#An Amish Man of Ice Mountain

[threecrowsinatrenchcoat]

Paint My Spirit Gold

Dukeceit Week Day 2: Green/Yellow

Fans of the YouTubers "Deceit" and Remus "The Duke" Sanders start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the two of them are more than simple internet pals.

AO3 Link: [here]

Word Count: 2187

Warnings: n/a

@dukeceitweek <3

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a watercolor-style painting of a snake. The snake appears to be made of melting chocolate, and there is a large bite taken out of its tail. Cherries and jam are leaking out of the snake at the bite wound. The snake's expression of horror is overly-exaggerated to the point of comedy. The caption reads: "liked your snake boi, @SerpenThyme. thanks for the inspo." /end ID]

- 

A notification ding cut Janus off mid-sentence. 

“Wow, someone left their cell phone on, so professional,” he said, giving the camera a dramatic eye roll. That someone was him, of course, because he was the only one in the apartment- just him and the running livestream- but that was no excuse not to be a drama queen about it. He finished wiping flour off his hands and grabbed his phone to silence it; but the notification made him pause. He flicked his eyes up toward the camera and gave a slight smirk.

“My goodness, I’m famous,” he drawled. “The Duke himself has graced little old me with some fan art.”

Most of the comments in the chat wanted him to show it, so Janus opened up Twitter to see the full post he’d been tagged in. It was a watercolor painting of the coiled-snake chocolate sculpture- lovingly named Jake by his viewers- he’d made for his YouTube video last week; it was wearing an expression of such comedic horror that Janus had to stifle a laugh. He flicked his phone screen toward the close-up camera on his counter so his viewers could see.

“How kind of you, Remus,” he said. “All of you should go scold him for what he’s done to poor Jake here.”

Most of his viewers would know he was joking- after all, they were the ones to nickname him Deceit when he provided neither a real or fake name for his online persona. They knew full well what he was like by now.

The oven timer dinged. Janus silenced his phone and set it aside.

“And our first batch of cookies is done. You know, why don’t we show the Duke some appreciation?”

-

[ID: An Instagram post by user @SerpenThyme. The photo is an artistically-framed shot of a stack of sugar cookies with green, yellow, and pink icing. Propped up against the stack is another cookie, with an intricate icing-drawing of an octopus. The photo appears to have been color corrected to have high contrast, low saturation, and a dark vignette at the edges. The Instagram user @OctoDukie is tagged. No caption. /end ID]

- 

“You know, I have often been accused of actually being a little old lady, what with my fondness for knitted jumpers, rocking chairs, and incredibly fucked up murder mystery books. Today I am doing nothing to dispel this accusation, by making soup.”

The studio was dark and empty aside from Remus' workspace. Everyone else had left long ago, even his own brother, which meant that it was officially ass-o'clock in the morning (or, as most people called it, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m.) But Remus was stuck in hyperfocus, honed in on putting the last touches on a commission that he'd been putting off for weeks. It's not that it was a tough painting- once he'd gotten started, it was actually a very creatively satisfying piece- but man, executive dysfunction could go suck a dick

“French onion soup, specifically. Because while I do like to pretend I am a classy bitch, I am also, regrettably, a lazy bitch with a distaste for anything that takes longer than one bottle of wine to make.”

Remus hated working in silence. It was stifling, almost suffocating. His brain needed noise like his lungs needed air. So when the studio had grown still and silent, Remus had flipped open his laptop and queued up some YouTube videos. 

“So we have here three pounds of onions that we need to slice up, pole to pole. You’re going to cry no matter what, so if you have any memories you’ve been repressing since middle school, now is an excellent time to dredge those up.” 

And if it happened to be 90% SerpenThyme videos, well. Sue him. 

“Now the first rule of caramelizing onions: fast and sloppy is always better than slow and thorough… at least, that’s what every man I’ve ever slept with tells me.”

Remus choked and glanced over to his laptop screen just in time to catch Deceit's trademark smirk directed at the audience just for a moment. It was the deadpan delivery that always got him. Remus could barely hold onto a joke long enough to get through it without cackling mid-punchline, but this fucker could say the funniest shit like an off-hand comment. 

He wiped his hands off on his jeans (what use were clothes if you couldn't use them as paint rags?) and pulled his laptop across the table.  He typed out a quick comment, citing the timestamp of the joke, and after it was posted, he shut his laptop. 

'Cause ass-o'clock was short for "get-your-ass-home-or-I’ll-kick-it" o'clock. 

-

[ID: A screenshot of a YouTube comments section. The first comment is by user TheDuke, and reads: "10:42 wow, rude." The second comment is a reply by user SerpenThyme, and simply reads ";)" /end ID]

-

Janus plopped down on the couch with a slight groan. He didn’t need to stream today, but he really hated missing days. Besides… he was fine. Really. 

He adjusted the camera until he was happy with the framing, and then checked the settings on his streaming software. Satisfied, he started the stream, and watched as his usual viewers rolled in. 

“What do you mean I’m not in my kitchen?” Janus drawled, addressing the chat. He glanced around with an expression of faux-shock on his face. “My goodness, when did that happen?”

He chuckled, and then gestured to his surroundings. “Yes, we are in my living room today. If you must know, my closest and most trusted friend tried to murder me today- yes, Virgil, it was attempted murder and nothing less- and I survived with nary a scratch… and a broken foot, but that is beside the point. Anyway, I’m not allowed to stand for long periods of time, and I may or may not be somewhat inebriated by pain pills and couldn’t stand even if I wanted to. So we are cooking from my couch today.”

Janus paused for a few moments to read the chat messages as they popped up. A few get well soon’s, a few theories about the “attempted murder,” Virgil- who moderated his chat for him- vehemently denying the “attempted murder” but otherwise refusing to clarify the event, and a large volume of wtf why are you streaming today, take care of yourself comments, which made him smile. But one particular comment caught his eye, almost lost amid the torrent of an active chat: wait this kinda looks like the Duke’s living room?

“Oh, VampSuga,” he said, addressing that commenter in particular with a slight smirk. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, since I can’t reach my oven from here, I thought some no-bake cookies were in order. For these you will need-”

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Discord conversation. The text reads:

“VampSuga: Ok ok hear me out. Dukeceit. 

Starstruck96: who?

IneffableSnek: lmao

FeralBeauYasha: lol

VampSuga: Deceit and Remus Sanders! They’re totally dating. I will die on this hill. 

FeralBeauYasha: Isn’t the duke w/ PatPat?

IneffableSnek: no thats his brothers bf

FeralBeauYasha: ohh

VampSuga: Did anyone see Deceit’s stream today? I swear that’s the Duke’s livingroom. 

StarStruck96: idk that seems like a stretch

IneffableSnek: no wait i kno what u mean

IneffableSnek: im watching the duke’s old videos and that one where he shows off all his old weapons he’s in a living room kinda like deceit’s 

FeralBeauYasha: They were acting all cute on twitter too

VampSuga: DUKECEIT”  /end ID]

-

"Hey guys, been a while since you've seen my face and not just whatever my hands are busy with, when it's within YouTube's terms and conditions I mean. They used to be way more lenient…" Remus trailed off for a moment, then shook his head sharply and plastered on a grin. 

"Anyway! In June me and a few other creators did a fundraiser for the Trevor Project, and y'all smashed the goal, so I let you decide what video I'd make this month." He paused, and gestured to the mountain of clothes piled behind him on the bed. "And you had so many juicy ideas to choose from, but you decided to dress me up like a Barbie instead."

Remus paused to scroll through his phone for a few moments. "Ah, ok, here we go. Twitter user YoonIsMyCat- oh, BTS, nice- sent in this first outfit. Uh… future Remus, put up the post here somewhere." He gestured vaguely to his right. "Y'all went with either a fuckton more clothes or a fuckton less clothes, which I respect. Apparently this outfit is called…” He squinted at his phone. “Amish chic? I take it back, no respect at all.”

Remus cycled through the outfits his viewers sent in, which ranged from the aforementioned “Amish chic” to “2008 rave attire” to “ok now you guys are just fucking with me” (which consisted of one of those big puffy snow coats, lime green in color; booty shorts with the shrug text emoji across the ass; fuzzy pink boots; and a yellow cowboy hat to top off the whole thing. It was awful. Remus loved it.) The mountain of clothes on the bed gradually became a mess of clothes spread across the floor instead, until there was just one outfit left. 

“Ok so Twitter user VampSuga sent me this outfit that I’m gonna call ‘sexy librarian.’ I couldn’t find this exact sweater online, but-” he paused for dramatic effect, before brandishing a sweater toward the camera like a bullfighter. “My boyfriend had something that was close enough.”

Remus hopped up from the bed and switched off the camera so he could change.

“They’re going to lose their minds,” a voice drawled from the doorway. Remus threw his shirt at him.

“Shoo, I’m getting naked.”

-

[ID: A Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a selfie of YouTuber Remus “The Duke” Sanders, a Hispanic man with his hair dyed green and styled into a spiked mohawk. He is wearing a yellow knitted cardigan over a black button-up shirt. He is grinning widely at the camera. The caption reads: “my viewers pick my outfits! now live on youtube. go see what i look like as a sexy librarian!” /end ID]

-

DukeceitStan

first and only dukeceit shipper ig

DukeceitStan

wow there’s so many of you now! Hi!!

DukeceitStan

i want this to be canon so bad omg

DukeceitStan

i mean just look

[image]

how 

[image]

cute

[image]

[ID: A series of three gifs featuring Youtubers SerpenThyme, aka Deceit, and TheDuke, aka Remus Sanders. Deceit is a black man with long, dreadlocked hair, and vitiligo patches along the left side of his face. Remus is a Hispanic man with green-dyed hair styled into a mohawk, many ear and facial piercings, and tattoos covering both arms. Each gif is edited so that the highlights are tinged yellow when Deceit is seen, and tinged green when Remus is seen.

The first gif depicts a close-up shot of Deceit’s hands as he carefully decorates a cookie with green and yellow icing. The cookie art he is working on appears to be a half-finished octopus. The gif then fades into a mid-shot of Remus, with his back to the camera, facing a canvas. The canvas is blank, and Remus appears to be laying out paints on a table to his left. 

The second gif depicts Deceit seated at his couch, facing the camera. He has many ingredients spread across his coffee table (including oats, cocoa powder, and butter) and appears to be in the process of laying out several more. The gif fades to show Remus seated at a similar couch with a similar coffee table in front of him. The camera is angled slightly downward to better show the myriad of knives spread out across the table. Remus is gesturing wildly with a morning star held in his hand. 

The third gif depicts Deceit in his kitchen. He is pulling on a bright, yellow knitted cardigan, and smirking toward the camera. The gif fades to show Remus in his bedroom, seated on his bed. He is holding up a similar-looking cardigan toward the camera and grinning. /end ID]

- 

“Remus, it’s almost two in the morning. Come to bed.”

“I’m coming, sorry. Twitter distracted me.”

“Mm. I can’t believe the bird app is more distracting than I am.”

“You should try harder.”

“Come to bed and maybe I will.”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming. Hang on though, is it cool if I post this?”

“Sure. They figured it out anyway.”

“Sweet. Ok, Jannie, I’m coming.”

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It reads: “Dukeceit is canon.” /end ID] 

[roadjanus]

Thursday? Maybe. I’m losing track. Weather is very steady. Early morning it is cooler, clouds low to the ground. But soon the sun burns that off and we’re set for a sunny day. Temperatures around 30 or 33. A breeze blows most of the time. It really is a lovely temperature. Better than Thailand where the humidity was so high that every afternoon you felt like you were melting. We’ve hardly used the pool here.

Last night we ventured downtown…through some of the sketchiest real estate. But we made it without incident to a restaurant called Ko-Ox Han Nah Restaurant, which means Let’s Go Eat in Maya. Which we did. Food was so excellent. They use a lot of curries and coconut rice. We had locally made desserts — flan, cheesecake, lemon meringue pie and ice cream. Not all at once of course. The ladies were lovely and when we first entered we were the only customers. But it filled up by the time we were done.

This morning we headed out for an adventure. We went to Barton Creek Caves with Cayo Inland Adventures to canoe through the stalagmites and stalactites. We went in a four wheel drive because the last 4 miles of the road was very rough. We drove up into the mountains and past Mennonite farms that are seriously isolated from the towns. They are farming, and successfully it seems, in this remote area. There are a lot of Mennonite farmers here. Very successful and the ones in the upper reaches are like the Amish as they do not use modern conveniences. Horse and buggy days I guess. The farms we saw were pretty modern though. Brahma cattle, each with their own little egret. So cute. And we saw a toucan. He was way up in a tree, but still pretty special to see him. Later in the day we saw a kingfisher.

Once we passed the farms we got into worse rock-bed roads. Lots of fun to drive over! The Barton Caves are archaeological sites and there are a lot of regulations around their use. We and our guide put on helmets, took headlamps and clambered into our canoes for a very slow and peaceful paddle into the caves. Amazing rock formations from the water dripping over limestone. Apparently it takes 100 years of drips to make 1 inch of stalactites. It does give you some perspective in how long the caves have been there. The water is 8-10 feet deep and clear as glass. It appears blue in the light. At the closest the stalactites were about 1 foot above my head…closer to the Man. Haha. At the end the stalactites were maybe at the most 1 ft above the water, and some were touching the water. The cave goes back another 7 km. You’d have to scuba to get to the end. The cave was a religious site for the Mayan people and on the shelves were shards of pottery, and even a human skull. I couldn’t really tell that it was a skull, but that’s what the guide said. It seems it was a burial site for the young. The cave was a sacrificial site and a burial site. They used it as a way to reach their gods. They asked for rain, good harvests. The usual asks. He said they also did blood sacrifice whereby they would drain blood from themselves and then burn it. It was a spooky cave. When we turned off our lamps it was so black. I’m not at my best in small spaces! That was tight enough for me! Haha

On the way home we stopped at a fruit stand to buy a papaya and a pineapple and tomatoes and potatoes, onions and Belizean oranges. About $6. The papaya and the pineapple are so sweet.

On Saturday we are going to the big market and we’ll see a plethora of fresh fruit and vegetables. Photos are from the cave but they don’t show too well.

[rigmarolling]

Five Things Abe Lincoln Did That Prove He Was A BAMF

I love Lincoln. You probably know this if you’ve listened to me talk for more than two seconds. I have a literal entire bookshelf filled with Lincoln stuff. I teared up in Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland. I cried so hard when I watched Lincoln (2012), that I almost started dry-heaving. I was Lincoln (sort of) for Halloween.

Is it a problem? No. It isn’t a problem, Mom. Because Lincoln was a 100% USDA-certified badass.

Don’t believe me? Here are ten things Abe did to prove he was absolutely a BAMF.

1. That time he jumped out a window to prevent a vote.

In 1840, the Illinois legislature was voting on whether or not to fund the state bank. Lincoln was a member of the Whig party, which did not require members to wear wigs, contrary to what the name suggests, but which did support saving the state bank. The opposing party, the Democrats (different political beliefs from modern-day democrats, do NOT come at me, Reddit dudebros) wanted to shut the State bank down.

It all came down to a vote...and it looked like the anti-state bank democrats were going to win. Abraham Lincoln, then a 31-year-old legislator who looked like the pioneer version of a Tim Burton character, was getting nervous. 

Above: Jack Skellington, 1840.

“Shit,” he thought, probably, “We Whigs are screwed if we lose this vote. And we don’t even get to wear wigs.”

The bank-hating democrats scheduled a vote to adjourn the session, which would effectively be the nail in the state bank’s coffin. Abe was panicking. He was the de facto leader of the Whigs; he had to do something. 

“Prove your mettle, boy,” he probably thought to himself in a folksy, backwoods kinda way. “Show ‘em you ain’t gonna give up.”

So Abe did what any self-respecting legislator would do when stuck between a rock and a hard place:

He jumped out the window of the legislature to stop the vote.

To be fair, Lincoln wasn’t the only one to opt for a morning act of defenestration: a bunch of the other Whigs joined in, too. The rationale was, essentially, this:

Which is peak Internet comedy, but unfortunately, it was 1840 and the Internet didn’t exist yet, so nobody appreciated the gesture and the democrats eventually wound up closing the bank, anyway. 

But at least Abe showed the entire state that he appreciated Looney Tunes-esque escape tactics.

2. That time he roasted a guy during a debate with good-old self-deprecating humor.

You ever rely on self-deprecating humor to beat people to the “yes, I KNOW I am offensive” punch?

So did our 16th president, Abraham Nicole Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

When Lincoln was campaigning, his biggest rival was Stephen Douglas, the Democratic contender who was nicknamed “the little giant” because he was short but a heavy hitter in politics, and also because he looks like the kind of guy that just wouldn’t shut up at parties:

Above: “Actually, I’m not racist, BUT--”

In 1858, Lincoln and Douglas held a series of seven famous political debates called, brilliantly, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, coming to you LIVE at Rockefeller Center, with performances by the Rockettes, Anna and Elsa on Ice, AND with special guest, Seal!

These debates were THE go-to political show of the season. If you were super into who would be elected to the Illinois Senate in the mid-19th century, then holy shit, you have got to watch these two men go at each other, man, it’s like watching a tree and an angry little dog slap each other across the stage.

During the debates, Lincoln quickly became famous for his one-liners, and also because no one had ever seen a talking tree in a suit before.

In one of the debates, Douglas accused Lincoln of being two-faced. Without missing a beat, Lincoln, who had been mocked his entire life for his ungainly, scarecrow-like appearance in the same way that I just mocked him a few sentences ago, whoops...

ANYWAY.

Lincoln turned to Douglas and went, “Honestly, if I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?” 

And then the audience did this:

And then Lincoln was like:

Check. Mate. 

3. That time he was so strong and such a good wrestler that nobody messed with him.

When I say “wrestler,” what do you think of?

Is it this?

Maybe this?

What about this?

Huh? What’s that you say? “What the hell is...is that Lincoln? What...what the hell is Lincoln doing in a list of wrestlers?

“Um,” I answer, “Being a wrestler.”

Because Abraham Lincoln, 6′ 4″ and all of 150-something pounds, was, in fact, an incredibly talented wrestler.

So talented, in fact, that when it came to wrestling matches, he went undefeated for most of his life.

See, Lincoln grew up in the middle of butt crack-nowhere, out in the sticks of the American frontier. Ain’t no room for sissies out on the frontier. This here’s hard-scrabble country, see, rough-livin’; you gotta spit to live; you gotta live to spit; Neosporin? I think you mean weak-ass bitch cream.

So how did rootin’ tootin’ frontier folk blow off steam? Well, when they weren’t dying of dysentery or tuberculosis or minor infections that could today be cured by steady application of Neosporin, they were wrasslin’. And when it came to the act of picking someone up and throwing them back down, nobody wrestled like 21-year-old Abraham Justine Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

One look at the guy and people were like, “The hell? What’s this ancient Egyptian mummy doing in the ring?”

But the second he got going, everyone shut up. Because this guy was nuts. He was a berserker. He could defeat a guy three times his size in seconds. He could bench the Rock, probably, and not even break a sweat.

He was the nicest guy in town. But nobody--and I mean nobody--messed with Abraham Ashley Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name).

One time, Jack Armstrong, the local heavyweight champion who was the Big Bad in town and undefeated in the wrestling and “I’m a giant asshole who smashes my way through problems” arena, challenged Lincoln to a match. 

“Uh oh,” everyone in the little town of New Salem, Illinois thought, “That’s it for ol’ Twig Legs Abe. He might be good, but there’s no way he can defeat Jack Armstrong. Nice knowing you, kid; it’s a shame, because you might have made a solid president.”

But Lincoln, who knew no fear and ate chains forged in the heart of a dwarven cavern for breakfast, was like, “Bring it on, bitch.”

Above: Playin’ with the boys.

Jack and Abe started sparring and Jack threw insult after insult Abe’s way. I don’t know exactly what Jack said, but it was probably the 19th century equivalent of, “You may have 2,300 Facebook friends but nobody cares about the pictures of your homemade Shake ‘N Bake chicken that you post, eggwad.”

Abe didn’t relent. 

See, he was getting angry.

Really angry.

So angry, in fact, that in one fell swoop, he suddenly slammed big Jack Armstrong to the ground so hard that Armstrong passed out, cold.

Abe had won. Everyone stared at the panting, growling, 6′4″ pine tree man in reverent awe. 

A fun epilogue to this story: after Jack Armstrong recovered from getting his ass handed to him by a guy who looked like an extra in a movie about the Amish, he and Abe remained steadfast buddies for the rest of their lives. 

Jack just never ever insulted Abraham Jessica Lincoln again.

(Not his real middle name.)

4. The (many) times he went off into long, rambling stories during Cabinet meetings to illustrate a point.

You know how grandma and grandpa sometimes go off on tangents and you’re like, “okay, okay, get to the point.”

But grandma and grandpa don’t even respond and just keep talking about that one time in 1953 that Anne-Marie told George that no, she hadn’t gone to the corner store, why do you keep asking, George? And then I said to George, I said, George, you need to listen to Anne-Marie because she knows that the corner store is the only one in town that sells fresh-laid eggs and Butterick circle skirt patterns, but did he listen? Did he listen to me? No, he didn’t, so I went to---

You get it.

So did every single member of Lincoln’s cabinet. Because Lincoln was a consummate storyteller, for better or for worse. 

(Sometimes for worse, depending on who you asked.)

Above: “One time, at band camp...”

Lincoln would interrupt important meetings about, you know, saving the Union and the soul of the country itself with anecdotes that started something like this:

Lincoln: You know, Sec. Stanton, that reminds me of a fur-trapper I knew back in Illinois--

Stanton: Great, except, Mr. President, everyone is dying--

Lincoln: Now this here fur trapper was the best fur trapper in the entire state. Not the entire country, mind you, on account of we didn’t really have a way of measuring fur-trapping skills nationwide--

Stanton: *neck turning purple* Mr. President--

Lincoln:--but definitely the best fur trapper in Illinois. Now one day, this fur trapper set out to do what he did best: shoot some raccoons, or maybe a bear, or a wolf if he was lucky, or a deer, or some moose, or a beaver, or a mongoose, or maybe a possum--

Stanton: OH MY GOD--

Lincoln:--or a cat, if times were desperate, but not a dog, never a dog, because this here fur trapper loved dogs; had six of ‘em himself, all hound dogs, loyal to a fault, see, because this here fur trapper--

Stanton: JUST STOP--

Lincoln: --this here fur trapper could be short-sighted. See, he set his sights one day on shooting the biggest bear in the mountains--and this bear, why, this here bear was a Goliath of a bear, the biggest bear anyone ever did see, the biggest bear in the state; not the biggest bear in the country, mind you, on account of we didn’t have a way of comparing bear sizes nationwide, but--

You get the gist.

Above: “So I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies--”

Eventually, Lincoln would get to the point of his story; in this example, for...um, example...maybe the moral was, “Don’t get so focused on one goal (shooting that big bear) that you loose sight of other objectives in the war (getting rid of the wolf pack killing all the sheep or whatever).”

I would like to explain to you why telling long, rambling grandpa stories was such a power move:

Abe Lincoln was the president. 

So his whole Cabinet had to listen.

And Abe Lincoln knew it.

They had to listen to this backwoods guy go on and on about how that one time the local long boatsman fell into the river actually serves as a metaphor for Gen. McClellan’s inability to take control of the troops; or how the rabid raccoon that lived in the local blacksmith’s shop can serve as a metaphor for acting too hastily when trying to take down the South. 

Or, like, whatever.

Above: “All here in favor of me performing the entirety of Les Mis starring me as everyone, raise your hands.”

Apparently, Lincoln was also the kind of storyteller who, if there was a funny punchline at the end, took forever to get to the punch line because he’d start laughing hysterically at his own joke, and while many people thought it was incredibly endearing, others were like, “Boy, I wonder what it would be like if I dumped this entire fucking bottle of ink over the president’s head to get him to shut the fuck up.”

Spoiler alert: Lincoln did not, in fact, shut the fuck up. He was determined to teach folks a lesson through the the power of storytelling and also to help break the tension of a legitimately horrible war with the power of laughter.

Monopolizing the conversation to prove a point with anecdotes about frontier living that no one can escape?

Power. Move.

5. Those times he let his kids run amok in the White House and thought it was hilarious.

Lincoln had a four kids, all boys, who moved into the White House after he was elected president.

And these boys were little terrors.

To be fair, a vast majority of boys are terrors. Kids are terrors. They are small harbingers of chaos and discord with little regard for their fellow humans, which means they fit right in in the White House EYYYY POLITICAL COMMENTARY.

But Lincoln’s kids, apparently, were especially out of control.

Above: “Alright, enough pussy-footin’ around, Pops, fork over the dough and no one gets a kick in the nuts.”

Lincoln adored his boys, partly because he was a good dad and partly because he’d already had one child die tragically, so understandably, he was like, “Life is short and antibiotics haven’t been invented yet so we’re all going to die from getting paper cuts, probably; I’m just gonna let my boys do whatever the hell they want.”

And he kind of...did.

Willie and Tad Lincoln, his two youngest, brought tons of pets into the White House. Dogs, cats, birds...when people objected, Lincoln just sort of shrugged. He, too, was a huge animal lover and didn’t really care if ponies were clomping around the Oval Office. “My White House, my rules, my indoor ponies.”

The two Lincoln boys would dress up in military uniforms and have fake military drills and stage fake (LOUD) battles all over the White House, including when Dad was in a Cabinet meeting.

What did Dad do, you ask?

Laugh his head off.

While his kids would burst into Cabinet meetings, crawl under the table and kick important Senators’ legs and feet, generally causing a grade-A ruckus, Abe would try and fail to stifle his laughter.

Which, you know. Objectively isn’t the best parenting, but for Pete’s sake, they were at war, can’t they have a little fun? Jesus, lighten up, folks, they’re kids.

The Lincoln boys particularly irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton, but to be fair, almost everything irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton.

Above: “I have never had fun once, ever, in my life.”

Once again, Lincoln’s rationale was, “Life is fragile, one of my children already died, the country is at war, and kids make me laugh, so if they want to punch Sec. Stanton in the balls under the table, who am I to stop them?”

Also, Lincoln was the president, so nobody thought it was appropriate to go, “Um, hey? Mr.--Mr. President? Maybe you could tell your sons to, you know...not crawl under the table and interrupt, um...important...war strategy meetings?”

ALSO, Lincoln once wrestled a man twice his size to the ground without batting an eyelash, so you go tell him to make his kids behave. I dare you.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Mushroom Hunting at the End of the World

Getty Images

While the rest of the country focused on something other than the forest floor, I started foraging for chanterelles

I’d been staring at the ground too long. That’s most of what foraging is, by the way. It’s ignoring the blue sky and the trees to focus your gaze on the dirt. I was walking through cobwebs, surveying the woodland floor for almost an hour, when I finally saw one: a tiny, pale chanterelle mushroom sticking up near the trail’s edge. It looked sickly, or at the very least elderly. Perhaps it was a sign that this section of the woods was untraveled, or maybe nobody had ever thought to pluck it from its habitat.

I peeled it from the ground with my paring knife and placed it into my netted, purple sack, which once housed grocery-store red onions. This lonely mushroom wasn’t the haul, mind you, but rather an indicator. When one chanterelle appears, more will follow. A few steps off the trail and they emerged in droves. Soon, my bag was filled with corpulent, spore-bearing fungi — big chanterelles with deep-orange hues and fantastical shapes, like something a Nintendo animator might draw.

Walking back with my giant bag of wild mushrooms, I ran into a couple, the first people I’d seen that day. We all scrambled to put on our masks at the distant sight of one another. “You get some chanties?” the man said in his familiar, spectacularly unusual Pittsburgh accent. “It’s a gold mine out there,” I said, trying unconsciously to disguise any hints of that same Pennsylvanian elocution. After they disappeared back into the woods, I put my mask in my pocket, where it stayed for the rest of the hike. For about 30 seconds, I was reminded that the rest of the world was focused on something other than the forest floor.

For about 30 seconds, I was reminded that the rest of the world was focused on something other than the forest floor.

A few years back I had tasted some wild mushroom conserva courtesy of my cousin, Andy, during a trip to my hometown in Pennsylvania. Andy is a budding locavore, a self-taught forager, and a mad scientist in the kitchen. His passion is infectious. Eighty percent of the meat he consumes, he hunts himself. He cures venison and butchers whole pigs in his garage.

That first spoonful of Andy’s mushrooms, meaty chanterelles salted in a strainer, then simmered in white vinegar with gothic-looking thyme and peppercorns, is preserved in my mind, so much so that I can access that memory whenever I want. The dim lighting in my parents’ dining room, Andy standing in the kitchen with his arms confidently folded, the sound of the Mason jar lid spinning loose, and the immense joy of my first bite — stocky chanterelle mushrooms, piquant vinegar, gentle aromatics, and then the brilliant opulence of olive oil, used to preserve the mixture.

I asked Andy if I could take a jar of them back home to Los Angeles, and he obliged. Every so often, I unscrewed the lid for a small bite. I would close my eyes and feel the cold air in my hometown. If I listened carefully, I could hear the train whistles in the distance. Those mushrooms became a portal to my hometown, a culinary object so emotionally resonant, so distinct from the food I bought at my grocery store in California, that I always longed to forage and conserve a jar of my own.

I began to miss rural Pennsylvania as the pandemic encroached into summer. Like a lot of people, I felt trapped in the big city, and so in June, I went home. In Pennsylvania, everybody’s houses are set at a distance, but everyone barters home provisions, ranging from venison pastrami to crooked cucumbers to gargantuan zucchini. The summer is when the Amish sell sweet corn, and when the berry farms open their orchards. The old-timey ice cream shops end their winter break, and people start roasting whole pigs and marinated legs of lamb. It was also not lost on me that a hot, wet climate is the ideal condition for chanterelles, and that this would be the perfect time to chase that dragon: the jar of preserved mushrooms.

Once I began mushroom hunting, the calm followed. I embraced foraging, an oft-maligned word after the chef-bro boom of the 2010s. If your reaction is to recoil, you’re not alone. Before my mushroom-hunting days, I usually laughed when I saw the word “foraged” on a menu or in a magazine. Oh, did you really go out foraging, m’Lord?

The first time I went, I rode in the passenger seat of Andy’s car, down the winding rural roads of Amish country. To be honest, I didn’t immediately connect with foraging; the experience felt educational. Of course, when you’re dealing with something that can be either good in a stir-fry, consciousness-expanding, or deadly, education is important. Poisonous mushrooms actually look evil, though, an offer of good faith from Mother Nature. They often have a sinister gray or red color, with warts and scales reminiscent of the toxic fungi in fairy-tale illustrations. Andy made sure to teach me enough that I didn’t end up hallucinating through the woods — or, worse yet, dead.

People in my hometown definitely don’t fall into the stereotype of knuckle-tatted, beanie-wearing “foragers,” but they’re pretty keen on the good mushroom spots. There’s an old Polish woman, for instance, whose stiff, territorial energy I can feel whenever I show up to Gaston Park the day after a rain. Because I didn’t want to move in on another gang’s turf, I had Andy show me a few of his favorite areas. Still, it didn’t feel right: These were his discoveries, not mine. I wanted to make my own way. I wanted that excitement of stumbling across a rare mushroom, of encountering a field of freshly sprouted chanterelles. I wanted to find my own mushroom haven, and so I went to Hell’s Hollow.

daveynin/Flickr

A view from the Hell’s Hollow Trail in McConnells Mill State Park, Pennsylvania

Hell’s Hollow is a national park and trail in New Castle, Pennsylvania, about a mile down the road from my childhood home. Apparently, it’s called Hell’s Hollow because some time ago a man fell asleep in those woods, and when he woke up, he was convinced that the place he was in was actually Hell. Are the woods deep and dark? Sure. Spooky at night? Yeah, of course. But, Hell? As in the place where sinners go and are tormented for eternity? Like, Satan-owned and -operated Hell? I scoff at the idea whenever I pass the old wooden sign for the trail. What kind of idiot would think that the woods is Hell? It’s beautiful out here. I mean look, there’s a flowing river. Why would the Devil keep a freshwater source in an eternity of suffering? Rule No. 1 of Hell must be to stay hydrated. Rule No. 2? No running.

Hell’s Hollow has been a constant throughout my life. When I was a kid, my mom and dad let me splash around the creek trying to catch minnows and small crabs. When I was 10, I gleefully collected rocks and declared that I was going to be a geologist (my family would be disappointed). As teens, my friends and I smoked shag weed and smashed cans of Mountain Dew together like Stone Cold Steve Austin there. The point is, I’ve been wandering around Hell’s Hollow my whole life, and it never dawned on me that I would ever find myself foraging there. But sure enough, it was my spot.

I did not expect hunting for mushrooms to clear my head the way it did. People say that about prep work, by the way. They say that peeling potatoes and kneading dough lets the mind wander and alleviates stress. But, to me, prep work is just that: work. Dicing onions pierces the eyes, lemon juice stings, and I will always associate chopping parsley with the incoming threat of a dinner rush at one of my restaurant jobs. When people say that cooking soothes the mind, they’re not taking into account all the people who do this shit for a living. What are those people supposed to do to get away from themselves? For me, I found that wandering in the woods alone with a sense of purpose was exactly the thing I needed to weather the fire tornado of anxiety the pandemic had produced.

The act of foraging, a completely unchanged activity in a pandemic, possesses the acute ability to make me forget about the state of things entirely. Specifically, it was easy to forget about a global virus. Hunting for mushrooms in the woods alone is already distanced; there are no guidelines to follow. Walk down the street in Los Angeles and you’re immediately reminded that restaurants are shut down and live performance spaces are shuttered. But in the woods? Go ahead — sneeze full force in any direction you please. Let off some steam, pal. You’ve earned it. Sure, I had a mask, but it stayed in my pocket on the off chance that I ran into another human being, though I was more likely to spot a deer.

When I’m hunting for mushrooms it feels like I’m achieving something tangible.

This wasn’t just a way to pass time, mind you. These weren’t nature walks I was taking. There’s a sense of ambition at the core of mushroom hunting. Purpose, the thing so many of us have felt without this year, I suddenly possessed. When there’s purpose, there’s a sense of reward, and when I’m hunting for mushrooms it feels like I’m achieving something tangible. All my energy is focused, my aim clear. Instead of staring at the ceiling in my studio apartment, I found myself scanning the ground for edible treasure. The dopamine you receive from finding a cluster of chanterelle mushrooms in the damp woods is immense, somehow both frivolous and survivalist. There’s a real sense of childlike treasure-hunting tied to foraging.

Take the elusive cauliflower mushroom, Sparassis, which is as rare as mushrooms come. They grow sporadically; their appearance is psychedelic and aquatic. It looks coral in a way, like a living, breathing self-sustaining organism that belongs at the bottom of the ocean. Jarring, then, to find one surrounded by leaves and mossy logs. The mushroom itself is wavy and ethereal, with petals like a flower. It’s so rare that when Andy and I found one, he jumped in the air with excitement. For seven years he had been hunting for a cauliflower mushroom, and he finally got it. His triumph felt like my triumph, and in a way, it was. Later, I fried the petals of the cauliflower mushroom in oil and ate them salted. The texture was outstanding and the flavor delicate, like a homemade noodle but with the specific earthiness of a fungus. “How many people are eating a cauliflower mushroom right now?” I thought.

I felt like jumping in the air like Andy when I spotted that lone, feeble chanterelle in Hell’s Hollow. To reach that first chantie was a hero’s journey, past a path that leads to a dazzling waterfall, down a steep hill, across a stream, and through a tunnel of decaying trees. The air starts to cool down and a trained nose can begin to smell the faint notes of mushrooms in the air. Clusters of chanterelles appear like small towns; they are golden trumpets that politely announce their presence with colorful glee. Oyster mushrooms grow shelf-like on the sides of trees, and chicken of the woods, these endlessly useful and tasty orange half-moons, light up your eyes like a gorgeous sunset. That’s the thing about wild mushrooms — once you see them, you can’t unsee them. After an education in foraging, you’ll be forever scanning your surroundings, trying to manifest treasure.

As I carried back my sack of mushrooms that first time, I thought about that man who woke up in Hell’s Hollow in the night. How must he have felt? Aimless, one would assume. Probably searching for a way out of the darkness. Disoriented, without a clue where he might be in relation to the outside world. Maybe that’s what Hell is. Maybe it’s quite simply feeling lost and alone. The pandemic can feel like that, as though you’re traversing an endless dark wilderness hoping to catch a light in the distance that’ll guide you back to society. But is that a new feeling? Hasn’t it always been that way? Maybe all of life has just been wandering in the dark.

Anyway, I’m glad to be walking through the woods with a purpose.

Danny Palumbo is a comedian and writer living in Los Angeles.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2JUbLZq https://ift.tt/3korg8w

Getty Images

While the rest of the country focused on something other than the forest floor, I started foraging for chanterelles

I’d been staring at the ground too long. That’s most of what foraging is, by the way. It’s ignoring the blue sky and the trees to focus your gaze on the dirt. I was walking through cobwebs, surveying the woodland floor for almost an hour, when I finally saw one: a tiny, pale chanterelle mushroom sticking up near the trail’s edge. It looked sickly, or at the very least elderly. Perhaps it was a sign that this section of the woods was untraveled, or maybe nobody had ever thought to pluck it from its habitat.

I peeled it from the ground with my paring knife and placed it into my netted, purple sack, which once housed grocery-store red onions. This lonely mushroom wasn’t the haul, mind you, but rather an indicator. When one chanterelle appears, more will follow. A few steps off the trail and they emerged in droves. Soon, my bag was filled with corpulent, spore-bearing fungi — big chanterelles with deep-orange hues and fantastical shapes, like something a Nintendo animator might draw.

Walking back with my giant bag of wild mushrooms, I ran into a couple, the first people I’d seen that day. We all scrambled to put on our masks at the distant sight of one another. “You get some chanties?” the man said in his familiar, spectacularly unusual Pittsburgh accent. “It’s a gold mine out there,” I said, trying unconsciously to disguise any hints of that same Pennsylvanian elocution. After they disappeared back into the woods, I put my mask in my pocket, where it stayed for the rest of the hike. For about 30 seconds, I was reminded that the rest of the world was focused on something other than the forest floor.

For about 30 seconds, I was reminded that the rest of the world was focused on something other than the forest floor.

A few years back I had tasted some wild mushroom conserva courtesy of my cousin, Andy, during a trip to my hometown in Pennsylvania. Andy is a budding locavore, a self-taught forager, and a mad scientist in the kitchen. His passion is infectious. Eighty percent of the meat he consumes, he hunts himself. He cures venison and butchers whole pigs in his garage.

That first spoonful of Andy’s mushrooms, meaty chanterelles salted in a strainer, then simmered in white vinegar with gothic-looking thyme and peppercorns, is preserved in my mind, so much so that I can access that memory whenever I want. The dim lighting in my parents’ dining room, Andy standing in the kitchen with his arms confidently folded, the sound of the Mason jar lid spinning loose, and the immense joy of my first bite — stocky chanterelle mushrooms, piquant vinegar, gentle aromatics, and then the brilliant opulence of olive oil, used to preserve the mixture.

I asked Andy if I could take a jar of them back home to Los Angeles, and he obliged. Every so often, I unscrewed the lid for a small bite. I would close my eyes and feel the cold air in my hometown. If I listened carefully, I could hear the train whistles in the distance. Those mushrooms became a portal to my hometown, a culinary object so emotionally resonant, so distinct from the food I bought at my grocery store in California, that I always longed to forage and conserve a jar of my own.

I began to miss rural Pennsylvania as the pandemic encroached into summer. Like a lot of people, I felt trapped in the big city, and so in June, I went home. In Pennsylvania, everybody’s houses are set at a distance, but everyone barters home provisions, ranging from venison pastrami to crooked cucumbers to gargantuan zucchini. The summer is when the Amish sell sweet corn, and when the berry farms open their orchards. The old-timey ice cream shops end their winter break, and people start roasting whole pigs and marinated legs of lamb. It was also not lost on me that a hot, wet climate is the ideal condition for chanterelles, and that this would be the perfect time to chase that dragon: the jar of preserved mushrooms.

Once I began mushroom hunting, the calm followed. I embraced foraging, an oft-maligned word after the chef-bro boom of the 2010s. If your reaction is to recoil, you’re not alone. Before my mushroom-hunting days, I usually laughed when I saw the word “foraged” on a menu or in a magazine. Oh, did you really go out foraging, m’Lord?

The first time I went, I rode in the passenger seat of Andy’s car, down the winding rural roads of Amish country. To be honest, I didn’t immediately connect with foraging; the experience felt educational. Of course, when you’re dealing with something that can be either good in a stir-fry, consciousness-expanding, or deadly, education is important. Poisonous mushrooms actually look evil, though, an offer of good faith from Mother Nature. They often have a sinister gray or red color, with warts and scales reminiscent of the toxic fungi in fairy-tale illustrations. Andy made sure to teach me enough that I didn’t end up hallucinating through the woods — or, worse yet, dead.

People in my hometown definitely don’t fall into the stereotype of knuckle-tatted, beanie-wearing “foragers,” but they’re pretty keen on the good mushroom spots. There’s an old Polish woman, for instance, whose stiff, territorial energy I can feel whenever I show up to Gaston Park the day after a rain. Because I didn’t want to move in on another gang’s turf, I had Andy show me a few of his favorite areas. Still, it didn’t feel right: These were his discoveries, not mine. I wanted to make my own way. I wanted that excitement of stumbling across a rare mushroom, of encountering a field of freshly sprouted chanterelles. I wanted to find my own mushroom haven, and so I went to Hell’s Hollow.

daveynin/Flickr

A view from the Hell’s Hollow Trail in McConnells Mill State Park, Pennsylvania

Hell’s Hollow is a national park and trail in New Castle, Pennsylvania, about a mile down the road from my childhood home. Apparently, it’s called Hell’s Hollow because some time ago a man fell asleep in those woods, and when he woke up, he was convinced that the place he was in was actually Hell. Are the woods deep and dark? Sure. Spooky at night? Yeah, of course. But, Hell? As in the place where sinners go and are tormented for eternity? Like, Satan-owned and -operated Hell? I scoff at the idea whenever I pass the old wooden sign for the trail. What kind of idiot would think that the woods is Hell? It’s beautiful out here. I mean look, there’s a flowing river. Why would the Devil keep a freshwater source in an eternity of suffering? Rule No. 1 of Hell must be to stay hydrated. Rule No. 2? No running.

Hell’s Hollow has been a constant throughout my life. When I was a kid, my mom and dad let me splash around the creek trying to catch minnows and small crabs. When I was 10, I gleefully collected rocks and declared that I was going to be a geologist (my family would be disappointed). As teens, my friends and I smoked shag weed and smashed cans of Mountain Dew together like Stone Cold Steve Austin there. The point is, I’ve been wandering around Hell’s Hollow my whole life, and it never dawned on me that I would ever find myself foraging there. But sure enough, it was my spot.

I did not expect hunting for mushrooms to clear my head the way it did. People say that about prep work, by the way. They say that peeling potatoes and kneading dough lets the mind wander and alleviates stress. But, to me, prep work is just that: work. Dicing onions pierces the eyes, lemon juice stings, and I will always associate chopping parsley with the incoming threat of a dinner rush at one of my restaurant jobs. When people say that cooking soothes the mind, they’re not taking into account all the people who do this shit for a living. What are those people supposed to do to get away from themselves? For me, I found that wandering in the woods alone with a sense of purpose was exactly the thing I needed to weather the fire tornado of anxiety the pandemic had produced.

The act of foraging, a completely unchanged activity in a pandemic, possesses the acute ability to make me forget about the state of things entirely. Specifically, it was easy to forget about a global virus. Hunting for mushrooms in the woods alone is already distanced; there are no guidelines to follow. Walk down the street in Los Angeles and you’re immediately reminded that restaurants are shut down and live performance spaces are shuttered. But in the woods? Go ahead — sneeze full force in any direction you please. Let off some steam, pal. You’ve earned it. Sure, I had a mask, but it stayed in my pocket on the off chance that I ran into another human being, though I was more likely to spot a deer.

When I’m hunting for mushrooms it feels like I’m achieving something tangible.

This wasn’t just a way to pass time, mind you. These weren’t nature walks I was taking. There’s a sense of ambition at the core of mushroom hunting. Purpose, the thing so many of us have felt without this year, I suddenly possessed. When there’s purpose, there’s a sense of reward, and when I’m hunting for mushrooms it feels like I’m achieving something tangible. All my energy is focused, my aim clear. Instead of staring at the ceiling in my studio apartment, I found myself scanning the ground for edible treasure. The dopamine you receive from finding a cluster of chanterelle mushrooms in the damp woods is immense, somehow both frivolous and survivalist. There’s a real sense of childlike treasure-hunting tied to foraging.

Take the elusive cauliflower mushroom, Sparassis, which is as rare as mushrooms come. They grow sporadically; their appearance is psychedelic and aquatic. It looks coral in a way, like a living, breathing self-sustaining organism that belongs at the bottom of the ocean. Jarring, then, to find one surrounded by leaves and mossy logs. The mushroom itself is wavy and ethereal, with petals like a flower. It’s so rare that when Andy and I found one, he jumped in the air with excitement. For seven years he had been hunting for a cauliflower mushroom, and he finally got it. His triumph felt like my triumph, and in a way, it was. Later, I fried the petals of the cauliflower mushroom in oil and ate them salted. The texture was outstanding and the flavor delicate, like a homemade noodle but with the specific earthiness of a fungus. “How many people are eating a cauliflower mushroom right now?” I thought.

I felt like jumping in the air like Andy when I spotted that lone, feeble chanterelle in Hell’s Hollow. To reach that first chantie was a hero’s journey, past a path that leads to a dazzling waterfall, down a steep hill, across a stream, and through a tunnel of decaying trees. The air starts to cool down and a trained nose can begin to smell the faint notes of mushrooms in the air. Clusters of chanterelles appear like small towns; they are golden trumpets that politely announce their presence with colorful glee. Oyster mushrooms grow shelf-like on the sides of trees, and chicken of the woods, these endlessly useful and tasty orange half-moons, light up your eyes like a gorgeous sunset. That’s the thing about wild mushrooms — once you see them, you can’t unsee them. After an education in foraging, you’ll be forever scanning your surroundings, trying to manifest treasure.

As I carried back my sack of mushrooms that first time, I thought about that man who woke up in Hell’s Hollow in the night. How must he have felt? Aimless, one would assume. Probably searching for a way out of the darkness. Disoriented, without a clue where he might be in relation to the outside world. Maybe that’s what Hell is. Maybe it’s quite simply feeling lost and alone. The pandemic can feel like that, as though you’re traversing an endless dark wilderness hoping to catch a light in the distance that’ll guide you back to society. But is that a new feeling? Hasn’t it always been that way? Maybe all of life has just been wandering in the dark.

Anyway, I’m glad to be walking through the woods with a purpose.

Danny Palumbo is a comedian and writer living in Los Angeles.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2JUbLZq via Blogger https://ift.tt/38Dk0DK

[fromjesstoyou]

Week #20 of When & Where am I Wednesday | From Jess to You Services

[namira]

Rating states I have been inside at some point, will update if/when I go to more

Connecticut: The New England state I’m least familiar with. I’ve been to Hartford a couple of times and it was ok. 6/10

Florida: There’s merit to the whole ‘Florida Man’ thing. Those fleeting, destructive thoughts everyone gets? Like ‘What if I threw my phone into this lake?’ or ‘What if I threw an alligator into this drive thru window?” Florida has a magic that makes people act on them. The natural areas that haven’t been swallowed by strip malls are unique and fascinating. All in all terrifying and mystical. 9/10

Georgia: I was technically born here but have never lived here. Ate some catfish and saw some nice Spanish moss when I visited as a not-baby. It’s the South and the culture feels very foreign to me, more foreign than the other countries I’ve visited, which is interesting. Lots of mosquitos. 4/10

Idaho: Pristine mountain and steppe landscapes, unfortunately dotted with sprawling suburbs that are swiftly eroding said pristine mountains and steppe. 4/10

Illinois: Corn, Chicagoland, and a rainstorm so heavy it was like a dense fog and people were still going over 90 mph. AAAAA/10

Indiana: Where I truly started to comprehend how full of corn the corn belt is. Scary. 4/10

Iowa: Apparently I’ve been here not once, but twice. I don’t mean as a young kid I mean as an adult. ??/10

Maine: Has a bit more of a rugged aesthetic to its landscapes than the rest of New England, quite striking. Some really good candy and ice cream shops in the touristy towns. Steven King lives here. 7/10

Massachusetts: My family’s home since the 1800s that I lived in for the first 23 years of my life or so, can’t give it an unbiased rating. Too expensive, lots of Dunkin Donuts, lots of historical sites, perfect autumns. Would periodically hear screams that didn’t match the calls of any native animals coming from the woods at night. Also it’s fun to see people from other places try to pronounce town names. 10/10

Nebraska: Cornfield-feedlot wasteland, surprisingly aggressive drivers, some pretty patches of prairie here and there. 3/10

Nevada: I live here right now. Perhaps the state that holds onto a certain Wild West spirit the most, for better or for worse. No state income tax, legal prostitution, legal weed, slot machines in casinos, slot machines in novelty gift shops, slot machines in gas stations, slot machines in grocery stores, alien abductions. The Las Vegas skyline has a pyramid/Minecraft beacon. Hmmm/10

New Hampshire: One of the more rural New England states, sandwiched between Vermont and Maine. While not quite as majestic as those two neighbors it’s still quite lovely in its own right. Home to a site known as America’s Stongehenge, which has an amusing history. 7/10

New York: Upstate New York and New York City are very different and thus can’t be rated together. 

Upstate New York is home to winding forest roads, rolling green hills, and seemingly the highest roadkill density in the nation. 7/10 

New York City has cool museums and is overwhelming and smells bad. Had a barista tell the guy in front of me to go to the back of the line because he was taking too long to decide on his order, which nets it an additional 2 points. 8/10

Ohio: No good experiences here. Had a panic attack for no reason in a Wendy’s here and then stayed in a shitty motel room. Lots of strange smells, woke up to get a glass of water and it had an unsettling aftertaste. Thought of Elisa Lam and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Cleveland is kind of neat though. 1.5/10

Oregon: Have only been to eastern Oregon, which doesn’t have the lush evergreen forests the state is known for. Lots of great sagebrush steppe, but with legal weed and without the dystopian political policies that plague Idaho. 8/10

Pennsylvania: Lots of Amish-themed novelty shops. Had some really good soup here once but otherwise don’t have much to say. 5/10

Rhode Island: Good seafood, have seen lots of roller derby games here. Most famous thing from Rhode Island is probably HP Lovecraft. 6/10

Utah: Breathtaking desert and mountain landscapes but with a foreboding atmosphere I have a hard time describing. 5/10

Vermont: Contender for most beautiful place on Earth. Saw the sun rise over the valleys on a misty autumn morning once, nearly cried. Saw a moose on a hiking trail once, nearly shit myself. Brutal winters and the gift shops go overboard with the maple candies but all in all very pleasant. 10/10

Wyoming: The other contender for most beautiful place on Earth. Rugged mountains and steppe, high winds, lots of trains, bison and pronghorn hanging out on the side of the road. Perhaps not good place to settle down but great place to visit. 6/10

[royprichard]

Pittsburgh, PA - October 25, 2018-November 1, 2018

Thursday, October 25, 2018 - travel day. Rhonda has already been in the Pittsburgh area since she is training a person on SAP for her company. She flew up there on Sunday and was the reason we were making this trip in the first place.

Terry and Mama were driving from Jewett to Dallas and were to meet me and Rhonda at the Pittsburgh airport. I was leaving from Houston and was crossing my fingers that week didn’t have any travel issues.

As I waited in the terminal, I began to text to Terry my status. Things like, “I’m at the airport”, “Let me know when you begin boarding”, “Are you at the airport?” Because Terry is pretty good at texting back, I began to worry that something had happened when I got “radio silence”. After a period of time I finally got a message saying “We’re boarding the plane. I’ll tell you what happened when I see you.”

My flight was fine and I arrived in Pittsburgh to see my mom, Terry, and Rhonda sitting at Starbucks laughing their fool heads off and being silly. Between the three of them, I finally learned that during the TSA pat down two step, somewhere in the airport, Mama had lost her boarding pass. She swears TSA must have stolen it from her. Terry blames Mama’s new traveling companion she has non-affectionately named “Winston”. Winston is Mama’s small carry-on luggage which Terry denies Mama needs for the trip. It’s just another piece of luggage Terry has to worry about.

We gather together in our rental car and go to the hotel. They gave us rooms on the thirteenth floor. I didn’t know hotels would use a 13th floor. Isn’t that unlucky or something? We got on the elevator with a man and he asked “What floor?” We answered “13th”. He looked at us funny, turned to the floor buttons, turned back and said “This elevator doesn’t go that high”. Of course, we were in the wrong elevator. As we were leaving the correct elevator for dinner, a guy seeing me and three women said to me “You sure are lucky!” Boy did I laugh. Actually Mama said, “I don’t think he believes that!”

October 26, 2018 - Friday morning we ate breakfast at Denny’s and found out the pumpkin spice can and will be put on every item on the menu. I ordered us some pumpkin spice hush puppies and they were good. We drove around Pittsburgh’s downtown area, looking at Heinz Field, Three River Stadium, and the bustling downtown folks as they walked the streets.

Our plan was to travel to New Wilmington where we had signed up for the “Simple Life Tour”. There is a huge Amish community in New Wilmington but they are a very private group. The woman who gave us the private tour is not Amish but has run a restaurant for 30 years in New Wilmington. After meeting several Amish and becoming friends with them, she noticed one of the most frequent questions she received at her restaurant was “how can we see Amish people”. She asked her Amish friends if she could bring people to the area and meet them. Now she has a growing business.

We sat in a Honda Pilot and Susan, our guide, gave us insightful information about the Old World Amish community in New Wilmington. We drove through their community and she told us why they think the way they do. We stopped at 3 Amish houses where they use their first floor as a grocery store, or a bakery, or a quilting store. Although it sounds like just a way to get tourist to spend money on Amish things, it was very interesting. They all have white houses with blue doors. The houses are huge with three floors, the second floor is their meeting place, large enough for a hundred Amish to meet as a church which they do every other Sunday. The third floor is the living quarters. We were not able to go up to see the second or third floors.

After we drive back to PIttsburgh, we decide to go to the casino in Pittsburgh. Rhonda sticks close to Mama and we go throw some money in the slots. I think everyone ended up with winning except Rhonda that evening.

October 27, 2018 - On Saturday, we woke up to a messy driving day. It rained, not hard, but I had to drive with the windshield wipers on all day. We drove east out of Pittsburgh to New Haven to visit Marion. She is the wife of a man who was in the service with Daddy. They have kept up with Mama and Daddy over the years, even though they live far apart. We met Marion for lunch and had a nice visit. She showed us her apartment and her grandkids.

We drove through the Allegany Forest to arrive at our hotel in Olean, NY. The road took us through the forest and mountains. We went past the observatory where it is claimed to be the darkest sky in the US so you can see many stars. We seemed to be the only people on this road. Not many fellow travelers.

October 28, 2018 - The next day, Sunday, we traveled to Jamestown, NY to see the Lucy and Desi Museum. Since we grew up watching “I Love Lucy” it was a must. We had a good time highlighted by filming my mom doing the Vitameatavegimen commercial with bottle and spoon and fake backdrop that the museum had set up for those who wanted to give it a try. Terry and Rhonda both filmed it, so we’ll need to share that on social media when we get back home.

We were driving to Niagara Falls, Canada and when we got to the border crossing, the border guard asked for our passports. As he scanned on passports, he asked why we were coming to Canada and where we were going. Of course, I had lots of help in the car to tell me. After I said Niagara Falls, then I told him we were going to go to Barrie, Ontario. He asked, “Why Barrie?” I said I just picked it off the map. No special reason. He laughed and said, “No one just goes to Barrie. We don’t even go to Barrie!” He gave us our passports and smiled. “Have a nice trip!”

Niagara Falls was next. After checking in to our rooms, we decided to eat at Outback. This was our first challenge with Canadian money. Food was expensive. After the meal, we took Terry and Rhonda to the Ferris wheel and let them ride. Afterward, Mama and I were dropped off at the casino. Terry and Rhonda were going to take the car back to the hotel and we would call them to pick us up later.=

After we exchanged our US money for Canadian, we began throwing it away to Canada in the slot machines. After a while we decided to leave and I pick up my phone to give Terry a call to pick us up. There are about four texts and several voice mail messages. I had the car fob in my pocket for the rental car and they were unable to start the car without it. Apparently they noticed it after Mama and I had gone into the casino. Terry got out of the car while Rhonda drove around. Terry was trying to find us, then she said she almost got lost in the casino and couldn’t find the front door. We had gone into the bathrooms so that is why she couldn’t find us. She finally gave up and her and Rhonda went to the hotel and texted me and messaged me frantically. I didn’t see a reason to call them since they couldn’t come get us. I told Mama to take a seat at the front of the casino and I would walk the two or three blocks to the hotel, get the car and take her to the hotel. As I got outside, I noticed it was raining cats and dogs. Plan B. We hired a taxi, road two blocks, and paid 8 Canadian dollars for the ride. Those new-fangled cars without regular keys will mess you up every time.

October 29, 2018 - Monday was the day we planned on taking in Niagara Falls. We paid for a tour which included “Behind the Falls” tour. It involved walking through man-made tunnels to get to viewing areas where part of the falls cascades over the rocks in front of you. You can feel the power of the water as it thunders down. After going to the obligatory gift shop afterward, we got back on the bus to travel down to view the whirlpools. Another photo op and then a stop at a rest stop with, yes, another gift shop. Then we got on the bus and went to the falls, again. We donned our red plastic ponchos and queued up to get on “The Hornblower”, our boat that would take us into the falls, or at least as close as we could get. Rhonda and I went up top and spent the entire freezing ride outside being showered and blown by the mighty Niagara. Terry was on the level below us and Mama set up shop inside, getting a laugh at watching everyone outside taking pictures of themselves and the falls until we got close enough to douse everyone with cold, wet water and wind. She said they began to stream indoors, out of the freezing wetness. I really enjoyed the falls, but summed it up when Rhonda and I were laughing at getting pelted with cold, wet water from the falls. I turned to her and shouted over the pounding of the water, “Just think, we actually paid $100 for this!”

After drying off and getting packed again, we drove to Barrie. Yeah, why would anyone pick Barrie? After checking in we ate at the Swiss Chalet. Our waitress brought us our food with four bowls of some sort of liquid content. I asked what it was and she said it was their special sauce which they eat on everything. It looked like loose brown gravy and had a cinnamon flavor. I’m not a big fan! The waitress asked if we had ever tasted it before and we shared that we were from Texas. She asked what in the world were we traveling to Barrie for? Barrie apparently needs another Public Relations firm to work on their image.

October 30, 2018 - We woke the next morning to a hard freeze in Barrie. After I got the ice off of the windshield, we began traveling south back into the US. We drove back on lesser traveled roads through farmland and rural communities. It was raining again but the not too hard. We entered the US without any trouble after we threatened Mama not to say anything from the back seat when the border patrol officer asked us questions about re-entering the US. She really wanted to talk to the officers, for some reason. I think she wanted to flirt for awhile.

We drove through Detroit commenting on the poor road conditions and quite a few dilapidated older buildings. It was a long day of driving, so when we got to Dundee, Michigan all we did was find our hotel, go across the road to Bob Evans for dinner. Terry said she LOVES the place. We kept seeing Bobs Evans Restaurants throughout the north and we finally stopped to eat there. I have yet to convince everyone to stop at Tom Horton’s. Not sure what they serve, but they are EVERYWHERE!

October 31, 2018 - Wednesday is here and it is October 31, Halloween! We are driving back to Pittsburgh where we will fly back to Texas. We travel through Cleveland, Ohio and make a stop at the Rock and Roll Museum. We spent 2 hours on the first floor of the museum, reading and listening to our musical history. It is a fun, entertaining place to go. I had placed enough coins in the parking meter for two hours and when I told them I was going to go put more in, they told me they were ready to go. It was fun and I would recommend the stop for lovers of music.

We drove into Pittsburgh at the 5 o’clock quitting time and it was still raining enough that I couldn’t turn my wipers off. I was determined to ride the Duquesne Incline and our GPS took us directly through downtown. The traffic was horrible. Especially where four lanes of traffic merged on one of the bridges and EVERYONE needed to be in the exact opposite lane they were in. It was a fruit basket turnover. We finally made it through and went to Duquesne incline. Because there were several flights of stairs, Mama stayed in the car while we travelled up and took photos. Before we left the parking lot, Terry tried to get into the wrong car. As we were laughing about that in the restaurant over lunch, Mama told us that she had gone into the wrong bathroom, earlier. More laughs!

We all made it back home and will hope to go somewhere together in the future.

[chainsmckerarchive]

UREALMS SEASON 1 MEMES

BAND OF THIEVES

“Don’t fucking talk to me!”

“Damn it, I was gonna double-infect him.”

“I know there is a 5% chance that this actually happens… Fuck me!”

“Guys, I’ve tried to hard to infect these guys with rabies, it just ain’t happening.”

“Yeah, guess what? I snuck around you cause I’m a thief!”

“Are you, like, a scientist or something?”

PORC HUNTERS

“Way to accidentally do a good job there, [name].”

“I’m complimenting your disguise, don’t be a fucking asshole.”

“He drives an ice cream truck.”

“We’ve got a whole alphabet of side plans.”

“I just came up with Plan F: Fuck this, let’s get outta here.”

“You know what? That’ll be Plan E.”

“Oh, doubles, he goes to jail!”

THE JEWEL OF THE DINGO ISLES

“Tears don’t make good seasoning, smiles do.”

“Guess what [name] is getting shoved up their ass? It’s a fucking electric mace!”

THE MANY GOBOS OF PAT

“Guess what? We both have holes I wanna fill now!”

“We’re only supposed to run upstairs if there’s a fire.”

“There will come a day when you need me inside of you.”

THE SUNSWORDS

“Oh, that was very impactful.”

“Well, you’re going to regret not getting in the cage.”

“It’s like a baby’s fist!”

“I just saw your lips moving; clearly you were talking.”

“Get away from my pockets!”

“I’m gonna note this stuff down, this is good stuff.”

THE UNSEEN ROGUES

“But [name] wanted to bang [name]!”

“It’s like when the Amish go on their Ramadamadingdong thing.”

“I’m totally ready to go straight in a straight line.”

“On, Tiny Head’s back.”

“It’s already pretty damn layered,it’s like a fucking cake up in there.”

“I just have on question: did you breastfeed the gang yourself?”

“Can I disguise myself as an invisible person?”

“Oh! You wanna start making assumptions with [name], you do that. That’s your funeral.”

“I’m only a level 3 bard, what did you expect?”

“Did I have sex with a ghost?”

“Feel the fury of the dragon fire!”

KOBOLD HEADHUNTERS

“As my grammy used to say: Always put your eggs in the same basket.”

“Knock knock. Wrastlin’ is about to commence.”

“It’s a good brand.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. Do you know what keeps my weapons sharp? The bones of my enemies.”

“This isn’t about ‘we’. This is about me!”

“I’m the greatest fucking liar?”

“I feel the anus is easier to go for than the nose.”

THE ZARLIN CATACOMBS

“I also have an apple for you.”

“I know you’re not here anymore, but fuck you!”

“But my titties! They were magnificent!”

“Can I touch your nose?”

THE NEW CREW

“I mean, how do you explain the idea of loudness to him?”

“[Name], you should duck.”

“I think they’re trying to hump each other!”

“Young lady, will you climb into my mouth?”

“We don’t have butts to punch! We’re unbeatable!”

“He’s human, we can kill him!”

“Sounds like a shitty version of DnD!”

SILVERMINE MOUNTAINS

“He fingers you to come out.”

“Yeah, that is. You leave the jail.”

“I’m trying to figure out how I can say this without saying it.”

“That’s the gayest thing we’ve ever done, [name].”

“Bleeding out of his...penis hole...I guess...”

“I’m a rock hard man man.”

“Here’s how it’s going to go down: you sleep on the toilet.”

“He’s got 100 wooden teeth.”

“Good, good, jokes are always funny when you explain them.”

“Do you have theme nights for dinner?”

“It was artistic differences. They saw themselves not on fire. I saw them on fire.”

“Do you have any free samples?”

“I really don’t want them to die to the debt.”

“I break a lot of walls. Left walls, right walls, third walls, fifth walls; but not fourth walls.”

“I’m calm when I’m not awake.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...we’re in jail?”

“Can I lick your butt?”

[cannibalcountry-blog]

‘My country-raised ass’: class consciousness right of the dial

by Erin Goudreau

In the early hours of November 9th, 2016, I received an email from a family friend, a weather-worn, red state progressive who had been predicting Donald Trump’s win since the day he announced his candidacy. 

“Find a rich man’s house and burn it down,” the email read. He was quoting the song “Everything’s Gone” by Lydia Loveless, Columbus, Ohio’s alt-country darling and expert wielder of a kind of dirty, down-home country class consciousness. 

“I invite anyone who calls my irreverent country raised ass a ‘snowflake’ to meet my fucking fist. So over this shit,” Loveless recently tweeted after speaking out about the election at a show.

As I surveyed the final electoral college map on election night, a sea of red with a bit of blue on the coasts, I starting making a list of my favorite country songwriters and musicians from each of those red states: Lydia from Ohio, Drive By Truckers from Georgia, John Moreland from Oklahoma, Sunny Sweeney from Texas, Derrell Scott from Kentucky. I knew that in the coming weeks, a narrative about the presumed cruelty and naivete of those of us who live in “flyover country” would inevitably resurface, and I was crafting a personal arsenal to push back against such generalizations. Although my friend’s email was intended as a reminder to reserve my contempt for the powerful and my empathy for the vulnerable, it also got me thinking about the relationship between country music and the rural and small town communities the genre purports to represent.

The most recent iteration of mainstream country music, often described as “bro-country” or “suburban mom country,” is escapist, aspirational materialism. It is $40,000 pickup trucks and ice cold beers, women in bikinis whose sole function is to entertain the songs’ male protagonists, parties on beaches, parties on boats, lifelong brotherhoods formed around the keg and under the stars of a Southern sky.

It’s worth noting that the terms “bro-country” and “suburban mom country” describe not only the music’s subject matter, but also its target audiences. Since the mid-80’s, the music coming out of Nashville’s Music Row, dominating country radio, and receiving the majority of awards at events like the Country Music Awards, has been dedicated to the experiences and desires of the rural and suburban upper middle class. The slate of artists featured on national country radio stations is also noticeably male-dominated; when the demand is for songs about camaraderies formed around heavy drinking, pursuing unnamed women, and the importance of unquestioned patriotism, this is to be expected. Today’s mainstream country music represents a particular kind of conservative, white affluence, that lethal combination of privilege and grievance. In many ways, it is the music of Trump voters, a group whose average salary, despite the media’s obsessive focus on the white working class, is $70,000 a year.     

There has always been another world of country music, one that lives not on Music Row but on the other side of the Cumberland River in east Nashville and the mountains of east Tennessee, on the plains of Oklahoma and Kansas, the desert of Texas and Arizona, the swamps of the Louisiana bayou and the Carolina hills. And much like the rarely recognized progressive activism in red states, there is a tradition of class consciousness and anti-elitism that runs through this music.   

While introducing her song “In My Tennessee Mountain Home,” Dolly Parton told an audience “I was very lucky, even though we were brought up very, very poor, I grew up on a farm and we had a great love for our land and we had a great love for each other.” No one expresses love for the rural poor quite like Dolly Parton, a woman whose compassion and enduring joyfulness provide the foundation for songs such as “In My Tennessee Mountain Home” and “Coat of Many Colors.”

And in “Country Boy,” Johnny Cash offers a lesson on freedom from materialism (“country boy, ain’t got no shoes; country boy, ain’t got no blues”) In his album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, he compels his audience to consider the atrocities historically and currently experienced by North America’s indigenous peoples. Phil Ochs made a career singing about his opposition to war, the public’s tendency to deify heroes, and the dangers of social apathy. In “Red Dirt Girl,” Emmylou Harris gives voice to the particular gendered experiences of domestic abuse and social isolation faced by poor, young women in rural Alabama. In a nation which views poverty as a shameful personal failing, instead of an axis around which to build solidarity, to sing about the humanity of the poor and working class is to stake out a space that is to the left of much of the country.

Country music’s history of providing meaningful commentary on the lives of rural folks is perhaps most acute in its depiction of coal country, managing to be more wise and nuanced about the region than both Donald Trump and the New York Times. In a recent West Virginia town hall meeting with  Bernie Sanders, a room full of miners and their relatives agreed that the United States should adopt a single payer health care system. The punditry class might have been less surprised by this if they had been listening to more country music. Darrell Scott, Kentucky singer songwriter and son of a coal miner, sings about the monotony and dreariness of mining in “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”:

Where the sun comes up about ten in the mornin’

And the sun goes down about three in the day

And you’ll fill you cup with whatever bitter brew you’re drinkin’

And you’ll spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave.

In “Keep Your Dirty Lights On,” Scott is frank about the role of dishonest politicians in the maintenance of the coal industry:

Every time they have elections

They talk about how coal is clean

Well coal is cheap but coal’s still black

It ain’t never turnin’ green.

Steve Earle considers the effects of the mining industry from the perspective of a boy who loses his beloved home in “The Mountain”:

I was born on this mountain a long time ago

Before they knocked down the timber and strip-mined the coal

Well they took everything that she gave, now they’re gone

But I’ll die on this mountain, this mountain’s my home.

The idea that coal country is naive about the future of coal or the degree to which their physical bodies have been harmed as a result of their loyalty to the industry is a fiction perpetuated by those who don’t have roots in the community. However, as this myth was being sold, country artists were doing the work of authentic and empathetic storytelling.

Today, a new crop of country musicians are reimagining what it means to give voice to the most marginalized people in our society. In “Everything’s Gone,” Lydia Loveless sings of her own family’s desperate, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to save their farm:

‘Cause my daddy built the deck with his own two hands

I guess you didn’t really know

There wasn’t anywhere else for us to go

Now where the horses used to run there ain’t nothing left but Amish corn

Oh, the place where I grew up and my little brother was born

And if I strike it rich again, I’ll go and buy it all back

Well I’ll drop a bomb on that bitch and watch it turn to ash.

Oklahoma’s Parker Millsap provides a devastating account of life as the gay son of an Evangelical preacher in “Heaven Sent,” with a chorus that begins “Papa I don’t need no preacher / I ain’t some kind of creature / From some old double feature.” Drive by Truckers’ recent album American Band features a song dedicated to the white public’s acceptance of rampant police brutality against Black men: “I mean Barack Obama won / And you can chose where to eat / But you don’t see too many white kids lying / Bleeding on the street.” Brandi Clark’s “Take a Little Pill” articulates the prevalence and destructiveness of the opioid epidemic: Lay on your tongue / Ain't a nerve that can't be numb / Ain't a buzz that you can't buy / Ain't a low you can't make high.” Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra initially wrote the song “The Body Electric” as a response to the extensive catalogue of murder ballads that always end with an anonymous maimed women. Her version of the murder ballad features a female protagonist questioning the violent men in her life: “Tell me what’s a man with a rifle in his hand gonna do for a world that’s just dying slow / Tell me what’s a man with a rifle in his hand gonna do for his daughter when it’s her turn to go.” She now dedicates the song to Tamir Rice at every show.

We are experiencing a moment of resurgence for honest storytelling and leftist politics in country music, and not a moment too soon. The dire, inhumane conditions of the poor and working class have been ignored by the Democrats and cynically exploited by the Republicans. The current violence perpetuated by the state against black and indigenous peoples is receiving no attention from the government, so it is essential that it be given voice through music. We are living in a time in which doing the work of solidarity in our communities is vital, and one cannot underestimate the value of music that provides recognition, context, and meaning to the struggles taking place in “Trump country.” It is no coincidence that “Everything’s Gone” features these two lines: “Lord please don’t take all the land away ‘cause I need that now / And please stop telling me to turn it down ‘cause it ain’t that loud.”     

@ErinGoudreau

[immoren]

Apparently I’ve following pieces in my “music” playlist in Youtube.

Cut for length

- Kotiteollisuus - Helvetistä Itään

- Star one - Intergalactic space crusaders

- Amon Amarth "Runes to my Memory" 

- Star One - High Moon

- Stratovarius - Hunting High and Low

- Star One - Amazing flight in space

- Kotiteollisuus - Minä Olen

- AMORPHIS - The Smoke

- Ensiferum - Wanderer

- Amorphis - Divinity

- Ensiferum - Lady in Black

- Dark Moor - Halloween

- Star One - The Eye of Ra

- Dark Moor - The Silver Key

- Ensiferum - LAI LAI HEI

- Nightwish - Dead Boy's Poem 

- Stratovarius - Speed of Light 

 - Nightwish - The Siren

- Amorphis - Goddess (Of The Sad Man)

- Iced Earth- coming curse

-  AMORPHIS - Silent Waters

-  AVANTASIA - Lost In Space

-  Stratovarius - Stratosphere

-  AVANTASIA - Carry Me Over (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

-  Stratovarius - Black Diamond

-  Savage Circus - Between the Devil and the Seas

- Stratovarius - Paradise

- Demons and Wizards - Fiddler on the Green

- Stratovarius - Coming Home

- Dancing Queen - Diablo

- Stratovarius - Destiny

- Timo Rautiainen Pohjoisen Taivaan Alla

- Stratovarius - Anthem Of The World

- Gustav Holst - The Planets - Mars, the Bringer of War

- Stratovarius - Hunting High And Low

- Amorphis - Drowned Maid

- Stratovarius - Infinity

- To Dream of Ur - nile

- Stratovarius - Eagleheart

- Dark Moor - Death

- Stratovarius - Learning To Fly

- Nightquest - Nightwish

- Labyrinth - Night of Dreams

- Nile - The Essential Salts

- Nightwish- The Pharaoh Sails to Orion

- Blind Guardian- Mirror Mirror

- Thrust Through the Heavens with Your Spirit!

- Poets of the Fall - Late Goodbye (Official Video)

- Billy Idol - John Wayne

- Poets of the Fall - Lift (Official Video)

- Kotiteollisuus - Kevät

- Poets of the Fall - Diamonds for Tears (Official Video)

- Amorphis - shatters within

- Poets of the Fall - Locking Up the Sun (Official Video)

- Ayreon- The Shooting Company of Captain Frans B. Cocq

- Amorphis - forever more

- Nile - Eat of the Dead

- Raining Blood - Slayer Song & Lyrics

- Murder, Murder Jekyll and Hyde

- One Small Step - Ayreon

- Nile - Even the Gods Must Die

- Serenity - Sheltered (By The Obscure)

- Nightwish - Sacrament of wilderness

- And The Druids Turn To Stone - Ayreon

- Nightwish - Walking in the air

- Dawn of A Million Souls - Ayreon

- Nightwish - Two for tragedy

- Gregorian - Lady in black

- Nightwish - Bare grace misery

- Kotiteollisuus - Tuonelan koivut

- Nightwish - Dead Boy's Poem

- Iced Earth-Dragon's Child

- Disturbed-Inside The Fire (Lyrics In Description)

- Iced Earth-Damien

- KORPIKLAANI - Keep On Galloping (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Pyramaze-Sleepy Hollow

- Apulanta - Vasten mun kasvojani

- Arch Enemy - I Will Live Again (With Lyrics)

- Iced Earth-The Phantom Opera Ghost

- Kotiteollisuus - Mahtisanat

- Amorphis - Grieve Stricken Heart

- Nile User~Maat~Re

- Iced Earth-Hallowed Be Thy Name

- Nile - Annihilation of the Wicked

- Persuader - Sanity Soiled

- Nile - Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten

- Amorphis - The Night Is Over

- Firewind maniac

- AMORPHIS - Silver Bride

- Final Fantasy IX - Garnet's Theme

- Poets of the Fall - Carnival of Rust (Official Video)

- Aikakone - Keltainen

- Amorphis - Tuonela

- Ensiferum - Twilight Tavern

- Amorphis:Nightfall

- VIIKATE - Viina, Terva & Hauta

- "Weird Al" Yankovic - White & Nerdy (Official Video)

- Sonata Arctica - Tallulah (Lyrics)

- "Weird" Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise

- Floor Jansen & Russell Allen - The Phantom of the Opera

- Of Doom And Death - Savage Circus

- Amorphis - Alone {High Quality} {With Lyrics}

- Devil's Spawn - Savage Circus

- Poets of the Fall - Dreaming Wide Awake (Official Video)

- Chasing The Rainbow - Savage Circus

- Eluveitie - Quoth The Raven

- Legend Of Leto II - Savage Circus

- Symphony of Science - The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)

- The Ordeal - Savage Circus

- America - The Last Unicorn (with Lyrics)

- Dark Moor - Nevermore

- Amorphis - Greed

- Dark Moor - The Fall Of Melnibone

- MGS Peace Walker OST - Heavens Divide (BEST QUALITY)

- Dark Moor - The Fall Of Melnibone

- Motörhead - Enter Sandman

- Pyramaze - Until We Fade Away

- Poets of the Fall - War (Official Video)

- Pyramaze - Legend

- Nightwish - Stargazers

- Savage Circus - Born Again by the Night

- Poets Of The Fall - Sleep

- Spice and Wolf OP 1 FULL (with lyrics)

- Amorphis - My Kantele (2010)

- Savage Circus - Beyond Reality (lyrics)

- Amorphis - Alone - Forging a Land of Thousand Lakes[Oulu]

- The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil -HQ

- Amorphis - Divinity - Forging a Land of Thousand Lakes[Oulu]

- Stratovarius - Elysium

- Amorphis - Veil of Sin

- Aikakone - Neiti Groove

- AMORPHIS - From The Heaven Of My Heart (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- AMORPHIS - Sky Is Mine (OFFICIAL LIVE)

- Ayreon - Isis and Osiris

- Sabaton - Cliffs of Gallipoli (Lyrics English & Deutsch)

- Avantasia - The Scarecrow (HD)

- "Libera Me From Hell" with subs

- WOODS OF YPRES - "You Were the Light"

- Sabaton - Angels Calling (Lyrics English & Deutsch)

- Poets of the Fall ~ The Poet and the Muse // Lyrics

- "Weird Al" Yankovic - Party In The CIA

- A Song From Her Memory

- Tarzan - Strangers Like Me (HD)

- Avantasia - What Kind Of Love

- BEING - Arrival - A part, Apart

- Iced Earth - Wolf [HQ]

- BEING - Arrival - Cosmonaut

- Karl Sanders - Of the Sleep of Ishtar

- BEING - Arrival - Perpetual Groove

- All I Ever Wanted (with Queen's Reprise)- Prince of Egypt Soundtrack

- BEING - Arrival - Story For A Muse

- NIGHTWISH - Storytime (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- BEING - The Debut Preview - Cosmonaut

- Ultimate DragonBorn Comes collaboration - Malukah MrDooves Noahlittlejohn

- BEING - The Debut Preview - Mindflay

- Finnish folk song Morsiamen itketys with translation

- BEING - Arrival - Escape

- Iced Earth - Dante's Inferno 2011 (full)

- BEING - Arrival - Sorrow

- Nightwish - Ghost Love Score (HQ + Lyrics)

- ELUVEITIE - A Rose For Epona (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus - Surupuku

- Nightwish - Ghost River (HD)

- Pyramaze - Power Of Imagination

- Nightwish- Last Ride Of The Day

- Nylon Beat - Satasen laina

- Nightwish - Rest Calm

- Final Fantasy Meets Metal

- Nightwish - Scaretale

- Poets of the Fall - Cradled in Love (Official Video)

- Nightwish - Storytime (Lyrics) HD

- The World of the Dinosaurs - Symphony of Science

- Blind Guardian - Noldor

- Malukah - Reignite - Mass Effect/Shepard Tribute Song

- Dr. Who Meets Metal

- Sabaton - Carolus Rex SV (Lyrics Svenska & English)

- Fallout New Vegas Soundtrack - Jingle Jangle Jingle - Kay Kyser

- Sabaton - En livstid i krig (Lyrics Svenska & English)

- Blind Guardian - Time Stands Still (At The Iron Hill)

- Pyramaze The Wizard

- KORPIKLAANI - Rauta (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- Nile - User-Maat-Re (HQ)

- Sabaton - Karolinens bön ... Lyrics

- Nile - Lashed to the Slave Stick (HQ)

- Blind Guardian - Curse Of Feanor

- Malukah - Tale of the Tongues - Skyrim Cover

- Mighty Abyss by Pyramaze

- The South Gate - A Tribute To Final Fantasy IX

- Neil Finn - Song of the Lonely Mountain + lyrics (The Hobbit End Credits)

- Cortana Tribute feat. Malukah

- Spede Pasanen: Tom Dooley

- RWBY Theme: Mirror, Mirror Extended (RoosterTeeth)

- AVANTASIA - Sleepwalking (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- RWBY Theme: Red like Roses Extended (RoosterTeeth)

- Nightwish - The Escapist lyrics

- JoJo Battle Tendency OST: Propaganda

- Savage Circus - Tomorrowland [HQ] [+Lyrics]

- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 2012 ( Avalon )

- The Hobbit - Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold (Extended Cover)

- Amorphis - Nightbird's Song (Official Video)

- Manowar - Sleipnir

- AMORPHIS - The Wanderer (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- Sabaton - Twilight Of The Thunder God (HD, Lyrics)

- RWBY Theme: This Will Be The Day Extended (Roosterteeth)

- Alestorm - Nancy the Tavern Wench

- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST - Sorairo Days FULL VERSION

- Amon Amarth "As Loke Falls" (LYRIC VIDEO)

- I Burn By Jeff and Casey Lee Williams with Lyrics

- Nightwish - Ever Dream (Wacken 2013)

- RWBY - I May Fall - Lyrics

- Apulanta - Koneeseen kadonnut

- From Shadows by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams with Lyrics

- Nightwish - Ghost love Score

- Blumenkranz (:[nZk] ver) [PB★Cover]

- TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN - A Lifetime of Adventure (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Kill la Kill/キルラキル [Satsuki Kiryuin Theme | Kiryuu G@ KiLL]

- TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN - The Last Sled (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)

- Kill la Kill, Light your heart up - Aimee Blackshleger

- TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN - Cold Heart of the Klondike

- Apulanta - Pahempi toistaan (Official)

- Kill La Kill / Nui Harime Theme

- TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN - Go slowly now, sands of time

- Volume 2 - Time To Say Goodbye + Lyrics

- ELUVEITIE - King (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)

- The Hobbit - Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold - Part II-Clamavi De Profundis

- Holy Diver by Steve'n'Seagulls (LIVE)

- Eagles -- Hotel California Lyrics song

- Everytime We Touch by Cascada Meets Metal

- ELUVEITIE - The Call Of The Mountains (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

- ★ JoJo - That Blood Destiny (Vocals, Orchestra, Choir) | JoJo

- Robin Williams - "Seize the Day" - by Melodysheep

- Poets of the Fall - Daze (Official Video)

- Amon Amarth "Deceiver of the Gods" (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Viikate - Ensimmäinen runo (Album Version)

- SABATON - Night Witches (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)

- Be Prepared (Disney's The Lion King) // Jonathan Young 

- 05: Caffeine - RWBY Volume 2 Soundtrack (By Jeff Williams & Casey Lee    Williams feat. Lamar Hall)

- NIGHTWISH - Élan (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Nightwish - SAGAN- 2015

- Maniac from Flashdance Meets Metal (featuring PelleK)

- KORPIKLAANI - Lempo (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)

- NIGHTWISH - Shudder Before The Beautiful (OFFICIAL TRACK)

- The Witcher 3 OST - Ladies of the Woods (Extended)

- Nightwish - The Islander (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Nightwish - My Walden

- MAD MAX: FURY ROAD SONG - ROAD RAGE By Miracle Of Sound

- NIGHTWISH - Edema Ruh [lyrics]

- WITCHER 3 CIRI SONG: Lady Of Worlds by Miracle Of Sound

- NIGHTWISH - Endless Forms Most Beautiful (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)

- Sugar Sweet Nightmare FULL SUB HQ (Bakemonogatari Opening 5) by Yui - Horie

- AMORPHIS - Sacrifice (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Platinum Disco FULL SUB HQ (Nisemonogatari Opening 3) by Yuka Iguchi

- The Witcher 3 OST - Lullaby of Woe (A Night to Remember song)

- Perfect Slumbers FULL SUB HQ (Nekomonogatari: Kuro Opening) by Yui  Horie

- "Blumenkranz" Kill la Kill OST【Orchestral Cover】[Mike Reed IX]

- Orange Mint FULL SUB HQ (Tsukimonogatari Opening) by Saori Hayami

- Undertale OST: 001 - Once Upon A Time

- AMORPHIS - Death Of A King (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Undertale OST: 046 - Spear of Justice

- NIGHTWISH - Alpenglow (OFFICIAL TRACK)

- Undertale OST: 050 - Metal Crusher

-  Amorphis - Bad Blood (LYRIC VIDEO)

-  Undertale OST: 059 - Spider Dance

-  AMORPHIS - 'Under The Red Cloud' (OFFICIAL TRACK)

-  Undertale OST: 068 - Death by Glamour

- The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone OST-"A Gifted Man Brings Gifts Galore" Polska   wersja

- Undertale Ost: 087 - Hopes and Dreams

- KORPIKLAANI - Ämmänhauta (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Undertale OST: 090 - His Theme

- Delusion♡Express FULL SUB HQ (Otorimonogatari Opening) by Kana      Hanazawa

- Undertale Ost: 096 - Last Goodbye

- Amorphis - The Wind

- Undertale Ost: 098 - Battle Against a True Hero

- Amorphis - Come The Spring

- Undertale - Metal Crusher on 7 floppy drives

- Amorphis - Winter's Sleep

- Ambivalent World FULL SUB HQ (Bakemonogatari Opening 3) by Miyuki      Sawashiro

- Malukah - Priscilla's Song - The Wolven Storm - The Witcher 3 Cover

- One Punch Man FULL ENGLISH OPENING (The Hero - Jam Project) Cover by  Jonathan Young

- Mathemagics FULL SUB HQ (Owarimonogatari Opening 2) by Marina Inoue

- Red Like Roses Part 1+2 Complete

- AMORPHIS - The Four Wise Ones (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- KORPIKLAANI - A Man With A Plan (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

- Decent Black FULL SUB HQ (Owarimonogatari Opening 1) by Kaori Mizuhashi

- JUNGLE BOOK - Bare Necessities - (Disney Rock cover by Jonathan Young)

- 01. When It Falls (feat. Casey Lee Williams) - By Jeff Williams

- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine Soundtrack - Main Theme (Polish)

- 07. Divide (feat. Casey Lee Williams) - By Jeff Williams - (RT4C AMV)

- SKELLIGE WINDS - Witcher 3 Song by Miracle Of Sound

- Mirror Mirror - Part 1 + 2 Mix

- Poor Unfortunate Souls (Disney's Little Mermaid) - METAL COVER VERSION  Jonathan Young

- Chocolate Insomnia FULL HQ (Nekomonogatari: Shiro Opening) by Yui Horie

- Boku No Hero Academia "The Day" ENGLISH OPENING (cover by Jonathan Young)

- Die by Jeff Williams and Casey Lee Williams with Lyrics

- HELLFIRE - Metal Cover by Jonathan Young (Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame)

- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Openings 1-8 HD

- Kemono Friends OP "Youkoso Japari Park e"

- Demi chan wa Kataritai op Full - Original ／TrySail

- AMORPHIS - 'Her Alone' feat. Anneke van Giersbergen (OFFICIAL LIVE TRACK)

- Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid - Opening [FULL]

- SAVAGES - Disney's Pocahontas (METAL COVER) Jonathan Young & Caleb Hyles

- KOBAYASHI-SAN CHI NO MAID DRAGON - ED FULL

- The Plagues (Prince of Egypt) - Cover by Caleb Hyles and Jonathan Young

- Gabriel DropOut Opening Full / ガヴリールドロップアウト OP - Gabriel DropKick (Single)

- Song of Durin (Complete Edition) - Clamavi De Profundis

- STAND PROUD (full version) - Jojo's Bizarre Adventure ENGLISH OP 3

- Bad Luck Charm by Jeff Williams with Lyrics

- Aho Girl Opening Full「Zenryoku☆Summer!」by angela

- Arabian Nights - (Aladdin) DISNEY METAL COVER by Jonathan Young & ToxicxEternity

- KonoSuba Season 2 Op Full - TOMORROW

- Nisemonogatari OST - Kizuna (Shinobu Oshino's Theme)

- 化物語 Staple Stable

- 03: Shine - RWBY Volume 2 Soundtrack (By Jeff Williams & Casey Lee Williams)

- 07: Boop - RWBY Volume 2 Soundtrack (By Jeff Williams & Casey Lee Williams)

- 02: Die - RWBY Volume 2 Soundtrack (By Jeff Williams & Casey Lee Williams) RT4C

- "I May Fall" Lyrics - RWBY Volume 3 - Jeff Williams ft. Casey Lee Williams & Lamar Hal

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: The Amish Christmas Candle

Review: The Amish Christmas Candle

Synopsis:

At the heart of winter’s darkness is the joyous glow of the Christmas season. In this love-filled holiday collection, warm yourself with the peaceful light of Plain gifts. 

SNOW SHINE ON ICE MOUNTAIN

Kelly Long

When staid Naomi Gish’s mischievous father hires strapping Gray Fisher at their candle shop for the season, she’s positive the old man has an ulterior motive. She…

[fromjesstoyou]

Week #19 of When & Where am I Wednesday | From Jess to You Services

[plarndude]

For those of you who are unwilling to even Glance at an article because of the website it's on, I've copied and pasted it here. I agree with every single thing this guy wrote in this article.

"Over the weekend, the Planeteers converged on Washington to hold a “Climate March.” I know what you’re thinking: didn’t they already do that, like, last week? Also, how will marching and holding signs improve the climate? And how many trees were slaughtered to make those signs, anyway? And how much CO2 was emitted by the cars and planes they took to get to this march? And how many of D.C.’s pigeons and squirrels were rudely disrupted from their daily routine because of all the extra humans traipsing through the street? Isn’t organizing a march to fight climate change a bit like organizing a hot dog eating contest to fight obesity?

I have posed these kinds of questions to environmental activists many times and never received an answer other than, “You must hate science.” I really don’t hate science, though. I love science. I hate faux-science. I hate leftist dogma disguised as science. I hate activism that calls itself science. I hate bad conclusions drawn from science. I hate hypocrisy. I hate inconsistency. These also happen to be all of the reasons why I hate climate change alarmism.

But my real problem with the alarmists, who I will now address directly, boils down to this: I don’t believe you. And when I say I don’t believe you, I mean that I believe neither what you’re saying, nor that you believe what you’re saying. I doubt both your narrative and your sincerity. I question your facts and your conviction about those facts. Allow me to explain why.

First, your facts. If you stuck simply to the modest contention that the world has warmed very slightly in the last 130 years, and you theorized — and admitted it was a theory — that humans have contributed to it in some small way, I wouldn’t take much of an issue with you. The problem is that you lie so much. You lie when you refuse to confess that the climate prediction models you use are extremely flawed. You lie when you scream about the “97 percent consensus” that doesn’t exist. You lie when you act like the real scientists who doubt man-caused global warming are all kooks and lunatics.

Most of all, your overblown, hysterical doomsday prophecies are lies. The world is supposed to already be over by now, according to you. At the very least, New York City should be under water. We should have all been dead from global warming or global cooling or overpopulation dozens of times over. Around the time of the first Earth Day, we were told that hundreds of millions would be starving to death per year within ten years of that date. Human civilization should have crumbled into dust and the few remaining survivors should be floating through a vast water world, locked in a struggle of survival against Dennis Hopper. Yet, here we are, standing on dry land. How many times are you allowed to be wrong about the end of the world before we are justified in not taking you seriously anymore? I’d say that threshold, whatever it is, has long since been reached.

Second, your sincerity. Here’s the real issue I have with you. Even if you’ve been wrong about the Environmental Apocalypse 100 times, you still insist that this 101st prediction will surely pan out. You tell us that we could be looking at an extinction event within a generation or two. Our planet will turn into Venus sooner rather than later if we don’t drastically change the way we live. Major world cities will be lost into the sea, and this will happen within decades. And even those not drowned in the depths of the ocean will face mass starvation or worse. What’s more, you tell us that Armageddon may already be happening. Even now, whenever there is a hurricane, or a tornado, or a thunderstorm, or even a snowstorm, you tell us that this is a direct result of global warming caused by our modern lifestyle. This is all quite traumatizing, so it’s good for your emotional well being that you don’t really believe any of it.

I can only assume that you don’t believe it because your actions do not at all resemble what one would expect from someone who does believe this sort of thing. With very rare exceptions, you continue living just like the rest of us. Maybe you recycle your plastic bottles, maybe you ordered a salad at Panera Bread today, but for the most part you are just another callous Homo sapien murdering the planet and cannibalizing the future of the human race. Why? How? You think the world is about to end, for God’s sake. What are you doing sitting at Starbucks like the rest of us? Why haven’t you renounced all modern technology? Why haven’t you fled to the mountains before the sea engulfs your family? Why aren’t you doing… anything?

I can only imagine how I would react if I actually believed that the extinction of all mankind was imminent, and my lifestyle was directly contributing to it. At a minimum, I would not drive a car anymore. Ever. At all. I would ditch electricity. I wouldn’t eat any kind of meat. I wouldn’t buy mass made consumer products. I wouldn’t give my money to any company that sells items made in factories with giant smokestacks. Those smokestacks are literally killing people. How could you continue shopping like everything is normal? What kind of monster are you? If I were you, I would live as John the Baptist, eating locusts and wild honey out in the desert. Lives are at stake, are they not? The end is near! Why are you so relaxed about it? Have you even started building the ark yet?

I’m not joking. If I were in your boat (pun intended), I would feel morally obligated to take extreme measures. As a member of the enlightened few, as a person who knows that human life is about to be eradicated, and who knows why, and even when, I would feel an incredible burden of responsibility. If I knew that driving my car, turning on my lights, shopping at the mall, and generally going about my day immersed in modern luxury were all directly causing the current and future death of millions of people, I could not continue engaging in these lethal activities. I would see them as acts of extreme moral recklessness, if not murder, to saunter along on as usual. My conscience would compel me to ensure that I am not responsible for the carnage that is about to occur. How could a person who believes what you allegedly believe possibly arrive at any other conclusion?

It’s become a cliche to point out how all of the major environmental mouthpieces, like DiCaprio and Gore and all the rest, also happen to fly private jets in between the several mansions they own. This fact alone does not disprove the environmentalist narrative, but it is a curious fact that none of its most vocal proponents seem to have taken their own words to heart. Imagine, by comparison, if almost every major pro-life activist also happened to sit on the board of Planned Parenthood. If one or two were exposed as hypocrites in this way you might overlook it, but all of them?

Strangely, only the Amish can be seen riding horses and buggies down the street in this country, but even they don’t believe that automobiles are going to annihilate life on Earth. You do believe that, yet you still drive them. You know how much CO2 was emitted in order to produce your iPhone, yet you still buy a new one every 18 months. You know that hurricanes and tornadoes are popping up everywhere because of the factories that make your trendy shoes and clothing, yet you still stock your closet full of them. You know that your air conditioning unit is slowly poisoning the atmosphere and leading us rapidly to certain death, yet you turn it on the moment the temperature rises above 70 degrees outside. You know that your refrigerator is a cancerous tumor metastasizing on Mother Earth, yet you still won’t preserve your food by drying or pickling it. You know how much safer we’d all be if we stopped using electricity, yet you haven’t gotten that ball rolling, either. WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE, aren’t we? And you can’t even be bothered to crack a window and eat pickled cabbage in the dark like a real environmentalist?

You seem only focused on insisting that the government fix the problem. But even if there were a problem to fix, the law couldn’t do anything on its own. The law can only influence or coerce behavior. So, rather than sitting around and waiting for the law to tell you to live how you already think you ought to live, why don’t you just start living that way? It’s like a vegetarian who declares that he will continue eating steaks until the government finally prohibits him from doing so. The cynical among us may conclude that a vegetarian of this type is not a vegetarian at all. If every vegetarian were of this sort, we might suspect that vegetarianism itself is hallucinatory: a belief system that many advocate but none believe strongly enough to actually live by. And if those who advocate it don’t believe it, why should the rest of us take so much as a second out of our lives to consider its merits?

Now, please understand that I’ve cut you some slack here. I’ve assumed that you don’t believe your own tales of civilizational destruction. The less flattering interpretation is that you do believe everything you say, yet you’re so unbelievably selfish and lazy that, even staring at Armageddon on the horizon, you still cannot stir yourself to make any noticeable changes to your life. One shudders at the moral baseness required for a person to sincerely say to himself, “Yes, my vehicle is melting the ice caps and inching humanity ever closer to liquidation, but, screw it, I don’t feel like walking.” I have faith that you are not so cold and heartless. I have faith that you are merely disingenuous hypocrites. Let’s hope I’m right." - Matt Walsh

original post