#I don’t wanna go to another team my manager is the associate director of the company

[suguru-getos]

Lmfaooo my manager announced that there would be team changes in the next half of the year and I’m sitting here being so emo about it 😭

[killshield]

            they’ve become quite the paradox. shield, unironically, and spear; unstoppable force and immovable object. two incompatible premises with an uncanny ability to piss each other off. 

            the intel that had fallen into ward’s lap two weeks prior would have been inconsequential to anyone else. it was an easy connection to make: one of sunil bakshi’s close associates, a low - ranking member of old hydra, apprehended by SHIELD agents during a routine sweep of a former base of operations. ward harbored no delusions as far as allegiance went; what he’d done to bakshi was enough incentive for anyone to flip. no coincidence that this follows so closely on the heels of roman briggs’ jailbreak. coulson needed the excuse, and ward’s schedule happened to have an opening. 

            a change in the very air between them as soon as they’re alone. charged; alive, like the air before a storm.

            alone. curious, ward notes, that coulson doesn’t hide behind deathlok this time.

            he holds up a photograph, a full - color freeze - frame printed off the footage from a surveillance camera. not an accident: a challenge. 

            “nice glamour shot,” he says dryly. 

            ward smiles. “should’ve had it framed. not my best angle, but —”

            “c’mon, ward.” what curves the line of coulson’s mouth isn’t amusement. “let’s skip the pleasantries. we both know you’re not that modest. you wanted my attention? congrats. you got it. now tell me what you want with briggs.” 

            “it’s funny,” ward muses, disregarding the second half entirely, “you say that like i ever lost your attention in the first place. and here i thought you had bigger fish.”

            “it’s a wide net.” 

            “is it.”

            “you exposed yourself to break him out of a secure facility crawling with agents, most of whom would kill to see you back in a cage. why?” 

            again, the question is ignored. “you tried that. didn’t work out so well.”

            “you wanna know what i think?”

            “not really.”

            another tiny, humorless uptick. coulson leans forward on the table, wary, measured where ward is relaxed. 

            “i think you might be just deranged enough to believe you’re actually doing him some sort of favor. that in your own backwards, twisted way, you’re setting him free, when all you’ve really done is take away his only chance at starting over.” 

            deranged. deluded. same song, ward thinks disinterestedly; different verse, albeit only by a key or two, if that. his brow arcs. 

            “right. a clean break, no more looking over his shoulder — sounds familiar. it’s a good speech. almost had me fooled the first time around. second time, not so much. don’t patronize me, coulson. SHIELD was neutralizing a threat, nothing more, nothing less.” 

            “and you took it upon yourself to willfully unleash that threat,” coulson says. “so i’ll ask again — why? i’m sure you did your homework. roman briggs is an unknown variable, a powder keg ready to go off. some might say he’s a liability. i know you, ward. you’re way too calculated to bet on that kind of horse.”

            “see, that’s the difference between us.” ward cants his head a fraction of an inch to one side, arm poised, elbow bent, along the back of his chair. “where you saw a wild animal that needed breaking, all i saw was potential. an opportunity.” 

            “an opportunity for what? don’t tell me loyal henchmen are in such short supply these days that hydra’s resorted to bargain - hunting from SHIELD holding cells. oh, speaking of —”

            “henchmen, or shopping trips? sounds like a date.” 

            “loyalty. you’re already slipping. how do you think i managed to track you down?”

            “educated guess — ? bakshi’s guy folded like a cheap suit the moment you promised him protection. how’s he enjoying SHIELD custody so far?” 

            “you’re good.” 

            “and you’re predictable. you didn’t just come here to talk about briggs, and you definitely didn’t come without backup.”

            a grim smile, peppered with skepticism. “but i’m supposed to believe you did?”

            “well — yes and no.” something almost metallic flickers behind ward’s eyes, a hollow - point spark. slow pull to draw a cellphone from his pocket, his opposite palm mildly raised at the spasm of movement across from him: coulson, on reflex, twitching toward a weapon. ward regards him with another scant raise of brows and connects the call with the successive press of two buttons, then a third to put it on speaker. still watching coulson, he says, to the receiving end, “how are we looking?”

            roman’s voice. calm, steady. “target secured. ready to move on your signal.”

            coulson boomerangs his focus; ward, down to the phone, up again to ward.

            “good. hold position and wait for the green light.” the way his mouth curves at each corner isn’t a smile, not even the facsimile of one. it’s a quiet taunt, preceding the ghost of something thoughtful that falls short of sincere. “you know, SHIELD still has a surprising number of active safe houses, and most of them really aren’t that hard to find. couldn’t have been fury, he was too cloak - and - dagger for that. so it must’ve been your call, huh? pretty careless, director. seems you’re already slipping.”

            a muscle tic. the flare of both nostrils. otherwise, coulson is composed; ward will give him that. “quit screwing around, ward — what did you do?”

            “yeah, i don’t screw around, you of all people should know that. and i haven’t done anything, at least — not yet. if he doesn’t hear from me in the next fifteen minutes, though,” he gestures with each hand, a blown out breath, mimicking an explosion. “different story. you’ll be down half a dozen agents, just like that. good people, too. i checked. so, the question is, are you willing to make that sacrifice just to take me in? you know you won’t be able to hold me. you never could.”

            “you’re bluffing.”

            “like i was bluffing with may’s ex - hubby? c’mon, coulson. maybe it’s been a while since we’ve exchanged christmas cards, but things haven’t changed that much.”

            no. they’re past that. 

            “okay.” aside from the shadow that crosses his gaze and the barely perceptible curl of his lip, coulson maintains neutrality. or what passes for it. "then answer me one thing.”

            a beat. ward waits, unmoved. 

            “what’s randall prescott have to do with any of this? what was so important that you and briggs went all the way to portugal to murder a guy who’s been off the radar for years? i’ve seen briggs’ file — they were in the same orphanage, back in the day, but after that, it’s quiet. no connections, or none that left a paper trail. so what is it about him? what’s the significance of executing a defected hydra agent and his wife in cold blood? on their anniversary, no less, but you probably knew that.”

            “they had a falling out.” in deference to coulson’s look, he elaborates, “prescott and briggs. wanted to reconnect, dig right down into the roots of their true feelings. i’m not a shrink, but i really think they made some progress.”

            “ah — so that’s what this is.” the look shifts from uneasily perplexed to comprehending, disparaging. “a revenge kick, just like you manipulated agent 33 into. figures. i mean, after you shot her to death, you were a clyde without his bonnie. should’ve known it was only a matter of time before you found yourself a replacement.”

            the first slip of emotion — visceral, raw, but securely contained, effectively distilled — comes out in the brusque undercurrent of a scathing tone. “and what about you, coulson? you find your replacement yet, or can you still not shake the memory of rosalind bleeding out in your arms?”

            a mirrored response. “i’m not the one who slaughtered her, you sick son of a bitch.”

            “but she’d be alive if it weren’t for you. let’s skip the pleasantries.” ward’s jaw works at the curve, hard and sharp. the hint of a sneer. “as for what happens next, you have two choices. i get up, and i walk out, and you tell your reinforcements to stand down — or, six SHIELD agents pay the price. they’ll die quick, which is more than i can say for you. so what’ll it be? we’ve got about,” he tips his wrist, checks his watch, “nine minutes left. and trust me when i say, he isn’t the ‘no news is good news’ type.” 

            “you’re not walking out of here, ward. i won’t make that mistake again. it’s over.”

            “shoot me, then,” ward invites, arms spread as he rises to a stand. “end it, right here, right now. you’ll still lose some of your people, but ...”

            “i’m never gonna stop,” coulson levels out, as he, too, gets to his feet; levels, although emphasis catches on every word like his tongue is serrated, “you do know that, don’t you? that for the rest of your short, miserable life — no matter what you do, ward. no matter where you go, or how far you run, i will always be right behind you.”

            “and that’s just it, coulson.” ward lowers his arms and smiles. no warmth reaches his eyes, nor the deep well of shadow around them. “you’ll never be able to catch up.”

            he moves, and almost anticipates coulson to follow. 

            he moves, and almost expects an icer to the back. maybe a real bullet. maybe they’re past that, too. 

            he moves, and coulson stays. 

            at the door, he pauses to catch coulson’s eye one last time. 

            “give my best to the team,” he says. “you know — for old time’s sake. i’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.” 

[darlingnisi]

Celebration 2019 VIP Day 3

Opening Session

Spirited start to the day! Fams started a party line around the soundstage to Let’s Work.

JD Steele also led us in a sing along of Raspberry Beret

Bob Cavallo

Moderated by Bobby Z

Earth Wind and Fire’s studio the Complex was the inspiration for Paisley Park. They filmed pickups for Purple Rain there and Prince told Cavallo  “I want want one of these”

WB didn’t know much about Purple Rain until it was almost done. It was financially backed by Prince and Cavallo ( Cavallo said he only contributed about 20%...the rest was Prince’s money or advances on his royalties)

Cavallo’s management agreement was about to run out. He told Steve Fargnoli to try to get a Prince to sign a contract for 5 more years. Prince said “I’ll sign one if you get me a movie and not about some drug dealer and jeweler...and I want my name above the title.

They had trouble getting people on board to write the movie William (Bill) Glenn (of Brian’s Song) wrote the first version but it was “not edgy enough...too TV”

No director would sign with them

Watched a movie called Reckless. There was a kid sitting behind him who asked what he thought. Cavallo said it was okay...the kid said “Well I edited it.”

Cavallo had dinner with Albert Magnoli the writer of that movie to see if he’d sign on for Purple Rain. He initially passed. Cavallo “You passed? You don’t have a pot to piss in and you pass? I’d  pay you 75k and you’re passing.” Magnoli thought it was too square. Cavallo “Then rewrite it”

“Mo Austin didn’t have anything to do with Purple Rain”

“He made that movie Paul Simon made. That was a failure.”

WB passed on producing the movie, Guber Peters also passed, as well as others

Richard Pryor’s company Indigo Films did NOT pass! Jim Brown (the football player) was CEO at the time. Both Richard and Jim were thrilled to do it! However Jim got mad that Cavallo hired a cinematographer without checking with him as he wanted to hire Black staff to support the project. Bob said he didn’t have time to wait to find some so Indigo dropped the project.

They had a completion bond gaurantor for the film and ended up being 3-4 weeks behind at one point. To catch up, they got more cameras and filmed the movie at multiple angles vs doing several takes. This caught them up.

Promo department thought When Doves Cry was a flop. They wanted Let’s Go Crazy to be the lead single.

Cavallo managed Earth Wind & Fire. (Other info about Cavallo opening a night club his senior year of college which was very successful. Bill Cosby opened for acts when he was coming up on the scene. “He met his wife there and I guess he did other things...” *groan from the audience

On how Cavallo and Prince first linked up Prince had gone to an EWF show and said “When I saw that show, it scared me. I don’t know if I can do something that good.” Asked to meet their manager. Cavallo went to see his show...where he was wearing a Trench coat, panty hose, and g-string. He said “Well young man...show was great....but I don’t think it’s alright to go out on stage in your underwear.”

Prince : Okay I’ll take them off.

He said there was maybe 20 people at that particular show 

Purple Rain was made with 7.6 million dollars 

They had to fight to get it into theaters to show it. “It was the race thing”

Even WB wasn’t on board at first as a distributor. Cavallo was trying to rally them “If you’re a young Black person age 11-30 and you see Prince headlining his own movie, you’ll go see it opening night.” 

At first they could only get a couple of theaters...and were told they couldn’t do it in the south because they were worried about race riots.

Cavallo went to the Chairman of WB with his case and he was on board “Get me 800 theaters or I’ll get someone who will”. (These days movies open in about 2k theaters in the US)

Prince got 15% gross cash guarantee for 3 films

The Purple Rain sequel pitch Cavallo had for Prince  was Purple Rain 2 : Further Adventures of The Time. The Time went to Vegas and got in trouble with the mob and cops. Only showgirls liked them. Prince wasn’t in it except for a cameo to give advice.

He also tried to get P to get Madonna to star in Under The Cherry Moon

Prince wrote Under the Cherry Moon even though there’s another name on it.

Cavallo wasn’t a fan of Kristin Scott Thomas as the star. He gave Prince a tape of the options for actresses and put her last. 

Prince : “I see why you put her last in the group of girls you figured she would outshine the others!”

Cavallo went on to manage the Disney music catalog among other numerous things.

“The greatest joy I had in the music business was with Prince”

A memory : Prince calls “When are you gonna stop beating that dead horse?”

Cavallo : “What dead horse”

Prince : Earth Wind and Fire

Cavallo scolds him for saying such things

Prince : If you knew how good I was, you’d be meet me in Minneapolis

Cavallo thought about how cold it was there and sent Fargnoli instead

Tour Part 2

Video editing bay

More from Vienna 2014

Forever in My Life (With a Bass solo by P...noticed his voice and bass were turned WAY up in the mix)

Controversy

1999

Atrium

I had to smh at Peach being played during the moment of silence haha gosh #bouncingtitties

Cream top is in the Diamonds and Pearls room which is where I usually spend most of my time watching the show footage in there

Studio B

Nothing really new here if you’ve done a VIP or Ultimate VIP tour. 

The isolated vocals for Breakdown are still in the control room

We took pictures with one of the P mic stand Symbols. 

The coat on display on the right is the same one he’s wearing on the left

Screening

Musicology May 28, 2004 (Shout out to his sneakers)

Let’s Go Crazy

I Would Die 4 U

When Doves Cry

Baby I’m a Star

Shhh (Good job on the slow pans up his body btw)

DMSR

Acoustic Set (Little Red Corvette, Cream, Raspberry Beret 12:01, Adore, Sweet Thing, Dear Mr Man/Hit the Road Jack, 7) He was super chatty during this. Told the story of going to an after party from the previous night and a “da-runk” (how he said it lolol) guy told him his favorite song was Strawberry Barrette. P made sure to sing that as the lyric when he did Raspbert Beret.

The Funk Soldiers Concert

(I def sprinted up to the front for this! This is MY CREW!)

Rock and Roll is Alive

Chelsea Rogers

Party Up

Black Muse 🙌🏾

Life of the Party

13 They had a dance troupe of 6 young Black girls from a dance studio Prince donated to dancing to this and it gave me LIFE! SO cute and completely appropriate!

You Make My Sun Shine

SHADES OF UMBER OMG 🙌🏾 (Sorry for how I tweeted about this btw, this is what I meant as a nod to the boot listeners. One of the only times this was performed live was at Montreux 2013. It was also extra special because they had local young people doing this song with them and it sounded FANTASTIC!)

Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad

Guitar

Act of God

This was my favorite concert of all of them truly! They added nice touches like playing associated videos behind them or displaying the album art of the albums they were playing from. Their show is always a cross catalog musicology lesson of P’s discog and I appreciate that so much!

Also briefly talked to some reps from Sony again this day. I will say from our conversation I do trust that team with P’s music. They were not suits, they were FANS. Talked deep cuts and Prince nerd geekery with them. Really appreciate that the people trying to do things there are fams as much as we all are, truly. (No seriously I was like don’t look too close at my social media please and we laughed about it). Very excited about stuff that’s on the way! (Different department than the purple wax stuff so don’t ask, lol...)

Probably my favorite day of the 3 guys wow. 

[sol1056]

This is what my inbox looks like, now. One ask after another, and none of them happy. Are you paying attention, @dreamworksanimation​, @voltron​? Because this is what a dedicated and loyal fandom looks like when it gets tired of its loyalty being rewarded with nothing but contempt. 

Do the EPs themselves even care about their story anymore? Because at this point it feels more like they just warped it into a personal vendetta against the higher ups after they were forced to change their original vision. Trying to reinforce that their ideas were right, instead of adapting like professionals.

And then re-litigating their position in every interview, too, along with being really noisy about their animosity for the character they were forced to keep. 

More behind the cut.

If they had time to include pointless scenes with a space wolf they could have, idk, maybe used that screentime for some character development. But then again that requires basic writing skills and not copy-pasting your series together.

In twenty years of fandom, I have honestly never seen a hatch job of a season quite like S7. It’s one for the books, certainly. 

I still find it sad how many groups from different sides of a fandom can actually give a damn about its characters, story, world, and pacing while the actual writers themselves couldn’t even give a shit.

The EPs should’ve stuck with storyboarding.  

How could they disappoint so many fans? Every corner of the fandom is disappointed at VLD. When I started reading metas, I was certain the story was getting shitty just because of nostalgia, but now? After S7? To me sounds more like spite. "We can't do what we want so we'll make it shitty because we're children that don't want to listen to our bosses."

My own boss would string me up if I were to boast about a full do-over when the product was already in the can. She’d draw and quarter me on top of that, if I also publicly specified what the clients almost got, but didn’t.  

The only way I would watch a VLD spinoff is if JDS & LM were not producing it. I know that there would probably be lots of logistical complications that would come with that, but personally I just cannot sit through another show where the plot development is as nonsensical as VLD's currently is. I don't see how new writers could do worse tbh. If Netflix does a spinoff I hope they keep the same art team and animation studio but get new EPs, writers, and directors.

Agreed, but at this point, DW’s lost a lot of good faith from me. She-Ra’s been knocked right off my to-watch list. If this is how DW execs manage their projects, I’m not willing to risk falling down this rabbit-hole again.  

I felt uncomfortable when the season came out, and they started patting themselves on the back for choosing not to give Shiro a happy ending. I hope these EPs never get another show.

I’ll be keeping a careful eye on IMDB in the future. From other conversations, I know I’m not alone. I see those two names pop up, and it’s an immediate and flat no. Once was enough. More than enough. 

Petition to fire the EPs and everyone responsible for changing the story 2/3 parts in and violating everything it stood for and disrespecting the characters and the audience, and hire a new capable and respectful staff to rewrite the series from the point where everything was changed. An (actual) apology from DW and the story rewritten to be what it was supposed to. They owe us that.

Or find whomever did S1/S2, and put them back in charge. I’d be willing to forgo a formal apology, if DW just made clear they were fixing things -- whether that’s the staff or the story. Just do something.  

I wanna know the part DW played in this. That interview cleared up that DW didn't object and the EPs didn't have to fight. So did they go to DW with THIS specific storyline? 4 dead gays, 1 resurrected just to suffer, 2 evil ones? And that's what they were OK with & greenlighted? Or did the EPs go with 'just Shiro is gay & there's 3 more queer characters' and they got the OK and wrote and animated the rest themselves and showed that? Because "DW didn't find anything wrong morally" (as they said) is very different between these two cases.

That’s the statement I’d like to hear from DW: just where do they stand on that? Because you’re right, there’s a huge difference. Did the execs think they were okaying mild LGBT representation, or did they know and approve a double whammy of Bury Your Gays? Or did they know and figure controversy was better than silence? It’s a matter of degree.

Who's really to blame for how VLD is handled story-wise? The EP's or the higher ups at DW? Assuming that the DW execs get the final say, then they're the ones that okay'd the clone storyline and making Keith the BP for good while Shiro is turned into a side character.

I have no idea, but we’re three weeks out, now, and no one’s getting any happier. The longer it goes on, the more it’s all going to be associated not with this one production staff, but the entirety of DW’s TV brand. 

If DW has their shit together (not allowing the EPs to kill Shiro which was smart), it looks like DW trusted the EPs but the EPs failed. If DW apologizes to us and fires the EPs for the many things they did wrong in VLD, and announces a sequel with competent and decent creators who will fix the series to respect the S1/S2 premise, I'd watch it.

I might, but I’d need to see the new staff’s IMDB credits, first. DW has lost the benefit of the doubt from me, after this utter destruction of a childhood favorite. And even then, the very first sign of a multiple-minority character being treated as the series’ punching bag? Outta there. 

[antisocial-wings]

I’m not sure if it’s too late but I couldn’t let this contest go by without putting in an entry!  This is for the contest @shipwreckedcomedy is holding for their new short film The Case of the Gilded Lily, which looks amazing so how could I not?  If you like film noir (or at least noir-inspired short films), comedy, mystery, or just talent in general PLEASE consider donating to the kickstarter for this awesome project here!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1029702011/the-case-of-the-gilded-lily

So without further ado, this short fic is called ‘Breaking’.

     The tall grass of the African plains swayed calmly in the breeze, paying no mind to Evelyn Buckminster as she ran for her life.

     “What are we going to do, Ev?” asked her companion, strapping young zoologist Henry Write as he ran along beside her.  The distant sound of a lion’s fierce roar could be heard behind them.

     Without slowing her speed Evelyn surveyed their surroundings.  Flat grassy plains, as far as the eye could see.  The few trees or rocks scattered across the land were not nearly of any size to hide them from the hungry beast that pursued them not far behind.  She slowed and spun around frantically, her eyes scanning the environment as quickly as her mind was racing to think of one of her usual last-minute escapes.  But her eyes, and her mind, found nothing.

     “Oh, gee Henry!” she admitted, defeated.  “I just don’t know!  It looks like the hunter is becoming the prey.”

     Henry was silent for a moment.  “Well then Evelyn, doll.  It looks like this might be the end of the line for us.”

     “You can’t mean that!” she gasped.

     “I’m just sorry my damn assignment dragged you all the way out here in the wilderness with me,” he looked down at the dirt beneath him.

     “Don’t be,” she shook her head firmly and took both his hands.  “Why, it was my fault we’re in this mess!  I should have known not to observe the cubs’ behavior from such a close distance while their mother was around.”

     As if in response another roar sounded, this time much closer.

     “But if this is it, baby,” he grabbed her by the shoulders, “then I just wanted to say you are the most dynamite dame I’ve ever met, and that’s the truth.  Call me selfish but I’m glad I get to spend these last few moments with you.  I’d rather be eaten alive out here on these damn plains than have to grow old without you ‘till I’m eventually crushed by the feather of loneliness.”

     “What?” she blinked.

     “It’s an expression.”

     “Oh.  Oh Henry!” she exclaimed, before he swept her up in an intense final kiss right as the jaws of death were upon them.

     “And…..CUT!”

     Immediately Wilhelmina and Cliff broke apart, their burning passion from just a moment before suddenly dissolving into polite disinterest, with a few casual murmurs of “well done” to each other.  Nothing they hadn’t done dozens of times before with every take of this film.

     “Miss Vanderjetski, Mr. Calloway, great job.  Brilliant performance, as usual,” the director remarked without so much as a glance up from his notes towards them.  “Alright people, reset!  Scene twelve shoots in exactly thirty minutes!”

     Thirty minutes of prepping and retouching before she had to go right back into it.  That was the “downtime” of an actress these days.

     “Wilhelmina, darling, superstar, that was phenomenal!” gushed that greasy-haired manager of hers as he rushed over with her usual post-scene mineral water.  “Why if I’m not mistaken I do believe I smell another Oscar in the near future!”

     “Oh, I don’t know…” the young starlet directed an unsure gaze toward the set crew as they wheeled a glaringly fake stuffed lion onto the already crude replica of the African wilderness.  “I’m just not so sure about this film anymore.  Are you sure it was the right choice to turn down that other role?  In the wizard movie?”

     “What, that new Oz picture?” her manager sniffed, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.  “Trust me doll, it’s a sure-fired flop, it’ll never take off.”  He turned to blow smoke away from her direction.  “I’m telling you, that Garland dame is taking a bullet, it’ll be the beginning and the end of her career, you mark my words.  But THIS-” he gestured grandly toward the painted backdrop of the African plains.  “THIS is a picture that’ll have the crowds talking for decades to come.  By the next century, there won’t be a single soul that hasn’t heard of the iconic cinematic masterpiece “Sufferin’ Safari”!  Have I ever steered you wrong sweetheart?”

     “I suppose not…” she replied slowly, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the paper-mache disaster that was supposed to pass as a boulder.  “No, you’re right,” she said resolutely, pointedly ignoring every tiny voice in the back of her mind that said otherwise.  With a wink and an “of course I am!” her manager disappeared into the mass of moving set pieces and extras.

     “Besides,” she said aloud, more for her own benefit than anyone that might have been within earshot.  “I am, after all, Wilhelmina Vanderjetski.  What kind of trouble could a name with so much weight in this town get into anyways?”

     “What indeed…” said a voice behind her, causing her to jump.  Her curls bounced as she whipped her head around to face the source of the voice and found two unfamiliar young faces that didn’t look at all like they belonged on set.

     The female stranger, a dark-haired beauty dressed in a stylish skirt suit sighed with a delicate roll of her eyes.  “You’ll have to forgive tall-dark-and-mysterious over here, he’s still learning to keep his inner monologue to himself.”

     “Who are you?” the starlet demanded, her eyes flickering between the two faces.

     “No need for fear or suspicion, Miss Vanderjetski,” the young man in the fedora assured.  “At least, not yet.  The name is Ford Phillips, and the game is detective…ing.  Detectiving?  Detecting?”  He glanced at his companion for help.

     “Investigating?” she offered with another roll of her eyes.

     “Yes!  Investigating….is the game… To reiterate the name is Ford Phillips.  Yes.”  He cleared his throat.  “And this is my associate-”

     “Fig Wineshine,” the young woman beside him interrupted, extending a hand.  “Ace junior reporter and TEMPORARY partner” she glanced pointedly at the man, “to Ford over here.  We’re on a case right now, following a hot scoop which you may or may not know you’re wrapped up in tighter than a fly caught in a web.”  When Wilhelmina remained in a stunned silence, the young reporter’s dark eyes shifted again toward her colleague with a confident gleam, the look of a captain that’s just caught her Moby Dick.

     “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

     “And…..CUT!”

     Immediately all temporary illusions were dropped as characters regressed to actors and the director stepped out from behind the camera.

     “Sarah, Tom, good job with the safari scene.  Sean and Sinead I wanna do that final shot one more time from a front angle.  Let’s run it from there,” William Stribling announced, repositioning the camera to a better location.

     Sean turned to Sinead, who had temporarily removed her ace reporter’s hat to plump up the curls that had been somewhat flattened beneath it.  “I don’t know, do you really think we need to throw that feather reference to Poe Party in there?  Seems kinda cheesy.”

     “Oh come on, they’ll love it!”  Sinead replaced her hat on her head, smirking.  “Everyone loves a good fourth wall break.”

Okayyyyy so I might have gotten a little carried away with the prompt but once I started writing it was hard to stop.  I also may or may not have taken the title of Wilhelmina’s film from one of the newspaper articles in the kickstarter video.  So there it is, my very first fic ever!  Hope you enjoyed, and PLEASE don’t forget to consider donating to this amazing team of people!

[infernalkrp]

HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.

STUDENT FILE. TAKAHASHI, Keiko.

PERSONAL. Takahashi Keiko, born on 18/10/2000 ( age 17 ) in Nagoya, Japan. Currently receiving no scholarship.

ACADEMIC. Second year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing history of fine arts and history of cinema. Currently ranking in Gamma Tier, assigned to dorm room GF-01.

SOCIAL. Participates in the Gardening Club, as member, and the Swimming Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as member.

RESTRICTED ACCESS.

HISTORY.

keiko is born as the second child to associate economics professor takahashi takeshi (a second-generation zainichi with chongryon upbringing) and advertising director shirota yumiko (a second-generation zainichi with mindan upbringing) in nagoya, though the family moves out to tokyo a year later when takeshi is appointed tenured professorship at waseda university.

her parents are well-regarded figures in their respective fields and work diligently to provide a stable foundation for their two children. keiko grows up without much of the hardships her own parents had faced as youth.

her brother, eight years her senior, sets an example for his little sister to follow. he attends amji institute after expressing his desires to learn korean proper (and not at weekend school or preparing gimjang with grandma) and study in the west for university.

the good-natured keiko is also easily distracted, with constantly flip-flopping interests. they think amji might instill the work ethic and resolve she lacks—and what older brother keisuke emerged from high school chock full of.

keiko undergoes intense private tutoring a year before application season. she barely tests in.

attending amji proves to be a double-edged sword. within her first year keiko quickly hones in on an area of study that she excels at and sees herself possibly pursuing after graduating, but it amounts to little as she struggles terribly with the rest of the school’s curriculum.

her failures don’t faze her; she manages to scrape by with her less-than-stellar performance, choosing to focus the bulk of her energy on things that matter instead: history, nail art, her budding herb garden, neo-noir night, and ghosts.

LIMITATIONS.

dad’s korean is getting worse as he gets older. you’re acutely aware of the hot embarrassment that tinges your ears red when he struggles to communicate with the waitress as he squints with great difficulty at the menu on the wall. what’s that one, second from the bottom? sorry, what was that? can you repeat one more time, please? and then, giving up, we’ll take one, before he turns back to you with a slow smile.

dad. you say, and your voice rises even though you don’t mean to get impatient with him. he’s just trying his best. he probably feels embarrassed, too, looking at the way his upper lip crooks and he reaches a hand behind his head, patting where the hair is thinnest. he switches back.

iyaaa, i’m sure it’ll be tasty. i’ve never had this regional cuisine before.

neither have you. everything about this is new. even having dad sit here in front of you like this is new. mom left a week ago on business but dad said he’d stay with you until you kicked him out. he’s actually leaving tomorrow. you think maybe he’d said it out of guilt for pushing you into this situation in the first place but mostly you think he said it because he loves you.

you love dad, too, even if you don’t have the courage or sense to tell him that right then and there. you pick up your metal chopsticks and nibble on an over-seasoned piece of fried fish cake, savoring this moment for all that it’s worth. when the mystery soup comes out of the kitchen, dad stands up to ladle it into your bowl. plop plop. he tells you to eat up before it gets cold. his voice sounds far away.

you take a bite. it’s comforting. the potato balls are soft and bounce happily on your tongue. the broth is gentle, and warms you down to your core. it’s simple food but emotion hits you like a wave and there are tears welling in your eyes when you look back up. dad.

by this time tomorrow, he’ll be on a plane back to tokyo and you’ll be on your own. you won’t see your family until summer. it will be like this—rare holidays and fleeting reunions—until the day comes when you assume your parents’ place and they are children again. the knowledge was always distantly there but it takes a bowl of hot soup for it to register. you look at dad’s bald spot and the first tear trails down your cheek. dad, i don’t want you to leave. when he sees you crying, he panics like you expect him to and grabs as many napkins as he can from the table dispenser to catch your tears.

keicchan, don’t cry. tochan’s right here. i’ll cancel the flight if you want me to. i’ll stay as long as you want.

you can hear a lump lodged in his throat, too. but you shake your head and shove another spoonful of soup into your mouth. you have to go and i have to stay. you chant the words over and over between chews as dad reaches across the table to hold your other hand. these are necessary growing pains. you have to go and i have to stay.

ASPIRATIONS.

it’s field day and the relay has taken everything out of you, maybe even a chunk of your soul. you lay on the grass snow angel style in the dead of summer. the grass underneath is poking past the fabric of your shorts and prickles at your skin and even though it’s uncomfortable you are simply too exhausted to budge.

your eyes are closed but you hear her approaching you, feet padding softly on the ground until they’re next to your left pigtail. she crouches down and tells you to open your mouth so you do. then she pours water into your mouth. the water is cold and clean. it feels like that missing chunk of your soul has just slipped back into you—or that a part of her has entered you. “thanks,” you manage feebly, and cross an arm over your eyes to block out the sun but more importantly to cover your face. you think maybe the redness from having overexerted yourself will obliterate any chance of her finding out that she’s the one actually setting you on fire.

when you no longer hear her within earshot, you sit up and open your eyes. she’s left a water bottle next to where your right pigtail had been. you chug it down as quickly as you can to extinguish the flames in your face and the water rises in your belly, sloshing heavy.

BEHAVIOR.

 [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] thinking of just getting my hair done during chuseok [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] but that reminds me [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] [x] [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] ??? [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] did you do these yourself or [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] hahaha no i wish [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i just got them done by a friend i can rec you if you want in ;) [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] who omg [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] uhh you might not know her [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] takahashi keiko [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] whattt no we were in the same philosophy section last year i remember her she was cute. and kinda weird lol [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] don’t have her kakao or anything tho so yeah put in a good word for me [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] does she take appointments or smth? and how $$? [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i’m not sure actually she runs a mysterious operation and practically gives manicures away for free like i only paid ten thousand [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] not surprised lol she like never talked during our section meetings and was always sick or asleep [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] she must have skipped hahaha she never gets sick [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] also recall her like.. filling up entire notebooks with flip art. and her handwriting is mad good so figures [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] yeah IT IS omg so nice [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] she’s sweet though!! i don’t see her a lot bc she’s always out with her club friends doing god knows what but she’s super sweet [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] how do you know her then [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] we’re neighbors [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i’m a gamma bitch remember [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] oh that’s right. dumb bitch [ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] you wanna stay a dusty hands bitch? [ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] love youuu

[kidsviral-blog]

Meet Sage The Gemini, The Bay Area Rap Scene's Surprise Breakout Star

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/meet-sage-the-gemini-the-bay-area-rap-scenes-surprise-breakout-star/

Meet Sage The Gemini, The Bay Area Rap Scene's Surprise Breakout Star

The “Gas Pedal” rapper might be the first genuine pop-crossover star to come from this tight-knit, influential community. But if he looks like he’s not enjoying the ride, it’s because he’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Northern California.

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Photograph by Aylin Zafar for BuzzFeed

“Good luck, put some talcum powder on your nuts, and drink some water.” Sage the Gemini, a 21-year-old rapper from Fairfield, Calif., laughs as he reads aloud a text message from his friend IamSu, a fellow Bay Area rapper and producer named Sudan Ahmeer Williams. Su is only three years older than Sage, but he’s become an encouraging, older-brother-type figure in the past couple of years, and the two have recorded, performed, and traveled together as a part of HBK Gang (short for Heartbreak Gang), a crew of rappers, producers, and video directors that Su co-founded.

It’s late October 2013 and Sage — born Dominic Wynn Woods — is getting his hair cut in a greenroom backstage at BET before making his TV debut on 106 & Park. Standing at 6 feet 5 inches, Sage easily towers over most people, but his presence and movements feel more like that of an overgrown kid than anything intimidating. Toned and fit, he has the look of a heartthrob, and girls on social media coo over the jade-hued eyes that gave Sage his stage name. He’s joined in the room by his four dancers — Dmac, Chonkie, Liyah, and Wani — and his DJ, Lucci. Most of them are a bit younger than Sage, but they all grew up together in Fairfield and have been friends since high school.

Sage is the only member of the HBK crew with his own backup dancers — dance has always been an important part of growing up in the Bay, a crucial element of the area’s culture and energy, even if the best-known recent signature moves have come out of the L.A. hip-hop scene, where the “jerk” and “Cat Daddy” dance fads bloomed. But Sage’s two breakout hits, “Gas Pedal” and “Red Nose,” and their accompanying dances have resurrected dance in the Bay thanks to people uploading videos of their own routines to YouTube and Vine.

Seated around a TV screen in the BET greenroom, Sage’s crew watches his DJ Lucci check lighting and sound onstage. Lucci dances alone, turning side to side, his arms drumming up and down, like Sage does in the “Gas Pedal” video. Lucci’s hair is long, curly, and half-braided, and he’s unaware that his friends are watching him. “He just came out of the womb dancing!” Sage laughs. “The doctor ain’t even cut the umbilical cord, he’s already got it, swinging!” He jumps up and simulates coming out of the womb while dancing.

With his day-one friends, Sage is at ease — but he regularly alludes to a time when he was less comfortable and less accepted. “They used to call me Lil Bow Wow’s little brother when I was younger,” Sage tells his manager, Stretch, referring to the ‘00s kid rapper now known just as Bow Wow, and one of 106 & Park’s hosts. “Because I was light-skinned and my nose didn’t really fit my face. It was hecka funny because now those same people are gonna be watching and be like, ‘What the fuck?’”

Public appearances with famous people will be the norm for him over the next couple of months. He signed a major-label deal with Republic Records last summer, and since, his schedule has been filled with promo appearances at radio stations, tour dates with HBK, and performances at high schools, all pointing toward the March release of his debut album, Remember Me.

After a quick rehearsal, the group performs two songs during the show’s live taping: “Gas Pedal” — the single that caught Republic’s attention and has gone platinum since the label signed Sage, with almost 45 million views on YouTube. Justin Bieber even hopped on the official remix of the song for the album. His second hit, “Red Nose,” has been certified gold.

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Photograph by Aylin Zafar for BuzzFeed

After the performance, Bow Wow interviews Sage. He’s more self-deprecating than you might expect for a budding star, pointing out that he’s not “really rapping” seriously on “Red Nose.” “That’s just catchy stuff,” he says. He’s reluctant to step into the playboy role expected of good-looking, famous twentysomethings, but he’s also a confident romantic, telling Bow Wow that he’s ready to get married. “I been through a whole lot, and I don’t wanna just be runnin’ around on Twitter like, ‘Hey… come backstage,’ you know? I’ve been a loverboy since the seventh grade,” Sage tells Bow Wow.

Later, the crowd goes wild as Dmac teaches Bow Wow the “Gas Pedal” dance — a variation on the J12, a dance made up by a 19-year-old from Oakland, and which was popularized around the Bay Area by dance videos soundtracked by local rapper Clyde Carson’s song “Slow Down.” “Ahh, that was so cool!” one of the dancers, Wani, says as the crew leaves BET’s studio. As everyone else celebrates, Sage walks ahead, scrolling through Twitter on his phone. He says he wishes a few things were slightly different with his performance, but overall he’s happy.

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Photograph by Aylin Zafar for BuzzFeed

In early January, Sage, IamSu, and the rest of the HBK Gang take photos for a magazine feature story in the Berkeley Hills. That evening, after the HBK guys have gone home, Sage is sitting with his younger cousin Jodie and a handful of childhood friends at a Popeyes in Berkeley, everyone giggling as Sage walks back and forth across the restaurant, filling its small space with his long-limbed dancing. He does voices: impressions of friends, a wheezy Donald Duck. Later, pausing their conversation mid-sentence without skipping a beat, they tell an older woman she’s “very pretty” as she’s leaving. She’s flattered. Sage is charismatic, charming, and sweet, without it ever feeling over-the-top or disingenuous. He’s quick to compliment people, and he looks them straight in the eyes, earnestly, while he does it.

By having his first two singles sell really well, securing a nice major-label deal, and quickly recording an album that hasn’t been shelved, Sage flouts prevailing notions about what a rapper from the Bay Area can do. The region has long operated in its own kind of bubble, at the margins of the national hip-hop conversation. In the 1990s, “when people thought of ‘West Coast music,’ they’d think of L.A.,” says Sage’s manager Stretch. The Bay has produced a handful of nationally recognized acts over time, like the imaginative linguistic stylist E-40 and pimp-rap pioneer Too Short. More recently, labels flocked to the Bay in the mid ‘00s, signing acts like The Team and The Federation, who were associated with what was locally known as the hyphy movement.

None of those acts found enduring nationwide success, but you can still regularly hear hyphy-era tracks from Keak Da Sneak and E-40 on the radio in the Bay, where classics never go out of style and local tastes still rule the airwaves. “The Bay just marches to its own drum,” IamSu tells me on the phone in March. And, if uncredited, the influence of the Bay’s minimal, slapping production can be heard in today’s prevailing West Coast sound, the simple keyboard-plink productions of L.A.’s DJ Mustard. “That hyphy movement woke L.A. up,” E-40 tells me in December. But on the national scale it was always hard to get people to care. “We just get looked over [in the Bay].”

“Bay music has a lot more funk in it,” IamSu says. “It’s a lot looser … The whole movement is more expressive.” But if mid-2000s hyphy could sometimes veer goofy in its funkiness, Sage’s music is slick. He delivers his verses in a deadpan drawl and in a soft-spoken near-whisper. “Gas Pedal” is light and fun, but not at the expense of sounding sexy.

Clyde Carson, a former member of The Team whose 2012 Bay hit “Slow Down” inspired “Gas Pedal,” says that he immediately recognized a star quality in Sage — the kind that gives him a shot to break out of the Bay’s insular community. “I’m always hearing songs that kind of emulated our sound,” Carson tells me. “But it was something ‘bout him that I was like, this kid is … [With] this kid it might not just be the ‘Gas Pedal.’” Carson says Sage has a charisma that’s hard to come by for most artists. “His personality is big. I always tell him, ‘You have to go into acting and all that shit, man.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t waste that personality. Get your ass on TV and get all the money you can get.’”

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Courtesy of Sage the Gemini / Via instagram.com

Born in Hunter’s Point, San Francisco, Sage moved with his family to Fairfield in the North Bay when he was 7. “Everybody moved out because either we would’ve been dopeheads, dead, or in jail,” Sage told radio personality Sway last fall. In the suburbs, he found outlets for his showboat personality. In middle and high school, he recorded songs on his computer with a cheap plug-in microphone, acted in school and traveling stage plays, and made comedy videos that he posted to his own YouTube channel. “I would post a funny video, then another funny video, then a song. Then a funny video, then a song,” Sage says.

In high school, Sage and his little brother mowed lawns and cleaned garages to earn money to buy recording equipment, a detail he brings up on “Put Me On,” a song from Remember Me that’s dedicated to the naysayers in his hometown:

“I’m from Fairfield and n****s still mug me the hardest / Just because I can’t help you n****s be artists? / And got the nerve to tell me, ‘Don’t forget where I started’? / I know where I started / N***a, that’s the problem / Tryna buy equipment where money was the problem / I can outsmart ‘em / Me and my brother Cadence / Both 13, tryna clean n****s’ places / Just to buy a first microphone at Gordon’s.”

Fairfield is actually pretty remote; in the northeast corner of the Bay Area, up past Vallejo, it’s far from the center of the Bay’s rap scene. Sage grew up watching young crews of Bay rappers like The Team, whose 2004 single “It’s Gettin Hot” was a regional smash, and The Pack, the Berkeley crew of skater hippies from which enigmatic rapper Lil B emerged. Tucked away in Fairfield, watching other people rap like it was a team sport, he felt isolated and alone.

“People were just rude,” Sage’s cousin Jodie, who grew up acting in school and regional plays with Sage and learning about poetry from him, tells me in Berkeley in January. “They always had nice clothes and always had cars and money. We didn’t always have all of that. [We] couldn’t fit in with everybody.”

Sage was good-looking enough to model, even appearing in underwear campaigns. (He wouldn’t reveal what brands, but when I throw out Calvin Klein and Hanes, he says I’m “not far off.”) He remembers feeling ugly, and it seems he returns to this well of teenage frustration often, to propel himself. “Girls didn’t like me in school,” he says. “I didn’t have nice clothes.”

On Remember Me’s title track, he directs a taunting refrain at anyone who teased him: “Fuck the cool crowd, bitch, I’m a nerd.” And later: “They used to treat a n***a like a stepchild / I felt like that white dude on 8 Mile.” That Sage compares himself to Eminem doesn’t come off like a throwaway joke. Like Em, he dropped out of high school to focus solely on music, and now sees rap as a means to annihilate his opponents and prove doubters wrong. It seems that Sage wants to release a successful album, at least in part, to seek validation from the popular kids who brushed past him and the girls who dismissed him.

In 2012, after “Gas Pedal” started picking up steam in the Bay Area, Sage posted a video of thanks to his supporters on his YouTube channel. Sitting in the same bedroom where he recorded many of his comedy videos, shirtless, he dispensed some advice to young people looking to try to make it in rap. “For those who know me, you know my real name is Dominic Woods. I went to Clearwood, Dover, Fairfield High, and Rodriguez. If you was there with me, you would know a lot of people wasn’t with me,” he says earnestly into the camera. “If you’re out there and you want to rap and a lot of people isn’t with you, let ‘em go. Because take it from me, I got passed up by all the girls, all the n****s laughed at me when I wanted to get a collab and stuff — but we’re not here to talk about that, it’s all positivity.”

Now many of the naysayers who ignored Sage previously have emerged from the woodwork, as often happens at the dawn of someone’s success, asking for favors. On “Put Me On” from Remember Me, Sage raps about the pressure he feels from people who feel entitled to a piece of his success: “I can’t help you if I’m tryna help myself / Get off my chest, I can’t invest with no wealth / Like I said, most of y’all wasn’t there when I started / Might’ve ‘made it’ on paper / But I’m still ‘new artist.’”

Jodie says Sage wants people to work hard for themselves, not even giving Jodie, who’s pursuing an R&B career, a free handout to jump on his songs without first working for it. “They feel a certain type of way because he’s not saying, ‘Oh, yeah, let me put you on my song and help you get up there,’” Jodie explains. “But he did that to me, and I’m his own family. Because nobody gave him what he had,” Jodie says. (Sage later tells me that he’s kicked Jodie out of his house in an effort to motivate him. “He started getting too comfortable,” he says. “Eventually he can come back, but I want him to realize he needs to work for it.”)

Sage has been working at his music for years, and he fits right into HBK’s energetic group dynamic, but he’s still the new guy, and his popularity is a recent phenomenon. “He came up so fast, it’s crazy,” IamSu tells me later. “He was going through hella shit that took me years to find out, [and he went through it] in 10 months.”

“For [Sage] to be higher up than anyone in the Bay Area in such a short amount of time so quickly, it’s just amazing,” Jodie says, while stealing a French fry from Sage at Popeyes.

“I’m not bigger than Su, though,” Sage interrupts, shaking his head. That’s debatable — Su brought together HBK Gang and has landed several songs on the radio, but, on his own, he’s never released a single as successful as “Gas Pedal.” Still Sage sees him as his idol and biggest influence, even saying later that he still gets nervous around him.

So does Sage just not want to jinx it? He shakes his head again, looking down at the table: “I’m not bigger than Su.”

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Photograph by Aylin Zafar for BuzzFeed

Both Sage and Su have set themselves up to be big because they’re producers as well as rappers, according to Stretch, who’s been deeply entrenched in the Bay rap scene for well over a decade, most notably managing the late Bay legend hyphy icon, Mac Dre, in addition to acts like Mistah F.A.B. and Kreayshawn. “Hip-hop is moved by producers, and if you don’t have an identifying producer or an identifying sound, it’s not gonna work,” he says. “The problem you had before with the Bay Area was there were no set producers. Sage is a producer. Su’s a producer. They want to have more input and they helped shape the sound that we have today. It’s coming from a different place than just rapping on someone else’s beats.”

Sage and Su’s sound cherry-picks from mob music (the throbbing, slower sound that preceded hyphy in the Bay), hyphy’s up-tempo joyousness, and jerk music, the dance-driven L.A. sound that came after hyphy. And as Clyde Carson distinguishes it, Sage and Su’s sound has all the fun of hyphy’s original iteration, but none of its ties to violence. Sage seems to live by that philosophy. He doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, and he semi-jokingly calls himself a “safe thug.” He frequently talks about making music that will keep kids more interested in dancing than in handling guns. He was raised in the church and around women, he says, and it shows. He doesn’t allow girls backstage and has an almost old-fashioned, courtship-centric approach to relationships. In March, he told DJ Vlad that Kaylin Garcia, a model, dancer, and former cast member of Love and Hip-Hop, was his current love interest, but in subsequent radio interviews he’s revealed that they’ve met in person only recently. He tells me that the most special someone in his life is his daughter, Lai’lah, who’s 3.

Sage is betting that his underdog story and his update on the sounds of the Bay can appeal universally. But that mission comes with its own pressure. On the “Gas Pedal” remix featuring Justin Bieber, Sage hints at the weight placed on his shoulders: “It’s going up / No explaining the escalator / I’m tryna keep this alive / the Bay’s respirator.” And though Sage says that Republic hasn’t put any pressure on how his music is supposed to sound, the major label game still has rules: “It’s numbers. At the end of the day they want hits,” IamSu says. And Sage has a unique sense of just what in the Bay sound will resonate on a larger scale, he adds. He knows hits. “The kind of artist Sage is, he’s a superstar.”

Republic’s West Coast A&R Naim McNair, who signed acts like E-40, Clyde Carson, and The Federation to major labels years ago, signed Sage last year while scouting for new talent in the Bay. He says that the new generation may be laying a more lasting foundation than the prior hyphy movement. “I think other things come and go, but the kids from the Bay have definitely built a foundation in California that will last for a long time,” he says. “And there’s a lot of unity now.”

Yet there’s a natural star quality that his previous signees may not quite have had. “We definitely see him as someone who’s gonna push the needle, at this point he can do anything he wants. If he worked at it, he could play for the 49ers.” All that confidence, McNair says, stems from the years of hard work Sage endured in the isolation of his bedroom, and even still today. “He’s probably one of the most disciplined artists I’ve ever worked with.”

For as playful as he is in person, Sage is also his own harshest critic. With Remember Me, he tries to show he’s got the skill to stay in the game for more than two hits. “I’ll actually be rapping on [the album] instead of saying ‘spoon’ and ‘fork’ and ‘red nose.’ That catchy stuff that caught people’s attention; it’s like one of those things you have to do to break the atmosphere and get out into space.” But as much as he believes in his music, he’s still nervous and hesitant to boast or declare his album a success. He’s hesitant to make any assumptions about how his album will be received — or how he even feels about all of it — before there is a way to quantify its success. “I’ll see how the turnout is and then go from there.”

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Photograph by Macey Foronda for BuzzFeed

It’s Tuesday, March 25, the day of Remember Me’s release, and Sage is hanging out in the BuzzFeed’s New York headquarters — geeking out over seeing Law & Order star Christopher Meloni (who’s dropped by the office for an interview) and joking around with the life-size cutouts of celebrities around the office. He’s tired, though. It’s been a long day of promotional appearances and interviews and there’s more to go — a cycle that even seasoned veterans can struggle through, but is a true test for those new to the big-time. “It’s whatever,” he says. “I’ll be happy when I hit number one or I’m winning awards.” For Sage, there needs to be a clear metric to define just what that success looks like — haters can hate, but numbers can’t lie, and he made this album for the critics back home.

After taping a performance for David Letterman with IamSu, Sage zonks out in his hotel room. The last thing he wants to do is go out to a club, but there’s an album release party at trendy Meatpacking District spot 1 Oak that was arranged and put on his schedule. He’s performing two songs and there’s no way out of it.

1 Oak is bustling with groups of drunk out-of-towners, 19-year-old-looking city kids celebrating birthdays, and fashion models clad in skintight dresses and heels. A quick survey of the room reveals that no one is really there for the release party, nor do they know who Sage the Gemini is (at least not by name — they seem to recognize his songs later in the night). Robin Thicke bounds into the club with some young twentysomethings to join one of the groups near the small DJ stage. Sage shows up to the club around 1:50 a.m. with HBK rapper Kool John, their friend Rex, and Stretch. Kool John’s immediately having a good time, enjoying the drinks and orienting himself in the space, checking out a girl on top of a couch dancing against a wall. The crowd is getting down to a mix of twerk-friendly West Coast hyphy and ratchet songs, and the DJ takes the mic to announce that “Sage the Gemini is IN the buildiiiing!”

Sage, however, is sitting slouched over in the corner, his hoodie pulled over his head, absorbed in his phone. He hasn’t gotten much sleep in the past few days and he’s exhausted, and isn’t interested in talking to anyone. The juxtaposition between the debauchery and fun being had by Robin Thicke and whoever was willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a bottle of vodka and the lone Sage, whom the party was in honor of, is a little puzzling to watch.

Most 21-year-old rappers on the day of their debut would be reveling in all of this — if not the excess, then the spotlight. Sage stands behind the DJ booth on a small stage before he’s about to perform, observing the frenzy in front of him. He’s staring into space, cool and unaffected, and delivers his two hit songs with pitch-perfect tone and agility.

At the end of the set, Robin Thicke grabs a mic and starts chanting Sage’s name to the raucous crowd. Sage bursts into a huge smile, looking bewildered as he pulls out his phone to take a video of one of pop’s biggest stars not only acknowledging him, but giving him props. It’s one of those surreal moments that happen at the beginning of an artist’s career. Sage may not care about the perks and glamour, but he sure as hell cares about who’s paying attention.

View this image ›

Photograph by Aylin Zafar for BuzzFeed

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/azafar/sage-the-gemini-bay-area-interview

[junker-town]

How to start a new bowl game, in 9 simple steps

As told by the people who run them.

In 1990, college football had 19 FBS (then Division I-A) bowl games. In 2000, it had 25. In 2010, it had 35. In 2016, it had 41, if you count the Playoff National Championship.

Bowl games are a business, and business has never been more booming. The slate has more than doubled as organizers and TV networks have decided they could make more money by having more games.

If you wanted to start a bowl game yourself, how would you do it? The short answer is that you’d fill out some forms and apply.

The long answer:

1. You’ll need a title sponsor.

The going rate for most games is in the seven figures.

In evaluating bowl applications, the NCAA asks organizers for title and presenting sponsors, but games have gotten approved before lining them up. Still, they’re a stable source of revenue that doesn’t depend on attendance or TV ratings. Few bowl games ever go more than a year without one.

A common tack is to hunt national brands with local roots. Bowls that have done that include the Foster Farms in Northern California, the AutoZone Liberty in Memphis, the New Era Pinstripe in New York, the Valero Alamo in San Antonio, and Belk in Charlotte.

“That’s a critical component from a revenue standpoint, but it’s more than that,” Foster Farms Bowl executive director Ryan Oppelt says. “It’s having a synergy with a partner in the region that can help to kind of buy into what you’re doing, that invests not only their money but also their manpower, some of their assets in terms of helping to promote the game. It’s a unique buy, right? It’s one major event out of the year.”

Another is to market the theme of a game toward a specific field of business. That’s how the Fort Worth Bowl ultimately became the Bell Helicopter and later Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl.

“When we went to get Bell Helicopter, we had had a relationship with them already as the Fort Worth Bowl, but it wasn’t near the level of a title,” says the game’s exec director, Brant Ringler. “And they were like, ‘Hey, we’ll support a football game, but what’s that hook or that niche that’s going to put it over the top?’ Once we changed our name to the Armed Forces Bowl, they said, ‘Wow, this is our customer.’”

One more avenue: Start a bowl game for charity and find a business that’s interested in supporting that same cause.

“We did our homework, and we know that AutoNation is involved heavily in cancer research,” Cure Bowl executive director Alan Gooch says.

So we have the AutoNation Cure Bowl in Orlando.

2. You should probably have a trophy, logo, mascot, and stuff.

One popular bowl trophy route: fill a literal bowl with stuff your game is named after.

Photo by Loren Orr/Getty Images

Actually, just copy the Potato Bowl for this whole section.

Photo by Loren Orr/Getty Images

3. You’ll need a TV partner, probably ESPN, which might just buy you.

National exposure from TV is why a title sponsorship is valuable.

Thirty-five of the 40 FBS bowl games are on Disney’s ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC.

Those aren’t just television assets. ESPN owns 14 bowls through its event-planning arm, ESPN Events. Some of those are acquisitions of existing bowls, and others are games that the network just decided to start to make more money.

Your TV partner will have more say than you will in the date and kickoff time of your game.

4. You’ll need to line up teams.

Those usually come via deals with conferences. Most have tie-ins with specific leagues, though some change from year to year. The Frisco Bowl has an at-large bid, as do three of the New Year’s Six games, when they aren’t Playoff bowls. BYU and Army often make their own side deals as independents.

You might land a deal with a conference that has a bowl draft, with a pecking order of games choosing their teams. Hope you’re high on the list! You might get a tie-in with a league like the SEC, which basically assigns teams to its middle-tier bowls. Hope you’re a good lobbyist!

If you’re lucky enough to get good teams, that’s great. More important is getting teams that draw well.

“You really gamble a lot on that, team selection. But it means everything,” says Ken Haines, the Raycom Sports founder who started what’s now the Belk Bowl in 2002.

The basic factors, according to Liberty Bowl exec director Steve Ehrhart:

“We’d be trying to avoid repeats, trying to have a good matchup with the SEC team, who’s gonna bring the most fans, who’s gonna bring the best opportunity, who wants to be here.”

5. You’ll need money to give teams, gifts, and plenty more.

There’s a $10,000 certification fee that goes to the NCAA. That has to be paid annually.

A smaller bowl game will need a few hundred thousand dollars to pass out to each participating team, though most payouts are well into seven figures.

Also, the NCAA “encourages” bowl games to give gifts to 125 players per team, at a value “approaching” $550 each. That works out to $137,500 in total.

Bowl gifts run the gamut between very cool and not.

Cool in 2017-18:

Citrus Bowl, Notre Dame vs. LSU: $400 Best Buy player shopping trip, Timely Watch Co. watch.

Peach Bowl, Auburn vs. UCF: $300 Vanilla Visa gift card by InComm, Ultimate Ears Wonderboom bluetooth speaker, Fossil watch, football.

Less cool:

Military Bowl, Virginia vs. Navy: Rock ‘Em socks, Under Armour beanie and backpack.

Boca Raton Bowl, FAU vs. Akron: Online gift suite "and an assortment of bowl-branded items."

New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Variety of New Era products. Probably hats.

You’ll need to pay your staff, however big it is. You’ll need medical staff and security and all the things any other big football game needs. The NCAA mandates that every game official gets a $100 per diem for each of three days.

6. You’ll need some events that aren’t the game.

“In my position, I need to ask myself, ‘Do I want a football game, or do I want an event?’” Ringler says. “And I take the latter every time. I want someone to come to our game and enjoy the game but also enjoy the aspects and everything around the game.”

At the Armed Forces, that means a bunch of star-spangled things outside the stadium and on the field during the game. There’s a veterans village with nonprofit service groups. There are flyovers and parachuters and military inductions on the field at quarter breaks.

At the Foster Farms, players to go Alcatraz. They take cable car rides and spend Christmas morning serving food at a local food shelter. The Belk Bowl has a shopping spree at Belk stores. (This has gone awry before.)

There’s a hot chicken eating contest at the Music City:

For those of you who guessed @NDFootball you were right! Congratulations to our Hot Chicken Eating Contest Champion! http://pic.twitter.com/Umb7PN4NVR

— Music City Bowl (@MusicCityBowl) December 28, 2014

A milkshake contest at the Peach:

About last night... -@ChickfilA Milkshake Combine -Football Feud -@CFBhall tours -@UW_Football wins Battle for Bowl Week!#CFAPeachBowl http://pic.twitter.com/76woecpvYK

— #CFAPeachBowl (@CFAPeachBowl) December 29, 2016

And a rodeo at the Liberty:

Great crowd on-hand tonight for the 29th Annual #AZLB Pro Rodeo presented by Landers Auto Group. http://pic.twitter.com/7i6YjBfXpy

— AutoZoneLibertyBowl (@AZOLibertyBowl) December 28, 2016

“I think they’re critical, certainly, to the long-term success of any bowl game,” Frisco Bowl exec director Sean Johnson says. “You wanna become woven into the fabric of your community.”

7. Oh, and you’ll need a field.

A rent estimate from Haines: somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 for the use of a field. Bowls happen at stadiums of many sizes, and you’ll pay more to use JerryWorld in Arlington than Legion Field in Birmingham.

Maybe you’ll get innovative and pick a baseball park. A few games are at FBS home fields. The Frisco Bowl is at a multipurpose venue whose primary tenant is FC Dallas of MLS, which shares management with ESPN.

You’ll face little regulation of game day operations. Conferences usually have requirements for on-site medical equipment and staff, but bowl games basically run themselves.

The Football Bowl Association, an advisory group, has tried to give game operations more shape. “You really oughta hold the line on that,” Wright Waters, the FBA’s head, will tell a rogue bowl that tries to give out too many field passes and overcrowds the playing surface.

8. Got all that figured out? Don’t forget to fill out the paperwork.

This is what a 2017-18 bowl application looked like:

And this is a seven-page accountability questionnaire that seeks to nail down compliance with both the actual law and NCAA rules. It includes such questions as, “Does the bowl provide awards to student-athletes for participation in the bowl which exceeded $550 in value?” You should answer “no” in that section.

9. Oh, right. You’ll need a name for your game.

As the newest FBS bowl, you’re going to have a silly name. Some suggestions, though we’re aiming pretty high with these sponsors:

The McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish Bowl

The Chipotle Burrito Bowl

The Disney Wide World of Sports Mickey Mouse Bowl

The Edible Arrangements Sugary Strawberry Bowl

The Pottery Bowl, presented by Pottery Barn

The possibilities are endless.