#WILLIAM BROKE EVERYTHING AS EPICALLY AS POSSIBLE

[petesaporta]

LFJDKSOSKSKJDDJXJS

#WILLIAM BROKE EVERYTHING AS EPICALLY AS POSSIBLE #GABE IS DYING IN THE BACKGROUND #cobra starship #gabe saporta #midtown #bill beckett #bilvy #the academy is... #william beckett #gabilliam

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige

“The thing I love about being an actor is to fully work with someone and try so hard to be at every level with them, chasing whatever it is you need or want from them.”

  GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 008 Magazine Scans > 2021 > Backstage (August 19)

Backstage: Elizabeth Olsen grins widely over video chat when recalling many such moments on set with her co-stars. Yet, she can’t bring herself to divorce such a lofty vision of film acting from the technical multitasking it requires. The camera sees all.

“But then you move your hair, and you’re in your brain, like: OK, remember that! Because I don’t want to edit myself out of a shot. I know some actors are like, ‘Continuity, shmontinuity!’ But the good thing about continuity is, if you remember it, you’re actually providing yourself with more options for the edit.”

That need to balance being both inside the scene and outside of it, fully living it and yet constantly visualizing it on a screen, feels particularly apt in light of Olsen’s most recent project, “WandaVision.”

The mysteries at the heart of the show grow with every episode, each fast-forwarding to a different decade: Could this 1950s, black-and-white, “filmed in front of a studio audience” newlyweds bit be a grief-stricken dream? Might this ’70s spoof be a powerful spell gone awry? Could this meta take on mockumentary comedies be proof that the multiverse is finally coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The series’ structure, which branches out to include government agents intent on finding out why Westview has seemingly disappeared, calls for the entire cast to play with a mix of genres, balancing a shape-shifting tone that culminates in an epic, MCU-style conclusion. What’s key—and why the show struck a chord with audiences during its nine-episode run—is the miniseries’ commitment to grounding its initial kooky setups and its later special effects-driven spectacle in heartbreaking emotional truths. It’s no small feat, though it’s one that can often be taken for granted.

“I was thinking how hard it would have been to have shot the first ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” Olsen muses. “Like, you’re putting all these actors [into the frame] later and at all these different levels. All the eyelines are completely unnatural. And yet the performances are fantastic! And technically, they are so hard. People forget sometimes that these things are really technically hard to shoot. And if you are moved by their performance, that took a lot of multitasking.”

As someone who has learned plenty about harnesses, wirework, fight choreography, and green screens (she’s starred in four Marvel movies, including the box office megahit “Avengers: Endgame,” after all), Olsen knows how hard it can be to wrap one’s brain around the work needed to pull off those big, splashy scenes.

“​​If you think about it, it’s, like, the biggest stakes in the entire world—every time. And that feels silly to act over and over again, especially when people are in silly costumes and the love of your life is purple and sparkly, and every time you kiss them, you have to worry about getting it on your hands. Those things are ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. So there is a part of your brain that has to shovel that away and just look into someone’s eyeballs—and sometimes, they don’t even have eyeballs!”

The ability to spend so much time with Wanda, albeit in the guise of sitcom parodies, was a welcome opportunity for Olsen. Not only did it allow the actor to really wrestle with the traumatic backstory that has long defined the character in the MCU, but having the chance to calibrate a performance that functions on so many different levels was a thrilling challenge.

“It was such an amazing work experience,” she says. “Kathryn [Hahn] uses the word ‘profound’—which is so sweet, because it is Marvel, and people, you know, don’t think of those experiences as profound when they watch them. But it really was such a special crew that [director] Matt Shakman and [creator] Jac Schaeffer created. It was a really healthy working environment.”

Related‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance ‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance Considering that the miniseries spans several sitcom iterations, various layers of televisual reality, and a number of character reveals that needed to feel truthful and impactful in equal measure, Shakman’s decision to work closely with his actors ahead of shooting was key.

“We truly had a gorgeous amount of time together before we started filming,” Olsen remembers. “Our goal was—which is controversial in TV land—that if you wanted to change [anything], like dialogue in a scene, you had to give those notes a week before we even got there. Because sometimes you get to set, and someone had a brilliant idea while they were sleeping, and you’re like, ‘We don’t have an hour to talk about this. We have seven pages to shoot.’ And so, we were all on the same page with one another, knowing what we were shooting ahead of time.

“Matt just treated us like a troupe of actors who were about to do some regional theater shit,” she adds with a smile.

That spirit of camaraderie was, not coincidentally, at the heart of Olsen’s breakout project, Sean Durkin’s 2011 indie sensation “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” As an introduction to the process of filmmaking to a young stage-trained actor, Durkin’s quietly devastating drama was a dream—and an invaluable learning opportunity.

“It was truly just a bunch of people who loved the script, who just were doing the work. I didn’t understand lenses, so I just did the same thing all the time. I never knew if the camera would be on me or not. There was just so much purity in that experience, and you only have that once.”

The film announced Olsen as a talent to watch: a keen-eyed performer capable of deploying a stilted physicality and clipped delivery, which she used to conjure up a wounded girl learning how to shake off her time spent in a cult in upstate New York. But Olsen admits that it took her a while to figure out how to navigate her career choices afterward. In the years following “Martha,” she felt compelled to try on everything: a horror flick here, a high-profile remake there, a period piece here, an action movie there. It wasn’t until she starred in neo-Western thriller “Wind River” (alongside fellow Marvel regular Jeremy Renner) and the dark comedy “Ingrid Goes West” (opposite a deliciously deranged Aubrey Plaza) that Olsen found her groove.

“It was at that point, when I was five years into working, where I was like, Ah, I know how I want it. I know what I need from these people—from who’s involved, from producers, from directors, from the character, from the script—in order to trust that it’s going to be a fruitful experience.”

As Olsen looks back on her first decade as a working actor, she points out how far removed she is from that young girl who broke out in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

“I feel like a totally different person. I don’t know if everyone who’s in their early 30s feels like their early 20s self is a totally different human. But when I think about that version of myself, it feels like a long time ago; there’s a lot learned in a decade.”

Those early years were marked by a self-effacing humility that often led Olsen to defer to others when it came to key decisions about the characters she was playing. But she now feels emboldened to not only stand up for herself and her choices but for others on her sets as well.

“[Facebook Watch series] ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ I got to produce, and I really found my voice in a collaborative leadership way. And with ‘WandaVision,’ Paul [Bettany] and I really took on that feeling, as well—especially since we were introducing new characters to Marvel and wanted [those actors] to feel protected and helped,” she says. “They could ask questions and make sure they felt like they had all the things they needed because sometimes you don’t even know what you need to ask.”

It’s a lesson she learned working with filmmaker Marc Abraham on the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light,” and she’s carried it with her ever since. “I really want it to feel like we’re all in this together, as a team,” Olsen says. “That was part of ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ and it was part of ‘WandaVision,’ and I hope to continue that kind of energy because those have been some of the healthiest work experiences I’ve had.”

If Olsen sounds particularly zealous about the importance of a comfortable, working set, it is because she’s well aware that therein lies an integral part of the work and the process. As an actor, she wants to feel protected and nurtured by those around her, whether she’s reacting to a telling, quiet line of dialogue about grief or donning her iconic Scarlet Witch outfit during a magic-filled mid-air action sequence.

“Sometimes you’re going to be foolish, you know? And [you need to] feel brave to be foolish. Sometimes people feel embarrassed on set and snap. But if you’re in a place where people feel like they’re allowed to be an idiot,” she says, “you’re going to feel better about being an idiot.”

This story originally appeared in the Aug. 19 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness #Marvel #MCU #Candy Montgomery #Love and Death #Avengers Endgame

[youngboy-oldmind]

ALBUM REVIEW: Late Registration


“So they asked me…Why you call it Late Registration Ye?/Cause we taking these motherf***ers back to school!”

Hip-hop trail blazer and Chicago legend Mr. Kanye West follows up his status-establishing album The College Dropout with a sophomore project that proves he’s far from a one hit wonder, relishing in his own league of musical production, lyricism, and soul touching artistry.

Overall Thoughts

I mentioned in an earlier post that Late Registration is my favorite album by Kanye, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I can endlessly rave about it. In 70 minutes, Late Registration(LR) utilizes the perfect number of skits, Grade-A featured verses from Jay-Z, Nas, Lupe, Common, Paul Wall, Cam’Ron, and Consequence, and a stellar instrumentation that combines old-school soul samples and flawless string orchestration. It also doesn’t hurt that film score composer and record producer Jon Brion helped produce some of the best tracks (Gold Digger, Roses, We Major).

Kanye elevated his pen game on this 2005 classic record. Before he made albums, he was already a solid writer and could definitely put together a verse. On LR, he exceeded to a new level, talking about himself, success, survival, while matching the prophetic vibe of “Jesus Walks” on tracks like “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”, “Roses”, and “Crack Music”. On top of these commentary tracks, he produced the tear-jerking track “Hey Mama”, my favorite dedication-to-mother songs in hip hop period.

I should also acknowledge the skits in LR. Through 4 clips, a story unfolds in a fraternity: Broke Phi Broke. In the four skits, they chant their various financial difficulties and struggles with a sense of pride. And in the final skit, we see Kanye get kicked out of the fraternity for being caught having new shoes in his closet. This is not only hilarious, but a clever commentary on his progress/success, and separation from the common plight and status of black men. Also, the topic of the skits excellently transition to the next song. Skit #1 talks about not having gas money, and the next song is “Drive Slow”; Skit #2 just repeats “broke, broke, broke, broke”, and the next two songs are “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” and “We Major”, both thematically about money and success. Skit #3 ends with a joke about not affording Christmas trees and the mother pretending to be one, and the next song is “Hey Mama”. And Skit #4 ends with Kanye being removed from the frat, and the next track is “Gone”. Expert skit placing on his part.

LR is a near perfect album; The “Empire Strikes Back” of hip hop sequels. This project has a song for any mood and definitely makes my top 10 favorite albums.

Album Breakdown

LR can be broken down into five section, each with their own distinct topics and tones, and separated by the four skits. These sections are:

Section 1: The Hits (Wake Up Mr. West) - Heard ‘Em Say, Touch The Sky, Gold Digger Section 2: Introspection (Skit #1) - Drive Slow, My Way Home, Crack Music, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction Section 3: Claim to Success (Skit #2) - Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix), We Major Section 4: Family Business (Skit #3) - Hey Mama, Celebration Section 5: Late Departure (Skit #4) - Gone, Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Bonus), Late

Section 1- The Hits

This section kicks off the album with bang after bang after bang. West and Adam Levine team up on the opening track “Heard Em Say” to lay down two themes of the album: Everything happens for a reason and nothing in life is guaranteed. He says several times “Nothing’s ever promised tomorrow today” accompanied by Levine’s harmonies that echo simultaneous sadness and hope. West also talks about some of the plagues African Americans, including low wages, AIDS, police harassment, admiration of drug dealers, and the pursuit of money and success. While talking about these inherently depressing topics, there’s a twang of hope and faith; there’s an energy of overcoming those obstacles and maintaining the belief that things will turn out alright. 

In a 180 degree flip, the next track “Touch The Sky” completely contrasts the mellow mood of “Heard ‘Em Say”. With exhilarating trumpets sampled from Curtis Mayfield, West and Lupe bring an energy of celebrating success; reminiscing on the where they were before they got to the height they are now. A year before his debut classic Food and Liquor, Lupe spits one of the best verses on the album; matching Kanye’s energy while outshining him with his lyricism.

“Gold Digger”, possibly his most famous song, needs no introduction. This iconic track sampling Ray Charles’ I Got a Woman” is known by deep cut hip hop fans and mainstream fans alike. Jamie Foxx’s vocals on the chorus yelling “I Gotta Leave!” and Kanye’s verses about this girl who only wants him for his money makes an entertaining story but also indicates his new found status. He went from songs about not having money, to songs about dealing with a woman who only want him for his money. Talk about a bragging.

Section 2- Introspection

After two bop tracks we get “Drive Slow”, a track more mellow and laid back than the intro. Through a multitude of car metaphors, Kanye and Paul Wall talk about taking things slow, not to rush things, whether its spending money or sleeping with girls. Generally a middle of the road song for me. Nothing mind blowing but definitely easy to listen to.

In “My Way Home” we get a short, 16-line verse from Chicago all-time great Common, who talks about the struggles of the hood being home. This contrasts the hopeful tone on “Heard Em Say”, introducing a tone of relief he’s out that situation and he’s not going back. Fun fact: this is actually Common’s song that he decided not to add to his album Go!, which is why it just sounds like Common’s song instead of a Kanye song featuring Common. The slowed down samples vocals create a groove that almost makes you forget this is a sad song.

“Crack Music”, one of my favorites, paints an analogy to crack addiction and hip hop, hence the title. The Game brings a unique aggressiveness to the hook, which pairs well with the choir on chorus. However, the final leg of the song introduces an unsettledness: shakiness in the vocals, music freezes, and Malik Yusef delivers a poem that still gives me goosebumps to this day. The voice of legendary Charlie Wilson harmonizes perfectly with the chorus as well.

Next up we hear “Roses”, another instrumental masterpiece with Patti Labelle’s vocals and a Bill Wither’s sample on the chorus. West talks about the hospitalization of his Grandmother and the tightness/unity of his family. I love the quietness that plays during the verses and then the kick of the drums in the chorus. That excellently helps emphasize the intimacy of the situation.

Unfortunately, this leads into “Bring Me Down”, which is my least favorite track. Brandy’s vocals and Jon Brion’s instrumental are perfect, but it seems wasted on West’s verse. It’s disappointing to hear the epic strings and orchestration accompanied by Kanye saying weak lines like “There’ll always be haters, that’s the way it is/Hater n*****s marry hater b**ches and have hater kids” and “Yo girl don’t like me, how long has she been gay/Spanish girls say ‘Yo, no hablo ingles’”. The track honestly would’ve been better as an interlude with just Bandy’s singing, similar to “My Way Home” with just Common. But, the addition of West’s lyrics actually makes the song weaker. 

Luckily, the project picks up with “Addiction”. However, I’ll admit I’m not a fan of lyrically. This isn’t a track where West is trying to demonstrate any lyrical expertise, so I’m not expecting a load of double entendres and layered meanings and mind-blowing messages. However, even for a surface level track, hearing him fake-stutter became a little annoying. But I like the topic of the song; him being addicted to all three “money, girls, and weed”. Although the topic and lyricism isn’t unique, it was at least entertaining.

Section 3- Claim to Success

Following the second skit, we get “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)” with hall of fame rapper Jay-Z. This track is interesting because Kanye and Jay don’t discuss the same topic. Kanye talks about his conflict with buying diamonds, knowing they’re Blood Diamonds and his purchase of them could result in the killing of Africans, of whom he’s a descendant. On the flip side, Jay talks about his label and his success. Although Kanye’s verse has more substance, I think Jay’s verse was better. There’s one particular set of lines I’ve always loved

“This ain’t no tall order, this is nothing to me/ Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week/I could do this in my sleep/ I sold kilos of coke, I’m guessing I can sell CDs/ I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man /Let me handle my business, damn”

Then we get the top tier track “We Major”, which is the album’s best collaboration up to this point. Jon Brion shines again with the instrumental, creating this epic atmosphere of accomplishments. Really Doe and Tony Williams illuminate the chorus with the vocals, while Kanye comes through with poeticism he hadn’t reached since “Heard ‘Em Say”. I want to add a quote of my favorite part of his verse, but it would be half the verse. And to top that, Nas comes through with an even STRONGER verse, a contender for the best verse on the album, competing with Lupe on “Touch the Sky” and Common on “My Way Home”. And to top THAT off, the last few minutes are basically Jon Brion, Warryn Campbell, and Tony Williams showing off their expertise while Kanye shouts them out, along with The Roc and his label, G.O.O.D. Music. His vocals during this part are echoed so it feels like the listener is at a concert. You could have headphones on in a quiet room and feel like you’re soaring. Easily a top 10 song in West’s career.

Section 4- Family Business

After the height of Diamonds From Sierra Leone and We Major, the record dies down and returns to mellowness, continuing with the heart-string-pulling “Hey Mama”. Here, we get West’s lyricism reminiscent of the College Dropout style. This definitely was a poem or song he’d written prior to this project. As I said earlier, one of my favorite mother-dedicating songs in all of hip hop.

The next song, “Celebration”, is one of my favorites on the album. The lyrics aren’t impressive; West goofily slant rhymes “wild” and “endowed” at one point. He just discusses drinking, girls, and the accidental birth of his kid through a busted condom. However, I believe it’s the placement of the song on the record that makes me love it so much. After hearing the epic-ness of songs like “Touch The Sky”, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”, and “We Major”, this song feels like an after party. An intimate gathering that allows West and the listener to reflect a little, over another brilliant composition by Jon Brion. And while the verses are nothing to look twice at, the chorus is serene. West’s harmonization with himself improves his voice. And at barely past 3 minutes, the song is short enough where the sub-par lyrics aren’t too distracting.

Section 5- Late Departure

When I first began writing back in middle school, I used to rap to the instrumental for “Gone”. This song is foundational to my hip hop appreciation and extremely underrated. To start, the Otis Redding sample is perfect. Jon Brion again combines his expertise with West to create a beat that evolves as it progresses, increasing in complexity and instrumentation. The verses improve with song as well, Kanye delivering the first and last, while Cam’ron and Consequence deliver excellent verses in the middle. Between Consequence’s verse and Kanye’s final verse, we hear the beat breakdown and evolve even more, building up to a final verse that leaves the listener speechless. West reflects about a multitude topics: being so innovative that his labels won’t approve his ideas, wanting to leave public light, his come up from being broke just wanting to upgrade from his “cheap ass sofa”, leaving his hometown that had nothing to offer him, inspiring new artists, never selling out, and ultimately showing he’s no longer on-call for anybody to use him. He’s established enough to choose his company and produce as he pleases. This is a perfect culmination of the themes throughout the album, and is the perfect closer.

Now, I say that with hesitation because technically there are two more songs on the record: The original “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” without Jay-Z, and “Late”. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” is an excellent track. Instead of talking about Blood Diamonds or guilt, West talks about his writing process, feeling snubbed from awards, and ultimately himself. Definitely some of his strongest pen game on the album.

“Late” contrasts the previous song with a very calm feeling, possessing a lullaby quality. Here, he drives home the point that he’s going to be late with things he does, tying together the album title and the context of the album’s release, which was released months late. However, the lateness definitely worth the wait. It’s a toss-up between Gone and Late for which I prefer as the better closer. Gone is an epic reflection on the album’s theme and messages, and displays some of the best lyricism on the album. However, Late is a surreal, warm ending that feels like more of a winding-down end. If I HAD to choose, I’d say “Gone”. Because while both are great, I can’t imagine the project without “Gone”, whereas I could see it without “Late”.

Top 3 Songs:

1) Gone 2) We Major 3) Hey Mama

Overall Grade: A

#music review #album review #kanye west #hip hop review #hip-hop

[impala-dreamer]

The Chosen: Turning Point

~After Kelly pushed her away, Beka was adrift, working and living alone until she met the men who would change her life forever.~

Beka, Nicholas (OMC), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Benny,

3,692 Words

Warnings: Action! Adventure! Blood! Death! Angst! Show level everything.

A/N: This is a flashback chapter that may be read at any time after Rebekah’s Story. Chapter written by @impala-dreamer

The Chosen Series Masterlist ~  Feedback is Gold ~ Impala-Dreamer’s Masterlist ~ Become A Patreon

Leaving Kelly was the hardest thing Beka had ever done.

Sure, there were harder things to do physically- she’d once hiked up a mountain with one hand and a machete in the other, but mentally, Beka wasn’t sure she’d ever pull up from the loss.

Kelly had been a constant in her life for so long, and romantic love aside, Beka’s feelings went deep. Kelly was her best friend, her sister, her everything. With her gone, there was just a hole.

Anger came and went, the disappointment and heartache from Kelly’s violent rejections stung, but Beka existed mostly in a state of stoic panic. Her loneliness was crippling, and panic seeped through every crack in her psyche until some nights she could do little more than sit and stare at the motel walls as her leg bounced uncontrollably.  

She kept working, not knowing what else to do, but stuck to smaller cases. A few hauntings in the Northwest, a cursed object up near Vancouver, little things that could be sorted quickly and alone.

Keeping busy was essential. If she stopped for too long, found herself idle in between cases, Kelly’s voice in her head became too loud to bear.

“You should have been there!”

Guilt is powerful, heavy. It sits on your chest like a lead apron, slowly crushing into your ribs until it’s almost a comforting weight. It hurt, but Beka would feel lost without the pressure.

Luckily, Kelly was always there to remind her.

“You should have come with us!”

She kept tabs on her as best she could. With her ear to the ground, she heard of the little blonde hunter with the knives who was making a mess of the Southwest. But that’s as far as Beka went. If Kelly wanted her, she would have gone in a second, but there was no way she’d open the door first.

Some months later, Beka ran into a hunter named Nicholas. He was older, more experienced, with gray flecks in his beard and white at his temples. He had tiny brown eyes and a hooked nose, and his voice was thin and wispy.

Nicholas had been working a case in Portland when he’d caught wind of a small Salt and Burn possibility a few towns over. While traipsing through a muddy cemetery, he and Beka had, quite literally, bumped into each other.

He would joke later on to anyone who’d listen that Beka had been so taken with him the first time they met, that he his charm had “knocked her right on her ass”. Beka would always joke later, with an epic eye roll, that she should have stayed down in the mud.

Nicholas had lost his wife and daughter a few years prior, and with Beka newly abandoned herself, it seemed only fitting that the two should quell their loneliness together. Strictly friends, they roamed the countryside together, taking the backroads in Nicholas’s beat up blue Ford Pickup, chopping down whatever monster crossed their path.

They made a good team. Neither had anything to lose but each other, and it worked out well. Beka could have done without Nicholas’s terrible anecdotes and predilection for Hank Williams, but other than that, things were going rather well.  

In early June, the duo were passing through the very tip of Idaho, when they stumbled upon some local reports of exsanguinated bodies.

Nicholas perked up at the idea, but Beka, who hadn’t been close to a vampire in almost a year, hesitated.

“It’s not really our thing,” she mumbled with a shrug.

Nicholas tipped his head in her direction but kept his eyes on the highway. “It’ll be a quick in and out. Come on, Bek.”

She chewed her lip as panic began to rise. “I don’t know. I’m not really prepared for that. And we just finished up in Waterton. Can’t we have a little break?”

“It’ll be fun, trust me,” he urged, cracking a charming smile. “We’ll just go check it out, and if you still don’t feel right about it, we’ll move on.”

Beka toyed with her seatbelt, running her thumb in the fabric’s groove. “You promise?”

He looked over then, dark eyes honest and caring. “I promise. You get a queasy feeling and we bounce.”

A deep breath calmed her slightly, and Beka nodded in agreement. “OK.”

“OK!” Nicholas slapped the wheel and sat up straight, looking for the next exit. “This’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Come on, we’re gonna get our hands dirty for a bit, knock some heads off; it’ll be great.” He took a deep breath and rolled down his window to let the breeze carry him away. “Besides, what could go wrong?”

Beka didn’t like to say “I told you so”, but she was right so often that it was hard not to. It was almost as if she had some kind of ESP, but in the end, she was pretty sure it was just extreme paranoia and a lucky streak.

“Everything is wrong!” she screamed, heavy rain pelting her face as they ran from the ranch house. Mud was everywhere, and as the rain continued, the pastures flooded, the ground unable to keep up with the deluge.

“You don’t have to keep telling me,” Nicholas barked back. “I know!” He clutched his shoulder, dislocated and hanging funny to the side.

The ranch had been packed full with more vampires than either had ever seen in one place. Beka counted thirteen bloodsuckers before they were discovered and attacked. They hadn’t stood a chance.

Nicholas managed to take down two by himself before being flung into a wall, and Beka had one down at her feet when she was grabbed from behind and bitten at the nape of her neck. When the room began to spin, monster hands were ripped from her body and she spun to see a tall man with green eyes take down her attacker.

“Run,” he told her, his voice deep and firm. “Go!”

Beka had but a moment to register what was happening. She could feel the blood trickling down her spine, the panic rising in her chest, but she couldn’t move. Her feet were planted, stuck.

A vamp came at her, and Beka snapped back to life, swinging her blade as hard as she could, and getting it stuck halfway between the monster’s neck and victory. He raged, shrieking and clawing at her as she tried to free her machete, but she wasn’t strong enough.

“Fucking fuck!”

Green eyes came to her aid once again, and Beka’s brain sparked with recognition. “Hey- do I know-”

“What part of run was unclear?” he snapped. “Go! We got this!”

“We?” Beka looked over his shoulder to see two men hacking away at vampires. One was extremely tall and the other wore a cute black hat. “Where did you guys come from?”

Green eyes dodged a fist and chopped off a head. “Lady, I don’t have time for a meet and greet,” he said. “Either run or start swinging.”

So she swung.

Thirteen turned into twenty, and they just kept coming. It was like a vamp convention, nothing any of them had seen before.

Beka managed to take down five before being jumped again, this time taking a set of fangs to the forearm. Her scream rang through the house, and the tallest man came to her rescue.

“You OK?” he asked, dipping his head to catch her gaze.

Beka wobbled a bit on her feet, dizziness taking over for a moment. “Yeah.”

Hazel eyes were kind when she looked up and the man smiled. “Good. What’s your name?”

Lightning lit the windows and the rain began to fall, smacking into the glass with heavy fists.

“Beka,” she answered quickly. “Who are you guys?”

“My name’s Sam Winchester,” he said with a smile. “That’s my brot- Shit!”

Thunder rolled over the roof as Sam was sent rolling across the floor. A team of bloodsuckers lunged for Beka, but she was pulled away at the last second by a warm, familiar hand.

“We need to go.”

Nicholas’ voice was strong in her ear, and she nodded silently, her eyes locked to the man in the hat who was throwing punches all around him. He looked towards her for a second and Beka could see a row of fangs hidden behind red lips.

“Vamps fighting vamps,” she muttered in a stunned whisper. “Now I’ve seen it all.”

She yelped as Nicholas tugged on her wounded arm, and her feet moved again.

They ran from the house, rain pulling away some of the blood and muck from their faces. The storm was loud, the sky aglow with electricity and moonlight.

She felt like a coward for leaving, but Nicholas was hurt, she was losing blood by the second, and they were tremendously outnumbered. It had all been a mistake, a huge fuck up, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

“Who were those guys?” Nicholas yelled over the thunder.

“You’re not gonna believe it,” she called back, jumping through the mud. “But we just got our asses saved by the fucking Winchesters.”

Nicholas skidded to a halt, his eyes wide with amazement. “Are you serious-” His word ended with a scream as a hand clawed through his already wounded shoulder. Nicholas turned but too late, as a husky vamp took hold and ripped clean through his jugular.

Beka froze with panic, her heart stopping as she watched her companion crumble. Nicholas struggled for a few precious seconds before going still, his arms dropping, knees giving up. When the vampire had quenched his thirst, he let the corpse go, and Nicholas landed in the mud, just as Beka had when they first met.

His brown eyes were wide and the rain came down in sheets upon him. He moved no more.

“You’re next, sweetpea.”

The vampire stepped clean over Nicholas’ body, his massive hands stretched out to reach for Beka. She turned and pushed off her right foot, breaking into a run. The ground was too soft, too wet, and she stumbled badly, only making it a few yards before the monster had her by the collar.

“Nice try,” he growled, breath hot on her cheek, stinking of copper.

When her skin broke, it was with a tiny pinch, almost no worse than getting a flu shot. The vampire was tender in a way, he could have ripped her throat open as he did with Nicholas, but he took his time, savoring her taste, letting his hands wander greedily down her heaving chest.

Beka struggled at first, but the rain was soothing and her head soon began to swim. All in all, not a terrible way to die. She’d gone out with a fight, a badass with a blade, a warrior. Well, a close copy of one anyway. Besides, what did she have left to live for. Nicholas was gone, Kelly hated her… No, letting go wouldn’t be too bad right about now.

She couldn’t be sure what had happened, but she ended up face down in the mud, her ankle badly twisted and one arm surely broken, locked awkwardly behind her back. Gentle hands picked her up, and the rain was blocked as Sam looked down into her face, brushing back the rain soaked hair from her muddy cheek.

“Hey, hey, Beka,” he called to her, patting her face, but she couldn’t focus. Her eyes rolled wildly as Heaven called to her. “Hey, no no. Stay with me.”

“Sam.” Dean dropped a hand to his brother’s shoulder and sighed. “She’s gone.”

“No. Not yet.” Sam pressed his big hand to Beka’s throat, stopping the thin trickle of blood, but it wasn’t enough. He could feel her pulse weakening with each struggling heartbeat. “We have to save her.”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s gone, man. I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do.”

Sam looked up frantically and grit his teeth. “We have to help her!”

“Why? You don’t even know her!” Dean spun away, his hands up and useless. Ever since Sam had started the Trials, he’d been acting insane, and this was just another side effect, Dean was sure.  

Benny placed a calming hand on Dean’s arm and stepped forward. “Maybe I can help,” he said slowly, turning Sam’s eyes to him.

“What? How?”

Carefully, Benny knelt down beside Beka’s head and pulled the sleeve of his shirt back, exposing his wrist. He lifted his arm to his lips, but paused as Sam shouted.

“No! You can’t do that,” he said harshly. “She’ll turn!”

“She’ll also be healed,” Benny countered. “And alive.”

Sam shook his head and tried to pull Beka away, shielding her from Benny. She whimpered in her limbo state, lips turning a pale shade of pink as the last dregs of life ran through Sam’s fingers. “She’ll be a monster.”

Benny struggled to ignore Sam’s disrespect, clenching his jaw and huffing slightly. “Yes, well, then you can use your fancy cure on her, and all will be well.”

“It doesn’t always work!”

“Then she dies. Or she dies now. Your choice, Cher.”

The rain had subsided a bit by the time they reached the motel.

Much to Dean’s annoyance, Sam refused to leave Beka’s side, carrying her alone into the room and then arranging her on the farthest bed. She was out cold, thankfully, but her body was convulsing, twisting painfully as the change began to take hold. She cried out in torment a few times and Sam’s brow was knit with concern. He placed a soothing hand on her forehead each time and she settled, magically lulled by his touch.

“Why are you so obsessed with this chick?” Dean asked as he mashed the cure ingredients together. He wasn’t upset or judgemental anymore, simply curious.

Sam shrugged and looked back over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I just know we need to help her.”

“This something to do with the… purifying your soul crap?” He asked, waving the pestle around.

“Maybe?”

Another cry from the bed turned Sam back to his charge, and Beka’s eyes flew open as a torrent of pain twisted her gut. She sat up with a scream and doubled over, Sam moving to sit on the bed next to her, rubbing her back as she cringed.

“It’s OK,” he whispered, long fingers curling around her shoulder.

“What the fuck!” Beka pushed him off and scampered back against the headboard, brown eyes huge and crazed. “Where the fuck am I?” Her frame shook and her words were wavy.

Sam stood up and held up his hands in surrender. “It’s OK. I’m- we met back at the ranch. Remember? I’m Sam, that’s my brother Dean-”

Beka’s eyes narrowed as she looked from brother to brother, squinting in the dim light. Her glasses were filthy and her vision blurred. “Dean...Winchester?”

Dean’s head popped up at the curious tone. “Have we met?”

“You-you were at the- school and- fuck!” A lightning bolt of pain flashed down her spine, arching her back and sending her head into the wall behind her. “What did you do to me!”

“You were turned,” Dean said loudly and matter of factly as he finished up the spell.

Beka’s jaw dropped and she exhaled slowly, the shock washing over her. “Turned?”

Sam took a step back towards her. “We didn’t have a choice, you were dying. Our friend-”

“You...turned me into a vampire!” Beka shot up from the bed, ready to throw punches, but she fell forward into Sam’s arms, tripping as her head began to pound. “What is that?” A terrible thud rang in her ears and Beka pushed Sam away to clamp her hands aside her head. “What is that!”

Sam looked at her hopelessly. “What is what?”

“That pounding!” Beka screamed over the noise in her head, but the brothers couldn’t hear a thing.

Dean nodded in understanding, having been there before. He poured his concoction into a glass and brought it over to Beka.

“Your senses are heightened. You’re probably hearing a clock, a car on the highway, a woodpecker two miles away. This is what happens.” Dean tapped her shoulder and nodded towards the bed, urging her to sit. “You keep squinting. Vision all blurry?”

Beka sat slowly, lowering her hands but keeping a suspicious eye on Dean. “Yeah?”

“Probably because you don’t need your glasses anymore.”

“That’s…” She hesitated and then pulled the frames down to sit on the tip of her nose. Once the glass was gone, she blinked and everything came into focus. “Fuck. I’m a vampire. Fuck!”

She went to stand, started to freak out, panic crawling through her chest, but Dean grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down. He took a seat on the opposite bed and set his elbows on his knees, looking her in the eye.

“I need you to calm down,” he said simply.

“Calm down! How can I- what the fuck good- I can’t calm down! You…” Beka looked from Dean up to Sam, her eyes turning from fear to resignation. “You have to kill me,” she breathed out. “Just make it quick, please.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, nodding to herself. “Do it.”

Sam shook his head. “Beka, no.”

“What? Why not?” She peeked an eye open and Dean held the cup of sludge out to her.

“You’re gonna drink this.”

“No I’m not.”

Sam held a smirk but Dean rolled his eyes. “Yes, you are. It’s an old family cure. It’s gonna hurt like hell. You’re gonna feel like you’re dying, and then you’re gonna puke your brains out for a good forty minutes, but then you’ll be fine.”

Beka laughed. “There’s no cure for vampirism.”

“There is,” Sam told her. “It works...most of the time.”

“Most of the time!” She tried to stand again, but Dean shoved the glass against her chest.

“Drink it.”

She took the glass and sniffed it, but realized it was a bad idea and turned away.

Dean growled in annoyance, done with the entire ordeal. “Drink it now or I’ll pour it down your throat.”

“Dean!” Sam scowled at his brother.

Beka took a breath and then looked between the guys, realizing this was her only choice. “Well, if I don’t, I’m dead anyway, right?”

Dean frowned. “Pretty much.”

Another moment of hesitation and then Beka lifted the putrid muck to her lips. She shivered in revulsion and then pinched her nose shut before diving in.

“Bottoms up.”

She slept for seven hours and would have kept going had Dean not whacked her foot several times, alerting her to the arrival of food.

Everything hurt. The balls of her feet straight up to the top of her head stung with microscopic needles of pain as she sat up and walked to the table. But pain was good. Pain meant she was still alive.

They ate burgers and fries from the diner down the street, and chatted a bit about their lives. Beka told them about Nicholas and how she’d been hunting for years, that her talents lay mostly in the books. She spoke in a low voice, her throat ripped apart by hours of vomiting, but her stories were laced with passion, and the boys listened with interest. She told them a little about her family, and where she grew up, told them everything of importance. Everything but Kelly.

The sun felt amazing on her face, and Beka took a moment to breathe the fresh air, before saying her goodbyes.

“So, I guess I should thank you for saving my life... twice,” she said, smiling up at Sam.

He was haloed by the early afternoon sun, his chestnut hair aflame with golden light. His face was in shadow, but Beka could see the deep dimples erupt as he smiled. “Three times, actually,” he said with a laugh and shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking awkwardly on his heels.

“Three times,” she repeated. “OK then.” She chewed at the corner of her lip and shrugged. “Thank you.”

The motel room door slammed behind Dean as he came out with the last bag. “We good?” he asked, rounding the Impala.

Sam cleared his throat and looked away from Beka. “Uh, yeah.”

“Want a ride back to your truck?”

Beka turned to see Dean leaning on the roof of the car, his hands crossed, keys dangling. “Oh, yeah. I guess so. Shit.” She hadn’t had time to think about Nicholas or the fact that her only friend in the world was dead and gone. Alone again.

Sam broke her lamenting moment. “So, where will you go?”

“I… don’t know,” she said honestly. “I've kinda been bouncing around on my own for a while now. Nicholas was the first person I trusted in about a year.” She shrugged. “Bad luck for him, I guess.”

Sam shot Dean a look that was met with half a shrug. He turned back to Beka nervously. “Come stay with us for a while,” he said. “We have... plenty of room.”

Beka laughed politely and bowed out. “Thanks, Sam but...I can't do that. I'm...pretty cursed. People get close and bad things happen.”

“Well,” Dean spoke up, “lucky for us, we are curse proof. And as he said...Bunker’s big. Plenty of room not to get too close.” He ended on a wink and stepped back to open the door.

“And there's a library…” Sam added.

Beka puckered her lips in thought and cracked a smile. So, it was a little weird, and she didn’t know these guys beyond their street reps, but they had saved her life, when they could have left her back in the mud. Besides, it would be good to get off the road for a while, to know someone was around if she needed, someone to keep her mind occupied in the quiet moments.

“Well?” Sam prodded with a grin.

“Not to be a nerd right now after being such a badass all night, but… Sam Winchester,” Beka said with a flourish, “take me to your lore.”

2019 Forever Tags:

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The Chosen: @shamelesslydean  

#spn fanfic #dean winchester #sam winchester #benny #angst #the chosen series

[umichenginabroad]

Normandy and Mont Sant Michel

Hello all this week was jam-packed with travel, cities, museums, and tourism, so I'm feeling pretty prepped for this blog. I've got all the info I need. I have nice pictures and everything, so this one's really gonna flow.

My mom and sister came to visit and I met up with them for dinner a few times in Paris for the weekend. I tried Escargot for the first time and it passed. It tasted like seafood but without the saltiness. I like seafood, so I get it ya know. We also got the famous Bertillon ice cream. Phew... that stuff was good. We got like a candied chestnut flavor and, wow, my socks were knocked off. So that was a great start to the week.

Good food

I was lucky this week because I only had classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That doesn't happen often. This is the first time I've had a Friday off which was really cool. So I left Cergy, I said goodbye to the beautiful Les Linandes building and I stayed the night in Paris before our trip to Normandy.

In the morning, we took the train to Caen and almost missed it because my mom forgot her bag in the room. We got to the train like 2 minutes before departure and my younger sister holly was just walking so slow behind us and my mom and I barely got through the gates and were like yelling at her to hurry up. I yelled "What are you doing???" and the guy working there laughed and she just kept walking. Surprisingly, we made the train. We left as soon as possible from Caen and headed to Bayeux by car.

Bayeux was dope because we got to see the Bayeux tapestry. The thing is 70-meters long because it tells a pretty epic tale. It was made to depict the conflict between William the conqueror, who famously conquered England in the 1000s, with Harold, the heir to the English throne. Harold visited Normandy and William captured him and forced him to take an oath on the two most holy Norman relics to make William the king after the reigning king of England, King Edward, died. But, when Edward died Harold seized the throne anyways and broke his oath. Drama, relic swearing, voyages. Pretty intense stuff. The tapestry was pro-William and it worked on me. I will be a William the conqueror fan to the bitter end. Anyways, enough about 1000-year-old wars.

William the conqueror in the middle boat. Basically, a Viking. Heading to take over England. We stayed the night in a Bayeux and I got some breakfast with some homemade jams and I heard some Americans at breakfast talking about how bad the wind was like saying, "It was so bad you might get swept off your feet!" And, I thought they were exaggerating until we drove to a D-day beach which was so windy it was bonkers.

Omaha beach

Omaha beach is one of the D-day beaches which the Americans were tasked with retaking from the Germans. We stayed there as long as we could without being blown away by intense winds. There was really not much to do there but run to the water and check things out for a little bit. The American cemetery is there, but it closed at 5 and it was 6ish when we got there.

We did end up getting Cider from a small farm near a point that the Germans held as a stronghold in 1945. The guy working there was really nice. We walked in and he offered us some samples and showed us pictures from the War. He and his dad housed a lot of Americans once they got through the beach and he had a picture of some troops who stayed there. It was one of those old-timey photos with like 30 people all linked together shoulder to shoulder in black and white. He told us that his Dad got a Ph.D. at Michigan State and then came back to France to keep working on the Cider Farm.

After that, we headed to Mont Sant Michel. It was about an hour's drive from Bayeux towards the East. MSM is famously on the border between the regions of Bretagne and Normandy and they often fight with each other about which region the monastery belongs to. Here's a little gift thing that shows that.

The tough conflict there in the middle.

MSM was great. It's a beautiful stronghold resting high above the bay. It's served many purposes in its over 1000 years of history but mostly it's been a place of religion. There is still a practicing few who hold services up there and we ended up going to mass. To ring the church bell the priest brought down a thick rope that led up to a hole in the ceiling. To ring the bell he had to swing with his whole body weight and once the rope got going he got lifted up off the ground with each motion. I bet that most of the people watching were tourists. Some people next to us knew all the words though.

MSM abbey

The language barrier was pretty intense at that point. My mom and I got some things out of the sermon. I think he said something about aligning the thoughts in your mind with your actions. It was hard to understand really.

Chilling

The other thing about MSM is the famous omelet. Apparently, Hemingway was a patron of this hotel we stayed at which serves omelets the size of birthday cakes. Also, the U.S soldiers called Hemingway Papa and he had a lot of connections to like hotel owners who could house soldiers on the island. So, one U.S soldier was writing about how much he enjoyed the omelet and the hospitality of the hotel owner and this and that. And, the hotel put up what he wrote on the wall.

After MSM we left for Paris and that was the end of the journey.

Boom

Nick Peabody

Electrical Engineering

ENSEA FAME PARIS 2022

#UmichEnginAbroad #IPEparis #NickPeabody #IPE Winter 2022

[thedeaditeslayer]

Dana DeLorenzo set for new beginning as 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' comes to an end.

While the news broke last week that the horror comedy "Ash vs. Evil Dead" is coming to an end after its third season on STARZ, it also marked a new beginning for the series' breakout star, Dana DeLorenzo. Not only has DeLorenzo's turn as Deadite slayer Kelly Maxwell earned her respect and loyalty from fans of the series, it, in a serendipitous bit of timing, has also brought her the prestigious Artemis Action Next Wave award from the Artemis Women in Action Film Festival.

And with that, the next wave of DeLorenzo's career begins when she accepts the honor Thursday night in Los Angeles.

"I am ecstatic and incredibly humbled to be an Artemis Women in Action honoree," DeLorenzo said. "The timing of the awards gala -- days before the series finale of 'Ash Vs Evil Dead' -- is a staggering example of synchronicity; the most wonderful bookend to the most insane and glorious time of my life thus far. Receiving a Women in Action award is a real tribute to the character Kelly Maxwell, as well as all the unsung heroes involved in bringing her to life."

In a phone conversation from LA just a couple days before STARZ's announcement about the fate of the show, DeLorenzo was aware of the possibility that "Ash vs. Evil Dead" could come to an end this season. Was she mentally preparing herself for the possible news of cancellation? Yes, but truth be told, she had been mentally preparing herself since the first season, as there were never any guarantees with the series.

"I think everyone involved in making this show mentally prepared that every season could be our last," DeLorenzo said. "There's a lot of competition out there, more so than ever. And in this era of television the longevity of any show is especially unpredictable. So, I think we all treated every episode -- and every season -- as our last, but in the best way. I can only speak for myself, but whenever an episode or scene was a particularly epic -- like the colon fight (in season two) -- it was hard to imagine how it could ever be matched, let alone topped. But I think we pushed ourselves to a new level every season; and I believe that's a result of treating each one as if it's the last."

On top of that, DeLorenzo also knew from day one that pretty much every character apart from Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) was vulnerable and could be killed off the series.

"It was all made very clear to us before we started shooting when we were told, 'Just so you guys know, you won't know ahead of time if your character is going to die. You're going to have to find out with everybody else. None of you are safe,'" DeLorenzo recalled. "So, that was understood. Still, it caught you off-guard when people like Jill Marie Jones' character (Detective Amanda Fisher) were killed off (in season one). It was still shocking."

The interesting thing is, while Kelly was killed off by the villain-turned-ally-turned-villain Ruby Knowby (Lucy Lawless) in episode six this season (but her soul and life form, at least for the time being -- or perhaps forever -- lives on in a parallel universe known as “The Rift”), she was still very much a part "Ash vs. Evil Dead." Whether she was playing Kelly in life or in the afterlife, the series gave DeLorenzo the best experience she's had as an actor to date.

"It has been such an epic milestone in my life -- from the fans to the role to all I've learned -- everything about it," DeLorenzo said. "This was my first series regular role that continued beyond the pilot as a green-lit series. So, even if 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' would have lasted one season, it would have held a special place for me. This show is such a part of me and a part of my heart, whether it leads to many more things or not."

Always one to give credit to behind-the-scenes people on the show, DeLorenzo is sincerely grateful to the writers for finding a way to keep Kelly around for the duration of the series.

"I've been lucky enough to have lasted this long as Kelly, and even when I'm dead to still be playing her or other characters … if this is all where it ends, what I can say personally is, 'Man, what a wild, groovylicious, bloody, insane f---in' ride it has been.' I am so honored, lucky and grateful to be tied to this franchise for the rest of my life. It will never get old to me. It will always be a great love of my life."

Unbridled passion

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, DeLorenzo first attended college and worked in Chicago before she headed out to Los Angeles seeking a career on-screen. Her first speaking role on TV was as "Girl #2" on the hit CBS sitcom "2 Broke Girls" in 2011. Other opportunities followed, including a recurring skit where she played Beth the CBS executive on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson"; while other promising chances to be on shows like Fox's "The Mindy Project" slipped through her grasps.

"That experience and others like it would be best described with this analogy: I was jockey on my horse, prepared and ready to run the Kentucky Derby -- but when the race started my gate wouldn't open. So, I never got to run the race," DeLorenzo said, humbly. "In other cases, I got out of the gate but fell off my horse; or my horse ran in the other direction. Sure, it broke my spirit for a while -- but it never broke my back. I always got back on the proverbial horse, no matter what. I hope that doesn't sound too trite, because it's the truth. It's an idiom for a reason!  Always get back on the horse. I'm grateful I did, because I eventually got to run the race … and finally made it all the way to the finish line."

The silver lining for viewers is, as difficult as missed opportunities have been for DeLorenzo, those heartbreaks also helped build character. Because of her misfortunes she became resilient and never lost sight of her integrity; traits, that combined with her passion for life and her work, have served her well as she found her way to what has been the ride of a lifetime on "Ash vs. Evil Dead."

Initially billed in what could have become the thankless role as a foil for Campbell's chainsaw-wielding, boomstick-slinging, Shemp's Beer-chugging antihero Ash Williams in "Ash vs. Evil Dead," DeLorenzo quickly defined the role of Kelly as somebody much more than a "sidekick." Getting into just as many blood-and-guts-soaked mishaps as the show's namesake, it didn't take long for DeLorenzo to become a fan favorite that has rivaled the popularity of Campbell himself. That's a monumental feat, considering Campbell is the actor who made the role of Ash legendary in director Sam Raimi's cult classic "Evil Dead" film trilogy.

The amazing part of fandom, as DeLorenzo has discovered, is that the adoration fans have for Kelly Maxwell and "Ash vs. Evil Dead" isn't limited to U.S. borders. True, DeLorenzo has fans following her on her social media channels from all over the world, but she for the first time felt the true reach of the show meeting people from all over Europe when attended the horror-themed convention Weekend of Hell in Dortmund, Germany. Joining cast mates Campbell and Ray Santiago (who plays Ash and Kelly's fellow Deadite hunter, Pablo) at the convention earlier this month, DeLorenzo immediately found out that there was just as much an affinity for Kelly's F-bomb-laced dialogue in Europe as there is stateside.

"When I would sign photos, they kept saying -- even though they couldn't speak much English and I unfortunately couldn't speak German, I learned a few things – they would say, 'Kelly, write f--k evil!'”

Weekend of Hell was definitely an eye-opener for DeLorenzo. She got to meet people who've been entertained by Kelly in places she never could have imagined.

"Germany was one of the greatest experiences of my life," DeLorenzo said. "Going overseas, it was very apparent that, even in spite of the language barrier that the love was there. People were waiting two hours to talk, to say 'hi' and to get an autograph. I kept getting into trouble because I kept wanting to talk with everybody for five minutes. I was like, 'You waited two hours? I want to give you enough time!'"

Despite the awakening, don't think for a second that DeLorenzo has forgotten her U.S. fan base.

"I just get overwhelmed meeting people in the States -- it is such a symbiotic relationship -- some people say this is just fan service, but this is all very new to me and I'm just so happy to be doing what I love, that anything else on top of it is gravy and icing and cherries, and all the wonderful things in life. Donuts? Can we put donuts on top because I love donuts? So, even in America alone, if I meet a fan, I'm the one freaking them out by the end of the interaction, because I am so passionate and intense."

Just Dana

Whether you've met DeLorenzo at a convention or merely exchanged a tweet, it's easy to see that she's just Dana, not Kelly (although she admits slipping into character time and again at conventions), and that she's completely genuine and humbled over the fortunate position she's found herself in life. And while it's nice knowing that her work to fans in person and online have inspired people, that's not why she does it. If anything, DeLorenzo she's the one who is inspired, and her overtures to fans are a reflection of her gratitude.

"People have said to me, 'You're so normal and humble.' That's just because of the kind of parents I've had. My parents have kept me very grounded my whole life," DeLorenzo said. "Also, I've had to work very hard my whole life. Not only have I had to work hard and persevere, but I have been through the wringer and that makes you appreciate anything you get that's positive.

"So, for me, it's not about being on TV, but just the fact that I have a steady job that I can go to, day in and day out, getting up every day to do what I love," she added. "It's the only thing I've worked for and wanted my entire life, so the transition from dream to reality is the greatest reward."

Relating a story of how her parents have kept her level-headed, DeLorenzo noted, "An acquaintance said to them once the show was on the air, 'Oh, my goodness, your daughter is on billboards and she has fans and people are dressing up like her.' Then they said something along the lines of, 'Do you realize that she's a name?' and my mom just looked at her and said so matter-of-factly, 'No. She's just Dana.' It's funny because to everybody else things look different. But at the end of the day, if you get a promotion at an office job, you got a promotion, but you're still you. Your situation has changed, but you are still you."

Anchors aweigh

There's been a theme enveloping the character of Kelly Maxwell since the very beginning of "Ash vs. Evil Dead," in that her character has been anchored, so to speak, in the Ernest Hemingway literary classic "The Old Man and the Sea." It began to take shape when Ash, Kelly and Pablo made their fateful trip to Kelly's parents' house in episode two of season one. In a pivotal exchange, Ash tries to coax the Deadite out of Kelly, and Kelly's mother, (Mimi Rogers) said she was a teacher and her favorite book was "The Old Man and the Sea."

From there, sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that in addition to Kelly's favorite color being purple, the wardrobe or jewelry that costume designer Barbara Darragh conceived for DeLorenzo in every episode, in one way or another, incorporates an anchor.

Fast-forward to episode six this season, when the "The Old Man and the Sea" motif comes full-circle. Kelly decides to confront Ruby alone to destroy evil, even though she's aware that the odds of survival are not in her favor.

"There's a famous quote from that book that I think perfectly applies to Kelly's final moments in episode six, which is, 'A man can be destroyed, but not defeated,' which really just gives me chills every time that I think of it," DeLorenzo said. "It's so important to me to draw the parallel because I love how it ties into Kelly's journey. She went into battle because she, No. 1, took advantage of an opportunity that evil would never see coming; and No. 2, she thought since Ash and Pablo were off doing their own things, 'If I go into this right now while evil's not expecting it, I could potentially end this battle once and for all and no one has to die.'”

Third, and most importantly, DeLorenzo said, the motivating factor behind Kelly's actions in the episode is how evil destroyed her family. Kelly could have moved on after evil was seemingly vanquished at the end of season two or chosen to not get back into the fight when it reemerges to begin season three, but that is not her purpose.

"We all know that Kelly is out for revenge, but she's also at the start of season three a warrior without a war. She needs to stay in the fight against evil," DeLorenzo said. "She also needs to follow her heart to forge her path, which is what mortal Ruby encouraged her to do in season two. What I've learned from playing Kelly it that it's OK to be afraid, but the strength comes from having the courage to go for it in spite of that fear. You can assess the risks, but if the reward excites your spirit, you've got to go for it every time -- and when you do, you've already won."

While fans will have to wait until this Sunday to find out whether Kelly's soul will remain adrift for all eternity in “The Rift,” they will be happy to know this: No matter the outcome of the character, DeLorenzo will push off from "Ash vs. Evil Dead," hands firmly gripped on the ship's wheel (or horse's reigns, per her earlier analogy), charting her own course. It's a course that began with a casting director named Julie Ashton, who cast DeLorenzo in her first LA pilot out of Chicago and later her first television speaking role on "2 Broke Girls"; and whose keen sensibilities prompted her to eventually cast the actor in her first guest-starring role on NBC's smash hit "Will & Grace" in February. It's also a course that reunited her with the first person she met in Los Angeles, Ross Marquand (who, ironically went on to battle evil himself in "The Walking Dead") for his 2015 comedy series "Impress Me"; and it's a course that led her to a tender independent movie, 2017’s "The Mad Ones."

Sure, in between those sunny beaches were rough waters, and DeLorenzo knows she'll encounter them again. But risking those waters is how she fatefully arrived at "Ash vs. Evil Dead." As for what's next, it's not a matter of if, but when DeLorenzo finds her way back.

#Dana DeLorenzo

[auburnfamilynews]

Tank Bigsby’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tank5_21/status/1160301200958529540

Bigsby is the 4th ever 5* RB to sign with the Tigers per 247 Composite.

If you pay attention to high school football in the state of Georgia or are a weirdo that enjoys following the the recruiting landscape 365 days a year, chances are very good you have known about Cartavious “Tank” Bigsby for some time now. The Callaway star broke out as a freshman in 2016 and started reeling in offers that following spring. In fact, his very first offer came from Alabama. Just two months later, Auburn jumped into the race.

Blessed to receive an offer from Auburn University #WarEagle #Auburn pic.twitter.com/nWv5e4Akaz

— 4 tank. (@Tank5_21) April 1, 2017

Being recruited for so long by so many of the top programs in the nation, it’s not surprising that at various moments in his recruitment different top programs were considered the team to beat. But earlier this year, it sure seemed like he was on the verge of committing to the Gamecocks when both Auburn and Georgia put on a full court press.

Bigsby took an official visit to the Plains in early June. At the time, I wasn’t very optimistic of Auburn’s chances.

I still think though that if UGA decides to push hard he could stay instate. Auburn will continue to pursue but as of now I am not sure they will have a tank coming out of the backfield next season.

But following that visit things turned in a big way for the Tigers. Auburn hosted Bigsby three times in one week not long after his OV. Even though the Dawgs had made Bigsby a priority again, it wouldn’t be enough. Bigsby clicked with Carnell Williams and fell in love with the program. Two months later, Tank announced his commitment to the Tigers.

Locked In#WarEagle pic.twitter.com/kQBzOyjChg

— 4 tank. (@Tank5_21) August 10, 2019

After whiffing on 5* Zach Evans, UGA came sniffing around again in hopes of flipping Auburn’s top ranked commit. There were even some rumors popping up on UGA Bunker equivalent sites that it was a done deal. But following his visit for Auburn’s epic Iron Bowl victory, Bigsby made it clear he was shutting his recruitment down and he was all Auburn. Now it’s official.

Welcome to the #AuburnFamily @Tank5_21! Callaway HS ➡️ Auburn #WarEagle x #AUNSD20 pic.twitter.com/5toue01hMW

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) December 18, 2019

As for what type of player Auburn is getting, well the 5* rating says it all. Bigsby is a stud that can do a little bit of everything at a very high level. At 6’0” 210 lbs, he has the body to handle running the ball consistently between the tackles. Possessing legitimate 4.5 speed, Bigsby is a threat to take it to the house at any time. And he’s an absolute weapon out of the backfield in the passing game which he demonstrated in his outstanding performance at The Opening in July.

The only knock on his game is that he’s at some ball security issues at times (his 3 fumble game in a loss to Opelika to start the season stands out) but otherwise he’s arguably the most complete back in this class. Auburn has some good running back talent on campus already but have struggled in recent cycles to reel in that bone fide 5* stud. Not the case this go around. There will be a lot of mouths to feed in Auburn’s backfield next year but you have to think Auburn will find a way to get the ball in this kid’s hands as often as possible.

War Eagle Tank!

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/12/18/21000400/2020-5-star-running-back-tank-bigsby-signs-auburn-early-signing-day

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

[clive-owen-and-the-knick]

A parlor game to try at your next dinner party: Mention the name Clive Owen in the company of otherwise sophisticated, polite, culture-loving adults and watch as the heat in the room starts rising.

I casually noted to a group of friends over drinks that I would be interviewing the English actor, most recently seen opposite Will Smith in the sci-fi action movie Gemini Man and best known for films such as Mike Nichols’ Closer (Owen received an Academy Award nomination for that 2004 romance drama), and Alfonso Cuarón’s political thriller Children of Men. The response required everything in my arsenal to stop blushing.

“Oooh, I’ve been in lust with that hot man since those BMW commercials,” one woman (OK, it was my own wife) said, referring to an early 2000s series of ads in which Owen smoldered magnetically at the wheel of a Z4 roadster. Owen was the face of Lancôme men’s products, too, for a while.

“We need him to be James Bond,” my friend Lennon said, as if the future of the polar caps depended on it. To be fair, Owen has spent 20 years saying he’s not interested in being 007 (“For me, Sean Connery is the real James Bond,” he likes to say).

“Ask Clive-y”—Clive-y?!—“what it’s like being the sexiest man in the world,” Lennon’s sister chimed in, and she was 100% not kidding. That prompted a brilliant new request from Lennon:

“Ask him to take off his freaking shirt!”

One might think that at 55 Owen would be at ease with such fuss. In an early aughts review of Croupier, the noir-ish casino drama that first brought the actor to attention in the United States, The New York Times praised the “sharp, cynical intelligence that rolls off the screen in waves whenever [Owen] widens his glittering blue eyes.” (For the record, Owen’s eyes are mostly green, but still. The same review likened him to Michael Caine in his prime.) And that was tame. Another critic once dubbed Owen a “super tiger sex commando” and “brusquely gentle British love ninja.” Then there was the moment in New York a couple of years ago when a public figure accustomed to far greater hysteria broke protocol to out himself as an Owen fanboy.

“I was at an event with Barack Obama and when I walked over to shake his hand, he pulled out his phone and took a selfie with me, even though there was a no-selfie rule,” Owen says, still stunned even now. Apparently, the former president is a huge admirer of The Knick, the Cinemax series set in gas lamp-era Manhattan in which Owen plays an opium-addled surgeon. Owen has a selfie somewhere on his phone, too, but he’s not happy with it. “My family wanted to kill me because Obama’s selfie looked great, and mine looks insane. The whole thing felt insane.”

Which is to say that Owen cannot quite comprehend how a working-class kid from the British Midlands ended up doing head tilts with the ex-leader of the free world. Even without a gigantic standout blockbuster or a scandal dogging his name (he’s lived quietly in London with his wife, Sarah-Jane Fenton, since his early 20s, and they have two grown daughters; the family’s big indulgence: watching tennis), Owen has a way of charging the atmosphere wherever he pops up. He recently wrapped his first big onstage role in 18 years on London’s West End in the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana, which sold out practically every night. Variety called it “quietly devastating.” Owen saw the gig as “another surreal experience” in a career he’d never anticipated would go so well.

Suit, Giorgio Armani; shirt, Tom Ford; Reverso Classic Large Duoface watch, Jaeger- LeCoultre.

He grew up the fourth of five boys in England’s Coventry area. His father was a country and western singer who left the family when Owen was 3. His mother remarried a railway clerk, and money was never an issue because there was never very much of it. “I came from a tough upbringing, but I wouldn’t say I was a tough kid,” Owen says. He always liked sports; he is a lifelong Liverpool Football Club superfan. But makeup and costumes are what did him in. “I think it was one school play at age 13, and from then on, acting is all I wanted to do.”

For a long time, Owen was British TV famous. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (“Ralph Fiennes was a year ahead of me and definitely got all the attention,” he says), he did Shakespeare at the Young Vic before landing his first big break playing a stylish, overconfident con in the title role of Chancer. That early 1990s TV crime series made him a national heartthrob, though it would be another decade before U.S. audiences paid much attention.

“I was never the sort of actor who plotted my next move and thought, ‘Oh, here’s where I want to be in five years,’” he says. Owen is serious, and even a little dour (“I’m probably more of an introvert, yes,” he admits). He speaks quickly in short matter-of-fact sentences. If he wasn’t an actor, you might think you were talking to an athlete in the locker room after a difficult game. “I work and that’s most of it. A lot of actors will say, ‘I hate not knowing what’s coming,’ even people who’ve been successful for years. In a weird way, I love the hovering potential of whatever’s on the horizon. You keep waiting for the next challenge, the next script. It keeps you excited and alive.”

In 2004’s Closer, Owen’s ferocious but tender performance as a deviant dermatologist in a movie about sex and strippers (with costars Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman) earned him an Oscar nod and a Golden Globe win for his supporting role. He was officially every thinking moviegoer’s English stud muffin; an impressive run of big-budget popcorn releases followed: King Arthur (the title role), Sin City, The Pink Panther (he played Agent 006 in a kind of self-parody) and Inside Man. The 2006 dystopian sci-fi thriller Children of Men, about oppressive immigration laws that keep immigrants out of the United Kingdom, all but predicted the current migrant crisis in Europe and the U.S.

Jacket and shirt, both by Giorgio Armani.

In Gemini Man, Owen is on the cutting edge again. He plays a brutal boss in a space epic in which Smith’s character is being hunted by a younger, faster cloned version of himself. Owen says director Ang Lee is “leading things forward with everything that’s possible technically in a huge big-budget film, yet at the same time he’s so particular about character and details that the bigness of the movie melts away and, as an actor, you’re focusing on the tension and the intensity.”

Speaking of tension, I decided to tell Owen about the tsunami of libidinousness I unleashed simply by uttering his name in mixed company over cocktails. A sex symbol! Five years shy of 60! “Doesn’t that warm your heart a little when you look in the mirror in the morning?” I asked, and I could tell I’d broken protocol myself the moment I said it.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Owen says. “If I ever said, ‘Hey, wow, look, there’s a sex symbol in the mirror,’ you’d just have to shoot me. I might be an OK actor, but that’s not a performance I could fake.”

[bebalanced222]

The Michael Bowden Memorial Bike Ride to The Tip of Cape York

August 2019

My grandson Micky

Cape York News 14 – 20 August 2019:

FRIENDS and family of Michael Bowden rode to the tip of Cape York earlier this month to pay tribute to the young man.

The 20-year-old died last year after he was struck by a vehicle on Northern Avenue on the opening night of the Weipa Fishing Classic.

With the court case against the alleged driver looming, the memorial ride provided the family and friends of Mr Bowden with an avenue to remember the joy that he brought to their lives.

“It was nice to be able to remove ourselves from the world and take the time to come together, remember the positive stuff about Mick, and turn our focus on starting to rebuild our lives,” family member Denica Russ said.

Mr Bowden and his brothers Mark and Brad loved riding motorbikes together. When the trio weren’t working as fitter and turners, they would often be on their bikes seeking out an adventure.

The Bowdens had joined the local GROWL (Geriatric Riders of Weipa Locality) club and enjoyed the camaraderie.

Riding the Old Telegraph Track to the Tip of Cape York was always a trip that Mr Bowden wanted to do. Before his sudden death, he went on what would be his last motorbike ride with GROWL up to Nolan’s Brook, seven kilometres back from the Jardine River.

Mark Coleman, the president of GROWL, was a part of the group.

“Mick loved the rides, but he particularly loved the rides that he did with his brothers,” he said.

“It wasn’t just about the riding for Mick. He always heavily involved himself with the group when they reached their destinations.

“This is the aim of our group – it is the whole deal – and Mick got that. This is what impressed me the most about Mick.”

Mr Coleman first met the Bowden brothers when working together at Rio Tinto.

“The three boys were very close, good tradesmen, and good riders,” he said.

“Mick was the last to join GROWL out of the three and he never rode outside of his capabilities.”

Mr Coleman and Mr Bowden’s brother Mark formulated the idea to do the memorial ride. When Mark Bowden contacted the rest of his family about the possibility of a memorial ride, the planning was quick and easy.

“When Mick’s family became involved it was the greatest thing ever,” Mr Coleman said.

“Mick’s parents Scotty and Rach are great people and the way they have bought their kids up is a credit to them.

“The three boys are all level-headed mature fellas for their age. They all have great work ethic, are not idiots, and everything they do is good compared to other kids that I come across.

“Mick was always smiling; a happy-go-lucky kind of bloke who loved life and his family.

“They had a unique bond.”

Mr Coleman and Mark Bowden were originally planning to ride to the east coast for the memorial ride, but chose to go to the Tip.

“Mick had been up that way not long before he passed away. The Telegraph Track is a gnarly adventure ride and is the big four- wheel drive trip on the Cape that brings adventurers up from all over the country,” Mark said.

“It was cool to bring my family up and go to the places that Mick had recently been to.

“This is an adventure that most of my family would never have imagined doing.

“It was a shame that Mick couldn’t be there with us, but nice we could do it. It was bittersweet.”

A lot of Mr Bowden’s family are from Charters Towers and Townsville. His parents Scott and Rachael live in Ravenshoe.

Together, everyone formed a convoy and road tripped to Weipa for the start of the memorial ride.

There were 44 of Mr Bowden’s family and friends on the trip.

Mark and Denica said: “Our family had a ball – my cousin Josh had hardly ridden a bike before, so this was a huge trip for him.

“Mum and dad bought the meat from the Tablelands and the GROWL club organised the rest of the food.

“I felt sad that Mark Coleman’s bike blew up before the trip and that his vehicle which transported a lot of the things we needed broke down on the way home.

“Without GROWL, this experience to help us move forward wouldn’t have been possible and we owe them so much.”

Mr Bowden’s uncle Aaron Schleich described the Cape York memorial ride as “very therapeutic”. “Since Michael’s tragic passing the family have only been able to gather for what would have been Mick’s 21st birthday, which was a big family get-together,” he said. Mr Bowden’s older sister Emily explained how she could feel her brother during the ride.

This was highlighted when Mr Bowden’s immediate family gathered to capture a photo standing at the Tip.

As everyone in the background were taking the photos, a pod of dolphins swam past.

They all agreed it was a special moment that created a memory for everyone to focus on.

However, Ms Bowden, who is already looking into the future for next year’s planned ride said: “How is Mick going to get in the next family photo when there will be no dolphins around?”

Mr Bowden’s family are looking forward to coming together each year and continue the memorial ride in different locations on the Cape in his memory.

Courtesy Melissa Diffo, Cape York News 14 – 20 August 2019

Map of the area

Travelling from Northern New South Wales, Charters Towers, Townsville and the Atherton Tablelands to join the Weipa crew, 14 riders, 18 adults, 12 children and three dogs made the epic journey (approximately 900 kilometres) across the remote, dusty, corrugated tracks of Cape York Peninsula. 4WD’s were kitted out, bikes loaded onto trailers and utes, food and eskys were already loaded up with provisions by the time I flew into Weipa late Wednesday. Many of the family had already journeyed far over dusty roads to reach Weipa.

Day 1: Thursday 1st of August

Weipa to Canal Creek

We departed Weipa early picking up a coffee-to-go at the coffee van on the way out of town and drove with all the bikes loaded east through Batavia Downs Cattle Station, past the Moreton Telegraph Station on the Wenlock River, to our meet-up point at Bramwell Junction Roadhouse.

By mid morning the bikes were unloaded and the riders kitted up for the  southern section of the legendary Old Telegraph Track. Mark Coleman from the Weipa GROWL Club gave the riders a pep talk about what to watch out for and how the group would look out for each other. And off they went, bikes in one direction and we in the support vehicles continued on the Peninsula Development Road to meet up for lunch at Fruit Bat Falls situated in the Jardine River National Park.

Mark Bowden @ Bramwell, last minute preparations

Aaron Schleich set to go!

Wanna-be Cody practising for next time!

Great-Nanny Naj with baby Evie

A pensive Brad Bowden 

Denica Russ ready to go!

The two Marks. Mark Coleman is a veteran of these trips and his support was awesome!

Riders all kitted up for the first leg of the journey

The southern section of the Old Telegraph Track, which runs from Bramwell Junction to Bamaga Road, a distance of approximately 70Km, is an iconic drive that features eight challenging water crossings and some stunning tropical scenery as you head north towards the Tip of Australia. 

Telegraph Line History

In the early 1880s the Queensland Government had JR Bradford, Inspector of Lines and Mail Route Services, survey a route along the Cape York Peninsula to Thursday Island for the construction of an electric telegraph line. Finally, after three gruelling months, the expedition reached Somerset: near the northern tip of the Cape.

Work on the Cape York Peninsula section began soon after and was completed in 1886, except for 90km between Moreton and Mein where telegrams were carried by horse and rider until the line was completed. The line consisted of galvanized cast iron ‘Oppenheimer’ poles manufactured in Germany and many are still standing today. Ceramic insulators are also sometimes found. After more than 100 years of service, the line was closed in 1987.

(Courtesy www.hemamaps.com)

The support vehicles were the first to arrive at Fruit Bat Falls picnic area and we enjoyed a picnic lunch and swimming in the crystal clear waters.

Evie greets Poppy at Fruit Bat Falls

Finally the riders arrived, and there already had been some injuries: Brad hit a small tree and went over the handlebars injuring his shoulder quite badly - no blood but internal damage - no more riding for him today, and Josh came off at one of the creek crossings injuring his foot and a finger - he kept his boot on and rode the rest of the way but he only found out a week later that both the finger and the foot were fractured. 

Ouch!

The injured had some hydrotherapy at Fruit Bat Falls, and with belly’s full we all then headed down the four wheel drive track to nearby Canal Creek to camp the night. It was the best spot to camp being situated just outside the national park so we were able to have an open fire and the dogs could have a bit of a run around.

Micky’s dad Scott rode Micky’s bike - he made it unscathed!

Scott with his mum Sue and “the mother-in-law” by the edge of Canal Creek

Chillin out at the end of the day!

Ron and Sue taking a dip!

Uncle Glen, Uncle Aaron, Cousin Josh & Kim enjoying the cool water

Cody enjoying his camp bath!

William with Great Grandad!

Canal Creek camp - Mark Coleman on the BBQ - the Growl Club provided dinner for this first night. 

Day 2: Friday 2nd of August 

Canal Creek to Punsand Bay The day started with a camp breakfast courtesy of Growl, and bikers rode more of the Telegraph Track to our next meet-up spot at the Jardine River ferry crossing, while the cars drove via the bypass road. There were a few changes - Glen took over from Scott riding Micky’s bike, and Denika handed over her riding gear to Micky’s sister Emily who regarded herself as a novice rider. However with lot’s of family looking out for her she was keen to have a go.

Aaron is keen to get going!

Beau, Eli and Cody - “Let’s go!”

Denica all prepared for the next leg of the trip to Punsand Bay

Leonard and the other dogs are ready too!

Emily ready to ride!

Glen and Scott - bush mechanics!

Evie got lots of cuddles while mum and dad packed up the car ....

Before leaving the Jardine River National Park, we made a short stop at Twin Falls where Micky had spent the weekend before his tragic death. Twin Falls is a series of rock pools and cascades that is linked by tracks and boardwalks to nearby Eliot Falls.

Enjoying the crystal clear waters at Twin Falls

A pensive Grandad Ron remembering Mick

Tillie with Auntie Denica

Nana Emma Russ with Tillie

Micky’s mum Rachael enjoying a quiet moment before getting back on the road

Leaving the National Park was another matter! Lucky we spent some time at Twin Falls - the driver at the head of this line of cars had been waiting for 1.5 hours! It was reassuring to have these workmen on hand as we climbed out of this crossing!

Oh no! This is our only way out!

The little boys enjoyed watching the workmen at work!

There were more than a dozen cars waiting to cross this creek - some had been waiting over an hour!

The riders on the other hand went in the other direction down the Telegraph Track to tackle even more challenging creek crossings .....

Emily doing it like a pro!

Rob Moore following up behind

Glen walking Micky’s bike across this tricky crossing!

Crossing the Jardine

Once at the Jardine, anyone who was not registered or licensed had to load their bike up and travel in the cars to Punsand Bay camping ground. Tickets for a single vehicle return is $100, and if you are towing a caravan it is even more.

Buy your tickets here, but closed for lunch from 12 to 1.

Loaded ferry

A confident Rachael towing a trailer full of dirt bikes waiting to cross

Crossing the Jardine we enter the Northern Peninsula Area. The NPA Region is made up of five indigenous communities. There are three aboriginal communities: Injinoo, Umagico and new Mapoon, and two Saibai Islander communities: Seisia and Bamaga.

Saibai Islander people were forced to relocate in pursuit of fresh water and land, and they resettled at the site of the old Red Island Wharf in Seisia. The name Seisia is made up from the first letter of each of the brothers Sagaukauz, Elu, Ibuai, Sunai, Isua and Aken, the founding brothers of the community. Seisia wharf provides the region with shipping and ferry services, as well as being a popular local fishing spot, offering beautiful sunsets and views of small islands across the water. Of course many crocodiles, sharks and stingrays inhabit these waters. 

We stopped for lunch at Sesia, topped up with fuel and ice before turning north at Bamaga for the final leg to Punsand Bay.

Lunch in the shade at Seisia

A hopeful Aaron fishing at Seisia - SeaSwift ferry tied up at the wharf

Cape York sign!

Hot showers and cold drinks! YES!!!

Emily relaxing after a satisfying day

The GROWL camp at the end of Day 2. Mark cooked up a huge pot of prawns which everyone loved. Thanks Mark and Eileen!

My camp site under the trees and view to the sea - one happy camper!

Hayley Bowden at Punsand Bay

Sunset at Punsand Bay

This is the life!

Aaron enjoying sundowners @ Punsand Bay

Eileen enjoying the afternoon ambiance

Day 3: Saturday 3rd of August 

The Tip of Cape York, Somerset, and the 5 beach trail ride

Today is the culmination of our trip to The Tip with us all donning our Micky Memorial shirts and the boys taking Michael’s bike to the northern most point for a photo with us all.

The cairn of rocks in the middle distance is man-made by the hundreds of walkers who each add a rock to the pile as they go past.

Mark Bowden riding Micky’s bike to The Tip

It was low tide so we were able to walk along the beach some of the way

Micky’s immediate family

"As everyone in the background were taking the photos, a pod of dolphins swam past.” We decided this was Micky’s way of saying he was with us! 

The Schleich crew!

All of us with Micky’s bike and helmet at the northernmost point of the Australian mainland.

Russ and Scott - Evie’s two “Poppies”!

Granny Naj with Emily, Mark and Brad

Riders once again lined up in a salute to Mick, before heading off for more adventures

We picnicked at historic Somerset beach on the eastern side of the Tip. 

History of Somerset

John Jardine had migrated to New South Wales in 1840, and held a number of government appointments before being made Police Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands at Somerset, at the tip of Cape York Peninsula, in 1864. 

In 1865, 22-year-old Frank Jardine, his brother Alexander and eight others drove a mob of cattle overland from Rockhampton to Somerset, a remarkable feat which made them heroes in colonial Queensland. 

They started with 42 horses and 250 head of cattle. The trip took 10 months during which time the party was constantly opposed by the area's inhabitants as they forced their way through scrub and swamps and crossed at least six large rivers, including the Jardine River which was subsequently named after him. They reached Somerset on 2 March 1865 with 12 horses and 50 cattle. Jardine's men survived, in poor health; they left a trail of dead Aborigines, dead horses and cattle and all their equipment.

For their pioneering exploratory efforts the Jardine brothers were made Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society and awarded the Society's Murchison Award in 1886.

Frank Jardine became in effect a law unto himself in northern most Queensland and is reputed to have been extremely cruel and barbaric. 

The local Indigenous population was dispossessed and there was hostility between them and the Jardine family, both during Frank and Alick Jardine's expedition to Somerset, and during the years of the settlement. Jardine was also suspended for a time from his duties as Police Magistrate whilst being investigated in relation to using his position to obtain a pearl diving licence.

In 1873, Jardine married Sana Solia, the seventeen-year-old niece of the King of Samoa. They had two sons and two daughters, and the marriage endured until Jardine’s death from leprosy in 1919. Their graves can still be seen here at Somerset.

The pearl diving industry was important to the Queensland economy, and came to be dominated by Japanese divers after 1891. Kobori Itchimatsu came from the village of Nishi Mukai in Wakayama prefecture, an area that provided 80 per cent of the 7,000 Japanese who left their country to become pearl divers.

The earliest known burial was that of Cancan, a pearl diver, dating to 1890. Japanese pearl diver Kobori Itchimatsu was also buried there in 1909. Both graves are situated in the north area of the site. 

Several Indigenous groups occupied this region prior to European contact. In an 1896 report to the Queensland Government, Archibald Meston estimated that in the 1870s the Indigenous population between Newcastle Bay and Cape York was around 3,000. At the time of writing his report, he believed that the population had fallen to around 300. This rapid decline was caused by a number of factors, including introduced disease, exclusions from traditional hunting grounds and frontier violence. Reverend Frederick Charles Jagg, a missionary at Somerset appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, gave an indication of the relationship between European and Indigenous peoples when he reported in 1867 that "The aborigines have been described as the most degraded, treacherous and bloodthirsty beings in existence by the present Police Magistrate, and those whose only idea is to shoot them down whenever they were seen".

Somerset became redundant as a port once a safer shipping route to the Torres Strait was found and a settlement on Thursday Island was built from 1876. Frank Jardine continued to live at Somerset, maintaining the police residence until his death there in March 1919. During this time, Jardine continued to maintain a beef cattle herd; was engaged in the pearling industry; and created a coconut/copra plantation at Somerset. 

Due to Somerset's isolated location the Jardine family provided assistance and hospitality to travellers and seafarers, for example, Jardine aided the survivors of the shipwreck of RMS Quetta in 1890.

Aaron conquering the five beach trail ride on the eastern side of the Cape overlooking Freshwater Bay.

Remote and tricky - one rider did not make it, his bike seizing up in the excessive sand hills.

While the big boys were exploring the dunes, the little ones had fun riding up and down this remote sandy shoreline.

Beau getting ready to ride

Helmet: check; Gloves: check ....

Go Beau!

Dinner Saturday night at Punsand Bay with us all wearing out Micky Memorial shirts. Tourists to the area were curious and a few came over for a chat. Day 4: Sunday 4th of August

Punsand Bay to Bramwell Station

We de-camped and got away reasonably early and met up with the riders on the southern side of the Jardine River Ferry, then we drove in convoy to Fruit Bat Falls for our final lunch together. The wind was blowing a gale so jumping in the water was not so inviting. Scott gave a wonderful speech thanking everyone for coming, and proposing that we do it again next year - at a different location though. Everyone thought it was a great idea. 

The riders once again tackled the Old Telegraph track, this time including Emily who by now had become an experienced rider, and crazy Josh, who, despite his broken foot, chose to once again ride this treacherous stretch of road .... well, more a track than a road! Mind you he still did not know it was actually broken!

Next stop was the campground at Bramwell Station.

Setting up camp at Bramwell Station

Sunset on Bramwell Station

Normie Rowe and The Bagman were performing the night we were there. The restaurant was booked out but we were able to wander up and enjoy the concert. The young ones thought that Normie was a bit old hat, but Bagman brought the house down with his bush poetry. Tears of laughter!

Normie Rowe

Day 5: Monday 5th of August

Bramwell Station to Weipa

Rachael with the Bramwell Station restaurant and bar in the background

Photos from Bramwell Museum

Photos from Bramwell Museum - these huge termite mounds are a typical feature of the Cape York scrub

Photos from Bramwell Museum The Cuscus is a marsupial unique to Cape York.

Photos from Bramwell Museum - the largest cockatoo in the world! It is sacred to indigenous tribes.

And here we end this epic saga. Bramwell is just two hours drive from Weipa where the journey ended on Monday lunchtime, time for Emily to pack and board her flight to Brisbane. The Charters Towers mob and Ron and Sue continued driving south rather then returning to Weipa, while Scott & Rachael, Mark (headed for Cairns), Brad, Ash, her dad Russ and baby Evie (headed for Townsville) all departed early Wednesday. But not before Scott had sampled his favourite meal in Weipa - Sizzling Duck at the Thai restaurant on Tuesday night ..... one more time to all be together before heading our separate ways. No pics I am sorry! As Peter Cundel used to say: That’s your blooming lot!

Thanks everyone for making this trip so memorable!

Until next time .......

[youngeditor1999]

Why Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams Deserve Everlasting Happiness Together: An Essay by a Hardcore Shipper

Ok, so before I begin this, you should know that I am a hardcore McDanno shipper. Aside from Kono and Adam, they are my number one O.T.P. on Hawaii Five-0. I am literally so obsessed with Steve and Danny and their relationship, and I'm not ashamed of it, either. Therefore, this comment I'll most likely come off as biased, but I have very good logic behind what I'm about to say. (Also, I can already tell that this post is going to be verrrrrryyyy long, so buckle up and get comfy if you are planning to read everything I've written.)

To start, I see many comments reading, "They have great chemistry, they should still be together, they are endgame..." etc. while all of this is true, to be honest, they are better suited off as friends. They tried to make a relationship work, but usually, it did not.

"But they were together on and off for five seasons!" Is what some of you are probably already thinking. This is true, but unfortunately, it does not mean that they are forever meant to be together.

Remember Billy, Catherine's ex from season 3? Just to clarify, he died in the middle of season 4. However, before he died, he was trying to get back together with Catherine. She had chemistry with him, too. The only problem was that she was legitimately already with Steve at that time. To be honest, I always liked her better with Billy then I did with Steve. They just went better together, in my opinion.

So Catherine and Steve were together. Then, in season 5, she and Steve went to Afghanistan (or some other, terrible, Taliban filled town) in order to save somebody that had helped Catherine when she'd been in the military. If you'll recall, at the end of that episode, Catherine decided to stay behind to help the people get their son back. Steve went back to the United States, heartbroken and crying.

All of this made me still think that Steve and Catherine still had a slight chance to make it. But then.

BUT. THEN.

Catherine returned in the season 5 finale to attend Kono's wedding. Ok, cool. Steve has a date for the wedding of the century. That was all fine and good. Obviously, that was the same episode when they broke up. To be frank, I always thought it would be Steve that broke up with Catherine, obviously so he could go FINALLY be with Danny, his one true love. But instead, Catherine broke up with Steve, citing that she decided to go do some good, volunteer work in a foreign country. I remember her saying to Steve, "Five-0 is your thing. Please, let this be mine."

Then her car to take her to the airport arrived, and she got in. She made a phone call.

Now, to the viewers who had history with this show, they knew that as SOON as she punched in a code before speaking that it was no good. Steve's mom, also a spy, had done the same thing in previous episodes, so they knew what was up. The real slap in the face, though, was when she said to the voice on the phone who she was-badge number, name, the whole nine yards. Then, we hear a male voice on the other end of the line ask, "Is he fooled?" (Or something similar). Catherine's reply came sharp. (Again, not an exact quote, but pretty close. I think you'll get the memo). "He doesn't know anything. He thinks I'm volunteering," she said.

It was then that I officially stopped wanting them to be in a relationship. I get why she couldn't tell Steve, but still! She fucking choose that same life/lifestyle that his mother had had; a lifestyle that she knew he hated. If she truly loved and cared for him as more than a friend, then she would've rejoined Five-0, or at LEAST have found a cool, different job in Oahu.

But no. She literally betrayed Steve, and for what, anyway? We never did get a good understanding or explanation of why she decided to join the C.I.A. It is a concept that stills boggles my mind to this very day. Most recently, Catherine came back for the 150th episode, which is where this clip is obviously from. But this point, I was beyond done with her. I was so irritated when she came back, especially because she interrupted Steve's date with Lynn. Oh, right. And she never told Steve that she became a spy, so he was clearly shocked when she divulged this piece of information.

This brings me to my next point. Steve, his mom, and Catherine had to fight off some bad guys after his mom, and then hide from them. When the doorbell rang at the safe house, it was the rest of the Five-0 team, minus Danny who was in New Jersey to be there for his dad who'd just had knee surgery. (In real life, Scott Caan was busy with his new family and couldn't schedule to film the 150th episode). Steve had called Danny earlier that day to tell him what was going on, and Danny decided to call the rest of the team to help him.

Yeah. Danny called the team. Not Catherine, who probably knew that they were gonna need backup. Danny, who wasn't even there, called the team and made sure they were there for Steve.

That's just one example of why Steve and Danny are so important to each other and belong together; much more so than Steve and Catherine. Let's go back few years, to season three. Danny had accidentally stepped on a bomb. The bomb would explode if he stepped off, killing everyone in the vicinity, himself included. Steve know this, but he stayed anyway. Even at Danny's persistence of him to, "Just go, Steve. Go me there for Grace. Get out of here, save yourself!", Steve did not budge. He insisted on staying and they talked and tried to get Danny to forget why he was even there in the first place. His persistence in not wanting to go proves that they have more than friendship, especially when he knew exactly what to talk about or get Danny calm enough so that he would momentarily forget about the bomb.

Fast forward to season four. The episode where the building collapsed had to have been the most dramatic episode of season four. To refresh, Steve, Danny, and the rest of the team were in a paring grange, looking for a victim. I don't speak exactly remember why, but the rest of the team left the garage, except for Danny and Steve. They investigated until they found a man bound and gagged, tied to a chair in a separate room. Just as they were figuring out what he was saying, which was, "BOMB!" the bomb went off, collapsing the building.

That episode was solely focused on Steve and Danny and how they were gong to get out of their predicament. Danny was also badly hurt, his leg trapped under a cement pillar. Steve didn't give up. After freeing Danny, he temporarily managed to fix his wound, and then created a mini-bomb that would let the people looking for them where they were. It worked and they were free. Once out, they exchanged their first ever "I love yous" while hard-core hugging. This was no "hey bro!" hug. This was an "I am so serious about this, I really do love you," hug. And I don't think I'm wearing shipper goggles for that moment. I genuinely think that that meant what they said. They embraced for a really long time, surprisingly longer then what I would've thought producers would've liked.

After that epic bromance scene, season five was filled with plenty more bromantic/ shipper-O.T.P. feels. That was the season when they went to therapy! Ok, fine, true, it's because they are "work partners" and it was mandatory, but you can't tell me that they weren't acting like a married couple throughout all of those scenes. There is one episode from that therapy time period in particular that I am thinking of, and it has everything to do with undercover work. It's the part of the episode where there is a huge bank heist and Danny and Steve decide to head to an apartment across the street from the robber so they can spy on her and see what she is planning on doing next.

The Five-0 team (but more importantly, the production staff and possibly Peter Lenvok) could have had anyone do this. They could have had cousins Kono and Chin watching out or even the odd combination of Grover and Chin. But no. They choose Steve and Danny. Shippers all across the globe rejoiced.

The best part of their stay in the place (besides, of course, seeing how Danny and Steve would live with each other if given the real chance to) was when it was nighttime and one kept a lookout while the other one slept. Steve decide to watch first, so Danny slept, and he randomly woke up in the middle of Steve's shift. He noticed that the "Perfect Partners" workbook the therapist had given them had been moved, which he thought was funny, because Steve already made it a known that he didn't want anything to do with the book. So he said something about it, and Steve didn't confess to moving it, even though we all know that he did.

Steve then told Danny a story about his youth; a salty that made him seem more human in Danny's eyes. He started it of by saying, "Music. I'm into music," when Danny asked why his hobbies were. "So?" Danny had retorted. "That's a cop-out. Everyone is into music." "No, I meant I'm into playing it," Steve responded. He then told Danny the story about when he was a junior in high school and was in the school talent show to play his guitar. But he had had major stage fright and hadn't actually gone through with it, getting off the stage before he even began. He said to Danny, "That is the reason why I still don't play the guitar to this day," Steve had finished the story. He also add that he had previously never told anyone that story before, which is why it was an important plot point in the McDanno tale. Once he was done, Danny laughed at him. "A little bit of stage fright stopped you from forever playing the guitar?" He'd asked. They then had one of their cute little arguments over the whole issue, and right before Danny went back to sleep, he said, "You know, after all we've been though together...your father...my brother...I would be thought you would've opened up to me more by now." Steve causally responds, "I just did." The McDanno universe (myself included) lost all chill, reblogging that moment over and over.

Later, at the end of that same episode, Steve, Danny and everybody else were at Kamakoahs to eat. Steve and Danny had to leave early, in order to go to their thereby appointment. Ruth, who we met earlier in the episode, was really confused. Remember, she was the old lady who thought that Danny and Steve were gay and living together, to which Steve responded, "We're not gay, we're Five-0." Later, after she left, Danny said, "You know, I would've just vine with the gay thing." So that happened, which does is why Ruth was so confused. As they left, she said, "Wait. I thought they weren't gay." The rest of the team didn't even deny it, they just joyfully laughed, as if to say, "Yeah, girl, we know. They're just faking it. We know they are gay together."

So they walked to Danny's Camaro, and that's when a fan fiction moment happened. You possibly know what I'm talking about. In case you don't, fanfiction moments are those little things in which you think, "Yeah, this can definitely only and will only happen in this fan fiction universe. Sigh." But then the thing from the fan fic actually does happen on the real show, and life suddenly becomes magical. Anyway, this fan fic moment was when Danny revealed that he'd gotten Steve a gift. After telling Danny that he didn't do his part of their assignment, joking that the dog ate his homework, we find out what the gift is. In the trunk of the Camaro, Steve pulled out an elegant black guitar case. Steve had asked, "What is this, Danny?" Danny, his usual snarky self, responded, "It's a tuba, you schmuck. Just open it and you'll see." Inside the case was a beautiful, new guitar which Danny had purchased specifically for Steve. As Danny looked on proudly, Steve muttered, "Danny, Danny, DANNY," with a small smile on his face. He strummed a few strings, and they had a little back and forth conversation about Steve's new instrument, including some things about why Danny had purchased it in the first place. I don't remember what exactly was said, but I do recall that Danny had gotten it for Steve so that he could get back into playing again. Then, Steve put the guitar back in the case and looked thoughtful for a moment. He slammed the trunk of the Camaro and tossed the keys to Danny, saying, "You know what? You drive." Danny caught the keys, a look of pure shock on his face. "I drive. Wow," a stunned Danny said as he accepted the gesture. "Don't get too excited," Steve had replied as he climbed in the passenger seat for the first time in a long time. "I'm still controlling the radio." Driving away, Steve did exactly that, messing around with the switch from the passenger seat.

Ok. That scene was very important for many reasons. Let's start with guitar. Danny didn't have to get him that. Steve never asked him for it, he simply told Danny a story. A story which he had never told anyone before, ever. This obviously includes Catherine, which doesn't make sense. If they were so close, wouldn't Steve have trusted her enough to tell her this about himself? But he never did. He chose to tell Danny instead. Danny went above and beyond what any purely platonic friend would, and it showed. I'm not saying that friends can't buy friends nice gifts for no reason, but it just felt different, in that case. I know that whenever my friends tell me something about themselves, I don't immediately rush out to buy them some thing hella expensive for no reason at all. And it wasn't even the fact that he bought Steve a gift for no reason. It was the fact of what it was, combined with the fact of the story (as mentioned above). It also didn't hurt that Danny could see that that life experience really affected Steve, and that he missed playing his guitar. Steve was extremely touched by the gesture, and Danny was so proud of himself for buying that expensive instrument for Steve. I don't think Danny had ever done doe thing like that for anyone before, not even the people in his family. It was especially worth it to him when Steve admitted to loving at first touch. The smile on both of their faces when the guitar was revealed says enough about this topic, in my opinion. It proves that A) They care enough about each other to listen, talk, and reveal information about themselves without getting made fun of (at least not too much, anyway) and B) they are willing to go the extra mile just to make each other happy.

The other reason that end scene was crucial was the whole "Danny is driving " thing. For those who are casual watchers, it is important to know that basically, ever since the day they met, Steve has been driving Danny's Camaro. This fact has been brought up many times before in the script, and it is the main source of their many "carguments" (I'm not telling you what that is. You can look it up yourself if you don't know). It was even brought up in one of their therapy appointments from earlier in season five. For Steve to actually let Danny drive for once was a huge milestone on his part. He was so affected, surprised, and touched by the gift of the amazing guitar that he felt like he had to let Danny drive after that. It was a compromise he was willing to make. It also shows the progress that they made in their relationship that day, and it was just more overall proof that they are the endgame couple.

I could clearly go on and on forever about these two. Another really good example of their relativity is when they have to go to couple's counseling as part of their mandatory therapy. Do you all remember that? Just for a refresher, that was the one where Steve literally signed them up for couples counseling; as in husband-and-wife couples counseling. Anyway. That episode is "feels worthy" in its entirety (especially the ending where they were just chilling at a table, eating lunch together. Also, Steve round Danny's arm to "feel the effects of the lotion". Sure, Steve. If that excuse works for you...).

Beside those specific examples, there have multiple hugs and touches that have lingered for far too long. Danny calls Steve "Babe"; a nickname he rarely calls anybody else, and Steve calls Danny "Danno". True, this is mostly to annoy him, but as Danny gets to know Steve better, he slowly realizes that he actually doesn't mind it. "When I say 'Danno'...it's a term of endearment," Steve said in season one when Danny was protesting it. Much to Steve's surprise, Danny responded, "Do it every day, then. I like it." Steve smiled all goofily, and it was worth it for all those times of Danny yelling at Steve to not use it. Another point to bring up-they are the few people to ever use each other's full names; Steven and Daniel, respectively. The only other people who occasionally call them by their full names are the few times their parents (sometimes not even that, but a parent-like figure) have been on the show. Whenever they call the other by their full name, it's usually to prove a point, to get the others attention, or even just to subtly let them know that they are different from what everyone else knows. Again, this is just my opinion.

Then there are various innuendos that refer to Danny and Steve in a non-bro/non- platonic way, including the amount of times they say, "I love you," to each other. The one after the building collapse made sense, but every time they say it after that is just to mess with shippers. They really do love each other, though. In fact, at the end of one particularly memorable occasion, Danny combined nickname with an I love you. He was talking to Steve about something, and at the end of their conversation, he looked up at Steve and said, "That's why I love you, babe." All of the McDanno shippers died a little bit that day. (Well, I know I did, anyway.) Also, side-note: Remember the "air hearts" from season two?! Oh! And that time in season three where they went fishing together and then got stranded for almost the whole episode? Tell me that wasn't one of the greatest things to ever see on Hawaii Five-0, and in the McDanno world...! My point is that they have all these endearment terms that they say to each other, sometimes for no reason at all. They are saying them because they want to, not because they feel like they have to. To me, it doesn't feel forced onto the characters, either. It just seems natural and easy with them. Even people who don't ship them (yes, there are some) raised eyebrows at the amount of times they are unusually sweet on each other.

I also want to mention episode 8 from season 7, specifically the ending. (SPOILER ALERT. Duh.) It was an emotional episode all around, but after the Five-0 team arrested all or the bad guys, and all of the hostages were free again, they all individually hugged it out with one another. Steve and Danny were a good space apart from each other. They were smiling and looking at each other, clearly enjoying the fact that they were both ok. Finally, Steve broke the silence by saying, "What, no hug?" Even the casual viewer would be able to tell that he was disappointed and slightly sad about this fact. And then Danny Williams said the most scream-worthy thing he's said in a long time.

"If I hug you, I might kiss you, and then where would it stop?"

ASDFGHHJKLLKJFFDSAA. That was literally my reaction to that quote, aside from screaming and jumping up and down. True, people could say that they were just so relieved that both of them were safe, and that's why he said it, but honestly? I don't think so. First of all, they looked at each other, goofily smiling for way too long, as they usually do. Next, Danny said, "then where would it stop?" If he had left that part out, it would be less scream-worthy. In that one sentence, everything Danny Williams has ever actually, truly wanted was finally made clear. He wants Steve.

Catherine has never done anything like this for Steve. Honestly, she was always too busy playing the damsel in distress and worrying about herself rather than Steve and trying to fix the problem at hand. Even though she was in the Navy, same as Steve, Danny somehow understands this fact better than she does. The funny thing is that Danny was never in any sort military whatsoever. To clarify, I'm not even talking about all of the times where Danny has casually made fun of what branch Steve served in. In my opinion, Danny understands the things that happened to Steve while he was over there, and he can relate to the trauma he went through. Catherine, on the other hand, never wanted to talk about serious issues with Steve, even if he brought it up. Most of the time, unless it involved a problem she was in, she gave no care to what Steve's past experiences had been. However, I know that this argument is, as my Algebra II teacher would put it, "weak sauce", so you can come after me for that if you'd like. Anyway, back to the point. I just think that Catherine was a poorly developed character from the moment we met her. Aside from occasionally helping Five-0 with some cases, she didn't really add any substance to the story, especially when it came to matters involving Steve. In fact, the only real, solo plot lines she ever really got was the things with Billy, her ex, and then of course the would "I'm going to stay in Afghanistan" Taliban thing. She also got the spy story line, which was bitter to many, and it didn't do a great job on making me believe that she and Steve could ever be in a real relationship. It was lazy acting, especially on Michelle Borth's (the woman that plays Catherine) part. She could have done a lot better, including trying to convince the writers and producers to come up with a better story for Catherine. Ok, to be fair, I think that if that dumbass spy storyline was better, it could've possibly saved their sinking relationship. But alas, it didn't, and in all honesty, I thought it was a dumb plot twist. To me, it wasn't even a plot twist, but I regress. To get back on topic...even when she was with Steve, actually in a relationship with him, there were still things with Danny that made her side–eye and question them. Obviously, I have examples, but that would take too much time to write all of them down. Trust me, though, there's many examples of this.

Overall, given all of the great evidence I have provided, it is clear to see why Steve and Catherine do not belong together. They will never be my personal endgame, anyway. Danny and Steve have something special; something more than friendship, or even a silly, fun bromance. I will 100% stand by the McDanno ship until the day I die. Even if it has absolutely no chance of ever legitimately becoming canon, I will not give up. Fuck, when the show eventually, ends and if they are STILL not together, I will be shipping it. (And also writing letters/making phone calls/leaving messages on all of their social media's to the production staff and writers questing why the hell they baited us after all of those years and then never followed through on it.) It is my belief that if two people are meant to be together, they will find a way to be together. Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams clearly are these two people. They have gone above and beyond on showing the world what love really is. Catherine and Steve have not. Sure, they've had a lot of fun together, but that does not begin to compare to the amazing relationship that Danny and Steve have built for themselves. I will never lose hope about McDanno.

Catherine is just another thing standing in the way. Danny and Steve WILL be together one day. For real. Forever. It's just a matter of time and bravery. The fans are more than ready, and the writers have been leading up to a real relationship between them for years. I don't care who you ship, you absolutely cannot deny the fireworks happening between those two. Mark my words and take this long-ass...thing I've written as proof. But until everyone (writers, actors, fans, literally everyone involved with Five-0) gets their shit together...well, at least there's a fanfic for that!

If anyone would like to discuss post this with me, feel free to message me directly. I'd be thrilled to talk to you about McDanno. And of not, that's cool too. I'll always be here, though, if you need to desperately drop a line(:

#McDanno #OTP #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #mcrollins #ShipDefense #NOTP #hawaii five 0 #h50 #longtextposts #Fanfiction #TheyWillBeCanonJustWait #opinion #Whoeverdoesn'tshipthencanGTFO #soulmates #Morethanabromance #Ships #ShippersGoggles #shipppergonnaship

[placetobenation]

As many of you are aware, WWE Network is pretty packed with all sorts of content. And as you may also know, we here at Place to Be Nation love long term, in depth projects. So, as part of this initiative, members of the PTBN Staff are choosing programs at random and after watching each program, they will share their thoughts, notes and recommendations with our readers. So, settle in and enjoy this epic ride through wrestling history!

Smackdown! October 31st 2002

Run Time: 83 Minutes

Why Jacob Why???: Since this edition be running right around Halloween, I thought I’d pick one of the more Halloween-centric WWF/E shows. Plus, it’s an excuse to watch the Smackdown Six.

Best Segment

OhhhhhhhhYEEEEAAAAH!

Aaron George: Matt Hardy enters the Halloween party with a boom box blasting his theme song. Sure he could have entered without it, but what kind of Mattitude would that project? Before long he’s declaring Moolah and Mae Young to be “Version BC” and quickly notes that their Mattitude has all dried up. We would have been treated to sheer perfection if only he had blasted that sweet boom box on his exit.

Brian Bayless: While seeing John Cena dressed as Vanilla Ice and rapping was great and ended up elevating his career, I though the brawl between Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle backstage at the party was the best of the night. It had everything from comedy (We saw Brother Love revealed behind the Scream mask & costume, the same costume Angle was using to avoid Benoit earlier in the show) and a wild brawl that saw Benoit break a bottle over Angle’s head just before getting put through a table with an Angle Slam. And poor Shannon Moore got tossed across the room by Angle.

Jacob Williams: It feels like cheating to pick the entire Halloween party. At the same time, it’s hard to narrow it down because a lot it was very fluid. If I had to pick one bit, it would be Tajiri’s romantic encounter with Mae and Moolah. His facials were classic.

Calum McDougall: “OOHHH YEAAAH!!” – there was only one winner in this one for me and it was Matt Hardy at the Halloween Party. From him coming in with his own music playing on a boom box to calling Mae and Moolah “Version B.C.” and everything in between, it was brilliant stuff.

Dave Hall: Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit brawl at the Halloween Party. The seeds of this segment lay in the earlier segment where Benoit was looking for Kurt, who was hiding under the Scream outfit. Following Angle’s match with Eddie, Kurt comes back to the party looking for Benoit. Kurt’s approach to the “Scream Character” believing it to be Benoit was a good call back to the earlier segment, and I loved seeing the cameo by Brother Love. The brawl between the two men following this was awesome, using the tables, wall and other party elements.

Best Match

Uhhhh stay out of Riverdale!

Aaron George: It’s the brown water match and it’s not even close. Sure every other match on the card was technically better, but Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson gave us a “stiff” (as per Tazzzzzzzzz) match that will always be etched into the annals of time as simply the best to take place in a pool of liquid shit. They can tell us it’s chocolate, but honestly what kind of chocolate has that consistency? It’s liquid human shit which is clearly their metaphor for the poopstorm that is coming in the form of this feud. Was the ref rolling around silly? Sure. Were Torrie’s chops DIRECTLY to Dawn’s breasts the best since Flair/Steamboat in 89? Absolutely. The best part was after the loss Dawn gave Torrie a look that clearly said, “Yeah? Well I’m going to fuck your dad.” A threat I have often used but have very rarely carried out.  I can only imagine Vince McMahon Sr. looking down from Heaven, beaming with pride as his son carried on the family business. ******

Brian Bayless: Edge vs. Chris Benoit was an excellent TV match. The work was crisp and the finish made sense as it continued the friction between Angle and Benoit, who were the Smackdown Tag Team Champions.

Jacob Williams: On a show with some quality wrestling, the opener between Benoit and Edge felt like the most complete match. I love that they could come out and just have a great, straight-up match to start the show.

Calum McDougall: As good as Edge vs Benoit and Angle vs Eddie were, my favorite match was actually Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio. This match had three distinct parts to it – the early section with Rey out maneuvering the big man, followed by the middle part where Brock throws Rey around like a rag-doll and finally the end where Big Show comes out and manhandles both of them, looking like a complete beast in the process. Great stuff for the short time it was on, and call me crazy, but I wouldn’t mind seeing another Brock-Rey match in 2018.

Dave Hall: Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero. On a show with so many options for the title of Match of the Night, Kurt and Eddie absolutely stole the show. Kurt was a wrestling machine, and looked amazing in the ring, while Eddie was crisp and quick. The two men countered each other finishers, and put on a clinic. The match built really well to some great action in the last few minutes, and a decent ending for a TV match. Benoit’s interference was appropriate to the storyline, and I loved how he took out Eddie and Chavo as well, demonstrating he was not working with them.

Most Cringeworthy Moment

Trojan Vince! Don’t let it in the city!

Aaron George: I’m not going to say that Stephanie McMahon isn’t an attractive woman, but on a show with the aforementioned Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie, does EVERY person who comes into Steph’s radius have to fawn on her as though she were Helen of fucking Troy. Are those the tits that launched a thousand ships?

Brian Bayless: Eric Bischoff making out with Stephanie McMahon after he was in her office wearing a Vince McMahon mask was something I never need to see again in my life. It was creepy in the worst way possible.

Jacob Williams: Sorry Michael Cole, but awkwardly perving out during the women’s pool-of-chocolate-sauce match can’t compete with Bischoff forcing himself on a woman 20 years his junior in a weird incest roleplay.

Calum McDougall: The piped-in cheers every time Stephanie McMahon was on the screen. Now I know that all of the cheers on SmackDown at this time were piped in, but there was no reason for Stephanie’s to be top-tier babyface loud other than pure ego. Only Brock and maybe Edge got louder “cheers”. I don’t know whether them going to these lengths to show Stephanie as being popular is cringy or outright infuriating, but it certainly rubbed me the wrong way.

Dave Hall: Dawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson.This segment showed us just how far women’s wrestling has come in 16 years. This match was horrible to watch, with the two women degrading themselves in little clothing and in a pool of chocolate milk. I hated every moment of this match, including the customary referee gets rolled over spot. I am so glad the women’s evolution means we don’t have to see this crap any more.

Funniest Line/Moment

Hashtag Tajiritoo

Aaron George: I’m still laughing at the image of Al Wilson dressed up like a greaser. Still.

Brian Bayless: Tajiri’s facial expressions while Mae Young forced him to be her boyfriend. He is one of the more underrated comedic performers in wrestling.

Jacob Williams: Again, I can’t say enough about Tajiri’s face after the Mae Young smooch. I love Tajiri.

Calum McDougall: “He’s saying Do La Ray, you know what that means Cole? It means “I’m beating up Kurt”” – Tazz doing his best to boost the sales of his Spanish to Red Hook dictionary.

Dave Hall: With so much good “in-ring” action, there were not a lot of amazingly funny lines. However during the Eddie vs Angle match, Tazz made the comment “I like Guerrero… I like Kurt… I like everyone on the Smackdown roster except you Michael Cole”. Also John Cena’s “Vanilla Ice Costume” was a great reminder of how he broke out in the WWE. But when he told Stephanie that Vince was looking for her, and she called him out, and he then did the “damn, I look stupid moment”, I laughed out loud. Was a great reminder that John Cena has more in his character than the hustle/loyalty/respect stuff we have seen since about 2005/06, he can do good comedy and was willing to poke fun at himself.

Highlights

Remember when we weren’t insufferable pricks??

Aaron George: The entire concept of doing a Halloween show was a TON of fun, and made the show instantly memorable. They should do more theme shows today. I know that they are actively going for homogenous, but a curve ball like this would be more than welcome. The costumes were almost universally silly. Faarooq playing Charles Wright was bang on, and while you’d think that Chuck Palumbo dressed as a Native American would go down as 2018’s most offensive, you’d be horrible mistaken as the honor easily went to the fan dressed as the Rock in full blackface. Almost all the matches were top-tier television matches. “YEAH MY DURANGO, NUMBER 95,” is possibly the most Rob Zombie lyric ever. There is something beautiful about Chris Benoit simply avoiding Edge’s top rope dropkick rather than finding a way to kick him six times on the way down. Benoit also sells a turnbuckle drop in what can only be described as “like when you’re about to uppercut Von Kaiser in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.” Teenage Brock Lesnar is always a blast to have around. Kurt Angle staring angrily into the audience as they chant “You Suck” is waaaay better that the smiling Kurt we get today. He STILL doesn’t get why they are booing him. He also has the best near falls in the business. I could also watch Brock throw Rey Mysterio around all day. Even then he was one of the better sellers in the business. Speaking of best in the business: Tajiri’s kicks. Oh and the Brother Love reveal was great.

Brian Bayless: The party segments backstage were amusing enough and some of the costumes were funny (Chuck Palumbo as a Native American and Disco Tajiri) while some were just lame (Phantom of the Opera Billy Kidman). And while not as good as Edge vs. Benoit, Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero was a solid match ending with Benoit whacking Angle with the belt setting up Eddie to hit a frog splash for the win. Matt Hardy with his Version 1.0 character was amusing and I liked his entrance into the party. The Pudding match between Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie was surprisingly intense and I can only imagine how hard Vince was laughing backstage after Torrie tossed ring announcer Tony Chimel into the pudding. And of course, Al Wilson dressed as a greaser was a sight to behold.

Jacob Williams: The Halloween stuff was a fun throwback to mid-80s TNT campiness that gave everyone a chance to show their personalities. I love any situation that shows that the wrestlers all hang out backstage and are basically coworkers. Smackdown had a nice roster who were either fun characters, amazing wrestlers, or a combination of both. Tazz and Cole are a fun commentary team that really fit the show.

Calum McDougall: The way the Big Show was presented was really good. It’s hard to imagine in 2018 that there was a time where people actually believed that Brock Lesnar couldn’t beat the Big Show. At least I believed that anyway… Tazz trying to call the Torrie/Dawn “match” as an actual athletic contest was excellent stuff. I watched this show on the Friday before WWE Evolution, and this really does show how far women’s wrestling has come in the last 16 years.

Dave Hall: Pretty well the entire show was a highlight. The in-ring product was amazing, and as much as I wanted to hate Chris Benoit, I loved his match with Edge and his brawl with Angle. Matt Hardy Version 1 was great, and a good reminder that Hardy always the better “character” to his brother Jeff. Brock Lesnar was awesome in the ring, although I felt he sold a little too much at the end of his match with Rey. Big Show was booked as the monster heel he excelled at. This show was a reminder of how good all these guys were in 2002, and also how much WWE missed the mark with so many of them over the years.

Lowlights

Aaron George: Big Show wrestling in his street clothes is awful. Is that business casual for him? He just looks like a god damn slob.  His line delivery is worse. Is he bored? Stoned? Or did he simply study at the Stephanie McMahon “Petulant Child” school of acting? Seriously go back and watch how she says REY MYSTERIO in the opening segment when she gives him a match with Brock. Who on Earth talks that way? What on Earth was the point of the Bischoff/Stephanie kiss of weirdness? I know that she’s a sex symbol for the ages, but poor Eric simply doesn’t know what to do with himself after kissing the slutty witch of the east. Fuck Big Show for clearly ruining what could have been an awesome dream match.  While I’m at it like me correct something I said earlier: there is no way Vince Sr. is in Heaven. Especially when you have a best friend named “Toots.”

Brian Bayless: One of the main goals was to build up Big Show as Brock Lesnar’s title opponent for Survivor Series and man did he fail tonight. His street clothes looked was terrible, his conditioning worse (he was gassed after beating Rikishi in a match that lasted under three minutes long), and the cut a terribly long promo that no one seemed to care about. Stephanie McMahon’s segments were all awkward tonight too.

Jacob Williams: The feud between Lesnar and Big Show was lackluster. Show looked so bloated and out of place in his biker dad jeans against a young stud like Brock. Show gasping through his promo and Brock’s stilted delivery of an S-Bomb in his response didn’t help matters. The women having to wrestle in a kiddy pool filled with Ovaltine was not a high point either.

Calum McDougall: The Big Show promo was unnecessarily long, he made the point, then made it another 2 or 3 times before Brock finally appeared. Also, Eddie Guerrero’s very noticeable bacne is a sad lowlight in retrospect.

Dave Hall: The only real lowlights for me were the segments involving Stephanie. The first segment seemed just an excuse to show off Stephanie’s breasts, while the kissing segment with Eric Bischoff, while humorous, was not necessary. With the amazing in-ring action, it made Stephanie’s part in the show seem really self-indulgent.

Wild Card BABY!!!

Wrestling!

I Can’t Believe This Got Over: It’s not rap. It’s bad slam poetry. It became worse slam poetry. – AG

Al Wilson Tidbit #1: Paul Heyman created the Al Wilson storyline and according to Torrie Wilson, Heyman gave her the option to use an actor in the role or her actual father and Torrie went with her dad because she rarely saw him and thought it would be fun as he used to act when he was younger. – BB

The Award for Most Misplaced Optimism: “Exciting times ahead in WWE after the signing of Scott Steiner.” I don’t think this one needs much explanation, let’s just let it sink in. – CM

Best Babyface in Peril: Person in the bear costume. – JW

Number of Sexual Assaults: 3! Mae Young accosts Tajiri. Eric Bischoff forces himself on Stephanie. (who is into it???) The letch in the Kane mask filming Dawn Marie. Someone should show Randy Savage footage of this guy to clearly demonstrate lust in the eyes. There is no way his hard on didn’t pierce someone’s back in front of him.

Al Wilson Tidbit #2: According to Dawn Marie, the toughest thing for her to do was kiss Al Wilson. However, Vince McMahon loved watching them kiss and even said he wanted to see “tongue.” – BB

Memories Are Forever: Looking at Brock and Kurt in amazing ring shape, and much smaller than recent years, Matt Hardy’s early character development, John Cena’s freestyle rapping and Edge using more counter wrestling really brought back some amazing memories of what these guys could do at the time. Watching this show made me think of the little things that seem to be missing today. – DH

Best Tidbit: According to Wade Keller of “Pro Wrestling Torch,” Brock Lesnar was originally going to defend the title against Hulk Hogan at Survivor Series 2002 but Hogan backed out, reportedly due to refusing to put Lesnar over. After contemplating between Chris Benoit and Big Show as replacements, Vince McMahon ultimately decided to go with Show despite Heyman pushing for a Benoit/Lesnar program. – BB

Best at Fooling Security Staff: The master of disguise Eric Bischoff strikes again. Twice now in 2002 Easy E has managed to get past SmackDown security just by wearing a mask. Extra points awarded for a good Vince impression, but points deducted for this not being as good as Billy and Chuck’s wedding. – CM

Al Wilson Tidbit #3: Dawn Marie also said that the Al Wilson angle was supposed to go on even longer with lawyers and Torrie’s brother added to the storyline but that all got nixed. – BB

Least Likely to Still be Full Time in 2018: Out of everyone on this show, who would have thought that it would be Rey Mysterio, the man of 619 knee operations, who would be the only one still wrestling full-time for WWE in 2018? – CM

I Really Tried…: I found it so hard watching Chris Benoit on this show. I really wanted to just overlook and hate him, but his match against Edge was amazing, and his brawl with Kurt was also great. As much as I wanted to, I just could not hate Benoit in this show, and I find myself really conflicted because of this. – DH

Final Thoughts

Come on! We needed one shot of this smoke show.

Aaron George: This was a fun, easy watch littered with great television matches and memorable moments. It’s easy to think of Smackdown as the “B” show, but it was clearly running on all cylinders here. Now someone please give me 75 minutes of Brock Lesnar manhandling Rey Mysterio! RATING: 7/10

Brian Bayless: The Halloween party theme worked really well and usually the WWE Holiday themed shows tend to be weak. It is also memorable for the creation of Cena’s rap character. We had a really good match and an intense brawl between Angle and Benoit. The Big Show segments were terrible but overall a fun show that breezed along. RATING: 7/10

Jacob Williams: This was a finely constructed piece of wrestling television. The Halloween stuff was enough to give the show a unique feel without smothering it. Just about everyone on the show looked to be pretty over and had something at least semi-meaningful to do. Plus, there were good matches to round everything out. Aside from the questionable Big Show spot, Smackdown looked to be in a pretty great groove at this point, so this show was a breezy watch. RATING: 7/10

Calum McDougall: It’s easy to see why SmackDown in ’02 was highly thought of at the time and is fondly remembered to this day, this stuff holds up so well. I had a smile on my face from start to finish, as this took me right back to when I would watch this on a Saturday morning. It was a fantastic trip down memory lane. It would be difficult to put on a bad show with this roster, and the quality of matches that they can and did put on was outrageous. I loved this, excellent stuff.  RATING: 9/10

Dave Hall: This episode of Smackdown was awesome. 4 great matches, some good brawling out of the ring, John Cena giving us some freestyle and some good booking made this card one I would watch again. The only thing stopping it from being a 10 out of 10 was the Dawn Marie vs Torrie Wilson fiasco, and Stephanie’s self-indulgence. I may just need to watch some more Smackdown from this era… RATING: 9/10

And we are out! Where will the Network Adventure travel to? Which Coliseum will be conquered next? Which of these assholes will quit the project in an indignant rage??? Find out in TWO WEEKS!

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

[hellofastestnewsfan]

Michael Gerson, one of the most eloquent and principled critics of Donald Trump, insists that we are at June 1973, the moment when John Dean’s testimony broke the dam that a year later swept Richard Nixon off into disgrace. Others agree: This is an inflection point. And yet an equally well-informed friend insists, “I no longer believe in political inflection points and neither should you.” Who knows? But even if we do not recognize the turning points in the moment, we can anticipate what the end will feel like when it does arrive.

To be sure, Trump could hang on until the 2020 election. It is even possible, if considerably less likely, that he could be reelected and march off into a glitzy retirement at Trump properties in Florida and New Jersey, his retreat from public life punctuated only by bursts of increasingly senile bombast. But it does seem more likely than it once was that he will go down in disgrace.

The mood of that moment was given to us in an episode now faded into the remote, pre-Paul Manafort-conviction, pre-Michael Cohen-guilty-plea world, when Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the flashy villainess of more than one Trump reality-television show, turned on her benefactor with juicy and not entirely incredible revelations. A puerile justice this: the secret taper of others taped, the once upright Marine general caught trying to bully the only black woman close to the president by locking her in the Situation Room while threatening her with legal consequences to force her resignation. Her betrayal of her benefactor proved a tawdry but revealing final episode in this particular show.

But to really get the feel for the Trump administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:

Those he commands move only in command,

Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.

And so it will be for Trump. To be clear, these are very different people. Macbeth is an utterly absorbing, troubling, tragic, and compelling figure. Unlike America’s germaphobic president, who copped five draft deferments and has yet to visit the thousands of American soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, he is physically brave. In fact, the first thing we hear about him is that in the heat of battle with a rebel against King Duncan (whom he later murders) Macbeth “unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops.” He is apparently faithful to his wife, has a conscience (that he overcomes), knows guilt and remorse, and has self-knowledge. He also has a pretty good command of the English language. In all these respects he is as unlike Trump as one can be.

But in the moment of losing power, the two will be alike. A tyrant is unloved, and although the laws and institutions of the United States have proven a brake on Trump, his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well.

And thus their courtiers abandon even monumental tyrants like Mussolini—who at least had his mistress, Claretta Petacci, with him at his ignominious end. (Melania’s affections are considerably less certain.) The normal course of events is sudden, epic desertion, in which an all-powerful political figure who loomed over everything is suddenly left shrunken and pitiful, a wretched little figure in gaudy robes absurdly too big for him, a figure of ridicule as much as, and even more than, hatred.

This is going to happen to Trump at some point. Of the Republicans in Congress it may be said of most of them: Those he commands move only in command, nothing in love. For now, admittedly, there are those who still court his favor—Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, once the trusty vassal of Senator John McCain, the bravest of warriors and noblest of dukes, seems to have switched his allegiance from his dying lord to the swaggering upstart aged prince. But that is about ambition, not affection.

For the moment, the Republicans will not turn on Trump. They fear a peasant revolt, many of them; they still crave favors; they may think his castle impregnable, although less so if they believe what the polls tell them about some of its tottering walls. But if they suffer a medieval-style slaughter on Election Day, the remnants of the knights of the GOP will know a greater fear than that of being primaried. And at the moment when they no longer fear being swept away in 2020, when the economy may be in recession and Robert Mueller’s probe is complete with revelations whose ghastliness would delight the three witches of the Scottish play, they will suddenly turn on Trump. Act V of this play will also have a nonlinear finish.

And what of Trump himself? In this respect he will be like Macbeth. Where Nixon, who was a statesman, saw the inevitable and resigned, this president is more likely to go down spitting defiance. As for the rest of us, Macduff says to the cornered king just before their final death grapple:

Live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time.

We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole, and underwrit

“Here may you see the tyrant”

And so it will likely be, as Americans gaze back and wonder how on earth this rare monster, now deposed, ended up as their president.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2Llz0qh

#Blogger

[maryabridged]

"No one ever accused this game of being subtle." 1/2

Or

Detroit: Become Human Isn't About Race (but it is tho)

PART TWO / BOTH PARTS IN ONE PLACE

Okay, so, I’ve gotten just…a tad obsessed with the new IP from Quantic Dream, Detroit: Become Human. Guys, I love this game. So much. But, unfortunately, it’s the kind of game that is so wildly problematic that I have to qualify that love. It’s gonna take a lot of words to do this, so I’ve divided it into two posts for tumblr. This one will be an overview of what the game is about and my general feelings, and the next one will get into the stuff that went super wrong. If you want to read them as one post, you can go to my other blog. I’ll be as spoiler free as possible.

First, things you should know about me: I have never played a Quantic Dream game before. Based on what I know about the other games they’ve made, I have very little interest in playing them. I saw, and enjoyed, the Kara short they released several years ago, and when they announced they were going to make a game based on it, I was intrigued. Then I saw some trailers and was excited. I still wasn’t sure if I would play the game myself, since Quantic Dream games are infamously full of QTEs (which I’m bad at) and that failing them can cause characters to die and storylines to end, but that didn’t completely turn me off. Then I heard some things about it, and about the lead writer, that left me unsure about the game, and I ended up deciding to watch Ryan Haywood’s play through on Twitch to see if I wanted to some day get the game for myself.

Detroit: Become Human (DBH) takes place in the year 2038, a near future where androids (created by CyberLife) are as common as cellphones, pretty affordable, and completely obedient. Businesses use them as cheap labour, and the result is an Earth similar to the one imagined by Isaac Asimov in The Caves of Steel. That is to say, a lot of humans are unemployed because machines took their jobs, and humans are pretty upset about it. Someone at CyberLife did a bad job with Asimov’s laws of robotics, though, because some androids, called deviants, don’t want to take orders anymore and have gone rogue (and can very much harm humans and themselves). Deviants are hunted down to be either reprogrammed or destroyed.

The player alternates between controlling three main characters throughout the story, all androids. One is Kara, a deviant who broke her programming to save the life of her owner’s abused daughter, Alice, and is now on the run with her. Another is Markus, a deviant who gets tired of hiding pretty damn fast and starts the robot rebellion that’s the main unifying story arc for the game. Finally, we have Connor, an android that CyberLife created with the sole purpose of hunting down deviants, and he’s partnered with a human police lieutenant to do it. Interestingly, Connor spends most of the game as an antagonist to the other two player characters, and, depending on your choices, can become the main antagonist by the end.

There’s some connection between the three characters (especially Connor and Markus), but for the most part they each have their own storyline. My general feelings on each of the storylines are as follows:

Markus (played by Jesse Williams)

Cool character with lots of great supporting characters

Epic story arc, and some really great scenes (and not one, but TWO heist missions, which are my jam), but a ton of heavy handed Civil War (among others) metaphors that create a majority of the game’s problems

Really, really excellent character origin though, oh my god, the scene where he picks himself back up after losing everything is horrifying in all the right ways and it’s fantastic

Jesse Williams is beautiful??? That’s not really a story opinion that’s just a fact

Kara (played by Valorie Curry)

Compelling and very sympathetic character who is unfortunately pretty inconsequential to the game’s main arc (nothing she does has any effect on the success or failure of the rebellion, whereas Markus and Connor can each make or break the rebellion)

Also has some great scenes, builds tension really well

Includes one of my favourite secondary characters (I love Luther, please protect him)

YMMV, but there’s a really disappointing “twist” near the end that comes with some deeply unsatisfying character development for Kara in terms of what she decides it means to be alive

(Motherhood. If you’re a woman, it means motherhood.)

Beautiful theme music tho, the cellos are A++

Connor (played by Bryan Dechart)

Everything about this storyline is fucking phenomenal

Okay, I’m super biased there, because Connor’s story happens to tick, like, all of my favourite narrative boxes. There’s probably problematic stuff that I missed because I was distracted by just how much I love literally everything about Connor’s character (including a beautiful performance by Bryan Dechart, y’all, he fucking nails it). [Edit: OH HEY HERE’S A BIG ONE I DIDN’T THINK OF RIGHT AWAY BECAUSE I’M AN OBLIVIOUS MESS having the only autistic-coded character in the game be a literal machine is not great, guyyyys.]

If you know me and my character/narrative/trope preferences at all, you know I love robots. Or, more specifically, sentient AIs. I love them because I love themes and character arcs centred on exploring identity (both in the general sense of what it means to be human and alive, but also in a more personal sense that will vary from character to character), and robots are one of the classic ways to explore that. (This is part of why the Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie is my favourite. Every single character in that book series has a completely different and deliciously complicated relationship with their own identity and it’s beautifully explored.) While each of the three main characters are androids that hit some of those juicy, juicy identity questions, Connor’s story is all about identity, and I love it. Kara’s story is about finding freedom, and Markus’s story is about finding justice, but Connor’s is about finding himself (he’s the character whose development can change the most dramatically, depending on the player’s choices), and it’s fascinating.

He also has the human/robot buddy cop thing going for him, since his mission to hunt deviants sees him partnered with a cynical human detective named Hank (played wonderfully by Clancy Brown) (yes, that Clancy Brown). If the reference to The Caves of Steel didn’t already give this away, I’m a sucker for that dynamic, and Bryan Dechart and Clancy Brown have amazing chemistry.

I’m probably going to write a million metas on Connor. But, like I said, I don't wanna gush about this game until I acknowledge the things that are very wrong with it.

PART TWO

#Detroit: Become Human #long post #text post #i had a lot of feelings i had to spit out #also i'll take any opportunity to get people to read Imperial Radch so #i just really love robots ok #edited

[andreblogson]

1937

Morgan Bulkeley

Bulkeley was one of the founders as well as the first president of the National League. For one year, in 1876, anyway. And he was also part of the commission that falsely declared Abner Doubleday to be the inventor of baseball. Bulkeley was also the mayor of Hartford, the governor of Connecticut and a U.S. Senator. Before all that, he owned the Hartford Dark Blues of the old National Association (and briefly of the National League). which featured Candy Cummings (the dubious inventor of the curveball), Tom Barlow (the pioneer of the bunt) as well as Tommy Bond (who should probably be in the Hall). And he really wanted you to know that he was related to the JP Morgan family. Okay. Super. I’m sure tons of tourists take their photo with this plaque when they visit the hallowed halls of Cooperstown. 

Ban Johnson

Johnson was the founder and president of the American League. In a time when the National League was seen as a rowdy, drunken shitshow, Johnson wanted to create a cleaner version so it wouldn’t scare women and children have to death with how vulgar it all was. Men. The league would also support its umpires and pay higher wages to its players, which lured away top talent from the N.L starting in 1901. Dude was basically Vince McMahon eighty years prior. 

Everything was going great for Johnson until the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when Kenesaw Mountain Landis was put in charge of Major League Baseball and ruled with an iron fist. The two men did not get along and everything came to a head after Johnson criticized Landis for how he handled the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker gambling affair after 1926. Johnson was forced to resign. And Landis continued on as authoritarian commissioner until his death in 1944. 

Nap Lajoie 

Not that many people have the distinction of having a Major League team named after them. But from 1903-1914, the Cleveland franchise was known as the Naps, after their player-manager second baseman. It would have helped if they’d gone by his last name, so we knew how to pronounce it (Lodge-Way). But then, of course, Lajoie left for Philadelphia, the 1914 Miracle Braves happened and then Cleveland decided to go with a less inclusive-sounding name and logo. But that’s a whole nother story.     

Lajoie came up with Ed Delahanty’s Philadelphia Phillies before being lured away to the higher salaries of the American League in 1901. He promptly became the league’s first superstar, batting .426 in the league’s inaugural year on his way to a Triple Crown. Considering Lajoie hit .345 over five seasons with the Phillies, I’m not too sure about the level of competition in the Junior Circuit at the time. But I’ll let that slide for now.

Lajoie was the best first baseman in baseball in 1897. And the best second baseman in 1900-1901, 1903-1904 and 1906-1908, before taking a back seat to Eddie Collins. Some of those gaps are due to bizarre injuries, like the time he busted his hand fighting teammate, Elmer Flick, while they traveled separately from the team to avoid arrest in Pennsylvania. Or when he got blood poisoning in 1905 from being spiked and then having the dye from his socks enter into his bloodstream. He also had a 1904 suspension for spitting tobacco juice in an umpire’s eye. And in 1907, George Stovall broke a chair over his head in a hotel lobby. Lajoie’s response to the press was, “George didn’t mean anything by it.” And my response is, holy shit. 

Being player-manager probably also negatively affected Lajoie’s play. He still managed (no pun intended) 3,243 career hits (the 3rd man in the 3000 hit club after Cap Anson and Wagner), a career .338 batting average, as well as five batting titles. And over his own career (1896-196), he was the best second baseman in baseball and the second-highest overall in fWAR after Honus Wagner. I would have given him the A.L. MVP in 1901, 1903 and 1904. And I would have given him top 10 finishes in 9 other seasons. 

Lajoie is probably still most famous for that infamous Chalmers Race with Ty Cobb in 1910. And it’s still somehow a thing that people can’t seem to agree on (Lajoie totally fucking won). But Lajoie would retire second in all-time career hits. He was the third-greatest deadball era player after Wagner and Cobb. And the third greatest second baseman of all-time after Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins. Maybe Cleveland should think about going back to calling themselves the Naps. Just a thought. 

Connie Mack

Cornelius McGillicuddy began his career in baseball as a very mediocre catcher, who was known for his dirty tricks behind home plate. As one of the first catchers to play directly behind said plate and not at the backstop, he used his vantage point to fake foul tips (all caught foul tips were outs until 1891... because of dirty tricks by Mack), play mind games with batters and just generally interfere with batters’ swings. He was a real cocksucker back there. 

Mack also served as player-manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1894-1896. But when the new American League opened in 1901, he came on board as manager and co-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. And it’s a post he didn’t relinquish for the next 50 years. 5-0. Not a typo. He’s the longest-serving manager in Major League history. The owner of almost every single record in managerial history. And it’s a longevity record for all of professional North American sports. No big deal, Connie. Those A’s won 9 pennants between 1902 and 1931 as well as 5 World Series titles.       

Those A’s pennant teams included Hall of Famers, Eddie Plank and Eddie Collins (6 times), Chief Bender (5 times), Frank Baker (4 times), Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove and Al Simmons (3 times), Rube Waddell and Herb Pennock (twice), as well as Waite Hoyt, Elmer Flick and Nap Lajoie (one time). Mack also managed Ty Cobb, Jimmy Collins, Stan Coveleski, Nellie Fox, George Kell, Tris Speaker and Zack Wheat on the A’s. And he managed Jake Beckley in Pittsburgh.

There were also the down years following the 1931 pennant. The A’s didn’t field a winning team between 1933 and 1947. And they were often really bad. Mack was in his 80′s and known to slip mentally, mistakenly calling for players from decades earlier to pinch-hit. Or he would just sleep in the dugout during games while his coaches ran the show. Attendance got to be so bad in Philadelphia that the other American League owners (mainly the Yankees) forced Mack to sell the team and move the franchise to Kansas City because they lost money coming to town. 

Managing the team you own is kind of a major conflict. And unlike most other owners, Mack had no income outside of baseball. While he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, he’d yet to tarnish his legacy. But he would eventually overstay his welcome.         

On the bright side, if you stick around the game of baseball until you're in your late eighties, you probably get to see a lot of history. Mack was on the receiving end of Christy Mathewson’s masterful performance in the 1905 World Series. He saw Frank Baker earn his “Home Run” nickname against Rube Marquard and Mathewson in consecutive games in the 1911 Series. He watched the 1914 Braves finalize their Miracle season. And within two years, he fielded one of the most legendarily awful teams in baseball history. 

But Mack rebuilt the team and came back in epic fashion, much like the “Mack Attack” 1929 A’s, who humiliated the Cubs for another championship. Sleeping or not, Mack was a living legend in that A’s dugout. And hey, maybe he should have called on players from decades past. Because those later years fucking suuuuucked.                                        

John McGraw

McGraw began his baseball career as a mouthy and quick-tempered infielder for the infamous Baltimore Orioles teams of the 1890’s that won pennants in 1894, ’95 and ’96 with Dan Brouthers, “Ee-Yah” Hughie Jennings, “Wee” Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley and Wilbert Robinson. There’s some debate as to just how dirty and villainous those teams were. But apparently McGraw liked to intimidate umpires and stand in the way of runners while they were in the base paths. Listed at 5’7” and 155 pounds, I don’t know how that could be possible. But for a brief window at the end of the 1890’s, McGraw might have also been the best player in the world. 

I would have given McGraw the National League MVP honors in 1898 and 1899. And I would have given him 3rd in 1900. He had a .547 on-base percentage in 1899, which is 4th all-time for a single season after Barry Bonds in 2004 and 2002 and Ted Williams in 1941. His career OBP (.466) is third all-time after Williams and Babe Ruth. For real. McGraw led the league in WAR in 1899, he’s 10th in WAR for the 1890’s and over his own career (1891-1907) he’s 15th. He was pretty good. But John McGraw is not in the Hall of Fame as a player. He’s in as a manager.   

Beginning in Baltimore, managing Jennings, Robinson and Kelley, as well as Joe McGinnity and Roger Bresnahan, McGraw eventually made his way to the New York Giants, which he managed from 1902-1932. His New York squads won 10 pennants and three World Series championships during his era. He managed an absurd amount of Hall of Famers, but that was also greatly exacerbated by Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry while they were on the Veterans Committee. That list includes High Pockets Kelly and Ross Youngs and Freddie Lindstrom, who probably don’t deserve to be in there. But hey, they were part of four consecutive pennants with Frisch and Terry between 1921 and 1924. The list of deserving Hall inductees also includes Bresnahan, Christy Mathewson, McGinnity, George Davis, Brouthers, Jim O’Rourke, Keeler, Edd Roush, Bill McKechnie, Waite Hoyt, Dave Bancroft, Casey Stengel, Travis Jackson, Hack Wilson, Billy Southworth, Mel Ott, Burleigh Grimes, Carl Hubbell and Ray Schalk. And Rube Marquard as another dubious selection. 

McGraw has the second-most managerial wins of all-time, after Mack. And he was ejected 131 times in his career, which was a record that stood until 2007, when it was broken by Bobby Cox. Much like Mack, McGraw saw a lot of history over the years. Including the history he made by refusing to play in the 1904 World Series. But there was also the Mathewson performance in 1905 against Mack’s Athletics. Losing to Mack and Home Run Baker in 1911. Losing his third consecutive World Series (also to Mack) in 1913. And losing in even more dubious fashion (to the point that it might not have been on the level) in 1917. He had better luck against Babe Ruth’s Yankees in 1921 and 1922. But he lost his final two, to Ruth in ’23 and Walter Johnson in ’24. McGraw even returned to manage the first ever All-Star Game in 1933. He got out with his legacy in tact.  

Tris Speaker

I feel like the Grey Eagle is largely forgotten today, which is pretty odd considering everything he did on the diamond. Playing at the same time, in the same league and at the same position as Ty Cobb doesn’t really help his cause. Either does having some of his best seasons during the ascendency of Babe Ruth. Or maybe its the assertion, true or not, that Speaker was a member of the Klan that makes people want to forget his racist asshole face. I dunno. It’s not like that accusation did much to diminish Cobb, who was already seen as a heel during his career, as well as after. 

That said, Speaker was the best player on the Red Sox (and their Million Dollar Outfield) from 1909-1915. And he won two World Series with Boston in 1912 and 1915. Then he was the best player in Cleveland from 1916-1925, including their first World Series title in 1920 (the same year as the death of his teammate, Ray Chapman). And going off fWAR, where Speaker was a better fielder than Cobb (Speaker played extremely shallow and they nicknamed him ‘where triples go to die’), he actually would have been the best center fielder in baseball in 1909, 1912, 1913, 1916, 1920, 1922 and 1923. He won the American League MVP in 1912. I would have given it to him in 1912, 1914, 1916, 1922 and 1925 for a total of five. Again, that’s impressive in any era, but especially when Cobb and Ruth were in the same league at the same time. I also would have given Speaker top 10 finishes (and usually top 5 finishes) in 13 other seasons. He was fucking good.  

Speaker may have only been second-best at his position while he played. But he’s still the #3 center fielder of all-time on JAWS. When he retired, he was also #3 all-time in career WAR. He was the 5th man in the 3,000 hit club. His 3,514 hits still ranks 5th all time. His .345 batting average ranks 6th all time. And he still has the all-time career record for doubles. He was so good that he and Ty Cobb basically got away with fixing games in 1926. Maybe. 

As a manager, Speaker introduced the platoon system into Major League Baseball. And he was a staunch supporter of Larry Doby when he broke the American League color barrier in 1947. So either Speaker chilled out about race, or the Klan shit is overblown. I hope it’s the latter. Because, second Hall of Fame class or not, Tris Speaker is criminally underrated.  

George Wright

They say Wright was the best player on baseball’s first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. That Cincinnati team went undefeated in 1869, with Wright hitting .633 with 49 home runs in 57 games. Next, Wright moved on to the Boston Red Stockings, who won National Association pennants every year from 1872-1875 and were so goddamned good that it essentially caused the league to disband. Wright was the second-best position player on those Red Stockings, which made him the second-best player in the league. Wright was also the first batter in National League history. He managed the Providence Grays in 1879 and won the pennant his only year as a manager. Wright also served on the commission that falsely named Cooperstown as the birthplace of baseball. And he’d go on to design America’s first public golf course in 1890. Unless that’s made up too. 

Cy Young

Yeah, you’ve heard of him. Cy Young began his career in 1890, when the pitching rules were so different from today’s game that they would anger you. He didn’t even wear a glove until his 6th season. But over his 22-year career, Cy Young became a one-man bridge from the old timey 19th Century style of base ball into the era of modern baseball. The confusion over which era Young belonged to was probably the sole reason he wasn’t in the first class of Hall of Famers in 1936. And over that 22-year career he set basically ever pitching record that would ever be broken, along with some that won’t be touched in a billion years. 

Denton True Young got the name “Cy” because his fastball tore enough boards off of backstops that it looked like a cyclone had hit them. Or so the story goes. But he, Amos Rusie and Jouett Meekin get credited as the reason the pitching distance (the box, as they called it) was moved back ten feet to give hitters a fighting chance. Most star pitchers of the 50-feet days couldn’t cut it after the rule change. Cy Young could. But his catcher did have to start wearing a piece of raw steak under his glove to handle the heat.     

I would have given Young his namesake award in 1892, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1899, 1901, 1903 and 1905. That’s eight times. And I would have had him in the top 5 eight other times. Young threw three no-hitters, including the first perfect game under modern rules. The third no-hitter was in his age 41 season. He won a Triple Crown in 1901. He once went 25.1 innings without giving up a hit and 45 innings without giving up a run. He threw the first pitch in a modern World Series in 1903. And his rivalry with Rube Waddell is great. But let’s be honest, Cy Young won the war. He also won 511 games. And Major League Baseball honored his legacy with the award given to the year’s best pitcher the year after his death.

Should Have Chosen: 

In 1936, 5 men were voted in. They were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner. You could argue that Tris Speaker and Cy Young should have gone in on the first try. In every scenario (fWAR and JAWS) Ruth, Cobb, Speaker and Young are in the top 5. But all men are worthy, so it’s fairly moot. 

Now, if the Veteran’s Committee had done its job and selected 5 19th Century players, they should have been Cap Anson, Roger Connor, Dan Brouthers, Tim Keefe and John Clarkson.     

In 1937, three players (Lajoie, Speaker and Young) went in. Young and Speaker are certainly correct. And Rogers Hornsby had just retired, so I think it should have been Eddie Collins over Lajoie 

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BLOG TOUR - Waking Lazarus

  Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Hargrave PR and Events. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

About the Book

A fast-paced thriller packed with page-turning twists, Waking Lazarus proves beyond a doubt that D.J. Williams is an exciting, fresh voice in international mystery and suspense. Homeland meets Bourne in this inventive and complex story of epic global adventure.

  Jake Harris’ life hasn’t turned out the way he planned. Battling his addictions, and the shattered pieces of his family, he is hired to ghostwrite a memoir. From the 1920’s story of a controversial evangelist, to the present-day mystery of a former District Attorney, everything changes when his search for the truth leads to an atrocity hidden from history.

  With a past he can’t remember, he begins to discover that he is not the person he believed himself to be. Rather, he is a threat to a secret society that has remained in the shadows for nearly a century. Jake is drawn deep inside a world he never knew existed that brings him closer to his own extraordinary destiny.

  This Summer you can access the first 10 chapters of Waking Lazarus – the # 1 read for summer 2017 – for free. Head to www.djwilliamsbooks.com for more information. Waking Lazarus will be exclusively priced at just $10 from 12th June-31st August 2017, with both Waking Lazarus and The Disillusioned available together in print for just $16 (and e-books priced at $2.99 each) via www.djwilliamsbooks.com. The Waking Lazarus soundtrack is also now available for just $4.99 from June-August 2017. Don’t leave for your vacation without them!

  Interview with the Author

  What initially got you interested in writing?

  At eight years old, I read Treasure Island cover to cover lost in my bedroom living out an adventure in another world. From the first page I was captured by the story and characters. When I closed the book I was left dreaming of becoming a storyteller. I never imagined how that would become reality. Fast forward through the years to a season in life where I found myself transitioning out of the music industry into the second act of my career as an Executive Producer and Director in the TV business. Only then did that spark of inspiration return to pursue my dream to write mystery, suspense, and international thrillers. Even after all those years I was hooked by a spark of inspiration, and the chase was on.

  What genres do you write in?

  Mystery, suspense, International thrillers

  What drew you to writing these specific genres?

  I stood on the shores of the Zambezi River as that spark of a story pierced my soul. I’d traveled across Zambia for three weeks, producing a live music recording and filming a documentary. I witnessed the reality of those forgotten by the world and I knew that one day I’d write about this place. Little did I know that it would be a few years before I found the courage to write my first novel, The Disillusioned. After a year of writing late at night, I sent my novel to a friend in the TV industry with the disclaimer, “If it’s not any good, the only two people who’ll know are you and me.”

  Within a few days my friend, Judith McCreary (Executive Producer of Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, & CSI) called me back and encouraged me to push forward so I found an agent and searched for ways to get the story published. I was humbled when she was the first to endorse the novel, “The Disillusioned is a fast-paced mystery…you won’t put it down until you’ve unlocked the secrets and lies to find the truth.”

  How did you break into the field?

  After I finished writing The Disillusioned, I went through the step of sending query emails to potential agents, and then I waited. Weeks and months passed with the occasional rejection. Just as the birds stopped singing, and I thought I’d failed to get to the next stage, I ended up signing on with a literary agent who helped me put a proposal together. Then more months passed as the proposal was sent out to a long list of publishers. I’d heard from other authors how they were rejected ten, twenty, or nearly thirty times before their novel landed with a publisher who was willing to take the risk. I hoped that I’d be one of the lucky ones. I’ve yet to reach the summit. I’m just another climber on the mountain pulling myself up one word at a time.

  What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

  What I discovered throughout the writing process was that using my experiences traveling to the poorest places in the world fueled my drive to create the Guardian Novels, a series filled with mystery, suspense, and adventure. All of those were aspects of the story, but from the first novel the reality of the fight against human trafficking was an underlying thread throughout. It’s one reason why I’ve defined this series as cause-driven novels. My hope is that readers will be entertained, but will also be inspired to make a difference in the world when they flip that last page.

  Writing the second novel, Waking Lazarus, was challenging to continue in the cause-driven storytelling style. To capture this story in a unique way, the novel spans nearly a century as readers are taken back to the 1920’s and then return to present day on a global adventure. It also pushes readers further into the worlds of child slavery, poverty, and the darkness of secrets. I’m humbled that the Guardian Novels, and the cause-driven storytelling style, have garnered the attention of Hollywood’s elite, including Peter Anderson, and Oscar winning cinematographer, who described it as “a captivating visual story with a colorful narrative” and  “hard to put down.”

    What do you find most rewarding about writing?

  Chasing the story is what keeps me writing. Once that spark of a story hits you’re on the hunt for answers. Often, I’ve found that the outline I create in the beginning looks vastly different at the end of the first draft. I believe it’s because as I’m writing, chasing down the story and characters, there are twists and turns that reveal themselves in surprising ways. For me, not knowing exactly what’s going to happen next keeps me on the edge of my seat. I’ve always thought that if I’m on the journey guessing what’s going to happen next, then hopefully, the same will be true for readers who enter into the world I’ve created.

  What do you find most challenging about writing?

  When I first began writing the Guardian Novels, there was only one story with one set of characters. But as I continued writing the second book, Waking Lazarus, the world expanded with new characters, twists and turns, and underlying secrets that needed to be revealed at just the right moment. Keeping track of all my characters, and their story arcs in the world, has been a challenge at times. And I’m not only chasing the next story, I’m also chasing after my favorite authors who inspire me to push my characters farther than I ever thought possible. In the end, I’d love for those I admire to be surprised by the stories I write. It’s easy to start a story, but the real challenge is to finish with a bang!

  What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

  Writing is a journey that leads us into the valleys as we strive to climb the mountain. I would say for any writer the challenge is to live out the 3 P’s: Passion. Purpose. Productivity. Passion is what gives you the endurance to keep going. If you love to write, then you write whether you become a bestselling author or not. It’s part of your DNA. It’s something you’ll do no matter who might end up reading your creation. But passion without purpose leaves you without clear goals or direction. Know where you want to end up in six months, a year, or five years from now. Know what drives your passion for writing. Know the genre where you want to build an audience. Passion and defining your purpose allows your writing to become more productive. Set a writing schedule to start and finish your novel, and then do it! Finishing a novel is the hardest part of the journey. But with each story you finish, you’ll discover what makes your writing and storytelling unique.

  What type of books do you enjoy reading?

  John Grisham, Michael Connelly, Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Gillian Flynn, Robert Galbraith AKA J.K. Rowling, and Lee Child. It’s impossible to pick only one, so I’m on a quest to read them all.

    Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

                                                                                             When I began writing Waking Lazarus I searched for musical inspiration as the story spanned nearly a century. I scrolled through my iTunes playlists and picked out a sequence of soundtracks to help set the tone and mood to help capture each scene as it played out on the page like a film. Working in the entertainment industry as an Executive Producer and Director, I understand how important a piece of music can be to enhance the story you’re trying to tell.

  As the months passed, Waking Lazarus came alive on the page and I had a thought…what if we created a soundtrack to go with the book. It was something I hadn’t seen done before. A soundtrack customized for the story, and done in a way that readers of all kinds could use it without being lost.

  I reached out to a young composer, Jené Nicole Johnson, and shared with her the vision I had for a soundtrack to enhance the reading experience for Waking Lazarus. Under a tight deadline, she accepted the challenge and broke the code on how best to put the soundtrack together. She created layers of music that not only captured the 1920’s era through present day, but also the mystery and suspense as the story travels from the Southland to the Orient. All of the music tied together with specific chapters so it was easy for readers to follow. I found myself writing to the soundtrack as I worked on the final draft. It was an energizing, creative, experience, one I believe I’ll do again in the next Guardian Novel.

    What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

  The best way to connect with me is on my website, www.djwilliamsbooks.com. In addition to the novels, you’ll find some really cool stuff. We’ll be launching the Writers Circle in June, a place to share what I’m learning with other aspiring writers. And you’ll also find the Guardian Alliance, our ongoing effort to support causes around the world through proceeds from each book sold. You can also find me on Twitter: @djwilliams316, Facebook: www.facebook.com/djwilliams316 and Instagram: @djwilliamsbooks

    BLOG TOUR – Waking Lazarus was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

#shannon muir #pulp and mystery shelf

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America’s Most—and Least—Affordable Beach Towns, 2017 Edition

Found Image Holdings/Corbis via Getty Images

It’s the American summertime real estate fantasy.

When the mercury starts rising again from coast to coast, we start dreaming about having a home right by the beach—close enough to enjoy a morning walk by the water and to hear the waves crashing at night. Epic sandcastles. Cookouts on the beach. Second-degree sunburn. What’s not to love?

Well, the down payment, for one. And the mortgage, for another. But let’s keep the dream alive! Even if you have trouble swinging the cost of a beachfront home in the Hamptons, South Beach, or Malibu, it doesn’t mean owning a place with a soul-soothing view of clear, blue waters is off the table.

The United States’ 95,471 miles of shoreline offer a diverse array of sun-and-sand options, many of which might be well within financial reach. So to help you turn your sun-baked dreams into reality, we’re revisiting our ranking of America’s top 10 budget-friendly beach towns.

To narrow the selection, the realtor.com® data team donned water wings and took a dip into median home prices in beach towns with 1,000 to 100,000 residents and that have at least 30 properties on the market. We limited the list to two towns per state, separated by at least 30 miles, to provide some geographic diversity.

Some of our top picks won’t ring a bell, but that’s a good thing—they’re less likely to be clogged with tourists, hoity-toity neighbors, and overpriced artisanal ice cream cones. In other words, you’re practically guaranteed a peaceful seaside getaway. Possibly one with lots of upside potential on the resale side.

Let’s dive in! And if envy is your thing, keep reading after our most affordable beach town list—for the least affordable list.

1. Atlantic City, NJ

Median home price: $117,500

The Atlantic City boardwalk

r_drewek/iStock

With towering resort hotels, beaches, and a beloved boardwalk, Atlantic City is among the most famous beach towns in America. Surprise: It’s also one of the most affordable.

The low prices are, in part, due to the shuttered casinos and high local unemployment, as the city has yet to fully recover from the recession. That’s resulted in a number of short sales and foreclosures, driving home prices way down. The already-hurting city was also walloped by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, a devastating one-two punch.

On the bright side, it has opened up a chance for people to snatch up summer houses at cheaper prices. The waterfront now has a slew of condos starting at $100,000. Plus, fewer tourists means more beach space to yourself. Low real estate prices have also attracted investors who are betting on the city’s comeback.

“People aren’t coming [to Atlantic City] for the gambling; they are coming for the beach,” says real estate agent Deborah Gegeckas of Boardwalk Realty. “You’ve got the boardwalk, amusement parks, shows, a hundred five-star restaurants.” (A hundred is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.)

2. Keansburg, NJ

Median home price: $125,000

A quieter beach of Keansburg, NJ

andykazie/iStock

For a lower-key Jersey Shore experience, try Keansburg. The public beach doesn’t have lifeguards on duty, but the sand is powdery white and the sunsets are stunning. So blast some early-period Springsteen (headphones, please) and chill.

Not everything here is sleepy. Thrill-seekers and families regularly flock to the Keansburg Amusement Park for dozens of waterslides, including the notorious and frankly stomach-churning Super Slide. There are also family arcade centers and an abundance of tasty boardwalk treats—funnel cake, anyone? (Just not after the Super Slide.)

Like Atlantic City, Keansburg is also slowly recovering from Hurricane Sandy. Today, home prices are among the cheapest on the Jersey Shore—you could find a decent home a stone’s throw away from the beach for around $150,000.

And things are looking up for developments. Last year, a $65 million, mixed-use project broke ground on the waterfront. Expected to be completed by summer 2018, the complex will feature two stories of retail space, together with a collection of market-rate and affordable apartments.

3. Gulfport, MS

Median home price: $154,700

Downtown Gulfport, MS

DenisTangneyJr/iStock

On the Gulf of Mexico, the shore gives way to marshlands, gnarled oak trees, and lush palmetto groves. The 26 miles of manmade beach in Gulfport welcomes sunbathers, horseback riders, and bocce ballers. Because of the barrier islands, the waters off Gulfport are tranquil and smooth for swimmers.

Visitors and residents alike can hop on a ferry to nearby Ship Island, which has even more beaches and water activities like paddleboarding and snorkeling. Alcohol and food are allowed on the beach, so bring a picnic and a thermos full of ice-cold mojitos.

Buyers can score a place on the cheap—or splurge for the beach home of their dreams. A lovely cottage within walking distance to the beach costs less than $170,000 and boasts a raised foundation to guard against flood damage. For buyers with deeper pockets, a magazine-worthy home with a chef’s kitchen can be yours for just $600,000.

4. Deerfield Beach, FL

Median home price: $157,900

Deerfield Beach, FL

icholakov/iStock

This lazy, understated town in southern Florida is blissfully free of partiers and velvet-rope VIP rooms. Flip-flops and sundresses are the dress code of choice, and domestic beers are preferred over $20 cocktails. It other words, this place is all about the casual beach vibe.

But when it comes time to get adrenalized, you can head to the Quiet Waters Park, one of the best places to experience “cable skiing,” a form of boat-free water skiing in which you’re pulled quickly along a 2,700-foot oval course while clutching a cable. It’s more fun than it sounds.

Deerfield has a variety of waterfront homes, including estates with direct beach access and canal-front homes that come with boating docks. While those homes often command a premium, there are many affordable choices in the low $100,000 range for those willing to go a few blocks inland.

5. La Porte, TX

Median home price: $193,600

The battleship Texas, permanently docked in La Porte, TX

RobertMayne/iStock

This picturesque small town is a real slice of old Texas—and in case you have doubts, check out the battleship Texas, which is permanently anchored here. La Porte was a roaring beach resort in the 1940s, before being hit by a series of hurricanes. Over the years it transformed into a port-based bedroom community of nearby Houston. The tourists flocked elsewhere, but lately the beaches have reopened and the town is showing signs of summer life yet again.

Sylvan Beach Park is home to two sandy beaches, perfect for building sandcastles and playing beach volleyball. Its 1,100-foot fishing pier is the longest in Texas. Plus, it’s home to the 61-year-old Sylvan Beach Festival, an annual event that kicks off with a parade, followed by a carnival, cook-off, and beauty pageant. And Texas knows beauty pageants.

Within one or two blocks of the water, there is an abundance of ranch- and bungalow-style single-family homes for less than $300,000.

“La Porte is affordable, and quiet,” says Realtor® Jeanette Haas, with Keller Williams Realty. “For less than half a million, you get something really amazing that’s right on the water. You don’t get that in other places.”

6. Myrtle Beach, SC

Median home price: $199,000

Myrtle Beach, SC

SeanPavonePhoto/iStock

Called the Grand Strand, a 60-mile stretch of pristine beach is the most precious asset of Myrtle Beach, drawing millions of visitors every summer. Early-morning beach walkers enjoy the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. Late-night strollers marvel at the spectacular moonrise. Water activities abound, ranging from Jet Ski rentals to parasailing.

There’s never a dull moment on Myrtle Beach, from live entertainment, to theme parks, to—wait for it—an upside-down house called WonderWorks. Scores of restaurants and golf courses ensure that your moments of quiet reflection are kept to a bare minimum.

So why is this famous beach community so affordable? Because the city has a dark side as well. The violent crime rate in Myrtle Beach is more than four times the national average, according to the most recent FBI data. That’s brought home prices down. So do your research on the neighborhood before buying a home. There are still plenty of safe neighborhoods, including the Coventry area, Queensway Boulevard, and Holmestown Road.

7. Port Lavaca, TX

Median home price: $199,700

Located on the bay, Port Lavaca might not have posh surf shops or fancy oceanfront bars, but those on the prowl for an uncrowded getaway could find everything they’re looking for. Beach bums love spending an afternoon of leisure on the Lighthouse Beach, lying under thatch-covered cabanas.

The bay’s long coastline presents many opportunities for bargain homes. If you’re lucky, you might find beachfront homes for as low as $170,000 on Alamo Beach, which is a 17-minute drive from downtown Port Lavaca. The popular strip of beach near downtown Port Lavaca is more expensive, where a waterfront home starts around $300,000.

8. Daytona Beach, FL

Median home price: $199,900

Famed for randy spring breakers and NASCAR, Daytona Beach is otherwise wonderfully idle. It’s a great place for people watching, and giant reptile gazing. From May to October, sea turtles emerge from the surf at night to lay eggs in the dry sand. Two months later, baby turtles will crawl back to the ocean. Fun!

There are plenty of reasons Daytona Beach gets away with calling itself the “World’s Most Famous Beach.” The 23 miles of wide, hard-packed sand enables an unconventional tradition—beach driving. Cruising and parking on the beach is open to vehicles from sunrise to sunset for $10 a day. A myriad of water activities can quickly fill up your to-do list, from scuba diving to view the artificial reefs to doing paddleboard yoga on the calm waters.

“The prices just haven’t come back from the crash,” says Rose Roberts, president of Daytona Beach Area Association of Realtors. “But the market is definitely improving. So far this year, we’ve been very busy.”

Daytona Beach’s waterfront is dotted by high-rise condos overlooking the beach and the boardwalk. A premium ocean-view unit with direct beach access could cost about a half-million dollars—still way cheaper than Miami Beach. But once you go across the A1A, the main drag, prices drop dramatically. For less than $200,000, you could get a spacious single-family home that’s still within walking distance to the beach.

9. Ocean Shores, WA

Median home price: $232,500

Ocean Shores, WA

carterdayne/iStock

Ocean Shores is popular with Seattleites, who make the three-hour drive for quiet weekend sojourns. And despite its northern location, the quaint beach town has something to offer year-round.

In the summertime, whale-watching cruises are a hot ticket, while winter is fine for strolling through the gallery-filled downtown or digging for clams on the beach. Every March, the Razor Clam Festival sets off a competition among local chefs for the best chowder in the Northwest. Clamtastic!

In 1960, developers started selling lots to individuals for as low as $595. Within a few years, Ocean Shores had hundreds of homes with canal frontage. The latest wave of construction started in the 1990s, and home prices have since stayed reasonable. Buyers have a good selection of beach homes from $300,000 and inland homes from $150,000.

10. North Bend, OR

Median home price: $239,000

The Conde B. McCullough Memorial Bridge in North Bend, Oregon

Panoramic Images/Getty Images

Surrounded by thick forests, North Bend is called “Oregon’s Adventure Coast” for a reason. Along a 42-mile stretch of coast, wind-sculpted sand dunes provide numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking and horseback riding. The waves by Horsfall Beach are perfect for some serious surfing. Craving seafood? Catch a Dungeness crab, and let the folks at Fishermen’s Wharf cook it for you.

What began as a fishing village has blossomed into a vibrant community of almost 10,000 people. North Bend is accessible by highway and the Oregon coast’s only airport, which is a five-minute drive from downtown.

Perched on an ocean bay, the town boasts a variety of affordable hillside homes overlooking the bay or scenic golf courses for around $200,000. The area is particularly popular with Californians looking for vacation homes.

“Because the price of Californian beach towns is so high, they come to us for affordable second homes,” says Realtor Joann Hansen with Joann Hansen Realty. “Also because summer weather in California is hot, and Oregon is temperate—probably in the 70s at the top.”

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The beach towns you probably can’t afford

Now it’s time to look at the other side of the cabana—the fabulously expensive towns reserved for the fabulously rich.

Southern California claims America’s poshest beach postal codes in 2017. Topping the list is Malibu, where the median home price is a hefty $3.95 million. The city’s Carbon Beach, also known as “Billionaire’s Beach,” is home to A-list actors, rock stars, and power players in the entertainment biz. Just a few weeks ago, media mogul David Geffen reportedly sold his massive compound there for $85 million, setting a record as the most expensive real estate transaction in Malibu.

The coastal Northeast also makes the list: The Hamptons in New York and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts are still considered the country’s premium waterfront communities.

In Water Mill, NY, the chic heart of the chic Hamptons, you’ll drop about $3.75 million for the privilege of living on the beach near folks like Jennifer Lopez. Part of the Town of Southampton, Water Mill has strict land use regulations that limit many new houses to 5-acre lots.

Some less familiar names also pop up on the list: Tiny Sullivan’s Island, SC, is located at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, where the median home price is about $2.45 million. A pristine shoreline, paired with the exclusive location but easy access to the cultural wealth of Charleston, makes this island popular among the 1% of the low country.

The small town of Haleiwa lies in the middle of Hawaii’s world-famous North Shore. It’s not just surfers who are coming for the 40-foot-high waves—it’s also a social and artistic hub. Nowhere else on Oahu will you find quaint shops and cafes housed in plantation-era buildings right by the beach.

Housing options include cute bungalows starting at around $1 million and custom oceanfront mansions running as high as $15 million.

“There’s so little land available for development on the waterfront, that’s what makes them so expensive and desirable,” says Realtor Michael Gardner with Sotheby’s International Realty, in Malibu. Places like Malibu and the Hamptons are also “a quick drive away from the city’s epicenter of wealth, where the top 1% earners have their primary residences.”

The post America’s Most—and Least—Affordable Beach Towns, 2017 Edition appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

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