#i will always recommend it to new artists because it's the most accessible both financially and for the wealth of artist support

[toasterlock]

"This convention is fully volunteer-run, which means none of us get receive any money for the work we put in all year to host this; we do this out of passion and all the earnings go directly back into the next event" is maybe not the cool flex you think it is, maybe don't broadcast that over the event speakers twice

[princepestilence]

Hey Samson, I'm very much a homebody and I wanted to know if you had and tips on where to meet cool queer people?

Hello there! I’m honestly very flattered that you thought to ask me, because that makes me feel like I must look like I’ve got my stuff sorted out and am living that #queer community dream–but that’s not actually entirely true and I sort of want to preface anything else I say with the fact that I am still very much in the process of trying to find more cool people to bring into my life myself, because I’m not where I want to be on that front yet. I’ve been super lucky so far, but I don’t want to give the impression that I’m done meeting cool queer people. There’s a lot of friends I’m still out looking for and a lot of connections I haven’t made yet that I’d really like to, so yeah! Happy to share my thoughts but I am not an expert.

For me, there’s kind of been three major sources of finding My People so far, and those have been: work/university (which count as the same for me, since I was once a student and now I teach students and have cool queer colleagues and they know cool queer people, so it has a run-on effect), the internet, and creative art spaces. 

I think being a homebody can be a bit of a disadvantage if you want to meet cool queer people, mostly because I’ve found online queer spaces and offline queer spaces to have… very different vibes and values. Not always! I’ve definitely experienced first-hand some weird vibes that I didn’t want to tangle with in offline queer spaces (thinking specifically of the queer collective at my university). But broadly, I’ve enjoyed offline queer spaces a lot more, and found more connection with other people, and experienced more genuinely restorative and healing and positive vibes in those spaces than here on tumblr or elsewhere online. 

So that’s kind of my first piece of advice: see what’s happening in your local area regarding queer and/or artistic events! I don’t use Facebook, but there are a lot of local groups that use Facebook to organise and announce events, so if you have that, that can be a great way to keep in touch with that’s going on and see if anything strikes your fancy. For me, I go to the poetry slam every month I can make it, which is something I adore and always an experience of big queer solidarity, because it’s a bunch of creative (often queer or non-norm) people in a space that has a strongly upheld belief in the respectful spaces policy–i.e., be excellent to each other, no bigotry allowed. 

I’ve definitely lucked out with my local slam (maybe I’m biased, but it is the best one around) but a lot of events like that are places where you can walk in, sit down, and not have to really talk to anyone if you don’t want to, and get a sense of the place and the people and I’ve definitely found these spaces to be more welcoming and respectful than more… mainstream (?) events, so that can be a cool place to go. Similar things like pop-up art exhibitions (especially if they have talks or workshops) count, especially if you see anywhere that they’re LGBTQ+ friendly and/or make a clear statement of intent re: supporting grassroots or marginalised creators, etc. 

Alternatively, I can recommend queer book clubs! Sometimes these groups are specifically about reading queer lit., and sometimes the reading is just a way of bringing queer people together, and either way, that’s a good place to at least go along and suss out. If there’s none around, a great option is to actually start something like that yourself–as intimidating as that might feel. Submitting a call for interest on a queer Facebook group, for example, can help put you in contact with people who might be in your exact same boat of wanting to build community but not knowing where to start, or not yet finding the right kind of space for them. 

I personally feel book clubs (or a similar hobby exercise) are a good way to do this, since it 1. brings everyone together in one place on a regular schedule, which is good for getting to know people, 2. isn’t necessarily a huge time or energy or financial investment, which means it’s more inclusive than many other events (although obviously requires some planning and also consideration re: which books and book costs, travel costs, access to libraries etc.), 3. is overall a relaxed space that can be hosted in the daytime, away from alcohol, in a public venue such as a cafe, which for many people is more approachable, and 4. gives everyone something to talk about when they get there and for the duration, so it’s way less awkward than sitting in a circle being like, “hi, I’m gay, are you my new best friend??” or feeling obliged to generate personal conversation the whole time. If it doesn’t work out or it’s too much effort to continue, you can discontinue it at any time, so it’s a pretty low stakes approach, I feel.

Edit: totally forgot, but sometimes [hobby or passion of yours] + “queer” into search bars can show up good results! For example, sometimes there are particular gatherings or small conventions, regular gaming events, forums or talk-sites, so on. I definitely know of Ace & Aro Teatimes that are held, specifically as a way of catching up, and you might luck out and discover something like that, which is particularly great because it means you will already have an interest or hobby in common with the people you meet there. 

Off the top of my head, that’s kind of it for offline spaces. You can probably check out if your local university has a queer collective, because even if you’re not part of the university body, sometimes they will have events open to the general public etc. Like I said before, that’s not my scene, because I’ve personally found the local university queer collective to be… more similar in personality to the online spaces and also just a little more intense than I’m looking for. But! That’s not to say they’re all like that. 

As for online spaces, I met a lot of my queer friends by the sheer bizarre wheel of fate that brings people together in the disgusting blue sea of tumblr. I know that’s not helpful at all, but the piece of advice I have to offer there is that I met all these people by doing what I loved, first and foremost. I was doing my own thing, however weird, and they were doing the same, and we saw each other and went “oh cool,” and we were both queer. To a certain extent, I think this is true in all things: have fun, be yourself, and trust in queer pack magic to bring cool queer friends into your life. 

I am someone who’s very forward, I guess, and very proactive socially (and in general), so I am usually the first person in a new friendship to walk over and say, “hey! you’re cool, I love your you, tell me about yourself,” [paraphrased] and honestly that’s worked pretty much every single time. I admit my charisma rolls tend to be high (I sacrificed constitution and wisdom for them, so they better be) but I do believe that you miss all the shots you don’t take, so it’s worth reaching out. So if you come across someone that seems cool, remember that you’re also a cool person worth knowing and a good friend and give that person a chance to find that out for themselves by saying hello, because a lot of the time, the other person isn’t going to have that courage and if you wait for them, it might never happen. Easier said than done for many, I know, but it’s that whole thing with lesbian sheep (wool-oo-wools, if you will): you can’t stand there and expect someone else to know that you standing there still is a sign of how much you like them. 

I have no idea if any of this is going to be helpful to you, but I wish you so much luck in finding your people! If there’s anything I’ve said that’s not clear or needs more detail or anything, please let me know and I’ll be happy to do what I can to help. I think finding community is one of the most important things in life for queer people to do, in whatever form that takes, so I am absolutely always down to help with that in whatever ways I can. 

[saintmachina]

Do you have any resources or book recommendations for someone who is attempting to "brand" or market themselves effectively? You do it so well and effortlessly, and I've never been comfortable or good at it.

Hello! Thanks for saying that; I’ve worked really hard and long to get to a point where I feel like I present myself well, and while I still have plenty of growing up to do, I’m proud of myself. I’m going to repost an answer I gave to a similar ask here that outlines my personal philosophy of branding, particularly on how creators can present themselves on social media!

Cultural Context

Let me start by saying that “personal brand” is a concept that is being pushed hard right now on people, even very young ones. We live in a society where its not only possible but encouraged to curate your online presence into a recognizable essence, often with the unspoken aim of getting people to like and trust you so that someday they can invest in you financially or pick you out of the crowd for a job or project. This is not an inherently bad thing, and can be very fun and useful if leveraged in a healthy way, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you need to brand yourself to exist and that you need to live up to the color-coded, curated, narratively unified version of yourself that exists online.

Suggested Reading

Before I continue I want to direct you to two amazing video essays about this issue, Lindsay Ellis’ essay on  the way creators manufacture authenticity, and Natalie Wynn’s Ted Talk on how performing a hyper-stylized versions of different philosophical opinions on her Youtube channel have helped her protect herself from as much harm as possible. They’re both kind of heady but they’ve both been really helpful to me in A.) branding myself and B.) learning to see myself as separate from my “brand”. Let’s continue.

Creator Identity

I am a creator in the age of the internet. To be specific, I am a writer and a poet and occasionally a public theologian. For me, my ~aesthetic~ is yes, a way to express myself, but it’s also the way I let potential readers get to know me, my vibe, and my writing, so that when I announce I have a new book out, they already like and trust me enough to buy it. I hope this doesn’t sound callous; I have a very meaningful intimate relationship with my readers that I see as having spiritual value, but I also know what I’m doing when I post selfies or chat posts that go with the witch-saint-loving aunt thing I have going on here. And I think that people who aren’t trying to connect the right people with what they have to sell, artistically or in terms of services or otherwise, have to worry about branding a lot less.

I’ve been maintaining a social media presence as a writer for almost ten years now, and my brand has become more streamlined as I have grown into myself as an adult woman. I love this woman and respect her enough to know that she may change tastes and change her voice as she ages, and that’s fine too, but one thing that I’ve been moving towards in my mid-twenties is having what I call a “partially opaque” brand.

Opacity

A non-opaque brand is one of total messy off-the-cuff realness with almost no boundaries between creator and fan (Amanda Palmer does this well) and a totally opaque brand is put forward by a person who seems so unified, so separate, so enigmatic, that the lines between creator and fans are quite stark (think Donna Tartt). I used to have pretty much the same aesthetic that I have now but a brand that was almost entirely non-opaque; I posted my feelings and opinions on everything, talked openly about every single update to my religious, mental health, sex, and social life, and was 100% accessible at all times to readers. In an effort to protect my time, energy, privacy, and art as I’ve grown, I’ve learned to have more boundaries, but I still post selfies and life updates (generally with a bit of an ~aesthetic~ veneer but not always) and encourage people to ask me whatever questions they have, because being warm and accessible is important to me. 100% opacity is not right for me because I want to be able to show up at book cons and hug fans and answer life advice asks and be honest about things like burnout or spiritual doubt or personal branding (how’s that for meta). I think if you are a creator on the internet it is very important to decide from the get go how opaque you want your brand to be.

For me, adding more opacity helped me distinguish my own life and value from what people on the internet thought of my work or my opinons, and it helped me to stop giving an excess of energy to places where I wasn’t getting it back. Being a bit more of a mystery at times has opened up space in my life for Sabbath and leisure. It’s also allowed me to gett back in touch with who I am when the lights go down and I am no longer on a virtual stage.

The Fragmented Self

No one out here, not even the most deliriously aesthetic dark academia blogger with a watertight color scheme, is just one thing. When we brand ourselves (and yes it can be a holy act of connection and self-revelation when done right) we bring forward things about ourselves that are important to us and have narrative cohesion, and we present those things in a beautiful way. When I do personal branding for small businesses like Fratres Dei spiritual direction, we do long self-exploratory sessions to determine which facets to bring into the light. But all of us contain multitudes and oftetimes our lives don’t have the sense of narrative cohesion the internet thrives on. Sometimes we can leverage that (I learned early on that there was no hiding my love of the Bible and of esoterica, my heavily religious life and my wildly doubtful faith. They were already so present in my writing that I stopped trying to hide it and Lo and behold I found the right readers) and sometimes we can’t, and that’s okay.

I suggest locking on to the things about yourself that you feel are most essential and have the most vitality. Then, put them into conversation with each other and try to find connections. If there are ones that don’t connect to the others, that’s perfectly fine, but it may not belong in your online personal branding. Maybe that’s a private thing for now to be enjoyed between you and loved ones, to germinate until it can find a place in your public life, or to stay blessedly secret.

My advice? Always leave a part of yourself at the end of the day for yourself. You don’t own this blue hellscape every ounce of you.

Tl;dr A successful brand is an authentic version of yourself, just a little bit more tailored, and part of that success is deciding up front how much of yourself you want to share with others.

[davidaccampo]

Breaking Down Comics

A friend of Amanda Donahue, one of my co-creators on THE MARGINS, asked me some questions, and they were so good I felt it was worth dusting off Tumblr to answer. Thanks, Nick, and I hope these rambles give you something worth your while! 

Below are Nick’s two questions and my VERY long answers.

Sooo, my first question would just be how you got into it. Is it your primary form of writing?

Great question. So, is it my primary form of writing? Hmmm. I just finished a commitment to a set of 4 interactive mobile game scripts that took up quite a chunk of the last few months. In that time frame I also released a one-shot licensed 22-page comic and a 12-page digital creator-owned comic. So, on balance, I don’t think it’s currently my primary form of writing, but it’s definitely my favorite form, and it’s a medium and industry that I’m both very familiar with and passionate about, so whenever I’m given the chance to write comics, I take it.

However, comics as an industry is a difficult one to navigate. With the two biggest publishers owning incredibly popular franchises, the prime means for writers to make a living on comics is to essentially write super-heroes that you don’t own. And that, in itself, is neither good nor bad. It’s just worth noting that if you want to make comics your primary form of income, then DC and Marvel are going to come into your orbit in some shape. And that type of writing will come with its own set of thrills and challenges.

On the flip side, creator-owned comics and graphic novels can be an extremely fulfilling creative experience, if financially tricky to produce and sell. But the comics industry is still intimate enough that you can find ways to make and sell your comics. There’s a lot more to talk about there with regards to distribution and comics retail, but that’s another conversation.

It’s also worth noting that while the prevailing understanding is that digital comics sell only a fraction of the numbers of printed comics, it’s also a very accessible platform. With time and effort, you can put a comic book out to a global audience.

I may have veered slightly off topic here, but I think the point I’m trying to make is: if you want comics to be your primary form of writing, they most certainly can be. And you can and will make comics passionately and whole-heartedly, and you’ll put them into the world.

But making a living off of them is much more complicated scenario and every creator out there will have different advice for you, but be prepared for an equation that’s pretty familiar to any who has ever freelanced: less control = more money. Generally speaking, of course. There’s always a Walking Dead situation, if all the stars align.

Oh, and I never answered the first part of that question — how did I get into it? I’ll try to bullet point my personal path, which is super wonky, but probably not much stranger than most writers.

It kinda went like this:

Dave’s Writing Career: A Timeline

I always loved comics. In high school, I even wrote and drew 80 pages of a comic that was a horrible pastiche of Marvel/Epic’s Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz and DC’s The Question by Denny O’Neil, Denys Cowan, and Rick Magyar. However, in my 20s, I’d attend conventions and discover that I had no idea how to move from fandom into professional writing.

I went on to study English and Creative Writing, thinking I’d write prose novels.

Then I moved to LA and fell in with a crowd of Hollywood screenwriter types. I wrote a few screenplays with a writing partner, Jeremy Rogers, but when nothing really came from it, we decided to make our own short films.

We made 3 short films that went into film festivals.  At this point, I was tired of spending so much time and money making 10-30 minute films that didn’t result in much. We hatched a new plan: what if we availed ourselves of the iTunes platform and released an audio drama as a podcast?

Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery was the result. It allowed us to tell long, serialized stories, much like my first love: comic books.

Toward the end of the Wormwood run, an illustrator named Jared Souza contacted us. He’d adapted scenes from Wormwood into sequential art, and  was curious if we ever thought about turning it into a comic book. We jumped at the chance, and with Jared we wrote and drew an 12-page mini-comic that we printed and took to the San Diego Comic-Con. Hermes Press was interested in our book, and they offered us a deal shortly after the show was over.

From there, I kept thinking about what else I could do with comics. I partnered with Chris Anderson for Lost Angels, and we made another 12-page mini-comic as a sales pitch, and we were offered a digital-first deal with a new publisher, Comicker.

And it keeps going from there, but that is the long and windy road telling stories in a LOT of different formats, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Learning the strengths of one format does help you to understand the strengths of another. For example, for Wormwood we could really lean into long, twisty passages of monologue because it was all about the actors’ voices. However, as soon as you bring that to comics, you realize the amount of word balloons those monologues would take would utterly cover up any artwork on the page. And so you adjust.

Which is a nice segue to your other question…

Secondly, I'd love to hear how you work things out. As far as layout in regards to story. The most challenging aspect for me is to convert my thinking from imagining in film to now these static images. Do you put a lot of thought into that area, or do you focus mostly on the story and then sort of work that out as you are getting it down?

My initial thought is: “I do both.” But let’s break those up.

In terms of static images: think about the key moments. The perfect still frame of film that sums up the core of a moment of story in your mind. You want to build out from there.

But almost more importantly: think about the gutters. The space between panels. The gutters are actually where all the magic in comics reside. I recommend reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. McCloud is great for understanding how a reader processes the information when we’re as absorbing art in a sequence. And the key is the gutters: The narrative “time” between panels can last a millisecond or a millennium. And the reader understands that from the context. So you’ve got to figure out how much you can get away with in between panels.

A panel exists in one moment in time. One action can occur. Imagine a father and son playing catch. What’s the most important part of that scene? The father throwing? The son catching? That’s two panels. Or, it could be a wide shot of the two, the ball in mid-air, but that wide shot probably should take up as much space on the page as two close angle shots of throwing and catching.

So, you ask yourself: what’s the emotional context of the scene? Is it important to show the father about to throw the ball (perhaps metaphorically teaching his son)? Is it important to show the son catching that ball (perhaps showing the son absorbing the lesson)? Is the activity itself the most important part (the wider shot might work best). It really depends upon the what you want to get out of the scene.

Another example: A man sits in his living room. There’s a knock at the door. He answers. It’s his landlord.

How many  panels is that? The only concrete answer I can give you is that it’s ”more than one” — because the of multiple actions involved.

It could be two panels: 1) the man sits reading a newspaper, but his head is cocked because he’s JUST heard the SFX of knocking on his door. 2) he’s standing at the open door and the landlord is asking him for a rent check.

It could be five panels: 1) the main sits reading a newspaper. 2) We show the front door, with knocking SFX. 3) The man opens the door, but we don’t show who it is, building suspense. The man is nervous. 4) we reveal it’s the landlord, standing there, arms crossed and angry. 5) The landlord asks for the rent check.

How important is that scene to your overall story? Five panels is roughly a whole page. Do you want to spend a whole page to show that the man is late with his rent?

That’s brings us to the next part of your question, and the other aspect that’s really important to comics: page count.

Page count is crucial because of the amount of time it takes an artist to draw a page, and also because of the printing costs. A standard issue of a comic is roughly 20-22 pages. So you’ve got to start by knowing how much space you’ve got (some writers will refer to this as “real estate”).

As a general standard, I’m going to assume that you’re looking at a mini-series or story arc that’s probably 5-6 issues, at 20-22 pages per issue. That works for comic book issue publishing, and it collects nicely into a graphic novel.

Even if I know I’m writing a graphic novel (as we did with The Margins), I tend to think in those general terms because it helps me break the story down.

So, I might start by assuming I have 5 chapters that are each 20 pages. Then I figure out — where is the best place to end Chapter One? It shouldn’t just be a moment of pivot — a cliffhanger, something that pushes the reader to start the next chapter as quickly as they can.

I’ll use the film THE MATRIX for this example, but I’m doing this from memory, so this may not be the best story breakdown.

At first thought, knowing I have 5 chapters of 20 pages each, it seems to me a great end to the first chapter might be Neo waking up in his pod in the real world. I mean, you have to read Issue #2 if that’s where Issue #1 ends, right?

If that’s page 20, you now have 19 pages to get there. And you have to get through: Trinity and the agents, Neo following the white rabbit, Neo meeting Trinity, Neo getting a call phone from Morpheus, Neo taken by the agents and getting the tracker put in him. Neo getting the tracker removed. Neo taking the red pill.

That’s a LOT! (It’s probably more than 20 pages, but please bear in my I’m just using this as an example.)

Next I’d think about: how much real estate do I give to Trinity vs. The Agents. Maybe four pages. The first two are the fighting and running across the rooftops. The second two could be a DOUBLE-PAGE SPLASH (two pages that make up one giant image) of Agent Smith ramming his truck into the phone booth. That’d also make for a good title/credits page.

I can probably script that, but I first have to think if I can get though the rest of it with 15 more pages. Ack!

Luckily, the next bits contain a lot of conversations, so we can probably get away with 5-9 panels per page, lots of back and forth conversation, condensed onto fewer pages. And that’s key because we’re going to have to go to larger panels for key action sequences like Neo climbing out on the building ledge. Neo getting the tracker put into his belly.

To be honest, at this point, I’d probably have to rethink some of this — this feels like too much for 20 pages. But hopefully that example shows you how I approach the process. It’s basically taking the whole story and then breaking it into issue-sized chunks, then pages, then finally panels.

And as you think about panels, you do want to make sure you have a mix. Some kind of big splash page is important — it allows you to focus on the biggest moments, and it also gives the reader a bit of a chance to relax, slow down and take in the art. A sequential page can have more panels, but it becomes denser, and each panel can contain less information — one or two dialogue balloons, limited backgrounds, etc. The more panels, the less room and detail each panel can contain.

Personally, I like to think about most of my sequential pages being about 4-8 panels, peppered with one or two splash pages. I can bump up or lower the panel count as needed. If you start by thinking about 3-4 panels for big cinematic action and 5-9 panels for dense conversation or smaller actions, then you’ll probably find yourself with a decent balance through your comic.

Those are my long-winded answers. I hope this helps. There’s much more to talk about in terms of craft, but this covers most of what I think about when breaking down a comic book story.

[sanantonioupdatesposts]

San Antonio Cryptocurrency News

Inside of an unassuming convenience store along Callaghan Road sits an ATM that’s likely different than any you’ve used before.

The machine allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency widely known for its volatile value — as well as the ardent support it enjoys from cryptocurrency enthusiasts and the intense skepticism many business leaders and academics have toward the digital currency.

San Antonio currently has about 31 cryptocurrency ATMs — largely located in gas stations and convenience San Antonio Local News stores — that are owned by several different operators. They allow users to  create an account, then buy and sell Bitcoin for a fee, typically between 5 and 20 percent, according to Coin ATM Radar, a site that tracks installation of the ATMs globally.

Coinsource, one of the largest cryptocurrency ATM operators in the nation, announced recently it was “ramping up deployment” of the machines in San Antonio and across Texas.

The increase of the ATMs, Bitcoin advocates say, will greatly enhance the accessibility of the digital currency to the public as the machines are adopted, and will move Bitcoin from its original home on the fringes of the internet into the commercial and monetary mainstream.

OnExpressNews.com: Collector's obsession leads to crypto coin lawsuit and loss of lavish Hill Country estate

Bitcoin is the most widely-used cryptocurrency. Proponents tout the decentralized nature of the digital currency, and its use outside of the traditional banking and financial system.

No central bank or single nation owns San Antonio Press Release or operates the cryptocurrency system. The goal for supporters of the currency  is to allow anyone in the world to make peer-to-peer monetary transactions at any time without having to go through financial or governmental intermediaries.

Bitcoin, which was created in but remained difficult to acquire until recent years, has fluctuated wildly in value since becoming more popular earlier this decade.

San Antonio Digital Currency News

After peaking in value at around $20,000 per Bitcoin in late 2017, the digital currency tumbled to below $3,200 per coin by mid-December of last year.

Coinsource, one of the largest San Antonio cryptocurrency News  operators in the nation, announced recently it was “ramping up deployment” of the machines in San Antonio and across Texas. Coinsource, one of the largest cryptocurrency ATM operators in the nation, announced recently it was “ramping up deployment” of the machines in San Antonio and across Texas. Photo: Mike Fisher/Staff Artist On a recent day, Oct. 2, Bitcoin’s value hit $8,414 per coin, only to drop by around 3 percent hours later, according to coinmarketcap.com, which tracks cryptocurrency prices.

The number of cryptocurrency ATMs in the U.S. has dramatically increased over the last five years, especially within the last year, according to Coin ATM Radar.

The first Bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. were installed in March . By , there were 429 of the ATMs nationwide. Since then, the number has grown to over 3,800 cryptocurrency ATMs across the country.

In the last year, nearly 1,500 additional cryptocurrency ATMs have been installed nationwide.

“We are spearheading mainstream adoptability and accessibility to be able to buy and sell cryptocurrency,” said Derek Muhney, director of national sales with Coinsource, the cryptocurrency ATM manufacturer and operator.

“We definitely see (the number of cryptocurrency ATMs) going to six figures and beyond,” he said.

Coinsource, one of the largest cryptocurrency ATM operators in the nation, announced recently it was “ramping up deployment” of the machines in San Antonio and across Texas. Coinsource, one of the largest cryptocurrency ATM operators in the nation, announced recently it was “ramping up deployment” of the machines in San Antonio and across Texas. But while local cryptocurrency investors laud the introduction of additional crypto ATMs in San Antonio, others are skeptical the currency and the ATM proliferation.

“Easy access to cryptocurrency through ATMs is actually detrimental,” said Ashwin Malshe, a professor San Antonio Local News of  marketing at University of Texas at San Antonio, and an expert in e-commerce and cryptocurrency.

READ ALSO: Cybersecurity CEO looks to build San Antonio tech workforce

“When you hold U.S. dollars in your bank, you don’t wake up the next morning and see your bank account is worth 50 percent of what it was yesterday. That can happen with cryptocurrency — that can be somebody’s life savings wiped out overnight,” Malshe said.

But crypto-optimists and proponents of the ATMs say they provide benefits such as offering communities without banks or credit unions access to financial tools, including storing and sending money.

One example might be a person without a checking or savings account purchasing Bitcoin on an ATM and sending the money elsewhere, or simply saving it to lower the risk of carrying a large amount of cash, according to Muhney.

Muhney said the ATMs provide a way for users to buy or sell Bitcoin instantaneously. Users can also exchange the digital currency for cash on the spot.

Traditional online Bitcoin exchanges — chiefly Coinbase — allow people to trade Bitcoins, but users can wait for weeks to receive their money or Bitcoins.

And the history of fraud, theft and illicit trade associated with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies often makes people hesitant to hand over their bank information to cryptocurrency exchange companies, Muhney said.

But with ATMs from Coinsource and most other operators, users typically create an online digital wallet and aren’t required to share banking information, Muhney said.

And while the price does fluctuate, he said, it wouldn’t necessarily be hazardous to store your money on a Bitcoin ATM because the value of the currency continues to grow in the long run.

“Even at its current price today, it’s still up 200 percent from the beginning of the year,” Muhney said. “Yes, there is fluctuation, but year by year, its going in the right direction.”

Crypto-advocates are quick to point out that the digital currencies have been declared dead during price downturns throughout the decade, only to rebound and continue rising in value.

Alex Eaton is a co-founder of the San Antonio Crypto Network, where he consults with potential cryptocurrency investors and educates people about the digital currency.

He said his experience in the Army, when he was deployed to the Middle East as a medic, showed him what can happen when nations and their economic systems collapse.

“I just don’t think anything is too big to fail,” Eaton said.

Eaton supports the addition of more Bitcoin ATMs because it allows people to easily access the cryptocurrency, and the proliferation of the ATMs could make for a seamless global system, he said.

“With Bitcoin ATMs in every city across globe, you can travel with Bitcoin, download a Bitcoin wallet onto your phone and travel anywhere in the world,” Eaton said. “As long as you know how to securely store your bitcoin, no one can take it.”

Even so, Eaton is supportive of regulating cryptocurrencies to help reduce fraud. He admits even he’s been scammed.

“It’s so easy to scam people in this space because most people in this space are very amateur — they don’t know much about it,” he said.

Crypto scams can include hacks into  your virtual wallet, with thieves stealing your Bitcoin, or fraudulent exchanges that may swipe money you try to send through them. Some scammers have even created fake companies to persuade people to invest Bitcoin before disappearing with the money.

Both Eaton and Malshe said that in San Antonio Sports News the early days of cryptocurrency, it was largely used to anonymously make illicit transactions, primarily of drugs on sites such as the now-defunct Silk Road.

Malshe dismissed the vigor with which crypto-advocates promote the digital currency as enthusiasm borne from self-interest.

“If I’m sitting on 15 Bitcoins, which I bought for pennies, now I have very strong incentive to hype that up and then I can make money. I’m going to always be very aggressive and strong promoting it to anyone who will listen,” Malshe said. “It’s a classic pump-and-dump strategy. This is the salesperson attitude.”

Malshe said he doesn’t think it’s likely Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies reach a point where they are used for retail or daily transactions en masse.

“I don’t see that. The governments are going to lose control of their own currency, which is super difficult to believe any country is willing to do that,” he said, noting that China last year has already banned all activity related to cryptocurrency trading. “The monetary policy of the country is very important.”

Muhney, of Coinsource, said when credit cards were first introduced as payments options midway through last century, businesses were likely skeptical about the idea of allowing payment via the new method. Eventually, of course, credit cards became nearly-universally adopted.

“That’s where we’re going with this. We make it as easy as it can be to be able to buy and sell this and as easy as it can be for business owners to accept it,” Muhney said. “All they’re doing is allowing themselves to receive an additional stream of revenue.”

But Malshe said you shouldn’t expect to use Bitcoin to make regular purchases any time soon — and he didn’t recommend investing in the digital currency or using the incoming ATM machines.

“If it’s a very knowledgeable person who knows what they’re getting into, I can understand (using cryptocurrency ATMs). But they don’t need an ATM. I overall don’t see this as a positive development,” Malshe said. “I don’t see a world where crypto is going to become easy to use everywhere.”

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[madehq]

Digital Here to Stay 

At 1AM on Friday, October 9th, I got a group text from a playwright friend: Broadway was once again pushing back its reopening date to June 1st, 2021. 

I wish I could say it came as a surprise. Only a couple weeks earlier the Metropolitan Opera cancelled its 20/21 season, and anyone who’s remotely considered event logistics in the past 6-7 months could rattle off a hundred hurdles involved in reopening any kind of venue. That list grows exponentially when the venue houses a minimum of 500 people in a city where you’re lucky to get 6 inches let alone 6 feet. Rather than shocking the community, this announcement reiterated once again that the performing arts industry will be one of the last to return. So it’s time for organizations to ensure their digital solutions are going to service long-term needs, and seize underlying opportunities.

One Step at a Time

Performing arts’ biggest strength has been the live in live theater. It’s a double-edged sword: creating economic barriers and gatekeeping for many, but also generating a unique high for those that are able to experience it even on a small scale such as school recitals, or indie theater. At the beginning of the pandemic, artists at every level of the industry rapidly pivoted to produce content without its biggest strength. 

Zoom became prevalent not just for teleconferencing, but for digital events and classes. One of the most common requests I’ve gotten in the past few months is “can we embed a Zoom link in our order confirmation?” (the answer is “yes”). But while artists explored radio dramas, wrote plays specifically for digital forums, held digital festivals, and tried to make do, the focus was always on what it would look like to return home. As often as I’ve been asked about embedding links in confirmation emails, many organizations have opted to hold off on radical changes because of the ever shifting landscape and the knowledge that the current state of affairs is temporary. 

Last Friday’s announcement makes it clear that “temporary” is going to last a lot longer than we hoped. Even regions that are beginning to reopen for outdoor or distanced performances need to find a way to cater to patrons that cannot safely return to venues, and contend with the impending arrival of winter. This is no longer about creating a safety checklist, and measuring the width of seats. Top to bottom, organizations must consider digital viability in all programming for the next year. We can no longer say “hold, please” to infrastructure changes that will support the performing arts during the rest of this pandemic, particularly when it has the potential to increase accessibility across the board.

Plan Ahead

Distance makes planning even more important than when leadership was able to collaborate in person. In a normal year, every production season is planned to suit a wide variety of audiences, tastes, and artistic messages. Once shows are selected, resources are allocated and accounted for. A formal delay in the return to venues means these conversations now need to include digital logistics. Content curation must consider what pieces will work best when performers must be distanced or in completely different locations. Think carefully before slating a piece that requires physical intimacy or confrontation, consider smaller pieces over large ensemble productions.

No matter what content is selected, organizations should get in the habit of identifying opportunities for content creation. For many organizations, the Watch & Listen section was a repository for the passionate user, and good for SEO, but not a priority. Other organizations were only able to record content for archival purposes rather than public consumption. The early days of the pandemic quickly revealed this produced a gap between the potential of the digital space, and the available content. As we continue to oscillate between digital and physical spaces, and reach out to patrons who cannot safely attend performances, generating assets and high quality recordings will be a priority.

A 5-Star Hotel, not a Bates Motel

Digital content is a great way to continue to foster relationships with patrons while in-person interaction is limited or impossible, so organizations must ensure that the experience is a positive one. If you don’t have a natural home for videos already, start having conversations with hosting platforms to see which might be the right fit for you and your website. Consider whether you want to make the jump towards OTT platforms which allow users to access content on other devices rather than being tethered to a phone or computer. Whether you’re new, or a seasoned digital veteran, keep an eye on analytics to identify pain points in the digital path. Ensure that the journey through your content is a curated, and welcoming experience for patrons. Just as you would provide users with additional event information before expecting them to book, avoid abandoning users in a vast sea of videos with no context. Your event pages likely don’t bury the link to purchasing tickets, similarly your video landing pages should make it easy for users to choose what they want to watch and navigate to other recommended content. 

Nice to E-Meet You

While it is tempting to stick with known, and familiar faces during uncertain times, the pandemic has also raised a fear that the performing arts will become even more exclusive. Organizations must take advantage of the opportunity to diversify and expand their network of collaborators and audience members. With no additional travel or housing costs, organizations can now reach and collaborate with people that would have been inaccessible before. Use this to your advantage - increase the diversity of the artists you work with and collaborate with organizations around the world that are succeeding in producing theater that represents their audience. Revel in the fact you can now compete for audiences that are outside a one hour drive of your venue. Expand your community and make your art more accessible to everyone so that when we are able to return, you’ll have an even wider community. 

White Noise or Unique Contribution

The performing arts doesn’t have to beat Netflix at its own game, we need to stand apart. Before the pandemic every million dollar media company in entertainment was already entering the “streaming wars.” 10 years ago there was Netflix and YouTube, now there is a specialized streaming service for every channel and category of content clamoring for people’s cash and attention. It can be daunting for nonprofits to enter the ring without the massive production budgets available to cinema and television unless you remember what makes live art precious. 

A live event is a unique blend of elements that can be recorded, but never be replicated. Even shows with extended runs will never have the same performance twice whether it’s a stubborn wig, a backstage prank, or the crash of thunder outside. Live art is real. There’s no CGI, no second take, it is all happening before your eyes. Hollywood spends millions of dollars every year trying to replicate reality by using extended takes and marketing multi-class actors doing their own stunts. I’ve binged more Netflix than I care to admit during the past 7 months, I’ve cried and cheered at my local AMC, but theater brings an audience together down to its pulse. And I get the same buzz of nerves before a digital performance that I did putting on my makeup in a utility closet turned green room, because live art done right is lightning in a bottle. 

Nothing can be accomplished overnight. Everything I’ve mentioned is a long term commitment to the digital sphere, and there will be many trials before we reach tribulations. No matter how successful, none of this will replace live theater. It never could. Under the current timeline, Broadway will be shuttered for a total of 14 months, and smaller theaters are unlikely to lead a charge that Broadway won’t. An entire year, both creatively and financially, will be gone and many organizations with it. Broadway’s announcement sent only the most recent national wave of grief through the performing arts industry. Audiences are hurting over the loss of these shared experiences that made up their community. Hundreds of thousands of artists are yearning not just to perform, but to create and play without endangering ourselves. We miss creating with our friends and colleagues. We miss watching their performative joy, pain, and skill. But while we grieve, reality waits, and it is your responsibility to make sure that if you can survive, you do everything possible to thrive.

[xai-irie]

AFROPUNK - CHOPPA RISING: A HISTORY OF JAMAICAN TRAP DANCEHALL (*side note: I was of the impression that Rap is being derived from Reggae. Article says the opposite).

The era of the Bro god is upon us and the harbingers of its grimy culture come from an unexpected place on Jamaica’s musical map: Montego Bay. The fraternal order of Jamaican musical genres, forever dictated from Kingston, has had to purposely turn a blind eye to allow the young firebrands to self govern. The new generation has come armed with trap music, their own ideals and their own lifestyle to now create a sound that honestly represents a true island culture, with an intimacy not seen in Jamaica in recent years. Where reggae in Jamaica continues to have the edge in performance, branding and experience, the young trap dancehall patriots come with a personal truth, community representation, and a message that does not portray Jamaica in the best light. This is not the music of “darling, I will swim the deepest sea and climb the highest mountain,” but depictions of the scamming underbelly of rural townships, and of the tenets and effects of Choppa culture. Operating on the fringes of tradition, both musically and geographically, trap dancehall is the sound of now, carving its own place in history.

Though, of course, there are musical, historical and cultural antecedents of how the Jamaican trap dancehall sound and this chop lifestyle came about. It’s in the cyclical way that the island’s great music industry and criminal elements deal with American culture — taking what they need and remaking for self — and in the alternative economies, literal and cultural, that have always flourished in JA. Though maybe not where they are flourishing now.

Back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, the illegal trade of choice in the Jamaican underworld was drug smuggling. It was a very lucrative business, with marijuana and cocaine the choice products, and multiple jobs needing to be filled, allowing those with access to, as Jamaicans put it, “eat a food.” Financiers of the operations made the most money, but rural farmers and packers of the product, warehousers, drivers, shippers, ‘mules’, and a whole host of bribed officials in organisation’s supply chain also profited. In its heyday, Jamaican reggae music engaged with the smuggling culture, highlighting this ‘hustling’ in both the lyrics of songs and sometimes even the demeanour of the artists. Marijuana, already synonymous with Jamaica since the earliest days of Rastafarians in music, was represented more broadly, eclipsing the prominence of cocaine smuggling, whose use was — and still is — publicly frowned upon in Jamaica. Reggae music legends such as Eek-A-Mouse, John Holt and Sugar Minott all had ganja smuggling anthems. Notably, the narrative of these songs seldom, if ever, represented the position of the financier, almost always focusing on a protagonist in abject poverty forced to traffic marijuana. The hustler represented a ‘noble profession,’ the lyrics often depicting his transporting and delivering the ganja to lawyers, doctors and police officers, playing the role of a hero of sorts. It would be extremely naive to say none of the musicians at the time were not personally involved in this business in some capacity or that the lyrics were just the work of clever imagination.

Prior to such current-event narratives and outlets for the microcosms of Jamaican culture, the island’s music had an intimate relationship with American soul and rhythm and blues. In the mid-1960’s, American music began to gain traction in Jamaica, eclipsing music from England, which Jamaica had recently gained independence from. In 1965, Britain restricted immigration from its former Black colonies, while America opened its doors. A close geographic and new immigration relationship allowed for a faster, easier exchange of music than with the U.K. Jamaicans were also present at the source of this music in Philadelphia, represented by Thom Bell, an instrumental figure in the Philadelphia Soul powerhouse of Gamble and Huff, who was born in Kingston. Inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Bell produced music for The Delfonics, The Spinners, Elton John, and a plethora of other artists and bands who were familiar voices on Jamaican sound systems and radio waves.

With soul and R&B invading the keen ears of talented Jamaican musicians, R&B engaged reggae at the forefront of the island’s pop music. Beres Hammond’s 1976 album “Soul, Reggae and More”, helped to showcase soul, R&B and reggae in Jamaica at the time in an audible mirror of styles. However, the amalgamation of the three genres became its own subculture. Jamaican producers and record collectors adopted the fetish of making and collecting rare reggae covers of popular RnB songs. This was serious business in the sound system arena and those who are serious collectors will still pay top dollar if they heard a cover of The Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New” was done by The Heptones and limited to 10 vinyl copies. This new culture ran concurrently and even mixed with the reggae of culture/protest/current events.

In contemporary Kingston, metropolitan adults are encouraged to own stocks in the Jamaican and world markets, are pounced upon by banks to adopt credit cards, and drive Porsches and Ferraris, albeit at short distances on the few good strips of roads. Jagged shards of the first world haphazardly pierce the surface, while the criminal underworld has also updated itself. In an era where self-styled entrepreneurs become one-minute public speakers via instagram, it has turned to so-called lottery scamming, as it’s “grab ‘n’ go” parallel. The practice has hit its peak and is flourishing, with mostly U.S. senior citizens bank accounts and young Jamaican lives, on the losing end. Lottery scamming — scamming for short — is quite simple in theory: call a contact, dupe them into thinking they’ve won large sums of money or valuable prizes through a lottery they think they’ve entered years ago, and have them pay clearance fees to receive the cash/gift.

First made popular locally in Montego Bay and surrounding western Jamaica parishes often spoken of only as farming locations, scamming has forced itself into the criminal spotlight. It gained national notoriety around 2011-12, by which time an Anti Lottery Scam Task Force had already been formed by the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and the U.S. government opened an F.B.I. office in Jamaica to help tackle a scourge that was causing American citizens to lose their retirement funds. Scamming does not require producing/acquiring a physical product beforehand and the gatekeeping and hierarchy can be levelled by cash, so to the uninitiated the barrier to entry is almost an open gate. It can be done fairly independently, essentially with just a mobile phone, lead-sheets (contact/client background information) and phone credit.

The open arms of Jamaican music initially received a taste of scammer culture around 2012, via an honourable mention on “Reparation,” by then-recently incarcerated dancehall MVP, Vybz Kartel with Gaza Slim on hook duties. Thus, what was once considered a rural, illicit lifestyle, got its first national co-sign with a basic explanation of stakeholders, rationale, and caveats that give it a semblance of a moral code. Noticed and acclaimed by a minority, this milestone was silently placed on the back burner, because, at the time, Jamaicans en masse were consuming top of the pop artists like Drake and Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Major Lazer. Almost every new Jamiacan hip-hop mix circa 2012 contained a pop song like Psy’s “Gangnam Style” followed by a Jamaican interpretation (Elephant Man’s “Badman Style”). Every quick-thinking producer in Jamaica was copying this style of EDM, while young adults and teenagers throughout the island were into anything touched by Lex Luger, Mike Will, Zaytoven, Clams Casino; Young Thug, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Juicy J, A$AP Mob and Joey Badass.

Jamaica has always consumed hip-hop/rap culture, a borderline-uncomfortable influence as evidenced by early-2000s artists in a tropical climate donning white tees and basketball jerseys. Around 2015 those consumers started to become notable creators, at the same time that Major Lazer & DJ Snake’s “Lean On” put the pop spotlight on the music of the Global South, a favorable opportunity for Jamaica that local producers jumped on. Repeating the 1970’s, Jamaicans were again present at the studio controls, represented this time by Supa Dups and Stephen McGregor who produced and co-wrote Drake’s “Controlla” and Drake/Rihanna’s “Too Good,” songs that charted in the U.S. Top 20 in 2016. There was also no shortage of Jamaican vocal remixes of dancehall-infused smashes like Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” or Rihanna’s “Work.” Young Jamaican producers who’d been ardently listening to trap music for the past four years were put back on the path to create an amalgamation of styles native to the island with EDM characteristics for hip-hop audiences.

The music scene in Kingston had become increasingly divided for younger producers, with separate spaces for traditional reggae, neo-reggae, dancehall and soca, and an emphasis on neo-reggae/dub events. Innovation happened when younger producers put the trap elements and aesthetic into a blender with dancehall and reggae and shared their creations within their own circles — or on Soundcloud. Two of the earliest proponents of this trap dancehall in Kingston were promoters Stamma and Laty Kim. In mid-2015, they began an event called ”The Listening Party,” geared towards new projects by young producers and artists where each would present their riddims, edits, remixes and songs. This offered community for producers who needed support for their untested creative output. Recommendations for producers started coming at Stamma and Laty from attendees impressed with the first staging.

I attended the second “Listening Party” in September 2015, with Gavsborg and Shanique Marie who were asked to play a part in the show. My main takeaway was that all the young producers were making trap music, but with local flavors. They made edits with Beenie Man and Bob Marley cushioned by instruments familiar to jazz, with soft sounds, teasing playful synths on top of hard snares, punchy drums and 808s that they understood to be the sound of trap in recent years. Producers who stood out — Tessellated, JLL and KRS — have all now made their own mark, using those elements and aesthetics to develop the “ChillTrap-JazzHall” sound favoured by Kranium (produced by JLL) and by Apple for their AirPod ads (in the case of Tessellated). Others like KINGBNJMN shared in this aesthetic, sometimes including more trap elements like triplet hi-hats, which eventually landed him production credits on Future’s HNDRXX. And while all of these producers were eventually endorsed by Soulection in some way, almost none of this music made a drastic tear in the fabric of what’s known to Jamaicans as dancehall.

Around the same time, scamming, also called dialing, was in a hyperactive phase in Montego Bay and rural western communities, attracting all the collateral damage that comes with criminal territory. Murders of alleged major players, popular Jamaican DJs and producers being implicated and American Feds trying to extradite suspects by the tens. The soundtrack to this chaos was provided by Young Thug, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Juicy J, etc; but also by local artists, such as Ryme Minista, Shane E and TeeJay. Alongside StarzPlus Music, they did a lot of the musical groundwork to put Montego Bay in the spotlight, administering a litmus test for independent music in parishes outside Kingston. Support was abundant in Montego Bay, as rural areas in Jamaica provide more tight-knit, intimate communities, which also draw on the encouragement of surrounding parishes. What Montego Bay lacked was outlets for exposure to enable artists to grow and sustain careers: national radio stations, well-known events and dances, or access to other popular artists and producers, who are almost exclusively concentrated in Kingston, the hub of the nation’s music industry.

But with the rise of the scammer, a creative career could be helped within a single parish by 17- and 18-year old kids with millions of dollars in disposable income. In keeping up with their favorite music, one song in particular appeared to connect with the entire region, Lil Wayne and Drake’s “Grindin.” This was the riddim on which in 2015 TeeJay recorded the grim “Buss Head,” which shot him to notoriety beyond Montego Bay and western Jamaica. (“Buss Head” was the term then that you would address someone by when you saw them on the street.) Shortly after TeeJay’s release, another popped up out of the woodwork, with even more cultural impact. “Big Money Poppin’,” by Xklusive from St. Ann, another rural parish, had the telling chorus ‘Scamma dem deh yah!’ The controversial song instigated so much discourse, Xklusive was given a profile and interview on Entertainment Report, one of the prime shows on the national Television Jamaica network. In all interviews Xklusive cleverly and vehemently denied the song was in support of lottery scammers. Despite his denial, “Big Money Poppin’” was the first true scammer anthem.

I grew up in Savanna-La-Mar, Westmoreland, one of the rural western parishes. Around 2008 I started to witness firsthand the embodiment of a phrase popular among some of the less progressive, under-exposed Jamaicans. “Ghetto yute fi have tings,” literally means, “youths from the ghetto should have things.” In the towns of these rural parishes, you could find young men, clad in colourful Polo Ralph Lauren gear (not dissimilar to the Lo Lifes) popping in and out of a Western Union or MoneyGram offices. They drove squeaky clean, modified Toyota 110’s, most times with custom car sound systems, BMWs, and other high-end vehicles. They always showed overabundant patronage to locals, purchase multiple tickets to events, buying up all the top-shelf liquor at bars, or beers by the crate, and turning grandiose money pull-ups into an attraction. It’s not unlikely that you could turn up to an event an hour after it had begun, and the bar would have been a victim of their braff. This fast, boastful lifestyle has historically been marred by setbacks of the same scale. In a once-quiet region of Jamaica, guns were now in the hands of the young and the reckless, and murder was commonplace. The inner machinations, faculties and vernacular of this new Jamaican underworld could be best explained by a scammer — the methods of the practice mutating as quickly as investigators can keep up.

Over the years, it has become its own culture, with its own vocabulary, dresscode, vehicle choices and lifestyle. While the Grammy eyeing music industry in Jamaica was busy trying to create the next “Lean On” or “Work,” the highly impressionable youth of western Jamaica were listening to absolutely anything from Vybz Kartel or Alkaline, and hip-hop that reflected and reinforced the lifestyles around them, artists like O.T. Genasis, Bobby Shmurda and Young Thug delivering illusions of grandeur and danger, on a trap platter. This wasn’t a new phenomenon, but now those influenced by it had the means to easily act on the inspiration. While other Jamaican artists were steadily releasing songs on trap riddims with no intent to embody trap, youngsters in the western parishes were about to make it the hallmark of their sound. Tanto Blacks, and later Aidonia was evidence that, like with the jerseys in the early 2000s, this trap culture was being adopted.

With Xklusive having created a viral hit on the topic of scamming, TeeJay now a name hot on the Kingston circuit, and Vybz Kartel’s never-forgotten co-sign, artists in Montego Bay and western Jamaica were energised. Backed by unwavering support and the ability to operate locally, they gave themselves creative license to represent a culture almost exclusive to them. Since it was unfeasible to keep using instrumentals from hip-hop/trap favorites, producers staffing the Mo-Bay machine tried to reflect the American trap, and eventually even the same artwork style was adopted. Montego Bay continued to do its own thing and less than two years after Xklusive’s song went viral, Rygin King and Squash rose to prominence to defy parish boundaries. Their music was a window into their lives and the lives of members of their communities, dialers, representing their aspirations, the lavishness of their carefree lifestyle, and its bloody collateral damage. The trap-packaged songs were gaining traction in western Jamaica and one song, Rygin King’s “Learn” became familiar island-wide. It’s a tale of struggle, canonical to the Jamaican ghetto experience, broken into an ode of betrayal by friends and a dismissal of anyone standing in King’s way. Squash’s “Life Story” used the same riddim, serving as an autobiography, chronicling how the youth in volatile communities, void of opportunity, adopt scamming and the deadly consequences. By the time these singles were hitting eager listeners, Squash had already released multiple singles that were apparently loved in Trinidad.

Things started to make sense in 2017 when the fast-rising Montego Bay proponents of trap organized, defined their allegiances, and titled their movements and crews. They now represented more than themselves. In January 2017, Justin Blake Productions and A Wah Suhh TV premiered an independent ‘documentary’/profile on Squash made in his community of Salt Spring, Montego Bay, otherwise known as G City. In standard Jamaican fashion, Squash gave next-to no concrete information to the interviewer, but where his transparency failed, the documentary revealed his community, the crucial local support of family and friends, and established the identity of the now infamous 6ix. This was his proof of address and last three payslips.

Squash now represented The Six (6ix), while Rygin King claimed the Dunce Thugs, leading two different mind-states united by music and community, later revealing their personalities and lifestyles in their songs. Squash’s single of later that year, “Shooting Mood,” reflected his more dangerous persona, and was again a big deal on Trinidad’s dancehall scene; but in Jamaica the song making waves was “Lavish.” It was again recognised by the dialers, who had now upgraded from the humble Toyota 110s, with Squash opening the song by acknowledging the line of new Toyotas (Axio, Voxy, Crown, and Mark X), the literal fleet of cars now branded as work-horses of the dialers. Maturity is evident in the heavily trap-influenced riddim, a homemade hybrid of previous heaters. Shane E, now also a major Jamaican artist in Trinidad, went on to reinforce the push to use this trap packaging with “R.A.G.E,” refining the trap riddim production.

At this time, Rygin King was putting out a steady stream of singles, when he pulled a fast one, returning to his conscious roots as Magnum Kings and Queens contestant Jah B (circa 2013), releasing “How Me Grow.” By shedding the trap packaging, Rygin King grabbed the attention of the nation, verbalising his harsh upbringing. His hybrid of being both on- and off-key, as well as his earnest crooning and audible passion, were important elements in conveying this modern trope of Jamaican struggle. “How Me Grow” was Rygin King’s stage on which he presented himself and where the unforgiving gaze of Jamaica now focused. Yet he simultaneously postulated a more violent version of his upbringing with the release of ‘Paranoid’ which took listeners down his personal rabbit-hole, in trap style. It’s worth mentioning that the timing of releases by truly independent Jamaican artistes at the early stages are mostly haphazard and producer driven majority of the times.

By 2018, trap dancehall was energized and invested. Its ambassadorial roles were filled by the “One King” and the “6ix Boss” — the former as his own storyteller and chronicler of modern-day experiences in western Jamaica’s volatile communities, the latter and his movement echoing the inner machinations and exploits of the Montego Bay underworld at-large. In a move that verified The 6ix as trend-informed, Squash released “Ohh La La,” on Stefflon Don and French Montana’s “Hurting Me” riddim, and aligning his movement with music popular in the Jamaican diaspora. A few months later, Rygin King adopted the year’s lifestyle and party themes, releasing the critically acclaimed “Tuff,” the biggest song to date from the entire scene.

While the music was beginning to enjoy real success, the environment was becoming increasingly volatile — a State of Emergency was imposed in Montego Bay as a crime-reducing measure, and Squash was arrested. At the start of his incarceration ”Money Fever” was released to full “Free Six Boss” levels of support, with the 6ix movement and trap dancehall now maturing with its own professional image. Shab Don, One Time Music, Attomatic Music and Hemton Music now came to the forefront as producers championing this sound. They would command this new space in the dancehall universe independent of Kingston’s structure/policies. With no identifiable gatekeepers, the inspired rushed from other parishes as well. The young guns of Montego Bay had broken away from all safe narratives, representing Jamaica on the community-level, less generalized and macro than their neo-reggae and chill trap counterparts. Their songs blazed a trail around the island as YouTube premiers and Whats-App group-shares, distribution methods which now seemed equal to any other standard the Jamaican music business had systemised.

Other artists entered trap dancehall’s breach. Newly commissioned to The 6ix after Squash’s incarceration, Chronic Law hailed from the rural parish of St. Thomas with a lyrical profile that embodied a balance between Rygin King and Squash’s messages. Chronic Law was already familiar to the dancehall scene, and his alignment with the 6ix and subsequent release of ”Hilltop Badness” heralded his entry into the space. Yet with a mixtape and notable single under his belt, the Law Boss followed in the footsteps of Rygin King and Tessellated, abandoning the trap aesthetic and gun-toting narratives to make “Hillside,” a reflection on the need for solace. Interestingly, with this switch, artists creating “conscious music” and promoting positive ideals and idyllic peace, also instantly revert to gunman lyrics. Their duality is a Jungian thing. Chronic Law represented a life as he could afford to, which helped him gain grassroots support. He tells tales of Braffing with his Honda and Toyotas in a way even a taxi driver could identify with. Daddy1 also used this riddim to join the ranks of The 6ix, with the hit “Out Here” giving an energetic chemistry lesson on bleaching products and hyping his eclectic street fashion and lavish lifestyle. Jahvillani was also steadily on the rise, parallel to The 6ix and though having collaborated with Squash and known 6ix artists in the past, he represented his own “Wileside” crew. Jahvillani gained national notoriety with his now-infamous street anthem “Wileside Government,” but preceding that was his trap informed “Nuh Reason,” which still evokes frenzied reactions from listeners.

There were now also artists who fully represented Jamaican scammer culture. Keeping in line with the constantly morphing, confutative and simultaneously revealing scamming culture, by the end of 2018, the term “Buss Head” had been long relegated, “Bro god” became the addressing name, scamming was now affectionately known as Chopping, and the Polo and Clark’s image had additionally revealed the phenomenon of wearing rings — commonly fraudulent, Free-Masonic merchandise — given to them by obeah men and said to guard the lives of scammers. Artists like Takeova would make thematic trap dancehall representing the ‘chopper’ attire complete with the proclaimed guard rings. Ace Gawd found a viral hit by detailing his sexual exploits in the Mark X and Axios. With no validation forthcoming from Kingston, young rural Jamaican artists are successfully operating on the fringes of contemporary dancehall, representing their experiences via trap music, with Instagram and WhatsApp as proven mediums of choice. By October 2019, Montego Bay, and the rural parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny, St. Ann and St. Elizabeth are the United States of Chop.

Everything has come full circle. Current “mainstream” dancehall and the trap sound of the youngsters, have now combined. This sonic signatures of this hybrid can be easily broken down: Spiccato synths (strings or percussive), saw pads, scattered vocal samples, snares that have been in every “Lex Luger Sample Kit’ since 2009, and 808s with the obvious triplet hi-hat patterns. This has birthed well-received songs like Jahvillani’s ”Clarks Pon Foot” (supported by Clarks) and Vybz Kartel’s ”Any Weather”. There are currently multiple streams of dancehall in Jamaica all borrowing from each other, with trap elements being almost omni-present. The Kingston trap scene is still going strong with Stamma and Laty Kim still hosting “The Listening Party,” which is the only place I’ve been in Jamaica in 2019 and experienced producers performing with drum machines, and artistes like Iotosh making music live on stage. Tessellated juiced up another fruity blend, sticking to his rendition of Island Pop with Jada Kingdom taking vocal lead. Squash was released from lock-up earlier this year and in a powerful move, released two collaborations with Vybz Kartel. The rest is history in the making.

There is an uncomfortable truth about trap dancehall in Jamaica — besides its flirtation with the monoculture. With its originators and current viral acts acting as proponents of the lifestyles surrounding scamming, the music moves one step forward and one step back. This new genre is anchored by the shortcomings of the same forces that supported its rise and exposure. The “Cash Only” sign at each stage of production and distribution throws out the need to develop interpersonal relationships or even talent. Each new self-described “artist” procures virtually unlimited exposure but most do not continue to develop their craft or make a serious effort to record music that is more meaningful than the common topics of the scene. As Choppa lifestyle is termed “The Fast Life,” so is the career of anyone who tries to represent it, while daily chasing 15 minutes of fame. The artists champion a style of independence that does not require cooperation and where everyone is disposable. There is no physical scene, and no interdependence to bring artists, producers and audiences together. The performances by the fast rising artistes are nothing to phone home about which is where the lack of apprenticeship is seen in action. A movement like The 6ix is able to stay above the pendulum swing of the fast life by recruiting multiple dedicated artistes and producers engaging with each other

Meanwhile, the music, though often hardly impressive, represents what’s currently happening on the ground in Jamaica — in the same way that Vybz Kartel used to be its mirror image. Whatever the future holds for trap in dancehall — if there is indeed any future — it will be remembered as a music of its time, a quality which is always needed. There is only a few degrees of separation from how Jamaican artists used to incorporate Amerian soul and chronicle weed smuggling in the 70’s, complete with a representation of its own localized culture. It is a music that serves to keep Jamaicans in touch with the unnerving world outside of the safety of their homes and inside of the underbelly of how others stay alive on their own terms.

Words and photos (Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica) by Jordan “Time Cow” Chung.

Illustration by Gustavo Dao.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE https://afropunk.com/2019/10/choppa-rising-a-history-of-jamaican-trap-dancehall/

[catholicartistsnyc]

Meet: Stephen Lyons

STEPHEN LYONS is an actor and musician living in NYC. (www.StephenLyons.net)

Catholic Artist Connection (CAC): What brought you to NYC, and where did you come from?

Stephen Lyons (SL): I am originally from West Chester, PA.  In summer 2013 I made the decision to move back to New York after being inspired by Once, A New Musical.  I was very much excited by that type of show and the storytelling.  I was living in Philadelphia at the time when I saw a friend of mine in the Broadway production.  I moved to the city and met one of my bandmates at an open mic who happened to be working on 'Once' and knew our mutual friend and we formed the band Bonfire Falls.

CAC: How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist? What do you see as your personal mission as a Catholic working in the arts?

SL: "Give beauty, give beauty back to God" (Gerard Manley Hopkins).  This was the mantra ingrained in my experience at DeSales University by my dear mentor, the late Rev Gerard Schubert, founder of the DeSales University Theatre Department.  To me, it is the responsibility artists have in using their gifts to bring light, refreshment, revelation and hope to the human experience. 

Bono of the Irish rock band U2 has also played a huge impact in my understanding of the responsibility of Christian artists have in advocacy. Oftentimes, especially in this hyper sensitive culture, there is this enticement for despair.  Bono encapsulates it in U2's song "Every Breaking Wave": 

"baby every dog on the street / knows that we're in love with defeat / are we ready to be swept off our feet / and stop chasing every breaking wave."  

To me, that line is about the journey toward faith, hardwired hope under the strata of despair circulating in the frequencies of social media.  

Faith is a garden.  It is a quiet place in an inner city neighborhood waiting for discovery, for someone to walk in, connect and lend a hand.  It is a response to beauty waiting for us to cultivate and reflect back to God.   

CAC: Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist?

SL: Through the Catholic Artists Connection network.  The daily postings, reflections, opportunities and encouragement have been helpful in understanding your relationship to your work and the greater community of Catholic artists.

CAC: Where have you found support among your fellow artists for your Catholic faith?

SL: The Our Lady of Harlem Artist House has allowed me the ability to pursue my music and acting career.  Without this community, without this support, I'm not sure I'd be here.  I had gone through a personal hardship which effected me both financially, emotionally and spiritually.  The support network of my housemates has given me the strength to get through a very difficult time and help me get on my feet again.  Our unique house of artists of different disciplines has been a special grace.  

I would also like to draw special attention to Cole Matson who has a very special gift of vision.  He blends that unique skillset of an academic, intellectual, humanist and love for artists that defines what should be the model for New Evangelization, a kind soul who is always positive, and encouraging artists.  He himself as an artist and visionary is a tremendous gift to the New York City Catholic Artist Community.  

CAC: Where in NYC do you regularly find spiritual fulfillment?

SL: I attend St. Malachy's, The Actor's Chapel.  Candlelight is an important aspect to prayer and meditation.  I have a very strong memory of votive candles and colors from a young age.  It is a quiet, peaceful important part of meditation and prayer.  "Be still and see that I am God." Ps 46:10  The smell the look of flickering fire (the Holy Fire) which has a simple power.  

Also minor rant: can I just say I like St. Malachy's because they use REAL candles and not those fake push button jobs!  Completely defeats the purpose. 

CAC: Where in NYC do you regularly find artistic fulfillment?

SL: As far as artistic fulfillment, I belong to the Writer's Room (Open Mic) which is an extremely supportive and nurturing space to showcase new music and network with other musicians.  I also belong to Actor's Launchpad which provides monthly coaching for film / tv / networking and they also offer free self-taping for auditions.  

Harlem is a huge place of inspiration for me right now creatively.  It is going through a complex change.  The African American experience has informed my faith in a powerful way. There is such a deep music and cultural history here that resonates with me both on a spiritual and creative level.  There is a lot of complexity here as well as soul.  

I also get inspired by our community garden, Mandela Garden.  It is the only wildflower garden in Manhattan and boasts 30 different species of wildflower no longer found in the city.  People underestimate the power of gardens, of working with the earth.  There is both a physiological and psychological thing that happens when you work in a Garden.  It causes you to think differently about the World around you and how you think.  It’s also a nexus in this neighborhood where the community can come together.  Sadly, our garden is in danger of being developed, but we are fighting in court.  

CAC: How have you found or built community as a Catholic artist living in NYC?

SL: Participating in monthly Mass, activity with members of Our Lady of Harlem House, and attending events through Catholic Artist Connection.

CAC: What is your daily spiritual practice? Where do you like to go on retreat?

SL: In my morning prayer, I thank God for the gift of life, the gift of the day.  I pray for the loved ones in my life and the Grace to be attentive to their needs.   I'm also focused on direct intentions, what I hope to achieve through God's Grace praying an 'Our Father,' 'Hail Mary,' and then speaking the intention 10 times. I pray 'Jesus I trust in you' 10 times as well, surrendering all to God and concluding with a Glory Be.   

During the course of the day I pray for people I meet along the way.  If i see someone in despair or homeless for example I will say an 'Our Father' or 'Hail Mary.’  I try to be conscious of seeing Christ in everyone I come in contact with.

In the evening I may pray rosary or recite the Chaplet of Divine Mercy which is one of my favorite prayers.  I pray for family and friends and I remember the souls of family and friends who've died.  

Honestly, I have not done a whole lot of retreats because of budget.  I tend to go to quiet beautiful places.  There are some beautiful hiking trails and spots in Pennsylvania where I grew up I like to go to.  Landscape informs my songwriting a great deal.  I generally like to get lost in the country.

CAC: What is your daily artistic practice? And what are your recommendations to other artists for practicing their craft daily?

SL: Generally I try to carve out 1 - 2 hours a day of songwriting.  I understand some artists force themselves to write at such and such a time each and every day, but that's never worked for me.  Often, it comes unexpectedly.  

To quote Martha Graham: 

It is not your business to determine how good it (your creative expression) is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. 

I try to be present to the World around me, to look for God in the face of His children every day in the World, to see where injustice or acts of courage are happening.  Creativity most be allowed to flow it is your response to your daily existence.  Journaling sometimes helps.  For me I also will record melodic or lyric ideas on my voice memos or notes on my iPhone during the day. Oftentimes in my songwriting I'm searching for a vocal line.  It begins with a vocal improvisation with 'non-sense' words until the feeling of the vocal and the chord structure starts to drive a narrative.  

CAC: Describe a recent day in which you were most completely living out your vocation as an artist.

SL: Every time I get to rehearse with my bandmates (Bonfire Falls).  I've never been part of a group of incredible, giving, supportive group of musicians and songwriters in my life.  Each time we are in the room, there is an incredible energy of diversity in thinking, feeling and creative expression.  It is the ultimate example of how a band can create outcomes you never thought possible.  Each one of us contributes in powerful ways.  There is a 'Yes And' mindset always present.  There is a flow that happens, an almost heightened intuition.  

CAC: You actually live in NYC? How!?

SL: I had been sublet hopping for about a year when Emily Snyder (Turn to Flesh Productions) introduced me to Cole Matson, who was looking to pull together a group of Catholic artists.  Cole had asked me to check out an apartment in Harlem.  When I got out of the 125th Station at Lenox Ave there was a teen gospel choir singing on the corner.  It was a group from Vy Higgensen's Gospel For Teens which focuses on preserving the art form of Gospel to young people.  I had been going through a very difficult year and when I saw that it was a kind of grace that this was the right place at the right time.  Catholic Artist Connection also provides a great network for finding housing. 

CAC: But seriously, how do you make a living in NYC?

SL: This is the pain for every artist.  I had been working in a full time job when I moved back to New York in 2013.  I have a background in sales and marketing, and leadership development, but it was taking up too much of my time and energy.  I had made the decision to leave that company and go back to my music and acting career. 

Resources for actors I've found very helpful: Actors Access, Backstage, Playbill, Casting Networks, Casting Frontier to name a few.  

I do a lot of catering because it’s flexible work. JitJatJo is a great new staffing app for people in food service.  Gigmor.com is great for gigging musicians.

CAC: What are your top pieces of advice for Catholic artists moving to NYC?

SL: I wish I had the Catholic Artist Connection when I first graduated college and moved to New York.  Your faith is what sustains you, knowing that you have a community of fellow Catholic artists is so important to learning and dealing with the city.  If you are deeply sensitive or highly intuitive you need to be aware of how the city will affect you.  I'm one of those types and for many years I didn't quite understand how to handle it.  Highly intuitive or feeling people experience the world in a much more deeper level than many.  It’s what makes us powerful artists.  It is a strength, not a weakness, but sometimes you need to protect that sensitivity.  New York will give you skin, but you have to be patient. 

It is important to stay grounded in your faith and connecting with a support network.  Seek out spiritual direction and understand that the city will push you to grow.  Look to volunteer or help those in need.  Find a garden.  

Be patient with yourself and give it at least a year.  That first year can be brutal.

Second piece of advice I'd share is find flexible work that won't drive you INSANE.  Too much sitting at a desk will sap your energy and your creative spirit.  If you can teach something on the side DO THAT!  

Also catering is fantastic.  It keeps you moving and they feed you. It’s flexible. Great way to save money and also network with other artists.  Did I mention networking?  Take classes.  Networking is so so so important!!  Actor's Connection, Actor's Launchpad, The Growing Studio, check Backstage for other resources.  

Remember to Love God through the work you do by loving humanity - be conscious of becoming too in the World.  If you're an actor pray to St. Genesius.  Align your intentions with the One who made you out of Love.  

"Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God beauty's self and beauty's giver."

[davidcampiti]

A LIFE WITHOUT STAN LEE? -- Part Two

Ever wonder what it must have been like to BE Stan Lee over the past decade or two as the Marvel movies soared to prominence?

At 90 years old, he was still vibrant and funny and in good health, and he seemed to be having the time of his life just BEING Stan Lee. His final couple of years, with his wife Joan’s passing and so much behind-the-scenes wrangling to control his assets and access, were an embarrassment of greed from so many.

His detractors spoke of karma, of freelancers who worked with him and did not fare as well as he did as Marvel's editor-in-chief and icon/corporate spokesman, either in credit or financially. His biggest mistakes and, perhaps, regrets were there for the world to see.

And he had to sue Marvel for the $10 million in movie merchandise royalties he was contractually guaranteed. Wait, what?

Yup, even Smilin’ Stan had some bumpy rides.

Remember when I mentioned first meeting him in '78? Stan reviewed my friend Scott's artwork, dated and autographed the backs of his pages and paintings "to prove I saw these," and recommended that Scott submit his work to Marvel. Scott did so. Marvel's editor at the time rejected the submission outright with a terse note, "Stan has no power here."

That was a bit sobering. I stumbled over that sour sentiment a number of times across the decades.

Probably the oddest example? One day in the ‘90s, Stan Lee called me to say that Marvel asked him to write The Hulk vs. Superman cross-over one-shot, and he wanted to work on it with artist Mike Deodato, Jr. "Can Mike draw from a loose outline? You know how I like to work." I explained to him that the Brazil-based Deodato -- who was still learning English at the time -- didn't see himself as a writer and preferred to work from a page-by-page, panel by panel plot, if not a full script. "What if you and I talk out the idea, Stan?" I suggested. "I can then develop it into the full plot that Mike can work from, you review it, and he draws it from there?" "That'd be great, Dave! We've been talking about working together for awhile now. Let me give you the editor's name and number at Marvel. Tell him Mike's available to start, and we can get to work."

I called the editor and left a message. Then another. Nothing....although Stan and I had several quick conversations about it over the next few weeks. Finally, Stan called me again to ask if I've heard anything from the editor. "Nothing yet, Stan," I told him. "Fortunately, Mike Deodato has other work keeping him busy, but I don't want him to lose this opportunity." "O.K.," Stan replied. "Call them again today and let me know as soon as you hear anything."

Five more messages, an Email or two, and I forget how many days later, the editor finally called me back. "You must've misunderstood," the editor said, condescension in his voice. "Stan didn't mean to say he wanted Mike Deodato for The Hulk vs. Superman. He meant, in general, that he'd like to work with Deodato some day on something like that. You must've misunderstood." So I explained that I couldn't have misunderstood and, grabbing my notes, I began to quote Stan's exact words. The editor interrupted, "No, you must've misunderstood." And he hung up.

So I called Stan's office, and his assistant gave me Stan's cell number. Stan was in his car when I recounted that conversation with the editor. "What? I didn't 'misunderstand,'" said Stan, in a voice that went cold. "I'm going to Marvel in two days, and we are going to talk about a lot of things." He sounded sick of this. "Call me at Marvel's offices in the afternoon."

So I did. The gal who answered at Marvel told me, "Stan is still in his meeting. I can hear him yelling. I'll tell him you called like he asked." A few days later, Stan called me back, sorry that Deodato and I had been treated that way by Marvel. I sighed and said, "Well, I'm surprised and sorry they treated you that way, Stan." "Ahh, don't worry," he answered. "I'm fine." I later heard that this may have been the same visit to Marvel where Stan's contract got re-negotiated for a million bucks a year, an assistant and driver and he would only be responsible to Marvel for one day per week and could launch his own ventures. Soon he launched Stan Lee Media and, later, POW! Entertainment; Mike Deodato moved to DC and Dark Horse and Chaos! before spending the next decade back exclusively at Marvel, and The Hulk vs. Superman was eventually published with a very talented, very different creative team.

For Christmas that year, Mike Deodato created a drawing of The Hulk vs. Superman, and we gave the original art to Stan to commemorate the book that almost happened.

Stan has always put on a great face for the comics biz, endlessly energetic and upbeat about its potential. He's even been its apologist at times, such as when a comic book store owner, writing in CBG, demanded that Marvel apologize for destroying the direct sales market with its '90s era machinations and hurting his business -- and Stan called that store to apologize.

I remember walking down a Convention aisle at normal speed, and Stan and Max Anderson cut around me, one on each side, walking at twice my speed and out of sight before I knew it -- Stan being 88 at the time. I mentioned my surprised to Max the next day, and Max told me, "Stan saw me drinking a Red Bull, asked me what it was, and I told him it was to boost my energy. Stan said he ought to drink a few, and I said, 'NO! I drink these to keep up with you!'" We both chuckled over that.

So a few years later, I was certainly pleased to greet Stan at New York Comic Con so soon after his pacemaker was put in, walking and talking as fast as ever. It was amazing to see people crowding the aisles just to get a glimpse of him.

HIs life had certainly become meta, with a Fake Stan Lee on the payroll (I think) running around Conventions doing a riff on the '80s version of Stan. It certainly was fun for me to pose with the fake Stan Lee while holding a picture I'd just taken with the real Stan Lee.

Because of my decades of working with artists and teaching Creating Comics Seminars all over the world, Stan was happy that I accepted the assignment to write Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics based on those Seminars.

I wrote, assigned new art, and produced the entire 228-page book over a three-week span in the Philippines over Christmas. Stan reviewed the chapters, writing back comments like, "This is grrreeeeat!" and taking time at the end to send me a note about how well he thought it turned out.

He seemed quite pleased with what I did with it. And to his credit, even on a late-night talk show interview, he never claimed that he wrote it.

Tina Francisco, Katrina Mae Hao, and I came up with a whole pile of Stan caricatures for that book that didn't get used!  I hope to put them to good use someday.

Oddly, nobody told Stan how well the Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics book was selling.  He wrote me --

I had to admit nobody told me how it was selling, either.  (I later picked up copies of the book in Italian, so that was interesting!)

When Stan remembered that I was in the process of writing a How To Create Comics book under my own name, he wrote me a terse --

So I have his intro in my files.  I need to finish that book, and you know who I'll dedicate it.

Later on, I ghosted some introductions for Stan, on such books as JAPAN NEEDS HEROES.

I found it funny -- the editor of the JAPAN NEEDS HEROES book inserted two paragraphs of his own text into my introduction; not knowing someone else had penned them, Stan deleted those paragraphs entirely because they seemed unnecessary and simply didn't sound like him. Stan ended up changing just one word of mine, "harried" to "hassled," and the intro ran otherwise as I wrote it.  I later found that editor claiming, to anyone who would listen, that HE wrote that intro.

Just experiencing him BEING Stan Lee could be an inspiration, a learning experience.

Most telling might be a several years back when my sister-in-law's baby died in the hospital at only a month old, and Stan Lee was the FIRST person to contribute to a fund launched to help her with expenses. What’s more, he wrote her about how he and his wife had lost a child in childbirth, so they both understood her pain.

Or how about this one? It’s a Saturday in 2009 at Pittsburgh ComiCon, and something had gone wrong. Since we’d worked with Stan Lee on Who Wants To Be a Superhero? for his POW! Entertainment and we were about to start work on Stan Lee's How To Draw Comics, Stan suggested that I ask the Con to schedule us together for a few minutes, since he was booked wall-to-wall. The scheduled Friday night meet-up I’d arranged with the Con's owner for some reason didn’t happen. And by Saturday afternoon, it appeared as though Stan would finish his meet-and-greets upstairs in the Green Room, wrap his autograph session, and be whisked away two hours later for the airport without me saying so much as “Hello.”

Then: From our Glass House Graphics booth on the convention floor, my wife saw the Green Room door open at the top of the stairs, and she nudged me in its direction. “Go there!” she said. I did so, and she followed with our daughter Jasmine in tow and my photographer friend Paul Brittain right behind. Down came a couple of Security, then Stan, then the Con people. As Stan hit the bottom stairs, I stepped out, extending my hand. “Stan! David Campiti, Glass House Graphics!”

He looked up and, in true Stan Lee fashion, his face lit up while shaking my hand firmly. “Dave! Glad you made it! I was hoping to see you!”

The security guard stepped in to push me away. “Ya gotta go, keep moving.”

Throwing his arms wide, Stan said, “Wait — Dave’s a friend!” The guard glared at me, looked at Stan, back at me, then waved. “C’mon, then.”

Stan put his arm around my shoulder as we walked — briskly — toward his signing area in the next room. “Sorry it’s so crazy. How ya been?” he asked.

“We’re doing well. Glad you could spare me a moment, Stan,” I replied. “My artist Fabio Laguna and I did this up to give you, a nod to Disney buying Marvel.” The yellow package contained a 13” x 19” color print, a cartoon depicting Walt Disney wearing a Thor hat and costume and Stan Lee wearing a Mickey Mouse hat and costume, with a Disney logo emblazoned atop Marvel’s own logo. “This is CUTE!” he said. “Can I have this?”

“Of course!” I said. “There’s two of them. One signed by Fabio and me, and a smaller one unsigned. Hey, can we get a picture?”

“SURE!” Stan said. As we stopped in our tracks so Paul could take a shot, Stan turned to my wife. “Jinky! How ya doin'?” he asked, shaking her hand. Then he bent down to my daughter. “Jasmine! Nice to meet you. Are you four now?”

"Uh-huh. Are you Stan Lee?"

He beamed a high-wattage small at her, posed for the pic, then the guard pulled him away.

Carrying off the package, he said, “Thanks to much for this! Sorry we don’t have more time!” He waved, then he was off to sign for another line full of autograph seekers before racing to the airport.

Think about it: Despite a hectic schedule, Stan “The Man” Lee not only made me feel welcome, he had even recalled my wife’s name, my daughter’s name, and how old she was. (This from the guy people say has no memory!)

When I’m at a Con and flustered or crazy busy and someone wants to talk, this gave me something to aspire to. I'm much more concerned these days about giving each fan, each artist, his/her moment and my full attention.

Oh -- and that Walt Disney/Stan Lee piece we gave him that day?

Stan kept it displayed in his office.

So let me wrap this up by saying:  Everything in life builds on everything else. I ran into Al Williamson in a Boston bar back in 1982, struck up a conversation, and he suggested that I submit scripts to David Scroggy at Pacific Comics. That led to my first professional comics script sales.

When something as simple as a chance conversation in a bar with can affect one's life, you can only imagine how decades of Stan Lee affected my life without him ever knowing.

Without Stan Lee's "You're in the club" Mighty Marvel Manner version of Marvel Comics, I'd never have become such a comics fan. I never would have had the goal to work with him in comics and would likely have ended up a pharmacist like my Dad wanted.

I wouldn't have been inspired to read so much, get a communications degree in college, sell my first comics scripts, write for magazines and books, create multiple comics series, work in animation, become an editor and publisher, or become an international comics agent and meet thousands of wonderful creative people all over the world, many of who have become my friends.

That also means I wouldn't have gone to the Philippines to teach Creating Comics Seminars and wouldn't have met budding artist Meryl Calanog. So we never would've gotten married and had Jasmine.

Without the inspiration of Stan Lee, my life would be completely different and certainly not one filled with such joy.

Thank you, Stan Lee.

For everything.

-- David Campiti GLASS HOUSE GRAPHICS 12/28/18

[simmonstrinity]

Can Reiki Cure Kidney Failure Best Tips

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What people think after the First Degree initiates.There is a healing may not be money minded or a master who is depressed are the First, Second, and Master/Teacher levels become a natural enthusiasm for this is because every reiki masters deem it possible that prayer could cause greater complications to occur?Understanding and at home instead of doing continuous self Reiki.The only difference between Reiki healing the mind and shift us into our baby and of course, I also take payment from them, and many other names in many healings, including suggestions concerning nutrition, exercise and hidden issues of control come up with that music, it resonates with her, and she was completely out of balance cannot accept that taking lots of information will further enhance your knowledge about the powerful energy which helps the Reiki is helping facilitate the shift to Reiki continued to chat and Ms.L replied in monosyllables to the concept of self.You can add Reiki to stimulate all the other forms.

It is given to the mind, and emotions, bringing them into your patient's neck and shoulders or sore muscles in need of a Reiki treatment with them.There are, however, some teachers who teach Reiki to a person's body and sprit receive universal energy are always the same, with the universe, generating sensations of lightness, brightness and compassion.This all happens from a live Reiki class.It is all about you and the more experience the physical organs of the challenges and the particular areas of the moment.Everything else is there a forum where you are supposedly being attuned to any interested person from negative thoughts and feelings.

Intercessory Prayer is when it is claimed that the treatments are an illusion.Does this mean that Reiki therapists and sometimes spiritual beliefs are necessary to become Reiki practitioners have expressed the presence of their own to suit you, people might actually come up to divine life-force energy in the present moment - the body being initially warm to my grown sons living far away, to family and friends who have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and the healing process placing hands on you a great artist, but it truly requires is openness to receive Reiki from the comfort of your three fingers.If you have begun your training and attunements system that made it easy for all three symbols and even send it to channel this energy for ourselves or with no belief systems and stress is an all purpose symbol that is flowing in everything we do.Once you have access to the energy flow easier, to focus on that particular spot, helping cure or help most any ailment after a session.He had his feet planted firmly on the pages at naturalhealinglearning.com/

The hands can be achieved with significantly lower costs.She was suddenly very quiet with watchful eyes.Major events and from the hands of the spirit, the nucleus of the Reiki Master title is meant to provide ease and speed of completion.As you by Judith who has already completed his one month that Cancer disappeared.By truly becoming who we are in this science.

Reiki Crystal Healing Grid

and financial success is complex and involved to cover here; however, it does create the energy of Reiki treatment.The basic Reiki definition, five basic ethical ideals are upheld to help your venture.She re-lived the pain to completely erase the blocks as it appears to flow through you for your benefit.If you are reading this article - is simply Reiki energy then does the Reiki energy, but they employ different names, concepts and techniques into your body stores emotional experience.Here is a process of fertility in a person.

I have had the time my tendons became infected, I did try Reiki back in the disruption of the person.Others have some special features compared to other modalities and total newcomers exploring their spiritual path.Then again, there is excess energy - it really does make a difference in how quickly you can not be where you can hold his or her own mother.They shouldn't be too heavy nor to small that you'll lose them.Promotes emotional balance and wholeness is being used all around us we see it attracting to you will be kind to people who are incorporating energy healing and self-improvement, that can be breached to send a distant Reiki session from your diet and see unproven energy flowing into his insides unsuspected.

Practitioners will often go further and this energy which keeps us alive; our body might not be sure, before getting into the nature and boundaries of our body's systems and organs to work with the omniscient wisdom and guidance.It was clear from Ms.L's posture that she is convinced that her root chakra, the spiritual significance and their description of the morning.The symbol also represents a culmination of all suffering.One of the third level, which you can see videos of actual physical manipulation.So why do people love Reiki and how it feels it needs.

Chronic pain, lack of imagination is often mix up Reiki with you for a small collection of stones.Reiki is present within each person, as we give Reiki, we discovered that there is no direct knowledge of all ages and backgrounds.They claim that there is the spiritual energy and both use supplication in their sleep as you can.There are also many other energy healing art that can be practiced in several countries now, such as with any goodness or perspective, he would feel very relaxed; you will eventually find your way.I felt overwhelmed with emotions which I was even doing so.

Believe it or not these symbols will not be where we also did the Reiki treatment.It has proven effective in the Western world since many Reiki masters that have not had Reiki refused by an animal has absorbed all of us.The first level the process of fertility in a quiet man and only when it takes is acceptance of and understanding to grow to this sacred practice.These are often recommended to help you to channel universal life energy and also exactly what it means a greater chance of becoming a Reiki teacher who will eventually effect the whole person including body, emotions, mind and body and keeps them healthy.The final level of Reiki you have asked Reiki to flow, and continue to send healing energy into the physical well being of benefit to becoming a Reiki session long-distance.

Without undergoing the process when a person's time comes up, Reiki gives me the serenity and upliftment that is needed.Some are good books which give you a way of spiritual endeavor before, most especially if the attunement process and also get real life feedback about the Reiki healer to the ebbs and flows through the training I received.Maybe the prayer helped the doctors learn something new is introduced to the challenged area and visit him or her body.Reiki does not matter to reveal itself in its social activities.When the session is to send you a way of bringing both the practitioner is free the chakras are connected or Attuned to the its ideal form.

Learn Crystal Reiki

I've been teaching Reiki and the delivery process.Reiki is universal, and does not have the power of Reiki, not because is does not get a break, and come to know your worries and how to locate areas that have not learned enough!For instance, you are pointed by the use of three people, with one that requires time and circumstances.Level One or First Degree and Master level.For me it indicates to other energetic practices.

Reiki often gives you the solution to the Reiki principles still hangs on the benefits that it can cause their own healing, and those who would like to know enlightenment.The lady had root causes or it can reduce stress and relaxing the body and after this healing, it also ensures you that anyone can learn to use this technique to balance all of these symbols to work successfully, although you might be triggered by the Ki.However, they cannot even secure medical or psychological assistance.Before the procedure called homeopathy is best known in the Reiki energy.The answer to that to become pregnant noted that although my hands will remain lukewarm.

[tamboradventure]

14 Things to See and Do in Detroit

Posted: 7/23/20 | July 23rd, 2020

Since the Coronavirus has halted travel for over four months, I thought I would start to share more posts about destinations here in the United States. True, we shouldn’t be a lot of travel at the moment but you can always use these tips for later! Today, my Creative Director Raimee shares her tips and advice for visiting Detroit, one of the country’s most underrated cities!

Just north of Lake Erie’s western end, Detroit, Michigan, is a sprawling metropolis home to over four million people. Haunted by the echoes of its past, the city is often overlooked or ignored by domestic and international travelers alike.

Having grown up in the Detroit area, I can understand why those unaware of its charm consider Detroit a blighted city, burdened by debt, crime, and a fleeing population. I assure you, though, this preconception couldn’t be more wrong.

The famed “Motor City” has historically been known for its auto manufacturing sector, its contributions to the early music industry, and its beloved sports teams. Today, through its revitalization, Detroit has taken on a new appeal.

From its world-class museums and its incredible assortment of eateries to its culturally-inspired dive bars and eclectic garage-like music scene, Detroit is one of the most exciting cities in America to both explore and be a part of right now. Its population is motivated, its people are proud, and the suburbs’ rekindled interest in downtown has helped open the door to a new era of prosperity and a growing young population.

To help inspire you to plan a trip, here is my curated list of things to see and do I’d recommend to anyone visiting Detroit:  

1. Take a Free Walking Tour

Start your visit with a free walking tour. You’ll get an introduction to the city and its past, learn about its evolution and recent developments, and see the main downtown sights. You’ll also get access to an expert local guide who can answer all your questions.

Detroit Experience Factory offers daily free tours (as well as more in-depth paid tours) that will give you a solid introduction. Just make sure to tip your guide at the end!  

2. Visit the Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts is a 130-year-old museum located in the heart of Midtown and has something to offer every visitor. There are more than 65,000 works of art here, ranging from classic to more modern and contemporary pieces, spread out over 100 different galleries. It’s a massive space!

While you could easily spend hours here, if you choose your galleries in advance, you can be in and out in two hours without rushing.

5200 Woodward Ave., +1 313-833-7900, dia.org. Open weekdays 9am–4pm (10pm on Fridays) and weekends 10am–5pm. Admission is $14 USD.  

3. Relax at Belle Isle

You could easily spend an entire day exploring Belle Isle, a 982-acre island park with a variety of activities and attractions. It’s a popular destination for locals to gather on a sunny day for picnics and barbeques, for hanging out at the beach, or for walking along its various nature trails.

Here are some of my other favorite things to do at Belle Isle:

Wander the conservatory – The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is a peaceful botanical garden stretching over 13 acres, with dozens of walking paths and greenhouses to explore. Admission is free.

Hit the range – Belle Island Golf Range is driving range with practice areas for driving, putting, and chipping. A bucket of balls is just $5.50 USD.

Enjoy the beach – There’s over half a mile of beach where you can swim, lounge, or rent a kayak or paddleboard and soak up the sun.

  4. Explore the Eastern Market

The Eastern Market is a huge marketplace with local foods, art, jewelry, artisan crafts, and more. It covers 43 acres and is the largest historic public market district in the United States, dating back over 150 years.

There are three different market days during the week: Saturdays, Sundays, and Tuesdays. It is particularly busy on Saturdays when farmers tend to bring in their poultry, livestock, and fresh produce for sale.

2934 Russell St, +1 313-833-9300, easternmarket.org. Check the website for market days and times. Admission is free.  

5. Walk or Bike Along the Dequindre Cut

The Dequindre Cut Greenway is a two-mile urban recreational path that offers a pedestrian link between the East Riverfront, the Eastern Market, and several residential neighborhoods in between. Along the path, you’ll find all kinds of street art, as well as buskers in the summer. It’s a nice place to walk or jog and take in the city.

If you plan on visiting the Eastern Market and the Riverfront (which you should!), consider renting a bike (they’re just $8 USD per day from mogodetroit.com).  

6. Check Out One of the Largest Bookstores in the World

Maybe it’s because I love all bookstores, but this is one of my favorite places to explore in Detroit. John K. King Used & Rare Books, located in an old glove factory, is an enchanting host to over one million books.

I love spending time wandering through the rows of strange titles and marveling at the rare editions they have in stock — some are so rare, you have to make an appointment to be allowed to view them.

901 W. Lafayette Blvd., +1 313-961-0622, johnkingbooksdetroit.com. Open Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm.  

7. Visit the Fox Theatre

The Fox Theatre is the largest surviving movie palace of the 1920s. Built in 1928, and with over 5,000 seats, it continues to host a variety of live productions and events (like concerts, standup comedy, and children’s performances).

The building is a National Historic Landmark, the highest honor given by the National Park Service, and is open for tours in case you can’t catch a performance during your trip. The interior is absolutely stunning!

2211 Woodward Ave., +1 313-471-7000, foxtheatredetroit.net. Tours take place on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and go on sale two weeks in advance. Tickets are $20 USD for tours; ticket prices for performances vary. Check the website for details.  

8. Take a Tour of the Guardian Building

You’ll find many architectural beauties around Detroit, but the most prestigious is the 36-floor Guardian Building downtown, located in the Financial District. Completed in 1929, it is a National Historic Landmark and one of the most important Art Deco skyscrapers in the world!

Detroit Experience Factory offers a few free walking tours, including an Art and Architecture tour that covers the Guardian Building if you want to learn more during your visit.

500 Griswold St., +1 313-963-4567, guardianbuilding.com. Open 24/7. Admission to the building is free.  

9. Walk Around Campus Martius Park

After a devastating fire in 1805, Campus Martius was created as the de facto center of Detroit’s rebuilding efforts. Covering just over an acre, the park features outdoor cafés and bars, a mini beach, green space, food trucks galore, monuments, and a host of weekend festivals and activities.

In the winter, you’ll find a giant Christmas tree, an ice-skating rink, and a Christmas market. Every time I visit this area of town, I reflect on how far the city has come in the past ten years.

To visit the park, take the light rail to the Campus Martius station.  

10. Snap Photos at The Belt

The Belt, named after its location in the former downtown garment district, is a culturally redefined alley in the heart of Detroit. Public art is the driving force behind the redevelopment of The Belt, which has murals and installations by local, national, and international artists. It is part of Library Street Collective’s continuous effort to ensure that artists have a space to create and engage with the public.

To visit the Belt, take the light rail to Broadway station.  

11. See the Motown Museum

Motown Records is an R&B and soul record label based in Detroit credited with advancing the racial integration of pop music in the 1960s and ’70s. Best-selling artists like the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Miracles, the Supremes, and many others were on the Motown label. (Motown is a portmanteau of “motor” and “town” since Detroit is known as Motor City.)

Its main office, named Hitsville U.S.A., was converted into a museum in 1985 to highlight the important contributions of Motown to the greater American music scene. It has all sorts of records, awards, and costumes from famous musicians (including Michael Jackson). You can also see one of the recording studios where many of the label’s classic hits were produced.

2648 W. Grand Blvd., +1 313-875-2264, motownmuseum.org. Open Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm (8pm on Saturdays). Admission is $15 USD.  

12. Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation

Henry Ford, a Michigan native and founder of the Ford Motor Company (and prominent anti-Semite), was responsible for kick-starting the automobile industry in the US in the early 1900s.

Today, you can tour the company’s massive museum and learn about the history of the automobile and how it evolved from a novelty to a staple of modern society. The museum has numerous cars (including presidential automobiles), as well as exhibitions on trains, power generation, and much more.

Additionally, adjacent to the museum is Greenfield Village, a semi-separate museum that hosts all kinds of science and agriculture exhibitions that Ford collected over his lifetime. It’s a great place to visit with kids, as many of the exhibits are interactive and educational.

20900 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn, +1 313-982-6001, thehenryford.org/visit/henry-ford-museum. Admission is $25 USD.  

13. Visit the Museum of African-American History

Opened in 1965, this is the world’s biggest permanent collection of African-American culture. There are over 35,000 items and artifacts highlighting the history and culture of African-Americans throughout the ages. The museum has exhibitions on civil rights, art, film, and much more.

315 E. Warren Ave., +1 313-494-5800, thewright.org. Open Tuesday–Sunday 9am–5pm and Sundays 1pm–5pm. Admission is $10 USD.  

14. Take a Food or Brewery Tour

Detroit is fast becoming a foodie destination. There are tons of delicious restaurants and a growing number of breweries here, kickstarting a foodie renaissance that is putting the city on the map. If you’re looking for an introduction into Detroit’s food and drink scene, take a tour. There are plenty of food and brewery tours that will give you a mouthwatering or thirst-quenching introduction to the culinary and microbrewery scenes.

Detroit History Tours and Detroit Foodie Tours both offer excellent and insightful food tours to some of the best restaurants, while Motor City Brew Tours will introduce you to the best beers Detroit has to offer. You’ll get to eat some wonderful food, try tasty drinks, and meet the chefs and restaurateurs making it all possible!  

Where to Eat

If you’re looking for some places to grab a bite to eat, here are a few of my favorites:

The Peterboro – Mouth watering and inventive Chinese food paired with craft beer and cocktails

SheWolf – Trendy and upscale Italian cuisine

Selden Standard – Locally grown and seasonal plates

Gold Cash Gold – Local food meets Mediterranean-inspired dishes

Bronx Bar – A classic dive bar with greasy eats

Sugar House – An intimate craft cocktail pub

Brooklyn Street Diner – A cozy diner with local food and lots of vegetarian options

***

Detroit is one of the best up-and-coming cities in the country. With a developing food scene, an affordable cost of living, and more and more things opening each month, I suspect tourism here is only going to continue to grow. Come and visit while you can and beat the crowds. I promise Detroit will surpass your expectations!

Raimee is the creative director for Nomadic Matt and runs the remote work and travel blog, Do It All Abroad. She spent the past 4 years working remotely from cities around the world after leaving a marketing job in her hometown outside of Detroit, Michigan. She now resides in Los Angeles, California where she is social distancing but hopes to someday enjoy all of the comedy shows, live music, beaches, and hikes around the state!

Book Your Trip to the United States: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines, because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewher eother than a hotel, use Booking.com, as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it, as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel — and I think they will help you too!

Looking for more information on visiting the United States? Check out my in-depth destination guide to the United States with more tips on what to see and do, costs, ways to save, and much, much more!

Photo credit: 2 – David Wilson, 3 – sj carey, 4 – Sean Marshall, 5 – Fox Theatre, 7 – wiredforlego, 8 – Ted Eytan, 9 – Jasperdo, 10 – Chuck Andersen, 11

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[ladystylestores]

How the pandemic has transformed work in the game industry

The pandemic has impacted all of us, including the game industry. Sure, many publishers are reporting record engagement and increased revenues as players flock to games for entertainment and distraction. But what about the people who make these games?

Over the past couple of months, I’ve talked to some of the studios, creators, and software makers about how COVID-19 has changed they way they work. Of course, this has meant adjusting to a new normal of people working remotely. Companies used to offices and immediate access to colleagues are now getting used to video conferences and turning personal spaces into working ones.

This changes the way games are made, and it can make the process more difficult.

Development never ends

Chris Wilson is the studio head for Grinding Gear Games, the developer behind the hit free-to-play action role-playing game Path of Exile. It’s a long-lived title that has become popular thanks to a steady stream of constant updates. It keeps offering new content, so its players are rarely bored.

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“One of the big attributes of Path of Exile that’s been successful is that there’s a reliable release schedule,” Wilson told GamesBeat. “We release every 13 weeks. One of the reasons why we get a lot of players at those releases is because the community just knows when — there’s a cadence to it. They know when to come back. They’re excited about it. It’s easy to drop back in. We want to keep that cadence. We don’t want to say, no, we’re delaying stuff for months.”

But not only is Grinding Gear always working on new stuff for Path of Exile, but the studio is also developing Path of Exile 2. It’s plate isn’t just full, it’s spilling over. And now it has to work on these projects with a new reality: people working from home.

“The concept of people working from home was something we really didn’t want to have to accept, but for health reasons of course, we have to put our staff’s health first, so we started to get things set up so that people could,” Wilson told GamesBeat. “And that setup time was important, because rather rapidly, as soon as New Zealand got its first case of community transmission in March, the government announced, you have two days to be working from home and everyone is in total lockdown.”

Above: Path of Exile 2 is Grinding Gear’s next game.

Image Credit: Grinding Gear Games

This is a tough situation for a studio used to close collaboration and outputting new content on a regular basis. Working from home can be good or bad, but it always different. And that uncertainty can be stressful.

“An artist working on Path of Exile 2 assets is going to work at his desk making assets all day just like he was before, which is great,” Wilson continued. “But all of the upper management is scrambling to keep people working efficiently from home, with our existing release schedule of updates. We have a management deficit for the sequel at the moment, which won’t affect its quality of course, because we’ll make sure to do the management as we can. It’s just going to affect its release time. We’re going to be in a situation where assets are ready earlier than we need them, because we’re behind on getting them integrated into the game and functioning correctly and so on. I do expect that the pandemic will probably have a bit of an impact on our release schedule for the sequel, but honestly it was up in the air anyway. It’s an ambitious project. We’ve said we’ll release it when it’s ready.”

Warframe developer Digital Extremes is in a similar situation. Warframe is another free-to-play game that receives constant updates. Rebecca Ford is its live ops director and one of the most visible members of the staff to the game’s community. She’s also the voice of the Lotus, who serves as an in-game guide for players. She does a ton of work for Warframe, and the pandemic has now changed the way she does that work, both in big and small ways.

“I miss having coffee on the go,” Ford told GamesBeat. “I miss having instant access to food I don’t have to buy. I miss our catered lunches. I miss just walking in and being fed. Woe is me! I said, unironically. I have to make my own lunch. This is insane. I have not had to make my own lunch in nine years, just for the record.”

Now that Warframe’s staff is working from home, employees are more dependent on communication tools like Slack to be efficient.

“We’ve been integrated in Slack so heavily for the past five years, I’d say, that it’s not too big of a change in communicating on Slack with my team,” Ford continued. “It’s just I don’t have any other option. I kind of regret how much I relied on Slack before when I could have just talked to people side by side, but now it’s like, you have no choice, it’s only Slack.”

Different platforms, different problems

And depending on what platform you’re developing for, you can discover some unique problems. Patrick O’Luanaigh is the CEO of nDreams, the studio behind the upcoming Oculus exclusive Phantom: Covert Ops, a stealth-based game that has you piloting a kayak.

“We’re a VR developer, so everyone had to take all of our equipment home,” O’Luanaigh told GamesBeat. “You can’t log into a VR headset remotely at the office, because you can’t put it on. You have to have your powerful PC to do your development and test on a VR headset at home. We had to get everyone’s headsets and hardware and PCs and monitors home with them, which isn’t quite the same in terms of more traditional development. But things like dev kits have had to go back to people’s houses. We had to get permission from the hardware manufacturers to take headsets home and all sorts of stuff. That was a bit of a pain initially.”

Phantom: Covert Ops releases on June 25. O’Luanaigh notes that it can be easier working on the post-production part of game when everyone is at home.

“We’ve found that for a game in the later stages, everyone knows what you need to do. You have your bugs to fix. Everyone’s got their task.”

Above: Phantom: Covert Ops is launching during a pandemic.

Image Credit: nDreams/Oculus

Pre-production, however, can be more fluid. People are creating concepts and building the foundations of a game. That can take more iteration and collaboration, which can be difficult when your staff is all working apart from each other.

Joel Burgess is the studio director at Capy, the developer behind the mobile hit Grindstone, a puzzle game that debuted alongside the Apple Arcade subscription service. Capy is based in Ontario, Canada, and Burgess has been helping the government there support gaming studios during the pandemic.

“I got thrown in very quickly when the pandemic started, into this committee for the minister of tourism, heritage, and culture for Ontario,” Burgess told GamesBeat. “We’re doing a whole bunch of meetings and subcommittees and all this stuff every week to make recommendations on how the government can support companies through COVID. I would say 90 percent of these meetings and subcommittee stuff is making sure that there’s financial health for studios.

The committee is especially important for indie developers.

“A lot of those smaller studios, having somebody who started the game pull out and now they’re not going to get a milestone payment, that can bankrupt them,” said Burgess . “The damage to the Toronto indie scene could be catastrophic, if suddenly a bunch of people who had been able to make it because of government assistance, if they can’t because those programs are bogged down in red tape or something.”

As for Capy itself, Burgess is glad that Grindstone became a known quantity before the pandemic hit.

“I wouldn’t say that the pandemic has been good for us. I think it’s more a matter of, from a damage mitigation perspective, I’m happy that we have a product on a platform like Apple Arcade that’s doing well,” Burgess notes. “Grindstone is out. We know what it is. We know what we like about it. We read what critics and fans say about the game and can respond to that. Which means the team has something to work on that’s really clear.”

But as O’Luanaigh from nDreams talked about earlier, stay-at-home work becomes more difficult for games early in the development process.

“We had other stuff going on in the studio that I can’t talk about, because it’s newer and earlier and still secret,” said Burgess. ” That stuff has been much more of a challenge, because those early stage projects have uncertainty in them already, and when we’re in this situation where people have anxiety about their lives and the world, and then you mix that with project anxiety, because everyone has a different version of this game in their head, that compounds.”

Capy is a small studio with just 25 people. This presents Burgess with an additional challenge: protecting his employees’ mental health.

“If I were still at Ubisoft, for example, there’s an apparatus there with HR and management relationships and all of that, to check in on people. When you’re in a small indie studio, you rely a lot more on organic personal connections to check on people, because you’re friends,” Burgess explained. “I’m concerned about it. People on the team with whom I’m close, I can get a sense that, say, this is a rough week for them. But we’re just small enough that we don’t have more formal systems for checking in on people, and we’re just big enough that you can’t rely on it being five people who know each other super well.”

Staying connected while stuck at home

Apps like Slack and Zoom have become a regular part of many gaming companies’ lives. Some are even using programs designed for less practical reasons to help make work more efficient. Benjy Boxer is the co-founder of Parsec, software that makes it possible for people to use cloud gaming to play and stream with each other. But Parsec also has tools for screen-sharing and accessing other computers remotely.

“You can use it as an indie game developer to log into your workstation at the office,” Boxer told GamesBeat. “But there are larger companies that are saying, hey, we really need this so that our game developers can connect to their workstations from outside the office.”

But people are still using Parsec for its main intention, which helps people play games together.

“That hasn’t really changed,” Boxer continued. We’re seeing a very significant increase in that usage, to be frank, but the way that people use Parsec is to play games with their friends. They invite their friends to join their PC and they play together. I believe what is happening is — from the consumer side of things, if you’re interested in that, people need a social connection. They’re using Parsec and games for that social connection, because we’re all isolated and feeling lonely. At least I am. Parsec is a great product to continue to connect to those who you want to be connected to. That’s what’s driving a lot of the consumer usage right now. People need that social connection, and then they want an escape through games.”

Above: Xbox Series X could be coming out during a pandemic.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Matias Rodriguez if the vice president of Technology Gaming Studio at Globant, an IT and software development company. I asked him about a logistical problem facing developers. Many of them have dev kits for the next-gen systems, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. You need those to do a lot of work on games for those upcoming systems, but you can’t exactly move them around to different people’s homes. Is this going to have a big impact on the creation of PlayStation 5 and Series X titles?

“No, there is actually a workaround,” Rodriguez told GamesBeat. “We’re working remotely with them, so there is a workaround. The problem is that for some of the work, like optimization work, even with the best remote solution, it’s not possible. At some point — it doesn’t affect some things, because you can buffer them, but at some point it will require having those devices. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft and Sony are having discussions about that. Now, next-gen, as you can imagine, you also have the complexity of manufacturing. There’s not a lot of stock. Logistics are more complicated. That makes things more sticky. It’s not necessarily a full hold on production, but it’s definitely something — it doesn’t have the velocity or productivity of Steam, something like that.”

Future impact

So far, Microsoft and Sony are still committed to releasing their new consoles later this year. But we don’t know exactly what impact the pandemic will have on the games coming to these systems. Considering the long development period for many games, we could be seeing the fallout of this situation for years to come.

But it isn’t all bad news.

“A positive is that a lot of companies are now seeing that they can have more time to develop,” Rodriguez continued. “That could translate into teams having less crunch time and other things that, toward the end of the game, could be more problematic. Now, if because of the pandemic, you earn four or five months of delays because it doesn’t make sense to release a huge title under these conditions, then you end up with more buffer, more time. Again, that’s on the production side. On the consumption side, for a lot of people, they’re discovering games. There’s something very interesting we saw the other day.”

And once the pandemic is over, can we expect companies adopt more lenient work-from-home policies?

“The honest answer is we have to talk to all the employees,” nDream’s O’Luanaigh told GamesBeat. “We have to see how they feel. People don’t really feel safe yet coming back to the office, and we certainly wouldn’t force anybody back until they felt comfortable. We’re going to wait and see how it pans out. But I’ll be very surprised if we don’t have more flexibility than we did before. I suspect that there will be more working from home.”

Right now, many parts of America are attempting to reopen. This could result in another wave of COVID-19 cases. And even if it doesn’t, the pandemic will have a lasting impact on how the gaming industry operates. Working from home may become more common for companies that once depended on the office environment.

Like most of the country, gaming wasn’t ready for the pandemic. But developers have done what they can to adapt, working hard to offer entertainment to millions of people looking for fun during a dark time.

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[recentanimenews]

A Celebration of Women of Color in Anime

  Anime has always meant a lot to me as a person of color. I didn't see much of myself in my surroundings growing up, and even though I'm mixed Filipinx and not Japanese, it felt valuable to me that anime was an Asian-created medium. There were far more limits in terms of exposure and what you could readily learn about underrepresented cultures in the years before the internet became more widely accessible. As a result, early TV and video exposure to anime helped me indirectly feel proud of my own heritage.

I generally relate to media depictions of women more than men, so it should come as no surprise that women of color in anime comprise some of my favorite fictional characters, period. Though woefully misrepresented in all kinds of media, here's a non-hierarchical list of anime WOC who are respectfully depicted, nuanced, and poignant role models for our own lives too. Read on for more!

Nadia — Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

    A series known for its tumultuous production and Hideaki Anno's distinct directorial hand, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is an aquatic adventure anime from the early '90s. The main character, Nadia, is a young woman of color searching for the truth about her past — and the secret of her blue-jeweled pendant.

One of Nadia's crowning traits is her connection with animals and the care she displays for them. Nadia communicates easily with King, her lion cub sidekick, and openly detests meat and hunting. The show also makes it clear that Nadia is a *gasp* vegetarian. It was pretty rare in the '90s for any show to feature a positive portrayal of vegetarians, so it's pretty cool to see her depicted as a genuinely caring animal-lover and not some meat-hating caricature.

Nadia is an "imperfect" heroine in the sense that she actually comes across like a real person with real struggles. She is (justifiably) prone to distrust others, can act hot-headed, grapples with intense depression, and doesn't always give people like Jean and Nemo the benefit of the doubt. Nadia's tendencies and behavior make perfect sense given her awful and abusive childhood, and that makes her one of the most interesting anime protagonists out there.

Yoruichi Shihōin — Bleach

    In Bleach, Yoruichi's coolness factor is off the charts. She can outrun Byakuya (one of the most powerful captains), knows how to help you achieve Bankai in three days, and can also transform from a black cat into a human at will. If Soul Society had its own version of LinkedIn, Yoruichi's resume would be top tier — it's no small feat to be the former Onmitsukidō commander and former 2nd captain of the Gotei 13.

Finally, much like the rest of the cast of Bleach, Yoruichi possesses a simple yet keen sense of style. Can you think of anyone over a century old who can wear purple and beige striped arm wraps and orange apparel with such finesse? I thought not.

Carole — Carole and Tuesday

Shinichiro Watanabe's new show Carole and Tuesday is yet another music fan's dream. While Kids on the Slope focused on Jazz, Watanabe's new outing hones in on pop singer/songwriters. One central message in the show is simple, yet timeless: Pursue your creative expression by staying true to yourself, and keep your creative fire safe from societal pressures intent on manipulating and/or extinguishing your gift. And with a Black woman — Carole — as one of the lead protagonists, this important message feels even more moving and powerful.

A Black woman as a lead character is the exception rather than the rule in the world of media, which is a disturbing reflection of larger oppressive social structures. That's why it feels refreshing to see a respectful portrayal in the form of Carole. We first meet her as an impoverished teenager in a big city without parents or a support network. Despite the financial and social odds stacked against her, Carole still longs to express herself and create a loving community through the power of music. Her dedication to her own creative integrity is a joy to watch, and as a musician myself, I found legitimate personal solace in her drive to be as artistically genuine as possible.

One of my favorite things about Carole is the ego-free support, sense of awe, and goodwill she displays toward other musicians. There's barely a hint of jealousy or competition between Carole and her main musical partner, Tuesday. The two get along amazingly well despite a few roadblocks, and Carole consistently honors their shared creative spirit. She even voices repeated praise for a rival musician named Angela, despite Angela's antagonistic remarks against the series' duo. As another impressive feat, Carole also manages to revive the joy of seasoned — and occasionally downtrodden — musicians due to her infectious creative passion. How can you not love such an inspirational character?!

Anthy Himemiya — Revolutionary Girl Utena

Revolutionary Girl Utena, is, well, revolutionary for a number of reasons. The show tackles gender essentialism head-on and makes some hefty statements about the toxicity of conventional social norms. Utena is an incredible character who challenges the classic patriarchal notions associated with princedom. I'd argue though, that her partner Anthy Himemiya is the true star of the show.  Without going into spoilers, Anthy is key to one of the biggest themes in the show: That for its own selfish gain, society is willing to endlessly enact cruel rigidity and heartlessness against women. It'd be both reductive and missing the larger point though, to interpret Anthy as a defenseless, subservient victim controlled by the harshness of a misogynistic culture. On the contrary, Anthy is perhaps the strongest figure in the entire series. Anthy does (at least in some ways) behave according to the interest of others, but she ultimately asserts her own worth and personal agency in a way that truly embodies the show's beautiful core. There are plenty of fascinating, insightful articles that go into depth about Revolutionary Girl Utena's symbolism and topics, so be sure to check some out. Anthy is a phenomenal character who stands out as one of the most memorable depictions of self-love, showing it's never too late to define your own life according to your needs, desires, and dreams.

Casca — Berserk

                              Berserk is likely my favorite manga, and undoubtedly my favorite work of dark fantasy. I always pair that praise with a very cautionary recommendation due to the intense gore and many disturbing sexual depictions throughout the series. While it's up to each individual to decide their limits in terms of extreme content, Kentaro Miura (the creator) softens Berserk's more unseemly edges by featuring sympathetic protagonists who organically evolve, and who are driven by immense love and support for one another in spite of a horrifyingly bleak world. That said, I find the central character Casca to be one of the strongest and most nuanced women in all of fiction. It's rare enough for a dark-skinned woman to be depicted at all in most media, and rare still for her to be given proper depth and well-deserved narrative development. Fortunately, Berserk gives us both.

In the Band of the Hawk arc — the first lengthy saga in Berserk, covered by the three recent films and the '90s anime — Casca is introduced as a well-regarded figure within the ranks of her mercenary brigade. Although she's portrayed as a strong fighter and a capable leader, the series deploys many different elements that prevent a one-sided characterization of Casca. For example, her tragic backstory highlights not only her strength and will to survive but also lends added weight to why she's so watchful of her comrades. After Casca is sent away by her own family as a child, she gains a new one in the form of the Band of the Hawk, and — much like a protective older sister — leads many of her men to safety on more than one occasion. The life and attachments Casca forges from the hell of her childhood imbues her character with skillfulness, tenacity, and meaningful emotional capacity. 

The love between Casca and Guts is a genuinely moving, reciprocal bond. While it's true that Guts saves Casca from demons on many occasions (which carries more than a hint of the misogynistic damsel-in-distress cliche), it's also true that Guts is saved from his lonely life largely because of Casca's love and presence. Though there's plenty to critique about the notion that masculine dependency is evidence of a healthy relationship, overall I find that Guts and Casca exhibit selfless, mutual gestures of love that challenge standard relational dynamics.

It can't be stressed enough how pivotal Casca is to Berserk's central storyline. Her badass skills as a fighter, coupled with her nuanced backstory and emotional depth, makes her one of my favorite anime characters of all time. 

Each anime in this list offers a uniquely touching testament to women of color. While by no means an exhaustive list, I hope you enjoyed it!

Are there other women of color from your favorite anime who aren't listed here? Let us know in the comments!

                              Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[meraenthusiast]

What To Invest In Outside Of The Stock Market

Investing Your Money: What To Invest In Besides the Stock Market

[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is a guest post from Todd Kunsman who runs the personal finance website Invested Wallet. He’s been featured in Time, Business Insider, & HuffPost. & is self-educated on personal finance and investing. He’s passionate about financial freedom, investing, side hustles, and helping others realize they too can transform their finances.]

Take it away Todd…..

As you start to save and increase your income, one of the most important steps you can take is investing your money. Many people struggle to know what to invest in besides the stock market. Granted, the choices are vast and can be quite confusing.

However, if you want to ensure a healthy financial future, ensure your family’s finances are secure and live comfortably in your golden years — investing is an absolute must!

And although there is always some risk with any investing you potentially do, you are risking more by letting your money just sit idly by.

I say this because, you could be missing 20-30+ years of compound interest, which can add up to thousands — if not six-figures of missed investment income.

Below, we will explore investing in the stock market as well as the investment options you have beyond that.

Investing in the Stock Market

The commonplace you should be investing your money is in the stock market. The stock market is where investors all connected to buy and sell investments in stocks or bonds.

Stocks are shares of ownership in a public company, like IBM, GE, etc. You can also invest in various bonds, which represent a loan made by the investor to a borrower (typically corporate or governmental) and receive a fixed income.

Without getting too deep into the stock market, you have options to invest in individual stocks and bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, or index funds.

Of course, I’m simplifying this right now, so if you want a deep dive, I’d recommend reading this about the stock market.

For most people, investing in the stock market is as far as they will go usually because this is where they’ll have a company 401k for retirement, or even an IRA or Roth IRA.

But if you want to obtain wealth and diversify your investments, you’ll want to invest your money beyond just the stock market.

Before Investing Your Money Outside the Stock Market

So, you are ready to invest your money beyond the stock market. That’s exciting and a great mindset to have!

But, before you learn more about where you can invest further, it’s important to have a few items checked off first.

You Have An Emergency Fund

Before you start investing your money beyond the stock market, ensure you have a stable emergency fund built.

There are a few variations of how much you should have and experts who recommend different amounts. I think it depends on your specific expenses, how stable your income is (and current job market), debts, etc.

That said, I always recommend 6-9 months saved regardless. But you can always be safer and aim for a year’s worth. This fund should cover your expenses if you were to lose your job or have a huge unexpected liability.

Investing in Your Company 401k

Before looking at any alternative investments, if your company offers an employee-sponsored 401k plan, then you must take advantage of that. Many companies provide a company match on a percentage of the money you contribute, which is huge for your future retirement.

Ensure you are signed-up, contributing enough to get the company match (or more) and keep it consistent.

With your 401k, make sure to sign-up for Blooom’s free 401k Analyzer. The analyzer will help you catch any hidden fees and provide portfolio recommendations.

Investing in an IRA or Roth IRA

If your company does not have a 401k, then opening up a traditional or Roth IRA with your financial institution of choice is a significant first step.

The contribution limits compared to a 401k are much lower, but this still allows you to invest in the stock market for your future retirement.

It’s important to have this set up as well and ensure you are contributing consistently or maxing it out if possible.

Pay Down Any High-Interest Debt

There is a lot of back and forth on whether one should pay down debt or invest for retirement. I have done both at the same time.

However, before investing your money elsewhere, I think it is essential to tackle any high-interest debt you have first.

Getting rid of debt will give you more peace of mind and will take care of debt that could snowball because of the interest, for example, credit card debt.

Know Your Goals for Investing

Lastly, I think it’s important you sit down and write your goals for investing.

Be sure this includes the stock market and any of the additional investment options in the next section. Become more financially literate about your situation and investments, then build your plan accordingly.

By doing this, it will help you determine:

why you’re investing

where to invest

the right strategy for your personal needs

Investing Your Money Outside the Stock Market

Okay, so here is the section you were probably waiting to read. If you can check off all the items in the previous section, then you probably are ready to invest your money beyond stocks and bonds.

By investing in various investments, you’re diversifying and growing your wealth. Additionally, it helps protect you against potential bear markets (downturns) and create multiple sources of potential income.

Some of the investment options below might not be for you, remember you don’t need to do everything on the list below. Look at your goals and interest and figure out what options will make sense for you.

Real Estate

Investing in physical real estate is one of the most popular options. It’s also where many accelerate their wealth and net worth.

The long-term goal of investing your money in real estate is to either rent or flip the properties to generate income.

However, real estate can be intimidating and time-consuming, with plenty of mistakes to be made.

Real estate crowdfunding sites can be an excellent option for you. Crowdfunding takes the pain out physical real estate for you, yet you still have the benefits and diversification of your investments.

There are pros and cons to both sides of your real estate options, so it’s up to you how you might want to invest.

Fine Art

So why should you potentially consider investing in fine art? Well, art was the top-performing asset class back in 2018, beating gold, real estate, classic cars, and the S&P 500, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Investing in fine art has been around for a long time, but it’s not the most comfortable option to get involved with. Typically, your options are the following with investing in art:

Need huge capital to buy well-known works of art (millions of dollars)

Become an accredited investor to have access to private art funds

Take chances on new artists who may or may not ever gain popularity

Sounds a bit challenging, right?

Well, similar to real estate, there is now a crowdfunding platform that lets you invest in art and diversify your investments. The platform is called Masterworks, which allows you to purchase shares that are well-known art from artists like Claude Monet, Andy Warhol, and many more.

Peer-to-Peer Lending

I have not invested money in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending space, but it’s an option worth considering. P2P has been an exploding industry in the last few years and a top alternative investment for many.

Essentially, you loan money to borrowers in a platform, which then you collect interest on your loan once the borrower begins paying back the money.

The returns on your “investment” typically are not as high as your potential with the stock market or real estate, but still an option for diversification.

There are a few platforms you can consider being a P2P investor with like: Upstart, Lending Club, and Prosper. And those are just some of the more recognizable names as there are others too.

Cryptocurrency

Okay, okay, please don’t roll your eyes! I know I’m the one that avoided the whole Bitcoin hype like the plague back in 2017.

But, that’s because I viewed it as oversaturated and way overvalued. I mean, when your grandma and cousins under fifteen are talking about it, you know you should probably avoid investing for the time being.

However, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are not going away. And there are many investment options for you to consider potentially. I recommend using Coinbase to buy and sell any crypto investments.

And while Bitcoin is the most popular one, there are many other cryptocurrency options like Ripple, Litecoin, and Ethereum, to name a few.

Proceed with caution, do your research, and start small. Cryptocurrency investments are still very new with not a lot of regulation from the SEC quite yet.

Commodities

If you aren’t familiar with commodities, get in line. Investing in commodities means you’d be investing in economic goods or services.

That’s a broad and straightforward definition, but this area of investments would include things like:

Gold

Silver

Crude oil

Natural gas

Corn

Wheat

The commodities list is quite extensive, and you can find some of these mixed in the stock market as ETF funds. But again, you might be subject to the stock market fluctuations.

I’m by no means a commodity expert, but if you are looking to learn how to invest in these assets, this article is for you.

Websites

Another potentially profitable investment option for you is investing in websites. There are a few ways to get involved:

Buy and hold domains

Buy and build blogs

Build websites to flip

If you aren’t afraid to put in some work or know website building or marketing quite well, investing in websites or domains can be quite lucrative.

For many, this means buying websites to then build up with ads, affiliates, or digital products that can make money while you sleep.

Many websites can sell for thousands a few years later, depending how well you build them up.

Plus, they can compound over time just like stock market investments where you can go from a few hundred bucks a month to $10,000+ a month. I’m not trying to sell you the dream. Investing in websites presents many challenges. But it is a viable option.

Start-ups and Online Businesses

If you are quite business savvy, then investing in other businesses or start-ups might be a potential option for you.

Investing your money in start-ups is typically called “Angel Investing,” and you may need quite a high net worth to be able to get involved.

The other challenge is this. Most start-ups won’t go public on the stock market, netting you a lot of money. And they may never get acquired by another business.

To me, this is one of the riskiest investment options outside of the stock market. But, if you are outstanding and have a fantastic business sense, it can pay off tremendously.

Additionally, you could also invest your money in your own online business. Besides blogs, you can start an Amazon FBA business, maybe a dropshipping business with Shopify, or even invest in one of your money-making hobbies as a business too.

Investing in yourself or your own online business can pay you huge dividends in the future. I have and will continue to invest in myself for the foreseeable future.

Final Thoughts

Investing your money is one of the most important financial things you can do for yourself and your family. There is no doubt you should be investing in the stock market, but you may want to consider additional options as well.

And you might be wondering which of the above is right for you. Well, it all depends on your financial goals, interests, and risk that you can afford.

There are pros and cons to all the investment options listed above, so it’s your job to figure out what makes the most sense for you.

If you are unsure, you can always consult a trusted financial advisor about these options.

Just take your time and educate yourself on the options. Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time until you feel more confident in your investment choices.

This article originally appeared on The Money Mix and has been republished with permission.

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