#that said six is a GARBAGE number of time gears to have

[totallycorrectpmdquotes]

Super excited for more Backfire chapters!! 💖 Also DX. Is a thing it's happening i t s h a p p e n i n g

Y e s it’s going to be so great!!!

Also I’m just. going to use this ask for my other catch up chapter of Backfire since it’s one of my favourites

(Previous Chapters)

Uxie’s powers aren’t just limited to his lake, and affect all memories which could be traced back to the Time Gears. It’s easy to imagine the mental catastrophe this could cause in the mind of someone who’s spent nearly their entire life looking into them. In his defense, Uxie was really mad at Grovyle.

-

5.

Azelf was anxious. He had everyright to be, of course, after what he’d heard from his siblings’ telepathy.

“I’ve finished at LimestoneCavern,” Uxie had said, “Ditto was trapped when time froze. Iput the time gear back, but nothing’s changed yet. I don’t know how long it’llbe until everything’s back to normal.”

“Nobody was at TreeshroudForest,” Mesprit had said, “There were hardly any ferals, andthere was no one at the end. I’m worried. I don’t know if she left of her ownaccord or not. I hope she’ll be back when time starts working here again.”

As worried as he was about Ditto,it was the state of Treeshroud Forest that had him particularly wound up. Andso, unfortunately, Azelf found himself teleporting off the central island helived on to its smaller, much more volcanic neighbour. He struggled his waythrough Dark Crater to reach the lesser-known sixth time gear.

In the heart of an almost-activevolcano, Azelf didn’t have much of a chance to admire the time gear held aloftby a quartet of obsidian spikes. He was here on business. So he raised his headand called out to the time gear’s guardian.

“Darkrai! Are you here?”

The room got the slightest bitdarker.

“Unfortunately,” came a voicefrom behind him, and Azelf turned to see the dark-type lurking in the shadowsbehind him.

Azelf did not jump; he frownedand ignored Darkrai’s thirst for drama. “Is everything okay?”

“Last I checked, we weren’tsupposed to leave our gears.” Darkrai snapped, “Don’t tell me you actually sealedyours in crystal?”

“That was a rumour,” Azelf saidcalmly. “We used it to draw the thief out. It worked, everything can go back tonormal now.”

Darkrai scoffed. “Too bad. Youshould have sent him my way.” He gestured to his own time gear inches above itslake of magma. “I’d love to watch a grass type try to get his hands on that.”

A rather large bubble of moltenrock burst right under the gear and sent a ripple across the lake.

“Right.” Azelf said, barelypaying attention to Darkrai’s faux querulousness. If he wanted to be needlesslydramatic, who was Azelf to stop him? “You’ve heard Cresselia’s gear was taken?”

“I found the wanted poster in abottle and read all about it. I’m sure she’s been insufferable about it.”

“Do you know where she is?”

Darkrai was silent for severallong seconds.

“How long has she been missing?”He asked, his tone much more careful now.

“We don’t know,” Azelf admitted.“There was no trace of her when Mesprit returned her gear. Do you have any ideawhere she could be?”

Darkrai frowned. “No. Have youchecked with Dialga?”

“You know it’s not that easy.”Azelf sighed, “We’ll keep a lookout for her. In the meantime, the threat may begone, but be careful, okay?”

At first, Azelf thought he’dmisread Darkrai’s look, but no. The other pokemon sneered at him.

“You too,” Darkrai said, and thecave lit up once more.

In a handful of seconds, Azelfnoticed a few things.

Darkrai was no longer in front ofhim, nor was he behind him. Darkrai was gone – as was the time gear. There wasa hole torn through time and space right beside it, which disappeared thesecond Azelf saw it. An overwhelming stillness had surrounded him. A wave ofelectric grayscale raced across the lake towards him.

Azelf didn’t have a chance tocall for his siblings. He didn’t have a chance to run. All Azelf could do wasscream as the wave hit him full-force.

A bubble of magma sat in themiddle of the lake, under where the time gear had been, frozen half-popped.

.-.

Chatot, currently, had twoPokemon under house arrest in Team Relic’s room.

Riolu had decided to tryrepeatedly to throw himself out the same window his partner had leapt from, asif that would miraculously reunite them in anything but the afterlife. As soonas the first lights hit, Corphish had gathered a team of water types to do theunfortunate deed of searching for the two. They had come back empty-handed, andDugtrio just so happened to realize that the currents at thattime last night could have carried them right across the bay towards themystery dungeon known as Brine Cave.

Experiencing that dungeon wasn’tsomething Chatot would wish on his worst enemy. But Riolu had been determinedto go reunite with his partner, so inevitably Chatot had made the executivedecision that there was no chance the boy would be leaving the guild.Especially with the still significant possibility that Vulpix, as a fire type,hadn’t survived her fall.

The other Pokemon was Dusknoir,who was much more understanding. He didn’t have any explanation for what hadhappened and seemed genuinely shocked when they only asked him to stay in theguild until they knew more about it. Chatot would deal with whateverimplications there were with that situation when he had a moment to think. Fornow, the Guild was closed to outsiders, the other apprentices had left up thecoast in search of anything, and the Guildmaster had gone toscour Brine Cave just in case. Chatot, as the head of intelligence, had stayedbehind to dig through files.

Well, officially he had beenasked to stay behind and rest. His injuries weren’t nearly that severe,however, and Chatot saw no reason why he couldn’t be productive.

Vulpix had seen something beforeshe jumped and had done so to push Dusknoir out of the way. When she’d savedGrovyle as well, the ledge they’d been standing on had been attacked. Thosewere the facts. Someone had tried to assault and kill the Pokemon from thefuture, and Vulpix had been an unfortunate extra casualty. The questionwas why?

So Chatot found himself buried inhundreds of mission reports and wanted posters as he tried to figure out whathe was missing when it came to Grovyle and the Great Dusknoir.

.-.

For a grass type, Grovyle hadhorrible sun tolerance. Breeze would be annoyed and embarrassed, but her’swasn’t much better – though, she was a fire type, she didn’t need thesun. It was just a nice and pretty bonus that could sometimes make her firetype moves stronger. Most grass types, on the other hand, would probably wasteaway and die without the sun.

Apparently, Grovyle was anexception to a rule that really shouldn’t have any of those. And Breeze was nota fan of that at all.

Most of the plants beside thedried riverbed they’d been traveling along were withered and dead. As soon asthey’d found a patch of shade, Grovyle had requested they stop for a rest.Breeze had tried to sit beside him, she really had! She was tired too, and he’dbeen so nice throughout the whole trip so far. He’d given her every healingitem they’d come across – which, admittedly, was only an oran berry and acouple heal seeds – and had double-triple checked to make sure she wasn’thaving any issues with their pace. He hadn’t been anything like the Pokemonwho’d nearly killed her and Dusk.

Unfortunately, vouching forsomeone’s second chance and actually giving it to them weren’t the same thing.As much as she tried to ignore it, Grovyle still terrified her. Every time shelooked at his leaf blades, all she could think was how he’d easily he’d thrownher and Dusk aside every time they’d tried to fight. She’d been knocked outbefore he’d struck her partner’s neck, but Breeze could picture it anyway – shehad been just outside the door when he’d told Chimecho all about it, becausehe’d thought she was worried enough about him without having to learn detailsabout how Dusk had nearly gotten his throat slit while trying to revive her.

So while Grovyle called for abreak in their journey to rest, Breeze lasted all of one minute waiting besidehim before she’d anxiously made an excuse and wandered off to ‘scout ahead.’

Breeze kept her head down as shefollowed the cracked, dry dirt further inland. Her tails dragged behind her andknocked bits of sand into her footprints. The wind from earlier had died downand left the smell of the ocean replaced by the scent of dust.

It wasn’t fair to Grovyle for herto be acting like this. Breeze knew that. He barely had any idea what was goingon, but he’d still tried to help her. She should at least be able to return thefavour instead of wandering off to who-knows-where because she was scared forno reason!

Breeze felt her eyes sting andstarted trying to blink away tears as she took another step forward – andautomatically stumbled back as her eyes and nose burned. Severalsteps back, for the first time, Breeze looked up and really took in where shewas.

She was on the edge of asandstorm, frozen in place mid-air. The wind didn’t blow. The sky was dark –the only light came from back the way Breeze had come. It reflected off eachfloating sand particle and speckled the ground in front of her with tiny silversparkles. A trickle of motionless water ran to her left, through weeds and mudthat were still fresh – but frozen. A lone magikarp was stuck mid-air, barelyabove the water, frozen in a desperate last jump to freedom.

Everything was frozen.

Breeze practically threw herselfback into the sunlight, back into the dust-scented wind, back onto the dry andcracked ground. She could feel her body tremble as she stood on the edge of thefrozen time and she nearly collapsed.

That was why the riverbed wasdry. That was why the plants had been dead, and the sun was so intense. Thisriver had probably come from the same spring Mesprit’s lake did. It was at theedge of Northern Desert and Quicksand Cave. Time was still destroyed here,thanks to Grovyle.

Breeze dropped to the ground andrubbed her face with a paw. What was she thinking? Dusknoir was right. Chatotwas right. Everyone was right. This was stupid. Just because he didn’t rememberit didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Grovyle had been trying to destroy the world! Shecouldn’t just ignore that. She couldn’t get distracted by the fact that he wasnice now, when he had no idea who she was or what was going on. If he ever gothis memories back he’d start again, and he’d attack everyone again, andeveryone would be hurt because she’d been an idiot.

There was a shadow cast over her.Breeze froze, waiting for Grovyle to speak – and then she realized that theshadow was nowhere near his body shape. The scent sunk in past the dust amoment later.

“Cha-haw-haw, what’s this?”

Breeze felt her breath catch inher throat. Very slowly, she turned – and Team Skull towered over her.

Breeze swore.

“Well isn’t this a surprise,”Skuntank said. He took a step forward, and Breeze braced herself. “Boys, itlooks like we’ve run into a friend.”

“I’m not your friend, you rottenjerk.” She snapped and let a fire spin build up in her throat.“Leave me alone.”

“Why? Who’s going to make me?”Skuntank replied. “You’re all alone, brat. We watched you walk here.”

“All the more reason to leave mealone,” Breeze growled. “What are you even doing here? Don’t you have anythingbetter to do?”

“I could ask you the same thing,”he said, “Come on Vulpix, help an old friend out.”

Breeze steadied her paws and spatthe fire spin right in Skuntank’s awful face before she duckedunder him and ran back the way she’d came.

“ Agh, boys -”Breeze was already out of earshot.

Her pounding paws dredged up moredust as she fled back the way she’d came. But she saw the shadow over herbefore she saw Grovyle’s rest stop.

Breeze tucked and rolled, dartingto the side as Zubat swooped down where she had been only a second before. Thestink hit her before Koffing did – but they both hit her hard. Breeze flippedand tumbled, her leg catching on a dying root and sending her right on herface. She felt a paw press down on her back.

“No Guildmaster, no cowardlyRiolu, no one coming to help you.” Skuntank said and leaned in as Breezesquirmed. “So why don’t we have that conversation now?”

“Get off.”

“No.”

“Why does this matter to you?!”She tried to push herself up – Skuntank pushed down harder, and Breeze didn’tmanage to stifle a pained gasp when his claws dug into her still fresh scabs.

“Because we’ve heardthe stories your Guild’s been putting out,” he said, “And how they’d offer up ajuicy reward to bring you back. So what was so important that you had to leaveyour Guild last night, huh? ”

“I didn’t run away, you idiot! ”Breeze squirmed again – if she could just flip over, she could roar, andthat would get them all far enough away from her that she could run again. “Andif you try to ransom me back to them, you’re not going to likewhat the Great Dusknoir does to you.”

Skuntank laughed again, and hiscronies joined in. “Why would an explorer like Dusknoir still care about aweakling like you?”

“He’s already saved me fromyou once, you think he won’t do it again?” She snapped, “Backoff, or you’ll have to deal with him.”

“That implies he knows where youare,” Skuntank leaned in, “if we shoot enough supersonics yourway, no one will believe anything you say. And you’ll talk then, too – so whydon’t you make this easier for yourself?” One of his claws hooked under herpersim band, “Tell us why you’re here.”

Zubat cleared his throat. “Uh,boss?”

Skuntank huffed. “What?”

“We’ve got company.”

Breeze had a brief, hopefulsecond where she was sure Dusknoir or the Guildmaster or Dusk or someone washere before Grovyle sprung out of the ground in front of her and clockedSkuntank square in the jaw.

Breeze scrambled out of his gripthe second she could, ducking behind Grovyle when he landed. “What are youdoing?!” She whispered, “They’re poison types, you’re a grass type, areyou insane?! ”

“Get ready to run,” He whisperedback.

Skuntank recovered from the blow,with Koffing at his side and Zubat ducked behind them. Breeze had a terrifyingsense of familiarity as she shuffled a few steps back.

Except, Team Skull didn’timmediately attack. They stared. “G-Groyvle?!” Zubat choked out.

“How do you know?” Breeze snappedback, “You don’t even have eyes!”

“You’re running around with theTime Gear thief?” Skuntank stared at her as he shuffled back. Breeze shot apanicked glance at Grovyle, who just looked confused.

“Y- no?” She said.

“The what thief?” Grovyle said.

Skuntank still looked shocked –and then his expression dropped. He chortled, and his cronies joined in. “I’llbet you’re worth a pretty penny.”

There was no chance for Breeze tospit back any flames – barely a chance for Grovyle to grab her and pullher down – before Koffing and Skuntank spat their noxious gascombo at them.

The pressure in Breeze’s noseturned from stench to sand, and Grovyle’s dig dropped them ina small, crooked hole.

Breeze coughed and wheezed,hacking up a few tiny flames. They smouldered and died in the sand, and theirsmoke hung heavy in the air. In the flicker of dim light, she saw the purpletinge around Grovyle’s nose and lips – and that he wasn’t moving, either.

“No,” she choked out, “no, no,come on.” She crawled forwards and nudged him with a shaking paw. “Why wouldyou do that? You – you’re a grass type, they had every advantage againstyou, why –” The smoldering bile she choked up this time had apurple tinge. “Why didn’t you hide behind me? You could’ve run. You could havesaved yourself. You – you could have…”

Breeze’s breath shook. Shethought then, about Grovyle asking why did you save me? Shethought of all the healing items he’d passed her way. He could have let herdrown. He could have abandoned her when she was unconscious – he hadn’twanted to stay, but he had. He could have let her suffer and kept the berriesfor himself. He didn’t know anything - he could have lookedafter himself.

But he’d chosen to look after herinstead.

A familiar sense of helplessnessclawed at Breeze’s heart and she didn’t like that at all.

“Help!” she choked out. TeamSkull didn’t matter – she could talk to them, not fight, and they’d take herhome. It was better than letting Grovyle die. It was better than doing nothingwhen he’d been trying so hard for her. “Please – please! HELP!”

Breeze choked up another poisonedfireball, and for a split second, she saw something floatingon Grovyle’s other side. She couldn’t make out the colours or details, butthere was something there.

“Help,” Breeze said again,“please.”

There was a heavy moment ofsilence. Breeze flattened herself down and coughed on the smoke from her ownfires.

“Alright,” a feminine voice said,and the tunnel lit up.

.-.

Dusknoir sat in the corner of aroom, a book in his hands and a panicked Riolu pacing around him. He’d tonedout every word the boy had said. Genuinely, he didn’t care. He, unfortunately,knew better than anyone how resilient Breanna and Grovyle could be.

Besides, Darkrai wouldn’t havebothered to target his sableye if the two were actually dead. And as far asprisons went, he’d certainly had far worse. If something came up, it would beno issue to escape before the situation turned serious.

A sudden silence struck him asodd, and Dusknoir looked up to see what had finally silenced the Riolu in frontof him.

The answer, apparently, was aDimensional Hole floating in the middle of the room.

Dusknoir mentally cursed, slowlyrising and inching towards the door. “Riolu,” he said, “you need to go getChatot.”

“Do you know what that is?” Theboy asked, his voice raw.

“Yes,” Dusknoir said, and floatedforwards, ready to grab and throw the Riolu the second anything changed. “Fornow, go - ”

The dimensional hole tossed outtwo prone forms and a significant amount of sand.

Riolu lunged for them at the sametime Dusknoir tried to snatch him. Riolu’s arms wrapped tight around a badlypoisoned Breanna. He pulled her away from Grovyle – fainted and unstable, worseoff than Breanna was – and nearly sobbed onto her shoulder.

Breanna held him back, tearing upas well. She looked up at Dusknoir. “Get help,” she croaked.

Dusknoir stared at her as hebacked out of the room and didn’t say the thought that stuck out in his mind –he hated the familiarity of this.

[yikesharringrove]

I have a headcanon that Billy doesn"t really know how to apologize like most people do. To him, the words are kind of empty so he just does things for people instead. Things like replacing all of the dishes with better quality ones for the Byers, making the girliest clothes Max hates disappear and replaced with things she likes, a new slingshot showing up in Lucas's locker, breaking into a car to fix it. Steve is weirdly charmed by it.

These may both be you? But here’s a combo since they’re p much the same idea

anonymous asked: Billy has forgotten how to actually connect with people so he shows affection through acts of chaotic good, like planting catnip all over the yard of the lady who allergic for yellomg at Max or breaking into a car so he can fix the engine. Steve figures out Billy is the one doing all these oddly kind things but he is still kind of intimidated by the blonde so instead of thanking him out right he just leaves things like cigarettes and baked good for him in his car. Have fun with that one!

This got pretty long so I put some of it under the cut.

-

Billy didn’t believe in the words I’m sorry.

They just didn’t make sense  to him. He had never heard the words when someone actually meant them, and fuck knows he’s never actually meant those words before.

But that does not mean there aren’t things in his life he regrets.

For example: beating the shit outta Steve Harrington.

He felt like absolute fucking garbage about it. 

Harrington hadn’t deserved that shit. Billy was just runnin’ hot that night, and Harrington had been unlucky enough to have bad timing.

But he didn’t know how to fix it.

So he started leaving snacks in Steve’s locker.

He noticed how he would always be giving his friends the food off his fucking plate, so he would shove granola bars, candies, even made him a sandwich one day.

He watched as Steve would eat whatever it was Billy had left for him, just fuckin’ chowed down without question.

He would look into classes, find out where Steve sat and leave little treats on his desk.

“Mr. Harrington, I think you may have a secret admirer.” Steve flushed a little at the cupcake, and shoved it into his mouth in two bites at the beginning of history class, but he wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, and figured whenever this chick came forward, he would thank her for being so thoughtful, and let her down gently.

-

After leaving Harrington alone with all his snacks, Billy set his sights on his other regret.

He had Max hadn’t always fought and bickered. True, Billy wasn’t the warmest, when they first met, but once he got his car they would drive around together a lot. He’d take her to the arcade and the boardwalk. They both didn’t like being home too much.

So when Billy’s informed he’ll be watching Max for the weekend while Neil takes Susan to the city, he forms a little plan.

There’s one Chinese restaurant in Hawkins. It’s totally not authentic, not like the dim sum they used to get wandering around San Fransisco, but they had steamed pork buns and Billy picked up eight.

He let Max do whatever she wanted that weekend, figured they would have better luck with one another if they both acted like outdoor cats, coming and going as they pleased, but come Sunday evening, all the pork buns were gone, and there was an unopened pack of cigarettes on his nightstand.

-

Regret number three: Lucas Sinclair.

Billy probably felt the most fucked up over this kid.

He’d gone after him, a fucking child, in his blind rage.

He had figured that out when he came to on the floor of that weird house, sitting up empty and alone, realizing I’m just like Neil.

He had seen all those kids with their nerdy toys, went out to RadioShack, early Sunday morning, leaving with a light wallet and a new idea.

Dustin was arguing with Mike over the realism of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, like there was anything realistic about it.

Lucas rolled his eyes, opening his locker, his mouth dropping open when he saw something inside.

He pulled the bag out, peering inside.

There were six brand new walkie talkies inside.

They were better than the ones they already used, had further range and more channels.

Everyone went silent.

“Um, these aren’t mine.”

Max’s eyes went wide. She snatched something up from the top shelf of Lucas’s locker.

The new Wrist Rocket had a note attached to it. She knows this handwriting, but couldn’t place it.

Enjoy the new gear. Don’t quit saving the world.

“Do you think they’re from Steve?”Max furrowed her brows at the note.

And then everything clunked into place.

“Maybe.”

The boys were tearing into the new walkies.

She got two cokes from the vending machine at lunch, handing one quietly to Billy when she got in his car after school.

-

Billy doesn’t really know what he’s doing here.

He had driven Max to one of her nerdy little friend’s houses, and somehow he got roped into staying? He doesn’t even remember.

But now he’s standing with a short kind woman, in the exact kitchen he beat the shit out of Harrington in, with Steve himself leaning against the other wall, watching the kids like some kinda hawk.

Billy’s hands were shaky, and he inserted himself into washing dishes from dinner.

He noticed most of them had chips, and all of them were mismatched. He put them away quietly, and drove to the nearest home goods store he could find.

Ceramic plates didn’t run too much, and he got a nice set of three different sizes, twelve plates of each size, light blue like the one he broke.

He left them on the porch, parked his car down the road a ways.

He rang the doorbell, sprinting and diving into the bushes before anyone can see him.

He watched as one of the sons, the one his age, the one in his English literature class, opened the door, his brow furrowing at the box of new plates.

“Um, Mom? Somebody left us a set of plates?”

He closed the door, but the took the plates with him.

-

Billy was sitting on the lawn, had just finished raking up all the damn leaves, and was taking a well-earned smoke break as he watched Max skating up and down the street, practicing her kickflips and ollies.

She cut into the driveway across the street, the only one on the entire block that was well paved, no cracks in the cement.

“Get out of here!” Max started as Mrs. Reynolds, a mean old woman was shouting through her screen door. “You little hooligan! You’re going to leave marks!”

Max bit her lip, trying not to laugh as she boarded back over to their house, standing next to Billy.

“I’ll be having a word with your father!” She rolled her eyes as Billy ground his jaw.

Cat nip was way more expensive than Billy was expecting, but he bought plenty of packages, returning home just past sunset.

He waited until about three in the morning, when Mrs. Reynolds’ sprinklers had finally turned back off before he climbed out his window, spreading the cat nip through her yard.

He flipped her house the bird.

Max was awed at the cats the next morning as Billy drove them both to school.

There must’ve been at least a hundred.

“Isn’t Mrs. Reynolds allergic?” Billy tried not to laugh.

“Damn. That sucks for her.”

-

Billy was sitting on the hood of his car, reading one of his lit books while he waited for Max to get out of her nerd club.

He startled a little bit when someone knocked on the hood.

And it was Harrington, smiling sheepishly at Billy.

“The Byers got some new plates last night. You know anything about that?” Billy tracked the thin scar on Steve’s head. It disappeared into his hairline. Billy wonders how long he had sat in front of a mirror, picking glass out of his thick hair.

“Who’re the Byers?” Steve huffed a laugh.

-

Max was standing in front of the mirror looking like a grumpy old cat.

Susan had bought her a lovely new dress, and Max fucking hated it. Susan was fussing over it, saying I ordered it from the Sears catalog! and can you believe it was only fifteen dollars?

Billy slipped a five and a ten into Susan’s purse later that day, taking the dress to the Goodwill downtown.

He found Max a couple crappy t-shirts there, bands she would hum to on the radio, shit like Journey and Foreigner, and slid them into her closet where the dress used to be.

She wore one the next day, blinking slowly at him over breakfast.

He avoided all eye contact.

-

Steve has long legs.

this was of course something Billy always knew, but watching him stalk in all his righteous fury down the street towards the high school really solidified that fact for Billy.

He was stomping, his strides long as he hustled to class. Billy thought about offering him a ride, didn’t think they were there yet.

Billy found himself in Steve’s driveway later that night, popping the hood of Steve’s dead car and searching over everything with a flashlight.

Billy rolled his eyes.

Steve had probably always paid someone else when his car broke down, didn’t realize if your oil was low, your car wouldn’t work.

Billy kept a few cans in his trunk, refilled the bad boy for Steve, making sure that was it.

He found nothing else wrong and Steve pulled into the school parking lot the next morning.

Billy could feel Steve staring at him when he walked into school.

He found Steve sitting on his car at lunch, holding the sandwich Billy had snuck into his locker, and a loaf of bread wrapped in cling film. .

Billy raised an eyebrow.

“I saw you last night.” His cheeks went hot. “Thanks for fixing my car. And all the snacks and stuff. And for the Byers’ plates. And for all the stuff with Max.”

“Nothin’s happened with Max.” Steve appraised him for a moment.

“She said you’re being nicer.” He held up the bread. “Homemade banana bread. Made it while you were being not at all stealthy fixing my car.” He smiled at Billy, one a’ those perfect sunshine smiles Billy had only ever seen Steve direct towards his kids.

“I just changed your oil. Car won’t run if you don’t got oil.” Steve furrowed his brow.

“My gas tank was full. I had just filled it.”

“Nah Pretty Boy, oil. It’s different.” And Billy took a deep breath. “Could show you, if you like. Teach you some basic car shit. How to jump, how to change a tire.”

Steve beamed at him.

“I’d like that! I don’t know shit about fixing cars. Always figured it would go way over my head.”

“It’s pretty easy. There’s usually only a few major things that go wrong in nice cars that are easy fixes. You’ll figure it out quick.” Steve slid off his car, and Billy lamented that for a minute, liked how Steve looked perched on Billy’s car, wondered how he’d look in the passenger seat, in the backseat-

Steve pushed the bread into Billy’s hands.

“Y’know, I forgive you. For that night.” Billy tightened his jaw. Steve’s eyes were a little green in the sun. “There was a lot goin’ on, and I was being sketchy. I don’t hold it against you.”

“I, uh, thanks, I guess. I’m sorry, about it.” Steve smiled at him again, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a bit.

“Yeah, I know.” Steve took a bite of his sandwich, his cheeks all cute and full. “And I’m more of a ham and cheese fan.” Billy rolled his eyes at Steve, taking with his mouth full of turkey sandwich.

“Sorry man, you get what Susan buys.” Steve laughed, his mouth still full. Billy was uncomfortably endeared by it.

“Don’t be surprised to find some lasagna on your porch one night soon.” And Steve winked at him, walking backwards towards the school. “You’re not so bad, Billy.”

“Tryin’ not to be.” Steve gave him a stupid little finger gun. Billy’s heart melted.

“You’re doin’ a good job.” And Steve set off back into the school.

[tsaomengde]

I finished Horizon: Forbidden West's story today, and popped the Platinum trophy about 15 minutes later when I looked up the two remaining hidden trophies and found they were piss-easy things I just hadn't done because it didn't occur to me to try them.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game.  Horizon: Zero Dawn was one of my favorite PS4 titles, and Forbidden West is a worthy successor.  That's not to say the game is perfect, but I definitely think it's worth a playthrough if you enjoyed the original.  It is not a game whose plot you will appreciate if you haven't played the first one, though.

More detailed observations with no main plot spoilers below.

- The first Horizon was appreciably diverse in terms of featuring many people of color as important characters, and this one continues that trend.  I also noticed a lot more queer folks than the first time, which was a welcome addition.  There's also a storyline about a character who loses a limb that doesn't just end in "he got fixed and is better now," which is rare and beautiful.  Not much in terms of neurodivergent representation, though it is very easy to read Aloy as autistic if you want.

- Visually the game is stunning and the design of the new machines is great.  This is the game I bought a PS5 for and it did not disappoint.

- That having been said, while the open world is absolutely vast, I don't think we needed all of it.  Most of the little question mark icons are just caches of valuables or crafting materials.  All of the high-end weapons and armor are earned from quests, bought in shops, or won from the arena you unlock about halfway through the game.  That leaves little incentive to explore every nook and cranny.  I did, because I'm me, and was generally unimpressed with the findings.

- Speaking of weapons and armor, I played on Hard and found the game's challenge to be reasonable but not overwhelming at first.  Then as I really zeroed in on upgrading all of my gear and doing the Arena to get the best weapons and armor, I broke the game over my knee and just had to occasionally stomp on it when it twitched.  The process of getting your endgame gear leveled up is grindy, and involves killing a lot of ultra-powered machines more challenging than anything you face in the course of the main plot.  It's also totally unnecessary, because unlike in other games there are no optional superbosses or ultra-challenging side missions.  I killed each of the final bosses (you fight one and then another) in about five or six shots with my Uber Bow.

- However, the upshot of this is that there are no difficulty trophies, so if you just want to absorb the story you can set it on Easy and power through and you will be just fine.

- On the note of the Arena, that was the only part of the game I found actively frustrating because in each tiered set of 4 challenges, the fourth challenge gives you a fixed loadout so your time can be compared to other players' on a global leaderboard.  These fixed loadouts are often garbage, or totally conflict with your accustomed playstyle.  I do not now nor have I ever given a fuck about comparing my performance with Little Alphie Adderall's.  You can totally drop the difficulty for these fights, which I refused to, but it's still irritating that this is a Thing when nowhere else in the game is there any online component.

- Endgame combat in Zero Dawn boiled down to, for me, "notch 3 arrows, zoom in with slow-mo, and shoot the baddie in the glowing weak point, repeat."  Forbidden West successfully adds a little more variety if you want it, with a number of super moves and weapon techniques, but at the end of the day it boils down to "shoot the bad guy with the element they're weak to and then use the advanced precision arrows with 30% crit chance to do incredible amounts of damage."  It does not fundamentally change the formula of what worked, but it also isn't a next-level innovation either.

- The game tries to kind of do what Witcher 3 did with Gwent by introducing a minigame called Machine Strike, which is like a cross between chess and Warhammer.  Gwent is the better minigame by far.  Machine Strike has just enough going on that it takes a few hours to learn, but there are so few players compared to Gwent that by the time you feel you're competent at the game you've beaten everyone (3 beginners, 3 intermediates, 3 skilled, 3 experts, 1 master, 1 friend at base who falls around intermediate and doesn't count).  There also isn't much of a meta; it is always worse to be moving on the attack and to end your turn within striking distance of the other person's shit, so a lot of games with the harder AI boil down to trying to bait them out of their turtling by sacrificing a small piece.

- The game also has racing!  It is bad.

- Honestly what kept me playing as long as I did and finishing every single side quest and looking in every nook and cranny was because I really like the world the devs have made, the story they're telling, and the feel of inhabiting this place.  That hasn't changed and I'll definitely be playing it again in however many months or years.  I 100% feel I got my money's worth for the $70 entry.

[archetypal-archivist]

My Beloved, Penis

Fuck it. I was infected by Penis SMP by @demonboyhalo reblogging a bunch of it and the lack of consistent lore bugged me, so I somehow banged out 2000+ words of fanfic about the Penis SMP and how it got started. Lots of internet humor and classic MInecraft shenanigans in this one folks. *slaps roof* This baby can fit so much crack treated seriously, lol. This is also up on my AO3, Zazibine, if you would prefer to read it there.

_-_-_-_

It was never supposed to get so big. It was just an SMP with a couple friends of his he had met from the Hypixel discord server, where he had logged on simply to trash talk the absolute asshole who had dared to kill him last minute in bedwars, only to stumble upon said asshole- going under the name shittyfartbaby69 of all things- complaining to his girlfriend(?) Milfboss in the voice chat. Thirty minutes later of awkward hellos and the manliest of bitching at each other (with Milf chiming in every once in a while to roast them both), and PenisUnavailable had perhaps his first Minecraft friend in, like, forever.

Then Admiral_Anus had entered chat, bitching about his competitor in ABBA Mining and his bullshit bad luck and the whole process repeated. By the end of the day, Penis had three new friends, a private discord server for the four of them, and a promise to meet up with them in Hypixel next Sunday for the ultimate round of bedwars.

The game went spectacularly. Somehow, Admiral had some of the best bridging skills any of them had ever seen, and between Milfboss' terrifying Scottish screaming and pvp and Shitty with his clutch TNT skills, the three of them almost made up for Penis' awful depth perception. They still lost around forty percent of their games, but that was certainly better than Penis' own abysmal record, not helped with his habit of walking off the edge at inconvenient times.

And it was... fun. Usually bedwars was just him playing in his bedroom alone for an hour before he rage-quit and went back to survival for a bit before he died to fall damage and rage quit that too. But shittyfartbaby69 would crack dirty jokes that he'd never even heard of before, and Milfboss would roast him for looking it up on reddit and Shitty would cuss her out as he tried to prove that no, he was being original- all while Admiral would comment of them as if they were a sideshow display. Then Admiral_Anus would turn around and knock an enemy player off their island with some clever pvp and they would all hoot and holler and swear for a while before going back to their conversation, joking about forgetting the topic and starting up a running gag about something new.

And their accents, mmm. PenisUnavailable would never say it, but he really was as American as white Wonder bread and Milfboss' Scottish brogue, Admiral's smooth British snark, and Shitty's shrieking in Australian, well. Ear candy, you know? Even if he teased them mercilessly for pronouncing shit wrong, like "buhguhr". Ppffttt, it still cracked him up how Milfboss had threatened to murder him after the dictionary app on his phone had proved him right that it was actually "Bur-gur", even if Admiral kept insisting it was pronounced "bruh-girl".

Four hours and twenty-eight wins later, they had agreed to meet up the next day to play again, preferably at an hour that wasn't two am for Shitty again. (It was two am for Shitty again, although that was because they played for six that time.) Eventually, it just became a regular thing, them playing bedwars and competing at ABBA Caving- the one game Penis was unnaturally good at, much to Admiral's annoyance- to the point where they ran out of funny jokes about their competitors and the game itself and started talking personal anecdotes.

Milfboss owned a motorcycle. Admiral, entirely independently, also owned a motorcycle, as that was the only vehicle of reasonable speed and style that could actually handle the London traffic. Shitty couldn't drive at all, something about never passing his driving test. Admiral ate cheese at breakfast. Shitty liked to burn his garbage in a metal oil drum in his backyard. Milfboss posted herself singing covers of shit over on Youtube. And it wasn't just real life stuff either- their minecraft skills were also on the table for them all to collectively roast.

Admiral had never seen a single Minecraft Championship. Milfboss thought a flat cobblestone roof was entirely acceptable. Shitty's favorite block was the flint and steel. (That's not a block, sixty-niner. Shut up, is too. OoOh, real clever, 'shut up'! Uh, how about no? How about I fuckin' make you, ever think 'a that? No nono nonono, I'm on two hearts! I'm on two hearts, stop!) It made him curious, honestly. He wanted to see Milf's builds for himself, get revenge on Shitty, see if Admiral really could beat the Ender Dragon with a knockback stick like he said he could.

So he made a minecraft server. And they all joined it. (And stuck PenisUnavailable with the bill, suckaaahhh~!)

Predictably, it all went to Hell in a hand basket pretty quick.

See, it's one thing to play with nutters like his friends in a structured set up like Hypixel games, it's quite another to try and keep a semblance of order in an open world survival server like the Penis SMP. The first five minutes had been him trying to explain the rules and teleporting everyone back to spawn over and over as they tried to "escape the cops," ie, him. The next five minutes was Shitty scream-laughing "scatter!" and other John Mulany references down the mic as everyone ran off to start their houses. Penis, as he was still "god" at that moment, used admin commands to find the closest flower field biome to settle into, hoping for some- ha- peace and quiet.

Shitty, inevitably, ended up trying to settle in the fucking Nether. Like a mad lad, you know, as you do when you are apparently obsessed with all things lava. Milfboss ended up making an oak plank box of a "tree house" in a dark oak forest, while Admiral_Anus picked a nearby swamp for his starter base. Outside of that, they just kinda vibed in discord as they tried to fend off the mobs and get enough resources to try and build up houses that were a bit more than cobblestone towers and wood boxes- er, mostly. Milf kinda just fucked off to go mining, found a skeleton spawner by chance, and made a set of iron gear to stand in the dungeon room with to just chill and kill mobs for a while. She ended up with something like 45 levels and burned her only diamond on an enchanting table so she could buff the Hell out of her iron weapons and armor.

Penis, rather typically, he though to himself, put together a basic sheep farm and started work on a cute little cobblestone cave base. He managed to get a whole twenty by twenty block room done and fully furnished before he noticed the chat full of Shitty's death messages and went to go investigate. After nearly dying in lava twice, he managed to find Shitty's pile of items floating on a basalt pillar about a hundred blocks out from his... base?

It was a soccer ball. Shitty's base was a perfect fucking spherical soccer ball made up of quartz blocks and basalt. Just. What. The Fuck??? Then out popped shittyfartbaby69 and it was PenisUnavailable's turn to misjudge a jump and plummet right into lava. Fifteen minutes and much shrieking later about losing his diamond pick, and it turns out that Shitty didn't really care about his lost items, as he really only had four gold picks, a stack of dark oak, two furnaces, a bucket, and thirteen cooked mutton to his name. Not even a bed, the fucker. He just ran back to his portal from spawn every time he just burned to death, taking the chance to gather resources on the way back each time.

And no, he wasn't following a tutorial for his "football" base. Jerk. (Although Penis did have to admire his determination...)

The day ended on Milfboss, Shitty, and Penis reconvening back at spawn to try and hunt down Admiral_Anus, who they found later having built a thirty block tall castle of all things. Out of cobble stone and the windows weren't quite even, but still, it was pretty impressive. And of course, when presented with a castle, what can what do but siege it? So they lay siege to the castle and Milfboss curb-stomped Admiral in pvp and laid claim to the throne, crowning herself queen before summarily throwing the rest of them out. It was a good day.

And the day after was a good day. They played dodge ball crossed with hide and seek in forest around Penis' house with arrows supplied by Milfboss. And the day after that, too, where they had a building competition using nothing but cobble stone, specifically to spite Milfboss, who had kicked all of their asses the day before. In fact, three wonderful weeks passed of doing normal Minecraft shit and being friends passed by, and every bit of it was great fun.

And then came the fucking role play.

PenisUnavailable would have liked to preface that with he only participated under duress, but really, Milfboss had been queen for too long and nobody wanted to risk TNT cannoning any of Shitty's nice builds, so. Well, the castle was better than his drafty cave, alright? It was cold and wet and didn't have a proper door because aesthetic (and because it usually took him several tries to work an iron pressure plate door), so there were far too many mobs wandering in at night and spawn camping him. He and Shitty had almost the same number of deaths and Shitty lived in the fucking Nether.

So yeah. Castle time, baby! Daddy needs a new home! And Admiral obviously wasn't happy living out of Milf's awful tree house hot box where they all did drugs together on day fifteen and it still smelled of burnt wheat seeds, aka "weed." It was only obvious that they teamed up to try and take back the castle.

The battle itself didn't exactly go great, but it wasn't exactly horrible either. A lot of shouting shit at each other for fifteen minutes, the majority of which he wouldn't remember until it was too late- something about server unity?- only to find out that it wasn't two on one girl boss, it was two on a girl boss and her "baked out of his mind" henchman, also known as Shitty in a squirrel furry skin.

The ears man. Those stupid (cute) ears.

And then they were running for their lives because Milf had somehow gotten her hands on a flame bow with infinity enchants.

It all culminated in a dramatic stand-off in front of Shitty's Nether Soccer ball, Milf on one side, diamond axe in hand, not a bit of armor on because of an unfortunate run in with lava, Penis and Admiral on the other, picks in hand, threatening to tear down shittyfartbaby69's base. Shitty wasn't online just then to comment, but they could all hear him click-clacking away on his keyboard so he obviously hadn't gone to sleep just yet like he said he had. At an impasse, and unable to justify letting her teammate's home be used as collateral, Milfboss stood down and gave up her "crown," an enchanted golden Prot IV helmet she had gotten off a skeleton from her spawner.

Then the great betrayal, the beginning of the end. Shitty came back online. 96-Cam joined the game, not that they noticed in the chaos. Admiral-Anus cackled wildly and PMed Milfboss the message that Shitty had sent him, giving Team Gay Sex permission to tear down his base in the name of winning the war if it came down to it- making Milf's sacrifice worthless in the end. Penis gave another dramatic speech, circling around Shitty, who was acting weirdly apologetic to Milf about betraying her and still wearing that fucking squirrel furry skin.

"You see Milf, there's one thing more powerful than a girl boss, and when it comes down to wars between kingdoms, there's something you need to remember!" Penis got out his golden ax, helpfully labeled 'Piss Off'.  "And that's a dilf with something to lose!" An enderpearl in his off hand and he teleported behind Milf, catching on fire from the lava but still landing the last hit needed to finish her off. She puffed into a cloud of EXP, swearing up a storm, and then Admiral and Penis turned their gaze to the cheering Shitty.

"AAAAAYYY, LET'S GO DADDY!" the squirrel man screeched, wild laughter shorting out the discord voice chat, making him go quiet in patches when the volume overloaded the client. Behind him, Admiral quietly started building a chair out of birch fence posts and slabs.

"Not so fast, shit-ty-fart-baaaaa-byyyyy~, this isn't quite over yet!" Penis fucking chirped, barely holding back his laughter. "You're still a fucking traitor and we can't have you backstabbing us too. Get in the chair for Daddy, okay baby?"

Admiral finished the chair just in time for Shitty to turn around and see the completed monstrosity, shrieking dying off immediately. "Oh screw you, that's just mean. The Hell man? That's not a chair, that's illegal. If you want an electric chair or some shit, just ask. That's just sad." Mentally shrugging, Admiral lit up his work with a flint and steel while Penis pillared up above where Shitty was building an electric chair out of iron bars and trap doors. Admiral nudged Shitty into the chair, Penis dumped a bucket of lava over the edge of the pillar so it flowed over him, and Shitty started giving a soliloquy about how betrayal and how his love for his "Daddy" still "burned strong".

Like his dick. Apparently.

By the time the lava finally hit the floor and burned Shitty to death, Penis was crying with laughter, shrieking down the mike and banging on the desk hard enough to make him forget that his was still on the mouse, making him mine the block under him with the bucket and sending him hurtling to his fiery death too.

It was a good day... almost.

Because, as it turned out, shittyfartbaby69 was actually a tiktokker of some renown and his cam account had record everything. And he had uploaded the bit to tiktok, as you do, where it went viral, where it wasn't supposed to. And Milfboss, who had recently been uploading covers of herself singing old classic Minecraft songs, had attracted the Minecraft fandom kids to her twitter, where she had gone to post her rage about the events of her dethroning and Shitty's execution.

Penis SMP had gotten on. Fucking. Trending. And now everyone was demanding the full clip, their names, their Twitch streamer handles, their characters' backstories.

The masses wanted lore.

Penis watched in disbelief, head in his hands and mouth agape as sugar crash played over a clip of him killing Milf on loop.

They were making memes.

...Oh god. They were screwed.

[aewhore]

Tunnel Vision ~ Eddie Kingston x reader

*WARNING* THIS IS SUPER ANGSTY (and probably badly written) 

Author’s Note: This is my first attempt at fanfiction because people seem to like the prompt i posted of “I don’t know who you are anymore” so here’s the story i envisioned for it!!!! ENJOY

Eddie didn't want the AEW championship, he needed it. The hunger he had for that title is what drove him, it’s what powered him to fight every Tuesday and Wednesday night. it guarantees the respect of his so called co-workers who’ve looked down on him since day 1 of joining this company, with that title he could finally get back at all the people who called him a garbage wrestler. 

That’s where your problem was. Eddie had become so fixated on beating- NO! making Moxley quit that he’s changed completely. He’s become bitter, when you two speak on the phone he speaks as if he is being physically burned or tormented by the world he’s created his head. he spends most of his time either pacing a hole into the hotel room carpet or at the daily’s place with the family working on ways to beat Mox. He hasn’t been back to your shared home in  New York in weeks, he claims if he leaves Jacksonville he’ll become distracted and won’t be prepared for Full Gear. You can’t help feel completely neglected, as you yourself are a wrestler but are currently out due to a rotator cuff tear but you’re still helping out backstage as a coach as you feel the dynamite tapings are your only time you get to actually see Eddie anymore. with your injury you need Eddie’s loving support now more than ever but it doesn’t even feel like you rank on his list of priorities. When you see him backstage at dynamite he gives short answers about how he need to focus on winning right now but he’s going to bring the belt back for you and how he is finally going to right all the wrongs that AEW has done and that means making Mox quit, even if it’s the last thing he does 

You and Eddie have been dating for nearly six years at this point, what drew you to Eddie was his honesty, how he spoke his mind and to hell with anyone who didn’t like him, but what made you stay was how loyal he was. He let you see a side of him that not many people get to see, a softer side. You got to see how his beautiful green eyes would soften when he looked at you, as if you were the solution to every problem he’s ever had. You can’t just throw that away! but you’ve also never seen Eddie like this before. Now instead of love or lust in his eyes you only see torment, confusion and hurt. You’ve tried everything at this point and you’re running out of options and sanity. When will enough be enough? 

It's hours before the go home episode of dynamite for Full Gear on Saturday. you’re slowly but surely making your way towards the Family’s dressing room. Tonight was the night you were going to confront Eddie. you were going to give him no escape tonight. He has to talk about what has been happening between the two of you. You let yourself into the dressing room as the guys are used to you looking for Eddie. The room is empty except for Eddie blankly staring at the wall to the left of you as he does his wrist tape. 

“Hey baby, i need to talk to you.” you say as you side step into his eyeline. “listen doll, i don’t have the time ri-” you cut him off before the excuses could start “Well if you don’t have time then you’ll just listen!” you say as you dragged a chair in front of the bench he’s seated on. 

You take a moment to really look Eddie in his forest green eyes that for the first time almost seem blank of emotion, before asking “What’s going on Eddie?” “What do you mean doll?” you breathed out a sigh as you realize this is going to be more difficult than you thought. “what i mean by that Eddie, is that you haven’t spoken to me in weeks and i want to know why?” Eddie was clearly taken off guard by this as his eyebrows creased with confusion “what are talking about? we literally talked this morn-” “NO EDDIE! we didn't talk this morning, I spoke at you and you grunted back at me, i bet you can’t even remember what I said can you? I’ll wait Eddie '' seeing his face turn from shock at you yelling at him to dread as he realized he couldn’t remember a single word you said to him back at the hotel room this morning.  

“Listen doll-” “don’t you doll me Eddie, Jesus Christ Eddie do i even matter to you?” your patience was wearing thinner as the seconds passed. “Don’t say that doll, of course you matter to me! I love you don’t I?” Eddie was chuckling by the end of the sentence. Your eyes fall to flour and you can feel your heart begin to crack. “I don’t know anymore Eddie, do you?”  Eddie’s face fell as he scrambled to put a sentence together. “Doll don’t say that!! i love you more than anything” you knew his actions proved this to be a lie. “if you love me so much why don’t you talk to me? and don’t give me that i need to focus bull shit, we both know that’s shit” Eddie’s resolve was thinning as your ,however justified, questioning wore him down. “Well what the fuck do you want me to say then, Jesus doll, This title is my number one priority until i win it and show everyone that I’m the best in this entire god damn company” your eyes started to well up as you realized that you were coming to a cross road with Eddie. “but you’re already the best to me! is that not enough?” Eddie answers the question before thinking “No it’s not, your approval hasn’t gotten me jack shit in this business” 

If you thought your heart was breaking before, it shattered with this revelation. Your worst nightmare has come true. Eddie doesn’t need nor want you anymore. “Well then... i see how it is... “ as you start to walk out the door, Eddie grabs your arm to pull you back to him and breaks his silence “Wait.. doll i didn’t mean it like that, you know what i meant.” you were fully crying at this stage, “you know what Eddie, No. i don’t know what you meant by that because i don’t even know who you are anymore.” you pull your arm from his grasp. “Doll.... what?! where are you going?” you stop at the doorway to glance back at him “I’m going home to my parents Eddie, I can’t do this anymore. I deserve better than this, I’ll send my brother to pick up my things. I love you, goodbye” you let the door shut behind you as you leave the man you once hoped to be your future, in the past.

[saltlampsasuke]

Unfortunately, You Are Exhibiting Symptoms of Falling in Love: Part 1

Having your long-term boyfriend cheat on you is pretty bad, but you're lucky enough to have a rich, pro-hero best friend who lets you move in with him until you get a new apartment. Except lockdown happens. And you can't look for a new apartment anymore, and you can't go anywhere anymore, and neither can your best friend, and you think you might be falling a little bit in love with him. Or maybe you've been in love with him all along.

The story of how it takes a nationwide lockdown for you and Bakugou Katsuki to finally get together.

warnings: Coronavirus mention, abusive relationship mention

wordcount: 2,978

I’m so excited to share the first part of my story, and I hope that you enjoy!

It was at times like these you were thankful that Bakugou Katsuki was your best friend. At times like these, he was the only one you could call. No matter what, as long as he was physically able to, he would always pick up the phone. Many people thought of him as brash, overconfident, a bit (or more) rude, and maybe that was a little bit true. Still, he wasn’t half as bad as he had been when you first met him in high school, and you liked to think that the years you’d spent at his side were part of the reason he had softened a bit.

Of course, now that you were both settled into your careers, him as the now number-two pro hero, and you as his loyal support tech, he wasn’t quite so angry all the time. Time had somewhat settled his fiery attitude, though you knew the fire would never burn out completely. Sometimes, you think to yourself that no matter what happens, he’ll always have something to prove. But if he didn’t he wouldn’t be your best friend. And you like him the way that he is: loyal, honest to a fault, firm in his conviction to protect the world, and the only man you would think of calling after you walk in on your boyfriend of two years plowing into a random girl on your shared apartment bed.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You had been working late nights for the past week to fix up a piece of gear for Bakugou. It had been giving you a bit of trouble, but finally you had finished it, early in the afternoon to boot, so you had decided to head home and surprise your boyfriend. You knew you had been neglecting him lately, so you decided to make it up to him by cooking him his favorite dinner. Things were going to be different now. You had been getting too caught up in making gear lately, and you hadn’t been spending as much time with your loved ones as you wanted. But now spring was beginning. You could feel it in the warm breeze that chased you home. It was time for you to rededicate yourself to the people in your life. Gear could always be fixed, and it was more important to show the people you loved how much you loved them, starting with Takumi.

You hummed a simple melody as you neared your and Takumi’s apartment, growing more excited the closer you got. It was a Friday, which meant he had to stay late at work, so you would have plenty of time to cook before he got home. He was going to be so surprised, you thought to yourself, carefully unlocking the apartment door while balancing your recently-purchased groceries. You set them gently on the counter. As you glanced around your apartment, you noticed a few odd things. A pair of keys lying on the kitchen counter, both yours and Takumi’s house slipper missing from their place next to the doormat, and the faint sound of music coming from your bedroom. Was he already home? Perhaps he, too, had gotten out of work early and was also planning to surprise you. After all, you had the whole weekend ahead of yourselves. Even if he had planned something else for dinner, you could still surprise him by being home so early. You crept towards your bedroom, closer to the music, a song you recognized. Yes, that was definitely off of your sex playlist. And there was something else you could hear, quieter, but definitely audible. Your boyfriend was moaning. Was he so wound up thinking about you coming home he just couldn’t stand to wait? He would be so surprised to see you live and in person. You pushed open the door to see what you were nowhere close to expecting.

The man you lived with, the man you had loved for two years, had a girl pushed into your bed, her own moans smothered by your pillows as your boyfriend took her from behind. For a moment, you were speechless. Neither of them realized you were there, eyes away from the door and too caught up in the ecstasy of each other’s bodies to realize your entrance. You could hear the song on the playlist coming to an end. In the silence between one song and the next, you finally found the courage to speak.

“Care to explain, Takumi?” you said to the man who would soon be your ex-boyfriend. He paused in shock, almost unable to believe you were actually standing before him. Quickly, he grabbed a pillow from out under the girl he was fucking and held it over his body. You laughed derisively.

“Why bother hiding? It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.” You could see the gears in his brain turning rapidly, trying to churn out an excuse, any excuse.

“Baby, I promise this isn’t what it looks like,” he said nervously. The girl on the bed, who had been sitting confusedly, finally spoke.

“Baby? Is this your girlfriend?” she asked angrily. Takumi’s eyes darted nervously back and forth between you and the naked woman, before he slowly nodded.

“You have got to be kidding me.” She sat up proudly and looked you in the eyes. “I swear to god I had no idea he was in a relationship. I would never do that to another woman. God, I can’t believe I actually slept with a piece of shit like you!” she yelled at Takumi.

Your eyes grew wider at her words. You would have almost preferred if they had been in love, maybe then you could have justified it to yourself, but the implications of her words were clear. How many other random girls had there been?

“Listen, I know I messed up, but you have to hear me out,” pleaded Takumi to you. The girl in the bed snorted.

“What does she have to hear? How you told me you just got out of a relationship with your ex who was both clingy and never around enough? How much you were glad that you finally left her? How you were finally looking to meet a girl who could actually commit to a relationship? You’re human garbage.” The girl hurriedly put her clothes back on and headed out the door, but not before turning to you once more. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you. You better ruin him.” You nodded at her in respect. You wished you had her strength, but right now you wanted to do nothing more than to sit down and cry. Your whole apartment felt like it had been tainted. You turned to Takumi.

“Get out. I can’t even look at you right now,” you said, trying not to betray the tears in your eyes. He at least had his pants back on as he walked over towards you, arms outstretched.

“I promise she meant nothing. You’re the only woman for me. Please baby, don’t let this come between us. I love you,” he pleaded. You couldn’t believe him. He had the audacity to tell you that you were the only one for him when you had just caught him in bed with another woman?

“I’m asking you to leave, Takumi. There’s nothing you could have to say that I would want to hear.” You paced back and forth nervously, hoping to god that he would leave of his own volition. You had no idea how to make him leave if he didn’t want to, and you certainly didn’t want to be the one kicked out when you had done nothing wrong but love the wrong man. Of course, it was already sinking in that you would have to move out. Takumi may have been a cheating bastard, but he was also a rich bastard, and there was no way you could afford the nice apartment you two had shared for the last six months by yourself. Besides, you didn’t think you could look at the apartment the same ever again. Was she the first woman he used to defile your bed? Had the same countertops you had made him dinner on been violated? Could you ever feel truly clean in that shower again? Moving out wasn’t a question, it was a necessity. But Takumi wasn’t moving now.

“This is my apartment too, goddamn it. I’ll stay if I want to stay. You won’t even listen to me!” he yelled, waving his arms in the air angrily.

“I literally just caught you cheating on me! Why should I have to listen to anything you have to say?” you asked, your voice now filled with anger as well.

“God, this is so typical. You never want to pay any attention to anything I do. I wouldn’t have had to sleep with her if you actually fucking talked to me. But no, you’re always too busy for me, working at your stupid job on some dumb gadget that nobody cares about. Maybe if you had actually acted like a girlfriend this wouldn’t have happened. It’s not like you needed to fucking work with me around anyway. I never understood why you didn’t quit when you moved in.” You looked at Takumi again, but it felt like you were looking at a completely different person than the man you had once loved.

Did he really feel that your job was worthless? He had always been patient and kind about how your work schedule shifted based on customer need. It’s not like you were working all the time either, you had just been working later for the past weeks because Bakugou had literally shattered his gauntlets in a fight and was forced to use his spares. He was the number two hero. He saved peoples’ lives, and in fixing his gear, you felt that you saved them as well, at least indirectly. Takumi had never shown an inkling of these feelings before. Didn’t he support your work? You didn’t even know where to begin, completely bewildered and barely able to respond. All of this was so much, in so little time, coming completely out of nowhere.

“I save lives with my work, Takumi. Don’t you remember how Bakugou had to use the grappling hook I made him when he ran out of energy to sustain his power 100 feet up? He would have died. I love my job. I love helping the people who protect our lives. I just like having a job! There’s nothing wrong with that!” you said desperately.

“Your job is to be my girlfriend! How do you think it makes me feel when I come home late at night and I have to order takeout because you’re holed up in your workshop making another useless metal hunk for your precious Bakugou! You know, I bet you were hooking up with him this whole time. There’s no way you were really at work all those nights. You’re just at fault as me. I would never have slept with her if you acted like a woman is supposed to!” You snapped, no longer able to tolerate Takumi’s words, and refusing to take the blame for his actions.

“I am allowed to have a job. I am allowed to have a life outside of being with you. I have no obligation to cook, clean, or act a certain way for you. And I am asking you, for the last time, to get out of the apartment,” you spoke coldly. Perhaps your tone of voice finally got through to him, because he finally snapped his mouth shut, pulled on a hoodie, grabbed his keys, and left.

“Fine,” he spat. “Clearly you need some time to calm down and think. I can give that to you. I’m going to the lakehouse for a few days. When I come back you better have fixed this fucking attitude problem. I know what I did wasn’t right, and I’m going to make it up to you but you can’t even listen to reason right now so I’ll let you have some time to yourself. This isn’t over.” He finally stepped outside and closed the door. You sank to the floor, laughing hysterically, before starting to sob. What had he expected to happen, that you would apologize to him for forcing him to cheat on you? You couldn’t believe him. Although, as you sat and calmed yourself down, the more you thought about your relationship with Takumi, the worse he seemed.

You touched the necklace around your neck, remembering how he had refused to ever let you take it off, blowing up the one time you had tried to get it professionally cleaned after an incident in the workshop. The makeup class he had signed you up for as a “present”, because he wanted you to “unlock your inner beauty”. The way he hated your male coworkers, and got upset whenever you mentioned them. Most of all, the way he hated Bakugou. It had always upset you how the two most important people in your life had never gotten along, but you thought you had loved them both enough to survive their distaste for each other. Had Takumi always been so controlling? You couldn’t believe it had taken you this long to see it. What would have happened if you had married him? There was only one thing you could do right now. You pulled out your phone and called Bakugou. He picked up after the third ring, just like you knew he would.

“What the hell do you want, shitty woman? If it’s about the fixed gauntlets they’re fucking fine. You know I wouldn’t have you fix them if I didn’t know you would do a good job. Why the hell are you bothering me while I’m on patrol? Don’t you have that loser boyfriend to bother?” he asked. You cracked a small smile. Classic Bakugou. You could easily hear that under all that bluster he was happy to hear from you. You hadn’t been seeing him as much, probably because of Takumi, and you knew that though he would never say it, he had missed you.

“Hey Bakugou,” you spoke slowly and nervously. “Sorry to bother you, but���” Bakugou quickly cut you off.

“Are you sick or something, dumbass? You sound gross.” Translation: Are you ok? You sound upset.

“I, um, well, I, here’s the thing,” you stammered, trying to find the words to tell Bakugou what had happened without him blowing up.

“Spit it out, shitty woman. You know how to fucking talk.” You took a deep breath.

“Takumi was cheating on me. I just found out. He left and he said he’s going to be gone for a few days but he wants to talk when he gets back. I’m leaving him, and I think I need to move out.” After you managed to spill out the events of the past few minutes, you heard only heavy breathing on the other end of the line. “Bakugou?”

“Ok. Start packing whatever you want to take with you. I’ll be there soon,” he said. You knew he was trying to stay calm for you, but you could hear the crackle and pop of his quirk through the phone. He must have been really angry. He had progressed a lot since his angry high school days where you had to design special muffling gloves for him, because he couldn’t control his quirk when he got angry. Now, you only heard that sound when he was about to absolutely destroy someone.

“Wait, Bakugou. I can’t just move out of here immediately.”

“Yes you can,” he responded.

“I don’t have any way to pack up all my stuff, or move it, and I definitely don’t have anywhere to move to. There’s no way I can just leave.” What was he thinking?

“I don’t care. I’ll call Shitty hair, or a moving company, or buy a fucking truck to put all your shit on. You don’t have to stay there.” You knew he would do it, too. You had always been proud to make your own money, something you were realizing Takumi had never seemed to like, so you didn’t want to rely on someone else to buy you something, but this was different. This was Bakugou. You knew he was only doing this because he wanted to, and he wouldn’t expect anything in return.

“Ok, but all of that means nothing if I don’t have anywhere to move the stuff to. What am I supposed to do, live out of my car?” You could hear Bakugou snort derisively through the phone.

“Are you fucking stupid? You’ll move in with me, of course. For the first time in a long time, you heard hesitation in your best friend’s voice. “Unless, you don’t want to? I can get you a hotel or something while we figure out an apartment, but you know I have a spare room. And, fuck, I don’t know, you wouldn’t be the shittiest roommate in the world, and I know…” You decided to cut him off to spare him any further misery.

“I’d be more than happy to move in with you, Bakugou,” you said softly, hearing him breathe a sigh of relief through the phone. “Thank you.”

“Don’t fucking mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it. Just start packing your shit. I gotta go call out of patrol.” With that, he hung up.

You had always said that you didn’t know what you’d do without him as your friend, and you felt that way now more than ever. Who else but Bakugou Katsuki would do all this for you? One phone call, and he was already dropping everything to come help you. That man was nothing if not devoted to his friends.

[londonspirit]

After the pandemic delayed its highly-anticipated release, the In the Heights movie is finally coming to very thirsty fans this Friday - and, to make the premiere even better, a special behind-the-scenes look at the movie is hitting bookshelves. In the Heights: Finding Home is a joint venture with Lin-Manuel Miranda, screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Jeremy McCarter - it combines never-before-seen photos and oral history style-storytelling to take readers onto the Washington Heights set, spilling all sorts of filming secrets. Here, in an exclusive excerpt, read along as the cast battles record heat to complete the "Carnaval del Barrio" number.

Washington Heights is dense enough, and lively enough, to offer a distilled version of the New York paradox: Life is a nerve-fraying ordeal that you miss terribly as soon as it's gone. (According to local custom, people don't just double-park here, they triple-park.) Everybody knew that shooting a movie there would be difficult and expensive. But Jon [M. Chu, the director,] couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

For all of its fantastical touches-what Jon calls its "sing-to-the-stars-y" energy-Heights has always drawn power from its realism, a depiction of life as it's actually lived. The sweet spot for the movie, Jon felt, would be offering "a very truthful take on living in Washington Heights, then upping it."

In other words: No matter how fraught the process might be, the cast, the crew, and all of their gear-up to and including their fake sun in the sky-were going to spend the summer of 2019 in Washington Heights.

"The essence of a movie dictates where you shoot it," explains Kevin McCormick, a Warner Bros. executive who was integral to Heights. "And there's no way you could not have made this in Washington Heights. To have a movie about this community and not film there would be such a lost opportunity."

The first thing they did there was listen. Members of the production team, particularly Samson Jacobson, the location manager (born and raised in the area-a definite plus), and Karla Sayles, the director of public affairs at Warner Bros., met with community leaders to field questions and respond to concerns. Once again, Luis Miranda was a vital resource, drawing on relationships he had built over decades to make introductions.

The producers vowed to do all they could to limit the physical footprint of the shoot. Cast members shared trailers that they might otherwise have kept to themselves. The production hired people from the neighborhood for roles onscreen and off. Instead of catering every meal, they encouraged actors and crew to buy lunch in area restaurants. They even funded a student production of the show at George Washington high school.

What you see onscreen is a two-hour-and-fourteen-minute record of movie professionals falling in love with a place and its people. They arrived uptown to discover that Washington Heights really was different from most places in New York. Locals opened the hydrants on hot afternoons and played dominoes on the sidewalks. The piragüeros really did park their carts on the sidewalk to hawk their flavors of the day. The fascination seemed to be mutual: Actors got used to seeing whole families-little kids and their abuelitas-watching from their stoops at any time of the day or night.

Which is not to say that it came easily.

To Alice Brooks, the director of photography, the weather problems were "insane." If a storm popped up on the radar anywhere nearby, they had to suspend production. This happened with schedule-wrecking regularity. They expected to be free of such interruptions when they went underground to shoot "Paciencia y Fe" on the subway. Instead, they experienced a torment familiar to every New Yorker but with a twist: They weren't waiting for the train to appear so they could ride it to work, they just needed the garbage train to pass by so they could go back to shooting their movie.

The need to solve the endless riddles of New York filmmaking had led the producers to add Anthony Bregman to the team. At this point, he reckons, he's filmed in just about every corner of his hometown, always looking for ways to capture the authentic look and feel of a place-even when the movie is surreal. (He produced Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a valuable point of reference for the reality-bending frame of Quiara's screenplay.) So he wasn't especially rattled when, on the night they filmed "Alabanza," a nearby building caught fire, or when, on another night, gunshots rang out nearby.

"You want the life of the city?" Anthony asks. "The life of the city is complicated."

The production lost valuable shooting time on both of those nights. They found ways to make it up later. But other days offered no second chances. Anthony remembers looking at the calendar before summer began, getting a feel for what lay ahead. Some days seemed manageable; some days seemed tough. Then there was "Carnaval del Barrio."

"That day," he says, "was impossible."

What turned out to be a defining episode in the whole long history of In the Heights almost didn't happen at all. Many a movie executive had suggested over the years that there wasn't enough plot in "Carnaval del Barrio" to justify a song that was very long and very crowded, which made it very expensive. But the song's power doesn't come from the plot, it comes from the theme. The characters rally one another's spirits amid a citywide blackout. They raise their flags and celebrate their heritage-and their humanity-in defiance of every force telling them not to.

That community-fortifying aspect of the song is "essentially the DNA of In the Heights for me," Quiara says. Beneath the joy, there's a legacy of struggle and resilience. " 'Carnaval' unearths that history. All we have is our fight to be here together, the testimony to our spirit."

To help ensure that the number would remain in the movie, she hooked it into the plot more securely, situating it as a farewell number for the salon ladies, who have been priced out of the neighborhood. But the budget wasn't the only limiting factor. "Carnaval" is unique in requiring virtually every member of the cast to be present at the same time.

The actors' complicated schedules meant that Jon wouldn't get all the filming days he wanted. He would get only one.

Which meant it was time for the hard, slow, unglamorous legwork of moviemaking: planning, organizing, rehearsing, designing, equipping, and rehearsing some more-months of it, all to give themselves the best possible chance to "make the day," to film the whole gigantic number in the time available.

In the world of making movies, "day" is a flexible unit of time, especially for a scene that would be filmed outdoors- in this case, a courtyard between two apartment buildings around the corner from where Lin went to preschool. They scheduled the shoot for a Monday, when union rules would let them start the earliest. And they picked June 24, one of the longest days of the year.

They didn't realize it would also be one of the hottest.

The song would be filmed more or less in order. Which meant that for the production, as for the characters, the salon ladies would lead the way.

Some of the movie's actors were new to musicals. Not Daphne Rubin-Vega, who plays Daniela. When Rent blew the mind of seventeen-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda, she was onstage, playing Mimi. But when she arrived for hair and makeup on "Carnaval" day-at 4:30 in the morning-even she was feeling nerves. The uneven concrete floor of the courtyard wasn't like where they had rehearsed. The prospect of filming a seven-page song before nightfall seemed crazy.

She began to hear a voice of doubt in her brain, one that's encoded in a specific ugly memory. After wrapping her first film, she had gone to the airport to fly home to New York and mentioned to the woman at the ticket counter that she had just acted in a movie.

"That's funny," said the woman, who Daphne believes to have been Latina like herself. "You don't look like an actress."

Worries about how they looked, questions about what they were wearing, a general feeling of negativity-Dascha Polanco was feeling them, too. She always loved arriving on set to play Cuca, one of Daniela's fellow salon ladies, because it felt so much like coming home. She was born in the Dominican Republic and while growing up in Brooklyn used to make frequent trips to the Heights with her friends. ("Washington Heights is a small Dominican Republic," she explains.) Now she, too, wondered if she belonged. Am I capable of remembering the steps? she asked herself.

She decided to stop those doubts-for herself and the other salon ladies. She grabbed the hands of Daphne and Stephanie Beatriz, who played Carla, and formed the women into a profane prayer circle.

"Shake that s--- off," she told them. "I'm not going to let anyone or anything interfere with my performance today."

Daphne laughs as she tells the story. "She was so hilarious and said we were going to protect each other from that insecurity. That was such a beautiful thing-going in there with that determination to represent."

By 5:30 A.M., when the sun rose over Queens, sixty dancers had arrived. Christopher Scott, the film's choreographer, tried to prepare them for what was coming, backed by his full team of associate choreographers: Emilio Dosal, Ebony Williams, and Dana Wilson, as well as associate Latin choreographer Eddie Torres, Jr., and assistant Latin choreographer Princess Serrano. By six A.M., dozens of crew members had joined them, making the thousand careful adjustments needed to help a movie look spontaneous.

It was almost nine A.M. by the time Jon called "Action." The cameras started rolling, Daphne started singing, and the clock kept ticking.

Arrange the actors, position the cameras, do a take, reset everybody, do it again. As the sun climbed higher that morning, the temperature rose to what one crew member estimated to be nine hundred degrees. Look closely-see the sweat on people's bodies? Most of it didn't come from the makeup department. But there wasn't time for extra breaks to cool off.

"Please be quiet," a voice on the loudspeaker boomed at one point. "We gotta go."

At one point that morning, Jimmy Smits got his turn to shine. Playing Kevin Rosario wasn't his first Height experience. He had seen the show Off-Broadway and been "blown away" by it, he says. He had offered to help in any way he could, eventually recording a radio ad for the show.

His devotion to Heights carried into rehearsals for the film. As they got underway, he told Chris Scott and the choreography team, "I know I'm playing the dad, but the last thing I want to see is myself in the background, just waving my hands. I want to go all in." They obliged him. He sometimes hobbled home from the dance studio to ice himself for hours.

His payoff came on "Carnaval" day. He had a featured moment in the song: an intricate, whirling combination. The cast and crew watched him do it again and again, cheering him on. He could feel "a lightning bolt of energy" around the set, something he'd experienced only rarely in his long career.

Over the applause after one take, a voice rang out, ricocheting off the walls: "That s--- was crazy! For our ancestors!" It was Anthony Ramos. He, too, had a long history with Heights, but it wasn't as happy as Jimmy's.

Very early in his career, he had tried to get cast as Sonny on the show's national tour. It meant taking a bus into Manhattan from a gig he was doing in New Jersey, going through round after round of auditions. At last he made it to the big moment: a callback in front of Tommy Kail, Alex Lacamoire, and Lin himself.

He gave the song everything he had. He didn't get the part.

He thought he'd missed the one chance he would get to work with Lin, the writer who'd evoked Anthony's own world, Latino New York, so beautifully on a Broadway stage. He needn't have worried. A few years later, the same guys would hire him to originate the roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Alexander's son, in Hamilton.

When Anthony got to know Tommy and Lac well enough, he asked if they remembered not casting him as Sonny. They said they did.

"You weren't ready yet," Lac said.

Anthony knew he was right. "Only a homie would tell you that," he says.

But he needed one more break to make his way back to Heights and find himself sweating in the courtyard that morning.

In 2018, Stephanie Klemons, an original cast member of both In the Heights and Hamilton, directed a production of Heights at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The night before rehearsals were set to begin, she lost an actor to an injury. She reached out to Anthony: Could he step in with zero notice?

He didn't feel physically or mentally ready, and was about to pass, but decided to do it. That's how he got a second chance to show Lin what he could do in Heights-not as Sonny this time, as Usnavi. In a series of tweets, reproduced on this page, Lin commemorated how overwhelmed he was watching Anthony step into the role he once played. He, Quiara, and Jon all agreed that when the cameras started rolling, Anthony should be their Usnavi.

The bond between Anthony and Lin added to the drama of filming "Carnaval." Lin played Piragua Guy, so he was in the courtyard, too-or, rather, directly above it, on a fire escape. It meant that the whole cast and crew had a clear view of the brief duet that he and Anthony sing in the middle of the number. To people who knew their history, the sight made time go all swirly. Anthony had originated the role of Lin's son in Hamilton, and now he was playing the role that Lin had originated, and somehow the two of them were singing a duet in Washington Heights.

A quirk of the production process made the moment even stranger and more potent. All day, the actors had been singing along to prerecorded versions of "Carnaval" piped over the loudspeakers. But somehow they hadn't gotten around to recording Anthony's side of his duet, so they had to fall back on the only other version on hand: the Broadway cast album. Which meant that Lin wasn't just singing with Anthony that day, he was harmonizing with himself at age twenty-eight, when every bit of what was happening around him would have seemed like a ludicrous dream. "It was like time travel," Lin says.

By three p.m., when everybody had returned from their lunch break-blood sugar bolstered by the ice cream truck that Stephanie Beatriz had hired-time was growing shorter, the day hotter. Now when choreographer Chris Scott talked to the dancers, many listened with hands on hips, hands on knees.

From his fire escape, Lin did his bit to keep up morale. He joined in the clapping that broke out between scenes; he made silly faces; he pulled up his shirt and did belly rolls. Guests watched from the edges of the shoot: Lin's dad and wife, Quiara's sister, Chris's mom, Anthony's sister and mom. Anna Wintour stopped by.

Jon is not the type to direct through a bullhorn, barking orders from the shade. When they'd filmed "96,000" earlier that month on a couple of unseasonably frigid days, he had jumped in the Highbridge Park pool with the cast.

On this day, he darted around the courtyard, giving notes to actors, framing shots, conferring with Alice. He is also not the type to speak in mystical terms, but when he thinks back on that day, he remembers "the sun shining down like a laser-it was like the sun was shining out of everybody."

By late afternoon, the boundary between the make-believe world of the movie and the real world of the shoot had all but melted away. They had reached the part of the song where Usnavi and Daniela try to call forth their neighbors' pride in where they come from. Anthony climbed onto a picnic table and faced the whole cast, rapping, "Can we sing so loud and raucous they can hear us across the bridge in East Secaucus?" Daphne stood near him, arms wide apart, raising them up, willing everybody to stand tall, to keep going.

Both of them were throwing all their skill and commitment into their performances, the stars of two of Broadway's epoch-making musicals doing what they had trained to do. But they also weren't acting.

"To raise the flag for your country, to dance and recognize that we're all here together, and belong here, we don't need to be forgiven for it, or ashamed for it," says Daphne of what she was feeling. "There's a pride in being here from Colombia, or Panama, the D.R., Puerto Rico, Cuba, wherever."

At eight o'clock, with the sun sinking toward New Jersey, the dancers were still dancing. Eleven hours had passed since Daphne had belted out "Hey!" to start the song. Now Jon was trying to get the right take of sixty-plus voices shouting "Hey!" to finish it. In the movie version of the scene, the blackout ends when the song does, so a voice on the loudspeaker would announce, "The power's on!" That's how the actors knew the right moment to cheer that it was over.

After one such cheer, it really was over. Not just the take-the song.

They had done it. They had made the day.

Jon jumped into a swarm of dancers. (Ever see a baseball player hit a walk-off home run, then leap onto home plate into the waiting arms of his cheering teammates? That's what this jump looked like.) People were clapping and shouting and hugging and crying. Alice thought the whole thing was a miracle.

"You know when you see people at a concert cry, and you're like, 'I would never do that'?" asks costume designer Mitchell Travers. "That's what I did." He thinks it's the most sheer human energy he has ever been close to.

Anthony Ramos, in the middle of the crowd, launched into a speech. He can't remember his exact words. He hadn't planned what he was going to say-he hadn't planned to speak at all. He just felt that something needed to be said.

"I might have said, today we made history," he recalls. "This was for our ancestors who didn't get the opportunity to do this-who were fighting to have a chance to do what we just did. It was for love of the culture. It was for our kids, who look like us, to be able to see themselves on the big screen, to see us singing about our pride. Some s--- like that."

Somewhere in the crowd stood Dascha Polanco, cheering with the rest. She was sweaty, tired, tear-streaked-and beginning to feel the spirit move.

"I looked down and saw that concrete floor," she says, "and I saw those fire escapes up there, and I was like, 'New York.' "

She began a chant. It was slow and pitched low: "N-e-e-e-e-w York, N-e-e-e-e-w York." In seconds, the whole crowd took it up. "N-e-e-e-e-w York! N-e-e-e-e-w York!"

They were pointing to the sky. They were dancing.

"N-e-e-e-e-w York! N-e-e-e-e-w York!"

"It wasn't like chanting, 'Oh, I love New York,' " Anthony says later-meaning it wasn't a casual thing someone would casually say. "It was"-he drops his voice an octave and leans in-"I motherf---ing love New York. I'm proud to be from New York. I'm proud to be Latino from New York. That was the chant."

Lin, on his fire escape, was overwhelmed. Quiara, in the courtyard, guessed that people could hear them all chanting for blocks around. "It was the sound of joy and survival," she says. "And the sound of people who were really proud to be artists in community together-all our stories braided and interwoven at that one moment."

The long months of preparation had yielded the thing that movie people dream of creating: the burst of real emotion, the flash of genuine spontaneity. Some of it infuses what you see in the finished version of the song, but some of it can't be recovered now. It's an experience only for the people who got to be part of that impromptu celebration, the carnaval that followed "Carnaval."

That long day and its joyous finale capture, in miniature form, a lot of the Heights experience-what's powerful about it, what's rare. Instead of expecting little from the actors it featured, Heights demanded everything-not just what they could do, but who they were and where they came from. By fusing them with dozens of other artists making the same commitment, it gave them the feeling that Lin had wanted so badly for himself when he started writing the show: a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of people working toward a goal they all hold dear. That's why Anthony, looking back on filming "Carnaval," says, "That was one of the greatest days of my life. Period. If I never do another movie again, I did this."

"Something that arises in 'Carnaval' is a feeling of, 'There's a place for us,' " says Quiara. "But the place is not one that says, 'Oh, I definitely fit in' or 'I definitely don't.' It holds those questions. It allows those questions to exist."

Those questions, she has come to see, are universal.

"People are like, 'What is my place in the world?' That question is actually part of your place in the world," she says. "There's something about In the Heights. It takes such a burden off to hear, 'Yeah, there's a place for you. Here it is.'"

[maggiemaybe160]

Birthday Wishes

Super Angst Fic Ahead. You’ve been warned. Also read on Ao3. Thank you @nickelkeep​ for the beta and cheerleading. <3 

Dean doesn’t celebrate his birthday anymore. He hasn’t for years.

There are pictures of the first and happiest birthdays. They’re tucked away in a box in a storage unit filled with hunter’s gear and booby traps. Dean hasn’t actually seen them since he was a child. There’s a picture of a very tired Mary Winchester beaming as he holds her baby. John is sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, pride written all over him as he wraps an arm around his wife and grins at the camera. There’s another one where Dean is sitting in front of a cake with a big candle number one. Both of his hands are embedded in the cake, frosting oozing out from between his fingers. There’s one from when he turned four and he’s offering his slice of cake to his infant brother as Mary and John laugh.

Dean remembers his first birthday without his mom. He was turning five. He remembers his father crying. There were empty bottles all around the room and Dean remembers picking one up and blowing air into it to make it whistle. His dad had snatched it out of his hands and told Dean not to touch them.

“What day is today?” Dean had asked.

“January 24,” his dad had answered, showing him on the calendar.

“That’s my birthday,” Dean had announced proudly.

“Fuck,” was the only answer he had gotten. Then his dad started crying harder. So when Sam started to cry, Dean went to his crib and lulled him back to sleep by singing Happy Birthday.

Dean remembers the birthday he got back to the motel and found a sheet cake with a note taped to it. His dad had left some money for a pizza and an excuse of a job with “PS. Happy Birthday, Son” scrawled at the bottom. Sam had sung the song and Dean announced they were having cake for dinner. Sam had cheered, but Dean knew by then that their dad never left enough money for his days of absence.

Dean remembers when his first day at a new school was on his birthday. He was in the sixth grade and hid in the bathroom during lunch so he could cry. After school, his dad took him out to test out the sawed-off he’d made the week before.

He remembers screaming after the Impala, standing at the edge of Bobby’s driveway, tears running down his face as his father left him behind. Bobby hadn’t said anything about the tears. He’d waited until Dean was through before bringing him inside and washing him up. When Dean sat down at the dinner table, he asked why Sam was grinning from ear to ear.

“Dad just left us, you dope. Why’re you happy?”

“It’s your birthday,” Sam had answered, swinging his legs under the table. Bobby walked in holding a lasagna with candles in it and the two of them sang. “Make a wish!” Sam had ordered as soon as the song was over. Dean doesn’t remember his wish, but he remembers closing his eyes and thinking about it before blowing out the candles.

“The first pie burned, so we can have the second for dessert,” Bobby had promised as they dug into their dinner.

There was the birthday that his dad came back early for. He’d wanted it to be a surprise for Dean. Sam was on a sleepover at one of his friends’ houses and Dean… Dean was having a sleepover in his motel room with a boy from school. John didn’t wait for the other sixteen-year-old to leave before he hit Dean so hard he was seeing stars. It was the first time he was called a fag. It was the first time the beating he was receiving wasn’t for something to do with hunting or his father’s drinking. It was the first time he heard someone try to stand up for him, the boy he was with screaming for John to stop.

His seventeenth birthday, he was already out of high school. He’d dropped out to become his father’s soldier. It was drilled into him that he was nothing more than a soldier, and a poor one at that. He stole the keys from his father and woke Sam up at the crack of dawn. They took Baby out for a spin. Dean was tempted to keep driving forever. He almost did. They stopped at a diner and ordered everything on the menu, slapping their dad’s fraudulent credit card down to pay for it all. They worked their way through pancakes and bacon, hot cocoa with whipped cream and a mocha for Dean. There were waffles and sausages, fruit cups and garbage plates. They laughed and flicked food at each other from across their table. And then it was time to go. So Dean drove Sammy to school and went back to his motel room for his birthday beating.

Dean was turning twenty-two the night Sam brought him a pie and a problem. He applied to Stanford. Pride had swelled in Dean’s chest, but his heart was breaking. He didn’t just apply. He got in. He was starting in the Fall and he was asking for Dean’s support and his silence.

“Just until I find a way to tell Dad.”

Dean had promised and taken a bite of his pie.

The last birthday he celebrated was his twenty-fourth. It wasn’t celebrated so much as vaguely acknowledged. Dean and his dad had been quiet, sitting across from each other in a restaurant. Their last hunt was over and Dean scarfed down his burger without question.

“She’s yours,” John has said as he slid the keys to Dean. “If you can take care of her.”

“I will, sir,” Dean said, his hands tightening around the metal. “Thank you.” John nodded and they continued their meal in their own thoughts.

Dean slept in his car that night, stretched out across the front seat as he looked up through the window at the starry sky. His favorite tape played gently and he hummed to it quietly before turning off the car and closing his eyes.

He had wanted to celebrate his birthday with Sam when their Dad was gone and it was just them on the road hunting together. He had planned to get a cake and rent a movie on pay-per-view and announce that this was their dinner. Right before his twenty-seventh birthday, he had electrocuted himself and had a heart attack. Sure, he was going to live, but only because his life was traded with another’s at the hand of a reaper. It was over, but Dean couldn’t shake it. He stood in the bakery of the grocery store staring at the sheet cake for too long before he left and bought a pizza on the way home instead.

“Happy Birthday,” Sam had said when Dean walked in with the pizza. He had a sheet cake on one of the beds, ready with two forks. “Didn’t think I forgot, did you?”

The next year, Dean glared at the calendar. He was supposed to be dead. His dad made a deal and now he was living on borrowed time. If he hadn’t done it, Dean would have died before making it to twenty-eight. He would have died in a car crash, blood running down his face as he melted into the backseat of his beloved car.

“I don’t want to celebrate this year,” Dean told Sam.

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t feel right. I shouldn’t be here. We saved a girl, but we didn’t save anyone else. I just don’t feel like it, okay?” Dean had grabbed the remote and turned on the tv before Sam could answer.  Sam didn’t argue, though. He left Dean alone to watch tv and returned an hour later with a six-pack of Dean’s favorite beer in one hand and a cherry pie in the other.

Dean remembers his twenty-ninth birthday. It was his last hurrah before being dragged downstairs. He’d sold his soul and he would celebrate if he wanted to. They set off fireworks together in the middle of nowhere. They ate bacon cheeseburgers and pie. Dean dragged his party-pooper brother from bar to bar, staying until they were kicked out of each one. Sam waited in the car as Dean went to a strip club, his pockets loaded with singles.

When it was all over and Sam was in his bed asleep, Dean stared up at the ceiling in the dark and whispered, “All hunters die young. Twenty-nine is old enough. Happy Birthday to me.” The first year out of Hell was the beginning of Dean refusing to celebrate his birthday. To make sure Sam didn’t try to show up with a pie or a cake, Dean let himself disappear. Sam didn’t text him to ask him where he was. He didn’t call him. Dean was alone with Baby on his first birthday out of Hell. He spent it staring up at the sky, wondering why Heaven would save such a broken person.

His birthday became a box on a calendar with bad memories. Sam didn’t try to bring it up and Dean didn’t have to hide. Then Sam was gone. Cas was gone. All Dean had was Lisa and she didn’t know when his birthday was, though they fought about it.

“It’s not a big deal. Just tell me,” she said, though her voice was no longer calm and curious. She was getting angrier the longer he kept his mouth shut.

“Drop it, Lisa,” he had warned her, closing his book and getting out of his chair.

“You want the ‘picket-fence life’ as you call it. You want the girlfriend and the son. You want to live in the suburbs and have friends and celebrate holidays, but you won’t tell me what happened to your brother. You won’t tell me where your father is. You won’t tell me why you’re here. You won’t even tell me when your god damn birthday is!”

“They’re dead!” Dean had yelled. “Dad’s dead and has been for years! Sam’s… Sam’s gone! Are you wondering about my mom too?”

“Dean, no. I.. I’m sorry,” she tried, realizing her mistake.

“Because she’s dead too!” Dean continued, every muscle in his body tensed. “What the fuck else did you want to know? My fucking birthday? Like it fucking matters?” She didn’t know it was his birthday that day. “I need some air,” he said, dropping his voice and dragging his fingers through his hair.

“Dean…”

“Don’t follow me,” he said as he walked out to the garage. He locked the door and slipped into his Impala, gripping the wheel until his nails bit into his palms and his knuckles turned white. He clenched his jaw to keep from screaming and when he shut his eyes tight, he ignored the tears that had rolled down his cheeks.

The next time Dean thought about his birthday after that night was when he was sitting with his back against a tree in Purgatory. Benny was sleeping as Dean kept a lookout in the dark, his grip tight on his makeshift blade.

“I don’t know how long I’ve been in this place,” Dean had prayed quietly to Cas as he prayed every night. “I’m not giving up. I won’t leave without you.” He drew a candle in the dirt between his feet. “It could be August. It could be January. It could be my birthday and I wouldn’t even know it, Cas. If it’s my birthday, then I get one wish, right?”

He took a deep breath and blew out the etching of a candle. It was too dark to see, but he was sure the marks were gone, his drawing erased. He remembers his wish. He wished for Cas. It’s the only birthday wish that Dean remembers coming true.

It was Dean’s thirty-fourth birthday when he got to give the Braveheart speech to a LARPing group for his Queen of Moondor, Charlie. He hadn’t realized it was his birthday until after the speech when he was back in his normal clothes driving away with a smile on his face.

“Have a good birthday?” Sam had asked. Dean had felt the floor drop out from under him. He wasn’t allowed to have a good birthday. It had been a cursed day for most of his life.

“I didn’t know it was,” Dean said honestly. He wanted the subject to drop before it entered dangerous territory.

“Nice speech,” Sam said instead of continuing the birthday talk like Dean had expected him to.

“Thanks,” he grinned again and his birthday was forgotten.

The first birthday present Dean received after the Impala was the Mark of Cain. His brother walked out of his life and Cas was far from home. Dean drank more alcohol with the Mark on his arm than he ever had before. His tolerance was higher and his thirst was greater and his home was emptier than ever.

“Happy Birthday to you,” Dean sang quietly to himself before taking another swig of beer. “Happy Birthday to you. Everyone leaves you ‘cause you’re worthless. Happy Birthday to me.” His next birthday went unannounced and unnoticed. Looking back, Dean realized that on his birthday, he’d been slamming his fists into Metatron’s face, the pain from the Mark easing with every swing, urging him to keep going. He had dragged the angel blade down the angel’s chest, eliciting the screams that fed the Mark as Sam and Cas beat the door down. He was pulled away, the world far away under the daze of the Mark. Being forcibly removed from his attack felt like waking up from a fainting spell. His birthday was spent trying to find out how to get rid of the previous year’s gift.

Dean’s thirty-eighth birthday was spent in a jail cell in the middle of nowhere. Dean kept track of the days that he was confined to solitary by etching tally marks in his wall. His birthday was just another tally mark. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall and refrained from praying to Cas.

Dean had already decided that he would say goodbye to all of his family and friends on his fortieth birthday. He was prepared to lock himself inside of a coffin at the bottom of the ocean. He was prepared for it if it meant saving everyone else. Dean remembers wrapping his arms around his brother and wanting to say more. He remembers not being able to find the words. He also remembers staring at Cas’ name in his phone. He was the only person Dean couldn’t say goodbye to. He knew that if he looked into those eyes while he was that weak and heard his deep voice begging him not to do it, he would have given in. He wouldn’t have been able to go through with leaving everything behind when everything was begging him not to.

It’s Dean’s forty-first birthday. He made it all the way to forty-one. He pushes the thought away as he has for every other birthday and makes his way to the kitchen.

“I’m going for a drive,” he announces. Sam looks concerned for a moment before his eyes flicker to the calendar. He nods and continues eating whatever the fuck is in his bowl. It looks and smells like oatmeal, but Dean doesn’t want to dwell on it.

“Have fun,” Sam says. Dean bites his lip and hits the wall gently as he nods before walking away. Sure. Fun.

It takes three hours to drive to his destination. He checks his pockets and makes sure they’re empty before he gets out of his car and walks into the seemingly abandoned building. He walks slowly and looks around at the cracked windows that provide the only light this building has.

“I’m not armed,” Dean says. “No tricks. Just a wish.” A birthday wish. A hand grips his wrist and he feels himself get spun around. He’s face to face with a djinn, his eyes glowing blue.

“A Winchester,” the djinn says. “Where’s the other and the angel?”

“At home unaware. Just me.” He keeps his voice even despite the slight fear he feels pounding in his chest. The djinn’s other hand sparks as he brings it to Dean’s temple. The world slides away and Dean feels himself being caught before he falls.

When he opens his eyes, he’s exactly where he started. In the middle of an abandoned building. He stands up and looks up at the windows. They’re not cracked anymore. He turns to the door and walks to the exit, brushing the dirt from the floor off of him.

“Dean!” Cas runs to him from where he had been standing beside the Impala.

“Heya, Cas,” Dean pulls him in for a hug and closes his eyes as he feels Cas’ arms around him. He’s probably only feeling his own heart hammering away, but he’s sure he can feel Cas’ slamming against his. “Come on,” he says when they break apart.

“Where are we going, Dean?”

“Trust me. You’ll love it,” Dean says with a cheeky grin and a wink. Cas gets into the passenger seat and takes a tape out of his pocket. “What’s that?” Dean asks as he starts to drive.

“It was a gift,” Cas says as she pushes it into the tape deck. Dean would recognize this tape anywhere. He’d made it a long time ago and given it to Cas. He grins as Zepplin plays loudly through the car.

The drive doesn’t take as long as Dean expected, but he’s glad to park and stare out over the Grand Canyon with Cas by his side.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Dean asks, turning the music off.

“Yes,” Cas breathes, looking out.

Dean feels Cas’ fingers brush against his on the seat between them. He laces his fingers with Cas’ without looking down.

“I’m glad you prayed to me,” Cas says quietly. “It gave me a reason to fight.”

“I’m glad you fought,” Dean answers. “So I could see you again.”

A helicopter rises from the canyon and Dean’s eyes go wide. He takes his hand from Cas and throws the car into reverse, turning 180 and trying to drive through the kicked-up dirt. He can hear the sirens. They’re being surrounded. Dean spins the car around again, panic rising in his chest.

“It looks like an army,” Cas says.

“All of this for us?” Dean looks from his rearview mirror to Cas.

“Place your hands in plain view!” The order comes over a loudspeaker from one of the cars. “Any failure to obey that command will be considered an act of aggression against us!” Dean tunes them out as they continue their demands. He grabs his gun and starts to reload.

“What are you doing, Dean?” Cas asks.

“I’m not givin’ up.” He presses the bullets in hastily. “I just got you back.”

“Okay. Let’s not get caught.” Dean looks up at Cas’ words.

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Let’s keep going.” Cas’ blue eyes are piercing and pleading. He looks from Dean to the cliff they’re facing. “Go.”

“You sure?” Dean asks.

“Yes.” Cas nods and looks back at Dean. “As long as we’re together.” Dean grins and nods.

“Cas,” he breathes before he pulls Cas to him and their lips crash together. His fingers rake through Cas’ thick hair as his lips part for him. He can feel Cas’ hand on his jaw and his teeth against his lip. They laugh into each other as they part.

Dean nods and floors it, speeding toward the cliff. He holds out his hand and Cas takes it without hesitation, their fingers winding together. The tires leave the ground and Dean suddenly feels weightless. He squeezes Cas’ hand and turns to look at him, wanting his face to be the last thing he sees.

His dark hair is wild from Dean’s fingers dragging through it. His eyes hold all the shades of blue that the sky holds. His lips are perfect and slightly parted, taking in a breath.

“Dean.”

“Cas.”

“Dean!” Dean blinks blearily, the dream tearing itself up and disintegrating. He can’t focus. He’s so cold and tired and Cas is there. Cas. “Let me heal you,” he pleads. His face swims into focus. Why is he here? He didn’t tell anyone he was going to be here. “What were you doing here?”

“It’s my birthday,” Dean says on an exhale. He feels Cas’ hand on the side of his face and wonders if he has enough blood left to blush. Cas is healing him. He can feel the heat of the grace in Cas’ palm. He doesn’t fight.

“You could have died,” Cas says. Is it anger? Worry?

“Not with my guardian angel,” Dean says as he sits up. His head had been in Cas’ lap, cradled gently. He clenches his jaw and looks away from his best friend. “Thanks, Cas.” He looks toward the door and realizes how dark it is outside. “How long was I gone?”

“Only a few hours, but multiple djinn were feeding on you. How did this happen?”

“Come on, Cas. It’s a long drive back.” He gets up at the same time as Cas and walks toward his exit.

“I didn’t know today was your birthday,” Cas says as he gets in the car.

“It’s not important,” Dean brushes it off. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”

“Happy Birthday, Dean,” Cas says quietly.

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[pcttrailsidereader]

April is the Worst Time to Start the PCT . . . Here’s Why

This is a perennial question that has no right answer.  That being said, it is an important decision for each individual to make based upon snow pack, skill level, tolerance for crowds and need for solitude, pace, and, of course, when you need to be done. Daniel Winsor offers his perspective and outlines a number of considerations.

This post seems an appropriate follow-up to the October 29 post about the changes to the permit system for 2020.  It will become increasingly important because these changes will make skipping the High Sierra and returning later more difficult given new permit regulations.

By Daniel “Beta” Winsor

…ok, ok, so maybe it’s not the absolute worst time. December, for instance, probably deserves that title.

I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2017, starting on March 26th. But if I did it again, I’d start a week earlier.

Heresy, I know.

Because April 15th, plus or minus a few days, has traditionally been THE time to get on the trail headed north. Last season, those permit dates were the first to go, within minutes of the permits opening up. You ask a group online for their opinion, they’ll tell you mid-April. You read a book on the PCT, you’ll get the same answer.

It’s not a very good answer.

Now I’m not saying it can’t be done, obviously many people have started in April over the years and did just fine. I’m proposing that more people think about starting in March, specifically the last two weeks of March. Here’s a few of the rationales behind starting in April, and why March is almost always a better answer.

1. Snow in Southern California

Specifically Fuller Ridge near Mt. San Jacinto and then Mt. Baden-Powell later on. Honestly, there’s not much too worry about here.

I went through Fuller Ridge on April 5th on one of the highest snow years in recent history… and it was about five miles of low angle snow. People were getting through without any snow gear (not recommended). For me, it was slow, but manageable, in microspikes. Hikers with crampons used words like “cake” and “joke” enough to make me wish I had crampons.

People summit Mt. San Jacinto in the winter. You just hiked over a hundred miles to get to Fuller Ridge. You can most likely handle walking along a peripheral ridge for a few miles in the spring.

Mt. Baden-Powell is along the same lines as San Jacinto. The snow is steeper, but only slightly, and longer, about ten miles. Many of us managed just fine with microspikes, but those with crampons ran across with a common theme of “was that it?” once they were off snow again.

If there’s ANY snow in the Sierra you’ll be dealing with (a.k.a. every year that isn’t an extreme drought year), don’t fear the small patches of snow in SoCal. Get your ice axe and crampons out and go boost your confidence. Never used those things before? Go learn! It’s a great opportunity to figure out if you feel ready to tackle Sierra snow or if you need to flip up north to avoid the white stuff.

There is MUCH chatter about those first snowy obstacles. This is the first time you’ll likely see the word “impassible” crop up online…

Low angle snow is never impassible with the right gear.

2. Snow in the Sierra Nevada

If you start the PCT in March, then there will be a ton of snow in the Sierra, right?? Yes and no, it really depends on the snow year.

During high snow years:

…such as 2011 and 2017 (and 2019), starting in March puts you in Kennedy Meadows in late April or early May. Most people will need a few days to put their gear together before entering the snow, then you’ll enter into the Sierra in the first or second week of May. At a comfortable pace in the hard, firm snow, you’ll exit the Sierra in the first couple weeks of June.

Does that sound early? It is, BUT you get to leave the Sierra before the melt happens in mid-to-late June when crossing creeks becomes a harrowing, dangerous obstacle. Traveling on snow isn’t (terribly) dangerous, crossing creeks is dangerous. Snow is slow, but you’ll keep moving safely forward. Swollen creeks have the potential to turn you around or even kill you. Many of the creeks, up to 80% of them, are possible to cross on snow bridges during the month of May after heavy winters.

Unfortunately, a well known rule-of-thumb is to leave Kennedy Meadows on “Ray Day”, which is June 15th. Hikers who followed this guidance in 2017 damn near gave themselves a death sentence. Most who went into the Sierra in the month of June were forced to bail. Some even died.

Go when the snow is still snow.

During low snow years:

…such as the drought years from 2012 to 2016, March is still the better answer. You aren’t racing to get to the Sierra before the melt happens, but seeing the Sierra in at least some snow and solitude before the crowds move in on the John Muir Trail portion of the PCT will be the highlight of your hike.

An earlier start gives you the gift of time also. The Sierra is an incredible place, most hikers consider it their favorite section of the whole trail. Nobody should be running through it. There’s plenty of monotonous hiking in the hundreds of miles ahead to push mileage.

There’s great trail towns and side trips all along the Sierra also, take more zeros! Like Bishop, California? Stay there a couple extra days. Mammoth is great spot to go skiing in June! You’ll hike right by Yosemite Valley, an incredible side trip to go play tourist for a day or two.

3. It’s too cold.

I’d actually flip this concern and consider it too hot to start hiking in April.

Starting in late March means you’ll be hiking through Southern California section mostly in April. The hottest and most waterless sections of the PCT happen 3-4 weeks after you start, just before getting to Kennedy Meadows.

Water is a big factor here too. Seasonal water sources in Southern California start dwindling in early May, some even earlier. Without those intermittent water sources, you have to carry more water. Some stretches can be 7-8 liters, even more if you’re hiking slow. The most I had to carry was five liters, which turned out to be excessive.

Water caches are a personal enemy of mine (more on that later), but they are a (wrongly) heavily relied on source through those hottest sections, sometimes getting hikers in trouble. Caches tend to be well stocked very early in the season, even before they’re really necessary, but many run dry as the folks who were maintaining the caches don’t have the time/energy/money to keep them stocked the whole season. Earlier hikers have a better chance coming across water in the water caches.

TO BE CLEAR: NOBODY SHOULD BE RELYING ON WATER CACHES.

I apologize for all the capitol letters, how annoying. But anyways…

If you start in April, you’ll be walking through 90F days in May with disappearing seasonal water sources and questionable water caches. Starting in March, you’ll be walking through 70F days in April with every seasonal water source flowing and freshly stocked water caches.

One of those sounds a bit better than the other, right?

Oh, but you can just hike through the night to beat the heat? Uh. There’s cool stuff to look at out there. Why would you want to miss it? You could just stick a treadmill in your basement, stop showering, and turn off the lights if that’s all you wanted out of your thru-hike.

…although you’d also have to pencil in some off-treadmill time for the psychiatrist.

As for the cold, if you have a 20F sleeping bag, you’ll be fine. My coldest morning in Southern California was 23F near Big Bear. But then I was sleeping back in the 20’s the last few days in Washington! If I had started later, I’d have been spending the last weeks on the trail even colder, through snow storms and other garbage that NO ONE wants to backpack through in the final weeks of such and long, exhausting trip. The beginning of any thru-hike is the time to be uncomfortable, not the end.

4. There aren’t any trail angels or trail magic around in March.

Wrong. One of the best parts of hiking in the early season is that you’re one of the first PCT faces most people are seeing. You’re ahead of the “herd” of hikers, so businesses are still happy to see you. No asshat thru-hikers (yes, these exist) have come along to put a bad taste in anyone’s mouth yet. You’re still a novelty in trail towns. You’re the ONLY hiker at bars and restaurants. People haven’t seen PCTers in a while, so they want to say hi and buy you beers and give you rides. You know what people want to do when they walk into a bar with 20 thru-hikers? Probably leave after they throw up, because why would a hiker shower first when there’s hot food waiting?!

Big trail angel stops are still psyched on the season starting. You’re in places like Hiker Heaven and Hiker Town with less than 10 other people, not 50 or 60.

Just like thru-hikers, trail angels get worn out as the season goes on. By the end of the “herd”, there’s fewer and fewer trail angels around. Earlier season hikers easily have it the best when it comes to trail angels, and this continues all the way up to Canada.

5. I’ll miss the bubble of hikers if I start in March!

Uh. Good.

Not that all thru-hikers aren’t amazing people, I made many incredible friends on my thru, but think about what happens when there’s 50 people starting the trail every day for weeks before you and weeks after…

What are the odds that perfect campsite is free at the end of the day?

When someone leaves a couple six-packs of IPA’s as trail magic, what are the odds there will be one left for you?

Ever tried hitch-hiking along a road with 20 other hitch-hikers?

You like solitude? Hopefully you’ll get over that.

I don’t mean to say that a ton of thru-hikers on the trail is a bad thing, but some people like it, some people don’t. I prefer a tight-knit group of hikers I can get to know, but spend as much time alone as I want. That’s what I got by starting in March.

Final Consideration: Permits

Note: See the updates to the Permit system in the October 29 post. These changes have occurred after Daniel Winsor wrote this piece.

This upcoming year is the first time permits will be given out in November, before anyone has any idea what will happen during the upcoming winter! This is understandably frustrating for 2018 thru-hikers.

So what’s the safe bet if you’re not particularly good at telling the future? Once again: March.

If you go with an April permit and we have a dry winter, you’re in for a hot, waterless desert section. If we see another high snow year, an April permit will put you in the Sierra right when the rivers get dangerous.

If you go with a March permit and we have a dry winter, you’re in for a pleasant desert hike with decent water sources. If we see another high snow year, a March permit will give you choices: head straight through the Sierra on hard snow before the melt, flip up to Hat Creek Rim while it’s still pleasant, or drink beer in Bishop hoping it all melts (which this year, it oddly did).

The earlier permit thing sucks. No way around that. But if you’d like to play it safe, March is the way to go. The beautiful advantage to starting early is that you can always take more zeros. If you start too late, you can’t insert time into your hike if you need more.

All considered, you have to choose your starting date based around many more factors. Time off from work, time away from loved ones, financial limitations etc. The most important thing about choosing a start date is to allow as much time as possible for your journey. Nobody wants to death march through such an amazing trail. Take your time, stay uninjured, and go camp next to that gorgeous lake! A core regret of many thru-hikers is not allowing themselves time to thoroughly enjoy the trail.

Starting in March will give you that time.

[sans-the-skeleton-999]

To begin with: Precisely what is a hoverboard?

These kinds of hoverboards can't actually levitate, a la " Back again to the near future Part II. " Rather, they use tires to move over the floor. It noises lame, but really, they're a lot more fun to trip than the usual skateboard.

Theoretically, they're called "self-balancing scooters. inch These scooters look and work like small Segways ( without the handlebars) continue when you low fat forwards and braking and reversing as you trim back. You face ahead while use and operating refined motions of the ft, torso and hip and legs to go in virtually any path.

To get going, whatever you perform is step on. Both pressure-sensitive footpads allow you to control the acceleration and steer together with your feet. Because the hoverboard begins shifting the brief moment you step on, dismounting and increasing can be tricky initially. As there is no deal with to constant yourself, managing can be difficult -- you can fall off at the time you get accustomed to the board.

In fact, it's kind of a good work out. You utilize your primary to remain well balanced and also feel the burn off in your calves and feet because the muscles in all those areas help you steer.

If you call them best hoverboard for kids, self-balancing explosions or boards waiting around to occur, these two-wheeled scooters aren't heading anywhere.

This kind of tech fad might have been cool, but it had a dangerous part. This past year the news headlines was peppered with reviews of hoverboards getting and exploding fireplace. Towns prohibited them from sidewalks and highways. Airlines more than likely allow you to bring them onto aeroplanes. Merchants such as Amazon online and Overstock halted offering particular models and even informed customers to garbage ones they already have already received.

Be enough it to state that a complete great deal has changed within the last 12 months. Should you be searching for a panel this kind of holidays and beyond, right here will be the plain points you should know prior to you get.

Perform hoverboards capture open fire still?

2015 noticed many studies of hoverboards exploding or combusting. At fault was a mixture of faulty electric batteries and bad consumer electronics. Hoverboards are driven by huge lithium ion battery power that can get hot and explode under uncommon cases -- something similar is usually considered to have occurred with Samsung Galaxy Notice six earlier this fall.

In early 2016, the buyer Product Safety Commission rate investigated the safety of most hoverboards across all brands, suggesting that any new hoverboards produced be " qualified UL 2272 compliant" to meet the requirements to be brought in to the US (more upon this later). Compliant hoverboards are less inclined to result in flames.

There were counterfeits then. CNET video maker Mariel Myers experienced this when the girl purchased a plank coming from a third-party vendor upon Amazon online marketplace. com and were left with a cheaply made false. At the right time, these types of knockoff boards appeared to be even more susceptible to explosions and fires, but we have no idea for certain. To get the true board, she finished up going right to the Canadian manufacturer's website.

What exactly are other protection concerns?

Even though you won't need to bother about explosions, there are hazards to bear in mind nonetheless.

Falling off and harming yourself. Just like any kind of fast-moving vehicle, traveling a good hoverboard can lead to damage. Hoverboards can reach a maximum swiftness of about 10 mph, so you might maintain a far more considerable harm than you'll falling off a slower-moving skateboard.

Though most cyclists (at least in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA ), do without it all, proper safety gear is crucial. You may need a helmet, leg patches, elbow pads and hand guards. This will decrease your threat of fractures, sprains and other accidental injuries if you fall.

Traffic incidents.  Very much like skateboards and bicycles, gleam risk of engaging in a traffic incident, particularly if you're in or near to the street. A teenager was killed and struck with a coach in London while riding a hoverboard. Please don't ride a hoverboard in the pub or near traffic -- unless of course you're in California exactly where hoverboards are categorized as a bike under regulations.

Pounds limitations. Hoverboards have the very least (usually around 45 pounds) and maximum weight limit (some cedar plank can support approximately 300 pounds). These limitations will be designed to safeguard the mobility scooter and rider, therefore you should browse the manufacturer's site for more information.

Kids under the weight limit shall have trouble traveling, since the scooters won't identify their excess weight and won't balance properly. When your child trip a hoverboard? You need to use your very best judgment.

Steep hills. The majority of planks also won't run increasing or down high hillsides, over 30 degrees usually. You will find zero height limitations from the cedar, though retain mind that a lot of lift you about 4 ins above the bottom. For anyone who is especially high, you'll operate a larger risk of striking your mind while riding.

Why are they a popular choice?

Hoverboards can be rough to obtain the hang up of. But once you grasp riding a single, this techniques with you seamlessly, preventing on the penny and easily turning. Driving one particular almost feels as though an expansion of yourself, and that generally does not require any manual movement, just like a kick or skateboard scooter. You can grab a great deal of quickness (most top out at about 12 kilometers each hour ), which makes them faster than walking.

Although they could be expensive, they're smaller sized and cheaper in comparison with a Segway (which costs upward of $5, 000), so they're much more accessible to buy, make use of and store.

Therefore which hoverboards must i purchase?

There are various companies selling hoverboards, starting around $220 and reaching up to $800. Most of them function the same just, with minor variations in style and specs. I've ridden a number of models. While there are simple variations in the way they trip, it isn't easy to differentiate the high-end and less expensive variations.

The largest factor to consider when shopping is to ensure that is UL 2272 qualified. When you are unfamiliar with UL, it can be an business that says, validates, assessments, verifies, audits and inspects electrical products. UL seeks to "facilitate global trade and deliver satisfaction. "

That said, remember that CNET hasn't tested these kinds of makes thoroughly, neither can we attest to their particular family member  basic safety or absence thereof specifically.

[investigatingregionalscenes]

story about music #8

Winter-Spring, 2013: In order to graduate, I needed a capstone. I chose to do deep reporting project I’d been threatening to do since 2009, and looked into the noise and experimental scene of New England. I recorded seven interview with experimental artists about their lives and work. These are five of them. They were taken in a variety of locales in the Boston area: Cambridge, Somerville, Lowell, and Salem.

In the last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about this period and these conversations as I ask myself, why keep doing this?

above: Ron Lessard, as Emil Beaulieau, performs in someone’s basement in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Music

Music for this episode was created using the following household objects: a desk lamp, a can of beer, a record player, a radiator, and a vacuum cleaner.

With the exceptions of “Fog in the Ravine” by Lejsovka and Freund as well samples from their songs “From Royal Ave” and “Nothing, Just Looking at the Moon” and the song “Blue Line Homicide” by Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck.

The soundtrack was created with advice from musician Jacob Rosati. It will be made available for download later in the summer. For more info please subscribe to the podcast, tumblr, or follow us on twitter.

Links

Crank Sturgeon still performs and tours regularly. He also builds contact microphones and other circuit bent sundries, one of which was used in the production of this episode. A full recording of his set used in this episode is available here.

Crank Sturgeon, 2012, from Wikimedia.

Shane Broderick spent most of his twenties making music with his friend Ted (and later, their friend Josh Hydeman) under the name Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck. Their music is a good example of the subgenres Grindcore and Power Electronics. The name is also exemplary of those subgenres. The performance video which is referenced in the documentary, taken in the mid-00s, has been removed from Youtube. A video from that period is visible here, uploaded by the band’s Ted Sweeney. (contains nudity)

Shane Broderick, from Existence Establishment

Ron Lessard still runs RRRecords in Lowell, Massachusetts. He previously performed under the name Emil Beaulieau. A collection of performances, including the one used in the documentary, can be seen in the video compilation below. 

Emil Beaulieau: America’s Greatest Living Noise Artist, from Youtube

Andrea Pensado still makes music and performs live. She composes in Max/MSP. Her most recent release is a pair of live collaborations with Id M Theft Able. Her former project, with Greg Kowalski, is QFWFQ. 

Andrea Pensado live performance, 10-13-13, from Youtube

Angela Sawyer owned Weirdo Records until it closed in 2015. She now performs comedy and experimental music around Boston. 

Angela Sawyer, from her personal website.

The interview with Andrea Pensado was recorded along with my friend Samira, who was producing her own documentary of Boston’s experimental music scene, below. It includes footage from the Andrea interview as well as her own separate interview with Angela Sawyer. 

“The Noise” by Samira Winter, from Youtube

Luigi Russolo’s manifesto is The Art of Noises

Luigi Russolo and the Intonarumori, with his asst. Uglo Piatti, from Wikimedia

Transcript

Brendan: Would you mind telling me about the show at [withheld] , from six years ago, down the street?

Shane: Yeah, um, I was setting up a show with some old-school Detroit noise dudes. When we showed up, the owner was there instead of the doorman, and he was just upset cause he was there on, like, a Tuesday night. 

So what ended up happening was is, uhh, two bands played and he came up to me a said, “show’s over.” “Well there’s still two bands to play,” and he’s like, “I don’t care, the show’s over.” I’m like, “the show’s been booked for two months.” Just because you want to go home and, like, jerk off into a kleenex or whatever it is that you fuckin’ do. It has nothing to do with me. And he got upset, and I was like, well listen dude, how about the last two bands play at the exact same time.” So that’s what we did. Warmth and Twodeadsluts collaborated. It lasted about fifteen seconds, and the owner came over and kicked a table with everyone’s gear on it. So the only logical thing for me to do as a Bostonian–– and I have pride being a Bostonian–– is I just looked at this guy and I was like, “I don’t care how big he is, or how Italian he is, I’m gonna wind up, and I’m gonna punch this guy right in the fucking face.”

Brendan: And what happened?

Shane: That guy hit me back––I-I lost a little bit of time there. He’s a lot bigger than me. Uh, clocks went still. I kinda woke up, I was on the ground, and he was smashing everyone’s gear. Cops came in, they put me in a car, they, y’know told me to leave and blah blah blah.

Brendan: Is that the only time cops have been called on you?

Shane: No. Not even close.

music: “Blue Line Homicide” | Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck

You’re listening to Stories About Music, a podcast on the subjects of music, journalism, and memories, and how the line between those three things is often not as clear as I’d hoped.

My name is Brendan Mattox, and this is story about music number eight, “Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise?”.

Room 1 (Crank Sturgeon)

Cars pass by on Massachusetts Avenue, seen out the front window of Weirdo Records in Cambridge. It’s night time. A few young men in their twenties sit on the floor of the small storefront, waiting as Crank Sturgeon sets up in a corner.

Crank: Cool. So, do you think this is our show? Shall we wait, or?

Angela: I think…What time is it? It’s not eight-thirty, that’s probably most of our show. Let me turn that off.

Crank: Not that uh, four’s a wonderful audience, I’ve played for two. One of them was my brother who never saw me before that point…and Id Em Thft Able and I had some very bizarre sexual ritual in front of my brother, involving instant powdered milk and a plastic poster from 1970 of this naked woman holding a stuffed animal…And I had a penis helmet at the time… but alright, well I will perform for you hello, my name is Crank Sturgeon everybody… (6:37) We could do a performance where I have everyone sing introductions of themselves to each other. Everyone up on your feet. 

Crank: Hello! My name is Craaaaaaannnk Sturrrgeon!

Angela: Hello! My name is Angela Sawyyyyyeerrrrrr!

Crank: All at once now!

Brendan: And I am Brendan Mattox!

Crank: Hi Brendan Mattox, my name is Crank, it’s a pleasure to meet you, you have a really firm handshake. And this man in the corner, what’s your name? Andrew, another Andrew, Brendan, Angela.

Angela: Wow, we’re nearly phonemes.

Crank: Ahh, phonies…

Crank Sturgeon sits down behind his instruments: a few tape recorders, a sharpie, and a loudspeaker full of tacks and jelly beans.

Crank: First Piece, oh, wait. My brand new fish helmet, so I can lose even more water to my body. There we go. First piece is improvisations with the letter D. Delirious, Delightful, Delicious, Dumb, Dumbfounded, Dimwit, Diplodocus, Dinosaur, Diana, Dagnasty, Dagnabbit, Diddling, Dawdling, Doodling, Dude Ranch (buzzing noise) Dick, Doofus, Dammit, Darn, Dangle, Drink, Drunk, Dank, Dork, Dusty, Dunce, Distinguished! Development! Duplicitous.

Crank is wearing a black garbage bag over his head, adjusted so his face and white goatee peek through the hole he’s cut in it for air. On either side of the bag are two enormous fish eyes, drawn on card stock, with marker. 

I’m here tonight reporting a story about a couple of loosely associated experimental musicians from Boston, a story whose meaning is starting to exceed my grasp.

Brendan: How would you describe Crank Sturgeon?

Crank: In uhh, a sentence? Brendan: I have no idea. How would you describe the experience of being Crank Sturgeon?

Crank: Well it’s, uh, it’s not a party.

Angela: It is so.

Crank: It is a party. It’s funny because, I’ve survived for awhile, through the many phases of experimental music.

Brendan: What do you mean the many phases?

Crank: The many phases. You’d go to a show in 1996 in a basement in Allston and it was like, a tough guy scene. 

Angela: People sitting on the floor, like indian style, and a dude looking at his belly button going “doonk-doonk-doonk.”

Crank: (laughs) Very true…

Angela Sawyer, the owner of Weirdo, jumps in. She and Crank know each other going back to the nineties, when they were at the beginning of the path that has led to the three of us standing in a circle in her record store.

Brendan:  what’s the trick to growing old with grace within the experimental community?

Crank: Oh that’s a really fun question, because I’m still figuring it out. I think…did you want to say something?

Angela: Well I feel like no one– when I was twenty, or eighteen, and I met people who were much older than me, it never occurred to me to look at myself from their point of view, ever. So I only ever thought, “oh, that person is as old as my mom and my dad, but they’re doing what I want instead of what my parents are doing. Once you get to be–– I’m in my forties…then is when you’re like, oh, I have been there so many times and they have no idea where I am. So that’s when you start to feel marginalized a little bit

Room 2 (Shane Broderick)

The TV in Shane Broderick’s living room is on mute. A weather man gestures in to a map of New England in shades of blue and purple. At the top of the screen is a red banner with the words “Blizzard Warning.” It’s mid-afternoon. Shane and I are drinking cans of beer that Shane brought out of the fridge.

Shane: I was always playin’ music and stuff since I was a little kid. Even when I was, like, twelve years old I’d be up late smokin’ weed and messing with drum machines and stuff like that.

Brendan: Where’d you get your hands on a drum machine at age twelve.

Shane: Uhh, Christmas present.

Brendan: Christmas present?

Shane: Yeah.

Brendan: That’s pretty cool.

Shane: Yeah, I had my beginner guitar and a drum machine. Y’know once I was like, fifteen and stuff I got a job, started collecting equipment…I thought I’d make a career out of it but I ended up just being, like, a lifelong mailroom guy.

When he was 19 years-old, Shane dropped out of college in Florida and moved back to Massachusetts. He started making abrasive music with a friend he knew while working at a gas station in high school. 

Shane: We worked together and every time we finished a shift it would be like a hundred and something dollars under, and I was like, what the fuck this kid man.

They called themselves Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck.

Shane: We joked around on the internet about how we were going to start the most extreme band ever and how the first record we’d just put a bunch of contact mics in a blender and throw a rabbit in it and whatever it sounded like, that was the first LP. Which we never did. [music in]

Brendan: But what instead came out of it was…

Shane: I stuck my boner in a blender. Which was a demo that we did which was me and him coaching eleven of our friends, we were just trying to make circus music with grindcore parts.

Shane: We got reviewed in something like Metal Maniacs, that was like a magazine that when I was ten years old and my mother would drag me to CVS to grab things, I would sit in the aisle and look at, like, pictures of like, Slayer looking sexy and stuff like that, so I was like “oh shit, I’m in this magazine now.” After that, me and him decided to keep the name and go forward with it.

Shane is in his early thirties and he still makes music, although Twodeadsluts hasn’t been active for awhile. He also still plays shows sometimes, though he doesn’t really enjoy it.

Shane: I don’t know I think it’s just, like, nerves. It was easier with the other guys because we were more like a wrecking crew. Y’know, get blind stinkin’ drunk and it didn’t really matter what happened.

Brendan: What would one night at a TDS show end up being like?

Shane: It would start off sloppy and then I wouldn’t remember then end of it. 

(Indiscriminate yelling)

Shane: We’re Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck from Boston, and we need the drum machine way fucking louder. Get that shit way the fuck up.

Brendan: When you guys got onstage, there seems to be sort of a pattern. You start off with some harsh feedback, and then it progresses into stuff getting knocked over.

Shane: There was definitely a lot of feedback and definitely a lot of things knocked over.

They were also usually naked. 

Shane: I think we were probably more performative over substance, to be quite honest. In those early shows we were just using five or six microphones, a bunch of fx pedals running back into each other, and just whatever sounds were happening, were happening

[music]

Shane: Either people really liked it or found it very entertaining, and on the flipside– we’d have people picket our shows, feminists thinking that we were, like, um, promoting sexism… Just that band name wipes off at least 70% of the population from even giving you a chance. It’s probably a higher percentage than that…

Brendan: So the choice of the band name then, was it to…

Shane: It was kind of like, a filtering mechanism and also it was like an inside joke that just kept going and going, and no one was really in on it but us. The band wasn’t supposed to last ten years either.

Shane: I can’t even give you any rationale behind it…it really might look pretty forced, but it was actually pretty natural for the people involved in the band.

Brendan: Why was it so natural?

Shane: I don’t know. That’s a question for a therapist. I don’t know.

I sip from my can of beer even though it’s empty. Shane plays with the pull tab on his. On the television, the weatherman predicts a foot of snow is going to cover Boston over the next two days. Shane, still dressed in scrubs from the hospital where he works, says,“I got to work tomorrow no matter what.”

There’s a half-open ironing board against a wall. In the bathroom, the sink is plastered with shavings. Next to the un-flushed toilet sits a stack of musical notation paper. I stare at it, because it says something specific about the person I’m speaking to. I can’t figure out what, or why.

Brendan: If you could maybe, like, point me in the right direction of some people in the area to talk to…

Shane: I think you should definitely talk to Ron in Lowell. He runs triple-R records. He’s kind of, America’s greatest living noise artist. Like a godfather type…

Room 3 (RRRon)

I walk out Shane’s front door and into Ray Robinson’s café in downtown Lowell. Ron Lessard waits for me in a yellow booth along the window. Through the rain on the glass, the world outside is a blur of different shades of gray.

Brendan: Where should we begin?

Ron: (chewing noises) So. Today is Wednesday. I’m eating lunch. I’m almost through with my fries, soon I’ll be starting on my burgers. Fuckin’ awesome.

Ron is the noise expert, one of the engines driving America’s experimental music scene since the 80s. Ron has released about 1000 recordings on Triple-R’s in-house label.

Ron: I was the source. And everybody who ever learned how to play a tape backwards or make feedback decided to send me a demo. And man, I heard so much crap like you wouldn’t believe…I mean, how many Rock’n’roll bands are awesome, and how many suck beyond belief?

Ron first got into noise music around 1981, after he left the Air Force and came home to Lowell.  

Ron: There was a mail-order outlet out of Colorado called Aeon A-E-O-N. When I got their catalog, I couldn’t believe the stuff they had listed. They had, like, Whitehouse albums, New Blockaders, Maurizio Bianchi, and it’s like who the fuck are these guys? So I started buying that stuff  and I was like, woah, this is what I’ve been looking for all these years. The guy that ran it became a survivalist kind of guy, y’know, living out in the woods with his gun type of thing and, actually, he eventually sold me his entire inventory, I bought him out.

Ron: When I first opened I tried to specialize in all the really weird imports, bizarre bands and that kind of stuff, y’know. But at the same time, I knew enough to know that pedestrians, your average everyday person, has no freakin’ clue. They just want to listen to a Barry Manilow or whatever the fuck they like, y’know.  

His store, RRRecords, opened in 1984.

Ron: After Aeon, I was the guy that was thoroughly obsessed, and I just devoted myself to it…Day in day out noise, morning, noon, and night. Listening to tapes, checking out bands all day every day. At that time Heavy metal wasn’t heavy enough, punk rock wasn’t extreme enough, Noise did it for me, it really did.

Ron started performing noise music himself under the name Emil Beaulieau. Footage from from the nineties, like this, show him using vinyl records and their accessories as instruments. 

This is another way to look at noise music: instead of using something like a trombone, or a tuba, a guitar, or a piano, you take whatever you can find, whatever objects appeal to you, and you refashion them into something expressive. The screeching noise you hear is coming from a modified turntable, which Ron stands behind with a goofy look on his face, pretending to polish record.

Ron: Remember to always, always use the circular motion when cleaning your records.

From that perspective, noise is a positive, creative philosophy, and I can see how people get so obsessed with it.

Ron:A lot of people, y’know, they can’t play guitar, they can’t play the drums–– but twisting knobs and screaming your brains out, getting out that primal scream, whatever it is…it’s inside everybody.

Brendan: And speaking of which, what’s your personal experience with it.

Ron: (Darkly) What do you mean?

Brendan: I mean with Emil Beaulieau.

Ron: Yeah.

Brendan: Well you just said that Noise music was this personal experience. How did you get stuff out through Emil Beaulieau?

Ron: I–I’m not sure where your leading, as far as recording or getting the name out?

Brendan: Why did you start Emil Beaulieau?

Ron: ––you know, I just wasn’t any good at sports (laughter).

The uncomfortable moment sticks in the back of mind for the rest of our interview. Though Ron’s eloquent and energetic, as I was warned he would be, he’s also a little guarded. Maybe that’s because I showed up looking for someone to answer the criticisms of noise music or its culture, which he brushes off with a simple:

Ron: Lately? Lately I’m out of it.

Brendan: When was the last time you were in it?

Ron: Seven years ago (laughs)

Brendan: So let’s go back seven years, because this is something that keeps coming up in interviews with people. Seven years ago, things were very…

Ron: Active.

Brendan: Active.

Ron: Wicked, wicked, wicked active.

Brendan: What’s happened?

Ron: The bands that are making noise today sound like the bands that were making noise ten years ago, that sound like the bands making noise twenty years ago, y’know they sound exactly the same, they’re doing the same freakin’ feedback, they’re still screaming the same lyrics, y’know, it’s just the same thing over and over and over and over again. Which is fine, y’know, punk rock exists for a reason, y’know. The young people, they’re totally into it because it’s new for them. It’s like wow this is freakin awesome these guys are screaming their brains out! They’re talking about killing people! But then ten years later it’s the same thing all over again…I mean do you want to listen to that same band for freaking ten years in a row? I mean do you still want to hear Aerosmith? No you don’t (laughs).

He seems tired in a way that I’ve not seen before. As we talk, I get the sense that what Ron and I are doing has become an exit interview.

Ron: I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do and just to keep doing it because somebody else wants me to? Wrong freakin reason. That’s how bands start to suck. So fuck that y’know.

Y’know there was a time when I couldn’t wait to get on stage and scream my brains out. It’s like, well I mean y’know, you ever had a girlfriend? You make out with her it’s like the best! And then one day, you don’t want to make out with her anymore. It’s no different.

I mean, it’s been seven years. I stopped performing seven years ago, March of ’06. It’s now March ’13. It’s seven freaking years that I’ve stopped. Chances are you’re not doing the same thing you were doing seven years ago. And I’m willing to bet, seven years from now, you’re not going to be doing the exact same thing you’re doing now. People change, they move on. Been there, done that, why do it again?

music: “Fog in the Ravine” | Lejsovka & Freund

The scene dissolves. In the darkness, I think of the question that I wish I’d asked. This isn’t just some thing Ron was doing, it was the thing – what can you do when you lose touch with the something that was core to your identity?

Room 4 (Andrea Pensado)

Andrea: I think it’s very important to not to be scared of being in a place of not knowing. To be in a place of uncertainty, is excellent! Even if it is uncomfortable. Honestly, I don’t want a comfortable life. 

I’m sitting in a cozy loft apartment in Salem, while my friend Samira chats with a small, owlish woman in her late 40s named Andrea Pensado.

Andrea: Well if you feel it at twenty than you cannot imagine in your forties.

Samira: I just taste it and I’m like, ‘wow, I’m just feeling all the sugar.’

Andrea: I ate a lot of chips, it was a bad idea. With beer, y’know, not good.

Samira is working on her own documentary about experimental music.

Andrea first got interested in music when she was a little girl, growing up in Buenos Aires.

Andrea: Eh, I was living in an apartment building, and a friend of mine, she started taking piano lessons. She showed me her music and I saw the notation, ehh, and I was fascinated. Honestly I was not aware of such a rich experimental music background until when I was in Poland… 

She left Argentina to study composition in Krakow as an adult. But the music she composed on paper was so complex, that she often had trouble finding people to play it. Andrea likes to think about timbre–– the color of sound, what differentiates one instrument from another.  To wring out some really interesting timbre with traditional instruments, you’ve got to do some out there stuff.

Andrea: Like, I don’t want to be just writing for the drawer.

And then, Andrea went to the Audio Art Festival, a meeting of the minds held in Krakow every November. The festival focuses on objects used to produce sound: musical instruments, but also computers. 

Inspired, Andrea taught herself to program and began using electronics in her work.

Andrea: So I create a wifi for myself just to avoid latency, you can work with any wife…So my controllers are! An iPod–– I say, I look like an apple merchandise stand, which is quite depressing, but you know, what can I do? So this is an iPod with a special application I use to… [iPod click]. Well, first I have to set up the wifi, I show you…

Andrea is wearing a a headset like the kind people use to play video games. She’s sitting at her computer with an iPod Touch in her right hand. 

Andrea: This is a simple wave, just a simple low tone. So if I move it like this, I change the pitch. And then if I do like this, the distortion is the direct result of– 

She twists and bends her arm manipulating the sine wave into a complex pattern.

Andrea: And I can do the same if I had my voice…

Then she flicks on her mic.

Andrea: Hey, hah, that’s my voice! (noise) hello! Hah! (pause, noise ends). So you know it’s quite dramatic.

Andrea: Maybe for somebody who is not a lot in music, this seems harsh. I don’t think this is harsh at all, this is just the way new music is going. I do believe that, even though I don’t think what we do now is better than what was done in the Renaissance, ok, I do believe that there is constant change, and that artistic languages keep having a need of refreshing themselves, ok?…yeah?

Brendan: (18:49) Why do you think music is shifting in that direction?

Andrea: To explore timbre…Because now, thanks to the technology, we have access to it. It’s easier to manipulate. We are like kids, we are, like, playing. (12:26) I compare it to the beginning of the baroque, where they became aware of chords, of verticality, and then for 300 years, they explore that.

Andrea’s grandiosity reminds me of the document that first inspired me to pursue this project. In 1913, a young painter named Luigi Russolo wrote a letter to a composer he admired. The two of them were part of an Italian movement known as Futurism. Russolo’s letter ended up as one of the movement’s major manifestoes, The Art of Noises. 

In The Art of Noises, Russolo laid out a framework for the music of the new industrial world, in which the city itself is both the inspiration and the instrument. 

For centuries life went by in silence, at most in muted tones…Amidst this dearth of noises, the first sounds that man drew from a pieced reed or stretched string were regarded with amazement…and the result was music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real one…

We Futurists have deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. Now, we are satiated and find far more enjoyment in the combination of the noises of trams, backfiring motors, carriages and bawling crowds than in rehearsing the “er-O-i-ca” or the “Pastorale”.

We cannot much longer restrain our desire to create finally a new musical reality, with a generous distribution of resonant slaps in the face. Discard violins, pianos, double-basses and plaintive organs…

I am not a musician, I have therefore no acoustical predilections, nor any works to defend. I am a Futurist painter using a much loved art to project my determination to renew everything. And so, bolder than a professional musician could be, unconcerned by my apparent incompetence and convinced that all rights and possibilities open up to daring, I am able to initiate the great renewal of music by means of the Art of Noises.

It is, and I am one to talk, very pretentious. And yet, I kind of sympathize with the guy. When I started making a podcast, I was intent on remaking a whole sector of journalism with my own bold incompetence.

A man of his word, Luigi built these giant boxes called the Intonarumori, whose purpose was to make a bunch of noise. A photo of them often accompanies The Art of Noises, and you can see Russolo standing behind one, this thin guy with a mustache, a hand placed on the crank handle at its back. 

Like most manifestoes, The Art of Noises says very little about its writer, except what he wanted to be: a great destroyer come to remake the world in his image. If you’re a certain type of young person, that idea is very attractive, and you can embrace it without really thinking about what other things you might put to the side to achieve that.

Samira: What’s your, I know you’ve done a lot of work with visual, audio and visual.

Andrea: Well that’s with my ex-husband (laughter). Greg, whom I met in Poland, he comes from video, from cinema. We had a duo, eventually, I stopped doing my own to work for our duo, which we worked together for ten years. Greg did the images and I did the sound. And we work on interactivity. Then we split, so now I work just with sound.

Brendan: How is your music different working with your ex-husband, than after?

Andrea: The main goal of our duo was to have real time interaction between images and the sound. So if there was something onstage like a movement or, whatever, it had simultaneously a result in both. It gave some rigidity. So now that the interaction isn’t so important, I have much more freedom to just to improvise. It’s like much, much more freedom.

Room 6 (Angela Sawyer)

Angela: One of the first people I ever met who was interested in experimental music was Ron Lessard. 

I’m standing at the counter in Weirdo Records one afternoon, talking with Angela Sawyer again She’s telling me how she first got involved with the experimental scene, just after she started at U-MASS LOWELL in the early 90s.

I had never been to New England at all, I just flew here on a plane from Denver and I wanted to meet some people, and I didn’t really know what to do, and I heard some other kids saying that they wanted to join the college radio station. They said at the meeting to join up, you have to show up and volunteer…I went back the next day, and there no one was there.

Brendan: How long were you there for?

Angela: Probably an hour (laughs). Finally someone came by…I was just like, “hey, hey, I’m here to volunteer, what should I do?” And they just looked at me like I had three heads. They were like, “why don’t you clean something?” So I found a vacuum and I just started vacuuming…

And I went through all the rooms, and finally I got to a room that I hadn’t been in yet, and there was a person in there, and it was kind of dark in there…So I waited for him to notice me. I said hi, I’m trying to vacuum. I had no idea that it was the air studio and, um, Ron, of course, he’s like a firecracker going off. So he’s like, “OH YES COME ON IN,” he was mic-ing the vacuum cleaner, and I’m just like “oh hi,” and he’s like tell me about yourself, who are you? And uhh, he was really awesome to me

As we walk down memory lane, Angela starts talking about a world that I was once very interested in, the network of noise and experimental artists who connected in the early days of the internet, after decades of being little feudal kingdoms.

Angela: There was definitely a feeling at one point of there being a first-world wide, at least, community, if not worldwide, of people who were listening to the same releases, and they were seeing the same bands, they’d heard some Throbbing Gristle records, and they had a common language and finding out about cool stuff and figuring out how it worked, and they knew what happened when you stuck a clarinet underwater and put delay on it. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Angela said at the Crank Sturgeon show, about choosing to live on the Island of Misfit toys without thinking about it very hard. Because I feel, in a lot of ways, that that’s become my life. I’m more devoted now than ever to completing the work I set out for myself, but I’m also deeply unhappy, and more isolated.

Angela: Every town has the person who is like, I’ll become the nun, I’ll sacrifice myself and do all this work and…y’know, I have a store, that’s what I do.

Brendan: Can you talk a bit about sacrificing–– about becoming a martyr for the scene?

Angela: I’m not trying to do that, I actually really dislike that. 

Brendan: How did you fall into the role?

Angela: If you have some job related to underground music, that’s what you’re doing. ‘Cause there’s no money. But that’s one of the only ways you can spend your whole life surrounded by it. 

music: “Fog in the Ravine” | Lejsovka and Freund

Angela: Everything I know about politics and geography and sociology and psychology, and how to sort of figure out how to deal with the world at large, I mostly learned them from records. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a conversation about anything else. I’m a very narrow person outside of records. Basically, records are sort of my defense system and or window for everything, I think of every record as like a pair of of tinted glasses, and you can look at the whole world through that and see it in a new way, and each good record has a slightly different shade on it, so you never get done figuring out how things work and enjoying new wrinkles in how things are. The bad news is that if you take the glasses off things look terrible, then you have to function like a regular person. And that’s not something I’m very good at.

If I’m being honest, neither am I. I’ve agonized over these interviews for a long time, afraid of saying the wrong thing about the people in them. To call it a “cautionary tale of loving something– an idea– that cannot love you back,” sounded unkind, both to them and to myself. I can’t help but feel at the end that that’s exactly what it is.

I avoided revisiting these interviews for almost five years because they held up a mirror to the shaky logic I built ambitions on. They pointed out, in no uncertain terms, that art cannot save me. It can help me find a way to save myself, by learning to communicate things that I feel deeply in a way that’s truthful, accurate, and honest. But that’s all that it can do. 

And it took losing someone I loved very much to understand that. 

Room 7 (Somerville Ave)

Shane Broderick and I stand on the sidewalk of Somerville Avenue on a cool spring evening. Shane’s arm is in a cast. He’s just finished telling me a story about the time he punched a club owner at a venue up the block. As we’re talking about the reputation that Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck had amongst Boston’s club owners, some of Shane’s friends emerge from the bar where he’s just finished a gig.

Shane: it’s funny because we never actually gave any of the venues our actual performances, it was more like basement parties and shit like that that they were scared of, that they’d heard about.

Brendan: I can’t remember if I got this on tape last time, would you mind describing what the actual performances were?

Shane: Can’t really do that, I don’t know, you can ask these guys.

Friend 1: What’s that?

Friend 2: You gotta lighter? I just realized I left my backpack down there, I got good beer in there but whatever fuck that shit.

Brendan: Would you guys mind describing to me what a normal show by Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck was like?

Friend 2: Is this an interview? I wasn’t ready for an interview man I can’t do that! My voice cannot be heard on tape.

Friend 1: (makes jerk-off motion) It’s like this.

Friend 2: Can I get a lighter from somebody?

Shane: (shouting) It’s like looking at something, and gettin’ so excited and just BAM! And then it’s kind of like aww fuck.

Friend 1: I don’t have a lighter!

Friend 2: Do you have a lighter?

Shane: We need to go home. Need to hide under a blanket.

Friend 2: Do you have a lighter buddy?

Brendan: Nah, I’m sorry.

Friend 2: Motherfucker! How can you do an interview without a lighter? (distant) Fuck! Amateur!

Brendan: So, just so I don’t take up the rest of your time, there was something you said during the last interview. You said that, for TDS, there was this joke that you guys…when the joke stopped being funny, you guys were like, ‘alright, I’m gonna do something else.’

Friend 1: The joke didn’t stop being funny.

Shane: Well ok I’m not sure the joke ever stopped being funny but…

Brendan: So, what, in your opinion what was the joke?

Friend 1: The band was the joke.

Brendan: What specifically about the band was the joke?

Friend 1: I don’t know…

Friend 2: (strike lamppost) Do a funny voice c’mon what the fuck! We’re supposed to be entertained by this shit.

Shane: Alright, you can cut my voice here.

Friend 2: It doesn’t matter what you say so long as it’s in a funny voice it’s cool.

Shane: There are a lot of Boston noise bands and people from Jamaica Plain and Allston and they want everyone to be like, onboard with, ‘hey, we’re all friends, this is a scene! come down to our house play a show blah blah blah.’ And what Twodeadsluts was more like, was just like, ‘We’re not even invited. We’re playing a show, we’re trashing your fuckin’ house.’

Brendan: Do you ever miss it?

Shane: Yeah, of course I do. It is what it is.

Brendan: I feel like that’s a pretty good place to end.

Shane: There you go.

I walk off into the night. A block away, I come to a stop on a concrete island in the middle of Somerville Avenue and look back at Shane and his friends. They were still down by the bench we were sitting on, drunk, being loud, but their noise is drowned out by the cars flying past me, headed for the outskirts of Boston.

Standing here, it occurs to me that need room tone, the sound of the place I’m in. Room tone helps smooth out transitions in editing, makes a radio documentary sound more natural. I’ve forgotten to get it for almost every other interview with the noise artists. But that I remember now seems significant to me, an promise to myself that someday I’ll figure what made this experience worth telling.

Credits

Today’s episode was produced with help from Wes Boudreau and Samira Winter. Editing help by Kyna Doles and Jon Davies. Special thanks today to Lejsovka & Freund, Jacob Rosati, Sean Coleman, Elissa Freeden, Brittany Rizzo, Tyler Carmody, and Birgit from Denmark. 

Visit our website, investigating regional scenes dot org, for more episodes and, this summer, some bonus materials. You can find Stories About Music on your local podcast provider. Please leave a review to helps us find new listeners.

From Philadelphia, I’m Brendan Mattox, back soon with more stories about music.

[packersandmoverstalegaon]

Don't Make These Mistakes While Relocating Your Company, Packers and Movers Talegaon

Moving is something or other that everybody cautions you about and corporate migration takes the cerebral pain to an unheard of level. Moving may appear to be sufficiently straightforward, particularly in the event that you employ movers, yet there are quite a couple of things to remember whether you need things to run easily. It's a decent procedure to utilize other individuals' traps to ensure you're posing the correct inquiries and settling on the correct decisions.

You see where this is going. I claim an advertising organization, and we committed many errors amid our corporate movement this mid year. Find out around 10 of them here so you can maintain a strategic distance from them when you move yourself.

Putting an excessive number of overwhelming things in a single box

This is a conspicuous one, yet it merits referencing in light of the fact that it's a typical error. While it might appear as though a decent procedure to pack the majority of your books and papers into one box to keep them composed, this can end gravely for evident reasons. To be specific, the crate will get unimaginably overwhelming fantastically rapidly, and could prompt wounds. Or on the other hand procure Packers and Movers Talegaon, they are best in bundling and moving procedure.

Moving each and every thing you claim

There's nothing more regrettable than moving into your new office space with heaps of things that you don't need or need. Utilize the move as a chance to get out your office and possibly make some additional money by selling bigger things on destinations, for example, Craigslist. In the event that the fulfillment of cleansing your additional garbage isn't sufficient, consider the way that it will probably be less expensive to move less things since you can contract a littler truck.

Not guaranteeing your resources.

Guaranteeing the majority of your resources in the event that they break or get lost amid the migration procedure is significant in the event that you need a smooth move. You can get protection through Packers and Movers Kothrud or even guarantee your things all alone in case you're not going to contract a moving organization. Give unique consideration to the kind of protection you're getting - most moving organizations offer between three to six distinct sorts of inclusion, from full administration. everything to moving organization loads, moves or stores is secured to truck rental inclusion just reaches out to the travel time of the move). In case you're enlisting a moving organization, there is frequently a great deal of fine print, so don't be hesitant to pose inquiries to guarantee you're getting the protection that is directly for you.

It's likewise important that a portion of your littler assets, for example, a printers and PCs, are things that you can move yourself without the assistance of a moving organization. Odds are these resources won't break, yet they can be effectively lost or stolen.

Moving excessively near your turn out date.

When you're moving, it's a smart thought to be set up for something to turn out badly. Considering that, ensure you have a lot of time between when you're moving out and when the new individuals are moving into your office space. The exact opposite thing you need is to be in a surge or not have everything moved before the new inhabitants touch base with their stuff. On the off chance that that occurs, you could get charged for not being out when you said you would be gone.

Not getting value assesses before settling on a choice.

Continuously search around before focusing on a moving organization. Seeing audits is critical, yet risks are you'll discover various organizations with great surveys. Requesting a value statement can here and there show signs of improvement bargain at that point on the off chance that you were to just book on the web, so decide. It could spare you a generous measure of cash. What's more, Packers and Movers Baner is giving best Packers and Movers benefits in your financial limit.

In the event that you proceed onward your own: not spending the additional cash on moving devices.

In the event that you do at last choose to arrange a truck however not enlist movers, you'll have the chance to lease moving covers, a moving dolly and additionally moving devices. In case no doubt about it "blindly go for it" mindset towards moving, you may feel that you needn't bother with this gear, however that can be a colossal oversight. Again without appropriate arranging, moving can cause genuine damage also real cerebral pains. So pay for the apparatuses so as to be protected. It merits the cash at last.

[pandacommander24a]

22 seconds Bell to Bell

So Fastlane was... about a mix bag but ultimately its the ending and climax that tells you whether or not it was worth it. Pretty much first half was good times. Then 22 seconds, yeah, 22 seconds. Matches varied from alright to good. Then just nose dive into crap. 

Cruiser Weight matches, both, were really good, just wished I could care about 205 live. I don’t so meh.  Swan and Tozawa out flippy shit  Dar and Kendric. Good fun.

Sami and Soma was a lot of fun, Sami never has a bad match and I really like Soma; best theme on Raw. The match wasn’t the HYPE but was good fun and got me excited for the rest of the night. So a really good opener... Should have stopped.

Tag team was fun, I live for Cory Gary’s absolute hatred of Enzo. Big Cass was strong but The Club were wasted again and kind of stole the win...  The club are both talented guys but they essentially are being jobbed out making them look weak and getting shitty wins like this... Still better than Smackdown in regards to the Tag Team Divison. I don’t know if they are just in a holding pattern until they decide what to do with the New Day

Sasha and Jax, not a squash match. Surprising, Jax threw Sasha around, Sasha threw everything at Jax and then surprise Roll up. Little sloppy but not a bad match. I like Jax and hope she keeps building up to something either at Wrestlemania or something. I was kind of hoping Sasha would do something kind of underhanded to start that heel turn they have been teasing during her injury but whatever. 

Rusev and Mahal, who were a team but now hate each other, demanded a matched. Kind of expected Fowley to come out and tell them to Wrassle it out. What we got was better. 

Mahal throws Rusev threw a barrier and demands a wrestler. Who comes out Cesaro! Que me loosing my shit. There are a couple of people who no matter what always have a match that doesn’t fail to entertain. Styles, Owens, Sami, and my favorite Cesaro. Cesaro works through his extensive roster of moves, and show his Swiss 619 which he has actually mastered. Cesaro faked a back injury during the match because Cesaro wouldn’t be having fun if he wasn’t handicapped in some way. Cesaro wins because Mahal saw Rusev got up and took his eyes off the birdie.  (Seriously like most of the Single matches I saw of Cesaro he’s hurt or some way not at 100%. Shamus and Cesaro feud where he kayfab broke his arm “I fought with only one arm before, let me fight!” Against the Big Show no less. Speaking of which...)

Rusev comes in after the pin and brutalizes Mahal. Then the Big Shows music hits. And out comes epic level Big Show, a good damn match between Big Show and Rusev. Big Show has been hitting the gym for his match against Shaq, which won’t happen. So I think they are setting up a feud with Rusev for Wrestlmania or just trying to reinvent the character. Either way a surprising fun match and Big Show was not the Big Slow tonight.

The New Day come out to shill merch and Ice Cream, remind us they were hosting Wrestlmania and that’s it... Big E wanted to sleep with everyone including the Ice Cream Bicycle they road in on, it was weird but I can dig it. It was the New Day, it got a laugh and was fun. And you know what... The New Day stole the fun when they left because it was all kind of down hill from here.

Second Cruiser Weight match. As I stated Great match. Incredible talent from both Neville, hill Neville the best Neville, and Gallagher. Crazy good match, that trademark Flippy shit and Neville retains. Again I wish I cared about 205LIVE but I can’t for some reason, even though its got more talent than the main raw roster, HEYOH!

Roman Reigns and  Braun Strowman. Okay Reigns had new gear on and honestly it was the same but different and honestly I dug it. The match was by the numbers, Reigns outlasted and out survived everything Strowman threw at him. It kind of was a suprise ending though. Strowman goes for a top rope , Yea the nearly 400 pounds 8 foot tall mofo threw him self from the Turn buckle at Reigns. Reigns moves out of the way and SPALT. Reign coves. So Reigns didn’t beat Strowman, Strowman decided he wanted to be Nevilel but forgot... Only Neville is forgotten by Gravity. So ignoring the bitching of smarks, It was a match with an ending that made Strowman taken ddown by his own hubris rather than his opponent which I can dig.

Then the... SIgh... Okay so at the end of the Raw after Elimination Chamber I had a story idea in mind. Bailey would beat Charlotte at FastLane, clean and then face a heel Sasha at Wrestlemania. Reason? Sasha doesn’t really work as a Face and Charlotte’s  whole gimmick is more or less to be a female version of her father kind of. The hot potato of the belt for the last six months has done nothing for the Raw’s Women division. Charlotte’s streak was impressive but also kind of lame considering its just a PPV streak, she just lost after the PPV so much that the Women’s Division was playing hot potato. So I am not sure why it was such a big deal she had a streak. She just lost on less on important nights. She wasn’t the undefeated champion, she was the lost a bunch when we were not charging for it champion. Bailey is also our plucky underdog. A clean win would help cement her as the champion and cement the belt as something other than a tacky gimmick.

So what happened, a match that was sadly not as good as the match were Bailey won the belt from Charlotte in the first place. Then it ends with Sasha interfering... After Babyface Bailey called out Charlotte’s reliance on Dana Brooke. So heel Charlotte loose from interference from two baby faces... What? Like seriously, What? Is Charlotte going to go Face? Why is Bailey being booked like a heel if she has face promos? Why didn’t the match end in a DQ? IS this some story line for fucking Foley to be fired to cover having to leave for his hip surgery? What did Charlotte, Sasha and Bailey do, or not do, to get this shit booking?

So after that confusion... Something happened that actually made that ending a better ending... KO and Goldberg... I look at my watch and to my suprise There is 10 minutes left of in the PPV. What crazy thing is going to happen, still could be something great right? Fuck my sense of wanting something entertaining and fun to go to work on. Five minutes of setup between Goldberg fucking entrance alone and KO face of he knows this is shit, 3 minutes of KO dancing around the outside of the ring before the match EVEN STARTS. 5 seconds for the Gift of Jericho, which the first official appearance in a month since the festival of friendship. THAN 22 FUCKING SECONDS!

THE PUT THE FUCKING BELT ON GOLDBERG? The only thing that makes this entire asinine story line worst is that Goldberg will face off against Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania, where no doubt, Lesnar will win and then loose to Roman Reigns. New Era, Same Old Shit. This is on top of the garbage bag of dog shit that has been KO’s run as the Champion, where he has never won on his own, clean or other wise, someone always helped him. Because he’s the pudgy underdog or something... KO deserved better...

I am so fucking done, this is was honestly the first time I was actually hugely upset with watching a PPV.

I know a lot of long term smarks might have better idea but honestly Lesnar and Goldberg is a goddamn snore fest. Between both of them they have maybe have half the moves of KO alone, and KO jobs to fucking GOLDBERG?!? This is a nostalgia match only a handful of really boring people want. Remember the first time, because I watched it. Hell I watched Goldberg’s historic Streak, it was fucking boring. Every match was the same, Spear, Jackhammer, COVER. THE END. NO set up. Maybe it was something at the time a monster suddenly appearing and quietly going back into the night... To much has happened since then, also who cares now? I only care because I wasted two hours of my life for that ending? At least work the fucking handle don’t talk dirty to me than leave me with out a payoff.

I said earlier that KO never have a bad match, well... Goldberg sucks so badly that he is the exception that proves the rule.

I honestly was kind of excited for this match. KO has three fucking story lines going on. He met with Triple H before the Festival of Friendship to work something out. THEN Jericho promises that he has made arrangements for KO to win against Goldberg. Then KO get legit HEAT with everyone by tearing Jericho apart, on the promise of something from Triple H. This combined with the fact that KO usually has incredible PPVs, like every time there is a PPV no matter what, if KO was in it, there was going to be a OMG! moment and it made it worth it to watch his matches, every time, every single time.

So what is the big match end for FASTLANE tonight?  Spear, Jackhammer, COVER. THE END. After Jericho comes out and distracts KO... SO much build up, such great story plotting, an incredibly fucking talented Wrestler and you have him job out to a WCW freakshow you originally ran out of the company 15 years ago, and for what? A few seats at Wrestlemania 33? I mean Wrestlemania the greatest ride ever, or whatever we are suppose to call so Vince doesn’t feel old and senile LIKE HIS FUCKING BOOKING!

[stephenmccull]

Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.

COVID-19 cases were climbing at Michigan’s McLaren Flint hospital. So Roger Liddell, 64, who procured supplies for the hospital, asked for an N95 respirator for his own protection, since his work brought him into the same room as COVID-positive patients.

But the hospital denied his request, said Kelly Indish, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 875.

On March 30, Liddell posted on Facebook that he had worked the previous week in both the critical care unit and the ICU and had contracted the virus. “Pray for me God is still in control,” he wrote. He died April 10.

Roger Liddell(Courtesy of Bill Sohmer)

The hospital’s problems with personal protective equipment (PPE) were well documented. In mid-March, the state office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) received five complaints, which described employees receiving “zero PPE.” The cases were closed April 21, after the hospital presented paperwork saying problems had been resolved. There was no onsite inspection, and the hospital’s written response was deemed sufficient to close the complaints, a local OSHA spokesperson confirmed.

The grief and fear gripping workers and their families reflect a far larger pattern. Since March, more than 4,100 COVID-related complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into the nation’s network of federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job.

A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.

The complaint logs, which have been made public, show thousands of desperate pleas from workers seeking better protective gear for their hospitals, medical offices and nursing homes.

The quick closure of complaints underscores the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to oversight, said former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz. Instead of cracking down, the agency simply sent letters reminding employers to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, said Berkowitz, now a director at the National Employment Law Project.

“This is a travesty,” she said.

A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.

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During a June 9 legislative hearing, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said OSHA had issued one coronavirus-related citation for violating federal standards. A Georgia nursing home was fined $3,900 for failing to report worker hospitalizations on time, OSHA’s records show.

“We have a number of cases we are investigating,” Scalia said at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “If we find violations, we will certainly not hesitate to bring a case.”

Texts between Barbara Birchenough and her daughter, (in blue) Kristin Carbone.(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

A March 16 complaint regarding Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey, illustrates the life-or-death stakes for workers on the front lines. The complaint says workers were “not allowed to wear” masks in the hallway outside COVID-19 patients’ rooms even though studies have since shown the highly contagious virus can spread throughout a health care facility. It also said workers “were not allowed adequate access” to PPE.

Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”

Kristin Carbone, the eldest of four, said her mother was not working in a COVID area but was upset that patients with suspicious symptoms were under her care.

In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have a cough and a headache … we were exposed to six patients who we are now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”

“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”

By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”

OSHA records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open and did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list.

Nestor Bautista, 62, who worked closely with Birchenough, died of COVID-19 the same day as she did, according to Nestor’s sister, Cecilia Bautista. She said her brother, a nursing aide at Clara Maass for 24 years, was a quiet and devoted employee: “He was just work, work, work,” she said.

Barbara Birchenough(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

Nestor Bautista(Courtesy of Cecilia Bautista)

Responding to allegations in the OSHA complaint, Clara Maass Medical Center spokesperson Stacie Newton said the virus has “presented unprecedented challenges.”

“Although the source of the exposure has not been determined, several staff members” contracted the virus and “a few” have died, Newton said in an email. “Our staff has been in regular contact with OSHA, providing notifications and cooperating fully with all inquiries.”

Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices across the U.S.

Lost On The Frontline

Doctors, nurses, home health aides and hospital cleaners have lost their lives during the coronavirus outbreak. Meet these essential caretakers.

Go To Special Report

Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.” At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”

We Want To Hear From You

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Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

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Of the 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was a complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of a Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.

More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One of those complaints said home health nurses in the Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear. At a Massachusetts nursing home that housed COVID patients, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves, another complaint said. A complaint about an Ohio nursing home said workers were not required to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint was closed three days after OSHA received it.

It remains unclear how OSHA resolved hundreds of the complaints. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in an email that some are closed based on an exchange of information between the employer and OSHA, and advised reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on others.

“The Department is committed to protecting America’s workers during the pandemic,” the Labor Department said in a statement. “OSHA has standards in place to protect employees, and employers who fail to take appropriate steps to protect their employees may be violating them.”

The agency advised its inspectors on May 19 to place reports of fatalities and imminent danger as a top priority, with a special focus on health care settings. Since late March, OSHA has opened more than 250 investigations into fatalities at health care facilities, government records show. Most of those cases are ongoing.

According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” They also said patients with COVID-19 were kept throughout the hospital.

Patrick Cain and his wife, Kate(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed, Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator. He was also working outside a room where potential COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatments that research supported by the University of Nebraska has since shown can spread the virus widely in the air.

At the time, there was a debate over whether supply chain breakdowns of PPE and weakened CDC guidelines on protective gear were putting workers at risk.

Cain felt vulnerable working outside of rooms where COVID patients were undergoing infection-spreading treatments, he wrote in a text to Indish on March 26.

Texts between union president Kelly Indish and Patrick Cain (right)(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.

He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.

McLaren has since revised its face-covering policy to provide N95s or controlled air-purifying respirators (CAPRs) to workers on the COVID floor, union members said.

A spokesperson for the McLaren Health Care system said the OSHA complaints are “unsubstantiated” and that its protocols have consistently followed government guidelines. “We have always provided appropriate PPE and staff training that adheres to the evolving federal, state, and local PPE guidelines,” Brian Brown said in an email.

Separate from the closed complaints, OSHA investigations into Liddell and Cain’s deaths are ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center also said the complaints they aired before a nurse’s death have not been resolved. (KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

On March 18, nurses filed an initial complaint. They told OSHA they were given surgical masks, instead of N95s. Less than a week later, other complaints said staffers were forced to reuse those surgical masks and evaluate patients for COVID without wearing an N95 respirator.

Several nurses who cared for one patient who wasn’t initially suspected of having COVID-19 in mid-March wore no protective gear, according to Amy Arlund, a Kaiser Fresno nurse and board member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee board of directors. Sandra Oldfield, a 53-year-old RN, was among them.

Arlund said Oldfield had filed an internal complaint with management about inadequate PPE around that time. Arlund said the patient’s illness was difficult to pin down, so dozens of workers were exposed to him and 10 came down with COVID-19, including Oldfield.

Sandra Oldfield(Courtesy of Lori Rodriguez)

Lori Rodriguez, Oldfield’s sister, said Sandra was upset that the patient she cared for who ended up testing positive for COVID-19 hadn’t been screened earlier.

“I don’t want to see anyone else lose their life like my sister did,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente Fresno, confirmed that Oldfield had exposure to a patient before COVID-19 was suspected. He said Kaiser Permanente “has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus.”

Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said KP “responded to these complaints with information, documents and interviews that demonstrated we are in compliance with OSHA regulations to protect our employees.” He said the health system provides nurses and other staff “with the appropriate protective equipment.”

California OSHA officials said the initial complaints were accurate and the hospital was not in compliance with a state law requiring workers treating COVID patients to have respirators. However, the officials said the requirement had been waived due to global shortages.

Kaiser Fresno is now in compliance, Cal/OSHA said in a statement, but the agency has ongoing investigations at the facility.

Arlund said tension around protective gear remains high at the hospital. On each shift, she said, nurses must justify their need for a respirator, face shield or hair cap. She expressed surprise that the OSHA complaints were considered “closed.”

“I’m very concerned to hear they are closing cases when I know they haven’t reached out to front-line nurses,” Arlund said. “We do not consider any of them closed.”

Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died. published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.

COVID-19 cases were climbing at Michigan’s McLaren Flint hospital. So Roger Liddell, 64, who procured supplies for the hospital, asked for an N95 respirator for his own protection, since his work brought him into the same room as COVID-positive patients.

But the hospital denied his request, said Kelly Indish, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 875.

On March 30, Liddell posted on Facebook that he had worked the previous week in both the critical care unit and the ICU and had contracted the virus. “Pray for me God is still in control,” he wrote. He died April 10.

Roger Liddell(Courtesy of Bill Sohmer)

The hospital’s problems with personal protective equipment (PPE) were well documented. In mid-March, the state office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) received five complaints, which described employees receiving “zero PPE.” The cases were closed April 21, after the hospital presented paperwork saying problems had been resolved. There was no onsite inspection, and the hospital’s written response was deemed sufficient to close the complaints, a local OSHA spokesperson confirmed.

The grief and fear gripping workers and their families reflect a far larger pattern. Since March, more than 4,100 COVID-related complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into the nation’s network of federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job.

A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.

The complaint logs, which have been made public, show thousands of desperate pleas from workers seeking better protective gear for their hospitals, medical offices and nursing homes.

The quick closure of complaints underscores the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to oversight, said former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz. Instead of cracking down, the agency simply sent letters reminding employers to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, said Berkowitz, now a director at the National Employment Law Project.

“This is a travesty,” she said.

A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

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During a June 9 legislative hearing, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said OSHA had issued one coronavirus-related citation for violating federal standards. A Georgia nursing home was fined $3,900 for failing to report worker hospitalizations on time, OSHA’s records show.

“We have a number of cases we are investigating,” Scalia said at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “If we find violations, we will certainly not hesitate to bring a case.”

Texts between Barbara Birchenough and her daughter, (in blue) Kristin Carbone.(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

A March 16 complaint regarding Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey, illustrates the life-or-death stakes for workers on the front lines. The complaint says workers were “not allowed to wear” masks in the hallway outside COVID-19 patients’ rooms even though studies have since shown the highly contagious virus can spread throughout a health care facility. It also said workers “were not allowed adequate access” to PPE.

Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”

Kristin Carbone, the eldest of four, said her mother was not working in a COVID area but was upset that patients with suspicious symptoms were under her care.

In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have a cough and a headache … we were exposed to six patients who we are now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”

“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”

By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”

OSHA records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open and did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list.

Nestor Bautista, 62, who worked closely with Birchenough, died of COVID-19 the same day as she did, according to Nestor’s sister, Cecilia Bautista. She said her brother, a nursing aide at Clara Maass for 24 years, was a quiet and devoted employee: “He was just work, work, work,” she said.

Barbara Birchenough(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

Nestor Bautista(Courtesy of Cecilia Bautista)

Responding to allegations in the OSHA complaint, Clara Maass Medical Center spokesperson Stacie Newton said the virus has “presented unprecedented challenges.”

“Although the source of the exposure has not been determined, several staff members” contracted the virus and “a few” have died, Newton said in an email. “Our staff has been in regular contact with OSHA, providing notifications and cooperating fully with all inquiries.”

Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices across the U.S.

Lost On The Frontline

Doctors, nurses, home health aides and hospital cleaners have lost their lives during the coronavirus outbreak. Meet these essential caretakers.

Go To Special Report

Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.” At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”

We Want To Hear From You

Do you work on the front lines of COVID-19? As a medical specialist, health care manager, or public official or employee?

Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

Send Us A Tip

Of the 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was a complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of a Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.

More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One of those complaints said home health nurses in the Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear. At a Massachusetts nursing home that housed COVID patients, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves, another complaint said. A complaint about an Ohio nursing home said workers were not required to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint was closed three days after OSHA received it.

It remains unclear how OSHA resolved hundreds of the complaints. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in an email that some are closed based on an exchange of information between the employer and OSHA, and advised reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on others.

“The Department is committed to protecting America’s workers during the pandemic,” the Labor Department said in a statement. “OSHA has standards in place to protect employees, and employers who fail to take appropriate steps to protect their employees may be violating them.”

The agency advised its inspectors on May 19 to place reports of fatalities and imminent danger as a top priority, with a special focus on health care settings. Since late March, OSHA has opened more than 250 investigations into fatalities at health care facilities, government records show. Most of those cases are ongoing.

According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” They also said patients with COVID-19 were kept throughout the hospital.

Patrick Cain and his wife, Kate(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed, Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator. He was also working outside a room where potential COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatments that research supported by the University of Nebraska has since shown can spread the virus widely in the air.

At the time, there was a debate over whether supply chain breakdowns of PPE and weakened CDC guidelines on protective gear were putting workers at risk.

Cain felt vulnerable working outside of rooms where COVID patients were undergoing infection-spreading treatments, he wrote in a text to Indish on March 26.

Texts between union president Kelly Indish and Patrick Cain (right)(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.

He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.

McLaren has since revised its face-covering policy to provide N95s or controlled air-purifying respirators (CAPRs) to workers on the COVID floor, union members said.

A spokesperson for the McLaren Health Care system said the OSHA complaints are “unsubstantiated” and that its protocols have consistently followed government guidelines. “We have always provided appropriate PPE and staff training that adheres to the evolving federal, state, and local PPE guidelines,” Brian Brown said in an email.

Separate from the closed complaints, OSHA investigations into Liddell and Cain’s deaths are ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center also said the complaints they aired before a nurse’s death have not been resolved. (KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

On March 18, nurses filed an initial complaint. They told OSHA they were given surgical masks, instead of N95s. Less than a week later, other complaints said staffers were forced to reuse those surgical masks and evaluate patients for COVID without wearing an N95 respirator.

Several nurses who cared for one patient who wasn’t initially suspected of having COVID-19 in mid-March wore no protective gear, according to Amy Arlund, a Kaiser Fresno nurse and board member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee board of directors. Sandra Oldfield, a 53-year-old RN, was among them.

Arlund said Oldfield had filed an internal complaint with management about inadequate PPE around that time. Arlund said the patient’s illness was difficult to pin down, so dozens of workers were exposed to him and 10 came down with COVID-19, including Oldfield.

Sandra Oldfield(Courtesy of Lori Rodriguez)

Lori Rodriguez, Oldfield’s sister, said Sandra was upset that the patient she cared for who ended up testing positive for COVID-19 hadn’t been screened earlier.

“I don’t want to see anyone else lose their life like my sister did,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente Fresno, confirmed that Oldfield had exposure to a patient before COVID-19 was suspected. He said Kaiser Permanente “has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus.”

Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said KP “responded to these complaints with information, documents and interviews that demonstrated we are in compliance with OSHA regulations to protect our employees.” He said the health system provides nurses and other staff “with the appropriate protective equipment.”

California OSHA officials said the initial complaints were accurate and the hospital was not in compliance with a state law requiring workers treating COVID patients to have respirators. However, the officials said the requirement had been waived due to global shortages.

Kaiser Fresno is now in compliance, Cal/OSHA said in a statement, but the agency has ongoing investigations at the facility.

Arlund said tension around protective gear remains high at the hospital. On each shift, she said, nurses must justify their need for a respirator, face shield or hair cap. She expressed surprise that the OSHA complaints were considered “closed.”

“I’m very concerned to hear they are closing cases when I know they haven’t reached out to front-line nurses,” Arlund said. “We do not consider any of them closed.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/osha-investigations-workers-filed-nearly-4000-complaints-about-protective-gear-some-still-died/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.

COVID-19 cases were climbing at Michigan’s McLaren Flint hospital. So Roger Liddell, 64, who procured supplies for the hospital, asked for an N95 respirator for his own protection, since his work brought him into the same room as COVID-positive patients.

But the hospital denied his request, said Kelly Indish, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 875.

On March 30, Liddell posted on Facebook that he had worked the previous week in both the critical care unit and the ICU and had contracted the virus. “Pray for me God is still in control,” he wrote. He died April 10.

Roger Liddell(Courtesy of Bill Sohmer)

The hospital’s problems with personal protective equipment (PPE) were well documented. In mid-March, the state office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) received five complaints, which described employees receiving “zero PPE.” The cases were closed April 21, after the hospital presented paperwork saying problems had been resolved. There was no onsite inspection, and the hospital’s written response was deemed sufficient to close the complaints, a local OSHA spokesperson confirmed.

The grief and fear gripping workers and their families reflect a far larger pattern. Since March, more than 4,100 COVID-related complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into the nation’s network of federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job.

A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.

The complaint logs, which have been made public, show thousands of desperate pleas from workers seeking better protective gear for their hospitals, medical offices and nursing homes.

The quick closure of complaints underscores the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to oversight, said former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz. Instead of cracking down, the agency simply sent letters reminding employers to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, said Berkowitz, now a director at the National Employment Law Project.

“This is a travesty,” she said.

A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

Sign Up

During a June 9 legislative hearing, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said OSHA had issued one coronavirus-related citation for violating federal standards. A Georgia nursing home was fined $3,900 for failing to report worker hospitalizations on time, OSHA’s records show.

“We have a number of cases we are investigating,” Scalia said at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “If we find violations, we will certainly not hesitate to bring a case.”

Texts between Barbara Birchenough and her daughter, (in blue) Kristin Carbone.(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

A March 16 complaint regarding Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey, illustrates the life-or-death stakes for workers on the front lines. The complaint says workers were “not allowed to wear” masks in the hallway outside COVID-19 patients’ rooms even though studies have since shown the highly contagious virus can spread throughout a health care facility. It also said workers “were not allowed adequate access” to PPE.

Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”

Kristin Carbone, the eldest of four, said her mother was not working in a COVID area but was upset that patients with suspicious symptoms were under her care.

In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have a cough and a headache … we were exposed to six patients who we are now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”

“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”

By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”

OSHA records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open and did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list.

Nestor Bautista, 62, who worked closely with Birchenough, died of COVID-19 the same day as she did, according to Nestor’s sister, Cecilia Bautista. She said her brother, a nursing aide at Clara Maass for 24 years, was a quiet and devoted employee: “He was just work, work, work,” she said.

Barbara Birchenough(Courtesy of Kristin Carbone)

Nestor Bautista(Courtesy of Cecilia Bautista)

Responding to allegations in the OSHA complaint, Clara Maass Medical Center spokesperson Stacie Newton said the virus has “presented unprecedented challenges.”

“Although the source of the exposure has not been determined, several staff members” contracted the virus and “a few” have died, Newton said in an email. “Our staff has been in regular contact with OSHA, providing notifications and cooperating fully with all inquiries.”

Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices across the U.S.

Lost On The Frontline

Doctors, nurses, home health aides and hospital cleaners have lost their lives during the coronavirus outbreak. Meet these essential caretakers.

Go To Special Report

Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.” At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”

We Want To Hear From You

Do you work on the front lines of COVID-19? As a medical specialist, health care manager, or public official or employee?

Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at covidtips@kff.org.

Send Us A Tip

Of the 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was a complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of a Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.

More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One of those complaints said home health nurses in the Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear. At a Massachusetts nursing home that housed COVID patients, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves, another complaint said. A complaint about an Ohio nursing home said workers were not required to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint was closed three days after OSHA received it.

It remains unclear how OSHA resolved hundreds of the complaints. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in an email that some are closed based on an exchange of information between the employer and OSHA, and advised reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on others.

“The Department is committed to protecting America’s workers during the pandemic,” the Labor Department said in a statement. “OSHA has standards in place to protect employees, and employers who fail to take appropriate steps to protect their employees may be violating them.”

The agency advised its inspectors on May 19 to place reports of fatalities and imminent danger as a top priority, with a special focus on health care settings. Since late March, OSHA has opened more than 250 investigations into fatalities at health care facilities, government records show. Most of those cases are ongoing.

According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” They also said patients with COVID-19 were kept throughout the hospital.

Patrick Cain and his wife, Kate(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed, Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator. He was also working outside a room where potential COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatments that research supported by the University of Nebraska has since shown can spread the virus widely in the air.

At the time, there was a debate over whether supply chain breakdowns of PPE and weakened CDC guidelines on protective gear were putting workers at risk.

Cain felt vulnerable working outside of rooms where COVID patients were undergoing infection-spreading treatments, he wrote in a text to Indish on March 26.

Texts between union president Kelly Indish and Patrick Cain (right)(Courtesy of Kelly Indish)

“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.

He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.

McLaren has since revised its face-covering policy to provide N95s or controlled air-purifying respirators (CAPRs) to workers on the COVID floor, union members said.

A spokesperson for the McLaren Health Care system said the OSHA complaints are “unsubstantiated” and that its protocols have consistently followed government guidelines. “We have always provided appropriate PPE and staff training that adheres to the evolving federal, state, and local PPE guidelines,” Brian Brown said in an email.

Separate from the closed complaints, OSHA investigations into Liddell and Cain’s deaths are ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center also said the complaints they aired before a nurse’s death have not been resolved. (KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

On March 18, nurses filed an initial complaint. They told OSHA they were given surgical masks, instead of N95s. Less than a week later, other complaints said staffers were forced to reuse those surgical masks and evaluate patients for COVID without wearing an N95 respirator.

Several nurses who cared for one patient who wasn’t initially suspected of having COVID-19 in mid-March wore no protective gear, according to Amy Arlund, a Kaiser Fresno nurse and board member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee board of directors. Sandra Oldfield, a 53-year-old RN, was among them.

Arlund said Oldfield had filed an internal complaint with management about inadequate PPE around that time. Arlund said the patient’s illness was difficult to pin down, so dozens of workers were exposed to him and 10 came down with COVID-19, including Oldfield.

Sandra Oldfield(Courtesy of Lori Rodriguez)

Lori Rodriguez, Oldfield’s sister, said Sandra was upset that the patient she cared for who ended up testing positive for COVID-19 hadn’t been screened earlier.

“I don’t want to see anyone else lose their life like my sister did,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente Fresno, confirmed that Oldfield had exposure to a patient before COVID-19 was suspected. He said Kaiser Permanente “has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus.”

Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said KP “responded to these complaints with information, documents and interviews that demonstrated we are in compliance with OSHA regulations to protect our employees.” He said the health system provides nurses and other staff “with the appropriate protective equipment.”

California OSHA officials said the initial complaints were accurate and the hospital was not in compliance with a state law requiring workers treating COVID patients to have respirators. However, the officials said the requirement had been waived due to global shortages.

Kaiser Fresno is now in compliance, Cal/OSHA said in a statement, but the agency has ongoing investigations at the facility.

Arlund said tension around protective gear remains high at the hospital. On each shift, she said, nurses must justify their need for a respirator, face shield or hair cap. She expressed surprise that the OSHA complaints were considered “closed.”

“I’m very concerned to hear they are closing cases when I know they haven’t reached out to front-line nurses,” Arlund said. “We do not consider any of them closed.”

Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died. published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/