#nobody should ever have to be in a vehicle with dennis

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

More Like Cost-No!

Crackcember: Day 4

Epic driving times with the boys because they simply would not shut up this chapter!

Content warnings: light head injury, reckless driving and crash mention, pet whump mention/implication (just used as a joke though)

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Previous

Hilbert’s ankles banged against a couple of stairs as they stepped up to the front of the RV, settling into the passenger seat with one final shove. 

Dennis fastened his own seatbelt and didn’t bother to help Hilbert. He focused instead on slipping the key into the ignition, finally starting the vehicle on the third twist, and pulling out of the driveway. 

“Dennis, I don’t have my seatbelt yet, hold on-!” Hilbert protested and Dennis stepped on the gas, sending them flying down the street. 

“We’re wasting daylight! No sense in waiting,” he shrugged, skidding around a left turn and flinging Hilbert into the door. 

“Yes, but the speed limit sign says twenty-five miles per hour,” he grumbled, sitting back up with a wince, “and you’re- you’re going-” he cut himself off, jaw going slack. “Where the hell is your speedometer?!”

“What’s that?” Dennis asked innocently, throwing them into another too-tight left turn. The thunk of Hilbert’s head against the window and subsequent groan of pain was incredibly satisfying. 

“You- agh!- you can’t seriously tell me you don’t know what that is.”

“I can tell you anything I like.”

“I don’t have to believe it,” Hilbert grumbled, eyes scanning back over the dashboard.

“I could always make you if you’re gonna be like that,” Dennis rolled his eyes.

“You literally can’t! I- there’s duct tape on the dash. You actually covered the speedometer with duct tape. What is it with you and duct tape?!”

“Handy dandy tool, solves all your problems!” The madman embodied an infomercial, rosy cheeked smile and all.

“Knowing how fast you’re driving is not a fucking problem!”

“Excuse you, taking your eyes off the road is a major health risk. Distractions cause accidents, and that pointer going up and down definitely qualifies as such, so I solved the problem! Didn’t you pay any attention in Driver’s Ed?”

“You’re the one who should be answering that question,” Hilbert scoffed, sinking back into his seat. Dennis obviously wasn’t in the mood to give a reasonable answer anyway, so he switched topics. “Where are we going anyway?” 

“Shopping, obviously. Food, drink, entertainment… we’ve gotta stock up for our big trip!”

“And… after that?” He reminded himself he’d be out of there long before that would even matter, but his curiosity was too strong to resist asking anyway.

“Wherever the road takes us,” Dennis answered simply, making one final abrupt left turn up a steep incline into a shopping center. He whirled into a parking spot and slammed on the brakes. The sudden stop nearly sent Hilbert headfirst through the windshield, but his whiteknuckled grip on the seat saved him.

Dizzily, he glanced at all their surroundings and realized he’d been here many times before. It was quite the odd choice for a food shopping trip though, considering the only thing that could be considered a grocery store was… completely out of the question. 

“Uhh, Dennis, where are we even going?” “I told you. Wherever the wind-”

“No, dipshit, here. Where are we gonna pick up those snacks you promised? Are you planning on grabbing something tasty from Petco?”

“Suddenly got a hankering for some kibble, Hilbert?” Dennis burst into laughter, “Or, ooh, you got a collar in mind? If that’s where you wanna take this I’m all for experimentation!”

“No,” Hilbert felt faint at the mere suggestion.

“That’s what I thought. Nah, we’re going to the superior -co store.”

“...Taco bell?”

“Costco!!” Dennis threw his hands in the air, and Hilbert flinched just hearing the name. He felt his breathing pick up and his hands start to tremble.

“You can’t- you can’t be serious,” he stammered, wide eyes looking for any sign that his captor was lying, playing this as a joke before they drove somewhere else.

“Oh come on, you can’t seriously tell me you’ve got something against Costco. Everybody loves Costco,” Dennis insisted.

“I- sure, but I don’t even have a Costco membership! I won’t be able to get in there!” Dennis wordlessly flashed his own membership card. “Okay, well, I’m… I just can’t go,” Hilbert sighed, curling in on himself.

“Awful try. Let’s get you out of there now.” Dennis flicked out a pocket knife and sawed through the duct tape around his ankles. He ripped it off, muffling the resulting shout with a quick hand over Hilbert’s mouth, then trailed the knife up his leg, careful not to nick the bare skin, and started on the tape around his wrists. 

“What if I try to run away, huh?” Hilbert blurted out. “You won’t be able to stop me in a public store like that. So- so you shouldn’t take me in. Just leave me out here. Then I won’t- I can’t ruin your shopping experience.”

“Mmh, you seem awful desperate to avoid this. Surely you wouldn’t happen to be a member of some other bulk store…?” 

Hilbert couldn’t cover his guilty reaction quickly enough. The moment he saw Dennis’s face light up, he knew he’d lost the battle.

“Fine. I’m... a Sam’s Club member.” He cringed, waiting for the reaction. The grating laughter wasn’t a surprise, but it still hurt.

“Pfff, that’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet! Your name isn’t even Sam!”

“That has literally no bearing on this. I am a loyal member of a store I trust so I-”

“Shut it with that hogwash. We’re going to have a lovely time shopping at Costco,” Dennis smiled, leaning over the seat and pressing his knife against Hilbert’s neck in an obvious threat, “and you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Next

[letterboxd]

Demented Suburbia.

Greener Grass writer-director-stars Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe share their favorite films while pontificating on extreme politeness, John Waters and The Swimmer.

New indie comedy Greener Grass is not the Netflix marijuana documentary Grass is Greener, but you could be forgiven for making that mistake after the directors of the former gave out free marijuana at a recent outdoor screening, according to their friend Jim Cummings (who makes a cameo in the film, and lurks on Letterboxd).

It’s been a case of watch-and-learn for other up-and-coming filmmakers, as Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe have stormed the 2019 festival scene with their utterly weird and wonderfully bonkers debut feature. Nobody is doing red carpet lewks like them, nobody else is handing out free weed (that we know of), and nobody else has made a film quite like theirs. Attracting comparisons to the films of David Lynch, Anna Biller and Tim Burton, but utterly at home in its own creepily perfect world, Greener Grass is the WTF-is-up-with-white-people film America deserves right now.

And it’s the culmination of years of creative growth for DeBoer and Luebbe, friends and Upright Citizens Brigade veterans, whose suburban moms Jill and Lisa first appeared in the Paul Briganti-directed short of the same name (for which they won the 2016 SXSW Special Jury Award for Recognition for Writing). DeBoer and Luebbe stepped into the directing chairs for The Arrival, another short exploring demented suburbia, while developing Greener Grass for television.

When a series failed to eventuate, they spun Jill and Lisa’s world into the feature film, landing on the unforgettable location of Peachtree City, Alabama, a real town built for the golf-cart lifestyle. Greener Grass hit the spot for many Letterboxd members at its Sundance premiere: “Just what I needed after seeing so many dark films!” was Alicia Malone’s reaction. “Unlike anything I've ever seen but … tackles ideas I have never been more familiar with,” wrote Karsten.

The story kicks off when Lisa compliments Jill on her newest baby and Jill, following suburban rules of politeness, hands the baby over to Lisa to raise. This is far from the strangest thing that will happen to a child in Greener Grass.

We needed to know where this wild duo get their filmmaking inspiration from. When we spoke with DeBoer and Luebbe they were in “high heaven”, having just held the LA premiere of Greener Grass.

Lisa, Dennis, their son Bob, their adopted daughter Madison (now Paige), and their newborn soccer ball, in a family portrait from ‘Greener Grass’.

What were some of the real-life ‘greener grass’ moments that inspired your film? Dawn Luebbe: There’s one story which Jocelyn tells about her aunt who was at a dinner party one night. She was in the kitchen talking to the host and complimented them on her apron—“that’s a cute apron!”—and the host took it off and said it “you must have it, take my apron.” At once she was like, “oh no, I just like it, I don’t need it,” and the host insisted and wouldn’t drop it. So that night Jocelyn’s aunt left with that apron. Of course, that’s just a very small example of politeness taken to the extreme. We took that general vibe and added to it and really blew it out.

Jocelyn DeBoer: I feel like we experience this at restaurants too. Dawn and I are from the Midwest, so we have a problem where no-one ever really wants to eat the last bite of something that’s shared. I do remember one experience where I was on a double-date with some acquaintances I didn’t know so well and we were eating sushi. Someone had those crispy rice things that have some spicy tuna on top and when the waiter brought it out, one of them fell to the floor. Our friend just picked it up and said “10 second rule!”. The waiter felt bad and offered to bring new ones and we were saying, “Yes, get the new sushi. Don’t eat that one off the floor!” But the person didn’t want to make the waiter feel bad and ate it right in front of them. I thought, ‘this is a Greener Grass moment for sure!’.

You’ve said elsewhere that you tried to avoid referencing other films in the development of yours, but can you tell us some films that you love, that peddle in the same story area of ‘demented suburbia’? JD: We always admit that we were watching Twin Peaks together at the time we were making our short, so there’s no denying that David Lynch is an inspiration to us. Mulholland Drive, of course. Blue Velvet, too. The two of us just love John Waters, he rocks.

DL: We love how John Waters satirizes suburbia but he also clearly has such love and adoration for it too. It’s our dream to strike the same balance.

JD: Yeah, we’re laughing with the people we grew up with, not just at them.

DL: I would say also Edward Scissorhands was another movie that was a point of reference in terms of the bright pastel color-block world, with this element of darkness filtering in.

JD: We love satires like Brazil, the visual comedy especially. We both loved that surreal world. Luis Buñuel, of course, with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, has the sketch-like aspects in a narrative film we wanted to do. We could just go on!

Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer) and Marriott (Janicza Bravoin) in a scene from ‘Greener Grass’.

Greener Grass technically has a lot in common with great horror films—one of our members, Sara, writes: “This reminded me so much of Halloween with the use of voyeurism and the John Carpenter-esque score… Suburban moms are ten times scarier than Michael Myers”. So since it’s Hallowe’en, tell us your favorite, go-to horror films. JD: I don’t know if this counts as a Hallowe’en movie but I love Rosemary’s Baby. That and The Shining come to mind first.

DL: Those two very much for me too. You know, I have to admit that maybe until about five years ago, I thought I was not a fan of horror. I feel a little not in the best position to speak to that. I tried very much to cram in what I can and then I discovered I actually love horror movies.

JD: The funny thing is that no-one loves true crime more than Dawn!

DL: Yes, true crime is my greatest passion.

Which film turned you onto horror, Dawn? DL: I actually think it was Rosemary’s Baby. I saw that and thought ‘this is very scary and I love it’. This is more recent, but Get Out, too. I found the marriage of comedy and horror to just be incredible and the visuals in that movie, to have such a sense of cinematic comedy-horror, just blew my mind.

You gave some of the best lines to the child actors in Greener Grass. What was your approach to working with them to capture the absurd spirit of the film? DL: That’s so nice! We absolutely love Julian Hilliard, who plays Julian, and Asher Miles Fallica, who plays Bob. From the second we saw their audition tape, they so got the tone, the characters, and they just jumped off the screen for us. They’re so mature in a way. They understood the comedy and the tone in a way we did not anticipate.

JD: They took their roles so seriously. One story we love about Julian is how he had to fall in the pool and we shot that very early on. We told him we want him to fall just like a plank and we’re showing him YouTube videos of planking so he was practising it in the hotel pool. We went on the day to shoot that scene, and the take that’s in the movie is our first and only take. He just nailed it perfectly. A couple weeks later, we went to shoot the first scene of the movie, which is when he falls in the soccer field. We go to shoot it and Julian starts to fall in a hard plank, just like he did in the pool but on the grass. We were like, “wait, no no no, you don’t have to fall like that!” and he just looked at us and went, “but that’s how Julian falls!”

What streaming platform is Kids with Knives on? Seriously: we’re fans of films that build a complete world within, including the fake shows and commercials you see playing on television sets. Can you tell us some inside stories of developing those? JD: Those were so much fun for us to work on.

DL: These kids were just so incredibly enthusiastic and Jocelyn had them circle round and asked them what kind of gymnastics can you do, let’s see what you got. And then one after the other they were doing the splits, back-handstands… We thought, ‘this is great—Gymnastics and Knives!’ We should have been filming that.

We’ve really enjoyed showing your trailer to people for that ‘what-the-fuck’ reaction. What’s a bizarre film that you love to recommend to people? (We asked this same question to Daniel Scheinert who directed Swiss Army Man and The Death of Dick Long and he said Greener Grass.) JD: Wait, are you kidding?! That’s so nice, oh my gosh! The first film that came to mind is Dogtooth. I’m always curious to talk to people about that one. Dawn, what about The Swimmer? Have you seen The Swimmer? You have to. It’s the Burt Lancaster vehicle.

DL: It’s about a man who crosses his county by swimming across every swimming pool. I’ll just say: what you think the movie is in the beginning turns out to be very different to what the movie is. The protagonist changes quite a bit.

JD: One of the coolest things about how we’re travelling the world promoting Greener Grass is how we get to talk to people afterwards and they go, “Oh the movie reminds me of this, it reminds me of that.” It was the director of Fantastic Fest who told us we have to watch The Swimmer. We watched it on the plane and there is a scene where a man is kind of obsessed with the filtration system in his pool. Everyone is talking about how great their pools are the whole movie, so yes, this is like our movie, thank you.

DL: There’s also a passionate monologue about a hot-dog wagon that’s the best thing that ever happened in cinema.

JD: It’s fantastic!

What are your go-to comfort movies? How many times do you think you’ve seen them? DL: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory I’ve probably seen 500 times.

JD: I really love Dumb & Dumber. I’m also a big comfort watcher of the Sex and the City TV show but I don’t recommend the movies!

What’s a film you wish you had made? JD: I want to say Roma, but that movie couldn’t be more different from Greener Grass. I loved it.

DL: For me, I’ll say Waiting for Guffman. It has such a special place in my heart. I just remember when I was probably fifteen or sixteen seeing that movie in Nebraska and laughing so hard my stomach hurt and thinking, ‘wow, movies can be like this?’

What’s a beloved movie you couldn’t get into? JD: Now I just feel bad talking about other films in a bad way. I’m really glad this film exists—but personally I had trouble getting into the Wonder Woman movie. I think there’s a lot of cool things about it. Maybe I’m just over superhero movies.

Dennis and Jill share an extra-marital kiss in ‘Greener Grass’.

You told a journalist at Sundance that you “did have one storyline that you pulled late in the game in fear that it might be taking something too far. We still fight about that decision and Dawn is wrong”. Are you prepared to tell us that twist now?! JD: I don’t know why I said that because we just set ourselves up to be asked that all the time. We are not going to tell you what it is, but we can tell you one storyline that Dawn and I actually loved that we ended up cutting before going into production. In a previous draft of ours, Buck, Kim Ann’s husband, who she divorces and he starts to become a cowboy, shows up at a kid’s birthday party with a new girlfriend and all the women are gossiping about, “Oh no, did you hear Buck has a new girlfriend, her name is Pamela,” and, well, she’s just hair. It turns out when we meet Pamela, she is just a very large, floating blowout. At this time Buck was also trying to sell a jet-ski because Pamela can’t do wind. It was a favorite bit of ours.

We did a few script readings with our comedy writer friends and paid attention to what people laughed at and what people talked about afterwards. No-one ever mentioned Pamela. They didn’t say she was confusing, they didn’t say they liked her nor that they didn’t like her. And we were, like, for just a character who’s all hair to not be spoken about at all, it’s not a good sign and we should lose her. Since then, we had people who read those scripts and [said]: “Why is Pamela not in the movie?!” and we’re now “Well, damn. We don’t know!”

DL: Maybe we’ll make a movie about Pamela one day.

You were working with such a great cast of improvisers. How did you strike a balance between what you had on the page, and what they could bring on set; in what ways did they surprise and delight you? Not only your actors, but for the artists on set such as your costume and production designers. DL: We were just so blessed to work with these incredible improvisers; Mary Holland (Kim Ann), D’Arcy Carden (the school-teacher, Miss Human), Neil Casey (Lisa’s husband, Dennis) and Beck Bennett (Jill’s husband, Nick). It was such a gift. I would say the movie is probably 95% scripted, so it was pretty close to the script. There were a number of improv moments in the final cut that we absolutely loved. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Kim Ann is sitting on her porch and Jill arrives and hands her a taco dip and Kim Ann asks “is it seven layers?” and Jill admits it’s only five and Kim Ann says “put it on the floor!” That line is totally improv’d by Mary in the moment. She’s just a dream.

JD: It’s true, our designers added so many things. It was something that we talked about from the very beginning, that we want there to be comedy in every frame of the movie. We love having Easter eggs. We found one after the SXSW screening. Dennis tells a joke at the soccer field and everyone laughs way too hard and he fancies himself a comedian. In the scene in Lisa’s living room when the kids are watching Kids with Knives and Dennis is sleeping, we found that the production designer Leigh Poindexter added a VHS tape that’s sitting on the coffee table that’s just labeled ‘Comedy’, as if Dennis has been studying comedy for his joke, which we thought was so funny.

Our costume designer Lauren Oppelt added so many little touches, but one we really loved: Nick is always wearing our family’s color, pink, and a very gender-normative blue. After Nick and Jill get divorced, he shows up in all beige to go get more pool water, but for the little logo on his polo Lauren embroidered a sad face. It was so funny. We loved that touch.

Finally, a question we’ve been asking filmmakers all year: which film made you want to become filmmakers? JD: It’s so, so long ago but I think for me it was Memento. I saw that when it first came out in the theater, with my Dad. I was just a child then but it blew my mind.

DL: Welcome to the Dollhouse. That was the first true dark comedy I saw where I was deeply disturbed by how much I was laughing. I want to make something like that too.

Related Letterboxd Lists

Sinister Suburbia: what’s really going on in that neighborhood?

Creepy Teenage Suburbia: “settings not limited to but including: high school hallways, proms, corn fields, religious dictatorships, convenience stores, football pitches, family compounds, back gardens.”

Films Directed by Women: Vanessa’s comprehensive—and growing—list of films directed by women.

‘Greener Grass’ is an IFC Midnight release. The film is out now in selected US cinemas and on streaming platforms. All production stills courtesy IFC Films.

[faunusrights]

‘AFTER THE FALL’ - LIVEREAD III

The more I hear about the latter half of this book, the more depresso espresso I’m drinking. Let’s see how it goes, huh?

(Since there’s more chapters in the latter half than the first half, short chapters will probably get combined together for the sake of. I’m lazy.)

CHAPTERS EIGHT AND NINE

I love that Velvet’s the one who enlisted Weiss and Yang, expecting shit to go sideways. She saw these two gays on main and went ‘they look like they can party’. Was she wrong? No. Did she invite Cinder for the express purpose of drama? Yes. Can you make me stop shipping Sinnamon Bun? Also no.

Okay, this book has read my mine though!!! Ruby pitches a Beacon Battle Club where they play music as they fight, and no word of a fucking lie, that happens in Great Weiss Shark AU! I am not kidding! I had this whole story planned out! This is theft of the HIGHEST order.

“Doilies are absurd and elitist,” Yang said.

This is simultaneously the least Yang-like line and also the most Yang-like line I’ve ever heard. The duality of idiot, I suppose.

I like Fox! I really do, actually! He’s my son now. Although, the bad news is I dunno if I can replicate him in The Frapp Logs, so he’ll just have to keep dragging Coco to the ends of the earth. Same thing, right? R-right?

“Leaders can’t be the comic relief.” Fox raised his eyebrows. “Jaune.”

Is this the second time Jaune’s been dragged? I’m living for it. Also, sleepy Blake! And CFVY knowing she’s (they’re) a Faunus! And the second book behind a book! I love you, Blake.

Velvet correcting Yatsu’s ‘catnap’ joke! I wrote a ficlet about this exact thing once, so I TOLD you my Velvet’s NEARLY CANON. SHE JUST NEEDS TO EAT MORE PROTEIN IS ALL.

Onto chapter nine. God, these chapters get thinner by the second, huh?

BACK TO THE DESERT WE GO, and there’s... fog? Which is now gone! Wow! Is this a plot device? Foreshadowing? I sure hope so, because why on earth it would warrant a mention we’re just not too sure!

A sandstorm is incoming and hidden tracks are gonna get blasted away. I’m trying to figure out if this is all pathetic fallacy or if I’m reading too much into handy-dandy plot devices. Why not both?

Heart-to-heart with Coco and Yatsu... and we’re back to Yatsu giving Velvet all the hugs. Now that I’m sensing the Velv/Yats vibes, I’m extra suspicious. You stop that. Let Velvet have a fashionable GF at least if you won’t let her kiss Weiss!!!

‘[...] even the women were down to halter tops. Focus, Coco, she thought.’

Ah, lesbian as always. I’m soothed. Carmine enters the tent and Coco gets even gayer. I’m very soothed.

‘What was Jaune doing after losing a member of his team, a friend... someone he clearly cared about.’

I don’t care about what Jaune feels. Why the heck would Coco even care? There’s literally so many more people that impacts than just Jaune, lawd.

CHAPTER TEN AND ELEVEN

Back to Fox, who is honestly the shining star of this book by now. I love you, my blind and sassy son.

I love Ada and the battle mechanic she has! I’m really enjoying how Fox interacts with the world around him and using his Scroll and AI as an accessibility device. It’s neat! I didn’t expect them to go as ham on him as they did, but they did.

“Update,” Ada said. “Weapon has projectile capabilities.” “You mean it’s also a gun.”

Obligatory gun meme.

Combat stuff happens, Fox wins a fight against a confused Edward, and it turns out Gus is the one summoning Grimm and Fox just got jumped, so we slide into another flashback for chapter eleven. Lemme tell ya, this book ain’t afraid of moving fast.

“I guess you slightly oversold your ability to track the survivors,” Coco said.

Again, this is one of those lines that reads as very... callous? Kinda mean? I’ve always had Coco in my head as someone who very broadly puts her team (and their feelings) first, even if it’s rough, so lines like this make me go 🤔

Velvet falls, Yatsu panics, Coco gets up in everyone’s grill. There’s a lot to this dynamic I am not enjoying right now, and even then this seems inconsistent with the CFVY we’ve seen in the book itself. I know the author’s trying to communicate that Coco is tired and frustrated, that I get, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t how... it would really happen given her character? I dunno. ‘S weird.

Was that a fat joke I spotted there? From Coco? I need a nap. Also COCO LET VELVET DO THINGS JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!!!!!!!!!!

Coco has claustrophobia! I wrote her as having agoraphobia, so this is a hilarious turn of events. Also Coco has two brothers, not one: Mate and Toma.

Coco is fighting Grimm in a cave with CFVY, but still finds time to criticise Velvet in combat. Hey, maybe if you let her do things, she’d prove you wrong, dingus. And then she does! See!

Aaaaaaaand the six survivors are all dead. This was a pretty traumatic event, all told, which makes it weird that they look... less affected in the show? Still, this chapter was VERY weird for the characterisations because Coco seems especially inconsistent, alas. Anyway, onto:

CHAPTERS TWELVE AND THIRTEEN

The sandstorm is approaching and catching the wagons, which I have just realised are actually vehicles that use fuel. Mostly because that’s the First I Heard Of It.

‘Velvet noticed a pistol tucked in the back before she closed the door.’

Hi, can Chekhov please pick up his gun from aisle twelve? Thanks.

GIANT SAND TURTLE. AVATAR AANG C’MERE Y’ALL GOTTA LEARN HOW TO DEFEAT THE FIRELORD.

“You said it’s big enough to ride on?” Velvet asked.

Maybe this is why Coco dismisses Velvet so often. She only pitches the craziest ideas, which is why I love her. That said, Coco finally lets Velvet do something! It’s a miracle of man! Climb that turtle, bihh!

Yatsu calls Velvet V. I’m so used to Velv that V sounds entirely too cool for this idiot.

Everyone’s pissed again, but-- IS THAT THE SAND WORM THING FROM ARRAKIS?! What A Tweest!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nobody coulda seen THAT coming!!!!!

So let’s go to chapter thirteen, where Fox has had the shit beaten out of him behind a Denny’s. Sound about right.

So what’s-his-name-- Bertilak, whomst from now on shall be called Bert because what sorta water tribe name even is that (wow the ATLA references are on fire today). Anyway, Bert is being paid by someone else to deliver people with Stronk Semblances like summoning Grimm! Gee I Wonder Who That Might Be (I don’t actually know but I’m honestly not going to be surprised either way).

“Yeah, [Bert]’s a real bastard.” “Even I can see that,” Fox sent.

I love it. Fox really has been the highlight of this book for me.

Fox is on the ground and the referee is counting him to ten, so it’s mid-chapter-flashback time! We learn how Fox’s parents died (sinkhole) and how that became his motivation for... going to Beacon? Okay, tenuous link at best, but I’m going with it.

Carmine is full of trouble and Fox is determined to take Bert with ‘em. Let him DIE.

I’m gonna keep going since we’re not four chapters from the end, so:

CHAPTERS FOURTEEN AND FIFTEEN

Flashback time! Again! Only it’s CFVY’s POV of their return to Beacon. I wouldn’t mind this if like. We hadn’t already seen this from RWBY’s perspective in the show? People know this from my tastes in fanfic, but I’m not a huge fan of retellings of canon events, it’s soooooo boooooring. So I’m just gonna grind through this asap.

(I do like that RWBY and CFVY have all these parallels being called to. As they should.)

Okay we’re past the recap and OH LAWD I HEARD OF THIS BIT. Goodwitch is here (I love u Glynda no matter what) but yeah, I’ve heard this part is Big Oof so uh, let’s see this happen go down. Velvet is being requested to see Ozpin so /buckles down.

Velvet’s being questioned alone for the Whole Thing, and team CFVY have burst into the office demanding to know why, and Velvet’s a crying wreck! I’m still very >:I for everyone being overprotective of Velvet, c’mon, but also: Oz, can you please have tact? Just once in your life? Tact? Do you has it?

Anyway, CFVY have reconciled and we turn to chapter fifteen, in which: Yatsu.

Carmine has Gus, everyone’s on the Turtmobile, and shit’s hitting the fan. Yatsu’s going after Gus and Carmine alone, and I’m still waiting on Chekov’s Gun to Chekov its way right into someone’s butt. Unless it’s Chekov’s Red Herring.

Here comes a fight scene! I never have much to say during fight scenes, so, uh, yeah. There’s some real last-minute exposition in places, though, where it really shouldn’t be.

Eey, Carmine is telekinetic! Very powerful and also OP, gotta nerf that shit right down, Edward.

Yatsu’s very nearly defeated, Bert is back, baby, and shit’s getting real. Time for chaaaaaaaaaper sixteeeeeeeeeen.

CHAPTERS SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN

Today’s livereading soundtrack is Simple Things by Zero 7. The whole album, I mean. This is a fun little fact to make sure you’re still awake and aware, ‘cause I sure ain’t!

Roy Stallion of BRNZ is presumed dead, along with the whole team, so big RIP to May, who was cute and deserved better. Swear to God if ABRN are dead too I will kill a man. Two men, to be specific.

Velvet admits she never wanted to come to Vacuo, Coco promises they’ll return to reclaim Beacon in future. This reads like a protagonist’s last speech on hope and strength in friendship... and it should, as Coco gets swallowed by a worm! Straight up just down the hatch! This should be a tragic beat, but this is honestly so funny. Coco, pick better ways to die.

Anyway, we’re onto chapter seventeen. I was very kindly given this message:

And I-- OH HELL YES! HELL YES IT’S A SCHOOL DAY TIMETABLE!!!!!!!!!! THE LORE! THE CLASSES! THE NAMES! THE FACTS! THIS IS THE BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE BOOK SO FAR WHICH REALLY GOES TO SHOW I HAVE NO HOBBIES!

Is this a... flashback? Flash... forward? I’m not sure, actually. Either way, CFVY are in Beacon clearing the place of Grimm. Actually, this must be a flashback to before they went to Vacuo, I suppose, which would make sense to follow Velvet’s little admittance last chapter before Coco got swallowed like a paracetamol tablet.

Velvet waited for someone to ask her what she thought, what she wanted, by no one did.

Now I’m SAD why won’t people be NICE to VELVET just ONCE!!! God, this book really just gives her the short end of the stick every time.

Off go CFVY to Vacuo. Bye.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN AND EPILOGUE

Heremst we go.

Coco’s alive! I mean, no surprise. And full of the Joques as ever:

Coco figured sacrificing your life for a teammate was one way to be remembered as a good leader, but maybe that was just cheating.

RIP Coco and her claustrophobia! Hey, now that was good foreshadowing! That gets a whole Murphy Cookie of Approval. 🍪

Coco loses her Scroll and her hat, but Velvet swoops in to save the day! Meanwhile, Bert has been convinced that Carmine double-crossed him, so they’re battling it out! Basically, Gus cast frenzy. Finally, it works in everyone’s favour.

“I can’t believe I thought you were cute,” Coco spat.

Some lines in this book haven’t been very good. This one, on the other hand, very much is.

So Carmine goes underground and starts creating sinkholes everywhere like a weird desert gremlin, and Edward manages to block her Semblance and like. Carmine flat-out nearly suffocates herself to death. Another death I would have found both gruesome and hilarious for its irony. But Velvet uses Flynt’s trumpet to quite literally doot the sand away, and-- I’m so sorry, this line has me literally laughing to myself. She fuckin’-- doots the sand. Oh my god.

Anyway they win, catch up with Slate and the Nomad Fam, and meet team SSSN! The boys are back in town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Things are looking good.

Epilogue time. I’m still laughing about the sand-dooting.

So, we don’t know who paid Bert and Carmine, I guess? I do believe there’s maybe a sequel or something in the works, apparently, so maybe this is part of an overarching plot type thingie. Still.

Ah, yep, Coco confirms that they’re not through with this line of investigation yet, But, Velvet wraps it up with a heart-felt, if not a little bit cheesy, segment about home being wherever CFVY is, and so the book comes to a close.

WRAP-UP

So, I’m definitely gonna have a second read-through of this without having to constantly stop and do a liveblog, but the book was... okay, I guess? I feel like this plotline wasn’t the greatest one for CFVY, and that the author doesn’t have a crazy good handle on the characters -- he’s likely more suited to original content, which is valid. It’s a good romp and we do get new lore, but as expected, I feel like CFVY would be best used in the show that conceived them in the first place. A book is nice, but I’d love to see their return in RWBY itself, especially since this book wasn’t really... long enough, I don’t think? Seriously, y’all’ve met me. I do write hundreds of thousands of words in this world and I still haven’t written everything I wanna yet! I’d also like to see more Velvet as seen in RWBY Chibi, in which was she Cool and Good, and maybe less Yatsu alongside her directly. But! It’s a book! It’s decent! It’s CFVY! For most people, it’s Good Enough. And they’re valid too.

[sportsgeekonomics]

BEWARE THE NCAA OKEY-DOKE on NIL!

I read this article last week  by Dennis Dodd (https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/mark-emmert-open-to-student-athletes-earning-money-off-their-likeness-but-fails-to-recognize-the-urgency/)and it reminded me of something everyone should always remember: BEWARE THE NCAA OKEY-DOKE! 

Dodd quoted Mark Emmert as saying:

 "We've talked to the congressman and tried to understand his position," Emmert said in his annual state of the union address at the Final Four. "There is very likely to be in the coming months even more discussion about the whole notion of name, image and likeness [and] how it fits into the current legal framework.

"Similarly, there needs to be a lot of conversation about how, if it was possible, how it would be practical. Is there a way to make that work? Nobody has been able up with a resolution of that yet."

This is one of the oldest NCAA tricks there is, which is to address something on the surface but not really change.  As an example, look at the SAAC, which is a sort of fake union the NCAA set up to fend off past efforts to unionize college athletes.  Or the Student Assistance Fund, which is designed to provide money to really poor athletes so their lack of proper clothing isn’t an embarrassment to the NCAA or a vehicle for people to argue that athletes deserve to earn what they are worth.  In NCAA logic, if you solve the symptom (athletes have no outlet, athletes have no winter coats) you can avoid solving the problem (athletes have no SAY, athletes have no RIGHT to earn their worth so they can afford a coat).  This is just more of the same.

Here you have Emmert saying they are open to allowing NILs but then claiming to not know how to do it.  Since the basic idea behind NIL rights is pretty simple: stop preventing athletes from signing contracts with endorsers, the "no one knows how” misdirection is a tell that they don’t want to actually give athletes their rights, but instead they would like to give them a sop they can claim is close enough.  I would wager a large chunk of change that the NCAA version of NIL rights would be something like this:

If someone wants to commercialize his/her image, they submit a permission request to an NCAA committee or quasi-independent group (perhaps headed by Condi Rice again) which assesses the market rates for a person with a comparable Q score [and most college athletes will have a very low Q score outside of their college town] and then put a cap on the dollar amount that third party can pay that athlete.  And if it so happens the third party has donated money to the athletes’ school, then it will either be forbidden outright or further curtailed.  

It won’t be a market – it will be a Politburo. 

And the thing is, almost surely, for the vast majority of athletes, the business that would want to tap into their (local) star power to sell products would be the sort of business already sponsoring the sports teams at that school.  The Chevy dealer who wants the offensive linemen to come and pose in front of some pickup trucks looking beefy is already “the Official Truck of the Generic State Football Program.”  The local competitor to muscle milk who gives free product to the basketball team is also the company that wants those muscled basketball players to be in local ads, etc.

My caution is that every time you hear “but what’s the plan?” recognize that it an invitation to move away from the elegance and simplicity of a market into something centrally planned, and moreover that impulse is not designed to improve the system, but rather intentionally to harm it, to delay it, or perhaps even to eradicate it entirely. 

If I can make another prediction, I would wager you will eventually hear an NCAA person say “we want to make sure these are not FAKE NIL payments.”  And if you ask what fake means, they are not worried the business will offer $100 but then not pay, but rather they are worried the business will offer $1,000 when in the NCAA’s mind, $100 was the right amount.  The NCAA is worried about athletes getting too much, not too little.  Becasue in the bizarro world of the NCAA, getting more than the NCAA thinks you should is evidence of you being exploited.  Really.

Stepping out of bizarro world, can you think of a reason why Americans should be worried if a privately owned business decides, based on its own assessments, that paying a celebrity endorser is worth $x to them?  Or that there sshould ever be government or private trade organization intervention to say "no, no, no – that’s too much money to pay that person.  He/she isn’t worth that much-- you mustn’t exploit them by overpaying them.”

Let’s put it this way, if that IS how we want America to work, Mark Emmert is the first person I want this new system to scrutinize.

What they mean by fake is “we are worried that the NIL payments will function as a bundled payment for NIL and also playing services, since a lot of the sponsorship will come from people whose goal is not just to sell product but also to make their local team better.”

First off, as someone who believes that by and large and with limited exceptions (e.g., human organs), markets are the best means of allocating scarce resources, why should anyone care even if the goal is to make the local team better.   Every local car deal with a connection to a university will want to do that and if Alabama’s boosters care more than Troy’s boosters, then Alabama will have a better team (like that do now) and higher NIL earnings (like they don’t know).  The only difference will be the earnings of the young men and the taxes they pay the State of Alabama and the IRS.  I could on a long jag about how, no this won’t hurt competitive balance by making Alabama better than Troy, but I’ve done that before and you can read it all here: https://deadspin.com/the-competitive-balance-argument-against-paying-athlete-1576638830.

 But as an economist whose very first published paper was on valuing intangible IP (it’s about how to figure out the right real-world price for an imaginary sword in a computer game: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxM4wdtZ5uI-enRJZE5qTjFCVVk/view?usp=sharing ), I can assure you that any purchase/licensing of intangible IP rights like NIL is always a bundled purchase.  To the local car dealer in Tuscaloosa, of course the NIL rights of an offensive lineman are greater if he attends Alabama than if he goes to Troy.  And so if any local booster is seen trying as trying to improve Alabama football via NIL payments, I would argue that that’s just good business.  Is he going to sell more cars when he is sponsoring Alabama football and using a star recruit in his ads if Alabama goes 11-1 or 8-4?  And so any claim that someone on some committee can assess what portion of a free market offer between a willing buyer and a willing seller is “real” vs. “fake” that cannot assess the value of the athletes playing skill as part of “real” is not going to capture the full value.  Especially for athletes, where their skill is so inherently part of their commercial appeal (with a limited number of exceptions for athletes of rare charisma or physical beauty), how could an NCAA committee ever disentangle the complex economics of commercial appeal of a celebrity from the complex economics of the utilitarian value of an athlete to a team.

So (1)  it’s a fool’s errand even for a wise council aimed at the truth.

Amd (2) I doubt the NCAA’s goal is the truth so much as simply to depress payments b/c they fear if their athletes win the right to a market rate for their NIL they might start asking for the rest of their rights too.

And (3), why would we even want to interfere with the world’s best assessor of true market value – a vibrant market with many buyers and many sellers, operating without collusion among either side of the transaction?

If we need a plan to get the NCAA on board, I propose we use the plan that is already in place for figuring out how much of every school’s head coach’s radio gig is a payment for his radio charisma vs. a payment based on his coaching skills.  We should use that exact same plan for the athletes.  After all, we can tap into that same bureaucracy the NCAA uses to assess market offers for coaches and to separate out the real from the fake payments.

What’s that?  There is no plan to do that, we just let schools and radio shows and coaches negotiate in a marketplace?  Exactly!  And that’s also how much plan we need for the equivalent transactions for athletes.

As some people reading this know, I am part of a group trying to create a professional college basketball league, the HBL  (HBLeague.com).  We have a plan for how our athletes will be allowed to commercialize their NIL, and at core our extremely complex system boils down to: "you own your brand.  Go get an agent and make some money.”

Now it’s a tad more complex if they want to use HBL trademarks in the ad or get a group license with dozens of other players, etc., but even those complexities are easily solved.  For example, the NBA and the NFL and pretty much every professional team sport has sorted all of those rules out and it is a wheel the HBL did not need to reinvent, so we didn’t.  The only reason the NCAA doesn’t feel it can borrow from the existing solutions for how athletes can use their rights to maximize their brand value– and listen carefully – is because the NCAA DOES NOT WANT Athletes to maximize their brand value.  To the NCAA, the problem isn’t that a market WON’T determine the optimal payment level for each athlete, but that it WILL.  And that’s the last thing the NCAA wants because the NCAA is built on the idea that it can abrogate athletes rights for its own convenience and economic gain.

 This is not really about the amount of money, rather it is about economic rights.  If America is fine with a radio show providing “fake” salary to a football coach for doing a weekly radio show, as a way to supplement his income beyond what a state entity like a university can pay, then it should not be good public policy to take that same right away from the starting QB.  The QB is not less of an American than the coach.  And the system that works for the coach will work just as well for the QB.  Or else, as I said above, let’s start with Mark Emmert.  Let’s put the microscope on what the head of a non-profit organization based in Indianapolis should earn if we separate out the fake parts of his pay from the real.  I’d be happy to serve on that particular committee.  Heck, I’d do it for free, for the love of the game.

[asflowersfade]

Ficlet: 5 Times Mac Didn’t Save Himself

A what-if fic. What if Mac didn’t escape Murdoc in 204? 5 possible scenarios.

Warning: these ficlets deal with things like death and dubious consent!

“He means the trail's gone cold,” Cage tells Bozer. “If Mac doesn't save himself, no one will.”

And Jack adds, not entirely convinced, “He'll be alright.”

But Mac doesn’t, save himself, that is. He isn’t alright. And hours turn into days turn into weeks…

I.

On the 28th day following Mac’s kidnapping, Jack discovers a box sitting on his threshold when he comes home. It’s a plain white box with no address on it, no post stamps, anything. It’s just sitting there, on the floor in front of his door. It’s a wonder one of his neighbors didn’t steal it.

Jack knows he should call it in. It might be a bomb, it might be anything. But he’s drained after yet another day spent looking for Mac with no result. Matty’s been making noises about putting the search for him on the back burner; with no new leads, they’re just chasing their tail, and their cases have started piling up. Jack refuses to accept that. He’s going to quit the job before he quits looking for his partner.

And so, in the light of that desolation and exhaustion, frustration and anger, he just crouches down in front of the box and gently lifts the paper lid - and with a quiet gasp of horror, he jerks away, sitting down hard on the dirty floor. His pulse is thundering as he stares down, wide-eyed, at the content of the box.

Because there, inside it, there’s a clear plastic box and inside that... a human heart, perfectly preserved.

Breathing harshly and full of dread, Jack reaches out with a trembling hand to pick up the square piece of white paper stuck to the top of the plastic box. It’s a quality paper, thick and cottony to the touch, and on it…

He never stopped believing you would come for him. How does it feel to break his heart?

The heart is Mac’s. It’s the only piece of him they ever get to bury.

II.

Six weeks after Mac’s kidnapped, Jack receives an irritated phone call from Detective Greer.

“Are you running some op I don’t know about in my backyard? Because I just saw your boy downtown, hanging out with Rattling Annie…”

Turns out that Rattling Annie is homeless, has been ever since anyone can remember, a middle-aged woman nicknamed after the rattling old shopping cart she drags everywhere with her, drawing frowns and disapproving looks because of the ruckus her little vehicle makes.

But not today, Jack notices after he races downtown, to where Greer told him to go. No, Annie’s cart isn’t rattling anymore, the cause of the loud noise fixed with a simple, yet ingenious trick, with a couple of shoestrings and a rusty paper clip and nothing more. Jack would recognize that hack anywhere.

“Please, Miss Annie, please!” Jack pleads with the woman, rushing after her as she tries to escape, shuffling down a litter-strewn alley. “I don’t mean you any harm, I swear. I’m just looking for a friend.” He steps in her way and pulls out a photograph of himself and Mac, snapped by Bozer during Mac’s birthday party last year.

He shows her the picture and Annie throws a quick look at it before ducking her head and hunching her shoulders even more, letting her dirty gray hair cover her face. “Don’t know him. Don’t wanna know him.” She gives her cart a push, bumping into Jack’s shins.

But Jack can’t, he won’t let it go. “Miss Annie, please. He’s…” His throat closes up and he has to swallow hard several times to find his voice again. “His name’s Mac and he’s more than a friend. He’s like a brother to me. I love the kid and I’ve been looking for him for weeks now. Please!”

She pauses, peeking at him through her straggly locks. “If you love him that much, how did you lose him, huh? Huh?” she demands, suspicious.

Jack runs his hand over his face. His shoulders slump and he lets his hand with the photograph drop. “I-we had a fight and I got angry and I left. And while I was gone, while I wasn’t looking, a very bad man broke into his house and took him. He took Mac, Miss Annie.” He looks at her pleadingly.

And there must be something about him, maybe all those pent-up emotions and fears and worries found their way into his face, because her expression softens, just a little, and she reaches out her twisted hand for the photograph. Jack gives it to her.

She studies it contemplatively for a long while, the happiness in their faces, the way Jack’s hugging Mac close with one arm thrown around his shoulders. Then she asks, “What was your name again?”

“Jack, Miss Annie. Jack Dalton.”

There’s a pause, then Annie looks up at him and smiles. “He keeps talking in his sleep, that boy, he keeps saying Jack will come for him…”

And Jack heart jumps.

Annie takes him home. Home being an old, abandoned warehouse, home to many of the homeless people around. They live there in their private little nests, surrounded by all their worldly possession. And in one of these nests, Annie’s, Jack finds him. Mac.

She came across him in the sewers, Annie did. He was filthy and wet and totally out of it, with a bad, bleeding wound on his head. She thought he probably tried climbing out through one of the manholes but a car must’ve clipped him and he fell back down again. Nobody came looking for him, Annie waited with him, so she took him home.

That’s what Annie told him on their way here. That she took Mac in and she watched over him but even when he came to, he didn’t make much sense. He remembered little, his memories were all jumbled up, and his head hurt badly. Annie didn’t know what to do, so she took care of him. Because that’s what they do down here, they take care of each other. And in his moments of clarity, he fixed her cart and One-Eyed Bobby’s cane and Ruby Rue’s doll in return.

“He’s a good boy…” Annie whispers.

“Yeah, he is, Miss Annie,” Jack agrees, all choked up, as he crouches down by the nest of blankets and pushes them aside to reveal…

Mac. Filthy and with a straggly stubble - the kid will never grow a proper beard, Jack knows - thin and pale and with an ugly, barely healed wound, running from his temple into his blood-matted hair above his right ear. He’s curled up on his side, deep asleep, the dark purple smudges below his eyes making him look exhausted.

Blinking hard to push back tears, Jack reaches out with a shaking hand and runs his fingers gently over Mac’s head, stroking his hair. He found him. Jack really found him.

Mac’s eyelashes flutter and he opens his eyes, looking up at Jack - and Jack holds his breath. For a very long time, the kid’s gaze remains unfocused, but then it clears and a slow smile spreads across his face. “Jack,” he croaks out, leaning into his touch. “I knew you would come.”

And this time, Jack can’t fight back his tears. “Always,” he whispers.

III.

They never figure out what happened to him, they never hear of him again.

IV.

They find Mac completely by accident, nine months after he was kidnapped. It’s Riley’s face recognition software that she set up to run 24-7, looking for either Murdoc or Mac, checking every feed on the internet. And it finds Mac walking down the street in Portland, just like that. In Portland!

They fly over there, Jack and Matty - Mac’s her agent and she feels responsible for him - overjoyed yet confused, while Riley tracks Mac to a beautiful residential home, all red brick and thick trees. And when they ring the doorbell, he comes and opens the door with a polite smile and a curious, “Yes?”

The thing is, he doesn’t recognize them. At all.

“My name’s Gus Webber, I’m a high school teacher from Wisconsin,” Mac tells them impatiently for the third time while they sit around the tastefully decorated living room, staring at him in disbelief. “My husband’s name is Dennis. I was hurt in a car accident six months ago and I lost my memory. But I sure as hell know I’m not that-that MacGyver guy you’re talking about!”

They look at each other, and then Matty says carefully, “I’m Matilda Webber.” When Mac’s frown, she nods firmly. “Yes, Webber, the real Webber here. And you’re Angus MacGyver. You’re not a high school teacher and you’re not from Wisconsin. You work for the Phoenix Foundation and you’re from California. You’re a spy and nine months ago, an international assassin whom we only know as Murdoc kidnapped you from your home.”

Something flickers through Mac’s face and his left eye twitches, but then he laughs out loud. “You realize how ridiculous that sounds? Me, a spy? I teach physics! Or, I taught physics before the accident,” he corrects himself. There’s a pause, then he continues, “I was hurt in a car accident six months ago and I lost my memory. Since then, I’ve been staying at home, recovering.”

Jack sits forward and pulls out his cellphone. “No, that’s not true. You are Angus MacGyver and this man kidnapped you!” He shows him the picture of Murdoc on his phone.

Another flicker of something in Mac’s face, another twitch, this time harder. Mac lifts his hand to his forehead for a second. “No, you are wrong. You’re mistaken. That’s a lie. My name’s Gus Webber, I’m a highschool teacher from Wisconsin. My husband’s name is Dennis… That,” he points at Jack’s cell phone, “that’s Dennis. That’s my husband.”

He gets up, his breathing now a little quick, and walks over to the window, to the little table there. He picks up a framed photo from the table and brings it back to show it to them, a little desperately, a little pleadingly now. “See? That’s me, me and my husband.”

They take a look at the picture and they both feel a chill run up their spines. It’s a photograph of Mac and Murdoc, sitting together on a wooden swing in the warm afternoon light. Mac’s relaxed and smiling, leaning back against Murdoc who’s hugging him from behind, holding him tight. It would be a heartwarming picture if not for the predatory look in Murdoc’s eyes that not even his smile can cover up.

“Mac…” Jack says softly, looking up. “Mac, I swear to you, on my father’s grave, that this” --he waves the framed photo-- “is not real. You are Angus MacGyver, a spy, and this guy is a dangerous sociopath who’s been after you for months. He tried to kill you more than once. I don’t know what his game is but, whatever you think you know about your life, it’s a lie.”

Mac’s now standing there, by the couch in front of them, visibly trembling. His face’s pale, almost gray, and he’s shaking his head adamantly. Then his left eye twitches again and he rubs at it hard with the heel of his palm. “No. No, you have it wrong. My name’s Gus Webber, I’m a highschool teacher from Wisconsin. My husband’s name is Dennis. I was hurt in a car accident six months ago and I lost my memory…”

The same words, the same phrase, over and over again. Both Jack and Matty notice, exchanging a look, but Mac doesn’t seem to. Brainwashing at its best.

“I’m sorry but it’s not true, Mac,” Matty says kindly.

Then Mac’s trembling abruptly stops and he stares at them, looking completely lost. “Jack?” he whispers brokenly before his knees give out and he sinks to the floor, unconscious.

“How do we fix him, Matty?” Jack asks softly, his voice desperate, as he stares at Mac, lying in the hospital bed, still unconscious. He has yet to wake up.

She sighs. “I saw his toxicology report. Murdoc pumped him so full of drugs that it’s a wonder he was able to function properly. The doctors hope that once they flush the drugs out of his system, he’ll start to recover. And we have people who specialize in this, in brainwashing. He’s going to get the best help.”

Jack leans against the foot of the bed, gripping the metal frame hard. “But how do you come back from something like that? I went through the house with our techs. It’s not just a front. It’s a real home, with a kitchen and a swing on the back porch…” He pauses. “Bedroom.”

They fall silent for a moment, the implications of that hitting them both hard.

“We got Mac away from him and that’s the most important thing,” Matty says in the end. “We left our people at the house in case Murdoc returns but...” She shakes her head. “I don’t believe he will. We found surveillance system inside and around the house. He must’ve monitored Mac 24-7 whenever he left him alone so he must know by now that we found him…”

A moment later, her suspicion is confirmed. The door opens and a confused looking nurse walks in, carrying a long slim box. “This was left at the nurse’s station for… him.” She points at Mac.

Matty frowns. “I thought we asked you to keep his presence here secret,” she tells her sternly.

The nurse swallows. “We did. This wing has restricted access. I have no idea how anyone could know, how anyone could get in and leave this behind…”

Jack grabs the box out of her hands and opens it while the nurse quickly leaves the room. Inside the box, there’s a single long-stemmed red rose and a beautiful handwritten card, saying, “Get well soon. Love, Dennis.”

With a growl, Jack crumples the card, the box and the rose inside. “I’ll kill him, Matty,” he grits out. “I swear to you, I’ll kill the psycho if it’s the last thing I do.”

And they both look at Mac who’s lying there unconscious, unmoving, unaware.

V.

At 5.37 am, thirty-two days after Mac’s kidnapping, Jack’s cell phone buzzes, waking him up. An incoming message from Bozer.

COME TO MY HOUSE. NOW!!!

Realizing that Bozer knows very well what an upheaval such a message would cause, Jack doesn’t hesitate a second. He throws some clothes on and drives. Still, when he arrives at Mac and Bozer’s house, Matty and Riley are already there.

Barging in, Jack calls out, “Bozer? What’s going on?”

“In Mac’s bedroom!” comes the answer.

Jack follows Bozer’s voice, rushing in - and then he stops short and stares, just like everybody else in the room. Because right there, in the bed, tucked in snuggly, lies Mac. He’s fast asleep and his chest is rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He’s rather pale, his wrists are abraded from restraints and there’re visible needle marks on both of his arms but otherwise, he seems okay.

And on the wall above the bed, there’s a message written in bold red letters: DONE PLAYING FOR NOW.

“Sonuvabitch,” Jack whispers.

[topsolarpanels]

The 76 ers’ mad analytics experimentation was doomed to fail- but at least it was memorable

Basketball had never seen an attempt to build a franchise the route Sam Hinkie wanted to. And with Colangelo and DAntoni now on board, were unlikely to see it again

The Sixers have attained losers out of all of us.

The 1-29 experiment in tanking analytics is being tainted by the introduction of basketball people in Jerry Colangelo and Mike DAntoni. After more than two and a half years of of Sam Hinkie being able to do whatever he wants, dump any asset and draft every damaged 7ft guy the world over, those above Hinkie are now forcing him to be influenced by two guys whose knowledge of statistical analysis probably ends with recognizing also that a three-pointer is worth more than a two-pointer.

In Colangelo and DAntoni, chairman of basketball operations and associate head coach-and-four respectively, the Sixers are wrecking what mad statistician/ GM Hinkie was constructing before we all got to see the final Frankenstatistic product. The Sixers are like a bold avant garde movie that had the studio fell Keanu Reeves and Reese Witherspoon into it halfway through filming. Pulling Hinkies computer plug now is like refusing to allow infinite monkeys to finish writing on their typewriters.

Its dropping the funding on the development of an alternative energy vehicle that was to be fueled entirely on weed smoke.

If those analogies are bad or confounding or tortured, theyre even more fitting for whatever it is that Hinkie was attempting to do with his bad and confounding and tormented Sixers. Unfortunately , now well never know. Because now the Sixers have basketball people with basketball knowledge.

Jeff Skversky (@ JeffSkversky) December 21, 2015

#Sixers chairperson Jerry Colangelo tells #ESPN the #Sixers are absence basketball people& knowledge – that’s why they hired Mike D’Antoni

Yuck. With the input of Colangelo and DAntoni, the Sixers will no doubt become like any other squad, scratching and clawing for semi-relevance and a low playoff seed barring a generational star falling into their laps.

Hinkie promised something different. No squad had ever tanked like Hinkies Sixers. Previous sports tankings were designed to land one special player and then instantly get to work on contending. Hinkies tanking was indefinite, geared to draft no one in particular other than maybe discovering the NBAs first eight-footer and didnt promise arguing any time soon. This is a team that has won one of its last 40 games over two seasons and indicates zero signs of arriving improvement.

Basketball had never seen an attempt to build a franchise this route. And with the Sixers giving up, were unlikely to ever see it again.

Maybe Colangelo, Hinkie, DAntoni and Brett Brown will mesh perfectly and build a balanced squad in Philadelphia that will contend for championships in the near future. But even if that happens, well still be left with the nagging is the issue of what might have been. Awesome or terrible and it was looking more and more like terrible Hinkies ultimate The Process Sixers were going to be memorable.

Weve lost them eternally. We are losers. We are all just Sixers now.

Vine of the week

Alex Kennedy (@ AlexKennedyNBA) December 18, 2015

Kevin Durant x Dr J – Under The Basket Reverse Layup( Vine by @TheCauldron) https :// t.co/ BnTBDgJQy5

In last weeks tight four-point loss at Cleveland, Durant pulled off a pretty spot-on Dr J impression in the first quarter. But its not even Durants best Julius Erving-style reverse layup in his career. Check out this ridiculousness from three seasons ago against the Nuggets TAGEND

When your wingspan is that of an adult condor, the normal binds of sidelines and backboards simply dont apply.

How did LeBron carry the Cavalier this week?

After LeBron sat out back on December 5 in Clevelands loss to the Heat, he has returned to median 27, six and five as Cleveland has won five in a row. Kyrie Irving even owes his first points of the season to LeBron thanks to James passing up a dunk on Sunday to give Irving an easy bucket.

Somewhere someone awful ripped James for over-passing on this play.

Quote of the week

I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game. I think we get a little carried away with ourselves in sports supposing were more important than everything else. Stan Van Gundy

Full disclosure: that hilarious quote is not from this week. Its not even from this year. Van Gundy said it back in 2009 when he was head coach-and-four of the Orlando Magic.( Fun fact: the Magic were then penalty by Scrooge Stern over Van Gundys public objection to working on Christmas. Really .) Van Gundys Pistons arent scheduled to play on Christmas this year, so he can expend the vacation doing whatever it is that people with rich, full lives do instead of watching basketball. Watching A Christmas Story over and over maybe?

Power Rankings

1. Golden State Warriors( Last week: 1 )

After their slip-up against the Bucks, the Warriors seem to be rolling on towards the 1996 Bulls wins record with back-to-back victories by an average margin of 17 points. But maybe not everything is perfect. Consider that Steph Curry is shooting just 47% from the floor in his last four games while NBA laughing stock Kobe Bryant is shooting 51% in his last four. Can the Warriors genuinely expect to win a title in 2015 with a shooting guard who is worse than Kobe? Hashtag: FunWithStats.

2. San Antonio Spurs( 2 )

Gregg Popovich is on-record as disliking the three-point shoot, but Kawhi Leonard is on pace for a career-high in three-pointers made and his 47.2 three-point percentage is even better than Currys. Leonard better knock it off or he could get benched.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers( 4 )

Kyrie Irving played his first game of the season on Sunday against the Sixers. Bullying is incorrect and the Cavaliers should apologize.

4. Oklahoma City Thunder( 3 )

Kevin Durant hit a go-ahead jumper with 5.8 seconds left on Monday night and then blocked Chris Paul as day expired to give the Thunder a 100 -9 9 win in Los Angeles against the Clippers. Its probably more productive if we all stop debating if Durant or Russell Westbrook is the best player on the Thunder and instead talking here how fun it is to watch a team play that has both of them healthy and in their primes.

5. Miami Heat (8 )

The Heat are said to be a possible landing place for Dwight Howard in a potential trade, which are truly be a good deal for Miami if theyre looking to get a 30 year-old player in rapid decline who is owed $23 million next year.

6. Atlanta Hawks( 16 )

Dennis Schroder had a tooth knocked out against Portland on Monday night and reacted by calmly placing it in his sock.

Joe Giglio (@ JoeGiglioSports) December 22, 2015

Dennis Schroder lost a tooth last night and decided to set it in his sock. https :// t.co/ QWPc7MaPw 5

If Schroder puts things like teeth in his socks, the lint tray in his washing machine must be quite a sight.

7. Indiana Pacers( 9 )

George Hill is the next Jason Kidd. Not because hes a future Hall of Famer. Hes not. Hes just a point guard who, like Kidd, will forever have regrettable photos of himself online with a blonde dye chore.

8. Toronto Raptors( 5 )

The Raptors have lost three of four, including a 10 -point home loss to the lowly Kings on Monday. Maybe the unusually warm wintertime climate has tricked them into playing like they do in April.

9. Dallas Mavericks( 11 )

Head coach Rick Carlisle tells Chandler Parson has been a lot of hard work to recover from hybrid microfracture surgery on his right knee: Everybody wants a nice cooked steak, but nobody wants to see you chopping up the cows in the back. The last five or six months, Parson has been in the back butchering clows thats the kind of work hes had to do. Rick, you play in Texas. Everyone is absolutely fine with chopping up cows.

10. Chicago Bulls( 6 )

The Bulls have lost three in a row and Jimmy Butler tells new head coach-and-four Fred Hoiberg needs to coach the team a lot harder. Before this year, the Bulls were coached by the ball of stress and rage that is Tom Thibodeau, so Butlers idea of what constitutes intense coaching may be a little bit skewed.

11. Detroit Pistons( 15 )

The Pistons released Josh Smith a year ago today. Detroit was 5-23 at the time and has gone 43 -3 9 since. Perhaps the Clippers, Smiths current employer, should try to turn their lucks around by releasing him this year.

12. Orlando Magic( 14 )

As 24 year-old Magic center Nikola Vucevic continues to take steps to toward becoming a star, its fun to think back to 2012 when he was a throw-in with Andre Iguodala in the trade that netted the Sixers Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson. What if the Sixers had maintained Vucevic? Sam Hinkie would have yet another talented seven-footer on his roster. On the downside, Vucevic would be helping Hinkies squad win games.

13. Boston Celtics( 10 )

Celtics fans dedicated Kevin Garnett a long salute on Monday night in what was probably his last-ever game in Boston.

Garnett smiled broadly even though his squad lost. This is not the same Kevin Garnett who played in Boston.

14. Los Angeles Clippers( 7 )

The disappointing Clippers and awful Lakers play on Christmas Day. The only way the sports day can get worse in L.A. is if everyone wakes up and find the Rams and Chargers under their tree.

15. Houston Rockets( 17 ) The Rockets have won three in a row thanks to playing their best defense of the season. And just think how hard the rest of the team has to play defense when James Harden is doing this TAGEND

YannickYounique (@ Yannick_DYB) December 20, 2015

I know we say it all the time but James Harden is the worst defender ever pic.twitter.com/ e5mMkKiVtk

16. Charlotte Bobcats( 12 )

Just when we all guessed the Bobcats might finally be turning the corner, they ran and lost four of five to fall out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference. This is where a clever Internet person would insert the Jordan screaming meme.

17. Memphis Grizzlies( 13 )

The Grizzlies are showing signs that their new small-ball approach could pay off. Now they just have to perfect it to the point of besting the small-ball champ Warriors. Good luck, guys!

18. Washington Wizards( 20 )

John Wall dished out a career-high 19 shall take part in Mondays win over the Kings only to injury his ribs in the final minutes. This is your latest reminder that Washington D.C. sports cant ever win.

19. Utah Jazz( 18 )

The Jazz beat the Sun on Monday night, allowing them to retain the No. 8 place in the West at 12 -1 4. The Western Conference continues to make a strong suit that it is the new Eastern Conference.

20. Milwaukee Bucks( 21 )

Do the Bucks deserve to be in the Top 20? No, probably not. They lost by 18 to the Lakers a week ago, after all. But Milwaukee is the only team to beat the Warriors this season and with Golden State looking for revenge back on Friday, the Bucks had a 10 -point fourth one-quarter result!( Before ultimately losing by nine .) That deserves a trophy. Maybe even a parade. It at least deserves a place in the Top 20 of our power rankings , no matter how temporary.

21. New York Knicks( 20 ) 22. Denver Nuggets( 24 ) 23. Sacramento Kings( 26 ) 24. Phoenix Suns( 24 ) 25. Minnesota Timberwolves( 25 ) 26. Portland Trail Blazers( 22 ) 27. New Orleans Pelicans( 28 ) 28. Brooklyn Nets( 27 ) 29. Los Angeles Lakers( 29 ) 30. Philadelphia 76 ers( 30 )

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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