#try not to fall in love listening to fucking cancelled (her podcast)

[partialbirthabortion]

Whenever I talk about abuse being something specific (behaviour that is physically or sexually violent, dominating, controlling, degrading, humiliating, or violating) people always say “What about emotional abuse?” And I have to ask these people to be more specific, and many of them get angry that I ask them to be more specific. Not all abuse is physical, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that anything that hurts you or doesn’t meet your needs is abuse. When my ex partner told me I’m a disgusting slut who no one will ever love, that’s emotional abuse. When my ex partner stole my keys and my phone, that’s emotional abuse. When my ex partner insisted I keep the house spotless and exploded at me when I didn’t, that’s emotional abuse. But I had another partner at another time in my life who I was very unhappy with, who scrolled their phone while we were at dinner and flirted with other people online when we were monogamous and largely left me feeling sad and unwanted, and that, as much as it sucks, is not emotional abuse or abuse of any kind.

I am tired of tiptoeing around this and so I’m just going to come out and say it: the conversation on abuse prevention and supporting survivors is being dominated by people who are not survivors because the situations they are alluding to are not abusive. I have read entire ‘call outs’ that loudly proclaim a person is an ‘abuser’ who must be outed for community ‘safety’ and then go on to list things which are clearly conflicts, mismatched needs, and hurt feelings. I have watched people be humiliated, slandered, isolated, controlled, and robbed of everything meaningful in their life when what they are being accused of is not abuse, and what is happening to them is.

[morningsound15]

Hey dude I’ve been seeing a lot of CR stuff from you lately and I love me some Ashley Johnson and was thinking about starting it and realized there is an absolutely insane number of episodes!!! I wanted to ask if you been watching from the start? And if you usually watch it or listen to it as a podcast? Sorry for the questions I’m probably going to start it anyways bc what the fuck else am I gonna do during this panasonic LOL thanks dude

omg yes hi! you mean my wife Ashley Johnson, whom I would die for? She is lovely

So to answer — yeah I know there are so many eps. Very daunting! It took me a few times to actually get into CR, because I never reallly played D&D and the eps are like 4 hours long each but I was entering winter quarantine and it came highly recommended from a friend of mine (plus I love lesbian hijinks) so I stuck with it! And am now obsessed (clearly).

So they’re obviously in campaign 2, meaning you can totally skip all of campaign 1 (vox machina) there are like mentions & Easter eggs from that campaign that you won’t understand but you don’t need to have watched it to get this story. I started from the beginning a few months ago and I’m somewhere in the early 30s right now, but I ALSO have been watching live for the past several weeks. Watching live is really what encouraged me to stick with it because the drama! The stakes! It’s such an adrenaline rush. Anyway so I’ve seen like the first 30 eps and the last 6 or 7, and then I’ve also tried watching compilation videos on YouTube to try and get a basic understanding for the almost hundred episodes of story I’m missing in between. I don’t mind spoiling myself since watching live basically ensures I’ll be spoiling some big things (like deaths), so there are also synopses you can read, wiki articles about the characters and their backstories, etc. etc. But yes, a daunting number of eps, I felt the same way, I just am watching nothing at the moment and still locked away in quarantine so I figured fuck it, you know?

It’s definitely tough! But I’m having a blast. I usually watch it as a YouTube video on 1.25 or 1.5x speed that I’ll slow down if something I’m invested in happens. I love watching because half the fun is seeing the cast as actors react to what’s happening in-game, always a delight, but I know people who podcast it too. There can be quite a lot of dead air, especially in the early episodes, so I try to do something else while I watch (clean, cook, do laundry, color, read sometimes) which also helps! I will warn, if you go in mostly for Ashley she spends quite a lot of the early campaign away, because she was filming for a TV show at the time and her schedule always conflicted, so there are big Yasha gaps until the later numbers (80 or so?) When her show gets cancelled and she’s back full-time. But you’ll totally fall in love with the whole cast, they’re so funny and joyful.

Anyway I can’t recommend CR enough! Except for all the stress and anxiety it’s been giving me recently lol but if you ignore my sleep deprivation

[artificialqueens]

Revelation Sunshine, Chapter 1 (Courtney/Vixen) - Veronica

A/N: Oh hi. Welcome to the Galactica sequel that I’ve been planning FOREVER. Like...literally since the time these two started interacting on Twitter, during season 10. Thanks to @artificialpuddle for the beta help, and @aqcitrus for brainstorming with me. <3

And of course, a HUGE thanks to @theartificialdane, for humoring me the whole way through and letting me explore this ship in the Galactica verse. It is mostly fluffy, fluffy shit, which is a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I love them so much and I just want them to be happy.

I think it can easily be read as a stand-alone story. The only thing you need to know from Galactica is that at this point in the story, Courtney is a wildly successful queer pop star and star of a fictional Disney franchise called ‘Glimmer,’ which costars Honey Mahogany as her love interest.

Challenge Notes:

Story is told mostly from Vixen’s POV

Her BFFs: Asia, Monet, Monique, Mayhem (who show up in person in Chapter 2)

The title is a song by Cree Summer. I’ve also made a playlist for this story, which can be found here.

#Vixney4Eva

TW: vague reference to past transphobia, sexual apprehension/nervousness that should in NO WAY be construed as dubcon

***

It was Honey who introduced them. Or, rather, Honey who handed Courtney the book that started everything, on the set of Glimmer 3.

BEWARE WHITE TEARS: Performativity and Racial Justice, by Toni “Vixen” Taylor enthralled Courtney so much that she barely slept for 3 nights, devouring it twice. And then she read the whole thing again, slowly, highlighting the parts that blew her mind the most.

On set, when she just couldn’t stop raving about it, Honey laughed at her.

“So...you liked it?”

“Omigod, yes!” Courtney exclaimed. “I mean, obviously I feel very called out. But in a good way? Like...this is making me rethink everything.”

“That’s good! I thought maybe you’d be offended,” Honey said, adjusting her crown.

“Offended? How long have we known each other?” Courtney giggled, bumping Honey with her hip. It was true: they’d been co-starring in the Glimmer franchise for 8 years at that point.

“Still.”

“But god, Honey, it was just...I mean, I don’t even have any words for how amazing it was. She’s so fucking smart and passionate, and so funny, and everything she says is like…” Courtney shook her head, starry-eyed.

“You should tell her,” Honey said with a saucy wink. “Send her a tweet or something.”

“She’s not gonna care what I think,” Courtney said. “I mean, hello? Chapter 4?”

“Okay, but she’s a professor. She’ll be thrilled that someone learned something. Besides, even if she doesn’t respond, maybe you’ll encourage your fans to read it.”

“That’s true…”

“And maybe get more people to listen to her podcast-”

“She has a podcast?!!” Courtney shrieked excitedly, then whispered, “Sorry,” when she saw the boom operator cringe.

Maybe Honey was right...but what should she say?

***

Vixen felt absolutely silly. There was really no reason for attention from a celebrity to make her so giddy. True, there’d been a phase when she hung on Courtney Act’s every word--but that was years ago. Early in her transition, when she felt like nothing she did was right. When she was desperate for any voice telling her that who she was was okay.

It was different now. She was 30 year old, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t need validation from anyone anymore, especially not a pop-star-come-Disney-princess. At least, that’s what she would have told anyone who asked.

But to herself, she couldn’t deny the thrill she got when she saw that first notification on her phone. The mild anxiety all day as she taught two lectures and graded a handful of thesis proposals--a nagging thought in the back of her mind wondering how she should reply. It wasn’t until late into the evening, after 2 glasses of wine, that she allowed herself to read it again, slowly typing out a reply.

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 15h Just read @professorvixtaylor’s “Beware White Tears” and my mind is BLOWN. Everyone needs to read this game-changing book. E V E R Y O N E!!!! It’s so good, so informative, so powerful. AND I just found out that she has! A! Podcast!! #obsessed <3 <3 <3 <3

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact Glad you found it interesting! Thanks for the plug.

That was fine, right? Very chill. She went to sleep feeling pretty satisfied with herself. It wasn’t until the following morning when she saw Courtney’s response.

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 6h Replying to @professorvixtaylor That is the understatement of the year!!! I LOVED it! You are BRILLIANT. I just listened to the first episode of your podcast and holy shit...it’s phenomenal.

Vixen put down her phone, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. It was shallow and cheap--being this enchanted by obviously exaggerated praise. But still...not a bad way to start the day.

***

Vixen was used to fighting. All of her life, it seemed, she’d had to prove herself. Scrape and claw for her voice to be heard. Shout into the void over and over, praying that someone would eventually listen. Demand attention and bang down doors and yell until she was hoarse.

Having someone at Courtney’s level of fame pay attention to her--emphatically describe her as brilliant, incisive, powerful, mind-blowing--Vixen’s impulse, in the beginning, was to lie. To say she didn’t need that kind of validation from anyone, especially a rich, famous, beautiful white girl. The embodiment of privilege. Someone whose coming out was celebrated in the media like a massive human rights achievement. Because how could someone like that ever really get it?

But on the other hand…she had to hand it to Courtney. She had excellent taste in podcasts.

And there was something soothing about a person who didn’t expect her to prove anything. Someone who respected her from the jump, who engaged with her book and her podcasts from a place of dignity, assuming that she knew what she was talking about. She didn’t demand back-up or further explanations when she came across material that was confusing. She did the work herself, looking up the articles and studies Vixen cited, posting them with a quote when something in particular caught her attention.

So reluctantly, over the next month or two, Vixen found herself warming to the idea of a real dialogue. It was January 1st, sitting on her grandmother’s plastic-covered sofa, when Vixen finally bit the bullet and slipped into Courtney’s DMs, so to speak.

Courtney had been tweeting up a storm over the holidays. Gobbling up her podcasts rapidly and hungrily, heaping her and her guests with praise and incidentally, making her subscriber numbers climb. She opened a direct message window, typing out a message that she hoped would make Courtney laugh.

@professorvixtaylor: Alright, already. This is getting embarrassing...

The response came within minutes.

@courtneyact: LOL! Listen, nobody ever accused me of a lack of enthusiasm.

@professorvixtaylor: I bet not ;)

It took one afternoon of DMs before Courtney gave Vixen her phone number. “Twitter’s great, but it’s probably easier to just text, right?”

Well.

Vixen had to admit, she had a point.

***

“So listen,” Latrice said, heaving a deep sigh. “I hate to be the one to tell you this. Like, I really, really hate it.”

“Oh shit,” Courtney said, wrapping herself in a blanket and preparing herself for whatever horrible news her manager was about to deliver. “Go ahead…”

“This isn’t coming from me, okay? It’s coming from Disney.”

“Just tell me, Latrice. What? Is the tour cancelled? Do they hate the new video? Do we need to do reshoots? What?”

“No, all that’s fine. They just...they’re a little uncomfortable about your interactions with this Vixen person.”

“Why?” Courtney sat up, ready to get extremely annoyed, extremely fast.

“Well, it’s just...she’s apparently got some very radical ideas, and-”

“So? Maybe they’re amazing ideas? Have you read the book?” Courtney countered.

Latrice sighed.

“Courtney, listen. It’s just...not what they want while they’re trying to promote this last movie.”

“It’s a movie that ends with a gay interracial marriage!” Courtney exclaimed. “So why the fuck do they have a problem with me complimenting a Black political science professor on Twitter?! This is beyond idiotic, Latrice, you have to admit that! And by the way, I’m not gonna stop. She’s amazing and her book is important and more people should know about her, and if they want to fire me, then fine!” Courtney’s heart was racing as she tried to catch her breath.

There was a pause before Latrice spoke again.

“I assumed this would be your response.”

“Yeah, so. Now what?!”

“Now, I tell them that you feel very strongly about this, and that you’re not breaching any contract, and if they try to silence you on this issue, you’re prepared for a very public, very embarrassing fight,” Latrice said.

“Okay…” Courtney waited for the catch.

“I’m pretty sure they’ll drop it.”

“Just like that?” Courtney asked, confused. She’d gotten herself well and riled up, prepared for a real battle.

“Yeah, baby,” Latrice said. “Just like that. Chalk it up to white privilege.”

Courtney couldn’t help but laugh at that, head falling back on the sofa cushions.

“Good one, ma’am.”

After they hung up, Courtney opened Instagram, delighted that Vixen had updated her story. It was just a casual picture, her and two other professors getting ready to speak at a round table discussion. Courtney smiled, replying to the picture with heart eyes and the question, ‘Is that top from my collection?’

She responded a little while later, while Courtney was on the elliptical, saying, ‘I was hoping you’d notice. ;)’

Courtney giggled to herself, wondering when she’d get to meet this amazing, glowingly beautiful woman. All she wanted was to finally talk, face to face. Maybe in the spring, when her tour hit Chicago? Which, as far as Courtney was concerned, couldn’t happen soon enough.

***

It may very well have been a love letter, Vixen thought, finding her cheeks blazing hot at the thought. She’d woken up to a video posted on Courtney’s Twitter feed. “How To Be a Race Ally.”

Vixen watched the whole video with a healthy amount of skepticism. It was great, actually. Humble and informative. Cleverly incorporating some of the points from her podcast (with proper credit given) and even some things she’d said over text recently (also with credit, and a wink straight into the camera that made Vixen feel things she wasn’t prepared for at 7:30 in the morning).

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact Okay fine, you can come to the cookout.

As usual, Courtney's response was lightning fast, an emoji wearing a party hat and about 10 exclamation points. Vixen couldn’t resist teasing her a little bit more.

Dr. Vixen Taylor @professorvixtaylor ∙ 1m Replying to @courtneyact I don’t know how vegan-friendly it’ll be, though.  

Courtney Act @courtneyact ∙ 1m Replying to @professorvixtaylor You really think I’m there for the food? ;P

Vixen rose from her bed, an almost giddy feeling filling her chest. She really needed to calm the fuck down. What was with this silly schoolgirl behavior? And on a public platform? Every interaction ran the risk of absolutely ruining the street cred she’d spent years building up. (Monet was already making it her personal mission to screenshot every exchange and then tease her mercilessly, and Asia had begun to join in.)

Besides, what were the odds that it would ever be anything but a short-lived flirtation? Courtney was bound to become captivated by something else soon. An animal rights group, perhaps. Or funding for the arts in public schools. There were a billion issues competing for her attention. How long would Vixen’s moment in the sun possibly last?

And yet, when Courtney tweeted that she was on her way to New York, Vixen found herself taking a shot of liquid courage and then sending a text.

VIXEN: Hey...how long are you gonna be in New York?

COURTNEY: A couple of weeks, why?

VIXEN: Well, I have a conference at Columbia on February 23, and then I’m gonna stay for a few days. Maybe we could meet up?

COURTNEY: YES

COURTNEY: I mean, sure. Sounds lovely. Tell me what day you’re free. <3

***

It was strange, seeing Courtney in person after all this time. As much as Vixen enjoyed chatting with her, and as validating as it was to get so much attention, she had reminded herself over and over again that this was all just friendly banter. A bit of lighthearted flirting, maybe, but the possibility of a genuine romantic connection was absolutely out of the question.

But then.

When Courtney first emerged from the elevators, smile bright, it was like time ceased to be linear. Nothing...not pictures, not video, not even that concert she’d attended all those years ago, prepared her for how heart-stoppingly beautiful she was in person.

Vixen stood, in slow motion, knees shaking a little, suddenly hugely aware of her height. Was Courtney always this little? Why had Vixen worn heels?

It must have taken Courtney less than 10 seconds to cross the lobby to where Vixen stood, but for some reason, it felt like 10 years. Excruciatingly slow, and yet somehow, Vixen was still caught off guard as she bounded up and grasped both of her hands.

“Thank you so much for coming!” Courtney exclaimed, that dazzling smile still on her face. “It’s amazing to finally be in the same room!”

“Yeah, it’s…” Vixen offered a smile of her own, swallowing hard. Her hands were warm and soft, and as Vixen gazed down at her, she could feel her heart racing faster than ever. “How was your day?”

“Crazy…” Courtney linked an arm through Vixen’s, leading her towards the hotel bar.

It took a concerningly short time for all the weirdness to dissipate, for Vixen to forget that she was across the table from a celebrity, a person she’d been following for years, a person that she’d idolized at one point in her life.

She was just a girl. Granted, she was a beautiful girl, but one who seemed incredibly excited, even honored, to be talking to Vixen—about her book, her podcast, her life. Where she came from and what she cared about and who she looked up to. A girl who wanted to get to know her.

After awhile, when Vixen was finally relaxed enough to really open up, she told Courtney about hearing ‘Kaleidoscope’ for the first time. How, at that point in her transition, it made all the difference in the world to see Courtney so open about the fluidity of gender and sexuality. To hear those magical words. ‘This is who we are.’

Courtney nodded along, listening to her, tears filling her eyes. She covered Vixen’s hand with her own, and said, “I needed it too.”

As the hours ticked by, they talked about everything. Passion, art, travel, identity. She wanted to know when Vixen began to question her own gender, how she knew that she wanted to transition. She was delighted by the story of her brief foray into drag during the early college years, the source of her now permanent nickname. In spite of all the questions (or maybe because of them), for once, Vixen felt like she wasn’t on the defensive. She found herself being more sincere and honest about all of it than she’d been in a long time.

“I’m not usually this open,” she admitted at one point.

Courtney laughed, eyes glittering, and said, “I’m usually too open.”

“I think you’re just right,” Vixen replied, giving her a generous smile.

They talked about their childhoods. How much she loved pretend and fantasy as a kid.

“I went through a phase—that’s generous, it was like 3 years—where I really wanted to be a dragon. I had this dumb...dragon hoodie, that I wore all the time. And when I finally grew out of it, I cried.”

“Aww,” Courtney said, reaching for her hand. “I bet you were adorable.”

“I think I just really, really didn’t want to be me.”

Courtney took in a slow, deep breath, and then let it out even slower.

“I’m not gonna pretend that I really get it. Everything you’re talking about. I don’t know if I ever could. But...I get that part.”

Vixen raised an eyebrow.

“You? How do you get it?” Vixen let out a chuckle. “I’m not trying to judge you, but I just...look at you. You’re this perfect, sparkly princess. Everything the world wants a girl to be.”

“Yeah...I see what you’re saying. But...sometimes it feels like that’s all the world wants. Is the sparkly princess part. And I’m more than that. Or, I hope I am. But…” Courtney trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “Do I sound really dumb?”

“You don’t sound dumb. You sound like a very intelligent, thoughtful...sparkly princess.”

Courtney threw back her head and laughed.

“I can’t believe you laughed at that,” Vixen said with a shake of her head. “It was such a cheap shot.”

“Well, I’m an easy laugh,” Courtney said, shrugging unapologetically.

“Yeah I’ve heard that about you,” Vixen couldn’t help saying, and Courtney’s giggles continued.

They stared at each other for a few moments, eyes burning in the dim light, with matching, goofy grins decorating their faces, until Vixen broke, shaking her head.

“This is so surreal…”

“How so?” Courtney asked, voice lilting in a way that felt almost like a tease, resting a chin on her hand.

Vixen hesitated. It felt so cliché to say that it was because Courtney was famous, or because she once cried at her concert when she was 23.

“I mean...you’re not even really my type,” she finally answered with a small shrug.

“Oh yeah? What’s your type?”

“Ummm...I normally go for curvy Latinas,” Vixen said, lashes fluttering.

Courtney’s eyes widened, smile deepening, as she exclaimed, “Oh my god, me too!”

They both started laughing again, clinking glasses for good measure.

“So, um...do you have to go back to Chicago tomorrow?”

“Actually, no. I decided to stay a few more days,” Vixen replied. “See some shows, meet up with some friends. There’s this museum in Brooklyn that I’ve been dying to check out for years.”

“What museum?” Courtney asked.

“It’s, uh, called the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts,” Vixen said. “Kind of a mouthful but-”

“Sounds great. I wish I could see it.”

“You wanna come? I’m going tomorrow after lunch.”

“Ugh, I wish!” Courtney said, stretching her neck. “But the press tour schedule is insane. I’m doing two more interviews tomorrow, and then I fly to LA to kick off the tour.”

“Tough breaks.” Vixen tried, unsuccessfully, not to sound sarcastic.

“Listen, I’m not complaining. I’m very lucky.” Courtney smiled, tilting her head. “But it would’ve been cool to see that museum.”

“Next time,” Vixen promised.

“I’m holding you to that,” Courtney said, gaze fixed on Vixen’s face as she downed the rest of her drink.

Vixen gave a small nod, finding her eyes hypnotic. Surreal indeed.

They ordered yet another round as hotel patrons trickled out, crowd thinning, closing time approaching. By the time they stood up to leave, they’d knocked back quite a few--more than Vixen realized at the time. She grabbed Courtney’s arm to steady her as the blonde swayed in her heels.

“You alright?”

“Mmhmm…” Courtney gazed up at her, lashes fluttering.

“Do you want me to help you upstairs?”

“Okay…”

In the elevator, Courtney wrapped her arms around Vixen’s waist, leaning a head on her shoulder. Vixen’s heart hammered in her chest, one hand gripping the railing for support.

At the door, Courtney looked up at her, eyes bright, breathing out, “You know, we don’t have to be up until 10 tomorrow…”

“What are you…‘we?’”

It took Vixen a moment to catch on to her train of thought, a wave of nerves washing over her.

“Listen. Um. I think you’re great,” she began, wincing as she saw Courtney’s blissful expression crumble. “But...I just, I never hook up with girls who’ve been drinking. It’s just…”

Vixen didn’t want to explain the whole story. The girl in the lesbian bar, years ago, who danced with her all night, flirting and rubbing against her, inviting her back to her apartment. Only, when they began to undress, and it became clear that Vixen’s body was a little different, the girl flipped a switch. Went from a delightful buzz to drunken rage. Accused her of taking advantage, called her...Vixen didn’t even want to think about that. Or about how she’d left her apartment as fast as possible, terrified and choking back tears. How at home, she’d collapsed into Asia’s arms and sobbed most of the night, wondering if she’d ever fit in, anywhere.

Courtney wasn’t that girl in the bar—Vixen knew that. But she was clearly tipsy, and some things, some decisions, required a clear head.

“It’s not you,” she finished lamely. “You’re amazing.”

Courtney nodded, swallowing her disappointment like a champ and saying, “You’re amazing.”

Before she left, Vixen leaned in and brushed her lips against Courtney’s cheek.

She walked toward the elevator, regret stinging the back of her throat. She had no idea how long it would be before they saw each other again, and suddenly her arbitrary rules based on one shitty asshole in a bar 7 years ago seemed...absurd. She turned back around. Courtney was still leaning in her open doorway, watching her walk away.

“Hey, how drunk are you, actually? Can you recite the Pledge of Allegiance?” Vixen asked.

“No—” Courtney said, brow furrowed.

“Oh.” Vixen’s heart deflated a bit.

“—Because we don’t have the Pledge of Allegiance in Australia.”

“Right,” Vixen laughed.

“But what about, um, okay...so...here's a story from A to Z. You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully. We got Em in the place who likes it in your face. You got G like MC who likes it on a. Easy V doesn't-”

Vixen strode forward and silenced her with a kiss, soft and sweet, almost chaste at first, both of them giggling. As the kiss deepened, Vixen grabbed Courtney around the waist and pushed her backward into the room, letting the door slam shut behind them.

Vixen was so enamoured that she barely registered Courtney’s massive hotel suite, the entry hall or huge living room that Courtney led her through on the way to the bedroom. Guiding her by her hips to the bed, Courtney pushed her into a seated position and stood between her legs, chasing her lips as she took hold of her collar, fingering the little pearl buttons down the front of her shirt dress.

“Is this okay?” she asked, and Vixen nodded.

“Yeah.” She watched Courtney’s heavy-lidded eyes as she quickly opened the buttons, skin prickling as she pushed it off Vixen’s shoulders. She kissed Vixen again, deep and messy, sucking on her bottom lip.

Panting, Vixen reached around, fumbling for Courtney’s zipper. Once she pulled it down a few inches, the cotton dress easily came off over her head, and then there she was, standing in front of Vixen in nothing but a pair of baby blue panties.

Vixen swallowed, eyes sweeping over Courtney’s body, dying to touch her but nervous as all fuck.

“Listen, um...I should tell you…”

Courtney paused mid-way through opening Vixen’s belt to look at her curiously, face earnest and alert. The perfect student.

Vixen sighed. The fact that Courtney was so willing to listen, so considerate, should have been a bonus. But in this moment, it just made her feel startlingly inadequate. She hated this. The feeling of not being enough, or being too much. She didn’t even know anymore. All she knew was that she was about to make herself more vulnerable than she’d ever been, and she was terrified.

“So...Okay, um. I guess...it’s just been a long time since...I was with a girl.”

“Tell me about it,” Courtney said, grinning.

“No. A really long time,” Vixen said.

“Okay. Does that mean you don’t want-”

“No!” Vixen burst out, a little too emphatically, and then lowered her eyes bashfully, adding in a calmer voice, “No, I want to be with you, I just...might be a little out of practice.” It was an understatement, a lie of omission that unsettled Vixen’s stomach a bit. But it was all she felt comfortable with revealing at the moment, and she hoped that she’d be forgiven later.

“Hmm…” Courtney took Vixen’s face in her hands, tilting her chin up. “I think I can work with that…”

She bent down to kiss her again, soft as a whisper, fingers stroking Vixen’s cheekbones, before pulling back and gazing down at her.

“God,” Courtney breathed, “You are so beautiful.”

Vixen took in a shaky breath, her hands finally lifting to slide around Courtney’s hips. Something about the way Courtney looked at her was different than anything she’d ever experienced. She’d been the object of lust before, and sometimes very much enjoyed it. But this was more than that. She felt more than sexy, more even than beautiful. She felt seen.

But for once, rather than get all wrapped up in anxiety about what it meant, Vixen acted on instinct. She gripped Courtney's waist and pulled her forward, flinging her onto her back on bed. Courtney squealed delightedly, pulling her along.

Courtney smiled up at her, reaching a hand out but then pausing, letting her fingers rest on Vixen’s shoulder.

“Am I allowed to touch your hair? ‘Cause I’ve heard...”

Vixen couldn’t help laughing as she nodded and said, “That rule doesn’t really apply here.”

“Okay,” Courtney giggled, fingering her twists gently.

Vixen turned her head, pressing a kiss to Courtney’s wrist, then slowly moving up her arm, and finally nuzzling into her shoulder. Her skin smelled fresh and almost sweet, like she’d recently been in a doughnut shop. It wasn’t sugary like some kind of food-based perfume or soap, just a gentle, vague deliciousness that Vixen became addicted to immediately, burying her face into her neck to inhale deeply.

She found a soft, tender spot, just below Courtney’s ear, that made her sigh when kissed, and began to suck. Courtney inhaled sharply, hips thrusting up against Vixen’s, hands tightening in her hair.

“You like that?” Vixen asked, emboldened, hands sliding up from her waist to scratch gently at her ribcage.

“Uh huh,” Courtney breathed, arching up again as Vixen kissed her, thumb brushing over her hardened nipple. A whimper fell from her lips.

Vixen’s dress was half off at this point, pushed down around her waist, and when Courtney’s fingers began to trail lightly up and down her back, she shivered. Courtney pushed the dress further down, wriggling it over Vixen’s hips to her thighs, and Vixen pulled it off the rest of the way.

She was expecting to feel uncomfortably exposed, both of them now just in their panties—a situation she hadn’t found herself in with a woman is a very fucking long time. Especially a woman she liked this much. But instead of feeling awkward, she found her pulse racing with excitement, nearly breathless in anticipation of what might come next.

She realized that she’d been frozen for a few moments when Courtney raised herself up on her elbows and asked, “Are you alright?”

Vixen nodded, and Courtney sat up further, reaching out to touch her cheek.

“You want to take a break? Slow things down?”

“No,” Vixen said simply, slipping her fingers under the sides of Courtney’s panties. Her hips lifted, allowed Vixen to slide them off easily, heart in her throat when she saw how glistening wet she was already. She knew that she was potentially in over her head, but there was also a strong urge to keep going, pulse racing with desire.

“Come here.” Courtney stretched out her arm, pulling Vixen in for a kiss, tongues tangling together. She rolled Vixen over, onto her back, grinding down against her.

As much as Vixen wanted to please her, ceding control to Courtney felt liberating. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Courtney lavished her with affection, layering kisses against her skin. When a warm tongue swirled over her nipple, her hips jerked up, a stifled moan escaping from her throat.

Courtney sucked harder on her nipple, hands sliding down her torso, lips following as they trailed over Vixen’s tense abdomen. She hooked her fingers into the sides of Vixen’s panties and then looked up questioningly.

“Can I...?”

“Go ahead,” Vixen replied, straining to raise her hips, finding her core muscles in a weakened state, skin so flushed and hot that for a moment, she barely remembered to be self-conscious. Until Courtney began to slide her panties down, and suddenly she remembered exactly what she’d been dreading. When the reality of who she was would confront Courtney, more than theoretical, more than an idea.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she watched Courtney’s face. If she had any qualms about a girl with a dick, she certainly didn’t show it. She simply continued to suck soft kisses into her skin, warm hands resting on her thighs.

Vixen finally relaxed backwards, eyes falling shut. She let go of all her worries, all her stupid insecurities. At least for now. At least while Courtney took her dick into her mouth, tongue flicking delicately at her. Vixen’s hips thrust upwards, hands gripping the comforter tightly, moans dripping from her lips like honey.

It had been so achingly long since anyone had touched her this way. Maybe no one ever had, she realized as she arched into the soft caresses. She’s certainly never experienced this kind of loving attention from a woman, a woman treating her like she was precious and beautiful, turning her into a gasping, quivering mess. Vixen felt herself falling apart quickly, losing control, nearly gone before she had the wherewithal to choke out a pained warning.

“I’m-I’m gonna-”

“Mmhmmm…” Courtney made no move to stop, swirling her tongue again, then taking her deeper, sucking harder.

“Oh fuck,” Vixen moaned, hips pumping uncontrollably as she came, gasping for air.

The way Courtney’s hands stroked her thighs, continued to suck softly as she melted backwards into the pillows, every muscle in her body going slack--the small part of her that was still conscious shivered with delight, thrilled with the feeling of being spoiled.

It wasn’t until her body was completely still, bones feeling like jelly, when Courtney began to work her way up her body once again, hands sliding over her skin until she came nose to nose with her once again.

Courtney smiled, kissing her cheeks, down along her jaw, the corner of her mouth. Lips rousing her from a state of sheer exhaustion into warm, sleepy affection. Her hands circled Courtney's waist.

“How are you feeling, baby?” Courtney murmured.

“Uh huh.”

Courtney giggled, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger as she pressed more kisses against her.

Vixen sighed contentedly, pulling her in close, not caring how clingy and pathetic she might seem, just wanting the warmth of Courtney’s body against her own. Courtney snuggled into her arms, slipping to the side of her, legs still tangled together.

After a few slow, lazy kisses, Vixen started to sense a shift. Courtney’s breath grew hot and ragged, hips rutting against her. She cautiously moved a hand down, working it in between her thighs, fingers seeking out her wet heat.

“Show me what you want,” she urged, desire to give Courtney pleasure finally outweighing her fear of looking like an amateur.

Courtney lifted her head, giving her a sleepy grin and reaching down to guide her. She patiently showed Vixen exactly where to touch her, what to do to tease her, when to speed up and circle her clit, how deep for her fingers to go and exactly how to curl them to make her tremble. Vixen followed her breathless instructions, guided by Courtney’s own hand, thrilled at the way her body responded.

Soon, Courtney’s eyes were rolled back, muscles straining, tits brushing against Vixen’s chest as she thrusted against her fingers, fucking down into them, breathy moans music to Vixen’s ears. Her hips moved faster and faster until she stopped, whimpering, just barely grinding against the heel of Vixen’s hand, lips pressed to her neck.

Vixen had never made a girl come before, and it was so much more beautiful than she’d imagined, from the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks to the slick sheen of sweat on her forehead, to her ass flexing, muscles still twitching against Vixen’s fingers. And the best part, the way she looked up at Vixen at the end, eyes locked with hers as the waves of pleasure radiated through her body, fingers wound tightly into her hair.

“Fuck,” Courtney sighed, collapsing against Vixen’s body, trapping her hand for a few moments before realizing it and letting her wriggle free with a sleepy laugh. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Vixen said, tilting her chin up for a kiss. Her whole body had suddenly become soft and pliant, and all Vixen wanted was to wrap her into an embrace. She wasn’t expecting it to feel this intimate. A part of her had even worried that this whole affair would be wrapped up in a one-night stand. But as Courtney cuddled against her, heart still hammering, she felt closer to her than ever. “I should probably tell you…”

“Mmm?”

“What I said earlier, about not being with a girl in a long time?” Vixen swallowed. “I uh...I haven’t really had a girlfriend since high school. And I guess I’ve come close since then, but never really went through with it...as me. The real me.”

Courtney lifted her head, fingers trailing down Vixen’s arm, a smile playing on her lips.

“Thank you for trusting me with the real you,” she said softly.

Vixen nodded, not sure what more there was to add, when a clap of thunder outside scared the living shit out of her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. So much for a warm and fuzzy moment.

Courtney laughed, pulling up the covers and cocooning them both, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” she said, snuggling tight against Vixen’s body.

“You better,” Vixen replied.

[disenchantedfaerie]

We’re still playing games, won’t you join?

I didn’t really listen to the entire thing. I was mostly just interested in the part about the rant. What I love most about this is still the fact that no one mentions why he was called out in the first place. He doesn’t mention it. CB doesn’t mention it. No one does. It’s just poor SH couldn’t take it anymore. He is poor abused Sam and it was the right time to share his feelings. He doesn’t mention it was all in response to the “small group of very vocal people” who used their voices to point out his covidiocy. And what did they get in return? Hate from this worshippers loyal followers and his blocking them from his SM. Read that again. HATE from his followers, the very thing he was reprimanding the fandom for is what they were doing to the “small group of people” that called him out for the lies and the blatant disrespect of what was happening.

Again, I don’t discount his feelings and if he truly does have mental health issues, I really hope and pray he finds a way to seek the help he needs. Mental health is no joke. I know. I deal with it daily. Bullying and stalking is not acceptable on any level ever. As someone in the public eye, I’m sorry that they have to deal with that. We’ve all heard the horror stories. The thought of stalking a celeb to find their whereabouts would never occur to me. If I run into someone on the street randomly, LUCKY ME! But to seek them out? No thank you. I don’t have that kind of time. I lived in LA for 17 years. I met a few celebs when I was following bands in Hollywood. Met them. Maybe had a drink or two, some nice conversation or a hug. That’s it. I didn’t follow them home or try to find them in hopes we could have a relationship, friendship or anything else. End of story.

Which leads me back to the main issue. Why did he really feel the need to drop that rant on that fateful day? It wasn’t really about the bullying and stalking. It was to change the focus of the fact that he fucked up by going to Hawaii in the midst of a global pandemic with someone, as far as we all know, he barely knew, and then bragged about it and let us know how hard he works and how much he deserved it when other harder working people had to cancel their plans. Let’s not forget it was just a few days before the Gaga special as well. Damage control. Simple. He then further punished his worshippers loyal followers and the rest of the fandom by tweeting and IGing sporadically, not interacting and staying quiet. Maybe he should have done that to begin with but attention is attention whether it’s good or bad.

And for what? A vacation? Really? New Orleans was all work? New York? Vegas? Oregon? Mexico? Mammoth? Big Sur? LA? He was working 24/7 (like all our front line doctors/nurses/delivery/all ESSENTIAL workers) the entire time he was brought to America? That’s truly amazing. What stamina he must have coming off of 10 long months of filming where again there was absolutely no down time ever. All work and no play makes Sammy a dull boy I guess.

The response however from STARZ and his coworkers has been very telling in my opinion. There really hasn’t been much interaction and for being one of the leads in the show it’s simply amazing how his live IGs have been cancelled time and again and OL STARZ hasn’t supported him doing one like they did for all the lesser cast. Interesting, yes?

I know I keep saying it over and over and I likely will keep saying it in the hopes that the guy I thought I followed when I started watching this show will apologize for discounting this pandemic and not following the advice of his government and being an entitled jerk about it when he was called out. If he thought he was really right, why lash out? Because deep down, he knew he was wrong but as a spoiled, selfish, entitled git, he had to show everyone just exactly who he is. Thank you. I’m glad he did. He’s saved me heartache and money.

I feel like I’m blathering but it’s my blog so I can. My final point is about this interview. When asked what the first thing is he wants to after this is over? He briefly said oh friends and family, but see my good old coworker Cait, hug my good old coworker Cait because that means they’re back at work. Feed a shipper much? That statement on the heals of the IG story he posted and where he asked for captions? Not a photo of J/C. No. That would have made too much sense. It was a photo of S/C with a cutesy little heart. Feed the shippers much? I just cannot with these people. They can’t have it both ways. Who are the biggest trolls in the fandom? STARZ and the leads. They started it. They keep feeding it. It will never end. What is he really going to do when OL is no more? Slip back into obscurity and hopefully (fingers crossed) live his actual truth if he even remembers what that is? Or will he continue with the lies because this taste of fame is too much to resist? Who will he fall back on when he can’t hide behind the show or his good old coworker, his number one woman to be associated with? What then? Be on another series, if he can, and be shipped with his costar again? And start the entire process all over? Be careful what you wish for. You may just actually get it. I feel bad for his mum. I can’t wait to see mine again, to hug her, have a meal with her, just sit with her and look at her. My coworkers will come and go. I only get one mum.

Next time I’m going to lay my thoughts on you about Dwayne Johnson The Rock. I read an interview with him recently and it restored my faith in humanity and elite A-List celebs. That’s for next time. Stay tuned.

I’ll be watching. I’ll be posting. 🖤💙🤍

[ragnarssons]

I wanted to approach this in a matter of fact way but did anyone spreading the gossip actually listen to the podcast ? The betrayed part was in a different segment about cutting people from your life than the one she talked about having LA friends through bf but bf is now ex. Did I hear it wrong bc both topics were separate and not specifically bf betrayed her. Just seems weird since she's mostly never unprofessional or loose lipped.

Yeah idk, when I first heard about how “Arryn confirmed Beliza in a podcast!!!” I was like?? WHUT? I listened to the podcast and literally, there’s NOTHING. She never talks about gaslighting or manipulation. She talked at some point, about how she’s had to learn recently to cut out people from her life, even if she loves/loved them because it hurt too much. And I was like “yes girl!”- never at any point did she indicate that it was anything related to her love life or to Bob as a person: that’s all speculation. And Arryn is right: when you feel you love someone, you feel like you have to “give it another try” or not cut them out completely, because even people around you will be like “are you sure??” but YES that’s what you have to do for your mental health and your happiness. It’s hard, it hurts- basically what Arryn says - but it’s worth it (believe me, I did it too). Assuming that all of Arryn’s potential personal problems stem from Bob and her relationship to him is like - LOL? She probably knows a lot of people, she works in Hollywood where lies and manipulations are kinda A Thing™ but yeah people preferred presenting her as a scorned woman spreading shit in a podcast rather than, idk, listen to the actual message she was sending. Not to mention that if it’s about the “betrayal = cheating” conclusion everyone is reaching *rolls eyes* that’s…? Is cheating the only form of betrayal you can see in a relationship? I mean, your 4 years boyfriend falling in love with someone you thought was a friend, also has a taste of betrayal, ya kno. The end of the relationship, of the feeling of “being loved” is itself a bit of a betrayal and it hurts because that’s how love is. People are just jumping to conclusions, and seeing even only ONE person believing this shit and spreading it without any proof other than “I heard her say she was betrayed!! in a podcast!!!!” is deeply upsetting. These are real people you’re talking about, real people you’re accusing of doing things and “cancelling” because of said actions you think they did even tho you have no proof whatsoever. Real people you’re tagging in your fucking disgusting tweets accusing them of doing so- I’m not even gonna talk about the DEATH THREATS, I mean yo, the people “exposing” Bob and Eliza as cheaters are so much better than them: Death Threats are morally right, didn’t you know? That makes you a better person than potential - without proof - “cheaters” that are accused by dumb teenagers on social medias. Sorry, I’m starting to get really annoyed when I think about it lol. The way some people can feel THAT entitled is mind-blowing to me.

[newagesispage]

                                                                    SEPTEMBER       2019  

PAGE   RIB

 July 2019 was the hottest month in human history.

*****

This Ordinary Life has sent the world their new EP, Sadderdays!! Give it a listen!

*****

Judd Apatow is putting out a book about Garry Shandling.

*****

Debbie Harry: Face it will be out on Oct. 1

*****

This year the Kennedy center will honor Big Bird, Linda Ronstadt, Earth, Wind and Fire, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Sally Field.

*****

Kentucky principal Phillip Wilson who banned books from his high school in 2009 for homosexual content has been arrested on possession and distribution of child porn.

*****

In Illinois, the capital bill is funded through a doubling of gas tax and an increase in license plate fees. The money is supposed to be for roads, public buildings and bridges. The state constitution tells us the state shall not pay for aid in any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution controlled by any church or sectarian denomination. Organizations that are now receiving some of the funding are, Catholic charities, The ARK of Sabina, Inner-city Muslim action network, Gifts from God ministry, Chicago center for Torah and Chesed, Hatzalah, Keshet, Jewish united fund, Lewis University, St. Ann Catholic school and Mt. Sinai hospital, among others.

*****

Gary Busey will appear in the off Broadway musical, Only Human where he will play God.

*****

Eastwood’s The Ballad of Richard Jewell is in production with Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Kathy Bates and Jon Hamm.

*****

For a look into Brian Jones death catch the doc ‘Who killed Christopher Robin?’

*****

Dale Jr. and family were in a plane crash but everybody seems to be ok.

*****

I hear that Porn hub is planting a tree for every 100 videos watched.

*****

Days alert: Rex is out. What about Chloe? Who will love her now? They still had the chemistry. Oh, never mind, Chloe is gone too!** Ted is out. Tripp is out. Jordan will be back briefly.** OMG How my heart fluttered when Tony and Anna saw each other again. Oh, the magic of a soap!! **At last Robin Strasser is on the way as Vivian. ** Greg Vaughan is dating Angie Harmon and they are a pretty adorable couple.**Why don’t they try to charge Kristen with Holly’s murder? She may want to tell them where they are then.  And I am so sick of Eric leaving sweet women to sniff after Nicole, enough. He used to be one of my favorite characters but it has gotten old. ** Please Please put Xander and Sarah together!!!!!

*****

Dolly Parton’s America: A podcast will begin this fall.

*****

The new owners of the LA sex club that was known as Snctm are taking apps and promising carnal bliss.

*****

Scary Clown told workers in a GM plant in Michigan not to sell their homes. He promised the plant would not shut down and guess what? Lie!** Trump owes El Paso 470 thousand for his MAGA rally. ** Perhaps we should all refer to him as he refers to himself, Ttump.** A Nazi rally in Germany handed out hats inspired by the Trump campaign that read: Make Germany Hate Again.** We have to hit him where it hurts..$.. This is all he understands.** The evangelicals finally got a little upset when Trump took the lords name in vain. ** Trump wanted to buy Greenland, they wouldn’t bite and he cancelled his trip to Denmark.** Now he is The King of Isreal? The chosen one? The second coming of God? ** Word is that half of Trumps twitter followers are fake. Also, the US Labor Dept. says America created 500,000 fewer jobs in 2018 and 2019 than previously reported. **Rural farmers are 50-50 on Trump like the rest of us. Why do we categorize people? Things like this show that our differences don’t usually have anything to do with our religion, the color of our skin,$, job or location. We are different at our cores in what we think and feel about others and the world around us.** Scary Clown has told some staff to get this wall started no matter the coast and to just, ”take the land” if necessary and he will pardon them later. He has taken FEMA money to get the ball rolling as a hurricane bears down on the U.S.

*****

Why do we vote in those that allow the drug, insurance and credit card, lender companies to make all the dough?? Let’s ALL enjoy America.

*****

A newly invented bag can be dissolved in water after use.

*****

Pardon Blagoevich?? What??

*****

The Black Jewel Coal Co. has filed for bankruptcy. The miner’s last paychecks bounced. Nobody will answer their questions about their 4o1k’s. Since they are not technically laid off yet, they can’t receive unemployment. The company got 5 mil in emergency funds from the bank and they owe 976 thousand in fines.

*****

Kelly Craft, a major Trump donor is the new UN ambassador.**US ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman is out.

*****

I have to say, I don’t get why people aren’t more excited about the democratic candidates. There are a few that could go away but there are some really fabulous ideas there. I hope they put their egos aside when the last is standing. The lot of them would compose a great cabinet. And how do you not get excited about the future of our country?? How can you be so inside your own head that you put our own day to day ahead of your country? We all have to pay our bills, work, care for others and enjoy our passions from time to time but this is crunch time people!!! Pay attention!!** Beto’s REAL reaction to the El Paso shootings did more for him than all his relaunches. He was himself and not what he thought he should be. Trump and Biden were giving sympathy to the wrong cities for goodness sake!  Trump couldn’t even show any true feelings as he gave the thumbs up beside an orphan and tweeted about how lousy Shep Smith as he flew to the next photo op of victims.** It’s hard to look away from the freak show.** The next Dem debate is Sept.12.

*****

With no notice, immigrants who are here for life saving treatments have been given 33 days to clear out of the country.** Scary Clown is fighting with Comey again. What an unhappy schmuck this President is.

*****

It seems to me that if 2 people had run for student council president and the winner cheated and abused his office, they would make him step down. Would they have another vote or let the opponent step in?? The President of the US post is a bit more important than student council President. ** Now Trump is thinking that nuking hurricanes might be a good idea.

*****

If elected, Bernie says he will tell us what is known about aliens from outer space.** Hickenlooper is out.** Seth Moulton is out.**Jay Inslee is out (oooh, that one hurts). I love ya Jay!! He is now running for reelection as Governor.** Gillibrand is out** Former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts  Governor Bill Weld are in for the Republican side.

*****

Some studies show that over 50% of inmates have dyslexia.

*****

Jim Gaffigan made some jokes about craft beers including how labels might have say a penguin wrestling a cactus. Well, a small brewery in NY has made it happen with their blend called Penguin and Cactus

*****

6000 people of Oklahoma are dead from opiods and Johnson and Johnson have been ordered to pay $572 mil per the court verdict.

*****

The International wildlife regulator has banned the capture and export of baby African elephants.

*****

Leslie Jones is out at SNL.

*****

“Under the Trump administration, the pledge ”the right to bear arms,”  has morphed into “Don’t just stand there, shoot somebody.” – Carl Reiner

*****

In the event I am killed, organize, mobilize and get the peace plan passed and put my body on the NRA’s doorstep in Fairfax, Va. – David Hogg

*****

The trailer for this Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix, Marc Maron and Robert DeNiro looks fucking amazing!! Hurry up Oct.4!!

*****

The NRA has 5 million members but one still has to wonder why the rights of gun owners supersede the rights of everybody else. Why don’t we hear more about their money scandals? Just when you hear that Trump is asking his people behind the scenes if the NRA still has power, he and LaPierre talk and the Pres backs off his tough gun talk. We know who is Wayne’s bitch. ** A group of surgeons have been showing X-Rays of what a gun can do as they protest gun violence.** The world now has bulletproof backpacks.**New schools are being designed to cut down the number of victims of a shooter. Hallways are curved and classrooms can lock.

*****

The Firearm dealer license certification act in Illinois requires those who hold a Federal firearm license to also obtain a state certificate of license and comply with state regulations. All dealers will be required to have security alarms where guns are stored in case of intrusion. Dealers will also have to keep electronic records of their inventory. Gun dealers and the Illinois state rifle association are challenging, of course before this all takes effect in 2020.

*****

“We don’t have an actual Presidency right now. We have a reality show whose ratings have begun to slide and whose fading star sees cancellation on the way.” – Eugene Robinson.

*****

The Bruce Lee philosophy , Be Water, is being used by the Hong Kong protesters. Be Strong like ice. Be fluid like water. Gather like Dew. Scatter like mist.

*****

As the crackdown on immigrants continues, word is that Trump still employs many undocumented workers. And why aren’t the employers arrested?** The administration wants to make it easy  for the wealthy and educated immigrants to come to this country. Again, only the rich have rights.** Trump has moved $150 mil from FEMA to the immigration courts as hurricane Dorian heads this way. ** He is telling his staff to just “take the land” and build the wall, disregard environmental rules and he will pardon them. A joke?? I wouldn’t be so sure.**

*****

Jews against Ice really let ‘em have it. They shut down Amazon as they marched against the internment of immigrants. The rally cry: We will not stay silent while tech companies profit off of cruelty.

*****

Jeff Epstein is dead and the conspiracy theories have begun. Many are glad that Epstein is dead and some wish he had lived to pay for his crimes. Would he have turned on his high end friends?  David Koch is also dead.** Word is that in 2008 Epstein bought female undies from the jail shop.

*****

A recent survey shows that 45% of people wear underwear for 2 days, 13% for a week. Tell me this can’t be true.

*****

Chris Christie and Anthony Scaramuchi are always everywhere and now Sean Spicer on Dancing with the Stars?? OMG.. Can we stop seeing these people?** Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining Fox news.

*****

White Supremacy is officially the majority of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Now, let me see, who seems to want to be their leader?** Advertisers pulled out of Tucker Carlson’s show after he called white supremacy ,’not a thing.’

*****

Truckers have been really hurt by the tax cuts. Longer hours and less money have come since they can’t deduct expenses the way they used to. Regulations have been relaxed that limits hours on the road.

*****

The Department of labor is proposing a rule that would allow government contractors to fire workers who are unmarried and pregnant or LGBTQ.

*****

David Gilmour sold his guitars for 20 thou and used the money to fight climate change.

*****

Michael Cohen claims that Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife and a pool boy they met at a hotel became fast friends. Eventually Cohen had to intervene because of some lurid photos. He claims that the Falwell’s are quite kinky. The couple gave the pool boy over a mil to buy a resort that has become trendy with the LGBTQ community.  Apparently nobody else knows what is on those photos that Cohen brokered a deal for.

*****

Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a story won the Freedom of Speech award at the Traverse city film fest. She announced the release of the film by giving a heads up to hashtag emmyless Donald.

*****

California is trying to make those that run for President show us their tax returns. Illinois rejected that idea.

*****

Blaze it forward

*****

U.S. Fencer, Rick Imboden took a knee during the national anthem after taking gold at the Pan Am games.

*****

Stumptown looks like a good show but boy what a terrible name.

*****

Check out the new book, Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.

*****

Ron Burgundy has been making the rounds.

*****

Yada Yada Yada politics has made its way into our thoughts with Marianne Williamson warning us of business as usual.

*****

Geena Davis is getting the humanitarian Oscar.

*****

In a joke that Seth Meyers told he said, ”Cleveland Browns win Super Bowl!”  So it may never happen but it was nice to hear.

*****

Chairman of the parent company of Equinox and Soul Cycle and owner of the Dolphins, Stephen Ross, caused a stir when he held a fundraiser for Trump.

*****

Liam and Miley broke up.

*****

Someone started a little joke about renaming the street in front of Trump tower. But people have started to take it seriously and NY is considering the name President Barack Obama Avenue.

*****

The administration is rolling back regs on the endangered species act. It has been a great success but Trump and the lobbyists think it just stands in the way of their profits.

*****

28% of delivery drivers have eaten some of your food.

*****

The Rolling Stones are trying to push a green agenda on the latest tour. At some venues fans can purchase a tones cup for $3, use it all night and then take it home or turn it in for your $3 back.** In 1964 the first Stones album came out and the Mariner 4 fly by satellite had its first look at Mars. In November last year the Insight lander thrusters disturbed a rock on Mars which has been dubbed Rolling Stones rock.

*****

Studies show that the most dangerous years of our lives are the year we are born and the year we retire. Depression spikes 40% after retirement. In Okinawa, Japan they don’t even have a word for retire. On the whole they eat a lot of fresh seafood and eat smaller portions. They seem to live the longest, healthiest lives.

*****

The green shirt guy was a thing for a few minutes.

*****

Wal Mart is really cracking down on security, one store at a time. Some people are asking the store to stop selling guns and donating to NRA backed lawmakers.

*****

The Black lady sketch show is Robin Thede’s new thing which is good but her last show was good too.

 R.I.P. Saoirse Kennedy Hill, Hal Prince, the El Paso and Dayton and Odessa/Midland shooting victims, D.A. Pennebaker, Toni Morrison, Jimmy Aldaoud, Valerie Harper and Peter Fonda.

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

A Letter Of Resignation: What Its Like To Hit Rock Bottom

Tomas Chevalier

This is Spaceship Earth. It is, to the day, exactly as old as I am. We were both born October 3, 1982. We’ve been alive for 34 years, 10 months and 17 days. Earlier this year, I ran past it on my way to completing the very first marathon I’d ever run … a quite literally unbelievable feat for someone who was born with lungs that function at 53% capacity. The race took me 6 hours, 42 minutes and 25 seconds. Upon completion, I had a glass of champagne. I deserved it. This story is only tangentially about that.

Exactly half my life ago, some 17 years, 5 months and 8 days ago, I started a career which has been well documented — yet hidden in plain sight. It was an illustrious career, which netted me a great deal of satisfaction and joy. I am here today to announce my retirement from it. I’ve held a lot of jobs during that time — waiter, bartender, writer, musician, branding “guru”, marketing manager, mathematician, weatherman, sports columnist, podcast host — but none of them were my real career. I’m holding onto the jobs I still have. Today, I am firmly, unequivocally retiring from the sport of professional drinking. And, so I am clear on this, let me say the words that will haunt you, so that I may no longer be haunted by keeping them secret: I am John Gorman. And I am, in no uncertain terms, an alcoholic.

It’s almost my brand at this point, but, in case you’re new: I’ve spent the past year or so in a spectacular downward spiral. I am, by all metrics, less healthy and happy than I was in the Spring of 2016, when I was at my absolute pinnacle. The decline was so gentle, and the zenith so high, that I barely felt real ramifications even though I knew things were getting wobbly at the top. I still (thankfully) have my job. I still have (most of) my friends. And only very few people pointed out to me that I had “changed.”

But I, myself, could tell what was happening. So I went running for answers. I traveled the country, hoping to find them. I visited old friends in old cities. I visited ex-girlfriends. I saw baseball games. I saw concerts. I drank in dimly lit bars. I pillaged my past — the people and places and activities from it — to try and rediscover myself. Often, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Even if I had a helluva lot of fun along the way. This was piece and parcel of my life writ large — a never-ending party, a show designed to entertain those who dared to watch, at the expense of myself and my health.

In April in New York, on a very long, dimly lit night, I drank in Astoria with one of my best friends, and a woman I hadn’t seen in seven years. I had been cataclysmically drunk the entire weekend to that point, and I would continue to be right up until the morning after I’d returned to Austin. But, while at the bar, I said, frankly, “Follow me down the black hole.” I knew where I was headed, because I had already been there. Aided by cognac and fernet, I found I could be refreshingly candid with them, even if that meant being unusually dark and nihilist. And that was the easiest thing to notice: my darkness. That was new. That didn’t exist before — at least not outwardly. And that was my first warning sign that it was time for me to walk away. (The dozens of empty champagne bottles in my pantry that had been building up since Christmas of 2015 didn’t ring the alarm, but the inability to hide my sadness apparently was a bridge too far.)

My most recent ex used to compare me to Mr. Peanut Butter from for my relentless positivity. And, at the time I had met her, it was hard not to be clear skies and warm sun all the time. Everything was going my way: I was in the best shape and health of my life, my career was in the perfect spot, I had some money saved up, I had a ton of good quality relationships with friends and family, and I generally spent most of my day doing things I loved to do — music, writing, running, biking, reading and learning things. I did this, I think, because I had spent a good majority of the previous year sober. You see, I knew I had to stop drinking in the fall of 2014. And I had.

I was already out of control by that point, a man so enamored with whiskey and gin that I’d blacked out on my 32nd birthday after making out with five women — none of women were the one I was dating at the time, and, frankly, she was probably the greatest woman I’d ever dated, and, yes … she left me for good the following day — and, to quote an observer, I spent a solid hour “flopping around on the ground like a dolphin out of the sea.” I quit then. And I mostly didn’t drink for over a year thereafter. I did it without broadcasting it to the world. (Mostly.)

But I remember the day I re-started in earnest — it was the day I met the woman I couldn’t bare to be without. It was an innocent sidecar on our first date, on November 8, 2015. We broke up the week before I went to New York. And, yes, I went to New York because we broke up. I drunkenly cancelled the trip I had planned for us to go to Cuba, since that was no longer in the cards, and used that money to fly to the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. And, for the first time, I was forced to reconcile with who I’d become while making peace with a past that, while wonderful, was tinged with regret. I met an ex-girlfriend to see Waitress. I met another one at a dive in Brooklyn, where I sucked down Tito’s and Soda until I was blue in the fucking face.

My darkness was suddenly front-and-center. I was confronted with it, with nowhere left to turn, because how can anyone escape themselves. I was now completely unhinged, detached from time and space and reality. I turned my drinking — as I often have, but never to the extent that I did now — into a cloak of invincibility; shielding me from consequences for my actions. Now that my tank of fucks left to give was dry, I didn’t have to give any. I started behaving … erratically. Drinking more, and more often, than usual. On an average night, some five-to-six nights per week, I would put away somewhere between 10 and 20 shots of alcohol. This has been the case for the past year. That’s not a misprint.

I was losing interest in things I once loved, and taking a liking to pursuits that could kill me if I did them long enough. Pursuits like finding my way to the bottom of a bottle — every day, many times per day. I also began numbing myself through sex, Netflix, rich foods, travel and experiences. And those were all great, because, well — what isn’t great when you’re hashtag living your best life? My behavior was Instagrammable. When I would tell people “all I do is drink until I black out, smoke until I can’t breathe, eat pizza until I can’t walk, and fuck anyone and everyone,” people complimented me on my fierce independence and brash silliness. And although I was broadcasting my sadness and self-cruelty to the world, no one seemed to get the message.

And, when those wells of distraction had run dry, or I couldn’t muster the energy to go out into the world, I began to mindlessly scroll my social media feeds — not even for the sake of connecting with people or commenting, but merely to pass the time. And I fell into a rut. And even more drinking. The quest to find the answer for the darkness became an imperative, and, arguably, the actual answer to the darkness itself. I was becoming sick and sad, cynical and weird, lazy and fearful. The walls began to close in — and then they collapsed.

I spent a morning that lasted all afternoon holed up in a hotel room in Phoenix, pounding bottles of champagne and staring into my phone hoping the meaning of life would magically appear. I was paralyzed, crippled by fear and darkness and anxiety. What’s wrong with me? And I began to think with a very specific, urgent purpose. I was going to lean into this feeling and find my way out.

I reasoned, with unusual clarity, that at the root of my drinking and my suffering is a pathological desire to not be alone. To be wanted, needed, validated and rewarded. This checked about 80% of the boxes: My steady stream of “content” I put out on my Facebook feed. My inability to say no to smoking or drinking if someone asks me to, my pathological willingness to take on more work, go to more events, and do more favors than I can realistically handle. My propensity for flirting with almost everyone. My insatiable messiah complex. My hyper-sensitivity to criticism from friends, peers and lovers. But that did not quite cut to the root of it. The question I then proposed: why can’t I be alone?

Initially, I thought I did not like myself. But as I reasoned objectively, that wasn’t always the case. There were times when I *did* like myself very much. 2015 was a prime example. In fact, I can look back at most of my life and say, yes, I was someone I would find interesting, and decent to hang out with. But I realized I felt that way in times when I was very busy — being with people, experiencing new things, accomplishing goals, performing well at tasks, making and creating. And I like all those things about me. But baseline?

I then went to baseline. I decided to drown myself in … myself. And more champagne. I ghosted social media for two weeks. I went off-grid. And I was, unsurprisingly, miserable. But I kept thinking. And kept listening. It was quiet on the outside — and loud as hell in my head.

In the midst of that quiet, that’s when I heard it: My hyper-critical, rude, caustic and abrasive internal dialogue. The voice in my head that kept directing me: You should be doing something. You shouldn’t be 34 and single. You should be farther along in your career. You shouldn’t be such a whore. You shouldn’t drink so much. You know you shouldn’t be smoking that. When are you going to get off anti-anxiety meds? Why are you so fat? Don’t eat that. Don’t drink that. That’s bad for you. You’re unhealthy. You’re weird. You’re lazy. You’re careless. You’re a fuck-up. You’re going to ruin your life. You’re going to die. No one will remember you. No one’s going to love you. You’re nothing. You should kill yourself.

And that’s when I learned. Everything I do is an attempt to silence, or escape, the impossibly cruel and exacting voice inside my head. Sometimes this manifests itself in a good way: Travelling, pouring myself into my work, learning new things, creating music, writing, rock climbing, other novel experiences. These only temporarily silence the voice. But, at my core, I realized that’s why I drank. To shut the mouth of the asshole who lives inside my head.

I swam back up to the surface and took a deep breath. There would be no deeper insight. I finally understood why I am who I am. And, the way I’d been coping with it, was not respite — it was fanning the flames.

Let’s talk for a minute about what being an alcoholic is really like. I sleep on an un-made bed, with no sheets on it, sheets that are balled up in a laundry basket, covered in cat vomit. That’s if I make it to bed. Most days I black out on the couch, watching Cold War documentaries for the sake of self-edification and yet almost nothing stays with me overnight. I mostly wake up wondering what year it is.

I started smoking a pack a day, for whatever reason, as if it’s not stupid enough to smoke anything at all while I — again — have 53% of a human lung. Imagine being born with COPD and then being like “nah, fuck it, I don’t care how I die, so I might as well die in the most obvious way possible, as soon as possible.”

I have, to the best of my knowledge, slept with over 200 women — 30 in the past six months. I do not know why. Maybe to beat back the inescapable loneliness. Actually, only for that reason. Had I been capable of loving myself, I probably wouldn’t need so many people to love me.

I’ve gotten too drunk on two dates in the past month — both of which were with people I actually, truly, adored, and still do. There were no second dates. Imagine, being able to find love and punting on it because fernet shots are so much more desirable than potential life-long companionship.

My house is a certified sty. Dishes piled on the counter-top. Nacho debris littered all over the rug. I should probably be vacuuming instead of writing this. I’m not. Imagine, coming home, wading through a pile of bottles and bullshit, and thinking “nah, that’s fine. The minefield is just the price I pay for living with myself.”

I have eaten five meals this week. Three of which were (full, large) pizzas. One of which was a pasta salad that had been sitting out at room temperature for 24 hours, but, I didn’t have the self-discipline to throw it out and eat something else. Imagine being so in the realm of not giving a shit that you willingly say to yourself “there’s definitely bacteria in this and this smells like dead squirrel, but, fuck it, I’m hungry and this tastes fine.” I’ve lost 10 pounds in the past six months, subsisting only on carbonated liquids that range from IPA to bourbon. Only eating when my body was literally craving a vegetable. (BTW, if you ever think, “Fuck, that salad looks delicious,” you’re probably farther down the path of an unhealthy lifestyle than you think you are.)

And so, now, here I stand: at the precipice, staring into the abyss, and realizing the time is now to turn the car around before it careens over the cliff. 17 years, 5 months and 8 days was just long enough to be at the peak of my powers. Or, more accurately, to be actively sabotaging me from being at the peak of my powers. I plan on spending the next 17 years, 5 months and 8 days — yes, until I am literally 52 years old, should I make it that far without dying from what I’ve already done to myself — sober. I am calling it a career. And, while, it had been a helluva ride to be sure, I want to stop the coaster and head to another amusement park.

I am, currently, drinking — one last set of drinks. Yes, I’ve written this drunk. I started at noon with a 512 IPA — the beer that I drank when I wrapped my car around a tree. I continued with champagne — the drink I never loved until I met the woman I thought I’d finally found everlasting love with, the one who I, inadvertently, drove away because my personality changed so very much after I began guzzling alcohol like it was oxygen. I, then, stopped at a bar to enjoy a shot of whiskey and a shot of fernet, just to say goodbye to the two spirits that put me in the highest of spirits. And, now, two beers: Avery Brewing Company’s Maharaja, the first craft beer I was ever given for free, the one that kickstarted my writing career (I started as a beer blogger), and La Fin du Monde, which is my favorite beer of all time, and which literally means “The End of the World” in French. It feels apt. Tomorrow, I go to the doctor, and I talk to her about the things I’ve done and where is left to go from here. Who knows what comes next.

Most people only write about getting sober after they’ve been at it a while, and it’s an inspirational story about self-discipline and perseverance. This is not that. This is a story about being the very bottom, holding onto the last blade of grass before you fall off the face of the Earth. This is a story that, while disjointed, and poorly written, is as accurate and raw of an account of where I am today as any of the most articulate theses I’ve written in my many years of writing. Actually, more so. This is, truly, me. Unvarnished. Unedited. Finally present. I am a fucking mess. A fraud. Not a failure, no, there is no such thing, but someone who can no longer be trusted to fix things on his own. Maybe I was never that person. I do not know.

I mention Spaceship Earth because on the day I ran by it, at the pinnacle of my athletic career, I was 205 pounds (I typically tip the scales at about 170) and drinking and eating myself to death. The night before, I had unpacked a bottle of champagne, and pounded it to fall asleep that night. I did this at 9 p.m. I needed to be awake in six hours. I ran that marathon hungover, sweating out booze as I ran through every excruciating minute of those 26.2 miles. I did it as a sort of penance, but also as a sort of call-to-action: “If I can do this in the state I’m in, what can I do if I actually tried?” I thought about that for a while, and realized I’d never truly tried at anything. The only thing I’d ever put my heart and soul into was the relationship I started drinking again for. Everything else has been a happy byproduct of just being alive and good at whatever the fuck I was doing at the time.

I don’t know what trying feels like. I don’t know what happiness feels like. I, increasingly, don’t know what sobriety feels like. I don’t know what I feel like. And, to be clear, now I want to know. I’ve spent half my life drinking — nearly every day, some days more than others — and now I wish to stop. This is my letter of resignation. I do not know what the future holds for me. I am scared. I am lost. I am unsure what my next career will be. I can only hope that it leads me to a place that isn’t where I am right now, because where I am right now feels like the literal Fin du Monde. And at 34 years, 10 months and 17 days old, that’s just too goddamn soon to say goodbye.

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Going Down

3. Start with the shit going down. An event you’ve never witnessed. A moment in history that you wish you could have. A mystery that was never solved.

Her father’s health had been steadily declining for months now –– in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices where he had been met with the thin-lipped mouths of professionals who saw people like him every day, wide-eyed and vacillating between disbelief and despair –– and so when Candace called her, her voice low and mournful, to get on the next plane and fly home, Tessa did so without needing to ask why.

She usually flew at the holidays when the halls of JFK or Laguardia or Newark, whichever airport had the cheapest flights, roiled with agitated parents dressed in faux cheer, willing even to push their own children out of the way in order to make their 6:00pm to Orlando. She hated airports for this reason and as chubby people in red and green sweaters squeezed by her on the moving walkway, she always imagined their planes falling swiftly from the sky as penance.

But it was early November and she breathed a deep sigh of relief when she arrived at Laguardia and saw that there was room to move without elbowing people like you’re digging yourself out of a trench. She bought a pack of unsalted peanuts and a Diet Coke and settled into a corner chair by her gate trying to block out the frantic sounds from the TV. She had a theory that CNN only really existed within the universe of the airport and it was all just a huge collective hallucination everywhere else, but here it was almost maddening.  

The president-elect stood at a podium wearing a red hat that screamed Make America Great Again. She still could not believe it; millions of people had voted for this moron, this misogynist, this bigot. Just two days ago she had met up with some friends at a bar in Brooklyn to watch the election results roll in. They drank whiskey sodas and progressively ate more and more fries as it dawned on them, this always possibility never probability, was real.

“Tell me something that will make me feel better,” Tessa whispered to her friend, clutching at the edge of the table until her knuckles popped white.

“I can’t,” her friend said back, and she knew in that moment that it was over. The unfiltered joy she had felt voting for the first female president just 12 hours earlier, how powerful and in control she exuded as she walked into her office that morning. Gone. The whiskey went straight to her head, now throbbing, and her whole body shivered at the shock.

Tessa trudged around the city the next day, mourning alongside millions of others doing the same. She loved the camaraderie in sadness that existed in New York City in those hours and days afterwards, knowing that everyone was spinning in circles too, their flags at half-mast.

But now she had to go home to Wisconsin. A state she abhorred, filled with overweight, undereducated people who clung to their conservative ideals with as much loyalty as their God. Just imagining the church service she would have to attend this Sunday made her stomach turn in disgust. Thank you oh Lord for blessing us with this man, for helping so many see the light of truth and righteousness. As if God, if he did exist, would go within several hundred miles of the White House once the president-elect moved in.

Tessa thought about calling Candace from the terminal a dozen times to wriggle her way out of coming home, but then she remembered her last visit around Christmas the year prior and how it ended. Her father had just been diagnosed and saw imminent death as a clarion call for an onslaught of his favorite brand of straight talk.

“You know, now that I’m going to die,” He said with a chuckle as he carved the turkey and Candace quietly sobbed and snotted into her napkin, “I think it’s time to finally buy that rifle I’ve been eyeing over at Jack’s. There’s no use in saving up that money for time that’s never going to come.”

Tessa rolled her eyes, always immune to her father’s self pity that had lived like a fourth family member in their house almost her whole life. Candace cornered her in the kitchen later that night as she was washing the dishes. “We’ve got to do something about Dad,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “This is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened and you’re not doing anything.”

“Literally, it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened, Candy.” Tessa knew that her sister hated when she called her Candy almost as much as when Tessa projected her New York City sensibility on her. “The shit that’s been happening in San Bernardino a few weeks ago, now that’s the worst thing. Fourteen people dead. We’ve got a gun crisis on our hands and we’re all just sitting around pretending that owning assault rifles is some kind of American birthright.”

“Fuck, Tessa, can’t you just stop spewing this New York Times shit at me for one minute and focus on your own fucking family?” This made Tessa pause. Candace never swore. She had talked like a kindergarten teacher for as long as Tessa could remember. Just shy of three years older than Tessa, she always carried herself like the de facto mother neither of them could remember.

“Fine, fine. I’ll try to do something.” But both Candace and Tessa knew that she wouldn’t. She had moved all the way out to New York because she knew it was a place that neither of them would ever visit her. Candace had sent her a letter a few months into living in Brooklyn that just read, Looked your apartment up on Google Maps. God, Tessa, I don’t know how you do it. Don’t get hurt. Love, C. She lived in Fort Greene, for Christ’s sake. But there were some battles that just weren’t worth fighting; it seemed like she was battling on all sides these days.

Tessa had tried calling and checking in on her Dad, she really had. But as the humid spring gave way to a viscous summer and convention season began, she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t listen to him laugh alongside Trump as he mocked a family of a fallen soldier or echo the stump speeches and one-liners he soaked up from hours of watching Fox News. Even as his words began to slur and memory faded, after Candace would call her in thick, obnoxious tears pleading for her to come home, Tessa found ways to avoid making that flight. “It just isn’t the right time. Things are crazy right now,” she would tell her sister before hanging up the phone and heading out to smoke weed and shoot picklebacks at a rooftop bar.

So she did not call to cancel now, much as she wanted to. Instead, she read Ta-Nehisi Coates on the flight and blasted Lemonade and stuffed dry peanuts in her mouth to prepare herself for the world she was landing into, a world where she knew that most of the people she had grown up with wouldn’t bat an eyelash if suddenly all of the water fountains and bathrooms and schools in town were Whites Only.

***

Early November in northern Wisconsin is a cruel time of year. When she landed in Milwaukee and drove her rental car forty-five minutes up to West Bend, the clouds hung low and gray in the sky like they were holding their breath for winter too. A steely wind slapped against the car as she drove and she found herself having to actively stop herself from turning the car around and flying back to the safety of her bodegas and beer gardens and discerning podcast listeners.

When new friends asked her where she was from she would give away information begrudgingly in small morsels: the midwest, near Chicago, Milwaukee-area, and, if she was unlucky enough to talk to a fellow Wisconsinite, finally West Bend. Sometimes she lied and said Madison so she could joke about it being an island amidst a sea of crazy but she had visited just once and could only wax poetic about the farmer’s market for so long before she was discovered.

On select occasions a look of recognition crept slowly on the listener’s face. “Wait, wait, I’ve heard of West Bend. Why does it sound so familiar.” Tessa would sit there, knowing full well what their brain was searching for, but unwilling to say it aloud. “Oh wait, yeah, I remember! Y’all were the people who sued your own library for having books with gay characters, yeah? With that church that wanted money for it being so ‘disturbing’, right?”

She would nod slightly, averting their eye contact, and pretending she could hear someone call her name from across the bar. “Uh, yeah,” she would say and then run away. She hated being associated even in passing reference to such ardent stupidity and she got a B.A. in Political Science from an expensive private liberal arts school in the Northeast as a defiant push against it.

When she arrived in West Bend, she saw with dismay that the red and blue TRUMP/PENCE signs littering almost every lawn had survived the recent sleet storms. Some were as large as the front doors behind them, waving arrogant and proud in the icy wind. It made her sick to think how many joyous celebrations were still taking place inside these lower middle class split levels; men drinking beers and watching the Packers while the women giggled from the kitchen, living comfortably in their gender roles.

Candace hated when she made these sweeping generalizations. “What good was that pricey college degree if it just taught you to hate everyone you grew up with? Everyone who loves you?” She had asked once when Tessa was home from her first semester. Like Candace contributed a cent to that college fund, she practically strong armed their father into not paying for any of it either. 

“It’s not us that hate everyone,” Tessa spat back. “We just don’t tolerate people who perpetuate white supremacy and systemic oppression.”

Candace sighed. “You learn all these big words that teach you to hate your own people. But when you’re in trouble, who’s going to take you in? Your black friends in the Bronx or wherever or your own family?”

That conversation rattled within Tessa for years afterwards, following her like a specter of a past and identity she could not shake. She couldn’t quite pinpoint why she had been able to escape those narrow mindsets her sister and father and classmates had all embraced so easily. But now that she knew everything that she knew, it was impossible to go back –– both intellectually but also physically, to enter the home that she had grown up safe and happy and healthy with anything but a thick layer of disdain.

***

She pulled into the driveway just as the last of the dull light faded in the sky. She could see the yellow lights from the kitchen window and a shadow of her sister, heavy-set and scrambling, and the flickering whites and blues of the television from the other room, likely with her father reclined and mumbling. She turned off the engine and closed her eyes, bracing herself before her entrance, not knowing whether she would be more saddened by the hundreds of pill bottles cluttering every counter and tabletop or the Make America Great Again poster hanging in the dining room. For a second, a flash of shame filled her like an electric shock; could she ever feel real pain for her dying father if she couldn’t let go of her pulsing contempt? At this moment, sitting alone in the driveway where he had taught her to ride a bike and lifted her up off the concrete every time she fell, she did not know.

Her father’s cancer had been slow but ruthless, crawling through and licking every surface it touched like an encroaching wildfire. When Candace first called her over a year ago, Tessa had been in bed with a boy she had met at a bar down the street. Frank, perhaps, or maybe Francisco, she couldn’t remember. He had spent twenty minutes going down on her and she didn’t stop him although his tongue flitted in and out of her aggressively like it was blindly trying to find the exit. She finally had coaxed him out of her vagina when the phone rang and her sister’s straight-toothed smile flashed on her screen. Moment over. She pulled up her panties and answered while Frank/Francisco heaved to the side of her bed.

“Yeah, Candace can I call you back?”

“T-Tess––” Then a cascade of sniffles. “Tessa. You’ve got to come home. Dad, he’s––” Another cascade, this time punctured by heavy sobs.

“God dammit, Candace. What? What’s up with dad?”

“He’s got,” Candace’s voice dropped to a whisper, “he’s got cancer, Tessa. In his bones. He’s got what the doctor’s are calling Osteosarcoma and he’s not going to get better.”

A ring had begun in Tessa’s left ear, a baritone hum that grew and echoed. Soon, it reverberated through the right ear too until Tessa let her head drop to her pillow and eyes pull shut.

“Uh, are you okay?” The boy whose tongue had been inside her just seconds ago pressed his finger to her arm tentatively. “Should I, um, go now?”

Tessa could not remember what she said to him, could not remember how or when he left, but the next time she opened her eyes, she was alone in her room, her mouth dry and eyelids crusted at the edges. She saw six missed calls from Candace and one from her father. She called him.

“Daddy?”

“Hey baby.” Tessa had spent the better part of her late teens and twenties distancing herself emotionally and physically from her father. She dyed her inherited blonde hair a dark umber and ran ten miles a day to outpace her father’s genetically poor metabolism; she policed her Wisconsin accent with its long a’s and o’s and dontcha knows, sliding into the neutral tones of transplants all over New York. But it took just those two words to catapult her back into her childhood home, sitting on the couch squeezed between her father and sister watching old Law & Order reruns.

“Daddy, I’m so –– I don’t know what to say. How are you feeling?”

“Well, I been better, sweetheart. But you know Candace, she’s got me set up with everything I’d need, like we’re going down into a bunker or something. I told her, ‘the doc said I gotta year to live, no need to treat me like infirm already.” He laughed quietly and fell silent. Tessa didn’t know what to say. She stared at the wall across from her bed, Gloria Steinem holding a sign that read “We Shall Overcome” stared back.

“Are you getting chemo? What are you going to do?” She felt like a puppy dog clawing at the toes of their owner, desperate for a resolution to their anguish they did not understand.

“I’m not sure, honey. I spent this whole day at the hospital squirming with Obamacare welfare junkies and whatnot. Not sure there’s much else those doctors can do for me. They got me on a whole cocktail of drugs, don’t worry, I’m going to be as loopy as the kids you hang out with in Brooklyn every day.”

“Okay, dad. I’m going to come home soon okay? I’ll see when I can get some time off of work and then I’ll fly out and we’ll figure it all out. I’ll be there before you know it.”

That was September, just as New York’s air had begun to deflate into a cool, short Fall. She didn’t go home until the end of December and by then, there wasn’t anything much left to figure out. Her father was dying and there wasn’t anything to be done.

Almost a year had passed since that last visit and now she sat in the driveway of her childhood home and practiced breathing exercises she had learned at Vinyasa Yoga classes.

Breathe in with the whole body and out. The tips of her fingers trembled in the cold. She walked up to her door and considered knocking for a second before twisting the handle. The house was cleaner than she had been expecting, teeming with the smell of lysol and simmering garlic tomatoes. She knew that smell well: a staple of her youth. Before it had been uncool, her friends loved coming over to her house for dinner: her father’s thick, creamy pasta sauces –– garlicky and herbaceous. He loved to cook for a crowd, sent her to school with plastic tupperware packed with last night’s feast enough to share with her whole lunch table. She was embarrassed by the assertiveness of the aromas –– how they overtook the room of Lunchables and peanut butter sandwiches –– but she slurped up each noodle anyways, loving how it warmed every inch of her mouth, throat, and stomach as she swallowed.

She turned the corner into the kitchen and saw Candace at the stove, slowly stirring the sauce as it splattered across the counter and up her forearms. She flinched and then saw Tessa.

“You’re here. Thank god. I was beginning to worry the food might get cold waiting on you.” Candace threw a roll of paper towels at her. “Now wash off all that plane grime and we’ll sit down to eat in a sec. Dad’s in the living room.” She jerked her head towards the other room as if Tessa might have forgotten where that was in only the year since she had been home.

“‘Kay. Nice to see you again,” Tessa said, waiting for her sister’s begrudging nod and smile before continuing to the living room.

“Daddy?” Tessa peered through the door into the dark room, the only light throbbing from the television screen. House Hunters played on mute. “Daddy, I’m going to turn on the lights okay?” She flipped on the lights and almost screamed at the sight of the room now illuminated. In the year since she had been home the living room had transformed from a clichéd, frilly, TV den with embroidered bible quotes on throw pillows and clean glass surfaces to a makeshift hospice. She could barely see her father embraced by a deep recliner and swallowed by wires attached to monitors and tubes attached to hanging bags. The floor was littered with old pill bottles, just as she had expected, but also with napkins stained with dried up blood and gray clumps of hair.

When she finally got a full view of her father, she had to do a double take. All of her life, her father had been an intimidating man –– scaring off prom dates and trick-or-treaters with his wide shoulders and thick gut. She had known that it would be bad; Candace had warned her –– “It’s metastatic, that means the cancer’s eaten out his bones and now has started eating other things too. His lungs, his throat…” She had trailed off then, or maybe Tessa had stopped listening. Either way, nothing could have prepared her for seeing her father look like the carved out inside of a man –– wearing the remains of his bones and veins and decaying muscles on the outside of his body.

She kneeled next to him and grabbed his hand. She hadn’t realized before that he was sleeping. “It’s me, Tessa. I’m here.”

He opened his eyes and parted his cracked lips into a half-smile. “Hi honey. You here for Thanksgiving already?”

“No, Daddy, it’s not quite Thanksgiving yet. I’m here just to visit you.”

Her father let out a gruff laugh, somewhere between a wheeze and a chuckle. “Oh dammit, don’t tell me I’m dying already. I was just dreaming I was golfing in Mexico again and I really thought I was going to do it this time.” Tessa rolled her eyes. How could a man that looked like an alternate reality version of her father still be so unmistakably him?

“You hungry? Candace made your special pasta.”

His mouth turned downward as he scrunched up his nose. “Not that filth again.” He lowered his voice to somewhere even below a whisper, “Don’t tell your sister this, honey, but she’s a terrible cook. I haven’t eaten in weeks.”

“Dad!” Tessa tapped his hand lightly. “You’ve gotta eat. No wonder you’re looking like the first guy on the food chain.”

He smiled. “That’s my girl. Good to have you home. Now bring out some noodles, no sauce and I’ll see if I can work some magic.”

She returned to the kitchen. Candace was scrubbing the pans in the sink vigorously, muttering a string of curse words under her breath.

“So, do you usually eat in the living room with him?” Tessa asked.

“Some days. Honestly, Tess, it’s been next level depressing to stay in there all the time with him. He won’t eat and I hate cooking, you know that. Sometimes I’ll just get so tired I’ll just take a plate up to my room and watch TV instead. You haven’t been here so you don’t ––” Tessa sensed Candace winding up for one of her soliloquies, so she walked over to her sister and rubbed her shoulder.

“You’re right. I haven’t been here. But I’m here now. Whatever I can do to help, I will.”

***

It didn’t take more than two days at home for Tessa to begin falling into a deep pit of equal parts fury and despair. It was bad enough that Candace had convinced herself that she must be her father’s nursemaid, attending to his every need with an exacting level of care that drove both Tessa and her father up a wall.

They would be sitting in the living room watching another rerun of Law and Order: True Crime, nearly bordering on a nice moment, when Candace would jump out of her chair with the inertia of an electric shock and run to the kitchen to find whatever pill their father had to take, all the while mumbling, “I can’t believe I almost forgot. I can’t believe it. If I had forgotten, who knows what could have happened. How could I forget?”

The stress Candace placed upon herself rippled out to poison them all. Every time an alarm went off on Candace’s phone, Tessa watched her father twitch and scrunch up his eyes in a kind of pain she had never before witnessed from him. He was a man transformed from the one she had known growing up. He had been a heavy, sharp presence in her life. The kind of man to yell at his children in restaurants for spilling their juice, to push them into playing team sports even if all they wanted to do was chase butterflies through the soccer field, to demand longform birth certificates from their boyfriends.

Tessa had spent enough time unpacking her father’s mind games during overpriced armchair therapy sessions in wide-windowed offices on the Upper West Side to know how this had affected her upbringing. Ladies with round glasses and high-waisted khakis would say cookie-cutter phrases like, “It sounds like you still harbor a lot of resentment about your father,” and Tessa would laugh all the way to the bar.

When she told Candace that she was seeing a therapist, her sister’s voice had dropped to whisper. “Don’t tell dad,” she said, “You know he thinks therapy is a liberal conspiracy.”

She did and she loved telling her therapists about her father’s conspiracy theories, as if the only reason she paid $200 a session was to give them a well-rounded character arc. Sometimes, although she would never give her sister or father the satisfaction of knowing this, she wondered if therapy was indeed some kind of machination on the part of a government that wanted to fill its people with an unending supply of self-doubt. She bought it in bulk from Whole Foods alongside the kale smoothies that would also likely give her father a conniption.

Now that her father’s sharpness had melted along with his beer belly and thick jowl, revealing a softer, calmer man, Tessa thought that maybe she wouldn’t have to have the conversation with him that she dreaded the most. She had been home for nearly three days, with just passing mentions and references made to the recent political shift in the country, before they stumbled upon it head-on and must as she attempted to pivot away, it was too late.

They had just finished up lunch –– tuna fish for her, mashed potatoes for him –– when he looked up at her with his shrunken face and asked, “So how is your snowflake island dealing with the latest reality check?” For a man with nearly no muscle on his body, he sure didn’t pull his punches. This was the father she had slyly avoided for the last nine years; the man who demanded a recount at her elementary school class president elections when the girl who campaigned on building a compost heap won, the man who created a facebook page just to share articles he found on Conservative Daily.

She thought about saying nothing, biting the insides of her cheeks until they burned like she had so many times in her childhood. Unlike when he would say things like this over the phone, she could not just roll her eyes and make up a quick excuse to hang up. She had to say something.  

“Well, we’re not doing so great, dad,” she said, her eyes bouncing across every surface in the living room to avoid her father’s eye contact. “I’ve never seen so many people cry in public than on November 9th. On the bus, in the streets, waiting in line at the pharmacy. People think their lives are in danger.”

He sighed and shook his head. If he had been the man he once was, he might have raised his voice, but he couldn’t anymore. He could only mumble. “Danger from what? The only people who are in danger are those who don’t deserve to be here anyways. I honestly don’t understand why you can’t get that. It’s like you’re pretending that the first eighteen years of your life never happened. Like nothing I said mattered at all.”

Tessa knew she shouldn’t be shocked anymore by the things her father said. Nothing should shock her, and yet. “No, I don’t even want to have this conversation with you. How is it up to you to decide who deserves to be here or not? Why do we deserve to be here just because we’re white?”

“White! This fucking liberal arts education I shelled out for really did a number on you, Tessa. Paid $200,000 for you to hate yourself and your own family. This has nothing to do with being white and you know that.”

There was no arguing with a brick wall –– this was the logic she had used to squirm and sidestep her way out of confrontation with her dear, dying father for the last year. He was a brick wall, now cemented even further in righteousness due to the victory of his belief systems personified.“I can’t, anymore,” she said and held her hands up and walked away.

***

Her father didn’t die, at least not right away, like Candace thought he would. He lived from day to day, breath to breath. In the early mornings when frost crept like spidery fingers across the window panes, Tessa would wake up and touch his shoulder lightly, half-expecting him not to open his eyes. But he kept living –– angrier and more hollow every day.

A month into being back at home, Tessa spent most of the interminable hours of the afternoon when Candace was at work and her dad slept scrolling through flights and trains and rental cars she never booked. The longer she stayed, the more her feet sunk in the quicksand of her childhood home. She knew she’d suffocate soon, but she couldn’t get herself to move.

Headlines pierced the vortex of everyday life: CIA concludes with 'high confidence' Russia tried 'to help Trump get elected'; Trump chooses fossil fuel industry ally to head EPA; Trump attends 'heroes and villains' costume party as himself. Outside of the vortex, the world churned.

After he could not keep down his lunch, she wiped the vomit off her dad’s chin. When he fell off his chair trying to get the TV remote, she picked his bones back up, horrified at how easy they were to lift. As she walked by the living room one day, she pretended that she could not hear his brittle, aching sobs. It didn’t take four weeks for her to come to wish that she wanted him to die. And she soothed her own aching sobs by assuring herself that he likely wanted to die too.

Candace, meanwhile, was quickly unraveling in her own way. She had stopped doing the dishes and keeping the rest of the house clean, so soon the maelstrom of the living room infected every other room too. Although she only worked four hour shifts these days at Kohl’s on Main St., she wouldn’t come home until well after dinner –– usually plain noodles, rice, or cereal these days –– and arrive with her hair matted and eyes darting, making up lazy excuses about a broken exhaust pipe or customer service emergency. Tessa thought that perhaps this was Candace’s way of exacting revenge for not being there all those months of spoonfeeding and doctor’s visits and chemotherapy.

One thing was certain: each of them were completely alone. Her father –– empty, dying, boorish eyes in the body of a house of cards, falling but not fast enough to the end. Her sister –– one knot atop another, bloody fingertips, a mind meandering off the ledge. And Tessa –– the one who finally came home and stayed, but still every morning awoke with a jolt to notice that she was back in her childhood bedroom. The world spun on while they spun out.“You know I love you, right?” Her father said one day as they sat, for hours in silence, watching the wind thump against the branches of the bare willow tree in the front yard.

She pondered that for a moment. Maybe she hadn’t known. “Yes, of course, daddy,” she said instead, reaching out to pat his hand, pulsing with thick, purple veins. “And I love you too.”

He smiled and put his hand over hers and they sat there in silence once more for another two hours.

A week later her father was dead.

[wbwest]

New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/06/23/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-62317/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 6/23/17

  It’s gonna be a quick one this week, as I’ve got too much real life stuff going on. Plus, there was a lot of little news, but no big whammy.

Last Saturday I took in Awesome Con which, in its fifth year, was being held at the Washington Convention Center. Normally I’m all about con reports. You’ll see my cosplay pics, and hear about all the stuff I bought. Not so much this time around. I don’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel very Awesome this year. I hate cons that are filled to capacity (like NYCC), but I felt like this one could’ve been better attended. Sure, there were a lot of folks there, but I still bet they fell short of the numbers that had been expected. No cosplay really caught my eye. There were only, like, 7 comic vendors. The show really doesn’t seem to know if it’s a pop culture con, like a Wizard World show, or if it’s a comic-con for the DC area, rivaling Baltimore’s.

It wasn’t all bad, though. I got to hang out with my buds @KeithDavidsen and @ClassickMateria, plus I had a great conversation with 2/3 of the 3 Black Geeks Podcast. Oh, and I totally gushed over Christopher Hastings, who currently writes I Am Groot and The Unbelievable Gwenpool for Marvel. I’ve been a fan of his since his indie series, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, and I’m a huge Gwenpool fan. I pretty much went just to meet him, and he was totally gracious and nice. Meanwhile, I was gonna confront Scott Snyder and get him to sign my Dark Days: The Forge book. And then ask him why he blocked me on Twitter. But the stars were not aligned, as his line was capped before I got there. I suppose it was for the best. So, while lacking in awesome, there’s still room for improvement, and I’m sure I’ll be right back there next year.

While a lot of folks are getting excited about it, I have some problems with the way Netflix’s The Defenders series is being marketed. Something seems off with the tone of everything. See that poster above? As I remarked on Twitter, it looks like a TV Guide ad for a show Fox canceled in 1994. I can hear the promo now: “The Defenders, followed by an all-new New York Undercover. Thursday, at 8/7 Central.” There’s nothing about it that *pops*, and it just looks so pedestrian. Are they a rag tag group of NYC street-level heroes, or is it a coming of age drama about 3 guys and a girl trying to make it in New York City? I still have 3 more seasons of Marvel Netflix shows to catch up on before I can even watch this, so maybe I’m not the target audience. It’s just all so formulaic now, though. “Hey, look – a hallway fight!”

We finally got a premiere date for the long-delayed Star Trek: Discovery, bowing September 24th at 8:30 on both CBS and CBS All Access. What’s with the 8:30 start time, though? I guess we’ll get some kind of half-assed, 30-minute Trek retrospective before the show. And, taking a page from cable shows, the season will be split in two, with the first 8 episodes airing in the fall, while the remaining 7 will air starting in January. I couldn’t be less excited for this show. So many damn hoops to jump through, so many broken promises regarding its premiere date. At this point, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they requested a blood sample before allowing you to watch it. That’s how crazy this has become. What was once thought to become the most pirated series of all time, I’m now starting to think most of us aren’t even gonna bother.

I had no clue that Phil Lord and Chris Miller were the directors on the Han Solo film (how’d I miss that?), and I would’ve told anyone who’d listen that they were a terrible choice – which is why I’m not surprised that they were fired this week, citing “creative differences”. Sure, The Lego Movie was great. The Jump Street franchise was great. But I don’t see them fitting into the “Star Wars vision” that Kathleen Kennedy clearly has. They would’ve given us something great and entertaining, but I don’t know if it would’ve been a “Star Wars movie”. Then again, I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan, so what do I know. I’d like to think there’s room to do a lot of stuff in that franchise, but I just don’t see their style fitting into what’s already been established. And then Ron Howard was announced as their replacement. I really don’t know how I feel about this. I mean, gifted director, but this seems sort of out of his wheelhouse. Any of y’all have strong thoughts either way?

Meanwhile, somebody needs to make up their mind about whether these Spider-Man spinoffs are gonna be set in the MCU or not. We were basically told that only Spider-Man was crossing over, and even that’s been threatened as a possible one-time deal. But then Amy Pascal did a press junket earlier this week, where she danced around the matter, saying that the Spider-Man spinoffs would build upon the world that is being carefully crafted, leading some to believe they might actually be set in the MCU. That’s how some folks saw it. I just saw it as Pascal trying to keep her job. I guess time will tell. Meanwhile, Spider-Man Homecoming 2 is already being discussed (which I hope is called Spider-Man: Sadie Hawkins Dance), and there will reportedly be a cameo by another MCU character who’s not Iron Man. Keep it in your pants, boys. Let’s see how this one does first, OK?

Song of the Week

Yup, it’s a Taylor Swift song, but it’s NOT sung by Taylor. She gave this song to Little Big Town, who have ridden it to #1. It’s got her trademark juvenile lyrics, but I still think it’s beautiful. I kinda wish I didn’t know she wrote it, but I think that was part of the push that got it to #1. Anyway, here’s “Better Man”.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Shonda Rhimes had to fail eventually, which is why her summer Shakespeare series, Still Star-Crossed, has been moved to Saturday after 3 low-rated episodes. Stick a fork in that turkey!

Speaking of dead shows, CMT couldn’t make the numbers work to revive Last Man Standing, so the sitcom is officially dead

Dule Hill’s real-life fiancee, Ballers actress Jazmyn Simon, will play Gus’ love interest in the Psych reunion movie

Apparently Nickelodeon is prepping a one-hour reunion, called Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling. I didn’t have cable growing up, but I know this means something to some of you.

Virginia Madsen won’t be back for season 2 of Designated Survivor. I was kinda hoping she and Kiefer would bang, so now I have the sads…

Six cast members are out at Taken, amid a major shake-up prior to season 2. I guess you could say they didn’t have the right set of skills.

They’re teasing a Downton Abbey movie for 2018. I hope it’s called Downton Abbey: Matthew’s Revenge!

There are rumors that Damon Lindelof is in talks to do a Watchmen TV series for HBO. That network is really into dongs lately, so I guess this is a perfect fit.

Daniel Henney is shifting his Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders character over the main Criminal Minds series, following the former’s cancellation. Remember that when your CBS-watching grandpa asks you where he’s seen that “Oriental fella” before…

The CW is interested in a Supernatural spinoff called Wayward Sisters, which would star recurring guest star Kim Rhodes. I don’t watch Supernatural, but she was Zack & Cody’s hot mom, so I’m a supporter of giving her more work!

After a thorough investigation, Warner Bros found no evidence of misconduct on the set of Bachelor In Paradise, and production has resumed on the season. Now it’ll probably be the most-watched season of the show, but there’s no way they saw that coming, right? Right?

As a reward for being the #1 daytime drama for the past 28 (!) consecutive years, CBS has renewed The Young and the Restless for another three seasons

NBC is scrambling to do some damage control, as Megyn Kelly’s highly publicized interview with Sandy Hook truther Alex Jones was beaten by a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos. That’s right, it was beaten by a show that’s been rendered virtually obsolete since the proliferation of the Internet

Heroes is coming to Crackle on July 13th. You know, that free streaming network that nobody watches? So, if you’re still itching to save the cheerleader, there ya go.

The sequel to Jurassic World will be called Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Meh. That shit ought to be called Jurassic Galaxy. Take those dinos into space already!

Daniel Day-Lewis has quit acting, meaning we’ll never get to see him in the Fast and the Furious franchise like we’d always dreamed!

Fresh off his mistrial, Bill Cosby plans to give speaking engagements where he will instruct folks how to dodge sexual assault charges. I couldn’t make this shit up! “If you put the pudding pop in the Jello, make sure you’re not caught on any Kodak film!”

Transformers 5: Bad Touch had the lowest opening day box office for the franchise, with $15.7 million.

In the ultimate Fuck yo’ Father’s Day move, Beyonce’s dad announced to the world, via tweet, that her twins had arrived. I hear he was dragged away by wraiths soon afterward.

Adam West’s unaired episode of Powerless can now be seen on DC All Access, as well as Hulu.

No one had the West Week Ever this week. As Nina Simone sang, “It be’s that way sometimes”. I do have a correction from last week, though. Like I said up top, I’ve got some real world stuff going on and I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I inducted Adam West into the West Week Ever Hall of Fame, when my pal @zacshipley pointed out that a better honor was staring me right in the face: that honor should be called the West Life Ever. So, the post has since been corrected and, going forward, that is what will be bestowed upon those greats that we’ve lost along the way. Adam West had the West Life Ever.