#adam is the new guy not as new as our new delivery driver but new as in a month ago

[these-are-the-first-steps]

Here’s a random reylo ask for ya- did you ever have any theories/HCs early on in shipping reylo (cuz I believe you’ve said you were shipping since TFA) which you didn’t end up being into as much, or at all anymore as TST progressed?

Hello! Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this.

Story Time

So I saw TFA the second day it came out. I left rather bewildered- one, because a new actor I'd never seen before in my life (adam driver) gave such an unorthodox performance I couldn't stop thinking "The fuck does this guy think he's doing???" namely the interrogation scene where I don't think any other actor would have, nor could have, played it the way he did. I'm still shocked by the choices he made with his line delivery in that scene but in the best way possible. It's hard to explain. Anyway, that's one. Two also goes back to that scene. In middle school, back with Tokyo Pop was big, they held their very first manga contest for us regular american people to try our hand at Japanese style manga. Well, I felt like I could write, and my good friend at the time (she still is- we keep in touch!) could draw like a crazy person. So we decided to try for it. The only problem was, being middle schoolers, motivation and scheduling wasn't our forte. I did manage to write a short script excerpt of a story that had been brewing in my head for awhile at the time, and while I think I did eventually hand it over to her (I was suffering from perfectionism), the art never happened. We tried again in high school but then high school angst got in the way and it still didn't happen. Regardless, I still now had the only real concrete piece of writing for this story I had been sitting on for a couple years now.

Eventually....well, time moved on.

Cue "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", a sequel film I was INCREDIBLY skeptical about. I'd been watching star wars my entire life. My dad took me as a little kid to the big deal re-screenings of the original trilogy they did nationwide before the prequels came out. I had a lot of Opinions on this movie series. I had just moved to NYC and was out for a walk when I passed by Bloomingdales and saw, a bit to my shock, that their store windows were full of (allegedly) screen-used costumes and props from the upcoming TFA movie. I crept closer, had a look. Han Solo was the only thing I recognized. The rest? Unfamiliar. Alien. I had seen zero promotional images for this movie before encountering these windows and had only heard some things. I made guesses as to what everything was, before rounding the corner and being confronted with an irrationally tall costume. "Oh, is this the darth vader rip-off? lmao" (the only thing I had concretely heard about). "This guy had to be on stilts surely??" Kylo Ren. Funny at first, but the longer I stared at it, I shit you not, the more unsettled I got. I actually got *scared* staring at this costume. I took one very poor, very shaky picture, and basically ran away. (I regret not taking a better photo but oh well). I run into an article the next day at work about the movie and it happens to have the trailer and I decide, sure, ok, I'll give it a watch. Those windows were interesting at least. I basically had my tickets bought by the end of the day. So here we are, back to the theatre, sitting here as this audacious actor delivers the most ballsy performance I've seen the whole film as he interrogates the heroine, and I listen to what he's saying, and then, it hits me.

This. Is my story. These are my lines. I wrote this exact same exchange in middle school.

What the fuck??

This meant a lot of things to me. This meant that I knew where this story was going, and where it was going I liked very much. I went back to see the movie again a second time about a week or two later. I had to be sure-- I wasn't just imposing what was already inside my brain all these years onto a totally different story on the screen, was I? I watched, and waited. And sure enough....no, no it had to be it. These two? I know exactly how this is going to go down.

A few months later I visited back home and even managed to dig through a box and find my old script. I read through it, sort of shaking a little. My heroine- Light- had also been captured- by the Dark- and the song and dance were the same- Where am I? Does it matter? I can see everything. I'm not giving you anything. A summary, and as some years have passed again I have lost the print out in a box again, but some of the dialogue was ver batum.

I knew exactly where this new star wars story was going because I already wrote the damn thing in middle school, word for word, and if you thought for one second I wasn't going to tune in and defend this arc, that I never managed to get published myself at 13, with swords and shields and knives for my own personal middle school catharsis then you were dead wrong, my friend.

This may have seemed like a very round-about way of answering this question, but I wanted to give context, substance, because all of this ^^^^^ up here? It defines, explicitly, why I'm even here to begin with, and why I fought so hard from day one. There was nothing to abandon, or question, or shed. Because I already knew this story by heart. I had already written it!! And I still think ants and DLF and JJ Abrams and Terrio and the rest of those bastards can pry it from my cold dead hands, because truly they butchered my baby and while I may live with that, I'll never forget it.

Thank you for the ask, friend.

[selfshipping-superhero]

🦷 + 🪽 + 💿 from the ask list!! i love your marvel polyship ahhh you guys are so cute!! - adam @/lipsticklens ☆

Thank you for the ask!!! I might not have answered I’m full extent but here’s the bare bones of it. This really helped fleshing out the lore a bit.

🦷 how did you first meet your f/o? what made you realize you were falling in love with them? what made them realize they were falling in love with you?

Oh man

Wade and Logan

Wade and Logan were kind of a package deal. My s/i (Jaime) is a mutant with a very valuable ability. Jaime’s current employer owner hired Logan to guard him. And then one of Jaime’s employer’s owner competitors hired Wade to assassinate Jaime.

Shenanigans ensue.

“Heyyyy honey badger can you step aside? I’m about to murder the fuck out of this guy.”

“Do you know this guy?” Jaime asks

*tired sigh* “He’s my roommate.”

*offended gasp* “And history will call them roommates! : (“

Cue a long, violent montage of Wade is trying to kill Jaime and then Logan stepping in to protect him. After everything is said and done, Wade just kills Jaime’s employer owner and the guy who hired him. Jaime moves in with Wade, Logan, and Al.

The three of them dance around each other for awhile in the most confusing roommate/situationship in all of roommate history. They don’t actually get together until they see other people.

Jake Lockely

If I was to sum up the story of how they met and fell in love it in fanfic title format, it would be ‘five times the Jake came to the rescue + one time Jaime did’

Jaime started dating Jake, but their relationship was pretty rocky and confusing. Until Jake told Jaime about his system and all the shit they’re dealing with. Jaime got to know Marc and Steven and eventually started dating Steven.

(Steven and Marc are still married to Layla, Layla is a metamour - their relationship is too cute for me to retcon)

Peter Parker

Peter and Jaime meet because Peter starts dating Wade. After Wade gets kidnapped Jaime, Peter, The moon knight system, and Logan team up to rescue him.

Peter and Jaime really bond on this mission. First on their love for Wade (Logan could’ve gotten in on the ‘we love Wade Winston Wilson deeply’ bonding time but he’s too emotionally closed off). But then they started connecting over other things.

Venom & Eddie

Venom and Eddie move to New York for a fresh start. Jaime is working as a food delivery driver. Venom and Eddie order a lot of fast food that Jaime always somehow ends up delivering to them. Cue the unsavory ‘pizza delivery porno’ jokes from Wade.

Things are very messy and undefined for awhile. Until Jaime sits everyone down in a circle and essentially says ‘talk about your feelings’. It’s a hard conversation to have with a bunch of emotionally constipated superheroes but in the end it’s cathartic and the polycule was born.

: do you and your f/o enjoy traveling together? do you do it often? what's your favorite place that you've traveled with them?

I travel with Eddie and Venom quite a bit. Wherever we go Venom in most interested in the food. Steven and I make a point to going to museums. I would also travel with Wade but you can’t take him anywhere. Peter and Logan don’t have much interest in travel. I’d say our favorite place to travel as a polycule would probably be South Korea. There was something there for everyone; plenty of museums and historical sights for Steven, K-pop merch for Wade, lots of new foods for Venom to try. Everyone’s really busy all the time so finding time for leisure can be difficult.

💿 reveal your music taste! share some songs that you and your f/o enjoy. how about some albums? some artists?

Wade and I both are fans of k-pop! I like to think we are fans of different bands so we argue sometimes. (I’m not a toxic fan I promise all bands are valid I just think it’s funny to imagine arguing with Wade on who the most influential band is and arguing about scandals)

[nicistrying]

Guess who had a breakdown at work today 🤦🏼‍♀️ The early morning was really good, my delivery driver was lovely which made me so happy, everything work-wise was under control. Then Uncle Manager came in and we got talking and I just kind of crumbled and blurted out all the shit that's getting on top of me and how I'm on the fence about whether to stay in retail or not. He was really supportive and just said I'll figure it out eventually and I should definitely look into it, I can meet him and his fiancée sometime for a walk bc she works in marketing and I mentioned I've seen a few marketing jobs I could apply to. In the meantime he has his plan to get a new store and take me with him to progress and he would happily help me get a proper career in retail. Which is awesome to be able to fall back on and I'm really grateful to have that kind of support bc when I think about previous managers none of them would have done that for any of us. But thankfully Uncle Adam is looking out for me and another guy I've progressed with. We're about the same age and both lost career-wise. We bond over it a lot. In fact I had a little cry to him this morning about it. He was so sweet and made me laugh to cheer me up as always. I love him and honestly if it all works out how Adam wants and we all just get to work together for a good while I'd be pretty happy. Anyway Adam came in and saw us talking and was like lol do we need to have another sit down and I just burst into tears and he ended up sending me home to see Matthew for a couple of hours before he went to work bc I had said it was getting me down how little I see him lately too. So all in all.. a pretty disastrous shift. I had a little singalong to Billy Joel in the car on my way home to try to cheer myself up and we went for a walk. It did definitely help but I've still been really fragile. The doctor called not long after Matthew left and I've finally been prescribed some sertraline. It feels like a big step forward bc I explained to the doctor that I've been trying to manage my moods myself with therapy, exercise, eating well etc for years but they're still going downhill. Thankfully she was super understanding and didn't try to get me to reconsider or hold off any longer. So I pick that up tomorrow and probably start taking it on Saturday. It's either I struggle over the weekend while I'm off work and hopefully get past the worst of it before our stock take on Thursday night or I can enjoy my weekend with Matthew but probably really struggle with work 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maggie has been acting up most of the night so that really hasn't helped but never mind. She's finally laid down so I'm going to have a late dinner and watch parks & rec, then go pick Matthew up from work.

Hope everyone is well 💜

[abzzz3]

No Soul To Love - Part Three

gif credit to @sharingloki​

Part of a multipart fic requested by @leniram1890​

Summary: The soul is a powerful thing. It has the ability to heal people when harnessed, but also has a will of it’s own when you find a soulmate. Your soul has been ripped from you for the very purpose of healing others, and now you’re just trying to have as normal of a life as possible. That’s when tall, dark and handsome showed up, flipping everything onto it’s head and forcing you to hope for more than this life you’ve been damned to.

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Tags: @leniram1890​ @kcd15​ @deathkat657​

Warnings: vague eluding to potential drowning

Word Count: 1,735

Notes: This chapter definitely didn’t go how I originally planned it to, but it’ll probably make the rest of the fic better so I’m not mad. If you would like to be added to the tag list please let me know, constructive criticism is welcome.

_______________________________________________________________

“So what happened back there? Your friend said it was a migraine” Loki asked, as you both walked along the street together, in the vague direction of your apartment

“Yeah, I get them randomly sometimes, never know when they’re about to happen” ‘Because I never get warning’ you added in your own head

“When did they start? Do you know what caused them to begin?” Loki continued to ask

“They started 6 months ago, and I know why they started but there’s nothing I can do to stop them. Believe me, I’ve tried” You answered, your tone defeated

Loki’s brows furrowed and he looked as though he was deep in thought, silent for a few minutes as you both continued to walk. You lead the whole way, although Loki was so in tune with your every movement that to any onlookers it looked as though you both knew exactly where you were going. You supposed it was just because you knew that he didn’t in fact know where it was going, that you could see the tiny delay in his movements when responding to you.

“This is me” You said, stopping outside a red brick apartment building that looked a little run down but still nice enough to be a proper home, if a little outdated

Loki looked upwards, as if inspecting the building, and then back down at you

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” He asked once again

You chuckled, a small smile creeping across your lips

“Yes, I’ll be fine. I just need to shower and get an early night’s sleep and I’ll be good as new in the morning”

“Very well”

You smiled and made your way up the stair to the main entrance, keys in hand, when Loki called after you 

“y/n!” you turned around to face him “perhaps it’s better if I don’t come back to the store again, I saw the fuss I made for you all today . . . you, especially”

“Oh . . .” you heard the disappointment in your voice and was surprised by it “if you want, but Loki, you didn’t cause my-”

“Is there any chance I could have books brought to me, instead?” He asked, watching you intently

“You mean like delivery? Sure, I’ll give you the store number”

You reached into your handbag as you came back down the stairs and handed him a business card for the store “Just call it when you want to order anything new, there will be a delivery fee to pay as well, but it won’t be much-”

“That won’t be a problem” He assured, taking the card from your hand, fingers brushing slightly as he continued to look at you “Thank you, y/n, until next time”

Loki gave a slight bow and walked off without another word, leaving you slightly speechless as you watched him walk off, before heading inside and into your apartment.

The space wasn’t fancy by any means, but it was home. The linoleum in the kitchen/dining area was coming up in one of the corners and it was scuffed in some places through years of use, but you had craftily hidden most of it with furniture and plants, and the living room had an old brown carpet that you hated and could only hide to a certain extent underneath a couple of rugs. It was cosy though, with each wall filled with bookcases, overflowing with books that had been either read or were on the to-be-read list, or even some favourites that had been read so often that they had anything from coffee spills dried into the pages to broken spines, held together by superglue because until pages fell out and were lost you refused to replace them. This small space was your kingdom since you moved in four months ago, when you could no longer bare to live in your old house and also couldn’t afford the bills by yourself anymore. 

Most nights, you would come home and make dinner before sitting down with a book and read until your eyes started to droop, or you could no longer put off doing the adulty things life required of you when you lived on your own and had to look after your own space. Tonight though, you ate some leftovers, had a hot shower and went straight to bed, still thinking about the day’s events and Loki’s reactions to it all. 

-

“You know you could have warned me a bit sooner, I nearly passed out in the bath last night, Adam.” You scolded over the phone as you got ready

Some weeks had passed by now and Adam had continued to draw on you without effective warning beforehand, and you were furious after last night. 

“I don’t always get a chance to warn you y/n, he just showed up at my door and had the money there, I couldn’t just turn him away. Besides, you survived and still have your job. You’re fine” Adam sounded as though he didn’t have a care in the world right now, and it boiled your blood.

“No, I’m not fine.” you snapped “I’m anything but fine.”

“Calm down, there are people out there a lot worse off than you. Remember that next time you try to berate me” He responded, his voice starting to turn to a warning tone

“Just warn me next time”

“Fine, I have a client coming in today, and I was going to give you a break with this one but now I’ve decided otherwise. This one will probably hurt” He snapped and hung up the phone

You wanted to scream in frustration and throw something but you knew it would make no difference, so you just took a deep breath and grabbed your bag before heading out the door and to work. The walk was uneventful and the only things you were going into work for today was a team meeting before the store opened. You walked inside and saw Mr. and Mrs. Bates already there, along with Tessa who was just putting her bag down so must have only arrived a couple minutes before you.

“Good morning ladies, we’re just waiting on Sean now and then we’ll get started” Mr. Bates greeted, and as though he was summoned by the sound of his name Sean, the new employee, walked through the front door and greeted everyone which meant Mr. Bates could get straight into the meeting.

“Now, as we’re all aware by now the store has become much more popular over the last month, to the point where we’re making more than double our usual revenue. This has solidified Mrs. Bates’ and my thoughts on something we’ve been discussing and putting into the works for about a year now.”

You all waited in suspense for what was to come next

“We’ve come across the opportunity to open a store upstate. There is an old storefront that has been vacant for sometime now in the town where we live, and if we’re being honest” Mr. Bates gave his wife a cheeky smile “We’re both a bit bored at home and having gotten a taste for work again over the last month we don’t particularly want to stop working in the store any time soon. We won’t be able to run the upstate store by ourselves though, and this is where you guys come in.” He looked around at all three of us

“If any of you would like, we will be needing one staff member upstate, otherwise we are also able to hire someone from the area. No one has to answer today, but we will be opening the store two weeks from now” Mr. Bates nodded in the way he usually did to say that the conversation had finished and we were each free to go.

You sat there thinking about it for a moment and before you even realized it your body was already standing and moving towards Mr. Bates

“I’d like to move to the new store, Mr. Bates” The words tumbled out of your mouth

He looked shocked that you had given your answer so soon

“You don’t have to make up your mind yet child, this is a big decision” He cautioned

“I understand that, but I have no one here in the city and we all know city life isn’t really for me anyway. It would probably be better for my health anyway, being somewhere quieter” You explained to him, watching him nod thoughtfully

There was also that fact that now that the opportunity was in front of you, the thought of being further away from Adam was also a massive driver in your decision. You would give anything to be as far away from that man as possible.

“The town is small, there isn’t any nightlife or many people your age y/n” He continued to try, to make you take your time thinking about it

You just gave him a knowing look, as if to say ‘you know I don’t care for nightlife anyway’ which made him chuckle at his own comment

“Very well, if you truly want to. There is an apartment upstairs that was also part of the sale, which you can rent from us as well, unless you would rather stay where you currently are and travel back and forth” His brows furrowed with a disapproving look as he mentioned the long drives it would take to get to and from work

“I’d love the apartment, thank you. You’ve both been very generous to me” You thanked, looking at the husband and wife duo with grateful eyes.

You finalized some details, leaving the conversation with Mr. Bates advising he would email through all the details and contract to do with the apartment, and all the necessary info about the new store and how/when it will be opened and run. 

The walk home was a thoughtful one as well as an intense one, making lists in your head of everything that had to be done and when it had to be done for you to move upstate in time for the opening of the new store. As scary and spur of the moment the decision was, you were also very excited. The only thing you would really be leaving in the city was Tessa and the both of you agreed you would catch up every second weekend. 

[too-lit-for-fanfic]

The Dead Don’t Die; A Review. (Spoilers - it was shit a disappointment)

Hey guys! It’s Roen, one of the owners of this account! I’ve just watched ‘The Dead Don’t Die’, directed by Jim Jarmusch and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in a film for a long time, and that’s saying something. The star-studded cast was completely wasted, the talented likes of Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Steve Buscemi have some enjoyable scenes, though they were few and far between, and at the best of times barely raised a smile to my face.

Let’s start on a high note, the cops. Genuinely stole the show for me. Driver and Bill Murray? Yes please. They worked so well off each other and the chemistry was really good. The dynamics between their two characters was very refreshing as well, unlike the same bland emotionless voids everyone else (aside from Buscemi) appeared to be. Loved the little nod to Star Wars, the red car scene was probably the best in the movie, actually enjoyable to watch the two with their bits of banter, actually believable characters. Just get rid of the female cop, I’m all for diversity and inclusion, but again; she added nothing to any of the scenes she was in and had little to no chemistry with the other cast. You can’t have the entire set of characters acting nonchalant and then have one just fucking bawling their eyes out all the time. Got annoying real fast. The romance between the female cop and Ronnie (Driver) was not believable at all to me. I think they were aiming for a relationship like Tim and Dawn from the UK The Office but it fell so short. Not a fault of either actor, they did the best they could with the material given, however it just seemed like a pointless side piece left out to dry in the sun for too long.

Steve Buscemi, aka Farmer Miller was probably the best consistent character. I am a massive fan of a Buscemi so that probably has something to do why I liked his performance so much but i believe the little bit of *flavour* to his voice, the passion, the anger, just made the character stand out so much more from the rest. I would have loved to have seen more of his character, he only had like three scenes which was a massive injustice. I feel as if the framing/filming of the movie could have been done so much better than it was. It may just be the directors style but it felt as if there were so many pointless scenes, like the extended amount of silence in the car with the three fucking hippies that amounted to absolutely no character development that didn’t even fucking matter because they died practically the very next scene. It was just so infuriating how so much screen time was wasted on insignificant details (like any scene with the alien, the unneeded bonding between Bill nd the delivery man, the extra bit of the two diner workers just chit chatting, the hippy trio section) when it could have been spent on actually interesting characters like Miller. Also, that hat was comedy gold.

The homeless dude pissed me off to no end. What even was his purpose? He was like some bootleg token The Lorax, wandering about the woods high off of mushrooms commenting on the capitalist ideology of the townsfolk. Did he offer anything to the plot? No. Was he interesting in the least?!for the first five minutes. Could he be removed form the story by a disembodied Martin Freeman voice? Absolutely. I don’t know if this is just the directors style but what the fuck. The last bit on phones and technology and capitalism was such a slap in the face to the audience. Propaganda. Like okay, we’ve payed to sit here and wasted over an hour of our lives to watch one of the most disappointing movies recently released, with fucking Scottish aliens, even though it was marketed as a zombie movie, to be lectured on the usage of technology? Fuck off. Pick a genre and stick to it. So much valuable screen time wasted. I think the problem with this movie in particular was, there was such an abundant cast that the movie couldn’t really spend that much time on any of them, not allowing itself to develop their characters or for the audience to form an actual bond with them. If you are to do this with such a large cast some groups must eventually merge in order to provide a semi coherent story. A big downfall on the directors behalf.

I don’t really have much to say about Bill or Hank. They were okay, bu weren’t given enough screen time for me to actually care about them dying. Their characters needed some more spicing up. I’m not dissing the actors for this though, they matched the tone of the movie very well, some things are just irreparable. Could have been done better, could’ve been done worse. The beginning scene with the delivery man and Bill was unnecessary and devoured valuable screen time, so did the awkward as hell interaction between him and the Selena Gomez character.

I don’t even know who the three teen actors were. I’m not throwing shade, but for such a star studded cast i would of thought all man members would have some notoriety. Maybe they do, please correct me if I’m wrong, I just didn’t recognise them form anything I’d seen. Their acting was alright but the few scenes they had were just so pointless. They added nothing to the story and didn’t influence the plot in anyway; at least the Scottish alien lady inadvertently got the two main characters killed, that was something. Was this part of the political propaganda the film was trying to push? If so it went completely over my head unlike all the other in your face narration. Ate up valuable screen time that could of been spent developing far more interesting characters. What even happened to them anyway? The just sort of ran off screen and that was the last we saw of them. Maybe the director forgot about that side plot, I don’t blame him, they were just as forgettable to the audience.

Don’t even get me started on the fucking.. i don’t even know- Scottish Alien?? I thought this was a zombie movie but okay. She’s literally the token badass that just fucks off in a spaceship after ultimately leading the main characters (the cops) to their death by requesting they meet her there for no apparent reason than to flex she can be free and they can’t. Honestly, personally I think this was just an excuse to subvert expectations and throw a curve ball in there for the audience. I’m sorry but just because something’s shocking or doesn’t necessarily fit doesn’t mean it’s going to wow audiences, plot twists have to make sense. If they don’t it’s just bad writing and incoherent story telling. It was worse than the *subverdion* of Game of Thrones.

Overall it was such a waisted potential and an actual chore to get through. Would not recommend, at all. If you like this film I’m genuinely happy for you and glad you’ve found something else to enjoy. However, I feel that this is the long awaited final nail in the coffin for zombie movies (which is a shame because I love the likes of Shaun of the Dead). No matter how talented the cast, and by-god did they try to make the script work, if you have lousy material and a dead story there’s only so much they can do. As a Brit, however, I do feel it may be partially down to personal preference (although the shady plot and general inconsistencies are universal) particularly in relation to the comedy. Not to be insulting but I think I was expecting more witty/intelligent humour akin to Blacladder of Shaun of the dead, the contrast with the laconic style just really didn’t do it for me. Don’t think I laughed once apart from that red car scene. However if you enjoy that type of humour good on you, it’s just it something I connect with very well.

REVIEW ENDS HERE, BELOW IS MY INTERPRETATION OF EVENTS.

‘Oh it’s easy to throw criticism, I beg you couldn’t have done any better.’ Is an argument I am anticipating, so let me pitch to you my possible plot for the movie. First of all, get rid of the three juveniles in that delinquent-prison - seriously, what the fuck was their purpose in this film? Offered nothing to drive the plot forward, didn’t effect the story, had no even slightly funny scene - and replace their screen time with the buddy-cop-duo of Adam Driver/Ronnie and Bill Murray/Cliff. Just get rid of the female cop, the chemistry was better without her input. Bill and Hank? Had potential but I think they should’ve partnered up with Steve Buscemi’s character Miller to form an unlikely passive aggressive, comedy gold, getting by on the scrape of their teeth, trio. The homeless man, again, had potential. Instead of having him as some fucking narrator with a sociology degree I would have placed him along with the Billy-Hank-Miller trio. There could have been some great scenes filled with tension between Miller and him. Out of town hippy trio? Still a thing, but for two scenes max.

Now that the playing field has been set let’s get into my rendition of the story. We start off in the diner with Harry and Frank watching the news and having some not so friendly banter. Insults based on race, lifestyle and beliefs are thrown (the hat, which was hilarious, stays) to establish character dynamics. Scene ends with Frank/Buscemi leaving the diner as the theme tune begins to play. Cut to Ronnie and Cliff stood in a cell looking over the dead woman, Ronnie’s flippancy should remain whilst Cliff should behave like a much more real human, this adds a conflict of character that the movie only briefly explored. The two are in the midst of passive aggressively talking to one another over the body - Ronnie forgot to call the people to collect it - as a client steps into the station. Cliff engages in conversation with the client who is informing him of Miller/Buscemi and Homeless dude getting into a fight on Miller’s driveway. In the background, Ronnie, in an attempt to hide the dead body, drags it off into the background, horribly failing at subtlety.

Once the client is gone the body is placed in the receptionists chair, to ‘make it look like they got around to hiring that new member of staff’ and the duo drive to the scuffle. In the car they briefly chat about the scientific events occurring with the theme playing in the background, develops the world they’re in and further establishes their dynamics and relationship. Once they arrive Miller and Homeless dude are close to throwing hands, Miller with one chicken in his arm and a shot gun in the other and homeless dude with a skinned animal in his. Ultimate cop duo extinguish the scene with jokes thrown in, homeless dude just fucking slaps Miller with the skinned rabbit, Miller nearly shoots him, that hat gets briefly confiscated by Cliff. Scene ends with the four parting ways, cops in the car, Miller up to his house in search of the rest of his chickens and homeless dude off into the wilderness.

Diner deaths happen, but the lady screaming with the mop is considerably shortened. The following scene with cops pretty much stays the same, except the female officer is no longer present. That tiny red car for the absolute tank that is Adam Driver? Absolute gold we are keeping that. Homeless dude, who had seen the dead the night before absolutely fucking recks the crime scene losing his shit trying the convince Cliff. Ronnies already on board but must maintain the law. Homeless bro gets detained by Ronnie but manages to run off with only one hand cuffed. Immediate cut to Hank talking with Billy about weapons and zombies yada yada yada except this time he’s actually a traumatised old man. As Billy goes on a tangent about zombies I imagine Hank to be like ‘Moose’ played by the old guy in Jumaji: the next level. Completely gormless but hanging off of every word.

Scene at motel happens, along with the amazing line ‘fuck farmer Miller’ delivered perfectly by Murray.

Skip to night time; cop buddy duo set out on the town with a load of guns and other assorted weapons they managed to scrounge up, their mission is to keep the poeple of the town safe, do they succeed? No. Cliff accidentally drives someone over believing them to be a zombie. At the same time Miller, absolutely fuming about his chickens, is off in the woods behind the store Billy and Hank are camping out in in order to catch the homeless dude in the act of skinning a chicken. Billy and Hank have completely boarded up the front door but unlike in the film, they realise there’s a back door because Miller comes bursting through searching for another shot gun, the undead right on his trial. The trio officially buddy up, gather weapons and set off into the woods, absolutely shit but sumultaneously amazing fight scene ensues as they make their way out of the town.

Our unfortunate trio stumble across homeless guy literally eating one of Millers chickens in the woods. Miller tries to shoot him but is stopped. Banter is tossed, a mini argument happens, everyone has some chicken (Miller begrudgingly). We cut bsck to the cops who now discover the hippy trio dead at the motel, that scene is the same. Cutting back; At the prospect of teaming up Miller throws his chicken away and stomps off into the woods, Billy and Hank following. Homeless dude chases them and attaches himself with the one free hand cuff to Miller. He now has to come.

At some point Cliff absolutely totals the car, I’m not against keeping the zombies in wheels scene. And the two cops are backed into the graveyard. The amazing four are already there struggling to survive. Miller and homeless man keep trying to run in different directions and falling over, Frank has no idea what to do with a pair of branch cutters, Billy is far too happy to be able to finally use his vintage sword that turns out to be pretty shit in the end. Fight scene ensues.

Miller and homeless dude are the first to go, they couldn’t get along if their lives depended on it, which it did. The group scramble and in the process the pair can’t make up their minds. They die arguing. Something along the lines of ‘thank god for that’ but funnier is said by someone idk who. The next to go is Billy. His flimsy sword actually brakes and he’s left weaponless. Hank goes next, he’s been bit and Murray has to shoot him. I picture the scene from Shaun of the Dead, with Ronnie telling Cliff he has to shoot him.

The final scene is when Cliff and Ronnie finally reach another town, beaten up and evidently bruised. The only problem is, the towns already been overrun. The two share one last exasperated look before they charge in to battle, the screen fading to black as the theme song plays. Akin to the ending of Balckadder season 4 But less emotional.

(I know it’s not perfect but by god it’s not any worse than the actual fucking film. If anyone else has any thoughts or ways they think the story should have progressed please message me! I’d love to hear what you guys think!)

[brajeshupadhyay]

“I started to juggle three apps to make ends meet,” said Okawa, who recently reduced her work hours after receiving unemployment benefits. “It was really hard, because at that time, I could not afford to stay home because I had to pay rent.” Okawa is one of an estimated 1.5 million so-called gig workers who make a living driving people to airports, picking out produce at grocery stores or providing childcare for working parents. Theirs had already been a precarious situation, largely without safeguards such as minimum wage, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and health and safety protections. But with the pandemic pummeling the global economy and U.S. unemployment reaching heights not seen since the Great Depression, gig workers are clamoring for jobs that often pay less while facing stiff competition from a crush of newly unemployed workers also attempting to patch together a livelihood – all while trying to avoid contracting the coronavirus themselves. U.S. unemployment fell to 11.1% in June, a Depression-era level that, while lower than last month, could worsen after a surge in coronavirus cases has led states to close restaurants and bars. Marisa Martin, a law school student in California, turned to Instacart when a state government summer job as paralegal fell through after a hiring freeze. She said she enjoys the flexibility of choosing her own hours but hopes not to have to turn to gig work in the future. The pay is too volatile — with tips varying wildly and work sometimes slow — to be worth the risk of exposure to the virus. “We are not getting paid nearly enough when we’re on the front lines interacting with multiple people daily,” said Martin, 24, who moved in with her parents temporarily to save money. Alexandra Lopez-Djurovic, 26, was a full-time nanny in a New York City suburb when one of the parents she works for lost her job while the other saw his hours cut. “All of a sudden, as much as they want me to stay, they can’t afford to pay me,” she said. Her own hours were reduced to about eight per week. To make up lost wages, Lopez-Djurovic placed an ad offering grocery delivery on a local Facebook group. Overnight, she got 50 responses. Lopez-Djurovic charges $30 an hour and coordinates shopping lists over email, offering perks the app companies don’t such as checking the milk’s expiration date before choosing which size to buy. Still, it doesn’t replace the salary she lost. “One week I might have seven, eight, 10 families I was shopping for,” Lopez-Djurovic said. “I had a week when I had no money. That’s definitely a challenge.” Upwork, a website that connects skilled freelance workers with jobs, has seen a 50% increase in signups by both workers and employers since the pandemic began, including spikes in jobs related to ecommerce and customer service, said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork. “When you need to make big changes fast, a flexible workforce helps you,” he said. Maya Pinto, a researcher at the National Employment Law Project, said temporary and contract work grew during Great Recession and she expects that many workers will seek such jobs again amid the current crisis. But increased reliance on temporary and contract work will have negative implications on job quality and security because it “is a way of saving costs and shifting risk onto the worker,” Pinto said. It’s difficult to assess the overall picture of the gig economy during the pandemic since some parts are expanding while others are contracting. Grocery delivery giant Instacart, for instance, has brought on 300,000 new contracted shoppers since March, more than doubling its workforce to 500,000. Meanwhile, Uber’s business fell 80% in April compared with last year while Lyft’s tumbled 75% in the same period. For food delivery apps, it’s been a mixed bag. Although they are getting a bump from restaurants offering more takeout options, those gains are being offset by the restaurant industry’s overall decline during the pandemic. Gig workers are also jockeying for those jobs from all fronts. DoorDash launched an initiative to help out-of-work restaurant workers sign up for delivery work. Uber’s food delivery service, Uber Eats, grew 53% in the first quarter and around 200,000 people have signed up for the app per month since March — about 50% more than usual. “Drivers are definitely exploring other options, but the issue is that there’s 20 or 30 million people looking for work right now,” said Harry Campbell, founder of The Rideshare Guy. “Sometimes I joke all you need is a pulse and a car to get approved. But what that means is it’s easy for other people to get approved too, so you have to compete for shifts.” Delivery jobs typically pay less than ride-hailing jobs. Single mom Luz Laguna used to earn about $25 in a half-hour driving passengers to Los Angeles International Airport. When those trips evaporated, Laguna began delivering meals through Uber Eats, working longer hours but making less cash. The base pay is around $6 per delivery, and most people tip around $2, she said. To avoid shelling out more for childcare, she sometimes brings her 3-year-old son along on deliveries. “This is our only way out right now,” Laguna said. “It’s hard managing, but that’s the only job that I can be able to perform as a single mother.” Other drivers find it makes more sense to stay home and collect unemployment — a benefit they and other gig workers hadn’t qualified for before the pandemic. They are also eligible to receive an additional $600 weekly check from the federal government, a benefit that became available to workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Taken together, that’s more than what many ride-hailing drivers were making before the pandemic, Campbell said. But that $600 benefit will expire at the end of July, and the $2 trillion government relief package that extended unemployment benefits to gig workers expires at the end of the year. “So many drivers are going to have to sit down and decide, do I want to put myself at risk and my family at risk once I’m not getting the government assistance?” Campbell said. Follow @cbussewitz and @Alexolson99 on Twitter Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. The post Gig workers face shifting roles, competition in pandemic appeared first on Sansaar Times.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/07/gig-workers-face-shifting-roles.html

[shooter-nobunagun]

Quarantine UST

//The Second Platoon is forced to house together for approximately one month due to the COVID pandemic. Unresolved sexual tension and chaos ensue (also team bonding! Yay!)

This is a bit of an AU, as it takes place before Adam and Sio get together (and obviously COVID didn’t happen...)

“Wait...you can’t be serious...!”

“The Commander never jokes around, Jack. I assure you these are her exact orders.”

“Alright I get it, but still⁠—is this really necessary?!”

“As members of DOGOO, you are public facing figures—therefore it is more important than ever to follow the protocols and show the world we care about protecting them, from both outside and inside threats—”

“⁠—that doesn’t mean we have to be quarantined inside a house? In a civilian zone?! What’s wrong with returning to the base and staying there instead? I hardly see how staying in some random house is more isolated than returning to the Logan or even the Clayton Forrester...”

“I’m afraid that decision isn’t yours to make, Jack. Or, I should say, Adam Muirhead. Your orders have been given. We will be in touch shortly with further instructions. Saint-Germain out.”

“Hang on you bastard—bloody hell!”

Sighing, the leader of the Second Platoon angrily stowed away his comm, running a hand through dirty silver locks. He needed a shower, but it appeared that might have to wait until a good deal later.

“Ah, Jack-san? How did it go? What did the Commander want?” The team’s sniper, Nobunagun, gave their leader a worried glance as she noticed his haggard expression upon return, the rest of the platoon waiting in a tent as DOGOO personnel cleaned up the remains of their alien foes.

He eyed her with a wary glance, wondering how he should even break the news to the rest of the squad. On one hand, he agreed; if there was a virus raging across the planet then it was vital they take steps to mitigate the damage. Things were bad enough as it was with the Evolutionary Invasion Objects, now they were on the verge of a pandemic, to boot.

On the other...

“...Command wants us to stay here, in the San Francisco region. Says it’s too risk to go back t’ the base for now, what with that new virus flying about. Especially since this area’s a hot zone for infections...”

The others blinked at him, as if not believing his words. Adam grit his teeth and resisted the urge to lose his temper. He was their leader, and it was imperative he keep calm, even if all he wanted to do was to toss his comm into the air, slash it half with his sword and curse Command and their inane decisions.

Instead, he simply shook his head and motioned for the team to gather their personal effects, which mercifully had been transferred off the helicopter already. Perhaps it was sheer luck the team had been planning for a few days aboard the Forrester anyway, otherwise even getting basic necessities like toiletries and clothing would’ve been an ordeal. 

‘Not that it already isn’t; based on what the news is saying, we should probably stock up when we get the chance,’ Adam thought glumly as they piled into the awaiting Jeep, Nobunagun⁠—or Sio Ogura, now that they were off-duty⁠—the only one of them who seemed excited. The girl was a self-proclaimed military otaku and obsessed with anything and everything related, including vehicles. She craned her neck out so far Adam was afraid he’d have to pull her in before she lost her head, literally.

“Oy squirt, watch it! This ain’t a joyride, and you’re not a mutt. Get yer head back in here before yeh lose it!”

“Wah⁠—Jack-san, I was just trying to take a picture! Jeeze...meanie.” The girl muttered, but she did slink back into her spot next to their buxom teammate, Jess Beckham⁠—a.k.a. e-gene holder of Isaac Newton.

“Don’t take it so hard, Sio-chan⁠—Jack’s just worried about you, as all good senpais should, right?” Their defender, the reincarnation of one Mahatma Gandhi, gave the girl a kindly pat. “Never thought I’d say the words “Jack the Ripper” and “worried” in the same sentence, hmm Adam?”

“Piss off, Mirza; otherwise I’d be more than happy to shove you out,” the silver-haired man muttered, already on-edge from this unexpected arrangement and certainly not in the mood for jokes.

Afterwards the team collapsed into a sullen silence, even Sio somewhat muted after Adam’s outburst. After winding around the hills of San Francisco, they arrived at a more residential district, with narrow streets that could hardly fit their oversized vehicle—but, as the sniper watched with bated breath, not only did they make it but with oncoming traffic, to boot.

“Here you are, the Second Platoon’s temporary quarters for the time being. One of DOGOO’s board members owns it, and he’s arranged for you guys to stay here until the quarantine period’s over, provided you don’t go around destroying the place,” their driver gave them the rundown while offloading their duffels at the same time. “Though honestly, I don’t think they’ve got anything to worry about⁠—you’re all responsible enough.”

Adam thought he saw Mirza (Mahesh Mirza, for the record) give a side-eyed glance at Jess, but said nothing more. He was tired, cranky, needed food and more importantly a nice, hot shower. As the soldier bid them farewell⁠—”don’t hesitate to contact us if anything comes up”⁠—they unlocked the door, and DOGOO’s Second Platoon piled unceremoniously into the foyer, still in their under armor.

The house was a genuine San Francisco Victorian: as evidenced by the gothic-style roof peaks, wrap-around porch and wrought-iron window sills. There was even a real crystal chandelier above their heads, though it was clear the house had also been remodeled to accommodate modern comforts. In particular, the kitchen looked like it would be right at home in a 3-star Michelin restaurant, and a giant, 70-inch flat screen TV was mounted above the (real) fireplace. The entire place was tastefully decorated in what Jess liked to call “shabby chic”, though upon closer inspection, some parts of the house were quite old.

“Whoa...this place is huge!” The sniper’s eyes were wide as saucers, having never seen this type of architecture in Japan before. “Ooh, a real fireplace! Maybe we can use it...oh wow, this couch is super comfortable!” Amazingly, even after a hard day’s battle the sniper still had energy to go about admiring the furnishings and odds and ends; tired as they were, the rest of the squad couldn’t help but be slightly amused by their youngest member’s enthusiasm.

“Oh sweet, we can each get our own room!” Her voice echoed from upstairs as Mahesh and Jess looked around, nodding approvingly. “I call the one with the bay window!”

“Well, seems like we’ve got central heating, but no AC...I guess San Francisco’s cool enough to not need it?” Mahesh questioned their leader, but Adam only gave an aggravated sigh.

“Yeh, you say that now, I guarantee you won’t be thinking that when it starts warming up...tch, what is it with Yanks and their need to have heating but no air conditioning,” the silver-haired man muttered under his breath.

“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” the Indian mused, not wanting to anger their leader any more than he already was. “Ah, well it seems the girls have chosen their rooms. It looks like the only two left are...one downstairs, to the left of the kitchen, or...at the very top, the attic?” 

“I don’t give a damn, honestly. Look, why don’t you take the downstairs, and I’ll take the attic?” If he’d been more alert, Adam would have remembered that heat rises, and so if and when the weather turned warm he would be screwed; but as it was all he wanted was to just unpack his clothes, shower and sleep, and so Mahesh merely raised an eyebrow, but agreed without comment.

A message chimed on his phone (they had cell service again, and internet now that they were off DOGOO premises); apparently Saint-Germain had gone ahead and ordered them take-out for dinner, and it was on its way via the city’s plethora of food delivery services. There was also a calendar event for a more formal meeting with the Commander tomorrow, where apparently they would discuss this whole quarantine business in greater detail. Eyeing it once, Adam tossed his phone onto the bed and headed straight for the shower. ----- “Moouu, jeeze I wish they didn’t handle my luggage so roughly...argh great, now it’s everywhere...crap, my clothes are ruined.” Sighing, Sio gingerly picked through the contents of her duffel to see if any clothes had been spared⁠—but no; to her misfortune, one of her shampoo bottles somehow spilled (it was probably the air pressure), and now her wardrobe was effectively soiled. 

Including the clothes she needed tonight.

Whining to no one in particular, the sniper decided instead to see if at least something could be washed in the sink, and maybe blow-dried with a hairdryer. Grumbling to herself, she headed for the nearest bathroom down the hall⁠—though it never occurred to her to check first to see if it was occupied...

“Gyaahhh!!!”

“Th’ fuck⁠—!”

Sio squealed in embarrassment, but her eyes were definitely not looking away. Oh no. For just as she’d opened the door their leader, Adam Muirhead, had just gotten out of the shower and was standing there in his buff, naked glory, save for a just-in-time towel around the waist. Steam clouded the room, but Sio still saw every single water droplet hanging off his silvery locks, which were now plastered against his neck, and the beads of sweat clinging to every single crevice of those finely chiseled muscles.

In other words, if it weren’t for the situation (and the fact he annoyed her so much) she definitely would be having a nosebleed.

He seemed to be just as mortified as her though, if that furious blush on his face was anything to go by. “Fer Christ’s sake girl, don’t you ever knock?! What the hell’s wrong with you! Surely you could tell someone was in here?!”

“I-I, I’m, s, s, sorry, Jack-san⁠—I-I just⁠—I-I’m not used to, sharing a bathroom with other people...” The girl seemed to be on the verge of tears, and immediately Adam felt bad for yelling at her⁠—but seriously, was she blind or something? 

“I, uh, I...m, my, clothes got dirty⁠—cause my shampoo, I guess it spilled and I just thought I could try and wash it out in the sink and maybe it would dry before bed⁠—”

“⁠—Could you at least shut the door, first?” He snapped irritably, not keen on anybody else walking in. “So, your clothes got dirty. And your first thought is to...wash them in the sink?”

Those teary maroons blinked at him, clearly confused. “Y, Yes...? I-I mean, how else would I...”

“...You know there’s a laundry room just downstairs, right?” Adam deadpanned. Was this girl for real? ‘Alright, I get she’s just a high schooler, but seriously, how the hell did she even make it into DOGOO in the first place? I guess e-genes can’t be choosers...’

The girl turned red, and looked away in shame. “I, uh, um...I can’t...use it...”

Adam raised a silvery brow. “Can’t use it? As in, you don’t know how to operate the machine or you don’t know how to wash your own clothes?”

“...”

“...Lemme guess, you’re one of those kids who has her mum do everything, huh?”

At this point, Sio looked so downtrodden Adam couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for her. They’d all had a long day, things were kinda crazy, and even though he wasn’t much older than her, and she irritated him at times, as the leader he still felt responsible for all his teammates. Which included the newbie.

Adam took a deep breath. “...Alright look, let me finish up here and uh, I’ll help ya out with that. Yeh?”

“H-Huh? Is that...okay? S, Sorry...”

“Forget about it; the faster we get this taken care of, the sooner we can settle in. Now, are ya gonna let me get dressed in peace or not? Unless yeh wanna be called a voyeur...” He jerked his head towards the door and the sniper scuttled out like a crab, face still pink. 

A few minutes later Adam emerged, hair still damp but now dressed in a casual outfit consisting of a pink polo shirt and baby-blue ankle pants, of all things. Despite her embarrassment Sio couldn’t help but stare a little; the dichotomy between his attitude and choice of clothing was something else, but she had enough sense to not say anything.

“You got your stuff?” The sniper nodded and handed the duffel over. “Right, let’s get these sorted out⁠—”

“⁠—W-Wait, what are you doing?! Don’t go pawing through my clothes⁠—”

She froze as he turned towards her with a dead-eye stare, that emerald glaring at her with a look of disbelief. “Look, if I’m gonna help you do laundry, then you’re going to learn how to do it the right way, so pay attention. First off, you sort them; lights in one load, darks and colours in another. This way you won’t get issues like your whites turning pink or everything turning grey. Also, different colours use different water temps. You want hotter for whites, cold for bright colours so they don’t bleed.” As he sorted her laundry into two piles, Sio watched with amazement as he did everything with a practiced hand.

“Oh, and obviously you’ll want to wash these on the delicates cycle so they don’t get ruined,” he tossed her underwear into another pile, “what, don’t give me that look, squirt. You’re dead wrong if you think I give a crap about what kind of knickers you wear.”

He rolled his eyes and Sio felt her blood pressure rise. So all right, she never learned how to do laundry, but did he have to be so condescending about it? “L-Look, I...know I’m not good at a lot of things, but you don’t have to be so mean about it... I’m sorry, okay?!”

The lid slammed down so suddenly the girl gave a startled yelp. “Look, Ogura. There’s nothing to be sorry for. You don’t know how to do this, so I’m teaching you now, so next time you can do it yourself, yeh?” The sniper nodded timidly, and Adam sighed again. 

“...An’ I’m...sorry for being so short-tempered about it. Honestly, I’m just right buggered...first we get pulled into a battle that the First Platoon was supposed to handle on their own⁠—those wankers⁠—and now we can’t even go back to base; seriously, what the hell is Command thinking...”

Sio nodded. “It’s, okay...I’m sorry for asking you to help me all the time...but, I uh, really appreciate it, Jack-san...” Despite his acerbic tongue, out of all her teammates he was also the one whom, strangely enough, she trusted the most. Sure he made quips about her lack of skills and teased her relentlessly, but now that she thought about it, when it really came down to it he was also the first one to help her out, and show her the ropes. ‘Not to mention, even though he yells a lot, he never actually...does anything weird to me. Unlike Newton or Gandhi...’ 

The girl shuddered a little at the thought of being locked in a house with her two more touchy-feely teammates for a month. Perhaps, if push came to shove, this would be when she told them how she really didn’t appreciate being apprehended all the time.

“Don’t mention it. Anyway, now you know how. It’ll probably take a while for these to wash and dry; if I were you, I’d borrow some clothes for the time being. You can probably ask Newton, I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help.”

At the mention of their French-kissing teammate though, the girl visibly stiffened. “Ah, I er, it’s...it’s okay, I’ll just deal with it until they’re done. I don’t really wanna bother her right now...b-besides, I...kinda doubt Jess’ stuff would fit me anyway...”

Oh. Right. The sniper had a point; not that Adam particularly paid attention to appearances, but it didn’t take much to notice that Sio was much smaller and more petite compared to the curvy and buxom blonde, who’d been a model before all this, to boot.

“...Right. Well, whatever, it’s your call. I suppose going commando is an option as well...just make sure you’ve got enough blankets,” he smirked, causing Sio to turn bright red again.

“H-Hey! Pervert!” She attempted to swipe him with her bag, but he was too fast. “Jerk...I’m not that young, I can figure out things for myself!”

“Riiight. Sure you can. Anywho, I am starving and bloody exhausted, and the food’s just arrived so I’m going to grab some nosh and then head to bed. You can do whatever you want, hanninmae.” And with a barely concealed grin Adam headed towards the dining room, leaving Sio blushing and fuming at his words, but also somewhat grateful he’d helped her out.

“Ugh, what an asshole...sheesh, I’m not that helpless! ...Even if I just learned how to do laundry for the first time...” Why did he have to be so attractive yet infuriating at the same time? Wait, did she just think Jack the Ripper was attractive? 

‘No no no, ooh no Sio, you cannot be thinking those thoughts! He’s a total jerk, no manners or patience whatsoever—and he keeps calling you a half-baked squirt! Do you really wanna end up with someone like that?! Quick, think about nice things instead...like, that Jeep you rode in! Or Asao-san, she’s way prettier and nicer than stupid Jack...’ 

The sniper stilled as she came to a realization. ‘Wait a minute, we’re off DOGOO property, which means...’

“Cell phone, here I come! Woo hoo!” The delightful buzzing of all her piled-up incoming messages cheered her up somewhat, Sio resolving to spend some time before bed finally catching up with Asao-san—and probably her parents as well. 

The take-out boxes were thoroughly ravaged by the time the sniper made her way to the dining area, but she was happy to see plenty of food remained. She couldn’t tell what she was eating—the cuisine was either American or European and that was about all she could figure—but she was so hungry and tired at this point even cardboard would’ve been satisfying. The rest of her teammates were nowhere to be seen, and the sniper gave a little sigh of relief. She did appreciate them, truly (even with their not-so-nice quirks) but as an introvert, she was most relaxed when alone.

“Huh, should I just...leave these here? Well, but it’s not like we’re gonna have cleaning services here...guess I’ll just do my best.” Sorting through the boxes, she threw away the empty ones and piled the dirty dishes into the sink. She was just about to try and figure out if it was worth learning how to use a dishwasher when Adam came down the stairs, both of them surprised at the other. 

“Oh! Uh, Jack-san...I just, figured I should help clean up a bit...”

“Yeh uh, I figured...the same. Might as well try and keep it clean from the start...’specially knowing what slobs those two are,” he nodded in the direction of the others’ rooms. “So, you wanna learn how to load a dishwasher?”

Sio nodded quietly. It was so strange, how he seemed to have two different moods. One minute he was serious but cordial, and the next he’d be yelling about another of her mishaps and complaining how she couldn’t do anything right. ‘Maybe, just maybe...I’ll finally have the chance to get to know him better...’

“Dishwashers rare where you’re from? I know in England, a lot of the older places don’t have it; ‘specially if they’re small.” It took a few seconds before Sio realized he was trying to make some small talk with her.

“O-Oh! Y-Yeah uh, we don’t have one at my house, either. It’s kind of a ‘rich people’ thing. I was just gonna do them by hand, but it’s probably faster to use dishwasher since we have one, huh?”

She watched intently as Adam showed her how to load the dishes in by size, where to separate the silverware, and how much detergent to put in. He let her select and activate the cycle though, and by the end Sio felt pretty proud her of herself, even though he’d done most of the work.

“Th-Thank you...Jack-san. I, I know I’m not really great at a lot of things, and I’ve definitely got a lot to learn...s, so, I swear I’ll do my best during this quarantine period.” Her eyes were shining with a rare bit of determination, Adam a bit taken aback at her sincerity, but found himself appreciating it.

“...You’ll do just fine, rookie.” It felt weird to be genuinely complementing her, and Adam couldn’t figure out why he felt so apprehensive around her, even though deep down, he did want to tell her she was doing a good job already. Even though she was inexperienced, the way she never gave up and threw herself into whatever came her way...his body flushed with an odd tingle and suddenly Adam really needed to have some time to himself. “A-Anyway, it’s late, you should sleep and get some rest. I’m heading up. ‘Night.”

“Oh right...uh, oyasumi, Jack-san...” She followed him up the stairs, and just as she was about to go into her room something soft flew through the air and landed on her head. “Wha—er, what is this...?” 

“Just make sure you don’t get these dirty as well. I don’t have that much t’ spare.” Before Sio could make heads or tails of it he disappeared into the attic room, the sniper now finally untangling the bundle.

“These are...a t-shirt and...boxers?? A guy’s, at that...” She blushed, suddenly realizing this was Adam’s subtle gesture of looking out for her, even if he didn’t say it aloud. “It feels a little weird to be wearing his clothes...but well, I guess I might as well, since he’s offering...also, I really don’t wanna go commando...” At least they were clean and relatively well-kept.

After a hot shower that soothed 90% of all her aches, Sio now sat in her new room, wrapped in a fluffy towel as she attempted to put on Adam’s clothes. The t-shirt was much too large, but it made for a nice makeshift nightgown as it reached just above her knees. She noticed the Metal Gear logo on the front—was he possibly a gamer?—then picked up the boxers. Luckily there were drawstrings so she could tighten it until it finally stopped falling off her waist, but as she dug around, she noticed an opening in the front.

“Eh? What’s this...weird, why is there a hole here? Is this a rip? Doesn’t look like it though...oh well, doesn’t matter to me.” As she finally settled into her bed, furiously texting Asao-san about all the things that happened in the span of one day, she noticed a foreign scent; it was not unpleasant, but rather cozy...

‘...Is this coming from his clothes?’ She sniffed a bit at the t-shirt. It was clean, but aside from the detergent she could also smell something else. ‘...Er, is this his...scent?! Alright Sio, don’t think about it...it’s not bad or dirty, just...’ She blushed a bit, and decided not to finish that thought, just as her phone rang.

“M-Mooouu...! Asao-san, just wait until you hear what’s been going on...”

[drnucleus]

Burn This – A Review in Thirst, Energy and Hilarity

When @leofgyth offered me to go with her and a group of friends to see Adam Driver star in Burn This on Broadway I was ecstatic. Go see our fave in person and hang out with some fellow Adam Stans/Reylos? Hell yes. Also, there be spoilers ahead so BEWARE.

So, in preparation I bought a copy of the play. I read if four times before seeing it Saturday night. Mostly because Jimmy, aka Pale – Adam’s character has dizzying monologues that rail and race along a rollercoaster of emotion that on the page make them hard to follow. I knew though, instinctually that Adam would pull off the dizzying effect to great degree.

The house music was all 80s great new wave hits that set the right tone. From Manic Monday to Voices Carry. I was immediately transported to a time when I was too young to remember much aside from the music blaring from my mom’s record player.

Now I don’t want to spend this entire review thirsting after Adam. Because believe me, no one who goes into that play comes out not thirsting to some degree. I’ll get to him soon. But first I really want to talk about the other three characters in the play. What they brought to it. How they fared up against Adam’s intensity and undeniable energy.

First up, let’s talk about Burton. He’s Anna’s off and on boyfriend. He’s a screenwriter, rich, successful, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s enamored with Anna despite the fact that they seem more square peg-round hole as a pairing. He’s funny, however. His entire monologue about how there are no good movies in Hollywood and how everything gets remade every ten years is hilariously accurate even 32 years after the initial Broadway run and just goes to show that not much has changed three decades.

Burton is flawed. Entitled. Spoiled. Not used to understanding the financial struggles that Anna and Larry have gone through. But he has a good heart despite himself. He’s played by David Furr, who is almost as tall as Adam, and pretty fit too. He’s a big guy with a teddy bear like quality about him that makes you feel comfortable in his proximity. He brings that sort of energy to Burton and you kind of feel for the guy that he is the supporting lover who gets passed over and not the romantic lead. His interaction with Pale is limited to one scene of spectacular inebriated fighting and revelation. His interactions with Anna are soft, and bring out his insecurity as a writer, and the rambling disjointed way he describes his ideas hit home for a writer like myself.

Let’s move on to Larry. Oh Larry. He’s gay. A marketing exec. And dear fucking GOD he is the hidden gem of this play. I went in expecting excellent performances from Keri and Adam and they no doubt delivered. Larry consistently stole scenes from every fucking cast member, Adam included. He was so funny and his timing and delivery were perfection. From him flopping himself down on the sofa whilst playfully calling Anna a slut for fucking Pale. To him singing the song Pale sings to her to tease her about hearing the entire tryst. To his reaction to Burton’s story about getting blown by some rando guy in the snow in his twenties. To the call back to that moment with something along the lines of “Hey Burton, look, it’s snowing, wanna find a dark doorway?” He’s cheeky and enigmatic and loves Anna with a brotherly protectiveness that is so lovely.  Brandon Uranowitz is the actor who plays him and he’s a delightful surprise. When I read the play I was paying far more attention to Pale and Anna’s connection than to the wise cracking gay man she lives with. Definitely pay attention to him if you happen to be going to the play. He’s so wonderful.

Now let’s dish on Ms. Russell. At first blush you can tell she is really starting to get her bearings as a stage actress. To be frank, stage acting is very different than screen acting. You have to emote more, you have to be slightly over the top to ensure that even the person in the last row can feel the intensity of emotion you’re displaying. Whereas on a screen it’s easier to be subtle and still have the same effect. What bits of her acting style have changed since she’s started the play have shown through and shine through a beautifully nuanced performance that not even two unscripted improvisations by Adam Driver could completely throw her out of character for more than a split second to give him a “Are you fucking kidding me?” look a chuckle and then move on. She gives emotion and vulnerability as well as a gigantic emotional brick wall around herself as Anna as both Pale and Burton try to bust it down. With only Pale who is the one to break through.

She walks herself through grief. Anger at Robbie – her dance partner who dies suddenly and is the emotional center of the play as she tries to move from being a dancer to a choreographer. Desperation for connection – with Burton – only to shove him away when his enthusiasm and compassion become too much. To her frightened exchange with Pale upon their first scene together to how he busts down her walls and makes her reach out to comfort him through his pain of losing his younger brother. She holds her own against Adam’s explosive performance. She has her own moments that are just as gut wrenching but in her you feel the tight containment of her discipline as a dancer that beautifully juxtaposes Pale’s explosive grief.

I knew going to see Adam would be an experience. Having seen his performances on the big screen and the small screen I knew this was a role he would both love and find so much meat to sink his acting chops into. This is Adam at his finest. He’s an emotional trainwreck throughout the play. In his first scene he steals the audiences attention, commanding it as he paces like a caged animal, ranting about parking and pot holes, and Ray the bartender who he decked out for not shutting up to full on the floor, full body sobs with real tears and screams of grief. His dialogue is dizzying and circular, coming back around several times with the same questions. He plays inebriated, drunk, coke high and belligerent with an authenticity and veracity that makes it almost too real. Pale has no filter. He thinks it he says it. Bluntly. Boldly. It’s the exact kind of snark and sass that Adam is becoming famous for a la Adam Sackler in Girls and the explosive anger of Sackler and his even more famous character Kylo Ren/Ben Solo of the Star Wars franchise. His physicality and range of emotions in his opening scene is enough to give the audience emotional whiplash.

His acting ability in person is even more powerful than it is on the screen. You feel the emotions he sends out as a wave of energy that engulfs and enslaves the room. We laugh at his snark and quick wit, but the audience grows quiet as Pale begins to work through his intense grief. There’s a humanness to Adam’s style that makes you believe that he is not just some actor playing a part but that he IS Pale in those moments. That type of immersive acting is something I personally will never forget and am so grateful for seeing in person.

Physically, I didn’t think Adam could get more attractive than I had seen in photos, tv and movies. Oh boy was I wrong. Every review I read. Every interview with female costars I’ve read. All of that previous knowledge did nothing to prepare me for the reality of seeing him in person. The minute you hear his voice, yelling just offstage for Anna to let him in at five in the morning, the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you know an entrance™ is about to be made.

Bursting on stage he gets uproarious applause from the audience as he launches into his initial rant about pot holes, and finding parking in a city that’s dying of crotch rot. He’s so good at going from 0-100 on the emotional scale at the drop of a hat that it’s startling to witness in the same room.

From him taking off his pants to not wrinkle them your eyes immediately go to the stark contrast of his pale legs against the black socks, shirt and underwear. Or to him gliding out of Anna’s bedroom on his second visit there in her purple floral silk kimono (that he ripped the sleeve of rather accidentally) with it open to reveal more pale skin and tiny euro black briefs that made the entire audience audibly inhale. Adam’s costumes throughout the play go from sleek suits to the fun comical use of a woman’s robe to a leather bomber, jeans and shitkickers. His stage presence and physical form is a veritable feast for the eyes as his voice, intonations and blue collar diction is just as entertaining. He improvs as I mentioned before, once when he did a little twirl that seemed like it was extremely on the fly, an amused smirk on his face as Keri almost broke out laughing. And again, when they’re on the sofa together and he did something that surprised her but I can’t quite pinpoint what that was having only seen the play once.

All in all this is a play where nothing happens and everything happens. Four people processing grief in varying degrees. From Larry and Anna’s personal grief as Robbie’s found family, to Pale’s outrageous self-destructive spiral and Burton’s tangential disconnected sympathy. It makes Burn This and Lanford Wilson’s prose jump from page to stage with veracity and life that I think would make the playwright proud.

[xoruffitup]

A Milestone

Panic! at the Disco’s Pray For The Wicked just had its one-year release anniversary on June 22nd. I’ve got a lot of associations and memories that made the date slam my heart hard. I bought the album last year the day it came out, but waited to listen with my full attention on a plane ride to Nantucket, MA on June 23rd. That weekend in Nantucket was an incredible, gleeful whirlwind of new music from one of my favorite bands, and the true beginning of my burgeoning devotion for Adam Driver. June 24th, a year to the day, is the one-year milestone of the first time I saw him in person and frankly knew nothing would ever be the same. ;) Peak memories from that weekend are still with me clear as day:

Sitting up late in the living room/lobby of our cute little hotel typing up this post about the film festival panel while it stormed outside.

The panic/excitement/conflict that surged through me when I was standing out in the parking lot after the panel event and I realized Adam was about to walk directly next to me to get in his car with Joanne. And when I stood there and just watched and didn’t say anything to keep him from a swift departure. Do I think now and then “damn, I should have asked for that quick selfie; it would have taken all of 10 seconds”? Of course I do. But then I think about the other people who’d been hanging out waiting for him further away, and how I might have been the difference between a peaceful and a chaotic afternoon for him. And I’m 95% sure the instinct that told me not to bother him was right.

After the panel, sitting at a picnic table alone the marina and journaling out all the adoring feels that would go into my post later. Even the rain clouds rolling in couldn’t dampen my soaring spirits. :’)

Walking through the adorable town to meet my parents for dinner later, listening to my favorite tracks from the new Panic album. The charming main street in Nantucket will forever be called up in my mind when I listen. <3

Getting to the restaurant with one more crosswalk to navigate, and being so into the music I was standing there actually dancing to “Dancing’s Not A Crime” while I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the light. My dad saw me across the street and started mirror-dancing with me even though he had no clue what I was listening to. I was so into my groove that I didn’t notice the pedestrian light was green and cars were waiting on me. I finally crossed waving an apology, but no one had honked because the guy in the car there looked thoroughly amused by my silent disco on the street corner.

Okay, even for risk of sounding like a crazy smitten fangirl... Honestly - the way my heart seized when Adam first came out of that side door into the auditorium. I remember it to the detail. I saw him in shadow, just his profile first, and he was the last in the group but unmistakeable with that height. He walked onto the stage and did his trademark awkward one-handed acknowledgement wave while everyone clapped. Cue the next hour when I sat there in the third-ish row, two seats down from Joanne, and oops accidentally kinda fell in love. (Sorry Jo, nothing but mad respect.)

I remember going so out of the way with me and my parents’ vacation plans to get to Nantucket because I had no idea when I’d get another chance to see him in person. Suffice it to say, in many ways I couldn’t have had any idea of the INCREDIBLE year that awaited me.

The next Adam event I went to was SNL, which really kickstarted my fandom involvement in terms of meeting my fandom best friends in the standby ticket line camp-out, along with a bunch of twitter famous Reylos. Friday night we were eating food deliveries from amazing reylos around the world, and Saturday night we all made it into the studio to watch him together. <3

AITAF is still mind-boggling. Once it was announced that Adam would be in the cast for the annual Broadway show, my SNL group of friends started talking about it in “what-if” terms... Then I actually managed to enlist my dad to go with us (who usually avoids veteran-type events like the plague), along with a friend-of-a-friend who was a retired Army nurse so our whole group could go. Not only did we get to witness the incredible talents of Adam and Michael Shannon giving an utterly unhinged performance of pure instinct (my dad called it “acting in the purest sense of an art form”) but among our group we also had some of the most interesting and eye-opening conversation during and afterwards. I saw the effect of AITAF’s work with my own eyes, as I watched my dad gradually opening up more and more throughout the night, when he realized it was a safe space to speak about his honest (awful) experiences when he was drafted in the 70s.

And now.... Burn This!!! It was truly a blessed time to come into this fandom (thank you TLJ ;_;) Since the first preview performance on March 15, every night I’ve spent at the Hudson Theatre (inside seeing the play, or just the nights when I was outside taking hilarious photos) have ranked among year highlights. Half of the reason is this extraordinary opportunity to see Adam in such a demanding, complex, and compelling role that lets him shine to the absolute fullest (And most times having the opportunity to gush a few short words of appreciation right to his face at stage door afterwards); The other half is the unparalleled joy and excitement I’ve shared with the range of friends I’ve spent the late hours of the night with after those shows. From thoughtful discussion of the play, our careers, and other art forms; to just pure half-drunk fangirling - I’ve treasured every moment of every night, with each and every person. <3

.... I didn’t plan for this post to turn into a year in review, but I guess the outpouring of feels that made me start writing this got away from me. That weekend a year ago, when I walked around Nantucket to the soundtrack of this album and had the focus of my fandom activity for the next year firmly lodged in my heart when I saw him the first time - This weekend a year ago was one for the books. I guess what I’m really trying to say, and what I’m really thankful for, is that - unbelievably - that weekend was only the beginning.

Thank you Adam, and thank you to this fandom for being so wonderful. I know we have drama galore and we get a bad rep, but all of the positivity and loving community honestly weighs it out. Looking at all of you: @umkylo​ @reylonly​ @asongforjonsa​ @kylotrashforever​ @ohwise1ne​ @monsterleadmehome​ @lovesbitca8​ @reysexualkylo​ @theporgsnest​ @lifeboldlyblows​

[johnboothus]

Next Round: Fresh Victor Is Making At-Home Craft Cocktails Possible With Fresh Juices

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter invites H. Joseph Ehrmann, chief mixologist officer for Fresh Victor, a cocktail mixer brand, on the show to discuss how Fresh Victor is making at-home craft cocktails possible with fresh juices.

Ehrmann, a former professional bartender who has brought his expertise to Fresh Victor, explains how Fresh Victor has evolved as a business during the Covid-19 pandemic. You will hear Ehrmann’s ongoing story in studying the process of creating fresh, refrigerated cocktail mixers — something that has proven quite the challenge.

Listen Online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a “VinePair Podcast” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations in between our regular podcast episodes to give everyone a better picture of what’s going on in the world of alcohol and mixology. Today, I’m joined by H. Joseph Ehrmann, the chief mixology officer for Fresh Victor. H., thanks so much for joining me.

H: Thanks for having me, Adam.

A: I’m familiar with Fresh Victor. I’m obsessed with your products, actually.

H: That’s great.

A: I make delicious cocktails, thanks to your products. So I’m aware of it. For those who are not aware of Fresh Victor, can you give us a bit of history on the brand, the company, how it was started, all that good stuff?

H: Yeah, we are a fresh juice, cold-pressed, juice-based cocktail mixer. All fresh juice, nothing but a very clean label. For ingredients, it’s just fresh juice, fresh, cold-pressed juice, filtered water, fresh produce, four flavors, organic cane sugar, and/or organic agave nectar as a sweetener. It is refrigerated, and we have seven different flavors that are available nationally through direct-to-consumer, through freshvictor.com. We started as a consumer product with the idea of making fresh cocktails easier for consumers, just a very straight-up simple concept. Ken McKenzie is the founder, and Ken came up with this idea a while back and came to me. He and I have been friends for about 20 years. I had made my name at my bar Elixir in fresh produce-driven kind of culinary-style cocktails in the early 2000s, mid-2000s and was doing all of this processing of produce to make great drinks on the menu, as well as a prep at the bar and have lots and lots of recipes. We kept it simple. It just had to be some nice fresh juice that people could mix with. But in a format that’s a mixer, not a juice. Everything has a premixed sugar source to it. Our two core, what I call the workhorses of cocktails, a Lime Sour and a Lemon Sour. We’ve got a Mexican lime and agave, which is just lime, agave, cane sugar, and water. Then our lemon sour is just lemon juice, organic cane sugar, and water. Those are the ones that you can build all kinds of stuff for every bar. Then, we have five other products that are a little bit more complex in that there’s one more layer of flavor to it. They all have a little lemon and/or lime in them for the sour component.

A: OK.

H: Then, we’ve got Cactus Pear Pomegranate and, quite frankly, I didn’t know cactus pear as a term versus prickly pear. Ken had some Texas background, and in the South, they call it cactus pear, which really is the fruit of the cactus. Then, pairing that kind of nice red fruity with the pomegranate red fruity, which is a little more bitter, and makes a really great, unique combination. Then, we have pineapple and ginger root, cucumber and lime, jalapeno and lime, and three citrus and mint, which is just lemon, lime, orange, and fresh mint. There’s a tertiary flavor level there, and all of them are designed to be mixable, so Fresh Victor and a spirit or soda water or some nonalcoholic ingredient to make a nonalcoholic drink — whether you want to call it a mocktail or a kid’s drink or an agua fresca, they’re great for that as well. Basically, we position it as they mix with anything, and everything pretty much across the board mixes on a two-to-one basis. Say an ounce and a half of tequila, 3 ounces of Mexican lime, and agave are shaken with ice, and you’ve got a perfect Margarita.

A: Wow.

H: Whiskey and lemon sour, you get a perfect Whiskey Sour. It’s really simple to move drinks like that.

A: I think what’s amazing to me about Fresh Victor, what I found to really enjoy until the pandemic, I was making cocktails, but my typical cocktail at home would be a Negroni. Then, early on in the pandemic, I started talking to my wife, and I was going to go out to buy a bag of lemons and a bag of limes. I’ll juice a bunch of lemons and limes at the beginning of the week so that we had the ability to make fresh Margaritas and Daiquiris. Then, when I got Fresh Victor, it was super convenient. I’m also able to make a lot more cocktails with them, and what people don’t realize about cocktails that make them so delicious is the fresh juice. To me, that is what is so life-changing about a cocktail. I’m curious if that is what you also intended to allow people to be able to make some of these more intricate drinks at home. For example, recently I made a Jungle Bird. I would never have made a Jungle Bird at home. Now, I’ve made them two Fridays in a row.

H Yep.

A: I have this stuff, and it’s delicious. I totally see the use case for it. Was that also part of the goal?

H: Yeah, totally. The frustrating thing for most people that understand the difference between fresh and shelf-stable is that there was nothing fresh out there. I’ve been teaching consumer cocktail classes for over a decade, and I’ve done tons of professional bar training, too. I always said, back in the mid-2000s when I was launching Square One Organic Spirits and traveling the country for Square One, I would say “selling vodka into a sea of vodka.” I was spending most of my time on account calls teaching bartenders how to cut and squeeze limes and make simple syrup. That was something in 2006-2008 that a lot of bartenders still weren’t doing. I am teaching, telling them to take bartending seriously. This could be a career. This is a great way of life. Just getting the bartenders to make fresh juice and real syrup instead of buying it was a challenge. That lit on fire obviously pretty quickly towards 2010 and then took off from there. Then, the consumers can understand it. Now, once the bars were making fresh juice, finally, we could get the consumers to understand the value of it. But getting them to buy a lime and cut it and squeeze it was the next challenge.

A: Right.

H: You had all these shelf-stable Margarita mixes. You go back into the mid-20th century and you get your Don Draper-style lemon sour and a powder that was being propagated around the U.S. in the 20th century. Now, we didn’t have this ease of execution on a simple juice sour. That was the main driver. Our tagline is “Craft Cocktails Made Easy.” Let’s just make this as easy as a pour. We wondered why it wasn’t out there. You learn things launching a company and building a company. The biggest challenge is that getting fresh products to people in a refrigerated format is a logistical and capital-intensive challenge. That has been our biggest thing. With the growth of direct-to-consumer fulfillment through the evolution of Amazon and such, and the boost that the pandemic has given to that has helped get stuff to people directly right away, because as we are now growing in traditional box store retail, it takes time.

A: Right.

H: It just takes time to get each individual retailer on board, convince them, negotiate the deal, get it in the system, pull it through. We’re growing slowly in that, but there’s no way of really speeding that up. Direct-to-consumer is the fastest way that’s really made a big difference in getting this to people.

A: So talk about the evolution of the company. Before we started recording, you said it had initially been started as a consumer-focused business. Then you pivoted away from it to on-premise and now back. What were the reasons for those pivots, and how has the company evolved since you guys started it?

H: The original idea was for the consumer. Ken was out there slogging it out at the supermarkets, just doing your traditional sampling, telling people, “what’s this?” “Oh, here, it’s a Lime Sour. Try this. You can mix it with tequila.” That kind of old-school approach to building a consumer food product through grocery retail was another layer of difficulty in building the company. It is very time consuming, it’s the slow road to building a brand. We also saw that grocery was dying. Statistically, looking at the Amazon effect, looking at how people were starting to shop through these different grocery delivery services and through their phones and not going to grocery stores anymore. We are seeing grocery die. So why are we going headfirst into a dying industry? We saw that the potential to grow cash flow and grow volume was through the on-premise. Rather than selling, we were packaged in a quart-sized bottle, 32 ounces. Still, with that two-to-one ratio, that was about 10 cocktails. We also realized that a 32-ounce bottle, 10 cocktails was a lot for a lot of consumers. We started to redesign our packaging into a 16-ounce bottle and made the effort to get into on-premise, where we could sell gallons and pallets instead of quarts. You make one deal with national account, and it can change your company.

A: Right.

H: Obviously, that’s what leveraged a lot of my background better. I was able to shake the trees a bit through my network and my friends that are involved over the last 10 to 20 years in their positions. That was going quite well until last March. We were opening some really great deals. We were doing great business with Disney. We had opened up with MGM Resorts in Vegas, and we were getting into the Wynn. These concepts were happening and then just got cut off. All of a sudden it’s whoa, remember that bottle we were designing six, eight months ago? We need to go back to that. We made a very quick pivot. Fortunately, we didn’t have to change the product, and we had already made a lot of packaging decisions and design. We just had to pull the trigger on printing labels. I think it was four weeks, maybe four to six weeks before we had 16-ounce bottles in production. The first move was to get the DTC going, get direct-to-consumer. Within a month and a half to two months, we had direct-to-consumer distribution available in seven Western states, and then we had to pull the trigger on consumer marketing because when you’re just focused on B to B and you’re not worried about Instagram and other consumer marketing avenues.

A: Right.

H: Suddenly, we had to engage social media, engage PR, and work on design assets and photography. That stuff really wasn’t as essential in the on-premise.

A: In the beginning, when you went for the pivot, were you going after people you hoped were already cocktail enthusiasts? What was the pitch? Was it for cocktail enthusiasts who already understand the beauty of fresh juice, or were you going after more cocktail novices who rushed to start learning how to make cocktails at the beginning of the pandemic and are now still making cocktails? And you said, hey, this will make it easier for you. Also, you don’t know what you’re missing, stop buying the shelf-stable stuff, start buying the fresh juice.

H: I guess it’s twofold. The first thing is it is a lot easier to bring over the person who’s already drinking the Kool-Aid than to convert them and teach them. You look at the Margarita as the largest-selling cocktail in America. There’s a big market there, and “hey, we’ve got quick, great Margaritas for you.”

A: Yeah.

H: How many Margarita drinkers can we win right away? Let’s build that quick audience. It was an interesting exercise for me personally, because again, I’ve been teaching mixology or simple cocktail classes for consumers for a long time and always the same kind of class. I never ventured into saying “here are four of my original recipes.” I’ve been teaching Margaritas, Mojitos, Manhattans, and Martinis. It is just basic cocktail sours with Collins and Highballs because within those lessons, you get everybody to understand all of the different tools, techniques, terminology, ingredients, and that opens the door for them to understand everything else. It’s funny because now I’m working with these people in the company that have consumer product backgrounds in building these companies. I’m a bartender, and I’m teaching people. I had to curb myself from getting too complicated. Too complicated means even just measuring.

A: Right.

H: You talk in ratios. Two parts to one part, that’s a great easy mix. We kept going to that “keep it simple, stupid, ‘kiss’ philosophy.” I just started to think that even shaking with a shaker is too hard for people. What does shaking do? Shaking gives you chill and dilution. If you put ice in a glass and pour in your spirit — you pour in your Fresh Victor — you just add a little water. You don’t have to shake. Now you’ve got an even faster, easier drink. It’s that simple.

A: I know on the side of the bottle, I haven’t seen any sort of instructions for that. Are you sort of getting that message across to people in terms of the idea of adding a little bit of water instead of wanting to shake?

H: I’ve been injecting that into some of my recipes and my videos lately. Every time I write a new recipe, I do the traditional. Put in a cocktail shaker, shake it hard, strain over ice. I’ll do a build versus shake, two different approaches. Then, I also try to always include a non-alcoholic version, and if possible, a low-ABV version.

A: Oh, wow. That is a lot.

H: Well, it’s just constantly developing content, showing people how to use it. Once they understand what it is, the next question is, do you have any recipes? I’ve been building recipes and then having a photographer shoot them. Getting all of these great, easy ways of doing it out there. That concept of just adding the water, I started thinking about six months ago. How do I make it even easier? How do I dumb it down even more? I don’t say dumb it down to make anybody feel talked down to it, but just making it easier because that’s what is resonating with people. I want it even easier. Even when I would teach my mixology classes, I would teach these people, and they would love it. Now they’ve got the skills that they know how to cut lime and squeeze it and turn it into a Margarita. But at the end of the day, they don’t want to even do it, even though they know it. It’s much easier just to open a bottle and pour.

A: Yeah, that’s true. Where can people find the recipes? If they get Fresh Victor, can they go on the site? I know that’s where I found a few of them. It was mostly on Instagram. Where should people go now that they listened to the podcast? They’re interested in trying Fresh Victor. If they want to make recipes that are in addition to the one I think that comes on the side of each bottle, where would you push them to discover the recipes you’re creating?

H: The best central resource for that right now is Instagram. If you go back through our Instagram account, you’ll find lots of recipes. We’ve been engaging with a lot of different people, and so you’re seeing a whole bunch of people and their recipes. I can’t vouch for all of them. They’re mostly good. They’re not always mine. We are in the process right now of having our website completely redesigned, and the idea is to have a centralized database and repository for all of the recipes. For those listening, you’re welcome to just email me at h@freshvictor.com. I can send PDFs that have lists. We’ve been around a bit, but as a growing consumer product company, we are still at a fairly nascent stage. There are those growing pains that we’re going through. We’ve got to get to the point where all of that information is more readily and easily accessible. In the meantime, that’s why I’m here. Feel free to send me an email, and I’d be glad to share everything I’ve got.

A: I’m going to ask you a question right now. I’ve made your Jungle Bird. I’ve made the Whiskey Sour. I’ve played around a bunch with the Margarita’. I was making my own Tommy’s Margaritas this summer. Then, I realized yours is a lot easier because it’s a lot easier to just use Fresh Victor. I love tequila, whiskey, and gin. What should I make next with Fresh Victor?

H: On the tequila front, I would say my drink of the summer last year, and I’m still drinking it, is what I call the Pom Paloma. Using our Cactus and Pomegranate in a Paloma, where I use either a grapefruit soda or seltzer more than, say, a squirt. I’m big on the Q Spectacular, the way they call Spectacular Grapefruit or the Spindrift Grapefruit Soda, Ruby Red Grapefruit Soda. Those have real nice grapefruit flavor, but they’re really kind of dry.

A: Yep.

H: All of our stuff is pretty well sweet-and-sour balanced. There’s definitely sweet there. If you start pouring sodas on it, you’re starting to lean sweet. In these kinds of things, I like to lean on drier products. Tequila, grapefruit soda, 2 ounces of Cactus and Pomegranate, pinch of salt, squeeze of lime, build it and stir it. That’s a great go-to for me. My daughter saw me making them, so I just stopped making it with tequila. So I make that as a mocktail for her, and she loves it.

A: Very cool. Well, H., thank you so much for taking the time, and for telling us about Fresh Victor. Where can people find Fresh Victor if they want to order it?

H: Freshvictor.com or shop.freshvictor.com (that’s our direct-to-consumer site). That’s the fastest way to find it. We are growing rapidly in traditional retail, but that’s the way to get it tomorrow.

A: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I think it’s a really awesome product. I have to say, when I first got it, I asked, “Do I see a need for this?” Now, I definitely see the need for it, and it has helped me make a lot more cocktails than I ever would have made before. Keep up the awesome work, and stay in touch.

H: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit.

Also, I would love to give a special shoutout to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tasting director who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

The article Next Round: Fresh Victor Is Making At-Home Craft Cocktails Possible With Fresh Juice‪s‬ appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-fresh-victor-cocktail-mixers/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-fresh-victor-is-making-at-home-craft-cocktails-possible-with-fresh-juices

[brentwatchesmovies]

Fall 2017 Update!

Hey, this blog still exists! It’s been about half a year since I’ve written anything up, and it’s been a bussyyyyy time in my life. Got married, started a new position and found out I’m going to be a father next spring! Amidst all of those changes, I’ve still somehow managed to see a bunch of movies over the last 6/7ish months. I wanted to do a kind of catch-up on here to make up for lost time, a kind of ‘speed round’ for the blog. I’ll still do my end of year top 8 early January I’m sure, but I wanted to get something up before then (and I’ll be honest, we ran out of work at my job today and they’re making us watch Hocus Pocus on a super small TV in the auditorium so I’m boooorrrred). So anyway, here’s some thoughts on a selection of movies I’ve caught over the last few months!

I wanted to write about this one from earlier in the year because I wrote about Director Nacho Vigalondo’s other film ‘Timecrimes’ way back in the day for the blog (check it out with the archives link above if you feel like it). This movie was a ride. From moment to moment, I had no idea where this movie was going next. Vigalondo makes movies that nobody else could, straight from his wild imagination. Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudekis are both great in their roles, especially the latter in a shockingly dynamic role that I won’t spoil here. There are a lot of gender politics at play in this one that I wasn’t expecting, but it makes for a poignant finished product that I’m super glad I caught in theaters. Check this one out at Redbox if you want a dark, funny and totally original, unpredictable experience.

What else could I say about this one that hasn’t been said by most critics and obviously the worlds box office. This movie clicked with seemingly everyone, taking the #1 spot at the box office for 2016 so far, surprising everyone. I had a blast with this movie, with it’s creative and beautifully shot action scenes and measured pace. Wonder Woman isn’t afraid to slow down and let its characters breathe a bit, creating one of the best relationships I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie between Steve and Diana. Gal Gadot is revelatory as Diana and Chris Pine is as good as ever. I’ve always been more of a Marvel fan, but I’m truly happy that the DCU finally got a win, and I hope they have plenty more to come.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for the latest from Edgar Wright and as expected, it did not disappoint. The guy is one of the most exciting new directors working right now, possibly the MOST exciting, and his latest is a pure blast of energy like only he can deliver. More akin to a musical than his usual dark action/comedies, he’s doing something different and more challenging with Baby Driver. He’s getting even better as an action director, and the editing especially in this movie deserves an Oscar. This is one of the most fun movies you’ll see all year, and I’ll recommend it to everybody I meet.

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that director Bong Joon-ho is one of my favorite directors working today. I wrote about The Host and Snowpiercer on here, and his latest might be my favorite work of his yet. His usual balancing act of tones is on display in Okja, a movie that is equal parts a Spielberg Amblin-era film with some Miyazaki, and a good amount of dark satire to top it off. It’ll make you second guess eating meat for a while after watching it. Okja also has one of the most bonkers, out-there performances of the year with Jake Gyllenhall’s psychotic TV nature-show host. This one is a Netflix exclusive, so definitely carve out some time for Okja.

The third attempt at Spider-Man finally nails the character like only Marvel studios could. Don’t get me wrong, I really love Raimi’s Spidey 1 and 2, but Tom Holland is the PERFECT Peter Parker AND Spider-Man. The movie is more of a coming of age story than a typical superhero movie, and it benefits from having a much smaller scale than a lot of the typical Marvel/superhero movies. It also benefits greatly from taking place in this universe Marvel has been crafting for almost 10 years now. It also has probably the best Marvel villain yet in Michael Keaton’s ‘Vulture’, a character as grounded and human as our heroes. It’s another great addition to the MCU, and I can’t wait to check this one out again.

The second to last one I wanted to write about is ‘It’, the surprisingly huge box office sensation. I didn’t expect much out of this movie for one reason or another. The trailers were effective, but I just expected a run of the mill jump-scare fest. I had also watched the original movie/miniseries awhile back and thought I knew what to expect. The movie definitely has plenty of jump scares, but I was surprised at how much heart the movie had. The cast of child actors were great across the board, and I was surprised at how emotionally engaged I was with their journeys through the movie. On top of that, all of the creepy clown stuff really worked for me, and Skarsgard killed in the role of Pennywise (no pun intended). I was surprised at how much I enjoyed It, and I’m stoked to see where the story goes next in part 2

I really can’t believe this movie exists in its current form. The fact that Marvel locked down Taika Waititi for a ‘Thor’ movie is ridiculous, and that he didn’t quit mid-production is even more shocking in this Hollywood climate. Thor Ragnarok is a breath of fresh air for not only the Thor series (yes it’s obviously the best of the three) but really, for Marvel as well. In my opinion, it one-ups Guardians vol. 2 (which isn’t on here but I really enjoyed) by being a straight-up delivery machine of fun and hilarious moments. Jeff Goldblum at his Goldblumiest, Waititi as the scene stealing ‘Korg’, and Thor actually being an awesome, badass character?! Yes!

That’s going to do it for this speed round on the blog! I just wanted to do a bit of a catch up on some of what I’ve been watching lately. I’ve seen a lot more than these, and will definitely write up more near the end of the year. Some of these might be on my faves list but most won’t be. If there’s something surprisingly absent from here, chances are it’ll pop up later this year. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, and as always hit me up to talk about any of the above movies! I’ve been busy with my movie podcast ‘Director Showdown’ that I make with Adam Daufen, so go check that out on iTunes if you haven’t and thanks for reading!

[ericvick]

It’s just 'first or second inning' of sports betting legalization: FanDuel CEO

Yahoo Finance’s Adam Shapiro, Seana Smith and Dan Roberts speak with FanDuel CEO Matt King about the future of legal sports betting.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Here in the United States, it’s FanDuel. They own FanDuel. And FanDuel itself added 450,000 US customers. Let’s talk about that with Matt King. He’s the CEO of FanDuel. Good to have you here, Matt. I feel like we should be playing that song, the Queen song, “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Yeah, I mean, you guys are just roaring, aren’t you?

MATT KING: Yeah, the consumer demand has been off the charts. Obviously, the return of sports has been a huge home run for us. We’re currently tracking to be the first online operator to ever pass a billion dollars in gross gaming revenue for the year. And just really proud of everything the team’s doing.

DAN ROBERTS: Matt, Dan Roberts here. Let’s talk about some of the deals you guys have cut recently. You know, you announced a deal with the Grizzlies, a deal with the Broncos. It seems like this is the area now where the competition is really heating up, you guys cutting individual betting partnerships directly with pro franchises. But of course, I also know that you’re moving quickly to open up physical sportsbook locations– or at least, before the pandemic you were. Is that the main growth engine for you guys right now? And what’s happening kind of faster?

MATT KING: No, we’re seeing growth across the board. So the team partnerships and the league partnerships are a big part of the strategy, particularly in core markets where the teams typically kind of touch 70%, 80%, 90% of sports fans. So the Denver Broncos is a great example of that.

But we complement that with deals like the one we did with Intercom or Turner Sports, where we can really kind of reach the mass market, and more importantly, be integrated into the sports content. Radio has been a huge avenue for us. And so Intercom was a great partner to bring on board. And so you’ll see a wide range of partnerships that we’re doing out there.

Story continues

SEANA SMITH: Matt, we’re seeing more and more states legalize sports betting. We saw it in the recent election. How big of a growth driver do you see this potentially being for your company, and then also just for the industry at large?

MATT KING: We think we’re in the first or second inning of this. So if you look at the states that were legalizing, you got Maryland passed a referendum. Louisiana did as well. But you look past that, you’ve got big states like Ohio and Massachusetts that are seriously considering it.

And one of the things that has been a positive outgrowth of the numbers you’re seeing out of places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania is, almost all states realize that this is kind of common sense legislation. And when you take the economic opportunity and combine it with the resounding voter support for it that you saw in Maryland and Louisiana, kind of the legislators look at this as a kind of no regrets piece of legislation to push for.

DAN ROBERTS: Matt, we just got news of when the next NBA season will start– December 22, which is great. It’s also kind of crazy since we just wrapped the last one. But that’s how things are going right now. While we have you, it was very interesting. In the summer and the fall, we saw a big dip across the board in live sports TV ratings.

Everyone had their theories as to why that was happening, but the NBA Finals were way down. The NFL ratings were down through the first five weeks. Some of the tennis tournaments were way down. Kentucky Derby was down 60%. What do you make of that? And did that affect your business? Did that affect how many people were engaging with fantasy and betting?

MATT KING: We didn’t really see it affect our business. I mean, as you noted when we got on the call, we had over 450,000 new customers. We grew 80% year over year. So it’s hard to see it in our business. I think– and this is more art than science response– you know, people just aren’t used to watching NBA basketball in August. And they aren’t used to the Kentucky Derby being in the fall. And I think as you see sports return to their more normal calendar, you’ll see the ratings swing back.

And because also, the other reality is, when the NFL kicked off, you just had a lot of sports going on. And so you didn’t have as much kind of individual attention on any given sport. You didn’t have as much run-up in each of the individual events as you typically do. And so, I think you’ll see the ratings come back.

ADAM SHAPIRO: You don’t think there’s going to be any kind of, like, demand destruction, though, that in the lulls that we’re witnessing, that people may ditch some of what had been really popular live sports for perhaps some of the things they’re are now enjoying online? I mean, for you, it’s always good because you can bet on almost anything.

MATT KING: Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I do think viewer patterns are going to change, right? I think you are seeing– and we do our research. You’re seeing more people that are following sports through highlights on Twitter than maybe tuning into the big game. And so I think you will see continued pressure on ratings from cord cutting if nothing else.

But that’s honestly why we’re having a lot of really healthy conversations with leagues and other partners about how do we leverage the scale of our digital audience to help them find sports fans that are out there that may just not subscribe to cable anymore. And so, I think you’ll see some really interesting opportunities unfold as we see the disruption in the sports media landscape over the next couple of years.

SEANA SMITH: Matt, going off of that and some of the disruption that we could expect to see, I mean, sports betting market is soaring right now, but so, too, is a lot of your competition. You’re clearly not the only game in this space. Some of the smaller players here are becoming, I guess you could say, more and more popular. What are you doing just to maintain that edge that you have? Because as of right now, you are pretty by far one of the market leaders.

MATT KING: Yeah, no, we’ve been really pleased with how customers have responded, not just to our brand in sports betting, but also to our product. And so we’ll look to continue to have product leadership. If you look at what you can bet on, on FanDuel relative to anybody else on the average NFL Sunday, we typically have two to three times the number of things you can bet on.

We have some really creative products like same game parlay that are out there, where, again, we’re one of the few people that has them, if not the only person. We have more live bets than anybody else. And so, we really– we have been leading on product. That’s part of the reason why we have the market share we do, and we’re going to continue to lead on product.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Do you think your future, your company’s future, at some point, includes a merger with the– and I don’t know what the distribution model is going to be after cord cutting is done, but a merger with, like, a Twitter or somebody is going to have the contract for the delivery of different sports venues?

MATT KING: I think anything’s on the table this early in the cycle. You know, I would say the one thing that a lot of people have been really surprised at, as they get into sports betting, is the operational and regulatory complexity. We are a heavily regulated business, and that makes what we do very hard to replicate, particularly when you’re doing it at scale with the quality of execution and product delivery that we have.

So, who knows? But I would also say, if you’re a traditional technology company, a lot of times, you look at the level of regulation we have and say, that’s more than I want. And so, it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

SEANA SMITH: Matt, we have the Masters this weekend. I know you were saying that a lot of times that we’ve seen a sporting event when they’re outside their traditional time when we’re used to seeing them, they’re not as popular, at least in the sports ratings department. What are you expecting to see, just in terms of some of the excitement and some of the interest that you’re hoping to generate this weekend?

MATT KING: Golf’s a funny thing. I would say, the interest in golf is 80% correlated to how Tiger Woods does still. Obviously, what some of the younger golfers are doing is interesting, but nobody commands the kind of name recognition in golf that Tiger does. He’s still our biggest liability on Masters weekend. And so I think if he does well, you’ll see ratings, you know, really, really strong. You know, if Tiger doesn’t make the cut, I think it’ll be weaker ratings.

[dcnativegal]

Autumn in the Oregon Outback

It’s autumn here in the Oregon Outback. I’m writing this in mid-December and it surely feels like winter. The snow is so beautiful and stays white. In DC, by day 3 the snow is grey and black.

We started burning wood in the stove right after the equinox. Much of the wood we’ve bought is stacked in the wood shed but then we were away for a weekend and it rained and the wheelbarrow wheel is flat and Valerie’s hand isn’t quite healed from surgery… can you hear the excuses? So, we gather the wood from the driveway AND the shed at the moment. All in good time.

We had a little trouble locating someone who’d deliver wood all the way to Paisley. We were on a waiting list, but I got anxious since wood is our only source of heat. A client knows somebody who knows somebody who desperately needs the work, and next thing we know, we have a pile of wood. When Valerie organized it, she realized it was not quite a cord, and we’d paid $160, which is a lot for a cord, though more reasonable with the 90-minute round trip from Lakeview factored in. We gave him another chance and he gave us than two and a half more cords.  That were not cut quite right. So we have a stack that needs more chopping, and a lot of misshapen bits with tree branches sticking out that make them very hard to stack. We are making do. He was deeply grateful. And we have heat.

When I got up this morning, it was 23 outside and 62 inside. It may get warmer than freezing today, and with my beloved pyromaniac, Valerie, at the stove, it might get as warm as 78. Which means it’s over 80 in the loft if you want to take a nap. I go from wool socks, warm jammies and a sweatshirt to a tank top and shorts in the course of a day. If we ever lose power in winter, we’ll be fine.

Valerie had a medical adventure this past summer in which she woke up and couldn’t get the world to stop spinning. I called her daughter, Hope, an RN at the one hospital in this county, and she met us in the emergency department. The 45-minute ride down to Lakeview with poor Val puking in a bucket was not fun. With a shot of Zofran, she stopped puking, and after an overnight stay to see if she’d had a stroke, an MS flare or “just” loose crystals in her ears, she saw a neurologist to establish care with one out here in Oregon. And it was the neurologist who said, you know you really should see a hand surgeon about those lumps in your left hand. Which hurt when she bonks them. So she did. And the hand surgeon, in Bend, went WHOA NELLY you need those lumps out. Can it wait until after my grandson Adam’s wedding in September? Nope. We’ll schedule the surgery for next week. That’s how fast she came to have 22 schwanomas removed very delicately; they apparently cluster like grapes along nerves. The surgeon had to cut her hand like Zorro because straight-line scars would contract and she’d have even more trouble opening her hand fully. The presenting problem of dizziness turned out to be a temporary issue of rogue ear crystals, but what came out of all the hullabaloo was a hand that no longer hurts.

She’s fine now, and stretches her hand out with the use of heat.

++

Recently, Valerie spent hours with 3 neighbors killing chickens, then defeathering them, and finally putting them in baggies to freeze. For her labors, she got two whole chickens (minus their heads, and innards), and two livers. Valerie does love liver and onions. (The big animal vet she sometimes works for says eating liver is like sucking on an oil filter. I’ll take his word for it and avoid the whole situation.) The neighbors, who’d bought chicks to grow them into meat chickens (not egg-producing ones) now have 35 chicken carcasses frozen for winter meals. Valerie invited me to help. Ha! Ha, ha ha HA!  That would be a no. I did take over our new-to-us poodle named Griffey. He’d have LOVED to smell all the feathers as they were drifting to the ground. The whole business was a revelation. I didn’t stay long. (Shudder.) If I’m going to eat chicken, I need to appreciate where the poor bird on my plate came from. I just don’t need to pluck the actual feathers off myself.

Later that same day, after Valerie’s chicken-plucking and a long shower, we drove to the Lakeview Elks Lodge for a fundraiser for the senior citizen meal program. (The Elks Lodge is the largest venue for big gatherings in the county.) There are 350 senior citizens living below the poverty line. The program serves less than a third of that, and although the meals are offered for free, they are not entirely subsidized by tax revenue, therefore, fundraiser. I’ve come to know the folks at the Senior Center through my many requests for transportation, and they are hardworking, smart women.

Val and I sat and chatted with a husband wife pair we’ve gotten to know from St. Luke’s Episcopal. And then, my coworker, fellow knitter, and Valerie’s primary care provider walked in with her husband. I gestured wildly and they joined our table. She’s the health care person who refers the most clients to me for mental health assessment. I got to know her when I worked in Christmas Valley, those 18 months when I drove north each workday instead of south. She referred clients to our tiny mental health outpost up there. Other things we have in common: she’s a liberal. She’s lived and worked on the east coast. She grew up with a high ACE score (which means, many Adverse Childhood Experiences.) She’s a serious introvert and has a very busy, stressful life in the same clinic that I work in. I admire her very much. Her name is Kathleen.

The Lakeview Senior Center program started and we heard about services to folks 65 and older in the county, which include home delivered meals, transportation to far-flung doctor appointments in Bend and Medford, and daily meals with socializing. Right before dinner was served, there was a loud clatter and thud at the edge of the tables. A man had collapsed. A small group surrounded him. Kathleen asked, is something wrong? Yup. She went over to the man, and stayed there until the EMTs took him out on a gurney to the emergency department. She came back to the table, regretful that she’d had half a beer and had to breathe that breath onto this guy, who’s had trouble with dehydration since his car broke down and he wandered around in the desert for days. Despite the Hebrews’ and Jesus’ success at wandering in deserts, it’s not recommended.

We finally chewed on our tamales, beans and rice, followed by sheet cake. Manley, and Valerie, talk old haying equipment, and tell stories. One of my favorites is about the time when young Valerie worked as a ‘hooker’, that is, she hooked lumber so that it could be lifted by a CAT(erpillar) onto a truck… she tells this story so much better than I do… A guy in a caterpillar hoists her up by large hooks which she holds onto, and he lifts her over to the log he wants her to put on the truck next. She puts the hooks where they go and up goes the log onto the truck.

One day, she’s swinging in the air above the logs still waiting to be loaded, hanging on by her hands, and she sees that the guy running the caterpillar is slumped over the enormous steering wheel. Has he had a heart attack? She swings herself around to see the other crew member to find out if he notices the slumped guy, and guy #2 is slapping the side of the truck in paroxysms of humor. Uh oh. She looks down and her bra straps had snapped and her bra was now visible as a belt around her waist. The caterpillar driver managed to catch his breath and graciously swings her up and over a bush and she drops down. After she’d gotten her bra back up where it belongs, she came out behind the bush and bowed.

A great story. One of many that show how a tough woman gets out of a pink-color trap to work alongside cranky menfolk who learn begrudging respect for this ‘hooker’ and ‘millwright’ and shoe cobbler and… my partner is remarkable …

At the benefit dinner, we listened to the brief explanation of how Meals on Wheels is a program of the triple A which has nothing to do with the American Automobile Association, despite the importance of ‘wheels’ in home-meal delivery, but is rather the Area Agency on Aging. Which is a governmental entity. And that’s all that’s said about that by the director of the program. Because we are in an anti-government, very “red” county. But I know that it’s the Older Americans Act that funds all the ‘triple As’ in the country, one covering every county in the USA. (Since Lake County is the red headed step child of Klamath County, that triple A covers 2 counties.) And I know that the Older Americans Act was one enduring program signed into law by Lyndon B Johnson as part of the Great Society Legislation which also brought us Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act, to name just two more important bits of ‘government.’  

Just ask Valerie. My blood pressure goes up when people disparage ‘government’ around these parts. I know too many very good people who served in ‘government’, how many laws are so deeply helpful to everyone, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Family Medical Leave Act. How most things that we complain about are due to the influx of corporate control over government, and how reluctant the government is to tax corporations. Campaign finance reform would be the way to drain the ‘swamp.’  

Nevermind. I’m trying to chew all my food and not eat too much of it since my bariatric surgery in April as the evening wears on.

(I will post about the weight loss adventure one of these days…)

I’m glad we went. I’m glad to show my face in support of the senior center. Plus we got to visit with two folks I like. One of whom knew just how to care for a man who collapsed.

The other day, Kathleen walked into my over-decorated office and said, Jane I really need your help. Expecting to hear about a patient who was crying in the examining room and who would soon be ‘warmly handed off’ to me for counseling, I was surprised to hear she needed help with the first couple of rows of a 90-stitch knitting project. Could I cast on? Why of course. “Other duties as assigned.”

*****

In other news, we are adjusting to life with a dog. Since Valerie’s faithful Westie, Dudley, died about 7 years ago, she’s dog-sat various pooches and lived happily with my 13 year-old cat, Moe. Since Val’s pretty much retired from ranch irrigation, she’s now able to spend time with a dog. She was vocal about wanting some sort of poodle mix, because they are smart. Lake County is full of cow dogs, pit bulls, and lots of chihuahuas for some reason. When her daughter Hope saw a message on Facebook about a family needing to rehome a poodle mix, she signaled Valerie, and next thing we know, we have a dog named Griffey, named after a baseball player. He’d been born 6 years before in Maryland, and flown by a coworker’s father to a ranch here; Erin has a poodle breeding business. Poor Griffey apparently didn’t like being in a herd. That family rehomed him with a young couple who had a baby and worked long hours away from home. Griffey pooped in their bed. So Griffey came to us.

This pooch is very well behaved. Aside from chasing the cat, which we are trying to discourage, he obeys Valerie’s voice, loves going gallivanting in the desert every mid-day, and enjoys the cat food Moe turns her nose up at. We take him with us to town for church, and he sits in the truck, waiting for our return. Moe gets the house to herself for a few hours. We’ve become a family who lives with a dog. His current names include “Nickelplate” (which is cheap jewelry), “poor, sad dog”, Snicklefritz, and “Your dogliness.”

I swear there are 2 rush hours in Lakeview every weekday: one at lunch to let the dogs out to pee, and one at dinner for the same purpose, even if folks are going out to dinner later. The homeless people have dogs; the owners won’t go into subsidized housing if their dogs can’t come, too. Dogs and guns. Everyone has them. We don’t have guns. But we do have Griffey. Currently, Griff and Moe are negotiating how to sleep on their humans without hissing and growling at each other.  This is not going well; however, Moe, who’s never lived with a dog or encountered dogs in her sheltered life, is learning to hiss and swipe, which may be far more effective than us ordering Griffey to resist a primeval impulse to chase.

The other thing I’ve been doing is starting up and nurturing a group of women who knit, crochet, or want to learn. I miss knitting in a group, chatting, sharing stories about anything. These gatherings have been called “Stitch and Bitch”, but there is no bitching that I can tell. Occasional complaints about the wait service at the first venue we tried, which had but one worker and one cook for the entire restaurant. We moved to the bowling alley, a large building that has a cavernous party room with a wall protecting us from the racket of big ball bowling. The food has been better and the waitresses take good care of us. So TJ’s Family Fun Center is where we can be found on Wednesday evenings right after work.

I’m surprised by the enthusiasm, and we’ll see if it lasts. The very first gathering, there were 11 of us, and a couple women came to learn. I’m a pretty patient teacher, as long as you’re right handed. I’ve listed youtube videos in our facebook group for lefties, and lots of projects. Here are a couple that I finished this fall.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Manspreading (Epilogue)

Word Count: 4k

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 The air was filled with the fragrance of a thousand flowers, just like it always was inside of your delivery truck, in your house, and most of all in your flower shop. They say the more frequently you smell something, you grow habituated to it and you stop registering it, and maybe that's true but in the seven years you've been a florist, you have yet to take the sweet, cleansing smell for granted.

It has been a long time since you drove around delivering the bouquets yourself. You had stopped doing it ever since your small business grew a little and people started seeking you out personally for the unique designs you poured your soul into creating, and you had to hire a driver to do the delivering for you so your creative process wouldn't get frequently interrupted. You started this business out of passion. It was something you chose for yourself, entirely on your own, and so the sheer amount of effort that went into it never felt tiresome to you. You never made two bouquets alike, and you incorporated even the very hard to come by flowers if it meant getting your vision translated into reality just right, and so what little extra money you made -you were adamant on not overpricing your bouquets no matter how successful you got- immediately got spent on improving the little green house you bought and cared for, but that never bothered you. You weren’t in this for the money.

Even though your shop and the green house felt like your little slices of heaven, the chance to deliver some bouquets today, as suggested by Namjoon, was a lovely change of pace. You had forgotten how excited this part was, getting to see the jovial expressions on your clients faces after handing them the final product, and witnessing first-hand the happiness such a simple thing can bring to a person's life, if even for a moment.

There was only one bouquet left to deliver, and it was the best one yet. A class of second year kindergarteners were graduating to elementary school soon and they wanted to surprise their beloved teacher with a little farewell present. That was the most precious thing you’ve ever heard and you couldn't wait to see the surprise and happiness on the teacher's face as the little ones proudly presented the flowers to him.

There was a hop in your step as you walked down the school hallways heading to the direction the security guard pointed you to, when your dog, little Diablo, gave a loud bark and went dashing ahead of you, forcing you to rush after him. You weren't concerned that he was going to hurt anyone. He was a very lovable and gentle dog; in fact that was why you brought him along. You used to always take him on these deliveries with you back in the day because he was a client favorite. He always played around and brought a smile to their faces and in turn they would pet him until he turned into a gooey mess of content and happiness. You guessed that since it's been so long, he was probably just a little overexcited to be doing this again and so you rushed after him to make sure he didn't go the wrong way, but luckily he somehow got the right classroom and dashed in through the slightly cracked open door.

You got to the door a few second after him and pushed it open while trying to control your pants to hide how embarrassingly out of shape you were, when you heard a vaguely familiar voice laughing, "Hey there big guy, where did you come from?"

The young brunette teacher was trying to fend off the very excited dog that kept jumping up at him and trying to lick his face. "Have I seen you before?"

The teacher's question went unanswered, both by the ecstatic dog who was unable to give a verbal response, and by you, the woman who was standing there by the door frozen in shock and holding a huge bouquet, but he didn’t need an answer because the moment he looked up, he realized exactly where he knew the excitable furball from.

"___?"

You couldn't get any word out. You wouldn't have been able to even if the Dragon Storm of Saturn wasn't currently uprooting the infrastructure of your mind. What do you say to a best friend and a lover who abandoned you ten years ago? 'Hey, what have you been up to in the years since you tore my still beating heart right out of my chest?'

Animals were much more forgiving, and Diablo was over the moon at seeing his old owner again, and it seemed like he wanted to share that joy with you. Not understanding why you weren't as excited as him, the old dog clamped his teeth on your dress and pulled you towards the stunned Taehyung until you were standing a few feet apart with Diablo jumping up between the two of you and wagging his tail so hard you were worried he was going to break it.

"Mr. Taetae, is that your girlfriend?" A high-pitched voice that belonged to a little girl with pigtails spoke up and snapped you out of your trance. “No, sweetie,” You replied, putting on your best cheerful attitude. This was a special occasion for the little ones, saying a heartfelt goodbye to a teacher they obviously adored, and you weren’t going to ruin it for them with your decade old conflict. “Mr. Kim and I are old friends. We actually met when we were in kindergarten like you!” You turned to Taehyung with a big showy smile, presenting the bouquet to him, “Here you go, it seems the little cuties really took a liking to you.” “Oh wow, look how pretty this is! Thank you so much!” Taehyung gushed at the children who were now flocking to him, alternating between giving him leg-hugs and getting kissed by Diablo. You observed the interaction for a while, heart fluttering at the gentle way Taehyung dealt with the children and the obvious affection they had for him in return. If you were to stay there a minute longer you would surely break down into tears, so you silently locked the leash into Diablo’s collar and tried to tug him away, but he wouldn’t have it, not when there was a pile of children currently spoiling him rotten. The small struggle quickly caught the attention of Taehyung. “You’re leaving already?” “Oh well, you know, the shop isn’t going to run itself so” You attempted to sound nonchalant as you backed away towards the door and tugged on the leash that was met with the combined resistance of  large German Shepard and a little army of children. Taehyung noticed your struglle and spoke loudly over the loud childish chattering, “Ok, class, Ms. ___ needs to go now. Why don’t you say goodbye to her then get back to your seats while I see her off?” The children must really respect Taehyung because there was immediately a symphony of goodbyes as they filed back to their seats. Taehyung put an arm around your shoulders and guided you through the halls and outside the building. His hold was light and loose but he might as well have had you in a bone-crushing grip for all the pain it caused you, and even when you reached the open space outside the school, you still couldn’t get any substantial breaths in, so the second he stopped walking, you quickly got out of his arms under the pretence of turning to face him to ask him a question. Which was a huge mistake because now you were getting a full view of him for the first time. He looked almost the same as he did when you last saw him but something was different. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to stand a little bit straighter or the subtle signs of age that sharpened his pretty boyish features into a more mature handsome look, but it took your breath away and you found it hard to stay on your feet. You cleared your throat and said, “So, Mr. Taetae, huh?” “Yeah,” He scratched his head sheepishly, “I didn’t want the kids to speak formally to me because I felt it put a distance between us and I didn’t want that. I wanted them to feel completely comfortable around me but their parents were embarrassed to hear them being so informal so they insisted that they call me Mr. Taehyung at least but the little rebels just decided to go with Mr. Taetae.  It’s so cute, isn’t it?” “It is.” You had to admit, it was precious, and it made your poor heart ache even more. “But I meant, you a teacher? Where did that come from?” You said in wonderment. Taehyung never expressed an interest in teaching; in fact he hated teachers ever since that incident back in the first grade, so how did this happen? “I know what you’re thinking, ‘but he hates teachers’, right?” You blushed at the way he easily read your mind and he laughed. “That’s exactly why I am a teacher. I realized how much that one impatient and careless comment I got from our teacher when I was 6 years old has affected my life, and I wondered if he had been a little more gentle, a little more understanding, where would I be right now?” “Teachers have such a pivotal role in a child’s life. They can profoundly influence a young mind in a way a lot of them don’t even comprehend. I thought of how negatively my own teacher affected me and I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want that to happen to any more kids. I decided that I would do everything in my power to make sure I become a source of nothing but hope and comfort to young kids and try my best to help them see the good in themselves and the world, and set them on their way to their dreams, armed with confidence and the hunger for change.” You were awestruck. Who was this new wise Taehyung? In the countless times you’ve thought about him over the years and wondered what he was doing, you never considered something like this. You were getting a little bit emotional over how much he grew and how far he’s come. “That is beautiful, Taehyung. I’m so proud of you.” He shrugged your dazed admiration off, “But enough about me, what about you? I never pegged my serious little pumpkin for a whimsical flower girl.” He teased before realizing what he had just said and then you could see him falter. My pumpkin? Was he still allowed to call you that? And more importantly, why was it making your heart beat faster? “Yeah me neither. Life is funny that way, right?” You said, noncommittally, trying to get out of the conversation while your face was still dry. You were very happy to see the admirable man your old best friend grew into, but this was just too painful for you. “How did that happen?” Taehyung pretended not to notice his misstep and pressed on, not ready to let you leave yet. You sighed. He wasn’t going to give up, and the sooner you gave him what he wants, the sooner you can go. You took a deep breath and recounted your whole story, “After graduation, I had a job in my field for a couple of years but the work environment was incredibly stressful for me, so after landing myself into the hospital for the third time I decided that it was time for a career change. I was unemployed for some time while I recovered and mulled over my options, and during one of the slower days, Namjoon took me with him to the shop he usually got his flowers from, you know how he always had to have some fresh ones on his desk while he worked, he said it unlocked his inner genius or whatever.” You rolled your eyes. “Well anyway, the shop was ugly and the flower arrangements were basic, and I told him as much. He was offended that I insulted his favorite florist so he challenged me to create something better. At the time, I had a lot of pent up energy and too much time on my hand so I accepted his challenge, and he ended up liking what I created so much that he stopped going to the florist and had me arrange bouquets for him instead.” You smiled, remembering the way he whined until you said you’d do it. “Well, after a while of this, Namjoon casually mentioned that I love doing it so much and I make such good arrangements that I should just open my own shop, and I had to slap myself for not thinking of it before.” You looked up at him and you could hardly contain the tears that were welling up in your eyes. “And, well, here I am with my own flower shop and a heart that is finally at peace for the first time in my life.” “I should’ve been there.” Taehyung confessed. “Yeah, you should have.” You didn’t even try to hide the reproach from your voice. Taehyung smiled bitterly. “Do you hate me that much?”

“I did, for a long time. After my entire being was consumed by grief, only the smoke of hate was left, and hate I did. I blamed you for everything. Some nights the pain got so bad I could only resort to the rotten wish that I had never met you.” You spoke so quietly like you were divulging a blasphemous secret. “But even that cleared away. I realized there was no escaping our fate and I had to let go of my hate.” You took a deep breath, “I had to let go of you.” Taehyung’s breath hitched. Your vision was so blurred by your supressed tears that you didn’t see the glistening in Taehyung’s own eyes until the tears were racing down his cheeks. “What if I said that I still love you?” “Then this time I’d have to be the one saying goodbye.” This was it; this was your chance to leave before it was too late… so why were your feet rooted to the ground? “Do you still love me?” You looked at him wearily, “Yes, but does it matter?” The trembling that resided in your lips took hold of you and diffused to the rest of your body. “Of course it does. I was a coward back then. I didn’t have the courage or the strength to stay. I thought that if we broke up, we might find other people who fit us better. I took the easy way out.” “Tell me in what world was that the easy way?” Your voice cracked when you shouted so you took in a shuddering breath and spoke lowly. “You said you’d never leave me. You promised.” Taehyung opened his mouth to say something but you cut him off, “Forget it, that’s all in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore. You were right anyway; we weren’t right for each other. We would’ve had to separate sooner or later.” I was just foolish enough to think you wouldn’t leave me.  “And it doesn’t make the slightest bit of a difference that we still love each other. It would just turn out the same.” “Except it wouldn’t!” Taehyung protested. “I mean look at us, you’re a florist and I’m a teacher, who would have seen that coming? We’re not the same people we were ten years ago. Who’s to say it won’t work this time?” “I do. I love you so much, Tae. The years and the distance did nothing to quell the burning love I have for you. It’s in my veins.” You smiled tearfully. “But how can I trust a man who had been my best friend all my life and then abandoned me at the first sign of trouble? I’m not saying I was blameless. We both had a hand to play in how things turned out, but the thought of leaving you never even crossed my mind. I would’ve stayed with you until I drew my last breath and the world stopped turning, as a lover or as a friend, but you didn’t. How can I get back to you, how can we face any hardship without me wondering if this will be the day you leave me again? If all we shared wasn’t enough to make you stay last time, how can it be any different now?” "I don't know. I have no way to prove it to you other than my words. I've known you ever since I can remember and having had experienced life without you for the first time in my life, I can tell you that I never want to go through it again. In the last few months before I left, I had turned into a person I didn't recognize, a cynical man, full of anger and self-doubt. I hated that man. He's not me. I'm a silly boy who still believes in soulmates and happily ever afters. I don't care if it's stupid. It's who I am, and to me it just isn't right for the prince to give up on his princess. Besides we have a child together. We have to try to make it work for his sake." He joked, pointing to Diablo.

You laughed in spite of yourself. It was a knee-jerk reflex that he had absolute control over. Oh, how you've missed him! It wasn’t like your life had stopped going after he left. No, you've had numerous wonderful friends and lovers over the years, but despite loving them, you never felt towards any of them that soul deep connection you had with Taehyung.

"Why didn't you try to get in contact with me in the last ten years?" You felt for him, you really did. Seeing him hurting affected you more than your own pain did, but ten years is a long time to not try to get in touch with the person who is supposedly the love of your life.

"I did, once, but I saw you with someone. You looked like you were in love and he looked like someone who might actually be right for you. I didn't have the heart to come barging into your life, selfishly proclaiming my love for you, and ruining your life again."

"So what changed?"

"I'm okay with being selfish now. ___, one of the reasons I left is because I thought I didn't deserve you. I thought I wasn't good enough for you, but now I don't. I think, in this wide world, I'm one of the few people who deserve you, besides fire fighters and Malala." You laughed and he stopped talking to watch the mirth ripple on your face, like a blind man seeing again after years of darkness. "Do you think that's too presumptuous of me?"

You shook your head, wiping the tears away and trying to fight against the flood. Taehyung breathed a huge sigh of relief and took a step towards you with arms spread wide as if to hug you. You put a hand up to stop him and said, "This doesn't mean I'm taking you back. Trust is a hard thing to rebuild, and we haven't seen each other in a decade. We may have matured enough to make it work but we also may have not. Maybe deep down nothing has changed, and my heart can't go through that pain again. I can't promise you that I have the strength to let myself love you again."

"It's okay. I'll be happy just being in your life again, whether as a lover or as a friend or even as an annoying customer who has no understanding of personal boundaries." He gave you a boxy grin that melted away all the years off of his face and threw you back to a past where everything was alright. No, that wasn’t quite true. Things weren’t really alright back then, but maybe this time it will be.

When you got back to the flower shop, mind in an uproar but a stupid ear-to-ear grin on your face, you found Namjoon there waiting for you. "What are you doing here? Don't you have work?"

"I thought I'd take a day off." He shrugged. "How was your day?"

"It was really nice. I never realized how much I missed doing this until today. I have to make this a weekly thing." You chose not to mention Taehyung yet until you've figured out how you feel about the whole thing.

"Uh huh," Namjoon restlessly pulled at the flowers around him.

"You know what, sweetie? Maybe you shouldn't be playing with those." You had hardly finished your sentence when the flower pot came crashing down on the floor and scattering mud everywhere. Namjoon got down to clean the mess but you stopped him before he could make things worse like he always does, "It's okay. I got it."

He easily let go but remained restless, and after a while he spoke up again, "So that's all?"

"Huh?"

"The delivery, it was just...nice?"

You were confused for about a millisecond before you pieced everything together. "You know!" You gasped.

"Of course I know. I'm the one who planned everything, with Jimin's help of course." He got down on the floor with you, wide eyed with excitement, "So how did it go?"

"What..." Today was a very confusing day. First you meet Taehyung for the first time in ten years and he tells you he still loves you then you find out it was all Namjoon and Jimin's plan even though they weren't ecstatic about the both of you back when you were together? "Why did you do it?"

“Because, sweetie, in all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you looked at him. It was wrong of me to say all those bad things about him when we were in college. I didn’t know him as much as you did and I had no right to spout off unfounded opinions about a life-long relationship I knew nothing about, and for that I will be eternally sorry.”

“No, it’s not your fault. You were only trying to help me. I was the one who couldn’t stand up for the person who mattered the most to me.”

“Still, I regret it. I’ve been speaking with Jimin for a while now and… Taehyung never stopped loving you, not even for a second. He was as much of a mess as you were when he left, if not more. You both got on with your lives eventually, and you managed to find fulfilling jobs and surround yourself with great people, but that spark… that passion for life that used to define the both of you so clearly before became more dimmed the more time you spent apart, and we couldn’t let you go on like this anymore. We had to bring you back into each other’s lives. No matter the outcome, we knew you had to give it another chance.”  

“Thank you.”  You smiled, embracing the man in front of you. It meant a great deal to you that you had Namjoon’s blessing in this. He was a greatly cherished friend and you both valued and respected his opinion.  

You didn’t know where things would go from here or if you’d be able to overcome the deep-rooted issues that caused your initial fallout or even if you’d truly ever get back the love you had for each other, but you were prepared to face that uncertainty if it meant that there was even the slightest chance that things would work out, because the sheer amount of love that thrummed through your veins for the boy who had confidently proclaimed the moment he had first set eyes on you that he would marry you was enough to  make you endure almost everything life was going to throw your way.

Author’s Note: Well there you have it. I came up with this plot after observing a couple of relationships between my friends in real life and seeing that sometimes two people are exactly right for one another but the timing or the situation isn’t right. Sometimes they had other issues in their lives that they needed to sort out first and sometimes they just haven’t become the version of themselves that would allow them to work out. That is not to say that they needed to change to fit one another, but rather that they were just not done growing yet, and that they needed to go out and experience life and make mistakes before they could go back to one another and be truly confident that this was the right person for them.  As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

[thesinglesjukebox]

THE KILLERS - THE MAN [6.08] Officially better than "Somebody Told Me"...

Alex Clifton: I've loved seeing the Killers' evolution with every album; I appreciate their constant musical expansion, rather than cloning Hot Fuss four times (which, admittedly, I would've bought). "The Man" feels like a natural fit for the band: it's '80s Bowie and a funky bassline and Las Vegas glitz and thrillingly un-self-conscious. (I wouldn't buy "USDA certified lean" from any other band, but Brandon Flowers delivers that line with believable swagger.) Moreover, it's just plain fun and goofy. Yes, the chorus is a pile of cliches -- "I've got gas in the tank/I've got money in the bank" -- but the whole thing is so damn sweeping that I don't even care. After Battle Born, which was too serious for my liking, it's nice to hear the Killers take joy in their music. [9]

Alfred Soto: Still rueing the fact that God didn't make him gay, Flowers remembers Neil Tennant's career advice: "you got looks and some brains and you've made lots of money, plus you're a songwriter of modest talent and a singer with a mediocre parched voice fronting dudes with a cloppety idea of disco." I'm assuming Flowers has listened to Queen's "Body Language" a couple times, furiously licking himself as he sings this track's ridiculous hook over what he thinks is a sexy dance beat. It's about time a handsome male example of polyurethane design said fuck it and blew a kiss at his legion of gay fans. I mean, this is an actual couplet, folks: "You see what I mean?/USDA certified lean." That "The Man" isn't better is tied to Flowers' sense of shame. [5]

Austin Brown: What made the Killers so distinctive on Hot Fuss and Sam's Town was their distinctly chintzy, near-slacker take on glam: on "Mr. Brightside" and "When You Were Young," to name the obvious best of each, Brandon Flowers exploited his vocal limitations and took Strokes-style cosmopolitan cool supernova. By now, though, his ambitions (in vocal range and not much else) have gotten the best of him, manifesting on his solo albums in lovable Bowie pastiche, but here making him the histrionic weak link in an otherwise well-oiled synth-funk machine. [5]

Ryo Miyauchi: It's a wonder how it took so long for The Killers to merge with Arcade Fire. That chorus, though, sets them apart by a vast gap. Win Butler would never pull off such a thing with success. And really, who knew I wanted Brandon Flowers to sing, shamelessly, "I got news for you, baby: you're looking at the man"? [5]

Maxwell Cavaseno: You know, it feels absurd that someone as flamboyant as Brandon Flowers wouldn't do something along the lines of "campy disco-style track with The Darkness-type falsetto bits and meat jokes about himself and his body," so any initial shock and confusion goes away as soon as you register the first pun. However, this sounds something closer to Maroon 5 than I bet your average Killers fan would like to admit. There's a lot of clever ideas, but it ultimately falls as flat as the purposefully upchucked 'mahn' on the end of the chorus. [5]

Katie Gill: I like this because it sounds like Hot Fuss as interpreted by the Scissor Sisters but run through a layer of Duran Duran. And that sentence right there is why I've got a feeling a lot of more diehard Killers fans are going to HATE this song. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: They wanna be Duran Duran so bad, but unfortunately they're nailing being Duran Duran circa the late '90s, and that's not a good look. That wasn't even a good look for Duran Duran. [3]

Nortey Dowuona: This has great synthesizers and nothing else. [5]

Scott Mildenhall: When has Brandon Flowers ever been so invulnerably swaggering? There's a sense of power in something like "Andy, You're A Star", for instance, but it's bound in all kinds of tension. This time there's no doubt, anxiety, melancholy, regret or resignation, and it's so unusual that it seems entirely unserious. That conflict of being exceedingly lithe yet emotionally jagged holds such an appeal that losing the latter part feels very much like a loss. On the other hand, the music is lither than ever, and beyond the emotion the jaggedness is still up front. It is, too, a lot of fun; a lot of potentially participatory, performative fun. It just doesn't completely feel like these are the people to be performing it. [7]

Will Adams: I can't think of a worse fit for Brandon Flowers' limited voice than this piece of dick-swinging machismo, and yet there he goes, claiming to be the man with a plan while showing he's instead the man with the voice crack. [5]

Stephen Eisermann: The Killers come back swinging with disco-rock, oozing with proclamations of their success. Brandon Flowers sounds especially confident in his delivery. It's raunchy, muddy, and dirty, all while being extremely polished in the chorus. It's, frankly, a fucking blast. I just... yeah, I can't take it seriously. Flowers is one of the best male vocalists of our generation, by my ear, so it's hard to hear him singing songs this pedestrian, regardless of how fun. I'm praying this is some big joke about how those with the most white privilege often celebrate it as if it's some sort of huge accomplishment that they've succeeded, but I'm positive that's my mind spinning it so I can enjoy it without guilt. If I'm proven wrong, oh well. I'll just dance with my fellow oppressed to the music of our oppressors. [7]

Claire Biddles: Your flight touched down last Monday, but you still haven't gotten used to this heat. You can see it rise from the concrete like it does in films. You've finally managed to sneak out from the early morning shift Natalie hooked you up with at the motel and take a smoke, your first glimpse of the day's white-hot sun framed by high-rise blocks. You're about to crush the end of your spent cigarette to the ground when you see a car pull up. Everything's oversized in Vegas -- buildings and billboards standing on their tip toes to outsize each other -- but there's something about this mid-century car, and its Stetson-wearing driver, that feels even more towering than its surroundings. The driver gets out, takes off his hat and -- wait. You recognise that face. Something peripheral from ten, fifteen years ago? You were a teenager then, still living back East. What are the chances of someone from that shithole winding up here too? He walks towards you -- actually, who are you kidding; he walks towards the casino entrance that you're standing beside, you must seem invisible to someone as handsome as him, older than you and a little weathered around the temple, sure, but with a face like a kick to the gut. A face you've seen before. Then it hits you, and your body feels like it's shooting upwards and falling through the ground at the same time. It must have been 2004, your last year in high school. It was all over the local papers and some of the national ones too: 'Jealous Lover Kills Football Star's Sweetheart', 'Local Girl Slain In Gay Affair Scandal'. The girl -- Jenny something, you can't remember -- was in your English Literature class for two years, but you didn't speak. Blonde, beautiful, dated a guy on the football team. Andy something. There'd always been rumours about Andy and this other guy, but nothing concrete until he was taken in for questioning when Jenny's body was found washed up on the beach the next town over. He was never charged, but everyone thought he did it -- 'he's sure pretty but there's something about his smile that I don't trust' your mom once said over dinner, thumbing the 12 page report in the paper with the innocent accused splashed across the front page. And now he's in Vegas, with the same sly smile on his face but the rest all changed: his tan deep and his teeth done and his boots and hat just the right side of costume shop. He counts through a wad of hundreds flashily as he disappears inside. Nobody knows him here. Probably think he's some big shot. You wonder what will happen when they find out. [10]

Katherine St Asaph: First thought: "blowhard syndrome" in song form. But really, what the hell in the canon isn't? [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[fathersonholygore]

AMC’s Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 4: “Sabrosito” Directed by Thomas Schnauz Written by Jonathan Glatzer

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Sunk Costs” – click here * For a recap & review of the next episode, “Chicanery” – click here We get a glimpse of Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) visiting the big boss man of the cartel, Don Eladio; you know the guy. We’ve been here before, those of us who so loved Breaking Bad. Hector’s there with a man named Ximenez (Manuel Uriza), who chose not to run away with money and did the right thing for his boss(es). They also bring news of an ice cream shop, The Winking Greek, named for him. Bolsa turns up, too. He has a Los Pollos Hermanos shirt, and the Don enjoys it. Although Hector says they ought to be called the “Butt Brothers” which suggests more about Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). Long have we believed him to be gay, which is fine! But these old school gangsters obviously feel different, at least some of them. He certainly makes big, big money for Don Eladio, who’s happy to humiliate Hector in front of everyone while comparing his meagre pile of money to that of the Los Pollos Hermanos delivery. I love that this series is providing us a better look at many characters, not only Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). Because this world is populated with a lot of different people, many of whom were already worthy of more interest on Breaking Bad. After a look into Hector’s past, we see the present. Where Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) sits in his car watching the groceteria from which Salamanca and his crew work.  He also gets an update on his granddaughter and her mom, that they’re settled in at their new place doing well. This is where we also see the start of Mike’s other life bumping up against the one he loves so much, his family; or what’s left. He chooses the right thing, for now. But the interesting thing about this compelling prequel is knowing where the characters are headed, watching that fate spell out in front of us/them. Finally, we see Nacho Varga (Michael Mando) again. He and Hector roll into Los Pollos Hermanos to see the old man’s old pal. Only Gus isn’t around, so things get kind of tense. The whole place is on edge, especially with sketchy Arturo (Vincent Fuentes) and Nacho mean mugging on the perimeter of the store. Hector walks in behind the counter, nobody stopping him. Displaying a scary level of authority in front of everyone. Meanwhile, upstanding citizen Gustavo Fring, local business owner, is over at the fire department delivering chicken and a kind word. Before he has to take an urgent call, alerted to the situation in his restaurant. When he returns his staff is waiting, under watch. Gus lets his employees go, full pay for the day and back to work tomorrow. Then he heads back to his office to chat with Don Hector. The old man says Gus will be his “mule” to bring product north, as well as uses a pen to clean his shoes on the desk like a rotten bastard. A nasty power play. We know how it all comes out in the end, but the trick is there’s a long, hard road to go before getting there. As always, Mr. Fring has a way of doing things. And I can’t wait to see how Hector ends up how he is in Breaking Bad, barely a shell of a man. Victor tries to drop off a package of money to Mike at his toll booth. Only the old fella won’t take it, refusing all that cash. Then off Victor goes again. Right now, Mike’s still resisting the temptation of a wholly criminal life, if only for the sake of his family. In the meantime, Gus also has to explain the previous day to his staff; they’re all, naturally, very concerned. He apologises, offering them counselling, extra pay. One of the employees asks who the men were, so their boss says he once paid them money for protection, back when he first opened a restaurant. We see, more than ever, the act that this man puts on in his daily life. It was only just touched upon during the original series. Better Call Saul allows us a look at the deception in a much deeper sense, as well as the additional back story we receive makes for some of the best character development on television. Gus: “This is America. Here, the righteous have no reason to fear.” Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) is calling around to find out about any appointments Chuck (Michael McKean) has made for repairs. She discovers the place, after many calls, then cancels it. At the same time, Jimmy’s doing work on his case to make everything in court go smooth as possible. Then over at Chuck’s, instead of a repair guy Mike shows up with his toolbox; ahhh, tricky, tricky! He drives the older McGill away with the use of power tools, so much so Chuck has to go upstairs. One of my favourite scenes this season. Our sly handyman runs the drill then takes snaps of the house from all angles. He brings the pictures and other tidbits to Jimmy for leverage. This won’t be the last time they meet, though. Just a seeya later for now. Jimmy: “You, my friend, are the Ansel Adams of covert photography.”

That night, Gus goes to see Mike about Hector’s driver(s), the money he wouldn’t take. He makes an offer, to work for him. That’s a choice Mike isn’t willing to make blindly: “That‘d depend on the work,” he tells him. What follows is Gus making clear the reason he wants Hector alive, for now, is that a “bullet to the head would be far too humane.” What I can’t wait to see more of is how Mike slips further into deciding to work for the man. On to a meeting with Chuck, Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), and Kim and Jimmy, in the dark of course. Everyone is so concerned about the oldest McGill, his electrical sensitivity. Poor guy. The agreement for Jimmy’s confession is community service, et cetera, then Howard and Chuck nitpick the language on paper to their liking. Then the prosecutor wants an apology, one of a sincere nature. So the younger brother lays bare his regret. He also owes restitution; a little over $300, down to cents for the cassette tape. Yes, Chuck is cheap. In every way. Kim knows there must be a duplicate of the tape; Chuck reveals it was the duplicate his brother smashed. He also tries to intimidate, but she is not one to back down. Not to mention the fact she and Jimmy are always hunting. When Kim meets him downstairs, all she says is: “Bingo” Yeah, baby! Love Kim. Need more of her, all the time. This was a solid episode, and next week is “Chicanery” which I know will be an exciting one again. Dig the flashback to Don Eladio and Hector, as well as more Hector in general. He is a wild old dude. Can’t wait to see what’ll happen next in all the different plots running through this series. Better Call Saul – Season 3, Episode 4: “Sabrosito” AMC's Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 4: "Sabrosito" Directed by Thomas Schnauz…