#like those grainy photos of old concerts

[choilacanth]

indulgent rocker au wip……

and supermohawk: a concept and giving teldryn more hair + giving darra less hair: a concept

[girlsbtrs]

Weird People Have Cool Role Models

Article by Ella Jarrard. Graphic by Allison Thompson.

As a highly unphotogenic person, I can honestly say that this is the first time I wish I could input a photo into my writing. I say this because I’d like all of you wonderful readers to truly grasp the picture I am about to paint for you. 

I'll start this way. I was not a cool kid. I was four foot three til I was fourteen. Because of that, I rode with and carried a booster seat for the car until fourteen as well. I was a little shy, terminally unathletic, and, as a wonderful cherry on top- pretended I was a horse till 8th grade. Jumping over bus benches, hedges, and cantering (instead of running) was my preferred method of transportation- everywhere. I’d like to add that I in no way am ashamed of any of this- I miss my booster, I still get carsick without it, and I feel running consistently proves less effective than a good, brisk canter. 

While this un-coolness seemed to be part of my blood, it wasn’t. My parents are cool- and I mean genuinely cool. My dad was a punk in the seventies and eighties, worked at the Minnesotan equivalent of CBGBs, seeing the starter shows of punk bands we now see on polyester shirts at department stores. He came from a bloodline of cool too- his Irish Catholic parents dabbled in being super-fans of the B52s, Janis Joplin, and early Gipsy Kings- his siblings followed as well. My mom’s first album was an ELO record, which served as a poppy base for a life filled with conflicting tastes- Led Zeppelin, New Order, Stevie Wonder. On the nights I came in early from pretending I had just won the Kentucky Derby, my parents would show me  a plethora of grainy concert videos of forgotten bands from the 80s, or sit me down at dinner for a lecture on how Ice Cube defined the diss track. 

It was on one of these nights that I found my first cool rolemodel. Sweaty from explaining to my dachshund how what she was doing was not, in fact, a proper horse trot, I came inside to find a movie playing- it was called The Punk Singer. There on the screen was Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and a leading voice of the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s. I was instantly enthralled. 

It shows Hanna explaining her vision, her immense adoration for Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, her love of clothespin jewelry, and her dauntless reactions to male violence while onstage. Although Hanna has that kind of effortless, messy beauty one tries to repeatedly replicate, her beauty wasn’t what struck me so deeply- it was her unwillingness to succumb to unrelenting disrespect and violent threats. She spoke of dodging beer cans thrown by pseudo punks who were angry about women infiltrating the Seattle scene, and, expectedly, of how those men proved to be the least punk punk fans ever made. 

In The Punk Singer, her natural intelligence oozes out of her- it seems almost blasphemous to think that anyone- whether it be the press, fellow musicians, pseudo punk fans- could doubt or disrespect her, but they did, and constantly. The Riot Grrrl movement and Bikini Kill were both horribly disrespected by publications. They consistently implied Bikini Kill and other Riot Grrrl bands were young, untalented women parading around in their underwear instead of being prolific musicians who tried to make room for women in the physical and metaphorical punk mosh pit. 

My starter level reverence for Kathleen Hanna grew astronomically within the hour and twenty two minute documentary. As I sat agape my thoughts of how to distress every Gap t-shirt in my closet in time for 7th grade tomorrow swirled rapidly. Soon the sparkly slogans like “Sassy and Classy” disappeared, replaced by a blunt tip sharpie which wrote “Anarchy in the U.K”. Gone was Monte Carlo from my Netflix favorites, it was now “Who Killed Nancy?”

There comes a time in many teenagers' lives where the wardrobe turns darker, the eyeliner gets thicker and deeper into the waterline, and the presence of self ripped black tights becomes constant. Despite it being possibly embarrassing, or horribly shameful to some parents, this time is so vitally important, especially to women. I say this backed solely by my own profound experience with a badass female role model. It was vital to me. 

Having an authentic, self-founded role model who finds us naturally, through pathways of shared interest- leads to further activation of our goals, aspirations and arguably, personal fulfillment. The term “self founded” is particularly vital in this role model concept. The narrowcasting of hyper feminine, largely stereotypical TV shows, movies and books where the main character is an overused archetype meant to define the female psyche, is damaging and polarizing to young women and gender diverse people everywhere. When one doesn’t fit into this stereotype, the stereotype often being thin, white, and secretly immensely privileged, one’s sense of self instantly becomes uncertain. Being prescribed a role model crafted by (most likely) all white men sitting in a writers room at Disney channel isn't what young women and gender diverse people need- they need to find someone who identifies with them deeply, who shows what they could become, someone who fulfills our future ambition just by being their cool, untamed selves. 

Finding Kathleen Hanna was vital to me and my future. I no longer felt shy, no longer was embarrassed by my kind of dorky ‘horse’ habit, and felt much more inclined to express myself with music, art, and interests that weren’t widely shared among my peers. I loved hearing a young woman like Hanna be loud, and instantly wanted to start announcing myself like Bikini Kill did in the beginning of their songs.  I could combine interests like Hanna did with her passion in third wave feminism and her love with punk, and be comfortable knowing all of my interests were valid and correctly placed- horseback riding at stuffy equestrian centers was now accompanied by a perpetual soundtrack of the Sex Pistols, The Clash (much to my dad’s delight) and The Damned. 

Looking back on my childhood now is like watching slides of different phases pass quickly, old interests vanished and were replaced by my big new thing. I feel proud of that, and as much as I am deeply embarrassed of some parts- like when I made my friends call me Ellore instead of Ella during my punk stage- a time they never have let me forget- I feel like each phase and role model is still deeply embedded in my soul. Kathleen Hanna made me who I am- I’d be nowhere as comfortable with myself and with my strong, unrelenting opinions without her and her strength in the RiotGrrrl movement. I never saw myself within the role models prescribed to me as a young girl, and it made me feel so deeply confused as to whether I was doing the whole preteen girl thing right. 

I saw myself in Kathleen Hanna. I saw in her what I wanted to be, I saw in her what I wanted to say and fight for, and through that- I began to see myself.

[neojeno]

I really wouldn't mind you aiding me with some tutorials love

giffing tutorial/resources

hi anon! sorry it took me so long to answer. i figured this might be helpful for others out there who have asked me similar questions, so i’ve compiled a pretty comprehensive list of tutorials/resources. idk about others but when i was new to giffing, it took me a lot of painful effort to go around and look for resources, so i’m putting it all here to make it a little easier!

i download videos using 4k video downloader. it will download very good quality 1080p videos in .mp4 format. if you’re downloading a 4k video, make sure to change the setting option to .mkv so that you get 4k and not 1080p—for obvious reasons since you want the highest quality.

i rely on kpopexciting to get .ts files — which are basically raw, very high quality video files for live performances. they are much less grainy than .mp4 versions of live performances—which are the ones you’ll see uploaded to youtube. i’ve found that 4k videos (in .mkv) are just as good quality as .ts, but obviously you will rarely see live performances in 4k, so get .ts when you can!! you can also try to find .ts files on twitter, but you may have to do a lot of digging. i wish i could recommend you twitter accounts, but the ones i used to go to have been very inactive/taken down all their drives :( but this website is really nice and updated frequently so i would recommend it!

vapoursynth links + download. the reason you would use vapoursynth is to resize your gif, while maintaining the optimal quality of the gif. if you gif without vapoursynth (.ie only using photoshop), it will still be fine, but the image quality may be grainier. also, you will definitely need vapoursynth to gif .ts files —more will be explained in the tutorial i’ve linked below. i would recommend that you have a high processing/lots of ram/newer desktop or laptop to use vapoursynth so that 1, your computer isn’t fried and 2, your vapoursynth process will go a lot faster. i am using a 2017 macbook pro for all my work, and it runs pretty well, but my laptop still gets pretty hot so just make sure you’re not running a million things in the background while using adobe products and vapoursynth lol. i used a pretty old and beat up 2011 model macbook air back then, and i will say that yes vapoursynth worked and ran on it, but it took much longer, and basically fried the laptop’s battery (aka i had to get the battery changed twice and the laptop would die randomly) but issok it was a school borrowed laptop so i didn’t feel too bad lol. im just saying this as a precaution, to preserve the health of your electronic devices!! but don’t be afraid to use vapoursynth! you should still try it at least once.

thank you to @realstraykids for this super detailed, really nice tutorial! it includes how and where to download videos, how to gif using vapoursynth, using photoshop, comparisons, coloring, and pretty much all you need to know. 10/10 would recommend

thank you to @dreamcolouring for this lifesaver!!! the best and easiest way to blur out unwanted captions/objects in your gifs. i recommend doing this step after converting your frames to video timeline and before you do sharpening and coloring. another tip i’ll add is to feather the selection you’ve made right before you click on “add vector mask” —this will make sense once you’ve read through the tutorial. feathering it will make the blurred spot less noticeable and more subtle.

i use this generator to create gradient colored captions! copy and paste your text, then select the colors you want. generate the code, and copy it. change the settings of the text editor on your post to HTML. paste the code, preview, and voila! add elements <blockquote>,<b>,<i>, etc as needed. see more on colored captions in this tutorial by @kylos​ --i believe op mentioned a different and better color generator but for some reason it won’t work for me :( hopefully it works for u! basically same idea as the previous generator i mentioned.

my own mini tutorial/workflow process of making gifs. this includes working with a .ts file, vapoursynth, photoshop, coloring, watermarking, etc. and a few of my own tips below:

if you are working with an .mp4, you do not have to make any changes to the preprocessor/denoise filters/sharpening in the resizing part of vapoursynth—it doesn’t make that big of a difference if you do. but if you are working with a .ts file, definitely do make those changes,, that’s the whole reason you have vapoursynth. with an .mp4, i like to use vapoursynth to just resize, but i don’t add any additional settings. i use smart sharpen in photoshop to sharpen it, which is pretty good on it’s own (at least in photoshop 2020!).

my rule of thumb is to do add .02 seconds when i am setting frame delay. so if when you first import the frames, they are at 0.04 seconds, i usually change them to 0.06. of course, this is my personal taste—you can make all your gifs faster or slower depending on how you want em to look.

if you are on a mac, you can screen record by pressing Command+Shift+5 (it’s a shortcut to quicktime screen recording). I only screen record for things like the beyond live concert or other live streamed events. the image quality of the screen recording, in my experience, is actually pretty good. when you gif the screen recording however, you may notice that it adds extra frames that you don’t need. by that i mean duplicate frames. you could keep the duplicate frames but that just means the size of your gif is going to be much bigger (keep in mind the limit is 8mb). in order to remove those duplicates, my only solution has been to remove them manually (by holding Command while selecting), or when you are importing the video to frames, select the option to “limit to every 2 frames”—but this method will be less precise and still not as good as manually removing frames. if you remove the duplicate frames, this means you will need to set the frame delay even slower, to make up for lost frames. in my experience, fps(frames per second) and frame delay work in conjunction. so for example, if i delete every other frame because they are duplicates,  but the starting frame delay is 0.02, i am now going to change it to something like 0.05 (so i added 0.03 seconds rather than my usual 0.02). if the duration length and the image dimensions of the gif are short/small, feel free to keep the duplicate frames in—i only delete duplicate frames in order to keep my gif under the 8mb limit. then, if you keep the duplicate frames in, continue with your standard frame delay preferences.  now that i’m writing this im realizing this might not make a lot of sense lol.. but don’t worry about it for now and if you run into trouble w screen recorded gifs then you can come back to this for reference. again, this is only my experience recording on a mac—it may be a lot different if you use a screen recording program or are on a pc.

i don’t really use .psd templates because i like to give every gif/gifset it’s own unique coloring—so i remake the coloring every time, but if you get into a rhythm it’s pretty easy. there are a lot of nice coloring tutorials out there, too! my personal coloring adjustments in order: levels, exposure, color balance, selective color (if needed), vibrance, photo filter (if needed), color lookup (i use 2strip most often and i put it on ‘color’ blending mode). don’t forget to adjust the opacities and fills of the ‘color lookup’ adjustment layer in case it’s too strong. go back to correct each adjustment layer as needed. then, when you’re done and satisfied, group all those layers, copy the group (you can do an easy command+c), and paste it onto the next gif you’re working on for easy workflow.

if for some reason you can’t see the frames when you import your layers/video, it’s likely because your ‘timeline’ window isn’t showing up. just go to the window menu on photoshop, go to the bottom and you’ll see ‘timeline.’ make sure it has a check next to it.

i recommend watermarking your gifs because a lot of people like to repost tings these days 😠 - so make sure u got your brand on it! i keep my watermark saved to my ‘libraries’ in photoshop so it’s ready when i need it. i use the blending mode ‘overlay’ and adjust the opacity, but if you don’t want to do that you can also add a stroke/shadow to your watermark/do all sorts.

tag #nctinc for your nct creations and #jenonet for your jeno creations!!

here’s my own mini tutorial (well not much of a tutorial ig more like a work process vid?): took about ten minutes including the time to search and download the video (but i didn’t record that part i trust yall know how to do that), vapoursynth, and exporting. i hope this helps somewhat! feel free to ask more questions whenever :)

keep in mind that giffing takes a lot of patience, energy, and experience—so don’t worry if it takes you a bit to figure things out or if your gifs don’t turn out the way you want them to the first time around. we all start at the same place and all run into problems. i know giffing can sound intimidating and seem like a lot of work, but i promise, once you get into a routine, giffing is going to happen in minutes—and you’ll get beautiful gifs. have fun! 😊

[dogbearinggifts]

Tattoos With Better Stories

Umbrella Academy

Author’s Note: Well, here we are—Part Three of a series that started as a single oneshot meant to fix the VFW scene and soon gained a sequel. If you haven’t read either of those, start with He Saw the Ghosts before moving on to Dead Ringer.  

Both are available on my AO3 account. 

Tagging: @timelesspromise 

Jim didn’t know what to make of the unnamed soldier’s expression. 

It wasn’t a whole smile, but it was near enough to one for Jim to wonder what might lurk behind it. Such a look wasn’t unexpected of a soldier in an active war zone, but there was something more about it, some strange contentment that kept it from sinking into despair. Not for the first time, Jim found himself searching the faces of the other men in his unit for any clue, no matter how small, that might force the facts in his head to fall into their proper places and form a picture clearer than the one before him. But no matter how long he looked, no matter how much the pit in his stomach urged him to look elsewhere, his gaze drifted back, again and again, to David Katz.

The quality of the photograph was par for the course, for its day—a middling caliber that was better than the worst and disappointing when placed alongside the best. Had it been a little less grainy, Jim was certain they’d have been able to make out the barest outlines of the soldier’s tattoos, distinguish a few features that might have separated the soldier in the photo from the veteran they knew. A little grainier, and the soldier would have been only somewhat clearer than most images of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, his resemblance to Klaus dismissed just as easily. 

Richard took a long pull from his soda, lowered it, and spoke for the first time in a good while. 

“What the hell?” 

Earlier

“Okay, so first you need to cast on a few stitches.” 

“Cast on.” 

“Right. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna make a slipknot and put that over the needle.” 

“Which needle?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

Klaus looked down at the two identical knitting needles in his lap. “Oh. Right.” He formed the knot easily enough and slipped it over one needle, holding it upright. “Now what?” 

“Now you need to make the first stitch.” 

From all Richard had relayed of his encounter with Klaus the night before, he’d never intended to give the younger man a personal knitting lesson. Plans to meet up with him at the library, to pull him into the circle and let him absorb suggestions and tricks from a group eager to teach had taken a blow when Klaus had called earlier that morning. “Said he couldn’t make it,” Richard had told Jim on their way to the shop. “Went on about how he’d tried to knit and couldn’t do it, so he couldn’t come, didn’t want to slow us down.” 

He’d also said Klaus had sounded as if he’d hoped to leave a message rather than speak to the person he’d called, but that was neither here nor there. 

“You’ll take one end of the yarn like this.” Richard lifted his own yarn to demonstrate. “And then lay it over top the rest to make a loop.” 

Klaus had to look back at the example once or twice, but he replicated it without trouble. 

“Now you’ll just slide the loop onto the same needle as the slipknot.” 

Jim glanced toward the cash register. Aimee shot him a smile before pretending to straighten an immaculate display of crochet hooks. Despite her age, she was an old hand around the shop, having been hired on the year before their knitting group outgrew the small meeting room and moved to the library. She still dropped by whenever night classes aligned to keep Thursdays free, bringing along her latest project and a story or two about her dog. 

Klaus tried lifting the loop and sliding it over the needle, as Richard demonstrated, but he hadn’t twisted it correctly and the loop disintegrated and he had to form it again. After a moment of frustration, he managed to slide his new loop down alongside the knot. 

“Great. Now you’ll just do that another eighteen times.” 

Klaus let out a puff of air that wasn’t quite a sigh, but might have been on its way to one. With care, he formed another loop, lifted it gingerly, and placed it on the needle. Richard nodded approval, and Jim’s gaze drifted back to the tattoo on Klaus’ bicep, to the words Sky Soldiers printed above the skull emblem. There were more letters inked in tiny font above, but Klaus’ sleeve kept getting in the way and they were too small for Jim to read from where he sat. 

Like the olive drab vest he wore, like the dog tags dangling against his shirt, the tattoo was just familiar enough to poke at memories ranging from bittersweet to unpalatable. There were a few sweet ones, sure, but war and time had a way of working in concert to change the flavor of those. Perhaps the words meant something different to Klaus, perhaps there was another reason he had chosen to have them inscribed on his skin, but to see it on a man so young sent a dozen questions bubbling to his mind, each more uncomfortable than the last. 

He looked to Richard, but if the man shared his misgivings, he didn’t show it. Jim traded a look with his friend, then spoke. 

“So Klaus. You from the city?” 

Klaus kept his attention on the next stitch he cast on. “Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I’ve always lived here, so I guess that’s where I’m from.” 

Jim had heard less conclusive answers. “So no military family for you.” 

He wasn’t expecting a laugh, let alone one with such a bitter edge. “Not like that, no.” 

No confusion crossed Richard’s face, but he did toss Jim a quick glance. Talk later, it said. Of Klaus, Richard asked: “So what made you decide to enlist?” 

Klaus hesitated, and that hesitation went on a little too long for Jim to believe he was simply concentrating on his knitting. “Just kinda….got thrown into it, I guess.” 

Jim nodded slowly. He’d heard that sentiment before, expressed a dozen different ways—from men who were drafted. Those who enlisted had longer stories, some inspiring and some less so, but they had stories. Reasons. Ideals that were confirmed and challenged, shattered and tested. There were exceptions, of course, but when there hadn’t been a draft in forty-six years, stories and reasons usually replaced uncertainty and bewilderment. 

He looked to Richard, trying to guess whether he should ask the kid where he’d served or leave that to his friend, but Klaus lifted his cast-on stitches for inspection. “Got it!” 

“Looks good,” Richard said, and Klaus smiled at the approval. “Now you’ll take your yarn like this….” 

He threaded the yarn around and between his fingers, and Klaus did the same, mimicking as Richard lifted his second needle and slid it into the first stitch. His fingers slipped a bit, missed the yarn the first couple times, but he managed. That smile resurfaced when Richard nodded encouragement. 

Jim knew better than to interrupt a novice knitter in the midst of his first uncertain stitches, so he cast about for something, some small and mundane task that might distance him from the questions tapping him on the shoulder. A glance at his watch told him it was a little late for one meal, a little early for the next—as good a time as any for a snack. 

“I’m gonna head down to the coffee shop on the corner,” he said, stretching. “You guys want anything?” 

“Ooh! They still have those breakfast sandwiches, with the sausage and egg on a biscuit with all that melty cheese?” 

“I’m sure they do.” Jim had expected a little more hesitation from Klaus, but the younger man’s enthusiasm brought a smile. “You want anything, Rich?” 

“Just coffee.” 

Jim stood, but before he’d gotten completely to his feet, a familiar glint of steel against Klaus’ shirt caught his eye. The letter K was up where the surname belonged, but that only proved this Klaus wasn’t a Hargreeves, so he read further. 

What the hell? 

For a long moment, Richard’s words hung in a silence filled by low chatter and Tom Petty’s voice filtering through the speakers: Somewhere, somehow, somebody must’ve kicked you around some...

“You heard what he said.” 

Jim nodded. He’d found Richard and Klaus mid-conversation, but he’d caught enough to stop in his tracks and listen. “Maybe he’s just read more books than most.” 

“But why Vietnam?” 

“Could just like military history.” 

Richard shook his head at the photo. “World War Two’s the one everybody wants to learn about. Vietnam’s the one they want to forget.” 

After a halfhearted search for a counterpoint, Jim gave up. “Was he…” 

Richard met his gaze. 

“From the sound of it, he knows a lot about what the 173rd was up to. He talk about anything else? Overall strategies, basic timeline, any other shit that makes it into those books?” 

“Not much.” He paused in thought. “Actually... I’d have to check the dates, but I don’t think he brought up anything outside of ‘68 or ‘69.” 

Jim took another swig of beer, hoping it would quell his unease. Most amateur historian types liked to study everything, and they’d talk your ear off about anything that occurred within their eras of interest. A self-described WWII buff had spoken about D-Day, the myriad faults in Hitler’s strategies, the American and English home fronts, and scientific advances courtesy of wartime technology. Not all historians were like that; some had a narrower range. But when a particular era sparked their interest, many of those who made research a hobby became intellectual magpies, snatching up every halfway interesting fact for their ever-growing collections. 

“How the hell’d Vietnam come up, anyway?” 

“He asked where I’d served.” 

Klaus should have fielded the question first. He was the mystery, after all, the one who had walked into a room full of strangers to sob over a man fifty years gone. Even if he didn’t care to discuss what he remembered, he should have at least mentioned where he’d been. “He say where he served?” 

“Never got to that, no. But he talked an awful lot about Vietnam.” 

Jim lapsed into silence again. What he’d seen of that talk, of the look Klaus had worn as he spoke, was enough to make him want to down the rest of his beer, grab another, and head out on the town long enough to put Klaus and the unnamed soldier and everything in between out of his mind. Researchers, amateur historians, history buffs—whatever you wanted to call them, most of them bore a certain expression when their favorite era surfaced in conversation. Their eyes lit up, their faces softened as if in preparation to smile. Some talked with voices pitched higher in excitement; some talked with their hands as well. It had repulsed Jim at first, seeing them discuss the Second World War as if a conflict that had left blood and bodies strewn across a ruined landscape was the plot of a popular film they longed to see again. It wasn’t his war, but it was still a war. Even after reminding himself that what they knew of it was cold facts on a page, old posters and stories collected years after surrenders were made and victories declared, he couldn’t say their enthusiasm set him at ease. 

When Klaus spoke of Vietnam, of battles fought years before his time and a war ended decades before his birth, there was no light in his eyes. No eagerness, no sharpened interest, no horror or shock. He responded to Richard’s stories with somber nods and words, but not surprise. He’d shared no anecdotes of his own; any facts he’d named had been in the form of questions—were you here, were you there, did you see this go down or were you wrapped up in a different shitshow—but Jim had seen the look in his eyes, heard the subtle catch in his voice before. It was a question, a plea for recognition. 

You’ve been to hell. Did you see what I saw? Do what I did? 

“You see his forearm?” 

Richard’s voice, quiet though it was, gave Jim a start, but it faded quickly. “Academy kids weren’t the only ones to get those tattoos.” 

Richard gave a slow nod, eyes on the photo. “Even if he is that Klaus, it doesn’t explain how he got the tags.” 

Katz, David. Jim saw the dog tags in his mind’s eye, as sharp and clear as if they sat before him, the name pressed into the metal and his memory. The man himself stood in the photo beside Klaus’ doppelgänger. 

“Might explain how he knew Katz, if he can talk to the dead.” 

“Doesn’t explain anything else.” 

Jim said nothing. Something had happened to Klaus—anyone who looked more than a second could see that. But a longer gaze and a while spent listening told a story, one set in a faraway jungle and filled with blood and the chatter of gunfire and awful lights blazing through the darkness—one Klaus was too young to know. One he heard with the solemn quiet of a man who had witnessed it. 

Scars are just tattoos with better stories. Jim wasn’t sure where he’d first heard that or how much stock he put in it, but it had stuck. But when those scars weren’t the kind you could show off to a retired Marine over a few drinks, when they were the sort that appeared only as ripples in a pond, there was no narrative. Only a jumble of events and details—a sobbing man and things he shouldn’t have known, tattoos with significance that ought to escape him—strung together in a manner that might have made sense in a fever dream, but nowhere else. 

“Could be a scam,” Jim said. To his relief, Richard shook his head almost immediately. 

“Tats are expensive.” 

“Research is free.” 

“You don’t learn what he learned without reading a shit-ton of books and old documents.” He took another sip. “Too much investment for too little payoff.” 

A similar thought had planted itself in Jim’s mind, but hearing it echoed allowed it to take root through the silence that followed. “He never asked for anything.” 

Richard looked to him; Jim saw him out the corner of his eye as he regarded the photo again. 

“Never asked for a goddamn thing. Not even help.”  

Richard nodded slowly, somberly, and Jim shut his eyes. All those disparate elements swirling around him, all those impossibilities played as fact, and that was what kept Jim from dismissing it all as a sick hoax played for profit. If there was profit to be gained, Klaus didn’t seek it. He only sought to carry what he’d brought back with him, even as the burden crushed him beneath its weight. 

The two of them stood in silence as the music played. 

“Never did track down everyone in his unit,” Richard said after a long minute. 

Jim nodded. The war had taken some and spared others, but those it spared weren’t shielded from death by other means. Others could have lived, but with their whereabouts unknown, they were no more able to name the soldier who appeared in their photo. 

“Got any other leads?” Jim asked. 

Richard drew a long breath. “There’s one guy. Tried contacting him a couple times, wound up getting put in touch with a friend of a friend. That trail might lead to a dead end for all I know….but it might lead somewhere.” 

Jim looked to the unnamed soldier again. All those years between the taking of the photo and Klaus traipsing into the bar, all those years spent trying to connect the man to a name, had culminated in a morning of knitting and a conversation that made no sense and too much sense. 

This lead, this man from Katz’s unit—as Richard said, it could be yet another dead end in a long string of dead ends. But if it wasn’t, if they could speak to a man who had served alongside the unnamed soldier, had talked with him and eaten with him and exchanged a hundred jokes with him that would have drawn gasps and looks of horror from anyone who didn’t spend their days marching from one battlefield to the next….

The thought brought a mixture of anticipation and apprehension, and Jim wasn’t sure if the two could be separated. 

“And if it doesn’t?” 

Richard regarded the photo again, and Jim couldn’t say whether his gaze went out to the unnamed soldier or to Katz. Maybe it had settled on the both of them.  

“Then I guess we’re back to square one.” 

Author’s Note: For anyone who’s curious, the song playing in the background is “Refugee” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. 

[mercedesstaplesarh2final-blog]

A collective of artists in the early 1950’s were focused on the consumer nature of the new world, one member named Richard Hamilton claimed that the heavily saturated market and glamourous movie stars were ruining the traditional standard of beauty. It was no longer the long-time loved Venus that artists would create, but now the brightest, shiniest, and closest, young starlet, and social status was determined by how much they possessed materially, not the culture they possessed within. Hamilton, as a response to societies shift, created the collage “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?”, a compilation of magazine advertisement clippings cut and pasted to look like a modern-day living room. Hamilton calls the man and the woman pictured the new Adam and Eve and “…like the biblical forebears, the couple appears nearly naked, but the “temptations” to which they have succumbed are those of consumer culture. Adam is a bodybuilder and Eve a pin-up girl. In an attempt to recreate their lost Garden of Eden, the first couple has filled their home with all the best new products: a television, a tape recorder, a vacuum cleaner, modern furniture.” (Person). The visuals of this work have an eerie sense of truth since they are just compilations of advertisements of that day, lastly the man is holding a Tootsie Pop in a very convenient spot, Hamilton in his presentation made special not of this and the term Pop-art is believed to be rooted from this work. Pop-art can be rooted from the post-consumerism life those in the mid-1900’s experienced, its prevalence has somewhat subsided to make way for the more abstract side of modern art but it’s experiencing a resurgence in a new form called Vaporwave.

           Vaporwave is the visual culture derived from the music genre, Future Funk; this style was pioneered by James Ferarro, an early 2000’s musician who incorporated nostalgia inducing samples and themes into his recordings. He also designed his own album artwork that, at the time, could best be described as “glitch art”, these visual usually consisted of choppy photoshop jobs and a few reoccurring elements such as ocean waves, neon text, and grainy snowy VHS-esque filters on photos.

The popular vaporwave art today usually contains certain elements such as, a man and/or a damsel (specifically a damsel because these women are very rarely positioned in powerful roles and are often either naked anime girls or “soft girls” who are viewed as delicate and willowy), neon, old windows interface screens and programs, a glitch filter (derived from the what is now classic grain of older films), aesthetically pleasing items such as Arizona tea or FIJI water, and the looming melancholy for the childhood lost/older technological culture of that time mixed with the hard truths of the world today.

The visual composition of Childish Gamleano is important because it is representative of Freud’s Theory of the Id; in the forefront, the artist Gambino is pictured as smiling, perhaps in the middle of  concert or festival (Childish Gambino or Donald Glover is a famous actor, comedian, and musician who has released tracks such as “This is America” and “Sweatpants”), this would be the artists super ego since the fame of Gambino requires him to be on top of his game at all times. Further back and symmetrically placed in the background are two cups of punch, from the title it is learned that there is lean in those cups (lean is a newly popular drinkable drug that is a mixture of codeine and sugary drinks such has 7-up and grape Fanta, many people have become addicted to this drug and died), this would be the ego itself where the artist views himself surrounded by friends and feels a sense of normality. Lastly there is the scantily-clad anime girl in the center background, her placement here not only allows for perfect linear perspective (like in School of Athens), but also signifies that she is the Id of the artist. Freud’s Theory of the Id is the concept that an individual possesses a super ego (what we exude to the masses to give us the best appearance), the ego (the side of ourselves that we show to our friends and family), and the Id (the most primal, even carnal part of us); the placement of the naked anime girl is self-explanatory as to her meaning to the artist.

These two specific works while having highly similar compositions and elements, differ by the melancholy they both exude, Hamilton’s collage implies that consumerism will ruin their society and implies that the older way of life and the (then) traditional forms of beauty were superior, whereas the unnamed creator of Childish Gamleano’s version of the traditional or “right” way is still technology and consumer based, just not today’s foreign and odd technology and practices. This notion is exactly what Hamilton feared in his time, consumerism culture is so defining of our society these days that artists of the now are creating art wishing for the “ye olde” consumer society, the good materially saturated way of life. Hamilton mocks the body builder man and the pin up woman inn his work, whereas the Vaporwave artist covets the man and woman in his work, making the meaning entirely different from the original Pop-art premise.

[t4two2]

Things I’ve Learned About Being a FAN

Like many of you, I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into this little Tumblr community over the past three years.  The past few weeks, I’ve seriously questioned my sanity for wasting so much of my God given time on earth on this.

But I’m an optimist. I’m a firm believer that all things in life can be used for a positive purpose.  Even the toughest experiences teach us lessons in life. So, now that I’ve decided that I’m finished with this, my first (and ONLY) fan experience, I want to examine it, and see what I have learned. 

First Lesson? Not all fans are created equal.

Some fans are friendly, and giddy and like to talk with SHOUTY CAPS. Seeing love in the world makes them happy! They are pleased to answer questions when you are new, and they are kind enough to reblog your posts so that their followers will see them.  Because of this, they have many followers, and are largely loved throughout the fandom.  A blogger like this one got me engaged in this fandom.

Sidenote:  Sometimes the Friendly Fan is confused with something called a Queen Troll, but that’s another story.

Some fans are bossy, and like to police their followers.  They sometimes claim to have insider info, and they use this inside track to keep followers in line.  If you ask a question that is deemed not appropriate, you are called out immediately.  This type of fan runs a tight ship, and keeps the crew in line with promises of secret goodies.  They also tend to be funny as hell, and exceptionally good writers.

Some fans are quiet, and spend most of their time lurking and reading others’ content.  They don’t really understand what a “VPN” is because they have lived their lives as people who have nothing to hide. The majority of fans fall into this category (myself included).  They occasionally create original content, but are generally happy to observe and comment. 

Some fans are assholes, who like to make fun of other fans.  They consider themselves the only REAL fans.  Asshole Fans dedicate their blogs, and seemingly the best years of their lives, to pursuing TRUTH.  Like the Bossy Fans, they claim to know things that the average fan doesn’t know. They have “sources” who give them inside information. They specialize in screen capping and shaming other fans who hold a different opinion than their own. 

Mixed in you’ll find your Pseudo Intellectual Fans, generally claiming some sort of doctoral level that enables them to analyze even the most complex of mental conditions just by reading a person’s comments on Tumblr.  

Then you’ve got your Show Only’s, your Male Lead Only’s, your Male Lead Mommies, your Shippers (real life vs fictional characters only), Your Anti’s, your FanFic Writers, your Fashion Bloggers and many other variations in between. 

Occasionally you will find a Super Photo Fan.  These folks are great at providing low quality/grainy photo evidence, documenting the whereabouts  of the stars of the show.  They appear at concerts, sporting events, and Taxi Queues with surprising regularity.

Some fandoms also have Jackasses, but they are rare, and a tough crowd to crack into.

Some fans are famous, Legitimately known. They have lots of followers and lots of opinions.  They sometimes like to appoint themselves as special protectors within the fandom.  Sometimes, they like to “call people out” because they have a difference of opinion.  They are very important, and wise.

Sometimes, the Famous Fan likes to attach himself to a younger, up and coming star. If that star is naive, and maybe a little “star struck” (pardon the pun), all the better.  The Famous Fan might take him under his wing, and provide all of the ancient wisdom that he has earned in his 80+ years on earth. Great lessons about  denigrating women, targeted harassment, and general rules to live by.  Good stuff.

Sometimes the Famous Fan has a Crazy Crony. This is necessary because being Guardian of the WatchTower is a big job, and old people get tired. 

They allow their Crazy Crony (another icky type of fan) to dig up information on Objectionable Fans.  They sometimes even let the Crazy Crony run their accounts.  This way, Crazy Crony gets to pretend that all of those followers are actually his.

This got long.  

To be continued...

[doomedandstoned]

The Great, Big

MONOLORD

Interview

~Words & Photos by Angelique Le Marchand~

This afternoon, I am catching up with Gothenburg’s finest doom import MONOLORD at the iconic Royal Albert Hall for an interview, just before they take on the stage. They will be opening for Black Label Society, concluding a European tour of twenty-one dates with the Californian metal legends. I arrive at 5pm, taking time to admire the stunning dome-shaped Victorian concert hall, exquisitely decorated by an opulent mosaic frieze. Inaugurated by Her Majesty Queen Victoria in 1871, the 5000-capacity concert hall is a true iconic London venue and a special treat for any concertgoer. The fact that tonight Royal Albert Hall is indulging in a doom and heavy metal program is very unusual, as it is normally known for its opera and classical music concerts.

I walk past a respectable number of hirsute gentlemen dressed in bikers’ leathers and denim sleeveless jackets covered in BLS patches, who are already lining up hours before the show to get in front of the stage -- a surreal slighting outside this opulent Victorian building. I make my way to the stage door where I am greeted attentively by an older gentleman in a Dickensian 3-piece suit who fits comme-il-faut in the plush Victorian reception area and I am quickly granted access. Drummer Esben Willems arrives to our interview suite first, followed by bassist Mika Häkki and vocalist and guitarist Thomas V. Jäger. Monolord immediately come across as a very warm bunch with gentle manners, too, as each courteously knocks on the door before entering the room.

We promptly break the ice by discussing our love of coffee. As coffee connoisseur myself, I am curious to find out how they cater to what, for me, are essential needs while temporarily living on a tour bus. I express relief as Thomas tells me that they have a proper coffee machine on their current sleeper. The band recall with good humour having to power-up solely on a disappointing light-brown substance served in gas stations on their recent tour in the States. "I don’t know what it is," says Mika. "It looks brewed, but it tastes like something completely different." "It’s not coffee," adds Esben. "It’s hot and it’s light brown, that’s it. It tastes horrible!" Following along with the topic of bare essentials on tour, I am curious to hear what Monolord have on their rider, if they have a rider at all, and keen to find out if they have any strange items that could somehow get us to know them a little better. My curiosity is instantly met with a witty comeback.

Thomas: "We don’t have such strange things; we have a framed photo of Bill Ward."

Mika, protesting: "But that’s not strange!"

Thomas: "No, but that is to others."

Mika: "Ah! To others. Ok then, I got ya."

Doomed & Stoned: "Some people have fresh socks!"

Esben: "We should have fresh socks. People have told us this. We should learn to have that."

Thomas: "But we might not get the framed photo of Bill Ward. And the expresso."

Esben: "That’s right! So we have to choose."

Mika, laughing: "We have to prioritise!"

Esben: "Bill Ward over socks."

Road Stories

Monolord are a band that spends a lot of time on the road, touring extensively since the release of their first album Empress Rising in 2014, with the past twelve months being particularly frenetic. While all three members of the band agree on missing their home life, Mika explains he is also missing his two dogs left in the caring hands of his wife, while Esben expresses being apart from his 3 year-old little boy is the roughest part. Living on a tour bus for such extended periods of time can take its toll on your body as it’s near impossible to get uninterrupted sleep between two dates due to bumpy rides constantly waking you up as soon as you manage to drift off. Thomas recalls driving through Northern France to get to London being a particularly rough one, while Esben compares crossing through parts of Poland to "driving through cornfields." "It’s like all the roads around Berlin. You know when you’re arriving in Berlin, because it’s jumping all the over the place," Mika recalls. Thomas adds that you might just finally manage to fall asleep when the bus stops, in which case you may have arrived at the next destination. "But then it’s time to go up and eat breakfast, so you can’t sleep anyway. So, you have to choose between eating or more sleep." In light of the fact that Monolord have been on the road for nearly a month now, it is understandable that sleeping would come up so high amongst home comforts the band are missing the most. "So that’s why we need Bill Ward," laughs Esben.

Monolord recall their tour Down Under with Ufomammut in 2016, which is amongst their favourite. Monolord and Ufomammut met in New Zealand, immediately hit it off and very quickly decided to go organize a short co-headlining tour. "They were super sweet, really nice guys to tour with," remembers Esben. "We met them on a few other tours when we crossed their paths in Europe after that. It was really good!" Mika finds it hard to pick his favourite tour or show, as on every one of them, something he will never forget happens. Amongst his personal highlights are their first tour in the States, playing at London’s Koko in May 2016, and their show at the iconic Gramercy Theater in New York, which was a particularly unbelievable experience, in his opinion. Esben recalls viewing the footage on YouTube since. "I just remember the feeling whilst getting to the US for the first time, the first show -- and the first show was there. It’s a great feeling watching that," he says. "I haven’t actually seen that!" Mika pipes up, surprised, "I’ll have to look it up!" "You haven’t?" Esben replies. "It’s great! It’s all grainy and it looks like it’s 1991!"

Aside from being an important milestone in Monolord’s touring career, the show at the Gramercy Theater also sounds like a rather hectic experience. "We were dead when we got there," remembers Mika. "We had the whole long process of applying for the visas and got them early morning on Tuesday. Early morning on Wednesday, we flew to New York. We landed at 2pm and at 4pm we had to be at the venue." "For sound check," adds Thomas, "and then we were the first of three bands, so I think we played at seven. I don’t think we had any time to even eat. Then we played the set and met a lot of people, as we were selling merch ourselves. I think at the end of the night, everyone bought us drinks and so we were just standing there like bluuuuhhhhh," concludes Thomas, miming being completely zombified. Monolord only recall finding themselves in a nightmare situation once on stage, with Mika’s bass amp breaking down halfway through their first song at a festival in Portugal. While Esben and Thomas continued jamming, it felt like an incredibly long ten minutes for Mika, with nothing at all coming out of his amp, despite trying to switch bass to no avail, and while the sound engineers couldn’t figure out what was broken.

So what do Monolord listen to on this tour bus that has temporarily become their second home? What kind of music is going to lift them up when they battle the effects of sleep-deprivation and get them onto those stages, sparky and refreshed night after night? Monolord do not do tour bus playlists, as they don’t tend to listen to music in that way, although Thomas says that they will occasionally play some slow, mellow acoustic songs. They are, however, very serious about their equipment load-out routine. "We’ve got a load-out playlist," declares Thomas, dead serious in a soft-spoken voice. "That’s George Michael and Gerry Rafferty. Just two songs, going over and over again to make load-out easier." Mika interjects, "Because everybody loves saxophones," giving the statement about "Careless Whisper" and "Baker Street" a little more substance.

The band had no hesitations when Black Label Society contacted them regarding opening for them on the European leg of their tour. "We thought about it for about one minute and said yes," Thomas remembers, "or maybe two minutes, but we didn’t wait that long!" he laughs. "I only heard half of the question!" adds Mika, "and I already made up my mind!" I speak about the BLS fans I spotted already queuing up outside the venue upon my early arrival. "When they open the doors, there’s like fifty people running to the front of the stage, and that’s where they will stand the entire evening," says Mika. "Every day!" supplements Esben. As a Monolord fan, I find it inconceivable that some of the people attending the dates on this tour would merely stand at the front to wait for BLS to come on stage and let Monolord’s set wash over them, and I’m surprised to hear that this can be the case. I’m curious about the reception from BLS fans that might possibly be hearing Monolord for the first time, and whether or not they are a tough crowd to win over. "For some, I think it’s way too far away from BLS. They’re just, I love BLS, this is my stuff, I really don’t like this at all," observes Esben candidly. "But also, every night there’s somebody emailing us and saying, Oh, I’d never heard about you, you guys are awesome! which is great," Mika adds.

Monolord have a very tight thirty-five minute slot on this tour. We laugh at the thought that all the band need is to play a couple of their longer songs, such as "Empress Rising" and "Forgotten Lands," and that could be their set pretty much over. "We have a well-oiled machinery to be on time every night, so we can’t change it up much, we go with the same songs," says Thomas. "All it takes is a malfunction of something like a cable, or whatever, and we have to shorten some parts of some songs." Both "Empress Rising" and "Rust" seem to provoke a particularly strong reaction in the audience during the shows. "The first time we played in France on our last tour -- our headlining tour, people were singing a lot on 'Rust'," explains Mika. We realised, What’s going on?!" "Rust" has a very catchy melody, coupled with horror-fueled lyrics -- an interesting contrast that might be the reason why it seems to grab the band’s followers so strongly, despite being a relatively new piece within their discography.

In The Beginning

The band chose their name after meeting Christer Ström of Mammoth Storm. He damaged his hearing in one ear, which sparked discussions about him being only able to hear in mono. As he plays in a prominent band in the scene, this earned him the nickname of "Monolord." The name stuck, and the Gothenburg trio adopted it for what was initially a side project. Very quickly, the venture progressed to becoming Monolord as we know it. "The side project was when we had kind of a break from the band it was a side project from," Esben says, explaining that both he and Thomas more or less only worked on the new venture once they felt they needed to play their new material. "So Mika came on board and we just felt right, almost immediately," continues Esben. "When we started to work on it, that was it!" Mika agrees. As Monolord covered "Fairies Wear Boots" by Black Sabbath, I ask them if they feel that being compared to the legendary band started with this release. "I think that all bands in this genre are compared to Black Sabbath," Esben remarks. "Sooner or later!" adds Thomas. Esben suggests that any interview with the band would usually come with a customary, "What’s your favourite Black Sabbath album?" We do agree that being compared to Black Sabbath is hugely complimentary, nonetheless.

The release of Monolord’s new album Rust was met with considerable critical acclaim and viewed to be their best offering yet, both amongst fans and the press. I’m interested in finding out what the most complimentary milestones have been for the band since the album came out. "There’s been a lot of reviews and kind words, and it’s always good to hear. Someone that gives your record a really good listen and can make note of small things, that maybe I’m the only one hearing, this small piece here," says Thomas. "When people notice those small things, I think it’s great! It’s like the record is well-produced and well-arranged. It’s really great to hear." Esben evokes a particular review of Rust by a writer who had followed the band from the beginning and had given complimentary reviews of all their previous works. "He really didn’t think that anything could top the previous ones, but he thinks that Rust did. That made me really happy. It was beautiful reading it."

The fact that Monolord released Rust only seventeen months after their previous full-length album Vænir and thirteen after the release of single "Lord of Suffering" and "Die in Haze" is hugely impressive, considering they have spent a colossal amount of time on the road, and I enquire on how they have found the time to work on their new material. "We rehearse quite a lot between tours," Mika tells me, "so we always bring out some new stuff and we always have some stuff that we didn’t finish, so we continue working after the next tour. The work never stops." "I think we had some ideas and riffs that we didn’t feel we had time to arrange for the record before this one," adds Thomas, "so, some parts of that we can bring in again and some of it is just new stuff. We try to, even when we’re rehearsing for a tour, throw in a new song to feel it. And maybe in six months' time on some of the tour, we might place some new material live to see how that feels before we record next time."

RUST by Monolord

A good picture is worthy of a thousand words, goes the common adage. This certainly proves to be the case when it comes to the photograph selected for the art-sleeve of Rust. As a photographer, I found it not only stunning, but I became fascinated by the story behind it. It depicts two cars planted vertically into the ground to prevent helicopters landing, in an undisclosed and troubled region somewhere the Middle East. While I was conducting my research, I was unable to track down the artist or any other photographs of helicopter traps in that region, despite being thorough and trying my luck with different and lesser-known internet search engines. Interestingly, this subject proved to be neither very accessible nor well documented -- possibly too sensitive or too disturbing a symbolic representation of our times.

The photograph fits ridiculously well with the themes running through the album: horror, destruction, war, misanthropy, and the ingenuity of humanity when it comes to obliterating its own kind. Esben tells me that the photographer is Arash Naghizadeh. He follows him on Instagram, and so do Monolord as a band. Esben kindly promises to send me a link to the photographer’s social feed. Both Thomas and I agree that it almost looks like it’s staged, although remarkably, it is not. "Our label guy suggested this to us. He had found the picture and we learnt about the history and the setting of it. It’s a beautiful photo of something really horrible," says Esben, encouraging me to look at Arash Naghizadeh’s portrait work, which he finds breathtaking, in addition to his documentary work. Mika chimes in that the band did find other photographs of this particular helicopter trap, but this one stood out as the most striking amongst them.

Monolord’s writing process has been largely documented over the years in interviews with the band, so I simply ask them how they feel they have progressed since writing Empress Rising. "Have we?" jokes Esben. He notes that it takes some time to find a band’s identity and become a unit. The process doesn’t happen overnight. "And we have toured a lot since then, spent a lot of time together on stages and in the studio," he comments further. "A lot happens in that process." "Empress Rising was more or less just when we started the recordings," says Thomas. "It was just me and Esben, and we recorded the album without goals. We just recorded the songs because we thought they were good songs and recorded some guitars and some drums. Then Mika came in and put on the bass, and then we felt like, Wow! This is something we need to focus on! But we became more of a band afterwards." Mika feels Empress Rising is quite raw. Thomas agrees, reflecting on how the raw feel of the piece may owe to the guitars and drums being recorded at the same time. "I think we got better at songwriting and also recording. We recorded ourselves, mixing and mastering it, so I think we’ve been getting better at everything as a whole process."

Monolord are planning to continue recording and mastering future works themselves, although they do not rule out potential collaborations with producers outside of the Monolord family. "I guess we just started that way and continued that way," says Esben. "It’s not been that we have to do things always this way and that this is the formulae, so let’s see what happens." Mika feels that being able to control all levels of what’s on the table by keeping production in house is a big advantage for the band, but he also sees the positive side of getting an external viewpoint thrown into the recording process. Regarding future works, the band is happy to allow a natural and organic progression, rather than considering aiming at specific directions. "It’s usually organic," affirms Esben. "We don’t make the decision that now we’re going to do this in a specific way, we just work with the material we have and that guides us. Cheesy as it sounds, it’s hard to force something into a frame. I think it doesn’t make sense." Mika concludes that there has to be passion involved and a clear sense of direction for all three of them, in order for their pieces to work.

Slaying In The Algorithm Dystopia

We are part of a modern ecosystem hostile to alternative culture. Streaming services and online file sharing have caused album sales to plummet. As a result, labels, promoters, bands, and pretty much anyone involved in the music industry is having to rethink how to distribute their meagre resources. As social media advertising reaches out to more music fans, it is favoured to the detriment of our music press, which is already under threat due to depressing circulation figures. In other words, the music industry has become codependent on the algorithm, but the algorithm is popular culture’s best friend -- and hostile to alternative culture. Throw into this head-spinner of a mix the slaying of our music venues, usually in favour of real-estate development (35% of music venues have disappeared in the UK in the past ten years), and you have to come to the conclusion that perduring as an underground band has become no short of a miracle. As Monolord are a relatively fresh band, and are achieving just that, I’m eager to find out not only how on earth they survive, but thrive.

Film by Billy Goate of Doomed & Stoned

The relationship between Monolord and social media is very positive, which is refreshing considering the current concerns regarding social media working against cultural undercurrents. Over the years, social media has enabled the band to reach out to a consistently growing audience. "I think social media is the biggest reason we’ve had this success at all, through Instagram and Facebook. I mean, it’s our biggest platform of all," Esben observes. Monolord have a very deep connection with their fans and are very enthusiastic about social media giving them the opportunity to interact with them. "We try to respond to everything," says Thomas. "Some nights, people send us pictures from during gigs, such as Instagram stories. They tag us and send us videos. Some nights there is pretty much a lot to go through, but if you take your time to just say thank you, I think it means a lot to them." "And it means a lot to us!" Esben adds. "It’s great. It’s a way to get a Thank you, it was a great show. Thank you! Glad to hear it, always! That’s why we do this, that’s why we get on stage." The band also welcome fans using their phones at gigs and we discuss how important it is for music fans to take personal memories of shows away with them. Mika recalls an amusing anecdote of someone standing in front of him at a Black Angels concert in Berlin with a laptop at arm’s length, recording the entire gig until he was asked to move, only to trouble somebody else who was too shy to complain. We do, however, agree that things are changing and most people have a better awareness of using their electronics in a more tasteful manner these days.

With their growing success, Monolord increasingly find themselves in a position where they are solicited to support new bands starting out. They are usually contacted via social media or by email for advice and asked for their impressions on those fresh bands’ new material. "It’s so easy to send material to everyone on the internet," Thomas observes. "We sometimes receive iPhone recordings of a young band that want us to listen to their music," adding that demos recorded that way are sometimes of poor quality, which impacts opinions on whether or not the songs actually could work. The conversation takes an unexpected turn, and I feel for those guys upon hearing that some of the bands contacting them can be a little pushy in their communications, as Esben explains. "They contact us and they expect us to do a lot of things, like sending us an email and expecting us to land a contract with our label and getting really angry if we don’t." It must a little tricky to find the right balance between being willing to show support and being able to take a step back in those cases where you do not feel passionate about the material received in that way. "That’s the base of the music business: contacts," Esben feels. "Always." As much as he listens to a lot of music and will gladly give new bands a play, humility and honesty are important to him.

Regarding my concerns about music venues closing down at an alarming rate, Mika confirms that this is not an issue confined to London and the UK. It is also affecting the music scene in Sweden indeed. He tells me the fascinating story of Truckstop Alaska, a great venue in Gothenburg currently under threat by plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the Nordic Countries within its vicinity. Truckstop Alaska is perceived by developers as an eyesore, and already rehearsal spaces for local bands situated nearby have been shut down. "It is a problem, especially for underground music for smaller venues," Mika relates. "They keep disappearing, because the city doesn’t think of them or that audience as anything they can gain from."

The story of Truckstop Alaska’s battle against an invisible enemy who simply want them out of this part of town is nothing short of the myth of David and Goliath. Truckstop Alaska is a cultural association with a very respectable fifteen years of putting on shows under their belt. Their venue has been established at its current location for ten years. Things were running smoothly until the 20th of April this year. The association had only gone ahead and booked North Carolina Stoner legends Weedeater to perform that night, when the venue was raided by the Police flanked by local authorities. With no prior warnings, they declared their bar illegal and confiscated all their beer. The situation is pretty dire for Truckstop Alaska, with uncertainties resting above their heads regarding the future of the association, together with concerns that may no longer be able to rent their premises from the landlord.

Despite coming full frontal with extreme obstacles to continuing the showcasing of bands from our scene, the Gothenburg iconic venue is soldiering on with their initial plans of putting on another show in June, even though they are no longer allowed to serve alcohol. A show that, no doubt, will now turn into a "two-fingers up" at the establishment since the events that took place at the Weedeater show. "If you come to these shows," write the members of Truckstop Alaska on their Facebook page, "Take the situation for what it is. Take care of yourselves and each other. And don’t forget to have a little bit of extremely fucking fun while you’re at it! We (as in us and you lot) are Truckstop Alaska and we are going to make these shows a part of Gothenburg’s music history worth remembering!" All hails to those guys and good luck fighting the good fight!

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[aleksandrakv]

Social media in Adam Lambert’s life&career

It’s been so long since I’ve written anything longer than a tweet about Adam, but this stanning lethargy doesn’t reflect the level of my interest in the man. It may appear so, but can the lack of online presence automatically imply the lack of interest? In today’s state of affairs, when artists have carefully constructed and heavily monitored internet presence, when YouTube views are everything and the most powerful politicians seem to pay more attention to Twitter than their jobs, it would be understandable if it could. The www. has finally become literally that – a worldwide group chat, where presidents tweet, where actors, musicians and sportsmen keep vlogs on YouTube, writers publish their essays on Facebook, and everybody comments.

Adam Lambert has chosen not to do so. In an era when YouTube stars become singers who get Saturday Night Live slots where they whisper the lyrics into a microphone, and when the top trending video which garnered more than 30 million views in a day is one of a reality star announcing her pregnancy, Adam has taken a quiet step back in the past few years - and I together with him. I couldn’t help it. Twitter has lost its appeal to me ever since a constant possibility that Adam could see a particularly flaily or witty tweet was no longer an option – the magic of giddy anticipation was gone. For all intents and purposes, Adam has semi-abandoned Twitter and moved to Instagram; a Facebook affiliated app which I never took a liking to.

I was upset and a little resentful. I didn’t understand why. Not only did I have to suffer the cruel Atlantic Ocean between us, but now we were on different online apps, which is a fate way worse than living on different continents, according to cyber sense of geography. In my bitterness, I even had an occasional mean thought on the subject. Oh yeah, that’s because he can ogle hot guys there. What about MEEE? Or, even worse: it���s because of the filters. The man LOVES a good filter, the vain queen. Or, absolutely the worst: he wanted to escape the twitter crazies. It was the worst because I should have known that the crazies are everywhere. I was bitchy, mean, and so, so wrong. This essay is my redemption. The price I want to pay for my stupidity, because Adam does have a social media presence, albeit not as aggressive as I might like. There is a reason for that, which he has already given. I had read it before, but it flew right over me like a sparrow, equally tender and fragile, leaving my head unruffled and thoughtless as if nothing had happened.

Even on his preferred social network, Adam’s behavior is somewhat atypical, in a sense that he doesn’t hesitate to share less than perfect photos. Unfiltered, sweaty, in-your-face, flaking makeup photos of the realistic kind - a rare occurrence among the Hollywood hotties. But he is a geek like the rest of us. The anticipation of waiting for the first photos to appear when he has a concert is one of the best parts of being his fan. Adam is incredibly photogenic, but sometimes, those photos are low quality ones, taken by fans on their phones, from pretty unflattering angles. Adam somehow manages to look great in most of them, despite the low angles and the fact that great physical exertion makes everyone look awful. Being photographed in the middle of an adrenaline rush while singing from the top of your lungs for two hours is challenging. His facial features almost rearrange with strain, but Adam simply knows how to pose and is rarely caught off guard – a life’s tiny miracle.  I love those candid pictures. And Adam posts only the best of them.

It’s the professional photos where he shines the most. Those are usually true works of art, crispy sharp and simply stunning in their quality. I don’t think I’ve ever seen less than perfect professional photo of Adam. They capture the moments that would otherwise be missed and allow you to fully appreciate the visual side the concert. In videos, the focus is primarily on the sound and the movement, but if I had to choose which medium reflects Adam’s emotional state and journey during concerts best, I would choose photography. It’s a strange thing to say about a singer, but Adam has a very expressive face and body. It’s like their muteness and stillness don’t subtract, but add to the experience of Adam’s process of creation.

In addition to music photography, Adam posts everything and anything that’s important to him, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. His Instagram page is a mess, a potpourri of professional photos, fan photos, album covers, photos of his family, friends, his dog, travelling photos, fashion photos, and all that in uneven levels of quality which most posters would never allow themselves. Adam has it all, from professional HD quality to grainy and blurry shots taken by a phone. It’s a far cry from carefully coordinated, handpicked and posted after a thousandth try stylish representation of other serious posters. He doesn’t juice for a week before taking selfies. He doesn’t always filter. He doesn’t always look pretty. He isn’t always all mysterious and artistic. He’s sometimes such a goofball. He is definitely an undisciplined Instagram user. 

It’s a revealing fact. He deletes his posts sometimes, and I’m not sure if it’s the morning after self-filtering, or he gets the call. Social media can make or break a career nowadays. But on the other hand, you can be a successful artist without constant media presence – although it is a pretty rare occurrence. The only example coming to my mind is Frank Ocean. There are artists who have a modest number of followers and YouTube views, and yet they can and do fill up arenas, just as there are artists who have millions of followers and cannot have a decent tour. 

In Adam’s case, I feel like he is past making or breaking his career online. At this point, he doesn’t need a heavily moderated Instagram page or a vlogging channel to achieve anything - other than making me happier, that is. The fact that I would love if Adam was more present, by engaging with his fans more, or, in best case scenario, vlogging about his life and career (I would sell my firstborn for that), doesn’t mean much in grander scheme of things. Adam has allowed himself the luxury of doing what he wants, and his Instagram page reflects that in the clearest of ways. I am not saying he wouldn’t benefit from having 50 million followers on Twitter or Instagram, but, he just doesn’t have that. If he can’t get it from doing his job and being who he is, he will never get it anyway. He refuses to participate in the social media race. So, unlike many a budding YouTube star trying to make it in other fields by creating an ideal, unrealistic impression of themselves, with their uniform, heavily filtered, grayscale artsy photos, Adam’s multifarious posts do reveal a lot simply by not being what one would expect. He’s a rebel just for kicks there. 

Oh, there is some vanity there; he isn’t above it nor does he pretend to be. He smizes and pouts in many filtered photos and videos, enjoying his flawless skin provided by Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom’s filtering system, turning his head like this and like that like a Valley girl – but that’s just Adam playing with his toy. He has this proclivity for ridiculous behavior; that and the fact that he loves the ageless chibi art of Creative Sharka makes me sometimes think that he has entered a serious fear-of-getting-old phase. It would have been true if he posted such photos only, which he most definitely doesn’t.

Adam is a naturally beautiful man, why does he have to goof around like that? Well, because he is so much more than that. Because more than stunning good looks, he has a killer sense of humor. Because more than looking pretty and feeding his vanity, he loves having fun. He mocks himself, too. “I swear I didn't realize I was making full duck face” is his own comment on a truly astounding full duck face he made while trying to credit Valentino for a clothing item. He loves stand-up comedy. He’s watched the Amy Schumer Leather special, and the Ricky Gervais Humanity special, and posted about both shows. That’s how I know.

There’s a selfie which he took while Antinous was being tattooed on his torso – a particularly painful experience, according to him; hence the awkward facial expression. The photo is so ridiculous and unflattering that it immediately reminded me of the comical selfies which Ricky Gervais takes all the time, trying to look as ugly as possible in them, thus expressing his mockery on the worldwide mania of posting unrealistically perfect photos. Adam has a comedic streak a mile wide, and not only does it come out in concerts and movie roles such as his part of Eddie in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but also in his Instagram page as well. Unlike Ricky, Adam just wants to laugh at himself. Yes, he sometimes looks ridiculous and weird - don’t we all? He’s no bullshitter, and never will be. 

Now would be a great moment to mention his Grandma June alter ego. So, Adam has decided it would be great to make himself look forty years older, name the character Grandma June and rant throughout several videos on many a current topic. Who? What? Adam, the most eligible gay bachelor of several times? Adam, the Zeus in a thong sex symbol for many? Unbelievable. Waves of discomfort could be felt throughout the shallower waters of the fandom. Was he just having fun with it? Was he mocking himself for overusing de-aging filters? Was he helping himself get over his own fear of aging by laughing at his own expense? Was it some kind of reverse psychology/psychotherapy via Snapchat filters? Was it to shock his fans who come to his page for hotness and beauty galore, only to find Grandma June blinking owlishly at them? The list is endless. It’s like he was saying, ‘yeah, I’m hot, but I’m also ridiculous, funny and a little bit on the crazy side.’ Who knows. It’s certainly less ridiculous than me putting words in his mouth. It is also very non-Hollywood of Adam, where ageism is rampant and the anti-aging industry flourishes, where kids start injecting botox as soon as they’re twenty and where a lot of people take faces they’re born with as a slight suggestion. Interesting topic.

We’re now traipsing deeper and deeper into Adam’s more hidden depths. This makes it sound like scrolling through his Instagram page is a voyage into the heart of darkness, the Apocalypse Now style; but it does feel adventurous after you parse through the regular job-related stuff. Such aside interests tell us a lot about him and his fascinations, like his love and respect for other artists. He is a true fan at heart, expressing himself unabashedly and passionately – so many pictures of Freddie, Bowie and George Michael, but also Goldfrapp, Demi, Lady Gaga, and all his musician friends. Sometimes, he puts the flailers in his own fandom to shame. I like that about him. I feel like it’s a level we can relate on. And I love that he doesn’t have cheap, tit-for-tat, I’ll-do-you-and-you-do-me mentality. When he says that he likes something, you better fucking believe that he does.

He also loves nature. He posts sceneries – the beloved Runyon Canyon, the Ibiza cruise, Mexico, Bali, Mykonos in Greece, Argentina, you name it - but, he will also post a photo of a single olive tree. The fandom speculated for three days about what it could possibly mean. He posted a video of a single butterfly flapping its wings, and a colony of bats, and a lonely gecko crawling up the wall and a mother duck and her ducklings swimming in the lake. Endless photos of Pharaoh don’t even count. Details from around him capture his attention in a way that he expresses his emotive, intuitive side by showing us the impact they have on him. In his private moments, he is a far cry from a wild rocker living his wild rock’n’roll life. He’s so much more than that. He’s a tree watcher. A butterfly watcher. A bird watcher. Life and observing life clearly excites him.

He also loves architecture. He will post pictures of streets and buildings, sculptures and monuments, from everywhere he goes, and he travels a lot. Someone else would probably spend all pre- and post-concert time in hibernation accumulating energy, but not Adam. He loves the bas-reliefs, ancient facades, the Greco-Roman culture, supporting columns and carvings of Venetian houses; but every now and then he will also post some strange things, like tombstones. He’s a traveler with a twist. When he goes somewhere new, he sometimes visits cemeteries.  He’s been to Boston Cemetery and Buenos Aires Cemetery. He posted a photo of the entrance to Jesus’ tomb from his visit to Jerusalem. No matter what B Hollywood horror movies are trying to tell us, cemeteries are never about being creepy or frightful -- they are like a library for the imagination. Wandering cemeteries around the globe, reading headstones, thinking about the lives of the people there, the mind wanders into a thousand stories. It can be therapeutic. But, who knows what Adam’s motives were. All I know is that he is more than just a traveler – he is also a spiritual explorer.

In everything he does, he rarely stays within the lines. This diversity tells us that Adam is a complex man before he is an artist, and even less than he is an artist, that he is a promoting artist. His self-promoting campaigns are there, but ever so subtle and discrete - nothing like the aggressive campaigning that has become obligatory nowadays. I’m not talking about the management or the label part in it, or whoever is in charge of his promotion; just Adam’s own role in it. A few tweets, a few Instagram posts, mostly just informative in nature, before a new release. Regarding concerts, a tweet before and after is a rarity. An occasional review. He will sometimes post great photos after concerts, though. I have no idea how to explain such behavior other than to say that he doesn’t want to do it, nor does he feel like he has to. Maybe he is of the ‘an artist should never reveal too much and keep a level of mystery’ persuasion. Maybe he believes the music will find its way to those who want to hear it. Or maybe he just finds it tacky, as I do, the ad nauseam self-promoting of certain artists. Who knows. I certainly wouldn’t find it tacky if Adam did it. We’ll see how Era 4 will roll out and if Adam will be more talkative then. The one explanation I personally find the most believable is that he is a well-mannered man who believes that you should let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips; but that’s because I tend to attribute Adam superhuman qualities. He can’t be that much of a gentleman, can he?

He is not very verbose in his Instagram captions either; most of them, that is. His posts are usually with very little or no comment from him. He tags the people in the photo, or he gives credit to the photographer – he is pretty diligent about it. On few unfortunate occasions when that didn’t happen, we had a mutiny among the photographers which ended with bruised egos on both sides.

So sparse are his comments, that when you do bump onto a few loquacious ones, you just know that it must be something of utter importance or that he feels strongly about. You don’t have to guess anything then, or draw unfortunate conclusions, which is a game his fans like to play and that Adam likes to engage us in by dropping random hints. No game here – his words are loud and crystal clear, concise and to the point, and apart from bringing my attention to the relevance of such particular posts, they serve to remind me what a great thinker and an amazing human being Adam is. Those words are always about love and equality.   

One of such glimpses into his more private, passionate side is certainly his love and appreciation for  Creative Sharka, a fan who makes digital paintings and chibi art of Adam and the moments in his career. He has posted her art several times and even met with her during his tour - such gratitude and appreciation of a fan really warms my heart. It tells me what I already knew: that he is such a fan himself, a great lover of everything that inspires him and open in his heart for the reciprocal love exchange between artists as the highest form of flattery. He’s had such situation in his career several times, on various levels, but this one with a fan feels truly rewarding.

Creative Sharka gives him her art, but it doesn’t have to be a tangible thing. One of the most revealing and emotional comments he wrote under a photo from one of his performances reveals so much. It is a photo whose focal point are the backs of two people, two guys, who are leaning against one another in a hug, their heads connected, and they are facing Adam singing on the stage in the background. They are in the forefront, their body language speaking of love; Adam is in the background, perhaps inspiring such connection. His comment says, “Really in luv w this photo. So sweet.”  I’ve never read Adam saying that about any picture, and it’s one of the amateur, fan ones, too – and all the more precious for that.  

But, does he always feel the love? Do we? Most of the times, I am sure that he does. But I have always imagined Adam as a highly emotional guy, which also means a great capacity for sadness, too, especially with so many reasons for it surrounding us. There is one, literally one sad comment that I have encountered during all these years. It’s under a photo of Frank the Robot’s head, taken before the show, with the top half of it waiting patiently to be connected with its bottom half by diligent Queen crew, so that Adam can ride it and spew obscenities into the audience from its shiny, metallic head. “Sad Clown,” is Adam’s caption. I don’t know if he felt bad for Frank at that moment, or the words are about Killer Queen, but there is a possibility  that the words are about Frank’s rider later on. Sometimes, he does have to hide his sadness and paint his smile on. Who doesn’t.

He truly belongs to one of the rarest of species – a beautiful man who becomes even more beautiful when he opens his mouth and speaks. Or sings. In the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit, pre-Vučić era, I used to take his words for granted. I believed everybody thought so, or almost everybody. I was spectacularly wrong. The bout of sadness that gripped me then is still not easing up. How can it? This Weltschmerz has affected everyone with a soul - Adam, too. Will our physical reality ever satisfy the demands of our minds and souls ever again? I believe so, as long as there are people like Adam, like Emma Gonzalez, like many others who are fighting for it. That is what hope sounds like. With rising urgency, Adam speaks up.

“Black lives matter. For all of u who totally miss the point of this movement, the GOAL is for all lives to matter equally. But as it stands, racism is preventing us from that ideal. We must fix the reality so we can grow toward hope.”

We must fix the reality… We really do, Adam. Faced with such thoughts, don’t all previous words about promotion and lack of internet presence sound frivolous? I am glad that this is how Adam feels. I am so proud of him for sharing his thoughts. 

When he posted a photo of Freddie, pointing out the hypocrisy of the ruling US political party using Freddie Mercury’s music, some people seemed to have an issue with that. This was Adam’s reply:

“I realize that there are many different schools of thought frequented by people following me on social media. EVERYONE is entitled to their opinions and beliefs. Including me. This is MY Instagram page where I share my experiences and feelings. If you don't agree with something, that's perfectly ok with me - but I'm not going to refrain from being me, and no one is forcing you to either.”

And refrained he has not. 

He’s spoken against the gun violence. 

He’s spoken about Orlando. About Paris. About all mass shootings. 

He’s also spoken at the Los Angeles Pride Resist March last year. Here are some of his words:

“I typically avoid publicly speaking about politics because of its divisiveness. People get real sensitive, and I ain’t trying to piss anybody off. But, this year things have gone way too far.

So I’m not speaking today about being a democrat vs. a republican. Today is about right vs. wrong. The current presidential administration has manipulated the country using fear and hate to gain power to divide us. Our differences are being used against us. And the shockwaves of this dangerous rhetoric have rippled throughout our community and beyond. And it fucking hurts. We’ve come way too far to stand by and watch our social progress be yanked backwards. It’s almost as if they’re going, ‘Eh, you’re different. You can’t sit with us.’ What the fuck is that? It’s childish and it needs to end now.

Our pride parade is usually an all out shit show of a party where we all dress up like crazy unicorns and prance around through the streets. Yeah! It’s a celebration of the progress we have made – our liberation, our freedom, our glitter. But this year, we are facing such dark forces that pride has taken on a deeper purpose. Protest. So today, we stand together in order to support anyone whose human rights are at risk. We resist homophobia. We resist transphobia. We resist misogyny. Bi-invisibility. We resist racism. Xenophobia. And we resist extremism, and anything else that helps promote hate. We stand defiant and will not be brainwashed. We refuse to be sucked into that kind of negativity.

But, I ask you not to fight hate with hate. We don’t want to be hypocrites. So how can we resist? I’ll tell you what I think:  with unity, with visibility, truth, inclusion, acceptance, and most importantly – love.”

Don’t his words boom loud? Read them and abide by them. Don’t scroll through or ignore them. 

Shame on those who think that Adam should only do his job and stop voicing his opinions and views. 

Shame on those who, blinded by his beauty, refer to him as a Ken doll. 

Shame on those who say that he is back in the closet. 

In his Love Letter to the LGBTQ community, which was published in Billboard magazine last year, he talks more about what his community means to him:

“Y'all are my true inspiration. You're life lines that have kept me grounded and thankful. All the LGBTQ musicians, dancers, drag queens, bar stars, club kids, DJ's, designers, actors, stylists, glam squads..... YOU are my circus family. It is because of all those years traipsing round our nocturnal playgrounds that I had any sense of how and why I wanted to stay the course; to rep for my queer family!

And now 8 years later, the LGBTQ community has come SO far. I see fellow artists AND civilians coming out with no apologies and no fucks given. Despite the current obstacles we face, I am blown away by our progress. We have come so far. My true fans share the same principles so we continue to welcome other alien weirdos into our family. Thank you ALL for inspiring and supporting my journey. I promise to keep doing the same for all of you.”

Should he speak more frequently? Adam has voiced his opinions time and again, but he won’t misuse the opportunity given to him. He has a sophisticated sense for not crossing the line between his art and his humanitarian fight. He  never pushes anything under anyone’s nose; not his art; not his fight. He never uses just causes as a self-promoting opportunity. 

This is all part of the reply to the question from the beginning about what the lack of social presence can mean. His social presence isn’t lacking, it is just of the unobtrusive kind. It’s all out there, only a few clicks away. Are we so used to the constant media shoveling content down our metaphorical throats that we can’t even register when something’s said only once?

Apparently, I am. Because I have already read Adam Lambert’s own explanation about deciding to moderate his social media presence and it hasn’t even made a blip on my radar at the time. I won’t tell you where his words are from, you can try to guess. It’s a direct quote. It says everything.  

How pathetic now seems the discussion about  flattering vs. less flattering photos? Don’t ask this man about the size of his gauges for a hundredth time and expect him to engage with his fans more. But Adam does, he does engage, for he isn’t a mean man and he answers the same trivial questions again and again. It’s perhaps a much better option than talking, I don’t know, about Weltschmerz. Sometimes, such discussions are better avoided, and not only that - he has already said what he wanted to say. It’s much more bearable to repeat the silly topics than the raw, emotional ones. The repetition hurts, and devalues the latter.  

It really is a journey, from Grandma June, to cultivating self-love and True Individuality; only not to the heart of darkness, but to the one of lightness. It’s all him, the philosopher and the comedian, the Frank’s head rider and the march speaker. Read his words. Don’t forget them, like I did. Laugh with him, but also think with him and be sad with him.

“True Individuality seems daunting in our age of social media popularity contests. Sometimes it’s terrifying to face your true, whole self, stripped of any pretense. The good, the bad, the cracks, and the scars. I am no stranger to the feeling of not liking myself. Once I get past my own body image issues, I realize that I sometimes also neglect my own spirit. Living in a world filled with so much hatred sometimes makes cultivating self-love a very difficult task. I have always struggled with this as I’m sure many of you have. My path is a kind of paradox in that I get to share my craft with the world, but also be willing to throw myself to the wolves. To dare to be different, but still wanting to be accepted. There is vast beauty to be found in life’s contradictions. This non-binary reality allows us to lead happy, expressive lives, and yet this very freedom comes with great risks. I’m not alone in this limbo. Through my art, I pledge to bring empathy and courage to anyone who has been made to feel unworthy or ashamed while daring to be themselves.”

***

~The sources for everything mentioned in the essay are Adam Lambert’s social media pages. I’ve decided against posting any links because I feel like this one reference is enough.

~No photos either,  since I mention too many of them  and this bloody thing is too long already. Just this one.

[highhyde-blog1]

MARCH 1993

Layla entered the car sullenly, her bottom lip puffed out like she might burst into tears at any second. Jackie knew better than to mess with an emotional, hormonal 12-year-old, so she eased the car into drive and set off to their house.

“How was school?” she prodded in an overly-kind and patient tone.

Layla didn’t respond. When Jackie stole a glance at her, her eyes were fixed on the window.

After giving birth, her mothering instinct kicked in in full-drive. Every time Layla would get a nightmare or scrape her knee, Jackie was there to comfort her. Her instincts never wavered, and even now she felt her heart swell - was it a boy at school? Were some girls mean to her? Did she get made fun of? She struggled to not pepper her with questions.

They pulled into the driveway of their home, and Layla shot out of the car like a cannon. Jackie scrambled to grab her bags before following her into the house, where Layla’s backpack was abandoned on the living room floor and she was nowhere in sight.

“Layla?” she said, already knowing where she had retreated to. Jackie kicked off her heels and walked to their den, more of a small nook than a room that housed the records Layla forced Jackie to keep. Layla was laying on the floor, on top of a rainbow shag carpet that was horrifying but she had begged for the previous Christmas, her eyes damp and a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

Jackie sat next to her, smoothing Layla’s hair. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Layla released her grip on the paper and Jackie took it, un-crumpling it. Father-Daughter Dance! Friday, March 19.

She didn’t speak for a moment. What could she say?

“Oh,” she said simply.

Layla’s father came up from time to time, in the logistics of child raising. When Layla learned about sex ed, she asked, “Did I have a dad?” During the first wedding Layla attended, she asked, during the father-daughter dance, “Will I get one of those at my wedding?” When she came home from playing at a friend’s house and saw their parent’s together, she asked, “Do you wish you had a husband?” But Jackie had never budged, never given more details than was necessary: Yes, you have a father, everyone does. Some fathers are good, some are bad; some are around, and some aren’t. … You can do whatever you want at your wedding - and personally, I think all that choreographed dancing sucks. … Why would I need a husband when I have you keeping me so busy?

“It just sucks,” Layla said finally. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I feel bad. Not guilty, just… bad. I feel like a part of me is missing. Or just like... I don’t know a part of me.”

Jackie sighed, pulling Layla close to her. “For a 12-year-old, you’re remarkably profound.”

Layla wrinkled her nose. “What does ‘profound’ mean?”

“Look, Layla,” Jackie said. “You are my world. You know I would do anything for you-”

“And that’s why I feel bad for feeling bad!” Layla said quickly, with the eagerness of a kid. “I don’t want you to think you’re not enough. I just want… I don’t know.”

“Your dad is far away,” Jackie said slowly. “And he and I, we didn’t work out. We didn’t fit together. We broke up, but I got the most special gift from that failed relationship. I got you.”

Layla was staring at her hands now, not speaking. So Jackie sighed, getting up. “Hold on.”

She returned with a small box. Call her a masochist or an old-school romantic, but she kept everything from past relationships. Either to remind herself of the good times, or to remind herself of what went wrong and why she left.

“This,” she said, “was your father’s.” Jackie pulled out an old, tattered black shirt that spelled out LED ZEPPELIN across the front.

Layla clutched it, trying to imagine the person it use to belong to.

Jackie emptied the rest of the box: a few lighters, some concert tickets, a couple records. At the last item, she hesitated, before handing it to Layla.

It was a Polaroid - old, faded, with a light leak across half the picture. It was so grainy she could barely make out the two figures, but as she shifted the photo and squinted she saw that it was a close up image of a couple, the girl’s arms thrown around the boy’s neck, partially obscuring him from view. Her hair was bouncy and dark, signature Jackie Burkhart, and covered her face. Layla touched a hand to the picture - real, tangible proof that she had a dad. He existed. If she just stared at the picture, she could create a story in her head for this couple, madly in love. He held her hand on walks home from school, they drove together to the movies, they spent summer nights camping or going to concerts.

“What was his name?” Layla breathed, not removing her eyes from the picture.

Jackie smiled at her daughter - a small, sad smile for the things she knew and the things she thought she could never or should never tell her.

“Steven.”

[asfeedin]

What is ISO (and how to use it) in photography

In recent weeks, we’ve covered two of the three basic elements of creating a proper exposure in-camera—aperture and shutter speed—so let’s take a closer look at the third and final corner of the “exposure triangle,” known as ISO.

While your aperture and shutter speed settings will determine how much light enters your camera, ISO refers instead to the sensitivity of your film or your digital camera’s ability to capture light. In some ways, this is an oversimplification, but it works well for conceptualizing this term, especially in the beginning.

For most of photo history, ISO, and formerly ASA, served as a measure of “film speed.” Popular films frequently have their ISO values in their names. Kodak Ektar 100 has an ISO of 100, while Kodak Portra 400 has an ISO of 400, and so on. On film cameras, there’s usually a wheel that you can use to set your ISO to match the film you’re using.

Higher film speeds require less light to get the same exposure as a slower film.

The higher the number, the more sensitive the film will be to light. Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia 1600, for instance, requires much less light than Lomography Color 100 does to get a good exposure. More sensitive film stocks are called “fast films” because they don’t need a long exposure or a wide-open aperture to create bright photos.

For digital photographers, ISO works similarly. For convenience, the numbers are the same on your digital camera as they are for film, with common ranges varying from around 200 to 1600, though some cameras offer ISOs as low as 50 and as high as three million-plus (it’s true).

A higher ISO results in brighter images. The photo above was created at ISO 12,800.

Common values include 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, etc., with some cameras offering 1/3rd stops in between. You can usually change your ISO in your digital camera’s menu, though some models have designated ISO buttons. When we refer to a camera’s “base ISO,” we’re talking about the lowest native ISO setting; for most cameras, it’s usually around 100 or 200.

If you keep your other settings the same, changing your ISO will have a direct effect on how bright your photo is, just like it did in the days of film. ISO follows a simple, linear scale: ISO 800 is twice as sensitive (and requires half as much light) as ISO 400, which is twice as sensitive as ISO 200, and so forth.

You don’t need a high ISO to shoot in bright light.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you need a fast shutter speed to freeze motion and a narrow aperture for a wide depth of field. Maybe you’re photographing a sporting event or a bird in flight. You want everything in focus, without any blur, and as a result, you’re letting very little light into your camera.

If you’re shooting outdoors with lots of bright daylight, it might be possible to get a good photo with a lower ISO, but that same situation could easily result in underexposed images if you’re shooting indoors in low light. That’s where a high ISO comes into play, allowing you more flexibility in terms of shutter speed and aperture.

Concert photos are often shot at high ISOs due to low light. The one above was made at ISO 6400.

Similarly, for concert photography, you might be photographing a wedding at an indoor venue or a concert at night—everyone’s moving around, and the light is less than ideal. These are two cases where you’d have to bump up your ISO to brighten your images. If you switch from ISO 100 to ISO 200, you can then halve your exposure time or stop down and still get a proper exposure.

As we know, aperture and shutter speed affect your exposure, but they also have unique “side-effects”: aperture influences depth of field, and shutter speed changes the amount of motion blur in your photo. ISO also has a signature “by-product,” and that’s grain (film) or noise (digital).

Film grain can add texture to your shots.

Film with a higher sensitivity has larger light-sensitive grains, resulting in that “grainy” look that’s so popular these days. If you look at black and white photos from the punk rock era, for example, you’re likely to see a lot of grain. That’s because those photographers were shooting at nighttime in low light with lots of active, moving people; they had no choice but to use a film with a fast speed and larger grains.

On digital cameras, bumping up your ISO won’t result in that textured, nostalgic grain but digital noise. You’ve seen noise before; it’s a distortion that can make your photos look splotchy or discolored. This loss of detail happens frequently with compact cameras and mobile phones because they have smaller sensors; that’s also why they have more trouble performing in low light than, say, a DSLR.

Landscapes with a long exposure time can generally be shot at lower ISOs, resulting in less noise.

If you view your photos at 100% or print on a larger scale, any noise issues will become apparent. This can be especially tricky with landscapes and large-scale portraits meant for exhibition. Luckily, modern cameras are getting much better at handling noise at higher ISOs, and post-processing software is also getting smarter about reducing noise as well.

As a general rule of thumb, though, you’ll want to keep your ISO as low as possible to avoid getting noise in your photos and degrading their quality, but as with aperture and shutter speed, it can be a subjective decision. You might love the grainy look you get with an old high-speed film like Ilford Delta 3200 Pro, and that’s a valid artistic choice.

Faster films produce more grain for a gritty, nostalgic vibe. The image above was shot with ISO 400 film.

On the other hand, if you’re shooting a portrait outdoors, there’s no need to introduce noise when you can just adjust your shutter speed or aperture to let in more light. Your choice of ISO depends on the conditions of your location, your access to additional light sources, and your style overall.

In low light, you might need a higher ISO.

For documentary and street photos, for example, it might not be necessary to avoid grain or noise completely—and adding grain can even add grit and texture—but for commercial product, portrait, and still life photos, you’ll want to keep your ISO low to preserve the highest possible quality.

Similarly, if you’re able to use a tripod for landscape photography, you’ll have the flexibility to use a longer shutter speed, so you might not need to boost your ISO at all. If, however, you’re shooting the milky way at night and want to get sharp pin-pricks of light rather than star trails, you’ll need a faster shutter speed, and therefore, a higher ISO.

Night photos tend to require a higher ISO, especially if you don’t want star trails. The photo above was shot at ISO 3200.

By switching to manual mode—or even aperture or shutter priority—you’re giving yourself more control over these three settings and determining the look, feel, and mood of the images you produce. Change one element of the exposure triangle, and you’ll be able to compensate for it using another.

The photo above was shot at an aperture of f4, a shutter speed of 1/6 seconds, and an ISO of 720.

In general, many photographers prefer to set their apertures or shutter speeds first, depending on the depth of field and motion blur they want, and then they set their ISOs at the lowest possible setting needed to get a good exposure with plenty of detail in the shadows. Juggling these three elements will help you get properly exposed, higher-quality images, and ultimately, they’ll also give you more creative license as an artist.

Not on 500px yet? Sign up here to explore more impactful photography.

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[kennethherrerablog]

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019

When it comes to padding your bank account, there’s no time like the present.

Whether you’re saving for a rainy day, planning a major purchase, or just need to relieve some financial anxiety, there’s nothing wrong with looking for new income streams.

And you’re in the right place, because we’ve got an updated list of ways you can make extra cash this year.

How to Make Extra Money Right Now

Here are some of our favorite tips for making money online. There are a lucky 13 of them, so you can split them up throughout the year. Maybe try one or two per month and see how they work for you.

Hope they help!

1. Make Money Completing Simple Tasks

Lots of websites out there will pay you to read advertisers’ emails, take online surveys and even watch videos.

We’ve tried about a million of these, and so many of them are scams. One of the few that we’d recommend is Swagbucks. It’s a reader favorite, probably because of its wide variety of ways you can make money in your spare time.

The most lucrative way to earn rewards on the site is through taking surveys. These are brand-recognition surveys, product-appeal surveys, advertising-effectiveness surveys and the like.

Surveys usually take about 20 minutes. For each one, expect to earn about 40 to 200 SBs, or SwagBucks, the site’s currency. (100 SB = $1.) Because each SB is worth one cent, 500 SBs will get you a $5 Amazon gift card or $5 on PayPal.

Although you have to qualify for surveys before you take them, Swagbucks tries to match you so you waste little time on qualifying questions.

Plus, you get a $5 bonus when you sign up and earn 2,500 SB within your first 60 days.

2. Let Someone Borrow Your Place for the Night

Have you got a spare room? Might as well list it with Airbnb to try to make some money with it. If you’re a good host with a desirable space, you could add hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to your bank account that way.

Airbnb lists guest houses, apartments and single rooms, but you can also list a couch, if that’s all you’ve got available.

Taking a few simple steps can make the difference between a great experience and a less-than-satisfactory one. Here are some tips:

Make your space available during high-demand times in your area. Think: concerts, conventions and sporting events.

Be a good host, and make sure your place is stocked with the toiletries you’d expect at a hotel — toilet paper, soap and towels.

Enter your information into Airbnb’s calculator to receive a free income estimate.

(Hosting laws vary from city to city. Please understand the rules and regulations applicable to your city and listing.)

3. Turn Your Stash of iPhone Photos Into Cash

Are you a savvy photographer? If you have an iPhone and a photographic eye, you’ve got a chance to make some extra money without being a full-time photog.

Oh, yeah – you’ll also need access to marketable scenery.

There’s an app called Foap that allows you to turn your iPhone photos into cash.

Here’s how it works: You download the free app and sign up for an account. You take a quality photo and upload it to Foap’s marketplace. Someone buys the license to your photo for $10. You make $5.

If your photo sells 20 times, you make $5 each time and end up with $100 in your pocket, all for about 5 minutes of work.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not, but there are some limitations.

For one, your photo must be accepted by the Foap developers. If it’s too small, grainy or boring (think: not marketable), it won’t make it to the marketplace. And those cute Instagram shots? They don’t accept those either.

Here’s the full run-down.

4. Get Cash Back From Your Debit Card

To put it simply, online banking services are easier to use than the traditional banks. They’re cheaper and more accessible.

One of our favorite companies, Aspiration, works on a pay-what-is-fair model. You choose to set a monthly tip up to $20 or as low as $0, and you can change it anytime.

That gives you fee-free access to a Spend and Save account — and its perks. Check these out:

Earn 0.5% cash back on purchases with your debit card.

Earn 2.00% APY on your savings as long as you squirrel away at least $1 a month.

Get reimbursed for any ATM fees (i.e. get money anytime, anywhere you need it without worrying about the exorbitant cost of those pesky machines).

Plus, in an age when we all look on the big banks with a touch of suspicion because of years of scandal and mismanagement, Aspiration has popped up with the simple motto to “Do Well. Do Good.”

The company commits to donating 10% of earnings to charity and makes it easy for account holders to do the same.

5. Hang out With Pups

Here’s a good side hustle: If you’re looking for a flexible, independent way to earn extra money — and you love hanging out with dogs — Rover might be your perfect gig.

The online network connects dog walkers and sitters to local dog owners through its 4.9-star-rated app, so you don’t have to staple flyers on every utility pole across town.

Rover says sitters can earn as much as $1,000 a month.

Rover’s pet sitting requirements vary by location. In general, you must:

Be 18 years or older.

Pass a background check.

Have access to the Rover app (iOS or Android).

Here’s how it works: You’ll create an online sitter profile where you’ll answer questions about your experience with puppers and your schedule availability.

You can choose to offer a variety of services, including dog walking, overnight boarding at your home or theirs, and daycare. Boarding is the app’s most popular service, so offering it can get you more gigs. You set your own rates. (Rover keeps a small percentage as a service fee.)

Dog owners will reach out to you. Accept which gigs you want, then start snugglin’ pups. As soon as you complete a service, you’ll be paid within two days.

6. Help Small Business Owners

Does earning $60 an hour sound appealing? How about the freedom to work remotely while helping others succeed?

Those are the perks of working as a bookkeeper, says Ben Robinson, a certified public accountant and business owner who teaches others to become virtual bookkeepers through his online course, Bookkeeper Business Launch.

And no, you don’t have to have a CPA to be successful in this business. In fact, all you really need are decent computer skills and a passion for helping business owners tackle real-world problems.

It’s a great opportunity for moms who want to work part-time, millennials who are just out of college and anyone who wants to bring in real money while working from home.

7. Jumpstart Your Spring Cleaning (Any Time of Year)

There’s always one weekend when, as the weather warms and the snow thaws, you’re inspired to deep clean. Declutter, organize, vacuum, scrub.

But why does that only happen once a year? It can happen anytime, especially if you want to make some extra money off items you no longer need (ahem, take a look in your closet…).

Use a free app called OfferUp to sell your unwanted goods to locals. Post anything — from furniture to clothes to gadgets to cars — and wait for a bite.

Chat with interested buyers through the app (no exchanging of phone numbers required), schedule your meeting; and use an OfferUp Community MeetUp spot or search its site SafeTradeSpots.com to find a safe public place to meet your buyer and complete the transaction.

Pro tip: Don’t accept a check, cashier’s check or gift card as payment. Ask for cash or have the buyer pay you through the app (no commission fees!).

Go ahead, and get a jumpstart on your spring, summer or winter cleaning when you download OfferUp to list your first item — it takes about two minutes!

8. Do Good — While Trying to Grow Your Money

Investing can be a great way to grow your money, but have you carefully considered which companies you’re willing to back? Their morals and values? You probably wouldn’t want to invest in a company that’s destroying our oceans or cheating the system.

Impact investing is a simple fix. It adds a new layer of transparency to investing. Take Swell Investing, an SEC-registered investment advisor.

Swell offers investors (beginners to advanced) the chance to invest in high-growth companies committed to solving global challenges. “Swell is built on a belief that today’s biggest challenges will result in tomorrow’s leading industries,” its website says. And it makes cents — err, sense.

You can start with just $50 and invest in portfolios committed to clean water, zero waste, renewable energy or disease eradication, to name a few.

The portfolios aren’t just clouded with these do-good names. Interested investors can tap into each to learn more about the portfolio’s trends, performance and companies.

Swell doesn’t have any trading fees, price tiers or expense ratios. It does charge a 0.75% annual fee — that’s about the cost of one coffee ($3.75) per year if you invest $500.

Really, impact investing is a solid way to help tackle the world’s biggest challenges — while you face perhaps your biggest challenge: saving for retirement.

Get started with Swell by signing up with your email address here.

Disclosure: We have a financial relationship with Swell Investing LLC and will be compensated if consumers apply for an account and/or fund an account with Swell through links in our content. However, the analysis and opinions expressed here are our own.

9. Get Paid to Participate in Clinical Trials

Some people make thousands of dollars each year getting tested for allergies or trying out new vaccines. They often do this kind of “work” as a side gig on weekends or around their work schedules — and it doesn’t require any special skills or education.

They’re taking part in clinical and research trials of new drugs, devices or medical interventions. In return, they get compensated with a good deal of cash.

To do this, you should be between 18 and 60 years old with no history of major diseases or medication issues. Even if you don’t have the particular disease or condition that the trial is analyzing — from acne to high cholesterol to cancer — you could still qualify for the study as a control (healthy) subject.

Payouts vary depending on the duration and invasiveness of the procedures — the “ouch factor” plays a big part in your earnings.

Most trials are divided into Phase I, II or III studies. Phase I studies assess the safety of a treatment, while Phase II and III studies investigate the efficacy of a treatment. Because most drugs in Phase I trials haven’t been tested on humans yet, be sure to only sign up for Phase II and III trials if you’re concerned about suffering any adverse effects.

Here’s our complete guide.

Here’s where to find opportunities:

CISCRP.org, the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation

ClinicalTrials.gov, a site run by the National Institutes of Health

PhRMA.org, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America

Local universities, hospitals and medical schools

10. Post Videos on YouTube

Do you have a video camera or a smartphone? Great — you have everything necessary to start making money on YouTube.

Make a video, load it up, click a couple of buttons to monetize it, and start telling all your Facebook friends about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. You might not make millions, but perhaps you’ll develop a nice stream of extra income.

Years ago, writer Steve Gillman and his wife created a 10-episode show on ultralight backpacking, starring Steve. They already owned a camera, so it cost them nothing. The videos never went viral, but they’ve slowly and steadily generated more than $1,000 of income over the years.

It costs nothing to open a YouTube account and upload your videos. To make money from them, just join the YouTube Partner Program and set up Google AdSense. It automatically adds advertisements to your videos, and you earn money every time someone clicks on or, in some cases, even just sees the ad.

Take a look at Google’s video monetization criteria for an idea of what kinds of videos qualify. Generally, they have to be family-friendly and your own content.

As for your topics, go with something based on your hobby or passion.

How much money you make depends on whether you know (or learn) how to market your videos, what topics you cover and, to be honest, whether you get lucky and have a video go viral. To make big profits, you’ll need heavy traffic.

11. Sell Your Plasma

Have you ever considered selling your body? Not like that.

You can make money selling your plasma. It’s a way to get paid, and it also helps others in need.

The process takes about two hours and, yes, it involves a needle, but the process is simple. You’re free to read or watch TV while a machine draws your blood and separates the plasma.

Interested? Search “plasma center + [your city]” for options, and ask your friends for referrals — many centers offer referral sign-up bonuses.

To qualify, you should:

Be at least 18.

Weigh at least 110 pounds.

Be in general good health.

How much can you make? It’s common for plasma donation centers to pay between $20 and $30 per visit, up to twice a week.

12. Sell Handmade Jewelry or Craft Goods Online — the Smart Way

Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings — jewelry designers make all kinds of amazing products. Whether you work with metal, felt, old Scrabble tiles, origami cranes or even deer antlers, you’ll likely find a market for your work.

How much can you make? It depends on what and where you sell. For example, if you list your items online through a marketplace like Etsy, you’ll face some fees, including a 5% transaction charge. However, Etsy also sees millions and millions of shoppers, so it could be worth the exposure.

Whatever you do, just remember not to price your pieces too low. Cover the costs of materials, time, shipping, listing fees and other expenses.

You can sell all kinds of other crafts, too — but you have to be strategic about it.

When Lena Gosik-Wolfe started her first craft business selling custom 3D-printed cookie cutters, she noticed some sellers had difficulties growing their businesses. So she started a second business aimed at helping crafters thrive at selling products online. Here are some of her tips:

Know your target audience. Figure out what type of person will be interested in buying your products.

Build your brand. Having an Etsy page that has a unique look, complete with an original company logo and cover image, colors and design makes all the difference.

Photos and product descriptions matter. Clear, brightly lit images highlighting the details of the items make a huge difference to the customer.

13. Write an Ebook

If you’re a subject-matter expert or have an intriguing life experience, you could write a book. But there’s no need to send it off to all the major publishing houses in New York City.

You can self-publish ebooks through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Once again, we turn to writer Steve Gillman, The Penny Hoarder’s man-of-a-thousand jobs, who wrote a book in a week. Note: Ebooks don’t have be hundreds of pages long. Gillman found many books as short as 6,000 words.

After publishing on Amazon, he started making $350 a month. The best part? He continued to make money, even months and years later.

How much you make hinges on a number of variables, including how much you list your book for and how many copies sell. For reference, Amazon pays writers up to 70% royalties on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019 published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[sandykolbo]

A SPARK OF LIGHT

Jodi Picoult and Cheryl Wheeler

3:30 A.M. / November 12, 2018

I usually wake up at least twice a night: once very early around midnight and then again around 3:30 a.m. The first time, it's usually easy to go back to sleep. Although, after the midterms when I promised myself that I would go to bed without knowing how the vote turned out, but at 12:30 a.m. I woke up and had to know.

"Alexa, play NPR News," I called out in the dark. There was only a partial Blue Wave. The House was buoyed, but the Senate sank a little lower into the darkness. It was unsettling, but even then sleep returned to cover the sadness with rest.

But at 3:30 a.m., it's always harder to sink back into the blissful unknowing. This morning, anticipating a possible visit from my daughter and my grandson, I called out for Alexa, once again.

"Play music by Cheryl Wheeler," I ask Alexa, while turning on my Little Bose speaker, but instead of lulling me to sleep, as she had done earlier in the evening, there was, as Jodi Picoult writes, "a spark of light" from her lyrics in the early morning darkness.

Cheryl Wheeler tells stories in her music. This time, as Alexa shuffles her music on Amazon, it begins with the song she wrote for her father that begins with his birth in 1917 when, as she notes in her song, "the first yellow cabs" began to roam the streets of NYC. Her father, however, grew up on the farm "between the wars".

A spark of light, from Wheeler's lyrics, makes me remember a black and white photo of my own father working in the fields of his farm in a horse drawn wagon. How he loved those horses, he would share.

Another spark of light, from that song and her next song, that mentions Hitler, transports me back to the symphony concert in Miller's Hall that afternoon, "A Veteran's Tribute" with its stirring music and grainy black and white photos projected on the wall, reflections from the Civil War to WWII.

From there, I take a fantasy trip to Rettinger's, a wonderful old farmer's market, a world of antiques and comfort food in Kutztown, a place I long to take my grandson to see what he would think of all the old toys and relics from another time. For the first time, in his short life of just two years, he asks his mom to take him to Grandma's and Grandpa's house to play with his toys there. They may change their minds in the light of a new day, but it's already enough that he thought to ask.

Waking at 3:30 a.m. is, in retirement, occasionally a gift for the sparks of light to which it gives birth. This time, like spotting a firefly, I felt compelled to catch it in a jar.

[meghancarney-blog]

10 Suggestions For Taking Stunning Silhouette Photos With Your Smartphone EyeEm Weblog

We are SO excited to share this episode with you!! Perth photographer Rob Miller likes to say, Forget about the subject, it is the background that makes your photo." Of course he does not mean that literally, but a amazing moment captured against a messy background will in the end be a messy shot, whilst a amazing moment captured against a amazing background will be a amazing shot. Watch out for components of the background that you want to steer clear of, like stage scaffolds, lighting rigs and even other performers, and try to compose for those that you can use to your benefit. Don't forget that on a nicely lit stage you can use the glow of stage lights, or even the lights themselves, as your background. If there is absolutely nothing going on in the background, if achievable, try and set your exposure so that your subject is correctly exposed but the background collapses to black. This post is three years old. A single issue that is different is the low-light overall performance of today's cropped-sensor DSLRs. I use the D7000 for my second body, and coupled with a 70-200 f/two.eight, I get fantastic, sharp shots at 1600 ISO, and higher. Occasionally I get rid of noise in post, and occasionally I do not. Initial of all: there are no perfect camera settings for concert photography. They just do not exist. I am certain that you all know the following predicament: You are in a concert, a couple of hundred feet from the stage, about of you hundreds of flashes of cameras from folks who attempt to take photos of the show. Mpow proves that bigger is not always better with its substantial V3 wide-angle lens , which weighs almost as a lot as my Canon 50mm lens and is almost as massive. In our tests all that glass felt heavy and created the iPhone really feel unbalanced, and barrel distortion was apparent. Photographing a music event at night is often problematic. If you use high-speed film like the Ilford Delta 3200 or Kodak T-MAX 3200 you will get a quite grainy damaging, and this is not acceptable if you want to show the musicians' facial expressions. You may also use a medium-speed film (400 ISO, for example) pushing it by one or two stops. In this case, the grain will be slightly significantly less evident, but the push procedure will have elevated the contrast among shadow and light. It's also likely that you will get poor greyscale tones, with white and black zones devoid of specifics. It goes with out saying that you want to acquire a lens that will attach on your camera, and this is recognized as the lens mount. Camera producers usually make lenses with proprietry mounts which will only match their devices, at times possessing multiple lens mounts for distinct camera lines. The main exception to this is Micro Four Thirds lenses which can be utilized on respective Olympus and Panasonic cameras. Third party makers also make lenses with mounts to fit different brands. As properly as a photographer, I am a lighting technician for reside entertainment. A really excellent post, but the one issue I would argue is your WB settings. AWB will virtually always more concert photography job description than adjust for coloured lighting and attempt to compensate. If it's a contemporary lighting rig with mostly moving lights, then lock it on Daylight to match the output of the fixtures. If it really is old school rock with a wack of PARcans, then drop it into tungsten. To this finish, study can play a big part in making the ideal images. I constantly try to check out images from the tour that other photographers have shot to get an concept of the lighting and stage setup. Prior to heading to a show, collecting the acceptable gear is important. Unless you are photographing an outside concert in the daylight, you are going to most probably be operating in low-light circumstances. But to shoot at quickly shutter speeds such as 1/200th of a second implies that you want to have a lot of light. In our scenario, we don't have adequate light, so what do we do? The initial point you will need to have to attempt to do is lower your lens aperture to the lowest quantity on the camera. Decreasing your aperture means more light will pass via the lens into the camera physique, which will allow you to shoot at more rapidly shutter speeds. In order to do that, you would have to either switch to Aperture Priority" mode or manually override your aperture in whatever mode you are employing. Then, start lowering your aperture till you get to the lowest quantity your camera will permit.

[highhyde-blog1]

WAIT WAIT WAIT here’s a better section of the jackie/hyde fic i’m writing that i need feedback on

if u are feeling kind, please read and let me know what you think or if i can bounce off the whole first chapter to you. i need feedback. i need guidance. i need HELP

respond or message me if i can send u more stuff and we can talk about jackie/hyde and their perfectness???? pls

MARCH 1993

Layla entered the car sullenly, her bottom lip puffed out like she might burst into tears at any second. Jackie knew better than to mess with an emotional, hormonal 12-year-old, so she eased the car into drive and set off to their house.

“How was school?” she prodded in an overly-kind and patient tone.

Layla didn’t respond. When Jackie stole a glance at her, her eyes were fixed on the window.

After giving birth, her mothering instinct kicked in in full-drive. Every time Layla would get a nightmare or scrape her knee, Jackie was there to comfort her. Her instincts never wavered, and even now she felt her heart swell - was it a boy at school? Were some girls mean to her? Did she get made fun of? She struggled to not pepper her with questions.

They pulled into the driveway of their home, and Layla shot out of the car like a cannon. Jackie scrambled to grab her bags before following her into the house, where Layla’s backpack was abandoned on the living room floor and she was nowhere in sight.

“Layla?” she said, already knowing where she had retreated to. Jackie kicked off her heels and walked to their den, more of a small nook than a room that housed the records Layla forced Jackie to keep. Layla was laying on the floor, on top of a rainbow shag carpet that was horrifying but she had begged for the previous Christmas, her eyes damp and a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

Jackie sat next to her, smoothing Layla’s hair. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Layla released her grip on the paper and Jackie took it, un-crumpling it. Father-Daughter Dance! Friday, March 19.

She didn’t speak for a moment. What could she say?

“Oh,” she said simply.

Layla’s father came up from time to time, in the logistics of child raising. When Layla learned about sex ed, she asked, “Did I have a dad?” During the first wedding Layla attended, she asked, during the father-daughter dance, “Will I get one of those at my wedding?” When she came home from playing at a friend’s house and saw their parent’s together, she asked, “Do you wish you had a husband?” But Jackie had never budged, never given more details than was necessary: Yes, you have a father, everyone does. Some fathers are good, some are bad; some are around, and some aren’t. … You can do whatever you want at your wedding - and personally, I think all that choreographed dancing sucks. … Why would I need a husband when I have you keeping me so busy?

“It just sucks,” Layla said finally. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I feel bad. Not guilty, just… bad. I feel like a part of me is missing. Or just like... I don’t know a part of me.”

Jackie sighed, pulling Layla close to her. “For a 12-year-old, you’re remarkably profound.”

Layla wrinkled her nose. “What does ‘profound’ mean?”

“Look, Layla,” Jackie said. “You are my world. You know I would do anything for you-”

“And that’s why I feel bad for feeling bad!” Layla said quickly, with the eagerness of a kid. “I don’t want you to think you’re not enough. I just want… I don’t know.”

“Your dad is far away,” Jackie said slowly. “And he and I, we didn’t work out. We didn’t fit together. We broke up, but I got the most special gift from that failed relationship. I got you.”

Layla was staring at her hands now, not speaking. So Jackie sighed, getting up. “Hold on.”

She returned with a small box. Call her a masochist or an old-school romantic, but she kept everything from past relationships. Either to remind herself of the good times, or to remind herself of what went wrong and why she left.

“This,” she said, “was your father’s.” Jackie pulled out an old, tattered black shirt that spelled out LED ZEPPELIN across the front.

Layla clutched it, trying to imagine the person it use to belong to.

Jackie emptied the rest of the box: a few lighters, some concert tickets, a couple records. At the last item, she hesitated, before handing it to Layla.

It was a Polaroid - old, faded, with a light leak across half the picture. It was so grainy she could barely make out the two figures, but as she shifted the photo and squinted she saw that it was a close up image of a couple, kissing, the girl’s arms thrown around the boy’s neck, partially obscuring him from view. Her hair was bouncy and dark, signature Jackie Burkhart, and covered her face. Layla touched a hand to the picture - real, tangible proof that she had a dad. He existed. If she just stared at the picture, she could create a story in her head for this couple, madly in love. He held her hand on walks home from school, they drove together to the movies, they spent summer nights camping or going to concerts.

“What was his name?” Layla breathed, not removing her eyes from the picture.

Jackie smiled at her daughter - a small, sad smile for the things she knew and the things she thought she could never or should never tell her.

“Steven.”

[kennethherrerablog]

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019

When it comes to padding your bank account, there’s no time like the present.

Whether you’re saving for a rainy day, planning a major purchase, or just need to relieve some financial anxiety, there’s nothing wrong with looking for new income streams.

And you’re in the right place, because we’ve got an updated list of ways you can make extra cash this year.

How to Make Extra Money Right Now

Here are some of our favorite tips for making money online. There are a lucky 13 of them, so you can split them up throughout the year. Maybe try one or two per month and see how they work for you.

Hope they help!

1. Make Money Completing Simple Tasks

Lots of websites out there will pay you to read advertisers’ emails, take online surveys and even watch videos.

We’ve tried about a million of these, and so many of them are scams. One of the few that we’d recommend is Swagbucks. It’s a reader favorite, probably because of its wide variety of ways you can make money in your spare time.

The most lucrative way to earn rewards on the site is through taking surveys. These are brand-recognition surveys, product-appeal surveys, advertising-effectiveness surveys and the like.

Surveys usually take about 20 minutes. For each one, expect to earn about 40 to 200 SBs, or SwagBucks, the site’s currency. (100 SB = $1.) Because each SB is worth one cent, 500 SBs will get you a $5 Amazon gift card or $5 on PayPal.

Although you have to qualify for surveys before you take them, Swagbucks tries to match you so you waste little time on qualifying questions.

Plus, you get a $5 bonus when you sign up and earn 2,500 SB within your first 60 days.

2. Let Someone Borrow Your Place for the Night

Have you got a spare room? Might as well list it with Airbnb to try to make some money with it. If you’re a good host with a desirable space, you could add hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to your bank account that way.

Airbnb lists guest houses, apartments and single rooms, but you can also list a couch, if that’s all you’ve got available.

Taking a few simple steps can make the difference between a great experience and a less-than-satisfactory one. Here are some tips:

Make your space available during high-demand times in your area. Think: concerts, conventions and sporting events.

Be a good host, and make sure your place is stocked with the toiletries you’d expect at a hotel — toilet paper, soap and towels.

Enter your information into Airbnb’s calculator to receive a free income estimate.

(Hosting laws vary from city to city. Please understand the rules and regulations applicable to your city and listing.)

3. Turn Your Stash of iPhone Photos Into Cash

Are you a savvy photographer? If you have an iPhone and a photographic eye, you’ve got a chance to make some extra money without being a full-time photog.

Oh, yeah – you’ll also need access to marketable scenery.

There’s an app called Foap that allows you to turn your iPhone photos into cash.

Here’s how it works: You download the free app and sign up for an account. You take a quality photo and upload it to Foap’s marketplace. Someone buys the license to your photo for $10. You make $5.

If your photo sells 20 times, you make $5 each time and end up with $100 in your pocket, all for about 5 minutes of work.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not, but there are some limitations.

For one, your photo must be accepted by the Foap developers. If it’s too small, grainy or boring (think: not marketable), it won’t make it to the marketplace. And those cute Instagram shots? They don’t accept those either.

Here’s the full run-down.

4. Get Cash Back From Your Debit Card

To put it simply, online banking services are easier to use than the traditional banks. They’re cheaper and more accessible.

One of our favorite companies, Aspiration, works on a pay-what-is-fair model. You choose to set a monthly tip up to $20 or as low as $0, and you can change it anytime.

That gives you fee-free access to a Spend and Save account — and its perks. Check these out:

Earn 0.5% cash back on purchases with your debit card.

Earn 2.00% APY on your savings as long as you squirrel away at least $1 a month.

Get reimbursed for any ATM fees (i.e. get money anytime, anywhere you need it without worrying about the exorbitant cost of those pesky machines).

Plus, in an age when we all look on the big banks with a touch of suspicion because of years of scandal and mismanagement, Aspiration has popped up with the simple motto to “Do Well. Do Good.”

The company commits to donating 10% of earnings to charity and makes it easy for account holders to do the same.

5. Hang out With Pups

Here’s a good side hustle: If you’re looking for a flexible, independent way to earn extra money — and you love hanging out with dogs — Rover might be your perfect gig.

The online network connects dog walkers and sitters to local dog owners through its 4.9-star-rated app, so you don’t have to staple flyers on every utility pole across town.

Rover says sitters can earn as much as $1,000 a month.

Rover’s pet sitting requirements vary by location. In general, you must:

Be 18 years or older.

Pass a background check.

Have access to the Rover app (iOS or Android).

Here’s how it works: You’ll create an online sitter profile where you’ll answer questions about your experience with puppers and your schedule availability.

You can choose to offer a variety of services, including dog walking, overnight boarding at your home or theirs, and daycare. Boarding is the app’s most popular service, so offering it can get you more gigs. You set your own rates. (Rover keeps a small percentage as a service fee.)

Dog owners will reach out to you. Accept which gigs you want, then start snugglin’ pups. As soon as you complete a service, you’ll be paid within two days.

6. Help Small Business Owners

Does earning $60 an hour sound appealing? How about the freedom to work remotely while helping others succeed?

Those are the perks of working as a bookkeeper, says Ben Robinson, a certified public accountant and business owner who teaches others to become virtual bookkeepers through his online course, Bookkeeper Business Launch.

And no, you don’t have to have a CPA to be successful in this business. In fact, all you really need are decent computer skills and a passion for helping business owners tackle real-world problems.

It’s a great opportunity for moms who want to work part-time, millennials who are just out of college and anyone who wants to bring in real money while working from home.

7. Jumpstart Your Spring Cleaning (Any Time of Year)

There’s always one weekend when, as the weather warms and the snow thaws, you’re inspired to deep clean. Declutter, organize, vacuum, scrub.

But why does that only happen once a year? It can happen anytime, especially if you want to make some extra money off items you no longer need (ahem, take a look in your closet…).

Use a free app called OfferUp to sell your unwanted goods to locals. Post anything — from furniture to clothes to gadgets to cars — and wait for a bite.

Chat with interested buyers through the app (no exchanging of phone numbers required), schedule your meeting; and use an OfferUp Community MeetUp spot or search its site SafeTradeSpots.com to find a safe public place to meet your buyer and complete the transaction.

Pro tip: Don’t accept a check, cashier’s check or gift card as payment. Ask for cash or have the buyer pay you through the app (no commission fees!).

Go ahead, and get a jumpstart on your spring, summer or winter cleaning when you download OfferUp to list your first item — it takes about two minutes!

8. Do Good — While Trying to Grow Your Money

Investing can be a great way to grow your money, but have you carefully considered which companies you’re willing to back? Their morals and values? You probably wouldn’t want to invest in a company that’s destroying our oceans or cheating the system.

Impact investing is a simple fix. It adds a new layer of transparency to investing. Take Swell Investing, an SEC-registered investment advisor.

Swell offers investors (beginners to advanced) the chance to invest in high-growth companies committed to solving global challenges. “Swell is built on a belief that today’s biggest challenges will result in tomorrow’s leading industries,” its website says. And it makes cents — err, sense.

You can start with just $50 and invest in portfolios committed to clean water, zero waste, renewable energy or disease eradication, to name a few.

The portfolios aren’t just clouded with these do-good names. Interested investors can tap into each to learn more about the portfolio’s trends, performance and companies.

Swell doesn’t have any trading fees, price tiers or expense ratios. It does charge a 0.75% annual fee — that’s about the cost of one coffee ($3.75) per year if you invest $500.

Really, impact investing is a solid way to help tackle the world’s biggest challenges — while you face perhaps your biggest challenge: saving for retirement.

Get started with Swell by signing up with your email address here.

Disclosure: We have a financial relationship with Swell Investing LLC and will be compensated if consumers apply for an account and/or fund an account with Swell through links in our content. However, the analysis and opinions expressed here are our own.

9. Get Paid to Participate in Clinical Trials

Some people make thousands of dollars each year getting tested for allergies or trying out new vaccines. They often do this kind of “work” as a side gig on weekends or around their work schedules — and it doesn’t require any special skills or education.

They’re taking part in clinical and research trials of new drugs, devices or medical interventions. In return, they get compensated with a good deal of cash.

To do this, you should be between 18 and 60 years old with no history of major diseases or medication issues. Even if you don’t have the particular disease or condition that the trial is analyzing — from acne to high cholesterol to cancer — you could still qualify for the study as a control (healthy) subject.

Payouts vary depending on the duration and invasiveness of the procedures — the “ouch factor” plays a big part in your earnings.

Most trials are divided into Phase I, II or III studies. Phase I studies assess the safety of a treatment, while Phase II and III studies investigate the efficacy of a treatment. Because most drugs in Phase I trials haven’t been tested on humans yet, be sure to only sign up for Phase II and III trials if you’re concerned about suffering any adverse effects.

Here’s our complete guide.

Here’s where to find opportunities:

CISCRP.org, the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation

ClinicalTrials.gov, a site run by the National Institutes of Health

PhRMA.org, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America

Local universities, hospitals and medical schools

10. Post Videos on YouTube

Do you have a video camera or a smartphone? Great — you have everything necessary to start making money on YouTube.

Make a video, load it up, click a couple of buttons to monetize it, and start telling all your Facebook friends about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. You might not make millions, but perhaps you’ll develop a nice stream of extra income.

Years ago, writer Steve Gillman and his wife created a 10-episode show on ultralight backpacking, starring Steve. They already owned a camera, so it cost them nothing. The videos never went viral, but they’ve slowly and steadily generated more than $1,000 of income over the years.

It costs nothing to open a YouTube account and upload your videos. To make money from them, just join the YouTube Partner Program and set up Google AdSense. It automatically adds advertisements to your videos, and you earn money every time someone clicks on or, in some cases, even just sees the ad.

Take a look at Google’s video monetization criteria for an idea of what kinds of videos qualify. Generally, they have to be family-friendly and your own content.

As for your topics, go with something based on your hobby or passion.

How much money you make depends on whether you know (or learn) how to market your videos, what topics you cover and, to be honest, whether you get lucky and have a video go viral. To make big profits, you’ll need heavy traffic.

11. Sell Your Plasma

Have you ever considered selling your body? Not like that.

You can make money selling your plasma. It’s a way to get paid, and it also helps others in need.

The process takes about two hours and, yes, it involves a needle, but the process is simple. You’re free to read or watch TV while a machine draws your blood and separates the plasma.

Interested? Search “plasma center + [your city]” for options, and ask your friends for referrals — many centers offer referral sign-up bonuses.

To qualify, you should:

Be at least 18.

Weigh at least 110 pounds.

Be in general good health.

How much can you make? It’s common for plasma donation centers to pay between $20 and $30 per visit, up to twice a week.

12. Sell Handmade Jewelry or Craft Goods Online — the Smart Way

Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings — jewelry designers make all kinds of amazing products. Whether you work with metal, felt, old Scrabble tiles, origami cranes or even deer antlers, you’ll likely find a market for your work.

How much can you make? It depends on what and where you sell. For example, if you list your items online through a marketplace like Etsy, you’ll face some fees, including a 5% transaction charge. However, Etsy also sees millions and millions of shoppers, so it could be worth the exposure.

Whatever you do, just remember not to price your pieces too low. Cover the costs of materials, time, shipping, listing fees and other expenses.

You can sell all kinds of other crafts, too — but you have to be strategic about it.

When Lena Gosik-Wolfe started her first craft business selling custom 3D-printed cookie cutters, she noticed some sellers had difficulties growing their businesses. So she started a second business aimed at helping crafters thrive at selling products online. Here are some of her tips:

Know your target audience. Figure out what type of person will be interested in buying your products.

Build your brand. Having an Etsy page that has a unique look, complete with an original company logo and cover image, colors and design makes all the difference.

Photos and product descriptions matter. Clear, brightly lit images highlighting the details of the items make a huge difference to the customer.

13. Write an Ebook

If you’re a subject-matter expert or have an intriguing life experience, you could write a book. But there’s no need to send it off to all the major publishing houses in New York City.

You can self-publish ebooks through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Once again, we turn to writer Steve Gillman, The Penny Hoarder’s man-of-a-thousand jobs, who wrote a book in a week. Note: Ebooks don’t have be hundreds of pages long. Gillman found many books as short as 6,000 words.

After publishing on Amazon, he started making $350 a month. The best part? He continued to make money, even months and years later.

How much you make hinges on a number of variables, including how much you list your book for and how many copies sell. For reference, Amazon pays writers up to 70% royalties on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019 published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[kennethherrerablog]

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019

When it comes to padding your bank account, there’s no time like the present.

Whether you’re saving for a rainy day, planning a major purchase, or just need to relieve some financial anxiety, there’s nothing wrong with looking for new income streams.

And you’re in the right place, because we’ve got an updated list of ways you can make extra cash this year.

How to Make Extra Money Right Now

Here are some of our favorite tips for making money online. There are a lucky 13 of them, so you can split them up throughout the year. Maybe try one or two per month and see how they work for you.

Hope they help!

1. Make Money Completing Simple Tasks

Lots of websites out there will pay you to read advertisers’ emails, take online surveys and even watch videos.

We’ve tried about a million of these, and so many of them are scams. One of the few that we’d recommend is Swagbucks. It’s a reader favorite, probably because of its wide variety of ways you can make money in your spare time.

The most lucrative way to earn rewards on the site is through taking surveys. These are brand-recognition surveys, product-appeal surveys, advertising-effectiveness surveys and the like.

Surveys usually take about 20 minutes. For each one, expect to earn about 40 to 200 SBs, or SwagBucks, the site’s currency. (100 SB = $1.) Because each SB is worth one cent, 500 SBs will get you a $5 Amazon gift card or $5 on PayPal.

Although you have to qualify for surveys before you take them, Swagbucks tries to match you so you waste little time on qualifying questions.

Plus, you get a $5 bonus when you sign up and earn 2,500 SB within your first 60 days.

2. Let Someone Borrow Your Place for the Night

Have you got a spare room? Might as well list it with Airbnb to try to make some money with it. If you’re a good host with a desirable space, you could add hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to your bank account that way.

Airbnb lists guest houses, apartments and single rooms, but you can also list a couch, if that’s all you’ve got available.

Taking a few simple steps can make the difference between a great experience and a less-than-satisfactory one. Here are some tips:

Make your space available during high-demand times in your area. Think: concerts, conventions and sporting events.

Be a good host, and make sure your place is stocked with the toiletries you’d expect at a hotel — toilet paper, soap and towels.

Enter your information into Airbnb’s calculator to receive a free income estimate.

(Hosting laws vary from city to city. Please understand the rules and regulations applicable to your city and listing.)

3. Turn Your Stash of iPhone Photos Into Cash

Are you a savvy photographer? If you have an iPhone and a photographic eye, you’ve got a chance to make some extra money without being a full-time photog.

Oh, yeah – you’ll also need access to marketable scenery.

There’s an app called Foap that allows you to turn your iPhone photos into cash.

Here’s how it works: You download the free app and sign up for an account. You take a quality photo and upload it to Foap’s marketplace. Someone buys the license to your photo for $10. You make $5.

If your photo sells 20 times, you make $5 each time and end up with $100 in your pocket, all for about 5 minutes of work.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not, but there are some limitations.

For one, your photo must be accepted by the Foap developers. If it’s too small, grainy or boring (think: not marketable), it won’t make it to the marketplace. And those cute Instagram shots? They don’t accept those either.

Here’s the full run-down.

4. Get Cash Back From Your Debit Card

To put it simply, online banking services are easier to use than the traditional banks. They’re cheaper and more accessible.

One of our favorite companies, Aspiration, works on a pay-what-is-fair model. You choose to set a monthly tip up to $20 or as low as $0, and you can change it anytime.

That gives you fee-free access to a Spend and Save account — and its perks. Check these out:

Earn 0.5% cash back on purchases with your debit card.

Earn 2.00% APY on your savings as long as you squirrel away at least $1 a month.

Get reimbursed for any ATM fees (i.e. get money anytime, anywhere you need it without worrying about the exorbitant cost of those pesky machines).

Plus, in an age when we all look on the big banks with a touch of suspicion because of years of scandal and mismanagement, Aspiration has popped up with the simple motto to “Do Well. Do Good.”

The company commits to donating 10% of earnings to charity and makes it easy for account holders to do the same.

5. Hang out With Pups

Here’s a good side hustle: If you’re looking for a flexible, independent way to earn extra money — and you love hanging out with dogs — Rover might be your perfect gig.

The online network connects dog walkers and sitters to local dog owners through its 4.9-star-rated app, so you don’t have to staple flyers on every utility pole across town.

Rover says sitters can earn as much as $1,000 a month.

Rover’s pet sitting requirements vary by location. In general, you must:

Be 18 years or older.

Pass a background check.

Have access to the Rover app (iOS or Android).

Here’s how it works: You’ll create an online sitter profile where you’ll answer questions about your experience with puppers and your schedule availability.

You can choose to offer a variety of services, including dog walking, overnight boarding at your home or theirs, and daycare. Boarding is the app’s most popular service, so offering it can get you more gigs. You set your own rates. (Rover keeps a small percentage as a service fee.)

Dog owners will reach out to you. Accept which gigs you want, then start snugglin’ pups. As soon as you complete a service, you’ll be paid within two days.

6. Help Small Business Owners

Does earning $60 an hour sound appealing? How about the freedom to work remotely while helping others succeed?

Those are the perks of working as a bookkeeper, says Ben Robinson, a certified public accountant and business owner who teaches others to become virtual bookkeepers through his online course, Bookkeeper Business Launch.

And no, you don’t have to have a CPA to be successful in this business. In fact, all you really need are decent computer skills and a passion for helping business owners tackle real-world problems.

It’s a great opportunity for moms who want to work part-time, millennials who are just out of college and anyone who wants to bring in real money while working from home.

7. Jumpstart Your Spring Cleaning (Any Time of Year)

There’s always one weekend when, as the weather warms and the snow thaws, you’re inspired to deep clean. Declutter, organize, vacuum, scrub.

But why does that only happen once a year? It can happen anytime, especially if you want to make some extra money off items you no longer need (ahem, take a look in your closet…).

Use a free app called OfferUp to sell your unwanted goods to locals. Post anything — from furniture to clothes to gadgets to cars — and wait for a bite.

Chat with interested buyers through the app (no exchanging of phone numbers required), schedule your meeting; and use an OfferUp Community MeetUp spot or search its site SafeTradeSpots.com to find a safe public place to meet your buyer and complete the transaction.

Pro tip: Don’t accept a check, cashier’s check or gift card as payment. Ask for cash or have the buyer pay you through the app (no commission fees!).

Go ahead, and get a jumpstart on your spring, summer or winter cleaning when you download OfferUp to list your first item — it takes about two minutes!

8. Do Good — While Trying to Grow Your Money

Investing can be a great way to grow your money, but have you carefully considered which companies you’re willing to back? Their morals and values? You probably wouldn’t want to invest in a company that’s destroying our oceans or cheating the system.

Impact investing is a simple fix. It adds a new layer of transparency to investing. Take Swell Investing, an SEC-registered investment advisor.

Swell offers investors (beginners to advanced) the chance to invest in high-growth companies committed to solving global challenges. “Swell is built on a belief that today’s biggest challenges will result in tomorrow’s leading industries,” its website says. And it makes cents — err, sense.

You can start with just $50 and invest in portfolios committed to clean water, zero waste, renewable energy or disease eradication, to name a few.

The portfolios aren’t just clouded with these do-good names. Interested investors can tap into each to learn more about the portfolio’s trends, performance and companies.

Swell doesn’t have any trading fees, price tiers or expense ratios. It does charge a 0.75% annual fee — that’s about the cost of one coffee ($3.75) per year if you invest $500.

Really, impact investing is a solid way to help tackle the world’s biggest challenges — while you face perhaps your biggest challenge: saving for retirement.

Get started with Swell by signing up with your email address here.

Disclosure: We have a financial relationship with Swell Investing LLC and will be compensated if consumers apply for an account and/or fund an account with Swell through links in our content. However, the analysis and opinions expressed here are our own.

9. Get Paid to Participate in Clinical Trials

Some people make thousands of dollars each year getting tested for allergies or trying out new vaccines. They often do this kind of “work” as a side gig on weekends or around their work schedules — and it doesn’t require any special skills or education.

They’re taking part in clinical and research trials of new drugs, devices or medical interventions. In return, they get compensated with a good deal of cash.

To do this, you should be between 18 and 60 years old with no history of major diseases or medication issues. Even if you don’t have the particular disease or condition that the trial is analyzing — from acne to high cholesterol to cancer — you could still qualify for the study as a control (healthy) subject.

Payouts vary depending on the duration and invasiveness of the procedures — the “ouch factor” plays a big part in your earnings.

Most trials are divided into Phase I, II or III studies. Phase I studies assess the safety of a treatment, while Phase II and III studies investigate the efficacy of a treatment. Because most drugs in Phase I trials haven’t been tested on humans yet, be sure to only sign up for Phase II and III trials if you’re concerned about suffering any adverse effects.

Here’s our complete guide.

Here’s where to find opportunities:

CISCRP.org, the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation

ClinicalTrials.gov, a site run by the National Institutes of Health

PhRMA.org, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America

Local universities, hospitals and medical schools

10. Post Videos on YouTube

Do you have a video camera or a smartphone? Great — you have everything necessary to start making money on YouTube.

Make a video, load it up, click a couple of buttons to monetize it, and start telling all your Facebook friends about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. You might not make millions, but perhaps you’ll develop a nice stream of extra income.

Years ago, writer Steve Gillman and his wife created a 10-episode show on ultralight backpacking, starring Steve. They already owned a camera, so it cost them nothing. The videos never went viral, but they’ve slowly and steadily generated more than $1,000 of income over the years.

It costs nothing to open a YouTube account and upload your videos. To make money from them, just join the YouTube Partner Program and set up Google AdSense. It automatically adds advertisements to your videos, and you earn money every time someone clicks on or, in some cases, even just sees the ad.

Take a look at Google’s video monetization criteria for an idea of what kinds of videos qualify. Generally, they have to be family-friendly and your own content.

As for your topics, go with something based on your hobby or passion.

How much money you make depends on whether you know (or learn) how to market your videos, what topics you cover and, to be honest, whether you get lucky and have a video go viral. To make big profits, you’ll need heavy traffic.

11. Sell Your Plasma

Have you ever considered selling your body? Not like that.

You can make money selling your plasma. It’s a way to get paid, and it also helps others in need.

The process takes about two hours and, yes, it involves a needle, but the process is simple. You’re free to read or watch TV while a machine draws your blood and separates the plasma.

Interested? Search “plasma center + [your city]” for options, and ask your friends for referrals — many centers offer referral sign-up bonuses.

To qualify, you should:

Be at least 18.

Weigh at least 110 pounds.

Be in general good health.

How much can you make? It’s common for plasma donation centers to pay between $20 and $30 per visit, up to twice a week.

12. Sell Handmade Jewelry or Craft Goods Online — the Smart Way

Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings — jewelry designers make all kinds of amazing products. Whether you work with metal, felt, old Scrabble tiles, origami cranes or even deer antlers, you’ll likely find a market for your work.

How much can you make? It depends on what and where you sell. For example, if you list your items online through a marketplace like Etsy, you’ll face some fees, including a 5% transaction charge. However, Etsy also sees millions and millions of shoppers, so it could be worth the exposure.

Whatever you do, just remember not to price your pieces too low. Cover the costs of materials, time, shipping, listing fees and other expenses.

You can sell all kinds of other crafts, too — but you have to be strategic about it.

When Lena Gosik-Wolfe started her first craft business selling custom 3D-printed cookie cutters, she noticed some sellers had difficulties growing their businesses. So she started a second business aimed at helping crafters thrive at selling products online. Here are some of her tips:

Know your target audience. Figure out what type of person will be interested in buying your products.

Build your brand. Having an Etsy page that has a unique look, complete with an original company logo and cover image, colors and design makes all the difference.

Photos and product descriptions matter. Clear, brightly lit images highlighting the details of the items make a huge difference to the customer.

13. Write an Ebook

If you’re a subject-matter expert or have an intriguing life experience, you could write a book. But there’s no need to send it off to all the major publishing houses in New York City.

You can self-publish ebooks through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Once again, we turn to writer Steve Gillman, The Penny Hoarder’s man-of-a-thousand jobs, who wrote a book in a week. Note: Ebooks don’t have be hundreds of pages long. Gillman found many books as short as 6,000 words.

After publishing on Amazon, he started making $350 a month. The best part? He continued to make money, even months and years later.

How much you make hinges on a number of variables, including how much you list your book for and how many copies sell. For reference, Amazon pays writers up to 70% royalties on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The 13 Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019 published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/