#just. thinking about this book and that new rolling stone editor's bullshit book and the weird caveated reviews of GUTS. it's all connected

[terrainofheartfelt]

ohkayyyyyy so the thing I've thinking about this list.....

a white guy records something that's fucking weird, and the critics and anthologists call him a genius and an influence. and women and people of color write and record something beautiful and true and the work is treated like it's been done and heard before because it isn't as "groundbreaking".......but what is the ground that's being broken?

[kootenaygoon]

So,

The event was called Find Your Divine. 

Every year the Nelson Star hosted a women’s shindig down at the Prestige, featuring a booth bonanza of feminine swag from all sorts of local companies before a speech given by an inspiring public figure. Usually it was an author of some sort of self-help book, or maybe a TV personality. This year they’d landed the prime minister’s mother, Margaret Trudeau, and I’d been assigned to cover the estrogen-heavy event on a weekday evening. One morning Sharon swung by the newsroom to let me know she wanted me there right from the moment the doors opened through to the end, plus she wanted the coverage to go live that night. This was her baby. I seethed at my desk, annoyed by the urgency in her voice. Whenever there was money coming our way, that’s when my publisher’s priorities got real clear.

That night I asked Kai out for a drink, primarily to bitch about Sharon and seek solidarity. That’s not what I found. He met me at the Falls Music Lounge around 8 p.m. and when I invited him to order something he said he didn’t drink. He looked impatient, his leg bouncing under the table.

“The reason I’m here is to talk to you. I wanted to know what’s up. It seems like you’ve been really off the last little while,” he said. “And this whole thing with the Carpenters is getting out of hand. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I mean, the break-up’s been hard but I’m holding it together.”

“Yeah, but there’s only so long you can blame your drama on your ex. At some point you need to move on with your life and be a grown-up, you know?”

Kai was better positioned than most to comment on my mental health. Two months earlier he’d spotted a bruise on my neck that I’d earned tussling with a bouncer at the Royal. One night when we were in the office late, he smelled pot and became the first person at work to call me out on it. He had little patience for my misbehaviour and wanted nothing to do with my ongoing HR antics. When it came down to it, he was an adult and a father. 

I was neither.

“But don’t you think it’s ridiculous how Sharon just marched into the newsroom and bossed me around like that? I mean, Greg’s the editor. Not her!” I said, getting upset all over again. “I’m just tired of this Mickey Mouse bullshit.”

Kai sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “This attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere. Trust me.”

“Nobody holds them accountable.”

He shook his head. “You talk like they’re Bond villains. It’s ridiculous. Are they the best publishers I’ve ever had? No. Are they the worst? No. They’re prominent, long-term members of this community and they deserve some respect. Way more respect than you’re giving them. I’m surprised you haven’t been fired already. If you want my honest opinion, there it is.”

“So you’re taking sides with them.”

“The only one turning this into an us versus them scenario is you, Will.”

After my conversation with Kai I decided that I was going to cover the shit out of this event as a pseudo-apology for my surly behaviour. I was going to give Margaret the deluxe treatment. For a few months I’d been live-tweeting school board meetings and I decided to do the same thing with her talk, posting videos and photos to Twitter as the night progressed. I would tag Justin Trudeau once the story was published. From what I heard he had actually distanced himself politically from his mother, as she was too incendiary and polarizing of a figure. She had cheated on his father, partied with the Rolling Stones and admitted to rampant drug use. The more I learned about her, the more I liked her. Like Sean Dooley she was capable of stripteasing in public, using her vulnerability as a kind of strength. 

I showed up for the event early, as some of the companies were still setting up their booths. They were selling bras and moisturizing cream and the type of art you might hang in a doctor’s office, one smiling face after another as I completed a lap around the room. Sharon had asked me to take some pictures of the vendors so I did, asking a few to pose here and there. We were getting regular text message updates about Margaret’s imminent arrival, and I was getting giddy. One of my favourite things about journalism is how I’m routinely faced with people I would never get to meet otherwise. Margaret would be a good addition for my “Famous People I’ve Met” list, alongside Ted Harrison, Jack Layton and Miriam Toews. 

The thing about the type of people who birth future prime ministers is you can feel them before you see them. It’s like the wind picking up speed, or a quick chill in the air, and suddenly you know something’s coming. I was standing there taking a picture of some smiling business owners when a susurrus of whispers swept through the room. She’s coming. The ladies fumbled with their cameras, began to jostle politely towards the door. I ducked and weaved through their bodies and made my way back into the hallway, where I could see Sharon talking to a woman in a cherry red dress. It was her.

“Oh, and Margaret? This is Will, our reporter. He’s going to be covering the event and taking pictures,” Sharon said, once I made my way over.

Margaret gave me a languid handshake, her smile knowing. She seemed a little drunk to me. “I’m used to having my photo taken, believe me.”

For the next twenty minutes I watched her work the crowd, making time for one admirer after another. She posed for a photo with Mayor Deb Kozak, hugged strangers and told pithy jokes. Eventually she made her way to the podium, after being introduced by local actor Lucas Myers. Hundreds of women had amassed their swag and were now ready to be inspired. I had the feeling that most of them were going to end up feeling like they received something different than what they paid for.

It was clear from the get-go that Margaret hadn’t prepared a clearly mapped out PowerPoint presentation about how to succeed, or a carefully scripted Ted talk on all the lessons she’d learned along the way. Instead she took the microphone and just began to speak in a rambling, scatter-brained style, careening from one subject to the next while making self-deprecating jokes and name-dropping historical figures. I could see some of the women murmuring, annoyed, as she laughed about doing drugs and hinted at her own promiscuity. All of this was somehow perfect, though, for her subject matter. Her book Changing My Mind was about mental health, an unpredictable and volatile topic. I started pulling quotes and posting them on Twitter. 

She was so real.

One thing I’d learned while researching Margaret was that her son Michel had died in a Nelson-area avalanche in 1998. The Kootenay area held special significance for her. When she started talking about Michel, I turned on my recorder. I knew this would be the emotional crux of the piece, as well as the most obvious local angle. She told the crowd that news of his death robbed her of the will to live.

“I was so locked in my own grief I couldn’t even help my boys. I had the body of a 10-year-old boy. I was wasting away. It had become clear that I was a danger to myself and I wasn’t in charge of my life,” she said.

Once the event was over, I rushed to the Star office and began transcribing the recordings I’d taken. There was a great quote and about wake and baking, a few solid anecdotes about her life with Pierre, and then the Michel angle. I processed the photos and uploaded them to the website while I checked Twitter for engagements and prepared my Facebook post. I texted back and forth with Greg, who was editing from home, and got the piece up less than an hour after the event had ended. Not bad. I e-mailed the link to Sharon, to make sure she saw the story, then headed home exhausted.

The next afternoon, as I was standing alone in the newsroom, Sharon swung by to check out the pictures from the evening before. I proudly showed her all the favourited images I had in a quick slide slow, pointing out the ones I’d used to illustrate the story. 

“But where are all the pictures of the vendors?”

I’d forgotten. “Oh, right. Those got uploaded with the rest, I’ll just pull them up here.”

All told, I’d only taken maybe 20 photos of the various booths. Some of them hadn’t been manned while I was making my rounds, and many of them weren’t aesthetically pleasing. I was going through the motions because she’d asked me to do it, but I didn’t know how these images would ultimately be used. They wouldn’t have any real journalistic value beyond being featured in a promotional photo spread. Or an advertisement. I had figured three or four solid images would be enough, but I was wrong. She started listing on her fingers all the businesses I’d missed.

“Okay, but I was more focused on Margaret. She showed up around that time, so I guess I was distracted.”

“I told you to get pictures of all the booths.”

“For what?”

“It doesn’t matter for what. This is your job, and you didn’t do it.”

Sharon stormed off, furious. It was a sunny afternoon and I’d just returned from lunch. Things had been going so nicely until she showed. Here I was convinced that I’d finally mended a fence, done her a solid, and she still wasn’t happy. I couldn’t win, no matter how hard I tried. I stewed at my computer, vibrating with frustration, until I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The sea of anger that had been building in my chest for the past two years was boiling over, and I was about to take it out on her. I walked across the office and knocked on her door, asked if I could sit. She gazed over the top of her glasses at me, her lower jaw quivering.

“I don’t think it’s fair, you giving me shit over the Trudeau coverage. I was there from the beginning to the end, getting awesome photos and live-tweeting and everything. I covered the shit out of this event, I did my job, and you didn’t even mention my story at all.”

“You weren’t there until the end. You were missing during the clean up.”

“I was working at the office, writing up the story with Greg so I could get in online right away like you asked. I checked in with you! I told you that. I ended up working for 12 hours that day.” 

She scoffed at that. We were beginning to talk over each other, and things were escalating. My face was hot, my voice was breaking. I began to insult her and Cam, calling them “shady” and vowing to destroy their reputation in town. I told her I couldn’t fucking wait until the day they walked out of the Star office and out of my life. I accused her of being a negligent publisher and blamed her for my deteriorating mental health. She stood with tears in her eyes and asked me to leave, twice, motioning for the door and looking in the opposite direction. The fear on her face made me feel instantly ashamed. I shook my head and left.

That’s it, I thought to myself. They’re going to fire me for that stunt, for sure.

As it turned out, I was wrong.

The Kootenay Goon

[suburbanmetaldad]

What can I do for you?

Here, friends, is my super power:

I can create an entire book — a good one — quickly, with very little help.

You want a book with your name on it. I can make that happen.

Maybe you typed up a draft, and you’re not sure where to go next.

I can take it from here.

And anything smaller than that will be cheaper and faster.

Get on the schedule while you can.

Following are more details about me and my work.

Follow are links to different things D.X. Ferris makes & does. 

I am D.X. Ferris.

I grew up obsessed with music and reading. I went to school for writing. At the time, I thought I couldn’t create things. I didn’t know it yet, but I was wrong. I tried to quit. Writing wouldn’t let me. It kept pulling me back in. 

Once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, I made up for lost time. Now I’ve covered a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for Rolling Stone. I endured a career-ending injury. I’ve been to the Pentagon on business. I’ve written books with & about some of my iconic heroes. Communication is my business, and business is good.

I do a lot of different things. 

I am an award-winning writer, editor, manager, publisher, teacher, speaker, cartoonist, maker, co-author, ghost writer, and overall communications professional. To me, those various & sundry processes are all part of the same sphere — and here’s the common thread: Communication is the art of organizing information. That, friend, is what I do. I can do it for you. And we can make some money together.

I have written/co-written nine books. My personal record is four new books in 16 months.

I cut my teeth as a rock & roll journalist. Then I successfully transitioned to hard news. Lately, I’ve been creating motivational literature and self-help books. I write very effective press releases & promo material. I write & storyboard short videos. I’m writer for a documentary I can’t talk about yet.

I get around. I teach college. My CV includes work for dozens of publications, including Rolling Stone and Alternative Press (America’s two top rock & culture magazines). I’ve also written for leading outlets such as The A.V. Club and Decibel. I write and stage communication seminars. 

I have been to the Pentagon and National Air & Space Museum on business. I have been backstage at the Vans Warped Tour on business. My body of work includes book-length oral histories. 

I have collaborated with certified Grand Masters, civilians, and high-profile musical & Hollywood creative types. I have had Almost Famous moments on the side of the stage at European festivals. I wake up so early it hurts. I make money for my partners.

I am a 33 1/3 author. An Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Reporter of the Year. And a third-degree black belt (in Taekwondo). Also a 32° two-time WM/PM.

Let’s do some good work — and then let’s do some good with what comes from it.

Click the following links for my...

Good Professional Wrestling: Full Contact Life Lessons From the Pinnacle Performance Art The Good Advice From... series is now officially a franchise. Volume II features a foreword by Diamond Dallas Page, motivational icon, founder of health & wellness movement DDP Yoga, and WWE Hall of Famer. Professional wrestling is the toughest business. It is a form of competition built on collaboration and cooperation. Every successful wrestler has a diverse skill set that can help you get over too, no matter what your business or lifestyle. Filled with short chapters and useful advice, this browsable motivational manual features inspirational quotes from dozens of wrestling icons. Each is followed by easy-to-read analysis and actionable tips that can turn a life around.

I collaborated with Darren Paltrowitz on this one-of-a-kind positivity handbook. It breaks down the habits, skills, and strategies that your favorite superstars practice — and you can too, starting today.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons from the Best Mob Movie It’s the last — or maybe first —  motivational manual and self-help guide you’ll ever need. 320 pages, paperback; Kindle ebook also available, cheap. At 145 short chapters, it’s the perfect airport/travel book. This unique meditation & reading finds teachable moments in all your favorite and quotes and scenes from this beloved, seminal movie. If you know what to look for, Goodfellas covers all the same evergreen topics as your favorite business podcasts and startup seminars... but it’s a lot more fun. No, seriously.

Co-author of motivational/how-to Masonic leadership manual

Co-author of parents’ motivational guide to kids’ martial arts

I am the most prominent, prolific non-marquee contributor the music-writing/music journalism textbook How to Write About Music, from the brain trust running Bloomsbury/Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. TECHNICALLY, I AM ON THE SAME LABEL AS NEIL GAIMAN. This is one of two or three books on this topic. Note to self: Write your own.

Wrote the official book with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers For my money, Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are the best-kept secret from 80s rock radio. That had not one, but seven hot 100 hits. The bandleader/songer penned an enduring disco hit. AND he worked with three Rock Hall of Fame artists. The band have a continuous near-40-year run. During this epic tale, they work with a young Trent Reznor, Kiss, Breathless, Cinderella, Sam Kinison, Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz, Wolfman Jack, and bunch of others. The book is a painstakingly researched oral history that plays like a mix of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary, the movie That Thing You Do!, and the American Hardcore book. Coffee-table book, 464 pages, 102 images, 308 endnotes, 8.5x11″.

Wrote two books about thrash-metal icons Slayer

One is part of 33 1/3, the vanguard series of music-related writing.

One is an exhaustively researched full-length biography featuring 33 images and over 400 endnotes.

Publisher of 6623 Press, home to creator-owned, useful, reasonably priced, unconventional books about popular culture, success, and other cool stuff. People like them.

Full-service, full-contact indie publishing. I write, co-write, ghost-write, edit, and publish books. Quickly.

Do you have book in you? We’ll get it out.

Worked for Rolling Stone, the no. 1 music & culture magazine ever.

I’ve been writing for Alternative Press — America’s no. 2 music magazine — off & on since 2002. More recent pieces are here. Older material is here.

Wrote for alternative newsweekly Cleveland Scene, in various capacities, for 8 years. Won numerous awards for news reporting, business reporting, arts reporting, commentary, feature writing, personality profiling, and sports reporting. Click here for profiles, business features, columns, reviews, and more.

I think this piece about Cleveland’s LeBron James banner won me the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Reporter award: Literally the entire city was looking at an iconic, massive piece of public art/advertising — and I was the one person who looked behind the scenes. For alt-weekly Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/08/05/goodbye-lebron-banner-hello-sunshine-workers-behind-the-banner-speak

For Rolling Stone, I interviewed a band and created unofficial liner notes for a classic album:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/they-might-be-giants-flood-track-by-track-guide-to-the-geek-chic-breakthrough-82345/

This kind of piece is a specialty. For Alternative Press, I interviewed an infamous punk musician about his friendship with the late, great Anthony Bourdain. I supplied many conversation prompts, transcribed it, then edited his answers into one continuous narrative, while I remained invisible in the piece. If it looks like I didn’t do much, then that was the entire point.

https://www.altpress.com/features/anthony-bourdain-harley-flanagan-cro-mags-tribute/

I visit a business, describe the experience, and research how a controversial industry works. For Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/game-of-chance/Content?oid=2183398

While the rest of the rock-journalism world were writing SOPA stories (Summarizing Other People’s Articles) about a developing story, I dug deep, excavated some court records, and wrote an informed summary. For Metal Sucks — for my money, the best metal news & views site.

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/11/how-many-more-misfits-reunion-shows-will-there-be-according-to-legal-documents-probably-just-one/

A friendly multi-person Q&A and sidebar, stitched together from three different interviews from different media. For Alt Press.

https://www.altpress.com/features/punk-goes-fearless-records-interview/

Cover story/feature profile of the president of a local university — and how his work has helped shape the city. It’s pretty whitebread and dry, but I can work in that style when I’m not writing about raging hellions. For Cleveland Magazine, the city’s upstanding guide to what’s happening and who’s doing it.

https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/city-mission

News interview with Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans. For Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/enhanced-interrogation-dan-gilbert/Content?oid=1678536

Excerpt from Good Advice From Goodfellas, my self-improvement book that draws positive life lessons from the greatest gangster movie:

https://6623press.tumblr.com/post/181078213342/the-new-self-helpmotivational-manual-good-help

Christmas Sevenfold: Metal Dad, Compendium Two  My second comic-strip compilation collects seven years of Christmas & fall holiday stripes, with new art, a foreword, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two books about Slayer still loves Xmas. 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium One: Raging Bullshit. The first compilation book for my webcomic. It collects Years III and IV of the comic, with 172 strips, 8 previously unreleased demo strips, an updated FAQ, and a true-life, all-text real-life metal dad story (so there’s something to really read). 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Individual strips of Suburban Metal Dad, an online comic that has run twice weekly since 2010.

I am totally into the Misfits/Danzig/Samhain, and wrote a bunch of stuff about this record-setting continuum of ground-breaking musicians

I wrote things for Metal Sucks

Guest on heavy metal podcasts, and bloggage about it all

Guest on assorted TV and superhero-show podcasts

Guest host on rock podcast Lost Together

Annotated both versions of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” at Genius

Random bloggage about stuff that isn’t necessarily metal... mostly movies and holiday stuff like a survey of Christmas imagery in True Detective season 1

Tweet too much, but it’s healthier than taking cigarette breaks.

The Pentagrammarian: I take note of writing, grammar, usage, and the business thereof. I am one of very few professional writers who can list the four parts of a well-rounded profile or break down the constituent parts of a sentence, in correct technical grammar terms.

The goat had it comin’. I swear.  

[floralguccistyles]

Hello everyone! Long time no see! I have had a wild ride that is 2020 and amongst health problems with both my family and my own health, this chapter took a while to write. I had to focus on my own health, both physical and mental. I am doing much better, thankfully, and wanted to get this chapter out to you! It’s a little shorter than the normal chapter, but I thought it was a good place to stop. 

This chapter mentions Harry Potter. Since the last time I updated this fic, JK Rowling has made despicable comments about the trans community. I want to ensure that you all know I love and accept everyone in the trans community and Rowling’s views do not reflect my own. If you are hurting over her comments, my messages are always open. I’m so sorry, but know you are seen and loved.

eight: accio mint and chip 

Though I knew absolutely nothing about shopping for engagement rings, I still excitedly accepted Veronica’s invitation to go shopping for one.

Jeremiah and I had been bugging Veronica about proposing to Bailey since the moment we’d met her. She always just gave us a little close-lipped smile and told us the day would come soon. That had been when we first started working together, so naturally Jeremiah and I assumed it was never going to happen. But last night, just as my editor was leaving the studio (after a pretty fucking awesome episode of AC if I do say so myself), she had asked Jeremiah and I if we wanted to go shopping for a ring with her. Jeremiah, she said she needed because he was a straight man and would know what women might like. I had snorted. 

She invited me because while Jeremiah knew women, he didn’t really know Bailey’s style. Our goal was to find one that Jeremiah approved of that also felt like Bailey. 

Which was how we all ended up in Jeremiah’s car, Zach next to me in the backseat while Jeremiah and Veronica took the front. Since Jeremiah actually needed to use his car today, we had to pick up Zach from his school, which he was perfectly fine with. I think he was just happy to be included in our little outing.

“What about a princess cut?” Zach asked, leaning forward to put his chin on his brother’s chair. Veronica snorted and Jeremiah sent Zach a look in the mirror. “What? I read, you know. I know that princess cuts are like crack to some girls.”

“It’s not Bailey though,” I responded, and Veronica nodded her agreement. Bailey wasn’t classic like that. She was out there and fun and her ring needed to mirror that. “I’m thinking emerald, marquise, or pear.”

“Marquise might be cute,” Veronica agreed, nodding her head at the suggestion.

Jeremiah and Zach shared a look in the rearview mirror, highlighting that the both of them knew nothing about engagement rings. 

Bailey was spending the day with Jeff and Glenne, who had invited her over for dinner at their house. When Veronica had told me this, my first thought hadn’t been that she would want to shop for an engagement ring. It was whether or not Harry would be invited to the little get together. Thinking about Harry in a semi-positively way was still unusual to me, and I could tell it was going to take me a while to get used to. However, I hadn’t been lying when I had told him that I was willing to try and make a decent friendship between us work. We had exchanged a few texts back and forth, mostly about Lord of the Rings, since he had purchased the book. He sometimes asked about Melody and how she was doing (to which she responded with an eye roll when I showed her the texts. She was determined that he was trying to get on her good side). Mostly, though, he kept a respectful distance between the two of us, never bringing up anything too personal that he expected I wouldn’t answer.

“First stop,” Veronica mentioned. I wondered if she heard the nerves in her own voice. All four of us in the car knew that Bailey would say yes without hesitation, but I imagined picking out a ring and popping the question was still a daunting task. “Try not to get us kicked out,” she added, lowering her sunglasses to glare at Zach and Jeremiah.

“We would never!” Zach yelled, pressing his hand to his chest to try and look affronted. “Jere, can you believe they think so lowly of us?”

“Yes,” Jeremiah replied, rolling his eyes.

I didn’t see Zach’s expression, too excited about going shopping with Veronica. The four of us walked into the jewelry store, and immediately my eyes cut to the aquamarine section they had in the front of the store. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t remember if it was the birthstone for March but assumed it was. 

“Welcome in. Can I help you find anything?” The sales woman, whose name was Eileen, was pretty. She was adorned in about three different pieces of diamond jewelry. I wondered if she owned them all or was just displaying the store merchandise. 

“I’m shopping for an engagement ring for my girlfriend,” Veronica said. Her voice still sounded nervous.

“Do you have an idea of what she’s looking for?” 

“Something unique. Probably not round or princess cut. I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to a stone that’s not a diamond. She might like something with color.” 

“But not something pink or anything. Maybe blue or green,” I chimed in. Veronica nodded at my included statement, briefly pointing at me as if to say to Eileen that I knew what I was talking about. Which, of course, I didn’t. 

“Is this the lucky lady?” Eileen asked, giving me a smile. I decided that I liked Eileen. She seemed open-minded and sweet.

“She wishes,” I countered, shaking my head. “But no. Just a supportive friend. The two doofuses behind us are also supportive friends.”

“We’re offering the straight male perspective,” Jeremiah said, making conversation.

“Why they want that, we have no idea, but we’re here anyway,” Zach added.

The first ring Eileen offered was a pretty topaz table cut diamond. While it was gorgeous, Veronica immediately had something to say about the color. “She’s really pale. I’m not sure the topaz would look the best on her skin.”

“I don’t like that it looks like an inverted pyramid,” Zach supplied helpfully. 

“We literally only invited you because we were picking you up anyway,” Jeremiah told his little brother, slapping him on the back of the head. “Shut up and let Veronica and Petra figure this out.”

“No problem. Maybe she’d like a sapphire?” Eileen asked, leading us to a display with dark blue stones embedded in them. The first ring she pulled out was a gorgeous radiant cut ring. Veronica examined it closely. 

“I think we’re closer on the color. Could I see another cut of the sapphire?”

Eileen was quick to show Veronica another sapphire ring. This one was the same pretty dark blue, but was in a princess cut, which Veronica had already confessed to me that she didn’t want. We browsed the jewelry store for a couple more minutes before we all walked back outside.

“Don’t look dejected. That was one store. Shopping for a ring is like shopping for a wedding dress. You hardly find it in one go.” I placed my hand on Veronica’s shoulder when we got back into the car and squeezed it.

“I’m just nervous,” Veronica sighed out. “I want it to be perfect.”

“If it’s you proposing, Bailey will think it’s perfect. Trust me.”

Veronica drove us to the next jewelry store. This one was smaller and looked a little more antique, which could be a positive and negative. As I went to get out of the car, my phone rang. Seeing it was Harry, I waved to Veronica to signal she should go inside and start browsing.

“Hello?” 

“Hi. What are you doing tonight?”

I raised a brow. “Aren’t you with Jeff and Bailey?”

“Yeah, but we’re wrapping up soon. I wanted to see if you wanted to get ice cream and maybe watch Harry Potter.”

“Why?”

He laughed. “Christ, you know how to make a guy feel special. Because I want to hang out with you and get to know you more?”

“You basically know everything you need to know about me,” I pointed out. “There’s AC, my book, and not much else.” Plus, I wasn’t sure how I felt about hanging out with Harry on my own yet. It was different when I was hypnotized by the idea of meeting John Williams, or when he had surprised me and come by the house, or even when he had been drunk and disorientated. If I agreed tonight, it would actually just be the two of us...hanging out.

“Bullshit. There’s a lot I don’t know about you. Plus, I’ve never actually been sorted into a house and I was hoping you would help me.”

That caught my attention. “Wait, what? You’ve never sorted yourself on Pottermore? I thought everyone did that when the site was released.”

“Nope. I’m unsorted. Any predictions?”

I personally thought he was a Slytherin, but I wasn’t going to tell him my suspicions until I could confirm them. The intrigue of it was enough to have me caving, despite my reservations. “I’m predicting that if you don’t have mint and chip ice cream, this movie night won’t be happening.”

“See, something new I now know about you. You like mint and chip. Which is a disgusting flavor, by the way.”

“You take it back.”

He laughed, and I could hear the gravelly sound of it. It made a weird flush tingle through my body. Either that, or I hadn’t completely shut the car door and I was allowing freezing cold air to get in. The second was more likely. “I’ll pick you up at seven? I need to run some errands between now and then.”

I glanced at the clock on my phone. I had about four hours. “That’s fine. I’ll...see you then, I guess.”

“Don’t make it sound like a bad thing,” he joked, but I could tell there was a hint of truth to his tone as well. “I’ll even promise mint and chip. But I’m only getting a pint because there’s no way in hell I’m eating that.”

“And what’s your favorite ice cream then?” I demanded, rolling my eyes. 

“Classic strawberry.”

I crinkled my nose. “Ugh. Of course you’re a fruit ice cream person.”

“Harsh, Petra. Harsh.”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later, then,” I said awkwardly, waiting for him to confirm. I still wasn’t completely sold on our plans, but I knew the idea of sorting Harry on Pottermore would make me go through with it. The intrigue was too much to ignore. 

“You will. Have a good day, Petra.”

I didn’t say “you too.” It felt too soon. I just mumbled out a “bye, Harry,” and hung up the phone call, shoving the device back in my pocket before I wandered into the jewelry shop. Veronica was gazing at an antique ring holder, looking at the jewels displayed on it. “Find anything interesting?”

“A marquise opal ring. I was waiting for your opinion.” As she pointed it out to me in the case, she raised a brow. “Who was on the phone, by the way?”

“Harry,” I responded, staring at the ring Veronica had pointed out. It was certainly beautiful. “Could we get this ring out to look at it, please?” I asked the man behind the counter, who nodded and reached for keys to undo the lock on his side. As he was situating the ring holder on the counter, I caught Veronica’s surprised look. “What?”

“Just didn’t expect that answer, to be honest. Things are going well between you two, then?”

I shrugged, holding my palm out for the clerk to set the ring. Once I had it in my hand, I closely examined it. “There’s not really anything going on between us to go well. We’re just...trying out being friends, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Veronica said, holding out her hand so I could hand her the ring. Immediately, her eyes went soft. “I know we’ve only been to two jewelry shops, but this is it, right? It just feels like Bailey.”

“I was hoping you’d say that was the one. It’s gorgeous. Bails will love it. How much is it?” I asked the clerk. He didn’t have a nametag, but he was an older gentleman who smiled a lot so I decided I liked him. 

“Two thousand. We can price match some of the bigger jewelry stores, too.”

“No need. We’ll take it.” Veronica’s eyes were shining as he packaged it up for her, putting it in a pretty pale pink ring box. When Veronica took it in her hands, her fingers were shaking. “No backing out now, yeah?”

I wrapped an arm around her waist. “Bails will say yes. I promise.”

“I know. It’s just...I never thought I’d feel this way about someone. It’s terrifying and amazing all at once. I knew she was the one from day one. That sounds mad, doesn’t it?”

I thought about my mum, telling me all about how dad brought her flowers for their first date. “I don’t think it sounds mad.”

“No?” Veronica asked. Jeremiah and Zach immediately swooped on her, asking to see the ring and she handed it over. While they ogled over it, I shook my head.

“No.”

Veronica squeezed me a little tighter and gave me a soft smile.

~

I was not going to dress up. 

I tried to tell myself that Harry wouldn’t care what I wore, but as I stared at myself in the mirror, clad in a dark grey shirt and black leggings, I felt self-conscious. Which I was unused to. It was like reading those tweets had unlocked something ugly in me that I didn’t like. 

My last appointment with Doctor Thorne, I had mentioned the newest insecurities I had found myself thinking about. We hadn’t focused much on it, because she wanted to see if it was simply something brought on by the tweets and if it would go away. But so far, the thoughts hadn’t gone away. They didn’t always appear, but tonight I was hyper-aware of them, like hanging out with someone who used to make fun of me was a trigger of some sort.

I wanted to give Harry the benefit of the doubt. I really did. It was just hard when I didn’t know if he was being truly genuine.

He knocked at my door at 6:58, apparently sticking to his seven o’clock timeline. Hastily putting my glasses on my face, I made my way to the front door and opened it. His hair was curled at the ends, and his nose was bright red from the cold. Though it was nearing the end of March, London was funny in that it was permanently cold.

Memories and moments hit me at the most random of times. Seeing Harry’s red nose, I suddenly remembered a time I was sitting at a vanity as a little girl, my mother braiding my hair back. She was playing an old Cuban record on the turntable my father had bought her as a gift their second Christmas together. “In Cuba,” she had told me as her fingers slid through my hair, “the summers are sweltering. My mamá used to take us to a pool and we’d eat popsicles. I’ll take you back sometime.”

How I wished she had.

“Ready for our Harry Potter marathon?” Harry asked, grinning despite the fact I hadn’t let him into the house yet. “I got your nasty mint chip and everything.”

“Come on in and warm up for a minute.” I moved aside so he could step into my flat. He rubbed his hands together, trying to get some warmth back into them. “Want something hot to drink?”

“If you have anything, I’ll take it,” he said, moving to my counter. He stared at it as if he were remembering the last time he were here, when he was hungover and had made avocado toast for the both of us. Now it was his turn to sit on the stool while I made him something. “How was your day?”

The question stopped me short as I was searching through my cupboards. I wasn’t used to it coming out of Harry’s mouth and directed at me. “Fine,” I said hesitantly, stepping up on my tiptoes to reach a box of peppermint tea I had thrown in there when I had gotten it for Christmas. “Peppermint tea fine? Since apparently you’re a little bitch about mint.”

He chuckled, the sound coming from low in his abdomen. “Peppermint is fine. There’s this little ice cream shop in this town in California that makes peppermint ice milk. It’s like a milkshake but a little smoother. The lads and I must have gone there everytime we passed through.”

“And yet you say you don’t like mint and chip.” I shook my head, rolling my eyes as I started up the kettle to prepare the tea.

“Mint and chip is gross. Peppermint is different.”

He looked around my flat as I made the tea. My back was to him, but I could tell he was surveying it, like he did every time he was here. It was like he was greedily taking in any glimpse of my life that I would give him. I wanted to tell him that my life couldn’t possibly be that interesting, but whenever I opened my mouth I couldn’t find the right words, so I just decided to let him peruse.

“You have a record player?” he asked suddenly. I was surprised he had even noticed it. It was a tiny little thing that I had purchased off Amazon years ago. It was half the size of my mother’s big one that my dad had bought her. Still, I liked having it. My mum had even given me some of her records to play on it. “What’re you listening to?”

Music was Harry’s version of what fandoms were to me. Which was why I waved him off. “Check them out, if you want. I usually just play whatever the first one I grab is.”

As I poured the tea into to-go cups for us, I heard him chuckle. When I turned, he was holding up the old Maná record my mother had given me. “Who is this?” he asked excitedly. “Can I play some?”

“Sure.” I set his tea down on my coffee table. “It’s a Mexican rock band my mum likes.” I tried not to flinch when they started playing, reassuring myself that Harry wasn’t going to laugh or say something racist because Mexicans and Cubans were two completely different groups of people. 

To my relief, he just listened.

“I like it. Reminds me a little bit of Men at Work,” he stated. I had no idea who Men at Work were, but took his word for it. “What is this song called?”

“Oye Mi Amor.” I couldn’t stop myself from turning off the record and putting the album back in its case. No matter how hard I tried not to, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Harry to make fun of the music I listened to. “Ready to go? I put our drinks in to-go cups.”

If he picked up on my discomfort, he didn’t say anything. He simply nodded and grabbed his keys off the counter, expecting me to follow behind him. Once my door was locked, we trekked to his car, which was completely different than the last car he had picked me up in. I tried not to be jealous that while I didn’t even have one car, he probably had seven.

At the very least.

We were watching the movies at the same house he had his birthday party at. It was still as large and grandiose as the first time I had seen it, even bigger now that it was just the two of us. The foyer was probably the size of my entire flat.

“I’ve got the movies set up already. I’ll get the ice cream out. Make yourself comfortable,” he said, gesturing to the giant couch in his living room. It looked like one of those couches you would sink into when you sat, which I confirmed the second my body dissolved into it. There was a small fuzzy throw blanket strewn across the back of the couch, so I gently unfolded it and covered my body with it, hoping it wasn’t a ridiculously expensive one or anything.

“Want to sort yourself first?” I asked, noticing his laptop on the coffee table. “I want to see what house you’re in.”

“Ah, yes. Can’t forget the real reason we’re here,” he replied, appearing in my line of sight with my pint of mint and chip. He had his own strawberry ice cream tucked underneath his arm and two spoons in his right hand. “Here’s your disgusting ice cream.”

Rolling my eyes, I popped the cap off and pulled back the plastic seal while he set up his laptop. I helped him navigate to the Pottermore site and watched as he made himself an account.

“The moment of truth,” he said in a cheeky voice as he clicked the start button.

I didn’t want to watch him take it; I wanted to be surprised by the answers. So I simply dug my spoon into my ice cream and took a couple of bites as the soft clicking of his fingers on his mousepad filled the room. I took this time to survey his living room. At his party, I hadn’t seen much of it because it had been so crowded, but now I saw that it was as equally nice as the rest of his house. There was a giant electric fireplace on the far left wall, and I imagined he sat there with his guitar a lot, trying to write music. 

The idea of this humanized him a little bit in my eyes. Made him less of the Harry from my childhood and more of the Harry as I was coming to know him now. Softer around the edges and comfortable in his skin. 

“Okay, any guesses?” he asked, hiding the laptop screen so I couldn’t see the results.

“Slytherin,” I answered more quickly than he was expecting.

“Oi! That’s the evil house!”

“It’s not the evil house,” I argued, shaking my head. “The author just tells the story from Harry’s perspective, and he’s biased. Slytherin’s awesome.”

He pouted a little bit, but quickly turned it into a grin. “Well, you’re wrong anyway. I got Hufflepuff.”

I pursed my lips, thinking about it for a moment. The Harry I knew in secondary school wouldn’t have been a Hufflepuff. But maybe this Harry was. “I can see it,” I said slowly, picturing it in my mind for a little while longer as I took a bite of my ice cream. 

“What are you?” he asked, closing his laptop and setting it back down on the coffee table. He leaned back against his couch, looking comfortable in loose-fitting jeans, a sweatshirt, and fuzzy socks. I eyed his socks with amusement before following suit, leaning back with him.

“Ravenclaw,” I answered. He clicked on a little remote he had sitting on his table and the telly burst to life, showing that he had already had the movies up and ready on Amazon Prime. 

“That makes sense. Now, are you one of those people who likes to watch them in order or can we skip to the obviously best movie Prisoner of Azkaban?”

“My favorite of the movies is Order of the Phoenix.”

“Petra, no! Sirius dies in that one!”

“I think Umbridge is one of the best villains of all time. She’s so annoying. I hated her more than Voldemort.”

He groaned, but I noticed that he clicked over to Order of the Phoenix and started it up. I smiled, drawing my legs up and resting my chin on my knees. 

“How’s your terrible mint and chip ice cream?” he asked after a few moments. He had only taken one bite of his strawberry ice cream, and was eyeing mine with curiosity. 

“You can’t have any. Not after you insulted it so much.” Moving so it was out of his reach, I glared at him.

“I just want to see if I remember it correctly.”

“Too bad.”

“You’re mean.” He huffed, throwing his body back onto the couch with pouted lips. 

For the entirety of the movie, I was hyperaware of his leg next to mine. It was wrong to focus on the negatives when I was honestly trying to make a friendship with Harry work, but my mind continued to take me back. It was like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, and I had no idea if there would be water at the bottom that could save me. I didn’t trust easily, not after he and his friends had ruined that small optimistic part of me that saw the good in people first thing. 

Doctor Thorne had reassured me that the choice to trust Harry was all my own. But what happened when my own self-consciousness made the choice for me? What if he really had changed but my fear and insecurities pushed him away? 

“Hey, do you like Snape?”

“No,” I answered automatically.

“Oh, thank god. I would have had to kick you out of my house.”

I allowed myself to laugh, figuring for now, I didn’t need to have all the answers. For now, I could simply enjoy a movie I liked with a boy who may or may not be my friend.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

STREET SAINTS #3: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RON

     This week’s episode of Street Saints™ is brought to you by...me, your Better Days Are A Toenail Away beat reporter. I’m kidding. This episode is about Ron, a man I met several sabbaths ago.      Now, in a recent post about payphones I briefly touched on how people these days are reluctant to let strangers use their mobile phones. I won’t argue with that. I mean, our phones contain our entire lives. But I let Ron use mine. Here’s what happened.      I was walking around aimlessly one Sunday almost two months ago when...well, that’s not exactly true. I had a definite aim in mind. I hadn’t had a cigarette in a few days and was getting desperate. I’d already asked a few people and had been rejected by all of them when I passed a barefoot man sitting on a bench outside the food bank I used to go to.      The man looked like he was having a rough day. Or a rough month. Or year. Or life. The soles of his naked feet were scabbed and black and he was wearing a collared shirt, unbuttoned and open, revealing a scarred and hairy chest. Wearily, he lifted his head as I passed and asked if he could use my phone. He asked with the same defeatist energy I’d been asking for smokes with...that is, expecting to hear a firm “no.” I freely admit that I didn’t want to loan a stranger my phone, what with COVID and germs and all that, but my heart went out to him because he looked like he really needed it, so I handed it over and sat down on the bench beside him.      “God bless you, brother,” he said. “My name’s Ron. I’ll be quick.”      “Hi Ron,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have cigarette by any chance?”               “Nope, but I can get one! Hell, I’ll buy you a whole pack, hell…two packs, for helping me out. I got a friend coming who’s gonna give me a hunnert bucks!”      I nodded, even though I didn’t exactly believe the guy. Not because he seemed like a liar but because broke people always have that one mythical payment they are waiting on, the one that will lift them above their circumstances. I’ve often borrowed money to buy heroin on the strength of some random payment I’m anticipating, money that forever waits just beyond my reach, like the baby on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind. (Aaaaand that simile allows me to continue my tradition of inserting Nirvana album covers into the Street Saints™ series. I am a professional writer. Do not try such similes at home.)

     ^ That baby’s name is Spencer Eldon, btw. Eldon makes his living these days by charging outlets $1000 for interviews. The interviews are pointless, given that Eldon doesn’t remember the Nevermind photo shoot because he was six months old, but unscrupulous or desperate editors continue pay his required fee. I distinctly remember a Rolling Stone feature from 2001 featuring a ten-year old Eldon in which he agreed to a reshoot of the underwater photo, and was quoted by the magazine saying “Nirvana’s okay, but Blink-182 are way better.” 

    Eldon reshot the photo again in 2008, now telling the New York Post that he preferred the Clash to Nirvana. Getting warmer, Eldon.

     Eldon did yet another anniversary reshoot in 2011 in which he said “Every five years or so, somebody’s gonna call me up and ask me about Nevermind…and I’m probably gonna get some money from it.”              I am not the first writer to make this trivial connection, but you might say Eldon’s famous photo is a metaphorical representation of his life. He is constantly swimming toward the next dollar bill on the next fishhook. You might even say that we’re all Spencer Eldon…each of us swimming toward the next paycheque, the next loan, the next stranger’s cigarette. I certainly feel that way sometimes. I definitely felt that way when all my money went to heroin. And even Ron, the barefoot preacher who spoke a few words into my phone then hung up and handed it back to me, probably felt that way too, waiting for his possibly-fictional-but-flush friend.       “He’s on his way,” Ron assured me, sensing my skepticism. “Two minutes or less. He’s driving a silver minivan. Keep an eye out.”      “Right on,” I said. “Thanks. I just need a single smoke, you don’t have to…”      “One!” scoffed Ron. “What’s one gonna do? I’ll get you a couple packs!”       Far be it for me to argue with a religious man, as both a baptized Catholic and penniless individual in need of a nicotine fix. “Cool,” I said, nodding again.       “I’ve been thinking about a woman,” Ron said, squinting at passing cars. “My first girlfriend, to be exact. Her name was Angel. As somebody who believes that the Lord Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, I’ve begun to understand the biblical importance of her name, and to understand that Angel really was an angel and that...that I shouldn’t have let her go.”      He looked at me and I saw with some alarm that he was crying. Then he began to rant about Moses and the burning bush and how he’d been “trying [his] best but sometimes your best isn’t good enough.” He told me he’d quit drugs and alcohol years ago but he still smoked because tobacco is in the bible. He said he was homeless but he’d just that day found a place for October 1st. It would be his first apartment in over a year. He said the Lord wanted him to do good deeds while he waited to move into his new place, his dollar bill on a fishhook.       As a frequent consoler of the downtrodden, I tried to think of something I could say, something that might cheer him up or summarize things, but then a minivan pulled to a stop across the street and a portly fellow disembarked and trudged over to us, smiling.       “Hey!” he hollered at me, still grinning. “Is this guy talking your ear off?”       Not wanting to make fun of my new barefoot friend, I shrugged noncommittally.       “He will if you let him,” the friend said, producing a roll of hundreds from his pocket and handing one to Ron.       Woah, I thought. Ron was telling the truth.       He hadn’t been bullshitting me. He wasn’t swimming toward some irretrievable dollar. He really did have a friend on the way to loan him money.       “Where the hell are your shoes?” the friend asked Ron. Ron shrugged and replied cryptically: “The Lord provides.”       I got up from the bench and moved away so the two friends could converse in private. I wasn’t going to hold Ron to his offer. He seemed to really need the money. But Ron and his friend didn’t talk long, just a few words and a handshake and then Ron disengaged himself and slowly sauntered over to me.      “Okay!” he announced. “Let’s go get those smokes!”       There was a bar nearby I knew about that sold reservation cigarettes for $5.50 a pack. It took us half an hour to walk one block because poor Ron was limping. He absentmindedly held the hundred pinched between two fingers as he walked, and it was flapping in the wind. Watching him, I got the sense that he didn’t really give a shit about money.       At the bar Ron bought four packs with the hundred dollar bill and gave me two of them. Two full packs of smokes. Then he asked for $5 bills in return, which struck me as odd until a few minutes later when I saw why.      On our way back to the food bank Ron told me he was training to become the oldest player to ever make an NHL debut. When you are homeless and marginalized, these kinds of dreams sustain you. They are the necessary fictions that get you through life. I won’t start talking about the dollar bill on the fishhook again, but you get my point. Then he talked about God again and expressed his faith that he was “on the right path for the first time in a long time.”      Back in front of the food bank, Ron, who was now preaching loudly about kindness for one’s fellow man, walked up to every single person in the foodbank line and handed them a $5 bill until he was down to his last $20.      I was gobsmacked. I was fucking amazed. He even tried to give me $5. And although I was totally broke, I didn’t accept the money. I had the cigarettes I’d set out to get. I might be an untrustworthy drug addict but I’m not a greedy prick. But this post isn’t about me. It’s about Ron and his selflessness.      Earlier Ron had said “the Lord will provide,” and although I’ve long been skeptical of religion and the literal truth of the bible, in that moment I could not argue with him. This was the gospel according to Ron. Sometimes you get to grab the fishhook and take your dollar.      It was a moving scene in that foodbank line. Some of the people Ron handed money to cried tears of relief. Others hugged him. All were exceptionally grateful and told him so. He just nodded solemnly and looked at me smugly as if to say see?      In the world of drug users and the downtrodden there are a lot of liars and bullshitters. You hear lots of dubious tales from people with delusions of persecution and/or grandeur. But here was a man who walked it like he talked it. He’d been preaching kindness and care toward one’s fellow humans since I’d spotted him on that bench and here he was handing his own money out to everybody like an unhoused Henry Sugar.      The man was barefoot and his feet hurt and he could have bought himself a pair of sandals at the nearby Dollarama for $3, but instead he gave everything but his last $20 away.       I walked him to the subway, telling him en route how impressed I was, how he “walked the talk.”      “Thank you Danny, I appreciate that,” he said quietly.      He was uncomfortable with my praise. I think he viewed himself an instrument of what he called “God’s light.” What he'd done, that generous display, wasn’t about him. It didn’t even seem uncharacteristic.       Now, I have a lot of atheist friends who would probably scoff at this story, friends who champion God-hating books by guys like Hitchens and Harris and Hedges, friends who delight in making fun of the devoutly religious, but I consider that attitude intellectually lazy. Bible stories are obviously rooted in the unscientific and the anecdotal. That combination is low hanging fruit for today’s well-read, well-learned skeptical individual. But I cannot disparage the actions of Ron that day, nor can I disparage the faith and belief that guides such selfless behavior.      Sensing his discomfort, I shut the fuck up and walked him the rest of the way in silence.      “I have to go now,” Ron said when we got to Spadina and Bloor. “Have a good night.”      “You too Ron.”      And as I watched him walk barefoot into the station, limping his way down the stairs to the subway, I realized I’d been in the company of a saint.