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demospectator · 1 year

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"Clay St. West of Kearny SF 1873 - First Cable Car in the World" In this elevated view west on Clay Street to the Clay St. Cable RR cable car at Kearny Street Terminus, Portsmouth Square can be seen on the right. Signage for the R. Cutlar Dentist, H. Traube watchmaker and jeweler at left. This photo is a detail from Carleton Watkins' stereo card number 2368 (Variant) under the original title: "Clay St. Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet. Worst grade, one foot in six" (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

Chinatown at the Advent of the Cable Car

This year San Francisco marks the sesquicentennial of its cable car system. In the late 19th century, San Francisco experienced rapid urbanization and faced the challenge of its hilly terrain. Traditional horse-drawn streetcars struggled to navigate the steep inclines, necessitating an innovative transportation solution.

In the predawn hours of August 2, 1873, Andrew Smith Hallidie introduced the first successful cable car system in the world. The cable cars utilized an underground cable mechanism to propel the cars along tracks, overcoming the city's hilly landscape. This new mode of transportation revolutionized urban mobility and played a pivotal role in San Francisco's development.

Historian Phil Choy wrote about the Clay Street cable car terminus at Portsmouth Square as follows:

“Following Andrew S. Hallidie’s successful test-run of the first cable car on August [2], 1873, horse-drawn cars were replaced with a cable car on Clay Street. Thereafter, the Chinese called Clay Street ‘Mo Mah Lie Ch’eh,’ which literally means ‘no-horse-drawn-car’ [冇馬拉車; canto: “mou5 maa5 laai1 ce1″]. Starting from the top of Leavenworth Street, the line ended at a turntable at the bottom of Clay and Kearny Streets, to send the car back up the hill.”

California and Montgomery streets, c. 1889. Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection / Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). The view is west on California across Montgomery, as an Omnibus Railway Co. horsecar #11 passes the Parrott Building, or Parrott Block (1852, Architect Stephen Williams) seen in background. A Chinese man is walking south at the northeast corner of the intersection. The signs for the offices of Equitable Life and Dr. William F. McNutt at 405 Montgomery are visible at right.

The introduction of cable cars in San Francisco had a profound impact on the Chinese community. Several cable car lines conveniently passed through Chinatown, allowing Chinese residents to access transportation. The cable cars provided a reliable means of travel for the community, connecting them to other neighborhoods and employment opportunities initially for domestic workers serving the mansions atop Nob Hill and eventually throughout the city.

Clay Street Cable Car, c. 1873. Photograph by Carleton Watkins and published as “Pacific Coast. 2369″ and by Taber Photo (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). In this startling image, patrons and car operators can be seen posing on or alongside cable cars on Clay near Jones Street, except for at least two Chinese men seated in the car at left. Their faces were lost to history because one man placed his hat over his face, while the other inclined his head to avoid the camera’s lens. Watkins' image may be the only extant image showing urban pioneer Chinese actually riding an early cable car, possibly to their jobs as domestic servants for the mansions on Nob Hill.

Watkins' stereo card bears the legend: “Clay Street Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet. Worst grade, one foot in six. 2369” Photograph by Carleton E. Watkins (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

“At the Corner of Dupont and Jackson Streets” c. 1896 -1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). A cable car on the Jackson Street line can be seen at right. “Two girls wearing embroidered holiday wear are crossing the street,” as historian Jack Tchen wrote in his book about Genthe’s Chinatown photos. “The store behind them is a ‘Chinese and Japanese Curios’ store located at 924 Dupont Street, southwest corner. The good-quality, expensive vases in the window display and the sign in English indicate that the store catered especially to tourists. Some such stores were owned by Japanese, but the main reason that both Chinese and Japanese goods were sold in the same store was that the general public could not distinguish between the two cultures.” (NOTE: Tchen’s location of the address at 924 Dupont appears incorrect, as the photo depicts the west or odd-numbered side of the street. The building bearing an address of 943 Dupont actually occupied the southwest corner of the intersection with Jackson Street. Directories of the time indicate that the Tong Yuen Lai confectionary operated at the 943 address during the 1890’s. By the 1905 publication of the Chinatown phone directory, the Jong Mee Cigar Store had either co-located or operated solely at the address.)

The cable cars, particularly the Clay, Sacramento, California, and Jackson street lines, had played a significant role in fostering economic growth within Chinatown.

“B 3096 Clay Street Hill, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1886. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). In this view east on the south side of Clay Street, and just above Dupont, the trees of Portsmouth Square can in the distance at left, a horsecar can be seen on Kearny and an original Clay Street cable car. The large billboard for Globe Business College and Conservatory of Music in distance. The large vertical sign in Chinese denotes an herbalist or apothecary store.

The view east on Clay Street, c. 1888. (Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society). A cable car is in the process of crossing Dupont Street and heading west up the hill. The balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant appear at left.

“161 Street Scene in Chinatown,” no date. Photographer unknown (from a private French collection). A cable car can be seen traveling west on Clay passing Stockton Street.

“Chinese Quarter, San Francisco, Cal.” c. 1891. Photograph by A.J. McDonald (from a private collection). A cable car is seen passing the 800-block of Clay Street between Dupont St. and Waverly Place. The decorated balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant can be seen at center.

“B 2807 Lotta’s Fountain, and junction of Market, Kearny a& Geary Streets, S.F.” c. late 1880s. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from a private collection). A Market Street Cable Rail car appears in the right foreground. Two Chinese men can be seen in the background at left on the sidewalk between the two lampposts and under the Philadelphia Lager sign.

“Carrying New Year Presents” c. 1900-1905. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). A cable car can be seen on the hill just behind the head of the young woman in the photo. She appears to have been a servant to the family of prominent merchant Lew Kan. The boy in the photo is Lew Bing Yuen, the older son, who also appears in Genthe’s well-known photo “Children of the High Class.”

After transformation of post-1906 Chinatown into the “Oriental City,” this urban transit network remained crucial the neighborhood’s integration with the citywide economy. Tourists and locals utilized the cable car system, and Chinese-owned businesses along, and in proximity to, the cable car lines experienced increased patronage. This urban mobility represented by the cable car system, even after its reduction to only two lines, has sustained the Chinese community from it pioneer beginnings to this day.

“San Francisco Cable Car Lines at the Fullest Extent of Operation (1890s)” (courtesy of the Cable Car Museum). As the Cable Car Museum advises here, “Clay Street Hill Railroad was the sole cable car company for 4 years. A former horsecar company, Sutter Street Railroad, developed its own version of Hallidie's patented system and began cable service in 1877, followed by California Street Cable Railroad -1878, Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railroad -1880, Presidio & Ferries Railroad -1882, Market Street Cable Railway -1883, Ferries & Cliff House Railway -1888, and Omnibus Railroad & Cable Company -1889.” At its peak, the San Francisco companies had laid “53 miles of track stretching from the Ferry Building to the Presidio, to Golden Gate Park, to the Castro, to the Mission.”

For the Chinese families who began to populate the eastern slopes of Nob and Russian Hills (and the garment workers in the small sewing factories along Pacific Avenue west of Stockton Street), the cable cars served as their principal transit system until the establishment of bus routes such as the Pacific Avenue shuttle (championed by Phil Chin and his Chinatown Transportation Improvement Project crew a half-century ago), and now known as the no. 12 Folsom/Pacific line.

A group of women (at least one of whom has bound feet) disembarks from a cable car in 1908. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). For women with bound feet (including great grandmothers on both sides of my family), the cars represented not only convenience but a necessary travel option for the residents navigating the hilly topography of San Francisco Chinatown.

The clang of cable car bells and the snap of the cable in the tracks remain an integral part of the soundtrack for the several generations of Chinese children who grew up in the greater Chinatown area.

Cable cars symbolized the vital role of urban transportation in fostering connections and opportunities -- providing convenient travel options for the residents of Chinatown, maintaining the neighborhood’s economy during hard times, and tying the segregated Chinese community to the larger city.

“Convergence of Cultures” oil painting by Mian Situ.

[updated 2023-8-14]

#Chinatown and the cable cars #Chinese riding 1873 cable car #Carleton Watkins #Andrew Hallidie #Clay Street cable car line #Chinatown Transportation Improvement Project #Lew Kan #Lew Bing Yuen #Sacramento Street cable car line #Jackson Street cable car line #Market Street Cable Rail line

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tweedheadsaustralia · 2 years

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LA CASA BIANCA

#realty realestate property propertyforsale houseforsale

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rpf-bat · 4 years

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To Join The Black Parade

Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Written for Gothtober 2020, Day 11. Prompt: “Death Parade”.

You receive an unexpected phone call, from your old friend Gerard. He asks you if you’d like to play a role, in the upcoming music video, for ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’. But, when he sees you on set, something comes over him, that neither of you ever expected.

You sat in the studio, in front of a blank canvas. You glanced up at the diploma, hanging in on the wall, in the corner. It was proof that you had graduated from SVA, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. But, despite being certifiably good at art (on paper), you still felt like an impostor, on days like this, when you had no inspiration at all.

Your brush hovered over the empty white space, when, suddenly, you were interrupted, by the sound of the phone ringing. As soon as you saw who was calling, your expression brightened.

“Hi, Y/N,” greeted the familiar voice of Gerard Way. Simply hearing your old friend speak, was enough to make your spirits, instantly lift.

“Hi, Gee,” you smiled, moving the phone closer to your ear. “How have you been?”

Even though you talked on the phone all the time, you hadn’t seen him in person, since last summer. He had briefly returned to New Jersey, to play a Warped Tour gig. You’d hung out with him afterwards, backstage. It had been so fun - and yet, so fleeting.

“I’ve been good,” Gerard replied jovially. “I’m sorry for calling you so early, though.”

“It’s not early,” you chuckled. “It’s like, eleven o’clock.”

“Well, here, it’s only eight,” Gerard reminded you.

The East Coast was no longer his home base. He had moved to Los Angeles, a few years ago, when his band started to take off. This put him in the Pacific time zone, three hours behind you.

“How’s California treating you?” you asked. “Still staying in that weird haunted house?”

“Nah, we’re done recording the album now,” Gerard updated you. “We’re actually getting ready to film the music video, that’s gonna go with the lead single.”

“Oh, cool!” you said, interested. “What’s the single’s title?”

“It’s called ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’,” Gerard revealed cryptically.

“What’s the Black Parade?” you asked curiously.

“I have this concept for the video - well, for the whole album, really,” Gerard explained. “This guy is like, dying of cancer, and Death comes for him, in the form of his favorite childhood memory.”

“The memory is….a parade?” you guessed.

“That’s right!”, Gerard confirmed. “I kind of based it off, like, when my dad would take me and Mikey into the city, at Thanksgiving time, to see the Macy’s parade.”

“Oh, of course,” you nodded. As a fellow New Jersey native, only a ferry-ride away from the Big Apple, you had grown up going to the parade every autumn, too.

“So, this whole, like, procession of marchers, is gonna welcome The Patient into the afterlife,” Gerard went on.

“That sounds amazing,” you said honestly. “I can’t wait to see the video, when it’s finished.”

“That’s actually what I was calling you about,” Gerard confessed slyly. “We’re gonna have a lot of extras in this video shoot. Like I said, a whole parade of people. I was wondering, if you might want to be in it?”

“You want me to be in the music video?”, you repeated, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Gerard grinned. “I just thought, it would be really nice, to see you again, and have you be a part of this whole art project with me.”

Art project. That was one way to describe it. Gerard was a big Hollywood star now, with fans all over the globe. But, he still talked about the album his band was working on, in the same way, that he used to talk to you about the comics he wanted to write. Deep down, he was still the same storyteller that you used to see in class every day.

“Gerard, I would love to,” you accepted the offer, immediately. “I’ve missed you. It’s going to be so great, to hang out again.”

“I can’t wait,” Gerard said happily. “Don’t even worry about the airfare, I can get the label to fly you out.”

“Thank you,” you said giddily. You couldn’t wait to see your old friend again.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The flight to Los Angeles was long, but uneventful, and the day of the video shoot, arrived before you knew it. You gasped, when you walked in, and saw the set. There was a huge parade float, surrounded by a desolate, gray landscape. You wondered how long it had taken the set designers to put it together. You felt nervous, as you watched the other extras milling about, most of them already in costume.

They’re real actors, you thought anxiously. I’m just some random person.

Your nerves eased, as soon as you heard a voice behind you.

“Y/N, you made it!” Gerard said delightedly. You turned to face him.

“Whoa!” you gasped. “Your hair!”

“I know, it’s a big change,” Gerard laughed, running his hand through his short-cropped, bleach-blonde locks. Last time you had seen him, his hair had been dark, and down to his shoulders.

“What do you think?” he asked, seemingly a little self-conscious.

“It’s very different,” you said honestly, “But, I like it. A new look, to signify a new era!”

“Exactly,” Gerard nodded. “See, I knew you would get it….I gotta tell the guys you’re here. They’re gonna be psyched, to see you again.”

“I’m psyched to see Mikey, and Frankie, and Toro again, too,” you grinned. They were all old friends of yours.

“Oh, but first, I gotta introduce you to the director,” Gerard remembered. “His name’s Samuel Bayer. He’s amazing - he’s the same guy that directed the music video for ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’, back in the day.”

“No way!” you gasped. ‘Bullet’ was your favorite Smashing Pumpkins song.

“I know, right?” Gerard grinned. “And just last year, he did some really cool videos with Green Day, like ‘American Idiot’. I’m so happy that we were able to get him to work with us, on this video. I think it’s going to be amazing.”

“You’re such a flatterer, Gerard,” said a dark-haired man, walking over to you. “Hi, I’m Samuel.”

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you introduced yourself, shaking the director’s hand.

“I heard you’re an SVA grad, too, right?” Samuel smiled.

“Yeah, Gerard and I both graduated in ‘99,” you nodded. “You went, there, too?”

“Yeah, I was in the class of ‘87,” Samuel explained.

“Wow...small world.”

“For sure,” Samuel laughed. “Anyway, Y/N, are you ready to get changed into your costume?”

“What am I going to wear?” you wondered.

“Oh, you’re going to love it,” Gerard gushed. “We had Colleen Atwood design all the costumes for us. She’s incredible.”

“She’s the same lady, who designed the costumes for Edward Scissorhands,” Samuel added informatively.

“Whoa,” you gaped. This really was an all-star film crew. Did you really belong here?

“Here’s your outfit,” Samuel smiled, handing you in the garment bag. “Go ahead and get changed, we’ll meet you back here in five.”

“O-okay,” you gulped, suddenly unsure, if you could pull the role off - no matter how small it was.

“Don’t worry,” Gerard assured you. “I know you better than anyone, Y/N. I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Thanks,” you said softly, calmed by his words.

“I have to go fake-sing for the camera,” Gerard chuckled. “I’ll see you soon.”

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You took the garment bag into the bathroom, unzipping it, to reveal the costume inside.

The jacket, you noticed, was black, with a marching band style collar - pretty similar to what Gerard was wearing, when you walked in. The only difference was that yours was sleeveless. Instead of pants, your jacket was paired with a black skirt.

You hesitantly changed into the outfit. You flushed, when you looked at yourself in the mirror. The skirt was short - almost too short.

You didn’t wear things like this very often. You constantly got paint on your clothes, so you never wanted to wear anything too fancy. It would just get ruined. Most of the time, you could be found in oversized sweaters, and ratty jeans.

I can’t refuse to wear it, though, you told yourself. Even if it feels kind of uncomfortable….Gerard spent a lot of time and money to bring me out here. The least I can do, is play my role, without complaining.

You walked back onto the set, your legs feeling cold and exposed. Gerard and the band had just wrapped a scene on the float, miming playing their instruments.

“Cut!” Samuel called. “Okay, I think that was a good take!”

Done with his part, Gerard strolled back over to you.

“.....Wow,” he gaped when he laid eyes on you, his eyes widening.

“Wow, what?” you blinked, feeling self-conscious.

“Wow, you look amazing,” Gerard said, blushing. “I...I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear something like this before.”

“Oh, you think it suits me?” you asked hesitantly. You hadn’t expected this reaction.

“Absolutely,” Gerard complimented. “Have you been...working out?”

“Oh, you mean, my legs?” you realized, blushing. “Yeah, I’ve been jogging a lot…”

He stared at your uncovered thighs, making your cheeks turn hot.

“Ah, there’s my Fear!” Samuel smiled, walking over to you.

“Fear?” you repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, you’ll be playing the role of Fear,” Samuel explained, “and this young lady here, will be playing Regret.”

He indicated a petite actress, whose costume was identical to yours. “Regret” gave you a friendly wave.

“As soon as you’re done in the makeup chair, you ladies can do your scene with Lukas,” Samuel directed.

“Who’s Lukas?” you asked.

“Lukas Haas is playing The Patient,” Gerard explained. “He’s a great actor.”

“Oh, our main character,” you nodded. “Ok, I guess I better head over there!”

You were surprised, how Gerard’s eyes seemed to follow you, as you walked away. It was almost as if he didn’t want you to leave his side.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“Ok, we’re going to start moving the parade float forward!” Samuel announced. “Processioners, I need you to start walking forward, beside it, okay?”

You stood in line, and at his signal, you and the rest of the ‘parade’ began to march forward, towards the camera. You tried not to glance up too obviously at Gerard, who was standing on top of the float, beside you. The guys were up there with him, in matching marching band jackets. You had to admit, it was a striking look.

Lukas stumbled towards the front of the parade, wearing his hospital gown and slippers. He looked confused, and sad - a befitting expression, for a character, who was supposed to be newly deceased.

“Ok, cut!” Samuel called out. “Gerard, you’re going to lean over the side of the float, and put the medal on Lukas, okay?”

“Ok,” Gerard nodded, dangling a military-ish cross on a chain. “Like this?”

“Perfect,” Samuel praised. “Now, I need my Fear and Regret, to come stand on either side of Lukas, okay?”

“R-Right,” you stammered, moving to the spot on Lukas’ right that Samuel was pointing at.

“Now, Fear and Regret are going to kiss The Patient on the cheek,” Samuel explained.

“They’re what?” Gerard frowned, his expression turning suddenly sour.

“It’s in the script,” Samuel reminded him.

“Just on the cheek?” you clarified.

“Yeah,” Regret confirmed. “You do one, and I’ll lean in, and do the other, at the same time.”

“Oh, okay,” you shrugged. “I can do that.”

Sure, it felt a little awkward, since you’d just met Lukas twenty minutes ago. But, at least it wasn’t on the mouth, or anything.

Samuel signaled for the camera man to start filming again, and you leaned over, in sync with Regret, and planted a peck on the actor’s face.

“Cut!” Samuel shouted. “Ladies, I’m sorry, I need you to do that again.”

“Why?!” Gerard demanded. “I thought that take was fine.”

“Because you were making a face in the background,” Samuel groaned.

“N-No I wasn’t!” Gerard denied, blushing.

“You were,” Samuel insisted. “You’re supposed to have a neutral expression, and be looking at the camera. But, you were looking down at them instead.”

“You were pouting, dude,” Frank teased. “Come on, let’s try it again.”

You repeated the take, leaning over, and kissing Lukas’ cheek again.

“Cut!” Samuel called again, looking frustrated. “Gerard, the rest of the band was looking at the camera just fine. You’re still staring downwards, with that surly expression.”

“I’m not surly,” Geraed argued. “I was making a totally normal face.”

“No, he’s right,” Mikey shook his head. “You weren’t looking, where you were supposed to look at all.”

“Let’s give it one more try,” Gerard sighed. “I promise, I’ll get it right this time.”

I hope so, you thought with a frown. How many times, am I going to have to put my lips on this guy’s face today?

“You know what,” Samuel shrugged, “why don’t we just take a break for lunch, and try again in thirty?”

This was fine with you - you were already bored, with the repetition. You wished you knew what was throwing Gerard off.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You found Gerard by the craft services table, listlessly eating a handful of Cheetos.

“Are you okay?” you asked him softly, as you filled your own plate with snacks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Gerard insisted. “Don’t worry about me.”

“What is it that you’re having trouble with?” you wondered. “I mean, all you’re doing in that scene, is standing still up there, right?”

“Yeah, it shouldn’t be this hard,” Gerard frowned. “I don’t know….something about watching you plant one on Lukas, is just getting on my nerves.”

“Why’s that?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I….I don’t know,” Gerard blushed. “I just don’t want you touching him, for some reason.”

“You’re the one, who called me, and asked me to play this specific role,” you reminded him.

“I know I did,” Gerard acknowledged. “I just….I didn’t think it would bother me this much.”

“Why does it bother you?” you asked. “Like, what is it that goes through your head, when you see me do that?”

“I guess I feel…..jealous,” Gerard admitted shyly, dropping his voice, so only you would hear.

“.....Jealous?” you repeated, heart pounding. What was he saying?

Gerard’s whole face turned red, and he stared downwards, suddenly very interested in his shoes.

“....Gee,” you whispered, touching his arm. “Look at me...are you telling me, that you wish, I was kissing your cheek, instead?”

You two had been friends for almost a decade now, but he had never made a move on you, or given you any indication that he desired anything more, than a platonic relationship. But….the truth was, you’d always found him incredibly handsome.

Gerard’s hazel eyes glanced up, hesitantly meeting yours.

“As soon as I saw you walk out here, in that skirt,” Gerard confessed, his voice soft and husky, “I wanted to kiss you, on far more, than just your cheeks.”

“....You want to kiss me on the mouth?” you realized, your face and body going suddenly so hot.

“God help me, I do,” Gerard breathed.

“.....Do it,” you said breathlessly. Secretly, you’d wanted this, for years.

“But, there’s people all around us!” Gerard said shyly.

You looked up, and saw that he was right. Actors and actresses were starting to form a line around the table, eager to grab food to snack on.

“.....Come with me,” you said impulsively, and dragged him by the arm, into the powder room, where you’d gotten changed earlier.

“Y-Y/N, what are you doing?” Gerard stammered. “This is the girls’ room…..I’m not supposed to be in here….I don’t want to get caught….”

“Then be real quiet, then,” you shushed him, and pulled him in for a searing kiss.

His shyness seemed to melt away, as his lips crashed into yours. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you tighter, as the kiss deepened.

“....Gee!” you gasped, coming up for air. You never saw this coming from him.

“Y/N, I want to make you mine,” Gerard panted, eager to taste your lips again. “Mine, and mine alone.”

You kissed him again. Your hands twisted into his newly short hair. You’d wanted this forever, but you never expected it to actually happen. He tasted so sweet, and his touch was so startlingly possessive.

“Honey,” you purred, grabbing him by his jacket collar, “I’m already yours.”

#gerard way x reader #gerard way imagine #gothtober

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kennedylandry · 4 years

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kennedy “dy” mothman landry

Gender/Pronouns: nonbinary, (they/them).

Date of Birth: March 11, 1994.

Age: 26.

Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Length of time in Crescent Harbor: on & off for 11 years.

Neighborhood: Downtown.

Occupation: Tattoo artist.

(trigger warnings: death, alcoholism)

PERSONALITY:

+ intelligent, adventurous, creative, charismatic - depressive, nihilistic, aloof, impulsive

SUMMARY

the missing kid from the landry clan shay never submitted a wc for lmfao

they aren’t technically the middle child, but they graciously took the title away from leona because they wanted it. middle child syndrome is high folks, but they embrace it. lean into it. love it.

dead mom club!!!

on their 18th birthday they tried to change their first name to mothman (all lowercase), but the the courts said no. settled for changing their middle name instead and has hated the government ever since.

never identified as their assigned gender, but didn’t have a name for it until they were 13. came out immediately and hasn’t looked back. (note: do not have your character misgender them. even if they just met, they/them only please!)

Dy is said like dye. or die. It’s cool to call them Kennedy, it just makes them feel like yall have a formal relationship and they’ll treat you as such.

got a full ride scholarship to an art school in seattle, but FUCK academia. dropped out in three weeks and has n0 regrets

Came back home, started an internship at Tatt’s All instead of school and worked their way up to artist fairly slowly since they can’t sit still in one place for very long.

wanders all over the pacific northwest without warning, but usually finds their way home -- they feel the most comfortable near their family.

alcohol makes them Big Sad. they used to have a problem with it, but they started going to AA a few years back and they’ve been sober since.

hadn’t done a vanishing act in a while until this summer, when they fucked off for what was only supposed to be a weekend but it turned into a 4 month hike along the coast, their longest disappearance yet.

it wasn’t a malicious exit, and they didn’t mean to not tell their family, friends, and job that they were taking a 4 month hiatus, their phone died and they didn’t have anyone’s number memorized. it’s fine dudes.

effort put into finding them was minimal anywAY, ASSHOLES. jk, they don’t care. missing persons report was filed and they think that’s a lil overkill.

they were obviously evicted from their apartment and all their shit is locked up in storage. can’t get it back until they pay back 3 months rent. really pissed about losing their guitar, doesn’t really care about everything else.

EXTRAS:

pansexual

poly

they’re the kid at the party who starts a bonfire for no reason.

kid is lord byron reborn and i fully intend to play them as such, thank u.

not a romantic, but a Romantic (tm)

you’re gonna have to use your imagination for their fashion sense -- lots of violent florals and aggressive colors. basically anything you’ve seen and thought “who would wear this” is right up dy’s alley. think harry styles with more faux fur.

falls in love approx 65463146 times a day

can’t sit still, always fidgeting. unless they’re tattooing someone, kid is twitching like they’ve had too much coffee

they weren’t raised to be mindful of personal space -- they will touch you or something on you without warning and i’m very sorry

at the same time, they’re also super quiet. they can be in a room for an entire conversation and you won’t know until the very end.

they don’t smile a ton but that doesn’t mean they’re not happy. they just vibin man lmao

it doesn’t take a lot to hurt their feelings. pls be nice. or don’t.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

Tattoo clients, both past and present!

Friends who can tolerate the high strangeness.

Open to establishing some exes connections -- I don’t have anything laid out for Dy in that department. Their tendency to pull a Houdini probably doesn’t lay a healthy foundation, though.

One sided crush. Meaning, Dy has a crush on your character. Your character does not crush back. This has multiple slots in their polyamorous heart.

#crescent:intro #(get to know me.)

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 3 years

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Richard Cromwell (born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh, also known as Roy Radabaugh; January 8, 1910 – October 11, 1960) was an American actor. His career was at its pinnacle with his work in Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and again with Fonda in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Cromwell's fame was perhaps first assured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), sharing top billing with Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone.

That film was the first major effort directed by Henry Hathaway and it was based upon the popular novel by Francis Yeats-Brown. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer earned Paramount Studios a nomination for Best Picture in 1935, though Mutiny on the Bounty instead took the top award at the Academy Awards that year.

Leslie Halliwell in The Filmgoer's Companion, summed up Cromwell's enduring appeal when he described him as "a leading man, [the] gentle hero of early sound films."

Cromwell was born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh in Long Beach, California, the second of five children, to his mother Fay B. (Stocking) and his father, Ralph R. Radabaugh, who was an inventor. Among Ralph's patented creations was the amusement-park swing ride called the "Monoflyer", a variation of which is still in use at many carnivals today. In 1918, when young "Roy" was still in grade school, his father died suddenly, one of the millions of people who perished during the "Spanish flu" pandemic.

Later, while enrolled as a teenager in the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles on a scholarship, young Roy helped to support his family with odd jobs. The school was the precursor of the California Institute of the Arts, and it was there where he met fellow classmate Edith Posener. Posener, later known as Edith Head, would become one of the leading costume designers in American film history.

Cromwell ran a shop in Hollywood where he sold pictures, made lampshades, and designed colour schemes for houses. As Cromwell developed his talents for lifelike mask-making and oil painting, he formed friendships in the late 1920s with various film starlets who posed for him and collected his works, including Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Claire Dubrey and Ann Sothern. Actress and future Academy Award-winner Marie Dressler was also a friend; the two would later share top-billing in the early talkie film Emma.

Still known as "Roy Radabaugh", he had just two days in film extra work on the side, and can be seen in King of Jazz (1930), along with the film's star, Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. On a whim, friends encouraged Roy to audition in 1930 for the remake of the Richard Barthelmess silent: Tol'able David (1930). Radabaugh won the role over thousands of hopefuls, and in storybook fashion, Harry Cohn gave him his screen name and launched his career. Cromwell earned $75 per week for his work on Tol'able David. Noah Beery Sr. and John Carradine co-starred in the film. Later, Cohn signed Cromwell to a multi-year contract based on the strength of his performance and success in his first venture at the box-office. Amidst the flurry of publicity during this period, Cromwell toured the country, even meeting President Herbert Hoover in Washington, D.C.

Cromwell by then had maintained a deep friendship with Marie Dressler, which continued until her death from cancer in 1934. Dressler was nominated for a second Best Actress award for her 1932 portrayal of the title role in Emma.

With that film, Dressler demonstrated her profound generosity to other performers: Dressler personally insisted that her studio bosses cast Cromwell on a loan-out in the lead opposite her — it was another break that helped sustain his rising status in Hollywood. Emma also starred Myrna Loy in one of her earlier screen performances. After production on Emma was completed, Director Clarence Brown tested Cromwell for the male lead in his next feature: The Son-Daughter, which was set to star Helen Hayes. However, the part of the oriental prince ultimately went to Ramón Novarro, and Cromwell never again worked at MGM.

Cromwell's next role in 1932 was on loan to RKO and was as Mike in Gregory La Cava's, The Age of Consent, co-starring Eric Linden and Dorothy Wilson. Cromwell is also remembered during this period in Hoop-La (1933), where he is seduced by Clara Bow. This film is considered the swan song of Bow's career. Next, the much in demand Cromwell starred in Tom Brown of Culver that year, as well.

Around this period in his career in the early to mid-30s, Cromwell also did some print ads and promotional work for Lucky Strike brand cigarettes. According to his niece, Joan Radabaugh, Cromwell was a very heavy smoker. Nevertheless, at his home he was always the gracious host, as his niece related, and as such he took great care to empty the ashtrays regularly, almost to the point of obsession.

Next up, was an early standout performance by Cromwell in the role as the leader of the youth gang in Cecil B. DeMille's now cult-favorite, This Day and Age (1933). To ensure that Cromwell's character used current slang, DeMille asked high school student Horace Hahn to read the script and comment (at the time, Hahn was senior class president at Los Angeles High School). While again on loan from Columbia, Cromwell's by then salary of $200 per week was paid by Paramount Pictures, DeMille's studio. Diana Serra Cary, in her biography of Jackie Coogan, relates an episode on the set wherein Cromwell came to the aid of actress Judith Allen:

I watched as he (DeMille) systematically reduced ingenue ... Allen to screaming hysterics by calling her every insulting name in the book in front of company and crew simply to bring on tears ... Cromwell was the only man on the set who dared confront the tyrannical DeMille. White with rage, Cromwell stopped the scene and threatened to deck him if he didn't let up on the devastated girl. He (Cromwell) then drove her home himself. After that courageous act the chivalric Cromwell was unanimously praised as a veritable dragon slayer by everyone who had witnessed that scene.

After a promising start, Cromwell's many early pictures at Columbia Pictures and elsewhere were mostly inconsequential and are largely forgotten today. Cromwell starred with Will Rogers in Life Begins at 40 for Fox Film Corporation in 1935, it was one of Rogers' last roles and Poppy for Paramount in 1936 wherein Cromwell played the suitor of W.C. Fields' daughter, Rochelle Hudson. In 1937, he was the young bank-robber in love with Helen Mack and on the lam from Lionel Atwill in The Wrong Road for RKO.

In 1936, Cromwell took a detour in his career to Broadway for the chance to star as an evil cadet in an original play by Joseph Viertel, So Proudly We Hail!. The military drama was directed by future film director Charles Walters, co-starred Edward Andrews and Eddie Bracken, and opened to much fanfare. The reviews of the play at the time called Cromwell's acting "a striking portrayal" (New York Herald Tribune) and his performance an "astonishing characterization" (New York World Telegram). The New York Times said that in the play, Cromwell "ran the gamut of emotions". However, the play closed after only 14 performances at the 46th Street Theater.

By now, Cromwell had shed his restrictive Columbia contract, with its handsome $500 per week salary, and pursued acting work as a freelancer in other media as well. On July 15, 1937, Cromwell guest-starred on The Royal Gelatin Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee, in a dramatic skit opposite Fay Wray. Enjoying the experience, Cromwell had his agent secure for him an audition for the role of Kit Marshall, on the soap opera Those We Love, first on NBC Radio and then CBS Radio. As a regular on the Monday night program which ran from 1938 until 1942, Cromwell played opposite Nan Grey who played Kit's twin sister Kathy. Cromwell as Kit was later replaced by Bill Henry. Rounding out the cast were Robert Cummings and Gale Gordon.

In the late 1930s, Cromwell appeared in Storm Over Bengal, for Republic Pictures, in order to capitalize on the success of The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Aside from the aforementioned standout roles in Jezebel and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Cromwell did another notable turn as defendant Matt Clay to Henry Fonda's title-performance in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939).

During this period, Cromwell was continuing to enjoy the various invitations coming his way as a member of the A-list Hollywood social circuit. According to Bob Thomas, in his biography of Joan Crawford, Cromwell was a regular at the Saturday Night dinner parties of his former co-star Franchot Tone and then-wife Crawford. Other guests whom Cromwell dined with there included Barbara Stanwyck and then-husband Frank Fay, and William Haines and his partner Jimmie Shields. During the freewheeling heyday of West L.A. nightlife in the late 30s, Cromwell is said by author Charles Higham to have carried on a sometime, though obviously very discreet, affair with aviator and businessman Howard Hughes.

In 1939, Cromwell again tried his luck on the stage in a regional production of Sutton Vane's play Outward Bound featuring Dorothy Jordan as his co-star. The cast of the production at the Los Angeles Biltmore Theater also included Cora Witherspoon and Reginald Denny

Cromwell served during the last two years of World War II with the United States Coast Guard, along with fellow actor and enlistee Cesar Romero. Actor Gig Young was also a member of this branch of the service during the war. During this period, Cole Porter rented Cromwell's home in the Hollywood Hills, where Porter worked at length on Panama Hattie. Director James Whale was a personal friend, for whom Cromwell had starred in The Road Back (1937), the ill-fated sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. With the war's end, and upon returning to California from the Pacific after nearly three years of service with the Coast Guard, Cromwell acted in local theater productions. He also signed on for live performances in summer stock in the East during this period.

When in town, Cromwell was a fixture within the Hollywood social scene. According to the book Cut! Hollywood Murders, Accidents and Other Tragedies, Cromwell was a regular at George Cukor's "boys nights".

Back in California for good, Cromwell was married once, briefly (1945–1946), to actress Angela Lansbury, when she was 19 and Cromwell was 35. Cromwell and Lansbury eloped and were married in a small civil ceremony on September 27, 1945, in Independence, California. In her authorized biography, Balancing Act, Lansbury recounts her life with Cromwell, as well as the couple's close friendship with Zachary Scott and his first wife, Elaine. Lansbury and Cromwell have stars within walking distance of each other on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Cromwell made just one statement to the press regarding his wife of nine months and one of her habits: "All over the house, tea bags. In the middle of the night she'd get up and start drinking tea. It nearly drove me crazy."

According to the biography: Angela Lansbury, A Life on Stage and Screen, Lansbury stated in a 1966 interview that her first marriage, "was a mistake" and that she learned from it. She stated, "I wouldn't have not done it", and, "I was too young at 19. [The marriage] shouldn't have happened." Articles based on interviews with Lansbury have stated that Cromwell was gay. Cromwell and Lansbury remained friends until his death in 1960.

Before World War II, in the early 1940s, Universal Pictures released Enemy Agent starring Cromwell as a draftsman who thwarts the Nazis. In 1942 he then went on to appear in marginal but still watchable fare such as Baby Face Morgan, which co-starred Mary Carlisle and was produced by Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the "Poverty Row" studios.

Cromwell enjoyed a career boost, if not a critically acclaimed performance, in the film adaptation of the hit radio serial: Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher (1943), opposite Gale Storm. Next up at Monogram Pictures he was cast as a doctor working covertly for the police department to catch the mobsters in the very forgettable, though endearing Riot Squad, wherein his "fiancée", Rita Quigley, breaks their engagement. Cromwell's break from films due to his stint in the Service meant that he was not much in demand after the War's end, and he retired from films after his comeback fizzled. His last role was in a noir flick of 1948, Bungalow 13. All told, Cromwell's film career spanned 39 films.

In the 1950s, Cromwell went back to artistic roots and studied ceramics. He built a pottery studio at his home. The home still stands today and is located in the hills above Sunset Boulevard on North Miller Drive. There, he successfully designed coveted decorative tiles for himself and for his industry friends, which, according to his niece, Joan Radabaugh, he marketed under his stage name.

Around this time, Baby Peggy Montgomery (a.k.a. Diana Serra Cary), who had appeared in This Day and Age with Cromwell many years earlier, recalled visiting Cromwell at his home along with her late husband during this period to see his "beautiful ceramic screen which had won him a prize at the L.A. County Fair." His original tiles as well as his large decorative art deco-style wall paintings of Adam and Eve can still be seen today in the mezzanine off the balcony of the restored Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, which is today considered a noted architectural landmark.

Under the name Radabaugh, Cromwell wrote extensively, producing several published stories and an unfinished novel in the 1950s. After years of heavy drinking with a social circle of friends that included the likes of Christopher Isherwood, Cromwell ultimately changed his ways and became an early participant and supporter of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Los Angeles Area.

In July 1960, Cromwell signed with producer Maury Dexter for 20th Century Fox's planned production of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, co-starring Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Dix (son of Richard Dix), and Neil Hamilton who replaced Cromwell in the film. Cromwell became ill and died on October 11, 1960 in Hollywood of liver cancer, at the age of 50. He is interred at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California.

Cromwell's legacy is preserved today by his nephew Dan Putnam, and his cousin Bill Keane IV, both of the Conejo Valley in Southern California, as well as the family of his late niece, Joan Radabaugh, of the Central Coast. In 2005, Keane donated materials relating to Cromwell's radio performances to the Thousand Oaks Library's Special Collection, "The American Radio Archive". In 2007, Keane donated memorabilia relating to Cromwell's film career and ceramics work to the AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills.

Cromwell was mentioned in Gore Vidal's satirical novel Myra Breckinridge (1968) as "the late Richard Cromwell, so satisfyingly tortured in Lives of a Bengal Lancer".

#Richard Cromwell #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood #1930s hollywood #1940s hollywood

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residentlesbrarian · 4 years

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The First Book I Read In the Dark: Queer Witches and a Whole Bunch of Redwood Trees

The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta

Let me set the scene...we start Day 1 of this experience curled up next to the white painted fireplace desperate for warmth with two blankets, an extra hoodie, a stocking cap, and my trusty lazy husband for that much needed lumbar support.

Now The Lost Coast was a book I had checked out multiple times over the past year of silence on this blog because every time I saw it on the shelf I would pick it up, flip to the blurb, read it and go, “Man, that sounds so good! I gotta read it!” Then I’d check it out and it would sit in my locker, or in my car, or on my desk for three weeks and I’d turn it in completely untouched. But this time...this time I swore I was reading this damn book! Even if I was reading 10 pages a day during my breaks at work I was gonna finally read this book, it wasn’t going unread sitting somewhere for three weeks again. Little did I know how right I would be!

So as a bit of a precursor this is the only book of those I read in the dark that I had already started. I was 90 pages in when I started reading on Day 1 and I only get more incoherent from here so let’s do this!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Our protagonist is pulled across the country to the yawning redwood forest of northern California and discovers more than she could ever imagine. Her mom thought Danny kissing girls was the worst of her problems but now she has to deal with witches and magic and is that a dead body! This non-stop ride is just getting started!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

Okay so I would say this book pretty firmly falls in a middle ground of okay for me. It was some really great escapism for me in a time when I really needed it, but the way the book was structured and written just didn’t really jive with my usual reading tastes. It felt to me like it was trying so hard to be poetic and artistic that it got a little lost at times, no pun intended with the title of the book.

Now for the plot, which I think was maybe the strongest element of this book. The driving plot of the book never changed and was always consistent and I really liked how the author wove the magic of the world and the unique structure of how she was telling the story while never losing the plot in that unique structure. It was always peeling away one layer at a time and showing us just a bit more without holding our hand. It was very well done and kept me guessing and trying to figure out what was going to happen and how it was all going to end. Next we have what is usually my favorite part of a review but this time...isn't.

I have so many conflicted feelings about the characters in The Lost Coast. On one hand holy giant redwoods I haven’t read a book since Not Your Sidekick that had this many casually queer characters just strutting about doing their thing, but on the other hand I feel the way the story was written leaves so much to be desired. The characters feel so thin and lacking when they had the potential to be so rich and diverse. Don’t get me wrong they are diverse in the bare bones definition, but we know so little about them at the end of the day it feels like it doesn’t really matter. We have our protagonist, Danny, who we know has a strained relationship with her mother but is close enough with she was willing to move her across the country in an attempt to try and give her a fresh start. Now there are somethings that take place in the story that explain a lot of the odd things about Danny’s character and made me a lot less unhappy with her by the time the book ended but it was really hard to get behind her as a protagonist at the beginning not because I didn’t like her but because I wasn’t motivated to follow her into the story. She was just going along from one event to the next with no real drive of her own, which brings us to the Grays: Hawthorne, June, Lelia, and Rush. They at least have a consistent motivation, but they had such potential to be really interesting characters but each one fell just short for me. The closest one to a compelling for me was Rush, we learned the most about her and I think that was mostly because Danny paid the most attention to her for obvious gay reasons. Now I can’t really expand too much more without going into massive spoiler territory for the plot which I don’t want to do, because the book is good and is an experience I don’t want to take away from anyone it just fell flat for me.

So yeah, this book wasn’t what I expected and I think a huge part of that was because the blurb is so much different than what is in the book itself. And I know, as a lesbrarian I should know not to judge a book by its cover or its blurb...but that is your first exposure to the story you are going to be reading and in this case the tone was so much different. Now let me reiterate this book wasn’t bad. There were parts that were so beautifully written I had to reread them several times to take in the layers of imagery and sheer poetry of the prose, but I feel like at times that style took away from the story itself and most of all it took away from the characters so that by the end of it they just fall a bit flat for me. I do recommend you give it a shot though because you won’t find a book with a queerer cast out there and maybe it will speak to you more than it did to me.

Queer Wrap-up: Alright lets look at the this stellar tally shall we. Even with my own lack luster feelings toward the characters from a story perspective you can’t over look the fact that all but one character we interact with on page regularly is queer. That is something I have never seen before, so it more than earned its five unicorns, even if the quality was a bit lacking on the tail end the quantity really pulled it out. So we have our protagonist who is unapologetically kissing girls from page one and doesn’t ever shut up about it but also doesn’t shy away from the fact she also finds boys undeniably adorable and cute. In a scene that makes this tally easier than most she defines herself as queer so we are gonna stick with that. Within the Grays we have Lelia who is a tiny nonbinary gray ace person who will get in your face and is not afraid to be called a weirdo, June is a “femme as fuck” lesbian who is also not white (I belive Danny describes her as vaguely pacific islander at one point. I swear it was more specifically stated what her ethnicity was somewhere later in the book but I didn’t write it down at the time and couldn’t find it in my quick flip threw the book when I grabbed it to jot down their stated sexualities, but she is definitely not white), Hawthorne is a bisexual black witch who states she has “a strong lean toward masculine folks” which is refreshing to see bisexual representation that isn’t just “gay but guys exist I guess”, then we have Rush who very succinctly sums herself up with “Fat. Queer. White. Cello Player.” She is also some add rep in the form of having synesthesia where she can taste words. We also have some disability rep as June has an injury to her leg from a fall out of a tree that never healed properly and it does cause problems for her throughout the book, not the greatest rep but it’s there and shouldn’t be forgotten or not included. Man, oh man, this is the longest wrap-up I think I’ve ever written but I am still not done yet. We have Imogen who is the missing Gray mentioned in the blurb and brought up pretty quickly in the story and without spoiling anything we do get confirmation she is also undeniably queer as well as another character that I can’t even begin to talk about without a giant redacted stamp for spoiler reasons, but just know this book does have queer rep coming out its ears.

Links:

Amy Rose Capetta’s Website

Goodreads

So yes here we come to the end of the first Book I Read In the Dark it was a whimsical journey through redwoods with witches and more queerness than you could shake a widowmaker at (if you don’t get that reference read the book). I finished this book on Day 1 and immediately dove right into Book 2 because well I didn’t have anything else to do and I was kinda reeling from the confusion of this book and wanted something to ground me. The next book was one I had wanted to read for a very long time. You’ll see whether it did the job or not.

As always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

#The Lost Coast #Amy Rose Capetta #resident lesbrarian #five unicorns #3 queer girls #1 bisexual black girl #1 gray ace nonbinary person #1 lesbian #1 queer [redacted]#wlw rep #ya novel #paranormal #magical realism #go to you local library #but wear a mask #and wash your hands #and stay 6 feet apart #be safe guys gals and nonbinary pals

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bandsanitizer · 4 years

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my first impressions to superbloom (i dont discuss the lyrical content much outside of a few quotes in this but i do talk about the songs so please be advised if you read the rest of this)

okay so this album is definitely DIFFERENT

SCAR is such a.... raw??? feels like the right word. album is definitely set up to be kinda dark kinda moody. like the album art is one color but it definitely aint the way i’d color this album idk it feels dark/forrest green. the twinkly thing is cool tho very... constrasting (i’m going to use this word a lot)

Have U Found What Ur Looking For hmmmm that note he holds in the chorus??? singing the hook??? WOW and the background vocals are NICE. i don’t know how i feel but the BRIDGE WITH LIKE JUST THE GUITAR!!! this song sounds like spiraling? like it’s a very dizzy-type of feeling

LOL skinny skinny sounds NOTHING like the first two tracks... contrasting the speaker in the lyrics of the songs? maybe. it’s refreshing for a brighter sound. like full on HUFWULF made me dizzy and this is just very still. maybe a slow spin??? idk but it’s a definite outlier i think. love the guitar and the music video was pretty powerful.

Greyhound is back to the other sounds so yeah Skinny Skinny = outlier... I kinda vibe with this track. his voice is deep lol and I like that this is less... noisy? DRUMS DRUMS DRUMS and bass. i’m.... I dig this. mostly. my brain: run forrest run HOLY FCK THE RUN AND THE GUITAR AND THEN THAT GUITAR SOLO???? ASHTON IRWIN SNAPPED!!! but eeee i’m not a fan of yelling in songs so idk how i feel about it now. SIX MINUTES???? also this album is INTENSE

Matter of Time (Interlude) OMGGGG THIS IS SO PRETTY LIKE VERY ... PRETTY IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT. I love this guitar and the vocals. makes me almost uncomfortable though? I have younger Ashton feels now. but wow. okay. i’m like—this makes me emotional. FAVORITE TRACK THUS FAR like these lyrics? and the sound? if a track made me cry it’d be this.

Sunshine and those STRINGS it opens with WOW! the vocals are interesting. kinda similar to the interlude but eerie. and like the string/plucking definitely adds to that. also ashton’s voice???? like we been knew he could sing but hearing his voice so clearly is a trip. waltz-y. very fitting sound, title, and lyrics, and very fitting to ashton i feel.

The Sweetness... oh this openning is sick. I love it. VERY VERY NICE!!!! holy fck if this was played live??? DAMN. the contrast between the verses and the chorus???? very nice ai. very nice. that guitar after the second verse WOW. this is just sonically one of my favorites i think. catchy hook. that rise with the end of the second line???? although that ending is dark. very artistic contrast. OOO THIS DRUM SOLO. he went OFF with the instrumentals here. kind of has a sneaking around in the forrest vibe. like that vocal at the end is just demonic. actually this guitar part isn’t. but the song is sad. kind feels like losing an aspect of innocence or struggling to hold onto it?

I’m to Blame has an interesting opening. OOO YES THESE DRUMS!!! THOSE TOMS!!! I HEAR THOSE TOMS! The build is quite nice and I like the vocals/lyrics. “I broke you like circus ride” Kind of has a stomping? feel? There’s a genre it fits but the name of it is escaping me. Like I want to say there seems to be a Spanish influence here? THIS MAN’S FALSETTO!

Drive is the best. Like 20seconds in and it’s my favorite so far. That twinkly part too??? WOW and when he holds those notes??? YES. also idk the guitar and that 1-2-3-4 thing that happens in the background? YES. seriously hands down this track is the best so far. lyrically too. “pacific coast”??? DAMN and ooooo yes this bass part towards the end? YES and “kerosene” not me thinking of 5sos lyrics /.\ also halsey and ashton need to collab PLEASE i dunno what that wobbly thing at the end is but I LOVE IT

Perfect Lie okay those first few seconds are like a creeking door and this build into the first verse is similar. that static too??? WOW. talk about a halloween vibe. like this feels like halloween wtf. it’s very creepy. “try to love without hating you” OKAY ASHTON. love this sound in the chorus. a very... interesting sound. i love the lyrics for this chorus. OKAY i have mixed feelings. like i’m here for the chorus but the song fully maybe not my favorite. it’s up there tho. and the ending... wow.

Okay. So definitely my favorites are Matter of Time (Interlude) and Drive. Sunshine and The Sweetness are up there. Perfect Lie is interesting and I kinda dig Greyhound. Overall this album is just INTENSE and very much not what usually listen to. It’s an AMAZING album and I’m so proud of Ashton but personally I’m not the biggest fan? Like objectively WOW it’s very fresh and creative—i think—and definitely carries the artist in Ashton but on a personal level... It’s okay? Powerful with standout tracks but mixed feelings on the overall sound just cos it’s not the music I care for.

#superbloom #ashton irwin #ai

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beatdisc · 4 years

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Last week was a doozy! As well as our Black Friday RSD stock and weekly Friday new releases, we also got in a ton of re-stocks & back catalogue re-issues from several different U.S. suppliers. We've cobbled together some of our favourites here! Check below for titles + prices. Adolescents - s/t $35 Adolescents - Complete Demos $32 Amy Winehouse ‎ Back To Black $38 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (2xLP) $55 Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill $50 Beastie Boys - Ill Communication $48 Best Coast - Crazy For You $35 Big Star - #1 Record (2020 Remaster) $50 Bonnie Prince Billy - I See A Darkness $38 Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (2xLP) $55 Brotha Lynch Hung - Season Of Da Siccness (2xLP) $65 Cabaret Voltaire ‎- Shadow Of Fear (Colour) $40 Daniel Lanois - For The Beauty Of Wynona $50 Daughters - s/t $45 Daughters - You Don't Always Get What You Want (2xLP Colour) $55 Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (2xLP) $48 Depeche Mode - Speak & Spell $45 Duster - Contemporary Movement $45 Duster - Stratosphere $45 Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2xLP) $65 Elliott Smith ‎- Elliott Smith (25th Anniversary Box) $95 Everclear - So Much For The Afterglow (HQ Audiophile Remaster) $70 Everclear - Sparke & Fade (HQ Audiophile Remaster) $70 Germs - Cat's Clause $50 Gorillaz - D-Sides (4xLP) $100 Gorillaz - G-Sides $55 Gorillaz - Song Machine Season One (Colour) $50 Gorillaz ‎- Song Machine Season One (Limited Deluxe Edition) $160 Hank Wood & The Hammerheads - Stay Home $35 Hiroshi Sato - Orient $55 Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green (Colour) $70 Idiota Civilizzato - s/t $35 Idris Muhammad - Black Rhythm Revolution $38 Jah Lion - Colombia Colly $48 Jonathan Richman - I, Jonathan $40 Joy Division ‎– Closer (Colour) $50 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures $48 Joy Division & New Order - Total (2xLP) $65 JPEGMAFIA ‎– All My Heroes Are Cornballs (2xLP) $45 Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle $40 Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City (2xLP) $48 Matthew Sweet - 100% Fun (2xLP HQ Audiophile Remaster) $70 Millencolin - Life On A Plate $38 Neil Young ‎- Silver & Gold $48 Neil Young & Crazy Horse ‎– Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere $45 Neil Young & Crazy Horse ‎– Live At The Fillmore East $50 New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies $55 Newtown Neurotics - Kick Out! $40 Prince - Sign O' The Times (RSD Picture Disc) $75 Prince - Purple Rain $50 Sade ‎– This Far (6xLP Box) $230 Suicidal Tendencies - s/t (Colour) $38 Sven Wunder - Eastern Flowers $55 Sven Wunder - Wabi Sabi $55 Talking Heads - 77 (Colour) $48 Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air $48 The Beta Band - The Three EP's (2xLP) $55 The Beta Band - s/t (2xLP) $55 The Exploited - Horror Epics (Colour) $48 The Feelies - The Good Earth $40 The Flying Burrito Bros. - Burrito Deluxe (HQ Audiophile Remaster) $70 The Magic Numbers - s/t $48 The Mystery Kindaichi Band - The Adventures Of... $50 The Sisters Of Mercy - First And Last And Always (MFSL) $50 The Upsetters - Eastwood Rides Again $48 Tool - Opiate $25 Unwritten Law - s/t (Colour) $55 V/A - Pacific Breeze (Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie) (2xLP) $70 Wilco - Summerteeth (5xLP Expanded Box) $195 XTC - Nonsuch (2xLP) $70 Local re-stocks: Alien Nosejob - Once Again The Past Becomes The Present $35 Bananagun ‎- The True Story Of Bananagun $35 Blueline Medic - A Working Title In Green (Colour) $35 Boomgates ‎- Double Natural $35 Cable Ties ‎- Far Enough (Colour) $32 Camp Cope - Camp Cope (Colour) $30 Camp Cope ‎- How To Socialise And Make Friends (Colour) $30 C.O.F.F.I.N. - Children Of Finland Fighting In Norway $32 Eddy Current Suppression Ring ‎- Rush To Relax $30 Faceless Burial - Speciation $35 Harmony - Double Negative $30 Mere Women - Big Skies $30 MOD CON ‎- Modern Convenience (Colour) $35 Smarts - Who Needs Smarts Anyway? $35 Straightjacket Nation - s/t (2017) $28

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Malibu (Trixya) - DenDenMonMon

Of Lovers, Friends and Everything in Between. Part 4.- Picnic

Title: Malibu Category: F/F Summary: You’ll be fine, when you learn to move slow. Notes: If you are anything like me, you have had Malibu on repeat ever since Trixie released the single, and, since I can’t get it out of my head, well, this story came to life lol Written: Feb 2nd-3rd, 2020.

Malibu

Trixie hated Tinder, or any dating app for that matter.

Being a gay woman turned her into a target in those platforms. She’d lost count of how many men had offered to ‘change’ her, or the amount of couples that wanted to ‘spice things up’ in the bedroom. Those were the kind of comments that made her leave the app, and forget about it for months, until loneliness hit her again. It usually happened during a Friday or Saturday night, when most of her friends were out having fun, and she found herself eating cheese curds alone in her living room, with nothing good to watch on TV. That was when she would go through the cluster of apps she had labeled as ‘useless’, and click on the infamous flaming icon.

When she promised to take care of her family’s beach house for the weekend, she thought it was going to be so much fun. LA people had proven to be wild, and everybody was supposed to be beyond beautiful in Malibu, but, either her standards were too high or she had been lied to her entire life. Profile after profile and she couldn’t find a single soul that called her attention.

Just when she was about to close the app and maybe take care of herself out of pure boredom, an image appeared.

The blonde girl smiled widely at her with insanely white teeth. Her blue eyes pierced Trixie’s, making her feel as if she were drowning in their depths. There was only one picture, and the obligatory name at the bottom said Katya next to the number thirty-four, stating the girl’s age. Trixie didn’t remember having changed the age range on the thing, she never dated anybody more than five years older than her. Everything seemed off, a bit too suspicious. Nonetheless, she clicked the space that would tell her more about the person. Laughing, she finally swiped right when she read the bio, which could be called anything but that.

Take me to the beach somewhere so I can meet my dead dad.

It was a match. Trixie’s first message had been a joke about absent parents and her being alone in the beach house. Katya replied right away. The string of laughing emojis had seemed a bit of an exaggeration but, after a short exchange, Trixie was already inviting her for lunch the next day.

That was the reason why she was preparing a picnic basket, for them to eat out on the sand. Her favorite pink gingham cloth was folded and placed on top of cucumber sandwiches and fresh fruit. Right after she put a bottle of chilled wine in the basket, the doorbell rang.

With a deep sigh, Trixie rubbed her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress, and checked her hair on the distorted reflection of the fridge. The heels of her sandals resounded loud in the open space of the living room, she liked that, it made her feel extra feminine. As if the pink flowy dress, the many layers of makeup, and the styled curls were not sufficient statement of that.

Even when she had seen the one picture of the girl, she had not been expecting the person that showed up at her front door. Katya was an unconventional kind of absolute gorgeous. She was shorter than Trixie, and her black chucks didn’t help to increase her height. She wore matching black jeans and an oversized gray t-shirt, the round neck of it was slightly darkened with sweat.

“I just drove forty-five minutes on the Pacific Coast Highway, so this better be a good lay,” were the first words Katya pronounced.

Trixie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, wow! I–”

Before she could continue, the girl burst out laughing. Her hand reached to get a hold of Trixie’s forearm as she shook her head. “I’m joking!” Her face suddenly turned serious as her grip turned tighter. “It can be medium good, I’m not picky.” Without giving Trixie a second the reply she was laughing again. “No, I’m just kidding.”

“You are, like… a lot, aren’t you?” Trixie struggled to find words to describe the ball of energy slightly bouncing in front of her. For a moment, she was afraid her unfiltered mouth had insulted the girl she had just met, but luckily it wasn’t the case.

“Oh, Momma! You haven’t seen anything yet,” the girl promised as she let go of Trixie and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Katya.” The smile that she shot Trixie was brighter than the sun burning above them, and warmer too.

Chills ran down Trixie’s spine as she took Katya’s hand, feeling electricity running through her veins as she shook it. “I’m Trixie. Hello.”

“Oof,” Katya winced, shaking her head and physically taking a step back, away from Trixie. “You need to work on your greeting. That was way too aggressive.”

A scream left Trixie unannounced. She threw her head back in joy as a small ‘you bitch’ left her mouth. She wasn’t complaining, though. Their interaction had been entertaining, to say the least. Trixie could already feel herself liking Katya right from the intro. She invited her in with a smile nailed to her mouth, and a giddy feeling invading her body. It was unlike anything she had felt before, never in her twenty-seven years on Earth had another human made her feel so nervous, yet incredibly comfortable. She was really good at reading people, she could quickly put them in categories and know if they were gonna click or not. Katya was in a category of her own. Trixie, as much as she wanted, couldn’t find a mental compartment where she could place Katya.

The blonde wavy hair bounced with Katya’s steps as she moved around the house. “So, you are rich. I mean, like, Richie Rich rich, huh?” She looked at the expensive furniture, extending and retrieving her hand, almost as if she were scared to touch and ruin anything.

“Not even,” Trixie answered with a roll of her eyes. “My family is, but they always made it very clear that it was their money, not mine.”

Katya nodded, her lips pursing slightly. “Alright. I respect that.” She stopped her examination of the room to look at Trixie. “You’ve got any plans for today?” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, fully indicating she had no idea what to do next.

“I thought we could have a picnic, outside by the water,” Trixie replied proudly, she had thought things through carefully. She started walking, making her way towards the kitchen, wordlessly asking the girl to follow her. “Hopefully, you will like what I made.“ She picked up the basket and looked over her shoulder, just to confirm that Katya was indeed walking right behind her.

“Do-do you have any water?” Katya seemed almost anxious as she asked. “I-I don’t drink,” she said pushing her chin towards the basket, where the neck of a bottle stuck out from.

Trixie quickly apologized for not asking, taking the wine out and putting it on the table. She opened the refrigerator and leaned forward. Her short dress was sure to ride up at the position. She could only hope Katya liked what she saw as Trixie pretended to find something else to drink.

“Would you like some kombucha?” She asked as innocently as possible, noticing how Katya’s eyes bolted back to her face.

“Absolutely not,” Katya spoke punctuating her words. It sounded like she was approving of the beverage until the last word was spoken. “I would rather drink the salt water straight from the ocean than that hipster excuse of a drink.”

With a roll of her eyes, Trixie put the glass bottle back to its place. “It’s really good for you, FYI. It has all these–” she turned around, and stopped midsentence when she noticed Katya was no longer in the room. Stretching her neck, Trixie saw that Katya had walked out through the sliding doors and was impatiently waiting for her.

“Come on!” She encouraged as she started walking, the basket dangling in her hand as she easily carried it with her.

Despite the small shake of her head, Trixie found herself smiling. She followed Katya’s path and reached her just when Katya was done setting the sheet down. Trixie dropped next to her on the pink and white piece of fabric, removed her sandals and extended her legs, hoping to get them at least a little bit tanned. Her hand dug into the basket and took out a small container with grapes, offered them to Katya, who gratefully took a handful, before relaxing on her spot.

“What is it that you do, then?” Katya asked around a mouthful of fruit. “How do you make your own money?”

“I’m a hair and makeup artist,” Trixie said with a smile. She loved her job and could talk about it for hours. Katya, however, didn’t seem like the type of person that could hear about hair and makeup for hours. “What about you? You have like zero information on your profile.” Trixie rested her chin on her own shoulder, squinting to get a better view of Katya, who sat on her heels next to her.

There was a sigh and a groan as Katya physically deflated, before she uttered an actual reply. “I just hate those things, you know? I never know what to say. Like, I can’t say I’m a good person. Good people don’t say they are good people! Honestly, I just wanted to put actual facts like: I’m this old, this tall, I weigh this much, and I’m in this area.”

Trixie tilted her head in wonder. “Are you a kitten up for adoption?”

The sounds that came out of Katya were frightening and charming, all at the same time. It was a genuine laughter that sounded more like an old squeaky toy. She spotted a napkin and tried to throw it at Trixie, but the wind pushed it to land on Katya’s lap instead. They both laughed openly, freely, happily. The conversation flowed easily from that point on. They touched on the most basic topics, from immediate family to likes and dislikes. They ate with the sound of the crashing waves as background noise.

It didn’t take an expert to notice they were complete opposites, but it didn’t bother Trixie. She liked the simplicity with which Katya talked about complex subjects. She would quickly jump from one thing to another, seemingly unrelated, but Trixie was sure there was some connection between topics that only Katya understood. If she could have one wish granted, Trixie would like to see inside of Katya’s head, witness how the information bounced off of the walls of her skull, tangled with the wiring of her brain, before coming out of her mouth at a rapid speed.

Something warm filled Trixie’s chest. She had no idea what it was, but it was a nice feeling. She liked the sense of comfort and instant connection she had with the girl bending in laughter next to her. Trixie wanted to run her hand through Katya’s hair, let her fingers caress those sharp cheekbones, touch every single one of her soft curves and create a mental map of her body. Katya was so beautiful, so smart, so out of her league.

“Why did you agree to meet me?” Trixie suddenly asked without even thinking about it. She sat up straight, realizing she really wanted to know the answer. “Like, I’m clearly not your type, why did you even swipe right?”

The question took Katya by surprise. Her eyes opened wide as she stared at Trixie intensely. Although, Trixie had to wonder if there was anything about Katya that wasn’t intense.

“Okay, first of all, you don’t even know what my type is.” Katya pointed an accusative finger at Trixie before continuing. “I don’t have a type. Never had. I like people, and I like sex even more, preferebly with people.” She extended her hands in front of her, as if highlighting the relation between the two. “Now, about you. I don’t know. I liked your tits, and then you got my Contact reference… I knew I had to meet you after that.” She punctuated the end of her speech with an approving nod.

Trixie’s nose scrunched up. “What reference?”

“The dead dad on the beach one?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Katya’s mouth opened in surprise. “Contact? Jodie Foster?” She asked, getting a head shake in return to each of her questions. “Didn’t you message me about wanting to meet your dad, who was dead, at the beach somewhere?”

“Yeah, ‘cause I never met my dad, so he’s probably dead, and I’m currently staying in Malibu.”

“Oh, my God!” Katya brought her hands to her hair as she yelled. “I can’t believe this. It’s all a lie. I’ve been tricked. When were you planning to tell me? When–” The rest of the question died on her lips as Trixie’s mouth crashed with her.

It was clumsy at first, Katya wasn’t done ranting, and Trixie was only trying to shut her up. Their faces bumped into each other a couple of times before they both relaxed and finally kissed. Trixie sucked Katya’s bottom lip, biting slightly. The sound that came out of Katya was so sexy that Trixie had to press her thighs together, putting pressure where she needed it the most. The moment didn’t go unnoticed by Katya. Her hands landed on Trixie’s hips, pulling her to a kneeling position. Their torsos pressed together, breasts rubbing to the erratic movements of their heavy breathing.

Trixie felt turned on beyond knowledge, all she knew how to identify were Katya’s lips wrapped around hers. Katya tasted sweet and salty, like the fruit they had shared mixed with the breeze of the ocean. There was an almost unidentifiable flavor, a strong aftertaste that lingered in Trixie’s tongue after it ran against Katya’s.

“Do you smoke?” Trixie asked against Katya’s lips, not breaking the kiss, but pulling away enough to speak.

Katya’s hand ran up Trixie’s thigh, squeezing slightly. “Would you mind if I said yes?”

Gasping to the touch of Katya’s cold hand, Trixie threw her head back. “As long as you don’t…” She lost her train of thought as Katya’s hand went higher. “If you do– oh!” She yelped as a finger ran against her underwear. “God, just fuck me, okay?” Her knees spread, giving Katya better access.

“Not here, though,” Katya spoke as she kissed Trixie’s chin. “This is not exactly a private beach.”

Trixie opened one eye, among the fog of desire she could see the figures of a family playing ball. “Fine. Let’s go inside.”

Taking Katya by the hand, Trixie stood up and started walking towards the house. She didn’t care about the stuff they were leaving behind. Nothing really occupied her mind other than having Katya on top of her, inside of her, all around her. She could feel her legs shaking with expectation. It had been a long time since she last had sex, but she wasn’t nervious. She, somehow, knew she could trust Katya. They seemed to have some sort of astral connection, and Trixie wondered how they could apply that nonverbal communication in the bedroom.

Unfortunately, the bedroom proved to be too far away. As soon as they entered the kitchen through the glass doors, the kissing restarted. Trixie pushed her own back against the nearest wall and allowed Katya to press her entire body on top of hers. It was all too much. The heat emanating Katya tickled her skin, making Trixie shiver. Their mouths attacked each other as hands landed on every spot of uncovered skin.

Katya snaked her hands under Trixie’s dress and squeezed her ass, forcing Trixie to release her mouth as she gasped in pleasure. Katya caressed the soft skin of her butt lovingly, taking her time to enjoy the feeling of the fleshy cheeks under her fingers.

“I’m gonna eat you out now, is that okay?”

Trixie could do nothing but nod at such formal request. Still in disbelief, she saw how Katya dropped to her knees. Her big smile was the last thing Trixie saw before her eyes shut by themselves. Katya’s hands found the hem of Trixie’s dress and lifted the skirt, before disappearing inside and pulling the small thong down slowly. Trixie felt a finger running up and down her entrance, circling around where she so desperately needed to be touched.

“Katya, please,” Trixie shamelessly begged, and it worked.

She felt the wet tongue pushing flat against her most sensitive spot. Her knees bent slightly, she extended her arms and tried to find support between the glass door and the cabinets next to her. Katya licked her skillfully. Her lips sucked and released her just right, her tongue flicked at the perfect pace. And as if fucking her with her mouth wasn’t enough, Katya pushed a finger inside without warning. Trixie screamed loudly, thankful that the houses were fairly far apart so the neighbours couldn’t hear them. Her sounds only grew higher in pitch as another finger was introduced, and then a third.

Time fully stopped as Trixie sunk down on Katya’s fingers, pleasuring herself at the rhythm she wanted. Her senses felt on the edge of an overload as Katya ate her out simultaneously.

“Pluh-please, stop,” Trixie asked, panting.

In a quick move, Katya removed the dress from around her head with her free hand. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I’m gonna cum.”

“Then why you asked me to stop, bitch?”

Trixie looked to the side, almost shying away from the question. “I don’t wanna… not like this, not without you.”

Sighing deeply, Katya removed her hand carefully, and stood up. “So you are one of those lesbians, huh? You don’t wanna fuck, you want to make love.” She drawled the last word, making fun of the concept.

“Excuse me?” Trixie didn’t try to hide the annoyance in her voice.

Katya took the short sleeve of her shirt and tried to dry her chin as she spoke. “C’mon. You know what I mean. I thought we were just gonna get laid, and you put together a-a stupid picnic date? For fuck’s sake. Who does that? Gross.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I wanted to do something nice for us.”

“For us?” Katya spun around with her hands in the air. “There is no us, Brenda! We literally just met. We talked once, on a hook up app. We were not even having the same conversation! I thought it was all about Contact and you were spilling your childhood trauma. What the fuck! How did you even get picnic from that?”

Crossing her arms on top of her chest, Trixie distanced herself from Katya. It took every cell of will power to step away from her underwear without picking it up, and Trixie still didn’t know if leaving it there was less shameful.

“You need to leave.”

“Oh, but we were just gonna make playlists that reminded us of our first date.” Katya pouted theatrically, stomping her feet hard on the ground.

Trixie didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “Now!” She shouted, pointing towards the door.

Without another word, Katya stormed out, slamming the door behind herself. Trixie stared at the piece of wood, expecting something from it without knowing what it was. She breathed deeply once, twice, the third time never came. A sob cut through her chest, coming out in a guttural scream. Katya was right. Trixie was smitten since the moment she laid eyes on Katya, and not even in person, just one look at the single picture and she was gone. She understood then that the first step of being let down was getting her hopes up. It had to stop.

One day. Trixie allowed herself one day to wallow. It wasn’t even about Katya, she reasoned. She needed a moment to analyze her motives, then she would pick the pieces back up and move on with her life. Her mind was blank for the entire day. She turned off her phone, put on some baking show on Netflix, and ate microwave popcorn straight from the bag. It had been a day of nothing but self pity and indulging in all the things she knew were bad for her.

Monday came and reality kicked back in. She went to her job at the studio and tried to entertain conversation with B-list celebrities as she got them ready for their low ratings shows. That was something she was good at, something she was confident about. Just like that, she fell back into a routine and the pity party was left behind. At least for the rest of the week. Once Friday reached her again, and she was in no mood to look after her drunk friends, she felt loneliness wanting to creep back in.

Her fingers found the useless folder and clicked on the app by themselves. Between the many unread messages sitting on her inbox, the red bubble next to Katya’s face called her attention. She opened the conversation, just to make the notification go away, but what she saw was something she hadn’t expected. There was a string of messages from Katya asking her to talk, the last one left her phone number, notifying Trixie that would be her last attempt and she should call her if she felt like it.

It took less than a minute of pondering before the call was already connecting.

Katya picked up on the third ring, just when Trixie was about to hang up.

“Who is this? I don’t have this number saved. Are you a scammer?”

Trixie had to laugh at Katya’s words, that were in no shape or form a greeting. Apparently, her laughter worked as an introduction because Katya’s voice immediately changed.

“Trixie, is that you? Fuck. I didn’t think you were gonna call.”

“Hello,” Trixie said as softly as possible, remembering what Katya had said about working on her greeting.

“Hey, that’s so much better! Hi. Listen, I want… please, don’t hang up. I will go straight to the point. I’m sorry. I was rude and mean, and you didn’t deserve all the fucked up things that I said to you.”

A small smirk was slowly forming on her lips. “Go on,” Trixie encouraged her.

Even when she couldn’t see her, Trixie could tell Katya was also smiling by now. “I like you, I like you a lot. This is just so new to me. I’m used to, you know, using the hook up app to hook up. I went there looking for a one time thing, not to, like, stay. Never expected to find… you. I’ve never been with a type like you before.”

For a moment, Trixie wished she was using a land line. She so desperately wanted to twist her finger around the phone cord. “And what is my type?”

“You know, pretty girls who are out of this world funny. All the hyper-femmes I’ve found are hot on the body but empty in the head; and boring. God, you have no idea how boring hot girls can be.” A frustrated groan escaped her, but she recovered right away, as if the actual reason for the call had suddenly hit her. “I just… could you, maybe, give me another chance? It’s stupid but all I can think about is being in Malibu with you again. I’ll prepare the dumb picnic this time. Although, I can’t promise we won’t be eating, like, old batteries and drinking Red Bulls. That’s probably all the things that can be found in my bag right now, but–”

“Oh, my God! Stop!” Trixie shouted between giggles. “If what you wanted was to annoy me into accepting, you can stop now.”

Katya’s whizzing laughter travelled through miles and miles until it digitally filled Trixie’s ears.

“So, is that a yes? Can we give it another go?”

“Yes, you idiot. I’ll go out with you again.”

“Marvellous, darling! Pick you up tomorrow, same place?”

On her end of the line, Trixie shook her head. “I actually live in Century City. You can pick me up here and we’ll go to Malibu. We can even work on those playlists on our way.”

Loud laughter was heard before Katya spoke again. “Deal. Bring the Red Bulls, I’ll bring the batteries.”

Trixie smiled, pressing her cheek against the cold glass of her cellphone. “Please, don’t feed me batteries. We can go to a restaurant or something.”

“No,” Katya stated solemnly. “We’ll have a picnic. That’s gonna be our thing, I’ve declared it. See you tomorrow, then?”

“See you tomorrow. Good night.” Just before she hung up, Trixie heard Katya calling her name. “Yeah?”

“We’ll be fine. Let’s just take it slow, okay?”

“Okay,” Trixie agreed. “We’ll be fine,” she repeated, more to herself than the emptiness coming from the device, indicating that the call had ended. “I’ll be fine.”

#rpdr fanfiction #trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #smut #lesbian au #of lovers #dendenmonmon #submission

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hlupdate · 5 years

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Harry Styles isn’t exactly dressed down for lunch. He’s got a white floppy hat that Diana Ross might have won from Elton in a poker game at Cher’s mansion circa 1974, plus Gucci shades, a cashmere sweater, and blue denim bell-bottoms. His nail polish is pink and mint green. He’s also carrying his purse — no other word for it — a yellow patent-canvas bag with the logo “Chateau Marmont.” The tough old ladies who work at this Beverly Hills deli know him well. Gloria and Raisa dote on him, calling him “my love” and bringing him his usual tuna salad and iced coffee. He turns heads, to put it mildly, but nobody comes near because the waitresses hover around the booth protectively.

He was just a small-town English lad of 16 when he became his generation’s pop idol with One Direction. When the group went on hiatus, he struck out on his own with his brash 2017 solo debut, whose lead single was the magnificently over-the-top six-minute piano ballad “Sign of the Times.” Even people who missed out on One Direction were shocked to learn the truth: This pinup boy was a rock star at heart.

A quick highlight reel of Harry’s 2019 so far: He hosted the Met Gala with Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Alessandro Michele, and Anna Wintour serving an eyebrow-raising black lace red-carpet look. He is the official face of a designer genderless fragrance, Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur. When James Corden had an all-star dodgeball match on The Late Late Show, Harry got spiked by a hard serve from Michelle Obama, making him perhaps the first Englishman ever hit in the nads on TV by a First Lady.

Closer to his heart, he brought down the house at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony with his tribute to his friend and idol Stevie Nicks. “She’s always there for you,” Harry said in his speech. “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” He added, “She’s responsible for more running mascara — including my own — than all the bad dates in history.” (Backstage, Nicks accidentally referred to Harry’s former band as “’NSync.” Hey, a goddess can get away with that sort of thing.)

Harry has been the world’s It boy for nearly a decade now. The weirdest thing about him? He loves being this guy. In a style of fast-lane celebrity that takes a ruthless toll on the artist’s personality, creativity, sanity, Harry is almost freakishly at ease. He has managed to grow up in public with all his boyish enthusiasm intact, not to mention his manners. He’s dated a string of high-profile women — but he never gets caught uttering any of their names in public, much less shading any of them. Instead of going the usual superstar-pop route — en vogue producers, celebrity duets, glitzy club beats — he’s gone his own way, and gotten more popular than ever. He’s putting the finishing touches on his new album, full of the toughest, most soulful songs he’s written yet. As he explains, “It’s all about having sex and feeling sad.”

The Harry Charm is a force of nature, and it can be almost frightening to witness in action. The most startling example might be a backstage photo from February taken with one of his heroes, Van Morrison. You have never seen a Van picture like this one. He’s been posing for photos for 50 years, and he’s been refusing to crack a smile in nearly all of them. Until he met Harry — for some reason, Van beams like a giddy schoolgirl. What did Harry do to him? “I was tickling him behind his back,” Harry confides. “Somebody sent me that photo — I think his tour manager took it. When I saw it, I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction opening the case with the gold light shining. I was like, ‘Fuck, maybe I shouldn’t show this to anyone.’”

In interviews, Harry has always tended to coast on that charm, simply because he can. In his teens, he was in public every minute and became adept at guarding every scrap of his privacy. But these days, he’s finding out he has things he wants to say. He’s more confident about thinking out loud and seeing what happens. “Looser” is how he puts it. “More open. I’m discovering how much better it makes me feel to be open with friends. Feeling that vulnerability, rather than holding everything in.”

Like a lot of people his age, he’s asking questions about culture, gender, identity, new ideas about masculinity and sexuality. “I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends who are guys who would talk about their emotions and be really open,” he says. “My friend’s dad said to me, ‘You guys are so much better at it than we are. I never had friends I could really talk to. It’s good that you guys have each other because you talk about real shit. We just didn’t.’”

It’s changed how he approaches his songs. “For me, it doesn’t mean I’ll sit down and be like, ‘This is what I have for dinner, and this is where I eat every day, and this is what I do before I go to bed,’” he says. “But I will tell you that I can be really pathetic when I’m jealous. Feeling happier than I’ve ever been, sadder than I’ve ever been, feeling sorry for myself, being mad at myself, being petty and pitiful — it feels really different to share that.”

At times, Harry sounds like an ordinary 25-year-old figuring his shit out, which, of course, he is. (Harry and I got to know each other last year, when he got in touch after reading one of my books, though I’d already been writing about his music for years.) It’s strange to hear him talk about shedding his anxieties and doubts, since he’s always come across as one of the planet’s most confident people. “While I was in the band,” he says, “I was constantly scared I might sing a wrong note. I felt so much weight in terms of not getting things wrong. I remember when I signed my record deal and I asked my manager, ‘What happens if I get arrested? Does it mean the contract is null and void?’ Now, I feel like the fans have given me an environment to be myself and grow up and create this safe space to learn and make mistakes.”

We slip out the back and spend a Saturday afternoon cruising L.A. in his 1972 silver Jaguar E-type. The radio doesn’t work, so we just sing “Old Town Road.” He marvels, “‘Bull riding and boobies’ — that is potentially the greatest lyric in any song ever.” Harry used to be pop’s mystery boy, so diplomatic and tight-lipped. But as he opens up over time, telling his story, he reaches the point where he’s pitching possible headlines for this profile. His best: “Soup, Sex, and Sun Salutations.”

How did he get to this new place? As it turns out, the journey involves some heartbreak. Some guidance from David Bowie. Some Transcendental Meditation. And more than a handful of magic mushrooms. But mostly, it comes down to a curious kid who can’t decide whether to be the world’s most ardently adored pop star, or a freaky artiste. So he decides to be both.

Two things about English rock stars never change: They love Southern California, and they love cars. A few days after Harry proclaimed the genius of “Old Town Road,” we’re in a different ride — a Tesla — cruising the Pacific Coast Highway while Harry sings along to the radio. “Californiaaaaaa!” he yells from behind the wheel as we whip past Zuma Beach. “It sucks!” There’s a surprising number of couples along the beach who seem to be arguing. We speculate on which ones are breaking up and which are merely having the talk. “Ah, yes, the talk,” Harry says dreamily. “Ye olde chat.”

Harry is feeling the smooth Seventies yacht-rock grooves today, blasting Gerry Rafferty, Pablo Cruise, Hall and Oates. When I mention that Nina Simone once did a version of “Rich Girl,” he needs to hear it right away. He counters by blowing my mind with Donny Hathaway’s version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”

Harry raves about a quintessential SoCal trip he just tried: a “cold sauna,” a process that involves getting locked in an ice chamber. His eyelashes froze. We stop for a smoothie (“It’s basically ice cream”) and his favorite pepper-intensive wheatgrass shot. It goes down like a dose of battery acid. “That’ll add years to your life,” he assures me.

We’re on our way to Shangri-La studios in Malibu, founded by the Band back in the 1970s, now owned by Rick Rubin. It’s where Harry made some of the upcoming album, and as we walk in, he grins at the memory. “Ah, yes,” he says. “Did a lot of mushrooms in here.”

Psychedelics have started to play a key role in his creative process. “We’d do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney’s Ram in the sunshine,” he says. “We’d just turn the speakers into the yard.” The chocolate edibles were kept in the studio fridge, right next to the blender. “You’d hear the blender going, and think, ‘So we’re all having frozen margaritas at 10 a.m. this morning.’” He points to a corner: “This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place.”

It’s not mere rock-star debauchery — it’s emblematic of his new state of mind. You get the feeling this is why he enjoys studios so much. After so many years making One Direction albums while touring, always on the run, he finally gets to take his time and embrace the insanity of it all. “We were here for six weeks in Malibu, without going into the city,” he says. “People would bring their dogs and kids. We’d take a break to play cornhole tournaments. Family values!” But it’s also the place where he has proudly bled for his art. “Mushrooms and Blood. Now there’s an album title.”

Some of the engineers come over to catch up on gossip. Harry gestures out the window to the Pacific waves, where the occasional nude revelry might have happened, and where the occasional pair of pants got lost. “There was one night where we’d been partying a bit and ended up going down to the beach and I lost all my stuff, basically,” he says. “I lost all my clothes. I lost my wallet. Maybe a month later, somebody found my wallet and mailed it back, anonymously. I guess it just popped out of the sand. But what’s sad is, I lost my favorite mustard corduroy flares.” A moment of silence is held for the corduroy flares.

Recording in the studio today is Brockhampton, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest boy band.” Harry says hi to all the Brockhampton guys, which takes a while since there seem to be a few dozen of them. “We’re together all the time,” one tells Harry out in the yard. “We see each other all day, every day.” He pauses. “You know how it is.”

Harry breaks into a dry grin. “Yes, I know how it is.”

One Direction made three of this century’s biggest and best pop albums in a rush — Midnight Memories, Four and Made in the A.M. Yet they cut those records on tour, ducking into the nearest studio when they had a day off. 1D were a unique mix of five different musical personalities: Harry, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, and Liam Payne. But the pace took its toll. Malik quit in the middle of a tour, immediately after a show in Hong Kong. The band announced its hiatus in August 2015.

It’s traditional for boy-band singers, as they go solo and grow up, to renounce their pop past. Everybody remembers George Michael setting his leather jacket on fire, or Sting quitting the Police to make jazz records. This isn’t really Harry Styles’ mentality. “I know it’s the thing that always happens. When somebody gets out of a band, they go, ‘That wasn’t me. I was held back.’ But it was me. And I don’t feel like I was held back at all. It was so much fun. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s not like I was tied to a radiator.”

Whenever Harry mentions One Direction — never by name, always “the band” or “the band I was in” — he uses the past tense. It is my unpleasant duty to ask: Does he see 1D as over? “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I’d ever say I’d never do it again, because I don’t feel that way. If there’s a time when we all really want to do it, that’s the only time for us to do it, because I don’t think it should be about anything else other than the fact that we’re all like, ‘Hey, this was really fun. We should do this again.’ But until that time, I feel like I’m really enjoying making music and experimenting. I enjoy making music this way too much to see myself doing a full switch, to go back and do that again. Because I also think if we went back to doing things the same way, it wouldn’t be the same, anyway.”

When the band stopped, did he take those friendships with him? “Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Definitely. Because above all else, we’re the people who went through that. We’re always going to have that, even if we’re not the closest. And the fact is, just because you’re in a band with someone doesn’t mean you have to be best friends. That’s not always how it works. Just because Fleetwood Mac fight, that doesn’t mean they’re not amazing. I think even in the disagreements, there’s always a mutual respect for each other — we did this really cool thing together, and we’ll always have that. It’s too important to me to ever be like, ‘Oh, that’s done.’ But if it happens, it will happen for the right reasons.”

If the intensity of the Harry fandom ever seems mysterious to you, there’s a live clip you might want to investigate, from the summer of 2018. Just search the phrase “Tina, she’s gay.” In San Jose, on one of the final nights of his tour, Harry spots a fan with a homemade sign: “I’m Gonna Come Out to My Parents Because of You!” He asks the fan her name (she says it’s Grace) and her mother’s name (Tina). He asks the audience for silence because he has an important announcement to make: “Tina! She’s gaaaaay!” Then he has the entire crowd say it together. Thousands of strangers start yelling “Tina, she’s gay,” and every one of them clearly means it — it’s a heavy moment, definitely not a sound you forget after you hear it. Then Harry sings “What Makes You Beautiful.” (Of course, the way things work now, the clip went viral within minutes. So did Grace’s photo of Tina giving a loving thumbs-up to her now-out teenage daughter. Grace and Tina attended Harry’s next show together.)

Harry likes to cultivate an aura of sexual ambiguity, as overt as the pink polish on his nails. He’s dated women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality. On his first solo tour, he frequently waved the pride, bi, and trans flags, along with the Black Lives Matter flag. In Philly, he waved a rainbow flag he borrowed from a fan up front: “Make America Gay Again.” One of the live fan favorites: “Medicine,” a guitar jam that sounds a bit like the Grateful Dead circa Europe ’72, but with a flamboyantly pansexual hook: “The boys and girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it.”

He’s always had a flair for flourishes like this, since the 1D days. An iconic clip from November 2014: Harry and Liam are on a U.K. chat show. The host asks the oldest boy-band fan-bait question in the book: What do they look for in a date? “Female,” Liam quips. “That’s a good trait.” Harry shrugs. “Not that important.” Liam is taken aback. The host is in shock. On tour in the U.S. that year, he wore a Michael Sam football jersey, in support of the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team. He’s blown up previously unknown queer artists like King Princess and Muna.

What do those flags onstage mean to him? “I want to make people feel comfortable being whatever they want to be,” he says. “Maybe at a show you can have a moment of knowing that you’re not alone. I’m aware that as a white male, I don’t go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can’t claim that I know what it’s like, because I don’t. So I’m not trying to say, ‘I understand what it’s like.’ I’m just trying to make people feel included and seen.”

On tour, he had an End Gun Violence sticker on his guitar; he added a Black Lives Matter sticker, as well as the flag. “It’s not about me trying to champion the cause, because I’m not the person to do that,” he says. “It’s just about not ignoring it, I guess. I was a little nervous to do that because the last thing I wanted was for it to feel like I was saying, ‘Look at me! I’m the good guy!’ I didn’t want anyone who was really involved in the movement to think, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ But then when I did it, I realized people got it. Everyone in that room is on the same page and everyone knows what I stand for. I’m not saying I understand how it feels. I’m just trying to say, ‘I see you.’”

At one of his earliest solo shows, in Stockholm, he announced, “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender — whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you. I love every single one of you.” “It’s a room full of accepting people.… If you’re someone who feels like an outsider, you’re not always in a big crowd like that,” he says. “It’s not about, ‘Oh, I get what it’s like,’ because I don’t. For example, I go walking at night before bed most of the time. I was talking about that with a female friend and she said, ‘Do you feel safe doing that?’ And I do. But when I walk, I’m more aware that I feel OK to walk at night, and some of my friends wouldn’t. I’m not saying I know what it feels like to go through that. It’s just being aware.”

‘Man cannot live by coffee alone,” Harry says. “But he will give it a damn good try.” He sips his iced Americano — not his first today, or his last. He’s back behind the wheel, on a mission to yet another studio — but this time for actual work. Today it’s string overdubs. Harry is dressed in Gucci from head to toe, except for one item of clothing: a ratty Seventies rock T-shirt he proudly scavenged from a vintage shop. It says “Commander Quaalude.”

On the drive over, he puts on the jazz pianist Bill Evans — “Peace Piece,” from 1959, which is the wake-up tone on his phone. He just got into jazz during a long sojourn in Japan. He likes to find places to hide out and be anonymous: For his first album, he decamped to Jamaica. Over the past year, he spent months roaming Japan.

In February, he spent his 25th birthday sitting by himself in a Tokyo cafe, reading Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. “I love Murakami,” he says. “He’s one of my favorites. Reading didn’t really used to be my thing. I had such a short attention span. But I was dating someone who gave me some books; I felt like I had to read them because she’d think I was a dummy if I didn’t read them.”

A friend gave him Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. “It was the first book, maybe ever, where all I wanted to do all day was read this,” he says. “I had a very Murakami birthday because I ended up staying in Tokyo on my own. I had grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast, then I went to this cafe. I sat and drank tea and read for five hours.”

In the studio, he’s overseeing the string quartet. He has the engineers play T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” for them, to illustrate the vibe he’s going for. You can see he enjoys being on this side of the glass, sitting at the Neve board, giving his instructions to the musicians. After a few run-throughs, he presses the intercom button to say, “Yeah, it’s pretty T. Rex. Best damn strings I ever heard.” He buzzes again to add, “And you’re all wonderful people.”

He’s curated his own weird enclave of kindred spirits to collaborate with, like producers Jeff Bhasker and Tyler Johnson. His guitarist Mitch Rowland was working at an L.A. pizza shop when Harry met him. They started writing songs for the debut; Rowland didn’t quit his job until two weeks into the sessions. One of his closest collaborators is also one of his best friends: Tom Hull, a.k.a. Kid Harpoon, a longtime cohort of Florence and the Machine. Hull is an effusive Brit with a heart-on-sleeve personality. Harry calls him “my emotional rock.” Hull calls him “Gary.”

Hull was the one who talked him into taking a course on Transcendental Meditation at David Lynch’s institute — beginning each day with 20 minutes of silence, which doesn’t always come naturally to either of them. “He’s got this wise-beyond-his-years timelessness about him,” Hull says. “That’s why he went on a whole emotional exploration with these songs.” He’s 12 years older, with a wife and kids in Scotland, and talks about Harry like an irreverent but doting big brother.

Last year, Harry was in the gossip columns dating the French model Camille Rowe; they split up last summer after a year together. “He went through this breakup that had a big impact on him,” Hull says. “I turned up on Day One in the studio, and I had these really nice slippers on. His ex-girlfriend that he was really cut up about, she gave them to me as a present — she bought slippers for my whole family. We’re still close friends with her. I thought, ‘I like these slippers. Can I wear them — is that weird?’

“So I turn up at Shangri-La the first day and literally within the first half-hour, he looks at me and says, ‘Where’d you get those slippers? They’re nice.’ I had to say, ‘Oh, um, your ex-girlfriend got them for me.’ He said, ‘Whaaaat? How could you wear those?’ He had a whole emotional journey about her, this whole relationship. But I kept saying, ‘The best way of dealing with it is to put it in these songs you’re writing.’”

True to his code of gallant discretion, Harry doesn’t say her name at any point. But he admits the songs are coming from personal heartbreak. “It’s not like I’ve ever sat and done an interview and said, ‘So I was in a relationship, and this is what happened,’” he says. “Because, for me, music is where I let that cross over. It’s the only place, strangely, where it feels right to let that cross over.”

The new songs are certainly charged with pain. “The stars didn’t align for them to be a forever thing,” Hull says. “But I told him that famous Iggy Pop quote where he says, ‘I only ever date women who are going to fuck me up, because that’s where the songs are.’ I said, ‘You’re 24, 25 years old, you’re in the eligible-bachelor category. Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up, and explore and have an adventure and let it affect you and write songs about it.’”

His band is full of indie rockers who’ve gotten swept up in Hurricane Harry. Before becoming his iconic drum goddess, Sarah Jones played in New Young Pony Club, a London band fondly remembered by a few dozen of us. Rowland and Jones barely knew anything about One Direction before they met Harry — the first time they heard “Story of My Life” was when he asked them to play it. Their conversation is full of references to Big Star or Guided by Voices or the Nils Lofgren guitar solo in Neil Young’s “Speakin’ Out.” This is a band full of shameless rock geeks, untainted by industry professionalism.

In the studio, while making the album, Harry kept watching a vintage Bowie clip on his phone — a late-Nineties TV interview I’d never seen. As he plays it for me, he recites along — he’s got the rap memorized. “Never play to the gallery,” Bowie advises. “Never work for other people in what you do.” For Harry, this was an inspiring pep talk — a reminder not to play it safe. As Bowie says, “If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

He got so obsessive about Joni Mitchell and her 1971 classic Blue, he went on a quest. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties.” He found her living in Culver City. “She said, ‘Come and see me,’” Hull says. “We turn up at her house and he said, ‘How do you even play a dulcimer?’ She gave us a lesson. Then she got a bongo and we were all jamming with these big Cheshire Cat grins.” She built the dulcimer Harry plays on the new album. “Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, those are my two favorites,” he says. “Blue and Astral Weeks are just the ultimate in terms of songwriting. Melody-wise, they’re in their own lane.”

He’s always been the type to go overboard with his fanboy enthusiasms, ever since he was a kid and got his mind blown by Pulp Fiction. “I watched it when I was probably too young,” he admits. “But when I was 13, I saved up money from my paper route to buy a ‘Bad Motherfucker’ wallet. Just a stupid white kid in the English countryside with that wallet.” While in Japan, he got obsessively into Paul McCartney and Wings, especially London Town and Back to the Egg. “In Tokyo I used to go to a vinyl bar, but the bartender didn’t have Wings records. So I brought him Back to the Egg. ‘Arrow Through Me,’ that was the song I had to hear every day when I was in Japan.”

He credits meditation for helping to loosen him up. “I was such a skeptic going in,” he says. “But I think meditation has helped with worrying about the future less, and the past less. I feel like I take a lot more in—things that used to pass by me because I was always rushing around. It’s part of being more open and talking with friends. It’s not always the easiest to go in a room and say, ‘I made a mistake and it made me feel like this, and then I cried a bunch.’ But that moment where you really let yourself be in that zone of being vulnerable, you reach this feeling of openness. That’s when you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking living, man.’”

After quite a few hours of recording the string quartet, a bottle of Casamigos tequila is opened. Commander Quaalude pours the drinks, then decides what the song needs now is a gaggle of nonsingers bellowing the chorus. “Muppet vocals” is how he describes it. He drags everyone in sight to crowd around the mics. Between takes, he wanders over to the piano to play Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up.” One of the choir members, creative director Molly Hawkins, is the friend who gave him the Murakami novel. “I think every man should read Norwegian Wood,” she says. “Harry’s the only man I’ve given it to who actually read it.”

It’s been a hard day’s night in the studio, but after hours, everyone heads to a dive bar on the other side of town to see Rowland play a gig. He’s sitting in with a local bar band, playing bass. Harry drives around looking for the place, taking in the sights of downtown L.A. (“Only a city as narcissistic as L.A. would have a street called Los Angeles Street,” he says.) He strolls in and leans against the bar in the back of the room. It’s an older crowd, and nobody here has any clue who he is. He’s entirely comfortable lurking incognito in a dim gin joint. After the gig, as the band toasts with PBRs, an old guy in a ball cap strolls over and gives Rowland a proud bear hug. It’s his boss from the pizza shop.

In the wee hours, Harry drives down a deserted Sunset Boulevard, his favorite time of night to explore the city streets, arguing over which is the best Steely Dan album. He insists that Can’t Buy a Thrill is better than Countdown to Ecstasy (wrongly), and seals his case by turning it up and belting “Midnight Cruiser” with truly appalling gusto. Tonight Hollywood is full of bright lights, glitzy clubs, red carpets, but the prettiest pop star in town is behind the wheel, singing along with every note of the sax solo from “Dirty Work.”

A few days later, on the other side of the world: Harry’s pad in London is lavish, yet very much a young single dude’s lair. Over here: a wall-size framed Sex Pistols album cover. Over there: a vinyl copy of Stevie Nicks’ The Other Side of the Mirror, casually resting on the floor. He’s having a cup of tea with his mum, Anne, the spitting image of her son, all grace and poise. “We’re off to the pub,” he tells her. “We’re going to talk some shop.” She smiles sweetly. “Talk some shit, probably,” says Anne.

We head off to his local, sloshing through the rain. He’s wearing a Spice World hoodie and savoring the soggy London-osity of the day. “Ah, Londres!” he says grandly. “I missed this place.” He wants to sit at a table outside, even though it’s pouring, and we chat away the afternoon over a pot of mint tea and a massive plate of fish and chips. When I ask for toast, the waitress brings out a loaf of bread roughly the size of a wheelbarrow. “Welcome to England,” Harry says.

He’s always had a fervent female fandom, and, admirably, he’s never felt a need to pretend he doesn’t love it that way. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he says. “They have that bullshit detector. You want honest people as your audience. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They fucking own this shit. They’re running it.”

He doesn’t have the uptightness some people have about sexual politics, or about identifying as a feminist. “I think ultimately feminism is thinking that men and women should be equal, right? People think that if you say ‘I’m a feminist,’ it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal. That doesn’t feel like a crazy thing to me. I grew up with my mum and my sister — when you grow up around women, your female influence is just bigger. Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want a lot of credit for being a feminist. It’s pretty simple. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward.”

His audience has a reputation for ferocity, and the reputation is totally justified. At last summer’s show at Madison Square Garden, the floor was wobbling during “Kiwi” — I’ve been seeing shows there since the 1980s, but I’d never seen that happen before. (The only other time? His second night.) His bandmates admit they feared for their lives, but Harry relished it. “To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.” He sips his tea. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a room, asking them to bear with him.”

That evening, Fleetwood Mac take the stage in London — a sold-out homecoming gig at Wembley Stadium, the last U.K. show of their tour. Needless to say, their most devoted fan is in the house. Harry has brought a date: his mother, her first Fleetwood Mac show. He’s also with his big sister Gemma, bandmates Rowland and Jones, a couple of friends.

He’s in hyperactive-host mode, buzzing around his cozy VIP box, making sure everyone’s champagne glass is topped off at all times. As soon as the show begins, Harry’s up on his feet, singing along (“Tell me, tell me liiiiies!”) and cracking jokes. You can tell he feels free — as if his radar is telling him there aren’t snoopers or paparazzi watching. (He’s correct. This is a rare public appearance where nobody spots him and no photos leak online.) It’s family night. His friend Mick Fleetwood wilds out on the drum solo. “Imagine being that cool,” Gemma says.

Midway through the show, Harry’s demeanor suddenly changes. He gets uncharacteristically solemn and quiet, sitting down by himself and focusing intently on the stage. It’s the first time all night he’s taken a seat. He’s in a different zone than he was in a few minutes ago. But he’s seen many Fleetwood Mac shows, and he knows where they are in the set. It’s time for “Landslide.” He sits with his chin in hand, his eyes zeroing in on Stevie Nicks. As usual, she introduces her most famous song with the story of how she wrote it when she was just a lass of 27.

But Stevie has something else she wants to share. She tells the stadium crowd, “I’d like to dedicate this to my little muse, Harry Styles, who brought his mother tonight. Her name is Anne. And I think you did a really good job raising Harry, Anne. Because he’s really a gentleman, sweet and talented, and, boy, that appeals to me. So all of you, this is for you.”

As Stevie starts to sing “Landslide” — “I’ve been afraid of changing, because I built my life around youuuu” — Anne walks over to where Harry sits. She crouches down behind him, reaches her arms around him tightly. Neither of them says a word. They listen together and hold each other close to the very end of the song. Everybody in Wembley is singing along with Stevie, but these two are in a world of their own.

#harry styles #rs #260819 #drug mention

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not-a-space-alien · 4 years

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Anniversary - or the Horsepersons realise they can get together outside of work

Hi everyone, I just realized today that I never posted my work from this past holiday exchange! Here was my entry, hope you enjoy!

Title: Anniversary

Rating: G

Word Count: 6k

Summary: The horsepersons are summoned for a second attempt at Armageddon, but soon an irritating pattern emerges.

A note about my illustrations: I trace stock photos for a lot of my basic shapes because I’m not good at that and really only enjoy the detail work and coloring, so I consider my “art” more like photo manipulation than original artwork, so just keep that in mind! This one is also partially based in TV canon and partially in book canon fyi

On DW

On AO3

“Who exactly summons them?”

“Not my department.”

************************

The department that did, in fact, summon the horsepersons was not Gabriel’s department, which was the Department of Earthly Affairs. Summoning the horsepersons, overseeing the signs of the end times, the rains of fish, and all that unpleasant business was a job that nobody really wanted. It was thought of as something Hell was supposed to do, but Heaven had to take responsibility for it, roll up their sleeves, and make sure it was done properly. It was shunted off onto whichever angels were unlucky enough to be assigned to the Department of Armageddon, which Gabriel had actually fought tooth and nail to leave.

The Department of Armageddon’s entire purpose was to prepare for the end times: to meticulously plan it out and ensure it went off smoothly. As these things tend to go, the least desirable job got pushed off onto whomever was lowest on the command chain, or at least the one too polite or too much of a pushover to refuse the job. And nobody really wanted to interact with the horsepersons. The DoA was filled with poor souls who had been toughing out a job they’d hated for six-thousand years. It would take a toll on anyone.

The reader can probably imagine that Aziraphale is less popular with the Department of Armageddon than any other angels, who unfortunately already find him quite annoying.

But this story is not about Aziraphale. It’s not even about Ambriel, the angel responsible for summoning the horsepersons.

No, this story is about the horsepersons, who lined up for Armageddon in the year of 1991 with great fervor and excitement, giddily straddling their motorcycles, finally able to run wild. The way that one had fizzled out was quite a disappointment to them all.

Adam had banished them for a bit, and that had been no fun, but it’s impossible to do away with Famine, War, and Pollution as long as humans exist. So they eventually reformed, springing from the minds of men and being unleashed back onto the world.

Somewhere in Europe, freshly spilled blood steamed and boiled, and War rose up, with blood smeared over her naked body like a newborn baby. In Asia, in a field covered by vultures feasting on the carcass of an emaciated cow, Famine sat up, looking around disoriented and missing his fancy suits. On the West Coast of the United States, Pollution washed ashore, having drifted for a while after being spawned from the Great Pacific garbage patch. They picked seaweed out of their hair and took a few moments to orient themselves. The last thing they remembered was staring down Adam Young. And as they realised what had happened, they thought the exact same thing their two companions were thinking at that exact moment:

Aw, man!

*********************************

In August 1992, the brave soul known simply as ‘the deliveryman’ had been contracted once again. The request was again from someone named Ambriel, by whom he had been contracted at this precise time last year, and for the exact same reason: To make four deliveries in various parts of the world to varyingly strange customers.

He didn’t really want to go, but it was his job, so there he was braving the quite literally riotous streets of a war-torn country scouring the chaos for a particular woman.

War had gone back to doing her reporter schtick, but it was starting to bore her. She was interviewing an American soldier as he prattled on and on, pretending to write it down*, thinking about what her next possible career could be. Probably somewhere in the American Military-Industrial complex, she thought.

*******

*She was currently drawing a sketch of him decapitated on the battlefield.

*******

This is how the deliveryman found her. He doubled over panting from the exertion of running up to her, but managed to wheeze out, “Package for you, Miss.”

War turned to him, an intensely puzzled look on her face. “What?”

“Package for you.”

War turned her back on the soldier. “You again? Aren’t you the same…. You have another package for me?”

He held it out. It was suspiciously sword-shaped.

“But... “ She took the package and unwrapped it. It was indeed a sword, long and shiny polished metal glittering in the harsh sun. “But this means Armageddon is near. Again?”

The deliveryman held out the signature pad hopefully.

She looked at him.

“I need you to sign for it, miss.”

“But we just did this.”

“This, ma’am?”

“Receiving our artifacts. Riding to Armageddon. The whole nine yards.”

“I do recall delivering this same sword to you last year. Afraid I don’t know anything about it, though. I’m just the deliveryman.”

“Are we doing it all again?”

“Afraid I don’t know, ma’am. I just need you to sign for it, please.”

War held the sword out in both her hands, seeing her reflection in its length. “That was one year ago today,” she realised. “A year was all they decided to wait? It took six-thousand to get ready the first time.”

Hope fading, the deliveryman stretched his arms out to full length to get the pen and pad as close to her as possible. “Just need a signature, miss.”

War relented and took the pen, ripping the paper under the force of her signature. The deliveryman looked a bit put off and shuffled away, unenthusiastic about his next delivery, which would require him to pick along an extremely dirty industrial oil field.

The soldier waited around to hopefully continue bragging about how brave he was, but War ignored him. She simply continued to stare at the sword. All she said was:

“Huh.”

***************************************

“Here we all are, gathered together at last.”

Famine was the one to made this proclamation. He said this to both War and Pollution, who were uncertainly standing around their motorcycles. This time they had been summoned directly to the barren field of Armageddon, which was, as it had been at this time last year, distressingly empty.

“Just saw you last year,” said Pollution. “Not quite ‘at last’ anymore, is it?.”

Famine gave them a dirty look. “Yes, well, it’s what we said last year. Seems only right to say it again.”

“They’re trying to make Armageddon happen again on the anniversary of it failing,” said War. “Is that what’s up?”

“It is significant, isn’t it?” said Pollution. “I was thinking about having some sort of celebration anyway. One year and all that. Seems like we should commemorate it somehow.”

“That’s stupid,” said Famine. Famine usually hated commemorating things because anniversaries and celebrations always seemed to involve good food and drink. Eat, drink, and be miserable was usually how it went for him.

“Anyway,” said War, “what are we waiting for? The Big Guy’s not here yet, but shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, some sort of preliminaries going on? Wasn’t there all sorts of wacky stuff going on last year, storm in the sky, showers of fish and all that?”

A figure could be seen spiraling downwards from the sky, wings spread wide. Pollution shielded their face with their hand and stared up past the sun. “Who’s’at?”

The figure revealed itself to be an angel, a jaunty figure with a halo struggling to keep up with his erratic motion, floating just behind his head as he ran full-speed towards them.

“And who might you be?” said Famine.

The angel huffed and puffed. “The name’s--the name is Ambriel.” He caught his breath and looked around at the gathering. “Where is Death?”

As if on cue, Death appeared with a small pop of expanding air. I HAVE NEVER HAD TO KILL THE SAME HUMAN TWICE, said Death. AND I DO NOT ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE. NEITHER DID HE. WHATEVER YOU ARE PAYING THE DELIVERYMAN, YOU NEED TO PAY HIM MORE.

“Pay?” said Ambriel. “Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers, and the deliveryman’s bank account balance was suddenly a few digits larger, for all the good it would do a dead man.

“So your name’s Ambriel,” said War. “But who are you?”

“I’m the one responsible for making sure the horsepersons are present at Armageddon!” he crowed.

Famine craned his neck towards the empty, blue, peaceful, quiet, decidedly-not-Armageddon sky. Pollution kicked a rock through the soft grass. War scratched her head.

WE ARE HERE, said Death.

“But where’s Armageddon?” said War. “We don’t start it. That’s the antichrist.”

“Ah,” said Ambriel, sweating. “Yes, well, we’re still working on that. It was supposed to happen a year ago, you see…”

“Yes, you summoned us on the anniversary,” said Pollution. “Are we going to do it again?”

“Turn the seas to blood?” said War, shaking her fists.

“Unleash ourselves upon the planet until nothing’s left but bones and bare rock?” said Famine, a sparkle in his eye.

“Bury humanity in the consequences of its own actions?” said Pollution giddily.

Ambriel grimaced as the three of them crowded in on him, pumping their fists in excitement.

THE FINAL REAPING, said Death.

“Yes,” said Ambriel. “Um, yes, for sure, about that…”

The excitement on their faces began to fade.

“Well, you see, I’d thought everything would be ready to go by now. The timeline they gave me for re-setting the Armageddon fittings was one year! It should be well underway by now, but…”

War and Famine looked at each other disappointedly. “But what?” said Pollution.

“But they’re not done with the paperwork yet,” said Ambriel, crumpling. “There’s been delays and delays and delays. Our field agent won’t cooperate. Hell won’t cooperate. The other departments won’t cooperate. It’s a bloody mess!”

“That sounds like your problem,” said War. “What do you want us to do about it?”

Ambriel wrung his hands. “Well, I...I don’t know.”

War pouted. “All right, well, this was a bust, then.” She spun on her heel and marched across the field. “Call me when there’s some action for me, then, love.”

“Wait!” cried Ambriel. “Don’t leave!”

“I’ll be down by the river,” said Pollution. “It’s been looking a bit too clean for my taste. Too many local community day cleanups, if you ask me.”

Ambriel nervously stuttered as Pollution sauntered away in the opposite direction. Then he looked at Famine. “I suppose you’re going to leave me, too?”

Famine checked his very expensive watch. “Well, my flight back to America doesn’t leave until five o’clock, so I might hang around a bit and see if you can kick off Armageddon in the next two hours.”

*************************************

August 25, 1993

Pollution was the first one to show up this time, bearing a wine bottle and a little party hat affixed in their pale hair. They’d worn the crown this whole time, so their head was starting to get a little crowded on top.

War had kept her sword. It was slung casually over her shoulder as she picked her way across the empty field where Armageddon ostensibly was supposed to take place. Only Famine had returned his artifact to Ambriel, because he thought modern electronic balances were much more efficient and chic than traditional balancing scales anyway, and he stood waiting to meet her empty-handed.

“Back again,” said War. “I just got a letter in the mail this time, no deliveryman. You?”

“The same,” said Famine. “They’re lucky I got it. Our mail gets filtered pretty thoroughly before it lands on my desk. Pretty rude too, I had to drop everything to run on over...I thin heaven should start reimbursing me for the travel costs.”

Death popped into existence beside Pollution. Ambriel was holding onto his arm, looking frightened.

THERE, YOU SEE? said Death. NO NEED TO KILL ANYONE TO GET A MESSAGE TO ME. WE CAN SKIP THAT AND HEAD RIGHT ON OVER TO ARMAGEDDON TOGETHER.

“Right,” said Ambriel. “Sorry.” He straightened his tunic and marched out in front of the semicircle of horsepersons. “Welcome to Armageddon!” he loudly announced. “It begins now!”

“I don’t see any signs of the end times--” Pollution began.

“Yet!” Ambriel thundered. “They shall begin any moment!”

Pollution popped open the wine bottle. “Yay.”

Ambriel, his hands still raised dramatically, began to sweat.

“The paperwork still isn’t done, is it?” said War.

“The paperwork still isn’t done,” said Ambriel, shoulders sagging.

“Then why did you call us here?” said Famine. “Look, I’m a busy man. I run a corporate empire, you know!”

“I thought it would be done!” said Ambriel, wringing his hands. “We’re just… We’re waiting on our field agent, Aziraphale. He hasn’t turned in his forms yet, and he won’t answer my messages.”

“Should we go find this Aziraphale guy and teach him a lesson?” said War.

“A lesson about punctuality in filling out paperwork?” said Pollution. “Are you sure you’re the best one to teach him that lesson?”

“All right, all right,” said Famine. “Look, Ambriel, is there anything we can do to move things along? This is the third time in a row--”

“The second anniversary,” Pollution interrupted.

“--Right, thanks, White--the third time we’ve done our ride and gone to Armageddon. It’s starting to get a bit anticlimactic.”

“That’s his job, not ours,” said War. “Pfft. Black, what’s next? You want to tempt sinners to Hell? Reap souls after death? Who else’s job do you want to do?”

Famine grew red. “I’m just saying--”

“Well, whatever,” said War, slinging her sword back into the sheath strapped across her back. She hooked her arm around Famine’s head and gave him a noogie. “We can kill some time while Ambriel finishes preparing for Armageddon.”

HMMM, said Death. YES...SINCE IT SEEMS LIKE TIME IS THE ONLY THING WE’LL BE KILLING.

******************************

August 25, 1994

Famine kept his scales this time. Their home for the next year was the corner of his desk in his office on top of 666 Fifth Avenue, right next to his extremely slim computer.

Famine played with the chain, strangely delicate and cold, when an email popped up on his computer.

To the Black horseperson of the apocalypse:

Please meet us at the appropriate place at the appropriate time. The end is nigh. The four horsemen shall ride and the world shall end in fire and blood..

Famine started to type a response. But before he could, his computer dinged with a reply: all to the previous email, from [email protected]:

Can I bring a plus one this time?

A few days and a few thousand miles later, Famine trekked over the dry ground of Armageddon with his scales in hand. Pollution and War were already standing in the middle of the field, the exact same place Ambriel had appeared the last three years.

War had a demoness hanging off her arm.

“Ah, Black!” said War. “Just in time. I was just in the process of introducing my girlfriend, Ashtarte.”

“Call me Ash,” said Ashtarte. A smile, too broad and with too many teeth that were too sharp, spread Cheshire cat-like across her features. She wore a punk mesh top, red boots, and had a little pair of horns and forked tail, like she was trying to impersonate a Halloween costume of a demon.

“Uh, okay, Ash,” said Famine.

“The Black horseperson of the apocalypse!” said Ash. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Big fan of your work!”

“Big fan?” said Famine. He straightened his tie. “Thanks very much.”

“We met over cocktails in a little bar in Saudia Arabia,” said War. “Making fun of the same reporters.”

Ash held up her hand in a “V” pose.

“None of us have ever really, uh…” said Famine.

“Had a girlfriend?” said War. “You don’t know that.”

Famine fidgeted. “So you have had a girlfriend?”

“Er, well, no, not really,” said War. She hefted Ash onto her shoulder and flexed her bicep; the smaller woman fit snugly into her shoulder. “But you should try it sometime! Armageddon keeps getting delayed, so we might as well enjoy our time here, right?”

“But what’s the appeal?”

“I think he doesn’t understand it,” said Pollution, “because he can’t even imagine how to get a girlfriend.”

Death appeared stormily, his biker boots thumping against the ground a bit too hard. AND WHERE IS OUR SUMMONER?

“Not here yet,” said Pollution, fiddling with the wine bottle they held. “But why don’t we have some drinks first? Enjoy our time here, right?”

They summoned a card table from somewhere, and Pollution pulled up a seat and patted the one next to them in the hope of coaxing Death to sit down. Famine ambivalently sat down next to War, who had Ash on her lap.

WE’RE NOT HAVING A PARTY, said Death. WE’RE HERE FOR BUSINESS REASONS.

“Sit down, big guy,” said Famine. “Nothing wrong with loosening up a little.”

Death remained motionless for a few moments, tense with annoyance. Then, his biker leathers crinkling, he lowered himself into a seat. BUT I WON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DRINK.

“Aw,” said Pollution, popping the cork off the bottle. “Do you not like it?”

Death’s helmet visor reflected Pollution’s face impassively back at them as they poured drinks.

“Have you never drunk alcohol before?” said War.

Death didn’t answer.

“You haven’t, have you?” said Famine. “Do you want to try some?”

Death lifted his helmet off his head, setting it on his lap. Then he removed one leather glove, revealing his bony hand. The white stalk snaked out and curled around a glass, bringing it to his skeletal grin. The wine dribbled through his jaw and onto his leather jacket.

Famine grimaced. Pollution thought his jacket looked better with stains on it, but didn’t say so. They passed the next half hour in jovial conversation, the wine warming their bodies and lifting their spirits. Ash withdrew a deck of cards from her pocket, which entertained them as they laughed and joked.

They were all quite drunk by the time Ambriel arrived. He sprinted over at top speed, careening into the table. “What are you all doing?”

“We’re having a drink!” said Ash, waving her glass in the air and sloshing wine.

“Wh—” Ambriel took a second to look very confused at the appearance of a fifth horseperson, then shook it off and decided it didn’t matter. “Whatever! Get up, put this stuff away! Armageddon is starting!”

“For real this time?” said Pollution.

A second angel could be seen descending from Heaven. “Yes, for real this time!” Ambriel exploded. “The archangel Michael is on his way! Now get ready!”

War rolled her eyes and folded up the table. Pollution disappointedly retrieved the half-empty wine bottle, sipping from it as they walked over to Ambriel.

Michael touched down, his impressive dusky wingspan battering them with dusty clouds. “Ambriel, I was told the armies of Hell are gathering here, yes?”

“Yes!” said Ambriel. “The antichrist is coming. He’s on his way now.”

“He’s…” Michael looked over the the horsepersons. Famine shrugged. War examined her nails. Pollution continued to sip from their bottle. Death very stormily crossed his arms.

“He’s supposed to already be here,” said Michael. “I don’t see any of the signs of Armageddon…”

“I gave the antichrist Adam Young a very stern lecture about his role, and demanded he come to Armageddon,” said Ambriel. “And he said he was coming.”

Pollution cocked their head. “He said he was coming?”

“Yes. His exact words were, ‘Okay, Boomer.’”

Pollution choked, wine shooting out their nose.

***************************

August 25, 1998

“Can we meet at your restaurant next time?”

Famine turned to Pollution, the only other figure with him at the yet again empty field of Armageddon. “What?”

“The next time this happens, can we meet at one of your restaurants?”

Famine sighed. The first few times this had happened, he’d argued that they didn’t know there was going to be a ‘next time,’ but by now, the anniversary of the Apocalypse usually heralded them gathering to stand around for a while and not much else. “I doubt Ambriel would go for that. We’re supposed to be in this spot.”

Pollution shifted from foot to foot. “But the Newtrition corp has expanded, right? It has branches around here now. It wouldn’t be that far.”

“You don’t want to eat at my restaurant,” said Famine, trying to hide his shock that Pollution was so familiar with his franchise. He hadn’t thought any of the other horsepersons had cared about his silly little business. Although it was nice that someone was paying attention. “Why not?” said Pollution. “It seems nice. It produces lots of waste paper. And styrofoam cartons. Love those things.”

“It doesn’t serve actual food,” said Famine. “Just a bunch of nonsense. It has no nutritional value.”

“Well,” said Pollution. “We don’t actually need to eat, do we? Back in the forties, I went a good decade without eating. Too busy with the mills in Pittsburgh to stop and eat.”

Famine opened his mouth to deliver a snappy retort, only to find he didn’t have one.

“‘Course that was before I took the crown from Pestilence, so I was just a minor horseperson then. Well, my point is, it’s not like we’ll be affected by malnutrition. As long as it tastes good, right?”

Famine lit a cigarette. “If you want to look at it that way, I suppose.”

The rumble of a motorcycle filled the air, and War pulled up with Ash perched on the back of her bike.

“We can’t meet at my restaurant,” said Famine. “That’s inappropriate.” He wasn’t sure why the idea made him so uncomfortable, and he turned to greet War. “Red.”

“Black,” said War, dismounting. She put her bike helmet on the saddle as Ash fell off behind her. “Hey, you don’t have to call me ‘Red,’ you know.”

Famine stopped. “What?”

“I have a name.”

Famine bristled. “Whatever. Where’s that stupid little twig of an angel this time?”

“Geez, who pissed in your cereal,” said Ash, dusting herself off.

“I’m just getting a little tired of this!” said Famine. “I have to fly over from America every year in August only to be told to go right back home!”

Pollution opened a bag of crisps, savoring the grease. They looked disappointedly into the bag. “Black.”

“What?”

“Don’t ruin my crisps!”

“I’m not ruining your—” Famine suddenly realised he was ruining the crisps, because he was so damn frustrated by how inefficient Heaven and Armageddon and this whole thing was. He was used to running things like a well-oiled machine, and this….

“Black, stop ruining the poor kid’s crisps,” said War.

“You’ve never appreciated my work,” Famine snapped.

Ambriel chose this moment to appear. “All right, everyone!” he said. “This time I’ve really—”

“Black, I was very much looking forward to my crisps!” Pollution said.

“You all only notice how hard I work when it affects you!” said Famine. “I’m the only one putting real effortinto building an empire—”

“You’re the only one?” said Pollution.

Scared, Ambriel hid behind his clipboard, unsure of how to wrangle them.

Famine suddenly realised that War was gleefully egging on the fight between him and Pollution with her horseperson powers. “Red!”

The tension in the air immediately dissipated, and War slunk back, looking chastised.

His head more clear now, Famine smoothed out his tie. The booted footsteps of Death reverberated in the air before he made his appearance. AND HOW MANY ANNIVERSARIES IS THIS NOW? I’VE LOST COUNT.

“You’re late,” said Ambriel snootily.

Death turned to him. Even though he had no face to speak of, and still had his helmet on, everyone could clearly imagine the expression he would make.

“Seven,” said Pollution through a mouthful of crisps.

A second angel descended from the sky, this one unhurried, dragging its proverbial feet.

AND DO I HAVE ANYTHING TO BE LATE FOR THIS TIME? said Death.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Ambriel. “Because I have with me the field agent who was responsible for delaying Armageddon last time. So now he’s going to kick it off.”

A chubby angel with oodles of curly hair touched down, looking around guiltily. “Er, hello...I’m Aziraphale.”

“Oh, you looked nicer in a dress,” said Pollution.

“All right,” said Ambriel. “Let’s go, then. Go on.”

Aziraphale shuffled his feet.

“Don’t we need the antichrist?” volunteered Famine.

“The antichrist is unavailable,” said Ambriel icily. “We’ll have to make do without him.”

“Unavailable?!” exclaimed War.

“He means Adam Young doesn’t want Armageddon to happen,” said Aziraphale, who then shut up right quick at an elbow jab from Ambriel.

“You can make it happen without the antichrist?” said Pollution, crunching through a mouthful of crisps. “Thought was the whole point of him. So how does it work?”

“Ahem,” said Ambriel. “That is none of your concern. Just worry about your own part. Now, let’s begin.”

Ambriel stepped forward to direct the horsepersons. War kept looking up at the sky, noticing Armageddon didn’t seem to be happening. Pollution licked their fingers, other hand firmly stuck in their crisps packet.

“And now Aziraphale will--Aziraphale?”

While Ambriel had had his back turned, Aziraphale had scuttled off, wings drawn wide and flapping erratically like a prey animal running from a fox. “Ahhh! Get back here!”

Ambriel went off chasing him. War stood where she was, sword poised, and watched him go. “Um…”

Pollution finished their packet of crisps and dropped it on the ground, wiping their hands on their shirt. “Is he coming back?”

They stayed there for about half an hour waiting for Ambriel, and decided he wasn’t coming back. Ash sweet-talked War into hitting the bars after that. They managed to convince everyone but Death to come along, too.

*************************

August 25, 2001

“Hey, why does it take an apocalypse for us to get together?” said War.

Pollution picked idly at the tablecloth on the little picnic table they had summoned. They were trying to decide if ketchup or mustard would make better stains on it. “Hmm?”

War straddled the bench, picking at the picnic basket. “I mean, I know not everyone likes to spend time with their coworkers outside of work, but there’s nothing stopping us from getting together outside of Armageddon, right?”

Pollution stopped. “Hmm?”

“She’s saying she wants to spend more time with you guys,” said Ash.

“We can do that?!” Pollution said.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” said War.

Pollution’s eyes sparkled.

“Come sit down and enjoy this little basket you put together,” said Ash. “It looks lovely.”

The weather was fabulous, once again with no signs of the inclement weather heralding Armageddon, and a delicious breeze tugged at them and whipping waves through the dry summer grass. Pollution fished out some plastic utensils and set them out on the table.

Ash took a sandwich from the basket. It definitely had worms of some sort in it, but being from Hell, she was used to such things.

“Where’s Famine, anyway?” said Pollution, setting a pile of napkins on the table and watching them immediately blow away in the wind.

“Oh, he’s coming!” said War. “And he said he was bringing a plus one this year.”

“A plus one?”

“Sounds like he’s got a girlfriend too. Or boyfriend. Or what-have-you.”

Pollution scratched their head. “Wonder who it could be.”

With a rustle of grass, Death stood beside them.

“Come sit down!” said War. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

Death looked at them contemplatively. I DIDN’T RECEIVE A SUMMONS THIS YEAR.

“Huh,” said Pollution, letting their sandwich wrapper fall to the ground. “I just realised, neither did I.”

“Yeah,” said War, waving her hand dismissively. “But after doing this annually for ten years, I think we get the point, right?”

Death stood like a silent sentinel. Death was rarely the type to display any emotion at all, but to War and Pollution, it looked like he was fighting to not indulge in some unconventional display of sentiment.

A smile spread across War’s face. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

I JUST WANTED TO SEE IF I WAS NEEDED THIS YEAR, said Death.

“Well, Armageddon is probably delayed again,” said War. “So you’re not, really. You’re free to leave.”

Death stood still.

“Come sit down,” said Ash, patting the bench. “You’re always so serious.”

Death clomped over and swung his enormous legs over the wooden bench.

“Heard Famine’s got himself a new squeeze,” gossiped War.

OH, said Death. YES…

The grass in the field next to them dried up, swirling brittle pieces making a small tornado, and with a mournful nicker, a skeletal horse materialized. Its emaciated frame was oozing with dripping wounds and festering decay. Atop its back was a figure in a white robe with a long, beaked mask.

Famine pulled up on his motorcycle. “Fellas, good to see you again!”

“It’s been a very long time,” said the newcomer, although no, he wasn’t new at all…

“You brought Pestilence!” Pollution yelled. “He’s not a horseperson anymore! I replaced him!”

“Tsk tsk, you young punk,” said Pestilence, dismounting. “No respect at all.”

Pollution glared.

“He’s not here as a horseperson,” said Famine. “He’s my plus one.”

“That’s cheating!” said Pollution.

Pestilence winked, which was absolutely infuriating.

Pollution crossed their arms as Famine and Pestilence took their seats. “This looks delightful,” said Pestilence, taking a crisp from a bowl.

Pollution grumbled. Famine was a little disgruntled that they had set up a nice meal, but he muttered an echo of Pestilence’s praise.

“It’s just weird,” said Pollution. “It’s like you’re dating my dad.”

“I’m not your Dad,” said Pestilence. “We barely met before you kicked me out.”

“I think you just don’t like Pestilence,” said Famine.

Pollution bristled. “Maybe.”

Famine shrugged. Somewhere in the world, the minor horseperson of Awkward Interpersonal Issues felt their power surge.

“It’s because they’re afraid I’ll wrangle the job of horseperson #3 from them,” said Pestilence. “The anti-vax moms in the United States are making them nervous.”

Pollution’s cheeks went red.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” said Pestilence. “I don’t want to be one of the Main Four anymore. It’s quite dull. The humans’ attitude towards smallpox ruined the fun for me. Some of my best work, all down the drain. Feff.” He sipped some cola. “But you seem to be doing a splendid job. I hear nowadays everyone’s mad about straws, of all things.”

Pollution perked up. The atmosphere at the table was much lighter after that.

“Isn’t Ambriel going to show up?” said War. “Usually right about now is when he comes down, babbling about how Armageddon is really going to happen this time, and how we need to get ready.”

Pestilence scratched his head. “Ambriel? He’s the one who had to come tell me they were swapping me out for Pollution. He still works in the Department of Armageddon? Poor sod always got the worst jobs pushed onto him.”

Ambriel did, in fact, show up eventually. He had none of his usual bravado. He dragged his sandaled feet through the dirt and flopped down to join them at the picnic table. The four of them shared a look, then looked back at Ambriel. “Hey, kid, what’s wrong?” said Famine.

“Useless,” said Ambriel. “It’s all useless. Nothing I do ever works. No matter how hard I try, Heaven can’t get its crap together to make Armageddon happen. Oh, pardon my language.”

“Hey, cheer up,” said Pollution. “The first time we tried, the four of us got beaten by little kids with sticks and rocks. That’s way more humiliating than anything you’ve had to go through.”

Famine glared at Pollution. Pollution unwrapped a lolly, enjoying the crinkling of the wrapper.

Ambriel thunked his head on the table, groaning. “No use, it’s no use!”

“Well, we’re all having a lovely time anyway!” said Ash. “August 25 is my favorite day of the year now!”

“It’s supposed to be Armageddon,” moaned Ambriel. “It’s not supposed to be a celebration.”

War stabbed a little cocktail weiner with her Bowie knife. “We’ve been known to celebrate in unconventional ways.”

***************************

Present day

“1845.”

“No, that was you?”

Pollution sucked on their choco-whippy milkshake, eyes bouncing from War to Pestilence.

“Yep,” said Pestilence, leaning back, looking very pleased with himself.

“I thought for sure that was Famine,” said War.

“I wish,” said Famine. “I had been working in Ireland for a few years at that point, but hadn’t had much success.”

“Phytophthora infestans,” said Pestilence. “One of my favorites.

“He refuses to lend it to me,” said Famine. “Greedy bastard.”

“Not your jurisdiction.”

They all shared a hearty laugh.

“Oh, Pollution,” said War, snapping her fingers. “I just remembered. That science project we were talking about the other day, the bacteria that humans were cultivating to break down plastic.”

Pollution’s face screwed up in displeasure.

“I was working on trying to divert some of the NHS’s funding into more bioweapon applications. Maybe if you do me a little favor in return, I can get their funding pulled?”

Pollution nodded happily, sucking through their straw.

“Hey, here he comes!” said War, throwing up her hand.

Death strode over, standing at the edge of the table.

“Sit down,” said Ash, patting the seat. “We’re having a lovely time.”

I HAVE… said Death. If it were possible, he seemed embarrassed.

“What?” said Pollution.

I HAVE ALSO BROUGHT A PLUS ONE.

“What, a boyfriend?” said Pestilence.

NOT LIKE THAT…. said Death. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a small bundle of fur, which blinked and mewled.

Ash had stars in her eyes, putting her hands on her head as though to keep her brain from exploding out. “Is that a kitten?”

I FOUND IT OUTSIDE.

“It’s so cute!” said Pollution.

I HAD NEVER NOTICED THEM BEFORE, said Death. THEY ARE...NICE.

“Well, nothing wrong with enjoying the pleasures of the world,” said Famine. “Since it seems like we’ll be here for a while.”

Death sat down, putting the cat on the table. The minimum wage employees scrambling to make the food didn’t have the time to notice or care.

“We were just discussing some of the other anniversaries we have besides August 25,” said War. “Turns out we have quite a lot of them! We should share.”

Death was silent.

“February 14,” said War. “The start of the first War in Mesopotamia. That was my favorite one. I find the date so deliciously funny with what they’ve done with it now.”

“September 27,” said Pollution. “When the first mass-produced automobile left the factory.”

“What about you?” siad Famine.

“Black’s right,” said Pollution. “You must have one.”

Death hummed for a minute. Then: NOVEMBER 16. THE DAY THE FIRST MAN DIED.

“And kicked all this off,” said Famine. “I’ll drink to that.”

They clinked their glasses against each other’s.

“Hey,” said Famine. “You guys have been calling me ‘Black,’ this whole time, and while I guess it’s technically what I am…. Well, I picked a name. A more human name. You could use it, if you like.”

“Would you like that?” said Pollution.

“I think so. It’s Sable.”

“Raven Sable,” said War. “That’s right. I like it.”

“What about you?” said Sable. “Don’t you have one?”

“Oh, yeah!” said War. “Wouldn’t that just be great! Call me Carmine.”

“It’s such a good name!” said Ash joyfully.

Carmine beamed. She’d never known this would feel good, but it did.

Pollution shyly tapped their fingers on the table. “Chalk, please.”

All eyes turned towards Death.

“Well?” said Chalk. “Only if you want to.”

AZRAEL.

“It’s perfect,” said Ash.

Sable snapped his fingers. “Guys, hold on a second, I just remembered something.”

“Hm?” said Chalk.

“August 25. Armageddon.”

“So?” said Carmine. “That never happens anyway.”

“Well, we were so excited to meet we forgot we were supposed to go to Armageddon first.”

Carmine choked on the pickle she had been eating. “Oh yeah,” said Ash, very slowly. “I guess that’s fine, though. But, oh dear… Did anyone tell Ambriel?”

Azrael grinned, moreso than a regular skeletal grin. I’M SURE HE’S DOING JUST FINE.

“I’ve got it! I’ve finally got it!”

Ambriel, almost tripping over his robes, waved his papers in the air as he sprinted towards Armageddon. “I finally have all the departments in accord, the stars have aligned, the paperwork is signed, the—”

Ambriel stopped and beheld the field of Armageddon, butterflies floating by and flowers bouncing merrily, very conspicuously empty and peaceful and not trodden by the harbingers of Armageddon.

“Oh, dear…”

#good omens #my writing #my good omens fanfic #gohe

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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I Worked for Alex Jones. I Regret It. https://nyti.ms/2PiTeFr

This piece by former InfoWars "video reporter" (?) Josh Owens reveals all the insanity you'd expect but also the pathetic sadness of those who continue to enable, peddle, and profit from his malicious lies.

Confession is good for the soul, but I'm trying to get my head around the fact that the author continued to work for Alex Jones for several YEARS after the latter made his vile claims about Sandy Hook.

Josh Owens was drawn to #InfoWars while "vulnerable, angry & searching for direction"; after 4 years w/Alex Jones, he saw "virulent nature of his world." Read if you can stomach Jones' deeply disturbing behavior. This model has infected right-wing media.

Josh Owens is a seriously good writer. Too bad he didn't make the subject of this piece himself. Why was he angry, why did he stay with Jones so long, how did he feel as he did his work? These unexamined questions are the heart of the story, not how disturbed a plainly disturbed man Jones is.

"Owens admits that his personal mental and emotional issues led him to Jones. We should be glad for him, that he found the strength to recognize it, address it, and walk away from a bad situation. Owens shouldn't be vilified for his past mistakes, but celebrated for his return. Prodigal son, no? But forgiveness does not imply absolution."

"This can't be the end of the road. As he is responsible for a lot of anguish and grief. Is he even an accessory to murder? The pain that he enabled will live on in families for decades and become part of our national fabric. How does he intend to make amends? This written catharsis is a good first step, but it's only a first step. Is he the little girl in the airplane, seeing the world for the first time? What does he intend to do with this revelation, and fix the damage he has done?"

"At 23, Josh Owens quit film school to work as a video editor for Alex Jones. This is his account of the years he spent within the Infowars empire." /1

"At first, he found it easy to brush off Alex Jones’s fever dreams as eccentricities and excesses. But he eventually found that he had his limits." /2

"Once, at a private ranch, Owens said, Alex Jones picked up an AR-15 and accidentally fired it in the writer’s direction. The bullet hit the ground about 10 feet away from him, he recalled. Jones claimed he had intentionally fired the gun as a joke, he said."/3

“Over time, I came to learn that keeping Jones from getting angry was a big part of the job, though it was impossible to predict his outbursts,” he writes."/4

“There was a time when I shared his anger. In fact, I was still angry. But this is where we differed: I wasn’t angry with others; I was angry with myself. And once I realized that, it was easier to walk away”/5

I WORKED FOR ALEX JONES. I REGRET IT.

I dropped out of film school to edit video for the conspiracy theorist because I believed in his worldview. Then I saw what it did to people.

By Josh Owens | Published Dec. 5, 2019 | New York Times Magazine | Posted December 6, 2019 |

On Election Day 2016, I sat in the passenger seat of Alex Jones’s Dodge Hellcat as we swerved through traffic, making our way to a nearby polling place. As Jones punched the gas pedal to the floor, the smell of vodka, like paint thinner, wafted up from the white Dixie cup anchored in the console. My stomach churned as the phone I held streamed live video to Facebook: Jones rambling about voter fraud and rigged elections while I stared at the screen, holding the camera at an angle to hide his double chin. It rarely worked, but I didn’t want to be blamed when he watched the video later.

Four years earlier, Jones — wanting to expand his website, Infowars, into a full-blown guerrilla news operation and hoping to scout new hires from his growing fan base — held an online contest. At 23, I was vulnerable, angry and searching for direction, so I decided to give it a shot. Out of what Infowars said were hundreds of submissions, my video — a half-witted, conspiratorial glance at the creation and function of the Federal Reserve — made it to the final round.

Unconvinced I could cut it as a reporter, Jones offered me a full-time position as a video editor. I quit film school and moved nearly a thousand miles to Austin, Tex., fully invested in propagating his worldview. By the time I found myself seated next to Jones speeding down the highway, I had seen enough of the inner workings of Infowars to know better.

Before we left the office, Jones instructed me to title the video “Alex Jones Denied Right to Vote” when uploading to YouTube. He knew before we left that they wouldn’t let us walk into a polling location with our cameras rolling. I don’t think Jones even intended to vote. Rather, he hoped to turn this into a spectacle, an insult to him personally, another opportunity to play the self-aggrandizing victim.

“Look at this great city shot,” he said pointing out the window at Austin’s skyline. As soon as I pulled the camera off him, he reached for the white Dixie cup. Is this really how I’m going to die? I thought to myself, imagining the scene: Jones veering too close to the guardrail, ranting about George Soros and Hillary Clinton. Sirens echoing in the distance, flashing lights reflecting off oil-soaked pavement as he grabs the camera and utters his final words, “Hillary ... rigged ... the car.” His listeners would have believed it. Years earlier, I would have believed it.

Fortunately, there were no sirens or flashing lights, and I was relieved when “Vote Here” signs began to appear. A line stretched out the door of the polling place, in a local strip mall, by the time we arrived. As I expected, Jones was told multiple times that he couldn’t film at a polling place, and he decided to leave. Walking back to the car, still taking sips from his white cup, he began noticeably slurring his words. A friend of Jones’s who tagged along — for “security purposes” — offered to give me a ride back to the office. Jones revved his engine, tires squealing as he sped out of the parking lot.

I began listening to Jones’s radio show — the flagship program of what is now a conspiracist media empire with an audience that until recently surpassed a million people — in the last days of George W. Bush’s presidency. The American public had been sold a war through outright fabrications; the economy was in free fall thanks to Wall Street greed and the failure of Washington regulators. Most of the mainstream media was caught flat-footed by these developments, but Jones seemed to have an explanation for everything. He railed against government corruption and secrecy, the militarization of police. He confronted those in power, traipsed through the California redwoods to expose the secretive all-male meeting of elites at Bohemian Grove and even appeared in two Richard Linklater films as himself, screaming into a megaphone.

But it wasn’t the politics that initially drew me in. Jones had a way of imbuing the world with mystery, adding a layer of cinematic verisimilitude that caught my attention. Suddenly, I was no longer a bored kid attending an overpriced art school. I was Fox Mulder combing through the X-Files, Rod Serling opening a door to the Twilight Zone, even Rosemary Woodhouse convinced that the neighbors were members of a ritualistic cult. I believed that the world was strategically run by a shadowy, organized cabal, and that Jones was a hero for exposing it.

I had my limits. I can’t say I ever believed his avowed theory that Sandy Hook was a staged event to push for gun control; to Jones, everything was a “false flag.” I didn’t believe that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama smelled like sulfur because of their proximity to hell or that Planned Parenthood was run by “Nazi baby killers.” But it was easy to brush off these fever dreams as eccentricities and excesses — not the heart of the Alex Jones operation but mere diversions.

Once I started working there, however, it became obvious that one was impossible to separate one from the other. Soon after I was hired, Jones’s Infowars-branded store — which sells emergency-survival foods, water filters, body armor and much more — introduced an iodine supplement, initially marketed as a “shield” against nuclear fallout. Still learning the ropes, I was tasked with creating video advertisements for the supplement, which he ran on his online TV show. One of these ads started with a shot of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it exploded. I doubled the sound of the explosion, adding a glitch filter and sirens in the background for dramatic effect. Jones stood over my shoulder as I edited. “This is great,” he said. “See if you can find flyover footage of Chernobyl as well.”

Shortly after Jones began selling the supplements, someone posted a video on YouTube holding a Geiger counter displaying high radiation readings on a beach in Half Moon Bay, Calif. The video went viral, stoking fears that radiation from Fukushima was drifting across the Pacific Ocean. Jones saw an opportunity and sent me, along with a reporter, a writer and another cameraman, to California. We had multiple Geiger counters shipped overnight, unaware of how to read or work them, and drove up the West Coast, frequently stopping to check radiation levels. Other than a small spike in Half Moon Bay — which the California Department of Public Health said was from naturally occurring radioactive materials, not Fukushima — we found nothing.

Jones was furious. We started getting calls from the radio-show producers in the office, warning us to stop posting videos to YouTube stating we weren’t finding elevated levels of radiation. We couldn’t just stop, though; Jones demanded constant real-time content. On some of these calls, I could hear Jones screaming in the background. One of the producers told me they had never seen him so angry.

We scrambled to find something, anything we could report on. We tested freshly caught crab from a dock in Crescent City, Calif., and traveled to the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in Avila Beach, asking fishermen if we could test the small croakers they caught off a nearby pier. We even tried to locate a small nuclear-waste facility just so we could capture the Geiger counter displaying a high number. But we couldn’t find what Jones wanted, and after two weeks of traveling from San Diego to Portland, we flew back to Texas as failures, bracing for Jones’s rage. (Jones did not respond to detailed queries sent before publication by The Times Magazine.)

Over time, I came to learn that keeping Jones from getting angry was a big part of the job, though it was impossible to predict his outbursts. Stories abounded among my co-workers: The blinds stuck, so he ripped them off the wall. A water cooler had mold in it, so he grabbed a large knife, stabbed the plastic base wildly and smashed it on the ground. Headlines weren’t strong enough; the news wasn’t being covered the way he wanted; reporters didn’t know how to dress properly. Once a co-worker stopped by the office with a pet fish he was taking home to his niece. It swam in circles in a small, transparent bag. When Jones saw the bag balanced upright on a desk in the conference room, he emptied it into a garbage can. On one occasion, he threatened to send out a memo banning laughter in the office. “We’re in a war,” he said, and he wanted people to act accordingly.

I also saw Jones give an employee the Rolex off his own wrist, simply because he thought the employee was mad at him. “Now, would a bad guy do that?” Jones asked as he handed over the watch. Once, when I went to interview a frequent guest of Jones’s, I was sent with a check to cover a potentially lifesaving cancer treatment. A few times I came close to quitting, and like clockwork, just before I pulled the plug, I received a bonus or significant raise. I hadn’t discussed my discontent with Jones, but he seemed to sense it.

Jones often told his employees that working for him would leave a black mark on our records. To him, it was the price that must be paid for boldly confronting those in power — what he called the New World Order or, later, the deep state. Once my beliefs began to shift, I saw the virulent nature of his world, the emptiness and loathing in many of those impassioned claims. But I was certain that after four years working for Jones, I would never be able to get another job — banished into poverty as penance for my transgressions, and rightly so.

When Jones wanted to blow off steam, we would travel to a private ranch outside Austin to shoot guns. Among other firearms, we would bring the two Barrett .50-caliber rifles he kept stashed in the office. Because we never missed an opportunity to create more content, we also brought along cameras to turn whatever happened into a segment for his show.

I remember one trip in particular. It was the summer of 2014, and I rode to the ranch in the back of a co-worker’s truck, surrounded by semiautomatic rifles, boxes of ammunition and Tannerite, an explosive rifle target. A few of us left early in the morning, arriving before Jones to film B-roll and load magazines; he had no patience for preparation. When he came hours later, after eating a few handfuls of jalapeño chips, he picked up an AR-15 and accidentally fired it in my direction.

The bullet hit the ground about 10 feet away from me. One employee, who was already uncomfortable around firearms, lost it, accusing Jones of being careless and flippant. This was one of the few times I saw someone call Jones out and the only time he didn’t get angry in response. He claimed he had intentionally fired the gun as a joke — as if this were any better.

I stood by silently, considering what might have happened if the gun had been pointed a little to the right. After a while the upset employee let it go, and no one brought it up again. We cracked open a few more beers, filled an old television with Tannerite and blew it up.

One weekend, a few people from the office went hunting at a game reserve. On the following Monday, I was handed a hard drive full of video files and told to edit them for Jones to air on his show later in the week. “There are clips in here that are pretty bad, things we don’t want to get out, so let me take a look at this before we upload it,” one of my managers said.

The first video I clicked on came from a cellphone. The camera pans across a blood-covered floor in what looked like a garage. Dead animals were scattered about: eyes lifeless, tongues hanging from their mouths, crimson streaks splashed on their fur.

In another video, a bison grazed quietly in the shade of a large tree; it reminded me of a tableau at the American Museum of Natural History. Then the camera panned over to Jones, maybe 20 yards away, holding what looked like a handgun. Jones began firing at the bison, tufts of hair flying with every hit. The animal remained standing as Jones shot round after round. Finally, the hunting guide yelled at Jones to stop and handed him a high-caliber rifle. Jones took a moment to make sure the cameras were still recording and fired a few more rounds as the animal finally collapsed.

I shared a large room with three other employees, and Jones often walked into our office after he wrapped for the day. His first question was always “How was the show?” If anyone said it was great — someone, if not everyone, always said it was great — his response was the same. “Really?” he would say, moving over to their side of the room. “Did you really think it was great? What did you like about it?”

Working for Jones was a balancing act. You had to determine where he was emotionally and match his tone quickly. If he was angry, then you had better get angry. If he was joking around, then you could relax, sort of, always looking out of the corner of your eye for his mood to turn at any moment.

Late one night, after an extended live broadcast, Jones walked into my office shirtless. This was normal; he removed his shirt frequently around us. He pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose from a storage cabinet and filled his cup. He stumbled into his private restroom, changed into a clean black polo shirt and stepped back into our office. “Hit me,” he said to an employee in the room. When the employee refused, Jones got louder, his face redder. “Hit me!” He kept saying it, getting closer each time. Finally, knowing Jones would never relent, the employee gave him a weak tap on the shoulder.

“Oh, come on,” he said, “hit me harder!”

The employee punched him hard in the shoulder. Jones grunted on impact, seeming to enjoy the pain. Then, it was his turn. Smirking, he planted his feet, reared back and lunged his body weight forward as his fist connected with the man’s arm. I could hear the dull thud of impact, then a wincing sigh. They traded a few more punches, each time seeming less playful. Jones became wild-eyed, spit flying from his clenched teeth as he exhaled. On his last hit, the sound was different. Wet. I thought I could hear the meat split open in the employee’s arm. Jones roared as he punched a cabinet, denting the door in. A few weeks later, I heard that Jones had broken a video editor’s ribs after playing the same game in a downtown bar.

Having aligned himself with Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, Jones might now be considered a version of a conservative, but his perspective is much more complicated than that. Infowars was like a lot of digital-media outlets, in that we reported on the things our top editor thought would go viral. But because our boss was Alex Jones, this was a peculiar process. Assignments were often handed down live on the air during his show. We were to have it playing throughout the office, always listening for directives. Ideas for stories mostly came from what other news outlets reported. Jones wanted us to “hijack” the mainstream media’s coverage and use it to our advantage. If it fit into the Infowars narrative, it played.

When I wasn’t at the office, I spent much of my time traveling for Jones. I inhaled the tear gas in Ferguson, Mo., during the Black Lives Matter protests, retching as I hid with protesters, corralled by cops in riot gear. I stood next to armed cowboys and ranch hands as they faced off against the Bureau of Land Management to retrieve Cliven Bundy’s cattle in Nevada. I had dinner with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, at his home in Phoenix and spent a weekend at the compound of Jim Bakker, the televangelist who spent time in prison for fraud. Jones’s instinctual desire to distance himself from the mainstream led us to unusual and sometimes dark places.

In December 2015, the day before Jones interviewed Donald Trump, still a candidate at the time, on his radio show, I made my way to upstate New York on assignment, along with a reporter and second cameraman. We were sent to visit Muslim-majority communities throughout the United States to investigate what Jones instructed us to call “the American Caliphate.” After the California Geiger-counter debacle, we had meetings with Jones before trips in order to ascertain exactly what he wanted. If we “hit some home runs,” he said, we would get significant bonuses.

We landed in Newark at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2015. The first stop was Islamberg, a Muslim community three hours north of Manhattan. It was founded in the 1980s by mostly African-American followers of a Pakistani cleric named Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, who encouraged devotees of his conservative brand of Sufi Islam to establish small settlements across the rural United States. Gilani was suspected of association with the organization Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which was briefly designated as a terrorist group by the State Department in the 1990s; Gilani has denied any connection to the group. His followers in Islamberg had no record of violence, and some of them had denounced the Islamic State in an interview with Reuters earlier that year, saying they didn’t believe Islamic State members to be real Muslims. But unfounded rumors circulated around far-right corners of the internet that this community was a potential terrorist-training center. Jones, who thought the media consistently ingratiated themselves with Islamic extremists, believed them.

We pulled in, unannounced, to a dirt drive leading to the community, stopping at a flimsy cattle gate guarded by two men. The reporter, wearing a hidden camera, approached the entrance as we filmed the interaction from the vehicle. The men were calm and polite, if a little suspicious — reasonable given the circumstances. They denied our entry into Islamberg but took our number and told us we could return after they verified who we were.

It was only later, after listening to the audio from the reporter’s hidden camera, that I heard what he told the two men guarding the gate. “Basically, what we do is, we go around, and we do videos debunking claims of stuff,” the reporter said. “The word is, people say this is some kind of training camp, so we wanted to come in and get some footage and kind of put that whole rumor to rest.”

He gave them his real name — a name that, with a quick Google search, would lead back to Infowars, with its headlines like “Inside Sources: Bin Laden’s Corpse Has Been on Ice for Nearly a Decade,” “Special Report: Why Obama Brought Ebola to U.S. Exposed” and “VIDEO: ‘Demon’ Caught on Camera During Obama Visit?” Those headlines could be described by many words, but none of them would be “debunking.”

Because of the conspiracy theories about the place, Islamberg was a constant target of right-wing extremists. That April, a Tennessee man was arrested and later convicted of plotting to raise a militia to burn Islamberg’s mosque to the ground. Only days before we arrived, the F.B.I. issued an alert to law enforcement to be on the lookout for a man named Jon Ritzheimer, the leader of an anti-Muslim movement in Arizona who posted a video threatening violence against Muslims less than two weeks earlier. In the video, he brandished a handgun, saying: “I’m urging all Americans across the U.S. everywhere in public, start carrying a slung rifle with you, everywhere. Don’t be a victim in your own country.”

So the phone call we received later that night from a law-enforcement agent shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The officer who contacted us said he simply wanted to verify who we were after receiving a concerned call from someone in Islamberg. We told Jones about it, and he chose to believe the call was a veiled threat, an attempt to intimidate us into silence. To him, this verified that we were onto something. He even went so far as to include Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, in the purported conspiracy, claiming he wanted to abolish the Second Amendment — and that somehow intimidating us would achieve that.

Jones told us to file a story that accused the police of harassment, lending credence to the theory that this community contained dangerous, potential terrorists. I knew this wasn’t the case according to the information we had. We all did. Days before, we spoke to the sheriff and the mayor of Deposit, N.Y., a nearby municipality. They both told us the people in Islamberg were kind, generous neighbors who welcomed the surrounding community into their homes, even celebrating holidays together.

The information did not meet our expectations, so we made it up, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears of Jones’s audience. We ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context to fit our narrative, posting headlines like:

Drone Investigates Islamic Training Center

Shariah Law Zones Confirmed in America

Infowars Reporters Stalked by Terrorism Task Force

Report: Obama’s Terror Cells in the U.S.

The Rumors Are True: Shariah Law Is Here!

Our next stop was Hamtramck, a Muslim-majority city embedded within Detroit that alarmists in neighboring communities called Shariahville. As we headed west, my phone vibrated, and a news alert appeared on the screen. There were reports that a mass shooting that week in San Bernardino, Calif., had been perpetrated by Islamic extremists, making it at the time the deadliest Islamic attack in the United States since Sept. 11.

I knew that when the details emerged, they would substantiate the lies we pushed to Jones’s audience. It didn’t matter if the attack took place on the other side of the country or if the people in Islamberg had no connection to the perpetrators in San Bernardino. Jones’s listeners would draw imaginary lines between the two, and we were helping them do it.

I quit working for Jones on April 7, 2017. When offered another job, an introductory position with a 75 percent pay cut, I jumped at the opportunity. Instead of giving two weeks’ notice, I left in three hours. Jones had gone home for the day, so I didn’t speak with him in person. I said goodbye to co-workers and managers, handed over my company credit card and hoped that would be the end of it. Two nights later, I received a call from Jones: “Let me tell you a little secret,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I don’t like it anymore, either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” he said, “and I got all these people working for me, and you know, then I feel guilty. I don’t want to do it. You think I want to keep doing this? I haven’t wanted to do this for five years, man.” I sensed that he was pandering, but I couldn’t help thinking that for the first time since I started this job, Jones and I finally had something in common. Sure, there was a time when I shared his anger. In fact, I was still angry. But this is where we differed: I wasn’t angry with others; I was angry with myself. And once I realized that, it was easier to walk away. When I left, I tried to put myself in his shoes, to figure out why he said and did the things he did. At times I saw a different side to Jones, one that was vulnerable, desiring validation and acceptance. Then he would say something so vile and callous it became impossible to look past it.

Even though I was no longer beholden to Jones for financial security, I couldn’t be honest about how I felt. I was to blame for my actions, unequivocally, and yet I resented Jones for creating an environment of rage, fear and confusion that diminished discernment, increased self-doubt and left me feeling as if my brain had short-circuited. I wanted to say these things to Jones, but I didn’t.

He offered to double my pay, suggested I work remotely and even proposed funding a feature-length film of my own. I said it wasn’t about money and turned him down. To this day, I still don’t know why he wanted to keep me around. He said it was because he cared about me, but if I had to guess, I would say his main concern was losing control.

The next morning, he called numerous times, and then again that evening. I let the calls go to voice mail.

There wasn’t a single moment that persuaded me to leave, but there was a turning point: a moment that stuck with me long after it happened. I thought of it as I sat next to Jones speeding recklessly down the highway on Election Day, when I walked out of the office for the last time and when I decided to sit down and write this article.

It was early morning, and we were headed back to Austin after the trip that began in Islamberg. As we boarded our flight, I took my window seat close to the rear of the plane. An older woman wearing a hijab sat next to me. With her was a young girl, giddy with excitement, who bounced in the middle seat, holding a bag of pretzels. The woman leaned over and asked if I would let the girl sit by the window. “This is her first time on a plane,” she said. I agreed and moved my bag from under the seat.

I thought of the children who lived in Islamberg: how afraid their families must have felt when their communities were threatened and strangers appeared asking questions; how we chose to look past these people as individuals and impose on them more of the same unfair suspicions they already had to endure. And for what? Clickbait headlines, YouTube views?

As I sat on the aisle, the plane now lifting up into the pale blue sky, I glanced over at the little girl staring out the window in wonder, her face glowing from the light reflecting off the clouds. She was amazed, joyful, innocent, carefree and completely unaware of the world beneath her.

Josh Owens is a writer living in Texas. This is his first article for the magazine.

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keanuquotes · 5 years

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Keanu Reeves Talks John Wick, Bill & Ted and His First True Love

MAY 10, 2019 – 5:00 AM

NICOLE PAJER

@@NicolePajer

He’s led us through simulated reality in The Matrix, made us laugh as a time-traveling teenager in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and kept us glued to our seats as the vigilante title character in John Wick. But while Keanu Reeves thrives in front of the camera, the notoriously private star comes alive offscreen, especially when he’s on a motorcycle. The actor fell in love with bikes at an early age. “I grew up in Toronto, and every summer these bike gangs would come into town. They were pirates!” he recalls with an impish grin. He learned to ride at 22 and was hooked from the moment he first hopped on.

“I love the visceral aspect of riding a bike, being in nature—the wind, the sound, the smell,” he says. “I like that you have your life in your own hands but you’re also very vulnerable; the way you can interact with where you’re going.” He also admits that motorcycles “look cool!”

In 2015, the actor co-founded Arch Motorcycle, which creates custom bikes based off prototypes designed by Reeves’ co-founder, Gard Hollinger. He’s dedicated to bringing the shop’s creative vision to life and is always first to volunteer to test out the archetypes.

“Riding can be a place to think and feel. It’s a way to work things out,” he says. He rides daily, no matter the weather. “I like riding in the rain. It’s a little more sketchy,” he says, revealing his daredevil side.

Reeves, 54, doesn’t have garages full of motorcycles, like Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld have cars. But he keeps a modest collection. “I bought my first Norton in 1986, which I still have. Over the years, I’ve gotten a couple other Norton Commandos, and I have a race bike,” he says. “With Arch, we do a lot of our testing and recreational riding in the Santa Monica Mountains, which are stupendous and beautiful,” he says. And, with the exception of meeting his colleagues for Sunday morning runs on California’s scenic Pacific Coast Highway, “the classic L.A. ride,” he’s typically a lone wolf on the road.

An Actor’s Life

If motorcycles are his second love, then acting is most definitely his first. Reeves “declared” he wanted to be an actor at 15 and never looked back. “I really don’t know anything else,” he says. Born in Beirut, the son of a British mom and a father from Hawaii, he traveled around the world as a child (Hawaii, Australia, New York City) before finally settling with his mother, Patricia, in Toronto. He says he struggled academically—bouncing between four high schools as a teen—but found his calling in acting classes and community theater.

“My favorite experiences in high school were doing Shakespeare in English class. I really enjoyed playing Mercutio,” Romeo’s witty friend in Romeo and Juliet. At 17, he dropped out of school to pursue a Hollywood career, moving to Los Angeles three years later. It’s a decision he doesn’t regret. “I was fortunate enough to start working at a pretty young age and support myself,” he says.

He made his acting debut in a 1984 episode of the Canadian-based TV drama Hangin’ In. He went on to launch his movie career with the edgy 1986 teen drama River’s Edge, the co-lead in the cult classic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the role of Tod in Parenthood in 1989. But Reeves deems 1991’s Point Break, in which he played rookie FBI agent-turned-surfer Johnny Utah, as the role that really changed his life. From there, he became a household name, going on to film a Bill & Ted sequel and becoming an action star in Speed and the Matrix trilogy.

On May 17, Reeves will reprise his role as a retired hit man who can’t escape his violent past in John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum. Wick is a character he’s always thrilled to revisit. “I like his heart, his will and his honor,” Reeves says. “And I think he’s pretty funny!”

Preparation for John Wick requires Reeves to step up his typical fitness routine. “I start training about three months before filming,” he says. This involves extensive weightlifting to achieve Wick’s signature sculpted back and shoulders, as well as brushing up on his judo and jiujitsu. He also undergoes weapons training.

While Wick may pull off some impressive feats, Reeves is quick to give credit where it’s due. “I have an incredible stunt person, Jackson Spidell,” who takes many of the character’s most spectacular splats, he says. “When John Wick gets hit by a car, they don’t want me doing that. Jackson loves getting hit by a car, and he’s amazing at it!”

That doesn’t mean the actor isn’t throwing some impressive punches of his own. “I’m in over 90 percent of what’s going on,” says Reeves. Eleven hours of fight scene filming, which he’ll do five days in a row, is “extremely intense” and requires an aftercare routine of “ice, heat, repeat.”

Reeves says John Wick 3 picks up immediately after its precursor. “We’re right back in with the story.” Wick has an open contract on his life and an hour head start before it’s revealed to a world of assassins that he’s been excommunicated from the safe zone of the Continental Hotel. “We follow him trying to figure a way out,” he says.

Another iconic Reeves role he’s revisiting is Ted “Theodore” Logan for the long-awaited second sequel to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The premise of Bill & Ted Face the Music, according to Reeves, is the duo of one-time high-school slacker-rockers, now older, middle-aged dads with families of their own, must write a hit song or face disastrous consequences. “We have to save the universe now!” he reveals.

The project, shooting in June, was a long time coming; it’s scheduled for release sometime in 2020. “We’ve been trying to get this third installment made for over seven years,” he says, adding that it was important to craft a script worthy of the films’ loyal fans, many of whom have stopped Reeves on the street throughout the years begging for a third installment.

Reeves credits the cult following to the positive messages of the franchise. “Bill [again played by Alex Winter] and Ted keep going against all odds; they can’t be stopped or defeated.” he says, highlighting that it’s crazy to see the movies span multiple generations. “I’ll meet people who have shown the film to their children. It’s nice to know that tone, that humor, those characters can be in the modern world, that it’s not just nostalgia.”

Outside of Hollywood, Reeves avoids social media and resists the urge to read the occasional gossipy headline about himself. He will, however, occasionally pull up his personal IMDB (a popular entertainment database) to reference what year one of his projects was released; with close to 100 immensely diverse film and television credits, it’s hard to keep them all straight.

And then there was Sad Keanu, the 2010 photos of Reeves sitting on a bench eating a sandwich alone, looking forlorn. Reeves insists he’s typically a laid-back, happy-go-lucky guy, but he can’t help but laugh at the mention of the viral meme. “I didn’t like that paparazzi was invading my private space. But then you can’t help but chuckle at that!”

Eligible Bachelor?

Reeves doesn’t quite understand the fascination with stardom. “I came to Hollywood to be in movies. I feel really grateful that I’ve had that opportunity, but I’m just a private person, and it’s nice that can still exist,” he says. He’s never married—unless you count his “wedding” to co-star Winona Ryder in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), officiated by a real Romanian priest—but he’s kept the Hollywood rumor mill spinning over the years with links to some of its most popular female stars, including Sandra Bullock, Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, Parker Posey and Sofia Coppola. Asked if he’s still one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors, he squirms a bit in his seat. “Well, I’m not married,” he says.

Reeves is often touted as a very charitable celeb, having revealed a few years ago that he runs a private foundation to benefit children’s hospitals and fund cancer research but keeps his name unattached. He calls his philanthropy “personal” but does admit to supporting causes that aid the environment, education, arts and medicine. “I’m being touched by all those things and appreciate having the opportunity to contribute,” he says.

When he’s not on set or on his bike, Reeves keeps busy reading scripts or engaging in side projects, such as his book publishing company, X Artists’ Books, which publishes collaborations between visual artists and writers. And he prioritizes activities with family and friends. His bucket list includes a motorcycle trek through France, Switzerland and Italy. And his ’90s band, Dogstar, in which he played bass and sang backup vocals? “We get together once in a while to jam,” he says. There is talk about a potential public revival. “I won’t say no, but I won’t say yes,” he teases.

At this point in his career, he doesn’t have a dream role. “I don’t have a character from history or literature that I have in my pocket,” he says. “For me, it’s just continuing to be able to work with great artists and tell stories that people enjoy.” Reeves has certainly covered a lot of ground in a wide-ranging career that began when was barely out of his teens.

“I was always hoping, even when I was young, that I could do different things,” he says. “I’m really grateful for that. I’m very fortunate. I’m glad to be here.”

#Keanu Reeves #Parade #biography #motorcycles

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