#also Pete is so tiny next to jimmy

[jacqcrisis]

i have no idea how to interpret this fall out boy music video as anything but two bedazzled cowboys trying to get over their very sad break up but goddamn if that isn't the only interpretation I have.

How else am I supposed to read the very interesting editing choice to have Jimmy Butler sing about how 'in another life you were my babe/in another life you were the sunshine' as the camera keeps cutting to Pete Wentz being a little cute sad man in his cowboy outfit with stereotypical black and white filter? What else am I supposed to think????

[grecoisms]

title: a heap of broken images (1/3)

pairing: kim wexler x lalo salamanca

rating: M

summary: 

"They told me you're also on the De Guzmán case. There has been an... incident and we need someone from his legal team, pronto."

or

Kim Wexler takes on the Salamanca's case in Jimmy's absence.

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish?" t.s.eliot - the waste land

.

Defeat has an ugly taste. 

Smoking doesn’t really help, but Kim lights a cigarette anyway, wary of her fingers, and the slight tremors in them. It’s still hot, hotter than May should be, but she feels strangely cold, as if all the metals from the facility had found a way inside her bones. 

She doesn’t want to be in the present or be presentable (not yet), so she calls Jimmy (again), the act more of an instinct than a conscious choice; something to pass the time as she walks back to her car, so tiny. A dot in the death throes of the setting sun. 

Jimmy doesn’t pick it up. It’s no surprise: he hasn’t picked up since yesterday morning, since he bid her goodbye in bed and went out to the desert, not to return. 

Kim isn’t sure he is alive at all. 

The thought almost makes her want to go back to jail, to him, to shake out some answers instead of mockery, but as she blows out the last of her smoke through her nose, she knows it’s pointless. Why give Lalo Salamanca more weapons?

Sensible Kim, her better self, knows all she must do, all she can do right now, is to wait.

But there exists a shadow self, too, in the narrow corridors of her mind, a rotten self, a bitter self. Some might call her ugly and impetuous. But this side of her made her survive, made her thrive for more. And now it is creeping back, this voice, strangely reminiscent of her mother, long dead, whispering.

There is a long beep in the line: a clear sign there is no point in calling now.  

Kim lowers her phone, the movement more defeated than before – and having just arrived at her car, sees her reflection, wide-eyed, ageless in the blur of the tilted windows. She feels like she has run a mile and looks as if the heat struck her too suddenly. 

You still have weapons, y’know, says this dark and dead voice, this other. Think fast, Mrs. Goodman.

Instead, Kim bites down her tongue and drives home. 

All sensible. 

All slow.  

.

It’s shrill, the ringing that awakes her.   Strangely alert, Kim reaches for her phone on the nightstand, unbothered to even check the calling number, hoping against all odds.

“Jimmy?” 

“Kim?” it’s a woman’s voice, nasal, as if she’s been crying. “It’s Laion from County.”

For a ridiculous moment, apparently still half-asleep, Kim thinks Jimmy went straight to work after his desert trip. That somehow he borrowed or bought a suit and whistled his way onto the courthouse, the bail money already deposited, and his work done. And soon, soon he will come home, to bed, to her, smiling with relief. 

But then she checks the digital clock on the stand.

It’s six in the morning. The sudden weight on her chest isn’t from the pack she smoked while waiting in the dead of the night. 

“What has happened?” she asks. Puts the phone closer to her ear. 

“So sorry to bother you so early" Laion mumbles. "We tried reaching Jimmy several times, but he isn't picking up."

Yeah, tell me about it. 

"Jimmy got some time off to prepare for his cases" the lie comes out easy. "But if there is anything you'd like me to deliver him..."

"Well" the clerk's voice trails off, then there is the sound of shuffling papers. "You might just do the trick..." then the line gets fuzzy, and the next moment, she can hear Laion much more clearly. She must have put her own phone much closer to her ears too. "Pete told me you're also on the de Guzmán case. There has been an... incident and we need someone from his legal team, pronto."

"Pete?"

"New guard at the MDC."

"What does this have to..." Kim starts, dread forming in her stomach. She would rather never see Jorge de Guzmán again. 

"Are you on the case or not?" Shuffling sounds again. "Says here you're on his legal team."

Fuckola, thinks Kim, remembering the form she signed. How careless. Seems like panic bested her, but that was then. What matters is now.  Across the line, someone else is talking in the background.

"Is she coming?" says a voice far away. A man's and it is impatient. "What a goddam-"

She can't catch the rest, because Laion starts to soothe him. 

Meanwhile, Kim has started to sweat. If she denies her involvement, she has to explain her visit. If she admits it, then she is in. All in. No return. 

Talk about finality. 

Come on, she thinks, pushing her nails into the curve of her palms, listening to the sweet nothings of the clerk in the line, in the dull dawn of light. She sees the sun peeking from behind the leaf-patterned curtain. New day, old hopes. Morning found her in bed without proper sleep. Where could it have found Jimmy?  

 Time is a-wasting, says her sensible self. Focus. 

Once again, there are a mingle of noises, static, then a big gulp of breath. 

Laion is back. 

"So" her voice sounds urging. Urged. That invisible man - probably her boss or a police officer, may be breathing down her neck. "Are you on the case, or is it just gossip?"

Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, she hears Sensible Kim. And you still have to choose. 

"I'm on, yes." her voice sounds calm, clipped. Good. "What's this about? 

.

Adrenaline has its uses. Kim doesn't have time to think while she gets ready. Shower, makeup, brush of teeth, brush of hair. White shirt, black skirt, hiding most of her. Her owlish face now has a sharp edge: her nerves. 

It takes her half an hour to get ready, another to print everything she needs for the meeting, and yet another twenty to get the Detention Center, south of town, bulky and gray: a gravestone on the horizon. She was in such rush yesterday that the similarity escaped her. 

"The dead tree gives no shelter" mumbles Kim out loud, out of nowhere, to herself and her car. What is it from? Maybe an old movie they recently saw with Jimmy.

She grips the wheel tighter.  

Stop. 

After repeating the warning twice more and chiding her breathing to slower pace do her muscles relax. Like her clothing, she has to be black-and-white now, a matter-of-fact, blank professional with an on-and-off switch. And anyways, no space for feelings in legal matters, no space for bravado or jitters. Do the job, and do it right. That's all.

Although she passes several coffee shops, she stops at none of them. Whether it's fear or something unnameable she cannot (dares not) name it, focusing on the task ahead. They hadn't left her (and Jimmy, wherever he is now) many options, so she will have to wing it, as soon as possible. But first and foremost, she thinks with some familiar bitterness, I will have to talk with our client. 

The parking lot is practically empty, it's easy to find a spot near the entrance. One last conscious inhale-exhale and then she is already inside, looking for Laion's gossip.

"Miss Wexler?" says a lanky young man who must be Pete. "Miss Delape told me you were coming."

He has kind eyes, this gossipy guard, and an up-turning mouth which Kim is certain that in normal circumstances would melt into a smile.  But this situation is far from normal so both Pete and her remain somber. 

"Call me Kim, please." it's impolite, but she wants to get over the hardest part. "Where is he now?"

"This way" Pete points, then shows him the way by walking ahead. "We uhm... decided to shut him in an empty interrogation room until your arrival" then, as he notices Kim's expression, he quickly adds. "Please, it was for his own safety, there were at least two assailants. There might be more."

"Two?" They passed two laughing orderlies with coffees in their hands. "I heard only of one."

She can only see a slice of the guard's face against the familiar green colored walls and surgeon-lit corridors - and his face is colored by contempt. 

Now, Kim could have probed then and there, but from experience she knows silence and listening to be a better strategy in the aftermath of shock. This was something her mother never realized. Never practised - even when Kim asked her to.

Pete turns left, then right, and then to a narrow corridor with one sorry-looking, chipped door at its end. He leads her almost till the treshold, but something makes him decide against it: so he stops halfway, just under a cheap-looking corkboard with several flyers on it. 

"Look" Pete sighs, clearly debating how much to tell her. "I told Laion only the essentials so that she could get us Goodman."

"Well, he is otherwise busy, so you'll have to contend with me." her voice is even. Calm. She really hopes she can learn something from Pete or else face Salamanca with a handful of nothing. Again. "Look, if you dragged me here, you might else well tell me. I'm not gonna judge. That's not my job."

Come on, come on, she pleads, voiceless. 

Puzzled, Pete searches for something in her face, and then apparently finds it, because he looks up at the ceiling as it were the heavens (Bingo, thinks Kim), and then looks her straight in the eyes. 

"At two in the morning we got a call from graveyard shift that there is a problem at number twelve." he points at the chipped door, points at the man sitting behind the door. "The cell which de Guzmán and a poor old sod Adamick occupied. Adamick was in for manslaughter, but since he was sixty-something year old, the judge wasn't convinced he actually committed the crime he was charged with."

Kim's brain shuffles through the folders of her memories. What Laion mentioned - 

"Your lot told County that it was probably supposed to be an outside job."

"Yeah" Pete leans back to the wall, near a yellow flyer which highlight the local suicide prevention hotline. "But he was in it, it seems. The hit man posed as a cleaner. Blended in easily, knew the shift's routes, and when there was no one else between cells ten and twenty, he let himself in their cell."

"Did de Guzmán tell you that?" asks Kim, feeling her throat dry. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to skip breakfast.

"De Guzmán told us shit" snaps Pete, then lowers his voice into a sharp whispers as he sees an officer walk past. "We can only guess what happened. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy, cause the hit man was already unconscious when we got there, and..."

He falters for a moment. Realized there is no going back. Kim feels the same: as if she stepped into quicksand. 

"Adamick?" she presses, fearing the answer. If she had the luxury of not caring, she would turn her head now. But Jimmy awaits, and it's Saul Goodman's name on the line in this corridor, past that room with the ugly old door. 

It's Pete's gulp that drags her back. 

"Adamick was dead, and the cell covered in blood. And you know who was the only man left mostly untouched?"

Fuck this, thinks Kim, her face showing complete serenity. Attempted assassination is one thing, but surviving said attempted assassination was another. Jorge de Guzmán, upstanding citizen of Albuquerque, loving husband and step-father of two, wouldn't have known how to defend himself.

In fact, he wouldn't have gotten a murderous overnight visit from a hit man to begin with. Fucking shitstorm of a fucking case.

She wants to scream, but opts to clear her throat instead. 

"Self-preservation by definition leads to extreme acts. I'm not sure what I would be capable of if someone would attack me with... what did they attack him with?"

"With a shiv" scoffs Pete. "But Miss Wexler, I'm not sure you understand. De Guzmán didn't even bat an eye. He was found casually sitting in a pool of blood that wasn't remotely his."

"Sorry, were you there?" 

"No" Pete admits grudgingly.

She folds her arms.

"Then it's but hearsay, wouldn't you agree?" and when she sees Pete open her mouth, she adds. "And if it isn't, then it was probably the shock."

"Whatever you say, counselor" Pete shoots him a strange look before pushing himself from the wall. "We cuffed him just in case, yes - and don't give me that look - for our safety. I will be just outside the door, knock on it three times when you are finished."

"Is this room soundproof?"

"What do you think? It's the same age as Adamick was" Pete says darkly. "Just try talking in a low voice."

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Kim braces herself, walks before the room where Jorge de Guzmán waits, and opens the door with a calm that is anything but real.

.

The room is small. Bare, were it not for the metal table and two pairs of chairs facing each other. There is also an odd smell permeating the air. Kim hears the lock behind her click, must be Pete following protocoll, signalling they can start talking. 

Speaking of talking.  

Her client sits at the far end of the table, looking awfully smug.

"Well, your husband doesn't seem very eager to come home." Lalo Salamanca rasps in a low voice. Kim can see dark bruises having bloomed all around his thick neck. One of the two must have tried to choke him while the other held the knife. "Que cabrón, eh?"

Stops when he notices her staring. 

"This?" he points as much as he can with his hands tied. There is a smile in his voice, on his face - all mercury, expressions ever-shifting, ever-moving. Lalo reminds Kim of a viper. "It's nothing. You should see the other guy." his grin widens, deepens. "Bastante feo."

"Which one?" Kim steps closer, further from the door, hands on hips. "The one you put into a coma, or the one you killed?"

Something shifts in the black of his eyes but his shrug is careless. 

"They attacked, I defended myself. Survival instinct." 

There is no natural light here, in this bland and blank room which feels like a cage; no, is a cage. So why doesn't Lalo look like he is a prisoner? Sitting there, long legs stretched, mouth curled in a bored kind of amusement, eyes so dark, eyes so alive. 

All tan and tall - much like the land around the city. 

"You look pale, Mrs. Goodman" Lalo says, still low. They must have squeezed his neck quite hard. "You sure you don't want to step out for some fresh air?"

Three heartbeats of a pause. 

"And now what?" Kim finally asks, looks at the door and decides to step to the chair next to Salamanca's, instead sitting in front of him. Still, she makes sure to keep their distance at least an arm's lengths. The strange smell is stronger here, in his corner. 

Lalo blinks slowly, head in a mock-tilt. Clears his throat. 

"Now?"

"Yes. Now that your cellmate is... gone. Now that they will obviously look into your profile, because even the dumbest person in the police force will ask himself: Who the hell is this guy to warrant such attention?"

His fingers tap a messy rhythm, and his calculating eyes follow it; glued to the table where he makes the sound. 

"Can they force a retrial?"

"Retr-" Kim wonders how Jimmy could talk with him. "No, but MDC higher ups will certainly want an explanation. Today, I'd wager. Not to mention prosecution will be all over this."

"Prosecution" Lalo scoffs, still at the table. "Bunch of payasos."

"I wouldn't be so sure" Kim says coldly. "If they didn't find your innocent, blue-collar family man act suspicious until now, they will certainly do it as soon as they hear about this little 'self-defense'. "

He finally looks up, face trenched by the shadows of the surgeon-light, myriad of lines crossing his hard face.

"Would you have advised me to die?" he says without the trace of a smile, mocking again. "Have me put down and stay down, Mrs. Goodman?"

Kim's mother would have called him a handsome fella, were it not for that ugliness in his stare. His soul, if Kim or her mother had been sentimental types. But alas. 

She finds herself holding his stare: a bottomless pit. 

"I wouldn't have advised you anything" says Kim. "Because I'm not your lawyer. Remember?"

Lalo bends closer, confidential. 

"Yet here you are." he says, but quickly continues. "So can you make it to that MDC thingy?"

"Are you asking me to?"

There it is. That gleam again in his expression. Kim can see it now, name it now.

Cruelty. 

"Do you really have a choice?" Lalo asks, almost softly. "Or does the infamous Mr. Goodman so far away have nothing to lose?"

You sick fuck, Kim wants to say and can feel her usually careful facade slip where it should not. Might be from exhaustion or worrying too much, but she feels her fears fade, and hate taking its place - all that rage spilling out from her eyes. She has to turn her head lest she does something regrettable, like finishing the hit man's job.

When she turns back, she finds Lalo is looking at her, mouth half-open, teeth gleaming, wolf-like. 

"Bien, bien" he breathes with something akin to admiration. "We have a fighter here."

Don't you give him the satisfaction, chants Kim to herself. You have seen worse than this. Now get it together.

"If I were to advise you, I'd advise you to be one step ahead" she says collected. Makes no indication of the scene before. "Let's ask for an appointment and say that de Guzman used to be in debt, but is not anymore."

Lalo makes a noncommittal hum which earns him a raised eyebrow from Kim.

"Look, it's either this or... we say they mistook you for someone else. But that is blatantly lazy. Whom else they could have looked for?"

Silence.

She feels her patience thinning.

"Look, if you don't like either of the plans, you are very welcome to-"

"No, it's good." Lalo clasps her hands together, mirth in his eyes. "Well, y'know, as good as it gets."

"Which plan?" asks Kim, confused.

"The first one. The debt one. I can even make a call to make it bulletproof."

"Okay" says Kim not liking this one bit, but gets out two request forms and a pen nevertheless. Amazing how routine overrides annoyance.  

"This" she holds up the first form. "Will get you a hearing today before shit hits the fan." She holds up the other. "And this will get you a new cell, hopefully one without a roommate. Check your... whichever personal data you have and then sign here and there."

But it turns out to be difficult, because he is still chained to the table, so Kim - without any enthusiasm - has to stand and then move closer to him so as to place the papers and the pen in his hand.

"Left hand" Lalo singsongs when she places it in his right. 

"Right" Kim grits out, tone acidic, and bends to help with the papers. 

The smell is almost unbearable here, and then, then, from above, looking down and over him, finally she notices. There are stains on Lalo, dark and dried, metallic. 

Blood. 

Blood on his pants, and the inner slopes of his veiny arms, and his palms, and under his fingernails. 

Blood that is not his. 

"Jesus" she says despite herself, stepping back, almost to the corner. 

Lalo has the audacity to laugh. 

"Mrs. Goodman" he grins so wide his face might tear. "Seems you forgot the most important law there is."

"I have to get some water" Kim says, trying not to run out the room.

But he doesn't stop. 

"It's a law as old as humanity. Aren't you interested?"

She is at the door, fists clenched, body alert. Holds up one hand to hammer on the door, a needless act of control. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

[ambertea]

clever

Read on AO3

She’s six years old and she’s just won a certificate for Maths.

Her mum’s sitting at the back of the assembly, exchanging whispers to the single dad sitting next to her. Rose keeps looking back, trying to catch her eye, but instead watches her mother’s hand sneaking up a strange man’s thigh.

The headmaster smiles at her strangely, in a way she will later define as ‘condescending’ but in the moment she can’t wrap her head around.

“Well done, you clever girl.” He says, and Rose hates it. His clammy hand engulfs hers and Rose just blinks as he shakes it up and down.

The school claps dutifully and her mum is still not looking at her.

She’s eleven years old and she hates everyone in her class. They tease her in the playground, mock her in the classroom and the only safe haven is the tiny library. The librarian is old and odd, and she strokes Rose’s hair like she’s nothing more than a tiny doll.

“Don’t try so hard to be clever,” she tells her. “They’ll leave you alone.”

Rose leaves the library and never comes back.

She’s fifteen years old and GCSEs are utter bullocks. Mickey has already failed them all, already told her they don’t matter in the real world. She stays behind after school to sit in empty classrooms to figure out algebra and tells her mum she still does gymnastics.

She gets her results in a thick brown envelope and takes a quick glance at a long list of A’s before she chucks it in the bin.

“Pure shit.” She tells her mum. “Didn’t even try, anyway. I’m just not clever enough.”

Her mum throws her a party regardless, and Rose ignores the ache in her chest.

She’s seventeen and he’s fucking hot.

She’s told her mum she’s doing A-levels because she hasn’t figured out if she wants to do hairdressing or childcare. Instead, she doodles equations on the back of English papers whilst she waits for everyone else to finish.

She meets Jimmy outside the school gates and he’s smoking cigarettes and the smell gets right into the back of her throat. She tells him that it’s bad for him, and he tells her he could be bad for her. He’s right.

She drops out of school and her mother approves because it was giving her airs and graces. What her mother does not approve of is the filthy bedsit she moves into, where she cries as her boyfriend screams at her.

“You think you’re clever, do you?” he yells, and she shakes her head and whispers no, no, never.

She’s nineteen, fucking shop window dummies are after her, and a strange man is standing with her in the lift.

“’Cos to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students.”

“Good point. Well done.”

She’s wrong, but the praise bounces around her brain.

She runs off with him because apparently, that’s just what she does. Runs off with charismatic men, leaves her mother worried sick, because she is Rose, and Rose is not clever.

This man, however, is no Jimmy. He’s smart – so smart, any small attempts at intelligence still leave her feeling dumb. This is a comfort. She argues with him, thinks around him, and starts to feel a bit better about herself.

He’s sweet as well, and kind, and doesn't care when she asks too many questions. He shows her how to strip wires and repair parts of his precious ship, and they tinker away together in comfortable silences. Now and then, she properly impresses him, and he ignores the beauties of the universe and beams at her instead. It’s strange and wonderful and she tries her best not to disappoint him.

Then she is sent away, he is trapped, and it’s time for her to use her bloody brains only she’s not sure they even work anymore. He is dying, far in the future, but still dying, and she is watching her mum scoff down chips. She doesn’t want to go back to her old life, doesn’t want to play stupid anymore.

“Why, because you’re better than us?”

No, because she has learned what life is like when she tries, and she is not yet ready to stop.

She makes it back, using her brain and a fucking massive truck, and it is worth it if just for the way he is looking at her. He tells her she is fantastic and then explodes into a whole new man, with a lankier frame and wilder hair. He takes a long nap, and she is left to be useless once more.

She stands up in front of actual, breathing monsters and tries to copy words she’s heard, but her voice shakes, and her hands are trembling. They laugh at her, and she is eleven again, being teased by the nasty girls in her class.

He saves the day, because that’s just what he does, and she runs off with him again because his smile is still kind and their hands fit nicely. Cassandra sits inside her brain and hums with curiosity, poking around her mind like it’s a mildly interesting boutique.

“Not as thick as you seem, are you?” She whispers into Rose’s mind.

She’s inside some sort of spaceship and he is gushing over the accomplishments of Reinette de Pompadour. She already knows all this, knows who she is, but he is enjoying the sound of his own voice, so she keeps quiet.

She watches him carefully, notices the lipstick marks around his face and the ridiculous angle of his collar, and stamps down the familiar feelings of jealousy rising within her chest.

It had felt like they were growing closer. Their hugs had been lingering, hands held tightly at any available moment. She had thought something was growing, something small and precious and good. Clearly, she was wrong.

Reinette dies, and Rose isn’t glad, not really, but she watches him carefully afterward and wonders. Wonders why he keeps her around if he even wants her there. She tries to ask, but the words die on her tongue.

She has almost let the feeling go when she meets her father, a man who does not know her and apparently does not care to. She calls him dad and he runs, leaving her crying and shaking and so very vulnerable. She wonders, afterward, why. Why no one has ever wanted her properly, why it feels like no one has even met her in the first place. She sobs into her mum’s shoulder and wishes she had told her about the GCSE results.

Maybe it’s a good thing, she thinks later, that she’s alone. She has no real connections that make her want to stay at home, no real relationships that don’t leave her mentally exhausted. He is her grounding point, her focus, and he doesn’t think she’s stupid, not really, but he doesn’t think she’s clever either.

She knows she loves him; knows she will spend the rest of her life pining for him. It aches, having so much unspent emotion coursing under her skin. Feels like she could explode and implode simultaneously. But his eyes are so soft, and he is so worth it.

“We’ll always be alright, me and you.” She tells him. He just stares into the sky glumly.

“There’s a storm approaching.”

She hopes for a bit of rain but instead gets a fucking earthquake.

She’s twenty-one, she’s in a different universe, and she’s absolutely fine.

“How are you doing?”

“Are you okay?”

“Speak to me, Rose, please.”

She doesn’t speak to anyone. Doesn’t even look in the mirror.

It’s hard to assign blame on a talking pepper pot, so instead, she blames herself. If she’d been stronger. Tried harder. Been cleverer.

She tells her mum this over a bottle of wine, and she just laughs.

“People like us aren’t clever, Rose. We’re survivors.”

She doesn’t want to be a survivor anymore.

She starts working at Torchwood. Starts sleeping at Torchwood as well. Pete gives her the job out of pity but is quickly astonished by the scale of the work she’s doing.

“You’re brilliant.” He tells her one night. Jackie scoffs.

“Brilliant? Hark at her.”

Rose ignores her. It doesn’t matter.

She sits through A-levels, and then university lectures, and then physics conventions with groups of boring boys who follow her like a bizarre squadron. She has a brother now, a tiny boy with eyes just like hers, and when she tucks him into bed, she whispers stories of the stars.

She creates a dimension cannon and brings it home to show Pete. He marvels over it whilst Jackie sniffs like she’s got a nasty cold.

“Just glorified jewelry. Face it, sweetheart. You’re stuck here with the rest of us. It’s time to get used to it.”

“Shut up,” Rose says, and she can feel her pulse banging away in her ears like a marching parade.

Jackie is spluttering, Pete’s eyes are wide, and Rose isn’t quite sure what she’s doing but she’s doing it anyway.

“I can do this. I am going to do this. So just shut up.”

She does do it. She flits around universes like students backpack around Europe, and it’s strangely healing to spend so much time by herself.

She meets tiny aliens made of glass who kiss through the refractions of light and hugs ginormous bear-like creatures who are surprisingly friendly and incredibly soft.

She searches for him, and it hurts and it’s hard but it’s also fantastic.

She gets through finally to a universe that should be right but is oh so very wrong. A red-haired woman screams at her, and Rose is finding it difficult to breathe.

“I'm nothing special. I'm a temp. I'm not even that. I'm nothing.”

“Donna Noble, you are the most important woman in the whole of creation!”

“Oh, don't. Just don't.”

She tells her mum about her GCSE results because she can’t stop thinking about it. Her mum stares at her for a long while and then looks down at her hands. Rose has never seen her mum speechless before, doesn’t like it, so she just nods and leaves.

She finds him, and the feeling rushes right from her toes to the top of her head. She has done it. After all the effort and pain, she has found him, and the uncurling pride is like nothing she’s ever felt before.

He gets shot and utterly ruins it, but the feeling lingers.

Her mum shows up at the worst possible time, but she is there, and she is looking at Rose so fiercely. When the situation calms down and they are safe, she pulls Rose into a tight hug and rubs her hands in circles across the small of her back.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.” She whispers, and Rose quickly wipes her eyes on her shoulders.

She is dumped on the same beach she has had nightmares about for the last five years. She is left again, but this time she is left with a familiar man who whispers promises into her ear and holds her like she is something important.

He is looking at her like he’s hoping she might lead the way, and she knows how to do this now, knows how to think and plan and strategize. She kisses him on the cheek, watches the blush that spreads across his cheek, takes his hand, and leads him back to England.

She doesn’t take him straight back to the mansion, hates the idea of speech and silence in equal measure. Instead, she takes him to her lab, and he stares at her designs through startled eyes and stolen glasses. She fidgets in the corner of the room, and wraps her arms around her waist, waiting for his verdict.

He turns to her, whips the glasses off of his face and a look of quiet wonder spreads across his face.

“You’re brilliant.”

She squirms under his gaze, picks off an invisible bit of fluff from her jacket. He is still looking at her, and she tries her best to smile.

“Thanks.”

“No, seriously. These are so impressive.”

She’s still not sure what to do with the praise, but it warms her and fills all the cracked pieces of her soul with new and growing tissue. She kisses him, both because she’s not sure what else to do, and because she can, and he smiles against her lips. They break apart and he runs his fingers over her work, his eyes soft and curious.

“How did you do this?” He whispers, and something tender and precious burns gently in her chest.

“I guess I’m just clever.”

[moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown]

Scottie meets the world. Dad!pete Head canons.

Strap in it’s gonna be long.

So, when Pete had announced that you and him were having a baby on the charlamane tha god interview, to say the world wanted to know everything, was an understatement.

To say Pete was excited was under selling how ecstatic he was. He even came back to Instagram to post updates. Thankfully therapy was helping him stay far away from the comments section. And he only really opened the app to post new things about the growing spawn you two had made.

So to say it was terrifying when the world exploded a month later and Pete wasn’t allowed in to most of the appointments you had, it was crushing. But he understood and most if not all you FaceTimed with him in the car so he could see everything.

The appointment he was allowed in was the heart beat. And he cried. A lot. Stood holding your hand, it took a few minutes to find the heart beat, but the second that fast moving thump came through, he broke down.

It was real. He was gonna be a dad. And you gave him the greatest gift alive.

To say he made sure you never had to worry or lift a finger, was an understatement. You had to forceably remind him that you were able to do things even with a growing human inside.

It was a crazy, long, hectic 7 months. You found out you were having a girl and FaceTiming everyone to tell them was a wild ride.

“A girl!? Brooooo! I got a niece coming!” Colson was ready to be petes source of all things little girl and baby related. He was uncle colson from 3000 miles away. He sent so many baby clothes. From him and casie. Casie was probably even more excited for when she would be able to see the baby.

John and Anna were just as excited. Anna had sent designs and ideas for a nursery and thank god she did cause you and Pete were useless at decorating together. Anna took it all over and she created the best nursery for your daughter.

So when the day came, you stood in the kitchen, chilling your due date was said to be around Halloween, but you knew babies came when babies wanted so when you felt the rush of liquid down your legs. Well either you pissed yourself or

“PETE! TRANSFORMERS BOUT TO ROLL OUT!” The contractions hit and the rest was a blur of pain and screaming that Pete would never stick his dick in you ever again.

It was 15 hours of pain and waiting but she came out screaming. Scottie Marie Davidson. Born on Halloween night. Because it was 2020 why wouldn’t yours and petes baby come on Halloween.

So when it was told through both yours and petes instagrams that the baby had arrived, friends wanted Pete to come on shows via zoom and to be fair he could rant about Scottie all day to anyone who would listen.

He was wrapped around her finger already.

So when he was asked to come on jimmy Kimmel to talk about mental health in the wake of isolation and the pandemic the topics obviously shifted to the source of his happiness through it all.

“Uh for me, besides therapy and my girlfriend, it’s been being a dad. Scottie is this little shining light ya know. She’s able to get me out of bed and able to see that life is worth so much.” Pete always gets choked up talking about her.

Jimmy kept asking questions like if he was in the room when she was born, does she look more like him or you, and Pete just

“You wanna see her? She’s finished what I call boob time, meaning she’s been fed and is gonna have some sick burps” laughing he looked over at you, gently patting scotties back, watching him.

“You okay with me showing the squish?” You giggled at his nickname for her. Nodding

“Oh come here. Come to papa” leaning over you kneeled but petes chair as he turned Scottie carefully so the world could see her little face

“I think she looks like Pete most. But he keeps saying she’s got my face.” Looking up at the webcam you waved a bit

“Also hi. I’m very tired or I would be freaking out” Pete laughed next to you, Scottie now resting on his shoulder while he tapped her back lightly

“Pete you seem to have become dad mode so easily, like everything from how you hold her to burping her, you are just natural dad.” Smiling you nodded, jimmy was right. Pete just fell right into being a dad. Like he was made for it.

“I called colson so much when she was pregnant freaking out that I was somehow gonna like drop her and he had to talk me down from fully just going insane” before long Scottie had burped loud enough for all to hear just

“That’s my girl. Proud of you” Pete leaned over kissing her head lightly

“She has some power on that tiny baby body. Wow” laughing Pete nodded.

Soon the interview ended and Pete stood up, careful with a sleeping baby on his shoulder, he looked natural, like it was just ingrained in him to know how to be a dad.

“Your staring at us? What she decide to vomit on my back again? She knows she’s missing the rag when she does that. Asserting dominance. She’s a true Davidson” laughing you shook your head

“No, no, you just.....you were made to be a dad. You just know so effortlessly how to care for her. She has the best dad in the world” walking over to them you leaned up kissing pete lightly before rubbing your hand over scotties back.

“I love you. More then I think I can ever say.” You nodded leaning up to him hand on his face

“I love you. And I will till the end of time. Okay. Never doubt that”

[firethatgrewsolow]

Fifty years ago today, Zep played Austin, Texas. There are a couple of interesting things to note about this show. First, it’s possible that they played Your Time Is Gonna Come in its entirety (there’s no tape in circulation so no way to verify it 100%). If that’s the case, then it’s the only time they ever did (they played snippets in two other shows but not the full monty). I’ve read that JPJ’s organ would have been too expensive to transport, and by the time they could afford it, their catalog had grown to the point where they wanted to play other songs instead. Secondly, you never know whose path crossed Zep’s back in the day. Here’s a quote from the LZ site from Dubby Hankins (formerly of Flash - one of the bands that opened for Zep):

We opened the show that night. I was 18. The band was called ‘Flash’ and I remember it like yesterday. We did a 30 minute set of original songs our guitar player (Chris Geppert) wrote followed by another local band called the ‘Laughing Kind’. We carried a Hammond B3 for our set, and John Paul Jones used it on 'Your Time is Gonna Come.“ Chris had a recently restored Firebird V and a 200 watt Marshall head with (4) 100 watt cabinets. Jimmy Page had that perfect Les Paul- he did that thing with the violin bow and the Echoplex. I’ll never forget the one conversation I had with Jimmy. He was walking by me after the show. I said, “Hey Jimmy, are you guys going to San Antonio tonight?” Jimmy said, “Yes.” I said, “Can I get a ride with you?”. He said,“ No.”
Chris had better luck. (Must have been the Marshall stack.) He made an appointment to sell Jimmy an original Fender P-Bass: Serial #001. True story, they met on the banks of the San Antonio River walk to show the bass. Jimmy and Robert paddled across the river on a paddle boat., looked at the bass and bought it for cash on the spot. 

And wait for it … the last part of the quote (it made me smile even more than Jimmy telling him “no.”)

In 1979, Chris changed his name to Christopher Cross and won 4 Grammys. 

Here’s a quote from Christopher Cross about working w Zep (c/o Goldmine Magazine):

I had a band called Flash. We were like Brian Wilson meets Frank Zappa. It was an attempt at complicated pop. I’m a big fan of Frank’s as well as Brian Wilson. Frank covered “Ride like the Wind” at one of his shows and asked me to sing, but I couldn’t make it. I do have a tape of it. In those days, they would have two acts and a local band playing 30 minutes before those bands went on. So the main acts on the bill were Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. Joe Miller was sort of managing us at the time and gave us the opportunity to open about seven shows for Tull and Zeppelin. It was really cool. We weren’t very good. The second day we were on the tour, Jimmy (Page) and Robert (Plant) came up to me and Jimmy said, “How do you kids follow us around? Do your parents have money or something?” They didn’t realize we were on the show. I said, “We have a band, and we’re opening for you.” And so the next night we’re playing and I look over, and there’s Page and Plant, standing in the wings watching us. They were only there for a short time; I almost sh*t my pants when I saw them watching us. As the next week or 10 days went on, I spent a little time with the guys in Zeppelin; they were all very nice. I got to watch them play over that period, and they were just unbelievable. I’d sit and watch them at sound check, too. (John) Bonham would show up and play for 45 minutes by himself, and it was crazy. Jimmy would come up and be warming up and wailin,’ and it was pretty fantastic. Back when my band opened for Zeppelin, they were using these rare Hiwatt amplifiers; no one had them beside Page and (Pete) Townshend. I said to Jimmy, “These amplifiers are really cool, and I’ve seen them in magazines but nobody really carries them over here.” He said, “Yeah, they’re made by this guy, and right now he only makes them for Pete and I.” I told him, “It’s my dream to have one of those amps! He said, “Well, give some money to my roadie, Clive, and we’ll send you one.” So I gave Clive $700, which was a lot of money back then. Everybody said that I’d never see my money again. A month or two later, I came home from school, and there were these boxes in my living room. It was a 4-by-12 cabinet and a Hiwatt head, and they shipped it to me. So not only was I the coolest guy in town with a Hiwatt amp, but I’d gotten it from Jimmy Page. Years later, I came up and played with The Beach Boys at a huge July Fourth show in Philadelphia in 1985, and Jimmy Page was a special guest on that show; he also played with The Beach Boys that day. I grabbed him at the show and introduced myself, and then he knew me as Christopher Cross. He was very nice. I said, “Let me tell you this story,” and he had no recollection of the story, but he said, “You know what I love about this story, man? It sounds like I was really nice to you, and I haven’t always been the nicest guy.” 

The last line devastated me. I love coming across these little nuggets. As I like to say, a tiny glimpse behind the curtain. It colors in little blanks and fleshes out personalities and the feel of the times back then. Apparently, Cross filled in for Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple) once, as well. Take a look at the article. It’s pretty fascinating.

[dannymillerfansite]

Emmerdale : Spoilers & Cast List & time of episodes 24-28 December

Monday 24 December - Christmas Eve - 7.00 PM

Digital Spy

It's the eve of Marlon and Jessie's surprise wedding. After getting drunk in The Woolpack, Sam and Marlon spot the truck containing Charity’s booze delivery sitting open.

Later, the drayman drives off, unknowingly carrying away Marlon and Sam who are fast asleep in the back.

Meanwhile, Bob can't afford presents for the twins this Christmas. He considers stealing from the hospital charity gifts, but can he really sink so low?

Elsewhere, Rodney vows to break an impasse.

Radio Times

Rodney vows to break up the impasse between Nicola and Bernice, Jessie is devastated to see Monty tucking into the wedding cake, and Bob considers stealing from a hospital to make ends meet. 

ITV

Jessie's wedding plans continue to go awry as Belle reveals Zak and Lisa are staying in Scotland and Monty eats the wedding cake. 

Tuesday 25 December - Christmas Day - 7.15 PM

Hour-long episode

It's Christmas Day and Sam and Marlon wake up in the back of a delivery van in the middle of nowhere. Marlon tells Sam that they need to rush back to the village, as Lydia has arranged a surprise wedding for him.

Later, Marlon does make it back on time but faints when he realises that he's the one getting married. At the same time, Sam is crushed to learn that he’s got it all wrong.

Meanwhile, Bob has pawned his watch but is devastated to realise that he's bought the kids the wrong gifts. Can Bob get himself out of his mounting debts and grim situation?

Elsewhere, Jacob hands Maya a present and they kiss, but they get interrupted by David. The situation grows awkward as Jacob stays hidden as David and Maya kiss.

Also today, Nicola and Jimmy arrive for dinner with the family after being invited by Rodney. Upon arriving, they realise they are not welcome and Liam dishes up tiny portions for the unexpected guests.

Wednesday 26 December - Boxing Day - 7.00 PM

What’s On TV

There’s consoling going on over at Aaron Dingle and Robert Sugden’s place too…

Digital Spy

It's the aftermath of the wedding.

Robert consoles Aaron.

Jacob endures heartbreak.

ITV

Bob worries as Brenda asks him about exchanging the video games he bought the twins for Christmas. 

It’s the aftermath of the wedding...

Robert consoles Aaron!

Thursday 27 December - 7.00 PM (only one episode)

Digital Spy

The police descend on the village.

Bernice is in a state of denial.

The pressure mounts on Bob.

What’s On TV

There are questions which need answering as the police descend on the village but will the officers uncover the information they’re looking for in Emmerdale?

ITV

Bob's financial woes continue when Eric tells him has to settle up for his stay at B&B.

Friday 28 December - 7.00 PM

Digital Spy

Bernice is furious when she sees the salon decorated for her 50th birthday, not wanting Liam to know her age.Determined to hate every second, Bernice pops all the balloons.

Meanwhile, Harriet wants to track down Dawn. Will Ryan succeed in helping her find her?

Elsewhere, Victoria feels a stab of jealousy.

ITV

Matty falsely accuses Charity of scuppering his date with Heather and gets himself the sack in the process. 

CAST LIST COVERING THIS WEEK & NEXT.

Aaron Dingle Danny Miller

Amelia Spencer Daisy Campbell

Angelica King Rebecca Bakes

April Windsor Amelia Flanagan

Belle Dingle Eden Taylor-Draper

Bernice Blackstock Samantha Giles

Billy Fletcher Jay Kontzle

Bob Hope Tony Audenshaw

Bonnie Shola Adewusi

Brenda Walker Lesley Dunlop

Cain Dingle Jeff Hordley

Cathy Hope Gabrielle Dowling

Charity Dingle Emma Atkins

Chas Dingle Lucy Pargeter

Dan Spencer Liam Fox

David Metcalfe Matthew Wolfenden

Dawn Taylor Olivia Bromley

Daz Spencer Mark Jordon

Debbie Dingle Charley Webb

Diane Sugden Elizabeth Estensen

Dr Naya Hartley Maya Barcot

Doug Potts Duncan Preston

Drayman Howard Chadwick

Elliot Windsor Luca Hoyle

Ellis Chapman Asan N'Jie

Eric Pollard Christopher Chittell

Faith Dingle Sally Dexter

Frank Clayton Michael Praed

Gabby Thomas Rosie Bentham

Harriet Finch Katherine Dow Blyton

Heath Hope Sebastian Dowling

Irene Stocks Eithne Browne

Isaac Benedict Shaw

Jacob Gallagher Joe-Warren Plant

Jai Sharma Christopher Bisson

Jessie Grant Sandra Marvin

Jimmy King Nick Miles

Kerry Wyatt Laura Norton

Laurel Thomas Charlotte Bellamy

Leanna Cavanagh Mimi Slinger

Leyla Harding Roxy Shahidi

Liam Cavanagh Jonny McPherson

Liv Flaherty Isobel Steele

Lydia Hart Karen Blick

Mandy Dingle Lisa Riley

Marlon Dingle Mark Charnock

Matty Barton Ash Palmisciano

Maya Stepney Louisa Clein

Moira Dingle Natalie J Robb

Nicola King Nicola Wheeler

Noah Dingle Jack Downham

Paddy Kirk Dominic Brunt

PC Swirling Andy Moore

Pearl Ladderbanks Meg Johnson

Pete Barton Anthony Quinlan

Priya Kotecha Fiona Wade

Rhona Goskirk Zoe Henry

Rishi Sharma Bhasker Patel

Robert Sugden Ryan Hawley

Rodney Blackstock Patrick Mower

Rosie Lucy Hird

Ryan Stocks James Moore

Sam Dingle James Hooton

Samson Dingle Sam Hall

Santa Howard Corssley

Sarah Sugden Katie Hill

Selwyn Trone Huggins

Tracy Metcalfe Amy Walsh

Vanessa Woodfield Michelle Hardwick

Victoria Barton Isabel Hodgins

Vinnie Bradley Johnson

Security guard Duggal Ram

Stripper Chris Ritchie

Doctor Chris Pybus

Paramedic Nicholas Camm

Pimp Robert Ashcroft 

[lirlovesfic]

The Choice

A Doctor Who fanfic

Summary: After GitF, the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey back to the estate to solve a problem involving the TARDIS herself. But when they see a familiar face, the face of someone who should not exist, they realize the problem is deeper than they thought and could endanger the Doctor’s very existence. Primary characters: Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler. Genres: Romance, mystery, adventure, drama, character study, HN AU, fobbed!Nine, sick TARDIS. Pairings: Nine/Rose, Ten/Rose Rating: Adult

Warning: none for this chaper

a/n: I am currently working on editing this chapter-by-chapter, with the hopes of completing a chapter a day until I catch up with myself. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m doing it to try to get back into the swing of writing and to build some momentum in order to finish this. Also, there have been some tiny things nagging at me for a while (grammar, punctuation, etc.) so I’ll be correcting as many of them as I can find as I go. The story will not change. In fact, most of the changes are going to be so minor that I doubt anyone (besides myself) will notice. But to keep myself on target, I’ll be posting it all here as I go, with links to the other websites it’s on. I hope you enjoy it.

Catch up: on AO3, on TSP, on ffnet

This chapter: on AO3, on TSP, on ffnet

Chapter Fifteen—London, 15 July 2007

John absently let the cat out as he frowned at the sheet of paper in his hand. The likeliest writers of the crude note were of course Chuck and Jimmy, both of whom he'd had run-ins with the previous day.

On the other hand, there were at least half a dozen others on the Estate who hated him enough to write the note, and that didn't include a few of his former customers and possibly half his coworkers at the garage who didn't like him either. Well, it wasn't his job to be liked, and for the most part he didn't care one way or the other how they felt about him. Truth be told, he didn't like them either.

At the sound of Rose coming out of the kitchen, he hurriedly shoved the note in his pocket. She met him by the door.

"I gotta get going." She glanced down at herself. "I really need to change. Bananas in nightcaps is a bit much even for the Estate."

"Dunno," he said, trying to keep a straight face. He knew he wasn't doing a particularly good job of it. "I think it suits you, and I've seen people wear things around here that makes that look like formal evening wear."

She chuckled. "Still, gotta get home before my mum does. Don't ask."

He grinned. "I won't."

She reached for the door handle, and he stopped her.

"Rose, I've got a couple of things to do this afternoon, but… d'you wanna to do something later? We could go out, or maybe get takeaway and watch a movie?"

Her face lit up. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

"I'll pick you up. Which flat's yours again?"

She hesitated for a second, just long enough for John to wonder if she didn't want to tell him.

"Number 48," she said. Then she added quickly, "Where's your phone?" After searching the flat for a bit and finding it next to his computer, he handed it to her. She rapidly typed her phone number into his contacts list. "Just call me when you're done."

He nodded.

When she didn't immediately move to open the door, an awkward pause descended. She seemed reluctant to leave, or at least seemed to be waiting for him to do something, but he wasn't quite sure what it was. She'd just spent the better part of the night with him, albeit platonically, sort of, and then had made him breakfast. What was an appropriate way to say goodbye? Did he shake her hand? Kiss her on her forehead? His impulse was to snog her for all she was worth, but he immediately rejected that as an option.

Before he could decide what to do, she opened the door. Impulsively he stopped her again.

"Rose."

Her hand still on the doorknob, she looked up at him. With a small smile he cupped her cheek, lowered his head to hers and gently, gently kissed her. When he pulled away, her eyes were huge. "See you later," he told her.

She nodded dumbly and slipped out the door.

After the door had closed behind her and he knew for certain she was gone, he pulled in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She hadn't kissed him back. She'd even looked a bit shocked.

Maybe he'd made a mistake, he thought, read her signals wrong. After all, he was old enough to be her father. Perhaps the age gap between them was just too much for her to handle. Maybe, despite the flirting, she just wanted to be friends with him.

But he'd been so sure…

But she did say she wanted to go out with him that night, so maybe he hadn't misread her, or at least not entirely. Was he moving too quickly?

Not quickly enough?

No, that didn't make any sense, not based on her reaction to his kiss.

He snorted and shook his head, amused at his train of thought. According to his ID he was forty, but around her he felt like a teenager, all pounding hearts and sweating palms. What was it about Rose Tyler that made him so nervous and unsure of himself? He didn't feel like that around anyone else on the planet.

When she had fallen asleep on him, it had briefly crossed his mind he should wake her, but he hadn't had the heart to do so. He had also considered laying her down on the sofa and allowing her to sleep while he returned to his own room. But it had felt so good having her in his arms. It had been literally the first time in his admittedly short memory that he had held someone like that. Moreover, it had been Rose, the person he had grown to care about far more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. Before he had realized he had done it, he had pulled the blanket to cover them both and had lain back on the armrest, pulling her tightly against his chest. He had been rewarded with a soft sigh from Rose.

He had fallen asleep with a smile on his face.

But then he had woken up and she hadn't been there. For a moment he had been scared she had left, had been uncomfortable at how the evening had ended and had snuck out without saying goodbye. He had immediately worried that he had read her signals wrong, had taken things too far by holding her in his arms as she slept.

And then he had heard her rustling in the kitchen. And realized she had stayed. The tension he hadn't even realized he'd been holding inside released in a rush, to be replaced with an overwhelming sense of relief.

What was it about Rose Tyler?

He sighed heavily, wondering how one young woman could turn his life upside down in the span of one week, and how already he couldn't imagine his life without her in it.

~oOo~

Rose crossed the courtyard and made her way up the stairwell to her mother's flat, barely noticing her surroundings, still in a daze over what had happened.

He had kissed her.

John had kissed her.

She had been surprised, thrilled even, to wake up in his arms, but as amazing as that had been, that was nothing compared to what had just happened.

He had kissed her.

He had actually kissed her.

And not with the almost parental kiss on the forehead her first Doctor had occasionally given her, and not in exuberance as her second Doctor had done once. True, it wasn't the snog Cassandra had given him while in control of her body, but it was a real kiss. On the lips.

And deliberate. Intentional.

She traced her fingertips over her still tingling lips.

Memories, forgotten, dreamlike memories of her time as Bad Wolf fought to rise to the surface. She barely remembered what had happened in the time between her looking into the Heart of the TARDIS and waking up to the Doctor regenerating, but one image had stayed with her. A vision of the Doctor, this Doctor, kissing her. It was a memory she had always discounted as false. A fantasy. No more than wishful thinking.

But this hadn't been a fantasy. No matter how brief, this had been an actual kiss.

With a smile spreading across her face, she ran up the rest of the stairs thinking about how she couldn't wait to see him later.

~oOo~

Jackie tiptoed down the hall, in part not to wake Rose, but mostly because any type of noise, including the sound of her own footfalls on the carpet, caused her head to pound. Once in the kitchen, she looked again at the scrap of paper in her hand. It wasn't the first time she had received a foul note like this one. Truth be told, she'd periodically received them for more than a decade, ever since she'd truly begun to date again after Pete's death. They tended to be from ex-boyfriends after bad breakups, or from the ex-girlfriends of whoever was her current boyfriend. Less often, they'd be from someone whom she'd turned down at the local. Occasionally, like this time, she wouldn't know who it was from. But in all the years she'd received them, she'd always hid them from Rose.

No reason to worry her. They always came to nothing.

She crumpled up the paper and shoved it deep into the bin, underneath old magazines and kitchen scraps before starting her morning tea.

She filled the electric kettle and turned it on. Normally she made a pot of tea the old-fashioned way, loose leaves in a pre-warmed pot. She prided herself that she was known on the Estate for her tea—she ignored the fact that she was known for other things as well. This morning however she didn't feel up to the trouble. She could do that later.

No, for this first cuppa, she was going to have to settle for a teabag. She retrieved a mug and the box of teabags from the cupboard and winced again as the cupboard door closed. She put the heels of her hands to her head and rubbed her temples.

Yes, she definitely needed the tea. And a couple of paracetamol.

As she opened a different cupboard in search of the jar of painkillers, Jackie heard the door to the flat quietly open and close. Puzzled, and wondering if her hangover extended into hearing things that weren't there, she stuck her head out of the kitchen and cautiously looked down the hall. Her eyebrows shot up. Rose was sneaking in. That wasn't unusual in itself, but her attire was. Usually when she snuck into the flat she wasn't wearing a nightgown.

And she had a big smile on her face.

"And where have you been?" Jackie demanded. She winced at the loudness of her own voice, ignoring the fact that she'd only gotten home minutes earlier, and wearing what she had worn the night before to boot. "You've been wi' him, haven't you?"

Rose's smile disappeared. "It's not what you think," she protested.

"And coming home in your nighty?" Jackie said in disbelief and then winced again. "Honestly, Rose, could you be more obvious?"

Rose sighed loudly. "It's not what it looks like."

Jackie crossed her arms in front of her in her scolding mother stance. "'We're not like that, Mum.' 'We're just friends, Mum.' I'll tell you, I've never come home in my nighty after a night with Bev. And not with a cat who ate the canary grin like you had when you came in." She pursed her lips. "Well, at least his nibs is human now. If you get up the duff, at least my grandchild won't have tentacles."

Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna take a shower."

"Don't use all the hot water!" Jackie called after her.

~oOo~

Once she had escaped to the relative refuge of the bathroom and away from her mother's nagging, Rose's grin returned. She pulled off her nightclothes, including the bananas in nightcaps nightshirt that had ironically been given to her by a later version of the same Doctor she had just left, and got into the shower. As the hot water washed over her, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be carried away by the memory of the kiss. It had been more than just a brush of the lips. It had been soft, slow, and absolutely lovely. And over far too soon. She would have loved it to have been longer, but she had been so surprised by it that it had been over before she could respond.

And she was kicking herself over that because she was sure that had she reacted more quickly, or at all actually, it would have turned into a proper snog.

But it was fantastic just the same.

After her shower, wearing a large, pink bath towel with another, smaller towel tightly wrapped around her hair, she went to her room to get dressed, still thinking about the extraordinary kiss.

Only the sight of her room brought her back to reality. The clothes she had worn the day before were lumped in a pile next to the bed, while other of her belongings from the TARDIS were scattered here and there around the room. More of her things erupted from her rucksack that she had dropped in the corner of her room a week earlier.

Part of the mess was simply a function of her personality and the way she had been brought up. Her mother had never been particularly concerned about neatness. Oh, the dishes were always washed, the laundry was always done, and the carpet was hoovered regularly. But the clean dishes sat next to the sink in the kitchen, never seeming to make their way back into the cupboards. Fashion magazines and romance novels competed for space with the post on the tables and chairs in the lounge while folded laundry was stacked haphazardly on any available surface in the flat.

Jackie's lackadaisical attitude towards order had been passed on to her daughter. Rose had always felt she had better things to do than tidy up her room. She wasn't bothered by it, telling herself that compared to her mother and Mickey, she was the very definition of organization.

The only time she even made an effort to be tidy was on the TARDIS, and that was more because she knew that the Doctor liked things in order and she didn't want him to think less of her, not out of any inner sense of neatness.

Rose sighed. This morning her room was even more of a disaster than usual, and that was saying something. To be fair, she told herself, the condition of the room was in part due to leaving the flat in a hurry in the middle of the night.

She rummaged through her clothes, looking for something to wear and wondering if she could get her mother to wash some of her laundry for her. After a bit of a search, she found a clean pair of jeans and a bright pink top. She pulled them on, shoved her mobile in her pocket, and then made a halfhearted effort to tidy her room, looking for dirty clothes to put in the wash.

She straightened her duvet and began to replace her pillows at the head of her bed. As she picked up a stray pillow that had somehow landed on the floor, she spotted the cube that held the Doctor's holographic message to her sitting on the bedside table.

With a rush Rose remembered the reason she was here in the first place. She felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn't been left on the Estate to flirt with John, and she certainly hadn't been left here to snog him. She'd been left here to make sure her first Doctor didn't get into trouble as a human.

Unconsciously she reached up and touched the key to the TARDIS that she always wore on a chain around her neck. She had more than a sneaking suspicion that to the Doctor, a cuddle and a kiss would fall under the classification of trouble.

The twinge of guilt grew, and she shoved the feeling aside. What was done was done, she told herself. If the Doctor ever remembered this, she'd just have to deal with the consequences, whatever they were. And from now on she'd just have to cool things down between them a bit, make sure nothing happened between them that the Doctor'd regret later.

But in the meantime, she had a job to do. After the difficulty she'd had trying to reach the Doctor on her mobile, it was obvious that the problems with the TARDIS were far worse than she had realized, far worse than just him not being able to return in ten seconds. Although the Doctor had told both her and Mickey that the TARDIS had also been affected by whatever had caused her to turn her first Doctor human, she hadn't understood the extent of the problem. The Doctor's magnificent, wonderful Time and Space ship was so powerful, so beyond her human understanding that she hadn't been able to imagine anything seriously hurting her.

But now it was clear the ship was hurt. Badly.

If she was badly hurt, what did that mean for the Doctor and Mickey? Would they even be able to get back?

She needed to figure out if there was something she could do to help them from here. And that involved a quick trip to the TARDIS. The one that was still here.

She frowned. Unfortunately, there was no direct way to get there. And she certainly didn't want to take a twenty-minute walk—one way—if she didn't have to. But she was broke until she got paid by the garage, and that wouldn't be for another week so she couldn't take the bus.

It wasn't a big deal, she told herself. She ran a lot further than that on a typical day with the Doctor. She was just being lazy. And if she was going to get there and get back before John was done with whatever he had to do, she had better get going.

As Rose walked out of her bedroom, she could hear the shower running. As much as she loved her mum, she was relieved because that meant she'd be able to avoid another lecture.

"Mum, I'm heading out," she called through the closed door. "Can you do some of my laundry while I'm gone?" There was no answer.

Inwardly shrugging, she walked into the lounge to leave her mother a note.

And spotted her mum's handbag.

She shouldn't, she thought. She really shouldn't. At least not without asking.

Rose returned to the bathroom door. "Mum, can I borrow ten quid and your Oyster card? I'll pay you back when I get paid."

She heard her mother say something. She thought.

"Well, that could have been a yes," Rose said aloud. She swiped the card and fifteen pounds, rather than ten, out of her mother's purse before quickly scribbling a note telling her she'd be back in an hour or two and heading out the door.

Taking the bus turned out to not be much quicker than walking, but at least it was cooler. July in London wasn't as hot as, say, Ancient Rome had been, but the day was warm. And uncomfortably humid. She was grateful for the transport.

And she would pay her mum back. Really.

Rose stared unseeing out the window, memories of the morning returning unbidden as the bus made its circuitous way through Peckham.

The warm, comforting weight of John's arm around her as they lay on the sofa under a blanket.

The softness of his T-shirt under her cheek.

His even softer lips on hers.

They were memories that would fuel her fantasies for months, if not longer.

Her thoughts took a decidedly naughty turn as she imagined his soft lips trailing down her throat, moving ever lower…

Rose shook off the fantasy as the bus neared her stop. She shouldn't be thinking about him like that. Nothing good could come of it, particularly after the Doctor and Mickey returned. Instead she should be thinking about what she'd do when she got to the TARDIS.

Her stop was a block away from the TARDIS, and as she got off the bus she got a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, one that grew the closer she got to the alley where she was parked.

What if the TARDIS didn't open for her?

What if she did?

If she managed to get inside, then what? She couldn't repair her. Maybe she could use the phone to call the Doctor and Mickey in the TARDIS in her proper time stream.

Would that even work?

Well, at the very least she'd be able to get the watch that held the Doctor's consciousness back, she told herself. But how would that help? She wasn't supposed to open it unless there was an emergency, and certainly there was no emergency right now. Or at least she didn't think so. Would she even know what constituted an emergency in the Doctor's mind? Short of a full out alien invasion or John being on the verge of death, she wasn't sure what one would be.

Rose rounded the corner of the alley—and there she was. The TARDIS. She closed the distance between herself and the Doctor's magnificent Time and Space ship at a jog.

"I missed you," Rose whispered when she reached her, and it wasn't until that moment that she realized how much. She'd known for a long time that she no longer belonged on the Estate, that the TARDIS was her home and would be her home for as long as the Doctor let her stay. She missed the Doctor, she missed traveling in the TARDIS, but she also missed the ship herself. She teased the Doctor about stroking random bits of the TARDIS, but now she did it herself, rubbing her hand over the ridges on the door.

"How you doin', girl?" she asked. She moved her hand to one of the side ridges. "Feelin' any better? Sorry I haven't been by to visit." She frowned as something occurred to her. "Do you even know who I am? I'm Rose, Rose Tyler, and I travel with you, or at least I will."

To her surprise, Rose felt a wave of warmth, something she interpreted as recognition, emanating from the TARDIS. She'd only rarely been able to feel anything from the TARDIS, and only since she'd looked into her Heart. That hadn't happened for this TARDIS yet though, so she couldn't understand why she'd feel anything.

But that wasn't important. What was important was getting inside. What she'd do once there she had no idea, but with her phone unable to reach the Doctor she knew that she had no chance of helping him or Mickey or even the TARDIS unless she was inside.

Rose pulled her key out from under her shirt and slipped its chain over her head. She started to put the key in the lock, and then she stopped herself.

"You're not going to shock me like you shocked the Doctor, are you?" she asked. She didn't really expect an answer so she wasn't surprised when she didn't get one.

After another moment's hesitation, Rose cautiously put the key in the lock.

It wouldn't turn.

She didn't get a shock, but the door didn't unlock either. She tried again, this time wiggling the key in the lock while pushing and then pulling on the door, but it didn't help. The door stayed firmly closed.

Rose let out a loud sigh of disappointment. "Damn. Now what?"

The TARDIS made a quiet, sickly sound that sounded a little like a queasy stomach. She patted the ship comfortingly.

"Don't worry," Rose said. "The Doctor'll get this sorted. You know him. He's brilliant. He can sort just about anything. Don't tell him I said that though. Don't want his head getting any bigger than it already is." She smiled when the light on the top of the tall blue box flashed weakly, as if in agreement.

Rose sat down on the ground and leaned back against the door while she thought.

The Doctor had said the TARDIS would lock him out while she healed herself and that that could potentially take months. It had only been a week. Hardly any time at all, really.

No, that wasn't right. Even though she'd only been here a week, John said he'd come to in an alley—and she knew it was this alley—with no memories on New Year's. That meant that this TARDIS had already been here over six months and still wasn't better.

Rose ran through their arrival back at the Powell Estate in her mind, from the Cloister bell ringing and their emergency landing, to watching the holographic record they'd seen of the TARDIS turning the Doctor human and forcing him out of the ship, to the Doctor's goodbye just before he and Mickey left. Looking back, she realized that the Doctor'd been worried that the reason their TARDIS had brought them here was because the ship couldn't heal herself at all without their help.

She could even die.

And of course the Doctor hadn't said, not directly at any rate. Typical. Why couldn't he just say things flat out? She felt a fleeting wave of anger at him—honestly, it would have been helpful to know that straight off—that was quickly replaced by worry for both him and the TARDIS.

And being stuck here there was nothing she could do. She couldn't call the Doctor, and with the TARDIS door still locked, there was no way she could help him. She couldn't even get the fob watch.

And that wasn't even the worst part.

The worst part was that although she didn't want the TARDIS to be hurt, and of course she didn't want the Doctor and Mickey to be in danger, there was a tiny little selfish part of herself that had been glad when the door wouldn't open, because it meant she'd have more time with John.

[gregkatepetegowest]

The Beginning of the End - Yellowstone

Alert: This is going to be a long one. I am going to try to include lots of detail so when someone asks me about what to do in Yellowstone I can just send them here.

Our drive from Idaho Falls to The Yellowstone River Motel was just under three hours with 1.5 of those hours driving through the park. We lucked out with the weather that day as it was in the low 60’s and overcast (perfect weather for safely leaving Greg in the car for a few minutes). Once we realized we would be driving through the park for 1.5 hours regardless we decided to make some stops so we would have less to cram into the next two days. We stopped off at numerous hot springs and geysers with the highlight for me being Artist Paint Pots. “Paint Pots” are basically little geysers that have heated the rock up enough to melt it and turn it into a mud/clay like substance. They bubble and shoot this mud/clay substance into the air. It’s mildly addicting to watch. After we had our fill of hot springs and geysers for the day, we continued north to the park exit. A few miles before the park exit, we hit a ton of traffic. Someone told me before our visit that if there are traffic jams and cars pulled over, to keep your eyes peeled. Since we were Yellowstone rookies we almost kept driving (also because Pete was stressing about work), but, at the last second, I saw a spot to pull off so we did. We got out of the car and tried to act like we knew what everyone was staring at. Then we saw it! A little chunky black bear rummaging around in the bushes below us. We watched the bear do bear things for a while and then hit the road, feeling lucky we had seen a bear so soon into our time in Yellowstone. The lucky feeling was still fresh when Pete spotted another bear, potentially a small grizzly, running along a ridgeline a half mile before the park exit (and very close to town).

Initially, I really wanted to stay in West Yellowstone. The road throughout the park is set up like a figure eight and the West Yellowstone park entrance is the most central. If you stay in West Yellowstone, you can essentially see/do all the major sites/hikes without ever having to backtrack driving wise. Of course, because I waited so long to book accommodations (and because we had a dog with us) there were no available accommodations in West Yellowstone, or really ANYWHERE. Planning Yellowstone was probably the biggest trip stressor for me once I realized we might be staying 40+ minutes away from a park entrance. Through extensive internet searching, I found the Yellowstone River Motel, which is located in Gardiner, MT. The only way to make reservations is to call them (CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE) and I truly think that’s the only reason I ended up securing a room. The motel was awesome. Dated, but clean and steps away from the north park entrance. The motel was also right on the Yellowstone River and had an amazing patio/yard space with grills, picnic tables, chairs, etc. Highly recommend staying here if you want to save a few dollars and stay right outside the park. Also, no sales tax in MT so win win.

After five or six stops in the park on our way to the motel, we arrived around 5 pm. Pete had an angry client so he needed to send a tax return out so this man-child would stop sending him angry emails. Most restaurants in Gardiner that were within walking distance closed at 8 pm on week nights so we had very limited food options since Pete didn’t wrap up work until 7:30 pm or so. We discovered the Iron Horse Saloon was open later and a short walk from us so we headed there. The bar/restaurant was right on the Yellowstone River and had a huge deck overlooking the river. We had to wait to be seated so we got a drink and stared at the river, which was lovely. The food was decent and cheap and we are easy to please. Pete got an elk burger because when in Rome! I would recommend this place if you are visiting Yellowstone/staying in Gardiner. No other establishment offers river views like Iron Horse. After dinner, we got right into bed because the plan was to get up EARLY and head to Lamar Valley in hopes of seeing some wildlife. Lamar Valley is where a lot of bison hang out which brings the bears, wolves, coyotes, etc.

Our alarm was set for 4:50 am and sunrise was at 5:30 am. This is where we went wrong. Lamar Valley was an hour drive from us and we should have planned to be there at 5:30/5:45 am. Seems crazy but that truly gives you the best chance to see some action. Alas, we were up walking Greg by 5:20 am or so. I was on high alert for bears and elk. The elk are EVERYWHERE in Gardiner and they are used to people but they will be aggressive if they feel threatened. My worry is always Greg acting a fool and causing an animal to come after us. Luckily, we mostly saw elk from afar on this walk. However, we were walking down a little bank towards the river when Pete pointed out a tiny deer on the hillside. I assured him it was fake because it was so still and looked exactly like those fake deer people set up in their yards to use for target practice. We continued on and when we looped back Pete pointed to the fake deer who hadn’t moved at all with the exception of it’s head so it could watch us. Long story short, the deer wasn’t fake and luckily it was a doe so she just stood like a statue and waited for us to leave her alone. From here, we dropped Greg off and headed to Lamar Valley.

The drive through the park at this early hour was a breeze. I cannot stress enough, especially in Yellowstone, that the earlier you make it into the park the better. We were in the valley by 7 am. Lamar Valley is gorgeous and this was both Pete and I’s favorite part of Yellowstone. You are away from the crowds and it’s quiet and peaceful (if you’re there early or late). Upon arriving to the valley, we realized we were idiots because we didn’t have binoculars. Literally every single other people/couple we saw had binoculars. UGH! Regardless, we had a wonderful morning despite only seeing bison. We left around 9 am to get back to take Greg out before horseback riding at 11 am.

We arrived to Hell’s- A-Roarin’ ranch just before 11 am after driving 10 miles up an unpaved mountain road. We had scheduled a two-hour ride around the mountain. We waited around a bit before getting on our horses. Pete was assigned Jimmy and I was assigned Pet. We started out and three minutes into the ride, Jimmy was kicked by another jerk horse, which of course caused him to jump sideways. Pedro handled it like the true cowboy he is, but I wondered how the next hour and fifty seven minutes would go. Two minutes after this incident, one of the guides/fake cowboys gives me the heads up that Pet was very bad on a ride earlier and “needs her space” or she’ll kick. Oh great. So now I have one hour and fifty four minutes to worry about Pet kicking another horse and potentially causing someone else to fall off/get hurt. We trudged onward and I warned anyone around me to stay back from Pet’s booty or else. Luckily, she did give signals when she was getting angry and, because I grew up riding horses, I could read these signals. Halfway through the ride I decided it was best for mine and Pet’s anxieties if we moved into the caboose position so that’s what we did and we had no incidents, thankfully!

Back to Pete and Jimmy… I really didn’t see Pete much during the ride. On trail rides, the horses typically have “friends” who they like to walk near so you are supposed to let them choose their marching order. I’ll let Pete step in here to give you the 4-1-1 on Jimmy’s overall disposition:

Jimmy is a stubborn and tired old horse. He only has one speed and it’s just slightly faster than the horses in front of him. Despite my continuous pulls on his reigns, he refused to give the other horses their space, preferring to ride up on their hind sides until his nose was nearly touching their rears. He would slow down momentarily and in a matter of seconds we would be back where we started. We spent time near the front of the pack, at the back of the pack, and eventually ended up somewhere in the middle. Jimmy didn’t seem to have any “friends” and couldn’t seem to find his place in the marching order. He mostly followed my lead, but I could tell he didn’t care much for me.

Throughout the ride, the guides/cowboys chatted us up. They were both super young (17 and 22) and lived on the ranch. They all bunked up in a basement together similar to the depiction in Paramount’s series, Yellowstone. Guide one, Logan, was 22 and from South Carolina. He was heading into his senior year at Clemson and was doing this for the summer before joining the rest of us in the rat race. Prior to earlier this spring, he had no experience riding horses. Guide 2, Hanley, was 17 and from outside of Billings, MT. He was… a “good ole boy” if you know what I mean. He meant well but was annoying AF and talked to me for at least 20 minutes which was painful. He grew up on a ranch and recently dropped out of high school, because another student had “disrespected” our flag and/or anthem. He worked his way among the group, telling the same stories over and over about killing rattlesnakes, rodeo injuries, and about that one time last year when he dropped out of high school.

The ride continued and, at this point, I was wishing it was one hour and not two. The ride was very slow. Many stops to wait for people who didn’t really have control of their horse (horses going of the path, stopping to eat grass, etc.). Finally, though, we were in the home stretch back to the ranch. Even though Pet and I were pulling up the rear we had a good view of the horses in front of us. All of a sudden, I see Jimmy and Pete jump sideways and up onto a hill after the horse in front of him decided to back up into Jimmy. Once again, Pete managed to stay on Jimmy and crisis was averted. Phew. This happened again just before the trail ended at the road to the ranch, this time with Jimmy jumping off the trail over some logs and into the long brush. We were both ready to say goodbye and Jimmy, Pet, Hanley, and the rest of the group.

After the horse ride, we were pretty exhausted (mentally and physically) so we headed back to the motel to shower/walk Greg/nap. We had decided earlier in the day to go back to Lamar Valley that night to see if we could spy some wildlife after talking to a woman at the ranch who told us about a wolf den located in Slough Creek. She had been there that morning and seen some of the pups playing. SO JEALOUS.

Before heading back to Lamar Valley, we stopped off and bought binoculars. I will just say, I was very thankful there is no sales tax in MT and I plan to take up bird watching once I get back to Nashville.

We headed out around 5 pm with plans to arrive to Slough Creek around 6 pm and continue into Lamar Valley after. As we were driving through the park, we once again saw people pulled over so we did the same and were delighted to see a mother black bear and her cub. The cub was adorable (obviously). Although the bears were not far from the road, we quickly put our new binocs to use for an up-close look.

We continued on to Slough Creek and Lamar Valley and saw lots of bison but not much else. We realized we should have asked the woman at the ranch exactly WHERE the wolf den was. Fail. Regardless, it was really cool to be back in the same area 12 hours later. We caught the “golden hour” in the valley and again we didn’t have to deal with traffic/crowds/trouble parking/etc. In my option, the move for Lamar Valley is to be there at sunrise or sunset (the sun sets really late this time of year, around 9:20 pm) and post up in camping chairs with some ‘nocs and just wait.

The next day was our last day in Yellowstone and we planned a marathon drive around the bottom loop to see as much as possibly could. We had already driven the top loop, with the exception of the Tower Falls stretch of road, which is closed until next year. I knew that the Grand Prismatic Spring and Old Faithful would be a nightmare of people so we planned to be on the road early. We stopped at many other geysers and hot springs this day as well. They are basically endless to the point that Pete stated he was done with geysers and hot springs. Oh Pete. We arrived to Grand Prismatic about 9 am. A lot of cars were pulling into the parking lot, so we opted to park on the road and walk. There was a trail and it was a 10 minute walk so not bad. Since it was early in the day, it was 50 degrees out which meant all of the springs in the park were extra steamy. Hadn’t thought about that when it came to seeing the colors of the Grand Prismatic. This one was a let down for me. Although still stunning, there was so much steam you really couldn’t see much. When the wind blew, you could see a bit more but still it wasn’t what I had seen in pictures. We also tried to stop here on our way to Grand Teton National Park as it was on the route and we figured that later in the day, when it was warmer, we would be able to see more. We arrived around 1:30 pm and the amount of people – OH MY GOD. We bagged it and continued onward. We could see from the road that there was still quite a bit of steam coming off the springs so I’m not sure how you really win here unless you manage to go early in the morning in July/August on a really breezy day. If anyone has tips, please share, because I’m sure we will be back in Yellowstone at some point!

From Grand Prismatic we continued to Old Faithful. The National Parks app predicts when Old Faithful will erupt, but there is no cell service in the park so this was relatively useless to us. OF’s eruptions occur every 60/90 minutes. We arrived a few minutes after 10 am and had no trouble parking. We hustled over and could see a large crowd already there. A good sign. We found spots to sit on the ground and eavesdropped on people nearby to determine when OF was scheduled to erupt. We ended up only waiting 25 minutes or so which felt like a major win! Old Faithful was spectacular as were all the other geysers in this area (there is a trail that wraps around the backside of OF with many other geysers and hot springs. We spent quite a bit of time at this stop before continuing onward.

Once past Old Faithful the traffic and people thinned out a lot. The loop takes you past Yellowstone Lake which is the largest lake in the United States at a high elevation (I believe it’s around 7k feet). We stopped at one of the beaches to walk around and noticed lots of animal poop on the beach. As I was getting back into the truck, I noticed a sign stating the area was closed due to bear activity. Whoops. We had lunch in Hayden Valley, which was very similar to Lamar Valley and known for lots of grizzly and other wildlife activity. We hung out for a while in our camping chairs but we were there in the middle of the day, so I didn’t expect much wildlife. We saw more bison and did some birding watching thanks to the newly acquired binoculars. We also stopped at the Mud Volcano which was really cool and fairly quick (and no trouble parking) and The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which is incredible. There was a hike down into the canyon that looked fairly easy and rewarding, but by this point, Greg had been alone in the motel room for most of the day so we didn’t have time to hike down into the canyon. I would highly recommend this hike and had I known how beautiful and impressive the canyon was, I would have skipped over some of the 175 hot springs/geysers we saw.

Finally, after nine hours in Yellowstone, we made it back to a very happy Greg. We went for a walk and then Pete and I treated ourselves to rainbow trout for dinner.

All in all, an amazing couple days. Pete and I both agreed one more full day would have been perfect and we would have started it by going back to Lamar Valley again for sunrise. A couple other pro tips:

- BINOCULARS.

- Download the Yellowstone map so you can access it offline. You are still able to see your location while offline and the map clearly shows all of the points of interest. We referenced this map multiple times every day.

- If you plan to hike, bring bear spray (duh).

- In hindsight, while West Yellowstone is very central I imagine this area is the worst for traffic/parking/annoying crowds of people. If you don’t mind driving a tad more, staying at one of the other entrances may be the better move.

- I would love to get on a boat on Yellowstone Lake. No idea what the options are but this area is so beautiful and again, less people.

[monaisme]

Day 5: “take me instead”

Day 5: “take me instead”

Tony had to say it. The whole alien invasion thing was getting pretty stale.

The Battle of New York had been devastating, and yeah, it had taken a load of couch time (and a load more suit modifications, thank you very much!) for him to be okay with going out into the city at night, but he’d done it and he was good now... really.

But what he really needed was for these things to stop showing up every second Saturday, especially during his lab time with his favourite Spider-baby—because that, it seemed, caused its own separate set of issues.

“Hey, Iron Man! I’m here! Where do you want me?” Spider-Man chirped over the comms.

Yup, Spider-baby always knew when something was up—

“Boss, on your left!” FRIDAY warned and Tony immediately banked right, narrowly avoiding some purple alien laser beam-thing and the debris from the now damaged building.

—Not that Spider-Man could have missed this one.

“Wow, Iron Man, did you see that? That was so cool and it was shooting and you were just—“

“SPIDER-MAN!” Tony yelled through the comms. “I’m amazing. I know, now get to work, ya’ scrub.”

“Ugh, was that a 90’s song reference? ‘Cuz I’m not sure Aunt May is okay with you corrupting my musical pallet. She’ll be put—”

Cap cut him off, “Chatter, gentlemen.”

Spider-Man piped in, “Sorry about that Mr. Captain America, sir!”

“No sass, either, Spider-Man.”

“Got it, Captain!” Spider-Man swung along the perimeter of the battle, watchful and waiting for instruction. Tony liked that about the kid. He might not always think before he speaks, but he’d always defer to the team before jumping in blind during missions. He had this ‘thing’ about messing up, always played it safe if he’d missed the plan. Yup. Pete was smart like that. “Where would you like me to go?” he finally asked.

Sam had taken the aerial approach to the battlefield. “Kid, we’ve got some tourists with nothing but time and phones on their hands just south of Central Park. Feel like doing civilian duty today?”

Tony knew what that answer would be.

“You bet, Falcon!” Peter chirped. Spider-Man changed direction, started swinging towards Central Park, and then forgetting he was still on the comms, muttered, “Every. single. time.”

They pretended not to hear.

“Falcon, have you got eyes on a source yet?” Cap inquired.

“I’ve got nothing. No rooftops, no suspicious vehicles. Nothin.’ Nat? Any luck closer to the ground?”

Black Widow was on her bike, scouring the streets for anything—a spaceship, a hideout, anything—but she was striking out, too. Well, she was also striking out any stragglers she’d come across but that was semantics. “Sorry guys, but all I’m getting are the ones you keep letting through.”

They worked quietly after that, dispatching alien after alien, all of them working like a well-oiled machine. They had just hit the ten minute mark and there was no sign of the influx letting up.

“Guys!” Iron Man called out as he fired his repulsor at his twenty-third alien, “This is starting to get old. Do we have any thoughts on where these things are comin’ from?” He shot at his twenty-fourth. “’Cuz I think we’re missing something?”

“Agreed.” Cap replied.

“Um, Guys?” Spider-Man suddenly crackled over the comms, “I think I’ve found something!”

“Report!” Cap barked out.

“There’s some clinic back here. I came over to make sure no one needed help evacuating, but the scan showed was empty. Now Karen is showing some weird readings and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

Tony chimed in then, “Pete? What do you mean by ‘weird?’—Actually, never mind. FRIDAY, contact Karen and show me what she’s got.”

His visual input doubled. At a glance, there didn’t seem to be anything too anomalous. But then... “Hey, Pete, I need you to fall back. I’m gonna head on over and Nat?” Tony directed his attention to her, “Nat, I need you to head over to Peter’s location.”

“What? Why?” came Peter’s response.

Nat’s came immediately after, “That’s a negative, gang. I’m—“ then the sound of her gun discharging once, twice, three times. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“Damn it. Okay, Cap,” Tony needed a new plan. “I’m going to head over to Peter’s location and take a look at this clinic.” He punched the alien in front of him, trying to clear the area of threats before launching, “Sam, I’m gonna get you to head over NOW. I can��t tell if we’re looking at a bomb or the cause of the portal we’ve been trying to track down or both... but—eurk“

“Tony?” Sam and Peter both called out.

They could hear the sound of struggle and Sam changed course to help his teammate. “I’m coming, Tony!”

“NO!” Tony choked out, flipping over the alien that had climbed onto his back. “Get to the clinic. I’m just...” a repulsor blasted. “Caught up. Nat! Meet him!”

An immediate “Still busy!” put the kibosh on that idea.

“Hey! I’m already here and you know I can help!” Peter piped up.

Tony blasted another alien. “Absolutely not! You know the rules!”

When the team had finally discovered that the mouth under the mask really was actually a 15 (and a HALF!) year old boy, a lot of rules, training, and more rules were implemented so Peter wouldn’t get hurt and rule #1 was:

“No biting off more than I can chew!” They could all hear the boy’s frustration. “But you know I can do this, Mr. Stark! I’m like super smart! And I haven’t seen a single alien!”

Everyone ignored him.

“Nat, ETA on completion of alien massacre?” Tony piped in.

“Mr. Stark! C’mon!”

Cap piped in, “Tony—we gotta wrap this up...”

Peter muttered, “This is ridiculous.” And then, apparently, his patience ran out. “Sam, where are you?”

“I’m twenty seconds out.”

“Sam, I’m here. Just... take me instead. I can do what Mr. Stark can and we don’t need to wait!” Peter insisted.

The comms stayed silent for a beat.

Sam asked, “Tony? Can he do it?”

Tony wanted to lie and keep the boy safe for another day, but he couldn’t. “Kid’s a genius, of course he can.”

"Cap? Any issues with this scenario?"

"We need to wrap this up. I say go."

Sam seemed to consider, and then, “Fine.”

“YAASSS! I won’t disappoint you, I promise.”

Tony didn’t think the boy ever could. “Just be careful.” He fired his repulsor again, and again. “You’re not on the Avengers insurance plan... and your aunt will kill me if I return you damaged.”

“I will be!” the boy promised, “Sam, I have eyes on you. Can you see me?”

Sam sighed, “You know why they call me Falcon, right?”

“’Cuz you can fly?”

Sam, it seemed, ignored the silliness and announced his arrival to the team, “Guys, I’ve rendezvoused with Spider-Baby and can see the clinic. We’re gonna head on in and evaluate—goin’ silent so we don’t have to listen to all you yahoos while we’re trying not to blow shit up.”

“Copy that, and you be careful, too,” Cap answered.  

* * * * * *

Tony tried to shake free of this sudden surge of aliens. He really did. The three of them were managing well enough, but he knew they were all worried about Peter and Tony really needed to be there.

And then the world turned purple.

A witty quip was on the tip of Tony’s tongue when the cluster of aliens surrounding him—but still totally manageable, really!—collapsed to the ground and stilled.

“Um, guys? Is this just me or...” Tony started.

“Did all of your aliens drop dead, too?” Nat finished.

He could hear Cap’s grin through the comms, “They did it!”

“Guys, we need help here! I think Spidey is down but he’s trapped me and I can’t get to him!”

Tony blanched, but rocketed off to their last known location with a speed saved for terrorists and nuclear bombs. “FRIDAY, contact SHIELD. Send med evac to Peter’s location! Sam, tell me what happened!” Tony barked.

“So the clinic Peter found was actually abandoned and whoever did this set up this system—this jimmy-rig that Pete said was acting as a beacon. I guess he hadn’t gotten close enough before for Karen to recognize the reading as radiation correctly ‘cuz it’s outer space shit.”

Tony landed at the clinic. “Wait. Radiation?” FRIDAY immediately set to scan the area. Tony needed to be coolheaded about this.

“Yeah,” Sam continued. “Pete said he could shut it down but then it scanned us and a countdown started, but not with real numbers, like alien stuff. He figured it was gonna blow but then looked at some wires and then did some messing around and then...”

Tony listened as Sam explained.

“He told me he thought he could disable it completely, but wasn’t sure about the timeline—alien numbers and all.”

“Okay?”

“So that sneaky little shit grabbed me and tossed me one of those lead rooms that they use in x-ray clinics and locked me in.”

“He locked you in?”

“Yes! He locked me in. He muttered something about changing dispersal rates or something and slammed the door shut. I can’t see, but I think he put something in front of the door so I really couldn’t get out.”

“Scan complete.” Read across his visual input.

“Okay, Sam, I’m looking at my readings here.” Cap and Natasha came up beside him as he spoke, “There is definitely radiation happening, but it’s harmless out here.” He looked at his teammates as he said it. “I’m guessing you’re safe inside your little hidey-hole, but I’m gonna need to head in to get some more readings.”

“Tony.” Cap rested a hand on Iron Man’s arm to stop him.

“It’s okay, Steve,” He reassured his friend. “I’ve planned for this kind of situation and I’m built for it.” Tony replied, and knocked on his metal shell. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Tony walked toward the tiny clinic.

“Sam, can you tell me where you are in the building? And where is Peter?”

“We’re right next door to each other, man. Are you inside yet?”

“Yeah,” Tony kicked open the door and stepped through the broken front entry. “I’m in.”

“Perfect. The building should be empty, but be careful. Anyways, there’s a hallway that runs behind the reception desk. Take a left and then head all the way down. You’ll turn right there. I’m in the second room on the right, and Pete is in the third.”

“Nice and easy. Great.” Tony muttered and stepped behind the front desk. He checked the radiation levels as he moved. “On the plus side, readings in here aren’t too bad, Sam. We’re gonna be able to walk you through these halls no problem in a couple of minutes. Okay?”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know, buddy. Thanks.” Sam was quiet and then, “Have you found Peter yet?”

Tony turned down the last hallway to the right. “I’m about to see—and you’re right, he put two medical file cabinets in front of the door. No way are you getting out of there on your own.” He huffed a laugh as he rapped his fingers on the heavy metal. “This is why offices should go e-filing.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.” Sam retorted. “Just find the boy. I don’t like it when he’s quiet.”

“Agreed,” Natasha added. “FYI, just got word, SHIELD medical will be arriving in 15 minutes. Apparently the dead aliens are cooler than our Avenger in training and they got distracted... those idiots.”

“Got it.” Tony scaled the cabinets and dropped to the other side and came face to face with a closed door.

He turned the door handle and pushed it open, paying attention to the radiation levels being detected. Levels in there were definitely higher than even the other side of the filing cabinets, but still within manageable levels. “Guys, I’m at Pete’s last known location, and numbers are still looking alright.”

He stepped inside and saw the now inert alien device Sam had spoken of. “Wow!” Tony was distracted by FRIDAY’s analysis and his own observations. “Guys, this could have been really ugly.” He shook his head in disbelief. “If I’m looking at what I think I am, this was bio-tech related, which is why you guys getting close set it off.” He was impressed. “And you just entered the room?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered. “It scanned us with a beam of light and that was it. Now where the hell is Peter?”

Tony was horrified with himself for getting caught up in the tech, “Shit!” He looked around the room, under the one desk in the corner. Nothing. “Guys? Um, Peter’s not here!”

“What do you mean, Peter’s not here?” Steve snapped. “Tony is it safe for us to enter the building? Are the levels safe enough?”

He looked again, “Yes, we just need to be fast. It’s dispersing but too long may not be great for you guys—especially you, Nat.”

“I’ll worry about me, thank you very much. You worry about finding Peter. We’re on our way in.”

He did worry. He worried while he double checked behind the desk, and the air vents, just in case. He worried as he rushed to the next room over, only to find that one empty, too. He stepped back into the hallway as Steve entered the hallway on the other side of the cabinets.

“Any luck?” Steve asked.

“No! He’s not here!” Tony was starting to panic. “Sam said he went back into the room and then...” Tony’s  heart sank. He rushed back into the room and started analyzing the alien device, more determined to understand what it did.

“Steve- get Sam out of the room, now! I need him to explain exactly what Peter said and did!”

Steve turned and within seconds, the grinding of those ridiculous metal cabinets was echoing through the building.

Sam appeared seconds after the grinding stopped, Steve and Natasha behind him.

Sam got to it immediately. “Okay, he said it was a beacon. That’s how the aliens keep finding us. It did its countdown thing, and that was it.” Sam knew Tony wasn’t looking for anything but the facts now. “I told you all I remember about it.”

Tony glared at the contraption.  

Sam stepped forward. “Wait a minute. When it lit up, it was white light here,” he pointed to a panel, “and green here.” He pointed again. “The countdown was around here,” he circled an area toward the top of the side facing him. “And he looked like he wanted to play over here.” He pointed to the side furthest to them. “The beam came from here.” He showed Tony where a lens peeked out of the wiring and metal. “And THAT is all I got.” Sam stepped back again.

“But...” Tony started and then stopped himself.

“But what?” Steve questioned.

“What if Peter was wrong.” Tony whispered.

Natasha heard him. “What do you mean?”

Tony couldn’t tear his eyes away from the device. “What if this is actually some sort of porthole generator and I was right? We haven’t found any spaceships yet, right? What if whatever he did set it off and Peter is gone—like ‘not on the planet’ gone?”

Natasha scoffed, “You don’t give that boy enough credit.” She scolded. “I know you’re worried, but you need to be reasonable. He’s around here somewhere.”

And then they heard it.

“help...”

They all stopped.

“Pete?” Tony called out.

The sound of flesh banging against metal. “in here...”

He sounded weak.

“Peter?” They moved to the hallway, trying to track the sound.

Another bang.

And then another—coming from one of the filing cabinet drawers!

“Pete!” Tony rushed forward and opened the bottom drawer to the cabinet closest. Empty! He lunged for the second cabinet, he had to be...

“Here!” Tony called as he struggle with the awkward weight of the drawer. Peter was there and he was whole.

“FRIDAY, scan him! And forward all info to Dr. Cho at the tower!” He reached down and carefully extracted the boy from his hiding place. “If you think, for one second I’m letting those asshole SHIELD agents touch my kid, they’ve got another thing coming to them.”

No one disagreed, not that it mattered to Tony.  They could deal with the dead aliens.

And Tony?

Well?

The whole alien invasion thing... most definitely getting stale.

@febuwhump

[junker-town]

Who will be the NFL’s oldest player 10 years from now?

It probably won’t be Tom Brady (but let’s not rule anything out).

Russell Wilson has a lot in common with Tom Brady. Both are resilient, accurate quarterbacks who’ve led their teams to new heights. Both follow alternative diets to keep their bodies churning at a high level (nanobubbles for Wilson and avocado ice cream for Brady). And both know when they want to leave the NFL behind — at the ripe age of 45.

Wilson recently tossed out an estimate of 10-15 more seasons in Seattle, giving the one-time Super Bowl winner the chance to match Brady’s goal of playing halfway through his fifth decade before hanging up his cleats. And while the Seahawks’ quarterback has absorbed his fair share of damage behind a perpetually rebuilding offensive line, it may not take much of an exaggeration to think he can get there. In seven seasons as a pro, he has yet to miss a single game. That gives him an edge on Brady, whose torn ACL in 2008 resulted in the team’s only missed postseason since 2002.

So let’s gaze into the crystal ball and examine the NFL in 2029. Roger Goodell is gone, replaced by a rule-spouting robot that actually works this time. Revenue hits an all-time high when Thursday Night Football games are broadcast exclusively on Real Player (it makes a comeback). The shield remains protected ... and Wilson is hoping to be the oldest non-kicker and non-punter to take the field.

Over the past decade, only five non-kickers have played into their 40s. Four of them were quarterbacks (Brady, Brett Favre, Mark Brunell, and Matt Hasselbeck). The fifth is longtime Dolphins long snapper John Denney. Still, there’s a chance a Jerry Rice-type position player who contributes along the sideline long into his NFL career. Whoever is jockeying for position as the league’s most senior player will have to combine talent and longevity while avoiding injury.

So who are the candidates to be 2029’s elder statesman? I started with quarterbacks currently in their late 20s or early 30s who wouldn’t be terribly rerouted if their athleticism declined with age. Then I eliminated some players who’ve missed long spans due to injury — sorry, Andrew Luck and Jimmy Garoppolo, but Brady is the exception and not the rule. From there, I took a similar look at offensive linemen (a not-inconsequential piece of the league’s 40+ club), wideouts, and defensive backs (shoutout to Charles Woodson and Darrell Green) to produce some educated guesses.

Here are my candidates as to who will the league’s oldest active player one decade from now, starting with Seattle’s prized possession (we also ran most of these guys through FaceApp’s aging filter in order to let Russia know which skill position players it should look out for in 2029).

Russell Wilson

Position: QB Age in the 2029 season: 40/41 years old

Wilson takes more damage than most quarterbacks; he’s been sacked at least 40 times per season over the last six years and was dropped for a loss on nearly 11 percent of his dropbacks last season.

This would be a rock-solid reason to root against his durability, but the Seahawks quarterback somehow blanks this damage with no lasting outward effect. Whether it’s tiny bubbles or just a Wolverine-like ability to heal, Wilson stays on the field enough to give Pete Carroll the confidence to make Paxton Lynch and Geno Smith his backup quarterbacks, and in 2019, he’ll take the field without one of the league’s worst OL coaches designing his protection.

Either way, Russ is on board with the idea of playing until he can get his AARP card.

Told y’all I’m gonna play a long time! #SilverFox pic.twitter.com/GUbCtzCuj5

— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) July 17, 2019

Cam Newton

Position: QB Age in the 2029 season: 40 years old

Much like Wilson, Newton is a potent mobile quarterback who absorbs more hits than the average passer and mostly shrugs it off — he’s only missed five games in eight seasons so far, though he’s had two shoulder surgeries. But while Wilson is an accurate enough passer to deal with a loss of mobility in the latter half of his career, Newton may struggle to adjust to a less athletic gameplan in the pocket.

Then again, the former MVP completed a personal-best 67.9 percent of his passes with last season’s motley crew of receivers, so Newton could be better suited for his golden years than previously thought.

Kirk Cousins and Matthew Stafford

Position: QB Age in the 2029 season: 41 years old

Playing into your late 30s as a quarterback is as much about sticking around as it is pure talent. Cousins and Stafford could each come from the third tier of starting quarterbacks (good, not great) to last as part-time starters and veteran mentors as 2030 looms. Both rely on big arms and wouldn’t suffer terribly from a lack of mobility behind center.

The fact that both are considered solid locker room presences would give either the opportunity to be the bridge from old guard to new franchise quarterback for a rebuilding club one decade from now.

Taylor Lewan

Position: OT Age in the 2029 season: 38 years old

There’s a long list of linemen who could play into their late 30s, including Joel Bitonio, Kevin Zeitler, or either of the Pouncey brothers.

Instead, I chose Lewan to follow the Andrew Whitworth model and take the field as a valued pocket-protecting presence at the stately age of 38. Entering the NFL at age 23 means he’d be coming into his 16th season as a pro in 2029 — a big number for sure, but he has less wear-and-tear than other linemen who jumped to the league at 21. Lewan is a powerful, mean blocker who has shown little hesitation when it comes to trash talk. If he can avoid injury, that competitive fire could keep him in the league for the next decade.

Honorable mention here goes to David Bakhtiari, who has improved as he’s gotten older but also struggled with nagging injuries throughout his career. If nothing else, the soon-to-be 28-year-old takes care of his body the way only an elite lineman can:

#Packers David Bakhtiari and Aaron Rodgers do a little Chug Off at the Bucks-Raptors game. [@LoriNickel]pic.twitter.com/wN0BXEi2yL

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) May 24, 2019

Julio Jones

Position: WR Age in the 2029 season: 40 years old

Jones’ outstanding career has been predicated on otherworldly athleticism, balance, hands, and field awareness. As the first part of that equation wanes those last three traits, plus his 6’3, 220-pound frame, should keep him productive well into his 30s.

Exceptional wide receivers find ways to contribute as the age by adding new tools to their arsenal every year. Rice, Tim Brown, and Larry Fitzgerald have all done it (even if Rice was the only one to do so into his 40s, so far). That’s a group with whom Jones can keep pace.

Chris Harris

Position: CB Age in the 2029 season: 40 years old

Versatile cornerbacks have been able to fight through the sands of time en route to late-career oases in the past, and a 40-year-old Harris could fit the bill come 2029. The All-Pro corner is a tough defender who overcame average speed and explosiveness to stick to opposing wideouts like glue. With experience playing safety at Kansas, he’s also versatile enough to move to the middle of the field and remain a tackling machine once his top-end speed can no longer match up with opposing deep threats.

He’ll have to remain healthy — the broken leg that ended his 2018 is cause for concern — but the Broncos’ top corner could wind up sticking around for another decade.

Tom Brady

Position: QB Age in the 2029 season: 52 years old

I dunno, I’m not ruling anything out with this guy.

[halfcupofcoffee-blog]

13)

I think it’s 13....

OKAY! So, now that I’m home and in my own bed, I can actually write out a functional thought on my own laptop. 

On Thursday last week we drove 12 hours to my Dad’s parents’ house in West Virginia. We got back today (Tuesday) at like 7PM -ish.

West Virginia -- or at least the part we were in -- is like being in a completely different world. It’s all farmland and cows until you get to the small part of town that had a Walmart and the usual restaurants that you see everywhere else. No one really knows a lot about the social media part of life and the only music anyone we talked to knows is the kind you play on your own guitar during church on Sunday.

 Not that it’s a bad thing. There’s something nice about being in a place that’s away and different from your normal life. I would not be able to live in it every day like my grandparents, my Aunt and Uncle and all my cousins do. But they’re all natural born farmers, which is cool in my opinion. 

On Friday we didn’t do much of anything. We went to Walmart and bought groceries because my mom was cooking meals the whole weekend. We hung out with our cousin Ben, who always surprises me a lot by actually wanting to hang out with us. 

Saturday we took a day trip to Philidelphia, and it was amazing. The highlight of the trip in my opinion. We went to this sports bar called Chickie Pete’s and met up with Jimmy and his parents, and my Dad’s best friend that he grew up with. Jimmy gave me and My sister some Cinnamon Berry Tea (I have a bit of a love affair with hot tea) which I will probably drink tomorrow. We sat at the Sports Bar forever. Dad didn’t want to leave too soon because he hadn’t seen his BFF in something like 30 years. We stayed so long that we didn’t get to go to the Art Museum. 

Instead, we walked around downtown Philly until it got dark. It was amazingly fun. I’m honestly planning to move there. It’s so pretty and I wish we could have stayed longer. 

After we dropped off Jimmy at his house, we drove the four hours back to my grandparents’ house and basically went straight to bed.

We went to church the next morning and went through the usual conversations that went on.

“Oh, I’ve known you since you were a tiny baby!” “How old are you now?”  “Which one are you again?” “How long are you staying?” “I was your parents’ Sunday school teacher long before you were born.” “What grade are you in?” “What sort of job do you have?”

It’s always the same conversation with the same people. After church we ate lunch with the whole family, which was basically my grandparents, Dad’s brother (My uncle) and his wife (Aunt) their kids (cousins) and their spouses (Cousins in law) and all their kids. 

Their kids are all pretty cute. They reminded me of my other little cousins on my mom’s side, just a lot less annoying. 

After they all left, Ben stayed and hung out with us. We mainly played card games until we got hungry and went to Chipotle for dinner. We sat in a corner and acted like we were in that cantina in Star Wars. Ben showed us the house he’s refurbishing, and it’s a really cool house. It’s kinda creepy to see in the dark, though. 

We stayed up playing Monopoly when we got back. I won by a lot. It was 1AM before that game ended and Ben went home. 

Monday we went bowling with everybody. This was also really fun and we were all equally bad at it. It was great. Even the little kids played. One of the younger little girls, Erin. was five and every time she went up to bowl she always fell onto her knees as she shoved the ball as hard as she could into the gutter.

After that, we went to my cousin Heather’s new farm. It was really pretty and the kids really enjoyed pulling us around to their rooms and showing us all their stuff. Erin showed me her pink backpack for school and Melody just had to show me her jewelry box full of plastic bracelets and necklaces. William showed us his guitar which we had played with the last time we were there. 

When it was time for us to go, Erin said she wished we could stay one more night with them. Melody gave me a hug. 

And then today we rode in the car for 12 hours. We drive through our old town and stopped at a place called Pal’s which is a hamburger and Hot Dog drive-through place with really good french fries.

It was kinda sad because I didn’t recognize anything other than the street Pal’s was on and Main Street. We didn’t go by our old hour like we usually do either. 

I slept a lot of the way home. It wasn’t exactly that exciting. 

And then we ate pizza for dinner when we got home for and we watched the episode of Sherlock we missed on Sunday. 

Now I’m here and I need some sleep. I’m really excited to be back in my own bed. More tomorrow probably. 

Hope you guys had a good weekend. 

Also, Jimmy happens to be TheLegoCantina so take a lot at his blog and follow him and stuff. :)

[magicmenageriestuff]

3am Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.) – The K.L.F.

( The Ancients of Mu Mu )

*

Alien 3  –  Paranoia In Pinewood part 2

The six stages of Film Production : as seen carved into the wall in Pinewood, Studio Five, by someone presumably better-versed in the industry than I :

Wild enthusiasm

Disillusionment

Panic

Search For The Guilty

Punish The Innocent

Reward The Non-Involved 

The above quote from the diary I kept in 1991 while filming Alien 3 in Pinewood Studios.  I released it into the atmosphere as My Pop Life #171 – Praying For Time.  I think it’s time for part 2, don’t you?

*

Somebody send me a clean version of this picture.  thanks.

Things settled down a little after the heart-thumping and deeply paranoid first month recorded in the previous episode.  No one was sacked.  I don’t think.  No one was re-cast.  There was a terrible accident one day when Sigourney’s make-up lady Linda was standing in a doorway on set – one of those science fiction doorways with a sliding panel which goes up and down with a swish.  It was a wooden contraption with a weighted pulley which failed, and it came down suddenly onto her face, right onto her nose. I wasn’t there but it was a nasty accident and she was rushed to hospital.  We never saw Linda again. Later I learned that she didn’t want to claim the medical expenses from the company, but having had a facial reconstruction and various operations I think that she eventually did settle.  Dangerous places film sets.

The cast of Alien 3 with David Fincher on set, 1991

My relationship with Sigourney had subsided into a kind of sulk, and although she would make the odd remark, the earlier fire and brimstone had calmed down a bit.  Not that we’d made up at all.  Sadly we weren’t friends.  I’d confided in other cast members – Niall Buggy thought I was completely bonkers “What are you talking about Ralph, she’s lovely!”  Pete Postlethwaite and Phil Davis felt the same way.  Dhobi Oparei too.  I was happy that they were enjoying working with her, but just as I started feeling cornered, there was Charles Dance asking me how it was all going as we waited for a set-up.  I think I was tentative at first but eventually told him what had been going on.  He confessed that he’d had the same kind of experience. “Is that how you’re going to say it?” and all of the paranoia about how clean he looked, other competitive nonsense.  I felt relieved that I wasn’t going totally mad.  It was only people she had scenes with where the behaviour occurred.  Wait – was Charles Dutton also having this relationship with her?  No.  He was a friend already and he was not the enemy.  Charlie and I have been firm friends ever since.

Charles Dance as Clemens

One day on set Sigourney and I had a scene on a balcony, after the fire. Men had died.  The Alien was trapped, locked in a loading bay. Dutton and his men were praying below us.  The scene wasn’t going well.  But we got it at around 8.00pm and Fincher pulled me aside.  “Dude.  She vampired that scene. Don’t worry I can cut around what you did, we got it.  But you’re letting her get to you.”  I think I said that I was trying to stand my ground.  “If you ever need to leave the set, take five minutes, regain your centre, just say it OK?  I got your back.”  It was another welcome acknowledgement that I wasn’t paranoid.  I went home, cuddled my lady and gritted my teeth for the long haul.  I had to try and protect my performance at the end of the day, that was what mattered.

the balcony scene is in the “director’s cut” on the DVD

As the weeks progressed, all of the actors were called in every day, in case we were needed.  First thing – put through ‘the works’ – costume and make-up – and then sat in our dressing rooms to await the call, often all day.  I often went into the next-door dressing room occupied by the Prison Governor, my boss the legend Brian Glover, who’d memorably played the gym teacher in Ken Loach‘s heartbreaking film Kes.  Brian was from Barnsley and did the voice overs for Tetley Tea Bags : ‘Tetley. Make tea bags. Make Tea.‘

Brian Glover as Andrews

Brian regaled me with stories from his days as a professional wrestler, fighting on the circuit with Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy and Mick McManus. ‘There’s money in ugly Ralph‘ he would announce, his squashed ear a keepsake of his years playing rugby.  Every 45 minutes the lovely 2nd AD Marcia Gay would knock and pop her head around the door – ‘Gentlemen. You won’t be required for the next 45 minutes. Just relax‘.  This became alarmingly irritating until one day Brian swivelled his giant head in her direction and asked ‘Is the money the same?‘  Marcia was puzzled.  ‘Yes‘ she said. ‘Well Fook Off Then!‘ shouted Brian.  Rude and fucking funny.

Fincher on the camera with Alex Thomson alongside him who had taken over as DP when Jordan Cronenweth was too ill to continue

There were eventually four units running at the same time – 1st Unit with David Fincher directing and another legend Chris Carreras as 1st AD.  The eye of any storm, the 1st AD basically runs the set, oversees all of the departments and keeps a keen eye on who is slowing the unit down.  The 1st AD is basically making the film.  Chris had an amazingly calm temperament but I saw him biting his tongue a couple of times.  Years later in 1999 I would contact him and ask him to 1st AD my film New Year’s Day, which he graciously agreed to do.  Without him it wouldn’t have got made. I was going to create a link there to the blog where I talk about the film that I wrote and which actually got made.  So scarred am I from this experience that 220 blog posts later I haven’t even started to think about discussing it.  Watch this space !

Paul McGann as Golic

Meanwhile back in Pinewood, the other 3 units which might or might not need actors for any given day were :  2nd Unit with Martin Brierly directing (and Nick Heckstall-Smith assisting, whom I would also work with later), Action Unit doing Alien Stuff and other SFX, and a Fire Unit which set fire to things and put them out while stunt guys ran around with falmes one their clothes.   We were all required, at one point or another, on all of these units.  But there were interminable days when nothing happened.  Backgammon became institutionalised, with American actors Chris Fields and particularly Holt McCallany relieving us of our wages on a regular basis with ruthless use of the doubling dice. I soon saw the error of this form of time-wasting, likewise poker and other competitive pursuits. 

Clive Mantle as William, Peter Guinness as Gregor

One day when it was clear once again that nothing was going to happen a group of us decided to wander around the studio lot and see what else was going on.  Like a bunch of escaped prisoners escorted by a correction facility officer.  That was me.  We went into one of the bigger studio buildings (Alien 3 had the majority but some were still available for hire) – I can’t remember precisely who was in that gang but I think Peter Guinness, Paul Brennan, Clive Mantle and Danny Webb certainly were. Maybe Niall Buggy and Vincenzo Nicoli too.  And there was a giant pyramid structure with lights on frames around it and people with cloaks wandering about.  We’d asked permission to visit of course, and the producers knew who we were, what we were doing there.  The band was The K.L.F. and they were shooting a video for their single 3am Eternal which had been at Number 1 in the charts that January.  A video it turned out, for the US market. We watched a take with smoke and lights, bleeps and heavy metal guitar chords, acid house beats and rap, capes and cloaks. It was all a bit mental.  Then they took a break.

We wandered into the next studio through a heavy door.  And there was Kylie Minogue, dressed for the Shocked video. We were all introduced and I became suddenly aware of a tiny elfin Australian blonde woman being dwarfed by half a dozen dirty shaven-headed prisoners from outer space.  She shook everyone’s hand then gently wandered away and asked one of her people if they could ask us politely to leave.  Which we did.  Poor love.

Kylie Minogue is Shocked at the power of love in 1991

There’s a curious link here because Bill Drummond, (who with Jimmy Cauty is The K.L.F.) had worked as an A&R man for WEA (now Warners) in London in the mid-80s and had apparently spent half a million pounds on a band called Brilliant who never quite took off.  Stock Aitken & Waterman were writers & producers for Brilliant, and Jimmy Cauty was in the band along with Martin Glover aka Youth from Killing Joke.  And Stock Aitken & Waterman were now writing and producing for Kylie, along with a vast stable of acts including Donna Summer, Mel & Kim and Jason Donovan.  Kylie & Jason had starred together in Aussie soap Neighbours, and to continue the odd waltz between the 2 acts, the K.L.F. had made a single called ‘Kylie Said To Jason‘ which was a hilarious rip-off of ‘Left To My Own Devices‘ by The Pet Shop Boys.  Confused Yet ??

Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty

I didn’t make any of these connections at the time.  I was listening to George Michael, Public Enemy, The Breeders. Catching up with Bob Marley and Miles Davis.  Discovering Wagner – again.  Looming on the horizon was Massive Attack. The K.L.F. seemed to me a little like The Tubes, one of my favourite bands to be sure, or the Bonzo Dog Band (see My Pop Life #77), formed by musicians who wanted to lampoon the music and the industry and anything else they could gather into their fiendish net.  Like everything was in quotes. I mean who sang along with the phrase “Ancients of MuMu” without a silly grin on their face?

And of course we were still recovering from the smiley-face rave culture moment from which the K.L.F. appeared to have emerged.  In fact they were rather more like a situationist art project that wanted to burn the whole thing down.  Anarchists.  Their career was inspired partly by the theatre show The Illuminatus Trilogy, written and directed by mad genius Ken Campbell in Liverpool where Bill had been the set designer.  He walked out one day to buy a sandwich and never came back. Later he formed his Pop Group who became The Timelords with big novelty hit Doctoring The Tardis, then The JAMS (Justified Ancients of MuMu) with the single What Time Is Love which got re-issued a number of times from 1988 onward, then The K.L.F.  Their brilliant warped career  peaked a year later in 1992 at the BRIT Awards when Drummond machine-gunned the audience of music industry execs from the stage, and a dead sheep was left at the door of the afterparty with the message “I died for you – bon appetit” attached. A few months later in May 1992 The K.L.F. announced that they had quit the music business and deleted their entire back catalogue.  Other stunts followed such as the infamous burning of a million pounds, the Soup Line, the 17 Choir and other innovative ideas.  Apparently Bill Drummond lived just down the hill from me when I was in Brighton but I never met him, I don’t think.

Niall Buggy as Eric, Danny Webb as Morse

Back on the Alien3 set a few days later it was Valentine’s Day.  I had been sent a card and an AD delivered it to me as we relaxed between shots.  It was of course from Jenny my beloved.  We were not married at that point.  And I could swear Sigourney was looking over my shoulder to see who it was from.  Hahaha.  Fincher was shooting a lot of footage.  “I’m doing long pans & track so they can’t cut into my footage” he explained one day.  It meant that when we had a group scene we could open a book on how many takes it would be.  Anything under five was unpopular.  Over twelve was possible, common even.  I think we did a tenner per set-up.  Someone wrote the names down and the number they’d chosen.  Often no one would win because we went up to Take 17 and no one wanted to put ten of your earth pounds on that.

Here’s an idea…

In fact Sigourney and I had one of our scenes discussing plans regarding telling the company their was an Alien on the planet, and playing a fella who wanted to go home to his wife and kids, rather than perish in some millennial cult group suicide, Aaron ’85’ suggested a plan.  Ripley’s response was tentatively ‘yes maybe‘.  We did a couple of wide shots, then into my single.  Can’t remember how many takes it was – probably around seven or eight.  Then turned round onto Sigourney.  David didn’t like her tone, which suggested that Ripley thought Aaron was a dick.  He didn’t think that was right at that point in the story.  So. One more.  Turn over. Sound Speed. Scene 178 take 17.  Mark it. And….Action! Blah blah blah.  Cut.  Same result.  He’s not your enemy.  Take 22.  Don’t sneer. Take 29.  You think it’s a good idea. Take 34. By which time we were all so exhausted and dizzy from the repetition that Sigourney said the line in a kind of dazed acquiescence and Fincher had the take he wanted.

About a year later in Los Angeles, after the re-shoots, I had two days of ADR in a West LA studio on Olympic Boulevard.  David remembered the scene well, 34 takes.  He’d never done ADR before though – Automated Dialogue Replacement – where you can change the inflexion, emphasis, tone, shade and meaning of a line just by using your voice and matching the lip movements on screen in front of you precisely.  Movie magic.  Some actors hate it, I made friends with the process very early on after I had to voice the whole of my performance as Danny in Withnail & I for the US market. The test screenings had indicated that audience members couldn’t understand what he was saying.  Who could? I did that piece of work at Twickenham Studios in 1987 where the engineer consoled me having to re-do my entire performance at the same speed except more intelligibly by telling me that Michael Caine had done Alfie and Bob Hoskins had also done The Long Good Friday for America.  And yet we were expected to understand Stallone’s mumbles or Pacino’s – hey that’s what it means to be an outlying part of The Empire right?  I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen the US version of Withnail but I suspect it would be a bad idea.  But having said that the experience toughened me up for future sessions.  Especially the Alien 3 session which was two long days – the reason for that was the amount of atmospheric smoke and steam in the design of the film which was very noisy to produce.  Often back in the day on big movies the Sound Department knew that they were recording a guide track only, to be completed and polished in ADR.  So here we were down on W. Olympic and David says – if I’d known about ADR in Pinewood I would never have done 34 takes just for a vocal inflection…

It’s hard to recall now in 2019 how difficult that experience was.  Jenny can remember quite clearly how I would come home every day, full of doubt, full of worry and anguish, just because I was trying to do my best work.  What a fantastic opportunity for me, but you know I was running fast just to stand still.   I remember a visual image I used to produce while trying to explain it to friends, as a learning curve which came from my chest, looped back over my head and stabbed me in the back.  I wondered if, at some point, whether the fact that we were making a horror film in space meant that we had to have a horrible experience in space.  I called Richard E. Grant one day who was shooting Hudson Hawk in Italy – another picnic – and he asked me how much I was getting. I told him. He said

“well – that’s the amount of shit you have to eat then.”

I could almost understand why Bill Drummond had formed The K.L.F.

  My Pop Life #220 : 3am Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.) – The K.L.F. 3am Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.) - The K.L.F. ( The Ancients of Mu Mu )

[itsworn]

Mickey Thompson Hits 400, George Barris Builds an Air Car, and Flying Caduceus Launches Bonneville’s Jet Age in 1960

Ancestors

With so much action occurring simultaneously in so many regional hotbeds this year, no single magazine staff could hope to be in all places at all times. Robert E. Petersen’s unique advantage was owning multiple titles, each employing specialists who overlapped into the print equivalent of an automotive internet. Moreover, “Pete” could test the potential of any emerging market quickly and relatively cheaply by utilizing in-house editorial and production people to either start a publication from scratch or spin one off from an established Petersen title, then heavily promote the new project in the others.

This year, go-kart-crazy Car Craft launched an offshoot called Kart, packed with ads. Similarly, Motor Trend soon spawned competition-oriented Sports Car Graphic. Immediate, widespread widespread distribution of anything new was assured by a North American dealer network already profiting from Pete’s established monthlies, plus a steady barrage of thicker, higher-priced, “special edition” Petersen annuals, how-to books, racing compilations, and other recyclings of previously published articles and photography.

As the go-kart craze took off, drag and lakes racer Charles Scott’s muffler and dyno shop diversified into manufacturing pintsized performance parts. Sons George (left) and Billy Scott respectively demonstrated the differences between a conventional quarter-midget roadster and a rebodied, dual-purpose kart. “Billy the Kid” advanced to fuel and gas dragsters as a young teen and, ultimately, to champ cars, finishing 23rd in the 1976 Indy 500.

We’re sharing this ancient history to illustrate how the vast Petersen Publishing Company photo archive came to acquire an incomparable range of subjects. This year’s vehicular variety foretold the unprecedented strangeness of the decade to come. Among other oddities, Pete’s road warriors documented beatniks and bubbletops, a fighter-jet engine on wheels, four V8s on wheels, and a show-winning custom “car” with no engine and no wheels. They covered the first 400-mph American car and driver, tested a new wave of “medium compacts” from all three of the Big Three, and chronicled sleepy Pontiac’s seemingly sudden emergence atop auto racing (the GM division’s reward for three years of discreetly circumventing Detroit’s 1957 agreement to stop sponsoring, supporting, or even promoting high performance).

While those lucky guys enjoyed virtually unrestricted access wherever they flashed a Petersen business card, only a tiny fraction of their photos were published at the time. Whereas anything in print had passed scrutiny from the editors, advertiser-conscious publishers, and all-powerful editorial director Wally Parks, the rest of the story often went unseen and untold due to political, business, personal, or space considerations. It’s these unpublished outtakes that deliver deeper, truer insight into scenes unfolding right in front of staffers’ lenses—but subsequently kept behind the curtain separating us mere mortals, the readers.

Norm Grabowski continued living every young male’s dream life, driving hot rods and acting in B-movies and television shows alongside Hollywood’s hottest honeys. Mamie Van Doren posed for HRM’s Eric Rickman in Norm’s ’25 T to promote a forgettable film with an unforgettable title, Sex Kittens Go to College. Still powered by a flathead here, the red touring soon acquired a hot Chevy V8, landed its own TV series (My Mother the Car), and found a new owner, studio-photographer Kaye Trapp. SoCal drag fans watched it push-start both the Zeuschel, Fuller & Moody AA/Fueler and the MagiCar that Trapp campaigned in partnership with Ron Winkel. (See Aug. 1960 HRM.)

Some of the artists’ faces appear here, frozen in time by mischievous colleagues always armed with cameras. Almost all of them are gone now, nearly six decades after so much of their best 1960 work was developed, dried, sleeved, labeled, filed, and forgotten, forever—or so it must have seemed to our frustrated editorial ancestors. It’s our pleasure to prove them wrong here in the next century.

Motor Trend magazine’s Aug. 1960 Indy 500 coverage bemoaned rain delays during both qualifying weekends that reduced attempts by 66 entries. Soggy fans were effectively repurposing handout copies of an Indianapolis daily when Petersen Publishing Co. (PPC) photo chief Bob D’Olivo happened by. (Kiddies, don’t try this with your smartphones or tablets.)

Imagine a Daytona International Speedway parking lot—or any parking lot, anywhere in America, today—without a single crew-cab pickup or so-called sport utility vehicle as far as the eye can see. Petersen editorial director Wally Parks, also NHRA president, shot the photo during Daytona’s Speed Week, undoubtedly envying NASCAR’s booming popularity. (See Apr. 1960 HRM; Apr. and June 1960 MT; Sept. 2016 HRD.)

Technical editor Barney Navarro helped make Motor Life a respected monthly both before and after parent Quinn Publications was acquired by rival publisher Robert E. Petersen. Navarro broke the story of GMC’s groundbreaking V6 in the May 1960 issue and offered a prescient prediction: “Granted, the new powerplant can be found at this time time only in a pickup truck, but such a unit certainly has possibilities for future passenger-car power.” The same article teased readers with a small factory photo of the 12-cylinder, 610-cubic-inch prototype that GM engineers created by aligning two of these engines inside of a single crankcase and oil pan.

Staff photographer Colin Creitz captured a scene that could have been Anywhere, USA, this season. A similar exposure from the top of this grandstand led off Barney Navarro’s tips for “Stock Car Drag Racing” in the June 1960 Motor Life. If the wall of hay bales seems familiar, the little track situated just over the hill from Hollywood provided a convenient midweek location for automotive-themed films, television shows, and commercials. We recognized the starter on this sunny Sunday as future world champ Jimmy Scott, a recovered street racer who had been unofficially “sentenced” to strip duty by the City of San Fernando’s Judge Morgan, who moonlighted as track manager in the 1950s.

Many of the negatives selected for this series were both composed and processed by the same PPC employee: Pat Brollier. Equally skilled as a photographer and a lab technician, he enjoyed a long career on photographic director Bob D’Olivo’s team.

It’s hard to believe that such great action and from such a rare angle wasn’t published at the time, somewhere, but what we cannot find in our incomplete collection of PPC magazines qualifies for Backstage Past consideration. The surprisingly stock Burkhardt, Brammer & Wilson ’29 on ’32 rails is boiling the biggest balonies like a dragster at Riverside because it ran like one, and then some. NHRA Museum curator Greg Sharp cited 1958 evidence that then-driver Howard Eichenhoffer’s 212.264 mph in the dirt was the best by any dry-lakes car, including streamliners and lakesters. Mike Burns and Don Rackemann also spent time in the seat. A Sept. 1959 HRM feature called it the world’s swiftest drag roadster at 9.81/156.79. Its front-blown, nitro-burning, 341ci DeSoto was backed by a ’39 Lincoln tranny using high gear only.

Alternate angles of this odd setup started appearing this year in Motor Life subscription ads ($3 per year) and also atop Motor Trend’s “Rumors” column. The unidentifiable executives and ad reps pretended to peek at what appears to be a Corvair sedan, wrapped in one of the first car covers we have found on film. The high angle reveals the close proximity of neighbors to the employee parking lot, where countless car features were shot for Petersen publications (at 5959 Hollywood Boulevard).

Bob Petersen’s hiring philosophy favored enthusiasm and wrenching expertise over writing ability. “Pete” got all three in Ray Brock, the HRM tech editor credited with designing and managing the first thrust-powered land-speed car—despite the reality that only wheel-driven vehicles were eligible then to set the unlimited LSR. Still under construction in this late-April photo, the Flying Caduceus would hit the salt in late summer for a series of disappointing shakedown runs. Collapsing air-intake ducts and a scary front-end shimmy restricted recorded speeds to less than half of owner Nathan Ostich’s 500-mph target. (See Apr. and Oct. 1960 HRM; Aug. 1960 R&C; July 1960 MT; Dec. 1960 ML; Jan. 1961 CC.)

Did he or didn’t he? From the empty starting line and serious looks on these faces, we suspect that some discussion ensued. All we know is that the rubber was burned during a big May meet at Inyokern, California, where entries included the pretty Kurtis sport special of record-setting City of Industry, California, councilman Sam Parriott (waiting to run).

A July ’60 MT editorial titled “The Vanishing Mechanic” expressed concern that new-vehicle production was outpacing young technicians entering “the field of auto mechanics.” One promising sign was the record number of schools and students participating in Plymouth’s annual Trouble-Shooting Contests. Since the concept was introduced with a single Los Angeles event in 1954, contests had spread to 16 locations nationwide, involving nearly 1,000 high school, vocational, and community college students in two-person teams. Factory mechanics planted various gremlins in the Plymouth engines (e.g., “Most-overlooked malady was cork in the intake manifold, causing engines to run on four cylinders.”).

HRM Editor Wally Parks commissioned what must have been the first-ever V8 swap into a Comet. This roll of film was processed on June 3, barely three months after the model’s March introduction. We wonder how FoMoCo executives reacted to subsequent articles explaining how modified ’40 Ford Hurst-Campbell mounts enabled a painless conversion (“no cutting needed”) from the weak Ford-Mercury inline-six to a Duntov-equipped 283 Chevy. (See Aug. 1960 HRM and MT.)

The guy running the Chrondeks at Pomona for NHRA’s regional meet couldn’t have imagined the advances coming to timing systems—and “timing towers”—over the next six decades. HRM’s Eric Rickman went backstage to get the shot.

Imagine the look on the face of an unsuspecting tow-truck driver instructed to “get the big spare out of the trunk.” Firestone’s development of 48-inch-diameter rubber specifically for unlimited-LSR attempts greatly enhanced both the safety and speed of “record racing” in the 1960s. This early tire rolled under the Flying Caduceus, mounted on a giant wheel also designed and manufactured by Firestone.

Ed Roth followed up 1959’s revolutionary Excaliber/Outlaw showstopper with the Beatnik Bandit. This time the entire body was one piece, mounted on a shortened ’50 Olds frame. Fritz Voigt, Mickey Thompson’s engine builder, hopped up the Rocket. Rod & Custom contributing artist Joe Henning’s initial illustrations called for a fixed roof, but Henning went back to the drawing board after Roth requested a bubbletop. Less than five months after Bud Lang stopped by the shop this August, the completed Bandit would steal the annual show in San Mateo, California. (See Mar. and May 1961 R&C; May 1961 CC.)

Newly outfitted with four 6-71 GMC blowers beneath two tall “blisters,” front-wheel skirts, and a narrowed tail section, Challenger I returned to the Bonneville Nationals in August and earned Mickey Thompson’s third-consecutive HOT ROD top speed trophy (365.330, one way). The first 400 and fastest single run by an American would wait for a private session on September 9, when M/T hit 406.600 before blowing one Pontiac early into the backup pass. (See Nov. 1960 HRM; Dec. 1960 ML; Jan. 1961 CC.)

Two Petersen-affiliated players who never avoided a spotlight were Car Craft editor Dick Day and frequent PPC contributor George Barris, whose photography and how-to articles were regularly seen by millions in HRM, CC, R&C, even Motor Life and Motor Trend. The customizer is shown accepting one of two awards earned by his XPAK 400 in Detroit during Labor Day weekend. NHRA staged this second National Custom Car Show in conjunction with its National Drag Championships.

After Ed Roth stole his thunder with the groundbreaking Excaliber/Outlaw, kustom king George Barris countered with the XPAK 400 Air Car of the Future. Dual 4hp jet-aircraft-starter motors, remotely controlled by a pushbutton box, spun a large fan that supposedly elevated the Jack Sutton aluminum body above a rippling parachute “on a five-inch cushion of air.” Critics maintained that hidden hydraulic jacks were doing the lifting, but we have seen no underside photos. Barris claimed the metalflake finish to be the first commercial application of a Dow Chemical process involving “a million particles of chromed aluminum.” (See Jan. and Mar. 1961 CC.)

Two youngsters who seemed as if they’d live forever were checked prior to October’s Los Angeles Times-Mirror Grand Prix for Sports Cars. Dan Gurney went on to smash the track record in a mid-engined Lotus and led the USAC event until he was sidelined by a blown head gasket. Carroll Shelby finished Fifth in a Maserati. American Hot Rod Foundation curator Jim Miller recognized the industrial surroundings as Riverside International Raceway’s newly constructed garages, and wonders why these checkups were not performed in the track’s medical center as usual.

Near the end of October, publisher Robert Petersen evidently commandeered a new ’61 Chevy wagon for a hunting expedition. Yes, that’s an unlucky eagle displayed in staffer Neal East’s photo.

We can’t say where or why the exotic CERV-I (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle I) was parked amongst these late-model Chevys—outdoors, yet—in November, following rare exhibition runs during Riverside’s Grand Prix weekend. Designer Zora Arkus-Duntov, Stirling Moss, and Dan Gurney took turns behind the wheel. Then-exotic goodies included cast-magnesium injector stacks and an aluminum 283 block and cylinder heads (90 pounds lighter than iron), a four-speed case, a water pump, and a starter-motor case. Suspecting the location to be Bill Thomas Race Cars, GM’s southern California skunkworks, we shared the photo with Brian Brennan, who worked there in high school. The longtime Street Rodder editor ruled that out, but the building looked familiar. Brennan suggested that the absent exhaust system might indicate a stop at the nearby Orange County shop of Jess Tyree, a buddy of Bill’s who built headers for some of his projects.

PPC’s Christmas parties in the early years were legendary. This one evidently involved a Roaring ’20s theme for which editorial director Wally Parks, HRM photographer Eric Rickman, and three unidentified accomplices were properly attired.

  The post Mickey Thompson Hits 400, George Barris Builds an Air Car, and Flying Caduceus Launches Bonneville’s Jet Age in 1960 appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/mickey-thompson-hits-400-george-barris-builds-air-car-flying-caduceus-launches-bonnevilles-jet-age-1960/ via IFTTT

[mixtapesforthetapeless]

January 2017 Jeff Rosenstock “Wave Goodnight To Me” Former front man for experimental punk rock collaborative group, Bomb The Music Industry, Rosenstock is now on his third solo record and the first single is a great, sloppy punk rock mess, and I mean that in the best intentions. Group shouted choruses, jangly guitar riffs and a rolling drumbeat, if you grew up under the same punk rock influences as Jeff, you will enjoy his take on the ever-classic material.

Dawes “Roll With The Punches” Dawes is a band that perpetually sits in the mix of the Americana rock scene that is ever present in modern rock. Kid brother to Band of Horses or Alabama Shakes, Dawes doesn’t ever get, pun intended, their fair shake. “Punches” shows off the bands ability to be more than some sweet harmonies and acoustic guitars. Excellently produced and well pointed lyrics, the track shows off that the band can go out and become their own thing without constantly being compared to their brethren.

Joseph “White Flag” A sister trio act (two of whom are twins) let their genetic ability to harmonize shine through. A solid protest song with a very cool percussion backing, “White Flag” is a great debut track to a trio that can very much make big waves in the Americana scene.

Drive-By Truckers “Guns of Umpqua” One of my all-time favorite bands have found their voice again. After a couple forgettable records, the band, specifically principle songwriters, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, found inspiration in the tumultuousness of 2016 politics. “Guns”, which tells the story of one of the many mass shootings last year, shows what Hood was always so amazing at – painting a deeply dark scene in an amazingly intimate perspective. Empathy for those that lost their lives, displaying the simplicity of that morning and the imagery that might be embedded in someone during a horrific life-changing moment. If a song done this well, can’t help inspire passion for the gun control movement, not exactly sure what can.

Alex Vargas “Higher Ground” A smooth, dark and moody R&B track that is eloquently layered and well-built dynamically.

Bright Light Social Hour “Harder Out Here” Theme to Amazon’s newest breakout show, Sneaky Pete highlights one of Austin’s hidden bands. BLSH has been a favorite for a while, akin to Gary Clark Jr., the band contributes to that Austin blues rock sound. Gritty, emotionally dynamic but full of rock. I also can’t complain about a track that excellently highlights a cool bassline.

Tiny Moving Parts “Volumes” A great band that is improving on the early 2000’s emo/punk scene. Reminiscent of Glassjaw or early Jimmy Eat World, TMP messes with unique time signatures, unique guitar lines but knows where it’s bread is buttered, in its great chorus.

Kaleo “Way Down We Go” Sometimes, it takes another medium to allow you to hear a song in a new way. Case in point, this year’s newest Wolverine movie, Logan released a new trailer highlighting rock’s newest darlings, Kaleo. Poised to be the next Hozier or Kings of Leon ties to what looks like the best blockbuster of 2017, shows pairing of two great media bringing the best out of each other.

The Weeks “Buttons” Long time rock act The Weeks has a passionate underground following. “Buttons” is one of those tracks that shows off why that following isn’t wrong. Perfect in its dynamics and melodic in both its choruses and its verses (the hook is great) – just a solid rock tune.

Chance The Rapper “No Problem” 2016’s hip-hop darling, “No Problem” will be one of Chance’s iconic tracks. Its beat is fun and inventive but not too far off in left field and then its hook, which many recent hip-hop tracks have seem to actively avoid is catchy as hell. It’s a great hope that hip-hop can stay melodic and still push boundaries.

[junker-town]

NFL Dad, Week 17: Good riddance to the Ravens, Seahawks, and 2017

On the final day of the year, one NFL fan tried to watch all of the RedZone action while parenting two toddlers.

It’s fitting that the NFL season came to a close on New Year’s Eve. After the Week 17 games, every team will start with a clean slate — either vying for the Lombardi Trophy in the playoffs, or taking stock of what went wrong and planning for 2018. Coaches will be fired, management restructured, free agents signed, hopes laid upon draftees. Injured players will return stronger than ever, and you’ll take this opportunity to improve yourself, too. Exercise more. Eat better. Work harder. A fresh start for all!

It’s a lie, of course. Unless a franchise has recently fired Jeff Fisher, a team will only take incremental steps forward or backward. Sure, there are exceptions: One or two teams will experience huge leaps in the win column thanks to turnover luck and positive results in close games, and those teams’ fans will be CERTAIN that it was the result of effort and superior coaching, and not the random providence of luck, destined to regress to the mean.

The truth is, the calendar is the only thing that’s changed. We can experience temporary improvements, but most of us are destined to regress to our personal means. And NFL teams are the same: Your team is unlikely to improve dramatically.

But the NFL monolith will scrape forward nonetheless. Your favorite players will get injured. People will complain about the refs. The Patriots will go 12-4. 2018 is the same hell as 2017, just fresher.

EARLY GAMES, FIRST HALF

— It’s a tame early slate. Bears-Vikings, Jets-Pats, and Browns-Steelers are the only games with playoff implications, and that’s being generous. The (heavy) favorites in those games only have minor jockeying for bye weeks and top-2 conference seeding. I’m saving most of my attention span for the late games.

— A common theme for many of the early games is the extreme cold hitting much of the country. Players wear extra layers, helmets shrink, and Jets quarterbacks live out the metaphors of their station in life.

Inspiring start for Bryce Petty and the Jets http://pic.twitter.com/3t9LvfGCxb

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) December 31, 2017

— My wife and I rented a car to take our kids to my sister’s place for a couple days after Christmas, with a stop along the way to see old friends. And I’m not going to relive the entire journey, but I will offer one unpleasant travel snapshot: Experiencing carsickness from constantly torquing my neck and back around to fruitlessly attempt to soothe two toddlers completely unaccustomed to car travel as snarled traffic turned a 3.5-hour car trip into a 6.5-hour cry-a-thon.

The lesson I refuse to learn: NEVER. GO. ANYWHERE.

The lesson I refuse to learn as a parent of young children: NEVER. GO. ANYWHERE.

— James Harrison is making his debut for the Patriots, and some Steelers fans are aghast. I don’t quite get the surprise. When Harrison was cut by the Steelers in 2013, he signed with the division rival Bengals. He also had a stint with the Ravens after being on the Steelers’ practice squad early in his career. This is James Harrison we’re talking about. He’s not a paragon of virtue loyal to the black and yellow; he’s a vindictive maniac who has dedicated his entire life to hitting people. Of COURSE he went to the Steelers’ biggest rival this year.

— Juju Smith-Schuster’s touchdown celebration gets an A for joyous creativity, and a D for snowball packing.

— It’s 2:15 p.m. and my son is awake at least 45 minutes earlier than my wife and I would like. He only ever takes 90-minute naps now. My daughter at his age would regularly sleep for three hours in the afternoon. Hell, she still sleeps longer in the afternoon than he does, and she’s twice his age. Sleep longer, you adorable goblin! You’re tired!

— The Bears score a touchdown on the famous fake where the punt returner feigns tracking the ball on one side of the field while a second player catches it on the other side of the field. Long live this explainer on why the play is so unstoppable.

— Dallas and Philadelphia are tied 0-0 at the half. Someone named Jeff Sudfeld is playing quarterback for the Eagles. Nick Foles is too valuable for the Eagles’ playoff run!

Last reminder of the year: (extremely long sigh) Any team in the NFL could have signed Colin Kaepernick on the cheap.

EARLY GAMES, SECOND HALF

— The Colts attempt a surprise onside kick, and there appears to be an end-of-year fire sale on trick plays. If I were a coach about to get fired, you can bet your ass I would throw every unused page in the playbook at an opponent in Week 17: Fake punts, surprise onside kicks, hook-and-laterals, Fumblerooskis — the trick plays would get the defense so on edge for the trick plays that they would get knocked over by power runs.

And then I would be fired.

— Much of what I do on a week-to-week basis has already been collected, with much more brevity, in this piece of service journalism: Every dumb thing that happened in NFL Week 17. (No bits about parenting there, though.)

— Eight minutes into the third quarter, the Giants and Washington are a combined three-for-19 on third downs. It’s hard for me to express how much I’m enjoying not watching that game.

Instead, I’m watching these bad bartending videos:

There’s a whole series of those that are equally confounding, and they are either the stupidest videos on YouTube or the subtlest troll jobs I’ve ever seen.

As someone who’s been absorbing online culture as a job for more than a decade, it’s rare for me to find something like this inscrutable. Hundreds of dollars for a full bar, but no muddler? The totally incapable but somehow believable bartender? The pint glass of whiskey? This is a ruse, right? I refuse to be anyone’s mark.

— A fun new thing I have since the round-trip car voyage is a semi-permanent eye tic. Just a tiny little muscle spasm on my lower left eyelid that’s like, “Hey, remember that time you were trapped in a rolling box of stress for six hours? Twice?” Look for it on SB Nation’s YouTube channel in 2018.

Hey, remember that time you were trapped in a rolling box of stress for six hours?

— My wife leaves to walk the dog right as the early games wind down. Because we’re keeping our children out of the Arctic blast, I stay back with both kids. My son immediately grabs the iPad off the table and shoves his face into it.

“I want Elsa,” my daughter says, so I play “Let It Go” on Spotify and pull up an image of Elsa for her to look at while the song plays. Frozen is the next horizon for us after Moana. I’m fine with this eventuality, but Moana definitely has the superior story and soundtrack. The important thing is that they’re both better than the 50 years of Disney princess movies that came before. GAHHHH WHY DO I SPEND SO MUCH TIME THINKING ABOUT DISNEY CARTOONS?

— The Browns, despite their best effort against the Steelers’ B-team, finish their season 0-16. Congratulations?

— Because all nine (!!!) late games start at 4:25 p.m. Eastern, RedZone’s Scott Hanson must deal with an action-less lull that’s unusual for so early in the day. It’s 4:15 and RedZone is running highlights, snippets of press conferences, and fantasy updates. And come on: I know the segment is sponsored, no self-respecting fantasy league is active in Week 17. Much like Le’Veon Bell.

LATE GAMES, FIRST HALF

— GAME TIME. My focus today is Panthers-Falcons, Saints-Bucs, and Cardinals-Seahawks. I want the Seahawks to win to stay alive for a playoff spot, and I need the Panthers to be motivated to beat the Falcons, which means I need Tampa Bay to give the Saints a fight, which means the Seahawks are probably going to miss the playoffs. Which, frankly, is probably better than getting blown out by the Rams or Saints on Wild Card Weekend. Everything is meaningless, by the way.

— Ah crap, Arizona opens the game with a touchdown. Drew Stanton escapes Michael Bennett on what could have been a 15-yard sack, buying enough time to throw a TD pass instead. I am going to hate today.

Tyler Lockett returns the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown to tie the game. I am already closing off all emotion to deal with whatever happens for the next three hours.

— In Tampa, the Bucs score game-opening TD. Yay! But then Alvin Kamara returns the ensuing kickoff for a TD. I NEED EVERYONE TO SETTLE DOWN, PLEASE.

— The kids are at the dinner table, alternately painting with watercolors and screaming. My son, whose relentless teething continues, takes a sip of water from the cup he’d been dipping his paintbrush in. My daughter, who has recovered from a double ear infection over Christmas only to get ANOTHER ear infection, has a Moana-themed coloring book. I read her the plot point that goes with each picture as another Panthers drive stalls. COME ON, CAM.

— The Niners are dominating early and up 10-0, but a Jimmy Garoppolo INT sets the Rams up in the red zone. However, the Niners D holds firm, and the Rams are forced to kick a field goal.

— Oh, hello there, AFC. I understand there are some stakes in your conference today, too, hmmm? In Los Angeles, where the Chargers need a win and some help to secure a playoff spot, Melvin Gordon fumbles, but Keenan Allen scoops up the fumble for an awesome TD.

Wait. WHAT?! Gordon loses it. Allen recovers. And SCORES. #Chargers http://pic.twitter.com/PQ59L012NB

— NFL (@NFL) December 31, 2017

My feelings on the four AFC teams vying for two Wild Card spots, ranked by preference:

Chargers. I know they deserve nothing but misery for leaving San Diego, but this team is genuinely fun to watch. Philip Rivers has been incredible this year, and Keenan Allen has stayed healthy! Melvin Gordon is great and likable! The defense has the kind of scary pass rush that can enable a deep playoff run (read: can knock Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger on their asses).

Bills. I hate tables.

Titans. This is one of the least inspiring winning teams I’ve seen in a long time, which is what it’s been since RedZone last clicked over to the Seattle game. Who has ever looked at the AFC South and said, “Yes, this division needs TWO playoff teams.”

Ravens. I strenuously object to Joe Flacco’s existence. If the Ravens offense touches your field, the earth there will be fallow for seven years.

— My kids, still sitting at the table, dance to “Twist and Shout” like two little Elaine Beneses, a brief moment of cheer before the Cardinals punch in another touchdown to take a 17-7 lead over the Seahawks. But the dancing! It’s so herky-jerky and devoid of coordination — like Seattle’s offensive line, but happy.

— What was I saying about the Chargers’ fearsome defense? On third and 22, Derek Carr unloads a bomb to Amari Cooper for an 87-yard touchdown.

EIGHTY-SEVEN YARDS!@DerekCarrQB to @AmariCooper9 for SIX! #RaiderNation http://pic.twitter.com/GLf0Q7bAva

— NFL (@NFL) December 31, 2017

My wife tells my daughter that the Raiders are Uncle Sean’s favorite team. “Can you say the Raiders?” she asks.

Daughter: “The Raid-ahhhhhs.” Chris Berman’s tics are much better when they’re done by toddlers.

— I get a text from Steven Godfrey, SB Nation’s excellent college football reporter who is also doomed to an existence of Falcons fandom. It is to me and Brian Floyd, our managing editor who is also a Seahawks fan: “Please God take this wildcard spot.”

Floyd and I both reject any desire to see these Seahawks in the playoffs. It feels good to own the feeling, to want a different team in a new season instead of watching this one for another week.

— Here is the first RedZone play featuring the Ravens offense that I see: Joe Flacco throws a one-yard crossing route to a running back, who drops the ball. A graphic pops up that says it is the Ravens’ fifth dropped pass of the day. Put this offense in a rocket and fire it into the deepest reaches of space.

— Philip Rivers throws another deep bomb for a touchdown. God, this team belongs in the playoffs, and they’re not going to make it because the first quarter of their season was a grotesque monkey’s paw retribution inflicted by the San Diego city council.

— The Saints attempt a fake field goal, the Bucs don’t fall for it, and Wil Lutz gets CRUSHED. If you ask me, there are simply not enough punters getting blown up by defenders in today’s NFL. (Miss you, Sean Taylor.)

Not enough punters are getting blown up in today’s NFL.

— A big hit in the Ufford household these days is the Daddy Monster. I become my alter ego, roar, and chase my son into the corner where I tickle him and pretend to eat him. “OM NOM NOM!” I say.

He stands up and says, “Naan naan naan!” in his little voice. I feign terror and let him chase me. I hope you didn’t take what I said about the car ride and the eye tic too seriously, because parenting is great.

— Breaking news: The Colts have fired Chuck Pagano. So we’re doing away with Black Monday now? Just getting it out of the way on Sunday?

— I change my son’s poopy diaper. But don’t think of it as poop! It’s more like his butt threw up.

— Flacco watch:

Flacco 3/16 says "Hey remember that time I won a Super Bowl?" http://pic.twitter.com/pvaQG3RKhs

— James Dator [waiting for recognition] (@James_Dator) December 31, 2017

— HALFTIME SCORES:

The Seahawks trail at home 20-7, their only score a kickoff return TD. Burn this season to the ground.

Chargers lead the Raiders 20-10 despite having a FG and PAT blocked. Very on-brand.

Carolina and Atlanta are tied 7-7.

Buffalo leads Miami 10-0. David Fales has replaced Jay Cutler, who is riding a jet ski pantsless to the nearest bank with a boat-thru teller to cash his game check. I am gonna miss that guy so much.

Only a missed extra point is keeping the Bucs from being even with the Saints. New Orleans leads 14-13. Get inspired, Carolina!

Titans 12, Jags 3. Jacksonville trails because its defensive and special teams units have struggled to score touchdowns.

49ers 20, Rams 6. If anything, this score is flattering for the Rams. San Fran-Clara will be a chic pick to win the NFC West next year.

An 85(ish)-yard kickoff return with seconds left in the half gifts Baltimore with a touchdown that cuts the Cincinnati lead to 17-10. C’mon Bengals, don’t Bengal this one.

LATE GAMES, SECOND HALF

— I make a vow to myself: The Seahawks have one possession, the first of the half, to keep me interested in the result of their game, and even then … BARELY. Naturally, the run game comes to life, Russell Wilson connects on a pass, and this appears to be a crude approximation of a drive.

— Shady McCoy is carted off. Screw this season.

— I help with the end of the kids’ bath time. My son, who hates getting out of the bath, sits in tub as the water empties. “Fee-oh,” he says, for frio, because my children are dual-language geniuses. I let him chill there while I peek at the TV; I’m just in time to see Doug Baldwin score a touchdown that narrows the score to 20-14.

The next drive — at least, the next drive I catch a glimpse of — Shaquill Griffin intercepts a Drew Stanton overthrow, and I now feel confident that the Seahawks can get a comeback victory, only for the Falcons to lock down the last playoff spot with a win. (With the Panthers trailing 10-7, Cam Newton promptly throws a terrible interception.)

— The Saints have been a little shaky for the last month of the season, but I could definitely endorse Alvin Kamara destroying the entire playoff field. Look at him make a contested catch downfield:

Oh my goodness, @A_kamara6. #GoSaints http://pic.twitter.com/4bLIJaPrzI

— NFL (@NFL) December 31, 2017

That drive ends in a field goal, and the Saints lead 17-13.

— Ravens WR Chris Moore bobbles a red zone pass, which is intercepted and returned for a touchdown. The Bengals lead 24-10, and I am HERE for the season implosion.

Yes, that is Joe Flacco's pick-six. http://pic.twitter.com/Utx1SfhBP3

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) December 31, 2017

— The Bucs force a fumble on a punt return and return it for a touchdown! The used coffee grounds of the NFC South are ahead of the division leaders, 20-14.

— With the Seahawks trailing 23-14, they definitely could use a field goal to make it a one-score game. Instead:

Thomas Rawls' taunting penalty cost the Seahawks 15 yards and likely cost them three points as well.

— Brady Henderson (@BradyHenderson) December 31, 2017

— With the Tennessee leading 15-3 in the fourth quarter, all the Titans have to do is bleed clock and let Blake Bortles throw it to their defense. Instead, Marcus Mariota and Derrick Henry collide on a handoff, and the Jaguars return the fumble for a touchdown.

I just checked, and the Jaguars have seven defensive touchdowns this year. That’s a lot, but I could have sworn it was more. Like, if you told me that Bortles had thrown as many touchdowns as the defense scored, I would have believed you. But Bortles had 21 passing TDs (to 13 picks); the NFL works in mysterious ways.

— I pause RedZone to put the kids to bed. I read my son Good Night Moon because he freaking LOVES seeing the moon. “MOON! MOON! MOON!” every time there’s a moon on the page of a book. As I read the last page — “Good night noises everywhere” — he puts his finger to his lips and says, “Shhhh.”

I offer him a choice of second books but he olds up Good Night Moon again. So I read it a second time, but with four pages to go, he shuts the book and says, “All done!” Oh, I’m sorry. Did you perhaps already know how it ends?

— Twenty minutes later, the kids are in bed and I’m back in front of the TV, but I don’t have the energy or desire to watch everything I missed, so I just skip to live TV. The biggest news is that the Panthers have farted their way around the second half to lose to the Falcons by two scores, rendering the Seahawks game pointless. Or more pointless than usual, at least.

And the Panthers should be kicking themselves over that performance: With nine seconds remaining in Tampa, the Bucs score a go-ahead touchdown that gives them a meaningless win and leads to a super-awkward unfriendly never-ending handshake between Sean Payton and Dirk Koetter. The Panthers will go on the road to face the Saints instead of hosting them next weekend.

— The Titans lock up a playoff spot with their win over the Jaguars. When it comes to the other Wild Card spot, the Bills win, but they need help from the Bengals, who have lost their lead in Baltimore. Ravens ahead 27-24.

— Oh, the Seahawks lost, too. Blair Walsh missing a 48-yarder to lose a game that couldn’t save their season is the perfect ending to this campaign. (I may have been miserable watching the Seahawks this season, but they were also an effective kicker away from being 12-4.)

— The last game of the RedZone season is Bengals-Ravens, and my remaining hopes and dreams rest on ... an Andy Dalton drive? Oh Jesus, where’s the liquor?

— On 4th and 12 near midfield, the Bengals season is about to sputter and die, and I’m beginning to accept the Ravens beating Kansas City when DALTON COMPLETES THE PASS! TYLER BOYD SLIPS A TACKLE AND GETS TO THE END ZONE!!!

THE @BENGALS! TOUCHDOWNNNN! WOW. #Bengals50 http://pic.twitter.com/NB78jk9U2a

— NFL (@NFL) January 1, 2018

YEAAAAAGGGHHHHH I COULD LIFT A VOLKSWAGEN OVER MY HEAD RIGHT NOW

— With a chance to respond, Joe Flacco quickly leads the Ravens to zero first downs and 4th and 14, at which point he completes a pass eight yards short of the first-down marker. GOOD RIDDANCE, GARBAGE BIRDS.*

And good riddance, 2017. Here’s to marginal improvements in 2018.

*insult also applicable to the author’s team of choice