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thislovintime · 2 years

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"I was booked in here [CBGB, on July 31, 1977] by a journalist friend of mine who’s helping me do a book on the Monkees trip, and after it’s over I’m gonna go back to California and teaching." - Peter Tork, Village Voice, August 8, 1977 (more about that gig here)

“As to my tell-all book, well, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Never say never, of course, but I’ve thought about it off and on for years, and I never seem to sit down to the computer and start writing the thing. Meanwhile, I do make music, and that’s where my heart is. These days, it’s just about all about the blues.” - Peter Tork, Ask Peter Tork/The Daily Panic, 2008

Below the “read more” cut are some quotes from the unpublished interview transcripts for Peter’s potential autobiography, transcribed from the auction preview images. The interviews were conducted in circa 1975/1976, and listed on eBay some years ago. (I’ve taken the liberty of correcting spelling errors as I’ve spotted them; see words in square brackets. Although, a final editor’s note: can’t help wishing that the transcripts had been given to Peter/Peter’s family instead of being sold on eBay.)

“Davy had [smoked some marijuana] on Broadway, kind of, but he didn’t dig it. Micky had absolutely never had it [marijuana] before. […] [At] my house. We smoked, we had smoked something pretty good, I don’t remember what it was, and there was a Ray Charles record on, and Micky just stretched out flat on his face, and was gone, for the entire time the record was on. And then it was over, he got up, and just this look of amazement crossed his face. […] Michael did smoke, he may have smoked beforehand, just a little now and again, and for a while he was smoking it with us when we were smoking it in rehearsals and so on, and then he faded out of that. I don’t think it ever really attracted him too much. It meant too much. He didn’t like to really lay back that way, the way grass makes you lay back.

[…]

[While living with Mike and Phyllis] I wrote a banjo tune called the Monkee Breakdown. It’s pretty good. […] You had to walk up a huge flight of stairs. His address was actually on the sidewalk, the Something Terrace, Stoneview Terrace, I don’t remember. Michael had a garage and you drove in and you had to drive up a windy little road for a short whole just to get to the garage and then you had to climb about 120 steps. I remember when I walked in after the pilot I arrived separately, arrived back home, as it was, Phyllis walked in from the show, stark naked, scared the shit out of both of us.

Q: Out of her, too?

PT: Well, we were both quite startled.

Q: Oh, it was just you and her.

PT: Mike hadn’t come in yet. I hope it’s not too embarrassing to her to say that. Maybe I should ask her, I think I can reach her.

Q: Got anything else?

PT: Nah.

Q: Do you remember in more detail what you did when he picked you up that day?

PT: No.

Q: Let me backtrack a minute. Where were you when Phyllis walked out of the shower.

PT: I had just opened the door, dropped my bags, moved a step and a half to my left and plunked myself down on the chair.

Q: And was this the living room?

PT: Yeah. And Phyllis came walking out of the bathroom and through the hall, and to the living room. Off the living room was the a door and then there was a hallway with the two bedrooms and the bathroom off of that. i heard her in the shower and I might have told her, but I didn’t happen to say anything at the time.

Q: Ok. How did you meet David Pearl?

PT: I don’t recall. He was just like a guy on the set, a Texas friend of Mike’s.

Q: When you were living together were there any habits of his that annoyed you or vice versa[?].

PT: No. We were pretty circumspect. We kept out of each other’s way. We made it a point not to get involved with anything that would be destructive.

Q: But you didn’t have little fights over who would clean out the toilet that day and things like that?

PT: No.

Q: Were you uncomfortable living with a couple?

PT: No. I was circumspect as you know about that.

[…]

[8/15/76]

For Pete’s Sake was real handy. […] I was upstairs in my living room. You take a C7 chord and move it up 2 frets. And [what] happens is you have a D9. Cos the C7 chord leaves the high strings open. The high string is the one on the bottom. That is to say, the musical top string is the gravitational bottom string. So that string is an E, which is only a part of a regular C7 chord. But if you add it onto a D7 chord, that chord becomes a D0. And there was this note. This great big 9th note. And it seemed to hang in the air.

Love is understanding. That was what was on my mind at the time. I was into flower child lyrics. And it just seemed natural to rhyme. Love is understanding. Don’t you [know] that this is true. Love is understanding It’s in everything we do. Well, it sort of fell into place. It kind of sounds like doggerel now.

[…]

[10/13/76]

Q: [You’re] flying to the East Coast. So tell me a little about that. How long it took, what you did there.

PT: Well, I had a strange feeling when I was in New York, on the East Coast. I had fully expected the thing would be picked up, and that I would hurry back. I don’t know why. I didn’t even expect it to have as much trouble as it did. Although, I guess that shows my ignorance. Anyway, I wandered around the old haunts, looked in at the old places, played a few sets here and there, I think, and told some friends that I’d had an opportunity to make a thing happen, that it might happen, and so on and so forth, and I hung out at the house.

Q: Do you remember anybody’s specific reaction to that?

PT: Everybody’s reaction was, ‘Oh, that’s very nice,’ ‘Yes, that’s quite nice,’ ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ ‘Well, good luck, I hope it turns out all right for you.’ It was a kind of lightheaded time. I would wander around and I was so sure. Like, I WAS SO SURE, when you say that, like in italics, that’s the kind of expression you use when it turns out wrong, and what I was actually thinking was, well, it just seemed like that natural thing to happen.”

* * *

In connection with Phyllis:

“The first time I met Peter was at the Troubadour where he performed, long before the auditions. I’ve always liked his warmth and honesty. And he’s always been very kind to me. Both Davy and Peter have lived with us and Peter was always very considerate, helping with the dishes and all.” - Phyllis Nesmith, Fave magazine, January 1968

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heartbrake-hotel · 2 years

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for the first question of the elvis ask game bc i am incapable of Shutting Up;

"When and what was your first exposure to Elvis Presley?"

like literally i could Not in good conscience let this extend my original answer post ohhhh my god 😅😅 but also i quite like the story and want it recorded for selfish purposes so if you are for Some Reason interested...... here she is

my mom really loves elvis (some of you might know this already). she's from alabama, and growing up her dad (who died p young) really liked him (though my gramma still insists "he always did a little too much of that... jigglin' for my taste"). she remembers her father let her stay home from school on august 17th, 1977, because she was so distraught after hearing about elvis the afternoon before. that day after was a wednesday and she was 10 years old. she says it was practically a public day of mourning in the south.

on the other hand my mom is also deeply catholic and experienced a great moral terror surrounding media consumption upon having me, her oldest, bc she was afraid that if my first word had been "margaritaville" she would have had to answer to god for the depravation of my immortal soul :/ and no that's not a joke she literally thought that about jimmy buffet. so we didn't, uh. have music in my house as a kid. my mom had one (1) bruce springsteen cd i wasn't allowed to listen to, and my dad had one (1) johnny cash cassette that i WAS. other than that the only music we had around was the soundtracks in movies and a lot of gregorian chant. and the one copy of the high school musical deluxe edition soundtrack that i got for christmas in 2006 and my sister and i literally wore the ribbon out of bc we were so starved for Tunes dfghs so i actually. had no idea my mom liked elvis she never listened to his music around me or brought him up.

aaaand then in.. 2009 or 2010 (i had to look up the release date of justin bieber's baby to verify this Holy Shit), i went away to sleepaway camp for the first time. it was an art, science, and technology camp at my dad's alma mater (and eventually mine❤) in my parent's hometown, a couple hours away. i stayed with my dad's parents instead of on campus, but it was still A Big Deal growing-up-wise. and my mom sent me a care package while i was there, with a postcard to read for every day of the week i was gone.

they were all pictures of elvis and i had No Idea Why.

i thought maybe she was just being, like. fun and kitschy.?? idk i was a weird kid who had a weird mom, it was easy to rationalize. and she didn't address it at all until the third postcard, when she said she had thought about finding stationary i would like to write these on but instead she decided to give me something precious to her, these elvis postcards she'd had lying around since she was a girl. because of how, you know, she loved elvis so much.

WELL, NO. NO MOM, I DID NOT "KNOW."

up until this point the only defining knowledge i had of elvis could be summarized by the epic rap battle of history vs michael jackson, which contains such lyrical marvels as "here's a tip - don't swallow a bucket of drugs so you won't die on the toilet dropping hunks of burning love," and "well, i may have died on the shitter but i don't give a crap, you ain't got half the badass battle raps that i have." yes i Did type those out from memory. i'm sure i'd heard elvis' music before (i had seen lilo and stitch at least once, after all) but if you had asked me to name even one of his songs at that time i don't think i could've done it. i simply hadn't conceptualized him beyond the vague image of a white jumpsuit and the words "thank ya, thank ya very much." but my mother expressing ANY sort of interest in a celebrity or pop culture at large was Absolutely Shocking, and i was determined to take advantage of this moment by seeing what the hype was all about.

so i went downstairs to my grandparent's basement pc and typed "elvis" into the google search bar. that was it. just "elvis." not "elvis presley," not "elvis songs," not "who the hell was elvis and does an interest in him make my mother lame or cool?" just "elvis." :)

and the first video that came up was the rapid city unchained melody performance. i watched the video, and i almost immediately had this absolutely overwhelming outpouring of love for this man on the screen. he slurred out "unchained melody. from an album called unchained melody. makes a lot of sense. ok" and i remember thinking that that "ok" had sounded so SMALL. he sounded like a lost little boy. and then that maternal instinct immediately fled my 12-year-old body and i scoffed like a tweenybopping little bitch and thought from how tiny he sounded he couldn't possibly have had a voice worth listening to.

and then he opened his mouth and heaven started pouring out.

i had never heard the song before (though i was immediately struck by its.. well, melody). i didn't know he was struggling with a drug habit, and i didn't know it had been filmed shortly before his death and would eventually come to be seen as the crowning final jewel in the midst of years of muddy decline. all i knew was that this man looked like he should've been in a hospital instead of on a stage, pouring sweat, minutes away from toppling backwards off the piano bench, and despite all of that... he was making the most devastatingly beautiful music i had ever heard. his voice was so strong, so clear, and i was once again baffled that a voice like that could be coming out of his visibly ailing body. i thought about how beautiful it was that he was giving so much of himself to perform this song when he looked like he didn't even have it in him to make it another couple of days. and i thought he was the most beautiful man i had ever seen in my life for doing it. it was like i had the word "beautiful" running on loop in my head. the only thought i had was "beautiful, beautiful, beautiful," over and over again until the song finished.

i didn't even realize i was crying until my gramma (who was just about deaf and had been two floors above me and on the other side of the house) came down to check on me. i remember her coming to stand at the foot of the basement steps and looking at me really carefully, asking if i was ok. and i had never heard her sound worried before ever so i took my headphones off and opened my mouth to ask her what she meant, and i realized i couldn't talk because i was so violently sobbing. apparently i had been shaking, hugging myself, and rocking back and forth for the duration of the video and was so insularly focused on elvis i hadn't even known it. dramatic ass bitch

eventually i calmed down enough to tell my gramma i didn't know who elvis was but i was having a breakdown about him anyway, and it felt really weird because a man i wasn't even invested in had just changed my life maybe bc that's about how big what i was feeling was. she just said "ok. do you want to feel that more or less?" so she sat there with me and i watched the video three or four more times and thought he was just angelic. not in the cheesy "did it hurt when you fell from heaven" way but like there was literally something of the divine about him. and i sat there at the computer desk and cried myself out and eventually about forty minutes later said "ok now i would like to feel less" so she told me on the news that morning had been a performance by a boy about my age and did i know who justin bieber was. this was probably a leading question because it was statistically likely i was wearing a my world 2.0 t-shirt at this time, but it gave me an opportunity to show a 70-year-old the baby music video and also to explain what a youtuber was and my emotional range normalized again.

and then that depth of emotion was so uncomfortably strong and i was so unequipped to deal with it as a kid that i shoved it down and learned hound dog and blue suede shoes and can't help falling in love and then totally disavowed myself of Anything elvis for a decade. or at least that's what i thought i was doing but also i loved dion and the belmonts on one end of the relevant temporal spectrum and frankie valli and the four seasons on the other and my favorite movie was bye bye birdie (the 1995 tv one with jason alexander tho not the '63 version sorry ammo) and i spent a Lot of time reading about buddy holly's life story so uh. MAYHAPS I WAS ALWAYS PRIMED FOR THIS.

and then baz luhrmann bashed me on the head with a sledgehammer and it hit my reset button and now here i am✨

#mine #🐞#tag game

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originofjaehyun · 4 years

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Interlude: No More Drama | Part 4 | Pandora’s Box

Interlude: No More Drama Masterlist

Word count: 3,922

Warnings: Mentions of cigarettes should I put this as warning or you guys don’t mind with it?

Part 4 | Pandora’s Box

“Somewhere I close my eyes to you, love love love.”

Prev • Next

Johnny Hyung 07.07 omw

Johnny Hyung 07.07 meeting took longer than I thought, sorry

You 07.07 No bigge, I just reached

You 07.38 Hyung

You 07.38 Wya?

You 07.51 I’m ordering first, I’m ordering the your usual prime fillet mignon and salmon for me

Johnny Hyung 07.53 yo

Johnny Hyung 07.53 wru?

You 07.53 Our usual seat

Johnny Hyung 07.53 ok

Johnny Hyung 07.53 oh, forgot to tell you I brought a guest with me

“Jaehyun, buddy! Sorry I got caught in traffic!”

Jaehyun clearly didn’t get enough time to process the message, after being immediately interrupted by the sound of the familiar hyung. He saw the sight of another silhouette behind Johnny’s giant figure, realizing that the guest owns a feminine figure instead. He reciprocated the smile you directed to him, making your cheeks blushed in vibrant pink.

“[Y/N]? What are you doing here?” Asked Jaehyun, ignoring Johnny’s now lonely palm that he raised high, longing for Jaehyun’s high-five.

“Wait, you guys know each other? Since when?” Johnny furrows his brow, half-confused but also half-excited cause if you guys do know each other, Johnny has one less thing to do – introducing you guys.

You cleared your throat, “Uhm, well…”

“We just happened to talk at a bar before. She didn’t bring her lighter and I just happen to be around. We talked for quite a bit since we were alone.”

“That’s it?” Johnny opposed, not entirely buying Jaehyun’s statement. “You don’t seem to be the type of person who would introduce yourself to a random stranger, Jaehyun.”

“It’s true. I left my lighter and he just happened to stand right next to me.” You replied, before Johnny starts to doubt Jaehyun even more.

“I just talked to her and kindly lent her my coat. She was wearing a rather revealing top, and she was practically shivering. I just don’t think she would take it unless I introduce myself, so I did.” He further elaborate.

So he didn’t tell Johnny about us, thank heavens.

Unconsciously letting out a sigh of relief, you’re grateful that Jaehyun didn’t tell what happened between you guys. The last thing that you want is for Johnny to know that you fucked with his best friend.

Taking his seat, Johnny hummed, convinced that the story was indeed true. “You should’ve told me that you’re smoking, [Y/N], we could’ve smoked first before coming here.”

You giggled, “And making your dear friend wait even more? Also, I don’t think it’s ethically right for me to tell my client that I’m a smoker. Gotta keep my image, you know?”

Both of them laughed, and after you’re seated, Jaehyun noticed that the only person who’s missing their meal is you.

“Hyung, you should’ve told me that you’re bringing someone!” He protested to his older brother. “I’m terribly sorry, [Y/N], if only I know you��re coming, I could’ve ordered something for you.”

“Oh, please, don’t fret about it. I’m the one who should’ve been sorry since I’m disturbing your quality time.”

“You’re actually saving us, I practically ran out of things I could talk to Johnny about. He’s a loner and he always drags me to dinner every now and then because he said he misses me. Do you want to have a steak or seafood for the night?”

“I’m a loner? Dude, if it weren’t me you wouldn’t go out! You’ve been going straight home, learn to enjoy life for a bit! It’s been what, a month?”

Jaehyun just chuckled at Johnny’s protest, raising his arm so that a waiter could come and take your order. You asked for the prime New York sirloin steak – a.k.a the cheapest menu, when in actual fact not that cheap either. After registering your order, the waiter asked the gentlemen whether it’ll be ok for him to serve their bottle of wine, which Johnny hums in approval. The waiter nods, he then left to take the bottle of wine that you assumed Jaehyun ordered earlier on.

“1977 Château Latour Magnum for the lady and the gentlemen tonight?” The waiter asked for a confirmation from either one of you, to which Jaehyun replied with a quick ‘yes’.

“You’re drinking, [Y/N]?” Jaehyun asked you before the waiter could pour the red liquid to your glass.

“If you guys don’t mind me sharing the bottle, I’d gladly take the offer.” You smiled cunningly.

“This wine is expensive, but since Johnny’s paying the night, I can order you another bottle if it fits your taste bud.”

“I’m paying for [Y/N]’s share, Jae, but why did you decide by yourself that I’m gonna pay yours? You got paid a lot more than me, what’s the point of having that COO as your title if you're just going to ask me to pay all the time?” The older one objects.

“You’re a COO?” Your eyes widened at the sudden profile information, undoubtedly didn't expect that you’re going to have your dinner with distinguished people.

“At the same company, in fact. He’s been in the company longer than me.”

The rest of dinner filled with you getting to know each other, though it was more of them sharing their friendship history to you. They actually didn’t like each other when they first knew each other. They were in the same basketball team, and Jaehyun thought Johnny was intimidating, being his senior plus his tall figure. Meanwhile, Johnny thought Jaehyun was pretentious. Jaehyun was the team’s point guard. Every time they played, the girls would scream their lungs out at Jaehyun’s slightest movement.

All of those thoughts changed when Johnny realized that Jaehyun is always putting his hundreds at the things he cares about. It was after a final match between them and their long time rival. Jaehyun received a free-throw during the first few minutes of the last quarter, being pushed from his opponent. Turned out his toenails came off, but Jaehyun held on and took the victory for the team. He immediately took out his shoes when he reached the bench after the match, showing his bloody feet. Johnny, being the tallest of the team carried him to infantry, calling him stupid for holding on. Jaehyun just laughed, telling him that he didn’t even aware of the throbbing pain until he heard the whistle. The friendship bloomed ever since, and next thing they knew, they’ve always got each other’s back.

You paid every single detail to their story, laughed whenever they bicker when the story doesn’t seem to align. Little did you know, Jaehyun constantly steals a glance at you whenever it was Johnny's turn to tell his side of the story.

–

You were so immersed in their story, until the reality snaps back and your body’s telling you that it’s time to go to the bathroom.

“Sorry, can I go to the bathroom for a sec?” You make sure you didn’t cut the story abruptly.

Just as Johnny is about to tell you where the toilet is, Jaehyun cuts him off, “It’s next to the entry, on their left.”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to be quick.”

You resigned yourself, following Jaehyun’s guide.

“So, lover boy,” Johnny raised his glass, “When are you going to tell me that you’ve put your dib to her?” He asked Jaehyun, making sure you’re nowhere out of sight when he did.

“Well… Wait, what? How did you–”

“It’s easy! You reacted to every single thing that she did. And don’t tell me you didn’t look at her because your eyes are practically glued to her. Did you even hear anything from this poor friend of yours?”

Jaehyun scoffed, taking a sip of his wine, “I don’t know, hyung. She’s just… different, I guess? You know the prototypes of girls that I used to hook up with, I bet even you can see the differences.”

“Oh obviously.” Curls appeared on one of the sides of Johnny’s lip, smirking as he trying to unfold the truth. “I’m still waiting until you tell me the truth that happens on the night you guys met.”

“Seriously,” Twirling his glass, now looking at it empty. “I can’t hide anything from you, hyung.”

“Exactly, so please? While she’s still taking her time.”

Jaehyun looks around, making sure you’re not around to eavesdrop.

“I mean, we sort of… connected that night. I barely know anything about her, neither did she. But at least for me, I feel like the connection was real. I can’t really explain it, and I won’t say that I fell for her, I mean she’s cute –beautiful in fact, but…”

“Yet.” Johnny interrupted him. “Come on man, listen to yourself. You stuttered so much I got lost in translation! What’s with the I won’t say that I fell for her bullshit? You’re practically are!”

Jaehyun didn’t want to admit it, but Johnny could see his ears start to turn pink in color, telling Johnny that he’s hiding his embarrassment.

“Look, Jae,” Pointing his glass to Jaehyun, Johnny made sure his best friend is going to listen to he’s going to say.

“I forgot the last time you talked about a woman like this. I think the last time was during high school in that summer. But man, you’ve grown so much. You’re freaking Jeong Jaehyun and I know you can get any girls in the world if you want to, but you always brush them off. It’ll be easy for you to captivate her heart.”

“Don’t talk about her like that. She’s not that kind of girl, and that makes her sort of special, I guess?” Jaehyun showed his disagreement over Johnny’s statement. Him being overprotective over you just put a smile on his best friend’s face.

He finally put down his glass, now almost empty. “I’m still unsure, hyung. Especially… with my situation.”

Johnny lets out a sigh, “Jaehyun, I know it's going to be difficult, but with all of these uncertainties, why don’t you just give it a try? It is a risk, I know, but what’s life without a little bit of it? You’ve been bottling everything for far too long, brother. And what if it works? It’s going to be so rewarding, don’t you think?”

There’s a pause before Jaehyun is able to reply to Johnny.

“It’s like, I’m a Pandora’s Box,”

“Hm? Pandora’s box? Are we talking about mythologies now?”

Your appearance on the table definitely startled both of them. He immediately tried to change the topic. As confused as you are on why he is so flustered about the subject, you easily ignored it because he probably didn't want to touch into it anymore. It was probably something you shouldn’t meddle.

The three of you continued to talk throughout the dinner and you easily became their friend. Their personality is incredibly likeable, that you are aware. Johnny is a friendly person, that you know ever since your formal meeting, and Jaehyun is nothing but wonderful as he’s very attentive. Not only they are intelligent, judging by the way they speak, you can also feel that they are one of the most down-to-earth high profiles you’ve ever met. Usually people like them are snobbish, looking down at people who they deemed lower than them. You don’t sense that at all from neither of them.

Unknowingly you grinned at them, grateful that your future clients are great people. Jaehyun noticed that, instantly replying to you, showing deep craters on both cheeks.

“Excuse me, dear esteemed guests.”

The short link you had with Jaehyun interrupted hastily by the waiter who has been serving you for the night, and successfully flustered you. “Our store is about to close in 30 minutes. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience but would it be ok for me to close the bill?”

Johnny hurriedly rose from his seat, which Jaehyun follows shortly after, telling him that he’s joking when he said that Johnny would pay. However Johnny insisted, responding that he’s the one who’s bringing the guest so it’s only natural for him to pay. Feeling sort of competitive, you dare to convince them that you would pay for your own share, only for them to brush it off saying it would be humiliating for them to let a lady pay when they’re fully capable of settling the bill.

Being the better negotiator, Johnny ended up following the waiter to the cashier to fix the bill. Jaehyun returned to his seat, peeking at his wristwatch.

“It’s already late, you’re not driving right? I’m not allowing you to drive when you just had a good share of that wine.”

Realized you haven’t paid attention to the time, you look up to your phone only to see that it’s already a little bit past 11.

“Shit, I didn’t realize it was this late. I might call a cab or something. Is it easy to find one here?”

He shook his head, “Where do you live?”

After telling him the location of your apartment, Jaehyun smirked, and you swore your heart almost jumped out of your chest. It will take awhile for you to get used to his signature smile.

“Johnny lives in the opposite direction. Both of us usually call for chauffeur service after we dine here. We handled our alcohol quite well, actually, so I think we actually can drive on our own,” He paused for a moment, “But yeah I guess we just tried to be responsible adults by not practicing drink and drive?”

Placing your hand in front of your mouth, you giggled, “But you drove me last time, and I remember I smell a hint of bourbon from you.”

He pressed his lips together, showing his dimple once more, “That, my lady, because it’s urgent and I have something that I can’t afford to wait any longer.” He subtly hints you to let that one off.

“Hi, we finished everything already, yeah?”

Jaehyun nods, followed by you wiping your mouth just in case you have some sauce on your lips before standing up from your seat.

“Let’s take a smoke downstairs first before we go!” Johnny said, arms now over Jaehyun's shoulder, being overly friendly.

–

“I’ll go off first,” Johnny said while pressing his cigarette butt to a nearby ashtray. “Make sure she’s safe and sound, alright Jae? She’s our important vendor and more so she’s now my valuable friend. You might have bigger power than me but I think I’m winning in terms of brute strength.”

Almost choking on his smoke, Jaehyun grinned, “She’s at least safer with me if you put it that way.”

Johnny then said his goodbye to Jaehyun, doing their personal brofist before Johnny walked to his car with the chauffeur service that he already called.

“Should we go?” He extinguished his cigarette, noticing that you already finished yours for quite a while. You replied with a nod, and before long his chauffeur came and he guided you to his BMW.

–

With the absence of Johnny, the air becomes slightly awkward between you and Jaehyun. At least for you, even after getting chummy with each other during dinner, you just can’t seem to forget that night that you’ve shared with Jaehyun. Remembering it makes you feel sweaty, making you awkwardly playing with your hair, twirling the strands.

“Do you have any song you want to play?” Jaehyun snaps you out of your daydream.

“Yes? Oh, actually I’m good. Let’s just listen to your playlist, see whether you got a good taste.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, “Well, if you say so.”

The rest of the drive is mostly filled with silence. A comfortable silence. He asked about you, though, several times. What you do, your favorite artists, whether you like cats or dogs better, and things like that, which you also replied by asking him back.

He never annoys you nor forces the conversation to keep going. He doesn't mind you playing with your phone, as you too don’t mind it when he does. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a comforting air that surrounds Jaehyun that makes you comfortable to share the quietness between you guys.

You move your gaze towards the view outside, admiring the city nightscape, while the music player hums out a tune.

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

You've been locked in here forever and you just can't say goodbye.

–

“Oh, you can stop here.” You suddenly halted the car as it almost reached your apartment.

“Here? Where’s your building?” He peeked outside the window, couldn’t find a building that is appropriate enough to be called a living place.

“Uhm, I have to walk a bit. There’s a huge stair that I need to pass in order to reach my building. But it’s super fine, I can go on my own.”

Jaehyun smiled while he sighed, “[Y/N], I admire you for being an independent woman but this time round I hope you can give me a chance to prove myself a gentleman? Sir, please park the car there. I won’t be long.”

You noticed that fighting back won’t get you any result, so you just give up on the thought.

He then walks with you, and the night is particularly quiet. All you can listen to is the sound of the pebbles that move every time you take a step, and the sound of your breaths.

You didn’t talk much and so did he. He probably enjoy the intimate quietness as much as you do. Shortly after, you reached your apartment building.

“Uhm, this is my place.” You said awkwardly. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you?”

Jaehyun only gives you a polite smile, “Sure, rest well, [Y/N].”

You turned your back, taking a few steps to enter your apartment building.

“Can I talk to you about something?” Jaehyun suddenly asks, making you turn your gaze back to him.

“Yes?!” You’re taken aback by the sudden disruption to the stillness, shouting in reflex.

A curve appeared on Jaehyun’s lips, followed by two crescents that formed on his eyes.

“Remember when you said I would find plenty of women like you?”

You brows furrowed, not sure where this conversation is going. You nod, giving him permission to continue.

“I think about that a lot, whether your judgement is true or not. Then I tried to remember all the women I’ve met before. You see, with my title, what you said makes sense – hey, what are you laughing for?”

“I think it’s a lot more than just your title, Jaehyun. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”

He smiled, also tried to hide his embarrassment, but you can clearly see his ears start to turn pink.

“Well, it’s been a month, and I truthfully I thought there’s nothing more between us. I thought it’s just another one night stand, no offense.” He scrubs his head, showing that whatever he’s about to say is certainly unplanned.

“You left my place with no other information aside from your name. Your name is beautiful, by the way, but how can I find you with just your first name?”

“After you left,” He took a deep breath. “I felt slightly empty, like hearing my own breath and missing yours is quite… unsettling. When I eat my breakfast on my couch, I thought it would be nice if you did take my offer and I can get to know you better while watching Netflix or something.”

You never thought Jaehyun is capable of saying so many things at once. He was mostly a listener during dinner.

“Then for the next couple days every time I close my eyes, I oddly always see you. Your smile's forever in my mind and I think, uhm, I probably like your smile a little bit more than I thought I was.”

“You didn’t… expect anything from me. You’re different. You’re in control of yourself, and I like that. Even during our short dinner, I admire the way your eyes sparkle every time you talk. You pay attention to our stories, remembering the details as you jumped into our conversation. And you didn’t change the way you talk after knowing that I’m a COO.”

You can start to feel the heat on both of your cheeks. You know he feels the same way too, now that his ears are already in a deep shade of red.

Making sure you’re still with him, he continues, “You just… being yourself? Just the way how I know you that night. I don’t know, maybe, I’ve dreamt of meeting someone that could see me as I am, more than just my look, and not just for my title. People fall for each other in mysterious ways, I guess.”

“Well, I thought we had the same dream,” He took another peek at you, realizing now you guys share the same shade of color on your ears. He laughed.

The type of laugh that you wished you can listen to, for a very, very, long time.

“Sure, we might only know each other for less than a day. We might have all the time in the world too, trying to know each other. But what is the first twenty four hours if we’re looking back at the past seventy years?”

“So I thought, I mean, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to let this chance slip again. I thought, if I did, I’d never get to talk to you again.”

You finally couldn’t hold your laughter at the way he stutters, “Jaehyun, so are you asking me for a date? Or are you asking me out?”

He finally loosen up, after being tense, “I’ll let you choose whichever you prefer. Though, if I could give you a piece of advice, I think the second option suits you better.”

You took a step closer, “Let’s go out for a date first, yes? I might or might have not thought about you too after that night.”

“But it is certain that I want to know you better too, Jaehyun.”

Sparkles can be seen in Jaehyun’s eyes, drowned in happiness from your answer, “OK. I guess this is another reason why you’re so attractive, [Y/N]. You don’t rush things.”

Laughter now filled the air, replacing the silent night and straying the awkwardness away. He reached for your hair afterwards, gently caressing you.

“I’ll see you soon?” He stares at you lovingly.

“I’ll see you soon,” You then gently stroke his hand that was resting on you. “You should go, the chauffeur is probably wondering why it took you so long.”

“I probably should,” He put his hand back to his coat pocket, not because he’s seeking for warmth but because he don’t know what he should so with his hand, practically burning from embarrassment after asking you for a date, “I’ll text you later.”

He finally said his goodbye, after exchanging number with you. You took your step back to your building, but it is as if you don’t want to say goodbye yet, you called for him again,

“Jaehyun?”

He looked back again, “Yes?”

You let out a smile, “I think you probably quoting Ed Sheeran a little bit too much.”

He smiled back at you, either happy because you know his reference or embarrassed because he just got busted, “Well, [Y/N], wait until you see the rest of my playlist.”

A/N: Whee~ this chapter is by far the hardest!! The pace is quite slow guys I hope you don’t mind T_T

I promise you’ll enjoy these slower pace chapters cause it’s about to get rough soon hahahahhaa Anyway Jaehyun is definitely quoting on Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud because he’s a big fan of Ed Sheeran lol that’s a bit random but I can’t stop giggling when I watched his vid to Ed lol

#jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun fluff #jaehyunxreader #jaehyun fic #jaehyun angst #mafia!au #jaehyun #jaehyun scenario #fic jaehyun #angst jaehyun #interlude no more drama #nct scenario #inmd #pandora's box #btw the next chapter is still going to be all cotton candy guys so

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thinkbothways · 4 years

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Entry 02

2020 was without a doubt the most chaotic and dazing year of my adult life. To “unpack” my take I’ll have to organize this entry as well as possible, as it’s so easy to lose track of, or even establish a point.

Toilet-Paper-Gate

The toilet paper frenzy baffled me. This topic forces me to admit my most cynical understanding of humanity as a social entity. (For the sake of keeping this interesting I’ll be as honest as possible, but I must first say that this is not a reflection of my typical feeling towards us humans.)

It was early covid days and we were all learning about the impending threat of this virus. Slowly I saw more masks at the grocery store, the news reported it coming closer and closer to being a full global outbreak, and then I saw the toilet paper aisle at Kroger. What do I think happened? In a nutshell, people are greedy and will put themselves first when they feel threatened in any way. Hoarding TP was one way for people to create some sense of control in a situation where there really wasn’t any. I saw videos online of people literally fighting each other for the last TP roll at the store. The situation resembled a panic induced TP stock market crash. This was the first reaction to covid and it was bleak.

Covid is a situation that requires people to consider the impact their actions have on others and what happened? Totally selfish behavior. A problem was created for no reason but to bring a small sense of comfort and victory to a few.

I have fought to embrace my role as a member of society and to make compassion my default feeling towards others. Toilet-paper-gate challenged that. The pandemic had barely started and true colors were already being shown.

BLM protests, the news, the protests & privilege

This is a tough one to reflect on; it is so complex because it takes a specific experience to fully understand. An experience I can only observe. What I can do here is be as honest as possible about my personal experience; one I have never actually articulated. Here it goes:

For most of my life, I have been “asleep” in regards to the underlying racial tension that plagues our country. I was raised in a mostly white town/county in Massachusetts. The area I grew up was mostly upper-middle class and laughably peaceful. I road bikes with neighborhood kids, walked to school, and used my small allowance to buy soda at the old town market.

When I was probably around 7 or 8 years old my parents showed my sister and I the 1977 historical miniseries, “Roots.”

“Based on Alex Haley's family history. Kunta Kinte is sold into the slave trade after being abducted from his African village, and is taken to the United States. Kinte and his family observe notable events in American history, such as the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, slave uprisings and emancipation.” -wikipedia summary

I remember feeling utterly shocked by this series. Roots was my introduction to that part of our countries history. The horrifying imagery from the film is still seared into my memory. But as far as I knew, what the film depicted was only history. It was scary and evil, but nothing more than a thing of the past. For a young innocent mind like my own, it was inconceivable for that kind of evil to exist in modern times. In my world of nickelodeon, nintendo, and Harry Potter; racism just didn’t exist.

Up until I moved to Boston for college in 2010, at the age of 18, I really thought that racism was old news. I had never met a “racist” and I had never heard anyone say or do something racist. It was my understanding that everyone saw racism as despicable and it was pretty much abolished. In fact I still grapple with cognitive dissonance from that comfortable belief and coming to terms with the reality of our society.

In college I made friends of all different backgrounds. I studied fine art and saw films, paintings, performances, and every kind of subversive form of expression imaginable. I learned about important topics like “institutionalized racism” and the prison industrial complex. As I matured I noticed the racist undertones in our media. But I had not connected with the topic on an empathetic level. It seemed totally separate from my small world. At an art school you really don’t meet people that are prejudice. At least I didn’t. So to me it was a real, serious issue but it didn’t hit close enough to home to have a deep impact on my life.

Since then I’ve lived a tumultuous and exciting life that basically centered around me. I did my best to be kind and learn all I could about our world and my reality was ultimately defined by me.

The summer of 2020 was an awakening. Covid had flipped everything upside down. I was confined to my tiny downtown Columbus apartment for months.

George Floyd was killed.

When the news broke I found the whole thing sad and disturbing. But I was still asleep. The protests began and the movement was spreading throughout the country. Suddenly the movement erupted literally outside of my window. I heard the sounds and watched as a crowd of people gathered on Broad St, rapidly growing in size and getting increasingly louder. Police in riot gear lined up in front of them, marching towards them in attempt to intimidate. Pretty soon I had half of my body hanging out of the window to get a close look. The crowd chanted and pushed back on the police. They went back and forth, seeming to challenge each other to make a move. The police made the first move. Streams of powerful mace sprayed the crowd in a brown mist. Suddenly I was coughing and choking. I had never experienced mace before, nor any real violence. I think that is the moment a part of me woke up.

I think that, like in the toilet paper frenzy, people are more self centered than they know or would ever admit. For a movement to really work, it has to also have a direct effect on uninvolved individuals. The BLM protests did that. I had inadvertently gotten involved just by poking my head out of my window. That moment induced in me a new empathy. I was exposed to the smallest amount of mace and was choking and my eyes were burning. I literally cannot imagine how it would feel to be maced in the face by a police officer, but I can now understand how truly fucked up it must have been.

I think that it is in our nature to empathize with things we see ourselves in. Things that validate us and our existence. I think that an individual’s reception of art is an example of this experience. We like art that we see ourselves in. Whether it is a painting that shows a certain form of pain, or a song that describes a form of love we’ve experienced.

I think that, as the majority, white people don’t automatically see themselves in other white people. But I can surmise that minorities have that innate empathy towards each other.

From my apartment window I saw that. I imagine that, for black Americans, seeing George Floyd murdered symbolized their own murder.

I try to understand, but I can only do so within the limitations of my own experience and empathy.

I’ll never know what it’s like to be black in America. The closest I’ve gotten to that experience was breathing in a small amount of mace from across the street. Mace that wasn’t even intended for my lungs. That is my privilege. It’s something that is extremely difficult to wrap my head around.

What do I do?

With the pandemic still dominating basically everything, it’s difficult to come up with ideas. I feel more detached from society than ever before. To be honest, I don’t really know what I can do. I think we’re all kind of stuck watching the world through our TV and window. Our political climate is more volatile than ever and it’s got our attention by the balls.

Imagining a post-covid world feels like fiction. For now my plan is to listen to learn. I have a feeling that this class will be enlightening.

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zen3to5 · 4 years

Text

J/H 7-22: 2000 Light Years From Home

No more partial scripts - from here on out, it's Page One rewrites until the finale.

So, Eric's been on a different track to teaching in this timeline, but is the destination any different? And what happened to Jackie and Hyde - I thought this was supposed to be a Zen rewrite? Well, read on, friends. Read on...

FF.Net AO3

***

SHOW TITLE INT. FORMAN BASEMENT - NIGHT The gang, hanging out. JACKIE ruffles around in the deep freeze, HYDE reads a magazine in his chair, and DONNA and FEZ watch TV from the couch. KELSO enters from the basement door and throws himself down in the lawn chair. KELSO: Okay, I'm breaking up with Angie. All we have anymore is hot sex. FEZ: Hot sex? All I have is hot soup. Can't make love to that. Too damn hot. DONNA: So, Kelso, you gonna break up with her your usual way - send a note saying you got kidnapped by kung fu robots? KELSO: No, it won't work with her. She doesn't even believe in kung fu robots. Just gonna have to talk to her. DONNA: Wow, Kelso. I thought your usual Plan B was to have one of us tell the girl you're dead. And then when she eventually sees you, you have us tell her you're a ghost. Jackie crosses across the room to stand behind Kelso. JACKIE: Michael, why don't you do what you did with me: toilet paper my house! She smacks him upside the head, then steps back to lean on the door. KELSO: I can't do that to Angie. I respect her too much 'cause she agreed to have sex with me so fast. ERIC enters from the stairs. He has a stack of papers in his hand and a glum look on his face. ERIC: Hey! Bad news. KELSO: Your mom changed her mind about making blueberry cobbler? FEZ: No, she made it. I would know – I ate it. All of it. Eric, ignoring them, jumps over the back of the couch to sit next to Donna. He throws the papers down on the coffee table. ERIC: No. I’ve been working on a budget, and I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to pay for college. DONNA: Didn’t your parents hang on to your college money after you had to stay home the last time? ERIC: Yeah, but – see, remember how I sold your engagement ring to pay for my year off? JACKIE: How could we forget? Donna made jewelry history – the world’s smallest diamond for the world’s worst wedding. ERIC: Well, the pawn shop must have thought so too, because it turns out what you get for a used engagement ring isn’t enough to support yourself for a year – even with living at home with your mommy. And after calling her “mommy” and going to a macramé class, my mom turned over my college account to me without telling Red. I started using that money to get by, and now there’s not enough left to pay for college. DONNA: Eric, don't worry. There are plenty of ways to get money for school. HYDE: Yeah, man. You could always get a football scholarship. JACKIE: Hey, look, he weighs about as much as a football, and people do like to kick him. She crosses the room to sit in Hyde’s lap, stopping to pat Eric on the shoulder on the way. FEZ: (to Eric) I know what you should do. You should go to Hollywood and become the next Gene Wilder. That guy's a laugh riot. JACKIE: You know, Eric, we all had to meet with the guidance counselor before the end of high school to talk about college. Maybe you should go see him. DONNA: Yeah. Finding money for college is what high school guidance counselors do. HYDE: Yeah, they also spend a lot of time staring at themselves in the mirror saying, "I can't believe I'm a high school guidance counselor." ERIC: The high school guidance counselor? Who is that? Is that still Mr. Bray? (Jackie nods) I don't know about Mr. Bray. I don't think he really liked me. One time I told him I was being bullied, and he just said, "what'd you expect?" JACKIE: Look, Eric, Mr. Bray asked to see me tomorrow about an opportunity for my public access show. Why don’t you come with me to my appointment? I’m sure he’ll help. He loves me. In almost entirely appropriate ways. Hyde gives Jackie a look; she looks back and shrugs. KELSO: Hey, people, how’d we get side-tracked? We’re forgetting what’s really important here – how I’m gonna break up with Angie. HYDE: (to Kelso) Look, I don't care how you do it. I'm just happy you won't be violating my sister anymore. KELSO: Yeah, I know you hated it, Hyde. I would have broken up with her sooner if I didn't find it so hilarious. Hyde crumples up his magazine and chucks it at Kelso, beaning him in the head. KELSO (cont’d): You be nice, or I will marry her.

MAIN CREDITS BUMPER INT. GROOVES - DAY The next morning. A brisk business at Grooves. Customers peruse the crates. Hyde and ANGIE keep an eye on things from the listening pit as they talk. ANGIE: Jackie’s getting some kind of offer about her show? Why? Her last episode was a half-hour about which high heels Olivia Newton-John would wear if she was ever a guest star on Charlie’s Angels. HYDE: Hey, it was better than the one about how Jack Nicholson should do his hair. ANGIE: How? HYDE: Because she didn’t spend all week trying to get me to stand in for Jack Nicholson. ANGIE: So – any idea what the offer is? HYDE: No. ANGIE: Do you know if Jackie’s been looking at colleges? HYDE: No. ANGIE: Have you two talked about your future at all since you got back together? HYDE: Angie, I didn’t talk, plan, or think about my future for eighteen years. You know what that got me? (she shakes her head) A cool black dad and a record store. Why start planning now? He heads to the register. Kelso and Fez enter through the door. They stop when they see Angie, who is helping a customer. KELSO: (to Fez) Okay. I can do this. I'm just gonna tell Angie that things are fizzling between us, and we should end it. Angie sees them, smiles, and walks over. ANGIE: (to Kelso) Hey, how's it going, sweets? FEZ: Not bad, toots. Angie and Kelso both give him a look. FEZ (cont’d): (to Angie) Oh, him. Go. He waves Angie over to Kelso. KELSO: (to Angie) Okay. Well, um, we need to talk about something. This might be kind of hard to take. (beat) Fez still wets the bed. FEZ/ANGIE: What?/Eww! Angie edges away from Fez. KELSO: (to Angie) At least we're still together! I'll see you later. He steers Fez around and gives him a push toward the door, following after. FEZ: (to Kelso) I'm going to wet your bed. They exit. CUT TO: INT. COUNSELOR’S OFFICE - DAY The office of Point Place High’s guidance counselor, a bare-minimum office lit more by the window than the poor lighting. Jackie and Eric enter through the open door. ERIC: Oh, my God. I can't believe I have to tell my high school guidance counselor that I spent an entire year doing nothing. He's gonna think I'm such a loser. JACKIE: Yeah. You know a good way to avoid that? Don’t be a loser. ERIC: Whatever. I bet he doesn’t even have an offer for you. This is probably like that time he told you he wanted to talk about who should be the head of the decorating committee, then asked you to prom. MR. BRAY himself enters, a portly man in a fool’s version of suave attire. A stack of files is tucked under his arm. He breezes right past Eric to shake Jackie’s hand. MR. BRAY Ah, Jackie. How very, very – very – pleasant to see you again. And so soon after high school. JACKIE: And so soon since the last time you drove by my house. MR. BRAY: (beat) Well, uh, my mother lives right next door. JACKIE: Next door is the guest house. MR. BRAY: Well... isn’t Mother a charming guest? Jackie fixes him with a condescending look. Mr. Bray clears his throat and stands up straight. MR. BRAY (cont’d): Well, Jackie, I asked you here because the school was recently contacted by a TV producer out of Chicago about you. JACKIE: (gasps) Oh, my God! Was it about my show? MR. BRAY: Yes, indeed. She asked if we could pass on her interest to you and that she’d be in the area if you could take a meeting before taping. Jackie squeals, hops, and claps with delight. JACKIE: Oh, my God, yes! Yes! When is she coming? MR. BRAY: Today. I meant to tell you sooner, but I kept dropping the phone – my hands tend to get sweaty when I’m nervous. JACKIE: Today? Oh, I – I have to get ready. I have to get dressed – I have to do my hair – I have to get down to the studio! She makes for the door. Eric catches her by the arm. ERIC: What? Jackie, you don’t tape for another four hours. JACKIE: Yeah, but it’ll take me at least two to get over there. ERIC: Why? JACKIE: Because I’m telling everyone! She pulls herself free and runs out of the office. Left alone, Eric and Mr. Bray awkwardly survey each other. MR. BRAY: And you are? ERIC: Eric. Forman. 1977's most improved mathlete. MR. BRAY: Oh, right. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, Eric. I just figured the bullies had gotten ya. They continue to awkwardly survey each other. BUMPER INT. GROOVES – DAY Business is still brisk, and Kelso and Fez are back. They stand together, heads bowed and arms folded, in the listening pit. Their heads jerk up when Jackie bursts through the door. JACKIE: Where’s Steven? KELSO: At lunch with Angie. Jackie turns to head back out the door, but Kelso lunges, takes her arm, and pulls her into the listening pit. They sit on the couch together while Fez sits on the armrest. KELSO (cont’d): Wait, Jackie! Listen, I need some advice on breaking up with girls, okay? And you've been broken up with a lot. Several times by me. So, what didn't you like? JACKIE: Oh, um... the lying, the cheating, the sneaking around - oh, and I also didn't like Fez trying to make out with me five minutes later. FEZ: Well, then you're really not gonna like this. He leans down for a kiss. Jackie shoves him back by the face. KELSO: Look, I don't know how to break up with Angie. JACKIE: Well, why don't you try to figure out how to do it kindly – maturely - respectfully? KELSO: Yeah. That sounds nice. (beat) I think I'm just gonna sleep with her best friend. CUT TO: INT. COUNSELOR’S OFFICE – DAY Mr. Bray and Eric have moved to sitting on opposite sides of Mr. Bray’s desk. Mr. Bray reviews the contents of a file and shakes his head, MR. BRAY: Well, Eric, I have to say – your eligibility for scholarships would normally be determined by what you’ve done for the last year, but as far as I can tell, you haven’t done anything. ERIC: Okay, well... yeah. But what about the year before that? I mean, I gave up college to support my family. MR. BRAY: So? ERIC: Isn’t that, like, a really noble and decent thing to do? MR. BRAY: You don’t get scholarships for nobility. Not unless you’re in Europe. And there, it’s not a scholarship – it’s actual nobility. ERIC: Come on, Mr. Bray. There’s gotta be something I can do to pay for college. I’ll do anything to become a teacher. MR. BRAY: You’re going to college for teaching? (Eric nods) And you spent the last year – (checks notes) “Reading comic books and acting out movies with your dolls” - ERIC: Action figures! MR. BRAY: Well, if you’re going to UW, there’s an option to be the instructor in a pilot teaching program that may just work for you. ERIC: Wait – pilot program? What does that mean? Like, an experiment? I don’t know if I wanna be a guinea pig. What would I be teaching? MR. BRAY: Comic books. Eric’s jaw drops. Slowly, his eyes bulging and his breath quivering in his throat, he pushes himself upright until he leans over the desk, his feet barely in contact with the ground. It’s an uncomfortable enough sight for Mr. Bray that he inches his seat back by a few good scoots. FADE TO BLACK COMMERCIAL BUMPER MUSIC NOTE: The theme from the 1966 “Batman” series. INT. COUNSELOR’S OFFICE - DAY Right where we left off. Eric is still leaning over the desk, his body trembling with the threat of jumping up and down for joy. Mr. Bray still looks uncomfortable. ERIC: So you’re saying that I would get paid to teach a class about comic books? MR. BRAY: Comic books, sci-fi films, fantasy novels, contemporary television – it’s an experimental course based on a program done in Indiana a few years ago. The university would pay you to teach this course, and while you act as the teacher, you could get a free education yourself. It would mean jumping right into a professional setting. So if you value time with your dolls – ERIC: ACTION FIGURES! MR. BRAY: Right. I’m just saying, you won’t have a lot of free time, and this sort of program needs someone with a strong work ethic. If you think you’re up to it, I can go get my information packet, but... He trails off as he looks Eric over – pasty, skinny, fresh-from-a-year-off Eric. Eric gives himself a look-over before pushing himself away from the desk and standing up tall. ERIC: You know what, Mr. Bray? I am up to it. You know, I wasn’t always this lazy, goof-around loser. I had work ethic – real work ethic. I don’t know how I got to this point, but I’ve been looking for a way out. And now – I have it. (puts hands on hips) I feel... I feel like Luke Skywalker when he vowed to follow Obi-Wan and learn the ways of the Force. Except we’re not surrounded by dead Jawas. And there’s no dead Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. And I don’t live with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, I live with my mom and dad, and – oh, screw it, I’m teaching Star Wars and comic books! He gives the air a happy jab. Mr. Bray gives a slight smile, shakes his head, stands, and leads Eric out of the office. BUMPER MUSIC NOTE: “Right Back Where We Stared From” by Maxine Nightingale. INT. STUDIO – EVENING The studio of the public access station, Jackie’s set. JACKIE, only slightly overdressed, bobs on her feet, all grins as the visiting CHICAGO PRODUCER, MRS. BERTRINELLI, sits on her desk and chats with her. MRS. BERTRINELLI: Well, Jackie, everyone in the Chicago station’s been talking about your program. JACKIE: Oh, really? MRS. BERTRINELLI: Yes, we’ve never seen anything quite like it. JACKIE: Well, I’d say I’m surprised, but – She indicates her face and lets out an airy laugh. JACKIE (cont’d): You know, my boyfriend Steven, he says the same thing every time he watches the show. At first, he meant it sarcastically, but now I think he means it as a compliment almost half of the time. Mrs. Bertrinelli gives an enigmatic sort of smile; Jackie can’t tell if she’s genuinely amused or condescending. Jackie clears her throat and stands up as tall as she can. JACKIE (cont’d): So, my guidance counselor said you had some sort of offer for me? MRS. BERTRINELLI: Yes. As I said, we’ve been watching your show. And quite frankly – you advertise it as a news program, and yet all your content is concerned with fashion, disco, decorating, celebrity gossip, and local scandal. It’s superficial, irrelevant – all the flightiest impulses of youth. All in all, it’s a terrible news program. Jackie’s face falls like a downed chopper over Saigon. Her hand clutches at her heart. MRS. BERTRINELLI (cont’d): But it’s perfect for the arts and leisure segment of a real news program. How’d you like a job as entertainment anchor? Jackie’s face changes again, into a stiff mask of shock. Her whole body goes stiff as an amused Mrs. Bertrinelli chuckles and shakes her head. CUT TO: INT. FORMAN BASEMENT – EVENING The end of a hard days’ work – relatively speaking. Hyde reads a magazine in his chair while Fez and Kelso share the couch. KELSO: (to Fez) So, there's a problem with my "sleeping with Angie's best friend" plan: Angie's best friend is Hyde. Without looking up from his magazine, Hyde shoots an acknowledging finger point Kelso’s way. FEZ: (to Kelso) Drat. And That’s not just your plan foiled. KELSO: Whaddya mean? FEZ: My plan to console Angie when you dump her, then console her best friend when you dump her too, just went down the dumper. (to Hyde) You son of a bitch. Hyde briefly flips down the magazine, grins at Fez, then goes back to reading. Jackie enters through the basement door, her face long. JACKIE: (to Kelso, Fez) Um, you guys, I gotta talk to Steven about something really serious. KELSO: (gasp) Maybe she's pregnant! FEZ: Maybe she cheated on him. KELSO: Maybe she cheated on him and she's pregnant. They grin up at her like idiots. Jackie, ignoring them, moves to the end of the couch nearest to Hyde’s chair. Hyde sets his magazine down and leans in toward her. JACKIE: Steven, this TV producer came by to tell me she loved my public access show. And then she offered me a job at her station in Chicago starting next month. HYDE: Whoa. Um, you're gonna take a job and move to Chicago? JACKIE: No, no, not yet. No, I wanted to talk to you about it first. KELSO: Uh-oh. This is "serious" serious, not funny serious. (to Fez) We should probably leave. FEZ: (to Jackie, Hyde) But we won't. Jackie and Hyde both ignore him. JACKIE: Steven, this is my dream come true. But you are the most important thing in the world to me. So, I'm willing to give it all up and stay here with you. But if I do that, I need to know we're gonna get married. HYDE: Jackie, we agreed not to talk about our future. JACKIE: Until our future got here, and it just did, Steven. Look, the station needs an answer by the end of the month, and I do, too. HYDE: Well, I don't know what to say right now. A flicker of hurt crosses Jackie’s face, but she gives Hyde a slow nod. JACKIE: Okay, well, you don’t have to say anything right now. But this month is all the time left I can give you. Hyde looks away from her. He sits back in his chair and tosses his head back as Jackie looks down at the floor. Kelso sweeps a hand out to draw attention. KELSO: (to Hyde) I know this is a sensitive moment, but may I offer a word of advice? He stands, crosses to the basement door, and throws it open. KELSO (cont’d): Run! Fez heeds Kelso’s advice: he jumps to his feet and dashes out the door. When Kelso sees the look Hyde’s giving him, he does the same thing. BUMPER INT. FORMAN KITCHEN - NIGHT Post-dinner clean-up. KITTY is at the sink, gloves on, working at a roasting pan soaked in suds. RED sits at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper. Donna enters from the patio door. DONNA: Hey, is Eric home? We were supposed to hang out at the Hub after his meeting with the guidance counselor, but he never showed. KITTY: (shakes head) He hasn’t been home all day. RED: (flips paper down) If he’s trapped in another locker, we’ve gotta disown him. The only time in a man’s life when it’s acceptable for him to get stuffed in a high school locker is when he’s in high school. KITTY: But he was in the high school. RED: You know what I meant. The patio door slides open again. Donna steps back as Eric and Mr. Bray enter, all grins, each with a stack of papers under their arms. ERIC: (to Donna) Hey. I know I didn’t show at the Hub, but I’ve got great news. I – Mr. Bray elbows past Eric to shake Donna’s hand. MR. BRAY: Donna! Donna Pinciotti! How nice to see you again. You’ve done something different with your hair since high school. DONNA: Yeah, you noticed. MR. BRAY: Well, I notice everything about all my students. ERIC: You didn’t even remember my name. MR. BRAY: (to Eric) I notice everything about all my recent students. ERIC: Donna and I were the same year. MR. BRAY: Yes, well... I would like to change the subject now. KITTY: (to Eric) Honey, you said you have great news? She peels off her gloves and crosses to the table. She and Donna sit as Eric sets his papers down and clasps his hands together. ERIC: I found a way to pay for college. DONNA: Eric, that’s wonderful! KITTY: Hooray! RED: Pay for college? What’s wrong with the money we’ve been putting into your savings account? KITTY: Oh – um, Red, honey, we – we need to talk later. Red opens his mouth to press the issue, but Kitty waves him quiet. ERIC: Yep. Not only will I be going to college for teaching – I’ll be going to college to teach. KITTY: Ooh, how nice! (beat) What does that mean? Donna and Red, just as confused as Kitty, look to Eric. ERIC: You are looking at the future instructor of UW’s experimental “Genre Fiction in America” course! He’s met with an audience of blank looks. ERIC (cont’d): I’m teaching Star Wars and comic books. Donna slaps a hand over her mouth, Kitty’s jaw drops, and Red, glaring, stands. RED: Are you telling me that college is giving a whole class over to those moron books and that dopey space movie? ERIC: No, Dad, it’s all of science fiction and fantasy. It’s a pilot course about how genre fiction comments and reflects on modern American life. MR. BRAY: We were on the phone with UW all afternoon, setting Eric up for the program. RED: Oh, crap. First they turn out commies, then they turn out hippies – now our colleges are gonna take America’s children and give her back a bunch of smart-mouth slackers indoctrinated by Professor Dumbass. He drops back to his seat and puts a hand over his head. Eric shrugs and turns to his much more enthusiastic reception from Donna and Kitty. CUT TO: INT. FORMAN BASEMENT – NIGHT A short time later. Donna and Fez sit on opposite ends of the couch, Kelso sits on the washer, and Eric stands by him, working at a popsicle. The remnants of a burger-and-fries dinner litter the coffee table. KELSO: (to Eric) So all those times you were going on and on about Star Wars – how this is like Star Wars, how that is like Star Wars, how the Vista Cruiser is like your Millennium Falcon from Star Wars – it turns out you can get a job teaching that? That’s, like, the biggest burn on everyone who ever made fun of you for being a loser. ERIC: Kelso, you always made fun of me for being a loser. KELSO: And the burn’s on me. Well played. ERIC: (to all) Man, isn’t this great? And the best part is, if this pilot program takes off, it could become just a regular class, offered every year. DONNA: Eric, if you stay on with UW to teach that course, you could end up as Professor Forman. I kinda like the sound of that. ERIC: Me too. Professor Eric “Star Wars” Forman. DONNA: Okay, now I like it a little less. FEZ: (to Eric) And you will teach comic books too? ERIC: Comic books, TV, cartoons, magazine stories... it’s like this entire basement condensed into a study guide. KELSO: Hey, you know what comic book you should teach? Mine. ERIC: You have a comic book? KELSO: Yeah, it’s called Adventures on the Planet Zorgon. There’s these bugs that burrow into your brain, and they lay, like, a thousand eggs. And when the eggs hatch, they, like, shoot out of your head like little worm bullets. He’s grinning from ear to ear. Eric gives him an indulgent smile in return. Hyde enters from his room, SCHATZI in his arms. He makes his way to his chair and sits down, staring blankly ahead while he scratches Schatzi’s head. DONNA: So, Hyde – we heard about Jackie. What are you gonna do? HYDE: Well, I’ve spent all night kicking it back with Schatzi. ERIC: With Schatzi? HYDE: Yeah. If I hit my stash hard enough, I can understand him. Eric and Donna share a look. DONNA: And what did you and Schatzi come up with? HYDE: A great idea for a movie that now I just can’t remember. He shakes his head in frustration, retrieves a piece of beef from the coffee table, and feeds it to Schatzi. CUT TO: INT. GROOVES – NIGHT Well past closing time. The customers are gone, the lights are out, but Angie is still at work. She stands at the register, reviewing the drawer. Satisfied with what she sees, she shuts the register, retrieves her bag, and heads for the door. Just as she opens it, Kelso appears in the doorway. KELSO: Hey, Angie. I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I finally worked up the nerve. And I think we need to talk about us. ANGIE: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk about us too – I’m breaking up with you. Kelso’s jaw drops. KELSO: How dare you! ANGIE: Come on. You know things were sort of fizzling anyways. KELSO: F-fizzling? How can you even say that? What about all the times you said that I was really, really good-looking? ANGIE: Michael, its over. But know this – when I said you were good-looking, I really meant it. She pats his arm and strolls out into the night. KELSO: (yelling after her) You know what? You’ve got a lot of growing up to do! FADE TO BLACK CREDITS INT. FORMAN BASEMENT - NIGHT THE CIRCLE. A baffled and slightly repulsed Eric peruses a crudely-drawn amateur comic book. ERIC: Kelso, I never knew you had such a... a thing for bugs crawling around in peoples’ brains. Pan to Kelso, on the verge of tears. KELSO: You know what, Eric? Right after a guy’s girlfriend breaks up with him is not the time for constructive criticism! Pan to Hyde. HYDE: Well, one day down, and I still don’t have an answer for Jackie. (to his right) You got anything? Pan to Schatzi, propped up on pillows. SCHATZI (v.o.): Nothing yet, man. I think I need more kibble. END.

#z's fics #that 70s show #zenmasters #jackie x hyde #zen3to5+#fan fiction #fan script

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fortey · 4 years

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25 Giant Facts About Andre the Giant

1. During a match in Mexico against Bad News Brown, a somewhat ill Andre lost bowel control after a particularly aggressive maneuver and made Bad News Brown live up to his name.

2. Andre was arguably the world’s greatest drinker, consuming about 7,000 calories of alcohol a day and drinking 119 beers in a single sitting. He could drink 16 bottles of wine in 4 hours.

3. 119 cans of beer will equal about 41.6 liters of liquid. One liter of liquid weighs about I kilogram. That means, after drinking all that beer and not taking pee breaks into account, Andre would have gained just short of 92lbs in that one sitting.

4. Hulk Hogan told a story about how Andre, as a joke, would occasionally pin his opponents and stick his thumb up their butts. As a joke.

5. Andre was not able to serve in the French army because they had no regulation uniforms or shoes that would fit him.

6. Unable to use human-sized toilets, Andre would occasionally use bathtubs or piles of newspapers to go to the bathroom. He would also make people come and look at what he’d done as a joke. Bonus! He’d wipe his ass on hotel curtains.

7. As a joke, sometimes against friends and sometimes enemies, Andre would not keep his ass clean before a match so he could sit on people’s faces.

8. According to his friend Tim White, Andre would sometimes go to a restaurant and eat 12 steaks and 15 lobsters

9. Unable to fit into standard vehicles, Andre commissioned a custom Lincoln Continental with the driver seat where the back seat normally would be.

10. On the road, Andre would keep his gear in the trunk and haul a trailer behind the car lined with tarps and filled with ice and beer.

11. To travel in Japan, promoters removed several rows of seats form the back of a bus to make a private cabin for him.

12. Rumor has it, on first meeting The Ultimate Warrior, he sent the man, in full make up, out into the streets of New York to fetch him wine. After the Warrior returned, he made him return the wine for not being French.

13. In 1977, Dusty Rhodes and Andre stole a pair of horse drawn carriages after a night of drinking and raced them for 15 blocks across Manhattan.

14. During the filming of the Princess Bride, Andre would take Mandy Patinkin and Cary Elwes out drinking after work. They routinely came into work still hungover.

15. Andre spent one month in England filming The Princess Bride. His bar tab from the hotel was $40,000.

16. While even professional bodybuilders were in awe of his amazing strength, Andre never worked out. Some have said that, if he did have a workout regimen he could have easily broken nearly any established strength records.

17. A popular story about Andre says that he was being harassed by four punks in a bar and he responded by following them when they left and flipping their car over. WWE.com says this story is most likely false since the details such as when and where it happened change constantly and, according to friends, Andre was never known to be that mean or destructive.

18. Nobel prize winning author and playwright Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre to school when he was a kid.

19. Used to sign his checks “Andre the Giant.”

20. On the Princess Bride set, Mandy Patinkin would slap Andre to get him to concentrate harder on speaking clearly.

21. The reason Andre drank so much was due to the constant pain caused by his acromegaly

22. The Ultimate Warrior frequently oversold his clotheslines, making full contact with Andre in matches. Eventually Andre got sick of this and, when he was supposed to be clotheslined, lifted his foot and took Warrior in the chest at a full run. He stopped clotheslining Andre after that.

23. Andre was the kind of man who, in an elevator with one other person, would fart and then blame it on the other guy.

24. Andre’s health was so bad towards the end of his career, after wrestling a match he’d barely be able to move for the rest of the day.

25. Hulk Hogan, discussing his bout with Andre at WrestleMania III, once claimed Andre weighed over 700lbs. His weight at death was 530lbs.

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johnnymundano · 5 years

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Hamlet (1969)

Directed by Tony Richardson

Written by William Shakespeare with an assist from Tony Richardson

Music by Patrick Gowers

Country: United Kingdom

Language: English

Running Time: 117 mins

CAST

Nicol Williamson as Hamlet

Judy Parfitt as Gertrude

Anthony Hopkins as Claudius

Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia

Mark Dignam as Polonius

Michael Pennington as Laertes

Gordon Jackson as Horatio

Ben Aris as Rosencrantz

Clive Graham as Guildenstern

Peter Gale as Osric

Roger Livesey as First Player / Gravedigger

John J. Carney as Player King (as John Carney)

Richard Everett as Player Queen

Robin Chadwick as Francisco

Ian Collier as Priest

Michael Elphick as Captain

David Griffith as Messenger (as Mark Griffith)

Anjelica Huston as Court Lady

Bill Jarvis as Courtier

Roger Lloyd Pack as Reynaldo (as Roger Lloyd-Pack)

John Railton as 1st Sailor

John Trenaman as Barnardo

Jennifer Tudor as Court lady

(All images taken from the Internet. Sorry about that.)

Like many English I have happily accepted every plaudit thrown at the work of William Shakespeare as though I myself had a hand in writing it, while never actually bothering to expose myself to any of it, outside of school anyway. It’s all a bit too much like hard work, you know, got other things to do. This nose won’t pick itself. But in the interests of satiating a mid-life crisis hunger for self-improvement I girded my withered loins and prepared to chuck myself unto the breech of the Bard of Avon’s oeuvre. Being a hesitant creature by nature, I decided to afford myself of the water wings provided by onscreen Shakespeare performed by actors I like. I really like Nicol Williamson (Excalibur (1981), The Reckoning (1969), The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1976) etc) So, here we are then with someone (moi) who is far too late to the party rocking up to tell you about Nicol Williamson’s Hamlet (1969). It’s actually Tony Richardson’s Hamlet starring Nicol Williamson, but in the theatre (darling) to get bums on seats the star gets top billing. In movies this would result in Mark Hamill’s Star Wars, so they don’t do that. And I can see their point because although I know who both Tony Richardson and Nicol Williamson are, I did only come for Nicol Williamson.

No offense to Tony Richardson, mind. Prior to Hamlet he had directed many movies including the cinematic landmarks (deep breath, now) Look Back in Anger (1959), The Entertainer (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Tom Jones (1963) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968). (phew!) Other movies exist in between those, but those are the career makers; most people get one career maker, Richardson had a fistful. Back then though, people obviously had a lot of time on their hands for as well as being a movie director, Richardson co-founded the influential English Stage Company and directed Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. Crucially though, he also found time to co-found Woodfall Film Productions. Hamlet is of course written by Shakespeare and this movie is a Woodfall Films production. So a Hamlet movie is well within Richardson’s comfort zone. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard work and it doesn’t mean that the fact it works should be taken for granted. Nothing should ever be taken for granted in the world of film. After all Ridley Scott directed Alien (1979) but Ridley Scott also directed Prometheus (2012). And Alien: Covenant (2017). (Could someone please take the Alien franchise off Ridley Scott? Thanks awfully.)

Basically, Hamlet is a good film, well, actually it’s more precisely a really good filmed performance of Hamlet rather than a good film. It’s pretty obvious the budget was what a generous person might term, um, constrained. There’s a lot of stone arches in heavy shadow standing in for Elsinore castle. A lot. Other than this, uh, minimalism it's a pretty meat and potatoes production; with just a soupçon of suggested incest between Ophelia and Laertes and emphasis on generational conflict to add some '60s spice. It's basically Hamlet as written; it's not set on a Glasgow sink estate or in a cupboard in Hitler's bunker. Fret not though, Richardson knows what he’s doing, because the big difference between a performance of Hamlet and a filmed performance of Hamlet is you can get right in there with the camera. And that’s cheap as chips, whereas building Elsinore castle and showing the ghost are not an option. Brilliantly and counter intuitively Richardson takes the opportunity of filming Shakespeare to go not large, not cinematically widescreen in scope, but instead to go small.

Yes! Nicol Williamson can look you right in the eye as he moodily wonders whether he should off himself. No matter how much your seat cost in the theatre you can’t get that. And every seat in the cinema (or your house) costs the same, so it’s also a great leveller; everyone gets the same view. A ruddy good view at that. You can practically see the pleased gleam in the actors’ eyes as they launch into some riff that has (quite rightly) become part of the linguistic furniture of the world entire. “Oh, sure, you know this one” they seem to say “but you’ve never had it spoken directly to you, and for you alone. Tuck in! fill your boots” Imagine Elvis singing Suspicious Minds to you and you alone. Imagine is all you can do, because he died on the toilet in 1977. But you can actually have Nicol Wiliamson look you in the face and do that one about slings and arrows, even though he died in 2011 of oesophageal cancer.

But Hamlet isn’t just a one-hander, people other than Nicol Williamson are in it. And as fierily magnificent as Nicol Williamson certainly is as the truculent vengeance seeker, everyone else is great. Because, I imagine, if Tony Richardson says he’s filming Hamlet only a berk would turn him down. For there are no berks in sight in this one. One of the fun things about watching old movies of Shakespeare plays turns out to be the familiar delights secreted within the cast. Gordon Jackson, mostly familiar to me as CI5’s George Cowley in TV’s The Professionals (1977-1983) is here as Horatio, Roger Lloyd-Pack AKA Trigger from Only Fools and Horses is here as Reynaldo, Marianne Faithful is, much to my surprise here as Ophelia, and to my even greater surprise, she’s really very, very good (which will teach me to be so presumptuous), Michael Elphick of Boon (1986-1992) pops up and, hey nonny no, who is this playing Claudius, the King usurping uncle? Why, ‘tis none other than Anthony Hopkins, who has been in a couple of things I can’t quite recall right now.

Basically there isn’t a single face onscreen who doesn’t know what they are doing. And that’s why it works as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare. They know what they are doing so while you may not catch all the language (it being somewhat less than modern) you will always catch the gist and the intent of the speech. I’d bet you’d be very surprised by how much you do actually get; you should give yourself more credit. This Shakespeare stuff was never meant for just the toffs, it was meant for you and me; people who want to wind down after work. Don’t let the buggers keep all the good stuff to themselves, yeah?

Now, obviously, the preceding was a) awful and b) not a review of Hamlet itself. I’m not entirely sure who would possess the temerity to critique Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“Shakespeare’s foreshadowing is far too blunt and the whole exercise in adolescent angst is in dire need of a car chase or some boobs to lighten things up.”) What I am saying is, if you feel the need to attempt Shakespeare then you could hardly be in better hands than those of Nicol Williamson, Tony Richardson and ITV’s Boon. Go on, give Hamlet a go. It’s what Old Bill would have wanted.

#nicol williamson #tony richardson #anthony hopkins #marianne faithfull #1969 #the 1960s #shakespeare #hamlet #gordon jackson #roger lloyd-pack #michael elphick #theatre #culture #highbrow #united kingdom

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Once Upon a Time in America Is a Movie That Can Never Be Too Long

https://ift.tt/3ECYv3k

Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America is as epic as The Godfather, gorier than Goodfellas, and as streetwise as Mean Streets. It tells a full history, from childhood to old age, street hustles to political suicides, community toilets to opium dens. The version which is right now available on Netflix has been amazingly restored by Italy’s Bologna Cinematheque L’Immagine Ritrovata lab. I don’t think I have ever seen the film so clear, and it is a perennial to me, as is The Godfather.

It’s true, even the most devoted gangster fan and cinephile doesn’t watch Once Upon a Time in America as often as The Godfather, and it’s got Robert De Niro at his most gangta. For one thing, Leone’s film has never been as accessible. It is not shown regularly on any kind of broadcast channel, and even the film’s own producers thought it was too long for people to sit through. Pop culture history makes it sound like Once Upon a Time in America had a short version that ran 10 hours and a long version that ran a week.

How Long is Too Long for Once Upon a Time in America?

The truth is, Leone did have up to 10 hours of finished cinematic material, which he cut down to six hours. He wanted to put it out in two parts, much like the initial saga of The Godfather was extended into a sequel. Leone’s original vision for the film was two 180-minute motion pictures which would be shown on consecutive days. After the initial run, he planned to edit the two parts down for a general release which would run as one four-hour and 29-minute film.

Film distributors convinced Leone to release a “Director’s Cut” feature at a running time of 3 hours and 49-minutes, with no intermission, which was the version shown at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival (Martin Scorsese led the push to restore the original version, which was shown at Cannes in 2012, though it’s still missing 18 minutes). This version caught on in Europe. But American audiences saw an even more butchered cut in 1984. The U.S. financial backers, The Ladd Company, founded by actor Alan Ladd’s son, cut 90 minutes from the already-edited film, bringing it to two hours and 19 minutes. But they also restructured the film, cutting the flashbacks-within-flashbacks to present the story chronologically.

This most affects the opening, which is an extended action sequence told with the expressionism of a silent film and the nihilism of post-war Italian neorealism. It is a bit of a jumble coming out of an opium dream. Noodles is on the run, behind in the game, and stoned out of mind. The flashbacks create a cognitive dissonance, and the audience experiences the freefall in a visceral way. By the time they land, it’s in the beginning of a story, which may all be an opium dream. The longer version did play at art cinemas in the U.S. Having seen both on their initial release, this writer preferred the long version of the crime classic, but will admit, they could have answered a phone in the opening sequence before it rang 30 times.

I’d Watch an 8-Hour “Making of” Documentary on This

The production of the film is worthy of a star-studded documentary itself. Leone devoted most of his adult life to getting it done. He turned down The Godfather to make it. Once Upon a Time in America is the final entry in Leone’s “Once Upon a Time” trilogy. It followed Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta Il West) (1968), and Once Upon a Time in the Revolution, which came out in 1971 as Duck, You Sucker!. One of the first America drafts was written by Norman Mailer, the author of the novel The Naked and the Dead, and Marilyn: A Biography, the 1973 Marilyn Monroe biography which first speculated the Hollywood icon had been killed by the FBI and CIA. Leone told American Film magazine the novelist was not “not a writer for movies,” but wasn’t satisfied with a screenplay until the end of 1974.

Leone first became interested in making Once Upon a Time in America while making Once Upon a Time in the West. He came across the book The Hoods, which is described on its cover flap as “a notorious mob boss of the syndicate tells the full inside story of hired killing and crime operations.” Published in August 1952, it was very open about Jewish gangster life during the 1920s and ‘30s. It was written by Hershel “Noodles” Goldberg under the alias Harry Grey.

Goldberg also wrote the 1958 book, Portrait of a Mobster, about Jewish mob legend Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer. He wrote The Hoods while serving time in Sing Sing prison. Leone met with Grey in a New York City bar, according to Christopher Frayling’s 2012 book, Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death. The author was still in hiding from his former mob associates. The renowned Spaghetti Western director didn’t find a heroic figure like “Paul Muni in Scarface or James Cagney in The Public Enemy,” in the bar. Instead there was a poor man “with a machine gun in his hand and a Borsalino on his head.”

I’d watch a 12-Hour Version of the Original Cast of the Unmade Film

Leone began casting in 1975. When The Hoods begins, the leading characters are teenage criminals. Richard Dreyfuss was first cast as young Noodles. The older version of the character was to be played by James Cagney, who hadn’t made a film since Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three in 1961. He wouldn’t make another until 1984, the year Leone’s film was finally released, when he appeared in Miloš Forman’s Ragtime. That film also stars Elizabeth McGovern, who plays adult Deborah in Once Upon a Time in America. French actor Gerard Depardieu was cast as young Max, and the part would pass to veteran actor Jean Gabin, an icon of French gangster films.

This is true dream casting. Dreyfuss made his mob movie bones playing Baby Face Nelson in Dillinger (1973) and would go on to become an acting institution. Cagney was an acting legend, who began his career creating young gangster icons. Judging from the outstanding acting performances Leone got from Hollywood Golden Age actors like Henry Fonda, it would have been a masterwork.

Leone brought out unsuspected feats of greatness from veteran actors who had been subject to the rules of mainstream cinema. It would also be wonderful just to watch Cagney and Gabin create onscreen dynamite together. Meanwhile Gabin is probably best known as the lead in Jean Renoir’s 1937 antiwar masterpiece, La Grande Illusion. But that was also the year he played “The Prince of Plunder” in director Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko (1937). That gangster-in-hiding title role established him firmly in French crime cinema, and it should be seen by any fan of Casablanca or Algiers. He also starred in Jacques Becker’s mob film Touchez pas au grisbi (Don’t Touch the Loot) (1954), and plays the capo of the Manalese crime family in director Henri Verneuil’s The Sicilian Clan (1969).

I would gleefully binge 10 hours of Gabin and Cagney rehearsing.

And I Could Watch the Final Cast All Weekend

I’d also binge rehearsals for the cast that ultimately wound up filming Once Upon a Time in America. Robert De Niro, as grown-up David “Noodles” Aaronson, was in his prime. He was already gangster film royalty, having played in The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971), Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), and as young Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II. His Jake La Motta took a career-killing dive for the mob in Raging Bull (1980). But while De Niro also proved he could play psychopaths like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), that part was better filled by his co-star.

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By Don Kaye

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The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More

By Tony Sokol

James Woods, who plays the adult Maximilian “Max” Bercovicz, created one of the most convincing sociopaths of crime cinema in The Onion Field (1979). He also brought one of the sleaziest characters in science fiction to David Cronenberg’s 1983 cult masterpiece, Videodrome. For gangster and crime film fans, De Niro and Woods together are like seeing Cagney work with Edward G. Robinson in Smart Money (1931), Humphrey Bogart in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939), or George Raft in Each Dawn I Die (1939).

While Joe Pesci’s crime boss Frankie Monaldi is so authentic in Once Upon a Time in America that it looks like he was picked out of a lineup, Burt Young’s performance as his brother Joe Monaldi is pure cinema verité. He almost makes you want to take a shower. The only relief comes from watching Treat Williams as a union leader who takes a bath.

Tuesday Weld, who plays Carol, is an icon of licentious cinema. She was Stanley Kubrick’s first choice to play the title role in Lolita (1962), and the wildest orgy enthusiast in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). Weld started acting as a teenager in the 1956 jukebox musical Rock! Rock! Rock!, and brought more tension than Steve McQueen and Ann-Margret combined in the 1965 gambling classic, The Cincinnati Kid, which also starred Edward G. Robinson. Quentin Tarantino would probably be proud to recommend Weld’s filmography as a film binge subject.

Once Upon a Time in America also began production in 1980 but was scuttled by an Actor’s Strike. It would have seen Tom Berenger and Paul Newman playing the Noodles characters. For Max, Leone considered Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, John Malkovich, and John Belushi. Brooke Shields was set to play young Deborah, which went on to be Jennifer Connelly’s film debut. She would go on to play in Labyrinth (1986) with David Bowie, as well as to an acclaimed career as an adult in movies like Requiem for a Dream (2000) and win an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind (2001).

What’s in a Bad Reputation?

The Godfather is briskly paced, relatable, and every sequence is perfectly framed. Had Once Upon a Time in America been split into two parts, as the director intended, it may have become just as iconic. Coppola saves the Corleone family backstory for the second film, where it sits comfortably as it mirrors one rise with another.

In today’s environment, where binge-watching is the norm, Once Upon a Time in America should be reevaluated on that basis. People are more accustomed to long-long form entertainment, because they have readily available short-form at their fingertips on apps like TikTok. Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to make a 10-hour adaptation of the science fiction novel Dune. He got the same blowback as Leone.

“Myself, I make an enormous project of a film that will not be a normal film, 14, 16, maybe 19 hours,” Jodorowsky told Den of Geek while promoting his film Psychomagic. “Hollywood thought I was crazy. A picture [should be] one hour and half or two hours, no more. But now, with series television, you see eight chapters. The short pictures are dying, it’s not anymore necessary. We need to make a serious chapter, you know? Ten hours.”

Today, Jodorowsky’s Dune would be a Netflix miniseries–or at the very least two films, as enjoyed by director Denis Villeneuve. Once Upon a Time in America is far more watchable than its legend declares, and Leone was a filmmaker who should have been afforded his cut. “He was a real artist of industrial movies,” Jodorowsky told Den of Geek. “You need to be very intelligent to do that, and he did it. The picture, all of his pictures, I love these pictures.”

I have watched The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, The Godfather, Part III, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, the box set collectors’ edition of The Godfather Saga, and still have a recording of the first time the film ran with all the deleted scenes restored. I will watch them all again. But there is room for more than one Gangster Epic. Once Upon a Time in America’s reputation as a sloppy, overlong film is undeserved. It bears repeated viewing.

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spn-ficfanatic · 7 years

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Returning To Life (Pt. 3)

Summary: Your family’s future is decided

Warnings: A warning that may spoil the story, so please check the first few tags if you have any triggers

Word Count: 1977

Series Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Epilogue

Dean sat by your bedside cradling your baby girl. You were only just transferred from the ER to your own private room after spending several hours there while they rushed to fix you up. “Haemorrhaging caused by atonic uterus” the doctors had told him, assuming he was the father. He did nothing to correct them, knowing he’d not be able to stay with the baby if he did, knowing you’d want him watching out for her. Sam had stayed until you were wheeled into the room and had since headed off to find coffee for them.

“So baby girl, here we are. I hope you don’t mind, but while Mom sleeps I thought maybe we could get to know each other. I’m Dean, you don’t have a name yet so I’ll just call you baby girl for now. Your Mom and I use to bump ugli-… wait, no, you shouldn’t be hearing that. We used to snuggle. A lot,” he told your daughter with a wink and a grin while he rocked her. She has initially been staring at Dean intently while he talked to her but had quickly fallen soundly sleep, emitting the occasional little squeak. He dropped his voice to a whisper so as not to disturb her.

“I love your Mom very much. I did a stupid unforgivable thing and I don’t deserve her forgiveness, but between you and me I would give anything to have her back again. I don’t know where your Daddy is but he’s an idiot for not hanging around long enough to meet you. Maybe his bad luck is my good fortune though, because if I got to spend every day of the rest of my life looking out for you and your mom I’d die a happy man.”

“You should be telling Y/N that,” Sam commented quietly, making Dean jump at having been caught. He scowled at Sam, but quickly perked up at the sight of the coffee in his hands.

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping. I’ll forgive you though if you give me the coffee,” he said, licking his lips in anticipation. Sam laughed and walked over to put the drinks on the nightstand.

“Hand her to me, no hot drinks around the baby.”

They sat in relative silence while Dean drank his coffee, Sam gazing at your baby adoringly while Dean took turns watching her and you while you both slept. It was about 30 minutes later that you finally started to stir, and Dean leaned toward you the moment he saw your hand move.

“Y/N? Hey sweetheart, can you hear me?” he asked softly, taking your hand in his. You gave it a gentle squeeze, groaning quietly as you tried to open your eyes. The room was bright and it took a moment to adjust to the harsh light. You were startled to find yourself in a hospital bed, and jumped in surprise.

“What the hell?” you asked, your hand instinctively going to your stomach. “Dean-“ you started in a panic, before Sam came over holding what looked like to you a bundle of blankets.

“Shhh, it’s ok Y/N, she’s right here,” Sam reassured you, holding her down so you could see her without straining your back. While the doctor had provided some painkillers, he did suggest you’d still be tender from the fall. You looked at Dean who nodded in encouragement, before holding out your arms to let Sam lay her down.

“How do I do this?” you asked, uncertain of yourself.

“Just keep your hands out, I’ll lay her down,” Sam said gently as he lowered her into your arms.

“No I meant… never mind,” you said, shaking your head. You looked into her eyes and remembered seeing them before, and was suddenly overwhelmed by flashes of memories.

“The labour, you were there,” you told Dean, emotion in your voice.

Sam gestured that he was going to wait outside, and neither you nor Dean stopped him.

“You HELPED,” you corrected, taking your daughters hand in yours and gently stroking the back of it with your thumb.

“Don’t sound so surprised Y/N. You nearly took off our heads with a toilet brush holder after all, hard to ignore something like that” Dean replied with a smile. You remained silent, your eyes starting to fill with tears which didn’t go unnoticed. “Hey, it’s ok sweetheart. You’re ok now, the baby is healthy; you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“How do I do this?” you asked, looking up at Dean with tears threatening to spill over.

“What, hold the baby? You’re doing it just fine babe,” he told you, reaching over to stroke your baby’s head affectionately.

“No, be a mother... be a SINGLE mother. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing Dean. I read all the books but now that she’s here I realise I’m completely lost. I don’t know how to pick her up, I don’t know when I’m supposed to feed her. Has she had anything to eat yet? What did she have? Has she had a diaper change? Do I-“

“Whoa whoa, it’s ok Y/N, just take a deep breath,” he told you, concern in his eyes as he rubbed your arm. You did as he said, counting the seconds in your head as you did, and found your heart rate slowed down.

“Y/N, I have to ask. Why are you doing this alone?” Dean asked carefully, not sure if you’d be willing to speak with him about it but dying to know how all this came to be. You didn’t look at him, and just continued to stare at your daughter while gently running your fingers over her hair now.

“The father… he’s another hunter. I finished a hunt and needed a drink, he was there as well and we had a few together. He wanted to go back to my room with me but I just wanted to get some sleep so I paid my tab and left. But when I got to my car he was waiting and-“ your voice broke, a sob escaped that you didn’t intend to let out. You hadn’t talked with anyone about this yet, and never expected the first person you told to be the man you loved. You couldn’t look at him, but could practically hear his racing heart from your bed.

“Are- are you tell me he…” he asked slowly, voice shaking. You nodded, at which he let out a deep breath and put his face in his hands.

“I found out I was pregnant a couple of months later,” you told him quietly. “I didn’t want him to ever know, and I needed out of the life, so I faked my own death to disappear.”

“And you decided to keep her. After what happened,” he commented, head still in his hands.

“I considered not, but in the end I realised it wasn’t her fault. And being a mother was something I’d wanted for a long time. I didn’t know if we’d ever… and well, I knew I could love this child. So yes, I kept her.”

Dean stood up abruptly and walked over to the window, wiping his hands down his face which was wet from tears.

“Dean? Honey?”

He could help but let out a bitter laugh at that.

“I didn’t think I’d ever hear you call me that again.”

“Well, I guess a lot has changed in the last 24 hours. I’m holding the proof of that in my arms.”

“I should have been there to protect you; this is all my fault,” he replied, not looking at you and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, his other hand on his hip. You frowned, and wriggling a hand out of your hold on the baby you patted the side of the bed. When he didn’t move you tried again.

“Dean, I risked dropping my baby to invite you over here,” you joked with a warm smile. “Seriously, I don’t know how to hold this kid.”

Dean gave a small smile too, and walked over to sit next to you. You took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, causing him to look at you in surprise.

“Honey, what happened happened. It shouldn’t have been this way, but it was. Do I wish I wasn’t laying in a hospital bed right now holding this beautiful baby? Hell no! Have you seen how adorable she is, how precious? I should be saying I regret things happened the way they did but I can’t. What I CAN say is that I forgive you Dean.”

His eyebrows shot up, his head whipped up to look into your eyes to make sure you weren’t lying.

“I’m not expecting anything of you Dean. But you should be able to get on with your life without this hanging over your head anymore. You saved my daughter’s life this morning, mine too. It was more of any apology than I could have ever asked for.”

Your heart was breaking as you told him this. You didn’t want him to walk out that door but you weren’t about to ask him to stay; there was no way he’d want this life. His silence was deafening, and you took your hand back to fiddle with your daughter’s blanket. You couldn’t bear to look up as you felt him stand and hop off the bed. You closed your eyes tight, not bearing to watch him as he walked towards the door. His footsteps fell silent, and you let the tears fall freely.

You were surprised to feel his hand on your arm a moment later. Opening your eyes, you nearly fell off the bed when you saw him on his knee on the ground next to you.

“Wha-“ you breathed, before he held up his hand to stop you.

“I’ve been carrying this damn ring around ever since you left that night. Even after I heard that you’d died, I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. Sammy kept offering to take it, to help me move on, but I couldn’t. Every night I took it out of my jacket to look at it, to think about what could have been and to wish I could make things right. So, if you’ll have me,” he stopped, opening up the lid to reveal the beautiful Sapphire ring you’d seen so many months ago. “I’d very much like the chance to prove I can be the man you deserve.”

You hadn’t realise you’d been holding your breath until you realised you suddenly needed oxygen. You let out the breath you’d been hold and gasped, unable to hold back the tears.

“I-I th-thought…” you stuttered.

“I’m not leaving you Y/N. Or your daughter,” he said firmly.

“Are you sure you want this Dean? This isn’t just us getting back together, this is fatherhood. This is waking up for 2am diaper changes and bottles and crying and vomit and pee and poo and-“

You were suddenly interrupted by his lips crashing into yours. You were startled at first, but within seconds melted into the kiss and eagerly returned it. You both pulled away panting, resting your foreheads against each other.

“Yes,” you told him quietly, grinning from ear to ear.

“Did, did you just say-“

“Dude, she said yes!” Sam’s voice shouted from the hall, causing you to burst out laughing.

“Right, thanks Sammy, got it,” he replied with a laugh, not taking his eyes off yours.

“What do we do now?” you asked with a giggle.

“Put the ring on her finger!” Sam called again.

“Dude I got it,” Dean yelled back with annoyance.

After he slid the ring on your finger you called Sam in, giving the baby to Dean before embracing him tightly. You woke up that morning alone and scared, and suddenly had an instant family of 4. There really was nothing more you could ask for in this life than that.

Epilogue

Everything Tag:

@angelsandwinchesters

Returning To Life Series Tags:

@ellen-reincarnated1967, @growningupgeek, @roxyspearing, @carryonmyswansong, @imagineplotfulcharacters, @georgialouisea, @inumorph, @grace-for-sale

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chloerd · 4 years

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21/10/2020

imagine… 2020: Marina Abramović: The Ugly Duckling

Brendan mentioned The Ugly Duckling on the BBC Art Documentaries. Marina Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist, she started creating performance art in the 1970s. She was the first female artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her performances can last for days, weeks, or even months at a time and are often shocking, provocative, and expose her vulnerability which pushes herself to physical and psychological limits.

“When I realised that I could create art by using just my own body, everything became clear. I experienced absolute freedom. I felt that I was without boundaries, limitless, the pain didn’t matter, and it intoxicated me. That was the moment I knew that I found my own medium.” Abramović said in the documentary, she said no painting or object ever gave her the same feeling that performance art did. She showed us around her home, in her garden she has a 10,000 square feet archive where she keeps her work, studies, and makes plans. Introducing a book written by her and Christopher Anderson called The Ugly Duckling.

Love Thermometer. (1988). Glass Thermometer in a Tailored Leather Case Lined with Silk. Rebecca Horn.

The artist showed us an artwork by Rebecca Horn called Love Thermometer. She then spoke about her lack of love throughout her childhood. Her father was unfaithful, her mother hated him for that, she never showed affection to Marina and even abused her. Her mother was obsessed with symmetry and cleanliness and she would become abusive and angry if either were tempered, but she thought art to be holy and encouraged Marina to create.

Rhythm 5. (1974). Performance; 90 Minutes. Marina Abramović.

In 1968, Abramović became part of a radical group who found ways of putting life into art, they occupied University buildings. In 1974, she built a five-point star from sawdust. The concept behind this was that the five-point star is on every birth certificate, schoolbook, monument, etc. It has followed her since childhood, the five-point star in communist Tito time was untouchable, you can’t touch the symbol. She wanted to make an exorcism in her own ritual way, she set the star alight and lay down with her arms raised side to side like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in the centre of the burning symbol. The oxygen was being taken away due to the fire, and she began to lose consciousness which led to her being carried away by security, she said this is not how she wanted things to end because she wanted to outsee the performance.

youtube

Art Must Be Beautiful Artist Must Be Beautiful. (1975). Video. Marina Abramović,

In this performance, Marina vigorously combs her hair with a metal comb and a metal brush simultaneously. The action of something that usually soft, nurturing, and representative of self-care is now shifted to an action that looks passive-aggressive and damaging. The act of Marina brushing her hair speaks as a metaphor. “I don’t believe in beauty. I believe that art can be disturbing. Art can ask the question, predict the future. And we don’t need to buy art to match our carpet in the living room.”

vimeo

Rhythm 0. (1974). Performances; 6 Hours. Marina Abramović.

In Rhythm 0, Abramović presents a table of objects to the audience and allows them to use them on her however they want. Objects including knives, a gun, a bullet, etc. She wanted to see how far the public would go as she stood motionless and vulnerable. In the documentary, the artist speaks of how human beings are afraid of so many things in life, of suffering. Marina staged these fears for the public to see, and in the process, liberated herself from her own fears. Through this, she became a mirror for the audience, “If I can do it, they can too”. People were carrying her, putting knives between her legs, someone put the bullet in the pistol and put the pistol in her hand and attempted to make her shoot herself. After six hours of this, she knew the public had the capacity to kill her.

youtube

Light/Dark. (1977). Video. Marina Abramović.

In 1975, Abramović went to live in Amsterdam and fell in love with German artist, Frank Uwe Laysiepen known as Ulay. They made numerous performances together.

youtube

Breathing in/Breathing Out. (1977). Video. Marina Abramović.

ULAY: “I am breathing in oxygen. I am breathing out carbon dioxide.”

MARINE: “I am breathing in carbon dioxide. I am breathing out carbon dioxide.”

Breathing In/Breathing Out is one of her favourite artworks, because all they are using is air for the performance. You breathe in and you’re alive, you breathe out and you’re dead, vice versa. Marina said how she is not interested in killing herself but investigating body limits.

Rest Energy. (1980). Performance for Video; 4 Minutes. Ulay/Marina Abramović,

Rest Energy is one of the shortest pieces they have ever made, but she said it felt like a lifetime. It was about trust. Ulay was asked why the arrow was only pointed at her heart and not his, in which he replied, “it is pointed at my heart”.

Great Wall Walk. (1988). Performance on Video; 90 Days. Marina Abramović.

The Great Wall of China is a colossal dragon-shaped structure that stretches over 2000 miles and it is the only man-made object that is visible from outer space. Marina and Ulay both decided to walk the entire length starting from different ends, they would meet in the middle and get married. The piece depicts two video’s running alongside each other, one of Ulay and the other of Marina. It took 8 years for the Chinese to agree to let them do the walk, during this time their relationship fell apart, so when they finally met in the middle after walking alone and enduring extreme weather for three whole months, they separated.

Balkan Baroque. (1977). Three-Channel Video; Cow Bones. 24:47 Minutes. Marina Abramović.

Between 1992 and 1995, The Bosnian war took place. For the Venice Biennale in 1977, Abramović created an installation that consisted of three channel videos, 2,500kg of cow bones, copper sinks, a bucket, soap, a metal brush, and a tub filled with black water. Two separate videos show her mother and her father, with her on a separate video in the middle. This suggests a war between both her parents, with her in the middle. Her parents met in the war, they fell in love but eventually the love turned to hate, and the war began between them when Marina was born. The cow bones were full of blood, at the temperature of 30 degrees with worms coming out of them. Marina scrubbed the blood with the metal brush to clean the flesh from the bones. This played as a metaphor, the artist said how you can never clean the blood from your hands, just like people had blood on their hands from the war. She wanted to create an image of contrast in the war, there is always war somewhere on the planet, this image can be used for any war, anytime, anywhere…

Now running an artist workshop, Marina chooses 12 people out of hundreds of applicants and teaches them everything she knows. She aims to teach them all of what is important with performance work, “You have to love the public. What you are doing is not important. What is important is your state of mind in which you do it”.

The House with The Ocean View. (2002). Performance; 12 Days. Marina Abramović.

The duration of this performance was 12 days. Abramović stayed in the gallery space for 24 hours a day for 12 consecutive days. She asked herself, if she doesn’t eat, talk, if she purifies herself with only drinking water, can she create different atomic energy in the gallery space? To prevent her from climbing down the ladders that were installed, she replaced the steps with knives. She wanted to elevate simple rituals into something transcendental, something as simple as peeing, she would take her pants down, sit, take the toilet roll and the audience would listen to the pee as if it was a waterfall. The audience built up each day, they stayed around the clock to watch the performance unfold. Marina was unsure of how the performance would be perceived in such a demanding place, New York. “The essence of the performance, is that the audience and the performer make the piece.”

The Artist is Present. (2010). Performance. Marina Abramović.

The duration of The Artist is Present was 3 months. The artist sat in a chair for 8 hours a day, every day, and 10 hours a day on Friday. Motionless, continuously sitting still, no food, no drink, no bathroom breaks, no getting up to stretch her legs. The audience queued for days, leaving profoundly affected, some cried as they watched the true essence of the artist unravel. She was in a vulnerable position which touched the public, and they would react to the energy she was giving off.

Abramović speaks about the importance of your state in mind in your performances, she says you must be mentally and physically prepared. She created the Artists Manifesto, which included rituals to help with this. An artist must spend a long time in solitude, looking for rivers, explore volcanoes, nature, seaside, mountains. You must connect with the tree energy to create artwork. She spends time in a hut with no electricity. A chair to sit on and a crystal. 6 days she spends without food, she sits and investigates the crystal, she says the crystal will reveal the memory of the planet.

youtube

7 Deaths of Maria Callas. (2020). Performance. Marina Abramović.

#context

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minhoslut · 4 years

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♡ summary: Since long ago the seven kingdoms of Lentavia have worked together as one, sharing their resources and prospering because of it. Each kingdom has its own prince, each a beautiful man who rules fairly, caring for their people and distributing their resources amongst the kingdoms. The seven of them are much like brothers, having grown up together in their joint castles that sit in the middle of the island. They are free to rule as they please and do what they wish, as long as it is harmonious within the kingdoms. They must, however, follow one rule. At age 26 they must marry a person of their choosing in order to fully take the throne and become a king. The eldest prince, Seokjin, is 2 days from the date he must choose his betrothed and has yet to even suggest someone as an option.

♡ pairing: Kim Seokjin x fem!reader

♡ chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ? |

♡ series warnings: blood mention, injury mention, swearing, anxiety, death mention, depression

♡ series genre: fluff, smut, slight angst

♡ series rating: Mature

♡ word count: 1977

♡ posted on: AO3

♡ chapter three: flicker

♡ A/N: This au is kind 18th-century esc but I do what I want cause it's my au so it may not be 100% accurate! Hope you enjoy this lil update <3

The smile you received from Seokjin when you accepted his proposal was the brightest you’d ever seen. He had giddily walked you to one of the rooms in the castle, then bid you goodnight. The room was huge, bigger than your cottage itself. A huge beautiful bed with silken black and gold sheets, a wardrobe, a desk and chair, all made with beautiful dark wood. You’d never been in such an extravagant room, you wandered around it touching the smooth furniture. There was a bathroom attached with a large tub in it, various nice smelling liquids set along the side. You looked at yourself in the mirror and wondered how you had ended up here.

Settling down on the bed you realized all of your things were still at the cabin including a change of clothes to sleep in. You sighed, you had a tendency to rush into things without planning and now you were dealing with the consequence of one of those decisions. A knock on your door startled you from your thoughts. “Miss L/N? His Majesty Seokjin has sent me with some sleepwear for you.” You smiled, he was such a considerate person, to even have recognized the problem you had gotten yourself into. Opening the door, you accepted the clothes and thanked the servant for bringing them to you. Slipping off the dress you were wearing, you folded it and put it on the box at the end of the bed. You put the simple white nightgown on and climbed into the big bed, snuggling into the soft sheets and giving in to sleep.

You woke up just before the sun began to peek over the horizon, as you did every morning, and went to the bathroom. After using the toilet and splashing some water on your face you returned to the room and put the dress from yesterday back on. Luckily you had a good memory as you were able to find your way out to the garden. You walked amongst the flowers, touching the leaves and petals with a delicate hand. The garden's energy was extremely pleasant, the plants were all well cared for and so they were happy.

It was strange to not be in your cottage practicing spells or tending to your own garden. Usually in the mornings you would go out to the forest to collect herbs or visit the creatures who lived there, but today you were exploring the castle gardens. You wondered what marrying the prince would actually entail. A wedding was probably a must, when would it happen? Did Seokjin expect you to sleep in the same room with him? You vetoed that thought, the prince hadn’t shown any intention of anything besides fixing both of your problems. What was going to happen to your cottage? You made a mental note to ask Seokjin about it when you saw him.

That was another thing, what did the princes even do all day? You had never really thought much about them, and only ever knew that they were handsome. There was a lot of mystery surrounding this whole world you had somehow stumbled into. You sighed, you would learn eventually you supposed. Luckily, you were a pretty good judge of character, and you always had your magic if something turned out bad. You trusted Seokjins kindness, and truth be told it was getting tiring to be constantly attacked by the townsfolk. They had been amping up the vandalism and verbal threats recently and you were afraid of what might happen if they went through with any.

You were always terrified of hurting other people with your magic, so you never used it against others. Even when you had been attacked a few months ago and they had been kicking you relentlessly, you refused to use magic in fear of injuring one of them. Instead, you let them get out there anger and then whipped up some healing balm to help with the pain once you’d made it back home. It had been terrifying and hurt a lot, but you knew you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you ever caused someone pain with your magic.

Continuing your garden stroll you hummed softly for the flowers, they always liked being given music. “Y/N!” The somewhat panicked shout startled you and you turned to find Seokjin running towards you. “Please don’t leave! If I or my brothers said something to offend you please tell me, I will fix it, just, just don’t leave.” You couldn’t contain your laughter as the prince stared at you, face full of confusion. “I’m not leaving, I’m just walking in the garden.” Relief washed over Seokjin’s handsome features. “Thank the Gods! I asked a maid to check on you and she said you were gone, and it was so early I assumed you must’ve snuck out to run away…” Seokjin admitted sheepishly, scratching his cheek.

You smiled, “I always rise with the sun, and I like to be with nature often, so I just figured I’d go for a little explorative stroll. I’d never just up and leave with no warning, I can assure you that.” The prince smiled back gratefully, “In that case, good morning to you, shall we get some breakfast then see about fetching your things?” You agreed and followed him back to the castle and up to the dining hall.

Once the two of you had eaten, Seokjin called for a carriage to take you both to your cottage. You stared at your hands sat in your lap during the short ride, pondering what you’d like to bring with you to the palace. As you neared your home the smell of ashes and smoke caught your attention. You poked your head out the window, worried about some kind of forest fire hurting the animals but instead you were faced with the burning remnants of your life. A cry tore its way out of your throat as you jumped out of the still moving carriage. Ignoring the harsh impact of the ground, you stood and ran towards the flaming cottage, ignoring the Prince’s call for you to stop.

Without an ounce of hesitation, you pushed through your door and into the smoke-filled room, wincing at the heat. The ash clung to your throat and burned your lungs and eyes, but you ignored it as you dashed to your bedroom. You pulled back at the sharp pain from the searing hot handle of your door, then steadied yourself and opened it regardless. Throwing things across the room, you began pulling things out from under your bed, desperate to find what you needed. A firey beam fell atop your bed, narrowly missing your crouched body, you wiped the pooling tears out of your eyes and snatched the bundle of cloth you’d been searching for.

Coughing heavily, you barely managed to throw yourself out the open door before the whole thing collapsed behind you into an inferno. Arms were suddenly around you, holding you tightly to someone’s chest as the carried you away from your home. You sobbed in the persons hold, clutching the bundle you’d risked everything for to your chest.

Next thing you knew you were sitting on a white cot whilst a gentle woman assessed your injuries. She tried to take the cloth from you but you just held it tighter against you, making her sigh. “I won’t take it anywhere, child. Let me make sure you’re alright? It’ll be right next to you hm?” Her kind words and soft eyes, convinced you as you slowly nodded and let her take it and put it beside you as she’d promised, before continuing her examination. She wrapped your burnt hand with some herbs and then a clean cloth. A damp cloth was used to wipe the ash and soot off of your body, then you were dressed in a simple golden brown striped gown atop a white frock . The kind woman who had been watching over you, Hejin, had then left but was quickly replaced by an extremely flustered and angry Seokjin.

“Y/N! Thank god you’re alright! How could you be so reckless? Nothing is worth losing your life over! We can replace anything, why would you run in there like that? You could have been seriously injured, or worse! Why would you do that?” You looked into his anxious brown eyes as your own grey ones began to water again. “What is it? Something hurts? I’ll get Hejiin again-” You placed your non-injured hand atop Jins, effectively stopping his tangent. Then you slowly unwrapped the cloth Hejin had set beside you. Inside it was a photo of a woman with big beautiful curls just like your own, her face a bright smile as she held a little girl with matching locks. “My mother…” You managed to say, voice hoarse from smoke inhalation.

A look of sad understanding fell across Seokjins features, and he pulled you into a gentle hug. “I’m sorry for yelling, I was just worried. I’m glad you’re alright.” He said softly, not breaking your embrace. You gripped the fabric of his shirt tightly and bit your lip in an attempt to not cry anymore. “It’s ok, I got her so it’s ok.” You whispered back to him. Reluctantly, the Prince released you and surveyed you with his eyes. “I’m so sorry Y/N.” You gave him a weak smile, “It isn’t your fault that I’m hated, and you weren’t the one to burn my home down.” Seokjin frowned, “But-” You held up your hand to stop him, “No buts, I am ok, I have what matters to me most and I will heal from my injuries.”

The Prince gave you a pointed look but dropped the topic, “I’ve asked Jimin to order some clothes for you, he knows lots about clothing.” You opened your mouth to protest but Seokjin stopped you this time, “No buts from you either, you’re my fiance so of course, I will provide for you.” He explained with a wink, making you smile for real. He offered his arm and took you out of what you assumed must be the infirmary wing, “Let’s get your Mother somewhere safe then.” When you two returned to your room a servant was waiting with a golden frame, which you gratefully accepted. You set the picture into the frame and then put it at your bedside, facing the window.

“She always loved to watch the sun rise and set. New beginnings and happy endings she’d say.” You smiled at the memory, running your hand along the frame gently. Seokjin crumpled his hand into a tight fist. He couldn’t believe people would do such horrible things to such a kind and warm person. He rarely got mad, but right now he was furious and hiding it as best he could for your sake. “Hejin said you should take it easy for a few days since you took in so much smoke, and your hand…” The prince trailed off. “Nonsense.” You said with a shake of your head, “I just need to go collect some herbs from the forest and then I’ll be right as rain.” Seokjin gave you a look of disbelief making you chuckle softly. “Witch, remember?” You said plainly, gesturing to yourself.

Seokjin blanched. He had, in fact, forgotten this bit of information, so wrapped up in your accept of his proposal and the morning’s events that it had slipped his mind completely. “Ah, right. Then I will accompany you to the forest later, but for now, you should have a small rest at least?” You couldn’t deny the sweet request and so you bid him farewell and laid atop the bed. You tried your best to have a nap as wicked flames licked at your dreams, turning them to nightmares in an instant.

#bangtanhq #bts #bts x reader #kim seokjin x reader #kim seokjin #forget me not

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stevecanmakeanythingnerdy · 7 years

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RANDOM RECORD WORKOUT SEASON 5 Battle 15 Single Bullet Theory: S/T (Side 1) Vs. The Alarm: Strength (Side 2) Single Bullet Theory: S/T (Side 1) I literally know nothing about this band, other than this: When I came across this album, I was immediately drawn in. I saw a colorful, attention grabbing cover filled with squirt guns, and on the flip side were five regular looking dudes with one exception. They looked (respectively) like the children of Ric Ocasik, Dee Dee Ramone, and Bun E. Love. Now mind you, in my eyes, those are NOT bad things. Also, I took note that this was released on Nempor records (home of power pops like The Romantics) so I figured it was a least worth the 99 cent admission price. In short, another of my cut out bin gambles. So this is literally my first spin of this record. My initial impression: I was not wrong to pick this up. Elements of all three aforementioned fathers are present (Cars, Ramones, Cheap Trick) and some Romantics and even a little of The Kings and things! A little research reveals that the band came up with the cover concept that I was drawn to all by themselves! It is actually common practice for a label to appoint someone for art design, so that is fairly rare. It really is pretty neat though. Single Bullet Theory are legit power pop dudes from Richmond, Virginia. The band was originally founded in 1976 under the name X-Breed. SBT adopted the new moniker after the addition of a guitarist and bassist to the original three-person lineup. They self-released an EP in 1977 and by 1979 were opening for Patti Smith. After landing a song on the Asylum Sharp Cuts compilation album, they signed with Mike Curb Productions, but left the label before releasing any material. In 1982 they signed to CBS Records subsidiary Nemperor and released a full-length album. The single "Keep it Tight" appeared on MTV and is effectively song one, side one. The video (see below) is hilarious BTW. Basically the EP and this album are their full dscog. "Keep it Tight" - Right off the bat, you are hit with sweet power pop bliss. A short and tight (they were not joking!) tune. "Slide Away" was probably slated as a single if I were guessing. Slick keyboard presence with nice rhythms and power chords. A Pretty layered dip here. Nice and with a little harder edge. "Hang on to Your Heart" is complete, 100% 80's night tracks, baby. If there isn't a video somewhere for this I would be surprised. "A Blink of an Eye" is probably the biggest highlight here for me. Holy $#!7!! A great, floating melody surrounded by hooks, lines, and sink my battleship! This one is SURELY a radio jam. If not, I hope someone at the label lost a job for not making it so. The final number is "Das Madchen" (translation: the Lady). It's umlaut core Essets!! Ironically, no Deutsch is spoken(???) Power chord peppered pieces of pop corn. I smell Phil Spector...no??? At any rate, it was a fine find, and a great specimen of the power pop genre. The Alarm: Strength (Side 2) The Alarm are generally billed as a Clash style knock off. Or maybe what The Clash would have evolved into if they hadn't self destructed. Personally, I even hear some Stray Cats. Stand outs are certainly the drums and vocals. The Alarm are a Welsh alternative rock/new wave band that formed in Rhyl, Wales, in 1981. Initially formed as a punk band, "The Toilets" in 1977, under lead vocalist Mike Peters, the band soon embraced rock, displaying marked influences from Welsh language and culture. By opening for acts such as U2 and Bob Dylan, they became a popular alternative rock band of the 1980s. Strength is their second studio offering, and experienced some delay in the recording process. The band had a producer lined up, that agreed to come overseas to record. However, they never showed and some crucial dates for a summer tour were about to take place. The band adapted though, and did the dates, then found a new producer and in October of 1985, Strength his the shelves. "Deeside" starts off poppy, nice and choppy. I totally hear the Clash thing. Even a bit of The Lords of the New Church. The energy level never lets up. "Father to Son" is more of a Reggae-ish tune, sounds more funky than anything. Maybe Men without Hats if they did just straight up punk. "Only The Thunder" is something I can only describe as a kind of punk-country version of U2. I am starting to become confused and disoriented. "The Day The Ravens Left The Tower" is next on the set list. While I love the evil sounding title, the fitting somber tone of the guitar licks that follow are the real impressive quality. Then...it gets serious. Fly Away!!!! "Absolute Reality" brings back the blitzy fitz and frantic vocals that reel you in. I can't really find an accurate descriptor, but it seems to be a lighthearted, almost folk and acoustic version of the Clash. I don't mean B. A. D. Either (#seewhatididthere). "Walk Forever By My Side" just ruins the whole credibility of anything up to this point, though. Complete rubbish and piano ballad. Honey bunches of NOPE! And Really, not even needed if you ask me. Single Bullet Theory didn't call in a second shooter (#seewhatididthere) but they did call in one heck of a performance. They blitzed through 5 songs in 18 minutes and burned 140 calories in the process. That is 28 calories per song and 7.78 calories per minute. The Alarm used their "Strength" to overcome production woes and to sound the Alarm. They burned 168 calories over 24 minutes and 6 songs. That is 28 calories per song and 7 calories flat per minute. Impressive, but not enough to avoid the Single Bullet, shot straight to number 1! Single Bullet Theory wins!! Listen for yourself! Check out the links: Single Bullet Theory: "Keep It Tight" (I'm pretty sure this video features Gary Busey as, "guy in the shower") https://youtu.be/e6GlwoUR1e8 The Alarm: "Deeside" https://youtu.be/WCFv4XL2E6g #RANDOMRECORDWORKOUTSEASON5 #RANDOMRECORDWORKOUT

#randomrecordworkoutseason5 #the alarm #single bullet theory #records #vinyl #80's music #80s #power pop #Randomrecordworkout

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weneverlearn · 7 years

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Dead Boys 1977

Interview with Clevelander Dave Treat about his new photo book that peaks into some daze in the pre-legendary life of the Cleveland punk rock masters.

It’s easy to forget that, by their initial demise circa 1980, the Dead Boys were considered a kind of dark summation of the original American punk rock explosion. A blistering live act no doubt, they were “the Stooges played fast;” glam rock sans glitter; even proto-power pop given the best hooks of the second album. One of the ultimate flameouts in rock’n’roll history, their punk status was cemented just under the ubiquitous Lower East Side canon. And heaven forbid, they were from Cleveland.

But as the years roll on, the layers of their status have shifted and deepened. Being from Cleveland – actually forming out of bands who pre-dated the CBGB scene (Rocket from the Tombs, Frankenstein) – makes them punk originators, not just the out-of-towners they were sometimes painted as when they moved to the Big Apple in 1977. Their debut album, Young Loud and Snotty, remains perhaps the most consistently invigorating American punk album of that era. Singer Stiv Bators’ too-soon death, guitarist Cheetah Chrome’s long journey to find himself, it all inadvertently lent gravity to the band’s more immediate and welcome sense of humor that put them in stark contrast to the sometimes pretentious CBGB scene.

And in the last few years, Chrome has been busy as hell, making new records, playing Dead Boys songs again with various friends, and doing occasional solo acoustic sets that can be genuinely tear-quelling in their intimacy and memory-dredging.

If you haven’t checked out Chrome’s 2009 biography, A Dead Boys Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock, you should! It not only gives a flailing firsthand account from one of punk’s template tossers, it articulates to outsiders that Cleveland was the equal to NYC as THE post-industrial blank canvas for young, drunk, and broke punks to come up with their own thing. Further, you will find no trust fund kids in his story, no relocated Connecticutians sliding into ripped jeans and hoping nobody finds out their dad is a Wall Street lawyer. As “punk” has incrementally defined its soul as a working-class genre, the Dead Boys story becomes more and more foundationally iconic.

And now this beautifully bleak collection of photos and quick quotes, Dead Boys 1977: The Lost Photographs of Dave Treat. It’s a perfect companion to the first few chapters of Cheetah’s bio. Half are gloriously raw shots of the band awkwardly striking poses around the desolate streets of downtown Cleveland as a newly minted, four-piece Dead Boys. The second half is color photos from two 1977 Cleveland shows. Then the book closes with achingly alone solo shots of Stiv, also shot during one afternoon (Treat lived in the same building where Stiv and Chrome roomied.) Stiv had an uncanny visage that could be simultaneously madcap and melancholy. For a guy who would whip it out anywhere on command and who spent the majority of his adult work life yelling loudly on stage, he remains a mystery man in many ways. And you see that mystery in his eyes and bent body through these pix.

As you arrive at the end of this book, you feel as if you just spent a day and night with the Dead Boys. Your inclination on closing it is to swig back the last backwash, throw the bottle down, and say “See ya later” to the guys, walk out onto Detroit Ave., and never look back, just like they did.

The photos herein were meant as a no budget attempt at “promotional rock photos,” but the band soon added a fifth member and moved to NYC, so these photos have been sitting in a box since then. Save for one small gallery show where a few of them were displayed, this is the first time they appear.

I asked Treat about the book and more.

The Dead Boys pose for Dave Treat on Huron Avenue in Cleveland, 1977, a time when the central city was so desolate you could do this in the middle of the day and hardly see another soul. L-R Johnny Blitz, Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, Jimmy Zero. Photo credit: Dave Treat

Did you grow up in the Cleveland area?

Yes, on West 41 St., off of Clark Avenue.

So when and what were the initial inspiration to drag these pix out and do something with them?

Actually, I didn’t know I still had them. I was cleaning out some boxes and there they were. That was three years ago. I went to Blue Arrow Records and started talking to Pete the owner, and he liked the pics. He had Brittany Hudak look at them and she wanted to do a gallery show at Gallery 61-- owned by Byron Miller, who also printed them for me -- with a 25th Anniversary Show honoring the loss of Stiv Bators. That is how it all started. Clem Burke of Blondie came to the Cleveland Stiv show on Waterloo and gave us a number and recommendation to Lethal Amounts in LA. The gallery show was first, with Cheetah playing to a sold-out crowd after at the Monty Bar.

How did you first meet up with Cheetah and Stiv?

I moved to an apartment on Giel Avenue in Lakewood. About three months later, Stiv moved into the building. We met and became friends. Cheetah was always there. One note: Stiv and Cheetah wrote some of the songs for Young Loud and Snotty in their bathroom. Cheetah on the toilet and Stiv in the tub.

The pic with the band next to the dumpster – what was the impetus behind purposely shooting in garbage? Were any of the members like, “Can we take nice shots somewhere, like maybe at Swingos?” I know Cheetah mentions the first Ramones album cover as inspiration.

No nice pics, it was decided to go downtown and find the place we shot the photos. Cheetah liked the Ramones album cover. Collectively, we wanted the urban decay, the garbage and the dilapidated buildings. We didn’t want them lined up against a wall, but something unique to them.

So how present were the Ramones and the notion of this new "punk" music in your life personally?

For me, the intro into punk was through the Dead Boys. Meeting and seeing their passion for this new sound was amazing. It pulled you in. Finally, something new in Cleveland.

What were the live music clubs you'd go to, and were there local bands you could stand? I know Cheetah's told me how it was mostly lame blues or ‘60s cover bands, if any live music at all...

Pirate’s Cove, Agora, Jicky’s After Dark, Piccadilly’s.

Pere Ubu, The Pagans, Styrenes.

(A history-smushing aside: The Pirate’s Cove turned into Peabody’s, which I frequented in my youth (Replacements, Pixies, Godfathers, Death of Samantha, Rocket from the Crypt, among many), and only died a few years ago; and the Agora is still there, operating on/off.)

Can you just give me a random crazy Stiv story, and maybe one that is not expected from the "wild man" he's known as?

Came home from classes, started knocking on the door, looked in the hall and Stiv was having sex with someone. He looked up, waved, smiled and put up his index finger to say just a minute. I laughed and went upstairs.

Dropped at the door of Drome Records, 1977.

Was Stiv a late night, drunkly opening up with his feelings kinda guy?

No, not at all. He was always upbeat. He liked having a good time, pulling a good prank…never melancholy.

Dead Boys singer Stiv Bators poses for Dave Treat at the Cleveland Agora with their friend and neighbor “Barb the Fat Bitch” (a joking nickname for someone who, according to Cheetah Chrome, was in fact neither fat nor a bitch). Photo credit: Dave Treat

I grew up in Cleveland - Parma Hts., to be exact -- and the whole Catholic thing about Cleveland is one of the simmering things inside the Dead Boys that I always loved, and makes them so "Cleveland," no matter their fame gained in the Big Apple. But did religion actually come up much? Or any stories of desecrating churches or anything?

Religion never came up. Nothing too outrageous. Stiv putting his finger on his throat and barfing on a Denny’s window while people were eating. Cheetah pissing out the window or back porch. Cheetah mooning two ladies walking on Giel Avenue. Not too crazy yet.

I think, while the NYC scene was peppered with slumming rich kids, reading Cheetah's book and looking through your's, you definitely get the sense there was none of that in Cleveland, that the Dead Boys and the few people in the actual "scene" were not exactly getting their rent paid for.

No rich kids here. Went to classes in the a.m. and worked in the evenings. Paid for everything myself.

That "ruin porn" early-70s punk era is always mythologized, but as Cheetah has pointed out, it wasn't some huge scene. At underground or new rock kind of shows, there might be 15 people in the crowd. Do you agree, and any stories of hanging out at shows with Cheetah and Stiv, with 10 other people or what have you?

Cleveland at that point was in a free fall. Our mayor had the city’s garbage men deliver a porn poll. We were called the Mistake on the Lake. The city would go into default. There were no jobs. My roommate, after I moved, and another student at Cooper actually organized the First Annual Cleveland Smoke-In. Attached is a copy of the flyer. In short, good or bad, you got by.

In the book, the mentions of how dead it was downtown, Cheetah saying you could just stop in the middle of Euclid Ave. and take pictures -- do you have memories of just exploring downtown Cleveland then? And did you have a feeling that this really was the end of a city, an end of an era, or did you think Cleveland could "come back?" Would you want it to "come back?"

As far as downtown, it was dead. The malls opened in the ‘burbs and people didn’t need to go downtown. I shot the guys in the middle of Huron. We were there 10-15 minutes. No cars or people. Can’t do that now.

What did you think when the band decided to move to NYC?

They had to, there wasn’t a market in Cleveland. When they first went to CBGB’s, there was no turning back. They found where they needed to be, and I am glad they did.

How did you hear about Stiv dying, and when was the last time you'd heard from him?

I heard there was a benefit for Stiv and Babylon-A-Go-Go, 6/29/90. I went there and saw people I knew. They told me what happened. *

Where do you live today; what are you doing for a living; and what do you think of the more bustling downtown Cleveland of today?

I currently live in Solon, Ohio. I am a currently consulting in residential construction. It’s about damn time. Actually the renaissance of downtown and the Flats has been doing incredibly well. I’m proud to say I’m a Clevelander.

* -- I too was at that memorial:

http://weneverlearn.tumblr.com/post/520928279/this-is-the-funeral-card-from-stiv-bators

These are the amazing VHS tributes that were shown at Stiv’s memorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FreVBEt_8BQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfIZwblztxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOUIZIQghFY

Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome moons Dave Treat’s camera in one of downtown Cleveland’s MANY empty buildings in 1977. L-R: Stiv Bators, Cheetah Chrome, Jimmy Zero, Johnny Blitz. Photo credit: Dave Treat

Photographer Dave Treat, photo credit: Bryon Miller

#dead boys #dave treat #cheetah chrome #pere ubu #Pagans #blue arrow records #eric davidson #cleveland punk #cleveland 1970s

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notoriousgrd · 7 years

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Shocktober Days 1-28

Ok, it’s Sunday and I’m not at the folks’ as usual because my brother’s working today, so taking the time to update my Shocktober log post. This is a long one so fasten your seatbelts,

The Devil Rides Out (1968) - been meaning to watch this for over twenty years, finally did and loved it. Christopher Lee and Charles Gray are excellent and I can see how the whole chalk circle bit influenced me at of Doctor Who:Battlefield.

Hotel Transylvania (2012) - I’d planned on another movie but with real world being so horrific that day, changed plans and watched this really fun animated movie.

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) - not the first portmanteau movie I ever saw (that’d be Twilight Zone:The Movie) but the first Amicus one and definitely my favourite. Cushing and Lee, DJ Alan “Fluff” Freeman Vs plants, Roy Castle and his voodoo trumpet, Michael Gough and Donald Sutherland as a doctor. Cushing and Castleford reunite later that year for a certain movie involving Daleks.

Quatermass And The Pit (1967) - last Quatermass I saw, having seen all the television versions and other movies over the years. Much like the Doctor Who/Daleks movies nicely compresses three hours of black and white telly into an hour-and-a-half of glorious colour. I hadn’t seen this when I saw Doctor Who:The Daemons so the parallels were not apparent to me. Andrew Kier is an excellent Quatermass, just behind John Mills in the 1979 telly story.

Christine (1983) - I hadn’t seen this in a long, long time, enough that I completely forgot Harry Dean Stanton and Robert Prosky were in it. Been even longer since I read the book, so can’t say if it’s a good adaptation, certainly a good movie though, the non-cgi car repairing effects still look awesome.

Deep Red / Profondo Rosso (1975) - the only Dario Argento movie I’ve seen and decided to rewatch after Mr Ash mentioned it. Looks lovely, an awesome soundtrack,

Deep Star Six (1989) - One of a few horror films rushed ahead to try and cash in on all the hype for James Cameron’s The Abyss. This one sees many of the people behind Friday The 13th doing an underwater m onter movie. It’s daft fun, I like the monster and it’s got one of my favourite actors, Miguel Ferrer in it.

Ghosts Of Mars.(2001) - One of the three John Carpenter movies I’d not seen, seems to get a lot of stick, but again, a fun action horror movie, with a really good cast (Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier and Jason Statham) and a nice way of telling the story.

AvP:Requiem (2007) - we were kind of on a trash train for a bit, as this is another movie decried as the worst thing ever when it’s a perferctly competent horror movie with some really nice deaths and a nice basic concept. Take eighties slasher movie environment, add alien death machines.

Life (2017) = This was really, really good. a relatively realistic sci-fi horror that starts off a bit Andromeda Strain but end up Alien. Another great cast, and kudos for a certain point for having a disabled character who’s treated the same as any other crew member right until the moment they fall into the tired trap of his disability leading to his death. Other than that though, really enjoyed this, some really nasty deaths and nothing really set off my “SPace doesn’t work like that!” sense.

Leviathan (1989) = The other movie trying to cash in on The Abyss hype. Another good, fun underwater monster movie with a great cast (Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Daniel Stern, Richard Crenna, Ernie Husson, Meg Foster), a great Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack and some nice effects work.

The Rezort (2016) - recommended to me by Mr Ash of the Hammered Horror podcast, low budget zombie movie with a great premise, that being that they got the zombie plague under control and have actually set up an island where people can pay to go and shoot zombies on a kind of undead safari. This is also used to try to help people who were traumatised by the zombie event. Of course, this being a horror movie, things rapidly go sideways. Barring a couple of moments, the small budget doesn’t show and the premise is a nice change from most zombie movies.

Waxwork (1988) - I’d seen the sequel to this years ago, when in 1994, my then local Blockbuster was having a massive sell-off of ex-rental tapes wuth no covers for a couple of quid each. Me and my flatmate at the time bought a pile of them, probably fifty tapes between us and this was one of them, a very silly hoor movie with a premise that lets them do little horror vignettes as part of a bigger story. This does that too, it’s another fun romp, with some lovely distinguisdhed actors (David warner, Patrick Macnee and John Rhys Davis) havnig fun with the material.

Friday The 13th Part IX:Jason Goes To Hell (1993) - I’d made my way through the first eight movies a while back, but as always got distracted and forgot to go back and finish off. So with it actually being Friday The 13th, I decided that day to fix that. This is…not great. Jason is killed and becomes a body surfing demon. Really only notable things are Kane Hodder;s wee cameo as an FBI agent, the Book Of The Dead form Evil Dead being being found in the Vorhees house (and thus being what brough Jason back from the dead at some point) and Erin Grey.

Friday The 13th Part X:Jason X (2001) = This one however, is a huge amount of fun, Jason is captured and the plan is to put him in cryogenic status to stop him from killing again as it’s obvious at this point, he can’t actuaslly be killed. Of course, things go sideways and him and the doctor responsible for freezing him are found hundreds of years later when Earth’s a wastland and taken back to a spaceship. Yes, this is Jason Goes To Space and takes a lot of cues form other sci-fi things, space marines, holodecks, evil corporations etc and uses them to make a fun action horror romp that never takes itself too seriously.

Mr Vampire (1985) - One of my all time favourites. Saw it in the mid-nineties when Channel 4 had a seasib if Hong Kong action movies, many with a spooky side to them. This movie introduced me to the Jiangshi, Chinese hopping vampires and this movie is a fun, action comedy with plenty f great action scenes, slapstick and scares.

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970) - As mentioned above, I’d only ever sene the one Dario Argento movie, so decided to fix that. His directorial debut is a mirder thriller where the main character witnesses an attempted murder and soon finds himself in danger with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Great stuff.

Until Dawn (2015) - this is a game for PS4 rather than a movie and with the length it could easily count as between four to six horror movies. It’s an interactive adventure game with excellent motion captured performances, a great plot, great setpieces and with the choices you can make, anywhere between everyone and no-one can survive. I made it out with only two deaths and I know how those can be avoided. One of the best horror games I’ve ever played and highly recommended. Virtual Peter Stormare in particular veeres into the uncanny valley on several occasions. Great stuff.

The Raven (1935) - on the title cazrd it says “suggested by” Poe’s poem, but all that amounts ot is the name and a character who’s a bit Poe obsessed with nods to a couple of his other works in there. Has Lugosi and Karloff, is okay as these things go.

The Car (1978) - was surprised to find most review sites think this is a load of bollocks. I enjoyed it as a kid and still enjoy it now. It’s basically Jaws with a car that appears to be possessed by the devil. Been so long since I saw it, forgot James Brolin and Ronny Cox were in it. there’s some nice direction at points and it’s definitely not as bad as its reputation would have you think.

The Raven (1963) - Another part of my plan is to watch the ROger Corman Poe adaptations, I picked this first because it has the trio of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and boris Karloff in it and the last movie I watched with them all was Comedy Of terrors which was a blast. I could happily watch Price and Lorre mucking about for hours, the first half-hour is mostly the two of them sparking off each other. It’s a tale of warring wizards, everyone looks like they’re having so much fun and I had a grin on my face throughout. Lovely and highly recommended. Also has a young Jack Nicholson in it.

The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960) - Corman, Price and Poe again, a far more sombre affair but again really good. Vincent Price is one of those actors I can watch in anything.

Suspiria (1977) - Back to Argento with weird goings on in a prestigious ballet school. The plot is not really important, you watch Argento mivues for the visuals and amazing soundtracks. Really enjoyed it.

Phenomena (1985) - Argento once more, with Donald Pleasance (with a lovely Scottish accent), JJennifer Conolly in her movie debut and a chimp with a razor. The usual sumptuous visuals, great soundtrack (with Iron Maiden and Motorhead showing up at points) and the usual twisted plot. Had one of those rare monets I really go “Ooooh!” and curl up a bit when someone gets stabbed in the hand with scissors.

The World’s End (2013) - probabl;y the worst of the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun Of THe Dead and Hot Fuzz being thew others) but still a brilliant movie. It starts off as a middle aged man trying to recapture his youth by getting his childhood friends to finish a pub crawl they never managed as teens, then turns into Incasion Of The Body Snatchers/ Great all-star cast and two of my favourite fight scenes in horror movies, the one in the gents toilets because of the wrestling moves and thew one in the pub a combination of Nick Frost (I love big lads kicking arse) and the remix of Silver Bullet’s Twenty Seconds To Comply backing it.

Attack The Block (2011) - I had difficulty with this first itme I watched it, I live on a council estate and the main characters weere a bit too true to life for me to begin with. This time though, no problem. Premise is a load of big gorilla wolf motherfuckers crash land in a council estate in London and a bunch of ASBO kids and a nurse take them on. It’s notable for having John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker who would both go onto much bigger sci-fi things with Star Wars and Doctor Who. It looks great, sounds great, the creature design is unique and this time round I spotted little references like the tower block being Wyndham Towers and it being near a Ballard Street.

#halloween #shocktober #horror #movies

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