#less smelly and already used in cosmetics

[babykittenteach]

Just the hands and chest for the people who follow me and leave fantastically unhinged tags on things.

[kvetchlandia]

Richard Meltzer     Lester Bangs Passed Out on Meltzer’s “Highly Uncomfortable Living Rm. Chair,” 104 Perry St., Apt. 4, West Village, New York City     1972

On December 14th, this December 14th, Lester Conway Bangs, while probably not the greatest writer of his generation, arguably its most vital so far to die, would have been 36. Haunted and driven by demons, so- called, a cheerless many of whom/what/ which — or their kindred ilk — he directly sought, found cum stumbled upon, or was inadvertently ensnared by on the demon picnic grounds of Rock and Roll, he never made it to 34.

Following the lead of a handful of babes in the rock-critical woods, one of which I'll admit (if sometimes reluctantly) to having been. Bangs at the dawn of the seventies played as prominent a role as anyone in both expanding the expressive boundaries of rockwriting as a form and giving it a voice that played the newer, more mannered and cautious, mass-market rockmags like Rolling Stone and Creem — the latter of which he even edited for awhile — as on the dime as it had played the catch-as-catch-can, limited-edition fanzines whence it came. Though he also served as the burgeoning genre’s most prolific scribbler, a mission he sustained with relative ease for the bulk of his days, it is to the man’s lasting credit that he rarely delivered copy on anyone’s dotted line. In fact, he probably “got away with more’’ in major- publication print than all his rockwrite brethren combined, conceivably (however) because it merely simplified matters to have a single Designated Outlaw, one entrusted with a blanche enough carte — and unmonitored options galore — to spike with “authenticity ’’ a rock-media stew of bogus Freedom and ersatz Candor.

Retrospectively cliched or not, there was an existential purity to the sheer commitment evinced by Lester’s prolonged wallow in (and about) the rock- and-roll Thing-in-itself. It was, in many ways, the critical headbang to end all critical headbangs; it would be hard to even imagine, for instance, a professional art-film bozo, a jock-sniffing sports jerk, or a food-review lunatic more uninsulatedy gung-ho vis-a-vis x — either as primary experience or typewrite wankery. His patented shameless multipage gush, coupled with an unswerving advocacy of certain conspicuously over- the-top rock genera (Velvet Underground offshoots; Heavy Metal; Punk Rock), made him a must-read favorite with both cognoscenti and dipshits alike, and he came as close to encountering idolatry per se as any non-musician in R&R. A good deal of which — natch —could not help hitting the self-consciousness fan, but while a man’s life was ultimately undone in the process (“I’m Lester — buy me a drink! ’’), the integrity of his art/craft was essentially unaffected. For, while he might have been a tad too glib-messianic those last couple years, he was by no stretch of things an opportunist, never really giving a hoot for what in squaresville would be known as a career. (Or, perhaps, unlike his role model Kerouac, he simply didn’t live long enough for that, too, to be strenuously tested.)

In any event: dead, cremated, literal ashes. California born (Escondido ’48), bred (El Cajon, ages 9-23), and traveled (I first hung with him in San Francisco, last in L.A.), Lester bought the big one on the opposite coast — his final home, the fabled Apple — April 30/82, ostensibly from a hefty pull of darvon employed, in lieu of aspirin, to placate the flu. Since his death, variously interpreted as a mile-radius teardrop’s once-in-a- lifetime terminal burst, a joke and a half on both himself and his precious chosen whole damn Thing, and — by occasional uncouth louts — the final glorious triumph of his excess, the spectrum of Bangs-in-ongoing-print has dwindled from monochromatic /sparse to colorless/ nonexistent. Of the two books in his name which appeared during his lifetime, quasi-coffeetable numbers on Blondie and Rod Stewart, neither a particularly representative Lestorian effort (or even particularly good: the former admittedly hacked out “in two days on speed,’’ and looking it, i. e., ad hoc and forced; the latter disowned as a clumsy, if innocent, foray into “writing as whoring’’), both are either out of print — officially — or on the back burner of barely having ever been in same, at least as regards this coast, where I’ve yet to see either in bookstore one. Nor have two posthumous whatsems. Rock Gomorrah, cowritten (early ’82) with L.A.’s Michael Ochs, and a projected collection of unpublished fragments scrounged from Bangs’s apartment a day or two after his death, gotten more than inches off the publishing ground — the former for reasons which if herein revealed would get me sued but good, the latter because, in the words of editor Greil Marcus, “the stuff is less tractable than I thought at less than 5000 words or so.’’ Also stalled, and/or abandoned (and/ or nonspecific pipedreams to begin with) : all known plans to reissue out-of- print Live Wire LP Jook Savages on the Brazos, recorded, Austin, TX, Dec. ’80, by Lester Bangs & the Delinquents, lyrics and vocals by guess who. In fact, the only anything by L. C. Bangs readily available where availables are sold is his liner copy for The Fugs Greatest Hits Vol. I, released by PVC/Adelphi some months after he’d croaked, for which he (or rather his atoms) later copped a Grammy nomination, and for which, reliable word has it, he never was paid.

Well, I’ve been proven wrong; it hasn’t been easy recollecting Lester in even half a toto in so much tranquility. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea back when obits were appearing left & right and at least two- thirds of ’em smacked of revisionism at its well-intentioned worst; having ridden the range with the guy, having been as intimate with his daytime/nighttime revealed essence — I would bet my boots — as anyone in or out of various possible beds with him, I had fiery goddam galaxies to say in his behalf that were simply not being said, at least not in print by his designated peers; and, although my no longer living in New York couldn’t help but delay my shot, remote and after-the-fact seemed like the ticket, y’know anyway, for some major necessary rerevision.

But here it is two, two and a half years gone & more, and whuddaya know if all the raw goddam pain (at the loss of, yes, a brother) and jagged fucking anger (at a waste of life, life-force, and relative inconsequential like “talent” and “genius”), an unbeatable duo which for weeks, weeks, months gave the Lester totality so cosmic a shape, scale and intensity, have by their own inevitable burnout given way to the contemplation of standard-issue mere data, of the skeletal remains of a larger-than-life life which have come to make sense (or not) in too neat, too linear, a manner. Well — hey — fuggit: Even if grocery lists, chalk diagrams and hokey storytellin’ are the forms ongoing life-as-life has imposed on the mission, there’s still a heap of essential Lester information that could use, uh, exposure to printed-page light.

What too many write-biz intimates sought to do in the wake of his death was debunk the Lester Legend (solely) by reciting evidence that his bark was worse than his bite. While I’m sure he’d have “wanted it done” (i.e., have the saga-as- litany scraped of treacherous barnacles, or at least of their treacherous vogue), I can’t imagine the projected post-life intent of such a wish as in any way entailing cosmetic overhaul, especially in the service of moral/experiential object lessonhood. Lester’s day-to-day transaction with post-adolescent life-as- dealt was — let’s be conservative — 94 % anything but pretty. If he’d have wanted his entire whatsis to serve up viable scenarios for intimates and non-intimates alike (gee, would the Pope prefer to be Catholic?), there’s no way the deal’d come out even provisionally Lester-functional without interested non-intimates having retroactive access to as hefty an eyeful of the not-so-pretty — in all its hideous, non-Clearasiled blah blah blah — as intimates galore regularly managed to cop and, in their various personal ways, have already learned from. To deglorify an earlier incarnation of shit (which the man himself was clearly hellbent on doing in his waning days on earth) you’ve got to at least speak its name — loudly! — for the whole entire planet: c’mon now, one & all. A solemn responsibility (I call it) which, credibly/incredibly, the smelly sumbitch’s closest associates have, to this day, all but refused to consider.

To wit: For every time anyone saw the defanged, declawed Lester teddy bear rear its cuddly li’l head (see obits 2, 3, 5 & 7) the man was uncountable times the asshole, the buffoon, the sodden tyrant; been those things myself — in semi-prior lifetimes — so I know. Back in ’73, for inst, the soon-to-be-dead Lillian Roxon gushed shameless love for the s.o.b., in New York on Creem business, ordering up a Lester button and leaving it in his hotel box; response to this purest of offerings was “What’s that fat cunt want from me?” About a year later I get this call from Nick Tosches requesting that I please take Lester, who’d shown up at his door on acid, “off my hands”; took him to a party at John Wilcock’s place, during which he verbally brutalized Wilcock’s wife (in green Fingernails) for being a “hooker,” snapped at an affable Ed Sanders for being “the only alkie in the counter-culture,” and had nothing more to say to Les Levine’s Asian girlfriend (wife?) than “Yoko is a lousy gook”; further into the night, at Vincent’s Clam Bar in Little Italy, he literally bellowed ( more than twice), “There’s a lotta tackin’ wops in this joint.” And how can I forget the way he treated me and Nick, his closest approximate friends f'r crying out loud, as our wonderful editor while at Creem? He’d call us each up at 3 a.m. to urgently solicit various (rather specific) reams of pap, needed via Special D toot sweet; we’d climb outta bed, peck away bleary-eyed to whack out the closest possible takes on what he’d claimed he wanted, whereupon he’d reject ’em with a vengeance (“I won’t print beatnik shit”), then run thoroughly like-minded i. somethings — under his own byline — or with our words, usually verbatim, laced throughout. Just a few “examples,” dunno if they sound like big stuff or small, in any event typical Lester, with plenty, plenty more where they came from — y’know times n-plus-many.

In spite of such anticommunal upchuck, or quite possibly because of it — post-adolescent of a post-summer-of-love feather & all that — I did have deep affection for the bastard during my final years in New York; he could really piss me off (and I, I’m assuming, him) but bygones were always eventually ditto. In those days I generally shared his affection for The Edge, and might even’ve gone extreme slightly ahead of him; in January ’72, this is true, he actually dubbed me “the Neal Cassady of rock and roll.” But by fall ’75, when I split New York to at least simulate an escape from the Frantic and Hyper (and he subsequently arrived, ostensibly to embrace same), I was feeling the first stirrings of apprehension re my own prolonged massive intake of Edge Substances (emotional, cultural, but above all chemical) and was on the verge of an early series of attempts to, y’know, cut down, to maybe get off my collision course with all sorts of walls, both metaphoric and real. Lester, meantime, seemed on a rapid upswing in the intake dept.; what had so far served as mere horizon or frame for his trip, or at most been its semi-essential fuel, was now lunging headlong for the foreground of his life ... or should we call it the twin foregrounds (life as Mythic Construct; life as physical/emotional/cultural Hard Mundane Reality).

Hey, the guy was beginning to scare me. Certainly as an advanced — or rapidly advancing — version of what I no longer wanted to be and could (possibly) imagine once again becoming, but more as this vivid, palpable spectre of specialized human decomp not just out there but right there: a pal & a buddy headed (willy nilly?) for the sewer. From late ’75 immediately onward, on those unlikely occasions when separate coasts — underscored by far fewer rockwrite junkets — any longer allowed for it, I was usually unable to handle being in the same room with him, knowing I’d have to witness whole new increments of what could really no longer be passed off as anything but (gosh) misery and (dig it) horror. Where in the earlier ’70s it was almost cute — once in a while — the way Lester would stumble into classic self- directed drunk jokes (like the time he called me from the Detroit airport to tell me he was headed for an Alice Cooper show in London, presumably England, only he’d drunkenly got it wrong and was on his way to London, Ontario), there was this half-week in ’79, for inst, during which he hung out at Michael Ochs’s house in Venice with no daily design but to get skid-row-calibre gone and stay there, that was just fucking grim. Looking an unhealthy as I’d ever seen him, basic shit-warmed over with an ngly bump on his forehead (which he claimed he was “treating with Romilar”), he refused to eat without an Occasion. When, one evening, Michael and I pretty much dragged him to a Mexican restaurant, he refused to actually step inside until he’d fortified himself with the cottons from six Benzedrex inhalers — the local pharmacist was out of Romilar — busted open on the sidewalk with a shoe.

Washing down their remnants with a Dos Equis as his enchilada sat there staring at him, he quoted (or claimed he was quoting) Sid Vicious: “Food is boring.”

So, inevitably, when Billy Altman rang me up from N.Y.Clearly on a California morn, to let me hear it straight from a friend — “instead of from a creep” — my immediate response to no more Lester, steps ahead of all the pain & anger & whut, was holy fucking shit, the fucker finally did it; it’d been in the real-world cards for long-long times for Lester to cease to be. Though even on his gonest days he was no way a classic cornball suicide-romantic — heck, I don’t really think he was all that clinically suicidal (big-sleep fantasies never overtly/covertly lured him, not even metaphorically, from the darkest sub-basement of his World of Dread; nor was Danger, though he often nonstop lived it, itself the merest tickle of a ripple of a thrill for him, a context before the fact) — he’d sure staged more corny, frightful dress rehearsals than Jim Jones plus Judy Garland (squared) for simply ending up dead.

Biggest of which I ever saw was January ’81. I’m at Nick’s place in New York, en route back to L. A. from Montreal, when who should pay a surprise visite but Mr. Bangs, cassette in hand. It’s a tape of these tracks recorded during an Austin romp I’d heard about second or third hand (he’d planned to “live there forever,” it was said, ’til a night in the local drunk tank — on top of who knows what else — totally changed his mind), and in the course of the next 12-15 hours he played it, for us and at us, many times. Also during this stretch, after boasting, rather proudly, that he no longer drank, he managed to ingest at least 36 cough- suppressant tablets (three 12-packs of Ornical — we weren’t always watching) washed down with sizable slugs of bourbon, as there was nothing else but water to wash ’em down with.

All stages of this ordeal, in which Nick and I were little more than foils for surge upon surge of what we’d come to regard as typical Lestorian bathos, were hardly bearable in the state we were in (after far too many “nights with Lester,” going back to the days when we even could dig it, we’d opted for a change to take this one straight), but the morning-after phase was literally one for the books. On the umpteenth playback of what was soon to hit the racks as the Jook Savages LP, Lester insisted that one particular vocal was pure Richard Hell (in Lester’s cosmos an a priori yay); my dogtired no-big-deal of a response was it sounded existentially neater than that, more on the order of Tom Verlaine (a Lester nuh-nuh-no). Suddenly hair-trigger sensitive — in a performance-trigger vein — he tapdanced back with “Then I might as well go sell shoes in El Cajon.” Next cut he compared himself to somebody (very contempo) else, prompting me to comment, for non-pejorative, sleep- denied better or worse, that his vocals (across the board; in general) had the same basic flavor as those on such country-western parodies as Sanders' Truckstop or the Statler Brothers’ Johnny Mack Brown High School LP. Affecting grievous offense, as if any of his b.s. actually mattered (the Lester of ’73/’74 — in any chemical state — would merely’ve giggled), he took things up a full notch of indignant/sarcastic: “Well I guess I’m just no fucking good. ”

But he wouldn’t stop playing the crap, not with every cut looming as a supercharged occasion for kneejerk call- and-response, a challenge for him to goad Nick and/or me into goading him, in turn, into mock-self-deprecatory one-liners ad nauseum — a dress rehearsal, as it were — his puke-stained sweater seemed appropriate — for his triumphant appearance on Johnny Carson, which he had no doubt the worldwide success of his Blondie book would imminently require . . . along with a shot of his mug, cleanshaven, on the cover of People (over which he whined “fear” of besmirched personal image).

Ultimately Nick and I, weary of further compliance in so shoddy an interpersonal number, old buddy or not (and/or old bud in particular), found ourselves laughing in his face; enough was enough, and the sight of this bumbling mammal going gaga for an audience of two-who-knew- better was kind of otherworldly amusing. The object of our yuks, however, took it as us laughing with him: Great Moments in Standup/Audience Rapport! Swollen with illusory (or whatever) whacked-out self, Lester then proceeded to announce his program: (1) to save Rock & Roll; (2) to become president (presumably Oi the U.S. of A.); (3) to move to England and in turn save their Rock & Roll. As mere dipshit goals, nos. 1 and 3 meant topically little to either of us — geez, we’d all but buried the Anglo-Am mainstream as even an idle, y’know, sometime hobby or whatnot — but (2) hit us firmly, instantaneously, in the breastplate.

Lester’s neurons, no recent model of health to begin with, had made the short-circuit of Lester Bangs . . . [tenor saxophonist] Lester Young . . . (latter's nickname] Pres . . . Pres/U.S.A. per se!!!

Guffaw, guffaw — we guffawed — though I guess we could've gasped (or shuddered). Then: a heavy silence, as cosmic (or whatever) as it was awkward, filled presently by the man himself:

"Hey! I'm gonna buy some import albums! I'll get a whore I know to lend me her charge card! Cab fare too!" And he was off; no amiable nudging, no “Get the fuck out of here" could take the place of timeless vinyl hunger. Gone at last — and we gave him (in all solemn, empirical, non-jive reckoning) six months to live.

But of course he fooled us, by (nearly) a whole damn calendar year. Surprise, surprise: but an even bigger surprise was the extent to which he managed to actually turn things around — well, almost — during that extra annum, especially during its. and his. final months. Not only was he still among the living, not only did he no longer seem conspicuously earmarked for premature exit — the Lester with whom I spent a rather refreshing week in February '82 gave every indication of having already gone beyond mere survival (as an issue) and appeared, astonishingly, to be thriving on the theme.

In L.A. following his mother's eventually fatal stroke and staying with his 56-year-old half-brother in Studio City, he accompanied me one night to a low-stakes poker game attended by members of the Blasters, the perfect setup, you’d figure, for Lester to revert to type. But no, he just minimally fun-&- games'ed it like anyone else — no lookin' for opportunities to “be Lester," no showing off for rock-roll peers either verbally or intakewise. no diving for the evening's jugular and letting 'er rip — and after two beers (!). without so much as a grimace, he declared he’d had enough. Postgame he engaged Phil Alvin in a lively musical dialogue, but at no point did fightin' words fill the air, or were axes even poised for grinding. The pair agreed to exchange tapes — a wholesome friendship in the making — and next day Lester complained (true, true) that reefer had been smoked.

As the week wore on in consistent, low- key fashion. I was struck by the fuckload of inner capacities the guy was perceptibly calling on, left, right and center, to extend his defiance of Death to the domain of just plain living, capacities I hadn't caught sensory evidence of — all previously told — for more than 11 minutes total. A far cry from anything as cheaply benign as, let's say, more frequent eruptions of "Lester washes the dishes" (see obit 04), what I got to witness was kind of on the order of a whole new Lester, one who'd finally found a non-lethal, functionally less jagged (though in no way “benign") rhythm for his life. Engaging him in tight quarters with more open-heartedness per se than I*m sure I’d ever mustered (sharing an Edge does not always make for brotherhood-by-numbers. let alone by pure, unedited inclination), I willingly submitted to his rap/rant and bought its tenor if not its verbatim transcript; by the time he returned to New York, his mother still hanging on. I’d seen and heard a New Lester series pilot that could credibly have played — prime time — on the Pro- Life Network.

For starters, he’d learned to slow down, to proceed apace through a given experience without easy reliance on everpopular on-off switches. He'd gotten far more selective about the company he kept, seeking out, for the first time in his known adult life, social interactions stressing soulwarming interpersonal comfort over thrash-trigger me-you tribulation. A good deal less insistent upon strapping each day to an emotional chopping block (as recalled, for inst, in that old chestnut of his, “I need to be in love!"), he'd begun to let his life embrace emotional motifs of greater duration and resiliency. And. as stuff like this fed back to his theoretic apparatus, even Lester's ideas (as stated) began to display an unexpected day-to-day congruity; no longer, it seemed, would he write an anti-racist wowser for the Village Voice in one breath and scream, "Fuckin’ niggers!” at Village Oldies the next. Lester-as-flux had had its thoroughly engaging run. and for this to give way to a “maturer” unpredictability was not the worst of possible outcomes.

Even the drastic reduction in Lester’s intake of physical poisons bore little trace of on-the-wagon-or-bust — y'know, as if any day, minute, second the tension of it all would cause him to snap right back with equal vengeance — particularly with its status as but part of a whole-body package that included both eating at regular intervals and a radical olfactory modification: He now took baths. (One afternoon in ’74 Nick and I met Lester at some ritzy midtown hotel. Though he’d been in the room all of an hour, the smell was like a dog had died there, and been left to rot, weeks or months before. Consequently, we vetoed his offer to call down for drinks on Creem’s tab, suggesting, to his consternation, that any dump of a bar would be more, uh, whatever. Many of his heterosex liaisons had foundered on the rocks of precisely this issue.)

In terms of cultural orientation, no longer was he monomanically enslaved to rock & roll (-or-perish). For virtually the first time since the sixties he didn’t need, burningly, brand new Big Beat LP’s in his mail slot each (and every) day; the state of the Art, wobbling on a multi-year terminal gimp, no longer served as his external psychic barometer, his armband of first-person pride (or shame); having finally produced Music of his own, to severe personal specifications (regardless of the giggles it inspired in jerks like me), he no longer needed to prove anything with it or through it. Crucially, though some would probably like to deny it. he no longer saw Rock’em-Sock'em as a viable metaphor for his (or any, kindred or otherwise) state of being, viewing it as the all too easy — and ultimately, revoltingly, unsatisfactory — crystallization of (mega-numerous) blank and scattered lives. Lester's break with rock-roll mythos as his be-all/end-all of etc., which I have no doubt (had he lived) he’d've sooner rather than later made official, was as profound, and profoundly moving, as his break with the Myth of Lester. As one committed jackass who’d made the same painful transition — goodbye, Rock-Automated Self! — I knew how tough a bond the chronically intermingled personal/cultural can be to crack (and my heart went right out to him).

It also warmed my cockles, considering his record in the mere civility dept., to see him relate (graciously) to his half- brother’s wife, this unaffectedly pretty 21- year-old rural Mexican the macho blusterer, a stuntman by trade, had recently acquired, maritally, while on location Down South. Though she knew pun near zero English, my first sight of her she was watching some random English-language crap, while hubby rested for a shoot of the Fall Guy series, on the tiny TV in her fussy suburban kitchen; materially cozy for the first time in her life, she seemed lonely, disoriented, far from home. Silent and solemn, she visibly stiffened — shyly? menially? — at the intrusion of Lester, my girlfriend Irene and me. only to be put at ease by Lester introducing us, without missing a beat, as, well, friends of the family. Like it mattered to him that she feel like family — and thus shared in all aspects of etc. — and for a moment the loneliness left her face; she smiled broadly, shook (or at least took) our hands, went back to her tube.

But what came off as so genuine when he was dealing with his family, his friends, kind of sputtered into the ether when he tried to branch it to the family of Man. Whenever he got to talkin' Hard Humanism, which had all the earmarks of being his preoccupation of (Rock- replacement) record, he’d make these broad, lecture-ish, relatively flavorless statements which often didn't wash.

Never wholly credible 'cause once again he seemed to be performing — without booze/etc. but surely with a script — he’d say thus & such about human courage and folly that not only had an artificial ring, it tended to run in direct opposition to what had clearly been his experience. Even his word choice sounded stilted, alien, not his own; when he spoke of "women" he could easily have been reading straight from a column in Cosmo.

A lot of which suggested a Lester so hellbent on being a good boy once and for all that to merely work overtime cleaning up his own act was scarcely sufficient; he had to render a transpersonal commentary that made his good intentions “universal,” even if the topical universality he’d taken an option on was simply the first he found it comfortable song-&-dancing a provisional connection to. There were moments when his bill of particulars made me uneasy, realizing that to intellectually challenge any of this would be like kicking mud on some kid’s newest/truest pastime, 'specially when it was one so socially redeeming, so non- self-destructive. one which, for all intents and purposes, I basically shared with him anyway. What really counted was the miracle of Rock Tough Guy #1, after 15 years of rocknroll plug-in and little else, during which he'd come to thread that needle upside down (and asleep), to the point (even) of smugness, flipness, pomposity, out on a goddam limb over something else: a neophyte at last! (I could dig it.)

Anyway, finally, on the last night of Lester's stay — which worked out as our last time together, period — we did something we’d previously never found the appropriate nexus for: trading rants (in earnest) with blank tapes a-rolling.

For something like five-six hours we went apeshit re such topics as: the sellouts & prejudices of mutual colleagues; novels and novelists; New York as (quite possibly) the coldest outpost on Emotional Earth; the usual standard rockish garbidge (plus some un- and some non-). We also hit on shrinks-we- have-known, with Lester's rap on this rooty-toot of a subject being the single one, from the four-and-a-half hours I’ve so far transcribed, which most tellingly nutshells the excruciating self- examination he had to've undertaken — and undergone — just to be sitting around discoursing as fluidly as he was, to’ve transcended whatever the fuck en route thereto:

“Like I went to a psychoanalyst, one in New York and one in Detroit, for a total of, I dunno, three-and-a-half years. I finally concluded, I mean yeah I’m insane, I’ve got my problems, my sicknesses are fucking me, yeah, I’m sure they both probably helped me, y’know, I know the last guy in New York, it's like everybody I know was totally appalled by my drinking and drugging, well like you, right, and everybody else had the same reaction, y’know, except my shrink. He’d say, ‘No, that's alright.’ I went out to this, he had a country retreat, a whole bunch of us would go out there on weekends. And the first time I went there like I got drunk on Friday night, and Saturday morning I got up and washed down a bottle of Romilar with a bottle of beer while sitting on a slick rock by the stream. I got this great idea for something I wanted to write, I stood up on the rock in boots like these and whoosh, went like that and smashed, see it, the scar on my nose? That's how I got it, smashed my face open.

“And he thought my druggin' and drinkin' was great, y'know? He said, in fact he kind of told me I'd be not as great of a writer if I gave all this stuff up. And I said, 'Yeah, but look at all these people, they rot away, they end up like self- parodies like Kerouac and Burroughs and all that sort of shit.' And he said. 'No. no, not everybody's like that.' I said, How could I someday be 55 years old and have to take a handful of speed to sit down at the typewriter?' Well he said, 'People do it. heh heh heh!' Well both my shrinks, especially this guy, they had real great humanist compassion and empathy and all that, but I know what both of 'em did, and in the long run in essence they were no good for me, because they were getting off on me being there. It’s like they’re so bored, one housewife alter another, 'I don’t love my husband, I don't know why.’ Then they get someone like you or I that's actually interesting, that has ideas, and so it's fun time for 'em. I mean if I hadda follow this guy’s advice I’d be dead, uh, pretty soon.”

Hmm: one effing eery end-of-quote as, alas, all is now dust — reactively acquired caution or no. Possibly possibly possibly, any tonnage of prudence would inevitably have proven insufficient for the autopilot courses he was still, evidently, all too capable of flying. Or, reversing horses and carts, maybe his tortured shell was already jus’ too beat-to-shit, with even a radical lessening in his scale of abuse being too little — archetypally — too late. And then there’s this pharmacological biz about purified cells succumbing to doses they’d have been more than up for when poison was all they knew. (And can we ignore the Wrath of Influenza?)

Even if, to some bitter-enders, his death remains as shrouded in formal “mystery” as those of Eric Dolphy and Warren G. Harding, all-of-the-above can't help but provide a not-unlikely profile of how Lester came to die. Throw in a few more mainline Causalities (cultural: rock-roll glut, esp. coupled w/ too literal an intoxication with Kerouac, Celine, et al; primalpsychological: a childhood more woeful than most, his Jehovah's Witness mom — pushing 50 when she had him — mind-setting, almost singlehandedly. a chronic “inability to cope"; geographic: the Apple, even when it wasn't absolute Edge Central, affording him. given his makeup, scant opportunity for inner peace) and you'd easily have an explanation that 'd hold up in a court of his cronies/cohorts/camp followers.

But if Lester was the pawn, victim, and (indeed) fellow traveler of such easy- Aristotelian a-implies-b, he was also, in those last fitful months, a scatterer of all such shit to the winds, a man who showed his true destiny muscle by throwing all the elements out of on-the-head mythopoetic sync just when they threatened, conspiratorily, to reduce him to merely another Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Mr. Kerouac. Screamingly, courageously, he committed himself, as wholly (really) as possible, to a counter-causal gameplan which even if flawed — and accidents, y’know, happen — did actually manage to defuse (at least where I live & breathe) the mythic oompah of any time-delayed rat-trap he may subsequently (or previously) have fallen in. If there's anything almost pleasing about the timing, the anti-drama, of Lester's death, it's the monumental Mythic Disjuncture factors he'd set in motion were thereby — implicitly, explicitly — to forever effect.

LESTER’S (WRITERLY) LEGACY — “One of rock’s most colorful characters, Bangs made his reputation as a pugnacious, participatory journalist who was not above picking fights with rock stars in pursuit of a good interview." So wrote one voice of prevailing wisdom, Patrick Goldstein, in the May 9/82 L.A. Times; nothing — latter part — could be farther from the truth. If Lester (the writer) more than once battled Lou Reed into (and beyond) the wee hours of etc., it was not to get a story, it was to live a story: to encounter all the rock-related being his writerly credentials (as a wedge) were able to afford him (as a person)'. Nor was he in any way enthralled by the sickening spectacle of stars being stars; artists, maybe, but stars, fug 'em. When he as mere citizen found himself face-to-face with the pose, pretense, and professional guardedness of such gaudy, extraneous creatures, Lester could not (for the life of him) deal with such crap but to cut right through and speak, directly, to the mere citizen in them, or (failing that) force the situation into functional self-destruct — before the fact of anything so dispassionate as actually “writing it up."

That his eventual write-ups tended to display utter contempt for the entire food chain of music-corporate life, often biting, intentionally, a grimy hand that could not’ve been more willing — his mighty Credentials & all — to feed him, heck, fatten him, was but half the take-no-shit of Lester's essential statement as a writer de rock; forcefeeding the stuff, his stuff, the stuff-as-writ, to the only marginally less corporate (or grimy) running dogs of rockwrite publishing was at least as pugnacious a gesture of this-is-what-I-am/this-is-what-I-do/take-it-or-be-fucked. Since the extent of his success in shoving it down so many otherwise unyielding editorial throats may have had less to do with his willful intent than theirs — camouflage, for inst, for their being life-deep in major-label record company pockets — its significance at this juncture is, at most, merely ironic; the reciprocal influence, in any event, of his ease at getting published upon subsequent moments of raw critical-expressive spew was procedurally nil. In fact, what may most enduringly matter about Lester's approach to his chosen profession, way ahead of dandy journalistic touchstones — "courage," “integrity,” “pride in craft" — that he ate for breakfast like so much broken glass (but which, really, you can still get from Nat Hentoff and Howard Cosell), is the “anti-professional," forcibly non-dehumanized square-one struggle he by design submitted to — and could not. with any kernel of his humanity, avoid - in order to pump out critical prose of any scale of note. (Pugnacity with form; with ritual creative context; even — especially — with roleplaying writerly/critical self.)

That he was ofttimes a great writer/critic, so-called, was but icing on the cake. That scant few others, on the hottest days of their lives, have even approached him — or particularly cared to, considering the requisite gravity and passion of the chore he’d set — probably says as much about their investment in lesser quals of cake as it does about the relative inadequacy of their writerly follow-through. Rockwriting is, and nearly always has been, the trade of simps, wimps, displaced machos, brats and saps; of, in Lester's own words, “ass-kissers of the ruling class”; of fuddy-duddy archivists with cobwebs on their specs; of pathetic idealizers of a lost youth no one has ever (even approximately) experienced or possessed; of sycophantic apologists for chi-chi trends, musical and extramusical alike, without which (so they've always claimed) “rock is dead”; of binary yes/no cheeses with the cognitive wherewithal of vinyl, shrinkwrap, the physical column- inch. Rockwritin' Lester, like anyone else in the trade, was certainly each of these things from time to time, though (probably) none of 'em, singly or in tandem, for longer than the odd off review. Sadly, though his untradelike comportment surely tantalized mere tradefolk while he lived — at least in terms of Style — and even begat a not-half-bad (early-’70s) clone in “Metal Mike" Saunders, his actual abiding sway among such clowns, beyond the occasional liftable riff, was — as it continues to be — infinitesimal.

Finally: the twin silly questions (1) where a still-living Lester might hypothetically've taken it (i.e., beyond the rockwrite fishpond) and (2) what such imaginary newstuff could/would conceivably’ve meant to his basic audience. Second one first. Okay, that Lester's rockstuff generally read so hot as personal testimony is one thing; for it to have been perceived by so many as being eminently, genuinely about something — something rather specific, in fact something "rear’ — is something else. When you get down to it, the gospel of Lester's radical about-ness rested largely on a big hunk of readerly illusion, the illusion of a functional one-on-one between the guy’s fertile imaginings and the psychic infrastructure of rock & roll as dealt; there could be harsh discordance, of course, but as long as a firm relationship could (for whatever readerly vested interest) be consistently inferred between Lester’s mindgames and rock’s g-g-games per se, you at least had the stamp of a viable — if totally simulated — one-on-one. But, really/truly, while Lester’s psychic playground may surely have been one drastically twisted maze, its actual correspondence (sympathetic, hostile, whatever) to rock's own labyrinth, one so airtight and dank as to make his seem like wide open etc., was far too often naught but a matter of readerly convenience. Everyone loves a cipher, a living/ breathing anagram or two. even some — hey — with flaws more rampant than Lester’s, but for the man’s writerly service to’ve been gauged (almost solely) vis-a-vis his reliability as a stand-in cipher-of- x, y’know for readerfolk too lame — or lazy — to suss out x themselves, is the real tragedy of the trip, particularly when the first-&-final glue of most folks’ attachment to his writing was never much more than their own desperate attachment to an x they could, and should, have been accessing more independently (and less desperately) to begin with.

So, anyway, here's the rub. Had Lester lived long enough to both sever his own desperate rock connection — officially, in sheets read by his fuckheaded fans, simply by writing other stuff — and, furthermore, to back it up with an equally official rejection of the Fount of Neurosis from which he'd sung its tune (and they'd listened), it ain't really much of a longshot to imagine him losing a huge percent of the fuckheads — certainly the most gung-ho among 'em — in, well, no time flat. And, c’mon, how much of an immediate, uh, new audience was he likely to yank in writing up (as he insisted he would) such transcendently pivotal mere-humanistic trifles as the dearth of love (as we know it) in scene X or Y . . . how this set of new-age culture jerks uses that set of new-age culture jerks as props in regards to bluh . . . New York editors who pull rank (pshaw!) along collegiate lines [a hard-hitting exposé] . . . or, I dunno, something about shams and follies in clothes and/or grooming?

Plus, well, though, um — (even if) — then again: Aside from loss of ad hominem authority due to the fickle scumbait nature of the pop-world Beast, aside from the fact that many of his generic partisans would prob'ly now be targeted, topically and even personally, in scathing printed-page rants, aside from the limited run such goulash (Sensitive Ties His Laces, w/ Brass Knucks & Footnotes) has ever had — hey — can ever/will ever have . . . aside, aside, aside — the most glaring fact fact is how few times, as of his death, he'd as yet even aspired to the heights (or whats) or non- rock journalism. Four-five-six, some number like that, in the Voice and wherever else, all of ’em still pretty much rockwriterly appendices to the rockwrite “adventure," meaning he had a good ways to go before he'd’ve got the wings/chops/ legs for a total-pulp plunge (or at least a regular shift) at full oldtime capacity (but with newtime thrust and content). Which would’ve been no fall from grace no matter how you scope it — give the boy time (for fuck sake) to stumble and bumble and get it right — but how would any possible Lester have dealt with a (previously amenable) shithook book co. like Delilah telling him not now, sonny when he handed ’em a ream of copy on (let’s imagine) friends who’re fuckups? Personal persona limelight Lester had learned to live without — but writeperson limelight? (It would not’ve been easy.)

Okay, he's dead. All this brand new grief and hardship never befell him; never will. But words on pages remain: What is their lot? Lester's standard fare was so paradigmatically “of the moment" that he was the rockmag shootist. But books of the stuff? Nah; it’s kind of nebulous how even his best mag outings will wear when inevitably (??) anthologized. For someone so public in his orientation, both as input and output, he was — don't laugh or even smirk — one of rock’s more precious and fragile "private moments.” Private moments you can always document — coercively, of course — but try and play ’em back and. well . . . we'll all see, I reckon.

LESTER LEAPS IN — Y’all know all by now how Lester leapt out of New York; lemme just finish with how he leapt in. His first night in town, just a visit, fall "72, he stayed with me and my girlfriend Roni, West Village, 104 Perry St., apt. 4. Arriving semi-direct from JFK, he split pretty quick for the nearest grocer, returning with three six-packs of Colt 45. What he did for the next day and a half — all he did — was wade through 18 big ones, half quarts, as follows: start can, drink fast, get tired; fall out, dropping remainder; awaken following can’s impact with floor; stagger to fridge for fresh one; repeat cycle. What he mumbled or muttered during any of the 18 pre-fallout phases I simply do not recall.

So like hey y’know wo hey hey wo-wo hey, OLD SPORT: love ya, hope I didn’t cramp yer style, g’bye.

--Richard Meltzer, “Lester Bangs Recollected in Tranquility”  Dec. 6, 1984

[sizenews8]

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[huffleporg]

Chapter 4 - Everything in the Kitchen Sink | T | Ao3 from the beginning 

Down in the Beverage District, a work of investigative journalism into the rivalry between two coffee shops leads to four calls to the City Health Inspector's office from J.S., three detentions, two fires, and one broken sugar bowl.

Characters: Isadora Quagmire, Olivia Caliban, Duncan Quagmire, Jacques Snicket, Count Olaf, Kit Snicket, Violet Baudelaire, Lemony Snicket, Beatrice Baudelaire, Quigley Quagmire, Dewey Denouement, Jacquelyn Scieszka, Larry Your-Waiter, Klaus Baudelaire, Fiona, Bertrand Baudelaire

"at”s for those who have expressed interest in the past since the tags on Tumblr have been weird: @badasouefanficideas, @bxxkish-sister, @pretentiouslisp, @veryfierceduchess, @myqueenoliviacaliban, @abbie0007, @catatonicallyeuphonic, @whattheactualfuckuniverse, @citatious, @esme-squalor-is-bae, @catlovermeow11, @alerin-layent, @itsteddylupxn

And without further ado, the chapter:

The jeans weren’t even hers. After a quick assessment of her closet the night before, Isadora had realized that her wardrobe was woefully lacking in clothes that looked like they would suit or even could survive an afternoon working amongst the dirt and grime that was The Firebrand. Duncan had readily supplied her with a pair of his jeans, and Isadora had decided that the oversized Lachrymose Leech tee-shirt she had gotten as a joke last summer could be sacrificed for the sake of Duncan’s project.

Quigley had looked much more excited than Isadora knew she had looked when they had parted ways to head to work. With each step closer to The Firebrand, Isadora could feel her muscles tensen more, bracing for whatever was in store for her and Duncan on their first day of work. She wondered if it was normal to feel such apprehension before going into work on a first day anywhere or whether the anxious quickening of her heart was exclusive to approaching The Firebrand.

At least she had Duncan to enter the dismal cafe with.

“You’re late,” came an accented voice from a darkened corner. There was sound of a chair being scraped across the floor, and then their new boss emerged from the shadows, tucking something into his apron pocket.

“You never told us what time to come,” said Duncan defensively. He glanced over at Isadora as if to confirm, and when she offered him a nod, he continued, “We can’t be late if you didn’t give us a time to be here by.”

Using the same accent that he had the other day, Count Olaf continued, “The Prufrock Prep dismissal bell is at 2:05. The trolley ride takes 35 minutes. It’s five past three. You’re late.”

Confused, Isadora frowned, wondering how and why this man would know exactly what time school let out. “We had to change, like you told us to do,” said Isadora. “That meant that we missed the trolley and had to wait for the next one.”

The man gave the triplets an evaluative glance. “You should have changed faster.” He took a few steps closer to the twins. “I’ve done more complicated costume changes in less than a minute. Five minutes is more than enough time to get out of those uniforms and walk to the trolley stop. It’s less than a five minute walk from the academic building. Don’t miss the 2:15 trolley next time.”

The way he spoke to them, Isadora was tempted to tell him there wouldn’t be a next time and storm out, but she held her tongue.

Ever the journalist, Duncan seemed to have other matters on his mind. “Did you go to Prufrock?” Duncan asked.

Count Olaf blinked. “What?” He seemed to be just as surprised Isadora was by Duncan’s question.

“Just, you seem to know an awful lot about Prufrock. Stuff that only students would know like the time it takes to get to the trolley stop from class,” Duncan explained. “So, it would follow that you went there.”

A grin quirked on Isadora’s face. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t put it together, but her brother was right.

“I don’t see why my educational past is any of your concern,” sneered Count Olaf.

Duncan shrugged his shoulders. “Only curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Isadora said finishing the adage.

With an exhausted huff, the man fixed the two with a cold stare. “No, last I checked, the cat is dead and buried, but there are still posters the owners put up thinking puss will come home,” he said, his voice low.

As if a cold wind had blown through the shop, Isadora shuddered.

“Now you have wasted enough of my time,” Count Olaf continued. “So let’s begin your training.” And like a switch had been flicked, a genial smile bloomed on the man’s unshaven face. From the glint in his eyes, though, it seemed impossible for the expression to be anything but a mask. “Shall we begin your grand tour?”

The triplets knew that it wasn’t really a question, but still they both nodded.

Count Olaf spread his hands out and gestured around the empty cafe. “This is the shop.” He walked to the counter, the Quagmires following behind him. “It’s where we serve the stuff that is brewed. Coffee. Tea. Various foamy drinks. What you would expect.” He led them behind the counter, onto a mat caked and stained with sawdust and coffee. “Cash register. Not for you to touch.” He gestured to the space below the counter to where several mugs and plates were stored. “Some fine china for those who decide they want to dine in.”

Duncan bent down to pick up one of the greyed and chipped ceramic mugs. As he pulled it away, dust and strands of cobwebs came up.

“People very rarely want to dine in,” said Count Olaf, as if that excused the state. “That’s why we are fully stocked with paper and styrofoam cups.”

Duncan set the mug down on the rough wood counter and brushed the dust off onto his shirt.

“We’ve got the coffee maker, filters, beans, coffee grinder, pots…” He glanced around at the numerous instruments on the shelf against the wall. “Filters, decaf pot that no one ever orders from.” He grabbed the orange handled pot and turned it upside down over the sink. Rather than spill out, the coffee - or rather the sludge - oozed out. Too impatient to wait for the molasses-like mess to dribble into the sink, Count Olaf set the pot down. “We leave anything that’s dirty in the sink.”

Both triplets craned their necks to see into the stained and crowded sink. Mugs with crusts and discolored pots waited amongst the detris of so many cups of coffee and mugs of tea. Isadora wrinkled her nose reflexively.

“I will show you the back now.” Count Olaf strode to the dingy sheet acting as a curtain and pulled it back. Leaning forward, he called out, “Ladies. You’re needed.”

Isadora heard the sound of footsteps, and then two short women emerged from the back. The women both had identical hunches and both wore thick cat eyed glasses. For a triplet, identical twins wearing matching glasses and very similar clothing was hardly remarkable. What made Isadora almost stare at the women - before she realized what she was doing and then pretended to be fascinated with the display of tea boxes and tins - was the white makeup on their face. Isadora had seen pictures of geishas and paintings of women from the 18th century with a similar cosmetic aesthetic, but never before had she seen it on a real person, much less two.

“Twins, meet twins,” Count Olaf said.

The women stuck out their hands at the same time.

“Pleasure to meet you,” said the one on the right as the one on the left nodded.

“We’re actually not--” started Isadora, but as Duncan gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow, she fell silent.

“Not what, dear?” asked the one on the left.

“Not going to shake our hands?” the one on the right said.

“That’s rude,” concluded the left one.

“No, um…” Isadora reached out to shake the closest woman’s hand. “I misspoke. Sorry. It’s very nice to meet you both.” She then shook the next woman’s hand, Duncan quickly following suit and offering his own greeting.

Count Olaf cleared his throat, “Old twins, I’m going to need you to watch the front while I show the new twins around.”

The glances exchanged between the four employees conveyed a distinctly unanimous opinion that absolutely no one needed to watch the cafe.

“Doug and Isabelle-”

“Duncan and Isadora,” Isadora corrected her boss sharply.

The man froze and did a double take. “Seriously? Your parents named you after the dancer?”

“Your parents named you ‘Count,’” retorted Isadora.

Not at all phased, Count Olaf said smoothly, “Nobody questioned Duke Ellington’s parents when they named him Duke. Or Earl Grey’s-”

“I don’t think Earl Grey was his actual name,” interjected Duncan. “And I don’t think he had anything to do with the tea.”

The man stood silently, considering. His pause made Isadora’s stomach begin to twist into a nervous knot, but finally Count Olaf said, “I no interest in or use for history. It’s caused enough trouble already, and I’m not paying you to discuss it. You’re here to clean. Now, let me show you the rest of The Firebrand.” His voice was soft, still in the flat, nasal accent that he had been using the day before. “Any objections.” His voice didn’t rise at the end, as it was not really a question.

“Lead the way,” said Duncan calmly.

Count Olaf lifted up the stained sheet, revealing a very narrow corridor with dark wood panels. A door stood just ajar enough for Isadora to see a cramped bathroom with a yellowed porcelain bowl and the green tank mounted high up on the wall with a chain dangling down. As her brother and her were ushered into the cramped hallway past the smelly “curtain”, she saw that there was another door.

“What’s in there?” asked Isadora.

Wordlessly, Count Olaf turned around and leaned forward to reach for the glass doorknob, and Isadora found herself holding her breath to prevent the stench of stale cigarettes radiating from her boss from overpowering her. The moment was brief, luckily. As Count Olaf drew back, Isadora could see the shadowy outline of a broom, a mop, a few buckets, a sink, and several cleaning products. Without the light in the closet on, she couldn’t be sure, but she was fairly confident that several items had spiderwebs and dust attached to them.

“You’ll find a lot of your supplies there,” Count Olaf said, boredly. He shut the door with a click.

The trio proceeded down the hallway, and with each step, the air seemed to grow hotter and stickier.

“This is the kitchen,” Count Olaf went on as they emerged into a steamy room. “It’s Friday, so the ladies are boiling the bagels they made yesterday and baking them.” He gestured around, though it was hard to see just what he was trying to indicate in the mist. “Once they’re done, you’ll clean the pots and tools, and whatever else those two tell you to clean.”

Isadora took a couple of hesitant steps forward. Squinting, she could make out the shape of an oven with a large vat on top of it. Several trays were on the counter, and even more had been piled up in the sink. Another couple of steps, and Isadora was able to make out the shape of sweaty, anemic bagels waiting to be boiled and baked sitting in trays on the countertop. With disgust, she took in the rest of the counter space in the kitchen that was occupied by at least a week’s worth of dirty mixing bowls, measuring cups, baking sheets, coffee cups, plates, and more, all stacked up so so precariously that Isadora wondered if her breath would send the whole messy pyramid crashing down to the floor. Or else one of the numerous flies that were buzzing around the sink would upset the whole balance.

“That’s a lot of bagels,” said Duncan, only a couple steps behind Isadora. “Do you really sell that many in a day?” The incredulity in Duncan’s voice was painfully obvious, but as they had never seen a customer here, it was impossible to avoid.

Count Olaf let out a sound that was halfway between a snort and scoff. “Of course not. People don’t come to The Firebrand for the bagels. They come for the coffee. No, we make batches of whatever type we’re running low on and then freeze them. Every night we leave a couple to defrost, and then the next morning you’ve got them ready for the four or five people who decide to order one. We do the same with the muffins. A batch of onion bagels can last us almost two weeks.”

Isadora frowned. “They can’t be particularly good.”

“No one comes here for the baked goods,” repeated Count Olaf. He motioned them to follow him further, and the steam began to clear, allowing the triplets to see a grey door. Rust trailed from each nail and facet, and something dark had been splattered across the front. Years of greasy handprints seemed to be smeared across the handle. “This is the refrigerator. You go in it to get to the freezer.”

“Where you keep the bagels and muffins,” said Duncan, as if he was still having trouble accepting the fact that everything baked fresh here wound up frozen.

“Oh, and scones,” remembered Count Olaf. “The twins made some scones a few weeks ago and we still haven’t sold all of them… we’ll have to defrost some for tomorrow.”

Duncan and Isadora exchanged looks of disgust at the thought of eating a weeks old scone.

The tour, unfortunately, continued as Count Olaf showed them a store room further down the hall. It was so packed with fragrant bags of coffee, boxes of tea, and the materials that were needed to make and serve them that the three of them had had to stand nearly shoulder to shoulder. As Count Olaf had gone on about his wares that people actually came for, Isadora had been aching to escape the cramped claustrophobic space. As soon as Count Olaf opened the door to the alleyway from the corridor Isadora wished that she were back in the aromatic cupboard.

Instinctively, Isadora held her nose. “What the-- what is that smell?” she asked, her stomach turning. She didn’t need to look too hard to find the source - a grimy and overflowing dumpster.

“Spoilt milk,” said Count Olaf lightly. “I would recommend holding your breath while you take the trash out, especially as the weather begins to warm up.” He stepped back inside the shop, and the triplets were all too eager to join him and shut the door behind them with a loud bang.

As the three of them went deeper into the back of The Firebrand, Count Olaf kicked along a cracked and stained ant trap, as if it were a stone and he were a young boy walking home from school. He even put his hands in his pockets as he spoke, “When you come in after school, business will be slow, but tomorrow morning when you come in, you will see what it’s really like here.”

With the safety of Count Olaf’s back to the two of them, Isadora and Duncan looked at each other.

‘Tomorrow?’ mouthed Isadora.

‘Sorry,’ said Duncan.

‘You owe me a Saturday morning.’

‘I know.’

Only Isadora didn’t catch what her brother was mouthing. Instead, she had stopped, staring at the wall past her brother. There had been many doors off of the hallway that ran the length of the coffee shop, and all of them bore scars and peeling paint that any old and not well kept building would have. This door, however, seemed to have been attacked. Splinters of unpolished wood stuck out from long, scraped out channels, as if a monster had dragged its claws down the top panel.

Duncan stopped beside her.

Before she could ask Duncan just what he thought had happened, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Isadora jumped and turned around to see Count Olaf glowering down at the two of them, his eyes shining even in the shadows of the hallway. “I think,” he said in a dangerously low voice that was almost like a rumble of thunder, “that it’s time you began your duties as employees.” He began to steer the triplets back towards the front of the coffee shop.

Knowing better than to protest, Isadora walked back the way they had came, dreading just what sort of task was waiting for them.

[morganbelarus]

Please free your mind and enjoy these great makeup destruction videos

Rest in pieces, Chanel blush.

Image: YOutube/Beauty News

As Pablo Picasso once said, and as I now whisper to myself at my computer, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

Including these videos of makeup being crushed into dust.

"Makeup Breakup" is the brainchild of beauty bloggers Kat and Hailey, who run the Beauty News YouTube channel. As far as we can tell, it's the first makeup destruction series of its kind and the videos, in which Kat and Hailey steadily crush expensive blushes, eyeshadows, and stick foundations with a small metal knife, are mesmerizing.

SEE ALSO: This YouTuber is the realest damn thing to happen to 'beauty vlogging'

Witness, for instance, the destruction of the infamously smelly Kylie Cosmetics Royal Peach Palette. It's immensely satisfying to watch in the same way paint mixing videos are satisfying, for example, or fancy clips of candle carving.

If you've already broken into a cold sweat thinking about a $45 product ended up in useless smithereens, fear not. Kat and Hailey aren't out to generate waste. In fact, they want to help beauty consumers spend their money wisely. That's why, once the makeup has been crushed into a fine powder, the two weigh the empty case just to make sure the usable makeup itself weighs as much as the company claims.

Sometimes, Kat and Hailey mix the powder with liquid and try to fit the makeup back into its original packaging. Some products shrink. Others expand, barely fitting back into their container. This Chanel blush, however, looks perfectly usable at the end of its journey if less colorful.

So, yes, makeup destruction videos are fun cathartic, even to watch. But, for the budget-conscious beauty enthusiast, they're also useful ways to discover a product's texture, thickness, and the veracity of its marketing without dropping dollars first.

A worthy YouTube vortex, for sure.

WATCH: This water bottle tricks you into drinking more water

More From this publisher : HERE

=> *********************************************** Learn More Here: Please free your mind and enjoy these great makeup destruction videos ************************************ =>

Please free your mind and enjoy these great makeup destruction videos was originally posted by 16 MP Just news

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Australia take one step forward

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A man holds up a knife in front of French soldiers during a protest against the peacekeeping troops in Bambari, Cnetral African Republic. At least one man was killed on Thursday in clashes that erupted after French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic tried to disarm Muslim rebels, witnesses and hospital staff said. A French military official denied troops killed civilians and said they fired warning shots in the air after coming under fire in Bambari, the headquarters of the mostly Muslim rebel Seleka coalition, which controls the northeast of the country.

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[interview-quotes]

What It's Really Like to Be a Disney Princess

By Michelle Ruiz (September 9, 2014)

Growing up, I was always the smart girl. I was valedictorian of my high school class, but deep down I always wanted to be an actress. There were no opportunities in the small town where I'm from, until one day, when I was in college and a commercial came on the radio saying, "You could be a Disney princess!"

My best friend had just passed away two weeks before. I was in a really bad place and wanted to drop out of school anyway. I went to the audition in my hometown in flip-flops and gauchos, and I was surrounded by musical theater girls stretching and practicing dance moves. I was completely out of my league. They taught us a cheesy dance — I remember a ballet move that was like holding a beach ball. I was pretty sure I was out because I'm a terrible dancer, but then they called my number. I was shocked.

They sent me to hair and makeup and put a Belle wig on me, then had me read the part from Beauty and the Beast when Belle is talking about her papa. I could imitate her high-pitched voice pretty easily. The casting lady was like, "OMG, that was fantastic!" She didn't even say that I was hired. She just went straight into, "So, typically we order contacts for our girls and make sure your roots are done." I later learned you can't work at Disney if your hair isn't "Disney standard" — part of that was no roots. They handed me a piece of paper and said, "In order to get the relocation package, you have to move to Orlando by the end of the month."

So I dropped out of college and went to Disney World. To start in any character role, you have to go through training for the "fur characters," like Goofy or Mickey. I did Chip and Dale for two weeks — and it was really exhausting. The costumes have no ventilation and you sweat out a ton of water in the Florida sun. There are certain heat indexes that allow for shorter "sets" out in the parks, but some people pass out because it's so hot inside the costumes.

I learned that the fur characters hated the face characters, the princesses and princes who show their real faces, because the face characters make more money. Back at home, I was working at 7-Eleven making $11.25 an hour. At Disney, when I started, it was $7.15 an hour with a face character premium of $2.50 an hour. So, $9.65 an hour — not great, but you go through a whole training where they show you all these mushy movies about Walt Disney and his life just to make you feel like, "OMG, I really love this company!" And the perks are pretty fantastic: 40 percent off at Disney stores, 50 percent off the cruises, 40 percent off food in all the parks and free passes for your friends and family. A lot of people stay for the perks.

I moved on to princess training, which was about a four-day process. I watched Beauty and the Beast with a trainer and spied on girls greeting guests as Belle in the France pavilion of Epcot. I did worksheets about Belle — "Who's her favorite person?" "Maurice!" Ironically, I didn't really like Beauty and the Beast that much as a kid; I thought it was really dark. But watching it a ton for the job, I connected to the song about how Belle wants to get out of her small town and thinks that there's got to be more to life — that's exactly the type of stuff I was writing in my journal. And she's the only princess that really shows that academics are a good thing and there's no reason to be a damsel in distress. I started to really love her.

I got a crash course in Belle makeup from the cosmetics or "cosmo" team, because the princesses have to learn to do their own makeup. They check your makeup and sign off on you before you go out "on set," which is what we called the different locations at the parks. All of the princesses sit in cosmo together getting ready. They ordered brown contacts to change my eyes and a brown wig. Some girls were jealous because I was allowed more freedom with my makeup because I already naturally looked so much like Belle. I realized why it didn't matter that I couldn't dance — everyone just kept saying, "Wow, you look just like the cartoon."

Most of the drama in cosmo happens when someone gets disapproved, or not allowed to go out on set. One girl got disapproved because her arms got too chubby. Another girl had a very bad acne breakout all over her face, and they disapproved her. Then everyone talks about whether she should or shouldn't have been disapproved — it's awkward. Some of the princesses did cleanses to stay fit; a lot the girls were naturally thin. We'd go to the gym after work or do workout videos together during our breaks. The fur characters are running around all day so they can eat crap like funnel cakes. The refrigerator in our break room was literally Lean Cuisines and those sugar-free Jell-Os with 10 calories.

I'd never been popular before; suddenly I was a literal princess. I was Belle for six, sometimes seven, days a week, all day, at Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Kids would line up to take pictures with me, or I'd be part of a parade in a huge, glittering ball gown. It was prestigious to be Belle — she and Cinderella are the two top princesses at Disney.A ton of girls are hired for their roles, and they're stationed at the most locations. Ariel's a good one too, but she isn't in as many locations and neither is Mulan. Pocahontas and Jasmine aren't out very much at all. One of my friends was white, but she's very, very tan, and she does Pocahontas.

It was a lot of fun, but emotionally, it was tolling. You have to smile for an hour straight; you can't drop your smile until you go on break and are behind closed doors because Disney doesn't want any pictures of us not smiling. The first few weeks, my face literally hurt. But I really love kids, and it was amazing to have kids that were really into Belle coming up to me, and I would just make up this elaborate story about waking up that morning and having oatmeal with the Beast.

We couldn't spend too much time playing with the kids though, because we had to greet 172 guests per hour. Disney decided that was the magic number. An attendant would have a clicker to count the number of people we met, and if we went under, we would get a reprimand. If you get four reprimands, you get fired. It sucked to have a really sweet kid that's waited in line for three hours come up all excited and have to say, "OK, let's hurry and take our photo" and shove them out the door. When they left the room where we greeted kids at Toontown, they went straight into a massive princess store. I think Disney felt like, "Well, we want them out of the room and into the princess store to buy some stuff."

The one time that I got really, really angry at work was one of the only days that was actually really cold in Florida — so cold you could see your breath. I had to stand in a doorway welcoming guests into a restaurant at Epcot in a sleeveless formal dress that was supposed to have a coat that came with it. I was freezing and my eyes were watering, but the location managers wouldn't let me go get my coat. When I went on my break to go pull the coat from the costume department, it was gone. I guess they'd hidden it. I started bawling. I had to take pictures with kids in the freezing cold, crying. Later, I was talking to the photographers, and they told me that that restaurant sold the photos of Belle and the guests for, like, $35 — and when Belle was wearing the coat, they sell 30 percent less pictures.

Another tricky thing was the creepy dads who would whisper in my ear when their kids were taking pictures with me. They'd say, "When the Beast goes to bed, I'll be waiting for you in the library." All I could think was, God, I'd hate to be your wife. I couldn't break character, but I would always address it and say something like, "Um, I go to bed when the Beast goes to bed." One of my friends, an Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, her skirt was unzipped and one of the dads stuck his hand in the zipper. Luckily there are petticoats underneath, but he was totally feeling her butt outside of the petticoat.

But amazing stuff happens too. My absolute favorite thing was meeting the Make-A-Wish Foundation kids. Belle would be in her village dress and ride the carousel or have breakfast with kids in their last months of life. They were so excited and amazed, and behind them were parents just falling apart. Their child is dying, but their child that's dying is incredibly happy at that moment. It's a very strange feeling — complete joy mixed with complete heartbreak. Things like that made me happy to be Belle, especially after losing my friend and being so miserable at home.

I met really good friends being a princess. We came from all over the country and had no one, so we all bonded really quickly and really strongly. My best friends were an Aurora and a Cinderella. Underneath Magic Kingdom, there's a really smelly concrete tunnel system — we would walk through the tunnels joking that we were like the three Mean Girls, just Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora marching down the hall.

We weren't finding romance at work, because most of the guys were gay. I don't remember any specific gay romances, but I'm sure there were. Prince Charming might have been hooking up with Prince Eric. My roommates were gay and dancers at Animal Kingdom. We spent many nights hanging out in our apartment watching classic Disney movies like Dumbo together.

They call it the "Disney bubble" — you listen to the soundtracks on your way to work and watch the movies at home. Even when we weren't working, a lot of times we'd just go into the park and watch the fireworks or watch Tinkerbell come down from the castle. Sometimes we would go get drinks at Animal Kingdom. Looking back, I was there for three years and I went to the beach once. Disney just draws you in.

After three years as Belle, I started to feel like I was in limbo. I didn't finish college. I didn't know what I was going to do next in my life. I still wanted to be an actress, and there's no market in Florida. I took a trip to a bigger city for an acting intensive, and my teachers told me I could have a real shot if I moved and started auditioning. I decided to give Disney my three-week notice. I gave them notice but said I still wanted to do a few shifts every year — back then, all you had to do was work five shifts a year to keep the Disney perks.

When I came back to Florida not long after leaving to pick up a few shifts, the casting department called me and said, "We need to speak with you about your role." I went to meet with them and they asked me how things were going with my move and if I planned to stay away for a long time. I said it was going great, and I was excited to be pursuing acting. I didn't realize I was being baited. They had me dress up as Belle, and I came back in and they were like, "We've just been noticing that your mouth is very different than all the other girls." It was the most bizarre thing ever, and it very clearly had nothing to do with my mouth. If my mouth was that big of an issue, they wouldn't have paid for me to move to Florida and be Belle in the first place. It was merely about the fact that I wasn't going to be there working every week, and they didn't want to dole out perks to another person like that. I got canned — and it hurt.

The shelf life of a Disney princess really depends. A lot of girls take themselves out before casting has to. People go on to work in musical theater at local playhouses or be teachers or do princess parties. Some never want to leave; as soon as they get disapproved, they just want to become a princess trainer so they still get to be part of the magic.

There's a little bit of bitterness for the princesses as they get older. I just got back from Florida actually, and seeing all the new girls, it sucks. People used to be that excited to see me, and cry to see me, and now it's these little girls who don't even have as much integrity as we used to have. We used to only speak words that princesses hundreds of years ago would speak. We wouldn't say, "Oh, those are cute shoes," or, "Oh my gosh." Princesses didn't say that. They would say, "Oh my goodness," or, "Oh, how wonderful."

Now that I live in a big city, it's a bit of culture shock. I still smile at everyone, even the guys who catcall me. I probably come across as such a naive idiot, but it's from being at Disney for three years, and being around people that all speak with such pep and optimism and watch Disney movies in their spare time. Smiling all day just makes you believe that everything's fine. It didn't occur to me that I would miss it as much as I do.

Nothing big has happened for me as an actress so far. I'm also working on getting my college degree. Despite some of my issues with Disney, I'm super glad I got to be a princess. I've gone to auditions where people have been like, "I think I have a picture with you as Belle!" It blows people's minds when I tell them. I don't want people to think I'm bragging. I say that I lived in Orlando and then they pry some more and I'm like, "I was Belle," and they're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so cool. And weird." When I tell guys, they think it's really cute.

[ramialkarmi]

Silicon Valley elites can't get enough of dangerous, untreated 'raw water' — here's why it's a bad idea

People in San Francisco are spending upwards of $60 for a 2.5 gallon glass jug of "fresh, live spring water." 

The water isn't filtered or treated, which means it could harbor microbial viruses and bacteria that cause disease and deadly diarrhea. 

American tap water isn't perfectly clean, but it's tested to stricter health standards than bottled water. 

The founders of a company called Live Water, which sells unfiltered, untreated water in glass containers, want customers to believe that tap water is just too "dead." 

Founder Mukhande Singh told the The New York Times that those who drink the regulated H2O that comes out of kitchen taps, public water fountains, and garden hoses are "drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them."

In San Francisco, his idea has gathered quite a following: the water is regularly sold out in grocery stores and people are spending more than $1 per glass to the drink water that's never been treated.

The company warns consumers on its site: "Consult your health care provider before making a decision to switch your drinking water source." But food safety experts tell Business Insider it’s a terrible idea to drink untreated water.

Why can unfiltered water be dangerous?

There are billions of people around the world living a "raw" water lifestyle right now. And it’s not very glamorous.

Chemicals like lead, microbes from feces (both animal and human), pesticide runoff, and underground waste are just some of the global threats to clean drinking water.

The US water system isn't perfect. A 2009 New York Times investigation found there was enough arsenic in the water in some parts of Texas, Arizona and Nevada to contribute to cancer.

But American drinking water does pretty well when stacked up against other countries where citizens might drink from less-than-ideally-filtered sources. The World Health Organization says dirty drinking water kills half a million people every year, and at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with feces.

Guzzling from fresh mountain streams won't solve these problems. Clear mountain sources can infect hikers with the parasite Giardia, while another tiny, one-celled parasite called cryptosporidia can be deadly for people with compromised immune systems, and cause weeks of watery diarrhea for everyone else. Cryptospordium can infect a person even if they ingest a single bacterium. 

How the US treats water

In the US, The Environmental Protection Agency is required to enforce The Safe Drinking Water Act. Passed in 1974, the federal law regulates over 90 contaminants in tap water. Most big cities are constantly monitoring their water supplies. In New York City in 2016, the Department of Environmental Protection tested more than 51,500 water samples.

Live Water says it tested a few of its own samples from its spring source in Oregon. Those vials came back negative for Legionella and other illness-causing contaminants, but the tests the company used were not performed up to federal regulatory compliance standards. Singh and his company also tout the health benefits of their spring water, but the single scientific research paper that they cite isn't about drinking water at all: it refers to the healing effects of spring water for rabbit wounds. 

The Live Water team also says that their water is infused with some good stuff that tap water doesn't have. "Sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium are the four primary electrolytes that maintain the body’s fluid balance. LIVE WATER is abundant in each," the company writes on its website.

Physicians who’ve studied the mineral content in tap water in 21 major cities across North America say most of our tap water already has a healthy amount of calcium, magnesium and sodium.  In many locations, tap water contains enough to provide up to 8% of a person’s daily dietary reference intake, if they’re well hydrated.

Live Water did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Why is there fluoride in tap water? 

The raw water evangelists told The Times that fluoride in tap water is "a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health."

There's no evidence to support this. But fluoride, which is often naturally present at low levels in water, has been added in to some tap water for decades to help prevent cavities. The EPA regulates these levels to make sure the concentrations aren’t too high. (Kids under 8 can get too much fluoride, which can cause some cosmetic discoloration of teeth.) 

What about lead? 

The complex web of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and groundwater sources that people in the US draw on to drink from isn't perfect. What happened in Flint, Michigan in 2014 is a textbook example of water resource management gone wrong.

The city switched its main water source from the Detroit to the Flint River to save some money. Lead that started leaking into the drinking supply from the pipes wasn’t properly treated, and smelly, colored water flowed into homes. According to The Atlantic, there has been both a spike in miscarriages and drop in birth rates in Flint since then.

Marc Edwards, one of the first engineers who studied the water problem in Flint, says there's no way to be completely sure you'll never get sick from drinking water: "It is not possible to achieve zero health risk, with any water at all," he wrote Business Insider in an email. But he says "most cities provide tap water to standards that pose very little health risk at reasonable cost."

There are a few things everyone can do to make sure that the water they're drinking is up to par. There’s an annual drinking water report from the EPA, as well as an independent tap water database available from the Environmental Working Group. If you're worried about how clean your water might be, you can use an NSF/ANSI-approved filter at home. 

But for some Americans, indulging in unregulated water may be about more than staying hydrated and healthy. Edwards believes they might really be seeking out some kind of mystical "glacial purity" or a hidden "fountain of youth," while shunning what they perceive as more "poisoned water."

At that point, he says, a person's urge to avoid the tap is simply "beyond the ability of science to quantify."

SEE ALSO: 17 facts that show why bottled water is one of the biggest scams of the century

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why drinking tap water might be better for your health than bottled water

[aliciajwood6]

Thirteen Tactics Cosmetic dentist newport beach ca Can Make improvements to Your business.

Dental Treatments Tips That Can Make Your Teeth Stronger

It could be hard to select the right teeth bleaching product. Luckily, this content below has some good information to help you make that tough decision. This information will address all areas of oral care.

Don’t eat a lot of acidic or sugary foods. Most of these foods can affect your teeth. When you do enjoy sugary treats, eat them as an element of dinner. It is advisable to brush your teeth following a meal.

Seeing the dentist can be an intimidating experience for small kids. When you enable them to recognize that the dentist desires to help, they could not feel so afraid. Locate a pediatric dentist who stocks the waiting room with books, toys and games for small kids. These pleasant distractions will help to allay your little one’s fears.

To ensure your teeth and gums are healthy and powerful, it is important to regularly view your dentist. Regular checkups eliminate most serious problems from occurring. By using visit your dentist routinely, it will be easy to have any problems fixed before they get too bad.

When buying toothpaste, always glance at the label. Ensure your toothpaste contains fluoride. The toothpaste may also have abrasive agents that whiten your teeth. If toothpaste is overly harsh, find something which has lower quantities of those chemicals.

Make certain your tongue receives a good brushing! It is possible to forget to brush the tongue, but it is also essential to keep it clean, also.

There are a variety of types of bacteria that reside in your tongue. Not brushing away this bacteria causes smelly breath also it can gather on your teeth.

Having difficulty considering spending a lot of money with a toothbrush? Many dentists believe that by using a quality electric toothbrush regularly is nearly as great as a professional cleaning. Although these toothbrushes do no remove every one of the plaque at your gum line they generally do clean your teeth perfectly. You must select a model with assorted heads as well as a good warranty.

Ensure you schedule regular dentist appointments. You have to have a normal check-up no less than twice a year. This can help you save a lot of money.

You don’t have to quit on dental treatments simply because your children can’t stand the flavors of minty toothpaste. Toothpaste can be purchased in numerous flavors in addition to the standard mint. Pick one you already know they love, or find out what the choices are.

Brushing and flossing are great and really should both be practiced regularly. But brushing and flossing won’t kill every one of the bacteria present in the mouth area. Those who are extremely concerned with bacteria may decide to use anti-bacterial mouthwash after brushing. Be advised this may also kill beneficial bacteria.

A number of people wish that they could take better proper care of their teeth. With all the information available, it can be difficult to get what’s most effective for you. Make certain you take this informative article and use it to your advantage so that you know you’re doing anything you can to have good dental treatment..

from Pacreip Health and Wellness Website http://www.pacreip.org/thirteen-tactics-cosmetic-dentist-newport-beach-ca-can-make-improvements-to-your-business/