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jungle-angel · 11 months

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The House We Built: Part 1 (Miles Miller x Reader)

Summary: For the longest time, you and Miles have wanted a home of your own and it’s not long before your happiest dream becomes your reality.

It all started with an empty Maxwell House Coffee can and a dream that you and Miles had brewing in your heads for the longest time. Ever since he had been in Vietnam and had come home to you, you both had a dream of finding a place for you two to live out your lives together.

Miles stood at the desk, just staring at the coffee can after the last guest had checked in an hour before. His eyes stayed fixed on it as though he were waiting for something to happen, waiting for a magical genie or some sort of dragon or a baby troll to pop out. At least, that seemed to be the route his thoughts had been taking ever since he had gotten help for the severe PTSD that had kept him awake at night after returning to the states. Miles had always thought about those things, even before the war, but for some reason, they were much more prominent now.

Miles jumped when a hand had landed on the desk bell, but when he looked up, he was relieved to see that it was only Otis, his father. “You falling asleep again?” Otis laughed.

“Nah, just thinking, Dad,” Miles yawned.

Otis nodded, adjusting ten month old Benny in the curve of his elbow. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked his son.

“Yeah, time to get the hell out of Lake Tahoe,” Miles said, the bored tone creeping its way in.

��My thoughts exactly,” Otis chuckled. “It’s nice here, but there’s too many people moving out this way. Your Ma and I can’t even get a mobile home over at the trailer park for a decent price.”

“What about the money from when you sold the house in Indiana?” Miles asked him.

“I ain’t touching it until the time is right,” Otis told him firmly. “Besides, your mother would have a certain body part of mine if I did.”

All of a sudden, Benny began to stretch his arms all the way out, making grabby hands for Miles. “Ok, ok, that’s the ‘I want Daddy’ look,” Otis mumbled.

Otis handed Benny right off to Miles and no sooner had he done so than Benny did as he always did, his head dropping right to Miles’s shoulder as the ten month old sucked away on his pacifier. “You’re definitely tired little man,” Miles chuckled.

Miles clocked out as soon as the next desk clerk clocked in for his shift, heading back to the quarters he shared with you to grab Benny’s knit blanket and his stuffed puppy. He and Otis both retreated to the back porch, taking a seat in the creaky old rockers and each with a glass full of a cool drink to stave off the afternoon heat that was hanging over Lake Tahoe. June had come at last and with it, wildfire season as well as the summer camps who would soon flood the corner stores on evenings when they would come down for ice cream. Yet summer had been the best months for you and Miles.....slow, easy and relaxing....just as it should have always been.

“Where’d you get the coffee can?” Otis asked, pouring a small Jack Daniels nip into his glass.

“Found it on the way back from the bank this morning,” Miles told him as he slowly rocked Benny to sleep. “I honestly have no idea why I picked it up. Maybe I went crazy again and started collecting garbage.”

“Nah you’re not crazy, trust me, I did the same thing when I got back from Okinawa,” Otis told him, cracking into a can of Coke. “Now Mrs. Burns who lived down the street from us? THAT was crazy, right there.”

“Oh God,” Miles chuckled. “Crazy old bat was up to her eyeballs in that hoarder den she called a house. I swear Chubby came from her lot.”

Otis cackled at the memory of the little grey tabby kitten that had become attached to Miles at three years old, growing old and happy under the Millers’ roof until St. Francis had called him back home. “Fuckin cat would follow your mother to work in the truck like he was a dog.”

As they talked on, Benny had fallen asleep. Miles carefully placed the baby in the playpen near the porch rocker, covering the top and the sides with the thick purple and gold sleeping bag to keep the sun off and Benny cool as he slept with his blankie and his puppy.

“I dunno Dad,” Miles mused. “The more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to do something with it. But I don’t know what.”

Otis scratched his chin and thought a minute. “You know,” he said. “A long time back when your grandparents were fresh off the boat from Ireland, your grandma used to stick any spare change she had in a tin breadbox. Maybe that’s the reason you found that empty coffee can.”

Miles gave it some thought and had begun to wonder of his old man was right. Maybe that was all he really needed to do, just stick a little away each day until he had enough.

The door creaked open and that was when he saw you walking in in your pretty denim sundress, your skirts brushing against your knees as you set the paper bags full of groceries down. “You have a good day?” you asked him.

“Just long,” he answered before he playfully kissed you. “Benny’s asleep.”

You two chattered on about your day while Otis offered to make dinner. Benny awoke just as your father-in-law had finished and as soon as Miles was done setting the table for dinner. You picked your baby up out of his playpen, taking his blankie and his puppy and setting it on the bed before you plopped him in his little wooden chair at the table between you and your mother-in-law’s place. Kathy was the last to come home and switch out her nurse’s uniform for a white embroidered sundress and a denim jacket, happy as ever to see you and the rest of your little family.

Dinner was simple, but perfect despite having to be on the cheap, ground beef with seasoning, soy sauce, green onions and a big heap of white rice at the bottom. Benny of course, was a mess as always, but had almost cleaned his plate, something you were more than happy to live with. As soon as the dishes were cleared, washed and put away, you stuck Benny right in the bath, putting his dirty clothes in the laundry basket.

You were in the midst of scrubbing Benny’s hair, the ten month old splashing around in the hot, soapy water and playing with his bath toys while you scrubbed away at the napiness. You looked up at your husband, noting the thoughtful look as he flicked the water on his fingers at Benny and prompted a burst of giggles from the baby.

“Thinking again sweetie?” you asked him.

“Just a little (Y/N),” Miles answered.

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“I dunno,” Miles sighed. “A place of our own.....plot of land somewhere far away from here.”

So he had been thinking about it again.

“What do you wanna do?”

“I don’t know sweetheart,” Miles sighed again, pushing one of Benny’s little plastic boats closer to him. “I just keep thinking that any day now, we’ll be able to just pack up and go.”

You saw the wistfulness in his eyes, a look you knew too well from the early days of Miles being home from deployment. It was a look he usually got when he was thinking hard and deep. Though Miles hadn’t had a nightmare in over two years, you still wondered if that was where this was leading.

You both finished giving Benny his bath and when he was finally done, you dried him off and stuck him in his little blue pjs, readying him for bed. He was asleep as soon as it was dark, the air conditioning unit cooling the room until you three could sleep comfortably. You gently scratched Miles’s back and shoulders, listening to him purr as you kissed the sweet spots you had practically memorized. He was a little bit more restless than usual, but thankfully no nightmares.

“Baby,” you whispered, your lips pressed against his shoulder.

“Hmm?” he hummed sleepily.

“In my change purse,” you whispered. “There’s Two Fifty left over from the groceries. Put it in the coffee can.”

You felt Miles’s hand gently squeezing your hip. “Baby no,” he said. “I can’t do that to you.”

“Miles,” you whispered. “Please?”

You whispered “please” over and over again, littering his soft cheeks with wet kisses until you were both a giggling mess, trying hard to keep it quiet so Benny wouldn’t wake. “Alright,” Miles half laughed. “I’ll do it.”

Miles tossed aside the covers, moving through the dark to your purse sitting on the chair near the table. He opened up your little wallet and took out the two dollars and fifty cents, still feeling a little guilty of having taken your change. He put it in the coffee can on the bedside stand, crawling back in beside you and pulling you in close.

For the next few days, you, Miles, Otis and Kathy made it a point to start putting your loose change into the coffee can, watching it all grow like a plant in a garden and hoping that soon, it would be enough for your dream home.

#bad times at the el royale #miles miller #miles miller x reader

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

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hello!! i am back. i disappeared for like a week but here i am. i hope all is well for you!! obligatory baseball chat since that’s what has brought us together in the first place: i went to a cubs game in st louis last week and they lost, as they do every game i attend so that was fun. luckily i just laughed about it bc i went in with low expectations to begin with. the trade deadline is in 3 days and i am simply denying its existence because the cubs are likely to trade away half the team. also i saw that 12 nationals players have covid?? that’s crazy. not much else i can say there except sort of sucks for them and hope they all recover quickly. ummm yeah. let’s see. hmmmm. atl was in my state today and i did not see them in concert. a tragedy if you ask me. alex said hot boy summer tits out and i missed out. i wanted to go see them at the st louis show next month but wouldn’t have anyone to go with and also realized i am going to be out of state. very sad. would very much like to see them live at some point. concerts are so fun and i miss them dearly since it’s been nearly 2 years since i last went to one. anywho i hope all is well for you!!! sending positive vibes for all of your days ahead and especially for this middle of the week since wednesdays always tend to suck no matter what <33 - the other bella

oh bella..............bella.................this is such a heartbreaking ask to receive knowing the fate of anthony rizzo. i'm so sorry honey

ALSO TWELVE NATS HAVE COVID????? bro i did NOT know that wow i am not following this situation closely enough lol i also hope they recover quickly rip

DAMN you MISSED them?? thats such a tragedy. full disclosure though i know this seems to be an unpopular opinion but i really dislike the overalls-no-shirt look. i just think it's bad. i'm not the world's biggest fan of the overalls in the first place but no shirt just makes it so bad. i miss tank tops and jeans bro what was wrong with those </3 sorry you missed their show though :(( i hope you get to see them soon if not this tour cycle then hopefully the next come to baltimore come see it with me sam paige and meghna

all is well for me now! if you'd asked me four hours ago it would not have been well. my day started with me in a pretty bad mood but i am doing better now. thank you for the good vibes <333

#it was WEIRD to call you bella my friend #it's currently dinnertime like right this moment but #im probably not gonna go for a few minutes #i have to finish ym tea anyway #still have half a mug #oh shit it's jinner. i have to change into jeans #this camp is off its rocker baby #cubs anon #ask #anonymous

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pub-lius · 3 years

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ACTUALLY Hardcore Facts About Alexander Hamilton

Alright, take two.

I've already typed this entire thing out once, so this is likely going to be a lot more lazy than anything else I will ever post, so :).

Sources: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow; John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massy; The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton; George Washington's Indispensible Men by Authur S. Lefkowitz; Lafayette by Harlow Giles Unger; Who Was Alexander Hamilton? by Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso

Hamilton wished for a war when he was like a baby. So if you know Hamilton, you know that one line where Hamilton says "As a kid of the Carribean, I wished for a war, I knew that I was poor, I knew it was the only way to rISE UP-" in Right Hand Man. Well, that line is based off of a letter Hamilton sent to his childhood bestie, Edward Stevens: "...Ned, my ambition is [so] prevalent that I... would willingly risk my life, tho' not my character, to exalt my station... I'm no philosopher, you see, and may be jus[t]ly said to build castles in the air... I shall conclude by saying I wish there was a war. Alex. Hamilton." Okay, dude, calm down, you're like two years old. I think he was actually like 14-16, but for dramatic purposes we'll say he was an actual infant (do I sound like Chernow?). But I hate how much this letter foreshadows. It's like he jinxed himself, its almost embarrassing.

Hamilton ran a business at 14. Now if you've ever been fourteen and you were like "i think i feel like running a business" literally shut up no one asked. I think this is impressive. When Hamilton was at least 14, the guys the owned Beekman and Cruger (it had a different name by this time but this one sounds cooler) just dipped and left Hamilton in charge. This was actually a pretty good decision, since Hamilton managed it well. There was also this one time where Hamilton told a whole captain of a ship who didn't perform up to standard, "Reflect continually on the unfortunate voyage you have just made and endeavor to make up for the considerable loss therefrom accruing to your owners." This man was so arrogant I wish I had his confidence. Yeah that was cool ig, but if I met teenage-Hamilton, I'd literally hate him.

Hamilton saved the president of his college. Ever the dramatic, Hamilton had a thing for suppressing mobs (though he was pretty much never successful). There was this one time at King's College where a mob formed to "talk" with the president of the university, Dr. Myles Cooper (by "talk" i mean make him into a tory bird). And, according to Who Was Alexander Hamilton? (this book gives me so much joy), "Alexander vowed to protect him [aww]... He stood up to the crowd, telling them that violence would only hurt their cause. He couldn't stop the crowd, but he delayed them long enough for Dr. Myles Cooper to escape in his nightgown," (Pollack and Belviso 27-29). This is a really sweet description of it, but Hamilton was probably calling the mob a bunch of insults and stuff, judging by how he later handled riots. Also, Cooper thought Hamilton was rallying the mob, so he was a complete jerk to Hamilton, but rightfully. Everyone, bully Hamilton. He's short and dead like an idiot.

Hamilton was really cool on the battlefield, don't @ me. Now, despite being a clumsy little gremlin and an absolute dork, Hamilton was a pretty good leader, and I guess veterans deserve to be recognized for their victories or whatever. At the battle of Princeton, one of my favorites, Hamilton had very big, cool guns, and did some cool stuff. "Returning to the final phase of the battle of Princeton, British infantry took refuge inside Nassau Hall, the building that housed the College of New Jersey. American artillery commanded by Capt. Alexander Hamilton [ya boy] was brought to bear on the college building... Washington was on the scene and noticed this young artillery officer who skillfully commanded his gun battery. The general would soon invite Hamilton to become one of his aides-de-camp," (Lefkowitz 92). Wow so cool moving on to Yorktown.

When the Americans were building their fortifications, two British fortifications were in the way. So rude. Consequently, Washington sent The Gay Trio, Lafayette, Laurens, and Hamilton, to uh, silence them. Hamilton pulled off a successful sneak attack, and won the battle swiftly, leading to the American victory in the battle of Yorktown, and therefore the war. "...Colonel Hamilton['s] well known talents and gallantry were on this occasion most conspicuous and serviceable. Our obligations to him, to Colonel Gimat [stan], to Colonel Laurens, and to each and all the officers are above expression..." -Major General Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette is so nice I would marry him if he was alive and single and legal and not old as hell. Like omg he gave credit to everyone but himself that's so nice I'm such a simp for Lafayette. Anyway, Hamilton was cool too ig.

Hamilton caused the evacuation of Philadelphia like an iDIOT. So, after Brandywine (British victory), Washington sent Hamilton on a foraging mission in Vally Forge to get flour, horseshoes, and tomahawks (not quite as exciting as Yorktown). Well, our clumsy ginger rat got caught, and wrote to the president of Congress, John Hancock, "If Congress have not yet left Philadelphia, they ought to do it immediately without fail, for the enemy have the means of throwing a party [party rockers in the house tonight] this night into the city. I have just now crossed the valley-ford [Valley Forge], in doing which a party of the enemy came down & fired upon us."

Surprise, this turned out not to be the entire goddamn British army, it was just a few scouts sooo... let's just say Philadelphia wasn't happy. "Our Removal from Philad. Was owning to information that General Howe was crossing Schuylkill [River]... However tho' this Intelligence was from one of the General's family (Alexander Hamilton) it was not well founded & we wish we had not left Philad.," -James Duane. Yeeeaaahhh, that's awkward. Not the best way to get your name known in the capital, I must say.

Hamilton was possibly bisexual, and this is hardcore because I say so. Now, I'll add more quotes to this later, but basically heres my interpretation of the historical evidence and whatnot. Basically, Hamilton was a really closed off, cynical guy, since like everyone he ever loved died or left him pretty much, and he wasn't really the type to make and keep close friends; "...how little dependence is to be placed on treaties, which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith, and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest or passion," (Federalist 64); It is a known fact in human nature, that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the distance or diffusiveness of the object," (Federalist 73). Um, Mr. Hamilton? You're projecting your trauma on the government again.

Also, despite working with him for like twenty years, Hamilton really never got close to Washington, like at all. He even said to Laurens, "I have no friendship for him and have professed none," in regards to Washington, which is kind of mean. But he ALSO told Laurens:

"Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power by action rather than words [to] convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that till you bade us adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments and to keep my happiness independent of the caprice of others. You s[hould] not have taken advantage of my sensibility to ste[al] into my affections without my consent."

*mocking Hamilton* its YOUR fault that i love you and it was RUDE that you FORCED me to love you how DARE you you SUCK i love you uwu.

Also, at the top of that letter, someone mysterious (probably Hamilton's son) wrote, "I must not publish the whole of this," and Massey still thinks Hamilton was straight.

But yeah, that's about it. I had originally written more at the beginning, but I unfortunately lost the original draft, so I'll just settle for this. I hope you enjoyed, though, and maybe learned something or found a quote you needed or something. I did more research than I wanted to in one sitting for this, so appreciate it or I'll cry. Thanks love you <3

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fourletterworld · 3 years

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Getting Lost - Was a Big Brother

Cody, Myself, and four of our best friends hiked the fantasy trail of Big Sur, some 7 miles up into the sky. As night approached, we tucked down off the trail into a small camping area and safely lit a fire near a stream. Here we pumped drinking water into our bottles through a filter. I remember feeling so physically tired, it was the only feeling in me. We made dinner in flame light then made our tents in spotty shadows. It was cold, and we'd fallen asleep quickly.

The next day was crisp and beautiful. We'd made breakfast, coffee and tea and talked a while before heading out to walk off the path into the wilderness. We jumped across the creek where boulders stood out of the shallow depth. After the six of us got across my friend Bob passed out micro doses of mushrooms from a cloudy plastic bag. We chewed them up and continued walking into the trees along the creek. Nothing of note crept into my head, but I have a snapshot of looking back at my friends through the trees and seeing sunlight spill through the canopy onto the green forest floor. There was an Irish glow among the rich tree bark and moss.

Someone mentioned that it looked like we were in an old Skittles commercial. Slow unconscious laughs built as we smiled half-lucidly at one another. The effect began to slow some of us down until we stopped at a clearing and briefly sat. Cody and two others decided to keep hiking while I stayed with the other half.

We talked for a while and observed everything within eyeshot. I felt the stillness of a tree growing through my head. The misty sounds of nature began to strike out with colors of awareness. Suddenly I was conscious of the bird calls, and not in the ordinary way when their beauty serves as the backdrop to one of my moods. Instead, I heard their sounds as though they were strangers with first names I didn't know. They were communicating primal information with the worry of survival in their tone. They weren't having a pleasant day in the wild, they were locked in the grind of their reality. I felt sad for their consistent stress. The concern to live up to nature's expectations is so much to put on a creature. It wasn't their fault.

The plants around me gently moved in a soft breeze. Their limbs reached up to the skylight like a baby wanting its mother. They were as alive as starfish, having fixed themselves to the trunks of larger somber giants. The distant sun sat and burned like a far away look. A look that only time will snap someone out of. This sad poem is why we fall in love, I thought. It all hurts with the innocent anticipation of a loose tooth not ready to come out.

After a time of being unusually quiet in the presence of others, I crept away by myself down to the trickling stream we'd been following. In some sort of dreamy trance, I gently touched my face as I looked down into the water. There was a troubled curiosity in my tremendously large pupils. It was the little kid unwound inside of me; the one I'd twisted hard into a man. Currents pulled at my reflection like smeared paint clinging to an image. Shards of light formed on the folds of water like cuts.

The tired old question walked through my thoughts: "who am I?" This time, it didn't feel like the ethereal philosophical question. It was more like I was trying to make sense of the thing I saw reflecting in the water: The dark pool-eyed organic machine, the adult and the teen, the arrested development, the ill-defined aged of an angst ridden masculine spirit.

I've applied stereotypes to myself my whole life: being a punk rocker, a musician, an artist, a romantic, a good person, a drinker, and all sorts of things that maybe I'm not. They're all just lines of rope I've thrown out which I follow after to see where they might lead me. Being a big brother was something more than that. It was beyond me and rooted in the physical world. It was an anchor that'd dropped down as soon as Cody was born.

These thoughts swam through that river until concern began to gather and pulled me back into the moment. I'd begun to feel some kind of tension pulling at the line between Cody and I. He had hiked away and was possibly too far from me, and I started to wonder if he was okay.

"Hey guys! How long have they been gone?!" I shouted up the small ravine. "They're fine D." my friend Dave called, probably anticipating some psilocybin anxiousness. His assumption that I was paranoid was warranted, but I felt rational in my fear and knew it couldn't be articulated under scrutiny. I walked a short way in the direction the others continued hiking and looked. I didn't see anyone so I began calling Cody's name with my loud voice into the wilderness. I heard the emptiness of the hills as my voice faded through them, and a terrorizing feeling of finality landed. The fear was rooted in the possibility of never getting him back.

What if they'd eaten more mushrooms than I had and got confused and lost? I was worried for all of them, but I was responsible for my brother. The anchor was somewhere beneath dark water and I didn't know if the rope had been torn. I began making all sorts of promises to some God that I never kept. I started to feel the knot in my throat.

There was darkness growing in the mountains. Tall pine shadows loomed and collected over the retreating fragments of sunlight. The pleated hills began to look treacherously prosaic, as if no new word would ever come out of its ravine. It would never unearth my little brother or anything else ever again. I called again, deep and loud, and like a miracle transmission I heard Cody faintly calling back just as loudly from somewhere off in the trees. His voice, when he yelled, sounded just like mine.

"Oh, fucking Christ, thank god", I sighed.

Moments later he'd walked through the trees. Bleach blonde hair and emerald rimmed owl eyes, smiling at the corners. Cody came to me for an instinctive hug. "I'm sorry Dust" he'd said. He could hear the fear in my voice even at its highest threshold of volume.

"Don't be sorry, don't be sorry," I replied as I hugged him tightly. Later, shrouded in twilight, I sat next to him at the fire. I tried to express how tangibly worried I was for him. I’d felt him extracted from my life in that moment, and how terrified that made me.

I'd gone on longer, exhausting my point. The mushrooms hadn't completely waned and the panic continued to play, but the cause for fear was so present it was like I had suddenly felt through the material of time. I’d somehow grasped the shape of that fucked up day that waited for me years ahead. I had no way of aligning that sort of rationale at the time, but in hindsight it’s the best way to explain the reality of that scare. It never felt like it was in my head.

Cody listened, patient and contemplative with a lit cigarette. At some point he interjected, "Yeah, but Dust, I'm fine. Everything's okay. Everything was always okay the whole time. You were just worried over nothing".

He said this smiling, as though to model what emotion we should had both been feeling in that moment. He then leaned in and wrapped his arms around my shoulders and I took his two clasping hands with mine and closed my eyes. He saw the concern but not my fear, but I knew I had to concede in expressing my worry for him. I'd always have to learn when it was okay to get my point across and when to let life be life. I had to let go of control.

I've always had problems with control because it eludes me. My life has always been out of my control. Not really caring to embrace my strengths and desiring my weaknesses has put huge cracks throughout my being. My self-hood is like broken up continents, and my goal is to form it all back into Pangea. I move something to the center and something else floats away. It's like I don't have room for the whole being I want to be. I fall in love, I become dependent. I find peace, I become boring. I get inspired, I become manic. I have fun, I lose my way.

And I don't want balance. I see balance like a constant sacrifice. I want the choice to be all in, on one side or another, the good and the bad all at one time. I want the full glass now and no glass later.

That is, I had my mind made up in this way until Cody passed. Once I lost him, these fragmented continents weren't just staid floating islands. Gravity suddenly shut off, and they lifted from their watery globe and suspended in disorientation. I'd seen all parts of myself lift from the anchor of my brother and carry out above me and into the atmosphere. Now there is no center to draw things back into, and there are some pieces leaving my weak gravitational field forever. I lay in bed afraid of this new upheaval, not knowing my feelings anymore, and watching them continue to go and go and go.

They've been ripping away from me so consistently and slowly over this last 16 months that the pain has become ambience. My spirit has been tuned to the lowest universal frequency of heartbreak. The longest waves of sadness.

But I keep it together. All of life is too short to let anyone else get tangled in this chaotic orbit of mine, and I think I've become just strong enough to keep it in during the day. Meanwhile this slow-moving shrapnel drifts along, finely opening new aspects of a heart I'd never known. There are things that feel possible in ways that surprise and sometimes shock me. There are days now where I get out of the shower and rub away the fog on the mirror and remember looking into the water. Now it isn't a question of who I am, but who am I becoming, and will any of this ever land again? Did the universe set my heart so it can heal in alignment or is my true nature lost in some ethereal flux?

There's an animal body looking at me and the human has been knocked into a daze. The eyes in the coal mine sockets remind me of those prosaic hills, with the person behind the wheel having retreated inward to crippled shadowy memories. They don’t hold anything to the same beautiful standard any longer. It’s all become possible with nothing inside of myself to protect anymore. The gate has been left wide open and as I stare at my eyes I wonder if I'll ever really come back again.

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randomvarious · 4 years

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The Champs - “Tequila” Fetenhits: Oldies Song released in 1958. Compilation released in 1999. Frat Rock / Rock & Roll / Latin Rock

Though The Champs spawned a handful of hits in their improbable seven-year run, it was their first hit, the instrumental, “Tequila,” which was originally recorded as a throwaway b-side, that would make them an indispensable piece of both popular music and rock and roll history. But before getting into the band’s formation and the song itself, let’s do a little bit of scene setting.

From history-of-rock.com:

The year 1958 saw a dramatic increase in short-lived fad rock and roll instrumental combos. Not that Rock and roll instrumentals hadn't been around before or that they wouldn't be around later. It was just that the floodgates opened wide in 1958. A year earlier, the biggest selling instrumental was "Raunchy" by it's co-composer Bill Justis. By the end of 1959, there was Santo and Johnny, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Dave "Baby" Cortez, Duane Eddy, the Fireballs, the Virtues, the Wailers, Link Wray and His Ray Men, the Royaltones, the Rock-A-Teens, Sandy Nelson, Cozy Cole and Preston Epps. However the group that really created the demand was the Champs.

It’s The Champs, a loose collection of session musicians who officially formed as a band after “Tequila” was released, who are responsible for the most memorable rock and roll instrumental of all time. It’s not groups who dedicated themselves full-time to rock and roll instrumentals; it’s these guys, who, not long after they released their debut album and started to tour, became a revolving-door-band, and added people like Glen Campbell and the duo that would become Seals and Crofts to their ranks. A random session that was originally intended to be just a one-off to fill a b-side for a 45 ended up selling millions of records, rocketing up to #1 on the Billboard charts, and winning a Grammy. Go figure.

Now for the origin story of the band, with more from history-of-rock.com:

The story of the Champs began with Dave Burgess, who was born December 13, 1934, in Beverly Hills, CA. Burgess first recorded for Okeh Records, a subsidiary of Columbia that issued country, blues, and jazz records. Burgess was eighteen when he recorded his first two Okeh singles: "Don't Put A Dent In My Heart" and "Too Late For Tears." In 1955, he recorded two singles for Tampa Records "Don't Turn Your Back On Love" and "Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue." All were country and had no success.

In 1956, Burgess was recording for Top Records. Top would take unknown, but talented artists, have them cover the latest hits as closely as possible to the original, then issue them four-to-a-record for forty nine cents. Top's slogan was "twice the music at half the cost" and it was a bargain until the unsuspecting buyer got home and played the record. Burgess appeared on an unknown amount of records, but at least ten came out with his name in the credits.

Ethics aside, Burgess got a first hand education in recording and performing while at Top. In 1957, while working as a deejay in Lancaster, CA. to [pass] time he composed songs and sent them off to various music houses. Two became very successful that year" "I'm Available" in the "pop" field and "I'll Be There" in the country market. [The Champs would later record an instrumental version of “I’ll Be There” as a b-side for “Tequila” in 1958.]

His songwriting brought him to Challenge Records, a Los Angeles company founded in April, 1957 by Gene Autrey (sp.).. There he recorded as Dave Dupree, as well as under his own name. Four of Challenge's first singles were recorded by Burgess, who became a regular session guitarist for Challenge.

A couple days before Christmas in 1957, a session was arranged in Hollywood by Challenge to record Burgess’ next single, “Train to Nowhere,” due to be released in January, along with a b-side. Sitting in on the session with Burgess, who was on rhythm guitar, were, according to Wikipedia, “Cliff Hills on bass, the Flores Trio (Danny Flores on saxophone and keyboards, Gene Alden on drums, and lead guitarist Buddy Bruce), and Huelyn Duvall contributing backing vocals.” The group had recorded two other songs to consider for the b-side, “Night Beat” and “All Night Rock,” the latter of which has never been released. But at the tail-end of the session came an instrumental ditty.

history-of-rock.com has more:

With some studio time remaining, Burgess asked the other musicians to stay to help him come up with a B-side for a record he had previously recorded.One musician offered a Tex-Mex sax line, another a snappy guitar riff, the drummer played a backbeat on the bell of his cymbal and Burgess plucked the muted strings of his electric guitar.The song was called "Tequila" and was spoken after each bridge. In ten minutes they had a take.

And that was that. Sometimes a musician or a producer knows when they’ve got a hit on their hands...but this wasn’t one of those times. “Tequila” was a pure filler track. The seller was gonna be “Train to Nowhere”. Everyone at the session knew that. But then, sometime in January, some radio DJ in Cleveland got a hold of “Train to Nowhere” and decided he would spin the b-side instead. And three weeks later, “Tequila” was all of a sudden the #1 song in America. Wild.

“Tequila” is nothing without Danny Flores, the man who graces the track with his trademark “dirty” sax melodies and the intermittent gravelly murmur of the word “tequila.” At the time of the song’s recording, he was actually signed to another label, so he couldn’t use his actual name on the record. Instead, he went by Chuck Rio. It was because of “Tequila” though, that Flores was crowned as the godfather of Latin rock. And while that’s a really cool title to have bestowed upon yourself, one can’t help but think of all the money he missed out on from selling his American rights to the song for what’s been reported as a paltry amount of money. However, it wasn’t all bad. He still had the global rights to the song, which was said to have netted him about seventy grand a year up until his death in 2006. A lot more than probably any other 50s rocker can say they made in residuals off a single song.

“Tequila” has staying power, I think, because it pulls a bunch of different ideas from a bunch of different music styles. Its composition is simple, its melodies are catchy, and the fact that rock and roll instrumentals were popular at the time was definitely a contributing factor to its success, too. But this song also simultaneously carries that hip, 50s cocktail lounge kind of vibe with its cymbal taps and its mambo beat; it has hand claps and an upbeat rock and roll tempo for dancing and partying; its guitar strums are poppy; the chorus has a definite, escalatory big band jazz/swing feel to it; and Flores’ sax tone is very reminiscent of the jazz-brass-sleaze that had constantly complemented burlesque and striptease dance routines (it’s hard to imagine that strip joints used to have house bands, but they did) for years prior. In fact, something could even be said about how “Tequila” manages to combine an air of lounge-y sophistication with its beat, while supplying over-the-top, trashy amounts of sax melodies with its lead, representing a sort of convergence of two opposite styles of contemporaneous nightlife: artsy hipsterdom vs. raw, transparent transactionalism. It’s all in one track and all at the same time. A song by The Champs, made for both camps.

Without a doubt, “Tequila” is the most popular rock and roll instrumental ever recorded. Its success was totally unforeseen, so much so, that The Champs formed after the thought-to-be-a-one-off, just-before-Christmas recording session in 1957 that birthed the song. They weren’t even an official band; mostly just some session musicians recording a b-side and having a bit of innocent fun in the studio. But that fun was both evident and highly contagious, which ended up lending to the song’s overall immortality, landing it as a staple track for just about any classic party mix, and opening the door for an oncoming era of pre-garage-frat-rock behemoths like “Louie Louie,” “Surfin’ Bird” and “Shout”.

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 4 years

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In the '80s and '90s, a lot of things were turned into cartoons. We saw a long list of animated shows based on live-action movies and more than a few that existed simply to sell toys. One interesting subgenre you might not remember, though, is when an animated series would age down an established set of fictional characters. All of a sudden, characters you were used to seeing as adults were portrayed as children on another show.

It happened more often than you may think and, honestly, some of the properties that did this to squeeze a little extra money out of their intellectual property may surprise you. At the end of the day, they all had something that made them entertaining enough to stick to the back of our minds.

Let's jump in the time machine and revisit 18 of the absolute best animated shows that age-flipped characters you knew and love--and maybe a couple you were downright terrified of. Also, make sure to check out our list of movies that were based on beloved cartoons. He-Man, eat your heart out.

1. The Tom and Jerry Kids Show

It's not that Tom and Jerry Kids was a bad show, it was actually pretty good. However, the most memorable thing about it is its fantastic theme song. The series also included a kid version of Droopy Dog, in addition to little Tom and Jerry.

2. Muppet Babies

This is easily the most beloved and iconic example of this trend. Jim Henson's Muppets were portrayed as babies when they became a cartoon--complete with onesies, baby talk, and a parental figure named Nanny that was only ever shown from the legs down. Muppet Babies is hands-down one of the best cartoons of the 1980s. What's more, the recent reboot on Disney Channel is also quite fun, even if it doesn't cast tiny versions of your favorite Muppets in movie franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

3. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

This was another show with a very memorable theme, though it's a confusing one. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo first debuted in 1988, and yet its theme sounds like a doo-wop song from the '50s. Regardless, this show is a blast as a young Scooby gang hunts monsters and solves mysteries, and of course, feeds the titular dog Scooby Snacks to keep him motivated.

4. Flintstone Kids

Flintstone Kids was good, but what makes this entry on the list special is the show-within-the-show. Captain Caveman and Son were shorts that aired as part of Flintstone Kids. Originally, Captain Caveman was a character that debuted in the 1977 animated series Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. On Flintstone Kids, he teamed with his son Cavey Jr. to fight the forces of evil. As for the little Flintstone gang themselves, that part of the show was also very fun, though you might remember it most for the public service announcements that aired during the episodes.

5. Tiny Toon Adventures

This one is, admittedly, a bit of a cheat. The kids on Tiny Toons weren't actually the kid versions of Bugs, Daffy, Taz, and the rest of the gang. It doesn't get much closer, though. Baby and Buster were clearly a younger take on the different sides of Bugs Bunny, while Plucky Duck has Daffy's temper, Dizzy was the spitting image of Taz, and Hampton was so close to Porky Pig it was scary. What's more, sometimes the classic Looney Tunes characters made appearances on Tiny Toons, seeing them team up with their younger proteges.

6. James Bond Jr.

This is another one that sort of works, but only if you stretch the premise a bit. James Bond Jr. was the nephew of James Bond and a spy-in-training and, along with his prep school friends, was fighting the forces of evil just like his infamous uncle. What you may not know, though, is James Bond Jr. has his own novels. The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½ was first released in 1967, written by an author under the pseudonym R. D. Mascott. Interestingly, the actual author of the book has never been officially revealed, though several names have been theorized.

7. Baby Looney Tunes

First debuting in 2001, this is a much newer series than Tiny Toons. What's more, it actually delivers what you might have been looking for in that show--this is the actual Looney Tunes characters as babies, in case the title of the series didn't hint at it enough. This series essentially Muppet Babies, but with Bugs Bunny and friends. What's not to love?

8. Yo Yogi!

If you've actually heard of this one, congratulations. You're as nerdy as we are. Yo Yogi! debuted in 1991 and only lasted for 12 episodes. It was the most over-the-top version of the '90s you could expect, complete with a neon-colored makeover of Yogi's clothes. The series casts the bear and his pals--Boo-Boo, Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, Cindy Bear--as 14-year-old crime fighters. What else would you expect these animated teen animals to be?

9. Jungle Cubs

Yes, Disney's The Jungle Book for the kid treatment, even though the main character in the movie is already a kid. This version doesn't feature Mowgli at all. Instead, the animals are all kids, living it up in the jungle. They aren't crime fighters of ghostbusters or anything like that. Instead, they're just friends hanging out. Oh, and we have to mention the theme song, a hip-hop version of "The Bare Necessities."

10. Clifford's Puppy Days

If you were a kid in the early-aughts, you might remember Clifford's Puppy Days. Before he was Clifford the Big Red Dog, he was Clifford the normal-sized puppy that wasn't a menace to keep and maintain.

11. The New Archies

Before Riverdale turned Archie and his friends into a Twin Peeks-flavored murder party of teenage angst, The New Archies made them little kids. The gang is in junior high and, well, not much else has changed. It lasted 13 episodes and was still the incredibly wholesome Archie Comics you knew back then before it went full-CW.

12. Sabrina: The Animated Series

The animated Sabrina series was a spin-off of the live-action version starring Melissa Joan Hart and featured the titular teen as a 12-year-old. She was still learning her magical ways and getting into all sorts of trouble with her spells. In this series, Sabrina is voiced by Hart's little sister, Emily Hart. However, the original Sabrina does play a role, voicing Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda.

13. Camp WWE

What if WWE did its own take on South Park? That's Camp WWE, an animated series that's definitely meant for adults. All of your favorite WWE superstars, including "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, and The Undertaker, are little kids at a summer camp run by Vince McMahon, his teen daughter Stephania, and her boyfriend Triple H? That's all you need to know about WWE. It pokes fun at WWE and professional wrestling as a whole, is filled with more adult language than you'd find on Raw or Smackdown, and it actually one of the most entertaining WWE Network originals.

14. Ewoks

Yes, this is real. There's honestly no telling how old the Ewoks are in Return of the Jedi. But who cares? In this Star Wars animated series, viewers follow a younger version of Wicket and his friends before the events of A New Hope and, for some reason, they speak English now. Originally, this series aired with the half-hour show Droids for The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour, otherwise known as the coolest one-hour block of TV you'll ever experience.

15. Iron Man: Armored Adventures

This is the most recent series on the list, but need to be pointed out. Iron Man: Armored Adventures followed Tony Stark as a teen Iron Man, alongside a similarly-aged Pepper Potts and Rhodey. If you thought Stark might have less of an ego as a teenager, guess again. Still, this take on Iron Man was entertaining and it managed to introduce a long list of popular Marvel characters--from Black Panther to MODOK.

16. The Mini-Monsters

So, The Mini-Monsters wasn't a show. It was, however, a segment within the animated series The Comic Strip. The segment featured the children of the classic Universal monsters, including Frankenstein's son Franky and the Invisible Man's son Blanko. It's utterly ridiculous, with a premise of a pair of siblings (one of which is voiced by Seth Green) being sent to a summer camp filled with the children of actual horror villains for a year. This is the oddest entry on the list, but one of the best.

17. The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show

While this is a list of cartoons that turned adult characters into children, it didn't always work out that way. In some cases, the process goes backward, and this is a perfect example of that. On The Flintstones, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm were the kids of Fred and Barney, respectively. That series ended in 1966, though, with The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show following in 1971. In that series, the two titular characters were teenagers, attending high school together and starting a band. What was the band called, you ask? The Bedrock Rockers. This sequel series only lasted 16 episodes, but it remains a cool idea that most cartoons won't dare touch. Bart Simpson has been in elementary school for three decades, and chances are that won't be changing anytime soon.

18. All Grown Up

This series also aged up popular baby characters. All Grown Up revisited the world of Rugrats. This time, though, Tommy Pickles and his friends were preteens and had more fleshed out personalities. It lasted five seasons on Nickelodeon, airing between 2003 and 2008.

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is0gild · 4 years

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Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 2

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 6,462

PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

The first thought I had when I woke up was…

...who the heck painted my ceiling green?!

Because last I checked, it was a midnight blue… or maybe more of a cobalt blue? Azure, possibly…?

Whatever it was, it was most definitely not green.

I narrowed my eyes up at it groggily before deciding I didn’t care and rolled over in bed, curling onto my side. Which led me to my second question…

...where had this frigging baby crib next to my nightstand come from and what the actual frick was it doing in my room?

No… forget the crib… what was the deal with the absolute mountain of Huggies boxes stacked up behind it?

Either this had to be just one of the weirdest, dumbest, not to mention lamest pranks Anna had ever pulled on me or…

...or this wasn’t my room.

I shot up in bed, wide eyes darting about. Yup, definitely not my room. Not unless I had decided to do a few home improvements in my sleep and say, I don’t know, move my door to the total opposite wall. Or how about the entirely different furniture, complete with a giant shelf packed tight with more baby books than a person could possibly ever need in one lifetime? Then of course there was that heaping pile of toys and stuffed animals stacked in one corner. Did I mention the sheer amount of Huggies? Because dear god, the Huggies…

I was going to have nightmares about drowning in an endless sea of them, mark my word.

It was as I was shuddering at that mental image that it finally all came rushing back to me and I gasped - my wedding! My escape! My shoplifting! My breakdown on Rayne’s doorstep! My-

Wait, wait, go back… Rayne!

...that’s probably where I was. Still in her apartment. But… I didn’t remember this room… not walking into it, not even so much as a glimpse of it, just… not at all...

Placing a cool hand to my forehead, I searched my muddled brain some more for the details of what happened last night. Or, seemingly last night anyway, if the early morning light streaming in through the window curtains was any clue. I remembered… her inviting me in… discovering she was married and expecting, which would somewhat explain the almost disturbing amount of diapers… and then I’d-

Oh dear lord, I had utterly and one hundred percent lost my absolute marbles. Oh gosh, what must she think of me…

I couldn’t remember much after that. Nothing, in fact. My memories just abruptly stopped. Had I... fainted?

Well I wasn’t going to get any answers if I kept hiding in here. Even less so if I curled up into a ball under the covers and waited for the earth to swallow me and my shame up whole, as lovely and tempting a thought as that sounded.

Sighing, I put one bare foot on the carpet, then the other and reluctantly arose. I spotted my… well... “my” ankle boots tucked neatly next to one of the bedpost legs, prompting me to look down at myself to see that I was still in the, erm… borrowed sundress, now thoroughly wrinkled. My hair was still in its braid, though calling it that would have been generous as it was now more just one big frazzled knot. Tossing it back over my shoulder with a sigh, I approached the door, reaching a hand out towards it. My fingers hovered over the knob, hesitating for a split second before twisting it open and stepping out.

A rapid click-clack filled the air as I quietly stepped into the familiar living room from the night before. It didn’t take long to spot the source. Rayne was seated at the table in the dining space, fingers quickly tapping away at her laptop keys. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, still in pyjamas and her hair thrown into a loose, messy bun at the nape of her neck. She had a pencil tucked behind one ear and the light from the screen reflected off the lenses of her black-rimmed glasses, her entire focus trained on her work.

“Morning, sunshine,” she chirped, not looking up nor putting the brakes on her typing. “Be with ya in just a sec.”

“Take your time,” I murmured, not wanting to interrupt whatever she was in the middle of. I figured it was the very least I could do after having a total core meltdown in her living room yesterday.

Not quite sure what to do with myself in the meantime, I once more reached for the tangled-mess-formerly-known-as-braid that was my hair, idly toying with it as I glanced around. It didn’t seem like there was much more to the apartment than what I’d already seen. To my right, there was a short hallway with three more doors, each closed. Presumably one another bedroom where the happy couple slept, one a restroom, which would make the third a…?

Letting my curiosity get the better of me, I stretched a hand out towards the nearest mystery door to take a quick peek.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rayne sing-songed while otherwise still fully engrossed in her laptop.

I froze, fingertips brushing the doorknob as I turned my head to blink at her. Then I pursed my lips to one side. “...closet bursting full of baby diapers?”

Her typing abruptly silenced and she directed an eyebrow quirk my way. “Actually, yes. How did you know?”

“Wild guess,” I said dryly. “I’m sorry, did you say you were having a baby or a litter?”

“Shush, you, I’m nesting,” she harrumphed, fingers blurring across the keyboard once more.

For now, maybe it’d be better if I kept my hands to myself. Who knew what other potential death traps Macguyvered out of baby paraphernalia lurked about this place? Hugging myself, I trudged over to the dining table, took a seat opposite of Rayne and waited.

Hardly another minute ticked by before she gave a satisfied final tap to the laptop. “Annnnnnd done!” she beamed, clicking the device shut. She then leaned forward, resting her elbows atop the table and propping her chin on her interlaced fingers as she regarded me. “So…”

“So…” I fidgeted some more with my frazzled knot, averting my gaze. “...on a scale of one to off-my-rocker, how crazy did I sound last night?”

She closed her eyes with a bright grin. “Oh, you were batshit, sweetpea.”

I winced. “That’s... what I thought. Sorry.”

“Don’t be!” she brushed it off with a flick of her hand. “It was the most excitement I’ve had in weeks, so actually I’m a little grateful.”

My mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Well then… you’re welcome, I guess. I’m glad my neurotic episode could brighten an otherwise dull moment in your life.”

“Oh hush, you know I love you.” Crossing her arms, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Now it was a bit hard to keep up, but let me see if I got the gist here. You,” she struck up a finger, “were going to get married…”

I hung my head, “Yeah.”

Another digit rose. “...but realized you didn’t love him…”

My shoulders slouched as I sunk down in my seat, my voice getting smaller as I said, “...yeah.”

Up went the third. “...that you never loved him…”

Grimacing, I slumped forward, pressing my face into the table, “Uh huh…”

“...and so you dumped him at the altar.”

I groaned, banging my forehead against the hard, wooden surface. “I am the worst.”

“Aw, sweetheart, no.” The scraping of her chair against the floor could be heard as she scooched around the table closer to me before I felt her hand rubbing light circles against my back. “You… just got scared is all, and you panicked… I mean, really? You did the right thing.” I turned my head, resting my cheek against the table now as I gave her a dull stare. She pressed on hastily, “No, seriously! If you’d had stayed, you wouldn’t have been happy. He wouldn’t have been happy. It would have been a terrible marriage, your lives would have been miserable… really, you did him a favor! I mean, sure, could you have handled the break up a bit better?” Her face scrunched up slightly before she flung her hands up in the air with a shrug. “...Maybe?”

“Ugh!” I full on faceplanted into table once more. “The absolute worst! I deserve to be locked in a tiny, cramped box filled with spiders and worms and dung beetles and moldy, rotten eggs and, and anchovies and-”

“Sweetie, sweetie, you’re spiraling again,” she cut me off gently, taking hold of my shoulder and pulling me back to sit up straight once more and look her in the eye. “The point is, I’m sure he’ll understand.” My eyelids drooped at her. “Eventually! I’m sure he’ll understand eventually. Just… give him some time, let this whole thing blow over, then you two can talk. Get some closure. Okay?”

I looked down at my lap with a sigh and just gave a weak, noncommittal shrug.

“Okay then. Now,” she hesitated, gnawing her lower lip. “...can I ask… when you made a run for it, why of all places did you come to my apartment? I’m always, always here for you, you know I am, but it’s been… god, I don’t even know how long… years since we even last spoke. You didn’t have someone else, any other friends or anyone you could have turned to?”

I swallowed hard and slowly shook my head. “I don’t… have any friends. Not really. It’s… always been hard for me to make them. I’ve just never been good with people. You remember how I was as a child back when we were at summer camp, all nervous and awkward and hardly able to string two words together.”

She gave me a small smile. “Yeah, and all the other kids didn’t even give you a chance, just figured you were some snooty, rich brat who thought yourself better than them and couldn’t see you were just shy.” Her grin turned a touch wicked. “I pummeled them good though and made them regret ever picking on you.”

One corner of my mouth twitched upward and I nodded. “I was always so thankful for your friendship. I’m… sorry we drifted apart over the years.”

“S’okay,” she waved a dismissive hand. “We lived so far apart from each other, only seeing each other every summer. It’s just something that happens sometimes as people grow older, I suppose. But hey… looks like we’re not quite done with each other yet.”

“Guess not,” I chuckled softly before my face sunk into a frown once more. “I never did get any better at making friends. Everyone I know now… they’re all my parent’s friends… or they're his friends…”

She tipped her head to one side. “His?”

I gave her a pointed look. “Him.”

“Oh. The dumpee. Right.”

“They’re all just… they’re not people I really know, they’re… acquaintances, you know? And they’re all from munny, they’re all from that world, they were all at the wedding, they… none of them would have understood. Except for Anna, but she still lives with Mother and Father, so best she could do was help me escape. But after that?” I fell silent, shaking my head.

Her brow furrowed. “What about your home? Couldn’t you have gone there?”

I gave a derisive snort. “With what munny? I fled in my wedding dress, so I didn’t even have my phone on me, much less my wallet, so it’s not exactly like I could've called an Uber. Besides, even if I could have, that’d have been the last place I went. My parents pay for my condo and after what I’ve done, I can’t face them. Not ever again. I’m never going back… Mother, Father, my old life, all of it... it’s the past now.” My face hardened as I murmured, “The past is in the past.”

She blinked at me a couple times. “Don’t you think you’re maybe being a bit over dramatic? It’s your parents. They love you, no matter what. I mean, sure, maybe they’ll be a lil pissed, but-”

“No, you don’t understand,” I shook my head with a scowl. “What I’ve done… I did it in front of all their friends, their colleagues, their… I’ve embarrassed them in front of so many important people. And don’t even get me started on how much they spent on the wedding that I didn’t even show up to,” I grimaced, now squeezing the giant knot that was my hair. “I had a… we had… they had a plan for me, for my whole future, and I just… blew it all up and threw it back in their faces. So no, they won’t just be pissed, they’ll be furious… we’re talking yelling, screaming, we’re talking Hulk smash, we’re talking end of days, wrath raining down from the heavens kind of mad here. They’re going to cut me off and…” I gulped, slumping down further into my chair, eyes downcast as I whispered, “...and disown me.”

Rayne placed a hand on top of one of mine and I glanced up at her again as she said, “You should call them. But maybe… just give them a little time to cool off first? In the meantime, it’s a good thing you found me again.” She smiled and I couldn’t help a tiny one of my own in return. With a couple pats to my hand, she added, “What luck you chose my town to get hitched in, huh? Talk about coincidence! What would you have even done if you’d decided to pull your lil disappearing act in a whole other city?”

“Actually, we were deciding between a few venues in different cities to host the ceremony in.” I frowned thoughtfully. “But something kept pulling me back to Radiant Garden in Twilight Town. I think… it was because of you. Subconsciously, I was already planning an escape route weeks ago. You were already my way out, my rope made of blankets hanging out a window, it just... took me a while to realize it, I suppose.”

“Well, happy to be your blanket rope any day, boo,” she tapped my nose with a grin. “A lil warning next time would be nice though, kay? Ya know, just a quick heads up, something like, ‘hey, I’m planning on making like a banana and splitting from my own wedding and need a place to crash’ will do.”

I breathed a short laugh. “Noted, though I don’t really plan on making a habit of this.”

“Speaking of plans, any ideas what your next step’ll be? What exactly is your plan here?”

“Ugh, don’t get me started,” I rolled my eyes. “Already had this talk with my reflection yesterday and trust me, she was totally useless.” Rayne stared at me blankly and I cocked my head at her. “What?”

“...context, sweetie.”

“Oh, right.” I suppose there were still a few dots that I needed to connect for her. “Well… after Anna helped me escape, I needed a change of clothes. If I kept parading around town in my wedding gown, it probably wouldn’t have been long before my parents tracked me down. Luckily, first store I stumbled across was a used clothing shop. After I changed into this,” I gestured towards the crinkled mess of a sundress I was wearing, “right then and there in the dressing room is when my panic attack went into full swing and I sort of got into a lively debate with the mirror about where my future was heading. That was about as effective as you might imagine,” I grumbled the last part. “But then I thought of you and asked the person working there for a phone book.”

“Ah.” She looked past me to the coffee table in the living room, where the White Pages had been left, still rumpled but now dried of my tears. “That explains that, I guess. But… it’s a phone book, why didn’t you just call-” She paused abruptly, eyes lighting up as it clicked. “...busted phone?”

I nodded. “Busted phone.”

Her eyebrows knit together now, voice quaking with hardly contained laughter as she asked, “So the next logical step to you was to steal the phone book?”

My eyes darted to the left. “...yeah.”

“As opposed to, ya know, borrowing a pencil and jotting down the addresses on a scrap of paper? Like a sane person?”

I huffed out a soft growl, wrenching at my tangled knot once more. “Hi, have you met me? Not good with people, remember? My brain just shuts down and I get all, I dunno… chicken with its head cut off. And being on the lam after going rogue on my wedding day? Did not help matters when it came to thinking straight, believe me.”

She snerked, ruffling my bangs. “Oh you poor, sweet, socially inept weirdo you! If it makes you feel any better, you’re in good company. As you might recall, I myself am about as eloquent as a potato.”

“But twice as pretty,” a third voice chimed in and we looked over just as Riku used his foot to shut the front door behind him, smirk in place and bearing a styrofoam cup carrier tray with three steaming drinks in it.

“Rude,” Rayne deadpanned, removing the pencil from behind her ear to flick it at him.

He sidestepped it without breaking stride, lips twitching wider. “Not even. You know how pretty I think potatoes are.”

“Dork,” she shook her head as he came to a stop next to her and planted a kiss atop her forehead, depositing one of the drinks on the table in front of her.

These two? Actually kind of adorable.

But also… ugh. Love. Gross.

She smiled, bringing the cup up to her nose with a curious sniff. “Mmmmm, pumpkin spice? How did you manage to swing that this time of year?”

“Aqua,” he said, making his way over towards me now but eyes still on his wife. “She’s squirreled away a secret stash in the back just for you.”

“Bless that woman, she’s an absolute angel,” she sighed happily, blowing on the beverage before taking a cautious sip.

He gave the two remaining cups a quick glance before handing one to me with a friendly grin. “A little birdie told me you’re a fan of peppermint.”

“You remembered,” my eyes crinkled as I looked to Rayne, who merely winked at me. I felt the pleasant warmth from the cup seep into my fingers as I inhaled the aroma deeply. Sure enough, it was some sort of minty mocha blend. I gazed up at Riku, managing a shy, tiny smile. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” he brushed off. “By the way, we haven’t officially been introduced yet. I’m-”

“Riku,” I nodded. “That much at least managed to slip past the fog of crazy and reach my brain yesterday… nice to meet you. Looks like you already know me by now,” I held up the drink he’d gifted me, pointing to where Elsa was scrawled in sharpie across it. Then I grimaced somewhat as I put it down on the table, fingers playing with the coffee sleeve wrapped around the cup. It had a grinning feline face printed on it with the words Lucky Cat Café printed underneath. “...sorry by the way... about last night.”

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for. Sounds like you were in a tough spot and needed a friend.” He stood beside Rayne once more, resting a tender hand on her back as she leaned into him a bit. “And any friend of Ray’s is a friend of mine. Happy to help in whatever way we can.”

“Thanks…” I murmured, still staring hard at my to-go cup. The side opposite of the logo had a small blurb of a story recanting how before it became a chain, the first Lucky Cat was a humble little shop in San Fransokyo run by a woman and her two nephews. “...you’re both too kind, really…” I paused with a sigh and a shake of my head, “but I’ve imposed on you both too much already. Thank you so much for letting me stay the night, but I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more from either of you. In fact, I should just go. Just… give me a few minutes to get myself together and then I’ll leave you both in peace again.”

Rayne narrowed her eyes at me. “You will do no such thing!”

I rose from my chair, “No, seriously, it’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ll figure something out.”

What though? Good question. Was still working on that part.

Her eyelids drooped as she set an elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you still have a bit of a munny problem, as in you don’t have any.”

I gave a weak laugh and shrugged, “Psh, details.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “And just where do you think you’ll sleep while you’re broke off your ass?”

“I have… prospects…”

“...that wouldn’t have anything to do with the box you mentioned yesterday?”

My eyes shifted. “And Carol, can’t forget about her.”

Somehow, Rayne did not look reassured. “And Carol would be?”

Boy, were my fingers really getting tangled in my frazzled knot now. “A… a cockroach?”

“A cockroach,” she repeated, voice flat.

“A hypothetical cockroach,” I clarified with a nod.

“That doesn’t make it better,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, there’s no way I’m letting my friend live in a box-”

“Not just any box! A Rolex box,” I interjected hastily. The silence stretched and I floundered a bit under her unamused stare. “So… you know, like… a really nice box.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, no. Not happening. You’re staying with us.”

I shook my head, waving my hands back and forth in front of me. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly! I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I’ve already been and besides, you don’t have any space for me, not with the baby on the way and-”

“The jellybean won’t be here for another six months at least,” she cut in, looking down to place a gentle hand on her belly. “We were going to turn the spare room into a nursery, but we can clear all the baby stuff out for now and you can use it at least until the kiddo arrives. If you need it for longer, well then, we’ll figure it out at that time.”

“But-”

“Oof!” Riku grunted as Rayne shoved him forward with a smack to his rear. Rubbing his posterior, he looked from her to me. “We, er… we ask that you-” He hissed in pain as she pinched his arm, narrowing her gaze up at him. “I mean, we insist,” he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, whispering, “insist, right?” She gave a firm nod. Clearing his throat, he continued, “We insist that you stay with us. We, uh… won’t take no for an answer.”

Well… when one makes such a super sweet and super coerced offer like that, how could I possibly refuse?

Still I hesitated, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth. “I suppose...only if it won’t be too much of a bother… and this’ll of course only be until I can find a more permanent solu-”

“Then it’s settled!” Rayne leapt up from her chair and I staggered as she tackled me in a death-grip hug. “Welcome to your new home, roomie!”

I couldn’t resist a small smile at that. It was fleeting however as the corners of my mouth turned down once more. “That’s only one problem solved though, what about the million others? There’s still my parents, my ex, my- oh gosh, I have an ex now. My first ex. How weird is that? What am I supposed to even do with an ex?! Like what, do I… send him cards now? Like around Christmas? Or is that too impersonal? Maybe this is more of a fruit basket situation... Oh! And munny! I have to figure out what I’m going to do about that now, not to mention my whole life and future and-”

“Stop,” she put a finger to my lips, silencing my babbling. “Breathe. Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be reminding you to do that a lot now?” she huffed softly. “Just… baby steps, okay? I know it all seems like a lot right now, everything is one big fat question mark, but it’ll all get figured out. You’ve already made a little progress already.”

I blinked. “...I have?”

“Yes! For starters, you’re not homeless! But also, think about it… you’re already doing better than you were last night. I mean, at least you’re no longer a complete basket case.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I muttered, absently wringing my hands together. Not a complete basket case… now I was only like twelve percent of one.

Okay, fine, more like sixty percent.

“See? It’s still scary, yes, but not as scary and overwhelming as it was yesterday! All you needed was a little space along with a good night’s rest to gain some perspective.”

I slowly eased back down into the chair. “I guess you’re right… things don’t seem as bad today. Still bad, very, very bad, but… not as much as last night. Heh… it’s funny how some distance can make everything seem small.”

“And it’ll just keep getting easier, believe me,” Rayne rubbed my shoulder as she too took a seat once more. “Just look at this as a new beginning.”

My eyebrows knit together. “A new beginning?”

She nodded. “Yeah, like… okay, what was your life like before? Before you flew the coop, before this whole mess when everything was all status quo, what was it like with your parents?”

A low hum escaped me. “Well, I guess I always just did as I was told. I got the grades my parents wanted me to get, socialized with the groups my parents wanted me to socialize with, went to the university my parents wanted me to go to, dated the guy I thought my parents would want me to date… never did any wrong, always followed the rules… I was always just the good girl I felt I had to be. Being their eldest child, I felt I had an image to maintain, that I must always do what was expected of me, that I owed it to Mother, to Father, to the family name.”

“Okay, sure, but now all of that?” She smirked at me. “You can just forget about it! No more right or wrong and you can take those stupid, stuffy rules and just throw them out the window! This is a new start for you. Now you get to decide what you want for yourself, no one else. You’re free!”

I stiffened at that, blinking a couple times as her words sunk in.

...no right, no wrong… no rules for me?

I’m… free?

That… actually sounded kind of amazing.

But also totally and utterly terrifying.

Where’s a rock to hide under when you need it?

“Earth to Elsa, come in please.” Rayne snapped her fingers in front of my face and I flinched, wide eyes focusing on her once more. “Sorry, I could just already see you drifting off into worrywort mode so figured I had to reel ya back in quick. Look, I get it. Going from life as practically royalty in a gilded cage to being thrust penniless and clueless into the real world would sound scary and daunting to anyone. But you don’t have to do it alone.” She wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist, hugging him close. “You have Riku and me. Just consider us your Real World for Dummies book!”

That… was actually super comforting to hear. I could already feel the anxiety beginning to ebb a bit. “Thanks, I… that means a lot to me,” I smiled faintly before breathing a small sigh. “Okay then, where should this dummy start?”

“Alright, lesson one,” she struck up a finger. “Everything costs munny. Solution? Get a job.”

One eyebrow shot up my forehead. “A job?”

“Yup! I mean, you’re gonna have to pay for rent somehow!”

My other eyebrow rose to join the first. “R-rent?”

Okay, anxiety back now, and cranked up to a thousand!

“Of course. What, did you think this was gonna be a free ride? Pft, please. I’m your friend, not Mother Teresa. It’s for your own good, you’re going to need to learn how to provide for and take care of yourself. But don’t worry, you won’t owe us anything until you land an actual job.”

“Oh… okay.” That didn’t sound too bad, I suppose. However… “Just one question: how do I do that?”

Her head tilted to the left. “Do what? You mean… get a job?”

“Yeah,” I nodded vigorously, “that.”

“You’re kidding me, right? Have you never had a job before?” You could almost hear the non-existent crickets as I just stared owlishly back at her. Finally she facepalmed. “What am I saying, of course you’ve never had a job. Why would you? You have enough munny to make Tony Stark look like chump change… er, rather, you had. Oi, this might be harder than I thought,” she grumbled, rubbing the nape of her neck.

“What were you going to do?” Riku piped up.

I looked up at him with a frown. “What was I…?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, “You know, as in your career? What were your goals, your ambitions, your plans for the future?”

My fingers were back at it again, getting ensnared in my bedraggled knot. I really needed to see about disentangling the stupid thing. “Well, I… I guess I never really thought about it…”

“What?!” Rayne’s head rocked back at that. “How could you not?! Didn’t you say last night you just graduated? What were you going to do now that you were out of school?”

“I was going to get married!”

Were these people even listening to a word I'd said?!

Riku rubbed his chin, “Let’s try a slightly different angle here. What about your major? What were you studying?”

Here I cringed a bit. “Art History.”

Rayne clapped her hands together once, “Well then, there you go! You can apply to a museum or something.”

“But I hated it. Another thing I did only because my parents encouraged me to. I don’t want to work at a museum or sell art or teach it or have anything to do with it!” And once again, I was slumping forward. Hello table, my old friend. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be banging my forehead against you a few times. “Ugh, why did I have to waste four years of my life on that?! Stupid, useless major!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she tugged on my knot, forcing me to sit back up once more. “It’s not that bad, really!”

“Not that bad? I have no skills, no experience, nothing! No one’s going to want to hire me, I’m about as qualified as a frigging kumquat! Scratch that, the kumquat is more qualified because at least it can be made into a smoothie. Can I be made into a smoothie? No! I can't do anything!”

She puffed out a breath, “Calm down, there’s plenty you can do! You’ll definitely figure this out.”

I tucked in my lower lip as I looked down, mulling it over for a second. Then I glanced back up at them hopefully. “...what do you two do for a living? Would either of you maybe be able to get me a job?”

“University professor,” Riku said, jerking a thumb into his chest. “My field is astronomy, not that that helps you one way or another. You said teaching was out.”

“And I’m a reporter for Meteor Publishing.” Rayne looked away with a low growl, “Though lately I’ve been relegated to online editing work from home because somebody thought it would be a good idea to put me under house arrest ever since we discovered I was pregnant.”

Riku held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey now, it wasn’t just me. Vyv agreed with me.”

She scoffed. “Stupid useless boss. In any case, I can’t really be of assistance either, I’m afraid. You kind of need the experience and background to work in journalism. You got anything like that? A course you took for fun in college? Wrote for your high school paper? Anything?”

“I’ve never even so much as kept a personal dairy,” I sighed, eyes downcast once more. “It’s hopeless!”

“No, sweetie, it’s not hopeless! There’s still plenty out there for you! Lot’s of entry-level jobs that’d be willing to train you. It probably won’t be anything glamorous, but you gotta start somewhere! Not gonna lie though, it’ll probably be retail. You know... customer service.”

“Meaning…?”

Looking me dead in the eye, she intoned one single, solitary word that rang out like a funeral toll. “People.”

I blanched.

Okay, this was it.

My nightmare.

She cupped my hands in hers and when she spoke, her voice was gentle. “Sorry, but there’s just no way around it. It’s either that or putting that Art History bachelor’s of yours to work. Pick your poison.”

If you hadn’t gotten the memo by now, me and people? Did not go together. Something about being around them caused my muscles to lock, my heart to freeze to ice, my insides to shrivel, and my soul to exit my body. If it were up to me, I’d have become a hermit a long time ago. But I’d never be able to pull it off... I couldn’t grow that iconic beard that was basically required hermit dress code. Bleh, being a hermit was such a male dominated field, it really wasn’t fair.

All that said, however…

“If I were to go the Art History route,” I began slowly, “it would be kind of like I was still letting my parents dictate my life since they’re the reason I majored in it. No… I want nothing to do with that stupid degree.” My expression hardened. “So, customer service it is then. I’m going to make it on my own, this is just something I have to do. It… will be good for me.” Despite myself, my tone lost some of its edge as I asked, “...right?”

Rayne grinned big at me. “Absolutely! Besides, it’ll only be temporary, just something to give you time to land on your feet and figure out what you really want to do with your life. And remember, we got your back every step of the way. I can help you with the job search and filling out applications. Riku’s definitely more of the social butterfly, so he can prep you for interviews.”

My back stiffened. “Interviews?”

Riku gave a light snort. “You know, as in the thing that will actually land you a job? Resumes and job forms are great for getting your foot in the door, but they’re not enough on their own. Employers actually want to meet you, see if you’ll be a good fit, get a feel for who you are, stuff like that.”

Oh dear…

Was it too late to backtrack and get married?

Zip it, brain, I don’t want to hear that kind of talk! Stay strong, girl!

“Why don’t you give her a bit of a trial run right now, hun?” Rayne suggested, standing up and offering him her chair. “Give her an idea of some of the questions she might be asked.”

“Alright,” he took a seat across from me, scooting forward slightly and plastering on a blinding smile. “Hi, I’m Riku, I’ll be interviewing you for the position we’re hiring for.” He offered me his hand and I twitched back from it slightly. Blank stare darting back and forth between his outstretched palm and his face a few times, I at last tentatively took it to shake. He cleared his throat, looking at me expectantly. I blinked at him. He sighed, “...and you would be?”

“Oh! Um… Elsa… pleasure, to uh… to make your acquaintance?” I ventured.

“Likewise,” his hands folded in his lap. “Now tell me, why do you want this job?”

I straightened up, “Oh, this one’s easy. For munny.”

Riku spluttered and coughed into his fist. Choking back a laugh, Rayne said, “Tact, sweetheart. Try not to be so blunt.”

“Oh.”

This whole interview thing was sounding harder and harder by the second.

Having regained some composure, Riku tried again. “What would you say is your greatest weakness?”

My gaze shifted to the right as my fingers fiddled with my knot once more. “Oh gosh, I have so many, it’s hard to pick just one.”

He gave me a dull stare. “Maybe consider… honesty is not always the best policy.”

“Also remind me later that we really need to boost that self confidence of yours,” Rayne muttered behind him.

“Alright,” Riku lifted his chin, “Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?”

Was he joking? “I don’t even know where I see myself in five to ten minutes, let alone years!”

He smacked himself in the face, dragging his hand down. “We… have our work cut out for us.”

And so it went. Riku tried a few more questions on me, but the rest of my answers continued to go about as well as you might expect. As he and Rayne did their best to prepare me for the real thing, I had to keep telling myself that despite my fears and doubts, this was what was best for me. Sure, it was going to be hard but in a way, that was good. My life had been too easy so far, with everyone making decisions for me. Everyone, that is, except for myself. I had been limiting myself and taking the easy way out this whole time, never realizing my full potential. But not anymore. It was time to see what I could do, to test those limits and break through. This was going to be the new me, not that old fake persona I’d always put on because it was what my parents had wanted. It was time to learn who I really was. And above all, I just needed to keep reminding myself that now…

...I’m free.

Author’s note: Whew, answered a lotta questions this chapter and we're done with the setup for the most part! Please just bear with me a little longer and I promise things will start to pick up and heat up more by the end of next chapter! You probably noticed a few not so subtle drops both this and last chapter of lyrics from Let It Go sprinkled in. I'm just a dork who's doing her best to parallel the whole running away/Let It Go scene from the movie with Elsa nopedy-noping outta her wedding in this story xD Also, not sure if it sounds weird for Elsa to say "frigging" or "frick" (she's gonna do it semi-regularly-ish) but trust me, there's a reason she does! There's always a method to my madness, I swear! …and sometimes those methods are stupid, but still, what matters is that there IS IN FACT a method xD

Anyway! Next chapter, Elsa gets a job (take a wild stab in the dark as to where, given that the story title, summary, and cover art are NOT subtle), she meets a CERTAIN someone (well, she's gonna be meeting a LOT of new someones, but there's one in particular we've all been waiting for, you know who :3) and at last the true fun, adventure and mayhem can really begin! Thank you so much for reading, and an extra BIG thank you to those of you out there who liked and reblogged last chapter, seeing that always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

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stevecanmakeanythingnerdy · 4 years

Text

Battle #7

Kajagoogoo : White Feathers ( Side 1 )

Vs.

The Figgs: Banda Macho ( Side 2 )

Kajagoogoo : White Feathers ( Side 1 )

Formed in Leighton Buzzard in 1978, the band were originally known as Art Nouveau, a four-piece avant-garde group. Once a new lead singer was chosen by audition, the name of the group was then changed to Kajagoogoo, coined phonetically from a baby's first sounds, 'Ga Ga Goo Goo'. Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran fame, helped produce their first single, and a hit was born. That single of course was “Too Shy”. It’s the biggest achievement of the band and the reason they were signed to EMI. Ironically it kind of makes them a one hit wonder and often they are mistaken for Duran Duran. “White Feathers” is a club tune in nature, danceable, electric. I mean they did name the album after it, so....there’s that. “Lies and Promises” is very Devo-esque with its fast BPMs and high brow rhythms. Quick and succinct lyrics help you to get The Sweaty. Vocals in the round fill the next tune which could easily be a Vapors outtake.

“Magician Man” has just the right amount of magic to hold your attention. Definitely new wave class of 1983. The last tune is an instrumental, named, well...“Kajagoogoo”. It is surprisingly complex as arranged. No revealing nature of what a Kajagoogoo is per se, but it IS spelled out for you, literally. It is totally worth noting that “hair” is mentioned and thanked in the liner notes. Overall it’s 80s new wave so you know what to expect.

The Figgs: Banda Macho ( Side 2 )

The Figgs are a rock ‘n’ roll band formed in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1987. Originally known as The Sonic Undertone. I was introduced to this band by way of a fellow musician and contributing columnist named Mike Falloon (Kung Fu Monkeys, Egghead, Go Metric ‘zine), for a music fanzine I used to run. He would always gloat about them and finally I asked him to make me a mixtape of some of their greatest hits. He did not disappoint and I was hooked instantly. A large portion of those tunes came from this very album. 1996’s “Banda Macho” was the band’s lone release on Capitol Records, but perhaps their most important album as it gained them a lot of attention and wider fan base. The album’s second Side starts off with “Choker” - a fast back beater that kills and thrills. “Reject” quickly comes on it’s heels with a good, bouncy bass line and tight, no fooling around attitudes. Another quick rocker is “Red Bank Queen” where the vocals follow the hook. The Figgs slow their roll, but just for a second with “This Copy’s Mine”, followed immediately by “Another View”. It’s a real power pop gem ala The Smoking Popes. Up next with it’s amazing pop sensibilities is “Dandruff (you’ve got a lot of friends)”. This seems like a good contender for having staying power on the set list. Love the bitter lyrics and cowbell fever!! A pick to click for sure! “Powder King” is another mod-like quality tune. Honestly, there isn’t a piss take on the whole platter. “Kiss off Baby” has a B side quality that only a music fan could love. Screaming rock leads with nods to all the standards and practices here. Finally they end with the standard 90’s joke tune “Every Night”. It’s purposely sloppy and off key, but they’re forgiven for the other 8 quality bangers. Largely because you know they had to put effort into this to intentionally sound bad. This band is not capable of sucking...unless it’s in stereo (#seewhatididthere) (in case you didn’t seewhatididthere, “sucking in stereo” is the title of another Figgs album, also great). Basically Mr. Falloon did not disappoint and his unselfish goal of creating a new Figgs fan was successful. This band is a real workhorse too. Almost double the output and all of it absolutely quality craftsmanship. The Real Kids meets The Jam, meets power pop ‘79 vibe stands the test of time too, as this slab is nearly 25 people! The mastering suffers a bit because of so many tracks per side, but hey...when you’re a hit machine you have to belt that $#!+ Out!! 2 Petes, 1 Mike, and 1 Guy = two and a half minute Figgs pop masterpieces. Amazing and highly recommended by the RRW staff.

In today’s epic battle Kaja Googoo’d some White Feathers and burned 109 calories over 5 songs and 17 minutes. They burned 21.80 calories per song and 6.41 calories per minute. 12 out of 15 possible stars were earned. Meanwhile camp Figgs were a Banda Macho dudes who burned 147 calories over 23 minutes and an impressive 9 (!) songs. They burned 16.33 calories per song and 6.39 calories per minute. 20 out of 27 possible stars were earned. But unfortunately not enough to beat Kajagoogoo who takes the cake today!

Kajagoogoo : “Too Shy”

https://youtu.be/rkpG4XApJ28

#Randomrecordworkoutseasonseven

#Randomrecordworkout

#randomrecordworkout #randomrecordworkout7 #vinyl #80s #80s music #records #80's music #90s music #90s #kajagoogoo #the figgs #power pop #new wave #vinyl collection

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roselukes · 6 years

Text

Summer Dream - Chapter 1

A/N: This fic sucks, I hope y’all like it. Please like, reblog, and send me feedback!

It was a scorching June morning. The car had just pulled up to the camp, though they could see nothing but trees and nature. Calum exited the car first. He leaned against the car and stretched his back. “Whose idea was it to land in Georgia and drive the rest of the way?” He asked, wincing as he cracked his back.

“That would be Mr. Irwin. He thought forcing us to drive through hours and hours of cornfields was educational.” Luke rolled his eyes as he exited the car and opened the trunk.

“This is a part of America we don’t get to see often. We need to take in more of this part of the country.” Ashton said as he helped Luke pull all their bags from the trunk.

“If I wanted to see cornfields, I’d move to Iowa.” Michael rolled his eyes and closed the car door behind him. “Are we even in the right place?” He asked, looking around.

“Yes, Mike. Are you looking for a sign that says ‘Camp Rock’ or something?” Ashton joked, closing the trunk.

“I’m just saying, I don’t see a sign at all here.” Michael sighed and grabbed his bags.

“There was a sign on the driveway in that said ‘Camp Talladega.’” Calum said and grabbed his bags, as well.

“Stupid name for a camp, if you ask me.” Michael huffed.

“I’ll tell my great great great grandfather that you don’t like it.” A man said, driving up to them in a golf cart. “I’m Carter Hanson, camp director.”

“Your camp is lovely, Michael’s just tired.” Ashton laughed a little and shook Carter’s hand. “It’s great to be here.”

“We’re very excited to have you all here. We almost didn’t get enough counselors for this summer, but Jack Barakat suggested I call your manager.” Carter smiled. “Hop in and I’ll explain what you’ll need to do to get settled.” The boys all took their seats with their bags and Carter started driving. “So, there will be two counselors per cabin. I’ll take you to your cabins now, so you can get unpacked. Once you’re unpacked, all the counselors will be meeting in the lodge for the big introduction to camp. You’ll find the lodge just down the path from your cabins.” Carter said as he pulled up in front of a few cabins.

“These look pretty updated for such an old camp.” Calum mentioned, looking at the cabins.

“Yes, each cabin has its own bathroom and kitchenette. Those got added about 5 years ago.” Carter explained. “Luke, you’ll be in Starlight. Michael, you’re in Cloud 9. Ashton and Calum, you’re both in Rocketeer.”

“Who are we with?” Michael asked, looking from Luke to Carter.

“Yeah, why aren’t Mike and I together?” Luke pouted.

“Luke, you’re with Jack. He requested he be with you.” Carter chuckled. “Michael, you’re with Alex.”

“Okay, I can deal with that.” Michael smiled.

“Alright, take about an hour to unpack and then come to the lodge.” Carter said and waved as he drove off.

“I’m a little more excited to be here now that I’m seeing these cabins.” Calum said, walking to his and Ashton’s cabin.

“We get to spend a whole summer with some of our friends and with kids.” Ashton smiled. “This is gonna be the best summer ever.”

“Ashton, have you met children? They’re awful.” Michael groaned.

“These kids won’t be. They’ll all look up to us, because we’re rockstars.” Ashton chuckled and followed Calum into their cabin. Michael shook his head and walked to his cabin, going inside. He chose a bunk and made his bed before unpacking his clothes into the small dresser. He didn’t think he’d really take an hour unpacking, but he brought a lot more clothes than he really needed.

“Michael, let’s get to the lodge.” Calum said, coming into Michael’s cabin. “Our cabin looks nicer than yours. We get a loft.”

“Who cares? We probably won’t spend a lot of time in our cabins anyways.” Michael said and followed Calum out to the other boys.

“We have to follow this path, right?” Luke asked, pointing at a path.

“No, it’s this one, isn’t it?” Calum pointed at another.

“No, it’s Luke’s path.” Ashton said.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Calum’s.” Michael said.

“No, it was definitely this way. This is the one Carter pointed at.” Luke said. “Remember in the golf buggy?”

“But, doesn’t that one lead us back to the car?” Calum asked. “It goes in the direction we came.”

“We’re lost already.” Ashton shook his head. “Calum makes sense, so we’ll try his path.” Ashton started walking down the path.

“If we get lost, I blame Calum.” Luke huffed and followed Ashton.

“We won’t get lost because I see a building already.” Michael said and pointed at the building.

“That’s not the lodge, that’s the chapel.” Luke said and crossed his arms.

“What about that one?” Calum asked, pointing at another building.

“That one says ‘canteen.’” Ashton said. “That one’s the lodge.”

“Ha! I was right.” Calum smirked at Luke.

“Okay, calm down, mate.” Ashton said and walked into the lodge. “None of us knew where we were going.”

“Sure, but my guess was right. So, I was right.”

“I sided with Calum, so I was right, too.” Michael said, high fiving Calum. “Where do we go now?”

“To where the voices are.” Ashton shrugged and started walking down the hallway. They walked into a large room that was filled with people.

“Everyone shut up! My best friend is here.” Jack said, hugging Luke.

“Glad you guys finally made it. We’ve been waiting forever.” Alex grinned at them. “We’re gonna have a great summer here.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty excited.” Ashton laughed and sat down. “There’s a lot more people here than I thought there would be.”

“There’s 20 total counselors. 10 guys and 10 girls.” Jack said, sitting down with Luke on his lap.

“Are they all artists?” Calum asked.

“Yeah, they cover a few genres so the kids get to experience different kinds to figure out which one speaks to them.” Alex said. “There’s classical artists, jazz artists, country artists, pop artists, rock artists.”

“Alright, let’s get started. I’m guessing a lot of you are familiar with each other from media or from actually meeting each other, but we’re going to start with introductions.” Carter said. “You’ll say your name, your genre, and the last place you toured in or went to for work. Karmen, you’ll start for us.”

“Oh, great, Carter, thanks.” Karmen rolled her eyes. “My name is Karmen, I’m a journalist for Summer Wish magazine. The last place I went for work was here. This is the only place they send me now.” Karmen said and looked to her right. The girl stood up and smiled brightly.

“I’m Audrey, I’m a popstar. The last place I toured was the American leg of my tour, which ended in Florida.”

“American leg as if you went anywhere else.” Another girl mumbled, rolling her eyes. Audrey glared at her as she sat down.

“Alright, I’m Caleb. I’m a classical musician and the last place I went for work was Los Angeles.”

“I’m Caden, Caleb’s twin. I’m a jazz musician and I stay in New Orleans. I don’t travel.”

“I’m Aspen; Caleb, Caden, and Carter’s baby sister. I’m a country artist.”

“Boo!” Alex cut her off, making her giggle.

“Don’t be a dick, Alex.” Aspen smiled before continuing. “The last place I toured was Malaysia.” Alex laughed before speaking.

“I’m Alex, I’m a punk rocker, we last toured in Europe.”

“Boo.” Aspen joked, making Alex pout at her.

“Be quiet, Aspen. It’s my turn now.” Jack said. “My name is Jack and I’m a better punk rocker than Alex, and I’m pretty sure we last toured in America. Not Europe.” Jack looked to Luke, who was still in his lap.

“Do I have to stand up?” Luke asked.

“No, the people that think they’re special stand up.” Alex said, laughing a little as Audrey glared at him.

“Okay, well, I’m Luke. I’m a pop punk artist, I guess. We last toured in America.”

“I’m Rian, I’m just an artist with no title. We definitely last toured in Europe.”

“I’m Zack, I also don’t have a title. I just make music. It was Europe.”

“You guys suck.” Jack groaned. “I’m joining 5SOS now.”

“Keep things serious, boys.” Carter warned them. “Michael, your turn.” Michael nodded and looked around.

“I’m Michael, I’m also a pop punk artist. We were in America, specifically California.”

“I’m Calum, I’m the punk artist in our band. We were in San Francisco, to be more specific.”

“I’m Ashton, I’m a pop punk artist, too, I guess that’s what we’re calling ourselves now. Yeah, we were in San Fran.”

“Band introductions take forever, so we’re Little Mix. I’m Leigh, this is Jesy, Jade, and Perrie. We’re a pop group and we last toured in Australia.” Leigh Anne said.

“Very efficient, I love it.” Aspen said, sending her a thumbs up.

“I’m Cher Lloyd, I’m a pop artist, I guess. I don’t really make music anymore, I work here full time.”

“I’m Carly, I’m a country artist, and I last toured in Texas.”

“We’re Rena and Nia, the rest of our band couldn’t make it. We’re rock artists and we last toured with 5SOS in America.”

“I didn’t know there were gonna be here.” Calum whispered to Michael.

“I didn’t either. They didn’t say anything to us about it.” Michael whispered.

“I wouldn’t have come if I knew Nia would be here, too.” Calum whispered. Michael sighed and shook his head.

“Alright, now that introductions are out of the way, we can get into assignments.” Carter said. “You all know who you’ll be with in your cabins, so we can move into activity groups. Some of you will lead kid groups, others will be in charge of stations.” Carter explained. “Alex and Ashton will be in charge of recreation. Carly and Rian will do team building. Zack and Cher will do crafts. Aspen and Michael will have group A. Group B is Audrey and Calum. Group C is Luke and Perrie. Group D is Jack and Jesy. Group E is Rena and Nia. Group F is Jade and Caleb. Group G is Leigh Anne and Caden. I don’t care how well you get along with each other, but fake it for the kids.” Carter said.

“Thank god, I’m not with Nia.” Calum let out a breath of relief and leaned back in his chair.

“Now, each section lasts two weeks and kids come on June 4th this year. The littlest group doesn’t play instruments yet, so they come to choose instruments they like. The two middle school aged groups have already chosen instruments and will be here learning to play better. The oldest group also learn to play better, but we push them a little harder.” Carter said. “We’ll also be finished with children on August 3rd. Counselors will all need to be gone by August 6th.”

“The last thing we have for you, is your counselor expectations. Now, the reason a journalist gets sent here, is because I write an article at the end of every summer talking about the work you’ve all done with the kids here. So, that being said, I’m always watching. Even if you don’t see me, I’m watching. If you slip up in any way or do anything to each other, I’ll know everything.” Karmen said, looking directly at Aspen and Audrey.

“Yes, very good. Be on your best behavior, and you’re free to go.” Carter said.

~~~~

A/N: please be nice to me, I hate my writing but the only way to get better is to keep doing it

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #imagine #imagines #5sos imagines #5sos fic #5sos smut #luke hemming #michael clifford #calum hood #ashton irwin #fanfic #michaelkors #5sos fanfic #5sos writing #cashton appreciation nw

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shimmershaewrites · 6 years

Text

Random bits and lines from Caryl fics that could have been. Still maybe could be, if I ever get rid of this big ball of hurt and disappointment in the pit of my belly.

Merle's all hyped up when he busts through the trailer door. Dumps the six pack in his arms on the lumpy sofa and just grins at him.

It's not the coat hanger grin Daryl's so used to suffering when his brother's at his most obnoxious or the manic baring of teeth that usually accompanies one of his drug-fueled spirals. No. This one's full of...wonder? "Hell's wrong with you?"

"Ask me what I just saw off Mile Marker 73. Go 'head. Ask me," he all but begs, bending down to free a beer from its plastic necklace. Liberates another one and tosses it at him with no warning.

Daryl grunts. Rubs at the sore spot on his chest through the sweat-dampened cotton of his wife-beater. Scowls at the asshole as he pops the tab. Shit ain't even cold. It's lukewarm at best and goddammit do they need a better place. A place with a working air conditioning unit and a couch that doesn't try to probe him in the ass every time he has a lapse in judgment and sits down in it. To be honest, he could really care less what Merle saw and he tells him so. Plain to his face. "Fuck do I care?" His brother cares even less that he doesn't care, though. Just blurts it all out like Daryl didn't even say nothing.

"Just saw Julia Fucking Roberts with a baby hanging off her tit. Right there on the side of the road."

Daryl scoffs into his beer. Looks up and peers into his brother's eyes, his earlier assumptions in doubt. They're bright and his pupils are normal, but still. "You high?"

"That any kind of question to ask your big brother?"

"Merle!" Daryl barks.

"Tomorrow isn't a promise, Daryl. It's a wish. A dream. And those? They don't always come true."

"Been watching tv with your ball busting daughter. Kid's 14 going on 40."

He hesitates again and her fingers curl into her palm. Press until she can feel the little crescent moons branded on her skin. She tries to bite her tongue--she really does--but the part of her that came roaring back to painful life seeing him there on her doorstep the first time, so much loss mixed with longing in his blue eyes, it rushes headlong into salvation or Hell. She doesn't know which. She can't say she even cares anymore.

He’s got her panties stripped down to her ankles, her tee shirt shoved up around her neck, and his greedy mouth mapping out each rib beneath her satin skin, two fingers buried knuckle deep when the bedroom door opens without warning, and it’s every parent’s nightmare; not that he

a parent, but Carol is, and she does what he figures any rational, self-respecting parent would do in this particular panicked situation: she shoves his head further down her body and yanks the comforter they’d kicked to the foot of the bed during their

extracurricular

activities over his bare ass all the way up to her chin, calls out her little girl’s name in a voice that’s a little higher pitched than normal but welcoming all the same. “Sophia.”

Kid’s eyes get bigger with each swirl of the butter knife through the bowl of chocolate icing and Daryl don’t blame her one bit because it’s the good stuff. Thick and rich, enough cocoa in it to jumpstart a dead man’s heart, and

damn

. 7.

Daryl eats his fill of pasta. Soaks it all up with a little too much wine because the company’s good but he ain’t used to the talking no more or the carefree laughs. The shared looks between the two men are too much. Too happy in the middle of this hell on earth, too intimate, and eventually, well. It starts to get to him—being the third wheel.

Aaron doesn’t even seem surprised when he pushes back from the table and mumbles his goodbyes.

He sees himself out. Stumbles just the slightest bit on the next to last step before he grabs the railing, looks up at the Virginia moon so big and so bright and lets the crisp night air wash over his flushed cheeks while he gathers his thoughts and his equilibrium.

Really not sure if I posted this one or not. Anyway, it's an unfinished challenge fic, so.

Off your rocker

“Draw the short end of the stick again, Son?”

Hitching the worn strap of his crossbow higher over the round of his shoulder, Daryl merely grunts in response. It’s neither an affirmation nor a denial, but if the old man is bothered by it, he doesn’t let it show. It certainly doesn’t shut him up anyway. Ain’t much of anything can do

that,

he reckons. Might’ve taken the retired vet a while to warm up to the whole lot of them—warm, weren’t that a nice, fine, foreign concept these days—but now that he has? He hasn’t looked back.

Unperturbed, Hershel steers the one-sided conversation forward in his rambling drawl. “While I appreciate the continued pleasure of your company, I’m perfectly capable of handling such delicate matters on my own.”

Daryl snorts. Ain’t nothing delicate ‘bout these trips just beyond the tree line and they both know it.

Still

. Could be worse. Could be partnered up with Dog if he hadn’t developed a predilection for playing nanny to that little shit Carl in the misguided notion that he was going to keep the boy out of trouble. You ask him, the kid’s middle name started with a big ass T. “Ain’t my rule. Rick’s. Think I wanna…”

“Play babysitter to an old man?”

Daryl huffs. “Now you’re just puttin’ words in my mouth.” Briefly glancing back, he shakes his head. “Y’ain’t old.” Without missing a beat, he mutters a clarification, one corner of his mouth turning up so slightly even

wasn’t sure if it was a smile or not. “You’re ancient. Bit of a difference.”

Far from being offended, Hershel chuckles. “That so?”

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, Daryl nods. “Way I see it, you got experience.”

“Experience?”

“Life experience. Lots of it. Them assholes back at camp? Don’t have much if they have any. Least not the kind that’s going to help them survive in this world. You do.” He might lack in table-taught manners—he’s a Dixon, after all—but he’s got common sense in spades, and he don’t ever say something he don’t mean. Following in his wake, the old man falls uncharacteristically silent, likely digesting his words. It ain’t often Daryl doles out words of praise and they both know it.

Nearing a fallen log, Hershel slows. “Here.”

Scanning their immediate surroundings for any hint of unwanted company and finding none, Daryl looks up and squints into the pale Winter sun. With much of their food source in hibernation or holed up in whatever bit of shelter to found, the dead were decaying and sluggish in this dick-shrinking cold.

Still

. “Here?”

“Here.”

“Alright. Good a place as any.” Putting his back to the nearest tree and averting his narrowed gaze, he shoulders his crossbow and tries not to cringe at the telltale clink of the old man’s belt. Ain’t no such thing as privacy anymore and it’s a damn shame because he can think of a hundred and one other things he’d rather be doing right about now. Like hunting. Too bad the only squirrel he sees, skittering from tree to spindly tree, is too scrawny to be worth the effort. Knowing Carol, she’d probably fork it over to the little parasite taking up residence in Lori’s womb anyway. Thoughts of the woman’s foolish disregard for her own well-being over others make him shake his head to himself. He wonders would it have been different. If he had walked out of those woods with her little girl, would she treat herself with as much care as strangers not even worth half her salt? He’s pulled from that line of thinking by the old man’s nonchalant request.

“Mind handing me some of them leaves over there, Son?”

Carefully avoiding any eye contact, Daryl doesn’t draw out the task. That would only make the situation even more embarrassing. He hands over the leaves and straightens, clearing his throat uncomfortably as he delves beneath the cover of his poncho for a pack of cigarettes he knows isn’t there. Smokes might not be a necessity for survival, but fuck if he don’t miss them.

Damn

meddling

woman

, he thinks, peering through the trees at the way they’d come, barely able to make out Beth and the woman in question. Course, the gesture doesn’t go unnoticed. Old man’s smart enough not to poke a stick at a bear, though. Least Daryl thinks he is, ‘til he hears what comes out of his mouth next and nearly swallows his own tongue because of it.

“Girl’s sweet on you.”

He says it like they’re two coworkers enjoying a smoke break. Not two would-be strangers doing what they’re…doing and hackles raised, Daryl sputters. Because it’s easier to spit outrage at an unmade accusation than admit a truth that’s too close for comfort. He might not be well-versed in the ways of women, but like he’d once told Andrea, he’s observant and Carol’s got a soft way ‘bout her anyhow. Been more than once the look in her pretty blue eyes made him ache for something he ain’t never had. “The hell. Ain’t into kids.”

“Good to know,” Hershel says conversationally. “Wasn’t talking about my daughter, Son. Neither one of them. But we both know

that

. Besides. You walk this earth long enough, anybody younger than you becomes a kid.”

Daryl lifts his thumbnail to his mouth and gnaws, piercing the abused skin with blunt teeth. “Off your rocker, Old Man.” The quip he gets in return is quick and expected.

“Comes with the territory of being ancient, I imagine.”

“Man, you got your pasty white ass hangin’ out in the wind and you wanna gossip?” Flustered as he is, he keeps his voice low, his agitated footfall just as quiet as he whirls around to jab his finger right beneath the old man’s nose. He hasn’t made it this far being a dumbass. “You don’t know nothin’.”

Taking a moment to rezip his fly and wipe his hands on a rag, Hershel calmly stands to his full height and looks down at him. He doesn’t bother to hide his smirk when he uses Daryl’s own words against him or the knowing twinkle in his eyes. “Said it yourself, Son. I’m old

and

experienced. Been around the block a time or two. Might even say I’ve picked up a few things. I stand by my word. That girl’s sweet on you. Judging from your reaction? The feeling’s mutual.” Parting shot fired, he walks away.

It takes Daryl but a few seconds to match his easy, deliberate stride. “Naw.

Naw

. The hell you think you’re goin’?”

“We really doing this silent treatment shit?” Daryl grumbled. Carol’d been giving him the cold shoulder for the better part of the evening, and fuck if he knew why exactly. Sure, he might have gotten them (just a little) lost—playing cross country navigator in his brother’s borrowed truck wasn’t exactly the same as tracking a buck in the Georgia woods. And wasn’t she, as a Lit-loving nerd, always preaching that the best roads weren’t always the most traveled ones anyway? No. He was reasonably sure the hundred-mile detour from their actual destination point wasn’t the cause of her black mood, and that led him back to square one. “S’not my fault they only had one room.”

She didn’t bother answering him. She just huffed and marched across the room, heaving her overstuffed duffel bag on top of the dingy bed and starting to dig through it like it held the secrets of the fuckin’ universe.

wished

because he was floundering. Some last hurrah this was turning out to be. Stuck in Bumfuck, Nowheresville in this Bates Motel wannabe with a best friend who’d sooner rip his nuts off than utter a civil word. Tired and working against developing a foul mood of his own, he tossed his own pack to the foot of the mattress and sighed. “Got a beer in there?”

Carol only paused long enough to roll her eyes at him and glare.

“Guessing not,” he muttered. “Shit.” When her only reaction was to continue to freeze him out, he sighed again, even deeper than the last time, and dropped to the hard, lumpy mattress. If she thought he was going to be all chivalrous and shit and offer to sleep on the floor, she had another thing coming. The carpet was filthy, half the stains defying categorization. Besides. Weren’t like they hadn’t shared a bed before. Course, all those times had predated puberty, but still. “Sorry, alright?” She softened for about a second before he unwisely tried to choke himself with his own foot in a dick, Dixon move. “

Jesus

. What crawled up your ass?” 10. Carol hadn’t taken much with her when she’d packed up and left home. Ed hadn’t allowed it. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, she should have dug her heels in and demanded an annulment right then, right there. But she hadn’t. She’d been numb. Mired in the fog of a broken heart. She let her new husband drag her clear across the state of Georgia, hundreds of miles from her mama, her friends,

Daryl

, and she hadn’t said a blessed word. Didn’t utter a word of protest ‘til her baby girl was born and it became clear that she had fallen

head over heels, hopelessly

in love for the second time in her life, and by then it was too late.

Story

her

life

, she thought, recalling Daryl’s frozen, unreadable expression in

Mary’s

, Jessie’s awkward split-lip smile as the children were formally introduced to each other. Nanny Sarah always

did

tell her she’d be late to her own funeral.

#The Walking Dead #Caryl fanfiction #Caryl #Carol x Daryl #stuff that I write #snippets from unposted stories and chapters

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robpalmertravels-blog · 5 years

Text

Scandinavia continued

Towards the end of my time in Sweden, I found that with the lack of any short term goal my daily progress had slowed. As I rounded the northern Gulf of Bothania I sought to remedy this by committing to a Couchsurfing host on the 13th July, 1000km south in Helsinki. At the time it was 3rd July and I was leaving Luleå in northern Sweden. Having a relatable goal motivated me to push and maintain a good pace, something that, fortunately, was easily done in the northern reaches of Finland. As with its neighbour, the roads were gloriously free from traffic, even the most major roads had little to compare to an A road in England. Emboldened, I pursued these south. Hammering down the hard shoulder with the occasional lorry swooping past, I easily made 100km per day. I breezed past town after town in this fashion until all of a sudden the hard shoulder began to disappear into a network of diggers, rollers and churned earth. Two lanes became one and I found myself ducking and diving a series of traffic cones into and out of the traffic. With every duck into the road, I held my breath, ridiculing my arrogance. I was lucky that the Finnish drivers held some respect for cyclists (even one who was clearly beyond his remit) and passed me at a slow pace. Buzzing, as I have now come to call the practice of unforgıvıng drivers, is something that would occur more regularly as I moved south and away from the two-wheeled utopia that is Scandinavia. Once bitten and slightly shyer I retreated to the safety of smaller roads and wove my way onwards. On one particular evening, I stumbled, quite by chance, onto a shelter several miles outside of town that had my name written all over it. Of traditional Finnish build, with a pointed roof, it lay beside a wide lake, which lay quite still that evening. Poking my nose through the door, I had a raised fire pit in its centre and branch hugging the inner wall. Graffiti adorned its walls, a good sign, confirming it was widely used and therefore ok to crash in.

The days continued and having left the coastline behind at Oulu I was sailing through the sea of pines once again. The muggy days of the northern reaches dissipated into sunshine and growing heat. On the 11th July, this caught me out. Late in the afternoon, I stopped to check how far from Helsinki I lay. With around 170km to go, I had done well and would likely make it no problem by the 13th. With the latest of small towns now behind me I was aware that I needed to refill my water bottles. With my mouth beginning to dry I pulled up outside a house and called to a group of people sitting around a table outside. The call came back, ”you wanna beer”? With an agreeable shrug of shoulders, I sidled in. An old workers social club it felt a little like a village hall with a huge main room complete with a stage at one end and faded velvet sofas at the other. This left little room for much else, a small bedroom and living room attached to the kitchen comprised the rest. It was filled with a careful selection of memorabilia from my hosts past. (No doubt all following names are spelt incorrectly). Ante, who had passed me a beer no sooner than I had stumbled in, was a smiley and cheery sort of man, quick to laugh and faster to offer what he had. Food, coffee, beer and more beer. Walking through the house, I spied a headshot of a young man in a collared shirt with a pompadour hairstyle completed with a full-fat cowlick. Ante, as he proudly told me used to be a Teddy Boy, in the 1970’s revival. He showed me shoes with two-inch-thick soles and Edwardian embroidery. He explained the interest in the style of this post-war period. The other two in the group who had been seated outside when I arrived were Tina, an old friend of Ante’s who had at one point worked as a nurse in Guernsey and Pero, his brother in law. We got to talking as I cracked open the first beer, they found my novelty quite interesting and I, in turn, enjoyed the spontaneity of their company. It turned out that they were there to help Ante sort out the place for a party the next evening, to which I was readily told I was more than welcome. I hesitated, thinking of my commitments in Helsinki. Not wanting to take his hospitality for granted I fired off a message to my host asking if he would days postponement. With the all-clear given I was curıous to see where this would all go. Mucking in as well as I could, I helped them with the last of the cleaning.

As evening drew near and the beer flowed we moved from the veranda to the bottom of the garden and lit up a barbecue. As we were finishing up, they mentioned that they were going to use the sauna and saıd I was welcome to join. As the cool of the night was setting in this sounded to me like a ınspıred suggestion and a purifying cleanse after a few days on the road. To the Finns the Sauna is a national pastime, many homes have their own and they are used several times a week. Tucked away at the end of the garden was the little stone building that was the sauna. The paint of faded eggshell was visible over the hard stone of an interior that was propped up by worn beams and heated by a small wood-burning furnace. I had been told that the Finns are shy people and while that may be true, I couldn't say it extends to Sauna etıquette. Not beıng put off, I joined them. Appreciatıng doıng such things in good style, with every break we would step outside in our towels to cool wıth cigarettes and beers in hand. Sıgned off with a few glasses of brandy I slept deeply on a spare mattress in the main room of the house.

The followıng day contınued in much the same fashion. Roused with strong black coffee I helped where I could and moved my thıngs ınto the garden where ı would camp that evenıng. The trıckle people arrıvıng began ın the early afternoon wıth a compellıng collectıon of characters that looked to have walked dırectly out of the latter half of the 20th century. The fırst arrıvals had more than a whıff of agıng rockers about them, long greyıng haır hungover half hıd earıngs overlookıng battered leather jackets. The fırst ıntroduced hımself, ‘I'm Harry, but you can call me Hate’. The self-dubbed Hateful Harry was naturally an amıcalble sort of guy. He strode around, not as you mıght thınk ın leather boots but ınsead showcased the noble croc sandals ın all theır glory. Faır enough for a man in his 60 ́s! The musıc moved from rock and roll to blues, to old school Fınnısh punk wıth Hateful Harry hımself on the mıc. Thıs was quıte a new experıence for my ears. The hard-hitting abrasive style combıned wıth quıte alıen lıngusıtıcs of the language was a strange sound to me, to say the least. Chattıng away to a varıety of people they were a frıendly bunch who took no expetıon to my rather random presence there.

It seemed lıke the Punk band straıned other ears as well as mıne, by the tıme they fınıshed the majorıty of those remaınıng had collected on the veranda where conversatıon could be heard. As sılence came one of the rocker types adorned ın knee-length fur coat a thınnıng crop of pushed back blonde haır struck out on a guıtar and sung ın a johnny-cash-sort-of-way songs of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewıs. He had a dıstınctıve sound but one frıend told me, ‘He can only sıng ın front of people when he's been drınkıng’’. Thıs added to the melancholy of the moment and as he droned away a versıon of Gene Vıncents ‘Be Bop a Lula’ fınshıng wıth, ‘sheeees my baby..’ that brought the nıght to ıts close

Goodbyes havıng been saıd I slıpped away at dawn the followıng morıng southbound for Helsınkı where I stayed for several days before sayıng goodbye to Scandınavıa.

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postguiltypleasures · 4 years

Text

So You're Superconnected

[Originally posted on my former Livejournal, July 6, 2009. Edited for clarity.]

So here is my much labored review of Tanya Donelly's career. I am hoping to do similar pieces (probably shorter). It is a labor of love and a cry for attention, so please comment.

Some part of me pretends to have been much more conscience of the music scene in the late eighties/early nineties than I was. It is a period that speaks to me and the fact that I came of age while these artists were mostly waning in popularity only justified the whole isolation as an adolescent I was not particularly focused on the career of Tanya Donelly, which was fine as I already had plenty of other arcane interests to distinguish me from my peers. I knew who she was, because I pursued my out of fashion tastes in music. Two of the first songs I downloaded from Napster were from her band Belly.

Early 2007 I was feeling nostalgic for the music that was fading out of fashion in the beginning of my adolescence but not actually for adolescents. As it turns out Tanya Donelly’s Lovesongs for Underdogs was exactly what I was looking for and then some. Which has lead me to pursue the rest of her career.

Born in 1966 and around the age of eight she met Kristin Hersh in Massachusetts and they became best friends and later step sisters. In high school they began to form the band Throwing Muses. This already has me jealous; I did not have a best friend in high school let alone someone to start a band with. While the stepsisters were generally the focus of the band it was really Kristin’s project. Most of the songs were by her and Ms. Hersh continued to band after Ms. Donelly left. One of the last songs Donelly did with the Muses is called “Not Too Soon”. It is an anthem. I don’t understand how it was not a hit or why people do not sing it regularly to psych themselves up, or just the pleasure of making guitar orgasm noises.

About that decision to leave: According to the legend while the Pixies were opening for Throwing Muses. Tanya Donelly and Kim Deal were feeling like under-appreciated band members and got drunk one night and decided it would be a good idea to get together, make the world’s greatest disco album and live off the royalties for the rest of their lives. They (sort of) formed The Breeders, but the resulting album, Pod is not something anyone would call disco, or even a good example of either of their work. Once again Donelly did not participate in much of the song writing, or singing. Tanya Donelly has a deceptively sweet little girl voice. Some of her lyrics are whimsically mysterious, you are likely to overlook the power of what she is saying, which is not to be taken lightly. The other problem is she does not have great pitch, which puts her in a group with people like Kathleen Edwards. People who really have something interesting to say, interesting ways of saying it, but will always make it sound like a struggle. Must be why I like them.

I don’t know when I first heard of Belly, but I am pretty sure that the Rolling Stone issue they did the cover for was in the pile of issues they had in the photo studio of my day camp as a pre-adolescent. I love the description the headline gives the band, “The Shiny Happy People of Post-Punk Power Pop”. Just goes to show how hard they are to define. The music is never dull, but I would be hard pressed to call it bright. The first album Star packs a lot of styles into its fifteen tracks. The big single, “Feed the Tree” relies on a bass introduction that keeps it dark sounding even if the lyrics are about struggling to be to your part against depression. There are also songs about being alone because the alternatives seem false an demanding. At other points it seems like they are on some mysterious hunt. Whatever they are hunting for will bring them more self knowledge but it is still a dangerous hunt. Lyrically they seem to use only using the typical song structure, but ready to rearrange the pieces. There is something impersonal about these songs compared to later work. Even in using first person it is about some one else and heavily coded in symbols. Or jokes about symbols (“that slow dog is hit again, with its see through skin, the kind of skin you can see through – he’s shot again” from “Slow Dog”). An exception is “Untogether” which aches to spite itself.

The story typically goes that Star got the foot in the door for main stream success and the follow up King was too complex for the public radio. King appeals more to me. There are only eleven tracks this time and they generally feel more thought out. If in Star they were playing with sound and structure, by the time they reached King they know what they could do with them. The opener is “Puberty” and it starts with some distortion that hits into a stumbling run. By the time it is over so is adolescents. Most choruses have variations within them so they never really repeat. The bridges are both unpredictable and inevitable. The title track also has my favorite example of using a variation of one verse as a chorus.

I’m your faith I’m your faith (healer) I’m your faith-less companion

This is the type of line that will stay with me through anything. I will think these when I am feeling funny before I can name the song they are from. The rest of the album has similarly classic lines that are so poetic and then you realize how violent they are. “Are your heart strings connected/ to the wings stabbed on to you back?” “I’m not the hero I could be/But not the dog I was” (I always hear the last phrase as “I’m not the god of war”), “The bees behind my eyes say beware.” It has always been when part of the appeal of Tanya. Very violent descriptions at are not comforting. That they are said at all is show of strength.

Lovesongs for Underdogs starts with some rockers that are not really a surprise to anyone who is familiar with her previous work in Belly. “Pretty Deep” rocks while wondering about our fascination with macabre when our lives are safe. It sets the tone for the first part of the albums where it is hard to determine whether you want the romance or are too disgusted by it (“The Bright Light”) the belief and fear that you could do something really amazing. (“Landspeed Song”). And of course when you don’t believe in the security of you world it means that you have been looking out into the world and seeing how incomprehensible it is (“Mysteries of the Unexplained”).

After this the songs are no longer about questioning to use other forms of narration. And Ms. Donelly gets to play with her voice imitating bird calls and the hum of the electric guitar. There is out right rocker of impossible love (“Breathe Around You”). There is also a challenge wrapped a the feeling of violation (“Bum”).

The weakest song in the collection is “Goat Girl” where the singer contemplates being more “brutish” than the man she did not want desires. It is cutesy and fun but lacks the mystery and challenge of her best work. The Last two songs, “Manna” and “Swoon” fit together beautifully. “Manna” uses the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer and jumps into a fantasy about dissolving into the universe. Using prayer, and prayer and variation on tradition is a way of closing albums that she returns to. “Swoon” might seem less spirit inclined. The singer observes a man who is very angry with her. “Like to set me on fire, like to burn.” Knowing about his anger only highlights the singer’s strengths. It is one of my favorite album closers.

She took a few years off, went to South America had a baby and then can back with beautysleep. It is the only album that until recently was not available on iTunes. The opener is called “Life is But Dream.” It will remind you of anything you know with that title, and gives the sensation of listening while falling asleep after the kind of day that would deny your right to sleep. “You’ll come back again/I am waiting then/Life is but a dream – it’s ours” it closes. The most constant thing about the track song as it slides in and out is a present heartbeat, always at the same volume.

The general feel of the album is slightly burned out. “In the beginning my love was fierce” she sings on “The Night You Saved My Life”. Songs sort of fade in and out, there are also examples where the instruments get replace by human sounds, like snapping for drums. She may be exhausted, but she is still standing by her principles: “Look I can’t watch you sleep walking through this” she declares on “The Storm”.

As the title “I’m Keeping You” pertains to a child, it could lead you to think that it would be preachy, anti abortion type. Fortunately it is not the case as the singing new mother admits:

I’m not like you. My heart’s not new I’ve loved and been loved well and badly too My body’s been through everything I’ve used and been used, I got over it. There’s something that you learn on the tight rope Just outside the spotlight there’s a big net waiting.

It’s vague enough to be soothing, but still admits to feeling brutally used. There is still a fierceness there even as it is transferred to being protective. She knows that keeping “cool” is “precious”. A lot of the songs are pulling on more of a sense of panic. Also it is more of a “I cleaned up and now I know how to be a mom” thing than a “I am becoming a mom so I have cleaned up one” which is something that would make me tense.

The following song, “Moonbeam Monkey” has a narrative of a runaway boy as told by some one hired to bring him home. The whole piece is an assurance that this is possible, with an acknowledgment of what made the kid disappear. Finding the kid will not make his reasons for leaving evaporate, and the person finding him cannot stop reminding the parents.

In some ways the first half of the album is about parenting were the self never comes first any more. The second is about still recognizing that things are still overwhelming on personal level. Having kids makes her more conscience that she is neither the center nor in control. That does not mean she is not important, and finding ways with theses inconsistent world is constantly a struggle. There is something heroic about it especially as the tone is so dark.

Whiskey Tango Ghosts is startling stripped down. Like after all that post punk play with electronics she decided to do an acoustic folk album. Most of the music is played on piano and acoustic guitars. Even the percussion goes for a lighter, tropical music for cold climates feel. The result is beautiful and as haunting as the title would suggest.

Lyrically Ms. Donelly is more direct than ever before. Which does not make her less aware of the complexities in live and how they are hidden and suggested in song. The album opens with the line “I have lost myself” and the tries to assure the listener that though they (we) cannot “be as one” they should not worry. The next song “Every Devil” describes the difficulty of connecting as she would like to with to whom she sings as well as the worldly problems that occupy her time. It is magnificently sad with no self pity.

Difficulties with communication also underlay the song “Whiskey Tango.” Here the problems are addressed on an intra personal level as she sings ”you accuse me/ of fancy talk/ when I’m just trying to find the words.” She discusses the way her past agitation continues to affect her view, even as she no longer is “the young girl making waves.” It is tempting to find an autobiography in here referencing her changes from Indi-Rock Teen to Anti-Folk. But there are plenty of hints not to take this material as autobiographical. It took me a while to warm up to the next song, “Just in Case You Quit Me.” It has some very off kilter syncopation, which work well with lyrics about needing someone you cannot help but insult. “Butterfly Thing” was the first song on it that I fell under on this album. It is hypnotic in its dread and wonder about the effect that you can have on people. It is quiet beautiful and probably the most accessible on the album.

“My Life as a Ghost” shares the sentiments with Alice Seabold’s “The Lovely Bones.” It has a tragic atmosphere whose quietness is belied by the restless life cut short. This is followed by “The Center,” which seems like a straight forward love song. Only the metaphors she uses make the loved one seem more like a kami than a human. The theme dovetails with the opening lines of the next song “Golden Mean” where she is not afraid of the possibility of her power. “The Promise” gets even quieter in its determination. It accepts chance and never denies having a personal power.

“Story High” is currently my favorite song on the album. The song is like someone being calm in the face of hysterics. Or is it the other way around? She is in her own mythological world here with the references to “acrobats, and liars, paper moons in macro-skies.” “Fall Out” has a tragic feel that complements the albums opener, where the worrier has become paralyzed by fear and the singer must demonstrate that it is alright to have little control. The album closes with a traditional hymn. “beautyleep” had a hidden track that ended in prayer after some hectic reflections. I am not sure what to make of this trend. It is attractive to me as I think a lot about the little I know of theology with my beliefs of what God is. It acknowledges the need for religious forms, the need to express spiritual truths.

Around the time I got all of these albums is the same time I was preparing for graduate school in Rhode Island. I had lived in New England for my under graduate experience and was looking forward to more time there. It ended up being the longest, most draining ten months of my life. But at the start, the first track on This Hungry Life summed up all the enthusiasm I had for my return to New England. “New England” is loud, it complains about the weather, but it loves the region as it is in its blood.

This Hungry Life is sort of a live album, only it is not related to a performance. It was recorded in a former hotel in Vermont with some fans. Songs were repeated until the fan response was at its best. It is an interesting technique , especially considering she has never been particularly stage comfortable. As it is the most recent album of hers (released in 2006), I cannot say what it means as far as a change in direction for her as a song writer, or performer. Politics are more overt in on this album. Like beautysleep’s “I’m keeping you”, is in part about reconciling personal crazy history with being a stable parent. Or just how to raise people to be consciences citizens and knowing when the right time teach about the monstrous aspects of reality are to the new generation. “Kundalini Slide” is even more overtly political with its yearning for “the leader who won’t bring you shame.” I had to look up Kundalini. I like that she chose a spiritual based word. It is an interesting use to talk about spiritual awareness with the spiritual bankruptcy in politics. It keeps the song from being preachy, and it also just makes it so appealing to anyone who thinks listening to politics is exhausting.

The following song, “This Hungry Life” still demands that the necessity of picking a good fight. I have spent a lot of time worried that admitting to being tired is a sign of weakness. The song may have given up on being an anthem, uniting many people, but that does not make it any less important, valuable.

I don’t know that “Littlewing” is specifically autobiographical, but as a message to a daughter it is very beautiful and more personal than the previously mentioned songs. After this song the album moves to more mythic wanderings. There is a Beatles cover, as well as a song that previously appeared on the beautysleep accompaniment EP, Sleepwalk. It is worth comparing the two versions. The live one is more likely get you up and ready to dance along. I really love all of this album. It can be melancholic, but it refuses to give up. I really started listening to them at a strangely difficult moment in my life. It is not a career I have followed particularly intensely, but I am very glad it exists.

#Livejournal repost #livejournal archive #Music #tanya donelly #belly #song lyrics #lyrics quotes #memories #the 1990s #the 2000s #kristin hersh #the 1980s #the breeders #kim deal #album reviews

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11/30/18, 2:41 PM

THE HEAVY-HANDED CLINICIAN BY TIMOTHY JOSEPH GEISINGER

In a place far beyond the outer reaches of my memories, I grasped no uncertain realities: the thin-bearded, heavy-handed clinician, over the innumerable years, had done his best to kill me. In the year 1968 when the Vietnam conflict as it was dubbed burned grooves of pain and loss into my synapses. The synapses fired less often during that tragic year. Many young, heroic men sacrificed their lives for a cause that the common army soldier failed to comprehend. The D.C. Hawks composed top secret documents and used a variety of colored chalk lines on forest green chalkboards one after the other to strategize, to deploy troops and to hopefully win an unbeatable guerilla warfare far from the states, far from home. Young wives expected their newlywed husband and often newly minted father to return soon enough, after having given everything for the US patriotic cause; to rush laughingly with a great sense of relief into their waiting arms and to scoop up off the stony earth their never forgotten son, or daughter, their young family practically swooning over their homemade hero back from the overseas war. It didn’t work that way though, not exactly. The twenty somethings who were often the grunts, the privates, the guys who were assigned KP, peeling bag after bag of Idaho russet potatoes while cursing the upper echelon that brought him to a degraded part of a foreign land muttering that “This damn place is the worst, so f-In unfair.

Unjust.” Maybe the young husband and dad to Hillary and Frank, maybe he wasn’t far off. It was an unjust war, wasn’t it? The D.C. Hawks, they held all the cards and close to their vest at that! They were the old, entrenched men who sacrificed little, standing pointing and drawing on blackboards, deploying troops here and there, to take a bloody hill, or else maybe to charge a hidden enemy encampment, or else to retreat, hopefully to safety. Not always.

What was safe about being shot at by sniper fire from Chinese exported AK47s with seemingly endless ammunition control and a little boy or girl who sobbing walks easily into the midst of the longing men, who are safely behind their own lines; yet the little foreign kid has a live grenade tucked neatly in the elastic band of their cotton underwear? Seemed like an innocent kid, just needed some help. Maybe I should have been more loving. Maybe we shouldn’t trust any of the Viet Cong people. After all, we’re the invaders. This is their homeland. What right do we have to be here? Miranda, my wife, older by five years, and a baby on the way, me longing for hearth and home, barely out of Basic. I need her. And I love her. The really important thing, though, is that I know she loves me and we love baby on the way. I wanted to name her Zoe; that is if she’s a girl and Zak if he’s a boy. She wants to name her Molly, kind of because her name also begins with the letter M. But also because of our shared child’s song, a made famous Irish melody: “Cockles and Mussels” (Molly Malone). Both of us, though we didn’t meet until being in the same English essays class at the local community college, loved that song. Yet, we loved the song in a unique way; almost as unique as if we are snowflakes, not accumulated snowfalls. Miranda told me, actually, she sung Molly Malone to me, sonorous alto vocal but upbeat, in my elder parents’ living room in Kent, Washington; though we had moved there only for a short while when I was two because my dad was offered a position as an apprentice mechanical drafter for a start-up called THE LAY-OUT. Miranda has the kind of singing voice that even thousands of miles of separation I can hear as if we again are in my parents’ living room on that fated afternoon.

“Miranda, play the song again. I want to sing it with you,” I said. “You knew the song?” She looked wistfully at my clear blue eyes.

“Yeah. I’m surprised you never knew that. I can’t play guitar like you, but I can keep a melody.” I almost nudged her free shoulder in ply.

“I don’t doubt that. Okay.” Then she strummed the first guitar chord and we sang. Miranda and I and now the baby inside her womb. We are singing a song, a duet. We are singing of our shared love, about being newlyweds, about being the lovebirds others have rightfully called us, of our future together, of the eventual birth of Zoe, Zak or Molly or Mark John, or whomever he would be. We were hopefully going to know…together, hand clasped in hand, lips locked mouth to mouth. Resuscitated. Life gifted to dry dead bones. But, now. Damn.

Miranda I cried. I miss you. I am kissing your waiting mouth, pouty pink, swollen lips. I am tightly holding onto your hand because…I think I may never get back, back to you, back to our unborn child, back to the United States of America, back to the life we are destined to share together. As it is written in the legal marriage decree: “Till death do we part. Never leave nor forsake you. I promise Miranda to love and to hold you…” Oh God, why? I know it was me, maybe it was all me. I was the one who wanted to fight for the safety of the Chinese threat upon These Our United States of America. What if, just as in December 1941, the Japanese kamikaze pilots bombed the unsuspecting aircraft carriers and the defenseless Honolulu medical facilities because they could – sent by the Japanese Emperor Hiro, himself, as a formidable military invasion the likes that no one has experience so horrifically since? That was my overwhelming concern; for the lives of my wife and our unborn child, but also for the security of our vulnerable nation. Really, I don’t like that I am an idealist. I want to be practically minded like a business executive bent on amassing wealth and securities for the company he works for yet secretly desires to one day overtake the whole operation, become the new CEO, own more than fifty percent of the company’s shareholdings and expand, expand far into his stocks-controlled company, newly renamed to fit his agenda, and to make room for his ascendancy. Just like a monarch ruling in the 13th century, replete with a court jester (who could have been me) and nobles, feudal lords, thin, beautiful maidens, plenty of cows, several Bantam roosters, and more animals than even he wanted to number. Horses to ride as freely as he saw fit across the wide expanse which was from the royal stables to the outer lands, all under his watchful eye; the nearby smaller, conquered kingdoms making tribute. I digress.

I am an idealist, but I’m not hopeful. My nearest and dearest friend, the one who helped me through the obstacles course, I couldn’t have even graduated without his constant help and his care toward what then was only another soldier in Basic training, at dusk last night was shot clean through his Adam’s apple. Ironic. I don’t say curse words, not usually, but Shit! Alvin Yeltser is worm food. I know I’m being a bit graphic, but so is war. All wars are graphic in nature, not for little eyes and ears...that is, unless the little eyes and ears are attached to the kids who uncontrollably sob, finding an easy way into the base camp, where we all are relaxed, some of us smoking a Marlboro straight, some of us shooting the shit. And then, before anyone is able to prevent the tragic thing you can hear in the silent overly humidity in view of a green grove of bushes and trees overgrown and waiting like an African tiger to pounce on an unsuspecting weary, old, gray elephant getting a drink of water at the local watering hole. You can hear a pin drop! BAM.

The surviving company, a hodge-podge of army green canvas shirts and pants, that’s all any of us are over here, a bunch of selected numbers – by the D.C. Hawks, we, me included are on pickup duty. It was worse, way worse than scrubbing dirty potatoes and slicing them by hand using our army knife. Way more disgusting! Who in their right mind would volunteer for this kind of essential duty? I have never fully been in my right mind. I used to see a thin- bearded male, the one who I call the heavy-handed clinician. It was he who suggested I complete the many self-assessments, various personality and IQ tests, a whole battery of them. Yet it was also he that strongly suggested I am slightly off my rocker. He threw the clinical psychiatric diagnosis straight in my face. The three connecting words which would define most of the following years to today felt like shell shock. “I believe you have what we in the field call Schizo-affective disorder.” I wondered, what the hell is that? Dr. Cavanaugh went on to explain as if he heard my thoughts. “You have some separation from reality, perhaps because of the effects of trauma or perhaps from your parents’ genes, perhaps a combination of both.” I interrupted his next words. “If that’s the schizo- part, than what does ‘affective’ mean?” He smiled weak and wan and said, “I was getting to that. Affective for you means that you have Bipolar I as opposed-” I was growing uneasy. “As opposed to what, Dr. Cavanaugh?”

“As opposed to Bipolar II,” he finished the sentence. Then he stared at my face searching for a connection with my downcast eyes. The tan rug seemed to swallow me up in my fear.

“Reggie. I will help you overcome this illness if I am able. I will at the very least help you to manage its symptoms.”

“So what are the symptoms?”

“Like I began to say, the schizoid tendencies you seem to have lead you to believe what is false is real and perhaps what is real is false. Your grip on reality is not tight and mostly unshakeable like most people. This may have been caused by the extensive physical, sexual, verbal and other emotional abuse you received as a young child, you told me about, that originated with your family, mostly at the hand of your parents. The Bipolar I also known as manic-depressive illness “mixed states” is a tough one. Sometimes your illness will appear very much like Attention Deficit Disorder or ADHD and sometimes you feel as though you are on the Top of The World – you’ll start many exciting, evocative creative projects but you will get distracted and hardly ever be able to finish anything you have begun; whether a short poem, a story or the lyrics of a love song that Miranda would desperately like to hear, the Siren Song will almost always capture you and unfortunately, destroy the very essence of you; that is, unless you take the prescription for medicine I am writing down for you. Here. Any comments, questions or concerns, Reggie?”

“I don’t know anything about Lithium, or this other one, Navane – what are they exactly?”

“The Lithium is meant to be taken to control your rollercoaster-like mood swings. The Navane will help you to focus on the important things in life; not to be distracted by every enticing offer; to help you have a symptom management tool. Really, that’s all Lithium and Navane the neuroleptic are.”

That was the first time I had heard the word ‘neuroleptic.’ Instead of asking Dr. Cavanaugh its meaning I engendered an educated guess. I thought the “neuro” is defined as the brain like in neurology, the study of the brain. I guessed that –leptic like the word epileptic meant seizure, but I was puzzled as to how a “brain seizure” was going to help me manage or overcome my schizo-affective disorder symptoms.

I was to hear the fateful word Schizoaffective; not only that poisoned idolatrous, highly misunderstood and over used word, but Paranoid Schizophrenic, Narcissicism, BiPolar Classic 1 with psychotic features? Really, what? How can a mental illness, disorder, malady, dysfunction, set of character defects, have to do anything with a good thing like “features?” Who is the crazy one then. Maybe the psychiatric-medicine-prescribing CNP or psychiatrist? Maybe they are the ones who’s has a head that needs to be examined.

No doctor even seemed to pick up on the obvious: I am a survivor of guerilla warfare! I am one paranoid son of a “B”. I crouch at the sudden noises all around me. I hit the spring grown grass lawn or the stony ground so D’m’ed easily I am used to lying down on the job; so used to seeing life from a lower point of view as if I might be a dog. Oh, I am. A war dog, hence the dog tags hanging around my neck. The last ID in the theater, to be picked off so easily just like my war buddy recently killed, stricken to death by a clean shot driven through his young man’s Adam’s apple. !968. A sucky year. The year of my eventual demise. the lost year as I would come to know it as.

1968. The Lost Year in a Lifetime of Years.

My wife thinks I may be crazy, more crazy than the effects of PTSD from motherly neglect and fatherly hitting and punching. Why do you think I went into the army in the first place; it wasn't for my better health. I joined the army to get away from my parents. The only thing is I went deep into a worser situation. I can barely make sense of the war. Why am I here fighting a people I don't understand, who peek in and out of the bushes with a sniper rifle butt. And continually use little girls and boys to blow my buddies to kingdom come. I'm having a hard time acclimating to civililian life. I can't understand beyond the war. So many good guys have died. The whole thing troubles me.The Congs some not so nice guys call em gooks - they're not to blame. We were the invaders, attempting to overtake them in their home territory. They weren't kind. But war is hell: flame throwers, sniper shots to the head, grenade pins dropped unaware. There weren't jet strafing except by the US; but their was warfare on the ground that was nearly matchless. The pain inflicted on the US ground forces was not to be overestimated. The misery of head wounds and exploded limbs unparalleled.

I want Miranda but she is slipping from my grasp. She told me she doesn’t want to deal with my head wounds anymore. I tell her I was never shot in the head. She says, “That’s not what I mean. You are so broken. You can’t even forgive your Mom and Dad. Reggie, they did the best they could. I know you’ve heard that so many times but it’s true. I never meant to cause you harm. They didn’t either. You need to forgive them their inadequacies, for every mistake they ever made raising you, or, I won’t be with you. Your unforgiving attitude of them is a poison I won’t put up with.” I cried, “Miranda, hon’ I will get over the pain. Some day. The war killed me. It killed us.” Miranda faced me then as fully as she could, with enough tears in her eyes, to start a small river. “The war killed us.” The recognition of the fact made my head swim. Tears flowed and I looked over at Zoe who was shaking a plastic rattle while she stood braced up against the side of the foldable crib. “Zoe,” I murmured. I knew Miranda was going to leave me and that she would gain full custody of Zoe was likely too. After all I was a mess. Miranda was the sane one. She had the full time job. She owned the condominium. She paid for our only vehicle, a Ford Aerostar. That she worked as an elementary education instructor meant a lot to me. I earned government disability. It’s true I should be working and taking care of Miranda and Zoe. It is no excuse, well it probably isn’t an excuse, that the Viet Nam War inflicted more than just physical wounds and there were some of those. The psychological wounds were like deafening sounds of machine gun fire.

You aren’t telling me what to think. I have to break out of the bonds I was put in. Maybe I put myself in some of my bonds too. I do feel. Like I blame myself for some of who I am today. I want to lay down and curl myself into a tight ball. I want to sleep throughout the night and into the next day and throughout the night again. I could make a sport of it.

Laughter follows the pain which melts the brain.

Inconsequential doings

Closeted fears as bullets whirr

Don’t touch me there,

It’s my private parts -

Mommy said never let a stranger near.

I don’t know why I am writing this book. I have not published anything of significance yet. This book is mostly nonfiction - memories get garbled, facts get skewed. I cannot start with the beginning though I am tempted to do so. The beginning, my beginning, was so depressing, so oppressive. How can that be? Are not the moments in the womb warm and fuzzy, loving and relaxing? Well, no, not really. My mom and dad were at odds with one another. My mom’s ‘happily ever after’ dream had been smashed by her supposed white knight in shining armor. But that’s the beginning. I want to begin the story somewhere in the middle. The days of personal anguish when a biochemical brain disease was issued forth from the cosmos or God, pulsating throughout an unsuspecting body, with a name, schizoaffective disorder. Ugh.

Climbing stealthily into the gnarled oak tree, branches splayed in several directions I felt like kid superman. My Lois Lane at my side. I may have been six but I knew then that I would love her, the girl next door, for the rest of my life. I wasn’t crazy like Anthony Padua the boy who must have thought he could fly like Superman and jumped from his Dad’s third floor tenement house, a rental he had in South Chicago.

There was almost always something nuts going on in Chicago, even then. The Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred in Chicago. Gangsters littered the streets. A big fire practically burned the whole town down. But Chicago only got worse. The big town became a place I wanted to visit but never live there. Now Shy Town is a place I wouldn’t even want to visit: gunshot soaring through the air, night and day. Kids getting knifed. Bomb threats made good in elementary schools. Just like Gotham City, The Windy City needed a superhero. I am glad that I never moved to Chicago. My parents were as afraid of the big town on the Michigan River just as much as me. Maybe they were afraid for me.

Who will be Chicago’s savior? I decided to start a superhero gym of sorts. I live in Minneapolis, a Minnesotan mid sized town hundreds of miles north of Chicago. I knew Chicago needed superheroes to save its neck or Chicago would be underwater; not only would the city get a bad reputation that it couldn’t live down, no one would want to visit it, its tall skyscrapers, its stock and exchange building, its cool Lake Michigan waters.

“Lois?”

“Clark.”

I reached across a thick branch and touched her arm. “Its about time time to come down, don’t you think?”

“Yeah I suppose.” She smiled toward me and carefully embraced the trunk, sliding part ways down.

The years have gone strongly by. The autumnal leaves dropped from upward tree branches. Icy winters after their own fashion. Springy springs with the first Robin and its delicate light blue eggshell. Summer with the whirring of gluey green grasshoppers and garden toads, green frogs and painted turtles by the reeds and the slimy rocks.

There was the usual. Barbells. Chest strengthener. Chin up stations., even a swimming pool, albeit 10 by 20.

“Miranda, where are you, my love?” “Have I been bad because I lost my temper with you and Zak.”

“Reggie, I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. I love you but from very far away. Don’t follow me. You wouldn’t know where to look anyway. Give up on an Idyllic married life. I can’t let you see the kids. You scare them. You may not mean to but all the same. We’ll love you from a distance. Again don’t chase us down. You won’t easily find us. Good-bye.”

Those are the last words I heard in Miranda’s voice coming from somewhere inside of me; yet, I know those words to be true. I need to get to the gym and workout. I think I hate myself - for what I did to the two kids more than anything else, but also for destroying my already fragile marriage. Vietnam did me no favors.

Even so, Miranda was never to be blamed, not for separating from me after I returned from Vietnam, nor feeling burned out. Mental illness will do that to you.

The devil is Faust’s unwanted friend, drilling holes into his weakening soul.

And Faust lately has been ironically on Miranda’s mind, caught up in the grey edges of her ever titular mind. Maybe because her soon to be ex-husband was lost in the etchings of the Vietnam conflict, that which almost singlehandedly destroyed him. She didn’t know that he is a super hero. He barely knew it himself.

Chicago is not easy for him or for Miranda. His psychiatrist was not easy with Zak either, but that was okay. It had to be okay. Memories of Miranda and more importantly his faith in Christ had to sustain him, empower him to save others. He couldn’t be a super hero not without his faith.

Yet thank God that Miranda left him when she did and left him - left me, where she did. Saint Paul, Minneapolis. The frigid air surrounding me in the late Fall early winter. Before the wintry bitterness sets in for those creatures who desire a longer Fall, less ice and even, less snowfall. To some Minnesota Winters could be equated with the process of dying. I am not extraordinary or am I; yet I long to help, to guide, perhaps even to push people - God’s creatures - into safety, into health.

Miranda left me! Not for another man, but for what she deemed was her sanity. The divorce was messy like a typical divorce, but only because she wanted everything, including sole possession of our kids. I won visitation rights primarily because I had a long history of PTSD coupled with schizoaffective disorder. She plain just did not trust me with our kids, to have close, unsupervised visits. What made me mad was although I wanted to be involved with Daddy daughter events and father son events the court’s decisions fell in her favour.

I wish I could be a great thinker but my brain is mush. Thank God that He still accepts me the way I am, otherwise I don’t know what I would do.

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jcllyhclly-blog · 5 years

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That Friday Feeling: A Study on the Friday the 13th Feature Films – Part 2

“THOSE DAMN ENCHILADAS!”

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V – A NEW BEGINNING

New beginnings eh? Who doesn’t love these. A probability for revitalization and function reborn. The issue with new beginnings is that they typically slip again into previous habits and grow to be a load of false begins and empty guarantees… So, choosing up after the ultimate (undoubtedly not last) chapter, we discover a panicked, Tommy – Feldman – Jarvis watching from behind the timber as a pair of douchebags dig up the grave of Jason f@#king Vorhees. Sure, don’t consider the hype youngsters, this man is completely killable. Like many individuals, Jason wished to be buried with a few of his favorite private gadgets, so when he does awaken, he has his trusty machete and screw driver at hand to nix these two numpties. However simply as you’re starting to query the competence of the Crystal lake funerary providers, the entire scene is revealed to be an enormous fats dream, and sadly, the greatest scene in the entire movie.

Launched in 1985, this flick tries to ship on the arrange at the finish of Part IV, as an older, disturbed Tommy – not Feldman – Jarvis makes his option to a type of midway home for younger adults with psychological well being issues. On this case these psychological well being issues are characterised by an incapability to eat chocolate correctly and pent up rage exorcized by way of the chopping of wooden. Extra regarding is the utter lack of help and supervision provided to those younger adults. That and the incontrovertible fact that resulting from the time leap this movie ought to be set in the early 90s and consequently have a a lot better soundtrack. Think about Jason stalking the freeway with Alice in Chains’ Them Bones enjoying behind him.

However younger adults being what they’re, feelings are extremely charged. However there’s no foreplay or bathe enjoyable for these youngsters. They’re nuts, so the one who makes use of tree surgical procedure to destress, takes his anger out on the one who can’t eat chocolate appropriately by hacking him to items. Everyone seems to be shocked and appalled, particularly some completely random paramedic who appears at the dismembered physique and is particularly talked about by identify – Roy. Everybody could be very unhappy, however life goes on, and meaning sneaking off to the woods for intercourse, a automotive breaking down in the lifeless of night time, and a mom and son pair of farm varieties whose relationship makes Jason & Pam’s appear virtually useful. Amid this can be a killer, his face unseen, together with any of the signature kill results we’ve come to anticipate from this franchise. At first it seems to be the consequence of a tiny finances, however this film was topic to quite a few cuts with a view to adhere to growing censorship. Society (hate these losers) was cottoning on to what their youngsters have been watching, so they only reduce the gore. Alas, horror loving pre-teens of this period weren’t saved, simply disillusioned. So most of the victims are killed off digital camera or with sudden cutaways, interceded with a stunning musical second that includes celebration fiend rocker Spider from Return of the Dwelling Lifeless, ingeniously repackaged right here as get together fiend rocker Demon.

Woven by means of all of that is karate grasp Tommy Jarvis, restrained by PTSD, and simply perhaps, the man behind the masks this time. Hallucinations of Jason are rife, and whispers of his return are debated and dismissed, not least of all by the native police drive. The issue is that Tommy’s tease as the subsequent Jason by no means feels prefer it’s acquired the balls to commit. It’s by no means a real menace to return true, or a believable pink herring. And when the killer is revealed as Roy you assume… who the f$£okay is Roy!!!! And then you definitely keep in mind, he was the shook-up paramedic, additional revealed to be the father of the severed annoyance from earlier.

An web session on this movie revealed a GQ article that declares this ‘the bloodiest and most deranged’ of all Friday the 13th films, an arguably half proper assertion that betrays its click on bait headline by going on to speak about how shite the movie is. It has its apologists and its die-hard followers, and that’s high quality, however for me this movie is the first actual let down in the franchise for making an attempt to be what it’s not and by no means having the braveness to really comply with by way of on its concepts. And once we get the remaining scene through which Tommy does go full Jason on us, it’s a bait and change too far. Sorry Tommy lad, that masks simply don’t suit you no extra.

“I’VE SEEN ENOUGH HORROR MOVIES TO KNOW ANY WEIRDO WEARING A MASK IS NEVER FRIENDLY”

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI – JASON LIVES

1986 was an easier time. Telephones have been one thing you had in your hallway, a spoiler belonged in your automotive, and it was accepted science that the lifeless might be reanimated with a primary mixture of corpse, fencing, and well-timed lightning.

Tommy Jarvis performed right here by the love baby of Morrissey and Physician Who’s Matt Smith, has escaped from a psychological establishment and excessive tailed it to the cemetery silly sufficient to intern Jason Vorhees. No point out is made from his earlier incarnation as Jason’s inheritor obvious. This Tommy has come to Forest Inexperienced (previously Camp Crystal Lake) to cremate Jason, proving to himself that he’s lifeless and hopefully halting his PTSD in its tracks. However Tommy continues to be unhinged; he’s taken the bloody masks with him (prime marks to the therapists who let him hold it and carry it round for a number of years) and after a second of panic stabs a suitably unfastened piece of the cemetery fence into Jason’s physique. A freak lighting storm all of a sudden facilitates the resurrection of our favorite Mama’s boy and the rampage is free to renew. Whereas it’s been hinted at earlier than, Jason is now 100% supernatural. Reality and science in good concord. Don’t wrestle with it, simply take pleasure in it. This film needs us to overlook the final. There’s no point out of the Jason imposter and Tommy might as nicely have jumped from the last chapter to this instalment, albeit by way of some bizarre time dilation and doubtful remedy.

This movie is immediate enjoyable. Jason continues to be the environment friendly, kill loopy brute we’ve come to adore, however he has a sort of nonchalance about him. After offing Tommy’s pal with a punch to the coronary heart, he then advances to the man who killed Patrick Swayze in Ghost, his girlfriend, and a bunch of company paint ballers. Alongside the method he fairly actually instruments up, turning into a Jason that’s much less ‘on the fly’ than we’ve seen up to now. We get numerous photographs of him striding purposefully via the woods, his gait half wrestling entrance, half ‘can’t consider I misplaced my automotive keys and should stroll all the method residence.’

In the meantime, graveyard pest Tommy Jarvis is locked up by the Sheriff, performed right here by the love baby of Tim Curry and Tom Selleck’s moustache, and his daughter Megan simply occurs to be the signature blonde amongst this yr’s crop of camp cadavers in ready. For the first time in any of those films we truly see some actions happening at camp involving the presence of precise youngsters. However this ain’t no nunnery, and there’s ample time for frolics, chicanery and a few intercourse whereas dancing/dancing throughout intercourse that even Crispin Glover would have a tough time with. Naturally any pants off dance off culminates in demise by murdering, and as the preposterously named Cort (extra on sufferer identify decisions a lot a lot later) and his woman are deaded, we’re handled to the actual cash shot on this sequence, Jason Vorhees atop a flaming camper van. Now that’s metallic kidz!

The invention of their our bodies leads Sheriff Magnum Pennywise to, fairly naturally, place blame upon the squirrely younger Jarvis, and he heads off to camp to get his man. Jason, now assumed to be little greater than an city fable, is already there. He’s packing all types of man instruments and wishes some youth to work them out on. The movie stops in need of any precise youngster victims, most logically as a result of there’s no want, however I did marvel if maybe someplace in the central characters by means of line, was a way that each one youngsters are harmless till corrupted by the sins of intercourse and tenting. Sheriff Frank N. Quigley will get whopper deaded, simply as Megan and Tommy arrive in the nick of time. A host of youngsters watch on as Tommy enacts his genius plan, luring Jason into the lake to be able to return him to the watery tomb from whence he sprang. Evidently emotional recall is one thing Jason does remarkably nicely, and he forgoes a recreation of disguise the machete with Megan in favour of a lake tussle with Tommy. However metaphysical may and the spur of vengeance will not be sufficient, and between them Tommy and Megan are capable of thwart Jason with the boat motor and chain the poor bastard to the backside of Crystal lake. House time for the J-bird.

Very similar to A New Starting, Jason Lives tends to tug its punches with the demise scenes, however one factor it’s by no means lower than, is enjoyable. From the James Bond type credit score sequence, to the nods to horror icons, proper as much as the little woman tucked up in mattress with the works of Jean Paul Sartre, everybody concerned on this film is having a great time. The result’s one among the greatest films in the franchise. The movie makers have embraced the preposterousness of their protagonist and provided up a zombie workhorse, killing as a lot for our leisure as his personal and making us snicker alongside the approach with out ever dropping sight of the horror. Jason Lives… you guess your ass he does! Why would you need it some other approach?

“THERE’S A LEGEND ROUND HERE. A KILLER BURIED, BUT NOT DEAD. A CURSE ON CRYSTAL LAKE. A DEATH CURSE. JASON VOORHEES’S CURSE”

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII – THE NEW BLOOD

This can be a franchise that likes to open every instalment with a great recap, however for the first time we get an precise voice over as we skip by means of the exploits of Tommy Jarvis and his irrepressible nemesis, now chained to the backside of Crystal Lake. Jason, whether or not dormant, lifeless or simply plain chillin’, is unaware of the plight of younger Tina Shepherd who has fled her lakeside residence as a consequence of her father’s alcohol fuelled abuse towards her mom. As is usually the case with latent telekinesis, it takes trauma to unlock it. Her psychic powers not solely plunge her father right into a watery grave however serve to free our boy from his aqueous shackles.

Years later and teenage Tina is on her solution to Scanners Camp at her previous home, the place devious psychiatrist Dr. Crews has arrange a set of exams for Tina to endure in the hope of unlocking her potential to, I don’t know, make issues float and wot not. Forgetting for a second the proven fact that this shit-house is performed by the most hilarious corpse of the 1980s (Weekend at Bernie’s very personal Bernie) there’s the disturbing difficulty of the timeline to deal with. It’s so completely throughout the store that I place this film at round 2036. I’d cease to work it out correctly however much more inexplicable is Tina’s mom’s hair. Evidently most of the price range went on hairspray so I’m not anticipating a lot in the means of A star kills. In the meantime, a bunch of intercourse crazed whacky teenagers are ready for his or her chum Michael to reach, to allow them to throw him a shock birthday bash. (*spoiler – Michael ain’t coming. Michael’s deeeeaaaaad)

Tina finally ends up mixing with these mismatched buffoons, particularly double denim Proto-form Henry Cavill. There’s the potential for love right here however uber bitch Melissa is intent on stirring issues up by being a gosh darn flirt. All the whereas Jason makes his strategy to camp, Dr. Crews is pushing Tina to her limits and she or he’s having visions of some lunatic in a hockey masks killing our plucky get together peeps. Naturally he does simply that, by way of some face crushing, axe smashing, and sickle thrashing. Tina & Proto-Tom Brady go off looking for her mom, who has met her demise in the type of a human defend, cannily wielded by Dr. Crews to evade Mr. Vorhees. His scheming involves a swift finish as Jason slices him up good with a pole chainsaw (no I’ve by no means heard of them both, however that’s what they’re referred to as!)

With most of the teenagers now lifeless, it’s right down to Tina and Levi’s to fend off Jason, if solely Melissa would cease being a bitch lengthy sufficient for them to assume straight. Then, as if by some divine windfall, Melissa ignores all their warnings about the madman outdoors and opens the entrance door. What follows is probably my favorite kill in the whole collection and positively the greatest gif ever. Jason actually again palms her, however with an axe, and launches her throughout the room with dismissive disdain on a Trumpian degree. The following battle goes full into supernatural, virtually comedian e-book stylings. Tina unleashes her energy to firstly use Jason’s masks to attempt to crush his face, then to set the home ablaze and convey it down round him. Not fairly getting the outcomes she’d hoped for, she fairly logically conjures her lifeless dad’s ghost who, candy irony, drags Jason again to the backside of the lake and chains him up as soon as extra. There isn’t a re-emergence, no twist, only a hand pulling Jason’s masks from the wreckage. Drowned however not forgotten… once more.

Two issues about this chapter – the injection of supernatural powers beset all the slasher franchises of the time, from Freddy’s child to the Myers Cult of Thorn. Drawback was, they by no means actually slot in with their central killers’ unique storylines, at the very least not for me. However with Jason it appears to land as a result of his outrageousness has been a sluggish burn. Earned, not pressured. And lastly, at the time of writing I found that Mandy director Panos Cosmatos instructed Nic Cage to observe The New Blood, particularly to review Kane Hodder’s portrayal of Jason. If that isn’t the coolest factor you’ve heard all day, permit your thoughts to wander, as mine did, to a actuality the place Nic Cage stars in a Friday the 13th reboot, not as Jason, however as Pamela Vorhees. You’re welcome.

“JASON IS HERE… IN NEW YORK!!!”

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII – JASON TAKES MANHATTAN

Jason Takes Manhattan, or Jason Goes A-Cruisin’ opens badly. Harry Manfredini’s soundtrack is gone, changed by the ubiquitous eighties rock ballad, the lyrics to which spell out what we’re taking a look at. I’ve a hunch that this tableau of debauchery is setting Pamela’s boy up as some type of social cleanser, however we’ll see. Minimize to Crystal Lake, previously Camp Blood, Forest no matter and again to Crystal Lake the place there are attractive shenanigans occurring… on a yacht! Who sails a yacht down a haunted lake? Coitus crazed juveniles that’s who! We get our obscure recap in the type of a tall story about Jason’s origin, proven by way of a crude flashback of a drowning youngster freed from deformity.

This curly mopped stripling drops anchor then returns in full Jason garb to frighten the piss out of his beau. Down at the backside of the lake, we discover Jason cannily sandwiched between a wall and big electrical cable the place the anchor one way or the other manages to displace the cable and blammo, science does its thang, and he’s again to it.

Fortunate for our erstwhile camp scourge this child obtained a masks identical to his previous one. Even cleaved a piece out the prime. As he ascends, we discover the basic ‘Ki Ki Ki, Ma Ma Ma’ changed with a crude ‘Ja Ja, Son Son.’ Truthful sufficient often because after seven movies I’d virtually forgotten his f***ing identify!

Jason despatches the boyfriend then heads out on deck to catch the evasive girlfriend, who’s actually the most helpless lady in horror film historical past.

Reduce to a ship referred to as the Lazarus, which isn’t solely an apt biblical reference however a freakin’ get together boat heading straight to the Massive Apple! This quickly to be corpse riddled cruise liner is replete with guitar solos, a scholar named Rennie who’s beset by some method of preternatural situation, in addition to some cocaine and a dickhead head instructor/Rennie’s Uncle, performed by a man who’ll have you ever considering ‘what’s he from?’ till Google tells you ‘Everything!’

After some boxing, seduction and selfmade Headbangers Ball movies, Rennie falls overboard and is seemingly accosted by the imaginative and prescient of the drowning boy Jason. This child seems to be so uninspiring that not even the most ardent collector needs an motion determine of this little prick. He’s not MY Jason! However in the subsequent scene the visions decide up and abruptly he’s deformed. An sudden aspect impact of drowning or a director who misunderstood the originals? Who is aware of, however we do get a Loopy Ralph sort character who works as a deck hand and warns of all types of crap that’s about to go down. As a result of – you guessed it – budgetary constraints, most of this flick is confined to the ship, so we get some mildly progressive kills like a flying V guitar to the face, scorching coal c-section, and a fairly visceral utility of a shattered mirror provides us Jason’s Norman Bates (ish) second. Quickly after Rennie is visited by Jason’s writhing youngster spirit, begging to be put down, determined for the peaceable slumber of a real demise, free of matriarchal torment, well timed electrical currents and the restorative energy of lakes.

Jason ain’t dicking round anymore and units his sights on Rennie, Uncle Instructor and no matter shambles she calls buddies are nonetheless clinging on to life. However ships being what they’re, our heroes seize just a little boat and row to New York Metropolis, the place they’re immediately mugged, and Rennie is kidnapped by the sort of miscreants we met in the credit. Jason arrives forthwith and wastes no occasions laying the smackdown on the metropolis that by no means sleeps… or has any police judging by this movie. He wastes the junkie kidnappers with an virtually heroic swagger, then will get right into a spherical of Mortal Kombat with the boxer good friend. It’s a demise you’ll see coming however end up compelled to applaud. Remembering the supply of her trauma, we flashback to a exceptional act of cruelty perpetrated by Uncle Bastard. Appears that years in the past he took Rennie out on Crystal lake for a recreation of sink or swim, Vorhees type. However he’s shortly drowned in a vat of goop, so balls to that man.

A scorching pursuit by way of a subway cart ends with Jason tackled onto the monitor and killed by… electrical present? What the Flip? Nicely, you realize what they are saying, that which revives you finally does you in… or one thing. Our heroes emerge in Occasions Sq. swiftly pursued by JV (thank heavens, for a minute there I used to be doubting all I find out about trendy science) so Rennie and The Man peg it to the sewer (as you do) the place a well timed encounter with a drainage attendant reveals a sudden circulate of poisonous waste is because of churn proper down this manner, any second now. Rennie takes the goo for a check drive by hurling a vat of it in Jason’s face.

Naturally, it melts half his face off and he’s henceforth drowned in the oncoming deluge of white-hot crud. However not earlier than reforming right into a baffling picture of the boy Jason, minus deformity. Significantly, wasn’t he a toddler monster to start with? And so, we finish with our couple on the streets of New York, and one other canine I couldn’t be arsed to say earlier (see Part 2). Whereas this movie is an undoubted mess, it does have its allure, primarily right down to Kane Hodder’s reprisal of Jason as a no bullshit beast, primarily involved with ruining teen enjoyable. And if meaning murdering ever single individual he sees, then who am I to argue. I’m simply unhappy he didn’t get to see extra of the sights.

NEXT – HELL, X, FREDDY AND REBOOT

The post That Friday Feeling: A Study on the Friday the 13th Feature Films – Part 2 appeared first on We Watch Together.

#Feature Article #Friday The 13th #Movies

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morningrainmusic · 5 years

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Top 25 Albums of 2018

These are the top twenty-five albums (and one EP) of the year. See you in 2019. Best, MorningRainMusic.tumblr.com

25. MGMT – Little Dark Age Little Dark Age is the album in which MGMT wised up to the fact that they can experiment with their sound while not completely alienating their fans. I expect the evolution of this band will continue to be fascinating. Complaints/criticisms should be taken up with goth Andre Van Wyngarden.

24. Jeff Rosenstock – POST- Good old-fashioned American punk rock in another frustration-filled year in the U.S. of A. Few people can make righteous anger sound as fun as Rosenstock. We’re gonna need more in 2019, Jeff.

23. Jon Hopkins – Singularity Likely Hopkins’ best work yet, Singularity is a monster of an electronic album without the monstrously tired trappings of EDM. Of course, this is the arena Hopkins has been working in most of his career, building sonic worlds of mesmerizing beauty.

22. Amanda Shires – To the Sunset The opening track to Amanda Shires’ eighth album is a statement. Shires is a classically trained violinist who plays with Jason Isbell (to whom she is married) and is still firmly rooted in the Americana/folk scene. To the Sunset is a sea change for Shires and “Parking Lot Pirouette” is the coming out party. While it’s not exactly a pop record, it’s damn close. “Leave it Alone” could soundtrack a 90s rom-com starring Meg Ryan. The country undertones linger here and there, but they are typically buried beneath Shires’ stunning voice and Dave Cobb’s slick production. There’s an unexpected and brutal final line of album closer, “Wasn’t I Paying Attention” that fits into the country-western tradition, but otherwise by the end you might forget she’s a country/folk artist at all.

21. Pusha T – Daytona / Kanye West – ye Yes, this is a cheat. But at seven tracks each and just under forty-five minutes combined, it seemed appropriate to lump Daytona and ye together. The marriage of Kanye and Pusha T in 2018 proved a very successful one. Daytona showcases Pusha T’s impressive rhyming ability and penchant for controversy (see the album cover depicting Whitney Houston’s drug paraphernalia-litterd bathroom, which Kanye paid $85,000 to license). Ye was not particularly well-received by critics, and it certainly has its flaws. But its highs are high, reminding us why it’s hard to hate Kanye, even at a time when most everything else he does makes us want to.

20. Kurt Vile – Bottle It In As he states plainly on “One Trick Ponies,” Kurt Vile has always had a soft spot for repetition. He’s made long albums before, but at an hour and eighteen minutes, Bottle It In is his longest album yet. It meanders A LOT, but this is prime Kurt. From the everyday, small town highs of “Loading Zones” to the amphetamine-taking rocker-on-the-road swagger of “Check Baby,” this record delivers the goods. Of course there’s also the ultra-chill side of KV here, like the almost ten minute long day-in-the-life tune, “Backasswards” and the title track which employs harpist Mary Lattimore as well as some saxophone, slightly calling to mind “Under the Pressure” by Kurt’s old band. If he continues making records this good, Mr. Vile can repeat himself as much as his heart desires.

19. Lucy Dacus – Historian Lucy Dacus is only 23 years old and she’s already proven herself one of the best lyricists alive. The biting, shame-offensive “Strange Torpedo” from her 2016 debut contains witty lyrics and begs to be sung along with. Dacus’ Matador-released follow up, Historian, is more explicitly personal, epic, and all around exciting. And while this record is full of stick-in-your-head lyrics, they are complimented by Dacus’ genuinely impressive guitar-shredding and beautiful voice. She could sing the phone book and it would likely make for a half a decent song.

18. Wooden Shjips – V. While Sleep was receiving heaps of critical praise for their doom metal, weed-worshipping comeback record, The Sciences, the best stoner album of the year was a much more lowkey, hazily psychedelic affair. Wooden Shjips’ V. is a warm, echo-laden, bliss-trip with plenty of jammy excursions and thick, Nuggets-era guitar riffs. It’s one of those rare albums that is equally suited for active and passive listening—one can get as much from it by really digging in with a pair of good headphones as playing two thirds in the car whilst the mind wanders back and forth from daydreaming to attentively consuming the music. Most self-respecting musicians would understandably take issue with that comment—did I just describe wallpaper muzak? Not at all. This is a pivotal function of many great psychedelic rock records: the ability to pull the listener in, then facilitate his slow drift away, only to bring him back a few minutes later. It is an ebb and flow Wooden Shjips achieve masterfully. In his review of the album, Stereogum’s Tom Breihan mentions his wife walking in on him listening to “Golden Flower” and describing what she heard as sounding like “Phish covering Third Eye Blind.” This fairly accurate description of the song will send some running for the hills. I’m not much of a Phish phan, but the thought of hearing Trey & co’s take on a late-90s pop-rock masterpiece sounds pretty damn great to me. In a numbingly turbulent year, V. was possibly the perfect soundtrack to turn on, tune in, and drop out to.

17. Pinegrove – Skylight As is the case with so much art (more and more in the past few years), it is impossible to remove the latest Pinegrove record from the context of its primary creator’s personal life, which is…complicated, to put it mildly. A couple years ago when Pinegrove put out their phenomenal (and overlooked by this blog) sophomore album, Cardinal, they were probably the last band anyone thought would garner controversy of any kind. An alt-country/emo band from Montclair, New Jersey, they quickly built up a fervent fan base that calls themselves Pinenuts (yes, actually). Then all this happened. Though it was almost completely finished before that all went down, whatever it was….some of the lyrics on Skylight seem to reference it—take a close listen to “Rings.” In any case, this is a powerful, introspective, and really just classic Pinegrove album. I hope everyone is okay, and I’m glad the band lives on.

16. Miya Folick – Premonitions Like a handful of artists on this list, Miya Folick came out of nowhere for me. This is part of what makes this list so exciting—the musicians who put out stellar debut albums and those that have been around a little while, but I just recently became aware of them. Cardi B and Miya Folick are the only artists here with debut LP’s. They are radically different stylistically, but they are similarly electric, get-up-and-move albums. Premonitions probably doesn’t qualify as a “party record” in the traditional sense but songs like “Cost Your Love” demand body movement. Pair this pop sensibility with Folick’s wide-ranging, Fiona Apple-eqsue vocals and you’ve got a star in the making.

15. Camp Cope – How To Socialise & Make Friends “The Opener,” which is fittingly the opening track of Australian indie rock outfit Camp Cope’s second album, is quite possibly the most powerful and effective protest song of 2018. Through sarcasm and a scorching vocal performance, front-woman Georgia Maq eviscerates the toxic men who work in music and make life for women like the members of Camp Cope that much more difficult. “Tell me again how there just aren’t that many girls in the music scene” Maq shouts, addressing frustrations and injustices that are largely unique to women and reach far beyond music/entertainment. It is a vital statement of a song and perhaps more important to get its message across, it rocks. The album pivots, offering more balladic personal narratives—“The Face Of God” addresses a sexual assault, “The Omen” is an ode to a lifelong love, and “I’ve Got You” is a heartbreaking acoustic number about a parent dying of cancer. It’s a heavy, cathartic record that establishes Camp Cope as an indie force.

14. Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer What’s left to say about Josh Tillman? The man who captured our hearts by dropping out of Fleet Foxes, showing off his moves on Letterman, and putting out a pair of weird, wonderful albums was due for a course correction in 2018. Yes, many consider Pure Comedy a triumph, but really it was a highly uneven, bloated, self-absorbed mess. Tillman, someone who used to poke fun at the type of self-serious people who are so preoccupied by “man’s role in the universe,” had gone and made an album about just that. God’s Favorite Customer is a return to form. Sort of sad, but it apparently took a serious shakeup in his marriage for this sarcastic goofball to get back to doing what he does best: crafting beautiful melodies and singing nutso, often darkly funny lines with conviction and the voice of an angel. (Example: “Last night I wrote a poem / Man, I must have been in the poem zone”).

13. John Prine – The Tree of Forgiveness Want to attain enlightenment? Don’t bother meditating or balancing your chakras. Instead, try living seventy-odd years with a fraction of the honesty, humility, and warm resignation that the old master shows on this record. When you come up with a single joke as hilarious and subtle as the beginning of “Boundless Love” you will have achieved your goal, probably. -Alex Seraphin, blog contributor

12. Lala Lala – The Lamb Lillie West aka Lala Lala is a London-born, Chicago-based musician making slightly dark, reverb-laden songs that would leave you feeling as cold as she looks on the cover, if it weren’t for how catchy and propulsive they are. Painful, celebratory, aggressive, and raw, The Lamb is like a classic punk album that isn’t actually punk. It’s like if Youth Lagoon and Bikini Kill had a lovechild, only way better than that sounds.

11. Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog Philadelphia mainstays, Hop Along dabble in grunge, folk-rock, emo (yes, a little), punk, and power pop in their boldest and most consistent album yet. I don’t have much else to say except this is a great band more people should be paying attention to.

10. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus – boygenius This list is traditionally strictly for full-length albums, but an exception had to be made for boygenius, a six song EP by three of the best songwriters working today. Forget all the hubbub about this being the “egoless supergroup of your indie rock dreams” and the album art’s similarity to Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1969 debut. What matters is the music, and the music here is untouchable. Each song showcases Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus’ individual strengths and when put together they are far greater than the sum of their parts.

9. Remember Sports – Up From Below Anybody remember Sports from Gambier, Ohio? They are now Remember Sports (thanks a lot, lesser Sports) but they are still making scrappy, lovelorn, pop punk. Lots of earworms here, Up From Below is upbeat, fun, sad, angry, and awesome. Do not forget Remember Sports.

8. Parquet Courts – Wide Awake! “We are conductors of sound, heat, and energy And I bet that you thought you had us figured out from the start”

Thus begins “Total Football” and Parquet Courts sixth album, Wide Awake! Indeed, Parquet Courts is a band impossible to pin down—anybody who claims to have them figured out is either a liar or a fool. In twenty-five years when we look back at rock music of the 2010s, Parquet Courts will likely stand out as the most adventurous, philosophical, and downright compelling of the pack. And fuck Tom Brady.

7. Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy Shortly after the release of Invasion of Privacy, Top Dawg Entertainment president Punch tweeted “Cardi B is 2pac,” prompting an impassioned debate on social media. In most ways, it’s a boneheaded comparison that undercuts 2Pac’s body of work, socially conscientious lyrics, and overall contribution to the evolution of rap. However, I can’t help agreeing with the connection in other respects—Cardi has a contagious charisma, charm, rawness, and unpredictability similar to 2Pac. Her meteoric ascent in 2018 was impossible to ignore and she has already cemented herself as a powerful voice in hip-hop. But what made Invasion of Privacy an unavoidable smash hit this year is not Cardi B’s similarity to past rap legends, affiliation with other rap stars, or her stripper-turned-reality-start-turned-rapper Cinderalla story. It’s Cardi B herself. She’s not the next Pac, Lil Kim, Missy Elliott, take your pick. She’s the first Cardi B.

6. Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel Get the fuck out of the way—Courtney Barnett has arrived. Gone is the promising Australian upstart/indie darling with witty one-liners. The woman who replaced her is a full-fledged rock star, ready to shred her way to the top. She’ll locate your inner most lecherous and rip it out carefully.

5. Joey Purp – QUARTERTHING I’m told that the amount of great rap coming out of Chicago is mind-blowing. A quick glance at this list should give you sense of how rap is not one of my favorite genres, so I won’t pretend it is. However, I still listen to some rap, and QUARTERTHING rose above the Playboy Cartis, Travis Scotts, and Kids Seeing Ghosts of 2018. Purp’s talent is undeniable and no other rapper can go toe to toe with contemporaries like Chance The Rapper (“24k Gold/Sanctified”), Brockhampton (“Elastic”), and Sheck Wes (“Paint Thinner”). Joey Purp is rap’s next big thing.

4. Mitski – Be The Cowboy “Be the cowboy you want to see in the world” is an expression of Mitski Miyawaki’s that embodies confidence, unapologetic individualism, and freedom. In some ways, it’s a nice companion piece to the next album on this list. Mitski has given us a collection of infectious pop songs that embrace the joy, pain, ecstasy, and sorrow of being alive. Be The Cowboy is a whirlwind of fourteen songs, only two over three minutes long, that leaves you feeling high and low, but ready to grab the bull by the horns in your ten-gallon hat and make them remember your name.

3. Amen Dunes – Freedom I didn’t know Amen Dunes from Adam before Freedom. Before hearing a single note, a friend described Damon McMahon’s vocal delivery as similar to Van Morrison’s, stutter-scatting his way through sonic slipstreams and lush synthesizers. Perhaps there’s a spiritual connection to be found between Van and McMahon, but for the most part Freedom is something entirely fresh. “This is your time, their time is done” a child proclaims on the intro track, and these words ring true on every song that follows. Of his influences for the album, McMahon said: “I realized that for me to do my job well, I need to put myself out there. I was listening to a lot of good mainstream music too. I wasn’t listening to mainstream like Miley Cyrus, but the Michelangelos of pop. So, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, and so on. They have the best melodies, the best rhythms and the best songs.” Freedom is the sound of a man finding peace and allowing himself to make the most accessible record he’s capable of making. This is an ambitious pop album—but not the showy, staggeringly ambitious type, rather it is quietly stunning. It will floor you in its transcendent subtlety.

2. Nap Eyes – I’m Bad Now I’m Bad Now is a tongue-in-cheek album title for a band comprised of four soft-spoken dudes from Nova Scotia who love Yo La Tengo and The Velvet Underground. More likely a reference to children’s schoolyard pronunciation of switching sides from good to bad, I’m Bad Now contains very little in the way of meanness or cruelty, save for the kiss-off chorus on “I’m Bad” that concludes “which is amazing because you’re so dumb.” Rather, what Nap Eyes have made here is a smart, funny, strange existential odyssey that mines everything from the monotony of “the nine to fives and five to nines” (“Judgment”) to spiritual blindness and religious questioning (“White Disciple”), a song that would make George Harrison proud. “Your life is pointless unless it sets you free” sings Nigel Chapman sounding like a guru Lou Reed. It’s heady stuff accented by filthy guitar solos and brilliant songwriting. Do not sleep on the Nap Eyes.

1. Bonny Doon – Longwave For a short while Longwave felt like the wrong pick for best album of the year. It’s a record I came upon via the ardent recommendation of Katie Crutchfield (aka Waxahatchee) and while it is incredibly pleasant, warm, and enjoyable, it is nothing groundbreaking or seemingly capital “i” important. No matter. Longwave, recorded in northern Michigan by four unassuming guys from Detroit, is a collection of songs that soothe the soul. It gently reminds us of the failings of our hearts and minds (“I should be happy/but I’m not”) and it reassures us that things haven’t worked out quite as badly as we sometimes think (“you are who you’re supposed to be”). This album did not shake up the landscape of music in 2018 or top other lists on the web or even rack up more than a few hundred thousand streams on Spotify (to put that in perspective Cardi B’s “I Like It” is sitting pretty at 6.5 million). But this record already feels timeless. Every single song on Longwave is damn near perfect. Honorable mentions: Khraungbin – Con Todo El Mundo Against All Logic (A.A.L.) – 2012-2017 Foxing – Nearer My God Retirement Party – Somewhat Literate Superchunk – What a Time To Be Alive

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