#and like a bunch of boomer musicians

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Surfin' Sixties 1985 Surf Rock / Surf Pop / Instrumental Surf

Folks, we've finally done it! We've reached the end of the California-based JCI label's Baby Boomer Classics series! And to close this whole thing out, we've got some sweet tunes from one of the best musical phenomena that the 60s ever had to offer: those good ol' surfin' vibes, which presently seem to go well with the absolutely brutal heat that much of the US is having to endure right now, and also serve as JCI's fond remembrance of all this stuff that was emanating from their own idyllically depicted home state 🏄🌞.

Now, essentially there were two different sounds that ended up comprising surf music altogether. You had your instrumental stuff that was pioneered by people like Dick Dale, and came with this wet sound and thick and twangy guitar tone; and then you had your vocal pop stuff, which had those uniquely patented and super dreamy Beach Boys group harmonies. And the two of these sounds combined ended up forming a whole California myth, centered around endlessly youthful, carefree, beach blonde summer fun.

And while this short crop of a dozen surf classics contains neither Dick Dale nor The Beach Boys on it—probably because the licensing costs proved to be too expensive—this still serves as a pretty good surf comp. The only thing is that with a lot of these things, if you've heard one, you've pretty much heard most of them, because you'll definitely find the bulk of these tracks on plenty of other general surf comps too.

But be that as it may, as the title suggests, we do have a bunch of surf classics on here, both of the instrumental rock and vocal pop variety. Duo Jan & Dean, who weren't always surf musicians themselves, but ended up becoming close with the Beach Boys and then became the country's second foremost surf pop act as a result, bookend this album with a pair of their biggest hits: "Ride the Wild Surf" to open, and then their signature, Brian Wilson co-penned and missed opportunity, "Surf City," to close. And we also, of course, have the iconic "Wipe Out" from The Surfaris on the instrumental side of things, and then for something a bit more unique and progressive on that same front, we have the plaintive "Lonely Surfer" from constant Phil Spector arranger Jack Nitzsche, which tries to capture the sonic essence of a towering tidal wave by adding a 'Wall of Sound' production style by way of dramatic strings.

So, not much of a unique surf comp here by any means, but because I really do love any opportunity I get to listen to this old stuff, this is by far one of my favorite dispatches from the Baby Boomer Classics series as a whole. I have absolutely *no* coordination or balance to be able to stand on a surfboard, and I also despise sand in my shoe and a hot, beating sun, but goddamn do I still fucking adore these vibes here 😍.

And that's it! No more Baby Boomer Classics from me for a very long time! Overall, this was a great budget comp series that never allowed itself to give into the temptation of deceitfully filling out their releases with dreadful re-recordings, which is what a lot of labels like JCI succumbed to. Every song they ever selected for one of these comps used its master recording, and that should be applauded. And with the whole series taken together, what you end up having is a good foundation of a bunch of quality music from the 50s through 70s, making for a quick and dirty way for an eclectic listener to build what beloved music critic Robert Christgau has referred to as a 'basic record library.'

And a new series like this one is on the way (crowd boos), but not quite yet (crowd cheers), but it's going to be a lot longer than this one (crowd boos), but when I'm done ramming through it you'll never have to hear from me about it ever again and I can then go on to explore other stuff! (crowd goes into delirium)

Highlights:

Jan & Dean - "Ride the Wild Surf" The Sunrays - "I Live for the Sun" The Marketts - "Out of Limits" The Rivieras - "California Sun" The Surfaris - "Wipe Out" Ronny & the Daytonas - "G.T.O." The Surfaris - "Surfer Joe" The Routers - "Let's Go (Pony)" Jack Nitzsche - "The Lonely Surfer" Jan & Dean - "Surf City"

[givelifetoaworld]

not to be a tumblr boomer but back in the day there was fanbases for every goddamn band and musician ever on this website. now it’s a bunch of nerds who have never even heard of the wonder years like IM the grandpa in the room or something

[boomerjj]

Name: Boomer Jojo Age: 24 Height: 5′10 Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Bisexual Occupation: Criminal/Supervillain/Musician Zodiac: Aries sun, Aries moon, Gemini rising Faceclaim: Owen Joyner

Description

The Rowdyruff boys are well known for being violent criminals and troublemakers, created to be enemies of the Powerpuff girls. Boomer is the middle of the three boys, and he is commonly used as the punching bag by Brick and Butch. Many assume Boomer to be the stupidest of the bunch, which may sometimes be true, but for the most part he’s just misunderstood! The blonde Rowdyruff spent his whole upbringing surrounded by mainly violence and chaos, but deep down he’s the sensitive one. For that reason, he’s the easiest target for his brothers to pick on, but he’s got thick skin and does his best to not let it get to him. The boys are also the rival band of the Powerpuff girls, with Boomer being the drummer. When he’s not able to get his aggression out through fighting, he’s able to instead let it out on his drums and music. When looking at the Rowdyruff boys songs, it’s easy to tell which songs were written by Boomer, focused on love and heartbreak but still complimented with heavy instrumentals. While Brick and Butch think that love is stupid, girly and overrated, Boomer has been long seeking for someone that understands him on a deeper level. So far he’s had nothing but bad luck when it comes to relationships, which has only resulted in hardening his heart. He hasn’t given up on love entirely of course, but he certainly has his guard up. Overall, Boomer has had to face a lot of struggles throughout his life, but he hasn’t let that completely beat him down. He may be sensitive, but he is strong, and anyone who thinks otherwise will be proven wrong one way or another.

Headcanons

Despite that the Powerpuff girls are their enemies, Boomer actually did have a thing with Bubbles at some point, one of his exes who wasn’t over her own ex. It started as shared glances and finding each other cute at first, but eventually turned into hooking up and dating. Though it was Bubbles who wanted to keep it casual, Boomer couldn’t help that he began to fall for her. She was sweet and cute and seemed to understand him like no one else did, but Boomer was clearly in over his head. Bubbles was his first heartbreak, and now they’re back to enemies, their fights feeling a little more personal than they used to.

He has a personal beef with Morty Fields after their two mutual exes broke his heart, both hung up on him and using Boomer in an attempt to get over him. The cherry on top? Both ended up back to Morty after Boomer — Millie hooking up with him after cheating on Boomer with Brick, and Bubbles eventually dating Morty again. In a way, Boomer should blame himself, dating the guy's exes and taking the risk that they may not be ready to move on, but Boomer can’t help but point the finger and find someone else to blame. It wasn’t like he purposely sought out Morty’s exes, after all. He honestly thought that the girls wanted to be with him, and who could blame him for genuinely believing that?

After the Millie and Brick situation, Boomer can’t help but have trust issues with his brothers now. He’s made a mental promise to himself that if and when he does start dating again, he’s gonna make sure to keep an extra close eye on his brothers, and keep his future partner away from them, if possible.

Boomer’s more of a troublemaker with his brothers’ influence than on his own. He’s much less of a threat solo, unless it’s personal and you’ve struck a nerve with him.

Because Boomer knows he’s seen as the stupidest Rowdyruff boy, sometimes he uses that to his benefit, playing stupid to get out of things or to be sneaky and get what he wants.

He did not finish high school, but that’s a surprise to no one

ESFP

[garfieldbabe]

Hate the fact I live in the same relatively small country as some celebrities. I could quite probably pass N3il Guyman on the street one-day and not even realize. Very scary

[curious-minx]

Zippity Zoomer: Mining the Minecraft Generation

One picture is usually all it  takes to transport the viewer, one picture can create many stories.

“Where Y’All Sitting” is an image meme template ripped from good ol’ Vectortoons, a ubiquitous nobody. This meme represents a leftover relic of the days of true Beliebers.  This particular variant of the meme offers up a collage of usernames turned public personas of Minecraft content creators, and is not in fact secret gibberish code that Gen-Z uses for telepathic communication. For the record, and for the sake of offering my own  POV, dear Reader  I’m a rapidly decaying millennial screeching into my late twenties. The following is an investigation into a NEW BREED(Z) of Celebrity, The Minecraft Streamer.

////

Millennials are more obsessed with generational categories because we have never felt an ounce of control in our own destinies.” - Me, a too wordy Millennial 

My first impression when I started Googling these names one by one is that Google generously auto generates the word “merch” next to nearly every name on this list. In the Age of the Hustle, our children’s children are hawking off not just plain ol t-shirts; but also offer a wide array of: hoodies, cell phone cases, coffee mugs, pillows, stickers (oh god, the  endless flood of stickers), clocks, shower curtains, coasters, jigsaw puzzles, magnets, tapestries, bedding (no, bedframes?), hats, fannypacks, flags, stationary, facemasks, baby onesies, coins, drinkware, pet clothing, and fake presidential campaign merch are just a smattering of the wares hawked by the people listed in this picture. This list of Minecraft enthusiasts turned digital entrepreneurs are all mostly various stripes of the same  floppy haired young men variant. An unyielding crop of snarky cocky content creators. Most of them are banking off of the success of a digital experiment that asked, “What if Lego, but as a video game?” No! There’s more to Minecraft than that! So much more and a decrypted boomer like me could  never hope to decipher.

Buy my Merch because I’m born to be on Merch. 

The cockiness permeating from these content creators is understandable. Most of these current Professional Gamers were raised devoid of a functioning plausible civilization. These Gaming Content Creators can have faith in the digital system  because it is through the stage of Minecraft they are  accumulating millions of youtube and twitch subscribers. All of these content providers are part of millions of young people’s media diet, websites churn out articles tracking down their love lives. People want to know if badboyhalo is dating Skeppy ? People want to know if Addison Rae is joining a Minecraft based content farm collective Dream SMP? Why has Tommy Innit been banned from Tik Tok? Why did georgenotfound boycott Wendy’s? Were Minx and Wilbur Soot really dating?  Does technoblade have ADD? Okay, mainly the website Distractify is asking these questions  the Google algorithm certainly encourages them too). This onslaught of articles proves that not only are these largely Minecraft based Twitch streamers profitable from a merchandising stand point but they can also be mined for tabloid fodder.  

Wilbur Soot - who is not an Incel. He’s just cheeky. 

The connective tissue that brings all of these names together is not just Minecraft and Game streaming, but the common cause of a collective, the Dream SMP collective. Apparently, young people need a collective to believe in. I know I would be lost without an Animal Collective or an Odd Future to help illustrate what a collaborative effort should look like.  Young people gravitate towards collectives and communities at large, because it is no longer available in the real world (and this was the case well before Covid). Take another name from the meme lunch room, Wilbur Soot, who is not only another Twitch based video game streamer, but he is also a musician with equally viral music videos . Soot’s general sound/vibe could be described as if Los Campesinos were extremely online and played less instruments (and just generally were worse, okay maybe that’s a thin, mean comparison). His music is not offensive, one song in particular “E-girl” finds Soot’s flipping expectations and criticizes the Internet for aiding an unhealthy romantic  fixation. Surprisingly thoughtful material that is trying to articulate the raw feeling of people plugged in since birth. Seeing  as most of these Minecraft based guys are known for being on the mic for hours at a time it does make Soot’s four minute song feel way longer than it should be. Soot’s got an impressive music production style down that makes his schtick go down easier. My verdict, Wilbur Soot is certainly a step above Hobo Johnson.

One of these e-boys were reported on for  making an off colored jokes on a Jackbox stream, and is about a complete non-story as you would expect. I am sure most of the young men listed in this collage are walking Ninja/pewdiepie hate speech bombs waiting to happen, but I am sure that kind of controversy is saved for later down the road to get over that 10 million subscriber hump.For the most part, this is bunch of dorky tech savvy teenagers who indulge in wholesome trolling and have a fixation on serving the Sponsors.  

These Minecraft based content creators’ main business pitch is a Maximalist Parasocial Bonding that specifically taps into the fan’s Good Friends based cortex. In no way am I adverse to freebasing on parasocial adult (mostly male) friendships. Being a human being, especially young and naive, is a lonely and miserable experience. People need all the faint grasp of human  connection he/she/they can get. None of these kids invented this dehumanizing that rewards people who strip themselves down to the basic elementals, strip themselves down into a celebrity sized square.

A still from the upcoming DREAM SMP movie trailer that is currently nestled at 11,100,784 views

Writing this article has been a personal exercise in fighting against validating every one of my knee-jerk reactions against these Simple Minecraft Dreamers. I saw a sea of probable goons rolling around in their sponsored donated money pits where donors’ flex control over the content provider. Give badboy Skeppy 10,000 big ones and he’ll shave his head for you and put on a show. Digging deeper, and I assure you what is lurking behind every seemingly bizarre and incomprehensible faction on the Internet is a longing for community. An all too real human ache and urge to spin stories and craft personal mythos. Minecraft is not the Marvel Industrial Complex but the Dreamers, muffins and potatoes could change all of that. I keep thinking that Minecraft is just a video game version of Legos and that it will one day fade away, but I am dead wrong. It is I that will be doing the fading away. The stories and servers of Minecraft myth makers will outlive me. My body will decompose but a Minecraft streamer’s plastic phone case will endure.

[johannesviii]

A Useless Post Rating the Preppers From Death Stranding

Because I can and I will. I got super attached to some of these bunches of pixels while playing, and I want to share my useless and extra subjective opinions

No plot-related spoilers. This is only listing the Preppers and not any Bridges employee from the various cities and facilities. No reasonable individuals to be found here, only strange people living in bunkers, baby

Let’s go

The Ludens Fan

Shelter placement: On a mountain, right between a Timefall zone and MULE territory, and not on any obvious delivery route. Not great. The view is super nice, though. 6/10

Prepper: A cinnamon roll who believes the world will be saved by fandoms and games. Always happy to see you. Gets super excited when you find old figurines for him. Sends lost stuff to people he doesn’t even know. Has toy dinosaurs.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: He is a Friend. 9/10

The Musician

Shelter placement: Hidden behind a little cliff, on a mountain, in a patch of nice fresh moss, next to a cool waterfall, overlooking the whole valley. Not on any delivery route whatsoever but come on. This guy is living the dream. 10/10

Prepper: Talks to you as if he’s known you since highschool. Has an emo haircut. Very passionate about rock albums from the “beginning of the 21st century” so I’m assuming he’s a fellow MCR fan. The walls of his shelter are covered in vinyls. Wants to create and share the music of the future for free. Streams his concerts on the chiral network.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A harmonica. You can play it. I’m in love

Opinion while playing: Hell yeah what a cool dude 10/10

The Engineer

Shelter placement: In plain view right next to a huge road and two MULE territories. Dude didn’t even try to hide and his packages are stolen all the time. At least the weather is nice? 3/10

Prepper: Has spent his entire life inside of this bunker since birth. Polite and a bit shy. Has a friendly smile. Judging by the amount of alcohol we deliver to him, feels lonely. Sometimes you’ll find gallons of lube with his name on it and he’ll refuse to give any kind of explanation and to be fair the guy probably uses it for all his mechanical inventions. But deep down, we know.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Power Skeleton. You know you want them.

Opinion while playing: Another Friend. I will judge him silently every time I have to bring him his lost lube though. 9/10

The Craftsman

Shelter placement: Next to a huge road on a plain ravaged by Timefall, between two MULE territories and a voidout crater choke-full of BTs. Can potentially see the nightmarish ruins of a roadside factory and a traffic jam where everyone clearly got killed. I don’t know if I hate it or respect the shit out of it. 2/10

Prepper: Suspicious of us. Sends us on a suicide mission to fetch old equipment in a terrifying place. Hates Fragile, so we can’t be friends. Likes to fix broken watches, apparently. A lot of his lost packages seem to be special reinforced underwear. I’m curious but also I don’t want to pry.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom hematic grenades. Can’t live without them.

Opinion while playing: A suspicious little shit and I don’t trust him but he’s still a good ally. 5/10

The Elder

Shelter placement: On a majestic plateau in the middle of the region, overlooking everything. Not on any obvious route, which is a problem, but also away from danger, Timefall and MULEs. A green little patch of heaven. 9/10

Prepper: Old and kind but takes no shit from anybody. All of his emails are like “anyway, f█ck the government and f█ck this country” and I’m living for it. Will give away old photo albums, books and games predating the Death Stranding, in hope they can be shared with other people and their kids. Wholesome as hell.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: The most valid boomer you will ever see. My adoptive grandfather and I must protect him at all costs. 10/10

Peter Englert

Shelter placement: Not on any obvious delivery route but right next to Lake Knot City on a plain ravaged by Timefall. You can see Middle Knot City’s crater from there. Not a bad spot, but also no good vibes whatsoever. 6/10

Prepper: Never at home, has no hologram and keeps finding terrible excuses not to be there, which is rude. Possibly imaginary friends and relatives. Writes extremely long and well-spoken, obsequious, smarmy emails to you and you’ll receive them at the worst possible moments, like he just knows. Only interested in pizza, and you.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Hope you like high quality guns, and very disturbing journal entries.

Opinion while playing: Was literally calling him my nemesis even BEFORE learning anything about the guy. The best and the worst prepper at the same time. Go f█ck yourself, dude, I love you. Pizza/10

The Timefall Farmer and the Environmental Scientist

Shelter placement: Right next to a huge MULE territory. There’s the Tar Belt in the distance and no city, road or friends for miles. Very awkward. 4/10

Preppers: Planned to study the effects of Timefall on plants and became farmers instead. They are not enjoying it one bit and you’re under the impression they occasionally get on each other’s nerves even though they’ve been colleagues for years. The concept of their farm is a fantastic bit of worldbuilding, though, but they are a bit bland themselves.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A goose hologram. I need it

Opinion while playing: They’re super nice but their general weariness is too contagious for comfort. 4/10

The Film Director

Shelter placement: In the middle of jagged rocks, reasonably far away from local MULEs and Timefall, but also from any kind of road or decent delivery route. The ground is a poisonous reddish brown with occasional smoke. Ominous. 5/10

Prepper: Really worried about ancient media getting lost and forgotten, and will do anything to save old movies from oblivion. Trusts you instantly. Is always surprised you brought something for him, or just thought about him, and it’s heartwarming to see. Geeks about things he likes in your emails when he isn’t low-key flirting with you. Has the most epic beard you will ever see in your life.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A rock hologram. Uh?

Opinion while playing: Came for the geeking, stayed for the flirting  8/10

The Collector

Shelter placement: Inside a cavern two-thirds up a vertical rock face in a canyon slap bang in the middle of MULE territory. Invisible from ground level, and invisible from the bottom of the canyon. The MULEs live literally next door and don’t even know the guy is there. No chill whatsoever. Incredible. What a king. 10/10

Prepper: Shaped like a friend. Loves videogames and loves geeking about them. Fascinated by pre-Stranding press like “people were buying newspapers? On real paper?? :O”. Really wants you to read his emails because he’s got nobody to share his special interests with. Wants to write about your adventures to inspire other people. Occasionally you’ll find a lost package with a vintage playstation and you know it’s for him even without looking at the name on the tag.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A backpack cover to protect your stuff from Timefall?? holy shit?

Opinion while playing: We have no choice but to stan. 9/10

The Junk Dealer

Shelter placement: On a heavily polluted, rust-colored hill in the middle of a scrapyard full of broken down cars, overlooking both MULE and BT territory AND some f█cking terrifying ruins on all sides. It’s metal as shit, but also, the dude’s got a death wish. 3/10

Prepper: Tries to emotionally blackmail us with videos of his supposedly dead girlfriend. Very rude. Sends us on a suicide mission in BT territory to look for junk just for a laugh. Is such a piece of shit he got divorced by a woman who was willing to be carried under heavy Timefall through a horde of BTs to see him. Killed his girlfriend’s parents and didn’t tell her.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Speed skeleton, and also chiral ladders, which are both life-saving, and I hate the fact that I need those so much.

Opinion while playing: A piece of shit and a terrible human being. Go sit on some rusty metal in BT territory, my dude. 1/10

The Chiral Artist and her Mother

Shelter placement: Overlooking a bottomless lake of tar and depressing ruins plagued by Timefall, far from civilisation but also far from trouble. Depressing, but safe. 6/10

Preppers: A little ray of sunshine. Capable of planning a journey on foot while avoiding Timefall and BTs after having done the trip exactly once (1) and on our back, which makes her one of the bravest Preppers we ever meet. Talented as hell with chiralium. Very awkward speech patterns and elocution which I always find relatable. Makes extremely bad choices regarding her love life. Will send you likes in a cringy but cute way. I don’t really trust her adoptive mother too much but she seems to be friends with the Cosplayer and any friend of the Cosplayer is my friend.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral boots. Literally the most useful thing anyone anywhere gave me in this game. No matter how far I am from her and her mom I will backtrack to get some brand new chiral boots from her every time I need them. They are that good

Opinion while playing: I love her but she’s making extremely bad life choices and it’s giving me mild anxiety 8/10

The Cosplayer and the Wandering MC

Shelter placement: At the very bottom of a long, narrow canyon plagued by Timefall, inside a vertical hole in the ground. How they haven’t both drowned yet is beyond me. This is the worst idea ever. 1/10

Prepper: Both of them are always super excited to see you. Trade a ton of art and crafts supplies back and forth with everyone in the region. Organised a goddamn post-apo cosplay convention through the chiral network. She considers cosplay to be ‘the art of transformation’, and he’s a big fan of you, and also otters. Otter facts. Dad Jokes to the max. Legends only

Will I get something nice if I help them: Backpack custom options. And the otter hood. Come on. Who doesn’t want to look like an otter. According to the MC it was “threaded and triple stitched by [his] cosplay partner using silk”. I don’t deserve this gift

Opinion while playing: Just because it’s the apocalypse doesn’t mean you can’t look and feel your best 10/10

The Doctor and the Medical Device Engineer

Shelter placement: Overlooking a little river in the mountains, right before the snow starts. Extremely close to Mountain Knot City. Practical and beautiful. Lovely spot. 8/10

Preppers: She invented and crafted a medical terminal that allows doctors to examine patients remotely through the network, and distributed it for free. He’s sitting on years of medical knowledge and stockpiles of meds, and also sharing both with everyone. Got married because they admired each other so much and shared a common hatred of the lack of medical assistance post-Stranding. Two absolute angels. We don’t deserve them

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom blood bags. A must during boss fights.

Opinion while playing: A bit too serious, but mad respect. 7/10

The Photographer

Shelter placement: In the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the valley, but away from everything and everyone, next to BT territory and daaaangerously close to the biggest Demens camp in the entire country. Who told you this was a good idea. 4/10

Prepper: The walls of her shelter are decorated with photos of beautiful landscapes. Friendly but takes no shit. Constantly trying to go out to take pictures of cool places and weird paleoart and stuff even though there’s a whole gang of terrorists outside firing live ammo at anyone on sight. Her cameras get stolen all the time, and yet she keeps doing it again and again. Judging by one delivery she sent to Mountain Knot City, she even has footage of Edge Knot City. You know. The unreachable nightmarish place beyond the f█cking Tar Belt. HOW

Will I get something nice if I help them: Guns because she clearly has no chill

Opinion while playing: This woman has more nerves in her left pinky than I have in my entire f█cking body. We stan a queen 9/10

The Novelist’s Son

Shelter placement: In a vast, beautiful green plain full of rivers and lakes, kind of in the middle of nowhere but also at a safe distance of the Demens territory. It’s painted the same green as the rest of the plain, which is a stroke of genius. 8/10

Prepper: Considering his title and the fact that the walls of his shelter are full of bookshelves, I expected a pretentious writer of sorts. But no. He doesn’t write. He’s just a soft boy who wants to save the world with plants. Will make sure you read his emails because he’s very passionate about gardening, gourds and mythology, and wants to talk about it with everyone. Too good for this world, too pure.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Special cryptobiotes! Pretty cool. I want to save some for Fragile

Opinion while playing: I love him I love thinking about him 10/10

The Roboticist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains, but in some sort of hollow, surrounded by snow and rocks on all sides. There’s also a nice hot spring nearby. Feels strangely safe and pleasant for such an isolated spot. 7/10

Prepper: Super approachable and quite friendly. Clearly a genius considering how good the all-terrain skeleton is. The stuff she’s looking for goes from stuff for her projects to a plush for her kid or a vintage coffee machine. Her emails, meanwhile, are shit-your-pants terrifying, like her wondering if machines should replace humans, or pranking you by pretending she was dead the whole time and her hologram is an IA. Thank you for the heart attack.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the all-terrain skeleton, hell yeah baby

Opinion while playing: I’m very conflicted because her emails are scary as shit but if she stepped on my face I’d say “thank you” 8/10

The Mountaineer and the Mountain Guide

Shelter placement: On top of a mountain but in a relatively flat and safe area, very isolated but also far from Beached Things, with good visibility. There’s logic to the madness. 6/10

Preppers: Initially in panic mode due to a medical emergency. Tough outside, but soft inside. He gives you precious advice about whiteouts and how to deal with them and stay alive in the mountains. We don’t know much about her, except she used to explore the mountains using chiral climbing anchors. Just speculation but I’m under the impression they met one day on a super dangerous expedition and ended together because they were both tough as nails, or maybe because they saved each other. Their kid is going to be unstoppable.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral climbing anchors.

Opinion while playing: Wholesome couple of adventurers. A bit bland, but in a good way 7/10

The Spiritualist

Shelter placement: On a mountain peak in the middle of a whiteout area, but sometimes the weather can be decent and the view pretty nice, if you squint. Getting there feels like a test to join a secret cult and I don’t like that one bit. 3/10

Prepper: Twin sister of the Cosplayer, but gives off a very different vibe, like some sort of white suburban mom who’s discovering new age stuff. Has a very mystical approach to this whole apocalypse thing but seems to be wayyy too much into it for comfort. Really wants to see the Beach and tries to do so through meditation. We can receive chemicals from her. I do NOT want to know what’s in there.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A RACCOON HOLOGRAM?? I LOVE IT

Opinion while playing: Harmless but she scares me. 3/10

The First Prepper

Shelter placement: On a nearly inaccessible mountain peak battered by snow storms. The slope is so dangerous I straight up died once while walking on it. Absolutely nothing for miles and no visibility. That’s not a shelter, that’s a coffin. 1/10

Prepper: Apparently his family has lived in shelters ever since the beginning of the Cold War, then decided to stay there in case the world would end in the year 2000, then because of the Bush era, and long story short the guy is like “I did it before it was cool” and he’s literally gatekeeping other Preppers and calling them amateurs. Tries really hard to convince us to stop helping people and get our own shelter. At least he admits self-sufficiency is a mirage in the end, which is more than I expected from this clown.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A hat, and a wolf hologram

Opinion while playing: When the nicest thing I have to say about a Prepper is “well they’re not hurting anybody”, you know it’s bad. What a jerk 2/10

The Evo-Devo Biologist

Shelter placement: On an isolated snow slope away from civilisation, overlooking ruins and geysers in the distance. Not far from BT territory and terrorists, but still at a reasonable distance. Next to a hot spring. The view is majestic as f█ck. 9/10

Prepper: Looks strict and gives off severe teacher vibes, but you’re under the impression that’s purely because she hasn’t seen or talked to another human being in years. Polite but distant. Thinks the sixth mass extinction is a golden opportunity for science, and inevitable, and that we should study the shit out of it even if we end up dying. She’s not wrong exactly but also, yikes

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I genuinely have no idea. An enigma. 5/10

The Geologist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains on a desolate snowy slope, completely isolated from everything. I think I’ve seen a movie about that kind of place once, except it was a hotel. 2/10

Prepper: The first package we bring to him is a shipment of meds to fight chiral contamination. No more nightmares or suicidal thoughts after that, so he’s ok. Also he’s obsessed with Heartman to the point you wonder if he’s got a crush on him, belittles himself and his work constantly, and also thinks saving the world is a waste of time and effort. No no he’s still ok, he swears. But yeah uh. Dude is clearly one small step away from blowing a fuse and going full Demens, we need to sit down and talk about your problems my friend

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I like him but he worries me a lot and I’m a bit scared for him 7/10

The Paleontologist

Shelter placement: In a little valley in the mountains, where grass and snow meet, miles away from civilisation and roads, but also miles away from problems. If there wasn’t this pit full of toxic gas literally next door, this would be perfect. 8/10

Prepper: Likes to complain about everything and everyone. A bit rude but more in a familiar way than an unpleasant way. Extremely passionate about fossils and prehistoric stuff and gets super excited about ammonites in particular. Mentions exploring a place full of toxic gas without any kind of protection just to fetch some neat rocks once, so we both clearly have the same level of survival instincts when our special interests are involved.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really, unless you count level 2 Hematic Grenades

Opinion while playing: Relatable as shit. I feel like I’d be this guy if I existed in this game’s world. 9/10

The Veteran Porter

Shelter placement: Nowhere Man lives on a very abrupt slope full of rocks in the middle of Nowhereburg, Nowhere State, Nowherica. You get the feeling he knows the region like the back of his hand and picked that spot exactly for that reason and frankly, I have to respect that. 7/10

Prepper: Ex-Porter with a damaged spine. A retired adventurer, exhausted after carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Higgs used to be his boss back when he was still working at Fragile Express so the dude has massive trust issues now and I won’t argue with that. Initially suspicious of us and Bridges, for good reasons. Every time I found a super isolated bunker signed under Fragile Express I was like “woah their employees were hardcore to find all these places that Bridges couldn’t find”, and he’s one of these guys, and I get it now. And he’s tired. So tired. A whole mood.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: Unlike the First Prepper I respect the shit out of him and I want him to enjoy his well-earned retirement 8/10

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Im about to finally watch that NC review of The Wall after watching a bunch of videos about it and Im just gonna put my thoughts during it in this post

Okay I just checked this review has 85k dislikes, 22k likes and 1.5 million views Im scared

I also havent watched actually watched The Wall btw, but I did watch Folding Ideas video if that helps

Oh god I really liked NC in like 2019 and even the beginning of 2020 and his greeting is giving me vietnam flashbacks

I hate Dougs voice already

Okay a bunch of shit is happening

Now theyre just showing clips from the original movie but as a horrible montage with fire edited over it

Dougs face makes me uncomcortable and I hate looking at it

Hes singing again goddamnit

Thank god, an ad

He stopped singing again thank god

What the fuck is that

I hate those giggles theyre awful

Why is Doug Walker a vampire

The costuming is straight up awful what is the budget on this

The cg is so bad and outdated why did they even bother

What are these dance moves

Theyre mentioning twitter now???

I just watched that 3 musical minute sequence and I have no idea what Doug is even trying to say

He spat out a bird? Huh??

What

Bro the animation is so bad

This would literally be completely incoherent without the on the nose lyrics

"So long Oscar-bait song/smoke a bong and it'll feel less wrong" bro what

I havent even watched the fucking movie and even I know hes missing the point, how did I ever think his reviews were good

I didnt not need to see Doug Walker wailing about being Jesus while shirtless in front of badly edited stockphoto water

What is that

His acting is so bad and I still hate his face

Im not even halfway through

I just wanna go back to working on my AU while watching actually good longform reviews

I cant even read the comments bc I wanna focus on the review itself I hate it here

This frame is very blue. I love the color, but its kinda out of place and was probably not done on purpose

What now

What

Why

I wanna commit crimes

Have I mentioned that I hate looking at Dougs face

That was, without exageration, the worst sponsor Ive ever seen

ITS NOT OVER???

I too call the people I am writing a love letter to whiny and pretentious

Oh god

What in the world

I didnt think it was possible but Dougs singing voice just got worse

Dude they drew on his head with like, marker or something and I can see it smudge

He got all these people and all these props and had these wholeass songs written but he couldnt even brush his fucking teeth before going on Youtube

Okay theyre doing a full on twitter song

What is this shit

This is the most boomer centrist thing I have ever seen in my life

What the fuck was that

The eye imagery going on is geniuienly very unsettling and kind of disorienting but I cant really appreciate it bc its just so bad

What is that

AND AD THANK GOD

Back to the bullshit

What is that

The greenscreen looks so bad

Only 11 minutes lets fucking gooooooo

Doug Walker standing in that hallway doing a power stance is my new sleep paralasis demon

Dude what are they even doing

What is that squirrel thing on this random guys counter

I dont understand whats going on

What in the world is that furry nightmare squirrel in the studio

Why is the edgy cowboy furry OC lecturing me about The Arts

I legimately cant understand most of the words being said and I have no idea if its because my brain has been fried or because they just went with the first take of every line

This part of the review is usually praised as "the best part" so Im both intrigued and really scared

Oh god its another furry OC

Okay I actually quite like the design of the grey furry with the big hat and six arms I just really hate the way he moves, I think it would look better as a static model or preferably a 2d drawing

Another Ad!

I also like the black one with the white horns and red accents

Okay what the fuck is that

I mean the one with the way too many antlers is a bit better than the one before it but it looks like the designer kinda gave up at this point

This feels like an acid trip but in the worst way

I think this is the first thing Ive seen that had a dragon in it, that didnt make it better at all

I mean. i guess this is very impressive but why

I feel like every single voice actor for these creatures recorded the lyrics with a completely different mic

Hey, what the fuck

Well this sure is all happening

What

"Well, the movie ended on such an open vagueness that it only makes sense the the review end on such an open vagueness" hey fuckface, thats not how reviews work

Thank you musician guy who had no lines up until now (I think his name was Corey??)

All of this bullshit and for WHAT

Theyre singing the spongebob squarepants theme song

These 30 seconds where the most I enjoyed myself consecutively during this entire 40 minute video

I dont know how, but Doug Walker somehow manages to stay unlikeable even while hes shouting out a charity that probably does wonderful work

In conclusion, there is a total of 5 Things I Enjoyed in this 40 minute review:

That gray furry with the hat and six arms

That black furry with the horns and red accents and eyes

The shade of blue during that one very blue shot

The spongebob squarepants theme

Apparently Griff Taylor (the son of the musician guy, Corey Taylor) is a fan of NC for some reason and his dad pretty much did this for him, and I can appreciate that on some level

[forestwater87]

hi! can i ask how you go about writing gwen? i’ve rewatched a bunch of her episodes and am still having trouble getting her on paper!

Okay, first you’re going to need to get a time machine and travel back in time to the summer of 2016, just after season 1 ended, when she had like 3 character traits and a couple dozen lines and zero fanfics, then fill her with elements of your own personality and project wildly onto her, slowly falling into deeper and darker despair as canon!Gwen becomes less like your iteration of the character with every season.

At least, that’s what I did, and it worked like gangbusters.

Fine, let’s try a serious answer. Gwen’s interesting because, despite how frequently she appears in the show and how much we love the shit out of her, it wasn’t really until seasons 3-4 that her backstory and less surface-level characteristics started getting filled in. She’s an ever-present enigma in a lot of ways.

So start with what we know for damn sure: 

She doesn’t like working at Camp Campbell.

She’s an anxious, emotional mess. 

She’s lazy when it comes to things she doesn’t care about, but is willing and able to step up when it’s called for.

She enjoys writing fan fiction and has a passion -- if not necessarily a talent -- for smut, drama, romance, violence, and monsterfucking. (Some of these things overlap.)

Her father’s an extremely successful musician, and their relationship is . . . complicated.

She’s beautiful and perfect and in love with David and also my girlfriend. Okay, that’s not true. This is where the projecting comes in, dang it.

Honestly, there’s . . . not a lot of there there. I think that’s why some fans are kind of bored by her, and why others absolutely love the shit out of her. Her personality is rock-solid -- seriously, just write “bored and seemingly uncaring with a heart of gold and a lust for monsters” and you’ve got a very solid Gwen portrayal right there -- but the backstory is virtually nonexistent, and that’s the bits you get to have fun with. 

For example, with all of our facts we have:

She doesn’t like working at Camp Campbell. Okay, but why doesn’t she like working there? Is it just because it’s dilapidated and Campbell is a shithead? Did she ever like working here and got burned out by its overwhelming mediocrity, or was she forced to take this job and hated it from day one? What’s the worst part of it for her: is it working with kids? Is it working with these kids? Is it the outdoors stuff? The lack of resources? That her coworker is an adorable goddamned idiot who doesn’t know how to adult? 

She’s an anxious, emotional mess. Anxiety, parasocial relationships (do those apply when talking about fictional characters and/or monsters?), serious doubt and/or regret about her life choices, a complicated and unclear sexuality . . . there’s a lot going on with Gwen. She is trash, and we love her. Add to it that she’s a psych major, and how little we know about her backstory, and she’s a great opportunity to armchair-psychologist and/or overidentify all over the place. Do you have emotional issues or identities you’d like to project onto someone? Congratulations -- Gwen now has all of those too!

She’s lazy when it comes to things she doesn’t care about, but is willing and able to step up when it’s called for. She’s a lot like Max in this way, which I think is why people are such a fan of their dynamic. She cares very deeply about some things and not at all about others, and it’s fun trying to parse out what will make her give a shit. It seems like high enough stakes will make her step up, but her idea of important is very different from David’s a lot of the time. Hell, for all we know her investment in her job changes on as little as her mood; that’s part of what you get to try and figure out as she takes shape in your writing.

She enjoys writing fan fiction and has a passion -- if not necessarily a talent -- for smut, drama, romance, violence, and monsterfucking. (Some of these things overlap.) Not gonna lie, as a book snob I had the hardest time accepting that my girl loves 50 Shades knockoffs. Her tastes are . . . I don’t wanna say bad, but they do tend to be what is popularly considered the lowest common denominator: reality TV, fashion magazines, bodice-ripping romances, paranormal tween novels. Basically, anything with lots of sex and violence seems to be her jam. It creates a really interesting dichotomy, in that she reads all the time, but isn’t necessarily what we’d call well-read. She’s a nerd, but the “worst” kind: a fangirl, and arguably the most adolescent kind. Yet she has a liberal arts degree, which tends to focus heavily on literary and creative arts, so snobs like me would assume she should know better. Apparently pretentious college English classes didn’t rub off on her all that much. I don’t have much in the way of leading questions for this one, because unless you want to psychoanalyze why she enjoys Prison Teen Mom Wars (as I most definitely do), you just sort of need to be aware of and use the fact that she enjoys high-octane drama, fighting, and kinky sex.

Her father’s an extremely successful musician, and their relationship is . . . complicated. Really, there’s two ways to work with this: either Gwen just has a normal “millennial embarrassed by her boomer dad” relationship, which is relatable to the max but doesn’t have a ton of angst fodder, or she’s dealing with some deep-seated issues about being a show toddler and/or failing to live up to his creative legacy (or whatever other parent-child problems you could imagine). Her mom is a complete nonentity. There’s definitely love between her and at least one parent, and that needs to be incorporated into any sort of discussion about her dad, but I don’t think their problems have been magically solved, which has to potential for lots of interesting scenarios.

She’s beautiful. She doesn’t think she’s beautiful, that’s for sure. One Direction in its early period of completely sucking would have lots of opinions about this, but if you don’t think Gwen is a snack (snacc? I’m very old and out of touch), you’re wrong and also not welcome on this blog.

The fun part, in my opinion, is trying to fill in the blank spaces. If I was starting out my own creation of Gwen, I’d focus first on these points: what they tell us about her, and more importantly what they don’t.

I think the hardest thing about writing Gwen -- at least, what I struggle most with -- is trying to soften her up. I took her “crippling anxiety and regret” and filled it in with all my own angst, and I think a lot of fans do that; it’s one of the great things about her, her potential for angst. But despite crying a lot (more, I believe, than any other character except mayyyybe David), she’s not especially sensitive toward other people. And I think it’s tempting to take our love for her and translate it into her being much more perfect and snuggly than she actually is. It’s an incredibly hard balance to strike, and in my opinion this makes her the hardest character to write besides Max, which makes sense, considering #3 up there.

So my advice for that would be: lean into the bitchiness. Let her be blunt and dismissive; she’s more than that, of course, and I think one of the reasons people have gravitated so much toward gwom-type portrayals is her genuine concern and even affection towards other people, but focusing too hard on her kindness and/or her angst tends to push aside the trash goblin Gwen we all fell in love with.

Let her be a trash goblin. She deserves it.

[highandlowculture]

Can’t Stop Messin’ With It: Aerosmith’s Get A Grip Redux

Aerosmith was my first musical love.

I was in junior high when they were in the midst of their Permanent Vacation/Pump comeback. They were all over MTV. They appeared on Wayne’s World. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry seemed as cool to an adolescent Edwin as I’m sure Mick Jagger and Keith Richards did to the Baby Boomers. They were older than most of the popular bands around and it gave them a tougher, more streetwise vibe. They had been one of the biggest bands in the 1970s only to lose it all in a blaze of coked-up glory. By the mid 80s Aerosmith were a relic of blues jeans wearing, working class hard rock. They weren’t New Wave. They weren’t hair metal. They weren’t thrash. They were barely a band. The original lineup had broken up and Steven Tyler was a strung-out junkie living in a flophouse. Usually this is where the Behind The Music story ends, but Aerosmith would surprise everyone by pulling off one of the most spectacular comebacks in entertainment history. This was an essential part of the Aerosmith mythology. Steven and Joe were the Toxic Twins. They had lived on the edge and came back to kick some serious ass.

I love Permanent Vacation and Pump, but even as a young teen I knew their 70s albums were on another level. From their self-titled 1973 debut to 1979’s Night in the Ruts, the band released six albums that pick up where the Stones left off on Exile on Main Street. Down & dirty, heavy yet funky, with a street edge and groove unusual for most white bands. Steven Tyler’s lyrics were shithouse, jive-talkin’ poetry. If there’s any doubt in your mind of Aerosmith’s musical genius, listen to 1976’s Rocks. A rock ‘n’ roll record that manages to be perfectly written and recorded, yet has the energy and fire of something that might spin out-of-control at any second. Rocks inspired a subsequent generation of rock musicians. Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana both citing it as a major influence. Whether you were into hair metal, thrash or grunge, anyone who was legit, loved Rocks. On the heels of their hugely successful update of “Walk This Way” with Run-DMC, the original lineup sobered up and was ready to rumble with the younger bands they had influenced in the prior decade. 1987‘s Permanent Vacation revealed a slicker and, at times, more pop-friendly band. 1989’s Pump built on the last album’s accessibility while bringing back some of the groove from their 1970s work.

Once again, Aerosmith was one of the biggest and coolest bands in the world.

And they were a bunch of guys in their 40s.

It might seen unfathomable to a generation introduced to Aerosmith via “I Don't Want To Miss A Thing” or Steven Tyler hosting American Idol, but it’s true: Aerosmith were once cool. In the late 80s and early 90s, Aerosmith had a charm and swagger that all the younger bands couldn’t match. They also had a humbleness that came from losing it all and then getting it all back. They were genuinely thrilled to get this second chance and it came through in both their music and public appearances. And as is often the case, the originators proved to be superior to their followers. When a band like Warrant sang “She’s my cherry pie” they came across as meatheaded posers. When Steven Tyler sang “I got the right key, oh baby, but the wrong key hole” it resonated with humor and attitude. Aerosmith were the real deal. The hair bands were fake. The Bad Boys From Boston owned all their asses. Only Guns N’ Roses managed to capture the Aerosmith spirit.

By 1992, however, there was a continental shift in music.

Exit the hair bands. Enter the grunge bands.

As mentioned, Aerosmith had influenced many of the grunge bands just as they had the hair metal bands. The influence just wasn’t as obvious to casual music fans. Clearly, Guns N Roses, Motley Crue and the like had their roots in Aerosmith’s sleazy brand of cock rock. But when Kurt Cobain said Nevermind was “a cross between Iggy Pop and Aerosmith” most people probably didn’t get it. But then again, those people probably weren’t hip to such 1970s deep tracks as “Round and Round” and “Combination”. For every two or three cock rock songs Aerosmith knocked-out, there was always a drugged-out slab of primal but melodic metal. No doubt, it was this side of Aerosmith that appealed to the likes of Kurt Cobain. So when Aerosmith was in the studio in 1992, recording their follow-up to Pump, they were probably mindful of yet another generation of bands that were influenced by their music. Would this be an opportunity to further embrace their 1970s sound? Were we gonna get darker and grittier songs? Were we gonna get a few hints of psychedelia? Now that the band was on top again and could do anything they want, were we gonna get a bona fide Aerosmith classic?

Nope.

But we almost did.

Their followup to Pump was planned for a ’92 release and after their first wave of sessions for the album, they submitted 12 songs to Geffen. This proposed 12 song album was rejected by the label (who did the same thing to Nirvana when an early version of In Utero was submitted). Geffen A&R beardo, John David Kalodner, liked to keep Aerosmith on a tight leash (as you can see in The Making of Pump video). Once again, the band was trying to artistically do their own thing and Kalodner gripped the leash even tighter. He complained the album they had submitted lacked variety and radio-friendly songs. Aerosmith were sent back to the studio and more outside song-writers were hired to assist. This eventually lead to 1993’s Get A Grip. Why would a band that had just pulled off such a huge comeback and had two hit albums under their belt acquiesce to a record label suit? Didn’t they have the clout to tell him to “fuck off”? They probably did, but Kalodner was one of their biggest champions and was highly instrumental in getting them signed to Geffen when their career was in the gutter. No doubt, the band felt loyalty to Kalodner, but also trusted his instincts. And from a purely commercial standpoint, his instincts were proven right.

Get A Grip is Aerosmith’s biggest success internationally, selling over 20 millions copies (it’s their third biggest album in the U.S. following Toys in the Attic and Pump). It contains four hit singles and maintained Aerosmith’s stature as one of the biggest bands in the world. That being said, for the first time, it created a shift in their fanbase. Unlike Permanent Vacation and Pump, Get A Grip wasn’t loved by both hardcore and casual fans. I was very disappointed in the album, and I know many others were too. The fact that three of the hit singles were radio-friendly pop ballads, and released in a row, created a stigma that the band had gotten soft and sold out. No doubt, they gained more teenaged girls as fans, but male headbangers and hard rockers started to walk away from them. Aerosmith was commercially at their peak, but they had lost their cool. The effects of this wouldn’t be totally felt until the next decade when their album sales started to dip, but I think even though Get A Grip was a hit when released, it ultimately hurt the band. The fact that their biggest radio hit, “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”, was released a few years afterwards, didn’t help either. It further cemented Aerosmith’s reputation as purveyors of schlocky pop ballads. Still to this day, Aerosmith are doing fine, especially abroad. But it bothers me that they’re not headlining stadiums in the U.S., when a band like Guns N’ Roses can. Aerosmith has a much bigger and more impressive catalogue of songs and they’re an American institution. I can’t help thinking that if they stayed a little truer to their hard rock roots and not aim their sights at Top 40 radio so much, they’d have an even stronger army of devoted concert-goers today. Just look at AC/DC. Albums like Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip didn’t sell as much as Get A Grip, but they assured the hardcore fans they were still the AC/DC they knew and loved. In the long run, it’s the hardcore fans that stick with you. Casual fans and teenyboppers move onto the next thing.

Now Get A Grip isn’t a total wash for me. I love “Fever” and “Walk On Down”; they’re both classic Aerosmith style rockers. I also think “Gotta Love It” is a fun, trippy jam with awesome bass. But overall, the album is too slick and overproduced even by Bruce Fairbairn standards. It sounds like an album that’s been reworked to death in the studio. And Kalodner’s idea of diversity means less hard rock, more pop ballads, and a duet with Lenny Kravitz. Before Get A Grip, Aerosmith dabbled in poppier material. Even in the 1970s. Toys In The Attic is a truly electric album showing many sides of the band. The band also had ballads on their albums, usually at the end, and there was only one (e.g. “You See Me Crying”, “Home Tonight”, “What It Takes”). This was Aerosmith’s original plan for Get A Grip (“Amazing” being the sole piano ballad at the end, following their old formula). Pretty much all the songs composed and recorded in the second wave of sessions are the weakest ones: “Shut Up and Dance”, “Cryin’”, “Crazy”, “Line Up”, etc. The strongest material being the songs that were recorded or rooted in the early ’92 sessions.

We don’t know exactly which 12 songs the band originally submitted were, but between the earlier songs, B-Sides, and abandoned songs from the era, it’s possible to get a rough idea of what this original Get A Grip was going to sound like. I’ve recreated the album below. It’s not a perfect approximation, but I think it’s close to the album the band initially recorded and intended to release. It’s a much darker and grittier Aerosmith. The album harkens back to their mid 70s work. In a sense, this made it more timely if it had been released in ’92. The grunge bands all had their roots in 70s hard rock. Aerosmith had recorded an album that could rumble with Nirvana while also having moments that were uniquely Aerosmith. Unlike the grunge bands, Aerosmith didn’t have sexual hang-ups. If anything, they were more lascivious than usual. But it’s sex with a dark side. It’s not hair metal. This below album most likely wouldn’t have sold as many copies as the released Get A Grip, but the band would’ve maintained their cool. If anything they might’ve seemed even cooler. Again, this original Get A Grip is a dark and gritty album. Permanent Vacation and Pump sound very lightweight by comparison. It’s an album recorded by a band who have regained their confidence and wanted to make a straight-up, hard rockin’ album with just a touch of Beatle-esque pop (i.e. a classic Aerosmith album). Steven Tyler reinserts himself as a street poet, but one who’s been further around the block. The guitars are loud, the vibe is sleazy, and it doesn’t sound like it’s been written by a committee.

I think it’s their best album post Night in the Ruts.

And with that, behold...

Get A Grip Redux

The awesome Aerosmith album we never got, but you can create for yourself using the below tracks. Half of this album is composed of B-sides and alternative tracks from the era, all of which can be found on the Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology (a.k.a. Gold) compilation.

Side One

1.) Head First - A B-side from the era and a definite suspect for the originally submitted 12 songs. I don’t know for a fact that this was the original opener and not “Eat The Rich”, but I suspect it was. It just sounds like an opener to me (especially due to the “Gimme Shelter” style intro). And, y’know, it’s entitled “Head First”. Where else is it going? I can imagine Kalodner frowning when he first heard it, wishing they had a splashier and more bombastic opener. No doubt, this is subtler than “Eat The Rich”, but I also think it’s much better. “Eat The Rich” and its corny tribal opener always grated on me. It’s trying too hard and way too busy. “Head First” is just a cool, strutting down the street rocker. It’s confident. It’s got swagger. It’s got style. It’s letting you know this is a more straight-up, no nonsense Aerosmith album. Like “No Surprize” from Night in the Ruts, “Head First” starts the proceedings with more strut than bombast. I think it’s a great opener.

2.) Get A Grip - Yep. Still the second track. Just sounds like a second track to me. This was always one of the better songs from the album. Funky with a hard groove that could’ve been found on Draw The Line. Coming after “Head First”, the song sounds even punchier.

3.) Fever - Tracks 2-4 sound perfectly sequenced to me, so I’m keeping with the sequence. “Fever” is my favorite song on the released album and my second favorite on this version. One of only two songs without any outside writers, and what do you know? It’s a classic Aerosmith sounding rocker! This song fucking scorches. The band’s totally on. “Fever” also has a southern rock quality, which periodically manifests on this version of the album.

4.) Livin’ On The Edge [Acoustic Version] - Waitaminute? “Livin’ On The Edge” was on the original album! Isn’t that one of the hits? Yep. Shows that Kalodner wasn’t hungry for hits, he was just greedy for ‘em. Understandably, if you’re a label suit and given an album with only these early versions of “Livin’ On The Edge” and “Amazing” as the potential big hits, you might crank the chicken switch. This acoustic version, sometimes known as “Original Album Version”, isn’t purely acoustic like the subtitle suggests. It’s simply a warmer, and in my opinion, much better produced version of the song. It brings out the Beatle-esque quality. The instruments are also spaced-out better. The music breathes. The pseudo socially conscious lyrics always bothered me, but on this version of the album, the lyrics comes across as more personal. Like Steven is singing more about himself than “the world”. Any hippie-dippie idealism is wiped-out by the end of the song regardless. “You can’t help yourself from falling” is the song’s true mantra. An apocalyptic bookend to Rocks’ “Nobody’s Fault” in which no one is saved. Overall this version feels more intimate and darker. I think “Head First” starting off the album rather than “Eat The Rich” changes the whole tone of the album, both musically and lyrically. Without The Alicia Silverstone Trilogy to stake their money on, they probably would’ve saved “Livin’ On The Edge” as the more poignant second single (a’la “Janie's Got A Gun”). A surefire hit, but it wouldn’t have been enough to please Kalodner and his label cohorts.

5.) Can’t Stop Messin’ - The B-side to “Livin’ On The Edge” and included on the UK version of Get A Grip. Why it was left off the US version is a mystery to me. This song is killer! Even a potential hit (well, on rock radio anyway). One of the dirtiest and meanest sounding tracks Aerosmith ever recorded, this is easily my favorite song from this era. In fact, I put it over anything they did in the 1980s (save “Jailbait”). With tasty guitar lick after tasty guitar lick, and a jivey, tough-sounding chorus that sticks in your head like molasses, “Can’t Stop Messin’” is Aerosmith at their best. It would’ve been a good fourth single IMO.

6.) Walk On Down - Always one of my favorites. This Joe Perry penned and sung track sounds even better after “Can’t Stop Messin’”. What a one-two punch! This is Aerosmith truly going “back to the street”. That was the album’s mission statement before they were asked to rethink it.

Side Two

7.) Legendary Child - One of the most unforgivable omissions from the released Get A Grip was this gem. A song that wouldn’t be released until twenty years later, it was originally recorded during the early ’92 sessions, and is rumored to have been one of the infamous 12 songs. The “Legendary Child” that later appeared on Music From Another Dimension and a G.I. Joe soundtrack is a rerecorded version, but it’ll have to do. I suspect it’s not that much different. Musically and lyrically, it fits the darker and grittier tone of the other songs recorded at the time. Joe and Brad even make use of a digital harmonizing effect in the rerecording, which can also be heard on “Get A Grip” and “Don’t Stop”, showing they weren’t straying far from their original intent. The song was an absolute standout on Another Dimension and even on this higher quality album, it remains so. In 1992 this should have been a priority song, and I think lead single. It’s a great way to reintroduce Aerosmith to the grunge generation. With several choice riffs (one being an obvious bite of “The Wanton Song”), and Steven’s tough, been-around-the-block lyrics, this is the Aerosmith I know and love. It’s a timeless and true rocker for the hardcore fans.

8.) Flesh - Another song rumored to be one of the 12 songs is a nasty little ditty entitled “Black Cherry”. Apparently Steven pushed the smut envelope, even by his usual smutty standards, and Kalodner thought the lyrics were too crude. The song was reimagined and its main riff was used in “Flesh”. There aren’t any versions of “Black Cherry” available, so “Flesh” will have to do (even though it came from the later ’92 sessions). Like most of the song’s from those sessions, “Flesh” is too slick and overproduced, but it does retain some of the “Black Cherry” sleaze factor. It also flows better coming after “Legendary Child”. I always thought the flow was clunky on the released Get A Grip. Not here, baby!

9.) Gotta Love It - Another one of my favorites. This is the type of song only Aerosmith can record. A psychedelic funk jam? I guess that’s what I’ll call it. Recalling the bass-driven groove of Draw The Line’s “Critical Mass”, Tom Hamilton shines on this one. Such an awesome musician and class act. The man’s bass solo on this track is wicked. Of course, musically, everyone delivers. There’s a coda in which the band suddenly sounds like Steely Dan doing an impersonation of Tangerine Dream. It’s an evocative and transcendental moment you wish lasted longer, but that’s part of what makes it so cool. Aerosmith could throw a musical curveball like this with such humble dexterity. They don’t need to make a big deal about it. They’re operating on a level most bands will never reach.

10.) Deuces Are Wild - A song that was first recorded during the Pump sessions and nixed by Kalodner. The band recorded it again during the ‘92 sessions, and I’ll assume that’s the version which ended up on The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience, Big Ones and other compilations. I don’t know if this ever had a shot of making the Get A Grip album, but I like it, so I’m including it. It’s definitely better than “Crazy”. “Deuces Are Wild" starts off as a country ballad, but then transforms into a hot southern rocker. The band’s upcoming Las Vegas Residency is named after the song. It’d be cool if it actually makes the setlist.

11.) Don’t Stop - Another B-side from the era, which I suspect was part of the rejected 12. This track is just a fast, ballsy, straight-up rocker. In other words, the exact type of song Kalodner didn’t want on the album. “Don’t Stop” foreshadows a more punk-ish side of the band, which appears in spots on Nine Lives (e.g. “Something’s Gotta Give”, “Crash”). “Don’t Stop” is a good final rocker for the album and a good contrast to the next and last song.

12.) Amazing [Orchestral Version] - Like “Livin’ On The Edge [Acoustic Version]” this is an alternative mix first available as a B-side. It was also likewise known as “Original Album Version”. And again, a Beatle-esque quality is enhanced in this version. The orchestration is totally in the George Martin vein (or at least Wings era McCartney). Overall the song has a stronger 1970s quality with the louder strings. In other words, it sounds like the way Aerosmith would’ve ended their mid 70s albums (“You See Me Crying” closing Toys In The Attic and “Home Tonight” closing Rocks). “Amazing” is the song that’s most improved via this track listing IMO. With more hard rockers and without “Cryin’” and “Crazy” preceding it, you actually welcome “Amazing”. It’s like ‘Yeah. We rocked enough. Now let’s go out with a pretty ballad!’ The confessional aspects of the lyrics are also enhanced on this version of the album. They come across as a final summation of a band that destroyed themselves via drug use, but then saved themselves. I for one don’t miss the pointless instrumental “Boogie Man”, which concludes the released Get A Grip. This more retro and heartfelt sounding “Amazing” is a much better way to end the album. In my alternative universe this would’ve been the third single, in hopes of matching the success of “What It Takes” (both a ballad and third single). Truthfully, however, without a “Cryin’” beforehand and a linkage to that video via Alicia Silverstone, I don’t think “Amazing” would’ve done that well. As mentioned before, Kalodner’s commercial instincts were dead-on. This version of the song from this version of the album, would’ve most likely led to a failed “Amazing” single. But you know what? That makes it even more like classic 1970s Aerosmith! After all, both “You See Me Crying” and “Home Tonight” floundered on the charts. Good ol’ 1970s Aerosmith. When piano ballads were a good way to end their albums, but not ultimately what people wanted from them. “Amazing” could have been that beautifully failed single.

And my Get A Grip Redux could’ve been an album that underperformed but hardcore fans love.

Oh well. The band went in another direction.

But we can still have our dreams and playlists…!!!

[bethestaryouareradio]

Summer Sparkle and Shine

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/f778d93938/288055965/ac7221bc2f/

    MIRACLE MOMENT® “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn

MESSAGE FROM CYNTHIA BRIAN, Founder/Executive Director

Many moons ago, I had the privilege of acting in a film with the classy Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wagner. Their stars shone brightly yet they were kind, generous, and humorous. Reflecting on those moments, I know I was blessed to bask in their light.

One of our core missions here at Be the Star You Are!® is to encourage our volunteers, donors, and beneficiaries to truly be the stars they were born to be. That means we want you to greet the world sparkling and shining. Of course, we all have bad days, but when we train our brains to adopt the power of positivity, we will feel better, have improved health, and help others elevate their moods. It takes practice to be positive. We need to rehearse just as we would to learn any skill. Appreciate a beautiful day. Write down what you are grateful for before you go to bed each evening. Be generous towards others. A 2016 study discovered that being kind to others was the most effective way to boost our happiness quotient, even more that treating ourselves to something special. Start smiling more because smiles are contagious. Deal with the negativity and spin the bad into a lesson for good. Be kind to yourself and treat yourself with dignity and respect.

My daughter who was the teen co-founder of BTSYA, Heather Brittany, has a smile that generates smiles for everyone. She is my beacon of positivity keeping me afloat when times are tough. We all need a cheerleader in our lives. Temecula Valley is one of the top contestants in the USA Today Reader’s Choice Best Wine Regions and Heather is the face of Temecula Valley. You can vote here: https://www.10best.com/awards/travel/best-wine-region-2019/temecula-valley-california/ . She was recently profiled by Danza del Sol winery where she works in Temecula. Congratulations to this smile maker: https://www.danzadelsolwinery.com/blog/Danza-Del-Sol-Spotlight .

It's 20 years now that we volunteers at Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3 literacy and positive media message charity have been giving our time to empower and encourage others. Christopher Locke of Independent Book Publishers Association interviewed me about our work at BTSYA. Thanks Christopher. Check out the interview and spotlight. https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/460747/IBPA-Member-Spotlight-Cynthia-Brian.htm

Remember Audrey’s words, take them to heart, and live them daily. You are the star of your own performance.

Light your inner fire. You can sparkle and shine!

Cynthia Brian Founder/Executive Director Be the Star You Are!® PO Box 376 Moraga, California 94556 Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

  PS: It is fire season. For information on how to keep your property fire-resistant and safe, read Press Pass: https://blog.voiceamerica.com/2019/05/21/firescaping-for-survival/

  PPS: Give yourself a boost of positivity by buying copies of our signature books in the Be the Star You Are!® series. 100% of the proceeds benefit the charity and you’ll treasure the stories for a lifetime. Buy now at https://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-store.

  DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504. 

  DONATED BOOKS TO CAMP FOR FOSTER KIDS

“Thank you, again, for all your help. This is going to make a very big difference to a bunch of kids who have very little to call their own.” Melanie Hunter, Camp for Foster Kids

Books are the gifts that keep on giving. They are a treasure that can be cherished for lifetime and passed to the next generation. Be the Star You Are!® donated cases of brand new books to a Northern California Camp for Foster Kids. Many of these children, ages 7-16 who are wards of the state had no belongings. Most had to leave their homes with nothing. Some had never owned a personal book or received a gift. Now with our help, each child who attended the camp received the gift of their very own new book.  BTSYA is spreading joy to kids!

We want to be able to continue to give to those in need and we need your help to do this. Please make a donation to Be the Star You Are!® either via PAYPAL GIVING FUND with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504 or by check to BTSYA, PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556.

NEW TEEN EVENT DIRECTOR FOR PEAR FESTIVAL Fall is festival time and Be the Star You Are!® celebrates 20 years of being a non-profit at the Moraga Pear Festival scheduled for Saturday, September 28, 2019 from 11am-4pm at the Moraga Commons Park. We are grateful to the Lamorinda Weekly Newspaper who continues to be a sponsor and lends us their marvelous canopy for the event. This year we have a new teen director who is very excited to spearhead the activities. Siri Phaneendra is currently a senior at Dublin High. She is a host and reporter on VoiceAmerica’s Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio as part of Be The Star You Are. Siri is also a professionally trained dancer in Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance and has performed Bharatnatyam on TV and many other public venues. In addition to her love for dancing, Siri enjoys playing musical instruments, including guitar, piano, and clarinet and she’ll be performing with her guitar at the event. Because of her Indian heritage, Siri will offer henna at the BTSYA booth as well as face painting and other creative activities. The event is FREE and tax-deductible donations are greatly encouraged for Be the Star You Are!® charity. Additional information will be posted at https://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

  If you would like to be considered as a sponsor or wish to volunteer, please email info@BetheStarYouAre.org.

  IGNITE A SPARK! by Karen Kitchel “The kindness of the fans” is what Jill Ellis, Head Coach of USA Women’s National Soccer Team, identified as the most memorable part of her experience. Amazing how it’s the little things we do that can have the greatest impact. Spontaneous acts of kindness often ignite sparks in others. Be the highlight of someone’s today! Need a few ideas? *  Tell your best friend what you appreciate about them *  Leave a note on someone’s windshield – “You have a cool car!” *  Buy a box of popsicles and take them to a domestic abuse shelter *  Convey to the next service person you encounter how good they are at what they do and then ask to speak to their manager *  Fill a bag with snacks, socks and a bottle of water. Toss it in your car and hand it to the next homeless person you see

Contributed by volunteer Karen Kitchel who is passionate about scattering kindness. Currently she serves meals to the homeless, is a volunteer teacher, writer, job coach, and mentor. She wrote the chapter, The Gift of Adoption, in our book, Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers Celebrating Gifts of Positive Voices in a Changing Digital World and she continues to volunteer as a contributor to our newsletter. www.scatteringkindness.com

  LEND US YOUR EARS! Get inspired, motivated, and informed with our two upbeat, life-affirming, innovative radio broadcasts from Be the Star You Are!® Radio heard on the Voice America Network, Empowerment Channel. StarStyle® airs Wednesdays LIVE from 4-5pm PT with host Cynthia Brian as your empowerment architect bringing you edu-taiunment that will change your life for the better. http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2206/be-the-star-you-are

Express Yourself!™ airs on Sundays at 3pm PT with teen and young adult hosts interviewing a variety of authors, musicians, celebrities, and experts on topics of interest to the younger generation. https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

Visit www.BetheStarYouAreRadio.com to see the descriptions and photos. To sponsor or advertise on any of our programs, please email info@BetheStarYouAre.org.

  DISCOUNTS & MORE We appreciate a direct donation most of all via PAYPAL GIVING FUND at https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504. 

  Checks can be sent to PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556

There are other easy ways that assist our mission and don’t cost you a dime! 1. AmazonSmile donates .5% of purchases http://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-3333882

2. Discounted books at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/shops/be_the_star_you_are_charity

3. Buy or Sell on EBAY:http://givingworks.ebay.com/charity-auctions/charity/be-the-star-you-are-501-c-3/1504/?favorite=link

4. Use GoodSearch to search the web & buy from your favorite stores. Choose Be the Star You Are as your charity to support. You can log in with Facebook, too!http://www.goodsearch.com/goodto-go/be-the-star-you-are

5. Shop at over 1300 stores on IGIVE: http://www.iGive.com/BTSYA

6. BTSYA Logo Store: http://btsya.rylees.net

7. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash back at 3300+ popular online stores, then donate a percentage to BTSYA:https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

8. Designer Clothes to Buy or Sell: https://www.unionandfifth.com/charities/be-the-star-you-are-moraga-ca/shop

9. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” T-shirts and tanks $19.99 at StarStyle® Store: https://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-store

10. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4

  Direct Links you can use for Be the Star You Are!® Positive Results: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/positive-results

About Us: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/about_us

Programs: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/programs

How to Help: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/how-to-help

Blog: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/blog

Events: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

Contact us: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/contact

GREAT NON PROFITS REVIEWS: http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/be-the-star-you-are-inc/

GUIDESTAR: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/94-3333882

  We invite you to volunteer, get involved, or make a donation. Make a DONATION through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES:  https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Be the Star You Are! 501 c3, PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556. Celebrating 20 years of stellar service to the world! GROW with us!

Be the Star You Are!® PO Box 376 Moraga, California 94556 Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org http://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

  All donations are 100% Tax Deductible according to law. Thank you! https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  Read the newsletter: http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/f778d93938/288055965/ac7221bc2f/

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Soul Sixties 1985 Soul / R&B / Funk

Well, I mean, if you've never once in your life given any kind of soul music a chance before, then I guess this 60s kit makes for some solid 101 material, because what we have on this thing are a bunch of big deals, like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding.

But beyond that, we've got a less rembered gem too, from a guy named J.J. Jackson, whose "But It's Alright" managed to hit #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and then #45 on that same chart again in 1969 after being re-released. And you can't really tell from listening to it, but it's something of a British showcase. Jackson was a New Yorker at the time, but he recorded this song in the UK, and as such, it's one of R&B's first successful hit singles to ever be recorded there. And backing him were some of the country's finest jazz musicians too. Extremely catchy mid-60s guitar riff that guides this one, but the thing that really puts it over the top for me is its dinging vibraphone on the bridge.

And another tune worth mentioning here is one from the always underrated Johnnie Taylor, who is definitely a soul music entity unto himself, but despite being the single-highest selling artist in the history of Stax Records, which is one of the most vital R&B and soul labels that this world has ever known, I still feel like he doesn't get the recognition that he duly deserves. And if you've ever wondered where Queen got the idea for their iconic bass riff on "Another One Bites the Dust," it was probably Johnnie's "Who's Making Love," which used Booker T. & The M.G.'s—of "Green Onions" fame—as its backing band, might've had Isaac Hayes on keyboards, and went to #5 on the Hot 100 in 1968. I haven't found anything official where Queen admits that they derived direct inspiration from this song, but the melodies between them are definitely remarkably similar.

So a bit of a mailed-in cheat code comp here overall for this Baby Boomer Classics series, but a good release nonetheless if the mission was to load up on a bunch of indispensable hits. It's just that not very many selections here do very much to set this comp apart from the countless others that also recount soul and R&B from the 60s.

Only one more of these Baby Boomer Classics comps to go! 😎

Highlights:

Sam & Dave - "Hold On, I'm Comin'" J.J. Jackson - "But It's Alright" Otis Redding - "Try a Little Tenderness" Brenton Wood - "Gimme Little Sign" James & Bobby Purify - "Shake a Tail Feather" Carla Thomas - "B-A-B-Y" Aretha Franklin - "Respect" Wilson Pickett - "Mustang Sally" Doris Troy - "Just One Look" The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - "Do Your Thing" Johnnie Taylor - "Who's Making Love" The Bar-Kays - "Soul Finger"

[goddessgardener]

Summer Sparkle and Shine

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/f778d93938/288055965/ac7221bc2f/

    MIRACLE MOMENT® “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn

MESSAGE FROM CYNTHIA BRIAN, Founder/Executive Director

Many moons ago, I had the privilege of acting in a film with the classy Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wagner. Their stars shone brightly yet they were kind, generous, and humorous. Reflecting on those moments, I know I was blessed to bask in their light.

One of our core missions here at Be the Star You Are!® is to encourage our volunteers, donors, and beneficiaries to truly be the stars they were born to be. That means we want you to greet the world sparkling and shining. Of course, we all have bad days, but when we train our brains to adopt the power of positivity, we will feel better, have improved health, and help others elevate their moods. It takes practice to be positive. We need to rehearse just as we would to learn any skill. Appreciate a beautiful day. Write down what you are grateful for before you go to bed each evening. Be generous towards others. A 2016 study discovered that being kind to others was the most effective way to boost our happiness quotient, even more that treating ourselves to something special. Start smiling more because smiles are contagious. Deal with the negativity and spin the bad into a lesson for good. Be kind to yourself and treat yourself with dignity and respect.

My daughter who was the teen co-founder of BTSYA, Heather Brittany, has a smile that generates smiles for everyone. She is my beacon of positivity keeping me afloat when times are tough. We all need a cheerleader in our lives. Temecula Valley is one of the top contestants in the USA Today Reader’s Choice Best Wine Regions and Heather is the face of Temecula Valley. You can vote here: https://www.10best.com/awards/travel/best-wine-region-2019/temecula-valley-california/ . She was recently profiled by Danza del Sol winery where she works in Temecula. Congratulations to this smile maker: https://www.danzadelsolwinery.com/blog/Danza-Del-Sol-Spotlight .

It's 20 years now that we volunteers at Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3 literacy and positive media message charity have been giving our time to empower and encourage others. Christopher Locke of Independent Book Publishers Association interviewed me about our work at BTSYA. Thanks Christopher. Check out the interview and spotlight. https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/460747/IBPA-Member-Spotlight-Cynthia-Brian.htm

Remember Audrey’s words, take them to heart, and live them daily. You are the star of your own performance.

Light your inner fire. You can sparkle and shine!

Cynthia Brian Founder/Executive Director Be the Star You Are!® PO Box 376 Moraga, California 94556 Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

  PS: It is fire season. For information on how to keep your property fire-resistant and safe, read Press Pass: https://blog.voiceamerica.com/2019/05/21/firescaping-for-survival/

  PPS: Give yourself a boost of positivity by buying copies of our signature books in the Be the Star You Are!® series. 100% of the proceeds benefit the charity and you’ll treasure the stories for a lifetime. Buy now at https://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-store.

  DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504. 

  DONATED BOOKS TO CAMP FOR FOSTER KIDS

“Thank you, again, for all your help. This is going to make a very big difference to a bunch of kids who have very little to call their own.” Melanie Hunter, Camp for Foster Kids

Books are the gifts that keep on giving. They are a treasure that can be cherished for lifetime and passed to the next generation. Be the Star You Are!® donated cases of brand new books to a Northern California Camp for Foster Kids. Many of these children, ages 7-16 who are wards of the state had no belongings. Most had to leave their homes with nothing. Some had never owned a personal book or received a gift. Now with our help, each child who attended the camp received the gift of their very own new book.  BTSYA is spreading joy to kids!

We want to be able to continue to give to those in need and we need your help to do this. Please make a donation to Be the Star You Are!® either via PAYPAL GIVING FUND with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504 or by check to BTSYA, PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556.

NEW TEEN EVENT DIRECTOR FOR PEAR FESTIVAL Fall is festival time and Be the Star You Are!® celebrates 20 years of being a non-profit at the Moraga Pear Festival scheduled for Saturday, September 28, 2019 from 11am-4pm at the Moraga Commons Park. We are grateful to the Lamorinda Weekly Newspaper who continues to be a sponsor and lends us their marvelous canopy for the event. This year we have a new teen director who is very excited to spearhead the activities. Siri Phaneendra is currently a senior at Dublin High. She is a host and reporter on VoiceAmerica’s Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio as part of Be The Star You Are. Siri is also a professionally trained dancer in Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance and has performed Bharatnatyam on TV and many other public venues. In addition to her love for dancing, Siri enjoys playing musical instruments, including guitar, piano, and clarinet and she’ll be performing with her guitar at the event. Because of her Indian heritage, Siri will offer henna at the BTSYA booth as well as face painting and other creative activities. The event is FREE and tax-deductible donations are greatly encouraged for Be the Star You Are!® charity. Additional information will be posted at https://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

  If you would like to be considered as a sponsor or wish to volunteer, please email info@BetheStarYouAre.org.

  IGNITE A SPARK! by Karen Kitchel “The kindness of the fans” is what Jill Ellis, Head Coach of USA Women’s National Soccer Team, identified as the most memorable part of her experience. Amazing how it’s the little things we do that can have the greatest impact. Spontaneous acts of kindness often ignite sparks in others. Be the highlight of someone’s today! Need a few ideas? *  Tell your best friend what you appreciate about them *  Leave a note on someone’s windshield – “You have a cool car!” *  Buy a box of popsicles and take them to a domestic abuse shelter *  Convey to the next service person you encounter how good they are at what they do and then ask to speak to their manager *  Fill a bag with snacks, socks and a bottle of water. Toss it in your car and hand it to the next homeless person you see

Contributed by volunteer Karen Kitchel who is passionate about scattering kindness. Currently she serves meals to the homeless, is a volunteer teacher, writer, job coach, and mentor. She wrote the chapter, The Gift of Adoption, in our book, Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers Celebrating Gifts of Positive Voices in a Changing Digital World and she continues to volunteer as a contributor to our newsletter. www.scatteringkindness.com

  LEND US YOUR EARS! Get inspired, motivated, and informed with our two upbeat, life-affirming, innovative radio broadcasts from Be the Star You Are!® Radio heard on the Voice America Network, Empowerment Channel. StarStyle® airs Wednesdays LIVE from 4-5pm PT with host Cynthia Brian as your empowerment architect bringing you edu-taiunment that will change your life for the better. http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2206/be-the-star-you-are

Express Yourself!™ airs on Sundays at 3pm PT with teen and young adult hosts interviewing a variety of authors, musicians, celebrities, and experts on topics of interest to the younger generation. https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

Visit www.BetheStarYouAreRadio.com to see the descriptions and photos. To sponsor or advertise on any of our programs, please email info@BetheStarYouAre.org.

  DISCOUNTS & MORE We appreciate a direct donation most of all via PAYPAL GIVING FUND at https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504. 

  Checks can be sent to PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556

There are other easy ways that assist our mission and don’t cost you a dime! 1. AmazonSmile donates .5% of purchases http://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-3333882

2. Discounted books at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/shops/be_the_star_you_are_charity

3. Buy or Sell on EBAY:http://givingworks.ebay.com/charity-auctions/charity/be-the-star-you-are-501-c-3/1504/?favorite=link

4. Use GoodSearch to search the web & buy from your favorite stores. Choose Be the Star You Are as your charity to support. You can log in with Facebook, too!http://www.goodsearch.com/goodto-go/be-the-star-you-are

5. Shop at over 1300 stores on IGIVE: http://www.iGive.com/BTSYA

6. BTSYA Logo Store: http://btsya.rylees.net

7. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash back at 3300+ popular online stores, then donate a percentage to BTSYA:https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

8. Designer Clothes to Buy or Sell: https://www.unionandfifth.com/charities/be-the-star-you-are-moraga-ca/shop

9. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” T-shirts and tanks $19.99 at StarStyle® Store: https://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-store

10. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4

  Direct Links you can use for Be the Star You Are!® Positive Results: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/positive-results

About Us: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/about_us

Programs: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/programs

How to Help: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/how-to-help

Blog: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/blog

Events: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

Contact us: http://www.bethestaryouare.org/contact

GREAT NON PROFITS REVIEWS: http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/be-the-star-you-are-inc/

GUIDESTAR: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/94-3333882

  We invite you to volunteer, get involved, or make a donation. Make a DONATION through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES:  https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Be the Star You Are! 501 c3, PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556. Celebrating 20 years of stellar service to the world! GROW with us!

Be the Star You Are!® PO Box 376 Moraga, California 94556 Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org http://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

  All donations are 100% Tax Deductible according to law. Thank you! https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  Read the newsletter: http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/f778d93938/288055965/ac7221bc2f/

[5hfanfiction]

Parting Shot Episode 5: Walls

I had never been on a proper date before. I had convinced myself that it was simply for lack of trying, but the truth beneath was that it just wasn’t me. I had no intention of meeting any kind of stranger at a neutral location, exchanging small talk and sitting in awkward silence while a candle between us wore down to it’s waxy death. I had no intention of paying for a dinner I didn’t enjoy, or walking through a moonlight park only to end the night with an awkward peck on the cheek and a broken promise to call soon.

On this particular night however, I found myself standing in front of the full length mirror tacked to the inside of our bedroom door and looking myself up and down. Examination was only the second of a two part cycle that included circling nervously around the room and sidestepping every stray pile of clothing Camila had chosen to adorn the floor with at the time. I had chosen a loose top with a soft purple hue, a last minute rush purchase that I was now wishing I hadn’t made so prematurely.

“Lauren, cut it out.” My subject of interest whined from the bed. She had finished with a late afternoon at work, and was now mauling a banana from it’s peel. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, the length of which was looped over her head and dangling in front of her face. “You’re making me dizzy with all the pacing.”

“Do I look okay?” I questioned, facing her and opening my arms like a statue of Jesus in front of the town’s only church. One side of Camila’s cheek was bulging with banana, the chewing avidly as the light from her phone screen consumed whatever attention was leftover. “Camz!”

“Hm?” Brown eyes blinked up at me. “Oh, yeah you look hot.”

“You don’t sound sincere about that at all.”

Placing the half empty peel down on the bed, Camila jumped to her feet and padded over to me, swiping up a small palette of eye-shadow and trapping a brush between her teeth on the way. She then began to slowly unbutton the shirt, pulling it off my shoulders and letting it fall to the ground. “What are you doing?” I questioned, watching her grab a black article of clothing from the floor and shake it out.

“Black.” Camila mumbled through the brush between her teeth. “Not purple. You’re hot as fuck in black.”

I remained quiet, nodding as the brunette went up on her toes so she was a touch taller than me. The hand holding onto the palette landed on my shoulder, the brush sweeping delicately over my eyelids. “Do you have any idea what you’re actually doing right now?” I asked her softly, receiving a gentle press of her finger against my lips as a sign for silence. “I’m just saying.” I mumbled regardless. “I’ve seen you do makeup all of two times in the history of forever.”

“You’ve seen me do makeup more often than that.” Camila giggled, finishing up on the lids and using the very tip of her finger to remove a glob of mascara from my right lash. “There. Much better.”

Admiring Camila’s handiwork in the bedroom mirror, I caught her eye in the reflection. “I promise I won’t be too long.” I assured her. “It’s just a quick dinner, maybe a movie, I’ll walk her back home, and that’ll be it.”

“Lauren, you can take however much time you need, don’t feel like you need to rush true love just to be home on time.” Camila assured me, backing up to the bed again and reassuming her lazy position nested in the comforter with the other half of her banana in hand. I gazed down, watching her chew thoughtfully while a long block of text scrolled by on the screen of her phone.

��What are you reading?”

“Me?”

“No, my imaginary friend.” I smiled, sitting down on the edge of the mattress and reaching out to poke the side of her head. “Yes you.”

“My talk with our english teacher got me thinking the other day.” Camila chewed, turning off the phone and curling around to look up at me. “I want to get into more classic literature, more than just Wordsworth, Hemingway and their life lessons of humility and love. Where there any famous horror writers?”

“Horror?” I frowned. “Since when are you interested in anything remotely scary? The last time I tried to get you to watch a horror movie you curled up and hid behind me like a five year old.”

“I figure writing a horror story is a different sensation than watching one.” Camila stretched out down the bed, every inch of slender limb flexing and relaxing in post snack haze. “It’s a different feeling when I know what’s going to happen, nothing can jump out me bite my head off my shoulders.”

It took me a moment to sort through the scarce library of writers and poets in my head. “Lovecraft was a horror writer.” I told her suggestively. “Shirley Jackson. Stephen King. If you want to get kids where it hurts the most, you can always fall back on clowns ripping off the arms of innocent children from the confines of a storm drain.”

“Did that happen?” Camila sat up with a start.

“Not in real life, but Pennywise has definitely haunted the dreams of a few baby boomers in this town.”

“Is that why clowns have such a scary connotation now?”

“That, and John Wayne Gacy.”

“Who’s John Wayne Gacy?”

I pressed my tongue to the inside of my cheek. “He was a serial killer slash rapist who was active through the 70s. He had something like thirty teenage boy victims, a bunch of which were executed through this persona he had for parties, a clown named Pogo.”

Like a cartoon character, Camila eyes slowly widened in fear as I spoke. “Fuck you Lauren, just go on your stupid date before I get even more terrified and demand you stay here with me all night.” The brunette fell back against the bed, turning her shoulder blades to me with a visible shiver. I laughed, rising to the door.

“Make sure you don’t fold any paper boats without me.” I called on the way out, leaving Camila curled in a very confused ball on the bedsheets.

***

Lucy lived a few blocks north of the school, the surrounding neighbourhood a little more bright and privileged than the rest of the town. I parked a block away, scanning the numbers on the doors before landing on the address I had well memorized. It was a three or four story home, standing tall at the end of a quaint cul de sac and boasting a rather manicured lawn and primped flower arrangement. Walking up and across the expansive path through the greenery, I didn’t give the butterflies in my stomach a second thought before rapping hard on the smooth finish of the front door. A few seconds passed, and following the sound of small footsteps scuttling across the floor, it opened. I found myself staring down at a girl no older than seven or eight with dusty brown hair and a naturally tanned complexion.

“Oh, hello.” I forced a smile down at her, my distaste for most children kicking in quick. The girl was holding a brown overstuffed teddy bear under one arm. “I’m looking for Lucy?”

“Hello.” The girl said back, granting me a sweet smile. Her voice was layered with a very heavy accent. She nodded, backing up and hurrying away. Lucy appeared no more than a second later, dressed in a tight black dress that was perfectly casual for a simple dinner.

“Hey Lauren, sorry come in.” She smiled. “That was my little sister Elena, she doesn’t speak very much English.”

“What language does she speak?” I asked, stepping through the door and looking around.

“Spanish.” Lucy smiled, the adorable curves at the corners of her mouth becoming more defined as she did so. “She’s actually my stepsister, my older brother and I lived in Miami for a while so we’re both pretty fluent, but she never left Colombia until now so she hasn’t got as much practice.” Gesturing me further inside, I let the front door close carefully behind me. “You look good by the way.”

“Not as good as you.” I shoved my hands into my pocket shyly. “You’ve got a nice house.”

“It’s not too bad.” Lucy shrugged, moving to the sliding doors of a hallway closet and parting them before pulling a long grey cardigan off it’s hanger. “Let me just get my shoes and we’ll go.”

“No rush.” I turned at the sound of a child’s voice, just in time to see a small boy run down the hall, approach the front of the house then turn around and start climbing the stairs as quickly as his little legs would let him. He looked almost identical to the girl, and had a chubby hand wrapped around a small toy airplane. “He’s cute.” I noted, smiling as he reached the mid-landing of the staircase and sat down to take a breath.

“Pedro.” Lucy addressed him over her shoulder. “Can you say hello to Lauren?”

“Hello.” Pedro waved with a shy smile, spending no more than a split second on me before turning and rushing up the remaining steps.

“Sorry.” Lucy chuckled. “This house usually isn’t so loud and full of children, they’re typically in bed at this time but it’s a Friday, so things are a little more casual.”

“No worries.” I watched as she strapped on a pair of fancy sandals and slid the strap of a purse over her shoulder. Walking down to the car, I inhaled at sweet scent of garden flowers gracing the cool night. “I don’t really have anything particularly fancy planned for tonight.” I informed her, catching her dark eyes. “Actually there’s not much fancy that you can do around here.”

“I haven’t had the chance to tour around at all, we’re still in the process of moving in.” Lucy admitted back. “So really, anything you’ve got planned is perfect for me.”

What I had planned happened to be a candlelit dinner at a small, family owned Italian restaurant with the world’s best garlic bread. Playing off what Camila tended to prefer on the nights we treated ourselves, I ordered for us both, slipping a subtle ten dollar bill to the waitress and getting her to serve us a few vodka infused glasses of cranberry juice. “So hey, my friend mentioned that your Dad was a pretty big time musician.” I mentioned as we scanned the desert menu together. “Is that true?”

“You could say that.” Lucy shrugged, setting the menu down. “Carlos Vives. He’s working on studio album number eighteen, and wanted a nice quiet place in the middle of nowhere to act like his cabin in the woods. It meant moving the entire family from a place we all knew really well to somewhere completely unfamiliar, but I guess if it gets the creative juices flowing then I can’t really argue.”

I did the same in order to get a better look at her. “Wow, eighteen albums?”

“Eighteen and counting.” She nodded back. “He’s really more known in Latin America.”

“And you said those two were step siblings, right?”

“That’s right. He might not have been half bad at writing music, but the man was never good at being able to stay faithful to one woman. I don’t hold it against him anymore, my mom was pretty crazy. It all worked out, she’s got a multi-million dollar mansion in Miami, he’s got a lovely new family.” She took a long sip of the glassy red liquid in front of her and looked up at me. “But enough about me, tell me about yourself. What are your parents like?”

“Oh, I don’t have any.”

Lucy blinked, lifting a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You what now?”

“I mean— sorry.” I forced a soft laugh. “I guess it just seems that way so it’s what I tend to tell people who ask.”

“It must be quite the adventure to live on your own.” Lucy seemed to understand the implications of my answer, instantly stopping any further questions regarding my family tree.

“I actually don’t.” I smiled, pointing wordlessly to the creme brûlée and tiramisu on the menu. The waitress, who was already familiar with mine and Camila’s typical order gave me a knowing nod and dipped off into the back kitchen. “I live with my best friend, we’ve got a really crappy place that seems to do the trick on the south end of town, we’ve been together for about a year and a half now.”

“Oh wow, that’s pretty cool. No rules, no adults, no little siblings.”

“It’s perfect.” I agreed as the dessert arrived to the table. The dishes were about the same size, one glazed with golden layer of cooked brown sugar, the other a cream colour dusted with coca powder. “You’ve got to try these both, if there’s anything worth preserving when a giant tornado wipes this town away it’s the desserts. And the burgers. And the fish and chips. Just try before I have to put my foot in my mouth.”

Laughing, Lucy dipped a small dessert spoon into the tiramisu on the left and lifted a perfect combination of every handcrafted layer. “So how did the two of you meet?” She asked, popping it into her mouth and becoming visibly taken aback at how good it was.

“It’s complicated.” I tapped idly at the hard surface of the creme brûlée, wondering how many details I was . “We were both in the same place at the same time… geographically and emotionally. Everything sorta fell into place because of fate, and just stuck that way. I’ve learned that it’s really important to find someone you can lean on, and when you do you shouldn’t let them get away. Camila’s just that person.”

“Camila?” Lucy was busy cleaning her spoon, and it was becoming cuter and cuter to watch as the lights in the restaurant dimmed. “Oh, the girl you were with at lunch? She seems really nice.”

“She has her moments.”

The two of us hesitated very little when cleaning off the rest of the desserts, promptly paying the cheque and taking a slow stroll back to the car. I had been given the ripe opportunity to lend her my jacket, keeping the stark breeze off her shoulders and taking it on my own. After Lucy’s final year in high school, she wanted to remain in the states, and keep her attention halfway between her Latin American roots and Miami childhood home. She had chosen New Orleans in Louisiana, and when I asked why gave me a rather interesting answer.

“It’s horror factor.”

“It’s what?” I cranked up the heat in the car, pulling from the restaurant parking lot.

“It’s horror factor.” Lucy repeated, giving me a sweet smile across the gearshift. “You’ve never heard of Delphine LaLaurie and her mansion? She was featured on American Horror Story Coven by Kathy Bates.”

“I know who Kathy Bates is.”  I curled my lip in thought, gazing out the front window at the lack of traffic on a quiet Friday night. “But I’ve never heard of Delphine— what’s her name?”

“LaLaurie. She was a socialite of New Orleans in the 1830s who had this central position in society after her third marriage to a young physician.” Lucy explained. “There was a fire in her giant mansion on a rich side of town, and when the police got there they discovered it was set by her seventy year old cook who was chained to the stove and afraid of being sent to an upper room of the house.”

“Afraid?” I had to reach over and set the keys into the ignition, but the raspy tone that Lucy had in her voice was sending an uncharacteristic chill down my back. “Why?”

“Police broke down the door to find seven or eight slaves tortured, some murdered others still barely alive.” She replied, the darkness in her eyes swirling. “There was a woman whose stomach had been cut open and intestine wrapped around her like a corset. Another man had a spike drilled through his head and his brain was all stirred around, and a third with his mouth stitched shut. The citizens discovered her treatment of the slaves, and drove her out of the city. She fled to France.”

Quiet fell over the car, and I finally managed to bring the engine to life. “Should I be worried about you?” I shot her a playful smile.

“Nah, I’m harmless. I just love dark, messed up things.” She smiled back. “I believe that when the zombies rise up and kill us all, we’ll finally have world peace.”

“Because of the common enemy?”

“No, because we’ll all be dead.” She shrugged. “I like Madame LaLaurie’s story because it shows that despite the slavery and mistreatment of African Americans at the time, there was a really powerful sense  of humanity in the people. The entire population of New Orleans trashed that mansion, driving her out of the city and stripping every ounce of social status she may have had. They ruined her.”

“I like the way you think.”

Lucy grinned, lifting her arm and using her fingers to carefully part her light brown hair over one shoulder. “It would be awesome to study something like philosophy and social issues. I love history, going back to things in the past and understanding how they managed to shape the way they are now.”

 On the ride home, I let Lucy open up about the things she was passionate about. Remaining quiet, her voice washed over me like a stress-free lull, the passion in her words about issues that so many of a close-minded town would never consider throughout their daily activities. Lucy spoke about women, politics, some of the world’s greatest leaders and their superficial counterparts. She detested labels, insisting that no soul on earth could pin her down and define who she was, and that no one had the right to call her anything she wasn’t willing to call herself. By the time we arrived back in the north end of town, I was not-so subtly disappointed that our time together had to come to an end.

Walking her up to the porch once more, I accepted my jacket back and stood in shy anticipation as she unlocked the front door. “Do you want to come in?” She asked, gesturing to the warmth of the front hallway. “You don’t have to if you don’t want, I just thought—“

“Of course, I’d love to.” I cut her off, a fuzzy feeling washing over me as the brunette took my hand with a soft laugh and led me into the house. She took me on a quick tour of the ground floor, a wide open space consisting of a grand piano, some smaller keyboards, and a plethora of unpacked boxes still sealed with tape. Apologizing profusely for the mess, she showed me the vast backyard space, perfectly trimmed and adorned with a variety of russet red flowers.

“I had the option to be homeschooled like my little siblings, at least until I graduated and we could head back down south.” Lucy explained, pulling two glasses down from an upper cupboard in the kitchen. “Neither of my parents work, so they have tons of time to spend at home… I guess choosing high school was my way of getting out of the house and away from their watchful eye.”

“I’m glad you chose high school.” I accepted the second glass with a smile. “Just really glad.”

“You’re sweet.” Lucy gestured for me to follow again, and we headed up the stairs. “Everyone’s room is on the second floor, I assume they’re asleep by now.”

“So where are we going?” I asked, glancing up to see the staircase happened to wind up even higher.

“To the upper room.” The girl looked down at me, a devilish smile creeping onto her face again. “The one that’s always locked… that no one goes into for fear of never coming out again.”

I blinked, the image of my intestines wrapped around my stomach like a gruesome fashion ornament suddenly giving me a very severe headache. “Lucy…” I warned, her name dancing off the tip of my tongue as if had not for a few measly hours, but for years.

“I’m kidding.” Lucy landed on the top floor and pulled the door to a rather spacious room open wide. “It’s just my bedroom. “My dad keeps all his recording stuff up here as well, there are a few rooms within other rooms with soundproof glass, padding on the walls, microphones and mixing boards.” I stepped inside, relieved to see a room that was half unpacked from cardboard boxes, a double bed and a tall chest of drawers. There was a shiny laptop sitting open and charging on the blanket, and a wide television backed against the wall opposite. “Sorry about the mess.” She added. “I’ve moved before, but never as far as we did this time. I had to pack up more than I anticipated.”

“It’s no problem.” I eyed the flat-screened device. “You have your own personal TV?

“It’s still yet to be inaugurated.” Lucy clarified, turning her back to me. “It was a gift from my stepmom who believes buying expensive items with my father’s money will make me love her. Could you unzip me?”

“Sure.” I stepped over, clearing a small pile of school supplies and slowly bringing down the zipper on her dress. It hit me in the brighter, more unflattering light that Lucy was strikingly small. She had to be barely over a hundred pounds, her shoulder blades pronounced and the plates of her spine almost countable beneath her skin. There was a faded line that was a touch darker than her complexion moving down the line of her spine, a clear hospital incision that had been stitched up and healed over. Without thinking, I brushed the outside of my knuckle against it, making a small noise of curiosity.

“It’s gross, I know.” Lucy had gathered her hair over one shoulder and peered over the other. “I had really bad scoliosis when I was a kid, and when I had the operation it was risky because I was so small. The correction process was terrifying, but I got through it okay and it’s healed properly now. The scar is still fading.”

“It’s not gross.” I watched as she made her way to the other side of the room, scooping up a pair of soft sweatpants and an off-shoulder sweater off the floor. “It makes you unique.”

“You’re cute, but a huge percentage of kids develop scoliosis just before hitting puberty.” Lucy dipped into the attached bathroom and nudged the door, leaving only a few inches worth of space open. She began to change, her back to the room’s entrance. “It’s kind of like osteoporosis and rickets in industrial England. There was so much smog and pollution in the air that kids were developing bowed knees and brittle bones by age seven. Talk about your terrifying corrective surgeries.”

“You seem to know a lot about the events of the past.” I mentioned, finding myself a standing in for the hero that always peeked at the pretty girl. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the way her back and shoulders flexed as she moved, noticing the tattoo that graced the side of her back, just beneath the arm. “Could they do surgeries like that in industrial England?”

“Likely not.” Lucy turned around, leading me to quickly divert my gaze. “They were just recovering from the era of bloodletting, so modern medicine was still pretty far off.”

“What does the tattoo on your ribs mean?”

The girl hopped back over another pile of clothes and started to the TV, summoning an old looking DVD case from an open box. “Hm?”

“The words.” I tried to clarify without sounding too creepy. “It looks like a different language.”

“Oh, the quote.” Lucy had removed a disc from the case, sending into a sleek player positioned just beneath the screen. “It says for the happiness of nations, we should, philosophers be kings and kings philosophers. It’s in the original Greek.” I tried for the next few seconds to recall who was behind the circular statement, but nothing seemed to hit me. As the television screen flickered to life, Lucy spoke again. “It basically means that if we want to find peace and happiness, those in power need to lead in a way that has regard for the human mind, and those who understand it need to step forward as leaders. That we all have a sense of responsibility to better the greater good based on our strengths.”

Plato? I thought silently. The menu of a terrifying looking horror movie flashed across the screen, the arrow hovering over the play option. “I’m going to run downstairs for a bowl of popcorn, make yourself comfortable.” Lucy told me, vanishing without acknowledgement out of the bedroom and down the stairs. I did so, placing my jacket on the back of a desk chair and sitting down on the perfectly made bed. Whipping my phone out, I took the time alone to send a quick text half intending on checking up on Camila, half to occupy myself from snooping around.

how’s it going? I typed, waiting for the three animated bubbles to pop up. They did, and moments later,

Camila: Oh, not bad. Just sitting around waiting for Barnum and Bailey to kidnap me in the middle of the night and lock me in a cellar to feed on my brains. How’s the date?

the ringling bros would never do such a thing camz, they’re an American treasure. the date is going really well, she’s got a really nice house

Camila: You’re at her house?

I figured it’d be impolite to say no.A touch of guilt flashed through me at the prospect of leaving Camila for much longer. There was a stash of cigarettes taped to the inside of our toilet tank, and for the longest time I knew the girl had assumed I’d either never seen them, or chosen to ignore them. Counting the number of individual smokes left in the pack every time I cleaned the bathroom had turned into a chore, but it was worth it considering how hard she had worked to quit only a few months earlier.

Before I could read  Camila’s reply, Lucy stepped back into the room with a large bowl of popcorn balanced on one arm and something wrapped in colourful foil between her teeth. She had a shrink-wrapped remote in her hand, pouncing playfully onto the bed at my side while sliding the laptop out of the way. The lights went off, her shoulder brushed mine, and for the first time in the night I felt a genuine pang of nervous energy surge through the room. “I was thinking about a classic.” Lucy informed me, starting to tug the plastic protective coating off the remote after placing the bowl of popcorn down in my lap. “Have you ever read It, by Stephen King?”

I glanced at her briefly, taken aback by the coincidence. “I had been thinking about that book earlier today. What made you choose it?”

“It’s my type of horror.” Lucy finally rid the remote of its plastic before setting it between us, pulling the foil wrapped item from her teeth and summoning a small lighter from the pocket of her jeans. “I like the deepest forms of psychological fear. Maybe if everyone has their greatest fears chasing them through the night we would all be on the same wavelength of kindness.” She held out her hand, extending what I could now discern as a rolled joint. “Do you smoke?”

“Once and a while.” I nodded. “But only when the occasion is extra special. It’s an expensive habit.”

“I agree, but you’re not driving very far tonight, are you?” She smirked, holding the unlit joint out in one hand and the lighter in the other like a dual offering. Glancing momentarily at a series of dark opening credits and deep red ominous font, I accepted the neatly rolled cluster of weed and held it over the lighter. Lucy smiled, firing up the joint then hurrying off the bed to lift the side window and banish the scent away with a crisp fall breeze.

The movie was different from the book in a number of ways, most of which my mind had involuntarily set on the back burner as the typical ghoulish images of a literary masterpiece had been played out by the characteristic cinematic charm of the early nineties. The marijuana had done well to bid away any unease I may have had watching a horror movie in the middle of the night, as did Lucy’s comforting presence. We found ourselves talking softly through most of it, discussing everything from characters to set design, poor acting to mediocre makeup.

“So if that was your kind of horror, what other kind of horror is there?” I asked once the credits had rolled and I felt like I’d been somewhat scarred for life. The last thing I wanted to do was get up from the cloud-like bed I had snuggled into and drive across the town, but I had no intention of leaving Camila on her own for much longer.

“There’s the more cookie-cutter, vampire, werewolf, ghost-story one.” Lucy replied. “The one that involves magic, and seeing dead people… paranormal activity and alien invasions.”

I grinned. “You’re telling me that if aliens came down and started to abduct people, you wouldn’t even flinch?”

“I would whip out my camera.” The Latina smiled back. Her expressions were so pure, simple and straightforward as if the emotions she felt had never been anything but true. Lucy didn’t seem to mask any sort of feeling, speaking her mind, refusing to conform and charming me through the night in a way no date had before.

“I should get going.” I laughed, stealing the last popped kernel from the bottom of the popcorn bowl and wishing I had a refill. “Before I fall asleep here.”

“That wouldn’t be too bad.” Her dark eyes sparkled. Deciding to only agree silently, I tipped her over playfully and rose, gathering my jacket. The two of us floated silently back down to the first floor, and the moment I stepped out to the front porch I couldn’t help but turn around. Lucy was leaning against the frame of the door, her hands tucked away into the sleeves of her sweater and a shy look on her face. “I had a really great time Lauren. Thank you for tonight.”

“So did I.” I agreed, matching her smile. “I learned a lot from you… I look forward to learning even more.”

“I’d like that.”

Knowing it was my move to make, I took a small, timid step forward and lifting my fingers to her chin, tilted it up. “I really want to kiss you right now…”

“I really want you to kiss me.” Lucy echoed back without missing a beat. “Right now.”

The sensation of her kiss, much unlike the entirety of the night was pleasantly surprising breath of fresh air. I found myself melting into the contact, her body coated in a thin layer of muscle and warm to the touch. Much unlike myself, Lucy knew what she was doing. Her movements, the way she went up onto her toes so we were eye level and pressed the palm of her hand to my cheek, everything seemed so perfectly practiced.

“I’ll get to see you again, right?” I questioned softly, unwilling to wake any member of the house, young or old.

“We have history together.” Lucy grinned back, running her fingers through her hair.

“I wish.”

“Goodnight Lauren.” She said with an amused lilt in her voice. I nodded, taking a small step backwards and slowly returning to the car with a brief glance over my shoulder to see she had remained on the porch, watching me go. The walk gave me just enough time to accept that I had been wrong about judging the art of the first date.

***

After a car ride home deep in my thoughts, I arrived back to a silent and pitch black house. Sidestepping a cluster of shoes, and shedding my jacket to the back of a kitchen chair, I then tiptoed into the bedroom to see it fared to better. Crumpled balls of yellow paper from a rather sad looking legal pad were scattered across the floor, the bed, and every foreseeable surface of storage space.

“Camila?” I asked the darkness, keeping my voice low.

The mass of paper on the bed shifted, and from the debris poked a very sleepy looking mass of brown hair. “Hm?” She yawned, rubbing her eyes. “Lauren? What are you doing home, I figured you were just going to spend the night.”

 “No, I didn’t want to risk running into her superstar father in the morning and have to explain who I was.” I explained, crouching down and picking up one of balls of paper. “And I would have felt bad for leaving you alone all night… what’s going on in here? Have you moved since I left?”

“No.” The brunette yawned again, lying back against the bed. “I’ve been trying to write a scary story, but nothing’s coming to mind. I’m just too cute and fluffy.”

“You are both of those things.” I smiled, clearing away a few balls of paper from the bed so I could perch onto the edge and tug off my socks. “Have you eaten anything?”

“No.”

“Camz, it’s past midnight!”

“I wasn’t hungry.” Camila shrugged at me.

“But you’re always hungry.”

“Help me.” The girl ignored me, holding out what was left of the yellow pad in one hand, a pencil in the other. Accepting both, I looked down at the prompt she had written out. A horror story about a girl with otherworldly abilities on a nation where she is virtually alone. Undergoing a dark feeling that something unpleasant is about to happen, the protagonist must use the passion she has for her origins to prevent disaster. She will do anything to make it so, no matter how dark.

I was instantly reminded of Lucy’s preference for horror, for the darker, more gruesome emotions that her interests played off of were very different from Camila’s idea of a horror story. One preferred to dig into the victim’s psyche and extract it with a spoon, while the other steered her creative track towards a premonition and a world of loneliness. I couldn’t in the moment, choose which one I preferred. Something drew me to both, but in very different ways.

Walls. Thirteen year old Jeanne Carter has all her life been labelled a bio-terrorist. With the elusive ability to manipulate the emotions and bodies of even the strongest personalities, she is both revered and feared, locked away and admired like a caged animal. Thinking back to the unease I’d felt on the way back from dinner, I decided to blend their worlds, embracing a new type of fear. When a threat to social security looms over the nation, Carter is forced to envelop the people who hurt her most, dominating the minds and bodies of the most powerful members of government and make decisions that will inevitably rescue the nation from her premonition. She uses her greatest gift to play out sacrifices, death, conflict and decay while shouldering the hate of so many within the four walls of her cell. Carter succumbs to her own exhaustive demise alone, aided only by the letters passed through the bars by an anonymous source.

“Why are you so much better at this than me?” Camila asked when she finished the brief paragraph. “That’s genius.”

“A girl with unknown origins, beginning her life alone, ending her life alone, yet making so many sacrifices and life-saving decisions to so many people along the way.” I focused my gaze on the very tip of the paper. “And doing it all while locked up and put on display like an animal in a cage.”

“What kind of sacrifices?” The brunette asked, curling up into an adorable ball and resting her head in her hands. “Would she really kill people in order to be the un-sung hero?”

“Sometimes political leaders are so corrupt that they can’t see anything in front of them but the potential to exert their power and money over those who are crippled.” I replied. “There are people that just can’t be reasoned with… minds that are so dark and twisted that the only way to remove them from the picture is to light their lives on fire and drive them from their homes.”

“So you want a person who despite being different, fights to make the dark and twisted right again.” Camila purred. “Someone who doesn’t bother with the pain of labels and acts by her own morals.”

I stood up, granting her a small smile on my way down the hall and into the kitchen. It was hard to describe my confidence level with this particular plot-line. It had too much been infused with the level of insight from my first proper date. Arranging a piece of toast slathered in peanut butter and a banana, I returned to see Camila doodling over the piece of paper, her gaze brushing across the ink. She thanked me, nibbling happily on the late-night snack while I changed out of my clothes.

“It’s a shame she dies in the end.” The brunette mentioned quietly, now buried under the comforter and licking the peanut butter off her fingers. “Wouldn’t it be more heroic if she made it out alive and got to live a full life in the world she managed to save?”

“Maybe.” I agreed, tying my hair into a loose ponytail. “But a silent messiah doesn’t just win in the end, especially when they’re a heroine, not a hero.”

“True.” Camila folded the paper in half and tucked it beneath the pillow. The effects of the weed from earlier had managed to continue lingering as I joined her under the covers.

“Why did you write out a prompt that you had so much trouble following through with?” I asked, letting her snuggle up and inhale whatever was left of the weed scent on my skin.

“I was secretly hoping you’d come home so you could write it for me.” She admitted. “Is that lame?”

“Not at all.” I assured her. “It’s incredibly cool.”

“Good.” Dark lashes fell flush against the spaces beneath her eyes. “Goodnight.”

I drifted off thinking about the evening, glad that I had made the decision to return home; hoping I would always have such a precious choice. A noise in the middle of the night got me up and checking the house, making sure no raccoons were climbing up the kitchen walls. While I was up I decided to check the bathroom, quietly lifting the back of the toilet up and peering into the tank to see the pack of cigarettes taped to the inner porcelain.

It had remained exactly where I remembered, completely untouched.

***

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Why Is The Music Of 1968 So Enduring? 'It Was Allowed To Be Art' : NPR

The Jimi Hendrix Experience circa 1968. Left to right: Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

The Jimi Hendrix Experience circa 1968. Left to right: Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell.

In 1968, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were at the top of their game. Aretha Franklin released two great records. The Kinks, The Byrds and Van Morrison put out some of their best work, too.

One of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century also produced some of its greatest popular music. And it's not just baby boomers who are nostalgic for the sounds of their youth: Even to people born decades later, the music of 1968 stands out.

"There's this kind of blossoming in what was possible," says Meg Baird, a singer and musician who performs under her own name and in the band Heron Oblivion. She lives in San Francisco, the city that nurtured a flowering of psychedelic rock bands half a century ago, including Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.

"I really don't know what was the magic formula," Baird says. But she's not the only who'd like to recapture it. "I think everybody is always trying to go back there, to be honest."

Maybe part of the fascination is hearing musicians trying to break free from the industry's formulas. "There was a cookie-cutter aspect to most pop music at the time," says John Simon, an in-demand producer during the 1960s and author of the 2018 book Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir of a Musical Life In & Out Of Rock and Roll. "People wanted to make hits," he says.

By 1968, that was changing. The world outside of the recording studio was in upheaval. And musicians wanted to capture of the spirit of what was going on.

"I realized that I was part of the rebellion, and not part of the establishment," says Simon, who earned a degree in music from Princeton University before getting a staff job at Columbia Records. "Part of being the rebellion is, you could rebel musically in the studio. You didn't have to be as formulaic as in the past."

John Simon worked on some of the most acclaimed albums of 1968, including Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel. He produced Cheap Thrills by Big Brother & the Holding Company — the record that introduced Janis Joplin to a wide audience.

And he produced the first record by a group of musicians who were best known for backing up Bob Dylan. He remembers the first time he heard the demos that became Music from Big Pink by The Band.

"What I heard was just great. It was just so different," Simon says. "The forms were different, the instrumentation was different, the attitudes. And so I said, yeah, count me in."

The Band recorded live in the center of the studio, trying to recreate the magic of the basement of "Big Pink," the house in the Hudson Valley where they'd spent much of the last year honing their material. They knocked out almost half of the album in a day, while other bands spent hours obsessing over a single track.

But no one pushed the recording studio — or the electric guitar — further than Jimi Hendrix.

"Nobody had recorded guitar sounds like that," says Vernon Reid, founder and guitarist of the band Living Colour. "No one had made sounds like that in the studio."

When Hendrix started out, he was a sideman who was supposed to play second fiddle to others. "He played in rock and roll and R&B bands where the lead singer was the was the king," Reid says. "He got fired all the time."

But Hendrix's very first album of his own was a Top 10 hit. So in 1968, he was free to pursue the sounds in his head on a groundbreaking double album called Electric Ladyland that brought together blues and R&B with jazz and space rock.

"He took this notion of freedom seriously," Reid says. "He was one of the great musical liberators."

Sometimes the musical rebellion of 1968 was about sonic abstraction. Sometimes, it was more direct.

James Brown recorded the song "Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud" in August of 1968. Saxophone player and bandleader Pee Wee Ellis co-wrote the song. He says it was Brown's idea to bring in a bunch of neighborhood kids to sing the chorus.

"Their part was very simple," Ellis recalls. "All they had to say was, 'I'm black and I'm proud.' It was done in one take."

Ellis says audiences across the country learned their part quickly, too. The band recorded the song in Los Angeles, and played a gig at New York's Apollo Theater a few weeks later.

"James Brown came on stage and said, 'Say it loud!' And the whole entire audience said, 'I'm black and I'm proud,' " Ellis says. "That gave me goosebumps."

So why does the music of 1968 still give audiences goosebumps half a century later?

"People were making music they wanted to be make," says Meg Baird. One of her favorite records of 1968 is not on many top-10 lists from that year. It's a double album — half live, half studio — by the British folk-jazz band Pentangle, called Sweet Child.

"You can feel how fun it must be to be in that band," Baird says. "They're so good, and the way they're playing together, it gets shared with the listener and the audience. This is music that was meant to be heard in a hall. It's not meant to be in a rock club, or a folk club. It was allowed to be art."

This content was originally published here.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Welcome to the Golden Age of Live-Streaming

On Saturday night, hip-hop eminence Derrick “D-Nice” Jones threw a dance party for 100,000 with attendees including Michelle Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Drake, J. Lo, Rihanna and both finalists for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The crowd was even bigger on Sunday. In an interview with CBS This Morning’s Gayle King on Monday, D-Nice confirmed his plans to keep the party going daily for as long as possible. But before you cancel the DJ, rapper and producer for creating the world’s most distinguished COVID-19 cluster, I should mention that the gatherings—dubbed Homeschool at Club Quarantine—have taken place exclusively on Instagram Live. The host, ensconced in his kitchen alone, is practicing social distancing.

This is live entertainment in the coronavirus era, when theaters, concert halls, museums, sports stadiums and nightclubs are closed; music, comedy and book tours are canceled; and non-news TV production has ground to a halt. Within the space of two weeks, Americans have seen so many of the institutions that kept us amused, informed and intellectually stimulated during national crises past shut down. It may be negligible in comparison with the plight of those who are feeling the effects of COVID-19 firsthand, or even the sadness the healthy among us feel at being separated from loved ones, but the loss of both the physical public square and platforms like daily talk shows are also tragic. Which is why it’s been so encouraging to see artists and entertainers from across the culture use DIY methods of communication to fill that void. After years of puzzling over Generation Z’s love of YouTube stars and live streamers, the over-30 set isn’t just starting to understand the appeal of these platforms—we’re relying on them to stay sane.

In the week or so since late-night hosts sent their staffers home to self-isolate, Stephen Colbert has brought us such welcome distractions as the abbreviated, solo “Lather Show” (from his bathtub) and “The Flame Show With Stephen Col-burn” (at the fire pit on his patio) featuring a video-chat performance from Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste. In mini-episodes filmed at home with his wife behind the camera, Jimmy Fallon has been leading split-screen conversations with stars like Jennifer Garner and Lin-Manuel Miranda; Fallon’s two young, joyfully disruptive daughters have become America’s sweethearts. Trevor Noah has The Daily Social Distancing Show, while Samantha Bee has enlisted her husband and kids to shoot Full Frontal from their rural backyard, with plans to air a new episode on Wednesday. A Little Late host and YouTube native Lilly Singh is off the air but back to her 15 million subscribers with pandemic-related comedy skits. And so on.

Daytime talk-show hosts have followed suit: Ellen DeGeneres has been posting phone calls with friends such as Jennifer Aniston and Tiffany Haddish on her Twitter account. The View often looks like The Brady Bunch intro now, a grid of faces with Whoopi and Joy logging on live from their respective homes. One of that show’s alumnae, Rosie O’Donnell, raised $600,000 for The Actors’ Fund with Sunday’s one-night-only revival of The Rosie O’Donnell Show—a special that had her video-chatting with Billy Porter, Patti LuPone and other Broadway-adjacent celebs “from the comfort of my garage-slash-art-studio.” (Parents who’ve been entertaining young kids at home for the past few weeks must have felt a pang of recognition upon spotting the signs of family craft projects in the background.) The crisis has even brought Oprah back on a daily basis, from her home, in a free Apple TV series called Oprah Talks COVID-19; the first episode consisted of a FaceTime chat with Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina Dhowre, who both tested positive for coronavirus, her laptop propped up on a stack of books. Never mind that her sectional is approximately the size of my apartment; when was the last time a billionaire media mogul looked so relatable?

Which is why I FaceTimed @idriselba & his wife Sabrina who are safely quarantined together after he tested positive for COVID-19. Idris fills me in on his journey and Sabrina reveals the result of her test after they decided to quarantine together. pic.twitter.com/HETVZeqCPE

— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) March 22, 2020

It’s been especially heartening to see artists who, like D-Nice, have scrambled to create something entirely new. As book clubs spring up with the help of video conferencing technology, publishing site Literary Hub has launched the Virtual Book Channel, whose Vimeo-based shows offer the kind of readings and author interviews bookstores across the country have had to cancel. Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has been live-streaming daily performances on YouTube to benefit various medical charities. NPR has made a schedule of “live virtual concerts”—most of them on social media or video platforms—that have been announced, ranging from the Vienna State Opera to events organized by indie labels Don Giovanni and Third Man.

From Bernie Sanders hosting a YouTube live stream on the coronavirus response with AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Padma Lakshmi leading pantry-cooking tutorials on Instagram, there’s a DIY COVID-19 video for every political alignment and cultural niche. A homespun microgenre of coronavirus-themed parody song has emerged, with the reliably profane Liam Gallagher transforming his old Oasis hits into “Wonderwash” and “Champagne Soapernova”; if there’s a boomer in your life who can’t wrap their mind around social distancing, send them this Twitter video of Neil Diamond tweaking “Sweet Caroline” so that the chorus begins, “Hands, washing hands/Don’t touch me/I won’t touch you.” We’re seeing artists’ and celebrities’ living rooms, meeting their spouses and kids, cooing over their pets. Though these videos can’t replace communication with friends and family—or, obviously, satisfy our moral obligation to help coronavirus patients, healthcare workers and those in our communities who’ve lost their jobs—there’s a sense that if we’re all self-quarantining at home, then we’re all in this together.

View this post on Instagram

We made black-eyed peas over polenta! Recipe in bio.

A post shared by Padma Lakshmi (@padmalakshmi) on Mar 21, 2020 at 1:42pm PDT

Whether we’ve realized it or not, I think a lot of us are finding the same sustenance in these rough dispatches that teens get from YouTube vloggers, TikTok dancers (whose acolytes now include LeBron James and his adorable family) and social media influencers of all stripes. Why, we’ve spent years asking ourselves and each other, would you watch a spoiled 15-year-old with no discernible talent try on every item of clothing she’s ever ordered on the internet when you could be bingeing The Sopranos, or at least Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Why listen to some weirdo warble over canned beats when practically the entire history of recorded music is available to stream? What we forget is that young people are often looking for something the professional, adult-dominated entertainment industry can’t offer—something past generations found in the crude mediums of punk music or zines or early internet message boards: a sense of intimacy. Even for kids with vibrant social lives and supportive families, adolescence can be horribly lonely. Maybe it’s not the content of haul videos or live gaming streams that has them hooked; maybe it’s the sense of community and personal connection these lo-fi videos create.

After 13 days away from almost everyone I care about, I’ve begun to remember what profound isolation—whether physical or psychological—can feel like. That certainly explains why, though I used to hate using video chat apps, I recently spent 90 minutes on Zoom with friends self-quarantining in Australia and “met” an old pal’s newborn baby on FaceTime. But it’s also why, on Sunday, I tuned in to an impromptu Instagram Live performance by rock icon Patti Smith and her musician daughter Jesse Paris Smith. Amid songs, poetry and pep talks, they revealed that they were broadcasting from a smartphone propped up on containers of instant oatmeal and aloe vera juice. As cool as it was to see one of my favorite artists play a live show at a time when in-person concerts are impossible, what really brought me comfort was the sight of a woman I so deeply respect hunkering down with family and taking time to check in with fans. In sharp contrast to Gal Gadot’s smug video of celebrities singing “Imagine,” Smith’s gesture seemed to come out of humility, generosity and respect for her fellow citizens.

Millions of us are suddenly becoming immersed in this social-video ecosystem to an extent that we’ve never been before. We’re not just occasionally posting a viral clip on our platform of choice; we’re getting emotionally invested in this stuff, because it’s the closest thing we have to live or even daily entertainment. And we need those things—those culture-wide conversations, songs and jokes, that shared mourning for those we’ve lost—so that we never forget we’re living in a society, especially at a time when it’s crucial that we all do our part to keep each other safe.

There’s no guarantee that mainstream pop culture’s new DIY spirit will endure after Elba recovers, Bee is out of the woods and coronavirus has gone the way of H1N1. But, either way, it won’t be long before a critical mass of Gen Z reaches an age when their sensibilities start shaping the entertainment industry proper. For them, YouTube, Twitch and TikTok will always be part of a standard creative toolbox. The inevitability of this generational shift used to terrify me (a luxurious fear compared to what’s weighing on our minds these days, I know). Now that I finally get it, I’m curious to like, subscribe and see what happens.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[konstantinwrites]

Treasures from the Roof of the Insurmountable, Part 4

unknown title (Antonietta Raphaël)

27: Flashlight by Kasia Moś (Poland)

Fun bulbous whirrs in the pre-choruses, even if they were added to mask the rhyming choices of fire/desire/higher/wire/non-qualifier. (One of those may be made up.) “Flashlight” feels more coherent with more listens and flows by relatively skillfully, as if it didn’t just rhyme a feeling of strong craving with rapid oxidation. 

Clearly, a decaf-violin version would have been better than this, and the violinist should avoid even looking at coffee, but the melody of Kasia’s vocals carries the song well. The intensity here is: Russian provincial crime dramas, all of which are going to license “Flashlight” and use it in every third episode.

Big fan of the stationary ethereal shark on the LED screen from 2:30-2:34, rotating around like a newly obtained Tomb Raider souvenir.

The music video, also (link in the title), is an absurdly apocalyptic edit of fantastically ordinary footage of the local city orchestra. On the film shoot, a Volgogradian gangster has just pulled a gun on his refined St. Peterburgian business partner, and all these musicians and birds hopefully earned some royalties.

When I first heard this song, it was my least favorite of the three that I reviewed, but after re-listening I think it just edges out Hovig for second place. The problem is that while she clearly has a great voice, it's hidden behind a bunch of junk. 

At one moment in the song, she holds a note for some time, but you can hardly hear it behind all that unnecessary electronic noise. At the same time, the song is just sort of boring and desperately needs something to put it over the top; something to change the song up a bit, since it didn't go the route of stripping it down to a simpler number where her voice could shine.

Ryan Haskell

26: Rain of Revolution by Fusedmarc (Lithuania)

When Spotify introduces the Completely Random Song From Our Library feature, "Rain of Revolution” will come up first. This crazed funk pop is the median in all things – musical category, level of stock continental goofiness and the length of time that a child would cry when hearing this at high volume (let’s say 40 seconds of crying, somewhere from 1:27 and on), to pick three things that don’t define all things.

There are lots of layers here, all perilously undercooked. Fiery V signs into the camera plus sneering baby boomer guitarist plus four(!) backing vocalists: a track like this needs hours in a name-brand bath of boiling water, except in two situations, in which it may be left as is: Lithuania in Eurovision and Lithuania in general as a nation. Fusedmarc is very much playing within their parameters.

But even taking this exception aside, "Rain of Revolution” is easier to like than to not like. I think I feel better when I let it be it. Thunder noises crack the song into existence. The horns just beep the same five notes, like an easter egg setting of a tired Roomba. Viktorija, the lead vocalist, crouches and stabilitates like a perennial neighborhood heelflip title-holder. Fitting heaving, whispered verses onto a cheery horn accompaniment is the median of “mostly doesn’t work” and “doesn’t work” and that is irrelevant. Everyone on stage and some faithful fans in the floor pit are so into this crimson pell-mell. Spritz me with your regime change rain, Lithuanian band. Let’s pick up a park bench and throw it at a tree, then pick up a tree and throw it at a kid. Speak with my V sign if you have a comment.

“Rain of Revolution” is Fusedmarc’s reenactment of an acid trip. An 80′s workout video sound mix accompanies the singer as she staggers around a stage highlighted by a trippy light show. The costume choice of a red turtleneck maxi dress and topknot further add to the cacophony of stylistic decisions for this song. The rainy revolution is one of the mind, and one with “no time for your illusion”.

The song opens with the proclamation, “life like roller coaster / spinning me around / rhythm getting faster / when I’m upside down”, which sets the tone for what is to come. Her vocals are all over the place, never seeming to find a correct pitch until the end. The backup singers and their chant of, “dance to the rhythm of the soul!” are the best part, and mellow out the end of the song after its rocky start. This psychedelic rant is all over the place, so sit back and prepare for a bumpy ride. 2/10.

Liv Mothershead

25: Yodel It! by Ilinca ft. Alex Florea (Romania)

Did you know that there are two FIFA video games released every year? On September 29, 2017 EA Sports released “FIFA 18″, priced at $59.99. The older consoles and PC, meanwhile, added to their anthology the title “BALL”, for $7. Running on the same modern engine, but with players represented by word clouds of the most commonly said things about them on Twitter, and sometimes the penalty spot is a trap from which Uruk-hai (MUTILATED RUINED THICC EARTH PERFECTION WOMB) tear off time-wasting goalies’ legs to eat for brunch, “BALL” contains a licensed Europa League group stage, the World Cup third-place match, Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, a Career Mode starring Rolando during his loan to Anderlecht, and for the soundtrack of the menu screens, “Yodel It!”

But this song does not have an upmarket, monotonous, premium Thibaut Courtois card wholesaling equivalent. If you’re intrigued by the concept of “Yodel It!”, but aren’t fully on board while three to 300 sonic and visual issues with this performance remain unresolved, there is no societally palatable version to turn to yet. This is white-boy rap-rock on top of Romanian volksmusik; definitionally, it’s a trailblazer. It’s released by a label called “Cat Music”. No one is qualified to judge this properly. Maybe "Yodel It!” should be in first place. Maybe in -84.33rd.

I like how detailed the Wikipedia page for this song is, with screenshot commentary like it’s a hugely awaited action-adventure game. You know how these games work – you climb towers and dive off of them into piles of previous Romanian Eurovision entries.

Yodeler Ilinca certainly looks like she realizes what a warped thing this is – whereas 2013 Romanian entry Cezar, for example, didn’t seem to with his stage show, even after it was fine-tuned to a pulsing heap of bloody nude men – and she executes moves somewhere between halfheartedly and 70%-heartedly, functioning through it like a detached crowd of new Fusedmarc fans just waiting until “Rain of Revolution”. 

Her primary function, on the other hand, she completes perfectly professionally, in full verve. If I pass any further comment on yodeling I will end up getting a certificate in the mail notifying me of becoming a sanctioned regional yodeling judge, or something, but: what kind of happens is that “Yodel It!” gets you to feel well. I like Ilinca’s voice, which does what it intends to and transports me to early modern Europe. What she does with her voice soothes more micrometres of my soul than it abrades. It’s pleasant, even after a year’s worth of “teaching to the test”, which is creating anything for Eurovision. Also, I am now literally a sheep that marched too far from the farm and is being sung at to scamper back.

(Probably yodeling hasn’t featured in Eurovision in decades, but also probably fewer than a thousand people in the world have watched every Eurovision show, so who can really say for sure.)

The non-yodeler, the never-yodeler Alex Florea, a human semi-professional Neapolitan football team operating on a budget of protection money from the two pet supply stores down the street, hypes up the crowd and mostly himself with [what sound like reworded football chants from a particularly vehement set of ultras.]

Florea’s fulgent vigor for “Yodel It!” does bulldoze through a lot of criticism you could have for this song when introduced to it. Analysis simply does not matter when Alex buries you with imperatives – “DON’T HIDE THE LIGHT INSIDE OF YOU!” – or straight-up announces that he is to now “gonna act really crazy”. I mean, shit. That’s a man with nothing to lose and every televoter point to gain. 

If Ilinca got super sick and couldn’t perform in the Grand Final, Alex would, beyond question, volunteer himself to do the whole thing, every part, and be so intensely alert at rehearsals that any Romanian delegation-chosen replacement wouldn’t nearly match his carnality to restore the song and bring the Eurovision trophy home. 

(But, in the real ending here, he gives Ilinca a weird, forceful, kiss on the cheek, fingernails clawed into her face, so I don’t know about this guy at all.)

The first few times I listened to “Yodel It!”, it did nothing for me. I thought it was dumb and annoying and just plain bad. The more I’ve listened to it, however, I’ve come to appreciate this song’s originality and ambition. Don’t get me wrong — this is totally camp, super weird and really disjointed, but for some reason, I don’t hate it. Maybe it’s the inherent charm of a good yodel, or Ilinca’s natural charisma, but “Yodel It!” just keeps growing on me, which is super annoying because I really want to hate this song.

My main frustration with this song is that it feels very unpolished and disjointed. The live national final performance, especially, is full of awkward hesitations, rough transitions, and really bad staging and choreography. I like that this is a duet, and when they aren’t stumbling around each other on the stage, Ilinca and Alex have decent chemistry. I also think the weird genre mixing works to a certain degree — I’ve come to like the idea of interrupting a rap lyric with a sharp, clear yodel. The problem is when Ilinca switches from yodeling to her regular voice. If her only job was to whip out complicated, interesting yodels with limited singing, I think the song would be much better; it’s when she randomly switches to singing a ballad that I lose interest. “Yodel It!” isn’t terrible, but in the interest of maintaining some sense of dignity, I’ll end with this: Alex’s falsetto is horrible, and Ilinca’s leprechaun dress makes no sense. Leprechauns don’t yodel.

Hannah Fulmer

24: Apollo by Timebelle (Switzerland)

^⨀ᴥ⨀^ ooh there is other music in the world

This is a good song and I can’t find many more words, other than that competitively Switzerland has been pretty baaad at Eurovision for a dozen years now and I wouldn’t be surprised if they quit at some point? Here are three guest reviews in mixed media about “Apollo”:

VIDEO REVIEW! Embedded video not available because we’re in safe hands with Tumblr’s five-inline-videos limit.

Erin Pipes

It is impossible to distinguish from all the others. It cannot win. If it wins I will execute the hostages. 3/10.

Philip Piatt

Billy Moran

I asked Billy to play “Apollo” and draw a picture for the three-minute length of the song, about whatever sparked in his mind. He finished the house a little after the bell and says that it would have looked weird if only a quarter of a house was completed. “They built their house there because of how beautiful the view of the volcano is. But they were foolish to build their house next to a volcano, and now their child is getting away on the Bike Dinosaur.” Yeah. As I said, it’s a good song.

Crazily, Billy’s drawn family looks a lot like Maraaya, the Slovenian entry+couple who opened the Grand Final in 2014. He swears he has not seen them before...

Anyway.

23: Beautiful Mess by Kristian Kostov (Bulgaria)

If Salvador and Luísa Sobral did not win it for Portugal, "Beautiful Mess” would’ve been the Eurovision winner. (I guess all meaning I had there is that this song finished second.) It would’ve been a pretty “good” winner, I think, which is a hot new word that has begun to mean, “how placated will Eurovision fanatics and journalists feel if this song won and became the representative of Eurovision to the public”. (I tell you, this contest gets harder and harder to unspool...) 

Kristian punches well on his high notes, over this cool, moody string-percussion melody. Glum emo pop isn’t my thing, but the song aims big and delivers. I’m sure that “Beautiful Mess” will be one of the last songs that I hear before I die, hospice staff playing it over the PA to soothe and prepare families for sad, but kind of sexy, deaths.

I’m not going to pick a battle with “Beautiful Mess”, not least because Kristian seems real sweet and also the live production of this is kinda cyberpunk. Next year Kristian should enter something like, “Beautiful Apple Face ID”, and walk around the stage unlocking devices until he finds one that he can’t unlock and wails in anguish about it. It would take him over the line.

Life is a mess! But love, while not solving all the problems, soothes the troubled heart. Maybe you’ll luck out and get to have a sturdy, true and enduring love, and who doesn’t dream of an invincible love? Who wouldn’t want one that can’t be touched? And this guy has it! The quiet early bars lay out the difficult feelings and propose the hope that mutual, presumably romantic love will hold things together while trudging through the beautiful mess.

Why it’s beautiful we’re left to imagine for ourselves, but apparently there are no hard feelings. Let’s just survive and hang on — especially to each other. The drop comes just in time; it’s hard to slog through the swamp while gentle strains lull us to sleep. Maybe things will one day fall apart just as the untouchable love’s armour reveals its chink, but for now we’ll get through this day together and face worse days later, when we have more than overwhelming affection to arm us against the battle. A lot of us were helped through a lot of adolescence that way, and anyone listening to this song will know that feeling. 7/10.

Christy Wareham