#(though the latter still sounded fab even where we were)

[glorious-blackout]

You went to the show last night?? How was it? Did you have a good time? 💕

Honestly, I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to but that's entirely a Me Problem; the band themselves were terrific and my sister and best friend had an amazing time. I've just been constantly busy since Thursday and have barely recovered from Friday's Muse gig as it is, so by the time the gig started I really was mentally flagging and not feeling great. It was like I could feel my brain actively refusing to make serotonin whenever a song I loved came on 😅

We were in a bad spot during the first half as well where the sound wasn't great and the crowd was fairly packed in and rowdy so I couldn't really hear or see anything properly. We started heading further back after Fluorescent Adolescent which was the best decision we made because the sound was so much better and we could finally see the stage and the screens clearly. Thankfully that meant I got to hear all of the songs from The Car properly and they all sounded gorgeous, Body Paint and Sculptures especially (Alex was such an adorable goof during the outro to Body Paint, I love him so much) 💖

I did leave the gig wanting to see them again, but preferably in a smaller venue and definitely not after I've been on-the-go with very little sleep for four days straight... I was beating myself up last night for not feeling the gig as much as I wanted to but I feel a bit better about it this morning. Honestly the fact that they played Sculptures of Anything Goes made up for everything else - they could have come onstage, played Sculptures and then immediately left and I'd still have been happy 😁

[shitty-check-please-aus]

2020 Books Read So Far

Note: Most of these are audiobooks (listening to books counts as reading books and if you disagree I’d ask you to consider why you believe that), books I started and didn’t finish will be listed but not reviewed, and all my opinions are extremely subjective. I’m putting this on this blog because I want to and I think it’ll help me keep track of what I’ve read if I write it down in a couple places. 

Some notes:

I’m surprised that most of these are nonfiction! I don’t usually think of myself as a nonfiction reader. 

Having audiobooks has made me way more productive as a reader, since I can read while I’m doing repetitive tasks at work, when I have to stand on the bus, when I’m running, etc. 

Naked, by David Sedaris

3/5, the audiobook was “unabridged selections” which means “we didn’t edit the individual essays but you’re only getting half the book”– it would probably have been a 4/5 if it was a whole book. I liked that Amy Sedaris was reading parts of it, but that’s because I like her more than I like her brother. This is sort of an example of the difference between “comedic” and “humorous,” because it’s definitely the latter. 

Read it if: you want to read something pretty fucking weird. 

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

4/5, I saw this recommended a lot when Hamilton first came out so it’s been in the back of my mind for a good while. The book had a great cast, and having different people reading the historical quotes was an excellent touch! 

However, I think Vowell’s conversational style is a little jarring here sometimes. It’s like “wait, why are you talking about Bruce Springsteen, I’m not that familiar with his work but he definitely isn’t from Revolutionary War times.” I got her book Assassination Vacation at a used bookshop recently as well, and both books suffer from post-2016 hindsight, where she’ll say something about how incompetent and foolish the politicians of her time are, and I just have to snort to myself and say “Sarah, you’re going to lose your goddamn mind soon.” That’s a bit of an unfair reaction, but it’s hard to avoid having it.

I was also, maybe unfairly, expecting to learn more than I did. The problem is that I know a Lot about the Revolutionary War, and from the introduction I thought we’d hear more about Lafayette’s later life (my knowledge drops sharply after about 1810). The book basically ends after the Battle of Yorktown, though.

Read it if: you have not seen/listened to both Hamilton and 1776, or if you want to read a summary of the Revolutionary War with a focus on one French captain. 

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

3/5, honestly maybe a 2.5/5. Okay, so. Either I know a lot more about American History than I felt like I did or this is again a very surface level thing. Part of it is because she spends 123 pages on Abe Lincoln. There are 255 pages total. 2/3 of the states I’ve lived in are Indiana and Illinois, two states that fight about claiming Lincoln as their own, and I’ve been to D.C. 4 or 5 times, so I feel like I know enough about Lincoln. I know about John Wilkes Booth, and his brother Edwin who saved Lincoln’s son’s life, and the death train that took Lincoln’s body around the country. I did enjoy learning about the doctor who was probably conspiring with Booth and how he ended up saving tons of lives in prison when there was a yellow fever outbreak (also to be briefly unbearably nitpicky: I think she might have mixed up dengue and yellow fever? She calls yellow fever “breakbone” but I can only find instances online of people calling dengue fever that. Maybe they called them all breakbone in the late 1800s. If anyone reading this is an epidemiologist, let me know).

It was interesting to hear that Charles Guiteau, killer of President Garfield, was part of the Oneida cult. I’m trying to think of anything notable she said about Leon Czolgosz, killer of President McKinley. I guess she talks about how people assumed he was a foreigner because of his name, but I already listened to “The Ballad of Czolgosz” in Assassins, so I knew “Czolgosz, angry man, born in the middle of Michigan.”

This one is from 2005 so the politics stuff is a little more interesting, since at the time I was busy learning multiplication and spending one entire baseball season learning about baseball and following my team (they won the world series, I have excellent timing). I will say that in 2005 we did have Google, so I am again annoyed with some of her asides and personal anecdotes. Look, if you go to the Hemingway house and you don’t know there will be cats there, that’s on you if you don’t bring your Claritin. Hemingway is associated with only two good things, six-toed cats and Daiquiris. 

She also does not acknowledge that the parties basically switched platforms? Lincoln’s Republican party is not today’s Republican party, in fact kind of the opposite, so it’s weird that she starts the book with a dedication that’s like “to my lifelong Democrat grandpa, he’d be pissed I dedicated a book about 3 Republicans to him.” I guess she does sometimes say stuff like “how did Lincoln’s party become Reagan’s” (paraphrase), but she doesn’t actually get into it. 

Speaking of Democrats, she literally spends more time talking about Pablo Picasso than she spends talking about JFK. She doesn’t explain why she didn’t talk about JFK, but it seems bizarre to me to write a book about American assassinations and to leave out John Fucking Kennedy. Literally I’ve talked more about JFK in this section than she did in her assassin book. It’s not until page 253 that JFK gets a full paragraph. There are 255 pages total. Truly, if she’d taken a paragraph to be like “I’m focusing on the presidents who were elected before 1900″ or “the presidents whose immediate families aren’t still alive” or even “I didn’t want to travel to Dallas for research” or SOMETHING to explain why she left out JFK, I would have understood it more instead of flipping through the pages wondering what was going on. 

Read it if: You do not listen to too many history podcasts and you didn’t read the Wikipedia page for the musical Assassins. And I guess if you don’t want to acknowledge that JFK did also get assassinated and that was kind of a big deal. Actually just listen to Assassins instead. 

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

5/5 as a mystery, 0/5 for its original title (not gonna say it here but if you’ve ever googled the name of HP Lovecraft’s cat, it’s along those lines). Less than 6 hours, narrated by Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, fairly ideal as an audiobook. I am 95% sure I’ve already read this, because I spent the summer before I started high school reading every Agatha Christie book in the library (I do not have a list of all the Agatha Christie books in my library the summer of 2010, so there is some question). 

Read if: you want to hear the guy from Downton Abbey deliver the line “I’m not a complete fool!” in a tone that makes it sound like “I’m not a fucking moron!” Sidenote: Can anyone tell me if Brits say “solder” by pronouncing the L that I’ve always heard as a silent L? Or if Dan Stevens just fucked up that one word?

Over The Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, by Jonathan Van Ness

4.5/5

This was a super enjoyable audiobook! It’s a testament to JVN’s considerable charisma that this book is full of him giving people in his past who would rather be anonymous Russian names, and it doesn’t get grating (as a Marina, however, I was shocked to not hear my name at any point; most of the other Marina’s I’ve met in my life are Russian). JVN has had a wild ride in life, and it’s a really raw, honest story of how he became who he is. I will say that if you are interested in reading this, please look up the trigger warnings; there are a lot of things that could be triggering to people. 

I feel a little bad at how much more I liked this one compared to Tan France’s memoir, but I also feel like whoever was ghostwriting that one did a bad job at making Tan seem... not extremely defensive, cocky, and prickly (it seems that JVN did not use a ghostwriter; Tan’s on the other hand, let the phrase “I’m proud to be a petty bitch” make it into the final proof several times). Also JVN advocates going to therapy in his book, while Tan kind of says that you should only go to therapy if you have no friends or family or life partner to talk to, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t know. I also feel like, if I were to get a makeover from the Fab 5, Jonathan would love my hair (I have great hair) while Tan would say that I’m dressing too old for a 24 year old and then take me to fucking Lane Bryant or Torrid (I wear a size 16 US so IRL options are limited). 

Read if: You like Queer Eye or Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Medallion Status, by John Hodgman

4.5/5

I really like John Hodgman’s podcast, and I got to ask him a question at an event he did at the Field Museum and he was very nice, so I went into this inclined to enjoy it. 

And I did! I had a good time reading it. I read it the first week of January and now it’s the second week of February so I have already erased much of the book’s content from my mind, but he somehow made the perspective of being a formerly kinda famous person really interesting. I would also recommend Vacationland, particularly if anyone wants to write an au where Nursey, as a New Yorker, has a vacation home in Dex’s town in Maine. That’s right, I brought it back around to the topic of this blog. And that would be a fucking fantastic au. 

Read it if: you like memoirs! it’s a good one. 

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Gonna give this one a 3/5 for performance, because Dan Stevens (again, because I liked his narration in the other one) does a really annoying American accent for a few characters, and an extremely bad Italian accent for another. I’m starting this review only a few hours in, so if it turns out that the Italian man is not Italian, I’ll revoke my criticism. Still a 5/5 mystery, though. I did have to stop many times when they were talking about Istanbul to go over to Spotify and play “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants. 

Books abandoned in 2020 (so far) (no real spoilers, I didn’t get more than a few chapters into any of them):

The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren

I got to a point where the main character was telling a lie that would put her newly accepted job into jeopardy, and it stressed me out so much as a relatively new hire that I stopped listening for the day and started another one, and then the week had passed and then the library took it back. I think I’d enjoy it more if I was reading it physically and I could control how fast I got through awkward parts (I am practically allergic to secondhand embarrassment). The performance was good and I did get a hankering for cheese curds. 

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

I had like three audiobooks checked out at the same time, and even though this was again an abridged version, I just didn’t have time for all of them. My mom has a physical copy, I’ll borrow that at some point. 

The Witch Elm, Tana French

This is one I may revisit someday. The main character is kind of an asshole, which is the point of his character I think, but it made it hard to get into the story. It’s also a 22 hour audiobook, which is kind of insanely long. Additionally, the narrator has a very slow way of talking, but if I tried to speed up the rate of playback I had trouble understanding his accent (I think I just have trouble processing really fast speech in general as well, but I would’ve had an easier time understanding someone with the same accent as me). Anyways, someone put a hold on it at the library and then I didn’t check it out again. 

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Bob Dylan - Malmö Live, Malmö, Sweden, October 10, 2015

In 2015, Bob Dylan released Shadows in the Night, the first of three Sinatra-centric covers collections -- though Bob doesn’t like the “covers” tag. “I don’t think of these songs as covers,” he told the AARP. “I think of them as songs that have all been done before in many ways. The word ‘covers’ has crept into the musical vernacular. Nobody would have understood it in the ’50s or ’60s. It’s kind of a belittling term. What does it mean when you cover something up? You hide it. I’ve never understood that term. Am I doing a bunch of covers? Well, yeah, if you say so.”

Well, yeah, if you say so, Bob. Anyway, a whole bunch of crooners were introduced into the set in 2015; during this gig in Sweden he plays a whopping seven of ‘em. I’m OK with this. The tunes sound good, if a little lugubrious at times. Bob’s band gets an evocative goth/country/jazz thing going, driven by Tony Garnier’s brooding bowed bass and Donnie Herron’s dreamy steel guitar work (the latter sounds especially sweet on “The Night We Called It A Day”). And Bob sings these old chestnuts beautifully, finding yet another new voice to work with. Another curve in Dylan’s endless highway.

The non-Sinatra material here is fab, too. Once again, Bob and band are sticking to a pretty static setlist, but it’s still working for me. The players definitely not sleepwalking, they’re still finding fresh ways to dig into the songs -- even warhorses like “Tangled Up In Blue” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” sparkle. And the interplay is crackling: check out the harmonica/guitar breakdown on “She Belongs To Me,” or Charlie Sexton’s wicked solo on “Scarlet Town,” or the way the whole band plays subtly with the structure of “Long and Wasted Years.” And the closing “Love Sick” is about as sharp as I’ve ever heard. Good stuff. I think the only song I could do without is Tempest’s “Pay In Blood,” which disrupts the otherwise lovely flow of the set (though I think Bob insists on playing it pretty much every night to this day). Oh well! Onwards ... 

Choice Cut: I’m going to give it up for Bob’s deep vocal on “I’m A Fool To Want You.” He’s not Sinatra (or Billie Holiday for that matter), but Dylan finds his own way into this devastating standard. 

Bob Dylan (vocal, harmonica, grand piano), Stu Kimball (guitar), Charlie Sexton (guitar), Donnie Herron (banjo, violin, mandolin, steel guitar), Tony Garnier (bass), George Recile (drums & percussion)

1. Things Have Changed 2. She Belongs To Me 3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (Bob Dylan-Robert Hunter) 4. The Night We Called It A Day (Matt Dennis, Tom Adair) 5. Duquesne Whistle (Bob Dylan-Robert Hunter) 6. What'll I Do? (Irving Berlin) 7. Pay In Blood 8. I'm A Fool To Want You (Jack Wolf, Joel Herron, Frank Sinatra) 9. Tangled Up In Blue 10. High Water (For Charley Patton) 11. Where Are You? (Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh) 12. Early Roman Kings 13. Why Try To Change Me Now? (Cy Coleman, Joe McCarthy) 14. Spirit On The Water 15. Scarlet Town 16. All Or Nothing At All (Arthur Altman & Jack Lawrence) 17. Long And Wasted Years 18. Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma, Johnny Mercer, Jacques Prevert) 19. Blowin' In The Wind 20. Love Sick

[bucky-bear-barnes]

Left At The Altar - Part 3? (Bucky x Reader, Steve x Reader)

Title: Left At The Altar (Part 3?)

Pairing: Bucky X Reader, Steve Rogers X Reader

Genre: Angst?

Summary: Steve and (Y/N) are both working on what could potentially be a blossoming relationship between them whilst Bucky’s sees tiny cracks. 

MASTERLIST

Part 1  Part 2  Part 4  Part 5

“… Tony and Sam, you two will keep a lookout up on air. Wheels up in 30 mins. Dismissed.” Steve ordered.

The group of Avengers pushed themselves off the chairs and started making their way to get ready for yet another mission. It was a pretty routine mission, information extraction and ultimately shutting down the base they were raiding. It wasn’t complicated but the grounds they had to cover was pretty massive and so the entire team is involved.

Steve has sort of made (Y/N)’s room his over the past couple of months but still kept his own space located right opposite her room. It was more because of space constraint than anything. The 100-year-old super soldier enjoyed collecting keepsakes and the extra room was needed to hold them, even though he was pretty much permanent resident in (Y/N)’s.

He made his way into his room and reached for the stealth suit in his closet. Heaving a sigh at the thought of having to leave (Y/N) behind yet again because of his job, Steve failed to notice the girl opening his room door.

“Hey, captain. Why the long face?” came (Y/N)’s soft voice.

Steve turned around and his smile widened as his eyes landed on her.

“Not too excited about leaving you home alone doll,” he answered, moving closer to her.

A soft smile broke on her face as she stepped into Steve’s embrace. Mumbling into his chest, she said, “I’m not too excited about having you go risk your life either, Cap.”

The two was developing a sort of more than friendship, less than love kind of relationship. For (Y/N), she felt conflicted about her growing interest in her ex-fiance's best friend. For Steve, he just didn’t have the confidence that (Y/N) would ever return his feelings. But the two reveled in this current comfortable relationship they have right now. Not too fast, not too slow. And it felt just right for the both of them.

Bucky stepped out of his room, geared up and ready to go but stopped short when his gaze fell to (Y/N) in Steve’s embrace. The slightly opened door hid nothing from Bucky’s view. His super soldier hearing didn’t help lessen the blow either.

“Come back safe. Promise me, Steve. Don’t go doing foolish things like jumping off a plane. I’m right here waiting for you to come home, alright?” (Y/N) said, her eyes meeting with Steve’s blue ones.

“Yes, ma’am. We still have got that art exhibition to go together. I’ll make it back right in time for it, I promise.” came Steve’s answer, as he landed a peck on her forehead, his lips lingering.

Bucky was no stranger to this new sort-of affection going on between his captain and (Y/N). (Y/N)’s reaction towards him surprised him immensely. The anger and spite he anticipated from (Y/N) did not happen. She was civil, polite, almost too polite to him and Jenny. She kept their contact to a minimum but never purposefully avoiding him. But Bucky would honestly feel so much better if she yelled at him or threw some spiteful comments here and there. This civil and polite girl was new to him. Ever since day 1, (Y/N) was welcoming, warm and friendly. This almost feels painful to him, like Bucky is nothing but a stranger along the streets to her.

His thoughts halted when he heard a laughter bubbling from (Y/N). Looking up, he sees (Y/N) walking around Steve’s room, gathering the essentials he would need for the mission and putting them in his go-bag. This scene of pure domestic bliss was what hurt him the most.

He couldn’t understand why this would hurt. He chose to walk away from this, didn’t he? He was the one that didn’t think (Y/N) and he was right together.

Shaking his head in an attempt to push these thoughts away, Buck threw one last glance into the room and stomped his way to quinjet.

“Where’s Cap? He’s usually all geared up and ready to leave before any of us.” Wanda questioned, as she helped lug Natasha and Clint weapons up the quinjet.

Bucky frowned at the question, his mind wandering to the scene before. He couldn’t help but mumble under his breath, “He’s too busy and pre-occupied with my girl to actually do his captain duties.” The thought startled him, why did he still label (Y/N) as his girl - she wasn’t anymore, and would probably never be again.

“Is everyone gathered?” Steve’s voice came and broke Bucky’s thoughts.

“We’re waiting for you Capiscle,” Tony replied, his face held a knowing smirk.

“I’m here. So, let’s go.” Steve replied, rolling his eyes at the billionaire.

Just as Steve was about to make his way to the controls, two voices sounded.

“Steve!”

“Bucky!”

The lot turned and saw (Y/N) and Jenny making their way to the quinjet the former calling for the captain and the latter calling for the sergeant.

An awkward silence enveloped the quinjet as the rest of the heroes scattered around to make themselves seem busy but kept their ears peeled for the conversation that was to take place.

The look in Steve’s eyes warmed when he spotted (Y/N). Holding her by her hand, he led her away from Jenny and closer to himself, his large frame shadowing the girl as if trying to protect her.

“Uhm, I know you shouldn’t be wearing anything that isn’t part of your suit but would you please just bring this along? You don’t have to wear it just leave it in your go-bag. It’ll make me feel less jittery about you leaving.” (Y/N) said, her face flushing as she handed him the necklace she always wore. It was a long chain with an intricate ring strung through it - her mum’s wedding ring, a sort-of family heirloom that the girl treasured.

Bending to meet (Y/N) eye to eye, Steve gave her a breathtaking smile and lowered his head, requesting for (Y/N) to help him put it on.

“I’ll take good care of it doll,” Steve said, as he straightened his posture, thumbing the ring around his neck.

Bucky’s couldn’t tear his eyes from what was happening in front of him. That necklace was (Y/N)’s. That necklace was his. (Y/N) would always make him wear it when he was leaving for a mission, said it gave her a peace of mind. Bucky’s eyes narrowed at the scene and couldn’t help the low growl he let out.

The only other super soldier picked up the sound and met Bucky’s eyes. Steve saw the look Bucky was giving him and pulled (Y/N) in for a hug, his eyes locked on Bucky’s for a long moment, before he pulled away and caressed the side of (Y/N)’s face.

Jenny tapped on Bucky’s arm and jumped when he turned and glared at her in an instant. Seeing the started girl, Bucky’s gazed softened slightly and gruffly questioned her, “Yeah?”


“You didn’t say bye. So I, I just thought I should come say bye.” Jenny replied, her eyes fleeting between Bucky and what he was previously staring at.

“Yeah okay. I’ll be back soon.” came his reply.

“It would be good if you could tell me where you’re heading to and when you’re leaving and coming back next time, Bucky. I’m your girlfriend. I have the right to want to know where you are and what you are doing.” Jenny grumbled.

“Fine,” Bucky replied, walking away from the fifth argument they’ve had this week.

Jenny stomped off the quinjet, anger radiating from her. The moment of awkward silence was saved (Y/N) yelling out “goodbyes” and “stay safes” to everyone. She met Bucky’s eyes and gave him a small reassuring smile, “Stay safe sergeant.” and a polite nod of her head, before turning to Steve.

“Come back to me soon, Steve. I’ll be looking forward to our art exhibition date,” she said, her eyes turning into crescents from her wide smile.

“Date, doll?” Steve questioned with a teasing tone.

(Y/N) face turned red when she noticed what she has said and lightly shoved the soldier towards the quinjet control.

“I’ll be back for our date doll.” Steve teased, a smirk forming on his face, (Y/N) hurried off the quinjet, not before stopping to wave at the team before heading into the compound.

Tony took one look at Bucky and rolled his eyes at the kicked puppy dog look he was giving the girl.

“Hey! You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, Manchurian Candidate. You let her go the worst way possible. So suck it up, live with your misery while she gets the man she deserves. Capsicle gave her up to you once, don’t expect him to do it twice.” Tony scoffed with a roll of his eyes and left Bucky on his own with his loud and unforgiving thoughts.

I am overwhelmed by all the nice things you lot have got to say! Thank you so much for the support and this chapter was somewhat a slow burn. Future chapters would mostly like feel more like punches to the gut. Feedbacks are most welcomed! Comments, likes and reblogs are fuel to a writer’s writing ya’ll. 

Ps, any future tag requests please direct it my ask guys so its easier for me to keep track. If you could, please reblog pieces that you enjoy to help writers get exposure. Thank you! 

Tagging: @itsanerdlife @buckysmusculararm @klaus-is-king @katbird787 @dryerpet @captainfbffangirl99 @thatawkwardtinyperson @cassandras-musings @cleverwatson125 @universal-glitch @draconicuchiha @frickin-bats @smile-sugar @ryverpenrad @buckyywiththegoodhair @buckyappreciationsociety @17marvelousfreak @seeyainanothalifebrotha @winchesterandpie @northscorpio @winter-is-ending @feelmyroarrrr @marvelouslyloki @melconnor2007 @fab-notfat @musichowler @iamwarrenspeace @ssweet-empowerment @geeksareunique @winterboobaer

Left At The Altar Tags: @orions-nebula @debzybrazy @jeleners143 @carolshiguti-blog @lovely-geek @vougebandit @38leticia @i-love-superhero @srirachasluts @allyp1023 @chipilerendi @hellkat2 @vivianbabz @photography-to-all @jimesu @skeletoresinthebasement @verdonafrost @sexysamsungl @hista-girl @neda-mi-se @jamesbarnesandwolverine @walkingtravesty97 @heyjess-marie @geekyyears9 @avengersandchill @luisamaria-starstuff @im-a-motherfuckin-mermaid @greeneyedgirls4 @snuggleducky @mrs-dr-strange @musedhufflepuff @void-imaginations

The BOLDED usernames cannot be tagged for some reason. Perhaps you could check the “Allow this blog to appear in search results” button and make sure it is turned on. Thanks!

For my other writings, search “Ting writes” on my Tumblr!

[aarontap]

19 Years Later... It’s Betty Goo!

In case you were unaware, I fronted a band in the 1990s called Betty Goo. We came about as my previous band started falling apart and I realized that I’d wanted to write quick and tuneful songs, in stark contrast growing prevalence of the jammy (or worse, nu-metal) side of “alternative rock” that had begaun to take hold in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death. So I grabbed longtime drummer compatriot Chad MacDonald and friend-since-age-three Doug Fraim and formed Betty Goo. We released a dreadful eponymous debut cassette tape but then started to get our heads on straight and found some like-minded melody-and-rock-focused bands in Boston and we hit our stride. In 1997 we released the quasi-conceptual ‘gooicide’ and had planned to break up in its wake. Unfortunately, the record garnered us a modicum of attention that had hitherto been lacking, and so I vowed to soldier on. Chad preferred the original plan and went back to school to start the journey to his now very successful career. On the verge of destruction, in stepped Doug’s friend Jeff Norcross. And Betty Goo was re-born. We had a good run for a couple more years, playing some pretty fantastic shows, and making some good friends along the way. Hell, you could say that I’d never have met my awesome partner in life, music, and otherwise, Paula Kelley, were it not for Goo having continued on. 

But all Goo things must come to an end and for us, it was pretty anticlimactic. In 1999, after a great show supporting our friends Permafrost in their final show, we spent the rest of the weekend in a recording studio in Boston, tracking a dozen songs for what would have been the follow-up to gooicide. Upon reviewing the rough mixes on Monday, I called Doug and Jeff, saying, “this isn’t very good, should we break up?” They both agreed. And that was the end.

Or so we’d thought! Fast-forward a couple decades and I start fucking around with Garageband’s iPhone app. I do a bunch of #instamusic creations, the idea being ‘conceive and record a 30-second-ish soundtrack to a random video/image in less than an hour and post it.’ Most of them are ambient and rambling. But then later in 2016 there’s a presidential election. And this chorus hits me. “Don’t cast your eyes on the emperor’s new clothes…” I followed through and made it into a kinda good, kinda shitty 2000s fakepunk song snippet and posted it. People seemed to dig it. And here’s the thing: it was catchy as hell. I kept revisiting it and thinking, maybe I could make it into something. I tried for about ten minutes to see if it could fit on The Architect’s Daughter but quickly realized, nope. And so I forgot about it.

But when TAD was finally completed and out in the world I got an idea. Maybe a crazzzzzy idea. This was never a Frank Shirts song. It sounds way more like a Betty Goo song. And, know what? There are a couple other Goo songs that I wouldn’t mind revisiting. I emailed Doug (who basically hadn’t played since our last show) and Jeff (who now primarily plays guitar, in The Weisstronauts and The I Want You) and asked if they might be interested in reconvening. To my great joy, they each replied with an enthusiastic yes! So now I had to make it happen. After all, they are both still based in Massachusetts and I’m here in L.A. A few months passed and I played around with turning the chorus into an actual song, but honestly, I was otherwise preoccupied. But then a Nathanson gig in NY presents an opportunity. I check in with the boys and book a session at Zippah in Brighton, MA and we are well and truly on our way. Oh, shit. Now I have to actually write the song. Thankfully, I am not alone. Jeff kicks in a couple ideas over the internet. And then we convene in Somerville, not two blocks from where PK and I first started living in sin, and Doug throws his ideas in. By the end of the afternoon we have a song, and some fine reimagining of two very brief old tunes from Goo days gone by.

It was both very familiar and kinda strange to get in a room with these guys after such a long break. We ran through a couple old timey songs - Buzz and Handbag - to grease the wheels but it was startlingly easy and took no time at all to just get to work as if no time had passed at all. Those guys are great.

That night, after a very long three days, I crashed very early at a quaint B&B in Brookline and before I knew it, it was Sunday morning and the session loomed. We loaded in and it was like stepping in to a time machine (see video). Zippah has undergone numerous upgrades to its gear but the building and the live room remain much the same. What an inspiring place! gooicide, PK’s Nothing/Everything, the Monsters of Id, numerous Weisstronauts recordings, a harp session for The Trouble With Success in the midst of a fierce nor’easter, and so much more. But we had work to do. In the able hands of both Brian Charles (who recorded gooicide and MOI) and Pete Weiss (of the Weisstronauts, who recorded both PK solo albums and so much more) we were under way in no time.

Here’s where, to me, it gets interesting. I knew we would have a ball but I didn’t expect to learn (or re-learn) stuff that day. We recorded three songs (most everything aside from vocals) in an easy-going 8-hour session, just like we used to do “back in the day,” though truth be told we would get double or more that done in one day by necessity.

Being “in a band” is distinct from “playing music with other people.” And I’ve been doing the latter for so long now that I had maybe forgotten what a band was like. Even Frank Shirts hasn’t been a band in the traditional sense, as I do most of the song arranging alone in my studio before bashing the songs out with Eric and Paula - and later with Rick. With Betty Goo, the difference became apparent in the studio. We wanted to record the songs live, with no click track, and so, even though we had rehearsed for a whopping three hours, we knew we were going to have to play the songs a bunch. And play we did. We would run a song a few times, work out some kinks, then go listen in the control room, pick out a few moments that need further work and go back and do it again. And everyone fell into their role with ease. It was fantastic, really. No egos, all creativity, and a healthy work ethic without being businesslike.

The next morning I awoke feeling kinda high from the experience. It had been years since I worked like that and back then I a) think I took it for granted and b) was psychologically a bit of a mess and didn’t really feel connected to much in the way of my own agency. One of the great things about taking stock of one’s privilege is that rather than it limiting you or locking you in some kind of prison of guilt, it actually frees you to look realistically at yourself and in so doing you can assess your actual strengths along with weaknesses and areas where the leg-ups you’ve been handed has been more of a hinderance than an asset. Working with Jeff & Doug on those three songs reminded me of part of music-making that I’d maybe lost touch with over the years and also reminded me of how lucky I am to be doing what I’m doing. I’ve resolved to make sure I make the most of it and also to make sure that the music is always the thing, no matter how much business needs to be taken care of.

Anyway, the whole experience was pretty great and I finished up the mixes this week. I think the results speak for themselves. Judge for yourself on July 4th* when the NEW BETTY GOO LIMITED EDITION HAND-CUT 7” SINGLE goes up for sale on Bandcamp!

* Vinyl Singles (w/ fab Deluxe Edition merch) will ship in September. Instant downloads are de rigueur.

[deliverydefresas]

come over and start up a conversation with just me

So... I could swear I did queue this for earlier today yet I can’t see it nowhere??? Can anyone confirm I’m not crazy???

As I said before (maybe) I had one of the shittiest weeks ever but at least I managed to do something with this. Yay me.

ps. when I said this was an AU, I really meant AU. Also: this is still a mess but I still hope you like it.  here’s part 1 in case you missed it/can’t remember what’s about lol 

That’s all, ily.

Stares.

She could feel them from all over the place; some heavy and lingering and some flittering, quick ones. Was there something on her face? On her clothes? Had she mismatched her outfit? Ámbar frowned before looking down at her white shirt and blue skirt, checking to see if everything was in order, but nothing was out of place. She wasn’t going crazy, she knew that. They were definitely, shamelessly, staring at her.

She huffed, glaring and rolling her eyes at everyone who was looking on her way to one of few the tables available; her mom had borrowed her car that morning without notice, leaving her to take public transportation to the faculty, which made her arguably late for her first class (she was ten minutes early for her teacher to arrive, but she was late to grab one the best seats in the room) and annoyed with the world.

She tried distracting herself by pulling out her cellphone to check the Fab and Chic’s comment’s page; Delfi and Jazmín’s interviews with Simón and his band had been posted the night before, making the blog explode with views, likes and comments. Ámbar had to admit she was not expecting those results; she had barely heard about the guys before she met Delfi and Jazmín in their Digital Communication class last year, their constant humming to the RB’s latest single was all she could hear when they studied for an exam, and it was so catchy even her mom became a fan that day.  

She, however, never really saw the appeal. Sure, 2/3 of them were good looking, and they weren’t talentless, but there was nothing about their music that made them stand out for her then. Even after seeing them two nights ago, she still couldn’t fully comprehend it but she’d be lying if she didn’t say there was something about their guitarist that made her curiosity peak.      

“What are you wearing?” Gastón’s voice sounded from her right, making her turn around quickly, tearing her glance away from her phone. He had a funny look on his face, his mouth forming a funny ‘o’, his eyes glued to her head.

“Clothes,” was her obvious reply. She arched her brows, daring him to clarify his point.

He took a couple of seconds to respond, - “no, no, no. I mean, what’s with the beanie?” he pointed to her head, where the black beanie she had decided to wear this morning was currently on. She knew she could’ve easily put it in her purse and keep it there until she saw Simón later that day, but she had tried it on after getting dressed and her judgment told her it looked cute enough to wear it for the day. So, she did.    

“What do you mean?” Ámbar tried her best to sound as nonchalant as she could, even if her brain was sending warning signals all over her mind, which was very ridiculous, honestly, since there was no way Gastón or anyone for that matter, could relate it back to Simón since only Delfi and Jazmín appeared in the video the latter posted (Jazmín had been very careful not to mention her in any way, shape or form, still bitter about her 1 on 1 with her favorite band member).  

“It’s spring, Ámbar.”

Ah, so that was what the stares were about.

“So?” she shrugged.

She wasn’t as strict with fashion as Jazmín was, which was why she barely posted on the Fab & Chic after their A was granted last year; and even then, she didn’t give it the same attention as her casual friends did, since the class had been an optative one for the Law student that she was, instead of a required one for their Communication career.  

Gastón’s voice was disbelieving, “so you wear warm hats in a warm weather, now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry mister I-wear-Leatherman-jackets-in-summer, I didn’t know it was illegal to wear warm clothing after winter. Are you going to call the police on me?” her tone was sweet, yet coated with sarcasm. Gastón raised his arms in mocked surrender.

“Point taken.” Ámbar rolled her eyes, but made no further comment. The teacher was to arrive any time soon, and she didn’t want him to give her any negative attention; the old man would surely put her on the spot at a point in the class, most likely to answer a question only he knew the answer to; he was that kind of asshole. Her stupid friend didn’t get the memo, because just as their teacher was walking in, he decided the blurt the most incriminating words one could say in a classroom. “Let me copy your homework?”

Professor Asshole’s glare was enough to make her groan in frustration.

It was going to be a long day.

Lunch couldn’t have come soon enough.

Professor Asshole not only embarrassed Gastón and her in class, but refused to grade her homework too. She protested -quite loudly, actually- and it got her another essay due before the end of the week, as if the four she had already for Thursday wasn’t enough. By the end of the reprimand, she was ready to kill Périda the next time she saw him; the idiot was smart enough to flee as soon as the teacher dismissed them.

Her next class wasn’t as bad; however, her mood had been ruined already and couldn’t pass as quickly as she hoped it would. By now she was hungry as well as pissed, and in need of a cup of coffee and a sandwich to at least calm one of her burdens.

“Well, don’t you look dandy, my love.” Her best friend greeted her as soon a she stepped in front of their table, smiling sarcastically when she responded with a scowl.

“I’m in no mood for that shit, Em.”  

“I can see that. Are you even going to tell me, or should I ask my crystal ball?” Emilia arched her left brow, sipping her cup as soon as she asked her question. Ámbar flipped her off.

“Mom took my car this morning, I had to take the stupid bus and was late for my first period, Gastón was a dick on Roman’s Law class and got me an extra essay for Friday. Happy?”

Her friend nodded, “I am, actually, because my day has been fantastic, thank you for asking. Yours, however, sounds shitty as fuck.”

Ámbar rolled her eyes, “don’t remind me, I still have IPL to go through; but whatever, I’ll survive. What about you? Didn’t you have a test today?”

“I did, and I totally murdered it. Wanna go with me and Benny to celebrate after class? He brought his car today, we can pick you up and drop you off, too.”

“Can’t. I have a thing to do for Fab & Chic after class.” Ámbar took a bite off her sandwich, ignoring when Emilia almost choked on her bagel.

“You’re kidding, right?” Ámbar shook her head, “you already accompanied them to that stupid bar on Saturday, what more do those pink princesses need from you?”

“They? Nothing. This is all me.”  

Emilia scoffed, “stop talking on riddles, A, what are you planning?”

She took a sip of her coffee, “you know how we met that pop band at the bar and Delfi and Jazmín interviewed them, posted the video last night?” Emilia nodded, “well, I met the guitarist and got him to agree to give me an interview today. I’m meeting him after class at the same bar.”

“Why?”

Ámbar could tell her friend was confused. Truth be told, so was she. Journalism was nowhere near her ambitions -or dreams-, but something deep within her thought it was a good idea. She always followed her instinct, and most of the time (if not all, as they have never failed her) she was right, so this wouldn’t (couldn’t) be an exception. She was more than confident that this would benefit her somehow.

Who knew, maybe this would be what could finally put Fab and Chic (and consequently Delfi and Jazmín) up there in the spotlight of Journalism.

“Publicity, attention. This could benefit me in the future, y’know.”

“Your future isn’t in Journalism, though.” Emilia pointed out, arching her left eyebrow again.

Ámbar shrugged it off, “my name would still be out there.”

“If you say so. Well, are they giving you a ride?”

“Who?”

“Jazmín and Delfi, duh.”

She sipped on her coffee, “they don’t know anything about it. I told you, this is all me.”

Emilia’s face was disbelieving, “so you’re meeting this guy, alone?! What the fuck, Ámbar?”

“The guy is a softie, Emilia. Honestly, I don’t think he’d hurt a fly, he seemed very… I don’t know, weak?”

“As do most serial killers, Smith.” Emilia rolled her eyes, not yet convinced that it was a good idea. Ámbar waved her off with her hand.

“I’ll text you if it makes you feel better.”

Her best friend huffed, “fine. Now, why in the fuck are you wearing a beanie?”

If she hadn’t been pissed before, she certainly was now.

Not only was he 20 minutes late, but the stupid bar that had taken her one full hour to get to was closed. Had the idiot had really dare to trick her? Who the hell was he anyway? A stupid, barely talented guitarist and singer from an even stupider, not even that famous wannabe boyband. He couldn’t have stood her up. She was Ámbar Smith, not once in her 21 years had she been stood up in a date- appointment before. And she wouldn’t allow it; if she had to search for his stupid ass all over the city and drag him to make sure he kept his word, she would.

That insensitive, stupid, good for nothing of an idiot. The nerve of-

“I’m here! I’m here! I’m so so so so so so so sorry I’m late!” the idiot wheezed out as soon as he was near, almost knocking into her when he stopped running, “Nico forgot to do the laundry, so I had to do it myself since my clean t-shirts were -1 and then Pedro kind of made the microwave explode when he put a metal spoon with his popcorn, not sure how that even happened to be honest and then-”

“I don’t care! Do you know how frustrating it was to endure one freaking hour in public transportation to be here in time and then wait half an hour more to wait for his majesty to arrive?! And for what? The stupid bar is even closed!” She was fuming, gesturing wildly to the building.

“Well, what did you expect? It’s 16:30, bars aren’t usually opened until 18, the earliest.” His words only infuriated her more.

“Then why are we here?!”

“It’s middle ground for both, and there’s this really good Mexican coffee shop around the corner I really like.” He shrugged her anger off, and Ámbar swore she was surpassing a level of anger she had never felt before.  

“I was wrong, you’re a dick dressed in virginity.”

He blinked a couple times, not quite getting it. “What?”

She huffed, “nothing, whatever. Where’s this coffee shop you’re talking about?”

Simón looked at her for moment, but ultimately shrugged again and motioned for her to follow him. The coffee shop was around the corner, not really hidden but not in the spotlight as it was the bar; but it was pretty. It wasn’t stereotypically decorated as some of the Mexican restaurants she’d been before, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was Mexican-influenced. It gave her the vibe she’s get when she visited Emilia’s or that one time her dad took her to Cozumel for winter vacations when she was 17. The big Mexican flag behind the bar was a clear telling, too.

“What do you want? It’s on me, don’t worry.” Simón asked once they found a booth in the farthest corner from the door. She wasn’t sure if it was conceited or smart of him to do so, but he was paying and, y’know, doing her this favor so she couldn’t really complain. Not that it’s ever stopped her before.

“What’s good? What are you having?”

“Everything, really. I’m ordering the largest hot chocolate and a couple of conchas, though.”

She scrunched up her nose, “a couple of what?”

He laughed, “it’s a type of sweet bread, and it’s delicious. I could give you a taste of mine, if you want.” He offered, but Ámbar shook her head in negative. It really didn’t sound appetizing to her.

“Is Mexican coffee any good? I’m more of a coffee-type of girl.” Again, he shrugged. Either it was some kind of habit, or he really wanted to push her buttons, because it was annoying her to no end at this point.

“Mom loves café de olla, that’s all I know about it, to be honest. Coffee and I don’t get along.”

Ámbar frowned, unsure if she should really order it. She was super picky about food in general, and his unconvinced ass wasn’t any reassuring. “I’ll have a medium of those, then.”

He nodded, “do you want anything to eat? You can ask for anything, remember I’m paying.” Simón joked, shaking the wallet he held in his hand slightly. Ámbar scanned the menu written on one of the near walls, searching for something that could be safe to try.

“Tres leches cake, please.”

Simón saluted her, and went to the bar to order. It appeared he was somewhat of a regular, or that the boy behind the counter was a fan; because he greeted him all excited and not all dead like sometimes baristas did. She sighed, and decided to text Emilia and her mom that she was with him already, adding to her mom that she would probably not be hungry for dinner, and to cook just for herself. If she ended up hungry afterwards she’d make herself a soup or something. Instant ramen could do the trick.

Before she knew it, he was back with their drinks, the barista behind him helping with their desserts, saving him the double trip. Simón thanked him once everything was set on the table, tipping him extra five dollars before he took a seat in front of her.

He smiled at her once the boy was gone, “so, how was your day?”

“Shitty. How was yours?”

“Ouch, I’m really sorry I was late, seriously. It wasn’t intentional, I swear.” He apologized profusely, she just sipped her coffee. And damn it, it was delicious. “My day was mostly unproductive, except maybe for the laundry part. But I slept like a baby until noon and then had to save the apartment from Pedro’s unusual cooking disasters, so could’ve been better.”

She sighed, “it’s okay, it’s just that I hate taking the bus and then this asshole put me in trouble with a teacher and now I have double the work in that class due on Friday.”

“Double the ouch. Don’t you have a car, or couldn’t you take a cab?”

Ámbar arched her eyebrows, “my uni is forty minutes away, a cab would have charged me a fortune. I do have a car, but my mom took it this morning, so I had to take the bus.”

“I’m sorry, again,” he cringed, “I can give you a ride home after we’re finished here, I can’t send you home alone.”

She thought about it for a minute, before nodding. A ride sounded much better than losing over $20 for a cab or the bus. Plus, free things were always nice.

“We should start, then. I have a paper to start for past-tomorrow and I’m sure whoever cares about you won’t want you coming super late.”

“Alright, but I do have a few rules.” He parted one of his conchas, before dunking it in his hot chocolate and biting it, “nothing about relationships and all the questions are a game.”

“Hiding a girl, are you?” she inquired, sipping once more on her coffee. Simón winked at her.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Fair enough.” She nodded. “What’s the game about, though?”

He took another bite of his bread before answering, “you have to guess the answer to each question, and I’ll confirm or deny. If you guess right, you can ask another question and this time I’ll have to answer.”

“Are you kidding me? What kind of game is this?” she huffed, angrily taking a bite of her cake. She was almost too mad to not notice its deliciousness. Almost.

“One you have to play with me since I’m helping you and feeding you, for free.” Simón arched his eyebrow, she merely shrugged. It’s not like she was forcing him to pay, he was the one to offer it, anyway; “and plus, it’s gonna be more fun for both. I know it.”

“Fine, let’s do it.” Ámbar sighed. His smirk kind of gave her the creeps, “what?”

“Don’t you want to know what happens if you’re wrong?”

She looked at him dubiously, “you’re not going to ask me to do anything illegal, are you?”

Simón laughed, “no. You just have to answer the question you ask, and I get to ask one that you have to answer.”

“But you won’t answer it correctly?”

“I guess we’ll have to see.” He shrugged, “you can start now.”

Ámbar sighed, and took out her phone to start a voice recording, because she was too lazy to film it or write it all down in paper. She was going to keep it easy on him, to give herself time to think of some-what-safe questions.

She had to give it to him; he wasn’t stupid at all. This little game of him would make it practically impossible for her to guess correctly on deep questions, ultimately turning them on her. The guy wasn’t dumb at all.

“I don’t like you anymore, just so you know.”

“Ah, so you liked me before?” She almost rolls her eyes.

“Your favorite color is blue?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Would you say fame is what you expected?”

“You won’t hold back, will you?” she guessed it was rhetorical, so she didn’t say anything. “It wasn’t. There’s many shades to fame that I never thought existed, that’s all I’m telling you for now.”

Her curiosity was dying to ask what he meant by that, but chose not to dive into it yet. She didn’t think he’d answer, anyway.

“You’re a dog person?”

“Another yes. You know me so well!” he joked, finishing the last piece of his first concha; sipping his hot chocolate afterwards.

“What can I say? I’m a great guesser.” Ámbar was very thankful she’d googled him before coming, “does it bother you when people put you in a category just because of how you’re positioned in the industry?”

“I loathed it. There’s more of me than what I choose the media to see, more than what I let other people around me see.” Simón frowned, his hold on the bread getting too tie and crumbles of the shell (she guessed that’s why they were called conchas) falling down on his cup, “but I’ve thicken my skin, and now I mostly shrug it off.”

“Uh, your best friends are your band?”

He tilted his head, his eyes sparkling with mischief; “not quite.”

“What? But goo-” she almost slips it out, “then who?”

“Nope, you don’t get to question me, it’s my turn now.” He teased, shaking his head, “have you always wanted to study journalism?”

She cocked her brow, “I’m not studying journalism.” He seemed to be thrown off by this, and his face was so funny she almost laughs in it. “I’m a law student. A junior, actually.”

“Then why- what?” Ámbar shook her head.

“Nah-uh. My turn. You own a dog?”

“Nope, mom does.” He looked smug, now. “Why did you want to interview me if this has nothing to do with your career?”

Ámbar sighed, annoyed with herself for trusting a stupid google interview. Either they were lying, or Simón was twisting the truth. Whatever it was, she wasn’t happy at all.

“The Fab & Chic was a project I had with Jazmín and Delfi last year, it was an optative class and we had to create a blog to practice our writing, photography, programming and editing skills. I didn’t help that much back then, and they were cool with it, since it wasn’t a main priority for me or my career. I guess this interview is a way for me to pay them back. And, well, it might help me get some recognition later, if it does what I’m expecting it to be.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t you know the rules to your own game?” she snapped at him, making him frown and match her own.

“The game is off, now we ask whatever we want as long as it the other is willing to answer. Now, what are you expecting to happen?”

“It’s my turn.”

Simón shrugged, “so?”

“You’re infuriating.”

“On the contrary, I’m told I’m a very lovable person.”

“By who? Your mother?”

“And my grandmother. And my friends. And my fans, which are at least a million.”

“Well they’re lying to you.”

Simón leaned over the table, and got close enough so that she could see a small acne scar above his eyebrow. Such closeness made her a little uncomfortable, but couldn’t really move. Instead, her eyes were hooked to his.

“I guess you’ll have to find out.”        

[ladystylestores]

NATO Imagines Future Warfare

Innovation is a key component of readiness when it comes to future threats. NATO’s Innovation Hub recently commissioned a short story from author August Cole, asking him to draw upon his writing and imaginative abilities to create a picture of what NATO operations could be like in the year 2040. The Cipher Brief is pleased to be able to bring you 2040: KNOWN ENEMIES, with permission from NATO.

CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES — PARIS, FRANCE

The protestors’ braying air horns reminded Alain Durand of the feel of his father’s hand squeezing his as they watched the Tour de France peloton speed by on a verdant hill outside Chambéry, half a lifetime ago. Tonight on the Champs Elysees it meant drones. It meant gas.

He carefully pushed aside two old fashioned white cloth banners — “PAX MACHINA” and “NON AUX ARMEES, NON A LA GUERRE,” written in thick red brush strokes to better see. In a field of view populated with synthetic representations of the real world, the banners were anachronistic but also enduring. They spoke to the necessary spirit of dissent in one of Europe’s more temperamental democracies, Alain thought. Yet it was time to change again: France was the last NATO member, other than the United States, to maintain conventional combat forces. The other members had already robotized.

“A matter of not just tradition but national survival,” his father, a colonel in France’s 3e Régiment de Parachutistes d’Infanterie de Marine, always insisted.

The horns stopped. The crowd of thousands hushed to better hear the whine of the oncoming Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité riot-police crowd-control drones, a sound like a frantically played piccolo. It was a child’s sound — that was why it intimidated. The flight of a dozen drones hovered in a picket formation in front of the crowd of more than 10,000 marching along the cobbled stones toward the Arc de Triomphe. On Alain’s augmented reality glasses, the bots were bright orange dots, tagged with comments from around the world guiding him on everything from how to download apps to jam their controllers to offers of legal representation. Alain reached into his satchel and cursed, as an ad for gas mask replacement filters popped into view.

A protestor’s drone, bright yellow and the size of an espresso cup, darted past him, then returned to hover in front of his face. It was filming. He could see the live feed it broadcast on his own glasses, identifying him as the son of a senior army officer. He looked around, feeling a need to disappear in the crowd even though that was impossible. He swatted at the yellow drone, and it darted off.

Was that a Catalyst design?, he wondered. The mysterious informal global network emerged on the public stage about three years ago, fomenting dissent and countergovernment action in the virtual realm. It started with what was essentially algo-busting or AI-enabled augmented-reality pranks to make a point about excessive Chinese and American influence around the world. But in the last six months, something had changed, and they were now moving from the online to the real world, supplying not only plans for printable grenades or swarm drones but also the fabs to make them. They had never tried to operate in Europe before, or the U.S. Was this drone a sign something was changing, literally before his own eyes?

Those same eyes began to itch. He had other things to worry about for the moment.

“Juliet, I don’t have my mask,” he said to his sister. She already had hers, a translucent model with a bubble-like faceplate that made her look like a snorkeler.

“And?” she said.

“I am certain I put it in there, but …” he trailed off.

She sighed angrily, condensation briefly fogging her mask. Four years younger, his 15-year-old sister could judge him harshly. She got that from their father.

“We stay,” she said, passing him a bandana and bottle of water. “Parliament votes tomorrow. Father is already deployed. If we leave now, when will we ever stand?”

“Ok, ok,” Alain muttered. He wet the bandana and braced himself for the gas.

Drones dashed just a few feet overhead, a disorienting swirl of straining electric motors and the machines’ childlike tone. The crowd sighed all at once and then individual shouting erupted around him. A moment later his eyes began to sting. Fumbling with the bandana he quickly wrapped the wet cloth around his mouth. But, eyes now burning, he struggled to tie it around his neck. With so much gas in the air, no one without a mask would be able any more to continue watching the eruption of digital dissent. He felt Juliet’s fingers on his neck, helping secure the bandana’s knot. Hands now free, he angrily pumped his fists in the air and blindly grasped to help hold his cloth banners aloft.

JULIUS NYERERE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT — DAR-ES-SALAAM, TANZANIA

It was so hot, when the convoy stopped at the main gate to the joint United Nations-African Union compound, that the German and Italian battle bots broke formation. The NATO task force’s hundreds of small armored wheeled and tracked machines jerked and shimmied like ants as they fought over the shade beneath the bright blue revetments — towering stacks of shipping containers reinforced with blast-foam. That left the French para forces, what NATO classified as a light-effects company due to its mostly non-robotic composition under, in the crushing heat with nowhere to go. That was fine for the French unit’s commander, Luc Durand. His men and women could handle the heat; the bots were another story.

Captain Monika Toonce hopped off one of the oversized German Jaeger crawlers and jogged over to Durand’s open scout car. The French convoy included the jeep, six-wheeled troop carriers (each carrying 12 paratroopers as well as external racks of offensive and defensive smallbots), and four mules loaded with ammunition, spare parts, and assorted spider-like fixers.

“Colonel, we are still waiting for the clear codes before the task force can enter the compound,” Toonce said. She paused to wipe sweat from her nose. “Headquarters said they sent them. But they are not yet authenticated here …”

Durand cursed. The bots would not yet be cleared for self-defense, let alone offensive use. He forced himself to ease back and put his boot up on his jeep’s wheel well, a pose he could hold for hours on a high-speed cross-desert dash or pulling security at a vital intersection. This is an old problem in a new form, he thought. This is why the French army trains to fight with or without machines. “La victoire ne se donne pas!” was the motto adopted four years ago.

Deconflicting the newly arrived German and Italian anti-armor/aircraft and counter-personnel bots with the existing UN-AU peacekeeping forces — so that they didn’t automatically attack one another — was just another form of confusion and complexity. For all the advantage the machines offered, they also brought the onset of the fog of war forward that much earlier in a conflict. Ignoring Toonce, Durand drew with his finger on the dusty screen he wore at his waist, a series of arrows to sketch out a concept. He snapped a picture of the tracings with his glasses; it was something he would write up when he got back from deployment. You never know where inspiration will come from.

“Ok, you want to ride with us then? We are heading in. The machines can handle themselves, no?” Durand said.

Toonce looked torn between waiting with the disabled bots or accompanying Durand. Her responsibility for the German armored forces was a significant one, given the expense and competition for deployment-likely slots in the Bundeswehr. There were fewer soldiers in the German army today than there were postal carriers in Bavaria. Why they kept so many of the latter and so few of the former us was not something Toonce allowed herself to weigh too deeply. She loved the army, loved her comrades and their machines.

Toonce nodded. The maintenance techs were still on the way. She was the sole German representative, and she told herself she needed to be present when the NATO task force leaders finally presented themselves.

The two soldiers were in a narrow pause, a lull — in what had been fevered fighting — that the NATO task force had taken advantage of to deploy by air from a staging area outside Nairobi.

“Good choice,” Durand said. Toonce hopped on. Durand smiled at the master sergeant in the seat next to him, who tapped the jeep’s dash twice with the sort of gentle encouragement one might give a beloved horse. The vehicle advanced on its own at the gentle command.

They proceeded inside the compound under the watching guns of a pair of stork-legged Nigerian sentry turrets, each armed with a trio of four-barreled Gatling guns mounted on the mottled-grey fuselage pod.

Serge Martelle, the para master sergeant, handed Durand a palm-sized screen, a phone that used the local civilian networks.

“Seen this, sir?” Martelle asked.

A sigh. An image appeared of Alain’s face, jaw clenched and wide eyed, in the midst of a Paris protest. Again.

“No, not now, Martelle,” Durand said. A nod and he withdrew the screen. But Durand pulled up footage on his glasses, already tagged to his own and his son’s social media accounts. The final image was a bleary-eyed and red-faced Alain holding aloft the “PAX MACHINA.” It is Bastille Day after all, isn’t it. Durand smiled as they pulled up to a Kenyan general and his staff, standing at attention.

AU-UN HEADQUARTERS — DAR-ES-SALAAM, TANZANIA

“It’s not a mystery, as such, but we are not yet certain who is supplying the rogue Tanzanian army elements, as well as other local elements. But we can ascertain that they are currently involved in a rapid-equipping cycle using established and improvised fabrication sites that …”

“It’s Catalyst,” Durand barked. “Just call it out!” It was too easy to be rude to the UN Peacekeeping Office AIs; they were atrocious. Indecisive. Burdened with a politeness programmed to appease too many sensibilities. And that accent, unattached to any country’s native tongue, is an affront, he thought.

“Colonel Durand, analysis indicates a probability of certainty of—” the machine responded, now using a careful ethereal cadence to mollify Durand.

“General Kimani, with respect, how might we begin to engage an adversary that we refuse to identify?” Durand pressed the point. If the AU UN force acknowledged an “outbreak” of Catalyst coercive technologies, it would require an escalation of military presence that neither organization wanted to endorse at this point in the crisis.

“The last twenty-seven hours have seen no fighting,” Kimani responded. “We are hoping to use this window for dialogue.” He was the senior officer of the AUMIT, or African Union Mission in Tanzania. His charge included the military aspects of the peacekeeping mission, as well as coordinating with UN and quasi-governmental conflict-resolution groups trying to cool the conflict. “Right now, we’re running a Blue Zone dialogue with the dissident Tanzanian army, UN negotiators, Front Civil, and others. An invitation was extended to Catalyst, but no response.”

Durand nodded. Why would this highly disruptive and increasingly dangerous movement join in? It had no leaders. No clear strategy. He viewed French military intelligence’s take as sound: Catalyst sought to undermine US or Chinese economic, political, and military blocs of strategic influence to enable sub-national movements of self-determination.

The Blue Zones were private virtual environments managed by UN AIs to facilitate non-confrontational negotiations with machine-speed modelling and data. Some even talked of the platform’s AIs themselves being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. If Kimani really believed the UN could speed that diplomatic cycle up before the rearming of the Tanzanian coup forces then there was a chance this could resolve without further violence. Durand knew him by reputation and instinctively trusted him. Then he ground his teeth. He was being too optimistic. But what were the odds some Catalyst algos weren’t already spoofing that whole thing? It happened before, in Venezuela, in ’38. They never joined these kinds of hand-holding sims.

His watch buzzed. Toonce reported the clearance codes were finally being transmitted and would be uploaded shortly. Having the NATO mech forces inside the base would make him feel better as they could be re-checked, zeroed, and synched with the UN and AU bots already in the area of operations. NATO-reinforced UN and AU patrols could begin the next morning, he hoped. Leave the conciliation and negotiation to the UN. He had his mission.

On his glasses, Durand cued up his task force’s status reports, and began watching the downloading of the clearance codes. Details mattered, even more so with machines. As a leader you had to stay on top of it. He focused on the data and half-listened as Kimani spoke for another minute. A Rwandan officer began discussing the Belgian food fab facility near the port about to be brought online.

Blasting horns brought conversation to an abrupt stop. Half of the attendees around the table jolted upright, standing and holding the conference table with white-knuckled grips as if bracing for a bodily impact. Durand remained seated and sighed. He locked eyes with Kimani, who shook his head. An attack with a warning was one you would survive, they both knew. It’s the strikes that come without any heads up that get you.

His glasses blinked, a scratching and pixelated green snow, then returned to showing the download progress of the clear codes. Stuck at seventy-six percent. Martelle was already on his notepad, ensuring the French paras inside the compound were ready for what came next. Of course they would be, he knew. That also gave him calm.

The door burst open and Toonce paused to catch her breath. She wiped dust from her mouth and began to speak.

“The clear codes were hijacked,” she said. “Catalyst payload rode the packets, but it’s not a Tanzanian Army attack. They got partially hit, too — at least their Chinese systems, from what I can tell already. One of the local groups it looks like, based on analytics. Took the task force bots and mechs down. Same with the AU and UN already deployed here. They’re trying to bring the whole country to a stop, they say, to start real negotiations.”

“How did they attack, exactly?”“They used the clear codes to target our bots’ firmware, forcing a factory reset that requires hard keys that only exist back with the civilians at the defense ministries. We, as the deployed German army, don’t even hold those. Same with the Italians. As for the Tanzanian army systems they got from the PLA, I don’t know anything for sure, but seem to be down, too.”

That might seem fortuitous, but Durand immediately looked at it another way: If Catalyst elements could wipe out the Tanzanian army’s reliance on Chinese platforms, that would be a blank slate for a new dependence on easily downloadable and fabbable Catalyst systems. Tanzania would probably acquire the Doktor anti-armor system, a simple self-firing short-barreled launcher that could be concealed in a backpack or mounted with suction-grips to a driverless vehicle, and maybe Viper launchers, a short-range 64-shot swarm weapon about the size of a concrete block that could be held and aimed by two handles or prepositioned to strike on its own.

Nearby explosions — one, two, three — rocked the room and knocked out the lights. Sounds like mortars. In the darkness, as Durand began to taste dust in the air, he conferred with Martelle about what to do next. His paras might be the only truly friendly combat-capable force in the area right now.

CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES — PARIS, FRANCE

Wringing out the handkerchief for a third time into the café’s brown-stained sink, Alain finally had the courage to look into the cracked mirror. Black splotches beneath the edges of the glass stained the edges of the reflective surface, framing a specter’s raw, red eyes peering back from an inky cloud.

“Oof,” he sighed. The neck of his black shirt was torn, by whom he could not remember. Claw-like scratches ran along his neck from his left ear down to his opposite clavicle. The blond girl who was shot in the legs? Or was it the CRS trooper who hit him with the mace?

A gentle knock on the door. “Everything Ok?”

That was his sister.

“A moment,” he said. He wiped his face with a coarse paper towel one more time, then put his augmented reality glasses back on. He tinted the lenses light blue. “I’m coming.”

Back out into the café, he rejoined his sister. A coffee waited, and he carefully touched its side with shaking fingers. Still warm. He closed his eyes and sipped the bitter espresso, grateful for the company of his sister and the tranquility of the café. Police drones raced by every few minutes, but no police were going to stop in here. They had other concerns right now responding to the attacks on the Champs-Élysées.

AU-UN HEADQUARTERS — DAR-ES-SALAAM, TANZANIA

Through thick black smoke, one of the tall two-legged defense turrets spun its gun mounts in lazy circles like a pinwheel. It did not fire as a swarm of bird-sized winged drones flew past in a corkscrew formation toward a far corner of the compound used for medevac flights. A series of blue strobe-like flashes followed by a sound like tearing paper meant that part of the camp would no longer be usable, Durand knew.

“Whose drones?” he asked aloud, looking around for Martelle.

“TA,” Martelle shouted, meaning “Tanzanian Army.” Normally, Martelle could look up with his glasses and get a read-out of the environment, seeing detailed information on everything from bandwidth to physical objects just as if he were going shopping. But since he had been on the base network during the attack, he saw nothing except fingerprint smudges and dust.

Yet after emerging from the bunker, the French officer knew where to find his soldiers. He sprinted at a low crouch toward a dispersed arrangement of vehicles set up in defensive positions. He greeted a soldier crouched near the rear flank of an AMX-3 armored vehicle. The paratrooper had set up a camoflage brown pop-up ballistic shield and was aiming a 10-year-old portable defense weapon skyward. These double-barreled shoulder-fired kinetic and microwave weapons were not connected to the base network or even the vehicles they were carried on, and so were still able to autonomously shoot down incoming shells and drones.

“Getting started a bit earlier than we wanted,” Durand said.

“Always ready, no?” said the soldier, whose chest armor name-plate read Orbach.

Durand held up the tablet he wore at his waist, and tapped it against the soldier’s forearm-mounted screen. Between the hastily broken up meeting and this physical connection, the mission-management AIs hosted on Durand’s tablet had created a plan of action based on years of training and real-world operations led by the colonel.

“There you go, Orbach. You have everything you need? Maybe I can fire up a fab for a nice coffee for you?”

Orbach smiled and nodded.

“Now get ready,” Durand said. “Let’s get out of this mess here and go start some trouble.”

Orders given, the information would spread rapidly from soldier to soldier, vehicle to vehicle, by direct or indirect laser transmission. Reliable, tightband, and perfect for a situation like this. Somebody might intercept it, but that was true with everything, wasn’t it?

At once, half the French paras moved to their vehicles, as the other half began climbing the shipping containers. Thanks to the task force’s own orbital sensors, unaffected by the attack so far, Durand had targets. Conventional doctrine emphasized machine vs. machine engagements, but he was going to be doing something far riskier. And more important: targeting the individuals who were the contacts, or nodes, for the Catalyst technologies. There was no time to waste staying inside the protection the base afforded. The Catalyst systems were learning and improving, from the first wave of attacks. Iterative warfare required ferocious speed and more initiative than most leaders were comfortable with.

A text message from Toonce appeared on Durand’s glasses. The UN base’s network was back up. Wait. Based on the auburn-colored text and the blue triangle icon, this was a message being sent via an encrypted consumer messaging app.

“I’m printing new logic cores for the defensive bots first, then the offensive systems. We have 213,” Toonce said.

“Of course,” Durand responded, a subvocal command converted to text. “How long?”

“Six hours.”

“And if you alternate printing, say, one defensive then one offensive, so there is … balance in our capability? I will not wait for the AU forces to regenerate. There is a window here we have to take before another round of upgrades by Tanzanian Army forces, or whoever else is equipping with Catalyst systems. We are moving out now.”

He closed out the conversation. Six hours would become 12, which would become a day delaying until the machines were ready. Durand’s paras were primed to fight now. La Victoire ne se donne pas.

Inside and atop the trucks and jeeps, the soldiers began cueing up virtual representations of their targets. The drivers took manual control, the safest option at a time like this. Less than a minute later, Durand and Martell were back in the scout car, with the commander buckling on his armor. The convoy rolled forward at a walking pace toward the base’s main gate. Some of the paras cast wary glances at the glitching Nigerian defense bots, which swayed back and forth atop their stork-like legs. Other soldiers looked for the two para sniper teams protectively watching from atop the shipping containers. As the vehicles advanced, the snipers flew a quartet of Aigle reconnaissance drones to scout routes established by Durand’s AIs.

The French soldiers were not the only ones rushing to action. Holding a water bottle in his lap, Martelle watched a squad of Kenyan infantry worked carefully to clear the medevac flight pad, guiding a pair of eight-legged explosive ordnance disposal bots as they cleared the area of micro-munitions left behind by the Catalyst swarm. The “confetti mines” were the size of an old postage stamp, paper-like explosives that detonated when their millimeters-thin bodies were bent or cracked. Coiled tight around titanium spools stored inside the bird-like drones, the mines fluttered to the ground by the hundreds, arming as they fell. One mine alone might not be enough to injure a person or even a machine. But if one detonated, it triggered other nearby mines.

“Martelle, hey,” Durand said.

“Sir,” Martelle responded, nodding. He took a drink of water.

“They have their job. We have ours.”

“Always ready. Onward,” Martelle said.

A tap on the pad at his waist and Durand urged the column forward. The base’s thick-plasticrete barrier-gates at its main entrance swung outward like arms extending for an embrace. Durand held his breath as his jeep was the first through, out into the open area beyond the base. With a feeling of regret, he passed intricate human-sized pyramids of dust-covered German and Italian bots, looking like cairns on a forgotten desert trail. It was as if in their final moments they sought to join together out of fear. He did not need those machines to complete this mission, but he would be lying to himself if he did not admit that they could make a life-or-death difference for his soldiers.

“Faster now,” said Durand. “We have our objectives, now we—”

His glasses vibrated painfully.

“MISSION ABORT,” read the message, a bright red scrawl of flashing characters.

This was no time to stop. He swiped it aside, and motioned for Martelle to keep driving.

Then General Kimani broke through with a direct audio feed.

“Colonel, you need to return to base. Mission abort. Confirm?”

There was no way to lock the officer out. Unlike with a fully autonomous formation, there was no “kill switch” for Durand’s troops. He led them, fully.

“We are en route to the objectives, general. You can see our target set; it has been approved by the task force command.”

The jeep slewed to the right, around a broken-down Tanzanian Army T-99X tank, a self-driving Chinese model that was exported throughout Africa, complete with stock PLA green-and-brown digital camo.

“No longer. PKO and AU leadership just made the call. They do not want your troops hunting down individuals in the city. Their models say it will just worsen the situation for civilians, everybody.”

Worsen? Durand thought. Isn’t it already bad enough?

“So,” said Durand. “That’s it?”

“I am going to propose another target set. Only bots, fabs, and cyber targets. No humans. We can deploy the task forces systems in six hours, I understand. Your paras can be on standby.”

Machines targeting machines, said Durand. That’s all they want any more.

He braced his leg and leaned back in his seat as his vehicle accelerated onto a deserted artery flanked by half a kilometer of torched and roofless four-story buildings. He looked back over his shoulder at the trailing convoy. His troops were there, following.

August Cole is co-author of Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution

Read also How NATO is Innovating Toward the Future only in The Cipher Brief

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief.

      Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2T8NbG8

[itsworn]

Inside the Award-Winning Restoration of a Day-Two 1969 COPO Camaro

When Grady Burch rumpty-rumped his Burnished Brown COPO Camaro into the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center last year for the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN), a standard was set. We have seen beautifully restored COPOs before. We have seen some very cool day-two cars, too. But what Burch and restorer Mike Angelo did was create a best-of-both-worlds Camaro that combined first-class restoration techniques with a jaw-dropping selection of N.O.S. and period-correct parts, day-two and otherwise.

Burch’s Camaro set the bar for anyone wishing to build a day-two car that looked like it came out of a time machine set to the late 1960s or early 1970s. This is not a survivor from the period wearing well-earned patina and its go-fast goodies. No, Burch’s Camaro is how it would have been in-period, the paint still showing factory gloss and the performance parts shiny and new, having just come out of their packaging.

We were not the only ones wowed by this spectacular Camaro. At MCACN it earned not only a Concours Gold award but was also a Platinum Pick as the Judge’s Choice of Best Chevrolet—quite a feat for a day-two car considering the other dead-nuts-accurate resto Chevys in that hall. Burch also won the Helen Gibb Memorial Award; “Presented to an outstanding participant that shows passion and enthusiasm for our hobby,” reads the plaque.

Burch’s Camaro was invited to be part of the Camaro 50th anniversary display at the prestigious Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, where he received an Award of Distinction.

To tell this COPO Camaro’s story, we have decided to devote two articles to it. This month we picked Angelo’s brain—with input from Burch, too—to describe the efforts that went into its restoration and day two outfitting. Next month we’ll present a feature on the finished car and its fascinating backstory.

1 “The more I looked at it, the more I liked it,” is how Grady Burch described his feelings for this Burnished Brown COPO Camaro when he saw it at the Solid Lifter Showroom in 2013. Owned by Skip Lecates at the time, it was a 21,000-mile “incredibly sound” car, says restorer Mike Angelo. It retained the factory sheetmetal and interior but none of the original drivetrain. Or so they thought.

2 Once Burch and Lecates closed the deal on the Camaro, the latter gave Burch this picture of the car at York US30 in 1976. “This is the photo that inspired me to make the car day-two,” says Burch. “Early in its life it was raced more than street driven.”

3 Burch took the Camaro to the Super Car Workshop and put it on a lift to inspect it for damage from its racing days. What he and the Workshop’s Brian Henderson and Joe Swezey found was a big surprise: the Camaro’s original CX-code automatic transmission still in the car, verified by the matching VIN stamped in the transmission flange. The TH400 had been coated in rattle-can black paint that came right off with a small wire brush, revealing the original factory markings.

4 Despite its age and racing history, the car’s sheetmetal, even underneath, was remarkably solid. Damage was mostly limited to the rear floor pans, which had been sledgehammered to accommodate the subframe connectors.

5 Angelo begins the restoration process by preliminarily aligning the car’s sheetmetal “to 95 percent, so I can document the shims I use. That way when the car goes back together I am not experimenting and chipping paint.” Note the mismatched colors between the original paint on the hood and the repainted fenders and valance. Though they were criticized by many for restoring a car that seemed so original, “there was probably no more than 30 percent of the original paint left,” Angelo says.

6 Angelo says, “The car was so nice we didn’t need to media blast it. I just used chemical stripper.” He left the front and rear glass in place so as not to break the factory seal. “We also elected not to take the headliner out. It was a chore taping that off and keeping it protected, but it was worth doing because it was in such good shape.”

7 Angelo typically uses a heavy wire brush to remove the seam sealer on a firewall, but he opted to leave the original sealer intact due to its excellent condition. “That was a very good product Chevrolet used, still very pliable, tougher than nails, and sticks like hell.”

8 “You always spend a lot of time blocking these bodies out,” says Angelo. “At least three or four times. It’s a long process.”

9 Angelo has seen Burnished Brown colors “all over the spectrum. Any of these colors is hard to match.” A friend who works at PPG had a lacquer spray-out done in 1968 to go by, “but they had also tweaked the color a bit for a customer in 2011. They sent us a spray-out of that [seen here on the metal piece with the rounded corners], and it was so good we used it. Any time you go from lacquer to basecoat/clearcoat it’s going to have a different look, but this is as good as it’s going to get.”

10 These two photos show the Burnished Brown basecoat and covered with a coat of clear. “That was before it was sanded and buffed,” Angelo says.

11 Angelo’s results with buffing the clearcoat are evident in this photo, in which the mirrorlike roof shows the reflection of him and his grandson, Ryan. The final polish was done using 3M’s Perfect-It machine polish.

12 As with so much of the rest of the car, the front subframe “was so nice I just wire brushed the whole thing,” says Angelo.

13 Angelo tried several approaches to get the finish just right for the car’s undercarriage components. The upper control arms, for example, were shot with PPG DP90 as a basecoat, and then covered with black basecoat and a flattened clearcoat “to get the semi-gloss I was looking for.”

14 On some of the bigger pieces, like the subframe, radiator core support and inner fenders, Angelo followed the DP90 with a flattened black lacquer.

15 Angelo brews his own spatter paint for the trunk. “Original spatter was a one-step process that used latex paint with lacquer or enamel mixed in,” he explains. “They never really blended, so you’d get these blobs. I do a two-step process by spraying a basecoat that’s a mix of black and gray primer, and then the spatter is aqua basecoat so it’s flat, not shiny.”

16 Those are the Camaro’s original coil springs, dressed with HQ tags after Angelo found the original tags still attached to the springs. “HQ is an unusual code. I’ve seen that on maybe two Camaros. It’s not even listed in some of the books. The springs might have been developed for ZL1 cars.”

17 Burch found a correctly dated BE-code axle to put in the Camaro. “That’s the code for the axle that went into COPO Camaros,” says Angelo. “It had all the original components inside—the 4.10 gears, Posi—which you don’t see very often, as a lot of them were messed with.” The Lakewood traction bars, which Burch understands are from the 1969-1970 era, were on another of Burch’s cars. Angelo restored them for use on the Camaro.

18 The Camaro’s second owner (Burch is its sixth) windowed the original 427 while drag racing, and the car has had a couple of engines since then. For the restoration, Burch found a date-code-correct, CE (counter exchange) L88 short-block. His engine builder, Joe Zeoli of the A-1 Automotive Machine Shop in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, bored and stroked the block to 489 inches and replaced the original L88’s guts with a new forged crank, new rods and pistons (for 12.5:1 compression), and a Crane hydraulic roller cam that “mimics a ZL1 cam,” says Burch.

19 Cal Custom valve covers “were an eBay find,” says Burch. “They were brand new in the box. I was tickled to get them, as the restored ones don’t look this good. When you polish them you lose that texture.” The A/C breathers are N.O.S., too.

20 The headers were “new-in-the-box, full competition headers from Jackshaw Pontiac, a performance dealer in Cleveland,” says Burch. “The date on the box was 1974, and they were complete, gaskets and all.”

21 “The same fella who had the headers also had this roll bar,” Burch continues. “I went to look at his headers, and when I went up in his attic he had the roll bar. It was so reasonable I had to buy it.” There was original paint left on the Lakewood bar, which Angelo matched for the bar’s restoration.

22 One of the roll bar’s downbars was designed to pass through the back seat. Not wanting to put holes in the Camaro’s mint original seat, Burch bought a donor seat, and Angelo fabbed the alterations to accommodate the bar.

23 Angelo duplicated the roll bar paint color on the Lakewood driveshaft loop, which was on the car when Burch bought it.

24 Since the Camaro had a fuel pressure gauge on the cowl in the photo from 1976, Burch put one on for the restoration. He’s been collecting bullet housings “for eight years,” he tells us, “and I’ve come across quite a few N.O.S. bullets in the boxes.” To the bullet he added a period-correct 2 1/8-inch Stewart-Warner fuel pressure gauge, “which is perfect for that.”

Richard Prince photo

25 Burch found the Hurst Line Loc mechanism at Carlisle “three or four years ago,” while the switch mounted on the horseshoe shifter was an eBay score. The Line Loc is from 1969-1971, he says, and fully functional.

26 There is so much more to tell about this outstanding restoration that we wish we had the room. Watch for a full feature on the car’s history next month and more on the period-correct day-two equipment, like the drag slicks from J.C. Penneys. If you’re looking for more detailed information and photos of the restoration, Angelo posted a thorough thread at the yenko.net website.

The post Inside the Award-Winning Restoration of a Day-Two 1969 COPO Camaro appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/inside-award-winning-restoration-day-two-1969-copo-camaro/ via IFTTT