#and again ANDY you are so SO talented god bless

[kimkaelyn]

“ ‘I’m going to leave my fingerprints all over you.’ ”

Inspired by fingerprints by @andypantsx3

This story means so much to me, especially since it is the first bnha fanfic I read, and the one that got me back into reading fanfic, and being a part of a fandom again. I credit my dear friend, Andie, with opening the doors to a safe space for me to find comfort and get lost in so many amazing works by enormously talented creators. I cherish the people I have met within this fandom and I look forward to seeing what lies in store for us all. Cheers🥂✨

Thank you andie for being a blessing and a treasure on this Earth. God bless you, my friend🫶🏻💗✨

[angrelysimpping]

Off Screen

Written April 3, 2024

Shout out to the talented, sweet, n hampsom 💜@inkyquince 💜 for the amazing vtm game and who made Tekli and Luka (and Rada, who is more connected to Necro's PC yet here she fucking is because I'm a silly billy >m<) (and Ifan who is connected more to Benji than Andi yet here we are)(and Sigvar, who is also more connected to Necro's PC uh)

Contents: talk of curses and ghosts; suicidal ideation and planed scuicide; unreliable narrator; dry humping; some cum eating; briefly implied sex work; biting; some mild blood and blood drinking

Words: 1,813

The boat was…eventful. Yes, that's the word he'd use, eventful. Better for keeping the spirits up. 

Eventful. 

God, he couldn't wait to get to Russia. Luka would finally be safe, they'd be-

Tekli. Tekli might be there. That's why he'd chosen this boat, in the end. He'd seen the letters, saw she might be held up in Russia. So close. So goddamn close. He just had to actually make it there. 

Not die first. 

Would he die first?

His chest still ached where the spirit, Rada, had touched him. Cursed him. 

He'd been so fucking stupid. But, hey, maybe something good would come of it? He could only hope as he trudged back to his rooms, lingering cold of the Shadow Lands still clinging to him. Funnily enough, it was almost comforting. The same constant ache that lingered in his fingers during winters, the same numbness deep in his bones that'd been the only thing keeping him from falling apart when he found himself alone. 

Alone. He always ended up alone, one way or another. 

It'd be a blessing to die. He wouldn't be alone then, would he?

The ship buckles under him, lights dimming and colors failing. Only a second, a blink of an eye, and everything is right again. 

Or would he go there? To the Shadow Lands? His family wouldn't be there, would they? He can't see Mir past the serious six year old boy fascinated with insects. Can't fathom Rzepka other than a sweet nine year old, dirt smeared across her cheek from gardening. And Polina? Whatever had happened in death, she wouldn't end up somewhere like…like the Shadow Lands, would she?

Alone, then? Alone even in death? Or, stuck hunted? Spirits like Rada chasing him down. Rada herself after him? A special hell he’d never conceptualized before?

He didn't particularly want to find out. Though, if the world kept sliding around him, out from under him, he'd have to get used to that place, sooner or later. 

Andrzej is careful not to make too much noise as he slips into his rooms. Even as sleep calls to him, he takes time to make sure the door is barricaded. 

Shuffling into his room, Andrzej changes into his sleeping clothes before pausing, looking at his rumpled bed. He'd dozed there for a bit while Luka had read and it'd been fine, comfortable. A good enough bed, better than others he'd slept on. Yet, he turns, walking back out into the shared room before crossing over to Luka's. 

The man is sound asleep, and there's a pang in Andrzej’s chest. 

God, he'd dragged Luka into a mess. Maybe he should've left him in Italy. Or not snuck him from the brothel- no. 

He's gone down that line of thought too often. If he didn't offer Luka a way out of the brothel, he would've been killed. He was sure of it. But, maybe death would've been better. Isn't that what he himself was chasing, after all? His own death?

If that’s what would've been granted to Luka, that is. Who knows what could have happened, really? Some all knowing God, maybe? Not him, though. No, if anything was proven tonight it was that he didn't know shit. 

He couldn't even find Luka a safer place to sleep. 

Do you see me as a protector, Andrzej? 

Throat constricting, lip curling, he has to fight off the urge to scream. A protector? A protector? He'd met Ifan twice and he seemed trustworthy enough but…but he knew her. He knew Tekli. Sigvar and Ifan had been there, they said, when she ghouled him. And he can't remember, he can't fucking remember. 

He'd rather cut out his own tongue than claim he thought of anyone in that sense. Yet, he might just do it if it'd secured Luka a safe place to sleep away the day. 

A protector? When was the last time Andrzej felt protected in any sense? 

And he knows the answer. Even as his own impending death bounces around his brain, Andrzej lets himself forget for a moment, dropping into bed with Luka. 

He'd meant to find a way to hide Luka away on the boat, and he'd been cursed instead. 

Maybe that's the tipping point. Maybe that's the reason a few stray tears escape the corners of his eyes, wetting Luka's hair. As the smaller man presses against him, nuzzling his face into the crook of Andrzej’s neck, what little resistance he had to becoming attached to Luka dissolves. 

Andrzej tugs off his ever present gloves, worn leather hitting the floor as he tosses them irregardless of where they fall. His hands slip under Luka’s shirt, drag the fabric up as his hands splay over smooth skin. A desperate bid to be even closer to the sleeping man that works. Even though Luka is a thinblood, dead yet not and lacking a mortal's warmth, the shards of ice lingering in Andrzej’s marrow seemed to melt away. 

“Sweet dreams, Lukasha.” He mumbles the words directly into Luka’s hair as he presses a soft kiss to the dark locks. “I’m so, so sorry.”

-

There’s a hardness pressed against his thigh.

It’s the first thing Andrzej becomes aware of as he wakes, momentary worry that he’d pulled a knife or stake in his sleep. But, that’s not what he finds. 

Luka is curled against him, and Andrzej can’t help the way his heart stutters at the sight. Dark lashes and freckled cheeks, so close he could count them if he wanted. And right next to him, still in his arms, hands still spread over his back and keeping him close. 

It’s as Luka’s dark eyes blink open, still bleary from sleep, that he registers what actually woke him. 

Luka seems to notice it at the same time as him, eyes going wide and face burning as he yelps, trying to pull away. Trying to hide the erection poking into Andrzej’s thigh. 

He can’t though. He can’t pull away when Andrzej is still holding him close, eyes wide as Luka inadvertently grinds against him. 

And, interestingly enough, his own cock answers with interest, slowly growing hard as Luka moves. 

“S-sorry.” Luka’s voice is choked, shaking as he speaks. “I-I don’t…” He trails off as Andrzej continues to stare at where their bodies meet, slowly lifting his leg to press a strong thigh against Luka’s cock. 

When was the last time he wanted this? Actually wanted? Not the itching, burning need brought on by the blood, the vitae? 

“Do you…” Andrzej’s mismatched eyes meet Luka’s. “Do you want me to, uh, take care of that?”

He didn’t think Luka could blush any darker, but he’s proven wrong as the Italian tries to register what he was just asked. 

“I-I…want,” he manages to get out, barely above a whisper, “want to…if you wanna.”

Andrzej groans, deep in the back of his throat, as he presses forward, brushing his lips right over the beauty mark on the other man’s collar bone. “If you want me to, I will, Lukasha.”

Luka isn’t graceful by any measure as he shifts, movements still blunt and clumsy by sleep as he slides on top. Not that it matters to Andrzej, his breath catching in his throat as Luka settles himself. His hands slide down, over Luka’s sides and making him shiver, before resting on the smaller man’s hips. 

The first movement is hesitant, experimental. Beyond perfect. 

Sparks shoot down Andrzej’s spine as Luka rocks forward. If he wasn’t already fully hard, he is now as Luka lets out a small, high pitched mewling sound. That seems to be some kind of trigger for the thinblood as he nearly collapses forward to tuck his face into Andrzej’s neck, humping their clothed cocks together in earnest. 

Andrzej helps him move as best he can, fingers digging into hip as the muscles flex under his palms. Each desperate movement pulls another sweet sound from Luka’s lips, and Andrzej revels in each and every one. With the way Luka is hunched over, he has unlimited access to an expanse of slender shoulder. It’d be a sin not to take advantage of such a blessing. 

Maybe he should’ve asked first, seeing as what they are, but Luka doesn’t seem to mind when Andrzej starts nipping and sucking at his exposed shoulder. In fact, his noises get louder, his movements more fervent as Andrzej bites and kisses, uncaring if he leaves any marks that might be visible once they left the sanctuary of their rooms. 

It’s greedy, but Andrzej has been in want for so long he doesn’t think of it. He bucks up, throwing off Luka’s rhythm and making the man squeal. He chuckles even as fingers dig into his shoulder, into his ribs. He bucks up again, tight grip on Luka’s hips keeping him firmly in place. It does exactly what Andrzej wanted, another cute sound escaping Luka's throat.

So, he keeps going. 

Luka’s mouth latches onto the joint between his shoulder and neck, hanging onto Andrzej for dear life even if the ghoul’s hold on his hips kept him safely in place. 

It’s with one of Andrzej’s rough jerks up that he makes the mistake. He’s still giving Luka’s shoulder the occasionally lick, kiss, nip, and his canine catches. Copper tang spreads over his tongue, metallic and sweet.

Luka whines, shivering, as Andrzej’s hot tongue instinctively laps up the spilt blood.

And Andrzej freezes, chest heaving and eyes wide.

Fuck. Fuck. Had he hurt Luka? He wasn’t sure. He’s still hard but that didn’t matter. Nothing else would. Luka was the one person he didn’t want to hurt and if he had-

A warm wetness seeps into his clothes.

Cum.

Luka had cum. 

Not hurt. No. The opposite. 

Luka leans back, looking down at Andrzej. His dark eyes are glazed over, somehow softer looking than ever as he slips a hand under Andrzej’s clothes. The hand is cool compared to his burning skin, a welcome change. 

He can’t look away from Luka as he starts to jerk him off. His mind empties. Maybe the first time in a long time as he gazes into the endless depths of Luka’s eyes. It’s on pure instinct, complete auto pilot, as he dips his fingers under Luka’s clothes. Collects some of the spent cum on his thumb. Pops the digit into his mouth, licking it clean. Finally breaking eye contact as his lids shut in pure pleasure, salt and copper across his tongue. 

His hand drops, gripping onto Luka’s thigh as Luka lurches forward, pressing their lips together in a quick kiss. 

“Lukasha.” 

A gasp of his name against his lips as Andrzej reaches his end, spilling into Luka’s hand. 

They stay like that for a moment, close and breathing heavy before Andrzej smiles, sitting up, Luka sprawling in his lap. “Come on, Lukallini. Let’s get cleaned up.”

[seblore]

sometimes when im sad i just look at @whatincornation’s drawings and go through @godbastian’s sewis tag and then im happy again

[yaomomvs]

SEIJOH MANANGER HEADCANONS

seijoh, aoba johsai x reader | slight oikawa, iwaizumi and kunimi x reader.

a/n: ugh! i just love my seijoh boys so much! and so, i decided to make one more headcanons for them, tysm! hopefully i’ll do inarizaki next or maybe karasuno.

a bit long but i just love them,and i will do a part two mainly focusing on while they do volleyball this is more of random things

other seijoh!manager works: one | two

the volume in this bus is ASTRONOMICAL

you actually never thought of joining a club, specially a sports one.

but you needed it, so while looking at the board of the school’s options you were unsure.

“i just really need something not that complicated, and that helps me helping others” you muttered to yourself

little did you know the coach of the volleyball team was there, this nice man turned to you and offered you a place in the team.

“but please if you are one of oikawa’s fangirls dont-” “who now?” you genuinely asked. seeing that you didn’t had a clue of who he was talking about he immediately handed the application for to you.

it was first day and you were already late, but you managed to enter the gym half way practice.

you guys remember that tanaka and kiyoko scene in s4? well it was the same

“sorry for being late coach!” your voice sounded all over the place since someone was serving and it was pretty quiet.

ALL OF THEM WERE SHOCKED LIKE 🧍🏻‍♀️

the serve even hit yahaba’s face because everyone got distracted by your beauty

“i- did i do something?” “existing omg”

the coach lined up everyone and they greeted you welcoming you to the team.

you were flustered because it was like you never had a lot of guys around you and now you had to take care of all of them and also

aoba johsai’s team had one of the most attractive boys around likeeee

now, a year later, the energy is purely chaotic.

and i mean like

kindaichi and kunimi are lowkey the ones who respect you the most

not only because you, even if it was for only a year, you were their upperclassman but also you had presence

when karasuno came to the practice andy oh catched both of them after talking to kageyama in the bathroom, you pinched their ears and scolded them

“you both do that again and i’m not being compassionate” “SORRY Y/N”

but also lowkey your admirers

kunimi literally only showed strong emotions around you

“i brought you some sweets” he regularly says

“oh you are great! thank you kunimi!”you appreciated this guys little details with you

“so you have a favoritism with our manager huh?”

“y/n permission to hit kindaichi”

“permission conceded”

kindaichi also respected you because you, when he entered seijoh months ago, were one of the ones who made him believe and helped getting over that anger he had with his ex teammates and you even assured that kageyama was the reason he got better, even if he wouldn’t accept it

the second years, your literal followers

like seriously yahaba watori were always around you.

being in the same grade and class as both dod not helped a lot.

they are like puppies with anxiety separation

because you are the reason they feel loved and cared for

they always sit next to you in class, and they make sure you are comfortable with it.

you need help with hw? watori always is there

yahaba lets you paint his nails every time you got bored in class

you were such a powerful trio

they always bring your favorite drink in the mornin

you even developed this sixth sense where if you just look at each other you know exactly who are you making fun of without even speaking

you always make fun of the shit way of yahaba to flirt oml

and you even advice him on what should he do or not when meeting someone new.

istg if it was not bc of you he would have never got his first date with his crush

kyoutani later joined you, but he had trouble on trusting you

but seeing all the team laying on you he actually let himself rely on another person for the first time

he was the one who scared those stupid volleyball boys fan girls (oikawa’s or the other guys ones) away from you

he also thinks that you are not bad physically talking and he actually says it but privately

he also whenever he is mad or just frustrated comes to you and what he likes is that you don’t go in deep of the details but instead you try to distract him with random thing you say.

“guys i told you several times” you laughed “i do have other thing to do! it not like i can attend every night out with you! i have other friends too!”

“so, we are not watching cartoons tonight?”

“i hate you all so much” you surrendered “see you at 8 pm”

you became the second years core four

and also they looked up to you a lot, why? because you are the only people who always deals with the third years shit

god i think your connection with the third years was only a bit more noticeable than the second years

why? you were not afraid to mess up with them

to be real iwaizumi as oikawa caught your eye since moment one, they were naturally attractive and talented but you made a promise to not fall for anyone

omg you were so wrong

if it was iwaizumi, he always made sure you felt comfortable around

you were no vb genius so he took the time to explain you a bunch of things you did not know 🥺

also, he’s the kind of guy to stop everyone spiking because you were crossing through the gym so no ball gets you

he is the one who always search for you in school, asked about your day, and stuff that might seem basic but it was really meaningful

like he is the kind of guy who memorizes all your favorite places, treats, music anything and actually tries to get you to talk about it

oikawa on the other hand was the one who actually made you feel like part of them

he is so sweet!

like

oikawa only starts practice when you are there

like bold of someone to start hitting a ball without you there, he considered you part of the team, so he always waited for you

he walked you home or nearby every time he could he wanted you safe

his eyes always always instantly light up and screams “y/n-chan!” and immediately runs to you

but also he is the one who search you the most around

if it was lunch time he went to your home room and literally lunches with you no matter what or who

he never lets anyone lend you their hoodie, it always has to be his that you are wearing

he self crowned himself as your favorite

he hugs you out of nowhere istg is the best feeling ever

hanamaki also also also considers you priority

he is kinda more of the lowkey one, he is mainly the one who checks up on you

he once spotted a bruise in your arm and he immediately freaked out

“DO I HAVE TO FIGHT SOMEONE” “god no! i just dropped a huge book there!”

hanamaki is the one who waits for you in the entrance of the gym to walk with you to practice

he also is the first one to notice if something is wrong with you along with iwachan

they both unintentionally pay attention to you a lot and if you do something out of the common they just approach you

and they are always right

“what’s wrong y/n?” hanamaki says

“yeah, is everything okay you need anything?” iwaizumi continues.

“what do you mean guys? i’m okay” you obviously try to lie.

“no you are not, you are acting different”

“yea iwachan is right you always change yous t shirt before practice and the way you are ordering the volleyballs is off”

“why do know me so well” you indeed had a terrible day, so you almost tear up bb of that and be of how amazing your boys were to you sometimes”

“come here little one”

you heard a pout

“i see you oikawa, you can get a hug too. matsu come here”

matsukawa is your hype man

he loves messing with you like in the big brother sister way

like if a guy asked you out he’d be like “sis you can do so much better”

you are always being salty whether it’s between you or other ones

besides if you do have a crush on anyone on the team matsu is the only one to know

and he’d constantly blackmail you with that

“if you don’t buy me anything from the vending machine i will tell oikawa you actually swoon for him” “OKAY FINE”

“tell the coach that we do not need laps or iwaizumi is gonna knowwwww about” “i hate you so much”

but returning to the point you always messed with them specially the four third years

and you were so good at it

one day, you ‘innocently’ mentioned to the boys “i’m just telling you! i’ve never seen two pretty best friends, one of them always gotta be ugly”

GOD LORD THE BOMB YOU JUST ACTIVATED

THEY SPENT A WHOLE WEEK TRYING TO FUGURE OUT WHO WAS THE PRETTY BEST FRIEND BETWEEN IWA AND OIKAWA, ALSO MATSU AND HANAMAKI AHHAHAHAAH

your third years never made you feel insecure

like if you think idk listening to btr was weird because someone in the past made you feel like it be sure the next day they WILL PLAY FUCKING BIG TIME RUSH IN PRACTICE ONLY FOR YOU TO VIBE WITH THEM

also they all four have this little thought that they have to be the ones who protect you

in the court you looked out for them, outside of it they were the ones who did that

if you were teased or someone even had the audacity to make fun of you it could go three ways

you stoping kyoutani and yahaba because they were so ready to throw hands

matsukawa, hanamaki and kunimi just taking you out of there and rather say positive thinks about you

or oikawa and iwaizumi behind you giving the saltiest and meanest glares to whoever dared talking you that way and saying “and you still wonder why people don’t like you?, ” then iwaizumi says “you are right oikawa, you piece of crap have your entire life to be a jerk. take a day off your stupidity won’t left anyways”

god you sure loved those guys

BUT

as it can be really useful sometimes there were other times were they become so annoying

specially when it’s about someone liking you.

like romantic styles

i live for the idea that the vb team had obviously fangirls, oikawa mostly. but you also did

like yeah the fangirls of oikawa and the boys envied you

but the guys in aoba johsai high envied the volleyball team even more

god bless the poor guy or girl who DARES to ask you out

like please someone stop them 😭

on valentine’s day you came to practice a bit late just because you needed to figure it out how to organize all the fucking love letters and the chocolates and flowers that you got over the day.

oikawa was already worried as he always waited for you to start, and so were the guys so they decided to warm up a bit more to wait.

you crossed the door with thousands of gifts and all of that barely catching the ones which you dropped. because at this point you did not even try to hide it from the boys, you just wanted them to start practice.

he looked at you and knew exactly what that meant. he received this every once in a while, but god what was that feeling in his chest when some other people like you?

iwaizumi felt that too, that weird feeling not wanting anyone to think about you that wayyyyy

the rest of the boys had divided opinions but still you were their manager.

“so did all this came from...”

“yes matsu...”

“okay but for scientific purposes we need the names”

“HANAMAKI NO”

poor boys, they just are all scared that you’ll leave them because of someone

what a dramatic queens they are all

some of them didn’t like it bc they also had a big crush on you

so what they do is that they gatekeep anyone from you

like oml if they ever catched you and a girl or guy and they knew they liked you they constantly beg for your attention.

and it’s not only because they are being dramatic but also because they remember last year when you went out with some random dude and broke your heart like

they almost killed that guy

so they wanted you to feel happy and safe

to them? honestly you are the light of their life.

they dedicate every game to you, they take care of you, they listen to you, they brag about you, they love you

because honestly you did all that for them first

and ever since then they made sure to return that to you.

[gaiapaia]

Kermit and Friends: God Bless America

Kermit and Friends was all over the news cycle last week.

From Elisa Jordana being interviewed in US Weekly Magazine, to Wendy Williams addressing Elisa and Andy Dick on her show, to even Fox News covering the story.... everyone wanted to discuss the bombshell Elisa dropped last week on Kermit and Friends regarding Andy Dick's most recent arrest.

All of this began on Tuesday evening. Elisa's birthday was on Wednesday and she remained relatively quiet on her social media and in the Kermit and Friends Discord. So what happened at her birthday party?

Andy forgot about Elisa's birthday. No shocker there. Still, Elisa managed to get Andy on the phone and paid to have a car go pick him up. To Andy’s credit, he got in the car. Unfortunately, that’s the only credit he will receive from this point forward.

When Andy arrived, the first thing Elisa did was introduce him to her lovely mother. Instead of small talking and exchanging pleasantries, Andy immediately asked Elisa’s mom if she had any pills she could give him. Yikes!

Andy would only stay at the party for a short while. He showed more attention to Lisa Vanderpump than he did to Elisa, and then he would run off to go hang out with the guy who allegedly broke his ankle, Lucas.

So Andy pretty much ruined Elisa’s birthday. Does he care? Of course not. Andy wouldn’t talk to Elisa again until Saturday night when he called Elisa to ask her to pay for his hotel bill. After Elisa declined, Andy hung up on her and blocked Elisa on Instagram. This is really sad, pathetic behavior.

Elisa is claiming she’s officially done with Andy. The thing is, Elisa has one of the most forgiving souls on the planet. All Andy would have to do is have one nice conversation with Elisa and she’ll most likely then treat him (and his friends) to dinner. Who knows if Andy will even do that though. I personally hope not, and if he does... maybe Elisa will keep her foot down this time and refuse to allow Andy to keep hurting her like this.

I’ve been friends with Elisa since 2015. I could do a run down right now of the guys Elisa has dated since I’ve been blessed to know her, and I wouldn’t have anything good to say about any of them except maybe Gonzo, which honestly was just a fling.

Elisa deserves better than this. I desperately hope throughout our friendship that I set some kind of precedent to show Elisa how she should be treated by anyone who claims to love her. If I can get one thing out of my efforts these last 5 years, it’s that. It’s fine that Elisa doesn’t love me back... but it’s my main wish that she someday understands how I treat her is how the real man in her life should treat her. And hopefully that guy has many other amazing qualities to offer too, because Elisa deserves that as well if she’s going to give her heart to someone.

For all my bickering and griping about the men in Elisa’s life this last decade, we met a lovely young woman yesterday by the name of Mel who’s had it even worse than Elisa!

Mel is Jesse G-Rider’s ex-girlfriend. She was a part of the infamous trap house gang right before Elisa became emerged in it. Mel’s relationship with Jesse was extremely abusive, to say the least. There were cases of petty jealousy, beatings, drugs... you name it, it most likely happened.

Jesse called in highly upset with Elisa for having Mel on the show. Jesse claims he has a restraining order against Mel despite the fact that Mel moved all the way to Detroit, Michigan to escape Jesse.

Jesse then threatened Elisa with legal action, claiming it’s illegal to help a person contact another person who has a restraining order against them. Newsflash to Jesse: first of all, that’s not illegal, dumb dumb. Secondly, YOU called into the show. Elisa didn’t call you with Mel on the line. So even if in some ass backwards World where you could press charges against Elisa, they would be dropped immediately because JESSE initiated the contact by his own free will, and it’s all on recorded video.

Anyway, Mel was fantastic on the show. She had cute little elf ears, top notch internet and audio, a nice gaming chair... Elisa was impressed by all of this, as I was I. Mel looked like a professional streamer and she was a good storyteller that was also very vulnerable and honest. She’s everything Elisa looks for in a Kermit and Friends star. Hopefully Mel will become a regular in our community.

During Mel’s interview, Sharmin Smith went in head first about the horrors of abuse and what America needs to do to help women like Mel out. As a survivor of abuse, Sharmin has some strong feelings on the matter and she was not shy to share them. Even though her Presidential bid for 2020 was unsuccessful, I hear by declare Sharmin Smith President of Kermit and Friends. In my book, that’s why better than being President of the United States of America!

We love America on Kermit and Friends though. Yesterday was July the 4th and Elisa invited Tony Alexander on to discuss his career in the American military and what he’s heroically done to help fellow veterans who have had a rough time adjusting to normal life once they returned home from the war. Tony was a class act through and through, and it was great to see Kermit make a new friend like him on Independence Day.

Another US veteran joined the show, Kermit’s old pal Chris Christine. She said a lovely prayer and then randomly flip opened the Bible so that God could choose a special passage to share with all of Kermit’s beautiful friends. She landed on 1 Kings 6, which is about Solomon building a temple of the Lord, much like Elisa has built the Kermitarian Church!

Claire from New Jersey called at the beginning of the show to ask Elisa her thoughts on Wendy Williams’ segment about Elisa and Andy. Wendy wasn’t very kind - she made light of Andy’s addiction despite being an addict herself, she told a very distasteful joke about Bill Cosby getting hired before Andy ever would, she mispronounced Elisa’s name on purpose, and she claimed that Elisa was trying to use Andy for success. So funny how the ignorant morons who say stuff like that don’t realize it’s been Andy using Elisa this entire time... it’s honestly sexism. Wendy as a woman herself should know better, but I guess her IQ just isn’t at a place where she could ever grasp that.

Sigmond returned to Kermit and Friends this week. Elisa kindly invited Sigmond to her birthday party on Wednesday and by all accounts, he was a superb guest. He even bought Elisa a present! Yep, Sigmond Twayne's Mental Cookbook was his gift and Elisa seemed to love it. This led to Gonzo calling in to ask why the book is so cheap on Amazon. Sigmond, remembering that it was Gonzo who called him a serial killer last week, said Gonzo is a liar and that the book cost $37 on Amazon. Well, Gonzo was actually being truthful because at the time of this blog entry, the book is on sale for just $8.76 from it’s listed price of $37.00. Do NOT miss out on this AMAZING deal and buy your copy today by clicking here! 

Of course, Kermit and Friends isn’t Kermit and Friends without some spectacular musical performances. Boy, were we blessed with some good ones for the 4th of July. Elisa’s dad Craig returned to the show to beautifully perform a patriotic song from the 1700′s in which I sadly can’t find the title of. Sigmond’s partner Wappy performed an incredible original song and covered Pool Shark by Sublime. Elisa would also play one of Sugar’s awesome music videos for everyone to enjoy. Good stuff all around from Kermit’s unbelievably talented friends.

All in all, it was a very eventual Kermit and Friends, one absolutely fitting for Independence Day. The future seems more uncertain than ever, but as long as Kermit has all her friends to enjoy, everything will be A-okay. Can’t wait to see what next week’s show will bring :)

[lovinmullen]

Tyrus Soulmate AU:                  I Don’t Know a Tyler??

Special shout out to my love, my happiness, my best friend @wanna-feel-alive for editing and improving this fic greatly !! I love you so god damn much Mackenzie, thank you for your help and your talent blessing my fic sksks !!!!

(the amount of editing she did shes basically  a co-writer so give her some love)

Summary: On Cyrus’ 16th Birthday he is so tremendously excited to receive his soul mark but when he is greeted with the name Tyler on his collar bone and not TJ like he expected, a number of emotions arise until TJ agrees to help Cyrus solve the mystery of who in fact this Tyler could be.

word count: 1900. // OKAY I KNOW SHES THICC BUT ITS WORTH IT I PROMISE XOXOXO

———————————- <3

Cyrus’ eyes fluttered open softly as his heart began to race. He shot up to the memory of what today was, it was the day of his 16th birthday, the day he would get his soul mark. Excitement ran through his whole body as he thought about whose name would be printed softly on his collar bone.

The brunet was the youngest of his friend group which meant all his friends got their soul mark before him. Marty had Buffy, Amber had Andi, Walker had Jonah, and TJ, well no one knew TJ’s soulmate except for his siblings, Amber and Marty. TJ had sworn them to secrecy. Cyrus didn't understand but he didn't question it for he knew all too well that if Teej wanted him to know he would tell him, they are best friends after all.

Cy shook the thought away as the morning fuzziness, which had concealed his sight, finally started to wear off as he reached for the neck of his top in an effort to quickly reveal the name but just as he was about to do so he got rudely interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Honey, TJ is here!” Leslie called sweetly. Maybe the interruption wasn't so rude after all, Cyrus thought. Suddenly the brightest smile was forming on the younger boys face as the dirty blond ran in screaming “HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNDERDOG!!” while he jumped onto the bed playfully so he could be close enough to ruffle the other boy's hair.

“I know it's not a lot but I had to get my lil’ muffin man something am I right?” The athlete laughed out timidly, his once playful demeanour now morphing into a tense/awkward one as he moved himself to sit beside Cyrus.

Cy carefully lifted the lid of the box to be greeted with a glistening gold necklace with a simple yet beautiful Star of David resting on the bottom of the chain. Cyrus’ smile grew even wider as he leapt onto his amazingly supportive friend, engulfing him in a hug thanking him repeatedly.

“No need to thank me Muffin, what are best friends for,” a soft smile started to tug at the corner of TJ's lips as he continued “hey have you checked your soul mark yet?” Cyrus’ eyes widened as an excited look spread across his whole face, slowly he reached for his shirt once again but before he could continue, fear took over him so he decided to close his eyes as he pulled it down slightly.

“Teej, you read it, I can’t. I don't want to. I-” TJ cut him off by giggling as he read with a knowing smirk.

“Tyler” , Cyrus’ brows furrowed as he opened his eyes confusion overtaking his whole body.

“Tyler? Who is Tyler?” The shorter boy moaned out in confusion. “I don't know a Tyler?” Teej’s whole body tensed and he didn't know if it was from excitement or fear, he hadn't decided yet but whatever it was, it was definitely there. Suddenly a little giggle escaped TJ’s lips as his hand brushed over Cyrus’ collar bone, while he whispered “Underdog” solemnly to himself, causing him to come to the educated conclusion it was excitement.

This, however, did not go unnoticed by Cyrus, whose eyes snapped over to TJ but before he could question anything the dirty blond basketball player laughed again, followed by him saying “We should get breakfast Muffin, after all, you can’t figure out mysteries on an empty stomach! Get ready and changed for school. I can take you to a bakery on the way if you’d like?”

With confusion overwhelming him, all Cyrus could do was simply nod but for TJ, that was good enough because he was already running out the door and downstairs. Sleepily and still very much confused he pulled on some pale blue skinny jeans his new necklace from TJ and the taller boys oversized black hoodie. Cyrus wasn’t sure why it was in his room, nor when or how it got there, but he knew the comforting smell of the athlete would calm him down. After all, with all this confusion and disappointment regarding his soul mark reading Tyler and not TJ liked he hoped, he was going to need his best friend and current crushes hoodie more than ever.

In the Jewish boy's sleepy state he pulled the jumper over his head to be greeted with the fact that he had placed it on backwards. Sighing as he goes to turn it around, Cyrus is stopped dead in his tracks as he is met with an old washed out label. He giggled to himself as he thought maybe now he can finally learn TJ’s full name! He examined the fabric again and again but he was just too tired to try and decode not only the messy handwriting but also how light it was. Little did he know if only he spent a few more seconds studying the name he could have realised that Tyler was a lot closer to home than he thought.

“Underdog come on we’re going to be late at this rate!” TJ called up the stairs, Cyrus takes that as his cue to stop daydreaming so he begins to walk down the stairs.

“You look fucking adorable.” TJ greeted Cyrus as soon as he was down the stairs.

“Thanks, it's a new jumper.” Cyrus flirtatiously replied with a wink. Where on earth was this confidence coming from? He wondered as he headed towards TJ’s car. After wishing his mother goodbye and a good day he was trying to keep the eye contact, or anything, with TJ to a minimum now that his confident streak had disappeared and he reminds himself that there's no point, TJ already knows his soulmate and he is probably 100 times better than Cyrus. Maybe he should just focus on Tyler and maybe, just maybe, admit and realise it’s time to move on.

-

As TJ and Cyrus walk through the doors into school, side by side it isn't long until they get bombarded by the group. Cyrus is having birthday wishes thrown at him alongside everyone asking about his soul mark. He doesn't understand why everyone is so interested and quite frankly they shouldn't be because he doesn't want to talk about it. In a heated moment of annoyance, he ignores them all, pushing through them abruptly and harshly in order to get to his locker.

Buffy and Andi’s face’s immediately fall, simultaneously shooting death stares at TJ, before heading to Cy’s locker.

“Cy, what's up?” Buffy asks softly, almost as if she was any louder, he would break.

“Please talk to us Cyrus, maybe we can help.” Andi reasons, Cyrus just sighs as he feels tears welling up in his eyes.

“It's not TJ, the soul mark its not TJ.” He whispers softly, his voice cracking slightly in the middle. Salty tears start to stream down his rough skin as he carries on. “I know this is stupid, I know I shouldn't be crying, but I wanted it to be him so bad and I-”

“Hey, Underdog what's going o- Wait, holy shit you’re crying what's up?” TJ interrupted his voice flooding with worry.

“You two need to talk” Buffy says calmly with a slight smile on her face. How is she smiling? Why is she smiling? Does she know something I don’t? Cyrus thought, his head flooding with confusion making him all the more angry. TJ could sense this so he perks up.

“That's an amazing idea, Buffy! Cy put your bag in your locker, I’m taking you to the swings. Let's go!” TJ said, his voice dripping with excitement.

“No, schools starting in ten minutes, he can’t do that!” Andi states angrily, looking at Buffy for support. TJ rolls his eyes at her.

“Hey, don't tell him what he can’t do. For your information Muffin and I have study period first so it doesn't matter if “school starts in 10 minutes”. Cyrus is upset and we’re gonna fix that no matter the time.” TJ stops to look around and then his smile widens when he locks eyes with Amber.

“Cover for us will ya sissy?” He pleads with puppy dog eyes. Those god damn puppy eyes, Cy thought.

“What am I supposed to tell them?” Amber asks, clearly exasperated.

“I don't know? Say Cyrus ran into a glass door and he's down at medical or something?”

“Wow, that one hit close to home.” Cyrus stated while giggling.

“Well, I had to make it believable didn't I Underdog?” TJ playfully asked, a lazy smirk covering his face.

The boys laughed and Cyrus started to wipe away the tears from his face as he calmed down. Suddenly though, Cyrus’ hand felt weighted, confusion flooding his thoughts he looked down to see TJ’s hand, interlocked with his own.

“Come on, we’re going to the swings!!”

-

Ten minutes had gone by of the boys just sitting there in comfortable yet awkward under toned silence. It was TJ who broke the silence by grabbing Cyrus’ hand and saying without turning to look at him, not being able to bare the thought of looking into his eyes.

“Did I ever tell you my real name?” He whispered, before hastily continuing on, “what it stands for, I mean.” He could see out of the corner of his eye, Cyrus reluctantly shaking his head.

“Tyler.” He said while smiling, “Tyler Joseph Kippen.”

Cyrus got up from the swing so he was able to stand in front of TJ and he bent down onto his knees while placing his finger under TJ’s chin to lift his head up softly.

“So my soulmate, the name Tyler on my collar bone, that correlates to you?” As confirmation, TJ nods as he pulls down the hem of his shirt to reveal in the most beautiful cursive writing “Cyrus”.

Cyrus’ whole face lights up with joy as he pulls TJ in for a hug.

“Can I kiss you?” Cyrus asks, hopeful and excited yet timid. TJ nods his head so hard Cy is surprised he didn't get whiplash.

“plEASE!” TJ begs as his voice cracks.

“You fucking dork!” Cyrus calls out before closing the gap between their lips. The kiss is short but sweet. pure and wonderful, filled with longing and desire. Cyrus starts to giggle and smile widely into the kiss, causing TJ to pull away in confusion.

“What so funny?” TJ huffs out, but all he was greeted with was Cy mimicking his early voice break.

“pLEaSe!!” Cyrus said, giggling at his over exaggeration of TJ’s voice.

“Oi.” He replies sarcastically “I think I deserve another kiss to make up for this bULLYING!!” TJ says playfully, a pout gracing his lips.

“God, you really are a dork.” Cyrus laughs softly kissing his soulmate again.

_____

Let's just say when the boys headed to second-period hand in hand, there were no more tears but there was a very concerned English teacher.

“Cyrus?? Oh, thank God you’re here, I heard you ran into a glass door and I’ve been worried sick! Are you okay? Are you bleeding? Are you feeling better now?”

“Amber” Cyrus mumbles as he begins laughing uncontrollably...

“I told you it was a believable excuse” TJ whispered lovingly, giggling in his ear.

“Yes miss, I’m okay.” Cyrus turns to look at TJ before continuing, “more than okay.”

-------------------------------- <3

hey guys !!! I hope you all enjoyed it. I was forced to post this by my am gc after I shared the idea. once again thank you so much, so so much to my favourite person who helped to edit this !!!!

here's the tag list???? (the people in my group who wanted a tag sksk) here you go, Merry Christmas

@judgemental-llama  @tyrus-is-endgame-fight-me @emmy2024riggs @a-bittersweet-gal  @cxrus-kippen

[irarelypostanything]

Slice of Life[4]

[Ryan]

Ryan found that being extremely intelligent was both a blessing and a curse: It was a blessing because it helped him breeze through his UCB CS classes, and it was a curse because it made people interact with him in some really strange, occasionally disturbing ways.

Arrogant and egotistical people, Ryan found, often attempted to show their superiority to him out of some mislabeled sense of insecurity (and they were almost always unsuccessful).  Even fairly “normal” people seemed to adapt their behavior in his presence, either by attempting to garner his respect or by ignoring him outright.  All of this was because they either saw themselves in him, were envious of him, or were just generally intimidated by him.  Ryan knew this because, while dual-majoring in music, he also did minors in psychology, military strategy, and economics.  For fun.

The honest truth was that, beneath the brilliance and the talent, Ryan was actually a fairly simple man who only cared at all about three things: His girlfriend, digital signal processing, and dropping bomb-ass EDM remixes.  He currently had roughly 500 thousand hits on one of his Soundclound scores.  His dream was to either sign a record label or pursue grad school at MIT, where he hoped to prove that there was a far superior method for direction finding.

“I’ve tested all of your new code,” said Kevin, “and it works perfectly.”

“Excellent.  Do you want to tell Andy?”

“Well...hold on.  Here’s the thing.”

They were back in the conference room.  Kevin’s laptop was projected for both of them.  Kevin brought up their sprint breakdown, which reflected that they were on track to finish their story in about three days.

“If we say this is complete, the scrum master is going to ask us to work on something else.  Because it will take a day just to understand the new task, and because the scrum master is incapable of comprehending that, we will have to work the weekend.  I don’t want to work the weekend.  However, this would be an ethical violation and a deceptive-”

“Fuck it, let’s do it.”

“What?  Really?”

“Yeah man, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go to a rave than sit in an office Saturday night.”

The next day, as per the sacred laws of scrum, both of them stood and shared their progress.

“Unfortunately,” said Kevin, “this task has proven to be very difficult for us.  It is likely to take us the remaining two days we have, but hopefully not the weekend.”

“Hopefully,” said Ryan.  “Kevin is working pretty hard to show me the ropes, but I admit that I’ve been a bit slow to adapt.”  Ryan winked at Kevin.

“Do you still think you’ll be able to finish the story on time?”

“Yes!” said Kevin instantly.  “Er...I mean...if we work really hard, then possibly we’ll finish.”

“Fingers crossed!” said Ryan.

“Okay,” said the scrum master, “good luck to both of you.”

Ryan and Kevin spent the next six hours playing Minecraft on a company Raspberry Pi.

[Kevin]

San Francisco.  God it took a long time to drive back this time.  It was Picnic Day, so getting past Davis took like an hour.  Berkeley was...busy...always.  Some driver honked Kevin as he slowed to get into the rightmost lane, and Kevin quickly memorized the angry driver’s license plate.  One day, even if it took a lifetime, Kevin would get revenge.  Kevin would find this driver, tailgate him, then honk him rudely before speeding away.

The drive normally took an hour and a half.  Today it took almost four.

Home was strange.  His mom was out on her own vacation.  Everything looked more or less the same, but what was this...lack of feeling?  Kevin unpacked his things, tested the Internet, watched an episode of Billions.  He slept a little while, since the drive was exhausting, then lazily checked his Android.

He wanted to talk “strategy” with someone from before, whatever that meant.  Company pivot.  Multi-million dollar contract.  Career growth.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  He had one friend whose mature insight six years before had been critical.  He wanted her wisdom again, but she was out.

There was someone else he knew from before.  She was also out.

His high school friend who was now trying to get into software engineering?  His college friend who moved up here for data analytics?  Busy, busy.  What was this?

Kevin felt lonely a lot.  The company therapist said that this was a psychological affliction created from his unique circumstance of NEVER HANGING OUT WITH ANYONE, EVER, unless it involved complaining about work for two hours straight and then leaving early.  Kevin responded by asking his therapist if she wanted to grab lunch.  She politely declined.

Kevin streamed a new series called Billions.  Kevin watched YouTube.  Kevin decided to start reading an exciting new book series he had heard about in a podcast during the drive, then got bored of that.  He returned to his phone and decided to cycle through everyone again.

Still busy?  Yeah.  Still busy?  Yeah.

Kevin decided to try out a new strategy.  He got everyone he had just asked into a Facebook chat and asked if they wanted to play StarCraft 1, just like old times.

They all played until daybreak, and it was great, but Kevin really helped that four-hour drive was not a waste.

[Nora]

Sunday mornings were always spent at church, as God had intended.  It was important to specify that Jesus, unlike the followers of outdated teachings, stressed that it was not sinful to work on the holy day.  Sin was a spectrum, not an absolute.  

And holy crap were some of these Sunday night parties she found herself in sinful.

San Francisco daytime, Nora remembered, mostly consisted of churning out code and witnessing the combined results of various well-known tech companies feeding off of each other and reproducing incestuousy, like the Targaryens.  Her dashboard alone was powered by six familiar names, and it was unsurprising that these six companies also used her company’s product.

San Francisco nighttime, Nora was now learning, consisted of various bar crawls, sketchy house parties, drinking on drinking, and various drugs that it was probably illegal to even put into writing.  Nora at least distanced herself from the drugs, but the rest was difficult.  The caviar was to die for.  The music was so fire that she wondered how these musicians remained in obscurity while crap on the radio was platinum.

Tonight, at a quieter house party, Nora wanted to just unwind a little bit.  She carried a bottle of two buck chuck she had found and uncorked it for herself.  She chatted up the bartender, mingled a bit, then sat at the couch to sip and scroll through Instagram.  This was going to be a quieter night, she could feel it.

Suddenly Kevin burst through the front door, two bottles of Bacardi 151 in hand.

“The drought is over!” he screamed, followed by the loud sound of the host cheering and everyone else in the room calling his name.  

[kayspromotions]

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Story time! Today marks 3 years since I FINALLY got to see/meet @andygrammer. I have been listening to Andy since about 2010, so being able to see him perform the first song I ever heard of his, “Keep Your Head Up,” was magical. Not to mention being able to meet someone you’ve looked up to for that long. There’s no doubt there were tears shed (happy tears of course). I never could have known how much this night was going to change my life. I took a chance, but honestly thought I would never be able to get Andy the paintings I made for him. God must have known how much I needed this man in my life because the next thing you know I’m talking with his management & TM to set up a meeting. After the show I was able to meet Andy and share my heart with him through my art. Then you know what he did?! He posted a photo with my art (and I cried again 🙈). I’ve never felt that excited/appreciated before. This was only the beginning of a great artist/fan relationship and I am so grateful! I can’t even begin to thank Andy enough. He is honestly one of the most humble and genuine humans I’ve ever met. He pours his heart into everything he does and it’s just so beautiful to witness. He has this way of warming your heart, touching your soul, and making you simultaneously cry/smile and dance the night away. I can’t even begin to describe all of the emotions I get from listening to his music and seeing him perform live. He is insanely talented and puts on one of the best shows you’ll ever see, that’s for sure! We are so blessed to have him. So so thankful to Andy for literally everything. For opening your heart to us. For supporting me and helping me to see my worth. For always being true to yourself and for being such a positive light in this world. For giving my momma and I a chance to connect through your music. For all of the fun memories and the endless happy tears I’ve cried. You really are incredible and I hope you know that. Sending so much love your way today, and always. I hope you enjoyed your birthday yesterday! Can’t wait to see what this next year will bring your way! 🙌🏼🎂💕🎉 • P.S. Don’t mind the crap quality video. 🙃 #songfulheart https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq-qxgLAmcJ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3ss75xcebfhy

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

50 things to be thankful for in 2018

There's no denying 2018 has absolutely tested our patience, but it turns out the year hasn't been complete trash.

Beyond some of the most important aspects of life like your loved ones and your health, 2018 has truly given us a lot of good. From social justice initiatives like Time's Up and March for Our Lives, to pop culture masterpieces like Queer Eye, Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again, and "thank u, next," the year had its share of hopeful, joyous, entertaining, and positive moments.

So when times get tough and it feels like there's not much to be happy about in the world, here are 50 things to be thankful for.

SEE ALSO: The internet's best tips for how to be kind on World Kindness Day

1. Time's Up launched. 2018 started off strong with a group of more than 300 women in the entertainment industry coming together to form Time's Up — an initiative dedicated to standing up against sexual harassment.

I stand with women across every industry to say #TIMESUP on abuse, harassment, marginalization and underrepresentation. ⁰@TIMESUPNOW https://t.co/4zd5g2ByU0 pic.twitter.com/0h8ojLOq9U

— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) January 1, 2018

2. Laverne Cox made history on the cover of Cosmo. In January, actress and producer Laverne Cox also made history as the first ever trans covergirl for Cosmopolitan Magazine. Cox graced the cover of Cosmo South Africa's February issue.

3. The Fab Five came into our lives. It may feel like Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, and Antoni Porowski have been inspiring us all to eat, dress, groom, self-love, and decorate to the best of our abilities for a lifetime, but Netflix's Queer Eye reboot only premiered in Feb. 2018.

4. Drake's "God's Plan" music video. Remember pre-Meek Mill beef when Drake gave away nearly one million dollars and filmed himself doing all those good deeds like paying for people's groceries? That was nice!

5. The Parkland teens. Though 2018 was full of an unfathomable amount of tragedy and gun violence,  the year also inspired a heartwarming amount of youth activism in America. After the deadly Parkland shooting in February, a group of teen survivors from the Florida high school shooting has consistently stood up to government officials and publicly advocated for gun control.

Parkland teens at March For Our lives rally.

Image: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

This year alone they've formed March for Our Lives, led school walkouts, inspired others (both young and old) to register to vote and protest gun violence, and even inspired the Obama's to write a heartfelt entry in the Time 100 issue.

6. Mirai Nagasu landed a triple axel. The Winter Olympics also took place this year! There were many standout moments but Mirai Nagasu absolutely slayed, making history by becoming the first U.S. woman to land a triple axel in the Winter Olympics. Thankful we got to witness this moment.

7. Black Panther came out. We were truly blessed this year by the arrival of the record-breaking Marvel's cinematic masterpiece, Black Panther, and the talented actors, fierce as hell soundtrack, and on-screen representation it brought to our world.

8. Jordan Peele's Oscar win. Speaking of movies, Peele's film Get Out won "Best Original Screenplay" this year, making him the first black screenwriter to receive the award.

9. The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate wait is almost over. The highly anticipated video game is set to come out for Nintendo Switch on Dec. 7.

10. Beto O'Rourke. 2018 was the year of Beto, burgers, and a Beyoncé midterms endorsement.

We just want to say thank you to everyone who made this possible. Everyone who made us feel hopeful, everyone who inspired us. Everyone who became the most amazing campaign we could have ever hoped to belong to. Grateful that we got to do this with you. We love you. Goodnight! pic.twitter.com/1j6JnhtP0f

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) November 7, 2018

11. A Quiet Place. John Krasinski directed and starred in a horror film alongside his IRL wife that was so quiet and terrifying people were too nervous to eat snacks in theaters. What a time to be alive.

12. Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer. Remember when the rapper was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his fourth studio album, DAMN? Hell yeah!

13. Beyoncé at Coachella. Beychella was THIS YEAR. We knew she would slay but nothing prepared us for the sheer magnitude of her powerhouse performance, or Destiny's Child, or the movement she inspired.

14. The Royal Wedding. When the world needed a distraction from the bad and an escape from reality, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were there for us. And for that we thank them.

15. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was saved. For several terrible, horrible, no good, very bad hours Brooklyn Nine-Nine was cancelled. But thankfully, after a whole lot of love from fans, NBC picked it up for a sixth season.

Image: fox

16. Won't You Be My Neighbor reminded us of Mr. Rogers' magic. We needed a heavy dose of Fred Rogers' pure and wholesome goodness to get us through the year and this film did just the trick.

17. Ava DuVernay made history. DuVernay's adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time led her to become the first black woman to direct a film that grossed more than $100 million at the box office.

18. The world is finally taking action against plastic pollution. Plastic straw bans are spreading across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Businesses like McDonald's and Starbucks are even getting on board the movement. 

19. We still have dogs. No matter how bad things get we still have furry companions to turn to, and play with, and occasionally throw cheese on.

20. Eighth Grade filled us with middle school anxiety. Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade reminded adults how stressful growing up can be and gave teens an emotional look at middle school through a more relatable lens.

Image: a24

21. Crazy Rich Asians was a smashing success. The film dominated box office sales and served as an important milestone for Asian representation in American pop culture. And guess what? It's getting a sequel.

22. Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again! Love. Pregnancy. Death. Flashbacks. Dancing. Singing. Abba. Meryl. Cher. Andy García. Help!

23. Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra. 2018 has seen the rise (Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin) and fall (Ariana and Pete) of celebrity relationships. But through the ups and downs of the year Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra's love never seemed to waiver. We're thankful this nice, soon-to-be-wed couple is here to restore our faith in love.

24. LeBron James opened up a school. The NBA star opened his "I Promise" school in Akron, Ohio, to give 240 third and fourth grade students a life-changing educational opportunity.

25. To All The Boys I've Loved Before captured our hearts. Netflix introduced the world to the film adaptation of Jenny Han's young adult book and after Peter Kavinsky's "woah woah woah," our hearts will never be the same. Not to mention it inspired dozens of Lara Jean Halloween costumes.

Image: netflix

26. That quirky, super high-maintenance cat was adopted. Remember Bruno, the thicc, polydactyl cat that Wright Way Rescue Animal Shelter in Morton Grove, Illinois, was trying to find a home? He found one :').

27. A sixgill shark was discovered. This is cool because most sharks have five gills. It's also a reminder that we should be thankful for oceanographers, researchers, and all those who explore the our vast and mysterious oceans.

28. India strikes down gay sex ban. On Sept. 6, members of India's Supreme Court unanimously voted to make the landmark ruling that eliminates the ban on consensual gay sex.

29. Moth memes lit up our lives. The year was filled with good memes but those moth/lamp memes? Pure joy.

30. Amy Sherman-Palladino and all those Emmys. Amy Sherman-Palladino has always been genius. Gilmore Girls? Bun Heads? Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life? It's about time she's properly celebrated, so we're thankful The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won four Emmys. We are also thankful for her husband, Dan Palladino.

Image: Rich Fury/Getty Images

31. Twitter did one good thing. We have no edit button and there's still bots and harassment a-plenty, but at the very least, Twitter brought back the chronological timeline.

32. Gritty came into our lives. Can anyone even remember a world without the Philadelphia Flyers' new hairy orange mascot?

33. The Office is back ... sort of. While fans of the NBC comedy are still holding out hope for a revival, 2018 treated those nostalgic for the days of Dunder Mifflin to a charming off-broadway musical.

34. Speaking of The Office — be thankful for Steve Carell. He stars with Timothée Chalamet and Amy Ryan (Holly Flax) in Beautiful Boy. He's got Welcome to Marwen coming out, which looks, uh interesting. He's on SNL. And he's making his triumphant return to television!

35. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper gave us life. A Star Is Born came out this year, along with a kickass soundtrack and some perfect memes. We will never be the same.

36. Fat Bear Week ran our lives for 7 days. Much love to all the fat bears out there who distracted us for an entire week just by living their lives. 

37. This throwback baked potato costume. Halloween costumes are great but this throwback baked potato get-up really made us smile.

38. Thankful for the hot duck in Central Park. We thought we lost him, but he's back again. <3

39. We have a new anthem: "Party For One." How did Carly Rae Jepsen know we were in desperate need of a song to dance in our underwear and eat a large pizza alone to? And the music video! UGH!

40. And there's no musical praise without discussing Ariana Grande. The warrior of 2018, Ariana Grande, has given fans so much love, inspiration, and hope throughout the year. Not to mention, the ultimate independent BOP: "thank u, next."

i’m so ..... fuckin ..... grateful

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 11, 2018

41. BDE came to be. Speaking adjacently of Pete Davidson, for better or worse 2018 also gave us Big Dick Energy and that's something we'll never forget.

42. Netflix still delivers. Netflix has an entertaining social media presence and continues to create quality original shows and movies.

43. There was an increase in voter turnout. 2018 proved Americans are standing up for what they believe in and exercising their right to vote. Voter turnout for midterm elections reached a 50-year high, and young people voted at historic rates.

44. Midterm results showed a refreshing amount of diversity. It was a night of historic firsts — from over 100 women elected to Congress (the highest number ever) to wins for the LGBTQ community and more.

45. The Detective Pikachu trailer looks delightful. Another cute as hell movie to look forward to? Yes please.

46. Cher's Twitter is hilarious. Twitter is sometime awful but not Cher's account. That's always good.

47. All of the books. The world has so many books just waiting to be read — books for when you're mad at the patriarchy, books for hikers, books all about pride. And some great books written this year.

48. All of the great TV shows. Streaming aside, there are dozens of phenomenal shows airing on television this year, like Superstore, The Good Place, This Is Us, Killing Eve, and more.

49. Sports are still a thing! We've got football, we've got soccer, we've got basketball, baseball, hockey, and so many more. Sports bring people together!

50. All the people working to keep others safe, informed, and up-to-date with the news. It's been a tough year for news, mass shootings, and natural disasters, which is why we're thankful for all the hard working journalists, reporters, news anchors, first responders, weather forecasters, and hurricane scientists.

So remember: No matter how bad things may seem there are always some bright spots in the world.

WATCH: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes history as she becomes the youngest woman ever in Congress

[moviesmakethegirl]

IT (2017)

Directed by Andy Muchietti, this movie is my favorite movie of 2017. I'm a huge horror nerd, as of lately, and this movie really hit a nerve within me that made each viewing of this movie brand new. Stephen King is a mastermind, and this is probably his most thought out and imaginative of his works that I'm familiar with. I've never read the behemoth of a novel that is IT, but my boyfriend has listened to it and has told me all the difference between the book and the movie and honestly, this remake is pretty true to the book. I love that. So without further ado, let's get started.

This story starts out on a rainy day with the most melancholic piano medley I could possibly imagine. Like, the mom couldn't have picked a more upbeat song to play? It's raining, you have two sons, it's the 80s, play some fucking Ray Charles or something. Bill and Georgie are upstairs making a paper boat. It's adorable because Georgie keeps calling the boat a "him" and Bill keeps correcting him. In my mind, Bill is such a feminist. Bill is sick and doesn't want to go out into the rain to play with Georgie so he takes a literal rain check and sends his little tiny brother out into the world to play all by himself while his mom is still playing that scary ass song on the piano and basically doesn't notice that her son is out in the rain all by himself. DISCLAIMER: FUCK THE PARENTS IN DERRY. So of course like any young lad would, he loses control of his boat and surprise it goes into a storm drain. Unlike every other kid in the goddamn world, Georgie looks into the drain to try and save the boat. Now, who shows up out of thin air? IT aka Pennywise the DANCING clown ahahahahah. Look, yes it's terrifying that a clown just appeared in a storm drain but this clown is played by the not so surprisingly talented Bill Skarsgard. Now, if you're like me, you spend the majority of your adolescence being obsessed with Alexander Skarsgard as Eric Northman in True Blood. So, when I found out his little brother was gonna play one of the most iconic roles in horror history, I was stoked. Talent runs in the veins of all the Skarsgard's who have turned into this generations Barrymore's. SOOOO now Pennywise has been introduced and he's scary as hell. He's drooling, he's smiling all sinister like, and asking Georgie if he can smell the popcorn. I feel like that is strike number 2 on Georgie's part cause even as a kid, you know that popcorn doesn't belong in a fucking storm drain. So, Pennywise is all I HAVE YOUR BOAT and Georgie is all YEAAHH GIVE IT TO ME and Pennywise is like TAKE. IT. (honestly a great line I repeat all the time) an so little naive baby Georgie reaches in and gets his goddamn arm bitten off by an inter-dimensional being dressed as a clown. But see, my biggest issue with this scene isn't Georgie's complete lack of stranger danger that was pounded into my being as a kid, but it's this goddamn old bitch lady who is outside the ENTIRE TIME Georgie is talking to a clown in a storm drain. This bitch sees a young boy talking to a storm drain and shrugs it off. And it's raining, so apparently the sound of the pouring rain is supposed to drown out the noise of Georgie screaming while crawling in the street without an arm? BULLSHIT. This bitch and her dumbass cat do NOTHING and I blame her for every missing kid in Derry. (If some of you reading this have read the book, you completely understand why the elders of Derry are such assholes, but that doesn't make me any less pissed off that all of them are fucking idiots.)

Ok, so now it's the end of the school year. Bill and his bffs Richie, Eddie, and Stanley have officially left their last class of the day and are excited to start summer vacation before the 8th grade. This is my favorite cause these children actors are the best part of this movie. Bill is played by Jaeden Lieberher who is so convincing as Bill that I legit thought he stuttered in real life. Eddie is played by the charismatic and humorous as fuck Jack Dylan Grazer. Stanley is played Wyatt Oleff, who is a very good voice of reason for dumb teenage boys. But the best character and best actor in this movie is Finn Wolfhard who plays Richie. And maybe I'm biased because I'm a die hard Stranger Things fan, but seriously, Richie is a scene stealing character who can only be played by someone as engaging as Finn. Literally, couldn't love a group of actors more than the ones who play the kids in this movie. All of them, pure perfection, nailed their performances, and were the light in such a dark story. So moving on, while the boys are being boys and talking about their private parts and the other missing children of Derry cause yeah, it's totally normal for a town to always have missing kids. So the other main antagonist besides all the adults in this town and Pennywise, is this bully named Henry Bowers and his goons. Now, bear with me here, but this movie would be nothing without Henry. He's your typical small town bully who just pulls backpacks and bless his heart, gave Bill the year off of being bullied since he lost his little brother. But now that the school year is over, Bill is fair game again. Henry's father is the town's sheriff, so there's a sense of "my father is an asshole and all hyper masculine and I have big shoes to fill" blah blah blah bully shit. So after we see the losers get picked on we are then introduced to the CUTE AS FUCK Ben. Ben is played by a boy named Jeremy Ray Taylor and this kid has got such a bright future. I wanna hug and mentor and hang out with this kid so bad. So Ben is the New Kid on the Block who you guessed it, listens to New Kids on the Block. He is approached by Beverly Marsh, who earlier was being bullied herself by the female version of Henry Bowers who honestly isn't super important and I'm not gonna waste any more time writing about her right now. Beverly puts her charm on 10 here and signs Ben's yearbook after finding out no one else did. She gives him shit for listening to NKOTB, which HEY NKOTB is a national treasure and how dare anyone make fun of anyone for listening to them. Ben then walks home with his headphones dragging behind his bike cause he's so enamored by Beverly and it's just CUTE.

Then we meet Mike Hanlon, who we actually probably meet before the last of school. He works on a farm with his grandpa and theres a scene where he has to kill a sheep but can't do it, cause he has HUMANITY! Mike makes deliveries into town and that's where we see him next. He goes into an alley behind the butcher, only for Pennywise to get his kicks. It starts with Mike seeing smoke come out from the door and then burned hands start trying to open the door fully but can't. Then the door is thrown open and there's a silhouette of a clown in chains trying to escape only to STAND THE FUCK UP AND STARE AT MIKE WHILE HIS EYES GLOW. Mike just fucking stands there staring back like RUNNNNN MIKE!!!!!! Thankfully, maybe not, but Henry Bowers and friends pull up and scream at Mike to leave their town and throw their cigarettes at him, but when Mike looks back into the door only the butcher is there asking if he is alright. It's a short scene but by god if I don't scream my little heart out for Mike every single time I watch it.

So now the kiddos, Stanley, Bill, Eddie, and Richie, are all down at the Barren's to try to find where Georgie went missing. Eddie, the hypochondriac, is complaining about the piss water that they are standing in and refuses to go in. Richie makes fun of him and it's honestly, hilarious. I'm gonna use that word a lot. Even though this is a horror movie, it's actually one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. And not in a it's funny because it's so cheesy, it's funny because it's young teenage kids being scared and dealing with that fear by undercutting it with humor. GOD I JUST LOVE IT! Anyways, during this time, Ben is in the library being a little bookworm. The librarian kind of gives him shit for not having friends and he should be playing outside which is bullshit since basically every older woman I've ever met as a kid was always like "you kids need to calm down" and "you should read more" blah blah blah. It just seems like every generation has a problem with a younger generation and honestly, fuck that but that's a conversation for another time. So, Ben starts reading about the history of Derry which is HORRIBLE! There was a huge fire on Easter which killed a bunch of children and he sees pictures of children's heads in trees like, fucked up shit. AND while he is reading all of this, there's another old bitch standing behind him, almost off screen, STARING AT HIM THE WHOLE TIME. The first time we saw this in theaters, David pointed this out to me and I was like "that's creepy" and the more I see this scene, the more it freaks me out. Some people overlooked this part, but it's probably the scariest part of the movie. So now that Ben has unlocked the town's secrets, he is lured to the basement by Easter eggs that are smoking. Down in the archives, he sees someone walking down the stairs and guess what it is? A HEADLESS CHILD cause if children weren't already scary enough, let's just not give them heads, right??? This headless bitch chases him through the archives and then you hear my second favorite line of the entire movie. Whispered is, "HEY EGGBOY." And Ben turns around to find Pennywise chasing him. Ben runs into the old librarian, and then runs away crying and of course, she doesn't ask what is wrong. Poor Ben just can't catch a break cause once he gets outside the library, Henry is waiting for him. The boy band take the sad, scared Ben out to a bridge where Henry says he's gonna carve his name into Ben's stomach, which is so fucked up, but so totally Stephen King, I get it. Of course, adults drive by while Ben is screaming for help and they don't do anything and it makes me want to cut their break lines but whatever. Ben totally escapes though, but not before having an H carved into his little squishy belly, and follows the creek to the Barrens where he finds the other boys. The boys being perfect take Ben back into town to try to clean him up. While they are doing that, Henry and his back up singers are searching for Ben in the Barrens. One of the goons, Patrick, goes into the sewers with a lighter and hairspray, only to find all the dead kids that Pennywise has eaten and then died himself which thank fuck. One down, three more to go.

While Ben is bleeding in an alley, Eddie is complaining about medical questions while Richie won't stop talking about penis'. They run into a pharmacy to get stuff for Ben only to realize they don't have enough money so in walks sweet Beverly who is scared to buy tampons for the first time. She flirts with the old gross man behind the counter and knocks over a tray of something so the boys can run out of the store with their shit. She also grabs a pack of cigarettes for herself cause she's amazing and should be my best friend. The boys thank her, and she becomes "one of the boys." Her home life though, guys. It's horrible. Her father is grade A creep status and is all mad that she is buying tampons cause he wants her to stay his little girl forever and she gets all emotional and cuts off all her hair in retaliation. So, the next day, all the boys are at some cliff about to jump off it into the lake below but are all being chicken about. Beverly comes through in new hair do and jumps off the cliff, showing all the boys up, while Richie yells "FUCKING HELL" and it's comical and amazing and you're lying if you don't think Beverly Marsh is the coolest girl you've ever seen. She also looks EXACTLY like Amy Adams, if Amy was 13. The kids have a fun day in the lake, playing chicken, being young teenagers. Ben then brings up the history of Derry and brings the kids back to his rooms which is covered in old pages of books with old pictures and maps about Derry. There's also a huge NKOTB poster on the back of his door that only Beverly notices. Ben describes the history of Derry to the kids, which is every 27 years a bunch of random kids go missing and no one does anything about it!

Now, each kid has a run in with Pennywise in their own way. And I'm totally going out of order with this movie cause I'm writing this just based off my memory, but somewhere in the beginning we see Stanley trying to memorize stuff in Hebrew. He isn't doing too well so his dad makes him put the book back in his office and go home. In his father's office there’s a scary painting of a woman with a weird shaped head. Stanley doesn't like it, and it falls off the wall. When he puts it back on the wall, the woman is gone. He turns around the woman is standing like 10 feet taller than him and starts to chase him. So, we know that Stanley's fear is definitely this strange painting woman. Ben's is headless kids. Mike's is people burning in a fire, cause we do learn at some point that his parents died in a fire and he tried to save them but he couldn't and that plagues him. Beverly's scene is when she is in the bathroom by herself and she hears voices coming from her sink drain so instead of running the fuck out of the bathroom she grabs her dad's tape measure and pushes it down the drain only for it to come up with blood and hair that then wraps itself around her and sprays blood all over her and the bathroom. When her screams lure her dad into the room, he doesn't see the blood and she's freaking out. I'm assuming that means her fear is blood...but maybe it's just voices of dead kids. So then Eddie is walking home by himself one afternoon and it's his pill time, cause his mom is an overbearing homebody who makes him take pills for everything. He drops his pills because he is walking past a house that is run down and looks scary but has really cute sunflowers in the front yard that make it look kinda kitschy. When he is picking up his pills, he notices a hand helping him and looks up to find basically a zombie leper staring at him. He runs into the front yard of the scary house and is about to leave through a hole in the fence when he notices that a clown is standing with a bunch of balloons by the house. Pennywise shows his face and asks Eddie to play with him, saying the infamous "We all float down here!" Eddie is beyond traumatized and runs screaming through the fence. Eddie's fear being germs and being sick.

So the kids are riding their bikes through the town and notice an abandoned bike off the side of the road next to Henry Bowers' car. They recognize it as Mike's bike and go down to the quarry to find him. Henry and the remaining living boy banders are beating up Mike when Henry gets hit in the head with a rock that we see is thrown by none other than the Queen herself, Beverly fucking Marsh. Richie screams "ROCK WAR" and it starts a very comedic scene of all the youngsters throwing rocks at each other while saving Mike in the process. This then completes the Losers Club: Bill, Richie, Eddie, Stanley, Beverly, Ben, and Mike. MY DREAM TEAM HONESTLY! The most badass group of kids ever besides the Hawkins kids in Stranger Things. They go to Bill's garage where he has slides of the maps of the sewer systems of Derry. The kids are sitting in the dark looking at maps when all of a sudden, the slides start moving on their own and of course Pennywise pops out and terrorizes the kids and audience members by being 17 feet tall. The kids scream and cry until Mike opens the garage door and instead of fleeing for their lives and never talking to each other again like I would have done as a scared teenager, they fucking go to the old abandoned house where the well that connects all the sewers is located. Once there, Bill, Eddie, and Richie go inside the house after Bill gives a huge speech about not being afraid of monsters cause real life is more terrifying than any of that which he didn't stutter at all during and I'm such a proud older sister to all these kids, but especially Bill in that moment. Richie finds a missing kid poster that has his face on it and freaks out, rightfully so. The other boys calm him down and they move on. Eddie gets separated, Bill and Richie are locked in a room with black goop coming out from an old mattress and then Richie gets locked in a room full of clown statues only to have Pennywise jump out and scare him but Bill saves him in time. Pennywise then goes to scare Eddie who passed out from fear and fell through  hole in the ground and landed on a table and broke his arm. He comes out of a fridge and rubs Eddie's face in the style of Heath Ledger's Joker. He's then distracted by Bill and Richie who has escaped their room full of fears above and are screaming for Eddie. They find Eddie underneath Pennywise and of course, freak out. But then, here comes my true savior, Beverly takes an old pipe and enters through the back door and stabs Pennywise in the fucking FACE! GIRL YAAAASSSSS!!!! She's terrified but she saves the day. Richie then tries to pop Eddie's arm back into place which then breaks it even more than it already is and it's a very comical part of such a scary scene. Of course Eddie's mom flips a tit and doesn't let Eddie hang out with the crew anymore. The Losers Club kind of disbands for a bit after Bill and Richie get into a fight about how dangerous all this is. Bill wants to keep going cause the closer he gets to figuring all this out, the closer her gets to finding out what happened to Georgie. Everyone ends up leaving Bill, except Beverly but even then they part ways for a little bit.

When Bill has his Pennywise encounter which is totally before all of the stuff I just wrote, he sees a ghost of Georgie running through his house and then into the basement. He follows him down there only for Pennywise to come out of the water and try to grab him which he gets really close to doing but Bill is fast. NOW, while everyone is doing their own shit, Bill goes over to Beverly's house only to find out that she has been taken by Pennywise. Now, before she was kidnapped, her father was being a real fucking douche bag. He was mad at her for hanging out with boys and was chasing her though their house. She hid behind the shower curtain with the top of a toilet and smacked him over the head and killed him. My angel. Immediately after that, Pennywise took her. So, Bill has to save her. He calls everyone to tell them watch happened and they all meet back at the weird house to go down the well. So, during this time Eddie has realized that his mom was giving him placebo pills. He calls her out on him but he says, and I fucking quote this straight from the movie guys, "They're GAZEBOS. They're BULLSHIT!" And if you have a heart, Eddie becomes the world's best character right in that moment. He also had the bully bitch who was bulling Beverly in the beginning sign his cast and she wrote LOSER in big ass black letters. He then wrote over the S and put a big V on it so it would say LOVER instead. So cute. So pure. Eddie forever.

Now, we're at the climax. (I've skipped a lot of little details because if I didn't this post would be too long.) The boys all get into hero mode while going down this sketchy ass well. Mike is the last one to go down but is stopped by Henry fucking Bowers, who previously to this was targeted by Pennywise but not in a scare to death kind of way, in a recruitment way. Pennywise gave Henry his father's knife to kill his father and then brainwashed him into killing everyone else. He even kills his friends in a deleted scene, fun fact. So Henry, all jacked up on killer clown rage, is trying to kill Mike with a gun that's used to killing sheep by shooting a really big like screw-like bolt into their head. Mike, being the hero we all know he can be, throws Henry off of him and pushes him down the well! YAYAYAYAYAYAY! All while the boys are stuck in the well screaming for Mike. But, good prevails and they all go into the sewers only to lose Stanley who has wandered off cause he hears a woman's voice and thinks it's Beverly but alas it's not! It's that skewed bitch from the painting who wraps her whole mouth around his face and starts to suck. Mike shoots something at the creature and it slinks away into the tunnels as Pennywise. Stanley throws a fit cause his friend's ditched him which they DID NOT HE LEFT THEM but still, he was just getting his face sucked by a monster so he is totally ok to have a meltdown. Bill then sees Georgie in the tunnels and goes running after him who then leads him to where Beverly is. Beverly is where all the dead floating kids are. The boys pull her down before she can truly float and they don't know how to wake her up but Ben steps in and kisses her and IT WORKS! So now all the kids are confronted by Pennywise, who takes Bill and says they can all escape if they leave Bill. Bill begs them to leave but Richie refuses and says "...now I have to kill this fucking clown." So all the kids grab blunt objects and start beating the FUUUUCK out of Pennywise. Pennywise then turns into Georgie and Bill takes that bolt gun thing and shoots him in the fucking forehead, which causes Pennywise to change back into clown form and slink even further into the abyss. THE KIDS PREVAILED! SUCH STRONG ROLEMODLES!!!!!

The end of the movie is the entire Losers Club standing in a field promising each other that if IT ever comes back, they will fight it and kill it for good. They take a blood oath and one by one they all start to leave. Beverly and Bill are the last two and they share a cute, albeit gross as fucking moment by sharing a kiss. It's gross to me cause Beverly has blood all over her hand and she grabs Bill's face and her blood is all over his face it's fucking nasty. But everything is ok at the end, but you know that's only CHAPTER 1!

So, as far as IT goes, it's my favorite because I love the kids in it. The kids are incredible actors. They have the perfect balance of humor and horror and it's not over the top for either of them. The director really let the kids bond before filming and it shows. They are real friends so that friendship perfectly crosses over to the screen. I remember being 12-13, friendship was the most important thing to me. I would have done anything to save my friends from a monster. This story gives life to characters who are damaged and real. Stephen King hit it on the fucking nail with these characters. I'm so happy this movie this exists because it's just the beginning. Chapter 2 is about how IT comes back when these characters are adults, and I can't wait until that movie. If I could cast the adult versions, Patrick Wilson would be Bill, Chris Pratt would be Ben, Amy Adams would be Beverly, Bill Hader would be Richie, and I honestly don't know who would play Eddie or Stanley, but I think that Chadwick Boseman should play Mike. That would be the dream. If you also enjoyed this movie, I'd love to hear who you would like to see cast in Chapter 2 and also hear your opinions on it as well!

AGAIN NONE OF THESE PICTURES ARE MINE. I DO NOT CLAIM CREDIT FOR THEM.

[oneweekoneband]

Left of Center // Suzanne Vega The first time I ever heard “Left of Center” was live in concert at the Fitzgerald Theater on Mother’s Day, 2003. By that time, Suzanne Vega had reached 44 years of age, smashed out of the New York City folk revival scene with her self-titled debut, topped charts worldwide with “Tom’s Diner,” won a Grammy for “Luka,” married a producer, made two albums with him, divorced him, released another (much better-produced) post-divorce album, assembled a greatest-hits compilation (literally entitled Retrospective), left her label, and embarked upon single motherhood, her daughter only a handful of years younger than me. By the time that May rolled around she had already secured her place in popular music history several times over; in fact, there are probably people who would argue that as she stood alone on the dark stage, guitar in hand, the best moments of her career were already behind her.

But to me, up in the balcony and buzzing with joy, everything felt new. I was eleven years old and it was my first rock concert. I loved Suzanne Vega –– the way you love the music woven into the fabric of your life before you’re old enough to understand anything about genre, or context, or critical reception –– and had joyfully sung every lyric to every song she’d performed so far. I don’t think it occurred to me that she might play something I’ve never heard, that she had even recorded songs other than those I’d already carved into the core of my heart, but then she launched into “Left of Center” and all the breath went out of me.

If you want me You can find me Left of center Off of the strip

Suzanne Vega wrote this song in 1986 for the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink –– ostensibly, it’s written from the point of view of Andie, the pert misfit heroine played by Molly Ringwald who falls in love with Andrew McCarthy’s Blane, an 80’s heartthrob with the personality of a pair of googly eyes glued to a slice of Wonderbread. She’s poor and “quirky,” he’s rich and wears white linen, they end up together despite best efforts by their friends to keep them apart, and if I just spoiled the ending for you then for god’s sake go watch it already. 

I’d certainly never heard of John Hughes (and it was still a blessed two years before the coinage of the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl) when I leaned off the edge of my velvet seat and listened hard to the lyrics of this song. The cultural baggage of the Weird Girl archetype didn’t yet exist for me –– I had no context other than my burgeoning self-awareness, a few first fumbling attempts to knit “gawky grin” with “glasses” with “likes books” into a grown-up self that seemed coherent. I didn’t know much yet about the kind of self I was trying to become. I just knew I’d never heard anything so perfectly describe the position I felt myself to occupy: in the outskirts / and in the fringes / in the corner / out of the grip.

The song came early in her career, but the perspective recurs over and over in Suzanne Vega’s work and in her public persona. She’s smart, she’s strange, she’s an outsider, she’s looking hard at everything in a way that might be just a little too intense. There’s a cool detachment in the way she situates herself and her characters –– always a flinty edge, a slight spookiness, an unnameable something that sets them apart. In this song’s music video, she breaks the fourth wall a few times to stare directly into the viewer’s eyes, brows arched in a private joke, then glances down, away, back at the band or the crumbling walls of the warehouse loft where they’re playing or, my personal favorite, at a collection of photos of herself, arranged on the ground in a curious collage.

A lot of critical articles about Suzanne Vega drop the word “groundbreaking” –– mostly to claim that she paved the way for a wave of expressive young women singer-songwriters of the 90s, that her success made it possible for people like Tracy Chapman and Tori Amos and Ani Difranco to go full mainstream. I will try not to use that word, this week –– it doesn’t quite sit right with me. It seems unreasonable to write off the great women songwriters of the decades previous, to claim that no one had ever done anything like this before. Plus, it plays too well into the standard narrative that surrounds young women who write music: a dazzle-eyed, gape-mouthed awe that any young woman could create smart songs (and so often, when the brief period of public approval vanishes, belittling the emotional vulnerability and candor that make those songs smart in the first place), and subsequent positioning of the young woman in question as a unique exception because of that talent (and it’s always talent –– something innate and magical, never something created through hard work and practice). As if to say, oh, this one, she’s different. Special. Not like the other girls.

Suffice it to say that I think Suzanne Vega is exceptional. She is exceptional to music, and she is exceptional to me, because to me she was first. She broke some ground, but she’s walked where plenty of women have walked before, and will walk again. My favorite thing about this song is how, if you listen to the words, it isn’t a not-like-the-other-girls narrative at all –– I think that somehow / somewhere inside of us / we must be similar / if not the same. Sure, maybe that’s about Andie gazing at Blane, dreaming of joining the rich kid clique, but I hear something different. There’s a gentleness to it, a measured neutrality. A reminder that every margin drawn is essentially arbitrary. An invitation to redraw the borders, or to erase them entirely. A reminder that the Weird Girl is, actually, just a girl like any other, constructing herself out of the world around her –– re-imagining her role model’s pink prom dress so it suits her better, rearranging pictures of herself on the dusty floor. Remember how Taylor Swift plays both characters in the “You Belong With Me” video? It’s like that.

The fall after I saw this concert, looking for a new pair of school shoes for seventh grade, I asked my mom if we could look for “ones like Suzanne Vega had.” She acquiesced, and that’s how I ended up with my first pair of black Converse low-tops. There’s nothing special or unique about that, of course. But I had never noticed them anywhere before I saw them on Suzanne Vega performing live, and she seemed, at the time, to carry herself in a way I thought I could too. Lacing them up made me feel just a little more myself: clear-headed, ready to look at the world, standing slightly off to one side.

[savagegardenforever]

Darren's Diaries

These are Darren's Diaries from the first tour (Future of Earthly Delites/To the Moon And Back) from 1998.

There are six entries - 4th July, 7th July, 12th July, 20th July, 15th August and 8th September.

4th July

   Well here I am sitting on a tour bus. It's a twelve    sleeper and there are 8 of us...Daniel and I...our band...and our tour manager. We have    completed over 50 shows since the start of this tour in Australia in January. Finally we    are in America. For the next two months we will be playing 40 shows in the States and    Canada. It is going to be an incredible experience. Exciting and Exhausting I'm sure.

So far we started production rehearsals in Rockford Illinois. Our first show    was in Chicago for the B96 radio show with Boyz to Men and Mariah Carey. Minneapolis was    next. We then travelled into Canada for two incredible shows in Saskatoon then Edmonton.    As I type this we are headed for Calgury. The Canadian audiences have been really cool.    Very into the music and very LOUD!!

Our band are playing really well together. I am very proud to be on    the stage with them every night. We have Anna Maria Laspina and Nicole McIntyre on backing    vocals. Karl Lewis on Drums. Ben Carey on Guitars and Lee Novak on Bass. I have included    some pictures of us during hot and sweaty production rehearsals. You'll also find the new    stage clothes provided by Diesel and on my fave pics ever...Me with fans after the    Minneapolis gig.

Sharing a tour bus together is kinda strange. It's    like...HUGE...with two loungerooms with tables and videos and soundsystems etc...then    there is a little kitchen where we all make cups of tea and sandwhiches after gigs. It's    almost like the Brady Bunch on Tour. Our beds have little T.V's in them and little    curtains to block out the rabble. It's actually a lot more comfortable than I thought it    would be. Let me get back to you on that in a few weeks though!

7th July  

 So now I'm on my way from Seattle to    Portland. Still on the bus...I swear it's like the Partridge Family. I took a little    family shot to demonstrate how pathetic and domesticated we have all become. Andy our bus    driver is very cool...he makes me vegetarian meals sometimes... and puts up with our table    manners.

The Vancouver show was probably one of the tightest    shows we have played ever...good crowd...and we were really on it. It's so funny...I just    read a report from Edmontone where the reviewer thought that maybe I lip synch my vocals    because...in his words..."Hayes hits some unnaturally high notes.."!!!    I think that is so ironic. I mean...I have good nights...and bad nights. Sometimes I sing    up a storm...and other nights it's not quite what I want it to be. To have someone think    it's all on tape is kind of an indirect compliment. I guess it means I sang well!! I'll    tell you...last night in Seattle...I was WISHING my vocals were on tape...I was so tired.    But the crowd seemed to get into it and by half way through I was in my own little world.

Playing live is definately something we are proud of. I personally    have a big problem with 'artists' who mime...or lip synch...or whatever you wanna call it.    I believe that seeing a band live is warts and all. If I hit a bum note...then so be    it...that is what you pay for. If I hit a brilliant note...then that's fantastic. That's    what makes some nights INCREDIBLE...and others not so. You never know. Also I figure if    you want to listen to the cd...stay home. Coming out to see a band live is all about    living in the moment.

So after the Portland show we get a much needed day off...before we    start the San Fransisco, L.A , Vegas leg. Viva Las Vegas Baby.

Outta here...

12th July

       Before anything happens I gotta tell you that playing    in Red Rocks...Colorado was the most incredible experience for me. The setting was like    something from heaven..the weather was incredible. It actually rained the entire show but    the 7000 plus crowd stayed to the end... It was so magical. The thunder and lightning in    that historical venue...and the crowd. It made me very emotional.

I kept thinking of U2's "Under a blood red sky" live    album...recorded there. It was just the same as it looked all those years ago when I sat    in my lounge room watching the video...looking at my heros. To play there...was a VERY big    deal for me.

I'm in San Antonio Texas writing this...in my hotel room. Just came    back from a fantastic show here. What a cool crowd. I really dig this town. It looks    NOTHING like the rest of Texas... Last night we went out and had fantastic Mexican food    and drank Starbucks while walking along the riverbank in the middle of the city...with all    cafe's and restaurants along the river edge. It was incredible...the night was windy and    the temperature was not as hot as it apparently has been. I thought in this email I would    include some more personal photos of the band and our crew...There is this beautiful man    from Texas called Chuck...who has been married for 25 years. Chuck is a sound/monitor    engineer on our tour. His daughter Victoria has these adorable little twins Joseph and    Jacob...so I managed to get a cuddle of the babies before our show in San Antonio tonite.    Boy did I get clucky. It was Nicole's birthday today...it's Daniel's on Wednesday...so we    have kind of been celebrating for a few days now. Nicole and Anna (our backing singers)    are dear friends of mine...and we have a blast.

We get along really well with Sneaky Pete...the production    assistant. He is evil...in the funniest way. His assistant Laurie is THE BIGGEST    SWEETHEART. I included a picture of me hugging her because she is my lifeline.

She is in charge of all sorts of things...but for me..her main job    is making sure the dressing rooms are set up...wardrobe and costumes are set out and    laundered...candles are lit...music is playing...holdiays are booked and roses sent to    family members. Basically she is my mom on the road...and she is incredible. Her attention    to detail makes coming into the dressing room such a pleasure..everything from my after    shave to the kind of tea I drink...she is aware of..and makes sure it is all in order.

I also included a picture of Daniel playing with his new Keyboard    backstage with Lindsay...one of our other fave people. Linds is a guitar tech on this    tour...but really he is an awesome drummer...who last worked with Pearl Jam doing drum    tech for them. Just the sweetest person.

Who else can I tell you about?? Motley our lighting designer is a    little yoda...he is so spiritual and deep..and a dear friend. Collin Ellis mixes our    sound...and is a very nice bloke!!

Crash...our sound engineer on stage..(does in ear monitors...) told    me tonite that the reason I get soo tired is that I need to 'take more exercise.'    Hahaha... I work out 5 or 6 days a week...two hours a day...as well as doing the show!!    The entire band just cracked up laughing at him. Oh well...he was only trying to help. He    is very funny...and oh..also good at his job.

I am getting excited because we are about to have three days off!!    Whoo hoo!! I mean...I love the tour...but I have been working on this album for 2 and a    half years...and touring it since January. We are all very tired...and looking forward to    the rest. When we start up again we will be HALF WAY... That is pretty cool.

Last night I couldn't sleep because I was dreaming up the name...the front cover and the artwork for our new album. All we need now is the music!! Haha...

I am rambling...but it's late...and life is really good. God bless.

Darren

20th July

           Hey...welcome back to the tour. We have missed you. Let    me take you now to a very sacred place. This is my bed in the tour bus. I call it my    'monkey bunk'...don't ask me why...it's kinda private...! But that's what I call it...    Actually I have become quite fond of it. To the point that I am finding it hard to sleep    in regular beds now. I am used to the constant rocking of the highway. There is a little    T.V in there...but I rarely watch it. By the time my head hits the pillow...I am out! It    is actually very soothing...and I am someone who finds sleeping very difficult.

We have had a ball on tour with our new support...Billy Myers.

Billy Myers is just FANTASTIC. She is very talented...as are her    band. Billy is also VERY VERY funny. Here is a picture of her and I in my dressing room    about two seconds before our show in Miami. This was the day of our manager...Rebecca's    birthday. We got her all sorts of nice presents and this huge cake. Here is a picture of    my face in the cake.

Long Story! I am commonly known as 'tabu' in the band because I kind    of...well...I just take things to the extreme in terms of practical jokes and goofing about. Usually with birthday cakes I end of throwing them all over people...and sticking them to walls etc. You know...normal things like that. So this time the band got me  first...Laurie..our production GODDESS pushed my face into it when I was PRETENDING to  take a big bite. GRRRR!! Florida was hot and steamy...and reminded me very much of  Australia. Played some great shows...although something really stupid happened in Fort Lauderdale. For some bizarre reason..security allowed five audience members to run onto the stage during Truly Madly Deeply. But I don't mean just running up to say hello. They kind of scared the hell out of all of us...and ruined a beautiful moment in the song. We virtually didn't end the show...because they just wouldn't leave the stage. So we all learned a valuable lesson in security. I had my eyes closed as I sang the last notes of the last song of the night...and felt the stair case rumble...and when I looked up there  were three people on the stage with me. It just made no sense to me...I tried to talk to the girl...even say hi...but she was screaming...while her boyfriend spent his time  telling aggressively informing anyone who would listen that he had every right to be there    on stage because he won an after show pass.!!! THIS WAS DURING THE SHOW!!! I look back now  and kinda laugh it off but in the moment...I really felt that the incident ruined to mood    for the rest of the audience. I didn't really get to say goodbye to the crowd...we just    had to leave.

I spent my few days off in New York while the rest of the band  travelled to Myrtle Beach and apparently had a blast. I keep missing the really good    unexpected fun times. Apparently the break in New Orleans was wild as well. There will be news about this in the next fanzine I believe.

Delaware...Harrington was such a bizarre experience. We played at    the State Fair. This was a 4 hour drive from New York...in the middle of nowhere... A    great show with a really enthusiastic audience. Afterwards we went to the local TGI    Friday's restaurant and everyone who had a cell phone was informed that the band were    there...so we spent our evening binge eating while locals watched in horror. Our visit to    the local bowling alley was hilarious. I of course...the king of cool (really just a cover    for my lack of physical ability in sports) refused to play. For 'fashion reasons' I said.    But I don't think anyone believed me. I took a photo of their shoes.

Daniel refused to let me photograph his involvement in this    activity...but let's just say...at bowling...HE RULES. He beat the pants off everyone.

Here is my reaction to bowling... my thrilled to be bowling face.

And this is really what we have been reduced to. Bowling. Oh    yeah...we also play pictionary a lot. All jokes aside...we have had such a wonderful time    so far...it's already August ...and the tour has only 4 weeks to go. I think we are all    going to be very sad when it ends. We have just spent so much time together...we really do    feel like family.

We have met so many wonderful fans...been treated like royalty and  we want to thank you so much for coming out to see us play live. More soon I guess!

15th August

       I am once again sitting at the desk in the kitchen of    our tour bus. We are travelling from Missouri to Illinois. Can you believe that we have    performed 30 shows already on the North American leg of this tour? We have only 9 more    shows left and then the tour is officially over. We started in Australia in January...then on to New Zealand...Asia... Including Japan and India...Europe...and finally America. I  think when it winds up we will have played almost 80 shows. That's a pretty good feeling you know...I had no idea I would have the stamina to get through...and yet here we are looking at the end of the tour...and really the end of this album.

Here are a couple of shots from our show tonight in Missouri.  It's such a long way from where it all started.

It's funny you know... with this site I have tried really hard to    document all sorts of experiences...and not just the musical ones. Yesterday in    Indianapolis I decided that real life was just a little too normal...so I invented a drama    so that I could write about it...and photograph it...and present it to you...(How sad is    that!!)

To cut a long story short... Nicky and I decided to 'steal' a golf cart from the Indianapolis state fair officials. Well...we didn't really 'steal' it..we  kinda just borrowed it and deceived a few people into thinking that our backstage passes  were really licenses to drive a golf buggy. Here is a picture of our initial Evil plan...

It was so funny. Our crew and the security at the venue didn't know    what was happening. I actually took the buggy INTO the arena...where all the fans were    taking their seats for Billie Myers (BY THE WAY..BIG APOLOGY FOR SPELLING HER NAME WRONG    LAST UPDATE...!!!) So anyway...Nikky and I were spinning and flying around the    arena...some of the audience recognized me and started chasing the golf buggy. Although    fun...golf carts are NOT good escape vehicles. I managed to get away by fooling the    security guard that 'everything was in order'.

The cart was returned with lots of apologies and no feelings hurt.

Lots has happened since I last wrote. I never really told you about  the band's new obsession with Golf did I?? It kind of stems from Dan...but everyone...excluding me...has been getting into it. Anna and I generally work out...like A    LOT...which can be exhausting when on tour because you sweat so much on stage as    well...but it has been an adventure just trying to find gyms in every town we go to... But    we have been pretty successful so far.

Today I went crazy recording items in our dressing room. Don't ask    me why...but here are snapshots of shoes...and sunglasses. Lets face it...in Savage    Garden...these are very important elements of our success...(joke!!)

It's weird...I just figured I would have LOVED to have seen stupid    photos of Michael Jackson's wardrobe when I was like...a kid...so I figured...for those of    you out there who enjoy the small details... this is for you.

We really have had such fun with Billie Myers. Her band are very    talented...and friendly. Billie herself is incredible. Such an artist. I watched her    performing 'Tell Me' and 'Kiss the Rain' yesterday in Indianapolis and I was very moved.    She ran all over the stage...climbed EVERYTHING...and ended up at the back of the    auditorium with the audience...still singing. I will be very sad to say goodbye because I    have learned a lot just being around her. Beautiful soul. True performer.

Here is another pic of Billie and I just before the Missouri show.

Our shows have been wonderful lately. The crowds have just been    getting better and better. Some of the small towns have been incredible experiences. We    played a HUGE show in Bethlehem P.A. It was part of their MusikFest festival...and it was    one of the largest shows they have had there. Truly magical.

Soon we head to New York...(DUH...my fave city) for a few days as we    are involved in a private SECRET event that will be revealed to you in due time. But I am    very much looking forward to being there...

I will keep you updated.

Darren

8th September

It's over. 8 months and 85 shows later here we are    on a plane back to real life. I am so exhausted as I type this...and really unsure as to    how it all feels. I am going to go back for you...a few weeks to catch up on everything    that lead up to this final moment of reflection. I remember telling you in my last update    that we were in New York for a "secret" gig...well I can tell you now it was for    the Elite Modelling agency Look competition...and we performed at this club in Manhattan    called Life. It is one of those velvet rope deals...and to be honest...I had never been in    until that night.

We performed a very short set in front of a room full of beautiful    women..and famous people. Jerry Seinfeld was there... Apparently he offered to meet us    when we had sold 12 million albums as opposed to the 8 million that we actually    have. Haha. Thanks for the homework Mr. Seinfeld. Afterwards he hung out in the same foofy    area with us...smoking cigars, flanked by burly security guards. Anna said hi. I was too    busy working out how to sell 4 more million albums.

Our set was GREAT...some people say one of the best we have played    because of it's simplicity and audacity. We just PLAYED...didn't really give a damn...and    it paid off. We headed off ... back to the rest of the tour...but soon ended up back in    planet Manhattan (that's what Motley our lighting designer calls it...as it is like no    other place on earth) after our Boston gig (very pretty btw...nice venue) to play the    Beacon Theatre. What an experience THAT was.

Madonna attended. Rod Stewart was there with wife and kids. We were    sold out. Need I say there was a little tension in the air. But it turned out to be such a    powerful show...such an energy to it. Probably because of the whole Madonna vibe. Thing    is...Billie Myers had heard me singing "Ray of Light" at soundcheck...and told    Madonna and friends that we do it well. The day of our show we get a phone call from    executives asking where in our show it is performed as Madonna is possibly coming along to    have a look. Of course we freaked out...of course we immediately added it to our show even    though we have never performed it as a band!!

So Madonna did attend...and from all accounts...was standing and    grooving with the rest of them...and had a smile on her face... What more can you say?    Very VERY surreal moment...performing in front of someone who inspired me to be here. Did    someone say OH MY GOD???

So the next day was our end of tour party...even though we had two    more shows to do...where better to celebrate than NYC? It was in this place called Lot 61    in Chelsea...and we had a blast. It was actually very emotional and I think that is when    it really hit me that this was all coming to a close.

The next day we left for Cleveland...had a great show...and then    prepared for our last gig in Kentucky. All sorts of mad and weird stuff went on that day.    Last shows are traditionally weird anyway...as everyone feels kinda depressed but    exhausted and practical jokes are happening everywhere.

Some of the craziness?? Billie Myers appeared on stage during our    All Around Me routine on the shoulders of our road crew dressed in her best Scary Spice    outfit screaming SPICE UP YOUR LIFE. She then proceeded to spray us with Silly String    (that shaving cream gunk...) Very funny!! We almost couldn't do the song.

Members of our band were seen doing all sorts of weird things...like    kissing each other...wearing each other's costumes...and hamming it up. We managed to drag    every crew member on stage or under a spotlight during the band intro...and someone    painted the words WE'LL MISS YOU on the drum riser.

During the encore...we sang ONE OF US...and got a bit choked up as I    dedicated it to Chuck...our sound assistant who's Grandchild is going in for an operation    soon. I asked the crowd to say a prayer for him and that's when it really hit me that the    tour was over. Not just the tour either...but this album...this stage of our lives. Like    graduating from High School this felt like a real ending...and the beginning of a future    somewhere out there.

After the show...we all ended up on Billie's bus...disco dancing and    acting like complete morons. Had a blast.

I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to each and every    one of you...for giving us this incredible experience...for listening to the music...for    understanding it...for coming out in droves to see our circus when it came to your town.    This is a thank you to you...the fans of the music...and our colleagues...the Savage    Garden Band...and Crew...It has been the most humbling experience to have know you...I    feel like a better man for having been through this all with you.

This is a farewell of sorts...for a long time. We have to take some    much needed rest...get our thoughts together and try and remember what real life is about    for a little while. Before you know it...we will be in the studio...working on more magic.    Until then...we are going to go away until we have something thoughtful to say.

Thanks for the memories.    See you in THE FUTURE.....

Darren

[djrelentless]

“Butterfly On Your Shoulder”

(a sad goodbye to my best friend, MJ White)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2015

The name MJ White means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. If you are a House Music Lover (and I mean a REAL HOUSE MUSIC LOVER) the name MJ White means smooth and deep vocals. It could also mean some of the best Gospel Inspired House Music you ever heard. And then there are those who got to actually work with him in a studio……these were the privileged ones. From listening to him singing "Always & Forever" at an open mic night to him performing one of his many House Anthems live in a packed club MJ White is a name that evokes the title House Legend.To witness his genius behind a microphone……to hear him bend a phrase and turn a baritone into one of the most heavenly falsettos was truly a sight to behold. There is talent and then there are those who are blessed with a gift from God. I can honestly say that MJ White made me a better person and made me a better singer. And the weird thing was….he would tell me that he was jealous of my vibrato. I had the privilege and honor to sing background vocals on a few of his tracks. I was there when he worked with the late great DJ David Comacho. Many people never even knew that a lot of his catalogue from the mid 2000s were sung right in my living room in Harlem, NY on 149th Street….recorded on my basic DJ gear with generic mic used for making announcements in bars. That's how good he was! His vocals were so good that the producers and remixers would find a way to use my simple recordings of him to make records.  I remember when he called me and told me about working with Dwayne Minard (who would later be the best man at my wedding) and Gavin Bradley (better known as Righteous). I was there when he paid homage to the late great Sylvester with his cover of "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" for Marc Wilkerson. I was there when he finally started getting recognized for his early work with Ed The Red and George Morel. Hell….I remember standing in line to buy two vinyl copies of "Sweet Love" by Red Follies featuring him on Bottomline Records (because I wanted to try and make my own edit live while I was spinning).

Watching him finally work with talents from Europe like Felly (Soulfurious), Stan Courtois and Maurizio Verbeni was definitely like watching a butterfly being born. MJ's wings had grown in and nothing could stop him. But I would have to say that the man who transformed his career was Andrew Neville (better known as Big Andy). I personally believe it was Big Andy who renewed MJ's faith in his talent and abilities. Leave it to a Brit to recognized and appreciated a Real House Legend. The care that Andy gave his career made up for the years of him feeling like just a session singers.Yeah….I know. Those who love his music would never think of him as just a session vocalist but after a decade of not getting any major labels to sign him, MJ was beginning to think that he would never make it. When I met him he was a front desk person at a hotel. He lived with 4 friends in an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. The year was 1992 and I had just moved into a room with a drag queen and her cat on 43rd Street & 8th Avenue. MJ lived at 43rd & 9th. When we met we immediately connected because we were both from the south. "As country as picnic ham" he called me. I laughed.And literally from that day on we were friends. There was a period when we lost contact around 1997. But I think we reconnected by 1999 and then we were probably in each other's life on a daily basis. We began sharing our past and found that we had lived very similar lives. We both had poor self images. We both wondered if we had made the wrong choices in life and love. By the time the year 2000 came, I guess the millennium brought a sense of change because MJ had a new hope after working with an old friend of ours named Cim Williams who was living in the UK. Cim & MJ would become Donnatella Movement.

It was around this time that I got to witness his genius as a songwriter and vocalist. Watching him stand in Comacho's studio in his home and walk up to the mic and make up a lyric after only hearing a couple of bars to create a song "Smooth" just left me in amazement. The song is almost 7 minutes long. Had he not opened his eyes to see Comacho and I trying to get his attention, who knows how long that song would have been. He was almost in a trance when he began singing that day. We had just recorded another track called "Celebrate This Life".

His discography would later find him with names like Warren Riggs, Bruno Kaufman, Daniel Kingley, David Opsina, Oscar P and too many others to mention. But I will say his track "Well Of Love" was definitely a game changer in his recording career. MJ's vocals even helped my career. He did the background vocals on my alter-ego's track (a slight rewrite of the Gladys Knight classic, "If I Were Your Woman") was a game changer for me. Suddenly Jade Elektra was now known for singing instead for her Bitch Tracks. And having access to exclusive MJ White tracks and remixes really helped define the DJ Relentless sound in NYC. I have an unreleased track called "Put Your Hands Up" that was recorded in my living room that I pull out every now and then and people always ask where did I get it. Because I knew nothing about mastering, when I play it in the club it always sounds like he is right there singing it live.

https://www.mixcloud.com/djrelentle...

So, when Big Andy called me on November 19th and told me that MJ had died my world stopped. This person who I have known for over 20 years was not going to be a phone call away. This person who took me and my husband in on our last trip to NYC was not gonna greet us again with his usual big smile and infectious laugh. In our last conversation, we reminisced about our wild days of being bachelors in The Big Apple. He told me that he wanted to come up to Toronto again for a visit. He was excited about being booked for New Year's Eve with Felly. After years of getting his catalogue together and filing all his work with BMI and other agencies he was excited about the possibility of finally making some royalty money off all the music he had poured his heart and soul into. He felt like 2016 was going to be a great year for him. And he was really excited about his new release with Pray For More called "Brothers & Sisters". I told him that I really loved it. But most importantly I told him that I loved him. I had the uncomfortable task of telling his sister, Valerie of his passing. Although I have never met her or any of his family, I felt like I have known them for years since he spoke of them all the time. We often joked that there was "only one Black Woman and she raised all her children the same." We had so many common experiences with family that we could have told each other's life story. MJ was my brother and best friend. Someone who was my strength and light in some of my darkest hours. He even stayed with me and nursed me back to health until I recovered from an accident back in 2005. He saw me through a lot of my bad relationships and was so happy for me when I found my husband. I so wanted the same for him. He has so much love to give and he really wanted someone to share it with.

I often felt like he didn't hear "I love you" enough. Through all of his big smiles and his positive attitude the man that I called my best friend suffered with a really low self esteem. So, it was great to finally see him accepting that he was a beautiful person inside and out. He wasn't lucky in love in his personal life, but he was definitely loved around the world. His voice, his lyrics and his heart was in every single note on every single track. We recorded a track together called "Becoming Light" that comes to mind because it represented how I feel his life had become. But I think the song that is very appropriate with his passing is a ballad he did with Felly called "Butterfly On Your Shoulder". I cannot listen to this song without shedding a tear. From the first I heard it almost 6 years ago, it spoke of the desire to be loved. I truly hope that you realized how much love you inspired and brought into this world, MJ White.

https://www.mixcloud.com/djrelentlessny/the-prophet-a-tribute-to-my-best-friend-mj-white

[gaiapaia]

Kermit and Friends: Happy Father’s Day

What a special episode this turned out to be!

It was Father’s Day on this edition of Kermit and Friends, and Elisa managed to get her dad Craig to show up for the occasion!

This was actually Craig’s first time ever on the show, including the original run of Kermit and Friends, which had over 300 episodes. He was such a great sport about everything and you could see where Elisa got both her beautiful smile and festive nature from.

Craig is pretty much a lifetime musician/performer. Elisa is named after the Beethoven song Für Elise and Craig has been in many bands, from Beatles cover bands to playing back-up for Elisa and Benjy’s concerts in New York City.

That’s pretty much the extent I know about Mr. Craig. He really seems like an awesome guy though. He wonderfully performed Big Boss Man by Jimmy Reed and Memphis by Chuck Berry. You could sincerely see his talent shine through with these performances, even with the limitations of an Ipad mic. Very impressive, and good taste in music too!

But of course, what everyone really wanted to see was Craig interact with Kermit and Friends guests, and most of all... with Andy Dick.

Before Craig had the opportunity to meet Andy though, he first got to meet Eric Riggs!

Somehow, Craig heard about Eric’s threat to chop Elisa’s head off last week, so he had some preconceived notions about the guy, to say the least. Eric started off the conversation with Craig with both good news and bad news. The good news was that Eric had a meeting with his Rabbi recently, and the bad news is that as long as Andy Dick is involved with Kermit and Friends, the “Jews” will never fund the show. Uh oh!

Eric would pop on and off throughout the rest of the episode with both calls and on-cam appearances from his car (supposedly in Los Angeles). Eric would mostly just rant about Andy and talk about things no one had a clue what he was referring to. From Andy sacrificing kids to Jews being the only good people in the World... Eric was basically Eric I guess. If you’re an Eric fan, he did not let you down yesterday.

But if you thought there was any chance of Eric saving face after Craig heard the rumors of his threats towards Elisa, it was not meant to be. Eric made the absolutely worst first impression anyone could ever make with a young lady’s father. You seriously couldn’t write this stuff.... ONLY on Kermit and Friends could this happen!

That said, Andy Dick did not present himself much better to Craig than Eric did.

First, I have to give props to Andy for even showing up. Andy told Elisa 20 minutes before the show that he was going to take a nap, and over an hour into the show, after countless calls and texts from multiple people to try to wake Andy up, nothing was working. I could see the disappointment in Elisa’s face and it broke my heart. Thankfully though just as Elisa was ready to end the show, Andy popped on and Elisa’s beautiful face lit up.

Like I said, Andy was taking a nap so he was understandably a bit weary. Unfortunately, Andy was also a bit grouchy! He cared very little at first that Craig was Elisa’s father. He started the conversation off with a “This is what you raised?” after Elisa asked Andy to adjust his camera. Yikes!

In typical Andy fashion he would almost immediately make up for it by crying over how special Elisa is. “I like when you cry talking about me Andy, can you do that again?” Elisa would politely ask, and then the criticism started all over again, “This is where she’s a little off kilter.”

This is pure comedic gold that can’t be scripted and only Kermit and Friends fans are able to enjoy it. This show deserves and needs more eyes on it. The World is missing out on so much laughter... makes me bummed but also even more grateful that I’m not missing it!

As mentioned, Craig was a great sport about everything. He never took offense to Eric or Andy; he even would get some funny jokes in towards them (”Eric reminds me of Anthony Perkins from Psycho”). Most importantly, you could tell Craig was having a fun time. He smiled all throughout his appearances and I hope in my heart that he felt proud of Elisa for putting on such an entertaining show that’s enjoyed by so many people.

Craig wasn’t the only star on yesterday’s spectacular show though. Kermit made a new friend named Katha Blackwell, author of the book Not Another Victim: A Woman's Guide to Avoiding a Bad Relationship.

Katha primarily focuses on abusive relationships and helping women get through any trauma they’ve endured from any volatile relationships they were a part of. Katha was raised in a household where she saw her mom abused, and it inspired her to try to help other women going through a similar situation. Thankfully Katha’s mother survived and got out, and Katha has been able to use the experience to help others. Beautiful story.

T-Bob not surprisingly was very smitten with Katha. What was surprising though was how charming and poignant T-Bob was with her, complimenting Katha and sharing a story of himself trying to stop an abusive relationship he saw taking place. I would love to see T-Bob show up on Kermit and Friends sober more often, especially since it also helps with his internet connection!

Sigmond and Wappy returned to perform some songs. Wappy did a beautiful rendition of Old Man by Neil Young where Sigmond would only chime in during the chorus. Wappy would later sing Get Out by Sublime and poor Sigmond wasn’t able to contribute anything in that performance! People were very curious what Sigmond actually does in the band. Well, I’ve linked their Soundcloud before where you can actually hear Sigmond read off material he wrote.... I’ll link it again here. Hopefully next week they will perform one of these songs where Sigmond is actually able to participate!

A funny note about Sigmond too yesterday was that he originally wore a plaid shirt that matched the blanket Wappy had hanging up on his wall, which made Sigmond blend in with it. Elisa asked him to change shirts and Sigmond would go on to do so TWICE. It might not sound funny written but visually if you go check it out, it’s hilarious!

Elisa shared a story about how she met the rapper G-Eazy the other night. I’m not going to lie... if it wasn’t for Elisa’s tweets, I most likely would have never heard of this guy, but I know Elisa has a big crush on him and I was happy to hear G-Eazy treated her nicely when they met. Anyone who treats Elisa with kindness is cool in my book! Consider me a fan now, G-Eazy. 

Gonzo made a lot of good calls yesterday. After Craig told some wholesome dad jokes, Gonzo chimed in with his own, “Who’s most likely to have a dead woman buried in his backyard? Sigmond.” Not a nice joke! Gonzo would later change the answer to Eric. Still not nice!

Gonzo’s hero Johnny B would perform Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chaplin twice on the show. The first time was when Andy came on, so the show continued rather than ended as scheduled, and the second time was interrupted by Eric’s incessant rambling, which did not make Johnny B happy!

What a Father’s Day. It was the perfect show, one that will never be forgotten. The first 75 minutes were very sweet and wholesome, and the next 75 minutes were just out of this World comedy where everyone was having the time of their lives. Like I said in last week’s review, when Elisa has fun... we all have fun, and she had a blast yesterday once Andy appeared. It was an all around glorious time, and I can’t wait for next week’s birthday show. Until then... I hope everyone reading this and their dads all had a wonderful Father’s Day. God bless you all. ❤️

[thesnadger]

the-good-captn

replied to your post

“Bob Ross: Chaotic GoodThomas Kinkade: Lawful Evil”

You can't just do that. You have to tell us why

(Response to my “Bob Ross = Chaotic Good, Thomas Kinkade = Lawful Evil” post.)

Bob Ross: Made all his money by selling his own line of paints, how-to books and painting classes. Did his painting show for free the entire time he was on the air and donated his paintings.

Thomas Kinkade: A ruthless businessman, known for conning people into funding franchise galleries that were doomed to fail, underselling them, pocketing the profits and letting the investors eat the loss.

Bob Ross: May or may not have been a religious person, known to say “God Bless” at the end of his programs and say things like “God was having a good day when He made Alaska,” but mainly kept his religious beliefs to himself.

Thomas Kinkade: Cynically used Evangelical Christianity as a tool to make naive people trust him. Many of the aformentioned investors were suckered in because Kinkade stressed that he was a good Christian and this was an opportunity to promote wholesome, Godly art to the masses.

Bob Ross: Maintained a humble attitude all through his success. Stressed that anyone could paint if they just put time and passion into it. Credited his mentor Bill Alexander for the “wet on wet” technique he's known for. Most known for his television show where he demonstrated all his techniques to the public so that they could paint like he does.

Thomas Kinkade: Frequently said that he was the greatest living painter, the most controversial living painter, that his talent was God-gifted and that God had a special plan for him. Compared himself to Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec, referred to himself as the “heir apparent” of Andy Warhol (which, quite frankly, of all the vainglorious statements he's made about himself might be the most accurate.)

Bob Ross: Was a First Sergeant in the Air Force and referred to that time as a period where he was required to be “the guy who screams at you for being late to work,” vowed that if he ever left the military he would never scream again. After a fan told him that he'd never be able to paint because he's colorblind, he did an entire picture in gray “just to show you that anyone can paint.” Liked to talk to trees and animals. Told his viewers that paintings and people both were never meant to be perfect.

Thomas Kinkade: Groped female fans without their consent. Arrested for drunk driving. Known for cursing and heckling other artists and performers. Mentioned once that he has a love for “ritual territory marking” by pissing on things. Was definitely an alcoholic, but that doesn't excuse his behavior.

[thesinglesjukebox]

KESHA FT. BIG FREEDIA - RAISING HELL

[6.38]

Kesha with Big Freedia Energy

Leah Isobel: Kesha has been saddled with one of the heaviest narratives of 2010s pop music, which combines uneasily with her career-long interest in more grounded country and rock signifiers. Now when she works with those impulses, as she did on Rainbow, the effect is one of refutation; Animal becomes an outlier that she made against her will, one that doesn't represent the Real Kesha. To work her way back to the party music that made her reputation, she has to adapt it to the new narrative frame that surrounds everything she does. If she's having fun, she's having fun in spite of what she experienced; partying is no longer an end into itself, but an escape from something else. Hence, "Raising Hell" deploys one of the hackiest pop tropes - gospel choirs used as a shortcut for sincere emotion - married to a pretty decent Big Freedia drop. It's not awful, but I miss the actual, honest-to-god trashiness that she made her stock in trade. In 2019, I guess I'm the only one. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Finally, an uptempo Kesha record that a) isn't touched by the evil Dr. Luke, and b) doesn't sound like the result of a three-day vodka-and-Red Bull bender, and c) is actually fun. I'm not a fan of the EDM horns in the chorus, but apart from those, this works. I'm a bigger fan of Big Freedia in theory than practice, and accordingly prefer her in small doses; she's quite effective here as a kind of DJ Khaled-esque hype-person. And Kesha sounds free and happy, which makes me happy. [7]

Kayla Beardslee: I'm glad Kesha got her balls back and all, but I'm not enthused that that means a return to honking 2012 pop-drops. I will admit, though -- the combined Kesha/Freedia "drop it down low" hook grows on me with every listen. The rest of the song is fine: it invites singing along and is fun in a hedonistic Ke$ha way, but it's also very, very noisy (lots of erratic shouts and claps in the background that, to me, lean more messy than energetic). My favorite part is the final chorus ("Can I get an amen"), which is a pleasantly melodic contrast to the rest of the track, a close second being the thrilling "aaugh!" Kesha does right before the second chorus. [6]

Alex Clifton: High Road appears to take the party-all-day spirit from Kesha's earlier work but mixed with the rawer, more down-to-earth material from Rainbow. In theory this is a dream come true, and there's so much about "Raising Hell" that makes it a joy to experience. The post-chorus is godawful, though. Tonally it doesn't fit and stalls the song from its natural flow. I'm also longing for the day that Big Freedia gets the feature she deserves: her appearance is mostly limited to drop-it-drop-it-drop-it-drop-it which is delivered well but also literally one-note. Kesha's trying to have it all ways she can--country and gospel and dance and bounce--which, as someone who likes a good genreproof song, I really respect. Unfortunately the whole package doesn't come together as fully as it could. [6]

Stephen Eisermann: "The best possible Andy Grammer single" is not what Kesha and Big Freedia should be collaborating on. This is a waste of time and talent and no amount of conviction from either participant can convince me otherwise. [4]

Alfred Soto: This sounds sacrilegious: instead of defiling a religion, it defiles my idea of Kesha. After proving herself up to thumbing her nose at any genre she experimented with, she acquiesces to gospel cliches. She's earned the right to want salvation in them, lord knows, but she needn't sound as if Julia Michaels was her pastor. [4]

Josh Buck: How do you have a hook like "I don't wanna go to heaven without raising hell" and video centered around prosperity gospel preachers and NOT make it a country song?? At this point, Kesha has proven that she can tackle a variety of genres, but this bounce effort just feels scattered instead of celebratory. I realize this a loaded statement and not at all meant to be a defense or endorsement of the man, but judging by Kim Petras' endless recent string of bangers, Dr. Luke may have been an irreplaceable ingredient in Kesha's more crowd pleasing, debauched pop efforts. In recent years, she's sound much stronger on her Struts and Eagles of Death Metal rock cuts, and i'd love to see her spend more time in that arena. This one reminds me a bit of the final album by The Donnas in terms of we-might-be-too-old-for-this vibes. [3]

Katherine St Asaph: The narrative, inevitable and damning, around Kesha was that in severing her ties to Dr. Luke, she lost her source of a signature sound. Rainbow, with its grabs at musical styles and Kesha's required-for-optics but personality-dampening show of penitence, didn't do much to dislodge it. Which is why "Raising Hell" is such a triumph: it's evidence that she was the source of her signature sound. The song feels massive; if sound alone determines a hit, this would be No. 1 everywhere. The hook is recognizably hers: a melody that's kin to "We R Who We R" and also to hymns. The drops r what they r; the interpolations are canny and nostalgia: an interlude of "My Neck, My Back" filtered through "Hollaback Girl," an interlude of preaching filtered through Prince. Freedia is incapable of sounding like she's phoning it in even when she is (I'm sure she'll do a lot of that in the next few years), and unlike Iggy Pop or the Eagles of Death Metal, she's an actually exciting guest pick, rather than one mostly exciting on paper to boomers. And throughout, Kesha recaptures the anarchic glee that made her career. [8]

Jonathan Bogart: Maybe it was my naïveté in 2010 that made her sound so recklessly out of step with the rest of pop; but her post-Luke music, however much better it has been for her soul, still sounds faintly like capitulation. The secular-gospel structure and chantalong melody followed by jump around breakdowns sound like every pseudo-celebration on the market: the saving grace is Freedia's booming authoritativeness (surely the angel Gabriel, when he tells the roll up yonder to drop it down low, sounds like her) and Kesha's impish use of language, dancing on the borders between sacrilege and piety, hooks it up to the great stream of American song, where there is no Sunday morning without a Saturday night. [8]

Kylo Nocom: Of all things, this reminds me of Vacation Bible School theme songs and the "Cheerleader" remix. I have scored this accordingly. [7]

Michael Hong: The bombast of early 2010s Ke$ha meets the soulful Kesha of Rainbow racing down that same road to self-empowerment. Ke$ha's talk-singing, a choir that makes a line like "bitch, I'm blessed" all the more enjoyable, drops mixed with the gospel influences, and Big Freedia's bounce make for a hell of a maximalist fantasy. [7]

Jackie Powell: When "Raising Hell" begins, it fools the listener. When the piano chords and Kesha's introductory vocalization grace my ears during the song's first five seconds, I'm convinced that a power ballad or at best a mid-tempo track is in store. But Kesha quickly changes direction. An explosion of camp from collaborator Big Freedia, a blaring saxophone in the chorus, the return of talk-singing in the verses and an epic build in the pre-chorus: it sounds very familiar. That's what Kesha wants. She wants us to feel like we are once again at a 21-century hoedown. (But without Pitbull this time.) On this track, Kesha proves that both she and her fans can be "animals" while simultaneously being people with "fantastic souls", which might have been something missing from the pre-Rainbow eras. Here, however, Kesha desires fun and a rebellion that are a rejection of evil behavior and suffocating authority figures. She's not just sticking it to the man without a purpose. That's the difference between Kesha of 2019 and Ke$ha of 2009. "Kesha got her balls back and they're bigger than ever," she said in the album trailer for High Road. But I don't agree with that. She's had them since her inception. Her evolution has been honest, which is something that not all artists can say. [7]

Isabel Cole: MY! GIRL! Having proven herself an actual musician to every idiot man in the country, Kesha (perhaps sick of being so serious) gleefully returns to her favorite stomping ground of, well, glee. Raising Hell makes text what has always been the implicit mission of the Kesha project: a commitment to the fundamental sacredness of joy. It's hard to imagine a more succinct encapsulation of her ethos than "I'm all fucked up in my Sunday best / no walk of shame cuz I love this dress": it's not that she takes no pleasure in the transgression of elevating ass-shaking to the level of the divine, but it's a gentle mischief born of the deep belief in the holiness of enjoying our corporeal gifts while we still can. Feeling good is a form of worship, and a killer beat is no less legitimate an access point than a hymn. When she combines markers of religiosity with artifacts of base delights (my favorite is "Solo cup full of holy spirits," although I also adore the the vulgarity of "bounce it up and down where the good Lord split it"), the point is not to revel in contradiction but to toast to the fact that there is no contradiction; and when she opens her scope in the coda, dedicating her preaching or perhaps this round of shots to the misfits of creation, there's a (frankly Piscean) generosity to it. Also, (1) it slaps (2) biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch I'm blessed (3) her voice sounds just wonderful, as dextrous with an implicit smirk as ever and with a thrilling power on the places she gets to soar; I love the bit of grit we get in the chorus, like she's singing this after a night out (4) it FUCKING slaps (5) "I'm still here still, still bringing it to ya": ten years since TiK ToK this month, and the party still don't start till she walks in. [10]

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