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amandajoyce118 · 5 years

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Friday Five: Women In History

Think of this Friday Five as a list of five women I wish Timeless had the chance to do episodes about. Why? Because it’s the last Friday of Women’s History Month. In honor of all the women who made history, I’m spotlighting five who often get overlooked this week. These are women who don’t get taught about in schools because, instead, we learn about their male counterparts. Or, these are women who had a big influence on a particular market, but few people know their story.

Five: Zelda Fitzgerald

I thought I’d start off with a woman that people are probably slightly familiar with, but maybe don’t know her full story. If her name sounds familiar, but you can’t place where you know her, that’s because she’s the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. If you went to high school in the U.S., or studied American Lit at all, you probably read at least one of his books, like The Great Gatsby. What you might not know is that Zelda was as good as, if not a better writer than, her husband.

Her husband regularly wrote down things she said when recounting stories to friends, stole her journal, and all around copied her work. She “inspired” all of his heroines. So, if you actually like his writing, chances are, you really like Zelda’s. She was trapped in a loveless marriage. He cheated on her, but wouldn’t allow her to have relationships with other men. He also attempted to drive her to a nervous breakdown so he could have her institutionalized. All around, not a great guy there.

Zelda actually got an offer to have her journals published at one point, but because of her husband, she couldn’t. She retaliated by publicly reviewing his writing, penning, “plagiarism begins at home.”

Four: Andree Borrel

A lot of posts have gone around tumblr about the women who acted as spies and assassins during World War II lately. Andree Borrel didn’t go that route, but in her twenties, she was recruited to train members of the French resistance.

She actually started off trying to help in the war efforts on her own. She traveled from France to Spain to fight against Nazi work, but thought her efforts were meaningless, and made her way back to France. There, she took a nursing course offered by the Red Cross and became field certified to help in the hospitals. Since she was under 21 when she did it, the hospitals wouldn’t allow her to stay and volunteer. That is when she started working for the underground.

She started safehouses that helped British soldiers who were shot down, escaping Jews, and spies. Eventually, she and her friends had to leave France when their safehouses were compromised. They made their way to England where they gave full reports to MI5 and began working for the Special Operations Executive to help the French resistance.

Not only was she recruited for the French resistance, but when they sent her back to France to start her work, she was parachuted into the area. She (and her partner for the mission, of course) was the world’s first female paratrooper. She was excellent at her job, but she was eventually captured. Andree was executed in a French concentration camp in 1944.

Three: Willie Mae Thornton

Everybody remembers the names of the singers. The songwriters don’t get as much credit. Today, they get a little more because so many singers like to write (or assist in writing) their own music. In the day of Willie Mae Thornton though, she was the Big Mama (yes, that was her actual nickname) behind the curtain.

She first started singing in church, like so many people from the south. When her mom died, she had to drop out of school and get a job to help support her five siblings. Eventually, she left home to pursue a career in music. While she could supposedly “sing pretty,” if she wanted to, she preferred to make her voice “big” instead. In other words, she didn’t conform to what men in the music industry thought of as a feminine sound. She belted.

Willie Mae wrote and recorded music that other people made into hits. “Hound Dog,” made famous by Elvis Presley? She sang it first and it spent a few weeks at the top of the charts, but she didn’t see any real profit from it. Her record sold about 500,000 copies, which was big for its time. Elvis’ version became the hit, selling 10 million copies just a few years later. Likewise, she wrote “Ball n Chain,” which Janis Joplin made famous. She also didn’t get the profits from that because the record company owned the song, not her. Joplin, however, hired her to open for her as a way to give back what the record company took from her. (I feel like she should have split profits with her, but that’s just me.)

(Side note: I almost wrote about Rose Marie McCoy here instead. Like Willie Mae, she was a black woman who wrote hits for other artists. She also wrote songs for Elvis. By the end of her songwriting career, she wrote more than 800 songs, including commercial jingles. I think she’s a little bit more well known since NPR has featured specials on her in the past, but probably not by much.)

Two: Hypatia

Since the other three lived and worked in relatively recent history, it seems prudent to go back a little farther - like way back. I’m talking fourth century. Hypatia was from Alexandria, you know, where the ancient library was that we all wish had survived disaster?

Hypatia was a scholar in the time that women weren’t really allowed to be scholars. All of the stories and historical accounts of the era paint men as the heroes in Greece and Rome, with women as the people on the sidelines being fought over or worshiping deities in temples. Hypatia’s father, Theon (not a Greyjoy, Game of Thrones fans) wanted her to have the same opportunities as men in their community, so he made sure she was educated in science, math, and astronomy. Eventually, Hypatia became a teacher.

Unfortunately for her, Hypatia lived at a time when Christianity was spreading throughout the ancient empires. Though she didn’t seem to subscribe to one religion over another, historians seem to consider her a pagan. She was tolerant of other religions, and was one of the people outraged when Jewish residents were ousted from Alexandria and Christians began targeting pagans. She was murdered by a group of angry Christians during Lent. She wasn’t just murdered either. She was stripped, had her eyes removed, and then pieces of her body were taken throughout the town and burned. For no reason other than she was seen as an enemy of the political leaders at the time.

I’ll admit that the first time I ever learned about her was a result of doing my own research after “Hypatia’s chariot” was an artifact in Warehouse 13. Despite the few things I’ve read recently calling her a famous ancient scholar, or a feminist icon, I doubt most people know her name.

One: Sayyida al-Hurra

For a time when I was a teenager, I was fascinated by the life of pirates. Not in the romance novel way, but more in the what-drove-a-person-to-piracy kind of way. I think most people, primarily as a result of Hollywood, become passingly familiar with pirates like Blackbeard and Anne Bonny. Glossed over is the Pirate Queen Sayyida al-Hurra, who actually held a long standing alliance with Blackbeard.

She was actually born into a wealthy Moroccan family and married a much older business man. She continued to run his business after his death. Her family, however, was forced to flee from Morocco when the Spanish declared themselves rules and Christianity started spreading through the region. (She was Muslim.) Eventually, she became the political leader of Tetouan and married a king. She didn’t even travel to marry, but instead, made him come to her, which was unheard of.

Holding onto her grudge against the Spanish empire for what they did to her people, she used her political standing to slowly build her pirate army and take on their ships. She made her little country rich with stolen merchandise and selling the Christians she captured into slavery in place of her people. She was also the foremost negotiator when it came to releasing Christian captives. She was the person European nations contacted to offer up ransoms, so she only sold people into slavery if the European nobles weren’t willing to pay. Sayyida ruled the western Mediterranean while Blackbeard ruled the east.

Sadly, history doesn’t know what happened to her. Though she remained queen after the death of her husband, her son in law overthrew her, and then… nothing. I’d love to see a movie speculating about her fate.

Obviously, there are thousands of women who were important to history. I picked five that I have found interesting, and ones who aren’t usually present in more mainstream pop culture (like the ladies of Hidden Figures, for example) for this list.

That’s it for this week! Tell me about a woman in history you think everyone should know about!

#zelda fitzgerald #andree borrel #willie mae thornton #hypatia #sayyida al-hurra #friday five #women in history

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mandibierly · 6 years

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Why 'The Deep' episode of 'Blue Planet II' is the one you can't miss

A bluntnose sixgill shark arrives to feed on the carcass of a sperm whale in the Atlantic Ocean (Photo: Will Ridgeon)

Each episode of Planet Earth: Blue Planet II, airing Saturdays on BBC America, is special in its own way, of course. But there’s a reason this weekend’s installment, “The Deep,” is truly exceptional — and it’s not just because we see sixgill sharks devouring a whale carcass or learn what happens when you have a leak in a sub as you’re 450 meters below.

The fact is, we know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the difficult-to-reach deep ocean — the majority of the living space on Earth. As episode producer Orla Doherty tells Yahoo Entertainment, “A deep ocean scientist that I spoke to very early on in the production said to me, ‘Orla, if aliens came down to Earth, they’d land on land, but they would look in deep oceans and say, ‘Those are the most abundant, most prevalent organisms on the planet. These must be the oldest occupiers of this planet,’ and us little human specs would be kind an insignificant blip, frankly. That gave me this sense of perspective of, ‘Wow, this is an enormous world, and it’s one that we just know so little about.’ We don’t know how it functions. There are amazing scientists trying to figure it out. But it’s got to be fundamentally connected to everything else in the ocean, and therefore to us, and we’re only just scratching the surface of what that really means.”

Here, Doherty offers a preview of the most memorable sequences in “The Deep,” premiering Jan. 27.

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Yahoo Entertainment: You and your team were the first humans to ever dive to 1,000 meters in the Antarctic. As we see in the “making of” segment at the end of the episode, you were a half hour into your first descent when the three of you in the sub noticed a small puddle forming. How did you remain calm? Orla Doherty: I’ve had a lot of time at sea. I’ve had a lot of situations happen. I’ve been in storms, I’ve been in cyclones, I’ve been in all sorts of places, and I’ve learned that panicking is not gonna get you anywhere. It’s not my natural instinct, anyway, but it’s just not gonna do anything. So okay, I’m in a tiny submarine and there’s water coming in. There’s not a lot I can do. But what I can do is do my best to just work with the pilot who does know what to do and assist him. I’m very used to responding to commands in an emergency situation.

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Another standout sequence is when the team films sixgill sharks, who may only feed once a year, tearing into the carcass of a dead sperm whale on the Atlantic Ocean floor. Why was that a behavior you set out to capture? We did it with a bunch of scientists because studying these whale falls is one really clear way to show how our life here up at the surface is connected to what happens down in the deep. Scientists have studied these whale falls in the Pacific Ocean before — in the original Blue Planet there were some great shots of a whale fall in the Pacific. But nobody had ever done it in the Atlantic. … We were really curious to know what was gonna happen, what animals were gonna come in. And it was absolutely astounding to see these beautiful sixgill sharks. On my very first three sub dives, I met a sixgill shark each time, and so I felt really connected to that animal. I think it’s a magnificent, beautiful, ancient animal. And to see them come in and be a little bit less graceful, a little bit less gracious, and just rip the carcass to shreds, and sort of wrestle each other out of the way, it was just phenomenal. And you know, the scientists learned that it was within 25 minutes that the first shark came in, so these animals are constantly on the move and have extreme sensory capabilities to be able to find food when it’s there. So it was an amazing piece of discovery — not just for us, not just for the footage, but also in terms of really understanding how that ecosystem works.

BBC Earth released a video (above) showing the sixgills pushing the sub because they, at first, considered it competition for the food. Were you in the sub when that was happening? No, my assistant producer was down there in that scene. It would have been amazing. I dived on that whale carcass a little bit further down the line. I was off somewhere else doing something else at the time that was all going on.

The episode talks about how even four months later, there are still zombie worms feeding on what’s left of the whale. It must have been really satisfying to be able to keep going down over a long period of time. That was the whole purpose, to be able to do this repeat study and to be able to see what happened over the passage of time. I think it was something like 12 or 14 months between the first and the last dive that we really got to see how this carcass just slowly falls apart and becomes recycled back into the system.

Producer Orla Doherty in the submersible Nadir, capable of reaching depths of 1,000 meters (Photo: Luis Lamar)

Another jaw-dropping sequence: the cannibal Humboldt squid, 800 meters down off the coast of South America. As a viewer, it’s shocking to see them turn on each other when they’ve run out on lanternfish to prey on. What was it like for you to witness? It was shocking to be in the sub and see that all play out in front of us! I mean, it was just incredible. We had to use lowlight cameras, like really sensitive camera sensors, to be able to film those scenes because we were part of the first [team] to ever really try and document the natural behavior of these squid in the deep ocean, in their world. Any time they’ve been filmed before it’s been when they’ve come up to the shallows and have been filmed by scuba divers.

So we were on a bit of a stakeout down there. This was all off the coast of Chile. And first we saw them hunt the lanternfish, and that was amazing — just incredible to watch them hunt with such precision and move in such coordinated ways. And then, one day we went down and there weren’t any lanternfish for them to hunt — that’s when we saw a sort of squid tug-of-war over another squid. And it was just extraordinary because scientists have known for forever that Humboldt squids eat Humboldt squids, because they’ve analyzed their stomach contents when they’ve been caught in fisheries, but nobody’s ever actually seen that happen. It’s something like 30% of their diet is made up of other Humboldt squid, so they’re mean, nasty cannibals, but to actually have it demonstrated right before our very eyes and be able to capture it as a scene, it was just extraordinary. We all have imaginings and fantasies about what goes on down there, but we’ve just got a very privileged glimpse of something that is going on over and over and over again.

When you’re watching something like that from the sub, is there a lot of shouting, like, “Whoa!” Or is it all just stunned silence? [Laughs] I’m reasonably vocal. I’ve been known to scream with excitement or to “woop” or whatever. Usually whoever’s working the camera is a lot less verbally responsive — he would then just focus on really getting the shot — and the pilots are just always focused on where we are and are they lined up right. They’ve got jobs to do. I’ve got a big job to do down there, which is look for things to film and figure out the story as we’re filming it, and figure out which shots we need and all of that. But I don’t have anything physical to do when we’re filming, so I’m much more able to engage with the animal and just be reactive. It’s just fun to be down there and seeing things that you know people have never seen before. It’s extraordinary.

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When this episode aired in the U.K., the clip of the cutthroat eel going into toxic shock from a brine pool in the Gulf of Mexico circulated online. Did you know what you were witnessing when it was writhing around? I knew the brine pool was this lethal lake at the bottom of the sea, which is a head spin in and of itself. I had a whole storyboard of a really complicated bunch of shots that was gonna try and illustrate just how toxic it was. I can’t actually even remember what it was I was thinking of doing down there. But again, it was on our first dive there, and that eel took its dip in the lake, and within 45 seconds had just demonstrated perfectly that this is how toxic the lake is.

I talked to just about every scientist probably that’s ever dived and done research there, and nobody told me about the eels and the reactions that they would have. So no, we got the surprise of our life. That was yet another moment where I — actually, I think all of us were cheering and just all going, “Come on! Come on! Come on! Get out, you can do this! Shake it off!” Rooting for that eel to get away, which he did.

Not all of the creatures do, though. There’s a sort of graveyard of the fish and things that didn’t make it out. That must have been even eerier in person. Yeah, and some of them were still in the sort of death throes, and it was kind of awful. The whole thing is just such a head spin: You feel like you’re in air because you’re looking at a lake, but you’re not in air, you’re underwater, 750-meters deep. And yet I felt like if I could just get out there and scoop this thing up and lift it up into what looked like the air — but it’s not, it’s water — it will survive. Really, really painful to watch. But that’s the ocean — that’s just part of the circle of life down there.

The team also captures amazing shots of volcanic eruptions in the South Pacific. Is that all real sound, or is that enhanced? I was desperate to use genuine sound recordings. Those are genuine sound recordings from the eruption, which is just incredible. Recording sound in the deep is really difficult because if you’re in a submarine you’re making a lot of noise, so you’re therefore going to get mostly the sub’s noise.

The other thing is I worked with scientists that would try to deploy hydrophones to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth, to find out what the sound is down there. And I was like, “Wow, great, fantastic. You’ve gotta give me those recordings when they come back.” And when the scientists got those recordings back they said, “Orla, you just don’t want them.” And I said, “Why, why?” They said, “Because all you can hear is the sound of ships. The sound of ships 7 miles above at the surface passing.” We’re making noise in ways that you could never believe, and it’s because sound travels so much further and faster underwater.

We’re just beginning to learn how much animals in the ocean, from the coral reefs really, use sound. Sound is part of their world, and we’re changing that world because of the sound we’re making.

There’s the sequence in episode 7, when clownfish (which make alarm sounds for each other, and to try to scare off predators), can’t hear because a boat is overhead. Exactly! Exactly! We didn’t know this stuff even maybe 5, 10 years ago. There’s so much going on down there that we’ve just got no idea about.

Speaking of sound, the music is so beautiful in the entire series, but it’s so interesting in this episode creating suspense in the darkness. We talked a lot with Hans [Zimmer] and [the team at Bleeding Fingers] about how this has gotta be a sci-fi voyage through these magical, wonderful worlds where you meet all these alien creatures. The moment that sticks out for me, and it’s one of the more subtle pieces of music in the film, is when the sub actually does finally touch down on the sea floor. And the music that they wrote for that moment… I just almost well up every time I watch it because the music completely enhances the sense that we have now landed on another planet — but we haven’t, we’re here on Earth. It’s incredible.

I love the idea that the episode ends on, that if there’s abundant life existing down at those extreme depths in our oceans, and we know that there are deep seas on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, then it’s possible there could be life there, too. That actually cycles all the way back to your very first question — why should we care about what’s in the deep ocean. Because how astounding is that? If the sun goes out tomorrow, we’re all gonna die, everything on land is gonna die, everything in the shallow ocean is gonna die — but life is gonna go on down at the hydrothermal vents. That’s just extraordinary. You take away our energy source that we are all utterly dependent on, and yet life will go on. So yes, to think that there is stuff going on down there that could inform us about how to find life elsewhere in this amazing universe is just mind-bending!

One final question: People who watch the end credits will notice James Cameron is given a special thanks. Why is that? He’s been someone that I’ve known and talked to about the ocean for nearly 20 years. He’s an ocean soulmate that has explored in an even deeper way than I probably ever will, and he has just been a guide for me. A guide and a friend.

Planet Earth: Blue Planet II airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on BBC America.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

10 Grammy Best New Artist winners you forgot about

How to watch all the 2018 Best Picture Oscar nominees, from ‘Get Out’ to ‘The Shape of Water’

40 years ago, the Doobie Brothers’ ‘What’s Happening!!’ episode preached evils of bootlegging, joys of racial harmony

#_author_id:c4b4edd0-b171-11e4-b5fd-0d5c1f5abd78 #bbc america #blue planet II #blue planet 2 #orla doherty #James Cameron #_uuid:1b6cd834-e980-3c48-a9e8-2c2d139926a6 #_draft:true

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cecilspeaks · 7 years

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Episode 106 - Filings

Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? Tell me more about your special bird powers. Welcome to Night Vale.

It’s been a long couple of weeks, as the city-wide emergency sirens that signal illegal public acknowledgement of angels have been blaring almost nonstop. But in spite of these archaic laws, I’ve been shouting “You’re an angel!” at beings who look like angels and then making my most friendly finger-pointing gesture.

The beings who call themselves angels because… that’s what they are, have begun filing the paperwork for official existence. The angels are still at the Hall of Public Records downtown waiting in line. They have made it to the front of line three different times, but each time, they were told they were missing a key form of ID or pre-application paperwork, or that the cameras could not record their image. They weren’t told his using words, the Records Hall clerk just stabbed their paperwork repeatedly with scissors and then got a massive nosebleed, which is how they know their application was declined.

Other citizens waiting have grown restless. As they do not acknowledge the existence of angels, the next person in line keeps walking up to a seemingly empty window, only to be brushed away by a clerk, or an angel. These citizens have begun shouting and crumbling and curling into little balls and sobbing, as large glowing cracks appear in the ceiling.

It’s been several days of waiting in line for the angels. We’ll check back in on them soon.

Oh, I have a new intern, listeners. He’s a fine-looking young man with a beautiful voice, I think he’ll have a great future in radio. I’ve been trying to ask him his name or who hired him. I certainly don’t remember beginning the search for a new intern, he just appeared this morning and started working without a single word. Which is the most professional behavior for anyone beginning a new job. Well, he seems hard at work, even if every time I address him he doesn’t notice me. It’s great having a competent replacement for Kareem, even if I have no idea how this new intern got here and who he is. As long as the filing is getting done.

Alondra Ortiz, daughter of Josefina Ortiz who passed away last month, has carried on her fight against the angels. The angels are claiming ownership of Old Woman Josie’s estate, since they lives with her and helped her build the many artistic monuments and cultural foundations around town. Alondra said she doesn’t care if angels are acknowledged or not. If they want to be recognized, fine, but Alondra and her lawyer, Emilio Tavarez have filed motions to maintain ownership of Alondra’s mother’s home, belongings, money, and memories. Just because a bunch of imaginary tall people with wings helped Josie change the lightbulbs from time to time, Tavarez said, that’s no reason they are considered next of kin. Tavarez told judge Siobhan Azdaq: “If they don’t exist, we must get kissed.” Judge Azdaq replied: “Emilio, it’s been four years. I’m remarried. We’re done, OK?”

The angels have hired five-headed dragon Miriam Adelman as their counsel, who issued a literally scathing response. Alondra is now suing Adelman and her team for medical bills resulting from second degree burns. Alondra has already put Josie’s home up for sale. She is willing to offer rebates for pre-existing damage, such as a series of large glowing slits in the walls that lead to rooms that aren’t… possible, according to the official floor plan, nor the laws of physics. These rooms range from a 17th century ball room to a crow’s nest on a modern nazy destroyer to the space shuttle. Plus, anachronistic people keep wandering in and out of these portals. She added, “On second thought, since the house has more usable square footage than originally anticipated, and because there appear to be current renters”, she’s raising the sale price.

So I just sent my new intern to go pick up some lunch. Or at least I said, “Excuse me young man whose name I don’t know yet who I only think works here, can you go grab me a cobb salad with extra whipped cream and pencil shavings from the Missing Frog Salad Bar? He didn’t say yes, nor did he ever seem to see or hear me, but he did look really frightened and ran from the room crying, which was such a polite and respectful gesture to his superior. What a nice young man. Dresses kind of weird though, so early 80’s, with his double Windsor striped tie, polyester coat and aviator goggles, just like we all wore back in the day. I supposed most things eventually come back in fashion. Well, I can only assume he heard my lunch order. I’m starving.

Faceless Old Woman: You’re starving? Try not having a mouth.

Cecil: Oh my god, you scared me. [chuckles] Listeners, we have an unplanned visit from the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. Or I guess in this case, your radio studio while you’re still on the air.

FOW: Cecil, we need to talk about the Distant Prince.

Cecil: Few dare to speak at him, so as not to draw his attention. What do you know?

FOW: His harbingers are here. They are prepared to announce his arrival with their long, toothy beaks. They’re stomach-eyes see all. They’ve been rehearsing this announcement in their room at the Hampton Inn on Route 800. They’ve been writing and rewriting their grand pronouncement and teaching it to the court shriekers to shriek out to all of Night Vale.

Cecil: What does that mean?

FOW: What, “shriek”? It’s like a painful yell. Like this: [disturbing scream] Meanwhile, the mangled servants are gathering the ears of important Night Vale politicians.

Cecil: Gross.

FOW: Right? And they will sew the ears onto the walls of the Hampton Inn continental breakfast bar and use them as portals into many dimensions at once. Their plan is to destroy time itself and collapse Night Vale into a dead singularity.

Cecil: Why do they want to do this?

FOW: It was suggested to him by a nice young woman from out of town.

Cecil: What young woman?

FOW: She.. she.. [music distorts, evil voice] The woman from Italy brings fun and jest, consuming all souls until none are left. Distant Prince and she plan the terrible plot: destroying all that is until all is not. I met her in dreams and found a dear friend, a woman a mortal mind can’t comprehend. No guard controls her, no physics can hold her, she’ll set the world on fire but leave you all colder. [music distorts back to normal] Yeah, she and I are best friends now. She’s a lot of fun, really good poet. I gotta go. Steve Carlsberg is back home, and I wanna stand behind him in the mirror when he bends down to wash his face. His shrieks are the funniest.

Cecil: Oh aha hahaha, dumb old Steve! Be nice, OK?

We are getting reports that a dense fog is now pouring from a giant glowing slash in the sky above the Rec Center. Some pteranodons have flown out of it, as well as a commercial airliner. And those who entered the fog reported hearing shouts, blood-curdling streams, and even the echo of drums. But there’s also the Battle of the Bands sound check happening right now at the Rec Center, so it’s probably just that. Either way, keep a close eye out for these apparent tears in the fabric of our reality. Also, go check out the Battle of the Bands. I think Diane Crayton’s son Josh and his boyfriend Grant are organizing that event.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today’s show is brought to by a grey pigeon, whispering to you from your neighbor’s backyard. The pigeon – his name is Alfonso – is telling you that you are the one true God. [serene voice] And that he wants you to bring it a body part. A human body part. Doesn’t matter which part. Just do it. [ominously] Soon. [serenely] “Time’s almost gone. The Bible was wrong,” the pigeon added, suddenly from your right shoulder. “There never was a beginning.” This has been a word from our sponsors.

Reports continue from the last few weeks of people all over Night Vale experiencing false realities. The most believable visions are those of tall winged beings roaming the streets and asking to borrow 10 bucks. City Council is issuing daily press releases, claiming the existence of angels is impossible and illegal. City Council is threatening to no longer speak to anyone who acknowledges the so-called angels. “You are uninvited to our birthday party,” today’s press release reads. “Too bad, there will be karaoke and minigolf. Your loss, angel acknowledger!”

A series of fissures in reality have begun to open up, revealing truths that should never have existed. Like the 12th century Scottish castle sitting atop the stables over on Galloway. Frances Donaldson at the Antiques Mall reports suddenly knowing how to play the piano, when before she only knew how to play keyboard. Larry Leroy out on the edge of town came home to find his wife, Chrysette, mowing the lawn. But he was never married. He last saw Chrysette in high school, when they were both in the lurching band together. And fired chief Ramona Encarnacion said she found a rock in the shape of Harry Styles’ liver. “I don’t know how Harry is getting by without his liver,” Incarnassian said. “Or given how much mud was on this thing, how he was ever getting by with it.”

Night Vale, beware the untruths which attempt to dismantle our town. Stay vigilent, read your journals, look at your photographs. Do your best to remember what is real.

Oh man, speaking of real, I’m real hungry. I wish my intern would get back soon with my salad. It’s been forever since he… Oh, wait. He left his wallet behind. Well, strike one, new intern. How are you supposed to buy lunch if you don’t take any money? Hope he has some cash in his pockets.

I’ll be so annoyed if lunch is late. Ah, this is a pretty nice wallet. Trifold, ooh photo pages, human leather, money clip. I used to have one just like this. maybe let’s find out more about you, kiddo. Let’s see. Bowling league card. Ooh, I love bowling. Young reporter’s league membership. Wow, it’s after my own heart. Photos of him with a young man he could probably be related to and, is that my… who are you? Where’s your driver’s license? Oh God. This can’t.. this can’t be. This here... just…

Uh, OK, here’s the weather while I sort this out.

[“All or Nothing” by the Dream Masons]

My new intern never made it back. He never left, or maybe, was never hear at all. Or maybe still is here after all these years.

After finding his… my… ID in his wallet, I ran out after him. But before I even got out of the building, I found him in the restroom. The door was slightly cracked and the light was on. I heard a voice, a familiar young voice. “Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day,” said the voice. I was so frightened but still I looked into the washroom, and he was standing in front of a mirror looking right at himself. I never look into those things, or at least I haven’t in a long time.

“I think the radio station is fun,” he said. “I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be,” he said. I wanted to cry out to warn him. My mother told me to stay away from mirrors, and I knew he was in danger. I opened my mouth and tried to step in the room, but I could not speak, could not move forward.

“I’m looking in the mirror,” he said. “The mirror is not covered,” he said. “Stop! Don’t look into the mirror!” I tried to say, but nothing came out of my mind, only spit and inaudible wheeze. Tears stung my eyes. I waved frantically, trying to catch his attention.

“The flickering movement is just behind me,” he said, and then he looked right at me in the mirror. His eyes grew wide and wet. He said, “I…” He said again, “I…” and then he choked. Then he screamed, then I screamed, only again no sound came out. He fell to the floor, and for a moment, I remembered. I remembered blue lights and blood in my throat, and the dark planet lit by no sun and then I forgot it. Or at least what it looked like or, only that it was, or never was or it still is.

His wallet was no longer in my studio, his… my… driver’s license was no longer in my hand, my familiar teenage intern was no longer lying on the ground. The mirror he was looking into is now shattered into thousands of intersecting cracks like parched desert dirt.

I approached the mirror, hoping to see a face I knew: a young man’s face I just barely remember. But I only saw a multiplicity of me, a man divided, unrecognizably under razor-sharp grounds, and behind me a glowing slash in the bathroom wall. When I turned, the whole in reality was gone. Only plain gray subway tiles.

I don’t know what is real. Myself as a younger intern, the Woman from Italy, these holes in reality. Harry Stiles’ liver. Harry Stiles. Are any of these things real?

One thing I know is real were the angels. After hours of waiting in line, their paperwork has been officially filed, with the Hall of Public Records, and a hearing date scheduled sometime between the last Friday of this month, and the last Friday of 2023.

Night Vale. Reality is failing us. And strange forces are gathering. The Distant Prince, the Woman from Italy. The dragons. Huntokar.

I don’t know what we can do to save a failing reality, I only know, uh… We can make real that which we acknowledge and accept. Angels are real, Night Vale. The actuality of people we rarely see or interact with may seem unimportant as fissures in our world, threatening to collapse anything we know but – if you see an angel, tell them you see them. Tell them they are real. Point at them and shout: “You’re. An. Angel!” we can only make real what we accept as real,. Tell them, OK?

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Good things come to those who wait. Good things come slithering down the unctuous brown stone walls to those who wait alone in the dark pit.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #wtnv transcripts #episode 106 #filings

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4pillarshalifax · 4 years

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Escaping Debt Podcast – Why credit doesn’t actually matter – Episode 4

Credit is often a misudnerstood concept and leads people to make very poor decisions for their long-term financial wellbeing. David Moffatt, our Senior Debt Relief Specialist, dives into the reasons for this in Episode 4 of the Escaping Debt Podcast.

Transcript

David Moffatt (00:01): Hello everybody, I hope you’re doing exceptionally well. Welcome to episode four of The Escaping Debt Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about why your credit and the impact of credit really shouldn’t matter when you look at restructuring debt. My name is David Moffatt, and I’m going to be the host today. I’m the Senior Debt Relief Specialist and Local Director of 4 Pillars Halifax.

David Moffatt (00:21): Remember, our goal is that no consumer should have to struggle with the overwhelming burden of debt, and we also believe that it’s simply not possible for a company to represent both the consumer and the debtor at the same time in an unbiased fashion, because of this, we work for you, not your creditors.

David Moffatt (00:38): So today’s topic is going to be a really interesting one. I hear it all the time, people come into the office, swarmed with debt, they can barely pay their bills if at all, and they’re concerned that their credit is going to get impacted. This is something that I understand why it occurs. Think about it, everything in society right now is credit based.

David Moffatt (01:04): If you want to go buy a couch, you can finance it. If you want to buy a car, you can finance it. You buy a house, you finance it. You want to get a cell phone, you need a credit check. You want to get an apartment, you get a credit check. And so credit has become an integral part of our life, and it’s clear to see why people are so concerned about the possibility that their credit would end up getting impacted.

David Moffatt (01:30): But it’s a little bit more complicated than that. And the main reason for this is somebody that’s already struggling to pay their bills, unbeknownst to them, their credit is actually already impacted. Now, their credit score might not be impacted, but credit score is really only one of three components of someone’s credit profile.

David Moffatt (01:56): So what actually makes up someone’s credit profile? So first of all, there’s your actual credit score itself, there’s the credit products that you have, and then most importantly, there is your financial status. I guess, your financial foundation. So what does your asset base look like? What does your savings account look like? Are you making your payments on time? And I don’t necessarily mean again, from a credit perspective, I mean from a money management perspective.

David Moffatt (02:28): Most people are simply unaware of this. And does your money management skills impact your credit score? Yes, to a certain degree. Can you be very bad with your money management principles and still have a good credit score? Of course. However, if you’re not good at money management, your score will only last so long. So for example, you can build a credit score very, very quickly. You go out and acquire a bunch of new products and you make sure they’re paid off every single month and your credit score will increase. Now, obviously that’s a very general statement, but that is how it works, okay.

David Moffatt (03:11): The problem is, is if you can’t actually afford to pay off those credit products each and every month and say the case of a line of credit or a credit card, well then slowly but surely your credit will start getting impacted and then you’ll be right back to where you started.

David Moffatt (03:27): This is why when somebody is struggling with debt, getting another loan to pay off that debt is typically not a good idea without proper professional consultation, because it can simply just further add to the stress that that individual is feeling. So let’s talk about why it really doesn’t matter if your credit gets impacted when you restructured that. So first of all, what is restructuring, right? So restructuring is essentially looking at every single option to deal with debt, ranging from budgeting all the way to bankruptcy and everything in between.

David Moffatt (04:08): What most people know of as debt restructuring from an invasive perspective that would impact credit are the more invasive options. So these would be credit counselling and formal settlements; consumer proposals and bankruptcies. Now of course these don’t come without consequences and the consequences that your credit ends up getting impacted. And this is the big concern for a lot of people.

David Moffatt (04:30): They try budgeting themselves out of the situation. They look at assets that they can sell. They try to get help from friends and family. They might go take out a couple extra loans to see if they’re able to dig themselves out of this, but none of that works. And so what we’ve seen is that the average client of ours spent 18 months on average before seeking professional advice to deal with their debt, trying to solve their situation themselves.

David Moffatt (04:56): Now, that’s a year and a half and that’s from the moment they realized they had a problem, and so you can imagine that most likely the average consumer probably struggled for several years before reaching out for help. Well, actually all of the invasive options have a consequence which is impacting credit. The alternative to not doing these options, in my opinion, is far worse than doing nothing at all.

David Moffatt (05:33): Imagine if you’re struggling, you can barely pay your bills as it is, or you’re living paycheck to paycheck, how do you actually get ahead in life? It’s next to impossible. You’re probably already … You’re basically probably already having issues paying your regular day to day bills, trying to find money to buy groceries because of all of the debt payments and the bill payments you have. You might be trying to keep your credit up at a high level relatively. Yeah, you just can’t seem to do it because of how much you’re spending on debt payments.

David Moffatt (06:12): I’ve mentioned this in other episodes, but what’s the point of going to work to come home to pay bills and the credit card and the debt payments to then just simply repeat it over and over again. The goal is to actually advance in life. So for example, a lot of people have aspirations of buying a house. Now, let’s consider a couple of scenarios.

David Moffatt (06:39): So the first scenario is somebody who’s drowning in debt, is living paycheck to paycheck but has a great credit score. Well, they would go to the bank and the bank would run their debt service ratios, which is the ratio that tells the bank how much free cash you have essentially to be able to afford a mortgage, and because of their debt, they wouldn’t be able to buy a house.

David Moffatt (07:02): This is true even if they had an 800 beacon score, a very, very good credit score, just simply by the nature of their debt, they wouldn’t qualify. In this instance, if they were to restructure rather and now looking at the second scenario of an individual who had recently restructured is now say, has the ability to save $500 a month yet has impacted credit for a maximum of six years. Well, at the end of that six year period, they would end up having $36,000 saved.

David Moffatt (07:38): So now you have to consider this, right? In the first one, they couldn’t even save for a down payment even if they want it to. Whereas now in the very least, they’re able to save for the down payment, rebuild credit along the way and by the time they’ve completed their program, there’s a very, very high likelihood that they’re going to be able to get into a house plus or minus a year or two.

David Moffatt (08:02): Now, they wouldn’t have been able to do that in the other scenario. There would have been two cases that would have occurred. They would have either kept going, hopefully increase their income or decrease their expenses. They would have been able to pay the debt off slowly over time, and let’s pretend that they were even able to do it in five years or less.

David Moffatt (08:23): Well, let’s just go with five years. So let’s say they were able to pay off their debt in five years, well, they don’t have a down payment. So if they wanted to buy a house with even a 5% down payment, and let’s assume that the house they want to buy is $200,000, they would need $10,000 saved, which means that even if they were able to save $750 a month, that’s still going to take them about a year. So you’re right at that six year window anyway.

David Moffatt (08:54): And by the way, you continue to basically live paycheck to paycheck for that entire five year period. It doesn’t take into account that anything that can go wrong and often does go wrong in life. So I always have to go back to the point that in almost every instance it makes sense to restructure.

David Moffatt (09:19): It really bothers me when I have people come into the office that came and saw me a year or a year and a half prior, and at that moment in time, the plan that they could have implemented would have been life changing, yet they chose not to do it because they didn’t like the credit impacts, which by the way, is probably my fault simply because I wasn’t able to properly portray the benefits of actually dealing with their debt.

David Moffatt (09:52): If they come back a year or a year and a half later, and then they come to me and they say, “Listen Dave, I really appreciate the time you spent with me before. I didn’t want to impact my credit, but now I have no choice.” So now you consider all of these people, because I bet you the amount of people that need to restructure that don’t because of credit, I bet you the overwhelming majority of them aren’t the individuals that end up increasing their income, decreasing their expenses and getting out of their situations.

David Moffatt (10:18): I would assume that a lot of them are in a position where they basically, I don’t want to say did nothing, that’s very probably naive of me. They probably struggled through it, tried absolutely everything they could to deal with their debt and then had to restructure but just didn’t come back to me.

David Moffatt (10:42): I just want people to do what’s right for them. So long story short, if you’re struggling financially and you’re concerned about your credit and you don’t want to impact your credit, but you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it almost always makes sense to restructure. Don’t continue struggling.

David Moffatt (11:04): So everybody, thank you very, very much for listening to the podcast. This is episode four of The Escaping Debt Podcast. Thank you very much for listening. Remember that our goal is that no one should have to struggle with the overwhelming burden that debt causes, and we believe that it is not possible for a company to represent both the consumer and the creditor in an unbiased fashion at the same time. That’s why we work for you, not your creditors. Thank you very much.

The post Escaping Debt Podcast – Why credit doesn’t actually matter – Episode 4 appeared first on 4 Pillars Halifax.

source https://www.halifaxdebtfreedom.ca/escaping-debt-podcast-why-credit-doesnt-actually-matter-episode-4/

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jmuo-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://jmuo.com/a-slice-of-new-york-pizza-history/

A Slice of New York Pizza History

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[Photographs: Clay Williams, unless otherwise noted]

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about pizza over the past several months. True, I spend a lot of time thinking about pizza as a matter of course, but the last few months have been different. I and my like-minded pizza-nerd friends, Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener, have been working on a definitive list of the best places to enjoy a slice of pizza in New York City and, in the process, have sought to determine what, exactly, the state of the NYC pizza slice is in 2018.

As we traveled all across town to hit pizza spots, and as we discussed our findings, including in three episodes for my podcast, Special Sauce, I realized just how much of NYC slice lore is apocryphal. I came to this realization in no small part because of Scott, whose idea of a good time is digging up old NYC Department of Finance tax photos featuring pizzerias. As Scott said in one episode of the podcast, he, and people like me and Adam, in our slice zealotry, have inadvertently peddled some of this apocrypha as if it were true.

So we decided to write up a brief history of the NYC slice before we put out our list of the slice shops that define the current slice era. Some of what you find written below may contradict things we’ve said in the past, collectively and individually, but we’ve done our best to give a general picture of how the New York City pizza slice evolved over the years, using the best of our current knowledge on the subject—all without introducing more confusion. Let’s go!

A Slice Timeline

At the beginning of the 20th century, pizza in New York was cooked in massive coal-fired masonry ovens originally built to bake bread. Lombardi’s, which claims 1905 as its founding date, making it allegedly “the first pizzeria in America,” used this type of oven at its first location at 53½ Spring Street, and still uses one in its present-day spot down the street.

Why coal? According to Scott, bakers used hard coal instead of wood to heat their ovens, which hit temperatures in the range of 800 to 1,000°F (427 to 538°C), because it took up less space and burned more efficiently, making it a cheaper fuel.

By the 1920s, Scott says, smaller coal ovens were available with stainless steel frames and used for small bread-baking operations and pizza-making. Totonno’s and John’s—two of New York’s early seminal pizzerias, both opened by Lombardi’s alumni (in 1924 and 1929, respectively)—use this type of oven.

But the pizzas that were being baked in coal ovens were all sold whole, with perhaps one exception—Patsy’s in East Harlem, which uses a steel-frame coal oven and claims to have sold pizza by the slice around the neighborhood since its founding in 1933. We say “perhaps,” because Scott says he hasn’t seen any concrete evidence for that claim. Scott says he’s also read accounts of whole-pie places, like Lombardi’s, selling partial pies if customers were strapped for cash.

Nevertheless, whole pies were the norm at the time because coal-oven pizza, cooked at high temperatures and for a relatively short time, is best eaten quickly, since it tends to get tough and chewy after it’s cooled down. This was pre-slice-culture pizza, designed to be eaten hot out of the oven.

Frank Mastro making pizza in front of the gas-fired pizza oven he invented in 1934. [Photograph: Courtesy the Mastro family]

The slice movement really got its jump-start with an Italian immigrant named Frank Mastro, a consummate salesman who ran a restaurant-supply business on the Bowery. After buying a used coal oven, he installed a gas line in it and began playing around with baking pizza. By 1934, Mastro had invented* the first of the gas-fired pizza ovens that we now see in countless slice shops today, and had convinced the Blodgett oven company to manufacture them for him. Mastro even set up a model pizzeria on the Bowery to sell Italian-Americans on the concept of opening their own shops.

* That we know of Mastro at all is largely thanks to the work of Norma Knepp and Walter Tore, longtime OG Slice readers and community members. Norma and Walter met Mastro’s daughter, Madeline Mastro Ferrentino, and recorded her telling of the tale, which later helped shape the article about Mastro in PMQ magazine.

This oven was the slice-culture catalyst, because it produced pies that were fundamentally different from coal-oven pizza. Scott described the phenomenon this way on Special Sauce: “Suddenly the max oven temperature drops by 400°F. So now that you’re in the 500-to-550°F range, the pizzas take longer to bake and are baking up drier. But they also have a longer shelf life because more of the water is cooked out. So they’re reheatable. Pizza by the slice is—has to be—reheated most of the time. So that oven is a big deal.”

But attaching exact dates to the ascendancy of non-coal pizza by the slice is difficult because little hard evidence exists. It’s a safe bet that the custom of making pizzas specifically to sell by the slice began in the 1940s, thanks to Mastro’s 1934 oven.

Indeed, it was in the 1940s that some of the classic slice shops we know today began to appear, like Nunzio’s on Staten Island, which my book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven documents as having sold slices as early as 1943. Or Louie and Ernie’s, which opened in Harlem in 1947 before moving to the Bronx in 1959. And maybe even L&B Spumoni Gardens—one account dates the pizzeria part of the operation to 1942. In 1950 in Bensonhurst, J&V Pizzeria opened, which second-generation owner Joe DeGrezia says was among the first, at least in Brooklyn, to sell by the slice and even deliver it.

By the late 1950s, slice shops had become more and more common. Now on the scene: New Park in Howard Beach, Queens (1956); Delmar in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn (1957); Rizzo’s in Astoria, Queens (1959); and what’s commonly regarded as the original Ray’s Pizza, on Prince Street in Manhattan (also 1959—though Scott points out that, according to phonebook and business directory records, a pizzeria named Ray’s existed on Avenue P in Brooklyn two years earlier).

Growth continued apace in the 1960s and ‘70s, during what many lucky enough to be around at the time consider the First Golden Age of the Slice:**

1960: Joe & Pat’s (Castleton Corners, Staten Island)

1960: Elegante (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn)

1960: Gloria Pizza (originally in Flushing, Queens; recently reopened in Forest Hills, Queens)

1964: NY Pizza Suprema (near Penn Station on Eighth Avenue and 31st Street in Manhattan)

1965: Di Fara (Midwood, Brooklyn)

1965: Sal’s, later renamed Sal & Carmine (Upper West Side, Manhattan)

1966: DaVinci (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn)

1966: Pizza Wagon (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn)

1967: Krispy Pizza (Dyker Heights, Brooklyn)

1973: Luigi’s (Park Slope, Brooklyn)

1973: Nino’s (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn)

1975: Joe’s Pizza (Greenwich Village, Manhattan)

1976: Full Moon (Arthur Avenue, the Bronx)

** We say “first,” because we believe we’ve entered another golden age. Stay tuned for our forthcoming list of the NYC slice shops, both classic and modern, that make the case for us.

All of these places are what we now would think of as “classic slice shops,” and many of them were similarly decorated: wood paneling, a window out front from which slices were sold, Plymold contour booths with bright-orange plastic bench seats and faux-oak tabletops, Tiffany-style stained-glass lamps, and a small display of the different slices on offer—not a piece of pineapple or ziti-topped slice in sight.

The pies, too, were largely the same, possessed of attributes that we now consider standard for the classic New York slice: discrete areas of sauce and cheese, applied with a measured hand; a darker crust due to the longer bake time; a lightly seasoned, uncooked tomato “sauce” (really, crushed tomatoes with salt), often spiked with oregano; maybe a little Romano cheese sprinkled over the top for extra tang.

The original Patsy’s in East Harlem, Manhattan.

Between these classic shops, though, there are small variations, the kind of nuances that make a slice stand out from its peers. The most obvious example is Di Fara, since from the beginning Dom De Marco finished his slices with snips of fresh basil and dried oregano and used four different kinds of cheese on his slices, including buffalo-milk mozzarella. (Alas, he no longer does this, but instead uses low-moisture mozzarella and sprinkles on a mixture of Romano and Parmesan right at the end, and his slices are still pretty damn fine.)

But there are other examples: New Park’s method of salting the oven floor leads to some standout slices, if you can get the right pie at the right time; Pizza Suprema opts for a super-sweet sauce (which owner Joe Riggio swears contains no sugar); Joe & Pat’s in Staten Island combines vodka sauce with a cracker-thin crust on its most popular slice.

The amount of diversity contained under the umbrella of the classic New York slice is what made that era a golden age. By the 1980s and 1990s, it seemed that the evolution of the slice had stopped. Or should we say the slice devolved? In any case, slice places popped up on every corner, with nothing to differentiate one from another. Pizzerias started blanketing their pies with excessive amounts of bad mozzarella, and canned pizza sauce became ubiquitous, as did cardboard-like crusts made with inferior flour.

The era of the dollar slice, in the mid-2000s, further undermined the genre; slice places started using low-quality or near-expiration ingredients to keep costs low. Dollar-slice shops flourished after the Great Recession of 2008, as shops were able to pick up favorable leases in the down market—a market that also made their low prices appealing.

But it was also around the height of the dollar-slice proliferation that we saw the debut of what could be seen as its opposite. The first cheffy slice shop, Best Pizza, opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2010, and it was in many ways a throwback to the classic slice places of old. More attention was paid to the ingredients and how the pies were constructed, and deviations from the standard were made not with an eye to the bottom line, but with the idea of improving upon lessons learned from pizza-makers and bread-bakers of yore.

For us, Best Pizza typifies what we’ve come to think of as the slice “revivalists”—the shops that have resurrected pizza-making as an art and a craft, but often with their own educated spin on the product. The shops in this category, combined with the continued dedication of long-established classic-slice stalwarts, are what make this current moment a particularly great time in history to be eating a slice in New York. In our next installment, we’ll give you our full list of the shops that prove it—including the new-school revivalists, the stalwarts, and a few underappreciated neighborhood favorites for good measure.

Additional reporting for this piece provided by Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener.

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

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robertkstone · 6 years

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Celebrity Drive: Captain Wild Bill Wichrowski of Discovery’s ‘Deadliest Catch’

Quick Stats: “Wild” Bill Wichrowski, “Deadliest Catch” Daily Driver: 2017 Mercedes-Benz G550 4×4 Squared (Bill’s rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) Other cars: see below Favorite road trip: Blue Ridge Parkway Car he learned to drive in: 1965 Oldsmobile F-85 First car bought: 1966 Lincoln Continental

When he’s not king crab fishing in the Bering Sea on Discovery’s hit Deadliest Catch, Capt. “Wild” Bill Wichrowski enjoys some rather expensive four-wheeled rides including a 2017 Mercedes-Benz 4×4 G550 4×4 Squared.

“It’s a Mercedes G550 on steroids,” he says. “I don’t have a home in [the U.S.]; my home is in Mexico, so my tax guy says, ‘Go crazy on a car.’ So … for the last three years I’ve gotten a new one when these things are released and it’s a maniac,” he tells Motor Trend, proudly.

He rates the Mercedes a 9 on a scale of 10 and says he knows he’s never going to use the vehicle for what it’s designed to do. “It can go in a meter and a half of water, it’s made for going through the Alps,” he says. “The capabilities of it are so great, it’s so damn expensive I would never push it through those extreme conditions that it’s designed to travel in. I had an AMG S63. It’s the ultimate touring car but the value drops like a rock,” he says, adding that G550 4×4 Squared SUVs hold “their value, which not many cars do. It’s an amazing off-road rig.”

Wichrowski is hoping to drive it on an off-road trail at Nemacolin in western Pennsylvania.

2016 Ford F-150 Raptor

Rating: 9

Wichrowski calls this an event truck. “All the affiliates that I use threw some money together, it’s the real deal for off-road,” he says. “It’s the eye-catcher rig that I run in some of the events I do. I go to the Bassmaster Classic here in South Carolina, and I’m driving it up to that.”

He says it’s tough to push both the Raptor and Mercedes G550 down the highway at 75. “They’re geared so low. But other than that, they’re pretty amazing vehicles,” he says.

2005 Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty Duramax

Rating: 8

Wichrowski is based about 300 miles south of Nogales, Mexico, where he keeps his 2005 Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty truck powered by a Duramax diesel engine.

“I’m always hauling parts and pieces back and forth between the Mexican border and my house, up to the States and back and forth,” Wichrowski says. “The thing just goes and goes and goes. I’ll change tires on it, it’s been real solid for me over the years. As far as the run of the mill vehicle, it does have an 8-inch lift and 37s all the way around, so it’s a beast. It’s never let me down, it’s never gotten me stuck.”

1972 K5 Chevrolet Blazer

Rating: 5.5

This rare Blazer belonged to just one family before Wichrowski bought it. “I took the interior out, and I took it to Mexico and did a crazy seven coats of white, five coats of clear on it; it’s got a great paint job.”

It definitely needs a little bit of work, however. “It’s one of those garage projects that eventually I’ll get back to. It’s a daily driver, but it wanders across the road like a drunken mule. The front end’s a little loose on it, but it’s one of those dream cars. I’ve always liked the early ’70s K5.”

This Blazer is a work in progress for Wichrowski. “It is what it is. It’s a ’72, and the technology was in ’72. There’s a lot of stuff that could be improved on it,” he says.

1981 Jeep CJ-7

Rating: 5.5

Wichrowski likes the fact that his CJ-7 is “a beater,” he says. “It has one of 1500 race motors, it’s a 282 instead of a 258. There’s no doors, there’s no top, it’s got 33s all the way around. It’ll climb a tree,” Wichrowski says. “You have a cooler and you head out into the desert and … just go till you get tired and your teeth rattle, and you get home and rinse it off and put it back in the garage.”

For Wichrowski, his CJ-7 sounds like an old tractor. He rates it an 8 for the fun factor alone, but his overall rating is a 5.5. “You have an inline-six, it’s real throaty,” he says. “It makes people turn their heads when it goes by.”

Car he learned to drive in

Wichrowski grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He learned to drive in his mom’s 1965 Oldsmobile F-85, but he would later log more drive time elsewhere.

“My buddies worked as valets. The day after I had my driver’s license, I was parking cars, so I learned to drive in OP—other people’s cars,” he says, laughing.

Although Wichrowski’s dad taught him to drive, he also took driver’s ed. “Four days after I had my license, I ended up rear ending my driver’s ed instructor’s daughter in her Fiat on the way to school,” he says. “She called her dad, I called mine, and I saw my driver’s ed instructor pull up and I had this big lump in my throat.”

Wichrowski recalls how easy it was to drive before one turned 16 in those days. “I’m old, I’m 60, back then it wasn’t such a big deal, you’d go out in the country. You’d go hunting and fishing on country roads, your dad would let you get behind the wheel,” he says. “It was a different world back then.”

Photo courtesy of the Discovery Channel, Jason Elias

Wichrowski learned to drive a stick with some help from his restaurant valet friends. Whenever a manual Volkswagen would pull up, he’d get a chance to practice.

“My buddy got in the passenger seat and I got in the driver’s seat, and we figured out how to drive a clutch. They would drag their feet until the people went into the restaurant and then after they were inside, they would step aside and let me learn on that, then I’d run it around the parking lot a little bit, and get used to it. I picked it up pretty quick,” he says.

First car bought

When he was in San Diego, Wichrowski bought a 1966 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors, baby blue paint, a black leather interior, and a black vinyl top. It had been in Arizona and was a one-owner car.

“I’d crashed by dad’s Buick 225 into a cemetery and blew up about 13 tombstones and hit an oak tree. I was supposed to go to Slippery Rock State University for college, but I skipped school and joined the Navy,” he recalls.

He went out to San Diego for training and these well-preserved west coast cars surprised him.

“I’m from Pennsylvania where every car in the world rusted away, I get out to San Diego, my dad was always a big car guy, the big Buicks, the big Oldsmobiles, Chrysler wagons, so when I saw this four-door Lincoln, being an unintelligent kid, I put up the $1,300 that I had in the bank to buy this thing and it was quite the land yacht,” Wichrowski says. “It was in perfect shape because it was an Arizona car. It caught my eye, so I had the big ghetto cruiser.”

Wichrowski recalls saving up money from various jobs to buy that Lincoln. “I always had all kinds of crazy jobs—cut grass, do whatever I could to make a buck. I always had aspirations of making some money for myself,” he says. “I think they gave me $800 worth of credit on it because I was enlisted in the service, and they gave me I’m sure some outrageous interest rate for a one-year deal. Back then they paid you $480 a month to be in the service.”

Favorite road trip

Wichrowski describes his favorite drive as “a twisting, turning, well-banked beautiful piece of pavement” near Blowing Rock, North Carolina.

“I’m up and down the east coast a lot now, I’m working my way back to the east from the west. When you get on one of those roads that the trees are on both sides of the road, and they meet in the middle and you’re driving underneath the trees—I always think that’s the ultimate car ride, when the sun’s coming through the trees and the leaves,” he says.

Wichrowski says there are many roads like that in Virginia and North Carolina, but he particularly likes Blue Ridge Parkway because of its switchbacks.

“There’s a lot of people who consider that like the Aspen of the East, there’s a lot of NASCAR drivers who have second homes up there,” he says. “When I had the [AMG S63], I put it in Sport and paddleshifted, and it was pretty exhilarating.”

Wichrowski loves Blue Ridge Parkway and other similar roads on the east coast because it feels like he’s in the middle of nowhere. What made that drive particularly memorable was the way he was always trying to figure out the next turn, whether he had too much throttle, or if he wanted to downshift and paddle-shift down to make the turn.

“I wanted to use the car for what it was designed for,” Wichrowski says. “It’s designed for that kind of thing. The quick acceleration, deceleration, the suspension, that you put it in the Sport mode. You want to drive the car for what it’s made to do.”

He says he pushed it like that for only about half an hour. “It was still exciting because you have a ledge on one side that falls off into a ravine, and then you have these trees hanging over the road and the sunlight, you come around the corner and there’s an old farmhouse,” he says. “It’s what driving is. It’s getting behind the wheel and enjoying the place you like and the vehicle you’re in.”

Deadliest Catch Season 14 on Discovery

Photo courtesy of the Discovery Channel

Discovery’s long-time hit Deadliest Catch is currently in Season 14 and Wichrowski promises this season has many highs and lows. “These guys keep looking for bigger and better content, better cameras to get better shots. We have to raise the bar because we have something that goes on and on, and people don’t want to see the same thing every year,” he says.

This season is dramatic in a way Wichrowski couldn’t have predicted. “We had a thing that was life-threatening to the guy. I fished for 40 years and I’ve never had a man overboard,” he says. “This kid, I’ve known him since he was an infant, and his parents have been my friends for 30-some years. I held my deckhand in my arms when he was an infant fresh out of the hospital, so as he was in the water, I had visions of me having to tell his parents that I lost him.”

Wichrowski says that episode was the most surreal moment in his four decades of fishing. “That was really bizarre, it was indescribable. I was on the stern, and as he was coming along towards the back of the boat, I contemplated if he had passed out, I was going to tie myself off with the life ring and jump in and grab him.”

Deadliest Catch airs on Discovery Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

Photo courtesy of the Discovery Channel