still a little while away.  She poured herself a glass of water and started watching the disc again from the beginning, keeping her eye on anyone sitting in the pavilion that left their seat and making sure that they returned before the shot was fired.  She examined the footage a little more, and then got up to use the bathroom.

Unknown to Bledsoe, someone else nearby had been spending his day in his main room intently watching something.  However, this person had not been watching any kind of program but rather had been watching Bledsoe.

To keep up the appearance of his cover, he ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and left the building.  Unnoticed, he scaled the building via a blind spot and had been observing Bledsoe from a handheld device while sitting on the roof until his room had been cleaned.  Then, he reentered via his window and continued his vigil through the nearly microscopic surveillance cameras he had installed the night before while Bledsoe slpet.

Olcán kept the curtain in his room drawn and the area around him completely dark.  He hadn’t slept since arriving.  His evening had consisted of dawning one of the black bodysuits he and his compatriots used to turn invisible to infiltrate Bledsoe’s apartment and plant the cameras in key areas.  He then went to an all-night grocery store after testing his equipment and formulated a plan of action for the duration of his assignment.  He spent the time before Bledsoe woke up training and exercising, keeping an eye on the laptop for signs of movement.

After Bledsoe woke up, Olcán had begun his observations.  Olcán had been detailing Bledsoe’s schedule on a notebook, detailing when she had gotten up, when she left to run, when she got back, and her subsequent activities.

After Bledsoe left, Olcán used the time to get in a workout of his own at the hotel gym before cleaning up and having his breakfast.  When he heard the cleaner coming down the hall, he quickly put the surveillance laptop into its case, slung it on his back, and went to the roof.  While on the roof, he looked over the notes he had taken up to that point and took a moment to enjoy the view.

Olcán went back into his room as soon as he heard the cleaner close his door and walk away, having seen Bledsoe get home not long before.  Later, as Olcán observed Bledsoe’s own observations, he made a note about her close scrutiny of the footage, and that she didn’t appear to have found anything incriminating.  Bledsoe continued scrutinizing the video, and Olcán patiently observed Bledsoe like an Eagle perched on a high cliff scanning the ground below for prey.  Bledsoe never watched the actual shooting, but she scrutinized every other second of the recording.

Bledsoe stared at the screen, it seemed to be daring her to continue watching.  She decided to clear her head and went back to her room.  She changed into a pair of boxing-style trunks and a black short-sleeved Under Armor shirt before tying her hair back in a tight ponytail.  She picked out a CD labeled “Warmup” and put it in the stereo.

A few moments later, the strains of “Silent Lucidity” echoed through the apartment as Bledsoe slowly stood up and took a few deep breaths.  Once the introductory portion of the song concluded and the drums began, Bledsoe began to gracefully move in time with the music around her living room area.

She bounced and twirled in time with the music, doing so on her toes for several seconds at a time.  If Queensryche had ever composed a ballet, Bledsoe’s movements would have comprised the choreography.  Her focus became solely dedicated to allowing the music to dictate where and how she moved, and the increases in the tempo only served to goad and encourage her.

She moved with the music, showing off her flexibility, stamina, and overall skill to an invisible audience as she moved toward the chin-up bar.  As the song led to its climax, Bledsoe jumped and grabbed the bar and spent the duration of the climax doing chin-ups in time with the music.  Anger and frustration added to her usual intensity as she completed more repetitions than normal before letting go and using a momentary lull in the music to take a relaxing breath before resuming her dancing for the remainder of the song, ending with a brilliant ballet-style finish.

At the conclusion of the song, she found a CD labeled “punching bag” and put it into her stereo.  She downed most of a bottle of water before wrapping her hands with a pair of reusable wraps and selecting a specific track, “Gimme Shelter” on her CD.

During the first part of it she put on her grappling gloves and did some stretches, letting the music flow through her and loosening up inside.  She moved slowly to the music and lightly bounced up and down on her feet.  When the song began in earnest, she let loose on the bag with punches, kicks, knees, and elbows as The Rolling Stones set the tone and pace of her barrage.

She was borderline savage in the way she attacked the bag; completely aware that she wasn’t just using her time on the bag to clear her mind, but also taking out her frustrations.  She was a more than formidable fighter in any circumstance, but when she had pure rage fueling her she was like a tornado tearing through a trailer park.

Her footwork was as precise and flawless as the strikes she landed as she moved in time with the music.  She only stopped pounding on the bag long enough to allow the transition from “Gimme Shelter” to Metallica’s “Some Kind of Monster” to complete.  She then went back to ruthlessly destroying the bag.  Her barrage sped up and slowed down to the music, Bledsoe allowing the music to dictate the pace and ferocity of her workout.

What Bledsoe was doing was far from lost on the man watching her from his hotel.  Olcán couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed at the sight before him.  He wondered about Bledsoe’s abilities before and could see that she measured up to the descriptions of her field performance that he’d read in her dossier.  He dismissed how skilled she appeared by reasoning that hitting a bag was one thing, but real combat was something else entirely.  Regardless, he made a note to approach her with caution if he needed to engage.

As “Some Kind of Monster” concluded Bledsoe jumped up, grabbed the chain above the bag, and brought one knee after another into the upper part of it with enough force to knock out a man three times her size.  At that point Bledsoe was caked in sweat, and with her energy depleted she decided it was time to get back to work.

She took off the gloves and wraps, and then her shirt before making her way to the shower.  It took every ounce of discipline Olcán had acquired through his years of training and service to remain focused on his mission.  But despite his best efforts, he used the time Bledsoe spent cleaning up to take a shower himself…although the one he took was much colder.

Bledsoe finished her shower and continued to go over the tape until the sound of the alarm on her watch reminded her of the upcoming experience with the Coroner that she was sure was going to be anything but pleasant.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Images of the prone and lifeless form of the man she had been trusted to protect lying motionless on a slab looking up at her with lifeless eyes were already beginning to haunt her.

Knowing that she needed to go through with it in any case, she cast her fears aside and went into her room.  She dressed in some more formal attire then went out to her car and started off for the Coroner’s Office.  She played U2’s “One” on her car stereo to help her relax and continued on her way.  She stopped at a red light and used the moment to let the music completely enfold her.

For the briefest of moments, she felt the calming symphony that had gotten her through so many assignments come over her again.  Once again, she was abruptly snapped out of her symphony when she could have sworn that she felt her car sink slightly and then rise up to where it had been before.  The sinking only lasted a moment and would have gone unnoticed by most people.

Bledsoe however was not a normal person.  She felt the sink and, being especially jumpy ever since the Pavilion, quickly turned her head to look at the back of her car.  She saw nothing, and she hadn’t heard a sound accompanying the sink.  She briefly considered getting out to check the trunk, but then the light turned green.

Not wanting to obstruct traffic, she drove through the light to the Coroner’s Office.  She frequently glanced at her rearview mirror to check the trunk, still unable to shake the uneasy feeling that the sink was more than a figment of her imagination.

After a few minutes, she arrived at her destination.  She shut off the car, then popped the trunk.  She quickly moved to the rear of the car and threw open the trunk.  Nothing was in it other than the usual items she kept there.  Flares, a first aid kit, some collapsible road cones, a roll of duct tape, a Maglite flashlight, a green wool blanket, and a 3-gallon can of gasoline.

Bledsoe looked on confused.  She was sure she’d felt something when she stopped at the light, and her experience at the Pavilion when Saunders was killed only convinced her to never doubt her hunches.  She took her flashlight and turned it on to take one last thorough look in the trunk bed, carefully looking for any kind of evidence that something was out of place or different in any way.

After looking through for two solid minutes, Bledsoe was satisfied and comfortable in the notion that the sinking feeling had been nothing worthy of note.  She closed the trunk and returned to the front of the car.  She picked up a notebook and pen she had there and locked the vehicle before walking to the office door.

She’d never been to a coroner’s office, and the anticipation of the experience and what she was about to see and do filled her with a sense of grim anticipation and dread.  The apprehensive feelings inside her intensified with each step she took.

She opened the door and walked in.  After checking in at the front desk, she was told where the morgue was and made her way there determined, but slightly hesitant.  Her determination outweighed her dread as she stepped closer to the element of her investigation that she was looking forward to the least.

When she got to the office she immediately found herself awash in new and unique sights, and especially smells.  The only similar smell she’d encountered to what was now perforating her senses before this was when she helped her dad and brothers carve an entire steer and then deliver it to a meat locker.

She heard music after opening the door.  She recognized the music as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.  Two slabs with shrouded bodies caught and held her attention.  She wondered which one was Saunders.

For a moment she considered walking out of the office and abandoning her investigation.  The moment was short lived when she remembered the aching feeling that accompanied the fact that she failed in her mission and was now on suspension because of it.  That coupled with the burning desire to bring the guilty parties to justice renewed her resolve.  After a moment, she heard the sound of a flushing toilet followed by running water from a sink.  A door in the back of the room opened and the Coroner stepped out.

The Coroner was a man about two inches shorter than Bledsoe.  He had thinning brown hair and sunken dark eyes.  He carried a brown paper towel and finished drying his hands before picking out a couple of latex gloves from a box on a counter and beginning to put them on.

Upon noticing that he had company, his eyes opened wide for a moment.  On the phone he hadn’t been expecting anything like what was in front of him.  He’d imagined some kind of hard-nosed pants-suited ball-breaker professional type, possibly with a hygiene problem.  Instead, he found a very beautiful and pleasant-looking young woman.

“Agent Bledsoe?” the man asked in a slightly nasally voice, unsure of who the goddess facing him was.

“Yes,” Bledsoe answered as she approached him, “and you must be the Coroner.  I’m sorry,” she said politely as she extended her hand to him, “but I didn’t get your name when we spoke on the phone earlier.”

“I’m,” he said extending his hand and tensing up slightly, “I mean my name is Jonah Greeley.”  It was apparent by his demeanor and the way he spoke that Greeley didn’t have much experience with women, at least ones who were alive.

“Pleased to meet you Doctor Greeley,” Bledsoe said as they shook hands.

“So,” he said after a few moments of awkward pause, “Director Andrews tells me you want to see Senator Saunders’ body.”

Bledsoe tensed up and focused her gaze to the tables behind Greeley.  A myriad of images of what awaited her when the sheet would be removed ran through her head.  The apprehension returned, but her iron will allowed her to push that aside and nod in response.

“Ok,” Greeley said as he held out a pair of latex gloves, “put these on and I’ll show you the body.”

“I apologize in advance if the smell bothers you,” Greeley said, “it can be a little overwhelming when you aren’t used to it,” Bledsoe nodded in understanding as Greeley put on his other glove.

“If you’re ready,” Greely said using the opportunity to take a moment to marvel at Bledsoe’s beautiful face, unable to resist admiring the sight before him despite the serious expression she sported.  He was so taken with his visitor that he didn’t realize over ten seconds had passed since Bledsoe had given him a nod indicating that she was ready to proceed.

Bledsoe was still not looking forward to the task at hand, so she didn’t say anything.  She had become accustomed to people staring at her, she didn’t like it but knew she had to accept the fact that she was beautiful and people would always stare.  After a while, Greeley’s staring was making her uncomfortable.

“Doctor Greeley?” Bledsoe asked in a polite tone.

“Oh, sorry,” Greeley said apologetically, “he’s this one.”

He gestured to the closer table and walked to the end where the head was with Bledsoe following close behind.  The feeling of grim anticipation she had had while walking up to the office returned tenfold as she approached the table.  Greeley slowly walked to the other side of the table and took the highest corner of the sheet.

“I should tell you,” Greeley said, “that what you are about to see will be very gruesome.  Do you have a strong stomach?”

“Yeah,” Bledsoe answered, attempting to mask the nervous trembling that threatened to manifest inside her.

“Okay,” Greeley said cryptically, “here we go.”

Greeley gripped the other side of the sheet and slowly brought it down to Saunders’ waist.  Bledsoe’s eyes shot open and she took a gasping breath as she staggered for a moment from the sight before her.

The initial shock for Bledsoe was to see the body that she had seen filled with life so many times for so long now motionless and devoid of life.  After she mustered the courage to look at the hope of the nation that had now been reduced to a corpse, she was grateful that what she said about her stomach was true.

Saunders’ skin had gone pale with the complete loss of life.  There was dried blood on the front of his torso, and his right shoulder was dislocated.  As her eyes made their way upward, the blood on Saunders’ body increased.  There was some other material mixing in with the blood, and Bledsoe’s eyes stopped when they got to the base of Saunders’ neck.

She closed her eyes, turned her head down to the ground, and took a few drawn out breaths.  After a few moments, she took one last long breath and quickly looked up.  What awaited was far worse than anything she’d anticipated.  She was afraid to see Saunders’ head looking mangled or dismembered in some other way.  Instead, she saw his brains and other pieces of his head in jars above his neck.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before?” Greeley asked.

“Yes,” Bledsoe said between short gasps as she took care not to vomit, “just nothing like this.”

“I understand that,” Greeley said callously, “I thought the same thing when I first saw it.  And I’m sorry for the smell, but I was told to tamper with the body only minimally until I can determine the exact cause of death.”

“I mean,” Greeley said in a joking voice, “I can tell what the cause of death was.  They just want me to be able to get some more detail.”

It was obvious that Bledsoe didn’t share Greeley’s sense of humor about the situation, and Greeley immediately regretted his moment of levity.

“When you feel comfortable taking a closer look,” Greeley said returning to his professional tone, “there are a few things I want to show you on the body that you should see if you’re investigating.”

Bledsoe nodded in response and continued to breathe slowly in an attempt to calm herself down.  She found herself able to focus when she remembered the Prussian blue eyes she’d seen at the rally and felt renewed with a resolve to bring in the killer.  The hatred she felt in that moment far outweighed her apprehensions.

She took one last deep breath before turning around to face Greeley.  She gave him a nod, which he returned.  Greeley then turned to face the body on the table and Bledsoe moved next to him, grateful for the material underneath her nose.  Every time Bledsoe felt herself getting queasy, she remembered the eyes and got the resolve to continue.

“Obviously the first thing I noticed,” Greeley said pointing to the remnants of Saunders’ head, “was the huge extent of the wound.”

Bledsoe looked where Greeley pointed.  Being in the Secret Service she was very familiar with the Kennedy assassination and knew exactly what Greeley meant about the wound.  Now that she’d gotten past the initial shock of the scene in the office, Bledsoe was able to focus much better and could observe the body as she’d planned.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Greeley paused for a moment before adding, “to even fathom this kind of damage is…the guy that did this has to be the best shot in the world.”

“Were you aware that this was a two-man job?” Bledsoe asked having recovered her professional demeanor.

“I read the report that was provided,” Greeley answered, “but there was only one shot and we only found enough material for one bullet.  It may have been pulled off by two men, but only one of them actually did the deed.”

“I figured as much,” Bledsoe said remembering how much she’d seen from where she was against the wall that night, “what kind of angle do you figure the bullet came in from?”

“Well,” Greeley said pointing to Saunders’ head and tracing a trajectory, “it’s obvious that the shooter was facing him.  I figure that it was a straight-on shot.  This guy’s aim was amazing.  It couldn’t have been better placed if he’d fired through some kind of tube that led from where he was to the point of entry.”

Greeley let out a sigh as he looked down at Saunders’ body.

“It’s really too bad though,” he sighed, “I was planning on voting for him in November.”

“A lot of the people I work with were planning on doing that” Bledsoe replied.

They both paused, Greeley thinking about what might have been if the man on the table was still alive.  Bledsoe couldn’t help but blame herself for the sight before her.  As the feelings of guilt and remorse began once again rising inside her, she quickly got back to business.

“Do you have any idea what kind of weapon was used?” Bledsoe asked.

“It was definitely a high-powered rifle,” Greeley said as he walked over to a nearby desk and picked up a small glass container, “but no one found it.”  Greeley handed the container to Bledsoe.  “We were able to recover this from the body after we performed the initial autopsy.  Some of it’s also from the crime scene.”

“So,” Bledsoe said after taking a quick look at the dust in the container, “what do you make of it?”

“Well,” Greeley said pensively pointing to the main wound, “this looks like it was done with a 50 caliber round.”

Greeley leaned in closer to the body, Bledsoe remained where she was.  Greeley looked closer then looked back at Bledsoe, gesturing for her to move in next to where he was.  Bledsoe moved in and tried to hold her breath as much as possible.

“Now this,” Greeley said pointing to what was left of Saunders’ head “is what I can’t understand.  The only thing I’ve seen capable of any tissue damage remotely like this is a hollow-point round.  But,” Greeley continued gesturing to the same area, “I’ve never seen a hollow-point, or anything for that matter, take someone’s head completely off like this.  And, from what I’m told, the head exploded.  There’s nothing I know of that can do that, especially at the distance indicated in Director Andrews’ report.”

Bledsoe never studied medicine when she was at school, but she had picked up on some basic points concerning ballistics.  She knew enough to know that everything Greeley said was right on the money, she continued to observe and listen intently.

“The other thing that bothers me,” Greeley continued, “is the fact that the shell was reduced to dust.”

Greeley grumbled a little, and it was obvious that this topic was a constant source of frustration for him.

“The only possible explanation I can think of is that the bullet used was some kind of exploding round.  But the only time I’ve ever even heard of one of those was when I saw ‘Day of the Jackal.’”

Bledsoe could only look on in confusion and couldn’t suppress a sense of wonder and dismay at who she was dealing with.

“This guy wasn’t only the best shot I’ve ever seen,” Greeley said, “he’s probably also the best equipped.”

“How do you know that dust is from the bullet?” Bledsoe asked.

“I told you we analyzed it,” Greeley said, “and we found traces of gunpowder mixed with whatever the shell is made out of.  If you look closely at it you can see some of the fragments shine.”

Bledsoe took the container and examined its contents.  There were some metal pieces, obviously the remains of the bullet that ended the life of Senator Saunders, but nothing stood out at first glance.  After looking at it for a moment she noticed the metal bits shining in the light.

“Do you have any idea what material this is?” Bledsoe asked holding the container up so that it was between her and Greeley.

“We have no idea what it is,” Greeley answered, “it’s some kind of metal that we’ve never seen before.  It certainly isn’t lead.  All we can determine is that it’s not an alloy, it seems to be composed of a single element.”

“You really have no idea what it is?” Bledsoe asked.

“None whatsoever,” Greeley said with a shrug mingled with genuine frustration.

Bledsoe let her gaze shift downward, looking for any excuse to not look above the Senator’s neck.  That’s when her eyes caught something she hadn’t expected.  She gazed at the senator’s downturned right arm, and saw stained blood surrounding the lower part of it between the tendons of the wrist.

“What’s that?” Bledsoe asked pointing to the area she’d just noticed.

“Oh,” Greeley answered, “I was so wrapped up in the little mystery up here that I forgot to go into the other one.”  He came next to Bledsoe and turned over the Senators’ forearm.

“I have no idea what the element making up the bullet is,” he stated, “but we think it might be composed of some kind of element that causes an adverse effect in the bloodstream.”

“What makes you say that?” Bledsoe asked equally intrigued by the wound on the forearm as she was of the shining metal shards in the container she was still holding.

“Take a look” Greeley invited as he finished turning over the arm.

Bledsoe set down the glass container and walked back to the table.  She let out a slight gasp at the sight that awaited her.  There was a long slash on the forearm that looked like it had been made by a thin, sharp knife.  The slash was bathed in dried blood and Bledsoe couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“There’s blood around it,” Bledsoe observed out loud, “that means it must have occurred around the same time that he died.”

“Exactly,” Greeley replied, “that’s why we’re looking into any kind of element or mineral that could cause disruption in the bloodstream.”

“What was the extent of this wound?” Bledsoe asked after she’d recovered enough from the initial shock.

“Hold his arm like this,” Greeley instructed almost sighing.

Bledsoe nodded and moved to where Greeley was standing and held Saunders’ arm in the same way Greeley had.  Greeley walked back to the desk and picked up a pair of tweezers.  He walked back to the forearm and carefully used the tweezers to move back the flesh around the slash.

Bledsoe noticed that there was a great deal of loose flesh, and that the right forearm was noticeably more defined than the left.  After a few moments Greeley had peeled back all the loose flesh and was now using the tweezers as a pointer.

“You see the flesh here,” he said to Bledsoe earning a nod, “well the only possible answer for this is that sometime after the bullet entered the head some kind of material entered the bloodstream.  Then, after entering the bloodstream, this mineral made an extremely precise cut and slash on this forearm and no other part of the body.  And finally after all that, caused an explosion strong enough to dislocate the adjoining shoulder and send blood shooting out of the slash onto the pavilion floor and the torso region of the victim’s shirt.”

There was a pause between the two of them as Bledsoe processed what Greeley had just said.  She looked at the wound and then over the entire body remembering all that had happened starting with when she’d looked into the haunting blue eyes floating in the darkness.

She took a good long look over the entire body of Senator Saunders, careful to take in every detail and embracing rather than shying away from the more shocking or gruesome aspects of her present task.

“Would you mind holding his arm?” Bledsoe asked Greeley, “I want to take some notes before I leave.”

“Not at all,” Greeley said moving back and deliberately attempting to smoothly brush his hand against Bledsoe’s.  She was so engrossed in her final observations and getting down all the information she could that she didn’t notice Greeley’s clumsy pass.  She was so consumed that she would not allow herself to feel uncomfortable or queasy.

After a few minutes she looked over her notes and the body one last time and decided that she was finished.  She closed the notepad and turned to face Greeley, extending her hand to him.

“Thank you Dr. Greeley,” she said politely, “you’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure,” Greeley said fighting off a blush, “if there’s anything else I can help you with,” Greeley handed her a business card, “give me a call.”

“I will,” Bledsoe said taking the card, “thanks again for everything” she added with a smile.

She walked out of the room, fully aware that Greeley would be staring after her.  She was so consumed with all she’d learned and going over what she should do next that she forgot about her gloves.  The gloves getting in the way of her opening the door out of the office brought her back to the present.

She took off the gloves and threw them away in a nearby trash can.  The smell of the substance Greeley had put on her still permeated her senses.

She went to her car and took a moment to clear her mind and think about what her next course of action would be.  She immediately knew that she had to watch the recording again, but this time she would have to watch the shooting itself.

Greeley was motionless in his office, still enjoying the lingering scent of Bledsoe.  He paused for a few moments, then went to the phone in the office and dialed a number.

“Hi,” Greeley said after a few moments, “you told me to let you know if anyone came snooping around…”

Dread mingled with frantic need filled Bledsoe’s mind as she sped off back to her apartment and the ordeal that awaited her there.  She barely noticed the traffic lights and other barriers between her and her destination as she drove.  Once she parked her car she quickly got out and ran back to her apartment, locking the car via remote as she sprinted back.  The pressing need to see the moment she’d been intentionally skipping over consumed her.

She turned on her TV with the disc from the rally still loaded and immediately fast forwarded to just before the shooting.  She let it play at normal speed and waited, oblivious to everything else that was going on except for every move that Senator Saunders made.  Her need to see what happened overpowered the internal stiffening that had previously come to her at that point.

She saw the Senator thank the crowd before seeing the graphic mess that occurred when the assassin’s bullet hit its mark and his head, along with the bullet itself, exploded.  Bledsoe struggled not to close her eyes and watched Saunders, the man who it had been her assignment and sworn duty to protect, fall to the ground.  She broke down inside at the reminder of her failed assignment, and her eyes watered with tears as the complete flood of memories of all that had transpired that night, beginning with the eyes that haunted her thoughts, came back to her.

She continued to watch the disc until it ended.  She couldn’t help a few more tears welling up in her eyes at seeing the moment when the hopes and bright future that Saunders had represented died with him, and remembered that it had been her post that was used to bring that about.

Bledsoe would have been weeping for hours, but she knew she had to be tougher than that.  After taking a moment to regain her composure, she backed the disc up to just before the shooting.

This time, she focused all her attention on the Senator’s right forearm.  She held her gaze, happy that she had something to focus on besides the gruesome sight of the Senator’s head at the moment of impact, and waited.

After a few seconds, she gasped in surprise as a quick, unnoticeable except for anyone who was watching that specific part, flash visible only at the end of the sleeve emanated.  This was accompanied by a bulge in the sleeve that Bledsoe was certain was the blood splash.  Saunders’ right arm jerking violently as if by some kind of explosion focused only on that limb followed, the ordeal concluded with his body falling to the ground.

Bledsoe moved the disc back to before the shooting, zoomed in as close as she could while still maintaining a view of the forearm, and played it at the slowest possible speed.  Her eyes widened in surprise at what she saw.

The moment the bullet hit Saunders, Bledsoe saw the beginning of the perfectly straight line she’d noticed at Greely’s office materialize just above the heel of his hand between the tendons on the forearm.  Bledsoe saw a grey mist exit through the jacket sleeve before the explosion of blood and arm jerking.  After she could tell that the bizarre show with the forearm had concluded, Bledsoe stopped the disc and stood up.

The expression on her face reflected that Bledsoe had no idea what to think.  She desperately attempted to formulate any explanation for what she’d just seen happen.  Bledsoe’s knowledge of the medical field was limited, but she knew enough to know that what she’d just seen was not normal or even feasible.

She considered taking the disc to Greeley to see what he thought.  Then, she thought of calling Andrews and telling him what she’d seen.  She was so awash in her sea of thought that it took the sound of her window shattering behind her to bring her back to the present.

[darkheartedprince]

VERSE ADDITION: BLUE EYES AND BLACK JEANS

Primarily exists for promisedsanctum, waywardhearts, and lightheartedwarrior but anyone can interact with him in this verse.

In a world without far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells and princes in disguise, Riku continued to grow up in his normal life. Now in his last year of high school, Riku is arguably the coolest kid in school -- not that he sees it that way. He’s dating Sora, who’s brother Roxas couldn’t be less excited about but Riku doesn’t care because he loves Sora to the end of the universe and back. His blue eyes shine against his black leather jacket, black jeans, and classic converse sneakers as he patiently waits to graduate high school. 

Riku drives a black and silver Harley Davidson motorcycle as well as a red and blue pan chopper motorcycle to and from school. He loves both of them more than life itself. He doesn’t let anyone ride them unless he really likes you or he really trusts you. Don’t worry, he practices safety with fingerless leather gloves, a helmet, and a  black leather jacket. Motorcycles are pictured HERE.

His entire left arm is a sleeve of tattoos that tell the story of daring adventures into the unknown complete with stars, planets, and oceans and new horizons. His Dream Eater tattoo is on his back, but he just thinks it’s a cool symbol he saw in a book once. His right bicep has a band of crossing lines that look like they form loose hearts. 

Riku has facial piercings. He has a lip piercing on the left side of his bottom lip, an eyebrow piercing on his left eyebrow, both of his ears pierced in the lobes and his right ear also has an industrial piercing.

Riku is always seen with over-the-ear headphones around his neck. He’s never without his music, it’s how he drowns out the world. He also does this because any time he has a song he wants to show someone {usually Sora or Kairi} Riku can just put his headphones on them and make them listen. 

Black skinny jeans, black leather jackets, and converse high tops that are black and white or all black are Riku’s entire fashion aesthetic. V-neck t-shirts or long sleeves with the sleeves rolled, a chain always hangs attached to his back belt loop and latches onto the front belt loop on his right hip, beanies, the black leather cuffs and bracelets on either of his wrists, chokers and necklaces, band t-shirts, etc. All of those things and more create Riku’s day to day style. 

TW:SMOKING. A lighter can always be found on Riku because he smokes cigarettes, but he never does it around people in case they have a problem with it.  He will always walk away to smoke or distance himself from people until he is done before returning to them.  

Sora is one hundred percent the strawberry to Riku’s cigarette and the candy to his lighter. They are opposites, and while he knows that people talk about them because they don’t seem like a likely pair Riku doesn’t care because he absolutely loves Sora inside and out. 

On the opposite, Riku hates Sora’s brother Roxas because he and Roxas constantly fight one another. It’s argument after argument that never stop. Passive-aggressive dinners, jabs at one another at school, the whole nine yards. It is rare that these two are never fighting. 

Speaking of fighting, Riku gets into fights at school. Often. Whether it’s because people are ragging on Sora, people are being terrible, people are making fun of him, or all of the above, Riku has a reputation for beating up people who say anything bad against the things in his life.

Despite how it might appear, however, Riku is at the top of his class for his grades. He takes his academics very seriously. Every assignment is done with precision and very thoroughly so that he can have the best marks amongst his peers. 

In the good old war of Playstation versus Xbox, Riku prefers the Playstation. He has a PS4 and, when it comes out, he plans to save up to get a PS5. 

Riku definitely picks out the colour of Sora’s braces rubber bands every time that Sora asks. Without fail, Riku always chooses bright aquamarine blue so that they match his eyes and so that every time Sora looks in a mirror and smiles he thinks of him. 

He’s known as the strong, silent, mysterious crown prince of his school, but this holds true no matter what verse he is in. 

His hobbies include drawing, listening to music, reading, writing poetry, taking walks along the beach, and playing video games. He likes hobbies that allow him to drown out the world and go other places for a short while. 

Some of Riku’s favourite bands and music artists include {but are not limited to}: Disturbed, The Beatles, Lewis Capaldi, All Time Low, 5 Seconds of Summer, My Chemical Romance, Counting Crows, Bowling for Soup, Neon Trees, Cinema Bizarre, Tycho, Chris Young, Never Shout Never, Augustana, Queen, Bullet For My Valentine, Framing Hanley, Elvis Presley, Landon Pigg, The Higher, Keane, The Killers, AFI, Troye Sivan, Simon Curtis, Point North, Halsey, Gabbie Hanna, Breaking Benjamin, Secondhand Serenade, Marilyn Manson, and Hollywood Undead.

Because Riku loves music so much, he always sends people songs to listen to. These songs don’t always have to relate to their relationship {whatever that may be}. Sometimes, he just sends them songs because he thinks that they’ll like them but other times he’ll send songs because they fit a certain situation or feeling. After all, music speaks when words fail. 

Nail polish? Definitely. Riku’s nails are always painted solid black or dark blue to match the night sky. He paints them himself.

Riku doesn’t care for junk food much, but sometimes he helps himself to Oreos, cookies and cream ice cream, cheese and pineapple pizza, or some cool ranch Doritos. He prefers savoury to sweet, as a whole when it comes to his snacking habits.

All of the furniture in his room is black. The walls that are painted white are covered from top to bottom in vintage movie posters, album artwork from vinyl records, video game posters, band posters, you name it. His bedding is dark indigo blue with black, grey and white plaid accents. He has a bookshelf filled from top to bottom with his favourite vintage cds, video games, books, and a picture of him, his mom, and his dad from when he was five. His window has indigo blue curtains that have plaid details just like his bedding. His backpack resides on a hook near his bedroom door. 

Riku has a beta fish that is black and blue that he has named Ansem because he reminds him of a ghostly spirit. Ansem sits in a fishbowl on Riku’s desk. 

He absolutely loves movies, especially older movies. He loves classic things as a whole.  His favourite movies include {but are not limited to by any means}: Jaws, Titanic, The Ring, Grease, West Side Story, The Breakfast Club, and {though it’s not completely vintage} Star Wars. He also likes movies that take places from vintage eras even if they aren’t filmed in that era like, Call Me By Your Name, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Love Simon, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Across the Universe. He doesn’t have one specific movie type that he goes to more than others, but he is always drawn to movies based on books.

**Headcanons can be found HERE. As always, they will constantly be added to.

[writeyourownlifestory]

L-I-G-H-T-S U-P

Chapters: 2/20 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: No warnings at this time Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: PunkRocker!Eddie, Writer!Richie, Beveddie!Friendship, No Clown Written by: myself & @ahardlife​ Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @ghostnebula, @madidraw @madi-main, @gazebobullshit, @thoughtfullyyoungduck​

Puff piece writer Richie Tozier is given the chance of a lifetime to interview his celebrity crush: Dr. K, the lead singer of punk rock band, Trashmouth. Dr. K is about to release his first solo album and Richie wants to get all the dirty details. But all is not what it appears to be and the two realize they know each other from a different time, in a different place, when they were both very different people.

Chapter one can be found here

So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings - Caroline Polachek

I get a little lonely Get a little more close to me You're the only one who knows me, babe So hot, you're hurtin' my feelings (woo) Can't deal

Richie had very little idea what he was supposed to be doing.

Okay, correction, he had a decent idea. It was a simple interview. Ask a couple of questions, hopefully, get a couple of answers. It wasn’t being filmed nor were they doing something dumb to pass the time. Just a simple sit down with a punk rock legend in the making.

Richie had written down almost a hundred questions, half of which he wanted to scrape because they just seemed so generic and boring. This might have been just a stereotypical interview but the person of interest was anything but typical.

Dr. K had changed things for the better in the music industry. He didn’t stick to social norms, but he also didn’t jam his uniqueness down your throat. If you wanted to see him, you would see him. If you didn’t want to pay him any mind, that was fine too. Dr. K had said on more than one occasion that he wasn’t there to entertain the small minds of the world. The people who would see him would see him and those who heard him would listen.

Richie listened very clearly. Almost nightly. He wasn’t lying when he told Bill he had seen them sixteen times in the past eight years. From small dingy bars deep in the city to the biggest venues the state had to offer. Richie had been there for it all, cheering on this amazing band and buying up their merch to boot.

Richie thought about wearing one of their shirts, but he didn’t want to come on too strong. He stuck with his regular business attire, making sure that nothing was too wrinkled or had a strange mess to it.

He thought about doing something with his hair until he finally snapped himself out of this little fantasy he had going on inside his head. This wasn’t a blind date; wasn’t some matchmaking at the hands of Bill. This was a serious business and Richie had to take it seriously.

Richie was gangly, with wavy hair and thick glasses. Sure, some guys found him to be cute, but he gave credit to his charming personality. He put on a mask to get by but in reality, he was just a lonely guy who didn’t know where he belonged.

So when the day came, he told himself just to relax because nothing would come from this. There wasn’t going to be a magical spark between the two. He wasn’t going to let go of his career and start touring with Dr. K as his personal assistant slash roadie slash groupie.

He was just a guy interviewing for his place of work and Richie reminded himself that repeatedly as he arrived at the location Bill gave him. Red Balloon records were serious business that only took on the best of the best. Richie gave his name and flashed the pass that he always kept on him from Paper Boats just to show he was legit.

He was sent up automatically and was practically buzzing in the elevator up. When he arrived at the top, a red-headed woman greeted him, offering a polite smile as they walked through the hall. She was dressed smartly in a suit of her own, high up against her neck and tight at the waist. She offered a quick handshake before they got moving.

“Beverly Marsh. You’re a little early, but that’s all right. K likes punctual people.” She revealed.

“Figured it would be better to be early than late.”

“Better late than never as they say,” Beverly commented with a knowing smile. “I hope you have something good to ask him.”

“Way to put the pressure on,” Richie muttered, following close behind her. “I tried to choose questions he hadn’t already been asked before, but there are only so many non-generic questions out there. I’m sure he’ll be asked the same bullshit by the other magazines.”

“Dr. K isn’t doing any other magazine interviews. He’s agreed to only speak to a Paper Boat representative. You, specifically.”

“What? You’re kidding.” It wasn’t unheard of for a celeb to only speak to one news outlet, but for him to choose to only speak to PB when he had so much to release seemed a bit out there. Richie wondered if Bill had worked his magic on Dr. K’s people and convinced them to sell the story to Paper Boat and only Paper Boat.

“You’ll be the only so I certainly hope you make it worth his while.”

“No pressure there,” Richie muttered, adjusting his glasses nervously.

“Don’t be worried. Dr. K is very easy going. Just don’t make this into a big deal.”

Richie snorted, giving the redhead a quick side look. “Right. Speaking to a premature rock God. It's no big deal.”

Beverly chuckled, stopping outside one of the doors. “He isn’t a God. He’s just a guy with a lot of talent.”

“Here I thought the lead singer of a punk rock band would want to surround himself with people who stroke his ego.”

Beverly shrugged, reaching for the doorknob. “He’s not the lead singer of a band anymore. And K doesn’t surround himself with anybody he doesn’t want around. Constantly hearing how wonderful you are can be pretty boring, don’t you think?” Opening the door, Beverly gesturing inside. “He’ll be with you in just a moment.”

The room was empty but set up comfortably. There was a small bar with drinks and a table of snacks set up. Caramel popcorn and peanut M&Ms filled up the bowls. Richie grabbed a couple of candies, tossing them in the air and catching them. He walked around, admiring the room. It had that vintage rock and roll vibe to it. Vinyl along the brick walls and posters of all the bands the record label signed over the year.

Sitting in a cooler were glass soda bottles and Richie lifted one, searching for a bottle opener only to come up empty. Shrugging, he brought the bottle to his mouth, hoping to open it with his teeth the way he used to in college, but that proved futile. He was older and his teeth weren’t as strong as they used to be.

“It’s a twist-off,” A voice from behind him said.

Richie turned and the bottle nearly slipped through his fingers as his eyes settled on the new person in the room.

It was him, his morning glory.

Dr. K.

He looked exactly like Richie hoped he would. Utterly gorgeous.

He wasn’t dolled up in eyeliner or hair gel the way he would if he was on stage or dressed in the best designers for a photoshoot, but he still looked too good to be true. Dark jeans with a dark jacket, a Ramones tee shirt hugging his toned body. His skin was pale, showing off every mark and freckle he had to offer.

His hair was shorter now; another shock vibing out through the music world. First Trashmouth loses their lead and then the lead loses his hair. Richie didn’t mind it though. The shorter cut framed Dr. K’s face ever so perfectly.

He was absolutely gorgeous and Richie felt like he was a six-foot tall garbage can on fire just standing in the same room with him.

Richie watched as Dr. K came forward, going to grab a bottle out of the cooler. He twisted it open with ease, offering it to Richie to switch out with the unopened one he was holding. Richie took it, still not saying a word as he watched the other man open a second bottle for himself and begin to drink it.

“What? Disappointed it’s not beer?” Dr. K asked him curiously.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Richie mentioned.

Dr. K shrugged off, sipping slowly at his drink. “As they say: it’s five o’clock somewhere.” He mentioned, taking another swig of the soda bottle. “So. You’re him, huh?” He asked, looking him up and down slowly.

A tickle of nerves ran along Richie’s back and after nearly spitting out his sip, he placed the bottle down beside him. “Yes. Hi. Richard Tozier; representative of Paper Boat magazine.” He stuck his hand out, offering a shake.

He wanted to be professional, but he wondered if that came off lame. Lame was the last thing he wanted because anything that wasn’t punk or rock and roll was incredibly lame.

And Richie was very sure if he looked lame in front of Dr. K he would throw himself in front of a moving train.

Luckily for him, Dr. K didn’t seem to mind. He offered a polite smile and reached out to shake his hand. His shake was tight and simple, though Dr. K did linger a bit longer than expected.

“So, shall the interview begin?” He offered, gesturing over to the couch across the way.

Richie scrambled to take his seat, wanting to make room for everything that was begging to come out of his mouth.

“First I just want to say thank you for allowing us to do this. I know you aren’t a very public person so to be able to do a one on one with you is truly an honor.”

“People are hungry. Might as well feed them.” Dr. K replied slowly.

“Right. Okay. So a solo album. Why now?”

“Why not now?”

“Right, okay. Great answer.” Richie cliched his pen and began writing that down. “So the album. Do you have a title for it yet?”

“We have a few things bouncing around but nothing has been decided yet.”

“And it’s all original work that you’ve written on your own?”

“Oh, the contrary; my first big solo album will be a complete list of some of my favorite songs already in creation.”

Richie pauses, looking up. “So a cover album?” He questioned, pushing his glasses up. “Why? I only ask because you’re an amazing songwriter! Surely you can make a whole album up on your own.”

“Your flattery is charming. And I have many ideas for songs but there are already so many songs out there and I want to lend my own voice and specific style to them.” Dr. K paused, smiling then. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

“Dr. K gets off with a zinger! Impressive.” Richie scribbled everything down, leaning back in the chair as he grew more comfortable. “Okay so. Cover album. Do I get to know any of the songs?”

“It will be between fifteen and twenty. We’re still narrowing it down.”

“That’s quite a lot. Any particular reason?”

“I’m greedy.” Dr. K shrugged, sipping slowly at his bottle.

Richie focused his eyes on the pad in his hands instead of on the bottle that Dr. K had his mouth wrapped around.

“I will say each song has been chosen by me personally. Little ditties that touched me in one way or another during my life; going all the way back to my childhood to now.”

“Do you have a favorite?”

“I do, though I can’t say without revealing anything.”

“What about in general?” Richie inquires. “Come on. Even a rockstar has to have a favorite song.”

Eddie smiled softly, almost dismissively. Richie thought he was going to ignore the question or request a skip, but instead, Richie would himself getting the answer.

“Clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade. Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away. I've done alright up to now, it's the light of day that shows me how. And when the night falls, loneliness calls….”

Richie blinked, his mind desperately trying to get past the fact that Dr. K just sang to him to recognize the song.

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody?” He asked aloud, his eyes squinting behind his glasses. “Your favorite song is by Whitney Houston?”

“Are you not a fan?”

“What? No, it’s not that! Whitney was iconic. Rest In Peace Queen, but I just meant. It’s surprising! Especially for somebody with your record.”

“Even rockstars can have a soft spot for a good pop song,” Eddie told him with a small smile.

Richie, having found himself staring, scrambling to write everything down. He paused, collecting his thoughts so he could wrap this up. He didn’t want to leave yet but he didn’t want to take up any more of Dr. K’s time.

“Why now?” He asked suddenly. “Why go solo now?”

“My bandmates have lives of their own. Wives. Children. I have neither. Besides, I lived my life doing what people expected of me. Thought I’d have fun and throw a wrench in their plan for me.”

A knock on the door came. After a few seconds, Beverly opened, sticking her fiery redhead inside. “K, I’m sorry to interrupt but Stanley is on the phone. Legal mumbo-jumbo.”

“Duty calls.” Dr. K sighed, standing slowly from the couch. Realizing the interview was cover, Richie stood as well, shoving everything back into his bag. Dr. K didn’t move right away. He stood in front of Richie, that same damn smile across his lips.

“Thank you. Really. Having this chance had been a total career changer.” He mentioned to him, pausing just before they could separate.

Richie always took his job seriously but come on, how detailed could you get about something when the story you were writing was on giant chocolate chip cookies or watching celebs balance pies on their heads? This was the first legitimate of Richie’s career and he was incredibly grateful for the chance.

“Do you think I could bother you for a picture? I know it’s super unprofessional, but you’re like my idol.”

Dr. K laughed then. Not mockingly, but rather with surprise. There was a glimmer in his eyes Richie couldn’t recognize, though he didn’t get the chance to question it as Dr. K came to his side in moments.

Richie scrambled to grab his phone, holding it out so he could capture both of them. They smiled wide, standing beside one another closely as the picture was taken. Richie was definitely going to make that his lock screen the moment he got home.

He offered his hand, one final shake and Dr. K took it without question. “It was nice to see you again, Richie.” He said, giving the hand one last squeeze before Beverly ushered him out.

Richie stood there, offering a lame wave as he was left alone in the room. A solid minute passed before Dr. K’s words repeated in his head.

Nice to see you again? What the fuck?

[alltheloveflowerh]

Record Shop

Y/N’s been working at a record shop for the past two years on a not so busy street in London, but it’s yet crowded enough to have people come and go every hour to make the shop busy. Like every other shop, this one too had the one-time-buyers, as well as its regulars. From the first time he walked into the shop, he could have been sorted into the regulars, but the thing is, that it wasn’t like that. And Y/N didn’t particularly like him (or at least that’s what she kept telling herself). For some reason the tall boy - well, he was more like a man, but she still called him a boy in her head - was always cocky, wearing a smug smile on his face, radiating with confidence; almost as if he owned the world. On particular days it just annoyed her, and on some days she enjoyed his little game of flirtation, but (of course) she would never admit that.

Y/N didn’t mind the boy, whose name she was yet to learn, though she felt slight irritation whenever he walked into the shop. It wasn’t his charming self or his pine green eyes that always seemed to capture her mind, not paying attention to what he was speaking but rather to his eyes. It was the attitude which was seen in his walk; it was the way he would stand whenever he would speak, and it was the smile. His goddamn broad smile, showing his perfect teeth and his perfectly deep curved dimples. It was his stupid stupid smile.

The first time they met was on January the 9th, when Harry decided to listen to his best friend and go check the record shop out. He knew of the shop, because his best friend could never stop talking about it and its variety of records and CD’s and the diversity of biographies about a lot of different musicians, but has never come around to actually visiting it. And Harry liked music, some might even say he loved it. So that day he went there without much on his mind, not thinking that a certain girl would capture the short attention span of Harry Styles. 

As soon as he walked in, he started to observe the shop, gently closing the door behind him. He took in each aspect, every concert poster hanging on the wooden wall, bookshelves standing against the walls and the collection of records and CD’s on display.

‘‘Hello, how are you doing?’’ He asked to what looked like an empty shop, not noticing the girl kneeling down and organising boxes with extra records. 

‘‘Hi, I’m fine, thank you. Yourself?’’ Y/N answered looking for the source of the voice while standing up and going to the counter. 

‘‘I-I’m good, yeah.. Er. w-would you mind if I take a look around?’’ He didn’t know why he asked that or why he stuttered but he just said the first thing on his mind considering how dumbfounded he was by the girl.

‘‘I mean, I’m almost positive that that’s what people do? But sure, if you need permission go ahead.’’ She did know that her answer was a bit snarky, but it didn’t bother her that much since she’s known for snarky responses but also hard work. The boy just nodded. 

Y/N continued doing her work while Harry couldn’t help but glance at her every few minutes just to check where she was; as if she was going to disappear any second. 

‘‘So, is there an order or anything? An alphabetical order or genre, perhaps?’’, he asked searching for ways to start a conversation. 

‘‘Yeah, alphabetical order.’’

‘‘Any signs where’s from A to F is or any other letters?’’

‘‘Each record cabinet is an alphabetical order for itself. So all of them are ordered alphabetically, with all letters, just depends on which cabinet you’re in front of.’’

‘‘Ah, okay. Well, which one has Fleetwood Mac?’’

Y/N knew that it was clear, you could see each letter on the cabinets. She knew you could see them easily, she knew because she organised it all. Big wall-sized bookshelves on the north and south side of the room, a line of long bin styled vinyl cabinet storages on the east and the west side holding vinyls and CD’s, and long 6-drawer chest in between, with the extra records inside and on top a couple of record players going from vintage to modern. 

She went off to his side and put her hand over the stack of records that said Fleetwood Mac on their cover, ‘‘Right here’’, she muttered out, giving him one of her best fake smiles - because she knew what he was doing, considering how hard he was trying not to smirk - obviously failing.

As she got back to the counter, a couple of more people came in, doing their own search and not asking for help as opposed to what the boy was doing. Speaking of him, he was still roaming through the records while a lot of customers already bought stuff and left. Precisely 23 minutes had passed before he finally came up to the counter with a stack of his own. As she started scanning each one of them, reading the names, the boy decided to speak.

‘‘So, you’re not wearing a name tag...?’’ which to Y/N it sounded more like question and not a statements. 

‘‘Don’t need one.’’

‘‘Right.’’ He knew she was doing this on purpose - avoiding a conversation, ‘‘I like your shirt, do you have a favourite album of theirs?’’ He pointed at the black Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt she was wearing underneath an oversized denim jacket, which seemed to be Levi’s.

‘‘By The Way, do you?’’ Y/N said nodding towards his very young looking Britney Spears t-shit, trying not to sneer, ‘’Have a favourite album of the person on your shirt?’’

‘‘Oh yes, definitely. Oops!..I Did It Again, has to be.’’ Harry was smiling to himself, knowing she indeed was making fun of him, but glad she was even talking. 

‘‘A classic.’’

Y/N scanned the vinyl and two CD’s (Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles), putting them all in a brown paper bag along with his receipt.

‘‘That will be £37. Your receipt is in the bag.’’ She held the bag in front of her, handing it to him. 

‘‘Thank you, here you go,’’ he gave her £40, ‘‘keep the change.’’ he added grinning wildly at the not so interested girl in front of him.

‘‘Thanks, Pop Princess.’’ The nickname slipped from her lips faster than she could comprehend. Not that there was anything wrong with Britney because she definitely had lot of hits Y/N liked to jam out to; she carefully took the money and put it into the register when she heard a genuine laugh escape his lips.

‘‘It sure does fit me, eh, with the long hair, brown curls.’’ He said, referring to the nickname with a low chuckle, ‘‘Well, thank you for being so kind, and see you soon.’’ He offered her a one more of his famous smiles, before turning around and leaving Y/N in the shop with what seemed to be a hundred thoughts in her head. 

---

What Y/N didn’t know was that every time he said soon, he meant the next day. So he came to this shop almost every day (except on weekends) for the next two weeks at the same time, which was usually around one in the afternoon. Whenever he came, he had a black washed-out backpack that matched his worn out converse shoes (they were occasionally replaced by red ones, in almost the same state). Sometimes he wore vintage looking band t-shirts with skinny jeans, and sometimes it was hoodies with slightly looser jeans, but he did have a good sense of style. As soon as he would walk into the shop, he would have a smile one his face, whether it was a smirk or a smug one, or just a simple smile, it was plastered all over his face. He didn’t purchase something every time he went there, so those times when he didn’t, he would linger around the shop, making sure to speak to her. And Harry was in no way embarrassed of anything, therefore he openly flirted with Y/N every time he got the chance; he made small talk, he would also compliment her which Y/N responded either with an eye-roll (trying really hard not to blush) or a look which said ‘You’re an idiot’. Y/N never flirted back, well not openly as Harry did, but in some ways she tried to appear just as much of a tease as Harry with comebacks and sarcastic comments. So the usual feeling of irritation that lingered in her body whenever Harry walked into the shop had disappeared after a few days of him showing up, and maybe.. Just maybe replaced by some kind of joy and excitement. But both of them were dealing with a slight problem, which was not knowing each others names. 

On January the 23rd, exactly two weeks after they’ve met for the first time, Harry was casually walking into the shop the same way and around the same time he always did. But he didn’t know that today, was Y/N’s day off, which meant that she wouldn’t be in the shop but her co-worker whom Harry only knows as ‘the guy from the afternoon shift’, so when he saw him instead of Y/N at the counter confusion took over his face.

‘‘Hi, er, is the girl not working today?’’ He debated whether to ask or not, but he was curious. 

‘‘Oh, Y/N? No, my dad gave her a day off today, and as a punishment, for what it seems like to the both of us, I’m taking over her shift.’’ The nameless boy explained.

‘‘Your dad?’’ he wondered, ignoring the fact that he just found out her name.

‘‘Yup, my dad owns this place, so Y/N and I work here. She doesn’t work over the weekend though, that’s when my dad comes in.’’

Harry was still confused; first because the guy that works here looks around the same age as he does and if him and Y/N have been- his thoughts were interrupted- her name was Y/N. A small smile grew on his face, saying the name in his head over and over, but was soon replaced with a frown when he remembered the previous though. If they’ve been working together for quite a long time, did they ever...? Has anything ever happened? As he was thinking he realised a few minutes flew passed since he last spoke and he was still standing in front of the guy.

‘‘Right, well, um, thanks for the explanation.’' He tried not to sound too awkward.

‘‘S’fine, no problem. But she will be back tomorrow in her usual shift.’’ The guy replied giving him a tight smile as if apologising that she’s not here now. 

‘‘Hey Ian, do we have any spare chargers here? Because this one only fucking works when you bloody angle it properly.’’

Both Y/N’s co-worker Ian and Harry turned their attention to the person who just hurriedly walked into the shop with annoyance on their face and frustration in their voice. Since it took them by surprise, - both her appearance and her loud entry - they looked at her as if she was a ghost. She looks beautiful, Harry thought. She was wearing black knee-ripped mum jeans, a yellow knitted jumper that reached just above her mid-thighs and a denim jacket she always wore. She also had a backpack on, filled with some things Y/N never leaves the house without; such as her wallet, a couple of books, sunglasses, a camera and a Polaroid camera she got for her 20th birthday.

As Ian stopped responding, only then lifting her head did Y/N realise that the boy was there as well. After what seemed hours of silence, one of them spoke.

‘‘Well hello, Y/N’’, Harry said putting the emphasis on her name while a smirk was forming on his face. 

‘‘Ian? Please tell me there is a spare one?’’ Y/N asked, without showing any acknowledgement of Harry. 

‘‘Could it be in the back? I can get it for you. You stay here, the guy asked for you anyways.’’ Ian turned around and went to the back room to look for Y/N’s charger. 

With that being said, Y/N felt some kind of a feeling in the pit her stomach, because Harry actually dared to ask about her or rather - her absence. 

‘‘Asking about me when I’m not here, eh?’’, she was the one smirking now.

‘‘No,’’ he tried to deny, ‘‘I was just wondering, you know..’’

‘‘Sure thing, Pop Princess.’’ Harry rolled his eyes.

‘‘Y/N! I’ve found one!’’ Ian yelled as he walked back to join them, ‘‘It was in one of the drawers.’’ he added, putting the charger onto the counter. 

‘‘Oh thank God. I would have gone nuts if I had to buy another one of these,’’ she walked towards them and took the charger off the counter, ‘‘Thanks, love.’’ She quickly added turning away and getting ready to leave. She plugged her phone into her power bank since it was on 6% of battery and zipped it in her backpack. Harry huffed, annoyed by Ian’s nickname. She thanked Ian for his help again and walked towards the door. As she left and started walking away from the shop someone grabbed her wrist and turned her around.

‘‘Have breakfast with me. Or lunch? Or brunch, just anything.’’ he pleaded.

‘‘I mean, I don’t even know your name. I can’t just grab breakfast, lunch, brunch or whatever with a stranger.’’ she replied smiling cheekily at him. 

‘‘We have been talking for two weeks, I’m no stranger to you. But if you will, I’m Harry.’’

‘‘What if I already have plans?’’

‘‘Then I will wait until you’re free. But do you really?’’ He narrowed his eyes at her trying to figure out if she really did have plans. 

‘‘Hi Harry, I’m Y/N, and no I don’t have any plans.’’ She stretched out her hand for him to shake. 

‘‘Really? A handshake?’’ Harry shook his head in disbelief with a grin on his face, yet still took her hand in his and gently shook it. It was rather small compared to his, he thought, but felt very soft and warm against his cold ones. 

‘‘You look very pretty, by the way.’’ He added.

‘‘Err, t-thank you.’’ She ducked her head down, hiding the blush creeping onto her face. Harry smiled at her response, because that’s the first time she didn’t roll her eyes at him or dismiss him. And he could definitely notice some redness on her cheek.

‘‘Is there anywhere you’d like to go to? Or should I choose the place?’’

‘‘If you know any good ones then lead the way, Princess.’’ she replied as they started walking to wherever Harry was taking her. 

‘‘You’re really not gonna stop calling me that, are you?’’

‘‘No, probably not.’’ Y/N smiled up at him and slightly bumped him with her shoulder. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her more into him so badly, but he just pinched her side making her squirm away from him. 

Y/N didn’t know how to feel. They have been talking for two weeks, but it was small talks; where you learn about their favourite movies, musicians, books, animals and sometimes they would get into more deeper discussions about a certain musician; like that time they spent two hours talking about Freddie Mercury before Harry had to leave as he was running late to meet up with his sister. But usually, their chats wouldn’t last too long, and now they’re going out for lunch where they will probably spend a lot of time talking. What if they don’t have any topics left to discuss? What if at the end he found her boring? And for some reason while her head was thinking hundred steps ahead, she had this feeling in her tummy; as if the whole zoo is going wild inside it, and they’re just walking next to each other. 

‘‘So how come you weren’t working today?’’ He asked even if he already knew the answer, but Y/N smiled at his question before explaining.

‘‘Well, Boss said I could use an extended weekend, plus he said Ian’s fucked something up so he’s making him work all day.’’

‘‘Well then, have you been enjoying your extended weekend so far?’’

‘‘Oh I certainly am, slept the whole time. How about you, how was your weekend?’’ She looked up at him and noticed the height difference between them, she literally had to lift her head all the way up to meet his eyes. Looking up at him, she also noticed his sharp lower jaw bones that were sticking out as well as the short stubble on his chin. His curly brown hair falling down to his shoulders. There were so many small details about him she was yet to learn. He also didn’t have earlobes. She snapped back out of her thoughts once she heard him speak.

‘‘I would say it was good. I did sleep a lot of the time, listened to some records, stud-’’ He looked in her direction catching her stare, ‘‘Take a picture, love. It will last longer.’’

‘‘You’re annoying.’‘ she huffed as a small child, to which he laughed loudly.

‘‘You look cute when you’re annoyed.’‘ 

‘‘Oh for God’s sake, stop it!’‘ 

Y/N put her hands on his bicep in attempt to push him into the opposite direction away from her, but Harry only responded by quickly taking her hands and pulling her towards him; one hand sliding down her shoulders and the other on her waist, going over her stomach, trying to squish and tickle her. As much as Y/N pretended to want to wiggle out of his grip, she couldn’t lie and say she didn’t enjoy it. After tickling her, Harry pulled one arm to his side and put it into his pocket, while the other stayed still over her shoulders.

‘‘Since the weather is quite nice for a change, do you want to sit outside?’‘

‘‘Yes please. Are we there yet?’‘ Y/N asks, lifting her head and looking at the pretty boy holding her close. 

‘‘We only have to cross that street and we’re there.’‘ He replied, pointing to a cafe in the distance with one hand, squeezing her shoulder gently with the other. They had been walking down the street, neither of them saying anything, but just smiling to themselves for the rest of the short walk they had. 

Once they arrived at a cafe with a sign in the colour pink that said Cliffs just above the door, Y/N noticed that there was no outside area in front of the shop, but as Harry opened the door leading her inside, she was surprised by the vintage looking cafe with a big glass door at the end of the room, leading to what seemed like backyard garden. It looked gorgeous, Y/N thought, especially the outside area with wooden tables and stools, each with a small red cushion. Every table had a small plants on them, flowers hanging from the walls and colourful trees in big pots in each corner.  

‘‘Oh wow...’‘ Y/N was in awe with the place, ‘‘This place is beautiful, Harry.’‘

‘‘So you like it?’‘ Harry asked nervously, even thought she just said it was beautiful he still felt a bit on edge trying to impress her and show her that he perhaps had a crush on her. 

‘‘I do, it’s really pretty. Thank you..’‘ Her voice was soft and almost like a whisper, as she still looked around the garden area still not believing how beautiful it was. Harry couldn’t restrain himself from smiling widely. He just felt happy.

‘‘Let’s sit in that corner, yeah?’‘ He exclaimed while slowly removing his hands from around her shoulders and taking her hand in his leading her to the small table in the corner next to a tree called Cercis canadensis or the eastern redbud, an average height tree with branches of the colour purple, but since it was January it wasn’t in its full blossom. Y/N knew that because ever since she was little she loved the nature and loved spending her time outside. Harry pulled the chair for her to sit down and then took a seat to her left but still close to each other since the tables weren’t too big. 

‘‘I’ve never been to this cafe before, and I mean you’re just taking me for lunch, but I’m just...’‘ she waited a few seconds, ‘‘in awe.’‘ 

‘‘Jesus, who knew something as small as a cafe would make you all nice, wow, I didn’t know you had it in you.’‘ He teased her. 

‘‘Oh sod off.’‘ she fliped him off, putting her backpack on her lap trying to find something.

‘‘Ah yeah, now I know you.’‘ As Harry said that, the waitress came over taking their order quickly and leaving them all alone again. After they’ve placed their order, Y/N was still shuffling through her bag looking for her camera, taking it out when she finally found it.

‘‘You gonna take a picture of me now, love?’‘ he smirks at her, crossing his arms and leaning his elbows against the table, feeling all too cocky knowing that he caught her staring at him a couple of times. 

‘‘You know what? I actually am. Smile, love.’’ She raised her camera up to her face and pulled herself back a little so she could take the perfect shot. Wanting to have a nice background as well, Y/N zoomed out a bit and captured the photo of Harry. He was leaning against the table with that stupid smile on his face, the light perfectly hitting his face, his green irises not looking in the lens but at her and with a mix of a brick wall and the purple tree in the background. She took a few of them in a row, just in case. 

‘‘Aren’t you just gorgeous’‘ She said, quickly looking at the picture before turning the camera off and putting it down on the table. Harry only shakes his head chuckling and muttering to himself, ‘‘Unbelievable.’‘ 

The waitress brought them their drinks and apologised for the meals still not being ready since the cafe is almost full, to which Harry and Y/N say that it’s okay because neither of them are in a rush. Harry ordered a black coffee and a glass of juice while Y/N ordered an ice coffee, something she always drank. 

‘‘How can you dri-’‘ before he can even ask, Y/N fiercely interrupts him

‘‘I swear to God, if you ask me how am I drinking a cold coffee on a cold day, I will hurt you’‘ Harry’s eyes widened because that was exactly his question, and well because she’s glaring at him. ‘‘I’m not even joking.’‘ she quickly adds taking a sip from her cup. 

‘‘Okay then, well..’’ He snickered, amused. ‘’Can I ask you something? But I’m not trying to be an ass or anything’‘ Harry asked her, to which she only responds by nodding her head with a confused expression, ‘‘So you and that guy you work with... are you two, you know? Or have you ever..’‘ why was he asking that, he thought to himself, that’s none of his business! 

‘‘Oh really? That’s what you wanna know, is it now?’‘ Y/N leaned herself against the table, just like he did only few minutes ago, moving a few inches closer to him.

‘‘What no, I was just thinking, wondering actually since you two have been working together for a while, and you know..’’ he huffed, annoyed at himself for even thinking to ask that, his cheeks getting more red with each passing second. 

‘‘Of course, just wondering, right? But no, we didn’t. We never hooked up if that’s what your asking.’’ Y/N liked looking into his eyes, especially since he tried avoiding eye contact with her because of his questions. Also because she has a little crush on him, but not that she would admit. 

‘‘Interesting how I don’t even know your full name or you birthday, or even your age. But you know if I’ve hooked up with someone or not..’‘ she said while raising her coffee cup and hiding a smile behind it. She noticed Harry shifting in his seat and taking a long sip of his coffee as well. They knew quite a lot about each other from those small chats they had, but still not the basic stuff. 

‘‘I’m Harry Edward Styles and I will be twenty-two years old in a couple of days.’‘ He said with a serious face as if he was presenting himself on national television.

‘‘Harry Edward Styles, sounds nice’‘ she repeated his name, testing it for herself, ‘‘Wait, how many days is that before your birthday?’‘

‘‘Nine days to be exact, why? Gonna plan something special for me?’‘ He gave her a dimpled smile, leaning even closer so that their faces were only a few inches apart. 

‘‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’’ Y/N’s original thought was actually to get him something, but she obviously wouldn’t tell him that. ‘’Anyways-’‘ she wanted to know more about him but was interrupted by the waitress bringing their meals, so both of them quickly pulled themselves back into the chairs. The waitress put their plates down one by one and placed the receipt under one of the glasses so it doesn’t get lost.

‘‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’‘ the waitress asked kindly looking at both of them.

‘‘No, thank you so much.’‘ Y/N smiled at her and thanked her politely; the waitress gave them one more smile before turning away and continuing with her work.

Both of them were blushing, so they just smiled at each other shyly before eating. The lunch went well, they kept chatting the whole time; sometimes making silly jokes and sometimes shamelessly flirting. It was obvious how into each other they were, yet no one said anything. As the got up to leave, Harry pulled out his walled going straight to the front of the cafe to pay.

‘‘Heyyyy!’‘ Y/N quickly followed after him. ‘‘You can’t do that!’‘ She added, pulling 20 quid out of her wallet and nudging it towards Harry.

‘‘Can’t do what? Pay for my date?’‘ He turned his head to look at Y/N, who was standing right next to him. There was a smile on his face, his green irises focusing only on the girl next to him. 

‘‘A date, huh?’‘ She found it amusing, how he always blushed whenever she teased him. But she can not say she didn’t feel any butterflies in her stomach after calling that a date. 

‘‘Shut up...’‘ Harry said before turning his attention to the cashier and giving him the money. 

Y/N giggled at him, slowly slipping her hand in his, intertwining their fingers. Her other hand went around his bicep, leaning against him. After the cashier gave the change back, Harry put it into a little jar that was on the counter. 

‘‘Thank you.’‘ Harry kindly thanked them for their service, before heading towards the exit. His mind was blank but his feelings were all over the places. He felt so happy. Neither of them spoke until they arrived at the closest bus stop, because Y/N was taking the bus home. 

‘‘Well, thank you for the date, Princess.’‘ Y/N said, facing him with a grin on her face, tracing her thumb over Harry’s hand. 

‘‘The pleasure was all mine, believe me.’‘ He chuckled, his head hanging lowly with a cheeky smile on his face. He wanted to kiss her so badly. 

‘‘This is me, then.’‘ She nodded towards the bus that was about to stop in front of them. She started separating their fingers apart when Harry surprised her, making her stumble backwards. 

Harry didn’t want her to leave, so he squeezed her hand  pulling her towards him but at the same time leaning into her. He couldn’t help but crash his lips against her. But being his clumsy self, he had leaned a bit too much into her causing Y/N to hit her head against a street lamp. 

‘‘Ouch.’‘ Y/N mumbled, giggling against his soft lips, before detaching them and running her palm over the stop she hit her head.  

‘‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’‘ He quickly pulled her into a hug and started kissing her head over and over. ‘‘I’m so clumsy.. I’m sorry, baby.’‘ He whispered, redness in his cheeks, embarrassed of himself. 

‘‘It’s okay, I’m fine.’‘ She looked up at him, before adding, ‘‘But now I missed my bus.’‘ She liked the feeling of his lips against her, even though it was short, she could taste the bitter taste of his black coffee. She loved it. 

‘‘I’m sure there will be another one.’‘ Maintaining eye contact, he leaned his forehead against hers. Y/N was quite small, but to him it was cute how he had to duck his head to reach her forehead. His hands moved to her waist, bringing her even closer. ‘‘You’re so beautiful.’‘ He whispered again, closing his eyes. 

‘‘Thank you.’‘ Y/N pushed herself a little on her tiptoes to reach his lips, connecting them. Her hands going up his chest, to his neck hold him gently while their lips moved against one another. One of his hand going over her lower back to hold her, while his other hand rested just below her ear and his thumb caressing her cheek softly. It was slow and soft, comforting, like nothing she ever felt before. Both of their hearts were beating so fast. 

‘‘I’m pretty sure I’ll miss the next bus as well, huh?’‘ She teased as they pulled away, but still in the same position. Their cheeks were as red as a tomato, but neither of them minded it. 

‘‘Go out on a date with me.’‘ Harry blurted out, desperate, for her, her touch, her kiss. ‘‘A proper one.’‘ He gently started placing kisses all over her face. ‘‘Please.’‘ 

‘‘You know my answer is gonna be yes. You didn’t have to ask.’‘ Her whole body felt so warm, her stomach was going wild, but she loved every second of it. She placed a small kiss on the corner of his lips. ‘‘Do you have a pen, maybe?’’ She added.

‘‘A pen? No..’‘ Confusion in his voice.

‘‘Wait.’‘ Y/N took her backpack off, searching for a pen inside it. After finding it, she took it out and started writing against his hand. ‘‘There you go.’‘ She smiled at him. She wrote her number down, a little heart and her name in it, with other small doodles.  

‘‘I’ll make sure to text you.’‘ Harry laughed heartily at her small gesture. God, she’s so adorable, it was all he could think of. 

‘‘But sadly, I have to go now...’‘ She really did. Harry kissed her one more time before letting go of her. ‘‘Bye, Harry. I’ll see you soon.’‘ 

Y/N turned away, walking towards the bus with a huge smile on her face. Before she hopped in, she waved at Harry, smiling. Harry waved back at her, blowing her a kiss as he chuckled at himself. He’s never felt so happy. The bus took off but shortly after Y/N’s phone buzzed. She quickly took it out of her backpack seeing that Harry had texted her and she immediately saved his contact. If it was possible, her smile grew bigger at his text. 

Harry: ❤ H.x

[oliviapedigo]

Pink Floyd’s album cover becomes synonymous with the band itself

In 1973, Pink Floyd released “The Dark Side of the Moon,” a mysterious album that explored themes of alienation, greed and loss. The captivating sounds on the record were the catalyst that thrusted them into the mainstream, and the album cover became synonymous with the band itself. The cover only featured a prism with a white light passing through and coming out as a spectrum of colors on top of a sleek, black background. 

The imagery was created by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson who were apart of Hipgnosis, a design group that specialized in making cover art for rock bands such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. However, this assignment was challenging because they were given “minimal creative direction” from the band (Deal). The only advice they received was from the keyboardist, Richard Wright, who said to “do something clean, elegant and graphic.”

Caption: Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” had a simple album cover that often reminded its listeners of outer space. "Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon White Vinyl" by vinylmeister is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

At a brainstorming session that lasted until 4 a.m., Thorgerson suggested to Powell that they use the image of a prism dispersing light (Wardle). Thorgerson had seen the diagram in a physics textbook before, and it had stuck with him ever since. Pink Floyd almost instantly approved of the prism concept.

The band even suggested to extend the spectrum of light to inside of the album cover and add a heart-blip, so it would resemble a heart monitor. With this addition, fans could trace the beam as the open the album and receive a complete visual experience.

Caption: Around the heart-blip, the lyrics to the songs on the album were printed, so fans could sing along. "Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon White Vinyl" by vinylmeister is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

After the album was released, Pink Floyd sold millions of records, and it remained on the Billboard chart for nearly 15 years (Fielder). Its phenomenal popularity led fans to develop theories on what the prism truly symbolized. Pink Floyd never offered an explanation for it and let listeners come up with their own conclusions.

Many speculators believe the white light represents “the start of life,” the rainbow represents “all the paths and influences one may take during their lifetime” and the continuation of the design represents “the cyclical nature of life.” These interesting interpretations fans came up with demonstrate how much the artwork resonated with listeners. In reality, Thorgerson said he was inspired by the light show Pink Floyd had during its concerts at the time, and he was not directly influenced by the music on the album itself (Huber). However, Thorgerson did mention that the triangle was symbolic of ambition.

Because the band members “remained reclusive” as their album rose to fame, “The Dark Side of the Moon” cover began to symbolize Pink Floyd as a whole (Deal). As Thorgerson put it, “the prism belonged to Floyd” and it still does to this day (Huber). The album cover can still be found on posters in college dorms, T-shirts at Urban Outfitters and even tattooed on the skin of diehard fans.

In my opinion, the contrast between the black background, white prism and entire spectrum is something that immediately catches a viewer’s eye. I also appreciate how well these colors work together to create a sense of place. The sleek black abyss reminds me of the entirety of outer space while the white beam and triangle represent a source of light, such as a star.

[songwriting-analysis]

Meaningless opinions from 2017 that will change in 2018

1. Favourite Riff?

Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath from the album Black Sabbath

2. Favourite Guitar Model?

Gibson SG

3. Favourite Musical Decade?

1960′s

4. Favourite 60s Band?

Jefferson Airplane since Beatles is a cliche answer

5. Favourite 70s Band?

Black Sabbath, a cliche answer

6. Favourite 80s Band?

Van Halen vs. Hall & Oates, a battle royale in my imagination

7. Favourite 90s Band?

Nirvana or Failure

8. Favourite 2000s Band?

The Thrills

9. Favourite Album?

Fantastic Planet or Abbey Road

10. What was the greatest year for music?

1825 or 1967

11. Fenders or Gibsons?

Why not both?

10. Favourite Guitarist?

Matt Pike

11. Which side of the Atlantic (Britain or America)?

Britain for music

12. Rosewood or Maple Fretboards?

Rosewood with humbuckers. Maple with single coil

13. Greatest “1 album” bands?

The Rockwells

14. Crosby, Stills or Nash?

Young

15. Favourite Rolling Stone?

Most of those songs were collaborations. There’s a lesson there, kid.

16. Favourite Guitar Solo?

“Dirty Blue Balloons” by Failure

17. Who have you seen live?

Less than I should have but more than some

18. Greatest modern blues/rock guitarist?

Who cares?

19. Favourite drummer?

Ringo Starr

20. Favourite Bass Player?

Dennis Dunaway and Gene Simmons are both underrated. The Jacos, Jamersons, and Chris Squires of the world don’t need any more praise.

21. Favourite Keys Player?

Thelonius Monk

22. Favourite Male Singer?

Freddy Mercury

23. Favourite Female Singer?

Carmen McRae for voice alone. Neko Case as a songwriter

24. If you could own one famous guitar?

How about you give me an unknown one that sounds better?

25. Favourite Beatle?

Paul

26. Favourite Singer Songwriter?

Elliott Smith or Hank Williams

27. Electric or Acoustic?

Until 2014, acoustic. After 2014, electric.

28. Dylan, Electric or Acoustic?

Acoustic

29. Band you wish would/could reform?

Time is.

30. Top 3 dead musicians you wish you’d seen?

Time is.

31. Most underrated guitarist?

Eddie Hazel

32. What would your first piece of advise be to new guitarists?

The guitar is an extension of your penis/clit. Don’t wank it, tickle it til it spews.

33. Big venues or small venues?

Medium sized venues. The space needs to be big enough for low frequencies but not so big that the venue exerts too much influence on the sound.

34. What posters are on your walls?

None anymore. :-(

35. Vinyl or Digital?

Vinyl for sound quality. Digital for everything else.

36. Most Overrated Guitarist?

SRV

37. Which song do you wish you’d written?

Footloose

38. Which concerts do you wish you’d seen?

I wish I saw the Thrills when they toured the US but I was still in high school.

39. If you met your hero what would you say to them?

Thanks for doing good work but I have better things to do than jerk you off right now.

40. Flatpicking or Fingerstyle?

Apple or Orange?

41. Open tunings, yay or nay?

Yay

42. Favourite classic blues song?

If rock & roll is dead, jazz and blues have long since turned to dust.

43. Pick a King, Freddie, BB or Albert?

Eric Clapton ripping them all off

44. Who’s the most influential guitarist?

Hendrix or Chuck Berry

45. If you could play any song?

Dopesmoker. It’s not too difficult, just a lot to learn.

46. Who’s music has taught you the most?

Beethoven. It’s ‘Whose” btw

47. Best cover of a song?

Too many to choose. Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” is a good choice.

48. If Clapton is God then who’s Jesus?

God doesn’t let his children fall out of windows.

49. Why did you start playing your instrument?

I thought it was cool.

50. Favourite Eagle?

Leave the Eagles in the 70′s where they belong.

51. Favourite Les Paul Player?

Matt Pike

52. Favourite Stratocaster Player?

Hendrix.

53. Hollow bodied guitars, yay or nay?

Not for me but if that’s your bag, go for it.

54. What youtube comment really bugs you?

What the fuck kind of question is that?

55. Best person you’ve seen live?

New York Philharmonic or the Melvins

56. Best musician’s autobiography you’ve read?

Songs are more informative.

57. Band you’d most like to see?

Right now, Monolord or Electric Wizard

58. Favourite Stones’ Album?

Let It Bleed.

59. Favourite Beatles’ Album?

Abbey Road

60. Favourite Eagles’ Album?

Again, why are you referencing the Eagles along with the Stones and the Beatles? Have some respect.

61. Favourite Led Zeppelin Album?

II

62. Favourite Led Zeppelin Member?

John Paul Jones for being a great musician without being a terrible human being.

63. What band do you not listen to enough of?

Yours

64. What band is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t feel guilty about any of my musical tastes but if I did Max Martin songs and a lot of 80′s stuff.

65. What is your opinion of (insert bandartist)?

Terrible.

66. What is your opinion of (insert guitarist)?

Wonderful.

67. Beatles or Stones?

Beatles

68. Clapton or Hendrix?

Hendrix

69. Favourite ex-yardbird?

Jimmy Page

70. Favourite driving song?

Dopesmoker

71. Favourite Cream Song?

Sunshine of Your Love

72. Jack White or Dan Auerbach?

They are to legitimacy what Stranger Things is to the 80′s

73. White Stripes or Black Keys?

Neither but White Stripes I guess

74. What bugs you the most about your favourite artists?

In any time period, people who excel at selling themselves tend to do best. In the 1960′s a lot of hypocrites did this with flower power. At least in the 80′s they were transparent about their motivations.

75. Is Blues dead?

Yes. Long Live the Blues

76. Who would be in your ultimate band?

Boring.

77. Who do you wish had collaborated on a whole album?

I want to hear Bitches Brew with Hendrix on it.

78. Favourite cheesy but brilliant song?

How Will I Evaaaaaaaaaaaaa Eva Surviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive?

79. Favourite love song?

Can’t Take My Eyes off You

80. Greatest solo career?

Michael Jackson

81. Which musician have you learnt the most from?

John Cage

82. Worst musician’s autobiography you’ve ever read?

83. Best greatest hits album?

Rick James

84. What song is stuck in your head?

“Tom’s Diner” has been stuck in my head since the 90′s

85. What song makes you cry every time?

None

86. Telecaster or Stratocaster?

Tele

87. SG or Les Paul?

SG

88. Favourite Telecaster Guitarist?

Syd Barrett

89. Favourite SG Guitarist?

Toni Iommi

90. Favourite Firebird Player?

I don’t know who the fuck plays those.

91. What’s the most unusual guitar you’d buy?

One of the Electrical Guitar Company guitars made of metal. Ken Andrews and King Buzzo both have them and I’m that level of basic bitch.

92. What’s your earliest classic rock or blues memory?

My parents saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I first saw them on the Muppet Show.

93. Best music documentary you’ve seen?

Show don’t tell

94. Best live concert video you’ve watched?

Not sure. The Sweeney Todd movie with George Hearn and Patti Lupone is up there.

95. What band t-shirts do you own?

I care less about that than the poor schlub who has to scroll past this cares about my opinion.

96. Own anything signed?

Sondheim vocal score to “Into the Woods”

97. Do your parents like this music?

I think so

98. Where would you most love to play a gig?

Somewhere “acoustically perfect”

99. If you could attend one festival?

I hate crowds. You can play in my living room though.

100. What’s the thing you last learnt on guitar?

“All I Want For Christmas Is You”. Speaking of, why wasn’t “Whitney or Mariah?” one of these questions? (My answer is Whitney btw.)

[johnpornjones]

all questions you havnt answered yet

Alright ! Let’s go, then ! :D Thank you for asking :)

1. Favourite Riff? I have 3 : Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin, Burn by Deep Purple, and Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream

2. Favourite Guitar Model? I replied already, and it’s here

3. Favourite Musical Decade? 1960-1970 & 1970-1980

4. Favourite 60s Band? The Beatles

5. Favourite 70s Band? Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who

6. Favourite 80s Band? The Cure, The Police

7. Favourite 90s Band? Nirvana, Scorpions

8. Favourite 2000s Band? Them Crooked Vultures

9. Favourite Album? Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin

10. What was the greatest year for music? Mid 60′s, all the 70s

11. Fenders or Gibsons? Fender

10. Favourite Guitarist? David Gilmour

11. Which side of the Atlantic (Britain or America)? Both

12. Rosewood or Maple Fretboards? Maple

13. Greatest “1 album” bands? Derek And The Dominos

14. Crosby, Stills or Nash? Crosby

15. Favourite Rolling Stone? Brian Jones

16. Favourite Guitar Solo? Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd) : I mean, this is insane. David Gilmour FTW

17. Who have you seen live? Robert Plant

18. Greatest modern blues/rock guitarist? Joe Bonamassa

19. Favourite drummer? John Bonham, Keith Moon, Nick Mason & Carmine Appice

20. Favourite Bass Player? John Paul Jones, John Entwistle & Paul McCartney

21. Favourite Keys Player? Keith Emerson & Rick Wright

22. Favourite Male Singer? Robert Plant

23. Favourite Female Singer? Stevie Nicks

24. If you could own one famous guitar? David Gilmour’s Fender Strat ♪♫

25. Favourite Beatle? George Harrison

26. Favourite Singer Songwriter? Neil Young

27. Electric or Acoustic? Both, but I’d say Electric

28. Dylan, Electric or Acoustic? Acoustic

29. Band you wish would/could reform? Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd

30. Top 3 dead musicians you wish you’d seen? John Lennon, Brian Jones, David Bowie

31. Most underrated guitarist? Reply here 

32. What would your first piece of advise be to new guitarists? Never ever try to learn Stairway To Heaven before knowing how to play properly. I can tell you it’s a very hard song.

33. Big venues or small venues? Small

34. What posters are on your walls? One poster with all famous guitars, the other is my Led Zeppelin poster, from Earls Court

35. Vinyl or Digital? Vinyl

36. Most Overrated Guitarist? Sorry Jeff Beck. People will not love me after this.

37. Which song do you wish you’d written? Money by Pink Floyd

38. Which concerts do you wish you’d seen? Jonesy’s concerts (Of damn course),Neil Young concerts, Robert Plant’s SSS concerts (even tho I’ve seen one, in 2015), Eric Clapton’s concerts, Joe Bonamassa’s concerts

39. If you met your hero what would you say to them? I will blater a lot about how much I love this person I consider like a hero

40. Flatpicking or Fingerstyle? Fingerstyle

41. Open tunings, yay or nay? YAY, defintely YAY. 

42. Favourite classic blues song? Boogie Chillen by John Lee Hooker

43. Pick a King, Freddie, BB or Albert? BB King !

44. Who’s the most influential guitarist? Rory Gallagher

45. If you could play any song? Hotel California by The Eagles

46. Who’s music has taught you the most? Led Zeppelin

47. Best cover of a song? Stairway To Heaven by Heart

48. If Clapton is God then who’s Jesus? David Gilmour

49. Why did you start playing your instrument? Because I wanted to learn Beatles songs, inspired by George Harrison (my debuts are totally forgottable and crappy)

50. Favourite Eagle? Joe Walsh

51. Favourite Les Paul Player? Jimmy Page

52. Favourite Stratocaster Player? Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour

53. Hollow bodied guitars, yay or nay? YAY

54. What youtube comment really bugs you? The one’s which says that John Paul Jones is gonna die on stage soon because he’s too old (really happened)

55. Best person you’ve seen live? My frend Geordie, who love Rory Gallagher and David Gilmour… Also, Robert Plant

56. Best musician’s autobiography you’ve read? I’ve read any… lol

57. Band you’d most like to see? Iron Maiden

58. Favourite Stones’ Album? Their Satanic Majesties Request

59. Favourite Beatles’ Album? Rubber Soul, Revolver, The White Album, Abbey Road

60. Favourite Eagles’ Album? Hotel California

61. Favourite Led Zeppelin Album? II, III & Houses Of The Holy,

62. Favourite Led Zeppelin Member? John Paul Jones ♥♥♥

63. What band do you not listen to enough of? Queen. 

64. What band is your guilty pleasure? Them Crooked Vultures

65. What is your opinion of (insert bandartist)? Jimmy Page : I don’t like some things on him, I really adore his guitar playing, his riffs, but not his personality. Sorry Jimmy.

66. What is your opinion of (insert guitarist)? Brian May : I LOVE THIS GUY

67. Beatles or Stones? Beatles

68. Clapton or Hendrix? Oh shit… I’d say Hendrix

69. Favourite ex-yardbird? Eric Clapton

70. Favourite driving song? Band on The Run by Paul McCartney & Wings, Drive My Car by The Beatles, Highway 1 by Them Crooked Vultures, Turn It Up by Robert Plant, Ramble On by Led Zeppelin, Life In A Fast Lane by The Eagle

71. Favourite Cream Song? Crossroads

72. Jack White or Dan Auerbach? Jack White

73. White Stripes or Black Keys? White Stripes

74. What bugs you the most about your favourite artists? Roger Waters personality. Sorry Rog, but…

75. Is Blues dead? NO

76. Who would be in your ultimate band? I have two : Bass: John Paul Jones

Keyboard : Keith Emerson

Drums : John Bonham

Guitar : David Gilmour

Singer : Freddy Mercury

Or Bass : John Entwistle

Keyboards : Richard Wright

Drums : Ginger Baker

Guitar : Eric Clapton

Singer : Robert Plant

77. Who do you wish had collaborated on a whole album? John Paul Jones (him again, lmao)

78. Favourite cheesy but brilliant song? Royal Orleans by Led Zeppelin (lmao)

79. Favourite love song? My Love by Paul McCartney (go listening to this true wonder)

80. Greatest solo career? I think of Paul McCartney here.

81. Which musician have you learnt the most from? Jimmy Page

82. Worst musician’s autobiography you’ve ever read? I didn’t read any of them, sorry.

83. Best greatest hits album? Queen, Mothership (L.Z), Neil Young…

84. What song is stuck in your head? Spinning In Daffodils by Them Crooked Vultures (Them, again lol)

85. What song makes you cry every time? Wish You Were Here

86. Telecaster or Stratocaster? Stratocaster

87. SG or Les Paul? Les Paul.

88. Favourite Telecaster Guitarist? Jay… Whoops, no, no Just kidding ! Keith Richards.

89. Favourite SG Guitarist? Angus Young

90. Favourite Firebird Player? Joe Perry

91. What’s the most unusual guitar you’d buy? A gibson Flying V probably

92. What’s your earliest classic rock or blues memory? I started listening to The Beatles first, I was literally in love with George Harrison, and I started playing guitar at 14 (oh well, that was really shit) then Pink Floyd & Led Zeppelin just break through my life. At first I was in love ith Jimmy, but for some reasons, I just love how he sounds and his guitar playing, but that’s all. I don’t hate Jimmy, but I don’t love him either. 

Jonesy and Robert are my baes from L.Z, just as David & Rick are  my baes from Pink Floyd

93. Best music documentary you’ve seen? I’ve seen a lot, but it’s mainly Pink Floyd related.

94. Best live concert video you’ve watched? Pulse by Pink Floyd, also Them Crooked Vultures at Fuji Rock 2010

95. What band t-shirts do you own? I have a Pink Floyd shirt, a Jimmy Page shirt, a Beatles shirt and a Led Zeppelin shirt

96. Own anything signed? Uh, no…

97. Do your parents like this music? My mom, not really his thing, but she does respect and appreciate when I play. My Dad got the same music taste as me.

98. Where would you most love to play a gig? I’d prefer to play a gig in small venues first so, I don’t really know, but my favorite place is located in Germany, during Summer’s Sundays only, it’s called  Sonntags ans Schloß.

99. If you could attend one festival? Woodstock

100. What’s the thing you last learnt on guitar? Un Autre Monde by Téléphone (French rock band)

[azulblue9]

PRINCE'S BIGGEST FAN WAS A 93-YEAR-OLD CLEVELAND WOMAN & SHE HAD THE MEMORABILIA TO PROVE IT

By ANNIE ZALESKI

Editor's note: After this story was filed, Mary Boyer passed away at the age of 93.

Mary Boyer can remember the exact moment she became a Prince fan. It was July 1984 -- weeks after the release of his groundbreaking LP, Purple Rain -- and a friend invited her to see Prince's ambitious movie of the same name. Incredibly, Boyer was the only person her friend could find to tag along to the theater.

"As soon as [Prince] came on [the screen], my heart just went [makes whooshing noise], and I said, 'I know this guy. I just know him,'" recalls Boyer today. "By the end of the film, that was my guy."

Boyer was no teenager experiencing her first taste of idol worship. At the time she saw Purple Rain, she was 60 years old.

"I DIDN'T INTEND TO BE A COLLECTOR, BUT IF I WENT TO A STORE AND THERE WAS SOMETHING THERE WITH PRINCE, I JUST COULDN'T LEAVE IT."

Buying that movie ticket unwittingly changed her life, transforming her into one of Prince's biggest fans. Over the next few decades, the mother of seven saw the Purple One 25 times, in far-flung locales such as New York, Detroit, Chicago, Canada, and his home base of Minneapolis. In her sprawling house in Cleveland, Boyer even had a dedicated Prince room -- with walls painted purple, of course -- crammed full of memorabilia related to the icon. Photos, magazines, vinyl, posters, CDs, pins, laminates, promo swag -- you name it, chances are Boyer had it. At the peak of her collecting, she had 300 different posters, 100 different T-shirts, and more than 1,200 unique albums in every format.

"I didn't intend to be a collector, but if I went to a store and there was something there with Prince, I just couldn't leave it there," she says. "I bought it, and pretty soon, I had quite a bit of stuff." After her kids moved out, all of that "stuff" found a home in one of their old bedrooms.

"We painted it a light purple, and I just started filling it up." She laughs. "I loved everything I put in there. I was very, very happy with it."

Now 93, Boyer is sitting in the living room of her apartment on the outskirts of Downtown Lakewood. The space is cozy, filled with cherished art, knickknacks, and photos she's picked up over the years. Boyer is fond of collecting things besides Prince-related items -- miniatures, as well as Egyptian and Oriental art, are interests of hers -- although she's downsized her belongings considerably. In the spring, she moved from that giant old house into this current, more compact space.

Scattered here and there, however, are references to her devotion to Prince. A coffee mug featuring variations of his visage is within arm's reach, near a photo book filled with Prince photos. A glossy, soft-glow snap of late-era Prince stares up from behind glass on the top of a nearby desk; a business card from the long-closed, Minneapolis-based New Power Generation, the Prince-owned retail store, is also tucked away. In a nearby hallway is a media rack with several shelves of Prince bootleg DVDs, while in her bedroom is a panoramic photo of the Prince room at its most impressive, along with some of the meaningful tokens she kept -- including a cardboard Purple Rain die-cut stand-up and a healthy selection of framed photos of all sizes, spanning the artist's entire career.

"Take a look around you, at least you got friends"

Also visiting this steamy Friday afternoon in August is Dennis Roszkowski, a photographer and long-time Prince fan from Westland, Michigan, who often visits Boyer and helps out at a local library's events. The pair met in 1989 because of their shared Prince fandom -- an organized, meticulous person, he once cataloged Boyer's memorabilia so she knew what she had -- and remain close friends.

Boyer amassed her Prince collection by visiting local record stores, where she would sometimes find promo vinyl dumped by radio DJs, or by attending record conventions. Employees came to recognize her and her obsession, and would sometimes save special items for her, such as a life-sized cardboard stand-up of Prince circa the 1991 LP Diamonds and Pearls.

In the mid- to late-'90s, Boyer and Roszkowski would also attend regional Prince Fests -- more or less gatherings of diehards to celebrate the artist -- and sell duplicate albums, as well as trade for things she didn't have.

THEY SAW PRINCE FOUR TIMES IN 75 HOURS.

Along with others from the fan community, the pair also attended many Prince concerts and special events: the week-long Prince Celebration at his studio/compound Paisley Park in 2000, appearances at his one-time Minneapolis nightclub, Glam Slam. At one point in 1993, they even saw Prince four times in 75 hours.

Boyer often expressed her admiration for Prince in more direct ways. "She would send letters to Paisley Park for years, and she would send little gifts to Prince," Roszkowski says. "And she would enclose a checklist with a self-addressed stamped envelope [that] said, 'Did Prince see this?' and 'Did he like it?' and they would check off 'Yes, he liked it,' and send it back. She had this connection with them."

Boyer and Roszkowski say that one-time Prince manager Gilbert Davidson and half-brother Duane Nelson (who handled security) were aware of her fandom, and always treated her kindly and with respect when they crossed paths. Although Boyer once had the chance to get a behind-the-scenes tour of Paisley Park and attended shows there, she never actually met and had one-on-one time with Prince. The closest personal experience she had was at an April 1993 after-show at Chicago's Metro, when the artist pulled her up onstage during the first encore.

"He was doing his show, and all of a sudden, towards the end, he said, 'Turn the lights on,'" Boyer recalls. "He said, 'Whose grandma is that down there? We gotta get her up here and have her shake her doodle!' or something like that." Boyer laughs. "And then he sang this song 'Johnny' -- it's a little risqué, shall we say. And I know he did it to see if it would embarrass me a little. Then during the song, I was supposed to sing this 'oh-oh-oh-oh' [part], and I didn't do it very good.

"And he gives me that look," Boyer continues, referencing the sassy, quasi-exasperated glance for which Prince was known. "I hit him on his arm, and he had me do it again, and I did it. And he just laughed and then gave me a big, big hug. And I was so happy. I just wanted him to know that I really liked him. It wasn't that I had to be seeing him all the time. But you know how you want somebody to know that…"

They mean a lot to you?

"Yeah," she says. "That was a high moment in my life."

"I only want to see you in the Purple Rain"

Born in Fargo, North Dakota, Boyer and her family moved to Lakewood when she was a toddler. She grew up there and went to Lakewood High School, which is where she met her late husband, Jim. She was a member of a sorority; he was a member of a fraternity. One afternoon, the pair happened to see each other at a local ice cream store.

"I was in there talking to some guy, and Jim came in," Boyer recalls. "And the guy said to him, 'Do you have a date for the Friday night dance?' And he goes, 'No.' [The other guy] says, 'Why don't you take Mary? She's a lot of fun.' And he says, 'Do you want to go?' And I said, 'Yeah.' Because he was real cute."

Music entered her life after the couple started having children. Her second-oldest son, Wink -- who "was a hippie, shall we say," Boyer says -- introduced her to Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. That LP changed everything. From there, Boyer started embracing the then-new music of the day, such as Leon Russell and the Rolling Stones. She also started going to shows, among them, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Elton John, and David Bowie's first US concert. 

"I was the cool house," Boyer says with a laugh. "That's probably why it was easy for me to get into Prince. It wasn't like it was strange, because I was used to going to concerts. We did go to a lot of concerts, and my kids, of course, thought I was a 'cool' mother."

Jim was also 100% supportive of Mary's Prince fandom, which may have surprised some. "[People would say], 'How come it doesn't bother you?'" Boyer says. "[And he said] 'I'd rather have her doing that than sitting around crocheting something.' He liked the idea that I had young friends, because he didn't like to do a lot, except play golf. He didn't have to entertain me, because I was doing my own entertaining."

Incredibly, however, in recent years, Boyer has sold off and otherwise given away a large portion of her Prince memorabilia. Even stranger, "it didn't bother me at all," she says. In part that's because she's been preoccupied dealing with health issues, and uses oxygen as she gets around. ("I hate it," she says vehemently about that.) But Boyer also has the remarkable personality trait where she's able to switch gears and hobbies on a dime -- and never look back.

"I have this kind of a life where every 10 years, I changed," she explains. "Until I was in my, say, 40s, I was a mother, and never went anywhere. In my 40s, my husband and I started to go out square dancing. We did what they call challenge, so that you had to go to workshops and stuff. When I hit my 50s, I went to [local community college] Tri-C and took classes in astrology, and I became an astrologer. I was that for 10 years -- doing readings. And then I went to a Prince movie -- that changed that, and then I gradually stopped doing official astrology things.

"Every time I changed, I dropped the other thing almost completely," Boyer says. "That must be why when I was ready, getting tired of everything I had -- why I was able to do it."

"And no regrets," adds Roszkowski. "You brought your favorite things here."

"Life is just a party, and parties weren't meant to last"

In an odd coincidence, Roszkowski was helping Boyer move out of her house and into her apartment on the same day news broke that Prince had passed away. He recalls that his hands were shaking as he set up his laptop to read more about the news. "Mary looked at me and said, 'What's wrong?'" Roszkowski says. "And I said, 'Mary, Prince just died.' And I just remember her saying, 'I always thought that I would be in heaven before Prince.'" In the background, Boyer chuckles slightly.

The mood in the apartment turns reflective, as Roszkowski ruminates on the reactions he and Boyer received from people they had met because of his music. "The amazing thing about that day, is that all Prince fans that we know, we just started hearing from people we hadn't heard from in years," he says. "Every Prince fan can tell the same story: they know where they were when they heard, and how they were feeling. Everybody's phone just blew up -- people started calling, sending text messages. 'Oh my god, have you heard the news?' It was such a surreal moment.

"We relied on phone calls that we were getting from friends," he adds. "And consoling each other, and trying to figure out, 'Wow. What's the world like without Prince?' Because you just can't believe it.'"

Roszkowski's thoughts summarize the unique impact of music fandom: people bond over their love of a certain artist or band -- seeing shows together, chatting online, sharing stories, maybe swapping bootlegs -- and seamlessly translate this connection into real-life, deep friendships. The Prince fandom is especially dedicated, however. In fact, Roszkowski says it was "meant to be" that he and Boyer happened to be in the same city on the day of Prince's death, as it was symbolic of the treasured connections facilitated by his art and music.

"WHAT'S THE WORLD LIKE WITHOUT PRINCE?"

"His concerts were unlike anything you saw," Roszkowski says. "You'd go there, and there was just a whole mixture of people -- ages and races -- and everybody just got together and had a wonderful time. It seemed like the Prince world was a great melting pot of people. You wished the whole world could be together having a good time, and peaceful.

"That's not what the world's like, in many respects. It is if you look for it; you can find it. And we found it with Prince. There was a connection with him that brought us all together, and we always talked about, 'Wow. Look at what we did -- together.' Just my friendship with Mary, between the two of us, what we've done, is fantastic. I'm grateful for it every day."

Boyer quietly chimes in. "I have to say, I've had a very happy life," she says. "When I was being the mom in my 30s, I loved it; when I was square dancing, I loved it. When I was in astrology, I loved it. When I [was into] Prince, I loved it."

And Boyer has her own take as to why there is such an intangible (but enduring) bond between Prince fans. It's not complicated -- but it's a theory that's as playful and laconic as the Purple One himself. 

"We're all smart," she simply says, with a laugh. "As my daughter said, 'Mom, I’m glad you're smart enough to know [Prince] was a genius.'" 

Mary Boyer ~ R.I.P. 

Source:

https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/cleveland/mary-boyer-lakewood-prince-memorabilia-collection

[lonelypond]

Rock Me Baby

Love Live, Love Live Sunshine, NicoMaki, 2K 

Another Idol Protection Program Chapter. As always, your mileage may vary, characters are not mine, liberties taken are. 

NicoMaki, parents of Dia and Ruby, run off to have a family and escape the paparazzi. These short, fluffy fics follow those adventures.

25 Years Ago

“Motorcycles would be sooooo coool!”  Rin shouted as she, Hanayo and Maki made their way from the train station to the restaurant where they were meeting Nico.

“Yeah,” Maki grinned, flipping up the collar of her leather jacket, giddy at the thought of Nico after three months of her girlfriend touring. “Nico wouldn’t recognize me when I pick her up at the airport next time.”



Rin air revved the throttle on an imaginary motorcycle and spun back to face Maki, high fiving when she raced by. Maki grabbed her hand and pulled her back, pointing to a Hanayo who was wandering ahead, humming to herself. Rin and Maki nodded at each other, crept up quietly behind a distracted Hanayo, linked their arms and threw her forward a little down the sidewalk, Rin jumping ahead to catch her girlfriend.

“Whatcha singing, Kayo-chin?” Rin wondered.

“Cherry Bomb.”

“Good one, Kayo-chin!” Rin cheered, throwing her hands up to the sky, “Hello Daddy, Hello Mom, I’m your ch…ch…ch…”

“CHERRY BOMB!” Maki and Hanayo joined in with a shout, “Hello, world, I’m your wild girl…”



“Wild is right,” a laugh cut in from behind them, one that made Maki’s heart skip. “You haven’t been keeping up your vocal practice. Nico will win at karaoke easily.”

Maki was breathing as fast as her feet turned, “Nico-chan!”

The small, black haired woman smiled, elegant in a black lace sheath over a dark pink minidress. Nico posed for a moment, then ran toward Maki, leaping into the taller woman’s open arms. Maki whirled them both, only putting Nico down so she could kiss her without tilting over from hyperventilation and dizziness. Rin and Hanayo stood off to the side, arms around each other’s waist, happy to see their best friend so happy again.

Nico ran her fingers through Maki’s red hair, much shorter now. She took a step back, Maki seemed taller, and stranger too, in boots, torn, tight jeans, a t-shirt with a woman lashing into a guitar drawn out of a lip print and a…black leather jacket. Maki also had a single ruby ear stud and a couple of leather cuffs.

“Maki-chan…” Nico raised an eyebrow and spun Maki around, eyes widening at the Sakura Bomb spraypainted across the back, with an exploding cherry blossom in the center, “you look…”



“So cool, right!” Rin grabbed Nico in a hug from the side. “We all got jackets after we saw The Runaways movie, Maki found an artist.”

Nico hugged Rin back, glad for a chance to change the subject. “Hey, Rin-chan! Nico missed you.”

Rin’s hair was curly and she was wearing a leather vest with Wild Girl and a snarling kitten painted on the back, over pretty patterned disco pants and a David Bowie t-shirt. Hanayo had opted for an all denim look, Nico was half afraid to ask what she’d had painted on the back of her jacket.

Nico found herself nodding her head several times, taking in the sight of three of her favorite people gleaming at her and looking so different from the last time she’d seen them. Teenagers, for another year, they were teenagers, this is what teenagers did, Nico reminded herself, suddenly feeling old at 21, looking down at her own outfit, which was yes, a little too formal for the Rock n’ Roll themed ramen restaurant Rin had found, but Nico had wanted to look good for Maki. Did Maki even like Nico’s style anymore? Should Nico have just borrowed a pair of Cotarou’s blue jeans and worn a concert t-shirt?

“Nico-chan?” Nico was startled by Maki’s voice and a hand reaching shyly to take hers. Maki’s eyes still had that gleam when they looked at Nico so maybe…

“Sorry, Maki!” Nico kissed her girlfriend quickly. “You look great. Nico is just tired. And hungry.”

LATER THAT NIGHT BUT STILL 25 YEARS AGO

Nico had never realized she hated the smell of leather until Maki had hung her jacket over Nico’s shoulders when Nico shivered as they were walking together in the park. Rin and Hanayo had headed back to their hotel room and left Nico and Maki to catch up. They were both a little nervous, between Nico’s touring schedule and Maki starting college and a hospital internship, they’d had very little time to talk. Nico was used to borrowing sweaters and shirts that smelled like Maki and this one didn’t. And that made her grumpy. Nico glanced over at the redhead too shy to look at her and wondered how to jumpstart a conversation.

“So you like Joan Jett?”

Maki shrugged, “She knows what she wants and goes for it.” There was a pause, “I envy that. You do that too. It’s impressive.”

There was a bench, Nico stopped. Cold as it was she slid the jacket off as she sat, glad to escape the hard feel scraping against her skin. Nico preferred silky and satiny fabrics that slid and shimmered. Maki sat next to her, very close, very warm. Nico leaned her head on Maki’s chest, finally able to get close enough to feel the connection they had. She wondered if Maki felt it too.

Maki frowned, Nico had ditched the jacket. Maybe she didn’t want anything of Maki’s anymore. Maybe she’d discovered she didn’t miss being with Maki. But here she was melting into Maki’s side, feeling so warm and close.

“Kiss me, Maki-chan.” Nico whispered, turning Maki around.

“Why you’d take off the jacket?” Maki asked, worried.



Nico sighed. So like Maki to get caught on the least important detail when Nico had already skipped ahead to the fun part. So Nico ignored the question and pulled Maki into a deep kiss designed to knock everything else out of her genius brain. And because it was Maki and Nico, it worked, for awhile. Maki responding with eagerness and urgency, her hands roving everywhere as Nico kept running her fingers across Maki’s scalp and enjoying every shiver she induced.

“Nico-chan…” Maki gasped. Eventually.


“Yeah,” Nico agreed, grabbed Maki’s hand and headed for the hotel, This had become a private conversation twenty minutes and one unzipped pair of jeans ago.  Nico tried not to groan when Maki remembered to grab the jacket. Sakura Bomb it was.

NOW

Dia followed her grandmother into a room she’d never stayed in.

“Mama’s room?” Dia asked, looking at the walls, which had a framed μ’s poster and many framed records, mostly jazz, but Dia spotted all of Nico’s albums there. Dia moved to the wall, reaching out to touch Nico’s first single.

“Your Mom always had vinyl copies pressed because she knew your Mama collected them.”

Dia grinned as her grandmother glanced fondly around the room, “You can sleep here tonight since Maki isn’t using it.”

Ruby was still sleeping in her grandparents room when their parents were away. Even at 13, she was still very fearful.

Dia sat on the bed, not feeling sleepy and decided to explore the closet. Walk in. Her mom had a closet like that at home and Mama was allowed to keep a few clothes in it. Dia pushed through mostly dresses, some old μ’s costumes, a few button down shirts and suits. Some hat and shoe boxes were shoved back on a shelf and there was a large box Dia couldn’t help pulling down. Written on the outside was “Do Not Open This Nico-chan! I mean it!”

Dia hesitated for a brief moment, but it said “do not open this Nico-chan” not “do not open this Dia” so curiosity won and Dia opened it.

Inside was a picture and a single ruby ear stud lying on top of a carefully wrapped leather jacket, some t-shirts and a few leather cuffs. The picture was her mama smiling at the camera with Rin and Hanayo, the three of them dressed like a rock band, Rin playing air drums, Hanayo singing something into an invisible mic while Maki did what Dia assumed was play air guitar. Nico was dressed in a super girly, super pretty dress and looked like she’d stepped out of a different world, bemused, all her attention on Maki, and blowing a kiss in that direction.

Dia pullled out the jacket. Cool, crinkly, leather, Sakura Bomb spray painted across the back. She’d have to show Ruby in the morning. They could have fun playing dress up with everything in this closet until their parents showed up.

Maki had left the sedan at her parents and lured Nico into the convertible, damage to Nico’s careful hairstyle ignored for once as they drove out to the inn Maki had found for a night together without the girls. Nico was about to leave on a book signing tour and Maki wanted to be sure Nico had incentive to hurry home. Nico was yawning as they pulled up to the Nishikino mansion. There had not been much sleeping. But she could nap on the drive back to Uchiura.

Dia and Ruby ran out to greet them, Dia wearing a leather jacket that Maki hadn’t seen in years and Ruby in an old “Runaways Live From Japan” t-shirt that had been stuffed away in the back of the closet for the same number of years as the jacket. Dia was now tall enough to fit in Maki’s clothes and everyone was still getting used to it. Nico circled her oldest daughter, glancing suspiciously at her wife.

“Grandma let me sleep in your room. Ruby and I had fun playing dress up this morning. Isn’t this a great jacket.” Dia twirled and posed.

Maki hugged her daughter, winking at Nico, “One of my favorites. Your mother thought I looked so cool in it.”



Nico hmmpphhed…Maki chuckled. Her mother held the door open so everyone could return inside, “I decided Dia was old enough to sleep in your room, now that she’s so tall.”



Nico hmmmppphed again, to Maki’s amusement as she waited for the moment her wife would explode.

“Maki-chan?” Ah, the sweet voice, this was going to be fun.

“Yes, love?”



“Didn’t we agree that Nico never had to see that jacket again?”



Dia started to pick up the prickling energy between her parents and stared, while Ruby happily followed her grandmother into the house.

Maki shrugged, her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, “I wrote very clearly on the box “Do Not Look Inside Nico-chan” to save you from that.”

“She did.” Dia agreed brightly.

Nico shook her head and mumbled something about daughters, bad influences and taking after the wrong parent. Dia decided to duck inside. Maki decided to press her advantage, wrapping her arms around Nico’s waist.

“You could barely keep your hands off me when you saw me in it.”



Nico flared up, “You know that’s not why.”

“Do I?” Maki leaned in for a kiss, but Nico dodged and grabbed the keys from Maki’s hand.

“I’m going to my mother’s, until that jacket disappears again.” 



Maki laughed, “You know she’s going to keep wearing it.”

Nico grimaced, “Ughhh…you could not encourage her.”

Maki laughed, “As a parent, I have no opinion. I support her interests. Like my mother did with me.”



“Your mother didn’t have to date that jacket.” Nico still remembered the smell and the horrible crackling feel of the tanned leather. But she decided to try charm rather than complaint and moved closer to Maki, flicking her tongue over her own lips and running a hand through Maki’s hair, “I am glad you decided to keep your hair longer.” Nico pulled Maki down for a rough kiss. “And if you convince your daughter to leave that jacket here, Nico can hurry back from her tour.”

Maki laughed, “Nico will hurry back anyway.”

Nico frowned and stepped into the car, “I’ll be at my mother’s. Do not let Ruby watch that movie.”

Maki saluted as Nico pulled out. Movie. That was a great idea. Time to call Rin and Hanayo. Maybe they could bring Tora over. But after last night, first Maki needed a snack.

Maki was perched on the kitchen island, phone in one hand, chips in the other when her mother wandered in. Her mother frowned meaningfully, but Maki ignored it.

“Rin and Hanayo are bringing Tora over. We’re going to watch The Runaways and maybe have a sleepover.” Maki announced.

“Sounds fun. What about Nico?”

Maki’s grin was sly as the Nico-tone, which she hadn’t changed since high school, went off, “She’s been text lecturing me about setting a parental example.”  She glanced down at Nico’s latest and laughed, “She’ll be back later with pizza. We’re staying another night.”

Maki’s mother rolled her eyes and pulled her daughter off the counter, amused at the thought of a household lively with teenagers, actual and otherwise, for another night.

[discographyofalifetime-blog]

BAND: NIRVANA

COUNTRY: USA

EN: here it is, one of the bands that REALLY changed my lifetime. Today would be Kurt Cobain's 50th birthday so I decided to pay a little tribute to one of my teenage idols. I was 11 years old and I was starting my approach to heavy music. It didn't matter what sub-genre it was...punk,rock,metal, grunge were just the same to me..all I wanted was loud guitars, kick ass drums and shouts. One day, my sister AKA the girl who own the guilt for my obsession to this lifestyle, was constantly listening to this band NIRVANA..she came to me and gave me this cassette with a naked baby into a swimming pool. “what the hell is this?” and she said: “Nirvana, the band that I always listen to”. First, I have to admit that I always had a spiritual love for my sister and everything concerning her..she's always been a model for me to follow and in those years, everything she was passing to me was pure gold..no matter if I was really liking but if was coming from here, it was good for sure. Well, that time was different, that time was “WOOOOOW”. I put that cassette (obviously it was NEVERMIND) in my stereo and that fast guitar rif started, but when the drum kicked in...SHIT!! I had goose bumps, I felt like all of the lying energy was coming out of my body in a explosion. That was love at first listening. Then my spiral of addiction to them started to spin out of control, I was constantly listening to them, just Nirvana and nothing else for months. As the weeks were passing, my sister was teaching me everything about them..their stories, the death of Kurt ecc.. meanwhile she was passing me other releases and each of them was great for me. Bleach (my favourite Nirvana's record and I proudly own the first press on pink vinyl) is so damn raw and powerful, Nevermind is so well written and great from first to last, Incesticide was so deeply sad and obscure and then the Unplugged was so damn emotional. The shitty thing was that the band stopped existing almost a decade before I discovered them so obviously there was no hope for new music, but I'm always been ok with that cause I love every album from them. I was starting playing guitar so obviously I spent hours and hours playing thier riffs and after all these years, I understand how simply their music was I understand how talented was that guy that written some rock milestones with just 4 chords and those songs don't need anything more. I read a couple of books that talks about Nirvana, my first band t-shirt was a Nirvana t-shirt that I always wore so fucking proudly at school, My bedroom is full of posters and one of the very firsts is a poster of Cobain, bought in London when I was 14 and after other 14 years is still on my bedroom's door. The girl that I was dating on that period gave me their Best of as christmas gift and was the best thing ever. After a couple of years, as well as I was really going deeply into punk rock, i stopped listening to Nirvana for a while, they were not fast enough and I remember I was growing a sort of anger against Cobain because I always saw the heroin's addiction and suicide not as a cool rockstar lifestyle but such as idiot way of thinking so I was unconsciously denying all the good feelings I always felt for them. Fortunately, years later I re-discovered the pleasure of listening to them and they instantly returned in the middle of my heart. I am lucky enough to say that I had the chance to see almost every single band  that I'd love to see live but I still have a little wishlist of dream concert that sadly could not become real, on the top if the list there is Nirvana for thousands of reasons. Nowadays I am fully conscious that without this band, my live would surely be different from what it is, and considering how much I like my life and my love for music, I don't think that it would be better so, thanks Kurt, Kris, Dave.

IT:  ecco qui una delle band che ha davvero cambiato la mia vita. Oggi sarebbe stato il 50 ° compleanno di Kurt Cobain così ho deciso di pagare un piccolo tributo ad uno dei miei idoli adolescenziali. Avevo 11 anni e stavo iniziando il mio approccio alla musica pesante. Non importava cosa sottogenere fosse... punk, rock, metal, grunge era lo stesso per me..tutto ciò che volevo erano chitarre rumorose, batteria incazzata e grida. Mia sorella AKA la ragazza che possiedono il senso di colpa per la mia ossessione di questo stile di vita, ascoltava costantemente questa band NIRVANA..un giorno venne da me e mi diede questa cassetta con un bambino nudo in una piscina. "Che diavolo è questo?" e mi disse: "Nirvana, la band che ascolto sempre". Allora, prima di tutto, devo ammettere che ho sempre avuto un amore spirituale per mia sorella e tutto ciò che riguarda lei. E' sempre stata un modello per me da seguire e in quegli anni, tutto quello che passava da lei era oro puro..non importava se mi piacesse davvero.. ma se venisse da lei, era buono di sicuro. Beh, quella volta era diverso, quella volta è stato "wooooow". Ho messo quella cassetta (ovviamente era NEVERMIND) nel mio stereo e quel riff veloce di chitarra veloce è iniziato, quando poi entrò la batteria ... MERDA !! Ho avuto la pelle d'oca, mi sentivo come tutta l'energia che giaceva era venuta fuori dal mio corpo in un'esplosione. E 'stato amore a primo ascolto. Poi la mia spirale di dipendenza da loro ha iniziato a andare fuori controllo, ero costantemente l'ascolto di loro musica, solo i Nirvana e niente altro per mesi. Mentre le settimane passavano, mia sorella mi stava insegnando ogni cosa su di loro..Le loro storie, la morte di Kurt ecc .. nel frattempo mi passava altri album e ognuno di loro è stato grande per me. Bleach (mio disco dei Nirvana preferito e con orgoglio ho la prima stampa su vinile rosa) è così maledettamente crudo e potente, Nevermind è così ben scritto e figo dal primo all'ultimo, Incesticide era così profondamente triste e oscuro e poi  Unplugged era così dannatamente emotivo. La cosa di merda è che la band smise di esistere quasi un decennio prima che la scoprissi, ovviamente, non c'era speranza per la nuova musica, ma io sono sempre stato ok con questo perchè amo ogni album loro. Stavo iniziando a suonare la chitarra in quel periodo quindi ovviamente ho passato ore e ore a suonare riff delle loro canzoni e dopo tutti questi anni, ho capito come semplicemente la loro musica era ed ho capito quanto talento aveva quel ragazzo che ha scritto alcune pietre miliari del rock con 4 accordi che però non avevano bisogno di nient'altro. Ho letto un paio di libri che parlano dei Nirvana, la mia prima t-shirt di band era dei Nirvana e l'ho sempre indossata così fottutamente orgogliosamente a scuola, la mia camera da letto è piena di poster e uno dei più primissimi è un poster di Cobain , comprato a Londra quando avevo 14 anni e dopo altri 14 anni è ancora alla porta della mia camera da letto. La ragazza con cui stavo in quel periodo mi ha dato il loro best of come regalo di Natale ed è stata la cosa migliore di sempre. Dopo un paio di anni, stavo davvero andando in profondità nel punk rock, ho smesso di ascoltare al Nirvana per un po ', non erano abbastanza veloci e mi ricordo stavo sviluppando una sorta di rabbia contro Cobain perché ho sempre visto la dipendenza da eroina e suicidio non come stile di vita da rockstar, ma come modo idiota di pensare così mi stavo inconsciamente negando tutti i buoni sentimenti che ho sempre provato per loro. Fortunatamente, anni dopo, ho ri-scoperto il piacere di ascoltarli e immediatamente sono tornati al centro del mio cuore. Ho la fortuna di dire che ho avuto la possibilità di vedere concerti di quasi tutte le band che avrei voluto vedere, ma ho ancora una wishlist di concerti da sogno che purtroppo non possono diventare reali, sulla parte superiore se la lista ci sono i Nirvana per migliaia di ragioni. Oggi sono pienamente cosciente che senza questa band, la mia vita sarebbe sicuramente diversa da quello che è, e considerando quanto mi piace la mia vita e il mio amore per la musica, non credo che sarebbe stato meglio così. Grazie Kurt, Kris, Dave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fdYjlAviT8

[chelseacarrillustration-blog]

Talking with Practitioners: Mel Kadel

Mel Kadel is an artist who I first came across in 2014 in Juztapoz Magazine, and I have loved her work ever since.

She creates ink drawings on hand stained and torn paper. 

Her work has featured on Album covers, Wine bottles, Murals, Clothing, and Magazine covers.

She also has many personal projects, including designing a protest poster for the recent women's march in America, and has displayed her work in numerous  Art Galleries. 

I asked Her a series of questions about her work and she was wonderful enough to reply.

1. Your style is very distinctive, I find it very calming even though my mind is telling me there is something quite busy and off kilter happening. Is it something that has come naturally to you, or is it something that you have consciously worked towards, knowing what you wanted it to look like and then setting out to master that look?

Thank you.  I often feel a little off kilter when I start a new piece, and then I get into a meditative state once I know where it’s heading.  So I’m glad it feels calming to you.For me, developing the style I have, has happened over a long period of time.  Choosing little bits when something feels “right’, and then trying to expand on that. Even though I’ve experimented with many different mediums by now, I find myself always going back to basic pen & ink.  Maybe the limited materials I use helped define the way my work has evolved.Over time I’ve narrowed down a process on how I like to approach work, so that in itself helps create an overall style, just by the nature of a repeated process.But throwing that process off is always helpful, so you don’t find yourself on auto pilot.  How we approach our art and the many little choices we make when we create an image, says a lot about our personalities.  But to go back to your question, my style is something I consciously work towards even though it’s a familiar process at this point. If it’s going to continue to evolve, then there has to be an awareness of steps and exploring new directions, so taking what you do well and working hard to make that better is how I see it.

2. You have had your work applied to such a wide range of formats, such as vinyl sleeves, bottle labels, murals, clothing, and the list goes on. Have you ever found a brief to just stop you in your tracks, thinking it was overwhelming, or do you find each new venture exciting? How do you get past those moments where you feel like you cant do something?

I really love that art is capable of reaching so many more people than I alone can.  For example, those wine labels got to sit on people’s dinner tables and shared at parties all over the country.  They went inside homes and situations that are outside the art world.  That’s so much more exciting than my usual outlet, which is taking a drawing from my apartment and hanging it in on the wall of a little gallery.  Don’t get me wrong, I love working with galleries and having shows is my biggest focus, but the reach is often limited and predictable.  As I try to apply my work to different projects, I’m just trying my best to see where it can work and live, beyond my desk.  So, i’m not overwhelmed at all, just trying new things and aware that not all of them will work out.  A lot of the projects I create, I make on my own.  For example, making tea towels, sourcing the fabric & printing, and paying for all the steps to make it happen.  So when freelance work comes around and someone is doing all the leg work but wanting you to apply the art, it always makes me feel fortunate.  As far as getting past those terrible moments when I don’t feel like I can do it, that is the reality of being outside our comfort zones.  That never gets easy, but it does become an emotion you get slightly use to experiencing.  I did a mural a few months ago that had my stomach in a tangle for the first few days.  I was working on a scale beyond anything I’ve ever done, with materials I rarely use, so the whole thing felt foreign.  But after I got over a certain hump, it was an incredible experience, and an emotional payoff that I don’t find in my usual process.  My advice for getting past those moments:  No feeling lasts that long.  Even when we’re on a high, we will eventually come down.  So the same goes for when we feel scared or low, eventually we’ll feel on top of things again.  It’s natural self preservation to keep getting through our mental jams.

3.Leading on from this, what else would you be really excited to do? Where would you love to see your work? Do you set yourself goals like this or do you just see where the flow takes you?

Maybe I answered some of this above.  But I would picture doing a little of both.  To continue creating my own projects and goals, but to also let my art take me places if the right opportunities arise.  I want to make fabric, clothes, animations, and a ton of other things, but until those opportunities come up, I’ll chip away at producing and accomplishing what I can on my own.  In the end, all these things will really just be an extension of continuing making drawings and creating a narrative, but hopefully giving it a larger world to live in.

4. I really loved your recent Her Rights Unite poster and T-shirt. Do you often create work for projects just because you are passionate about the issues behind them?

Thanks.  This was the first time I created something for such a specific political reason.  For more than a decade my work has involved, almost exclusively, female characters.  With that, my work includes a lot of narratives about women and their connection to each other and the world.  So as the march approached, it was completely essential for me creatively to create an image that could be a part of that day.  It was all very last minute, but It connected me to that day in a way I never predicted.  

5. What drives you to keep making work? What motivated you? Do you ever have to do work you don’t feel passionate about just to pay the bills?

For me, making work inspires making more work.  One idea leads to the next, as long as I keep up the momentum.  Drawing usually takes my mind off of worrying, so with all the doubt that there is in making art, I find it better to keep busy.What motivated me when to draw when I was young, has probably changed quite a bit.  But one thing that hasn’t changed is the challenge of starting with a blank piece of paper, and trying to make something out of it.  So there is that motivational self-challenge going on, but as the years go by, I’ve been more inspired to create a world that communicates and reaches more people somehow.  Kind of like those wine labels and other projects.  I struggle with getting freelance work, there are a lot of really slow months, so paying the bills is always on my mind.  Figuring out how to keep going has become part of my creative process.   Having an online store is pretty new for me.  Releasing prints that are affordable but still special and handmade.  Working on multiple projects at one time.  And yes, sometimes taking jobs that I don’t feel passionate about.  I think it’s a really hard road because no art career looks like another.  Everyone’s choices and experiences are truly unique.  I love the curiosity of what might happen in the future and how the work might evolve, so on a good day, that excitement keeps things going.

Mel is an amazing artist and I am so greatful for her answers.

Please go find her on her website:

http://melkadel.com/

or follow her on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/melkadel/