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sweetchup · 3 years

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💌Love/Hate💌

Type: Pariston Hill x Reader

Prompts: Soulmate Au (Colorblind) + 7– Innocent/Corruption Kink

Author Note: OMG I am so so so sorry this took so long. I’m not sure what it was but my brain couldn’t write for Pariston. Like it was if the zodiacs took over and put it into a total shut down mode. It was insane. (ALSO Small warning, this is Pariston and, as expected, he’s an abusive dick)

(Valentine’s Day Masterlist)

When you had first accepted the job of being randomly assigned someone’s secretary, you hadn’t expected to be assigned to the CEO of a high end tech company. You mean, who in the world would have known that by just calling a flyer on a street corner would have led to working with someone so prestigious.

It almost sounded too good to be true!

….And, you wished you hadn’t jinxed yourself in that moment. The CEO of that high end tech company actually turned out to be only 21, having inherited the company from his father. He was not only a spoiled brat and a player but, my god, was he lazy. You were sure that if you hadn’t spent hours on the phone discussing ideas with his father and done all the paperwork for him, that the company would be in ruins before someone could say “We’re broke!”.

Though, no matter how hard you worked your ass off these past couple months, nothing could prepare you for this moment.

“Dear god someone help me…”

You and his father had told him many times over this week. On February 14 at noon, you have an important meeting with the Hunter Association. You can’t miss it.

But, of course, that lazy ass was running late. By 45 minutes to be exact.

“Miss (y/n), is Mr Avoli going to be showing up any time soon? It isn’t like him to be late.”

… And it surely didn’t help that you were standing in the meeting room, waiting for him with the Hunters Association's very own Zodiacs.

Shamefully, you turn to the doglike woman who had introduced herself as ‘Cheadle’ earlier and give an apologetic bow, “I-I deeply apologize. You see Mr Avoli's son, Hunter Avoli, recently took over the company. I reminded him constantly this past week about the meeting but I’m afraid he may have forgotten...”

“Oh that guy.” You hear the monkey zodiac ‘Saiyu’ spit out in disgust, “He is almost as bad as that dirt bag, Ging.”

“It’s not a problem Miss (y/n). I’ve met Hunter many times before so I’ve seen first hand how unprofessional he acts. This is clearly not your fault.” Cheadle reassures, giving you enough confidence to lift your head up from bowing to look at her as some of the Zodiacs complain in the background.

As you stare at the grayish colored woman, you can’t help but wonder what color she was wearing. Due to you still not having found your soulmate, you can only see the color of your soulmate’s eye color. Which, in your case, was brown. A chocolate brown to be exact.

And, usually dogs were brownish in color so you kind of wondered what color Miss Chealde chose instea—

“We are still waiting on the chairman and two other zodiacs so why don’t you take the chance to try and give Hunter a call.” Mizaistom, the ox zodiac, suggests suddenly.

“O-oh of course. Thank you very much Miss Cheadle, Mr Mizaistom. I’ll be very quick— Eep!”

Oh god why me?

Just as you made your way to the door to exit the room, someone on the other side had already swung it open. Making you, in pure surprise and shock, take a step backwards. Though, just like how your day is going so far, Luck truly didn’t seem to be on your side as you end up tripping on your own two feet and begin to fall backwards.

You expected to land hard on the cold tile floor in front of everyone, extremely embarrassing really, but instead you don’t. You still hit something firm and hard but… it was different. Actually, now that you think about it, you felt higher up than you were before…

“Ah, Ging this is why I said you shouldn’t barge into rooms so suddenly! You scared our poor guest!” A voice suddenly calls out from behind you, his breath slightly tickling the shell of your ear. Quickly, in surprise, you whip your head around to—

…Shit.

As your eyes lock with the male’s chocolate brown ones the room suddenly bursts into a flurry of color. Blues, reds, greens, maybe yellows? You honestly didn’t know the proper names for all the colors you were seeing for the first time. However, in all this chaos, you happened to know two things.

One, That you had just met your soulmate and Two,...

… it was none other than the Vice Chairman himself, Pariston Hill.

“Oh my! How unexpected!” Pariston chuckles out, causing what seems to be sparkles to pop out around him, “I never thought our guest here today would end up being my soulmate. Not at all!”

“I—“ “Shut up Rat!”

You freeze as something suddenly comes flying past your head. What the fuck...

“You have a soulmate? Not a Chance! Not a Chance! Not a Chance!”

“Quit joking.”

“I doubt the King Of Kickbacks would have an ordinary soulmate.”

It was as if a bomb had erupted in the room, everyone was in pure disbelief at what Pariston had just said, Suggested, he even had (Well everyone except Ging, of course). Hell, some of them haven’t even found their own soulmates yet. So, why did the heartless ass Rat get to have one?!

“I assure you, I’m speaking the truth. Why would I lie about something like this?”

We can think of many reasons…

“U-uh…” You suddenly speak out, slightly flinching as everyone’s attention turns to you, “He is telling the truth… I saw colors other than brown for the first time when we locked eyes.”

“See!” Pariston says happily, pulling you affectionately closer to him in his hold. As you are flustered by the act from the handsome man, he takes the chance to walk to what you believe is in the direction of an empty seat. However, you soon realize that wasn’t what he was intending as he walked right by it and leaves through the other door located in the room.

“Hey Rat!! Where do you think you are GOING!?!” The tigerlike man screeches out, storming through the door you two just left as well.

“Well, I’m going to spend time with my soulmate of course.” Pariston exclaims, his smile not even flinching as bloodlust from the other zodiacs creeps out from the room.

“As if I—“ Suddenly, a loud chuckle behind you rings out, cutting Kanzai off.

“C-Chairman Netero!” You squeak out in surprise at the older man. Oh god, what a disaster. As someone trying to make a deal to him, this looks bad. So bad.

“My, what a twist!” The Chairman rings out, stroking his beard as he thinks as he walks past you two. “Hmm… You and (y/n) can be excused from today’s meeting, Pariston.”

“B-But, Chairman!” Kanzai rebuts. Soon shutting up however as the chairman grabs onto the collar of his jersey.

“It only makes sense to give them alone time, Kanzai. We will just call Mr Aloisi for the meeting instead of having (y/n) give it to us.” Netero explains, giving you a small wink as he drags Kanzai as if he was some kitty cat back into the meeting room.

What a strange group…

As you sit there stunned at everything that has happened so far, you don’t realize Pariston has already begun walking again. It takes you a while to realize as well, precisely the loud sound of the door of his private office being closed. He must have walked pretty fast…

“A-ah. Umm you can put me down now.” You mumble out to the… Blonde man (unable to tell if that was the correct color).

“Hmm. What was that?” Pariston asks, as if he didn’t quite hear you from before.

“Oh. I was wondering if you could put me down.” You tell him again. Shit, the way you said that came out bad. “I-I mean I’m really appreciative of you saving me but you are likely getting tired of holding me and I can walk on my own.”

“Oh!”

You expected at that exclamation that Pariston would instantly put you down to the floor, but instead he walks over to his deck and places you down in front of that. Odd, but you don’t question the sparkly man.

Speaking of odd, as you looked around the room, you realized it was really cold in here. Much colder than the conference room and hallway. God, what a bad day to wear a skirt but no tights. Especially those insulated ones you recently bought.

“Are you Cold?” Pariston suddenly voices up, causing you to turn behind you to look at him. He still hadn’t moved from his spot right behind you.

“A-ah yes I am. I don’t want to be a bother but could you possibly turn it down a couple of notches?” You ask, taking a step back a little to give a little bit of space between you two.

“I’m afraid I can’t. My thermostat broke this morning.” Pariston exclaims, his smile turning into a bit of a frown. However, that didn’t last long as he soon had a full blown out smile again. “But, I do have my jacket that I wore to work this morning. It should be… Ah! There it is! Right on the seat of my chair if you want to grab it.”

“Oh.. thank you.” You give Pariston a small smile before leaning over the desk to grab the brown coat.

You couldn’t wrap your head around it but for some odd reason you didn’t feel fully comfortable around him. Which was even weirder because you didn’t understand what was causing it. Shouldn’t you naturally feel comfortable around your soulmate?

Perhaps, you just needed to get to know him better. That’s likely it. Your just nervous since he was supposed to be your clien—

“Ah!” You let out a yelp as you feel pressure and sharp pain in your lower regions. At first, you thought it was perhaps a weird cramp or something like that. However, once you fully grasped what you were feeling, you realized you were just trying to make yourself believe that.

“Oh whoops! Tight. Tight. That must have hurt.” Pariston chuckles out, rocking his hips back and forth as his eyes watched his cock disappear and reappear out of your hole. Harshly letting go of the strap of your panties that he had pulled aside to watch as an ever so slight bit of blood comes out in your slick. Delighted to see such results.

“P-Pariston. Please be gentle.” You gasp out, turning yourself by your waist to place a hand on the man’s chest. Ever so slightly fisting the fabric of his suit when he suddenly gave a really hard thrust. “Let’s slow down… too soon…”

“How come? I thought you said you were grateful to me right?” Pariston teased out, pulling your hand off his suit as well as pushing your front down against the desk. Making it so you were trapped underneath him.

“I-I am but—“ “Shh… I’m only taking my reward!”

However, even with your constant pleas for him to be slower, gentler, Pariston continued his actions. Watching you grow more and more wet as that uncomfortable burning sensation suddenly turned into pure ecstasy.

It was perfect…

Pressed down against the desk, unable to move as you were essentially being taken advantage of by him. Your very own soulmate.

It was embarrassing, agonizing and traumatizing.

Surely, you hated him. You despised him.

Having waited long enough, Pariston decided to finally pull out and flip you over so he could see you and the results of his hard work. “Now, Now my dear. It’s not so—“

Pariston feels himself blink a couple of times.

Oh… So, you were one of those types huh?

It was if you were some humanized version of a golden retriever. Your eyes that were supposed filled with terror or hatred were still as sparkly and innocent before you began. You were loyal to him to a fault and he honestly doubted you could bring it in your heart to even hate him.

It was annoying but it wasn’t that big of a problem. He could always break you in other ways.

However, that’s not exactly what was troubling him right now.

Fluttering? Or, Bubbles?

Whatever it was, he didn’t understand why he was feeling this sort of way. Especially seeing you look at him like that. With that love filled look…

“Pariston…” You mumble out, your voice slightly slurred. “Are you okay? Are you done?”

Are you okay?

Those three words ring in Pariston’s head. Eventually, causing him to break his composure and let out a light laugh.

“Aw. Did I leave you high and dry? Here I’ll fix that.” Pariston calls out. A slight shiver going up his spine as he hears you let out a small moan as he slips back into your dripping cunt.

You know what, he didn’t care how strange you were making him feeling.

Whether you looked at him with loved dazed eyes…

Or cried out how much you hated him with those kissable lips of yours.

Either way, he would enjoy every bit of playing with you. You had the rest of your miserable lives to try it out after all.

#hxh #hunter x hunter #pariston #pariston hill #pariston x reader #pariston hill x reader #hxh pariston

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hxnmantii · 3 years

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The entirety of his world

tw: fluff

Pairing: Aizawa x gn!reader

Ratings: PG

A/n: Thank you for your patience @blackbarbiequeue This was suppose to be part of a series of engagement proposals but procrastination and depression said no❤️. I really hope you enjoy it!! As well as anybody else who comes across it!!

The Disneyland crowd was not something you would normally catch Aizawa lurking in. It wasn't his type of scene with the too loud children and equally loud adults who bonded over a man in a mouse fursuit and spent money on dizzying, low quality clothes that you could easily create at home. Not to mention, the ridiculously long lines that occurred at every attraction where he stood for 45 minutes, or longer, by impatient adults. He would much rather be at home underneath a blanket with you in his arms and Eri at his side, watching her favorite animated movies. He sighs before turning his attention back to the scene before him.

You had the biggest smile on your face as you helped Eri find souvenirs for her purple haired and blonde brothers, a smile equally as big as yours on her face. Her eyes gleamed at the variety of stuff in the makeshift store before picking up some of the Disney themed items. You notice his lurking presence and whisper something to Eri while pointing at Aizawa. She turns to excitedly wave the items, her tiny hand holding two hats and sunglasses. It was her way of saying “what do you think”. He throws her a thumbs up which only causes her smile to grow impossibly bigger. Her attention returns back to you as you softly push her to the cashier to buy the items.

Your caring personality and Eri’s bright smile always gave him an unmeasurable amount of joy. You two were the light of his life, His two suns. A small smile forced it way on his face. Maybe Disneyland wasn’t so bad with you two here. He’s snapped out of his thoughts as you guys walk towards him hand in hand, a white bag in Eri’s hand and two matching hats in yours.

“You know, you’re really rocking this grumpy shirt.” You tease. He responds with a hum of acknowledgment as his hand snaked around your waist, pulling you closer to his side, the small smile from before resting nicely on his lips. You notice it and place a chaste kiss on his lips only for him to you pull back and give you another longer kiss. Eri grabs his other hand and starts tugging. He pulls off of you to look down at his mini companion and you giggle lightly at her pouty expression. “Sorry Eri”

Her eyes drag away, a blush blooming flush against her skin as she tighten her grip on her bag. You remove yourself from Aizawa’s grip and squat in front of her. Even with you in front of her, she refused to meet your eyes. Instead opting to muttering something her breathe. A look of worry adorns your features as you gently place your hand on her shoulder like you would to a scared animal.

“Sweetheart what’s wrong?” You ask. She takes a deep breathe in before looking you in the eyes.

“Um..m-may I use the...uh restroom please?” She asks, her voice barely being heard over the Disney music. You smile softly at her, releasing an internal breath of relief. “Of course sweetheart. I’ll take you.”

“No it’s okay. I’ll take her.” Aizawa’s voice interrupting the moment. You turn to look at him, your eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. It wasn’t odd for him to intervene and take care of Eri when he thought you wanted a break but you showed no signs of needing one. In fact you were enjoying the alone time you were having with the little white haired girl. But not wanting to fight over a small request like this, you smile and get back up.

“Okay, imma sit and wait for you guys here.” You sit on the stone and he follows you, placing another kiss on your lips before grabbing Eri’s hand and walking to the bathroom. The last thing you see before they turn the corner is Aizawa smiling down on the little girl, lovingly patting her head and her beaming with his approval.

30 minutes past with no sight of the father daughter duo and you’re starting to get antsy, the setting sun only making your leg bounce harder. Something’s definitely wrong. It doesn’t take that long to use the restroom but then again you guys were at Disneyland. Everything had a line whether it was an attraction or breathing fresh air. You take a deep breath, allowing the thought to soothe your worries. “Y/n!”

Your eyes almost pop out the socket when you see Eri Aizawaless. He would never let Eri walk in this crowded place by herself especially not in the dark, saying there was too many people he didn’t know and villains could be among them. Meaning something was definitely wrong. Panic surges through you as you meet her halfway. You force a smile on your face to not make Eri panic even more than she probably was.

“Eri, hon, where’s Aizawa?” She shrugs, pulling you to follow her.

“I think I last saw him over here.” She says. You wordlessly follow her, checking your hip for the hidden weapon. If whatever took him was still there, you wanted to prepare to handle it and protect Eri.

She leads you to the “secret” garden of Disneyland. A range of different Fairy lights decorate the giant bushes, illuminating the dark pathway and creating an almost romantic atmosphere. However You were too busy scouting out the area to realize it. Finally you see Aizawa in sight and you let out a breath you didnt realize you were holding.

“Aizawa!” You yell. The black haired man turns with a lost and almost confused expression as he walks towards you. You stifle a laugh. Maybe the old age was getting to him. Before you could even comment on his old man behavior, he gets down on one knee and reveals a velvet box, a little sliver ring gleaming in the middle.

Your hands fly to your face, tears immediately welling in your eyes as it finally dawns on you the little trap they set. You turn to look at Eri and she sheepishly smiles. Your head snaps back to the man in front of you. He smiles softly, his vulnerability making an appearance as all of the love and adoration comes to the surface.

“Y/n, will you marry me.” At this point, you were full on crying, nothing but sobs leaving your mouth. You nodded viciously and he grabs your hand, sliding the ring down your pretty fingers before standing and giving you a big fat kiss, wrapping you in his arms. “I love you y/n”

The warmth of his body grounds you enough to mutter the three words back but you quickly return back to sobbing and looking at the ring in the light.“Don’t forget me!” Eri says as she worms herself between the two of you. You wrap your arms around the both of them, squeezing them both tightly. “Of course not you little actress.”

She giggles and you smile brightly. Once again Aizawa is reminded of how much he loved you and your caring personality. Now finally an official family, he couldn’t wait to spend all of his life seeing your dazzling smile. His own personal sun, lighting up the entirety of his world.

Reblogs are appreciated

#aizawa shouta #bnha #aizawa x black!reader #bnha x reader #bnha fluff #bnha imagines #my hero academia #aizawa scenario #aizawa x y/n #princess’s ball dance #princess's garden

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dustedmagazine · 6 years

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Dust Volume 4, Number 9

The Long Hots

We enter the pumpkin latte season with a full slate of short reviews, covering both anticipated and overlooked releases from rock, pop, jazz, punk and unclassifiable genres. Contributors this time included Bill Meyer, Ethan Covey, Jennifer Kelly, Isaac Olson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake.

Baked – II (Exploding in Sound)

II by Baked

Baked, out of Brooklyn, belches a lava flow of viscous guitar sound over sweetly unassuming pop melodies. If J. Mascis ever wrote a song to impress the women of Look Blue Go Purple, if Beat Happening experimented with a whacked out set of fuzz pedals, it might sound a bit like this – in short, it’s fetching DIY pop with serious muscles under the anorak. When soft, vulnerable tune meets the bristling heft of feedback, there’s a palpable fizz, never more so than on “Hope You’re Happy,” sung by Isabella Mingione. “The Hartlett Anthem” does the same trick with Jeremy Aquilino singing tender hooks over the droning surf of dissonance like a sleepier Teenage Fanclub. This particular recording is Baked’s third, after 2014’s Debt and 2017’s Farnham but earns the “II” by being the second in Exploding in Sound’s Tape Club series. That’s undoubtedly why it’s so short, but brevity is tantalizing. These five songs leave you wanting more.

Jennifer Kelly

Big Blood — Operate Spaceship Earth Properly (Feeding Tube Records)

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Massachusetts-based Feeding Tube Records favors such a frantic release schedule that it’s easy to miss the consistently strange, often delightful albums they spit out. Earlier this summer, the label dropped Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, a fresh & freaky 45-minutes of scuzzy psychedelia from Big Blood. The Portland, ME duo of Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin — joined here in some capacity by their daughter, Quinnisa — have been delivering properly furry trips since the 1990s, originally as founders of Cerberus Shoal. The spin this time involves a tip of the hat to authors such as Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin via a science fiction-inspired song cycle. Yet, concept aside, the songs have serious teeth, stomping forward in a heady slop of bullying riffs, martial drumming and Kinsella’s third-eye rants. It’s headphone music for the deep forest, a turned-on reality-strip far more properly psychedelic than the jammed-out noodling frequently paraded by those dressed in thrifted tie dyes. Listen at your own risk; be changed.

Ethan Covey

Manu Delago—Parasol Peak (One Little Indian)

vimeo

Manu Delago, a classically trained percussion who specializes in the steel-drum-like instrument known as a hang, isn’t doing things the easy way. For this album and the accompanying film, he convened a chamber group of seven people and led them, instruments and all, on a mountaineering expedition in the albums (pity the cellist). These eight tracks were recorded outside, in all kinds of weather, using natural elements like sticks, rocks and trees for additional textures. The result is a rather lovely blend of percussion-dappled Reichian minimalism, augmented by the sounds of water, thunder and wind. The music works its way to the summit, beginning in the leafy, sun-warmed environs of “Parasol Woods,” where reedy, breathy clarinet and pensive trombone catch the light sparkling off intricate webs of tonal percussion. By “Ridge View,” sounds have turned chillier and more remote; flute and chimes are buffeted by gales of wind. A mournful, solitary whistle frames “Listening Glacier,” a trebly coating of ice on a grounding drone of cello, but there is exuberance and accordion wheezing triumph in “Parasol Peak.” Fingers and lips must be pretty frozen all round by this point, but a warm, pulsing joy emanates from this brass-y, syncopated reel. The question arises: why would anyone do such a difficult thing? But the answer is right there in the accompanying video. Because it was beautiful, because it was hard and because it made a sound no other new chamber group could make, with woods, mountains, stones and physical effort built right in.

Jennifer Kelly

Ethers—Ethers (Trouble in Mind)

s/t by Ethers

Ethers spun out of the late Chicago drone-punk-garage outfit Heavy Times, pulling front man Bo Hansen and bassist Russell Calderwood into this new enterprise and adding Calderwood’s wife Mary McKane and drummer Matt Rolin. Along the way, Hansen et al seem to picked up a heightened appreciation for melody and hook (and percolating keyboards thanks to McKane). “It’s a Rip-Off” lurches and jitters on slashed guitar riffs and hard, straight up and down drumming, but there’s an undeniable lilt in its fuzzy tune, and “Emily” balances bluster and tenderness in equal parts. If Heavy Times drove a post-punk freight train through a long, shadowy tunnel, Ethers breaks out into sunshine on the other side of the mountain, the darkness in the music but not all of it. “Something” ends the disc on a high note, chiming guitar notes streaking like meteors down to a burnt-bare beat, an intoxicating smell of sleeping gas all around.

Jennifer Kelly

Iron & Wine — Weed Garden (Sub Pop)

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Sam Beam has somehow become a master of the EP. Last year's full-length Beast Epic from Iron & Wine received critical acclaim and a Grammy nomination, but it never really settled the way much of his earlier work had. Given that Weed Garden draws from that album's leftovers, the new EP could have been a quick toss-off to turn a few dollars on otherwise dead songs. Happily, though, Beam delivers a strong, quick set. Where he had traded in resignation, this one starts with an immediate rally, the call in “What Hurts Worse” to “become the lovers we need.” His awareness of brokenness becomes the grounds for a fragile restoration, his voice and the smooth production serving the message.

A few years old but until now unreleased, “Waves of Galveston” brings the necessary precision to a complicated situation, and the continuing Croce-like sound fits the mood perfectly. “Last of Your Rock 'n' Roll Heroes” brings a steady bounce to a series of impressions that eventually give way to the darkness. Closer “Talking to Fog” uses language to resist pending dissipation, offering gentleness among hardness and “reaching out” despite knowing safer options. Beam's writing relies on visuals until he makes blurry images come into focus, even if he maintains that “it's hard to find.” It's a strong statement from Beam, an album's worth of care in a little EP, again.

Justin Cober-Lake

The Lavender Flu — Mow the Glass (In The Red)

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Heavy Air, The Lavender Flu’s 2016 debut was a double album of feel-bad rock sent forth from the Pacific Northwest damp to soundtrack an endless bummer. Chris Gunn, formerly of The Hunches and Hospitals, assembled the album at home, on analog tape, building and reworking the tracks into one of the year’s most impressive collages of sound. The second time around, with Mow the Glass, the approach is different. Here, Gunn is backed by a proper band — brother Lucas Gunn, former Hunches drummer Ben Spencer and Eat Skull’s Scott Simmons. Those folks all lent a hand to Heavy Air, yet here they are in the same room, playing together to the buzz of warmed amps and a view of the sea. The album is trim and clear, focusing Gunn’s aesthetic without losing sight of the mindset that got him here in the first place. A couple of cuts from the first LP — “Demons in the Dark,” a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Like a Summer Thursday” — reappear with fresh coats of paint. “You Are Prey” begins tipsy and unraveling, with the band chasing a whip of stereo-panning guitar, before setting into a reverb-rich ballad. The mood is subtlety sunnier throughout, like a crack of light on the horizon viewed from the soak of a storm.

Ethan Covey

Long Hots — Monday Night Raw (Self-Released)

Monday Night Raw by Long Hots

You should listen to Trouble Anyway, the new LP by Rosali Middleman. Middleman is a talented songwriter, but part of what makes Trouble Anyway so listenable is its lush instrumentation, all-star band, and pristine production. Middleman is also a member of The Long Hots, and their debut tape, Monday Night Raw sounds, by contrast, like it was recorded on a Fisher-Price tape deck by a band with about three weeks of musical experience between them. It’s glorious. The members of Long Hots are rock and roll lifers, so Monday Night Raw’s amateurism is both affected and effective, and sure to satisfy anyone who thinks Here Are the Sonics!!! is too slick. Of particular note is the ten minute “Boogie Trance,” which delivers exactly what it promises, no more, and “Die Die Die,” the chorus of which goes, you guessed it, “Die, Die, Die, Die.”

Isaac Olson

Paul Lydon — Sjórinn Bak Viò Gler (Paul Lydon)

sjórinn bak við gler by Paul Lydon

When you’re on your own, labels don’t mean much. Paul Lydon is an American musician who has been based in Reykjavik, Iceland since the mid-1990s. His discography is small, and he’s never made the same record twice. He’s sung alone and with a partner, in English and Icelandic, and kept the accompaniment varied each time. On Sjórinn Bak Viò Gler there is no singing at all, but it’s the most lyrical music of his recording career. The album’s title translates as The Sea Behind, and given Iceland’s prevailing clime you might want to keep it that way until there’s a closed door behind it and you. Lydon’s touch on the instrument betrays close acquaintance, and it’s easy to imagine him spending hours playing and ruminating on what he’s played. It doesn’t fall easily into any genre; its stream-of-consciousness flow is too perambulating for pop, too elaborate for minimalism and it doesn’t fall easily into any classical form. So let’s not worry about what it isn’t, and instead appreciate its confidently open-ended melodies and comfortably solitary mood.

Bill Meyer

Thee Open Sex — White Horses (Sophomore Lounge)

THEE OPEN SEX "White Horses" by Thee Open Sex

Indiana might seem like an odd place to give birth to a combo committed to diving deep into Krautrock concepts but think again. You’ve got highways and flat land that doesn’t afford much of a view once you’re over the cornfields; what could be more practical than motoric music? The Open Sex makes music that’ll whittle away the road miles, and White Horses is cut precisely to get you 35 minutes closer to home. That’s how long guitarist John Dawson and drummer Tyler Damon bear down on a groove that’s more metronomic than equine. Three guests use their playing as a foundation for a wheeling superstructure of squelchy notes and spacey textures. This is white line meditation music; be sure to stay mindful of the weight of your foot upon the gas.

Bill Meyer

Rob Noyes & Ryan Lee Crosby — Modal Improvisations on 34 Strings (Cabin Floor Esoterica)

[CFE#68] Modal Improvisations on 34 Strings by Rob Noyes & Ryan Lee Crosby

On record and in concert, 12-string guitarist Rob Noyes displays a clarity of intent that you don’t often see from an artist who is young and new. But not only does he keep his picking clean and lyrical through rustic rounds and mystery-laden excursions, he keeps his head in the presence of a very different guitarist. Ryan Lee Crosby plays chaturangui, a sort of hybrid veena / dobro guitar developed by Debashish Bhattacharya. The chaturangui is suited to the swoop and chime of Hindustani ragas, and that’s how Crosby plays it. Noyes embroiders the contours of his partner’s voluptuous lines and pushes back with pure-sound strumming. He manages to sound quite supportive and engaged without compromising the very different character of his playing. This short (not quite 28 minutes) tape is a typically atypical Cabin Floor Esoterica product; home-dubbed and hand-wrapped, a first edition has already gone out of print, but a second run is imminent.

Bill Meyer

Riesgo — Demo MMXVIII (Self-released)

Demo MMXVIII by RIESGO

It’s not often that you can claim a tape is both a throwback to and a continuation of a vital movement in punk, but listen to Riesgo’s new demo. You can hear both of those historical trajectories as soon as “Lobxs” kicks it. The bass’s rubbery warbling and the guitars’ razoring buzz recall the initial tones of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown.” Then Carlos Ruiz starts singing, and the tape’s sound snaps into sharper focus. Chicago’s South Side, Latinx punks, thrashy attitude: Riesgo have picked up the baton from the excellent and underappreciated Sin Orden, who in turn had received it from the nigh-legendary Los Crudos. (Or, in a couple cases, band members just held onto the baton: Ruiz sings for Sin Orden, and Jose Casas played guitar for Los Crudos.) Razacore is alive and angry. That’s good news, and very timely. Given our current national moment — the current bullshit hating on Latino American identity and the reactionary responses to the violence in Chicago — this bolus of pissed off, politically fierce punk is precisely what’s needed. “Ahógate” is a standout track. The vocals and lead guitar are pretty unhinged, while the rest of the band hammers away at a compelling hardcore riff. It’ll sound great in a sweaty basement. Viva, Riesgo!

Jonathan Shaw

Rocket 808 — Digital Billboards b/w Mystery Train (12XU)

Digital Billboards b/w Mystery Train by Rocket 808

Rocket 808 is the latest incarnation of the garage guitar phenomenon John Schooley, whom you might remember from the Revelators (or if not, enjoy this set of Billy Childish covers laid to tape in a record store in Columbia, MO in 1996). A frequent solo performer (his website is called John Schooley and his One Man Band), Schooley does it all on these two tracks. “Digital Billboards” overlays the cheerful cheesiness of a vintage drum machine with incandescent flares of whammy and deep reverbed guitar darkness. Surf rock, sure, but evil and skeletal and scary, with shades of Suicide in the wild ghostly automatism. Side two’s “Mystery Train” amps up the rockabilly, the drum machine cranked to the breaking point, the guitar arcing and spitting in turbulent bursts. Schooley sings on this one, steering classic blues lines around hard bends until they lift off the pavement. This sort of blues-referencing, early-rock-aware music always has an element of parody, but Rocket 808 seems less performance-art-ish than Bob Log III or Heavy Trash. It’s dark and dangerous, a heightened reality rather than a pose.

Jennifer Kelly

Sam Weinberg — A/V/E (Anticausal)

A/V/E by Sam Weinberg

Sam Weinberg has contributed some raw sax to some harsh ensemble settings, particularly the duo W-2 and various gigs with Weasel Walter. But when he closes the door to his Brooklyn apartment, things get real. The sounds from outside his window and on his kitchen table prove equally valuable as he constructs a mutating environment out of inscrutable industry, passing traffic and critters, the mechanical parts of his horns and some vigorously scoured surfaces. This is the stuff of life, or at least Weinberg’s life. Layer upon layer of sonic activity coexists like the residents of a big old NY apartment building, close in proximity yet not particularly interested in each other.

Bill Meyer

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engagedtobefree · 6 years

Text

I think Scott is actually starting to care about me. I figured out at least a month and a half ago that I was actually starting to genuinely care about this man, but now I see it on his end. I got an inkling of it the one day where he mentioned how he didn’t get to talk to me all day, but I am really starting to recognize it now.

Last week was a pretty typical week for us, up until Friday. I usually spend about the last 15-20 minutes of my lunch going to talk to Scott (I get a 45 minute lunch), but only about 10 minutes into it I hear someone walking and my Scott radar goes off, but I keep reading my book because I always tell myself I’m wrong. (I never am). Sure enough, Scott comes to my cubicle doorway and I hear him say “soup” and “Dane”. I break away from my book. “What?”. He tells me him and Chris got Chinese food and that he got some soup with his meal but he doesn’t want it and he wants to know if I’d like to have it. I say sure and we go into his office. He looks it up on his computer to see if it’s really all vegetarian because he wants to make sure. Okay, my heart. The fact that this isn’t something he’s used to doing, yet he’s doing it. Like I could be wrong and he could be close to someone who is a vegetarian, but odds are, he probably isn’t. Honestly, most people don’t even think to check ingredients for me and I don’t expect them to, like it’s something I need to do because it’s my dietary needs. But yeah, most people I’ve met don’t even think about different dietary needs others may have and Scott is right there actually thinking about my dietary restrictions and does he even know how he just keeps pushing himself deeper into my little heart?

Anyway, the soup just looks like seaweed and tofu floating in there. I go to stand next to him but can’t really read too much of what’s on is computer. I go ask Joyce for a spoon and go back to my desk, but I want to check to see what broth they use, just because you never know. Broths varied for the soup. Could be veggie but could be made from seafood. I weigh my options if it’s worth it. I don’t want to lie and say I tried it, but I also want to try it cuz Scott gave it to me, but I don’t want to risk it being seafood broth. I decide that the odds of me liking an Asian soup are slim, because out of the several I’ve had in my lifetime I only ever liked one, and it couldn’t have been that impressive cuz I only had it once. I throw the soup out without tasting it and get up to put my lunch bag back in the fridge. When I come back to my desk, Scott had placed a spoon and fortune cookie next to my book. I go into his office to ask him if he doesn’t want the fortune cookie and he says he doesn’t like them. I tell him I didn’t like the soup but thanks anyway. I hate lying but it’s just soup, so I try to just jump right to another topic. I spend the rest of my lunch in his office with him. Since Steve took a half day, Scott takes his lunch early and he eats while I’m in his office. We just talk and laugh as usual.

At the end of the day I tease him a bit. There’s not a lot of people in the office today and no one has really used the coffee machine except Scott. I tell him he made a mess spilling sugar everywhere and he says it wasn’t him, but I tell him he’s been the only one using it all day. We go back and forth a bit before he says “Alright, maybe it was me” and I say “There’s been a few times before where I cleaned it up, and now I know who I’m cleaning up after.” He’s smiling at me and I’m laughing. I talk to him for a bit in his office and then go to pack up. Joyce leaves usually before me now most Fridays because when I talk to Scott I don’t leave on time. I pack up and shut down and go back to his office, and we walk out together.

Yesterday I was at the printer when Scott came out of his office to go to lunch. He asked me if I wanted anything, and I told him no thanks, but I was pleasantly surprised by his offer. One time I went to Dunkin Donuts on my lunch and asked him if he wanted anything and he had said no, but then later that day he told me about his stomach problem and said he couldn’t have coffee. He’s really starting to reciprocate with me and I hope he knows that I notice and appreciate it.

Today I felt bummed because Scott didn’t come in. After lunch came and passed I figured he wasn’t coming in at that point. It took me also half the day to stop worrying. I finally came to the rational conclusion that maybe he was sick, but for some reason I felt like it may have had to do with his daughter. A little after 1 I hear someone come in and my brain goes “Scott!”. Now all day people had been in and out of that door, but this particular time it’s like I fucking knew. I lean back to look in the security mirror, and lo and behold it is him. After a bit I go and get my aloe water from the mini fridge so I can walk by his office. I start walking down the hall toward his door but am looking down at my bottle, which I’m shaking. When I look up, he had just turned away, but a few seconds later he turns back to me with his face lit up. I know I must be lit up too because he has his glasses on and oh my God I am so attracted to this man. I wave at him and he waves back to me. He turns back to his computer but then turns back to me again as I’m passing. I can feel I’m still glowing and he is too. I go back to my desk and am smiling stupidly because he’s in his glasses. He’s in his glasses. I’ve thought a few times how I would like to see him in them and oh man, dreams do come true and they are better than I imagined.

At one point during the day I’m looking for a dock guy about an order, but he’s on break upstairs. So I go back to my desk for a few minutes and then go to head up. Scott is at the receptionist’s desk with another woman we work with and they’re all talking. I pass by them to go upstairs but no one is up there, so I know break time must be over. I know I probably look stupid going upstairs and then coming pretty much right back down, but nothing I can do about it. I am looking down at the steps and when I look up at Scott, he has a little smile on his face and he’s looking at me. I give him a little smile back. He looks so handsome, ugh.

At one point while I’m at the printer, Scott comes out of his office. As he’s walking by he says “Do you like my goofy glasses?”, or something along those lines. “What? No! I think they look good on you.” He starts saying how his daughter was on his lap and how she grabbed his phone and when she lifted her arm, she hit him in his eye and his contact got stuck. He ended up ripping his contact when he tried to get it out, so some pieces got stuck and he had to go to the eye doctor. His eye was really red and watery, and it was leaking a bit. Of course I wanted to wipe it for him but unfortunately I have self-control so I didn’t. I say “unfortunately” because I so badly want to be affectionate with Scott but I can’t, for many reasons. Oh, I was also right about feeling like him being absent from work had something to do with his daughter. So he starts saying how the style of glasses he has are the only ones that go with his face and how he doesn’t look good in those nerd glasses everyone wears, like the big black ones. I tell him those are the ones I have and I think he felt embarrassed lol. But I tell him I only really look good in the big glasses and not the small ones like what he has. He just beams at me after I say this, and I know the feeling. Sometimes I get so caught up in a moment with Scott and I’m just all happy and then I freeze in that happiness and can’t say anything, if that makes sense. It actually reminded me of when I wore my glasses and he told me they looked good and I just said “Thanks” and stood there glowing with a big closed-mouth smile and didn’t say anything else, even after he said he didn’t look good in glasses. I did mention to Scott how I wore glasses that one day and was like “Never again” and he said he didn’t remember that or what my glasses looked like. I immediately wanted to take offense to this but then I shrug it off right after. He’s a guy and I’ve come to learn that all dudes are this way pretty much and it was a few months ago and it probably means nothing that he doesn’t remember my glasses. It’s not a bad thing honestly because I think I look awful in glasses lol. I tell him again at some point that I like his glasses on him. Scott then tries to redeem himself by saying he didn’t mean I looked like a nerd in my glasses and that I probably don’t, and he’s stumbling over his words a bit. I tell him, “Nah, it’s too late. You already said it” and he laughs. I was just joking with him, but I think he did feel a little embarrassed for saying it, but there was no need to.

I figure at this point there is no harm in me flirting with Scott. I mean, there might be, but I know nothing even has a chance of happening unless Scott brings it up, and his track record shows that he is not one for bringing things up. It’s been over 3 weeks at this point and he hasn’t mentioned his decision. I’m not gonna bug the guy. One thing though that I’m upset about is that my department may be moving upstairs. I like being next to Scott’s office, but I also really just like my spot. My cubicle is in a really good location, I like the first floor, I like being next to the printer and coffee machine, I like everyone on the first floor (I also like the 2nd floor people, but I’m so used to the 1st floor people). It’s not our decision to move, but the company wants to move us because apparently people from our sister company may be coming in and they want to keep them all grouped together. Idk how many people it would be, but there’s 3 empty cubicles behind us, and then marketing, but the marketing people are rarely there. They wouldn’t make those in the marketing cubicles leave though cuz their bosses’ offices are right there. Joyce doesn’t want to move either, but we get no say in the matter. I’m just gonna try to manifest the shit out of me being able to keep my spot. I like my spot and the fact that I’ve grown so accustomed now to my routines with Scott, I’m going to be even less happy if I have to move away from him.

I’m not sure what the intention of me writing this post was really. I’m just happy.

#scott #personal #happiness

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packernet · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.packernet.com/blog/2020/01/16/packernet-podcast-keep-the-hate-coming-were-loving-it/

Packernet Podcast: Keep the Hate Coming - We're Loving It

Transcript:

8s – 1m 8s

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, once again to the back of that podcast. I am your host and residence analyst that’s always Ryan slip check it out online packernet.com. Find me on Twitter Pack underscore that is so today. I’ve got quite a bit of things that I want to touch on some news and notes some rumors. Probably going to get a little bit Ranchi. There’s a couple different things to different people at you know, I was just talking yesterday about how you know, if I’m being honest I liked the days when the media was gushing over the Packers a lot more than I like today. I really did like that. It kind of it was it was somewhat undeserved kind of like what the Chiefs get with Mahomes and now Lamar, you know that the Golden Boy treatment that Aaron Rodgers somehow had for felt like basically his entire career up until what 2015 maybe even late cuz I think I think even as you started to decline the video

1m 8s – 1m 45s

Because you know, that’s just how they work. Nobody wants to be the first to say it and then as soon as somebody says it is like this just Avalanche. I don’t like them either. It’s just you know who can dislike him the most so, you know, that’s that’s how you get to be edgy you without actually being edgy because you didn’t want to say it for 5-10 years. Anyways, I don’t like this so much. However, I got to admit there’s something kind of nice and extra motivating about these games. You’ve already got the aspect if I really really really really really want to win and see this team in the Super Bowl is sort of like

1m 46s – 2m 46s

It hasn’t even sunk in that it’s a possibility and it’s not because I’m sure I believe thoroughly that we’re going to lose. It’s just it’s just like that that just doesn’t happen Packers don’t go to the Superbowl this certainly don’t win the Superbowl and it’s super rare and probably nod and I forget who it was and I apologize but somebody gave the visual in the Facebook group. Make sure you join the Facebook group that he could Envision Aaron Rodgers and Aries and Aries next to each other hosting the trophy and it was like one of those things that visual just made it very real and it’s like, oh my goodness this could really happen. I mean this could really actually happen but then you take the excitement of winning and the desire to win and add to it how much distain I’m developing for everybody because everybody dislikes the Packers and some of it is fine, right? You got the sports books and everything else. They’re saying the Packers have the lowest chance depending on where you look of winning a Super Bowl get it. You’ve got some stew.

2m 46s – 3m 46s

Mystic people just kind of laying out some facts, but for the most part you have very biased people that have never liked the Packers and love the fact that Aaron Rodgers is not the favorite anymore and take every opportunity. They can to remind everybody which largely is wrongly but because this is what the statistic Community now believes remind everybody that Aaron Rodgers is no longer the goat. He’s no longer even any good. He’s averaged this team is a fraud. They just can’t stop and every opportunity they get to say it they say it so that’s starting to make me angry to the point that I want them to be wrong almost as bad as I just want the Packers to win because the level of distain I have for them. Although I get it because that’s what being a fan of a different team is about. It’s still a little bit annoying. So I want to address some of that and again just some other little bit of this little bit of that. But anyways I said,

3m 46s – 4m 46s

Make sure you jump in the pack and a podcast Facebook group. That’s where the party’s at all day everyday we party and we talked about the Packers. That’s just what we do also apparently get into very serious discussions about needles in San Francisco, you know, some people tend to rant kind of like I tend to reims I can’t hate him for it. It’s it’s my life to also make sure you jump in the back of my podcast Facebook page. Thank you to all of you have sent messages. Obviously. You’ve not been getting hardly any responses. I have to go in and start working on all those responses and develop or develope responses to all the stuff you been saying to build the ultimate supercomputer. I don’t think that’s possible but it’s you know, I got all year figure this thing out. I don’t care. What else do I have to do? I pick one thing that I want to really work on this year on top of all the stuff that I’m doing and that’s one of the things I want to build. So leave me alone. What’s your New Year’s resolution push-ups get on my face. I’m building a supercomputer man Skynet Sun before the T-1000 was

4m 46s – 5m 46s

Schwarzenegger guy before the Schwarzenegger guy was the Packer. Chad Bock. You didn’t catch that and Terminator. Did you wait till Terminator 8, they’ll tell you how it all begins. If you would like to support the fact that podcast I would strongly encourage you to check out patreon.com pack underscore daddy. There is a link in the description somewhere in the link of links. You can support the show for as little as a dollar a month. It means a lot more to me than it does to you is in terms of you know, it’s more positive for me than its negative for you. I understand podcast for free, but I’m hoping that you like the value that I bring enough that you think it would be worth it to you to offer up at least a buck a month. Please consider it. I’ve had a very very good response up over $50. Which is awesome. As long as you don’t consider the fact that there are literally thousands of people that listen every day that it’s slightly less. Awesome. But still it’s good. It’s a good start and don’t forget there will be a giveaway ever.

5m 46s – 6m 29s

Single month, all you have to do is make a small donation. $1 is one entry 5 dollars is 5 entries etcetera etcetera. If you just want to win the thing straight out Super Bowl tickets are to do it. I think that’ll increase your odds substantially. So there you go something about otherwise a five-star iTunes review Stitcher review and make sure you are listening to the Packers iPod cat because the podcast broadcast on another podcast that has not called the Packers at podcast. If you don’t want to switch over that’s fine. I still get all the accounts for it. I just would like iTunes in the rest to realize that people actually do listen to my podcast. So if you wouldn’t mind subscribing to mine as well that be greatly appreciated, why don’t we take a break cuz I got a lot to talk about not a lot of time to talk about it.

6m 30s – 7m 30s

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7m 30s – 7m 53s

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7m 54s – 8m 53s

And once you’re feeling better, you don’t want to just feel better sitting on the couch. You especially don’t want to just feel better out shoveling your driveway making the pain come right on back. How about instead? We spend our February and March following our favorite baseball teams to Arizona for the Cactus League spring training. I can’t imagine a better way to spend February then out in 75 degree weather watching some baseball eating a couple hot dog hanging out with your significant other your body’s your kids and after the game getting some autographs and then buzzing over to one of the great craft breweries some great outdoor scenery and Adventures like hiking biking Jeep tours hot air balloon skydiving jet ski horseback riding and then after you’re completely famished go out and get some great Arizona cuisine cuisine as Gordon Ramsay kind of says, you know the British don’t speak too good scene. They try, you know,

8m 54s – 9m 54s

Make sure you plan your spring training get away at visit arizona.com spring training. Alright so much to do so little time. What are we talkin about? How about the fact that Luke Kuechly just retired yesterday. Can you imagine being a Carolina Panthers fan? You had a good team then it all kind of went sideways. We know what that’s like, it happened last couple years, right? Suddenly things just aren’t good anymore. We were Super Bowl Contender and then we were trash quarterbacks banged up but we’re starting over now. We get this guy rule in and it’s like he’s going to take over and he’s going to transform everything and then you find out the LSU who just won the National Championship the passing game coordinator. The guy that’s worked with Joe burrow land in the rest of that LSU crew to help them to win. The national championship is going to join Rule and help us rule the NFC South took me a second there and it you just feeling good and you know it you’re probably going to get a new quarterback. Maybe you like it. Maybe you don’t but

9m 54s – 10m 54s

It’s just it’s a new era, right? Cuz it this is a good team. We just got some work to do. We got to fix up this defense a little bit. But may we got the best running back in football? We’re going to get an electrifying quarterback in here. Take a guy like Herbert would be great somebody that doesn’t really need to be benched. But as long as he has a good Supporting Cast which which the Panthers kind of do right, they’ve got wide receivers kind of for the first time that got a great running back decent enough offensive line, like you can plug him in and just make some stuff happen and it will just focus on the defense and just hammer away at it. We’re going to be good man. We got Kuechly hang a hammer in this thing ain’t turn it down in the day that you get the news. You got a new offensive coordinator. The guy that has been like the guy on your team. One of the better linebackers of all time decides that at 28 years old with two years left on his contract. He’s going to hang it up. That’s wild by the way. This is not insignificant news to the Green Bay Packers because the Green Bay Packers are playing the Carolina Panthers at home in 2020 the Panthers

10m 54s – 11m 54s

Who had a abysmally horrible defense this past year are now without Luke Kuechly now. Who knows what’s going to happen to you know, after Gronk left, obviously, there was a total speculation that he’s going to come back. Maybe this is just stay a moment, you know as far as lacking Clarity, maybe it’s it’s injury-related and he’s he’s just really worried who knows but things change Stihl 28. He still healthy maybe is not the same Luke Kuechly was last year. He said in his goodbye message. He’s just not that same guy and he doesn’t want to play if you can’t play up to that level anymore, but maybe I mean Jared Veldheer retired now, he’s back helping us win a Superbowl but as it stands the Packers now are planning to go up against the Carolina Panthers at home without Luke Kuechly. I think the sooner we get that team the bed because the new coach and all that stuff that’s going to take some time to kind of develop that team build that locker room build up the new scheme in the new system. And I you you get those teams early enough before they really

11m 54s – 12m 54s

Get into the groove if they ever do but you catch them before they get into a Groove and that’s that’s going to work to our benefit. I also wanted to comment on something in just a little bit old news, but it’s interesting apparently and this is reported via Tony Pauline. I actually was I found this while I was doing some draft homework trying to get caught up on all the latest news and rumors and things for the draft and came across some news that apparently prior to the Vikings beat in the New Orleans Saints and then understand Tony Pauline is legit. He called stefanski to the Browns like in the same article prior to in Minnesota and the Saints game. She called it but decided the Browns number one candidate was stefanski. Anyways, he had said based on an inside source. The Minnesota Vikings are kind of tired of of Zimmer now, I’m shocked by this because the outside perspective by everybody not in Minnesota is that Zimmer’s a phenomenal code? He’s done a great job obviously is Zimmer defense is a very tough defense in the defense is what makes that team great, obviously.

12m 54s – 13m 54s

Cousins did a good job and all this other stuff, but the Zimmer defense is what makes the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota Vikings, but in Pauline’s words Zimmer has worn out his welcome in Minnesota. Here’s the interesting thing. The report was if they lose to the New Orleans Saints Zimmer’s done and stefanski will get hired as the head coach so bad because I believe the source I do think that the ownership wants to move on from Zimmer. However, they did beat New Orleans. I can’t imagine one game like that is really going to make that big of a difference. Although I mean, of course it’s a big win but to be that good of a team to get in the playoffs and to still say if you lose to a basically the number one team arguably in the NFL then you’re no good. And it’s that’s kind of a ridiculous statement. It sounds to me like something you’d say when you kind of just want him to go but the other kind of unfortunate thing is for the Vikings. Anyway, you also lost your intended replace.

13m 54s – 14m 54s

So now what are you do you you not only beat the Saints but the guy that you were going to replace dimmer with supposedly is gone. So you don’t have a replacement. No, forget that forget. The fact that I think this whole thing is a ridiculous conversation. I don’t know what’s going on inside the organization. Maybe Zimmer has become an insufferable jerk. He feels like he runs things, you know, whatever. I don’t know. I’m just telling you what the standpoint of ownership is and in for the Vikings fans listening. I want to clarify something. I understand that. The owner has said we 100% are bringing back our GM and our head coach. We have no intention of moving up. Please understand the eagle said the same thing about two of their coaches and fired them both the same day within 24 hours. I think it was like the quarterback coach something else. I don’t know but there was a question. Are you bringing it back? You should absolutely they’re coming back within 24 hours. They were both fired. So when you get put on the spot, you know, you don’t waver on a Zimmer coming back of course is come.

14m 54s – 15m 47s

Oh, yes, definitely. You tell the media. Yes, and then you go do your job or you try to throw out some it mean that there’s really just two ways to handle it. You don’t care what the media thinks and you just say yes because it’s better for your your franchise because you don’t want to waiver on it and then keep Zimmer was Zimmer, you know in the back of his mind taking these guys are trying to get rid of me. So you just say, of course, that’s our guy or the other way to handle it is just kind of, you know, not answer the question in which case everybody fully understands. You are answering the question. So you think you’re being cute but you’re answering the question and say yes, we’re trying to get rid of them by wavering on it don’t hurt her. I should have asked you to come Sizzla Floor coming back next year. What do you think the answer you think is going to be? Well, you know we go to the media asks you I think the right thing to do is say yes, of course dumb question and then if you want to fire me fire if the media wants to call you on it just to cares.

15m 47s – 16m 47s

He made you look dumb not the other way around cuz guess what you’re going to keep asking me questions as though I’m an authority and I want to keep telling me the answers that I want to give you whether they’re true or not. Cuz I could not care any less about you and your little articles. I’ve got a team to run a multi-billion-dollar franchise to run in a little Minnesota blog doesn’t mean anything to me and I’m not going to hurt my franchise answering your ridiculously dumb questions. I don’t care about you. So again, this is just to say I fully understand he said they’re they’re intending to keep them at this point. That might be their only option i d d, you know, I don’t know maybe they like some of the other candidates that are out there be enemy McDaniels. The Ravens offensive coordinator is getting a ton of love and could be a very good option. You also have to figure that. You might be looking to get a new quarterback in the near future. So maybe you want to get it off. I think that I think this is all ridiculous. I I think this is a defensive team of talk about identity in the past and the weird thing but certain teams

16m 47s – 17m 47s

This is just have identities that last through the decades the Vikings trying to go off at doesn’t work. They win when there are defensive team same is true for the Chicago Bears. They have tried over and over and over and over with guys like Trestman and everything else trying to get an elite offense and it just never works in. The one time that they’re legitimate team is when despite the fact that they’re still trying to go off ends Vic fangio building Elite defense and there you have it this Minnesota Vikings team lives and dies with their defense the purple people eaters on through the line This is a defensive franchise. They are a smash you in the mouth kind of a team and I just I don’t I don’t know. I don’t know why they would do it, but I wanted to bring it up because it is interesting and it definitely feels like this team has kind of been flogged. It’s kind of like Luke Kuechly Jumping Ship when everything’s kind of influx. Anyway, I’ve been kind of on the fence. Anyways, you’re going to fire my code. You’re getting rid of my quarterback. Probably maybe you’re bringing in all these new people. I just you know,

17m 47s – 18m 47s

The franchise is kind of in the in the in the train in the dirt. Whatever I can think of a word out of here and you know, the Vikings are kind of going through that’s enough that they’re a bad team. But you lose your offense of coordinator your defensive coordinator your assistant GM you might look at him know, you know what since we’re getting poached and we’re losing everything. I’ve been kind of want to make some changes. Anyways, let’s just kind of make some changes until I all I’m saying is if I had to guess the dimmers going to stay if for no other reason than he met that one qualification in that they beat the Saints and the replacement is currently coaching the Browns. However, keep that in the back your mind if the Vikings don’t have a good year next year. He’s 100% gone and it’s also possible that if they could find a good enough candidate they may move on. Anyways, I mean maybe before they go out and find it offensive coordinator. Maybe they go out and find somebody and offensive coordinator to coach the team and you know, there’s a lot of good defensive coordinators floating out there. They don’t get as many looks as had head coaching jobs as offensive coordinators do so. There’s some really quality guys that are just floating. So anyways something to keep an eye on.

18m 47s – 19m 47s

Something else that was brought up kind of a long that same vein Max in the Facebook group said he is a Packer fan from Minnesota and that there is growing speculation that Stefon Diggs is permanently unhappy on an overall average Vikings roster. Now though the point of his question was as a possible we end up getting them in the in the main response at he got was that there’s no way the Vikings are going to allow him to go to the Packers. That’s probably true. However, let’s also keep in mind. He doesn’t have to come to Green Bay in order for him to benefit us if the Vikings really do it again, they’re kind of in this middle grow their kind of in a spot where if they wanted to kind of tear things down they could or they can just try to hang on just replace the vacancies go into the draft get some more quality guys and come back and Hammer it again next year. I mean there there’s still a pretty good team. Although there is that question of the ticking Time Bomb might these guys are getting a year older and a year older and all our guys that are older or under these really long contract. I don’t know maybe we do need to start doing something a little bit more dramatic a little bit more.

19m 47s – 20m 47s

Secure Kendricks the odds of him playing at this level again or basically zero, he’s never play that at that high of a level ever in his career. He’s arguably the top linebacker in all football and I’ve been dogging the guy for 4 since forever saying he’s overrated Kendrick sandbach. You certainly was November 8th of this year and you know Everson Griffen and daneel Hunter very very good. But, you know the age catches up with everybody. These guys are both in or push in 32. Neil’s obviously a lot younger. He’s got a lot of tread left but Everson Griffen. I know you got them locked up long-term, but that doesn’t mean you got a quality player locked up long-term. He’s 32 just cuz you sign them through 35 doesn’t mean you’re freezing his age. So I don’t know. I mean if it’s true that they are considering moving on from their head coach. It’s certainly true that they could be willing to move on from there. They’re wide receiver, especially if he is kind of a head case and you feel as though he’s a negative in the locker room. I don’t know that he is I mean sometimes loud guys like that are positive other teammates really like him and I think her cousin says very much cuz he’s always screaming at cousin but so is

20m 47s – 21m 47s

The receiver feelings constantly getting into space 2 so you have to cut him if that’s if you’re just worried about him his Kirk Cousins feelings and Kirk Cousins is probably gonna be gone pretty soon. Anyway, so what are you worried about that for? Anyways, that’s enough about the Vikings. But I guess here’s to hoping you know, if the offseason has been really crazy since what like 2017 when it just really went nuts and we’ve seen teams do things that you know people that have been watching football for a long time. You just think that would never happen. That’s to correct. Those things have been happening the last few years, but some of the biggest stars just randomly end up on different teams. So it’ll be interesting to watch the Vikings in the kind of gauge and see what their strategy is which for a long time has been. Let’s just retain everybody at some point. You got to assume that they’re going to try to blow it up a little bit. We’ll see what happens little bit of minor Packers news parent leave the Packers had to work out with CFL running back to Shawn Amos. No clue. If there’s any relation to Adrian Amos. However, he is a r was a Calgary stampeder and a teammate of Reggie begelton another guy that we had.

21m 47s – 22m 47s

I believe sign to a reserve Futures deal. So we’ll see what happens when it comes to a PC still doing a lot of work and it clearly they’ve been doing some work in the CFL as well. And you know, I’m not going to not get a job goop the man knows what he’s doing. So we’ll see how the last thing I want to bring up before we take a break and get into some other more. I don’t know what college visit philosophical type thing. There was a point brought up by no other than OJ Simpson that Aaron Rodgers probably still has a chip on his shoulder against the 49ers leaving aside the part where that was a very long time ago because you probably still have some kind of a chip something that OJ seems to be forgetting is that he probably has a chip had a ship on the shoulder on November 24th, when we lost 30728 probably had a chip on his shoulder when we lost of the 49ers 23 to 20 back in 2014 as well as losing twice to the 49ers the year before

22m 47s – 23m 47s

So I’m not so sure that that really holds a lot of water I bring it up just because it’s entirely possible that there’s some pack offense of her then go. Oh, yeah, he was snubbed therefore. He’s angry therefore he wants revenge do this is the third time we face it for San Francisco in the playoffs with Aaron Rodger We Roll for 2. So yeah, maybe but I’m not putting a lot on that. However, he was the one thing I will say to try to get a little bit to that bigger than Aaron Rodgers is the general theme that although the Packers haven’t been perfect. They win when it matters, I would focus little bit more on that to be honest the fact that yes, we did lose to them earlier in the regular season, but when it really matters do we have the guys on this team come up and play a good football game and again to win when it matters that’s been there Mo all year. So be very Packers ask of them to have an ugly series with the 49ers but ultimately win when it matters and to once again prove everybody wrong something they’ve been doing literally all

23m 47s – 24m 47s

Let’s take a break and then I want to get in to see how much of this other stuff we can get at. I want to start with the the first thing first. That is this Eric eager guy who is a vitriolic anti Packers Vikings fan who is trying to put on his analytics hat as he tries to dismantle the Green Bay Packers and the shocking thing is that although other people are doing a fairly good job of it. Just just laying out historical fact and letting it lie there and letting Packer fans. Overreacting look like The Crazy Ones this Eric dude is just out of his mind. So I want to kind of walk through this a little bit to matter simply means that the offense is what is most predictive and actually this game was a perfect example of that. So it’s pretty clear. He’s trying to defend something right? He’s he’s he’s not walking something back but he got called out for something dumb and he’s trying to defend it. First of all, what in the world are you talking about? Trying to defend apparently some comment he made about defense.

24m 47s – 25m 47s

Doesn’t matter which is dumb as the guy that has in a self-proclaimed way written the book on it. That’s just not true offense is more predictive of success. That’s not true. Remember what my little project was quarterback versus defense, which really is how they started off. That’s what I call it ends up being sort of what the predictive odds of winning based on your statistical points where you rank in terms of points and yards on offense and a defendant in a mathematical sense looking at every single Super Bowl winner throughout all of Super Bowl history. I looked at what the percentage odds are based on all these things and end points against which is defensive points allowed is by far the most predictive in terms of actually winning a Super Bowl 30% 30% of all Super Bowl winners have the number one overall defense. That’s just number one.

25m 47s – 26m 46s

I’ve been through all this stuff before he’s just wrong about this defense is more predictive of success know if you’re talking about maybe some other things. I I don’t know what is initial claim was but he’s absolutely wrong having a great offense is going to help you win the Superbowl but having a better defense is much more predictive and then for him to go on and say end this game was a great example of that. Excuse me, the Packers won because of their offense against the Seattle defense. Is that the claim that you’re making that’s absurd It song about the Packers five sacks Russell Wilson had a better day than Aaron Rodgers did statistically it was Aaron who it was Russell Wilson versus the Packers defense. That was the story of this game. This was not an example of that. If you go back over history the last time they played in the playoffs the Seahawks want and it was Seattle’s defense against the Packers offense. This was Seattle’s offense against the Packers defense in both cases defense came out on top two hilarious thing though. Is that his co-host

26m 47s – 27m 47s

Yeah, that’s right. And then goes on to explain how the Packers defense was really good and that the Seattle offense was really good what this game was? Absolutely. I mean we were we were told the entire in a sort of going into the game that Green Bay was more Stout up front in Seattle and they were I mean, they think pressured Wilson more than 50% of his dropbacks. But ultimately Russell Wilson and the Seahawks have gained the Packers. They made a lot of plays Wilson at 106 passer rating when pressured their yards per play We’re actually higher than their historical, you know average for the season. I think they were saying that offense is more important than defense and this game shows in the co-host goes. Yeah, that’s true. Seattle’s offense was incredible. And in fact, they played better on offense then they have all year, but the Packers defense was better. Maybe they just think Seattle one. I don’t know.

27m 47s – 28m 13s

I’m a little confused because the initial statement for mr. Eric was defense doesn’t matter the whole Cohoes comes out and says, yes, he knows offense was great Packers defense was great Packers won and to look at his face as he just sits there and watch it happen to him is hilarious Cindy goes down and tries to do damage control and explain how Green Bay’s defense actually isn’t that good? And that in fact, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know listen to what this guy is trying to do here.

28m 14s – 28m 48s

Upoint were talking before this which is like Willie Turner Turner drops a stone cold light up in past. That’s not an example of Green Bay’s defense being great, right? It’s an example of offense dictating what happens in this game great offense is going to win out right? That’s just what happened and that offense is also going to make your defense look good, right? So Russell Wilson in this game his fatal flaw was that he held onto the ball a long time and he did not feel the pressure and Aaron Rodgers. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop stop.

28m 49s – 29m 49s

Wow, this is this is how I knew he was a Vikings fan. This is how I absolutely knew because this makes no sense Point number one offense dictates to defense. So the point you’re making is basically the the way that I’m going to be right about this is that I’m going to say offense is more important the defense and if you point out to me a good defense I’m going to say that it wasn’t actually good defense was just bad offense, which you can do in every case, except your one example is ridiculous. You gave one example of a guy dropping a pass how many other dropped passes were there? And and what are the five sacks come into play and how about the dropped interception? Can we just hand him? Can we hand Kevin King the ball since we’re just going to make stuff up. Let me ask you another question explain to me how the Tennessee Titans beat the number one ranked offense in football. How did that happen? It don’t even give me this garbage about Lamar didn’t play. Well, he threw some of the most pinpoint perfect passes I’ve ever seen in my life. He was running for his life. That is a very good offense that try to dictate a with but loss.

29m 49s – 30m 35s

To a better defense because the old adage that defense wins championships has kind of been true for a while. If you don’t have a good defense, you don’t have yourself a Super Bowl the last time a team won. The didn’t have a top-10 defense was the 2013 Ravens and I tell you right now with 100% certainty that was a top-10 defense by the time they hit the playoffs and Ray Lewis said guys. I just need one more the last time a team won Super Bowl without a top-10 defense or offense. 2016 Bronco that offense was not good at all. The quarterback was ranked 39th about the number 4 ranked scoring defense in the number one defense in terms of yarded and know their quarterback didn’t get better in the postseason. He was the same guy that couldn’t hardly do any of it. At least physically this it this is such.

30m 36s – 31m 36s

Ridiculous nonsense trying to say that despite the fact that it was actually the Packers defense that one and then the Seahawks offense that lost another what’s a good offense force a good defense and the defense with the way you twist. This is by actually saying the the Seahawks offense wasn’t good. The guy just laid out the statistics. It was a very good offensive performance and Russell Wilson played out of his mind and a know he held on the ball too long. I wonder why genius you think maybe it’s cuz nobody was open because you know defense, what are you talkin about? Why are you doing this the reputation of Pro Football Focus is going in the tank. Every time you open your mouth PFF is all about Advanced analytics. It’s about statistics is supposed to be about facts right that the even her grading scale is based on a very strict criteria of factual information and you got this guy flapping his gums sing the dumbest crap I’ve ever heard of my life offense dictates to defense a good defense.

31m 36s – 32m 36s

Is nothing more than a bad offense. What are you talkin about? This these words have never been spoken in the history of the universe ever accept by this Vikings fan who forgets that he’s on on an actual broadcast and his hatred of the Packers has so consumed him that he can’t even form a coherent thought he is. So Lowe’s to give the Packers any credit that he’s essentially saying that the Seahawks just their offense just fell apart. The five sacks just kind of happened Russell Wilson held onto the ball because he just felt like it not because nobody was open but because he felt like it despite the fact we saw the replays in the coverage and nobody was open and there was nowhere to go with the ball for not going to give Packers any credit this this this is exactly the problem and I don’t I don’t think we’re going to have time to get to my other thing. Maybe we’ll talk about it tomorrow. I don’t have a problem with the analytics Community. But but this is no different than than the end in the political realm there statistics and there is evidence for just about anything that you want to prove and when you get people with enough

32m 36s – 33m 36s

They’ll try to use all this stuff to basically paint the picture that just isn’t so and this is not even a coherent looking picture. This isn’t even using statistics or anyting. This is just a guy that’s lost his mind either. He’s lost his mind. He’s never had one. I don’t know. I don’t know who this guy is. I’ve never heard him speak before but this is dumb and it’s not just cuz he’s talking about the pack of this is the end of this is a stance that he’s taking that offense is more important the defense an example of a defense beating out the offense. It’s because the offense didn’t do what it’s supposed to do that’s called circular logic my friend. That’s not how this works. That’s not how anything works. If you’re listening to this and you want I can let you borrow my thirteen-year-old daughters introduction to logic book. It’ll maybe help you work through this a little bit. She’s done with that when she’s moved on to intermediate logic so you can borrow the the intro to logic book if you if you want it seems like you you might need it but the but the but that’s what that’s what gets me so frustrated about this because there are people that are just being honest.

33m 36s – 34m 36s

I don’t have any problem with Vegas giving better odds the 49ers again. I trust Vegas because Vegas is just all they care about is money. I trust a greedy capitalist because they just care about money there a biased they’re not willing to to to lose money to get their way of Vikings fan working at a casino setting a betting line is not going to move the line to sort of hurt the Packers fans feeling because they just care about money and so I can trust them doesn’t mean they’re right but they’re going to take all the available information which is the other thing I wanted to talk about but we don’t have time is in a how much how much of the stuff that we can see accounts for the whole picture. That’s sort of a another question that will try to talk about tomorrow because some of the analytics people seem to think that all the information we have is all the information we need and my ability to take the information and paint the correct picture is is 100% accurate. So I am all-knowing and that’s that’s when you get to be obnoxious. I love analytics. I love none.

34m 36s – 35m 36s

The love playing with stuff because it provides a little bit of context. It paints a picture but the actual Beauty and football I’ll give you the end of the story tomorrow. I’ll just ruin it is the fact that we don’t know anyting the fact that there isn’t a supercomputer that’s going to tell us who wins the Super Bowl because there will never be a super computer that can tell us that because there is an unknown quantity to the human element of football that will always remain unknown that at that can’t ever be no that is the part about football that makes football special statistics will never be able to touch that part of football ever until some of these people are just wildly speaking out of turn and I’m to the point now that anytime I see it. I’m just going to try to come swing it if you want to say you think the 49ers and I went I don’t care that’s fine. You should think that if I wasn’t a pack of Five Nights at 49ers going to win and I don’t need the other game. I don’t know. How do I run things Chiefs? I’m kind of leaning Titans a little bit same way. I was leaning Titans against the Raven cuz you have these wildly good offense is going up against a team that has a rat that is just a solidly, you know steady team.

35m 36s – 36m 36s

You don’t like I go for the study Team every time it was steady Patriots looking team versus team that let a team score 24 points in a quarter and then came back and scored like 30 or three touchdowns in 3 minutes. That is the epitome of volatility. Anyways, that’s neither here nor there point is I have no problem with Packer fans saying I think we’re going to lose that I’ve gotten so many messages saying I’m not feeling good about this. I don’t think we’re going to win that doesn’t bother me letters are a good team. Even if they weren’t there’s no guarantees in football, which is another thing that the analytics Community doesn’t want to look at. They look at the fact that the Packers almost lost the Lions save their for their garbage. Why because your supercomputer said if they were good, they would have blown him out of the water. Your supercomputer is stupid and I hate the fact that I am at war with the analytics Community because I feel like these are my people. I’m the one that’s been taking the the arrows for PFF for 2 year haven’t talked about how we can go back up in this and this guy is not the embodiment of what PFF is. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why he’s there. I don’t know who liked who gave him a microphone.

36m 36s – 37m 36s

Speaking anything factual or even using what is going on with Twitter do this is ridiculous the stuff that’s trending is just get out of here. I got to get off here stuff popping up like why is what anyways, so there’s a lot more I want to talk about but, you know time constraints and whatnot. I know. It’s only 36 minutes in but I got to go to work speaking of a couple things everyone. Don’t forget patreon if everybody listening decides to give me a dollar a month. I can start working on my sales pitch to my wife to quit my job. It won’t work, but I’ll start I’ll try secondly on a slightly more serious note, although I would seriously appreciate that regardless of what happens with the Green Bay Packers in a few weeks. The season is over. Let me encourage you because there’s a lot more listeners now than there have been over the past year because of how much popularity with the Packers and their the playoffs and all that. Let me encourage you to please stick around after the season is over if you need a couple days to recoup after a loss if there is a loss, that’s fine. But but please come back.

37m 36s – 38m 36s

Because I’ll tell you what the offseason is when things get fun with the draft coming up with free agency coming up. This this is one of my favorite times of the year. In fact that the Packers won in the playoffs. This would already be my favorite time of the year. It’s the time when we get to dream as Packer fans about what can be what might be to look at the prospects to look at the free agents. And then once we get them to talk about what they might be able to do for the offseason is the time to dream about what could be it’s also that the best time to go back and really digging deep into what the Packers were. Not just what they can be but what they really were in to theorize and that’s what I love the most the regular season is not my favorite time to podcast it’s easy because everything is laid out for you, but it almost kind of gets monotonous is the same thing at the same schedule as it’s just but you got to hit on these points so I can’t get away from it. Even on a daily podcast you get your routines in your ritual. I like the offseason the offseason is when the fun happen, so, please let me encourage you to at least stick around for

38m 36s – 39m 12s

Weaker for 2 weeks just to see if if I’m lying to you and if you don’t love it, and if you’re not getting some inside, so you never thought you would and if you’re not enjoying the offseason by all means going to the football hibernation, and we’ll we’ll see you again in August, but I promise you this offseason going to be a lot of fun. I’m still planning on doing daily. I did it daily last year didn’t think I could but I made it and I fully intend to do it again. So that’s my pan. I’d love to see the numbers increase in the offseason instead of decrease. Anyways, you folks have ourselves a fantastic day. It’s us against the world, and that’s exactly how it needs to be. I will talk to you tomorrow. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.

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iluvtv · 5 years

Text

Mom Guilt

Since today I will be tackling the taboo topics of both guilt and remorse I may as well start with my own caveat; I apologize.

I'm going to do some mom-splaining here...

Recently I watched the first ten episodes of both I'm Sorry and I Feel Bad. Both shows are Momedies and in case you hadn't noticed I am far more fluent in the more ego-centric brand of SWF Humor. No matter, intrigued by these curiously similar premises and my general obsession with female comedic powerhouses (including the women behind these titles) I assumed I had nothing to lose (ten hours on the sofa aside).

In full disclosure, while Andrea Savage's I'm Sorry wasn't exactly a show I fell for immediately, the stellar cast and the unapologetically hilarious style of Savage's parenting was enough to keep me watching. A clever choice indeed, by the final episode of Season One I felt pure sadness that I had no more episodes to watch and apologetic that I hadn't immediately understood the show's intentions. While my earliest notes state I am impressed by the cast they also indicate confusion towards the uneven tone. Or to be as authentic as Savage my actual notations read as such:

"So many snappy quips.

Cast is epic...

Hope show gets better.

RN all just parents talking shit"

As I struggled to grasp I'm Sorry I also started dabbling with I Feel Bad. A show I found so problematic that no matter which lens I looked through I just wound up feeling... well, bad.

My ability to embrace the intentions behind I'm Sorry was aided through Savage's interview on Dax Shepard's (wonderful) podcast Armchair Expert. Her voice allowed a clear point of reference, making it much easier to deduce the ambitions behind her creative portrayal of just how humorous motherhood is.

The feminist credo she passes to her daughter doesn't hurt the show's hilarity either. Savage's offbeat parenting hacks towards inciting female power seemingly misfire, all the while actually breeding a totally self-actualized kid who will proudly push back on the agenda. Amelia patiently explains to her mother "Ariel doesn't need a voice because she is the prettiest."

Savage makes this whole process just so darn relatable.

So, maybe I am just an ignorant audience and I still don't get I Feel Bad. Maybe a few interviews and episodes later I'll be espousing this show as the sleeper hit I knew about all along. But for now, as a woman who very much does not "have it all" I couldn't help but feel insulted by I Feel Bad's beautiful, successful protagonist, Emet. This is a mom who spends each episode lamenting her inability to "do it all" while somehow managing to round off each half hour by achieving whatever seemed implausible earlier in the day. Along the way, her funny, nuclear (though, to be fair racially diverse) family, comedically (and again, to be fair, often judgmentally) applauds her missteps.

Somehow each episode lands like a small punch in the gut. By episode six I was pretty sure I was being Sheryl Sanberg'ed all over again.

Emet's successful gaming illustration job, sweet and loving husband, goofy dad, terribly hands-on mom and mostly self-sufficient children (we hardly ever even see the baby) is all just a little much. This is a working mom that makes leaning in look suspiciously like lying down.

So, is I Feel Bad actually the minority mother's manifesto it was built as or is it just another major female guilt trip?

Admittedly here, Savage's television alter-ego which is practically exclusively based in reality is a wildly talented and beautiful comedienne, married to a successful lawyer with a cute (if sometimes obnoxiously inconvenient) daughter. In spite of this the show somehow just doesn't feel overdone. Instead, her down to earth approach to life and incessant and often deprecating commentary induce both cringing and appreciative nodding. Even I understand her plight and I am a single woman living in a one bedroom apartment writing a blog for free.

Perhaps this can be attributed to the humor. Savage's commitment to every joke intrinsically carries this series.

Once I finished listening to her and Dax chat I was entirely smitten with this woman. She sees the world through satire tinged goggles, she is attracted to banter and surrounds both her work and home life with this ethic.

Realizing the comedians on her show were mostly improvising I embraced the occasional awkwardness in tone for all it was intended to be.

It is this constantly improving unrehearsed dialogue in which, I'm Sorry thrives. The show has a fabulously charming Curb your Enthusiasm feel but I suppose I need to quantify this statement.

I understand charming to mean Judith Light telling Andrea Savage to go fuck herself during a geriatric Zumba class when Savage (the youngest person in the room by some 20-odd years) requests to turn up the A/C. Or charming like when your newly not racist four-year-old daughter runs into the "grown-up" dinner party in blackface (the very same exclusively invited guests who just discovered you probably peed on your hands to alleviate the "jalapeno burn" you acquired whilst preparing their guacamole) only to announce that she is "Fat Albert!" Charming like when your best friend gleefully squeals, "I'm just so excited to see what you have planned next! First piss guac, then blackface. Its probably going to be something antisemitic!" Charming like 7a at the fertility clinic watching men leave the waiting room one by one to go masturbate in a cup and appreciating the experience as nothing more than amazing content."It's kind of like the reverse walk of shame," Savage announces gaining hearty laughs from the other patients and causing her husband to shrink into his chair, muttering; "please don't engage the room."

This is the kind of parenting I can comprehend.

I'm Sorry features a team already skilled at doing improvisation with one another and while it does take a bit for both viewer and actor to fully grasp the unpredictable tone of a real-life mom, it's bumps and misses are a welcome side effect of both the show and actual motherhood.

This story focus' on the perils a funny mom who writes crass humor for a living might actually have to face. Her writing partner, Kyle (Jason Mantzoukas) wonders how she can go from "blow jobs to kindergarten" and her husband teases: "Moms aren't supposed to be funny. Don't you watch TV? Get more hairy and tired."

All teasing from loved ones aside, this show works because Andrea is not actually perfect. She explains in the first episode that she is "disgusting" and later acknowledges she is on an equal playing field with a woman she once accused of being a "garbage person". These fallacies lead to a character who is both likable and entirely relatable; I too am struggling through a semi-charmed life with plenty to apologize for.

Most notable perhaps, is the final two scenes of season one when Savage accidentally changes her email signature to her favorite (just for laughs) porn picture of a girl biting a man's dick (this is a pic she utilizes as an ongoing gag in many different facets and even unwittingly exposes her four-year-old daughter to at one point in the season). Without realizing her mistake, she shoots off an email to the elite kindergarten her daughter was just accepted to, informing them how thrilled her family is to join the school next fall. Spoiler alert, the season ends with her begging for redemption.

But that's the thing, we don't know if she'll get it and if the Dean's face is any indication Amelia's future here looks highly doubtful.

And while this is an error perhaps enhanced for the comedic effect her apology does sound genuine. She hadn't quite meant for her humor to hurt her daughter's future, an intent likely all decent mom's can relate to

Far less avant-garde, I Feel Bad follows the mainstream sitcom throughline in which conflict is presented, dealt with and solved all in the matter of one episode. Personally, I have no problem with this tactic, designed of course to give us a fresh start each week. The problem here lies with the premise of the show. How badly can you really feel about an error which only takes 28 minutes with commercials to rectify? But what really grates at me here is that our protagonist hasn't so much as fixed her problem as she's found a grovely way to make it redeeming. If anything, it's more insulting that Emet’s cute creativeness has all but rendered her infallible.

For all the enjoyment of Andrea's apology-prompting endeavors (Amelia sharing the gossip of her mother's stretched out vagina to her pre-school chums. Andrea and her mother commiserating about being stuck in successful marriages all the while knowing they'd be at their very best as sexy widows), Emet’s missteps just prompt angst. She left me wondering if I was somehow failing at life. Why wasn't own annoying TV family rallying around my picturesque existence, rooting for me as I lamented my imperfections?

Case in point: during I Feel Bad's holiday episode Emet allegedly feels bad because her kids don't know about their own culture.

I say allegedly here because in actuality she displays zero remorse for her kids' minimal grasp on both Judaism and Hinduism. What Emet actually seems concerned with (as is true in almost every episode) is not her children's well-being but rather how she comes across to the world. In this particular episode, the person she is most concerned with impressing is her Mother in Law. She does this by hiding her own mother inside a Casino.

In some sort of off-beat coup Emet pays the Indian side of her family to silence through Paula Abdul tickets and a $300 credit card charge at CVS ("just imagine how long that receipt is?!" her husband laments) and while admittedly this is a good hush approach if you ever are interested in buying my silence it's also kind of a not-so-cute, dare I say asshole move to try to embrace one culture by buying off another (sounds like some kind of ass-backward deal #45 might brag about).

All this is of little concern to Emet and her husband though. Instead, the mezuzah on the door, the brisket on the table and expensive Hannukah decorations in the yard are effective enough, causing one Grandma to swoon while the other returns with a carefully calculated revenge approach aimed at convincing her grandchildren (those kids we allegedly are all so worried about being culturally out of touch) that Diwali is the cooler holiday.

Shenanigans ensue.

The pageantry culminates in a backyard, multi-generational family paint war. Of course, everyone winds up laughing and bonding about Emet’s lies and oddly accept equal blame for her dishonesty, each adult copping to their own inability to raise a future generation to be more woke.

Now everyone is happy, they have created new (and obviously better) traditions and all the while the stereotypical old Jewish couple visiting Emet’s inlaws remain indoors blissfully unaware o the commotion, chatting amongst themselves about what a good brisket "the Indian woman has prepared."

And scene.

Did Emet really ever feel bad that her kids are cultural ignoramus'?

Absolutely not.

Can everyone get behind her scheming, lying and flagrant consumeristic overspending because she said she did? Absolutely.

And her family is colorful and happy. Problem solved, yay!

How bizarre.

I may live 1,000 lives and I will never get away with holiday mischief like this.

I'm Sorry but I can't help but Feel Bad.

And so I suppose now is the time to reflect on the actual difference between the two phrases from which each show hails its title.

Similar, sure but fundamentally, "I feel bad" and "I'm sorry" (not the television shows per se, though it does pertain here) the actual implications behind these phrases are very, very different. If someone feels bad they crashed your car that somehow has an entirely different ring to it than they're sorry they crashed your car.

Karen R. Koenig a licensed psychotherapist I found online (the best place for psychobabble) explains the phenomenon as such:

“I’m sorry,” usually indicates that people feel regret or remorse for having caused pain: they wish they hadn’t done what they did...This mindset is different from someone feeling guilty. That is, people can feel momentarily badly that they did something wrong, but not regret it. The guilt comes from recognizing that what they did was wrong, but not from actually feeling sorry that it happened. Guilt often arises only because someone gets caught. My take is that most of the time, abusers experience momentary guilt, but little more."

If this doesn't prove I Feel Bad is just the gentle sit-com equivalent of gaslighting I'm not sure what does? I get enough of that noise when I read the news, thank you very much.

#armchair expert #dax shepard #andrea savage #i feel bad #nbc #im sorry #trutv #jason mantzoukas #hulu #netflix #curb your enthusiasm

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