#Harvey cares for a Sick Scott

[thegrandharveyspecter]

Trip to a Coffee Shop; a Harvey & Scott Drabble Part Thirteen: The Sick Ant

"Harvey? Tell me that's you." Scott's voice, hoarse and scratchy, called from behind the counter seconds after Harvey entered the coffee shop. Harvey couldn't see him. "I need help."

Harvey tried to squash the worry as he hurried behind the counter. Sitting on the floor, slumped against the counter, was Scott Lang looking absolutely miserable. He was coated in sweat, there were bags under his eyes, his hair was a scruffy mess and there were splats of vomit on his shirt.

"Jesus, you look like shit," Harvey said, kneeling in front of him. "How long have you been sitting here?"

"Too long. Waaay too long," Scott groaned. "I tried to make my way to my room but I collapsed halfway. I kept throwing up and my body feels numb and..."

"It's okay, kid. I'll get you to your room," Harvey said, schooling his voice into something gentle. "We'll change your shirt too. Come on."

Harvey stood and held his hand out for Scott to take, and he did so with a poor excuse of a grip. Harvey slowly helped Scott stand, though he still slouched and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself before they could move.

Thankfully, Scott's room was right behind the counter so they didn't have to walk that far to his bed. It still took a little time thanks to how slow they had to move, and it was clear that Scott was struggling to not throw up again. Harvey carefully sat Scott on his bed.

"Lift your arms for me," he instructed.

The fact that Scott did so without protesting or complaining was a testament to how miserable he really was. Harvey pulled Scott's dirty shirt off and threw it in the laundry basket. He went to his small wardrobe and searched until he found a muscle shirt. Scott was able to slip it on himself.

While Scott laid on his back, Harvey went to the storage room/kitchen and got a bowl for Scott to throw up in. Before leaving, he grabbed an icepack from the freezer and a hand towel.

"You don't have to stay," Scott said when Harvey came back. "I just needed to get back to my room."

"I'm staying whether you like it or not," Harvey replied. He put the bowl and hand towel on the nightstand.

He placed the icepack on Scott's forehead and the guy practically jumped out of his skin. "COLD!"

"Obviously," Harvey said, dryly. "Keep that on your forehead. It'll help. Do you have any medicine here?"

Scott shook his head. Harvey sighed. "Alright, I'll be back in a bit with some medicine then. Stay here, don't get up from bed. There's a bowl on the nightstand for when you need to throw up."

"Thank you, Harvey..."

Harvey shrugged, lightly ruffled Scott's sweat-soaked hair. "Get some rest. I'll be back soon."

With that, Harvey's day of taking care of a Sick Scott Lang started. He bought cough syrup, Tylenol, different cans of soup, other cold medicine. Was it a bit excessive? Maybe. But it was just in case Scott got another fever. This way, he wouldn't run out quickly.

Throughout the day, Scott was in and out of consciousness. Most times when he woke up, he'd vomit, complain about the cough syrup, and pass out again. He was never awake long enough for Harvey to ask if he was willing to try some soup.

There was a time where Scott started freaking out, claiming that he was dying. He didn't want to die yet, he had to live and watch Cassie grow up because he missed time. He freaked out so bad, Harvey called Cassie and had her talk Scott to sleep. The poor child was scared for her dad. It took a while for Harvey to assure her that her dad wasn't really dying.

Around 10:30PM, Harvey tried to get Scott to eat some soup. Of course, the kid was pouting and whining, saying he'd only throw it up. Harvey agreed with that, but Scott still needed to eat. It took a whole fifteen minutes to convince Scott to have a couple spoonful's.

Somehow, Scott managed to keep it down but he passed out shortly after. When he was out again, Harvey cleaned up the vomit bowl, replaced Scott's icepack, and put the rest of the soup in the microwave for later. He turned all the lights off in the shop, locked the front door and sat next to Scott's bed.

XXX

Scott still felt miserable when he woke up the next afternoon, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the day before. He didn't even throw up as soon as he woke up. He wasn't as hot, probably because he had two icepacks on him now. It was hard to keep his eyes open but he didn't want to drift into a nightmare about dying.

He licked his dry lips, shifted onto his side, one of his icepacks sliding down his forehead. He adjusted it and yawned loudly. It felt great to be awake and not want to throw up. When Scott looked up, he blinked, surprised at the sight.

Harvey was still sitting in the same chair, out like a light, no doubt exhausted from caring for Scott the day prior. Thankfully, the man didn't look like he was getting sick.

There was a comfortable warmth in Scott's chest. He smiled at the thought that Harvey stayed the whole time. Down the line, whenever Harvey needed his assistance, Scott was going to stay as long as he needed.

If only everyone knew that Harvey Specter wasn't as rough and cold as people thought he was.

#Harvey Specter #Suits #antvnger #Scott Lang #Coffee Shop Owner Scott Lang #Normal Harvey Specter #Harvey cares for a Sick Scott #it's been forever since I've written anything omg #you can thank Google docs for that #this is also a long one #I tried to have it be short but sickfics are hard to keep short #at least for me lmao #vomit tw #fever tw #coffee shop au #drabble

[florianwirtz]

The list is done!!! My judgement of my mutual’s taste in footballers. Here you can find the graphic version with my mutuals as their tumblr icons. If you’re my mutual and you’re not on the list, it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s more because I don’t know who you all fancy.

Under the cut you can find the explanation of my placements!! Pardon for the format, I did it on the phone and somehow screwed the average tier up but it ain’t that important cause no one placed there lmao. Lastly, I wanna clarify that all of this is just for fun, stop taking me or tumblr so seriously lmao.

Shit tier

@theweatha I don’t even know where to start with you. I will never process that you would do Sergio Ramos (maybe I can accept it at some point but not rn). Then we come to the other asshole named Roy Keane, while being a brilliant midfielder for us I will never understand why you would give him a 2nd look if we’re talkin about appearance and let’s not start talking about his character (although he’s a mood whenever he’s pissed for the right reasons). I don’t feel like starting with Nemanja Vidić as I have the feeling we will never come to an agreement. Not even Marcus Rashford can save you from shit tier, who is a very valid reason to nut to. I also didn’t forget you nutting to Trench (idc that you don’t anymore you still did and what a disgrace)

@emwritesfootball just no... every time you start talkin about why you fancy Cags, my opinion about your taste in men gets worse. Then I think about the other footballers you fancy and it doesn’t get any better, although Winksy is a valid one... he still doesn’t get you out of shit tier. But from someone who tries to me set me up with HARVEY BARNES I don’t expect any better tbh...

Very bad tier

@tottenhamsstuff i am sorry but how tf do you expect me to place you any higher when your crushes in footballers consists of an egghead, blonde Ron Weasley and the tiger from Ice Age? What saves you from shit tier is Gazzaniga who objectively is a handsome man and the fact that I’m biased because Scott plays for my team and your men at least seem to have a bit of a brain.

@shockintha you know I thought about this very carefully and realised that I can’t afford to make you cry and shit tier wouldn’t be fair to you because you do fancy some valid ones just as Brooksy and Sander Berge. Then you have DCL, Chilly and a few more who make it into average tier but Stewart Downing and the mop absolutely drag you down. Like for me it’s inexplainable how you can spare them a 2nd look, the way they look and act make me sick!! And the fact you don’t show one bit of shame pfffff. Very bad tier seems legit for me.

Debatable tier

@dancefaeries you truly are a white man’s whore and it’s disappointing because you had potential to make it to average tier but I came to the conclusion that Todd, Daniel Agger and Diet drag your ranking down. What makes you rank higher than Alice (aka. the only thing you care about) is that the men you fancy are all somewhat smart and almost all seem to have good political views. Also that others seem to fancy them too and it’s probably just me. Nevertheless, somebody explain me what makes you endear snakes so much.

@idiotsfc you’re lucky I love you and after you tried to explain to me why you fancy some of these men, I understand it a tiny bit 😂. Still, James Milner and Stevie G???? No. I definitely can understand what you see in Carra and Gary however it’s still borderline debatable. Characterically, they all seem quite intelligent and somewhat funny tho so I’ll give you that. What makes you place in debatable tier is that you fancy a few of the “normal” ones just as Chilly.

Not bad tier

@magicmartinelli I don’t even know who you fancy rn cause it changes faster than the tide but the ones you mentioned were all valid tho not my type most of the time. Except the last one. Out of respect for you, I’m not gonna say names because I know you’d come for my ass if I did lmaooo

@ari-lfc i only know you fancy scousers and it’s a big nono for me. The unfortunate thing is they’re not even bad looking so I can’t place you lower but I don’t think they’re handsome either so above average tier seems legit 🤣

Great tier

@danieljamesmufc you’re the only one i trust when it comes to taste in men because it seems like it’s us against everyone with awful taste. I think most of the men you allow yourself to fancy are valid choices. What makes you miss out on god tier is the one you rep looks like a fucking child and the american who talks like he’s about to order mcdonalds every day. Your taste in women is fortunately much superior.

@rxdia i trust you very much when it comes to taste in men because they’re all valid most of the time!! Your taste is exceptionally great and the fact that you were able to drop Matić after he was an ass, just showed how superior you are anyway 💫 you miss out on god tier because you told me that you fancy Owen Hargreaves and you’d do Nemanja Vidić and what the fuck why would you betray me like this.

@daviddegod again, I can’t say too many bad things about you taste in men after you dropped Maddison. While they’re all basic white boys mostly of the time, I feel and understand you. The ones who are a but questionable are Martin Ødegaard and Matthijs de Ligt because they just scream twink energy to me but okay I can ignore this. You didn’t make it to god tier because of Jonny Evans and Darren Fletcher, I can’t believe you made me even look at them and tried to convince me to see something in them.

God tier

@trentalexanders although you change your crush all 3 months, I never had any issue with yours 😂 they were all somewhat cute and I definitely understood why you would fancy them. I totally approve of your choice in men. Even though I wouldn’t choose them myself haha. But at least you never had a questionable one.

@ehrenbrandt basically we always fancy the same footballers and you know what good for us. Your choice in footballers is great although I will always judge you for that one ex bayern player who shall not be named and Marco Reus 😂

#mutuals tag #that was fun #argue with your mom about your placement tho 😂 #this is what i did the whole train ride back home

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift is the artist of the decade

By: Courteney Larocca for Insider Date: December 16th 2019

Not only has Swift been putting out No. 1 hit after No. 1 hit this decade, but her music has latched onto its listeners in deeply intimate ways. The singer has also been actively using her platform as a successful artist to shed light on injustices within the music industry to ensure a younger generation of musicians can thrive in an environment that cares about their work, as opposed to commodifies it.

Taylor Swift knows that if you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. Oddly enough, Swift usually is the smartest person in any room.

While the casual observer may see Swift as nothing more than a pop star, she's one of the few people who has actively been making her industry - and the lives of her fans - better in irreversible and notable ways throughout the decade.

Swift was barely 20 years old when she became the youngest artist to ever win album of the year at the Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010, for her sophomore album, "Fearless." While the album came out in late 2008, it set Swift up to become an international phenomenon over the course of the 2010s; it even landed at No. 98 on this decade's overall Billboard Hot 200 list.

Her early success made sense - audiences love a wunderkind, plus there was something so incredibly relatable about a teenager telling her crush, "you belong with me."

But for me, and other fans of Swift, it was more than that. She was someone we could see ourselves in as we navigated our own lives and romances. And with the release of "Speak Now," in late 2010, Swift proved she wasn't capable of just reinventing optimistic love stories, she had a complete grasp on heartbreak and pain, too.

Swift demonstrated her songwriting prowess early on, and her music only continued to get stronger all the way through her 2019 album, 'Lover'

"Speak Now" is an entirely self-written album that charted on the Billboard Hot 200 for 137 weeks, which was not only a huge middle finger to critics who claimed Swift didn't write her own music, but also proof she was one of the most promising songwriters of her generation.

Arming herself with lyrics like "I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe," and "The lingering question kept me up / Two a.m., who do you love?" Swift created a bulletproof foundation for a career built around her uncanny ability to pinpoint crucial moments of intimacy and turn them into universal anthems of heartbreak, love, and loss that became soundtracks to real fans' lives.

Obviously, the stellar music never stopped coming. With 2012 came "Red," an album that's aged so gracefully that it's landed on numerous best albums of the 2010s lists.

Swift dropped her pop masterpiece, "1989," in 2014 - an album that boasts her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date, "Shake It Off," which stayed on the chart for 50 consecutive weeks. "1989" also earned Swift another album of the year win at the Grammys, making her the first woman to ever be honored with that award twice.

Swift continued her career growth with "Reputation" in 2017, which helped her break The Rolling Stones' record for highest-grossing US tour in history by earning a whopping $266.1 million. Then, capping off the decade came 2019's "Lover," an album that showcased all of Swift's immense musical talents, but stands out in her catalog as the first album that she outright owns - a triumph that goes far beyond the music itself.

It's important to note, though, that there is no singular album that can easily be delegated as the "fan favorite," largely because each album is so special within Swift's discography. If you picked seven different fans off the street, they could very easily all have a different answer to the question, "What is your favorite Taylor Swift album?"

Even critics can't fully answer that question. While "Red" is known for being critically beloved (and is my own personal favorite), Billboard had six of its writers argue for one of her first six studio albums as being her best. Also, when I ranked Swift's best and worst songs for Insider earlier this year, songs from every single one of her albums made the "best" list.

One of the reasons Swift's fans constantly latched onto her music this decade - leading to her chart-topping dominance - was because her lyrics always felt so personal, yet relatable at the same time.

Take "All Too Well," for instance. It was a deep cut tucked cleverly away at track No. 5 on "Red." It was never released as a single, but this mighty pop-rock ballad became the sort of musical zenith most artists only dream about writing.

Hearing Swift weave in intimate details about listening to her ill-fated lover's mother tell stories about his childhood or leaving her scarf at his sister's house might seem too specific to reach a larger audience outside of her piano room, but it's exactly that candor that makes Swift's best songs feel so ubiquitous.

Swift's relatability proved crucial in 2017 when it came to her impacts on societal shifts outside of the music industry

Two months before the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein was published, Swift stood up in a Denver courthouse against an ex-radio DJ who groped her at a 2013 meet-and-greet and then had the gall to sue her for damages after he was fired from his job.

The phrases from her testimony, "I'm critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my a--," and "I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," will forever be ingrained in Swift's fans' minds alongside the lyrics she wrote in her high school diaries.

After she won her symbolic $1, which she sought out for "anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault," The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN, told ABC that its national hotline saw a 35% increase in calls over the weekend following her testimony.

"Seeing someone that they respect, that they identify with [state they've been assaulted], has a big impact," RAINN's president Scott Berkowitz told ABC News at the time.

It's easy to look at a statistic and not think about the people behind it, but I can say that for myself, Swift played a pivotal role in how I viewed my own sexual assault.

Even before her fearless testimony, I turned to her 2010 ballad, "Dear John," for validation that I wasn't the only woman who ever counted her footsteps, praying the floor won't fall through again while dating a man with a "sick need to take love away." I later found solace in "Clean," the atmospheric "1989" closer that promises its listener that they'll one day be able to finally breathe after a roller-coaster relationship.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'm not the only one who saw their own pain reflected in Swift's lyrics, allowing them to grieve. After all, she wouldn't have become the artist with the highest-ever amount of American Music Awards, which is a fully fan-voted show, if her music was just OK.

Swift has also made strides at bettering the music industry for her fellow artists as well as herself

I won't rehash the recent legal woes brought on by Scott Borchetta selling Swift's former label Big Machine Records - and thus, all of Swift's catalog up through 2017's "Reputation" - to Scooter Braun (because who needs Big Machine anyway?). I will say that Swift fighting to own her art, and by proximity her fight for all artists to own their art, is just one example of the work she's done this decade to protect artists' rights.

You may remember that she got endlessly dragged for taking her music off Spotify or writing a letter to Apple condemning its policy of not paying artists during a three-month free trial period of Apple Music. But underneath all of the misogynistic, "she's only out for money" criticisms spat at her, you'll find she did those things to bring light to issues within her industry that hurt up-and-coming artists who don't have the millions of dollars that Swift has. Within less than 24 hours, Swift received a direct response to her open letter to Apple, saying the company had decided to reverse its decision.

When Swift chose to leave Big Machine behind in 2018, she didn't just leave for the sake of leaving. She instead negotiated a deal with Universal Music Group that not only granted her the rights to everything she would create under the label but also included a clause in her contract stipulating that "any sale of [UMG's] Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable."

She also said the label had agreed to this "at what they believe will be much better terms than paid out previously by other major labels."

That means that with her contract, Swift made sure other favorite artists of this decade, like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Kanye West, will benefit from the revenue their art brings in. The same goes for lesser-known and newer artists signed to the label.  

Even other artists have given credit to Swift for the way she changed the way we consume pop music

It's hard to imagine today's pop stars like Ariana Grande would be able to name-check their former lovers in songs like "Thank U, Next," and have them be the successful hits we know today if Swift hadn't previously crafted breakup songs like 2010's "Dear John" and 2014's "Style" that made it clear who the tracks were about - John Mayer and Harry Styles - right there in the titles.

Halsey, another artist who rose to prominence this decade, has even lionized Swift as one of her songwriting heroes, notably for her smart bridges.

"The bridge [of a song] is a fortune cookie. It pulls the whole thing together, it's the punchline, it's one of the most important parts of a song. Ask Taylor Swift, she writes the best ones in history," Halsey said in a November 2019 interview with Capital FM.

Anyone who's listened to "Out of the Woods," "Don't Blame Me," or "Lover" knows this to be true.

Swift deserves to be the artist of the decade because her music validated women while she simultaneously fought for a younger generation to make new music in a better environment

It took 13 years for Swift to come out with a track contemplating the misogynist double standards she's had to face as a woman in the music industry, and it's easy to agree with her sentiment: If Swift were a man, then she would, no doubt, be "The Man."

But while she maybe would have faced fewer obstacles and overtly sexist criticisms throughout her career if she were a man, she may not have touched as many women's lives with her music.

Being someone who has idolized Swift since I was 11 years old, I can say that the reason she matters is because not only does she produce beautifully-worded tracks that resonate with fans on extremely personal levels, but she also wants to make the world a better, fairer place - one music contract, open letter, and song lyric at a time.

And that's something that should never be shaken off.

#taylor swift #artist of the decade #insider #article #about taylor #2010s #all the eras

[completeandrandomshit]

Linda Ronstadt on the Togetherness of Making Music With Someone Else: 'It's as Intimate as Sex'

  AUGUST 23, 2019 – 5:00 AM  – 0 COMMENTS

24

By

WALTER SCOTT

(Jim Smeal/Shutterstock)

Ten-time Grammy award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Linda Ronstadt, 73, is the subject of the new documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (in theaters September 6). The movie features her own recollections, archival footage and interviews with Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, J.D. Souther, Dolly Parton and others.

Related: Trisha Yearwood Says Linda Ronstadt Was One of Her Biggest Influences

Was music always your destiny?

I remember sitting in first grade having a hard time with arithmetic, thinking, I won’t have to do arithmetic when I’m big; I’ll be a singer. I didn’t think about it in terms of being a star; I just thought about it as singing and getting paid to do it.

Growing up in an isolated area, on an Arizona ranch, was music a big part of your childhood?

I think music would have been a big part of my childhood no matter, because my family is musical. It was just a part of what we did washing dishes, riding in the car or sitting at the dining room table. My father would start singing and we’d all jump in with harmony.

You were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012, which has affected your vocal cords. Do you miss it?

When people ask me if I miss singing—I don’t miss performing. When anybody comes over, one of my nephews or somebody from my family, we [still] sit down and put our heads together and sing. That’s fun.

From watching this film, you appear to be modest about your talent. How did the producers convince you to make this documentary about your life?

Nobody wants to be scrutinized, least of all me. But there were several offers out there and there were people that were just going to go ahead and do it anyway. [Directors] Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman­­­ sent me an email and it was so nicely written that I wrote back and said no. Usually, I just ignore it. They wrote back and said it was the nicest rejection letter they’d ever had.

Then I was watching PBS and the Harvey Milk documentary came on that I had already seen [The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Epstein], but I watched it again, and it was so well done, and their offer had been that the documentary would be based on my book, so I figured I already had vetted the material. And they stayed true to their word. I didn’t have that much to do with it, but they wanted some current footage, so I said, “We’re going to Mexico, you have to come with us.”

It’s the little town where my grandfather was born. It’s a beautiful little town in Mexico. I went down there with 20 schoolkids and we shot footage for two different documentaries.

At the beginning of the movie, it says that you feel that there are singers that are better than you.

There are plenty of singers that are better than I am.

Why then were you such a success as opposed to other people?

The other people that were better singers were successful—Bonnie Raittand Joni Mitchell—there’s legions of them. They were very successful, and I trail in their wake, but I was more than happy to because it was inspiring to me. It took a long time to learn how to sing. It took me a good 10 years to figure out how to push phrases around. I used to get depressed and think I couldn’t sing very well, and then I’d think, Well, tonight’s the night to make it better.

You obviously did something right along the way because in this documentary there are people like Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Don Henley—and the list goes on—who are all a part of this and so supportive of you. Talk about your relationships with your fellow musicians. It sounds as if you weren’t competitive, but collaborative.

Music is inherently collaborative and cooperative, and not competitive. It’s a conspiracy. José Abreu, this guy in Venezuela that started the youth orchestra that is high quality, said, “Music is a conspiracy; it’s a conspiracy to commit beauty.” The word conspiracy comes from the Greek word conspiro, which means to breathe together.

So, when you’re singing with somebody, you’re breathing with them, so you form a conspiracy. There’s a great intimacy that happens with somebody that you have successfully sung with, the music works. It’s as intimate as sex, but it’s not sex. With both men and women, there’s a closeness that you shared, a sentiment or a sorrow or a joy, and you express it in a similar enough way so that the two sounds match up and form a new thing.

When you started, there were very few women in rock and roll. Did you ever consider that you had a harder path to follow?

Nah, I just followed the music. Sure, was there sexism in the music business? You bet. But I had pretty nice people in the band, and all they cared about was whether the music was grooving or not. We had played enough to worry about that. You showed up and kept trying to make music better, that was what mattered.

Related: Why It Matters That Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire Are Hosting the CMAs This Year

At one point, you walked away from the big arenas and you wanted to explore other aspects of music, like Pirates of Penzance. Do you see yourself as being brave or it was just something you had to do?

I was just not affected by that. I just was sick of playing sporting arenas. They were unsuitable for music, and it wasn’t very gratifying. In those great big arenas, there’s no nuance, subtlety doesn’t carry. It’s expected to be big and loud. It was hard being loud. I felt like I had a really tiny-sounding voice because the band was so loud.

But a lot of people couldn’t have walked away from the money that arena concerts earn.

I didn’t even think of the money. Duh! Forty thousand people in an arena compared to 1,500 in a small theater?

Congratulations. You’re going to be in the next group of Kennedy Center Honors recipients.

With Big Bird! I’m excited. I hope he comes. [In addition to Ronstadt, the 2019 Kennedy Center honorees—which will be inducted in a ceremony December 8 in Washington, D.C.—also include the PBS series Sesame Street, actress Sally Field, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the band Earth, Wind & Fire.]

What does something like that mean to you?

It means that, basically, it’s all over [laughs]. It’s very nice to be recognized. When I look back on my career, I don’t play my records for fun. I sometimes play something to check on it or to get some reference, but I don’t sit around and play my records, because they make me crazy. I hear every bad note.  If I hear something particularly awful, I think I never could sing anything, that everything was that awful. It will wreck my week. So, what I’ll do is I just won’t listen to it ever again. I’ll just go with their assessment and let the Kennedy Center assess that overall the work was sufficient. But it’s really the work that matters, not the prizes, although I’m very happy to be acknowledged.

At this point in your life, is there something that you don’t have that you want?

A pony. A goat. A couple of sheep. I love those things. I don’t live in the country anymore, so I can’t have them. A pony, a goat and a sheep and some chickens. I had that when I lived in Tucson, right in the middle of the city. I had an urban farm. It was fun. It was too hot there for goats and chickens and people. I’d spend the whole summertime cooling them off.

Who do you listen to? Any young upcoming singers that you enjoy?

I love First Aid Kit. They’re really good. They’re these two Swedish girls that are sisters, and they write and sing. They’re real good musicians and they have a really good band. They’re wonderful. They’re international stars too. I like Sia for my mainstream. She’s an interesting singer.

Do you still listen to the Frank Sinatra album every night, which was mentioned in the film?

No, I never listened to it every night, but there was a period when I studied it pretty hard. Now it’s in my brain and I can play it whenever I want.

Your career spanned rock, pop, country, Latin and opera. What do you see as your legacy?

Rampant eclecticism. Not a great career choice, but I somehow got away with a lot of it.

Any regrets? If you could have a do over, is there something that you would change?

I think I could have lived my life with more grace: grace of movement, grace of speech, grace of communicating with people, grace in living.

THANKS TO WALTER SCOTT AND PARADE.COM FOR THE ARTICLE.

#linda ronstadt #walter scott #parade magazine #parade.com #real music #classic rock

[theabominableblogger]

My Reaction to “Gotham” S4E21

Screw that ending.  In its entirety.

AN:  I managed to record my reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post (even though about 20% of this post is horrified screaming)

“Dig me up!”  *starts singing “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham!*

DIG ME UP/ BEFORE YOU GO-GO/DON’T LEAVE ME LAYING THERE LIKE A HOBO

Pretty much the latter half of Gotham 4B is dedicated to dragging the ever loving crap out of Jerome

*cups hands around mouth*  JIM AIN’T DEAD!

Lucius!

“Last time we [the other officers] followed you [Harvey], the Pyg slaughtered us.”  I haven’t reached Professor Pyg yet in my reactions but C’MON!

Thank you, Harper!

“...he’s outside and he’s not alone.”  Oooooohhhhh...

THAT OUTFIT THOUGH!

“JEREMIAH!  JEREMIAH!”  Dude even has a back-up choir!

I also really like the military-style outfit that the other followers have on

This natural lighting on Bullock and the other officers looks pretty nice, I gotta say

Can we talk about this wide shot of Bullock and the other officers vs. Jeremiah and his followers?  ‘Cause that is a thing of beauty.

“Don’t compare me to that short-sighted psychopath.”  #DraggingJeromeValeska2k18

For some reason, Jeremiah sounds like a mix between Hannibal Lector [Anthony Hopkins] and Andrew Scott’s Jim Moriarty (except if he were American)

*Jeremiah pulls out another dead man’s switch*  Oh crap...

*The clock tower goes down*  OHHHHHH!

Here’s my question:  where did Jeremiah get his outfits?

“Looks aren’t everything,” my ass...

What the crap did they [Penguin and Butch] do to Jongleur?

“If it isn't little Penguin. Oh, and Butch's corpse.“  Pfftt....

“The man responsible for the recent fireworks is Jeremiah Valeska.  Twin brother of our old associate.“  HOW DO YOU [Oswald] KNOW?!?

“[Tabitha] Don’t look at me [Barbara] like that.”  Pfftt...

Bruce!

“I'm [Harvey] so sick of that freaking family [the Valeskas]...“  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

“[Bruce] Be with Alfred.  Be safe.  It's what Jim would want.“  Yes, please!

“Alfred, where have you been?”  “No, not Alfred.”  Shit.

When did Jeremiah take the time to dye his hair in between this episode and the last one?

Ecco probably did it.  We know she did.

“But I meant what I [Jeremiah] said.  You're my best friend, and today I'm gonna prove it to you [Bruce].“  Screw this noise!

Wait, you can turn off the dead man’s switch?

“Tell the police and I'll know. Just like I [Jeremiah] know that's where you [Bruce] are right now.“  Wait, how does he know?  Is there a spy inside the precinct?

HERCULES MULLIGAN

*cups hands around mouth*  I TOLD Y’ALL HE [Jim] AIN’T DEAD!

Lee!

*Jim rips out the IV in his arm*  Why do people keep doing that in Hollywood stuff?  Seriously.

That is the most graceful collapse back onto the bed that I’ve ever seen, Jim.

“I'm [Selina] gonna be here whenever you [Bruce] need me.”  Aaaawww....

“He [Jeremiah] wants something out of me [Bruce].”  “Like what, to be your best friend?“  Actually, yes... for some reason...

I don’t like thisss... not one bittt....

*Bruce is shown footage of Alfred getting beat up*  AAAAAAHHHHH!!!

“If this is what you [Lee] want, I will do it.  For you.”  Oh my gosh, Ed is so unbelievably stupid!

“Do it for us.”  They better not, they better not-

*Lee and Ed kiss*  Eeuughh!

Whoa...

Is that blood... on the mirror above the captain’s office?

Please tell me it’s silly string.

AN:  It’s spray paint.

“The bombs are connected by a nervous system. The core relay is the brain. We find that, we destroy that-”   “We can stop the bombs from going off.”  Where’s the core relay?

That transition overhead shot of Gotham is so obviously New York City.

OOOHHHH THAT’S A NICE SHOT....

“I envy you.”  You do not.  Shut the hell up.

“Call our friend.  Tell him to kill the butler.  He's no longer necessary.“  You better not!

“And is that my dear Jongleur with my core relay in his hand and a grenade taped to his mouth?”  Hooooooo....

Oh my gosh, that hat take-off though!

This is gonna go south real fast.

Look at Jeremiah sitting in the chair all proper and dandy!

“I see.  I play the villain, you get away scot-free and rich.  I get you the money, you give me back my core relay.“  Oh my god, Oswald, you dead.

*Jeremiah rolls his eyes whenever Barbara speaks*  HAHAHAHA!

“I'm nothing if not sane.  And reasonable.  Two things my brother never valued.  Which is why I'll be successful where he failed.  Well, that and being vastly more intelligent.“  *hisses in panic*

#DraggingJeromeValeska2k18

“We're not just gonna hand this thing over and let him destroy Gotham, are we?”   “Of course not.  Once we get the money, we kill Jeremiah and his people, give the core relay to the police, split the $50 million, and are hailed as the heroes of Gotham!”  WHY WOULD YOU SAY THIS OUT LOUD?!?  WHY?!?

EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM IS DEAD

*Jeremiah pulls out a bazooka*  OOHHHHH

“Are you [Jeremiah] OUT OF YOUR MIND?!?”  Yes.

“What's insane about having a backup plan?  Something Jongleur never knew about.“  True!

Oh my gosh, Jeremiah running up the stairs!  Speedy Gonzalez!

“I imagine you're wondering, why is Jeremiah doing this?“  I bet you’re wondering I brought you here today...

“My brother once said, "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.“  Oh my God...

*screams when Alfred is shown being tortured*

Oh my God...

Craaaaap!

*gasps when Alfred gets doused in laughing gas*

*weakly*  Noo....

“I'm only helping you because I'm with Lee now.”  “Fine.  Whatever.” Hahaha!

“Ed, Jeremiah Valeska is threatening to destroy half the city.  You really think I care if you've deluded yourself into thinking you and Lee are a couple?“  YES!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU JIM!  YESSSS!!

“She's with me in every way.”  Punch him.  Now.

“And you, Jim, are ten times the killer that I ever was.”  Ed, shut the heck up.

*slaps desk with every other word*  Can we please get back to the discussion at hand please thank you!

Is that Gotham?

“Jeremiah lived his entire life in a maze.  Now he's trying to remake the city into the place he feels most safe.“  Man...

“It’s [the solution to the maze] actually rather elegant.”  Shoot, Jeremiah’s more like the Riddler than the actual Riddler in this show!

Punch him [Ed].  Now!

*Jim knocks out Ed with one punch*  YESSSSSS!  THANK YOU!

*claps with each word*  Jim Gordon, MVP.

“Get the core relay, he [Oswald] says!  Have the upper hand, he says!“  Heehee!

“That means we can disrupt them by disarming the first bomb in the sequence.  It's like removing one light from a string of Christmas lights.“  So where’s the first one?

*Jim and Harvey reunite with a hug*  YAY!

You’d think Jeremiah would keep his plans more well hidden...

*Scarecrow sneaks up behind Selina*  OOOOOOHHHHHHH

IS THAT A SCYTHE?!?!?

Scarecrow’s literally just standing there, literally not moving, just holding his scythe.  It’s for the aesthetic.

*Scarecrow swings his scythe at Selina*  WHOA!

Bruce!  Get out of there!

AAAAAAHHHHHH I’M NOT LIKING THIS EPISODE AT ALL!

Fear toxin!  It’s fear toxin!  Bruce, you’re hallucinating this!

*screams when Fake Alfred gives himself a Glasgow smile*

I’m not likin’ this episode!

*gasps when Fake Alfred goes after Bruce*

I’m actually shaking...

No, no, Bruce, this is fake!

*Selina finds a hostage in a closet*  That has to be the real Alfred!

Who’s Bruce fighting then?

*screams when Fake Alfred gets shot and falls over the balcony*

“Alfred...”  Hug.  Please.  Hug.

[The generator bomb] Looks like a building...

Why and how did Jeremiah dye his hair?  I like it though.

Vertigo shot....

“This is a message to the followers of Jeremiah Valeska.  Jeremiah claims to have killed me [Jim].  Well, bad news, I'm alive.“  Haha!

“So, just know you're worshipping a fraud. A pale imitation of Jerome.“  Whoooo...

Go Jim!

You [Harvey] better not be doing “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe” on a bomb...

Aaaand he did.

*jumps when Jeremiah silences the cultists*

[Jeremiah smiles]  *softly*  Oh my God that’s awesome... oh my God...

*Jeremiah purges the cultists*  OOOHHHHHH

Here’s my question:  where’s Ecco?

“Perhaps the outcome was not what we had hoped, - but it was worth the risk.“  Oswald, shut up.  Let everybody enjoy their booze.

*Butch decides not to join Oswald*  Thank you!

Is that an old church?

“Think think think think think think...”  Haha!

“Who are you?  What do you want?”  “I [Ra’s]had a vision.  Of Gotham in flames.”  *gasps*

OOHHHH MY GODDD.... OH my God, I was right!

I freaking called it [Jeremiah and Ra’s meeting]!  I freaking called it!  Jeremiah and Ra’s are gonna cause No Man’s Land...

“Because, my boy-”  Mah boy... not a good sign!  Not a good thing!

“-this is about Bruce Wayne.”  Of course it is!  It’s always about Bruce!

Drink all the booze!

It’d be cool if we see Bludhaven next season.

Oh I like that lighting... it’s so good!  Jim in yellow and Lee in blue...

“But whatever happens after I walk out that door, I care about you.  And I always will.“  Aawww...

Oh man, this is sad.  Man...

Freaking Ed... get the heck out!

Get frozen in ice again!

*The precinct applauds Harvey*  Yaaayy!  Yay, recognition for Harvey!  This is stuff I like this show!  Yaaay!

Happy ending?  In a “Gotham” episode?  It’s probably less likely than I think!

[Bruce and Alfred] Hug!  Please!  Hug!

*Alfred leaves*  Dang it.

“Thank you again.  I don't know what would have happened if you weren't there.”  Aaawww...

Oh oh oh are they are they-

*Bruce and Selina kiss*  OOOHHHHHH!!!  Yes!

“Jeremiah said all it takes is one bad day to drive a person insane. I wonder if my parents dying made me [Bruce] a little insane.“  Mmmm....

*gasps when Jeremiah strolls in*

*Jeremiah shoots Selina*  OOOHHHHHHHH!! NO! NOOOO!!!

*Alfred tackles Jeremiah to the ground and beats the crap out of him*  YES YES YES YES THANK YOU!

NOOOO!!  No, no, she’s alive!

*Credits start playing*  Screw this entire show.  I’m done.

#Gotham #gotham spoilers #FOX #one bad day #the blogger reacts #looked at the stars and considered a reaction #jim gordon #harvey bullock #lucius fox #bruce wayne #selina kyle #jeremiah valeska #alfred pennyworth #scarecrow #lee tompkins #edward nygma #jerome valeska #ra's al ghul

[dream-beyond-the-fantasy]

Tagged by: @jjohnson217

If you could change (or rather fix) the background and/or paternity of any five characters, who would they be?

Sam McCall - While I liked early Julexis, what the writers did to them pissed me off and turned me off of the couple.  Sam understandably kicked Julian out of her life, but has nothing to do with the rest of her Jerome relatives?  I liked her scenes with Ava when she was sick with toxoplasmosis.  She and Kiki interacted a lot and got along well when Sam dated Kiki’s dad Silas, but they don’t acknowledge the fact that they are cousins.  She doesn’t interact with Lucas or even babysit her baby brother Leo.  What was the purpose of making Julian Sam’s dad?

Franco - I hate this character for many reasons and the only time I liked him (as played by Roger Howarth) was when he and Nina were together pre-baby issue.  James Franco’s Franco was a fun psycho villain.  I hate all of his paternity rewrites.  First, he was Betsy Frank’s son.  Nope, he is Jason’s fraternal twin via Alan and Susan Moore.  Wrong, he is Heather Webber’s son by Scott, despite not looking like either one.  I like Roger Howarth, but he is miscast in this role.  I would rather Franco be Betsy Frank’s with the probably abusive creep Jim Harvey (who he resembles) rather than tarnish the Baldwins (Scott, Karen, Serena, Gail and Lee), even by association.

Nelle - There is so much wrong with this character.  If they were going to connect her to Carly, she should have been a Spencer relative, capitalizing on the fact that she previously played a younger version of Luke and Bobbie’s sister Pat, and not a Benson.  While in her early days, I liked that she was like a young Carly set on revenge.  They could have made her Carly’s daughter somehow, either from pre-Port Charles days in Florida (possibly from sleeping with Reese’s dad) or a previously unknown twin of Michael’s.  That way we wouldn’t have had to suffer through the train wreck that was Melle.  Or if they wanted her to be an original character, why not utilize the chemistry she had with Nina and reveal that she was Nina and Silas’ baby that was supposedly miscarried after what Madeline did?

Avery - Like many of you, I wish Avery was Morgan’s daughter.  It wouldn’t change much of her story.  Carly would definitely try and rig the paternity test.  Maybe we wouldn’t have suffered through more MorKiki and Ava wouldn’t have been indirectly responsible for Morgan’s death.

Griffin - I would make him Anna’s son with Duke, the child she supposedly miscarried when Olivia Jerome pushed her in the elevator.  In one of Olivia’s last scenes, she made an ominous remark about Griffin’s mother.  It would be amazing if she knew that Griffin was Anna’s and kept that secret out of revenge against the woman who “stole” Duke from her.  Plus, he is basically Anna’s son already with how protective and caring she is for him because he is Duke’s son.  Also, Robin and Emma already see him as a brother/uncle-like figure.  If Josh Madden, Erica Kane’s famous abortion, could be transplanted into her doctor’s wife as an embryo, why not the same treatment (in a good way) for Anna and Griffin?

****BONUS****  If we are stuck with Anna having a child with Faison, I would rather it not be the obvious path - Valentin lied about it being a girl and it will be Henrik/Peter August, who we know is Faison’s son and cohorts with Valentin.  I don’t mind Peter being Faison’s son and in league with Valentin, because we all knew the boy was shady af.  However, I would prefer if Anna did have another daughter and it was revealed to be Dr. Kim Nero.  She looks a lot like Anna.  It would give Tamara more story to work with and more avenues to take the character of Kim in.  Kim and Oscar would have more family (Henrik/Peter, Britt, Maxie’s baby, Robin, Emma, baby Noah, Alex Devane Marick, Gabriel Devane, Aidan Devane).

What five storylines would you rewrite?  And how?

Sam’s paternity/Port Charles re-visited - As I previously mentioned, I would change Sam’s paternity since she doesn’t utilize her Jerome heritage.  I would have made her Ryan Chamberlain’s daughter.  Ryan is Kevin’s dead psycho twin brother.  Ryan would still fit in with Alexis’ bad boy dating profile and it would make since that she would be a dead ringer for Livvie Locke.  I also would have kept Kevin as Livvie’s father since it was a disservice to Port Charles and its fans to rewrite such a story.  I would have kept the nods to Port Charles but they could have left out the supernatural elements, which were only brought into the later seasons of the show.  Port Charles did start out as a show about young doctors (including Scott’s daughter Karen Wexler) and nurses working at General Hospital, when the main soap went to more mob-related stories.  There were a lot of crossovers to begin with.  Also, there would be mention of Scott and Lucy’s adopted daughter Christina.

Nikolas’ storylines 2014-2016.  I’m not sure how I would write it, but Nikolas wouldn’t take over ELQ, be involved involved in “Jake Doe”/Drew/Jason drama, try to blackmail or kill Hayden, fake his death, or be killed by Valentin for Cassadine holdings.  I don’t mind Nik getting some dark Cassadine on, but don’t destroy his character like these years did.

Port Charles Mayoral Campaign of 2018.  I would have kept Laura as the anti-Charles Street development candidate (screw you, Frank!).  Olivia would have been in-character and struggling between supporting her husband Ned and fighting for the down-to-earth people living on Charles Street who are a lot like her Bensonhurst neighbors.  Laura would win, despite the dirty tricks pulled by Jim Harvey.  Ned would run a clean campaign.  Julian would run his bar and have little to do with the story.  Alexis would assist with Laura’s campaign, but otherwise stay out of politics and Charlie’s Pub.

There would be no Friz relationship.  Elizabeth would have dated Griffin instead (sorry, Grava).

Sonny wouldn’t have killed AJ.  While I enjoyed the distance between Michael and Sonny (as well as Carly) because of Sonny’s actions, it didn’t last long enough.  Sonny escaped the consequences yet again.  Also, there would be no Ava/Sonny sex on AJ’s grave, which would mean that Avery would have to be Morgan’s.  Michael would still have good relationships with all of his parents.  We would get to see AJ’s reactions to “Jake Doe” being “Jason�� before finally revealed to be Jason’s twin Drew, as well as the real Jason being alive.  I would need all of Alan’s sons to reconcile their feelings toward each other.  AJ would be an attentive uncle to Jake, Danny, and Scout.

Three most annoying retcons in General Hospital history?

Franco’s crimes are a result of a brain tumor.  Such bullshit.

Anna willingly sleeping with Faison when she is a WSB trainee to get info and having his child, who is probably Henrik/Peter.  I may not have been alive when Robert, Anna, and Robin first came on in the 80s, but many fans have said that a flashback showed that Anna was a virgin when she first slept with Robert.  Writers, stop screwing with GH history.

Ignoring Sam’s relationships with Silas and Patrick in favor building up her relationship with Drew.  While I did like Siam, I did feel they were a rebound.  But Samtrick was a real relationship and it was going very well until Carly outed “Jake Doe” as “Jason”.  Sam was still her investigative, risk-taking self and a mom back then, compared to whoever she is now.  Yes, I feel like she would have went back to Jason and Patrick to Robin, in the end.

Favorite incarnations of characters who have been played by multiple actors?

Tamara Braun as Carly Benson Corinthos (I love all Carlys, except for Jennifer Bransford, but Tamara is my fave)

Kirsten Storms as Maxie Jones

Tyler Christopher as Nikolas Cassadine

Julie Marie Berman as Lulu Spencer-Falconeri

John Ingle as Edward Quartermaine

Constance Towers as Helena Cassadine

Aaron Refvem as Morgan Corinthos

both Sean Kanan and Billy Warlock as AJ Quartermaine

both Jonathan Jackson and Greg Vaughn as Lucky Spencer

both Dylan Cash and Chad Duell as Michael Corinthos III

tie between Emma & Sarah Smith, Kali Rodriguez, Lexi Ainsworth, and Lindsey Morgan as Kristina Corinthos-Davis (I’ve loved all of the girls who played Krissy since I started watching GH)

Five character deaths that destroyed you?

Georgie Jones

Emily Quartermaine

Alan Quartermaine

Lila McCall

Nathan West

Honorable Mentions: BJ Jones, Jason Morgan’s not-death, Sabrina Santiago, AJ Quartermaine 

If you could bring back any characters, which ones would they be?  And why?

Emily Quartermaine - pointless death for tragedy and ratings, she is a moral compass for many characters, need more Quartermaines, doctor

Nikolas Cassadine - part of me believes he is still alive, I need him to take back his inheritance and home from Valentin, need more Cassadines, need him to work things out with Britt (since he did far worse) or get back together with an alive Emily

Georgie Jones - pointless death for tragedy and ratings, moral compass for Maxie, Dillon’s OTL

Dillon Quartermaine: TPTB did the character, fans, and Robert Palmer Watkins dirty, need more Qs, more Crimson storylines, he could still be a filmmaker

Hayden Barnes - Elizabeth needs family in PC, need a resolution (and hopefully a reunion) for HayFinn, update on her and HayFinn baby, friendship/maternal relationship with Spencer, still needs to meet biodad Jeff and siblings Steve and Sarah

Lucky Spencer - need to build up the Spencer family, he needs to be (and be seen doing it) a father to all three of his boys, help rein in Lulu’s Spencer traits, help build up the PCPD, support and call out Elizabeth when she needs it, meet his niece Charlotte

Thomas “Tommy” Hardy Jr. - member of Hardy family, Elizabeth needs family in PC, doctor, brings in more diversity

Laura Spencer Collins - Lulu needs her mom’s guidance, she should be mayor, her other grandkids need her too, she needs to bring Spencer home, she and Kevin have barely been married before she left

Spencer Cassadine - he’s so much fun to watch, keeps Valentin in check, needs to reclaim his home and fortune, should reconcile with cousin Charlotte, we might actually see Liz’s kids if he is around, love his relationships with his extended family

Britt Westbourne - emotional support for mom Liesl after Nathan’s death, reconcile and potentially bond with Maxie and cousin Nina over loss of Nathan and love for Naxie baby, resolve things with Nikolas if he is alive, friendship/maternal relationship with Spencer, doctor, meet and have some sort of relationship with half-brother Henrik/Peter, friendship with Brad

Kristina Corinthos-Davis - need more Davis Girls, LGBTQ representation, missing out on stories regarding her families, reconcile with Alexis, potential for character growth

basically the whole Scorpio-Drake family (Robert, Robin, Patrick, Emma, baby Noah, Dr. Noah, and Dr. Matt Hunter) because they are one of my favorite families, doctors, Anna needs more family

more Quartermaines than those listed above for obvious reasons

What storylines would you like to see General Hospital tackle?

big event stories that we had 10-15 years ago that affected the whole community and characters (both contract and recurring) who don’t usually interact shared scenes

better representation of mental illness

more diversity

better LGBTQ representation and stories - utilize the characters they have and introduce Joss & Oscar’s friend

autism (Night Shift did a story with Jagger and his son Stone)

school shooting/gun control plots (for the younger characters) because of the ongoing relevance

If you watched any other ABC soaps (All My Children, One Life to Live, Port Charles, Ryan’s Hope, Loving, The City and I’m including SoapNet’s General Hospital: Night Shift), which characters (living at the time of the soap’s demise) would you bring to GH for a visit/story since they share the same universe?

Dr. David Hayward, All My Children - Anna’s ex-husband and father to her late daughter Leora, cardiologist/cardiac surgeon, a fun and dynamic villain to root for, has brought people back from the dead via Project Orpheus

Dr. Kyle Julian, General Hospital: Night Shift - doctor, adopted brother Leo was Maxie’s heart surgeon in 2007, LGBTQ representation, sweet and dorky character, potential boyfriend of Felix if he and Donny don’t work out

Oliver Fish, Dr. Kyle Lewis, and Sierra Fish, One Life to Live - Kish was a popular couple, LGBTQ representation, police officer and doctor, potential friends for Brad and Lucas especially in light of their adoption storyline

#general hospital #my opinion #sorry it took so long

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24HighSchoolStudents #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental education #environmental justice #environmental protection #environmental health #high school students #high school #youth #youth of america #school

[frivoloussuits]

Preview: Suits/Hunger Games AU

Here’s a peek at the fic I keep procrastinating on by writing Suits 100 prompts instead, lol. Apologies in advance for any odd formatting+warnings for referenced drug use and deadly violence.

All the Capitol’s geneticists have tried and failed to produce something that can compare with Mike Ross’ brain. At three years old, he’s more literate than many of the adults around him, and he spends his days reading aloud from a dictionary, his family’s longest book, to his baby sister Jenny. His eyes, skimming over the text at stunning speed, shimmer blue like the sea, nothing like the coal and fire surrounding him in District 12.

In District 1, Lily Specter dresses her four-year-old son Harvey in his finest clothes and takes him to their city’s central park soon after winter ends. Surrounded by a horde of other children, he plays games, solving puzzles, punching targets as hard as he can, flitting through an obstacle course with all the easy grace of a spring breeze. He throws himself into the challenges with childish enthusiasm, turning downright giddy as he outstrips one opponent after another. Young as he is, he doesn’t realize these are the entrance tests for Pearson Academy, Panem’s premier training school for the Hunger Games. He doesn’t notice Jessica Pearson herself observing him from a distance.

When school starts, Mike skips particularly boring classes and instead loiters around the Hob, 12′s black market. Even though he’s too young to buy or sell anything himself, assorted shopkeepers take a liking to him, and some use him as a human calculator. When he’s not needed, he tucks himself into odd corners, soaking up old stories and the old records that Sae plays sometimes, all crackling horns and syncopated rhythm. One day he’s joined under a table by a fellow truant named Trevor, the same age as him, with a dangerous spark in his dark brown eyes.

Seven-year-old Harvey– or “Specter,” as everyone calls him nowadays– lounges in his Academy quarters, blasting jazzy music out of brand-new speakers and singing along. When other kids bang on the door and shout for him to quiet down, he simply smirks and turns the volume dial higher, because he’s added bars and bolts to his door and built a barricade from furniture to keep intruders out of his room, and nobody can stop him from doing what he wants in here.

That is, until a little redheaded girl breaks through all his barriers, circumvents all his defenses, sneaks up on him as he leans back in his chair with three of its legs off the ground, and moves as if to tip him over– only to reach across him and click the speaker’s off button instead.

As he gawps, she just raises an eyebrow and says, “Hi, I’m Donna. I just moved in next door. Shut up, please, or I won’t be so nice next time.”

In a single heartbeat, an explosion in a coal mine orphans both Trevor and Mike.

Harvey ignores the baseball bat at the back of his closet and instead brings out a dark suit. Today is the first time he’s ever been permitted to leave the Academy during school. The occasion meriting such special allowances is his father’s funeral.

When his mother shows up at the wake with another man on her arm, Harvey straightens up and tells her to go to hell. “You made a fool of Dad,” he says. “You exploited him and his legal problem this whole time, and all he ever did wrong was love you from the moment he met you. Is it so damn impossible for you to at least pretend to be faithful?”

Lily just shakes her head, torn between pity and exasperation. “That’s not how things work here, Harvey.”

In the aftermath, Mike and Jenny move in with their grandmother Edith. There’s a roof over their heads but never enough food on their plates, and the wind cuts right through the walls and their threadbare blankets to chill them to the bone.

During a particularly harsh winter, Jenny takes ill, and Trevor starts showing up at their door with extra supplies of meat and other food that he can’t possibly afford.

At the Academy, Harvey beats back his grief by hurling himself into the nonstop competition, battling all the other students who want a shot at one of 1’s Tribute spots. He regularly faces off with Scottie, a girl with flashing dark eyes and a brazen wit, and every time she forces him to the ground. When he at last wins a match, he expects her to sulk or play it off as a fluke, but instead she beams proudly at him. Then there’s Donna, who proves a damn near equal match for him. Each wins just as often as the other, and the hope of pulling ahead sharpens both of their resolves. They pummel each other with mock weapons, study for months to beat each other’s scores on Games knowledge tests, and spend every school day taunting each other.

With time, the taunting softens to playful teasing, and they gradually turn inseparable. In their rare hours of free time, they break out of the Academy and roam around the nearby city. Harvey rather suspects Jessica is aware of every time they stray outside– she seems to have a knowing glint in her eye each morning afterwards, but perhaps he’s just imagining it.

Mike starts going out to the woods with Trevor, breaking a wide array of laws simply by crossing 12’s fence. They compound the crime by poaching, hunting down animals to eat and selling whatever meat they have to spare. After some exploring, they discover a swath of wild Eufrosyne trees, and they start harvesting the leaves to sell as well. They find plenty of buyers– people seem grateful for drugs around here.

One night, they find that the fence is electrified when they try to go home, and so they are temporarily barred from 12. Trevor starts to panic, but Mike starts to plan, recalling hundreds of tricks for surviving in the wilderness that he’s learned off the Hunger Games. They end up adapting a shelter that the girl from 3 made last year and weathering the night. When the fence powers off the next morning and they return home, they find Edith and Jenny both frightened senseless.

“We’re perfectly intact,” Mike reassures them. “Nobody died!”

Trevor gives an easy smile and plants a kiss on Jenny’s lips. “Yeah, you know you can’t rid of me that easily.”

Harvey wears suits increasingly often, at interviews and dinners for fencing competitions and boxing tournaments and Mock Trials. Yet his dress is considerably plainer, just black slacks and a white T-shirt, on the day when he kills for the first time.

His victim is a patient suffering from a painful terminal illness who consented to being killed by an Academy student in exchange for money for her relatives. He knows taking her life ought to affect him– it’s an explicit opportunity to work through some of the self-loathing and moral quandaries that accompany killing ahead of the Games– yet he tries to pretend he doesn’t care. He thinks he’s doing a good job of it, until Jessica calls him to her office for a cup of tea and he winds up breaking down as he drinks it, just as he later finds out she predicted.

Days later, he’s dropped off in the wilderness with Donna for an Academy survival practical. As they huddle around their fire, in the shadow of a shelter they constructed together, she nudges him with her elbow. “I got us a present.”

“Oh?”

She pulls an old rubbing alcohol bottle out of her pack, unscrews the top, and hands it over to him. He takes a quick sniff and immediately starts chuckling. “Not quite the same alcohol it says on the label, huh?”

“Scotch, straight from Cameron Dennis’ surprisingly well-stocked cabinet.”

He grins and takes a swig. They while away the afternoon, passing the bottle back and forth and sharing increasingly ridiculous ideas for knocking off opponents in the Games, until Donna puts forth a plan with a can opener that Harvey can’t even try to top.

One bright spring morning, Edith passes away. Leaving Jenny with Trevor, Mike flees to the woods for the night, closing his fingers around the mockingjay pin she left him.

It’s impossible to ignore the Cameron Dennis problem anymore. And while Louis, the other main teacher at Pearson Academy, has his own endless issues, at least he’s not an addict.

Harvey and Donna drag Jessica down to Cameron’s office one night, when he’s out of his head with some ugly mix of alcohol and morphling, and the teacher they’ve studied under for years turns on them, slurring that Jessica ought to expel the two of them for their insubordination before lunging at Harvey. He easily sidesteps, and Jessica fires Cameron on the spot with a melancholy sigh.

“Well, that was self-sabotaging,” Harvey remarks in a half-hearted attempt at levity. “Now we’ve got to train with Louis instead.”

“No,” Jessica says sharply.

Harvey’s heart stops, as she confirms that they’ll be training in her small advanced class from now on, because she has officially decided to send them to the Games.

A few years down the road, Mike watches Dana Scott of District 1, a girl with murderous eyes and brazen confidence with all manner of deadly weapons, play in the 73rd Hunger Games. He’s fascinated in a sick sort of way, and he supposes he should root for her, if only because he’s put quite a bit of money down on her. She’s a relatively safe bet– Pearson Academy’s Tributes always start with the odds in their favor, thanks to their training and their willingness to do whatever it takes to win– and he grows more certain of her chances as the Games unfold, as images of Dana stabbing, garroting, and poisoning burn themselves into his brain. She pushes through the arena, along with her partner Vanessa, a young woman who matches her guile and skill in battle when necessary but has a sort of vulnerability about her that Mike rarely sees in Pearson students.

In between the deaths and fighting, the cameras show the coaches and sponsors and Gamemakers all mingling. Mike sees Jessica Pearson herself schmoozing with Caesar Flickerman, both wearing smiles that could kill. In the background, he identifies Tom Keller, the Capitol citizen in charge of most of the Games’ main gambling systems. The camera starts to pan away as Tom throws an arm around an up-and-coming Pearson Academy student, a young man strutting around with slicked hair and a suit that cost more than Mike’s house.

Mike rolls his eyes and tells Jenny, “If I ever try to look like that, feel free to smack me.”

“Will do,” she giggles, “after I figure out how you managed to afford anything remotely like that and take some of that money for myself.”

Mike gives her a thumbs-up.

“Okay, I’m going to bed,” he says a few minutes later, rising from his seat with a yawn. “Wake me when the Gamemakers start firebombing the kids from 5.”

“How do you know they will?” Jenny frowns.

"They will.”

And they do.

Dana and Vanessa win, and they visit 12 and all the other districts on their Victory Tour. Yet the Gamemakers and academies and gamblers have already turned their attention forwards, to the 74th Hunger Games.

#suits #mike ross #harvey specter #jessica pearson #donna paulsen #trevor evans #dana scott #my fic

[iamvictoriaanne]

Podcasts that I’ve binged

I'm allowed to listen to podcasts at work, and for limited edition ones, I have a habit of waiting until the end, and binge-listening to the whole series in one day. The exception is Broken Harts, which is a current podcast, and is still being actively updated as new info is still coming out. But here are the limited edition podcasts that I’d recommend you check out:

Carruth - the backstory of the murder of a pregnant Cherica Adams by her boyfriend, Carolina Panthers' Rae Carruth. The media coverage as I remember it in 1999 focused mostly on domestic violence by NFL players, and the shock of the horrible tragedy that hit this brand-new franchise (expansion year - 1995.) Interesting notes from the podcast - Carruth was a name adopted in his teen years - it's his stepfather's name, Cherica's mother wanted to give her a unique name - it's a combination of Cher (her mom loved the Sonny & Cher show) and the Eureka vacuum, and that Cherica's son Chancellor is a fan of Steve Harvey's talk show. The Carruth Podcast interviewed Steve Harvey about his Rae Carruth jokes on The Kings of Comedy, which he no longer remembered.

Official description:

The "miracle" began Nov. 16, 1999, when Cherica Adams was shot four times in Charlotte, N.C. A hitman tried to murder Adams, the girlfriend of NFL star Rae Carruth, and their unborn son, Chancellor Lee. But the hitman failed. Now, a year-long investigation exposes stunning new details of the crime that shocked the sports world—and the impacts still being felt years later. Hosted by Charlotte Observer reporter Scott Fowler, who has covered this saga for 19 years.

Listen here Podbay, TuneIn, Sticher, and/or The Charlotte Observer

The Dream - a fascinating look into the world of direct selling (Mary Kay, Herbalife, etc.) Interesting note, 99% of direct sellers lose money, and there are over 200,000 direct sellers in the USA, compared to about 20,000 CVS and Walgreens COMBINED (for the most part, they are selling the same thing - makeup, lotion, and vitamins.) Also one direct seller for Christian based 31 (referencing Proverbs 31, of course) sold in poor areas rather than rich ones, because she took a seminar on how people spend money, and said lower income people are bad with money and are more likely to spend impulsively on shiny knick knacks that make them feel better.

Official description:

What if we told you that with zero experience and only a few hundred dollars down, this podcast could change your life? Well, we’d be lying. This season on The Dream, Jane Marie dives into the world of pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, and all the other businesses that require their members to recruit their nearest and dearest in hopes of a commission. Join us as we trace the path of get-rich schemes from Jane’s roots in rural Michigan all the way to the White House.

Listen here:

The Dream, Podbay, and/or Stitcher

Believed - The horrifying case of Dr. Larry Nassar, who molested hundreds of young female gymnasts. Larry, as he was known, was the person who picked up Kerri Strug off the mat after her heroic vault that resulted in Team USA winning the team gold medal in the 1996 Olympics. Instead of working out of the high-profile Olympic Training Facility in Indianapolis, he stayed behind in Michigan working at Michigan State University and local high schools. Those institutions were so hell-bent on keeping the gold medalist doctor that they looked the other way.

Official description:

How did Larry Nassar, an Olympic gymnastics doctor, get away with abusing hundreds of women and girls for two decades? Believed is an inside look at how a team of women won a conviction in one of the largest serial sexual abuse cases in U.S. history. It's a story of survivors finding their power in a cultural moment when people are coming to understand how important that is. It's also an unnerving exploration of how even well-meaning adults can fail to believe.

Listen here:

NPR and/or Podbay

The Realness - a podcast about Prodigy of Mobb Deep. Prodigy died in 2017 after a lifelong battle with sickle cell anemia. While this podcast is his life story, it is also the story of America's healthcare and criminal justice systems, and how neither value Black lives.

Note: Havoc (the other half of Mobb Deep) declined to be interviewed.

Official description:

When the rapper Prodigy suffered a sickle cell crisis after a Las Vegas concert in 2017, his friends didn't think much of it at first: they were used to him getting sick. But a few days later, he died. The Realness goes behind Prodigy's music to reveal his lifelong struggle against his own body, and how that struggle informed his lyrics and fueled his success. The Realness by Only Human is produced by WNYC Studios, a listener-supported producer of leading podcasts including Radiolab, Snap Judgment, Death, Sex & Money, Nancy and On the Media.

Listen here:

YouTube, Podbay, WNYC, NPR, and/or ListenNotes

Atlanta Monster - I was incredibly curious about The Atlanta Child Murders. They happened from July 21, 1979- May 16, 1981, claiming the lives of over 30 young Black people. My parents lived in Decatur, Georgia from 1978-1982, and I was born there in November of 1981. My mom had (what, I, a child believed to be) EXTREME stranger-danger when I was growing up; she never mentioned the Atlanta Child Murders ever. Once I learned about them, it all made sense

Official description:

From the producers of Up and Vanished, Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks present, ‘Atlanta Monster.’ This true crime podcast tells the story of one of the city’s darkest secrets, The Atlanta Child Murders. Nearly 40 years after these horrific crimes, many questions still remain. Host Payne Lindsey aims to find truth and provide closure, reexamining the disappearance and murder of over 25 African American children and young adults. Listen here:

Atlanta Monster, and/or Podbay - note this feed also shows the second season, on the Zodiac killer.

Broken Harts - the story of the Hart family, two white moms and their six adopted Black children who drove off of a cliff. This podcast goes into racism in the foster care system; the Harts had a history of abuse and were allowed to keep adopting children, while the Black biological children they adopted were taken from care because their legal guardian grandmother allowed their drug-addicted mother, who had no visitation rights, babysit her children (the kids were unharmed.) The case is still unfolding, so after every episode there is an addendum, usually when a body is found near the crash site or their hometown. What I found jarring - despite living in lily-white Woodland, Washington, none of the neighbors knew they had kids, meaning all six of them were being kept inside. This series still hasn't finished.

Official description:

Markis, Hannah, Devonte, Abigail, Jeremiah, and Sierra Hart—six beautiful black children, ranging in age from 12 to 19—were all adopted by Sarah and Jennifer Hart, both white. On Jen’s Facebook page, it looked as if they were the perfect blended family, even earning the nickname “Hart Tribe” from friends. Then, on March 26, 2018, the family’s GMC Yukon was found belly-up on the rocks below California’s Highway 1. The news of the murder-suicide shocked their friends and made national headlines, leaving many wondering what possibly led to the fatal crash. Could these lives have been saved? Broken Harts, a new podcast from Glamour and HowStuffWorks, investigates this question with more than 30 never-before-heard interviews. Cohosts and Glamour editors Justine Harman and Elisabeth Egan and reporter Lauren Smiley follow the family’s journey from South Dakota through Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington, and finally to that 100-foot cliff in California.

Listen here:

Stitcher, Glamour, iHeart Radio, and/or Podbay

#vsposts vspodcasts npr wnyc the dream the realness carruth rae carruth charlotte observer stitcher podbay npr iheartrado michigan state mic

[machtaholic]

My Brain is an Interesting Place ...

Nobody asked for this specifically but ... my brain is an interesting place and comes up with weird bunnies ... and I thought I would share my top five fave ... interesting bunny fics *wink* ... in no particular order, of course :D

Reverse Polarity (Suits)

Harvey wakes up on a Saturday morning to find himself ... female. The whole world knows him as female, everyone except Mike Ross. Harvey gets to experience the world from the other side ... What happens when he finally changes back?

Tramp Stamp Fairy Wings (Teen Wolf)

Derek Hale wakes up on his thirteenth birthday to discover his father's mythical ancestry has a sick sense of humor. At the age of 13, Derek becomes a fairy godmother. He makes due with what was dealt to him and at the age of 28 decides to get a tattoo and goes to a tattoo shop owned by ... Scott McCall. The connection is instant that, as they get to know each other, blossoms.

[aka this is the fluffiest fluff to ever fluff according to a friend of mine]

Derek’s Domestic Services (aka Domestic Escort!Derek) (Teen Wolf)

“Domestic services available, special additions upon request. Excellent cook. Available early mornings or evenings after 6. Contact DH at [email protected] to make arrangements.”

It started off as a joke, then as a way to make extra money, pay for Peter's convalescent care ... being what he called 'a domestic escort', cooking his clients breakfast or dinner, playing the part of the boyfriend up until the point it reached the bedroom. He ended up gaining a large group of friends and ... perhaps something more.

Truth or Dare (Teen Wolf)

Allison and Lydia are spending Friday night together, playing what seems to be an innocent game of Truth or Dare, until Lydia gives her the ultimate Dare - to become a true resident of Beacon Hills.

This is totally from left field, and I'm not even sure if it'll make sense to anyone other than me, but ... I kinda love it. So here it is.

The Last Princess of Idris (Shadowhunters)

This started off as a bit of a crack idea - what if Jace was some long lost royalty based on some legend told from parents to baby Shadowhunters?

Jace, after Valentine's admission, tries to find out more about his past and ends up finding out that he is the long lost 'Last Princess of Idris'. He learns how to embrace his lineage, and sets about making some good, much needed changes. How is he going to make sure the changes stick? By binding himself in marriage to a downworlder.

And an honorable mention will go to Sliced (aka the One Where Thomas Gets a Makeover) (Maze Runner)

This started as a simple question posed to Twitter: How do they cut their hair in the Glade? And it turned into this ... crack. Thomas comes out of the box, dirty and looking like ... clunk. He's whisked off to the only Slicer in the Glade, Vidal. Yeah, it's crack, with some pre-slash Thomas/Newt/Minho thrown in.

So ... yeah, my brain is weird

#my fic #suitsusa #teen wolf #shadowhunters #maze runner

[thegrandharveyspecter]

(Harvey would take care of Scott if he's sick in canon too?)

[He absolutely would take care of a Sick Scott in canon. He has experience taking care of younger people when they're sick too, courtesy of Mike Ross, so he'd take on the task easily. He'd go all Mother Hen, especially if it's not a simple cold and it's a bad fever.]

#OOC #Grey Responds #Anon #Anon Asks #Harvey Specter #Suits #antvnger #Scott Lang #Ant-Man

[savetopnow]

2018-04-06 09 CELEBRITY now

CELEBRITY

E!

A Guide to Zac Efron's Instagram Flirting: Why His Social Media Activity Is Sparking Romance Rumors

Watch Cardi B Respond to Those Pregnancy Rumors Once and for All

Be Careful, Cardi B's Makeup Artist Just Changed the Game With These Tips

Casey Affleck Has Been ''Treated Abominably'' in #MeToo Era, Kenneth Lonergan Says

Bobbi Kristina Brown's Ex Nick Gordon Won't Be Charged in Domestic Violence Case

Hollywood Life

Kim Kardashian: Why She’s ‘Laughing All The Way To The Bank’ Over Photoshop Claims

Kendall Jenner ‘Definitely Had Lip & Cheek Fillers’ & ‘Probably A Nose Job,’ Doctors Claim

‘Teen Mom’ Murder Scandal: Star’s Brother Charged With Killing Man In Fatal Shooting

Conor McGregor Violently Smashes Bus Window With Dolly Amid Wild 25-Man Attack — Watch

Donald Trump Breaks Silence On Alleged Stormy Daniels Affair: Did He Know About $130K Hush Money?

Media Take Out

Desiigner Caught Taking A PIZZ On Someone’s House!! (PICS)

Comedian Sinbad Appears To Be SNITCHING On Russell Simmons . . . Says ‘MORE WOMEN’ Are Gonna Come Out With RAPE Claims!!!

Shirley Strawberry From Teh STEVE HARVEY RADIO SHOW . . . Is Being Sued . . . For Being a ‘DEADBEAT’!!

People

'Sleepy Stormi': Kylie Jenner Shares Photos of Her 9-Week-Old Daughter on Walk with Travis Scott

Ali MacGraw Launches Her Second Clothing Line Collection - and It Gives Back in a Major Way

Cardi B Addresses Pregnancy Rumors: ‘People Cannot Expect Me to Be Open About Everything’

Lin-Manuel Miranda Says He Has Shingles & Is 'Quarantined Away' From His 8-Week-Old Son

Hour-Long Lunch with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino Auctions for $110,000

Perez Hilton

Conor McGregor 'Going To Jail' After Bus Attack Leaves Fellow UFC Fighter 'Cut To Pieces' — See The INSANE Footage!

How Adorable Are Adam Rippon & Gus Kenworthy On The Cover Of OUT Magazine?!

Channing & Jenna Dewan Tatum 'Will Not Get Back Together' — But They WILL Amicably Co-Parent Daughter Everly!

Donald Trump FINALLY Acknowledges Stormy Daniels Hush Money — With Total Denial!

Jaime King Breaks Her Silence After Son Is Struck By Glass During 'Incredibly Violent' Car Attack!

Popsugar

So, Brad Pitt Reportedly Has a New "Fascinating" Lady Friend in His Life

5 Ways Michelle Obama Is Still Working Her Ass Off in 2018

Eggs, Bunnies, and Chocolate! Here's How Your Favorite Stars Celebrated Easter This Year

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's Modern Family Is Absolutely Golden

Roseanne and Dan Have Nothing on John Goodman's 29-Year Romance With His Real-Life Wife

Reddit Entertainment

Samuel L. Jackson: How I Became an Usher at Martin Luther King Jr.'s Funeral (Guest Column)

Lord of the Rings TV Show Has a 5 Season Commitment, Potential $1 Billion Budget

How Bill O’Reilly Silenced His Accusers: Settlement agreements between Bill O’Reilly and two of his accusers — made public for the first time on Wednesday — filled in previously unknown details about tactics he employed to silence women who came forward with sexual harassment allegations against him

The Worst TV Shows of the 1990s

2017 Movies That Already Have Sequels in the Works

TMZ

Vivica A. Fox Responds to Fur Protesters with Holy Wish

Judge Judy, Another Judge Rules She's Worth $47 Million

Dana White Says Conor McGregor Is 'Going to Jail,' Fighting Future in Jeopardy

Nas Says Kelis Violated Custody Agreement Claiming She Had a Passover Pass

Steve Aoki's Nuts Get Slapped By UFC Legend Ken Shamrock

The Shade Room

#TSRThirstyThursdayz: Which One Of These Fellas Could Get It?!

Issa #BaeWatch! R. Kelly’s Ex-Boo Halle Calhoun Confirms She’s Now Dating Rapper Rocko

#HoldUpWeAintFinished!! Black Panther Will Be The First Film Shown In Saudi Arabia—Breaking The Country’s 35-Year Movie Theater Ban

#TSRUpdatez: CDC Epidemiologist Who Vanished After Leaving Work When He Got Sick Found Dead In The Chattahoochee River

Baltimore Student Accepted Into All 8 Ivy League Schools: “I Just Felt Extraordinary!”

Us Weekly

The Situation: ‘Of Course’ I’m Scared for Tax Evasion Sentencing

Melania Trump Once Dumped Donald Trump Over His Ex: Report

Kathleen Peterson's Sister Talks Crime Scene In 'American Murder Mystery' Preview

Lamar Odom: Marijuana Helped Me After Rehab

Disney Channel Stars Reunite for Epic Photo: Demi, Cole and More!

#celebrity

[newagesispage]

                                                                          OCTOBER    2019  

 PAGE RIB

 Stephen King has released yet another: The Institute

*****

Salmon Rushdie has given us Quichotte

*****

October 1: Jimmy Carter is 95!! Go Jimmy

*****

For some new discoveries and theories on the often told tale, check out Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the secret history of the 60,s by Tom O’Neill.

*****

Metallica has cancelled their tour.

*****

The Creamery Bridge in Vermont was closed for a time because of a Sasquatch scare.

*****

Days alert: Woo Hoo!! Dr. Rolf is back!! ** Why do they keep using that ‘WET PAINT’ sign all over the town square? A joke?  Really painting the sets and they just leave them up for an inside laugh? ** The Shah/Jen story was good.. it showed what a good actor he really was. He was always so blah! It’s funny that as he left us , we finally get his back story. He even mentioned Norman Bates. ** Stefan is out.  Claire is in.  I loved Dr. Rolf’s “pro life” line. Will many of the young girls get pregnant, ( think Lani, Ciara, Gabi, Sarah, Haley and Kristen) and will all the babies get mixed up and will Days jump a year ahead? Well, that’s the rumor. ** What is up with Hope?

*****

Senator Chuck Grassley is applying for his second bailout since October for the farm he owns. ** $30 billion in welfare has been given to farmers.

*****

This whole vaping scare is not really a surprise. Why do companies have to be so greedy and fill these with nicotine anyway? Why do good flavors have to be taken off the market because parents can’t keep them away from the kids? Can’t we have fun flavored simple mist in a vaping apparatus that has no dangerous chemicals? So many people just need that occasional outlet and something to do when relaxing.

*****

Spy devices were found near the White House. They believe Israelis are responsible.

*****

Word is that around Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr. uses fear in dealing with staff and sends them pictures of his wife in sexual situations.

****

They need to make a biopic about Rickie Lee Jones and it should star Hillary Swank. JS

*****

A CIA source has been pulled from Russia they say because Trump can’t be trusted not to tell Putin who he is. The operative is the agent who confirmed the interference in the 2016 election and has worked there for decades.

*****

Rose McGowan and some of the Me too movers and shakers would like Lisa Bloom to be disbarred after her dealings with Harvey Weinstein.

*****

Mark Sanford is running for President.

*****

Sarah Palin’s husband has filed for divorce.

*****

Stacey Dash was arrested for domestic battery in Florida.

*****

Stranger Things has been renewed for season 4.

*****

Hey.. Robert King.. Glad that U R back!

*****

People from Alabama were calling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a panic after scary clown 45 included them in the path of Hurricane Dorian. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened to fire meteorologists who contradicted the idiot.

*****

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen got into it with the Pres. She called him a pussy ass bitch.

*****

In the 80’s, 80% of our clothing were made here in the U.S., now it is 3%.

*****

The House Judiciary committee is holding hearings about hush money to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.

*****

Conversion therapy leader, McKrae Game has announced he is gay.

*****

It is odd that we don’t hear more about women who are addicted to crime shows. It is such a thing.

*****

Weight Watchers is not WW. OK.

*****

North Carolina’s political maps have been deemed unconstitutional and must be redrawn.

*****

In Nashville, Rev. Dan Reehil has banned Harry Potter books at the St. Edwards School

*****

Why does Fallon imitate his guests all the time? He is always repeating what they do much like a child would.

*****

Scary Clown’s personal assistant, Madeline Westerhout is out.** John Bolton is out.

*****

$32.50 for a Trump key chain? What?

*****

SNL started off the season with a bang. Woody Harrelson hosted and ended by showing support for Greta Thunberg. The next hosts will be Phoebe Waller- Bridge, David harbor, Kristen Stewart and Eddie Murphy.

*****

A man was chopping down an old diseased tree when a cannonball fell out of it. This particular cannonball in a tree was near a home that was used as a hospital during the first battel of independence, Mo. in the Civil War.

*****

In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell said yes to treasury funds for an aluminum plant backed by a Russian oligarch. He said no to treasury funds for coal miner’s health care and pensions.

*****

Joe Biden pledges to take no fossil fuel money but then attended a fundraiser hosted by Andrew Goldman, founder of Natural Gas Company, Western LNG.** It’s so sad, Biden leads which makes it seem that the people who pay the least attention decide who is going to run this place.** He really has to stop saying, “Look”,  all the time.

*****

The Sept. 12 Dem debate was exciting, I loved the kudos that Biden and then others gave to Beto for his actions in Texas after the shootings.  Other than that Biden seemed to stumble a lot especially with his, “make sure the kids hear words” stuff. O’Rourke seems to have finally hit his stride with, “Hell yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15’s.”  I’m not even sure I agree but I loved so much that he had the guts to say it. I’m in! His only real problem was the color of his tie, it washed him out. Later, Briscoe Cain sent a tweet to Beto: My AR-15 is ready for you.** Yang, as usual was not given enough time but he did calm the others when they wanted to spar. He spoke so clearly and did not sidestep.  He had a great point with the U.S. not starting wars because we are not too good at rebuilding. Case in point: Puerto Rico. He also proposed $100 in democracy dollars so people can participate and give to the candidates they believe in. He seemed to tear up when talking about missing his son’s first day at school.  His salesmen pitch like giveaway was too much though. ** Buttigieg had a good idea with his ‘community rural visas’ to bring immigration everywhere.** Warren and Sanders were straight forward with no real surprises. Gotta thank Bernie for reminding us that he didn’t vote for Bush’s war or Trumps military spending bills and the crowd seemed to love him. Both at the debate and after (like Bari Weiss on Maher’s overtime), people keep calling Bernie ‘President’. Accidents? ** Harris was cool and calm but seemed a bit scripted.  She was the only one to really bring up Trump. ** Protestors had to be cleared as Biden started his final words. They were yelling, “We are DACA recipients. Our lives are at risk.” I’m sure it had to unnerve him as he began to talk of his sad life and his family. The late night comics said that he did a good job but I didn’t think so.** Klobachar told us a lot about herself. I think I learned the most about her. Castro, who I really liked a lot at the first debate, should just get out after this performance. ** Why was Rahm Emanuel there?** The Trump campaign sent a banner flying over Texas  Southern University. ** DeBlasio is out.

*****

By the end of September, Warren is #1 in New Hampshire. She is 2 points behind in the nation and Yang is #4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“We will no longer sell the AR-15 to the public.”- Colt   Thanks Beto!!  A simple candidate has made more positive change than Scary Clown. Stop being so scared Dems, change can happen!

*****

When Warren was on Colbert she said,” Why don’t we just quit now and do a selfie line?  The selfies are the most fun about this. Really? The night before, after her rally she selfied for 4 hours.

*****

Young people will propel the changes in the views of this country. The young demographic thinks differently on guns and climate and the young usually rule eventually. VOTE!!

*****

An intelligence official filed a formal whistle blower complaint against our ruthless Archie Bunker on steroids about his interaction with a foreign leader. It seems that it was a phone call with Ukraine’s Zelinski about the Biden’s but things are still unfolding.  Did he pressure people to work with Guilliani? The transcript is out and Pelosi has started a formal impeachment inquiry. When the WH sent talking points to their republican colleagues to try to calm the waters, they accidently sent them to the Dems too.  The WH also moved the info to a private server as we now know there is even more stuff there. Wouldn’t it be justice if the private server brought him down? ** Blame is flying everywhere. Trump has thrown Barr and Rudy and even Pence into the mess. Rudy tells us that he went to the Ukraine for the state department but they say no! He has been so rude and unhinged on the talk circuit. He has now been subpoened.** Joseph Maguire, acting director of National intelligence was only on the job a few days when he was informed of the whistleblower complaint. He was questioned all day in hearings and was very polite. Both sides could calm down on the snarky.** The Secretary of State is basically holding down 3 jobs.  The WH is quite under staffed  and there is talk that they may bring in outside people to handle the situation but Trump does not want that.  The campaign is where they will really fight, that is where all their money is. ** The ambassador to Ukraine has stepped down.**

*****

Now word is that Trump and Barr tried to get Australian PM Scott Morrison to look into those who were behind the Russia investigation. Pompeo is now getting pulled in too. It is really like the tin foil hat conspiracy guy down the street is running this country.

*****

Never compare your insides to someone else’s outside.  -Thank you Rob Lowe

*****

Hillary and Chelsea are headed out to promote their new book, Gutsy Women. It is impeccable timing but I am sure she is so sick of talking about the big blowhard elephant in the room. It really is time to hear from her again.

*****

Law and Order SVO started its 21st season with a little nod to Gunsmoke. What a great touch.

*****

Has the military really spent $200,000 on Trump’s Scottish resort?

*****

What’s up with the Cleveland Browns? They are winning.

*****

4 feet of snow in September in Montana?

*****

Seth Meyers went too far with his Rudy hate. I am a bit disturbed that Seth, Maher and Colbert get nearly as bold in the other direction as Fox News. Yes, these are evil people running the country and there is enough that they do without calling them out on things that are not your business.  About Rudy marrying a second cousin, Seth said “that’s awful.” Don’t pass your prejudice and judgement on these people like others do on color and religion et al. Cousins can marry, it’s not illegal and how might that make the children of cousins feel?  

*****

Pennsylvania  Senator Michael Folmer was arrested for child porn that was on his computer and has since resigned.  I am sure that if he went on Fox and said nice things about the fearless leader that he could get a job in the White House. It seems to be the way it is done, Fox is the audition.

*****

Robert C. O’Brien is the new National Security Advisor.

*****

The family of John Dillinger do not believe that he is in the grave. A body id buried in Indianapolis but they have asked for an exhumation.

*****

Millions came out on the 20th to ask for action on climate change. Go Greta Thunberg !! Some are spinning it that since she is autistic, she has been abused by her parents by being forced into her activism. I have seen no evidence this. She makes more sense than most leaders on the subject. Fox’s Michael Knowles even called her mentally ill and has since apologized. Thoughts? ** Central America is starving to death because of the impact of climate change. Reports from the Trump administration prove this and aid has been cut off which causes migration.

*****

Trump us jumping into bed with Saudi Arabia who has the 5th largest defense budget in the world. Troops are being sent to Iran.

*****

Doc Martin is here with its 9th season. The dog will fall in love. The Doc and Louisa’s relationship is doing well as their careers are shifting. It all just reminds me how much I want to live in Cornwall.

*****

The biggest grossing tours of all time as of this year are. 1. Ed Sheeran: The Divide 2. U: 360 3. Stones: A Bigger Bang 4. Guns N Roses: Not in this lifetime 5. Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams 6. Roger Waters: The Wall 7. AC/DC: Black Ice 8. Stones: No Filter 9. Bruno Mars: 24K 10. Madonna: Sticky and Sweet

*****

James Corden put Bill Maher in his place. Fat shaming is as wrong as any other. Bullying is never funny. The week after Maher’s rant, Michael Moore went on and had lost some weight. Hmmm.

*****

Hiking with Kevin has the best guests, there is really a cross section of all kinds of people.  A hike seems to break down defenses and the stories are great!!

*****

The North Dakota pipeline spill that was said to be 10 gallons worth was really millions of gallons.

*****

Almost Family is a show about a sperm donor. It is good to see Tim Hutton again.

*****

A woman gets a late night show.. check out A Little Late with Lilly Singh.

*****

Prodigal Son stars Michael Sheen as a serial killer called The Surgeon.

*****

Julian Fellowes will bring us The Gilded Age about 1885 New York.

*****

Some are freaking about all the official stays at Trump properties. The whole thing is a ridiculous mess. Mitch and the boys would be screaming to the heavens if this was a different President. The really sad part is that the crews that are just there to help POTUS and the VP say the stays are so costly that their expenses won’t even cover food. ** Did a Glasgow refueling stop finally tip off the house oversight committee to the far reach of all these expenditures?** They claim there is never anything to hide. Why do they always hide everything?

*****

Demi Moore has a new tell all titled Inside Out that seems full of revelations.

*****

Check out the saga of the Donald J. Trump state park in NY which is really nothing more than a tax write off full of overgrown land and abandoned old buildings.

*****

Check out the Art Bell vault.

*****

Scary Clown was going to meet with the Taliban at Camp David as 9/11 was upon us.** The Taliban says their doors re open.**Word is that the congressional inquiry into 9/11 has 28 redacted pages which showed evidence of the Saudi’s involvement in the attacks.

*****

Scottish courts ruled that Boris Johnson illegally suspended parliament.

*****

From his reaction, Colbert behaves like Letterman in that a guest should dress a certain way. Personally, I like Conan’s casual ways. Now, I like Colbert but he also seems to push people to talk politics when they don’t really want to. Move on!

*****

“We are in a very difficult situation at the moment, especially in the U.S., where all the environmental controls that were put in place, that were just about adequate have been rolled back by the current administration so much that they are being wiped out.” –Mick Jagger

*****

“When you’re 85 years old and you have children and grandchildren, you will leave them nothing if we don’t vote these people out of office in Brazil, in London, in Washington. They are ruining the world.” –Donald Sutherland

*****

Check out the new film, The Burnt Orange Heresy.

*****

Finn Wittrock, Paul Giamatti and Amy Irving will appear in A Mouthful of Air.

*****

“The lungs of the earth are in flames.” – Leo Dicaprio. The Amazon, the world’s most diverse eco system is getting no help from its own leaders and they won’t accept help from the G7. It’s all about building more crap to them. It is as if three fourths of the U.S. was on fire.** Wouldn’t it be a great idea if Jeff Bezos, who has taken flak for not paying taxes and for workers conditions would step up and pledge a huge sum to help save the rainforest that bears its name?? The world needs heroes.

*****

Better Call Saul has wrapped season 5.

*****

Hasbro has bought Death Row Records.

*****

The San Francisco board of supervisors has declared the NRA a terrorist organization.

*****

New SNL cast member Shane Gillis who was in hot water after racist remarks surfaced, has been let go before he ever hit the stage.

*****

Mike Pence claims he was bit by American Pharoah but his trainer is not too sure about that.

*****

Obama Netflix?

*****

Kieran Culkin and Jazz Charton had a little girl that they named Kinsey Sioux.

*****

Dollface on Hulu looks interesting.

*****

In sexual harassment news: Brett Kavanaugh has been hit with other allegations. Not all accusations are coming from the victims.** Placido Domingo has been accused by 20 women of unwanted advances.

*****

The71st Emmys have come and gone. There is a lot to celebrate in television right now with over 500 scripted original shows. Highlights include Norman Lear winning for Live in front of a studio audience: Norman Lears’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons to become the oldest winner ever at 97. Other winners were Leaving Neverland for best doc.  Glow won for stunt coordination. Succession won for their theme and for writing. RuPaul won for reality host and Drag Race won for show. Russian Doll took home cinematoghraphy. Carpool Karaoke : When Corden met McCartney:Live from Liverpool took home a statue. Peter Dinklage won for best supporting actor, Fleabag won big and Game of Thrones took home the top prize.  Other winners were Bill Hader, Patricia Arquette, Ben Whishaw, Billy Porter and Jodie Comer.  SNL with Adam Sandler and Last Week Tonight were winners.  I was so excited to see that Ozark won for Julia Garner and Bateman for directing. Succession won for directing.  I thought  the fashion went wrong with Amy Poehler, and Dascha Polanco. There was awesome fashion with Regina King, Viola Davis, Maya Rudolph, Bob Odenkirk, Billy Porter, Angela Bassett, Michelle Williams, Kerry Washington, Zendaya, Sarah Silverman, Catherine Zeta- Jones, Karamo Brown, Gwyneth Paltro, Catherine O’Hara, Emilia Clarke, Phoebe Waller Bridge and Niecy Nash.** The In memoriam was fucked up when they honored Andre Previn  but showed a very much alive Leonard Slacken. Let me run that part of the show, they are always messing that up. It may not matter much longer because the ratings were so low. It is already a shame that they don’t broadcast the daytime Emmy’s.

*****

R.I.P. Jim Leavelle, Carol Lynley, T Boone Pickens, Daniel Johnston, Robert Frank, Ric Ocasek, Eddie Money, Sander Vanocur , Peter Lindbergh, Robert Haunter, Jacques Chirac , Jose Jose , Bob Esty, Wayne Fitzgerald, Jessye Norman and Cokie Roberts.

[princeofny]

On Mike Francesa and his return to WFAN in New York

Mike Francesa’s pending return to WFAN in New York caught many by surprise. An onslaught of criticism has inundated him and the station for the ham-handed way this was handled, that Francesa had his extended “farewell tour” only to stage a return four months later, and he usurped his replacements with little regard to anyone other than himself.

Francesa benefited from the poor showing in the first ratings book from his replacements, “The Afternoon Drive” with Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott, and that the station was still reeling from the firing of morning co-host Craig Carton after his arrest for allegations of being involved in a Ponzi scheme.

This was a perfect storm. The decline in ratings was one thing. The content for the Afternoon Drive show and that they lost to none other than Michael Kay appears to have been the tipping point. For Francesa’s  hard core listeners – of which were and are many – a shrieking storm alert text message on a loop is preferable to listening to Kay. Since there is no other sports afternoon radio talk show in New York, those who cannot stand Kay and didn’t like the Afternoon Drive show were left lamenting WFAN’s inability to keep Francesa from leaving and Francesa for abandoning them.

For Carlin, Gray and Scott, the die was cast early in their brief tenure during the New York Giants’ quarterback controversy when Gray launched into an extended rant as to how an NFL team should develop a quarterback as if she somehow knew more about it than experienced NFL front office folk. No, it wasn’t a Francesa rant when he raved like a lunatic with his ample flesh jiggling and his voice and internal organs straining like he was about to have a volcanic eruption with Diet Coke exploding from every orifice, but it was worse. Francesa was so cocksure in his statements – no matter how idiotic they could be – that he pulled it off. Gray tried a calm, rational approach that failed the “Who are you to be saying this?” test. Francesa’s credibility on such a subjective topic as developing a quarterback is likely not any better than Gray’s, but he sold it better and hand waved away the credibility question like one of his callers.

Carlin tried too hard to generate controversy with outrageous statements.

Scott clearly lacked conviction as he spouted memorized lines about sports other than football.

It didn’t work. Like the nightmarish experiment of David Lee Roth replacing Howard Stern, there were two choices:

1) Continue moving forward, refuse to acknowledge a mistake and let the audience wither away to nothing.

2) Cut the ties and make a move that was financially motivated to be sure, but was also adhering to what the audience wants.

The purpose of a radio show is to generate listeners. The listeners are gauged by ratings and the ratings are an overriding factor in advertising rates. Losing listeners means lower advertising rates and lower revenue. After the loss of Carton and the station’s apparent rudderless foray into the unknown, they had no alternative. It’s fair to criticize the station for how it was done, but arguing that it was not a sound business decision is putting what’s deemed to be “fair” ahead of what’s necessary to effectively run a business.

Francesa is not innocent here. It would not be the essence of Francesa if he didn’t try to spin his return into something he was “forced” to do as he made bizarre allusions to a conspiracy to keep him off the air as if he’s the last line of defense against a cabal of shadowy powerbrokers for which his return sabotages a quest for universal domination.

Somewhere inside him, when getting past the rancid soda, clogged arteries, calcified chunks of ego and goo, presumably he knows this. And he doesn’t care.

To say that he couldn’t find a new radio home is difficult to believe. He certainly could have gone to Sirius or gotten a job on a network talking about the NFL and college basketball. The motivation to go back to his radio home could have been the money; it could have been the exposure; or it could have been that he finally got what he wanted from WFAN and his wife was sick of him being around the house micromanaging her all day when she’d grown accustomed to him being gone.

It doesn’t matter. His fans don’t care.

Those rolling their eyes at the extended farewell tour and his subsequent return are ignoring the reality that Francesa has functioned for his entire career – if not his entire life – thinking that he was worthy of feting and fealty just for existing; simply because he granted his listeners the generosity of sharing his wisdom with them. By that metric, he should have been idolized whether he was retiring or not.

As for show content, this was a no-brainer. Like him or not, there are few voices in the media who have that cachet of “I wonder what he/she will say about this?”

Francesa has it.

Wondering about how Aaron Boone is using his bullpen for the Yankees?

What’s wrong with Matt Harvey and what the Mets should do?

If there’s a real chance that Tom Brady will retire and that a rift between him and Bill Belichick will sabotage the Patriots?

Whom the Knicks should hire as head coach?

If the Giants will select Saquon Barkley, Bradley Chubb, a quarterback, or trade down with the second overall pick in the coming NFL draft?

What the New York Jets will do after having traded up to get the third pick?

Francesa will tell you. You’ll listen. You might agree. You might disagree. You might loathe his arrogance and refusal to admit to ever having been wrong about anything, ever. He’s heading back to WFAN because the station needs him and he needs the forum. How it was done is secondary and after all the conversation, nobody cares if they get the show they want. That show is Francesa’s show.

#Mike Francesa #WFAN #Mets #Yankees #MLB #NFL #NFL Draft

[njawaidofficial]

'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Frankie Shaw ('SMILF')

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/22/awards-chatter-podcast-frankie-shaw-smilf/

'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Frankie Shaw ('SMILF')

“We shot everything before the Harvey Weinstein article came out,” says Frankie Shaw, the showrunner, producer, director, writer and star of Showtime’s comedy series SMILF, as we sit down at The Hollywood Reporter to record an episode of THR‘s ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast and begin discussing the show’s recurring theme of sexual misconduct. SMILF debuted last November — its premiere attracted its network’s highest ratings for a new comedy in five years — and, little more than a month later, its 36-year-old mastermind received a best actress in a musical or comedy series Golden Globe nom. Shaw volunteers, “I think that we got so lucky with the timing. I think people really want to see something that feels real, and that’s something that we really try to do with the show.”

SMILF, which Shaw originally made as a nine-minute film (it won the top prize for shorts at 2015’s Sundance Film Festival), was largely inspired by her own experience as a single mom. She plays Bridgette, a young woman from working-class South Boston who was raised by a single mother and fantasized about a career as a pro basketball player, but instead found herself struggling just to stay afloat after becoming pregnant at 25 by a boyfriend with whom she was breaking up, and then raising their son. All of those descriptions also apply to Shaw — but, Shaw emphasizes, other aspects of the character’s life do not. “My life as a single mom wasn’t as messy,” she says with a chuckle.

* * *

LISTEN: You can hear the entire interview below [starting at 26:29], following a conversation between host Scott Feinberg and Michael O’Connell, THR‘s senior writer on TV, in which they preview the Emmy race.

Click here to access all of our 209 episodes, including conversations with Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Lorne Michaels, Gal Gadot, Eddie Murphy, Lady Gaga, Stephen Colbert, Jennifer Lawrence, Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Snoop Dogg, Elisabeth Moss, Jerry Seinfeld, Reese Witherspoon, Aaron Sorkin, Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Kate Winslet, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Aziz Ansari, Jessica Chastain, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Warren Beatty, Amy Schumer, Justin Timberlake, Natalie Portman, Tyler Perry, Judi Dench, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, J.J. Abrams, Emma Stone, Guillermo del Toro, Jennifer Lopez, Michael B. Jordan, Mandy Moore, Ryan Murphy, Alicia Vikander, Jimmy Kimmel, Greta Gerwig, Robert De Niro, Claire Foy, Bill Maher, Rachel Brosnahan, Michael Moore, Kris Jenner & RuPaul.

* * *

Shaw was born and initially raised in Southie, but, at a young age, relocated with her mother to nearby Brookline. Though hailing herself from a blue collar family, she was encouraged by a friend to apply to the upper-crust boarding school Milton Academy — and was admitted with a full scholarship. “It really did, I think, change the trajectory of my life,” she says. Life at Milton helped Shaw to broaden her horizons and led her to apply to Barnard College, to which she was also accepted, leading to her first-ever trip to New York. There, her eyes were opened by her professors (she began taking acting classes and wrote her first script as part of an independent study), her side job (she worked at fabled Kim’s Video in Harlem and also acted in short films directed by her boss) and the city itself. By the time she graduated, she “was dead-set” on pursuing a career as a professional actor in New York.

After landing a few small roles, including one on an episode of Law & Order, Shaw, at 23, met Mark Webber, a fellow actor. They entered into a relationship and, two years later, she was pregnant with their son, Isaac. 11 weeks into her pregnancy, she broke up with Webber and, against the advice of her family, moved across the country to Hollywood to pursue her dreams. But out west, with no contacts, no money and no permanent home or job, it proved a challenge to juggle her ambitions with motherhood. During Isaac’s first years, Shaw’s mother and Webber (with whom she remained on good terms) were often around to take care of him when she had an audition or a tutoring gig, but sometimes thereafter she had to bring him along with her — for instance, to an audition for Breaking Bad that didn’t ultimately pan out for her. “In hindsight, it seems so unlikely,” she says of her story. “I was so naive.”

Even after years of beating the pavement, Shaw’s acting career wasn’t quite taking off, and she was growing increasingly frustrated. She “pretended to be okay” with the part she landed on the raunchy sitcom Blue Mountain State, which ran on Spike from 2010 through 2011, even though it didn’t pay a living wage and conflicted with her strongly feminist values, because she hoped it would lead to something more. It did not. “After I did the show Blue Mountain State,” she recalls, “there was a year where, every three months, Isaac and I moved — he was three at the time — and I have just really crazy stories of the people that I lived with during that time. And so then I just started writing. I was like, ‘I have to at least use this material in some way.'”

It was only in May 2013, when she was hired to fill a last-minute opening in the cast of a series that was already picked up by ABC, Mixology, that she began earning enough to take a breath — and to finance a project of her own that she had begun developing, as something of a pipe-dream, two months earlier. “I owe everything to Mixology because [after landing that job] I had money to pay for my shorts,” she says, explaining, “I had written a script because I was so sick of being broke with this small child and I thought I could get staffed on a show and then I’d have a regular job.” The script was a “broad version” of what ultimately became SMILF — more of a sitcom. “It wasn’t supposed to be a short,” she notes. “It was really for my pitch [to be a TV writer]. I just realized, as I was editing, ‘Oh, this stands on its own. I might as well just submit it to Sundance.'” Not only did it get accepted, but it won the top prize for U.S. shorts. “I’d been there before as ‘the girlfriend’ so many times,” Shaw reflects. This time was different. “It was so empowering and it was so fulfilling to be there and be part of a community with something that I wrote and directed. I was like, ‘Oh, this feels so good.'”

Shaw next went off to shoot the first season of USA’s Mr. Robot, a drama series for which not even she had great expectations, but it debuted in June 2015 and proved a phenomenon, winning the best drama series Golden Globe Award just a few months later. Her one-season arc drew unprecedented heat for her acting career — but at a time when she was unavailable to capitalize on it. She had already sold the concept of SMILF, the series, to Showtime, and had to turn in the script for its pilot. At the suggestion of her friend Jill Soloway, the force behind Amazon’s Transparent, Shaw made it a requirement that she be able to direct some of SMILF‘s episodes if it was picked up — but there was no guarantee that it would be, and if it wasn’t, her moment of heat could easily have passed her by. In fact, Showtime chief David Nevins did not initially order it to series, but instead asked Shaw to write scripts for a few more episodes to give him a better sense of what he would be signing up for. She did, and then — after she made another short film that got into Sundance, 2016’s Too Legit — he told her that she had a show.

The first season of SMILF spans eight 30-minute episodes. Four were written or co-written by Shaw, who also directed three of them. (“Directing is my love,” she gushes, noting that she’s “thinking about” directing all eight episodes of the second season, which is being written now.) Every episode offers a darkly humorous look at Bridgette’s life, while also provoking deeper questions about sex, class, race and gender inequality. For instance, in the third episode, Bridgette is sexually assaulted — literally “grabbed by the pussy” — by a stranger, something that Shaw confirms was “inspired by our president, 100%.” The season finale, meanwhile, is all about childhood sexual abuse, and takes a clear swipe at alleged pedophile Woody Allen by opening with titles in the same font that Allen always uses, a quote from him (“The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to these things”) and then a cut to a little girl — young Bridgette — talking about being sexually abused by her father. “That was my proudest moment,” Shaw says, adding, “The desire is to explore themes and ideas that I’m passionate about.”

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[nhlabornews]

NATIONAL COSH Has Concerns Over New Nominee To Lead OSHA

National COSH on Nomination of Scott Mugno to Lead OSHA: Congress and Agency Must Focus on Terrible Toll of Workplace Deaths, Injuries and Illness 

Advocates identify key questions for nominee on silica, safe clean up and workplace violence prevention

SAN DIEGO: With the nomination of Scott Mugno, a vice president of FedEx, to head the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Congress and the agency must focus on the terrible toll of preventable injuries, illnesses and deaths that take place every year in U.S. workplaces, say leaders of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

“More than 4,500 workers die on the job every year and millions more are injured or become ill,” said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of National COSH. “It’s clear that nearly all of these painful events can be prevented by getting workers involved in identifying and preventing safety hazards, stopping retaliation against workers who come forward with safety complaints and rigorous enforcement against employers who ignore our safety laws and put workers at risk.”

“Senate review of this nomination must be rigorous and thorough, because so much is at stake for American workers and families,” said National COSH co-executive director Marcy Goldstein-Gelb. “The work of OSHA is about people. It’s about workers’ lives and limbs. It’s about reducing risks and hazards so everyone can go home safely at the end of his or her shift.”

National COSH identified several critical issues that deserve thorough review during the nomination process, including:

Industry groups have urged Congress to block a new OSHA standard limiting exposure to silica, a deadly dust that is present in workplaces with millions of American workers. The standard was issued after years of careful research, with thousands of pages of testimony from scientists and labor and industry stakeholders and is expected to save up to 700 lives a year. What is Mr. Mugno’s view of this life-saving regulation?

After disasters such as the World Trade Center in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, tens of thousands of workers were killed, became sick or were injured as a result of exposure to hazardous conditions and/or toxic substances during clean up efforts. What are Mr. Mugno’s ideas on how OSHA can prevent these safety failures from being repeated during ongoing recovery efforts from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria?

In January, OSHA began a rulemaking process to create a standard for workplace violence prevention for health care and social service workers. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that workplace violence for these workers increased by 64 percent between 2004 and 2015. What are Mr. Mugno’s plans for supporting this critical effort to assist health care and social service workers and employers in making their workplaces safer?

“We look forward to hearing from Mr. Mugno about how he will listen to workers’ concerns, enforce the law, and make our workplaces safer,” said Goldstein-Gelb.

NATIONAL COSH Has Concerns Over New Nominee To Lead OSHA was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

#National COSH #OSHA #Workplace Safety

[gossipnetwork-blog]

Matt Damon, Russell Crowe Reportedly Helped Cover Up Harvey Weinstein Sexual Abuse Allegations

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/matt-damon-russell-crowe-reportedly-helped-cover-up-harvey-weinstein-sexual-abuse-allegations/

Matt Damon, Russell Crowe Reportedly Helped Cover Up Harvey Weinstein Sexual Abuse Allegations

and have been dragged in the shocking against Harvey Weinstein. After the New York Times published a report exposing “Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein,” journalist Sharon Waxman claimed the paper cut her own investigate reporting in 2004 that would have exposed Weinstein.

Waxman, the founder of TheWrap, wrote that the Times killed her story under pressure from several Hollywood elites, including Matt Damon and Russell Crowe who worked with Weinstein on films like “Good Will Hunting”, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” and “Cinderella Man”.

Waxman claimed she was following Miramax’s Italian head Fabrizio Lombardo, who was allegedly hired “to take care of Weinstein’s women needs.” She said her article was edited to remove the more salacious details because of their influence and because Weinstein was a big advertiser in the Times.

On Monday, October 9, the Times’ current Executive Editor Dean Baquet responded to Waxman’s claims. He doubted that the Times “killed a story because of pressure from Harvey Weinstein, who was and is an advertiser.” He added, “The top two editors at the time, Bill Keller and Jill Abramson, say they have no recollection of being pressured over Ms. Waxman’s story.”

Instead, Baquet said that Waxman’s story “did not have anything near what was revealed in our story” and consisted largely of “an off-the-record account from one woman.”

Meanwhile, other stars have spoken up against Weinstein. told in a statement, “The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported. The intrepid women who raised their voices to expose this abuse are our heroes.”

She said she “didn’t know about these other offenses” and “if everybody knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would have neglected for decades to write about it.”

The veteran actress, who worked with The Weinstein Company for such films as “” and “”, added, “The behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar. Each brave voice that is raised, heard and credited by our watchdog media will ultimately change the game.”

told , “The fact that these women are starting to speak out about the gross misconduct of one of our most important and well regarded film producers, is incredibly brave and has been deeply shocking to hear. The way Harvey Weinstein has treated these vulnerable, talented young women is NOT the way women should ever EVER deem to be acceptable or commonplace in ANY workplace.”

“His behaviour is without question disgraceful and appalling and very, very wrong. I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumours, maybe we have all been naive. And it makes me so angry,” she continued. “There must be ‘no tolerance’ of this degrading, vile treatment of women in ANY workplace anywhere in the world.”

also weighed in on the controversy. “Yes. Im [sic] sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men? Perhaps many are afraid to look at their own behavior…..,” she tweeted in support of Weinstein’s abuse victims. She tweeted again, “This is heart shattering,” and added a link to Vulture’s story about Damon and Crowe’s alleged involvement in killing a New York Times story that would have exposed Weinstein over a decade ago.

One of the first celebrities who to the shocking allegations, has called for men in Hollywood to denounce Weinstein. She wrote in a New York Times published on Monday, “A liberal-leaning industry, we have been quick to condemn Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes and, yes, the president. We do not accept sexual abuse as ‘locker room talk.’ So why the deafening silence, particularly from the industry’s men, when one of our own is outed as having a nasty taste for humiliating and traumatizing women?”

“The reason I am zeroing in on the men is that they have the least to lose and the most power to shift the narrative, and are probably not dealing with the same level of collective and personal trauma around these allegations,” she added. “But here we are, days later, waiting for Mr. Weinstein’s most powerful collaborators to say something. Anything. It wouldn’t be just a gift to the women he has victimized, but a message to the women who are watching our industry closely. They need a signal that we do not approve of the abuse of power and hatred of women that is the driving force behind this kind of behavior.”

She concluded, “Hollywood’s silence, particularly that of men who worked closely with Mr. Weinstein, only reinforces the culture that keeps women from speaking. When we stay silent, we gag the victims. When we stay silent, we condone behavior that none of us could possibly believe is O.K.”

While actors and as well as directors James Gunn, Scott Derrickson and have spoken up against Weinstein, late-night talk show hosts mostly avoided the topic.

Meanwhile, fashion designer Donna Karan has defended Weinstein. She told on the red carpet of the CineFashion Film Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday that Weinstein was all to blame for the alleged sexual abuse. “It’s not Harvey Weinstein, you look at everything all over the world today and what [women] are asking by just presenting themselves the way they do,” she said. “I think [Weinstein] is being looked at right now as a symbol and not necessarily as him.”

She added, “To see it here in our own country is very difficult, but I also think, how do we display ourselves? How do we present ourselves as women? What are we asking? Are we asking for it by presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality? And what are we throwing out to our children today about how to dance and how to perform and what to wear? How much should they show?”

Weinstein has been from The Weinstein Company following the accusations. A studio insider says that the company is going to change its name following Weinstein’s termination. Weinstein’s name will also reportedly be stripped from several TV projects.

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