#there is more autonomy to the singer's death in both of them

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

Episode 115 Transcript: How Dare You Sing a Kansas Song To Me Incredibly Terribly and Maybe Out of Tune

[intro guitar music]

G: Hello, it's Grey.

C: Hello, it's Crystal.

G: And this is Busty Asian Beauties, a Supernatural commentary podcast where I, someone who has seen this show many times...

C: And I, someone who only knows the show through social media, discuss every single episode of Supernatural from start to finish. Also, we are both Asian.

G: Both Asian! For today's episode, we will be discussing Season 6, Episode 11: "Appointment in Samarra," written by Sera Gamble and Robert Singer, directed by Mike Rohl.

C: Has Robert Singer written before?

G: I don't think so. I feel like I would have noticed if that was the case.

C: Oh, no, apparently he wrote "Sin City" as well, with Jeremy Carver.

G: Boo! What are his other writing credits for Supernatural?

C: 3.04 “Sin City,” 6.11 “Appointment in Samarra,” 7.16 “Out With the Old,” and 13.15 “A Most Holy Man,” all of them partnered with somebody.

G: [laughs] "A Most Holy Man" is his? That's so- well.

C: It's his and Dabb's. Did Dabb and Loflin break up?

G: Yeah, because Dabb became showrunner, remember?

C: Oh, and Loflin couldn't stand his beloved becoming more successful than him?

G: Yeah, many such cases in romantic relationships. [C: Yeah.] Yeah. I loved this episode. I enjoyed it tremendously.

C: I had a fun time.

G: It has all of the Supernatural classic characteristics: morality story that is so corny, tired, and played out, [C laughs] check. Weird race thing, check. [C laughs] Discussions about Sam's autonomy as a person, got it. [C: Yeah.] Bobby hate? Love Bobby hate. [C: Love it.] Love Bobby hate. So I was enjoying it the whole time.

C: Yeah, this is Sera Gamble's first Season 6 episode after 6.01. I guess showrunning takes a lot time out of your-

G: I mean, this is mid- what do they call it? The mid break? The mid-season hiatus?

C: Ah, I see.

G: So this is the last episode, I'm assuming, before we go back in January, or they go back. They went back in January. So yeah. Happy New Year, Happy 2011 to all of these people.

C: [laughs] So true.

G: What did you know about this episode before going in? I mean, obviously, there are classic ones. But like, aside from that. Wait, what are the classic ones?

C: What do you mean?

G: You know that it was gonna be the one with Death.

C: Yeah, the one where Dean has to take Death's ring and take over for a day, and people think it's cool. I didn't know it was this episode, but of course I saw the post that was like, "You know, Dean shows that he thinks of Bobby as a father by saying it to him, and Sam shows it by trying to kill him for a spell that calls for patricide," [G laughs] and someone reblogs and says, "Sam's always been special in that way."

G: God. That is an altogether hilarious subplot to this episode. [C laughs] Loved it! [C: It's wonderful.] I think, honestly, [laughs] we'll get into it later. But yeah, aside from that, do you know- did you connect the dot that- obviously, the dots connected here. But did you connect the dot that it was Death who was gonna bring Sam back?

C: No, I don't think so.

G: Yeah, I also forgot. [both laugh] So a shock to the both of us. [C: So true.] I suppose it was always gonna be that Death is gonna come back and that there is the very obvious solution of like, they open the gate through, or they open the portal through the rings, and so they may very well open it again through the rings. It make me wonder, because what did Death need all that help for if he can just open it by himself? He didn't have the other rings, did he?

C: True.

G: So yeah.

C: Um, good question. [laughs]

G: Yeah. Maybe it was fated, as he so evidently wants Dean to learn.

C: Yeah, maybe so.

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G: We start the episode with Dean Winchester driving up to a Chinese grocery store. [C laughs]

C: Yeah. And he hates it! He thinks it's so disgusting and horrible that the place he has to go is near a Chinese grocery store or above a Chinese grocery store. He hates mixed-use housing, and he is for every zoning law that prevents affordable housing from being built in every city.

G: It's crazy because they make it a point to show that it's a Chinese place, right? [C: Yeah.] [C laughs] It isn't like "it just so happened." They make it a part of showing it. And then they have a scene where Dean looks at the address, and then he looks at the address on the building, and then he goes, "Oh my god! You've got to be kidding me," [C laughs] and I was like, "What for?"

C: What for?

G: What for? What is the kidding part of this, Dean?

C: Yeah. What's funny? What's the joke, Dean?

G: Because the gag is that he's meeting a doctor, and it's in a Chinese grocery store, I think.

C: Or he lives above one, and Dean's like, "It's unsanitary there"? Right? Doesn't he say, "Don't you care about hygiene as a doctor?" [both laugh]

G: I just cannot help but feel that it is because it is a Chinese place. That's why he's saying it. [C: Yeah.] I mean, what other reason would there be?

C: I think he's maybe just against mixed-use housing in general.

G: I think they make it explicitly a point to show that they're butchering live animals- or not- like, fish.

C: Just regular- yeah. [laughs] Are fish really live animals? Yes, they are. Sorry to fish.

G: Also, is it called butchering if it's fish?

C: I don't know. Why not?

G: Why not? They're butchering fish. I've been told-

C: Whacked them with that big wooden thing.

G: I have been told that in American markets, they don't have a live fish.

C: Yeah, no, they just have them frozen. [G: Yeah.] They don't even put them out on ice.

G: Is that true? No, that's wild.

C: Well, sometimes they have them in like- well, they have them skinned and cut and deboned and then put in like, containers the way that you would see an unskinned chicken breast, and like-

G: That's wild! [C: Yeah.] Why not even do the displaying on ice thing?

C: I think they don't like to know that the thing they're eating had eyes and a soul.

G: Ah. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

C: Yeah. Get over it! [laughs]

G: I mean, I think I've told you this, right? But when I go to school, I pass by a goat butcher shop. [C: Yeah.] So the goats, when it's early morning, the goats are literally hanging by the hooks. I mean the butchered goats. But they're draining the blood or something. I don't actually know how butchering works, [both laugh] but in the morning, they're like, shaking. [C: Yeah.] Anyway, people should know. I think people should know that you're eating an animal. That's kind of important about eating an animal. [laughs] That's kind of vital in the process of eating an animal. But okay, whatever.

C: Yeah. Maybe US meat consumption would go down.

G: I'm shocked that they don't do the- I kind of understand not having the fish tanks. I do also wonder sometimes, what's the point of all this? They're all crammed up in there. What's going on?

C: Yeah, I guess they do go bad less quickly if you kill them there, even if they're in pretty bad living situations before they get killed.

G: Yeah, I suppose so. So he's going and looking at the- I'm not even sure if there's a fish tank in this place. He's just looking at the guy with a knife going, "Yucky!" [C laughs] Well, literally he comes in, and he starts asking the butcher, "Hey, so like I'm looking for-" and this guy just looks at him and goes, "This is a white guy wearing a leather jacket. He's obviously a hunter." [both laugh] So he just leads him to the back, "Just go there" or whatever. And as Dean comes up, we meet this guy who was apparently a friend of John's. He's like, "Oh my god! You've grown up so much. I used to treat your dad. I would put him back together. But of course it was ages ago, when I had my medical license. But now I don't! Let's go!" Yeah. And then this is the bit where Dean asks, "You know, I'm not a germ freak, but like..." And the doctor says, "The rent is cheap here." Anyway, we come in. There's an assistant. She hates Dean's ass. Very important! And we don't know what this is all about, but they talk a little bit about like, "Oh, okay, here's the money. What's the success rate here?" The doctor says, "75%." And he tells the doctor that if something happens to go wrong, to send this to the address. And we see the letter, and it's for Benjamin Braden. [C: Yeah.] What do you think about that?

C: Does Lisa mean nothing to you?

G: I mean- What? What did you ask?

C: Oh, I said, "Does Lisa mean nothing to you?" to Dean.

G: No, why is it to Ben?

C: Yeah, I just feel like if he dies, Lisa should learn first and then figure out the best way to put it to Ben.

G: - How to tell Ben. Yeah, there are actually many choices in this episode that I have that kind of reaction to. If I was talking to Dean in real life, I'd go, "Dean, don't do that." But as someone who's watching the show, I find interesting- like, that's fun, interesting stuff. The fact that he would think that it's more important to tell Ben or have Ben be the contact than Lisa, I think is interesting. Because I remember, he would tell Ben, "You take care of your mom" or something back in the day. "Back in the day" [laughs] like five episodes ago, I don't know. [C: Yeah.] I think that speaks to something about Dean. Because I'm sure the contents of that letter isn't just, "I'm dead. RIP to me." It's like, you know, "Take care of your mom." [laughs] And like, I think if you sent that to Lisa, like, "Take care of Ben," that's so condescending. She's been doing it forever. And so I suppose it must go to Benjamin Braeden.

C: Yeah, I guess so.

G: Also, can I just say- I don't want to make fun of people's names. [C laughs] [C: Okay?] But I do think naming someone Benjamin-

C: Don't do B.B.?

G: - is kind of wild. [C laughs] Is Benjamin a wild name? [laughs]

C: I think it's pretty normal.

G: I feel like you should- Well, to be fair, this was in 2011, so maybe it was fine. I feel like in 2025, if you're like 20 years old, the only reason why you would have the name Benjamin is- You know how how some trans guys would have names that are like, a dead soldier from World War II, whatev? [C laughs] [C: Yeah.] That should be the only reason.

C: Yeah, yeah. [G: Yes.] So true.

G: So true, Gregory House M.D.

C: Shoutout all the trans guys who are probably named Wystan.

G: No, are there any? Let's find them. If you're named Wystan, W-Y-S-T-A-N, and it is- [laughs] If you're named Wystan Hugh, [C laughs] contact us, yeah. From beyond the grave, even, if it's possible.

C: Yeah, if it's possible.

G: The assistant inserts a needle on him, and he's like, "Ouchie!" But then the doctor injects a liquid into the IV, and then he's out! Oh, also, the doctor makes a comment about how, "Oh, you're not sending Sam anything?" and Dean says, "If this doesn't work, he doesn't give a fuck," which is like, kind of real! I mean, it's true, number one. [C: True.] Number two, I think it did give me a- "Oh, I kind of get where Dean is coming from." I don't think I ever really thought about the fact that Dean may be- how Dean may be feeling over the fact that Sam doesn't DGAF about him. [C laughs] 'Cause like, I don't think we ever really focus on it that much, surprisingly. Don't you feel like? We focus a lot on how Sam feels about not feeling anything. We also focused on the actions that result to that. But a lot of the Dean side is like, as you mentioned before, surprisingly accepting. [C: Right.] So I don't think we ever really deep dive into like, "Is Dean hurt or anything about Sam not being-" like, if he died, Sam would be like, "Okay, whatever." [C laughs]

C: Yeah. Yeah. I think I've thought about it. [G: Really?] I mean, we talked about it a bit also in terms of- In "You Can't Handle the Truth," how he loses Lisa and Ben sort of in that phone conversation before- I don't know. When he was getting ready to kill Sam because he thought it wasn't him in "You Can't Handle the Truth," he was feeling that kind of loneliness. And then he lost Lisa and Ben, and Bobby didn't really want to talk to him on the phone that much, either, and then the whole Sam reveal happened. But I guess maybe post-soulless Sam, we haven't returned to that yet, but I guess I just assumed it was about the same feeling.

G: Yeah, I suppose so. But anyway, now he's dead, and we get a similar thing as we have the other times Dean has interacted with Tessa where he walks in and sees his dead body. Very fun. [C: Mm.] And so he goes out of the room, he calls onto Tessa. Tessa appears, and Dean says, "I need to talk to Death." And Tessa says no, but then Death shows up. Hell yeah.

-

C: They have a conversation in the Chinese grocery store, and Dean is saying, "Oh, I have your ring still, Death. And I'll give it back to you if you do something for me." And Death is like, "I know where it is. You have no leverage, etc. So what do you want?" And Dean says that he wants Death to get Sam's soul out of the Cage, and also, get Adam, by the way, because he to is in this cage.

G: I was so happy to hear this. I was like, "At least they didn't fully forget." [C: Yeah.] Has Adam literally been mentioned in Season 6?

C: Maybe?

G: I truly don't think so.

C: Maybe not, yeah.

G: Yeah, I truly don't think so.

C: Well, thank you, Sera Gamble, for remembering.

G: Yeah. And I love that- you know, it's the same vibe as when towards the "Swan Song," when Dean is like, "Oh, Adam, I'm coming for you next. Hang in!" or whatever, [C laughs] and then never did. And now Dean is like, "No, you have to get them both out!" And literally, the instant Death is like, "No, only one," he doesn't give a shit about Adam.

C: "No, pick one." It's like, "Okay, Sam." Yeah, yeah. And okay, Death says that Sam's soul has been flayed to the raw nerve, and there's no way to just remove the Hell part from it, but he can put the memories of Hell behind a wall. [G laughs] Sometimes I remember how Cas just took on Sam's, what? "Hell madness" or whatever it's called, and then it was fine? [laughs] [G: Literally.] Whatever. Wild.

G: You know, I mean, this wall thing. It's like, well, one, it's stupid, [C laughs] I feel. [C: Mm.] Two, however stupid it is, I do love the way Death talks about it later as like, "There's gonna be an itch there, don't scratch it," which is very fun. That's a very fun- I think maybe they should have kind of went that more abstract route with it, with regards to how it works. [C: Yeah.] "It's just in a room in a corner in Sam's head" is like, it sounds so stupid! [C: Yeah.] But portraying it as like, I don't know, Sam interacting with Sam in some way, it's fun. But also, just the general idea of like, I actually don't remember that much how the Hell trauma starts manifesting, like what happens. Is it just a natural breakdown of the wall? Or does something happen? [pause] Cas takes it away. [laughs]

C: Cas takes it away, yeah, during his evil mode period.

G: Literally. But Sam was still going for a long time.

C: Yeah, it just seems like he was hallucinating Lucifer a lot, which, it was bad for him, but it was livable. They keep talking about it like he'll just instantly die

G: Also, isn't it wild that Sam was still kind of going for a while after that wall breaks down, but Cas takes it, and he's just immediately like, the way they portray him during that era in Season 7. [C: Yeah.] I don't know. This wall thing? I don't know.

C: [laughs] Mm, I don't know either. [G: Well, yeah.] Yeah. So Cas has all the memories of Sam being tortured in Hell after he takes away the Hell madness?

G: I don't know. I think there's also some people who argue about how the Hell trauma shouldn't even- or the Hell trauma that Cas has, is it as if the trauma is happening to him? [C: Right.] Or is it just like having Sam's memories of it, in which case, if you have the memories of something bad happening, I mean, that must suck. But if it's not happening to you in the memories, what's the situation? How much more or less sucky is it? I don't know. This whole thing again, we don't know. [C: I don't know.] Don't know about the wall.

C: Dunno. This wall is going to hold back the Hell memories, but it's not going to be permanent, and when it collapses, he's done, apparently. And for Death to do this, in return, he wants Dean to win a wager, which is that he has to be Death for a day. He has to put on Death's ring, which will give him Death's powers. He has to do everything that Death does for a day, and if he doesn't do a job or takes the ring off within the 24 hours, then he loses. This whole time, Dr. Roberts has been trying to bring Dean back because he's been gone way longer than the three minutes he gave. And Dean asks, "Why are you doing this?" And Death goes, "Because..." and then Dean wakes up, so we never learn!

G: How does death work? Because like-

C: No, yeah, exactly. He didn't have the ring this whole time. I assume people were still dying, so his powers are innate, so why does he need the ring?

G: No no no. Dean dies. Dean loses his heartbeat. [C: Mm-hm.] But like, does Death touch him?

C: I don't think so. Not yet?

G: Well, I suppose- I don't know.

C: Maybe Death touches him but Tessa doesn't reap him.

G: No, because- no, yeah. The other ones have like this whole thing where it's like, they're alive and suffering until you touch them. So like, I don't know what Dean's situation is. I suppose when he got touched, Death must have been invisible or something. That could also happen.

-

G: But anyway, Dean's now back in his body, and he is considering. And they're in Bobby's house. They're talking about it. When's the last time we saw Bobby?

C: Was it after "Weekend at Bobby's," or was it "Weekend at Bobby's"?

G: Was it literally "Weekend at Bobby's"?

C: Well, let me check the episode list. Oh, wait! No, it had to be after "Weekend at Bobby's" because- Did we see his reaction to knowing Sam was soul- Oh, well, we saw him in "You Can't Handle the Truth" on the phone.

G: Oh, yeah, you're right.

C: And then was he there for the aftermath of that?

G: Did they call Bobby a singular time about Sam being soulless?

C: It just feels like this must have happened.

G: I don't think so. I think they went to Samuel. I think for a moment, they were replacing Bobby with Samuel.

C: Yeah, yeah, no. The last time we saw him was in "You Can't Handle the Truth."

G: Wow! Sidelined, Bobby.

C: Yeah. Didn't Dean promise that the thing he would do after he got out of "Caged Heat" was hunt down Samuel and kill him? [laughs] Really slacking on that one.

G: Yeah. But Sam ran away and then came back, [laughs] so like, they have other priorities. It is also hilarious to me that last episode ended with Sam power-walking away, and now he's just fully here. Like, hell yeah.

C: No, yeah, actually, [both laughing] where did he go?

G: He just took the scenic route to the car door, [C: So true.] so that's why he was walking away.

C: So true. At Bobby's. Sam is adamant that he does not want Dean to try this because if he gets his soul back, he will die, and this wall thing does not seem very trustworthy. And Sam says, "Oh, you're playing pretty fast and loose with my life here, don't you think?" And Dean says, "I'm trying to save your life." And Sam says, "Exactly, Dean. It's my life, it's my soul, and it's not your head that's going to explode when you fuck up," which I guess starts the whole thing this episode where it's like- I don't know. Just Sam's autonomy debates. Classic Supernatural move. [G: Yeah.] It is his life and his soul, but if he's gonna be killing people, [laughs] the people who he's trying to kill should have some say in it?

G: Yeah, I mean, honestly, when he started killing Bobby, I was like, "Well. [both laughing] Well." Okay, I think the question that they're trying to pose here is, I would say, the same question that they were trying to pose with the demon blood addiction arc, which is that Sam is quote-unquote "not in his right mind." [C: Right.] I think that is more effective here than it was in the demon blood arc. [C: Right.] I think a part of it is that later on, he asks Bobby, "Are you gonna lock me up?" And Bobby says, "Not unless I have a reason to." And then they only lock him up when he does have a reason to. So it doesn't feel as egregious, or as- The thing is, I feel like in both situations, Supernatural the TV show wants us to react similar ways, like be on the same side of Bobby and Dean on both accounts. But like, I wasn't in the demon blood, and here I am a little bit more on Dean and Bobby's side, so I don't know. I think maybe Sera Gamble likes this- Didn't she write-

C: "When the Levee Breaks"? Yeah.

G: Yeah, so like, I think she likes this theme and wants to do things with it. I don't know. I feel a little bit like, "Okay." [laughs] I mean, again, they do deliver more complexity to it this episode. It's just that- I don't know. I suppose, okay, I'll go back to what I was trying to say. The question here is that if you're sick in some way or other, who is the person who is your- What do you call that? Power of attorney, basically.

C: Yeah, yeah. I was trying to figure what that was called before the episode started.

G: Who is your power of attorney? And here, it argues that it's Dean-

C: I don't think it should be.

G: - and that this is a situation where power of attorney is required. When Sam is like, "No, don't put my soul back in," I was like, "Yeah, don't!"

C: [laughs] Yeah, literally don't. I don't think Dean should have power of attorney. I mean, for various reasons, but also on top of those reasons, he doesn't want Sam's soul back for reasons related to Sam. He just wants his brother to wuv him again.

G: I was supposed to point this out later, but I think there's an excellent line in the later scenes that really points it out. Actually, I will just point it out later. But like, yeah. Dean doesn't care about Sam in this situation, which Sam points out. [C: Yes.] He cares about himself and his idea of the little brother that he has. And like, I think, one, that's the issue. Two, I wish Sam explained to Bobby, "I'm killing you because I need to commit patricide so that [C laughs] my soul can't come back in" because then, it wouldn't be like, "Oh, I just tried to kill you."

C: "I just want to kill you because I hated your vibes."

G: If Dean was like, "Okay, no, we're not gonna attempt to put your soul back in, I promise," he'd be like, "Okay, I don't need to kill Bobby."

C: No, for real.

G: So I wish they just told him, so you know.

C: Yeah, yeah. I was saying, "It's not good that he's trying to kill people," but he is only trying to kill people once it's his own survival on the line. [G: Yeah.] He is a hundred percent certain that what Dean is doing right now is going to kill him, so he's doing this so that he doesn't die. I feel like that's reasonable, honestly.

G: Yeah. And also, I find it so fascinating that he jumps immediately to "Well, I gotta kill Bobby" [C laughs] because he understands that he can't reason Dean out of this one. [C: Mm-hm.] And that's what I find so fascinating. He just gives up on that front completely [C: Yeah.] because he understands it's not gonna work. And if this was about something else, and Sam had his soul, he would have argued to hell and back with Dean. He would have. But I just find so fascinating that without that soul component, he's just like, "Yeah, Dean is an unreasonable person to have this conversation with," which is true.

C: Yeah. God. Love it when they make an episode that's like, "And Sam's so dangerous. His soul needs to go back in!" And we're just like, "He was right for trying to kill Bobby."

G: [laughs] He wasn't right for trying to kill Bobby! But like-

C: I think it was a reasonable thing to do. [G laughs]

G: It was reasonable, and his mistake was not communicating to Bobby why he was trying to kill him. [C laughing] Like, he should have done it.

C: Literally! [both laugh]

G: He should have did an evil villain speech that made him more empathetic to the audience, thus making him a complex character.

C: Yeah, yeah. But he won't because, I mean, he doesn't care about being sympathetic to the audience. He cares about not dying. Which again, reasonable.

G: That's actually an excellent point. He didn't care if Bobby knew.

C: Yeah, but he did say sorry to him.

G: Oh, that's true! Wow. [C: Yeah.] Love patricide.

C: Love it. [G: Yeah.] Bobby asks about Dean's half of the deal.

So Sam starts leaving, and Dean's like, "Huh?" And Sam's like, "I totally understand where you're coming from. I just need to... [both] time to think!" Love it! And then he goes out to Bobby's metal yard- what's it called? [G: Yeah.] Scrapyard? Scrapyard.

G: Junkyard, where cars go to die. Salvage yard.

C: Salvage yard, yes. And he was apparently looking for where they hid Death's ring so that Dean couldn't use it for his end of the deal, but Dean has already taken it.

G: There's fully just a hole in the ground, shout-out to Dean.

C: Yeah, love it. And Dean's like, "Sam, I'm your bwother! I'm not gonna let you get hurt!" Untrue. And Sam's like, "Okay, fine. I'll trust you here, barely, because you're the one with the moral compass, so I should." Love when somebody lies. And Dean's like, "Okay, yay! Bye!" And then-

G: Immediately turns around to tell Bobby to watch him.

C: - tells Bobby, "I don't trust Sam. Watch that bitch." Yeah. I don't know. Fascinating dynamics here.

G: Yeah! And he says "Watch him." so loud, too, in a way that is supposed- [C laughs] Like, the way it's shot, it's implied that Sam hears it, which is also very fun.

C: Yeah. I don't even know if Dean wanted Sam to hear. It's possible Dean wanted Sam to hear it.

G: That's true, that's true, yeah.

-

G: But Sam probably did hear it, and now it's just Sam and Bobby. [C laughs] Sam asks, "Okay, are you gonna lock me up now in the panic room?" And Bobby says, "Do I have to?" And Sams goes, "Noo!"

C: I mean, currently, that is true. He has no plans to kill Bobby yet.

G: Yeah. He says, "Well, let's just wait for Dean to get fucking going." And so Dean does. He goes out, puts on the ring, and Tessa's there. And yeah. Tessa explains what they're gonna try to do, which is that they have a list of names that Dean can't look at, and for the next 24 hours, he just has to kill who is on that list, basically. So they go around the town, killing people. And like, I find this fascinating. Does Tessa have this power?

C: The touching people and they die power? No.

G: Yeah. She's just a reaper. She's not a killer. Wow! [laughs] We should not.

C: She's not a father, she's a killer.

G: Yeah. Well, RIP to- Who the fuck does Jeremy Strong play in Succession?

C: Kendall?

G: Kendall. [laughs] I always forget his name. But yeah, RIP to Kendall Roy. He's not a killer. So he just touches who's supposed to die. They die, RIP. And if he removes the ring before the 24 hours, times up, and also he's not gonna get Sam's soul back. Okay. This entire sequence is so like- [C laughs] You learn shit you learn when you're in third grade. [C laughs] [C: Uh-huh, yeah.] You know what I mean? And it's so wild. It's kind of wild to see it on your screen, played by adults, complete with a straight face. [C laughing] Like, what is this? And also, the morals are just like- It's like, literally, you go to church, [C laughing] the priest tells you "Everything happens for a reason" kind of deal, you know? [C: Yeah.] It's just like, it's both fascinating because it's a very basic moral tale that they play completely straight. And also, two, that they don't add anything to it. [C: Yeah.] [C laughs] It's just that.

C: Yeah. Like, what I learned is that Dean Winchester is stupid.

G: Yeah! Has he never read a fable?

C: [laughs] Aesop! I read.

G: Does he- Yeah. Well, he only read Aesop in between this episode and "Baby," so we have a couple seasons to go. He's gonna get to the point in Season 11 where he has read Aesop, but it's not today. [C laughs] Literally how we describe it, that's what happens. Fully what happens. But before we get into that, we get a fun and fresh scene where Sam summons an angel. And it's Balthazar!

C: There he is.

G: So he tells Balthazar- Like Balthazar calls him out for calling him, like, "Why me?" And Sam goes, "Desperate times, blah blah blah, I need your help." And Balthazar says, "Go ask your boyfriend." Very fun. Sastiel.

C: Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay. [G: Yeah.] [laughs] Love it, love it, love it. Everyone's so stuck on the Balthazar line where he talks to Dean about Cas being into him. But this is just how Balthazar talks, [G: Yeah.] and he said it to Sam first. So think about that.

G: He literally said it to Sam first. And I love that Balthazar's like, "Why don't you call your boyfriend?" And Sam, with no hesitation, just goes, "Cas is busy."

C: Yay! Yay!

G: Love it. And that's what makes them good in bed. I'm so sorry. For the rest of Season 6, we're going to be saying that. [C laughs] And that's so important.

C: Yay! [laughs] Anyway, yay.

G: Yeah. What Sam needs is something to keep a soul out forever. And Balthazar says that, "You don't want your soul back. That's true, and you should not want it back." And he says that he will do this service to Sam for free because it would be very nice for Sam to owe him something. And Balthazar says there's ingredients, blah blah blah, spell, maybe, but what he really needs is to scar his vessel, meaning that he needs to do something so bad that it becomes uninhabitable. And the thing that fits this criteria is patricide?

C: What if you hate your dad? What if your dad has bad vibes?

G: Literally. What if killing your dad is the way to go?

C: I don't know. Fascinating stuff. Also, specifically patricide?

G: Yeah, like, if you kill your mom, it's fine?

C: If you kill your mom, it's cool?

G: Yeah. Well, I think I think, honestly, this should be a soul-to-soul basis situation.

C: Yeah, I agree.

G: It should be a vessel-to-vessel case situation. Yeah.

C: There's somebody each person can kill that makes their body so polluted that their soul refuses to enter because they don't want to live with that. I think that that makes sense. But just being patricide. Fascinating look into the Supernatural philosophy.

G: No, literally. Sam just does a smirk like, "You're so stupid, Balthazar." He goes, "My dad has been dead for years." And Balthazar says, "You need the blood of your father, but your father need not be blood." So dun-dun-dun! It's killing Bobby time.

C: Did people watching thought it might be Samuel? [G: Huh.] Because I think that's sort of the second option.

G: Huh. I suppose I just thought, "Why else would they bring Bobby in here other than to try to kill him?"

C: No, real. [both laugh] Yeah, yeah.

G: That's an interesting question. For Dean, obviously, it's gonna be Bobby. [C: Yeah.] For Sam, is it really Bobby?

C: He loves him like a coworker.

G: It's not, is the thing.

C: I mean, I guess Samuel also loves him like a coworker. Also, I don't know. What even is the metric of "like a father to me"?

G: Yeah, exactly.

C: Like, you love them, they love you? You've done specific things together? What is it?

G: They play a mentor role in your life? What, you can kill your professor? [C: Real.] What's the situation? Sometimes, I do think, what if did Sam did push through with this, and it was just like, "Ugh, Bobby doesn't count. He's not enough of a father to you." [C laughing] And it's like, "Damn it! I just killed Bobby for no reason."

C: Yeah, RIP.

-

G: So we go back to our fable of the day. Tessa and Dean are talking about stuff that Dean may experience in this 24 hours, and one of them being that people want to ask questions after they die. And a big one is, "What does it all mean?" And Dean asks, "Okay, am I just magically going to know?" Tessa says no, and Dean's like, "I don't know how to do this, then." And Tessa goes, "Well, suck it up." And so they enter a convenience store, and there's a guy who's robbing some guy who has a kid beside him, and they're both Asian. Love it.

C: And they're Asian! [G: Love it!] Love it.

G: And he's robbing these two and asking them to give money over, including the one that's hidden away. And he threatens to shoot the kid, so you, the watcher, are like, "Oh my god! What if it's the kid that dies? There is a kid that dies in Supernatural, apparently." [C: Yeah.] Didn't we have this discussion about "Can children die on screen in Supernatural?" Apparently, they can. I feel like this is an even more maybe direct way to do it versus like, you know, evil child dies, I don't know. [C: Yeah.] You know what I mean. Because it's like a real situation. [C: Right.] It feels realer than creepy child death or whatever. But anyway, that's for later. Now it's not the kid who dies because the older- the adult hands over an envelope to the robber, and while he is trying to open it, the guy picks a gun from his register and shoots the robber. And now he's on the floor bleeding out, and Dean's like, "Wow, I guess he died."

C: He really stoked about it.

G: Yeah, he's like, really happy that this guy got shot. And Tessa goes, "You need to touch him now so that he'll die." But Dean goes, "Oh, he's in agonizing pain, right? I'm just gonna wait." What an asshole.

C: Yeah, love how Dean's first moment of going against the rules of this bet is that he loves torture so much.

G: No, literally. [laughs] Yeah. [C: God.] "Oh, I don't want to torture monsters, even though they're monsters, because torture is fundamentally bad!"

C: "But I will torture monsters all the time, too! I love torture, and also, I love torturing this guy!"

G: Literally. And yeah, finally touches the guy. The guy goes like, "Why?" And Dean goes, "Mostly because you're a dick. Enjoy the ride down, pal. Trust me, sauna gets hot." Something- Dean.

C: I don't think so. I don't think this is right.

G: It's so awful. And then like, Tessa's just like, "Okay, come on now." [laughs] And the guy just walks there. He doesn't even try to stay on Earth, which we know can be done.

C: Yeah. Dean's been through Hell torture. It was really bad. Would he really- is this just like- Okay, robbing someone, threatening to shoot their kid, not good. But this is the bar or the line at which he's like, "Somebody deserves that for eternity"?

G: Literally. He was there. [C: Yeah.] "Oh, I'm so happy that this guy is gonna get tortured for thirty years and then start torturing other people and then become a demon in the future!"

C: Yeah, no. Also, if he thinks this guy sucks so badly, this guy's probably gonna decide to start torturing people immediately, right? Like in Dean's mind? So like, what's the gain here, right?

G: Yeah, I don't know.

C: He's like, "This guy sucks. He's fundamentally violent. That's why I think that he deserves to be tortured forever." But in the Hell structure, what that means is that Hell just gained a new, good torturer.

G: Yeah. He's gonna shoot up those ranks.

C: Yeah. [G: Well.] It's very confusing to me.

G: Yeah, it's gonna make the workplace more toxic and competitive, Dean. [C laughs] Have you considered that? [C: Yeah, literally.]

But okay, their next gig is, as they're walking out they see a guy, and he is-

C: And he's fat! Gasp!

G: And he's fat, and he's eating a pizza!

C: "How could he? Doesn't care about his life? Doesn't he care about his family's life? What a loser! I hope he dies!" is all things that Dean is thinking and basically says.

G: It's so wild- honestly, it's so wild to me [C laughs] in TV shows where they would show quote-unquote "a fat person," [C: Yeah.] and the person is like literally [both] not fat. And also, the fatphobia is insane. [C: Yeah.] What's going on with that? But anyway, this not fat guy [C laughs] that Dean has predicted is going to get a heart attack gets a heart attack, and then he falls down and dies. And Dean tells the guy- The guy asked, "Why did I die?" And Dean goes, "Oh, it's probably the extra cheese. Like, look at you." [C: Yeah.] It's just so- What's going on? But anyway, the guy agrees with him? Like, "Yeah, I mean, that's probably why."

C: Yeah. And I feel like the lesson is supposed to be "You shouldn't be blase about death in any way," but instead, it's just, "Some people deserve to die, and some people don't, but you have to do it anyway."

G: Yeah, some people imagine a burger. [laughs] If Dean tried to explain why death happens, he just goes, "Imagine a burger." [C laughs] And yeah, he has this bit where he asks the guy, "Oh my god! Is that a local joint?" and Tessa has to reprimand him to stop doing that. And the guy asks, like, "What does it all mean?" And Dean goes, "[singing badly] Everything is dust in the wind." [C laughs] And then, you know, the guy is like, "How dare you sing a Kansas song to me incredibly terribly and maybe out of tune?" [C laugh]s And yeah, Dean's a little bit offended, I guess. And Tessa goes, "Sorry! He's new." Honestly, Tessa is a bit irresponsible in the workplace.

C: Don't say that. Don't do that, Tessa.

G: Like, especially later with the kid, it's insane. No, no, not the kid.

C: No, with the nurse. She's like, "Oh, you died because that guy over there fucking sucks!"

G: Not only did she say "You died," she said, "You were supposed to live a full, beautiful life and it has been robbed from you," which is like not- When I die, I don't want to hear any of that shit. [C laughs] You tell me I lived a full life. That's what you tell me. [C: For real.] You don't tell me, "You could have been 78!" I don't care.

C: Yeah. "If you lived the next day you would have tripped over a rake, it would have hit you in the face, you would have fallen over face-first into a pile of shit. Thank god you're out now."

G: Yeah!

-

G: The next portion of this fable is now Tessa and Dean going up to a hospital. And in the hospital room that they're in, there is a kid who's connected to the monitors and stuff, and her dad, who is reading to her, but a photo album.

C: Showing her a photo album, yeah.

G: Yeah. And Dean- There's also a nurse there, and we zoom in onto her name tag so we can get familiar with her, I guess. And Dean [laughs] asked, "The kid or the dad," which is like, kind of a wild thing to say when you can clearly see that the child is the one who has, you know, all of the wires and shit. [C: Yeah.] But yeah, he says, "Oh, this kid is so young." Apparently, she's twelve, and etc. etc. And insane thing-

C: No, fascinating. Fascinating next question. I was shocked.

G: I was like, "What a lovely writing choice." But he asks, "Does this guy-" as in the father- "have any other family?" [C: Insane.] And Tessa goes, "No, not really." And that's the thing that puts him off the most.

C: Yeah, like, what?

G: That, "Oh my god! This dad's twelve-year-old is gonna die!" How about the twelve-year-old who's dying? Have you considered the twelve-year-old who's dying? [laughs] I think it is an excellent writing choice because it really hammers home what it is-

C: [laughs] What Dean cares about.

G: Yeah. He's not thinking about Sam, you know, the whole bit. Because this whole morality tale that Death is making Dean experience is about how they keep on trying to revive Sam and each other. I don't know. They keep on trying to live longer than they should, and Dean specifically tried to revive Sam and then bring Sam's soul back and all that crap, all that crap. What he's trying to say here is that "You should stop doing that." And then now, we see here, very visibly, that he's doing it not because of Sam but because of himself, because he doesn't really have any other family.

C: Yeah. Besides Bobby, who's like a father to him. [G: Yeah!] I would be asking, "Does this kid want to be an astronaut when she grows up?" But yeah, yeah, crazy stuff!

G: Yeah, anyway, Dean asked if he can skip this kid. Tessa says no, and Dean says, "Well, I have the ring so I can do whatever I want." And Tessa says, "You know, it's destiny." And Dean says, "Fuck destiny. I spent my whole life fighting destiny, so I don't even give a shit. The little girl gets to live." And Tessa points out that "Every single time you tried to fight destiny, it didn't really work out for you, so like, whatever." It's just- Supernatural's take on fate and free will is so fascinating because the explicit things that they are saying is that, you know, "We should have free will! And we should-" and you know, it's complex, obviously, and it's a theme that they explore throughout the show. And the intensity at which they try to peddle perspectives differ throughout the entire thing. But most of the time, the text is like, "We should have our own actions, and we should have free will, and free will, it's so important, and we should fight destiny!" But all of the subtext is like, "You shouldn't. You should just accept your fate." The show ends how it ends. [laughs] So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's fascinating.

C: Yeah. I don't know. And I love how okay, even in this one, where it's like, Dean eventually accepts destiny and fate, but then Death is like, "I'm gonna help you, anyway. So you're special!" [G: Yeah.] What's dead should stay dead, and what should die should die. But not for you, Dean!

G: I think they're trying to have the same attitude that Supernatural has with anything else that it deems is wrong, which is like, "Yeah, it's wrong. But the only thing that you need to do about it is frown about it." [C laughs] [C: Yeah.] So like, yeah, you can, you know, fight destiny all you want, but it's still gonna catch up to you, no matter what. But as long as you're sad about it, it's fine. [C laughs]

C: Yeah, we'll let you get out of it.

G: Yeah. Anyway, the little girl gets wheeled to the operating room, but then they check on her. Her heart's completely fine, and now she has a miracle, so they don't have to operate on her anymore. And then we go to the nurse who is now heading out because her surgery was cancelled and she can go home early. Dun-dun-dun!

C: Dun-dun-dun!

-

C: So back at Bobby's, Sam comes in from the whole talking to Balthazar thing, and he and Bobby drink some beers, they play some poker. It's all very tense. And when Bobby offers to go to the fridge to get another beer, Sam sneaks up behind him to knock him out with a wrench! Love it. But apparently, Bobby had a baseball bat in the fridge [laughs], which he uses to hit Sam first. And he's like, "I'm not fucking stupid, Sam," but he's disappeared when he turns around. So there's just a thing where, you know, [laughs] Sam's chasing Bobby around the house or whatever. Bobby's in the closet.

G: He's hammering through the fucking closet. Bobby's in the closet, first of all.

C: Yeah, he's in the closet. Shout-out. And Sam starts whacking an axe against the door like- what is it called? The Shining?

G: Yes, he's The Shining through the door.

C: Like in The Shining. And Bobby's like, "Haha! Got you!" And then he pushes a button, and Sam's apparently standing on a trap door [both laugh] that deposits him in the basement.

G: And the way the way they do it is Sam goes, "Well, Bobby, you should have not cornered yourself," and Bobby goes, "I didn't." And then he pushes the trap door open. Honestly, I would love to know the architecture of this place. [C: Yes.] How is it there? Is there like-

C: How did he do it?

G: Maybe the reason this house fucking gets destroyed later is because Bobby removed all the load-bearing foundations [C laughs] to make all of this shit.

C: No, literally. Literally. Fascinating house. Love it. And Sam tries to break down the door, but apparently, it's made out of reinforced steel and titanium, so he can't. So Bobby's like, "Okay, let's just talk." And Sam's like, "Okay, yeah, I guess I can't get through this door to kill you. Let's just talk!" Though he may also be waiting for Bobby to let his guard down. It's hard to know exactly his intentions at every point. Oh, I forgot! When Sam corners Bobby, he does specifically say, "I got to do this. I'm sorry," which I think is nice. [G laughs] I don't know if this was like, [G: He's so niceys.] he thought that this was the last moment, and he actually did feel sorry. I guess I'm wondering like what his motivations in saying sorry were. Was it like, "If this doesn't work, I want Bobby to continue seeing me as sympathetic so that I can continue to maybe have a bit of a leg up," or like did he feel it? I don't know.

G: I think sometimes you just go, "Sorry!" just like before.

C: Yeah, yeah, but he could also not talk, you know? [G: That's true.] There's no reason that he needs to talk.

G: That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is a choice to say, "Sorry, Bobby." [C: Yeah.] And I mean, I said earlier that he doesn't explain himself, and it is true, but he does a little bit.

C: Yeah, he does a little bit. Yeah, while they're having this conversation through the door, Sam says that he has to do this because he'll die if Dean puts his soul back in, and he can't let it happen. He goes, "I mean, it's not like I want to kill you. You've been nothing but good to me." Untrue! [laughs]

G: Literally not true.

C: Literally not true, so he must be lying about all of it. [laughs] And Bobby's like, "Oh, is it a demon deal?" And Sam says, "It's a spell." And Bobby's like, "You're making a mistake," and Sam says, "I'm trying to survive." So true. Literally reasonable, honestly. Yeah, Bobby keeps saying the wall's gonna work. Sam is skeptical. And then he says, "What if it doesn't work? Dean doesn't care about me. He just cares about his little brother, Sammy, burning in Hell. He'll kill me to get that other guy back." Love it! Love lines, love the truth. And Bobby goes like, "Yeah, that's scary. But you're scawier! Because you're not in your right head, and you're not giving us much choice here." He was basically fine before this. I mean, he wasn't entirely because he let Dean get turned into a vampire and all that [G laughs], but like, literally he was fine. Have we considered that? [G: Yeah.] Have we considered that he was fine? I don't know. I feel like all of his actions follow a logic that you can anticipate. And I think that it's not pleasant to be hunting with someone where you know that [G: Yeah.] if you do something that goes against like one of their deeply-held rules about how they want things to go, that they'll turn against you, but you also don't have to be hunting with him, and maybe if they focused more-

G: They should just let Sam into the world, let him loose.

C: Literally. if they focus maybe a bit more on the "Oh, I definitely probably got innocent people killed when I was hunting earlier, soulless, with the Campbells," I get that as a motivation. But yeah, right now, I guess the only motivation is, "I wuv my real brother, and I need to keep this guy here so that I can get my real brother back."

G: Yeah. Also, Sam allegedly breaks his leg in this one.

C: Does he?

G: Yeah, they have like a shot of his- I was watching. [C: Yeah.] I'm just really proud that I was.

C: Good job. It is bloody.

G: Yeah, he has a bloody leg. Or was it a gash? Maybe it was like, he got scratched real bad, but his leg was bloody. I thought it was broken. So when he was walking, I was like, "Why is he walking not weird?" I thought he had a broken leg. But yeah, maybe it's just a giant fucking gash. But it's relevant to the plot that he's getting blood everywhere. [C: Yeah.] Also, we completely bulldoze over this. This is the plot of the last half of "Mystery Spot."

C: Oh, yeah!

G: Sam was trying to get Bobby, too. So you know what? I just truly love that now it is evidently- it's safe to say- a recurring theme! [laughs] [C: Yeah.] Sam trying to kill Bobby! It's so important.

C: It is. Bobby starts not hearing anything from the other side of the door, and then he opens it. Stupid! I would just assume that Sam was trying to lure me into a trap. But yeah, he looks through, and apparently Sam went through to the panic room and then broke out through the vent in the ceiling. Love being tall.

-

G: Now we're back to Dean and Tessa. Tessa is obviously very tense as she's walking around the hospital. And Dean is kind of pestering her like, "What? You're mad at me now? Come on." But then they hear siren of ambulance being wheeled out. It's the nurse. She got into a very bad car crash. Her heart's doing bad, and they need the surgeon for the heart, and he's not there. Dean realizes it's the nurse, and he starts feeling incredibly guilty. And Tessa is like, "You just knocked over a domino. Everything you do has consequences." She wants Dean to touch and kill this woman. And Dean, you know, doesn't want to do it because she's not on the list, but Tessa says that "If you don't kill her, it's gonna set up even more chain reactions." I thought, honestly, that the surgeon was also gonna die. [C: Mm.] 'Cause the way they worded it is like, the nurse gets home early, gets in a car crash she wouldn't have, and she needs a heart surgeon. "And where is he?" And it's like, "He's about to get into a car crash, too!" [laughs]

C: So true. But no, it's just he also left, so he can't help her.

G: Also, it's a little bit wild that they did not do a lot of resuscitation. Or I suppose we didn't see what was happening while they were on their way to the room. [C: Yeah, yeah.] There's probably a lot there already. She just she dies after he touches her. Her name's Jolene. [singing] Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, blah blah. I don't actually know how that song goes. [C hums] And now she's staring at her body. And she goes, "But I'm..." and Tessa continues her sentence like, "Yeah, you're so young. Actually-" This is crazy. She says, "Actually, you were supposed to live for many decades, have kids, grandkids." And Jolene asks, "Then why?" And Tessa says, "Because he screwed up." [C: Yeah.] Why would you do this?

C: She's being spiteful towards Dean.

G: She's being spiteful towards Dean, ruining this woman's life even more than they already have, the both of them.

C: Yeah, I mean, she's reaped a lot of people. I feel like she doesn't feel that much sympathy anymore.

G: It may be true, yeah. But Dean still tries to say "I'm sorry" to her. The husband comes in and sees that his wife is dead and cries over her body. And Tessa and Hilary go over to [C: Dean.] the hospital room where the kid with the heart disease is in. Tessa says that she is disrupting the natural order by being alive. "Chaos and sadness will follow her for the rest of her life. We tried it your way. So now we have to kill her for real." Which is like, kind of wild.

C: They have "Faith" in the "Then" sequence, and I think it's because of this moment? I think we're supposed to go, "And because Dean also cheated Death, chaos and sadness is following him for the rest of his life."

G: Crystal. He literally died and went to Hell.

C: Yeah.

G: So like, isn't that the one that is the-

C: Eventually, he got there?

G: No no no. I mean, I suppose "Faith" is the first time that they do it in the show, so it's gotta count for something.

C: Yeah, wait, "Faith" was in the- Was it in the "Then" sequence? I thought it was. Or was it not?

G: I don't think it was.

C: Oh, was it "In My Time of Dying."

G: I think it was all Tessa. It was all Tessa.

G: Okay, yeah. It was "In My Time of Dying," then. Never mind.

G: So you're talking about Dean dying in Season 2, basically.

C: Yeah, I remember there was a scene in the "Then" sequence where he's in the hospital, and I got it mixed up which one it was.

G: Yeah, I mean the only thing- the way I recognize that episode now is through the title that we gave it in the podcast, [both] "FEET!" All this is happening while Dean is watching the husband get into his car while super drunk. And he's off, driving away, so Dean goes, "Okay, whatever. I'll kill the girl, but let me handle this first." So he hops into the car, but obviously, the guy can't see him, and he's trying to tell him to stop the car, but obviously, it's not working. And so he removes the ring as the guy's about to hit a giant truck so that he can veer-

C: Also, to be clear. He's not just drunk driving. I think it's clear that he's [both] trying to kill himself.

G: Yeah. Dean comes in because he sees that he's drunk driving, and then, as the driving progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that he is suicidal. Dean swerves the car so that it crashes into an empty car instead of the giant fucking moving truck. The guy is unconscious for a bit. It's still a pretty bad car crash, but not death bad, you know? And so Dean opens up the door, heads out, and says, "Tessa, I need a ride home. [C laughs] I know I didn't do it, but can you at least zap me back?" And we have this like extended bit where the guy in the car wakes up, and he looks over at Dean, and he sees the moment when Dean becomes invisible. This is never revisited, but it is pretty fun. [C: Yeah.] Dean puts back the ring on, and Tessa is there, but he decides that he needs to finish the job. So he goes to the room where Hilary is-

C: Hilary being the little girl.

G: Yeah. And he whispers to the dad, "You have to wake up because I'm gonna kill her now." And the dad stares awake. And then he touches the girl's hand, and she dies. The last scene of this whole thing is the girl in spirit form now, looking at her body being resuscitated, and her dad is watching on the side. And she goes, "What about my dad?" And Dean says, "He'll be fine." The girl asks, "Really?" And Dean says, "I have no idea." And the girl says, "I can't just leave him. It's not fair." And Dean goes, "I know." So she asks why, and Dean says, "Well, there's a natural order to things." And Hilary, the kid, says, "Well, natural order is stupid," and Dean agrees. It's such a nothing. [C: Yeah.] I feel like this is the kind of shit that again, you learn in like, a special Elmo episode where they talk about Death. [C laughs] Or I don't know. I think an Elmo episode is actually gonna have a little bit more complexity. [C laughs] I don't know. It just feels so- it's so nothing in the kind of thing that it's trying to deliver. And Supernatural is not typically a show I have high expectations on on things, but whenever they talk about death, and meaning of dying and also fate and free will and blah blah blah, I do think they generally always have something interesting to say, at least. And so it is completely fascinating to watch this episode try to have this message. And I get that they're trying to attribute it to Dean's life, and that's the entire relevance, which is what Tessa says later. "The whole point of this is to teach you, Dean, a lesson." But when laid out like this, it just seems so stupid. It seems so juvenile, is what I think.

C: Yeah, I don't know. Could it be attributed to just Dean being a hunter? I don't know. I guess his whole job is to prevent people from dying, and then the people who do die are the people he kills who "deserve" it. [G: Yeah!] And so he just hasn't thought about it that much. But also, his dad died. [laughs] [G: Yeah.] And Ellen and Jo died, and Pamela died.

G: Yeah, I kept on thinking about Ellen and Jo this episode because that is what-

C: They mentioned their deaths last episode.

G: Yeah, that, and two, there is a whole sense of question- the running question in this episode is like, "Why die? What's the point?" or like, "What's the point of living?" you know? And I feel like having a- I feel like Jo and Ellen do have a kind of senseless death. In terms of something that Dean can chew on and analyze, he can think about how like his dad died for a cause, which is to keep him alive, or you know. Stuff like that. Most hunters die in the hunt. But Ellen and Jo-

C: They also died on a hunt.

G: Yeah, but it was- Ellen died to stay behind to stay with Jo, and I think that is something. She was trying to do something in that moment. I feel like with Jo's death specifically, it was because at that moment, they were trying to get to Lucifer, and it wasn't even there yet, you know? She died in the pre-hunt is what it feels like, which is like-

C: It was that she had to blow up the building because of the hellhounds?

G: Yeah. They didn't even get to the point of the main contention of the episode yet. And so I don't know. And I think that is the most relevant death that I can think of that Dean has experienced recently.

C: Yeah. Pamela's dead.

G: I suppose he experienced Sam's death.

G: Pamela's death was in Season 4.

C: 5? No, it was- Wasn't it in "My-" no, wait, when was it? It was in- Was it in Season 4?

G: It was because she whispered to Sam, "I know what you're up to."

C: Oh, yeah! [G: Yeah.] She was in a hotel room, and there were demons. What happened in that episode?

G: Sam and Dean went to die for whatever reason. [C: Real.] And she has to bring them back. Oh, no, no, they like just went to sleep for some reason. I don't know. They were doing something.

C: Was this the hunt where there was that kid?

G: I don't think it was the kid. Or maybe it was. I'm not sure. But it's something.

C: Oh, okay, so yeah, Ellen and Jo were more recent.

G: Yeah. And also, I don't know, they're closer to Ellen and Jo. [C: Yeah.] Yeah. And I suppose it is interesting- It did remind me also, I guess, because the death that they most focus on is about mourning the loss of a child. So that's relevant, I guess. Also, I don't know, it is- I never really- I think, in the past, I know from stuff that people are sensitive about children dying, and I never really understood it as a kid. [C: Mm.] But I think I understand it now that I'm older. I'm like, "Oh, okay." Yeah, watching- seeing this is more upsetting than the nurse, for example. [laughs] Sorry. Sorry to that nurse. No, but I just mean I do find the choice that they make interesting, although I suppose it is the easiest choice to make. [C: Yeah.] [C laughs] But the focus on the dad being the one who was left behind with no one, and there's an early mention of "Oh, yeah, that was your mom when she was that age, when she was your age," implying that the mom is not around, probably dead. So I don't know. There's a lot of projection happening for Dean this episode, etc.

-

C: Yeah. Bobby's trying to track down the escaped Sam Winchester, and he's able to do so because Sam's injuries means that he's smearing blood [G: Bleeding everywhere.] all around, and Bobby's just following that trail. Bobby gets to a shed, and then Sam knocks him out and drags him in there. And Bobby wakes up, tied up. [laughs] Sam's sharpening a knife. [G laughs] So funny.

G: Iconic, honestly.

C: And Bobby goes, "Listen to me. You don't want to do this, Sam. I've been like a father to you, boy! Somewhere inside, you've got to know that." And Sam's like, "Yeah! Exactly! That's why I'm doing this!" And he's about to stab Bobby but then Dean's back, and he grabs Sam's arm and then knocks him out. Now Sam's in the panic room, tied up. Classic Sam position to be in. And Dean goes, "I can't keep doing this. What am I gonna do? Tie him up every time he tries to kill someone?" [both laughing] Incredibly funny sentence. [G: Yeah.] Yeah. Which, again, I don't think he would do unless he had a good reason!

G: Yeah, and he had an excellent reason for this one.

C: He has a really good reason. And he goes, "I mean, he's capable of anything" is how Bobby finishes it. And yeah, that's their issue. Just that he was able to try to go after Bobby, etc etc.

G: Does he need to eat?

C: I think so. We've seen him eat, at least, right?

G: Yeah, but does he need to?

C: Well, if he hasn't been sleeping because he doesn't need to, I don't know why he would put up the eating front unless he just wuvs it.

G: No, I suppose if- I thought what you were gonna say is, "If he's not sleeping, he needs to get his energy somewhere."

C: Oh, eat more to keep his body going. Yeah, that's also possible.

G: Does he need to drink water? [laughs]

C: Why not? [G: Yeah.] Yeah. And Dean's like, "I don't know what to do!" But luckily, he doesn't have to struggle any longer, [laughs] because he's the specialest boy in the world. He learned his Aesop fable, and now he will be rewarded for it, just like [both] Jane Eyre and her rich uncle. [G: Literally.] Yeah, except did Jane even learn anything? I think she was always right, [laughs] and always knew everything.

G: No, literally. I still haven't finished it. I don't know.

C: Yeah. So Dean sees Death there, who gets him a special, special bacon hot dog. Death goes, "I'm just gonna have a little treat before I put the ring back on." But he was doing his job, right? People were dying still?

G: I don't actually know. And also, is he alone in this?

C: Yeah, no, because there's a lot of people who die. [G: Yeah.] I don't know and will probably never know. Yeah, he's like, "Yeah, sometimes I wish I just wasn't wearing it. But you understand me now!" And Death goes, "If you could go back, would you have killed that girl without all of your protestations?" And Dean says yes, and Death is surprised and glad to hear it. And he thinks that Dean has learned that messing with the natural order isn't fun when you have to clean up afterwards. And he says that the human soul is very vulnerable and impermanent and strong and valuable, and that's what he learned today! [both laugh]

G: Yay!

C: So true, I guess. And Dean's like, "[teary] You know what? I bet you knew that I wasn't gonna win this bet, and I want you to admit that!" Like, obviously! [both laugh] Do people make bets they think they're gonna lose?

G: He wants Death to admit that "it's been rigged from the start!" which is like, a five-year-old-

C: It's not been rigged. It's not rigged. He read something in your character, and then he made you a bet. You could only think it's rigged if you were like, "This is gonna be so easy!" Why would he think it would be so easy? Because he's stupid? Yes.

So anyway, Death is like, "You know what? I'll just get Sam's soul for you, anyway. [G: Yeah.] Just 'cause well, you know, I fucking hate you guys, but I feel like you guys are figuring something out, and I want you to keep doing it. It's about the souls. You'll understand when you need to." Fucking stupid. Death's like, "Okay, gonna do it now. 75% chance that it works." 25% is if Cas betrays you so horribly, I guess. [both laugh]

They rush down to the basement, to the panic room, and Sam sees Death coming at him with a suitcase. And Sam's freaking out. He's panicking in the panic room. [laughs]

G: Yeah. What else is the panic room for?

C: Yeah, and he's yelling, "Don't touch me! Please don't do this!" It's not very pleasant that this is happening. But yeah, Death is unswayed, and he says, "It might feel a little itchy. Do me a favor. Don't scratch the wall." [G: Yeah.] And Sam, at this point, starts begging Dean, not Death, to make it stop.

G: Yeah, which did make me so miserable.

C: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] Yeah. But it doesn't work, and his soul goes back in. And Sam starts screaming, and the episode ends.

G: Yeah.

C: Ugh!

G: Well.

C: Well?

G: What did we think about this episode? As I've said, I mean, I said I liked it. But from our discussion, it makes it seem like it was ridiculous, but those ideas can coexist, so.

C: Yeah. I think it was pretty good. I liked the Sam portions. The Dean portion's, like, okay, I know where this is going.

G: I think it's hilariously the way it is, you know? And I think some bits of it are very interesting, so there's that. Best Line/Worst Line?

C: My first instinct for Best Line is that as soon as Sam's left alone with Bobby, he goes, "So is this the part where you pull a gun on me and lock me in the panic room?"

G: Yeah, that was pretty good.

C: I love panic room mention. Love it!

G: As I said earlier, I like the "It will feel itchy. Don't scratch it." line. I just think it delivers both a real thing and an abstraction to what is going on in this situation. I do actually have a Worst Line that I felt strongly about. I completely forgot to talk about it earlier, but it's the one where, after he sinks Sam with the stick or whatever it is, Bobby goes, "I was born at night, but not last night." [C laughs] I thought it was so corny. And he was saying it to nobody because Sam's unconscious. [C: Yeah.] And I was like, "You think you're so cool, Bobby." I was a hater.

C: Okay, see, I said the same thing about when Crowley said, "Guess I lost my head" when he beheaded the shapeshifter.

G: Yeah, that's also what I remember. So yeah, maybe Crowley and Bobby are for each other.

C: No, for real. They are perfect for each other. Do I have a Worst Line? I'm sure I do. Oh, let's just go with when Dean tells the doctor, "I'm no germaphobe, but what's up with where you live?" or whatever he says. [both] Spreadsheets.

G: Spread those sheets. What is our- Do we have any stats situation?

C: I think we could give a racism point.

G: Yeah, I do think it's evident enough that it warrants more than a 1, so I would give it a 2.

C: Alright. Slay!

G: But I don't think there's others. I don't think there's like really any homophobia or misogyny this episode.

C: Yeah, I would agree with that. They were pretty normal about Tessa.

G: Shout-out, Sera Gamble!

C: Yeah, [laughs] thank you. Or you know what? Maybe it was. Robert Singer. Have you thought about that? [both laughing] Maybe the great feminist Robert Singer really helped Sera Gamble whittle down the misogyny in this episode that she originally put in.

G: Literally. But I do love that- I love Tessa. The more she's around, the more I love her. I don't know if she's ever gonna be back, but [C: Huh.] you want me to look?

C: I think so because we'd probably see her die, right?

G: I don't know. [both laugh]

C: Alright!

G: You know, I'm not gonna look it up, so we can both be shocked and upset. [C: Yeah.] IMDb?

C: This is liked. [G: This is-] It's my turn.

G: Yeah, it's your turn.

C: Um. 8.9? That might be a bit much. I'll just do it. I'll just say it. I'll just do it.

G: I'll go with an 8.7. [C: Alright.] Holy shit! You got it!

C: Oh my god!

G: It's a 9.1. No, I mean, you didn't get it, but it's a 9.1, so you're closer.

C: Ah! This never happens! [G: Yeah.] Wonderful! I should have gone higher.

G: People love Death and, of course, Tessa.

C: Yeah. Death and his ambiguous accent, where sometimes he's American, and sometimes he's British?

G: I was like, "Wow, he's just like me for real." Yeah.

C: Yeah. And we also get Balthazar this episode, who has a British [G: French.], parentheses question mark, parentheses, dash Scottish dash French accent.

G: Yeah, I suppose so.

C: Somebody's calling Supernatural "SN" for short, instead of "SPN." That feels so wrong to me.

G: Yeah. Parts of here are saying that it's nice that Dean remembered Adam. So true.

C: Yeah. [laughs]

G: What the fuck was Dean even gonna tell Ben about like why he died? [C laughing]

C: Yeah, I don't know.

G: "Hey, Ben, if you're receiving this letter, I'm dead." What a terrifying note to receive. But what even would he say is a reason? He has to, right?

C: He could just lie. He could just say, "I died on a hunt, and I had whoever was with me send this letter because I died. Sorry for shoving you that time. [both laugh] I was a vampire. Bye!" [laughing]

G: Yeah. "This one episode would turn almost anybody into a fan of Supernatural [C: Untrue.] because it's a standalone episode. There are so many dramatic, poignant, and ironic moments. [laughs] [C: What?] It is instantly relatable to almost any viewer, even somebody who has never seen an episode of SPN." [C: Uh-huh.] [laughing] I think that's fundamentally untrue, every part of that statement.

C: Okay, wait, this review from June 2020. "I love Dean, like I have an unhealthy obsession with the character, but my added ten years from 14 and the rewatch has me seriously annoyed. Dean is an idiot. I also hate that Sam gets blamed for the Apocalypse because if anyone should even be blamed, it's Dean." [both laugh] Shout-out to this person! Love this journey!

G: No, literally. I went through that. [C: Yeah.] But I'm a Casgirl, through and through.

C: Yeah. "Also, I feel like I missed something. Like I missed Sam being worse, something happening also. What happened to the demon blood? I just wanted to see more of evil Sam." Love this journey for you.

G: Literally. We need to say goodbye now to soulless Sam. We almost forgot. Goodbye, soulless Sam.

C: Oh. Goodbye, soulless Sam.

G: Will be missed.

C: Yeah. God, I wonder how he's gonna be next episode. [G: Yeah.] Does he remember all the shit he did? [laughs] That he just tried to kill Bobby?

G: Yeah. Also, it's wild that soulless Sam is an eleven-episode arc. It feels so poignant. [laughs] It's the last big thing that happens to Sam.

C: That's not true! Season 8 happens to Sam. Gadreel happens to Sam.

G: Yeah, Season 9 happens to Sam.

C: Season- is it 13 or 12 where there's Apocalypse world and Lucifer?

G: That's true.

C: Happens to Sam. He got kidnapped by the British Men of Letters? [G laughs] That happens to Sam.

G: He gets like, really close-up foot torture, yeah.

C: [laughs] That happened to Sam.

G: He thinks he's talking to God, and he's actually talking to Lucifer. Pretty cool thing to happen to Sam.

C: Pretty cool thing that happened to Sam. He meets Eileen! That happens to Sam.

G: Oh, that's so true! He goes on a date with her.

C: Rowena stuff! That happens to Sam.

G: Literally! He stabs Rowena homoerotically. It's so important. [both laughing]

C: Literally homoerotically.

G: Yeah, it counts as homoerotic.

C: Yeah, a lot of things happen to Sam.

G: Well, anyway, this is one thing that happened to Sam that is over now. [C: Yeah.] Bye, soulless Sam.

C: Goodbye, soulless Sam.

C: And that's it for this episode of Busty Asian Beauties. Next week we will be discussing Season 6, Episode 12-

C: "Like a Virgin"?

G: "Like a Virgin."

C: Maybe this is about Sam being back.

G: I mean, it is the first episode where soulless Sam is now soulled Sam, so who knows? Well, leave us a rating or review wherever you get your poddycasties. [C laughs]

C: Follow us on social media. We are on tumblr at bustyasianbeautiespod.tumblr.com. Our official tag is #BABPOD, B-A-B-POD. Thanks to everyone who's donated to our Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/bustyasianbeautiespod, which is where our outtakes live, and check out our merch at babpod.redbubble.com.

G: If you have any recommendations for outtakes you want to hear from us, [C laughs] we'd love to do it. We'd love to do it.

C: [laughing] I love that you're still trying to do this!

G: No, because we haven't posted anything in a while in our Ko-Fi.

C: Because we don't chat that much anymore, [laughs] I guess, during the episode.

G: During the ep recording. No, I think we do actually chat. I just delete them now. I'm too lazy to.

C: 'Cause it's not- Yeah, so true.

G: Yeah. I think we've run out of things to talk about with each other. [both laugh] We've already told all of our funny stories.

C: What about Jane Eyre?

G: No, that's true. If you want us to talk about Jane Eyre in the fucking Ko-Fi, we'd love it, I think.

C: Yeah, yeah. If you want me to talk about the webseries The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, also let me know. [laughs]

G: You know, I have been reading a lot recently. So if you guys want to hear reviews of things that I've been reading, I'd love to do it. [C: Yeah.] Yeah. Well, email us at bustyasianbeautiespod@gmail.com. See you guys next time. [both] Bye!

[guitar music]

[jewishdainix]

Pmp requires me to do too much work, so I will just do the mechanisms part. Check the tags for the incoherent pmp rambles.

The song wayfaring stranger is about returning to your loved ones by dying.

The theme of returning home fits UDAD so well because in The Odyssey, Odysseus (Ulysses) is trying to get back to Ithaca.

In UDAD sprcifically, Ulysses returns to his lover and escapes the hardships of the city (cough cough capitalism) by dying, which matches what is told in the song.

The way it is implimanted is GENIUS. I love this band so much.

Literally screaming over the fact that when watching 1917 in class and the song Wayfairing Stranger started playing, I reconised it from Elysian Fields (from UDAD), because thr music was slightly similar and not from the Poor Man's Poison rendition of THE SONG ITSELF by the same name with the same lyrics.

How did I just now make the connection. FUCK

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pitchfork Music Festival 2021 Preview: 15 Can’t-miss Acts

black midi; Photo by YIS KID

BY JORDAN MAINZER

While yours truly won’t be attending Pitchfork Music Festival this year, SILY contributor Daniel Palella will be covering the actual fest. If I was attending, though, these would be the acts I’d make sure to see. 5 from each day, no overlaps, so you could conceivably see everyone listed.

FRIDAY

Armand Hammer, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

Earlier this year, New York hip hop duo Armand Hammer released their 5th album Haram (BackwoodzStudioz) in collaboration with on-fire producer The Alchemist. It was the duo’s (ELUCID and Billy Woods) first time working with a singular producer on a record (though Earl Sweatshirt produced a track), and likewise, The Alchemist actually tailored his beats towards the two MCs. Haram is the exact kind of hip hop that succeeds early in the day at a festival, verbose and complex rhymes over languid, cloudy, sample-heavy beats, when attendees are more likely to want to sit and listen than dance. And you’re going to want to listen to Armand Hammer, whose MCs’ experiential words frame the eerie hues of the production. “Dreams is dangerous, linger like angel dust,” Woods raps on opener “Sir Benni Miles”, never looking back as he and Elucid’s stream-of-consciousness rhymes cover everything from colonization to Black bodily autonomy and the dangers of satisfaction disguised as optimism. (“We let BLM be the new FUBU,” raps Quelle Chris on “Chicharrones”; “Iridescent blackness / Is this performative or praxis?” ponders Woods on “Black Sunlight”.)  There are moments of levity on Haram, like KAYANA’s vocal turn on “Black Sunlight” and the “what the hell sound is this?” type sampling that dominates warped, looped tracks like “Peppertree” and “Indian Summer”, built around sounds of horns and twirling flute lines. For the most part, Haram is an album of empathetic realism. “Hurt people hurt people,” raps Elucid on “Falling Out of the Sky”, a stunning encapsulation of Armand Hammer’s world where humanism exists side-by-side with traumatic death and feelings of revenge.

You can also catch Armand Hammer doing a live set on the Vans Channel 66 livestream at 12 PM on Saturday.

Dogleg, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

It feels like we’ve been waiting years to see this set, and actually, we have! The four-piece punk band from Michigan was supposed to play last year’s cancelled fest in support of their searing debut Melee (Triple Crown), and a year-plus of pent up energy is sure to make songs like “Bueno”, “Fox”, and “Kawasaki Backflip” all the more raging. Remember: This is a band whose reputation was solidified live before they were signed to Triple Crown and released their breakout album. Seeing them is the closest thing to a no-brainer that this year’s lineup offers.

Revisit our interview with Dogleg from last year, and catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Oso Oso and Retirement Party.

Hop Along, 3:20 PM, Red Stage

Though lead singer Frances Quinlan released a very good solo album last year, it’s been three years since their incredible band Hop Along dropped an album and two years since they’ve toured. 2018′s Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek), one of our favorite albums of that year, should comprise the majority of their setlist, but maybe they have some new songs?

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Metro with Varsity and Slow Mass.

black midi, 4:15 PM, Green Stage

The band who had the finest debut of 2019 and gave the best set of that year at Pitchfork is back. Cavalcade (Rough Trade) is black midi’s sophomore album, methodical in its approach in contrast with the improvisational absurdism of Schlagenheim. Stop-start, violin-laden lead single and album opener “John L”, a song about a cult leader whose members turn on him, is as good a summary as ever of the dark, funky eclecticism of black midi, who on Cavalcade saw band members leave and new ones enter, their ever shapeshifting sound the only consistent thing about them. A song like the jazzy “Diamond Stuff” is likely impossible to replicate live--its credits list everything from 19th century instruments to household kitchen items used for percussion--but is key to experiencing their instrumental adventurousness. On two-and-a-half-minute barn burner “Hogwash and Balderdash,” they for the first time fully lean into their fried Primus influences, telling a tale of two escaped prisoners, “two chickens from the pen.” At the same time, this band is still black midi, with moments that call back to Schlagenheim, the churning, metallic power chords via jittery, slapping funk of “Chondromalacia Patella” representative of their quintessential tempo changes. And as on songs like Schlagenheim’s “Western”, black midi find room for beauty here, too, empathizing with the pains of Marlene Dietrich on a bossa nova tune named after her, Geordie Greep’s unmistakable warble cooing sorrowful lines like, “Fills the hall tight / And pulls at our hearts / And puts in her place / The girl she once was.” Expect to hear plenty from Cavalcade but also some new songs; after all, this is a band that road tests and experiments with material before recording it.

Catch them doing a 2 PM DJ set on Vans Channel 66 on Saturday and at an aftershow on Monday at Sleeping Village.

Yaeji, 7:45 PM, Blue Stage

What We Drew (XL), the debut mixtape from Brooklyn-based DJ Yaeji, was one of many dance records that came out after lockdown that we all wished we could experience in a crowd as opposed to at home alone. Now's our chance to bask in all of its glory under a setting sun. Maybe she’ll spin her masterful remix of Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” from the Club Future Nostalgia remix album, or her 2021 single “PAC-TIVE”, her and DiAN’s collaboration with Pac-Man company Namco.

Angel Olsen; Photo by Dana Trippe

SATURDAY

Bartees Strange, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

One of our favorite albums of last year was Live Forever (Memory Music), the debut from singer-songwriter and The National fanatic Bartees Strange, one that contributor Lauren Lederman called “a declaration of an artist’s arrival.” He’s certainly past arrived when you take into account his busy 2021, releasing a new song with Lorenzo Wolff and offering his remix services to a number of artists, including illuminati hotties and fellow Pitchfork performer (and tour mate) Phoebe Bridgers. Expect to hear lots of Live Forever during his Pitchfork set, one of many sets at the fest featuring exciting young guitar-based (!) bands.

Catch him at a free (!!) aftershow on Monday at Empty Bottle with Ganser.

Faye Webster, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

Since we previewed Faye Webster’s Noonchorus livestream in October, she’s released the long-awaited follow-up to Atlanta Millionaires Club, the cheekily titled I Know I’m Funny haha (Secretly Canadian). At that time, she had dropped “Better Distractions”, “In A Good Way”, and “Both All The Time”, and the rest of the album more than follows the promise of these three dreamy country, folk rock, and R&B-inspired tunes. Webster continues to be a master of tone and mood, lovelorn on “Sometimes”, sarcastic on the title track, and head-in-the-clouds on “A Dream with a Baseball Player”. All the while, she and her backing band provide stellar, languorous instrumentation, keys and slide guitar on the bossa nova “Kind Of”, her overdriven guitar sludge on “Cheers”, cinematic strings on the melancholic “A Stranger”, stark acoustic guitar on heartbreaking closer “Half of Me”. And the ultimate irony of Webster’s whip-smart lyricism is that a line like, “And today I get upset over this song that I heard / And I guess was just upset because why didn't I think of it first,” is that I can guarantee a million songwriters feel the same way about her music, timely in context and timeless in sound and feeling.

Catch her at an aftershow on Saturday at Sleeping Village with Danger Incorporated.

Georgia Anne Muldrow, 5:15 PM, Blue Stage

The queen of beats takes the stage during the hottest part of the day, perfect for some sweaty dancing. VWETO III (FORESEEN + Epistrophik Peach Sound), the third album in Muldrow’s beats record series, was put together with “calls to action” in mind, each single leading up to the album’s release to be paired with crowdsourced submissions via Instagram from singers, visual artists, dancers, and turntablists. Moreover, many of the album’s tracks are inspired by very specific eras of Black music, from Boom Bap and G-funk to free jazz, and through it all, Muldrow provides a platform for musical education just as much as funky earworms.

Revisit our interview with Muldrow from earlier this year.

Angel Olsen, 7:25 PM, Red Stage

It’s been a busy past two years for Angel Olsen. She revealed Whole New Mess (Jagjaguwar) in August 2020, stripped down arrangements of many of the songs on 2019′s amazing All Mirrors. In May, she came out with a box set called Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories (Jagjaguwar), which contained both All Mirrors and Whole New Mess and a bonus LP of remixes, covers, alternate takes, and bonus tracks. She shortly and out of nowhere dropped a song of the year candidate in old school country rock high and lonesome Sharon Van Etten duet “Like I Used To”. And just last month, she released Aisles, an 80′s covers EP out on her Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic. She turns Laura Branigan’s disco jam “Gloria” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance” into woozy, echoing, slowed-down beds of synth haze and echoing drum machine. On Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave”, her voice occupies different registers between the soft high notes of the bridge and autotuned solemnity of the chorus. Sure, other covers are more recognizable in their tempo and arrangement, like Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell ballad “Eyes Without a Face” and Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, but Aisles is exemplary of Olsen’s ability to not just reinvent herself but classics.

At Pitchfork, I’d bet on a set heavy on All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, but as with the unexpectedness of Aisles, you never know!

St. Vincent, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

Annie Clark again consciously shifts personas and eras with her new St. Vincent album Daddy’s Home (Loma Vista), inspired by 70′s funk rock and guitar-driven psychedelia. While much of the album’s rollout centered around its backstory--Clark’s father’s time in prison for white collar crimes--the album is a thoughtful treatise on honesty and identity, the first St. Vincent album to really stare Clark’s life in the face. 

Many of its songs saw their live debut during a Moment House stream, which we previewed last month.

The Weather Station; Photo by Jeff Bierk

SUNDAY

Tomberlin, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

While the LA-via-Louisville singer-songwriter hasn’t yet offered a proper follow-up LP to her 2018 debut At Weddings, she did last year release an EP called Projections (Saddle Creek), which expands upon At Weddings’ shadowy palate. Songs like “Hours” and “Wasted” are comparatively clattering and up-tempo. Yet, all four of the original tracks are increasingly self-reflexive, Tomberlin exploring and redefining herself on her terms, whether singing about love or queerness, all while maintaining her sense of humor. (“When you go you take the sun and all my flowers die / So I wait by the window and write some shit / And hope that you'll reply,” she shrugs over acoustic strums and wincing electric guitars.) The album ends with a stark grey cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s “Natural Light”; Tomberlin finds a kindred spirit in the maudlin musings of Owen Ashworth.

Get there early on Sunday to hear select tracks from At Weddings and Projections but also likely some new songs.

oso oso, 2:45 PM, Blue Stage

Basking in the Glow (Triple Crown), the third album from Long Beach singer-songwriter Jade Lilitri as Oso Oso, was one of our favorite records of 2019, and we’d relish the opportunity to see them performed to a crowd in the sun. Expect to hear lots of it; hopefully we’re treated to new oso oso material some time soon.

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Dogleg and Retirement Party.

The Weather Station, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

The Toronto band led by singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman released one of the best albums of the year back in February with Ignorance (Fat Possum), songs inspired by climate change-addled anxiety. While the record is filled with affecting, reflective lines about loss and trying to find happiness in the face of dread, in a live setting, I imagine the instrumentation will be a highlight, from the fluttering tension of “Robber” to the glistening disco of “Parking Lot”.

Revisit our preview of their Pitchfork Instagram performance from earlier this year. Catch them at an aftershow on Friday at Schubas with Ulna.

Danny Brown, 6:15 PM, Green Stage

The Detroit rapper’s last full-length record was the Q-Tip executive produced uknowhatimsayin¿ (Warp), though he’s popped up a few times since then, on remixes, a Brockhampton album, and TV62, a Bruiser Brigade Records compilation from earlier this year. (He’s also claimed in Twitch streams that his new album Quaranta is almost done.) His sets--especially Pitchfork sets--are always high-energy, as he’s got so many classic albums and tracks under his belt at this point, so expect to hear a mix of those.

Erykah Badu, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

What more can I say? This is the headliner Pitchfork has been trying to get for years, responsible for some of the greatest neo soul albums of all time. There’s not much else to say about Erykah Badu other than she’s the number one must-see at the festival.

[rockandrollfool]

Grief And The Healing Power Of Music

I find myself in the rather weird position of having listened to three Genesis albums in the last week. I am not complaining, however they are not normally a band I would listen to. As a grown man and consenting adult it would appear I gave myself permission to exercise this choice. Autonomy can be a bind and extremely confusing at times like these.

I am well aware of why this has happened. My Mother died less than two weeks ago and I now find myself revisiting songs, albums and artists from my teenage years. Tully (2017) suggests that music can have a role in helping a bereaved person accept death ‘as part of our everyday lives’ and more importantly, we then find meaning through the experience of grief. I dispute the concept of meaning as for the last fortnight I have felt lost, overwhelmed and more than a little confused. I am aware however that grief is linear, in that, it has stages and we navigate these in whatever order is relevant to each of us. Genesis though?

I haven’t listened to Genesis in a mighty long time. Well why would you? The ‘progressive rock’ movement left a nasty after taste for me, and therefore I ‘progressed’ on to pastures new and genres that gave voice to a political awakening. You might like Pink Floyd, Yes, Camel and Van Der Graf Generator but they left me cold and I never understood the reverence and undying love many of my friends had for this music. I still don’t. The progarchives.com offer that by definition ‘prog’ was “a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility” (on-line) and bands at the time tried to push ‘rocks technical and compositional boundaries’. No honestly they did. Honestly.

In 1978 I was already besotted with punk and the clarion call to ‘never trust a hippy’ aimed directly at Richard Branson, or so it felt, owner of Virgin Records, who would and should shoulder full responsibility for the awful Mike Oldfield album, Tubular Bells. I digress though.

Heather Fellows (2020) makes the case, that music can offer ‘a safe space to feel the emotion of loss’. Those three to four minutes represent a beginning, middle and an end where we can bawl, yelp, shout and cry knowing we are contained in that time and space, safe and in turn we have sanctuary. Fellows talks about music being the outlet for the big emotions, arguing “when we listen to music that moves us, it’s hard to avoid our feelings. This can be a good thing” Fellows (2020). Through grief we can lose the sense of who we are and therefore identity can be transient. We are a child, sister, brother, friend, parent and the competing demands of these roles during a time of loss and bereavement can create a whole set of other feelings and a personal agenda which we struggle to reconcile. With this in mind music can reaffirm who we are and more importantly re-establish our spiritual roots, a reminder of self, of purpose and where we came from. Genesis though?

DiMaio (2017) argues that research conducted by O Callaghan (2013) evidences a highly nuanced relationship between people that are bereaved and music. The findings evidence that 70% of people involved felt that music helped them find “meaning and beauty in life” after the death of someone close. Equally people found that music helped confront pain and find meaning at a time when logic felt in very short supply. The participants were able to share stories, memories, thoughts, feelings and insights related to music and grief. In most cases people were able to confront their pain, adapt to loss and continue to develop a bond with the person that has died.

I cannot attribute any of the above to my current on-going audio relationship with Genesis. The 1978 album “then there were three” (Virgin Records) has proved quite a ‘rock’ in terms of support a and mechanism to revisit some of my memories of my Mum and particularly how those are located within the context of our family home. I find myself back in my old bedroom and music seems like the passage and avenue to how I now understand the world.

I would love to claim all those cool cultural reference points that others so frequently throw into conversations when considering their teenage influences. However it’s feels like I was adrift on an ocean all of my own making. Boston, The Electric Light Orchestra, Kansas, Cheap Trick, Sweet, Wizzard, Slade, T.Rex and Bowie, are not really the stuff of the cool kids at the time. Not too sure they are now.

I recently penned a piece regarding the lead singer of Boston, Brad Delp. I now know exactly why. I was readying myself for all that was about to happen. Don’t get me wrong I will stand by that first self-titled Boston album until the day I draw my last breath. However in the context of my Mum’s death I can’t help but feel that Brad, and the rest of the Boston chaps were steadying me, and reminding me that my life is so much ‘more than a feeling’ (Epic Records 1976). I could listen to that album track by track over and over. It’s a soundtrack isn’t it and a gentle reminder of the teenage Brian Mitchell and his Mum. The never ending threats regarding what would happen “if I didn’t turn that racket down’.

Tousley (2017) argues that people have known for hundreds of years that music can touch the soul, and it can heal us in the most profound of ways. It helps us remember the person that has died and it can bring ”balance, peace and harmony back into our lives, even if only for a moment” (griefhealingblog.com 2017) That seems to make sense, right here and now to be fair. I am still not too sure about the Genesis thing though.

As an aside, whilst listening to the album ‘then there were three’ in the car, I pulled up at some traffic lights and became acutely aware I had the widow down and anyone in the immediate vicinity would have heard ‘snowbound’ or ‘scene’s from a night’s dream’ emanating from within the vehicle. Needless to say I quickly turned down the volume and raised the window. I am not that ‘out and proud’ I’m afraid.

For now though I feel connected to my Mum. I always will. In the blog songsoflossandhealing.com the author argues that music ‘speaks simultaneously to both body and mind’ (2021) and that through listening to songs and tunes it allows us to really connect with “the indelible part in you that a loved one leaves in you and allows that part to live on through music” (2021) I adore this. It resonates on so many levels. It also explains the Genesis thing. So messrs Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, I’ll follow you, no need to follow me though chaps. I had very little credibility to start with. Don't take what shred of self respect I have now, if that is ok?

Blog dedicated to Joan Mitchell – My Mum

Much love

The Rock And Roll Fool

[aion-rsa]

Ma Rainey’s Life and Reign as the Mother of the Blues

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Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom stars Viola Davis as one of the most influential blues singers of all time. The real Ma Rainey was the first stage entertainer to bridge the gap between the white and the Black performance circuits. “If you don’t like my ocean, don’t fish in my sea,” Rainey warned in her 1927 song, “Don’t Fish in My Sea,” but the crowds couldn’t stay away. She was one of the first entertainers to play integrated shows in the Jim Crow South, and the first popular singer with authentic blues in her setlist.

“Madame” Gertrude Rainey was the “Mother of the Blues,” but the world knows her as Ma. She wasn’t the first woman to sing the blues. She’d actually heard it while playing vaudeville, tent shows, and cabarets. Rainey wasn’t even the first woman to record the blues. She began recordings when she was 38 in 1923, three years after Mamie Smith’s Feb. 14, 1920 recordings of “That Thing Called Love,” “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” and “Crazy Blues” for Okeh Records in New York City.

A Georgia Cakewalk and Some Alabama Fun Makers

Ma was born Gertrude Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia, or September 1882 in Alabama, according to a later census. Her parents were minstrel troupers Thomas Pridgett, Sr. and Ella Allen-Pridgett. She began singing professionally in 1896, after her father died. Her first public performance was in the 1900 stage show, “The Bunch of Blackberries,” at the Springer Opera House in Columbus. Pridgett soon performed on the tent-show circuit with troupes which set up their own stages.

Pridgett first heard country blues in 1902 while she was on the road, according to Sandra Lieb’s Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. At a stop in Missouri, she saw a young woman singer accompany herself on guitar playing a song in a pentatonic scale with blue notes. Pridgett added the song to her repertoire as an encore. The everyday anguish and joy resonated with audiences. Pridgett would continue to add songs she heard in the towns she played. 

In 1904, Pridgett married a singer, comedian and dancer named Will Rainey, and they toured as the duo Ma and Pa Rainey. “Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues” played regularly until the pair separated in 1916. Ma went solo, touring with her own tent show, Madam Gertrude Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Set, which included a chorus line of male and female dancers. The traveling troupe spent winters in New Orleans where Ma mingled with the cream of jazz masters.

In 1923, she was signed to Paramount Records by Mayo “Ink” Williams, who was the most successful blues producer of his time, the first Black producer at a major label, and the only person ever inducted into both the National Football Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. Pianist Thomas A. Dorsey entered Rainey’s world in 1924. Dorsey, who would later go on to gain fame as a gospel songwriter, was also her manager and musical arranger, much like the trombone player Cutler (Colman Domingo) in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He spotted the talent for Rainey’s touring ensemble, the Wild Cats Jazz Band. The musicians played blues, but also performed written sheet music to play contemporary jazz.

During Rainey’s five-year recording career at Paramount, she recorded with a rotating crew of musicians in various musical settings, but who all laid down genuine rural blues songs of heartbreak, betrayal, drinking, superstition, prison road gangs, and hard and easy loving. 

Rainey wrote or co-wrote about a third of the 92 songs she recorded for her label. With her strong voice, unapologetic lyrical sexuality, and onstage abandon, “the Paramount Wildcat” devoured contemporary women blues singers like Ida Cox and Sippie Wallace like appetizers. Ma wore that tag as proudly as the gold she adorned herself with after she became famous and became the “Golden Necklace Woman of the Blues.” Her only competition was known as “The Empress of the Blues,” and it was a very friendly rivalry.

Bessie Smith

Ma was performing with the Moses Stokes’ Traveling Show when she met Bessie Smith, the troupe’s new chorus girl dancer, in 1912. Ma was 26 and Bessie was 18. Chattanooga, Tennessee-born Bessie Smith had spent her childhood performing on street corners. Both her parents and a brother died by the time she was nine years old. Smith went on to be the highest paid African American performer of the “Roaring Twenties.” 

According to the book Bessie, by Chris Albertson, legends persist that Rainey kidnapped Smith, forced her to join the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and taught her to sing the blues. Bessie’s sister-in-law Maud Smith says the legend isn’t true, but it made for great publicity. While there are some accounts that Rainey was Smith’s vocal coach, it appears her suggestions were more about vocal stylings and performance. Both were virtuoso singers with distinct and personal deliveries. Ma’s slow driving moan and Bessie’s vibrant contralto were signatures. They performed together regularly and the two artists remained lifelong friends.

Both singers expressed themselves boldly, their lyrics were masterpieces of double entendre, and their lives were as risqué as the songs. The two Jazz Age divas proudly proclaimed their bisexuality. While neither confirmed rumors that they were lovers, Smith bailed Rainey out of jail when the Chicago police busted in on the singer in the middle of some erotic personal entertainment with some of her female dancers. And Rainey’s bisexuality comes through in her songs.

“It’s one of the things that I really loved about Ma Rainey,” George C. Wolfe, director of the movie version of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, tells Den of Geek.* “One of the songs that she records… is a song called ‘Prove It on Me [Blues],’ in which she sings these incredibly bold, very unapologetic lyrics such as, ‘I went out last night with a bunch of friends. Must have been women because I don’t like man.’ And that was one of her hit songs in the 1920s. And so she lived her life unapologetically that way.”

And it’s not that she didn’t “want no man to put no sugar in my tea,” as she sang in “Bo Weavil Blues,” but “some of them’s so evil, I’m afraid they might poison me.” On some occasions, however, they came up with something interesting. “My man says sissy’s got good jelly roll,” Rainey confessed on her 1926 song “”Sissy Blues.”

In other songs she admits a fondness for younger men. Colman Domingo, who plays one of Ma’s band members in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, tells us the power of Ma’s life was that she could make these things happen in a country with systems as stacked against her 1920s America.

“I love in the film how she holds her woman with her nephew right there,” Domingo says. “And everyone knows that Ma is gay as well. I love that August is examining that, that she created her world. And in her world, she is the queen, and everything she says goes as well. They know. They know Ma’s proclivities in every single way. And that was also that pioneering spirit. She was fighting so many systems at that time, being a woman, being a gay woman, in a male dominated industry. She’s a true champion.”

In her 1998 book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis sees Rainey as a revolutionary who embraces heterosexuality and lesbianism, and observes the women in Rainey’s songs “explicitly celebrate their right to conduct themselves as expansively and even as undesirably as men.” Davis sees Rainey, as well as Smith and Billie Holiday, as inspirational models for how African American women can overcome racism, sexism, and capitalism.

Louis Armstrong

The iconic jazz legend Louis Armstrong was so inspired by Ma Rainey, he stylistically paid homage to her every time he put down his horn to sing. Even his facial expressions were reportedly reminiscent of Rainey’s. “Satchmo” played cornet on Rainey’s songs “Yonder Comes the Blues,” “Jelly Bean Blues,” “Countin’ the Blues,” and “Moonshine Blues.” The 1927 re-recording of that song is featured in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but the original 1923 version was done with him, May, and Lovie Austin and Her Blue Serenaders.

Armstrong was also part of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey & Her Georgia Band’s rendition of the now-standard piece “Stack O’Lee Blues.” Ma was one of the song’s early interpreters, though her rendition actually carries the melody of the song “Frankie and Johnny.”

Along with Charlie Green on trombone, Buster Bailey on clarinet, Fletcher Henderson on piano, and Charlie Dixon on banjo, Armstrong also played cornet for Ma in mid-October 1924 for the blues classic “See See Rider Blues.” The song has been covered over 100 times. Rainey’s was the first version, and her recording was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2004. She holds the copyright.

Legacy

The singer, songwriter and astute businesswoman helped make black female autonomy mainstream. The horsehair wigs and the gold teeth she wore on stage empowered her fans. In Black Pearls, author Daphne Harrison said Rainey’s voice was “a reaffirmation of Black life.” Alice Walker cites Ma Rainey’s music as a cultural model for her novel, The Color Purple. In the song “Tombstone Blues” from the 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan pairs Ma Rainey with Beethoven. 

Rainey’s songs inspired poets like Sterling Brown, whose 1932 poem “Ma Rainey,” describes one of her concerts from the eyes of her audience. “When Ma Rainey comes to town, folks from anyplace miles aroun’ flocks in to hear Ma do her stuff,” he enthused.

Rainey also inspired the 1982 August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. In spite of Levee’s protests in that play and its Netflix movie adaptation, she did play Harlem. Ma did shows at The Lincoln Theatre on 135th Street near Lenox Avenue.

Cause of Death

Rainey retired from music in 1935, after the death of her mother and sister. She settled in Columbus and spent her time running the two playhouses she owned: the Airdome and the Lyric Theater. Ma Rainey died from a heart attack on Dec. 22, 1939 in Columbus, Georgia. “People it sure look lonesome since Ma Rainey been gone,” blues guitar legend Memphis Minnie bemoaned on her 1940 tribute “Ma Rainey” before humbly promising the good works of “the Mother of the Blues” would go on.

“Ma” Rainey was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. “To tell the truth, if I stop and listen, I can still hear her,” Langston Hughes wrote in his 1952 poem “Shadow of the Blues.” Madame “Ma” Rainey cast a long one.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom premieres on Netflix on Friday, Dec. 18.

*Additional reporting by Don Kaye.

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[coll2mitts]

#86 Carmen Jones (1954)

A sex crazed factory worker corrupts a dumbass American soldier, and when she tries to exert bodily autonomy after their relationship ends, he strangles her to death.  Cute.

Carmen Jones is a modern day retelling of the classic Bizet opera, Carmen.  Set in America during WW2, Carmen works at a parachute factory, and although she has a reputation for getting around, she has her eyes set on Corporal Joe.  The only complication is he currently has a sweetheart, Cindy Lou, and she’s sitting right next to him while Carmen puts the moves on.

The majority of the songs in this movie are from Bizet’s original opera, but with new English lyrics.  I’m all for translating something in a different medium, but Rogers and Hammerstein made the bizarre decision to require actual opera singers to perform these songs, instead of updating the style of delivery to something you don’t need years upon years of training to execute.

I probably don’t have to tell you that the majority of the actors in this movie were dubbed when they sang, including their main actress, Dorothy Dandridge, whose parts were sang by Marilynn Horne.

Again, I ask, why cast leads of your movie that you’re going to have to dub over?  This also leads to some racists fucking bullshit, where the black actors are dubbed over with white singers trying to “sound black”.  And by “sounding black”, apparently that means speaking in improper grammar and replacing any word that starts with T with a D.  It’s fucking awkward.

The songs are written in this dialect, however, so it wasn’t even a creative choice from Marilynn Horne.  It was written into the show, which again, fucking oof.  Dorothy Dandridge doesn’t even speak that way when reciting the dialogue, but the minute she has to sing, we’re treated with a barrage of dats, deres, and dens.

Carmen Jones did provide a platform for a lot of black actors and actresses to be featured in a major motion picture, but there were so many things the filmmakers could have done to prevent white voices from dubbing black actors.  Hire someone qualified to sing the role, or change the skill needed to play the role.  With the amount of talent that exists in the world, if you can’t find someone who can both sing and act, you’re not doing your job as a casting director.

(Yes, I know, I know, the lord knows I’m going to have so much to answer to when we get to My Fair Lady, I’m preparing myself.)

Opera singers are nothing *but* charisma, because there’s a good possibility they’re singing in a language that their audience does not understand.  They need to exude the emotion from their voice, and from their movements.  If you want the cast of your movie to sing opera for whatever misguided reason, cast fucking opera singers.

I have mentioned before I have a very, very, very, bad and basic understanding of French, so listening to this opera, I can only pick out bits and pieces of what the hell anybody is singing.  Thankfully, the way Elina Garanca delivers the song, I can surmise everything I need to know. 

Olga James is proof that you can cast someone charismatic and charming who can also fucking sing opera.  After Joe blows off Carmen, he asks Cindy Lou to marry him while telling her she reminds him of his mother.  I can’t think of anything less romantic, but Cindy Lou falls for it hard.  They sing a beautiful duet and she agrees to marry him that day so they can “honeymoon” before he leaves for flight school in the morning. 

Seconds after Joe proposes to Cindy Lou, he’s called to duty to drive Carmen to a neighboring city’s prison because she started a fight with her co-worker.  While Joe is initially pissed off by this, Carmen is through the roof.

Otto Preminger, the director of this film, didn’t believe Dorothy Dandridge could act “sexy” enough to play this role, so she dressed up like Carmen, headed into his office, auditioned again and got the part.  In the original opera, Carmen is sensual, and she comes on strong, but the way Dorothy tries to eat this man alive in the first few scenes of this movie is just bizarre and alarming.

Carmen tries to convince Joe to let her go in exchange with sleeping with her.  When he doesn’t succumb to her advances, she jumps out of the jeep and onto a very slow moving train.  She’s running in heels, and he’s a corporal, so he catches her pretty easily.  After tying her up and shoving her back in the jeep, he decides to shave some time off the journey by taking a backwoods road, uttering a sentence that is literally every Jeep owner’s motto:

In a shocker to end all shockers, he gets the Jeep stuck in a ditch.  Carmen offers to lead him to her hometown, cook him a meal, and when the next train comes, they can head to Masonville together.  They end up back at Carmen’s place and talk about their futures - Joe plans to marry Cindy Lou and go to flight school, and Carmen plans on having a bunch of casual sex that she enjoys.  I know I should be watching Carmen’s excellent skills of seduction, but I’m just focused on the fact that Harry Belafonte had to probably eat a dozen peaches to film this scene.

So, they sleep together, as if that wasn’t going to happen.  Carmen escapes, and Joe is arrested for letting her get away.  She sends him mail, and he continues to pine for a lady he slept with once and subsequently put him in jail, instead of Cindy Lou, who is amazing and supportive in every way.

While Joe is serving out his sentence, Carmen mopes at her favorite watering hole, waiting around for his return.  We finally meet some of her friends, like Frankie, who sings about how excited the beat of the drum makes her, IN A SONG THAT DOESN’T HAVE A DRUM IN IT, WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE.

Like, I get pizzicato is cool and everything, but this song does not justify the fire choreography going on behind Pearl Bailey.  Seriously, props to these dancers, they are doing everything in their power to try and make this song make fucking sense.

I don’t know why this makes me irrationally angry, but it does.  They could have easily added a drum part to this.  It is the worst translation of the opera to musical format, and a waste of Pearl’s talent.  I can’t.

Later in the night, the big hot-shot boxer Husky Miller stops by to revel in his latest victory.  Everyone except Carmen seems impressed, since she’s still thinking about Joe’s dick, and has probably seen that Animaniacs cartoon enough to be as bored with this as I am.  Husky seems enthralled with her, however, and asks his manager to try and convince her to join them in Chicago.  They rope in Carmen’s friends, and even though they all sing a very convincing song about how exciting it is to board a train, Carmen sticks by her man and blows them off.

Speaking of her man, he is released from jail, and instead of indulging Carmen with the love fest she expected, informs her that he will be leaving for flight school the next day.  Carmen realizes Joe doesn’t appreciate her jail-induced celibacy, and decides he’s no longer worth her time.  She tries to leave with Joe’s commanding officer, since he seems to knows a good woman when he sees one.  Joe throws a fit, and a punch, at a Sargent, which would land him 4 years in jail if he’s caught.

After coming to the realization he’s the dumbest person alive, Joe decides to flee the city with Carmen and head to Chicago.  Carmen and him spend a week holed up and boning because Joe can’t go anywhere at risk of him being arrested.  Carmen, bored and out of money, decides to hit up Husky Miller and see what that wealthy dude is up to.  Frankie’s outfit only confirms Carmen made a terrible choice in a man.

After pawning some tacky jewelry and buying a new dress and some food, Joe gives Carmen shit about paying for things, because he can’t possibly understand how she could earn money without selling herself.  He asks her to stay in the apartment with him forever, because he lovesssss heeeerrrrrrrr, and that means she has to listen to what he says.  She, rightfully, tells him to get all the way off her fucking back and leaves to grab a sugar daddy.

She has a lot of fun with her new benefactors, clearly.  Being in Husky’s pocket has a lot of advantages, and Carmen is enjoying all of them.  That is, until Cindy Lou comes knocking, looking for her ex-man, because for some goddamn unspeakable reason she still wants him back.

Joe shows up to harass Carmen, because he’s a NICE GUY, and Cindy Lou tries to convince him Carmen does not, in fact, have a magic pussy, and he should go home with her instead.  He, like the dumbass who gave up his future as a pilot to be with this flighty woman, decides running from the army and stalking Carmen is the way to go.  Cindy Lou is heartbroken, even though she deserves so. much. fucking. better. than. this. mediocre. man.

I really wish I could insert a video of Olga James singing this song, because she knocks it out of the park.  The range in the emotions on her face, from despair, defiance, anger, love, and pleading... it’s so beautiful.  The fact this woman didn’t become a bigger star is just a crime.

After the drama is dealt with, Husky Miller takes his glamtourage to one of his fights and punches this shit out of his opponent, winning the match.

Joe, of course, follows them there, because he doesn’t have a goddamn brain in his head.  After Husky’s victory, he drags Carmen into a broom closet and begs her to run away with him.  Sure, he’s AWOL, and yeah, if he’s arrested he’d be sent to prison for four years, but he loves her, and that should be enough to incentivize her to live in his poorly built cage.

That is a face of a woman who is fed up with some bullshit.

Carmen tells Joe, again, that she’s with Husky and has no interest in leaving her cushy setup to hock more jewelry and never leave a shitty apartment.  Joe tells Carmen he’ll kill her instead, and she dares him to, either because she wants to die, or she underestimates how much men love to possess people that once smiled nicely at them.

Then he strangles her, concluding this cautionary tale of domestic violence.

Nothing good ever came from a man who thought he owned a woman.  Except this fire violin piece.

Prepare yourselves for a spooky double feature. We have a few... unusual films coming up next.

[ekispoilsthecosmere]

Finished Oathbringer! In this post I’ll go over some of the notes I took while reading. There will not only be full Oathbringer spoilers, but also spoilers for other Cosmere books. Let me know if you have any answers or theories!

Prologue: Gavilar says that humans trapped a “crucial” spren, making (most) parshendi/listeners/singers unable to enter forms. Is this an Unmade? If so, how did they change forms before Odium arrived on the planet? Did the Everstorm free that spren, or “fix” the singers on its own? I think the latter, because of something mentioned later (by Syl, I think). The listener who bought Szeth heard a voice speaking to the Rhythms - probably Odium or an agent of his.

Chapter 8: Renarin seemed to recognize the description Dalinar gave of Odium’s Champion, but even after the revelation at the end of the book, I’m not sure exactly what he knew... Was he just surprised Dalinar had seen the same thing? Was the fact that Dalinar had seen it some kind of proof to Renarin that Dalinar was the figure in question?

Chapter 13: NO MATING

Chapter 16: The Stormfather mentions the movement of time together with other “forces”, like pressure and gravitation. Is there a time Surge? Are there timespren? Would timespren appear around an Allomantic time bubble? Near a black hole (though this might be moot, since there would be no people near a black hole)? Do timepieces use timespren, or are they mechanical and driven by a different type of spren?

Chapter 32: JAAAASNAAAAAAH MORE LIKE YES-NAH

Interlude 2: The ardent says his patron has a strict deadline upon a certain translation. This is most certainly Taravangian, based on the events towards the end of the book.

Interlude 3: Based on Eshonai’s personality, I think the spren looking like a ball of white fire is a Willshaper spren.

Chapter 33: Cephandrius is one of Hoid’s names. At this point I thought the sender might have been Frost, but that doesn’t match upcoming epigraphs.

Chapter 37: The epigraph writer mentions a pact. From later stuff, I assume the pact was that the Shards would keep themselves separated from each other. Rock can hear rhythms, faintly. Since Horneaters have some singer heritage, they are probably the actual Rhythms. Rock also mentions a relative traveling “the third divide”. Is that a place in the peaks, or does it refer to Shadesmar?

Chapter 38: The Stormfather says that the Surge of Tension (I think?) could serve Dalinar differently from Stonewards, which confirms that Surges can indeed work differently for different Orders, as many people have theorized.

Chapter 40: The epigraph writer mentions someone named “Uli Da”. It sounds like a former Vessel for a Shard - probably Ambition’s, based on how the writer thinks she was obviously going to be a problem.

Chapter 42: Hoid is described as the “bearer of the First Gem”. Sounds important!

Chapter 43: At this point, I hadn’t yet realized who was writing the epigraphs, but whoever it is seems to have a presence on Roshar - possibly a spren of some sort.

Chapter 46: This is when I realized the epigraph writer was most likely Autonomy - we know from WoBs that Autonomy has several avatars, which fits the plural pronouns. I guess that means that their Intent is driving them towards splintering themselves in a weird way, to create autonomous beings that somehow still regard themselves as part of the Shard.

Chapter 51: Which waters? The Origin? Why would Autonomy have “tests” on Roshar? Was my earlier assumption wrong? Considering who I think the next letter writer is, I think I was right about it being Autonomy. So what are these tests?

Chapter 55: This is when I realized the new epigraph author is most likely Harmony, and that Hoid has been writing to all Shards he thinks might be willing to help stop Odium.

Chapter 57: Harmony requests that Hoid should visit in person - is that why he returned in Era 2, or had he already talked to Harmony before that? LIFT LIFT LIFT LIFT

Interlude 4: The sleepless says that “There are those who could pull secrets from your soul”. There have been theories for a good while that something is wrong with Roshar’s afterlife - all the talk about the Tranquiline Halls, the Heralds returning from death, etc... And now, in this book, the souls of the Fused staying around. I had a theory that Radiants had somehow “accidentally” attached themselves to the Oathpact by copying the Surges granted by the Honorblades (and that that’s why the Recreance happened). Much of that theory has been debunked with this book, but some of it could still hold - maybe people who are close to the Surges get stuck in Damnation when they die. The sleepless also says that “the cost would be the ends of worlds.” Worlds, plural. Not just Roshar. Are they hiding a way to free Odium, perhaps?

Chapter 64: The Stormfather pretty much confirms what most Cosmere nerds had already theorized - that the heart of a highstorm, where gems are infused, is Honor’s perpendicularity.

Chapter 65: The Stormfather mentions “Spiritual Adhesion”. Can other Surges do that too? Like, I dunno, Spiritual Abrasion? LIFT STOLE DALINAR’S LUNCH

Chapter 67: At this point, when it was revealed that Elhokar could draw, I became more excited about him becoming a Lightweaver, which had already been heavily hinted towards before. I had no idea... Shallan thinks Hoid might be Lightweaving... which he is. It’s just a completely different magic system with the same name.

Chapter 68: The epigraph mentions “the Sibling” - is that the spren of Urithiru? Is it a Bondsmith spren? Hoid says there’s at least one god worshiping him... He usually doesn’t lie about those things...

Chapter 70: At this point, seeing the description of Azure’s shardblade, I thought it was either an Honorblade, or that Azure was a Radiant - in either case, if she wanted to both use her shardblade and not reveal it wasn’t a normal deadblade, she would have to keep it summoned, or find a gem to affix to it (which might not even work for non-dead blades). Before we got to see the blade, I thought maybe she had been the one to steal Taln’s blade, but his is very unique, so Kaladin would have noticed that it looked odd.

Chapter 74: Elhokar recognizes Pattern - even more clues to him getting closer to being a Lightweaver.

Sja-anat illustration: I think the reason hungerspren haven’t been corrupted is because people in the palace aren’t hungry, so the spren don’t get close enough for the Unmade to corrupt them.

Chapter 77: In the stormshelter, Kaladin flicks away an “odd cremling” - this is most likely part of a sleepless. It had a “strange tan pattern” on the back - probably to imitate skin.

Chapter 78: The old Radiants tried to deny the enemy their Voidlight - which at that point did NOT come from the Everstorm. So was it an Unmade instead? Is that the one in Gavilar’s sphere?

Chapter 79: AZURE IS VIVENNA!! She uses color idioms! Her NAME is a color! I don’t think I would have been able to figure it out earlier than this, but I’m glad I did it here and not later when it becomes more obvious. I thought she would have a much smaller role in the book.

Chapter 82: Shallan thinks Azure is younger than she expected... Weeeell....

Chapter 83: Azure’s weapon is Nightblood-esque, but much less destructive - maybe with a better Command, or a refined process. I think I suspected it before this (don’t quite remember), because Azure did call her sword a “she” earlier. “Azure had removed her cloak and wrapped it half around her left arm” - Probably Awakening at work, but to what end, I don’t know. Just for strength? Protection?

Chapter 84: The epigraph mentions Feverstone Keep - this is the keep Dalinar sees in his vision of the Recreance. Aesudan says that Gavilar had found one of the “ancient spren” - more implications that the black sphere does indeed hold one of the Unmade. The Diagram predicted that “One is almost certainly a traitor to the others” - Sja-anat revealing herself to Shallan basically confirms that this was about the Unmade. There were theories that it was about the Orders of the Knights, for example.

Interlude 8: Mraize mentions “aether”. This must be the aether of “Aether of Night”, an unpublished, non-canon Cosmere book. Before this I don’t think we knew if the concept of aether would come back in other books, so that’s nice to have. In any case, it’s most likely NOT a substance native to Roshar.

Chapter 89: Thinking of these dead spren walking around in Shadesmar... Could you “kill” a dead spren, making it impossible to be summoned?

Chapter 90: Nightblood says he doesn’t think Szeth is evil - we didn’t know this before, since at their first encounter, Szeth didn’t react in any of the two ways we’ve seen people react to Nightblood before (wanting to possess and draw the blade for “evil” people, and nausea for “good” people).

Chapter 92: Szeth says he heard a voice in his head when he was young. Was that a Radiantspren? An Unmade? Something else? From his “I hope things go better this time” I feel like a Radiantspren is more likely.

Chapter 93: “it seemed to Adolin that her scars had faded” - Breaths don’t give healing, do they? I think this must be Vivenna learning to use some additional perks of having the Royal Locks. It could be something else though! She says she’s hunting a criminal, who we know to be Vasher. And Nightblood. What did they do? I mean, Vasher was a criminal long before he and Vivenna met. They must have done something especially bad, right?

Chapter 97: The guy in the lighthouse immediately assumes Kaladin has breaths if he’s Invested - which either tells us that Nalthian worldhoppers are very common here, or that having breaths is the easiest way to become Invested. He uses “Merciful Domi” - a Selish expression.

Chapter 98: Nightblood mentions that Vasher teaches swords to people now - it is interesting that Nightblood knows that. That means the parted after Vasher started doing it, or that they have some kind of extra connection.

Chapter 99: Is this the first time in this series that a main character actually goes to the toilet? (Shardplates don’t count as toilets.)

Chapter 100: Taravangian mentions a metal that, in legends, can block shardblades. This seems to be confirmation that aluminium can indeed block shardblades - we had conflicting WoBs on that before. However, aluminium is known on Roshar - it’s an extremely expensive metal that can only be soulcast, not found naturally. So I feel like they should have known about that property, not just spoken of it in legends. Also, Taravangian says it “falls from the sky”... What?

Chapter 101: The captain mentions that his daughter ran off chasing stupid dreams - this sounds like typical foreshadowing. I think she went off to find a Radiant.

Chapter 102: I thought maybe the painting Kaladin saw was the exact same as the one Lightsong saw in Warbreaker (since he did tell the priests to not burn it), but they are described a bit differently. Both have figures in the middle, but Kaladin’s was described as red and white, while Lightsong’s was red on red. However, Lightsong had perfect color recognition, so he could have interpreted the painting differently. The name of the painter is mentioned in this book, but not in Warbreaker.

Chapter 113: This world that Surgebinders had apparently destroyed before, was that Ashyn? Or maybe even Braize?

Chapter 114: Dalinar thinks Felt must have some Shin blood, because of his eyes. In fact, it is because he’s a worldhopper from Scadrial (he was a spy for House Venture in Mistborn). We already knew that before, but this does tell us that Scadrian eyes would look kind of Shin-like for a Rosharan. Probably only because they both lack epicanthal folds, but I guess it could be something more than that too. The Nightwatcher mentions a Blade that bleeds darkness - does she have Nightblood at this point?

Chapter 118: What’s that on your fabrial? It’s the GOM JABBAR!

Chapter 119: Did Dalinar pull the Perpendicularity from the heart of the highstorm? Or is this a separate thing? The oath that Teft swears - the Third Ideal? When did he swear the Second? It’s not quite the same as Kaladin’s, in any case.

Chapter 121: So, the Fused souls stay around on Roshar. Could that be the work of another Unmade? Apparently we don’t know what the ninth one is, right? The knife Moash uses seems to be a Nightblood-esque blade too - one that cuts on all three Realms. But it’s also different - it doesn’t seem to have a mind. It also has a sapphire at the pommel - did Jezrien’s sould get trapped, instead of destroyed? We know singer souls can be trapped in gemstones, after all - why not human ones? The “Midius” Ash mentions is Hoid.

Chapter 122: Odium says that Dalinar was not supposed to Ascend. So at this point, Dalinar is probably “attuned” to Honor, just like Vin was to Preservation after holding the power in the Well. The big difference being, Honor is splintered. Apparently Renarin is a big oddity - why? Just because his spren is corrupted? Or also because Sja-anat is defecting? Some other reason? Listen, we’ve been saying for YEARS that Jasnah is Queen. The world is just catching up.

Epilogue: A little disappointed that Hoid never uses the word “coin”, since he did so in the previous two epilogues. Those are some pretty obvious references to Awakening there - I’m a bit surprised at how obvious Brandon is making it. After first Awakening the doll, Hoid touches it again and says “Forget what I told you before. Instead, take care of her.” Is that a thing you can do? Change Commands for something already Awakened? Or is he just being theatrical? And lastly, he picks up the spren who was bonding with Elhokar. Does he want to bond it himself? Which would be his Truths? Can you worldhop with a spren?

Phew, that was quite a lot of stuff.

[onestowatch]

The Albums That Got Us Through School | Staff Picks

Life would not be the same without music. That sentiment holds twice as true when it comes to talking about one’s school years. At a time when you are going through seemingly-infinite transitional phases and overwhelming confusion is at an all-time high, music exists as both an escape and connecting force to the world outside your immediate purview; music can become something larger than yourself. 

Quite possibly the only thing in existence capable of connecting The Plastics and the rest of us, how would middle school, high school, and college us existed without those albums that quite literally defined teenage us? After all, we all didn’t grow up with lofi hip hop radio - beats to study/relax to. So, we asked ourselves what one album served as our guiding light through those tumultuous school years. 

Avril Lavigne - Let Go

From the palpable agony in “Losing Grip,” to the innocent infatuation in “Sk8er boi,” to the tear-worthy loneliness in “I’m with You,” there’s no album that guided me through the early 2000s more than Avril Lavigne’s Let Go. Introducing an emo side of pop music, Lavigne’s dark and relatable lyrics undoubtedly rescued countless young women in the face of hormonal angst. Truth be told, I still bump it in the car more often than not.

-Yasmin Damoui

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

In terms of pure listening time, Panic! at the Disco’s debut or Green Day’s American Idiot likely takes the prize for scoring my school years. However, no album embodied the overwhelming teenage urge to grow up quite like Neutral Milk Hotel’s landmark album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Released over a decade before I would ever dare to play Jeff Magnum’s haunting fuzz-folk’s meditations over the school’s PA system (the result of a misguided initiative to allow students greater control over the lunch playlist) to this day, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea exists as a nostalgia-ridden reminder to days and nights spent trying to uncover a greater, hidden meaning behind all the noise.

-Maxamillion Polo

Drake - Thank Me Later

From late nights on Facebook writing statuses dedicated to my crush to "Shut it Down," to queuing up "Miss Me" on the bus to school so that it'd start playing as soon as I stepped off... damn. That album really has everything. The braggadocios, the late-night simp tunes, a fun, flirty track for the ladies. You name it baby. It shaped me into the versatile king that I am today, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

-Green Lee

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

Masterfully melding the bellicose but anxious feelings of my wintery youth, the downward spiral lyrically guided me to the heights of teenage cliché. I stopped playing sports. I became deliberate and moody at house parties. I wrote terrible facsimile poetry to my much prettier and interesting girlfriends. I joined bands one week, quit them the next. All the bad decisions buoyed by this great album, my adolescence summarized succinctly, you could have it all, my empire of dirt.

-David O’Connor

Kanye West - Graduation

The album that got me through college was Kanye West’s Graduation. I was a junior in college when this song was out and it signified a lot of change in my life which coincided with Kanye’s progress in musical prowess. The nights we would drive around off-campus listening to “Flashing Lights” are some nights I’ll remember forever. Kanye’s legendary ‘Glow In The Dark’ tour was based on this album cycle. I remember driving two hours on a weeknight just to catch this show near my hometown with three of my friends. This moments I had around this album will always mean a lot to me.

-Malcolm Gray

Blink-182 - Blink-182

Blink-182’s self-titled album was undoubtedly the album that got me through my pre-teen and teenage years. Growing up in the Northshore of Chicago (yes the same Northshore that Mean Girls was based off of, and yes that movie was crazy accurate about the kids I was surrounded by), it was hard to find who you actually are in the midst of rumors, bullying and cliques. The album showed growth in maturity, while still sticking to individualism. Unlike most of Blink’s albums, this album showed a more mature side to their art. That was super important for me to remember, simply because it prevented me from getting warped into the egotistical bubble most of my peers found themselves in. It was also the album that really inspired me to get involved with music and touring, so I have to give those guys in Blink some mad props.

-Joe Leggitino

Bring Me The Horizon - Sempiternal

No band was able to simultaneously capture and validate the whirlwind of emotions I experienced on a daily basis in my early teenage years quite like Bring Me the Horizon. Their fourth studio album, Sempiternal, included songs such as “Can You Feel My Heart” and “Shadow Moses,” which contain brutally honest lyrics that related to my internal struggles in a way music had never done before. Furthermore, because of my newfound love for Bring Me the Horizon, I was welcomed into the punk/metal community with open arms. Gaining acceptance into this new community fundamentally changed my high school experience because as frontman Oli Sykes said, “Other hurting people can be the best therapy.”  

-Alissa Williams

Shania Twain - UP!

I got this huge purple boombox one year for Christmas and got really into CDs. I found this Shania Twain CD at a Best Buy clearance aisle one day with my Dad and had it on repeat for years growing up. I’d like to blame Shania for my love of country and fire of independence from men.

-Jenna Singer

Death Cab for Cutie - PLANS

PLANS hit me just when I got my driver’s license: my first legal stamp of autonomy. Driving – by myself – to these tracks gave me a hall pass to feelings I needed to feel, in my own space, in my own time.

-Alexa Schoenfeld

Kelela - Take Me Apart

When it comes to methods of surviving the emotional (and financial) rollercoaster that is college, never would I have thought to even consider the act of being taken apart to be one of the most important mechanisms for endurance. From the austere yet liberating lyrics of “Frontline” to the end-of-the-war melodies in “Altadena,” Kelela sends listeners on an emotional, intergalactic journey through the stages of dealing with a loss in her 2017 release Take Me Apart. If I learned one thing about surviving college from this album, it's that it is okay for things to fall apart sometimes, because destruction is often a conduit for rebirth (if only that also held true for the financial loss, though).

-Bianca Brown

Arctic Monkeys - AM

Nothing throws me back more than Arctic Monkey's album AM. From "Do I Wanna Know?" to "Snap Out of It," every song on that album makes me feel like an angsty tumblr teen again. Without that album, I doubt I would've been even half as edgy going through high school.

-Alison Wu

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I didn't know indie-pop music until I heard this album. It was the first vinyl I bought, the first real band I was obsessed with. At the end of 8th grade, I found their project on Youtube and listened to it up and down in the era before ads. It ushered me into high school where I'm pretty sure I saw the world in exclusively pastel colors and thought I was enlightened because everyone else was still listening to The Black Eyed Peas. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix made me an indie kid -- I started snowboarding, wearing a lot of grey, and only listened to blog radio after this. Phoenix is still my everything.

-Precious Kato

A Day To Remember - Common Courtesy

Ever since I first discovered A Day To Remember, they’ve remained one of my favorite bands and this record specifically got me through high school. Every track on this album has an important message and it’s definitely worth listening through in its entirety. Whether you’re going through a tough time or just needing some heavy-ish music in your life, ADTR gives it all to you.

-Alissa Arunarsirakul

[allthislove]

Dis Kpop rant bout to be real unappealing to most of my followers lol 

But bear with me, y’all. If I go long, I’ll make a jump.

Y’all, I’m old. Okay? Like, let me tell you how old. I’ve been a K-pop stan for 10 years, no exaggeration. Literally, my first introduction to K-pop was one of my friends when I was a teenager sending me a BoA song because he thought I’d like her. This was literally 2007 (or maybe even 2006??? IDK) I have my biases from over the years, but also, I know pretty much who were the hottest groups/solo artists at the time. Like, when time passes and you get a little more removed from your biases, you can report honestly (I also just so happened to stan a couple of the hottest, but that’s par for the course. They’re the hottest for reasons.)

So, literally, when I see newer K-pop fans say artists like BIGBANG, EXO, Super Junior, and SHINee were irrelevant, or are currently, I get a little dumbfounded. Literally at some point, or even now, these were the hottest boybands in Korea. Many of them, in much of Asia. 

Wait, let me clear one thing up. I’m K-pop Rip Van Winkle. That’s a story about a man who falls asleep for a very long time, and wakes up to a very different world. So, my long sleep was college. For a while, while I was in college, I stanned K-pop hard, still. I even went to concerts when I had time off from classes, traded photocards with friends, downloaded songs on iTunes... Then, school got more serious when I started in my major. I had almost no free time outside of it (theatre major = death lol), and so I stanned online very little. I still sometimes watched YouTube videos or downloaded songs I liked, but my fandom became very casual. And y’all, this is a big deal for me. I mean, I was THAT fangirl. I had all the merch, spammed all the comments sections, wrote all the fanfiction, saved money so I could fly across the country to go to concerts, ran stan twitters and tumblrs, like, I was an all-in fan. By somewhere around 2014/15, I had no choice but to chill on that. It was either that, or, like, not have perfect grades, and perfect grades were my LIFE. No joke. 

So, in December of 2016, I graduated from college (university, for non-Americans), and I was ECSTATIC, and I’ve been doing well, having been accepted to grad school and done all this fun shit. So, of course, I went back to stanning. But, yenno, I just went back to stanning Marvel hard online, at first. (Did I mention Marvel? Yeah, I was a k-pop and Marvel fangirl, lol. Real man-catching shit. It’s why they’re always in my DMs, amirite?) Occasionally, I’d check back in with K-pop when something cool happened with a group I loved. Or something fuckING SAD AS FUCK, like 2NE1 FUCKING DISBANDING WTF YG???

But I noticed something. This newer group that I sorta liked when I checked out of K-pop standom had blown up. But, with their newfound fame and success came a new, horrible group of stans. Y’all might get mad, I remember Kpop savagery... but that group is BTS.

Don’t get me wrong. K-pop been like this. Fanwars are like... ubiquitous with K-pop. It’s really funny, when you’ve been far removed from K-pop for a prolonged period of time. Like, the rose-colored glasses come off and you see the shit for what it is, and it’s just dumb as fuck. Like, everyone who isn’t a k-pop stan thinks k-pop is dumb as fuck, or either irrelevant, and everyone who is a k-pop stan thinks all other k-pop is dumb as fuck or irrelevant other than who they stan. It’s counter-productive, crab-in-a-barrel shit. 

And like, I’ve been heavy in black tumblr/twitter during my K-hiatus, too, and like, I’m so used to the positivity shit, like supporting other black women/woc and supporting black-owned business and also feminist twitter/tumblr, like sisterhood and supporting and uplifting each other. So, seeing people essentially on the same team literally tearing each other down and saying how lame/ugly/untalented/irrelevant/whatever the fuck the other thing is, it’s like jarring AF now. 

(Also, K-pop... itself, and often the fandom, it’s just toxic in many ways. Racially... like, the weird racial shit still happens in 2017, and many kpop fans write that shit off. Also, with queer shit, like... the weird, fetishy way people act about queerness vs the straight up homophobic way people react to the idea of legitimate queerness in kpop, and like... lot’s of shit, but that’s a topic for another rant.)

But anyway, BTS stans. Listen, I liked BTS back in like 2014 or whatever, right before I checked out, for school. At the time, they were relatively new (rookies, even), and they had a growing fandom, but yenno, that’s normal for pretty much every newer idol group. My point is: I thought BTS were cool. That “American Hustle Life” or whatever it was was fun to watch, if mildly problematic, but eh, everything hip-hop in Korea is mildly problematic.

So, when I came back and saw them thriving, I was kinda happy. I knew they had increasing fans (many of my classmates who liked K-pop liked BTS, among other groups... often including the earlier ones I mentioned, and then shit like Monsta X and Ikon.), but I had no idea they were like... competitive with EXO until I really had this free time to stan again.

Going long, so it’s under a cut, if you GAF. I write a lot (I’m literally a writer, and writing a lot is beautiful, ask Alexander Hamilton, ask Leo Tolstoy, ask ya mama).

But then the Armys. Mostly on twitter, like, I don’t really see y’all on tumblr. I don’t follow a ton of K-pop twitters, on this blog. (I have an old stan tumblr that I sorta forgot the password to, so IDK.)

IDK, like I said, I’m old. So maybe this is a teenager thing? But there’s this obsession with calling everyone, literally every idol group outside of BTS, irrelevant.

Also, there’s this obsession with believing BTS is the only idol group to make it alone (going platinum with no features!) or, basically, without a Big 3 label to back them. OR, that none of the other idol groups struggled to gain their positions. 

Both things are silly, and to me, say you’re not a k-pop fan. Which is fine. I “wasn’t a k-pop fan” for probably the last two years. I was pretty much just watching for 2NE1 updates, or BIGBANG news via alerts on my phone, and whatnot.

But, if you are a K-pop fan, and you consider yourself a K-pop fan (like I was, pre-2015), you ought to really know better. I consider myself a bit of a k-pop historian. No, seriously, my concentration in college was pretty much performance studies/dramaturgy; which if you know what that means, it means I’m the nerd that wants to know how performers in Renaissance Italy got costumes, and what connection the play Hamlet has to Shakespeare’s relationship with his own son, Hamnet. So, when I obsessed over K-pop, I literally STUDIED it. Like, I read actual books and journal articles about hallyu, that’s the kind of nerd I am. So, here it what I know that I know about K-pop.

You do have idol groups who benefited from the level of fame their Big 3 label gave them, and especially the big idol groups that label had before them (that’s kinda... Ikon, Winner, EXO... not that they didn’t have their own journeys, but the BIGBANG, Suju/SHINee bump really benefited those groups.)

But then you have BIGBANG, and Block B. BIGBANG is a group that literally started out flopping. They began in a time when YG was a hip-hop label, and the idea of them putting out an idol group was laughable. The most similar thing YG had at the time was 1Tym, and that wasn’t an idol group, but a hip-hop group. BIGBANG was an experiment, for Yang Hyun Suk. He wanted to bring a different flavor to idol groups, who at the time, were essentially Korean versions of the Backstreet Boys. Mind you, this was around 2005, when the decision was made. So, he took his kid rappers G-Dragon and Taeyang, and his kid singer Daesung, and he brought in underground rapper T.O.P, former SM trainee/reality TV contestant Seungri, and another kid he had as a trainee, Hyunseung. Some of them were not happy that they were going to be in an idol group, as they had joined YG because it was a hip-hop label and they wanted to be rappers. (Yes, Taeyang was a rapper. He became the main singer of the group because Teddy and them thought he had a nice singing voice. Mind you, they were still very young, at this time.) Hyunseung actually got cut, and eventually went on to be a Troublemaker (lol). 

BIGBANG debuted to mix reviews. They were weird, ugly (compared to other idols), and people didn’t really get them. They had some fans, but again, that’s not what idol groups were. Idol groups were, well, TVXQ. 

Then, G-Dragon happened. YG let GD play around with music a lot, and he wrote these two songs. YG liked them, so he told GD that BIGBANG would record them. GD wasn’t happy about that, either. He thought they’d be his solos. But, it was still a big opportunity for a kid his age to get their songs produced (again, at THIS time, idols did not write their own songs. Idols barely had autonomy at all, back then. These days, a lot of idols write songs.)

Those songs were “Lies” and “Haru Haru”. Both were smash hits. I’m talking, burn up the charts, blow up, K-pop-will-never-be-the-same hits. 

Let me remind you, I was actually a k-pop fan, by then. I literally remember the shift. I was stanning Rain, at the time, because he was different than all the other idols.... who were still mostly doing cutesy shit, and a lot of ballad. 

When BIGBANG blew up (I wasn’t their fan, yet), other companies followed suit, and started changing up their boyband format. The first was probably 2PM (I DID stan them... because, yenno, Rain was JYP, and so were 2PM.). That sorta hip-hop slant to k-pop groups, it was added largely because BIGBANG changed the game. Don’t get me wrong, those guys were already JYP trainees, for the most part (Jay Park was actually a JYP trainee at the same time that GD and Taeyang were YG trainees; y’all probably know the story about YG and JYP planning to make them a trio.) But, I still say most of the hip-hop style in k-pop, specifically, came from BIGBANG. Obviously, there were already hip-hop groups, but they were hip-hop, and the genre wasn’t really crossing with K-pop in a significant way. 

Yadda yadda, Heartbreaker, Alive, GD&TOP, the rest is history, IDK.

Now, Block B. My in-depth knowledge of them isn’t as great, but I know their story.

Block B was another project-group. Cho PD, also, wanted to make a hip-hop idol group. But his idea, I guess, was to go more of a pure hip-hop direction than BIGBANG. (As you probably know, BIGBANG are genre chameleons, while Block B lean much more heavily hip-hop than BIGBANG. This isn’t commenting on anyone’s ability. Block B can cross genres well, and the hip-hop members of BIGBANG do it well, too.)

So, Block B comes out, and you know, they have kind of a smash debut (not on like a MONSTER ROOKIES level, but they did damn good.) But also, immediately, they have controversy... mostly over dumb shit like “you copied BIGBANG!��� (Which is also really funny, because Cho PD and Yang Goon actually had beef of some sort. Which also made it awkward, because Block B members actively tried not to mention BIGBANG, even though several of them like BIGBANG. And I think vice versa.)

But, Block B can’t be held down. Like, no. Seriously. So, the thrived, until the fire nation attacked. There was controversy over statements made, over their song contents, all this shit. It seemed like Block B was going to end before they started, which was tragic because there’s a lot of talent there, and nobody wanted to lose them. 

Then, just as things started to look up, again, Block B had had enough with their label, Brand New Stardom (or just Stardom). They straight up weren’t getting paid. They were literally hungry, having to scrounge or ask their parents for food, transportation, etc. It was a mess. So, eventually, they left Stardom, and the CEO committed suicide. It got really ugly. 

It really, again, seemed like Block B might be over before they even started. Which was a shame, because honestly Zico. Zico was a talent that didn’t need to be wasted (this is not shade to the other members, but seriously. Zico was their GD, he’s the Zion.T, he’s the Tablo, and if you’re a kpop fan, you SHOULD know what that means, and what kind of musician he is.)

But again. Block B can’t be held down. They rose, once again. Triumphantly. They came out with “Very Good”, which, like, GOT THEM ON BILLBOARD, and one them their first music show award, and like, blew them up.

And I don’t think you guys understand how much we all cried when “Be The Light” came out. 

And, yenno, lot’s of good things, the rest is history, yadda yadda.

These are just two stories, but yea, no, BTS isn’t the first, or last, to claw their way up from nothing, from obscurity, from relative doom. (I didn’t even talk about all the career-ending scandals that both of these groups had, that they survived and overcame. Seriously, BIGBANG almost legitimately ended in 2011. Why do you think they came out with ALIVE in 2012?)

“But, random old-head kpop fan,” you might be thinking, “nobody did for hallyu what MY BIAS-”

but let me stop you right there, see, because that’s cRAZY, to me. Hallyu been poppin since, like, IDK 2002 or 2003.

Like, who are the Hallyu Kings? DBSK/TVXQ. That’s just Kpop 101. They are practically the reason for Hallyu.

Let me give you some major Hallyu players from the past, eh, 15 or so years. DBSK, HOT, Rain, Se7en, BoA, Super Junior, SNSD/Girl’s Generation, Wonder Girls, BIGBANG, 2NE1, SHINee, EXO. Are there other realllly popular idol groups? Sure. Infinite, VIXX, BAP, f(x), just to name a few. But if you really get down to it, who was leading Hallyu all those years? These are the major players. These are the people whose music, style, popularity, made the world look at K-pop. I PROMISE you. I mean, look up Stephen Colbert’s rivalry with Rain. Look up Cassies record in Guinness for largest fan club in the world. Look up BoA’s dance chart topping US debut. Look up these people’s fame in Japan. In China. In South America. These names WERE k-pop, some still are. (Big daddy Rain/Bi has Hollywood movies, for fucks sake. Don’t you talk to me about Hallyu!)

“But, old lady,” you say to me, “I never heard of them, then!”

I know. And plenty of people, today, haven’t heard of K-pop, outside of Korea and regions where the idols are mainstream. But, yeah, the fact that a lil black girl in North Carolina in 2007 could be listening to BoA, before we had stan twitter and tumblr and YouTube was a baby that only had random uploads and when all my k-pop updates had to come from forums.... that just further proves that hallyu was already a thing. Also, my dear, I bet you’re a LOT younger than me. You could’ve been, like, 5, in 2007. I was in high school. I’m in my mid-20s, many of you are teenagers. That’s also really lovely. I love that K-pop is continuing through the generations, and didn’t burn out as a fad (which is what people have been saying ever since I bought my first Rain album.)

So, what I’m saying is... even if it’s uncomfortable for you to admit... your faves, whether that’s BTS, or Monsta X, or Ikon, or Black Pink, or whatever, ABSOLUTELY owe their success to the HUGE Hallyu strides made by: DBSK, HOT, Rain, Se7en, BoA, Super Junior, SNSD, Wonder Girls, BIGBANG, 2NE1, SHINee, and EXO. THERE WOULD NOT BE ACCESS TO KPOP OUTSIDE OF KOREA if it wasn’t for OUR presence back then. Us, in the US and Canada, and Europe, and South America, who struggled in forums just to get morsels of BoA or Rain music, who tediously translated variety shows featuring BIGBANG and Suju before there were official uploads, who made our faves SO POPULAR that shit like KCON, allkpop, and soompi were created to give us better access to them, who made such a loud impact that companies started making official twitters and YouTube channels for their idols.

I literally watched ALL OF THAT unfold. It all unfolded before my eyes in the last 10 years. It’s INCREDIBLY RIDICULOUS to suggest that shit didn’t emerge because of hallyu; because hallyu was emerging. That’s why you were even able to FIND small idol groups that didn’t come from big companies. In 2007, if you were an idol group from a small company, you’d better pray you got good variety slots to garner interest. Now, it’s par for the course for them to easily connect with fans through shit like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram (even shit like weibo, which isn’t Korean, but to reach other Asian fans.)

I’m not even going to get into skill, talent, and respect for position because of these things (because that’s a deeper convo, and look where we are already, son and daughter!)

Just... even if you never want to pick up a SHINee album, or watch a BIGBANG MV, let’s not resign ourselves to some foolish notion that every newer idol group owes not their very existence to these cats. This is not a commentary on talent, effort, or anything else. But realistically, you likely wouldn’t have even found them. They also may have never been formed (the influx of foreign fans also brought on an influx of new idol groups. That’s why there are literally hundreds of idol groups, now, versus when, say BIGBANG debuted. There’s so much pie, that everyone is jumping at the chance to get a slice. If there were only fans in Korea, new bands would still emerge, but way fewer, and less frequently.) 

Also: it is entirely possible to stan your bias group AND acknowledge the impact that seniors had on them. Wanna see me do it? BIGBANG is my bias group, but they would NOT exist without 1Tym, or DBSK. DBSK is THE boy band model. Yes, there are earlier idol groups, and ones just as big (OMG I LEFT OUT SHINHWA, WHICH IS BLASPHEMY), but DBSK CHANGED the fucking GAME, for K-pop idol bands. They’re the blueprint. 1Tym is literally the styling for every hip-hop influence group in Korea (them and Epik High, but BIGBANG is more directly styled after 1Tym). Besides that, 1Tym is the band that bore Teddy Park, who gave BIGBANG much of their early sound, and to this day helps write many YG artists’ music. If 1TYM or DBSK had never existed, there’s a large chance BIGBANG never would’ve existed. 

And, if DBSK didn’t blow up so hard, there’s a large chance BIGBANG would’ve never gotten as much international interest, especially in the early days. (The same could be said for their connection to 1Tym, who actually introduced them in the States at an early YG Concert.)

**small amendment: BIGBANG also owe a lot to Se7en, who was their big bro when they needed it most, and also fixed their names right on up. (I believe he named several members, and saved them from Yang Goon’s terrible naming. Seriously, TOP was gonna be Mark. Which is fine, if your name is Mark, but his name is Seunghyun, and YG just liked the name Mark for some reason. Se7en saved TOP’s life.)

So, can y’all soothe my old ass heart and at least pretend to understand the history of the genre you claim to love? Is that alright? Can that be a thing?

No? Y’all hate me, now? Okay... 

Till next time, K-poppers!

[wherever-i-look-blog]

At a certain point, Jimmy’s story stops and just merges with Dr. Dre. Thus giving Interscope it’s meteoric rise. Yet, as before, while we hear people praise Jimmy, Dre shares his spotlight with the artist he helped make into legends.

Jimmy

Being at the right place at the right time, sacrificing family for work, and knowing the right people. That is how Jimmy transitioned from a well-known producer to getting the former CEO of Atlantic Records, Doug Morris, to put up half the funding for Interscope. A company which started off by signing one hit wonders like Rico Suave.

Yet, from there, so began Jimmy finding his stars. His version of Atlantic’s Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and more. He discovered No Doubt after a 1991 showcase and, after a long battle, and giving them the utmost autonomy, signed Nine Inch Nails. Who, thanks to the ear and eye of lead singer Trent Reznor, who wanted a sub-label, end up bringing Marilyn Manson under the Interscope umbrella.

The man who linked Dr. Dre with Jimmy

But then comes what connected Dr. Dre to Jimmy. Of which, two things are involved: First, there is John McClane talking up Dr. Dre. Following that is Jimmy’s mentee Suge Knight and Dr. Dre creating the legendary Death Row.

Leading to a very financially successful, but tumultuous decade for Interscope. For between these provocative rock stars to vulgar and violent rap artist, Interscope’s parent company Time Warner became worried about the bad press. Not because they didn’t value the free publicity but because it wasn’t the artists being called out but them. So, with them not having enough of a stake to just undo all of Jimmy’s hard work in one swoop, they do petty nonsense. They push out Jimmy’s partner Doug Morris and then try to buy Suge Knight from right under Jimmy.

Which, despite Jimmy not fitting Italian stereotypes, naturally doesn’t work. I mean, let’s not forget he came from Brooklyn. So, like Suge, who had a similar rulebook, he relied on loyalty. After all, both men understood not biting the hand which feeds you. So when Suge was asked to come to a diner and sit with the man who helped put him on, that is what he did. He gave the runaround to Dionne Warwick, who was hosting the Time Warner rep for the meeting and showed his loyalty over a meal.

But, as much as Jimmy seemingly had the upper hand, to a point, he seemingly wasn’t ready for the culture shock. After all, Jimmy came up in a world of rock music. Where drugs and partying were a thing to worry about, but it wasn’t on the level of what Death Row had coming into his life. And, as he says, there came a point where he had to question if he was defending free speech or funding some sort of Hamas like group. For, especially as the East Coast v. West Coast beef was roaring, he felt so endangered that he’d go to public events wearing a bulletproof vest.

However, being a man of conviction, Jimmy and Interscope rode out the troubles of the East Coast v. West Coast beef, the murder of Tupac, and Time Warner trying to destroy his company. Leaving him, as many times before, stronger. Stronger and in a better position to take chances.

Commentary

I was kind of waiting for the point where Jimmy and Dre’s story merge because, Jimmy has been given the short end of the stick. Like said in the first two parts, his story has mostly been name dropping. He was mentored by this person pictured, worked with this artist, signed this one, and that’s it. In a way, it is like reading a Wikipedia page with videos and pictures. Something where you get enough details to be knowledgeable, but not to fully say you are an expert.

Which I attributed to the fact most of the people Jimmy worked with were already established by the time he came in. So, with that, naturally, he can’t have stories like Dre where there is a conversation about how this person was discovered, what Jimmy did for them and etc. Yet with No Doubt, you see that opportunity. And while I’m not a huge fan of them as a group, nor Gwen Stefani, I would have loved the same time and effort put into Snoop Dogg, Tupac, and etc into her rise to fame.

Especially because, unlike Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks and the rest, there is no excuse of things not being photographed or videoed. Granted, it is ’91 and YouTube and all that doesn’t exist, much less everyone having a phone with a camera, but surely we could have gotten more than what we got right? There could have been a real focus on how Interscope grew outside of Death Row. I mean, No Doubt aside, I would have loved to see Marilyn Manson studio sessions, and the other people Jimmy or Trent brought to the label.

And then when it comes to the personal side, I’ve come to accept, especially with the way Jimmy’s ex-wife talks, that is pretty non-existent. From Monday to Sunday, even at midnight, Jimmy worked. Supposedly, for a year, he cooped himself into a bathroom to haggle for Nine Inch Nails’ contract. So while we may get to know the business acumen of Jimmy, the actual person is just going to remain a mystery. Possibly because you can’t separate Jimmy the business man from Jimmy, the guy from Brooklyn.

Dr. Dre

We ended at Ruthless and pickup at Death Row. We watch the rise of Snoop Dogg, in detail, see how the Rodney King beating influenced Dre’s music, and see him bottoming out after a DUI. Basically, a lot of what you see in Straight Outta Compton and past documentaries and biopics which cover Death Row. Including the infamous 1995 Source Awards.

The only thing sort of unique to this is you get more out of how P. Diddy felt about the East Coast v. West Coast beef, alongside some of Nas’ thoughts. Outside of that, if you have invested any time into learning about the history of Hip-Hop/ Rap in the 90s, you don’t get to hear or see anything new.

Well, outside of seeing Suge, for a good portion of part 3, being portrayed in a kind of positive light. Until the end of course. Then people start clamming up for they don’t want to speak of what happened at Death Row behind closed doors.

Commentary

I’ve really come to the mindset where I think this is Dre’s story featuring Jimmy Iovine’s. So with them now working together, I almost fully expect Jimmy’s own story to pretty much be put to the wayside. Especially since he is established, his life is without much in the way of troubles, and there is the question of what is left for him to give? Him talking about his divorce from Vickie? Maybe how his children dealt with him being a workaholic?

If the previous parts have shown anything it is that Jimmy isn’t going to go there with us. There isn’t going to be a real search for how he felt about this artist or situation, besides whether it was BS or lucrative. Which, again, comparing it to Dr. Dre’s story, I guess is supposed to compensate for how personal Dre’s journey is.

Jimmy’s journey is about the business side and Dre’s about how a boy became a man. Which may not interest everyone involved but ultimately shows you how these two came together. Much less, through networking and mentorship, alongside having a good ear, it allows you to understand how someone like Jimmy Iovine ends up being a mentor to a man like Suge Knight. Much less, becoming like a big brother to a famous rapper and producer and helping him become a multi-millionaire without stepping into a studio.

Collected Quote(s)

[…] as success builds, as visibility builds, as fame builds, people react differently.

Fear is a good thing ‘cause it can keep you in check.

#TheDefiantOnes: Part 3 - Recap/ Review (with Spoilers) At a certain point, Jimmy’s story stops and just merges with Dr. Dre. Thus giving Interscope it’s meteoric rise.

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

11 Incredible Stephen Hawking Quotes

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11 Incredible Stephen Hawking Quotes

The great filmmaker Albert Maysles once explained the power of nonfiction moviemaking by saying, “When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences, so for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”

A privilege, yes, and a privilege that’s outsized for us today. We now have access to thousands of documentaries online, allowing us all kinds of shapes and sizes of shoes to step into. To extend our personal knowledge of human experience. Thousands of little empathy machines. Small windows into lives that aren’t our own.

Here are 25 of the best documentaries that you can stream right now.

1. 13TH (2016)

Following the breakout prestige of Selma, Ava DuVernay constructed an exploration of the criminalization of black individuals in the United States, crafting a throughline from slavery to the modern private prison boom. Eschewing an overdramatized style, DuVernay calmly, patiently lays out facts and figures that will drop your jaw only until you start clenching it.

Where to watch it: Netflix

2. AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER (2003)

For those only familiar with Aileen Wuornos through Charlize Theron’s portrayal in Monster, Nick Broomfield’s documentary offers a considered portrait of the human being behind the murderer. In his first film about Wuornos, The Selling of a Serial Killer, Broomfield considered her as a victim of abuse and betrayal, with her image commodified. In this follow-up, he takes us all the way to the day of her execution, wondering how anyone would think she was of sound mind.

Where to watch it: Netflix and Amazon Prime

3. ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL (2017)

“Too big to fail” entered the lexicon following 2008’s bursting housing bubble, but while the world’s largest banks skated through, Abacus Federal Savings Bank was deemed small enough to prosecute. Steve James (of Hoop Dreams fame) has crafted an intimate, Oscar-nominated look at the Chinatown bank that became the only financial institution to face criminal charges in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, starting at the family level before zooming out to the community and country.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

4. BEING ELMO (2011)

Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, puppeteer Kevin Clash shares his childhood growing up in Baltimore and the road to a career as a furry red monster on Sesame Street. It’s a delightful peek behind the curtain to see how magic is made, featuring interviews with legends like Frank Oz and Kermit Love. Pairs well with I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story (which is available to rent on Amazon).

Where to watch it: Netflix

5. BEST OF ENEMIES (2015)

Both quaint and prescient, the televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal during the 1968 Republican National Convention show us a midpoint between idealized civic discussion and the worst instincts of modern punditry. This sly documentary explains the force of this rivalry, its ironic popularity as televised circus, and the aftermath of all the clever insults.

Where to watch it: Netflix

6. CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER (2017)

A bright palate cleanser that shouldn’t be overlooked just because it isn’t emotionally devastating. The success of this film is its ability to transfer other people’s obsessions to the viewer. Tom Hanks, John Mayer, historians, collectors, and repairmen all share their abiding love for the click-clack of a device that defies obsolescence. You may crave a Smith Corona when it’s all over.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

7. CAMERAPERSON (2016)

Patience is rewarded in this thoughtful, dazzling cinematic quilt of footage collected from 25 years of Kirsten Johnson’s career as a cinematographer. Her lens takes us to Brooklyn for boxing, Bosnia for post-war life, Nigeria for midwifery, and more.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

8. CARTEL LAND (2015)

Raw and fearsome, Matthew Heineman’s documentary puts you in the boots on the ground of the Mexican Drug War. This gripping look at Arizona Border Recon and the Autodefensas of Michoacán shows what happens when governments fail citizens who are in the line of fire.

Where to watch it: Netflix and Amazon Prime

9. CASTING JONBENET (2017)

This isn’t the documentary you’d expect it to be. Kitty Green took an experimental approach that’s less about rehashing the true crime sensationalism of the headline-owning murder of a child beauty queen and more about how many stories can be contained in a single story. Green auditioned actors from JonBenét Ramsey’s hometown and, in the process of making several dramatizations, interviewed them about what it was like living in the area during the 1996 investigations (and what they think really happened).

Where to watch it: Netflix

10. CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2011)

There’s nothing like hanging out with Werner Herzog in an ancient cave. Herzog filmed in the Chauvet Cave in southern France to document the oldest known human-painted images, which is fortunate for us because the cave isn’t open to the public. It’s a wondrous nature documentary about us.

Where to watch it: Netflix

11. CITY OF GHOSTS (2017)

Another brutal hit from Matthew Heineman, this documentary carries the audience into the Syrian conflict through the eyes of citizen journalist collective Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which both reports on war news and acts as a counter to propaganda efforts from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some documentaries are interesting, but this one is also necessary. 

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

12. DARK DAYS (2000)

Before Humans of New York there was Dark Days. This delicate, funny, mournful project is a true blend of reality and art. Marc Singer made it after befriending and living among the squatter community living in the Freedom Tunnel section of the New York City subway. Despite never making a movie before, he decided that shining a light on these homeless neighbors would be the best way to help them.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

13. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010)

Covered in spray paint and questionable facial hair decisions, this documentary displays the transformation of Thierry Guetta from clothing shop owner to celebrated street artist, but since Banksy directed it, it’ll never shake the question of its authenticity. Real doc? Elaborate prank? Entertaining either way.

Where to watch it: Netflix

14. GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO (2017)

It’s incredibly honest. As much as an inside look into the life of a global pop superstar can be. Lady Gaga (real name Stefani Germanotta) spends a healthy amount of the movie standing around without makeup, waxing wise and humorously before jumping face-first into her work and fanbase. The film focuses on her time crafting her Joanne album and her Super Bowl halftime show, but they could make one of these every few years without it getting stale because Gaga is a tower of magnetism.

Where to watch it: Netflix

15. THE INTERRUPTERS (2012)

In the middle of gang violence in Chicago, CeaseFire attempts to use members’ direct experiences to ward off new brutalities. Dubbed “violence interrupters,” Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams, and Eddie Bocanegra are at the heart of this vital film about ending community violence by employing disease-control strategies, and the Herculean task of reversing systemic criminal activity without losing sight of the humanity of the people affected.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

16. JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI (2012)

Let’s hope that this meditative, sumptuous documentary never leaves Netflix’s shores. The portrait of then-85-year-old Sukiyabashi Jiro’s quest for unattainable perfection is both food porn and a somber-sweet consideration of the satisfaction and disquiet of becoming the best in the world at something and, somehow, striving for better.

Where to watch it: Netflix

17. JOSHUA: TEENAGER VS SUPERPOWER (2017)

When someone tells you it can’t be done, show them this. The simple title both celebrates and belies the smallness of one person fighting a system. Joe Piscatella’s doc follows the explosive growth of the Hong Kong protest movement engaged by teen activist Joshua Wong when the Chinese government refused to act on its promise of granting autonomy to the region, and it is a dose of pure inspiration.

Where to watch it: Netflix

18. THE LOOK OF SILENCE (2014)

Joshua Oppenheimer and Anonymous’s sequel to the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing features an Indonesian man whose brother was murdered during the 1965 purge of Communists talking to his brother’s killers while literally checking their vision. His bravery and composure are astonishing, as is the insight into the many rationalities unrepentant men use to shield their psyches from their own heinous acts. A peerless piece of investigative art.

Where to watch it: Netflix

19. MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE (2017)

An absurdist rabbit chase and a deliberate provocation, writer/star Louis Theroux’s punk documentary poked the bear of the infamous religion in order to get access to it. They auditioned young actors to recreate real-life events described by ex-members, got denounced by the church, and even got into a “Who’s On First”-style argument with a member (“You tell him to turn the camera off then I’ll tell him to turn the camera off!”). Serious subject matter by way of Borat.

Where to watch it: Netflix

20. THE NIGHTMARE (2015)

This documentary by Rodney Ascher should be seen by everyone and somehow be banned from being seen. Not content to profile people suffering from sleep paralysis—the condition where you can’t move or speak while falling asleep or awakening, yeah—Ascher riffs on the hallucinations that sometimes accompany the ailment. As if being frozen weren’t enough. The result is a true story that’s just as effective as a horror film.

Where to watch it: Netflix

21. PUMPING IRON (1977)

A landmark docudrama about the Mr. Olympia competition, this is the film that launched a wannabe actor from Austria into the public conscious. Arnold Schwarzenegger is brash and beautiful in this celebration of body perfection which finds a balance between joy and the teeth-gritting agony of endurance. Great back then, it’s now a fascinating artifact of the soon-to-be action star/politician.

Where to watch it: Netflix

22. STOLEN SEAS (2013)

Constructed using real audio and found footage of the 2008 hostage negotiation aboard a Danish shipping vessel, filmmaker Thymaya Payne’s film isn’t content to simply shine a light on the horrific reality of a Somali pirate attack; it strikes to build a contextual understanding of what these attacks mean for the rest of the world. For all of us.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

23. STORIES WE TELL (2013)

An absolute personal stunner, actress Sarah Polley directed this docudrama about the scariest thing you can reveal to the world: your family. It’s an emotional, gamut-spanning search for identity that requires reconciling conflicting views about your parents and digging through buried secrets. Polley bringing them into full view, for all of us to see, is a selfless act that resulted in an outstanding piece of art.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

24. THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988)

A modern classic of nonfiction storytelling. Through archival footage, interviews, and reenactments, documentary royalty Errol Morris used this film to argue the innocence of a man destined for lethal injection. It tells the story of Randall Dale Adams, who was sentenced to death for killing a police officer in 1976, despite evidence that the real killer—a minor at the time—had committed the crime. A must-see for fans of Making a Murderer.

Where to watch it: Netflix

25. TIG (2015)

When you get diagnosed with cancer, the natural thing is to perform a stand-up act about it the same day, right? Comedian Tig Notaro became famous overnight when her set confronting her same-day diagnosis went viral, and this documentary from Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York focuses on the year that followed. A rocky year that deals with death, a new career chapter, a new relationship, and possibly a new child. It’s okay to laugh through the tears.

Where to watch it: Netflix