#Jon and Bruce out here costing me money

[catd2014]

Last night I went to see The Boss. I’d never seen him live before and to be honest, I thought I’d missed my chance.

It was absolutely fantastic. Something life-affirming happened to me and I can’t quite describe it. 3 hours of the most incredible live music you’re ever likely to hear. I know this isn’t news but, damn, the E Street Band are really fucking good aren’t they?!

60,000 people having the time of their lives is quite an overwhelming experience and is probably why I’m still processing it today. I think it might be the best gig I’ve been to.

If you’re going to a date on the European tour, you’re in for an absolute treat

[lazycats-stuff]

What about Batfam x male reader where the reader was actually the first child Bruce adopted and he was the practice child. He hated growing io because Bruce had really no idea what to do and then the other kids came along and now Bruce kinda understood what to do. He hates family time because he never felt like family, he was just some doll the others could practice on so later they wouldn't make mistakes. And i imagine at some point they snap. I feel like what if Damian brought over Jon for dinner and Jon was like "oh I thought Dick's the oldest, you never told me about (reader)" and reader just slams down their fist and goes to their room. At this point the rest of the family try to comfort them but the reader only screams about how they never were a son or bother, they were only a practice doll for them to use and then throw away

This has angst written all over it... Ah. Angst train it seems... Also, I think I changed the end a bit, but that's fine...

Summary: (Y/N) was nothing but a test child for Bruce. He finally lets them have it

Warnings: angst, resentment, author sucks at angst, but hey, I tried, yelling, mentions of anxiety, the fam is trying, (Y/N) is mad beyond belief, implications of child neglect... If you can call it child neglect.

(Y/N) (L/N) was the oldest member of the Wayne family and the first child that Bruce had adopted. (Y/N) didn't have a good life at all before he met Bruce. (Y/N) could also argue that Bruce didn't treat him well as well, since being emotionally unavailable is not a good trait to have when you have children.

As the years went by, he hated growing up in the manor and with Bruce. He had food, a roof over his head and some sort of education. But that wasn't enough. The feeling of resentment that (Y/N) had has only grown as the years went by.

The feeling of being a test to Bruce, to see what he need to improve made his blood boil. He was a test pancake for Bruce and some sort of feedback to Bruce. It made (Y/N) mad beyond. Bruce could have gotten his shit straight when he started to have him as his legal child.

(Y/N) wished that he could forget everything about Bruce. About the family too. Even before Dick came, resentment building up in him nearly exploded. Looking back, he should have exploded on Bruce and Dick... Maybe even punch them. Maybe he should have done it.

When Dick came, (Y/N) saw signs that Bruce was improving, but he didn't show that to (Y/N). Years went by and Damian came. To say that Damian pretended that (Y/N) didn't exist is an understatement. (Y/N) tried to get closer to Damian, but Damian always pushed him away. (Y/N) took the signs and gave up, sadness and anger boiling inside of him. But he did observe Damian and Dick. In matter of a few days, they were close.

Dick did it without even trying.

So, (Y/N) has decided to alienate himself from the family, at least until he gets enough money to leave. Thankfully, the resentment towards Bruce and the rest of the family made him even put everything he had in school, even though no one cared about it. He had straight As and he was on his way to go to college that was far away from here. He knows that he can do it.

Even as Tim and Jason came, (Y/N) tried to be close to them, but none of them cared. None. (Y/N)'s solace became his own room and would avoid the family at all costs until it was time to eat where he had to step out. That only solidified the fact that he was going to leave as soon as possible.

Either way, he just had to alienate himself and move out. Then, everyone in the house would be happy.

However, everything would turn on its head when Damian would bring his boyfriend Jon over to meet the family and by default (Y/N). If only (Y/N) knew what would happen.

Dinner rolled around and came down to eat. He didn't expect to see Jon, but was nice to introduce himself to Jon, trying to be nice and just get this stupid dinner over with. He put some food on his plate and just ate in silence while everyone else talked.

He listened to bits and pieces and just stayed silent. He finished his plate quickly and pushed it away and sipped at his water, just being polite and getting ready to leave back at his room.

" Damian, you didn't tell me anything about (Y/N)... I thought that Dick was oldest of the brothers. " Jon said and (Y/N) froze.

Damian didn't tell Jon about him...

(Y/N)'s anger boiled over and he slammed his fist into the table before standing up quickly, knocking the chair over. Everyone got startled at the actions and watched in silence as (Y/N) left the dining room.

After a few seconds they all jumped into action, trying to stop (Y/N) to comfort him. (Y/N) slammed the door of his room shut, locking to make sure no one could enter, before he broke down on his bed. He hugged his pillow and sobbed into it.

It shouldn't hurt like this. He should have been stronger than this. Not cry over them.

" (Y/N), please open the door. " Bruce said through the door.

" Please, we just want to talk. " Dick added and (Y/N) snapped at that, anger boiling over once again.

" Talk?! TALK?! Stop acting like you care! " (Y/N) yelled at the top of his lungs.

" We do care. " Jason started.

" You don't give a single flying damn about me! I was never a son or a brother to anyone! I was only a test toy to Bruce so he could see what he could fucking improve! I was never a fucking brother either! Damian fucking proved it! " (Y/N) yelled at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his face.

Everyone stayed silent and (Y/N) sobbed his heart out. Damian swallowed hardly, realizing what he did and how that hurt (Y/N) deeply. Maybe he shouldn't have...

Everyone glanced at each other. They stayed silent as they listened to (Y/N)'s sobs. Just how much pain did they brought up onto him?

" (Y/N), look- " Bruce started and (Y/N) screamed again.

" Don't you dare care right now! I'm moving out in a few days anyway and I don't need your pity or apology! " (Y/N) yelled, trying to wipe the never ending stream of tears.

" Moving out?! " Bruce yelled, eyes wide in shock. He know he has no right to tell (Y/N) what to do, but something flared up in Bruce. " No, you're not moving out! You are going to stay put because we have to solve this problem! "

" Are you shitting me Bruce?! Work things out?! "

" I'm not shitting you! I have to make things right with you! You are my son too! " Bruce yelled through the door.

" I don't give a single damn about any of you! "

Bruce took a deep breath, trying not to explode. He knows he has no right to be angry, but (Y/N) was still his son. " (Y/N), I am your dad and we will solve this problem. "

" We won't solves shit Bruce! "

" (Y/N), please, " Tim started, but (Y/N) cut him off. " Shut up Tim! "

Tim bit the inside of his cheek and stepped back.

" (Y/N), " Jason started, " You need to calm down, you'll give yourself a heart attack. "

(Y/N) wanted to scream even more, but he felt like he was going to die from this situation.

" Shut up, all of you! "

Now Dick started. " (Y/N), we may have been bad brothers- "

" May have?! You were- No, you are the worst brothers! " (Y/N) yelled and clenched his fists as he started facing around the room.

Dick sighed and stepped back. At the moment, everyone knew that (Y/N) talking to them without yelling at them and more importantly, he needed to calm down first.

But with how much anger and resentment there is, it is going to take a while.

" Lets leave (Y/N) alone for a while. He needs to be alone for now. " Bruce said and gently moved everyone away from (Y/N)'s doors, who was inside, trying to breathe more normally. He felt like he was going to jump out of his skin in the next few moments. He calmed down after a while, but he was still anxious beyond belief.

Unfortunately, the threat of moving out is just a threat and not a promise. (Y/N) sighed as he sat down on his bed. It was a stupid move to say that while he didn't have everything secure yet. Stupid.

(Y/N) went to the bathroom and washed his face and drank some water, to soothe his soon to be sore throat. It won't be nice to talk in a few hours.

Either way, it's better than leaving this room in order to face his siblings and dad. No, they are just roommates here, until (Y/N) can move out and just finally cut them out of his life.

[briamichellewrites]

44

With the success Bria was having with her first single, her album was looking to be successful as well. It was set to be released in a month but it was already generating hype from her fans and radio stations across the country. She was going on a stadium tour to promote it. As such, she was working with Brad and Mike to create a show her fans would love and remember for the rest of their lives. She picked Jon’s brain for ideas because he had a lot more experience than she did.

Her album was going to be called, 24 and it was going to show her maturity in her songwriting and voice. The album had themes of becoming the woman she wanted to be, love, and having fun. During a radio interview, she was asked if she would ever sing about sex. No, she wasn’t. Why not? They were just curious about why she made that decision.

“To me, that part of my life is personal. I don’t feel comfortable inviting people I don’t know into my bedroom.”

That was a very good point. She was given credit as a role model for that decision, even though that wasn’t her intention. Being a role model was a huge responsibility and she didn’t know if she was worthy of it. She didn’t want anyone to be disappointed in her whenever she made a mistake in her career or personal life. At twenty-four years old, she was still making mistakes and learning from them.

The band didn’t know she had become a professional mistress for wealthy men. Her manager helped her set up an online profile with her pictures, information, and prices. A date with her cost a hundred dollars and a weekend with her was three hundred dollars. If they wanted to fly her out, it cost five hundred dollars up to a thousand depending on where she was flying. That included the cost of her plane tickets and hotel accommodations.

It was legal because she wasn’t advertising sex, which was prostitution. The men she dated went through a background check after signing up for the service and had to sign a nondisclosure agreement before they were set up with her. Brad had zero problems with what she was doing because it was legal. He appreciated the men signing a nondisclosure agreement because he didn’t want that to get out.

Mike was told about it. He didn’t want her doing it. Until she explained how it worked and that it was legal. It was also one hundred percent safe. Okay. She was an adult, so that had to be her decision. The only thing he asked for was for her to be careful. She would.

One of BP’s friends, Bradley Cooper paid for a date with her. He thought she was gorgeous in her photos! One hundred dollars. He could afford that. After signing the agreement, she got a text message telling her about the date. She got dressed up and ready before driving to Nobu in Malibu. When she arrived, she sent a text to BP letting him know where she was and who she was meeting. That was just in case her date ended up becoming violent.

She found him sitting at a table waiting for her. Bradley? He got up and shook her hand, as she introduced herself. It was nice to meet her. He pulled out her chair and then pulled it in after she sat down. He was nervous because he didn’t have experience dating for money. She was also more beautiful in real life! A waiter came over and took their drink orders.

Bradley was sober, so he ordered a nonalcoholic drink while she ordered a wine. Even though he was nervous as hell, they had a great conversation that flowed easily. He brought up his friend, Brad Pitt, whom he heard she was dating. Yes, it was an open relationship.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better about this.”

She laughed. “I have his full permission to be here. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

He learned she was an alternative country singer, who started when she was sixteen years old. Her label let her experiment with different kinds of music to create something unique. Why did she choose country music? She wanted to tell stories, like Bruce Springsteen. Pop stars were also a dime a dozen, especially in Los Angeles. That was very true.

He was an actor, who got started in 1999, the same year as her. From then on, his career took off. He had been on television, in movies, and on stage. Would she ever think about acting? She had thought about it but she didn’t know if she could memorize her lines. Though, she was interested in the behind-the-scenes and how everything worked. She never acted? Not even in school plays? No, she was the weird kid who listened to Bon Jovi and wanted to be a rockstar.

He laughed. Maybe she would try it in the future. Just to say she tried something different.

After the date, she stopped by Mike’s with a change of clothes, her medications, and other overnight essentials. How did it go? It was fucking awesome! She was still high on energy. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. She excused herself to change clothes and get her makeup off before she got too tired to do it later.

Ten minutes later, she came down in her pajamas. He was working in his studio when she found him. She sat next to him. He looked over at her. It was eight in the evening and she was already in her pajamas. Did he want her to take them off? He laughed before telling her to give him ten minutes to finish what he was doing. She got out her phone to see if anyone had texted her while she waited. BP had texted her to see how she was doing.

It was so much fun! I’m staying overnight at Mike’s then going home tomorrow. Cream misses you. I found her lying on your shoes earlier. – Bria

Haha, I miss her too. I’m happy you had fun. I love you. – Brad

Finally, Mike was at a point where he could stop and finish later. She had been patiently waiting for him. Yes, he wanted to unwrap her and love her body. One of the best things about her was she always said yes to hooking up. She was hypersexual, so she was always ready. He, Brad, Rob, and BP couldn’t keep up with her.

Her therapist suggested that it was based on a need to feel validated. They went up to his room and closed the door. Bradley confirmed he had gone on a date with Bria. BP asked if he paid to go on a date with her. Yes, he did. How much? It was a hundred dollars, then the price of dinner and a tip to the wait staff. It was expensive, but worth every penny! No, he didn’t take her home. Even though she was gorgeous! He laughed and agreed she was. Why was he allowing her to do this?

I want her to feel loved, even when I can’t be there to take her out on dates. She is the most incredible woman you will ever meet and she deserves so much. I have no idea why she chose me because I don’t deserve her. Maybe you could take her out again without having to pay for it. Even if you do, she is one hundred percent worth the money! – Brad

She and Mike were lying in bed after he finished inside of her. He pulled out and lay beside her. She turned and looked at him. I love you. He loved her, too. They shared a kiss before he got up and went into the bathroom.

He had what the other men didn’t and that was genuine love for her. Not even BP loved her as much as he did. He knew her inside and out. Every day, he secretly wished she would figure out he had been there the whole time and leave BP for him. He finally understood what Rob was going through with Brad. Unrequited love sucked. She was and always would be the woman he couldn’t have.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia @boricuacherry-blog

[jasonrae117]

Night at the Wayne Casino

Part 4

Damian looked the part, he may have stolen a few pointers from the years spent around Jason and Richard, but he was ready to finally get the information he wanted directly from the source. He wore a perfectly tailored Stefano Ricci silk dress shirt in a deep navy, with a few of the top buttons unfastened. He paired it with fitted black pants, a black leather belt with steel hardware, and matching black leather Tom Ford dress shoes. If he was going to attend a party, he was going to make sure everyone knew who he was, if they didn’t know his face, they would know by the sheer cost of his shirt alone.  

He was good at commanding a room, it wouldn’t be a problem for him to be the center of the party and get exactly what he wanted. It would almost be too easy, it was a setup for the woman and she would have to play right into his hand.

Damian decided that he would arrive right on time, which was considered early according to Jason. He wanted to scope the place out for details and have a plan in place. He was familiar with all the layouts of the rooms already, it was more to figure out the best vantage points when the place would be filled with bodies. It also gave him a chance to take his time ordering a drink. He often wasn’t a fan of alcohol, especially when he considered himself to be on the job, but he had to play the part. He had to admit that it did ease his nerves a bit.

Something about confronting the woman that plagued every waking thought, and dreams, made something close to excitement bubble within him. He’d finally be able to find out how soft her skin truly was, and if it matched what his brain had envisioned it to be….as part of the act to get her alone so that he could get a confession from Raven.

As the next hour came to pass, he had seen no sign of his target and it was beginning to look like a failed mission for him. He had endured countless women sliding their hands down his arms and some braver ones traveling up his leg. Unfortunately for them, there was only one woman’s hands Damian wanted on him. 

No. Damian shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. Perhaps he should have stopped at his second drink, especially since it was bourbon. 

The man he stood next to now was droning on about a business idea he wanted to propose to Bruce, but instead of listening, Damian took this opportunity to reflect on his thoughts and feelings for once. 

These past few days had proved to him that he was still mentally weak. He let lust seep into his mind and alter what his gut was telling him. When he had seen Raven with Tim, he was furious and regretfully jealous. He had a split second of insanity catching himself wishing that it was himself that had snuck Raven into the security room to taste her skin on his lips. He now came to terms that it wasn’t jealousy but in fact shame in himself, not that he couldn’t get the woman, but rather he let his hormones sway his judgement. And that he wasn’t mad at Tim for being with Raven, but mad at himself that he had almost listened to him and turned his back on his gut. He laughed at himself, this woman was good, he just had to prove it. 

Maybe he was just in denial about his feelings?

Damian grunted at his conflicting thoughts and realized that he had gained the attention of...whoever was talking to him. He finished what was left in his glass and addressed the man “Excuse me, my drink seems to be empty and I’d like to get some fresh air now.”

“Oh, sure. We can go outside, I still have to show you our advertising pitch.” The man began to pull out his phone, clearly not catching Damian’s hint. 

“Sir, what I mean is-”

“Hold on a sec, it’s right here. You can go grab us some drinks and I’ll meet you outside. I just gotta set up the slideshow.”

Damian cleared his throat. “What I was trying to imply was that I’d rather not discuss business at a party with someone who clearly isn’t important enough to schedule an appointment with my father. I certainly don’t want to be bothered with having the expectation that I’ll actually relay this foolish proposal to him either.” 

The man burned red and apologized profusely. He hurried out of the room at almost lightning speed. Damian sighed in relief and scanned the room once more before pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. Maybe coming to this party was a bad idea, Raven wasn’t here and he had accidentally made eye contact with a woman at the bar and she began to head his way. 

Damian rolled his eyes and weaved through the crowd in hopes to lose the woman and escape to the large and lavish balcony. 

The cooler night air alleviated some of the irritation from the lack of activity this party had provided him. It helped to let the fresh air carry away his conflicting thoughts as he contemplated his next move. The better part of him wanted to leave and see if there were any files that needed to be looked at or, better yet, see if Raven had actually been planning to hit the casino when he was busy in this stupid suite. However, his gut was telling him to stick it out and that she would show. Parties in Vegas were always in full swing for hours and he hardly spent two at this one, odds were that she’d spend the time getting primped to seduce more information out of weak-willed men. 

The more formal time of the party seemed to have passed as the lights in the suite were being lowered and replaced partially by strobe and colored ones in addition to the increased volume of dance music. People were now flocking to the open space in the middle of the suite and swaying closely to one another. Damian despised dancing and more particularly the modern club dancing being displayed in front of him tonight. 

Though he was outside, the music could still be heard clearly through the open doors and thus everyone’s conversations got louder chipping away at last bits of his patience. I’m doing this for Raven...for the team and myself. Right now I look unapproachable, this won’t do. Damian took a deep breath with his eyes closed to focus himself and will the headache away that was imminent. He turned back to the party and made his way to the bar to replenish his drink, at this point in time a little less sobriety would be welcome. 

…

Damian glanced down at his watch and noted that three hours have passed since he arrived and by his estimate that the party wouldn’t be over for another three or so hours. He had circled the perimeter many times and had yet to see any trace that she was here or was coming at all. For a moment he thought that Jon was pranking him by sending him to a party under the guise that it was a lead on Raven when it was perhaps a way to get him ‘out more’ like he had always said was his personal mission. However, he knew Jon wasn’t foolish enough to waste his time like this and Jon, himself, was the one to tell Raven about the party and get her the invite. 

Jon had come to his room while Damian was getting ready and had told him what he left out in their previous conversation. Damian was furious at first, thinking that Raven had gotten into Jon’s head but Jon insisted he did it to give Damian a chance to observe her without interference from Tim. Of course this was after Jon went on about Raven’s beauty and that if Tim and Damian ended up striking out, he would throw his name into the hat for her affection, which earned him a rough punch to the shoulder. As much as Jon’s teasing annoyed him, he had to admit that his plan was brilliant...if only she showed.

He was yet again stuck in a conversation with another rich and beautiful woman. Had he not been here for work, he may have considered sleeping with her to release his tension and frustration. The conversation hadn’t been particularly exciting, but at least she wasn’t overtly throwing herself at him or touching him inappropriately. She had been talking about a new restaurant opening on the other side of the strip where they specialized in vegetarian and vegan options, which actually sounded interesting, but a flash of long pale legs caught his attention.

He could have imagined it, wishing something was there to make this all not seem like a waste of time, but there she was across the room inspecting the suite’s occupant’s book collection. He was ashamed to admit that he could identify her even though she was bent over and all he could see was her full backside and those perfect legs of hers that popped out of the ruched green skirt. She stood up and turned around, a book in one hand and a small glace in the other, her identity officially confirmed and the heat that rushed to his face dissipating. He mentally scolded himself for spending too much time staring at her ass during all of the previous encounters and the security footage he had re-watched a few times, though it had proved to be useful after all.  He had to tell himself that to keep himself from feeling like a pervert. 

His intention wasn’t to ogle her while he was watching the footage, he wanted to see if she had patterns or accomplices. But he found himself having to rewind it multiple times because he kept getting distracted by the sway of her hips or the way all of her outfits seemed to cling perfectly to her body. 

The woman next to him cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest. "You should stop staring at that slut over there and focus on me. She's probably some cheap escort, nobody that's worth your time." She placed her hand on his arm and smiled at him. Oh if she only knew.

"And I suppose you're worth my time?" He faced her.

"Of course, I'm hot and rich. Plus the way I get my money is clean and I don't have to be a whore to get it." She laughed and flipped her fake blonde hair over her shoulder. This woman was unbelievable and it was getting on his nerves, he was grateful he was here on duty so he wouldn't have made the mistake of sleeping with her. Who the hell did she think she was talking about some other woman like that, much less Raven.

"Is that all that matters to you? Looks and wealth?" His eyes narrowed and he pulled away from her.

"Yeah, what else does there need to be?"

"Tt, tell me, how do you get your money?"

"From my father. My family is rich and understands that I don't need to waste my time with work."

"Hmm, I see. You're what? Twenty-four? And you're still sponging off your family, what happens when they decide you're too old?"

"Uh..I marry a hot rich guy. That's why I'm talking to you." She was so nonchalant about her answers it was pathetic.

"How unfortunate for me. I think I'll go talk to that woman over there since I'm fairly certain that she's not an escort."

"Whatever, she's sure as hell not as rich as I am! Why waste your time?"

"The thing is, you are not rich, your father is and you're just an over processed leech. There's more to life than just looks and wealth, besides she's far richer in beauty than any surgeon could ever make you out to be. And I could tell that she's significantly more interesting in the twenty seconds I've looked at her than the fifteen minutes I wasted talking to you."

She was silent and looked at him incredulously. Clearly no one has set this woman straight before.

“Now I suggest you find some other man to sell yourself to, maybe they’re foolish enough to entertain you, or at least smart enough to get you to sleep with them before they get too annoyed by your shallow superficiality. “

“Asshole.” She scoffed and spun on her overpriced heels disappearing into the crowd.

He hoped none of this would get back to his father. Though he wasn’t working, he had been in two confrontations already and it could reflect poorly on the resort. He was well within his right to set those two straight and honestly the company was better off without their patronage, but that didn’t mean Bruce wouldn’t frown upon his treatment of guests since he still had an obligation to uphold a certain image of the Wayne name. 

Damian turned back to the space in front of the bookshelf where his target had been moments before. However, she was no longer there and he cursed himself for losing sight of her. He scanned the room for what felt like the hundredth time that night and finally spotted her outside against the railing. He took another brief moment to observe the outfit she had chosen tonight, a forest green tube dress ending just below mid-thigh. The dress had a circle cutout on both sides revealing the bottom of her rib cage to the top of her hips, it was dissected by a gold metal band that matched the metal choker around her neck and the cuff on both of her wrists. Her hair was straightened and flowed past her shoulders and even from his distance, it looked like silk. Her beauty never ceased to intrigue him, even without the flattering clothes, she was a walking goddess. That’s why she is so dangerous. 

He had just noticed the two men that were on either side of her. One had his hand on her waist while the other had his arm behind her holding on to the rail. Why was it that every man was attracted to her like moths to a flame? Wherever she went, there always seemed to be at least three pairs of eyes on hers, one of them always his. Even now, there were a handful of men ready to swoop in the get shot at trying to woo the ethereal beauty. It pissed him off and he felt just the slightest bit of jealousy.

He couldn’t just interrupt, it would be suspicious, and she didn’t seem to mind the company of the two men. He had to wait, maybe she was plotting something and these two men were informants. Raven seemed to be good at only talking to the people that could give her useful information, although these men didn’t work at the casino and he didn’t recognize them as anyone important. Perhaps she was in a similar position as him and being plagued by unwanted attention. He had to play it cool, bide his time and he would get his chance. 

For the next hour, Damian kept within a ten foot radius of her and kept trying to think of ways to intercept her before the next imbecile tried his luck with her. Much like the trail of men she left in her wake, he too was unlucky in his endeavor. That is until he noticed her heading to the bar for another drink. He still carried his almost empty glass and polished off the last sip before hurrying to the bar and getting there just before her.

He signaled the bartender to come to him when he had a moment and patiently held his glass. Sure enough Raven had filled the empty spot beside him and set her glass down. He forced himself to not instinctively look at her as he focused on the lines of expensive alcohol on the wall. 

“Damian? I mean Mr. Wayne.” He looked down at her to see surprise written on her face. 

“Miss Roth. “ he nodded.

She let out a short laugh. “I guess every employee knows my name here.”

“I guess you’re a popular woman.” He allowed a smirk to rise on his lips.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Sounds a bit scary to have the head of security know you by name at a casino you haven’t been to before that’s at least fourteen hours from where you live.” She chuckled and played with the cuff on her wrist.

“You haven’t exactly been a normal guest here either.” Her face turned red at his words and to what he had been referring to.

“Uh…I suppose not.” Raven looked away and shifted awkwardly. The bartender approached them and Damian gestured for her to order first. “Bourbon on the rocks please.”

“Make that two.” Damain cut in and the bartender nodded pouring them their drinks. Damian handed him money to cover both of the drinks plus a decent tip. 

“Thank you, but you didn’t have to.” She took a small sip.

“I didn’t, but I wanted to.”

A soft smile graced her lips and she put her glass back down. “So, this didn’t strike me as an event that would require security.”

“That’s because it doesn’t. I am not on duty”

“Oh, I didn’t think this was your kind of scene.”

“Why is that Miss Roth?” Damian faced her and leaned his side against the bar top.

“Well, being the head of security and all and you’re always so...serious when I’ve run into you. Kind, but serious. But I suppose you kind of have to be that way, intimidating.” She looked up at him and her indigo eyes locked onto his emerald ones. 

“Am I intimidating Miss Roth?” Damian leaned into her space just a bit, his heart beating just a bit faster. He watched as her eyes glanced at his mouth before darting back to his eyes as a blush danced across her cheeks. 

“Are you trying to intimidate me Mr. Wayne?” She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow, closing the distance a bit more.

“Among other things…” His hand reached up and brushed her dark hair off her shoulder. The action had occurred subconsciously but he reveled in the feeling it gave him watching a shiver run through her body. 

“And would those other things be in violation of your work?” Raven’s left hand moved from her drink to his forearm that rested on the bar. He glanced down at her delicate fingers dancing along the thin silk of his sleeve.

“I believe I told you that I wasn’t working right now.”

“Mm, so you did. Tell me, what are these ‘other things’?”

Damian leaned into her to whisper directly in her ear. “I’d like to tell you… or show you somewhere in private, where every other man in the room isn’t glaring at me because I’ve been able to keep your attention for longer than five minutes.”

He pulled back still keeping within her space and noticed her breaths coming in more shallow and the blush from earlier still stained her face.

“How would you know that nobody has been able to talk to me for longer than five minutes?”

“It’s a special skill of mine to observe, especially the activity involving a sort of target.” He smirked at her again. She was falling right into his trap and he didn’t even have to lie.

“Where do you suggest we go then? I’m sure you’ve come up with a plan while waiting for your turn.” She took a step into and he could smell her perfume, sending his mind into a haze.

“My suite is just two floors down.”

“Lead the way.”

He took her hand and briefly admired the way it felt in his. He was starting to feel excited and for once, nervous. He questioned himself and his sanity when he invited her to his suite. He never brought anyone in there, but here he was heading to the elevator with one of the most puzzling women he has ever come across. He was aroused by her and also infuriated with her. When they had reached the elevator and it had opened up the pair stepped in and as soon as the doors closed, his hands were on her waist and hers were on his chest. Their breaths were heavy and there was an intensity in their gaze.

He leaned down to kiss her and if the descent had been longer he would have been able to, but before he knew it, the door opened again. “Fuck.” He had lost control. He grabbed the back of her thighs and hoisted her up. She let out a small squeak in shock but wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He pressed his lips to hers and began walking to his room. Her lips matched his with equal intensity as she pulled on his collar and tugged his hair. When he reached his door he didn’t break contact and simply reached into his back pocket that held his key card and inserted it with ease into the handle. 

The green light flashed and he ripped the card out and threw the door open and kicked it shut behind him. He moved his mouth down to her neck and kissed her pulse down to the juncture of her shoulder. Her moan encouraged him to squeeze her thighs which made her grind into him. Her skin was softer than he imagined and he couldn’t contain himself any longer. The tightness in his pants begged for her.

Damian laid her down on his bed and withdrew from her, taking in the unforgettable sight in front of him. She was breathing heavily and her neck bared marks from his assault on it moments ago, her lips were parted and red and her lust-filled eyes were trained on him. 

“Damian?”

This was not his plan or intention...or maybe it was. For the first time, he didn’t care about this case, he had denied every emotion he felt and dismissed it as some trick she was playing, and maybe she was even playing him at this moment. But just for tonight, all he wanted was to accept those feelings, that passion, and investigate her, all of her.

[tessatechaitea]

Team Titans #20

Is it sexist to point out cameltoe?

It's been about two weeks since I read a Team Titans comic book so I can't remember what was happening, which is probably a good thing. It's nice to see that my brain apparently has some kind of organic Roomba that cleans up after I've soiled my mind with terrible media choices. Revamping my old Patreon page has kept me away from re-reading terrible old comic books. If you enjoy my take on comic books perhaps you'll enjoy my take on The Bible? Or if you don't like reading astoundingly insightful and probably pretty funny commentary on The Bible if it costs you as little as one dollar per month, you can still bookmark the site because you'll get three free song reviews each week too! But if you want me to review a particular song, you'll have to give me money. I don't give my wisdom away for free! I mean, I do! But only in certain circumstances. I think what was happening in this comic book was a right-wing corporate and media conglomerate asshole (much like Rupert Murdoch) was preparing to time travel into the future where he could take the place of Lord Chaos and rule the world. It's the kind of plan only an idiotic super villain in a comic book could come up with. Any real life super villain would think, "I have so much money and power right now in a world I recognize, why should I risk everything by traveling into an unknown future where my biggest enemies await? Better to just buy a private island in the present and look at porn all day." But for some reason, comic book super villains are never satisfied. They never think, "I could retire with the amount of money it's going to cost me to create this death satellite!" The always think, "Man, having lots of money really kills your ambition. Maybe I should use it to endanger my freedom and possibly my life?" Idiots!

Based on these silhouettes, one of Lord Murdoch's henchman is just a gigantic sentient penis.

The Team Titans leader for the future narrates the big battle so maybe we'll soon find out who the mysterious leader really is! I think I've been guessing Terry Long throughout most of this re-read because who else could it be? Unless Terry's kid has one of those comic book experiences that ages him quickly, he probably won't be leading the team as a nine year old. Although I can't think why I'm ruling that out when I easily accepted Nightwing once driving a motorcycle straight up a skyscraper and Starfire falling in love with Wolfman-written Nightwing. A few pages into the battle, a bunch of Team Titans members (not from the titular and most important team!) begin to die. First killed is Gunsmoke. You might not remember Gunsmoke because Gunsmoke was a terrible name and Gunsmoke never did anything except help provide some context on the plot. We learned from Gunsmoke that the Team Titans were spread out all across history because the Team Titans leader created a truly inept time machine. Gunsmoke's last words (aside from "Arrrggghhhhh!") are "Great. Don't tell me y'all saved my butt in the Old West just so I can get it kicked in 1994." I guess in 1994, creating a character that's simply a guy dressed like a cowboy didn't cut the editor's mustard. The second character to die is Monsieur Poniard of Judge and Jury. He should thank his terrible name for cutting his comic book career short. "Mister Dagger," even in French, just isn't going to inspire the kind of terror that a super villain should inspire. And, yes, I'm aware of how many terribly mundane and crappy names exist within the DC Universe! I'm just saying, "One less is a good start." The third Team Titan to die is a nameless Titan in the background of Monsieur Poniard's death. She (or he) has orange hair and wears a purple costume so I think we can all agree why he (or she) had to die. You know, because Starfire already had claims on that terrible color combination. After Lazarium (Lord Murdoch's super villain name) takes down the main Team Titans in one blast, he jokes, "I love the smell of ozone in the morning." I know that's supposed to be a joke because he says, "Heh heh," immediately after. Earlier, Blue (unless it was Green or Purple or Yellow. Remember, the colorist of this current story arc is an idiot) quipped, "Yeah, and monkeys might fly outta my -- OOOOF!" So we have all the evidence we need that Jeff Jensen's main writing crutch is movie and television quotes. The fourth Team Titans to die is Two Gallon Hat.

I often come up with characters for my stories that I know are stupid but I insert them into it anyway simply so that other characters can call them stupid.

While all of the other Titans from throughout history are being slaughtered by Lazarium's henchmen (where did he get henchmen who put such effort into henchmanning?! I bet he pays a living wage, offers great health care choices, and provides a hefty pension), Mirage remains stuck in traffic on the streets below.

If only Mirage could easily do something to keep from being recognized!

I don't know what she did with Deathwing but I hope it involved a hedge clipper and a blender. Mirage steps out of the cab to find Cokie Walters staring at the corpse of Two Gallon Hat. Cokie apologizes for some reason which leads to Mirage threatening Cokie if she doesn't help Mirage save the Titans. Now how the hell is a bubble gum gossip reporter supposed to help with that?! "Mister Lazarium! Mister Lazarium! Is it true you pee through the gate instead of over the fence?!" Realizing that the Titans have met their match, Terra resorts to pleading her case: "Lazarium! No! Please — you can't just kill us like this!" Lazarium, who is a super villain who has really thought out his plan and understands the power of a truly great one-liner, replies smartly: "Oh, yes, I can, Terra — especially you!" I just got goosebumps reading that! Although after the Wayne's World and Apocalypse Now lines from earlier, maybe Jensen stole this retort from a movie too. Wasn't this the great line from the end of Die Hard 2: Dying Ain't My Thing when Bruce Willis sets the airplane fuel alight? Five hundred and thirty Titans got there asses handed to them by Lazarium and his goons. But not to worry because Prester Jon, Redwing, Battalion, Donna Troy, and just-out-of-a-coma Nightrider have arrived to save the day! And don't think they're going to do it silently! Battalion has a new battle cry that I can't believe didn't catch on with the youth of 1994.

How was this not one of the best selling DC posters of 1994?

Battalion goes down in one shot. Most of the characters will probably go down in one shot because Killowat will probably need to prove himself. Will saving the world from Lazarium be enough to make Mirage forget he's a racist jerk? Hopefully not! The first person to nearly put Lazarium down is called Liquid Joe. Being that he's called Liquid Joe, you know he's not going to wind up being the hero. His blast of slime doesn't even faze Lazarium. Time for Cokie and Mirage to save Killowat so Killowat can save the day! Cokie knows where Killowat has been restrained because she's a tabloid journalist. This was the era where we all believed Geraldo was going to discover the secret of the universe. Now we know Geraldo's only goal was to uplift Geraldo. That fucker will say anything for praise and a paycheck. I suppose you can say that about anybody who appears on Fox News though. After losing dozens of Titans, I have to admit that my plan would be to give Lazarium the time travel device so we could be rid of him. If he time travels into the future, he's not our problem anymore! Heck, he probably won't ever be our problem! The future no longer contains Lord Chaos so who knows what he's going to find in 2001. If in 1994 I were told that 2001 would be the beginning of some truly inspiring xenophobic bullshit masquerading as patriotism, I would have been all, "Yeah, I can buy that." Maybe that wasn't a good example. Killowat defeats all of Lazarium's henchmen with one push of a button. Then he goes after Lazarium. Lazarium believes he'll win for the same reason all bad guys (and Deathstork (who is a bad guy but sometimes people begin to think maybe he's a good guy who was never actually convicted of statutory rape so is it really rape? (Yes. The answer is yes. I'm answering on behalf of a large percentage of male Americans who would get the answer to this question wrong))) believe they'll win.

Technically it's not rape if you say, "Here! Take it!" I'm just judging by American legal standards which have an even lower bar than that to declare something isn't rape.

Killowat gives Lazarium a bunch of his power which causes Lazarium to overload and explode into a smoking scorch mark on the roof. But we can't believe Killowat has just killed somebody (even though his name depends on the idea that he kills) so he makes sure to think, "The overload couldn't have killed him. His corporeal form must be around here somewhere." Well, wherever Lazarium went, it's clear that this story is winding down, so he's technically defeated. But he would have been back if this comic book hadn't been cancelled in a few more issues! Oh wait! He's back a few pages later so Nightrider can feast on his blood. Now nobody has to worry about Lazarium anymore and nobody cares if Dagon murdered him because what's a vampire supposed to do? Not eat people?! Anyway, the time machine simply opens a black hole in the sky which consumes hundreds of the poorly named Team Titans. Preser Jon shuts it down and now the Titans have to deal with being part of 1994 forever. I mean, at least until the end of the year when they'll have to deal with being a part of 1995 forever. Or for a year, anyway. The final page of this issue reveals the leader and it's definitely not the leader anybody working on this comic book had planned it to be. Instead, it's Monarch because — guess what, motherfuckers?! — it's Zero Hour time! Team Titans #20 Rating: A-. I'm only giving it a high grade because this issue was the start of Zero Hour. Not that Zero Hour isn't a completely flawed premise that was just another gimmick to allow DC's editors to fix shit that the fangenders kept haranguing them on. But it is interesting that this terrible little Titans off-shoot comic book is where DC decided to begin the entire Zero Hour premise. My other favorite part of this is how we find out that Monarch is the Leader. My supposition is that Zero Hour was thought up long after The Leader was already a mysterious presence in this book. I'm sure the writers and editors of this book had an idea about who The Leader should be. Maybe it was Dick Grayson, or Terry Long, or Starfire, or a reintegrated Danny Chase. But it certainly wasn't Monarch which meant they changed the goal line as the story proceeded. Which is a microcosm of what happens during the Zero Hour event! It was obvious throughout much of Zero Hour that Captain Atom was going to wind up being Monarch. But since so many fans had guessed it and expected it, DC decided that instead of continuing with a plot and character arc that made sense, they would simply reveal that Monarch was Hawk. Sure, it was a surprise! But it didn't make any fucking sense. Fucking comic books!

[thecomicsnexus]

Heroes for Hope

HEROES FOR HOPE DECEMBER 1985 BY CHRIS CLAREMONT, ANN NOCENTI, JIM STARLIN, JIM SHOOTER, STAN LEE, ED BRYANT, LOUISE SIMONSON, STEPHEN KING, BILL MANTLO, ALAN MOORE, HARLAN ELLISON, JO DUFFY, MIKE BARON, DENNY O’NEIL, GEORGE R. R. MARTIN, BRUCE JONES, STEVE ENGLEHART, MIKE GRELL, ARCHIE GOODWIN, BERNIE WRIGHTSON...

JOHN ROMITA JR, JOHN BUSCEMA, BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, CHARLES VESS, RICHARD CORBEN, MIKE KALUTA, FRANK MILLER, BRIAN BOLLAND, JOHN BOLTON, STEVE RUDE, BRET BLEVINS, HERB TRIMPE, GRAY MORROW, PAUL GULACY, ALAN WEISS, JACKSON GUICE, HOWARD CHAYKIN...

AL GORDON, KLAUS JANSON, JOE SINNOTT, TERRY AUSTIN, DAN GREEN, JEFF JONES, JON J MUTH, TOM PALMER, AL MILGROM, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, CARL POTTS, AL WILLIAMSON, SAL BUSCEMA, BOB LAYTON, JOE RUBINSTEIN, STEVE LEIALOHA, WALT SIMONSON... 

DAINA GRAZIUNAS, MARIE SEVERIN, BOB SHAREN, PETRA SCOTESE, CHRISTIE SCHEELE, MICHELLE WRIGHTSON, GLYNIS OLIVER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, LESLIE ZAHLER AND JANET JACKSON (NOT THAT JANET JACKSON)

SYNOPSIS

The X-men are attacked by a strange entity that makes them feel despair and end up going to Ethiopia to help people against the famine (and fighting this entity after a while).

OFFICIAL CONTEXT

CONTEXT BY CHRISTOPHER PRIEST

The most heated racial episode in my career occurred during Marvel's production of their charity book for Ethiopian famine victims. Promoted as work from "the top writers and artists in the industry-- the very best of the very best," profits from this effort were going to be donated to help the poor starving Africans. It was a truly noble effort, one the entire industry rallied behind (at least until DC decided to do their own book, thus dividing the talent pool along company lines). Denys Cowan dropped by and mentioned, amused, that he'd seen the list of talent working on the famine relief project. There wasn't a single African American creator invited to participate. This actually amused me tremendously, and I went over the list myself to make sure, but, yup, no blacks had been thought of as, "the very best of the very best," and none were invited to work on this book.

Tickled, I picked up the phone and called Larry Hama, telling him no blacks were on the list. Larry was hugely amused, and suggested we do our own charity relief book for the poor white trash of Appalachia. He and I howled with laughter, and then shook off the dumbness of it all and got on with our lives.

Only, a white staffer had overheard part of the conversation (I assume the notion of my "recruiting" Hama to do my "own alternate charity book"), and some warped interpretation of my conversation with Hama got reported down the hall to the X-MEN office (where the book was being developed). The editors became incensed and loudly demanded my head on a plate for, essentially, inciting the black talent to stop working for Marvel. I mean, this thing got blown to huge proportions, so much so that, by the end of the day, it was largely accepted as fact that I was organizing a walkout of black talent, and the EIC kind of put me and the X-Men editor in a room to negotiate a deal.

I just couldn't stop laughing. I mean, it was all so stupid. These were stupid people. It was extremely stupid to do an African relief charity project and not invite any damned Africans to work on it. It was even sillier for these stupid people to invent some massive protest out of a silly joke in a 30-second phone call with Larry Hama.

The X-Men Ed was not amused, and refused to believe me when I said I had no intention of bad-mouthing the project. I was invited to participate, but I just chuckled and said, "No affirmative action, please." And this just set the Ed off into a screaming match that could be heard everywhere in the office, "What is WRONG with you? Why do you have to make a RACIAL ISSUE OUT OF EVERYTHING?!?!?!"

It just got out of control, and the episode (along with my paying my assistant to stay home on MLK's birthday once it was ratified as a national holiday but Marvel refused to recognize it, other than the numbingly patronizing "We got us our own holiday" speech by Luke Cage in the VISION & SCARLET WITCH Miniseries) fairly cemented my pariah status at Marvel. Without saying a word and without actually doing anything, I was routinely assumed to be some radical activist who saw everything as a race issue.

I felt trapped in a world of loons. It was totally no-win, and I tended to simply withdraw from the office more and more, from people who, in my view, had now invented a justification to do what they'd been doing all along: fencing themselves off from me.

CONTEXT BY JIM SHOOTER

Pam had arranged for Oxfam America to receive our donation. Their reaction to our offer, at first, was what one might expect from people who had never seen a comic book up close: “Comic book? There’s nothing funny about famine!” Sigh.

For some reason Pam was determined that we should donate the money to them, though, and we convinced them that comics weren’t always comic. They still demanded to review the finished book before they would commit to accept our donation.

When the book was ready to go to press, we sent a mock-up to Oxfam America to review.

Their response was that they wanted nothing to do with it. Flat rejection.

Furthermore, they said that the book was unbelievably offensive and that we, the people of Marvel Comics, were racist, sexist and reprehensible.

When this was told to me by Pam and Marvel President Jim Galton I felt as if I were being called on the carpet. I was flabbergasted. I showed them the mock-up.

They didn’t see anything wrong with it.

Galton called the exec at Oxfam America we’d been dealing with to ask what their specific objections were.

Their response was that, while under no circumstances would they have anything to do with our project or with us, they would send an executive to meet with us and explain the many horrific, repugnant, disgusting elements that made our “comic book” anathema.

So they did. Oxfam America’s representative came to meet with Galton and me. The meeting took place in Galton’s office.

I do not remember the man’s name.

He was a nice-looking, thirty-something man. He had on a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Designer shoes. He had on more gold and diamond jewelry than I’d ever seen on a human being. Jeweled watch. Cufflinks. Stickpin. Bracelets. A neck chain that would make a rapper blush.  Doubt me, go ahead. Discount by two-thirds what I’m telling you and you should still have an image of a guy wearing clothes and jewelry that at market price would feed a thousand starving people for a month.

After the greetings and handshaking, Galton, making conversation, said that he imagined that Oxfam America and other charitable organizations had, at least, gotten a lot of people to focus on the ongoing tragedy in Africa, and had inspired many efforts such as ours from musicians and performers and artists.

This Oxfam America fellow, let’s call him Midas, just plain gushed about how good for business the East African famine was, how donations were rolling in at record levels. He talked about the millions dying as if it were a great marketing opportunity.

Galton and I were stupefied. We couldn’t believe how thrilled Midas was that his business was booming.

Midas explained that the purpose of his visit wasn’t here to request changes or negotiate. He had come to save us from our own folly. He made it clear that Oxfam America had nothing but contempt for us and our work. He came as a favor, to urge us not to publish the abomination that we had created. He assured us that it would destroy Marvel Comics.

Right. Well, naturally, I wondered why.

Midas flipped through the mock-up. Again and again he pointed out black characters that he said “looked like Michael Jackson.” We were obviously trying to capitalize on Michael Jackson’s image and fame.

Michael Jackson in particular and the Jackson family in general were huge supporters of Oxfam America, by the way. Every drawing of a woman, he said, was sexist and exploitative. He was particularly offended by depictions of Storm, which he thought were more than sexist, a denigration of women of color.

I mentioned that the men were heroic and glamorous, too. Just like in the movies, stars tend to be good looking.

He pointed out a panel in which Chris had a carnival barker saying: “Yowza….” That, he said, was racist in the extreme. I don’t have the book handy, as explained above, but wasn’t that character Caucasian?

Moore and Corben’s pages? Yikes.

I cannot begin to tell you all the racism, sexism and hate that he (and Oxfam America) read into the words and pictures.

Wow.

The punch line is this: Midas accused Marvel of “stealing Janet Jackson’s logo.” He believed that the Heroes for Hope logo, credited to Janet Jackson, was ripped off.

I offered to introduce him to the designer on our staff who had created the logo, one Miss Janet Claire Jackson. He dismissed my obvious attempt at a cover-up.

No, really, we have a designer named…. Oh, never mind.

No wonder Janet Claire Jackson eventually started going by the name “Blog Elf.”

Finally, the lunatic left. Galton and I shared a moment of “what a jerk.”

Pam was instructed to find some other organization to which to donate the money. She came up with the American Friends Service Committee.

Heroes for Hope was a huge success. Thanks to our sales department, we got donations from downstream—distributors, retailers, even fans.

Can’t find the press release and the picture of me and Galton giving the AFSC honchos the PR “Big Check” created by our production department to symbolize the real check. I think the initial donation was $500,000. Much more came later.

It was a great thing. Jim Starlin, Bernie Wrightson, Ann Nocenti and Chris Claremont are great heroes in my book. Heroes for hope. There are people alive today who wouldn’t be without their efforts.

AND ABOUT THOSE STEPHEN KING PAGES

The non-comics writers who participated needed some help in most cases, which Ann and Chris provided. The biggest challenge was Stephen King’s contribution. I may be exaggerating here, but not by much—he gave us something like 5,000 words for three pages. Almost overnight, by the way.  Chris, Ann and I somehow cut that down to what would fit on three comics pages. 500 words? I forget.  Has anyone else ever had to cut out 90% of Stephen King’s brilliant words?

REVIEW

This was bound to not be a nice comic-book to review. The famine in Ethiopia at the moment had political origins that people decided to look over in favor of Live Aid and We Are The World.

Let’s just say that sending super-heroes there to help doesn’t guarantee a success (although they could have done something more against politicians, but let’s not go there).

The story is a bit abstract and the characters pretty much end up making sense of it without ever checking their facts (like the entity being a mutant and why it exists). The sequences about each X-man being tortured psychologically was too repetitive. By the time they end up in Africa (something that happens on a wild guess), the book is almost over.

The art doesn’t have a nice unifying feel. Something that could have been possible with breakdowns and less inkers and colorists.

But you know what? I understand why it had to be like that. This book was made ad honorem, and people did a great effort to just put the damn thing on the stands.

My other concern is that the X-men weren’t the right fit for a story like this. I understand they were popular back then, but these comics should attract non-readers as well (it’s for a good cause after all). And to be frank, things like Rachel Summers, Storm not having powers, Magneto being the leader... those are things of that time. Very hard to relate to. The Avengers would have been a better choice, or even Spider-man and the Fantastic Four (even if Spidey was looking a bit different at the time).

I like the message of not losing hope, and hope being the one thing keeping people alive in such tragedies... but then they kind of go back home. Leaving hope?

I don’t think the ideas in the book were brought down on something concrete or to keep thinking on. It is just confusing.

I give the book a score of 5

[holmquistewduckettwq53insur-blog]

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Tip cheap car insurance quotes nj

[michaeljtraylor]

10 lessons from Marketos growth to a multi-billion-dollar exit

Doug Pepper Contributor

Doug Pepper is a managing director at Shasta Ventures.

More posts by this contributor

A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain

With Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, I have been reflecting on what an amazing and pioneering company Marketo has been since it was founded in 2006. There are very few tech companies that have defined a new category, executed a successful IPO, been acquired by a private equity firm for more than four times the company’s initial IPO market value and now, at a price of $4.75 billion, become the largest acquisition of a world-class company like Adobe.

The credit for this dream-come-true Silicon Valley company goes to the co-founding team of Phil Fernandez, Jon Miller and David Morandi, who together built an amazing customer-first product, defined a breakthrough category and launched a marketing automation company that continues to delight and amaze partners and customers alike.

I had the unique pleasure of meeting the founding team in 2006 when they shared their vision and passion for marketing automation. At the time, all they had was a PowerPoint deck. But it was clear then that they had a special idea and the unique capability to build a breakthrough product to deliver on their vision.

In all honesty, I couldn’t know how truly extraordinary the company would become. Thankfully, I was lucky enough that the team chose me and my former partner Bruce Cleveland as their first investor and also was fortunate to serve on the board for 10 years. Most recently, I was thrilled that Phil joined me at Shasta. One of the qualities I admire most about Phil — which was apparent all those years ago and continues to this day — is that he never stops iterating to do things better or faster or more efficiently or more thoughtfully. Phil always carried a notebook that said “THINK” on the cover, which epitomizes how he approaches his work.

Phil recently shared his “10 Things I’d Do Even Better If I Did It Again” presentation with our team and our founder/CEO community. We believe his insights are “10 Must-Dos” for today’s software entrepreneurs. It’s hard for entrepreneurs to know the trade-offs required when making the tough decisions — especially early on ­– but what follows is what I learned from Phil, and the key takeaways from his talk that I believe can help more founders create iconic companies with lasting value. (Note: Click here to view excerpts of Phil’s talk.)

Have one person own revenue

If your company is like every other company, there are two executives — vice president of Sales and the chief marketing officer — who are regularly locking horns because they are each tasked with taking different approaches to the same goal of increasing revenue. How do you solve this?

Hire a chief revenue officer (CRO) who can see both perspectives, plus give the context that sales and marketing are missing. This seat understands the big picture and doesn’t belong in marketing or sales. The CRO needs to talk strategically about life cycle revenue — across the customer journey. She or he should be a storyteller who can look at the numbers and the models and explain it all in plain English to the executive team so that everyone understands. Like a chief people officer, you’re going to have to spend on a CRO — but it’s worth it in the long run.

Hire a chief people officer (CPO) ASAP

Your company needs a leader of “all things people” who can make sure your workplace is welcoming, diverse and responsive to employee needs. For the staff to have trust, this person needs to be in a role that is empowered by the organization and not just by the CEO. Hire the most senior, overqualified HR executive into your business as early as possible — Series A level — and have him or her report directly to the CEO. By constantly listening to people — which is really hard when you’re working really hard — the CPO will help build your culture and be the eyes and ears for the CEO. Investing early in HR will come back to you tenfold through employee retention, team morale and an enviable culture.

Give back when it makes no sense

The day you think you’ve got to get a product release out the door and there’s no time to do anything else is the day you get out and give back in whatever way makes sense for your company and your community. Give employees time off to volunteer. Pick a cause for your company to support. Or, consider starting a charitable foundation with pre-public stock. It will create a spirit and energy that will give back to your team five or 10 times whatever it is costing you.

Charge your first customer

Phil personally wrote a stupid thing on their website that said, “At Marketo, your success doesn’t have a price.” That copy stayed up for years as a testament to how customer-centric they were. They were proud that they weren’t charging for services. But as Phil said, that was a big mistake; they should have been charging from day one.

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful.

There really isn’t any friction about asking customers to pay for services. If you say, “Look, this product is great. It’s going to transform your business but it’s not easy and it will cost money,” they will spend it. Feature-level sales is a great way to justify why you are charging what you are charging, and it keeps customers renewing services and adding more features as their business grows and changes. To make this strategy work, gear your sales metrics toward incremental increases over time­ instead of pushing sales reps to sell as much as they can all at once.  Customers will pay for quality products that meet their needs.

Build a world-class Rev Ops/Sales Enablement team

You need a VP-level Rev Ops/Sales Enablement executive by the time your company reaches $2-3 million in revenue. That individual must think holistically about how revenue is happening, from the early lead in the door and the sale to renewal and the up-sale; understanding full lifetime value and thinking about it in a modeling sense. She or he needs to be a storyteller — one who can look at the numbers, look at the models and then explain it in plain English to the executive team. That’s gold.

Focus on continuous ARPU expansion

Today, to increase ARPU (average revenue per user), you need to design feature-level packaging every bit as much as how you design product functionally. The same people on product management ought to be thinking together with Rev Ops and Sales about how you dish out the product, how you launch the pieces, how you turn on pieces and how you enable pieces. It becomes a part of the art of product design as much as the art of revenue design — and that’s where these two rules of thought really come together. Basically, you need to design an expansion pass.

Incubate new product initiatives

Marketo failed in defining a multi-product company, from when it was $30 million a year to when it was $300 million a year. If you’re going to bring a second product line into the company — whether it’s organic or inorganic — it needs to be incubated. It needs to have its own dedicated sales team and its own separate quotas. If you’re thinking about becoming a multi-product company, do not pass Go, do not collect $200; go read Geoffrey Moores’ Zone to Win, the only business book Phil has ever recommended.

Pursue constant technology renewal

The pace at which tech is moving and the competitive advantage that new tech is providing over old tech has never been like this during the past 35 years. Today, you need someone that’s charged with thinking not about product but about the future. You need to value technical currency. If you’re three years old on your technology and a new company enters your market — the degree of agility, pace and performance the new entrant has in running circles around your company will win over a five-year cycle. Every time.

Always be seeking more TAM

No matter how good your initial tenure is, no matter how good it feels, no matter how amazing you see your company, as the CEO, as a leader, have a Plan B. Know what’s next, know where you’re going next and make sure you’re always talking about it. Be absolutely zealous about ensuring you know the next piece of TAM you’re going to go after. Think about what’s going to happen if you have more money; what would you do next? Give yourself that opportunity to dream, but make it real, make it defensible.

Watch the clock during scale up

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful. Always be watching the time. The tension between operating leverage and scale-up investment is really dangerous. At Marketo, they got to it late and their growth slowed a little too much. Live in the real world and focus on cash and on making the investments so you have the capacity when you need it. Have a long-range planning process and understand the day when you’ll need $2 million of ramp capacity. Don’t let the tyranny of a seductive short-range model triumph over what the real world is telling you about the dynamics of growing the business. Understand what it takes to really scale.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/16/10-must-dos-for-todays-software-entrepreneurs/

from RSSUnify feed https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/19/10-lessons-from-marketos-growth-to-a-multi-billion-dollar-exit/ from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.tumblr.com/post/179211500834

[thegloober]

10 lessons from Marketo’s growth to a multi-billion-dollar exit

Doug Pepper Contributor

More posts by this contributor

A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain

With Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, I have been reflecting on what an amazing and pioneering company Marketo has been since it was founded in 2006. There are very few tech companies that have defined a new category, executed a successful IPO, been acquired by a private equity firm for more than four times the company’s initial IPO market value and now, at a price of $4.75 billion, become the largest acquisition of a world-class company like Adobe.

The credit for this dream-come-true Silicon Valley company goes to the co-founding team of Phil Fernandez, Jon Miller and David Morandi, who together built an amazing customer-first product, defined a breakthrough category and launched a marketing automation company that continues to delight and amaze partners and customers alike.

I had the unique pleasure of meeting the founding team in 2006 when they shared their vision and passion for marketing automation. At the time, all they had was a PowerPoint deck. But it was clear then that they had a special idea and the unique capability to build a breakthrough product to deliver on their vision.

In all honesty, I couldn’t know how truly extraordinary the company would become. Thankfully, I was lucky enough that the team chose me and my former partner Bruce Cleveland as their first investor and also was fortunate to serve on the board for 10 years. Most recently, I was thrilled that Phil joined me at Shasta. One of the qualities I admire most about Phil — which was apparent all those years ago and continues to this day — is that he never stops iterating to do things better or faster or more efficiently or more thoughtfully. Phil always carried a notebook that said “THINK” on the cover, which epitomizes how he approaches his work.

Phil recently shared his “10 Things I’d Do Even Better If I Did It Again” presentation with our team and our founder/CEO community. We believe his insights are “10 Must-Dos” for today’s software entrepreneurs. It’s hard for entrepreneurs to know the trade-offs required when making the tough decisions — especially early on ­– but what follows is what I learned from Phil, and the key takeaways from his talk that I believe can help more founders create iconic companies with lasting value. (Note: Click here to view excerpts of Phil’s talk.)

Have one person own revenue

If your company is like every other company, there are two executives — vice president of Sales and the chief marketing officer — who are regularly locking horns because they are each tasked with taking different approaches to the same goal of increasing revenue. How do you solve this?

Hire a chief revenue officer (CRO) who can see both perspectives, plus give the context that sales and marketing are missing. This seat understands the big picture and doesn’t belong in marketing or sales. The CRO needs to talk strategically about life cycle revenue — across the customer journey. She or he should be a storyteller who can look at the numbers and the models and explain it all in plain English to the executive team so that everyone understands. Like a chief people officer, you’re going to have to spend on a CRO — but it’s worth it in the long run.

Hire a chief people officer (CPO) ASAP

Your company needs a leader of “all things people” who can make sure your workplace is welcoming, diverse and responsive to employee needs. For the staff to have trust, this person needs to be in a role that is empowered by the organization and not just by the CEO. Hire the most senior, overqualified HR executive into your business as early as possible — Series A level — and have him or her report directly to the CEO. By constantly listening to people — which is really hard when you’re working really hard — the CPO will help build your culture and be the eyes and ears for the CEO. Investing early in HR will come back to you tenfold through employee retention, team morale and an enviable culture.

Give back when it makes no sense

The day you think you’ve got to get a product release out the door and there’s no time to do anything else is the day you get out and give back in whatever way makes sense for your company and your community. Give employees time off to volunteer. Pick a cause for your company to support. Or, consider starting a charitable foundation with pre-public stock. It will create a spirit and energy that will give back to your team five or 10 times whatever it is costing you.

Charge your first customer

Phil personally wrote a stupid thing on their website that said, “At Marketo, your success doesn’t have a price.” That copy stayed up for years as a testament to how customer-centric they were. They were proud that they weren’t charging for services. But as Phil said, that was a big mistake; they should have been charging from day one.

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful.

There really isn’t any friction about asking customers to pay for services. If you say, “Look, this product is great. It’s going to transform your business but it’s not easy and it will cost money,” they will spend it. Feature-level sales is a great way to justify why you are charging what you are charging, and it keeps customers renewing services and adding more features as their business grows and changes. To make this strategy work, gear your sales metrics toward incremental increases over time­ instead of pushing sales reps to sell as much as they can all at once. Customers will pay for quality products that meet their needs.

Build a world-class Rev Ops/Sales Enablement team

You need a VP-level Rev Ops/Sales Enablement executive by the time your company reaches $2-3 million in revenue. That individual must think holistically about how revenue is happening, from the early lead in the door and the sale to renewal and the up-sale; understanding full lifetime value and thinking about it in a modeling sense. She or he needs to be a storyteller — one who can look at the numbers, look at the models and then explain it in plain English to the executive team. That’s gold.

Focus on continuous ARPU expansion

Today, to increase ARPU (average revenue per user), you need to design feature-level packaging every bit as much as how you design product functionally. The same people on product management ought to be thinking together with Rev Ops and Sales about how you dish out the product, how you launch the pieces, how you turn on pieces and how you enable pieces. It becomes a part of the art of product design as much as the art of revenue design — and that’s where these two rules of thought really come together. Basically, you need to design an expansion pass.

Incubate new product initiatives

Marketo failed in defining a multi-product company, from when it was $30 million a year to when it was $300 million a year. If you’re going to bring a second product line into the company — whether it’s organic or inorganic — it needs to be incubated. It needs to have its own dedicated sales team and its own separate quotas. If you’re thinking about becoming a multi-product company, do not pass Go, do not collect $200; go read Geoffrey Moores’ Zone to Win, the only business book Phil has ever recommended.

Pursue constant technology renewal

The pace at which tech is moving and the competitive advantage that new tech is providing over old tech has never been like this during the past 35 years. Today, you need someone that’s charged with thinking not about product but about the future. You need to value technical currency. If you’re three years old on your technology and a new company enters your market — the degree of agility, pace and performance the new entrant has in running circles around your company will win over a five-year cycle. Every time.

Always be seeking more TAM

No matter how good your initial tenure is, no matter how good it feels, no matter how amazing you see your company, as the CEO, as a leader, have a Plan B. Know what’s next, know where you’re going next and make sure you’re always talking about it. Be absolutely zealous about ensuring you know the next piece of TAM you’re going to go after. Think about what’s going to happen if you have more money; what would you do next? Give yourself that opportunity to dream, but make it real, make it defensible.

Watch the clock during scale up

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful. Always be watching the time. The tension between operating leverage and scale-up investment is really dangerous. At Marketo, they got to it late and their growth slowed a little too much. Live in the real world and focus on cash and on making the investments so you have the capacity when you need it. Have a long-range planning process and understand the day when you’ll need $2 million of ramp capacity. Don’t let the tyranny of a seductive short-range model triumph over what the real world is telling you about the dynamics of growing the business. Understand what it takes to really scale.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/10-lessons-from-marketos-growth-to-a-multi-billion-dollar-exit/

[fmservers]

10 lessons from Marketo’s growth to a multi-billion-dollar exit

Doug Pepper Contributor

Doug Pepper is a managing director at Shasta Ventures.

More posts by this contributor

A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain

With Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, I have been reflecting on what an amazing and pioneering company Marketo has been since it was founded in 2006. There are very few tech companies that have defined a new category, executed a successful IPO, been acquired by a private equity firm for more than four times the company’s initial IPO market value and now, at a price of $4.75 billion, become the largest acquisition of a world-class company like Adobe.

The credit for this dream-come-true Silicon Valley company goes to the co-founding team of Phil Fernandez, Jon Miller and David Morandi, who together built an amazing customer-first product, defined a breakthrough category and launched a marketing automation company that continues to delight and amaze partners and customers alike.

I had the unique pleasure of meeting the founding team in 2006 when they shared their vision and passion for marketing automation. At the time, all they had was a PowerPoint deck. But it was clear then that they had a special idea and the unique capability to build a breakthrough product to deliver on their vision.

In all honesty, I couldn’t know how truly extraordinary the company would become. Thankfully, I was lucky enough that the team chose me and my former partner Bruce Cleveland as their first investor and also was fortunate to serve on the board for 10 years. Most recently, I was thrilled that Phil joined me at Shasta. One of the qualities I admire most about Phil — which was apparent all those years ago and continues to this day — is that he never stops iterating to do things better or faster or more efficiently or more thoughtfully. Phil always carried a notebook that said “THINK” on the cover, which epitomizes how he approaches his work.

Phil recently shared his “10 Things I’d Do Even Better If I Did It Again” presentation with our team and our founder/CEO community. We believe his insights are “10 Must-Dos” for today’s software entrepreneurs. It’s hard for entrepreneurs to know the trade-offs required when making the tough decisions — especially early on ­– but what follows is what I learned from Phil, and the key takeaways from his talk that I believe can help more founders create iconic companies with lasting value. (Note: Click here to view excerpts of Phil’s talk.)

Have one person own revenue

If your company is like every other company, there are two executives — vice president of Sales and the chief marketing officer — who are regularly locking horns because they are each tasked with taking different approaches to the same goal of increasing revenue. How do you solve this?

Hire a chief revenue officer (CRO) who can see both perspectives, plus give the context that sales and marketing are missing. This seat understands the big picture and doesn’t belong in marketing or sales. The CRO needs to talk strategically about life cycle revenue — across the customer journey. She or he should be a storyteller who can look at the numbers and the models and explain it all in plain English to the executive team so that everyone understands. Like a chief people officer, you’re going to have to spend on a CRO — but it’s worth it in the long run.

Hire a chief people officer (CPO) ASAP

Your company needs a leader of “all things people” who can make sure your workplace is welcoming, diverse and responsive to employee needs. For the staff to have trust, this person needs to be in a role that is empowered by the organization and not just by the CEO. Hire the most senior, overqualified HR executive into your business as early as possible — Series A level — and have him or her report directly to the CEO. By constantly listening to people — which is really hard when you’re working really hard — the CPO will help build your culture and be the eyes and ears for the CEO. Investing early in HR will come back to you tenfold through employee retention, team morale and an enviable culture.

Give back when it makes no sense

The day you think you’ve got to get a product release out the door and there’s no time to do anything else is the day you get out and give back in whatever way makes sense for your company and your community. Give employees time off to volunteer. Pick a cause for your company to support. Or, consider starting a charitable foundation with pre-public stock. It will create a spirit and energy that will give back to your team five or 10 times whatever it is costing you.

Charge your first customer

Phil personally wrote a stupid thing on their website that said, “At Marketo, your success doesn’t have a price.” That copy stayed up for years as a testament to how customer-centric they were. They were proud that they weren’t charging for services. But as Phil said, that was a big mistake; they should have been charging from day one.

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful.

There really isn’t any friction about asking customers to pay for services. If you say, “Look, this product is great. It’s going to transform your business but it’s not easy and it will cost money,” they will spend it. Feature-level sales is a great way to justify why you are charging what you are charging, and it keeps customers renewing services and adding more features as their business grows and changes. To make this strategy work, gear your sales metrics toward incremental increases over time­ instead of pushing sales reps to sell as much as they can all at once. Customers will pay for quality products that meet their needs.

Build a world-class Rev Ops/Sales Enablement team

You need a VP-level Rev Ops/Sales Enablement executive by the time your company reaches $2-3 million in revenue. That individual must think holistically about how revenue is happening, from the early lead in the door and the sale to renewal and the up-sale; understanding full lifetime value and thinking about it in a modeling sense. She or he needs to be a storyteller — one who can look at the numbers, look at the models and then explain it in plain English to the executive team. That’s gold.

Focus on continuous ARPU expansion

Today, to increase ARPU (average revenue per user), you need to design feature-level packaging every bit as much as how you design product functionally. The same people on product management ought to be thinking together with Rev Ops and Sales about how you dish out the product, how you launch the pieces, how you turn on pieces and how you enable pieces. It becomes a part of the art of product design as much as the art of revenue design — and that’s where these two rules of thought really come together. Basically, you need to design an expansion pass.

Incubate new product initiatives

Marketo failed in defining a multi-product company, from when it was $30 million a year to when it was $300 million a year. If you’re going to bring a second product line into the company — whether it’s organic or inorganic — it needs to be incubated. It needs to have its own dedicated sales team and its own separate quotas. If you’re thinking about becoming a multi-product company, do not pass Go, do not collect $200; go read Geoffrey Moores’ Zone to Win, the only business book Phil has ever recommended.

Pursue constant technology renewal

The pace at which tech is moving and the competitive advantage that new tech is providing over old tech has never been like this during the past 35 years. Today, you need someone that’s charged with thinking not about product but about the future. You need to value technical currency. If you’re three years old on your technology and a new company enters your market — the degree of agility, pace and performance the new entrant has in running circles around your company will win over a five-year cycle. Every time.

Always be seeking more TAM

No matter how good your initial tenure is, no matter how good it feels, no matter how amazing you see your company, as the CEO, as a leader, have a Plan B. Know what’s next, know where you’re going next and make sure you’re always talking about it. Be absolutely zealous about ensuring you know the next piece of TAM you’re going to go after. Think about what’s going to happen if you have more money; what would you do next? Give yourself that opportunity to dream, but make it real, make it defensible.

Watch the clock during scale up

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful. Always be watching the time. The tension between operating leverage and scale-up investment is really dangerous. At Marketo, they got to it late and their growth slowed a little too much. Live in the real world and focus on cash and on making the investments so you have the capacity when you need it. Have a long-range planning process and understand the day when you’ll need $2 million of ramp capacity. Don’t let the tyranny of a seductive short-range model triumph over what the real world is telling you about the dynamics of growing the business. Understand what it takes to really scale.

Via David Riggs https://techcrunch.com

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Puck Daddy Countdown: Tom Wilson, concussions and a huge cap increase

7. Tom Wilson and also the refs and also the league

This is getting ridiculous.

Like, OK, the argument from the Department of Player “Safety” is that yes, the hit on Jon Marchessault was late but there was no head contact and it’s not technically illegal to hit a guy from his blindside.

But keep in mind, when Matt Cooke basically ended Marc Savard’s career, putting a Legion of Doom-style spiked shoulder pad into a guy’s chin was also technically not illegal. Didn’t change the fact that Matt Cooke had a long and prosperous history of dirty hits most guys in the league who, y’know, have respect for their opponents’ safety, wouldn’t have even tried.

Honestly, in what way is Wilson, a useful player who also happens to be an injurious dumbass, different from Cooke, a similarly effective checking forward who plays to injure? I would love to have that explained to me by a Capitals fan whose brain functions properly.

But that’s the thing with Wilson’s hit. It wasn’t technically anything more than interference but everyone (save for the Tom Wilson stans, who are all sicko freaks) agrees it was late, and y’know maybe I’m crazy here, but it seems like you should have a reasonable expectation to not get drilled at 40 miles an hour by a guy you never saw coming nearly a full second after you got rid of the puck, which is already 20 feet away from you. It’s a predatory hit, full stop. His eyes got as big as saucers; he had plenty of time to not make that hit.

Tom Wilson needs to be stopped. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

(Side note: Shouldn’t Ryan Reaves have beaten Wilson’s ass to death for that hit? Like, not just because a fight there is warranted in the Hockey Man’s mind, but also because if you get Wilson off the ice for five and only have to give up Reaves, that’s a great trade for Vegas. Hell, in theory Reaves’ presence in the lineup should have been a deterrent for that hit in the first place, but hey guess what: It turns out that’s not actually a thing.)

In soccer, if you commit multiple fouls throughout the game, a referee can give you a yellow card for any foul where he feels like, “OK, that’s plenty from this prick.” And Tom Wilson plays like a total prick, sorry. This guy has — or at least should have — long ago torched whatever benefit of the doubt he got from the league, but this is the Cup Final and a bunch of losers from Vancouver still cry all the time about the (deserved) Aaron Rome suspension seven years ago, so you can see why the league would want to avoid that kind of thing again.

Especially because if the NHL acknowledges the refs blew it on the Wilson minor (which maybe should have been a major?) they also must necessarily acknowledge the refs blew it even harder on the Reaves goal, which shouldn’t have counted.

And if there’s one thing the league really wants to do at all times, it’s make sure there’s nothing that would lead to refs being accountable for being horrible at their jobs. That’s playoff hockey baby!

6. Concussion stuff

Came out this week that a bunch of owners, I swear to god, acted like they had never in their entire miserable lives heard of CTE. “Never heard of it, what’s that?” kind of denials, which is pretty amazing considering all the concussion lawsuits that have been going on for the NHL and other major sports leagues. Like even if you don’t know exactly what it is, surely you’re aware that it exists — as in, you’ve literally heard it mentioned, ever.

Also, TSN uncovered a mockup of a concussion awareness poster the league put together that, as a joke I guess(?), said one of the symptoms was “feeling like a giant [sexist term for a wimp or a coward and you know the one I’m talking about].” They also removed language in the finalized versions of those posters advising players that numerous concussions can lead to dementia later in life.

Meanwhile, Johan Franzen’s wife is out here in the Detroit media telling the horror stories about her nice husband’s struggles with brain injuries.

Now, *putting my thumbs into my suspenders* I’m no fancy big-city lawyer, but it seems to me this case is not going to end well for the NHL. They’re not only bad actors on this stuff (obviously), they’re openly contemptuous of it. You’d think this many rich guys couldn’t be this stupid, but wealth strips you of your humanity and the NHL has a long, celebrated history of being horribly run.

So here we are.

5. *Lana Del Ray voice* Playing video games

Here’s my theory: If you put it out there that there’s a highly regarded prospect whose career was ruined by playing too many video games, you’re necessarily going to get every person whose team picked top-10 in the past five drafts to go, “Is it this guy?!?”

And then you have to go out there and say, “I said I wasn’t gonna do this for every player, but it’s not that one guy,” until you’ve done it for every player. So you might as well say the player the first time or — better yet — not say anything at all. Hmm.

This is like in fifth grade when someone tells you, “I have a secret but I can’t tell you what it is” and then also stands around letting you guess for 10 minutes before laughing and walking away. Dumb.

4. Melnyk!

Shout out to Daniel Alfredsson finally just saying everyone wants Eugene Melnyk to just sell the damn Senators already. Everyone hates him! Including the guy who’s running for mayor, which honestly is bound to be a fairly popular political position in town.

It’s like Melnyk keeping the team out of spite (or maybe to get some more vital organs) at this point. Pretty bad scene up there. Wonder if the NHL will try to force his hand here.

3. Narratives

Saw something on Twitter yesterday where they had Keith Olbermann on ESPN saying it might be wise for teams like the Oilers with mega-stars to conisder trading those elite players for several second-line talents.

You know, because of Vegas. And presumably because the Oilers sucked this year.

The premise of the argument is flawed because we know for sure Vegas didn’t just take a whole team of second-line guys. Maybe you say they were incorrectly valued as second-line talent, but that also doesn’t really address the larger issue of the argument that you should give up, say, Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews to get a handful of significantly less impactful players.

This is, I guess, Olbermann advocating for more Tyler Seguin trades. How did that work out for the Bruins, I wonder.

Anyway, you can expect this stuff to keep happening because Vegas is probably gonna win the Cup and people won’t look at the “why” of it, just that it happened. I love not learning anything from anything.

2. The Cup Final

Let’s hope tonight’s game is even 60 percent as entertaining as Game 1, but also like 150 percent better-officiated. This is good hockey.

1. A (potentially) huge cap increase

It was revealed before Game 1 that the salary cap could go up as much as $7 million next season. Not sure if that includes the players’ ability to use the 5 percent escalator (which would mean more escrow payments, but that hasn’t stopped them from both doing the escalator and then complaining about escrow).

But the idea that the cap could go up more than nine percent? Hoo boy. I’m specifically thinking about Vegas here, because they only have $50.2 million or so committed to 19 guys for next year.

And oh yeah, that $50.2 million includes David Clarkson, who they could LTIR the second they hit the cap ceiling, so in theory their actual cap number is closer to $45 million.

They need to re-sign Wild Bill Karlsson after his big season, as well as Colin Miller, Shea Theodore, and both Tomas Nosek and William Carrier. But what do you think those guys put together actually cost? Like $12 million? So they’re up to maybe like $57 million.

This team having like THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS to spend this summer? Come on, man. Imagine they take a run at that Erik Karlsson/Bobby Ryan trade again and pull it off. Imagine they take a run at Ilya Kovalchuk. Imagine they take a run at John Tavares. “You don’t pay state income tax” and (maybe) “We just won a Stanley Cup” is a hell of a sales pitch, no?

Get Karlsson and Bobby Ryan, that’s like $13.75 million. Big chunk of change but presumably Ottawa will take money back, too, just because they have to hit the cap floor at the very least. So maybe $10 million for those two in terms of net costs? OK, that gets them up to $67 million (or more) in cap obligations.

Give Tavares $10 million, whatever. That’s $77 million. Give Kovalchuk $5 million. That’s $82 million.

Plus you can probably finagle a couple sell-high trades to get some money off the books elsewhere. C’mon. It would be incredible.

(Not ranked this week: That Evander Kane deal.

When people said Evander Kane should be locked up, this is not what they meant!

Ha ha ha. Pretty good joke.

But for real, when you can give $7 million times seven to a 27-year-old who can’t stay healthy and has a career high of 57 points (set six years ago) and comes with a litany of what can be generously described as “off-ice issues” (multiple assault allegations) you gotta do it. Right?)

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

More Stanley Cup coverage from Yahoo Sports

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

10 Surprising Facts About Burt Reynolds

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/10-surprising-facts-about-burt-reynolds/

10 Surprising Facts About Burt Reynolds

If your first memory of Burton Leon Reynolds is from the 1993 film Cop and a Half, then you’re probably too young to remember—or even realize—that Burt Reynolds was once Hollywood’s biggest movie star. To put it in perspective: Every year from 1973 to 1984, Reynolds was listed as one of Quigley’s “Top 10 Money Makers,” and held the top spot on the annual poll from 1978 to 1982 (the only other person to boast a record five consecutive years at the top of the list is Bing Crosby, back in the 1940s).

After a serious knee injury and subsequent car accident ended a promising football career at Florida State University, Reynolds found his way into acting. He got his start in a series of television roles, including a regular gig on the western series Riverboat, then hit the big screen big time with his breakout role in John Boorman’s 1972 backwoods classic, Deliverance.

Reynolds followed Deliverance up with such hits as Smokey and The Bandit (a film Playboy called “the Gone with the Wind of good-ol’-boy movies”), Semi-Tough, The Cannonball Run, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Though he hit a bit of a rough patch for a few years, all of that changed when Reynolds agreed to star in Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 ode to pornography, which earned the actor a Golden Globe award, a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and one of the biggest comebacks of the decade. Here are 10 things you may not have known about the mustachioed Hollywood icon, who turns 80 years old today.

1. HE TURNED DOWN SOME MAJOR ROLES.

Over the course of a near-60-year career, one is bound to pass on some prime roles. And Reynolds has turned down a lot, including (by his own admission in the video above) Han Solo in Star Wars, R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman, and John McClane in Die Hard. Although he doesn’t regret that final one: “I don’t regret turning down anything Bruce Willis did,” Reynolds told Piers Morgan.

More notably, and perhaps more regrettably, Reynolds turned down a chance to play James Bond in 1969. As Reynolds explains it: “In my infinite wisdom, I said to [producer] Cubby Broccoli, ‘An American can’t play James Bond. It just can’t be done.’ And they really tried to talk me into it. It was a 10-minute discussion. Finally they left. Every night, I wake up in a cold sweat.”

The role Reynolds laments turning down the most, however, is a role that was written specifically with him in mind. When director James L. Brooks approached him about playing Garrett Breedlove in 1983’s Terms of Endearment, Reynolds balked, instead taking a role in Hal Needham’s Stroker Ace. “When it came time to choose between Terms and Stroker, I chose the latter because I felt I owed Hal more than I did Jim,” Reynolds explained (Needham also directed Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper, and The Cannonball Run). “Nobody told me I could have probably done Terms and Universal would have waited until I was finished before making Stroker.” The role went to Jack Nicholson, who took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.

2. HE POSED NUDE IN A 1972 ISSUE OF COSMOPOLITAN.

It may be common knowledge that Burt Reynolds posed naked in Cosmopolitan. What may be less known is that he regrets that decision. “I’m very embarrassed by it,” Reynolds told Piers Morgan. Editor Helen Gurley Brown asked Reynolds to do the photo shoot after the two appeared together on The Tonight Show. “I thought it would be a kick,” Reynolds said. The issue came out only a short time before Deliverance was released in theaters and all 1.6 million copies of the magazine sold out.

Despite the popularity of the spread, Reynolds now believes that it may have distracted from the critical reception of Deliverance. “I thought it cost some actors in Deliverance an Academy Award,” Reynolds told Morgan. “I think it cost Jon [Voight]. I think it cost Ned Beatty, who certainly deserved an Oscar nomination. I think it hurt me, too.”

3. HE TURNED DOWN HIS OSCAR-NOMINATED ROLE IN BOOGIE NIGHTS. SEVEN TIMES.

Paul Thomas Anderson was adamant that Burt Reynolds play iconoclastic porn producer Jack Horner in his 1997 masterpiece, Boogie Nights, despite Reynolds’s aversion to the material. Anderson asked seven times, and got seven passes from Reynolds. “One night—the eighth time—[Anderson] came to my hotel room,” Reynolds recalled. “And I said, ‘Look, you don’t get it.’ And I went a little berserk. And at the end of the tirade, he said, ‘If you can do that in the movie, you’ll get nominated for an Academy Award.’ And he was right.”

4. AN ON-SET STUNT CAUSED HIM A LIFE OF PAIN.

The 1980s weren’t always kind to Reynolds. “I can’t believe I did all those bad films in a row until I looked at the list,” he said. During the filming of 1984’s City Heat, Reynolds was struck in the face by a metal chair and shattered his jaw. He developed TMJ as a result of the injury and ended up losing 40 pounds due to his inability to eat solid food. The shocking weight loss fueled speculation that Reynolds had contracted AIDS, a rumor he spent years refuting. He also developed a severe drug dependency as a result of the chronic and debilitating pain he suffered from TMJ; at one point Reynolds was taking up to 50 Halcion sleeping pills a day.

Reynolds eventually kicked the pill addiction, but was not so lucky with the pain. He still suffers daily from the more than 30-year-old injury.

5. HE HAD AN IMPROMPTU PIE FIGHT WITH DOUBLE DARE HOST MARC SUMMERS ON THE TONIGHT SHOW.

Burt Reynolds had just finished up his segment as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1994 and had shifted over to make way for the next guest, TV show host Marc Summers (Double Dare, Unwrapped). Reynolds became visibly irritated with Summers for, ostensibly, turning his back on him while he was speaking to Leno. Summers then made the comment to Reynolds, “I’m still married, by the way.” This jab precipitated a water fight between the two combatants: Reynolds dumped his mug on Summers’s lap, Summers retaliated, so on and so forth. The donnybrook culminated in a rather violent pie fight followed by a very awkward hug.

“This was not a bit,” Summers explained. “I didn’t know what to expect. He was going through a divorce with Loni Anderson at the time and he was angry … He hugged me and said, ‘I only did that because I really like you.’ You wait to get on The Tonight Show your whole life. You’re sitting next to Burt Reynolds. He drops water on your crotch, then you get into a pie fight!”

6. HE PISSED OFF ELMORE LEONARD.

Reynolds was a longtime admirer of writer Elmore Leonard. After reading Leonard’s novel, Stick, Reynolds decided that he wanted to direct and star in the film version. Things did not go well.

After watching Reynolds’s first cut of the film, the studio pushed back its release date and forced him to re-shoot the second half of the movie, much to the actor/director’s dismay. “I turned in my cut of the picture and truly thought I had made a good film,” Reynolds told the Los Angeles Times. “Word got back to me quickly that the [studio] wanted a few changes … I gave up on the film. I didn’t fight them. I let them get the best of me.”

The biggest blow came from Elmore Leonard. “Leonard saw the film the day he was interviewed for a Newsweek cover and told them he hated it,” Reynolds shared. “After his comment, every critic attacked the film and he wouldn’t talk to me. When I re-shot the film, I was just going through the motions. I’m not proud of what I did, but I take responsibility for my actions. All I can say—and this is not in way of a defense—is if you liked the first part of Stick, that’s what I was trying to achieve throughout.”

7. HE DABBLED IN THE NIGHTCLUB BUSINESS.

Burt Reynolds’s foray into the booming 1970s nightclub business was a short-lived one. He opened Burt’s Place in the late 1970s at the Omni International Hotel in downtown Atlanta. The club’s most notable feature was a stained glass dance floor that featured a rendering of Burt’s face and the words, “Burt’s Joint”—which was odd, considering that wasn’t even the name of the establishment. Burt’s Place/Joint closed after a year.

8. MARLON BRANDO WAS NOT A FAN OF REYNOLDS.

Coming up in the movie business, Burt Reynolds was a huge Marlon Brando fan. Brando did not share the sentiment. When Reynolds was being considered for the role of Michael Corleone in 1972’s The Godfather, Brando adamantly declared that if Reynolds was given the role, he would remove himself from the project. The rest is history.

Brando later said about Reynolds, “He is the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up … He is the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian … He worships at the temple of his own narcissism.” Ouch! To be fair, in the same conversation, Brando admits that he had never even met Reynolds.

9. HE RELEASED AN ALBUM. 

Hot off his success in Deliverance and his nude spread in Cosmo, a solo album seemed like the next, most Hollywood-appropriate course of action.

Reynolds released his debut record, “Ask Me What I Am,” in 1973 and somehow this gem seems to have evaded critics and fans alike. We do know that the album came with a double-sized poster of Reynolds in a blue jumpsuit and cowboy hat. You can listen to a track on YouTube, but if you must hear it in its entirety, it’s available on Amazon.

10. HE DOESN’T THINK DELIVERANCE COULD BE RE-MADE TODAY.

“They keep talking about a remake, but I don’t think you could find four actors crazy enough to do it,” Reynolds said. “Not by any stretch of the imagination were we white water experts. We’d quit for the day and come back and practice. We got to the point where we were more proficient, or at least we didn’t get tipped over all the time. I have to admit that, in spite of the danger, or maybe because of the danger, it was the most fun I ever had.”

Reynolds has often said that Deliverance is the finest of all of his films.