#i will be there in my preferred seat on sunday and probably my general admission seat on saturday

[alsaurus-loves-dean]

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[intrepidolivia]

Alexandria Country Club pt 2

Pairing: NeganXOlivia (OC)

Warnings: cursing, discussion of violence

Summary: AU! Negan texts Olivia, and after some conversation they go to dinner together, and begin getting to know one another better.

A/N: So, Cthulhu help me, this is turning into a series. Slow burn so far. Still no idea where the idea came from for this AU. Also the singer at the restaurant is Julee Cruise, because I was listening to her on repeat while writing this story. The weird ethereal sound of her music really suits the tone for the restaurant scene, oddly enough.

The day after the wedding, Olivia was still thinking about Negan. That was either a good or bad sign. It was probably time she got back into the dating game, though. He wasn’t what she’d have pegged as her usual type, but there was something about him she’d liked pretty much immediately.

She was not going to spend all day looking at her phone, however. He’d use her number or he wouldn’t, she decided. Besides, her apartment could stand to be cleaned.

It was a nice day out, and Sundays were rarely very busy in her neighborhood, so she opened the windows, enjoying the breeze as she took a break from cleaning. She sipped a cup of coffee, reading.

Her phone chirped; she had a text.

She eyed the phone a moment, sitting face-down on the table. Probably just Stephanie complaining about the airport. As though she had anything to complain about, going to europe for her honeymoon. Trying not to think too much about it, she picked up the phone. The text was from a number she didn’t recognize.

So that makes five total tattoos, huh? Sounds hot.

She read and re-read the message, grinning despite herself. Well, she had his attention.

Well, hello there. Assuming this is Negan. If it’s Chet, please go fuck yourself with a cactus.

She didn’t think it would be Chet, of course. Unless he’d pickpocketed Negan which seemed unlikely. She wouldn’t put it past him to try of course, but she had little doubt he’d be inept at it. He was the son of one of Stephanie’s parent’s friends, a family who’d been invited for political reasons. Had to love that whole rich-folks clique. Her phone chirped again.

Chet won’t be fucking himself or anyone else with anything for a while.

She wondered if she ought to be worried about that.

What? Did you castrate him or something? It’s a nice gesture, don’t get me wrong, but won’t his family object? And more to the point have you arrested, or possibly murdered? I’m not sure *how* rich they are.

No, he’ll be able to create little Chets, god help us all. But his right arm is broken. Few fingers too, I’m pretty sure. And he’s not getting any dates until his face heals.

Olivia bit her lip. So there had been a confrontation. She’d worried about that. Chet had been drunk and angry. She’d hoped he’d slink off when she was gone, but apparently not. Negan was a fairly large man, and moved like he knew what he was doing. In a fight, she imagined Chet would come out on the worse end. Apparently she was right.

Are you okay? And aren’t you worried you’ll get fired? Aren’t his parents members?

Worried about me, sweetheart?

She could imagine him, that wide, toothy grin. The little edge of cockiness as he teased her.

That’s not an answer.

Neither is that. I’m fine. I don’t think he told his parents I did it, not that I give a fuck. The little shit got two of his friends and tried to jump me in the parking lot. Rich or not it was self defense. Don’t think he’s going to say shit though. Too embarrassed he and his buddies got their asses beaten by an old man.

Three of them? She’d ordinarily think that was bragging, but it certainly fit into Chet’s personality. He seemed the type to get a gang together to stack the odds in his favor. That Negan held his own against three younger men… and not only that, but won… Well, that was something to consider.

Yes, he ought to be embarrassed. Generally speaking as well as specifically due to the fight. Three on one is pretty cowardly. And you’re hardly an old man.

Does that mean if I asked you to dinner tonight you’d say yes?

Olivia put her hand to her mouth, giggling. Well, he certainly didn’t waste time, did he? She chewed her lip, sipping her coffee for a long moment. It was just dinner.

Not abiding by the customary three days, huh? Where and what time?

She wasn’t sure she ought to say yes, really. She’d only just met him. And by his own admission he’d beaten one man into a pulp in the past 24 hours. But considering the man he’d had the fight with, and how he’d treated her at the wedding… Well. It was just dinner. Not marriage. A public place, and she could leave if it didn’t go well…

You didn’t strike me as the type for customary. Besides, I’m free, and I liked talking to you. Also you’re smoking hot.

How about Gabriel’s on 7th street? About 6?

She was glad he wasn’t there to see her blush. Sure, she got compliments, but Negan actually seemed sincere about it. Considering the other bridesmaids at the wedding, and indeed the other guests, she hadn’t felt like anything special. She was aware she was pretty, but lots of people were pretty. Hell, removed from his terrible attitude and personality, Chet was a good looking man.

But she’d been drawn to Negan. Wearing his tuxedo like he wasn’t comfortable with it. Shuffling through wine bottles like he hadn’t much clue about what he was looking at. The spark of wickedness in those dark eyes, and that toothy grin surrounded by that salt and pepper beard. He was probably too old for her, but that had never stopped her before. In point of fact she preferred older men.

Gabriel’s? That’s the little hole-in-the-wall bar and grill, right? Been there forever? With the neon halo over the G?

That’s the one.

If they’ve survived this long the food must be amazing. Or they’re a front for the mob. Either way sounds like a good time.

I knew I liked you. See you at 6. Much as I loved that damn dress on you, no need to doll up too fancy. It’s not exactly a high society place.

Well, thank god. I hate being judged on what fork I’m using while I’m just trying to eat.

Only one fork to worry about there, and half the time it’s optional. See you at 6, doll.

Olivia stared at her phone a moment, and clutched it to her chest, grinning. She had a date. Things were looking up.

She arrived right at 6:00. She knew she was probably overthinking things. It was just dinner, after all. Even so, she’d taken over an hour deciding what to wear, settling on the jeans that fit her just right, the green shirt that wasn’t too low cut but just enough, a casually-punky jacket festooned with buttons and patches, and boots that managed to be functional but stylish. She’d spent too long on making her makeup look casual, and on smoothing the frizz out of her wavy hair.

The restaurant was surprisingly busy for a Sunday evening, and a glance at the people outside the front door smoking told her she was nearly overdressed. The neon sign lit the front up in red and yellow, casting everything into a warm glow. She didn’t see Negan outside, so took a breath, going in.

There was a steady murmur of conversation inside, much of it coming from the area with the bar. The restaurant was divided into two sides, the bar with tall tables and a stage, and the eating area proper. Olivia’s attention was caught by the bar area first.

The stage was lit up, music that was surprisingly slow and sweet drifting through the place as a blonde woman in a clingy red dress sang. Her voice was high and almost ethereal, the music accompanying her voice slow and deep. The tone was oddly retro, but also timeless in a way. It was not the atmosphere she’d expected from this place, and for a moment she was struck by the almost surreal sensation.

“Hello,” said a man’s voice behind her.

She turned. Negan smiled down at her. He wore a simple gray tee and jeans. A tattoo peeked out from his right sleeve, and he had a small band-aid high on his forehead. His dark hair was slicked back, and he smelled like leather and musk and smoke.

Olivia smiled. “Hi there,” she said. Gods but he was handsome. She could look at those dark eyes all day.

“I got us a table,” he said, tilting his head toward a booth in the corner.

She followed him, sliding into her seat, laying her jacket aside. The menus were paper and well stained. She grinned at him. “I like the music.”

Negan smiled back at her. “Yeah, me too. Julee’s here pretty often. Everyone tells her she could make it big, but she likes the small venues.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged this as your thing,” she said.

“Are you assuming again, sweetheart?” he winked at her.

“I guess I am,” she laughed. She scanned the menu as a dark-haired waitress came up, smiling.

“Hi there! Can I get you guys something to drink?” the woman asked.

“I’ll have a beer. Whatever the darkest thing you got on tap is,” Negan said.

Olivia nodded approvingly. “Same.”

Negan smirked as the waitress headed off for their drinks. “Woman after my own heart, huh?”

Olivia chuckled. “Mmm. I just like bitter. Dark beer, black coffee, dark chocolate. Oddly enough I have a serious sweet tooth.” She flicked her eyes up at him. “I’m a woman of complex tastes.”

“A-fucking-parently,” he laughed. His grin was wolfish and almost predatory. The prudent part of her sounded an alarm. Her baser instincts had a rather warmer reaction.

“So, what’s good here?” she asked. Food was a safe subject. Of course the second she thought that, she imagined creative uses for whipped cream.

“Anything fried. They have salads but I’m not much for rabbit food.” Negan shrugged.

Olivia smirked. “Ah, so this is a test huh?” She peered at him over the menu. He was so handsome. She guessed he was at least fifteen years her senior. It was unfair men got so much sexier with age. She wondered what this little encounter would end up being. A bit of pleasure, or something more long-term. She wasn’t sure yet what she was interested in. After all, her last relationship…

She didn’t want to think about that.

He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna be analyzing everything I say and do, doll? Because that’s a fuck of a lot of pressure.”

She chuckled. “Nah, just messing with you,” she said. Their beers arrived, dark amber and with a good head of foam spilling off the tops of the mugs.

Negan glanced at her, and then to the waitress. “Let’s do an order of onion rings to start with. I’m going with the bacon cheeseburger.” He looked over at her.

Olivia smiled slightly. “Fish and chips,” she said, handing her menu back. As the waitress walked away, she smirked at him. “I’ve had fish and chips in London. It’s a high fucking bar.”

Negan gave her that wolfish grin again. “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, sweetheart.”

“So far I haven’t been,” she admitted, glancing back toward the bar area and the singer.

He chuckled. “So, I guess that means I can get you out here again sometime. If only for the music,” he said. He fixed her with those dark, dark eyes. “So, can I ask you something serious?”

Olivia sucked in a breath, answering his gaze. “I… well, you can ask.” She tried to make the answer sound light. Instead her voice was fragile.

“Why’d you give me your number? You have to know I’m way older than you. I’m a security guard. That’s not exactly glamorous. And to be completely fucking frank, you’re out of my goddamn league.” His voice and expression were matter-of-fact. He didn’t seem accusatory, but curious.

She played with her napkin, avoiding his gaze. “I… well…” She took a breath. “You’re attractive,” she said finally. He didn’t seem like he would be put off by glib responses. She found herself being honest. “And genuine. You didn’t act like you were indifferent to me, but you didn’t push either. I don’t care for games. I’m too fucking old for games.”

He laughed softly. She looked up sharply, but it didn’t seem he was laughing at her, but at the situation. “Well, goddamn, honey. I’m glad to hear you say that.” He gave her a crooked smile. “You still haven’t answered the second part of that question though.”

Olivia gave him a toothy grin. “I might just have a… thing… for older men.” She winked. “Don’t rest on your laurels though. I’m not opposed to a good tumble, but that’s not what a lasting relationship is made of.”

The song in the next room had gone lower and darker. Appropriate, she thought. Olivia took a drink, savoring the bitterness on her tongue. “So, I guess the real question is, what are we both looking for?”

Negan’s expression was unreadable. His head tilted, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. “Well, sweetheart, I guess that’s a hell of a question, isn’t it?”

She inclined her head. “Not necessarily one we have to answer tonight. But…” She shrugged a little. She avoided his gaze. “I imagine we both have a past.”

He sat back, giving her a small smile. “Oh, ain’t that the truth,” he murmured.

His response, despite the heaviness of his voice, gave her a little hope. She looked up, giving him a smile. “Well then, I guess that’s a start.”

Negan grinned, wide and wolfish, full of teeth. “Yeah,” he agreed.

The onion rings arrived, forcing a lull in their conversation. Olivia was relieved, really. It had almost started feeling like a competition. She wasn’t disappointed by the food. He’d been right; the onion rings were good.

“So, am I passing the muster?” He winked at her.

“You’re good at picking restaurants,” she allowed. She sipped her beer.

His eyes were amazing. Dark, sparking with wicked intelligence. They held her fixed like a moth pinned to a display. “So, go on. You gave me your number. You have to know you could have any number of Chets at your beck and call if you wanted.”

She picked up an onion ring, deliberately, watching him. “Well, if I wanted that, I’d have it,” she said. “I prefer a man who knows what he’s doing.”

Negan’s smile widened. Something about it sent a thrill of excitement through her stomach and down to her core. “Oh, sweetheart. Believe me; I know what I’m doing. Especially with a woman.”

She sucked in a breath. She was not going to sleep with him on the first date. She wasn’t going to go to a strange man’s home, and there would be awkward questions if she brought him to hers too early. Even so, she couldn’t deny more than a couple pornographic thoughts sparked through her imagination. She smiled back. “Well, you’re confident, I’ll give you that.”

He chuckled, dunking one of the onion rings in barbecue sauce.

“So, I’ve got to know. Chet brought friends to start trouble with you?”

Negan snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, the little shitstain was afraid to come out alone. Got two of his drinking buddies out there with him in the parking lot. Followed me when I walked you out.”

She bit her lip. Chet had been angry Negan had intervened in the coat closet. She’d thought he would be, but hadn’t expected him to get violent. “I’m sorry,” she began.

“No,” Negan cut her off, his expression serious. “Don’t you apologize. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. That creepy little bastard could have hurt you, and I wanted to kick his ass in the cloakroom. Ain’t your fault he decided to let me.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed. “I’m just worried someone will kick up a fuss and get you fired. Did you hurt them very badly?” She glanced at his hands. Scabs on his knuckles. That and the bandaid near his hairline were the only evidence he’d even been in a fight.

He chuckled. “Mostly just Chet. More because I wanted to than anything. The other two tapped out after the first couple punches.” He took a pull at his beer. “Your concern is touching, but really, I wouldn’t worry. The little weasel’s pride probably won’t let him admit he and his friends got their asses kicked by a guy 20 years older than they are. Besides, I’m in good with the club owner. I say it had to happen, Rick’s going to believe me.”

She smiled. “Well, I guess it’s good to have friends in high places.”

“Damn right it is,” he replied.

The waitress delivered their food, truly enormous portions and looking delicious. She shook malt vinegar over her fish and the fries, much to his amusement. As he had been with the onion rings, he was right.

“Everything acceptable, princess?”

She jabbed her fork in his direction as she chewed a bite of the fish. Tender and flaky inside, with a delightfully crunchy exterior. “Can’t talk. Eating,” she told him, closing her eyes and sighing contentedly. “Mmmm.”

He laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He was easy to talk to. Almost too much so. Before they were finished, they were laughing and chatting like old friends. They didn’t stray back to the subject of what they were looking for with each other. There would be time for that later. Instead, they talked about music and movies. They argued cheerfully over which old Mel Brooks movie was the best (he liked Blazing Saddles, she insisted on Young Frankenstein). She got him to tell her amusing stories about being security at a country club. She shared incidents from when she’d been a nurse. She gave him a vague answer when he asked why she was working in a bookstore now. He avoided talking about what he’d done before the country club.

They were both clever people. They each knew the other was holding back a little.

Everyone had secrets.

It was late when he finally walked her out to her car. It hadn’t felt as long as it had been. That was probably a good sign.

“You okay to drive, sweetheart? That was a big-ass beer for someone so little.” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. We were in there a while. I’m well under the legal limit.” She hesitated, looking up at him. “I had a good time tonight.”

Negan grinned. “So did I. That mean we’re going to do this again?”

She wondered if she was really ready for this. Even so, she found herself smiling a little. “Yeah. I’d like to.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he told her.

“I hope so,” she replied.

Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the night air. Maybe it was just him. She put a hand to his cheek, drawing him down into a kiss. It was light and gentle. She kept back the heat that flared in her at the touch, much as she wanted to tangle her fingers in his hair and give in to her passion. His big hands rested lightly on her hips, as though he was afraid if he tightened his grip he would break her.

Finally, she pulled back, and he smiled down at her. A little wickedness sparked in his eyes. “I’ll definitely be calling you.”

“You better,” she grinned. “Goodnight, Negan.”

“Goodnight, Liv.”

Her heart pounded all the way home. She wanted him. She couldn’t deny that. Negan was handsome, he was interesting, and he’d rescued her from Chet. All points heavily in his favor. He was clearly interested in her. They’d have to work out exactly how they were interested in each other. If this would be a casual fling or something more. Part of her hoped it was more. Even as part of her was desperately afraid it was.

She sighed as she got into her apartment, locking the door behind her. She wasn’t sure she was ready to date again. She wanted to, certainly. She’d given him her number for a reason. But faced with the possibility, part of her was frightened and more than a little guilty.

She pushed the thought away. It was just dinner. She’d had a good time, and she deserved to have a good time once in awhile. She’d think about more serious things if they became relevant.

Tiredly, she headed to her room to get ready for bed, trying very hard not to look at the wedding pictures on her mantle.

Please comment/reblog/etc if you enjoyed!! Tagging folks who might enjoy :)

@noodlecupcakes @adair-donovan @mypapawinchester @jeffreynegan @ashzombie13 @grungedaddykinks @feistybaby

[atomairbus1-blog]

Pot Is Super Popular Among My Fellow Boomers. So Why Can’t I Get on Board?

City

One of Philadelphia’s most celebrated novelists tries to rekindle the spark.

Turns out, plenty of Baby Boomers smoke marijuana. Photo illustration by C.J. Burton.

I’ve been doing the cha-cha with a novel I’m working on where the age-55-and-over main characters regularly smoke marijuana to get high. Really high. So much so that when I’m writing about them, whiffs of that unmistakable aroma akin to a rope on fire with a punch of wood and thyme rise from the page. I get giddy as I write, suddenly craving sweet ginger tea and crunchy carbohydrates as I pull down memories to authenticate the scenes, memories that have long lain dormant in the dusty attic of my brain.

I’m 14 or 15 again, riding up Montgomery Drive on a brilliant summer Sunday in the backseat of my father’s car, slightly nauseous from the smell of his cigar. Having been the victor in the tussle with my sisters for a coveted window seat, I lean my head out of the car as we curve around Montgomery and approach Belmont Plateau. I say I’m hanging out of the window to get relief from the cigar, but I’m really trying to catch a contact high from all that hippie hemp smoke (my mother’s term) informing the air around the plateau, which is already charged with the jolting sounds of electric guitars mixing with mellow vibes of Make love not war.

Or I land on that memory from 1973 when I went to see Pam Grier and her fabulous ’fro in the film Coffy. My date and I had gotten off the D bus, now the 21, at 18th and Chestnut and walked first through Rittenhouse Square to get a couple of hits of what we hoped would be “the killer,” our term for really potent weed. It did not disappoint. We laughed our way to 16th and Chestnut and into the movie theater. We settled in with butter-saturated popcorn and cherry Cokes that were heaven to the weed-altered palate and proceeded to tilt our heads in confusion as Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford commanded scene after scene. At what point would Pam Grier rush in and pull the weapons hidden in her enviable woolly hair and kill the drug dealers who’d messed up her sister? We wouldn’t be seeing it that night, because, high and discombobulated, we’d sauntered, not into the Duke, where Coffy was showing, but instead into The Way We Were, playing at the Regency next door.

That’s actually a timely recollection as I two-step through my novel-in-progress and consider my love affair with weed: how it changed as I did, and how the words to the title song of the movie I watched in reefer-fueled error — would we, could we referencing the chance to do it all again — shimmy in my head to the beat. The lyrics tantalize, as if egging me on to join the legions in my age group who would, could and are smoking, eating, sipping, spraying, rubbing on weed in any of its myriad forms. So many boomers, in fact, are getting high that according to recently released results of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, marijuana consumption is as common among my generation as it is among teens! I would be in familiar company, then, should I decide to reintroduce a ganja-stuffed bowl to my recreational pursuits. But would I, could I, pull on a pipe, or joint, or bong, and hold it until I cough, and recapture the high-heady, floaty times of my youth?

•

I began smoking marijuana in earnest in the early ’70s. I was fresh on the University of Pennsylvania campus from my cloistered West Philadelphia neighborhood — where I’d been a glasses-wearing, youth-church-ushering, teacher’s-pet-type good girl — and smoking a joint was a way for me to dip my toe in the counterculture. My then-boyfriend knew people, and on Friday nights he’d bring me cheesesteaks from Jim’s, Boone’s Farm apple wine that his older brother procured at the state store on Market Street above 40th, and a precious plastic baggie filled with a half-ounce of the most beautiful mix of brownish-green buds and twigs and seeds. I say precious because the half-ounce bag cost $20, and if there were several of us putting in, that could amount to more than five entire dollars fished from my very shallow stream of disposable funds.

Mythology had it that weed was legal on campus; it was not, of course, but I’d never heard of anyone getting arrested for smoking in Penn’s high-rise dorm. Still, out of an abundance of caution, we’d stuff a blanket in the slip of space under the door to keep the smoke from selling us out. We’d burn apple-scented incense, insisted upon by my non-weed-smoking friends, and then get down to the business of moistening sheets of Top paper to envelop the stogies we rolled. We’d toke and pass and toke and pass to the rhythm of Bloodstone crooning “Take to the sky on a natural high” (irony noted) until the munchies hit and the cheesesteaks were devoured and the table got cleared for marathon pinochle games interspersed with chatter about world affairs and campus gossip and how generally effed up everything was; or funny, hysterically so; or deep, too deep to dig, maybe, because much of the commentary was followed by Can you dig it?

I, for one, dug the weed. I much preferred the giggly high to the sloppy buzz of the cheap fruity wine, more a bring-down than a laugh-maker. And although the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness would have one believe that marijuana is highly addictive, I was never so ensnared that I suffered withdrawal when I was without it. Nor did I need to smoke increasing amounts to get that pleasurable feel of pings melting in my head. That sweet joint or hit from the bong or pull from the pipe was sufficient, my reward for getting through the week — or the day, depending on the day I’d had. Penn was hard, and I’m not talking academically, because the “heavy booking” — our term for studying — had been expected, accepted. The real energy-sapper was the constant stroking and kicking to keep from drowning in the high-tide oceans of whiteness and privilege. It was exhausting. Weed made it less so and was certainly preferable to the tranquilizers Student Health had prescribed for the tension headaches that befell me.

In a similar way, all of the inhaling a couple of years after college softened, if only a little, the jags of heartbreak and grief as I watched my mother die from esophageal cancer. My father would prepare lavish Sunday dinners in the weeks after her death, and his house would be overflowing with food and people, and at some point those of us so inclined would look at one another with subtle raises of eyebrows and casually move in the direction of the back of the house and into the yard, where a joint or two or three got quickly smoked. We’d make our way back inside, red-eyed and thumb-burned, laughing as we piled plates high with Dad’s signature bread pudding, swooning over how good it was. He must have known that I’d just been out in the yard getting high, likely in view of the neighbors, who’d talk. He never acknowledged it, never discouraged it. He was probably relieved that for the moment I seemed to hurt less, and if it was the result of the weed, so be it.

Then I stopped smoking abruptly, in my late 20s: Pregnant with twins, I put away my bong, my array of pipes, the Top papers, and expressions like Who’s got the killer? and What you got for the head? I needed to adult with clarity. Caffeine was my new go-to. Also new was my shifting attitude about getting high. This was now the early ’80s, when crack cocaine was beginning to thrash and burn its way through black communities, bombing out families. My sister lost a college friend to the epidemic — rumor had it that someone laced her marijuana with crack, addicting her. I witnessed a cherished friend descend into a heroin swamp — he didn’t die physically, but his potential died, his spirit. This was before all classes of white people became casualties of the opioid epidemic. Back then, there was no push for addiction to be recognized as a brain disorder. People afflicted with addiction were at best considered weaklings incapable of just saying no; at worst, dregs.

I never grew so callous as to fail to see the humanity of a person suffering from addiction, but my attitude toward highness was becoming, dare I say, conservative. So much so that I confess to being somewhat affected by that PSA that began airing regularly in 1987 that showed a hot skillet sizzling with butter, and then a voice-over warning This is drugs; a raw egg is then plopped into the skillet, and as the egg begins to quickly fry, the voice further intones, This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? A decade earlier, I might have said to the television, “Yes, I’ve got questions: Can you sprinkle a little salt and pepper on that, maybe a side of bacon with some cheese melted over the top, and slip it between two slices of pumpernickel?” The ad would have been worthy of such jokes to anyone who smoked as I did yet still moved through life with brain intact, synapses still firing. Also, the PSA didn’t distinguish the wide range of detrimental effects that lay between puffing on a marijuana-stuffed pipe and injecting heroin. Amazingly, I had begun to do the same thing. I lumped them all, weed, crack, heroin, LSD, speed; they were all tools the devil him/herself employed to establish a bona fide hell on earth. I was in good (horrible) company. The Controlled Substances Act signed into law by Richard Nixon had classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, right up there with heroin, meaning that at the time, it was thought to be highly addictive and to have no medical value.

By the time my twins crossed over into adolescence, I had completely exchanged my laid-back attitude toward marijuana for mom pants and zero tolerance. I’d convinced myself that should my kids smoke weed, the results would be abysmal SAT scores, lackluster college admissions essays, the death of motivation. Forget inhaling; merely walking around with reefer might jeopardize their freedom. Especially my son’s, given that young black men were routinely being stopped and searched and, even when in possession of just tiny amounts of marijuana, finding themselves on the periphery of the modern-day slavery that is the criminal justice system. And I’m not being hyperbolic with the slavery reference; I watched Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th.

•

Fast-forward to today: My kids didn’t go to jail, and my attitude toward marijuana has become nuanced once again, helped by all the related headlines that have managed to grab my attention from the horror show that is national politics: marijuana’s availability in the dispensaries that are popping up in the Philadelphia area like, well, weeds; its inchworm moves toward legalization here, where Mayor Kenney has called for green-lighting adult recreational use and having it sold in state stores; its medicinal use by people in my generation, who are increasingly lighting up or eating or rubbing on oils or swallowing pills containing weed derivatives to treat the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis or the nausea from cancer treatment, or to mitigate the symptoms of glaucoma or multiple sclerosis, or to reverse cognitive decline. Cognitive decline? I’d assumed that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, caused that very condition. But an NIH-supported study found that cannabinoids may remove plaque-forming Alzheimer’s proteins from brain cells. And a headline in Scientific American blares out to me: “Marijuana May Boost, Rather Than Dull, the Elderly Brain.” Apparently, senior-citizen mice treated with THC improve on learning and memory tests — perhaps another reason the National Survey on Drug Use found that boomers are using as much pot as teens.

I’ve been fortunate so far in not needing medical marijuana for the host of maladies proponents claim it will help ease. But since I’m a writer, boosting the brain is something I’m definitely open to — even as I talk back to those “The Way We Were” lyrics stuck in my head and struggle with my reluctance to light up for the sole purpose of getting high.

Part of my resistance has to do with the inequity of it all — who benefits, who suffers. Take the hoopla over Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, puffing on a joint on a live podcast. That’s some rich-white-male privilege on display, because even though recreational weed is legal in California, where he lit up, imagine the likes of rapper and criminal-justice-reform advocate Meek Mill, a black man, doing a similar thing. (By the way, Meek, please don’t try that here at home.) And then there’s former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s lightning-rod tweet months ago announcing that he was joining the board of Acreage Holdings, formerly (cutely) known as High Street Capital Partners, a marijuana processing and dispensing operation currently licensed to operate in 14 states and with plans to expand. He’d once famously said he was unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Now he claims that his thinking on marijuana has evolved. Sadly, his evolution can do nothing to evolve the criminal records of the countless young black men caught up in the system because they were stopped and frisked and found to be carrying maybe a single marijuana cigarette. I know a woman who had to shell out hundreds of dollars for legal representation for her college-student son, who was caught with paraphernalia that had trace amounts of weed. Trace amounts!

Another part of my resistance to getting high has to do with the learning curve. There are so many new-to-me ways to use marijuana now — edibles and oils and mists and capsules and tinctures and patches and creams. One can spray it like a breath freshener or consume it on a dissolvable strip. I shudder to think I might end up like New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who ingested a cannabis chocolate in a hotel room in Denver in 2014 and ended up curled on the bed for hours in a state that sounds more like a bad LSD trip. Do they still smoke plain old joints? Yes, according to a man I know who asked to remain anonymous — the only person who would even talk to me about still getting high once I disclosed that I was writing about my marijuana journey. He cautioned against buying it on the street the way he did years ago: “There’s nothing but crap out there,” he said, adding that his bud in New Jersey uses medical marijuana and the quality is much better than it used to be. He rushed to add that he himself, of course, would have no way of knowing other than what his “friend” has told him. Apparently his “friend’s” assessment would be correct. Generally, marijuana today is much more potent than it was when I was puffing away. Most of the weed that found its way to Penn’s Superblock in the ’70s had made a long, hot trek from places like Colombia, causing its potency to decline. Back then, the THC level might have been three percent. Today, it could be upward of 12. That sounds much stronger than the “killer” of years ago that sent me into the wrong movie.

A while back, I attended a dinner with people I knew from decades ago. Somewhere around dessert and coffee, a few of them disappeared from the table, but not before giving that slight raise of the eyebrow I’d used myself during my father’s back-in-the-day dinners. They met up with the rest of us later as we milled around outside; they were giddy with the type of laughter that scrunches the eyes practically shut. But it wasn’t just the laughter fusing their eyes. I joked that they smelled like 1975, even as I felt a swath of regret that I hadn’t joined them. Why didn’t I? I’m still asking myself.

I could validly claim any or all of the reasons my contemporaries have expressed for why they choose not to smoke weed: They stopped because of the children and never looked back; they live with or very close to someone recovering from addiction; they’re afraid of an adverse physical reaction; it feels immature at this age; wine is legal, and they’re not trying to break the law at this point in life. When I asked, “What if it was legal?” my sister Paula said, “If it’s legal, I mean, well, yeah, but only if it’s legal, not just decriminalized — fully legal at both the state and federal levels.”

And yet, the illegality is what enticed me all those years ago when I stuck my head out of the car window to gulp in the weed-tinged breeze moving through the be-in on Belmont Plateau. I got high on the anticipatory thrill of it before I ever smoked a joint. I was on the precipice of young adulthood. Marijuana wasn’t just about getting my head right, as we used to say about a good high. Marijuana also represented the revolution that was all around me, growing me up. I was doing this absolutely taboo thing — good-girl me — and that enhanced the pings firing and melting in my brain, getting me higher still. Smoking again would feel like desperately chasing a thrill that’s long gone because it should be gone, because it no longer serves a purpose.

So, for now, since the lyrics from “The Way We Were” are stuck in my head anyway, I’ll hum the part about memories lighting the corners of my mind, grateful to know that should those memories grow too dim from age-related cognitive decline, there will be the medically sanctioned option to swaddle crumpled buds of weed inside sheets of moistened Top paper and toke away.

Published as “Joint of No Return” in the February 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/01/26/baby-boomers-smoke-marijuana/

[belehakalife]

MinnCon is coming up VERY QUICKLY and I am so excited/nervous! I know it's going to be awesome, but at the same time I feel so unprepared...

I'm still trying to decide whether I should get a hotel room for the weekend or just drive an hour to the cities each day. Hotel would be so much easier and probably less stressful, but also EXPENSIVE. And I'm already spending more money than I really should on this. Part of me feels like it might be nice to go home at night and sleep on my own couch instead of a hotel bed. (Yes, I generally sleep on my couch, despite the fact that there are 2 perfectly good beds in my house. I just like it. It feels safe.) But on the other hand, I really do not like driving at night, nor do I like trying to find parking in the cities.

Also, I still haven't actually bought my admission tickets and I'm slightly panicking over that because if I want to do anything more than general admission, I have to wait until I have more money in the bank, which won't happen until Wednesday, and I don't know when they stop selling tickets online, but I think I saw somewhere that it's a few days before the con, which probably means that by Wednesday they'll no longer be selling tickets online. So maybe I should just go ahead and buy the general admission weekend pass. (But I kinda want better seats than that? And I could go ahead and get preferred admission for Sunday right now and then get the other two days later, but it would actually be a little cheaper to get the copper package than all 3 days preferred admission...but I'd have to wait on that, and I don't know how likely tickets are to sell out...agh.)

I'm kinda determined at this point that even though this is the last con in MN, it's not going to be my last con. So maybe it would be okay to just do general admission this time, and I can save up and plan better for my next convention. I'll still get to be there for all 3 days of the convention, and I've got my photo op with Jared, and that was the one thing I really wanted. And I might still be able to get a couple of the cheaper photo ops, that would be cool.

[tyleroakley-obsessed]

Ed. Note: I’m giving away a pair of GA tickets to each of the Levitt Shell’s “Stars at the Shell” concerts featuring Los Lobos on Friday November 3 and Lucinda Williams on Saturday, November 4. If you want to enter to win, leave a comment on this post saying why you love the Shell. I will do random drawings for both shows on Monday, Oct. 30 at 9 a.m. Daniel has all of the info on Stars at the Shell, plus his opinion on this popular Memphis music venue, so keep reading. When I think about Memphis, I think about music…and BBQ, and the Grizzlies, and the Mississippi, and many other things… but music is probably the first thing that comes to mind. We have such a diverse cultural and artistic scenery that you can find live music anywhere you go – soul, blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop – and everything in between and beyond. Music is embedded in Memphis’ DNA, and the Levitt Shell is a part of that.  The Levitt Shell presents more than 50 free concerts every year, featuring artists from all over the world.  How do they pay for all of this? The answer is mostly four words: Stars at the Shell. The Shell’s free programming is supported by the generosity of the community (those buckets they pass around at every show) and private sponsors (kudos to them!) Also, they host a two-day long fundraising concert series called “Stars at the Shell”. These two shows are the only two events that Levitt Shell sells tickets for in the whole year! Stars at the Shell 2017 starts on Friday, November 3rd with the three-time Grammy Award-winning American rock band Los Lobos. Have you heard the song La Bamba (or seen the movie)?  Well, these guys are the ones who recorded the hit-song in 1987, which reached No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. singles charts that same year. Amy Lavere at a past Levitt Shell show. The starry nights continue on Saturday, November 4th with Americana songstress and hit-maker Lucinda Williams. Her repertoire includes American rock, folk, blues, and country music, so I have no doubt she has an extraordinary show prepared for Memphis. General admission tickets are $20 for Los Lobos and $25 for Lucinda Williams; there is also reserved and preferred seating available for Lucinda Williams’ show and you can find more about them here. Kids below the age of 12 enter for free in the general admission area. As always, you can bring lawn chairs and blankets to the general admission area, but leave food and drinks at home as these will be sold at the even. Pets also stay at home this time. Gates open at 6 pm. You can purchase your tickets online (www.levittshell.org), at any of the Levitt Shell’s Fall free concerts (Thursday – Sundays, 7 pm – 8:30 pm), or at their box office (420 N. Cleveland on Mondays 10 am – 2 pm). How To Win The Free General Admission Tickets (this part is from Holly) We have been doing more giveaways (basically weekly) on the blog, so you hopefully know the drill by now. Leave us a comment on this very blog post saying why you love the Levitt Shell. I’ll do two drawings  – it’s all random, including which show you win – on Monday, October 30 at 9 a.m. I’ll email the winners then to confirm. What *I* would do, if I had the cash, is go ahead and buy a pair of tickets for myself, then enter the contest anyways. Now, if you win, you can surprise some friends with the extra pair and win major cool points. Why I Love The Levitt Shell  The Shell is one of my favorite music outlets in Memphis. It’s an 80+ years old concert stage in Overton Park, but hey! Don’t let the Shell’s age turn you off, because when it comes to building community through music, there is no place like it. When each of the Levitt Shell’s free concert series kick off, few places in town are as vibrant. There’s music, food trucks, beer, and tons of people (all of which I love) under Memphis’s blue sky (which I also love). Just last year they finished major renovations that allow them to host bigger crowds and accommodate exceptional artists and musical groups with large-scale productions. The Levitt Shell truly brings music, nature, family, and community together in a remarkable way. Go There: Stars At The Shell 2017 November 3 and 4, 2017 gates at 6 p.m. $20 – $25 + all ages levittshell.org About The Author   Daniel Bastardo is a Venezuelan scientist at St. Jude with a genuine love for Memphis. He is a runner and social media enthusiast who is passionate about all things local. Find him on all social media outlets as @dbastardo27. Are you a home owner in Memphis, with a broken garage door? Call ASAP garage door today at 901-461-0385 or checkout http://ift.tt/1B5z3Pc

http://ilovememphisblog.com/2017/10/stars-at-the-shell-with-los-lobos-and-lucinda-williams-ticket-giveaway/

[somefunnyshits]

Travis Scott: Hip-Hop's King of Chaos

We follow hip-hop sensation Travis Scott on tour, as he masterminds wild shows, works on new music in his bus and FaceTimes girlfriend Kylie Jenner.Ahmed Klink/ © Sunday Afternoon

Travis Scott bursts into his dressing room on a scooter, trailing assorted entourage and radiating the rich aroma of good weed. He makes for a catering table lined with Fruit Roll-Ups, Honey Buns, Lucky Charms and – for good measure – two bottles of Don Julio 1942 tequila. He's at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, about to face a sold-out crowd. "Let's get this bitch turnt!" he yells at no one in particular, letting the scooter fall to the carpet. Scott's manager, David Stromberg, brings Scott's attention to a dry-erase board, tucked behind a curtain, where a basketball play has been diagrammed in marker. Oracle is home to the Golden State Warriors, and Stromberg says that the Cleveland Cavaliers used this space as their locker room during the finals in June. The diagram, titled "BRON ISO," contains LeBron James–centric directives such as "KYRIE PASS IT" and "JR GET THE FUCK OUT THE WAY." "This is, like, the last thing Tyronn Lue wrote," Stromberg says, referring to the Cavs' coach. Scott, taking it in, laughs hard. " 'Get the fuck out the way!' " he cries.

Related

Watch Travis Scott's New Short Film Featuring Kanye West, Puff Daddy

Seth Rogen, Migos' Quavo, producer Mike Dean and more make cameos in 'La Flame'

He's winding down a 20-show tour opening for Kendrick Lamar. Originally from Houston, Scott rolled into the Bay Area early this morning, following a show in Vancouver. He spent all of today holed up on his bus, he tells me, working on new tracks that might wind up on his next album: "Just chillin', recording. Formulating a story, the picture I'm trying to paint. It's fun making music on the road – I got a whole studio bus." He plops down on a couch, gets lost in his phone. "The energy's been a little strange show-to-show on this tour," Stromberg says. "I mean, Travis brings the energy, but there's been seating at every show. He wants to get his fans onstage and get them to stage-dive – but there's chairs." He theorizes that "it's a numbers thing – I think you can sell more tickets when you do seats than when you do general admission." Scott says, "I can't speak to that," but confirms that he prefers the unmanaged vibe of a big, chair-free pit, where crowds can more readily cut loose: "Pffft," he says. "I'm never doing a tour with seats again." "Travis' fans are a little younger," Stromberg continues. "Kendrick's are a little older, and they're here for" – he throws up air quotes – " 'real hip-hop.' "

Stromberg is drawing a distinction between Lamar's dense, classicist virtuosity and what Scott does best, which is different: deliver simple, beguiling phrases about partying and drugs in an Auto-Tuned singsong over hard-edged, low-lit beats. It's a style you hear everywhere in hip-hop these days, from Migos to Future. It's also a style that Scott – whose debut mixtape, Owl Pharaoh, came out in 2013, the same year he worked behind the scenes with Kanye West on Yeezus – helped pioneer.

Scott has been on a roll ever since. He's dating Kylie Jenner. (And, it turns out, having a kid with her, according to TMZ reports published after our interview.) He has co-written or co-produced songs not only with West but also Rihanna (whom he's also rumored to have dated) and Madonna. His albums Rodeo and Birds in the Trap Sing Mc-Knight mix pop impulses – honeyed, hypnotic hooks – with irregular structures and droning flows that verge on avant-garde. Both are platinum, and they've both produced platinum singles, like the narcotic "Antidote" and the Lamar-assisted "Goosebumps."

Scott has also become known for a live show so raucous that – if you believe law enforcement, anyway – it's literally criminal. He was arrested this past May, after a show in Rogers, Arkansas, on charges of inciting a riot for encouraging fans to rush the stage. Police say that several people were injured, among them a security guard and a cop. (Scott, who pleaded not guilty, faced similar charges in 2015 following a concert in Chicago.) Shortly before the Arkansas show, Scott encouraged a fan at a New York concert to jump down from a second-floor balcony, before ordering audience members to form a human net to catch him. A different fan fell from the third-story balcony and reportedly wound up with a broken leg, but charges weren't filed.

When I ask Scott if the Arkansas incident has changed his behavior onstage, he answers without a moment's thought. "It hasn't," he says. "People gotta understand, sometimes shit gets out of control. I'm not trying to cause no harm – I just perform." He thinks for a second, then muses about a potential solution: getting even more popular than he already is. "I think I just gotta get into bigger spaces, have more space to get it in. Try to prevent some of that shit. I just wanna bring the stage to, like, the masses. I feel I have a show for the masses. It's probably at a point now where your uncle might know Travis, you know?"

Scott with girlfriend Kylie Jenner.Bob Levey/Getty Images

On one hand, Scott has taken such troubles as a publicity opportunity. After the Arkansas arrest, he sold fans a limited-edition T-shirt printed with his mug shot and the slogan "Free the rage." (Scott likes the word "rage," whether he's describing a cathartic onstage outlet or calling his devotees "ragers.") But there's an element of the negative attention that he doesn't like, too. "I wanna be recognized for some of the good shit I do," he says. Such as, he goes on, the enormous animatronic eagle that he had commissioned for his live shows, which looks a bit like a Henson creation, and which he rides above the stage, wings beating. "Man, I got a flying bird out here!" he says. "Name someone that's 25 doing that shit."

There's something childlike about Scott. The Rodeo album art and the music video for his single "90210" featured a poseable Travis Scott action figure. (In an un-childlike detail, it engages in some graphic action-figure boning before the video's through.) You can buy the action figure yourself, although the original run sold out, which means shelling out hundreds of dollars for one on eBay.

Scott says he was inspired to make the animatronic bird after he paid a visit to Legoland in San Diego. He's a big theme-park fan, to the extent that he's also been to the Denmark Legoland and titled his next album AstroWorld after a now-defunct park he used to visit in Texas. "It had a Dungeon Drop, Greezed Lightnin', Superman," he recalls. "It was a way of life – fantasies, imagination." AstroWorld doesn't have a confirmed release date yet, but Scott says that whenever the accompanying tour happens, he wants his concerts to double as bona-fide amusement parks, with rides encircling him as he performs. "I don't know why it hasn't been done already – I think people just don't do shit. Who makes stages these days that are cool?"

Scott was born Jacques Webster – his stage name was inspired by an uncle – and grew up in Missouri City, a middle-class Houston suburb. His father was an entrepreneur, his mother an Apple employee. When Scott was three years old, his dad bought him his own drum kit, which he played, as well as the piano, before quitting the latter, deciding that it couldn't help him get girls, whereas drum skills, which translated to beatmaking, would. As he puts it, "I was trying to fuck bitches, make beats, get fresh."

In high school, Scott acted in a local theater troupe. "I was a thespian, bruh," he recalls. "I was in this play Kiss Me, Kate – you heard of that? I did Oliver! I love that type of shit. I love drama." Scott's current DJ, Chase B, tells me they have been friends "since we were nine," adding that Scott "was a super-creative kid. When he acted in plays, he would always be the lead – that charisma was already showing through."

Scott's mug shot from this arrest in May.Rogers Police Department

Today, Scott directs his own music videos, a predilection he ties to a lifelong love of auteurs like John Hughes, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. "My favorite movie was The Breakfast Club," Scott says. "You ever seen Spy Kids? Nigga, that shit is crazy." When it came to music, his early hip-hop influences were flashy New Yorkers like Mase and Cam'ron. They gave way to Kid Cudi and West, who pushed contemporary hip-hop's emotive and melodic quotients into overdrive and eventually inspired Scott to bring grit, pain and darkness to his own music. (He also lists Portishead, Björk, Coldplay and the Sex Pistols among his favorite acts.)

Describing a category-busting creative ambition today, Scott says he wants to try his hand at architecture. He has a dream of studying it at Harvard. Which architects does he admire? "I honestly check for no one," he says. "I'm a master of my own imagination. I go off my own shit. I'm not into deep study – all that, like, reading? That's how shit ends up looking like someone else's shit." He smiles. "You ever see pictures in your head? I be having that all day. It's like a museum. That's why I don't do too many drugs, because my brain would explode. I'm my own drug. If I bleed and someone licked my blood, it's like liquid MDMA – know what I'm saying?"

You get a sense of what he's talking about when he takes the Oracle stage tonight, mounting his eagle and soaring high above the crowd, and shrieking, "My name is Travis Scott, and I like to fucking rage!" Stromberg, standing beside me in the center of the floor, says that in their ideal version of the show "the bird would be flying directly over the crowd," though the insurance logistics have proved insurmountable. Still, Scott likes pushing up against the constraints he's been given: "Security, we not stopping the fans from having fun tonight!" Scott bellows. "It's time to stand on top of these motherfucking chairs!"

Back in his dressing room some 45 minutes later, he tears his sweaty T-shirt off and stalks the floor, revved up. He walks over to a fridge, cracks a Powerade and chugs it. Stromberg pops his head in the doorway to announce a visitor. "Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, would like to say hi." Dorsey, dressed in a Bieberish ensemble of skinny jeans and extra-long T-shirt, enters. "I didn't think I'd ever meet you," Scott tells him.

"f I bleed and someone licked my blood, it's like liquid MDMA," Scott says.Christopher Polk/Getty Images

"Thanks for your music – and for using Twitter," says Dorsey.

"What you got going on tonight?" Scott asks.

"This," Dorsey replies.

"Nigga, Kendrick be going brazy," Scott observes.

"... Yes," Dorsey tentatively agrees.

After Dorsey leaves with some complimentary merch, Scott FaceTimes Jenner. The two have kept the details of their relationship under wraps, but butterflies seem to be part of it: They both got matching butterfly tattoos; his newest single, which makes numerous seeming allusions to Jenner, is called "Butterfly Effect"; and he recently bought her a reported $60,000 diamond chain, shaped like the insect, for her birthday.

Her face pops up on his iPhone screen, nestled into a pillow. "I just got offstage," he tells her. "I miss you. I love you."

"How was it?" she asks. "Good. I'm tired. I smoked a lot of weed."

Members of Scott's entourage start loudly poking fun at Stromberg – apparently there was some sort of pushup challenge earlier, and some of the guys have jokes about his abilities. The clowning distracts Scott, who puts Jenner on mute so he can more fully partake. "Did you put me on mute?" she asks. "Nah, I didn't put you on mute – it was just a sound delay," he says, chuckling. Someone likens Stromberg's pushup style, absurdly, to that of Mr. Potato Head, at which point Scott cracks up, falls to the floor, drops the phone, keeps laughing – and then seemingly forgets about the call. A minute later, he stuffs the phone into his pocket. I can see that Jenner is still connected. He directs his crew to the tour bus. It's a nine-hour drive to Las Vegas, site of tomorrow's show. "Let's roll out!" Scott cries, and they're gone.

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[somefunnyshits]

We follow hip-hop sensation Travis Scott on tour, as he masterminds wild shows, works on new music in his bus and FaceTimes girlfriend Kylie Jenner.Ahmed Klink/ © Sunday AfternoonTravis Scott bursts into his dressing room on a scooter, trailing assorted entourage and radiating the rich aroma of good weed. He makes for a catering table lined with Fruit Roll-Ups, Honey Buns, Lucky Charms and – for good measure – two bottles of Don Julio 1942 tequila. He's at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, about to face a sold-out crowd. "Let's get this bitch turnt!" he yells at no one in particular, letting the scooter fall to the carpet. Scott's manager, David Stromberg, brings Scott's attention to a dry-erase board, tucked behind a curtain, where a basketball play has been diagrammed in marker. Oracle is home to the Golden State Warriors, and Stromberg says that the Cleveland Cavaliers used this space as their locker room during the finals in June. The diagram, titled "BRON ISO," contains LeBron James–centric directives such as "KYRIE PASS IT" and "JR GET THE FUCK OUT THE WAY." "This is, like, the last thing Tyronn Lue wrote," Stromberg says, referring to the Cavs' coach. Scott, taking it in, laughs hard. " 'Get the fuck out the way!' " he cries. RelatedWatch Travis Scott's New Short Film Featuring Kanye West, Puff Daddy Seth Rogen, Migos' Quavo, producer Mike Dean and more make cameos in 'La Flame' He's winding down a 20-show tour opening for Kendrick Lamar. Originally from Houston, Scott rolled into the Bay Area early this morning, following a show in Vancouver. He spent all of today holed up on his bus, he tells me, working on new tracks that might wind up on his next album: "Just chillin', recording. Formulating a story, the picture I'm trying to paint. It's fun making music on the road – I got a whole studio bus." He plops down on a couch, gets lost in his phone. "The energy's been a little strange show-to-show on this tour," Stromberg says. "I mean, Travis brings the energy, but there's been seating at every show. He wants to get his fans onstage and get them to stage-dive – but there's chairs." He theorizes that "it's a numbers thing – I think you can sell more tickets when you do seats than when you do general admission." Scott says, "I can't speak to that," but confirms that he prefers the unmanaged vibe of a big, chair-free pit, where crowds can more readily cut loose: "Pffft," he says. "I'm never doing a tour with seats again." "Travis' fans are a little younger," Stromberg continues. "Kendrick's are a little older, and they're here for" – he throws up air quotes – " 'real hip-hop.' " Stromberg is drawing a distinction between Lamar's dense, classicist virtuosity and what Scott does best, which is different: deliver simple, beguiling phrases about partying and drugs in an Auto-Tuned singsong over hard-edged, low-lit beats. It's a style you hear everywhere in hip-hop these days, from Migos to Future. It's also a style that Scott – whose debut mixtape, Owl Pharaoh, came out in 2013, the same year he worked behind the scenes with Kanye West on Yeezus – helped pioneer. Scott has been on a roll ever since. He's dating Kylie Jenner. (And, it turns out, having a kid with her, according to TMZ reports published after our interview.) He has co-written or co-produced songs not only with West but also Rihanna (whom he's also rumored to have dated) and Madonna. His albums Rodeo and Birds in the Trap Sing Mc-Knight mix pop impulses – honeyed, hypnotic hooks – with irregular structures and droning flows that verge on avant-garde. Both are platinum, and they've both produced platinum singles, like the narcotic "Antidote" and the Lamar-assisted "Goosebumps."Scott has also become known for a live show so raucous that – if you believe law enforcement, anyway – it's literally criminal. He was arrested this past May, after a show in Rogers, Arkansas, on charges of inciting a riot for encouraging fans to rush the stage. Police say that several people were injured, among them a security guard and a cop. (Scott, who pleaded not guilty, faced similar charges in 2015 following a concert in Chicago.) Shortly before the Arkansas show, Scott encouraged a fan at a New York concert to jump down from a second-floor balcony, before ordering audience members to form a human net to catch him. A different fan fell from the third-story balcony and reportedly wound up with a broken leg, but charges weren't filed. When I ask Scott if the Arkansas incident has changed his behavior onstage, he answers without a moment's thought. "It hasn't," he says. "People gotta understand, sometimes shit gets out of control. I'm not trying to cause no harm – I just perform." He thinks for a second, then muses about a potential solution: getting even more popular than he already is. "I think I just gotta get into bigger spaces, have more space to get it in. Try to prevent some of that shit. I just wanna bring the stage to, like, the masses. I feel I have a show for the masses. It's probably at a point now where your uncle might know Travis, you know?"Scott with girlfriend Kylie Jenner.Bob Levey/Getty ImagesOn one hand, Scott has taken such troubles as a publicity opportunity. After the Arkansas arrest, he sold fans a limited-edition T-shirt printed with his mug shot and the slogan "Free the rage." (Scott likes the word "rage," whether he's describing a cathartic onstage outlet or calling his devotees "ragers.") But there's an element of the negative attention that he doesn't like, too. "I wanna be recognized for some of the good shit I do," he says. Such as, he goes on, the enormous animatronic eagle that he had commissioned for his live shows, which looks a bit like a Henson creation, and which he rides above the stage, wings beating. "Man, I got a flying bird out here!" he says. "Name someone that's 25 doing that shit." There's something childlike about Scott. The Rodeo album art and the music video for his single "90210" featured a poseable Travis Scott action figure. (In an un-childlike detail, it engages in some graphic action-figure boning before the video's through.) You can buy the action figure yourself, although the original run sold out, which means shelling out hundreds of dollars for one on eBay. Scott says he was inspired to make the animatronic bird after he paid a visit to Legoland in San Diego. He's a big theme-park fan, to the extent that he's also been to the Denmark Legoland and titled his next album AstroWorld after a now-defunct park he used to visit in Texas. "It had a Dungeon Drop, Greezed Lightnin', Superman," he recalls. "It was a way of life – fantasies, imagination." AstroWorld doesn't have a confirmed release date yet, but Scott says that whenever the accompanying tour happens, he wants his concerts to double as bona-fide amusement parks, with rides encircling him as he performs. "I don't know why it hasn't been done already – I think people just don't do shit. Who makes stages these days that are cool?"Scott was born Jacques Webster – his stage name was inspired by an uncle – and grew up in Missouri City, a middle-class Houston suburb. His father was an entrepreneur, his mother an Apple employee. When Scott was three years old, his dad bought him his own drum kit, which he played, as well as the piano, before quitting the latter, deciding that it couldn't help him get girls, whereas drum skills, which translated to beatmaking, would. As he puts it, "I was trying to fuck bitches, make beats, get fresh." In high school, Scott acted in a local theater troupe. "I was a thespian, bruh," he recalls. "I was in this play Kiss Me, Kate – you heard of that? I did Oliver! I love that type of shit. I love drama." Scott's current DJ, Chase B, tells me they have been friends "since we were nine," adding that Scott "was a super-creative kid. When he acted in plays, he would always be the lead – that charisma was already showing through." Scott's mug shot from this arrest in May.Rogers Police DepartmentToday, Scott directs his own music videos, a predilection he ties to a lifelong love of auteurs like John Hughes, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. "My favorite movie was The Breakfast Club," Scott says. "You ever seen Spy Kids? Nigga, that shit is crazy." When it came to music, his early hip-hop influences were flashy New Yorkers like Mase and Cam'ron. They gave way to Kid Cudi and West, who pushed contemporary hip-hop's emotive and melodic quotients into overdrive and eventually inspired Scott to bring grit, pain and darkness to his own music. (He also lists Portishead, Björk, Coldplay and the Sex Pistols among his favorite acts.) Describing a category-busting creative ambition today, Scott says he wants to try his hand at architecture. He has a dream of studying it at Harvard. Which architects does he admire? "I honestly check for no one," he says. "I'm a master of my own imagination. I go off my own shit. I'm not into deep study – all that, like, reading? That's how shit ends up looking like someone else's shit." He smiles. "You ever see pictures in your head? I be having that all day. It's like a museum. That's why I don't do too many drugs, because my brain would explode. I'm my own drug. If I bleed and someone licked my blood, it's like liquid MDMA – know what I'm saying?" You get a sense of what he's talking about when he takes the Oracle stage tonight, mounting his eagle and soaring high above the crowd, and shrieking, "My name is Travis Scott, and I like to fucking rage!" Stromberg, standing beside me in the center of the floor, says that in their ideal version of the show "the bird would be flying directly over the crowd," though the insurance logistics have proved insurmountable. Still, Scott likes pushing up against the constraints he's been given: "Security, we not stopping the fans from having fun tonight!" Scott bellows. "It's time to stand on top of these motherfucking chairs!"Back in his dressing room some 45 minutes later, he tears his sweaty T-shirt off and stalks the floor, revved up. He walks over to a fridge, cracks a Powerade and chugs it. Stromberg pops his head in the doorway to announce a visitor. "Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, would like to say hi." Dorsey, dressed in a Bieberish ensemble of skinny jeans and extra-long T-shirt, enters. "I didn't think I'd ever meet you," Scott tells him."f I bleed and someone licked my blood, it's like liquid MDMA," Scott says.Christopher Polk/Getty Images"Thanks for your music – and for using Twitter," says Dorsey. "What you got going on tonight?" Scott asks. "This," Dorsey replies. "Nigga, Kendrick be going brazy," Scott observes."... Yes," Dorsey tentatively agrees. After Dorsey leaves with some complimentary merch, Scott FaceTimes Jenner. The two have kept the details of their relationship under wraps, but butterflies seem to be part of it: They both got matching butterfly tattoos; his newest single, which makes numerous seeming allusions to Jenner, is called "Butterfly Effect"; and he recently bought her a reported $60,000 diamond chain, shaped like the insect, for her birthday. Her face pops up on his iPhone screen, nestled into a pillow. "I just got offstage," he tells her. "I miss you. I love you." "How was it?" she asks. "Good. I'm tired. I smoked a lot of weed."Members of Scott's entourage start loudly poking fun at Stromberg – apparently there was some sort of pushup challenge earlier, and some of the guys have jokes about his abilities. The clowning distracts Scott, who puts Jenner on mute so he can more fully partake. "Did you put me on mute?" she asks. "Nah, I didn't put you on mute – it was just a sound delay," he says, chuckling. Someone likens Stromberg's pushup style, absurdly, to that of Mr. Potato Head, at which point Scott cracks up, falls to the floor, drops the phone, keeps laughing – and then seemingly forgets about the call. A minute later, he stuffs the phone into his pocket. I can see that Jenner is still connected. He directs his crew to the tour bus. It's a nine-hour drive to Las Vegas, site of tomorrow's show. "Let's roll out!" Scott cries, and they're gone.Let's block ads! (Why?)Posted from: this blog via Microsoft Flow.

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