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pwblogarchive · 2 months

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January 2006

January 2, 2006

It was strange being outside of chicago on new years. If anyone remembers our apartment shows.

But the confetti was pretty and I think a girl from miss seventeen tried to kiss me on the mouth but kind of missed. Oh yeah and apparantly andrew john hurley is a dreamboat. Check the scoreboard. Tommorrow letterman and then I’m gonna buy some more heinous gear. Do you love it when I wear clashing colors as much as I do?

And why didn’t anyone tell me how amazing the movie the squid and the whale is? I told you about panic��

Over and way the fuck out.

xoxo

January 4, 2006

my top ten (er top seven) of 2005 - no records included.

bonnie dillard - she is always around to tell me how wack i am - she uses the the word "totes" and "just sayin" way too much - and actually types them! she named her dog roxie wentz and she has given me exactly two compliments in my entire life - one of which was on an outfit that she picked out for me. but she pretty much is the glue for clandestine and sometimes pete wentz. editor of filthy magazine.

nick scimeca - this kid makes the craziest faces i have ever seen in my entire life. the first time i met him we got in a snowball fight. pretty much we are in this gang together forever. he does infect, foe, and some clandestine stuff. pretty much whenever i am bummed i can call him up on the phone and hell tell me some hilarious story.

demar hamilton - i have pulled this kids underwear off every time he is around me and totally wasted. its awesome. he also has a dog living in his basement that looks like a 100 yearold teddy ruxpin. oh yeah, his band is rad.

leslie simon - me and her talk about our crushes all the time. we have a mutual love for the music of ashlee simpson and kelly clarkson. when i tell her insane stories i dont even have to say "off the record" she pretty much knows. she thinks of bright eyes and fob in the same way which blows my little mind. she is editting rainy day kids. oh yeah and writing a book about boys in tight jeans that wear eyeliner as far as i can tell but its pretty hush hush.

jonathon cecil miller/dirty - pretty much this kid is made of snakes, snails and puppy dog tails. i have nothing else to say but he is the new pauly shore - even if he always punches me for saying that. pretty much he looks like a cheeseburger with toothpicks for legs but i wouldnt trade him for the world. pretty much he is the best kid ever.

jim sevcik (or however you spell it) - this is the guy who goes and digs the little youth medium shirts out of tiny boxes in the 100 plus degrees on warped tour or freezing temp on NFT - and then takes the money out of your paws. he is definitely most underrated.

andrew simon/buck - when on the westcoast these guys function as my mother. they take us out to dinner, help me find a house or apartment, look up movie times, get screenings, help me find tours, starbucks, have the cutest baby on the planet, oh yeah and they even book shows every once in awhile.

oh well i ran out of steam. ill finish later. pretty much people that i hang out with every single day are not included on this - you know who you are.

- petey

1/04/06 Q&A

question

Pete, I really need some advice. I was a virgin until I slept with this guy. I didnt tell him I was a virgin until 2hrs. after we finished nad I told him online. Then I started freaking out because I was scared I had screwed everything up between us, which I think only made everything worse. this all happen yesterday. Did I screw everything up?

answer

the best part about when things like this happen is that eventually they become the past- if you really like this guy you could probably explain yourself to him- how you just got scared and were nervous to tell him certain things. if he is worth it, i am sure he will take the time to listen and tell you how he feels too. and if he doesn’t give you the time to do that, than he isn’t worth it anyway. you can be through with the past but that past isnt always through with you.

question

Pette what type of bass do you have?

answer

fender just made me my own- its pretty rad- red and black- super light maple neck- customized electronics and pick-ups- check out a picture of it over at: www.clandestine.buzznet.com - they say they are gonna make a real cheap version of it for people to learn on

question

the background on the site finally changed. who does that?

answer

it changes with mother nature.

question

Do you have any scars. Not like emotional scars (you can include them if you wish) but good-story-scars. Like stuff involving armadillos or something interesting like that.

answer

ive got this amazing one down the palm of my hand from when me and robby windgator (sp) climbed a fence in his back yard and my hand got stuck on a nail. it slid down the entire length of my hand- i was like 8. i have two on my right hand from when i fought a car the week before the VMAs. trust me i definitely beat the car up.

January 6, 2006

notes on black clouds and underdogs - see also: cast all your fears away:

1. tickets will not be 50 dollars. haters are spreading this on the internet. if you buy your ticket ahead of time (not through some wack broker or on ebay or from a scalper)- average ticket price will be between 23-28 dollars - not going over 35 anywhere. we picked the venues based on how cheap we could get them.

2. the bands- we didn't want to have a tour where you had to see five bands that sounded exactly like fob. we went for variety. all of the bands are really nice guys as well. there will be special guests through out the tour and some suprises to make each show more exciting.

3. this is going to be fob's biggest show ever. we will be playing our longest set and will be including some special secrets.

4. did you expect us to just dump the dates in your laps? we are nerdy and weird and different. so we created a game. we thought it would be fun. the points will be weighted so a small town will have the same chance as a huge city to win a small suprise show. we want to play in front of kids that are excited and we know this is a chance to do this. there will still be other secret shows randomly happening.

5. close your eyes and just click. youve got it. dont worry just come out. andy will be running a kissing booth - it will be a blast.

more later.

January 6, 2006

8:11 pm

i am just a hot mess. i woke up to the feeling of myself throwing up today. pretty much put a damper on the entire day. i ate about 50 stomach pills and then threw them all up- it was a pretty color in the toilet. my toungue is black on the top right now. i am pretty sure thats a bad thing. i watched way too much gastinaeu (however you spell it) girls today. i think it made me sicker. it took me awhile to realize that they were mother and daughter and not sisters- but the mom is kinda hot in pissy kind of way. my mom is out of town so there was noone here to take care of me- my brother was around but hes pretty much always bongzilla'd. so i waited for back-up caretakers to arrive- one of them was busy cutting hair and the other has like a "real" job besides being dad. the best part about vomitting alone in the morning is the way the bathroom tiles feel kinda cool in a pleasant way so i took a nap there for a bit. i want to see hostel tonight but the problem is all the vomitting- see its not that i mind so much its just what if i run into someone in my sicky gear and puke on them? wow. i am glad i did this update. arent you? im gonna leave the comments open cause i never do- just write down the first thing that comes into your mind when you see that reply button- heres mine: i am just a hot mess.

January 6, 2006

I have to say it makes me feel safe and some kind of comfort to look at the clock in the corner of the screen and know that you are awake too.

posted by: peterpumpkineater

1/12/06 Q&A

question

whats your view/opinion on racism?

answer

i love it. i mean what opinion would i have other than it is terrible. i hope thats what you expected.

question

So Pete, I have been wanting to learn how to play bass for a long time. Any idea when that HOT Clandestine bass will be available for the public? Thanks.

answer

its going to be available as a fender squire some time in the (near i hope) future. squire is fenders cheapest bass line - very affordable and a good bass to learn how to play on.

question

college dropout or late registration?

answer

“highschool graduate” its the mixtape he put out awhile ago- its pretty sweet.

question

okay crazy dream last night.. you [pete] and me making out after a show in a bed? yeah just thought id share.

answer

im pretty gross after a show. itd be better to just highfive i think.

question

pete. please stop licking the shoes of the island CEOs. i am getting really tired of turning on a tv and seeing a commercial for you guys playing at the fucking arena or a WHOS NEXT IN MUSIC? PANIC AT THE DISCO and THE ACADEMY IS mtv shit which was was totally all your -for lack of better word- fault. sometimes i think it cant get any worse but im always wrong. when is this going to end pete?!?!?!?

answer

i am kind of confused by this one- we are on island defjam records but the advertisements for our tour were made by our booking agent not island. academy is on atlantic/fueled by ramen and P!atd are on decaydance neither of those are island related. but i think i understand the gist of what you are trying to say. i understand that its hard to feel like you are losing a band you loved to “the mainstream” or to a bigger media. i want you to know how much fob turns down because we dont believe in it or agree with it- at the same time would you rather see the academy is on trl or limp bizkit?- id rather see sincere music up there. anyway, i know we’ll all still be here after this ends. hope you are there with us.

question

Peter do you ever get mad at us?

answer

sure. just the same way you sometimes get mad at me/us- but thats okay. neither of us ever seem to stay mad very long…

question

choose one: paramore. cartel. the academy is. or acceptance.

answer

the academy is. i dont really know the others too well.

question

Petey, what have you been up to this past week? xo

answer

training for the new video and working on/editting release the bats two (http://www.findthescene.com/Videos/RTB2_Trailer.mov)… oh yeah and sleeping some.

question

So what do you think of Brokeback Mountain?

answer

good love story. kind of depressing- it makes me think about how much i do not want to go camping.

question

ryan seacrest called you “heartbreaker wentz.” how does that make you feel? it made me giggle…

answer

i never broke that mofos heart.

question

I was wondering if any of you guys are superstitious

answer

i kiss clocks, make wishes on take offs and first kisses, hold my breath on graveyards - yes.

question

Im really upset because i have friends who like me have been FOB fans for the longest time and have met you guys numerous times but are really angry about the ticket prices and are complaining your just sell outs. Im mad because i dont think this and now they are boycotting your CT show.You guys were bound to get famous so why do people have to get like this? Whats you opinion on all this?

answer

our primary concern with this tour is: having a huge general admission floor space and keeping ticket prices as low as absolutely possible. we are doing our best- if you compare this tour with other tours with bands of the same size you will see the difference in ticket price.

question

so much for teh huge general floor space. i cant get decent tickets.

answer

if you get tickets early you should have no problem getting floor tickets. ask your broker when they will be releasing floor tickets as they are often released in bunches. i promise you every venue we are playing has a huge floor space- and if not me and my friends always used to just sneak down onto the floor. the security never tries to hard to stop you.

question

Have you ever had sex with a groupie?

answer

nope.

question

So after they finish the tour that they are on now Mest is breaking up. I sort of cant believe it but I was wondering - do you guys plan on sticking with us for a while longer? It is actually pretty hard to deal with bands just stopping for good…so I am hoping that you guys can be there with us for at least a while longer. Much love.

answer

honestly? some days i think fall out boy will be around for 20 more years and some days i think it might end tommorrow.

January 13, 2006

first jt. now mr. frey. i fear that we are next.

it may just be the hour of the night or the song stuck in my head or some strange mix of it all.

i can't shake it.

the chemists called it crossed signals.

the poets called it magical.

nowyousayimabird.

- petey

January 14, 2006

i love how i never care about anything you say except how i always do.

that doesn't even make any sense.

late at night everything about you is an orchestra. and i am the conducter.

January 14, 2006

4:14 pm

"noones ever been this good for this long"

this is everything i am thinking right now with out transition. i apologize for my brains lack of linear thought processing: i hate the way it gets dark so early here this time of year. i guess "seasonal depression" kind of falls under "ADD" and "post tramatic whatever disorder" for me. i feel like its science from the madhatter down the rabbit hole. not too real. but lately i just wake up blue - my only thought is- how soon will the day be over so i can get back into bed. i open my eyes just a tiny bit and blur the numbers on the clock with my eyelashes. every word you say rolls off of my back - the praises and the barbs. i don't hear either, ever. sometimes the tips of my fingers itch from the back of my head- just to get the chance to tear someone to pieces and just barely let them off the hook. i swear to god, i was asleep alone. quick text me an alibi and oh god please don't dust the keyboard for prints. sometimes i stare out of the frosted window and make up stories as people walk by. the bottled blonde, park ave. princess walking whichever dog matches her coat. you know how i could turn your world upsidedown. its not love if a day goes by when you don't think about dropping it. its not the world keeping you on the outside, its you not wanting to be on the inside. everyone wants to be the first. buts its okay to be the second if you understand it better, if you make it look prettier. worn down doesn't even touch this. and theres nothing worse than when someone acts like they have you figured out, when you haven't even figured yourself out. nice boys don't write good stories or sing good songs. and his songs are boring. and his stories are just personal ads set to background music. i found the skeleton key for wedlock but i am holding off on telling her. on telling anyone for that matter. consistent inconsistency. thats all you ever have to remember and you'll do okay with me. dancers are always strippers. and paying their way through college is the BE VE. oh and hey pete do you remember the way the world used to trick you with fifty degrees in january and orange leaves in june? button your jacket tight, don't believe everything you read... don't even believe everything you wrote. i'm tired of always leaving. i'm tired of the way things always/never change. swim upstream until your gills bleed just because thats what genetic encoding commands. there aren't any trophies that are really worth it in the end. they can put you in a box when you are very young, so you'll be a pretty corpse but there are too many pages filled with too many words to lie beside you forever. intelligent design is the last great joke i heard. but honestly, no one will ever stay where i tell them, least of all the years. they keep moving. worlds greatest liar and how do you know i'm not lying when i tell you this right now? and thats coming from the king of one-liners. copy and pasted - long live the away message. kiss the monitor. fast asleep baby.

1/16/06 Q&A

question

Thanks for deleting me off your myspace friends. Youre different than who I thought you were Peter.. : (

answer

i do not have nor ever had a myspace account… the only sites outside of this one that i use are friendsorenemies.com and livejournal. fall out boy has a myspace account but i dont even know how to work it.

question

PETER! maybe that got your attention this time :)! My question, Did your parents or siblings ever say your “stupid” or “gay” for wearing girl pants, or tight shirts..because i go threw alot of crap for wearing tight clothing and i go to a city school so either its gangsters, or me left out..please help me with gettin threw this..Also cant wait to see you guys in Hersey!

answer

kanye west wears pink polos. rob halford wears black tshirts. not that any of it matters. but how you dress should only be an amplification of who you are inside, it should not be all you are… i get teased about alot of things but you know, at the end of the day its okay to be me. im pretty sure its okay to be you too, as long as you arent like hitler or a serial killer or something insane.

January 18, 2006

these pictures make me think of me and you before i got so crazy.

the hippo lost its momma in the tsunami. now the he hangs out with this super old turtle and follows it around. from what i've read they have developed their own form of communication.

this is insane.

these parts of life are amazing.

i will try and not forget them next time.

- petey

January 18, 2006

the band is in chicago preparing their new homes to be moved into. mine is still in my parents cause i am a loser like that: see also why i am hanging in nyc by myself. but ive got some schemes that i am working on.

how i have been (barely) living: the hippo and the turtle, hanging out with minkus from boy meets world in north carolina, going to the mtv studios in nyc to see baby bros all growed up on trl, eating every single thing in this hotel minibar, writing, you. writing you.

- petey

January 19th, 2006

1:55 am

wahahahahaha. i laughed for like a million hours at the shittalking over at: www.friendsorenemies.com its way fun to see your friends make fun of you. it keeps you levelheaded. it has gone live.

January 19, 2006

yesyesyes-ya'll. newyorkcity. hung with patd and tai backstage at TRL and tried to make them unnervous. but i was butterflies inside. but they couldnt ever let me down. the rest of the day was spent listening to the new gymclassheroes songs and working on the new video. the gch songs are insane: i can't describe them "we gotta take our clothes off to have a good time". insane. new octfall: youve probably never met these kids but they are the nicest. always calling and asking how im doing. then the hush sound: all i can say is "sweet tangerine"- 6 months from now, you will agree with me. anyway, this isn't just some preachy post. i just love watching my friends suceed and i will believe in them until the day i die. its so great to watch everyone grow up. hopefully, somewhere someone says that about me.

we contributed a song to the breast cancer one tree hill episode/compilation. we just thought it was a great cause and couldn't pass it up. we actually thought it was a really personal cause to alot of people involved so i wanted to give a really personal song to me, so we used "dark alley".

its late and alot of the things i have been working on and thnking have stalled out. but i am trying oh so hard. got some smaller shows coming up in las vegas and l.a. for the diehards so keep your eyes out.

i am in new york city but it feels so fucking foreign. the band is in chicago but there is too much to be done out here. i know there needs to be breaks but i cant get away. maybe ill see you on fuse or trl tommorrow. maybe not cause it'll be weird with out the guys- i dunno. this hotel room doesn't make any sense. my lights are on and i am in bed knowing i will never fall asleep. i am realizing people in all the buildings outside i can see lit up can probably see in here on me. but thats okay cause i am wearing some sweet pj's.

wwwilliambecketdotlove

turn me inside out.

swoon. make me easy on the eyes. it aint hard in this light. read it. write it. throw it away and come back to the phone. light up text king.

oh yeah a little bird named mouth told me: friendsorenemies.com is up - my profile is actually me over there ... yay! let's hate eachother and/or get sexy.

January 20, 2006

dear ireland- thank you for your pretty accents and your amazing show.

dear home- i miss you

dear you- what the fuck happened to this

a real update later.

the whole world loves it when you dont get down.

January 21, 2006

12:17 pm

i hate you and i hope you die. yes. i realize that you will make fun of me/take stabs at me/post ridiculous pictures of me. i realize that because of this band i have given up some of my privacy and personal life. i accept that. i can laugh at myself. i realize i will get called a douchbag. i get what i get. i have begun reading things about my friends and family. that i will not accept. i read things written by people who kiss my ass to my face. i remember who you are. fuck you. bring it on me. please leave my friends and family alone. it is extremely hurtful to me. if anyone is a friend of mine out there please tell your friends. i on the otherhand am open game. i have a good laugh at all of the stuff written about me. i am silly, i realize that. thank you.

peter

January 24, 2006

I am an arms dealer.

I sell words you could only use as weapons.

This isn't a scene it is an arms race.

I am a con artist.

A door to door salesman.

A snake oil seller. Cures for whatever ails you.

Somehow I don't hear the violins playing.

Not really the leading man type.

I am a cadaver deep frozen. Waiting for reanimation to beinvented.

Wrote "fuckoff" on my hand to remind me to call you tommorrow morning.

What do you do when everything they say about you is true?

Do you expect me to just roll over and die?

My skin has made promises.

Whether the rest of me has or not.

Writing off tommorrows every time my fingers touch these buttons.

Putting all the comforts and closeness in reverse just for you.

I think its time to re-asses some of the policies of the wentz administration.

Our approval rating is at an all time low.

In case you haven't been informed you have to take a ticket to be disappointed by me.

There's a fucking line.

Well have some goddamned order.

Its a posh and exclusive club.

I have a lifetime membership.

Make it glamorous.

Make the rumors true.

Read the sign next to the bridge "giveupallhope..." and just tie down the gas pedal.

Lie in the back.

Haven't you heard, sorrow is in.

You are the beaches of normandy the night before.

And a girl with such a sweet drink should never sit in the corner and cry about anyone or anything.

The kids on the net had it right sometimes we should fuck off and die and break up and stop ruining art.

But the kids had it right sometimes when they sit waiting in line with hands frozen out waiting to get into a room first.

The only thing I can admit is this is no masterplan. I'm trying to figure it out.

"Without the sour the sweet wouldn't taste so sweet (tangerine)".

Its 3am in leeds. This is what just crossed my mind.

Love, the fancy kid.

January 26, 2006

live via manchester holiday inn express:

first and foremost. these shows have been amazing. i think it is quite possibly because we don’t get over here often or maybe because we are playing smaller clubs… but i am thinking we need to make a stop over here more often.

i wanted to congratulate p!atd the disco on making it to number 10 on the TRL countdown. and i just wanted to put this out there: there is no way it was paid to happen. of all the bands on “new bands week” panic was the only that didn’t put up big pushes to have the video voted on. if anything this band wants to do things their own way. hence picking the song they did for the single- that was the bands choice and in my opinion they have songs on the record that could easily be bigger. it was also the bands choice to create a darker video…. as a label i can tell you that we definitely don’t have the money to spend on a “big budget” video right now- not to mention having any left over for anything else- you’d laugh if you saw the budgets we filmed the new panic and gch videos on. but i couldn’t say enough about how nice these kids are- they don’t even get how big their band is and thats a good thing… i personally would rather see great bands on the forefront of music… and yes there are lots of other bands that deserve to make it there as well- so maybe on our messageboard tell me about some great (unsigned) bands that we should check out.

other than that we’ve just been writing new songs and working on the new video. pretty soon its going to become time focus all attention on a new fall out boy record again.

got some big news for you coming up very soon…

peter lewis kingston wentz

ps 'hater dudes marry hater bitches and have hater kids’

1/26/06 Q&A

question

hey, what kind of books are you and the rest of Fall Out Boy into? p.s. tell patrick he is spectacular

answer

andy is into comics and books on anthropology/human civilization i dunno what books joe reads patrick is into reading about music i am into a bunch of different authors lately hemingway still. before he went and hung out in africa. i haven’t been reading as much as id like lately. ps the book panic has in their book club this month is a great book. its the first thing i gave ryan after reading his lyrics, it kind of reminded me of him- so if you like panics lyrics head on over and check out their book club

question

do you watch that show roseanne on nick at night. i love that show!

answer

me and my friends used to hang out with becky in evanston, il in highschool. she was not to fond of me or my friend jody.

question

ok i know this is nobodys business but yours but there is alot of stuff going around on the boards saying that the big news is your engaged just to get things straight is that it? because those people are starting to annoy me….

answer

me being engaged is most definitely not the big news.

question

in the song calm before the on take this to your grave, there is a line that says :Well theres a song on the radio that says lets get this party started, lets get this party started. did you write that line because of the song by pink called lets get this party started. just curious.

answer

yes.

question

Hey Pete. My grandma is dying (and she doesnt care) and I for real dont feel anything towards her. My mom is seriously upset, my dad is just about the same and my sisters dont know. I am suppose to tell them but how do I do that when my grandma wasnt a grandma for me but for them she was a great lady? I just want this done and over because I am kind of tired of waiting for her to die since she has been making suicide references for the past two years.

answer

that is one of the hardest places to ever be in. i remember seeing thoughts of my grandfather in my head when he died i was on tour. and i couldnt really feel sad unless i thought of it as my dad and it really freaked me out. it made me feel like i wanted to see my dad right that second. id be completely lost with out him. i think that people handle grief in different ways and the best thing we can do is try to be there for them. im sorry to hear about that though.

1/30/06

question

my roommates and i almost got into a brawl at 4am with some drunk kids who wanted to fight us because we did not appreciate the hint of lime in their tostitos. is it just me, or is your life this ridiculous as well?

answer

it is . we were thrown out of another fob afterparty after nearly fighting the staff who was berating dirty.

question

Peter, I just got the “Panic! At The Disco” cd and I love it! could you recomened any others?

answer

the hushsound “so sudden” - myspace.com/thehushsound october fall “season of…” myspace.com/octoberfall dangerradio “party foul” myspace.com/dangerfall the academy is “almost here” myspace.com/theacademyis armor for sleep “all” myspace.com/armorforsleep shiny toy guns “all”

question

do any of you have brothers and siters? (like any single younger brothers…:) if so, who and how old?

answer

um come on this question is kind of insane. but my one dog marley is super hot for a dog. hes a good kisser though.

question

I read somewhere that Patrick was a vegitarian. Is that true?

answer

he was he eats fish and likes to talk long walks in the park with hot babes.

question

Why does patrick wear a hat all the time and why does the drummer never talk?????

answer

just to drive your pretty little head mad with these questions.

question

Okay, heres a question: Has someone you superly-duperly adored gone away? And by adored we are talking like, lets-run-away-to-isreal -and-get-hitched-without-telling-anyone adored.

answer

yes. the sinking feeling in your rotten gut is your reminder. cool sheets on your bed are your antidote.

#fall out boy #pete wentz #livejournal

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eponymous-rose · 2 years

Text

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3E22-E24 (June 7, 2022)

Tonight’s guests: Matt, Liam, Travis, and Taliesin! Dani immediately declares an end to the faux-conversation we start on, which is probably for the best. Matt is tonight’s Tavern Keeper! Matt, dying slowly on the inside during the opening: “I have bones in me, I guess.”

What the Fuck is Up With That? Matt: “We got topics, motherfuckers.” Travis thought they were just going to see a repeat of the paper layout for the skyship from campaign 1 and was blown away by the new piece. Matt had it commissioned a while ago in the expectation that they’d wind up doing skyships at some point relatively early in this campaign. There’s a long digression about Teddy Ruxpin. Liam: “I have no idea why, Orym is in love with airship.” There’s another digression about Top Gun, and Liam points out that Travis’s shirt looks like it has a little propeller beanie made of jets. Taliesin: (sing-song) “Someone’s going to the danger zone!” Taliesin points out that since he ruined the last attempt they did at ship-to-ship combat, he’s been craving it on the airship. Travis: “You can totally DM that, right?” Matt: “Just make enemies with people who have skyships now.”

Matt asks about the cast’s lasting impressions of Jrusar. Taliesin teases that they didn’t get to see a lot of the cool stuff while they were there. Everyone wants to know more about the tunnels under the city, to the point where leaving that behind feels like the Happy Fun Ball. (Matt mentions they only saw about 20% of the HFB.) “It reminds Orym of home in that you’ve got all these amazing structures, but there’s so much nature woven in and around it.” There’s a digression about salmon fishing in Alaska. Yes, truly. First impressions of Dusk? Taliesin: “She’s not broken enough to be a local.” Lots and lots of questions, early days yet!

Favorite form of fictional travel? Skyship is popular. Travis: “I love a good teleport and apparating/disapparating.” Taliesin: “I’m a Nemo kid, I love a submarine. Deep underwater freaks me out.” Liam: Blaine the Monorail in the Dark Tower series and the landstriders from The Dark Crystal. Matt: “Fanboats. I grew up in Florida, I know they’re real but they shouldn’t be.”

Tower of Inquiry! Liam pulls a (still-sticky) block. “It’s a good thing this is glued together.” We’re talking modern AUs - which occupation would the characters have in the modern world? “Orym would either be in the New York Ballet in Swan Lake, or he might be a coach for track-and-field. Or an athlete himself in the Olympics. I think I’d go ballet.” “I think Chetney would be a woodworker... or a dentist. Would really enjoy it, really.” What about Ashton? “That’s pretty easy. He would work in an ice cream parlor. Hate it and have no customer service whatsoever. That’s the best shit job for a punker I can think of.” “Eshteross would be a mysterious venture capitalist.” How about the Shade Mother? “She’d be in season four of Stranger Things. Character actor.”

Tower of Inquiry, round two! Travis pulls a block! The whole thing nearly comes down. What would the characters’ Twitter bios look like? Dead silence contemplating that for a few seconds. Travis: “It would be CPock Industries. he/him, no instant gratification, 18+.” Matt: “Little link to your Etsy page.” Taliesin: “Anime character, nothing but obnoxious political retweets. Might actually say that in the bio.” Taliesin, to Liam: “I’d have a Soundcloud, you’d have a Tumblr.” Liam: “It would say pie is better than cake. Might have a link to a YouTube channel of different workouts, probably.” Taliesin: “Halfling your way to health.” There’s some discussion of Robbie Daymond’s hiking. Travis: “This is for you, Robbie. Stop summiting stuff.” How about the ship captain? “All pronouns, all caps. Free spirit. Seeing the world. Will do it all. Again. Link to my OF, but it’s mostly just them making food.”

Tower of Inquiry, round three! Taliesin knocks a block straight onto the floor, but the tower remains intact. “If your character was a candle, what scent would they be?” Travis: “The scent of rusted pennies. The scent of pine, birch, oak, ...” We have a digression about Nag Champa incense. Liam: “How would you mix sweat and cherry blossoms?” Eshteross? “I will say a ginger spice. Beyond that, I would say a musky cedar.”

Deep Dive time!

Liam gets asked about seeing Clasp connections in Marquet. He’s blown away by how much has propagated from the first campaign and the home game. Travis remembers very little about the Spireling structure. Matt: “Each major city that has Clasp involvement, the Spirelings are essentially the collection of leaders that organize that sect of the Clasp wherever they are. Shenn has been one of the power players in Emon.” Matt mentions that he always dreamed of running a game that would let him connect threads between campaigns.

Liam: “Everybody in this building is really randy about Calamity right now.” Matt: “I’ve wanted something to happen in that era for a long time, and it wasn’t until we were talking with Brennan, we were talking about different things, mentioned the Age of Arcanum, and he just went like, we’ll talk about that one.”

Taliesin is asked about the return to Bassuras and the prospect of finding the Nobodies. “I don’t think they’re there, first of all. Not really a person who likes to look back or ever deal with things that were in the past.” Taliesin just assumes the Nobodies scattered to the four winds. “It is like going to your hometown with your friends, really. This town is shit. This bar is great. I like writing characters who don’t want to deal with their shit.”

Matt is asked about collaborating on the Hellcatch Valley. “The wonderful Bashir Gaus has been helping write with this. I’ve outlined the continent’s main regions, and certain ones are primarily my creations, and then go through consulting and things like that.” But other regions, he offered to the collaborators for whatever caught their interest. “What inspires you? Go.”

Travis is asked about his Calamity character, Cerrit “Pinch” Agrupnin. “I felt like I had to rep a little bit of just that straight melee class.” As soon as he started getting how detailed things were going to be, he wanted to be the one trying to connect the dots that others were missing. I based him off of John Cusack in ‘Con Air’.” Travis thought it was a great excuse to try an eisfuura and an inquisitor rogue. “Holy shit, the stuff you get as a rogue is crazy!”

Liam is asked about bonding with Chetney. “I mean, I think he was rightly super skeptical of Chetney but oddly finds himself really getting along with him. Chetney kind of fills a casual grandpa slot for him, and that’s fun to be around. We gotta work through some things, you might have some anger issues, but Pop-pop’s got a good heart in there.”

Taliesin is asked about inspiration behind Ashton. He hadn’t done punk yet. “What the fuck does punk look like in a fantasy realm? I watched a bunch of Henry Rollins talking about his life.” He also watched documentaries about the punk scene in the 80s and 90s in LA: “The Decline of Western Civilization III”. For Fundamental Chaos, that was just wanting to create something difficult and complicated.

Matt is asked about the fey influence in this campaign. It wasn’t something he wanted to pull into the campaign initially, but between Fearne and some of the other players having a fey-touched influence, he realized there wasn’t all that much of it they’d explored in earlier campaigns.

Travis is asked about the toy-making process. “Now there have been multiple nights where I’ll just search ‘wooden’ and a bunch of different words.” What would Chetney make for the illustrious DM? An orrery.

The Tower of Inquiry Continues! Travis is chosen again. It’s Very Dramatic. If gold didn’t matter, what would the characters’ first purchases be? Liam: “Buy the group a skyship outright.” “Cheney would make a hostile takeover bid for all the toystores in half the continents so there’s still some left to be conquered.” “Ash would just buy that whole chunk of property that they’ve been living in in the Spires.”

Post-Break Shenanigans! Exploding Kittens! If you get knocked out, you can ask other people questions from their tankards. Liam is eliminated extremely early, so it’s his turn to ask questions. How does Ash feel about being debt-free? Is the other shoe going to drop? “Oh, it’s going to drop any minute. Good things don’t happen to people.” How about Chetney’s revenge? Is this new for him? “Chetney is experienced with death. He definitely has a moral system, a way of judging people. The slate has been wiped clean for now.” The inspiration for Eshteross? “I wanted to introduce a unique possible patron to the group that-- I didn’t mean to create a ‘Batman Beyond’ Bruce Wayne figure, but when people started pointing it out...” Travis is eliminated! He asks Liam about going to Bassuras on a bit of a side-jaunt from his plot right now. “He’s much more powerful and in a better place with this group, these are his friends now, and it’s gotta be a give and take.” Matt is victorious! Last question for Travis: what was it like to lose control of the wolf during the heist? “I had forgotten about it up until that point. I like it because then you have to RP out of it or around it.”

Round 2! Taliesin asks if there’s anyone in the party Chetney doesn’t trust. “There’s more than one!” Travis is out first this time! What does Orym think about the Grim Verity? “He’s really happy to have some more learned people with him. Feels over his head, so he’s just glad there are a couple of brains in this group, intelligence scores aside.” Matt is out and asks about what Chetney thinks about the Gorgynei. “Wants to learn from them, because it’s been so long. If it’s real attractive, he might run away.” Liam is victorious this time!

#critical role #critical role spoilers #4 sided dive #4 sided dive spoilers #long text post

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prairiedust · 4 years

Text

Gimme Shelter livewatch under the cut.... I was on my phone when I wrote it so apologies for the typos

“Patchwork Community Center: Care Given to All” with a huge, lurid heart. Hmmm.... patchwork having two meanings here.....

Pastor (?) has 2 Timothy 2:22 tattooed on his arm! “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (NIV) Are we looking at growth and found family in this episode?!?

Oh that’s the alleyway!

Hitting mythology themes— Connor is an Anglicized version of an Irish name— Conchobar mac Nessa is maybe the most famous bearer of the name, from Irish mythology— he’s the king who lusted after Deirdre and had her locked up until she came of age, which is probably neither here nor there as far as this poor Connor is concerned...

That thing has a big lurid heart on his overalls better run lol— Oh shit it’s an evil Teddy Ruxpin!!!! Thanks Davy Perez!!!!

That’s the thing animal control uses to manage aggressive animals??? Is this saying something about the Patchwork people?

And that’s it for the cold open.

——

The uh, the mcfuckin what, the Camelot Palace Casino? Is this a tour of the legends of Ireland and Britain all of a sudden? What’s with hitting this theme so hard so fast?

Uh-oh the whole Highway to Heaven reference has me side-eyeing Dean’s suggestion for Cas snd Jack to leave the bunker... Dabb even “spoiled” that line in a tweet lol... in that show the cop and the angel got their (vague) assignments from the big guy.......

Oh SHIT “we’re standing in what I call ‘the trap zone’” Perez is coming for my whole life with this episode!!!! And they’re doing highkey “season one totally-normal Winchester investigation questions script” I love it!!!!

“Slasher flick” Oh we’re revisiting Mint Condition. This is fine.

AND TOMBSTONE THIS IS NOT FINE DAVY! We’re running the good times backwards what did I say about this being the flipside of Last Holiday!

H2H again but this time it’s sus... plus I’m with Zack, I totally want the cozy murder spinoff I imagined Adam and Michael doing plz

Oh the Cas and Jack dynamic here is so sweet.

Pastor just leaving his door open like there’s no such thing as a thief bless his heart. They must be torn up about Connor but Pastor was the last one to talk to him so he’s sus I don’t make the rules.

Oh no Red’s a THIEF!!! Who ever would have guessed. Okay I did NOT expect that jumpscare because of the way Connor’s murder primed me, that was masterfully done.

That’s vaguely an Ohio Star quilt square on the sign behind her except um I forget what that tilted square in the center turns it into? It’s chiming with something... I’ll have to look that up later.

“Divide and conquer” no never split up in a slasher movie that’s how you get murders use the buddy system!

Gonna stop a sec because I just realized that Zack is two-faced. The British dandy was an act. The killer is wearing a Cinderella mask. Ok I’m gonna make a prediction that Zack is actually the killer, a la the demon in Repo Man...

Okay there was definitely a beat after Dean said “Glad soneone’s taking charge” [ofHell] and the focus shifted to Sam. Hm.

“We’ve got to set her up for her own death” so meta, these writers are gonna shred us.

I love being shown how much Castiel has changed throughe Jack not understanding the Kool-Aid reference. And the cats line lol. That’s both amazing and poignant.

That’s a log cabin pattern in the cafeteria. Home. Makes me think back on other quilts we’ve seen this season and if “weaving” is the right metaphor for writing lol. I mean, the action of “patching” is synonymous with “mending” or even healing, but patchwork is also a craft with a long, long history in America (idk if quiltmaking is called patchwork everywhere) of taking a few often mismatched fabrics and cutting and sewing into something beautiful. There are generally two kinds of quilt tops— patterns, like we’ve seen so far in this season, which are carefully planned and involve precise measurements, and “crazy quilts” which also require skill but are often more freeform and piecemeal. But both aspire to be beautiful. That’s an interesting way to conceptualize a serial text... as both creating and mending....

That prayer was sweet and not at all what I was expecting.

I get the finger-cutting for Valerie (stealing=sticky fingers) but not for Connor? Tenuous connection still betw lying and writing? It’s evocative of Se7en but the killer seems to have the same MO for all the killings (I attended CSI for a while.)

Snow White is making me uneasy. Oh she’s the preacher’s daughter... we’ve seen that in early days, too.... oh.... oh....

It’s not the AV guy despite having seen all the AV equipment around Valerie. That’s too easy.

“A saint is a sinner who keeps trying-“ no scroll back, the important part was “we all have to take care of each other.” That’s a theme in the series.

She’s all in pink....

dean and amara on the same wavelength about food lol

Ha ha inversion of “oh you’re a fan of religion? name all seven gods then.”

Castiel’s testimony just wrecked me.

“Members serve the gift of food” hmmm the signs in this episode are tip-top

Gonna just watch for a while.

Oh crap “each is a finger” oh it’s about the sins of the father— No Cas no, you’ve fallen for the misdirection!

Oh okay good, Chuck’s not done snuffing worlds. That had me REALLY WORKED UP ha ha because Amara has no reason to lie right?

That was a really good conversation.... and implying that Former Death bent the truth...

Oh fuck I’m gonna cry “I wanted younto see that your mother was just a person” YES! DISMANTLE THIS MYTHOLOGY AMARA!!! Name it!

THE MYTH THAT YOU’D HELD ON TO FOR SO LONG did they just— THEY DID

rigging the game— ftfoh with the casino metaphors already we know the house always wins except when it doesn’t

Lying, lying, lying,

Do we even know Snow White’s name yet? And why was Connor a liar? Because I think we can make a guess at this point.... ah ha ha her name is sylvia— “forest spirit” she’s Mrs Butters— and she’s after hypocrites— but the killing isn’t supernatural, just churchy?

Oh shit SHE IS A DEAN MIRROR IF SHE STABS JACK I’LL FLIP A DAMN TABLE

....

prairiedust.exe has encountered an error and must be restarted

....

Okay so “Dad” steps in and stops Sylvia’s attack on Jack...

Why is that Zack? What????

“I’ve been lying to you” oh here we go

Oh it would be death #3, remember what Dabb said about threes a long time ago, two attempts that are unsuccessful and one that satisfies the parameters— but no he’s a jack :((((

I have to stop watching for a while.

Okay I finished it. Holy cats do I have some Thoughts about this episode.

What I loved: Revisiting Dean’s anger, BUT the parental mirror here (in retrospect, at least for me) was a John mirror-- all the mothers (exc for Rowena) in this episode are dead. And Pastor Joe didn’t apparently embrace his wife’s faith until she had died, and then his vision was radically different than his wife’s was-- much like John’s reasons for becoming a hunter were vastly different from Mary’s... but much like “patching” this subtext was possibly even more “healing” than having John back in the 300th ep... This was... looking at a child’s anger when they’re in the middle of their own family mythology. Am I implying that Dean’s anger is immaturity? Eh, it’s... unripeness. I have an old meta in my drafts about the heroine’s journey and why Mary’s story conformed to it while feeling totally unfulfilling in her actual character arc and I’m so glad I sat down and examined that rather than finish it. I have a lot I want to say about Cas’ testimony too, but that has to sit a while. ALSO also, Cas has already thrown away his shot by making the Empty deal, right?....

LANGUAGE! Cas saying “I found myself lost” is a bonkers sentence, right? It’s like when people say someone “turned up missing”-- AND it does not have the same meaning as “I realized I was lost”-- you get a double whammy of the connotation “to search for.” I loved loved loved how language was such a big deal in Last Holiday and then again here, I need to rewatch while paying closer attention to Sylvia and things she says... but these two were sister episodes in so many ways, that when I said there was a “lack of narrative mirrors” in Last Holiday, that’s only because the lens for that kind of reading is Gimme Shelter. That is not the first time spn has played with a “coin” or paired structure-- I think the first time I noticed it was Fan Fiction/Ask Jeeves but I was a transfer student from another fandom at the time lol. But of course, we get a huge truth bomb at the end of the episode, and again that splashy cymbal all over lying...

What I got wrong-- Zack wasn’t the killer but he’s fishy as hell-- he stole Sylvia! Is this part of Rowena’s “people generally end up where they deserve to be” except she’s built in an express lane? “Do you need a driver” is that his actual job now? Taking unripe souls to Hell Orientation? What’s up with him being there... the other shoe did not drop. So there is a third episode out there somewhere where this might get wrapped up? The conversation between Dean and Cas can easily be something that happens offscreen, and I don’t think that it would be the first time we miss an “important” conversation, especially since we know roughly what will be said and how it will wrap up-- it’s an “open text” of a sort. Maybe a fanfiction gap lol, I can’t wait for the codas.

Also, the fingers thing being Sylvia’s father’s favorite analogy is where she got her MO, something that I definitely didn’t see, although it fits right in with her father’s slightly pithy character. I think it’s interesting again how we’re playing with threes and fours. Three fingers got cut off but it was apparent that Valerie (valorious one) wouldn’t die until finger #4.... Jack really seems to be our last hope.

#the folklore of supernatural #the mythology of supernatural #mary winchester #davy perez #the second timothy of supernatural #gimme shelter #season 15 #my mom gave me the family baby name book when i was about eleven and so i had an obsession with names #all of my characters in all of my stories had Important Symbolic Names LOL #it amused my father who told me I needed to read herman melville #and there's a little bit of my own family mythos.#now i harangue my own kid to write and stuff ha ha ha except instead of a baby name book i gave him watership down #same effect #more rabbit fighting

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too-old-4-toys · 5 years

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Do you have a favorite toy that you feel like not enough people on Tumblr post about?

Cricket or maybe TV Teddy.

I just got Cricket a month or so ago and I love her. She’s a bit like Teddy Ruxpin in that she takes cassette tapes and reads to you, although she’s more focused on learning/the real world than Teddy was and his fantastical adventures. My girl is so incomplete. I don’t have any tapes for her and she came naked. I dressed her in a 2 year old’s dress I had laying around and she’s adorable.

She should look like this btw for reference:

I’m fighting the urge to rename her “Dolly” after Dolly Parton since I’ve only played a country music tape in her to see if her tapedeck works (it does but her mouth seems broken).

There’s not a lot online about her.

I mentioned TV Teddy and he get’s talked about even less.

TV Teddy is a little known anamatronic bear toy that watches cartoons with you and seems to interact with your TV. It really works and even today it seems like magic. I have two tapes for him, his “original” tape and another one. I want to collect them all; there weren't that many. On this blog I actually once lamented on the fact they were selling most of them on eBay for VERY cheap but the shipping was so expensive!

Both of these toys aren’t mentioned enough on the internet as a whole, let alone Tumblr. If I had to pick one that’s big elsewhere but not so much on Tumblr then I’d pick Teddy Ruxpin (I have one too). He seems to be just a big joke on Tumblr if he does get mentioned. Don’t search his name if you’re squeamish. Most of these toys people think are creepy and so make creepy versions. Anyway, those are my picks.

#tv teddy #teddy ruxpin #cricket #dolls #Anonymous #asks

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allisonswrittenwords · 5 years

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Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!

Better late than never, being that it is Valentine’s Day weekend and all.

When I was trying to think of what I wanted to write about for Valentine’s Day, needing the obligatory holiday post and all, I thought about things I liked as a kid that represented love. Before Valentine’s Day parties at school, I was a kid who was home most days, watching cartoons and playing with my brother. One thing we enjoyed together as little kids was listening to Teddy Ruxpin tell us stories. Before we could read the books, we would look at the pictures while Teddy told the story. I had seven book-and-tape sets – there were so many more – 39 in the storybook series, as well as cassettes in the Answer Box and Picture Show) – and one of those sets was about love. Specifically, the love between a main character and a one-off character.

Grubby’s Romance is the seventh adventure book-and-tape set in The World of Teddy Ruxpin series. The story was also adapted into an episode the animated The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, which pulled its episodes directly from the cassette tape stories. That episode aired as the seventh episode of season one.

“A Most Unusual Experience”

I’ll take “Reviews of Allison’s Written Words for $500, Alex.”

I can make jokes, it’s my site!

Anyway, this story tells of the time that Teddy Ruxpin, Grubby, and Newton Gimmick had a most unusual experience, involving Gimmick’s newly invented “Portable Reducing Machine.” This more portable device operates much like Gimmick’s larger shrinking machine (using The First Crystal, Imagination, which helps shrink and grow the characters), but as the name says, is portable and can be taken along for a journey.

The trio is off to find clues about the other six crystals (Honesty, Trust, Bravery, Friendship, Freedom, and The Black Box) from The Hard to Find City to make it work properly, so they fire up the Airship and prepare to head off in search of those clues.

However, someone else is quite interested in their adventure: Tweeg. And he’s annoyed with Gimmick’s success as an inventor (man, Tweeg must be a terrible inventor!). And the arrival of Gimmick’s two new friends has caused some consternation with Tweeg, who finds them to be an interference.

He sends L.B. The Bounder to “get rid of” Teddy, Grubby, and Newton.

L.B., curious about the device sitting there out in the open, presses the red button on the Portable Reducing Machine, shrinking the trio – and the Airship – down to a very tiny size! Tweeg is thrilled about this, believing the trio to have disappeared.

Of course, the type of day to fly the Airship is perfect when it is normal size, but when it is super tiny and you’re contending with gale force winds, you’re going to run into some problems. Like a “leaf in the wind,” the group is blown into a forest, far away from Newton Gimmick’s home.

The group encounters The Snail, and after asking for his help in locating Newton’s house, decide to go with him to the Annual Spring Dance (he’s late, as usual). The Snail suggests asking the butterflies for help in locating home (the bees are too difficult to ask), and the group arrives at the dance.

Everyone in the forest was there, and that’s when Grubby spots her…

“I Get A Glimpse Of You Out of the Corner Of My Eye…”

Grubby sings a song about his encounter with the love at first sight, spotted from across the room, a Caterpillar named Karen. Despite his reservations about dancing with her, he does. For the next few days, he spends so much time about Karen, as Newton and Teddy figure out a way to get back home. Theirs is a love equated to the twinkle of an eye.

But as fast as they fall in love, Karen begins to behave strangely, building a shell around herself as Grubby watches with sadness. Karen can’t stop herself, and explains that she knows it is what she is supposed to do, and Grubby, beside himself with this, waits for days by the shell. Newton and Teddy discuss this, and Teddy realizes that Karen built a cocoon around herself, as she is a caterpillar and is about to become a butterfly.

By the time Teddy and Newton get to Grubby to tell him this fact, Karen has already emerged from her cocoon. And much to Grubby’s delight, she is something equally amazing to him.

A Beautiful Butterfly

Karen has become a beautiful butterfly during her time in her cocoon shell, and tells her new friends that she remembers The Snail saying that butterflies could lead the Airship home. With Karen and the other butterflies leading the way, the Airship travels back to Newton’s home, landing is successfully.

After landing and positioning itself the same way it was before it was shrunk to a very small size, Grubby asks Karen to push the green button on the Portable Reducing Machine, which restores the Airship and its occupants to normal size.

And thankfully, it works. Because most of Gimmick’s inventions don’t. Thank goodness he got this one right!

Goodbyes

Grubby knew it was only an accident that allowed him to be in Karen’s world, and with a tear in his eye, he says goodbye to his love, as she and the other butterflies fly away to fill the summer sky with beauty.

Of course, Tweeg is super unhappy with this turn of events. Which just means that Teddy, Grubby, and Newton are safe…for now.

You can listen to Honey, I Shrunk Teddy Ruxpin – er, Grubby’s Romance – as it was intended on Lost Bedtime Story Classics. This channel has a great and extensive (read: almost complete) collection of Teddy Ruxpin stories, among other treats.

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Upload via Lost Bedtime Story Classics

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin

As I said, the story appears as an early episode of the television series, but has some extra scenes in the form of a secondary storyline to pad out the run time. The audio adventures run 16 minutes each, but the television series was 21 minutes without commercials.

The series was mostly serialized, but had connecting plots and story arcs within the same week, including the original stories as well as new stories developed for the television series, greatly expanding on the adventures the trio takes. The series aired for 65 episodes over two seasons between 1986 and 1987, ending when Worlds of Wonder faced financial difficulties (they later went into bankruptcy in 1988). Unfortunately, the show ended in a cliffhanger on October 23, 1987 due to this.

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Upload via Jack W. Tweeg

The episode had its own videocassette release, which involved the use of the terrifying man-sized suit from the live action Teddy Ruxpin videos.

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Upload via redilliop

It’s nice to know the mouth moved on the suit, but man was this frightening!

Takeaways

I loved Teddy Ruxpin, and I don’t really have a personal preference as far as the stories went. I remember really liking Grubby’s Romance because of the Portable Shrinking Machine, since these plots in cartoons always seemed to fascinate me as a little kid. As an adult, it seems like no cartoon was complete without a main character facing down shrinking. It is kind of like how science fiction series always have a body switching episode.

Just remember friends, I couldn’t have cared less about the romantic plot line, I liked the shrinking plot line!

But this was a nice story, especially the song Grubby sings about falling in love! Grubby is an upbeat character, but he always had an Eeyore-sound to his voice, so you kind of rooted for him to fall in love. Even if it was accidental.

And Now, You!

Do you have a favorite story from the Teddy Ruxpin series, be it the cassettes or the cartoon? I’d love to know your favorite stories/plots, as well as your memories of Teddy Ruxpin.

In 2016, I wrote about the live action Teddy Ruxpin taking two kids on a trip to help them fall asleep, but I haven’t really done much with Teddy since then. I feel like I should – there’s so much to explore with the series, with YouTube having plenty to see and hear, probably more than many of us Teddy Ruxpin owners ever heard as kids.

I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day, and may you feel the kind of love that Grubby felt, but hopefully not accidentally.

And hopefully, it isn’t “flighty.”

Have a great rest of the weekend!

(Accidental) Love is in the air for Grubby, when he, Teddy Ruxpin, and Newton Gimmick are accidentally shrunken and wind up in a village of bugs. Grubby falls in love with one of them. Is this a love that is meant to be? Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

#ValentinesDay #Grubby #Love #Teddy Ruxpin #The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin #The World of Teddy Ruxpin #Worlds of Wonder

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 5 years

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Child’s Play (2019)

Well it’s Friday, so that means another classic horror franchise is getting rebooted. This time it’s Child’s Play - you know, the one about the spirit of a serial killer that gets trapped inside a talking doll and terrorizes the neighborhood? Well, serial killer spirits are SO 1991, so the 2019 version has updated it to a “smart” doll capable of operating all your wireless devices and there’s no supernatural mumbo jumbo going on here - just a disgruntled factory worker pushing back at unjust labor laws by removing all the safety protocols in ONE doll and shipping it off far away. You know, as most labor disputes get resolved. So Chucky (voice of Mark Hamill) comes to be best friends with Andy (Gabriel Bateman) and soon starts disposing of anyone he believes might be compromising their friendship. I think we all remember how upsetting it was when our Teddy Ruxpins started to do the same thing. So is this AI bringing in a new wave of “smart” horror reboots? Well...

God I hope not. It’s a mess. There’s some ok stuff in here, but wow I have a lot of questions for the director, the screenwriter, and the design team.

This is the worst character design I’ve ever seen. His eyes are both too big to be like a standard doll, but too small to be in the Bratz or anime-type range. Also, he suffers from the Jack Nicholson problem. For as brilliant as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is, its casting is truly epically terrible. Jack Nicholson looks crazier than a shithouse rat at the very beginning of the film, making his descent into madness feel a little less like a descent and more like a very level straight line that you could use to hang a picture frame. Same thing with ol Chucky blue eyes here. He looks so uncanny valley creepy right from the get go that when he goes full murder spree it’s like “oh no he’s...doing exactly what his face indicated he would be doing this whole time who could have possibly predicted.” I’m all for the use of animatronic puppetry over CGI but...I just feel like the design here really missed the mark.

I’m sorry, I’m just so pissed at the inciting incident for this whole thing. Why would your revenge against your shitty boss be to remove all the safety protocols from a microchip going into a device that is shipping halfway across the world from you? What’s the endgame here? Seriously. THE most plausible line of reasoning is “This doll will malfunction and cost this company I hate working for $39.95.” Well, that doesn’t impact your shitty boss. The only OTHER plausible line of reasoning is “This is going to make a murder doll that will malfunction and kill people on the other side of the globe.” That STILL doesn’t impact your shitty boss AND it means this guy is a total sociopath with a diabolical scheme on a level Chucky can’t even dream of. Why isn’t the movie actually about him???

It’s weird to see Aubrey Plaza playing a mom but I kind of love her snark being melded with maternal instinct here. Although, honestly, she does feel more like Andy’s big sister than his mom.

As for Andy (Gabriel Bateman), he’s actually a really solid leading man in this. Even when he has to break down into hysterics over Chucky’s bad behavior, his performance never veers into whiny or shrill. He’s got a lot of charisma and plays Andy as a fundamentally sweet kid who maybe just doesn’t have many friends because he hangs out with his mom and sucked into the vortex of his phone too much. I was impressed, because he has to carry 80% of the movie by himself talking to an animatronic Annabelle.

I will say, Chucky’s horrible design aside, Mark Hamill does a phenomenal job as the voice of Chucky. Even when he’s repeating the same phrases over and over again, he injects a level of pathos and humanity into Chucky that’s really impressive. I know this isn’t a controversial opinion, but he really is maybe the best living voice actor of our time.

Full disclosure, there is some violence done to a cat that is very distressing, not once but TWICE. The cat dies :( And it’s particularly egregious because not only do you get faked out once thinking “oh this cat is gonna be ok” but THEN after the gruesome part, Chucky uses the sounds of the cat to emotionally torture Andy and the audience. That shit is fucked up.

Um, I’m not sure what lack of googling this screenwriter, Tyler Burton Smith, did but these literal children are not millenials, they are generation Z, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

The tone is wildly uneven. It’s not funny enough to be a horror comedy, and it’s not really scary, just jump scares and being creeped out by Chucky’s fucking face. Also, the film can’t decide if we’re meant to feel bad for Chucky being a victim of his programming and his shitty preteen masters showing him a bunch of campy slasher movies OR if we’re meant to be scared of him because he’s a murderous monster doing things of his own free will.

Why are there watermelons in this man’s yard? And the line “a white guy dead in a watermelon patch - poetic” ... what fucking poetry are you reading? Listen, I have two degrees in English literature, and I don’t remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge ever writing anything about any fucking watermelons.

Another weird choice - the movie is pretty gory but not in a fun or campy way. I think sometime around 2010, movies lost the ability to do buckets of blood in a fun way? I know that sounds fucked up, but this isn’t campy or silly, it’s just kind of gross - both trying to be gleeful and also taken way too seriously. At first, when it’s only super pervy or abusive dudes that are getting whacked, it’s like, ok, there’s a comeuppance factor here, this is gross but fine. But then it starts extending to characters that have done nothing wrong and that we’ve been pushed to love and empathize with. So then it feels a lot less fine but still very gross.

One major highlight - I will watch Brian Tyree Henry in anything. He’s just so so good at everything, and this is no exception.

Also - BTH plays a detective and Andy is literally trying to hide evidence made of human remains in the detective’s apartment. For dayyyyys. Let that sink in. Do you think that shit doesn’t smell?? And he keeps disposing of evidence and things he doesn’t want to deal with in the trash chute of his own building. Where the detective also hangs out. There are other dumpsters, my dude!

If you’re making a murderous doll movie and a guy who looks like Jack Black (Trent Redekop) perving around in a basement is the creepiest thing that happens, that’s probably not a good sign.

Speaking of Not Jack Black, everything in his death sequence makes no sense. Why would you stand on a table saw to get away from literally anything? Why would your table saw have a “smart” functionality? Take this as a warning kids, if Google starts making smart table saws, that’s when we draw the line.

There is one (1) cute dog, and Chucky is uninterested in him. He escapes the movie unscathed and appears to be a Very Good Boy.

Did I Cry? Fucking no, oh my god, not at all.

This is just a real uneven mess. Some performances shine amidst the terrible material (BTH, Mark Hamill, Gabriel Bateman) but overall, I had a lot more fun with the playfully wicked marketing campaign (coming out the same day as Toy Story 4, the film leaned into the gag by creating a series of posters depicting some gruesome ends to our favorite Toy Story characters, with Chucky being responsible). If this had been more comedy, less uneven revenge porn, this might have had a fighting chance at being something really interesting. As in most things, though, I have to advise you stick to the original.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #child's play 2019 #child's play #chucky #mark hamill #aubrey plaza #gabriel bateman #brian tyree henry #movie reviews #film reviews #horror #horror review

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letterboxd · 5 years

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Play.

“When something is cute, it puts the audience at ease, and that builds the horror more.”

We talk to the team behind a new reboot of the 80s horror classic Child’s Play.

The new Child’s Play reboot is unique among reboots in that the series it is rebooting remains an ongoing concern. The original Child’s Play came out in 1988 and spawned no fewer than six sequels. Although the last two skipped theaters to be released straight to home entertainment platforms, the series has maintained an admirable level of quality and consistency thanks to the continued presence of original screenwriter Don Mancini, who wrote all seven movies and directed the last three.

He’s currently putting together a Chucky television show that continues the often innovative mythology of the features. But in one of those only-in-Hollywood situations, two separate companies currently own the rights to make Child’s Play films, and Mancini has nothing to do with the new film, which puts a modern spin on the Chucky story.

When the reboot was announced, Mancini threw a little shade on the film, apparently (and understandably) concerned that it would muddy the waters around his upcoming TV show.

Jennifer Tilly, who voiced Chucky’s girlfriend Tiffany in the gonzo fourth movie, Bride of Chucky, and co-starred as herself in the meta fifth movie, Seed of Chucky, also expressed her displeasure with the remake.

Mancini appears to have declined an executive producer credit on the new film, which was shepherded into existence by the top studio horror producers of the moment: Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg, who were also behind the insanely successful It and its upcoming sequel.

You wouldn’t know it from the original film’s poster, which seems positively ashamed of the film it was selling, but the conceit at the heart of the 1988 film existed as a direct response to heavily marketed dolls of the era such as Teddy Ruxpin and the Cabbage Patch Kids. The new film updates Chucky’s origin so that it similarly reflects a heavily marketed contemporary product: smart toys.

While the original Brad Dourif-voiced Chucky was, sorry, is a talking doll who became possessed by the soul of a serial killer, the new Chucky is an artificially-intelligent robot friend who turns murderous when his programming is tampered with. And he’s voiced by Mark Hamill.

Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West) stars in the film as Karen, a single mom who takes home a returned Chucky from the big-box store where she works and gifts it to her son Andy, played by Gabriel Bateman (who previously encountered a sinister doll in Annabelle).

Norwegian filmmaker Lars Klevberg directed the new Child’s Play, which was written by Tyler Burton Smith. Klevberg’s American feature debut, Polaroid (an expansion of his own 2015 Norwegian short), has yet to be released in the States due to the Weinstein Company’s ongoing problems.

Letterboxd caught up with Plaza, Bateman, Klevberg and Smith at this year’s Wondercon.

Aubrey Plaza as Karen and Gabriel Bateman as Andy.

What was your reaction when you were offered this film? Aubrey Plaza (Karen): I was so honored that they thought I could pull that character off and took a chance on me and, I dunno… Chucky is an iconic character in the history of film so I feel really lucky to be a part of it. I’m really excited about that.

I play a woman named Karen Barclay who is a single mom. Her son is named Andy and she’s kind of a young mom doing the best she can and struggling a bit but trying to provide for her son. She ends up giving Andy a toy for his birthday that starts to try to kill everybody, so… but Karen thinks that her son is kind of losing his mind. So she’s going through a lot.

And Chucky was on set while you were filming? AP: Oh yes, we did a lot of things practically, so the doll was there at all times.

What do you think fans of the original should expect from the new Child’s Play? AP: I think they should expect a total re-imagining of this character. I think the whole idea behind it is: how could Chucky be relevant right now? And the idea of making Chucky a smart doll is kind of brilliant and it’s a cool way to bring Chucky back into the theaters, you know? And show a whole new generation of people how terrifying that doll can be.

Is it tough making something that is cute also scary? Tyler Burton Smith (screenwriter): I think in some ways when something is cute or funny, it puts the audience at ease in a way, because they feel like it’s safe and I think in some ways that builds the horror more. When you feel safe with a character or with a product or with a thing, seeing that transform into something dark is a lot easier. Because you’re put at ease and then you’re fighting against that. So I think that’s kind of a fun dynamic shift in a way.

‘Child’s Play’ director Lars Klevberg (left) with cinematographer Brendan Uegama.

This is an R-rated horror with kids in peril—is it tricky to know how far to go with that? Lars Klevberg (director): Well, there are different levels, when you’re making a movie, of how far you wanna push it. When you’re dealing with a Child’s Play movie, when you introduce Chucky as a toy, of course there will be kids involved. We bumped up the age a little bit on this one, which I think was a smart move. Andy’s no longer eight, he’s thirteen. But we’re dealing with a movie that takes an object that everybody loves—a doll, a toy—which is in many ways when you’re young, it’s kind of your safe spot. And you turn that around and what you love and trust in your fantasy world when you’re young turns against you, so suddenly your fantasy world becomes very very real and that’s interesting.

Screenwriter Tyler Burton Smith.

This is a separate project to the original Chucky franchise, which is still going. How did having the original creator of Chucky vocalize his opposition to this film affect you, if at all? TBS: We love the original Child’s Play. We love Don Mancini. I grew up on Child’s Play, it’s just an awesome movie and we wanna make the best version of that possible. It’s unfortunate that he’s not more involved in this movie. It would’ve been amazing to work with him on this, but we love Child’s Play as a whole, we love him and just wanna make the best version of a Child’s Play film possible.

LK: With something like this, it’s an iconic IP, of course you think about it, but you get the script and you read the script and you connect to the story and the characters and for me as a director that’s where it starts. And you have to be able to separate that and just focus on what’s there on the page, which we did. Tyler has a big brain, and he was able to get in a lot of those things that made the first one successful. I kind of jumped on and went back and watched all the movies and I was amazed by how the atmosphere was still there.

What do you think the key differences are in this version? TBS: A big part of it is the doll in the original film was just a stationary doll that you played with and it had these lines that it would say, but otherwise it was just a doll. The idea of updating that and asking what this toy would be now, or five years from now in the future, the idea of a different kind of product that is more technologically advanced was definitely kind of at the heart of it, but definitely keeping a lot of the elements that made the original great.

When I figured out the direction they wanted to go I thought it was a great balance of being a tribute to the original and doing something new with the franchise at the same time. It wasn’t just an excuse to remake a movie, it felt like a lot of people who loved the original who wanted to do an awesome reinvention of that concept. I was a bit nervous at first, but once we found the direction for it, I was really excited. I think we found a cool fresh take on that film.

Gabriel Bateman as Andy in ‘Child’s Play’ (2019).

You dealt with practical Chucky dolls on set—did you ever get concerned they might turn on you? Gabriel Bateman (Andy): No, not really. I don’t know how much I can say but the animatronic dolls don’t really have all that much motion. But I mean, when I’m actually filming and the cameras are rolling, I feel afraid, because I’m trying to be the character, but as soon as the cameras cut, it’s the same.

You’ve been in a lot of horror, but you’re totally a kid. Have you ever seen any of the horror stuff that you’ve been in? GB: I don’t think there’s ever been something that I didn’t watch that I was in. I think I’ve watched everything.

Were you excited about the idea of being in a remake of Child’s Play? GB: I kind of figured out that it was Child’s Play from the [audition] side, so I watched it pretty early on, but I was really excited. A lot of my family were fans of the original trilogy before, so I was always familiar with it. So yeah, I was definitely excited.

What do you think Child’s Play fans will make of the film? GB: We’re not trying to take away from the original in any way. It’s just a re-imagination of Chucky as a character, so I just hope people can enjoy it as its own film, without comparing to the original.

‘Child's Play’ will be in theaters on June 20.

#child's play #chucky #chucky doll #horror #don mancini #brad dourif #aubrey plaza #letterboxd

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chroniclesofawkwardness · 6 years

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Fear the Bear

I’ve always been a bit confused, if not agitated, by words that look like they should rhyme but don’t. It’s not their fault that they don’t fit perfectly together, but I still consider a linguistic mismatch to be strike one against pairs of words like foot and boot, or fear and bear.

October 11th is National Take Your Teddy Bear to Work Day. I know because I almost called in sick three years in a row. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a distrust, if not a dislike, of teddy bears. This could be traced back to when I was four. Reagan was in the White House. Teddy Ruxpin was on the shelves. Like most kids who spent far too much time in front of a television of that era instead of developing social skills, I had to have a Teddy Ruxpin. At least that’s what the commercials between segments of Cartoon Express on USA Network and Nickelodeon wanted me to think.

I didn’t get a Teddy Ruxpin for Christmas or my birthday in 1985, or any year after. I was disappointed and upset. Maybe this was another of my parents’ ways of teaching me that you can’t always get what you want, a traumatic yet valuable lesson for a young boy. My nephew is four now, and I wish I could teach him the same lesson I learned from Mr. Ruxpin. Sadly, he’s too busy playing with his dinosaurs or freaking out when his sister shoots him with her Nerf gun. I guess some lessons, especially those involving bears, are best left to life experience. I can’t point to the exact moment when my disappointment over not seeing Teddy Ruxpin under the Christmas tree, or not ripping one open on the anniversary of my birth turned into disdain for inanimate bear kind. But I can say that over time, I became more aware of inanimate bears like Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, the Berenst(E)ain Bears, Smokey, and Snuggle Bear, the mascot for a popular brand of fabric softener to name just a few.

It was difficult for me to understand why Winnie the Pooh couldn’t just lay off the honey, or why Paddington couldn’t keep his hand out of the damn marmalade jar. Shouldn’t social graces apply to bears too? There’s a reason gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. How hard is it to follow the rules?

The Berenst(E)ain Bears were my first encounter with the Mandela effect. I remember their surname being Berenstein, but not everyone does. I’ve done a bit of research, and found several examples, e.g. green pepper vs. mango, Oscar Meyer vs. Oscar (Your Body is a Wonderland) Mayer, Sex in the City vs. Sex and the City, etc… The effect takes its name from memories some people have of former South African president Nelson Mandela dying in prison, which didn’t happen. There’s no consensus on whether or not the effect exemplifies a collective memory failure or alternate realities. For my purposes, it’s just another example of bears fucking with me.

Smokey was useless. All he ever did was remind people that only they could prevent forest fires. He lived in a forest that was destroyed by in a fire and resolved never to let it happen again. I’m sure Smokey had the knowledge, resources, contacts to get off his ass and do something about forest fires, but he was content to remind everyone else that they alone had the capacity to do it. He did try to reach younger audiences by rapping in a 1993 Public Service Announcement, but he cut it short after admitting to the crew that his heart just wasn’t in it. I guess he was happy being barrel-chested and stoic. I’ve never seen Smokey with a shirt on, so he’s always been comfortable sharing himself with the world, but I’ve also never seen him don a mask and oxygen tank in an effort to save his fellow woodland creatures when the shit hit the forest fan.

The whole thing reminds of Sam Kinison’s joke about Feed the Children. He rips into the host and crew of their infomercials for not offering food to the children themselves. The host would look straight into the camera and say something like, “Won’t you please help?” In reply, Sam screamed something along the lines of, “Why don’t you just give them some of the sandwiches you packed for the day? Huh? AAAAAHHHHHHH!”

Snuggle Bear used to make me so angry. For years, I outright refused to buy his fabric softener sheets because I couldn’t accept that he was always so damn happy. He seemed inauthentic. All you’d ever see on camera was Snuggle jumping out of a pile of freshly laundered towels. He’d then practically bring himself to orgasm by rubbing them against his skin while ecstatically proclaiming how snuggly soft they were. Since the camera never zoomed in for one of those classic porno shots that leaves nothing to the imagination, we were left to wonder exactly what was going on under the pile.

We also never heard anything about Snuggle’s backstory, in contrast to a well-known duck who quacks poetic about the benefits of supplemental insurance. Through the years, we’ve seen the duck in the gym working his way back from injury, risking vertigo by riding a roller coaster and break dancing among the people. All the while, Snuggle just keeps jumping out of towels to greet us with his smiling face. We don’t know what adversity if any, he’s ever confronted. Did Snuggle once live in Smokey’s forest before it burned? Did he have to fight his way through the mean trees of Sherwood because some guy kept stealing his possessions and giving them to the poor? Was he ever addicted on screen and in real life, like Robert Downey Jr. in Less Than Zero? Has he ever had to deal with a devastating high ankle sprain caused by a mistimed jump out of the towel pile? We’ll never know. Without knowing, why would anyone emotionally invest in Snuggle Bear as opposed to the insurance duck?

The pillow was the worst of all. It was covered with teddy bears in pajamas. She held it close every night, more often than she did me, especially near the end. We’d lie on the pullout bed, Zs. on one side of the crevice, me on the other. Physically, she was only inches away, but those inches might as well have been thousands of emotional miles. This is not to suggest that I sought the validation of having her embrace me as lovingly as her pillow. Rather, that feeling nothing and having nothing shown to you in return is not a desirable state to be in. I am not blameless for not minding the emotional gap that grew wider and wider between us over time. The only blameless parties are the bears on her pillow, the bears I associate with her through no fault of her own.

I got a second chance at life by coming home in June of 2011, but by that time I’d lost track of my life’s purpose. Maybe that’s why I hated the bears so much. They truly didn’t give a fuck. They were going to do what they were going to do regardless of what I thought. Teddy Ruxpin would keep reading his stories until his batteries died. No matter how bad his lip-synch job was, or who was listening. Pooh and Paddington would stay after the honey and marmalade. Boo-Boo would always stick his hand in that picnic basket. The Berenst(E)ain Bears would teach generations of children the value of kindness, no matter how they would later remember the spelling of their name. Smokey would remind people to think before doing something stupid that could start a fire. Snuggle would keep on jumping out of piles of fresh towels, reminding us that laundry straight out of the dryer doesn’t have to smell like shit. Even the bears on the pillow would offer support during all-important times of sleep.

Legends of the Fall is one of my favorite movies (which also happens to be bookended by confrontations with bears). It illustrates how different the paths of men’s lives can be. Alfred (Aidan Quinn) lives a more traditional life than his brother Tristian (Brad Pitt) who is a free spirit. Tristian does what he wants, and lives free from the expectations of others. Alfred does everything by the book. While reflecting on their lives toward the end of the movie, Alfred tells Tristian something that could easily sum up my feelings toward these bears if I were Alfred, and the bears were Tristian.

I followed all of the rules, man’s and God’s. And you, you followed none of them. And they all loved you more. Samuel, Father, and my… even my own wife.

The bears were living their (sometimes cartoonish) purpose. They didn’t ask for permission; they just did. They knew in their hearts that whatever they were doing was what they wanted to do. I followed most of the rules, and what did it get me? I have a great life, but one that would be better if I awakened the bear inside me, the bear that dwells within every man. I shouldn’t have felt compelled to turn a teddy bear around when no one was watching so it couldn’t look at me (though I once did). I shouldn’t fear finding a giant teddy in my chair at work this coming October 11th. All I have to fear is the bear inside me staying dormant if I make choices that compromise my power as a man. Maybe Smokey was right. Only I can prevent forest fires.

May I cease to fiddle while my forest burns.

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gracewithducks · 5 years

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Thy Kingdom Come (Luke 11:1-13; preached 7/28/19)

I’ve reached the point in my life where the things of my childhood have gone from being cool to embarrassingly out-of-style to nostalgic and vintage and now back to being in-style again. My kids wear their neon colored shirts while they watch My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake and play with their Care Bears. Full House is back on TV; Teddy Ruxpin and Light-Brite and Lisa Frank and even jelly shoes are back in the stores, and when we go to McDonalds, the girls get mini Beanie Babies and Toy Story and Lion King toys.

Everything old is new again – or perhaps, like Ecclesiastes says, when you get old enough, you realize there really is nothing new under the sun. When we were up north, my father-in-law took the girls to the local movie theater to see the movie Aladdin – a movie I remember seeing in the theater when I myself was young.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Aladdin yet, either the original or the remake, and if you haven’t – well, the original came out almost thirty years ago, so I think we’ve officially passed the point of spoiler alerts. But hopefully at the very least you know that in the story of Aladdin, when the lead character is down on his luck and out of options, he finds a magic lamp, which just happens to be home to a magic wish-granting Genie. Aladdin begins making wishes in an effort to turn his life around, to go from being a down-on-his-luck lonely nobody to become a man with money, with respect, and most important, with love.

It’s a Disney story – full of catchy songs and magic and a happy ending. And it’s a good movie. But for many of us, our idea of who God is and how God works – well, it looks an awful lot like that big blue Disney genie. God is the plot twist, who we don’t look for until we are in dire need. And like Aladdin, who only got three wishes, we think that we have to ration our requests – we don’t want to bother God or waste God’s help, so we save our prayers for a last resort, when we’re out of options and we really need it. And we’ve internalized the “be careful what you wish for” trope, trying to word our prayers carefully to avoid unintended consequences… and then, once we’ve reached the end of our rope, and rubbed the lamp and said the magic words – we anticipate that we will get exactly what we’re wishing for.

That may be how genies work in the stories, but we quickly discover, that’s not how prayer works. Even in the story, Aladdin finds out that magic wishes aren’t enough; the Genie tweaks circumstances and opens some doors, sure, but it’s up to Aladdin to take advantage of those opportunities, to walk through those doors, and his own character and heart are revealed along the way.

What is it, then, that happens when we pray? If it’s not magic – then what’s it all about?

Maybe it’s not magic, but there is something special, something unexpected and beyond explanation, that happens when we invite God into our lives, when we recognize God’s presence and we pour out our greatest joys and the deepest hurts of our hearts. And we believe that God hears, that God knows us, that God cares about all that matters to us – and it’s profound in a way that goes far beyond words.

Prayer can be powerful; there are times when we can feel God’s presence around us and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not alone. But prayer isn’t magic. There are times when we pray, and it feels like we might as well be shouting into the wind; when we pray, but it feels like we are just talking to ourselves. And we wonder: where is God? What are we doing wrong? How is it that Jesus tells his disciples, “Ask, it will be given to you” – when so many of our most fervent and earnest prayers seem to go unanswered, and we keep looking for miracles that just don’t come? We pray every week here for the sick and the hurting – but not everybody recovers. We pray for the hungry, and they’re still hungry. We pray for peace, but war rages on.We pray and we pray – but it just isn’t enough.

No wonder Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Teach us to pray.” Prayer is messy and imprecise and uncertain; even if we have all the faith in the world, we can wonder what it’s all about.

So the disciples say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” It’s not like they haven’t prayed before; these were men who had grown up hearing the Torah and keeping the Sabbath and praying the psalms. But even these faithful men were looking for something new, something deeper, something more. Maybe they were hoping, on some level, for those magic words to make all their prayers come true.

Then again, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, I think they were looking for more than magic words. In those days, learning your rabbi’s prayer meant you were learning your rabbi’s values and view of the world; you were learning and sharing your teacher’s way of life. That’s what the disciples are asking Jesus to share with them: not which buttons to push to make the heavenly vending machine give them what they want – but they are asking Jesus to teach them how to live. They’re saying, Show us what is important. Show us how to talk to God. Show us who God is, and who God wants us to be.

So Jesus says, “When you pray, say this: Father.” Now I know that language can be problematic; I know that we are much more sensitive and aware of gender issues than the world was two thousand years ago, and we are keenly aware of the weight of thousands of years of inherited misogyny. This one little word that Jesus uses – “Father” – this one name for God has, sadly, led to generation after generation of faithful people imagining that God is male, and so male humans more fully reflect the glory and the power of the divine. And I name that today. Our limited language has gotten in the way of our relationship with God, and with one another. I name the damage that our language for God has done, to women and to children and yes, to men, too, over the years – and on behalf of the church, I repent, and I am sorry.

“Father” can be a tricky and difficult name for God for many of us today. But if we can look past all that, just for a moment, I want us to recognize just how radical, how significant it is that, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he starts with this name: by inviting them to imagine God not as an uncaring creator, to whom they must shout to get attention, nor as a distant judge, before whom the disciples need to grovel and beg… but Jesus uses the language of an intimate relationship, a family relationship, an inherent and blood relationship – he names God as the source of our being, in a very real way, as one who shares our very being, one who gives us our name and to whom we bear resemblance… and Jesus invites us to imagine God as the very best head of our family, head of household, that could ever be, one who offers protection and affection and unconditional love.

After all, Jesus says, even you will help a desperate neighbor in the middle of the night; even you will care for your hungry children… and if even you, the selfish messes that you are, know how to show love for your neighbors and your family, just imagine how much more God loves and cares for you.

Jesus says, when you pray, say, “Father.” More than that, Jesus has taught us to pray, “Our Father” – not my Father or almighty Father, but Our Father. This is a prayer meant to be prayed in community: Give us our daily bread, and forgive us as we forgive others… When we pray this prayer, we are reminded that we are not alone. God is with us, and we are also bound to one another, and we are bound to all those around the world who share this prayer: to our community, our family and our neighbors, and those who pray in churches and homes and hospital rooms and prison cells and wheat fields and refugee camps all around the world.

Jesus could have started many ways, but he starts here: with family, with community, with the reminder that we belong to one another, and we are not alone.

On then he continues: God who loves us, source of our being, hallowed by your name. Blessed be your name, holy and honored – and what we mean is, let us honor your name; let us live lives that bring honor and glory to you.

And then Jesus says, pray this: “God, may your kingdom come.”

Your kingdom come on earth, and this is what it looks like: it looks like all of us receiving the bread we need for today; it looks like a community of people who know that they’ve been forgiven, and who’ve learned how to forgive. This is what God’s kingdom looks like on earth: it looks like God’s people living into God’s kingdom, forgiving each other, caring for each other, as God has cared for us.

Praying “thy kingdom come” isn’t just about magic words, about sending our good thoughts out into the universe and then waiting for God to do the rest. Prayer isn’t like amazon.com, where you send in your order and wait for divine delivery person to drop it on your doorstep.

When we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we commit ourselves to that kingdom. Thy kingdom come in my heart. Thy kingdom come in my life. Thy kingdom come through me. God, let your values, your priorities, your love and your grace shape me and guide me, and shape and guide us all.

In my studies this week, I read a theologian who reflected on how we often understand prayer: as a way of taking ourselves out of the equation, and putting the ball fully in God’s court. Just think of how we use and understand the phrase “thoughts and prayers” these days – it’s a socially acceptable way to say, I don’t really care about what you’re going through enough to actually do anything about it. I’ll say a few words into the universe, and then it’s God’s problem, not mine. But that’s not how prayer is meant to work. Instead, our prayers should teach us, should shape us, should move us to do something – “our lives become our prayers.”[1]

Think again about how incredible it is that, when Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray, Jesus actually compares us to God – a dim and distorted reflection of the divine, but still… he says, If even you know how to do what is good, if even you can be moved to mercy, to give good gifts to those who depend on your help… just imagine how much more God delights in sharing love and meeting needs.

And the way God meets those needs is, more often than not, through me and through you. Jesus doesn’t just point from our feeble attempts to God’s greater ones, but he reminds us that our efforts – even if they are reluctantly given – our efforts to share our abundance and show mercy with others really do make a difference: to the neighbor knocking at our door asking for bread, to the child asking for a meal – what we have, what we can do, matters. Prayer is important. But it’s not enough to pray, not when we are able to do more. As Pope Francis once said, “You pray for the hungry, then you feed them. This is how prayer works.”[2]

Prayer teaches us to look beyond ourselves. Who is it who’s knocking at your door, asking for a loaf of bread today? Who is begging us for an egg – and we’ve handed them a scorpion instead? Are our lives bringing blessing to God’s name? Are we living in such a way that God’s kingdom, God’s vision, God’s dream is coming into being through us?

We see all around us these days ways that God’s kingdom isn’t coming: God’s kingdom doesn’t look like closing hospitals, or making families bankrupt from injury or sickness while big companies pay no taxes and get bailed out; God’s kingdom doesn’t look like children going to bed hungry while food rots in the fields and spoils in our cupboards, or schools going unfunded while money is poured into weapons and walls, or neighbors at our doorstep begging for help and being thrown into camps instead – all while Christians are busy getting mad at the people who say “happy holidays” instead of Merry Christmas and who don’t stand up to sing the magic song to the magic flag before the sports begin.

God’s kingdom doesn’t look like this.

The disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray. But prayer goes far beyond easy thoughts and empty words; prayer is about learning what matters, being reminded what’s important, and let that knowledge shape the way we live. Teach us to pray; teach us what matters: and what matters is community; what matters is forgiveness, of ourselves and of others; what matters is daily bread, and searching for that upside-down kingdom, and refusing to give a serpent to children crying for bread; what matters is tramping the snake of selfishness and greed and offering hope and grace instead.

When we pray, we believe that God listens; we know that God cares – but we don’t leave it there. We pray for God’s kingdom, and then we help that kingdom come; we pray, and then we act – that’s how prayer works.

The world has enough empty thoughts and prayers. We are called to something more; we are called to become living prayer, to live with generosity and grace, with mercy and justice, with compassion and community – so God’s kingdom may come, on earth as it in heaven.

Lord, teach us to pray; Lord, teach us to live.

God, our loving parent, the source of our being, the one who knows us better than we know ourselves: we come to you today, knowing you hear us, believing you care for us. We bring you our brokenness and our pain. We bring you our failures and our fears. We bring you our heartaches, and we bring you our hope. Forgive us, and help us to forgive. Feed us, and help us to feed others. Teach us to live into your kingdom, to live with radical hospitality and generous grace, so that your name might truly be holy and blessed. In the name of Jesus, who teaches us how to live and shows us what love is, we pray; amen.

[1] Bishop John Shelby Spong reflects on prayer here: https://progressingspirit.com/2017/01/05/the-ultimate-source-of-anti-semitism-the-circumstances-that-brought-judas-into-the-jesus-story-2/

[2] https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/quotes/pray-hungry-feed-prayer-works/

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samanthasroberts · 6 years

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4 Surprising Stories About Masturbation In The Workplace

I work on the internet, so you can safely assume that every word you’ve ever read that I wrote here, or on Twitter, or on my personal blog ��Things I Plan to Burn,” was written while I was knuckle-deep in furious masturbation. Don’t act surprised. But did you know that masturbation is a huge, turgid part of the working world around you too? I know, pop that monocle! Turns out lots of people are trying to corral the tadpole while on the job. 39 percent of people admit to tweaking the ham nubbin at work, according to one survey, and that simple statistic is only the beginning. So come (so to speak) and learn what’s happening around you.

Robert Pattinson Wanked It On Film

There’s a 60 percent chance that your favorite film with Twilight in the title which also stars Robert Pattinson is one of the Twilight movies. And Pattinson’s star has just continued to rise, thanks to him also acting in pieces of cinematic not-diarrhea. In 2008, he was able to thrust himself balls-deep into the role of Salvador Dali in the film Little Ashes. You’ve no doubt watched and rewatched it, because who wouldn’t want to see a sparkle-pire with a Dali mustache choke-slam Mr. Cyclops for a few minutes whilst sipping a Pepsi and contemplating their life choices?

According to Pattinson, the movie required a lot of nude scenes, which may shed some light on why Dali painted so many floppy, wilty clocks and whatnot. One of said scenes also required Dali to tubthump his chumbawumba, and being the consummate professional he is, Pattinson opted to do his own stunt work. You or I would have surely let Andy Serkis don a motion caption suit and fill in for Dali’s dong, but hey, this is Robert Pattinson. Dude gets the goddamn job done.

The experience was so moving for Pattinson that it made him quit acting for a while, since his O-face had been permanently set to film. And why didn’t he opt to just not do it for real? Because “it just doesn’t work” — with “it” being flogging the boglin, since it’s hard to pretend to have a handful of chubmeat without actually having a handful of chubmeat. Hollywood is where dreams come true.

People Get Paid $36,000 A Year To Wank

Obviously we’ve all taken a moment at work to think “Why are my genitals not out right now?” That’s human nature. But have you ever dared to dream of a job for which whipping out your giblets and setting them all a-twitter with various googahs and crotch-related bric-a-brac was actually what you got paid for? Dare to dream no more, my throbulous readers, for the future is now! And it’s damp!

LoveWoo, a company obviously named by a European who’s under the impression that “woo” in any way lends itself to sex and not half of a Homer Simpson impression, requires a sex toy jockey to try out their wares on a full-time basis. The position (heh) pays about 36,000 U.S. dollars a year, and includes health benefits (because you’re going to get a repetitive stress injury and we all know it).

The job has a good deal of other perks, including holiday leave, birthdays off, two days a week you can work from home, and also your entire job consists of inserting things into yourself or inserting yourself into things. Five days a week. For actual money. I dare anyone to last a month without constantly being haunted by the vague scent of pan-fried ham.

They say you should do what you love, and they also say that you should love yourself, and yet other people say “I wonder if this fits in here,” and it looks like all three of those people were the same person in this instance. Maybe that means this crazy world of ours still has a little magic left in it.

Freelance Writers Did Rubbing-Out Research

Mark Sergeant, senior psychology lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and not technically a doctor, has said that a workplace masturbation break would be a very effective way to relieve stress at work. This is something which I figure anyone jacking off in a back alley over a stained Teddy Ruxpin could have told you, but I guess the “lecturer” title gives this guy’s opinions a bit more weight.