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kyotakumrau · 4 years

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2020.09.27 Rolling Stone Japan - interview with SUGIZO - translation (selection)

SUGIZO talkes about how he met his friends and why was it important to him now to release a live album

Original text: Joe Yokomizo

Photos by Keiko Tanabe

Translation: kyotaku

SUGIZO is releasing the first live album in his solo career, 'LIVE IN TOKYO', on September 30th. This work delivers the two day birthday performance 'SUGIZO 聖誕半世紀祭～HALF CENTURY ANNIVERSARY FES.～' that was held last year on July 7th and August 2nd at Nakano Sunplaza, giving you a chance to not only enjoy the live atmosphere but also the magnificent collaboration with his sworn musician friends.

It's a masterpiece I'd love many people to listen to, but it might be surprising to people who only know SUGIZO from LUNA SEA and X JAPAN and not his solo work.

In this interview we will get to the bottom of it, discussing the live album, the foundations of SUGIZO's solo work and his music, and the history with the artists who joined the project.

ー It's the first time in your career you're releasing a live album, which is very unusual now that the video releases are so common. You were that happy with how those 2 days turned out?

I was planning to release a live album from before. I heard from my staff they wanted to release the material from this half century celebration, but because I've released live video works so many times I thought it's time to change my approach.

I feel that young people nowadays are not really familiar with live albums. These times we can easily watch live videos everywhere including YouTube. But back in our childhood the live album from the artist we were indulging in was a real prize. For me it was YMO, JAPAN and PiL. Miles Davids or Frank Zappa also had quite a few live releases. And, Deep Purple or Peter Framptom also had famous live albums, even as I wasn't influenced by them. With such artists, live albums in 70s and 80s were treated as extremely valuable. I have a lot of admiration for those times, so I was hoping to eventually be able do it myself.

－ I see. Before we talk about the content, I wanted to ask you when did you encounter the so called psychodelic trance music that is the foundation of your solo music?

In the mid 90s. First, I was really into hardcore techno or minimal techno in early 90s, speaking of the ambient world like The Orb or 808 STATE, I really love the scene of that time. And few years later, at the same time when I started my solo activity, European drum n bass or abstract hip hop were very popular, I was quite influenced by the club culture and music around then, and then naturally I gave myself to trance.

The first rave I went to see was Vision Quest in 2001, and from then I got even more into it. The feeling of life in the perfectly linked music and the flow of universe, like dancing with the rising sun and chilling in the afternoon, my instincts were telling me that people had a connection with this kind of music from the ancient times. Not the music from the cities, the music with roots in nature. Kind of primitive music. I found great value for music there.

◆Then they discuss JUNO REACTOR, learning what kind of rhythm feels good, how working with a South African percussion team Amampondo helped them grow spiritually, especially thanks to the drummer Mabi, SUGIZO's chase of the 'black groove' to finally understand East has its own good points; he can be proud as Japanese and SUGIZO's solo activity reflects everything he's learnt.

Next, Joe asks SUGIZO for a primer of his solo work, SUGIZO lists 'Misogi', 'FATIMA', 'DO-FUNK DANCE' and 'Lux Aeterna'◆

meeting Kyo（DIR EN GREY/sukekiyo)

－ Remarkably for each of two days you invited guest vocalists. All of them are musicians you're very familiar with, could you tell us first about how you got to know Kyo (from DIR EN GREY/sukekiyo)?

From the start I was close with some people they know and their staff members. So I went to see their show and we were introduced. It was surprisingly recently, like around 2005 or 2006.

－ What was your impression when you saw DIR EN GREY for the first time?

It was the first time I felt threatened by a younger band. I'm sorry for saying this, but I haven't felt threatened or impacted by any of the younger artists, within this genre. That's why I was quite surprised with how great they are. What they're expressing, their worldview are incredible. At that time I could feel that their performance or sound are not there yet, but I could already feel the intensity of what was pouring out of them, the endless possibilities.

I was especially looking at Kyo thinking 'he's a genius'. There's no theory or detailed reasoning with him. He's just doing things by instinct. But he's good with words, good at drawing, as an artist he can express himself in so many different ways. Then, when I met him in person he was just so pure and innocent, doesn't it seem like he's not greedy at all? So it was a shock of 'a genius like this exists?'.

－ It was Kyo who wrote the lyrics for your collaboration song 'Zessai', was it a request from you?

Yes. Thinking to sing the best it'd be better if that person writes the lyrics, and when I asked [Kyo] he happily did. When I sent him a 2nd stage Mix demo asking 'it will be like this, what do you think?', he already had the singing (melody) put in. And the lyrics have been done too, when I asked 'woah, that's the actual thing?', he replied 'yup, I've done them'. It's the same with DIR. Thus, he's a genius. When an image comes to his mind he cannot wait. It all felt so fast. He's really a phenomenal creator.

－ How was the performance at the Half Century Anniversary?

I felt he definitely is someone who follows his instincts. When you stand on the stage and things get serious it totally doesn't matter if you're younger or older (as in how long you've been working in a music business). Of course there was no stage fright, I felt as a performer he's just huge, and at the same time it felt like there was mutual respect. It felt like it would be a waste to let it just finish like that. That's why I'm very happy that we can release the collaboration from the stage [on the live album].

◆Next, they talk about TERU and TAKURO (from GLAY), followed by Kiyoharu (I'm skipping here a lot)◆

－Kiyoharu said 'I've performed on various stages so I can't imagine myself losing, but when playing together with SUGIZO the pressure is very different'. Often when two different performers stand on stage together sparks will fly.

The same thing can be said about RYUICHI and SUGIZO, the spark/heat of the collision of a guitarist and a vocalist is often very attractive. In a way there's also the aesthetics of traditional rock, that the combination of Kiyoharu and SUGIZO might be able to embody this spark's attractiveness. That's why the collision on the stage makes me shudder, but also it's possible to blend together. With [the combination of] Kyo and SUGIZO there's no blending together, it feels different. And with TAKURO・TERU we're different type of people. When Kiyoharu is on stage I feel he's the same species as me.

－ It's interesting that the character of all those three groups of musicians is totally different.

That's true. I think it's amazing I could have a line-up like that, it's really by chance that they are my good friends coming from the same genre.

◆they finish the interview talking about the sound and working with Dub Master X, sound mixing for the album, SUGIZO wants the live sound to have intimate, close feeling◆

一 So how was it to complete a live album without compromising on anything?

It's a live album, but it it makes me feel like I was able to create a 'SUGIZO's Best Album'. 2 years I go I released what was meant to be my biggest compilation, but obviously the sound from the studio and from the concert have totally different types of energy. As someone who's been performing on the stage for a very long time, I'm really glad to able to pack that energy for the first time officially on an album. Of course live performance has less precision than the studio album, but performance has way more energy.

Another thing is that as you know it is difficult now to perform due to the pandemic. I haven't played live for half a year, when thinking about it, it's the first time in my music career to not play any shows for this long. That's why I'm really yearning for the stage performance, the live show. When I was still doing them it was something obvious, but now that I can't, making this album made me keenly aware how important concerts are in my life and how much I need them; and to tell the truth working on this live album was like saving myself in a way. Obviously a live album can't rival the real thing. Not even a live dvd nor a live stream can match the excitement of being there [at the show], but I worked on this album hoping to let you feel at least some percent of that feeling. At any rate, I'm really grateful to be able to create a work like a live album that inspired me so much as a child.

Btw 絶彩 feat. 京 [LIVE IN TOKYO] available here

#sukekiyo #kyo #京 #sugizo #interview #translation #kinda #絶彩 #dir en grey #sugizo half century anniversary fes

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camillemontespan · 5 years

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the interview every magazine wanted [drake walker x camille montespan]

NEW ARTICLE!! I actually loved writing this. We got fluff, we got sass, we got corgis, we got Drake getting embarrassed about that intimate photo taken on honeymoon!

(I know some people might find this a weird way of writing fic but I genuinely enjoy writing articles like this, it’s quite fun).

So in this, Liam asking Drake and Camille to make their baby his heir just hasn’t happened. Sorry, not in Cake’s universe. Fuck that.

But Cordonians being all up in Camille’s vagina is all the rage! Yay!

A/N; I added another edited photo in this but there is more writing underneath in case it’s not obvious. The article doesn’t finish when the photo appears.

@jovialyouthmusic @sirbeepsalot @pug-bitch @moonlightgem7 @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @dcbbw @iplaydrake @drakewalkerisreal @katedrakeohd @emceesynonymroll @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @carabeth @burnsoslow @notoriouscs @ritachacha @rainbowsinthestorm

************************************

'Are we controversial?’ Duchess Camille of Valtoria asks her husband.

The Duke shrugs. ‘If asking for privacy is controversial, then yeah, I guess we are.’

I’m meeting the newly appointed Duke and Duchess of Valtoria at a private members club for one of the most anticipated and sought after magazine interviews in the media. The interview in question will be focusing on the current royal baby obsession sweeping Cordonia. In case you have been living under a rock for the past month, everyone has been wanting Camille to get pregnant. After weeks of dodging paparazzi and rejecting magazine interviews, the couple have finally agreed to sit down with Trend and I am the journalist in charge of writing this feature. It has to be good. To say I’m nervous is an understatement.

Drake and Camille are notoriously private. That is the one thing you need to know about them. The fact I even got this interview is a big deal.

‘One interview. Our only interview. Our words, no editing, no twisting what we say,’ Drake told me down the phone. I agreed.

The thing is... Camille isn’t pregnant yet. They want to use this interview to set the record straight.

When I meet them in the drawing room of the Cordonia Club, they both stand to greet me. Camille hugs me tight. ‘I love your dress!’ she says. Drake shakes my hand and asks what I would like to drink.

They’re dressed casual-smart. Camille is wearing burgundy cigarette trousers, a silk dark blue vest and black suede loafers with gold lionness heads stuck on top - they’re amazing. Drake is wearing a grey fisherman sweater, dark jeans and brown suede boots. They’re a ridiculously good looking couple; it makes my heart hurt a little.

Did I tell you that Drake smells amazing? He leans over to hand me a glass of water and I catch a whiff of sandalwood and leather. Umf.

The first question I ask is if they think they’re controversial which they ponder for a moment before Drake’s casual answer.

To be frank, the beginning of their marriage attracted controversy from the get go. They got married two months ago at Drake’s family ranch in Texas. They rejected the idea of a royal wedding and instead chose to be surrounded by just close friends and family, which meant no media frenzy. This angered the media and public alike.

‘As we were just starting out as the new Duke and Duchess, I don’t think we were prepared for the intense reaction our wedding would have,’ Camille tells me. She is sat curled up on a chaise lounge, her back settled against Drake. They are sat like a normal couple who binge watch box sets. Not a Duke and Duchess. ‘We didn’t realise how much the public wanted to see our wedding.’

This may sound naive but Drake and Camille genuinely had no idea how popular they were until after they became husband and wife. ‘We were commoners,’ Drake explains. ‘We weren’t in the same league as say, Bertrand, the Duke of Ramsford.’

‘But it exploded for us when we went on honeymoon,’ Camille continues. ‘We had this beautiful and intimate wedding, away from the press. No social media, nothing. We wanted away from the chaos. It was a little bubble, you know? But as soon as we got on the plane to the Maldives, I saw the in flight magazine and oh my God, the headlines.’

They didn’t let it ruin their honeymoon though. Camille continued to drink champagne and cliff dived into the ocean - Drake shows me a video he took of Camille jumping from a cliff in her bikini and it looks terrifying, but she turns to the camera with a mega watt smile on her face before jumping off the edge. Drake shouts proudly in the video, ‘Yes baby!’

But, the press had been savage. Articles focused on asking if the couple even cared about Cordonia while they were swigging champagne.

‘We were on our honeymoon!’ Drake protests.

Others called them traitors for marrying in the US - ‘ridiculous because we’re both American..’ Drake mutters.

Drake is clearly not a fan of the press.

One tabloid conducted an investigation into Camille’s background and brought up her sad childhood; she lost her parents aged five to drugs and was adopted by her grandmother. She never went to college because she couldn’t afford it and started working aged 14 while attending school so she could help her grandmother with bills. She waited tables at a diner until she came to Cordonia.

Camille goes quiet when I mention her parents. ‘I guess they’re going to be brought up to me,’ she whispers. ‘I should get used to it.’

Drake takes her hand and takes over. ‘They bring up her parents in a negative way, as if her history is meant to tarnish her. But what they don’t mention is how strong Camille is, how she doesn’t let it define her. That should be the focus of that story.’

Camille smiles gratefully at Drake and I see how their relationship works. They are a team. I decide to steer the conversation away from her parents which is clearly a sore subject - besides, we are here today to discuss the current obsession with Drake and Camille having a baby.

She insists she’s not pregnant.

As soon as Drake and Camille came back from their honeymoon, her stomach became circled in paparazzi pictures, asking if she had a bump or had just eaten a lot of pasta that day.

‘Pasta. I love pasta,’ Camille says dryly.

Social media imploded with tweets begging for a Cake baby.

‘Cake is like our couple name..’ Drake groans. ‘Someone came up with it and christened us that abomination. Apparently we were trending on Twitter. Something about a cake baking in the oven?’

Cordonia has always been set in its ways. A traditional country that puts family and the home first, it is not modern and it often lags behind it’s European counterparts. The need for a royal baby increased, as a Duke and Duchess without a pregnancy within the first year is seen as bad luck and will bring about instability.

‘There’s talk that if we don’t have a baby, the country will be unstable,’ Camille says. ‘I don’t know how we have had that pressure placed on our shoulders but I’ll tell you now, I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate being bombarded by paparazzi shouting at us, asking how many times we fucked on our honeymoon. I don’t appreciate having every outfit I wear scrutinised for a baby bump. I don’t appreciate it when journalists joke to Drake asking if he’s had ‘some sweet ass today.’ I’ve had so-called doctors talk to newspapers charting my health and chances of getting pregnant. What goes on inside my uterus is nobody’s business except ours.’

‘I literally protect her wherever we go now,’ Drake joins in. ‘If we’re leaving a building, I scout the most hidden exit. I keep her shielded from the press. We’re both under pressure in different ways but I honestly wish Camille didn’t have any of it. She’s under so much pressure to have a baby and we’ve only been married two months.’

I ask if they should have expected this sudden obsession because of who they are. Drake stares at me, a hard expression on his face.

‘We may be the Duke and Duchess of Valtoria but we didn’t sign up for this,’ he answers. ‘We’ll take the title, we’ll take on the responsibilities required of us to support Valtoria, hell, we’re happy to do all that. But we won’t stand for being hounded. I won’t stand for it. I want Camille safe and last week, she wasn’t.’

Last week, Camille was mobbed when she was out with her friends, Olivia Nevrakis, the Duchess of Lythikos, and Lady Hana Lee. A mob of photographers chased after the three friends on the way to Camille's car, surrounding the vehicle so they couldn't drive away. The photographs made front page news with Olivia flicking up her middle finger at the camera and Camille screaming at the paparazzi to leave her alone. Hana continously beeped the car horn, shouting for them to move.

Drake shakes his head. 'I was so angry about that. By all means, take photos of us from a distance but don't terrify my wife. Don't chase her and her friends. That's why I've started talks to issue a restraining order. Some of those paps went too far.’

Drake has indeed done that. Details are being kept hush for now but soon, the majority of the press won't be able to go near the Duke and Duchess. We don't know how strict this will be but knowing Drake, it will be a big change.

‘We went into this agreeing that we were going to do it our way,’ he tells me. ‘We want to be the most normal Duke and Duchess Cordonia has ever seen and that applies to any kids we might have. The happiest times of my childhood was when I was in Texas; Camille’s happy memories stem from playing in the garden with her grandmother. That is the kind of stuff I want for our kids.’

But surely nobility aren’t the same as commoners?

Drake chuckles. ‘We’re changing that from the inside.’

I point out that they are like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex - or, to use their more popular names, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Both couples crave privacy and Meghan herself has been under scrutiny by the British public and press.

Camille sighs. ‘I feel worse for her because she’s married into a dynasty. We aren’t even related to the king; but Harry is. So Meghan has stepped into this role, right into the deep end. A lot is put on her shoulders.’

I ask if she has met Meghan.

Camille hesitates. ‘No, but she’s written me a note. We’re both similar in terms of our situation. American, not born into royalty, people wanting to know about every aspect of our lives. A true rags to riches tale, as one tabloid described me.’ She sounds bitter at this.

‘Hey, at least Meghan’s got Harry,’ Drake jokes. ‘You got me and I’m as common as you! I know nothing!’

Camille nudges him gently with her elbow and giggles. ‘Yeah but you’re Drake Walker. Oh my Lord, you’re the best.’

Drake grins and they look a little lost in a daydream, blushing at each other. I forget they are still in that honeymoon stage and not yet wanting to punch each other in the face.

I go back to their desire for privacy, bursting their bubble. I look at Drake, who reddens but straightens his back. He knows what’s coming.

On their honeymoon, Camille took a private photo of Drake. Little did she know that her phone would get hacked and the photo made international news. Yes, it even spread out from Cordonia.

The photo - in case you haven’t seen it and if you haven’t, you have definitley been living under a rock- showed Drake naked from the waist up, his lower half covered by bed sheets, reclining against the headboard. He is smirking at the camera, a staged pose that made many women -myself included- and also many men hot under the collar.

He looked rugged. Like he had just come back from cutting wood outdoors and just wants to relax in front of his lady love before drinking whiskey by the fire.

I ask if it’s okay to bring this photo up because the shade of beetroot that Drake has turned is making me falter.

‘Fine, I’m just going to own it,’ Drake sighs, holding his hands up. ‘It was a fun thing, only meant for Camille’s eyes, and shocker- it went viral.’

Camille takes his hand. ‘Sure, when we first saw that the photo had been leaked, we were shocked. It was a huge violation. I wanted to hunt down the person who leaked the picture. But then when I thought about it, I was like ‘hell yeah, that’s my husband!’ He looks amazing in that picture and he’s all mine.’

‘You have to say that..’ Drake says, blushing. ‘You’re my wife.’

Camille rolls her eyes. ‘Drake, anyone with a pulse loved that picture. Remember Smith from Sex and the City who posed naked with a vodka bottle? That was my sexual awakening! Just think: you have been some innocent girl’s sexual awakening!’

Drake looks horrified.

I mention that a few of my colleagues had the picture saved as their phone screensaver. Camille bursts out laughing. Drake stares at me. ‘Who does that?!’ he asks, his voice turning high pitched.

Camille shakes her head. ‘Drake, you can’t talk. You had Salma Hayek saved as your phone screensaver for years.’

‘Yeah, until I met you! Besides, I was really young then! Now my phone screensaver is of you!’

They’re bickering like a married couple. Which they are. It’s really sweet.

‘My mom texted me about the photo,’ Drake admits.

Camille giggles. ‘What did she say? Oh yeah- ‘that’s my boy!’ She falls about laughing and Drake grabs her, tickling her under the arms. She starts screaming.

‘She hates being tickled,’ Drake tells me, while still tickling her. ‘Don’t ya, Camille?’

‘I yield!’ Camille gasps. Drake lets go but the two of them are still tactile; their hands are always touching.

I ask what’s next for them as Duke and Duchess. Camille grins. ‘We have corgis now.’

Drake laughs. ‘She’s obsessed with our new corgis.’

Camille shows me photos of their dogs on her phone. ‘Cheddar was getting lonely so we got Olive. Look at Olive! Look at how giddy she is when Drake arrives home!’ She shows me a short video of Drake coming home and Olive is bounding around his feet, barking excitedly. You can hear Drake saying, ‘Yes Olive, I love you too...’

Camille puts away her phone and looks at me seriously. ‘Honestly though? What’s next for us? I just want us to be happy. That’s all I want for us.’

Drake squeezes her hand. ‘Whatever that entails, I’m so ready for it.’

A month later, which is when this interview is about to go to print, Drake and Camille issue a statement:

We are pleased to announce that we are expecting a baby. The baby is due in September and we couldn’t be more excited and thrilled. We would appreciate privacy during this time in our lives so we can focus on planning for our new family and look forward to meeting our new arrival in the Autumn.

-The Duke and Duchess of Valtoria

The kingdom goes crazy. The press try to take photos of the couple, but thanks to Drake’s newly established restraining order, photographers aren’t allowed within ten feet of the Duke and Duchess.

Magazines are full of baby name predictions. Some ask who the baby will look like. Drake the DILF memes go viral.

But shielded away from the craziness are Drake and Camille. They attend royal events, wave to the cameras and meet adoring fans. Someone took a photo of an older lady speaking to Camille before handing her a present; it’s a tiny babygro with an embroidered corgi on the front and Camille shows it to Drake, her eyes filling with happy tears.

Drake and Camille have set boundaries around their life and I don’t blame them. But they will still go to these events and smile at the cameras and talk to journalists because that is their job. That is what they have to do and they accept that.

What they don’t have to do is tell everyone about every single intimate detail of their lives.

Had Drake and Camille known they were expecting a baby when I interviewed them? Well, Camille drank water and insisted a lot that she wasn’t pregnant. She seemed more excited about their corgis.

Maybe she didn’t know.

But I realise this is not my business. It is their business, nobody else’s.

And as a journalist who craves the next big story, I have to say; I’m in Drake and Camille’s corner.

#drake walker #camille montespan #cake #trr fanfic #the royal romance #trh #the royal heir #choices the stories you play

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dweemeister · 4 years

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Best Documentary Short Film Nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards (2020, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

The Academy Awards may be finished, but I haven’t yet completed my annual tradition of reviewing all of the nominated short films for this year’s ceremony – this omnibus review will do the trick. Thankfully, the Oscars will revert back to their traditional last Sunday in February date next year (at least until 2022).

For the first time ever, I write an Oscar-nominated short film package review with a bias and – if you wish to phrase it – a conflict of interest. As a member of the Viet Film Fest 2019′s Curatorial Committee, I helped select Walk, Run, Cha-Cha for the film festival’s selection in early October. I am not at all affiliated with the production itself, but as a Viet Film Fest selection (a unanimous selection, mind you) I couldn’t help but feel proud of the film’s success.

Also, give these five films recognition for their fantastic titles.

Life Overtakes Me (2019, Sweden)

First identified in Sweden in the 1990s, Resignation Syndrome sees a psychologically traumatized child entering a catatonic state that could last for weeks, months, or years. It is considered a dissociative disorder that has only been affecting refugee children and adolescents who are going through an extended period of immigration limbo. Since Resignation Syndrome’s identification in Sweden, cases have been reported among refugee children who had been transferred from Australia – where asylum has been divisive to the nation’s politics for decades – to the now-defunct Nauru Regional Processing Centre (many refugees, hoping to be Australia-bound, are still on Nauru and statistics on how many children have Resignation Syndrome are not accessible) and in Greece. Life Overtakes Me, co-directed by Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas for Netflix, concentrates on the plight of Sweden-residing refugee children with Resignation Syndrome and their families. Many of these children in Sweden are from across Eastern Europe and the Middle East – some hail from as far as China’s Xinjiang province, home of the persecuted Uighur minority.

One doctor in the film describes the state of one child to her parents: “Your child is laying here like Snow White because everything is so terrible around her that this is a way of protection.” Life Overtakes Me, however, never adjusts its focus from explaining Resignation Syndrome. This is where it frustrates: neither the families nor their children are framed as being anything else than either the family of a child with Resignation Syndrome or a child with Resignation Syndrome. There is no discussion about the contemporary European migrant crisis, nor on the medical progress on understanding the complexities of the disorder and how to treat it. After depicting a child with Resignation Syndrome and another one, Live Overtakes Me has expended its see-it-to-believe-it aspects, becoming a tedious watch.

My rating: 6/10

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) (2018, United Kingdom)

There have been a number of nominees (and winners) in this category in the last decade that sometimes feel like a shameless plug for a non-profit providing wonderful things for an underserved group abroad. Carol Dysinger’s Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl), an A&E film, at times falls into that trap. The film documents Skateistan, a Kabul-based non-profit established in 2007 that administers a school for boys and girls (41% of the students are girls; the film will exclusively concentrate on the girls because of how contentious educating females was and is in Afghanistan), as well as the skate park attached to the school. In conjunction with their typical school subjects, skateboarding teaches the girls courage, resilience, and creativity. The film juxtaposes their beginners’ curiosity – examining closely their boards, playing with the wheels, not prepared to be balanced on a skateboard while rolling along without a teacher’s assistance – with their hardscrabble lives outside the school’s high (for safety reasons) walls.

Though these girls may not be competing in the Olympics (given that skateboarding is a new Olympic sport) anytime soon, the joy that skateboarding gives them is apparent. “I don’t want to grow up, so I can skate forever,” one girl says. If only. This is where Learning to Skateboard (If You’re a Girl) separates itself from the sports documentary/narrative film and becomes profound in a way I have not seen described by others who have seen the film. Similar to the fine and performing arts, sport is a medium of individual expressivity. An entry into ESPN’s 30 for 30 series can describe to a viewer the tactical dominance of the University of Miami’s (Florida) football team; I can also relate how the 2003-04 Arsenal (“The Invincibles”) played teams off the soccer field in becoming only the second team in English history to finish the top division’s season undefeated. But to those who are not engrossed in sport (or do not possess knowledge about the mechanics of a certain sport), it is difficult if not impossible to understand how those aforementioned teams played their games as a form of self-expression. By taking gender, a shade of politics, and Afghanistan’s history, it is easy for any viewer to see how – through skateboarding – these girls can express themselves in ways they could not anywhere else.

My rating: 8.5/10

In the Absence (2018, South Korea)

On the night before April 16, 2014, the Korean ferry ship MV Sewol departed Incheon for Jeju. The next morning, the ferry capsized and overturned. There were 172 survivors, but 301 passengers – mostly high school students who followed the captain’s orders to stay put, even as seawater started flooding the interior – and three crew members perished. The captain and other crew members disembarked during the rescue operation. Yi Seung-jun’s In the Absence documents, minute-by-minute, the actions of the disaster that sealed the fates of survivors and victims alike. Incorporating stock footage and Korean Coast Guard/government/civilian rescue diver recordings, Yi’s film portrays the desperation of the rescuers and the incompetence of those commanding them. The tragedy, from the moment that the crew recognized the danger of the situation, unfolds over several hours – enough time for a government response. Inexplicably, passengers were instructed to remain in place despite their inquires and the office of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye forbade all rescue boats from approaching the ferry until President Park herself gave orders.

Many of the documentaries – in short and feature-length – on the Sewol disaster follow the families of the deceased or the guilt among Coast Guard or civilian rescuers in not saving the victims in time. There are elements of both within In the Absence. Where Yi’s film diverges from those previous entries, however, is in its chronological precision in its first half and how seamlessly it transitions between the personal and the political (the film posits that the Sewol disaster response was a contributing factor to President Park’s removal, even though Park’s impeachment and eventual conviction had nothing to do, ostensibly, about the disaster) in the second half. From the committee hearings investigating the particulars of the government’s disaster response to the night of President Park’s removal from office, In the Absence packs an emotional wallop few documentaries of any length could achieve. One can see, etched in the faces of the victims’ parents, profound relief that someone is being held accountable for the disaster. That relief, though, is forever entangled with the fact that their loved ones are lost to the deep.

My rating: 9.5/10

NOTE: In the Absence can be viewed on YouTube as of this review’s publication.

Walk, Run, Cha-Cha (2019)

Chipaul (or just “Paul”) and Millie Cao were childhood friends in Vietnam (of Hoa descent) in the midst of wartime. During their childhood, they were enamored with American rock-and-roll and other popular music from the West – says Millie: “I love Bee Gees. And I can sing all Carpenters song [sic].” Chipaul’s family, who ran a business, saw the necessity to flee the country because of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s hardline attitudes towards political opponents – the Communist Party’s sins are too many to mention. Laura Nix’s Walk, Run, Cha-Cha, distributed by The New York Times, does not concentrate on war nor the fact that Chipaul and Millie, now married and living in Southern California after finding each other again (figuratively) through dance classes, are among the millions of Vietnamese-Americans – a community of refugees and their children and grandchildren – who have overcome cultural and linguistic barriers to make the United States their home. First and foremost, Walk, Run, Cha-Cha is a love story partially told through their passion for dancing. The film never loses sight of that.

Because this is a love story, there are those who might claim that Walk, Run, Cha-Cha is too slight a documentary short film to be taken seriously. That erases the fact the fact that when Vietnamese-American people or fictional characters are portrayed in Western cinema, they tend to be defined by a short list of tropes: the war-weary victim of war, an ineffectual gangster, or a nerd (this lumps in Southeast Asians with those of East Asian descent). Here, Chipaul and Millie are not defined by their pasts. Their dancing is not some act of overseas rebellion against the current government of Vietnam. Their family get-togethers do not ruminate over how difficult it was to sponsor Millie to become a permanent resident to the United States, but instead contain lighthearted conversations about the music they grew up listening and singing – endearingly a bit off-key – along to. Beyond the film’s requisite interviews, we see them in personal and recreational settings. Though perhaps not the strongest of the year’s nominated documentary shorts, Walk, Run, Cha-Cha flows the most poetically. Its final scene is perfection.

My rating: 8/10

NOTE: Walk, Run, Cha-Cha can be viewed on YouTube as of this review’s publication.

St. Louis Superman (2019)

Bruce Franks Jr. has spent his entire life in the greater St. Louis area. He has experienced firsthand incidents of gun violence (in general) and, following the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s death ignited a series of protests in Ferguson and brought to prominence the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement – formed to call attention to systemic racism (and especially police brutality and racial profiling) against black Americans. In a sort of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) for this certain context, Franks becomes a community activist in the wake of Brown’s death and is soon elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2016. This MTV-produced film directed by Sami Khan and Smriti Mundhra is St. Louis Superman is a tad conventional in its biographical approach. The demands of being a state legislator and a family man are a curious balance to strike, and Franks is obviously not fully prepared – who would be? – to manage the expectations of his newfound role as public servant, father, and community leader.

It is fascinating that St. Louis Superman elects not to dive too deeply into politics, that Franks, a Democrat, highlights gun violence in its totality rather than police brutality towards black residents. Perhaps this is a political calculation, noting that Missouri’s legislature is majority Republican as is its current Governor. The film handles the personal adjustments made between Franks’ legislative career and his personal life, but whiffs – with the exception of the rap battle against a rival candidate for his seat – on juxtaposing how being a legislator invariably affects the nature of his community activism. Where St. Louis Superman succeeds is in its respectful portrayal of Franks as a man still nursing the wounds of having witness his nine-year-old older brother’s shooting death, and how this has driven him to where he is now. Franks, citing his mental health’s deterioration after the deaths of his godson and best friend in 2018, resigned from the Missouri House of Representatives in 2019. His career is a microcosm of the political struggles of African-Americans appealing to the decency of a seemingly unreceptive numerical majority, waiting and pressing the case of equal treatment in the eyes of the law.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

From previous years: 88th Academy Awards (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), and 91st (2019).

#Live Overtakes Me #Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone #In the Absence #Walk Run Cha Cha #St. Louis Superman #Kristine Samuelson #John Haptas #Carol Dysinger #Yi Seung jun #Laura Nix #Sami Khan #Smriti Mundhra #92nd Academy Awards #Oscars #31 Days of Oscar #My Movie Odyssey

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pubtheatres1 · 4 years

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ONE GIANT LEAP Brockley Jack Theatre 2 – 27 July 2019 “That’s one small step for man…” Neil Armstrong INTERVIEW WITH WRITER & DIRECTOR OF ARROWS AND TRAPS THEATRE, ROSS MCGREGOR LPT: Hello Ross, We’re rather pleased to have another chat with you about your company, the award nominated Arrows & Traps but also wanted to grill you a little bit on your new writing, ONE GIANT LEAP. How long did it take you to write it? Hi there, how lovely to be asked. I have a somewhat unusual process in that I pitch the idea to the Jack, book the slot, design the artwork / poster, get the show on sale, start selling tickets and only then start writing the script. This is partly due to the quick turnaround of shows and my lack of time between, and also that we have to book these things quite far in advance as the Jack is a popular and sought-after space, but also because I have an issue with self-discipline, and so if I didn’t have a concrete deadline, I think I’d still be tinkering with Frankenstein, a show I wrote and produced in 2017. One Giant Leap is the first completely original piece that I’ve written without a source material, and it took me about two weeks to get onto paper. ONE GIANT LEAP is celebrating the fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing but it seems you have got your own spin on it. Could you tell us the story in nutshell? Yes absolutely. It’s a comic take on the greatest conspiracy in history. It centres on Edward Price, a producer of a failing 60’s sci-fi show called Moonsaber – which is basically a poor man’s Star Trek. Edward’s life has fallen into a rut, his wife has left him, he’s lost his house to the IRS, and Moonsaber has just been cancelled in its first season. All looks grim, until a representative to President Nixon comes to his door with a suitcase of money and a proposition. The Apollo 11 Moon Landing is four days away, but due to the moon being about a hundred degrees too hot for photographic film; they can get there, they just can’t film it. And what is a massive propaganda exercise without proof that you actually did it? So they ask Edward to fake the footage by any means possible, if he can do it, he can bring Moonsaber back to life for another season, if he fails – he loses everything. Where does the comedy come from? Mainly from the people that Edward employs in Moonsaber. They’re a ragtag bunch of actors, stage managers and technicians, and due to the show being cancelled – they’re falling apart at the seams – it’s down to Edward to keep it all together, to pull off the greatest lie in history, whilst trying to save his marriage, salvage his career, and keep the lies he’s telling intact. It’s a study of the creative industry, a satirical and loving homage to theatre. We’re not trying to say anything serious about whether the moon landing was or wasn’t real, but more provide a raucous night out at the theatre, and keep you laughing about it on the Overground home. Why is it important to offer a lighter comedy in theatre right now? I think, at times, theatre can take itself too seriously, and become too myopic about tackling the dark and dreadful issues that are affecting society – I’ve lost count of how many shows there are about Brexit playing right now – and whilst that’s great, and admirable - speaking for myself, after the last year I’m sick of the darkness, I’m bored by the constant stream of depressive updates about the rise of the Right, I can’t engage with it, the European elections gave a victory to nationalists, we gave a state visit to a racist, homelessness is at an all-time high, and we’re literally cooking the planet to death. There are sometimes when I just want a great night out and forget how scary the world seems right now – laughter is the best medicine – not as a retreat, but a reminder of the good in us, of the joy, of the light. As the company is repertory, you’ll be working with some actors you know very well. Did you have any of them in mind when you were writing the script? I certainly wrote two of the eight roles with long time company members Will Pinchin and Lucy Loannou in mind. And whilst yes, the roles are tailored to suit both of them - I did write the roles of Howard and Alchamy to stretch and challenge Will and Lucy, because I’d never seen them play characters like that. Will is nothing like Howard, and Lucy isn’t at all like Alchamy, but in way, they’re made for those roles, and for me, they’re perfect choices. I do like working with the same actors repeatedly, it is true, because you build up a short hand of technique and approach, but also you build up a trust. The actors in the company come in on day one, sort of knowing what to bring me, and what kind of vision I’ll probably have, since my style is something of a constant, but also I’m able to, as their director, cast them in roles that perhaps play against type, or test their flexibility and skillsets. I’m not an actor, but if I were, I’d hate to play the same roles every time, to only get the “intense one” or the “dopey one” or the “awkward one” – I’d want to think I could play anything that was thrown at me, and I think our rep system allows for experimentation and exploration. What has been the hardest part of the whole process to date? We’re only in the first week of rehearsal, so nothing too taxing thus far. Hands down, the hardest part of a comedy is when you’ve rehearsed it so much you no longer find it funny, at which point we need an audience. One Giant Leap hasn’t hit that point yet, obviously, but I think most comic work benefits from the response and energy an audience gives. Theatre can be electric when you have that to play off, but in terms of where we are – One Giant Leap’s greatest challenge is the analysing of why something is funny, and making sure it’s that way every time. It’s all about timing. For many years I laboured under the misapprehension that stand up comedy was just a funny person being funny with a microphone, that was until I saw Dylan Moran do the same set twice in the space of three weeks. He has a very casual, off the cuff, almost improvised way of performing, and I assumed that it was just his natural charisma and quick wit, until I saw the set the second time, only to find it was identical to the first. All the pauses, the stresses, the tangents, the quips, all of which was honed, polished and a work of precision. It was funny because he’d worked out the best way to get the laugh, every time, and that’s beyond art, it’s science, it’s music. Traditionally Arrows and Traps have produced a selection of brilliantly adapted classics, including Dracula, Frankenstein, Crime & Punishment and Anna Karenina. Have you got a soft spot for one of them? I loved the breathlessness and breadth of Anna Karenina, the precision and murk of Crime & Punishment, the thrill and gothicism of Dracula, and the humanity and pang of loss in Frankenstein. I think my favourite adaptation, if I had to pick one, is probably Frankenstein – but that’s purely subjective, and there was something about the biography of Mary Shelley, which we incorporated into the show, that really spoke to me – in the sense of a creator and a creation, a parent and child, a sinner and the terrible revenge. You’ve also got THE STRANGE CASE OF JEKYLL & HYDE coming up at Jack Studio in September. Your adaptations of the classics have been Arrows and Traps main focus, so does ONE GIANT LEAP herald a shift away from this? No, in fact because I know the next season of shows, One Giant Leap is perhaps the anomaly. Our work normally has a dark bent, we favour drama with funny lines as opposed to an out-and-out comedy. We’ve only ever done one full comedy before, The Gospel According To Philip back in 2016, so this is something of a return to that. I knew that the company was changing, and wanted to make a swansong to the current phase of work, I had originally planned for it to be TARO but that story ended so sadly, I wanted the last one to be lighter, more celebratory – there’s something inherently amusing about the various tropes you usually get in the theatre world, and so I thought a comedy would be a fitting homage to where we’ve come from, and a clean break to where we want to go next. The company has been going from strength to strength, what are the things of which you are most proud? Mainly, that we’re still going. Most theatre companies on the fringe don’t make it to their third show, we’re on our seventeenth. Part of that is sheer stubbornness, there have been points where any rational person would have thrown in the towel, but there was always something in me that would never bend, never break, never give up. It’s part ambition, part not wanting to fail, part wanting to make my father proud of me, part bloody-mindedness, part theatre-addiction. I think production-wise I’m most proud of The White Rose, to what that achieved, all the five star reviews and the Best Production Offie-nom, but of course I’m also very proud of the other twelve times we’ve been nominated for Off West End Awards, the relationship we’ve built with the Jack, the bond I have with my creative team and my casts, and just the fact that people seem to like the work. It’s still always funny to me when a reviewer calls us “critically-acclaimed” or “renowned rep company” – to me it’s just me, telling the stories I want to tell, with people I want to work with, you don’t always think about how it looks from the outside. I’m just producing the theatre I’d like to go and see. It was rumoured that you would be leaving fringe theatre for other careers, partly because of problems with funding. Was there are truth in that? Absolutely! And in a sense, this is still completely true. I am indeed done with fringe. I think I got to The White Rose in 2018 – where we got the Offie-Nom for Production, we had eight 5-star reviews, four 4 star reviews, we’d completely sold out, and done it the cheapest way possible, and we still didn’t break even. Which was very hard to take, and forced me to face the truth – you cannot hope to attain best practice ITC rates for your casts / creatives / yourself if you only do 15 shows in a 50 seater and you don’t have subsidising support from an arts grant scheme. It just isn’t possible. So I made the decision to stop producing work. Now obviously, with the shows being booked so far in advance, there were still three productions upcoming in the diary that I had to honour. But knowing I was quitting, and that this was the end for me, was too hard to bear - ultimately I had to face the fact that theatre is my life, and I could never leave it – so I had to find a way to make it work financially, not just for myself but for everyone else in the company, particularly the actors who are so often completely screwed over in fringe, and often end up working for nothing. Which is where the idea to change the model came from. Shrink the casts and sets to a more tourable model – 14 people down to 4 – and engage a tour booker to take the productions out of London to larger spaces that could widen the potential revenue. The Jack is our home, and we will always premiere all our shows there, but then we will take them into the provinces. The vision is still the same, adaptations of literary work, and biopics of iconic figures of history, but the remit and scale of the endeavour has changed. I don’t see it as an ending, just a moving from one phase into another. But yes, absolutely, the 8-10 handers, movement-heavy, ensemble, big music, huge shows – this stage in our trajectory is ending with One Giant Leap, and whilst I see why it has to end, a part of me is sad to see it go, because there was something so wonderful about doing a massive 15-hander like Three Sisters. Are you one of those people who is meticulously planning the future? Yes indeed, because really we have to plan ahead in order to book the shows with the venues. We’re doing One Giant Leap next month, and then move to Jeykll & Hyde in September, both at the Jack – and then Hyde goes on tour for about six months, with an opening of our next biopic Chaplin coming about halfway through the run in February. Because I’m overseeing contracts, and touring plans, and writing the scripts as well as casting each show and most likely directing each one, I need to know where we’ll be and when we’re doing it – I’m trying to build a book of shows, a repertoire that is constantly touring, moving forward, and ever-evolving – reaching more audiences, and engaging with new communities. In the meantime, we can’t wait to see ONE GIANT LEAP. Could you give us a little flavour of what’s to come? In terms of shows after One Giant Leap, we have Jekyll & Hyde - a dark, political thriller set in a post-Trump America – a gritty examination of the corruption of power, then Chaplin – which tells the story of the 20th Century’s most famous clown, documenting his path to becoming the iconic Little Tramp – and his meteoric rise from Victorian poverty to Hollywood fame. After that, we’re bringing back one of our most successful productions of 2017, Frankenstein, revisited and rewritten for a more tourable model, and then a biopic of Marilyn Monroe, called Making Marilyn, which covers the Norma Jean origin portion of the star’s life. After that – who knows? I’ve always wanted to tackle Madame Bovary – and I’d like to bring back TARO as it was one that I was particularly proud of in terms of its style and poetry. Finally, your shows at Brockley Jack are becoming legendary, it’s a great partnership. What are the things you’ve learnt about theatre whilst working at Brockley Jack? So much. The Jack has been a great place to develop my approach to stagecraft, and how to tell stories as clearly and engagingly as possible. Since we joined the Jack, we’ve built a vision of the style we want to have, and how we approach each difficulty, or tricky moment to stage, how our work with movement and text interconnect, and what we look for in our ensemble for each show. And, I guess, ultimately, I’ve being able to return to my training as a writer, and I’ve been so lucky to have so many opportunities to experiment with my writing, and get to think about how to tell a story and how to build each character. Playwriting is not something I’ve tried before, and I’ve loved delving into each of the worlds that the Jack has opened the door to. But I think most of all, I’ve been honoured by the patronage and support of Kate and Karl – and they’ve shown me the power of hard work, diligence, and care – if I ended up with anything like the talent and acumen they have, I’d be very happy. @June 2019 London Pub Theatres Magazine Ltd All Rights Reserved THIS SHOW HAS ENDED ONE GIANT LEAP Brockley Jack Theatre 2 – 27 July 2019 directed by Ross McGregor produced by Arrows & Traps Theatre Productions Box Office > Below: Rehearsals at Brockley Jack Studio "We’re not trying to say anything serious about whether the moon landing was or wasn’t real, but more provide a raucous night out at the theatre, and keep you laughing about it on the Overground home." "... speaking for myself, after the last year I’m sick of the darkness, I’m bored by the constant stream of depressive updates about the rise of the Right, I can’t engage with it, the European elections gave a victory to nationalists, we gave a state visit to a racist, homelessness is at an all-time high, and we’re literally cooking the planet to death." "Most theatre companies on the fringe don’t make it to their third show, we’re on our seventeenth. Part of that is sheer stubbornness, there have been points where any rational person would have thrown in the towel, but there was always something in me that would never bend, never break, never give up. It’s part ambition, part not wanting to fail, part wanting to make my father proud of me, part bloody-mindedness, part theatre-addiction." "... knowing I was quitting, and that this was the end for me, was too hard to bear - ultimately I had to face the fact that theatre is my life, and I could never leave it – so I had to find a way to make it work financially, not just for myself but for everyone else in the company, particularly the actors who are so often completely screwed over in fringe, and often end up working for nothing. Which is where the idea to change the model came from." " ... most of all, I’ve been honoured by the patronage and support of Kate and Karl (Jack Studio Theatre) – and they’ve shown me the power of hard work, diligence, and care – if I ended up with anything like the talent and acumen they have, I’d be very happy." In celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, Arrows & Traps Theatre bring their critically-acclaimed approach to a brand-new comedy set in the back streets of a Hollywood lot. One Giant Leap is about the power of having an impossible dream, realising it’s impossible, and then trying your hardest to fake it and hope no one notices.

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goldstarnation · 5 years

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OCTOBER 2019 GOLD STAR MEDIA SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of November 7 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly total).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on their monthly schedule.

Threads do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Reminder: September schedule posts are due by the end of October 7 KST.

Overall Company

Such quick growth in such a short time period appears to be catching up to Gold Star now. There’s been avoidable problems with management recently, most noticeable in their handling of Origin’s and Fuse’s next comebacks, and even the constant delay of a comeback for Gold Star Soloist 1. Gold Star may have an attractive reputation of caring more for their artists than Dimensions or BC, but their behind the scenes employees are clearly being overworked due to executives’ reluctance to expand teams as needed and incur costs that could lower their lead in industry profits. Messy management decisions haven’t affected everyone yet, but word is starting to get around within the company to watch out for delayed comebacks and poorly-handled scheduling.

Important dates:

N/A

Gold Star Soloist 1

Meetings with management, marketing, and A&R continue to be her primary schedule, but she’ll be called into one in particular early in the month after returning with representatives from all three departments to discuss her career direction and where she sees herself going musically as she enters her twelfth year. As such a big face of their company it’s important to them that she feel heard so that her eventual contract renewal is guaranteed. This month also marks the beginning of preparations for the fan meeting she’ll be holding in December to bring a close to the year.

Important dates:

October 18: Fan meeting stage outfit fittings.

Gold Star Soloist 2

Now that recording for her album is done, October brings a focus on preparing all of the remaining details for her comeback, including learning the choreography, shooting comeback teasers, and filming the music video. Later in the month, she holds a solo concert in Taiwan and performs at a festival in Busan. She won’t be performing any of her new music, but she’s allowed to hype fans up about it.

Important dates:

October 2: Comeback stage outfit fittings.

October 5: Performance at Sharing Festival at Olympic Park in Seoul, South Korea (also performing: Knight).

October 12: Performance at SBS Radio K-Pop Concert in Jeongeup, South Korea.

October 14: Comeback teaser photo shoot.

October 15: Behind the scenes choreography video filming.

October 17: Room Shaker MV filming day one.

October 18: Room Shaker MV filming day two.

October 20: Hello Taipei 2019 concert at Taipei International Convention Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

October 25: Performance at Busan One Asia Festival Family Park Concert at Hwamyung Park in Busan, South Korea (also performing: Aria).

Gold Star Soloist 3

The beginning of the month brings more European tour dates before he returns to Seoul. He’ll finish off his European tour dates next month, but, in the mean time, it’s fall festival season, and Gold Star has booked him for two different events, one that is likely to be a more idol fan-based audience, and the later of the two, which will draw in an audience more attuned to indie music, to capitalize on his cross-demographic appeal.

Important dates:

October 1 : Self-titled tour concert at Lido in Berlin, Germany.

October 3: Self-titled tour concert at Kantine in Cologne, Germany.

October 4: Self-titled tour concert at La Madeleine in Brussels, Belgium.

October 6: Self-titled tour concert at Trabendo in Paris, France.

October 12: Asia Song Festival 2019 at Ulsan Complex Stadium in Ulsan, South Korea (also performing: Dimensions Soloist 1, Dimensions Soloist 2, and Lucid).

October 20: Performance at Grand Mint Festival at Olympic Park in Seoul, South Korea.

Silhouette

Leading up to their comeback at the end of the month, the members are going through the usual preparations of fittings, photo shoots, MV filming, and practice. The increase of expectations on this comeback grows increasingly more noticeable throughout the month and the decreasing success of their latest comebacks is no longer going ignored out of respect for their seniority in the company. Rumor is that if this comeback doesn’t do well, Gold Star may be making changes as they approach their ten year debut anniversary. What those changes might be is still entirely unclear. Before they come back in the final days of the month, the members are also saddled with another Mizuno fan sign and a filming for a Weekly Idol episode for their comeback.

Important dates:

October 4: Stage and MV outfit fittings.

October 10: Teaser photo and album jacket shoot.

October 13: “ME&YOU” MV filming.

October 27: Mizuno fan sign in Seoul.

October 29: Weekly Idol filming (to air November 6).

October 30: Release of “ME&YOU” & WE mini-album showcase, promotions continue until November 30.

Aria

They hold their Seoul concerts the second weekend of the month (please see September’s schedule for solo/duo special stages) and have a few performances in the later half of the month. Amid concert rehearsals for their Seoul concerts and continued rehearsals for concerts in Japan month, the members will be in the studio to record their December comeback mini-album. It’s a return to original form after “I’m So Sick” earlier in the year, but they’ve been assured future comebacks with a different sound aren’t off the table once marketablity advantages between concepts and sounds have been adequately compared. The members will begin learning the title track choreography in addition to choreography for b-sides “Like U” and “Rewind” after their Seoul concerts are out of the way.

Important dates:

October 11: Pink Space concerts at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea.

October 12: Pink Space concerts at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea.

October 20: Performance at Follow Gyeonggi K-Culture Festa in Jakarta, Indonesia.

October 25: Performance at Busan One Asia Festival Family Park Concert (also performing: Gold Star Soloist 2).

Origin

Their comeback is still indefinitely delayed, meaning more unclear studio time, though Gold Star seems to want an early 2020 date and are certainly willing to move around their plans for other groups to accommodate the company’s money makers. Current priority has shifted to the release of Origin World next month, which Gold Star seems to be putting a lot of stock in bringing in enough money to make up for only one 2019 comeback. The members have group promotional photo shoots for that this month and will film “behind the scenes” interview videos, answering questions like which member’s route they would want to play in the game, why they’re excited for the release, and why fans should play the game. A MediHeal CF for a new brand deal and another concert stop on their tour round out the month.

Important dates:

October 5: Origin World promotional photo shoot.

October 8: Origin World behind the scenes filming (examples 1 & 2).

October 19: Mediheal CF (videos 1-7 in playlist) filming.

October 25: Speak Yourself Stadium Tour concert at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Impulse

The month begins by flying out to the States for their US tour. The day before their first stop and the day of, they’ll appear on the Today Show and Good Day New York, two American morning shows, respectively, to give interviews and perform the English version of their latest title track. Members who can speak English will of course take the lead during interviews, but management has told them that all members are expected to get in something to say, even if it’s something they must rehearse and set up beforehand. Similarly, they’ll be filming a lot of online promo while in America, including a friendship test, trying nine things they’ve never done before, a boy band lyric challenge, song association, and a "most likely to”. After returning to Seoul mid-month the members will begin learning the choreography for their Japanese comeback and will also film the music video.

Important dates:

October 2: Appearance on the Today Show in New York, NY, USA.

October 3: Appearance on Good Day New York in New York, NY, USA.

October 3: Keep Spinning 2019 World Tour concert at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, USA.

October 6: Keep Spinning 2019 World Tour concert at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada.

October 9: Keep Spinning 2019 World Tour concert at American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX, USA.

October 12: Keep Spinning 2019 World Tour concert at The Forum in Inglewood, CA, USA.

October 16: Keep Spinning 2019 World Tour concert at Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA, USA.

October 26: “Love Loop“ MV filming.

Fuse

By mid-month, the members are completely done recording for their new mini-album and have moved on to learning the “Umpah Umpah” choreography in order to be ready for their comeback next month. The concept of their comeback still seems questionable for late fall and the first fittings of the intended outfits for promotions present a mix of summery dresses and crop top styling for the music video as well as a selection of intended stage outfits that don’t seem to know whether they’re going for the summery feel of the music video outfits or something more appropriate for the fall season they’ll be promoting in. Overall, management feels messy this comeback, but that hasn’t stopped the company from letting the members know in their own way that now that they’ll no longer be competing with Origin during promotions as initially anticipated and Femme Fatale’s smash summer comeback has vacated the very top spots of the charts, they’re expected to make this comeback a hit for its more public friendly sound. Regardless of how messy management seems to be for them this time around, Gold Star has chosen to accept an offer for Fuse to serve as tourism ambassadors between Switzerland and South Korea. Their duties haven’t begun in earnest yet, but they will attend a formal ceremony to be appointed to the position, an event that’s more for mediaplay than out of true necessity.

Important dates:

October 5: Performance at Gwangyang K-Pop Super Concert at Gwangyang Public Stadium in Gwangyang, South Korea.

October 11: Performance at Changwon K-Pop World Festival in Changwon, South Korea (also performing: Alien).

October 24: Switzerland Tourism Ambassador Appointment Ceremony at Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, South Korea.

October 29: Comeback outfit fittings.

Element

No word on a comeback for Element yet, confirming they’ll only have one digital single to show for the year musically after “Bomb Bomb” failed to become their breakout hit. There’s no word on Gold Star contacting composers for new songs for them either, but when even management for Origin and Fuse has been messy lately, it’s only to be expected Element will suffer too. They’re scheduled to continue touring overseas in November and December, but this month, they don’t even have that to look forward to. Instead, their personal team is still brainstorming ways to expand their fandom and have decided to give them a test run of their own YouTube series on the company channel to “show their hidden charm points”. Before bringing managerial structure into it, they’ve tasked all of the members to shoot their own vlog in a category of their choice (e.g. mukbang, gaming, Q&A, challenge, daily vlog). They should film one by themselves and one with at least one other member. Ultimately, only the vlogs deemed interesting enough will be posted to test the waters of fan interest in more Youtube content in the form of a series. Outside of their own content creation, they’ve been booked on RUN.wav, where they’ll give a performance of “Bomb Bomb” and showcase covers of “24K Magic” and “Side to Side” they’ve previously performed on tour. During the interview portion, they’ll talk about how their predebut project prepared them for debut, the challenges of being a co-ed group personally and musically, and their touring experience.

Important dates:

October 11: Filming of RUN.wav (to be aired October 19).

Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale’s Japanese tour continues throughout the month with dates in Fukuoka and Chiba (please see August’s schedule for their assigned solo stages), leaving them only their first ever dome concert in December to finish their Japanese tour. While in Japan, they are scheduled to shoot a magazine photo shoot and film a CF, both aimed at the Japanese market. They have their first ever concerts in Seoul next month to begin their In Your Area World Tour, which will introduce some changes to members solo stages from what they’ve performed so far. Some stay the same or retain certain aspects while others change entirely. Again, the members are allowed input, but the stages are ultimately management’s decision. For the beginning of their world tour, the members also have fittings for new stage outfits.

Main rapper/lead vocal - Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You - (pt. 2) [No change from Japanese arena tour]

Main vocal/lead dancer - Let It Be / You & I / Only Look At Me [Completely changed from Japanese arena tour]

Maknae/main dancer/lead rapper - I Like It / Faded / Attention [Some changes from Japanese arena tour]

*special note*: She will also begin to practice Take Me / Swalla stage which will be her solo stage beginning at their Bangkok concerts onward in 2020.

Lead vocal - Clarity [Completely changed from Japanese arena tour]

Important dates:

October 9: Photo shoot for JJ Magazine Japan November issue.

October 10: Femme Fatale Arena Tour at Kokusai Center in Fukuoka, Japan.

October 11: Femme Fatale Arena Tour at Kokusai Center in Fukuoka, Japan.

October 12: ABCMart CF filming.

October 15: World tour stage outfit fittings.

October 18: Femme Fatale Arena Tour at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

October 19: Femme Fatale Arena Tour at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

October 20: Femme Fatale Arena Tour at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

#fmdschedule #queued post

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goodnightkisseu · 6 years

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Hwang Minhyun - Taste

Genre: Fluff

“When We Met” Series: [Minhyun][Jihoon][Jaehwan][Guanlin][Daehwi][Jinyoung][Jisung][Woojin][Seongwu][Sungwoon][Daniel]

Note: Hi everyone! I’m back with another series and this time, it’s a particularly special one because it’s a series that will be counting down to Wanna One’s 1st Anniversary! I’m calling it “When We Met” because it’ll be a series of scenarios, using Wanna One’s individual debut teasers as starting points for how you meet!

This is also a series in collaboration with @nothingwithoutwannaone! She will be writing her own versions of how you meet and I will link them in each post ^^

Anyway, Minhyun is up first! I hope that you all enjoy!

nothingwithoutwannaone‘s version ---> [x]

- goodnightkisseu’s admin <3

“Ah, this is so exciting. I can’t believe we’re doing a pictorial for a real celebrity!” one of the interns said, the two girls chatting amongst themselves as your team entered the familiar studio. It was one of the many buildings that the food and cooking magazine that you worked for owned. Whenever there would be a special pictorial with a celebrity or a really well-known chef, the kitchen would be retro-fitted for the needs of that person. Today it had a simpler look, a little European but cozy and full of earthy tones. This didn’t happen often, of course. The magazine was very niche and most of the time you and the others were just setting up for a simple food pictorials, no people involved. So when a chef or a celebrity did want to be pictured, everyone always got a little excited.

“Girls, I know that this is all very exciting, but do remember that you’re here to work,” your director teased, and the two interns gave her a quick nod before running off to set up the lighting and to get the rest of the equipment ready.

“They have so much energy,” you said envying your young coworkers ability to just jump right into work. You had been working as a photographer now for about three years. Though you still enjoyed everything that you did, you knew that there were definitely times when you lacked that energy. Maybe they could teach you how they did it.

Your director giggled as she looked over at you. “You know, I remember when you were all excited to meet your first celebrity too,” she pointed out.

“Oh I know you do,” you shot back. “I was even harder to control than these two, wasn’t I,” you said with a giggle, your director not giving you an answer, though her walking off to check on the interns told you volumes. Whoops.

Though, all joking aside, you understood being excited about meeting a celebrity for the first time. It was definitely an experience, particularly meeting someone that would be called a celebrity chef. The group was small, but everyone had such interesting and diverse experiences of how they got there, no two stories were identical. You had met your fair share now, and wow, were you blown away each time someone told you their story about how they went from one thing to one of the most well-known chefs in the country.

Today’s chef also had an interesting story of his own. Hwang Minhyun was dubbed as the overnight celebrity of the celebrity chef world. His popularity had come fast, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve it. From what you had heard, not having talked to him yet, was that he was trained in the culinary arts, but working at a restaurant just wasn’t for him. Instead he worked a normal day job, and when he got home at night, he would prepare extravagant dishes to keep his abilities up to par.

At some point he started to share his culinary work online and this was what got people’s attention. They were drawn in by the beautiful pictures that he took, taking into account the ambiance needed for the dish, and hell, as a photographer that did this for a living, even you were impressed. People then started asking him to give them cooking tips and even asked for those quick videos on how to make particular dishes. It started off as something small, but in no time, Minhyun was already doing full on cooking tutorials. The popularity he gained was fast and he became an internet sensation in less than a year.

A couple months ago, a management agency had reached out to him and asked if he wanted to sign a deal with them, where they could manage his career, and really get him known. It seemed like it was appealing to the young male because he quit his day job and started down his path as a celebrity chef. Today’s pictorial was to be his introduction to the world. He had done an interview separate from the photoshoot and you and the rest of the team were here to take all the pretty pictures that would fill the pages of his interview.

The sudden whispers from your coworkers were enough to pull you from your thoughts, where you had been aimlessly running through the different shots that you wanted to get that day. Your eyes wandered over to where the voices were coming from, but, if you were being honest, you weren’t ready to come face to face with such a sight. Your eyes instantly landed on Minhyun as he greeted the other staff members on his way in, and for the first time in a while, you were in absolute awe. You knew that Minhyun was an extremely good looking individual. When you had been doing your research on him to help set up the pictorial, you had seen his pictures. You just didn’t expect him to have that aura in person though, the type of aura that left you star-struck. You were so stunned you didn’t realize you were staring until his eyes fell on you and you quickly looked away and down at your camera, trying to hide you embarrassment.

“We’ll try not to be invasive as you cook, of course, but sometimes it’ll be a bit unavoidable if we want to get certain shots for the magazine. I’ll do my best to direct the staff so that we don’t hinder you too much. We want this all to feel natural to you as well,” the director explained as she walked with Minhyun and his manager over to you. “Ah, and I also want to introduce you to our photographer. She’ll be responsible for making you look good today,” she teased, and that was when you knew… she had caught you staring at Minhyun. What was your life right now…

Still, you quickly pushed that to the back of your mind and introduced yourself, a gentle smile gracing your lips. Minhyun returned the smile before he spoke. “Please take good care of me today,” he said kindly, and you gave him a small nod before his manager ushered him off to go change before he set up the kitchen the way he needed it…

========

The photoshoot went without a hitch, overall. The atmosphere remained light while you all worked, the staff watching Minhyun in admiration as he worked, and Minhyun seemingly having fun creating some of his favorite dishes. It was a little awkward at first, of course. With you in the kitchen with him, camera in hand, there were a couple of awkward moments where you would go in to take a picture but he needed to move to get some spices. There was a lot of apologies flowing from the both of you, but once the two of you figured it out, he was courteous to you as he worked. He’d let you know when he needed to get to the sink or if he needed something that you may be standing in front of. You always felt like you were in the way – because you honestly were – but you wanted to get nice pictures of him that would really show his personality. He was kind and genuine and you really wanted that to show in the pictures.

You were going through the pictures with the director and his manager, trying to cut out the ones that felt unnecessary or that didn’t capture the atmosphere very well, when you realized that you were missing a couple of shots. “Please keep going through these,” you said as you picked up your other camera. “I think I need a few more pictures of the food itself. I’ll be right back,” you explained, before running off towards the kitchen.

Busying yourself with getting your camera set properly, you entered the kitchen without noticing that someone was still there. When you finally looked up, you saw Minhyun, with a Polaroid camera out, his face full of concentration as he tried to take some pictures of his own. Honestly, it was kind of cute.

That was when an idea struck you. Pulling up your camera, you knelt down ever so slightly to get a nice shot of Minhyun, just as he was about to take a picture. As you looked over the quick picture you had just snapped, you couldn’t help but smile. Considering how impromptu it was, you thought that it captured him the best out of all of the pictures you had taken that day. It would be the perfect picture for the beginning of the article. It felt like it showcase him, and how he started down this road.

Slowly approached him, you let him know that you were there, and he quickly turned to greet you, your eyes catching a glimpse of the three or four Polaroids that were lying on the counter. A small smile formed on your lips as you proceeded to take some pictures of your own. When you were satisfied that you had enough shots, you gently pulled away from your camera and looked up at Minhyun. “You take really nice pictures,” you complimented.

Minhyun looked at you with wide eyes, not expecting such a compliment, and honestly, he got a little shy as his eyes looked down at the pictures he had taken. “Ah, they’re alright, but they’re definitely not as nice as the professional pictures that photographers like you take,” he said, throwing the compliment right back.

“I think you could take better pictures than me in no time with a little practice. Can I show you?” you offered, and he quickly nodded, eager to learn some techniques that would help to make his food photography look even better.

You spent the next half an hour or so teaching Minhyun about some small things that could easily improve his pictures, such as the angle or the lighting, or even depth of field. As you ran him through each different idea, he was comprehending it all rather quickly. You were impressed. He was a good listener.

As you were about to show him another technique, you heard your director calling for you… and that was when you realized that everyone, except for you, had already packed up and ready to leave. “I’ll be right there,” you told her. “I guess I lost track of time. Ah, but that means I’ve kept you around for quite a bit too. Sorry about that,” you apologized.

“No need to apologize. It’s really fine. I was really enjoying the lesson. I learned a lot,” he said with a smile to show his gratitude. An idea seemed to strike Minhyun at that moment. “Before you leave, do you think you could give me one of your business cards?” he asked.

You quickly nodded, reaching into your bag and pulling out a small case, which you opened to take out a light blue card, handing it over to Minhyun. “I’d love to work with you again. I hope we’ll be able to make it happen.”

“Me too,” he replied, taking a look at the card as you turned to leave. “But, do you think I could see you before that? I’d really like to take you out to dinner, maybe get to know you better?”

You froze in your spot even as you heard your director calling for you. You could feel the heat rising in your cheeks as your brain processed what Minhyun had just said. Was he… was he asking you out? “Excuse me?”

Your reaction having not been what he had expected, Minhyun’s confidence faltered a bit. “I-I mean… not to be too forward, but I’ve enjoyed your company today and I thought we could go out and have some fun. I’d understand if you weren’t interested tho…” he said slowly, his confidence wavering.

Deciding to put him out of his misery, you gave him a smile. “I’d actually like that a lot, Minhyun,” you admitted, your cheeks a radiant shade of pink. He seemed in higher spirits after hearing your words, and before you could say much else, you heard the familiar voice of your director calling you and you knew you had to leave. “See you again soon!” you said before running out after your team, a giant smile plastered on your lips…

#hwang minhyun #wanna one #wanna one imagines #wanna one scenarios #kpop scenarios #whenwemetseries

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doomedandstoned · 6 years

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Conan Share Earth-Shaking Set at The Live Room in Belfast (plus Interview!)

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Doomed & Stoned is proud to partner with CONAN and The Live Room Belfast to share this striking live studio performance of the band playing three of their standards: "Total Conquest," "Satsumo," and "Gravity Chasm." This comes just weeks ahead of Conan's new album, 'Existential Void Guardian' (2018), releasing September 14th on Napalm Records.

Start Together Studio recently launched The Live Room Belfast to invite touring bands in for special recordings, usually between 3-5 songs, as a way to capture the intimacy of a live studio performance. This set was recorded, mixed, and edited by Niall Doran, with help from Assistant Audio Engineer Paddy McEldowney, and filmed by Ciara McMullan. The team did a fantastic job of capturing the massive weight of the Liverpool trio's legendary riffs and especially the fearsome caveman vocals of frontman Jon Davis.

This all took place on May 16th, the morning before Conan took the stage with Monolord and Elder Druid at Voodoo Belfast for an unforgettable show. Jon also sat down with Elder Druid guitarist Jake Wallace (who organized our recent Doomed & Stoned in Ireland compilation) for an in-depth interview.

And now, it's time for Jon Davis (guitar/vox), Chris Fielding (bass), and Johnny King (drums) do their thing! Enjoy...

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Conan On Tour

10.08.18 PT - Moledo / Sonic Blast Moledo Fest 11.08.18 UK - Winchester / Boomtown Fair 16.08.18 IR - Galway / The Loft 17.08.18 IR - Cork / Cyprus Avenue 18.08.18 IR - Limerick / Dolans Warehouse 30.09.18 UK - Sheffield / O2 Academy 02.10.18 NL - Eindhoven / Effenaar 03.10.18 DE - Bochum / Rockpalast 04.10.18 DE - Hamburg / Logo 05.10.18 DE - Berlin / Musik & Frieden 06.10.18 PL - Wroclaw / Firlej 07.10.18 PL - Warsaw / Poglos 09.10.18 LT - Vilnius / Rock River Club 10.10.18 LV - Jelgava / Melno Cepuriso Balerija 11.10.18 EE - Tallinn / Sveta 13.10.18 FI - Helsinki / Blow Up 4 Festival 15.10.18 SE - Stockholm / Kraken 17.10.18 SE - Malmo / Plan B 19.10.18 DK - Copenhagen / Stengade 20.10.18 NL - Leeuwarden / Into The Void Festival 07.11.18 AU - Canberra / The Basement 08.11.18 AU - Melbourne / Max Watts 09.11.18 AU - Sydney / Manning Bar 10.11.18 AU - Brisbane / Crowbar 12.11.18 NZ - Wellington / Valhalla 13.11.18 NZ - Auckland / Whammy Bar 16.11.18 RU - Moscow / Aglomerat 17.11.18 RU - St. Petersburg / Zoccolo 23.11.18 UK - Nottingham / The Loft 24.11.18 UK - Leeds / Temple Of Boom 25.11.18 UK - Newcastle / Byker Grave Festival 26.11.18 UK - Glasgow / Audio 27.11.18 UK - Manchester / Rebellion 28.11.18 UK - Coventry / The Arches 29.11.18 UK - Cardiff / Clwb Ifor Bach 30.11.18 UK - Milton Keynes / The Craufurd Arms 01.12.18 UK - London / Boston Music Rooms 02.12.18 UK - Oxford / Buried In Smoke X-Mas Weekender

Interview with Jon Davis of Conan

~By Jake Wallace (Elder Druid)~

Recorded May 16, 2018 in The Live Room Belfast

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Do you enjoy being on the road so much?

Yeah, we do. We have always tried to tour as much as possible, ever since the very beginning. I remember the first time we played outside of Liverpool with Charger in late 2010, and that was a really big thing, something we were pushing for to try and breakout of Liverpool gigs. We almost immediately started getting opportunities to tour and play, and for a year or so it was just weekends here and there, I really loved that. Then we got the opportunity to go touring around Europe. Of course, that brought its own problem then, because we had to get a van, so we invested a bit of money in an old Ford Transit. And I remember spending nearly £600 on installing a cool sound system in there, so that we could listen to Iron Maiden on the road full blast. Like with speakers right by our heads in the bulkhead.

There's something about being on the road, and everyday just looking forward to playing the music that you've written, and the law of seeing the reaction of people who are listening to your music, that you've written sometimes easily, sometimes songs have come together when they've been difficult to write. I've always found it really rewarding to play music, whether I'm on my own, or whether in the practice room with the lads, or whether onstage. And I remember when I was 16, promising myself I would do this, telling myself that I'm gonna play music cause I saw playing music as a long term thing that I would be in charge of. I never really wanted to work for anyone else, I always wanted to do music, and I remember as a shy and less than confident teenager, thinking this is a path that I can grow, and I really enjoy, something I could do for the rest of my life, hopefully.

When I get too old to lug cabs then I'll just pick up an acoustic, and do something with that. So getting on the road has been something we've loved from day one, and now were touring all over the world. This year already, we've had a US of 5 weeks, we've been to Japan for a week, and we've got more far-flung shows lined up for the end of the year, not announced yet, plus European tours, another UK Tour, and we've got an album out soon. I mean it's just -- we love it. I couldn't do anything else now, if I had to have an office job, I'd probably commit suicide, seriously. (laughs)

What make Monolord the perfect match for this tour, and will you be back in Ireland anytime soon?

I mean, we wanted a band as physically attractive as us, and we've finally done it with Monolord. Seriously though, they are a really cool band, they are really good people to tour with, they're professional, friendly, really interesting people, and they come from a different culture to ours, and we enjoy being on the road with them. We're not sharing a van with them, although we have done, we shared a night liner with them in October last year. And we didn't know what to expect then, as we didn't know them very well on that tour, but we got along really well. They're from a different culture but very similar people, at the same time, at the core of what we all are in a love for music, and they put their money where their mouth is, in terms of that. They also like to tour a lot, they release really great music, and they're a really good live act. So when you are choosing a band to tour with, our booking agent puts forward bands and it was really natural, that us and Monolord tour together. It's cool that we get to this joint headliner, switch headliners every night. Yeah, they're just great. I mean, I don't think we've ever toured with a band that we didn't really like, some more than others, obviously, but they are cool as fuck.

I suppose it's an interesting parallel, between both bands having three members, you get to see how another band performs as a three piece as well every night. Tell us about the origin of the band name, and how you guys have created a genre known as 'Caveman Battle Doom.'

Well, Conan could have been called anything, really, from '70s and '80s science fiction movies. You know, Krull was one idea that I had for a band name, very briefly I thought about that. We were called Elf-Beater for a time in our practice room -- that's obviously an awful name so we were never going to use that one long term. Conan just came to me one day, you know, I was going through some personal stuff and I'd had to move into my parent's for a little while, and I started this band up with an old friend of mine who was a bass player, but he played drums a little bit. So we started and we actually wrote and recorded "Satsuma." We had these songs, and we didn't really have a settled name. We were going to call ourselves Pazuzu for a little while or Demon-Demaro, as like a Bebo page in that name. There's some really old demos if you can search for that.

Initially, I wanted it to be a little bit occult-ish type of stuff, and then quickly I realised the lyrics weren't really going in that direction, and we were more about Sword & Sorcery, Science Fiction, and Mythology. Then I remember sitting there one day just kind of thinking, "What do I for a band name?" and then it just came to me. And it stuck, there wasn't really any other bands, well there was an Argentina metal band called Conan, but I think they had expired in the '80s, so there was nothing, no current bands within our scene, with that name, or anything close to it, so we grabbed it with both hands.

How did the name 'Caveman Battle Doom' come about?

The very first show that Conan did in Liverpool was with friends of ours, John McNulty and Gemma McNulty. They weren't married then but they are now, and they're really close of mine, and the band, they recorded at our studio. But they put us on our first ever show, when it was just me and Paul O'Neil, a two piece, and on the poster for that show, I think it said "primitive battle doom," "caveman battle doom," or "caveman doom." The label we were on, fast forward a couple of months, we recorded Horseback Battle Hammer and we released stuff on CD with Aurora-Borealis Records. They used that phrase as part of their sales pitch, on the website, taking it from that first ever poster, and then we thought we’d put that on a t-shirt because it looks cool and it sounds cool and those t-shirts just sold like hot cakes. So we thought, that's a cool name to make a joke about. Obviously, we haven't created our own genre; it would be awesome if we did cause we'd obviously make loads of money then, but it's just a bit of fun.

I know yourself are involved in Black Bow Records and Chris is involved in Skyhammer. How did both of those projects come around? Was it through the band that this became something you were interested in, or what was the path towards a label and a studio?

When I moved into a large house in a rural location, not far from Liverpool/Chester, there was a couple of extra buildings. One of them was a large coach-house and I actually wanted to turn that into a rehearsal studio initially. But it needed a lot of building work, which would have cost a lot of money, so I thought, "I wonder if I could somehow turn this into something that would repay some of that investment? So I'll do a practice room and then I may be able to rent the practice room out to bands." And I thought, "Nah, I don't think that will make generate enough money to make it worthwhile, unless we have people in there all the time." And if we did that, it could just be people in there 2-3 hours at a time and it would be a bit of a nightmare to manage, with it being a home. I then thought of, "Well I could turn it into a recording studio." So I got a couple of quotations for layout and stuff like that. It became obvious that it was going to be really expensive to do. So I thought, "I'll do that and see if I can maybe learn the ropes, I might work in there myself as a recording engineer."

For an extremely short-lived time I recorded bands in their practice rooms. I had one band ask for a refund, so then I thought, "Maybe I need to practice a little bit more." So I was going to set up the studio and decided not to, in the end, when Chris got in touch. Me and Chris had been friends and I'd been asking him what microphones to get and what stuff do I need really to set up a studio. We got chatting then one day out of the blue, and he wrote to me saying he had a really crazy idea and could he ring me. So I said okay. He gave me a call and Chris' idea was that he would come and work in the studio and take over and run it, and I waited a little bit and spoke to my wife. Then in the morning, we chatted again and it became obvious that yeah, it was going to be a great idea. Chris and I started working in the studio from August 2013, the build started in May the same year. We had a company called Studio People do it and they were brilliant.

The first band in there were called Bast and they came into the studio. They didn't have a label, I think they had been in talks with Candlelight Records, but nothing had been agreed at that point. So they recorded this album called Spectres and I said, "Why don't I just release it for you?" It was cool to release the first thing we ever recorded at the studio and that album did quite well. I had to repress it and then another band came in and I released theirs, as well. Then I spoke to Fister and Norska from America, I did a 7-inch split. Before you know it, I'm releasing music from bands all over and it's just snowballed. I didn't expect it to and I didn't really try very hard, to be honest.

I'm still learning all the time about running the label, make mistakes all the time, but I love it and it fits in nicely with the band, fits in nicely with the studio. I'm able to really diversify within music now, because obviously everyone has to earn a living somehow and unless you're very lucky, you can't earn a living from just the band. Some people can, but I can't, so I have to add other things on to make it possible to have a career in music. So that's all I do now, thankfully.

You guys feature heavily in the upcoming documentary 'The Doom Doc' which is due out this summer. How important is a documentary like that in promoting the underground?

I think it's cool, because it engages with people who may not have necessarily have checked out the bands that are being talked about on it. It gives a good overview of what the scene is like and it's something that you can take all round the world. We're friends with Joe Allen, one of the lads who made the documentary, and we played in Japan with him recently and his band Kurokuma. We played a sell-out show in Tokyo in a venue called Earthdom, which hadn't sold out for ten years or so. And part of the reason why it sold out so well was because the documentary was really popular over there. It's really cool, because it's shone a light on the very grassroots level of heavy music in the UK and beyond, and I don't think a documentary has done that really for UK heavy music, the very grassroots level, or I've never seen one that does it. Obviously, in America you have Such Hawks, Such Hounds. It's good that something like that has been made in England.

Finally, you've got the next album 'Existential Void Guardian' coming out in August. What can you tell us about that?

Well, it's all recorded and mastered now. We're just waiting on a video getting done for one of the songs and I'm not going to give any of the songs away, but it's cool, it's heavy as fuck, and we're really proud of it. It's the first album that we've done with Jonny on drums and it was quite a challenging album to make, because if we'd had anyone else on drums I don't think we'd have been able to manage it. But fortunately, Jonny being as professional as he is, he came in after touring with us for one month, just practicing a riff or two here or there in sound checks, and we sat down in the studio and we kind of wrote the drum parts of the album within a week -- or a weekend event, maybe 3-4 days -- so it came together. It wasn't easy, but the fact that it came together at all was a miracle, because we didn't allow ourselves the usual amount of time to write an album. So we pushed ourselves to the limit to get it written and get it to a level that were really happy with, because we wouldn't have released it otherwise. We wrote the drums and the guide guitar in the first few sessions, and then we went back and recorded guitar and bass, and when we got back from Japan we recorded vocals.

It came together in a different way to all the other albums. Maybe Revengeance was a bit like that, but everything up until then was the product of weekly practices, an hour or two every week. So we're kind of getting into this vein now, where we're writing music almost like as soon as we sit down. We get together and we can all play and write music together. It's really cool. I think a lot of that is to do with Jonny, because he's got a particular style that really blend in with what me and Chris are doing. It comes out mid-Sept. Tony Roberts is doing the artwork, as many people would expect, the artwork's cool. And we've got a really good video coming out, it's been done by the same people who shot the "Foehammer" video, and I gave them this idea of what I'd like them to do with this next video, and it's insane. It's everything I would ever want from a Conan video -- it's so sick, it's amazing.

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#D&S Debuts #Conan #Liverpool #England #UK #Doom #Metal #Live #Concert #The Live Room Belfast #Napalm Records #Jake Wallace #Elder Druid #D&S Interviews #Doomed & Stoned

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amostexcellentblog · 6 years

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IYO, which Golden Age stars had the most interesting "will make degrading cameo for food" phases?

Sorry this is so late, but whoa boy that’s a loaded question. Honestly, a lot of silent and classic Hollywood stars had money troubles in their later years because residuals weren’t really a thing until the 50s. Before the television market nobody thought there was a way to consistently make money on old movies so everyone was content to be paid upfront. Then add on a lot of stars grew accustomed to lavish lifestyles and never learned responsible spending and most of them had some degree of financial difficulties after their careers declined. Some of them had a sense of humor about it, for others it was humiliating and there can be a vague sense of exploitation about the whole thing that makes some fans reluctant to talk about these periods.

We should probably begin with Orson Welles, who made what was/is considered the greatest movie of all time, and yet had to take some pretty demeaning work to pay the bills. Like, he really did do a frozen peas commercial. That’s not something the writers of The Critic made up. It exists, it’s on youtube!

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Bette Davis famously placed an ad in Variety asking for work when parts dried up. She spent most of the 60s starring in horror movies of declining quality, primarily because she needed money to support he family, but also because she was desperate to work. By the 70s though the Hag Horror fad had passed and she became even more desperate. A 1971 film Bunny O'Hare had her playing an elderly woman who dresses up as a hippie to rob banks on a motorcyle, it was so bad she sued the studio claiming it had damaged her future employment prospects. During this time she also filmed 4 sitcom pilots, and not good ones either. they were for Aaron Spelling, the man behind “Jiggle-TV” (although Davis herself did not jiggle, she still had some pride). The tv show Feud treated this as a sort of tragic time where the woman who once sued Jack Warner for better scripts was so desperate for work she stopped caring about quality. I look at it more as Davis realized that no matter how much dreck she did the public would always consider her a Hollywood Legend, so she was free to stop worrying about her image and just take whatever paid work she could get while playing the movie queen in interviews.

Another low point was the Disney-sequel Return From Witch Mountain in 1978 where she and Christopher Lee (who took the part just to work with her) played the villains intent on using mind control devices on two super-powered alien kids. To say Davis’s character was as flat as cardboard is an insult to cardboard. She finally got a decent script in the 1980s with The Whales of August opposite Lillian Gish, so she was able to remind everyone how good she could be a few years before her death. Not every star would be so lucky.

Joan Crawford, who must be discussed alongside Davis by Hollywood law, has become, along with Welles, the poster-child for late career humiliation. Like Davis, Crawford spent the 60s doing low budget horror shlock, but somehow her movies always seemed shlockier. She teamed up with William Castle twice, for his Strait-Jacket he let her act like the movie queen she’d once been and she took full advantage. She demanded a limo to drive her to set each day, a role be given to a vice-president of Pepsi (she was on the board) and refused to let him be fired even when it became obvious he couldn’t remember his lines. She insisted on portraying her character as in her 40s despite turning 60 the year it came out, and also played the character as a 20-something in flashbacks. The air conditioning on set was cranked obscenely high because she believed cold air kept her skin from wrinkling.

In 1968 Crawford guest starred on The Lucy Show as a version of herself who liked being out of the public eye (Ha!). Lucille Ball by this point was a terror to work with and she bullied Crawford relentlessly over everything from her dancing to her drinking (which of course just made Crawford drink more). Later that year her daughter Christina was hospitalized, meaning she wouldn’t be able to film her scenes for the daytime soap opera she was in. Crawford, 64 years old, convinced the producers to let her fill in. And they said yes, so for four whole episodes Crawford appeared as a 24 year old girl. And on top of that, she was so drunk she could barely remember her lines. A year later Crawford had what I think is her most interesting TV role. For Rod Serling’s Night Gallery she played a ruthless, blind heiress who will stop at nothing to be able to see. It’s a standard Serling morality play right down to the ironic twist. What so fascinates me is that it marked the professional debut of one Steven Spielberg, although by his own admission he shot the thing like a European art film and had it taken away in editing so it could be re-worked into something presentable on network TV. So you have Crawford, who started her career in the silent era, came to embody the studio system, and remained a movie star into the 1960s, being directed by Spielberg, one of the key directors of the New Hollywood era who went on to create the era of the blockbuster tentpole we live in today. It’s such a fascinating meeting in the middle moment of the woman who ebodied the first half of Hollywood’s history, and the man who embodied its second half.

From there she went on to her final film, 1970′s Trog. She played a scientist investigating a ape-cave man hybrid believed to be the missing link. She was so drunk she had to use cue-cards to read her lines. The movie was so low-budget she had to wear her own clothes and change in an old van. Roger Ebert once said that the difference between Crawford and Davis was that Crawford would agree to make Trog. He wasn’t wrong. She made a handful of TV appearances after that, but then the tabloids published some unflattering pap photos. In the 1930s when she’d been the most beautiful woman in Hollywood she famously told an interviewer “I never go out of my house unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star, if people want the girl next door they can go next door.” Decades later she lived up to her words, convinced she could no longer look like the glamorous movie queen she cancelled her public appearances and spent the last years of her life in Norma Desmond-like isolation. She died in her New York apartment in 1977 with only her maid and a loyal fan by her side.

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This is getting long, but I have to mention Aldo Ray, a big macho man action hero of the 1950s who made a porno in 1979 and spent the 1980s working mostly with cult exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray (no relation). Ray Milland was a hunky leading man in the 40s, spent the 1970s alternating between genuine A-list hits like Love Story and shlock like Frogs and The Thing With Two Heads where he played a racist whose head is grafted onto a black man. Yeah:

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Bela Lugosi’s fall from grace has been much covered. He had a huge hit with Dracula but feuded with the studio and soon found himself confined to B-level shlock, eventually finding himself a member of Ed Wood’s stock company. Fan still debate if Wood was exploiting him or helping him. Boris Karloff fared better. He made plenty of low budget dreck for Roger Corman, but he also endeared himself to younger audiences, most notably in How the Grinch Stole Christmas and went out on a high note with Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut Targets.

Lastly, we must speak of Veronica Lake. She was a glamour queen of the 40s, famous for her hair style where her long blonde locks were styled to cover one eye, studio publicists dubber her “The Peek-a-Boo Girl.” She made one genuine 4-star must-see classic, Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels, and some well regarded noirs and comedies, but she was washed up by the 1950s. She was discovered working a a waitress in the 1960s and subsequently told her story on the talk show circuit and later in an autobiography. She decided to use the money she’d earned from various public appearances to produce a comeback vehicle. For some reason, perhaps known only to her, she decided the best movie to relaunch her career was Flesh Feast. A no budget Grade-Z catastrophe where she played a mad scientist developing a breed of flesh eating maggots while moonlighting for an underground organization of escaped Nazis in possession of Hitler’s body. She is charged with reanimating their Führer so they can take over the world. Turns out though, Lake is only doing this to avenge her mother who was subjected to Nazi experiments in the concentration camps. Once old Adolf is alive and kicking again, she throws her flesh eating maggots in his face and laughs maniacally as he dies a second, painful death. Honestly, Lakes delivery of the line “Don’t you like my little maggots?” deserves to go down as one of the all-time camptastic line readings in the history of cinema. But seriously, this movie raises so many questions I can’t even start. Like, if she just agreed to star I could understand, but she was a producer on this, she went all-in on this project, why? Why this of all things?

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#Joan Crawford #bette davis #Veronica Lake #Orson Welles #ray milland #boris karloff #bela lugosi

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marblesarelost · 6 years

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Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

CHAPTER TWO

A soft knock on her office door brought her back out of herself, and she looked up from her screen to the door. “Um. Come in?” Jane peeked around the door, her grin wide.

“I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU!” She squealed, coming into the office, a wine bottle and two glasses in her other hand. “Oh my God, Darcy, this is amazing!”

“I know,” Darcy agreed, nodding excitedly. “Two seconds, Janey, let me save this, okay?” She bookmarked the article about Doom’s request to the United Nations and saved her notes before closing her tabs and screens and rising from her desk. Her desk. Yes, it was standard and she’d had one in the lab, but this was hers, in her office, and she was going to do a hell of a job because she knew that they were trusting her and she didn’t even have her master’s yet oh God. “Okay,” she said, turning off the coffeemaker and picking up her bag. “Let’s go celebrate.”

“All the celebrating,” Jane agreed. “I’ve ordered dinner and I went downstairs to Michelle’s and got you a chocolate orange.”

“You’re the best,” Darcy said, following Jane out the door and closing it behind her. The magnetic lock clicked, and she grinned at the nearest camera before heading for the elevator. “I guess Tony talked to you?” Jane’s ponytail bounced up and down ahead of her.

“Yeah. He explained everything, and I’m supposed to start meeting with some of his people in the morning to try to find a new set of assistants. Seriously, I’m going to need at least three to handle what you do,” Jane sighed.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss --“ Darcy shook her head, brown hair flying. “You’re not though. For…for the first time in…”

“Four years,” Jane said softly. “But I’m glad. I’m really glad, Darcy. I mean, I love you, you’re the sister I never had, but…”

“But I need to spread my wings. I get you,” Darcy agreed. “Well, the good news is I should definitely be able to afford my own apartment in a month or two, I’ve just got to save up for deposits and everything.”

“Yeah? That is good news,” Jane agreed. “Maybe next you’ll get a date.”

“Oh, shut up, I go out,” Darcy said, bumping shoulders with her friend. It wasn’t long before they were having dinner, Alessandro’s from downstairs. Darcy moaned just a little as she ate, the lasagna perfect, the breadsticks good and crunchy. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” she admitted, taking a long drink of red wine.

“Isn’t that usually my line?” Jane said, her smile quivering just a little. “Oh, this is going to be…it’s great, but I just know I’m going to miss you so much in the labs, Darce, I’m used to having you there…”

“Hey, now. Like I said, it’s gonna be a couple months before I move out anyway, I’m still gonna be around,” Darcy insisted. “And besides, I’m only five floors down from this floor and four down from the labs. It’ll be fine, Janey, we can have lunch together, we can go to the movies, it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. I know, and I know…Tony said what you’re doing is absolutely essential, really, for the Avengers, it’s just…I don’t like change in my personal life. It’s hard.”

“Awww. I know,” Darcy soothed. “But it’s not going to be that big a change. It’s not. And he promised me he would find you somebody good. So it’s gonna be okay.”

The next morning found Darcy up bright and early, her heels slightly muffled by the carpet of the building as she went downstairs to her office. Instead of her baggy sweater over a tee over jeans, she wore a black pencil skirt that fell just below her knees, white blouse, with a sapphire blue jacket for a pop of color. Her hair was up in a tight French braid, her bag replaced by the briefcase her Opa had given her for graduation. She nodded pleasantly to the few people she saw in the hallway of her floor, and went directly to her office, the door now bearing a brass nameplate; “Darcy Lewis, political analyst.” She couldn’t resist the smile that split her face, seeing it there, or taking a picture and sending it to her Opa and Oma. She had called them the night before, but that, that sort of made it a little more real.

She had just sat down behind her desk, coffee at two o’clock, notepad and pencil before her, when someone tapped on her closed office door. “Come in,” she called, and the door opened to show a stranger, an older woman with graying black hair.

“Good morning, Miss Lewis. I’m Linda, Linda Garrison. One of the attorneys for the Initiative.” Darcy rose from her seat, holding out her hand.

“Good morning, Ms. Garrison. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the attorney replied, looking over the office. “Just started?”

“Yes, just yesterday actually.”

“Ms. Potts said that she’s going to be adding more analysts?”

“Yes. I’ll be heading the political team; of course we’ll leave the PR and the legal aspects to your team and PR, we’ll be offering political advice in regards to the different countries the Avengers might find themselves in,” Darcy explained. Ms. Garrison nodded slowly, her smile fading a bit, but never quite leaving her face.

“I head the legal team. I don’t know exactly how much we’ll work together, Ms. Lewis, but just in case there’s any friction between your team and mine, I’m who you’ll come to.”

“The same; I hope there won’t be any, though. I can’t really foresee any,” Darcy said, and Ms. Garrison nodded.

“Neither can I, right offhand, but one never knows, and it’s always best to know one’s peers and the chain of command. Well. I’ll let you get to it, my office is up the hall toward the elevator if you should need anything.”

“Thank you, Ms. Garrison. Good meeting you.”

“And you.” Darcy nodded, shook hands again, waited for the woman to leave before sitting back down at her desk. “FRIDAY, is there a way to engage do not disturb on this floor for the individual offices?”

“Yes, Miss Lewis. Would you like me to?”

“Give it another half hour, and then yes,” Darcy ordered. “Jane, any member of the actual Avengers Initiative, and Ms. Potts can override, but that’s it.”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis,” the AI agreed. “May I ask if the coffee provided was adequate?”

“Yes, it’s fine for now. I’d like to put in an order for a two pound bag of Thunderbolt French Roast starting next week, please.”

“Yes, Miss Lewis. Weekly or bi-weekly delivery?”

“Ah…biweekly for now, I’ll reevaluate once I figure out how much I actually need?”

“Excellent. Will there be anything else?”

“Not right now, FRIDAY, thanks so much.”

Her first real day of work as a political analyst went well, she thought. She read through the various articles and watched the news clips that had had aggregated over the last six months about the political situation of Latveria, taking careful notes, until lunch. During her lunch (a very nice lunch of fruit and soup, thanks, she’d had all the carbs the night before) she made notes regarding what she wanted her team to do from day to day, mainly research on what Pepper had called the short-term assignments, the political and social thoughts of the various countries of the world on the Avengers and whether they would accept assistance or not. “FRIDAY?” She asked once she was done with that.

“Yes, Miss Lewis?”

“What were the date parameters of the Latveria search that Tony ran?”

“Mr. Stark ordered a search for news stories regarding Doctor Doom and the political situation in Latveria between six months ago and two days ago, Miss Lewis.”

“Okay, new search, please. Same parameters except go back one full year, and update with any new stories that have shown up in the last two days,” Darcy ordered. “And keep it updated with new stories until further instructions.”

“Yes, Miss Lewis. That will take a few minutes, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine. Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“You’re very welcome, Miss Lewis.”

By the end of the week, she had the zero draft of her report, she had reviewed a dozen resumes for the team that had been sent on to her by Pepper, and she had a rough idea of how the countries in the EU and some of the Eastern European countries viewed the Avengers. She felt it was a good start. There were a few sticky points that she wanted to work out, but overall, it was a good start.

She spent the weekend combing through thrift shops and secondhand stores, looking for businesswear that number one, would fit, number two, wasn’t all black or gray, and number three, was good enough quality that if it didn’t fit, but could be tailored, she would be willing to make the investment. She could do some things, taking hems up or down, for example, but she preferred to let professionals deal with the jackets, for example.

Monday morning, she was in her office at eight-thirty, sipping coffee and looking over her notes regarding the actual national status of Atlantis. Was it a country? It wasn’t recognized by the UN, or by more than two or three other countries, one of which was Latveria, which was amusing as Latveria was a landlocked postage stamp, actually, in the middle of Eastern Europe. But Greece, Italy, and Greenland all three recognized it as a sovereign nation, and King Namor had given several interviews…she should really look into that. If the Avengers had to deal with something rising from the sea, which they had already done on several occasions, they should really have at least a working relationship with Atlantis. But how? They didn’t exactly have an embassy, it was common knowledge that most Atlanteans would die if exposed to air too long. She’d have to think about that.

“Miss Lewis, Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers have just gotten off on your floor, they seem agitated,” FRIDAY warned her.

“Thanks, FRIDAY. Unlock the door for them, would you?”

“Certainly.”

A few seconds later, Tony and Steve came into her office, both in mufti, which gave her the chance to appreciate Steve in jeans, thank you Dr. Erskine. “Really sorry about this, Darce,” Steve began as Tony pushed past him on the way to the coffee machine. He looked as if he had just rolled out of bed, possibly head first. That was definitely yesterday’s AC/DC tee he was wearing, and --

“Tony, are you still in your pajama pants?” Darcy asked.

“Maybe. At least I’m wearing pants, be grateful,” he said, picking up one of her novelty coffee cups. “You’ve got Rebel and First Order and Imperial coffee cups?”

“May the Force be with you,” she said, and he snorted.

“And also with you, Artoo.”

“Does that make you Threepio? Because you’re the snarkiest bastard in the building.”

“HA! No.” He poured himself some coffee, choosing, she noted, the “I run so I can keep up with the Doctor” cup. “Steve?” That got her attention. Tony was using Steve’s name. Not Cap, not Capsicle, not Captain Tightpants. Steve. Tony was being serious, or at least trying to. He turned her office chair around, sitting on it backwards, while Steve hovered near the doorway.

“Okay. Steve, close the door, get some coffee if you want, then sit down. Tony. Seriously. What’s going on?”

“About twenty minutes ago, I got a phone call,” Tony began as Steve, bless him, followed orders. “From the Latverian Embassy.” Both of Darcy’s eyebrows went up. “Doom is coming here, to New York, tomorrow. His bees are working overtime, because he wants to set up a meeting with the UN and ask, formally, for UN assistance in…” Tony looked at his coffee, took another sip, shook his head. “He wants to reset his government, I guess. Change Latveria from, let’s face it, a dictatorship ruled by a literal iron fist, to a constitutional monarchy.”

“Are you serious?” Darcy said when she could find her voice. “That’s…that’s nothing short of amazing.”

“Yep. That’s what the guy on the other end of the line said. I was informed because he wants to ensure that the Avengers know he’s coming on a diplomatic mission.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “I haven’t had time to do more than a zero draft of my report, but I can email it to you, no problem.”

“And you’ve got time to finish it, Darcy, I’m not trying to rush you, but I -- we,” Tony corrected himself, looking guiltily at Steve, “want your general impressions and conclusions.” Darcy took a deep breath, blew it out.

“Okay. General impressions and conclusions? He’s been working on this for at least the last year,” she began. “Slow outreaches to surrounding nations, specifically Symkaria and Chernaya. Definite rebuffs toward Putin’s minions; there was a minor diplomatic dustup last year when he and a couple of his robots personally dropped off four Russian agents on the front steps of the Kremlin. It was…interesting, at least for a few days, over there, but thankfully, nobody got stupid.” She paused to sip her coffee, then continued. “He’s allowing at least some of his subjects to visit Chernaya and Symkaria now, and he’s put down two attempted coups by a couple of his colonels, both of whom would have probably wanted to keep the police state.”

“That…maybe it’s just me,” Steve said slowly. “But if you wanted to make your country free, why wouldn’t you just do that?”

“Because they wouldn’t know what to do with freedom, Steve,” Darcy explained. “They still don’t. It’s going to take at least a couple of generations before the general populace understands the difference between what they’ve always had, and what they have the chance for. Even a constitutional or parliamentarian monarchy is better than the despot he’s been.” She drummed her fingers on her coffee cup, trying to think of how best to explain. “They’ve lived under a very harsh rule all their lives. They don’t know anything but toe the line, don’t speak badly of Doom, or life in Latveria, or else you disappear. Allowing small groups to go experience what life is like in Symkaria and Chernaya for a week or two at a time lets the people see the difference between the countries. He’s lifted the ban on speaking favorably of other countries, yes, that was an actual law for thirty years, you couldn’t speak well of the United States or Canada or the EU if you were in Latveria. He’s upgraded the common standard of living for most of his people, if you’ll give me a second?” She picked up her tablet, ran a before and after image search on Google, handed it to Steve. “On the left, you’ll see a common Latverian farm in 1990.” A small house that could barely be called better than a hut. Four people, man, woman, two children, standing in front of it with blank expressions. “On the right, you’ll see that same farm last year.” The house behind the family, which now numbered eight, had obviously been expanded, a real metal roof rather than tin sheets on the top, there was a truck and a four door sedan in the background. “He imported, at his own expense, a work truck and a car for every Latverian farming family last summer. Gave it to them. Flip the screen.” Steve did so to look at a line of trucks painted in bright, cheery colors, the people standing in front of them smiling broadly, dark skinned and haired, dressed in Latverian folk costume. “That’s a tribe of Latverian Romani. He’s always been partial to them, his mother was Roma.”

“He’s buying his people things? Why didn’t he do that before?” Steve asked, handing her the tablet, his face blank. “Why didn’t he try to improve their standard of living before?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that in the last year, maybe year and a half, I haven’t finished all the research yet, he’s been making huge strides in improving the standard of living and expanding and opening human and civil rights in his country, and that by itself is amazing. For someone to just…turn themselves around like this? It doesn’t happen. It really doesn’t happen. Not without some form of intervention, not without something happening personally to open their eyes to what they’ve been doing.”

“So he got Jesus?” Tony asked, and Darcy threw her hands in the air, shrugging.

“I don’t know if it’s Jesus, Odin, or Baba Yaga kicked the fear of her into him, but the results speak for themselves. Victor Von Doom has been making changes in his country and in his rule for the last year. Maybe you guys could go over to Empire State and see if there are any recent Latverian students who are willing to talk to you? I don’t know that they would, but it’s a possibility. All I know for sure is that the news stories currently coming out of Latveria, Symkaria, and Chernaya all point to a massive change in the governmental outlook, and the quality of life.”

“Huh.” Tony sipped his coffee again, leaning back in his chair, his eyes half-closed. “Steve?”

“I mean, I think it’s great,” Steve said slowly. “If he really is sincere about all of this, it’s great. Knowing that maybe in a time of world crisis, we could perhaps ask Doom for backup? Would be a huge advantage, honestly, because he’s almost as smart as you, Tony.”

“Please, tell me more about how clever I am,” Tony smirked, and Darcy rolled her eyes.

“Be serious. But on the other hand, what if --“

“IT’S A TRAP,” Darcy and Tony said at the same time, and Tony picked it up. “Yeah. It could be. Or it could be he finally took a page out of his old pal Namor’s book, and decided to build instead of destroy.”

“I know you want to believe, Tony,” Steve sighed. “I know you do. And honestly? I do, too. I’d love to have another ally, especially in Eastern Europe. But I can’t just…say I’m from Missouri, I guess.”

“Look at it this way, Steve,” Darcy interjected. “He’s doing all the right things, and has been for a year. He’s invested tons, literally tons, of money in fixing his infrastructure and his people’s way of life. And now he’s coming to the UN for help. He’s not stupid, not at all. He knows he can’t just say, okay now, let’s vote on who you want to represent you. The UN is going to want to send teams over there, they’re going to want to investigate themselves. Can you open your mind enough to give Doom the benefit of the doubt until the UN finishes their investigation, at least?”

Steve was quiet, looking down at his hands for a long minute before his shoulders rose and fell, and he nodded. “I won’t say I don’t want to be cautious,” he said, looking up at her. “But we can give a man a chance. Everybody deserves at least one chance to change.”

“Great,” Tony said, standing. “Then I’ll call the Embassy and let them know that the Avengers recognize and approve of Lord Protector Von Doom’s visit to the UN, and any unpleasantness will not be started by the Avengers.”

“And give them my office number, would you, Tony?” Darcy interjected. “If I’m your political liaison, they should call me from now on.”

“Fuck. You’re right, Lewis. My bad.” He had the good grace to frown, at least. “You just started the job, hell, we just created it, that’s probably why…”

“No, I’m not mad,” Darcy hastened to reassure him. “You’re right, it’s not as if we’ve made a big deal about the new position or anything yet. We can make an announcement after Doom leaves. We don’t want to upstage his visit, that wouldn’t be prudent.”

“Right. Okay. Get with Pepper on that, she’s got the embassy numbers. Cap, you good?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, rising as well. “Thanks for your time, Darcy.”

“Hey, it’s what I’m here for. My advice, honestly, cautious support and observation is the best way to go in this. If he’s for real, we’ll know it; it’ll take the UN at least a year, maybe two, to get the elections set up. If he’s not, he’ll fuck up and show the autocratic DOOM IS BETTER THAN YOU PEASANTS crap again.” She grinned, bumping fists with Tony. “Villains, real ones, can’t help themselves, they have to feed their massive ass egos.”

“Exactly. Come on, mon Capitan, let’s go get Danish.” The two men left her office, and Darcy shook her head, smiling, as she went back to work.

#darcy lewis #fanfic #fanfiction #Avengers #tony stark #steve rogers #Victor Von Doom #darcyland #The Darcy/Victor Von Doom fic that nobody asked for #political wrangling #darcy is smart #@subsilvernight #I love reblogs

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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Prong Interview: Quality Control

Prong (from left to right: drummer Aaron Rossi, vocalist/guitarist Tommy Victor, bassist/backing vocalist Jason Christopher); Photo by Tim Tronckoe

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Prong’s not a one-hit wonder--not because they have more than one hit, but because despite its appearance on a Beavis and Butthead episode, you can’t really call “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” a hit. It doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page. And as much as the band’s sole consistent member is concerned with their lack of hits, he--and they--are better than that.

Save for a five year period of inactivity, the Tommy Victor-helmed metal band has been making music for over thirty years, with some of its most inspired material coming in the 2010′s. The inspired Carved Into Stone and Zero Days were career highlights, seeing the band combine the heavy hooks and progressive riffs they’ve always been known for. (Before the release of those records, Victor was devoting time to Ministry, with whom he likely had a falling out, based on his words about frontman Al Jourgensen, and he’s also still the guitarist of Danzig) And now, the band has offered a five-song EP, released on the label that’s represented them the better part of the past decade, Steamhammer, to whet the appetite of fans for their next release, whenever it may come. Age of Defiance contains two new songs and three live recordings with the current lineup of drummer Aaron Rossi and bassist/backing vocalist Jason Christopher. Its three live recordings are not from Zero Days, let alone from this past decade. Instead, they included “Another Worldly Device” and “Cut-Rate” from their 25-year-old breakout Cleansing as well as the title track to its follow-up, Rude Awakening.

Speaking to Victor over the phone late last year, it’s clear he’s constantly reflecting on his entire career, where both Prong and the metal and music world were then and are now. On paper, his general observations may come across as “ok boomer” dismissiveness, but I can tell you from his tone that he legitimately ponders and is curious about his place. The conversation eventually turned into me expressing generalized, likely unearned pearls of wisdom about the state of things, and him playing the weary cynic. The whole time, it was enjoyable and illuminating.

Read the Q+A, edited for length and clarity, below.

Since I Left You: You released the Age of Defiance to tide fans over. What’s the history of the two studio recordings on it?

Tommy Victor: That’s a good question. [In 2018], in January, I came off a tour and wrote a whole bunch of songs. I think 11 I fully demoed in crappy home recordings. That was gonna be for a full-length record. We were trying to expand the life of Zero Days, so we put out the “Blood Out Of Stone” video and single. We had that in the works and thought we shouldn’t put out another album for a while. People tend to just listen to a couple songs anyhow. I thought a lot of songs off of Zero Days got ignored or overlooked. And we had put out a series of long players over a good period of time, so an EP sounded like a good idea. I just picked one song [from the demos, “Age of Defiance”], and thought the quality control has really been upped, because out of the 11 songs that were demoed, I was only picking one song out of this to really focus on. I liked that idea, so we recorded that one. Then I wrote a brand spanking new song specifically for the EP once it was decided just to do two songs, and that was “End of Sanity”. Completely new for this. I think the other songs are gonna go in the trash pile.

SILY: So that’s why you chose “Age of Defiance” to represent this release?

TV: Right.

SILY: “The End Of Sanity” you describe as a crossover track. It’s pretty catchy but still really heavy.

TV: Good. I always worry about that.

SILY: You still worry about how your music is gonna be received?

TV: Oh, absolutely. I’m an artist, but I’m not that much of an artist. I’m still insecure about a lot of the stuff. I do the best I can. That song, too, to go into the depths of how I come up with something like that. Apart from the demos, I recorded a bunch of riffs on my phone, whether on the road or hanging around. I spent the day going through all of them. I was like, “This one’s pretty cool.” I downloaded it off my phone and put it on the computer. Apparently, it was recorded during a Danzig tour. I rearranged it and came up with something completely different. There’s a lot of work that goes behind this. Then I added the other riffs on the spot. But I try to have a lot of quality control and effort put into this. And the lyrics are a whole other thing. I like to have the opportunity to do two songs. I don’t have this huge chore or task of doing 14 songs. This is great! I’d love this to continue, to put out a couple songs here and there. It’s been a lot of work but a lot less of a headache.

SILY: It’s the same work, but put into less songs.

TV: Yeah!

SILY: What would prevent you from doing that? The label release cycles?

TV: I’m confused about their whole release cycle. I don’t really know what their strategies are. Because I don’t know that, I think they’ve gotten the wrong idea that I’ve criticized them about it. I’m not; they’ve done a fantastic job with Prong. It’s just that I’m confused about how they decide what has to be done. I don’t really know. I know he told me this is gonna carry through this year, but we’ll see what happens.

SILY: From an artistic standpoint, coming out with a whole album as opposed to releasing one-off songs is different, but from the perspective of keeping people interested, people are used to these short bursts.

TV: I guess they are. Our label is an old-fashioned heavy metal label, which may sound wrong, but they have the metal integrity of full-length albums and vinyl. They don’t really care too much about what the pop world is doing. But I know R&B artists team up with other people for a constant barrage of singles. I don’t listen to those pop playlists, but I know billions of people do. It’s what people listen to these days, when you go to the gym. Whoever with whoever. These singles that come out.

You can make money from Spotify if you generate the type of digital-only releases these artists are doing. It’s a mythos to say nobody’s making money from Spotify. Yeah, metal bands are not, because nobody listens to metal. But in the wide scope of things, 15 million plays in a day, you’re making a good chunk of change. And that’s just on Spotify.

SILY: It’s also being counted towards the charts.

TV: Yeah, it’s Gold now. It’s ridiculous. Nobody sells 500,000 copies of a record anymore. There’s no place to buy records!

SILY: No big places.

TV: Yeah.

SILY: When I heard that this release was going to be two never-heard-before studio recordings and three live cuts, I expected the live cuts to be three recently released Prong songs. But there’s one from 10 years ago and two from the early 90′s. Why these songs?

TV: Well, it’s the 25th anniversary of Cleansing. As far as why “Another Worldly Device” and “Cut-Rate”, I don’t know. We could have done “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck”. And I think “Rude Awakening” is one of those Prong songs that’s been overlooked a little bit, and it shows a side of Prong where people are like, “That’s a really good song!” but they don’t really get it. We rolled the dice with that one, sort of.

SILY: Do you play that one a touch slower live?

TV: Probably. Alexei [Rodriguez] would play fast, and Ted [Parsons] would play it fast. We’re probably a little slower now. It moves up and down. Sometimes, we’re trying to get the hell out of there at night.

SILY: When were these recorded?

TV: Several years ago. 2014 at the earliest, maybe 2015. I should know that.

SILY: Were they from different shows?

TV: No. The whole session was different shows, but I think those were all from Berlin.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

TV: I’ve been dabbling with painting. I sent a bunch of my art to the art director, and this is what he came up with. I was like, “Wow, this is awesome!” I had done one piece which was my idea for the cover, which was nothing really that great, just a black canvas and sort of distorted Prong logo in red and that kind of lettering. He just went full force with [the image I gave him] and came up with the rest of it. I really like the color scheme--it was something really different. He really got it, he really nailed it. Nicolas Fritz is this guy’s name. He’s from Steamhammer. Normally, we haven’t gone with the guy from the label, but I thought, “I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m gonna start with something and send it to him and see if he can manipulate it.” He went in a totally different direction, and I really liked what he was doing.

SILY: What else is upcoming for Prong?

TV: More touring. There’s the European tour. We’re trying to get down to South America. If the Foo Fighters want us to go out with them in America, I’ll take that tour. Other than that, I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Three tours [this year] would be good.

SILY: Have you played the two new songs live yet?

TV: Good question. We have not! We were planning to. We just got off a tour; we were just out with Agnostic Front. Based on the shortness of our set time, we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to be interfering with the show by playing new songs.

SILY: Have you practiced them a bunch?

TV: No. We need to start. We’re gonna do them on the next tour.

SILY: How was your show at Reggie’s?

TV: I think we were competing with someone of major significance playing elsewhere that night. I’ve never been to that venue before. We played a lot of places that normally we wouldn’t have played or never heard of.

SILY: In terms of metal, Queensryche was playing that night, but I don’t know who else. You never know why people don’t come out.

TV: It wasn’t a disaster, but somebody else of significance definitely played that night. I think it was just right after a festival.

SILY: Riot Fest.

TV: Riot Fest was that weekend.

SILY: Do you tend to play festivals at all?

TV: We try to. We try to get on ‘em. In Europe, we do. In America, for some reason, we’re bypassed. I do know the reasons, but I’m not gonna share that with you. In Europe, we do a lot of festivals.

SILY: I imagine Riot Fest would be receptive to a band like you. They’re not a metal festival and call themselves a punk festival, but they have metal. Slayer just headlined it.

TV: I don’t know what dictates these things. When we’re asked, we’ll do it. But right now, to beat down doors to get on these things, fly in, and make no money isn’t really that interesting to me.

SILY: You’d rather go on a tour where people are gonna come to your shows, even if small.

TV: I gotta keep an eye on finances. We’re not a bunch of kids excited to do things for nothing. I’m not gonna wind up broke.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

TV: I’m always watching stuff these days. Right now, I’m watching Rebellion. It’s about the Easter Uprising. Good show. I watched El Camino. It was good; I wasn’t blown away by it.

Now, you’re really gonna get another side of me. We were dying to see this movie, and it did not disappoint, because the TV show was unbelievable: Downton Abbey. That was amazing.

As far as listening, I go back and forth. I listen to anything from Interpol to Death From Above 1979 to old Jeff Beck Group stuff. I went through a whole big jazz period, Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis. I’m really into musical theater, too. I was listening to the Rent soundtrack on the road. [laughs] Like, a lot!

SILY: Do your other band mates share your tastes?

TV: No one listens to anything publicly anymore. It’s just headphones. Everyone’s so isolated. Years ago, we’d jointly listen to stuff, complain, throw CDs out the window of the van. There’s no camaraderie anymore. Everyone’s on their own little agenda in their own heads.

SILY: I imagine that’s both good and bad.

TV: Uh...I don’t know. People are more intolerant of one another these days.

SILY: So they keep to themselves.

TV: They keep to themselves. I’m better off that way because I listen to podcasts that other people will definitely not listen to. There’s a lot of stupid shit out there, so that’s really what goes down. As far as music, though, it goes all over the place. Doom metal, some of it’s good, but I don’t pay that much attention to it.

SILY: There are so many different sub-genres of it.

TV: I was just talking about that to someone the other day. It’s disgusting. I don’t like that. Their audiences are too divided. It’s really a sad shame that it’s like that. It’s just the way it is. Doom metal people. People who only listen to hatecore bands or deathcore. Even industrial has a million different sub-genres.

SILY: It’s cool to take things in different directions but bad to be insular about it.

TV: Digital technology did this. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry can make his own record and put it up on Spotify. There are 30,000 releases a week or something now.

SILY: The good music’s out there, it’s just harder to find.

TV: Everything’s algorithmically done. The new Prong single, “End Of Sanity” is out, and automatically, unless you’ve somehow gotten in touch with the programmers, after the first week, it’s gonna get bumped down on some of the playlists. It just starts dwindling down, and your plays after a week have already gone down. It’s disappeared. Prong has the luxury of being a luxury band with a song that gets played on some of the other playlists, so we stay up there, but if it wasn’t for that, we’d be in the doldrums, that’s for sure.

SILY: I guess you gotta be thankful for that.

TV: I’m thankful for that. There could be more songs of that nature, but they seem to be concentrating on the one hit and that’s it. There’s Metallica, Godsmack, and a bunch of other bands. Rob Zombie, Tool, and everyone else suffers.

SILY: Or it becomes a token. You get these execs going, “Let’s make a diverse playlist, let’s put one metal song in there.” Who’s it gonna be? The most popular band.

TV: Oh, yeah.

SILY: Who do you consider your peers?

TV: That’s a really good question. I don’t really consider anybody. I think about that all the time. Not in a pompous fashion, but we just stand alone. A lot of people don’t get it or don’t like it; it is what it is. We’re not part of genre groups. It doesn’t fit into anything. The band we thought we were closest to--and we’re not--was Helmet, because we just toured with them a couple years ago. It was a great tour, and there’s a huge difference between both bands.

SILY: It’s funny you say that--in preparation for this interview, I was listening to an old song of yours on YouTube, and it auto-played into Helmet.

TV: Yeah. It’s the closest thing, but there’s a huge difference between the bands. There’s nobody that’s in the Prong realm. It’s completely on its own.

SILY: Do you like that?

TV: No, I do not like that. It’s out of my own choosing, that’s for sure.

SILY: You’d rather have a frame of reference or grouped contextually with other bands?

TV: It would help marketing-wise and popularity-wise, getting on tours, package deals, festivals, etc. It would have helped tremendously. But being this weird anomaly that stands outside the pack, it’s not helpful when you’re trying to get packages to tour with, and being on playlists, the way things are now, with everything so filed and separated. A band like Yes, years ago--I guess Genesis was somewhat similar--but they were popular. They didn’t fit in with anybody. Neither did Jethro Tull. To me, that’s progressive rock. Now, forget it. Especially in metal. It’s just ridiculous. It’s really bad.

SILY: At least you have the artistic integrity.

TV: I don’t even have that. I try the best I can. I don’t put out any old garbage. I try to have quality control. I’ve always been like that. When I was a kid, I had to study extra for tests. I can’t slam-dunk stuff. It doesn’t happen.

SILY: Sometimes it’s a blessing, sometimes, it’s a curse.

TV: It’s having a legacy of a career that’s what’s important at this stage. There are some bands with a huge legacy, but the last four records have just been, “What the hell is this garbage?” Like really bad. At least I can say with Prong--and maybe it’s because the early records weren’t that good--but the recent records aren’t that bad. A lot of people haven’t heard them, but I can’t be ashamed of them. I haven’t been mailing in any records lately.

SILY: I like Carved Into Stone quite a bit.

TV: We put a lot of time into that. It was a big project, major project. It took a year to put that whole thing together. I was out of Ministry, like “Fuck Al Jorgensen.” “Rio Grande Blood”, “Relapse”, and “The Last Sucker”’s riffs could have been Prong songs but went to Ministry. I just never made a fucking penny off of those songs, and they could have been put into Prong stuff. I shot my load on those, but I put a stop to it and went in and did Carved Into Stone and somehow salvaged that period of my life. [laughs]

Tour dates:

2/14 - Dynamo - Eindhoven, Netherlands

2/15 - Student Central (ULU) - London, United Kingdom

2/16 - Muziekodroom - Hasselt, Belgium

2/17 - Z-Bau - House of Contemporary Culture - Nuremberg, Germany

2/18 - Backstage Halle - Munich, Germany

2/19 - A38 Hajó - Budapest, Hungary

2/20 - Barrak music club - Ostrava, Czech Republic

2/21 - Arena Wien - Wien, Austria

2/22 - Legend Club - Milano, Italy

2/23 - Kiff - Aarau, Switzerland

2/24 - Garage - Saabrucken, Germany

2/25 - KufA e.V. - Braunschweig, Germany

2/26 - Kulttempel - Oberhausen, Germany

2/27 - Bahnhof Pauli - Hamburg, Germany

2/28 - SO36 - Berlin, Germany

2/29 - AJZTalschock - Chemnitz, Germany

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wellesleyunderground · 6 years

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Conversation with the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens Union Workers

Wellesley College approached the service employee union in October stating their intention to eliminate the three Botanic garden union jobs and replace them with three nonunion jobs, one with the requirement of a bachelor’s degree and two with master’s degrees.

The college and union had been negotiating over positions at the greenhouse, but as of the beginning of November, the union ended negotiations because the college had yet to explain who would do the work the union employees do (mowing, watering, weeding, pruning, insect control etc).

Wellesley Underground’s Hoi-Fei Mok ‘10 and Shelly Anand ‘08 spoke with the three union workers Tony Antonucci, Tricia Diggins, and David Sommers, who may be facing job losses. Read below for the interview.

WU: You all have been with the college for over 30 years (thus having about 90s years of experience together). What has your experience been like working at the College? What has your experience been like as a member of the union?

TD I have found many things to love about the college; the students, the landscape, the security of being in a union. Sometimes though being at odds with management can be demoralizing. The union always wants to see opportunities for advancement for our members but the college is likely to hire from outside or give the opportunity to a less senior union job applicant. However, knowing you are given rights in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement or contract) is empowering.

DS I’ve enjoyed working here. I like the greenhouse and the beauty of the college and New England. I’ve met a lot of great people here. As far as being in the union - I like knowing everyone and waving to everyone on the road. The common history we all share, since so many of us have been here for a while, makes us feel like a community.

TA Very good experience, felt secure in my position at the college providing services for students and classes. Also have felt very good about being in the union. For my entire time at Wellesley, I have felt part of the Biological Sciences department and a union member. Only now do I feel separated.

WU: What is the process for joining the union at Wellesley? What benefits do employees get for joining and why do some choose not to join? What does your collective bargaining agreement look like?

TD An employee hired into a union job on campus is signed up by the union after 30 days in the job. Our union is the Independent Service and Maintenance Union of America (IMSEUA), an independent union only at Wellesley. Campus police also has its own union. Employees get many benefits from a union. Many rights and benefits are spelled out in the CBA and if the rules are followed, everyone feels treated fairly because the rules are the rules. Of course no system works perfectly, but there is recourse through the grievance process to try to fix a situation if the union feels the CBA has been violated. Our CBA covers the service and maintenance workers on campus, so if you are in one of the jobs covered in the agreement, you are in the union, thus no one chooses not to be in the union. The CBA is a document that is negotiated with the college about every two to four years. Many parts stay the same, some get tweaked and occasionally big things change like a couple of contracts ago when we gave up our defined benefit pension for incoming union members.

WU: What are some important facts to know about the history of the union at Wellesley College?

TD Perhaps the biggest fact is that a union was voted in by employees in the 1940’s because supervisory employees were arbitrarily firing service employees they didn’t like. At this time we are lucky to have institutional memory in the union that goes decades back. That allows us to remember battles we fought in the past but that need to be fought again and again, like the seniority principle which should help employees with more years of service get better opportunities but which rarely happens anymore.

TA The union has historically provided the maintenance work on campus and allowed for upward movement between departments.

WU: Overall, in the past, how has the college treated you?

DS I think I’ve been treated pretty well in the past. Some perks have been cut back on but overall I’ve felt pretty secure.

TD The college has treated me well with pay, benefits and opportunities to serve the college community and union. Eighteen years ago, I was caught up in a seniority battle for a higher union position I wanted that they gave to a man with much less seniority. I ultimately lost in arbitration but I’m grateful for the union’s help and disappointed in the college for not giving a motivated woman a chance to advance. I lost the case because I hadn’t plowed snow before.

TA In the past the college treated me very well.

WU: How has the working relationship between the College and the union changed, in your view, over the years?

DS There used to be more people in the union that we all knew, people who had come up through ranks, from food service and custodial and into the higher paid skilled trade jobs.

TD I think it has been fairly stable. Some years are good, sometimes new people come in and a lot of changes happen. It’s up and down.

TA The college has become more business-like with less community in the last few years.

WU: What is the negotiating process like at the college?

TD The union forms a negotiating committee with union members representing different areas, like food service, custodial and the trades. And they meet with the College’s management team. Each side had their lawyers who do most of the talking.

WU: When a layoff occurs, a union employee may bump another union employee from another job if they are qualified. What is the typical process for bumping rights?

TD The College needs to prepare a seniority list of all the people in the union and what jobs they hold (though in the past names were left out) with their shift hours and any other pertinent information. The most senior person being laid off bumps into a job they are qualified for (sometimes qualifications are questioned, which complicates things but we’ll assume that part goes smoothly.) The person bumped from their job looks for a new one from the list (or they would have a choice to take severance pay.) It’s possible that someone would have no place to bump and they would have to take severance pay, but if a union job opens up within a year and that person has the seniority and qualifications, they can come back to work.

WU: When were you first told that your jobs at the greenhouse were in jeopardy?

DS I was told in the beginning of October that my job would be eliminated.

TD I was told in late September that the management wanted to take the botanic gardens jobs from the union and David and Tony would be laid off.

TA In the beginning of October, Dave and I were told we could move into another department because of our seniority and our jobs would be replaced by non-union jobs requiring higher degrees.

WU: What was the negotiating process like around your ability to keep your job?

DS I felt totally unsure about where I was going or what was going to happen to me.

TD It was apparent that the new direction for the Botanic gardens staffing was toward professional jobs, but there was no explanation of how the greenhouse union work would get done with no union workers.

TA The message I got was I would stay until my replacement was hired and then I could bump into another union job.

WU: What justification did the college give for the additional degree requirements for the jobs?

DS The college said they need specialists in warm temperate flora, which will be the basis of “Global Flora.”

TD The explanation was that a much stronger science background would be necessary for pest control and understanding plant interactions.

TA The new ‘Global Flora’ would be more educational and all decisions on caring for the plants would be made through data collection from monitoring systems. The routine daily care of plants would change and not as much work would be required. We have been struggling with a deteriorating greenhouse structure and poor water quality that have made growing plants challenging, so we were looking forward to caring for plants in a new greenhouse. The new degree requirements were upsetting.

WU: What brings you the most joy about working at the greenhouse?

DS The greenhouse is the best place to work during New England Winters. I enjoy meeting the many visitors to our greenhouse. Growing plants from seed is very enjoyable for me, I’ve grown some of our bigger specimens from seed.

TA Seeing the plants thrive and the having other plant people appreciate the work required to keep them thriving.

WU: The Botanic Gardens are an important space on campus for educating students about plant life and ecology as well as providing a natural refuge and inspiration. There have been a number of events and projects in this space, such as the student design of the edible ecosystem garden. What events or projects have you helped with and what have you enjoyed the most?

DS I really like the mystical tree tours out in the arboretum. The light shows have been great. I also like planting trees in the arboretum and seeing them grow through the years. I really like seed growing too though that’s not a particular event.

TD I really liked the light show this year because we got to grow plants associated with two art works, the unicorn tapestries and Botticelli's Primavera. We got to order seeds of a bunch of European plants we never would have grown. Some worked out great, others not so much, but it was a great learning experience.

TA I really enjoyed the light shows and working on New England Spring Flower Shows as well as learning and implementing our Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM) and soil food web programs. I also like the way the outdoor gardens are being managed more ecologically.

WU: What can the Wellesley College Community of students, faculty, staff, and alumnae do to help and support you?

TD The petition SLAP started on Change.org has been great. We’ve loved reading the comments from everyone, especially students and alum we’ve worked with. SLAP has more actions planned. We started to get some conciliatory comments today from the college about rethinking the union jobs but nothing official to report. I think the actions the college community have been taking to express their disapproval of this reorganization are making a difference.

TA In the long run, I think it would be helpful to have more people involved, maybe on a committee, to look at the maintenance needs and future projects within the botanic gardens.

----

Bios of the Botanic garden union workers

Tony Antonucci

Tony has been employed at Wellesley College for 35 years, starting in the greenhouses as an assistant horticulturist. On his first day on the job, the college started dismantling the old greenhouses and the old superstructure was saved and renovated. From 1983 - 2000, he assisted in maintaining the greenhouse collection. He was promoted to the current position of senior greenhouse horticulturist, the position in charge of greenhouses, in 2000 upon the retirement of Del Nickerson who had worked in the greenhouses since 1965. He also had the privilege of knowing Harriet Creighton, botany professor and a major figure in the history of the Botanic Gardens and Joe Jennings, the head of the greenhouse before Del, which gives Tony an incredible amount of institutional memory. Tony has been great in working with work study students in the greenhouse and teaching them many aspects of running a greenhouse. Del and Tony started the Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM).

As of this writing, Tony will be laid off in June 2018 or sooner if his replacement is hired.

David Sommers

David is an assistant horticulturist in the greenhouses. He worked in food service and custodial before starting in the greenhouses in 2000. David has many stories about students he knew from his days in the kitchens and is always hoping to see alums he remembers at reunion. He loves to help students with their houseplants as well as share his observations and knowledge of the plants in the greenhouses and the animals and landscapes of Wellesley. He is known for his excellent photography and his pictures have appeared on the Wellesley website and Alumnae magazine.

David was expecting to be laid off on December 1st of this year but the college has not told him what his severance pay or bumping rights will be.

Tricia Diggins

Tricia has been at Wellesley College for 31 years. She spent four years at a night job at Schneider center food service and working in energy conservation before being lucky enough to get into the horticulturist job in the arboretum and botanic gardens. Wellesley allowed Tricia to attend many gardening classes and symposia through which she made up for my lack of formal horticulture education. She was promoted to Senior Gardens horticulturist around 2006 thanks to a reorganization of jobs by Kristina Jones, director of the Botanic gardens. She is very actively involved with IMSEUA, the service employee union on campus, throughout her years at Wellesley.

Tricia was offered one of the manager jobs in the new proposed job restructure but since her job is mostly landscape chores like mowing, trimming, weeding etc. and because the college didn’t tell her who would do that work, Tricia had said no. At this time throughout negotiations the college has not said she would be laid off.

#wellesley underground #wellesley botanic gardens #labor unions #wellesley college #Tricia Diggins #David Sommers #Tony Antonucci #inclusion series

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politicoscope · 4 years

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EU Funds Spawn Misery For Migrants in Libya

New Post has been published on https://www.politicoscope.com/eu-funds-spawns-misery-for-migrants-in-libya/

EU Funds Spawn Misery For Migrants in Libya

When the European Union started funneling millions of euros into Libya to slow the tide of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the money came with EU promises to improve detention centers notorious for abuse and fight human trafficking. That hasn’t happened. Instead, the misery of migrants in Libya has spawned a thriving and highly lucrative web of businesses funded in part by the EU and enabled by the United Nations, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The EU has sent more than 327.9 million euros to Libya, with an additional 41 million approved in early December, largely funneled through UN agencies. The AP found that in a country without a functioning government, huge sums of European money have been diverted to intertwined networks of militiamen, traffickers and coast guard members who exploit migrants. In some cases, UN officials knew militia networks were getting the money, according to internal emails.

The militias torture, extort and otherwise abuse migrants for ransoms in detention centers under the nose of the UN, often in compounds that receive millions in European money, the AP investigation showed. Many migrants also simply disappear from detention centers, sold to traffickers or to other centers.

The same militias conspire with some members of Libyan coast guard units. The coast guard gets training and equipment from Europe to keep migrants away from its shores. But coast guard members return some migrants to the detention centers under deals with militias, the AP found, and receive bribes to let others pass en route to Europe.

The militias involved in abuse and trafficking also skim off European funds given through the UN to feed and otherwise help migrants, who go hungry. For example, millions of euros in UN food contracts were under negotiation with a company controlled by a militia leader, even as other UN teams raised alarms about starvation in his detention center, according to emails obtained by the AP and interviews with at least a half-dozen Libyan officials.

In many cases, the money goes to neighboring Tunisia to be laundered, and then flows back to the militias in Libya.

This story is part of an occasional series, “Outsourcing Migrants,” produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The story of Prudence Aimée and her family shows how migrants are exploited at every stage of their journey through Libya.

Aimée left Cameroon in 2015, and when her family heard nothing from her for a year, they thought she was dead. But she was in detention and incommunicado. In nine months at the Abu Salim detention center, she told the AP, she saw “European Union milk” and diapers delivered by UN staff pilfered before they could reach migrant children, including her toddler son. Aimée herself would spend two days at a time without food or drink, she said.

In 2017, an Arab man came looking for her with a photo of her on his phone.

“They called my family and told them they had found me,” she said. “That’s when my family sent money.” Weeping, Aimée said her family paid a ransom equivalent of $670 to get her out of the center. She could not say who got the money.

She was moved to an informal warehouse and eventually sold to yet another detention center, where yet another ransom — $750 this time — had to be raised from her family. Her captors finally released the young mother, who got on a boat that made it past the coast guard patrol, after her husband paid $850 for the passage. A European humanitarian ship rescued Aimée, but her husband remains in Libya.

Aimée was one of more than 50 migrants interviewed by the AP at sea, in Europe, Tunisia and Rwanda, and in furtive messages from inside detention centers in Libya. Journalists also spoke with Libyan government officials, aid workers and businessmen in Tripoli, obtained internal UN emails and analyzed budget documents and contracts.

The issue of migration has convulsed Europe since the influx of more than a million people in 2015 and 2016, fleeing violence and poverty in the Mideast, Afghanistan and Africa. In 2015, the European Union set up a fund intended to curb migration from Africa, from which money is sent to Libya. The EU gives the money mainly through the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the High Commissioner for Refugees. (UNHCR).

But Libya is plagued by corruption and caught in a civil war. The west, including the capital Tripoli, is ruled by a UN-brokered government, while the east is ruled by another government supported by army commander Khalifa Hifter. The chaos is ideal for profiteers making money off migrants.

Khalifa Haftar

The EU’s own documents show it was aware of the dangers of effectively outsourcing its migration crisis to Libya. Budget documents from as early as 2017 for a 90 million euro outlay warned of a medium-to-high risk that Europe’s support would lead to more human rights violations against migrants, and that the Libyan government would deny access to detention centers. A recent EU assessment found the world was likely to get the “wrong perception” that European money could be seen as supporting abuse.

Despite the roles they play in the detention system in Libya, both the EU and the UN say they want the centers closed. In a statement to the AP, the EU said that under international law, it is not responsible for what goes on inside the centers.

“Libyan authorities have to provide the detained refugees and migrants with adequate and quality food while ensuring that conditions in detention centers uphold international agreed standards,” the statement said.

The EU also says more than half of the money in its fund for Africa is used to help and protect migrants, and that it relies on the UN to spend the money wisely.

The UN said the situation in Libya is highly complex, and it has to work with whoever runs the detention centers to preserve access to vulnerable migrants.

“UNHCR does not choose its counterparts,” said Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency. “Some presumably also have allegiances with local militias.”

After two weeks of being questioned by the AP, UNHCR said it would change its policy on awarding of food and aid contracts for migrants through intermediaries.

“Due in part to the escalating conflict in Tripoli and the possible risk to the integrity of UNHCR’s programme, UNHCR decided to contract directly for these services from 1 January 2020,” Yaxley said.

Julien Raickman, who until recently was the Libya mission chief for the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, believes the problem starts with Europe’s unwillingness to deal with the politics of migration.

“If you were to treat dogs in Europe the way these people are treated, it would be considered a societal problem,” he said.

EXTORTION INSIDE THE DETENTION CENTERS

About 5,000 migrants in Libya are crowded into between 16 and 23 detention centers at any given time, depending on who is counting and when. Most are concentrated in the west, where the militias are more powerful than the weak UN-backed government.

Aid intended for migrants helps support the al-Nasr Martyrs detention center, named for the militia that controls it, in the western coastal town of Zawiya. The UN’s migration agency, the IOM, keeps a temporary office there for medical checks of migrants, and its staff and that of the UNHCR visit the compound regularly.

Yet migrants at the center are tortured for ransoms to be freed and trafficked for more money, only to be intercepted at sea by the coast guard and brought back to the center, according to more than a dozen migrants, Libyan aid workers, Libyan officials and European human rights groups. A UNHCR report in late 2018 noted the allegations as well, and the head of the militia, Mohammed Kachlaf, is under UN sanctions for human trafficking. Kachlaf, other militia leaders named by the AP and the Libyan coast guard all did not respond to requests for comment.

Libya Migrants

Many migrants recalled being cut, shot and whipped with electrified hoses and wooden boards. They also heard the screams of others emerging from the cell blocks off-limits to UN aid workers.

Families back home are made to listen during the torture to get them to pay, or are sent videos afterward.

Eric Boakye, a Ghanaian, was locked in the al-Nasr Martyrs center twice, both times after he was intercepted at sea, most recently around three years ago. The first time, his jailers simply took the money on him and set him free. He tried again to cross and was again picked up by the coast guard and returned to his jailers.

“They cut me with a knife on my back and beat me with sticks,” he said, lifting his shirt to show the scars lining his back. “Each and every day they beat us to call our family and send money.” The new price for freedom: Around $2,000.

That was more than his family could scrape together. Boakye finally managed to escape. He worked small jobs for some time to save money, then tried to cross again. On his fourth try, he was picked up by the Ocean Viking humanitarian ship to be taken to Italy. In all, Boakye had paid $4,300 to get out of Libya.

Fathi al-Far, the head of the al-Nasr International Relief and Development agency, which operates at the center and has ties to the militia, denied that migrants are mistreated. He blamed “misinformation” on migrants who blew things out of proportion in an attempt to get asylum.

“I am not saying it’s paradise — we have people who have never worked before with the migrants, they are not trained,” he said. But he called the al-Nasr Martyrs detention center “the most beautiful in the country.”

At least five former detainees showed an AP journalist scars from their injuries at the center, which they said were inflicted by guards or ransom seekers making demands to their families. One man had bullet wounds to both feet, and another had cuts on his back from a sharp blade. All said they had to pay to get out.

Five to seven people are freed every day after they pay anywhere from $1,800 to $8,500 each, the former migrants said. At al-Nasr, they said, the militia gets around $14,000 every day from ransoms; at Tarek al-Sikka, a detention center in Tripoli, it was closer to $17,000 a day, they said. They based their estimates on what they and others detained with them had paid, by scraping together money from family and friends.

The militias also make money from selling groups of migrants, who then often simply disappear from a center. An analysis commissioned by the EU and released earlier this month by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime noted that the detention centers profit by selling migrants among themselves and to traffickers, as well as into prostitution and forced labor.

Hundreds of migrants this year who were intercepted at sea and taken to detention centers had vanished by the time international aid groups visited, according to Médecins Sans Frontières. There’s no way to tell where they went, but MSF suspects they were sold to another detention center or to traffickers.

A former guard at the Khoms center acknowledged to the AP that migrants often were seized in large numbers by men armed with anti-aircraft guns and RPGs. He said he couldn’t keep his colleagues from abusing the migrants or traffickers from taking them out of the center.

“I don’t want to remember what happened,” he said. The IOM was present at Khoms, he noted, but the center closed last year.

A man who remains detained at the al-Nasr Martyrs center said Libyans frequently arrive in the middle of the night to take people. Twice this fall, he said, they tried to load a group of mostly women into a small convoy of vehicles but failed because the center’s detainees revolted.

Fighting engulfed Zawiya last week, but migrants remained locked inside the al-Nasr Martyrs center, which is also being used for weapons storage.

TRAFFICKING AND INTERCEPTION AT SEA

Even when migrants pay to be released from the detention centers, they are rarely free. Instead, the militias sell them to traffickers, who promise to take them across the Mediterranean to Europe for a further fee. These traffickers work hand in hand with some coast guard members, the AP found.

The Libyan coast guard is supported by both the UN and the EU. The IOM, the UN’s agency for migration, highlights its cooperation with the coast guard on its Libya home page. Europe has spent more than 90 million euros since 2017 for training and faster boats for the Libyan coast guard to stop migrants from ending up in Europe.

This fall, Italy renewed a memorandum of understanding with Libya to support the coast guard with training and vessels, and it delivered 10 new speedboats to Libya in November.

In internal documents obtained in September by the European watchdog group Statewatch, the European Council described the coast guard as “operating effectively, thus confirming the process achieved over the past three years.” The Libyan coast guard says it intercepted nearly 9,000 people in 2019 en route to Europe and returned them to Libya this year, after quietly extending its coastal rescue zone 100 miles offshore with European encouragement.

What’s unclear is how often militias paid the coast guard to intercept these people and bring them back to the detention centers — the business more than a dozen migrants described at the al-Nasr Martyrs facility in Zawiya.

The coast guard unit at Zawiya is commanded by Abdel-Rahman Milad, who has sanctions against him for human trafficking by the UN’s Security Council. Yet when his men intercept boats carrying migrants, they contact UN staff at disembarkation points for cursory medical checks.

Despite the sanctions and an arrest warrant against him, Milad remains free because he has the support of the al-Nasr militia. In 2017, before the sanctions, Milad was even flown to Rome, along with a militia leader, Mohammed al-Khoja, as part of a Libyan delegation for a UN-sponsored migration meeting. In response to the sanctions, Milad denied any links to human smuggling and said traffickers wear uniforms similar to those of his men.

Migrants named at least two other operations along the coast, at Zuwara and Tripoli, that they said operated along the same lines as Milad’s. Neither center responded to requests for comment.

The IOM, the UN migration agency, acknowledged to the AP that it has to work with partners who might have contacts with local militias.

“Without those contacts it would be impossible to operate in those areas and for IOM to provide support services to migrants and the local population,” said Safa Msehli, the spokeswoman for the UN’s International Organization for Migration. “Failure to provide that support would have compounded the misery of hundreds of men, women and children.”

The story of Abdullah, a Sudanese man who made two attempts to flee Libya, shows just how lucrative the cycle of trafficking and interception really is.

All told, the group of 47 in his first crossing from Tripoli over a year ago had paid a uniformed Libyan and his cronies $127,000 in a mix of dollars, euros and Libyan dinars for the chance to leave their detention center and cross in two boats. They were intercepted in a coast guard boat by the same uniformed Libyan, shaken down for their cell phones and more money, and tossed back into detention.

“We talked to him and asked him, why did you let us out and then arrest us?” said Abdullah, who asked that only his first name be used because he was afraid of retaliation. “He beat two of us who brought it up.”

Abdullah later ended up in the al-Nasr Martyrs detention center, where he learned the new price list for release and an attempted crossing based on nationality: Ethiopians, $5,000; Somalis $6,800; Moroccans and Egyptians, $8,100; and finally Bangladeshis, a minimum $18,500. Across the board, women pay more.

Abdullah scraped together another ransom payment and another crossing fee. Last July, he and 18 others paid $48,000 in total for a boat with a malfunctioning engine that sputtered to a stop within hours.

After a few days stuck at sea off the Libyan coast under a sweltering sun, they threw a dead man overboard and waited for their own lives to end. Instead, they were rescued on their ninth day at sea by Tunisian fishermen, who took them back to Tunisia.

“There are only three ways out of the prison: You escape, you pay ransom, or you die,” Abdullah said, referring to the detention center.

In all, Abdullah spent a total of $3,300 to leave Libya’s detention centers and take to the sea. He ended up barely 100 miles away.

Sometimes members of the coast guard make money by doing exactly what the EU wants them to prevent: Letting migrants cross, according to Tarik Lamloum, the head of the Libyan human rights organization Beladi. Traffickers pay the coast guard a bribe of around $10,000 per boat that is allowed to pass, with around five to six boats launching at a time when conditions are favorable, he said.

The head of Libya’s Department for Combating Irregular Migration or DCIM, the agency responsible for the detention centers under the Ministry of Interior, acknowledged corruption and collusion among the militias and the coast guard and traffickers, and even within the government itself.

“They are in bed with them, as well as people from my own agency,” said Al Mabrouk Abdel-Hafez.

SKIMMING PROFITS

Beyond the direct abuse of migrants, the militia network also profits by siphoning off money from EU funds sent for their food and security — even those earmarked for a UN-run migrant center, according to more than a dozen officials and aid workers in Libya and Tunisia, as well as internal UN emails and meeting minutes seen by The Associated Press.

An audit in May of the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency responsible for the center, found a lack of oversight and accountability at nearly all levels of spending in the Libya mission. The audit identified inexplicable payments in American dollars to Libyan firms and deliveries of goods that were never verified.

In December 2018, during the period reviewed in the audit, the UN launched its migrant center in Tripoli, known as the Gathering and Departure Facility or GDF, as an “ alternative to detention.” For the recipients of the services contracts, sent through the Libyan government agency Libaid, it was a windfall.

Millions of euros in contracts for food and migrant aid went to at least one company linked to al-Khoja, the militia leader flown to Rome for the UN migration meeting, according to internal UN emails seen by the AP, two senior Libyan officials and an international aid worker. Al-Khoja is also the deputy head of the DCIM, the government agency responsible for the detention centers.

One of the Libyan officials saw the multimillion-euro catering contract with a company named Ard al-Watan, or The Land of the Nation, which al-Khoja controls.

“We feel like this is al-Khoja’s fiefdom. He controls everything. He shuts the doors and he opens the doors,” said the official, a former employee at the UN center who like other Libyan officials spoke anonymously out of fear for his safety. He said al-Khoja used sections of the UN center to train his militia fighters and built a luxury apartment inside.

Even as the contracts for the UN center were negotiated, Libyan officials said, three Libyan government agencies, including the prosecutor’s office, were investigating al-Khoja in connection with the disappearance of $570 million from government spending allocated to feed migrants in detention centers in the west.

At the time, al-Khoja already ran another center for migrants, Tarik al-Sikka, notorious for abuses including beating, hard labor and a massive ransom scheme. Tekila, an Eritrean refugee, said that for two years at Tarik al-Sikka, he and other migrants lived on macaroni, even after he was among 25 people who came down with tuberculosis, a disease exacerbated by malnutrition. Tekila asked that only his first name be used for his safety.

“When there is little food, there is no choice but to go to sleep,” he said.

Despite internal UN emails warning of severe malnutrition inside Tarik al-Sikka, UN officials in February and March 2018 repeatedly visited the detention center to negotiate the future opening of the GDF. AP saw emails confirming that by July 2018, the UNHCR’s chief of mission was notified that companies controlled by al-Khoja’s militia would receive subcontracts for services.

Yaxley, the spokesman for UNHCR, emphasized that the officials the UN refugee agency works with are “all under the authority of the Ministry of Interior.” He said UNHCR monitors expenses to make sure its standard rules are followed, and may withhold payments otherwise.

A senior official at LibAid, the Libyan government agency that managed the center with the U.N., said the contracts are worth at least $7 million for catering, cleaning and security, and 30 out of the 65 LibAid staff were essentially ghost employees who showed up on the payroll, sight unseen.

The U.N. center was “a treasure trove,” the senior Libaid official lamented. “There was no way you could operate while being surrounded by Tripoli militias. It was a big gamble.”

An internal U.N. communication from early 2019 shows it was aware of the problem. The note found a high risk that food for the UN center was being diverted to militias, given the amount budgeted compared to the amount migrants were eating.

In general, around 50 dinars a day, or $35, is budgeted per detainee for food and other essentials for all centers, according to two Libyan officials, two owners of food catering companies and an international aid worker. Of that, only around 2 dinars is actually spent on meals, according to their rough calculations and migrants’ descriptions.

Yaxley, the spokesman for the UNHCR, said the UN refugee agency monitors expenses to make sure its standard rules are followed, and may withhold payments otherwise. He also emphasized that the officials UNHCR works with are “all under the authority of the Ministry of Interior.”

Despite the investigations into al-Khoja, Tarik al-Sikka and another detention center shared a 996,000-euro grant from the EU and Italy in February.

At the Zawiya center, emergency goods delivered by UN agencies ended up redistributed “half for the prisoners, half for the workers,” said Orobosa Bright, a Nigerian who endured three stints there for a total of 11 months. Many of the goods end up on Libya’s black market as well, Libyan officials and international aid workers say.

IOM’s spokeswoman said “aid diversion is a reality” in Libya and beyond, and that the UN agency does its best.

“Were it to become a regular occurrence IOM would be forced to re-evaluate the support it is providing to migrants in detention centres under DCIM despite our awareness that any reduction in this lifesaving assistance will add to the misery of the migrants,” Msehli said.

Despite the corruption, the detention system in Libya is still expanding in places, with money from Europe. At a detention center in Sabaa where migrants are already going hungry, they were forced to build yet another wing funded by the Italian government, said Lamloum, the Libyan aid worker. The Italian government did not respond to a request for comment.

Lamloum sent a photo of the new prison. It has no windows.

TUNISIA LAUNDERING

The money earned off the suffering of migrants is whitewashed in money laundering operations in Tunisia, Libya’s neighbor.

In the town of Ben Gardane, dozens of money-changing stalls transform Libyan dinars, dollars and euros into Tunisian currency before the money continues on its way to the capital, Tunis. Even Libyans without residency can open a bank account.

Tunisia also offers another opportunity for militia networks to make money off European funds earmarked for migrants. Because of Libya’s dysfunctional banking system, where cash is scarce and militias control accounts, international organizations give contracts, usually in dollars, to Libyan organizations with bank accounts in Tunisia. The vendors compound the money the money on Libya’s black-market exchange, which ranges between 4 and 9 times greater than the official rate.

Libya’s government handed over more than 100 files to Tunisia earlier this year listing companies under investigation for fraud and money laundering.

The companies largely involve militia warlords and politicians, according to Nadia Saadi, a manager at the Tunisian anti-corruption authority. The laundering involves cash payments for real estate, falsified customs documents and faked bills for fictitious companies.

“All in all, Libya is run by militias,” said a senior Libyan judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of risking his life. “Whatever governments say, and whatever uniform they wear, or stickers they put….this is the bottom line.”

Husni Bey, a prominent businessman in Libya, said the idea of Europe sending aid money to Libya, a once-wealthy country suffering from corruption, was ill-conceived from the beginning.

“Europe wants to buy those who can stop smuggling with all of these programs,” Bey said. “They would be much better off blacklisting the names of those involved in human trafficking, fuel and drug smuggling and charging them with crimes, instead of giving them money.”

#EU #Libya #Migrants

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labourpress · 7 years

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Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speech to Labour Party Conference

John McDonnell MP, Shadow Chancellor, speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton today, said:

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

I’d like to thank Ken Loach for that wonderful film and thank Ken for his incredible contribution to our movement. Can I also thank the Shadow Treasury Team: Peter Dowd our Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury; Anneliese Dodds; Jonathon Reynolds; Denis Tunnicliffe; Bryan Davies and my brilliant PPS Karen Lee

Only a few months ago we were 24 points behind in the polls. Our opponents and virtually every political commentator = those two groups are often interchangeable by the way - they predicted that we would be wiped out in the general election.

I said then in interview after interview that the polls would narrow and we would shock them all. Not many believed me. And let’s be honest until you saw the exit polls, most of you were pretty on edge too, weren’t you?

Before the election, I said that once we entered the election period and broadcasters were legally obliged to give us some semblance of balanced coverage, we would turn the poll ratings around.

Why? Well, first because people would be given a chance to see Jeremy Corbyn for what he is. The honest, principled and, yes, the strong and determined person and leader that he is. And, second, because people would see in our Manifesto what we really stood for and our vision of hope.

And that is what happened. And it’s also down to you, our members, whose overwhelming enthusiasm inspired people in their millions to come out and vote for us. I want to thank you all.

So yes, we have proved that we are an effective campaigning Party. We now have to prove that we will be an effective governing party. A Government that can set the political agenda for a generation.

If you study the history of our Party, you will see that it’s always been the role of Labour Governments to lead our country into each new era.

It was the Attlee Labour Government that built a new society from the debris of the bomb sites, in the new era after the Second World War. Those men and women who had endured so much throughout the depression of the 1930s and who had sacrificed so much to defeat fascism, placed their trust in our party.

My Dad was a sergeant in the army and my Mum a welder by day, in a munitions factory, and an ARP warden at night. They came out of the war with that spirit of 1945, inspired in them by the election of a Labour Government.

And the Labour Party fulfilled its promise to them and all the other families by creating the welfare state, providing free education for their children, building them a decent home ,investing in an economy based upon full employment. And, of course, creating that jewel in our crown, our NHS.

In the 1960,s when the Tories governed this country from their gentlemen’s clubs on behalf of the privileged few and held this country back from facing the challenges of the modern era, it was the Wilson Labour Government that recognised the potential of a modern Britain, forged, as he said in “the white heat of the scientific revolution.”

For my brother and me, and so many others of our generation, new educational opportunities enabled us to challenge the barriers that had held so many working-class kids back.

And, yes, in 1997, after 18 years of Thatcherism, when whole industries and communities across our country had been destroyed by the Torie,s and our public services were on their knees, it was the Blair/Brown Government that recognised and delivered the scale of public investment that a 21st century society needed.

We should never forget that we are part of that great Labour tradition and we should be so proud of it.

So as we now enter the next, new era, the era of the fourth industrial revolution, I tell you it is a Corbyn Labour Government that will rescue our country from the long years of austerity. And it will be up to us to lay the foundations of the new world that awaits us.

That new world is being shaped already by the beginnings of the fourth industrial revolution. Huge changes are underway in our society and economy. Technological change is accelerating. This year, Chinese scientists used quantum mechanics to teleport data to a satellite.

We can match that, we’ve got a Tory Government teleported from the 18th century. We are determined that Britain embraces the possibilities of technological change – scary though that may be. By the middle of this century, it is possible that up to half of all the jobs we do now could be automated away.

The jobs that remain can, if we let them, be exploitative, dangerous, degrading, and dead-end. Or the jobs we create can provide good, secure employment, in work that is fulfilling and meaningful, in communities where pride and prosperity has been restored.

We have already had a foretaste of what this revolution would look like if it was left to the Tories. It is being used to vastly enrich a tiny elite, whilst creating a life for many workers of long hours, low pay, and insecure employment.

There’s a choice to be made. We can remain a low-wage economy,y specialising in zero hours contracts. Or we can use the state to help shape Britain’s future in this new world. We know it can be done.

As the Tories waste time and energy, alienating our closest trading partners, other countries are using state direction of innovation and investment to carve out vital areas of expertise - in robotics, in electronic cars, in cleantech, in the smart city. Though the technologies are new – the British problem is old. The City is not channelling investment into high value, high productivity businesses. Instead, it’s channelling investment into property speculation.

It’s the rentier economy, where wealth is secured not by what you produce, but by the amount of rent you can charge. So we will change that. We’ll put taxpayers’ money into key research projects; we’ll foster the creation of networks and clusters of expertise. To reconnect the financial sector to the economy of research and development and production, we will transform our financial system.

Labour will establish a Strategic Investment Board, comprising the Chancellor, Secretary of State for Business and Governor of the Bank of England, to co-ordinate the promotion of investment, employment and real wages.

In our investment strategy, we will no longer accept the disparities between investment in London and the Home Counties and the rest of the country.

This Tory Government plans to invest in the north just one-fifth of what it will spend on transport per head in London.

We will legislate for a fair distribution of investment. We’ll devolve decision making through the Regional Development Banks, our Mayors, and regenerate the powers and resources available to local councils.

We’ll build Crossrail for the north, connecting our great northern cities from west coast to east, and extend HS2 into Scotland. We’ll deliver the funding for Midlands Connect, overhauling transport across the Midlands. And we’ll overturn decades of neglect and lack of investment in the South-West. We’ll electrify railway lines from Cornwall right through to London.

The storms and flooding sweeping the world in these last few months are yet another environmental wake up call. This country has huge natural, renewable resources. And we have an immense heritage of scientific and engineering expertise. Yet this Government has slashed the funding, the renewables industry needs to find its feet.

Labour will ensure we become world leaders in decarbonising our economy. With a publicly owned energy supply based on alternative energy sources. Where the Tories have dithered and delayed, to deliver zero-carbon electricity, we will absolutely commit for example to building projects like the Swansea Tidal Lagoon.

Ours will only become an economy for the many, if we significantly broaden ownership. That means supporting entrepreneurs, small businesses, the genuinely self-employed and massively expanding worker control and the co-operative sector.

Building an economy for the many also means bringing ownership and control of the utilities and key services into the hands of people who use and work in them. Rail, water, energy, Royal Mail- we’re taking them back.

We cannot allow this dynamic vision for our economy to be undermined by the combination of belligerence and incompetence, displayed by the Tories in the current EU negotiations. Our aim is to create a Britain for the many, not the few. Our conscience doesn’t end at the English Channel. We also want a Europe for the many, not the few.

That’s why, whilst respecting the referendum decision, we will work with our partners across Europe to create a new European future, based upon collaboration and co-operation.

But we start with addressing the brutal treatment of EU citizens by this Government. We demand that the rights of EU citizens in this country are fully protected, just as we wish to secure the rights of UK citizens in other EU countries.

And I warn the Tories if they try to water down, or undermine protections we have secured on employment, consumer or environmental rights, we will give them the political battle of their lives.

As we go into Government, you know we will have to clear up the mess the Tories will have left us. After their long years of austerity, the Tories are leaving a society steeped in debt and scarred by low pay and insecurity, with our public services in meltdown. We will commission a thorough review of the scale, causes and responses to debt. But action is needed fast.

First, we will do what the Tories have failed to do, and bring the Government’s deficit and debt under effective control. The Tories have borrowed more than any Labour Government ever.

On arrival in office, we will set out plans to eliminate the deficit and reduce debt, based upon our Fiscal Credibility Rule. For each policy in our Manifesto, we are preparing detailed implementation plans. To pay for our public services, we will close the tax loopholes and avoidance scams used by the mega-rich, and we will make sure the rich and the giant corporations pay their way.

Many people are also forced into debt by low wages. It cannot be right that we are the only major developed economy to have grown, while wages are lower than they were before the crash ten years ago. And as inflation hits, many workers are facing yet another real-terms cut in their pay, while the pay of FTSE 100 Chief Executives is 160 times that of the average worker.

In the election campaign Theresa May was asked why nurses were being forced to resort to foodbanks and she replied that the issue was complex. It isn’t complex. It’s simple. They just aren’t being paid enough.

That’s why we insist the pay cap is scrapped once and for all and not just for some, but for everybody. And we demand decent wages for all workers. Britain deserves a pay rise. It’s why we will introduce a real living wage of £10 an hour. We will introduce pay ratios at the top. We will address the gender pay gap that leaves women’s wages still trailing men’s by 14%. And we will ensure every piece of legislation will be measured against its impact on women before implementation.

I am proud to support those brave young people who are campaigning for decent wages now, and those who have joined the Bakers’ Union, to take on the might of McDonalds. Be clear, we will restore basic employment rights, repeal the Tories Trade Union Act, set up a new Ministry of Labour and restore collective bargaining.

As wages have fallen behind, more and more families are being pushed deeper into debt. Household debt in this country stands at the record level of more than £1.8 trillion. We have seen with pay day loans; some companies were making massive profits from people’s financial difficulties.

Under Labour pressure, the Government was forced to cap interest payments on payday loans. But more than 3 million credit card holders are trapped by their debt. They’ve paid more in interest charges and fees than they originally borrowed. The Financial Conduct Authority has argued for action to be taken on credit card debt as on pay day loans.

I am calling upon the Government to act now and apply the same rules on payday loans to credit card debt. It means that no-one will ever pay more in interest than their original loan. If the Tories refuse to act, I can announce today that the next Labour Government will amend the law. Call it the McDonnell amendment.

Some of the heaviest debt burden has fallen on young people.The Tories tripled tuition fees and allowed the Student Loans Company to hike up interest rate charges. Young people are now leaving university with £57,000 worth of debt. That’s why we put forward our fully-costed commitment to scrap tuition fees.

And we will.

The Tories, with the connivance of the Liberal Democrats, have created a totally unsustainable situation. Three quarters of students will never fully repay their loans. So it’s not just bad for students; it’s a bad deal for the taxpayer too.

As a result of Labour pressure, the Government is now being forced into discussing reducing interest rates or raising repayment thresholds. If they bring forward effective proposals we will support them. But that won’t go nearly far enough. We can’t afford another five years of spiralling student debt.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and our independent research, writing off the Tories’ student debt now would cost £10bn by 2050. Waiting until 2022 could treble the cost of a write off. I am calling on the Chancellor to act now, before the situation becomes unmanageable.

It’s the Tories who have got young people into this mess, they should take some responsibility for getting them out of it.

It’s not just students and households with credit cards who are being ripped off.The scandal of the Private Finance Initiative, launched by John Major, has resulted in huge, long-term costs for tax payers, whilst handing out enormous profits for some companies. Profits which are coming out of the budgets of our public services.

Over the next few decades, nearly two hundred billion is scheduled to be paid out of public sector budgets in PFI deals. In the NHS alone, £831m in pre-tax profits have been made over the past six years. As early as 2002 this Conference regretted the use of PFI.

Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear that, under his leadership, never again will this waste of taxpayer money be used to subsidise the profits of shareholders, often based in offshore tax havens. The Government could intervene immediately to ensure that companies in tax havens can’t own shares in PFI companies, and their profits aren’t hidden from HMRC.

We’ll put an end to this scandal and reduce the cost to the taxpayers. How? We have already pledged that there will be no new PFI deals signed by us. But we will go further. I can tell you today, it’s what you’ve been calling for.

We’ll bring existing PFI contracts back in-house.

The Tories have tried to change people’s view of what is normal and acceptable in our society. They want us to accept that in the fifth richest country in the world it’s normal and acceptable for people to be saddled with debt; for people to have to work long, often insecure, hours, stressed out, struggling to find time with their family; for people not to have a pay rise for years no matter how dedicated you are or how hard you work; for young people to have no prospect of owning their own home; for disabled people to be pushed to the edge by the benefits system; or for carers to be struggling without support or recognition.

Let’s make it clear - we will never accept that this is normal or acceptable.

Yes we will increase GDP, close the current account deficit and increase productivity. But life is not just about statistics. As Bobby Kennedy said almost 50 years ago:

“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry.” (18 March 1968)

The performance of our Government will be measured by the care we show to all our people and the richness of their lives.

We proved in the election, and we will now go on to prove in Government, our belief that:

Hope will always overcome fear.

Kindness and generosity will always overcome greedy self-interest.

And that the flame of solidarity in our society will never be extinguished.

For years we have proclaimed that “Another World is Possible.”

I tell you now, that world is not just possible, it is in sight.

Let’s create it together.

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deanlfc · 7 years

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My, how the tables have turned!

Now it's not usually like me to comment on political matters through the medium of blogging. As far as I'm concerned I don't know nearly enough about politics to comment on such a complicated subject publicly. Football. That's me, I'm the football guy. I don't know much about anything else in the world, but football is the one thing I'm confident I know a lot about and I'm not afraid to voice my opinion on it.

I've been trying to stave off this blog for a while. When Jeremy Corbyn was attacked by his own party, I said to myself, "no Dean, you don't know as much as you think you do about this. Even if the party should be behind their leader regardless, should recognise his mandate and are only doing this because they fear his values." When Theresa May called a snap election, I said to myself, "no Dean, you don't know enough about this. Even though she said repeatedly over the past 9 months that this wouldn't happen. No, this isn't your field." When the media relentlessly attack Corbyn as a terrorist sympathiser and a pie in the sky idealist, I thought, "no Dean, you don't know half as much as you think you do on this subject. Even though peace talks have to start somewhere and these right wing papers are clearly desperate to sling mud because they're shit scared of this left wing hero." But today is results day...and I have been tipped over the edge.

Let's start this story 11 months and a few weeks ago. We all woke up on Friday 23rd June 2016 to the news that 52% of the British public had chosen to leave the European Union. The country was practically plunged into political chaos. David Cameron was stood outside Downing Street at 7:30 a.m giving his resignation speech and there was massive calls for the leader of the opposition to do the same, and I hadn't even put my bills on yet! While a race for number 10 kicked off within the Conservative party, Jeremy Corbyn resisted calls for his head. While Michael Gove convinced Boris Johnson not stand so he could take his place, Jeremy Corbyn stood firm. While Andrea Leadsom tried hard to discredit every other candidate, only serving to demonise herself within the party, Jeremy Corbyn refused to bow. While Theresa May was restructuring her cabinet and coining shitty phrases like "Brexit means Brexit" (whatever the fuck that even means), Jeremy Corbyn was unshakeable. People were even putting themselves forward for the man's job while he was in the position. Angela Eagle launched a leadership campaign which nobody of note turned up to.

Eventually a leadership election was called. What a huge wake-up call that was for the Labour party. Owen Smith was the man who would stand against the enigmatic current leader. Corbyn was right to shout about his mandate. He won the leadership vote with a landslide 61.8%, not only keeping his mandate but increasing it. Unlike the Tory leadership campaign however, there was no mudslinging. Yes both leaders put cases for their own leadership forward and how it differed from their opponents. But neither demonised the other (cough, cough Andre Leadsom, cough). When Corbyn won, Owen Smith didn't demand a recount or sulk in a corner of the house of commons. He stood down from his seat in Pontypridd with grace and wished Corbyn well. I could be chatting shit here and, if you're reading this and you know I am, then please do tell me so.

So Corbyn went on with his 61.8% mandate. Nobody within the Labour party could now question him. He had his doubters but he was immoveable. The media continued portray him as a man on borrowed time though. In his first shadow cabinet meeting after his re-election, he was made to look awkward and uneasy among his cabinet members. When you know half of them don't want you there, it's easy to see why that would be. But he carried on anyway because he believed in his values and that he could do right for the country.

Fast forward 8 months to the end of April this year. Jeremy Corbyn is still being laughed at by the press and they continually attempt to paint him as a poor leader, despite no evidence of this. Theresa May in the meantime has flip flopped on major issues without mention in the press but somehow has a 22 point lead on most opinion polls. She had said many times that she would NOT call a snap election. But her ego was getting the better of her. It was clearly irking her that she was having to stand in the House of Commons week after week and defend the fact that she was a remainer, and that she wasn't even elected by the public to be Prime Minister. "How could she possibly go to Brussels and get us a good deal?" the opposition would cry. She broke on 18th April 2017.

She did her usual. She spoke sternly, like this had been the plan all along. She wheeled out her "strong and stable leadership" line for the first time, although this, another u-turn on a major decision, was starting to prove people that she was anything but. Behind the scenes though, she knew Labour was weak in the eyes of the public. Murdoch and the lads had done their job. They'd made Corbyn look piss poor to the tune of a 22 point deficit in the opinion polls. She knew now was the time to strike. After 8 months trying to show what she could do in the job and thinking she could fool people by talking about Brexit at any given opportunity, she knew now was the time to make her move. All she had to do was keep doing exactly that; banging on about Brexit and scaring the public into thinking Corbyn would be bullied in Brussels.

It started off well for Theresa May. She was going steadily along. She wasn't putting a foot wrong. Corbyn likewise. He was just as steady. The media still vilified him but there was nothing new there. Then the manifesto's came out and things started to fall apart for the Prime Minster.

No free school meals. No triple lock for pensions. More cuts to public services. The return of fox hunting. More importantly, NO costing of anything within her manifesto. Was she insane? This screamed arrogance. The Tories were basically saying "vote us in and only then will we tell you how we plan to pay for everything (SPOILER ALERT: It's austerity.)" Then there was the Dementia tax. The Tories put forward that pensioners would have to pay for their own social care if they had assets worth over £100,000 and that included their house. It was a fucking scandal. Policy after policy made her seem more inhuman. Dementia tax - cruel. Scrapping free school meals - cruel. Slashing winter fuel allowance for pensioners - cruel. She had clearly targeted the most vulnerable in society and had done so with no shame. She was starting to show her true colours.

Labour on the other hand had come up with exactly the opposite. Jeremy Corbyn and his team had put together a manifesto which, on the face of it, had stood up for the working man. They planned to scrap tuition fees and zero hours contracts. They wanted to introduce a £10 minimum wage and instant union rights for all workers. In my opinion though, the greatest testament to Corbyns leadership which was reflected in his manifesto was Labours plan to keep Trident. Corbyn has been against Trident all of his professional life. He has campaigned for multi-lateral disarmament throughout his political career. But he kept it in because it was a party policy. OK, he has said that he will still campaign for multi-lateral disarmament. But, in my eyes at least, this typifies the man. He kept it, even though he doesn't believe in it, for the good of the party. It's a great show of socialist leadership. Looking at the manifesto's, it was 1-0 to Labour. Again, I don't enough about this shit so I'm probably chatting wham. If I am, then please let me know.

Then the debates started and things went from bad to worse for Mrs May. She wouldn't show up. At first neither leader of the big two parties showed up. They left it to the minor parties to fight it out. Only the leaders of UKIP, Plaid Cymru, SNP and the Greens would fight this one out. You didn't miss much if you didn't watch it. The highlight was UKIP leader Paul Nuttall referring to Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood as Natalie, not once but twice. It was turning into car crash T.V. Questions were asked of leaders who seemed unlikely to have any influence over the big decisions after 8th June.

On Monday 29th May came the second leadership debate and this was one was VIP only. It was exclusive to Labour and Conservative, and this time both major party leaders did turn up. Jeremy Corbyn defended his policies and came across as believable. You could tell he believed in his manifesto and it reflected his core values. He faced tough questions regarding his affairs with the IRA and Hamas in the past, but maintained that peace talks had to start somewhere. When up against Jeremy Paxman, he was strong and stood up to the miserly old journalist. Paxman interrupted Corbyn 56 times in 10 minutes during the interview. Keep that in mind. Theresa May was not as convincing. She brought every question back to Brexit and continually skirted around issues. In her interview with Paxman she was interrupted only 6 times. Fair media treatment? Hardly.

Just two days later came the another debate. This time all the parties were represented by their respective leaders - all apart from Conservative that is. Theresa May had obviously either shit out of turning up or didn't see the need to when she sent her Home Secretary, Amber Rudd. Paul Nuttall was painted as a racist. Star of the show was Green Party joint leader Caroline Lucas. She was passionate about issues raised and was not afraid to criticise and condemn on the big issues. Corbyn again presented and defended his policies stoically. Amber Rudd was OK, but she wasn't Theresa May. Her remark of "judge us on our record" was met with outright laughter by the audience. Her christening of the other parties as a "coalition of chaos" would come back to haunt her.

Two days following this came the final debate consisting of the leaders from the two major parties. Theresa May again played 6 degrees of Brexit. Her partys' biggest scandal to date, the handling of disability and PIP assessments, was put to her head on by a weeping audience member. She declared it unacceptable, but you get a feeling nothing will change. People being assessed for disability allowance and PIP payments will continue to be treated inhumanely and have professionals from irrelevant fields assessing their conditions. Corbyn faced questions regarding his proposed increase in corporation tax and scrapping of zero hours contracts, like they were awful things. Again he put on a great show.

These debates were played out to the backdrop of two major terrorist attacks. The Manchester Arena bombing on 23rd May killed 22 people and temporarily brought the campaign to a halt. Three days later, Jeremy Corbyn took a huge risk in using the atrocity to criticise Britains foreign policy. It could have backfired and, for a few hours at least, his politicising of the incident was condemned by the opposition. But the public agreed. They knew he was right and pretty soon the government were defending their foreign policy.

When 8 people were killed on London Bridge 5 days before the election, Theresa May was really in trouble. How were these people being allowed to travel to the middle east and admit to being Jihadis on T.V, yet still roam our streets? How had the Prime Minister thought it acceptable to cut the numbers of Police officers on our streets during her time as Home Secretary, when our threat level had been severe for so long? Why had she publicised the downgrading of the threat level after the Manchester attack? Brexit, an issue that many thought would be front and centre of this election, was taking a back seat to national security.

Media coverage of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party continued to be nothing short of scandalous. When Diane Abbot became confused in an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC regarding how a Labour government planned to pay for 30,000 extra police officers, she was rightly crucified for an embarrassing gaffe. When Michael Gove did same thing surrounding a similar issue, it was barely reported. When Jeremy Corbyn couldn't remember the figure the Labour party had decided to spend on childcare costs for working parents, he was ridiculed to his face by presenter Emma Barnett. When Sir Michael Fallon was given a supposed Corbyn quote criticising Britains foreign policy on Channel 4 news by Krishnan Guru-Murthy and proceeded to tear it apart, only to be told it was actually a Boris Johnson quote - the Tory incumbent Foreign Secretary no less - it was not mentioned again after 24 hours. Jeremy Corbyn has been labelled a terrorist sympathiser and apologist by a red rag (which shall remain nameless but I'm sure everyone will get onto who I'm referring to) and the Daily Mail, for his dealings with Hamas, the IRA and members of Al Muhajiroun turning up to a public rally he was speaking at in 2002. Theresa May has received minor criticism in the media for her arms dealings with Saudi Arabia, a know ISIS supporting state. If it wasn't so serious it would be laughable. As it is, it's just a fucking joke.

Nobody truly believed a Labour victory to be realistic. It was such a massive difference to make up in the opinion polls. 22 points- it was unprecedented. So when the exit poll predicted a hung parliament, nobody could quite believe it. The Labour party had actually done it. They had taken Tory seats and could be on the verge of something incredible. When you look back though, it's easy to see why this has happened. Between Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader in 2015 and the present day, Labour has grown by 300,000 members. On polling day, 75% of 18-25 year olds turned out to vote. Theresa May was holding press conferences at specially held events with VIP guests and specifically picked members of the public. Jeremy Corbyn was turning up at concerts and rallies that resembled music festivals unannounced. Not only had he generated a huge amount of momentum, he had convinced the next generation of voters that politics was relevant to your future and you could make a difference.

The result was a hung parliament but the Tories still held a majority of seats. Needing just 8 seats to take power, Theresa May did something which would embarrass her party and demolish her credibility. She struck a deal with the DUP.

For those who don't know much about the Democratic Unionist Party, let me fill you in. The DUP are the largest party in Northern Ireland, holding 10 parliamentary seats. In a nutshell they are against equal rights for LGBT, gay marriage, a woman's right to abortion and have been Euro-sceptic since God was a kid. They campaigned against any peace talks in Northern Ireland up until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. They were UKIP before UKIP. On top of that, and this is the worst thing of all about the Prime Ministers deal with the devil, the DUP have known links to terrorist acts. The DUP founders - Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson - would go on to also found the Ulster Resistance, a parliamentary loyalist association. They were renowned for stealing £300,000 from the Bank of Northern Ireland to fund arms deals. Members were frequently arrested for carrying guns, grenades and RPG's.

Theresa May's agreement with the DUP should be the final nail in her coffin. Her shameless attack on Corbyn last week as a terrorist sympathiser who could not ensure the security of the country, now looks hypocritical at best. This deal proves she is ready to sell her soul to keep hold of power. Her credibility within her own party is shot to pieces. It shows how truly out of touch she is on every level. Even this morning, in her speech to announce the deal, she failed to acknowledge the turnout of young voters and just how close the election was. Either she hasn't got a clue what's going on on the streets of Great Britain or she clearly doesn't give a fuck about you or me, and she will carry on doing what she is doing regardless of public opinion. Her arrogance throughout this campaign was characterised by her initially calling the election and not showing up to debates. In fact she didn't debate at all. She fielded questions from a studio audience and Jeremy Paxman, before swiftly pissing off when Jeremy Corbyn came onto the stage. She did not feel the need to defend her inhumane policies, instead choosing to bring every question fielded to her back to Brexit. By the way, Brexit meant fuck all by the end of this election in the light of two horrendous terror attacks. She again refused to address an issue staring her in the face after these attacks in the form of policing numbers. Her position is surely untenable. After all, who wants to live under a Prime Minister who is so out of touch with the electorate and has taken her party further to the right than it has ever been?

In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn has had a complete 180 degree turn in his popularity. This time last year, he was vilified by the media and his own party. A public coup was in operation to remove him from leadership. But he stood strong. He backed himself. He believed in his values. He didn't force them on his party, although he has taken it further to the left than it has been. Yes, there were issues along the way. But his humanistic values have shone through. He has shown the best of socialism and that it can work in modern day politics. He has inspired a generation of millenials who had previously saw voting as a waste of time on a subject they knew nothing about, to get out there and make a difference. Jeremy Corbyn has changed the political landscape for the better in this country, in my opinion.

Then again, I could be wrong...

#politics #general election #labour #conservative #theresa may #jeremy corbyn

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fundforteachers · 7 years

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A Fellow team from Alta Vista High School in Kansas City, MO, designed their 2016 FFT grant to document in France experiences of the immigrant population to create authentic writing samples about displacement, immigration and identity that engage students' passions through a lens of cultural responsiveness. Below is an excerpt from the blog written by team member Sarah Geisler...

“I Am With Them”

I have been thinking about this phrase a lot in the last few days. On Tuesday, we saw an exhibition by photographer and documentarian Anne A-R at L’institut du monde arabe (the Arab World Institute) called “I AM with them.” It featured photos and stories of refugees from the Middle East. The artist visited several refugee camps in Europe, roughly following the succession of camps one would encounter on the way to European countries.

We have struggled a bit with word choice while here. In our school projects (and in our grant proposal), we refer to “displacement” frequently, using it almost as a synonym for “immigration.” I realize now we must change that language, using the more precise terms of “migrant” (someone moving for economic reasons) and “refugee” (someone moving for safety reasons). Throughout our trip, we have looked primarily at migrants - immigrants coming to France for work. The current refugee crisis, however, begs some of our attention; the experiences of these people cannot be ignored.

I cried in the museum. If you know me well, you know that this isn’t saying much. But Mary Claire and Mike can vouch for the emotional weight of the photos and stories: 70-year-olds leaving their homelands; the individuals who have been injured in war and are carried by their friends across countries; people my age who left their sweethearts in Syria and know they’ll never seen them again; 12-year-olds who can express their hatred of war and hope for the future; toddlers who are somehow surviving freezing temperatures, illness and little food. The exhibit moved me in a way few stories about the refugee crisis have. To hear their own words, to look into their eyes, to realize how easily I could have been born into that life instead of my own - it’s hard to ignore the suffering.

Because I’m no different from them. I simply live on a different piece of land.

In the last ten days, we have seen a variety of perspectives on immigration in France: museums dedicated to the history of people along the Mediterranean and in Arabia, as well as the history of immigration in France; the Grande Mosquée of Paris; various immigrant neighborhoods and markets in Marseille and Paris; and the generous people we interviewed. Through all of these lenses, I still see my findings from a previous post.

Our similarities are greater than our differences.

In the words of IAU College professor Yumna Masarwa, “I don’t care if you’re orange, blue, black, white or green.” She says she works to fight stereotypes and show her American students in Marseille just how similar they are to people who seem to come from another world. Yumna talked to us a lot about the “otherness” felt by second-generation Muslim immigrants in France. According to her, these self-identified “Beurs” are Muslims who were born and raised in France, who speak French and don’t speak Arabic, who have seldom or never been to the country of their ancestors, who embrace western values, yet who are still not accepted by French society. They are considered not fully French, perhaps reflecting their separation from or invisibility within the dominant culture here, despite wanting to be a part of it. Yumna said this ostracization leads to the feelings of hurt and animosity toward Europe, ultimately contributing to the tension felt between France and its Muslim population.

And all of this makes sense. After all, haven’t we framed our fellowship around this distinction between French society and French Muslims? It’s so easy to see the differences and the problems they cause. As someone who loves traveling to new countries, I enjoy getting to know cultures foreign to me and studying our differences. But I’m starting to feel like we too often focus on the differences - positive or negative - rather than our common bonds.

According to Aboubakr Jamai, another IAU College professor, the media contributes to these divides. He called the current situation in France “poisonous;” Islam and France’s emphasis on secularism, immigration and terrorism are creating “perfect storm,” in his words, for the growth of extreme right-wing political rhetoric from the National Front. This anti-immigrant party has risen, in part, from the idea that Muslims and immigrants do not currently fit into the French identity. On Wednesday, we spoke with Simon, a Parisian native, who explained that France is facing almost an identity crises; do the French accept newcomers as they are, or do they force them to assimilate to French ideals (such as not wearing headscarves) in order to be considered French?

Essentially, the French are asking themselves, Who am I? And who are “we”?

Asking those questions through an us-versus-them lens, however, only serves to divide us - even though the separation is false. Yumna told of American students in her course this spring who met and spent time with Muslims in Marseille the day before the attacks in Brussels. When some of their classmates made anti-Muslim remarks after the attacks, the students defended the people they met. “They’re not to blame,” they said. “They’re just like us.”

We’ve seen these false divides even in the Euro Cup soccer tournament that has dominated our visit. The teams all have different colors, and we can differentiate the fans by jerseys on the street. Yet all of the chants and songs sound oddly similar and are even identical copies of what we sing at Sporting KC games.

It reminds me of the discussions I had with my high school students right after the Paris attacks. “Je suis Paris” was appearing all over social media, but we also looked at other atrocities with many people killed the same week that lacked the worldwide support we showed to Paris - simply because they were far away and involved people who looked different from us. As Aboubakr challenged, “How many people died in Paris - and how many people are dying daily in Syria?”

Our tunnel vision toward France – toward those who look and act like us – reflects the tangible connection between the United States and Europe. As much as Americans (and probably Europeans) might like to deny our bonds, the similarities are undeniable.

In terms of immigration, our experiences here have shown that America and France are mirror images.

History: Both countries saw immigration largely from European countries in the 19th century, which gave way to immigration from Central and South American, African and Asian countries in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries.

Economic Factors: Economy largely propels migration, meaning we are more willing to welcome immigrants when there are plenty of open jobs, whereas we look less favorably on immigration during economic slumps.

Borders: France relies on the Mediterranean Sea as a natural border. The United States has created its own border to control immigration from/through Mexico. At Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration (the Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris), we saw an exhibit called “Frontières,” or “Borders.” The exhibit featured photos, documentaries, artifacts and many questions around the idea of borders – natural or constructed – between countries. Why do we create them? Why do we maintain them? What impact do they have on the people around them and those trying to cross them? The first section of the exhibit showed places in the world where man-made borders separate people: India/Bangladesh, Israel/West Bank, North Korea/South Korea…and the United States/Mexico. I felt embarrassed to have my country counted among those.

Joining the New Country: In the US, we often stress the importance of assimilation; immigrants, we have long said, must become like Americans in order to be accepted. This celebrates sameness over diversity, and it is similar to the “integration” process France emphasizes for its immigrants. Newcomers to France are expected to give up parts of their own heritage to look and act authentically French. In both countries, schools are the places where much of this assimilation/integration is supposed to happen. On a more basic legal level, both countries have strict laws regarding the status of immigrants. Papers have become a large issue in France, and I know firsthand the struggles people (students in particular) who are undocumented face in America. The countries put barriers in place to make it difficult to succeed there, if one is not supposed to. (Yumna said her African American and Latino American students who are studying abroad in Marseille often identify with Muslims in Europe; it struck me that my students might be much like the Beurs – second-generation immigrants who struggle with full acceptance into society, no matter how “French” or “American” they act.)

Negative Attitudes toward Immigrants: This is a big one and the topic in which we first saw reflections of America in France. In the United States, we often, especially recently, respond to immigration with fear and resentment; we have seen this same pattern in France. And just as Donald Trump has used inflammatory, anti-immigrant rhetoric to tap into those emotions in the US, the National Front has risen in France. Are these movements different from those we’ve seen in past decades and centuries? Are these negative attitudes new or simply finding a (rather loud) voice? Dr. Carl Jubran, the president of IAU College, claimed that the reason the richest countries in the world (UAE, Bahrain, etc.) accept few immigrants and refugees is that they are “more honest about their racism,” insinuating that countries like the US and France struggle with immigration because we refuse to admit our own biases. The part of me who believes in the goodness of humanity desperately hopes we are better than that, but the deeply hateful rhetoric – and support of that rhetoric – scares me.

This brings me to the phrase we saw painted on sidewalks, etched into schools (see photo above) and scrawled on walls across France: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood. It’s the national motto of France and a nice post-revolutionary gesture, emphasizing the rights of the people and the importance of community.

But is it real? Is it possible? Carl lamented that in the West, we lean not toward brotherhood but instead, away from each other. By “othering” people, we treat them not only as unlike ourselves, but unlike humans. I see this in the United States and in France. Can the French really claim the importance of fraternité while denying access to or acceptance of newcomers? It goes directly against the third leg of their national values.

In the “Frontières” exhibit, the Museum of the History of Immigration asks, “Is a borderless world possible?” I have long struggled with the concept of national borders, seeing them as somewhat arbitrary and artificially constructed, serving only to create barriers between people. I would love to see a borderless world. After this trip and much reflection, though, it seems nearly impossible; there are so many histories, values, biases – so very many issues – that would prevent it. Similarly, the ideal of fraternité seems false and nearly unattainable for France and the United States, simply because we focus too much on what makes people “others.”

The cynic in me feels almost hopeless in the face of such réalités. But I can’t be a total cynic – otherwise, how could I be a teacher?

The goals of fraternité and a borderless world cannot be achieved if we don’t work toward them. We need people to believe that they are possible and worth fighting for, and we need people to continue to break down the physical and metaphorical walls between us. Mike, Mary Claire and I strive for this in our classrooms, tearing down walls piece by piece. At times, the struggle seems too much and the progress too little, too slow. After ten days in France, though, I feel reenergized to continue to cross barriers and form connections between my students and me, and between the world and us.

In doing so, we can really live up to my new ideal of “I am with them.” Because it is in those spaces of shared identity that we can build community.

For more on these teachers’ fellowship, visit the blog they maintained throughout their research.

#Fund for Teachers #FFTFellow #Immigration #Migrants #Refugees #refugee crisis #travel ban #othering #teachergrant #fellowship #teacherleaders #SSchat

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