#i also remember the tvs in the hospital only had VHS

[newfeeling77]

i was looking thru boxes at my grandma’s and i found an afghan that i got in a care package from the JCC when i was 8 and in the hospital for a week. i assumed it got thrown out like most of my stuff after my parents died :( its so much smaller than i remember lol

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Wanna know about my history with soap operas? Well... I know that I’ve shared my love for Dominique Deveraux - TV’s First Black Bitch on the original Dynasty, but that wasn’t the only soap that I watched as a kid and while she was my first, here are a few more Black women in soap operas who I paid attention to (and mostly saw first on soaps).

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Senait Ashenafi ♡ Keesha Ward, General Hospital: This is one of my favorite soap girls of all times. She was sweet and pretty, and she was in one of my first ships as a preteen? I don't recall how old I was when I was watching this, but I was obsessed. I would rewatch her scenes with Jason all the time on VHS tapes. I stopped watching some time after they broke up.

Felecia Bell ♡ Simone Hardy, General Hospital: I did not watch General Hospital during the days of earlier Simone casting. But in my soaps heyday, and I mean I set the VCR for my soaps when I wasn't home and watched them when I got home, and Felecia Bell was Simone at that time period. I thought it was interesting to see a character that I was told had a historical landmark for daytime tv.

Renee Elise Goldsberry ♡ Evangeline Williamson, One Life to Live: I had many run ins with OLTL, but the last time I watched it, I had been lured back by one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life! I CRIED when she left the show. I tried to stick around to see what they'd do with her sister, but I quickly lost interest and have not seen the show since.

Rhonda Ross ♡ Toni Burrell, Another World: I wasn't extremely fond of this character, but she had the first Black rape survivor story arc that I can recall seeing and I still remember images of the court trail in my mind today. AND! She was the first Diana Ross child that I knew of. Diana Ross was so important to me in my childhood, her daughter was important by proximity.

Tracey Ross, Brook Kerr, Lena Cardwell ♡ The Russells, Passions: Sometimes... You see a show that is like a decade long fever dream. That show is Passions. Some might have called it a guilty pleasure, but I don't be guilty about my pleasures and Passions was my pleasure. NONSENSE! But very entertaining. I was not around for all them Simones, but Idk the two lightskint ones apart, so idk which one was on by the time I simply fell off this show.

Lynn Hamilton ♡ Cissie Johnson, Dangerous Women: I definitely didn't see her first in Dangerous Women, but her role in that, as Cissie Johnson was a pretty significant part of a short lived serious that I thought was amazing. It was about women who had been in prison, one fakes her death, escapes, Sqand gets plastic surgery, and there's a lot of stuff that revolves around the ex cons. Cissie was kind of a mammy character, in hindsight, but as a kid, she was a nice Black lady on a show full of snakes and liars.

She was also on Generations, a soap opera that I called, "The Black Soap Opera," because there were SO MANY Black people in the cast, and other soaps just did not do that back then.

Sidenote: Generations was the first time that I saw Vivica A. Fox, but I didn't learn her name until Patti Labelle's sitcom Out All Night. Y'all have NO IDEA how much I loved and watched any and every Black show they gave us, even though they never really lasted long. I missed Generations SO MUCH, despite it only being on for a couple of years.

Sharon Leal ♡ Dahlia Crede, Guiding Light: I thought she was the most beautiful woman ever to be on a soap opera. That was basically it. I was only sort of watching Guiding Light, so I barely remember anything about her character, but I collected every photo of her that they put into my mama's soap magazines.

Mari Morrow ♡ Rachel Gannon, One Life to Live: This character also has been recast several times, but during my consumption, it was Mari Morrow, when Rachel was in her addiction storyline.

Enuka Okuma ♡ Kelly, Fifteen: It took me a ridiculous amount of time to remember that Enuka had been Kelly on Fifteen!! I was excited to realize that, even though still to this day, nobody I speak with ever remembers this show. A Nickolodeon teen drama? Excellent, I loved it. Nick was so good in my day.

I included Arseman, even though I have not seen her since. But, she was rep too, so. There she is.

Sherri Saum ♡ Vanessa Hart, Sunset Beach: Now... this one is a little different, because I don't remember actually LIKING this character, but she's pretty and whenever I'd see people reblog that Fosters show, I'd always envision my older sister imitating her soap character's boyfriend saying her name (Because my sister hated his acting and imitated him funnily to me) First time I saw this lady and that man, but he later wound up in Shondaland.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Garcelle Beauvais ♡ Cynthia Nicols, Models Inc.: This show was a primetime soap. A spin off of Melrose Place. (Melrose Place being a spin off of Beverly Hills 90210), and Garcelle Beauvais gabe me EVERYTHING an angsty child needed inher soaps. This character went through SO MUCH and was SO important to me! She was bulimic. She had an obsessive ex who stalked her. Who KIDNAPPED her and assaulted her in front of her tied up new boyfriend. He had been sending her Black Barbie dolls bound and blindfolded, and when she got down with her new man, he yoinked her. She wound up having to kill him and I supported every moment of her in that one season of a show it feels like only me, my mama and my older sister watched.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Play Pretend

Spencer Reid x (gender neutral) Reader

Word Count: ~4170

Warnings: I don’t think there are any? Some language. Egregious amounts of fluff. A blanket fort and a Star Trek onesie. Gratuitous descriptions of Spencer Reid’s bone structure, because apparently I can’t help myself. 

A/N: For the “treat yo’ self” square on my @cmbingo​ card, and also for @railmereid​‘s 2k challenge! Prompt for the latter is bolded.

It’s been a godawful case, and in the BAU, that’s saying something. At least nobody ended up in the hospital this time? But as you all troop onto the jet in a straggly line of wrinkled clothes and puffy eyes, that’s about the brightest spot you can find in this whole fucking week. 

As you get settled, though, Hotch clears his throat. “Your attention, please. We’re taking a long weekend, Strauss’s orders.”

“Oh thank god,” you mutter under your breath.  

“Once we get back and grab our things, you are not to return to the office for a full seventy-two hours.” Hotch looks sternly (well, even more sternly) at Spencer, who’s on the couch next to you, curling up for a nap. “Understood? And you are not allowed to take case files home, Reid. I mean it this time.” 

“Understood,” he says grouchily. You can’t help but laugh at the pout on his face. 

“Seriously?” you ask. 

He shrugs, lips quirking up like he does actually realize what a ridiculous human being he is. “I have many talents, but ‘taking it easy’ is not one of them.” He does the air quotes, even.

“All those PhDs and you never got a degree in relaxation?” 

“That’s not—” He realizes you’re teasing and grins. “No. No I did not. I just… never really know what to do with myself, I guess?” 

“Shocking.” 

“What are you going to do, then?” 

“I am going to have a treat yo’ self day,” you declare proudly. 

“A what?” 

“You know, like in Parks and Rec?” He gives you a blank look. “No, you totally don’t know. Of course you don’t. But there’s this one episode where two of the characters have a ‘treat yo’ self’ day, and they go shopping and get, like, really self-indulgent things that they wouldn’t ordinarily buy themselves.”

He frowns. “You’re going shopping all weekend? You’ve never struck me as a particularly materialistic person.”

“Fuck, no. It’s more about indulging in experiences. Self-care. Things that make me feel relaxed. Just… whatever makes me happy.”

“Like what?” He still has this totally puzzled look on his face, with his nose wrinkled up. It’s so much more endearing than it has any right to be. 

“I like painting. I’m not good at it, but I like it, so I’m gonna get some new paints and a big canvas and make a mess, because it makes me happy.” 

“Huh.” 

“What about you, then? What do you do to relax?”  

“That’s… a good question, honestly.” 

“Well, what’s your idea of a perfect day?” 

Maybe it shouldn’t surprise you that self-care is a foreign concept to him. You wait patiently as he overthinks it.

“Perfect seems unrealistic,” he concludes wryly. 

“So, like, remember when you were a kid and you walked into a really awesome toy store?” you prompt. “Just feeling that sort of carefree, giddy kind of happy?” 

“Not really.” He shrugs. 

“What did make you feel like that, though?” you ask. “When you were younger? There had to be something.” 

“I think I just — I didn’t do much normal kid stuff.” He lets out a huff of a laugh and runs his hands through his messy curls, suddenly self-conscious. “Didn’t get to play pretend, or… I don’t know. Didn’t have time.” 

“Right,” you say softly. “Sorry.” 

“Nothing to be sorry about.” 

You nod, throat suddenly tight. “Yeah. Get some sleep, Spencer. Sweet dreams.” 

He gives you a tired half-smile and tugs his blanket up to his chin, tucking his hands under his cheek, and the dark hollows under his eyes are hidden by his long lashes as he falls asleep almost immediately. You need to rest too, but it takes you a while; you sneak a glance at him every so often, feeling that twist under your breastbone that happens all too often when you’re around Spencer. 

By the time the jet lands, though, you have a plan. 

* * * * *

You second-guess your plan approximately a thousand times on your way over to Spencer’s the next morning. When you get to his door, you almost convince yourself to walk away before you manage to knock; is this totally presumptuous? Is Spencer going to think you’re ridiculous? Is the whole thing just plain stupid? 

Then again, you were stupid enough to fall for Spencer in the first place, so. What’s another stupid decision on top of that whole mess? 

When he opens the door, he’s wearing pajama pants, a t-shirt, and a phenomenally hideous bathrobe, and he’s all messy-haired and sleepy-eyed, and for a moment you’re panicking because oh shit I woke him up. It’s almost noon, to be fair, but he did have some serious sleep to catch up on. Then you notice the coffee mug in his hand, and after a moment of relief, that morphs into more of a oh shit he’s so fucking beautiful type of panic. 

You’re used to that, though. 

Then you realize he’s staring at you, smiling but puzzled, and you haven’t explained yourself. Oops. 

“Um. Trick or treat yourself day?” you blurt out, hoisting your shopping bags and giggling at your own lame joke. “I… brought you something. Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you — I should’ve texted, I just—”

“You’re always a good surprise,” Spencer says shyly, and then seems to shake himself. “Come in. Sorry. Coffee?” 

“Please.” 

You set down your shopping bags and follow him to the kitchen, where he fixes you a mug of your own — exactly how you like it, because of course he remembers. Then he takes a couple deep gulps of his own sugar-sludge and tops it up, and by the time you go back out to the living room, he’s starting to look vaguely awake. 

“What’s all this about?” he finally asks, head cocked to look curiously at the bags. 

“Well,” you start slowly. Now that you have to say it out loud, it sounds even more stupid. “I was thinking a treat yourself day would be a lot more fun with company, and it seems like… maybe you’re overdue for some of that? For… self-indulgence, and just, like, enjoying yourself without worrying. And you deserve it. So. You wanna?” 

His eyes are soft and bright, oddly vulnerable, and a smile spreads slowly across his face, twitchy at the edges like he’s not sure he’s allowed to smile yet. 

“Really? I don’t know what to do, though.” 

“Well, I have some ideas about that. But first, you gotta make a deal with me.” The way he’s beaming makes you feel a whole lot more confident as you tell him, very seriously, “This is the sacred covenant of treat yourself day. You have to solemnly swear to do whatever you want. Anything you can dream up. Indulge every whim. Take an oath to give in to every one of your silly, random, frivolous desires, without any form of self-denial or doubt. Can you do that, Spencer?” 

“I can try,” he says, and his voice cracks. It’s like he can’t shape the words, with the way his smile has taken over his entire face. 

“Okay, good enough. And… I have a few ideas.” 

“Like what?” 

You shrug. “Like… some things I thought maybe you didn’t get to do as a kid? Here, let me—”

You rummage until you find what you were looking for, and then you turn around, holding it out like an offering. Spencer’s mouth drops open. 

“Is that a Captain Kirk costume?” he asks squeakily. 

“It’s a Captain Kirk onesie,” you correct. “And it’s for you.” 

“Holy—” 

He shucks the bathrobe and sets down his coffee hastily, and he’s zipping the onesie up before you can say “Beam me up,” looking down at himself with this joy on his face, totally giddy in a way you’ve never seen him before, and holy hell, even if he hates the rest of your ideas, this will be one hundred fifty percent worth it for the memory of that smile on Spencer’s face. 

“I have one too,” you admit, and pull your Chewbacca onesie out of your backpack. Once you’re both appropriately attired, you tell him, “Next order of business is cartoons.” 

“I don’t actually have TV?” he says apologetically. “I mean, I have a TV, but it’s only for —” 

You grin. “I came prepared, though!” 

Spencer’s the only person you know who still has a VHS player, but you’ve been holding onto some things you rescued from your parents’ attic a while back; you find your VHS of Tom & Jerry cartoons and wave it at him triumphantly. 

“I’ve never watched that before.” He examines the cover, bemused. 

“It’s essential viewing.” 

“Okay,” he says slowly.

While he performs whatever arcane ritual makes his ancient TV work (there’s like a rain dance and an animal sacrifice involved, you’re pretty sure) you settle on the couch, nesting in all the blankets and sipping your coffee contentedly. Spencer presses play and sits down next to you, but you can feel his uncertainty; he’s holding himself stiffly, and he keeps sneaking glances at you. 

“Spit it out,” you tell him, a few minutes in. “If you hate it, you can just say so, Spence. I won’t take it personally.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that! I just — is this really how you want to spend your Saturday?” 

“What do you mean?” You have a Chewbacca onesie, a perfect cup of coffee, and great company; you’re not entirely sure how this could get any better. 

“Doing nothing,” he mumbles. “This is… there are so many things you could be doing. Don’t you have a whole list of things you wanted to do? But instead… I don’t know. You’re here. With me.” 

Sometimes you want to scream until he realizes how awesome he is, but the screaming is probably not the best way to convey that particular message. 

Instead, you keep your voice very quiet as you tell him, “There is absolutely nowhere else I’d rather be right now.” 

It’s a little too true. Your cheeks burn as you turn back to the TV, trying not to dwell on the way you can see him watching you in your peripheral vision. 

“Okay,” he says hoarsely. He settles himself more comfortably into the blanket nest, and before long, he’s giggling along with you. 

You watch in peaceful silence for a little while, but at some point, Spencer’s stomach growls, and you pause the tape to make food — chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, as per his verdict on “ultimate treat food.” As it turns out, he knows a lot about the science of cooking, but not a whole lot about the actual practice, so he sits cross-legged in a chair and directs you to various cabinets as you measure and mix and whisk. When you get the batter poured out on the griddle, he’s pattering on about the chemical differences between baking soda and baking powder. 

He looks utterly dismayed when the first chocolate chip hits his forehead. Turns out his lack of hand-eye coordination applies to mouth-eye coordination too, and the floor is littered with semi-sweet projectiles before he actually catches one, but he’s laughing, so you really can’t bring yourself to care. 

The pancakes are a total success. When you’re both stuffed and sugar-high, you grab the syrupy plates and bring them to the sink for a quick rinse. 

“You don’t have to,” Spencer protests. You ignore him. His next words are much softer, scratchy and hoarse: “Thank you. I don’t — just — thank you.” 

“Nothing to thank me for,” you say briskly. Then you turn around, and you freeze, because he’s a whole lot closer than you thought he was; he’s right there, close enough that you could reach out and run your fingers through his hair, or trace the sharp line of his jaw. 

He has a tiny streak of whipped cream at the corner of his mouth, right where his lips curl up as he smiles, and for a second you can barely breathe with how much you want to stand up on your tiptoes and see if he tastes as sweet as he looks. 

For a second he looks like he wants you to. He’s frozen too, for a moment, and you can hear his breath catch, but then he scoops you up in a hug, squeezing tight. And yeah, it’s just friendly, but it’s a hug from Spencer, and that happens rarely enough that it feels like a treat of its own, so you go with it, forehead pressed to his shoulder, heart racing.

When he releases you, you tell yourself you’re not disappointed. 

“Right,” you say, bossy to cover how flustered you feel. “Back to business.” 

“I think I need more practice sitting still,” Spencer confesses, following you back out to the couch. “It feels weird just… not doing anything.” 

You pause, deliberating. “Well, we could keep our hands busy?” 

With a quick rummage, you produce paint and an extra large pad of paper, holding them up for Spencer’s inspection. He frowns. 

“I don’t have any paintbrushes.” 

“They’re finger paints,” you say, grinning, and he laughs. 

“Of course they are.” 

You set everything up on the coffee table while Spencer presses play, and the two of you sit down on the floor, side by side. Spencer looks down at his onesie, then at the paint, frowning. 

“It’s all washable, Spencer.” 

“Still,” he mumbles. “I don’t want to take it off, but —” 

He unzips the onesie halfway, peeling the arms off and letting the fabric bunch up around his waist. 

“There we go, putting that genius brain to work,” you tease, but you’re touched that he cares enough about your present to worry about stains. 

It’s hard to ignore how close you’re sitting. You do your best, keeping your eyes on either the TV or your masterpiece of Abstract Expressionism, but Spencer’s knee is pressed to yours, a constant warm pressure, and your hands keep brushing as you both reach for containers of paint, and you can smell him, like vanilla and maybe old books. The whole thing has you feeling flushed. 

Other than that, though, it’s comfortable. It’s always been easy to talk to Spencer, which makes sense considering how much he knows about every subject imaginable, but it surprises you sometimes how easy it is not to talk to him, too. Silence isn’t awkward, with him. Neither of you say anything for the next hour or so. You just giggle at the TV and paint, wordless and companionable, and it’s the happiest you’ve felt in… longer than you care to admit. 

Life is rarely perfect, especially not in your line of work, but this? This is pretty close. 

As the credits start to play, you stretch, and then you look at his paper. It takes you a second to recognize yourself, but the likeness is unmistakable. Spencer’s got the exact angle of your eyebrow when you’re looking at him skeptically — apparently you do that often enough that he’s memorized the expression. He somehow managed to capture your smile, the curve of your lips, all in tiny delicate pinky-strokes of purple and turquoise… trust Dr. Spencer Reid to bring that level of precision to finger-painting, and oh god you are not going to think about his fingers any more. 

“Do you like it?” 

“Yeah,” you manage. You clear your throat. “Yeah, I really do.” 

Then he makes it worse by rubbing the side of his neck, bashful and self-conscious, smearing blue-green paint from his collarbone to the sharp line of his jaw, and he’s so busy smiling at you that he doesn’t seem to notice. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple dips, shifting a streak of color, making it flicker. It’s such a silly thing, but it draws your attention to his skin — makes you want to touch. Worst of all, it reminds you that he’s already art, that the shape of him, the delicate precise way he’s put together, is more beautiful than anything you’ve ever seen in a museum. 

It reminds you that you want some things you can never, ever have. 

“You’ve got — um,” you say, gesturing helplessly. He blinks at you, slow like he’s coming out of a trance, and tucks his hair behind his ear, smearing more paint there before he remembers. You giggle, sharp and nervous, and it breaks the tension all at once. Spencer laughs too, rolling his eyes at himself. You get up clumsily to go grab a wet paper towel from the kitchen. 

The moment is gone, but your heart is still racing. 

“What’s next?” Spencer asks softly, once you’re both cleaned up. 

He missed a tiny spot; there’s a blue smudge right at the corner of his jaw, and you want to touch it, feel it under your fingertips, see if the skin is as soft as it looks, right there where the bone stretches it thin. 

“Blanket fort,” you blurt out, before you can do anything embarrassing. 

His eyes light up. 

It really shouldn’t surprise you that Spencer and his engineering PhD make quick work of a pile of sheets and clothespins. You’re pretty sure that he could revolutionize the entire field of blanket fort construction, if left to his own devices, but you keep poking him when he gets lost in his head or starts muttering calculations to himself. The point is having fun. 

The end result is a lot more Frank Lloyd Wright than any of your childhood creations, but Spencer looks absolutely gleeful, so. It’s the spirit of the thing. 

“One more thing,” you say. “Do you have any Christmas lights?” 

Spencer frowns. “I don’t — oh! Wait!” 

He runs to the closet, and he ends up halfway inside the closet, digging around on his hands and knees. You’re about to make a crack about Narnia when he comes out, holding up a box with a triumphant smile. 

You read the label: “Halloween decorations 3 of 4.” 

Because of course Spencer Reid has Halloween lights. He pulls out several long ropes of them; a couple are shaped like tiny skulls, one is strung with Jack-o-Lanterns, and two could pass as Christmas lights if they weren’t orange and purple. You help him detangle the knot of them and drape them over and through your fort, and when you turn out the normal lights and draw his heavy curtains, the whole thing glows in patches of orange and purple and white. 

“After you,” you tell Spencer, and he crawls in without any more prompting. 

There’s more than enough room to sit up, but Spencer is lying down on his back in the nest of blankets and pillows that you’d relocated from the couch. He’s staring up at the “ceiling” in silence, eyes glittering with some unreadable expression where they catch the twinkling shards of light. You make yourself comfortable next to him, looking up and wondering what he’s seeing. 

“I always wondered what the appeal was,” he whispers. “Of blanket forts. And… childhood in general, I guess.” 

“You grew up pretty fast, huh?” you say quietly. 

“Yeah. And I never — I feel like most of the team doesn’t take me seriously sometimes. Like I’m still a kid to them. I always feel like I have to prove myself.” 

Your instinct is to deny it automatically, but you know what he means. They laugh him off for his quirks, for the way he gets excited about things and for the things he gets excited about. That’s what’s so incredible about him, though: that dichotomy of knowledge and curiosity, the breathless excitement when he makes a discovery.

“I liked pretending I had my own little world,” you tell him. “Blanket forts. Felt like I could actually shut all the bad things out.” 

“Still feels like that,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice. 

“Nothing wrong with acting like a child, sometimes. We need that. Even if it’s just pretend.” 

“I think I get it now.” 

“Hmm?”

He’s silent for a long moment before he says, “In here, everything’s perfect.” 

“Or we can pretend it is.” 

You turn your head to find Spencer looking at you, and he doesn’t look away when your eyes meet. You barely want to blink for fear of breaking whatever spell you’re under. 

There’s something raw and earnest and almost scared shining all over his face, like you’re catching a glimpse of the child he used to be, before the world taught him to put on a brave face and keep his most intense feelings to himself. It makes you feel shaky in ways you were really not prepared for. 

There’s a heavy moment of silence. You’re painfully aware of how loud your breathing sounds. 

It’s a hell of a thing, to have his focus like this. You fell in love with him watching him work; you know how intensely he can devote himself to a task, to a puzzle, to a map… and every so often, when the two of you talk, he focuses all that brilliance on you, and he listens so completely that you feel his attention like a spotlight. 

That’s when he usually looks away, dropping his gaze like it’s something to be embarrassed about, because too many people have told him to stop staring. 

He’s not looking away now. He turns onto his side to completely face you, curling up in that sweetly childish way with his hands between his cheek and the pillow, and you mirror him.

“Feels like we’re alone.” 

He’s right; there are no distractions, no excuses to be made, no interruptions. It’s just the two of you, and it’s terrifying. 

“Feels safe,” you whisper, because that’s true too. Your heart is racing, and it’s like you can hear your pulse in your ears, but it’s the quietest sort of panic you’ve ever felt. “I think that was exactly what I wanted, after the last couple weeks. To get away. To feel safe.” 

There’s an orange light throwing most of his face into shadow, but you can see the corner of his mouth a little too clearly. You’re maybe a foot apart. It would be so easy — 

“We don’t get that often.” His voice is barely more than a breath. 

“Safety?” 

“That too, but —” His breath hitches, and he clears his throat. “What we want. I don’t usually get what I want, but this was — this was very close to perfect.” 

“Yeah, well, when is life ever perfect?” You manage a smile. “What would make it perfect? If you could have anything.”

“It’s not something I can have, though.” 

“So pretend. It’s just us, and there are no rules today. What would it be?”  

He bites his lip. “I don’t think —” 

“For once in your life, Spencer, stop overthinking it,” you half-laugh, and then he’s propping himself up on one elbow, shifting forward, leaning closer, close close close until he’s all you can see, and —

He kisses you. 

It’s the most gentle, feather-light brush of a kiss you’ve ever felt, barely more than a graze of his parted lips over yours. It’s there, and then it’s gone again before you can even begin to process the sensation. 

As your eyes flutter open you can already see the fear setting in, dark intense gaze fixed on you as he inhales sharply. 

You’re still trying to remember how to breathe; you’re too stunned to react beyond blinking at him. 

“I’m sorry. Can we just —” He shakes his head, hand over his mouth like he’s trying to hold onto the kiss. “Do you think we could pretend — can we pretend I didn’t do that? I’m so sorry.” 

“I don’t want to pretend,” you say shakily.  

He stares. 

This doesn’t seem real. It’s such a strange moment that you might as well be trapped in a Dali canvas. There’s fingerpaint on his face, and he’s wearing a Captain Kirk command uniform onesie, and there’s a tiny Jack-o-Lantern glowing over his head. If you’d imagined the “perfect” moment, this would not be it. 

But you reach out, running your fingertips over the dark smudge of paint on his jaw, and the skin is hot and smooth. He shivers at the touch. It’s real. 

“Spencer?” Your throat is tight, but you manage a choked, “I want you to kiss me again.” 

He does, with a careful hand cupped to your cheek and a smile curling his lips when they meet yours. You run your fingers through his hair, and you both laugh when they catch on dried paint. 

“Perfect,” he whispers. 

It really is. 

.

.

.

[forthegothicheroine]

The King in Yellow, 1949

Much of this story is true.  Warnings in the tags.

When I had pneumonia in my early teens, my mother brought home an armful of VHS tapes from the library to alleviate my misery.  Knowing my snobbish preferences, she had grabbed copies of whatever she found in black and white.  I remember something musical that I suspect was Busby Berkeley, I remember Mildred Pierce (a bad choice, as it turned out- the plot includes a young girl dying of pneumonia), and I remember a period piece called The King.  I faded in and out of consciousness while I watched it, but it soothed me while I was awake and filled my fever dreams with sparkling images.  I could never find it at the library again, nor at Hollywood Video or even early Netflix (once my father got the subscription service where you could order practically every DVD.)  It was a bit odd that it seemed to be so obscure, given that it starred old Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman (and, although I initially forgot it, Marlene Dietrich.)  But even big stars make films that fall by the wayside in public memory, and it seemed that this was one of them.  Google was no help, and at the time that was that.

I didn’t see the film again until I was watching Turner Classic Movies at my grandparents’ house.  I loved watching that channel with them while filling out the crossword puzzle that came in their little TCM catalogue (all of it based on movie trivia, the only kind of crossword puzzle I’ve ever been any good at.)  I recognized a certain scene where Bergman stood on a balcony, looking sadly at the moon.  Her face had an expression of unutterable melancholy, and the crescent moon reflected in each of her eyes, giving the impression of two moons in one sky.  I had very little time to catch up on what I’d missed before we had to go meet my cousins at the local Italian restaurant.  I knew logically that the movie would be long over by the time we returned, but I turned on the channel anyway.  Of course it had moved on to the lesser known Alfred Hitchcock film Stage Fright, but then I heard Marlene Dietrich sing before I could reach the remote to turn the tv off in disappointment.  I knew that I had heard her sing before, and I knew it had been in The King.

Dietrich’s singing often comes across as somewhat campy today, with its Rs pronounced as Ws and it’s up-and-down tone.  Madeline Kahn parodied it brilliantly in Blazing Saddles, such that it was a bit of a disappointment when I finally saw Dietrich’s western Destry Rides Again and found it to be lifeless and inconsistent next to the parody.  Still, we remember her voice for a reason, and when I remembered it that night, I knew that its sardonic loneliness had rung through The King and made me shiver in my dreams.

The TCM schedule didn’t list The King in its time slot, but something else.  If I had taken down the name, maybe it would have helped me find it.  Sometimes the same movie runs under multiple names.

I didn’t see the film all the way through for many years, after I graduated college.  I had found a web page that listed public domain film noir, including one called The Masked Guest.  The website described it as a costume noir, and I curiously clicked on the link.  Once I took in the credits running on the youtube window, my eyes grew wide and I did not move from my place on the bed until the movie had run its course.

The credits did indeed list it as The Masked Guest, but I recognized the strange repeating design on the title cards.  They told me that in addition to starring Dietrich and Bergman, it was directed by Fritz Lang, and a character called The King was credited to “???”  (I hadn’t seen that kind of credit since the first Karloff Frankenstein.)  When the King finally appears on screen, though, it is unmistakably Orson Welles’s voice that booms out from behind his elaborate costume.

Here are the things I understand about The King, or The Masked Guest, or The Man in Yellow, or any other title I’ve found for it on public domain archive searches.  Dietrich and Bergman play princesses named Cassilda and Camilla, respectively.  Though Dietrich’s accent is German and Bergman’s is Swedish, they blend together to give the film the impression of being set somewhere on the map that I can’t quite find.  The scenery and camera angles are very Freudian, with a great deal of archways and pillars.

The first act of The King involves frankly dull romantic plotlines, and the only thing that really saved it was the feeling that the suitors were supposed to be insipid, a suspicion lended credence by the fact that the love interests were listed so low on the credits.  Dietrich is the scandalous sister and Bergman is the responsible one, though each takes on aspects of the other as the film goes on.  Dietrich sings her song at a party, dressed in a fake 17th century gown and leaning against a piano.  Although just a moment ago she had been laughing and joking with her gentleman friends, her song takes an abruptly serious tone (not seductive, not sentimental) as she tells the story of a city lost to time and memory.  Bergman slips away from the party and onto the balcony, where we see that wonderful shot of the moon in her eyes.  Is she mourning?  Is she longing?

Dietrich cuts off the song by abruptly screaming “Not on us, King!  Not on us!”  She flees the party weeping and shaking, and from there on the film goes mad.

Though uncommon, it is not unknown for movies to switch between black and white and color, done most famously in The Wizard of Oz.  The film The King recalls here is the silent Phantom of the Opera, which had a masqued ball scene tinted in shades of red and green that tried to provide a whole spectrum of color.  The effect is even odder in the masqued ball scene in The King- the only color that appears is yellow, highlighting things like candlelight, Dietrich’s hair, a passing gown, a vase of tulips.  It also highlights one particular masked figure, whose expressionless mask was decorated with a black pattern against a sickening yellow canvas- the same pattern I had seen in the opening credits.  The color of his costume causes him to stand out from the crown even when he is far off in the background, just one head among many others.  It must have taken long and painstaking hours of work to color in every frame.

Dietrich still seems broken up days after her song, though Bergman tries to coax her into joining the dance.  Finally, at midnight, Dietrich goes out to face the party, but only to demand that every guest remove their mask.  The yellow man with a voice that once warned America about a Martian invasion tells her that he wears no mask.  Bergman reacts with disbelief, but Dietrich starts laughing like a woman unhinged.  As she laughs, the yellow hue seeps out of the King’s clothing and face- if that really is his face- and begins to color the entire ballroom crowd.  I think that what follows is bloodshed, but if there is any carnage (doubtful under the Production Code censorship), the blood must be tainted yellow and splashed across the camera like daubs of paint.  Dietrich’s laughing face is doubled and tripled on screen until it dissipates, but even when it has faded offscreen, it feels as if her ghost continues to watch the proceedings.  

By the end of the scene (filled with German Expressionist camera angles and mad violin screeching), only Bergman remains alive, cowering behind a grandfather clock.  It does not hide her for long.  The King steps towards her and extends his hand.  Reluctantly, but with a fatalistic expression, Bergman takes his hand.  They walk away together hand in hand.  The screen shifts back into black and white, and then the credits roll before we can get a good look at all the bodies in the scene.  The credits say it was based on a play called The King in Yellow, although Raymond Chandler of all people apparently had a hand in the screenplay.

As I said, that’s what I think I understand.  It’s an oddly experimental art film for the era, and it may be awaiting rediscovery by the film festival crowd.  I feel as if I alone know about it, though that obviously isn’t true.  It is my little secret; I tell myself that my husband doesn’t need me to show it to him, it would be too odd for his taste.  I’ve rewatched it many times, even if it seems like each time I search for it I have to find a different video platform or torrent.  Naturally, no subscription site has it available.  Maybe I am the last person who will ever watch it.  Maybe no one will ever think to look for it again after me, and it will be completely forgotten.

When I was hospitalized, they let me use my laptop at night before I went to sleep (no power cord, though, in case I tried to hang myself.)  I found a youtube link for The Man in Yellow, and I watched it every night.  It wasn’t a soothing sort of movie, but having it in my mind all day and then watching it in the evening allowed me to think as opposed to crying endlessly while the other patients shot me awkward looks.  I clutched the childhood stuffed animals my mother brought me when she visited, and I always held them extra tight when the masquerade scene started.

I watched the movie when I had to move away from my beloved San Francisco.  I watched the movie when I lost the last of my grandparents.  I watched the movie when a doctor unwisely took me off my medication and I couldn’t manage to eat for a month.  I watched the movie when the whole world got sick and we all locked ourselves away from each other.  I don’t mind that I don’t entirely know what it means.  I don’t mind the nightmares.  In the hospital they kept telling us about mindfulness exercises, and maybe the fact that I can focus on every aspect of the film so closely that all else falls away is the reason I keep coming back to it.  I’m being mindful.  I’m not letting any stray thoughts invade my head.  I’m just watching and waiting for the next beat of every scene, leading inexorably to that yellow-stained bloodbath.

Streaming media doesn’t last forever, and each time I find The King, I worry that it will be the last time I ever can find it.  My efforts to download it have so far been unsuccessful, odd considering that it is in the public domain.

When I watch The King, I am once again a child in my bedroom being cared for in the throes of agonizing sickness.  I am once again sitting on the couch with my grandparents in front of the tv, both of them alive and lucid again.  I am once again in the hospital, all alone except for my stuffed animals and the staff trying to keep me alive.  The film reflects in my eyes like the crescent moon in Ingrid Bergman’s gaze.  It sings to me.

I am determined to find a way to obtain The King under any name so that I never have to worry about losing it.  During some of the worst times in my life, it is the only thing that has kept me sane.

[cavehags]

now it's your turn! same questions 💖

what's the first film you remember watching? it's hard for me to place early childhood memories in time, but i know i was obsessed with frosty the snowman (1969) between the ages of 2-4. we had a vhs copy that had been taped off of the tv (i miss that version of piracy so much) and when i was in the hospital with pneumonia for a few weeks when i was three, i watched that specific videotape so many times that i can still remember a lot of the ads that played in the middle of it to this day, jingles and all.

what's the film that scared you the most? i was scared out of my mind by just the trailer for the village. i haven't seen the village but the trailer gave me nightmares for weeks. also, and this is 100% true, i once had a panic attack that was kind of made worse by suddenly remembering the plot of the movie what happens in vegas which is very much a typical rom com about a shrewish woman with a manchild husband she never even intended to marry. can't really explain that one.

what's the film that made you cry the most? honestly, and this is an insane answer, but it might be click (2006). i had such a bad time in the theater seeing click. that movie just hits way too hard. like the climax of it when his kids all hate him and he just fucking dies?? what the fuck

what's a film other people love but you hate? i cannot understand why people enjoy 500 days of summer. that movie is vile, loathsome, heinous and despicable (and other synonyms too). quirky indie music dudes literally think enjoying this movie is a sign they've acknowledged and are working on their flaws. it's actually the opposite: this movie made them worse.

what's a film other people hate but you love? i'm going to be very embarrassingly honest here and say i have real fondness for iron man 3. at the time that it came out, i was still seeing every marvel movie and thought it was kind of subversive that this one played a bit with the form by keeping him out of his suit almost the entire time, forcing him to use his brain and hang out with kids and adam pally and problem-solve without the use of superpower shit. i think the haze has been lifted on the so-called subversive quality of it all but i still have fondness for it and would have fun if i watched it again, i'm sure.

what's a film you used to love but now have concluded is terrible? there are so many, but i'm going to steal one of your answers and say aladdin (1992). aladdin was the only disney movie i liked as a child, to the point that my brother and i won a cash prize in a local talent show performing "a whole new world" (brag). i thought jasmine was the coolest and wanted to be just like her. and yeah. it's garbage.

what's the film that means the most to you because of your memories surrounding it? star trek (2009). saved me from the worst depression of my life.

sexiest film you've ever seen? dirty computer the emotion picture. EVERYTHING is sex (except sex) (which is power).

subcategory- a film that's sexy but in a troubling way? probably cruel intentions. a deeply misogynistic movie but sarah michelle gellar dark hair/freaky dialogue need i go on

what's the film you've seen the most times? oh, definitely the princess bride. it was the first movie i knew i loved as a kid that was made for adults. my parents weren't crazy about it and i was always trying to explain it to them. eventually i had to accept that they just have no sense of humor.

what's the film with the best ending? i'm sure there are some really amazing ones i'm forgetting but i absolutely adore the ending to kajillionaire. old dolio learns the hardest lesson of her life and in that same instant is rewarded with inner peace and, as a cherry on top, the love she's always wanted. brutally cathartic ending.

what's the film you most relate to? thoroughbreds. i'm not a wasp from connecticut, and i've never killed a guy nor owned a horse, but there's something about being bored and powerless and full of love and desperate for some kind of control over your life that feels very familiar. the way lily and amanda talk to each other and come to learn from each other and share a secret language despite not even really thinking that they're friends is very familiar to me. and the whole aesthetic and styling of the movie are so much my cup of tea, it's crazy. that movie is such a gift to me.

what's the film you hate the most? i CANNOT pick between two. first, flower (2017) dir. max winkler is a disgusting movie. matt zoller seitz described it as "juno meets lolita" in his zero-star review and i hope we can all extrapolate from that just what is so deeply evil about this movie. it is far too horny for its protagonist, a hypersexualized teen girl who gives blowjobs to cops in their cars as an #empowering #joke and later falls in love with her stepbrother, a kid whom she is constantly bullying for being fat, to the point that he tried to kill himself. then he goes to jail and she is still in love with him while he's in there. max winkler should be kept away from children. and the second film is barbarella. i'm still absolutely furious i had to watch barbarella in college. even though it was on the syllabus of our "gender and geek culture" class for us to critique it, surely torture porn is a step too far...

objectively, what is the greatest film ever? star trek iv: the voyage home.

what's the film that made you laugh the most? maybe jojo rabbit? it's not just that i laughed like crazy in the theater but i also still have all the same burst-out-laughing moments every time i rewatch. amazing movie.

what's the film that's almost perfect but there's just one thing you wish was different? a cut of blockers without the homophobic scene of john cena and ike barinholtz needing to fondle a man's balls would be amazing <3 apart from that, blockers is a perfect film.

what's a film whose world you wish you could inhabit? ngl i'd kind of like to be one of the d.e.b.s from d.e.b.s.

so you've died, and it turns out there is an afterlife! sadly, your coffin can only barely fit your body plus one dvd squeezed in that you can bring to the afterlife to screen on movie night. what film are you bringing? adventure time: obsidian.

[pedropascalunofficial]

My Cousin, Pedro Pascal

Ximena Riquelme

16 NOV 2017 12:53 PM

Before being the protagonist of Narcos or filming with Colin Firth, José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal (42) was a child whom I knew very well because we are from the same family. A man who today looks with nostalgia and some perplexity at his place of origin and his history and who still does not answer what would have happened if he had stayed here.

The first memory I have of Pedro is in the arms of my mother during his baptism, in the garden of my house. She was a weeping bus and had huge black eyes. I was 9 years old. It was cloudy. Years later I learned that the priest was Gerardo Whelan, the legendary rector of Saint George's College. Pedro's parents were not at his baptism: my uncle, José Balmaceda, my mother's only male brother, and his wife Verónica Pascal were asylees at the Venezuelan embassy, which was on Bustos street, near my house. Pepe, as we used to say to my uncle, who years later would become a famous gynecologist, an expert in fertilization, was then a 27-year-old young doctor, in those days wanted by Dina. Some time before they had hidden Andrés Pascal Allende, Mirista and his wife's uncle. One day they came to take him to the José Joaquín Aguirre Hospital and he managed to escape by jumping through the roofs. It was October 1975.

Like most of the Chilean families, there were supporters of both sides in mine: for and against Pinochet. Trying to help Pedro's parents, my dad called a relative who held a high position in the Army. "Tell the children to get asylum, because I cannot guarantee their lives or that nothing happens to Veronica," was his reply. She was 22 years old. Then began the journey of my uncles and with them that of my cousin José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal. Pepe and Verónica had to start living secretly in different houses. Pedro, who was only 6 months old at the time, and his 3-year-old sister Javiera were left in charge of my mother's older sister, "Aunt Juani."

The second memory I have of Pedro is when I accompanied my parents, who carried him and his sister in their arms, to stand on the sidewalk in front of the Venezuelan embassy so that their parents could see them through the window.

My uncles left the Venezuelan embassy for the airport in January 1976, Pedro was 9 months old and obviously does not remember anything. I just remember that they didn't let me go. Pedro could not record the image, which I could not see, of his grandfather Luis Pascal Vigil - a very prominent lawyer - singing the National Anthem on the balcony of Pudahuel. A memory that is not mine but that I adopted, for cute.

As the people of the International Red Cross advised our family on time, Pedro and his sister did not leave the embassy with their parents, but arrived directly at the airport: this allowed their passports not to be stamped with the "L" for " limited to circulate "that stamped on the exiles who left. Therefore, the years that Pedro and Javiera came could come to Chile without problems. And for that reason, the choclón of cousins, we were able to share long summers in Pucón and some winters in Santiago.

The Balmaceda Pascal first arrived in Aarhus, Denmark, in October 1976. A year later they left for San Antonio, Texas, where Pedro's father was able to continue improving himself thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Veronica earned a PhD in Child Psychology.

________________________________________

"But Denmark is invisible to me," Pedro writes me by email. A while ago I proposed to interview him at a distance to travel a little about his history, and here we are, in front of the computer, sharing memories. "It is invisible to me, like everything that happened before. Although once, after telling him about my childhood, a doctor told me that the temporary separation with my mother was trapped in the memory of my body and that I could remember it through the senses".

My cousin, far away

The third memory I have of Pedro is a summer in Pucón. It must have been in 1978. "Pepelo", as we said, was no longer a guagua but a restless, very blond boy, who was so impacted by poverty in Chile that when he went out on the street with his gringo accent, he asked any person: "Are you poor?" He took food out of the pantry and gave it away. With my cousins we rented a warm wooden house, colorful, with the door frames out of square. It was summers with trips to those black sand beaches that burned the feet and picnics in Caburgua with lamb on the stick. They took us to mass and Pedro sang very inspired.

"This is where the memories become more vivid, like dreams," he writes. "I remember so many details: my older cousins, children my age who were like family. The beach seemed endless. I also remember running down the hallways and stairs of Aunt Juani's house looking for Santa Claus at Christmas."

XR: What was it like leaving your parents in the United States?

PP: "I think the trauma was going back to the States, although I obviously wanted to be with my parents. But childhood in Chile, with the Balmaceda and Pascal, was a dream, a world where nothing was missing, pure adventure and love."

Now that he tells me that, I remember that image of Pedro hanging on the neck of our aunt Juani, crying in Pudahuel because she did not want to return. At that time going to the airport was a panorama: we were going en masse to leave him and his sister, who traveled in charge of the stewardesses.

In 1981 I went with my parents and my two sisters to see the Balmaceda Pascal in Texas. I remember an eternal road trip from Miami, I remember Pedro's house, in a middle-class neighborhood, comfortable, beautiful, lovingly arranged by his mother. I remember the tears of my mother and Pedro's mother when we said goodbye to return to Chile. We still didn't know when they could return. Although Pedro never fully returned.

In December 1983, Pepe and Verónica were able to enter Chile. The whole family was packed on the terrace of Pudahuel, waiting for them. I remember the Balmaceda Pascal walking from the stairs of the plane to the International Police. I remember them happy, triumphant. Pedro was 8 years old and chose to stay in my house, in love with my girl sister.

We all went to Quintero, to the house of our grandfather Pepe, a great smoker, tennis player, and fanatic fanatic who took us to the town cinema to see double Tora! Programs, Tora !, Tora! More Bridges on the River Kwai and other old movies. Surely Pedro had to see several. Since he was a boy he said he wanted to be a "director". He liked horror movies and was a big movie consumer, like his dad.

PP: "I remember going to the movies with the cousins and the grandfather to see anything with Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone. They leased me VHS movies to see alone and happy."

XR: You once recited Hamlet on the beach with Grandpa.

PP: "No, it was Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller. I was about 14 years old. I videotaped it and lost the fucking camera on the trip back to the United States."

After that summer, Pedro began to come more sporadically. He was already grown up, at school and then at university. They had moved to Newport Beach, California. His father was doing very well. But Pedro, not so much.

PP: "I think that the way the family supported me in Chile was the opposite of what I experienced in Newport Beach. I started well in California but at 13 years old, very involved in the cinema, reading plays, books, TV, TV, TV, obsessed with these things, I had the bad luck to find few like me. It was a world very attached to conservatism and its privileges where not fitting was punished. There was a group of shitty goats who were my friends the first year and became my terrors thereafter. I don't enjoy remembering that time, but there are deep connections from back then. Friends of my parents who are like parents until today."

Pedro's mom soon found a performance arts program at a high school in another district. A more inclusive school compared to Corona del Mar, the neighborhood where they lived in Newport.

PP: "My mom and my driver's license were my salvation. There I was able to unleash my appetite for movies and theater without limits."

As time went by Pedro became a fun, provocative teenager with character. He said he was "lazy", but he went to study Theater at NYU in 1993 and he loved it. I started to see it less. When he came to Chile he went out with his friends, I was already married and having children.

XR: Did you find that our way of life was very boring?

PP: "Bored, no. But overwhelming regarding life's permanent decisions. I didn't have the Catholic structure, and I felt there was no room for a young guy like me. Like suddenly, from one trip of mine to another, you had lives that included marriages and children, and pleasing the visits of the gringo cousin was no longer an option for all of you. I had to duel, because I was jealous of his inattention."

XR: Do you find us very conservative?

PP: "Yes, but it is a major contradiction for me. I come from the perspective that no one can decide how someone else should live their life. And well, in our family there are social rules that are very firm. I think that a person has the right to live his life conservatively or wildly as long as he does not negatively impact anyone or tries to embarrass others by his lifestyle. I don't touch these issues very much with our family for fear of hearing their perspective, but what I do know is that if I ever needed help I could ask any member of our family by the name of Balmaceda, and I would get it."

In 1995, Pedro's parents returned to Chile with their two youngest children, Nicolás and Lucas, who had been born in California. Javiera also came for a couple of years. Pedro stayed in the United States.

PP: "It was a very scary period. I grew up with my family in the United States and from one day to the next there was no home to return to. Suddenly the idea of the safe nest was gone. It was shocking because in previous years I took for granted the privileged life we had in California. I never thought that this could change as suddenly as happened to my parents when they became exiles. Everything felt fragile. Also, I knew that my parents' marriage was wrong and that the tension of those circumstances was hardly going to end. My mother's life felt in danger and the line between needing her, being there for her and finishing my studies and pursuing a career was a horrible conflict. I knew that my mom wanted me to continue doing mine, she never would have wanted me to sacrifice it."

XR: Did you really resent the failure of your parents' marriage?

PP: "For me it was the hardest time. I have not been able, and I do not know if someday I will be able to reconcile completely how my parents separated and the tragedy that came after that separation. The circumstances of my mother's death made it very hard for us to keep her memory of who she was. It hurts so much ... Sometimes I feel distressed and try to face it in the best possible way, because I know that my mother would not like me to do it in any other way."

Pedro lost his mother when he was 24 years old.

PP: "It's hard to say what I remember most about her. You met her, so it is easy for you to understand that she was the love of my life. I think of her every day. Since I don't pray, I can't say that I have a practice to feel her close, but I live for her even though she's gone, and that makes sense to me."

From Alexander to Pedro

XR: Do you believe that pain makes us stronger or does it seem like a horrible cliché?

PP: "I don't think it's a terrible cliche but a profound reality. In some way, losing the most important person in your life, discovering that something like this is possible and that what you fear most in life can happen is an identifiable and permanent moment. There is a before and after after his death. I think, yes, that old age would not have been for my mother, there would have been no footwear with her. Of course, no one wants to grow old, but others can handle it better. I would not have liked to see my mom struggling with it, but at the same time, I wish I had her every day still with me."

It may have been the summer of 2012. Pedro said to our aunt Juani: "I am 37 years old and I still can't get what I want. And it's the only thing I know how to do." It had been a long time since the death of his mother in the summer of 2000 that Pedro had changed his name. From Pedro Balmaceda to Pedro Pascal. He had been searching for years, years of casting where, by being called Pedro Balmaceda in the studios, they hoped to find a Latin or classic Mexican phenotype. He had only made minor appearances in some series.

XR: Although you did not regret it, you did wear Alexander at some point. Why?

PP: "That was a desperate period and directly related to having lost my mother. I was desperate to work, to fill my days with something more to suffer. To eliminate the confusion that casting directors had with this guy named Pedro with European or Caucasian traits, I changed my first name to Alexander and took my mom's last name, Pascal. That only lasted a year, until I was able to find a job and be selected for an Ibsen theatrical classic. But it was too late for people to identify me as "Alex". Also, my mom named me Pedro. So the decision was to call me Pedro Pascal, a name that fits with me more than any other."

Soon after that came Brothers and Sisters, other small roles, and later more important ones in The Good Wife, The Law and Order, The Mentalist, until Game of Thrones, Narcos in 2015 and now, filming Muralla china with Matt Damon and William Dafoe - last year we all went to see his cousins together - and then Kingsman 2 with Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum.

XR : Have you ever been excited acting with such powerful actors?

PP: "I have been thrilled with everyone."

With fame have come the new meetings of the cousins with Pedro Pascal. We all want to see him, take pictures of us, we ask him for greetings-chub for friends, we inflate ourselves by saying that he is our cousin. That Peña, the protagonist of Narcos and the sexiest guy in the world, is my cousin-brother. He laughs and humorously calls us "scoundrels" because now we remember him. In fact, that's what our cousin chat on Whastapp is called.

But there is also the modesty to disturb him. Know that you are busy. That while I'm sending you these questions, you're filming in Boston with Denzel Washington. And to feel that there is always a lack of time to speak to him calmly, a space to ask him questions like the ones that occur to me now:

XR: Exile changed your life. Can you imagine growing up in Chile?

PP: "I don't know, because I haven't thought much about it. I have been asked this question all my life and have never been able to come up with an answer. Perhaps my life would have been more complete and solid. What I am used to is that the past disappears as if it had been lived by someone else, in another time."

XR: Do you miss something from when you were Pedro Balmaceda?

PP: "You know? There is very little difference between Pedro Balmaceda and Pedro Pascal. As it is all part of José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal, I feel the same person. But with back problems and more money."

XR: Would you like to start a family?

PP: "Being a dad? I don't know. I have no fucking idea. I love being an uncle. It may just end there. But anything is possible."

XR: Marialy Rivas said something very nice about you on Saturday: that when you play a character, you pretend that this character brought a whole previous story, much bigger than what they are telling. And it's true: you carry a bigger story than you tell it.

PP: "I don't know, cousin. I am very confused trying to organize the past and see what turns out. It helps me understand the pain or be grateful for what I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud, living between waiting for fame and attention and completely embarrassed by these wishes.

In reference to what Marialy said, I think she means that I put all my confusion, joy and sorrow, ambivalence, hostility, rage, love, lust, greed, compassion, ignorance, knowledge either to indicate a map with the finger on Narcos, throwing an arrow in Game of Thrones, lashing out at Kingsman. Cool! But I think my experience in theater taught me that."

XR: Would you someday like your life to be a script?

PP: "No way." (in english)

XR: Do you still want to be a "director", as you used to say when you were a kid?

PP: "Yes! That will be my way of being a father. Father of a production."

XR: Is dreaming about an Oscar the dream of every actor, even if you don't confess it?

PP: "I confess that possibly… yes."

[an-american-whovian]

• The Story Thus Far:

This is the one that started it all fer me! The reason I bleed all things Doctor Who -- like my anus bleeds beer shits of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

My Series 2 review of NuWho (just rolls off the tongue).

• Goodbye, My Liveeer -- Goodbye, My Friend:

In all honesty, I don't know how it happened -- one day I came across a fan made Doctor Who video to James Blunt's 'Goodbye My Lover' on YouTube. More specifically, the episodes 'Army of Ghosts'/'Doomsday'.

It had that bit in which he asks, "How long are you going to stay with me?" To which she replies, "Forever." Then to see the whole conclusion with her getting sucked into a parallel universe/the stuff on Badwolf Bay all to that terrible song.

I was sold. (Mostly 'cause I was fresh off a break up, myself.)

• But I'm Getting Ahead of Myself:

As I watched all four minutes and twenty six seconds of that corny ass shit, I recalled Classic Who and asked myself, "Wasn't Doctor Who some big nosed dude with a long scarf and really bad special effects? Who's this hot bitch -- and the blonde!?"

Well, according to the nerds at Brainstorm Comics in Wicker Park, Chicago, it was this long running sci-fi series that had finally made a comeback after a long hiatus.

Then I remembered the TV Movie on Fox. That came and went like another one of their illfated shows, 'M.A.N.T.I.S.' (NO ONE ever remembers that one.) Then I remember as kid watching a different dude play the Doctor. This guy wore beige clothing and hung out with teens.

Total pedo' vibes.

Well, luckily fer me, those nerds at Brainstorm had a rental section and I proceeded to rent series two of NuWho -- 'cause i wanted to see how we got to that conclusion. (Then I proceeded to copy it onto VHS -- as was the fashion at the time.)

It was all downhill from there.

• Controversial Statement Up Ahead:

If a US network ever had the AUDACITY to do Who -- it would pro'ly look like this series (one could kinda say the same about series five, too). Handsome lead; hot companion. Easily to digest science fiction stories and culminating in a two part epic in which the hero fights off giant metallic salt shakers with plungers as they wage war against the British equivalent to the Borg. (Yea, I know -- Cybermen came first. I said it fer comparisons sake, ya nerd.)

Also, anyone remember that episode of 'Community' in which they do an American version of 'Inspector Spacetime'? They're TOTALLY supposed to be Tennant and Piper-esque. (The show would then go ahead and predict that the first female Doctor would go onto suck -- "but not because she's a woman".)

• Onto the Good Shit:

'The Christmas Invasion' is a fun festive romp -- that has the Doctor in it fer about ten minutes. Extra points fer 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' reference. It's, also, where I learned that out there they call baby oranges "satsumas". (Y'all are funny.)

'New Earth' brings back Cassandra from the series one story 'The End of the World' -- along with that giant head with dreads that lead into testicles known as The Face of Boe (love the enigmatic shit with him). The body switching stuff is fun; but how the Doctor saves the day is just plain lame. "Lemme dump all these cures into one giant concoction and bukkake this whole hospital!" *high fives all around!*

'School Reunion' brings back Sara Jane -- and till this day I use her "Everything has its time and everything ends" speech (almost to a fault). It's got Giles from 'Buffy' in it -- so that's dope. Be that as it may, I don't like how the kid takes credit fer blowing up the school at the end. Like, dude, eveyone's gonna think yer a prepubescent psycho.

'Girl in the Fireplace', The Cybermen two parter and 'The Impossible Planet'/The Satan Pit' are all time classics in my book. (Fun Fact: TO THIS DAY I refer to my basement as "The Satan Pit".)

• Controversial Statement Part Deux:

I don't hate 'Love & Monsters'. 😳 Like, I think Elton insinuating at the end that he skull fucks a slab of cement with his girlfriend's face is pretty fucked up and the Abzobaloff looks like it was designed by a child (oh, wait, it was) -- it's still a lot of fun and a different take on a Doctor Who story. (DW is ALWAYS at its best when it takes chances!)

Like, ELO is prominently featured in the episode. How can anyone hate that!?

• All Filler and No Thriller:

'Tooth & Claw' is just too boring to even talk about. I can't even remeber a characters name or which Queen was ruling at the time.

'Fear Her' HAS TO BE one of the worst episodes -- EVER. The less said about it the better.

• Let's Cut This Short -- Like the Doctor Gets Cut Off on Rose:

Series two isn't as great as series one; but it's not too far off. Yea, jokes are gonna be dated like bad CGI werewolves. Deal with it. Have you ever seen 'Warriors of the Deep'!?

It's all worth while fer a balls to the wall finale.

"You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?", asks a Cyberman.

"We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek! You are superior in only one respect."

"What is that?"

"YOU ARE BETTER AT DYIIIIIING.", adds the Dalek. *DROPS MIC!*

Finally, don't tell me you dont get all chocked up when Ten tells Rose, "I'm inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close; and it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova.

I'm burning up a sun just to say good bye." 😭

ALL THE STARS AND FRESHLY ROTTEN TOMATOES.

• Epilogue; i.e. Controversial Statement No. 3:

Are Timelords low key pedos!? Like, the Doctor is over 900 years old at this point and Rose is, like, 19 or 20.

Talk about a midlife crisis, bruh.

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

Top 10 Favorite TV Shows (In A Row):

The Dick Van Dyke Show (The Dick Van Dyke Show has earned the number 1 spot in my heart through years of love and loyalty. Growing up you learn about shows through your family, it’s only natural. Especially with me because we didn’t have cable much of the time. So the only way I could really learn about TV shows was through them. TDVDS was the first show that I considered to be “my show,” it was sorta my identity for a lot of years. Yes, I learned about it through my family, but the first time I remember watching it was on my own. My sister Ingrid had it on VHS tape, and I just remember rummaging through her VHS’ and deciding to watch it one day. One thing’s for sure…. my love for that show outpaced everyone in my family. It was also one of the first shows that I came to consider myself an expert on. It’s a show that is everything to me, and if you get me started I could talk about it for about 24 hours straight. If you want a big list of why TDVDS is such an iconic show. I have a whole post about that)

Get Smart (Another show that has earned it’s spot and that will never change despite whatever hyperfixation I have at any given time. Don’t even talk to me about the 2008 movie adaptation of Get Smart. It’s not even worthy to lick the TV shows boots!!!! Get Smart is a show that I have memories of since I was like 8 years old. It’s such a happy show for me, though I would say that about all of my top 10 favorite shows. This show had such a genius concept. It came at a time when spy shows and movies were all the rage. It took that genre and just flipped it on it’s head. It was kinda like a parody of James Bond and stuff like that. Get Smart has shaped popular culture so much…. and so much more than people realize. So many popular words or terms that are in out lingo and dictionaries were created in Get Smart)

I Love Lucy (I Love Lucy is a show that has been a part of my life…. forever. I literally don’t think there was a time when I Love Lucy wasn’t in my life. It was probably playing in the hospital room while I was being birthed. My dad was obsessed with this show. He was so obsessed that when he was in California with my mom, on vacation. They went to Beverly Hills and my dad wanted to knock on Lucille Ball’s door and say “hi” (this was in the 80s), but my mom was too mortified at the thought. So he snuck into her backyard and took a picture of her garbage can. Yep… that’s my dad for you. I think that picture is still in a picture book of his!! He was a huge collector, he collected a shit ton of stuff before giving most of it away in the early 2000s, cause our family was moving to a much smaller house. One of my first memories of any show or movie was I Love Lucy. It was in 2003, when I was 6 nearly 7. We had recently moved to a condo, and the house was still in disarray and we as a family sat on the floor watching I Love Lucy. I remember the episode…. it was called “First Stop” and it was about the Ricardo’s and the Mertz’s trip to California and they stop at a shady diner off of a highway. The diner owner tricks them into staying in a cabin that he rents out (long story, you’ll have to watch the ep to see how that happens :) ) Either way, they are in this cabin that is feet away from a train track and every time a train goes past, Ricky and Lucy’s bed moves all the way to the other side of the room. It was so funny and I peed my pants… no joke…. i’m embarrased to admit it but it’s true. But hey I was 6 years old, I give myself a pass for that ;) )

I Dream Of Jeannie (I Dream Of Jeannie is a show that I learned about relatively late in life. I was 12 when my sisters and myself watched the first episode. It really became a show that was mine and my sister Ingrid’s show. We used to watch every episode together from start to finish and we were both huge fans of Tony and Jeannie’s relationship. Tony and Jeannie were one of my first ships)

Stranger Things (STRANGER THINGS!!!!! This show took me completely by surprise and it has now earned the 5th spot, that will never change! I have never been hyperfixated on a show for this long. It has been my hyperfixation for over 3 years now. Before I started watching Stranger Things, I thought I knew all I needed to know about it. I knew it was a sci-fi/horror show that revolved around kids. I had heard the cultural noise surrounding it and I respected that, but as someone who doesn’t consider herself a “nerd”, I had no real interest in it. It was one of those shows that I acceded I would eventually watch, maybe in 20 years, but it was so low on my priority list. In fact, my opinion of sci-fi or quote un quote nerd shows/movies really hasn’t changed despite my love of ST. I still have no interest in Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, or any other show like that. I have no interest in action for action’s sake. I can’t watch a light saber dual and get excited about that. In order to care about an action scene I need to first care about the characters. It wasn’t until Jan 2017, that I decided to give in and watch and i’ve never looked back. It’s one of the best decision i’ve ever made. I’m telling you, if there is anyone out there who hasn’t watched ST yet and doesn’t think they would like the show. Please give it a try…. I thought the same thing as you before I watched it. It’s so much more than just sci fi and horror. It’s also a drama with big comedic elements, it’s a relationship show. It’s horror but it’s not overly scary (and this is coming from a scaredy cat), it’s sci fi but it doesn’t lean on that too much, it’s not overly gloomy and the cinematography is so beautiful, it’s fun and exciting, it’s got a really interesting conspiracy storyline running through it. Believe me, it’s worth a try!!)

Gilmore Girls (Gilmore Girls is a show that became mine and my sister Greta’s show. She’s on Tumblr (though not as active) so if you see this Greta… thankyou for my undying love with this show :) It’s all your fault ;). GG came at a time in my life where I was really kind of averse to watching any new shows. I had my favorite shows and that was fine with me. But Greta wanted to watch this show with me, and we hadn’t really bonded too much because I was in school and she was working and there was an 8 year age difference between us. So I really credit GG with bringing us closer. We really bonded with our love of this show. Though I think she only watched it with me cause she thought that Jared Padalecki being in it would help me get into Supernatural…. i’m onto you Greta, i’m onto your tricks ;) The year was 2011, the month was October and I was 15 years old (the same age as Rory when the show started) and my life has never been the same (I think i’m being overly dramatic at this point) :)

New Girl (New Girl is a show that my sister Millie got me into in 2016. She just kept showing me clips of it until I gave in and watched it. For anyone looking for a quality comedy to watch, ya’ll should watch this. It’s damn hilarious!!!)

Community (I watched Community for the first time around 2012. I watched episodes here or there when my siblings would have it on. But I didn’t start watching it from beginning to end until about 2015. I regret not watching it all sooner because Community is a genius show, and is grossly underrated. I think it’s the first show that had a big grass roots fan base that saved it from being cancelled year after year. It seemed like every year Community was in danger of being cancelled by NBC, but the fans would go ballistic and kick up a storm during every hiatus. It was really one of the first, if not the first time that fans would picket and riot online and their attempts to bring the show back did not go unnoticed by NBC. The show would go on to have 5 seasons on NBC, and then it had a 6th season on Yahoo. Now every time a show is cancelled people kick up a storm online and make their attempts go viral, but Community was really the first of that. Community fans are freakin tenacious)

Psych (There are 7 people in my family including my parents and everyone of us is fans of Psych. Psych came out in 2006 and was on until 2014. It’s a show that a family where the oldest was born in 1953 and the youngest was born in 1996, can all agree and love the show. My brother Johnny was the first, I remember he used to walk around and sing the theme song thus annoying me constantly. Then my brother made my sister Greta a fan, and then my sister Ingrid became a fan, around that time my sister Millie became a fan. Next Greta watched Psych with my mom and my mom became obsessed to the point where it’s one of her favorite shows ever and Shawn and Gus are two of her favorite TV characters ever. She has watched it all the way through about 7 times. Then my mom and myself watched it together from start to finish, and I became a huge fan. I can safely say that is the only time my mom has ever gotten me into a show. I love her so much, but she is not a big TV viewer, she’s more into books and such. Which makes her love for Psych even more unique and surprising. Then Greta and my mom watched it together again about 2 years ago and my dad joined in and found himself becoming a fan of it. That’s also not including my 2 brother in laws and my sister in law who are all huge fans of it. And my sister in law initially hated it…. until she found herself becoming a huge fan as well. This all speaks to Psych’s amazing power. It’s so funny and an all around amazingly done show.)

Remington Steele (Remington Steele is a show that my mom and dad watched together with a group of friends when it was first airing in the 80s, so I learned about it through them. It’s such a fun show!!!!!!! It has a really fun concept as well. If there is any Psych fans who are reading this post, you should all watch this show. A writer of Remington Steele was also a writer on Psych and RS is referenced on Psych multiple times. Totally worth everyone’s time, it’s my favorite 80s show)

[reallyginnyf]

quaranmemes for quarantines

I was tagged by @sparksearcher, thanks, this is a good one. It’s also a long one, so apologies to mobile users and for the rest of you: 

when was the last time you left your home?

We took a drive yesterday but only got out of the car once, at a local farm stand. The pig smell was ripe and there were eight other people milling around so we got back in the car immediately. My last time inside a place of business was on the 13th, a stock-up trip to Aldi. Everyone was wearing a mask and they were controlling the number of shoppers with a “one in, one out” method. I don’t anticipate another grocery run for a few weeks.

what was the last thing you bought?

It was an onlline order of a 10-pack of washable cotton masks just this morning. I’ve crocheted some nifty washable masks using dishcloth yarn but without filter material they’re useless because of the holes in the work. But I think a combo of a crocheted mask with a filter and a cotton cloth mask would be effective. 

is quarantine driving you insane or are you finally relaxed?

My brain is a jerk. I’m an introvert plus I’m agoraphobic so I’ve never minded staying home. It’s cozy and safe. Now that I can’t go anywhere, I literally want to go ALL OF THE PLACES ALL OF THE TIME. I’ve been having a tough time emotionally because everything feels dangerous now and I worry constantly...about my older high-risk husband, about my elderly parents, about my teenager’s future and on and on. 

who are you spending quarantine with?

Russ, when he’s not scheduled to work, and Zack.

do you have pets to keep you company?

I don’t and honestly? I’m happy to not have a pet right now. I’m sure they provide welcome comfort but It’s stressful enough trying to make sure there are enough food and supplies in the house for the three of us plus making sure my elderly parents are provided for without having to plan bulk-buying trips for pet food and other things. I get to see Buddy and Bonnie next door and Paco and Lucky across the street plus it’s baby squirrel and baby bunny season in the garden.

what are your current responsibilities?

Planning meals, planning shopping trips, bulk cooking so we have freezer meals available just in case, keeping an eye on Zack with his online classes since he’s not feeling particularly motivated atm, lots of laundry when Russ is working, cleaning and sanitizing the house, planting and maintaining our flower, vegetable and herb gardens, keeping on top of the budget, making sure bills are paid, trying to keep in touch with friends and family and trying to keep my sanity. I am succeeding at only a few of these.

do you have a room to yourself?

Guest bedroom sometimes when Zack isn’t using it for online class. I’ve mainly been escaping to our unfinished basement because I love it down there. We have bookcases and chairs and lamps and an area rug and a super old TV/VHS combo and it’s always cool and quiet. I do my workouts or listen to podcasts and crochet or put in some ridiculous old movie from our VHS collection and just escape for a while.

are you exercising?

Some? Whatever viral thing I had in March caused a major POTS flare so my heart rate dictates how much I can exercise each day. Right now my O2 sat is hanging in around 94% and my resting pulse rate is in the 90s, sometimes the low 100s, so I have to pace myself. Just walking around can spike it to the 130s. I can’t do my favorite 90s workout MTV: THE GRIND, sad face. So it’s yoga or recumbent bike for now. 

town, country, city?

We’re a city, population around 14,000, but in reality we’re a suburb of St. Louis.

how’s your toilet paper supply?

We’re wealthy. I started getting nervous about coronavirus back in the middle of February so every time I went shopping I picked up another pack. I didn’t hoard, just made sure I bought extra so we have about 45 rolls in the house right now.

what’s the worst thing that you had to cancel?

Two in-state college visits and one out-of-state visit. We’ve been planning and saving money for almost a year and had to cancel them all. Zack isn’t sure he wants to reschedule because he doesn’t know what the college experience will realistically look like for him in 2021. Which is logical but I’m still sad.

what’s the best thing you’ve had to cancel?

Dental work. It’s necessary but not emergent so it’s not being rescheduled until later this summer.

who do you miss the most?

This will sound perverse, because they’re the two people who drive me the absolute bat-shit craziest, but I miss visiting my parents. They won’t call me, refuse to let me shop for them, do not come to the door when I drop off whatever supplies I’m assuming they need and wouldn’t think of driving by our house even though we live less than a mile apart.  I’ve not actually seen them since the end of February so I have no idea how they’re doing. They could be dead or hospitalized for all I know.

do you have any new hobbies?

Hell, no. I’m neglecting the few hobbies I have, I’m not thinking of new ones. What would I do? Learn a language, learn to play an instrument? I’m lucky if I remember to take a shower every day.

what are you watching the most?

I can’t watch scripted TV or movies right now because I sit there and think “I'm watching celebrities who make more money than I will ever have in my life and they’re safe from the pandemic so FUCK THEM” which kind of gets in the way of my enjoyment. I signed up for Ovid TV because I love documentaries but I can’t watch those, either. The pandemic is an emotional overlay of everything I try to consume right now, visual or written, so I’ve been going back and re-watching everything on LGR’s YouTube channel, especially the Sims Let’s Play videos. His Duke Nukem voice and the stupid shit he does like creating Fartwhistle Dingleprop and his Hat of Shame or putting the Sims’ toilet in the middle of a hedge maze hits the right spot for me now. 

are you still going to work?

I’ve been out of work a long time. Russ is still working since he works for a public utility, at an evil, evil coal-burning power plant but hey, the electricity has to be generated somehow. The other options are nuclear, but Callaway scares the shit out of most Missourians and no one wants to pay the increased rates for green energy, so here we are. His team has been divided in three and they rotate three 12-hour days in a row and then seven or eight days off in between. He’s getting his full pay and I am enormously grateful. 

what are you out of?

We’re honestly okay on everything. I started stocking up in mid-February, bought a chest freezer and filled it up and made sure we had plenty of everyone’s shelf-stable favorites. Plus I stocked up on paper towels and disinfecting wipes and hand soap and toiletries. I’m starting to get a little low on eggs but a local restaurant is selling grocery items during the shutdown so I can get a flat when I need them.

have you made any changes to your hair during quarantine?

Nope. I’m allergic to hair dye and my stylist hasn’t found a formulation yet that works for me and I’m not messing with henna. So it’s the same old gray + mousy brown. It’s lovely. I’m letting my hair grow because my emotional state is precarious enough. If I do a hack job with kitchen scissors and cringe every time I look in the mirror, that’s not helping. It’s about an inch past my shoulders now and my fringe is long enough to be swept to the side but I have to hold it in place with barrettes because it’s heavy so I look like a sad old scene girl.

tagging: @this-lioness, @englishsongbird, @veradune, @maresdotes, @impreciselanguage, @stackcats, @resting-meme-face, @buddhish and seriously, all my mutuals because I want to read your answers but I’m having trouble remembering usernames or I remember them but I can’t spell the damn things and I just don’t have the energy to look anyone up, please forgive me. 

[always-la-belle-epoque]

hi what is mash and why do you love it so much because i need to know if i need to love it too thanks

Hello, anon! It took a bit because I wanted to put time into my answers, so here you are! 

What Is M*A*S*H: 

M*A*S*H is a tv show about doctors/nurses stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M*A*S*H) unit on the frontlines of the Korean War. The show focuses on the medical staff as they desperately try to save the lives of young soldiers. Many of the doctors are draftees and they are faced with trying to cope with the horror of a war they want no part of and that is the absolute antithesis to their professional calling. They fight against death every day, struggle against military bureaucracy, and try to keep their sanity. Often that deep stress is released in humor, practical jokes, and wildly unmilitary antics, but the true costs and realities of war are never treated lightly. I’ve never seen another show that can make me laugh so hard and then turn on a dime to make me cry just as deeply a second later. The show is a beautiful examination of human nature, heart, found family, loss, helplessness, despair, exhaustion, humanity, and hope,. 

M*A*S*H ran for 11 years, from 1972-1983 and the finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, is still the most-watched television broadcast in history (the NYC sewer nearly faced collapse because people would all flush the toilet at the same time during commercials, and the streets were totally empty of cars as over half the country, 150+ mil people, watched the finale live together all at the same time. Can you imagine?!). Plus, it’s been in continuous syndication for 45 years which is impressive. M*A*S*H is for all generations, it resonates far beyond the era in which it was made, or which it was made about.

Why Do I Love M*A*S*H So Much (in general):

I don’t think there is another show out there in the history of the world that has written such narratively wonderful, deeply moving character arcs. I don’t know if there’s another show out there where the characters grow so much from their relationships with one another. Or a show that depicts masculinity in such a healthy, tender way. It is normal on M*A*S*H for male characters to: Cry. Hug. Tuck each other in. Hold hands. Perform emotional labor. Actively listen. Dance together. Sleep with teddy bears (and not have it be a joke). Admit they were wrong. Change and grow from being wrong. Etc, etc. 

And while Major Margaret Houlihan is the only female lead, her character arc is the most beautiful of any character I have ever watched or read. The show doesn’t start out particularly feminist, but it definitely ends that way (both male and female characters evolve here and it’s wonderful). And if more tv shows had characters half as complex as Margaret Houlihan, tv would be a whole lot more interesting, and women would be a whole lot farther along toward equality, imo. 

Why Do I Love M*A*S*H So Much (the personal): 

I was 15 or 16 when I started watching M*A*S*H. I was going through a very dark time in my home life. But my Mom would usually have M*A*S*H on while making dinner or just after. It was their weird time of day where it seemed like a truce between us. Sometimes I’d even sit all 5’8 of my gangly teenage body on her lap and we’d just watch like that with her arms around me (which given that things were darkly terrible the rest of the time it was like being a small kid again in a way I really needed). We’d talk about the characters. We’d talk about the stories. We both loved Margaret Houlihan (it’s interesting that Margaret has the most valuable traits I learned from my Mom - things I like most about her and am grateful she taught me despite all the bad stuff). 

Soon I was racing home after school and jamming in a blank VHS so that I could record each ep. I’d cross reference between tv guide and IMDB to try to see if any eps that I hadn’t seen yet would be on so I could record them for my collection. I made an elaborate cataloging system because they weren’t shown in order! And some eps were shown only rarely!! (I’m only 28, it amazes me that this was how things were not that long ago lol). 

Anyway, the DVD box set came out and I saved up alllllll my $ for it. Thank goodness, because then I got sick and for a few years the M*A*S*H characters were the most consistent and truest friends I had. The show is deeply personal for me. I can watch it over, and over, and over. It makes me laugh, and weep, and cheer. It’s like having friends. Like having family. 

Should You Love M*A*S*H too?

I want you to love M*A*S*H. I want everyone to love M*A*S*H! And M*A*S*H holds up. It’s still radically progressive. It’s still - in this time where North Korea is a frequent headline, where we have a government we do not trust, in a world where we have been at war since 2001 - deeply relevant. 

Here’s the thing though: it was made in the 70s, about events in the 1950s, and this is 2019 tumblr-land. You’ve all read the roasts about lack of critical thinking skills on this website and ability to contextualize, and those posts are unfortunately not wrong. And the world has changed - and changed for even better than what was, at the time, truly radical! Even terms that were the liberal, pc term in the 70s have changed now and are not liberal or pc anymore which for the 2019 watcher might raise eyebrows. But the show is extremely pointed about calling out racism, homophobia, sexism, military fetishism, colonization, etc. I think maybe the only other show I can think of that goes so hard at dogged and relentless political call outs would be One Day at a Time. So I feel protective of M*A*S*H because in 50 years maybe we will look back at ODaaT and say yikes about certain things, though that feels crazy to say now. 

If you do want to watch, here’s my advice (pull down your pants and slide on the ice (sorry, omg M*A*S*H jokeee)): 

Do not start with S1. Start with S4, or S5 even. For one thing, there are some cast changes at the start of S4 so you get intro-ed to everyone again in “Welcome to Korea pt 1 & 2” and “Change of Command.”  It’s a really good starting point to see a lot of characters on the brink of change. Don’t get me wrong, I still really love S1-3 but the characters haven’t grown yet. I love going back because I know them so well, but if you’re just meeting them, I recommend getting to know them in the middle of their journey, watch them evolve, and then go back and see where they started. And I think Col. Potter/BJ really elevated the tone of the show.

Because M*A*S*H is an older tv show, most people who love M*A*S*H never watched the show in order because we could only watched it in syndication! And you don’t really need to watch in order! In fact, CBS had the final call for episode order so sometimes even the air order is different than the writing, filming, intended order. Also, because they had 11 years of content over a 3 years of war, the show itself isn’t chronological. Due to probability (there are just more Potter/BJ eps) I saw more S4+ eps when I was first watching the show so again that’s my newbie preference. Now that it’s on Hulu (and remastered OMG) it might be tempting to watch in order, but really do recommend skipping around or at least starting later in for sure. You’ll learn context as you go (recs below). Then once you get the characters and their arcs it’s suuuuper fascinating to watch in order. 

 Fight me: Is everyone bisexual on this show??! Yes, yes they are. This is where I go full 2019 tumblr-brain, lol, but looking back I think it’s one of the reasons I loved it before I understood myself. It’s gentle, tender, pretty wavy. Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce is, like, arguably canonically bi, like I even wonder if he was intentionally written/played that way on the dl. It’s pretty blatant?? And don’t even get me started on Margaret Houlihan. Godddddddd. 

 On that note, and maybe you will fall over, but Margaret and Hawkeye are my actual, #1, forever OTP. Which is weird for you, dear readers, I’m sure, as I run a v strict wlw blog and I’m very proud about that. But broken people who heal and change and grow because of the other is my tea, jam, and bread (”crackers and jam! too bad!” ;) ),  and so far the writing of other characters and relationships hasn’t a hope of even coming into the range of depth these characters have (obvs not just wlw ships, all other mlw ships are The Worst as well, we’re all doomed, why does tv suck). But anyway, I would take them over any ship any day of the week goombye (but also….shipping Margaret is kinda like….not the point of Margaret Houlihan). 

It’s worth noting that M*A*S*H has a character named Maxwell Klinger who wears a dress to try to get out of the army via a Section 8 (previously known as a “psycho”) discharge (remember lgbtq was still classified as a mental illness, smh). Obviously, this is potentially triggering. And, obviously, not okay in today’s world. To me the show does call out that it is the policies/laws/politics that are crazy, not Klinger. I think there are still some fairly modern ideas in his portrayal in that anyone who treats him like he is crazy, or is disrespectful, is very pointedly shown to be bigoted/an antagonist. Klinger is excellent at his job, brave, loyal, true, and that’s all anyone who is a protagonist cares about (and I do think they try to show to the extend they could during the time it aired that even if Klinger were not doing it for a discharge, they would respond the same way). Fwif, imo, Klinger isn’t played as a one note joke for wearing dresses, in fact, to an extent, he does wear them utterly sincerely. He loves, deeply loves, clothes and fashion because loving something gives him something to live for. It becomes his passion, not a gag. The gag is that Klinger will do anything to get out of the war through any available loophole he hears about (having an imaginary pet camel, eating 10 sausages in a single day, eating a jeep, trying to get into West Point aka join the military to get out of the military), etc. His comrades in arms treat him very sincerely and are very protective. Early on, a jeep comes in with wounded and Radar pulls Klinger away from the blood, “careful, you’ll get your dress dirty” in the most serious, sweet way. Col Potter is always very serious and sincere about telling Klinger when one of his dresses is a fav, and Klinger positively glows. When Klinger has to trade his dress collection to local women in exchange for shelter for the wounded during a bug out, Col. Potter, regular army in his 3rd war, tells Klinger (who is in tears) that it’s the finest act of bravery he has ever seen (and he means it). When Margaret desperately wants to look pretty and Klinger pulls out one of his best frocks and helps her dress in it - Margaret who grew up in combat boots wanting a crew cut - it’s pretty emotional (and I bawl when he gives her the wedding dress, goddd). As for Klinger himself, he’s one of my favorite characters. He has the biggest heart and I love him (and yes, I might feel differently if I had a different life experience than I do - that is why I’m flagging this as something that might not be for everyone, or might be trigger - because history already is triggering, and not everyone might be as moved by him as I am).

If you’re a 30 Rock fan you will know the star Alan Alda as Milton Greeen, Jack Donaghy’s father, and if you love Beauty and the Beast you will know that the actor who voiced Cogsworth is a major (lol pun) character in S6-11! But that’s all crazy to me because they are always M*A*S*H, first and forever, and always in my mind! I can’t believe they’re all in their 80s now, or that so many of them have passed.  :( They are truly my whole heart, my family, my home. 

If you do want to watch, recommend you start with the following eps (omg this list is long but it feels so short):

Welcome to Korea pt 1 + 2 (s4)

Change of Command (s4)

Aid Station (s3)

Death Takes a Holiday (s9)

Carry on, Hawkeye (s2)

Bug Out pt 1 + 2 (s5)

Dear Sigmund (s5)

Period of Adjustment (s8) *my first ep ever :,)

The Bus (s4)

Sometimes You Hear the Bullet (s1)

Tuttle (s1)

Crisis (s2)

O.R. (s3)

5 O'Clock Charlie (s2)

The Nurses (s5)

The Interview (s4)

Movie Tonight (s5)

Abyssinia, Henry (s3)

Hepatitis (s5)

Your Hit Parade (s6)

Peace on Us (s7)

Eye for a Tooth (s7)

Old Soldiers (s8)

Life Time (s8)

Stars and Stripes (s8)

Hey, Look Me Over (s11)

There’s a million more things I could say about the show. I feel like I haven’t summarized it justly. If anyone wants to chime in with why they love M*A*S*H, what your fav ep is, etc, please do :)

[szopenhauer]

When was the last time you wore your favourite article of clothing? I like most of my clothes

Do your parents smoke? no

Do you live close to a park? forest

Is your favourite animal endangered? raccoons aren’t but elephants are :(

How many pens can you see from where you’re sitting? 6 

What language do you think you’d fail at? french and asian ones

Do you still have a landline phone at your house? but we don’t use it

Do you carry pain relievers with you at all times? nope

Where is your mother right now? in the living room with my dad

What was the last thing to make you smile? not sure what was last

What would you do if you got home and you saw your house had been destroyed? omg don’t feed my paranoia :o

Would you slap the last person you talked to for twenty dollars? nah

Do you know anyone who gives way too many hugs? they give as much as they need 

What are some positive things, realizations or habits that came out of quarantine for you? long story, it’s complicated

How do you feel about people who are “workaholics”? Would you consider yourself one?  I don’t like them, most of them only care about money and not at all about health or loved ones, I’m not ambitious or a workaholic

What could you spend less money on? trinkets

How would you describe yourself as a friend? What value would you say you bring to your friends? it’s up for them to say/judge

In psychology they say that our romantic relationships are an extension of our relationships with our parents, and that we tend to choose our partners based on whatever was lacking in our childhood, or that we are attracted to traumas and sufferings that are familiar to us rather than the unknown. Can you relate to this? umm...

Can you tell when you are not well-liked? What do you do when you feel someone is not particularly fond of you?  I’m not surprised, I’m used to the fact ppl don’t like me that I assume they don’t until they tell me, repeteadly, that they actually do (which rarely happens and doesn’t last long), I avoid/ignore those who hate me most

How would you say your preference in movies or TV shows changed from when you were a teenager vs. now? used to watch only movies for kids at first

Apart from price and location, what are some deciding factors when choosing a house for you? smell, bath and balcony mostly

What emotion is the hardest for you to express?  how grateful I am if that counts - when it comes to gifts and/or compliments etc.

How do you feel about job interviews? Are you good at negotiation? I do well but I still don’t get a job because of lack of experience; I only failed one interview in my life but I didn’t even want to work there, UP sent me to call center and boss asked me questions about the job I was going to get but they didn’t tell me what it’s about so I didn’t know much and I was in my snow boots (as it was winter) to my elegant clothes so I looked dumb and I forgot that I can’t leave the building on my own as they had special card keys and I tried to open door like crazy until someone saved me - that was awkward...

How many cars have you ever owned? 0

Can you do math in your head well? I need my fingers

What’s your least favorite chore to do around the house? laundry and cooking, not that I like chores in general haha 

What’s your favorite flavor of potato chip? salt, also liked becon in the past

Do you ever read the weather forecast? pfft 

Do amusement park rides make you sick? I worry they would so I don’t risk it

Have you ever cheated on a test? in high school, especially math, elseway I would fail 

Is your next birthday coming up soon? next year

Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? I’d buy some if I had a car but I don’t drive

Do you leave good tips when you eat out at restaurants? I don’t tip, why? we don’t tip postmen and/or nurses etc.

What’s your favorite thing to eat at bbqs? not a BBQ food person

Do you still own any VHS tapes? we still keep ‘em

How many jobs have you had? I tried some jobs but never really had one

If there was a real Jurassic Park, would you visit it? no thx

How many friends do you have that are married? from all of my ex best friends only Ula, Sandra and John are married, Dorota was already divorced when I met her 

Did you have a swing set in your yard when you were a child? didn’t trash it, used it this summer

You’re making a fruit salad: what kinds of fruit do you put in it? I don’t eat fruit salads

Do you prefer to drink from glasses or mugs? mugs, glasses are dangerous, I remember them breaking from heat like they were exploding or smth - scary

Is it weird to hear your name in movies or TV shows? it is, when an evil or stupid character has my name it makes me mad

What kind of kid were you when you were seven? very good student, angel, clumsy, naive, wearing “ugly clothes”, the only girl with long hair at the point, petite, wanted other kids to like me so I tried to impress them (but didn’t blindly followed everything they were doing though), not as shy as my mom tought, didn’t know how to tell jokes, still happy but slowly becoming depressed due to family issues, bullying, money and health problems

Is there a subject you know so much about that you’d be able to teach it? sigh... Where did you purchase the computer you’re using right now? Media markt  Do you think it’s fair to compare Family Guy to The Simpsons? The Simpsons are better, I dislike Family Guy, wasn’t there an episode where they mixed both of those shows?...

Do you have pockets in anything you are wearing currently? I do not usually

How loudly can you burp? I’m more of a quiet burp/fart person

How many different letters are in your full name? 12

Do you like making bets? occasionally

Have you ever had a ‘falling’ dream? I don’t wake up, I just fall and crash on the floor then I lay there and it hurts

Do you do anything weird in your sleep? possibly

How long are your fingers? my longest finger is 7 cm and my shortest is 4 cm

Do you like bumper cars? whatever

What color is the book nearest to you? dark colors - black, purple, red, grey...

Can you lick your elbow? I can

How old were you when you said your first word? ask my parents

Can you sit the way people sit when they meditate? yep

Do you like the autumn? if it’s not too cold and snowy

Would you rather have a hippo or rhino dropped on you? doesn’t matter but at this point in 2020 I can expect that to happen

Have you ever cried in front of a teacher? in elementary, in high school I cried but she didn’t notice as I tried to hide that - it was one of two moments through all high school that I cried - to było wtedy kiedy Pepe zabrał mój temat na maturę, na który przygotowywałam się od 5 lat i dostałam w zamian jakieś gówno, a drugi raz płakałam bo musiałam zapłacić za brak biletu w autobusie mimo, że go miałam tylko legitymacja szkolna nie była podbita bo akurat wówczas byłam w szpitalu i nikt mnie nie powiadomił, że powinnam to nadrobić i strasznie się zmartwiłam, że nie mam kasy i staram się jak mogę, a i tak coś zawsze się spierdoli (bo czemu ludzie sobie jeżdżą bez biletu serio cały czas, a mimo to “złapali” akurat mnie?), jeszcze musiałam pojechać przystanek dalej przez to jak mnie spisywali i prawie spóźniłam się na zajęcia :(

Have you ever cried BECAUSE of a teacher? who haven’t? srsly

Do you do a :) or a (:? :) (: is creepy

Are paper clips fun to play with? meh

Do you prefer mechanical pencils or regular pencils? regular

Is your alarm clock set right now? good idea :o

Are you itchy right now? slightly which is normal to me

Do you have anything on your wrists? not right now

Why are you so awesome? :) I’m not...

so how are you today? I thought I will feel worse before going to hospital so won’t complain

when was the last time you had a cup of tea? long time ago

who’s the most recent person on your Facebook feed? (if you have it) my annoying sister >.<

when (if ever) was the last time you saw that person? week ago

how do you feel about wolves? great animals

do you use pinterest? started new account this month

should you be doing something else right now? packing but whenever I pick up one thing to put into the bag I get a panic attack

bye :) bye...

[lovemesomesurveys]

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? My mom does.

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? Yeah.

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? No. That would be very difficult for me to do no matter what, but to add to that my dresser and TV are in front of my window.

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? My mom can’t get or get someone else pregnant.

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? With certain foods, yes. 

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? I don’t have to buy any of those things, but I just know I would. I’m weird about that kind of stuff for some reason. If a stranger went in your bedroom, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? I’m sure they’d guess I was a female.

Are your parents gullible? No, I wouldn’t say that. 

Do you still own a VCR? Nope. We still have our Disney VHS tapes, though.

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? The only thing I bought recently was Wingstop, which was only like $12 bucks. If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? He’s not heartless, but I mean he wouldn’t rush to the hospital or anything. I doubt he’d even reach out. He probably wouldn’t even know, honestly. We haven’t talked in years.

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? I’d go to Adidas.com

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? I actually haven’t bought a pair of shoes myself in several years. My parents have gotten my shoes for birthdays and Christmases. Sometimes just cause. My dad is a total shoe guy himself and gets excited about buying them for my brother and I, too.

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? It’s gray and I have a rose gold case on it. No, my dad bought it for me a few years ago.

Do you have a second home? No.

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? That would come as a total shock. My can’t stand even being near someone smoking, so yeah. I’d be very concerned if she just picked up smoking all of a sudden.

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? The smell of cigarettes does. It actually really messes with me. I get a bad headache, feel lightheaded, and my heart rate goes up.

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? A year younger.

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? Probably.

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? Yeah, many, many times. I was also a Girl Scout myself.

Do you like waffles? Yes.

Do you watch birthing videos on a day-to-day basis? I never watch birthing videos. Ew.

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? I don’t mind a few, but they’re not really my thijng.

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? I’ve talked to many people online. I’ve had an internet presence since like 1999. 

How often do you drink Monster? I haven’t had a Monster in like 10 years. The only energy drink I drink are Starbucks Doubleshots. I’m obsessed with the white chocolate one.

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? Yeah, a few. One of my friends and I actually had a YouTube channel lmao. We only uploaded a few videos, though. One of which was our reaction to 2 Girls 1 Cup lmao. Those videos will never see the light day again.

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? I’ve never bought one.

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? I don’t like booths, but whenever I sit at one I just stay in my chair.

Do you own a nightgown? Nope.

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? I don’t think so.

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? Yeah. My cousins and I made forts all the time when we were kids.

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? Yeah, they each have one.

Have you ever had sex or something like it? “or something like it” lol that sounds weird. Anyway, no.

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? Nope.

Have you ever worn fishnets? Yeah.

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? Just my earlobes. No tattoos.

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? Not in my immediate family. I’m not sure about my extended.  

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? Nah. 

Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? Uh, wow.

Do you always wear your seat belt? Always. Ya’ll better wear yours, too. 

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? Just celebrities.

Have you ever been in a play? Actually, I was in one in like the 3rd grade.

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? Yeah.

Is there ice cream in your freezer? I think so.

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? Haha yeah.

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? Yes.

Does your bathroom have a window? Nope.

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? Nope. I only went to get my eyebrows done once, and that was when I was like 13.

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? Yes.

Who was the last band you saw live? Green Day.

Do you believe prayer really works? I absolutely do. That doesn’t mean it’ll happen right away or when you want it, how you want it, or even at all. But it definitely could. It might be awhile or it might happen in a way you didn’t expect. 

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? I liked a couple of their songs.

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? Both are good, but Frosted Flakes are better. They’re dare I say, grrrrrrreat.

Have you been on a date in the park? Nope.

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? Yeah, that’s how it happened both times.

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? Yes.

Do you have asthma? No. Are tongue piercings slutty? No. It’s a piercing.

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? Alexander Skarsgard.

Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Just me. Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? No? I recall scented markers, but not a popcorn smelling highlighter.

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? No.

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? Nope.

Least favorite alcoholic drink? All of them. I don’t drink.

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? Nope.

How did you meet the last male you texted? He’s my dad.

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Nah. I like the old email addresses I had from childhood and teen years. Especially the ones during my emo days, ha. Lots of X’s. 

Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? Right. Do you have a bull ring through your nose? No.

Do you and your dad get along? Yeah. We’re not as close as my mom and I, but it’s not that we don’t get along. It’s just different. 

Can you see your purse right now? Yeah.

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? No.

Are there products in your hair? No.

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? I have, but nah not usually.

Do you actually like sneezing? Uh, no. I like when it happens so the feeling of having to sneeze goes away, but not the actual sneezing itself.

Have you taken a shower yet today? Not yet.

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? I have my family. Do you wear skirts a lot? No. I haven’t worn a skirt in years.

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? No, but I live in leggings. 

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? I think I have 3 or 4 now. I got rid of a few pairs recently. I haven’t worn jeans in like 3 years, so.

Do you like hoodies? I love hoodies.

Big ones or the form fitting kind? I like oversized ones.

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? I don’t wear polo shirts ever.

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? Yes.

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? Ha, nopeee. I have a lot of regrets.

Do you love your computer? Yes.

Do you drink coffee? Coffee courses through my veins.

Do you basically like all of your clothes? Yes, that’s why I have them. I recently went through my clothes and got rid of a lot of stuff that I just wasn’t wearing anymore. I still liked them, but I wasn’t wearing them and they were just taking up room. I was finally able to get the mountain of clothes I was storing on my bed for a long time into my dresser.

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? I do my shopping online. I used to go grocery shopping with my mom before the quarantine/lockdown, but we’ve been doing that online as well now and she just goes to pick it up.

[timeagainreviews]

The Fabric of Time and Space

Hello friends! It's been quite a busy time for me. Not only did we have a houseguest for about a week, we got a dog! She's an adopted Irish greyhound named Aoife, and she's a good old girl. Needless to say, lots of things happening. I wanted to write sooner so that I could talk about the death of Terrance Dicks, but finding the time was difficult. While Dicks was a bit of an old school writer when it came to women, I absolutely love "The Horror of Fang Rock." However, one of the things for which Dicks was most beloved was his Doctor Who prose. Whether it be the Target novels, or even the BBC range, chances are that if you've read much Doctor Who prose, you've read some Terrance Dicks. Which is why I plan to do something I've never done on here, and that's to review a Doctor Who novel, specifically- The Eight Doctors. Mind you, I'm going to re-read it, just after I finish these Dark Crystal books.

Speaking of Dark Crystal, how many of you have been watching the new prequel? I've been a bit obsessed, myself. It's captured my imagination in a way I haven't felt in years. For those of you not in the know, I was born in the far off year of 1983, just one year after "The Dark Crystal," entered theatres. However, it wasn't until around 1994 that I even became aware it existed. I remember this because the night I bought two Flintstones movie books, there was a display for "The Dark Crystal," in enticingly green Disney style VHS cases. All of these things released around 1994. I was perplexed by this Jim Henson movie that somehow went completely under my radar. I took my books home that night. The Dark Crystal would have to wait a bit longer.

One of the things I loved most about my copy of "The Flintstones: The Official Movie Book," was the pictures of the Jim Henson Creature Workshop fabricating the dinosaur puppets. Something about their ability to create something realistic while still looking like a cartoon resonated with me. I wanted so much to do that job. Since then I've always had a passion for filmmaking and movie magic. Watching "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance," has rekindled that childhood love I have for the Creature Workshop and character design. As per usual, this got me thinking about Doctor Who. Specifically, its costume design. So I thought I might keep it simple and talk about the costumes of each Doctor. Where better to start than at William Hartnell?

First Doctor

Style: "Edwardian Grandad"

To me, the First Doctor will always look the most like the Doctor the first time we see him in "An Unearthly Child." Topped with an Astrakhan hat and shrouded in a black cape, he cuts a mysterious figure framed by the door of the TARDIS. His costume was a team effort between Maureen Heneghan and William Hartnell who was adamant as to what he would and would not wear. The decision was to make him slightly Edwardian, as the time period would look somewhat out of place, yet not too far removed from the 1960's.

There's something delightfully camp and yet simple to the way he dresses. Nothing about his wardrobe seems out of place. Even his slightly manky fingerless gloves make sense for an old traveller twisting knobs and flicking switches on his fantastical machine. Sometimes leaning on a cane, and other times standing tall holding onto his lapels with his dark ring glinting against the light. He's an enigma and just a touch out of time.

Second Doctor

Style: "Cosmic Hobo"

When the 60's counterculture movement had started to shake up the status quo, we saw learned men like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert abandon their stuffy collegiate positions for newfound roles as acid gurus. Much like these wild professors, we see the same thing in the Second Doctor's attire. It's as if the First Doctor partied so hard that he regenerated, and his disheveled clothes were whatever he was wearing when he woke up the next morning.

At the time, we had men like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi popularising words like "cosmic," and I believe it caught on in the Doctor Who production offices. Costumers Daphne Dare and Alexandra Tynman really brought a sort of anarchic spirit to the Doctor's attire that I believe has really carried on throughout the series. While I'm glad the stove pipe hat was annexed early on, I loved the additions of things like his giant fur coat held closed with twine. There's something so very Doctory about a man who looks like he sleeps in boxcars that can also attune his mind to build a perfect white cube. He really is far out, man.

Third Doctor

Style: "Space Dandy"

I've heard it said that there are two men that can pull off ruffles- Jimi Hendrix, and Jon Pertwee. And my god, does he ever? Primarily designed by Christine Rawlins, he was influenced by Adam Adamant's wardrobe. However, the biggest inspiration behind his crushed velvet and scarlet lined capes was colour television! Colour! Colour! Colour!

There's a lot of timeliness tied up in his garb. The increasing abundance of colour TV mixed with a post-60's desire to cut loose. This new night-time apparel was a way for gents to relax after a long day in their office suits. Leave it to the alien time traveller to completely ignore this fact and wear said nightwear in the middle of the day. Not only does the Third Doctor introduce a trend of the Doctor stealing his clothes from hospitals, he also marks the first major shift in apparel. The First and Second Doctors may have worn different ties, or trousers, but their overall look remained consistent. The Third Doctor's look adhered more to a wardrobe, or a style of dress. And boy does he have style!

Fourth Doctor

Style: "The Bohemian"

Once again, we see a continuation here of the style of the previous two Doctors. There's a bookishness, mixed with counterculture. Costume designer James Acheson, based a lot of the Fourth Doctor's look on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting of his friend Aristide Bruant. Bruant was a man known for his wide brimmed hat and long scarf. As legend has it, Acheson commissioned a woman named Begonia Pope to knit the famous scarf. Only instead of stopping at a sensible length, this witty little knitter used every last spool of yarn she was provided.

As much as I love Tom Baker's costume in it's versatility and appropriate alienness, I am less a fan of the series 18 redesign by June Hudson, which was notoriously meddled with by John Nathan-Turner. While I rather like the new scarf, the all burgundy ensemble with question mark lapels seems to me like the first time the costume felt like a costume. That being said, there is something timeless about Tom Baker's look that even carries on into its various redesigns such as in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," or "The Horror of Fang Rock." So much so, that even today if I go out in my Thirteenth Doctor cosplay, you always get some joker saying "Hey, where's your scarf?"

Fifth Doctor

Style: "Beige Cricketer Dad"

Before I had ever watched the Fifth Doctor's episodes, I used to look at his costume and contemplate what kind of guy would dress like that. The cricketer uniform with that red piped coat, and those garish pinstripe pyjamas over white trainers is a definite statement, but what is up with that celery? You can imagine my further confusion when I discovered Davison's portrayal was slightly more subdued and less eccentric. It made him almost the weirdest Doctor in that such a normal seeming guy would dress like his five year old picked out his clothes.

Hell, even the celery is there for a pretty mundane reason. It changes purple in the presence of certain poisonous gases. Very practical. They didn't even illustrate this purpose, we were told about it in his last episode! And you know how I feel about "show, don't tell." Regardless, I can't help but kind of love this outfit, question marks and all. I don't know if it's because I'm a fan and we grow to love this show, warts and all, but there's a reason it's on my list of costumes to cosplay. It's unmistakably the Fifth Doctor, even if it doesn't really make much sense.

Sixth Doctor

Style: "Hot Alien Mess"

Out of all of the Doctor Who costumes, I don't think a single one has been more notorious than this one. Unlike the Fifth Doctor's costume which piqued my curiosity, my initial thoughts upon seeing the Sixth Doctor's costume was "Well that was a mistake." And I wasn't wrong, it definitely was too much. Though in many ways, it also marries so well with the rest of his tenure. John Nathan-Turner's goal was to have a completely tasteless costume to match his tasteless vision for the show. He gave poor Pat Godfrey the thankless task of bringing this monstrosity to the screen.

Though, like I said, you do get used to it, as it does fit Colin Baker's irascible narcissist. I totally believe that an alien might find something like that fashionable. Even his little cat badges on his lapels inspire something I think is essential to his character. He's a big loud tomcat yowling until people stop what they're doing and recognise his brilliance. This is another one of those "I can't help but want to cosplay it," outfits. I especially like his tropical look in "The Two Doctors." It would have been nice to see more this variation in his run, such as the original black design or even the blue one we got in other media. Sigh.

Seventh Doctor

Style: "Tweedy Eccentric"

Remember how I mentioned in previous articles that the Seventh Doctor era was a series of course corrections? This is a definite one of those. We're back to something a lot more subtle, like the First or Fourth Doctor's eccentric professor vibes. But my god, those question marks just won't die! You ever have one of those friends who just can't help themselves? You can give them good advice, but at the end of the day, they're still going to do things their way? That's JNT with these goddamn question marks.

I really love the Seventh Doctor's era as I feel like the show was on the up and up. The writing was getting back on track, and Ace and Seven's chemistry was brilliant. So when you look at the Doctor's jumper, it's a kind of visible evidence of JNT being dragged kicking and screaming into this new era. Yet, funnily, when we see the Eighth Doctor movie, the Seventh Doctor's new waistcoat seems somehow less exciting. There's a certain playfulness sacrificed for realism. Perhaps JNT was onto something with his campy vision.

Eighth Doctor

Style: "Anne Rice Vampire Boyfriend"

It's going to be hard for me to view this costume without rose-tinted glasses. The Eighth Doctor is my first Doctor, so his costume will always have a place in my heart as one of the greats. But which costume? Well, of course I mean the first one from the TV movie, but my god has the man had some costume changes! Be it book, comic, or audio, the man has changed his clothes. My favourite being the unjustly maligned "Dark Eyes," variant, as I had always wondered why the Doctor never wore jeans.

Marking the second time the Doctor stole his wardrobe from a hospital, his original costume, designed by Jori Woodman, seems geared toward evoking a more classic look. A little Hartnell, a little Pertwee. For the most part it works, but I could see the argument some have made that it is a bit "costumey." In its defence, it is a costume. By the time we see McGann again in "The Night of the Doctor," we get a more subdued version of the movie look, befitting the modern series. Gotta love a man who can pull off a neckerchief.

War Doctor

Style: "Metrosexual Post-Apocalyptic"

Sadly, there's not a lot of information on the War Doctor's ensemble. But I believe you can learn a lot simply by looking at it. It's design by Howard Burden (who also did the Eighth Doctor redesign), is meant to be a sort of dark in-between of the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. Which makes a lot of sense, really. His costume looks like the clothing of a man at war. Utilitarian in it's form an function, it looks designed for durability and versatility.

I've often felt the War Doctor would not look out of place in the Fallout universe. He still wears the bandolier of a woman he couldn't save in a previous life. So much of his costume is meant to tell a visual story of a Mad Max-style road warrior. Funny then that the man still has the time to form the perfect faux-hawk coiffure and manscaped goatee with just the right amount of neckbeard. It's more of that visual storytelling I love so much- the Doctor may be a man lost at war, but he's still a bit of a narcissist. Brilliant.

Ninth Doctor

Style: "Navvy Bloke"

Christopher Eccleston has been in the news a lot these last few days due to the release of his new book "I Love the Bones of You." We've learned so much about his time as the Doctor that talking about the look of his character has become a bit of a tough subject. A lot of the man's look is now intrinsically tied in his body dysmorphia, which was at its worst when in the role as the Doctor.

I say it's "tough," in that I do want to talk about how he looked like no other Doctor Who came before him. His northern bloke look and sound almost dared the audience to reevaluate the Doctor they thought they knew. His costume is almost a non-costume. Black leather on black trousers with an assortment of dark coloured v-neck jumpers were a far cry from the question marks and long scarves of the Doctors before. Yet despite all of these differences, he quickly dispelled any doubts many longtime viewers had. He was the perfect Doctor to breathe new life into the show. These last few days have shown us just how lucky we are to still have such a man with us.

Tenth Doctor

Style: "Hipster Geek"

People often times call Matt Smith's Doctor a hipster. But who's the one wearing horn rimmed glasses and Chuck Taylors with a form fitting suit? You want to talk about first impressions from a photograph, my first thought was "hipster geek." And I love him for it. David Tennant's Doctor is such a charismatic goofball, that it's hard not to love him. And I honestly can't think of a better costume for him. I will say however that I think this one falls under that "costumey," look I've mentioned before. There's something very Scooby-Doo about a guy who owns two of the same suit in reverse colour.

I also love the simple fact that he's wearing actual Chuck Taylors. I'm surprised more Doctors haven't. Even with the logos on the sides whited out, you can spot the real McCoy (or Tennant) a mile away. Top all of this off with that marvellous coat of his, and you've got a real super hero look. Just picture it- his coat blowing in the breeze as it clings to his matchstick frame, his hair and eyes trembling with Time Lord fury. He's iconic as hell and it's no wonder he's caught the hearts and minds of so many fans.

Eleventh Doctor

Style: "Young Old Man"

I absolutely love Matt Smith's Doctor, especially his early look with the tweed and floppy hair. Ray Holm really came out swinging with this costume as it bred countless one-liners about his bow-ties and love for a good fez. If you've ever seen pictures of other Eleventh Doctor costume concepts, you'd realise what a stroke of genius that bowtie really was. He just doesn't look like the Doctor without it. I believe it was Smith himself who suggested the bowtie.

I would not say I am as onboard with the later purple suit the Doctor wore with Clara. It just lacked the subtlety of the tweed. And that top hat looked especially out of place, which is funny when you consider how good the black top hat looked on him in "Let's Kill Hitler." While I would not say the purple ensemble was a total failure, it's got nothing on his original look. Which, if you'll recall, was also stolen from a hospital.

Twelfth Doctor

Style: "Punk Magician"

Peter Capaldi is the first Doctor I ever had to wait to see the costume reveal. I had gotten into Doctor Who around the tail end of Matt Smith's first series. I remember my first reaction to Howard Burden's costume being something like "Huh." I didn't really love it. Perhaps it was the mixture of it being new, and not having already been established as the Doctor's clothes, but I was slow to come around to it. Capaldi's inspiration behind the costume was David Bowie's "Thin White Duke," persona, which is a telling bit of inspiration considering what a dark point it was in Bowie's life.

For me, the Twelfth Doctor's look truly comes together over time. I think it's somehow tied to his hair. The wilder it got, the more I liked his look. I absolutely love the hoodies and the First Doctor inspired trousers. There's something so perfect about a black jumper bespeckled with holes allowing the white shirt beneath to shine through like stars. The cosmic hobo is back in a punk rock fashion. There's something very lived in about the Twelfth Doctor's style that really resonates with me. He may be the eldest Doctor of the modern series (unless you count John Hurt), but there is something undeniably youthful about him

Thirteenth Doctor

Style: "Godspell Casual"

Jodie's costume was another one of those "Huh," moments for me. It was such a departure from anything before it, bar maybe the Ninth Doctor's jumpers. However, it only took me a few days to get used to, as compared to multiple episodes with Capaldi. A female Doctor was something I had pondered over for such a long time, that I had some expectations as to what she should and shouldn't be wearing. I definitely wanted her in sensible footwear and no floofy skirts. I wanted her like an adventurer. Think Rachel Weisz in "The Mummy." So when she showed up with a pair of high water trousers and comfortable boots, I was pretty happy. It was her t-shirt I was most taken aback by. It seemed a little more casual than I expected, but when you consider she's been a bloke her entire life, having no nonsense clothes is very much the Doctor.

It's not hard to imagine why this was the second Doctor I've cosplayed (the other being Four). There's lots of symbolism tied into the coat that Ray Holm and Whittaker devised together, and I love that they put that much thought into it. At this point it's still early days in her character. Aside from a blink and you miss it scarf or a red shirt, we've not seen a whole lot of wardrobe variation. Rumour has it she'll be donning a pair of black trousers is series 12, which I'm all for. I'd also love to see her wear some grey checked trousers like Hartnell and Troughton. Or even a black and white version of her current look. There's so much versatility possible in her costume. I hope they explore a bit of it.

And that's it for now, friends. I hope you enjoyed this article. I tried to put a little bit of research into it. While I was writing it, this blog turned one year old! I can't believe I've been doing this for a whole year! It's such a wonderful sight to see when you all like the posts and share them. Knowing I've resonated with someone like yourselves feels a little less lonely. Expect to see a Sixth Doctor review corresponding with his blu-ray (I missed the Third Doctor Blu-ray/Pertwee 100th birthday). I'm also planning on covering "The Edge of Time," VR game if they ever decide to release it! Oh and I might start covering the Dark Crystal as well, because I really love that show. I hope you are having a great weekend!

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Tomás Nochteff (Mueran Humanos)

Mueran Humanos, an Argentinian duo now based in Berlin, mixes post-punk, industrial-inflected synth explorations, garage rock and psychedelia. Carmen Burguess and Tomás Nochteff share vocal duties and play a very basic line-up of instruments: bass, synths, drum machines and samplers. In his review for Dusted, Andrew Forell called their latest, Hospital Lullabies, “a thrilling concoction of electronic, industrial, bass-driven body music fueled by the transgressive spirit of a DAF or a Psychic TV.” Here, Tomás presents his list of visionary music.

A list of visionary music

What is a visionary? Visions can come in dreams, in journeys to other worlds, in hallucinations. They can be the product of will, of a derangement of the senses, or they can come uninvited to save you or to haunt you and destroy your mental balance, even your life. It can be heavenly, or hellish, but to be authentic visions they have to be otherworldly. And to be visions rather than just imagination, they must have an element of truth. Not literal truth, like “that wall is green,” but a different kind of truth, the one that´s expressed in symbols, in metaphors, in omens and obsessions. In “Heaven and Hell,” Aldous Huxley analyzed the visions of people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, the visions of mystics and the visions of schizophrenics. He found fundamental parallels and concluded that they must have been visiting the same places. These people are not merely hallucinating, but they are perceiving another reality, visiting a different world, or maybe they are perceiving the world as it really is. And he quotes Jung on this: “schizophrenics and mystics are on the same ocean, but schizophrenics are drowning and mystics are swimming.” A visionary could be a mix of all these archetypes. Like Philip K Dick: was he on drugs? Yes. Was he mad? Yes. Was he seeking enlightenment? Yes. Had his visions an element of truth? No doubt about it. Were his visions revelations? To some extent, yes.

On our last album, Hospital Lullabies, the songs deal with all these different experiences on the journey to another world and on the invasion from another world into everyday life, with its horror and its beauty, the agony and the ecstasy. And how one copes, or doesn´t, with it.

So to celebrate it, I made a list of music that I do consider visionary. There’s madmen, there’s mystics and there’s psychonauts, all possible combinations of the three archetypes and everything in between.

Pharoah Sanders—“The Creator has a Masterplan” (Impulse)

I don´t know much about cosmic jazz, or any jazz for that matter, but what I know is that this record is pure bliss. “Harvest Time,” on Pharoah is another masterpiece. Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry are also incredible. This is music of the spheres; it has the touch of God.

Rudimentary Peni—CacophonyI (Outer Himalayan Records)

One of the few perfect punk bands ever, for lots of reasons. The bass lines are extraordinary, for example. But they belong here because of schizophrenic member Nick Blinko: incredible artist & novelist, obsessed with Catholicism and the supernatural horror. A guy who stopped his medication to force himself into a psychotic crisis just to write an album. Hero. Martyr.

Nico— “Janitor of Lunacy” (Cherry Red Records)

For me, Nico was the best and more underrated of all Velvets (and we love Velvet Underground as much as anyone). Also, the production from John Cale on her records is probably his best work too, or at least among his best. I feel that she is not appreciated enough. Iggy said that meeting her changed him. I suspect that´s true for all her famous friends: Bowie, Lou Reed, John Cale, Leonard Cohen, etc. They were all larger-than-life characters. And we know there is an element of self-built mythology on all that, a bit of acting. There is nothing wrong with that; rock and roll at its best is a complete artform and we must appreciate this self-built mythology as part of their craft. But with Nico you don´t get that feeling. She seemed that she didn´t care about her image, she was born Nico and I suspect that in that sense she inspired them all to no end. She was the genuine article. One of our main loves in music. Essential with a capital E.

Coil—“I Don’t Want To Be The One”

Jhonn Balance wanted to be a magician, and he died trying. I think he succeed in building a shamanic body of work with the help of the great late Sleazy and a myriad of brilliant contributors. Coil´s music at its best it´s like a plasma between worlds, or a very, very good psychedelic drug. My most beloved electronic/industrial/post-industrial project ever and one of our main influences. This performance is superb.

Lungfish — Feral Hymns

I´m not interested in DC post hardcore per se, and I don´t have any tattoos. I shouldn´t care about Lungfish the way I do, but they knock me out every single time. Daniel Higgs is a seer. I don´t know what he is talking about, but at the same time, my gut knows exactly what he is talking about. He speaks in images, like Tarot, like the religious painters, like Rimbaud and San Juan de la Cruz. His delivery is supreme. Raw and fragile, yet powerful and precise. Over circular, repetitive, minimal structures of music that have a haunting, arresting effect. Hypnotic, magical, devotional music. Either you get it, or you don´t. I can´t explain it. That´s the beauty of it, I suppose. And the truly mark of the visionary artist.

Ghedalia Tazartes—“Une Éclipse Totale De Soleil Part 2”

Ghedalia for me represents the pure, untouched, sui generis artist. Applying the techniques of musique concrete to the ancient folk music of the Sephardic Jews with a raw energy that usually you can only find in punk, or blues. I see in him an archetype, the Fool card in the Tarot. The madman that opens the gates of heaven and hell, gives himself to these supreme energies and survives only because of his perfect innocence.

OM—“Sinai (live at Sonic City)”

Maybe the greatest rock band of the last 20 years. Here with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe to maximum effect.

Charlemagne Palestine—Live in Holland 1998

Like Ghedalia, Charlemagne Palestine is a Jewish artist that works in the avant garde field but subverts it with the tradition of his folk music instead of sticking to the cold, cerebral, rational program of academia. He has his own world. Watch this and you will understand what I am talking about.

Virgin Prunes—Excerpts from Sons Find Devils/“Walls of Jericho”

There is a VHS tape called Sons Find Devils, comprised of live shows and short experimental films (some of them made by Balance, from Coil). I had it as a teenager and watched it countless times. Sadly, it is not complete on YouTube or elsewhere but here are some small extracts. With their heretic mix of Irish Catholic imagery, Irish Paganism, Bataille, performance art and post punk, the Virgin Prunes made a unique and extraordinary body of work. A testament of its importance is that Gavin Friday was guest singer of two bands in this list: The Fall and Coil. And Mr. Scott Walker himself invited him to sing on a play. Maybe the historians ignore them, but Mark E. Smith, Scott Walker and Coil knew where it’s at, didn´t they? Their record If I die I die is a masterpiece. Produced by Colin Newman from Wire, no less, if you need more validation.

Boredoms—Vision Creation Newsun

I like some of the more comical, early work of Boredoms, but with Super AE and this one they got me. They got serious and spiritual, channeling Alice Coltrane, tribal drumming, kraut rock and noise into a glorious, euphoric sound. Maybe they are not visionaries, but their music can produce visions. I saw them around 2005 (on acid) with the three drummers line up, still in this phase. I remember thinking “this is what cavemen had in mind when they invented music.” I actually saw it, with my eyes closed. Early humans. In caves. Inventing music. God bless LSD.

Aphrodite´s Child — 666

The one record I bought for the cover only, it cost me 50 cents, best deal of my life. A concept album about the apocalypse. Easy contender for the best psychedelic rock album of all time. Pet Sounds? Get outta here. An absolute masterpiece.

Tim Buckley—Starsailor

Tim Buckley is a mystery. He died too young. How he went from his L.A. folk rock first album to the absolute unique sound of Starsailor and Lorca is impossible to understand and a miracle of music. All six records in between are masterpieces. He was possessed by genius and has the most beautiful voice. I don´t know much about him, but his music put me out there.

Sun Ra—Night Music 1989

Watch this. Space is The Place, indeed.

Pescado Rabioso—Artaud

This guy, Luis Alberto Spinetta, is considered by many to be the most important rock musician in my country. So being an arrogant teenage punk, or whatever, of course that alone was enough to reject him altogether without even thinking. But a couple of years ago I was blown away by a book of poems he published in 1978. Incredibly beautiful, unique and sophisticated poetry. I recently started, too late, to listen to his music. This is one of his most famous and revered records. It´s dedicated to, and inspired by Antonin Artaud, who tried and failed to reach the mystic enlightenment, generating a body of work in the process which is a testament to his spiritual ambition, his radical rejection of the material world and his pain. Spinetta understood this, he said the record was trying to find an answer to Artaud, a way out of it, a way out of the pain. It´s psychedelic music of the highest order. The lyrics are incredible but you can enjoy it even without understanding them.

Dead Can Dance—Dyonisios

I kept forgetting this band exists. This new album is great. I listened to it non-stop during last Winter/Spring. It´s the perfect time because the record is about Dyonisios, so as a soundtrack for the rebirth of Nature it´s perfect. Probably their best work in years. Sublime.

The Fall—“Garden” (Live at the Hacienda, Manchester, UK, 1984)

No list of visionary rock and roll would be complete without Mark E. Smith. Famously he said, “I used to be a psychic but I drank my way out of it.” Indeed, there was a time, between 1978-1990, when he was possessed by something, injecting realism with mysticism, mixing high and low planes, exposing the supernatural forces that hides in the cracks of everyday life. He never talks about hell neither heaven, but rather the way they mix and manifest here on Earth. You’ve got countless of bands using occult/mystic imagery, and you know it´s nice but it´s just a game. You’ve got thousands of bands referencing Burroughs and the cut-up technique, but no one can write as Burroughs did. MES did it. MES wasn´t playing. He was a realist of the augmented reality, he told it like it is, in his fragmented, hallucinatory, unpretentious, visionary prose poetry.

There is a lot in his lyrics that can be read in a mystic, occult way. He left a lot of clues for the ones that can read them. His texts are kaleidoscopic, and they reflect what´s in your mind, really. I think he will be recognized with time as the great experimental writer that he actually was rather than merely an angry Mancunian punk. He had more in common with someone like Iain Sinclair than with any other rock musician. One of my favorite web sites is The Annotated Fall, where fans analyze his lyrics in depth. Pay a visit if you can, I can´t recommended it enough. In many ways, he was too intelligent for rock and roll, and that´s why he was misunderstood, but he didn´t care, he believed in constant work, never explain, never apologize. The Fall took all the best things in rock and roll: Can, Velvet Underground, punk, Captain Beefheart, and pushed it to the next level. Our favorite rock group ever.

Huun Hur Tu — “Prayer”

I tried to stick to Western, modern music but I can´t help including this.

[saleintothe90s]

381. It Came From the Daily Show: one episode from June 1999, and one from July, 1999

(April and May, 1999)

I fell behind on this series because Daily Show (especially back then) only worked for about 2 weeks out of every month during the Summer. There was slim pickings. Also, I have to get this out of the way so we can discuss the episode of Daily Show where Jon makes fun of Garth Brooks for being Chris Gaines!! 

June 24, 1999

Intro - “I’ma’ gonna totally sign your yearbook!” “ I can’t believe we’re going to college in the fall! BFF!” 

Headlines - Spike-O Killer - Son of Sam is upset about the movie about him, Summer of Sam, “demands more Summer, less Sam.” Son of Sam says the film is “hurtful to society”, and the audience dies laughing. He’s also mad that he’s being played by “the fat guy from The Practice”.

Headlines - “Deep Ship” - Bob Ballard has found two of the oldest shipwrecks off the coast of Israel. Obligatory Gilligan’s Island three hour tour reference.  We also learn about Polyphemus?! Don’t worry, Jon didn’t know about him either. 

Correspondent Bit - “Another World”. Stephen Colbert discusses the NBC soap opera Another World being canceled. Jon would never leave Lilah in an elevator shaft while in labor during the big ball! Does he ever wonder about his bastard elevator baby?! Does Stephen Colbert look french? Daddy?!  I love it when they did stupid bits like this back then, I’m also just a sucker for when they changed the lights in the studio.

(There’s also a hilarious bit from the summer of 2001 where Steve Carell cries over Luke and Laura from General Hospital finally divorcing.)

Special Report - Terror in the Toy Chest. I love it when Jon talks about mundane things such as toys. In this case, its a Tarzan doll that makes a masturbatory gesture, a prudish woman is filing a obscenity complaint against Toys R Us selling an Austin Powers doll that says “do I make you horny, baby?”, and pool dive sticks have been impaling children in the butt. I remember the pool dive sticks being recalled! 

Cherilyn Paulsen of Silver Spring, Md., wishes she had taken the dive stick away from her daughter. In August 1997, Paulsen’s daughter was jumping and playing in an inflatable pool in the family’s backyard, celebrating her 6th birthday.

“The next thing I heard was my daughter’s blood-curdling scream,” Paulsen remembered.

The girl had been impaled on a dive stick brought to the party by a friend. Paulsen’s daughter was flown to an area children’s hospital, where she underwent two hours of surgery.

“It tears through children’s bodies,” Paulsen said of the toy. “It looks harmless, but people need to realize how much harm they can do.” 1

Take a listen to the hotline the company has set up: 

See also: 

Other News: Purple Reign - Phil Jackson is named coach to the Lakers. 

This Just In:  Commie Dearest - Khrushchev’s son passes the U.S. Citizenship test. We’re all fish theologists? 

Public Excess - Karaoke King - I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Public Excess was one of my favorite bits back in the day. Rich Brown would introduce the craziest and the dumbest clips from the dying format of public access TV. I know some people who review old Daily Shows don’t like the segment, but we didn’t have YouTube back then! This was it for us if we wanted stupid people!  In this edition, a guy in a crappy suit sings a song about a teenager in love and says the song is all about him, Lorenzo dances around in a gold jacket with some fancy effects, and a muppet looking guy who is proud to be a federal worker? Omg, this guy crank calls and asks how he keeps his head so shiny! 

July 22, 1999

If memory serves me correct, Daily Show always goes on a big break in July, so these pickings were real slim. also, the Vance DeGeneres Tales of Survival field piece is missing a part off of the Comedy Central Website. I’m 90% sure I don’t have this episode on vhs either. I did, however find the commercial breaks from this episode.

Headlines: MissPentagon - Congress blasts Pentagon for misuse of military funds--including a Comanche helicopter that is so loaded down with weaponry, the pilot has to weigh under 110 pounds. In 2004, the program was finally canceled.

Headlines: Lemmingway - George Hemingway turns 100. There was a look-a-like contest and a key lime pie eating contest in Key West. Gross.

Correspondent Piece - A Tale of Survival: S.J. Sharkie - Okay, so the doofus who cut these episodes of TDS up forgot to include the first part of Vance DeGeneres’ bit about S.J. Sharkie, the San Jose Sharks hockey mascot being stuck in the rafters of the stadium during a bit where he was supposed to be descended upon the ice. Staff lowered him down another rope and he was able to reel back up to safety. 

Other News: The Patch is Prologue - Women might finally get birth control patches -- “putting an end to all loud speaker condom price check jokes”. 

I just remembered that annoying Ortho-Evra commercial from 2003 where the lady keeps flashing us her underwear. 

This Just in: Friends in Greed - “NBC pays five million dollars an episode for Friends. Cast of Suddenly Susan to receive new fanny packs.” 

Al Up in That: Milk - 91 year old Daily Show consumer advocate, Al Green the Bedspread King of Long Beach rants about milk. I don’t know where they found this guy. Either Stacey Grenrock-Woods did a field piece about him, or they found him on Public Access? 

Note to Al, Cofeemate isn’t milk. ‘Crap’s not even dairy. 

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1.Fields, Robin, “Swim Pool ‘Dive Stick’ Toys Recalled,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1999. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-25-mn-49982-story.html

[postpunkpontypandyphantomthief]

7th Comedy Monologue

“Hey my Cheese bags I’m back from my adventure in 1985”

“No joke if you look it up

the timeframe of days for each month this year

are the exact same as they were in 1985”

So all this “80s revival stuff” with Duran Duran and Depeche Mode touring, Petshop Boys releasing a new album, a new generation falling in love with Queen and She-Ra while the world is being messed up by a tyrannical iron lady and a talking tangerine makes a bit of sense doesn’t it?”

Even though I was born in the 2000s I’ve always loved most of the media from that decade, the gothic and upbeat synthesizer music,the cheaply made but entertaining cartoons,the video games,the basic but stylish fashion,the musicals and John Hughes films,the mix of music genres in the charts,Goth,Synth,Punk,2 Tone,Post-Punk,New Wave,Glam Metal,Alternative,Shoegaze,Hip Hop,Electronica

I was watching Saved by the Bell  before Netflix even existed

Then again a lot of the shows from then were also being revived back in my day

Dal Winton was presenting game shows, Pingu replaced the scary walrus monsters with rap music, I watched or had VHS tapes of the Muppet show, Noddy, Postman Pat and Scooby Doo.

Scooby-Doo! Now that’s a show that never gets old because it never changes, anyone regardless of what generation they’re from would be able to tell you

“Oh Yeah, I remember Scooby Doo”

When you think about it Scooby Doo is quite philosophical

we are all just a gang going on our own adventures

that and the first few live-action movies are modern masterpieces

I was just browsing Twitter or Tumblr or literally anywhere on the internet only to see that screencaps were taken from the live action Scooby Doo interviews had turned into memes

*ahem*

Well,I was auditioning for the role of Velma, I could sense from the way Matthew Lillard just fully encompassed the role of Shaggy, it felt like he was Shaggy, he was our saviour as he felt his spiritual energy increase, that’s when I knew we were working with a legend

Something like that although Matthew isn’t too fond of the memes himself specifically the ones where his spiritual connections are described more like demon possession rituals

*ahem*

“Being Shaggy has led me down a path of death and destruction. I’ve killed many mortals in hope of replicating 1% of Shaggy’s being, by the end of filming I hope to become one with him”

In which Matthew responded with

*deadpan voice*

This is wrong

I mean I might also have inspirations where I feel like I can philosophically connect with them, in their performing style and personality but that’s where I draw the line

Personality?  That’s a tricky subject

You could say some people have consistent personalities

People said Freddie Mercury and David Bowie were party animals who were incredible on stage with their charisma, creativity and charm but other sources have said they were relaxed, laid back people who were shy when being interviewed.

That could just be the contrast between their onstage and offstage personas but not all of us have that, even if we are all  just actors in a play, hoping each day goes the right way

Some of us are punk, even if we don’t explicitly say that we are, or have the stereotypical style associated with it,a lot of us just try to be ourselves,some of us can enjoy reality shows and horror movies at the same time,some of us can enjoy One Direction and Gorillaz,some of us can love fashion but also love memes, Theatre, and 1980s aesthetics

I’d say I’m the same but sometimes my personality is all over the place

I can go from being cheerful, relaxed and happy to being dazed and clumsy or cynical or entranced and hyper-fixated to Pessimistic and Cold to Quiet and Timid to Mellow and Loud   what personality traits you associate with me, however, is up to your own conclusion

call me any internet subculture stereotype and I’d be able to tell you about how I either, unfortunately, was the stereotype or I hung around people who were those stereotypes

if you said I was someone who watched Cbbc and citv you’d be right

if you said I was a classic rock enthusiast years ago and now you’d be right

if you said I used to be a cringy anime enthusiast  you’d be right

if you said I was one of those theatre kids who watched Disney sitcoms you’d be right

if you said I was one of those meme posters who referenced movies like Shrek and bee movie you’d be right

Another thing punks did was and sometimes still do was creating fanzines, magazines related to their favourite band or tv show or their own opinions on what’s going in the world, nowadays you could say social media has replaced that, but publications like the Daily Mirror, The Sun and TMZ still have a presence on there,I’d say fanzines should have a revival.

The BAFTA’s also happened recently and I wasn’t impressed, then again when are awards shows anything other than beauty pageants for films anyway?

Some films deserved their awards, but some films barely got a mention, Paddington 2 wasn’t included in there or in any of the other film awards this year and Stan and Ollie got nothing…

A darn shame because that film was so well made, it felt authentic, while Stan and Ollie also have a bit of a universal following, there are still some people who probably don’t know who they are!

Before Walliams and Lucas, Before the Two Ronnies, Before Richie and Eddie

There was…Laurel and Hardy

Two moustached blokes, who in the 20s and 50s would just try to delight audiences the best way they could, through slapstick and laughter, without them, most of the world’s double acts wouldn’t exist and even Spongebob wouldn’t exist

Yep, you heard me right, all those misadventures Spongebob and Patrick would have, they were loosely based on the adventures of Laurel and Hardy, except instead of it being about a tall British man and a fat American it was about an anthropomorphic sponge and a dumb but caring starfish.

Speaking of Spongebob, there was some sad news involving Spongebob not too long ago

The creator of Spongebob, Stephen Hillenburg…had passed away from ALS

I know, it’s awful,stupid motor neuron diseases and stupid Adam Levine too,for those who don’t know there was an episode of Spongebob called Band Geeks where they ended the episode with the cast playing a song called Sweet Victory over a Superbowl type of event, for the actual super bowl Spongebob fans around the world petitioned for that song to be played in tribute for Stephen,however we got Adam Levine singing a different song instead….what a letdown

If it wasn’t for SpongeBob I and some of the rest of the new generation, wouldn’t know half the old music or old films we know now.

To let down millions of fans like that makes me sick

Honestly, I was a bit sick a few weeks ago, I’ve been sick before and hospitalized twice but this particular moment of sickness was odd

It was like any other night, I was trying to get some sleep and lucid dream, but then it happened, the shivers, the shakes the trembling aches,

Out of nowhere, I felt like an ice-cube stuck in a microwave, It was too cold but it was too warm, I eventually got to sleep but when I got up the next morning I felt sick again, sorry for disclosing those details but it was like the exorcist…

Usually, when I’m sick watching documentaries, Kitchen Nightmares or 90s films weirdly cheers me up

Speaking of films, Rocketman the Elton John movie is out and it actually looks good

It’s being directed by the guy who was the replacement director for Bo Rhap and if it ends up being brilliant I won’t be surprised, the trailer gave off Velvet Goldmine vibes, the style of composed cinematography and I’m sounding like Film Twitter, Isle of Dogs was a good film…oh wait it wasn’t acknowledged much by the award shows either.

Another amazing film I recently watched was Rocky Horror…I know I’ve mentioned it before but that was when I only knew the sequel and some of the soundtrack,

It was amazing, it was brilliant, it was fantastic, it was out of this world,

ah! Rocky Horror was splendid

I definitely now understand why it’s still going strong to this day

It’s that hybrid of rock and roll, optimistic nihilism and soft aesthetics

That just works for me, another thing I’ve remembered was that Richard O’ Brien played the dad in Phineas and Ferb, well that explains that part of me liked that cartoon for the music and some of the characters but other characters did my head in like that Isabel character

“Hey, Phineas what ya dooing?”

“How about you let me finish my invention and you mind your own business”

Oof that’s too harsh…but considering aspects of the marvel Phineas and Ferb crossover were surprisingly a bit sexist at times outdated for the show that is usually quite progressive in its representation and characters…it’s probably accurate

Another person who hasn’t changed but is also often harsh, Piers Morgan, a little tweety bird told me he had a mysterious illness, good riddance I’d say, he’s the new Noel Edmonds, the presenter who used to be ok but now is unbearable…because he never shuts up

Thankfully though he’s “taking a break” from GMB that will rest our eardrums

Russell Brand has also been in the tabloids again, even though he’s more focused on his Buddhist spiritual recovery enlightening, looking back he wasn’t as bad as people described him, yeah at times he was a bit too over the top,but he was and is quite an ok bloke, but I’d say temporarily banning tickling is a bit of a stretch,

when you think about the number of people who disrespect our literal and figurative personal space on a daily basis, it kinda makes a bit of sense,

whether your sensory sensitive or not, I’m sure you hate it, when people are too touchy at times

although years ago I would’ve been a bit of an ignorant hypocrite about that

Hating it when crowds of kids would chase me like how the paparazzi chase their next gossip target, yet often annoyingly running up to people to talk to or entertain them.

I really need to learn to enjoy loneliness more because I get some of my best ideas when alone, but emotionally I feel a lot better when around others, a bit of an Ambivert really,

I’m sorry I can be a bit all over the place, I’m trying to make my energy more manageable

as that lucid dreaming thing has been misused at times,

I shouldn’t let myself be controlled…

by anyone or anything..no overthinking, no overworking,

treat the world as your stage, start your first act, motivated and ready, take your recharging interval breaks and then move on for your second act

fancy that me an ex-drama student making that metaphor when my current course  involves digitally drawing art, editing audio and sitting at a computer for most of the day

But then again just because someone shows good charisma that doesn’t always mean their a good person.

Ted Bundy, one of America's most notorious serial killers used charisma and charm in his court cases, and with the amount of fangirls giving him fanmail it was like the Beatles fandom but for people with Stockholm syndrome,and now with Netflix’s documentary and Troy from High School Musical in an upcoming film about him, that seems to be repeating itself…

*Alien voice* Ted Bundy the 1960s called they want your fangirls back!

One show I know you probably haven’t heard of is The Boondocks, a south park esque cartoon with an anime esque art style, referencing the social commentary of African American culture and media, celebrating some aspects while critiquing others, through the lenses of a socialist boy named Huey Freeman, his rapper wannabe brother Riley and their activist grandad Robert.

This show was quite revolutionary,it referenced the issue of each episode quite well, even though it only lasted 4 seasons, however, because the show is quite American, apart from the animation which is done in Korea,The Boondocks is not well known in the UK, which is a shame because it is a really good show that still holds up…however, it does fall under one mousetrap that most other adult cartoons fall into….

Because of the references to violence,innuendo and other dark subject matter sometimes referenced in a satirically humorous way,some audiences  would just watch the show because it’s offensive thinking that the show was made just to be offensive..instead of what the show was actually made for..which was to give social commentary on the issues relevant to African American communities in America.

I had watched this show years ago, it only just came back on my radar, because the creator Aaron McGruder, who based the show off his webcomic of the same name, had recently made a new issue.

There’s a difference between being satirical and being offensive

Your either making fun of something bad that a system or people are doing to make people aware of how stupid and sad the world can be at times,subjectively making fun of a stereotype, or your an arse who thinks they’re a comedian when they waste their time on social media, thinking they’re amazing and funny when they’re holding up the line at Mcdonald’s and the only people laughing at their jokes are gammon and people who found Bernard Manning funny

“Oh Wait”

I know sometimes I have unpopular opinions such as how my views of someone dip depending on their views of Kanye West

and sometimes I can be a bit snarky, and I hate and love stuff in equal amounts, but we need a bit of that don’t we, if we bottle it all up we explode like volcanos, but if we overshare too much, we crash like out of control cars

It’s all about moderation, salt is a tasty condiment but eat too much of it and your arteries will get clogged,

A few days back it was the day Mark Ashton passed away, for those who don’t know,he was an LGBT activist in the 80s,he volunteered with organizations such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,he and the other activists helped to support the miners during the miner strike, creating the LGSM Alliance,Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners,there was a film made about them too, called Pride,but what some people don’t know is that….Mark Ashton was Northern Irish…he was one of us..he was the Marsha P Johnson of our time..if we were a bit like Mark Ashton this country would be a slightly more accepting place, why don’t we give love!

Let’s move on, plant more flowers in our garden..I know I sound like a hippie but it’s true, our Celtic Summerland is being used as a cesspool for Nuclear Waste

Oi! use your own bins, not the place we’re living in, pick up your rubbish and clean up your own mess…

The 80s were telling us something with all those protect and survive adverts, yes some of us were prepared as the older generation made us alert, others couldn’t recognize that a lot of innocent people were getting hurt.

When we say we want a 1980s comeback we want the music, clothes, games and  films,

but Nope

while we have some of that the 1980s revival we get is the one that involves Nuclear Danger and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher

All these TV and Film revivals, some are cool others are just unnecessary  Do we really need a Snow White sequel? No, we don’t but we did get one even if it was unofficial

Back in 2007 a French animation company made a sequel to Snow White which was also a bit like Shrek in how it satirised the fairy tale tropes, how Prince Charming feels like he is objectified while he ends up doing the same thing to the female characters, quite a tosser but that’s the point of the parody to point out the flaws with fairy tale logic, and to put the likes of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella in more realistic scenarios.

…it’s strange, weird but brilliant too

The English dub had quite a few familiar faces doing the character voices

Stephen Fry as the narrator, Morwenna Banks, Simon Greenall and another British actor

Rik someone...

Ah! I remember his name now, he was in many successful sitcoms in the 80s and 90s,he was a legend, he knew how to keep people laughing, whether they were children, adults, teenagers,

in television, theatre, film or music

quite an eclectic range of talent

Although

I’m a new fan, I might adore his work, but I had just learnt his name 2 years ago, whereas, with other fans, they have created their own work, such as Charlie Brooker and Simon Pegg… some were able to meet him…lucky...

Some encounters were quite interesting, I had heard someone’s nan got to meet him in the 90s but she got his name wrong so she ended up saying

“‘oh hello can I have your autograph please Mr mayo?’

Well that happened, she probably still got that autograph,...

And somewhere up there, Rik Mayall is thinking of us, he, Stephen Hillenburg and David Bowie are probably chatting away

Let’s make the lord of misrule proud