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guacam011y · 4 years

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***SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF WANDAVISION***

HOLY SHITE MY MIND IS BLOWN

TOMMY AND BILLY CRYING

“Do you want me to take that again?” “Take it from the top?”

Agnes knows ! Tiger - Ralph

“Dark liquor” Vision being concerned

Billy and Tommy aged up?!

I DO NOT TRUST HAYWARD

SCARLET WITCH - TALKING ABOUT HOW WANDA DOESN’T HAVE A CODENAME

SIS STRAIGHT UP TOOK VISIONS CORPSE

HEX — HER POWERS GET REFERRED TO AS HEX POWERS SOMETIMES IN THE COMICS

CAPTAIN MARVEL REFERENCE

NORM SAYING NONE OF IT IS REAL

SPARKY THE DOG - VISION HAD A STAND ALONE AND STOLE A DOG

HER ACCENT

LAGOS

SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW ANY OF THIS STARTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

EVAN PETERS AS QUICKSILVER

DARCY GOING “SHE RECAST PIETRO?” MOOOD

X-MEN, START TO THE MULTIVERSE?!

WANDA CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE CONTROLLING IT

IS MONICA MAD AT CAROL???

MONICA X DARCY?! WHAT A POWER COUPLE THAT WOULD BE

SIS REALLY ENDGAME - ENDGAME ENDED WITH TONY’S FUNERAL AND WANDA PROBS WENT STRAIGHT FROM THERE AND STOLE HER DEAD BF’S CORPSE (can’t really blame her, it looked like they were trying to experiment on Vis and could it be Hayward behind it?)

WHO WAS THAT ENGINEER THAT MONICA WAS GOING TO CONTACT?

BABY VISION

AND AGNES DEFINITELY KNOWS SOMETHING

DARCY FINALLY GOT HER COFFEE

SO VIS SAID THAT WANDA COULD’VE MADE EVERYTHING SUBCONSCIOUSLY AND THAT OVER TIME SHE BECAME AWARE OF IT, AND SIS DEFO HAS SOME CONTROL BUT IT’S NOT ALL HER. I THINK AGNES IS AGATHA HARKNESS AND EITHER MEPHISTO IS BEHIND IT OR IT’S NIGHTMARE AND THEY’VE MAYBE POWERED UP NIGHTMARE

***FURTHER UPDATES AND EASTER EGGS***

Auntie Agnes and Agnes saying she has a few tricks up her sleeve - we should definitely take note of that seeing as Agnes definitely has something to do with the whole situation

Wanda and Vision’s house changed again, being inspired by Family Ties, possibly Full House and Growing Pains

“Do you want me to take it from the top?” It seems as though when someone, this time Vision, steers away from the script, things either reset themselves or people become aware to some capacity, although Agnes probably already knows

Speaking of Growing Pains - It had a spin off called “Just the 10 of Us” in which the director for Wandavision, Matt Shakman, was apart of the cast - and seemingly also inspired the theme song for this week

We should definitely keep an eye on Monica and her potential for powers. With Maria last episode revealed to have gone by the name ‘Photon’ (which is a name that Monica uses as one of her aliases in the comics) and could inspire Monica’s name as she develops her powers - those scans didn’t look 100% normal. Monica has also used the Captain Marvel monicker in the comics

Wanda’s energy field and such being referred to as “Hex” short for Hexagon, could be a little nod to the comics where Wanda’s powers are sometimes called Hex powers

She’s never been referred to as the Scarlet Witch on the big screen - and it seems as though she soon may earn that code name

So we now know that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from S.W.O.R.D, but did she actually re animate him fully? He’s still got the gem in the centre of his forehead, but the last time he had it was in Infinity War where it promptly got ripped out by Thanos - so has Wanda found her own way of reanimating him and he’s alive or is he dead and just a trick of the mind - though from other trailers/previews, Vis is seen trying to and looks successful at leaving Wanda’s barrier

They had a little call back to Captain America: Civil War with the Sokovia Accords, which were targeting the Avengers in general but were created when Wanda lost control of her powers and killed civilians

A little joke towards Vis as playing “Father Knows Best” in their little suburbia - Which was a sitcom that ran for 200 episodes in the 50’s

Sparky ! A little nod to the little green dog from the Walta and King comics run for Vision and unfortunately soon meets the same fate 💔

A little nod to Endgame when we hear from Monica that Wanda definitely could’ve taken down Thanos by herself had Thanos not rained fire - and Jimmy arguing that Captain Marvel could’ve just as easily done it - which leaves Monica with an angry look on her face

Good ol’ dial up internet

Can Vis “save” the residents of Westview? He can still seemingly interact with people’s minds, with or without the mind stone - Norm soon comes out of his trance as Vis snaps him out of it and asks to call his sister and that he has to save them all from “her” - now this “her” could be Wanda...but it could also be Agnes and then Vis shuts him down soon enough again and Norm goes back to his sit com self

Billy and Tommy are fully aware, or at least suspect Wanda’s abilities - after asking her to bring back Sparky from the dead and speaking of Billy and Tommy - could they be semi permanent fixtures in the MCU, it would help to introduce the Young Avengers eventually. They'll do Young Avengers at some point since Kang is supposed to be a thing in the third Ant-Man.

Teddy, unfortunately, I don't think will be here for a bit (I really hope he is though!). I think the guy they hired that everyone is rumoring to be Teddy might just be an episode about Billy coming to terms with his sexuality and Wanda and Vis learning to accept it in the way that era of tv they're in would go about with that kind of episode and the dude is just a dude - but again, I really hope it’s Teddy 😭

Wanda leaves the hex after a mini missile/plane tries to shoot at her - and she’s in her Scarlet Witch costume and is seemingly mostly back to her “normal self”, which includes her accent !

Lagos brand paper towels - “For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” - a nod to Civil War again in which Wanda accidentally blew up a building in Lagos and caused the Sokovian accords to come to fruition

The mail man again - I also think he was in the commercial but anywho - “Your mom won’t let him go far” similar to “Much like she won’t let anyone leave” a potential nod to Wanda or Agnes not letting anyone leave?

“We can’t reverse death” and yet she brought Vision back - keeping in mind that he’s an android but still a little foreshadow to what happened at the end of the ep? Better yet, could Pietro coming back be a distraction for Wanda? Agnes or whoever introducing someone that Wanda lives in hopes that she won’t go full on breakdown superpowers or just to give her an attachment to Westview even more and make her not want to leave at all

“She recasted Pietro” EVAN ! I’m so pumped for this - it seems this could turn into the X-Men making their debut earlier than expected possibly? In any case, it’s a nice little Easter Egg to the previous Fox franchise of X-Men movies where Evan played Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” alongside James McAvoy as Prof X, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and so many others - and with Deadpool being confirmed as Disney’s first R rated film, it seems Mutants are definitely on their way to the MCU

Agnes is definitely Agatha or a gender bent Nightmare

The way Billy shed himself and Tommy up was scary - definitely a little nod to his powers coming in

Multiple different perspectives of Wanda saying that Monica left

Red Hex dialled up to around light sources (computer, window, etc.)

Vision mentions reading Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man - which could refer to Mutants entering the MCU, Mutants being superior to humans

Agnes calls herself Auntie Agnes - in episode 2 during the title sequence in the grocery store there’s a product called ‘Auntie A’s Kitty Litter’

Agnes refers to herself as a Tiger and in the episode, there’s a Tiger on the dining table in the kitchen - could that be a listening device, her eyes and ears?

There are no other children in Westview - Billy and Tommy are immune because they have no prior trauma

Elizabeth Olsen’s photos are real and slightly altered with Sokovian flags in the background

In the birthday shot of Billy and Tommy, they have ‘1,2,3,4,5’ candles all on one cake

In the holiday photos, Vision goes from Turkey to Easter Bunny, to Santa and progressively gets more unhappy - realising he no longer wants to play along in Wanda’s Hex

During Monica’s callbacks to seeing Wanda’s pain inside her head, we see a new shot of Wanda crying - it looks like it’s around the time she stole Vision’s corpse, as the outfit she’s wearing is very similar, if not the same - could this be an after shot of when she’s trying to bring Vision back?

During the scene where we see the footage of Wanda stealing Vision’s corpse, the S.W.O.R.D logo that appears on the table has 8 stars around the rim of the logo but then has a 9th one in the middle - could this be a little Easter Egg to the nine realms of the Cosmos? And there’s also a map showing Cape Canaveral, could that be where S.W.O.R.D’s headquarters are?

Wanda and Pietro were born in 1989 to Irina and Oleg Maximoff - who were killed in an air raid when the twins were 10. In the comics, Wanda and Pietro were raised by Django and Maria Maximoff, before their true parentage was revealed as being the children of Magneto, however, in the comics this has been retconned so that Wanda and Pietro are no longer Mutants and the High Evolutionary had just disguised them as Mutants (something I think they should undo tbh - MARVEL, PLEASE MAKE WANDA AND PIETRO MUTANTS AGAIN!!!)

Speaking of the air raid, that was also referenced in Age of Ultron by Pietro and Wanda - “We were 10 years old, having dinner the four of us. And the first shell hits 2 floors below, makes a hole in the floor” - was the beeping Stark toaster be what that was referring to?

WHIH reappears for a brief cameo as the news service in the MCU - and Hayward cuts off Jimmy as he was trying to defend Wanda’s reputation, in which Jimmy then turns to Darcy and says “I try not to speak ill of people” Darcy then follows up with “Then allow me, Hayward’s a-“ and then she’s cut off by a shot back to Hayward saying the word “Terrorist” which would make sense as it seems with Vision’s corpse, he may have been trying to make sentient weapons and by subverting Vision’s will and blaming Wanda of doing the same. In the footage shown of Wanda stealing Vision’s remains, we see Vision broken up into parts and S.W.O.R.D seems to be experimenting on him and this seems to be the robotics/nanotech project that Hayward was referring to. Monica asks Hayward about the footage saying “When was this?” to which Hayward replies saying “9 days ago. Maximoff stormed our facility, stole Vision’s body and resurrected him” - this would mean that Wanda took Vision 2 weeks after the events of Endgame, about a week before Monica returned to S.W.O.R.D and Hayward didn’t tell her any of this and when he sent her in there, he knew exactly what he was doing - with her reputation after Civil War, this makes it easier for Hayward to paint her as the villain.

Back in Westview, Tommy wears red and Billy wears green - which are the colours that Wiccan and Speed wear in the comics, respectively. And it’s also the colours that Wanda and Vision are known for and appears quite a lot in their wardrobes

More in regards to Sparky, he was the synthezoid dog in Tom King’s run of Vision - the story being that he was originally a dog named Zeke who unfortunately passed away after digging up the Grim Reaper’s corpse and getting zapped. The Grim Reaper’s helmet appears during the title sequence of Episode 2 in the floorboards. Could Sparky have been trying to dig up a similar thing when he was caught by Agnes and consequently killed?

Monica mentions that she knows this aerospace engineer, they’re never shown but she is seen texting them. Could it be Reed Richards a.k.a Mr Fantastic? Hayward did mention that some astronauts used to work for S.W.O.R.D before a mission went haywire - though it seems a bit lacklustre to introduce such highly anticipated characters this way. Could it instead be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? She mentioned that they had extraterrestrial allies in episode 4 working with her and Fury as apart of S.W.O.R.D - in the Spanish subtitles they use the feminine articles for this engineer - so I think it’s more likely to be Talos’s daughter

The board that we saw in Episode 4 now includes the mailman, drivers license and all - could he be Jimmy’s missing witness?

The tension in the room after Jimmy references Carol is similarly seen when in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter asks Skrull Fury/Talos “How about Captain Marvel?” To which Talos replies “Don’t involve her name”. Fury, Monica and Talos were all on the side of the Skrulls by then end of Captain Marvel and the space station that Fury was on maybe apart of S.W.O.R.D. So did Carol betray them?

A slight reference to Captain America: The First Avenger is made when Monica pulls a Peggy Carter and shoots at something to see if it’s bulletproof, in Peggy’s case it was the iconic Captain America shield and in the case of Monica, it was her clothes that she was wearing after Wanda threw her out of the Hex

Abilash (Norm) never states that Wanda is the one that Vision has to save them from, it’s just “her” - could this instead be Agnes?

When Billy is training Sparky to sit, he puts the treat by his ear up to his temple - a future reference that Billy will one day share the same powers as his mum?

During the scene in which Wanda leaves the Hex briefly, she turns the guns onto Hayward but none are trained on Monica - she may still trust Monica slightly, whereas with Hayward, she slightly more pissed off because of what he was doing to Vision’s remains. And turning a bunch of guns on the people you don’t trust? Like father, like daughter as Magneto pulls a similar move in one of the X-Men films - Hopefully, the big cameo they keep teasing will be Ian McKellan as Magneto or the Magnus of this House of M adaptation

During when Agnes “found” Sparky, she says he died from eating too many leaves from her plants - in the Tom King Vision run, one of Vision’s kids ends up killing Sparky and sees inside his stomach that there’s a plant that Agatha Harkness grows in her garden

All the names that appear during the credits that Wanda tries to run to end the show and to stop Vision from talking are names of people who work on the actual Wandavision show itself

When Evan Peter’s version of Quicksilver shows up, he says “Does a long lost bro get to squeeze his sister to death or what?” I DO NOT TRUST THIS PIETRO - Similar to Wandavision, the Fox X-Men movies moved up decade by decade - First Class was in the 1960s, Days of Future Past was in the 1970s, Apocalypse was in the 1980s and Dark Phoenix was in the 1990’s - which would make even more sense as MCU! Pietro wasn’t born until 1989, whereas Peter was active during the 1980s. I reckon that this Pietro is Jimmy’s missing witness, Agnes’s husband Ralph and is disguising itself as a comforting presence to Wanda as Vision no longer brings comfort and is trying to bring Wanda back to reality - and when he shows up, the mirror in the background behind Wanda is slightly distorted but his hand looks red and in the shot as well, there seems to be a grey arm reaching towards Pietro - in the shot itself behind and in front of Wanda, there’s nothing there but in the mirror, there is! Either way, I do not trust this Pietro and it’s just an entity trying to give Wanda the last thing that could make her happy - but it won’t last, as everything is already breaking down around her.

I seriously seriously love this show so much 💙

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billiedeanhowards · 3 years

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sarah’s characters & taylor swift

billie dean

“i think taylor swift is an incredible artist.”

billie dean listens to taylor swift while she's doing paperwork after a long day at work.

- her favorite album is 1989.

- her all time favorite track is i know places.

- she thinks taylor’s hard work in creating the album and solidifying herself as an artist in both country music and pop music is similar to her own hard work in becoming a respected medium.

- has probably met taylor due to being a celebrity medium.

- had been mistaken for taylor once before, didn’t understand why, but didn’t complain.

- almost had a tv special with taylor because she got a call from taylor saying she thinks her house is haunted.

- 1989′s vibe just matches billie’s??? idk.

lana

“she’s definitely a talented writer, i will say that.”

lana is someone who isn’t completely open about her love for taylor swift.

- won’t admit to it, but she’s secretly a swiftie.

- admires her as a writer.

- from a writer’s perspective, lana thinks taylor’s one of the best songwriters of her generation.

- evermore is her favorite album.

- teared up listening to evermore for the first time.

- cried when she heard happiness for the first time, but keeps that to herself.

- long story short is her favorite track off of evermore.

- respects what taylor has done for women in the music industry.

- admires taylor as a woman.

- it’s also likely she knows taylor due to her tv show and has probably interviewed her at some point.

cordelia

“my mother knew taylor once. hey, did you know she’s a witch?”

cordelia listens to folklore while caring for her plants in her greenhouse.

- cordelia’s favorite tracks are august and seven.

- cardigan does have a special place in her heart, though.

- most of the younger witches are also swifties (even madison, who claims taylor is “too basic” for her even though that's not even the slightest bit true).

- has one of the folklore cardigans (gifted to her by one of the younger witches), and wears it frequently.

- prefers to listen to taylor’s music on a vinyl and record player, but will listen to it in any form.

- almost took her girls to a concert, but didn’t because madison threw zoe into a wall ten minutes before they had to leave.

- has also been mistaken for being taylor, didn't understand why because she's not famous or does she think they look alike, but politely said she was not.

- had to stop misty and zoe from asking her mother if she knew taylor like she knew stevie nicks.

- is subjected to a running joke in the coven where the girls sing “cordelia street” instead of cornelia street (and is also nicknamed “cornelia”).

bette & dot

“taylor swift is just wonderful, isn’t she, dot?”

“that’s one thing we can agree on, sister.”

bette & dot are polar opposites when it comes to their taste in taylor swift’s music.

- bette loves 1989.

- dot loves folklore.

- 1989 reminds bette of her big dreams of being a star.

- folklore allows dot to run away in the fictional stories written in the album.

- bette’s favorite track is welcome to new york, because she’s always wanted to live in the big city with all the bright lights.

- dot’s favorite track is illicit affairs because it reminds her of jimmy.

- bette convinced both dot and elsa to let them perform this love during one of the shows (dot wanted to perform epiphany, but there's no fighting her sister).

- bette begs elsa to send an invitation to the freak show to taylor, but the invitation was never sent.

sally

“who's this taylor swift chick you’re talking about? a pop star? gross. she also does country music? no way in hell.”

sally is not someone who likes taylor.

- she has nothing against her, taylor’s music just isn't her thing.

- she sounds judgmental about it but she’s really not.

- she won't admit it but she has cried to all too well.

- haunted taylor’s room when she stayed at the hotel cortez (which led to a scolding from billie dean howard when taylor called).

- probably would have liked taylor if she had been making music while sally was still alive.

shelby

“love story is one of the best love songs of all time, okay?”

shelby’s a sucker for nostalgia.

- fearless is her all time favorite album.

- has cried and will always cry to white horse.

- constantly played taylor in her yoga studio back in los angeles, which led to her friends poking fun at her for it.

- saw taylor on her fearless tour back in 2009.

- taylor came into her yoga studio once and she almost fainted.

- their selfie had been shelby’s phone’s lock screen for as long as she could remember.

- played you belong with me and love story at her and matt’s wedding.

- cried when fearless (taylor’s version) was announced.

- cried even harder when it was released.

- owns a fearless blanket and multiple other pieces of fearless merchandise.

- has been mistaken for taylor and laughed when it happened. even though she loves her, she knows they have nothing in common other than blonde hair and blue eyes.

audrey

“oh my god! i love taylor swift!”

audrey’s probably the biggest swiftie of the bunch.

- 1989 is her favorite album.

- she went to 1989 world tour six times.

- owns more taylor swift merchandise than shelby.

- had “darling i'm a nightmare dressed as a daydream.” as her instagram bio for the entirety of 2014 and 2015.

- got into multiple fights with people on twitter during taylor’s hate train.

- used taylor as a model for her american accent when playing shelby in “my roanoke nightmare.”

- danced to you are in love with rory at their wedding.

- will sing taylor swift songs during karaoke night both drunk and sober.

- saw taylor up close that one time she was invited to the met gala in 2014 and had a huge fangirl moment.

- knows taylor because she's an actress.

- finally met taylor at the reputation stadium tour and cried afterward.

- considers her and taylor to be besties even though they only met once.

- would throw a rock through one of the windows at taylor’s old record label.

ally

“i think taylor is a wonderful performer and a great person.”

ally has a lot of respect for taylor when it comes to her being a good person.

- started off with a soft spot for lover.

- reputation ended up being her favorite album.

- promised oz to take him to a concert when she goes on tour again.

- refuses to listen to ivy (for obvious reasons).

- slapped kai when he made hateful remarks about taylor (he deserved it tbh).

- was endorsed by taylor when she ran for senator.

- they even met and took a photo together at a rally!

- taylor stood by ally when her story about surviving kai’s cult came out.

- ally stood by taylor when her masters were stolen.

wilhemina

“she’s talented, to say the least.”

wilhemina doesn't really understand the world’s infatuation with taylor swift.

- doesn’t really get the hype.

- heard false god once and banned it from being played in outpost 3.

- has tried to listen to taylor in private.

- okay, maybe she does understand why people like her.

karen

“who the fuck is taylor swift?”

karen has absolutely no idea who taylor is.

- the only thing karen knows about taylor is she sings shake it off.

- and that she’s a singer.

- but that’s it.

- she’s heard her music a few times at the muse.

- watched austin sommers and belle noir do a live performance of wildest dreams.

- mickey’s mentioned her a few times since becoming famous.

- but other than that, she has absolutely no clue who this woman is.

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snowonthebeachmp3 · 3 years

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July 2016

Jul 3rd - Taylor's 4th of July festivities kick off at her Rhode Island house. Guests include Tom Hiddleston, Abigail Anderson, Matt Lucier, Claire Winter, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Karlie Kloss, Josh Kushner, Austin Swift, Ruby Rose, Harley Gusman, Halston Sage, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Britany Maack, Ben LaManna, Martha Hunt, Jason McDonald, Uzo Aduba, Chioma Aduba, Jordan Masterson, Kesha, St Vincent, Ed Sheeran, Cherry Seaborn, Rachel Platten, Kennedy Rayé and the Haim sisters. (x) (x) (x) (x)

This is the day Tom wears the infamous 'I <3 TS' tank top while they're all at the beach. (x)

Jul 4th - The online mockery for the 'I <3 TS' shirt is quick to pour in. Daily Mail commenters are yet to shut up about it in 2021.

The party continues with a giant inflatable waterslide, body painting, karaoke, charades and fireworks. (x) And also Kesha and Haim getting tricked by Cara, Uzo and Ruby into thinking they heard scary noises in the night, and trying to call the police but not knowing their own location. (x) (x)

Jul 5th - The day after the party, when all the guests post their photos online.

Britany posts a photo of her & Ben, Blake & Ryan, and Taylor & Tom. (x) The internet has a field day with Ryan's unimpressed facial expression. (x) (Ryan later says that it's just his resting bitch face as he wasn't aware a photo was being taken. (x))

Taylor posts several photos to Instagram of her celebrating the 4th July with friends, but doesn't post any pictures with Tom. (x)

Claire Winter posts a bunch of Polaroids, including one of Taylor and Tom kissing. (x)

Abigail posts a photo to Instagram showing the banners Taylor put up to celebrate her engagement to Matt and the anniversaries of Cara & St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) and Ed & Cherry. (x)

Jul 6th - Taylor and Tom fly out of Rhode Island (x) and arrive at LAX that evening. (x) They then get on a plane to Australia.

Joe attends the Warner Music Group summer party in London. (x)

Rumours are swirling that Tom is no longer in consideration to be the next Bond, due to his relationship with Taylor. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Jul 8th - Taylor and Tom are flying on a commercial Quantas flight so someone is able to take a pic of them on the plane. (x)

According to another passenger on the plane, Taylor plays Scrabble during the flight (presumably on her phone because nobody takes big physical board games on commercial flights and the creepshot of Hiddleswift on the plane suggests she wouldn't have had anywhere to put the board anyway). In hindsight, knowing how Taylor and Joe play lots of Scrabble together including online Scrabble aka Words With Friends, and how they stayed in touch largely via texting that summer, it’s very possible she was playing against Joe.

Taylor and Tom arrive in Sydney, where Tom is about to start filming for Thor: Ragnarok. (x) Aussie media, including daytime TV, goes nuts over Hiddleswift's arrival in the country. (x)

Flying from LA to Australia involves crossing the international dateline, so they would have left the US on the 6th July local time and arrived in Sydney approx 15 hours later on the 8th July local time.

Calvin's new song Olé, written for John Newman, is released. There is speculation that it's a Hiddleswift song, written from Tom's perspective and containing lyrics implying that Taylor cheated on Calvin with Tom. However, sources also told multiple outlets that the song was written and recorded months earlier, and its supposed links to Hiddleswift were just for publicity. (x) (x)

Jul 9th - Tom goes out for a run (x) and avoids answering questions about Taylor. (x)

Jul 10th - Taylor and Tom go out for dinner to Gemelli Italian restaurant in Broadbeach on Australia's Gold Coast. (x)

Jul 11th - Taylor is named as the highest earning celebrity on the 2016 Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $170m mostly due to the 1989 World Tour. If she and Calvin had not split up, they would have been the top-earning celebrity couple. (x)

Jul 12th - Taylor visits Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane. (x)

Jul 13th - Us Weekly makes a wild claim that Tom is planning to propose soon, and Taylor is going to say yes. The magazine cover also claims they're already talking about babies. (x)

TMZ claims that Taylor wrote TIWYCF, and that Calvin disrespecting Taylor following its release was the reason for their breakup. (x)

Taylor Swift really is the creative brains behind Calvin Harris' monster hit "This is What You Came For," and their relationship fell apart because he disrespected her when the song was released ... this according to sources connected with Taylor.

It's a fascinating story. We've learned an early fan rumor about the song is true, but to a deeper extent than anyone suspected. During their relationship, Taylor wrote the song, sat down at a piano and did a demo into her iPhone. She sent it to Calvin, who loved it. They both went into a studio and did a full demo with Taylor on vocals and Calvin doing the beat.

They both knew the song would be a hit, but Taylor wrote it for Calvin and both agreed it was a bad idea to let the world know they collaborated as a couple ... it would overshadow the song.

So Taylor, who kept the publishing rights, used the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg on the credits.

The problem in the relationship came the day the song was released. Calvin appeared on Ryan Seacrest's radio show and Ryan asked, "Will you do a collaboration with your girlfriend?" Calvin responded, "You know we haven't even spoken about it. I can't see it happening though."

We're told Taylor was hurt and felt Calvin took it too far.

It was a quick downward spiral from that point. One source called it "the breaking point in the relationship." The Met Gala was several days later, when Taylor danced with Tom Hiddleston.

Tree confirms to People magazine that Taylor did write TIWYCF under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Calvin also confirms that Taylor wrote TIWYCF and goes on a Twitter rant:

Katy Perry tweets a gif of Hillary Clinton with a smug/'told you so' expression. (x) She also retweets an older tweet from May 2015 which reads, 'Time, the ultimate truth teller.' (x)

#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trends on Twitter (x) (x) and Taylor's Instagram comments are spammed with the snake emoji. (x)

Following Calvin's tweets, TMZ publishes another article claiming he is downplaying Taylor's involvement in the song as she wrote the melody in addition to the lyrics. (x)

Jul 14th - Taylor goes out shopping in Gold Coast. (x)

Tom mentions Taylor in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: (x)

You're in the middle of a cultural frenzy right now because you're dating Taylor Swift. How would you respond to people who claim that you're involved in some sort of publicity stunt?

(Laughs.) Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is — look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we're very happy. Thanks for asking. That's the truth. It's not a publicity stunt.

Martha says at a Pepsi/World Emoji Day event that Taylor and Tom are 'both happy and free together. It's amazing, I'm all about people being happy in love.' (x)

Kim talks about Taylor and the Famous controversy in a clip from an upcoming episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. (x)

“I never talk shit about anyone publicly, especially in interviews. But I was just like I had so had it,” Kim says in the clip to her sister Kourtney. “I wanted to defend him in it. She legitimately quote says, ‘As soon as I get on that Grammy red carpet I’m gonna tell all the press. Like I was in on it.’”

“And then she just didn’t like the reaction?” Kourtney says in response.

“Yeah, and you know just another way to play the victim,” Kim replies. She then brings the infamous VMAs moment from 2009 by saying, “It definitely got her a lot of attention the first time… I just don’t think he should be punished for it still to this day.”

Jul 17th - Kim posts an edited recording of Kanye and Taylor's phone call. In it, they discuss the 'I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex' line and Taylor says, 'Go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That’s really nice.' However, nowhere in the Snapchat video does Kanye consult her about the line, 'I made that bitch famous,' which is the line Taylor insisted she had never approved. (x) The other Kardashian sisters retweet and support Kim. (x)

(The full recording of the call, leaked in 2020, confirms that Kanye never told Taylor he was going to call her a bitch. It also shows her reminding him that she sold 7 million albums before he had even heard of her, in response to him suggesting the lyric, 'I made her famous.')

Kim takes to Twitter to call Taylor a snake.

Taylor posts a statement on Instagram responding to Kim's Snapchat video. (x)

Selena tweets, 'There are more important things to talk about… Why can’t people use their voice for something that fucking matters? This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh' (x)

Katy Perry tweets, '#RISE above it all' and links to her new single. People interpret it as a dig at Taylor. (x)

Martha Hunt tweets, 'It's pathetic how quick our culture is to sensationalize a fabricated story...' (x)

Jul 18th - #KimExposedTaylorParty spends the day trending at number one worldwide on Twitter. (x) To the point where 0.8% of all tweets posted in the entire week from the 18th-24th use the hashtag. (x) (Assuming that 1/7th of the week's total tweets were posted on each day, that means more than 1 in every 20 tweets on the 18th used the hashtag.) #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty also returns.

TMZ claims to have a copy of a letter from Taylor's lawyer, dating back to February, demanding that Kanye destroy the recording of their phone conversation and reminding him that it is a felony to secretly record a phone conversation in California. (x)

Taylor changes the name on her writing credits for TIWYCF on the BMI songwriters database. She is now listed as Taylor Swift instead of Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Camilla Belle, the subject of Taylor's 2010 song Better Than Revenge, posts a quote to Instagram which reads, 'No need for revenge. Just sit back & wait. Those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves & if you’re lucky, God will let you watch.' (x)

Abigail tweets against Kim and Kanye, saying, 'May God forgive you & your wife for doing to others the very things you pray are NEVER done to your daughter.' She deletes the tweets after receiving death threats but leaves a tweet which reads, 'Guys…I will always stand by my best friend. There's no point in fighting over that.' (x)

Joseph Kahn (director of many of Taylor's music videos) defends Taylor on Twitter. (x)

The aunt of Dinah Jane from Fifth Harmony tweets, 'I always knew @/taylorswift13 was a SNAKE! Trying 2 break up my girls & use @/camilacabello97 as her protégé bitch bye you’ve been exposed!’ (x) The tweet is soon deleted and she claims her account was hacked. (x) (Camila quit the band at the end of 2016 and has since said that Taylor had nothing to do with her decision to leave.) (x)

Paula Erickson, Taylor’s former publicist from 2007 until 2014, likes a two-and-a-half-week-old tweet dragging Hiddleswift for being a badly executed bit of PR by Taylor and Tree. (x)

James Corden spoofs the recorded phone call on the Late Late Show. (x)

Calvin is rumoured to be dating Tinashe. (x)

Jul 20th - Todrick Hall defends Taylor, saying, 'She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life.' (x)

Uzo Aduba says Taylor is 'a beautiful person and strong' and that she will overcome the Kimye drama. (x)

Paula likes another tweet shading Taylor and Tree. (x)

A graffiti artist creates a mural in Melbourne 'in loving memory of Taylor Swift' (misspelled as Smith). According to the artist, they are then contacted by Taylor's lawyers and threatened with legal action. (x)

Jul 21st - Taylor's Wikipedia page is vandalised with insults. (x)

Taylor and Tom fly back from Australia into a private airport in LA, and are seen out and about. (x) (x)

Jul 22nd - Fergie, who had Kim appear in her M.I.L.F. $ music video, says she thinks the Kimye-Taylor feud was planned and 'they’ll probably all come together at the MTV Awards or something.' (x)

Taylor goes to the gym in LA. It is the first time she has appeared in public since Kim posted the edited video, and her phone screen is now shattered. (x)

She also returns to Instagram to wish Selena a happy birthday. (x)

Jul 23rd - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Tom is at Comic Con in San Diego. (x)

Calvin lip-syncs to Kanye's song That Part in a video posted on his Snapchat. (x) He also attends J-Lo's birthday party and is photographed with Kim. Apparently they have a friendly chat. (x) A source claims to E!, 'When Kim walked in Calvin saw her and stood up. He was clearly excited to see her and said 'hi' to Kim backstage.' (x)

Jul 24th - Taylor blocks the snake emoji from her Instagram comments section using a new Instagram feature. (x)

Tom is seen at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills with members of Taylor's security team. (x)

Jul 26th - Tom flies back to LA from NYC, where he has just spent a couple of days. On the same day, Taylor's plane arrives back in LA from Nashville, where she has spent a couple of days. (x)

VMA nominations are announced. Taylor is not nominated in any category, despite Out Of The Woods and Wildest Dreams being eligible, leading some people to think she has been snubbed. Gossip Cop, an outlet widely used by celebrity publicists to quietly squash rumours, says that Taylor did not submit any videos for consideration this year. (x)

Jul 27th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

John Newman, singer of Calvin's song Olé, jokes, 'Supposedly we had a holiday where he was movin’ on from his ex-missus,' referring to the trip to Mexico to film the music video, which involved girls and a yacht. He also says he doesn't think it's his place to say what inspired Calvin to write the song. (x)

Taylor and Tom go for dinner at Hillstone restaurant in Santa Monica. One source claims they 'seemed to really be enjoying each others’ company.' (x) It is the last time they are papped together.

Kanye makes a surprise appearance at Drake's concert in Chicago where he responds to Kim's Snapchat video for the first time, saying, 'All I gotta say is, I am so glad my wife has Snapchat. Because now y’all can know the truth. And can’t nobody talk shit about ‘Ye no more.' (x)

Cara appears on James Corden's show and talks about how she, Uzo and Ruby pranked Kesha and Haim at Taylor's 4th of July party. She mentions consulting Taylor and Tom first so that security knew what they were up to. She also says that Taylor and Tom got woken up at one point by all the noise they were making, and came upstairs together to find Cara and Uzo still making ghost noises. (x)

Jul 28th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Jul 29th - Sources close to Calvin deny rumours that he is planning to collaborate on music with Kanye. (x)

Abigail likes E! News' Instagram photo of Tom and Taylor going out for dinner on the 27th, which has a gushing caption about them. (x)

Jul 31st - Taylor is seen entering her gym in LA through the back door. (x)

A fan sees Tom and Taylor at The Church Key restaurant in LA. (x) The outing is not papped.

Intro // February // March // April // May // June // July // August // September // October // November

#taylor swift #hiddleswift #tayvin #swiftwyn #jaylor #toe #taylor swift in 2016 #timeline

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gayenerd · 3 years

Text

I just realized I didn’t post that 2007 Rolling Stone article I posted about here.

Billie Joe Armstrong

The Green Day leader talks Bush, Britney and being a middle-aged punk for our 40th anniversary.

DAVID FRICKE

Posted Nov 01, 2007 8:19 AM

You have two young sons. What kind of America will they inherit?

This war has to finish before something new blossoms. There's no draft — that's why none of the kids give a shit. They'd rather watch videos on YouTube. It's hard to tell what's next — there is so much information out there with no power to it. Everything is in transition, including our government. Next year, it's someone else in the White House. There's no way to define anything. It's Generation Zero. But you gotta start at zero to get to something.

Is there anyone now running for president who gives you hope for the future?

Barack Obama, but it's a bit early to tell if this is the guy I like. I get sick of the religious-figure thing. People don't question their rulers, these political figures, just as they don't question their ministers and priests. They're not going to question George Bush, especially if he goes around talking about God — "I'm going to let God decide this for me. He's going to give me the answer." The fear of God keeps people silent.

When did you first vote in a presidential election?

In 1992. I was twenty. I voted for Clinton.

Did you feel like you made a difference?

Yeah. The Eighties sucked. There was so much bullshit that went along with that decade. I felt like Clinton was a fresh face with fresh ideas. There were times when he was dropping bombs, and I'm thinking, "What the fuck are you doing?" But he became a target. We have this puritanical vision of what a leader is supposed to be, and that's what makes us the biggest hypocrites in the world. We got so inside this guy's sexual habits. Now we have a president going around, killing in the name of what? In the name of nothing.

What did you accomplish with your 2004 anti-Bush album, "American Idiot"? He was re-elected anyway, and the war in Iraq is still going on.

I found a voice. There may have been people disenfranchised by it. People have a hard time with that kind of writing: "Why are you preaching to me?" It does sound preachy, a bit. I'm a musician, and I want to say positive things. If it's about self-indulgent depression or overthrowing the government, it's gotta come from my heart. And when you say "Fuck George W. Bush" in a packed arena in Texas, that's an accomplishment, because you're saying it to the unconverted.

Do you think selling nearly 6 million copies of that album might have an effect on the 2008 election? A kid who bought it at fifteen will be voting age next year.

I hope so. I made it to give people a reason to think for themselves. It was supposed to be a catalyst. Maybe that's one reason why it's difficult for me to write about politics now. A lot of things on that record are still relevant. It's like we have this monarchy in politics — the passing of the baton between the Clintons and the Bushes. That's frightening. What needs to happen is a complete change, a person coming from the outside with a new perspective on all the fucked-up problems we have.

How would you describe the state of pop culture?

People want blood. They want to see other people thrown to the lions. Do audiences want rock stars? I can't tell. You have information coming at you from so many areas — YouTube, the Internet, tabloids. Watching Britney Spears the other night [on the MTV Video Music Awards] was like watching a public execution. How could the people at MTV, the people around her, not know this girl was fucked up? People came in expecting a train wreck, and they got more than they bargained for.

She was a willing conspirator. She didn't say no.

She is a manufactured child. She has come up through this Disney perspective, thinking that all life is about is to be the most ridiculous star you could be. But it's also about what we look at as entertainment — watching somebody go through that.

How do you decide what your children can see on TV or the Internet? As a dad, even a punk-rock dad, that can make you conservative in your choices.

I want to protect them from garbage. It's not necessarily the sex and drugs. It's bad drugs and bad sex, the violence you see on television and in the news. I want to protect them from being desensitized. I want them to realize this is real life, not a video game.

The main thing I want them to have is a good education, because that's something I never had. Get smart. Educate yourself as much as you can, and get as much out of it, even if the teacher is an asshole.

Do you regret dropping out of high school?

Life in high school sucks. I bucked the system. I also got lucky. My wife has a degree in sociology, and there are conversations she has — I don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. College — I could have learned from that.

But I was the last of six kids. At that point, my mother was fifty-eight, and she threw up her hands — "I'm through with this parenting thing." Also, I could not handle authority figures. But I wouldn't say I'm an authority figure for my kids. I provide guidelines, not rules.

What is it like being a middle-aged punk? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

It's about the energy you bring with you, the pulse inside your head. I want to get older. I don't want to be twenty-one again. Screw that. My twenties were a difficult time — where my band was at, getting married, having a child. I remember walking out of a gig in Chicago, past these screaming kids. There were these punks, real ones, sitting outside our tour bus. One girl had a forty-ouncer, and she goes, "Billie Joe, come drink with us." I said, "I can't, I've got my family on the bus." She goes, "Well, fuck you then." I get on the bus, and my wife says, "Did that bitch just tell you to fuck off? I'm gonna kick her ass right now." I'm holding her back, while my child is naked, jumping on the couch: "Hi, Daddy!" That was my whole life right there — screaming kids, punks telling me to fuck off, my wife getting pissed, my naked son waiting to get into his pajamas.

There's nothing wrong with being twenty-one. It's the lessons you learn. At thirty, you think, "Why did I worry so much about this shit?" When I hit forty, I'll say the same thing: "Why did I worry about this shit in my thirties?"

What have you learned about yourself?

There is more to life than trying to find your way through self-destruction or throwing yourself into the fire all the time. Nihilism in punk rock can be a cliché. I need to give myself more room to breathe, to allow my thoughts to catch up with the rest of me.

Before Dookie, I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. I had a guitar, a bag of clothes and a four-track recorder. There are ways you don't want to change. You don't want to lose your spark. But I need silence more than I did before. I need to get away from the static and noise, whereas before, I thrived on it.

Are you ready for the end of the music business? The technology and its effect on sales have changed dramatically since Green Days' debut EP — on vinyl — in 1989.

Technology now and the way people put out records — everything comes at you so fast, you don't know what you're investigating. You can't identify with it — at least I can't. With American Idiot, we made a conscious effort to give people an experience they could remember for the rest of their lives. It wasn't just the content. It was the artwork, the three acts — the way you could read it all like someone's story.

Is music simply not important to young people now the way it was to you as a kid?

People get addicted to garbage they don't need. At shows, they gotta talk on their phones to their friend who's in the next aisle. I was watching this documentary on Jeff Tweedy of Wilco [Sunken Treasure]. He was playing acoustic, and he ends up screaming at the audience: "Your fucking conversation can wait. I'm up here singing a song — get involved." He wasn't being an asshole. He was like, "Leave your bullshit behind. Let's celebrate what's happening now."

We need music, and we need it good. I took it very seriously. There's a side of me where music will always send chills up my spine, make me cry, make me want to get up and do Pete Townshend windmills. In a lot of ways, I was in a minority when I was young. There are people who go, "Oh, that's a snappy tune." I listen to it and go, "That's the greatest fucking song ever. That is the song I want played at my funeral."

Now that you've brought it up, what song do you want played at your funeral?

It keeps changing. "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie. "In My Life," by the Beatles. "Love," by John Lennon.

Those are all reflective ballads, not punk.

I disagree. They are all honest in their reflection. The punk bands I liked were the ones who didn't fall into clichés — the Clash, the Ramones. The Ramones wrote beautiful love songs. They also invented punk rock. I'd have to add "Blitzkrieg Bop" to the list.

What is the future of punk rock? Will it still be a voice of rebellion in twenty years?

It's categorized in so many different ways. You've got the MySpace punks. But there is always the subculture of it — the rats in the walls, pounding the pavement and booking their own live shows. It comes down to the people who are willing to do something different from everybody else.

You are in a different, platinum-album world now. What makes you so sure that spirit survives?

I'm going on faith — because I was there. Gilman Street [the Berkeley, California, club where Green Day played early shows] is still around. And that's a hard task, because there is no bar — it's a nonprofit cooperative. It's like a commune — this feeling of bucking the system together, surviving and thriving on art. Punk, as an underground, pushes for the generation gap. As soon as you're twenty-five years old, there's a group of sixteen-year-olds coming to kick your ass. And you have to pass the torch on. It's a trip to have seen it happen so many times. It gives me goose bumps — punk is something that survives on its own.

#article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

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vagabondedlife · 4 years

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Kei Fujiwara’s name is hardly recognizable to most fans of Japanese cinema despite her crucial role in director Shinya Tsukamoto’s early cult classics. As Tsukamoto’s “right hand” woman in the 1980s, Fujiwara became closely involved in his underground theater troupe, Kaijyu Theater, and contributed to the productions of the experimental and DIY films The Phantom of Regular Size (1986), The Adventures of Denchu Kozo (1987), and Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). Her credits include actress, cinematographer, prop artist, makeup artist, and set-designer (her apartment was used as a primary set). She also engineered Tetsuo’s iconic phallic drill.

Born in Kumamoto in 1957, Fujiwara moved to Tokyo in her early twenties and discovered theater troupe director Jūrō Kara, who became her mentor. After a decade, she created her own troupe called Organ Vital, which underwent a series of evolutions but remains her life work. Her new project this year is Ibunkitan, a form of micro-nomadic theater, whose kanji characters mean “strange-listen-machine-story.” A private person now living in the reclusive mountains of Nagano, Fujiwara rarely gives interviews, but seemed excited to talk about her rarely discussed directorial debut, Organ (1996).

An avant-garde exploration of violence, pain and pleasure with an operatic amount of coagulated blood and extrasomatic body horror, Organ follows two detectives after they break into an organ harvester’s warehouse and collide with yakuza gangsters, a drugged doctor, and his eye-patch wearing sister Yoko, played by Fujiwara herself, who also produced and wrote the film. A cherished work among hardcore fans of Japanese cult cinema, Organ is still ripe for rediscovery. The film’s offerings of a full-bodied sensorial experience and an abusive questioning of cruelty prove tirelessly relevant.

Fujiwara’s work was recently revived at FFFest in New York City with a double feature of Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Organ. Fujiwara prepared a special statement that was shared as an introduction. Following the screening, we had the opportunity to speak to the artist about her life, practice, and ideals in more depth. The conversation was held over the phone in Japanese.

NOTEBOOK: Is Ibunkitan a new Organ Vital?

KEI FUJIWARA: Yes, it’s a new Organ Vital. When I was young, I lived in the rural area. I always just read theater but never had the opportunity to see state-of-the-art theater. When I was in high school, I was always reading, and I picked up an Antonin Artaud book that featured this French term. It meant the vessels of life. When translated to English, I’m told it just becomes, “vitals of organ,” or something, but in Japanese it is called gozōroppu and to me signifies the corporal. That’s the name of my theater company, and it has always been that for me. Born into this three-dimensional world with bodies, we sense and express. That’s what’s interesting in life. Ibunkitan can be done in a very small space. We’ve done it in temples, in the corner of a shop, in salons. Our first performance was in March, and we’re planning to do another in November. We've been invited to perform my new Jomon-inspired piece in a live-house in the mountains in Nagano, so we’re preparing some woodwork for that now.

NOTEBOOK: You were working in Shinya Tsukamoto’s Kaijyu Theater production between working with Jūrō Kara?

FUJIWARA: Jūrō Kara, my mentor—when I was in Jōkyō Gekijo [Situation Theatre], he took a liking to me and wrote roles for me. A lot happened, and Kara said he would make a new troupe with me, but I had other plans, so I left once, and he said, “As my mentee, you can leave but wait for me to come get you.” That’s when I went to work with Shinya Tsukamoto on his plays and films. It was after Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989] that Kara started the new troupe “Kara-gumi” and I returned to work with him.

NOTEBOOK: How was it that you began working with Tsukamoto?

FUJIWARA: I had just left Kara and after a while a friend said that Tsukamoto was looking for someone to act in his plays. He was Tsukamoto’s classmate and an actor, and he made the introduction. I found Tsukamoto interesting and talented. So, I began working diligently as his right hand after that.

NOTEBOOK: I wanted to ask you about Tsukamoto’s 1987 film, The Adventures of Denchu Kozo.

FUJIWARA: Denchu Kozo and Tetsuo were actually both shot in my apartment where I was living at the time. You know all those cats? I couldn’t rent a normal apartment, so I had to live in a cheap nagaya tenement house on the verge of getting demolished. I just needed a place to live that permitted pets. Denchu Kozo and Tetsuo’s interior shots are all at my place.

NOTEBOOK: Are the scenes projected in the TV monitor in Tetsuo from Denchu Kozo?

FUJIWARA: Yes. They’re from Denchu Kozo.

Above: Organ

NOTEBOOK: What turned you onto making Organ, if you were always only interested in theater?

FUJIWARA: That was because of my experience filmmaking with Tsukamoto. It prepared me for how arduous it would be. Theater is an impermanent art, and that’s why it’s such a luxurious art form. But film is like capturing a world in a crystal ball. The joy of creating film is like making your own universe. My staff members at the time— six men other than myself—were all talented, and I thought, “Everyone’s here, why don’t I just make it?” So, all the staff also became the actors, and that’s how we started filming. But it was so difficult at first. We used the atelier space we had and reformed it over and over and shot it like that. It was time-consuming. It became the warehouse set, the school set. It kept on transforming. We did it all in the same space.

NOTEBOOK: That seems like a very theatrical way of using space.

FUJIWARA: Yes.

NOTEBOOK: But first, you started writing it?

FUJIWARA: Yes, I first started writing it. I’m actually not very good at planning. I just think that if I put my mind to it, I can make it happen. So I wrote the script, and had the staff pool in their savings. Between the seven of us we had 200,000 yen, so I thought, “Great, if we have 200,000 yen and one reel of film is 5,000 yen, and even if we bought lights, we can make 30 minutes of footage.” As for the equipment, there are countless aspiring-filmmaker boys who have camera equipment lying around collecting dust, so we borrowed from them. As for the set, we were all used to making it for our theater. We were good at foraging free stuff to make things. That warehouse set in the beginning of Organ was made with an extremely cheap budget. Then we started filming. All those organs in that scene were worked from what was supposed to be our dinner for the day [laughs]. We used real food. We took some gelatin- and konjac-noodles and thought, “This can look like veins!”

NOTEBOOK: And then you had it for dinner?

FUJIWARA: Well, we ended up not being able to, because it was covered in fake blood! It was all about how little money we could spend and still make something, which was a valuable lesson for me.

NOTEBOOK: You’ve mentioned the Kenji Miyazawa poem, Ame ni mo makezu1.

FUJIWARA: Yes, I just really like Kenji Miyazawa. I like the way he thinks, and his philosophy. He’s a Buddhist, and as I haven’t studied Buddhism properly, I cannot say for sure, but I think his seimeikan, or view of life, is on par with that of Osamu Tezuka. Osamu Tezuka and Kenji Miyazawa are two gods with the same perspective regarding seimeikan. No matter how great their art is, Yoshihide Otomo and Hayao Miyazaki can never reach Osamu’s level. Osamu’s core is love. There’s only love. The way they think about life is totally different. I was reading manga before I was literate [laughs]. I like Osamu Tezuka, but also Sanpei Shirato. And in my teens, I liked Daijiro Morohoshi. He’s an extremely interesting person.

NOTEBOOK: Do you think that your films need to be discovered?

FUJIWARA: They need to lock in perfectly with someone’s desire to watch it, or else watching it has no meaning. It just appears as a confusing, grotesque film.

NOTEBOOK: Please tell us about your make up and special effects.

FUJIWARA: Since Tetsuo, my method is always the same. I don’t have any background knowledge of special effect makeup. I just have a gut feeling of what can and can’t be used. Tsukamoto had these drawing storyboards for Tetsuo, like the steel body and the drill penis. For the latter, Tsukamoto just wanted to make something simple and said it would be enough if we could just pretend like it was moving, but I thought it would only be interesting if it actually moved. I didn’t have any hi-tech skills, so I thought, “That’s it!” I took the nearest working electric fan, dissembled it down to its core, used all the rubber and tape I had at home, sprayed it up and got it to go, vroom [laughs]! It was the same for Organ. I used household products, mostly kitchenware.

Above: Organ

NOTEBOOK: What about your cinematography?

FUJIWARA: I had no background knowledge. The first time I started shooting was on Tsukamoto’s set. A lot of people who graduated film school and wanted to help were there, but Tsukamoto didn’t trust any of them. Just because you have technique doesn’t mean you can shoot well. He thought that the person wielding the camera needs a certain amount of power, of energy. So I, who had never touched a camera in my life, was given the camera and told where to press to get it rolling, and shot all of the scenes Tsukamoto was in.

NOTEBOOK: Do you still shoot with a camera lately?

FUJIWARA: Rarely.

NOTEBOOK: As the occasion for this screening was FFFest, Female Filmmakers Festival, could you comment about your experience as a female filmmaker?

FUJIWARA: Something men don’t have—there are two types: female filmmakers who focus their perspective on their immediate surroundings and daily lives, and those who focus on creating a worldview from the even more intimate bodily perspective. That’s what’s a little different from male filmmakers. Even in theater, most female directors write familial narratives, although I don’t [laughs].

NOTEBOOK: The podcast Ladies Horror Night, on the occasion of this screening, recorded an episode that raised the question of why you, a female filmmaker, didn’t include more female characters. I’m not sure about this pressure for female filmmakers to represent female subjects, as I think there’s power in the female filmmaker re-writing the male-centric story. Can you speak on this and how you came to write the police story in Organ?

FUJIWARA: When I think about seimeikan—our view of life—it appears to me that the moral judgment of good versus bad is not something universal, but just a rule that protects our lifestyle in society. It’s a regulation. We make regulations to protect ourselves. That takes the form of “good” and “evil.” But that’s not the good and evil that holds ground in nature. Animals kill other animals for their own predation, right? Humans, too, in the context of war, can kill other humans and become heroes. The concept of zen-aku, or the notion of good and evil, is just a societal regulation. The police represent upholders of this regulation. And then there are those who defy this regulation, who lie in a realm completely different from this conventional morality. Organ is a clash between these two groups. That’s how I formed the police narrative. As for why there are few female characters, well… In the case of females, expressing them requires—for many, not all—a focus on the micro world, the micro perspective, that is, if you pay attention to their priorities. In other words, if you have a goal and you want to finish something, but she says she needs to take a bath at this certain time and cannot participate, there’s nothing you can do. In my theater, only men can keep up with me. Because of this standpoint, if a woman were to express a woman, she would need to create a micro world. But when describing a police story, a macro worldview, the direction would lose focus.

NOTEBOOK: It would become more internal?

FUJIWARA: Right. That’s why there aren’t as many female characters. But the wife of Numata represents the reality for women. And also the female teacher who approaches the criminal but gets killed. Woman participated in this way. But it’s hard for them to take leading parts for the narrative. It’s hard to let them be there and have their perspective be represented, because their perspective is in a different dimension.

NOTEBOOK: What about the character you play, Yoko?

FUJIWARA: Yoko is outside of that realm. She’s an outlier. She doesn’t represent family or the household or the joy of daily life, because she didn’t enjoy any of those things. That’s why she can exist there.

NOTEBOOK: How did you direct your actors in Organ, was it different from how you usually direct them in theater?

FUJIWARA: It’s the same. The only direction I gave them in Organ was that they only get one shot. I don’t give actors multiple takes. If there’s a camera or equipment problem that requires another take or two, I’ll do it. But I won’t do it for the actor. The actor has one chance, the take. But, on the offhand that the actor makes a mistake and requires a take two, I tell them they need to buy their own film roll. That was the rule. So, no one ever made a single mistake. They were all dead serious, completely focused. They’re all broke and have no money to buy film.

NOTEBOOK: In that sense it’s theatrical.

FUJIWARA: Right, and I had one actress tell me that that it was brilliant. She said, “I do lots of work for TV and film, but everyone is so lukewarm and they do take after take, and think about it so leniently. But there’s none of that here. The one take is the real thing.”

NOTEBOOK: So, that urgency was good for the actors?

FUJIWARA: Right. They said they couldn’t afford to buy their own film.

NOTEBOOK: If you give theater actors the same direction for film, how does that work? The performances in Organ don’t come off as exaggerated; I doubt a viewer without knowing would assume they are all theater actors.

FUJIWARA: There’s no difference. In theater, my scripts are like music scores. The lines come out and dance, modulate, sing, calling on the innate sensation playing the instrument that is yourself on stage. The actor, with this music-score-as-script, has a multitude of possibilities of how to play it. In film, the scripted character is a part of the environment. They are simply material for the scene. I didn’t need to explain this to them, they naturally just became materials for the scene.

Above: Organ

NOTEBOOK: That’s a good transition into my next question: can you talk about your music and sound design direction?

FUJIWARA: Music is difficult. What I say doesn’t get across, because I was working with new people. They hadn’t even seen any of my theater. I like German bands, something strong and hard. But even if they mimic the Germans, the Japanese can’t avoid making music that doesn’t sound soft and weak. One day I said, “Make it more powerful, something that alludes to the power of nature, more animalistic and sturdily-built,” and they said, “Okay.” The demo they brought to me literally had animal sounds, like elephants wailing and dogs barking, and I was like, “…That’s not what I meant” [laughs]. It didn’t get across. But there were some interesting sound bites that I could use. But Japanese band musicians can’t get over their own softness. I think what they have is different.

NOTEBOOK: So you’re not happy with the results?

FUJIWARA: Well, I’m the type of person that thinks, que sera, sera. So I wasn’t satisfied, but…

NOTEBOOK: You’ve mentioned that you a very easily scared person. But in Tetsuo and Organ, your characters say, “I won’t be afraid.” How do you interpret this difference?

FUJIWARA: When I came to Tokyo in my twenties, the first theater directors I met said they’d never met anyone as weak and sensitive as myself. They didn’t think I could live on a few years longer, much less do theater, and that I might find myself drugged up in a brothel in the near future. Kara was the only person that ever said to me that I was the strongest person he’d met. In other words, the fear and strength that I have appears to others as a weakness that can barely withstand life, but it’s just my highly sensitive nature they see. In actuality, I’m very strong. I feel very easily, so that seems weak, but my capacity for empathy is just very large. I feel others’ pain and sadness so strongly that I throw up thinking about them. That’s why I don’t watch TV or read the newspaper. Or else I would be crying all day [laughs].

NOTEBOOK: Watching Organ feels like you’re making the audience feel this extreme pain you describe.

FUJIWARA: Yes, that’s the result of the film. My second film, ID [2005], is even more so.

NOTEBOOK: In addition to fear and pain, pleasure is another large theme. After the screening, someone told me your film was grotesque but something about it was so pleasurable. How do you maintain that balance?

FUJIWARA: I think humans, in order to live, can’t cut those away from existence. If you deny desire, you’re not human. The existence of such things causes our misery, too. Thus, desire and slaughter are inescapable. My fear and sorrow regarding this, and my questioning what are they anyway. That’s what I wanted to portray.

NOTEBOOK: What’s interesting about your portrayal of violence is that Yoko uses the gun as a weapon but doesn’t shoot from it. The one time she tries to shoot at her father, it wasn’t loaded. She mostly hits with it.

FUJIWARA: When I act a role, it needs to be real for me to imagine it. I can’t shoot a gun just like that. I need to feel it. Whenever I do something I feel a corporal build-up that can’t just be released by shooting away.

NOTEBOOK: Shooting it would be too easy?

FUJIWARA: An action needs to be taken. The body and the heart are connected. It’s not that easy.

NOTEBOOK: What was the biggest challenge in shooting Organ?

FUJIWARA: The most difficult challenge was the first scene, in the warehouse. When the doctor and yakuza fend off the police while trying to dissect the man. That shoot was in the middle of summer, but we had to close off the warehouse because it was a night scene. It was hot, smelly, only men, and everyone’s body odor was suffocating the room. That was really difficult. At the time there were seven of us, and now there are three of us, just Takahashi, Mori and I. In Organ, all the actors take on multiple roles. Whenever they weren’t onscreen they were doing lights or shooting. We shot it scene by scene in order. I remember towards the end of the film, during the scene in the tunnel, when my role Yoko comes in on a bike and there’s a fighting scene, we couldn’t get a permit to shoot. We were able to shoot outside the tunnel on the road but not inside. But I badly wanted to shoot inside so we went at midnight, and the characters got all bloody and we were shooting, and the police came. They thought it was a real yakuza fight and took off the safety on their pistols and were about to shoot at us. We thought we were done for. The character Yasuda, who later falls into the ditch and gets stabbed with a Japanese sword, was responsible for getting the permits and he had all the documents on him. So, he came out from the ditch all bloody and with a sword in him, screaming, “We’re shooting a film!” terrifying the police even more. While he was negotiating with them we finished shooting the scene. The police just told us to be safe and left, but it was all thanks to him for putting his life on the line. We really thought we were going to get shot. Usually film shoots have large crews and it’s obvious, but in our case, all the crew were also the actors, so it was hard to tell, and the lights were hidden.

NOTEBOOK: What about the camera?

FUJIWARA: Yes, but it was a small 16mm Scoopic, and the police were so focused on the bloody actors they didn’t notice it. The police were terrified, but it was a great location and I just needed to shoot there no matter what.

#link #in case they delete it

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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 3 years

Note

bestie!!! happy 700! you deserve it 🥳

🧣 - pls rate my favorite ts songs!

• you are in love

• right where you left me

• the 1

• dress

• that's when

thank you!! i’m so happy i found your account in the last couple of weeks, you’re amazing!!

You Are In Love

I’m obsessed with this song!! I wrote something inspired by this way back so it’s one of my faves. Jack & Taylor wrote this and they are just an amazing duo.

I adore the line “Pauses, then says "You're my best friend” And you knew what it was, he is in love”

When 1989 came out I was a freshman in HS & so it’s super impactful. I remember being in health and talking about relationships. I thought of this song and said that I want my partner to be my best friend— someone you trust and like to be around above all else. Surprisingly, my class didn’t agree but I think that some of the best romantic relationships are deep, complex friendships.

Okay that rant is over...beautiful song

Right Where You Left Me

I have so much to say about this song, it’s so haunting. I think that’s the word I’d use to describe it.

So I think that it’s a Part 2 to Champagne Problems. Like the person who got rejected is lamenting their lost lover. I also think that their ex is getting married because of the line “glass shattered on the white cloth” and that makes me think of the tradition in Jewish weddings to step on a glass wrapped in a white cloth.

Tell me, does this song remind you of Red (the album)? It seems like Red’s older sister. Maybe she was recording or diving back into the Vault songs for Red and got inspired.

Easily one of my favorite songs ever

the 1

If I had to describe this song in one word it would be nostalgia. It also reminds me of a more toned down, less flashy Wildest Dreams.

Both songs are about thinking about this one person in your past and what it would have been like for them to be...we the 1

From an artistic perspective, this song is so important for Taylor. It marks a shift in genre. Just like a lot 1989 did! It’s her stepping out into a new genre and is just so exciting for her to see what she’ll do next

The moral of this song is that sometimes it’s okay to wonder about that alternate universe. As time goes by the pain of the wounds fades away and you’re able to look back without a bitter what if, but a bittersweet what if

dress

dress is just 💕💕😘

Jemily’s song

I remember when on twt during the secret sessions Taylor’s parents left the room because they couldn’t listen to this song

It’s arguably her sexiest song

But I love it so much 💕

That’s When

SO OBVIOUSLY produced by Jack??!!! I mean do you get august vibes from it?!? Like the sound of it not necessarily the meaning .

Like I can see her making another country album

Her and Keith sound amazing together!! They harmonize beautifully and I’d kill to see this live

Def my fave vault song from Fearless TV

I wrote a That’s When fic so long ago and never posted, might post it now??

Sorry it took me so long I wanted to say something Intelligentish about each bc I love these

#700 followers #spencer reid #criminal minds

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thecoleopterawithana · 5 years

Note

Your quote: "So perhaps, when in 1989 Paul asks “Did I ever take you in my arms, look you in the eye, tell you that I do” the part that he “never did” was the latter"( with John according to your perspective??)--I saw a video where Paul says he's talking about how the workaday life meant he sometimes took marriage and Linda for granted--like we all do our spouses at times--and that was why he wrote that song. Your take please? Respectfully inquiring--thanks!

Hello, anon dear. Thanks so much for your respectful request! Especially considering that every opportunity I get to talk about “This One” is a personal pleasure.

I believe the video you were referring to is this one (eheh), where correspondent Bernard Goldberg interviews Paul for the TV series 48 Hours. The episode follows part of The Paul McCartney World Tour, which marked not only his first major tour outing in ten years, but also the first time in his solo career that a substantial number of Beatles songs were included in the setlist.

Paul is asked about “This One” near the 8:30 mark of the first video and his answer continues in the second part.

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Here is a transcription of the segment in question:

Q: Let me ask you about one of the new songs, “This One”. Is it about a marriage?

Paul: A relationship, yeah.

Q: And about, not expressing emotions and feelings?

[Paul performing “This One”]

Paul: You get those moments, sort of late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think, “Oh, you know, it’d be great to kind of— I hope I tell her I love her enough, and all that.” And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [yawns] “Okay, goodbye, love you!”, and so on. And, you know, life’s like that. And there’s never kind of enough time to— If you like your parents for instance, to tell them, “God, just what you meant to me.”

[Paul performing “This One”]

Paul: You always think, “Well, I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day.” And what happens with a lot of people is— Something like John, for instance, getting back to that subject. He died.

I was lucky. The last few wee— months that he was alive, we’d managed to get our relationship back on track. And we were talking and having real good conversations. Real nice and friendly. But George, actually, didn’t, I don’t think, get his relationship right. They were arguing right up to the end. Which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, you know, now. Take this moment to say, [hesitates] “I love you.” [Laughs] It’s not quite the same.

Now, about your question. I take you were wondering why in the post you quoted me on I used an excerpt of this song to hypothesize about a facet of Paul and John’s relationship.

Allow me to begin by saying that, as the wonderful @amoralto pointed out in the aforementioned post, one should be cautious about what kind of information we’re extracting from an art form like songs. The sources of inspiration can be multiple, and the exact meaning of the piece elusive even to its author. So it’s probably best to be prudent about taking the lyrics too literally or extrapolating the entire song as to be about a single situation/person.

Nevertheless, there are still certain patterns and themes that keep emerging, and I am curious about examining those. And being songs one of the places where they more openly communicated and truly laid bare their feelings, I believe the tumble down the rabbit hole of speculation might be worth it, just to see what we may find there.

As Paul put it:

The idea is that what I’ll leave behind me will be music, and I may not be able to tell you everything I feel, but you’ll be able to feel it when you listen to my music. I won’t have the time or the articulation to be able to say it all, but if you enjoy composing you say it through the notes.

Of course, John also said:

When Paul and I write a song, we try and take hold of something we believe in – a truth. We can never communicate 100 per cent of what we feel, but if we can convey just a fraction, we have achieved something. We try to give people a feeling – they don’t have to understand the music if they can just feel the emotion. This is half the reason the fans don’t understand, but they experience what we are trying to tell them.

So maybe we can experience the emotion they infused the song with, but not always be able to understand the circumstances that gave rise to it in their own lives.

To find that last crucial piece of the puzzle, one has to truly contextualise the song. And that’s where all the other more tangible sources of information come in, such as quotes and timelines.

Of course, drawing conclusions from any kind of data is, in itself, an interpretation. And an inescapably personal one at that.

The only way to approximate objectivity is through critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Continuously question your own assumptions and those of others, and don’t be attached to any one answer. Be willing to change your views based on new information and be open to considering new perspectives. I find that input from others is invaluable in drawing my attention to an angle I’d previously missed. For if our personal experiences sometimes blind us to certain facets of the subject we’re examining, they also give us a more intimate understanding of other sides of it, as we’ve walked in those same shoes before and know precisely what it feels like.

What I essentially mean with this disclaimer is that this is my current interpretation of the information. And my answers are usually so slow and long (my apologies) because I try to provide the data so that you can draw your own conclusions.

That settled, here is how I interpret Paul’s explication of “This One”.

The interviewer begins by asking if the song is about a marriage and Paul sightly corrects him that it’s about a relationship.

Then Goldberg posits his theory regarding the theme: “not expressing emotions and feelings.” And Paul goes on to explain, in his usual inclusive and generalising fashion:

You get those moments, sort of late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think, “Oh, you know, it’d be great to kind of— I hope I tell her I love her enough, and all that.” And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [yawns] “Okay, goodbye, love you!”, and so on.

He uses the second person to emphasize how the reporter must share his feelings — ‘you know what I mean, right?’ — thus making his experiences not only more relatable and perceivable, but it also slightly removes the focus from himself. You put it best when you said, “like we all do […] at times.”

He does start by giving the example of an apparently marital routine. And though it could have been chosen as something the interviewer would more quickly relate to, it may also be that he had difficulty “expressing emotions and feelings” in his marriage with Linda. He has spoken of such hurdles in his relationship with Nancy, which he expressed in his 2013 hidden track “Scared”.

Well, I’m just like anybody else, man! You know? You get those moments. I don’t normally write about them; but it’s a good thing to use. I was feeling it, as well. I was newly in love with Nancy, and I was finding it a little difficult to say, ‘I love you.’ Number one, I’m a guy, and that’s a big excuse, I know, but it is a bit true to form…

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

So I slightly disagree with your assessment that the song is about “how the workaday life meant he sometimes took marriage and Linda for granted”. I don’t think he took his relationship with Linda for granted as much as he was unable to openly express how much it meant to him. He got inundated by “those moments” of love and appreciation, but then kind of used the hustle and bustle of everyday life as an excuse not to dwell on the discomfort of having to confess them.

I think it’s perhaps more accurate to say that the matter of “expressing emotions and feelings”, particularly actually saying “I love you”, is something that Paul has struggled with all his life and pervaded most of his relationships.

He even goes on to give the example of his parents, and how he wished he’d tell them, “God, just what you meant to me.” Which is a similar phrasing to the one he uses in “Scared”, more than two decades later:

I’m scared to say I love you / Afraid to let you know / That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth / Though I’m dying to let them go / Trying to let you know […]I’m still too scared to tell you / Afraid to let you see / That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth / Though I’m dying to set them free / Trying to let you see, how much it means to me / How much you mean to me / How much you mean to me now

But the relationship in which this theme of not expressing emotions and feelings seems most stark, at least as Paul expressed it publicly and in his music, is in his relationship with John.

He puts it quite plainly in another quote about “Scared”:

Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song. It would be a bit like Keith Richards saying to Mick, “I love you.” I mean he does, but I’m not sure he’s going to say it. I’m sure the Gallaghers love each other on some level, probably quite deeply, but that certainly isn’t going to get said soon. I think it’s quite an interesting subject and I felt it most recently with [wife] Nancy, I knew I loved her but to actually say, “I love you,” you know, it’s just not that easy.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).

Note that even here, in a quote about a song he wrote for Nancy, he harkens back to his experiences with having difficulty saying “I love you” to John.

Paul even mentions that it’s easier to do it “when you’re a bit drunk” — I want to tell her that I love her a lot / But I gotta get a bellyful of wine — which seems to be a reference to “the night we cried”. That night in Key West in 1964 was an “important emotional landmark”, not only because they exposed themselves emotionally by crying, but they also may have actually said the big ‘I Love You’.

One night, we got pretty drunk and argued and laughed, and it ended up us both crying, because it was, you know at the height of your drunkenness, when you’re all, “Hey man, I love you, man. No, I love you, man.” That was probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other. It’s a male machismo embarrassment thing. I mean, you might say to a girl, “I love you”, but in my case, within the group, The Beatles, it would have been difficult, even though we all did love each other. You just all had to be guys to the full. We were all rough, tough cream puffs.

— Paul McCartney, interview with the Daily Mail (4 June 2016).

He attributes his difficulty to a “male machismo embarrassment thing”, and that he could say “I love you” to a girl but not to his mates. But in his 2013 interview for The Guardian, he also points to the fact that he is a guy to explain his difficulties verbally expressing his love Nancy.

But adding to the “stiff upper lip” imposed on northern lads, Paul himself is especially guarded about his feelings:

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, they’re innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

More than the pleasure associated with creating something out of nothing — “songwriting is like sex” — music also offers the utter relief of unburdening Paul of his feelings, which he finds great difficulty in exorcising in a more direct way:

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

There was an inescapable need to come out, be real, and say to John, “I love you”; even if he has to “write it to the great record player in the sky”.

Because more than speaking of a fear of expressing emotions and feelings in Paul’s day to day life — like in “Scared” — “This One” is clearly about the regret of doing it too late:

[L]ife’s like that. And there’s never kind of enough time to— […] You always think, “Well, I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day.” And what happens with a lot of people is— Something like John, for instance, getting back to that subject. He died. […] And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, you know, now. Take this moment to say, [hesitates] “I love you.” [Laughs] It’s not quite the same.

Even with his usual emotional distancing by projecting onto George and using “we” instead of “I”, Paul plainly explains the song is about cautioning people to take this moment to say “I love you”, at the risk of having time ran out on them as it happened with him and John.

And one can see how determined Paul is to get this message spread, as he often reiterates it when introducing “Here Today” in concerts — a song written in part out of his need to clearly say “I love you” to John — a frequent presence in his live performances for the last 20 year.

youtube

Paul McCartney’s One on One World Tour in Detroit, Michigan, at Little Caesars Arena on October 2, 2017.

Paul: One of the other things I say on our shows is that sometimes you want to say something really nice to someone, or pay them a compliment, or you feel a bit shy and a bit embarrassed, so you think, “Ah, I’ll say it tomorrow.” You put it off to another day. You know, you can put it off. And sometimes that’s too late; you’re too late. I wrote this next song after my dear friend John who passed away. Let’s hear it for John! And you know, when you’re kids, particularly — I mean, when we first started the Beatles we were in our early twenties, kind of thing — and you’re a bunch of guys, up in Liverpool at that time… There’s no way you’re gonna say to each other, “Hey, I love you, man.” It just didn’t happen, you know. You just didn’t say things. But you know, when [unintelligeable] we didn’t say it, so when John died, you know, I wanted to kind of say it somehow. So this next song is in the form of a conversation we didn’t get to have.

The fact that Paul has often connected the theme of not verbally expressing his feelings, and in particular of being too late to do it, to his relationship with John, is what led me use “This One”, in that post and in others, as an expression of that dynamic between them.

In the post you quoted me on in specific, I say that perhaps the part that they “never did” was outright “tell” each other “that I do [love you]”, given that they have embraced — “take you in my arms” — and made intense eye contact — “look you in the eye.”

The song is basically a love song – did I ever say I love you? And if I didn’t it’s because I was waiting for a better moment… ‘There could never be a better moment than this one…

— Paul McCartney, in “Club Sandwich 52, Summer 1989″.

Paul goes on to repeat this sentiment of emotional frankness in the rest of the verse: “Did I ever open up my heart / Let you look inside?” A phrase that, in my opinion, so aptly encapsulates the issues Paul brought to the relationship, that I use it as a title for Paul-centered posts in the Don’t Let Me Down | Trust Issues series.

But to be honest, the thing that really convinced me that song was about him and John, was a moment in this session:

youtube

After singing the lines “Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile”, Paul mimics one of John’s characteristic smiles, as the wonderful @vairemelde illustrated in this post.

With all that said, it appears that all there is to do is to appreciate this wonderful piece of music.

Did I ever take you in my arms, / Look you in the eye, tell you that I do, / Did I ever open up my heart / Let you look inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile, / Did I ever knock upon your door / And try to get inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

What opportunities did we allow to flow by / Feeling like the time it wasn’t quite right? / What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm, / Couldn’t I have given you a better life?

Did you ever take me in your arms / Look me in the eye tell me that you do? / Did I ever open up my heart, / Let you look inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

Tangents

I’m Scared To Say I Love You

What About The Night We Cried

Did I Ever Take You In My Arms

The Surrealist

#asks me why #This One #For you were in my song #Did I Ever open up my heart and let you look inside?#look you in the eye #Scared #Here Today #her majesty #Songwriting is like psychiatry #'i love you'#what about the night we cried?#the person i actually picked as my partner #macca #johnny #Linda #Nancy #solo #meta #my stuff

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letterboxd · 4 years

Photo

Locked In.

The director of new documentary Spaceship Earth on snark, queer cinema, the survival of our species, and the ten films he’d take into a biosphere.

In 1991, eight people entered a vivarium to conduct a two-year experiment on whether humans could become fully self-sufficient inside a closed system on this—or any other—planet. Calling themselves the Synergists, the small collective, led by a charismatic chap named John Allen, had backgrounds in theater, art, science and business, and they became media superstars for a short period of time.

With much of the world sheltering in place in cramped apartments, many of us can only dream of being locked-down inside a human-scale terrarium complete with lush gardens, creative friends and a cook as inventive as Biospherian Sally Silverstone. Biosphere 2, which still stands on a ranch in Arizona, looks really inviting right now.

But there are complexities, tensions and controversies in an experiment like this, as documentarian Matt Wolf explores in his new film Spaceship Earth, which blends fantastic archive footage and present-day interviews to bring those two years to light.

Biospherians (left to right): Bernd Zabel, Taber MacMullen (top) Mark Van Thillo, Jane Poynter, Linda Leigh, Roy Walford (middle), Abigail Alling and Sally Silverstone (bottom) posing inside Biosphere 2 in 1990. / Photo courtesy of NEON

Wolf talks with Letterboxd’s editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood about the lessons we can learn from the Biospherians amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the ten films he’d take into a biosphere with him, and the dangers of ignoring young people.

How (and where) are you during this pandemic? Matt Wolf: I’m doing well. I’m in my living room in the Lower East Side of New York, where I am every day, and I’m doing okay because I'm throwing myself into this film release. It’s been a real relief to have something to do instead of just reading the news and being trapped at home. The timing is uncanny, but I’m seizing the moment. I’m very happy to be participating and doing lots of virtual events and promoting the film so that people will watch it, because I hope that it will give some perspective for what we’re going through.

That’s the next obvious question: how did your work on Spaceship Earth prepare you for this extraordinary moment, and what advice do you have for those of us sheltering in our own tiny biospheres? It’s funny. My producer Stacey Reiss says the Biospherians were in their world for two years; we were in our filmmaking bubble for two years, too. And so, we could relate in that way but we never thought we would relate so vividly to that experience. And I think, you know, talking to the Biospherians, something that they relayed was that it really was a transformative experience, because they were responsible for creating their own atmosphere, for producing the food they needed to eat, and they really couldn’t take anything for granted—even a breath of fresh air. So when they came out they felt a renewed connection to the larger world, and a different sense of responsibility and consequence for their actions.

I hope that in some ways we all feel transformed by this experience, and it allows us to engage with the world in a different way, because we’re going to have to think and act differently now that we really understand in a visual sense how fragile the world really is.

The exterior of Biosphere 2. / Photo courtesy of NEON

Yes, it feels like the Earth is breathing. It’s such an interesting time. Yeah. I think we need to make a connection between climate change and what’s happening now. If we don’t change how we behave, the threat of long-term catastrophe is inevitable. Not to take this to a dark place, but it’s true.

From a filmmaking perspective, we’re living in a time where, with social media and smartphones, we are creating our own content every second of every day. One thing that’s endlessly fascinating about archive-based films like yours, is how lucky we are to have had people—who were not necessarily filmmakers themselves—document these extraordinary experiences. What was it like when you first started diving into that footage? I’m actually always on the lookout for stories that have a strong basis in archival material that can help activate them and bring them into the present. I was certainly determined to tell this story; it was extraordinary and I knew there was a great deal of media coverage. But when I went to meet the Synergists at their ranch, I was brought into this temperature-controlled room that had hundreds of 16mm film canisters, analog video cassettes, thousands of images; it was astonishing that they had had the foresight to not only document what they were doing but also to preserve it in such a meticulous way.

To me it was an indication that they recognized that what they were doing was history, but also kind of poignant because nobody had taken an interest in that archive and tapped into it, so it felt like an incredible opportunity, but also a responsibility as well. It would have been a much less potent film had we not had that material as well as the video diaries that Biospherian Roy Walford shot inside.

For me, it is unprecedented to be able to tell a story—particularly a story with so many narrative twists and turns—that has archival footage that covers literally every beat of the story. I don’t expect that to happen often in my filmmaking career! This was an extraordinary situation.

Biospherian Linda Leigh and tourists. / Photo courtesy of NEON

Okay Matt, you’re heading into the Biosphere, with no internet, and you can only take ten films with you. What are the films that you’d pack to take? To help you choose, we’ll give you some guidelines. What’s the movie you’ve watched the most? I would say the movie I’ve watched the most, ever, is Todd Haynes’ movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. It was a movie made with Barbie dolls about Karen Carpenter’s life. I have just watched that movie over and over and over again, and it’s a bootleg movie because the Carpenter estate suppressed it. It’s one of those things made of lore, in which people exchanged low-quality file transfers, and I got my hands on a high-quality restoration recently. I love showing it to people who haven’t seen it, and it’s a total joy to watch that movie. That is the movie that I would definitely need to have access to if I could never see anything again.

Can you name a favorite documentary; one that has meaning for you? Every once in a while I watch this documentary that really is in some ways my favorite. To me it’s like taking a bath to watch this film, a bath for my brain. It’s called A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake. I’ve only been able to find it on YouTube; it’s not in distribution. I’m a fan, but the film is just made in such a delicate and visually precise way. It represents the type of filmmaking that I really love. It’s seemingly straightforward as a documentary, but I think in its subtlety it is really just a soothing and absorbing film.

What’s the film you’d take to entertain your fellow Biospherians on a Friday night? One of my favorites from when i was a kid that I think would be fun to watch on a Friday night is Troop Beverly Hills. If you want just like cotton candy, that would be my version of that.

Shelley Long and her Wilderness Girls in ‘Troop Beverly Hills’ (1989).

A film for the inevitable long, lonely, insomniac nights? If I was feeling depressed and lonely, and like really leaning into those feelings of isolation, maybe like Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. I remember that as being a film that was at once devastating but also comforting. Just about human connection and human alienation. I just think it’s so deep and true.

What about a film that you like to impress people with because of the way it looks, or makes you feel? One of my favorite movies that I just love to show to people because it’s so amazing—well, there’s two that fit into that category, movies that are fun to show people because they are unbelievable and true. One is Hail the New Puritan by the artist Charlie Atlas. It’s a documentary about Michael Clark, a kind of punk ballet dancer from London in the 80s, who collaborated with Leigh Bowery and The Fall. Charlie, the filmmaker, made it in the model of A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles vehicle, and it follows this gay punk ballet dancer on his nightlife and pseudo-celebrity adventures through 80s punk London.

And then my other film that is too good to be true is A Bigger Splash [the 1973 Jack Hazen documentary, not the 2015 Luca Guadagnino feature], which is a similarly constructed documentary about David Hockney that feels like a fiction film staged with all the characters from his orbit during the height of his popularity in swinging London. It’s such a great depiction of an artist’s life and it’s completely baffling how the filmmaker was able to generate such access and to construct a film that feels so dramatized.

What film has had the biggest impact on you, whether for its meaning or for its execution? One of the films that had a big effect on me and that I really think the communal experience is central to, is Derek Jarman’s film Blue. He made it when he was dying of AIDS and it’s a lush soundscape with a kind of like non-linear stream of thoughts coming from Derek Jarman, and a beautiful soundscape, with material from Brian Eno. It’s a feature-length film where the screen is just blue. Every time that film screens in the cinema, I take the opportunity to go because it’s almost a religious experience. A cinematic religious experience. I feel really moved by it but it also is something to share with other people, in an unusual way.

And a film that’s stuck with you since you were young? American Family—the documentary series that gave birth to reality TV. In the 1970s Alan and Susan Raymond made this epic PBS cinema-vérité series that followed this upper-middle-class San Diego, Californian family. In one episode, their son Lance Loud moves to New York and is living at the Chelsea Hotel and his mum comes to visit and he comes out of the closet. It is a unique, different world, many of the Andy Warhol superstars are there. It [felt like] the first time a gay person had appeared on television and the drama unfolds over many episodes.

It was this huge controversy, people thought they were disgusting and perverse for putting their lives on television like this, but it also is kind of mundane and boring, just like a lot of the early cinema vérité, but it really laid the groundwork for what would become reality television, except it’s not constructed for the camera in the way that we expect these shows to be. I like watching serialized family stories like that, and this is the foundation of it.

What’s a recent queer film you’d take in with you? There’s this movie I was obsessed with. I just thought of it the other day: Saint Laurent, by Bertrand Bonello. It came out a few years ago and it’s a completely narcotic, kaleidoscopic biopic, and I think it’s so rare that biopics actually inhabit the psyches of their famous protagonist and that the actors don’t just feel like they’re doing pantomime. This film really captures not only the disintegrating psychology of Yves Saint Laurent, but also the context of the gay subcultures of Paris in 1970s and the 80s. It’s this super-vivid depiction of subculture, but through a very narcotic lens. I just was obsessed with that film. It’s not really considered ‘queer film’, I think it’s more considered a biopic, but to me it’s one of the more interesting depictions of queer culture in recent years.

Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent in Bertrand Bonello’s ‘Saint Laurent’ (2014).

And finally, a fond, family-viewing memory? I always loved Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite films but every time I see it, it’s like, “Oh, I get why I was obsessed with that as a kid”. I love the visual world and Gene Wilder is so bizarre and a little creepy. If you look at it as an adult there’s something kind of perverse about it, but I love a kind of analog fantasy world! So that film is, you might say, delicious.

You could say Spaceship Earth is a kind of analog fantasy world—the Biosphere itself is a living fantasy. I’m interested to know what you’d say to younger film lovers of today about what they might get out of seeing these avant-garde theater-makers-turned-Biospherians of yesterday? This film is more targeted towards younger people. I feel like there is a certain cynicism amongst adults that completely discounts young people and their ability to reimagine the world in creative ways. This is something I really dealt with in my film Teenage, the history of the invention of teenagers: adults always try to control young people. They corral the inventiveness of young people and the languages that they speak and invent. Young people all fight back, trying to define the world on their own terms, and this is really a film about a group of people who came together in their 20s and decided to reimagine and redefine, literally, a new world. There are all sorts of forces of establishment that tried to stop them and question and discount them.

We live in a world that’s pretty cynical and brings a lot of skepticism to people who try to do things differently, and I think as a 20-year-old you might see yourself in the idealism of these unusual people. Don’t you think that’s true? That, like, 20-year-olds aren’t as snarky and cynical? I feel like 20-year-olds are earnest and sincere and idealistic. Maybe I’m out of touch, but that was my experience and part of what I’ve observed in other young people.

I just feel like that ‘snarkiness’ that is often represented in the media is the cynicism that comes with the bitterness of life experience. And when you’re young and don’t have hardships and disappointments that have maybe hardened you with a certain kind of cynicism, it is possible to think more expansively and more optimistically about the world. We really need to tap into that energy. It’s not really helpful at this moment to, I don’t know, to shoot down anyone who’s trying something new. I hadn’t thought about that, but I'd be really curious what young people think of the film.

That’s a useful perspective, and makes me think of how, over the last couple of years, we have seen so much grassroots activism from young people, and now with the global lockdown there’s been a quieting of the youth climate movement, at least out there on the streets. You’re totally right. It was this big loud wave of activity and now with the pandemic it has really been washed over. But what they're talking about is long-term consequences, and if we don’t address the underlying issues that have related to the collapse of our society as a result of uncontrollable environmental factors, the survival of our species is threatened.

Related content

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20 Films for Earth Day 2020

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‘Spaceship Earth’ is available for virtual screenings and on streaming services now. Our thanks to NEON.

#matt wolf #spaceship earth #biosphere ii #biospherians #john allen #documentary #queer film #queer filmmaker #letterboxd #NEON #virtual screening

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biofunmy · 5 years

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The best TV of the decade? It’s a lot to sort out.

Impossible, really — and, at first pass, my picks for best shows of the 2010s wouldn’t look much different from most other critics’ lists: “Breaking Bad,” “The Americans,” “Game of Thrones,” “Twin Peaks: The Return,” “Veep,” “The Good Wife,” “Transparent,” “Atlanta,” “Fargo,” “The Crown” — that’s 10, right? Hit “send” and let’s get on with life.

But perhaps there’s another way to approach this stretch of much-too-much TV, and instead categorize the shared qualities that separated the decade’s very best shows from the heap of mediocre ones. That way, we can talk about this extraordinary period of scripted dramas and comedies without starting one last argument about where they rank.

I know readers only have time anymore to read lists, but bear with me. Here are the best kinds of shows we watched over the last 10 years. Many of them belong to more than one category — a sign of their greatness.

Anxiety-makers

These would be your nail-biters, seen mainly on prestige cable, often on Sunday nights.

Why we gorge on these cliffhanging, often upsetting dramas on the night we most need to rest up for the week ahead, I’ll never know, but we went to bed desperate over characters and story lines we couldn’t control: In AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” probably the decade’s finest work of story engineering and execution (and yes, I’m aware it premiered in 2008), when will Hank Schrader (or Skyler White) finally catch on that Walter White is the meth kingpin of New Mexico? Some of those close calls (the train episode!) and slow-building conflicts were almost too hard to take.

The decade’s other great adrenaline-producer, FX’s “The Americans,” aired on Wednesday nights, where the panic attacks seemed more manageable. How long would it take FBI agent Stan Beeman to figure out that his friendly neighbors, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, were deeply embedded KGB spies? How much does Paige know? Will they outlast the Cold War? Showtime’s “Homeland,” meanwhile, neatly bundled our post-9/11 anxieties with the mental problems of a CIA agent who thought she could save the world.

These are but three shows that gave America’s TV addicts a strong case of the jitters. Others tried and sometimes came close. I started out the decade worrying way too much about Rick and the other doomed survivors of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (until I gave up on them entirely a few years ago), but the show’s success is notable for its stress-inducement, which was so strong that the network started an aftershow, “Talking Dead,” to help audiences cope with the latest gory developments.

Immersive portraits

These were some of my favorite shows, broadly defined by the word “dramedy” (because they were sometimes intensely funny), but better described as character studies, portraiture — of characters I’ll never forget: Amy Jellicoe in HBO’s “Enlightened,” followed by Hannah Horvath in “Girls.”

Many shows in this category can in some ways be regarded as selfies. Louis C.K., who quickly became persona-non-grata, nevertheless triumphed with “Louie,” which made it possible for similar shows to act as a mirror that not only reveals a personal nature, but a universal quality that potentially can be shared by the audience. I’m thinking here of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” (FX), Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” (Netflix), Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag” (along with “Catastrophe”) and Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things” (FX).

This genre also, at long last, helped television achieve the diversity it had for too long failed to produce. Issa Rae’s “Insecure” (HBO) is a triumph in the way it both inhabits its creator’s viewpoint as millennial black woman, yet welcomes viewers of any sort.

To that list add Hulu’s “Ramy” and “Pen15,” HBO’s “Looking” and Comedy Central’s “Broad City” — any show where a viewer potentially discovers someone unlike themselves: different age, different background, different race. Or, more importantly, a viewer at long last sees themselves in the main character.

Washington certainly saw its uglier self in Armando Iannucci’s gloriously foul-mouthed “Veep” (HBO), the true definition of comic relief and on-point satire at a time when politics grew unfathomably absurd.

Metaphorical profundity

The best dramas in the 2010s reflected a larger message about the society that watched them — sometimes obliquely, sometimes bluntly. Despite its notably weakened final season, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has proper claim, I think, to be deemed the show of the decade, but not just because it grew so popular. It’s because how much of it seemed to eerily echo our surroundings: Climate change (and denial of it); shocking acts of violence; widespread social collapse; galling politics; extreme disparities in class and wealth; weapons of mass destruction . . . I could go on.

Timing is everything. Hulu took a 1985 dystopian novel — Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” — revved it up and released it just as the Trump administration began detaining, locking up and banning immigrants, appointed conservative judges and looked the other way at nationalist fervor. The metaphor there was almost too applicable; fortunately, the show was strong enough to withstand the hype.

Viewers learned how to find meaning in just about any show — the betters ones made it more compelling: AMC’s “Mad Men” was a beguiling search for the soul of the 20th century; CBS’s “The Good Wife” was a wicked running commentary on politics, technology and modern relationships; NBC’s “This Is Us” was (and still is) a fascinating rumination on the essence of what makes a family. (Note to all you Ancestry genealogy nuts: It’s not just DNA.)

Happy-snarky-sweet

Certain comedies just make us feel better (and also sharper, wittier — empowered, even) no matter how many times we re-watch old episodes. It’s in the camaraderie aspect, the life lessons, the archetypal arrangements, the snarkiness glossed over by group cohesion. It’s a continuation of what began in the best multicamera, studio-audience, ersatz-family sitcoms (“Cheers,” “Seinfeld”), rejiggered for a wired generation. Most of them aired on NBC: “Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” “Community,” “The Office,” “The Good Place,” “Superstore” — now joined by “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” A few others aired on other networks, giving viewers a similar satisfaction: “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS; “Modern Family,”“Happy Endings,” “Cougar Town” and “Black-ish” on ABC.

Transformative tellings

In addition to finding new narrative styles and (quite belatedly) focusing on overlooked demographics, TV turned out to be an excellent venue for recasting an old story from a fresh perspective or enlightened distance.

I’m thinking here of FX’s “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” a compelling departure from the way we popularly regarded that murder trial. It inspired others to dramatize previous events with a corrective, even courageous new viewpoint — such as Netflix’s “When They See Us,” about the unjustly imprisoned teens who were wrongly coerced into confessing to a 1989 Central Park attack on a female jogger.

Crime wasn’t the only subject in need of a remix. Both “Downton Abbey” (PBS) and “The Crown” (Netflix) succeeded because of the way they re-examine extreme privilege, without preventing us from enjoying the luxurious roll in it.

Some shows were revelatory in more subtle ways: Jill Soloway’s “Transparent” (Amazon Prime) masterfully wove a woman’s journey with the entirety of modern American Judaism, enlightening its audience to more than just the trans experience. And Showtime’s “The Affair” played with the very nature of truth, telling the story of marital infidelity from competing — and crucially different — perspectives.

Impossible puzzles and true art

If the decade in TV will be remembered for anything, it will likely be the complexity of some shows. The weirdness. The unexpected swerves. It turned its viewers into perpetual puzzle-solvers and conspiracy theorists. After beginning the decade with an unsatisfying wrap-up of ABC’s “Lost,” co-creator Damon Lindelof returned on HBO with a confounding take on “The Leftovers,” finally mastering the balance between befuddlement and momentum with “Watchmen.”

There are, finally, two standouts — and they challenged my ceaseless harangue about reboots. One was Noah Hawley’s expanded and wholly reimagined take for FX on “Fargo,” a Midwestern crime saga first seen in Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film classic.

The other was David Lynch’s long-delayed but staggeringly beautiful sequel to his 1990 TV sensation “Twin Peaks.” Critics argued, somewhat pointlessly, whether “Twin Peaks: The Return” (Showtime) was a very long film or a strangely protracted TV series.

I can settle that: It was nothing short of pure art — unexpected, absolutely original and layered with deep, trippy meaning. Of all the TV I slogged through in the 2010s, it’s the show I most look forward to someday watching again.

Sahred From Source link Entertainment

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music2liveby · 5 years

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DAY 202: Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz

Album: 5 Release: May 12th, 1998 Genre: Funk Rock

There’s been a lot of debate surrounding the topic of to what extent musical talent is genetic versus learned. Is it possible to become a virtuoso simply by dedicating the necessary hours to develop a thorough understanding of an instrument, or are there embedded properties within our DNA that already predetermine whether or not we are more inclined to be the next big thing? There’s plenty of evidence to support both sides, and I think it is fair to say that each factor can play a significant role into a musician’s skill level. Working the music industry, on the other hand, is a whole other talent in comparison. It helps to have an in through association to give you an upper hand in such a cutthroat business. If you’re looking for someone with longevity in the industry with the talent to match, look no further than Lenny Kravitz. Since 1989, Lenny has been reviving the roots of funk and soul while adding a healthy dose of rock and roll that emerged from his childhood fascination. He was the child of jazz promoter Sy Kravitz, who helped expose young Lenny to several greats such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis, as well as a majority of Motown artists that would characterize the sound of Lenny’s future success. His discovery of rock and roll came in 1975 when his family relocated from New York to Los Angeles so Lenny’s mom Roxie Roker could portray Helen Willis on the TV sitcom The Jeffersons. He became immersed with bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and the Grateful Dead, enamored by the glories of the rock and roll lifestyle. It’s only stands to reason that Lenny’s stage act would end up being a perfect blend of his father’s soulful influence with the glitz of his mother’s rock and roll lifestyle in the jungle of LA. His start in the industry did not come without a few hurdles: record execs that asked for demo tapes from Kravitz kept him in musical purgatory in regards to his race. Lenny’s music either wasn’t white enough or wasn’t black enough for labels to market his music to each respective demographic. Fed up with the prejudice, Lenny decided to independently make his own music and find a suitable label as a home. In his journey, he met Stephen Elvis Smith, the music director for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World which stared Lenny’s wife at the time Lisa Bonet. Lenny begged Stephen to shop his demo tape around record labels, and in less than a month’s time, Lenny found himself in a heated bidding war between five prominent record companies. In the end, Virgin Records shared the same excitement and passion for Lenny’s music as he did, and released his first album Let Love In to mixed feedback. Critics on one hand were happy to hear a new and emerging artist with a unique sound, while others chalked up this album as yet another lackluster attempt to revive a dead genre in the modern age. The critics did not perturb Lenny in his musical pursuit, cultivating an audience over the span of a decade with three additional releases, of which included the massively popular Are You Gonna Go My Way. Lenny’s perspective of his recording sessions was the more auxiliary and authentic instrumentation that could be used, the better. Lenny managed to resist the digitalization of music up until the turn of the century when his record sales began to decline slightly. It was time for Lenny to try something new, and his fifth album with Virgin aptly named 5 was the first album to incorporate digital means of productions like synthesizers. 5 would also be the album that helped Lenny capture his only two career Grammy awards on the backs of a rocking cover of American Woman by the Guess Who and today’s featured track that almost didn’t make it on the album, Fly Away. By the time Fly Away was written, 5 had already been sent to Virgin for completion. Lenny considered releasing his new song as a B-Side, but a friend of his listened to the track and demanded, "If you don’t put it on the album, I’m gonna be so pissed off at you." Virgin was also reluctant to add the song to the album, but included it in the end in a move that would prove crucial to the success of the album. Fly Away was one of the first songs I personally remember enjoying, in fact there exists home video of me somewhere when I was four years old dancing in my kitchen to this song on the radio. It’s got a simple riff that carries through the song, and Lenny’s energy that is shown prominently in his self-harmonization during the chorus makes Fly Away a perfect radio friendly song. It isn’t as funky as some of Lenny’s deeper cuts, but this song means so much to me in my upbringing that I couldn’t help but talk about it in retrospect a bit more. Lenny Kravitz has seen somewhat of a resurgence in the 2010s, delving back into his soul roots and using his music to evoke political consciousness. After 30 years in the biz, it’s about time you learn about one of music’s most underrated solo acts!

#Fly Away #Lenny Kravitz #5 #Funk #Rock #365songs

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davidcampiti · 6 years

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A LIFE WITHOUT STAN LEE? -- Part One

This is the first month of my life without Stan Lee alive in it.

I think it’s appropriate to post this essay today, on Stan Lee’s birthday, the first one without him actually here to celebrate it. I couldn’t bring myself to write about Stan the day he died, just shy of 96 years old, and the week and month that followed were no better. Today I can put down some thoughts.

I am a child of Stan Lee. His work with Jack Kirby and John Romita appeared in the first comic book I remember reading – the Marvel-produced America’s Best TV Comics, a 25-cent comicbook that promoted the ABC Saturday morning cartoons. It's one of the first powerful memories of childhood that have stayed with me for all this time.

Across my formative years, Stan Lee's words encouraged me to learn, to read more of everything -- not just comics. I spent much of my early years in the library and ordering Scholastic books every month through school. I read everything -- fiction, biographies, histories, science books.

Yet I grew up loving the comics that blazed brightly with his public persona and, while my parents toiled at just earning a living and staying alive, I learned much from "The Man." Stan taught me a lot about being a decent human being. It wasn't all, "With great power there must also come...great responsibility," though that was there, as well.

In recent years we corresponded a bit about the morals and messages of his words in his scripts, his Stan's Soapbox, and his many lectures and interviews. I told him we should assemble a book, Everything I Know, I learned From Stan Lee.

He wrote back -- "The paperback you suggested, 'Everything I Know I Learned from Stan Lee,' sounds like it could be funny. Especially if it consists of only one page with only one thing learned -- how to spell 'Excelsior!' Keep the faith, David. You're one of the good guys! Excelsior! Stan"

We discussed it a bit more but, soon after, Stan's eyesight worsened and he stopped answering his own mail; whoever took over had no idea what we'd been talking about. I let the idea drop.

Back when I was 12, I decided my career goal was to work with Stan Lee. Eventually, I achieved that goal but not by submitting stories in my teens and 20s but much later in my life, as an agent and book author. By the time I was 14, he'd gone from editor-in-chief to Publisher -- which meant he'd need more writers, right?

The first time I met Stan Lee and got to take a photo with him, I looked up at him and said, “Smile, and look as much like my Uncle as you can.” He laughed and gave my artist friend Scott Rockwell and me a good half-hour of his time, looking at art and answering questions. That was in 1978 – fully 40 years ago – and I remember it all as if it were yesterday. Stan was a memorable guy who could make you feel like the most important person in the room. I only wish I still had that photo; maybe Scott has it buried somewhere.

Four years later, I sold my first professional comics scripts to Pacific Comics and two years after that was writing a Superman assignment for DC with Kevin Juaire. Instead of ending up at Marvel as I’d hoped – which would’ve required moving to New York and being involved in daily office politics – I became a comics packager, then a publisher, then an agent. That’s how Stan knew me professionally, as a writer and an artist’s agent.

In early 1989, at a Capital City Distribution trade show, my Innovation Publishing was set up promoting the books we would be releasing into comics shops in a few weeks. Stan was walking by, and I suggested to my assistant Paul Curtis that we should invite Stan to dinner. He ran over, asked, and Stan said yes! He not only brought along Carol Kalish and regaled us with two hours of stories about life at Marvel, Stan insisted that Marvel pay for the meal! Nobody thought to bring a camera, but the memories stayed with us. As I recall, Steve Sullivan, Paul Curtis and his girlfriend Amy, and I were the happy Innovation team at that dinner. Kevin VanHook came on the trip but was elsewhere at that time. He made up for it later at a party by chatting on a couch with Stan and later dancing with Carol.

In the '90s, Stan and I would chat at every opportunity at conventions.

When Marvel released a limited edition hardcover reprint of his 1947 book Secrets of the Comics, I decided to give in to my fannish impulses and use its endpapers as my autograph book.

Stan, of course, was the first to sign it in 1996, and a batch of Silver Age stalwarts followed.

By then we made it a point to get photos together every year across two decades. It was a clear timeline of the both of us getting older.

As the internet blossomed, I helped Stan a little when he first joined AOL. He asked me how AOL Instant Messenger worked, how to turn it on when he wanted to communicate and off when he didn’t want to be bombarded with Messages, and so on. Another time, an article he wanted to read was behind a login/password, and he asked me help get him through that. It tickled me to help Stan “The Man” with such basic web-things.

From the mid-'90s through the early 2000s, Stan would call the Glass House offices about once a month to ask for my perspective on what was going on in the comics biz, since we dealt not only with all the Marvel editors but everyone else as well. Real conversations, not the "'Nuff said, Pilgrim!" stuff. He'd graciously take an extra few minutes to chat with my assistant Graeme, who loved talking to his childhood icon.

Around 1997, Marvel's savvy publisher asked Glass House to create two dozen project proposals for a line of second-tier titles that my company would package. We ended up over-achieving and submitted 28 of them -- one of them for the first-tier Fantastic Four that I understood we had little chance of getting, but I had to try. The art was Joe Bennett's doing a Kirbyesque style.

Stan was kind enough to read over my FF proposal/outline and fine-tune my dialogue for the pages, before I submitted.

Likely worried about how an outside packager controlling so many titles would affect his own position, the editor-in-chief buried all 28 projects until, two years later, he assigned an editor to reject every proposal outright; that editor told me my FF dialogue didn't capture the essence of the characters -- not realizing the words were Stan's.

(Sidebar: It was so ridiculous, that editor even rejected a proposal that another Marvel editor already saw, bought, and published!)

When Meryl and I got married in 2001, Stan sent us a gift -- a lemon cake and a note saying he wished he could've made it to the wedding. We still have the note; we ate the cake.

In 2006, Stan's POW! Entertainment launched Who Wants to be a Super-Hero? on The Sci-Fi Channel, and my Glass House Graphics contributed all the cover artwork for both seasons of the TV show. We even drew the comicbooks that starred both winners -- Matthew Atherton and Jarrett Crippen, both of whom became our friends.

When my friend, then-GHG artist Will Conrad, worked with him on the Dark Horse Feedback comic book, Stan took the time personally to choose Will out of our roster of artists, and to phone him in Brazil for a long talk before sending him the plot. (And yes, it was a full page-by-page plot.) They spoke several times during Will's month working on the book, each time helpful and upbeat.

The second book, with The Defuser, was more problematic. The network and producers weren't honoring their commitments to the winner, so I reached out to Stan who said, "I don't see any compelling reason to bother doing it, since we weren't renewed for a third season." I replied, "Because you said you would? Because you have the power to do it, and with great power there must also come great responsibility?" He made it happen, and Glass House Graphics's Kajo Baldissimo did the art.

We also drew the box art and insert comic books for multiple DVD animation projects that POW! released, with art by GHG's fabulous Fabio Laguna.

Stan always made time to meet privately with my artists, and my family, for which I was always grateful.

Of course when Comics Buyer’s Guide published a big feature issue for Stan’s 75th Birthday, I contributed an essay and hired the great Marie Severin to do a caricature cover for it and sent Stan a giant print of the art.

Around the time of Stan's 90th birthday celebration, I had Tina Francisco create a new birthday cover for Comics Buyer's Guide, and I penned a long article about him, too.

Of course, we sent to Stan a poster of the color art, and he sent back this card -- as always, written in his own handwriting.

TO BE CONTINUED -- IN PART TWO!

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superkickingit · 5 years

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Kelsi Likes 90s Nickelodeon

Full Video:

youtube

Go to the bottom of this post to see all of my 90s Nickelodeon recommendations including documentaries, books, videos, podcasts, and more!

Recently, I decided to start a weekly show called “Kelsi Likes.” The title is an anagram! Each episode is about a different topic with only one thing in common...that I LIKE it!

I’ll be doing episodes on wrestling, cartoons, my favorite movies, horror, my love of Halloween, tv shows, characters, my love for the 90s and so much more!

But the first episode is about something very near and dear to my heart...

90s Nickelodeon <3

Now it’s important to note that there had been a few unique and out-of-the-box children’s shows BEFORE this time period, such as Pee Wee’s Playhouse (CBS 1986-1990 with reruns throughout the 1991). In my personal opinion, I can imagine that this show had a huge influence on American children’s television in general. It was hip, fun, and it had animation combined with live action. It also became very popular among college-aged adults. At the time of its airing, it was a cultural phenomenon.

I haven’t found any written evidence to support this statement, but I think that this show could have easily influenced Nick’s new direction in the 90s. Nick wanted to go into a “creator driven” direction with their new animation department, and Pee Wee’s Playhouse was very much creator driven (Paul Ruebens). The art of the playhouse compared to the art style of Nickelodeon studios, Nickelodeon’s graphics, and Nickelodeon’s colorful style all seem very similar. And both Nickelodeon and Pee Wee appealed to adult audiences. Not to mention one of Nick’s first animated undertakings - Rugrats - used the same music producer as Pee Wee’s Playhouse: Mark Mothersbaugh. Regardless of any actual influence or not, there are similarities between Nick’s style and the style of Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

Overall, the 90s, more so than the 80s and earlier, marked a great time for children’s television, specifically cartoons. It was a time when television was changing - there was a “show about nothing” and sitcoms that tackled emotional issues that hadn’t been breached before (i.e. Roseanne, Boy Meets World, etc.).

But you now also had non-toy driven, stylistically different animated series. A big part of that particular change, marked by a shift in style and attitude, was implemented and influenced by Nickelodeon.

Some people argue that these overly positive perceptions of 90s Nick can be attributed mostly to nostalgia.

Nostalgia can warp a person’s perception of what is good vs what’s bad. It can make you remember something terrible very fondly because you grew up watching it. i.e. some of the attitude era’s worst parts are glossed over because of nostalgia, and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers can be really corny to try and rewatch today – but we still love it because we grew up with it.

Having said that, there are many reasons why Nickelodeon in the 90s WAS actually revolutionary, yielding some of the greatest children’s television shows of all time – regardless of the nostalgia factor.

Nick in the 90s was TV made FOR KIDS...but COOL ENOUGH that adults could enjoy it as well.

To get an adult perspective, since he watched Nick with me as I grew up, I asked my dad, “Why did you let me watch some of the shows like Ren and Stimpy and Rocko that seem like they were a little mature?”

His answer was simple, “Because I wanted to watch those shows. I liked them.” Thus proving that adults, especially lovers of animation, truly enjoyed Nick’s 90s programming.

For additional research I began reading the book “Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel for Kids.”

It provided some fascinating insight behind some of the programming decisions made by Nickelodeon to create what we now so fondly remember.

The book outlines that there was a large shift in thinking behind the scenes at Nickelodeon during the late eighties, early nineties:

In 1989, Geraldine Laybourne became network president. In “Nickelodeon Nation,” it describes an important meeting that took place at Laybourne’s house that year in which the people involved in the network mapped out the new vision for Nickelodeon and the “philosophy” used in regards to developing the Nicktoons of the 90s. It’s interesting to note that Geraldine’s husband, Kit Laybourne, was an animator. Thus, we can deduce that he had some influence on her pro-animation mindset.

A topic of conversation at that meeting was the current styles of animation that was out at the time. The executives at the meeting deduced that many cartoons of that time period “all looked alike” and that many shows used a “cookie cutter” approach to animation over artistry and creativity.

The book also states that Laybourne believed that “the best characters lived inside the hearts of their creators...”

These concepts became building blocks for the budding animation department, and a creator-driven series approach was born.

Nick then proceeded to seek out artists and independent companies who had interesting ideas and concepts for animated shows. The network then commissioned eight, five minute pilots. The goal was to use focus groups of children to screen these pilots and then it would be decided which four of the eight pilots would be turned into full-length animated series. This was an unusual approach at the time. (It was a very costly undertaking to start a pilot-based system.)

The result yielded three animated series (instead of the original plan of four) which aired in 1991: Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy and Doug. During this same time, the channel also revamped its style, bumpers, promos, etc.

I highly recommend the book Nickelodeon Nation to anyone who wants to learn more about the transformation of Nickelodeon as a network and its journey to becoming a powerhouse of children’s television as well as how the network influenced and affected popular culture. There are some really in depth articles in the book which include discussions on Nick at Nite, the live action game shows, and much more.

I put some polls out on my Twitter to gauge which shows and characters people love and remember the most:

Not only did Nickelodeon have an impact in animation history, but their live action line up was also diverse, unique, and revolutionary.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Clarissa Explains it All, Kenan and Kel, All That, Double Dare, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Guts, Salute Your Shorts, Legends of the Hidden Temple and so many other shows were staples of 90s Nick.

These shows weren’t your typical kids’ fare. In the Adventures of Pete and Pete, Little Pete’s best friend was essentially a grown man who deemed himself to be a superhero of sorts, “The Strongest Man in the World,” Artie. Not sure if that character would be included in a Nick show today. Also, Little Pete had an unexplained tattoo of an adult woman on his arm. Why were they both named Pete? It didn’t matter! As kids we didn’t care that it was weird, we just loved that weirdness and many of us “90s kids” still feel enthralled by all the strangeness. In many cases, that 90s strangeness helped shape who we are today.

Looking back now, a lot of these shows, both animated and live action, still hold up. As adults, there are new elements to enjoy that you never noticed before - the references we were too young to get, the artistry behind the animation, the music, and/or the style of every show they produced, and we can now fully appreciate, in awe, the sheer amount of slime and pies used to film all of the Nick game shows!

Another important aspect of 90s Nickelodeon was their philosophy of embracing childhood. Many Nick shows of this time period did not talk down to kids but rather emphasized the humor, creativity, imagination, the stories, and sometimes the plain silliness that kids wanted to see.

With the help of focus groups and unique, creative material crafted by inspired and invested creators I feel that Nick struck gold with its programming in the 90s.

Yes, nostalgia is still a big reason that many of us “90s kids” look back on this time with a smile and a sense longing to go back, but I think it’s clear that Nickelodeon did produce some wonderful, uniquely different content in the 90s that has since stood the test of time, has made its mark in television history, and still holds a special place in the hearts of many.

For more 90s Nickelodeon-themed content, Kelsi Recommends:

- Big Orange Couch: The 90s Nickelodeon Podcast:

Episode 100 - “Listeners’ Favorite Nickelodeon Episodes”

Episode 95 - "Favorite First Seasons"

Episode 1 - "Favorite Opening Credits"

Episode 65 - “The Adventures of Pete and Pete: King of the Road”

Follow them on Twitter

Follow them on Instagram

- The Nick Box quarterly mystery crate from thenickbox.com

Crates are filled with very unique items including Nicktoons and live action Nick-themed merchandise. All the items are of great quality, and the mystery crate is worth every penny.

- The NickRewind Channel on YouTube

Playlists and videos on all kinds of old Nick shows which includes interesting information and tidbits. i.e. Kennan and Kel Take on the Double Dare Obstacle Course; an Old Nicksclusive playlist; etc.

The Music & Sound Behind Doug | On the Orange Couch: Doug

A whole playlist on Pete and Pete called “PeteandPeteTakeover”

Fun Video about Artie

- An interesting article written by Lawrence Burney

In the article he interviewed the creator of Doug: Jim Jinkins

- “I Know that Voice” documentary on Amazon Prime

A great film about voice acting. It was released in 2013. 150 interviews of producers, animators, and voice actors were conducted for this film. There were rumors of a release of a series of the same name that would expand on the documentary. It was supposed to be released in 2018, but I couldn’t find any other information on it.

- theadventuresofdannyandmike.com

The actors from Pete and Pete have their own podcast

They also do nostalgia tours

- Nick Animation Podcast

Episode 49 - “The Making of an Iconic Theme Song”

Episode 31 - “E.G. Daily”

- Book: Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel for Kids.

Buy on Amazon

Book Review

- Book: Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age

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atomictiki · 6 years

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What other Eighties cartoons were/are you into?

Well now that’s an interesting question. I’ll constrain myself to cartoons that were made in the 80s versus those that were shown ad nauseum in the 80s that I kinda loved (sorry Spider-Man ‘67). Obviously excluding The Mighty Orbots which I assume spawned this question.

Belle & Sebastian

Long before they were a hipster band the original story by Cécile Aubrywas brought to the small screenthrough the anime lens of TOHO animation,Keiji Hayakawa, as a kid I often got it confused with…

Heidi: Girl of the Alps

Again a Japanese produced European story brought to Canada via the Netherlands, I believe Hayao Miyazaki was involved with this one, shown on TVO in my formative years. This may explain my future love for Lupin and Urusei Yatsura.

Astro Boy

The 1980s Astro Boy (Mighty Atom) was legendary for many reasons, mainly because it looked amazing compared to most contemporary shows and also because it had a sort of quaint perspective to it (it was re-telling many of the 1960s plots) it was a very upbeat show but also still very cool. As Marty McFly noted all the best stuff comes from Japan and Astro Boy was one of those things.

He-Man

If you were a boy in the 80s this was absolutely a show you would watch - it was a force to be reckoned with - nearly unbelievable that they could mess up the move so badly, I blame the movie for destroying the series. Speaking of movies that destroyed your childhood…

Transformers

Transformers was absolutely massive in 1983/4 like you can’t comprehend how big it was, I kinda get Turtlemania that happened late in the 80s but man Transformers was the shit. It had a following before it had a cartoon, that’s sayin’ something for those days

Consequently Transformers the Movie was nightmare fuel for all us kids who saw every one of our faves destroyed systematically. At the tender age of 9 I gave it a pass because I think I fell in love with Arcee. If you are a giant Princess Leia lookin’ pink robot mom please call me I love u

The Raccoons

Canada struggled for many many years with an identity crisis mainly purported by Ottawa but one of the cartoons that was quintessentially Canadian but didn’t completely reek of the NFB was The Raccoons, On CBC every Sunday before The Magical World of Disney was a little show about a messy, hockey jersey wearing trashbear named Bert (and his friends)

Inspector Gadget

Inspector Gadget was a very trippy show when I think back on it, I mean nobody really questioned his gadgets or his goofy attitude. I wouldn’t understand the references to The Pink Panther or even know who Don Adams was (Get Smart) until much later in life. It was just a constant on Canadian TV especially the first season. Penny who was voiced by the incomparable Cree Summer was the brains behind the decidedly bumbling man. Dr. Claw was one of the most iconic villains ever but not enough is said about the hilarious henchmen “you could take the north fork road……. OR you could take the south fork road…) augh good times!

Dennis the Menace

Dennis the Menace was one of those weird cartoons that was absolutely based on an American comic strip, but produced in Japan with an almost certainly European dub… I don’t remember much from that show other than watching it at every opportunity and being somewhat attracted to Alice Mitchell… I can’t explain it and I havne’t seen it on DVD ever after so … I dunno what i would think about it today. I vividly remember the intro sequence though.

Of course the 80s rolled on and things got kinda bleak for a while occasionally they would brighten up for short periods with the odd Garfield special (then later its own series) but then in 1987 the clouds parted and we were graced with…

Mighty Mouse the New Adventures

Now you can absolutely judge the likes of Ralph Bakshi and John K through the lens of history all you want but FINALLY a GOOD cartoon surfaced from the ashes of 80s garbage and was actually FUNNY??? Like honest to god your whole family would laugh at this shit hilarious?? I know plenty of people who gave this show a wide berth but goddamn it was hilarious in 1987 and it still holds up. You think Tiny Toons or Animaniacs was edgy for its time you have no idea. Heck there’s an episode where they take a dump on the crap animation that was bopping around at the same time.

And like everything else good it was cancelled for being too awesome (won’t talk about Pee-Wee’s Playhouse it wasn’t animated but it was around at the same time and given the boot for nonsensical reasons)

The 80s kinda wound down a bit, falling back into the same ol’ formulaic pablum. At this point the only real show was…

Garfield and Friends

It was edgy to the very limited degree it was allowed to be, making fun of mini-malls and disco still being dead but it worked in its very limited zone and at the time I loved it unironically however creeping in the very early hours of the day was…

The Super Mario Brothers Super Show

I used to get up at 6 AM to watch this shit and man it was super worth it, my sister would sneak into my room and we’d watch the show together on the ol’ rabbit ears at the lowest volume the dial would permit. Friday’s were special because that was Legend of Zelda day and despite not having played Zelda yet I totally fell in love with Link, Zelda, Sprite, Ganon and the rest, what a world it was back then. We didn’t get a NES until 1989 and man what a life changer that was. So many good times… eventually it lead into Captain N but that was the 90s. But what else was cookin’ at the time? Oh yeah a little cartoon by the name of …

Beetlejuice

I had seen the cable edit of Beetejuice on TV so I knew sorta what I was in for but the cartoon was just… really charming and fun. The relationship the characters had together was unforgettable and I still look back at that show with a lot of nostalgia.

Anyway this post is getting long and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things I absolutely loved (Wind in the Willows? The Real Ghostbusters? TMNT?) but I should stop before I fall into a coma or something. I highly recommend all these shows TBH

#long post

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racingtoaredlight · 3 years

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THE DEGENERATE’S GUIDE TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL TV WATCH ‘EM UPS 2021: WEEK THREE: THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END

We’re still really in the early middle of the year. Sure, Oregon looked powerful against Ohio State but it’s possible Ohio State just hasn’t found it’s footing yet and the Ducks just peaked. Shit happens like that every year, more or less. You can pretty much count on Bama to win 10 and not much else. That only applies to football. The continued stratification of social classes, the accelerating collapse of natural systems that support human life, the complete lack of representation the average American in our freedom loving democracy- you can count on those things. Football is different, though: wilder but more ordered while somehow being better and stupider than real life all at the same time. It’ll be fun to all more or less die together, I think. So let’s get to the games!

I forget the business reason for having more major OOC games that actually stay on the schedule but we’re reaping the rewards for now. You know the rules: eastern times, average vegas odds at the time of writing, prediction abilities are bad on a good day, there’s supposed to be a weekly RTARLsman post but I haven’t done a real one in about 21 months, formatting errors up to and including listing the teams incorrectly aren’t worth pointing out because nobody’s coming to fix them anyway. I don’t expect professionalism out of you so don’t ask it out of me.

Saturday, September 18

Matchup Time (ET) TV/Mobile

NIU at 25 Michigan 12:00pm BTN

It’s easy to say Michigan is due for a self-inflicted dick kick the trick is to predict ahead of time when exactly the embarrassing, season-unraveling loss will come. I don’t think it’s today but I also don’t have a lot of faith in Michigan to cover a 27-point spread.

UAlbany at Syracuse 12:00pm ACCN

I find it hard to believe Albany’s football program is in such disrepair that they don’t even warrant a line against Syracuse. I think we’ve had five 1AA-over 1A upsets so far this season. I couldn’t possibly watch this game but I’ll keep an eye out for it on the ticker. Syracuse is bad enough to lose anywhere to anybody.

Tennessee Tech at Tennessee 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+

I should probably find a site that lists the good games at the top of each time slot instead of this free for all.

Western Michigan at Pitt 12:00pm RSN/ESPN3

Pitt has actually looked pretty good so far but they don’t have an AP ranking yet. I can’t say much for this matchup so I just assume the Panthers cover the -14.5 and get a little number next to their name next week.

15 Virginia Tech at West Virginia 12:00pm FS1

This is actually of some interest to me. Virginia Tech is ranked 15 on account of beating UNC but it’s not hard to imagine that neither the Hokies nor the Heels are actually worthy of a ranking. WFV is favored at home but still might trigger some couch burning and “upset” talk with a win. The Mountaineers are this week’s new collection from Homefield Apparel so expect some magic!

Boston College at Temple 12:00pm ESPNU

Old Big East rivalry game. Nobody can look away.

Chattanooga at Kentucky 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+

I thought Chattanooga had moved up to 1A but there’s no line listed for this game so I guess not.

8 Cincinnati at Indiana 12:00pm ESPN

Indiana was good last year and maybe that was just a once-in-a-generation fluke but I’ve still got visions of the Hoosiers toppling Cincy and ruining their theoretically possible playoff run. I’m assuming the Bearcats won’t play anybody else better than IU this year but that’s just a guess backed by historical precedent which isn’t a thing you should really use to gamble on college football.

16 Coastal Carolina at Buffalo 12:00pm ESPN2

Chanticleers vs. Bulls, the eternal struggle writ in football. I don’t think the CSUNY school is particularly good this year but Coastal being favorited by 14 points in an early kickoff road games still feels like a trap to this sharp.

Michigan State at 24 Miami (FL) 12:00pm ABC

Surprisingly to me, this is the fifth all-time meeting of these two schools. Just as surprising to me, Miami has never before lost to Michigan State. Weird but makes sense if you think about it, this will be the fourth out of five matchups played in Miami. As near as I can tell, Sparty tried to use the Canes the same way Notre Dame used to as an in-season bowl game but bailed on the idea when they kept losing. To be fair, Sparty’s record in bowl games isn’t that much better than their 0-4 against Miami. The last time these two met was 1989 when Percy Snow was on his way to the Butkus Award and Miami was on their way to a third National Championship. The Hurricanes team was pretty well-stacked but is probably the least remembered of their title teams. It did feature future Hall of Famer Cortez Kennedy and a freshman OL that would go on to be September 2021′s hottest head coach in cfb, Mario Cristobal. This year’s Miami roster might look good in 30 years but right now they’re a little messy. D’Eriq King is only 8 months removed from ACL surgery (if you watch the game you will hear about this several hundred time) and has so far looked bad on his throws and a touch slower than he has in the past. Which makes sense given the timeframe but does not generally bode well for Miami’s prospects for this season.

Nebraska at 3 Oklahoma 12:00pm FOX

If Oklahoma is a real title contender they are gonna lay Nebraska the fuck out. I’m scared of the 22.5-point line just because I don’t think the Sooners defense could stop Bishop Sycamore but it’s not crazy to think Nebraska can saw their own dicks off to the tune of a four-score loss.

New Mexico at 7 Texas A&M 12:00pm SECN

Fuck. Jimbo must be stopped. I hate this Aggies team. UNM isn’t the team to do it but somebody along the way has to throttle aTm or this season is going to become a plague the likes of which we haven’t seen since... well, now, I guess.

UConn at Army 12:00pm CBSSN

Reading this matchup aloud five times in a mirror will kill college football.

Southeast Missouri at Missouri 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+

The southeastern part of the state will travel to within the bounds of the state for a classic football game somewhere within the borders of the state.

Minnesota at Colorado 1:00pm P12N

I’m not completely disinterested. It’s weird and doesn’t have any national impact. Not much more you can ask for in a game you probably can’t find on your TV.

Nevada at Kansas State 2:05pm ESPN+

Hell yeah, this is trash. Nevada is a road favorite! Take KState all the way.

Purdue at 12 Notre Dame 2:30pm NBC

Notre Dame has looked a little bit of a mess so far but they’ve won both of their games. Not the worst position to be in. Purdue has also won both of their games. I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet but it seems like the Irish are riding the razor’s edge just asking to be pushed off. Keep an eye on this score, maybe the good people of the world will have something to celebrate in the late afternoon/early evening.

Kent State at 5 Iowa 3:30pm BTN

Iowa’s fifth? It’s too fucking early for this shit.

Florida State at Wake Forest 3:30pm ESPN

0-2 Florida State goes on the road as a 4-point underdog to face 2-0 Wake Forest. Mike Norvell is really out on a plank right now and I am not sure he can safely find his way back to the deck.

Georgia Tech at 6 Clemson 3:30pm ABC

Clemson’s got talent all over and Georgia Tech sucks but I’m still not sold on DJ Uigalelei as an NFL savior type of player. Or a national championship winner for that matter. He reminds me of EJ Manuel.

Baylor at Kansas 3:30pm ESPN+

Baylor is not good but the betting public is getting hip to the “bet against Kansas every chance you get” strategy so the line has jumped four points already this week and I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes it another couple before kickoff to get to 20+. Which is still probably too kind to the Jayhawks.

1 Alabama at 11 Florida 3:30pm CBS

Bama has only had a couple of practice games against lower division opponents but they look as complete as any team I can remember from a talent/scheme perspective. This is a pretty good test and the 15-point line seems a little over-confident on the road in the Swamp. If the Bammers really do overwhelm the Gators then you can pretty much start planning on their return to the CFB Playoffs.

Tulsa at 9 Ohio State 3:30pm FS1

Every week of every year I struggle to keep Tulsa and Toledo straight. Toledo is the one that almost beat Notre Dame last week. Tulsa is the one that lost to UC-Davis in week 1. Ohio State may be troubled on defense but that only matters against other top-tier teams. Having the line moving in Tulsa’s direction is absolute lunacy. If the Buckeyes can’t cover 25 points then they’re in real trouble. For now my guess is that Oregon is just better than we realized and OSU is going to be fine.

SMU at Louisiana Tech 3:30pm CBSSN

This is my kind of counter-programming if nothing else is close. Not sure if there are some ponies down to have points shifting towards the Karl Malones but I think SMU is up to a two-score win.

LIU at Miami (Ohio) 3:30pm ESPN+

Sure, whatever you say.

USC at Washington State 3:30pm FOX

At first I thought this was USC-UW and I was ready to emotionally invest in the drama but it’s just Wazzou. USC giving up on a playoff spot in week two to sit around and wait for Urban Meyer is going to be fucking hilarious when the Trojans end up getting jilted at the altar.

Idaho at Oregon State 3:30pm P12N Oregon

Pac-12 Network Oregon. This implies the existence of a P12N Washington. I’ve seen the main network on TV before. It was fine if a little bit too “featuring Matt Leinart” for my tastes but seeing the weird way they’ve splintered their content is giving me a deeper understanding of west coast football fans that absolutely hate the Pac-12 Network.

Bryant at Akron 3:30pm ESPN3

Tune in to see some guy named Bryant touring around Akron.

Elon at Appalachian State 3:30pm ESPN+

I hope App State runs this grifter out of their campus on a rail. The more bad stuff happens to Elon Musk the better off all of humanity will be.

Delaware at Rutgers 3:30pm BTN

Fuck me, this is just all the pain in the world masquerading as a sporting event.

Eastern Michigan at UMass 3:30pm FloFootball/NESN+

I don’t have much interest in this game but seeing that it’s available on the Nintendo Entertainment System Network is intriguing.

Colorado State at Toledo 4:00pm ESPNU

Toledo blew a huge opportunity last week so they’re ripe for a letdown but all signs point to Colorado State being incredibly bad at football this year.

Sacramento State at California 4:00pm P12N Bay Area

P12N Bay Area probably reaches cable subscribers in like Vallejo and nowhere else in the entire world. When I put it that way it seems like exactly where this game belongs but it’s still not a thing that should exist. I mean the network but it’s true for the game also.

Northwestern at Duke 4:00pm ACCN

Disgusting.

Mississippi State at Memphis 4:00pm ESPN2

I think Memphis can knock down the SEC’s middle tier but I haven’t gotten a clear idea of either of these teams yet.

Georgia Southern at 20 Arkansas 4:00pm SECN

Arkansas rose up last week because of the weird insistence by Lice Dad that playing a middling Texas team was the biggest game in school history. Arkansas has played in the SEC CG more than once. They’ve won a national championship. How does a guy that’s paid to be an SEC homer even make such a dumb statement and keep his job?

Ball State at Wyoming 4:00pm Stadium

I watched the CFB 150 episode about the Black 14 this week so now it’s all I can think about for Wyoming football.

Arkansas State at Washington 4:15pm P12N

What the hell happened to UDub to fall back to this lowly spot? Did Chris Peterson just fall on his ass in recruiting?

Murray State at Bowling Green 5:00pm ESPN3

This sounds like a sixties movie title for a spy agency thriller that could be mistaken for a comedy when not viewed through a then-contemporary lens.

East Carolina at Marshall 6:00pm Facebook

ECU is looking like a doormat and Marshall might be really good again but I would never in good conscience ever contribute to facebook’s good fortunes wittingly.

Fordham at Florida Atlantic 6:00pm ESPN3

I want to love this game but I actually hate it.

Old Dominion at Liberty 6:00pm ESPN3

There is going to be so much COVID passed around this stadium.

Middle Tennessee at UTSA 6:00pm ESPN+

Beautiful, horrible, unwatchable mess. This is where you go to feel like you are alone in the universe.

Troy at Southern Miss 7:00pm ESPN+

There’s also this.

Grambling State at Houston 7:00pm ESPN+

And this one.

Utah at San Diego State 7:00pm CBSSN

This is real entertainment. Twitter will be all over the next listing so I’ll be FOMO’d into watching that for a while but SDSU-Utah on CBS SN might be where I first dreamt up the concept of degenerate football. It was either that or a UFL game featuring a QB duel between Daunte Culpepper and Jeff Garcia.

South Carolina at 2 Georgia 7:00pm ESPN

I’m waiting for Georgia to bumble. I’m counting on it. Georgia-Clemson was a classic early season game that somehow helps both teams in the rankings all year but ends up actually being a showcase of how shitty their offense are rather than a referendum on great defense.

UIW at Texas State 7:00pm ESPN3

I think UIW is a union trade school or something. So I guess I’m rooting for them.

Charlotte at Georgia State 7:00pm ESPN+

Charlotte’s semester in Atlanta would shape her life in ways that nobody could have envisioned when she left her family’s home in the late summer following her failed attempt to run a bakeshop.

FIU at Texas Tech 7:00pm ESPN+

Maybe I actually hate college football.

Florida A&M at USF 7:00pm ESPN+

USF could lose this. Worth checking on if you see an upset alert.

Furman at NC State 7:30pm RSN/ESPN3

Body bag game.

Utah State at Air Force 7:30pm FS2

Kind of neat degenerate game but, depending on the uniform choices, could be a bit monotone and tough to follow.

Virginia at 21 North Carolina 7:30pm ACCN

The South’s Oldest Rivalry! Like most of the previous 125 meetings of these two school’s, this year’s game will mainly decide who sucks worse. Of course in the ACC Coastal being slightly less bad than your opponents is the winningest strategy of all. Go Hoos!

Stony Brook at 4 Oregon 7:30pm P12N

Great scheduling to follow up an emotional game with a body bag. I’m not being facetious, this is right where you need these games.

UAB at North Texas 7:30pm Stadium

Not gonna open an app or whatever to watch this but I bet it’s fun for off-brand college football.

Central Michigan at LSU 7:30pm SECN

LSU at home at night is supposed to be the best atmosphere in college football. Way better than a 19.5-point line against Central Michigan. What stage of LSU’s life cycle are we in right now?

22 Auburn at 10 Penn State 7:30pm ABC

War goddamn Eagle, baby. Penn State is doing that stupid white out thing which, correct if I’m wrong again, only goes for the people in the stands. So they’ll all be dressed up in pretty much Auburn’s road colors to watch Auburn. I hate Auburn but I really hate Penn State.

Alcorn State at South Alabama 8:00pm ESPN3

Things are looking rough for the rest of the docket.

Rice at Texas 8:00pm LHN

A battle of equals.

Stanford at Vanderbilt 8:00pm ESPNU

Look at this American aristocracy horse shit. Fuck these schools and the teams of horses that carried them in.

Tulane at 17 Mississippi 8:00pm ESPN2

The racist south may just have the nation’s best QB. It’s a good year for Matt Corral to show off his arm strength because 2022 is not looking like a bumper crop of QB draftees at this far off date. He’s small for the position but Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield and Russell Wilson are all smaller. If the arm talent is real he could go #1 overall.

Jackson State at ULM 8:00pm ESPN3

Nope.

SC State at New Mexico State 8:00pm FloFootball / CW El Paso

Sorry.

Oklahoma State at Boise State 9:00pm FS1

Whoa whoa whoa. This is uniform heaven. And on the blue turf? Your eyes will burn. Embrace that feeling.

Northern Arizona at Arizona 10:00pm P12N AZ

P12N AZ. Holy shit. What the hell were these people thinking? This has to be the smallest demo ever targeted by a network.

19 Arizona State at 23 BYU 10:15pm ESPN

Seeing these teams face off as ranked opponents is very weird. Real late 80s vibe here. It’s titillating in its way. Might not even be the most fun game in the late night region.

14 Iowa State at UNLV 10:30pm CBSSN

UNLV is an absolute wasteland of a program. It’s kind of stupid, really. They aren’t in an unsellable spot and they don’t play the most rugged schedule but year after year after year they lose 9 or more games. Makes more sense than not having a good baseball program but there should be some G5 magic in Vegas. Iowa State is going to roll.

Fresno State at 13 UCLA 10:45pm P12N

Chip Kelly having UCLA as the premier program in L.A. is something I couldn’t have seen coming just last week but we’re there now. And Fresno State plays some wild offense that could/should make this the late night hangout spot. If you can find it. If you have this channel. That shouldn’t be a question! Fuckin’ a, Pac-12, what are you doing?

San Jose State at Hawaii 12:30am FS1

Technically a Sunday game but I cut the header because if you’re watching this there is an implicit understanding that it’s still Saturday. Not sure what’s going on with the kick time, though. I was under the impression that Hawaii games had to kick off by 11:59pm Eastern to count with the rest of the week’s games. Very odd. That’s really all I have to say about this game.

#college football #football #gambling #Tv watch em ups #rtarl watches tv

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