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clumsyclifford · 3 years

Note

hello bella’s ask box it’s been a min damn.

so the vibes are fucking everywhere w the music in the lab today so i’ve mostly been ignoring it but then unforgettable by thomas rhett started playing and my brain was immediately like This Is a Fic Song

more importantly it is a Bella Fic Song

last time you not so subtly wanted me to prompt u w w thomas rhett song you told me to do that here so i am back again w another song from ur boy

okay i def snuck out just to send this so i gotta go now but this felt important laksdjdld

ok ily bye 💛

hi sam :)

so.................... i was stuck on what to write you for your birthday fic. you sent me this ask prompting me with a thomas rhett song that i had literally been meaning to write a fic based on for almost a full year. the puzzle pieces just aligned REALLY nicely on this one.

happy birthday, my love. there's gonna be a LOT more sappy shit in the ao3 notes, but please know that my life is irreversibly changed for the better because i met you. i am dangerous close to sounding like glinda from wicked and i really want you to get to READ this fic so please see ao3 for more schmaltz. i love you so much.

tw for alcohol

read here on ao3

Every life has a moment that imprints on memory like ink on a fresh page. The kind of moment that permanently alters the trajectory of that life, that marks the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. Some people are lucky enough to have more than one. Some people’s minds are laden with crystallized memories. But there’s always at least one. One completely unforgettable moment.

For Jack, this moment happens twenty-four minutes after he enters the club.

Twenty-three minutes after he enters the club, Zack returns with his and Jack's second beers and says, "There's some guy at the bar who's totally your type."

"Yeah?" Jack cranes his neck, but he can't quite see the bar from where he is. "My type how? Not just 'lonely and drunk,' right? My standards have gotten higher, you know."

Zack hands Jack his beer. "He's cute and he's wearing a One Direction shirt, and I'm pretty sure he's drinking a margarita.”

"Oh shit," Jack says. "That checks all my boxes."

"I know it does," says Zack, winner of the Wingman Of The Decade award. He claps Jack on the shoulder. Jack sidesteps people until he gets eyes on the bar and scans for a cute guy in a One Direction shirt drinking a margarita.

Twenty-four minutes after Jack enters the bar, he sees Alex.

And everything changes forever.

"Woah," Jack says. His gut is feeling weird and it’s probably unrelated to the beer and a half under his belt.

"What?"

"The guy at the bar," Jack says, grabbing Zack's arm. "Zack. You grossly undersold my future husband to me."

"Your future husband?" Zack sounds amused, but Jack isn't kidding.

"Remember this moment," he says seriously, giving Zack a sloppy pat on the bicep before moving away from him, towards the bar, towards the cute guy with the One Direction shirt who's making Jack understand clairvoyance. "Remember this so you can tell the story at our wedding!"

"Your wedding," Zack repeats.

"Our fucking wedding!" Jack insists, more loudly as space and drunk people fill the growing gap between him and Zack. Zack just gives him a good-luck-and-godspeed wave.

Seconds later, Jack is at the bar.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

The cute guy in question looks up, surprised. Jack practically reels. It's a miracle people aren't flocking to this guy; he's not just cute, he's gorgeous. Bleach-blond hair — clearly from a bottle, which somehow Jack finds more attractive — flops over his forehead in a stubborn commitment to the emo fringe that died out a decade ago, and long lashes frame brown eyes that rival the glossy chestnut color of the bar. Add the five o'clock shadow and the sharply angled jaw and Jack's speechless.

Fortunately it's not his turn to speak. "I have a drink," says the guy, who is rapidly progressing from Cute Guy At Bar to Possible Soulmate At Bar. He quirks a smile. Jack's done for. "I'll buy you a drink, though."

Jack sets his partially-drunk beer on the bar top and slides it as far as he can reach. "Okay," he says.

Possible Soulmate laughs. He slides his margarita away from him, too, pushing it into the space of another person sitting down the bar. "Touché. Okay, you can buy me a drink."

"Well, hey, I don't want you to waste yours," Jack says reasonably. He retrieves his beer and then Possible Soulmate's drink. "I'll get the next one."

Possible Soulmate smiles. Jack is going to need his name eventually. "I appreciate your commitment to environmentally-friendly consumption of alcohol."

Jack blinks. "Yeah," he says. "That was a lot of big words, but sure. No problem. I'm Jack, by the way."

"Alex." Alex. Jack can see the wedding invites now.

"Nice to meet you," Jack says. "I like your shirt."

Alex glances down out of instinct as the wide collar of the shirt slips over his shoulder. "Thanks," he says with a chuckle, and looks up at Jack. "I like yours."

With great effort, Jack tears his gaze from Alex's shoulder and the hint of collarbone peeking out, but he would like it on the record that it is tremendously difficult. Fortunately he already knows what shirt he's wearing because he'd agonized over it for several minutes longer than Zack's patience ran, shortly before going out.

"Yeah, Kurt Cobain," he says, nodding with probably too much enthusiasm. "I'm a lead singer guy."

"Really?" Alex tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"

"I go for the lead singer types," Jack explains. "Kurt Cobain, Billie Joe Armstrong, you know." He nods at Alex's shirt. "Harry Styles."

"Harry Styles wasn't—" Alex breaks off and snorts. "Eh, whatever. Who cares."

"Wait," Jack says. "Hold the phone. Did you fucking cross out Zayn's face?"

Alex looks down at his shirt again like maybe he'll have forgotten what it looks like. "Oh, my friend did that. But now the shirt is factually accurate."

"If you wanted an accurate shirt you'd have to cross them all out since none of them are in the band anymore," Jack observes.

Alex slowly smiles. "I guess."

"I always liked Zayn," Jack says wistfully. "His solo shit is so good, though."

"It's good," Alex says, kind of in the tone of voice of someone who doesn't really agree but doesn't want to get into it, so Jack leaves it be. They can poll their wedding guests. "I'm really digging Niall's solo shit."

"That's an extremely acceptable answer," Jack says, nodding vigorously. In the moment it slips his mind that he's holding a beer and the liquid begins to slosh out of its container. "Oh shit, fuck, sorry."

"Didn't get me," Alex says, passing Jack a napkin. "Couple too many, I get it."

"What?" Jack is very focused on drying his hands so they don't get sticky and gross. "I'm not drunk."

Alex laughs. "Yeah, right."

"I'm not!"

"Okay," Alex says lightly, but it's clear he doesn't believe Jack. On the bright side, he doesn't seem bothered by it.

"I am acceptably drunk for a guy in his mid-twenties at a club,” Jack amends. "And you owe me a drink anyway."

"Hey, I intend to buy you that drink," Alex says earnestly. "Another beer?"

Jack shakes his head. "Vodka soda," he says. "It's a special occasion."

"Really! You celebrating something?"

"I am now," Jack says. "Celebrating meeting my future husband."

"Your future husband?"

"You," Jack says, in case it wasn't clear. "It's not every day you meet the man you're gonna marry. I think it calls for a celebratory vodka soda."

Alex stares, obviously expecting Jack to say sike! When Jack does no such thing, he gives a small, incredulous laugh.

"Fair enough," he says. He sounds like he's humoring Jack. That's okay. Jack is serious, but Alex will figure that out on his own time. "I guess you're not wrong. That doesn't happen every day."

A large shadow materializes on Alex's other side, blocking light like some very cliché movie villain. It's not Doc Ock, but it is some tall, burly guy, a leer affixed to his face that's probably been there since Alex's haircut went out of style.

"Hey, baby," he says in an unnervingly deep voice. The part of Jack that isn't super skeezed out is a little jealous. But Burly Guy isn't talking to Jack; Jack may as well be invisible. To Alex, Burly Guy says, "Saw you across the bar and I just had to come over."

Didn't have to, Jack thinks grumpily to himself. You could have stayed across the bar. If you walk away now we’ll pretend we never saw you.

"Can I get you a drink?" Burly Guy asks, and honestly, Jack has no idea what Alex is going to say.

Big Burly Guy with a deep voice a la Morgan Freeman vs. resident beanstalk Jack whose voice sounds like a rejected cartoon character design. What a tough choice.

Jack is just preparing to cut his losses when Alex grabs Jack's wrist, turns to him, and says, "Honey? What do you think?"

Jack's tipsy, but Alex is definitely communicating something with his eyes, and between that and the pet name Jack is pretty sure he's on the same page.

"You want to buy my boyfriend a drink?" Jack asks Big Burly Guy, cranking up the Bitchy energy because he doesn't get to do it a lot and it's kinda fun. His voice has definitely gone vaguely southern-auntie, but he's rolling with it. "Sorry, sugar, this seat's taken. Must be this guy" — he points at himself — "to ride."

"This guy?" Burly Guy echoes, furrowing his eyebrows at Jack and then looking at Alex with profound confusion, like he just doesn't get it. "You're with this guy?"

"Happily," Alex says, glancing back at Jack, who offers him what is definitely a convincingly enamored smile because Jack is legitimately enamored. Alex laces their fingers together and Jack's not delusional, can't be, not when they fit this well together. No way. "So I'm gonna pass on that drink. Sorry, man. No hard feelings."

Burly Guy seems to have some hard feelings. Maybe he didn't get the memo. "Whatever," he says gruffly. "Your loss."

Jack can't resist countering, "Actually it's your loss, sweetums," as Burly Guy retreats. If he dies tonight, he knows who’s responsible.

As soon as he's gone, Alex breaks down laughing, and Jack quickly follows suit. Alex's hand slips from Jack's and begins to tug at the ends of his own hair instead.

"Sugar?"

"I don't know what happened," Jack says/wheezes. "I became possessed by Blanche from Golden Girls.”

"You have to be" — Alex prods Jack's chest — "this guy to ride." He dissolves into giggles and Jack is laughing too but mostly because Alex's laugh is incredibly contagious.

"Look, I don't blame him," Jack says, feeling exhilarated. "You are the best-looking guy in this establishment. He just happened to have creepo vibes."

"I am not the best-looking guy in this establishment," Alex says, grinning at Jack. "Nice of you to say, though."

"Hey, I'm serious!"

"I thought you were Jack."

Jack stares at Alex and Alex doesn't even last a second before he's breaking down laughing yet again.

I'm going to marry you, Jack thinks, and it almost scares him how serious he is about that. He opens his mouth and says, "That wasn't even— that's not even one of the good dad jokes! That's the most boring one!"

"There is no such thing as a boring dad joke."

"You should go into stand-up," Jack says dryly. "You'd tear down the house with this set. I can see it now." He waves a grandiose hand in the air as if painting the marquee into existence, but when he goes to introduce the act he realizes he's missing most of the crucial information. "Alex…something…something. Austin, Texas, one night only."

"Gaskarth," Alex says. "That's my last name."

"Alex Something Gaskarth," Jack loyally amends, and gives Alex a look like, well?

Except Alex is giving Jack that same look. "I only know your first name and you expect me to tell you my full one?"

"Jack Bassam Barakat," Jack says, gesturing impatiently. "Come on, I'm trying to introduce your act here."

"Guess," Alex says.

"Guess?"

"It's a pretty basic middle name," Alex says. "I'll buy you your vodka soda when you guess it."

"Alex," Jack says. "I am not going to guess your middle name. I am so bad at these games and I'm fucking drunk."

"Quitter," Alex says. "Do you want your drink?"

Jack scowls, trying to channel Blanche again, but Alex is apparently immune.

"Give me a hint," he finally concedes.

"It's a British name," Alex says. “Pretty standard British.”

"Are you British?”

Alex nods. "Born and raised. Moved here when I was about…eight? But I'm not an American citizen. I have a green card."

Yet another reason they should be married. Jack could extend his citizenship to Alex. Plus he'd gain British citizenship, which would probably be useful for, like, travel or One Direction stalking or whatever.

"That's sick," Jack says. "I was born in Lebanon. We moved when I was a baby."

"That's so cool," Alex says, sounding genuinely interested. He props his chin on his hand and gives Jack a cheeky smile. "Now guess."

Jack sighs. "Uh, Charles."

"No."

"Darcy."

"Darcy?"

"Margaret."

"Jack."

"You said it's a British name!"

"A British man's name," Alex says, rolling his eyes in fond exasperation.

Jack takes a long pull from his beer, swallows, and says, "Harry."

"No."

They're going to be here awhile. Jack pulls out the seat next to Alex and settles in while he racks his brain for British names.

“Alfred.”

“Nope.”

“John.”

“No.”

“Paul.”

“No.”

“George.” Alex shakes his head. “Ringo.”

“Yup, you finally got it,” Alex says. Jack is over the moon for a split second before it sinks in that Alex is fucking with him. “Alex Ringo Gaskarth. Well done.”

“Fuck off, I’m doing my best here,” Jack says.

“You’re missing one incredibly obvious name,” Alex says. “It’s not that hard.”

“For you,” Jack says. “Because you already know it.” Alex is grinning. Jack likes that he’s enjoying himself. It makes this guessing game fun. Under any other circumstances, this guessing game would not be fun, but Alex makes it fun.

Alex has also finished his mango margarita by now, and Jack’s beer is long since empty. He’s itching for another drink, mainly for something to do with his hands.

As if reading his mind, Alex flags down the bartender, who sidles up with a small smile and says, “What can I get you boys?”

Jack blinks at her. Mostly at her accent, which is not American.

“Vodka soda,” Alex says. To Jack, “I think you’ve earned it.” Jack smiles.

“And a mango margarita,” he puts in to the bartender, “and are you British?”

The bartender looks amused. “I am British,” she says.

“Please help me,” Jack says. “Alex says his middle name is a British name and I cannot for the life of me figure out what it fucking is.”

“Jack, the nice bartender lady has other things to do,” Alex says with a laugh. The nice bartender lady probably does have other things to do, but she shifts her weight and gives Alex an appraising look instead.

“Harry?”

“Tried that,” Jack says, realizing at once that this is a pointless endeavor. The nice bartender lady is going to guess everything Jack’s already guessed and he’ll just have wasted her time. “I’ve tried every member of One Direction, every member of the Beatles, every member of Oasis, every Harry Potter character, every member of the Royal Family—”

At this, Alex coughs conspicuously.

Jack rounds on him. “I have.”

“Edward,” the bartender offers. Alex’s lips are pressed together in a smile and he shakes his head. “Meghan. Kate. Richard. Dick. Philip.”

A lightbulb goes off as the bartender is listing Royal Family names. Jack wants to kick himself. “Oh my— William?”

“Yeahhhh, there you go! See, it was easy,” Alex says, grinning widely.

“William,” the bartender repeats with a charming little laugh. Her lipstick is bright with clean lines, an impressive feat considering Jack has seen her bustling around this bar for almost an hour now. “I had an ex called William.”

“Oh no,” Alex says. “I hope he didn’t ruin the name for you.”

“Please,” the bartender says, waving him off. “The only thing he ruined for me was a few meters of drywall.” Jack and Alex must have twin looks of concern, because she explains, “Anger issues. No worries, boys, I sent him packing, and a vodka soda for you, and a mango marg for you.”

She slides their drinks into waiting hands and starts to turn away. “Wait a sec,” Jack says.

The bartender turns back to him with wide Bambi eyes. “Did I fuck up the drink? I’ve made it a million—”

“No no no,” Jack assures her. “I just wanted to know your name. You rescued me from an eternal guessing game, you’re my hero.”

The bartender smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Maisie,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Maisie,” Alex says. “Thank you for the alcohol.”

Maisie laughs again as she moves to the other side of the bar.

“William,” Jack says, swirling his drink with the miniature straw. “God damn. I can’t believe I missed William.”

“You got close,” Alex says. “You guessed Liam twice. And thanks for the drink.”

“Same to you,” Jack says. “It’s a good drink. Yours, I mean. You know what offends me, though? Why aren’t mango margaritas orange?”

Alex furrows his brow. “Why the fuck would they be orange?”

“Mangos are orange! Fruity drinks should be the same color as their fruit.”

“Mangos are not fucking orange,” Alex says with an incredulous laugh. “They’re straight-up yellow.”

“They’re orange with yellow tendencies,” Jack says, “but mostly orange.”

“They are entirely yellow,” Alex says. “Coldplay even wrote a song about them. They were all yellow.”

“They’re orange,” Jack insists, but now Alex has moved on completely and is loudly singing Coldplay.

“I came along! I wrote a song foooor youuuuu! And all the things you do!”

“You’re ignoring the truth!”

“And it was called ‘Yellow’!” Alex shouts.

“Okay, I surrender! Sheesh. You win.”

“Thank you,” Alex says placidly, like he hasn’t just been yelling obnoxiously over the (worse, but much louder) club music. “I’m going to enjoy my yellow mango marg very much.”

“And I will enjoy my victory drink,” Jack says, lifting his glass. Alex lifts his. It smells like mango and tequila. They clink the rims together. “To William.”

“To William,” Alex agrees, laughing.

The DJ plays a song Jack loves to hate from hearing it on the radio so many times and Alex is out of his seat before Jack’s managed to put down his drink.

“What are—”

“I love this song, I want to dance,” Alex insists. The implication is clearly that he wants Jack to dance with him, which is like. What is Jack gonna do, say no?

Alex must anticipate some kind of argument, though, because with a glint in his eye he adds lightly, “These are the kinds of things you’ll have to do if we’re married.”

On the one hand, he’s clearly making fun. But on the other hand, the fact that Alex was a stranger an hour ago and is still comfortable teasing Jack about suggesting they’re going to get married speaks volumes. Alex is smiling. They’ve known each other for less than an hour — a drink and a half each — and Alex is smiling at his own joke about marrying Jack. Like he likes that Jack said it first. Like he likes Jack.

“Just wait ‘til you learn all the weird shit you’ll have to do when we’re married,” Jack says, sliding out of his stool.

Any sane person would have run away by now. Even Jack knows when he’s coming on too strong.

But Alex does the opposite; Alex grabs his wrist and pulls him towards the dance floor.

“Fair warning,” Alex says. “I don’t actually know how to dance.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Jack says, and then eats his words not two seconds later when Alex demonstrates how very much he doesn’t know how to dance. All of his limbs seem to move as their own entities, zero synchronization. A couple surrounding people take various minor assaults before taking the hint and giving Alex some space, but this does not stop him. “Okay,” Jack says loudly over the music. “You were right. But luckily neither do I.��

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alex says.

Jack does the sprinkler. Alex snorts. He does the wave, very poorly, and Alex continues it, also very poorly.

“Mr. Moves,” Alex says. “I’m impressed.”

“Yeah? Check this one out.” Jack does the running man with extreme focus. Alex laughs, leaning towards Jack as he does. Jack stops dancing so he doesn’t accidentally hit Alex, who is suddenly much closer and who somehow smells like pine and flannel and fall and winter in one and is the best-looking person in blue jeans and checkered Vans on this dance floor. Far from the only person, but without question the prettiest.

Fuck.

“I don’t think I can do that one,” says Alex, grinning. Jack nods at him like, try it, so Alex does, proving himself right. He almost takes Jack’s eye out.

“Yeesh, okay, you’re— alright, take it easy,” Jack says, swatting Alex’s wayward hand away and laughing. “Well, we all have our strengths.”

Surrendering the running man, Alex starts up with some bizarre hand-wavey foot-kicky thing, singing along to the music.

“Do you seriously like this song?” Jack asks, attempting to imitate Alex’s dance. “Dance,” heavy quote marks implied.

Alex shoots Jack a look. “Hell yeah. What, you don’t?”

“It’s just…always on,” Jack says. “Everywhere. How are you not sick of it?”

“Because it fuckin’ slaps!” Alex looks incensed.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised you’re a pop music person when you’re literally in a One Direction shirt.”

“I’m a lots of music person,” Alex counters. “Including pop music, yeah. You don’t like pop music?”

“I sometimes do,” Jack says. “I like Taylor Swift. Britney Spears.”

“Okay, well, you’d have to be insane not to like them.”

“Yeah, and I’m obviously sane.”

Alex barks a laugh. “Drunk but sane.”

“I am not drunk!” That’s probably a lie by now.

“You’re not convincing me otherwise,” Alex says. “I’m confident you’ve been drunk this whole time.”

“You haven’t exactly been an innocent bystander,” Jack says. “You bought me a drink, and you’re gonna buy us shots in a minute.”

“I did— I what?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, and this time he drags Alex off the dance floor, back to the bar. “I can see the future, I forgot to tell you.”

“You—” Alex laughs again and leans on the bar, trapping both his elbows between his stomach and the bartop. “You’re buying the next round.”

“Oh, happily,” Jack says. “I’m actively trying to get you drunk.”

“Why’s that?”

“Studies show I am 75% more attractive to people when they’re drunk,” says Jack.

Alex turns to him. Without missing a beat, he says smoothly, “I don’t think it’s possible for you to get any more attractive.”

Fuck. Actually, fuck. Seriously. Fuck.

“You must be drunk already, then,” Jack says.

Alex smiles serenely. “I feel pretty sober.”

“Exactly what a drunk person would say,” Jack says. “J’accuse, William.”

Alex laughs. “In that case, your studies are right.”

Jack’s probably blushing. He does that in extreme cases only, but this is nothing if not an extreme case. Alex is fucking relentless.

Maisie the bartender is back, and Alex orders them shots of tequila. Somewhere in the recesses of Jack’s mind, this unlocks a memory, and he snaps his fingers. “I should hunt down my friend, he loves tequila.”

“Friend?” Alex looks around while Maisie pours their shots. “You ditched your friend?”

“He told me to,” Jack says. “He’s probably gonna pick up some girl. Actually, he probably already has.”

“Really,” Alex says, sounding amused.

“Zack’s a strong silent type,” Jack explains. “Emphasis on strong. We’re single guys in our mid-twenties, Alex. We’re not going to clubs for the atmosphere.”

“Admit it,” Alex says. “You a little bit are.”

Jack bites his lip. “Fine, I like the atmosphere,” he admits, more affected than he should be that Alex seems to have picked up on this about him. “And the alcohol. And the chances I’ll meet my future husband, which clearly paid off. Zack will never admit it, but I’m pretty sure he likes trying to set me up with random people in clubs.”

Alex laughs. “He set you up with me?”

“Oh yeah,” Jack says. “He wingmanned me hard. You can thank him in your vows.”

This only serves to make Alex laugh harder. “I’ll thank him now,” he says with a grin. Taking his cue, Jack grabs his shot glass. Alex does the same. “To Zack.”

“To Zack!” Jack cheers, and they both down their shots.

“Me?”

Jack whirls around and trips straight into Zack. “Zack!” he says brightly. “We toasted you.”

“I heard,” Zack says. “Why, exactly?”

“I’m Alex,” says Alex, holding out a hand. Zack shakes it. “Apparently you set us up?”

“Oh,” Zack says. “I wouldn’t really say that. I just kind of pointed Jack in this direction. If you can put up with him, that’s all you.”

“I was gonna come find you anyway,” Jack says. “We’re doing tequila shots. Next round on me.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Zack says. “Count me in.”

They can’t come up with a toast for their second round so they just knock it back with an ambiguous cheer; then Zack offers to buy another, and Jack’s not about to refuse. It’s starting to hit just right, so he’s buzzed but not incoherent. All his most brilliant ideas come in this state.

Case in point: as Maisie is pouring them their third round, Jack suddenly says, “Maisie! Do a shot with us!”

Maisie looks up and laughs. “I’m not supposed to drink on the job,” she says.

“It’s not drinking, it’s bonding,” Jack insists.

“Yeah, we’re forming lasting friendships,” Alex jumps in.

Zack looks entertained. “You guys know each other?”

“As of half an hour ago, yes,” Maisie says.

“Maisie here helped me guess Alex’s middle name,” Jack explains. “Which is William. Like the prince.”

“I feel like I missed so much,” Zack says, half to himself. He shrugs and nods at Maisie. “One shot. On me. For Jack. We won’t tell.”

Maybe it’s because Zack is buff and has cool tattoos or just has good vibes or whatever, but Maisie hesitates only a second before inclining her head. “Just one, and no blabbing,” she says, meeting all of their eyes in turn. Everyone nods solemnly, and Maisie discreetly pours herself a fourth shot.

“Hell yes!” Jack whoops as they all take a shot glass. “To Maisie!”

“To Maisie!” Everyone echoes, including Maisie with a wry grin.

The third shot goes down smoother than the first two. Jack swallows his easily, as does Alex. Maisie puckers her face a bit. Zack has zero reaction, because Zack’s just kinda like that.

“While I’m here, I was hoping to get another beer,” Zack says.

“On it,” Maisie says immediately, giggling. “Thanks for the shot, boys. You’ve kept me far more entertained tonight than my usual shift provides.”

“You can give a toast at our wedding,” Jack says to her. Zack’s eyes widen a little, Alex snorts, and Maisie laughs.

“I’d be honored,” she says. “Back to work now. You need anything, let me know.”

“Seriously, Jack?”

“What?” Jack gives Zack an innocent smile. He pats Zack on the cheek. “Don’t worry, sugar, you can give a toast too.”

Alex laughs. Zack stares at him and shakes his head. “You’re insane,” he says, but he says that roughly twice a day so he’s still below his quota. “I’ll leave you two alone. Come find me when you wanna go. If…” He eyes Alex. “...Just…yeah.”

And with these eloquent words, he disappears with his beer into the crowd.

“I like him,” Alex announces.

“Me too,” Jack says. He turns back to Alex. “Back to the dance floor?”

“Get out of my brain,” Alex says. “I’d like to see your drunken running man.”

“It is gonna blow your fucking mind,” Jack promises, and Alex laughs again.

They’re not even being gross like everyone else. Alex has pulled Jack into an exaggerated tango performed mostly with missteps when it happens: someone shoves them aside as they walk past, and Alex loses his balance and falls into Jack, who just barely manages to catch them both. He doesn’t manage to stop his arm from winding around Alex’s waist. To be fair, he doesn’t try very hard.

Jack’s first thought is homophobe, but then he spots the offender, lumbering off with heavy footfalls, and it’s Burly Guy from earlier. The guy who tried and failed to pick Alex up.

All of this registers as Alex slowly regains his footing. “Damn, who pissed in that dude’s Cheerios?”

“It’s the guy from before who tried to buy you a drink,” Jack says, pointing at his back.

Alex whips his head around. “Seriously? Asshole.”

Jack chooses not to observe that from his vantage point, being shoved close together is hardly a dick move. In intent, sure, but not in actuality; Jack’s enjoying the proximity a great deal. Like, a lot.

Like, his hand is still on Alex’s hip, subtly keeping Alex close, and Alex has his arm around Jack’s shoulders from their dance and he’s not moving, either.

“Yeah,” Jack says. They’d already been on the outskirts and now they’re off to the side of everyone, wallflowers.

Alex breathes a laugh and looks back at Jack. He doesn’t step back or even lean away, even though their faces are too close to be friendly now. Jack hadn’t really been expecting friendly, but they’ve been tightrope-walking between sides, and if neither of them breaks this up then they’ll be irreversibly left on one end.

Jack has no intention of moving away. He likes this end of the tightrope. For all he cares, they could cut the tightrope and free-fall together.

“You’re pretty good at bad tango-ing,” Alex says, reaching up to brush away the sweaty fringe that’s clinging to his forehead.

Jack grins. “Well, you know what they say. It takes two.”

Alex kisses him so suddenly that Jack almost loses his balance.

He tastes like tequila. That’s all Jack gets before they’re not kissing anymore. The room feels quiet and then unforgivably loud the next second, and Alex is flushed and smiling nervously, and Jack is smiling too, not nervous at all.

“Did I tell you I’m in a band?” Alex asks in a rush.

Jack’s brain struggles to keep up. He can’t remember Alex mentioning a band, but he’s also distracted by wanting to kiss Alex again. There’s no understating the power of wanting to kiss someone over failing to clock anything they say. “What?”

“I’m in a band,” Alex says. “Not as a job, just like, for fun.”

“Oh,” says Jack.

“I’m the lead singer,” Alex says, with a flickering look down at Jack’s shirt.

“Oh,” says Jack, because, like, oh. “Can I kiss you again?”

“What, here?” Alex meets his eyes. “With all these people around?”

“You kissed me first,” Jack says. “Let me kiss you and then we can call it even.”

“Okay,” Alex says, and Jack’s kissing him before the word’s really out of his mouth.

And he tastes like tequila and mango and sugar and the color yellow and the sweat of the dance floor and God, it’s good. It’s like kissing a memory, except this memory is still here, not frozen in time, not trapped in an ornate frame. He’s creating a memory that he knows he’ll relive for the rest of his life.

Somehow, though he doesn’t know the end of this chapter, he knows the end of the book.

Alex’s warm palm cradling Jack’s cheek to hold him steady, fingers splayed out like a star; Alex’s other hand grazing skin over the collar of Jack’s shirt. Alex singing Coldplay in Jack’s ear. Alex’s blue jeans and his checkered Vans and his ridiculous One Direction tank top. Alex holding Jack’s hand and calling him honey to get Burly Guy to leave him alone. Grinning as he shoots down guess after guess for the elusive middle name. Laughing at Jack’s stupid dance moves. Knocking back a shot like it’s nothing. Smiling when Jack says they’re going to get married, never moving away, only ever closer.

Alex sitting undisturbed at the bar, ankles crossed, and Jack seeing him from across the room like something out of a goddamn Hallmark movie and just knowing.

He tugs Alex closer but Alex is already pulling away with a smile. “You wanna get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He smoothes a hand over a crease in Alex’s shirt and nods. “Taxi’s on me if we go back to your place.”

“Sucker, I was gonna suggest that anyway,” Alex says with a quiet laugh. “You should tell Zack. Don’t wanna just leave him.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack says. “He knows.”

“He knows?”

“Zack and I are brothers in clairvoyance,” Jack says. “How many times do I have to tell you this?”

“I knew you could see the future,” Alex says. “You never told me Zack could, too.”

“Zack can see everyone’s future,” says Jack. “I can only see mine.”

“Yeah? What’s your future look like now?”

Jack filters out several inappropriate comments. It’s hard when Alex is smirking, clearly baiting him. “I told you,” he says. “You, me, vows, rings, the works.”

“Not that future,” Alex says. “I’m talking about the immediate one.”

It takes everything in Jack not to get down on one knee and say so was I. There’s a tilt in Alex’s head, like a dog listening carefully for a familiar sound.

“Honestly?” Jack says, and Alex nods. “I think it’s more fun if we find out together.”

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

Text

National Examiner, March 29

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: The Jayne Mansfield only her daughter Mariska Hargitay knew

Page 2: They're Aging Like Fine Wine -- celebs reflect on the wonders of getting older -- Candice Bergen, Anthony Hopkins, Halle Berry, Diane Keaton, Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock, Bette Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field

Page 3: Helen Mirren, Jamie Lee Curtis, Madonna, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Caine, Jennifer Aniston, Goldie Hawn, Diane Lane

Page 4: Warren Beatty's roles and costumes

Page 6: Since her 2016 split from Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie has had to keep calm and carry on with six growing kids to think about and she admits the past few years have been pretty hard and she's been focusing on healing her family -- the six kids she shares with Brad, who range in age from 12 to 19, have been looking out for her too -- the 45-year-old is looking forward to her 50s and she feels that she's going to hit her stride in her 50s

Page 7: Canine Cuisine -- simple home-cooked fare for Fido

Page 9: Reach for at-home antibiotics

Page 10: When a Texas grocery store lost power during the devastating recent storm, they did something unimaginably generous -- they allowed all the customers to leave with whatever was in the shopping carts without paying for anything -- the shoppers at an H-E-B supermarket in Leander didn't even have to cough up a dime as they proceeded through the checkout lanes, even if they had hundreds of dollars' worth of food and supplies weighing down their wagons

Page 11: Your Health -- crying is healthy

* If you suffer from insomnia, try wearing socks to bed

Page 12: Hollywood Cemetery Shockers -- Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Whitney Houston, John Wayne

Page 13: James Brown, Michael Todd, Princess Diana, Sammy Davis Jr., Judy Garland, Steve Irwin

Page 14: Dear Tony, America's Top Psychic Healer -- the secret of life is so simple and attainable -- Tony predicts movie and TV star Robin Wright's move to being a director will be very successful and there will be many more films to come

Page 15: A Florida man just received the biggest surprise of his long life at the party to celebrate his 100th birthday -- someone had found and returned his wedding ring that he lost five years earlier while shopping at an Aldi's in Minnesota

Page 16: Kathie Lee Gifford: It's never too late to go after your dreams

Page 18: Happy Days mom Marion Ross is 92 now, but she still holds a memory about the legendary Cary Grant close to her heart -- back in 1959, when she was married to Freeman Meskimen, the actress was working on a film with the handsome star when she discovered she might be pregnant but she wasn't absolutely sure and so she didn't share her suspicions with anyone until one day, when a scene called for her to do something she wasn't sure a possibly pregnant woman should be doing, she revealed her secret to Cary Grant -- he sat down next to her, put his arm around her and said sweetly You're pregnant! and when she looked up at him, he had tears in his eyes; he was so excited for her and they had this marvelous moment together -- Marion said her husband was less than thrilled when her pregnancy was confirmed and they divorced a few years later

Page 19: An Indiana middle-school principal made the cut when he helped a kid out of a hairy situation -- when an eighth-grader at Stonybrook in Warren Township confided in Jason Smith he couldn't take his hat off because he was embarrassed about his uneven haircut, Jason offered to really straighten things out if he promised to return to class -- Jason has been cutting hair most of his life and he played college basketball and cut his teammates' hair before games, and he's been cutting his son's hair for 17 years and he had professional clippers and edgers at home, so he said if he went home and got his clippers and lined the student up, would he go back to class? and the student said yes, so Jason gave the kid a buzz and the happy student went back to class -- Jason says he knows a bad haircut may sound like a small thing, but to a boy that age, grappling with peer pressure, a bad 'do is a real don't

Page 20: Cover Story -- My mom Jayne Mansfield -- Mariska Hargitay reveals bombshell truths about the beloved sex symbol

Page 22: Use your noodle -- pool toy swims to the rescue

Page 24: Back when Calvin Tyler was in college in the early 1960s, he had such a hard time scraping together tuition money that he had to drop out before finishing his senior year and take a job as a UPS driver -- fast-forward a few decades: Calvin has just donated $20 million to Morgan State University in Baltimore, his alma mater

Page 25: A wounded veteran in Temecula, California, got the surprise of his life when he received a mortgage-free home courtesy of the Gary Sinise Foundation -- Josue Barron, who had joined the Marines at age 17, lost both his left leg and his left eye while serving in Afghanistan in 2010

Page 26: Dreamy hunk Patrick Swayze fell for one of his co-stars while filming the romantic movie Ghost, but the object of his affection wasn't on-screen love Demi Moore; it was Whoopi Goldberg

Page 28: 20 things you didn't know about James Bond actor Daniel Craig

Page 30: Spunky Hayley Arceneaux won a battle with bone cancer when she was 10 years old, and grew up to become a physician assistant in child oncology at St. Jude's Children's Hospital, where she was treated and if that wasn't enough, Hayley is going to blast off on a space flight -- the super survivor, who's now 29, was selected by the St. Jude's staff from hundreds of other employees to represent the famous hospital on the first-ever civilian spaceflight, arranged by the company SpaceX, to take place at the closing of 2021

Page 40: It's crystal clear -- the healing starts here -- crystals are very effective when it comes to healing, especially with one's emotion and they have special energies in different ways

Page 42: How to lower your COVID risk -- with new variants of the virus documented in the U.S., it's important to stay vigilant

Page 44: Eyes on the Stars -- Rebecca Holden of Knight Rider (picture), Lou Diamond Phillips of Prodigal Son in NYC (picture), Katharine McPhee admitted she was concerned with what people would think early on during her romance with 71-year-old David Foster, the daughter of John Travolta and Kelly Preston named Ella Blue Travolta is following in the footsteps of her actor parents by starring in Get Lost which is a modern-day retelling of Alice in Wonderland, Sarah Silverman recently apologized for mocking Paris Hilton at the 2007 MTV Awards, Nicolas Cage has tied the knot for the fifth time to Riko Shibata, Metallica have donated $75,000 to Feeding America via their All Within My Hands nonprofit and the funds are earmarked to aid folks in Texas who were affected by deadly winter storms

Page 45: Orlando Bloom running on the beach while vacationing in Hawaii (picture), Antonio Banderas (picture), Tom Jones takes the stage in the U.K. (picture), Robin Roberts near ABC's NYC studio (picture), Aaron Carter and fiancee Melanie Martin say they have a baby on the way nearly 10 months after she'd suffered a miscarriage, Dustin Diamond was never married to his galpal Jennifer Misner according to his death certificate, Liam Neeson attended a NYC screening of his new movie to thank viewers for coming to the theater on the first day Big Apple cinemas reopened after being shuttered by COVID-19 last year

Page 46: A single mom of three was struggling to do everything on her own, but there was one problem she lacked the skills and money to handle -- her house in Sudbury, Massachusetts was falling apart and that's when some kindly Good Samaritans stepped in with their toolbelts and performed the extensive home repairs she need at no charge

Page 47: Parenting Advice From the Stars -- Reese Witherspoon, Busy Philipps, Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Garner

7 notes · View notes

xpouii · 4 years

Text

Spit Take

Hey y’all! I really put my nose into this fic to get it finished. It was commissioned by (anonymous) and I hope you like it! The prompt was amazing!

Tags/Warnings: NSFW, Dukexiety, Prinxiety, full NSFW warnings below the cut!

Warnings: Spit kink, tentacle dick, cum play, rough, bulging (stomach and throat), deepthroating, gagging, choking, drooling, crying, masturbation, voyeurism/slight exhibitionism, toys

“Kiddo!” Patton called as he stepped out of the kitchen. “We’re having a movie night… care to join us? I made cookies.”

“Yes, Virgil,” Logan echoed. “You don’t have to wear a onesie if you don’t want to. Patton just has an affinity for them for some reason.”

“Like you don’t?” Roman muttered, flipping through the menu of available movies. “Did we decide what we’re watching?”

“March of the Penguins,” Logan said. “It’s the only possible compromise. There’s scientific information, aesthetically pleasing animals and it’s narrated by Morgan Freeman.”

“Aww penguins!” Patton gasped.

“I wanted to watch Aladdin, but…” Roman chewed the inside of his mouth, “You do have a point about Morgan Freeman. His voice is just so soothing!”

Logan seemed pleased with himself as he picked up a cookie from the large plate of them. Virgil reminded himself to sneak back out later and help himself once the others had gone to bed. Patton clapped his hands together, “Great I’m so proud we agreed right away! I can’t wait to watch these adorable penguins with my best friends. So what do you say, Virgil? Penguins do wear a lot of black, and there’s an empty spot on the couch with your name on it! Not literally but if you give me five minutes and some glitter pens I could whip something up.”

“You?” Roman scoffed. “What about me? You’re going to make an artistic gift for Virgil without me?”

Patton smiled warmly at Roman and patted his knee, “Of course not, Roman. You’re my favorite artist!”

“Uh… gee Pat that sounds great but I’ve got stuff to do,” Virgil said. They were all looking at him then, Logan with his cool, matter-of-fact interest and Roman with a look that Virgil still hadn’t decrypted. The Prince would catch his eyes sometimes, especially across the room or in the middle of a group conversation, and Virgil felt cold and hot, invited and accused all at once. It was hard not to slip into a sneer and snap like he used to. Old habits die hard, especially in frightened animals, but Virgil wanted to be the light side they had invited him to be. That just hadn’t quite extended to movie nights and cookies yet, so he ducked his head and hustled off to his room, kicking it shut behind himself. He’d left the kitchen on a mission after all.

Virgil locked his door, pulling up his hood before walking over and sitting on the edge of his bed; he closed his eyes and smiled softly, his mind swimming with slow memories, nostalgia that skated like fingertips over his skin. His legs opened, an automatic response as he slid his hand down to palm himself through his jeans; tingling heat swam over him and he whined, his fingers quickly unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans. He moaned at the relief of pressure but it was short-lived as he hardened fully. Virgil pulled himself free of his underwear and spat into his hand. More memories, more heat as he wrapped his slick hand over his cock and stroked slowly, letting out a little chuckle of disbelief at just how good it felt. Virgil was usually much more interested in being with somebody than touching himself—it required a certain amount of self-interest that he struggled with—but he was in a bit of a transitional period, new friends and new… faces.

Logan, Patton and Roman weren’t anything like the others, although Patton and Logan often wrestled for the top spot—at least that’s how it looked to Virgil when he was fresh from the subconscious, after he’d been accepted, but now he knew that Patton was in charge in a far different way than Deceit, especially considering Patton had little idea just how much sway he held over Thomas’ decisions. Then there was Roman, Remus’ parasitic twin—as they used to call him downstairs—but so completely different. Where Remus felt unshakable confidence, Roman was a ball of insecurity. Where Remus liked to sneak up on a conversation, Roman burst into the room like a confetti canon, scattering fanfare and nicknames. Where Virgil had found casual companionship in Remus, his feelings for about Roman were complicated at best, and terrifying at worst. When Roman had given his little speech of encouragement in Virgil’s room, it wasn’t his cock that twitched. It was his heart, and wasn’t that just the worst. At least with Remus, things were simple.

An easy moan escaped his lips and he couldn’t help but rock up into his hand, a slow sustained rhythm that he stopped only to gather the precum from the head of his cock and spread it downward. It used to always be this easy, smiles and moans and letting go. Anxiety was Thomas’ problem, and Virgil had always been happy to let it choke Thomas rather than analyzing, tweaking and dealing with it. Back then, he’d been Deceit’s—and Remus’, and he’d been a simpler, saucier creature. Even when he would mess up and get caught up in his own web of panic, and when Deceit’s gentle petting and encouraging words weren’t enough, Remus knew exactly how to fix the problem. Virgil’s smart little mouth had always been good for more than spitting vitriol and sarcasm, and Remus knew exactly how to drag it out—or push it in—in the best ways. Virgil raised his free hand and slipped two fingers into his mouth, moaning around them as he pressed against his tongue, thrusting them back and forth until they started to tickle that fluttery feeling in his chest, caught between swallowing and coughing, gagging and moaning—just like old times.

---

When Virgil came to him, Remus knew exactly what he wanted. His eyes were dark, red-rimmed and his lips were in a full pout, wet and reddened by chewing, absolutely begging, “What is it, Emo?”

Virgil unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it off, pulling his shirt over his head; he knelt in front of Remus, a question in his eyes, spilling out in a throaty whisper, “Are you busy?”

“Too busy for you? Never,” Remus said, sliding his fingers through Virgil’s hair, gathering it so he could take in Virgil’s face. He was pale, but a blush sat high on his cheeks, and his eyes were darker than usual, the black makeup smeared all the way down to his cheekbones and streaked down by a drying tear or two of frustration. Remus always thought this Virgil was the most beautiful, so true to himself, so overtaken by his purpose and his instincts that even Deceit couldn’t suppress him, and he was begging Remus to fuck his mouth and let the wild brambles of the anxious side’s mind grow uninhibited until Remus choked it all away.

Virgil’s full lips twitched into the tiniest wisp of a smile as he reached for Remus’ pants. The creative side slapped his hand away gently, and lost his clothes via magic. He would rather be naked anyway—given the chance. His cock, so familiar to Virgil by now, was just as eldritch as anything else Remus had any kind of control over, a tentacle that—according to the creative side—had a mind all its own. Virgil was fairly convinced that Remus was perfectly in control of himself, cock and otherwise. It traced Virgil’s lips and the anxious side opened his mouth, closing his eyes as the first hints of the familiar taste touched his tongue. He opened wider to accommodate the tapered organ as it pushed further, heavy on his tongue and writhing against every surface of his mouth, exploring and giving Virgil that familiar stomach flutter.

Remus’ hand at the back of his head made him calm, tension easing as Remus took control; all he had to do was be present. The taste of precum made him moan, and Remus pulled back, making Virgil lean forward to chase his cock. He was hungry for it, entirely tunnel-visioned, and Remus chuckled, “Impatient, Emo?”

“Please,” Virgil whined, his mouth feeling achingly empty around every sound he made. “Please Remus, I want it. Pl-“

His words were cut off when Remus thrust back in, and Virgil fought his gag reflex as Remus’ cock slid past the back of his tongue to bump against the back of his throat, one swift surprising movement. He opened his throat, eager to be filled, to be used. Remus’ cock squirmed in his throat and he relaxed more as he felt the skin of his throat stretch and bulge to accommodate the hot, heavy organ. He moaned as best he could, his voice warped and layered by the overwhelming juxtaposition of pleasure and humiliation. Virgil looked up at Remus with lust-heavy eyes, his cheeks hot and his eyes were burning with the promise of choked tears already.

Remus backed up just enough to let Virgil breathe, and he could feel a mix of precum and drool sliding down his chin. He sucked in a breathe before Remus was inside again, and his eyes rolled back to stare up at Remus, glassy and grateful. It went on like this, drooling and gagging and the occasional hissed praise from Remus while Virgil spun out into the warm, safe headspace where he could forget himself.

Remus reached down and took a handful of Virgil’s hair, pulling him backward. Virgil whined in complaint, Remus’ cock sliding against his cheek as he slowly lifted his face; he knew what Remus wanted, and he opened his mouth, letting his tongue loll out as Remus spat into his mouth.

“How’s it taste, Virgil?”

“So fucking good. Thank you, thank you,” Virgil slurred open-mouthed. He made a show of swallowing, tossing his head back.

Remus leaned down to licked Virgil’s bottom lip before capturing his mouth in a deep, possessive kiss that left Virgil breathless. He broke it and stood back up and Virgil leaned back, opening his mouth again to beg silently, knowing he was already a mess of drool and tears, beautiful and destroyed.

“Hungry tonight aren’t you, Emo?” Remus chuckled, his cock sliding back into Virgil’s mouth, sweet on his tongue as Remus made his first thrust, cutting off Virgil’s ability to breathe or even swallow. He looked down at Virgil, combing his hair back again. Virgil met his eyes, lost in Remus’ commanding gaze.

The racing of his heart replaced any of the unpleasant tightness in his chest, and Virgil fully relaxed when Remus reached down to place his hand on the side of Virgil’s neck, pressing against the bulge from outside. Virgil’s eyes rolled back and he closed them, melting away into sensation and heat, more of a plaything for Remus than a functioning being—and that’s how Virgil wanted it for now. Forgetting everything outside of this room, the sounds and tastes and smells of sex were like a merciful smokescreen.

And then Virgil felt the familiar signals, throbbing and lost rhythm, and he groaned in his chest, anticipating what was coming—literally. Remus always came so much, and Virgil could almost never swallow it all at once, but he always tried. After a few spurts Remus pulled back and shot across Virgil’s face while the anxious side eagerly swallowed what was in his mouth, “Yes Remus please give it to me, give me more, want to taste you!”

Remus growled as he thrust back into Virgil’s mouth and down his throat. Once. Twice, and then he pulled out, connected by a line of thick spit to Virgil’s wet lips. He knelt then, reaching to wrap his hand to palm Virgil through his pants. Virgil groaned and humped against Remus’ hand while the creative side cleaned his face, licking away the hot stripes of his spend. Remus captured his lips in a commanding kiss and Virgil got another mouthful of cum. He jerked in Remus’ grip as he came, choking as he swallowed and cried out at the same time. Remus muttered gentle nonsense as he rubbed Virgil through his orgasm and beyond, toying with the wet spot on Virgil’s jeans.

“Th-thank-“ Virgil stammered.

Remus stood and pulled Virgil to his feet, helping him to the bed where he was nestled in a pile of abandoned vellum and leather and silk. Remus kissed him on the nose and then gently stripped Virgil, “How about a nice hot springs full of demon octopi? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“More demon octopi?” Virgil hummed with a smile. “I’d love that.”

Remus swept him up and sunk out, reappearing in one of his little corners of the imagination where the air was heavy with steam. Virgil sighed as he was lowered into hot water, muscles he didn’t know were tense melted into warm butter. “Anything else, Emo? A drink?”

Virgil stretched, “I wouldn’t say no to a pineapple juice.”

“Good idea, keep tasting sweet for me,” Remus mused, conjuring a glass and handing it to Virgil.

Virgil sank into the sensation as several red tentacles found his legs, waist and chest in a deep—astoundingly innocent—massage. He let his head fall back, “Thank you, Remus, so much.”

“For you, anything.”

---

Virgil squirmed when his hand alone wasn’t enough, frustrating and disappointing as he rutted in his bed, mussing his black sheets. The memory of a thousand touches only made him want more, and he grabbed his sweaty pillow and threw it across the room, not comforted in the least by his little outburst. He kicked off his shoes, struggling with his jeans and underwear but not bothering with his hoodie. He was pulled so perfectly between arousal and frustration that his hand moved of its own volition, squeezing and twisting in hopes of finding some sensation that would push past the plateau where he hovered in sensual agony.

Finally Virgil made himself stop just long enough to reach for the nightstand and yank open the drawer, fetching the toy he kept there. It was tapered, but it couldn’t compare to Remus’ size—or dexterity. He set it on his stomach and reached back for the lube, popping it open. He arched his back to get two slicked fingers into himself. The prep was quick, unceremonious and then he lubed up the toy, rolling onto his side and moaning involuntarily at the feel of it pressed at his entrance. He rocked down against it, deeper each time until it breached him, and he moved it manually then, in and out a few times before he got it positioned just right, turning on the vibrations. It was almost a relief to feel something, although it would never be enough. He cranked it up and his mouth fell open in a silent moan, his hips working as if he could get it deeper by will alone.

The toy was nowhere near as big as Remus, but when he rocked just right it nudged his prostate in a familiar way, and his body remembered as much as his mind—unfortunately his body remembered all too well exactly what it was missing. The girth, the weight and the heat. He wondered what Remus would say, watching him whine and writhe like an emptyheaded—and empty-assed—slut. He’d no doubt have a comment, and Virgil was almost glad the creative side wasn’t there to see him. There was no way—horny and even a little homesick in a super fucked up way—that he’d be able to resist Remus’ offers even though Deceit had made it very clear that Remus was on his side of the line in the sand.

Pushing bad memories away, Virgil let himself think about Remus’ cock, and the cold jab of Deceit faded—for the night, at least. The anxious side had always been a size queen; Remus wasn’t just enough to bulge his throat, and memories of the tight tug inside made him chew his bottom lip. He slipped his free hand down to his stomach where he would be able to feel Remus pushing, bumping into his palm with every thrust, knocking the breath—and several filthy words—out of him. He gasped now as if he could feel it, and his body shook, his eyes burning as he squeezed them shut, pressing a fist to his mouth. He wanted to be shamelessly loud, but shameless was never really Virgil’s specialty, even back then.

---

Virgil glanced around in the dim light as Remus tugged him along by his hand; they had snuck upstairs into the livingroom where Deceit forbade them to go. The sharp jaws of adrenaline had him by the throat, and fight or flight melted into nothing when Remus turned to face him, “Clothes off, Emo.”

Virgil shed his clothes tossing them in a pile on the floor as Remus magicked his own away, pulling Virgil in by the back of his neck. The kiss was feral, teeth and tongues and Virgil dug his blunt nails into Remus’ chest. When Remus pushed him to the couch, Virgil stammered, “H-how long do you think we have?”

Remus shrugged, “Deceit won’t be looking for us until tomorrow if we’re lucky.”

“I mean… the others.”

“You mean those light sides?” Remus purred. “Why? Want them to watch?”

Virgil blushed and the humiliation sent a pleasant spark through his body, but the time for talking was over—temporarily anyway. He moved into position on his knees, arms crossed to brace him against the arm of the couch. He relaxed into the position, trying to calm his racing heart until the touch of Remus’ hand on his back calmed him. Remus’ cock moved up against his own, a reminder of just how big he was, and Virgil reached down to stroke it lazily as Remus prepped him. Tentacles had never appealed to Virgil before he’d started things with Remus, but now the way it pressed into his touches and writhed like a sentient being—perhaps it was—was more than sexy, it was endearing, and Virgil couldn’t help the soft smile that stretched his lips. Remus was leaking precum already, much wetter than Virgil could get without at least a little assplay, and it made Virgil’s hand slick and sticky.

Remus pulled back then and Virgil almost complained, but then Remus’ cock was stretching him open and he let out a low, shuddering moan as he wrapped his hand around his own cock. The heavy member was undulating, writhing, massaging Virgil in all of the right ways, and he moaned into the couch arm, stroking himself slowly. It was more habit and comfort than out of a need to cum; when Remus was splitting him, there was no chance that he wouldn’t have an orgasm, sometimes multiple and often without much substantial warning. Then Remus was bottoming out, and Virgil could feel him so deep that he lowered his hand to his stomach where a familiar bulge was, crawling underneath his skin, “Fuck, Remus.”

“Isn’t it nice?” Remus purred. “Stretching you, filling you up like the hungry little slut you are. How’s it feel, Emo?”

“It’s… it’s—good!” Virgil hiccupped as Remus moved, drawing almost all the way out before snapping his hips forward and sinking back in, and the bulge retreated and returned, sending another ache of arousal through Virgil’s cock. “You know it’s good.”

“I like when you say it,” Remus said, settling into a staggered rhythm to keep Virgil guessing. “Besides, what else are we going to talk about?”

Virgil’s eyes rolled back and he bit his lip, letting out a nervous giggle, “The w-weather?”

“Too boring,” Remus said, smacking Virgil’s ass. “Unless you want me to conjure a tornado or something. I think we should talk about getting caught, don’t you? Those sticks in the mud won’t know what to do, seeing me fuck you in their space like this. I bet Patton will just fucking die right then and there. My brother will be jealous because he’ll never get close to anything as gorgeous as you, isn’t that right, Emo?”

Virgil yelped at a particularly deep thrust and the words spilled from him, “Remus we’re gonna… gonna get caught.”

“Telling me you wouldn’t like that? The looks on their faces?” Remus growled, tangling his fingers in Virgil’s hair and yanking his head back.

“I… I don’t know,” Virgil panted, too ashamed of the real answer.

Remus ran the nails of his free hand down Virgil’s back, “That’s what I thought. You like being my pretty little whore, don’t you? You’d love for me to show you off.”

“Shit,” Virgil growled, because it was true, and sometimes it terrified Virgil just how easily Remus could read him.

“You never disappoint, Emo,” Remus said. “And you always say all of my favorite words.”

“I haven’t said twatwaffle one time,” Virgil said, a smile on his lips.

Remus laughed, leaning down to kiss the back of Virgil’s neck, then up behind his ear; Remus got sweet when Virgil made him laugh. Deceit had told Virgil once it was the way to his heart—but that wasn’t where Virgil was aiming, so he shivered and pushed himself back into Remus’ thrusts. “Somebody’s impatient.”

“Come on, Remus,” Virgil said, as sweet and subby as he’d ever been. “Please give me your cock, please fuck me hard. It’s so good I want more, want everything.”

Remus growled in his throat and took Virgil’s bait, though he was far from trapped; he shoved Virgil’s face into the arm of the couch roughly and fucked into him with a renewed domination that made Virgil’s cock jump and leak and ache with arousal. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” Virgil muttered into the fabric. Remus’ nails were back in his back and he choked out a cry, “Yes! Yes please!”

Remus bit into Virgil’s shoulder as he came, and Virgil could feel it, hot and thick and there was a lot, filling him up like he’d begged for. He sobbed and barely had time to process the sensation before he himself was cumming, dirtying the couch under them and managing to milk more from Remus in the process until they were both rutting and growling like animals—and maybe animals is what they were. Remus pulled out and Virgil could feel the spend tickling down his inner thigh before Remus nudged him forward and he lifted his ass higher into the air, lowering his face into the couch cushions.

Remus’ tongue was hot and probably longer than it should be, but the way it felt had Virgil rocking back while the creative side sucked the cum out of him. When Remus pulled back Virgil whimpered, but soon he was being pushed onto his back and his mouth fell open. He looked up into Remus’ eyes, lolling out his tongue. Remus’ eyes darkened and he let the cum drool down into Virgil’s waiting mouth. Virgil’s eyes rolled back as the sensation fought against his own refractory period, and his cock gave a lazy twitch. Once he’d taken everything Remus offered, he rolled it around his mouth, curling his tongue at the corner of his mouth before finally closing and swallowing.

“Such a good boy”, Remus cooed, swiping his thumb through the cum that had escaped at the corner of Virgil’s mouth. He pressed his thumb into Virgil’s mouth and the anxious side eagerly sucked it clean, floating on the cloud of praise.

“Thank you,” Virgil said again, softer and with a deeper, warmer meaning. He stretched then reached up for Remus.

Remus lowered himself to kiss Virgil, quick and chaste—if anything they did could be called chaste. Virgil melted into the affection and let himself be held. The couch wasn’t particularly deep, but Remus managed to maneuver them into a comfortable spooning position, pulling Virgil against his chest. The beating of Remus’ heart and the sound of their breathing as it slowed to normal brought Virgil down gently, and when he’d had enough, he squirmed in Remus’ arms, turning onto his back as much as he could without falling off of the couch.

Remus watched Virgil’s face, prompting the anxious side to smile, “I’m good, just gonna take another second. You should go make sure Deceit’s not looking for us.”

“Perish the thought,” Remus said sarcastically, but he smiled as he climbed over Virgil to stand. “I’ll go make sure Snake Daddy is none the wiser.”

Virgil stretched out, licking his lips clean for the final time as Remus sank out. He sat up slowly, careful to wave away the wet spot before he grabbed his pants, pulling them on. Dressing wasn’t easy on shaky legs, but that made it more satisfying, especially layered with the possibility of getting caught.

As if on cue, Virgil’s ears caught the smallest drag of a shoe on the carpet. He spun around, eyes searching the darkness around him for a threat. Roman stood in the darkened doorway, hand on the hilt of his sword; his hair and eyes made it clear he’d probably been asleep—maybe at his desk the way Remus did sometimes. He was pretty, Virgil couldn’t deny that—dashing, maybe, but a poor imitation of Remus. The prince met Virgil’s eyes and Virgil hesitated, staring at the other side before pulling up his hood and sinking into the floor.

---

Suddenly the deep vibrations were too much, and Virgil cried out, reaching back to turn it off and take it out. He was shaking, unsure whether it was the memory of Remus or Roman that had caused the sudden spike. Virgil huffed in frustration, and his straining cock regained his attention. He couldn’t stop now just because he was trying to deny a possible partial crush on his old fuck buddy’s twin brother. Wrapping his hand back around himself, Virgil tried to slip away, find another memory to turn himself on just that last little bit. After three minutes of desperate self-searching, Virgil sighed, “Fuck.”

He let that little mental block fade away, and the memory turned to fantasy, and the thrill of it zinged up into his chest and down to his toes, making them curl. He worked himself a bit slower, letting things play out.

---

Virgil locked eyes with Roman, in the dark, and Roman’s nose wrinkled, just a little, because he knew. The prince unsheathed his sword, stepping forward and holding it to Virgil’s throat, “Care to explain yourself, foul fiend?”

Virgil took a half-step back and sank to his knees; Roman looked pleased with himself, but his mouth fell open in surprise when Virgil nuzzled his cock through his pants. He tensed, but rather than taking a step back, he sheathed his sword and rested his hand on the back of Virgil’s head. Virgil undid Roman’s pants easily, pulling his cock free and covering it in kisses and kitten licks until the Prince was fully hard and pushing at the back of Virgil’s head. Virgil hummed and took Roman into his mouth and down his throat. He tasted nothing like Remus, none of the tingling magic eldritch qualities, but more like a man with impeccable hygiene who also spends the better part of his days trapesing through enchanted forests, earthy and spiced and—for lack of a better term—masculine.

Roman growled, and Virgil gagged when he thrust forward, holding Virgil in place. Whether it was warped hate, or Roman was just naturally rough, Virgil was lost in it. He managed to pull back when Roman allowed him to breathe, “Fuck!”

Roman smirked, “What’s the matter, Anxiety? Too big?”

Virgil laughed breathlessly, rocking back onto his heels and standing. He stripped off his clothes and moved to the couch, reaching to brace himself on the couch arm. Strong hands took his hips and moved him like he was weightless, and before Virgil knew it he was on his back with Roman slotted between his legs. He closed his eyes tightly and turned his face away. “What are you looking at?”

Roman snorted, and lips on Virgil’s collarbone made his bottom lip tremble, “Where’d that brave little monster go?”

Virgil bristled and leaned up, capturing Roman’s lips in a rough kiss and biting down on his bottom lip. Roman tangled his fingers into Virgil’s hair and pulled. Virgil gasped when Roman broke the kiss and looked down to line himself up. “Fuck yeah give it to me,” Virgil whispered, following the Prince’s actions with eager eyes.

Roman hesitated for a moment, spitting in his palm and running it hastily over his cock before slipping inside. Virgil threw his head back as it spun, Roman’s cock pushing in while he was still slicked up inside. He met Roman’s eyes, and groaned, “That’s his… it’s your brother’s cum. You know that right? Can you feel it?”

Roman’s nose wrinkled, but more in anger than disgust, and he spat in Virgil’s face, making Virgil moan like a shameless whore as he arched his back. Roman’s first proper thrust was rough, fast and it knocked him out of the fantasy completely.

----

The orgasm was heavy and sudden, like a punch to the chest and Virgil panted as he wrung himself out, his free hand fisting in the sheets, “Jesus, Princey,” Virgil muttered into the stillness.

Well and truly overstimulated, his nerves singing like they always did, but without the comforting warmth and weight of another body. He ran his fingers through the spend on his stomach, savoring the sight as yet another wave of nostalgia rolled over him, weaker than the others, but undeniably present as Virgil sucked his fingers clean, sighing at the rapidly-fading sex high.

Virgil heard a familiar sound and turned his head to look at the door, opened just a crack, “You just gonna watch again?”

Roman moved forward, pushing the door open further with his foot. He was of course more put together than the night they saw one another in the dark living room. Not quite the picture of smirking valiance Virgil imagined, not a hero looking to dominate a villain. Nonetheless, the Prince looked willing, and Virgil was ready to move on and make new memories, as painful as it could be to accept change. What did he have to lose?

#not safe for sanders #no minors #dukexiety #prinxiety #commissioned work #fanfiction

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yasbxxgie · 4 years

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Chris Rock wasn’t sure if he was hiding out or not.

On the Friday before Labor Day, he was speaking by phone from Yellow Springs, Ohio, the rustic village where he’d gone to spend time with Dave Chappelle, his friend and fellow comedian. Rock had previously traveled there in July to perform for a small, socially distanced audience as part of an outdoor comedy series Chappelle has been hosting. But Rock couldn’t decide if this return visit was meant to be clandestine. “I don’t know if it’s a secret,” he said quietly. “Maybe it is out here.” He couldn’t easily find the words to describe what he’d been doing just before this trip, either. “I mean, I guess I’ve been acting,” he said. After a short pause, he added, at a more assuredly Rock-like volume: “In a pandemic.”

In August, Rock had gone to Chicago to finish filming the fourth season of “Fargo,” the supremely arch FX crime drama, which makes its debut on Sept. 27. The show’s creator, Noah Hawley, had chosen him to star in its latest story line, set in the dapper gangland of 1950s Kansas City, Mo., and which casts Rock — the indefatigable standup and comic actor — as a mannered, methodical crime lord named Loy Cannon.

Maybe in a different universe where the show premiered in April as originally planned, the “Fargo” role has already put the 55-year-old Rock on a whole new career trajectory, opening the door to more serious and substantial roles and silencing the chorus of fans who still knowingly ask him for “one rib.” Maybe in this universe it still will.

But when the coronavirus pandemic struck, production on “Fargo” was halted in March, and Rock and his co-stars (including Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw, Jessie Buckley and Andrew Bird) were all sent packing. Then at the end of the summer, Rock was summoned back to set, first to spend a week in quarantine and then to complete his acting work under new protocols and not a little bit of stress.

Other prominent projects of his have also been pushed back — he has a starring role in “Spiral,” a reboot of the “Saw” horror series, whose release was postponed a full year to May 2021. But Rock wasn’t mourning the delay of any professional gratification, having spent the spring and summer realigning his values for the new reality of pandemic life. “Maybe for like a day or two, I was like, ‘Oh, me,’” he said with an exaggerated whimper. “But honestly, it was more like, I’ve got to get to my kids and make sure my family is safe.”

In that time he has also heard countless Americans echoing the lesson he offered in the opening minutes of his 2018 standup special, “Tamborine,” where he spoke humorously but emphatically about the ongoing incidents of police violence against Black people. As he said in that routine, law enforcement was among the professions that simply cannot allow “a few bad apples”: “American Airlines can’t be like, ‘You know, most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash in the mountains.’”

Now Rock was feeling mistrustful about the power of his comedy to do anything other than entertain, and unsure when he would get to perform it again for large audiences. And he was admittedly wary about this very interview, explaining with a chuckle that when he talks to the print media, he said, “You have to be comfortable with being boring. If you’re not comfortable with being boring, occasionally, you’re going to get in trouble.”

Not that Rock was ever boring in a wide-ranging conversation that encompassed “Fargo” and his broader career; his latest observations on a nation grappling simultaneously with a pandemic and a reinvigorated longing for racial equality; the resurfacing of a past video where Jimmy Fallon impersonated him in blackface; and of course, President Trump. (“No one has less compassion for humans than a landlord,” he said.) Even in the absence of an audience, Rock was candid, increasingly animated, uncommonly nimble and always looking for the laugh. Now, let the trouble begin.

These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Was there a time when you thought this “Fargo” season was never going to get finished and that the series might not be seen for a long time, if ever?

I’ve had weird little things in my career — I was supposed to do this Bob Altman movie, “Hands on a Hard Body.” We were on the phone a lot, going over my character and I was so excited about doing the movie. And he died. I was supposed to be Jimmy Olsen in “Superman” with Nic Cage [“Superman Lives,” which was canceled in the late 1990s]. I remember going to Warner Bros., doing a costume fitting. Hanging out with Tim [Burton], who I idolized. Like, I’m hanging out with the guy that made “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and he’s showing me the models of the sets for “Superman.” So yeah, I definitely thought there’s a chance this might not happen. Fortunately for everyone involved, that was not the case.

How did Noah Hawley approach you about “Fargo”?

It was a weird day, because it was the day of the Emmy nominations and I didn’t get nominated for my last special [“Tamborine”]. I wouldn’t say I was down down, but I was a little disappointed, and then I got a call from my agent that Noah Hawley wanted to meet with me.

I get acting offers, but I get more hosting offers than anything. It is not uncommon for somebody to want me to do a high-priced wedding or bar mitzvah — a few years ago, I officiated the wedding of Daniel Ek, the owner of Spotify, and Bruno Mars was the wedding band. I think I sat next to [Mark] Zuckerberg at the reception. [Laughs.] I just assumed Noah had some crazy request like that. The only reason I went is because I love “Fargo.” And I get there and he offers me this part.

How did he explain the character of Loy Cannon to you?

He said 1950s gangster, so I know exactly who he’s talking about. My father was born in 1933. It’s not like “12 Years a Slave.” It’s literally a guy my grandfather’s age.

In the first episode, we see Loy pitching the idea for credit cards to an uninterested white banker. Is he a man who wants to be part of polite society, but it doesn’t want him?

I mean, I remember having a production overall deal at HBO and I came in with one person to sell a talk show with them. And they wouldn’t. That person’s name is Wendy Williams. [Laughs.] That’s $100 million that I never made. I was selling Leslie Jones to people, to agents and managers, for 10 years before she got on “S.N.L.” I’m very familiar with selling a no-brainer that people go, “Huh? Why that?”

Is he different from characters you’ve played before, because he’s older and we don’t know how much longer he’s going to be sitting on his throne?

Yeah, it’s one of those jobs: Because of how well it pays, you could be killed at any moment. It is the best part I’ve ever, ever, ever had. I hope it’s not the best part I ever have. Hey, Morgan Freeman’s done a hundred movies since “Shawshank Redemption.” But that’s the best part he ever had.

This role feels like it’s declaring itself as being outside the realm of what you’re best known for. Are you thinking differently about your acting career and where you hope to go with it?

My casting isn’t as weird as it seems if you really watch “Fargo.” Key and Peele are in the first season and Brad Garrett’s amazing in Season 2. Hey, it’s my turn, OK? I want to work on good stuff. Everything I’ve done hasn’t been great, but I was always striving for greatness. I loved “Marriage Story.” I’d kill for something like that. [Laughs.] You see what [Adam] Sandler did with “Uncut Gems.” But you’ve got to get the call and be ready when your number’s called.

Your 2014 film “Top Five,” which you wrote, directed and starred in, was very personal for you. Do you want to make more movies like that?

That’s a vein I intend to keep going in. When I made “Top Five,” I got divorced. And like most people that get divorced, I needed money. [Laughs.] I had to pay for stuff. I also went on tour. Because of Covid, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any serious touring until 2022. So I’m a writer-director-actor right now. I’m working on some scripts in the “Top Five” vein and I honestly hope to direct, some time after the new year.

How much of “Fargo” did you have to finish during the pandemic?

It was like an episode and a half — the whole last episode, and some scenes from the one before it. It’s weird, quarantine when you’re acting. Acting can be isolating, anyway, and then you throw quarantine into that. You’re in solitary confinement with Netflix and Uber Eats. But let’s not get it too twisted. Somebody that’s in solitary is like, shut the [expletive] up. And then to actually act and get tested every other day, and wear a mask whenever you’re not saying your lines. And be cognizant of which zone you’re in. Because for Zone A, everyone’s been tested, but in Zone B, not everyone’s been tested. Zone C is just, everyone’s got Covid.

You performed at one of Chappelle’s live shows in July. What was that like for you?

When you’re in the clubs, you learn the rain crowd is the best crowd. Any time it’s raining, they really want to be there. The pandemic crowd is really good. “Dude, not only do we want to be here, there is nothing else to do. There’s nothing else to watch. Thank you.”

What did you talk about?

I talked about our political whatever. America. Part of the reason we’re in the predicament we’re in is, the president’s a landlord. No one has less compassion for humans than a landlord. [Laughs.] And we’re shocked he’s not engaged.

Did you ever see that movie “The Last Emperor,” where like a 5-year-old is the emperor of China? There’s a kid and he’s the king. So I’m like, it’s all the Democrats’ fault. Because you knew that the emperor was 5 years old. And when the emperor’s 5 years old, they only lead in theory. There’s usually an adult who’s like, “OK, this is what we’re really going to do.” And it was totally up to Pelosi and the Democrats. Their thing was, “We’re going to get him impeached,” which was never going to happen. You let the pandemic come in. Yes, we can blame Trump, but he’s really the 5-year-old.

Put it this way: Republicans tell outright lies. Democrats leave out key pieces of the truth that would lead to a more nuanced argument. In a sense, it’s all fake news.

Looking back at the beginning of “Tamborine,” the first several minutes is you talking about police violence and raising Black children in a racist country. Does it feel futile when you discuss these issues and it doesn’t change anything?

I remember when “Tamborine” dropped, I got a lot of flak over that cop thing. There was a lot of people trying to start a fire that never really picked up. It’s so weird that, two years later, it’s right on. I remember watching the news and Trump said “bad apples.” It was like, you did it! You did it!

But you told people two years ago —

I did. But so did Public Enemy. So did KRS-One. So did Marvin Gaye. There’s something about seeing things on camera. If O.J. kills Nicole on camera, the trial is two days. [Laughs.] It’s two days trying to figure out what kind of cell he deserves. It’s just Johnnie going, [Johnnie Cochran voice] “Well I think he needs at least a 12-by-8. Can he have ESPN?” That would be the whole trial.

But there was videotape of Rodney King’s beating, too. It doesn’t assure any particular outcome.

Yeah, man. Put it this way: This is the second great civil rights movement. And Dr. King and those guys were amazing. But they knew nothing about money. They didn’t ask for anything. At the end of the day, the things we got — it was just, hey, can you guys be humane? All we got was, like, humanity. If they had it to do all over again, in hindsight, there would be some attention paid to the financial disparity of all the years of — let’s not even count slavery, let’s just count Jim Crow.

You’re talking about a system that really didn’t end until about 1973. And I’m born in ’65 in South Carolina. I’m probably in a segregated wing of a hospital — there’s no way in the world I was next to a white baby. Even if the hospital wasn’t segregated, I was in a whole other room and that room didn’t have the good milk and the good sheets. My parents couldn’t own property in certain neighborhoods when I was born. There was an economic disparity there, and that was not addressed in the original civil rights movement. It was a huge oversight. So there’s no money and there’s no land. If you don’t have either one of those, you don’t really have much.

Did you want to participate in the recent protests?

Me and my kids, we looked from afar. But we’re in the middle of a pandemic, man, and I know people who have absolutely passed from it. I’m like, dude, this Covid thing is real.

You’ve been telling audiences for years that racism isn’t going away and remains a potent force in America. Do you feel like you’ve seen circumstances improve at all?

It’s real. It’s not going away. I said this before, but Obama becoming the president, it’s progress for white people. It’s not progress for Black people. It’s the Jackie Robinson thing. It’s written like he broke a barrier, as if there weren’t Black people that could play before him. And that’s how white people have learned about racism. They think, when these people work hard enough, they’ll be like Jackie. And the real narrative should be that these people, the Black people, are being abused by a group of people that are mentally handicapped. And we’re trying to get them past their mental handicaps to see that all people are equal.

Humanity isn’t progress — it’s only progress for the person that’s taking your humanity. If a woman’s in an abusive relationship and her husband stops beating her, you wouldn’t say she’s made progress, right? But that’s what we do with Black people. We’re constantly told that we’re making progress. The relationship we’re in — the arranged marriage that we’re in — it’s that we’re getting beat less.

Jimmy Fallon drew significant criticism this past spring for a 20-year-old clip of himself playing you in blackface on “Saturday Night Live.” How did you feel about that segment?

Hey, man, I’m friends with Jimmy. Jimmy’s a great guy. And he didn’t mean anything. A lot of people want to say intention doesn’t matter, but it does. And I don’t think Jimmy Fallon intended to hurt me. And he didn’t.

There’s been a wider push to expunge blackface from any movies or TV shows where it previously appeared. Have people taken it too far?

If I say they are, then I’m the worst guy in the world. There’s literally one answer that ends my whole career. Blackface ain’t cool, OK? That’s my quote. Blackface is bad. Who needs it? It’s so sad, we live in a world now where you have to say, I am so against cancer. “I just assumed you liked cancer.” No, no, no, I am so against it. You have to state so many obvious things you’re against.

Who do you hang with these days? Who’s your peer group?

I hang with Dave [Chappelle]. I hang with my kids. I hang with Nelson George. There’s not a lot of hanging in the Covid world. The better question is, who do you FaceTime with?

So who do you FaceTime with?

The other day I realized I’ve never met an elderly person that was cared for by their friends. Every elderly person I know that’s got any trouble is cared for by a spouse or a child. Sometimes they have like five kids but only one helps. Where are your friends? Your friends are probably not going to be there when it really counts. [Laughs.] When my dad was dying in the hospital, where were his friends? My grandmother, where were her friends? Don’t get me wrong, you get sick in your 20s, your friends will come to the hospital. It’s an adventure. [Laughs.] You get sick in your 60s, they farm it out. “You go Wednesday and I’ll go Sunday.”

Enjoy them while you have them. But if you think your friends are your long-term solution to loneliness, you’re an idiot.

#chris rock #black face #amerikkka #racism #racial hierarchy #donlad trump #comedy #black comedy #comedians #black comedians #interview #interviews #the new york times #fargo fx #covid-19 #covid 19 #long reads

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pleasereadmeok · 5 years

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Matthew Goode’s top 5 cult films:

Jameson Cult Film Club ambassador Matthew Goode picks his five favourite cult films including Jaws, The Shawshank Redemption and The Big Lebowski. Matthew Goode tells Metro what his five favourite cult films are:-

Jaws This is an absolute classic which struck the fear of God into me as a child, and I still get the shivers when I watch Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss head out together. It’s a great film, with a great finale.

The Big Lebowski The Coen brothers’ classic offbeat comedy is a film I will never tire of watching. I’ve just worked with John Goodman and I’m happy to report that he’s a fabulous man. I just love his character, Walter, so much.

A Matter Of Life And Death This Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger classic features my favourite David Niven performance. It’s visually stunning and so far ahead of its time for sheer cinematic invention. It’s beautifully touching and witty, and if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.

Groundhog Day This has an incredible script by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray should have won the Oscar for his performance. It’s a tour de force of hilarity but it’s touching too. A day I’m happy to live over again and again.

The Shawshank Redemption I know, me and half the world but it’s a beautiful adaptation of a fabulous short story. Thomas Newman’s score and Roger Deakins’s cinematography are stupendous and the performances are to die for, especially from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. It always makes me cry.

Matthew Goode to Metro 2012

P.S. This isn’t a definitive list from Matthew - his opinions change each time he’s asked about his favourite movies.

#matthew goode #interviews

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she-is-tim · 5 years

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strawberry shortcake, chocolate cake and Italian cream cake! :) also, have a great day timyyy!!! ♥

Hey Kate! Thanks for the asks 💕

Name five of your favorite fictional characters

Im going to answer this with gifs if you don’t mind 😘

1. Lucas Lallemant (Skam France)

2. Eliott Demaury (Skam France)

3. Thomas Shelby (Peaky Blinders)

4. James Buchanan Barnes (Marvel)

5. Proinsias Cassidy (Preacher)

What was the last movie you saw? Did you enjoy it? Why?

The last movie I fully watched was The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and it was a pretty nice movie. Beautiful visuals, the plot twist was kinda predictable, but it was a nice and good story. I would say it’s worth to watch with your family during the winter holidays. It’s funny, lovely, no singing but beautiful music and some great actors like Morgan Freeman

Name five of your top travel destinations

I’m not sure if this is about places I have visited or that I haven’t, but I think it’s about places I have visited, which is not a lot. I am not a traveler, barely go anywhere mostly just shopping or smth like that 😢 I do love to visit Budapest, because it’s a wonderful city with a pretty good public transport if say, I like to go to Sopron because it’s a beautiful place and it’s the closest “bigger” city around, also they have cinema too. I visited Győr a lot, it’s also a nice city with a lot of stores and malls. It’s just hard to get there with a car or bus. Other than these I really don’t go anywhere. I am looking forward to finally see Paris tho

Thanks for the questions my love 💕 you also have a good day too

#kate my precious butterfly #cake asks

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Unforgiven: Clint Eastwood’s True Last Western Remains One of the Greatest

https://ift.tt/3CmnwOu

As he glancingly returns to the genre with his new film, Cry Macho, it’s worth taking a look at the last Western that Clint Eastwood made, 1992’s Unforgiven. While he’s circled back to certain themes and concepts endemic to the Western in films since then, Unforgiven was his last film specifically and explicitly set in the Old West and was — as he said at the time — his final word on the subject.

Eastwood has pretty much stayed true to that, even as Unforgiven stands nearly 30 years later as a masterpiece in its own right and arguably one of the greatest Westerns of all time.

Much as Cry Macho attempts to strip away modern myths about what it means to be a man or “macho,” Unforgiven tears down the longstanding mythology built around the American Old West and propagated through scores of Westerns that Hollywood pumped out for decades.

Notions about authority, heroism, violence and nobility are all turned inside out in the film, which uses its traditional structure and characters to upend every narrative trope and plot point such a film may have embraced in the past. The result is a haunting story of what happens when vengeance and violence corrupt the souls of everyone drawn into their wake, with devastating results.

The Story

After two cowboys in the sleepy, remote town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming mutilate a prostitute, her fellow sex workers at the local bordello raise a bounty to see that the two men face justice after the local sheriff (Gene Hackman) settles the matter without punishing them.

A former killer and criminal with a notorious past, named William Munny (Eastwood), is alerted to the bounty by a young would-be assassin called the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett). Munny has long since renounced his ways, settling down to a quiet life on a hog farm with his wife and two children. But with Munny’s wife having passed on and the farm failing, he sees the bounty as a chance to save the farm and set up his children’s future.

Enlisting his former partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) — like Munny, a reformed criminal turned farmer — to join them, Munny, the Kid and Ned set out for Big Whiskey. Even as they hunt down the cowboys and come into direct conflict with the brutal Little Bill, the three men each deal with their own responses to being drawn into an escalating spiral of violence. Ned and the Kid ultimately renounce it, while Munny reverts back to the cold-blooded murderer he used to be.

The Women

Unforgiven begins in 1880 in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, with a horrific act of violence enacted by a man who sees slicing up the face of a young prostitute as fair repayment for laughing at the size of his penis. While the genre hasn’t been completely dismissive of women over the years (see 1954’s Johnny Guitar or 2011’s more recent Meek’s Cutoff for just two fine examples), Unforgiven tackles the trope of the “gold-hearted whore” head on and destroys it.

Warner Bros. Pictures

The women of Greeley’s saloon/bordello (led by Frances Fisher’s furious Strawberry Alice) are not going to take the mutilation of Delilah (Anna Thomson) lying down, so to speak — especially after local lawman Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) decides that the two cowboys involved in the altercation can simply give some horses to Greeley’s owner Skinny Dubois (Anthony James) as compensation for the money he’ll lose from taking Delilah out of service. Little Bill sees the whole affair as something he can settle quickly and efficiently, even if it leaves the women seething and now willing to seek justice elsewhere.

Pooling their resources, the women muster up a $1,000 bounty that they hope will attract someone to Big Whiskey to kill the two cowboys. But while Strawberry Alice, Silky (Beverley Elliott) and the rest of the women remain defiant to the end, their own need for vengeance — brought on by Little Bill’s idea of “justice” and the town’s acceptance of it — poisons them. By the end of Unforgiven, Alice and the women are horrified by what they’ve wrought, even if they had no other choice.

Little Bill Daggett

Gene Hackman deservedly won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as the brutal, sadistic Little Bill, the sheriff of Big Whiskey and more or less the little settlement’s de facto tyrant. No virtuous lawman is he; it’s implied that Little Bill has his own violent and possibly criminal past, but he has somehow managed to overcome that and become a representative of law and order in this distant outpost — or at least his version of law and order.

If he can avoid it, Little Bill actually prefers not to let the law work its proper course. He eschews the notion of a trial, preferring to settle disputes and crimes in his own way, either through (literal) horse-trading or his own cruel means of corporeal punishment — which often involves torture. He at first intends to whip the two cowboys for their transgression before coming to a different, more “peaceable” settlement, but he is also quick to bring out the whip again and use it mercilessly on the back of Ned Logan until Ned literally keels over and dies.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Little Bill is also efficient with his feet, giving a severe kicking to assassin English Bob (Richard Harris), the first man to arrive in town in hopes of securing the bounty, and Munny himself, when the latter is sick with fever and too confused to hand over his gun to Little Bill (who has all visitors to Big Whiskey turn in their weapons upon entering the town).

In fact, despite supposedly being an arbiter of law and order in the still unruly West of the 1880s, the one thing that Little Bill is good at is violence. His idea of justice is authoritarian, with himself as judge, jury and executioner, and he can’t even build his own house properly: the roof is full of leaks and one of his deputies remarks that there isn’t a “straight angle” in the “whole house…he is the worst damn carpenter.” Little Bill claims he just wants to relax in his house, but what he’s best at is being a tyrant, a killer and a torturer (mirroring Munny, who’s top-notch at killing but lousy as a farmer).

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The Schofield Kid

The Kid, as he’s dismissively called by both Munny and Ned (we never learn his real name), is the young bro-dude who comes calling on Munny to join him on his journey to Big Whiskey to kill the cowboys and collect the bounty.

The Kid claims to have ruthlessly killed five men and seems intent on building his own dark reputation, modeled on the past exploits of men like Munny. He is disgusted by Munny at first, making fun of the life he leads now and later disappointed when Munny catches sick in a rainstorm and, weakened, allows Little Bill to kick the living crap out of him.

But we soon learn that the Kid himself has made himself a legend in his own mind. When he and Munny head to the Bar-T ranch to kill the second cowboy (after Munny has already dispatched the first), the Kid does indeed pull the trigger, killing cowboy Quick Mike with three shots while the latter is sitting on the toilet. It’s an ugly, undignified death, and as we almost immediately discover, it’s actually the Kid’s first killing — he’s lied about the five men he allegedly killed previously.

Warner Bros. Pictures

The murder of Quick Mike shakes the Kid to his core. He’s stunned and horrified by what he’s done, and the finality of it. “It don’t seem real… how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead,” he says, his voice wavering on the verge of tears. “And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.” To which Munny replies, “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man.”

The Kid renounces his ways right there, giving his beloved Schofield gun to Munny and vowing to never kill again. One thing Unforgiven does so brilliantly is strip away any romantic notions about killing in the Old West: as portrayed in the film, it’s not noble or satisfying. It’s messy, ugly, often drawn-out and unbearably painful. Confronted with that reality, the Kid pulls away, presumably never to be seen again.

Ned Logan

Aside from the graceful Delilah, Ned Logan is perhaps the character in the movie who comes closest to being its “conscience.” Munny’s former partner has his own violent, ill-reputed past to deal with, but he seems to have come to much better terms with it than Munny himself, and seems content to live on his farm with his Native American wife, Sally Two Trees (Tantoo Cardinal).

When Munny does decide to go with Munny on his mission, we get the sense that he’s not doing it so much for the money as to watch over his friend. The reproach in the silent Sally’s eyes as the two men ride off says it all: she knows that their journey can come to no good end no matter how they rationalize it to themselves. Right from the start, Ned tells Munny that things have changed for them: “Hell, Will. We ain’t bad men no more. Shit, we’re farmers…how long has it been since you fired a gun at a man?”

Warner Bros. Pictures

And that’s exactly what happens. But first Ned comes to a startling realization: preparing to shoot the first of the two cowboys, Davey Bunting, he aims his rifle and has the young fellow dead in his sights — but can’t pull the trigger. He turns helplessly to Munny, desperation and pain in his eyes, barely able to get the words out: he can’t kill a man in cold blood anymore. For Ned, those days are over for good.

Which makes it even more ironic and bitter that toward the end of Unforgiven, he’s captured and tortured until he dies at the hands of Little Bill. Ned — who complains about missing his wife and his bed — is the only one of the three bounty hunters who doesn’t actually kill anyone, and yet he faces the worst punishment, ending in his own death. It’s a symptom of the story’s widening gyre of violence and revenge that Ned — the most reluctant of the three — doesn’t survive. And it’s his death that sends Munny over the edge, sealing the fate of the town and its people.

English Bob and W.W Beauchamp

English Bob (Richard Harris) is the first assassin who comes to town to collect the bounty, trailed by his biographer, W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek). Unlike Munny and Little Bill, the British-born Bob has capitalized on his past to gain some fame for himself, with Beauchamp writing a book that glamorizes the gunfighter’s life and exploits. Bob also promotes the idea that his is some sort of noble profession, when conducted in a gentlemanly way that only an Englishman like himself can provide.

But, as with so much in this story, English Bob’s legend is built on lies. After Little Bill beats and jails him, the sheriff tells a stunned Beauchamp that he and Bob go way back, and that Little Bill was around for many of the adventures that Beauchamp has written up second-hand in his book. Most of the time, nothing happened the way that Bob has told it — and Little Bill further tells Beauchamp that most of what he’s heard about the life of a gunslinger is either false or exaggerated.

Beauchamp himself is an interesting if minor character, only because he’s once again indicative of Eastwood’s often hostile attitude toward the press (see the horrific and heavily criticized caricature of late reporter Kathy Scruggs in his otherwise excellent 2019 film Richard Jewell). Enamored with the larger-than-life Bob, enraptured with his own success and access, Beauchamp doesn’t realize that he is a purveyor of lies and misconceptions until he is given that eye-opening talk by Little Bill. And like everyone else in the film, he is shaken by the events that unfold and the real violence he witnesses.

Will Munny

Munny is the protagonist and heart of Unforgiven, an aging outlaw and gunslinger who has abandoned his wild, murderous, criminal past and settled into a quiet life as a hog farmer. Meeting his wife Claudia and having two children with her seems to have calmed Munny down, leading him to quit drinking and put away his guns. Even her death (three years in the past as the film opens) doesn’t seem to have knocked off course, as he still tends to the farm and his kids.

Or tries to, anyway. When we meet Munny, he’s covered in mud as he’s separating the hogs and not doing such a great job of it. The farm itself is in trouble, and the arrival of the Schofield Kid with news of a bounty provides Munny with a chance to stabilize his and his children’s futures. But of course, that means Munny has to dust off his guns and get back into the business of killing, and we can see from his perpetually haunted eyes that he’s tormented by that very idea.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Munny can’t forgive himself for his past, and constantly seeks reassurance from Ned Logan that he’s a different man now. And early on, he is: his aim isn’t very good, and he can barely get on his horse with one try. In Unforgiven, William Munny is the exact opposite of both the traditional Western hero and the standard Western villain — he was once a bad man and now wants to see himself as a good man, but he can neither escape his past nor successfully refashion himself as something new.

And when he does arrive in Big Whiskey to kill the two cowboys and collect the bounty, a series of events — his beating at the hands of Little Bill and the death of Ned at the latter’s hands, even though Ned is innocent — leads Munny to finally revert back (with the help of a bottle of bourbon) to the man he once was.

“I’ve killed women and children,” he says in the movie’s climactic sequence, when he confronts Little Bill — who now realizes who Munny is — and the men of Big Whiskey at Greeley’s saloon. “I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another.”

He then proceeds to kill six men in cold blood, one after the other, the living embodiment of Little Bill’s earlier assertion that the cool hand prevails over the quick one in a gunfight. One of those men is Little Bill, who tells Munny that they’ll see each other in hell. Munny doesn’t disagree; he’s now become a full-fledged monster who threatens on his way out the door to “come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.”

He doesn’t act on that promise, however. After he rides out of town amidst blood, corpses, thunder and pouring rain, a title card informs us that Munny and his children disappeared sometime after, possibly up to San Francisco, where he allegedly “prospered in dry goods.”

So Unforgiven does hold out a slight ray of hope at the end that Munny did once again reign in his worst impulses and find his way back to his family and, possibly, redemption. But at what cost? Unforgiven informs us that the price of vengeance is high, and that we may spend the rest of our lives paying it — even if the ones we seek vengeance against, in the words of the Kid, “had it coming.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

As Munny says in one of this brilliant movie’s most chillingly truthful lines, “We all got it coming, kid.”

The post Unforgiven: Clint Eastwood’s True Last Western Remains One of the Greatest appeared first on Den of Geek.

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wazafam · 3 years

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What some would call the grooviest decade is officially 50 years old. Many films of the early 1970s can be considered a part of the New Hollywood movement, which saw filmmakers testing uncharted waters in storytelling. Television during this time benefited, too, since it had experienced two decades of trial and error. Ironically, 1971 was also the year that Philo Farnsworth, an early television pioneer, passed away.

RELATED: 10 Shows For Fans Of The Brady Bunch To Watch

Iconic movies and TV shows were born in the 1970s, and some featured more diverse casts, too. There are so many films and programs to come out of 1971, and now that they're 50, it's time to revisit some of them.

10 All In The Family

All in the Family's importance in the sitcom stratosphere is not forgotten as the show reaches its 50th birthday. Produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, the series was based on Till Death Do Us Part, a British sitcom that aired in the 1960s and 70s. All in the Family focused on Archie and Edith Bunker in Queens, New York, along with their daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Mike. These four characters were played by Carroll O'Conner, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers, and Rob Reiner, respectively.

Archie is notoriously bigoted, a trait that the writers used to broaden the show's themes into wider social commentary. The very first episode came with a disclaimer about putting a "humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns." All in the Family spanned all of the decade, ending in 1979 after setting in motion an equally iconic line of spin-offs, most notably, The Jeffersons.

9 Jackson 5ive

The Jackson 5 band was discovered and brought into the Motown family in the late 1960s. Tito, Jermaine, Jackie, Marlon, and Michael Jackson topped the charts with "I Want You Back" in 1969.

This famous family group got their own animated series on ABC beginning in 1971, Jackson 5ive. The Jacksons would later be given a place of honor in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but years before that, they were brought to the Saturday morning screen in a co-production between Rankin/Bass and Motown Records. The series loosely depicted the Jacksons' lives as star musicians.

8 Bedknobs And Broomsticks

Based on children's books by Mary Norton, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is one of Disney's rare live-action/animated hybrids. The musical film is often compared to Mary Poppins for the obvious similarities, and it even starred David Tomlinson (George Banks from Mary Poppins) as Emelius Browne, the love interest for Miss Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury).

RELATED: Ranking Disney Princess Songs By Spotify Listens

On their magical adventure with the Rawlins children, Emelius and Miss Price also meet animated characters like King Leonidus (a lion), Secretary Bird, Fisherman Bear, and Codfish.

7 Soul Train

Soul Train deserves great recognition as it turns 50. The series was on the air for 35 years, and the first 20 years included its creator, Don Cornelius, as host. The late Don Cornelius once said of the show, “I had a burning desire to see Black people depicted on television in a positive light.”

Starting with a hip theme song, there was a lot to dance about on this musical series. Acts ranged in genre from pop and hip-hop to R&B, soul, and funk. As Cornelius had hoped, Soul Train shined a light on a huge variety of Black artists. These included The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye, to name a few.

6 The Electric Company

When it comes to educational kids' shows, The Electric Company is one of the most nostalgic of its time. The PBS show was produced by the Children's Television Workshop (Sesame Street), and it featured a diverse cast of children and adults.

Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno were among the series regulars. The Electric Company was the coolest way to learn about grammar and phonics with live-action and animated segments. The show was rebooted in 2009.

5 Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Children of multiple generations have seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and many have read the 1964 book it is based on, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There's nothing quite like stepping into Charlie's world and grabbing hold of that golden ticket with him.

Though the film can be frightening for smaller children, its eye-catching effects and bright colors lend to its one-of-a-kind story. In addition to the 2005 film, Dahl's characters will come to the screen anew in a prequel movie set for 2023.

4 Diamonds Are Forever

James Bond was born in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel, Casino Royale. But before Fleming's Bond works were complete, the character went to the big screen in 1962 and the Bond stories would gradually develop into a huge dynasty of films.

Sean Connery portrayed James Bond for the last time in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. He had played the role in the first five Bond movies, George Lazenby took over for the sixth, and Connery finished his run with the seventh. In the film, Agent 007 must shut down a diamond smuggling ring in this aptly named installment.

3 Dirty Harry

This movie was the first in the Dirty Harry franchise. Clint Eastwood established himself as "Dirty Harry" Callaghan, an inspector looking for a psychopathic sniper with the help of an inexperienced partner named Chico Gonzalez.

The film was based on the true events of the Zodiac Killer, who was active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Eastwood's line from the film, "You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?" has been quoted too many times to count.

2 Masterpiece Theatre

Masterpiece Theatre has been bringing the finest dramatic content to public television viewers for half a century now. The program "has won 83 Primetime Emmys and 18 Peabody Awards, seven Golden Globes and two Oscars."

RELATED: 10 Fantastic Drama Movies You Didn't Know Were On Netflix

From Jude the Obscure and Bleak House to Upstairs, Downstairs and Wuthering Heights, the smart features of Masterpiece Theatre have provided hours of worthy entertainment to devoted fans of the program.

1 Fiddler On The Roof

Fiddler On the Roof was adapted from Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein's 1964 Broadway musical, which was based on Sholem Aleichem's stories.

The movie musical examines Jewish life and systemic anti-Semitism in a Ukrainian village in 1905 as Tevye deals with marrying off his daughters. The music of the award-winning film is a pillar of musical theatre with songs like "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," "If I Were A Rich Man," "To Life," and "Sunrise, Sunset" established as musical mainstays for decades now.

NEXT: What Was The Very First Television Show (& 9 More Questions About TV History, Answered)

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surveystodestressme · 7 years

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48.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 9

801. How often do you change your mood in a day? not a lot 802. When you ask people how they are doing you actually care about their answer or is it just polite? well, when i ask while i’m at work i’m just doing it to be polite but when i ask someone i know, i care. 803. Would you consider yourself to be very polite? yeah, i think so 804. Do you like movies and books that involve nuclear holocaust? sure? lol i don’t think i’ve ever read/seen any 805. Have you ever had a lucid dream (a dream in which you knew you were dreaming and had complete control over what happened in the dream)? i don’t think so. i’ve tried to lucid dream (apparently there’s a specific way that you have to fall asleep in order to be able to do it. i don’t think it works tho)

806. Have you ever had a flying dream? i’m sure as a kid i did 807. Have you ever had a lucid flying dream? nope 808. What’s the oddest law you ever heard of? none at the top of my head but i’ve looked up stupid laws before and there is plenty lol 809. What is the ultimate way to connect with another person? just getting to know each other and sharing things about yourself with them 810. Can you be intimate with someone without touching him or her? i think so? sexting ig 811. Can men and women ever really be ‘just friends’ with no interest in anything more? absolutely. i have plenty of male friends and i don’t have interest in them whatsoever. 813. Are you addicted to this survey like drugs? no lol 814. If your significant other wanted to wait for marriage could you hold out or would you leave them (or would you cheat)? well, if you’re talking about sex we’ve already done it lol. but if he wanted to wait, i would wait for him. i love him 815. What’s the longest sentence you can make using only words that start with the same letter as your first name? cierra cried continuously covering curious cats cruelly. that’s all i got 816. If you had a theme song what would it be? i’d have my friends write it for me 817. Are you cranky? yeah 818. Which group generally annoys you more, people older than you, or people younger than you? people younger than me for sure 819. Do you refer to older people as old farts? lol sometimes 820. Do you refer to younger people as the kids? usually 821. Which is better: Poems that everyone can relate to or poems that are intensely personal to the author? both are good honestly. 822. Is it worse to be too hot or too cold? too hot. 823. Are you so flexible that you can put your feet behind your head? nope 824. Would you enjoy reading fairy tales written about robots? i enjoy reading lots of things 825. Is smoking a turn on or gross? not a turn on lol kinda gross 826. What is the one way you wouldn’t want to die? drowning 827. Which would look sillier on you: A cowboy hat or a Rasta hat? a cowboy hat 828. Would you rather have a job doing something indoors or outdoors? indoors. 829. Would you rather learn more about human nutrition or meteorology? meteorology 830. Have you ever taken honors courses? yeah 831. What do you think of crop circles? they’re weird 832. Where do they come from? aliens??? 833. When was the last time you screwed up big time? a couple weeks ago 834. You have a choice. What do you eat: A veggie burger this one A turkey dog A cheese sandwich 835. Do you get a lot of random instant messages? nope 836. Do you have a paper journal also?

yes 837. VHS or DVD? i don’t care either way 838. Vinyl, cassette tape, or CD? casette man. i never got a mix tape and i’ve always wanted one 839. Have you ever seen the video/heard the song Days Go By, performed by Dirty Vegas? nope 840. MTV: should it play more videos or more shows? more videos for sure 841. Name a band: five finger death punch Do fans of that band tend to share any characteristics with each other? i don’t know? i guess so 842. What does the expression 'touch and go’ mean? do something fast 843. Caffeine or alcohol? caffeine 844. Betty or Veronica? betty Archie or Reggie or Jughead? jughead 845. What book are you reading right now? i’m not currently reading a book although i need to 846. Is the news too depressing? sometimes 847. Would you rather have a stuffed lion, elephant, pig or duck? pig 848. Are you late for a very important date? not that i remember 849. Ever use star 69? yeah 850. Is everyone as smart as you? sure 851. Have you ever seen the musical Annie? nope 852. Sheets: silk or satin? silk 853. Bath: soap or bubbles? bubbles 854. Your best color: blue or red? blue. 855. What’s your favorite candy? sour punch straws 856. Can you sing? somewhat 857. It’s the end of the world, as we know it. How do you feel? a lil mad 858. You take your little sister (she’s 12) shopping for school clothes. Mom gave you the money to hold. She picks out a skimpy top emblazoned “Hottie” and hip-hugging pants that leave at least two inches of skin north and south of her navel exposed to the wind. She insists: If she doesn’t have these clothes, she’ll look awful, the other kids will tease her, and she’ll feel like a nerd. Do you think she should or should not wear these clothes? hell fucking no Do you buy them for her? absolutely not 859. What do you think is the most annoying cliché? everything will be okay 860. What band is underground right now but will one day get really popular? uhh.. idk 861. Of the following which word best describes you: versatile (flexible): this i guess. wonderful: x-tra special: your own best friend: zany: 862. What does BYOB stand for? bring your own beer 863. Who is sexiest: Marilyn Monroe James Dean yesss Elvis Jim Morrison Madonna Cyndi Lauper 864. Do you always do what’s expected of you? i try to 865. Do you believe everything you hear on the news? nope 866. Would you prefer a $100.00 gift certificate to Hot Topic or Abercrombie & Fitch (assuming neither store gives change, so you’ll have to spend the whole thing)? hot topic 867. Have you ever won a competition? not that i remember 868. Who looks sloppier when they are over weight, guys or girls? either honestly. but only when it’s severely overwight 869. At what age do you become all grown up? in your late 20s or early 30s 870. Have you ever written graffiti on anything? nope 871. Can you remember what you wrote? - 872. Are you a force of nature? sure??? 873. What do you think of blue eye shadow? How about gold eye shadow? they can look good 874. Would you ever wear any of the following Halloween costumes: Flapper? Hippie? Disco dancer? i’d wear all of them. 875. Should birth control be taught in high school? How about in jr. high or elementary school? yes to both 876. Would you consider yourself a genius? not at all 877. What did you think of the movie Solaris? never seen it 878. Which is usually better movies or books? books allll the way. but i love movies too 879. Do you think The Hobbit will be made into a movie? it already is 880. Do you research which brands use sweatshops to make their clothing before you shop? no but i probably should 881. What gives you a magical feeling? love? lol idk 882. Have you ever pulled apart a Christmas cracker? i don’t even know what that is 883. Would you rather watch basketball or play basketball? watch 884. Do you think that everyone makes his or her own problems? most of the time 885. Do you often consider how your actions will affect other people? sometimes 886. Are J-Lo and Ben Afleck interesting to you at all? not really 887. Do you use bad grammar or hate bad grammar? i hate it but i occasionally use it lol 888. Make up a tabloid headline: morgan freeman lives forever 889. Do you like to learn new things? yes. 890. What’s more important, fame or personal accomplishment? personal accomplishment. 891. Sweet dreams are made of this….What are they made of? goals? lol happiness??? idk man 892. Two trailer park girls go round the outside…Round the outside of what? idk 893. Are you wearing a piece of jewelry that means a lot to you right now? nope i don’t wear jewelry 894. If someone was going to inscribe a message on a ring and give it to you what would you want it to say? i love you? 895. Guys who are losing their hair: Should they shave their heads? Get implants? Or let it go? whatever they want to do 896. Do rock stars work hard or lead the easy life? a little bit of both 897. How much water do you drink every day? ,maybe a glass of day sometimes more 898. Are you driven or kinda apathetic? driven mostly 899. Who do you turn to when you are down? jack 900. Would you ever wear seran-wrap? no??? lol

#bored #survey #questions #quiz

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

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National Examiner, February 22 -- part 1 of 2

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Hollywood's Most Scandalous Love Affairs

Page 2: A-listers who joined the babysitters club -- a surprising number of famous folks who looked after younger stars-to-be -- William H. Macy looked after Joan Cusack, Billie Holiday looked after Billy Crystal, Michael Bolton looked after Paula Abdul, Chloe Sevigny looked after Topher Grace, Tia and Tamera Mowry looked after Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Page 3: Liza Minnelli looked after Ron Howard, Alice Cooper looked after Keanu Reeves, Laura Dern looked after Angelina Jolie, Kiefer Sutherland looked after Gwyneth Paltrow, Bethenny Frankel looked after Paris Hilton

Page 4: Anne Hathaway in the costumes from her movies

Page 6: According to a unscientific but logical Shopping Cart Theory what we do with our cart after unloading its contents into the trunk of our car says a lot about our moral character and whether we have any civic sense of responsibility

Page 7: Troy Donahue's meteoric rise and tragic fall

Page 8: What your handwriting says about you

Page 9: Watch out for vaccine side effects

Page 10: A beloved New York City cleaning woman down on her luck received a gift that reduced her to tears -- a glamorous penthouse apartment

Page 11: Painful appendicitis -- what you need to know

* The pluses of taking your pulse

Page 12: John Wayne detested Clint Eastwood and their feud flared over a film -- John refused to work with him after Clint made the 1973 movie High Plains Drifter which left a sour taste in John's mouth -- Wayne found the film unnecessarily brutal and violent and he hated the way that it depicted the West that he loved and he let Eastwood know it in no uncertain terms

Page 14: Dear Tony, America's Top Psychic Healer -- we are all equal in heaven and only God is famous -- Tony predicts rapper Saweetie will have a big influence in music among people, young and old alike, with her common sense way into the future

Page 16: In a heartbreaking announcement, the wife of legendary singer Tony Bennett has revealed the singer is struggling with memory-robbing Alzheimer's disease

Page 18: The Miami Heat is now able to bring spectators back to the court in person thanks to some COVID-19 sniffing dogs

Page 19: A shocking 12 million Americans have secret bank and credit card accounts they hide from their live-in significant others

Page 20: Too Hot to Touch -- Scandalous love affairs that shook Tinseltown -- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan

Page 21: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini

Page 22: Whether he's playing Hamlet or Darth Vader there's one thing about James Earl Jones that always stands out: his deep powerful unmistakable voice -- on the actor's 90th birthday Jones hopes to use his iconic voice to get out the word for his one lifelong wish: in order for us to heal and move forward we need to learn to love and respect each other

Page 24: A Texas couple who wished for one more baby after their first daughter's birth got more than they bargained for: five adorable little girls

Page 25: The Bible's not just the Good Book, it's good medicine -- a veritable holy host of medical researchers, health professionals and religious leaders agree biblical prayers have the power to heal

Page 26: What the Stars Watch -- everyone has a favorite movie, a certain flick that speaks to them and one they can watch over and over again and movie stars have their favorite films too -- Lindsay Lohan, Tom Hanks, Salma Hayek, Uma Thurman, Reese Witherspoon

Page 27: Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Vin Diesel, Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Steven Spielberg

Page 28: Secrets and scandals of Lawrence of Arabia

Page 30: Taka the dog nearly died in a Georgia house fire but now he's a therapy animal for children in the burn unit

Page 32: Something Wild -- 10 new species come to light during lockdown

(continued)

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weeklyhumorist · 4 years

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This End-of-Decade List Kicks Ass!

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This end-of-decade list I just made kicks so much ass. It is likely the best end-of-decade list you will ever fucking read. I didn’t just make this end-of-decade list. “Make” suggests I just compiled things and transcribed them into an end-of-decade list. Wrong. I conceptualized and created and crafted and drafted and collated an end-of-decade list that will knock your fucking socks off. My end-of-decade list was curated. Like an Edward Hopper retrospective at the Guggeinheim. But in end-of-decade list form.

What’s in my end-of-decade list? Well, the decade’s best books and movies and songs are included in my end-of-decade list. Along with the decade’s biggest technological innovations and the biggest sports moments of the decade. My end-of-decade also contains sub-lists of 5 Fun Things You Didn’t Know About Shirley Jackson and a list of times DJ Jazzy Jeff was literally thrown out of the Fresh Prince’s house and a list of 14 vegan recipes you can make with corn and a list of Mark Wahlberg’s totally insane daily schedule and a list of reasons to buy a Subaru and a list of NFL Quarterbacks Ranked in Order of Their Own Tragic Backstories.

It has so much other listy shit too. Like a list of the poorest zip codes ranked by poorness, a list of the best waterfalls, a list of Mother Teresa’s top twenty heavy metal albums, and a list of the 12 reasons you should be using a cast iron skillet. It’s the end of the decade and I made a kick ass end-of-decade list.

My end-of-decade list has the decade’s most memorable moments and most influential people and listy type sports things. But there’s a twist. A twist in the list. Does the whole end-of-decade list rhyme? A rhyming list? Would you be pissed? Like William Rehnquist? You’ll just have to read it to find out. My end-of-decade list has a sub-list of people who should be bobbleheads, a list of ways the world would be different if the confederacy won the Civil War, a list of rankings of all NCAA Division 1 schools lacrosse teams ranked by lacrosseyness, a list of the 50 best Slaughterhouse-Five covers, a list of prime numbers, a list of 23 things you will never understand unless you have worked in a restaurant, a list of defunct chain drug stores, a list of the eight hottest female snipers, and a list of prepositions. I’ve even thrown in my list of references too. It’s in one list. One huge motherfucking end-of-decade list.

But my end-of-decade list has more. It’s like a grocery list. But a grocery list if Rihanna and Britney Spears and Keith Richards were going to Wegman’s to shop for a party they’re hosting. And they stopped at Leonardo DiCaprio’s house on the way to Wegman’s. And Jane’s Addiction was there. That sort of high-octane grocery list.

There’s also a little bit of bucket list thrown in. Like Morgan Freeman’s bucket list but also with elements of the bucket lists of Laura Dern and Antonio Banderas and Beyonce and Denzel Washington and Betty White and Joaquin Phoenix. Like if all of their bucket lists were melded into one bucket list. And Adam Driver. Like all those bucket lists fully synthesized it into my end-of-decade list.

Is the end-of-decade list scratch and sniff? Like does that portion of the end-of-decade list which lists the top 14 avocados that look like people actually smell like avocado? Scratch it and sniff and find out, asshole. Does the sub-section of the list that ranks the 139 Clash songs in order from worst to best smell like a Clash concert? Scratch it and sniff it and find out, asshole.

I’ve added asterisks to my end-of-decade list. The asterisks contain more end-of-decade lists. Lists within the end-of-decade list. Those end of decade lists are like a list of things you’re going to buy at IKEA. But better. It also contains a list of Bond villains ranked by IQ, a list of secret service code names I would give myself, a do not call list, a list of Heisman trophy winners grouped by double-breasted suit color, a list of reasons to love PBS, a list of places John Belushi probably took off his pants, a list of the coolest elephants, a list of 100 short men in order of height and a list of 16 unconventional songs for high-impact workouts. But all in one end-of-decade list.

I might have even integrated some indices in the end-of-decade list. That’s right. I said indices, bitch. The plural form of index. That is how fucking awesome my end-of-decade list is.

You want to know the 100 best companies NOT to work for and Wal-Mart’s best-selling items by state and a list of the 18 best cognitive biases and 52 places I have puked? It’s in my end-of-decade list. So much fucking data is in my end-of-decade list. Like the 75 most popular dog names. But also the data is synthesized and distilled so that it encompasses things like the list of the 50 most annoying songs of the decade and a list of skills that everyone should master and a list supplied by Paul Thomas Anderson himself wherein he reveals his top five best lemonade stands.

I’ve even included a list of things I’d like to throw at my neighbor and a list of 15 substitutes for eggs and a list of reasons we need to believe in Bigfoot and a list of 88 things about Billy Joel. What sort of things? You’ll just have to consult the end-of-decade list. And in case you’re too fucking stupid to realize it, there’s 88 things about Billy Joelbecause he’s the piano man and there are 88 keys on the piano. You dipshit. That’s how nuanced is my end-of-decade list.

Perhaps you’re not ready for my end-of-decade list. Perhaps you want to stay in the dark about the highest grossing films of the decade and every episode of Three’s Company ranked from best to worst and 12 MORE reasons you should be using a cast-iron skillet and a list of marijuana strains that should be renamed after Kacey Musgravessongs and a list of things you didn’t know about John Kennedy Schlossberg because you were too chicken-shit to even ask. So be it. I don’t want you to read my list. That way there will be more list for those who will appreciate it.

And if you think my end-of-decade list doesn’t contain predictions for the next decade you’re sadly mistaken. Because nestled in between my end-of-decade list of the 35 most iconic foreign language films and members of congress who can just fuck off and job titles with the word “strategist” in them and Adele songs ranked by sadness and 100 fun facts about India and a list of things it’s ok to flush down the toilet, there’s lots of predictions for the next decade. And wait’ll you read those.

This End-of-Decade List Kicks Ass! was originally published on Weekly Humorist

#best of #decade #end of the year #holiday #lists #new year's #pop culture

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placetobenation · 5 years

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A commentary on the Best Picture Nominees for 1994.

1994 was a great year for movies. Through the coarse of this retrospective on the year 1994 in movies the most difficult part will be deciding which movies not to cover. Though the best place to start would be the movies considered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be the best for the year. A wise man that I recently spoke to put it like this “ There were three all timers and two how the hell did they get nominated.” The movies in question are Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump. While all five are excellent films in their own right, three certainly stand out as having stood the test of time. There will be spoilers ahead as these movies are twenty five years old. If you haven’t seen these movies, I recommend all of them and they are their easy enough to find. I am going to try to not dig too deep into the meat and potatoes of the plot details, instead focusing on the elements that made these movies exceptional, the culture impact they had at the time, and their lasting legacy. So with no further delay, let’s get started.

Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a historical drama about the rigging of a 1950’s game show and the scandal that followed leading to a congressional investigation. The movie stars John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes, and Rob Morrow also is directed by Robert Redford. In the early days of television, game shows became popular programming which made household names out of its contestants. NBC had a show called Twenty-One. To sweeten the ratings, the producers gave the answers to a contestant Herbert Stemple, played by John Turturro. People tuned in to see just how much he would win as the prize money grew from week to week. When his ratings plateaued, they asked Stemple to take a dive so they could replace him with a more attractive star, Charles Van Doren played by Ralph Fiennes. Stemple takes this pretty hard and happily does his part to blow the lid off the whole thing when congress decides to investigate the quiz shows. Rob Morrow plays Dick Goodwin, the person asked to investigate the case and it’s remarkable how close he became to Van Doren. Van Doren plays a long with the scam for as long as his conscious will allow it. He is a Columbia professor from a family of intellectuals so this whole matter puts his reputation and family honor on the line.

It’s going to be hard to comment on the legacy of this film or its cultural impact since I don’t think Quiz Show has much of either. The movie was loved by critics but it bombed at the box office. Reading some of the reviews, I think the critics were reading too deep into the material. The story is a curiosity at best. It is interesting how much people cared about whether or not game shows were on the level, so much so that congress would get involved. All I could think is if they cared this much about quiz shows why didn’t they investigate wrestling, which was also very popular in the early days of television. The movie plays with the quaint notion that people on television would be admired for their intellect, something that even by 1994 was no longer the case. Quiz Show received several nominations by various organizations for Best Adapted Screenplay which I call bullshit on. I found the writing to be the weakest part of the film. There are clunky lines of dialogue like “He’s famous like Elvis.” or “Sputnik will land right on your head!” They had to keep reminding you in the dialogue that this movie takes places in the 50’s and every film student knows that is a screenwriting faux pas. Structurally, the writing is sound but unlike films like Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, or Four Weddings and a Funeral, the film doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary. I hate to engage in conspiracy theories but the praise Quiz Show receives from the critics and Academy can only best be explained as a love affair they have with Robert Redford.

With everything I just said, I don’t want it to sound like Quiz Show is a bad movie. It’s a perfectly acceptable film but definitely the weakest of the bunch. What the movie does do well is capturing the 50’s. This movie is an example of some excellent acting. John Turturro was particularly exceptional as Herbert Stemple, a nebish trivia expert who has difficulty dealing with taking a dive and being in on the fix. He is awkward and excitable. Turturro’s performance really is the strongest of a strong crop. Ralph Fiennes as the WASPy intellectual Charles Van Doren was also particularly well done. Robert Redford did an excellent job getting the best out of everyone down to the extras in terms of making these people feel authentic. I was born in 1980 so I don’t know for sure what people in the 50’s were like but all of these characters felt to me like what people in the 50’s acted like. The other remarkable aspects of Quiz Show to me were the production design and cinematography. This movie also looks authentically 50’s or rather my perception of that decade. If I were instructing film makers who were interested in making a period piece on the 50’s, Quiz Show would make the list for study material.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I am so glad I got to rewatch this movie as part of this project. At first glance, one might remember this movie as one of the many Hugh Grant romantic comedies. That was a genre that ran its coarse by the mid-2000’s. I don’t like rom-coms. But Four Weddings and a Funeral is an exceptional romantic comedy. It casts the die for this type of movie and simultaneously breaks it. The movie follows Charlie, played by Hugh Grant, and a group of his friends as they attend four weddings and a funeral over the course of a year or so. We know little about these characters and their regular lives but that doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is how they interact in these type of social settings. We have all had to attend weddings and funerals and most of us know that we become different people in these settings. The only story connecting these events is Charlie meeting Carrie, an American played by Andie MacDowell, whom he falls in love with but can’t have. They meet and the only time they see each other is at these gatherings. Somehow they manage to have a type of relationship that is very touching. What makes this movie better than most of it’s genre is the writing, the comedy, the acting, and how it is structured. Comedy doesn’t always have to be loud and over the top, although sometimes that helps. Sometimes comedy can be just a look from the actor or a look away. It can be a subtle tick or body language. The supporting cast is very strong and whether they are giving a one- liner in passing or taking part of an entire scene, everyone invests into their character something to make them unique. The way the story is laid out is quite good too. Gareth, the character that is most full of life is the one who dies. The speech his lover Matthew makes at his funeral feels incredibly real. The funeral in this movie isn’t part of the comedy. It is played completely seriously. We don’t get the Big Show Daddy’s funeral here. You would think having an entire sequence that changes the tone of the movie would derail it but instead it adds to the experience and makes everything about the movie more authentic. Like most romantic comedies, the third act has a lot of surprises and turns where everything works out for the best in the end. But unlike most rom-coms, the ending feels earned. Hugh Grant says I do but the results are completely unexpected.

Four Weddings and a Funeral is an incredible accomplishment as an independent film. Made on a budget of roughly $3 million, this movie took in $245 million in worldwide box office. Today people could spend $3 million on four actual weddings and a funeral much less make a feature film of this quality for that much. Part of this movie’s success has to do with a press tour Hugh Grant does in America that charms the nation. That coupled with the movie would make Hugh Grant a star. He would go on to be a romantic lead for years to come. The other legacy for this movie is the string of romantic comedies that would come. They are less common now than they used to be but for many years that would follow 1994, it seemed you would get at least two rom-coms a month. The writing for romantic comedies became formulaic and the plots contrived. For a while, they would be the easiest money a studio could earn. Much like the slasher trend of the 80’s, studios rarely lost money on a rom-com and they kept pumping them out. I am sure there are examples of romantic comedies before this movie, Annie Hall comes to mind. But Four Weddings and a Funeral started an explosion in this genre.

Shawshank Redemption

Based on a Steven King story, Shawshank Redemption is the story of Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, making the best use of his time. Told through the eyes of Red, a convict played by Morgan Freeman, this is about how Andy quietly escapes from prison. By the end of the movie you see how Andy bides his time, used his remarkable intellect, and carefully planned his escape from the first day he arrived at Shawshank Prison. The storytelling is so masterful that by the end of the movie you see everything Andy does through has a purpose with the focus of getting out. Also you see the friendship between Red and Andy grow over time. You see how Andy plays the Warden and the head prison guard, brilliantly played by Clancy Brown, putting together a money laundering scheme that makes everyone rich. There is so much that can be said about this movie, it really is a masterpiece. The acting performances were amazing. The setting and production design was incredible. Shawshank Redeption brings this environment to life and the prison becomes a character itself. All of the characters have the feeling of real people. Even Tommy, who we barely see for an act of the movie, makes you feel heartbroken when he is shot. Brooks is another character that we meet for only a brief moment in the movie. He has a hard time adjusting to life on the outside. The way they told his story was so good that you can identify with a man who feels more comfortable in prison than out of prison. Really, all I can say about Shawshank Redemption is that it’s about hope and living with purpose. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And no good thing ever dies.

Shawshank Redeption did not do well in the box office. Once awards season rolled around, it started to gain some buzz. It became one of the top rented movies for 1995. Once TNT started showing the movie almost daily, they had found their audience and people began to appreciate Shawshank Redemption for the great movie that it is. It’s hard to say that if this movie or Seven was the film that launched Morgan Freeman into being a bankable actor in a supporting role but it certainly helped. Putting this film into the context of what it meant in 1994 is kind of difficult because it didn’t have much box office success at the time. However, what the movie does have is a timeless quality. People born in 1994 are finding this movie and enjoying it today. Somewhere on cable, this movie is being played as you read this. Every streaming service I can think of has Shawshank Redemption available. That is the mark of a truly great film, that it will be around forever.

Pulp Fiction

A landmark film of the 90’s, Pulp Fiction follows three separate stories, told out of order, surrounding a group of criminals, over the course of two days. Structurally, Pulp Fiction is unlike an other movie we have seen. There are seven different sequences that tie together tangentially. We start at the diner at the beginning where two robbers that we can affectionately call Honey Bunny and Ringo are plotting to rob the restaurant they are in. Then we meet Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, and Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson. They discuss cheeseburgers and go on a mission to retrieve some propriety for their employee from some small timers who only had the best of intentions. The third sequence is Vincent having to take his bosses wife on a date. After what can best described as a successful date, Vincent’s date Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman, has an accidental overdose and Vincent finds a way to discretely have her revived before anyone can find out. The next sequence is Air Force Captain Koons, played by Christopher Walken gives us the significance for a gold watch being given to Butch, who will grow up to be a boxer and played by Bruce Willis. The next sequence shows the after match of what happens when Butch doesn’t throw a fight he was suppose to throw for mob boss Marsellus Wallace, played by Ving Rhames. Butch has to return to his apartment where gangsters will be waiting. Butch gets the watch back and then things get weird. If you didn’t know what a gimp was before, then you will now. From there, we go back to what happened after Vincent and Jules retrieve the briefcase. Jules has a spiritual experience and while discussing theology in the car with their friend Marvin, Marvin gets shot in the head accidentally. Jules has a friend in Toluca Lake named Jimmy who can hide them for a little while until his wife comes home but they have a serious problem driving around in a car soaked in blood with a headless dead body in the back seat. Mr. Wallace calls in Winston Wolfe, played by Harvey Keitel. Mr. Wolfe may be one of the coolest characters in the history of movies. He cleans up messes and does so with such style, you really have to see it. With the situation cleaned up, Jules and Vincent go to lunch at a diner, the one that was going to be robbed at the beginning of the movie. When Ringo and Honey Bunny decide to rob the place, Jules puts the breaks on it by gaining control of the situation. Jules breaks down his interpretation of Ezekiel 25:17, which is terribly misquoted and out of context in any bible translation you might have. Regardless, Jules puts a bow on the movie with what he tells Ringo before making a quiet exit.

Quentin Tarantino has made so many great films over the years but this one still is considered by many to be the best. To make a movie that is as popular as Pulp Fiction is with such an unorthodox structure is an achievement in itself. Every single character pops and comes alive. Even Christopher Walken’s character, who makes a brief cameo and gives a roughly two minute speech, feels lived in and authentic. Holding an audiences attention with a monologue like that in a static shot with nothing visually taking place is one of the most difficult things to pull off but here it’s done masterfully. I think I have heard every line from this movie quoted or referenced at some point in my life. Royale with Cheese, Ezekiel 25:17, What does Marselles Wallace look like? Say what again! I am sure you have your favorite line. Point is, no one else can pull off this kind of wordy, clever dialogue but for Quentin Tarantino. I have seen attempts to copy this style,whether it be in movies, tv, or comic books, fail time and again. That is what makes Tarantino a master amongst directors. Also, this movie makes the characters likable, relatable people. Almost every character in the movie is not what one would call a good person. They are criminals, remorseless killers, dregs of society, lowlifes the whole lot of them. But through the writing, directing, and acting these become characters that we like, enjoy spending time with, and even want to see succeed. While Tarantino broke many of the established rules and conventions of film making with Pulp Fiction, there is an obvious love for the craft that can be seen in this and all of his movies. I could probably write a book on Pulp Fiction but to sum up this part of the article, Quentin Tarantino made a masterpiece with Pulp Fiction. It’s considered by some critics to be the greatest film ever made.

The effects of Pulp Fiction on the culture were wide and sweeping. This movies success launched the career of Quentin Tarantino and gave him the creative license to do whatever projects he wanted, which he has for the last twenty five years. The success of this film had a great effect on how people in and outside the movie business saw independent films. No longer were indie films reserved simply for the art houses with a limited appeal and a niche audience. The career of John Travolta was revived because of this movie. The Simpsons joke about a bartender looking like John Travolta was not far off from the truth. A series of critical and commercial bombs throughout the 80’s left Travolta at the lowest point of his career. This movie put him back on the map and made John Travolta cool again. Pulp Fiction elevated the careers of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. Both had been respectable, working actors prior to this movie but Pulp Fiction made both actors leading role material and marketable entities. Bruce Willis was also helped greatly by his performance in Pulp Fiction. Bruce was pretty well established as an action hero but this movie helped him be taken seriously as an actor that can do a lot more than most action stars. As I have stated before, Pulp Fiction has been referenced and quoted countless times throughout pop culture. When Fall Out Boy made a song about wanting to dance like Uma Thurman, they weren’t talking about her performance in Batman and Robin or The Avengers (1996). Movies from Space Jam to this years Captain Marvel have fit in references to Pulp Fiction. The sountrack was fantastic. Many of us remember the ECW interview segments with the surf guitars in the background that most fans simply call “Pulp Fiction.” There are few movies that can be called game changers but Pulp Fiction is most certainly one of them.

And the Oscar goes to…. Forrest Gump.

Forrest Gump is about a simple man with an extraordinary life. Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, is a character that is slow but wise. He finds himself in the middle of almost every major cultural event from the last half of the 20th Century. Somehow he is oblivious to the significance of these events. He teaches Elvis how to dance, plays football for Bear Bryant, fights in Vietnam, meets Presidents Johnson and Nixon, invests in Apple Computers, runs a few laps around the United States, founds a successful shrimp company, and so much more. Forrest Gump doesn’t see any of this as impressive. His main focus is the love of the first girl he saw on kindergarten, Jenny. They have moments where they pass through each others life. Forest is smitten. Jenny has other priorities in live and while she finds Forest to be sweet, she doesn’t take him seriously. That unrequited love is at the center of who Forrest is and no matter what happens, he loves Jenny. In the end, Jenny dies but not before giving Forrest a son.

Forrest Gump was an unexpected blockbuster that captured the imagination of the country. I remember being taken to this film along with the rest of my school under the pretense of a history field trip. The most remarkable thing about that field trip is how this movie held the attention of my entire 8th grade class. Even the small town junior thugs sat still and paid attention to Forrest Gump. The movie manages to not be overly schmaltzy in it’s nostalgia but also not cynical about the past. Seeing these events through the eyes of a man like Forrest Gump helps. He is the kind of guy who can meet John Lennon and not know who he just met. That keeps this movie from being the sort of thing that is laughable like in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. My Dad saw this movie in the theater and my Dad never goes to the theater. This movie took the country by storm and I don’t believe the producers could have seen the success of this film coming. On a budget of $55 Million, Forrest Gump made $677 Million at the box office, second highest grossing film of the year only behind The Lion King. This was a film that almost everyone saw and the line “Life is like a box of chocolates.” was quoted frequently.

One of the last legacies of this film is what it did for Tom Hanks career. He was launched from a fairly popular comedic actor having worked on films like The Burbs, Dragnet, The Money Pit, and Joe vs the Volcano. With Forrest Gump, Hanks went to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, a wave that he is riding to this very day. Tom Hanks came to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor with a lot of versatility. When you look at the wide range of characters Hanks has played over his career, all of it is owed to what he did with this film. The very humorous line in Tropic Thunder about “not going full retard” is very amusing but actually really good acting advice. The way Hanks plays Forrest with so many layers, it really is an amazing performance. Also a lot of credit should be given to the writers as well as director Robert Zemeckis. Together, they crafted an amazingly rich character. The way this character behaves is consistent through the years. He is unchanged while the world around him keeps on changing at a rate that may have never been seen in human history. Forrest Gump is an example of a protagonist who effects the world around him but has no traditional character arc. With his performance, you see a person who impacts those around him and makes them better, particularly Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise. Lieutenant Dan has a character arc from when we first meet him to where he ends up at the end of the movie. Forrest is more or less unchanged. Thanks to what Tom Hanks showed in this movie, he became a bankable star that has been given a wide range of roles over the last twenty-five years and he has to be considered one of the greatest American actors there have ever been.

Speaking of Gary Sinise, the impact Forrest Gump had on his life has been long lasting and powerful. Lieutenant Dan is Forrest’s commanding officer in Vietnam. He has a long history of the men in his family dying in the battle field in all our wars. It looks like Dan will proudly follow in his fathers footsteps when Forrest Gump steps in and saves his life. Dan is not at all happy about this. Not only did he fail to live up to his family legacy but he also will live the rest of his life without legs. Dan pops in and out of Forrest’s life in the coming years, struggling hard to adjust to life outside the military and without legs. He eventually finds peace and a purpose thanks in part to the friendship of Forrest Gump. After this movie came out, the character really resonated with veterans and many gave their touching stories to Gary Sinise in person. He has talked about this at great length and even to this day he gets very emotional when discussing the conversations he has had with veterans over the years and just what the character of Lieutenant Dan has meant to their lives. This led Sinise to doing a lot of work with veterans groups over the years, helping people out with trauma. You can look more into the work for yourself he has done over the years but the point is that it has meant a great deal to many people and he has really came through for veterans. All of this because of a movie. That is the power of films and how they can touch the lives of many people.

It’s worth discussing the soundtrack to this movie. The two disc set for Forrest Gump containing hits from the 50’s to the 80’s along with the score is in many ways the soundtrack for the Baby Boom generation. It sold over 12 Million copies and reached number two on the Billboard charts. This is unheard of for a movie soundtrack. Using popular music was an important aspect of Forrest Gump and clearly it resonated with many people. The right music used at the right times can really make the movie feel authentic. It’s hard to equate it to anything today. I suppose Guardians of the Galaxy might be the closest comparison. I was shocked to find out how well this soundtrack performed on the charts and it’s a sign of the long reach this movie had.

Did they get it right?

So those are our five films that the Academy deemed to be the best of the year. So did they get it right? Well, in my opinion, they could have done better than selecting Quiz Show. I think movies like Ed Wood and The Lion King were worthy of consideration for Best Picture. Prior to rewatching Four Weddings and a Funeral I would have said that movie had no business being nominated but my opinion has changed. It was going to to break through this crowded field but it certainly was worthy of consideration being that it is the best example of a genre that had not yet been played out.

Having watched all five films this week, I will say that Pulp Fiction was probably the best movie in 1994. That being said, I can see why they went with Forrest Gump and it wasn’t a grave error. Forrest Gump was the safe pick. Everyone had seen the movie. It was a fantastic film, worthy of Best Picture in any year it could have conceivably been released. Most importantly, the subject matter was safe. A nostalgia film about the baby boom generation vs a movie about criminals filled with sex, violence, and foul language. The Academy is going to go with a film like Forrest Gump every time. There are plenty of other years where one can criticize the Academy for not picking the right film for Best Picture or nominating a bunch of movies no one has seen or cares about. 1994 was not one of those years. Picking between Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump was not an easy task. These three films will be watched and talked about forever.

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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