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natromanxoff · 4 years

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Queen live at Bingley Hall in Stafford, UK - May 6, 1978 (Part -2)

Photos were taken by Anthony Mallan.

Fan Stories

“As I write this I can't believe it is over 24 years since my first ever Queen gig. I was 15 years old and had looked forward to this day ever since I had first heard Bohemian Rhapsody 3 years earlier. Before that song Queen had just been another pop/rock group but BoRhap was the song which for me would set them apart from all others, the song that began my addiction for this band's music - an addiction which continues to this day. I had an hour long bus ride to Stafford and then had to walk to the Bingley Hall which was about 2 miles out of town. I remember while walking a couple of stretched limos passed I couldn't see inside because the windows were blacked out but I knew that it was the members of Queen in those cars and that added to the excitement. I arrived at the venue and joined the queue to get in. I was quite early but there were still a few hundred people in front of me. I bought a Black T shirt with the News of The World robot on the front and the words Spring Tour '78 and a program, both of which I still have although the T shirt is well worn. I was also treated to a young lady a bit drunk I think, taking her T Shirt off and running around half naked, quite sensational for a 15 year old lad. We were let into the hall at about 7pm and I found myself fairly near the front it was all standing and I was quite small so I was pleased to see the stage was set quite high which meant I would have an excellent view. The stage set for this tour was the famous crown and as I looked in awe at its size. I can remember wondering how they would get it to lift off the stage? I can't remember the time but probably an hour or so after I had got into the hall the lights went out and a mechanical whining noise started this was followed very quickly by white lights from the stage, smoke and then the drum beat of We Will Rock You with the song breaking straight into the chorus. Suddenly on a platform in the middle of the front row of the crowd Brian May appeared playing the "Rock You" guitar riff. I remember the feeling of joy and awe, I am sure I must have pinched myself to make sure this was really happening. After an explosion they burst into the fast version of "Rock You" and I saw Freddie for the first time. He was wearing shiney leather trousers, jacket & cap and running around the stage like a madman. It's far too long ago for me to remember every detail of the show but I do remember Freddie toasting us with champagne and at the end of '39 Roger threw his tamborine into the crowd and I had it for a split second before dropping it, I stood no chance really. The songs which I remember most from this gig were the ones which after this tour they were never to play live again: "White Man" & "Prophets Song" both were played either side of Brian's guitar solo and I can clearly remember Freddie performing vocal gymnastics during the middle section of "Prophets Song". The concert ended with a Rock n Roll medley. I remember right at the end of God Save The Queen we all started singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", then the lights were on and it was over. In a lot of respects it seems so long ago but as I am thinking of it now, parts of it are as clear as yesterday.” - Kevin Ruscoe

“It was fun reading Kevin's story about going to see Queen at Stafford Bingley Hall in 1978. This was the first concert I had ever been to (talk about starting at the top). When the lights went down and Brian started with the dynamic We Will Rock You strumming, I was captured. A couple of years ealier I had purchased Night At The Opera for a girl I fancied at work. I took it to give her and before I could present her with it she showed me that she had just brought the album herself. So much for my Night At The Opera with her! So, I had to go home, take a cold shower, and listen to music. Because it was the only album I had, I played it and played it and I discovered a world I never knew existed. Music up to that point was something that was on the radio. That night seemed to open a new and exciting world me. Not as exciting as I had been planning with her but exciting none the less. My biggest memory of the Stafford concert was when Freddie gets us to sing along with him. Whenever I heard the Live Killers album, it would take me back to that moment at Stafford when I found out what I wanted to do with my life. I write now, plays and musicals, some successful, some not. Thanks Queen for my reason to live.” - Robert

“Memory's a funny thing... and I wish to heck that I had a better one. How come I can remember useless things I don't want to know, like the winner of the first Big Brother programme, but can't remember stuff which would be far more useful... like how to order beer in any language, my bank account number... or the exact setlist of my first ever rock concert, Queen at Stafford's Bingley Hall in May 1978? Sitting down to type up this review I did a quick search on the net but only came up with a partial setlist which ends about two thirds of the way through. Very frustrating. So really this isn't a review, it can't be, but it's more a hazy recollection of just what it felt like to be a 15-year-old boy at his very first rock show. First off I remember getting the ticket. "Harvey Goldsmith presents A Night With Queen" printed in green (tickets for the Sunday night gig were printed in blue) and the price, L3.50 - laughably cheap now. I can't remember how long it was before the gig that I got the ticket but I do know that the waiting for the day of the gig was unbearable. But eventually that day arrived. Another reason it sticks in my mind is that it was the day of the FA Cup final (Arsenal beat Ipswich Town) and it was the first time I'd not sat glued to the TV from 12pm for all the build-up and the big match itself. If it had been my team, Manchester City, it might have been a different story, but I went up to Bingley Hall mid-afternoon, with a friend called Mark Butters, to join the queue and get as good a standing spot as possible. For those of you who don't know, Bingley Hall is a 10,000-plus capacity shed (a giant cowshed, really), at the County Showground just outside Stafford, and owned by the Staffordshire Agricultural Society. Before the NEC and other purpose-built venues came along, gigs at this venue (which on other occasions were filled with agricultural displays or animal pens) were a big deal, on a par with Wembley Arena and the like. Others to have played there include Abba, Black Sabbath, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Saxon, Yes and Rush. I remember my Mum being worried sick about me going to the gig. Worried about the size of the crowd. Worried about the music volume. Worried about drugs. She was particularly worried that I was wearing a Thin Lizzy badge on my denim jacket and might get beaten up by some aggressive Queen fan who took exception to any other band. I had to persuade her that rock fans were not quite so tribal as football fans. I also remember standing fairly close to the glass-fronted doors in the queue and the physical, painful ache of anticipation. What came next is a blur - the doors finally being opened, the crush as we made our way through and our tickets were examined, the further crush by the merchandise stall (I got myself a big, square programme, which I've still got). Then I made my way into the crowd, jockeying for a position as near to the front as possible. The gig was all-standing and as showtime got closer the build-up of pressure was astonishing. I was pretty central, but there was constant swaying from left to right, if you lifted your legs you wouldn't fall, just be carried along with this sea of rock fans. Finally the wait is over (yes, I know I've changed tense, it just suits my recollections better). The lights go down. The roar of the crowd is unbelievably loud. But what comes next is even louder. As we strain to see what's going on the air is filled with a mechanical sound, the giant lighting rig (Queen's famed crown set-up) is lifting into the air in a sea of smoke. We Will Rock You explodes into the air. It's all light and smoke and noise... and suddenly there's Brian May, playing that guitar, just feet away from me. The spotlights fall on John Deacon and Roger Taylor behind his gigantic drumkit. Just one thing left now. Freddie. And he appears out of nowhere, Freddie Mercury, prancing and preening around the stage, soaking up the adulation, singing his guts out, clad in shiny black PVC. Call me innocent or naive, but back then I didn't really know about the whole gay/camp fetish thing... he just looked like the superstar he was. For the next two hours or so I am transported to a whole new place. We get the rockers (Brighton Rock, We Are The Champions, Now I'm Here, a pre-release It's Late, I'm In Love With My Car), the pop-orientated stuff (Killer Queen, Spread Your Wings, Somebody To Love, You're My Best Friend) and a superb acoustic section, featuring Love Of My Life and its amazing crowd singalong and '39, during which a string breaks on Brian May's guitar but he carries on regardless, note perfect to my ears. Oh, and we get Bohemian Rhapsody too. It's still only a couple of years old at this point, and although obviously something incredibly special is still making it's way up the ladder to immortality to stand alongside the likes of Stairway To Heaven. Anyway, it's bloody brilliant. Queen leave the stage for the opera section, enabling them to make another grand entrance in lights, smoke and pyrotechnics for the rock-out - a masterstroke! According to Kevin Ruscoe's review of this gig at the superb www.queenconcerts.com site we also got White Man and The Prophet's Song, but I have no recollection of that at all. Nonetheless it still sticks in my mind as one of the greatest gigs I have even seen over the past 28 years, and as one of the greatest events of my life. Like Kevin, I remember singing You'll Never Walk Alone at the end of God Save The Queen, a football terrace salute to a rock phenomenon. What a night!” - Ian Harvey (April 28, 2006)

Part-1

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

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consumedkings-archive · 4 years

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ancient names, pt. vi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt vi: dark, and drenched in longing

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~4.7k

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance from here on out. Mentions of blood/carnage, the frantic energy of people who both hate and are attracted to each other. Also, for this chapter in particular, the forced use of psychotropic drugs (also canon-typical?? I guess). John being himself. Per usual.

Notes: Hi! I'm going to keep these short and sweet because, basically, I have nothing to say for myself. I hope you guys enjoy! I mean it when I say every interaction makes my day. I swear I'm just as awkward in a real conversation as I sound in these notes and I'm not scary at all, so please feel free to come and say hi!

As always, thank you again to everyone who reads! I am so happy to be back in a writing groove with these two idiots again.

Theirs was a strange sort of allyship.

Tentative, to be sure, and certainly strained. But if four days ago you’d told John that he’d be sitting in a van with Junior Deputy Elliot Honeysett driving him straight to his brother, the man she'd slapped cuffs on and tried to arrest at the behest of a U.S. marshal, he’d have laughed in your face. The idea was ridiculous. Expansively, endlessly, incredibly ridiculous.

And yet, if John ignored the clink of the cuffs binding them together, and the knowledge that this van belonged to a strange, traveling band of cultists, he almost felt like he had been tricked into some kind of fucked-up romcom. As soon as they hit the highway, Elliot turned the radio on to the resistance’s repaired music channels, smoked her cigarette down, and leaned back against her seat as though she had not been viciously threatening to kill him just days ago.

Did she still think that? Did he care? John felt his brows furrow and he turned his head away, watching the treeline. He didn’t think he cared. He would say, so what if Elliot still wants to kill me? She needed him, and that was more than he’d gotten out of her in the whole time that she’d been under his thumb.

He didn’t care if she still wanted to kill him, and the thought that maybe she might did not thrill him, and he was not distracted by the stretch of her midriff when she shifted in her seat, and—

—And these were all things that he didn’t struggle with, certainly, because if asked, John would say that yes, he supposed that Elliot Honeysett could be considered conventionally attractive , but only when she wasn’t baring her teeth like a wild animal, only when she didn’t have a gun in her hands, only when she wasn’t making you say please to save the life of someone you didn’t even know the name of.

So, yes, he supposed, she was pretty: and John did not know why in particular he had to leap through those loops to get to that point silently, by himself, but, here he was.

“Oh, I love this song,” Elliot announced suddenly, turning the volume up and startling John out of the reverie he’d plunged himself into. His eyes narrowed when he recognized the song; the very typical back-water-town radio station playing Guns’N’Roses was not beyond his comprehension, and yet he found himself displeased nonetheless.

“Really, deputy?” John asked, staring at her across the console. “You love this song?”

Elliot dropped her glasses— my glasses, John reminded himself irritably—down the bridge of her nose so she could stare at him over the top of them. “It’s a classic, John.”

The radio blared the chorus of Welcome To The Jungle , and John said, “I cannot take you seriously with this music.”

She laughed, apparently pleased by his disdain, cranked the volume higher. Over the sound of aggressive guitar riffs sliding up and down and Boomer barking excitedly in the back, John shouted, “Why don’t we just alert everyone of where we are, hm?”

“Oh, you’re spoiling the fun.” She turned the volume back down, tsking her tongue, and John rolled his eyes. It was so very typical Elliot, to want to enjoy herself at the exact moment that he was trying to remind himself of all the reasons that he disliked her.

A period of silence stretched between them; tranquil, blissful, just for one moment, before John’s gaze slid back to her. She did look peaceful, at that moment, her ponytail smooth and adjusted, her brows relaxed, coughing occasionally into the crook of her elbow but otherwise breathing fine. Relaxed. At ease—with him, of all people. Wouldn't she be furious to know it?

John’s fingers itched. Soft, he thought, reminded of Joseph’s words; you have to love them, John. It wasn’t his style, not particularly, more suited to persuasion rather than fostering mercy as Joseph did.

He kept his voice light and casual when he asked, “Where did you get your scars, deputy?”

He watched—and watched and watched —to catch her reaction. He couldn’t see her eyes through the reflective shades she wore, but he did see the way her fingers tightened on the wheel, saw the push and pull of her jaw muscle as her teeth worked in her mouth, grinding, perhaps crushing the words she wanted to say between them. He braced himself for the vitriol; it would certainly be something along the lines of, I got them from Go Fuck Yourself USA, John, I’m the goddamn mayor or any suitable string of expletives.

Instead, Elliot prompted, “Who’s asking?”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“I said, who’s asking?” she reiterated, not once looking at him. “Is this John Seed, or John Duncan?” Hearing her say the name like this—as though John Duncan were at all comparable to the man that John Seed was—made his chest prickle, anger and disdain welling up inside of him.

“That’s not my name,” John bit out. “Don’t play games with me, deputy—”

“I know your fucking cult psycho-bombing tactics, Seed,” Elliot replied, her voice sharp and quick as a whip. John opened his mouth to protest, but she went on, “You might think you’re being clever, waiting until I crack a smile to ask me an invasive question, but you’re not. First, you ask me where my scars come from, and when I open up about my past traumas—”

“So it’s a trauma,” John insisted, but Elliot was already railroading on; any footing he felt he’d was gone.

“—then you say some stupid shit like, have you ever really felt at home with your family, Deputy Honeysett? I could give you a home, Deputy Honeysett, which you would say, because for some reason you don’t understand the concept of someone being a Junior Deputy or having a first name—”

“It was just a question, Elliot ,” John interrupted, effectively ending her barrage. “I was only trying to make small talk with you. I noticed them back at the ranch, and since we’re in a car for several hours together, I thought…”

Elliot’s lips pressed into a thin line. “There’s your first mistake, then. You tried to form a cohesive train of thought.” Her voice dripped with a honeyed, pitiful timbre, “I know how hard that is for you.”

“Alright, thank you for this stimulating conversation, you literal child,” John snipped out. “And you’re still wearing my fucking glasses, by the way.”

“Take them back, then.”

John stared at her. The idea of putting his hand close to Elliot’s face was not only a dangerous one because it was in close proximity to her teeth—proven by her many run-ins with his acolytes before to be suitable weapons in a pinch—but because he worried.

He worried that the willingness for soft contact would make him soft, the way it had felt when Elliot tucked herself against his chest to combat the chilly Montana evening. He worried that getting familiar and comfortable with a feral and untamed creature like Elliot Honeysett would change him, and to be changed by someone like her —

“Consider them a gift.” He kept his voice clipped. “From me to you. They’re Gucci, you know.”

“Oh, very generous of you, Herald. What, little old me, nobody Elliot from Hope County, Nowhere-Montana, with her first pair of Gucci shades? Why, I’d never .” A little bit of a sweet Southern-belle drawl slipped in there, and John didn’t know if it was because of the dramatics or if it was an accent she’d mostly lost and only occasionally regained.

But his stomach twisted a little when she used his title, the patronizing drip of her tone going straight to the headache blooming behind his eyes. “You know, deputy—”

Instinctively, he paused; he waited for her timely interjection, as she was so comfortable doing, but yet again the moment he anticipated it she remained silent. Elliot arched a dark-honey eyebrow and waited. John cleared his throat.

“I think I’ve never met a more troubled woman than you,” he continued casually. “To suspect me of such foul intentions when I only want to know my driving companion better, I’m genuinely wounded.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Elliot acquiesced, and for a moment—just one teeny-tiny moment—John thought she meant it; and then she said, “But I’d prefer we not get too friendly, as you were just considering drowning me in a river filled with drugs just a few days ago, and...”

The blonde’s words trailed off. The van rolled to a crawl, and when he looked forward, he saw the remains of the fire assault that they had just escaped a day ago; two Eden’s Gate trucks, and flimsy barricades that had been pushed off of the road. No bodies in sight.

It was almost a relief, if he was being honest—he wasn’t sure how many more flower-stuffed corpses he could see before he finally decided to rip his own eyeballs out.

Any playful heat had died out of Elliot’s expression. She was somber now, the lines of her expression harder than before. In the back of the van, Boomer whined, and John could hear the swishing of his tail against the floor.

“I don’t like that they took the bodies,” she said after a moment.

“Me either.”

The next thirty minutes of the drive passed in strange, awkward silence. Elliot looked like she wanted to say something and wouldn’t; he could feel her gaze dipping over to him on occasion, but each time he thought her mouth was opening to let out what was on her mind, she’d just exhale. By the time they’d cleared the field where the tracks from their last ride had dug in and left the barricade far behind them, dark, heavy storm clouds had rolled in; he rolled his window down and felt the heady pre-storm humidity like a slap in the face.

No good, John thought, a few drops hitting his hand before he rolled up the window. He felt the thunder rumble deep in the marrow of his bones. The rain went from a drizzle to a steady silver sheet, and then to a torrential downpour by the time they’d been driving for just under an hour, and eventually Elliot pulled to the side of the road.

“We have to pull in somewhere,” she announced. “This van is great for toting cults around, but it’s not great for avoiding hydroplaning off of the road.”

“Well, isn’t off-roading your specialty?” John quipped. She shot him a glare, pushing his sunglasses up onto her head and nestling them into her hair.

“Yes, actually, now that you mention it,” Elliot replied tartly, “but not when I can’t see where I’m fucking going.”

“We’re only an hour and a half or so away from Joseph,” John insisted. “You really don’t think you can make it there?”

Elliot heaved a sigh. Her fingers fluttered over her forehead and the bridge of her nose like she had a headache that was a twin to his own, and every time he spoke, he was exacerbating it. That was probably true—and John was happier for it because the times when Elliot had been most compliant were when she was the most genuinely inhibited.

“I don’t like not being able to see who’s behind us or coming around the corner,” she insisted after a moment. “It doesn’t matter how close or far Joseph is. What matters is that there’s a group of nutjobs out there who apparently have insurmountable resources to take over a whole county in a single day, and I will not —”

She stopped, as though to calm herself, and John waited; impatient, but silent.

“I will not,” Elliot finished, “get kidnapped by one more fucking cult, John Seed.”

Lightning crackled in the distance, and the rain pelted the windshield violently. Another rumble of thunder went spiraling above them; Boomer whined, his ears flat against his skull. John could see Elliot’s fingers gripping the steering wheel until they went bone-white, but each time her grip loosened to let the circulation back in through her fingers, they trembled.

“Fine,” John said. “Pull off into the trees up there, then. We’ll take a break and pick up again when the rain lets up.”

“Thank you,” Elliot said, pulling down from the side of the road and winding her way out of sight of any traffic that might be coming; no venom laced her voice, only relief, and there was no follow-up jab, either. Under the shelter of the trees, the rain felt less violent, and already John felt the tension fleeing his own shoulders.

As soon as Elliot turned the van off, the motor ticking absently, John rumbled, “I think that’s the nicest you’ve ever been to me, deputy.”

She got up out of the seat, shimmying her way past the console and into the back where Boomer had been enjoying the right, pulling hard enough to yank John’s arm and force him to shimmy back with her. The gesture was awkward, and he only complied because he didn’t want to be sitting in the front seat with their arms slung at the angle to allow her back there.

“It’s incredible what a little decency can get you,” she deadpanned. She opened the back door of the van to let Boomer out, the dog taking off happily into the brush. Stretching out her legs in the more spacious, empty back of the van, Elliot wiped some rain from her face and made herself comfortable. John settled against the wall of the car, absently pulling at the cuff still locked around his wrist.

“I can be plenty decent,” he replied, almost sly, a little grin ticking the corner of his mouth upward. “But you already knew that.”

Elliot groaned. “You’re still on about the fact that one time in a bar like, three years ago, you hit on me when I was drunk and you might have had a chance?”

“I think we both know there’s a little more to it than that.”

She rolled her eyes. She could not have, perhaps, been more dramatic than she was in that moment, although John reminded himself that he had often considered Elliot could not be more of many things—impatient, infuriating, prone to violence—than she already was, and she had proved him wrong many times before.

“All I’m saying is,” John continued, “somewhere, deep down in that teeny-tiny heart of yours, deputy—”

“One time,” Elliot interrupted, holding up a finger to accentuate the number. “One time, many moons ago, I thought a man named John in a bar was objectively attractive. This was before I knew what your personality was like.”

John laughed. “You don’t need to like someone’s personality to fuck them, deputy,” he said and basked in the way her expression scrunched up, as though a particularly sour flavor had just seeped into her mouth.

“I do,” Elliot replied, “and every day, I thank God that Joey Hudson had the good sense to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Amen.”

Her gaze flashed with something that might have been amusement. She coughed into her elbow, turning her face away from him to glance out the window at the trees, their branches and leaves swaying in the wind but becoming more and more still the deeper into the woods they went.

“So you think I’m attractive, then.”

“Please stop talking,” Elliot groaned, head lolling against the back of the driver’s seat. “John, if I tell you that I think you’re handsome when your mouth is closed, will you shut the fuck up?”

John’s mouth curved in a half-grin, his chest welling pleasantly at her words. It may have been more than a little petty, to like the words coming out of her mouth—Elliot Honeysett, who would probably strangle him to death with her bare hands if given the opportunity, admitting that he was handsome.

“I might be more inclined,” he offered, sly. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m closing my eyes,” she announced, kicking her legs out and nudging his foot out of the way.

Absolutely childish, John thought absently and without much fervor, compliantly moving his foot out of the way for her. “Just use your words, deputy.”

“Certainly, anything for you,” Elliot purred. “I want you to shut up.”

He flashed her a grin, leaning his head back against the window. Rain pattered against the glass, and somewhere out in the distance, he heard Boomer’s happy bark as he did whatever it was that dogs did in the woods; hunt smaller things, perhaps.

“It’s nice to want things, isn’t it?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot did not know how long she had been asleep when she finally woke up.

She knew that she had been allowed to sleep uninterrupted, which was the first red flag—there was no way that John would just let her sleep and sleep and let the day tick them by. As she slowly came to, through the corner of her eye she could see that he’d fallen asleep, too, shifting restlessly against the window.

The second thing she realized was that the rain hadn’t stopped, and the reason that she became immediately aware of it was that the back doors of the van were open. She hadn’t done it, obviously, and she couldn’t fathom why in the world John would leave the back doors of the van open, so then the question in her foggy mind persisted; who?

And then someone grabbed her ankle and pulled.

The back of her head hit the metal floor of the van with a heavy thud , the world spinning in her vision as she was pulled closer to the outside world, even as her legs kicked. Panic rose in her throat, violent and hot, and instantly her hand went to reach for John, his name spilling out of her mouth in a desperate attempt to wake him up.

His eyes fluttered open. Groggily, he said, “Elliot?” and as she was yanked violently down he got pulled, too, slammed forward face-first into the floor of the van, biting out a swear that only barely registered in her mind as she struggled to wake up.

She twisted to look at her attacker—a tall redhead with a nasty scar dragging his lip in a permanent sneer. Elliot recognized him as the same red-head that had been handling Faith for the woman from before, the same man who’d nearly rammed his van into hers on the road just a day ago.

His hand fisted in the front of her shirt; he drawled in his thick, round accent, “Go back to sleep, little one,” and slammed her head back against the floor with purpose, her vision going sticky, staticky black on the edges.

She felt the heavy pain blooming behind her eyes. The weight of it dragged her eyelids down; she swam in inky black, only vaguely aware of the sound of raised voices, the feeling of a damp cloth being draped over her mouth, the sensation of floating, as though she were drifting underwater with everyone else shouting above her; all of these things began to fade, slipping through her fingers like sand until there was nothing left except for the empty, hollow black filling her up.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Elliot?”

It was John’s voice, she thought, or maybe not; it was hard to tell. Hands pressed to the tops of her shoulders, the pressure a welcoming comfort. Her chin was tucked against her chest, and she lifted her head—not without significant effort—and opened her eyes.

The world pulsed around her, colors bleeding brightly and violently against her irises. She was in a field—

(I’m in a field? But the floor—)

—and John was kneeling in front of her, his hands coming up to take her face. There was no smugness, no venom in his expression; only concern.

“I was so worried,” John said. “I was so worried about you, Elliot.”

“John,” Elliot said, and when she said his name it felt like the letters were spilling out of her mouth, choking her on the way out. A warm breeze tickled the edges of her vision, and the sunlight hemorrhaged into the grass, into the ground, oscillating in time with her heartbeat. A strange, sticky feeling wound up inside of her.

John said her name again. When she looked at him, his eye sockets were blooming, beautiful purple blooms pouring out of them, brushing his cheekbones like eyelashes. The feeling in her chest deepened; grief, she thought, with desperation, agony, hollowing her out, dread , filling her back up again, nothing but a vessel for the deepest emotions to be carried in.

“I was so worried about you,” John said again. Soft petals tumbled out of his mouth when he spoke. He gripped the sides of her face and pressed their foreheads together, and she started to cry, shaking her head. “My Elliot,” he said, over the sound of her crying, his thumbs brushing the tears from her face, “my Elliot.”

She thought that her skin must be burning, from the inside out, everywhere his hands touched; sliding down her throat, along the slope of her collarbone, gripping her shoulders. Hungry, and burning, lighting her on fire as he murmured, “My Elliot.”

His hands skimmed her face. They felt different, then softer and more slender; she closed her eyes tightly, willing the horror of it to go away, for the clammy terror to slip off of her skin.

“Open your eyes, mor. Did the visions scare you? ” a soft voice asked, the words slinking across her skin, serpentine and cold. She did as she was told, even when she thought, I don’t want to open my eyes, her body operating obediently.

Soft, dark eyes. Wisps of dirty-blonde hair that curtained Elliot’s face. Her head was in the woman’s lap and the night sky stretched, cloudy and endless, above them. Ase smiled at her dreamily.

“I saw your color the minute I laid eyes on you,” Ase whispered. She said the words like they were meant to be treasured, kept between them, only them. Elliot’s eyes fluttered and she tried to will herself to move. Her body was non-compliant, heavy as lead, and the warmth of a tear moving haltingly down her cheek made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

With the touch of a doting mother, Ase wiped the tear from her cheek, the pad of her thumb sliding along the slope of Elliot’s cheekbone, and then brushed the hair from her face. Now, Elliot could see more clearly the way her pupils were blown wide, swallowing up the color of her irises, crushing it in the event horizon of her eyes. She murmured, reverently, “I saw your color, mor, I saw you. Have you ever felt seen? We waited for you, for so long.”

Elliot moaned, misery stinging in the sound. Her lip trembled. She thought, I don’t want to be seen, the way Ase reiterated it making her vulnerable. I don’t want to be seen, I don’t want this. But she couldn’t make the words come out, her jaw hanging slack when she opened her mouth, the knowledge that they had done something to her flickering only briefly through her mind before it was swallowed up by something else.

“I’ll let you go.” Ase’s voice remained silken, spinning around her, weaving a cocoon. “I’ll let you go, mor , but only because I know that you will always come back to us.” She skimmed her fingers lovingly across Elliot’s forehead and whispered into her skin, “Now go back to sleep.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John found her curled up, her fingers sinking into the earth like she was afraid she was going to float away, and sobbing.

His head was pounding; he felt disoriented, and panicked, the same kind of strange, distant panic that happened when he fell asleep during the day and woke up to it being night. He could only remember the sound of Elliot saying his name jerking him out of his sleep in the van, the sensation of getting pulled forward violently, and the feeling of someone slamming his head into the side of the van.

And then, waking up in a field, in the dark, alone.

He had struggled to his feet when he awoke. He had thought, the handcuffs are off . He had thought, I have to find Elliot. And then he’d started walking, saying her name, until he heard the sound of her crying and found her.

“Elliot,” he said urgently. His mouth felt incredibly dry; he was worried that if he spoke too much, his skin would split. He reached for her when she turned to look at him, and when she saw him she moaned, the sound that came out of her the same kind of sound an animal with its leg caught in a trap would make.

A slur of protests came out of her. A line of no’s that all blurred together, but when brought her to a sitting position she only shrunk away from him a little. He took the sides of her face in his hands and searched her for any sign of wounds or harm that might have come to her: but there was nothing. She was, it appeared, physically untouched.

“Hey,” John managed out. “It’s me, Elliot. I’ve got you.”

She blinked blearily at him. Her face was flushed, puffy, and tears dotted and darkened her lower lashes. Her pupils nearly ate up the entirety of those baby blues; clearly, she’d been drugged. She said, “John?” and he nodded.

“Yes, Rook. It’s me.”

“They did something to me,” Elliot said, her voice rising in her distress. “John—”

“They’re gone,” he said, without confirming her fears. “We have to move, though. Can you stand?”

The blonde hesitated for a moment and then nodded—he supposed she would have to fight through the remains of whatever they had put in her. He stood, taking her hands and helping her as she wobbled to a stand as well. It was hard to figure out exactly where they were, with no road in sight, but the haze of his sleep—which he now thought must also be medically induced—was still weighing on him.

“We have to move,” he said again, Elliot’s fingers clutching his hands so tight it almost hurt. He scanned the horizon of the field, touching on the dip of a hill, a river, and then a treeline. His eyes strained. He thought he might have seen headlights through the dim of them, but it was hard to tell.

It was also all he had to go on.

“Come on,” John said, her hands still locked around his like he was anchoring her to the earth. Unable to guess what they’d drugged her with, he imagined it probably felt like that.

“John,” Elliot said, her voice impossibly small as they began to walk, her steps halting and uneasy, “They did something to me.”

His jaw tightened. He hated this; he hated Elliot like this, emotionally wounded and voice wobbling, because all of a sudden he thought that this was not the Elliot he knew, not his Elliot at all. Where was the venom? The steel? Where had she gone?

Buried, he supposed, under psychotropic drugs, of which he knew not the origin nor the duration.

The rain clouds had moved along; the earth smelled wet, and fresh, the scent of it welling up inside of them, and as they walked his mind felt clearer and clearer. With clarity came the knowledge that they had been trapped; the cultists had had them, and had chosen to leave them alive. For what?

“I know,” John said again, his voice rough with his forcefully-induced sleep. Elliot’s fingers dug into his arm where they clutched, the feverish pitch of her body heat seeping through his clothes from how close she lingered. “You’re fine, deputy, I’ve got you.”

He tried not to think too hard about the voice that echoed in his head, for now.

#far cry 5 #john seed #fc5 #john seed/oc #john seed/deputy #enemies to lovers #what can i say these two psychos were made for each other #this chapter features: elliot being an absolute mess #per usual #she just wants to hang out w her dog ok #leave her alone #ch: john seed #ch: elliot honeysett #otp: death keep off; i am your enemy #fic: ancient names #my writing #john seed/ofc

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep7: Mai Gets a Day Job (Killing People For Sport)

So, I looked at the calendar and realized, if I don’t get this post up this week then you’ll only have one update from me for the whole of November since I’m leaving for over a week again. :/ So I’m just gonna get right to the good stuff because it has taken just a crazy amount of time to get to episode 7. How great would it be if I also got to episode 8. Real great, right?

So lets do this, I can do this, I can write a recap without getting insanely distracted, watch me do it: This episode starts with Tristan sticking to the fatal flaw of his character sheet and seeing listed at the very top “low key toilet obsession.”

Ah Tristan.

And when you think “well, OK, they’re stuck by some historic Mesas, this is fine,” suddenly they are beset by the world’s most random biker gang of like 20 full grown adults/biker assassins.

And it’s not super clear if their driver died out there in the Arizona desert, or if he just put on a different outfit and joined this gang, but it won’t matter because like...it’s a filler arc in Yugioh so there’s gonna be some deaths.

This season seems to change genre like every 10 minutes, and so for right now we are in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic territory and PS every one of these bikers uses a lead pipe?

I feel like this is way more violent than a gun???

(read more under the cut)

And so, out the horizon comes another biker, like a masked cowboy on horseback, except she shoots these things instead of bullets.

These are trained assassins, by the way, just completely incapacitated by paper.

I just love the marketing team working alongside of this show that’s like “and what else can Yugioh cards do? destroy biker gangs. That’s right, one single card will absolutely destroy a biker!” and the writing staff was like “yeah, we can work that in. That totally works in universe, you don't even know.”

It’s Mai! Back from murdering the hell out of Pegasus, I guess she decided to ninja these 20 bikers, and did it so devastatingly, that they somehow blew up a motorcycle next to a live fuel tank? Like we’re talking Oliver Queen precision throwing here and like...

...Mai’s only been gone like a year right???

And so, seeing that this card is a harpy, which I dunno...doesn’t seem like it’s all that rare in comparison to a Blue Eyes or a God Card or I dunno any of the other signature cards we’ve heard about, Joey immediately recognizes Mai. Despite the fact that everything she is doing right now is completely out of character, and despite the fact that they are in freakin California.

RIP to all 20 of the people in that gang of bikers, because no one followed this limo away from the scene--everyone was, I assume, hella dead.

Youknow, I never expected Mai to kill more people than Bakura. I would have predicted Joey before Mai. I would have predicted Rebecca before Mai. Literally anyone else on this show before Mai.

Seto, crawling out of this oversized castle that I guess...is back on the real estate market now...decides that the irresistible pull of dragons printed on paper cards is stronger than listening to his brother’s needs to put down the damn cards and make a contractually obligated theme park.

I mean Mokuba kept him off the cards for nearly a whole year. What a healthy year that was for Seto.

Back in Arizona, apparently they didn’t make it more than a mile before Tristan busted the car. Not really clear why or how this happened, but they’ve decided to argue with eachother about it despite the fact one of them is clearly magical and does not really need to eat or drink or even maybe sleep?

Like we’ve seen Bakura basically survive off of one plate of tacos and 2 pints of blood, so just make Pharaoh push the car all the way back to California. Or just make Pharaoh use his millennium AIM to call up His tomb keepers and be like “Marik, we need a lift.” or maybe summon a very real monster because that’s a thing now?

Course this would rely on Pharaoh remembering that he has superpowers, which, somehow after 4 seasons, he always forgets how to use the moment he uses them. It’s like reverse Sailor Moon--Usagi tends to level up her Super powers, Pharaoh kind of tosses them out of the window and goes “oops” and becomes more and more mortal every single season.

So instead of magic they will just use Tea.

Amazing how none of them are really willing to date Tea seriously but they will acknowledge, out of the four of them, Tea is the best looking. So their strategy, bear with me, wasn’t to use the fact they’re children to get help from adults driving by, instead, the boys hid behind a rock so they could really make sure they were getting a hella pervy truck driver that would only stop for a single teenage girl stuck in the desert.

Only this group of kids would be like “Hey lets make sure the guy who picks us up is statistically most likely to be a serial killer” and then, weirdly enough, this horndog pedo truck driver ended up being the only person who didn’t try to kill them this entire episode.

So, lets go back to SF but coming from the north side...which makes no sense...but then again, they put Mesas in Napa County.

So last episode I assumed Rex and Weevil were dropped off in Oakland, but Rex informs us this episode that they are in “the worst part of town”

Where they get robbed twice, only to be saved by Duke Devlin, who I guess just lives here now because maybe it’s the only place he can afford in this expensive as hell city? Maybe he isn’t bothered by the crime-rate after that week he spent on Kaiba’s blimp/Seaquest mmo adventure?

Anyway, for some reason Duke--who is a game shop owner/developer by day--is wandering around the Tenderloin as a vigilante and saving people by throwing dice at them as some sort of side hustle and this is never discussed at all.

I would watch that spinoff series. Religiously.

Fun fact, there is definitely sketchy and bad parts of the Tenderloin you will know not to go to (you can smell it actually), but like a third of it is part of the best shopping district in the city and we used to just shop there unsupervised when I was a kid. It has an Anthropologie.

Not saying the parts that are bad aren’t bad. Whenever I drive through the non-shopping parts, I see at least one super sketch thing making me thankful I’m in the car. But I just don't know how Rex and Weevil managed to get robbed twice in one day. Just go five blocks in literally any direction.

Bro and I were like...HOW did this shot happened from this angle on the freeway...and then I only just now realized it. Something I forgot about because it’s from my parent’s generation...maybe the animators weren’t aware that the Embarcadero fell down after Loma Prieta?

So this was the SF landscape before the quake of 89′ (Which I have no memory of since I was a baby when this happened)

and after 89.

Like maybe the animators they had on this team remembered an SF from their youth that had a huge iconic raised street wrapping all the way around one part of it and just...never got the memo that an Earthquake made the entire thing fall down?

Either way, Duke is either driving these two directly out of SF, or he is driving them into 1988 and is taking a lovely drive on the Old Embarcadero, an experience which does not exist anymore, and which makes a lot more sense since Duke has to be somewhat near downtown, going by the skyscrapers and the vicinity to the Tenderloin.

Man. In the Yugioh Universe, Loma Preita just never actually happened. How is that factoid alone not the weirdest part of this episode?

(I am so glad Serenity is not here now that Duke’s back)

Welcome back to the show Duke, glad you’re bringing...Rex and Weevil...

To be fair, Duke has absolutely no idea who is and isn’t Yugi’s friends. Duke just kind of shows up and pretends like he’s part of the gang, and the gang has lost so much brain matter from all the cards and all the dark magic, they just assume he’s been here the whole time.

So at first I was like “this has to be a pun on Industrial Light and Magic” since there’s virtually no other film studios in the city--but ILM moved to SF 3-4 years after this season came out. So it’s just a weird coincidence, I guess. Or maybe it’s just a really uninspired name?

And so Mai, who I guess has been just waiting on this ledge for 8 hours decides to drop in.

Mai has evolved a lot since S1.

But, although Mai is just...straight up evil now, at least we get to see it taken out on Pegasus who, as far as this show is concerned, is a pretty evil bastard.

A pretty evil bastard who took like 3-4 episodes to beat in S1 but Mai could just do it off-screen.

It’s just funny that the entire time on the island Pegasus was probably pretty sure everyone there was trying to kill him EXCEPT for Mai and then the moment his back is turned he’s like “oh whaaaat?”

Like Bandit Keith is already in America. But rather than use Bandit Keith for this, lets use Mai to give Joey something to angst about. We can’t put her in a coma again--so lets instead get her vaguely possessed. Although seriously, if someone I liked did this to me I think I’d be over that crush really fast.

And then, speaking of Bandit Keith, we get to have a Greek Chorus this duel from the minibosses. Valon and the other guy with the handlebar-muttonchops.

I looked up “where does Valon’s accent come from” and literally there is no consensus, as far as I know.

And that’s where this episode ends.

Now I’m gonna go out of town for a week and then will need another week to make more of these so I’ll be on another hiatus. Holding out if I’ll maybe bring a laptop or something to where I’m going so I can type out recaps when I’m bored.

The problem is having the uhhhhh photoshop to do the caps. I can’t bear to do this in MS Paint because hell will freeze over before I lose all of my actions and hotkeys I made specifically to reduce the time it takes to make these. But we shall see.

anyway, if you want to see these from the beginning, click here.

#ygo #yugioh #recap #photo recap #episode recap #yugi muto #joey wheeler #mai valentine #tea gardner #bikers #an exploding shell station #arizona #tristan taylor #valon #S4 ep7

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tokendisastergay · 5 years

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Quarantine Diary, lovingly referred to as quarantime: (this is 100% for me to look back on and remember how i spend my time when left to my own devices, also hopefully so i am slightly productive in a day)

DAY ONE: I think I might lose my mind. This morning I got a new game for myself and spent a good portion of the day playing that. I also taught myself the beginning of Halloween from Rent on piano. At night I really started to lose it and watched a full lengtg documentary on foreign surrogacy. As of now I go back to school on the 31st

DAY TWO: I’m not sure I’ll survive for two weeks, but much less a whole month. School got pushed back to April 15th. Help me. I once again spelt an embarrassing amount of my day playing two separate games I’ve just started. I also taught myself most of Johnny Can’t Decide from Tick Tick Boom on piano, however since my wrist is broken and Jonathan Larson has abnormally long fingers some of the chords posed a minor challenge. It was also Saint Patrick’s day, so my dad put on Irish punk music for my baby brother (and us) and we made cabbage, fake corn beef because we’re vegetarian, and french fries because the store didn’t have potatoes in any other form.

DAY THREE: Having a sense of time is only a distant memory. I’m running low on lucky charms. My herbs did sprout this morning though so that was pretty thrilling. I taught the baby what noise the cow makes. Spoiler: it was moo. Me and my dad made veggie burgers, and then had our first tabletop game night in months. (We used to do it every thursday, but we’ve been way too busy for that recently).

DAY FOUR: I wasn’t sure if this belonged in yesterday’s or not but technically it was this morning because it was so late at night, but I officially got the first scene of the screenplay I’m currently writing done! I’m writing it specifically for a film festival for short films, and I only really have one *very long* scene left!! I woke up, and immediately took a nap because it was like 6. I cooked me and the baby breakfast and then composed a whole two measures for the score. Currently playing the “sit on the kitchen floor and fake sip unopened gatorade, and then say “ahhhh”” game. (after i wrote this I also went for a run, i ran a sub thirty minute three miles!)

DAY FIVE: animalcrossinganimalcrossinganimalcrossinganimalcrossing also I drew Cthulhu (I end every one of my sketchbooks with a Cthulhu, perhaps I will post my first Cthulhu vs most recent Cthulhu) I also ran way too aggressively yesterday because I am Sore.

DAY SIX:

very little change. Piano, animal crossing, etc. I did listen to A Chorus Line today; I got really into A Class Act, which is a show about Edward Kleban, the dude who wrote A Chous Line’s life. I remember listening to that in the car with my dad when I was really little, but then again I remember listening to Book of Mormon with him around then as well, so it probably wasn’t the best way to judge what the show was going to be like. (Fun fact my dad also took me to see Book of Mormon when I was 11!) But I also know my grandmother really likes it and so I just thought it’d be a little more Watch With Your Grandma Friendly. It was not. Not like,, super inappropriate just not what I was expecting

DAY SEVEN:

Again, I’ve learned I only have so many activities. I’m trying really hard to think of another idea for my screenplay, since there is absolutely no way for me to get enough middle aged people to film the one I was planning. I was also on call with my bf for four hours straight today so that was fun

DAY EIGHT:

Worst day by far. I didn’t do much of anything, and I feel really guilty about how little I got accomplished. That’s about it.

DAY NINE:

Got a lot accomplished!!! I organized my whole desk (which, for context towards the end I was getting to things from 2014, that’s how big of a job this was) I also started my vocab for one of my classes, and I set up my journal for next month! I thought I’d start using it a little more since I have nothing else to do, plus updating this every day has hopefully gotten me back into the habit of actually using something daily.

DAY TEN

Okay honestly it’s been a minute since I updated this so I don’t really remember what I did,, but I’ll use this day to define what I’ve been doing daily. I’m pretty sure I haven’t say yet, but I’ve been stretching every day. I used to be a very serious gymnast, but I got to the point where essentially I had to choose between attending public school, or continuing with gymnastics, and like the average parent of a twelve year old, my dad was not about to let me stop going to school for something I physically couldn’t keep doing past my mid twenties. But I really miss having any control over my body, so I’ve decided I’m commiting to trying to gain back a little flexibility. It drives me crazy, I do theater obviously and the fact I’m such a mediocre dancer now is not doing good things for my ego

DAY ELEVEN

DAY TWELVE

DAY THIRTEEN

DAY FOURTEEN

I ran pretty well today. Sub nine minute miles, not super speedy, but fast for me at least. I mean I ran two miles in close to 15 minutes, so if I can do that for another mile I’d PR my 5k time for sure. Other than that, I procrastinated my speech, but I did get a bit of it done tonight on call with my boyfriend

DAY FIFTEEN

The speech was really eating me up. In an effort to ignore it I blew through 200 pages worth of a book today. I had a call for my acting class from 5:30-8:30, and I’m kinda looking forward to some of the stuff we’re doing in there. I start school again tomorrow and I have never been so excited for school to start back up in my life (and I’m never particularly unhappy; I quite enjoy the first week of a new school year)

DAY SIXTEEN

So school was kinda a dud. The website couldn’t support every kid in the county trying to get on it at once so it just,,, didn’t work. I spent most of the day filming my speech and I’m superrrr proud of it (I love giving speeches with all my heart, I go so overboard when we get assigned them for school though, no one else put as much effort into theirs as I did)

DAY SEVENTEEN

I got all of my class work for the week done, except for one class that isn’t doing it the way the rest of mine are. Don’t really remember what else happened today

DAY ???: I got my last two lab reports done. Also it was easter, so we hid eggs for the baby and looked longingly at the Easter egg bread we made (half jewish half italian, an unfortunate combination during Passover) Got my three hour mandates boyfriend call in and we looked at early humans and what we evolved from. Turns out I hate looking at that shit and I think Lucy will never leave the realm of my mind

DAY ???: Not a super interesting one but a good one. I filmed a monologue for my long form improv class, and did it on my Fancy Filmmaking Camera, which was completely unnecessary but very fun. We did have to deal with some legal stuff that I both don’t feel comfortable sharing and don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with. I had acting class, and that was absolutely it. Today my boyfriend and I talked about how shitty cops are, and his adventures in growing vegetables

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jufros · 4 years

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13-24!!

S13) a song from a musical

The Campfire Song - The Lightning Thief the Musical

14) a song with a great music video

Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters

This video has a Tenacious D cameo, mutliple characters played by Dave Grohl, and my favorite an elevator music version of Everlong that plays at the beginning and end of the video.

15) a song that’s better as a cover

The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana

16) a song that’s better acoustic

Everlong - Foo Fighters

I absolutely love this version.

17) a song with great lyrics

Ahead By A Century - The Tragically Hip

18) a song for summer

Two Hundred Grand - Sunshine

Not sure if this is a “summer song,” but it gives me summer vibes. Also, this song is in Letterkenny so that’s bonus points.

19) a song for heartache

Aujourd’hui ma vie c’est d’la marde - Lisa LeBlanc

The lyrics on the chorus translate to something like, “Perhaps tomorrow will be better, but today my life is shit.” I think that’s pretty valid for a heartache.

SIck of Losing Soulmates - dodie

I love dodie and this song is super sad.

20) a song for car rides

Rock and a Hard Place - The Low Blow

I’m friends with the singer of this band. This song has some good vibes for a car ride.

21) a song for the rain

Umbrella - Rihanna ft. Jay-Z or

Gymnopedie No. 1 - Erik Satie

Gymnopedie has some rainy day vibes.

22) a song for dancing

Dance Baby - Boy Pablo

23) a song for making out

Corduray Dreams - Rex Orange County

Idk if this fits but that was just my first thought for this one lol.

24) a song for a lover

C’est toujours a recommencer - Toulouse

Another great french song and it is also from Letterkenny. That show has some really great music in it.

It Don’t Matter - Jacob Collier ft. JoJo

Thanks Jess!! I hope these links actually work and I didn’t just waste my time lol.

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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teachers pet (karon + branjie) -lem0n_b0y

an- hey y'all it’s ya boy. it’s finally done. my teacher au!! enjoy the dummy gays getting caught in the act.

“Maywood is Red Hot, We will not Stop, Stop! We are Hot, Hot!”

Katya could practically hear the phatom of cheers in her ears as she walks down the white hallways. The commons were full of those preppy cheerleaders, hyping up the student body for the big game tonight. It was the beginning of the softball season and for their school, it was a pretty big deal. The school wasn’t great at many sports, they weren’t known for their football records. One thing that the were known for is smashing through the county’s other highschool teams for softball. With the utterly amazing leadership through Coach Hytes, last year was a knock out. All though Katya would lend her help to her every practice.

The echos of the drum line follow behind her as well. The band was also beautifully led. They had been known to place high in competitions, even going to a state competition. Though the drums and trombones really put a ping of pain in Katyas temple from the volume, she had much respect for the kiddos that make it possible and along with their teacher.

Ms. Needles, she sure is a phenomenal teacher. She always puts the student first, always making sure the have everything they need to succeed in everyway possible. Katya smiles to herself at just the thought of it. The moment she met the cooky punk hearted woman, she knew that they would spend a lot of time together. Her energy screamed different but her appearance is much more calm. Sure she would we’re darker clothes and a dark lip but it wasn’t her true colors from what Katya could tell. Alas, building a strong friendship with her during workplace hours was the highlight of the job. They often spend their planning period together and lunches. Having the small amount of alone time with such a bright mind was all it took to make Katyas day worth while.

While Katya spends most of her free time with the infamous Ms. Needles, whenever she was absent she would find herself in the chorus room just next to the band room to chat with the dearest Mrs. Act. The enthusiastic Aussie was another beloved teacher. The primary reason for that student given title is all of the boys fawning over her and her pretty face. Her voice could be heard from classes away to which nobody complains, her sound was far from nails on a chalkboard. Katyas relationship with her was goofy yet smart, they both had the biggest wit anyone had ever see.

She continues down the halls, snaking her way to the band room to once again spend as much time as possible with her beloved friend. The band room was graciously placed farthest away from the commons so she had no worried of loud noises annoying them. As she steps foot into the room she can see Ms. Needles brighten up.

“Glad to see you made it through the crowd of teenagers. You’re just in time to help me grade.” She smiles as her hand holds out a packet of papers to Katya. She was towered in work, her desk was a mess. The end of the school year was just in the horizon and everyone had begun to buckle down. Most teachers were slammed with makeup work as kids attempt to bring up their grades last minute. Katya didn’t have to worry about that, as for PE was an easy class to pass. All of her kids were at least at a C. She takes the stack of papers and sits on the edge of the desk, the only clean spot. “You really need to put your foot down Shar, this work is from last nine weeks.”

Sharon let’s out a little sigh and rests her head on her free hand while the other marked off on worksheets. “I just want them to pass.” Her writing hand was covered in messily doodled notes. The black ink spelled out students names and the name of worksheets that were needing to be put in the gradebook. She screamed stressed from just the looks of her. Her shoulders appearing tense and shadows of bone under her eyes, Katya frowns slightly. Seeing her on partner in crime so rundown was sad. She knew that Sharon had dug herself into a hole of generosity. After enough kids ask to turn in late work, you end up having to say yes to everybody.

Katya looks through her given stack of papers as an escape from worryful gaze. Red X’s pile onto each paper haphazardly as they sit in silence. There was an obvious fog of tension in the room.

Placing the graded stack of papers down after about ten minutes of quick grading, Katya looks back down at the hunched over woman. Her scribble ridden hand marks question after question with the most exhausted look on her face that Katya couldn’t stand it. She can’t stand to see the typically upbeat woman with a strong backbone to hold herself up so grey.

Breaking the silence, Katya stands up from sitting on the corner of the desk to face Sharon. “Shar-bear you seriously aren’t looking too hot. I think you really need to take a break from all of… this-” She jestures her hand to the messy desk. Sharon looks up from the paper she was working on to look at Katya. “- like this is gonna be the death of you, I mean really. You need to tell your classes that you’re no longer accepting late work from 2 months ago.”

Exhales slowly through her nose and removing the hand from her face, Sharon decides to give in and actually listen. Sitting back in her chair she looks Katya up and down slightly. “Kat’s, I’m just trying to make sure the kids don’t hate me. You know how newer teachers go, if you mess up they start hating you and nobody wants to take the class. And when classes are filled they throw kids in who need another elective credit, you know these kids hate that.” Sharon had begun to nervously ramble. All she ever wanted was to be the best teacher she could and would try everything in her power to do so.

Katya knew this very well, but still didn’t quite get why Sharon would be so worried about some sort of self image she wanted teenagers to like. Teenagers hate everything about school unless the teacher passes them without putting in the effort. Katya would know this because she was the same way as a teen. Sharon’s wish to be liked by the student body wasn’t something Katya could wrap her head around. “You’re rambling. How about you just take a break, it is lunch time after all.”

Sharon nodded slightly in agreement, placing her pen down onto the paper. Katya was right, she should take a break. Through all her classes so far through the day, Sharon hadn’t even taught anything. She gave them all assignments to keep them busy just so she could grade. Her lips pout slightly as she tries to clear her mind of all the work that needed to be done.

Katya always thinks she’s cute when she pouts like that. Her pursed black lips were always something that made Katya smile. It was almost how a child would towards a parent was the best way Katya could compare it. Those slight mannerisms that Sharon does is what really hooked Katya onto her when they first met. The first little thing that she noticed was her favorite foods were. Sharon would tag her lunch in the teachers lounge fridge. Everyday it was a wrap of some sort with cheesecake flavored yogurt cup and as time went on, Katya would bring her yogurt during planning period for her to snack on.

Her smile lingers as Sharon’s pout fades away into her speaking again. Her rambling consists of life updates, cat updates and recent TV shows she had binged while working on the final exam. Sharon had recently begun to rewatch all of Golden Girls and beings to assign Katya the character that reminds her of Katya.

Since then, Katya has pulled up a chair next to Sharon’s while the banter continues. “You would not believe how many kids I’ve had to threaten with detention this week, I mean really, they act like since schools almost over that they don’t have to follow rules.” Sharon rambles, getting upset over the rowdy children. Faking a shocked face, Katya mocks Sharon’s harmless threats. She knew that she would never write a kid at detention slip. “Slow down there! Ms. Needles about send kids to detention? She has finally snapped!”

“Oh shut up! They’re never this bad is the thing.”

“Kids will be bad, I was a bad kid after all.” Katya smiles wide and chuckles at her own statement. “- not saying that it’s an excuse but the teenage angst is a powerful demon.”

Sharon leans her head back onto the back of her chair, staring up at the cracked popcorn ceiling. Smiling to herself, she let’s out an annoyed groan. “It sure is. But I should really finish grading these papers.” Katya frowns as the work beings to call her companion back it. She didn’t want Sharon’s now bright energy to dull all because some kids don’t know how to turn work in on time. It wasn’t be duty as a teacher to keep the deadlines flexible, it was her duty to get them into a habit of turning things in on time. Katya pouts and slides her rollie chair closer. “Can we hang out for what- 5 more minutes?”

Tapping a finger to her chin, Sharon smiles very catty. “Fine, 5 more minutes.”

Five minutes didn’t seem like enough time for Katya to get her fill of soaking in Sharon’s ramblings of her personal life. If she could, she’d skip class like all the slacker students do but lunch had since ended and class had just started. Katyas students were scheduled to go to the tennis courts for the whole period and Coach Hytes were to go to the gym for a somewhat free day. She had been worrying over the softball game just like all the others. No matter how well they were doing through the season she still had a massive weight of worry on her shoulders. Being said, the normally calm Coach Hytes was cracking so hard she doesn’t even have the energy to teach. It was a day for the kids to play whatever they want in the gym, which may have been a grave mistake.

She shoots a text to Katya to remind her that all the kids need to bring back all the tennis balls along with questions about tonight’s game and who’s all playing or not. Tapping her fingers against her phone screen she attempts to take a deep breath in hopes to calm herself. The main thing on her mind about the game entirely was the batter. Vanessa was what her coach once described her as a ‘gorgeous tornado of energy’. With how much liveliness is in her, it works in her favor. Always being ready for practice was always on her mind up until the new year. She started skipping practice, going to parties and slacking on school work. No matter how many times she gets in trouble for it she keeps doing it. That’s why Brooke was nervous, Vanessa’s focus has left sports and has moved to being reckless. Nobody knows if she will be the ball and chain of the game.

Brooke picks up her pen and roll paper, biting the end if the pen as she scans to see who’s all in the gym. Her eyes land on the Tasmanian devil herself. Vanessa sits on the gym floor is some black gym shorts and a white tank top. From what Brooke can make out is she’s on her phone as always. Looking her up and down, Brooke’s mind goes a little too fuzzy for her liking. From the first day she met Vanessa she instantly found her attractive as hell, but who wouldn’t? Only way that Coach Hytes could assure herself on her raging attraction to her student was that the were only a few years apart. From what her file said in the office is that she failed the sixth grade. Brookes stare continues until a ball is thrown at a students head, forcing their whole body backwards. The student got back up unharmed but the loud thud of rubber on flesh was enough to snap her out of her head and back to the roll.

The bickering and barking had already begun in the four square corner with the main instigator being a the blunt yet kind-hearted Yvie. Oh Yvie was an unknowing trouble maker for sure. Her sharp edged tounge but also blase attitude toward many of the girls really got under people’s skins at times. So the loud arguing bubbling up wasn’t new for the small group of friends. The one thing that caught worry focused coaches ear was the voice of the girl that Yvie had fired up. A very recognizable voice.

Vanessa’s mouth is filled with angry curses as Yvie stands there with her arms crossed in defense. The argument was going to end up burning out within time is how Yvie sees it. Vanessa’s dark curls bounce on her shoulders as her yelling starts. “Well I don’t fuckin’ need your opinion on how well I do in a sport you don’t even fuckin’ play bitch!” She yells out with her hand balling up into fists. As her anger be comes to the point of a pot about boil over, she starts walking towards Yvie. “Then don’t worry about my shit! You’re the one who has been worried about how I decide to dress myself. All I’m saying is you need to get your priorities straight!”

Brooke finally decides to pay attention to her players voice by looking up from her papers at the worst moment. All while frantically cursing, Vanessa sends a punch into Yvies stomach with all the force she has. The taller girl stumbles backwards hard and starts yelling louder as she starts stepping closer to the swinger to push her down roughly. As soon as Vanessa is on the ground, Brooke quickly makes her way across the gym to break the two up. “You two! Stop it right now!” She yells out as she approaches and stands between the two.

“She fucking punched me!” Yvie exclaims, backing away from Vanessa who finally stands herself back up on her feet, attempting to bolt back towards her just to be stopped by one of Brooke’s strong arms. “Talk shit get hit bitch!”

“Vanessa!” Brooke pulls her backwards away from Yvie with her arm around her torso. She squirms to break free from her grip in hopes to finish what she had started. “C'mon Ms. Brooke, she’s been runnin’ her mouth about me! Bitch said I can’t barely play softball, she can’t just tarnish my name like that! Let me go!” She hollars as she is slowly tugged away by her coach. It occurred to Brooke how much Vanesas reckless behavior had really begun to get on her nerves, Vanessa was a young adult who should know better than to pick fights with other kids. Vanessa continues to try an free herself from her trap as Yvie is no longer in sight. As soon as the two get to the hallway, Brooke finally let’s her go. She quickly turns to face the clearly pouty young woman. “What the hell was that Vanessa?”

“I dunno, a fight? Me defending my good name.” She huffs out, already rolling her eyes at Brooke’s disapproval. Vanessa didn’t quite get that what she did was rash. Her emotions often would get the best of her as shown by little scuffs on her hands from trying to catch herself from Yvies push. A fighter would be the best way to describe her but also her most faulty trait. Sure she wanted to fight for what she believes in but most of the time that fight wasn’t used for good. Brooke knew this very well as she had seen Vanessa storm towards the bleachers at a softball game just because he gave her a dirty look after hitting a home run. None the less, Brooke wasn’t happy with Vanessa.

Rubbing her face slightly before speaking, Brooke narrows her eyes at her. “Yes it was a fight. But why did you decide to pick a fight right before the game, hm?” Her voice was harsh, more than Vanessa had ever heard. Her eyes widen at the sharp voice and relaxes her shoulders. “Because she was telling everybody that I was gonna lose tonight, like who the fuck does she think she is? So talk shit, get hit. She shouldn’t have been talkin’ shit.” She starts puffing back up at just the thought of someone talking bad about the one thing shes pride herself in. Brooke runs a hand through her hair and pulls out her phone. “Vanessa you’re in trouble no matter what happened. I’m getting Ms. Z to come watch the class while we discuss your punishment.” Her fingers type quickly and loudly, her eyes still narrowed towards her screen. “-and until she’s here, sit in my office. Got it?”

Looking up from her phone she sees a still worked up Vanessa. Her cheeks were red from the blood rushing in her system and her hands placed on her hips. If Brooke wasn’t so angry at her right now she would dare say she looked hot right about now. All though Vanessa could say the same thing to her. Seeing the tall blonde so snappy with her did make a little smile appear on he face. Brooke raises a brow as Vanessa nods and walks past her slowly, heading towards her office. “See you soon Mami.” She bumps into her playfully as she makes her way down the hallway. Snapping her head around, Brook watches her enter her office and closing the door.

Her mind instantly fuzzes again, the faint linger of Vanessa teasingly calling her 'Mami’ sends a warm wave up her body to her face. With the mix of emotion going through her head, Brooke leans against a wall to regain herself. The door of the far end of the hall opens and in comes Ms. Z with her class of rowdy kids. Katya directs her kids to go to the gym and that she will be there in just a moment. “So what the matter Brooke?” She says, walking up to her slumped coworker.

Brooke rubs her eyes and sits up straight. “Vanessa attempted to fight Yvie again and I luckily stopped her before she got too mad.” She exhales slowly and smiles halfheartedly. “I can’t let her play tonight after this, she’s been in trouble all week.”

Katya nods, laughing slightly. “When isn’t she in trouble?”

She had a good point. Brooke knew it’d end up coming to this but had hoped it wouldn’t. Vanessa is a good player and her sitting out wouldn’t be the best for the team. Attempting to rationalize her head she agrees with her previous thought of her being a ball and chain. “I’m going to have a talk with her, but thank you again for watching the class. You’re a life saver.”

“I do what I can. But don’t let her talk you into keeping her for tonight, she does have that effect on you.” Katya winks, knowing how easily Vanessa can sweet talk her way out of trouble. Especially knowing how big Brooke’s lady boner is for her, she knew that the warning wouldn’t be taken. Turning towards the gym door, Katya goes to deal with the kids while Brooke tries her hardest to put her foot down once.

Katya sits down at a nearby table in the gym and pulls her phone out to text Sharon about the situation.

Brooke opens her office door to see Vanessa sat on her desk, her legs dangling off the edge. She sits on her phone, tapping away, assumably texting Akeria about what had happened in the gym. She pouts her lips as she lifts her head from looking down at her phone. Brooke closes the door behind her, stepping towards the small trophy case on the wall opposite to the desk. The trophies are from years that Brooke had not been there for. She inherited the office from a past coach, keeping the case inside as the had no where to put the containments. “Vanessa why are you on my desk.” She finally speaks up.

“It’s comfy I guess, like feelin’ in charge.” She puts her phone down and puts her hands on either side of her. Tapping her nail onto the polished wood, she strikes Brooke with a small smile. Her smile was to die for, it was always gorgeous to too at. She knew good and well that it would make Brooke melt in her place. It was correct, Brookes body feels the warm wave again at the small smile. She shakes her head to rid herself of the fuzzy thoughts.

“Vanessa you’re in trouble, stop acting so calm. Please get off my desk.”

Vanessa looks around the room still sat on the desk. “You don’t gotta call me Vanessa. Everyone else just calls me Vanjie, you should try it.” Her eyes trail towards Brooke’s. Those blue eyes were so pretty after all. Vanessa loved to look at them whenever she could. But those blue eyes weren’t too assumed with her flase attitude. “I’m not going to call you Vanjie. This is serious you know, you’ve gotten 3 classroom referrals this week alone.”

“Why not? You’re so calm bout me callin’ you Brooke, everyone else calls you Ms. Hytes. Vanjie ain’t that bad of a nickname.” She continues to ignore the trouble that she is in by annoying Brooke with small talk. The annoyance sure was growing, as Brooke steps closer to her desk. Vanessa pouts her lips and brushes her hair off her shoulder with one of her hands “Why can’t I just sit up here? I’m comfy and shit.”

Brooke narrows her eyes as Vanessas legs slightly spread. She can see what she’s doing is getting under her coaches skin just as she had hoped. Vanessa smiles knowingly, biting her tounge a little. “If you don’t get off my desk, I swear to god Vanessa.”

“Whatcha gonna do to me , Mami? Am I makin’ you mad?’ She spreads her legs a little more and smiles. Brooke’s eyes widen at the questions, sending a warm feeling from her chest to her pelvis. She begins walking towards the desk, standing right between Vanessa’s legs. Placing her hands carefully on her lower thighs. "Just shut the fuck before I make you.”

“Well make me then.” Vanessa wraps her legs behind Brooke’s, pulling her close. Brooke’s hands grab her legs with the pulling motion, staying stable. They lean close to each other, body heat being shared. The room was silent, someone could hear a pen drop. Brooke bites her lip at the small space they now shared to which Vanessa smirks. “Don’t just stand there, show me who’s boss. Haven’t I been bad Ms. Hytes”

Without a second thought trailing through her mind, Brooke quickly presses her lips messily against Vanessa’s, pulling her legs to where they were wrapped around her own waist. Vanessa responses back with a smile into the kiss, grinding closer to the older woman. It was everything that Brooke wanted and more. Her lips were just as soft as she had dreamt of. Vanessa ran her hands through Brooks short blonde hair, giving a rough pull to make her moan into the kiss. Vanessa’s hips press as close as possible into Brooke’s.

Brooke takes the liberty to pick her up off the desk and walk to the closest wall, slamming her into it. A picture frame falls from the wall and neither of them flinch. The fight for dominance im the kiss turn to biting and tugging of lips. The quiet room was filled with moaning between crashing of lips.

The door creaks open slowly, and Katyas face peaks in to see Brooke full of anger and lust with Vanessa against the wall. She widens her eyes and slowly closes the door to avoid breaking them up. She wasn’t in the mood to have THAT conversation. Closing the door behind her, she shakes her head and walks back to the gym.

“How was the day Kat’s? Anything shocking happen?” Sharon questions while sitting against a wall of the band room holding a mug with supposably only coffee in it. Katya could already see from the smile on her face that she was tipsy. The school day had ended so the quick after school drink wasn’t much of a worry to her. “I don’t think this counts as shocking but Brooke finally snapped I guess. Walked into her office to tell her that Yvie isn’t going to snitch on Vanessa to see them making out and dry humpin’.” Katya sits down right next to Sharon who was now wide eyed at the news. They had been betting on the two since Brooke started at this school. Everyone could tell they had the hots for each other.

Sharon sips her mug, listening to Katya ramble on about her day. With her light brown waves falling down slightly and hang down her already messy bun, Sharon could feel a ting of her cheeks warming up. She was filled with admiration for her for a quick moment. Sharon could only assume it was the brandy talking. “Anyways, how was your day?” Katya says, snapping Sharon to her attention.

She shrugs while finishing her cup. “Uneventful. Finished grading what I had and slowly cutting off late work. Only have a folder to finish.” Sharon smiles as she places her cup next to her. The buzz fully courses through her, making her lean her head against the wall more. “I just want to relax, feels like I’m a puppet with tight strings.”

“Why not hook up Alaska then? That always chills you out.”

Katya looks at Sharon who had instantly got more color on her face. She knew that the two would hook up all of last year but wasn’t sure why it had stopped. Katya cocks her head to the side and waits for a response that came slowly. “She has a boyfriend now. So I guess I’m out of luck.” She pouts her lips and looks back at Katya. Her buzzing mind had her hyperfixated onto Katyas eyes. The blue eyes looked brighter than normal, her cheeks looked sharper and her peachy lips appeared softer. She hadn’t realized she had started staring. “Well if you ever want some stress relief just let me know. I give some mean head.” Katya chuckles. Sharon nods, biting the edge of her lip, looking to her lap. Her heart was practically jumping out of her chest and her gut screaming to her to take up on the offer. It would be just what she needed to calm down.

“Would you actually? It’s been a rough week and that sounds really fucking good right about now.”

Katyas eyes bolt open to look at the black haired woman looking at her with those tired eyes she fawns over. She didn’t expect her to actually be down for the joking suggestion. Smiling nervously, Katya finally speaks up after clearing her throat. “I-uh- you mean right now? I can but are you- are you actually down?”

“I mean if you could? Or we could like plan a day to?”

Katya stands from where she sat and kneels between Sharon’s legs that laid out. She wasn’t joking to her about giving her good head and hell if she was interested, she was going to make it happen. “I’m serious. Are you certain?” She runs a hand down her skirt exposed leg and looks Sharon dead in her eyes. Sharon looks back as serious as tipsy glare could come across and bites her lip gently. “Just shut up and get to work.”

“Needy huh?” She jokes, lowering to kiss Sharons lower thigh, looking up at her with glazed over eyes. Those eyes got her everytime. Leaning her head back against the wall she watches as the beautiful brunette slowly kiss up her legs, changing between the two between kisses. She sighs softly as the gentle pecks become longer nips. Sharon’s body had quickly relaxed under the gentle kisses, smiling in bliss. She bites the corner of her lip as the trailing kisses make it to meer inches from underwear.

With Katyas head now underneath her black skirt, she takes a hold on Sharon’s thighs to pull her closer to her mouth. Sharon let’s out a shocked gasp and chuckles as her head slides down the wall. “Careful there tiger, I’m not going anywhere.” No response given, Sharon rolls her eyes. She trails in thought for a brief moment realizing that her favorite coworker is about to eat her out. She wasn’t sure if it was mostly risky or mostly hot. Either way, Sharon knew she was turned on by it.

Before the main course could even begin, the classroom door opens. Standing in the doorway was Katyas dear friend Courtney. It wasn’t the first time that Ms. Act had walked in on one of Sharon’s rendezvous’s so the sight she saw only half scared her. The Aussie leans against the door frame and makes direct eye contact with Sharon. “Oh- hey Court.”

Katya quickly moves from her position and turns to face Courtney. “I swear Shar, you fuck like a bunny. This is the fourth time this year.” She smiles cheekily. “Anyways if you two aren’t too busy.. can you come help me move so stuff around my room? Getting new furniture for the kids.”

Katya and Sharon look at each other and shrug, looking to Courtney. “Sure. Why not.”

“Perfect! See you two in five!” Courtney backs out of the room and scampers off for the two women to regain themselves.

#rpdr fanfiction #katya zamolodchikova #sharon needles #katya x sharon #branjie #teachers au #smut #lem0nb0y #lesbian au

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thepolyorchids · 6 years

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A bit about each song on The Polyorchids LP

Track 1 of 10: The Lark

This was the first Polyorchids song that didn’t exist prior to the band’s formation. It was sort of an experiment in a different writing style. The first Courtney Barnett album had just come out and I loved the way she wrote these songs made up of super specific and sometimes mundane lyrics that, when added up, made you feel something. Tony’s naturally great at getting specific like that, but I tend to retreat into my own mind and write from that space. I used a simple a two-chord progression I’d been sitting on for years and wrote a blow-by-blow telling of a drive out to a gig Travis, Tony and I played in Willits a few weeks prior. The hills of Lake County had just been burned by a huge fire. On the trip, we met a bunch of nice seasonal weed-trimming folk (plenty of them white dudes w/ dreads, hence the chorus, which was originally just a placeholder but ultimately stuck) and we crashed at a shitbox motel called The Lark. I liked a Joyce Manor song called “Midnight Service at the Mutter Museum” which had a quiet-verse/loud-chorus structure to it. I brought it to the band with that in mind, but couldn’t get Travis to soften the his floor tom hits, only to find that the thumping beat actually made for a better song. From there it found its groove. — Justin

Track 2 of 10: Predisposed

Most of the lyrics and melodies for “Predisposed” were written in 2011. I think for most songwriters it’s easier to say something in a song than it is to say it in real life. This song was written directly to my friend (and sister from another mister) Nicole Putnam. She was and has always been someone that had my back no matter what, no questions asked. This song turned out to be a (WELL-deserved) explanation/Thank You (even though she never asked for either) for all the times in that year she was there for me when I felt like I had no one. It started as an acoustic song (like most Polyorchids songs), I absolutely forgot I EVEN WROTE IT! For me writing becomes sometimes like therapy, so once I finish... I feel better and feel like I can move on a bit. I found and old iPhone in October of 2017. When I checked out the voice memos, this bad boy was on it. It wasn’t totally complete but Justy, Trav and I worked it to be a full band song and it made it to our album. This is also the first time in The Polyorchids history that I sing my own song on the record. — Tony

Track 3 of 10: Dumpster Heap

I wrote the melody for this a few years ago on a miniature kids’ guitar I was fooling around with, but I spent more than a year just humming gibberish to it. Tony and I have had tons of conversations about our feelings about talking politics on social media. On one hand, it’s a cesspool of garbage that brings out the worst in people and diving into it accomplishes essentially nothing, but on the other hand, it’s where we do 90% of our communicating at this point. If we don’t talk about this stuff online, we’re sort of making the decision to not talk about it at all, which isn’t good either. I’ve typed out full responses to Facebook comments only to delete them before posting so as to avoid surrendering my day to a shit show of notifications. This song is about that internal conversation. I wrote a second verse for this after the “grab her by the…” tape came out, but decided it made an evergreen idea too specific. A few months later I started writing ’45’ and realized this 30-second song could exist with just one verse that feeds right into that one. — Justin

Track 4 of 10: 45

The sort of bizarre post-election vibe had given way to the inauguration and now this guy was slapping his Sharpie signature on like five executive orders per day and arguing about crowd sizes. A parade of idiots were marching through Charlottesville with tiki-torches the day I started writing it. I can’t really pull off overtly political lyrics because they feel corny to me about one hour after I write them, but it seemed like a joke that this dude was running things and I felt like trying capture that in some way, because it was inescapable. Jeff Rosenstock’s WORRY had come out a few months earlier and knocked me out. A fast/crazy deep-cut called "Bang on the Door” was my favorite track and I pretty much wanted to jack it and make it my own. The chords and melody for 45 are totally different from that song, but you can tell they’re sort of distant cousins. I only had one verse written, but I showed it to Trav and Tony at the very end of a practice and the “Side! Eyed! Glances!…” intro was so glorious and punchy with the full band. Some songs take work to find their groove. This one was a natural fit right off the bat and we got excited about it. I wrote a second verse and we started playing it at shows. I finished the third verse the night before recording with Pat and our friends Mike and Jake came in to sing gang vocals on the outro. — Justin

Track 5 of 10: Skeletons

Tony wrote this one a few years ago and lost the demo on an old phone (that’s his move) until just a few months before we recorded the album. I’d never heard it prior to that, but I instantly became obsessed with it, even more so than Tony I think. I told him as much, and I even played it a few times at open mics by myself. The song is really just one verse and one chorus… or a looping chorus with one bridge — however you want to put it. I added the guitar riff, which mirrors the melody but gives it something new, and pitched the idea of having Tony and I alternate singing with a louder, shared verse at the end. This is the only time we’ve ever structured a song that way. We recorded this two days before I moved out of California and we had absolutely no time to practice it with Travis. We tracked our instruments to a click track (unlike most Polyorchids songs, which we record live as a full band) and let Pat at Earth Tone play the percussion after the fact — also something we’d never done before. — Justin

Track 6 of 10: Down in the Desert

This song was written after a trip to Arizona for my uncle Jeff’s funeral. My brother and I grew up with our uncle around a ton, bringing us those little popper/snappers and just generally being the best. As we grew older, we came to realize how truly bizarre and fucking hilarious this person was. Eccentric and witty to his absolute core. He joined the Army out of high school and was stationed in Germany, which I think clouds this song in a bit of confusion because “shipped out to Germany…” really sounds like WWII, but it was actually decades later during a peace-time in Germany. My uncle enjoyed room-temperature tall cans of beer — a taste he said he developed during those years in Germany. After the Army, he got into theater and ultimately became a union-carded makeup artist in Hollywood, working on stuff like the sitcom Major Dad and a TV adaptation of the movie Weird Science among many other projects. Before the funeral, my dad received a letter from one of Jeff’s old makeup artist friends/colleagues. He read that full letter at the funeral and it was just about the most real and beautiful thing I’ve heard in my whole life... Just a human being remembering another human being through the specific memories they shared — the kinds of specifics that send you inward to think about your own memories. I cried hard and felt extremely happy at the same time.

The whole extended family stayed at a desert motel that night and passed a couple of tall cans around in a circle and took turns sharing stories. I liked the idea of letting that evening with family be the chorus and Jeff’s life be the verses, so that’s the basic structure of the song. I started the first couple of lines during that road trip to the desert, but the rest came one line at a time over like a half a year. I never hit a wall, but I never hit a groove either. It was a challenge to write, and yet I felt strongly about seeing it through. It wasn’t until I played an almost-finished version for Tony that it became a potential Polyorchids song at his insistence. I played it once at an open mic but the first time we played it live as a band was at Danny Secretion’s Fuck Cancer benefit almost exactly a year later. — Justin

Track 7 of 10: Back off, Warchild

I started this as a sparse and mellow folk song on acoustic guitar, but abandoned it after about a month of frustration over the lyrics. It started as a sort of abstract story about conflict and tension, but I had a hard time keeping it moving. I liked the first verse on its own but didn’t see a path forward. But then we tried it as a band right after the Popgun EP was done while floating some new song ideas. This came right after we’d found some momentum with The Lark, and I got excited about the dynamics of the full band banging it out. It added something new and took some pressure off the lyrics, which I still feel a bit lukewarm about to be totally honest. The binding theme of the song is frustration and tension and negativity. Verse one is childhood, verse two is early adulthood, and verse three is the old age and death. The chorus is sort of an anthemic reveling in that pessimism, which is no way to live but real nonetheless. The one lyric I really love is the chorus line: “...Not our tax brackets not the weather / could pull the graphite out of the letters...” The song title comes from a line in Point Break when Keanu is about to get in a fight at the beach. We spent our teens and 20s camping and boogie boarding at that beach (Leo Carrillo) and rinsing off in those same outdoor showers. — Justin

Track 8 of 10: Low Class Love Song

Low Class Love Song was started in October of 2017. It started out as a baseline I couldn't get outa my head (I'm not 100% sure but I feel like I might have stolen the chords from "runaround sue"). It ended up being a song about the feeling of dating above your class and knowing it's not gonna end well but pursuing it anyway because the pain of a broken heart is worth the experience of sharing some time with that person. Music really is cheaper than a therapist. — Tony

Track 9 of 10: Preachers in Private Jets

This song started as a jam session groove at a practice. Our old band wrote some songs that way, but The Polyorchids never really have. We loved playing it but didn’t know how to treat it because there was no chord progression, just this looping riff. Eventually we added a palm-muted version of the riff and I started yelling nonsense over that part sort of in the style of Fugazi’s Waiting Room. Around that time I saw a video of two televangelist preachers shooting this shit about why God is very pumped about them being super rich. More than half of the lines in this song are lifted almost directly from that YouTube clip. A week before recording, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and Joel Osteen locked up his megachurch doors, keeping out the affected. That last verse was finished right before recording. The chorus chords were written separately by Tony for a different song, but we were elated to find that they fit right into this one and added a nice melodic part that contrasted the verses and the riff. We took a long time to start playing it live, but Jake from Pisscat nudged us to play it every night of a tour we did together around Lake Tahoe. Pisscat pal Becky wrote it on a set list as Pee Pee Jay one time and I regret not calling it that. From there it felt complete. — Justin

Track 10 of 10: Readiness for Radio

After a life spent not caring either way about Bruce Springsteen, I found my way to his Nebraska album and loved it like many before me. I did the obligatory deep-dive into its origin story: DIY four-track demos that he’d recorded in his basement with plans of doing a proper full-band studio album, only to release the raw demos instead because they served the songs better. I liked the idea of writing something that referenced the themes of the album and its story without ever doing so explicitly. The result, I think, is one of those songs that lets the listener find their own meaning. It’s not an autobiographical song for me, and yet I identify with plenty of it personally. The main chords were adapted out of an old mewithoutyou song. I thought I’d spun them off to be totally unrecognizable, but my brother’s wife Veronica spotted it like four years after I wrote it! If you listen to that band, let me know if you can spot it. I recorded it live in the big drum room at Earth Tone, soaking it in open space and reverb. Pat left the loooong ringing sound of the final chord and then abruptly ended it when I slap the strings shut. I love those final seconds. — Justin

#the polyorchids #folk #punk #indie #earth tone #songwriting

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highwiredazeken · 3 years

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THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF AMERICAN TEETH

American Teeth is the sonic alter ego of Elijah Noll, who collaborates alongside producer Colin Brittain (All Time Low, A Day To Remember, ONE OK ROCK, Papa Roach) and this meeting of the minds has resulted in quite a journey into the realm of pop punk and beyond. Hailing from Portland, Maine but currently based in Los Angeles, American Teeth recently signed to Fearless Records and plan to release his debut album later this year. With singles such as Barred Out and One Of These Days already making a lasting impression on all types of music fans, American Teeth is slated to open the Aftershock Music Festival in Sacramento and has other live shows in the works as well. Highwire Daze recently interviewed Elijah Noll find out a whole lot more about the up and coming American Teeth and their absolutely exhilarating, imaginative songs! Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in American Teeth and how long you’ve been doing this project. I am the singer, writer, co-producer of American Teeth. I started the project – we’re coming up on two years in June actually. So, it’s a fairly new project that came out of a session that I had with my now frequent collaborator Colin Brittain – who’s a great producer. We had a session with Munky from KORN actually – that was kind of put together and we really ended up hitting it off the two of us and started writing songs for fun – and that’s kind of how it all started.

How did you wind up signing with Fearless Records? That was after a couple of different meetings – Colin and I together ended up going around meeting a couple of different record labels – Fearless was one of them. Colin actually knew Andy Serrao the President of the label – so we ended up popping in there after one of our meetings in the area out here in LA.

You’re originally from Portland, Maine. What was the music scene like in Portland, Maine and were you involved with any bands up there? The music scene was definitely small. I was more involved as a fan of the emo scene up in the area. I don’t know if you know the band Sparks The Rescue – I went to some of their shows. We had a few venues like The State Theater. The Cumberland County Civic Center was kind of like our arena-type venue. I specifically remember seeing My Chemical Romance and Green Day there, which were pretty pivotal moments for me at the time. I used to play mostly house parties in kid’s basements and stuff like that. I definitely didn’t explode on the Portland, Maine scene. I was more kind of a fan within the scene.

And now you’re all the way across the country in Los Angeles which has a legendary music scene. What did you think of the music scene out here prior to the pandemic? I think that it’s actually growing because of the ability to connect virtually and all of that. I feel like people are just more driven to connect whether it’s through Zoom or Facetime. You could just do a quick meetup to see if it’s worth working together. It’s different than when shows are happening, but I do a lot of stuff on the writing side of the music scene out here, so I’ve been able to really connect with a lot of people – not only in Los Angeles but all over via Zoom. I’ve personally found that my network has expanded pretty quickly throughout this strange time.

What has it been like to write and release new music for American Teeth in the middle of a pandemic and all this social unrest in the world? It’s definitely helped fuel my creativity and the creation process around that. As far as releasing, it’s been interesting because it’s really kind of this thing where you’re putting it out and you don’t get to go play it live like you usually would. Like you’re just putting it out there. I’m focusing more on getting the song out and really making sure that I’m creating visuals that match the story I’m trying to tell or the vibe that I want people to feel. And I’ve been getting into TikTok too which has been an interesting journey.

Let’s talk about your new song One Of These Days and what inspired the lyrics for you. That song is essentially about acceptance honestly. It’s about waking up and just feeling terrible right off the bat. A lot of times when I’m feeling down or I’m going through a bad day, I’ll try to deny that that’s happening, or try to convince myself “It’s fine. I’ll be fine…” and just push through. But I found recently with some trial and error that sometimes often when you just accept that you’re having a shitty day, and allow yourself to feel that, you can move past it quicker. It’s really kind of the meaning behind the whole thing – let go and accept that you’re having a shitty day – and by doing that, most of the time you’ll be able to move forward that way.

You have another song called Barred Out that you did with Twin XL – Cameron Walker who used to be in Weatherstar and The Ready Set. How did that collaboration come about, and tell me a little about that song? Yeah, that was a fun one! That one came out of a co-writing session that we had with Cameron. I brought him in with the intention of doing some stuff for American Teeth. And while we were writing, he was singing the pre-chorus part that he’s featured on. Colin and I heard him singing on it and he just killed that performance of it! I got up on the mic and sang the same thing, and it just didn’t feel the same. There was something about his take that felt really natural and perfect for it. And we told him if you want to be on this track, it would be a great way to cross our worlds. And he was down and that’s how it all kind of came together. It was pretty natural.

You also did something with the band Dreamers called Still Not Dead. Tell me how that came about. That was actually another situation where there was another co-writing situation with Nick from Dreamers and I and Colin. That day the intent was to do a Dreamers song, so I wasn’t intending on being on the song. But it was the day a little over a year ago that Kobe Bryant passed away – and Nick had just gotten back from a trip from his hometown in Seattle – unfortunately one of his childhood friends had committed suicide, so he was coming back from that funeral. It was really a dark day for everybody in general. I’ve had plenty of loss and death in my life, including my dad when I was like 12 – and a lot of family members over the years. So, we just kind of decided that we were going to write a song about how we were feeling in that moment. It was kind of like glaringly obvious that that’s what we needed to get out. So, we kind of each told our story about our experiences with death and loss – and wanted to put a bit of a spin on it that was hopeful in a way – like a celebration of life amongst all of the loss.

Your producer Colin Brittain – he’s worked with bands such as All Time Low, Papa Roach, 5 Seconds Of Summer – the list is crazy! What is it like working with him? It’s really fun – we have a good thing. He’s so incredible. His track record shows how talented he is. I think that when you bring both of our talents together, we have something that I feel is really unique – and we just have so much fun creating together.

Providing live shows actually start to happen, what are you looking forward to the most about your appearance at Aftershock later in the year? It looks like you’re playing the same day as My Chemical Romance… Yeah, it’s crazy man! It’s a dream honestly. I think about Aftershock frequently, and I can’t wait. Performing is my all-time favorite piece of music, and being an artist I just can’t wait to jump around on a festival stage. It’s going to be so amazing!

If you could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why? I would say that number one would be The 1975. I’m a really big fan of that band, and I think the band has really developed this awesome fan base that I would really love to perform for. My Chemical Romance is one of them, but I happen to be technically opening the stage for them, so that’s going to be Step 1. Step 2 would definitely be being a direct opener on a My Chemical Romance tour. That would be just completely insane. I’m a big fan of Gerard Way and his artistry and his creativity – and I just think that would be so cool!

If the music of American Teeth was a donut, what kind would it be and why? Oh, that’s a good question because I love donuts. This isn’t my favorite donut, but I think this represents us the best – a rainbow sprinkle chocolate donut. The sprinkles for me represent the many colors – the many dimensions of the sound that American Teeth has. And maybe it has a soft cream filling because the music a lot of times has a hard outer shell, but there’s a softness and warmth in the middle.

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for American Teeth? A lot more live shows – I want to manifest that now. More live opportunities and the ability to connect with real people in person – and to meet new people that way. An album is happening this year, and that’s exciting. And I’m also experimenting with some visual stuff with creating little, short films and things around the music – so definitely more of that as well.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

American Teeth on Facebook

#american teeth #elijahnoll

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southhighsucks · 7 years

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Secret Santa

Secret Santa Fandom: South Park Pairing: Kyman Word Count: just shy of 5k

Summary: The Park County High School Seniors are celebrating their Christmas with a good 'ol fashioned secret santa! With Wendy and Heidi in charge of the match ups, somehow, Eric Cartman really isn't surprised he's gotten Kyle Broflovski as his giftee. Implied long term pining, some really lame Christmas Romance Cliches, and some heart warming fluff by the fireside.

This was written for the Kyman Secret Santa 2k17 [ @kymanss2017 ] for user @kylebblog!! I know it’s not a very angsty confession, but I really tried to do something nice for ya! Merry Christmas!!

Continue reading below or on Archive of Our Own!

“Alright everyone, listen up!” Wendy’s voice echoed around the common area of Park County High School. She and Heidi stood at the middle of the tables, Wendy with a clipboard and Heidi with a large stack of envelopes. Most eyes were on them.

“Oh jeez.” Kenny McCormick looked over at the guys sitting at his table, gagging and rolling his eyes. Clyde snorted, punching him in the shoulder.

“Don’t be a dick, McCormick. This’ll be fun.” Kenny sighed again, giving a smile. Clyde was right. This would probably be a lot of fun.

“Okay,” Wendy started again, “As most of you know, today we’ll be passing out the letters for everyone's secret santa!” There was a small chorus of cheers, “The envelopes will have the name of the person, and also the paper they filled out earlier in the week, that way you know what they would like, what they’re interests are, all that.” Wendy turned to Heidi for a minute, grabbing one of the envelopes off the top of the stack. “I’ll be running around all day handing these out to you, alright? Everyone was matched up as anonymously as possible. If you did sign up to be a part of the exchange and don’t get one of these guys from me by the end of the day, please let me know! You can always text me or call me if you don’t get a chance to see me at the end of the day.” She smiled wide.

“Why aren’t you just handing them out now?” Eric didn’t bother looking up from the book he was reading while he asked the question.

“Because, you’re all a bunch of nosey assholes and if I hand these to you right now you’ll rip them open and everyone will be looking over your shoulders.” She answered back. Eric snorted. “Fair enough.” “As discussed earlier, we’ll be having the exchange at Clyde’s house the Saturday before Christmas. If you can’t make it, let either me or Heidi know and we’ll work something out. Is everyone in understanding?” There was a hum of affirmation through the crowd. Kenny looked to Clyde.

“Does that Sparkle with you, Donovan?” Clyde snorted, nodding.

“It fuckin’ sparkles, dude.”

Eric Cartman made his way through the hallway, backpack slung over his shoulder, his books under his arm. AP Government was probably one of his favourite classes. It was a relentless back and forth between himself, Wendy, and Kyle. It was the Debate Team Part II. A stupid little smile pulled its’ way across Eric’s lips as he leaned against the wall, early to class.

Just thinking about their bullshit made him grin.

“Eric!” Cartman looked up at the sound of his name, turning to see Wendy walking a little faster, holding up an envelope. He arched a brow, giving her a little wave.

“Didn’t think you’d be so eager to see me, Wends.” He held out his hand expectantly, the girl slapping the envelope into his grip.

“First of all, shut your face, second of all, I figured now would be the best time to get this to you. You’re always early for Government.” “That’s because I don’t Dilly-Dally after the lunch bell.” He pushed his thumb under paper flap of his envelope, sliding it across, the glue easily splitting apart and popping open. Eric pulled out the paper inside and unfolded it, his eyes scanning over it.

Wendy smiled.

“Think you can handle that?” Eric looked up from the paper, his eyes narrowed at her.

“I thought these were all picked anonymously? Random matchups?” “Oh they are. Luck just wasn’t on your side. Or maybe it was.” She shrugged, a knowing smile playing across her lips. Eric sneered some, feeling his face flush. He put the paper back in the envelope, sticking it into his backpack.

“You’re a real piece of work, Testaburger.” The girl stuck her tongue out.

“Don’t thank me, Heidi was in charge of the pair ups.” Eric groaned.

“Of course she was.”

…. He’d have to thank her later.

“Cartman, who’d you get?” Kenny leaned against the lockers as Eric shut his, grinning some. He held up his own envelope, shaking it. Eric flipped him off.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” “Did you get Tucker? Is that your subtle way of saying you got Tucker?” They both laughed and Eric shook his head, patting his bag.

“No, asshole, I didn’t. Aren’t these supposed to be secrets anyway?” Kenny rolled his eyes, shrugging some. “Nah, not really. It’s just a secret from whoever you got. Why, did you get me~?” Kenny winked, “but really, I think we can tell other people. Like, oh hey, I got so and so, this was their list, do you think they’d like this?? Ya know what I mean?” Eric nodded, pointing to the somewhat crumpled envelope in Kenny’s hands. “Well then, who’d you get?”

“I’m not saying if you won’t say!” Ken stuck out his tongue and Eric pulled on it, earning a yelp. He wiped his hand on his pants, nose wrinkled some.

“I got Kyle, of course. Somehow.” Kenny instantly burst into a fit of laughter, shaking his head. Eric got Kyle? By what grace of God? “Oh my God, that’s fuckin’ amazing. What are you even going to get him? A gag that says “Mute Button”?” They both snorted, Eric covering his mouth to keep himself from howling. Kenny McCormick was such a fuckin’ nut case. “No, asshole. I have a pretty great idea, actually.” Eric looked smug all of a sudden, crossing his arms, “I think it’ll be real nice, what I’ve got planned.” He nodded back to Kenny’s envelope, “And you got who?” Kenny held the envelope up, wiggling it some.

“I got Jimmy. I’m not all too sure what to get him though. Like I feel kinda bad I can’t really spend a lot on something, ya know?” He shrugged his shoulders, smiling, “It is what it is.” Eric waved him off. “Dude, no one's expecting anything big and grand. I wouldn’t worry. You could get Jimmy a whoopee cushion from the dollar store and he’d still love it.” Kenny snickered, smiling and nodding.

“Yeah, I’ll thinka something. His list was really simple actually, so it shouldn’t be too hard.” Kenny winked again, shifting his ratty old backpack to rest better against his shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later, Fatass!” Eric rolled his eyes.

“Fuck you too, Poor Boy.”

The month of December went by without much of a hitch. Most everyone had figured out who had who within the first week, but some still managed to keep the secret from their recipients. Between midterms and the early release days, the last week had flown by, and before long it was the day of the party. Clyde’s dad never really minded when he threw big parties, mostly because the football star was a surprisingly responsible boy and his friends typically helped clean up. That’s was the deal pretty much. If they stuck around to help clean, there could be another party.

No one argued that.

Wendy and Heidi came over early, along with Token to help decorate. Most the house had already been festively dressed, but the girls had a couple more things to put up, and with a little elbow grease and help from the boys, they’d have everything in tip top shape.

“Token, are you sure you don’t mind running up to the store?” Wendy was on a ladder, Clyde holding it steady as she hung garland around the trim of the living room.

“No, not at all! I’ll just grab some of the deli platters. No one actually plans on eating real food, right? And we said it was pot luck anyway, so I’m sure someone else will bring something.” Token picked up Wendy’s purse, rifling through it for a moment, “Is your rewards card still on your keyring?”

“Don’t worry about that hun, they just need my phone number.” Wendy scaled back down the ladder, grabbing a scrap of wrapping paper and scrawling her phone number on it, “Here, it’s easier than having to search through your contacts. Thanks again Token!”

He smiled at her, shaking his head.

“It’s never a problem. I’ll be back in a few.” He pulled on his heavy jacket, ducking out of the doorway. Heidi came out of the kitchen, already dressed for the party.

“Clyde? The lemon bars just beeped in the oven, should I put them in the fridge?” She asked, swaying some, feeling a bit like she wasn’t doing enough to really help out. Clyde waved a hand.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, they have to cool themselves before being refrigerated. They’ll crack otherwise.” He gave a big smile, sticking his hands in the pockets of his letterman. They were an interesting crew to say the least, but somehow, these were the people Clyde seemed to hang out with the most. They were their own happy-go-lucky crew of misfits in a way. It was weird, to think of the star quarterback as a misfit, or the student council president as one, or any of the four of them, really, but they felt the term suited them.

Clyde looked around at the group, smiling.

Tonight would be fun

The kids of Park County high school started showing up around six, all with thick coats, wrapped gifts, and big smiles. The gift table was right near the front door so the neighborhood kids could be as sneaky as possible with their gifts, most of them genuinely trying to hide their surprises in case their secret-santee was already in the room. Heidi stood at the table with a clipboard, making sure to check off each student as they came in and set their gift down, trying to keep track of everyone.

“Well hey there Heidi, you look awfully cute tonight!” Butters stood in the doorway with a big box in his arms, the gift wrapped in blue with little ducks all along it. Heidi laughed some, taking the package from Butters.

“Why thank you , Leo! You don’t look half bad yourself!” The party was supposed to be an ugly Christmas sweater party, too, but not everyone seemed to have gotten that memo. Most who showed up looked like they were wearing their christmas best, save a few ugly sweaters from Walmart here and there, and whatever the Hell Kenny McCormick was wearing.

“Gee Heidi, thanks a million!” He gave a real wide smile, waving at her again before disappearing into what crowds had gathered.

Heidi looked over the list, tapping the clipboard as she went down the line of names.

“Hey Heidi!” She looked up, eyes meeting Kyle’s as he shut the front door behind himself. He held a large green bag behind his back, eyes looking over the crowd to make sure he wouldn’t be caught by whoever the gift was for.

“Kyle! Awesome! I think you’re one of the last ones on my list!” She ticked off his name, taking the bag from him with care, setting it amongst the rest of the gifts, “Stan and Kenny are in the kitchen I think, and Eric just went out on the porch to see who’s around the bonfire so like, ya know. Find some friends, make yourself comfy.” She swayed some.

Kyle smiled back at her, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Alright, I’ll go see what everyone's up to. Thanks Heidi.” He nodded his head as a goodbye before heading out to the porch, standing in the open glass doors. Eric was leaning against the wooden railing of the deck, watching Token and Clyde toss a football back and forth.

“How’s the bonfire lookin’ ?” Kyle asked, coming up beside Eric, leaning against the rail as well. He looked over at the small stack of wood in the fire pit that barely looked like it was burning.

“Apparently they’re gunna wait until it gets a little darker. Stan was trying to tell ‘em it’d be better to start it now so it could build up and burn but everyone’s stubborn.” Eric looked over at Kyle and smiled some, “You were running a little late, what happened? The Jalopy wouldn’t start?” The Jalopy was the oh so endearing name Kyle’s shitty car had gotten from McCormick many moons ago. It’d just stuck.

Kyle shook his head, thumbing to the house.

“I had to pick up my gift.” Kyle sighed and Eric arched a brow, gesturing for the other to elaborate. He sighed again, “Okay, so I got Craig, right? And like, I didn’t know what to get Craig! What does that kid like? Aliens, Indie Movies, Guinea Pigs? So anyway, the book store in the mall sells records now, right? That’s super indie, and they had a record of the Moulin Rouge soundtrack and last I checked, Craig loves Moulin Rouge. I had to special order it ‘cause it was a website promo through some 3rd party from the UK thought I guess? And listen, it was only like twenty bucks, but I really thought it wasn’t gunna get here in time.” Eric laughed some, shaking his head.

“Was there actually a backup plan incase the thing didn’t get here?”

Kyle nodded, snickering.

“Yeah, I got him some little round guinea pig stuffed animal. I just threw it in the bag with the vinyl.” He shrugged, “So that’s why I’m late.”

Eric shook his head, taking a sip of the punch he had in his hand.

“You’re always so colourful with your excuses.”

“It’s not an excuse, asshole!” Kyle sneered and Eric only laughed harder, standing up straight, cracking his back.

“C’mon, do you want a drink?” Eric asked, starting to make his way back into the house. Kyle nodded and followed after, yawning some, “Kyle, you cannot already be tired. The party hasn't even started.” Kyle stuck out his tongue.

“Hey how about ya fuck off.”

“Alright, I’m just going to start handing out gifts, does that work for everyone?” Wendy was standing at the front of the gift table, a majority of their senior class around her, some sitting on the end tables and couches, most standing and bouncing like giddy children.

“THAT SPARKLES, WENDS!” Clyde hollered from the back, earning a whoop of agreement from everyone else in the room. Wendy rolled her eyes, picking up the first gift, checking the tag on it. It was a plain brown envelope with the name ‘Cartman’ on it. Wendy passed it onto Eric who caught it between his two fingers.

“How are we doing this, Testaburger? Are you handing them all out at once, are we watching one by one?” Eric asked, looking over the gift.

“We’ll just go one-by-one to see what everyone got, okay? So go ahead and open up!” She didn’t have to tell him twice. He tore the envelope open, pulling out a card. It was simple, looked like something from the dollar store, with a little cartoon moose on it, decked out like a wannabe reindeer. Eric grinned, opening the card, a handful of gift cards sliding out. He caught them before they could fall, looking over them, his eyes slowly narrowing.

There was one for five bucks to KFC, another for McDonalds, and a last one for ten bucks to Denny’s. He didn’t mean to look disdainful, but somewhere in his chest it felt like someone was making a joke.

“Uh…” His nose wrinkled up but he played it off, trying to read the inside of the card and keep his anger in line.

His eyes blinked.

“Stan?” Eric looked over at the boy who perked up some, smiling.

“Yeah dude?”

“Why the Hell did you sign this card? It’s supposed to be annonymous, you shit head.”Eric held the card up for all to see. It was signed, plain as day, “Merry Christmas dude! -Stan” and the entire room lit up with laughter.

“MARSH YOU DON’T SIGN YOUR SHIT OH MY GOD.” Clyde doubled over, spilling some of his soda as he laughed.

Stan’s face turned beet red.

“Oh shit. Sorry, I kinda thought we’d end up telling everyone who got who what at the end so like, it wouldn’t matter?” He scratched the back of his head and gave a charming little smile and a shrug. Wendy rolled her eyes, playfully crossing her arms. “Okay, did anyone /else/ sign their gifts that I need to address before hand? Like, if ya’ll wanna tell your people who you got what, go right on ahead I guess.” She was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She couldn’t believe he signed the God damned card. Stan grinned.

“Okay, so I dropped the ball. But ah, Merry Christmas, Cartman. Didn’t really know what to get ya’ but I figured you can’t go wrong with money and food, so combining them has to be good enough.” Stan’s sheepish face more than made up for the gift. Had it been someone like Tucker, Eric probably would’ve thought he was being made fun of, but Stan? Nah, the guy didn’t mean anything by it. Knowing it was him made Eric feel a lot better. He grinned back.

“Thanks man. Merry Christmas.”

“Alright, alright, how about this next one?” Wendy picked up a rectangular gift, wrapped perfectly in silver, a thick black ribbon woven around it and tied like how they showed presents in the movies. Wendy looked it over.

“Kyle, this one’s yours hun.” She handed it off to him. Kyle took ahold of the gift with a big grin, fiddling with the ribbon some.

“It’s so pretty though? Like, I’d feel bad ripping into it.”

“Just hurry up already.” Eric rolled his eyes, tapping his wrist watch impatiently. Kyle flipped him off, pulling the ribbon loose.

“Shut the fuck up, assface.”

“Assface, that’s a cute one.” Eric muttered to himself, watching intently as Kyle held the gift. Just rip it open. C’mon. Hurry up!!

Kyle’s fingers delicately pressed under the taped edges of the wrapping paper, peeling it back as best as he could, some of the paper ripping as he went. He stuck his tongue out, methodically opening the package.

“Dude, seriously? All this papers gunna end up in the trash, just rip into it.” Token took a sip of his drink, shaking his head. Kyle paid him no mind, pulling out a black box, opening the lid.

“What the Hell?” Kyle’s brows furrowed. He pulled out a dark green button down, fingers running over the soft fabric. Beneath the shirt was a darkened pair of jeans, a plain black belt, and a pair of black cap-toe Oxfords. Kyle pulled each item out, inspecting it with knitted brows. Everything looked to be in the right size. At the bottom of the box was an envelope with his name written across it in a stunningly dramatic cursive.

Honestly, he was kind of scared to open it.

He opened the envelope with a lot less care than he’d used on the box, pulling out a card, opening it up. It was plain and simple, a small gift certificate the only thing in it. The certificate had the insignia of a fondue restaurant in Denver and read ‘Dinner for two. Enjoy date night on us! Experience the full four-courses of flavour at any participating location. Non-transferable. No cash value.’.

Kyle swallowed some, looking at the actual words in the card, face brightening up. There wasn’t anything substantial, just a date and a time.

“... Dude. That’s real gay.” Stan snickered some, elbowing his friend, shaking his head, “You got a date for Christmas. That’s some Hallmark level bullshit.”

Kyle looked around the room, trying to gage peoples reactions, trying to figure out who would’ve possibly gotten him something like this. The gift was well beyond the set cap of fifty dollars for the secret santa, everyone in the room knew that. All of his classmates looked either shocked or amused, and no one was piping up to say they’d be the one taking Kyle on the date.

Wendy looked around the room, too, her eyes stopping on Eric for a moment before continuing along the group.

“Well, is anyone going to own up to the gift? Or is it just going to have to be a mystery until date night?” She asked, smiling to herself. Still, no one spoke, so she shrugged, reaching into the packages on the table once more, grabbing the blue one with ducks on it, “Well, alright then, Kenny, this one’s for you.”

Kyle stopped paying attention right then and there. He kept staring at people, trying to read them, trying to figure out who would’ve gone so far out of the way and put so much out of pocket for him. Who would even want to date him? He tried to listen in as everyone else opened their gifts, trying to keep a tally of who outed themselves as Santas. By the end of the gift-giving, he had a handful of people he knew it couldn’t be: Stan, Clyde, Kenny, Bebe, and Butters. Those were the only people who’d owned up to their gifts, at least, the only ones he’d heard.

“So,” Kenny bumped against Kyle, startling him, a squeakish ‘yelp’ tumbling out of his throat as he held the button down close to his chest. Kenny arched a brow and chuckled, “So, who do you think it is?” He held a can of soda out to Kyle. Kyle took it without question, popping it open and chugging it before shrugging.

“I have no idea. I can’t even begin to think of who would waste that much money on me. The dinner alone has to be close to a hundred bucks. Hell, those shoes!! When I worked at Macy’s those kind of shoes were stupid expensive...” Kyle ranted, fingers tapping a rhythm on the soda can.

“So you’ve got no guesses at all? Any hopes at least~?” Kenny winked at the other, laughing at the deadpan expression he was given.

“Listen, if I had to guess? Maybe David? He and I always joked about being your stereotypical, modern gay couple. I don’t think he’d go this far for a gag though.” Kyle sighed, running a hand through his hair, “I don’t know man. I guess I could go around and ask everyone who they were Santa for? See where the stories don’t match up? But that’s so obsessive…” “Kyle. Your best bet is to just not worry about it.” Kenny ruffled his hair, “I’m gunna go out to the bonfire and help start it up. You gunna sulk around here?” Kyle nodded, giving a little smile. “I’m just gunna hang around the food for a bit, alright? I’ll meet you guys out there soon.” Kenny shrugged, giving a two fingered salute, ducking out onto the porch. Kyle sighed, making his way to the kitchen. Heidi was the only one in the room, casually munching on the fruit salad Bebe had brought.

Her eyes lit up when she saw Kyle.

“Hey you!! So?? Did you like your gift?” Her lips were pulled in a wide smile. He walked over to her with eyebrows raised.

“You seem awfully excited about it. Don’t tell me you and I are going on a date.” She laughed, winking at him.

“Maybe we are!!” -- “C’mon Kyle, let's go try to be social.” Heidi pulled the boy by his hand, leading the way out to the porch, where most of the party goers had retreated to. She quickly made her way across the deck, going down the stairs two at a time, making her way over to the fire that was starting to grow. Kyle staggered behind, staying on the deck, Eric once again leaning against the banister, watching the party.

“.... Hey.” Kyle came up beside him again, smiling some, “Why are you all the way up here? It’s probably warmer by the fire.” Eric shrugged his shoulders, sipping on whatever drink he’d picked up now.

“Eh. I’m observing. Why don’t you go down there, huh? You look like you need to warm up more than I do, you’re shaking. You should’ve worn more layers, you fuckin’ skinny-mini.” They both laughed, Kyle wrapping his arms around himself.

“Listen, asshole, no one told me it’d be an inside-outside party. I figured if I dressed too warm I’d regret it.” Eric rolled his eyes, shrugging out of his leather jacket, offering it up to the other. Kyle’s eyebrows knit together and he opened his mouth to argue, but something stopped him. The way Eric held the jacket out to him, a sigh in his chest, eyes averted, face slowly starting to turn red. Kyle shut himself up, taking ahold of the jacket, sliding into it.

“You’re fuckin’ swimmin’ in that thing.” Eric snorted, looking over Kyle. The other boy laughed back, burrowing himself into the leather.

“... This is really lame, dude.”

“Shuttup, Kyle.” Eric pushed the other boys shoulder some, smiling at him, one of those warm grins from the heart. Kyle stuck his tongue out. They stayed there for a few minutes, quiet, watching their classmates run around in the grass and play by the bonfire.

“Who’d you get?” He suddenly blurted out in their silence, catching Eric off guard.

“What?” “For the Secret Santa. I got Craig. Who’d you get?” Eric laughed some, shaking his head.

“No way dude. You’re just trying to narrow your options. I’m not gunna make this any easier on you.” He winked at him and Kyle stayed quiet for a moment.

“... You didn’t have to spend that much money. We could go mini golfing and I’d be happy.” The statement caught Eric off guard.

“Excuse me?” He spluttered some, laughing and coughing. Kyle looked to the side, eyes meeting Eric’s.

“I don’t know where your money comes from, and I know you won’t tell me, but you’re the only one who’s going to drop that amount on something like this. This has Eric Theodore Cartman written all over it. I’d be surprised if anyone but you showed up for this date.” Kyle bumped against the other, trying to smile at him.

Eric rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Kyle. Wishful thinking won’t get you very far.” they were both smiling now.

“... Heidi told me.”

“Well fuck.” Eric’s smile dropped and Kyle snorted, resting his chin in his hands.

“You didn’t have to be so extravagant. You coulda just asked.”

“No, no, I know…” Eric sighed, trying to smooth his hair out, “I guess I just wanted it to be a surprise? I figured you’d think I was just showing up as a gag since we all saw that date and time, ya know? I guess I’m just getting tired of this game.” He let out another breath, swallowing, chewing on what to say next, “We’ve been playing this game our whole lives it feels like, and I’m done with it. I’m not sure if you are or not, but I’m tired. I want to be happy, man.”

Kyle’s throat went dry and he let out a nervous laugh, anxiety vibrating in his fingertips.

“What, our arguments not doin’ it for ya anymore?” Somewhere, a part of him knew that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, but it’s what came out of Kyle’s mouth. Eric rolled his eyes, leaning into Kyle some.

“You know what I mean.” Kyle could feel his breathing hitch. He turned away from Eric, laughing again, his nerves getting the best of him. Most all of him wanted to lean against Eric and be an adult and have this conversation, but there was still something settling in his stomach and fluttering in his chest that made him pull away from the other.

“So we’re going on a date then? I guess now that I know it’s you we can just carpool, right?”

“Kyle. Breath for four seconds, your voice is getting so high I’m starting to think someone kicked you in the balls.” Kyle straightened up, coughing as a means to clear his throat, his face flushed. He never knew what to do in these kinds of situations. Somehow, he always found himself in them with Eric. The other boy would openly imply his feelings and make fun at Kyle’s expense, but Kyle couldn’t ever reciprocate. Even when they were laying together at sleepovers, the second Eric leaned into him to try and see if they could get away with cuddling up, Kyle would be a giggling disaster, trying to squirm away.

Eric knew him well enough to know he wasn’t reading him wrong. He knew Kyle had feelings for him. He knew they could be something. Kyle just either hadn’t come to terms with it yet or was letting his anxiety get the best of him.

“Eric?” The boy looked over to Kyle, watching as he chewed on his cheek, scratching at the heat burning on his face, “... Thank you. I uhm… I’m lookin’ forward to it. Ya know?” Eric snickered some, clapping the jewish boy on the back.

“You’re a piece of work. C’mon. Let’s get some champagne and see if we can’t accidently catch ourselves under a mistletoe or something.” Kyle spluttered out a laugh, letting Eric lead him down into the grass to mingle with their friends. He braced onto the jacket and breathed in the warmth and the smell of Eric’s pomegranate cologne.

He shut his eyes, standing beside Eric in front of the fire, not putting up any sort of a fight as he felt the others fingers testingly wrap around his own.

The holiday season had been great, but more than anything, Kyle was looking forward to what the New Year would be bringing.

#South Park #Kyman #kyle broflovski #Eric Cartman #KymanSS2k17 #Secret Santa #My Stuff #South Park Fanfiction #fanfictions

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notmuchmedia-blog · 6 years

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MAY 2018 PLAYLIST

LISTEN HERE

This months playlist is compiled of all of my recent go to songs with a plethora of different moods, atmospheres and decades.

First we start with the upbeat groovy songs, kicking it all off with Early Eyes’ ‘Take You’, a beach-rock tune accompanied by harsh kicking vocals alongside wavvy guitar riffs and lovely rolling drums.

Then we go into my new favourite recent releases, The Skinner Brothers’ ‘Watchu’, TOUCAN’s ‘We Fell For Miles’ and Short Weekends’ ‘Green Summer’. All of these songs were carefully selected for those upcoming sunny days with Fosters, mates and BBQ’s.

Watchu is a song that heavily seems to be inspired by The Streets with their talking verses and then followed by a Liam Gallagher-esque chorus riddled with odd little noises through the instrumental. This song could very easily become the English summer song of the year.

Then we have ‘We Fell For Miles’ by TOUCAN, a band compiled of singer-songwriter Conor Clancy and Martin Atkinson accompanied by a brass band from all over Ireland. Below is an interview I was lucky enough to have with Conor.

Are there any specific idols that really inspired the specific groovy sound you’re putting out? I think in terms of the songwriting anyway, I took influence from songwriters like Hozier, Ben Howard and Breakbot. That, mixed with a tendency towards 70's and 80's music like The Emotions, KC & The Sunshine Band, Curtis Mayfield, all that sort of brass heavy, feel good stuff is what drove the sound, but I don't think there's any specific idol that really inspired it. What drove you to choose We Fell For Miles to be the first song released for this EP? Well, partly because it's very representative of our sound as a whole. It's got a little spotlight on each part of the band and it all fits together and each element compliments the others. But I also always wanted the the brass hook at the start before the band comes in to be the first thing people ever hear from TOUCAN. Can we expect the same up-beat jazzy sound for the rest of the EP, or are there surprises that shake up the feel a bit?

For the most part yeah! There's a lot more where that came from for sure, but there's one track on the EP that's a little darker, a little slower, but still pretty groovy.

If you could put your EP into three words, what would they be? Happy go lucky! I’ve never really heard a sound like this come out of Ireland! Were there any local influences? Nope! Not that I can think of anyway. I do really pay careful attention to lyricism, and I think I can attribute that partly to folk songwriting, but the sound of the band is very much influenced by music from outside of Ireland. What drove you to begin this project in the first place? We played a couple of gigs when we were in college, just because it was fun. The songs and the sound were good so we ran with it and now we're here!

And finally, can we expect anything else from you in the future after this EP? (I’m really hoping so!) Definitely. We'll see if we can get picked up by a label once the EP is out, we're hoping to do some big gigs at home and in the UK over the next year or so. And we'll be recording an album in that sort of timeframe too!

‘Green Summer’ is a staple indie-pop song by Short Weekends. Sounding quite different to their earlier songs, this tune is intricate, bouncy and a definite crowd pleaser. I’d 100% recommend it to anyone who likes bands such as Tame Impala and Vega Bay. One thing I always love to credit this band on is how much effort they have all put in to creating each and every song. Also synth, man! Bloody synth.

Then three songs that are great for car trips, but all with a very different feeling. HAIM’s ‘Don’t Save Me’, HONNE’s ‘Someone That Loves You’ and Amy Winehouse’s ‘Hey Little Rich Girl.’

These next two golden oldies will definitely bring out the inner dance-star in you - Four Top’s ‘Can’t Help Myself’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere.’

Then my five favourite modern love songs, Cosmo Pyke’s ‘Social Sites’, Frank Ocean’s ‘Ivy’ and Rex Orange County’s ‘Happiness’ - all of which are sure to give you those butterflies that remind you of the bright sun rays in the glistening eyes of your loved one.

Following on from that, we have Jake Bugg’s ‘How Soon The Dawn’ a slow paced song that brings you into a Sunday morning hazy daze, with the sun peeking in through the window, reflecting off the dust in the air.

Finishing up on the love, we have Big Scary’s ‘The Opposite of Us’, a song that just makes me feel completely in love. The gorgeous instrumental is warm and inviting, allowing for passive listening, but once you REALLY listen, it grabs you. That feeling of being hopeful in life because of those, or someone, you love.

To wrap up the whole playlist, I CANNOT stray away from this ultimate feel good song, Lauryn Hill’s ‘Doo Wop (That Thing)’, a song throwing shade at just how dark both men and women can be, and how you need to look out for yourself.

Listen on SPOTIFY

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dcnativegal · 7 years

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“Mutual respect, even in passionate disagreement”

The Ides of March, 2018

I am reminded of the fact that Lake County Oregon went for Trump by a bigger percentage than any other county in Oregon, whenever I go to the Paisley Mercantile Store. (See photos, above.)

The other day, one of the members of this little town came over and visited with Valerie and me. He’s a gun-packing retired fellow who has a new implant in his head that helps him hear better. He wanted to know if I’d knit him a cap to cover his mostly bald head, and hide the implant, which does have a slightly bionic/Frankenstein look about it. I said, of course. And then in the course of chatting, he called me a ‘Libtard.’ That’s liberal + retard. I looked at him with my most skeptical high eyebrows expression. He backpedaled a bit, said he meant ‘libertarian’ which, ahem, I am most certainly not. Right-o, let me get working on that hat.

I resisted the temptation to call him a Repugnican (a repugnant Republican, the most extreme kind.) It’s just so much harder to say.

Within a few days, I came to a community meeting I knew he’d be at and tossed the hat to him. Before I left I told him, no charge for the hat but in exchange, you have to tell anyone who asks you where you got that hat, that a ‘local libtard’ made it for you. And everyone laughed, except him. He grinned nervously.

So a crocheted cap can be a bridge between a conservative and a libtard. Good to know.

***

It’s hard for me to feel contempt for a person who is no longer ‘theoretical’ but is instead standing or sitting right across from me.

I am, in my socialist progressivism, now spending hours each week in the presence of cisgendered heterosexual white men who have recent histories of domestic violence, felonies for assault, and sex offenses for which they are registered. Oh, and they all love Trump. I have always thought that God had a well-honed sense of humor. Ha. Let’s send Jane to Trumpistan, Whitelandia and test all that talk of compassion and empathy. I’m not the Biblical Job by any means, but some days it feels like the devil and God hatched up the most exquisite challenges to my previously-confident world view.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “Closer than they appear.” The host had on Van Jones, who I know as a broadcast commentator (and a very fine-looking Black man). I was riveted by what he said, and had to listen to him several times to transcribe this wisdom:

“We have 10,000 years of human history in which it was perfectly okay to chop people into small bits just because they were part of a tribe on the other side of the hill. … The idea that your tribe of people is now EVERYBODY?? EVERY Human? That idea is NEW ON THIS EARTH. THAT is the challenge.” [emphasis mine]

I think the idea that my “tribe of people is EVERYBODY” is a very old one. Jesus extended beyond his own tribe (the Jews), to everybody including the colonized collaborators and the unclean (the Samaritan woman who’d been married many times, Jewish tax collectors who worked for the Roman colonizers.) We are even to LOVE our enemies.

The Gospel of Mathew wrote some version of this: “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you… God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

I love this hymn:

In Christ there is no East or West, in him no South or North, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

Join hands, disciples of the faith, whate'er your race may be! Who serves my Father as his child is surely kin to me. https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/529

The idea of being one species on the planet, interconnected to each other and all other species, has to be reintroduced over and over again. I think we are hardwired to distrust that tribe over the next hill: surely, they are doing something nefarious…

When I was growing up, the most dramatic example of loving my enemies came when my mother told me to pray for whichever kid it was who stole my bicycle. It was an interesting challenge. Did I need to feel sorry for him, that he would need to steal my bike? Was he poor? Or was he just mean? Perhaps his family had as much money or more than mine did, since we were, apartment dwellers, renters, and didn’t even have a car. Maybe the theft was just a spiteful thing. “That bike is MINE, even though I don’t really need it.” I didn’t know. But I was to think of him as a child of God, a brother in Christ, and hope for his wellbeing, and hoped that, whatever reason lead to my bike being gone, would be resolved. My mother was nuts, but she a pretty good Christian.

I learned from a Christmas letter about a non-profit called “Better Angels” that got its name from Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural speech on the eve of the Civil War: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory…will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Better Angels was started by a guy who was against gay marriage until a gay man came out to him and explained why it was important to him personally. David Blankenhorn changed his position on marriage equality and eventually founded Better Angels. Using principles from family therapy, his team trains people to facilitate conversations between equal numbers of conservatives and liberals. They give advice on how to start conversations with people who have different beliefs on their web site:

“Talking Across the Political Divide

Goals for these Conversations:

· Learn about the perspectives, feelings, and experiences of someone you care about who differs from you politically.

· Discover some common ground if it’s there.

Expectations to Abandon

· That you can persuade the other person to change core attitudes and beliefs.

· That your conversation partner will match your openness.

Core Principles

· Everyone needs to save face—no one is portrayed as stupid, blind, narrowly self-serving, or bigoted. “ [emphasis mine.]

And “Listen for underlying values and aspirations and acknowledge them.”

I am presuming here that name-calling is out.

I checked out Van Jones’ book, published in October 2017, called Beyond the Messy Truth: How we came apart, How we come together:

“More of us need to prioritize individual healing to get past our old hurts, wounds, and violations…We need to develop the emotional strength and resilience to reengage intelligently and constructively with the half of America that sees things very differently than we do. It takes a lot of inner work, community support, and maybe a few Jedi mind tricks to deliberately and skillfully place ourselves in conversation with people whose ideas, assumptions, and attitudes often wound us…”

I confess I was a little bit wounded by the ‘libtard’ moniker. I was also wounded months ago by my fellow Christian’s statement, patronizing though sincerely delivered, that he could love me as a sister in Christ while disapproving of my ‘lifestyle.’ (We were sitting in the “community church” in Paisley.)

Mr. Jones points out:

“…the truth is always messy. Some right-wingers are especially extreme in their opposition to social-welfare programs because they think ‘lazy, undeserving’ nonwhites are mooching off the system. At the same time, some liberals are willing to pay higher taxes to help poor people in the abstract, but they would fight to keep lower income people from moving in next door (as some wealthy liberals in California’s Marin County are working to block affordable housing in their enclave) … We need to continually remind ourselves that honest, intelligent people can disagree with us for reasons that are honorable.”

That is for sure. Obama deported thousands of people and killed non-Americans with drones. Bill Clinton eviscerated welfare and passed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I am reminded of a saying: Southern whites don’t like Black People, but they like the individual Black folks they know. Northern whites love Black People, but not the individual Black folks they know.

“If we seriously want to solve any of the mountain of problems we face – or even just be better partisans—we need some spaces where we listen to one another and show up humble enough to accept the fact that we might have something to learn. We need to have conversations that proceed according to a different set of operating instructions. The unspoken imperative should be this: I want to understand you. And I want you to understand me—whether or not we ever agree.” [Emphasis is Jones’]

I once went through a weeklong training in mind-body techniques with the founder of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, a fellow named James Gordon, a rather refreshingly wacky psychiatrist. In a comment piece in The Guardian, he said this shortly after Trump’s election:

“Trump’s grand and vulgar self-absorption is inviting all of us to examine our own selfishness. His ignorance calls us to attend to our own blind spots. The fears that he stokes and the isolation he promotes goad us to be braver, more generous.”

In a Huffington Post piece, there’s this from a Buddhist monk named Phap Dung: “We have the wrong perception that we are separate from the other,” he said. “In a way Trump is a product of a certain way of being in this world so it is very easy to have him as a scapegoat. But if we look closely, we have elements of Trump in us and it is helpful to have time to reflect on that.”

Yeah, okay, I need to be braver and more generous, and attend to my blind spots. What were those Jedi mind-tricks Mr. Jones mentioned? Harrumph.

Valerie and I are currently reading the Hillbilly Elegy to each other. I know that the author is conservative and I’m trying to listen and read J.D. Vance’s memoir without letting that knowledge discredit the experiences he shares in the book. I see that in Lake County, and all over the US, there are class tensions as well as political ones, and this memoir makes them visible for me. I have one more quote from Van Jones that pushes me to think of my own biases:

“Mutual respect, even in passionate disagreement, must be the goal. Too many liberals look at the red states the same way that colonizers once viewed developing countries. All they see is a bunch of backward, unwashed, uneducated heathens who need to be converted to the NPR religion and force-fed kale until they see the light. This kind of disdain reveals itself in thousands of different ways. But you can’t lead people you don’t love. You can’t rally people you don’t respect. Throughout history, people have resisted being conquered or converted by contemptuous outsiders. If we continue to show up with that attitude, our every word and gesture just fertilizes the soil for white nationalists and others who traffic in the politics of resentment. Without knowing it, we give ammo to the very forces decent-minded people want to defeat.”

Many of my clients are seriously unwashed, and uneducated with barely a GED between them, but all of them have accepted me as an out lesbian from a big city on the east coast. I think my clients know that I am not in the least contemptuous. Puzzled as to why they don’t believe in evolution or global warming, yes. But, contemptuous? No.

One of my clients is a Veteran, and I case managed his way into finally getting cleared for an operation he’s needed for some time. He’s older than 70, but other than the one issue, he is healthy as a horse. Except for along history of multi-substance abuse, he’s also a law-abiding citizen who supports himself by his own physical labor. He refuses to apply for Social Security. In order to get to Bend where he’ll have his procedure, he needs a ride, because he can’t drive himself home. And he utterly, flat out refuses to use the transportation that is subsidized by taxpayers to get him there for free. Will. Not. Consider. It. I gently asked him why? He stated without hesitation, that accepting a free ride is a form of stealing from taxpayers, and he just isn’t going to do it on principle. He is socially isolated but eventually he bartered with an acquaintance and has a ride both ways. I think that eventually he’s going to become disabled, because despite his physical strength, his body is going to give out. Perhaps his mind, too. I wonder what he’ll do then. Even libertarians can’t be an island forever. I am happy to serve as a ferry to the mainland if he’ll let me, when the time comes.

I didn’t ask him what he thinks of ‘corporate welfare’:

[graphic from Robert Reich’s documentary, Saving Capitalism, funded by Netflix]

Remember Senator Obama’s speech to the Democratic Party Convention in 2004? His oration put him on the political map. It certainly appealed to the great big-heartedness of the liberal tradition:

“... Alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people. … "E pluribus unum," out of many, one. ...

There's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.

There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

… We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

The audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead.”

The least we can do in Trumpistan, Whitelandia is defy the Russians, who have apparently fanned the flames of American tribalism for years.

Van Jones writes: “The easy thing to do is to divide people based on a problem. A hard thing is to unite people based on a solution.”

My prayer can be, "May I be a boat, a bridge, a passage."

(From A Bodhisattva's Prayer by Shantideva)

One day at a time, one person at a time, one crocheted hat for a cranky old man at a time.

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feelssogoodinmyarms · 7 years

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Ali Stroker

Ok so storytime. I go to arts high school and Ali Stroker came to our school last year. Krysta Rodriguez is a graduate of my arts school (Orange County School of the Arts, in case you were wondering) so that's how Ms. Stroker got the gig. Ali Stroker came to our school to do a show the musical theatre conservatory has each year called "Performing With the Pros". Someone who's famous(ish) who graduated comes back to do a variety show that kids in the conservatory can audition for. The show is directed by the "pro" and the show also centers around them.

So one day during tap class (that's my gym, i'm very lucky) everyone goes to one of the theaters on campus for Ali to give an assembly. At the time, I was very into spring awakening, just not deaf west's spring awakening. I had gotten started with obc and there wasn't even a cast recording for dwsa so I didn't see the point. Also I was far too obsessed with Jon Groff and Lea Michele to consider another version of SA. I've actually only seen the bootlegs of dwsa's touch me and woyb reprise I'm watching it this weekend I swear. So I walked in with a pretty closed mind. I was only excited because she had something to do with spring awakening, the show I couldn't get enough of and still can't tbh.

So Ali rolls out on stage and starts singing, and oh my god you guys she is the most talented, sweetest, down-to-earth person. And my god she's beautiful. She answered questions and told us why she was in the chair and how she got to Broadway. She even talked about sexuality and how to start that conversation with our parents. I'll never forget how she talked abou Glee. She was so happy to see another person in a wheelchair on tv. When she found out that the actor playing Artie wasn't actually in a wheelchiar she was heartbroken. And she brought up a great point, I'll never forget it. She said to her, Artie not actually being in a wheelchair is just like dressing in blackface. I'm still not sure if I agree with her, but it was a great point.

Now even though musical theatre is the reason I go to arts school, I'm not in the musical theatre conservatory. I applied to several and was accepted by Integrated Arts. It's a great conservatory, don't get me wrong. In Integrated Arts we do everything that my school offers (art, theatre, dance, photography, ect.). This show Ali was doing was only offered to kids in the musical theatre conservatory so I couldn't audition. I was heartbroken, but my best friend got to audition. She told me all about how great Ali was and how fun the show was they were doing. I came and saw the show, and I was astounded. It was so so good. The senior girls did a little bit of my junk (Ali was Anna of course) and it was just like the dwsa production, they had the picnic blanket and everything. They did the scene before but they didn't start signing until they sang. I fangirled so hard oh my god it was so good!! But the beat by far was at the end of the show, when everyone came on and they did purple summer. They signed and the last chorus was done accapella. Then they just signed. I got chills you guys, chills.

So why did I tell you this? Well I never got to meet Ali and I'm so salty about it. And if I did, I would ask her to confirm that Anna's a lesbian and in love with Martha and that they're chicken farmers in the country aghgg!!!

Anyway Ali Stroker is an amazing person. I'm so glad I got to have this experiance. Please hmu if you wanna hear more stories she told us, there were some great ones that I'm not gonna type out rn because it's so late and I'm so sick. Thanks for reading. I love Ali Stroker. K good night❤️

Keep in mind I didn't proofread this and probs have a fever and may regret this in the morning

#ali stroker #anna wheelan #still salty i never met her #like none of those kids in the show #even knew dwsa #my friend who was in it #still hasnt watched #a fucking dwsa bootleg #jfc #i never shut up about it #and im like agh ur so lucky!!#she'll never learn #dwsa #spring awakening #i dont queue sadness

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hillbillyhippiemusicreview · 5 years

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POST #19 - Tyler Childers - Builds His Country Squire One Song at a Time

How do you follow up the break out record, Purgatory?

You release what visual artist, Jimbo Valentine (more on him in a minute) called “Dark Side of the Holler”.

Tyler Childers released his sophomore album, Country Squire on August 2nd. A collection of 9 songs that seamlessly transition from one to the next with the help of Miles Miller (Sturgill Simpson) on drums, Stuart Duncan (various artists) on banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, and Russ Pahl (various artists) on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, pedal steel, jaw harp, and baritone. With Childers raw writing talent and distinctive voice, the album takes the basis of Purgatory to another level. Childers returns with producers Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson.

The album opens with the title track, “Country Squire”. Childers has honed this tune over the past few tours and it is pure country gold. The verses go back and forth between Childers’ plans for his wife and their future home and the road dog life he knows so well. The chorus hits hard, “Spendin’ my nights in a bar room Lord, turnin’ them songs into two by fours”. The song harkens back to Merle Haggard’s, “Working Mans Blues” and the nights drowning beers in a tavern and working to buy his kids shoes. Where Haggard sings the blues, Childers’ song envisions his future kids playing around the family cabin. Coming full circle, the song starts with a road-dogging lifestyle to buy things for his wife and by the end he’s road dogging in the Country Squire he built for his wife

The second track is another story of a long gone time, this one about riding a school bus up and down a holler. Gone are the days of a bus driver being able to “blister punk kids alive” with a “paddle that he carved from pine”. Many readers may never have had that experience, but I can guarantee you this was everyday life in the not so distant past. Listeners will notice a slower paced version than has been featured on YouTube. The slower tempo and yearning fiddle highlight Childers pining for the “prettiest little girl the same age as me”. The jaw harp is also a nice addition to the track. One thing is for sure, Ray Dixon is not a man to be messed with.

“Bus Route” flows seamlessly into “Creeker”. Last school year my wife decorated her classroom door with words her Senior Home Room students use to describe themselves. Among the normal adjectives sits the word, creekers. While my wife was raised on Turkey Creek, these guys were actually referring to the next creek over, Stinking Creek. They lovingly describe themselves as “Creekers”. I can’t help but think there are a handful of former students out there who are proud as peacocks of having a song about them. “Creeker” features some of my favorite lyrics on Country Squire. I also feel that Creeker is the best representation of Childers’ voice on the record. The live version absolutely slays.

I like to think Gemini is a companion piece to the title track. While “Country Squire” describes life on the road as a means to an end, Gemini describes the author’s love of the road as what his significant other loved about him in the first place. I had to look up the traits of a Gemini as I am not what you call an expert in astrology. I would try to quote some definitions and articles but there is definitely not enough space in this review to include the intricacies. It’s safe to say that the actions written about in this song are a pretty accurate view. When I woke up early on Friday, August 2nd to begin listening to the album I remember posting the lyrics, “Now I’m lit up like a Christmas tree, Check one-two can ya’ll hear me”. As they accurately describe the jubilation I felt when I heard this song for the first time.

I’m glad I decided to review this album after hearing “House Fire” in the early stages of its inception, then polished on Jimmy Fallon, and ultimately a jam session at “Kickin’ It On The Creek”. Childers has his whole Bob Dylan going electric at Newport Folk Festival moment when he broke out a shiny new Telecaster for the tune on The Tonight Show. You can definitely tell the band has been tinkering with the jam since the album was released as there is now an extended jam highlighting Childers electric guitar playing before launching into “House Fire”. What the song lacks in storytelling, it makes up for in musicianship. It seems that every instrument is highlighted, but most notably is the addition of the Hammond B3 organ.

“House Fire” bleeds into the most honky tonk song about masturbation you will ever hear. “Ever Lovin’ Hand” is another song that has been tested out on the road the past few months. Although it seems out of place on a record filled with love letters to Appalachian life. “Ever Lovin’ Hand” is a love letter to Childers’ wife and reaffirms his dedication to her while on the road. One day, not so long ago, my wife was listening to the album on the way home from work when my 11 year old son (both of our youngest love Tyler) asked what the song was about. Most parents would move on to the next tune as quick as possible, not in our house. She asked him to listen again and really pay attention to the lyrics. Needless to say, he figured it out.

“Peace of Mind” is the one song that has drawn the most ire of listeners. A short dive in the YouTube universe will dig up a solo version that is really the inception the song. The solo version is uptempo and seemingly more happy. As I write and listen to the song right now, I can’t help but think that it was slowed down on the album for a purpose. A song about the laments of “what could have been” cannot be an uptempo, happy song. The tempo is perfect for the subject matter. “The days are dark, down in the holler, waiting for the sun to shine” hang up there as another set of lyrical favorites.

“All Your’n” started as another song featuring Childers playing solo acoustic. The album version is another rollicking love letter to his wife. In the vein of “Lady May” that closed the 2017 album “Purgatory”, Childers playful songwriting describes his courtship of his significant other and their love of fried morels. For those that don’t know, a morel is a mushroom (better known as a hickory chicken or dry land fish) that takes a keen eye and perfect conditions to find during a small window in the spring months. The video for “All Your’n is a perfect match to the song featuring Buffalo Wabs and the Price Hill Hustle drummer, singer, and Childers buddy, Casey Campbell stumbling through and Alice in Wonderland style landscape. It is also the introduction to Childers cheetah print wearing alter ego, “Tammy Chiggers”. All Your’n will definitely make its way to weddings and wedding receptions everywhere.

The album closes with a rendition of “Matthew” that introduces Childers brother-in law and father in law. “Matthew” describes a veteran who spends his time “guarding missiles and counting white tail” at the Bluegrass Army Depot between Irvine in Estill County and Richmond, Kentucky. The song is an observation of the lives of two men in Eastern Kentucky. “And he worked them hands to splinters, and he raised them young’uns right, on a little bit of scripture, and an acreage of paradise” is one of the most vivid descriptions of fatherhood I’ve seen put on record. Childers has a way of bringing real life to a song like no one else in music today.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the album artwork done by Kentucky native, Colonel Tony Moore of Walking Dead fame and frequent Childers collaborator, West Virginia artist Jimbo Valentine. The cover art for Country Squire is departure from the hillbilly psychedelic artwork of records past. It is there, though, inside the gatefold with Valentine’s depiction of the original Country Squire. The yin yang-esque artwork would make an amazing framed poster (wink-wink). The album cover designed by Moore is a comic book rendition of a zen hillbilly Childers. It is the most unique album art I’ve seen in quite some time. I am a huge fan of album artwork and this is one of the best. No wording on the cover, simple, powerful.

Give Country Squire a listen. It isn’t Purgatory. It isn’t Bottles and Bibles. It’s the story of a Lawrence County native going to the big city, moving to the country, courting and marrying the love of his life, and a look to a future life pulling behind that 53 year old camper.

You can find Country Squire on all major streaming services or do what I did and order the LP from www.tylerchildersmusic.com

The artwork of Tony Moore can be found at www.coloneltonymoore.com

The artwork of Jimbo Valentine can be found at www.amalgamunlimited.com

-Josh Trosper, Hillbilly Hippie Music Review Contributing Writer

*This is an independent review. The Hillbilly Hippie Music Review was not compensated for this review.

*The opinions expressed are solely that of the author(s).

* This artwork and the quoted lyrics are not ours, nor do we claim the min any way. They are under copyright by Hickman Holler Records, under exclusive license to RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

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talhaghafoor2019-blog · 5 years

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Raffi, the King of Children’s Music, Takes on Trump

Raffi. Photo: @Raffi_RC/Twitter The subgenre of “children’s music” can be pretty barren lyrically, a wasteland of dada earworms, nonsense lullabies, nursery rhymes, and edutainment. It is not generally considered fertile ground for discussing political and social issues. But a quick journey into Spotify proves that these songs have the power to inform a fledgling’s belief system. There’s Christian kids’ music (“Jonah was a Prophet” honestly slaps … and I’m Jewish). Sweet Honey in the Rock is a black gospel a capella group that is popular among the 10-and-under set. Their arrangement of “This Train Is Bound for Glory,” a spiritual once made famous by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, makes me tear up. It’s also not typical children’s music. There have been some notable indie efforts but they are overshadowed by unrelenting trash heaps like last year’s viral sensation, “Baby Shark.” And, eureka! In a league onto himself, is Raffi. If you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, have children, or have ever been to a kid’s birthday party, then you’ve probably heard the Canadian crooner’s timeless bangers “Baby Beluga” and “Banana Phone.” Raffi’s saccharine melodies and lyrics actually read like discrete guides on how to live and love with dignity, starting at childhood. With an adult’s ear, the chorus of Raffi’s biggest hit — “Baby beluga in the deep blue sea / Swim so wild and you swim so free” — appears to be about learning how to individuate while still feeling safe and held by your caretakers. It’s a valuable message, even for adults. The last line of “Everything Grows,” an ode to the universality of the life cycle, is, “Mamas do and papas too / everything grows.” It’s a subtle reminder to parents that while we may be done with the physical part of our growth, emotional growth is a lifelong journey. But learning to live with dignity means learning about what it’s like to live without it and the nefarious forces that try to take it away. “Apathy is the enemy of democracy. And through apathy, tyrants can gain power,” Raffi said to me about why he’s been so vocal about Trump in a recent interview. But if you look closely, these messages have been in his music forever. “And I need some clean water for drinking / And I need some clean air for breathing / So that I can grow up strong,” he wrote in his 1979 hit “All I Really Need.” The lyrics resonate like an anthem for basic human rights, rights that are still unfortunately being fought for 40 years later. Like many of his songs, it is a blueprint for human kindness in its most pure, essential form. In recent months, the 70-year-old singer has gained a bit of attention for his active, politically engaged Twitter feed where many posts are accompanied with the dissenter’s slogan du jour: #Resist and #ResistFacism. Raffi’s outspokenness around Trump and his policies goes back to when he was elected. Just last week the singer called Trump unfit for office, racist, and misogynistic. In December he said we must “fight fascism with everything we’ve got.” Seemingly trite, the addition of Raffi’s voice to the American political landscape is actually invaluable — the singer-songwriter is the premier emissary for children and his positions carry with them an incredible weight. And the children, after all, are the future. Recently I spoke to him about the nexus between children’s music, politics, and human decency. Raffi is not quiet about his opinions. But, he rejects the label “political” being affixed either to his personal outspokenness or music, though he has songs that tackle issues like climate change, peace between Israelis and Palestinians , and most recently, his love of Bernie Sanders. (By the way, Bernie, if you’re reading this Raffi “wishes you well” this time around and said it’d be “interesting” if you asked him to sing his song “Wave of Democracy” at your upcoming rallies). Raffi entertains some children after a Los Angeles concert, September 10, 1989. Photo: Paul Harris/Getty Images He seems to view being political as artificial, an act of external performance: He’s as taken aback by the idea that he is political as he would be if I’d called him a politician. “Maybe just like the troubadour that I am, I seek creative ways of self-expression,” he told me. “I seek the right [to] expound about who I am the way that I feel that I am,” he said when pressed about his unwillingness to be labeled political. “It’s not a big deal to me. I don’t go around having debates in my head as to whether I’m political or not. I just have a way of speaking, I just have a way of presenting what I’m passionate about. That’s what I do” he said. But a few moments later he spoke about treating climate change as an emergency, saying, “Unless a rapid shift to a low-carbon economy happens like yesterday, you’re gonna face a very, very tough world.” It’s easy to dismiss the way Raffi couches his activism as a cop-out, as a way to insulate himself from accountability. But the singer doesn’t hide his beliefs; they’re always there in his music and on his social media profiles for everyone to see. Admittedly, I always thought identifying as “not political” seemed like a privilege. But there is something I’m finding in Raffi’s fine print: You can hold a unique space in the political landscape when you insist that your political positions aren’t political at all, but borne out of self-evident, universal values. Raffi has a way of both challenging an idea while simultaneously distilling it, as he does when we talk about climate change. “I detest the term ‘the environment,’ I think it’s barren and cold. I never use it. Never,” he said. “It’s different if you say, ‘our environment,’ perhaps. There can be many environments that you live in. There’s a learning environment, there’s a family environment and all of that. Mother Nature, or simply Nature, is that planetary community that we live in. It’s the basis of our lives. It’s what feeds us. We come from the womb and suddenly we’re in a womb with a view. Mother Nature.” On Twitter, he took a more political approach when he predicted World War III would be “climate change: humanity’s war on itself.” Raffi Cavoukian is an immigrant two times over. Born to Armenian parents who had escaped the genocide, the singer, 70, spent his first ten years in Egypt. At ten, his father moved their family to Toronto. Of immigrating to a new country he said, “You learn to forgive. You learn to be strong in your identity. And even while you’re learning a whole new culture; so quite the transition.” In early March Raffi tweeted, “blame the inciter in chief…how’s that for false patriotism,” in response to an article posted by Chelsea Clinton with the headline, “Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes.” With me he took his big-stick approach. “Children are people,” he said about child separation. “The reason we don’t want corporeal punishment, let alone separation from their families, is that you don’t hit people. It’s not okay to hit people. Children are people, so we don’t hit them. By the same token, you know, if you respect children as people, you don’t separate them from your families.” It’s a simple statement, a seemingly unremarkable one. But if you were to put Raffi’s words to a tune, it’d be a heartfelt children’s song, there to teach us how to treat each other. And it reveals more yet about Raffi’s belief that children should be considered as whole and serious human beings. Sign Up for the Intelligencer Newsletter Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world. Email By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. Raffi’s attempt to have it both ways — be political, yet be thought of as apolitical — is working for him. The singer, whose first album came out in 1975, says he has no plans to retire. He will continue to tour with his children’s music but is also focused on his foundation, the Raffi Foundation, which promotes a group of principles he came up with about how to advance children’s rights, called “Child Honouring.” “It’s one thing to be loved but it’s another thing entirely to feel respected for who you feel you are, and that is why the first word of the nine principles of Child Honouring is respectful so that principle — respectful love — that’s why that word is there,” he said. “It can’t be any kind of love. Sure, the Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love,’ but it can’t be a coercive love, it can’t be an overbearing love.” At the end of our conversation I ask him what words he has to impart to youth living under Trump’s policies. Unsurprisingly, he brings it back to the spirit of his music. “Well it’s advice I’ve given many times in songs,” he said. “I suppose I can say, love is the greatest power you hold. Come to know that power, don’t let anyone take it away from you, hatred is not who human beings are, it’s not who we are. It’s an aberration; power of human spirit is a loving, caring spirit. That’s what it means to be human, so anybody’s task is to grow strong and to be rooted in that human capacity to love.” When you’re fighting your way through the sludgiest sociopolitical turmoil of your lifetime, it can be hard to remember your values, or even what you’re fighting for. Raffi reminded me, over and over again, that care for the earth, for democracy, for human decency is pretty much paramount if we want to even have a future. I guess sometimes you need a children’s singer to remind you what’s important.

This content was originally published here.

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