#basically holly a menace for real

[madwheelerz]

Mike gets a boyfriend, and their biggest fear is Holly Wheeler.

[spicylove4ever]

Double standars with angels in Netflix’s Lucifer

...and to be honest, this kind of double standars fit in more situations.

So, today, we’re gonna discuss how are people who are “holly”, or at least they think they are, and why are they the one of the least kind people you want to have around. And Lucifer, the tv series, shows it pretty great.

Let’s start with Uriel.

We first met this guy by threatening Chloe’s life. Then it turned out to be all on his own, not by his dad’s commands, so he straight threatened a innocent soul in order to blackmail Lucifer so he could kill his own mother. 

And that’s an angel. It is known too that Uriel is one of the warrior-like among them, but those morals... 

And that’s not even the end of it. Remember the actitude he had with Maze? While Amenadiel was like “those are Lucifer’s minions, who are dark things and corrupt and all that but had their purpose, since they torture the bad ones in hell and at least not beyond reason”, Uriel is straight:

We also have Remiel:

She seemed to be more friendly and kind of listens to her old brother (unlike the Uriel), but let me remind you that this one, even if she didn’t want to kill her to-be-born nephew, she had no second thoughts into killing the mother to kidnap him. And Amenadiel had to be the one to softhen her intentions so Linda wouldn’t get killed, but still had the intention to cut her down to steal the baby when it wasn’t even born (and most likely, be killed in the process, both baby and mother).

She didn’t give any shit for a life of a woman who, as far as she knows, had slept with one of her brothers.

I mean, in this show, we saw demons, who were supposed to be the nastiests among their own kind, to cool down milk for the same baby so it wasn’t too hot, and use basic skills to babysit. 

Azrael is a cinnamon roll, and she is clumpsy with people, but seems like she knows how to deal with humans, so she doesn’t belong to this post. Let’s skip her.

First season Amenadiel:

Let’s see, he had a bit of compassion, and he had polite conversations with humans like Chloe and Linda, but he had no remorse to use any of them as pawns even if they could get hurt (well, just Linda), the Wing’s scam that resulted in a person’s death, and all of that with Malcom Graham.

Well, pretty bad, but he is the one who less complains I have for, since he was the one who put the rule of “No killing humans”, so he’s not the worst. At all.

Aaaaaaand the icing on the cake:

Let’s recall:

Usurped Lucifer’s name because he couldn’t stand he had any tiny positive thing in his life. (childish envy tantrum number 1)

He tried to take over Lucifer’s life because he grow a hot spot for Chloe and had no trouble lying to her.

Straight told Chloe about being a miracle to wreck her heart because she was pissed at him and told him Lucifer was good for her and he was the bad one. (childish tantrum 2)

Used his “worst fear” mojo in Linda to made her be so focused in that so she wouldn’t notice he’s not Lucifer.

Threatened his nephew’s safety.

Manipulated Maze to turn her into his minion so she could watch his back with the other brothers.

Tricked Dan with the crap of “Lucifer is a menace to the world” so Dan would shoot Lucifer and to make him find out Lucifer is the Devil.

There’s a chance he scared at some point Charlie to stress him out (which would be the reason Charlie was crying all the time) so he get a fever. 

HE KIDNAPPED CHLOE AND PUT CRAP IN HER HEAD.

Manipulated Amenadiel’s fatherly fears to be able to beat him down because Amenadiel told him “your worst fear is that Lucifer is still better than you” (childish tantrum 3).

This guy is one of the most popular angels and he gets tons of prayers for protection. He, who gives a fuck about anyone, even his own family, is a compulsive LIAR, and is basically humanity thinks the Devil is. Also, he even said that “I do what I want” (chapter 1 of Season 5, when Amenadiel told him he found out it was him).

Friendly reminder this guy’s name means “He who is like God”.

So, what do we have here, and what these guys have in common? And why, if they are such.... I can’t even find a word  they don’t have the Devil features their brother Lucifer has?

There’s a simple answer: they simply believe they are above everything, that they’re holly.

Allow me to explain why this is something that makes someone dangerous. 

If someone thinks they’re above the others, they won’t find any reason to not use, harm, and do anything to those who find less than them. Think of what you are able to do to an insect.  And, if someone thinks they’re the embodiment of virtue, they’ll believe all they do is right. So, NO MERCY, NOT REGRET, because they’re supposed to not make mistakes; everything they do is right... according to them.

And this happens not just on Lucifer! In Bones, there was this woman who believed (she was in a madhouse) that she was an angel.

(yeah, I used her creppiest stare on purpose)

To sum up what she was, she thought her deed of killing a guy with horns who believed he was a demon (he was just crazy, he was a nice tormented guy who didn’t harm anybody), because, even if he hadn’t done anything wrong, he was a demon and had to be killed, and she saw nothing bad on it. Nothing.

You want another example? Let’s go!

Even if you don’t know who the hell is this, it’s self-explanatory.

Lucifer, on the other side, who believed he was evil, he was someone who cared, who empatised with people, and would protect them.

You can use this for the real life. Beware of those who look sure when say they are “I’m a good boy/girl”.

[exkernal]

My Only Peace: 3/?

William insists he stay the night, and after a token protest, Nelson agrees. To his surprise, William leads him to his old bedroom.

"But it's the master," he says, confused. "It should be yours."

"Didn't feel right," Will mutters, and that's all the explanation he'll give.

It's exactly as Nelson left it two years ago, with one notable addition on the mantelpiece: a framed photograph of the original Minutemen at the height of their glory.

Nelson stares at the youthful faces of his comrades. They're all old or dead or disgraced now. He sees his younger self, brimming with confidence that bordered on the absurd, standing close to Hooded Justice, who looked like a god among men. Even in the black and white photograph, his desire for closeness is obvious. How he couldn't resist the back pats and shoulder clasps, or any of the other myriad of socially acceptable touches that always lingered a little too long.

Little wonder that their relationship became an open secret among the Minutemen.

Nelson sinks into the old familiar bed, but he already knows he'll have trouble sleeping that night. After all, this was the very place where he and Will made love for the first time.

"Making love" was probably not the right term for it. He'd lusted after William from the moment he first appeared in the New York Gazette. At first he told himself that it was simply admiration, but it was the beginnings of a school boy crush, the kind that used to keep him awake at night in the boarding school dormitory, intrigued and disturbed at the same time.

After his brief meeting at the Reeves' home, he reached two conclusions: that young Officer Reeves was not a simple courier but Hooded Justice himself, and that there was a spark between them.

He cautioned himself. He'd become quite adept at recognizing the subtle cues that men put out, but he'd been wrong before. One of those wrongs resulted in a black eye and cracked rib, which he passed off to his fellow Marines as the result of a drunken fall after a night partying. Luckily, the other officer was too embarrassed to tell their superior, or else Nelson would've lost more than his pride.

It goes without saying that Will wasn't what he expected--and truthfully, Nelson's only experiences with black people were as servants--but it didn't take long for him to fall head over heels.

To stave off the early morning awkwardness, Will suggests they go out to brunch. The diner is similar to their old meeting place, though slightly more upscale. IT reminded him, bitterly, of their last conversation together.

Don't think about that now, he tells himself. Not when William is actually speaking to him.

"Don't worry," Will mutters, opening up a newspaper. "If anyone asks, we're two retired cops catching up."

Nelson bristles a little. "I'm not worried."

And he's not. There was a time when that's all he'd be thinking about, but those days are long gone.

"Isn't that your friend?" Will says, jabbing at a black and white photo of Adrian Veidt. "Ozy-man-mouthful-of-a-name?"

He snorts. "I wouldn't call him a friend exactly. We've barely spoken since my, uh, bout of foolishness in '66."

The waitress brings them their coffee. Nelson doesn't wait for the scalding beverage to cool off. He's too eager to do something with his hands.

"Speaking of Veidt," he says, "he told me an interesting theory about you."

"Oh yeah?" Will raises an eyebrow.

"He investigated Hooded Justice's disappearance before I ever formed the Crimebusters. Apparently, it led him straight to Eddie Blake. Eddie mistook him for a criminal, and beat him up."

William chuckles. "You don't say."

A smile twists at Nelson's lips. "Adrian concluded, based on your documented feud, that Eddie killed you back in '55."

His expression darkens. "As if that sniveling little pissant  could ever get the drop on me. I should've snapped his worthless neck after he attacked Sally."

"That probably would've been for the best," Nelson agrees. "I thought it best to let Adrian believe his theory--after all, you don't want the worlds smartest man on your case. "

"More like the world's best PR man," Will mutters.

Nelson clears his throat. "Have you read Hollis's book?"

"Might've skimmed it in an airport," he says breezily. "Why?"

"According to Hollis, you were an East German strong man with, um, strange proclivities whose body was found in Boston Harbor in 1955."

Will's whole body shook when he laughed. Making Will genuinely laugh-- not a wry chuckle or sardonic snort, but a real honest to God laugh-- was so rare that Nelson always savored the sound like it was the New York orchestra. He joins in.

The waitress brings them their plates of bacon and eggs, and their laughter dies down.

"It's funny how they all thought my costume was some sex thing," William says, voice light, but there's a slight menace to his words. "Think that says more about them than me."

He's dying to ask William the meaning behind his costume. That was one thing they never discussed during their relationship. Yet he hesitates. Maybe they didn't discuss it for a reason.

"Nothing against Hollis," Will goes on, "but he never knew when to keep his mouth shut."

"I had to call him on the verge of tears to stop him from publishing more details about...about us," Nelson says. It hadn't been the verge of tears, but William doesn't need to know that.

He and Will rarely broached the topic of "us," never defining the relationship that consumed Nelson's life for sixteen years. They had to keep it secret, for one. For another, Will was a married father for most of it. Friendship is what he called it in his will. "He was a very good friend," is how he explained it whenever anyone questioned him about Hooded Justice. He always hated it, just a little bit, but that hatred paled in comparison to the terror of being found out.

Will frowns. "Yeah. Sally wasn't too happy with some of the stuff he said."

"Mm," Nelson goes. "That's a bit of a pot-kettle situation. Sally basically outed me in her latest interview, without naming any names. It's was still abundantly clear who she meant, though."

"She probably didn't think it mattered, since we all thought you were dead." Will says that last part with an edge to his voice.

"I don't really blame Sally," he says, eager to avoid that conversation again. Keep it light, Nelly. "Did I use that term correctly? Outed?"

"How should I know?" Will says through a mouthful of eggs.

"You're the one who lived in San Francisco."

"Yeah, but I wasn't hanging around that scene. Not that much, anyway. I know as much about the counterculture as you do."

Nelson feels warm, and it has nothing to do with his coffee (which is lukewarm now, anyway). He has no claim on Will's heart, and it certainly isn't his business if he's had any dalliances (Lord knows Nelson hasn't refrained). Still. He's glad all the same.

Will glances at the window. "You know, it's a good thing for the young ones coming up. That they have a community that's putting up a fight. Maybe it won't be as hard for them as it was for us."

He's surprised that Will's bringing it up. This is the closest he's ever heard his former lover come to acknowledging that he was a man involved with men. Not that he ever expected him to; after all, Nelson rarely verbalized it either, thanks to his years of keeping it secret. Even now, as an old nameless man with nothing left to lose, he couldn't completely let go of his fear.

"Yes," he mumbles, "it is."

Will insists on paying. "Technically it's your money," Will says when Nelson resists. Now that brunch is over, he's not sure what to do with himself. At the diner, they had a good report going. But now what happens when there's nothing to do? Will William come to his senses and get sick of the tag-along?

"Wanna see how I spent your money?" Will asks. They journey through New York's mobbed streets, as much an adventure as his days soldiering through the jungle.

Will explains that he auctioned off the Minutemen memorabilia  for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "That was a good idea that you had," he comments, "so I did it. Altogether, it came too nearly a million."

William doesn't mention the one piece of memorabilia he's kept, so Nelson doesn't either.

They stop at a grand old movie theater, the kind that was popular when Nelson was a boy. It looks as if it's been recently touched up, casting an impressive figure. William looks at him expectantly.

"You bought a theater?" Nelson says. Well, it makes sense; Will was always a cinephile.

"And fixed it up," he says proudly. "When I first started working here, it was a dump. Now it's the most profitable historical theater in the borough."

William gives him the tour.

"We play all kinds of films here. The modern stuff, but we also show classics. There's theme nights, too. Some of the kids get all dressed up for some of the showings, but I don't know much about that. If we hurry, there's a showing I want you to see."

William takes him to a projector room. There's a smattering of people in the theater below, maybe a dozen scattered along the wide rows. A young white man with wiry long black hair sits by the projector, loading up a reel.

"Mr. Reeves?" he says, more politely than his appearance would suggest. He looks curiously at Nelson.

"You can take an early lunch break, Don," Will says. "I've got it from here."

"Thank you, Mr. Reeves!" the youth says. He doesn't hesitate to take him up on the offer.

The movie starts. It's a black and white, silent picture that takes Nelson back to his childhood. A man chases another on horseback, his face obscured by a hood.

"This is that film you always talked about," Nelson says. "Trust in the Law, was it?"

"I'm surprised you remember," Wilal says. Nelson's a little offended by that. But only a little, seeing what an ass he'd been before.

He also remembers that a young Will was watching this movie when a race riot broke out in Tulsa. William mentioned it once, early in their relationship. At the time, Nelson privately assumed that Will was exaggerating; he was only a child when it happened, so surely it couldn't have been as bad as he said. Or perhaps, if it was bad, than it was somehow...justified. Now, the memory sickens him. He wishes he could go back in time and knock some sense into his younger self.

"Didn't it inspire you to become Hooded Justice?" he asks. The flicking black and white light casts shadows on their faces.

"Partly," Will says. He looks directly at Nelson. "I never did tell you what made me put on the mask that first time."

Nelson feels cold. There's a shift in Will's tone that seems to change the very air around them. It feels ominous.

"It started with Cyclops," he says with a faraway look in his eyes. "Though I didn't know it at the time. I arrested a white man for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a Jewish deli. When I brought him in, some other officers took him off my hands, saying they'd book him. Days later, I saw the same man walking free.

"I was told not to question it. But I couldn't let it go. So one night, when I was walking home, three of my fellow officers jumped me in an alley. They beat me, forced me into their car, and drove to a secluded area. They tied my hands together, put a bag over my head and a noose around my neck, and strung me up from a tree."

"What?!" Nelson gasps. His hands ball into fists, clenching his pants leg. How is this the first time he's hearing about it?

"I struggled and kicked. I felt myself chocking to death. I was so sure I was going to die. But they cut me down. I was a crumpled mess on the ground, sputtering and coughing, when the officer yanked the bag off. He got right up in my face like this," William leans so close that his breath's in Nelson's ear.

He whispers what the officer told him that night, directly into his ear. Nelson feels sick to his stomach. He wants this to stop now. But willful ignorance won't change what's been done to Will.

Will leans back. "I walked home in a trance, with the noose around my neck and the bag in my hands. Couldn't tell you what I was thinking, even if I wanted to. Guess you could call it being on autopilot. As I got close to home, I heard a lady screaming in an alleyway. A couple was being robbed. I didn't think. I ripped eye holes in the bag and put it back on. Then I beat the robbers to a bloody pulp. They weren't the ones who wronged me, but it felt so good to act. To have power. To bring justice, even if it was justice for something as small as a mugging.

"The next day, I saw it in the newspaper. They called me a hero. And well, you know the rest."

William looks off at the screen, where the townsfolk cheer for Bass Reeves.

"William..." Nelson says weakly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Without looking, he says, "Would it have made a difference back then?"

He wants to say yes. Yes, of course it would have. If Will had told Nelson about being lynched, for God's sake, then Nelson would've cared. Even when he was at his most racist, he still would've believed the man he loved. Wouldn't he?

But then...he'd had doubts about Tulsa. He hadn't believed Will then. William tried to tell him many things over the years, tried to open his eyes, yet Nelson remained willfully blind until it was too late. Until Will's absence finally caused him to reevaluate those beliefs. So if William had told him about being lynched in 1939, would it have been enough to finally make Nelson change? Or would it have been another Tulsa?

"I don't know," he croaks, mouth dry.

"Yeah, well, this way we never have to know the answer," Will mutters.

The words resonate with Nelson. If they knew the answer, then well, maybe they wouldn't be having this conversation right now. There were some things that William could never forgive. Perhaps they both needed the deniability.

Hesitantly, Nelson puts his hand on William's knee. William lets him. "I'm so sorry, Will. I'm sorry it happened, and I'm sorry that you couldn't tell me. I should have been there for you. I should've...God, I wish I could change so much. And I want to kill those officers."

William finally looks at him.

"Don't worry," he grunts, "I killed most of them, the night of the warehouse fire. When I called you about Cyclops mind control."

"Oh," Nelson mumbles. Regret hits him all over again. Why hadn't he listened to William back then? To think how different there lives might have been if he had. "I should've listened to you. I should've helped you get the bastards. I'm--I'm sorry I was such a racist little prick."

"I always know you're serious when you start cussing," Will says wryly.

Nelson snorts. It comes out more like a sniffle.

"Don't tell me you're crying again," Will says, but he can't help it. The nicer William is to him, the worse he feels. We wishes Will would scream at him or strike him, anything that would make them even. The house doesn't feel like enough. The money isn't enough.

"I'm sorry," he says, again, rubbing at his tear-stained cheeks. "I didn't--I'm not--"

"You're not making any sense," he says. "Nelson, calm down."

"I just want you know," he says shakily, "that it wasn't the mask."

"What?"

"It wasn't the mask I fell in love with. That's not true. Maybe I didn't show it the right way, maybe I was too selfish and blind to treat you the way you deserved, but it was never the mask. I really did love you, Will. Please believe me."

"Nelly," Will says softly.There's no anger in his beautiful brown eyes, no hatred. They're softer than usual, showing something that Nelson won't dare read.

Will's hand cups the back of his head, fingers gripping his hair in a way that's a little rough and a little tender, just like he remembers. For a moment, they stay like that, faces bent towards each other, eyes locked on one another.

He's not sure who initiates it, but when their lips meet it's surprisingly gentle. Their first time was all raw passion; their last, bittersweet. This is something new entirely. William pulls him closer, deepening the kiss, as the movie plays in the background.

Nelson can't bring himself to care about anything else.

[cinema-tv-etc]

Review: ‘The Comey Rule’ and What a Fool Believes

Showtime’s political drama is a scattered but searing picture of failed self-righteousness. By James Poniewozik   Sept. 24, 2020

The thing that James Comey will probably like best about “The Comey Rule,” if one believes its characterization of him, is that his name is in the title.

But he is not exactly the hero. He is not even, really, the star.

Comey (Jeff Daniels), the former F.B.I. director, gets more screen time than anyone else in Showtime’s two-night, three-and-a-half-hour special. But the real lead is Donald Trump (Brendan Gleeson), in the same sense that, regardless of its minutes on camera, the true lead of “Jaws” is the shark.

Given how much it rehashes recent events, albeit with a fine cast, I’m not sure what interest “The Comey Rule” will have beyond people whose copies of the Mueller Report are already well thumbed. (There’s more to be learned from “Agents of Chaos,” the chilling Alex Gibney documentary, which premiered on HBO this week, about Russia’s 2016 election influence campaign and its American enablers.)

But if you stick to the end, there is at least a lesson and a warning, if not the one that Comey — either the screen version here or the real-life one who’s become a media figure — intended.

In his book “A Higher Loyalty,” he appears to see his decisions, which very possibly swung the 2016 election and failed to keep the president from interfering in investigations, as noble if tragic acts of principle. As translated by the director and screenwriter Billy Ray, this is instead a slo-mo horror story, in which the worst lack all inhibition while the best are full of fatuous integrity.

The first half, which starts Sunday, is basically a prelude. It walks us through the role of the F.B.I. in 2015 and 2016 when it investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server — with Comey making unusual public statements that damaged her campaign — while also looking, much more quietly, into increasingly disturbing signs that Russian intelligence was out to help Trump.

The first two hours blitz through the timeline and establish key players. So many familiar faces captioned with headline names pop up — Jonathan Banks as James Clapper! Holly Hunter as Sally Yates! — that it plays like a long, stone-cold-sober episode of “Drunk History.”

Daniels is inspired casting. Physically, he resembles the real Comey somewhat in stature (the ex-director still has a few inches on him). But having played figures of high-minded duty in “The Newsroom” and “The Looming Tower,” he captures his character’s starched righteousness wholly.

This time, however, there’s an ironic spin on the character. Comey’s actual rectitude is complicated by his fixation on the appearance of rectitude, his homey decency by smugness.

His precedent-breaking decisions to speak out on Clinton’s email practices were driven by worry over how he and the bureau would look later if — in his view, when — she became president. (He writes in “A Higher Loyalty” that he assumed she’d win.)

His guess proves wrong, but the day after the election he assures his devastated wife, Patrice (Jennifer Ehle), “We’re going to be OK.” True enough for him. He lost his job but wrote a best seller.

With that self-justifying memoir as a source, Ray makes the sharp choice to make Rod Rosenstein (Scoot McNairy), the deputy attorney general who wrote the memo recommending Comey’s 2017 firing, the quasi-narrator. Rosenstein bitterly introduces Comey as a self-righteous “showboat” (though, we discover, Rosenstein has his own blind spots and failings).

This is not, however, a production out to win over MAGA viewers. (At one point, it dramatizes one of the more eye-popping accusations of the Steele dossier.) The first night, we see Donald Trump only as shot from behind, a leering hulk parting the curtain at a Miss Universe pageant and pawing at a contestant’s bikini strap. He’s like the barely glimpsed monster in the first act of a creature feature, a rough beast slouching toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s on Night 2, when President-Elect Trump emerges as a character, that the show really begins. In part, it’s simply that his crew of artless amateurs, relatives and B-list pols make for better TV. Not every portrayal works — Joe Lo Truglio as Jeff Sessions? — but it gives the proceedings a “Burn After Reading” flair.

But mostly, Gleeson kicks the program to life. Strictly as an impression, his performance is mixed. Gleeson, who is Irish, slips occasionally on the accent. But his rendering of Trump’s wandering diction is the best I’ve seen outside a lip-sync. Half his performance is in his bearing, chin jutted forward like the prow of a swollen yacht. 

More important, Gleeson has a thorough idea of his character. His Trump is not the orange-haired clown prince of “S.N.L.” and late-night talk shows. He’s a crass, heavy-breathing mobster (Comey’s comparison, and Gleeson makes the likeness vivid) driven by spite and vanity. A heavy-handed musical score portends menace whenever he turns up.

He, too, is concerned with appearances, but in a more literal way than Comey. His version of “good morning” is “I saw you on TV”; he and his staffers keep referencing his “eye for interior design.” His brassy presence in the halls of power is as much an aesthetic statement as a political one, which Ray underlines by showing a White House staffer serving him a Filet-O-Fish sandwich on a gleaming silver platter.

All the while, it gradually settles on Comey that his new boss may not be an entirely scrupulous man. Their White House dinner — the “honest loyalty” scene, for Comey buffs — takes only a few minutes, but you could imagine it as an entire movie, “Frost/Nixon” style.

It’s like an uncomfortable date with a persistent suitor. Trump, cleaning out his ice-cream dish, pushes and prods on the Russia investigation, pressing his advances. A pained Comey guards and parries, finding ways to say things that resemble what the president wants to hear.

Comey survives that battle but loses the war. “The Comey Rule” is not out to damn him. It strains itself to sympathize with his falling into one impossible position after another, and it suggests that public life might be better if everyone in it were like James Comey.

But it also shows how catastrophically inadequate he was to a world in which not everyone is like James Comey. He becomes a stand-in for an entire class of Trump-era elites who believe that respect for norms will save them. (The president “can’t fire me,” Comey tells an associate. “It’d look horrible.”)

As for Donald Trump, he’s not precisely the villain, in the show’s view. As “The Comey Rule” depicts him, he’s a creature, an appetite. He is what he is. He doesn’t know how to be otherwise.

Comey, on the other hand, is, if not a villain, then a tragic, hubristic dupe, precisely because he believes he knows better, and because he should.

“The Comey Rule” is not good drama; it’s clunky, self-serious and melodramatic. But it makes an unsparing point amid our own election season.

It says that anyone, like its subject, who complacently assumed in 2015 and 2016 that everyone would be fine, who thought that propriety and rules could constrain forces that care about neither, who worried more about appearances than consequences, was a fool.

Then it leaves you to sit with the question: What does that make anyone who still believes that today?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/arts/television/review-comey-rule.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

THE COMEY RULE Trailer (2020)

 Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump

Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleeson star as former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald J. Trump in this two-part event series that tells the story of two powerful men, whose strikingly different ethics and loyalties put them on a collision course. Watch the premiere on September 27 at 9/8c on SHOWTIME. #TheComeyRule #DonaldTrump

Brendan Gleeson portrays Trump as a crass mobster.

[esteliel]

Les Mis London Jan 10

This is as always not a real review but more notes on things that stood out to me (heavily skewed towards Old Men obviously.)

First off - Hayden’s wig! :D He had very nice whiskers and a ponytail that suited him very well. SO MUCH BETTER than that atrocious Broadway wig, not that it would be possible to be worse than that. I still don't know what they were thinking. In any case, the classic ponytail!Javert look suits him very well, and they also give us the tousled, strands pulled free from the ponytail and hanging into his face disheveled look for the suicide. I'm very pleased by this, even though he managed not to rip his trousers this time, but you can't have everything! :P

Hayden is still the smirkiest and smuggest Javert I've ever seen. During Toulon, Javert keeps smirking at Valjean for pretty much their entire interaction. He doesn’t use his cudgel as much as Jeremy does, but when he holds out the yellow ticket for Valjean, he doesn’t release it until Valjean turns his head to meet his eyes, and then Javert once again gives him a smirk before releasing the ticket. (Javert did no one ever teach you how to flirt properly???) He also really blatantly rolling his eyes during Fantine's “there’s a child that sorely needs me” and is in general still very smugly expressive.

Also Javert uses his cudgel to hand back Madeleine’s coat after the Runaway Cart. Teevert makes a very good clothes hanger.

During the Confrontation, when Valjean breaks the chair, Teevert gets all wide-eyed and terrified in response and stumbles several steps back! (This is aesthetically very pleasing to me but at the same time really not in character at all. I think I prefer my Javerts a bit less fearful there – I always appreciated Secombvert's bulldog Javert who you can feel is just itching for that physical fight in that situation.)

Simon also does the rock opera wailing of “there is power in me yet, my race is not yet do-one!” :D

When Simon lifts the cart from Fauchelevent he makes eye contact with Javert for the first few long seconds which is quite lovely and one of the few moments where I genuinely liked him.

Simon also gets angry with the Thénardiers and takes a menacing step forward while they haggle over Cosette, while they cower in response.

In general, Simon wasn’t outstanding, but okay. I’ve heard him called aggressive which – he wasn’t really most of the time, not physically, except for one or two scenes. But for example – his BHH was beautifully gentle as it started and I was already thinking to myself how lovely it was to hear it treated as a prayer, and then he basically shouted the last verse while doing some incredibly over the top gesturing with his arms? Come on. You don’t need that. We get it.

Javert interacts with the sniper again! It was one of the things that stood out to me from his Broadway performance because I've never seen a Javert do that before – and he's still doing that in London! It's a detail I like because I can just see Javert still trying to do his work undermining the insurgents even when he's a prisoner. On the other hand, he also still shouts “No!” when Enjolras hands him over to Valjean, which I find a bit more confusing because he's never shown fear before. Is it some special sort of reaction because it is Valjean he's given to? I just have a hard time seeing it make sense because Brick!Javert is so coldly delighted by the fact that Valjean will murder him because that is what criminals do.

Also once again A+ smirking during Valjean's Revenge when he pulls Valjean’s rifle against his chest. Simon on the other hand is unfortunately way more aggressive than Peter here, he just grabs Javert and wrestles him to the ground which seems a bit in direct opposition of “I'm a man no worse than any man”? Peter always managed to make that seem like an act of gentle exasperation instead.

Also Enjolras was agitatedly whispering to Javert at the Barricade when he was tied up and I'd love to know what he was saying to him!

Hayden still does the kneeling and visibly praying bit during One Day More! (I'm usually not into overtly religious Javerts but given that the musical gives him that background, okay. Though Adam Monley will always be my fave in that regard!) And he's still mostly singing his Suicide now instead of the growling/shouting from the Australian audios which is a relief as that never worked for me.

Simon's old Valjean is also disappointing; his wig is ugly and matted, no more lovely fluffy hair. ;__; Augh I will forever miss Peter's death scene and his grace and nobility and gentleness!

On the other hand, Simon does the Cosette nose boop before dying, awww!

Jonny Purchase was on again as Enjolras for this show, and I liked him more this time! Also Andy Conaghan was on as Bishop & Grantaire – I really liked him! No dick jokes from this Grantaire, but lots of e/R hugging. I'm usually not into e/R fanservice on stage at all, but that's probably because most stage Grantaires are awfully obnoxious, and Andy is so lowkey about everything that what there is is actually enjoyable to watch. His Bishop was also really lovely!

Lucy O’Byrne’s Fantine is quite enjoyable. Rachelle Anne Go is still my fave, but she's quite watchable. I also really liked Charlotte Kennedy's Cosette! Something about Zoe's voice just never worked for me in the role at all, so this is a real relief. On the other hand, this gets unfortunately hampered by the fact that there's no real Marius/Cosette chemistry on stage. It was my first time seeing Paul Wilkins' Marius, and he didn't leave a huge impression on me either. On the other hand, he's no Chris, so I'm not complaining!

The one real let down is that Hollie O'Donoghue's Eponine does absolutely nothing for me. :/ I don't know what it is, she doesn't even look like an Eponine to me – which is weird because I've loved lots of different Eponines and the only thing they have in common is the costume. Which leaves – the acting/body language, I guess? I really can't pin it down, I just came away with this impression that I saw a woman trying to dress up as Eponine, instead of being Eponine. A real disappointment, especially since I loved Eva Noblezada. :(

Final verdict: I'm really completely baffled by how my impression of Hayden changed from Broadway to London. It has to be the directing? Because what he does – the smirking and smugness and swagger – is actually quite entertaining to watch if it's reined in where it matters, whereas whatever was going on with Broadway seemed to encourage people to just go over the top with everything.

It's still not how I personally see musical!Javert (I loved Earl's tight control and focus which makes the unraveling of the derailment so much more powerful) but like this, it's entertaining to watch and at least feels consistent in itself and I just genuinely had fun watching!

[entergamingxp]

Freedom Finger Review — Fist of Fury

March 25, 2020 10:00 AM EST

Freedom Finger is fast-paced, over the top, side-scrolling shooter set to an eclectic soundtrack that makes the game feel like an interactive music video.

The starting menu of Freedom Finger describes itself as a Bat$#!% Crazy Space shooter. Let me tell you, the game does not disappoint. It’s an insane, fast-paced shoot ‘em up with an art style and humor that’s comparable to Rick and Morty crossed over South Park. Freedom Finger is set entirely to an eclectic soundtrack of artists ranging from Aesop Rock, Red Fang, Com Truise, and Power Trip. The game was developed by Wide Right Interactive and makes its debut on PS4 and Xbox One after previously being available only on PC via Steam and the Nintendo Switch.

Freedom Finger offers two game modes: campaign and arcade. In both, you take on the role of a high-ranking officer named Gamma Ray who is the pilot of the spaceship Eagle Claw. Shaped like a giant fist with its middle finger extended, the Eagle Claw can shoot, punch, and grab enemies. If you are easily offended, Freedom Finger probably isn’t the game for you, but it does offer the ability to censor the dialogue and Eagle Claw’s middle finger. The latter places a black bar over the offensive finger that reads “censored.” Completing a level with the black bar of censorship gets you the hilarious and appropriately named Tipper Gore trophy/achievement.

“[Freedom Finger is] an insane, fast-paced shoot ‘em up with an art style and humor that’s comparable to Rick and Morty crossed over South Park.”

The campaign begins with a briefing from Major Cigar, voiced expertly by none other than Uncharted’s Nolan North. Chinese terrorists have attacked and captured the American research facility that is located on the moon. They demand that the United States surrender the lunar base within 24 hours or they will kill all hostages and destroy the facility. Your mission is to rescue the scientists and civilians, which includes Major Cigar’s beloved daughter Holly. After all the hostages are rescued, you must determine whether the enemy actually has the resources to destroy the station. As the story progresses, we learn that Major Cigar isn’t as noble as he presents himself, and soon the Russians become involved in this all-out galactic battle.

The gameplay is typical of a side-scrolling shooter and the campaign unfolds through chapters that include song length levels that end in some sort of boss fight. Controls are basic and intuitive, with the musical interludes providing a rhythmic frenzy that becomes increasingly more difficult. You frequently have to fight your way through a myriad of debris and enemies such as aircraft, robots, cats, flying shotguns, and the menacing peace signs of death. Even on the “normie” difficulty setting, Freedom Finger is a punishing game. If the Dark Souls of side-scrolling becomes a bit too much for you to handle, you can drop the difficulty to the Diaper (easy) setting or you can customize the amount of collision damage you can take or how much health you start with.

While side-scrolling shooters are rarely known for their stories, the Freedom Finger campaign not only offers a short and cohesive plot, it does so with comedic relief that pokes fun at our current state of politics without being too heavy-handed… pun intended. The game sometimes requires you to make choices through dialogue options that will directly affect the story’s outcome.

The Arcade mode brings a high replay value to the game and includes the new Rhymesayer levels featuring the music of Aesop Rock. This was previously not available in the initial PC and Switch release. The new levels will be added for free if you have Freedom Finger for the aforementioned platforms, however. All the levels from the campaign can also be played in any order. Additionally, the difficulty and censorship options are also available to you in arcade mode. At the end of an arcade level, it gives you a score, a rating, and there’s a leaderboard to compare your scores against other players.

Admittedly, Freedom Finger’s simple gameplay does become redundant. While enemies and surroundings constantly change, the basic combat is to shoot, punch, grab, and avoid damage with very little diversity in the game’s rhythm. Scattered amongst the levels you can pick up shield and health power-ups, but once again, nothing that changes up gameplay.

That’s not to say the game isn’t entertaining, but as I continued to play, I just hoped for something that would break up the basic gameplay such as special power-ups. Some enemies can be grabbed, and either thrown or held onto, which allows you to use their projectile weapons as your own. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear which enemies can be grabbed, so it often leads to severe damage trying to figure it out.

“When I sat down to play Freedom Finger for the first time, the real world crumbled around me.”

From a technical perspective, Freedom Finger ran and performed nearly perfectly. The only slight defect I noticed was sometimes the dialogue dropped. It’s a short campaign that I played through in one sitting. However, what it lacks in length, it compensates with a fun and challenging experience that was highly entertaining for little more than the cost of a movie ticket.

When I sat down to play Freedom Finger for the first time, the real world crumbled around me. We are facing a worldwide pandemic so frightening that it feels as if our real lives have become the plot of a movie or video game. Our only defense against the evil coronavirus seems to be hand-washing and isolation. For a few hours, Freedom Finger was able to take me out of this harsh reality and I briefly forget the world was burning and that I’m in a constant state of fear and quarantine. Maybe that’s just what the world needs right now; a quirky game where you take down enemies by controlling a giant hand with its middle finger extended.

March 25, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/freedom-finger-review-fist-of-fury/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=freedom-finger-review-fist-of-fury

[bluewatsons]

Jon Savage, Meek by name, wild by nature, The Guardian (November 11, 2006)

The extraordinary producer Joe Meek recorded British pop's first out and out gay classic, and within six months had shot himself dead. Jon Savage traces the impact of sexuality on Meek's life in the Sixties when persecution and criminal prosecution were very real threats

On 12 August, 1966, the Tornados released their last ever record with Joe Meek. Beginning with the sound of waves and seagulls, 'Is That a Ship I Hear?' bore all its producer's hallmarks: the boot-stomping drums, the extraterrestrial keyboard sound, and fierce, fierce compression. Like its predecessor, 'Pop-Art Goes Mozart', it was constructed around a gimmick. Meek hoped that the title and the ocean effects would convince the DJs on the pirate stations - Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio City et al - to put his new record on heavy rotation. Just when the pirates' influence on the British charts was at its height, it seemed like a good angle.

However, this was not the Tornados' time. On 12 August, Revolver was on its first week in the British record shops. Blonde on Blonde was issued on the same day as 'Is That a Ship I Hear?'. While the Dylan album got detailed track by track rundowns in the British music press, the Tornados got short shrift: 'a whistleable little melody of promise'; 'good of its kind and doubtless a hit three years ago, but not for today's market'. It had been a long slow fall since 'Telstar', number one in the UK for five weeks in autumn 1962: the group hadn't had a hit since late 1963 and there were none of the original members left.

Yet while 'Is That a Ship I Hear?' was a shameless attempt to ride the pirate wave, the flip was something quite different. 'Do You Come Here Often?' begins as a flouncy organ-drenched instrumental and stays that way for over two minutes. By that time, most people - had they even bothered to even turn the record over - would have switched off. Had they remained they would have heard two sibilant, obviously homosexual voices bitching, well, just like two queens will.

The scenario is the toilet in a London gay club, possibly the Apollo or Le Duce. The organist is still pumping away, but that's only background, as the sound dims and the bar atmosphere comes in.

'Do you come here often?'

'Only when the pirate ships go off air.'

'Me too.' (giggles)

'Well, I see pyjama styled shirts are in, then.'

'Well, pyjamas are OUT, as far as I'm concerned anyway.'

'Who cares?'

'Well, I know of a few people who do.'

'Yes, you would.'

'WOW! These two, coming now. What do you think?'

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'Mmmmmm. Mine's all right, but I don't like the look of yours.'

(A sniffy pause)

'Well, I must be off.'

'Yes, you're not looking so good.'

'Cheerio. I'll see you down the 'Dilly.'

'Not if I see you first, you won't.'

Exeunt, to swelling organ.

This brief but diverting exchange has the ring of authenticity. Its bickering is not just beastliness but the most important component of the camping which, as English academic Richard Dyer writes, is 'the only style, language and culture that is distinctively and unambiguously gay male'. In its social mode, camp privileges a caustic wit, best expressed by the quick-fire verbal retort, partly as a form of aggression, partly as a form of self-mockery, partly as a form of self-defence. It's an insider code that completely baffles the heterosexual majority, as it's meant to. (Why are they being so horrible to each other? Because it's good sport, and good practice for when you really need it.)

Like the Negro 'dirty dozens' - the ritualised insults of the Twenties and Thirties that have become embedded in rap - the camping spotlighted on 'Do You Come Here Often?' represents a complicated response to a hostile world. Its poisoned psychological arrows can help to control and neutralise the threat of homophobic violence: many bullies are right to fear the queen's forked tongue. Camping can provide a bulwark from which the gay man can sally forth into the world at large: it freezes the typecasting of homosexuals as effeminate, internalises it, and then throws it back in the face of the straight world as a kind of revenge.

However, that long 'mmmmmm', reverberating right through the diaphragm down to the male G-spot, gets to the heart of the matter. Meek's queen bitches are briefly united by an unstable mixture of camaraderie and competitiveness. Ever hopeful, ever alert, the gay man in cruising mode is relentless in pursuit of cock: the usual social rules go right out of the window. Sex drives the gay scene, its iconography, its economy, its inner and outer life. Meek's scenario highlights that heart-stopping instant, that highwire walk between acceptance and rejection that every gay man knows: when the Adonis turns into a Troll - not just the object of your desire but your own self.

'Do You Come Here Often?' was an extraordinary achievement: the first record on a UK major label - Columbia, part of the massive EMI empire - to deliver a slice of queer life so true that you can hear its cut-and-thrust in any gay bar today. Before 1966, homosexuality had been hinted at in odd mainstream records like Donovan's 'I'll Try For the Sun' or the Kinks' 'See My Friends', indeed had saturated Meek epics like 'Johnny Remember Me', but the allusions had been veiled. They didn't offer an insider viewpoint, just a mood or a stray word that seemed to briefly open a door usually locked and barred.

Since the early Sixties, there had been a trickle of products aimed at a market that was so off- the map as to be beyond marginal. Apart from Rod McKuen's vague but signifying spoken-word albums such as In Search of Eros , all of them were on tiny, fly-by-night labels. They took two different forms. Some took the Rod McKuen path: the sad young men, fated to wander through the twilight world of the third sex, condemned, like Peter Pan, to always be on the outside looking in. Their sensitive meditations on lust and loneliness were dramatised by covers of show tunes.

While these tragic figures, in accepting their exiled status, took care to be non-specific, the period's other archetypes were far more feisty. Unlike their more sober compatriots, drag queens could not pass, and so camping was honed into a corrosive chatter that could strip paint at 10 paces. Dovetailing into the market for outrageous adult albums by the likes of Rusty Warren ( Banned in Boston! ), nitroglycerin queens like Rae Bourbon, Mr Jean Fredericks and Jose from the Black Cat offered frank meditations on queer life: 'Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's 40', 'Sailor Boy', et al. Too real and too ghettoised, none had a hope of finding any wider distribution.

There were firm reasons for this state of affairs.

Although the law that would decriminalise it was passing through Parliament during 1966, homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, as it was in the US: punishable by prison and social ostracism. However, laws do not always reflect contemporary realities, and gay people continued to conduct their illegal sexual and social lives. For older men like Joe Meek, pleasure might have been irrevocably stained by guilt but, for the upcoming generation of 20 year olds, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 was an anachronistic irrelevance. Fuck Lily Law and her evil twin, Laura Norder.

In fact, Joe Meek was unusually privileged, if only he had been able to take some comfort from that realisation. The music industry was one of the few places where gay men could be themselves, and indulge their sexual predilections in a way that was economically viable. Forty years ago, it was far from being the respectable career option that it is today, and indeed derived much of its energy from its outcast status. This was a natural consequence of its roots in showbusiness and theatre, but even more basic was the way in which the sexual and social aesthetic of genuine innovators such as Larry Parnes alchemised the raw material of working-class adolescents into hit parade gold. From 1957 on, Parnes bossed British rock'n'roll, and transformed all his Reginalds and Ronalds into a new Olympus peopled by emotional deities-cum-archetypes like Billy Fury, Dickie Pride, Vince Eager, Georgie Fame. His sensibility, and that of many who followed him, transmuted gay lust into the erotic longing that excited the passions of the young women who pushed these idols into the charts.

Meek arrived as the period's foremost independent producer with John Leyton's summer 1961 smash, 'Johnny Remember Me', an eldritch spasm that epitomised the heightened melodrama of teenage emotions. (Meek used to speed up all his records to achieve that very effect.) It also acted as a metaphor, for those who chose to hear, for the sense of loss and disassociation that many gay men then felt. 'Telstar' confirmed his elite sta tus and, although superseded by the Beat Boom, he was able to pull out huge hits such as 'Have I the Right?' by the Honeycombs, a summer 1964 number one and an oblique comment on his own blocked right to sexual and emotional fulfilment.

This was his last chart-topper, but Meek adapted to the prevailing conditions better than most of his contemporaries. Although identified with Fifties rock'n'roll - Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran in particular - he was too restless and forward-thinking to get totally trapped in the past. He made a stone freakbeat classic with the Syndicats' 'Crawdaddy Simone', a Brit R'n'B record so frenzied that it put the Yardbirds' rave-ups to shame. His 1966 singles with the Cryin' Shames featured the sinuously menacing garage stomper, 'Come on Back', while the overwrought vocal contortions of 'Please Stay' - Meek's last ever hit - attracted the attention of Brian Epstein.

Although he found it difficult to place many of his productions during 1966, Meek was far from being a spent force: his interest in the possibilities of sound remained vital. He also remained a player among the British music industry's gay mafia. During the brief entente cordiale that followed 'Please Stay', Meek accompanied Brian Epstein to witness Bob Dylan's June 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert from the Beatles' box. When the freezing of all 'Telstar' royalties thanks to a copyright dispute threatened to render him bankrupt later in the year, Meek was thrown a lifeline by the EMI chairman, Sir Joseph Lockwood, who offered him a job as an in-house producer.

'Do You Come Here Often?' also emerged into a more open cultural climate. The playwright Joe Orton had used camp's caustic cadences in his smash 1964 West End success Entertaining Mr Sloane : this was the key weapon in his desired 'mixture of comedy and menace'. The extremely popular BBC radio serial Round the Horne featured two flagrant queens talking in the gay argot of the time. Executed by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, Julian and Sandy's quickfire Polari - that mixture of gypsy language, cockney backward slang, and thieves' cant - slotted right into the verbal surrealism that the Goons had made the hallmark of British comedy.

At the beginning of the decade, Meek had entitled his futuristic but stillborn space concept album I Hear A New World . Music is always ahead of social institutions, and the new world that Meek had dreamt of became tangible after 1963. The Beatles' unprecedented success marked the death knell of the Fifties hegemony, and during the next few years, the agitation for social and sexual liberation gathered pace throughout the Western world: the civil rights struggle, the women's movement, the campaigns for homosexual equality in America and Britain. The long years of stasis and repression banked up the flood, and it was ready to burst.

The most obvious sign of this uprising was teen fashion's hothouse blooms, as young women went Op and young men squeezed themselves into striped hip-huggers and polka-dot shirts - topped off with Prince Valiant bangs. 1966 saw the full mainstream media recognition of Swinging London and its associated fashion, mod. Trumpeting the 'revolution in men's clothes', Life's 13 May cover showed four young men, making like Brian Jones in front of the Chicago skyline. The cutaway teal corduroy jackets, Rupert Bear check trousers and fruit boots were not standard male gear, and the copy played up the freak-ish angle: 'The Guys Go All Out To Get Gawked At'.

Mod's hint of mint was not entirely in the heads of hostile observers. Peter Burton, who ran London's Le Duce in those years, remembered the crossover between the mods and his young gay clientele: 'both groups paid the same attention to clothes; both groups looked much alike.' Not surprising really, as their clothes came from the same shops - initially Vince in Carnaby Street (whose catalogue of swim- and underwear could almost be classified as an early gay magazine) and eventually from the John Stephen shops in the same street. Both groups took the same drug - basically 'speed', alternatively known as 'purple hearts', 'blues', 'doobs' or 'uppers'.

In February 1966, the Kinks had a huge UK hit with their dissection of this Carnebetian army. They backed up the risque 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' - 'he pulls his frilly nylon panties right up tight' - with some extraordinary costumes, like the thigh-length leather waders sported with such gusto by Dave Davies. On the flip was one of the period's definitive statements of outsider pride, 'I'm Not Like Everybody Else', to be racked up against other garage band staples like the Yardbirds 'You're a Better Man Than I' and the Who's 'Substitute'. These calls for non-conformity and the acceptance of difference were becoming more and more strident.

This urgency defined pop's cutting edge during the first half of 1966: the unforeseen complexities and demands of 1965's emblematic records were amplified, their abrasion and innovation honed to a razor-sharp point. 1966 was a hot year, crowded with clamour and noise as seven-inch singles were cut to the limits of the then available technology. Hit 45s by the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Supremes, James Brown, the Byrds, the Who, Junior Walker, Wilson Pickett, and Bob Dylan were smart and mediated, harsh and sophisticated, monomaniacally on the one or, raga-like, right out of Western perception into the eternity of one chord.

A blistering hostility was in the air on 12 August, so much so that you could taste it. That day the Beatles faced the first concert of their third American tour, an event marred by the controversy surrounding John Lennon's comment that the group were 'more popular than Jesus'. The formerly inviolable avatars of youth were suddenly vulnerable as DJs burned Beatles' records and the Ku Klux Klan threatened.

Time magazine's 12 August cover - 'The Psychotic and Society' - featured Charles Whitman, the sniper who installed himself in the clock tower at the University of Texas and, without warning, killed 15 and wounded 31 people. The horror triggered an anguished self-examination: Whitman's 'senseless mayhem' was not an aberration but intimately linked to American society. 'Potential killers are everywhere these days,' a psychiatrist warned; 'they are driving their cars, going to church with you, working with you. And you never know it until they snap'.

Across the Atlantic, 12 August saw 'the worst crime London has known this century'. Around 3pm, three police officers stopped a suspicious looking van near Wormwood Scrubs prison, north of the mod stronghold Shepherd's Bush. All three were gunned down by the vehicle's three occupants. A 10-year-old boy saw the whole thing: 'I saw a man shoot the policemen,' he told the newspapers; 'it was horrible and I was so scared.' Cop-killing was a huge taboo, and the nation recoiled.

'Do You Come Here Often?' partook of that season of violence, as did its author. Its candid dialogue uncovered a deep seam of outcast aggression. Camp's downside is that, unless employed with a light touch and a sure understanding of the game's rules, its ritualised viciousness can reinforce the hostility of the wider society. Peter Bur ton remembered that when he was entering the gay scene in the mid-Sixties, nothing 'was more daunting as an encounter with some acid-tongued bitch whose tongue was so sharp it was likely to cut your throat. These queens, with the savage wit of the self-protective, could be truly alarming to those of us of a slower cast of mind.'

Internalised homophobia fuels the twisted expression of an outcast's low self-esteem: instead of fighting the oppressors, why not fight those nearest to hand? Donald Webster Cory's groundbreaking 1951 survey, 'The Homosexual in America', had clearly identified poor self-esteem as one of the greatest threats to gay men's mental health - infecting every aspect of life - but it was difficult, given society's attitudes, to break the cycle of prejudice and self-hatred. Despite his bravado, Meek felt his homosexuality as a deep source of shame. He was too stubborn to tell it otherwise than it was but, ultimately, 'Do You Come Here Often?' presented gay life as a nitroglycerin nightmare.

Born in April 1929, Meek was sensitive, almost clairvoyant, but highly volatile. Brought up as a girl for the first four years of his life by a mother who had hoped for a daughter, uninterested in most boyish pursuits, Joe was called a sissy and left alone by most of his peers. This difference, coupled with his hair-trigger temper, led to the start of the persecution (both real and imagined) that lasted for the rest of his life.

As soon as he could, Meek fled rural England for London, but in the late Fifties, despite his reputation as one of the best sound engineers in the capital, he remained haunted by the fact that his emotional and sexual orientation was illegal. This laid him open, as it did generations of gay men, to ridicule, arrest, imprisonment, violent attacks and - perhaps worst of all - blackmail. In November 1963, Meek was arrested for cottaging, importuning in a public toilet: the news of his conviction made the front page. His friends were amazed. Joe could have had all the young men he wanted, as they were queuing up to be recorded by him: they concluded that he actually liked the risk.

It didn't help that Meek was spooky: obsessed with other worlds, with graveyards, with spiritualism. He claimed to be in regular contact with Buddy Holly through the spirit world, while the negativity that he experienced clung to him like worn-out, not yet shed skin. Charles Blackwell - who arranged 'Johnny Remember Me' - remembered Joe as scarier than Phil Spector: 'He was a split personality. He believed he was possessed, but had another side that was very polite with a good sense of humour. He was very complicated.' Meek terrified the usually confident Andrew Loog Oldham: 'He looked like a real mean-queen teddy boy and his eyes were riveting'.

By mid-1966, Meek's mental state was worsening as his heyday receded into the past. Giving free rein to his instincts with 'Do You Come Here Often?', he gained satisfaction from exposing a reality long suppressed. But this was a small victory, a transient revenge, as the forces ranged against him gathered speed. Jekyll overtook Hyde, as his money troubles and declining fame caused him to up his pill intake and to dabble further in the occult. He was beaten up and his prized Ford Zodiac trashed. He was also threatened by gangsters who wanted to take over the Tornados' management. His paranoia was justified; his loneliness became all-consuming.

Meek's slide into the depths of decline was played out against a minatory pop climate. Disturbance had already hit the US top 10 that summer with Napoleon XIV's banshee 'They're Coming to Take Me Away' and Count Five's 'Psychotic Reaction'. During September and October, the pure punk propulsion of Love's 'Seven and Seven Is', the Yardbirds' 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' and the Rolling Stones' 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?' rode the year's white line fever right off the rails. The last was an amphetamined apocalypse, glossed thus by Andrew Loog Oldham: 'The Shadow is the uncertainty of the future. The uncertainty is whether we slide into a vast depression or universal war.' Later that autumn, David Bowie's 'The London Boys' and the Kinks' 'Big Black Smoke' delivered bleak cautionary tales of speed psychosis. Meek's own productions - the few that were actually released - had already reached new levels of pill-saturated oddity: the bizarre helter-skelter rhythm of Jason Eddy and the Centremen's 'Singing the Blues', the nuclear-winter visions of Glenda Collins's late protest, 'It's Hard to Believe It'.

Like the Marvelettes sang, the hunter gets captured by the game, and, in January 1967, Meek's game was up. While his last ever single, the Riot Squad's 'Gotta Be a First Time', was dismissed as 'a corny bit of beat', he was implicated by association with a gruesome gay crime dubbed 'the Suitcase Murder'. Although the hapless producer had nothing to do with the young victim's dismemberment, the police interest tipped him over the edge. On 2 February, he burst into a friend's house all dressed in black, claiming he was possessed. The next morning, the 18th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, he blasted his landlady with his shotgun before eating the barrel himself.

Joe Meek's was an extreme pathology, to be sure, with its incredible highs - just listen to the aerated hysteria of John Leyton's 'Wild Wind' - and annihilating lows, but what remains shocking is just how much his suicidal impulse was shared by many gay men of his generation. In his diary for 11 March 1967, Joe Orton wrote about a conversation he had with his friend Kenneth Williams, by then a national figure in the UK for his appearances in Round the Horne and the Carry On film series. Orton found Williams 'a horrible mess' sexually: 'He mentions "guilt" a lot in conversation. "Well, of course there is always a certain amount of guilt attached to homosexuality".'

Williams talked to Orton about a friend who had been caught soliciting: 'Found in a cottage she was,' he said. 'They gave her a choice of gaol or a mental home. She chose the mental home. "Well," she said, "there's all the lovely mental cock. I'll be sucking all the nurses off. I'm sure it'll be very gay." Kenneth said this man went into the mental home and was given some kind of treatment "to stop her thinking like a queen". The man apparently was very depressed after this and committed suicide. Kenneth then spoke of all the people he'd known who killed themselves ... he told all the stories in a way which made them funny, but it was clear that he thinks about death constantly.'

By early 1967, Orton was so successful and well-regarded that he had access to the new elite. He was approached by Brian Epstein to write the screenplay of the Beatles' third movie, which he titled 'Up Against It'. His diary entry for 24 January describes meeting Paul McCartney and listening to a pre-release copy of 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. As the public avatar of the new, aggressive homosexuality and, in private, an enthusiastic sex hunter - one of his most memorable diary entries concerned an orgy in a public toilet in Holloway Road in north London, just down the road from Meek's studio - Orton totally rejected Williams's sexual guilt as the holdover from a bygone era.

But even he could not escape its shadow, embodied by his older partner, Kenneth Halliwell. As the playwright's star rose, the balance of their 15-year relationship tipped irreversibly. The more that Orton flaunted his promiscuity and revelled in his success, the more depressed and inhibited Halliwell became. On 9 August 1967, he murdered Orton with nine frenzied hammer blows to the head, and then swallowed 22 Nembutals. Their bodies were found side-by-side in their shared bedsit.

Eighteen days later, the body of Brian Epstein was found in the locked bedroom of his Belgravia house. The cause of death was, according to the coroner's report, 'poisoning' by Cabrital - a kind of sleeping pill. Epstein's mental state had deteriorated since August 1966, after the Beatles' stopped touring: he hadn't been able to attend their last ever show at San Francisco's Candlestick Park because his then current boyfriend, a hustler called Diz Gillespie, had robbed him of money and valuable documents. According to his attorney and close friend Nat Weiss, that accounted for 'his first major depression: that was the beginning of his loss of self-confidence.'

The deaths of Meek, Orton and Epstein occurred just at the point when the freedoms of the Sixties were institutionally recognised, in Britain at least. As well as the relaxation of the laws on abortion and divorce, the famous 1885 statute that had done for Oscar Wilde and several successive generations of gay men was finally overhauled. The Sexual Offences Act, which became law right at the end of July 1967, substantially decriminalised homosexuality: allowing for the existence of gay social and sexual relationships, it removed the threat of blackmail and enabled the first, very basic steps to be taken towards the ultimate goal of total parity.

'Hey, you've got to hide your love away,' John Lennon had sung in one of the Beatles' most poignant songs, and, for almost every adult gay man born before the mid-1940s, the strain of having to do so was psychologically disastrous. In far too many cases, the result was alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive cruising, crippling guilt, an inability to form lasting emotional relationships - a monstrous waste of lives.

Reactions to the new law within the gay underworld were not always positive: a renewed bout of 'queer-spotting' in the media unleashed all the old venom about bestial 'buggers'. The historian Jeffrey Weeks remembered meeting men who were 'actively hostile, nervous that the new legality would ruin their cosily secret double lives'. In the same way that the gay underworld had existed despite, if not in defiance of, the law, then the long fought-for turnaround towards partial acceptance would not easily erase the decades of vitriol and prejudice. 'We'll be free,' Kenneth Halliwell had exclaimed to Joe Orton in late July, but it wasn't that simple.

Nearly four decades on, 'Do You Come Here Often?' remains sad, eerie, funny, and true: you can still hear its vivid vituperation in the gay hardcore dance records of the 21st century. By the same token, it is time-locked, a bulletin from a pivotal point in homosexual history: that moment when an oppressed minority began to claim its rightful place in society. However, that struggle was not without its sacrifices. Like Orton and Epstein, Meek would not live to see the sun, and his August 1966 single remains testament to the lethal power of the homophobia that, once rampant in Western society, is still virulent. Guilty pleasures can kill.

· 'Do You Come Here Often?' is available on Queer Noises, an anthology of gay records from 1960-78 curated by Jon Savage, out now on Trikont. A great collection of Meek's recordings, including most of the other records referred to here, is available on The Alchemist of Pop: Home Made Hits and Rarities 1959-1966 (Sanctuary UK 2xCD). An expanded version of this article originally appeared in Black Clock (California Institute of the Arts) Issue 4: Guilty Pleasures. Thanks to Steve Erickson

Hey Joe

The sixties' space cadet

Since his death, Joe Meek's reputation as a pioneer of space-age pop and an eccentric English Phil Spector has grown apace. But in the early Sixties the record industry hardly knew what to make of the man who made a series of hits from his home studio at 304 Holloway Road in north London.

Born in 1929 in the Forest of Dean, he developed an early obsession with gadgets which he nurtured while working for the Midlands Electricity Board and which found full rein when he started to make records in 1956. The best-known of these - John Leyton's 'Johnny Remember Me', the Tornados' 'Telstar' - sounded like nothing else and, far ahead of George Martin, Meek used the studio as an instrument, taking mixing desks apart, playing tapes backwards and adding washes of sci-fi inspired effects. The fact that in his studio people played guitar in the bathroom while others sang on the stairs only adds to the fun.

Scorned by the mainstream, Meek launched his own label, so becoming an indie pioneer in yet another field. Members of Meek's house bands became huge stars a decade later - Ritchie Blackmore, who played the guitar solo on Heinz's 'Just Like Eddie', went on to form Deep Purple, along with the Syndicats' Roger Glover, whose guitarist, Steve Howe, joined Yes.

[theretroperspective-blog]

Let It B

Ah, the B-movie. It had been a source of entertainment for many a stood-up date or theater talk-back participant about as long as the genre has existed. But what IS a B-movie? We've all seen 'em ( and know almost instantly when we have), but what makes a film "B"? What does a movie need in order to be "B"? And what of the iconic B actor? Who chooses to have a career that, in its basest form, means 'sub-par'? B-ACK STORY B-movies (the term) first came about during Hollywood's Golden Age. The name was for movies meant for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom-half of a double feature. In the later '20's (27-28), during the final days of the silent era, the production cost of feature films from major studios averaged between $190'000 to $275'000. During the time when bigger budgeted films weren't being made, studios still had to pay for sound stages, actors they had on retainer, and hired crew. These studios would make low-budget (i.e. lower quality) flicks in order to make extra cash as well as continue to use their people (mostly to keep them from fleeing to other studios), and would sell these lower films alongside their major productions. In laymens' terms, a B-movie is much like the B-side of an album. (For my youngun's, albums are what music USED to come on. Questions at the bottom, please.) Basically these smaller, cheaper flicks got put into theaters to cover run times between bigger pictures. This then led to micro-budgeted studios creating their own B-movies to sell to the studios at cost (usually producing them at around $30'000 and recouping cost plus). All of this comes about, again, due to the end of the silent era. During that time films were preceded by live acts and a variety of short films and news reels. Once sound became law, those were mostly dropped, and in came cartoons and serials, which were followed by a double feature, the first being the B-film, mainly to draw more money from the viewer. But the major studios soon caught on, developing B-units to produce those less expensive films on-site, nearly killing the indie studios (until the indie-wave of the 70's, but that's another blog). With this came the game of BLOCK BOOKING; or, to get access to a studios' more profitable features, theaters would HAVE to also buy their B-movie in a double-feature set. Along with this insidious scheme came BLIND BOOKING, where theaters would have to take the B-movie sight-unseen. In this way studios were assured a good profit on the lower-grade flick, no matter how awful it might be. The innocent years of Hollywood folks! However, many B-movies were serials, with an actor continuing to play the same character in each, such as the 'Andy Hardy' films staring Mickey Rooney. MOVING ON While the original meaning of the term B-movie ended with the double-feature production ceasing in the 50's, the term is still used for films that don't quite meet A-level criteria. "B-movie" now brings connotations of lower-quality films - which isn't ALWAYS true... To quote Wiki: "In it's current usage, the term has somewhat contradictory connotations; it may signal an opinion that a certain movie is (a) a genre film with minimal artistic ambitions ("Sharknado"), or (b) a lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed on more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively 'serious' independent film ("Turbo Kid"). Or, in more basic terms: A B-movie is a low-budget commercial film that's NOT art house. The term is now also used for high-budgeted flicks with exploitation-style content (such as much of Tarantino's work). But much good has come from the B-movie genre! Some high profile directors like Jonathan Demme began with B-movies. And it's where many A-level actors got their starts. Recent Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio got his start in "Critters 3". "June Bug" star Amy Adams got through in "Cruel Intentions 2". And Charlize Theron didn't even have a line in "Children of the Corn 3 : Urban Harvest". And one of the more well known is Jennifer Aniston's turn in the cult classic (and where's my blog on those?) "Leprechaun". And neat-o, there's my segway! BACTORS Both John Wayne and Jack Nicholsen got their start in B-movies, too. As well as our former president Ronald Reagan, who was a B-movie star before he ran our country. But there are MANY actors who are known simply for their B-movie work alone. Here's a list of them (in no order other than as I remember them). PJ SOLES: I know her from the 1979 "Rock 'n' Roll Highschool", about a young girl who idolized one of the world's greatest bands, the Ramones; but she also played the tomboy menace Norma in "Carrie", and doomed-to-die friend Lynda in "Halloween". CRISPIN GLOVER: He became a Hollywood staple, and Lorraine's 'density' in "Back to the Future" as George McFly, and recently was the Red Knave in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", but Glover got his start way back in 81 in a TV movie called "Best of Times", and as the star of the cult hit "Willard". MEG FOSTER: She was a woman looking for love - round 2 - in "The Step Father 2", and played 'Holly' in "They Live" alongside Rowdy Piper, but is most recognized portraying Evil-Lyn in the live-action He-Man movie, "Masters of the Universe". CLINT HOWARD: The brother of director Ron Howard, Clint began as a child actor, but has continued with films like "The Ice-Scream Man", "The Fun House Massacre", and "Nobody Gets Out Alive". TOM SAVINI: Tom was originally a SFX creator for "Friday the 13th", but he's also had quite the acting career in films like "Creep Show 2", "From Dusk 'till Dawn", and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". BRAD DOURIF: He's now a part of the "Lord of the Rings" legacy since playing Wormtongue in "The Two Towers", but he's always been well known by voice, if not face, as Chuckey in every single "Child's Play" film in the franchise. He also stared alongside Jack Nicholsen in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". MICHAEL IRONSIDE: Most recently he portrayed the zealot Zeus in the fantastic "Turbo Kid", but Ironside's been working since the 70's, including "Scanners", "The Hitchhiker", and a personal favorite, the TV show "Sea Quest". CHRISTOPHER LAMBERT: The one and only true 'Highlander', Lambert's also known for playing Lord Rayden in the live-action version of "Mortal Kombat". CLANCY BROWN: I first spotted him in "Highlander" as well, playing psychopath Victor Kruger, but Brown's gone on to have a formidable career on-screen as well as with voice work, playing Lex Luthor in the animated "Superman" series. But I also knew him as Drew's step-dad Gus from "Pet Semetary 2". BRUCE CAMPBELL: Probably the most recognized B-movie actor of all time, Campbell started in the "Evil Dead" series, and has continued being our hero in shows like "Burn Notice" and "Ash VS. the Evil Dead". This might be where I'd say "All hail the king, baby!", but you get what I'm saying. Moving on. BUT THEY'RE A TO US 'We all have different opinions' blah-blah, 'they're like assholes' yadda-yadda. But there have been B-movies that have, through that grand test of time, been elevated to A-level status by their fans. Usually they're referred to as 'Cult Classics', but we all know we'd watch them in leu of some of the newer, block-busting behemoths of today, given the choice. Maybe it's because of previously stated stars, maybe it's the special effects, or maybe they're just so off the beaten path that we just can't help but fall in love with their weirdness. So here are some of the best - no real order, and nowhere close to the total list. THE EVIL DEAD SERIES There's lots of arguments over whether the original film "Evil Dead" should be included, but Sam Rami's occult trilogy is deeply beloved. From the supreme low-budget gore to Bruce Campbell's chin, this series holds one of the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores on the site, even beating out it's recent remake. Eat it, Dead-its! IRON SKY What IS it with Nazi's?? Why do we like watching them die so damn much? Think it was the genocide? Pretty sure it was the genocide. What-ever, this film's premise is enough. Nazi's waiting on the dark side of the moon to launch a final attack on Earth. Wow. I'm pretty certain I know THAT'S how the funding came through. DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS I don't know a film fan that hasn't seen this movie. Its premise is its title. It's a bed. It eats people. SHARKNADO There's FOUR of these fucking movies. No wait, FIVE. I don't get it, but it hit a large enough portion of viewers. Welcome back, Tara Reid. THE BLOB Classic (in general and actual terms) B-movie fare. A gigantic blob that consumes everything in its way. First appearing in the 50's with a young Steve McQueen, it got remade in the 80's and is supposedly being remade again. ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES So, mutant tomatoes decide to start eating us. Vegetarians in the 70's were shaking in their faux suede shoes, I'm sure. BASKET CASE Oh man, do I love this one. A man is born with a homicidal deformed Siamese twin that gets detached via surgery, so the two brothers decide to go after those that separated them. And the deformed one gets carried around in a basket. GET IT?!?! POULTRYGEIST:NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD Full disclosure - I know one of the SFX guys who worked on this Troma feature. Just look for the talking shit sandwich. BEASTMASTER A guy who can talk to animals goes after a power hungry war lord who sacrifices children. And man-bats. TROLL 2 The best- worst movie ever made. But sadly, no trolls. Just goblins. Please go check some of these films out. PLEASE. You're just hating yourself if you don't. So B-movies live on, as they should. Because we all need to be reminded of what a mediocre world we really live in.