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metalshea · 2 years

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Examining Death through A Perfect Circle's "Blue" lens

Trigger Warning - this post discusses death, drug abuse, and overdoses, and includes a couple graphic descriptions from my time working at a morgue. We are all at different places in our life journeys and have each been impacted by our own unique circumstances and experiences. If these topics could spark difficult emotions for you, please do not feel compelled to read further. Instead go gently and know that “there will come a day when the memory of those you’ve lost will bring a smile to your face before a tear to your eye”.

So it’s been a little shy of three years since my last post. My last rant discussing the spindly and cancerous fingers of the NSBM scene through case examinations of Alcest, Behemoth, and Agalloch was all the way back in January of 2020. In that time a lot has happened: a global pandemic led to my being laid off from my job in big tech, I started a great new job at a startup that has been nothing short of a trip, and, oh yeah, I HAD A KID. So yeah - career advancement plus guiding a small human on the path towards not being a shit head adult leaves little time for outside interests compared to less demanding jobs and… uhhh… not being a parent, I guess? So something had to give somewhere. Sorry Tumblr. It’s not like I was a super prolific poster or that this blog ever went viral, so it’s probably fine, right? Sorry to anyone that did read my stuff–the good news is you now have more words on a page to pour over from a now early-middle aged (holy shit when did that happen?) white dude that would have loved to have been a metal journalist. While we're at it, sorry for that last post I did on A Perfect Circle… kind of, I guess… I mean I’m writing another post about them, right? Anyway, I got super excited about what I imagined to be the parallels between the song “The Doomed” and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and kind of maybe went down a rabbit hole that was at the time super cathartic but, rereading it now, was probably a bit convoluted.

But here’s the thing, though, I absolutely LOVE A Perfect Circle. They're near the top of a short list of artists who siginificantly impacted my development as both a person and musician, along with the likes of Metallica, Jimi Hendrix, Devin Townsend, and Zakk Wylde. When I first came across APC my musical tastes hadn’t yet expanded to the point where I had even heard of Tool, let alone knew who Maynard James Keenan was. I remember first seeing an ad on either MTV or VH1 (probably both if we’re being honest) for Mer de Noms that had song snippets from “Judith” and I knew I had to get my hands on it. Maynard’s screaming, biting: “Talk to Jesus Christ as if he knows the reason why” lyric immediately resonated with me: the kid of hyper-religious, conservative Catholic parents. I had yet to start learning guitar at that point in my life, but the octaves that made up the main guitar melody were like nothing I had ever heard before in any other song. When I finally scavenged up enough money to buy the CD, the coded letters that were all over the packaging became a new hieroglyphic language that allowed me to write my own hidden notes, and I practiced writing that code near daily. I would go see APC live a few months later in what would be the first ever concert I would attend without an adult (just me and my closest friend on our own making bad decisions that night). The ticket stub to that show is actually still taped to the wall of my parent’s basement along with all sorts of other music posters, guitar ads, and other random mementos from my preteen and teenage misadventures. With Mer de Noms, APC hit that absolute sweet spot of atmosphere, melody, heaviness, avant garde, and mystery to absolutely captivate a young and ostracized adolescent that craved something esoteric to give him a sense of having stumbled upon something special. Hell, if we really want to get into it–-and why not at this point?–opening up a CD case only to find a picture of the lingerie-clad ass of a smoking hot woman on the inner lining was enough to inspire a bit of a sexual awakening, too… Now that everyone is uncomfortable, I should probably mention that the music on Mer de Noms is freaking great. That helped a lot. Probably more than the other stuff. When APC dropped Thirteenth Step in 2003 I was beyond excited but when I actually listened to it, I was actually a bit disappointed. It felt darker, bleaker. I still listened to it on near constant repeat for months, but it made me feel uncomfortable, on edge, and put me into a place that made me start to feel the first twinges of what would become a lifelong battle with major depression. Mer de Noms wasn’t exactly every day listening either–it had its own sense of melancholy and angst–but Thirteenth Step was just darker. And it makes sense that it would be darker: Thirteenth Step is a concept album about overcoming drug abuse and flips between the first person perspective of both the junky and the junky’s loved ones. It’s ambitious, but its heavy shit, man. And in retrospect I’m not sure I had the life experience when it was released to really appreciate what the album was trying to accomplish, and how scary the picture it paints really is at times.

Earlier today I listened to the song “Blue” off Thirteenth Step for the first time in a couple years and it took me on a journey, inspiring a couple of very powerful flashbacks. When I got out of graduate school I worked for a Medical Examiner’s office. I actually worked the overnight shift at the morgue–which was an experience! Part of my job involved performing autopsies, but most nights I was working scene dispatch, performing intake on bodies, cataloging and storing a decedent's belongings, and doing some evidence collection. Occasionally, I would go out into the field to do recovery which saw me traveling across the state and bearing witness to the rawest forms of human agony, grief, curiosity and depravity first hand. My job as a mortuary and forensic technician lasted about two years before I jumped ship to the private sector, but it doesn’t take long for an environment like that to leave a freaking mark. My time also coincided with the start of what the CDC calls the Second Wave of Opioid Overdose Deaths in 2010. Constantly being forced to confront literal death on a daily basis as part of my profession shaped me in ways I think I’m still processing on an unconscious level, and being a “last responder” on the front lines of the then burgeoning Opioid Crisis certainly gave me a new perspective on the world around me.

“Blue” is the fourth song on Thirteenth Step. At this point in the album’s storyline, the protagonist has acquired drugs to temporarily sate their addiction (“The Package”), realized their need for help (“Weak and Powerless”), and are starting to confront the resulting guilt and shame that nags at them (“The Noose”). “Blue” reveals the source of that guilt and describes a memory where the protagonist witnessed a female companion overdosing. Rather than helping, the protagonist watches with fascination while at the same time mentally tries to distance themselves from what is happening. The protagonist doesn’t intervene and the implication is that the woman dies. The lyrics are haunting--“I just didn’t want to know… She’s turning blue”--and the dense and dissonant atmosphere of the song lends itself well to supporting the hazy but all too raw memory.

There were two cases I worked while at the morgue that pull heavily on the threads of my own memories when listening to this song: Myself and a colleague responded to an overdose in a public housing complex. The apartment was far from what I’d call a home. The furniture was spartan at best and was clearly either donated to the renter by well-meaning charities or purchased at thrift stores like Good Will or Salvation Army. The renter was still in the house and was clearly still high–he sat on a couch in the living area off the small kitchen. A police officer was talking with him when we arrived. The body of the victim was in the middle of the kitchen area. Since the room was so intermittently furnished, the corpse might as well have been the centerpiece tying the two spaces together; a macabre coffee table of sorts that would certainly be a conversation piece. When we searched the body e found heroin and a needle in his pocket.

The dead man’s companion–I hesitate to call him friend, I have no idea what their relationship really was–watched us from the corner of his eye as we worked to catalog everything on the body and hand over evidence to the officer on scene. He never said a word. He tried to feign disinterest. He seemed somehow ashamed and tried to hide it. “I just didn’t want to know….” Several months later, I was at the morgue performing my nightly duties when a body was dropped off by one of the funeral homes we contracted to do recoveries during off hours. When I worked the overnight shift, I was alone - literally the only living person in the building--so the funeral homes would help out by picking up decedents from public scenes like car crashes. Like I said, working that job was an experience, man, and trust me when I say I have lots of stories. On this night the funeral home dropped off an overdose victim. This one was a woman; mid-twenties. She had been missing for several weeks. She was found in a building known to local police as a drug house. It was clear that she had been dead for maybe 2-4 days and was in early stage decomposition by the point our paths crossed. Her blood had coagulated, liver mortis was clearly evident, and rigor had released, but she wasn’t yet bloated and the smell was pretty tame. When she was alive it would have been fair to call her pretty. Lying there on the gurney there was no way I would ever call her pretty – there was too much pain: an addict that had gone too far, a desperate family putting in a missing persons report that would never again see her alive, parents who lost their daughter. Whatever attractiveness she had in life was nullified by the symbol of wasted potential, selfishness, and grief laying on the gurney. Her face was still blue.

Listening to Thirteenth Step resonates very differently to me these days. It shouldn’t be surprising having had the proximity to addiction and death that I did. But listening to the album today, especially “Blue”, shook me. Music has a way of doing that–giving us a medium to contextualize our memories. Mer de Noms is a positive walk down memory lane for me. It is the nostalgic Member Berry that encourages me to reminisce about what was one of the most transformative points in my life: when I started playing guitar, dating girls, sneaking out at night, and going to concerts. I listened to that album right as I began laying the groundwork for what would become my adult personality, and it shaped me deeply. Thirteenth Step encourages a different set of memories, ones that are equally valuable in their own way, I guess, even if they are certainly uncomfortable. What was originally a somewhat disappointing album release from a band that I deified is now terrifying and existential to me–and I both adore and fear it.

Wrapping up this post I have to say, I’m not really sure why I wrote it. I’m even less sure about why I’m choosing to put it up on a public forum for literally anyone to read. I guess I can package this up as an exercise in contrasts, or a story about how music contextualizes our experiences and personal growth, or even how a piece of music can have different meaning to us at different points of our lives. But I think more than anything else this post is cathartic and allows me to give structure to what were two very significant and still raw personal experiences and start to come to terms with them? Maybe? I guess if I could leave you with any parting thoughts they would be: Music is powerful. Drugs are bad. Hug those close to you often. Thank you for reading. Horns up, Shea \m/

#a perfect circle #metal #heavy metal #hard rock #drug abuse #death #overdose

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coochiequeens · 2 years

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Another day another man trying to stay relevant by attacking JKR. Glad he’s getting called out.

Jon Stewart called out the goblins in “Harry Potter” films as antisemitic caricatures.

The fantastical, hook-nosed beings who control Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the movie adaptations of author J.K. Rowling’s book series perpetuate negative stereotypes of Jews, the comedian said in a December episode of “The Problem With Jon Stewart” podcast that went viral on Twitter this week. Stewart, who is Jewish, likened the creatures to “a caricature of a Jew” from the early-20th century antisemitic text, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

“J.K. Rowling was like, ‘Can we get these guys to run our bank?’ It’s a wizarding world where ... we can ride dragons, you can have a pet owl … and who should run the bank? Jews,” said Stewart, former host of “The Daily Show.”

“It was one of those things where I saw it on the screen, and I was expecting the crowd to be like ’Holy shit, she did not, in a wizarding world, just throw Jews in there to run the fucking underground bank. And everybody was just like, ‘Wizards.’ It was so weird,” he added. “Harry Potter and the Reichstag Fire.”

Accusations of antisemitism have been leveled at the “Harry Potter” franchise before. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson made a similar point to Stewart in 2020 after Rowling drew outrage with anti-trans comments.

The woods in “Harry Potter” are “controlled by centaurs, the schools are run by wizards and ghosts, but who controls the banks? Jews, obviously,” Davidson said. “Little, giant-nosed Jew goblins. And I can say that because as you can see, I’m half Goblin.”

Rowling has not responded to Stewart’s criticism. Some fans defended her, suggesting she would have had little input on how the goblins appeared in the movie. Rowling’s agent, Neil Blair, called the claim “total and utter bs.”

'Sometimes a goblin is just a goblin': Jewish charity defends J K Rowling after US TV host accused the Harry Potter author of anti-Semitism - as fans ask, 'Are we going to cancel Tolkien and fantasy books too?'

Jon Stewart called the goblins in the Harry Potter universe an anti-Semitic trope

However, fans were quick to point out her recent criticisms of anti-Semitism

Jewish charity also said Rowling was 'very supportive' of the Jewish community

By DANYAL HUSSAIN FOR MAILONLINE and CHRISTINA COULTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Jewish organisations have defended JK Rowling after a US comedian claimed that the depiction of goblins in her Harry Potter books was anti-Semitic.Jon Stewart slammed the author over the goblins that run Gringotts bank in her Harry Potter series on his podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart.Stewart, who is Jewish, questioned why Rowling chose to 'throw Jews in there to run the f***ing underground bank' in a fictional world where people 'can ride dragons and have pet owls'.

But Jewish fans were quick to note that the author has consistently called out anti-Semitism in recent years; including as a frequent critic of Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership of the Labour Party and when she refused to join a cultural boycott of Israel.

And Dave Rich, director of policy at Jewish charity the Community Security Trust, told MailOnline that Rowling had been 'very supportive' of the Jewish community.

He said: 'JK Rowling has been very supportive of the Jewish community in recent years and tweeted repeatedly against antisemitism, so it is hard to imagine that she used anti-semitic caricatures in her books. Sometimes a goblin is just a goblin.'

Comedian David Baddiel also waded in, adding: 'The goblins in Harry Potter need to be seen not in a simplistic #teamRowling vs #antiteamRowling way but in a many-centuries long, deeply subconsciously embedded cultural context.'

Author and literature expert Nicholas Jubber told MailOnline: 'Rowling appears to have followed traditions in British fantasy literature. The old German word, 'kobold', gave us the word 'cobalt', signalling the association of these creatures with mining for precious ores. So it makes sense that goblins would be linked with vaults and underground storage.'

Fans also defended the author, suggesting that her depiction of the goblins was typical of the fantasy genre, with the likes of JRR Tolkien and Terry Pratchett using similar descriptions.

One said today: 'Goblins were described and depicted like that decades before Rowling. So if those activists have problems with how goblins are depicted - they should cancel fantasy books and mythos that existed before.'

Another added: 'You would have to tar all fantasy writers such as Tolkien and artists, who have portrayed goblins in exactly the same light since the 19th Century. In most fantasy and children's writings they are almost always portrayed as mean, hoarders of gold and jewels with the same features.'

Others noted that Rowling's original sketch of goblins was significantly different to the movie depiction of the creatures, which Warner Brothers are behind.

Mr Rich from the the Community Security Trust did note, however, that there might be something 'subliminal' in her depiction, suggesting that 'subconscious anti-Semitism' in society over the years may have led to characters like goblins taking on 'anti-Semitic caricatures' in their appearance.

Rowling was a frequent critic of Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership of the Labour Party and also refused to join a cultural boycott of Israel.

In 2018, she criticised anti-Semitism in Britain on several occasions, prompting one Jewish journalist to tweet: 'There's a strong case that no single person has done more to raise international awareness of the anti-Semitism faced today by British Jews from the far-left than @jk_rowling. She's not only spotlighted it, but used her skills to explain it to 14 million followers. Remarkable.'

Stewart, 59, claimed the banker goblin characters in the author's famous book series are based on caricatures of Jews from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous anti-semitic text that purports to show a Jewish plan for world domination.

'Here's how you know Jews are still where they are,' Stewart said in the episode before bemoaning how those who he's spoken to have been reluctant to acknowledge the resemblance.

’I just want to show you a caricature. And they're like, 'Oh, look at that, that's from Harry Potter!' And you're like, 'No, that's a caricature of a Jew from an antisemitic piece of literature.' J.K. Rowling was like, 'Can we get these guys to run our bank?''

When he first saw the Harry Potter films, Stewart said he expected other theater patrons to 'be like 'h*** shit, she did not, in a wizarding world, to just throw Jews in there to run the f***ing underground bank.' And everybody was just like 'Wizards.''

However, some pointed out how Rowling's goblins simply reflect the way the creatures are typically depicted in media.

JRR Tolkien and Terry Pratchett's works both contained goblins, with their description similar to Rowling's.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told MailOnline: 'The portrayal of the goblins in the Harry Potter series is of a piece with their portrayal in Western literature as a whole.

'It is the product of centuries of association of Jews with grotesque and malevolent creatures in folklore, as well as money and finance.

'The mythological associations have become so ingrained in the Western mind that their provenance no longer registers with creators or consumers.

'Those who continue to use such representations are often not thinking of Jews at all, but simply of how readers or viewers will imagine goblins to look, which is a testament more to centuries of Christendom's antisemitism than it is to malice by contemporary artists.

'So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism, for which we are immensely grateful.'

Dan Kahan, writing in PopDust in 2019, commented: 'The Gringotts goblins are totally coded as anti-Semitic Jewish stereotypes.

'J.K. Rowling almost definitely didn't do this intentionally. … Rowling also borrowed and pastiched from all sorts of fantasy and folklore while writing Harry Potter, so it's likely that a lot of the goblins' more anti-Semitic features are actually related to older fantasy fare surrounding bankers. It just so happens that those were probably inspired by anti-Jewish propaganda.'

And one fan said: 'I was struck by it at the time but put it down to the deep cultural chauvinism that runs through Northern European folklore rather than any specific intent by the author. Same arguments can be and are thrown at Tolkien.'

Fans were also quick to defend the author following Stewart's remarks.

One wrote: 'My Jewish perspective is that this is a cheap shot by Stewart. I don't believe @jk_rowling ever thought 'Jews' when she made the bankers goblins (or that any child reading HP ever thought it, either). JKR has been a strong supporter of Jewish causes for decades & she has denounced real antisemitism when few non-Jews do.

'Perhaps she regretted the choice after critics made that connection, but if you look at folkloric creatures that have been described for centuries as gold hoarders & think 'Jews', that's not on her.'

Another said: 'JK Rowling is being accused of antisemitism over her depiction of goblins in her Harry Potter books. I think this is nonsense; she has always stood alongside Britain's Jews, and now that she's under continuous attack, we should stand by her.'

A third commented: 'Dear world, JK Rowling is not anti-semitic. Gringotts goblins are goblins, not Jews. Unless goblins are anti-semitic by existence. If you make the link between goblins & Jews - that's on you. Make your own considerations. But JKR is as anti-semitic as I, a Jew, am. Probs less.'

On the Harry Potter wiki, the franchise's goblins are described as 'a highly intelligent race of small magical humanoid beings with long fingers and feet that coexist with the wizarding world. Their diet consists of meat, roots, and fungi.'

Goblins converse in a language known as Gobbledegook, and are adept metalsmiths notable for their silverwork; they even mint coins for wizarding currency,' the description reads.

'Due to their skills with money and finances, they control the wizarding economy to a large extent and run Gringotts Wizarding Bank.'

In their first appearance in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, one is described as being short with a 'swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and very long fingers and feet'.

Stewart isn't the first to call out the goblins - in 2020, Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson expressed similar frustrations.

In the Harry Potter books and movies, he said, 'the woods are controlled by centaurs, the schools are run by wizards and ghosts, but who controls the banks... Jews obviously—little giant-nosed Jew Goblins.'

Rowling, 56, has faced accusations of transphobia after she mocked an online article in June 2020 which used the words 'people who menstruate' instead of 'women.'

She was not interviewed for HBO's 'Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts' special, sparking outrage from some fans who accused makers of attempting to erase her over her views.

It was revealed that, in clips of the New Year's Day special, stars had praised 'the power of her writing' and that she would appear in archive footage.

She is also seen in a segment from 2019 discussing the uphill struggle to find an actor to play Harry when casting the first movie, The Philosopher's Stone.

The eagerly-anticipated reunion sees Daniel join fellow leads Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger, and Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley, as well as a slew of fellow co-stars in marking 20 years since the franchise first aired.

She later defended herself against the claims in a passionate essay but has been criticized by some ever since.

Last week she hit back at a claim on US website that she believed there are only two genders.

Rowling wrote: 'Small but important point: I've never said there are only two genders. There are innumerable gender identities.

'The question at the heart of this debate is whether sex or gender identity should form the basis of decisions on safeguarding, provision of services, sporting categories and other areas where women and girls currently have legal rights and protections.

'Using the words 'sex' and 'gender' interchangeably obscures the central issue of this debate.

'If you're interested in what I actually said, see this - (in which I literally say 'trans lives matter' and 'trans rights are human rights.').'

#I Stand with JKRowling #John doesn’t need to attack her to be relevant #The book is 20 years old #If he really felt that way why didn’t he say anything sooner?#When will he level the same accusations against male fantasy writers?#How many people have hit peak trans from watching TRAs continuously attacking JKR?

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feministdragon · 4 years

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okay, so here's this fantastic rant that I want to share

http://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/mafia-state-usa

https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2019/11/19/mafia-state-usa-1

@44:50

Andrea Chalupa: There was a study how in political journalism white men talked to other white men and women get shut out of the conversation, and therefore women are locked out essentially of being prominent political journalists. There are very few of us. And there's no greater example of that than just now, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Jon Favreau of Pod Save America saying that I am the former DNC contractor who has been called before the House. Andrea Chalupa. [It’s Alexandra Chalupa, her sister]

Sarah Kendzior: [laughter] Oh my God.

Andrea Chalupa: And I'm sort of like, wait a minute, you guys. I want to say to Josh Marshall and John Favreau of Pod Save America: the Kremlin, the Kremlin can tell me and my sister apart, which is why we in America here, our media, and our government has been played so successfully by the Kremlin. If you here in America cannot even tell that my sister and I are two very different people, what is wrong with you? How can we trust you to accurately, successfully, effectively cover one of the greatest crimes in human history? Get it straight. On the heels of the Steele dossier being dropped by BuzzFeed, Putin's Sean Hannity did a segment on how my sister created the Trump Russia scandal and how I helped her. The only solace I took in that was that, "Okay, well, at least the Kremlin is smart enough to know that we're two different people. I wish my own media would catch up."

Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, I mean, it's pathetic. It's a sign of their laziness. It's a sign of their incompetence, but their incompetence puts people's lives at risk.

Andrea Chalupa: It's a sign of their arrogance. It's a sign of their arrogance. We've had this show for a year. We have members of Congress that follow this show. We've had outreach from members of Congress. We've had impact with what we've had to say. And yet our colleagues in the political journalism world, we don't register with them. We don't count on their radar, because they're busy talking to each other. If we were two men that launched a successful podcast within a year, there's over half a million podcasts out there. Very few rise to the surface. Gaslit Nation within a year was able to do so, within its first few episodes was able to do so. Our trailer announcing the show went viral. If we were two men who managed this on our own, we would have profiles written about us. Instead, Sarah and I continue to be ignored, even though we're at the center of this and our lives are threatened by this and we're getting harassment and phishing emails and other things as a result of the reporting we're doing. And yet, we're still continually sidelined by our colleagues who are also covering the story.

Sarah Kendzior: Right, and it's only by a certain type of colleague, to be honest. It's by rich white men who live in New York and D.C., because we do have a very large audience. We have a very diverse audience. We have an international audience. You have a movie; I have a bestselling book. We both do media appearances regularly. Like, we're not exactly languishing in obscurity. What I find frustrating about this is like, you know, I certainly do not need the validation of like Pod Save America, or, God help me, Josh Marshall to get through my day. I can live without that. What is frustrating is that the information that we're putting out there is coming months in advance of other publications and that it's because of our expertise, because we both spent our lives studying the former Soviet Union. And of course, in your case, your sister is caught up in this whole mess. And so when we come out in April and May with warnings about Giuliani's activity in Ukraine and about how he is the new Manafort and about everything else that we were like, "Please, Congress, look at this. Please, U.S. media with more resources and money than us. You need to look at this. You need to examine this, or we're going to end up with something like, oh, I don't know, Trump conducting an extortion scheme in July." Maybe if you would actually pay attention to what's going on and listen to people who have experience with this region, despite the fact that we happen to be women, maybe you’ll fucking know a thing or too, instead of just running out your mouth like, "Wow, I can't figure out why in the world Trump is connected to Putin." It's like, holy fucking shit, man. Like, there are books about this. Like there are books, you know, there are books written by me, but there are books written by many other people. There are television shows run by women like Rachel Maddow or Joy Reid that have been documenting this for years. You've got to catch up. You suck at your job. Like, either quit your job or catch up, because lives are on the line.

Freedom of speech is one of the few weapons that we have at our disposal that we more or less control. Free speech, free media. Guess what? It's probably not going to last forever, so it's your duty as an American citizen, as a journalist, to try to inform the public. And if your information is marred by your inability to actually consider women as human beings and listen to their expertise, then we're in a lot of trouble, because as we see again, as they pointed out in the beginning of the show, people who are bringing the truth forward are often women. It is Fiona Hill. It's the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. It's whistleblowers like Reality Winner. It's the journalists I just mentioned. And it's a very consistent phenomenon of being marginalized in this discussion. And again, this is not about ego. We've been around long enough that we really don't give a fuck. It's about facts.

Andrea Chalupa: It's about facts. Let me break it down to you like this. So I have a friend who is an executive coach, and she said that her clients primarily come from mediocre white men who are so shocked that they keep getting promoted that they need help managing the extra responsibilities, and women who are doing all the work and never being promoted. That's her client pool.

Sarah Kendzior: And that's how things are. That's how things are in the United State of America.

Andrea Chalupa: That's political journalism. That's journalism. That's government. That's the space we're in.

Sarah Kendzior: And we encourage women to just keep speaking out and keep telling your stories and to, you know, if you can, run your own podcast or your own publication. Like, media is dying. We've seen a gutting of independent journalism. We're losing outlets right and left. The mainstream media is largely co-opted not just by government pressure, but by corporate constraints. We have barriers to entry where you have to be quite wealthy a lot of times to work for a pittance at one of these prestigious publications in the most expensive cities in America. We've got one out of every four journalists living in a very expensive place, while people like Missouri can afford to shoot their mouths off. And so I just encourage, you know, I don't want women to listen to this and feel discouraged, feel like no one's going to listen to them, because that's a really funny thing. Every day I get probably a hundred to a thousand tweets of people saying that, you know, "No one listens to Sarah Kendzior." [laughter] I'm like, well, if no one's listening to me, why are my mentions just an endless stream of people telling me that no one listens to me? And really, the key word in that sentence is "no one," because what they mean by "no one" is wealthy, white men, because everybody else is listening and is, you know, quite aware. It's this very narrow group, a kind of tyranny of the minority within journalism that, you know, part of it is they cannot come to grips with the breakdown of American exceptionalism. They cannot come to grips with the fact that they missed the story. They missed the boat. This all went right over their head while they were busy rambling on about Hillary's emails and how she was destined to win the election and all the other shit they got wrong. They cannot handle that. It's incredibly humiliating, because our very existence is a slap in the face to that establishment. And it's like, well, you know what, tough shit. We're all on the same sinking boat. We're all Americans living under this incredibly corrupt administration. We should all be trying to do our part to get the facts to the people. So yeah, I'll leave it at that.

Andrea Chalupa: And let's end it with Elizabeth Warren. You have Biden potentially crumbling as a frontrunner because he doesn't have what it takes. And it's just a simple fact of Biden not reading the room, not being part of the zeitgeist right now and giving the terrorist organization fueled by blood money—the Republican Party—way too much credit, saying that if only the Republicans can free themselves of Trump, we can have a united country. The Republican Party created Donald Trump. They are complicit. They're all in this together. This was the inevitable. The Trump Frankenstein monster was the inevitability of the Republicans party's ideology of hate, which has been growing in this country for so long, and so Biden's not reading the room. And what you're having is this emergence of Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren has been doing such an incredible job in having this common-sense platform where she has these plans on how she's going to confront the corruption that allowed Donald Trump to come to power. Elizabeth Warren is framing the debate accurately that the 2020 election is going to be about corruption. It's just corruption, plain and simple, and that is what her plans are about, is tackling gross income inequality, tackling the inhumane policies in America, where people are continuing to fall through the cracks as a society where any sort of health problem can make you lose your house and go bankrupt. And yet, you have a cable news bubble that continues to demonize her because they are afraid of losing their own power. What we're hearing on cable news is the familiar sound that all women know, and that is the entitled scream of the mediocre white man, because they know that we are coming for them because they have had power for far too long and they did not use it responsibly. So now nobody, nobody gives up power willingly, especially idiots. So what we need to do is arm ourselves with our grassroots armies, wait for nobody to save us but ourselves and show up, and show up for each other, and do not give in to their gaslighting. Elizabeth Warren has what it takes. She's a well-balanced candidate, and she has solutions to all of the social ills that gave rise of Donald Trump. And she understands. She has called the enemy by name, and the enemy is corruption.

Sarah Kendzior: Absolutely. And you know, on the final note, what they were chastising Warren for this week was being, quote, "angry and antagonistic." Which, quite honestly, I'm glad she's angry. She's angry at injustice. She's angry at the corruption of billionaires who are influencing and breaking our institutions, who have run this nation roughshod. And so yeah, she's antagonistic toward them. To be clear, she's not alone in this. You see this kind of rage from Sanders, you saw it from Beto O'Rourke, you see it sometimes from Kamala Harris, from Julian Castro. You see it from many of the candidates, and it's a good thing. We should be angry right now. That type of anger is a form of compassion. It is the opposite of hate or spite. It is the opposite of apathy, and I think people oppose this, people in the media from high positions of power who have been entrenched in that power despite their lack of merit, because it makes them very uncomfortable. It reminds them that there is an alternative to godlessness and to moral failure, and so I encourage all the candidates to continue speaking out in the way Warren has, and I encourage female journalists and other female activists to keep speaking out despite these sexist caricatures and attacks, and this insistence that we play nice, because quite honestly, there's a difference between nice and good, and I think that what we need to do is do good, is do things that are morally sound, things that are beneficial and helpful to vulnerable people, instead of just valuing this, quote-unquote "civility" above all else, because all civility is is a cloak for corruption.

#Sarah Kendzior #Andrea Chalupa #gaslit nation #elizabeth warren #radfems #rant #on the nose #mafia state #international crime syndicate masquerading as a government #women's rights #what women want #what women need #what women deserve

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chrismaverickdotcom · 4 years

Text

In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down... AGAIN!

So America is on fire… or at least parts of it are. Specifically, the city of Minneapolis is having a really bad time right now — in the wake of the murder of George Floyd a few days ago. But it’s not just there. There’s been protests in several American cities tonight, and some of them have turned violent. The CNN building in Atlanta was under siege earlier tonight. People have been gathered outside of the White House in DC in what’s been a pretty precarious situation. People are fed the fuck up. And they deserve to be. We got to watch a black man murdered live on TV and the Internet. AGAIN!

I thought about writing about this a couple days ago when I first realized this was going to get bad. I didn’t have it in me at the time. Frankly I was kind of busy with my dissertation. But also, I felt like it made more of a statement to just say “you know, I wrote about this six years ago with Ferguson and it’s still happening, so just go read that one.” So that’s what I did. I reposted the link to Facebook and Twitter, and then went back to my work, with the TV on in the background and checking in on social media every once in a while just to see what people were saying about it. And as I did it, I knew full well “this is just going to get worse and worse” especially with the idiot who occupies the White House.

(By the way… the idiot did not disappoint… If you’ve been paying attention you probably know about his dumbass threatening of shooting looters and trying to claim that doing so was to keep Floyd from not dying in vain. I don’t even have time to go into Trump’s fucking moronic ramblings right now… other than to say… as I tweeted at him “fuck you dude!” and also to say, about his explanation that he didn’t know of any racist history with the “when the looting starts the shooting starts” statement that the answer to that is “then you are too fucking dumb to be president… and frankly… too fucking dumb to even be a good racist”)

Anyway, if you’ve been watching TV or the internet in the last 24 hours or so, you know that it did get worse. It is getting worse. But one of the nice things is that this time around, I’ve seen more… let’s say “positive” reaction to the riots. A lot of people seem to “get it” this time. Part of that I think is just the cultural moment that we find ourselves in in 2020. Partly as a reaction to dumbass-in-chief, partly because of the efforts of the #BLM movement… and I think in large part because of the visceral reaction of sitting there and watching a cop very calmly crush the life out of a man without batting an eye while onlookers pleaded with him to stop. People just “get it” this time (which is why I think the viralness of the video is a good idea despite what some other people think. That’s another side point I don’t have much time for right now). And good. People get it.

But… not everyone… of course not everyone.

And the problem I have is that the people who are complaining… both on the left and the right are doing so in the exact same way. In a way that I find really troubling and so that’s what I need to rant on a bit here. I’ve had a few arguments… some longer than others… on social media in the last couple days (hell, years… since I wrote that original essay) about how effective riots are. Some conservative MAGA types like to claim “but Martin Luther King was against riots. He’d be disappointed in you. These are just a bunch of scumbags who want TVs.” Fuck those guys! On the other hand I’ve had some arguments with more liberal people who like to claim “but this is bad, because black people are just burning down black owned businesses. it doesn’t help anything. You’re destroying your own community” as though classism were not a thing conflated with racism in complicated ways and black people were a big monolithic profit sharing union which directly benefited from the enrichment of the few that are able to manage to own property and commerce in a tiny microcosm capitalist system that catered to other black people and even if they were that wasn’t still as problematic as fuck! I swear to God, the next white person who tries to explain to me that “you don’t understand, these people are destroying ethnic businesses. They’re destroying their own community. They’re only hurting themselves…” I’m punching you in the fucking throat. And you know what I may do it you’re a black person too…

Because, in either of those cases, it’s not that the decision to riot is a bunch of people got together and had a calm rational meeting and said “ok, well that’s it. I guess we torch the city!” No… it’s based on feelings that have boiled over from a continuous, systemic, dangerous and sometimes PURPOSEFUL ignoring of the struggles that they are going through. It is a decision of last resort.

For me, the straw here was Keisha Lance Bottoms, Democratic mayor of Atlanta, making a comment earlier tonight about the riots in her town. She’s upset. She’s rightly upset. But she said something that I hate. Something to the effect of (not an exact quote): “You are disgracing the memory of George Floyd. You are disgracing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. When King was killed, we didn’t riot. Go home!”

NO… She is wrong. This is the same bullshit that the dumabass-in-chief was trying to get across. Yes, she’s way more eloquent. She is way more studied. Frankly, she’s at least 10x as smart as President Dumbass. But… she is also wrong. I don’t know that Atlanta rioted when King was killed. in fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. The city was mourning. They were having his funeral there. HOWEVER. That’s very misleading. Everyone else rioted! There were nearly 200 retaliatory riots across the United States the week that King was killed. More than 40 people were killed. Thousands of people were injured. There were tens of millions of dollars (in 1968 dollars) in damages as cities got burned. They called in the military. Not just the National Guard… the Army and Marines were deployed to some cities. It was called the Holy Week Uprising. Look it up! IT WAS BAD! REAL BAD!!!

Of course a lot of people don’t know that. It was 52 years ago. And we don’t talk about it much anymore because it doesn’t fit the narrative that we like to tell about MLK…. that he was this cuddly peace loving teddy bear that brought America together and ended racism and everyone loved him and mourned him when he was gone.

If everyone loved King, he wouldn’t have been shot in the head. And that’s not just James Earl Ray. King was on the FBI watchlist. He was widely considered a terrorist by people. Any of your super MAGA friends (the same ones who hated the Colin Kaepernick kneeling protest) that are posting memes that say “this is a protest, and this is a crime” with MLK’s picture on the “good” side…. make no mistake, those are the assholes who would have been calling him “nigger” and screaming he should be lynched. For most Americans in 2020… especially white ones… you maybe learned two things about MLK in history class… he “had a dream” and he was killed. That’s it. If you’re lucky, you maybe learned a third thing. That on March 9, 1965, he marched across a bridge in Selma, non-violently! And that was the turning point for the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the event in the meme that everyone shares about how great he was at non-violent protest. What maybe you don’t know is that that march he was at… That was two days after the first time they tried to march across the same bridge and the cops beat the shit out of everyone. It’s called Bloody Sunday. Look it up! King was there putting himself in harms way in what could have turned into a much more violent protest. What made King great was that in face of being one of the most hated men in America, he kept his composure. He kept his non-violence stance. At considerable risk to himself he preached his message. And for all his troubles… he got shot in the fucking head. People seem to forget that part.

See, it’s not convenient. It makes it hard for America to feel good about itself if they dwell on the fact that the man we’re supposed to view as the 20th century’s greatest hero… GOT MURDERED FOR HIS TROUBLES. It feels icky. Just like it feels icky to remember that after he was martyred to the cause of non-violence… there was a solid week of rioting in his name. And it also feels icky to think about the fact that those riots are an important part of the Civil Rights Movement. Not just the Holy Week Uprising. I mean the riots of the ENTIRE Civil Rights movement.

You see… for all the rhetoric about King… he didn’t “solve racism all by himself.” And I mean, not just because he didn’t end racism. But also because he wasn’t alone. And I’m not just talking about Malcolm X either. I mean that his non-violence movement was not alone. Yes, he was a key figure during the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, his big thing was non-violent protests. But that was just HIS thing. During the hey day of the Civil Rights movement from 1954 until 1968, while King was staging these protests… there was a lot of rioting going on. Do you know what happened in Los Angeles only 5 months after the Selma march that everyone loves? A traffic stop escalated into a six-day riot that left 34 people dead and 1000 people injured and devastated 46 square miles of LA. It’s called the Watts Riot. Look it up!

This happened a lot during the Civil Rights movement. In fact almost constantly. There were literally 159 race riots over the course of like two months in 1967. 85 people died. Thousands of people were injured. Over ten thousand people were arrested. It’s called the Long Hot Summer. Look it up! Which was sort of MLK’s actual point. You know how you have that one black friend who keeps sharing the King quote that “Riots are the language of the unheard” and you mostly ignore him… I mean, if you’re an asshole MAGA type, maybe you tell him he’s wrong… but otherwise you maybe just say “oh yeah… good point” but you don’t really think about what that means? Well, what it means is actually super important. MLK was trying to use non-violent protest to get people to listen to him so that violent protests didn’t erupt. Do you know how I know this? I know because HE SAID SO. But he also knew that the inevitable result of NOT listening to him and not bringing racial change was that there was going to be rioting. And I quote:

“But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

-Martin Luther King, The Other America (1967)

Over and over again… You see, because Martin Luther King was not the be-all-end-all of the civil rights movement. What he was, was Colin Kaepernick, 1960s edition. You know “that son-of-bitch that disrespects the troops and doesn’t deserve freedom because he won’t stand up when a bunch of white people tell him to and celebrate how great America is”? Yeah… him! You see… just because you don’t use the word “nigger” that doesn’t mean you don’t mean it. Kaep has done a ton of good for this world. He has caused a lot of change. But it’s not enough. Because he’s one guy… and the change doesn’t come… sometimes, there’s riots!

And sometimes, there’s not. Even if you’re one of the people who AGREES that #BlackLivesMatter, and you post your tweets with hashtags and maybe even donate. Do you remember Ahmaud Arbery? We were all super upset about his murder a few weeks back. We had video. It was right in our faces. People got mad! Good! You know… for like two days! And then everyone forgot and went back to the very important job of arguing with each other over whether or not masks worked to fight COVID-19 and if it was time to open back up the world up in a week or a month and can we meet in groups of 10 or 25 or 200? Black Lives Matter… but not as much as … you know… getting a haircut. We forgot, because he didn’t get a riot.

And THAT was the message of Martin Luther King. Riots are the language of the unheard. And they are unheard because no one is listening. And you’re not listening now. Not really. When you are more concerned with the methods or location of protest, then you aren’t listening. When you are more concerned with the destruction of property or whose property it is, then you aren’t listening. When you’re more concerned with whether it is appropriately a riot or a protest, then you aren’t listening. You aren’t listening to the people telling you black lives matter. You are not listening to the large segments of black society who do not have justice or equality or humanity. You are not listening to Kaepernick and why he was kneeling in the first place. And if this were 1965, you wouldn’t have listened to Martin Luther King. Not really. You would have paid a little attention… for a little while… until you didn’t. Until you needed a fucking haircut. “And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down… AGAIN! was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

#Black Lives Matter #fire #long hot summer #Martin Luther King #mlk #protests #watts

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dippedanddripped · 3 years

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KYLE

NEW YORK

NICO

JOE

FRESHGOODS

& ALEX

JAMES

How do you stay creative during a pandemic? For answers, we turned to four culture makers across the US—New York Nico, Kyle Ng, Joe Freshgoods, and Alex James — on how they meet the demands of staying productive in our new reality. We’ve equipped each of them with a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G, a revolutionary smartphone that allows them to stay creative, whether doing everything in one place, or out on the go hunting for inspiration. Perfectly designed for the creative life, the Z Fold2 is three devices in one: folded closed like a regular smartphone, open flat like a tablet, or laid on a surface like a mini-laptop. It’s four machines, if you include its camera, with its impressive depth of field and hands-free shooting. Each of the culture makers we selected were tasked with taking photographs and screenshots that give us a glimpse of their creative process, what inspires them, and how to balance between work and play. The results we got back were surprisingly intimate, quirky, unexpectedly funny, and humane. Take a peek into their lives below.

NEW YORK NICO

SHOT ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FOLD2

DOWNTOWN NEW YORK

(JUN — AUG 2020)DOWNTOWN NEW YORKDOWNTOWN NEW YORKTIGER HOOD, A STREET GOLFER WHO HITS MILK CARTONS THROUGHOUT THE STREET; OR THE GREEN LADY OF BROOKLYN, WHO ONLY DRESSES IN GREEN. THESE ARE JUST TWO OF THE FASCINATING INDIVIDUALS THAT NEW YORK NICO, A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER, HAS CAPTURED ON HIS

INSTAGRAM

ACCOUNT.

Having grown up in Union Square and gone to school in the Village, he’s dedicated his project to capturing all the indispensable local characters who make up the quirky flavor of the ever-changing NYC. So when Covid hit the city, claiming the lives of tens of thousands and forcing countless others out of their homes, Nico immediately went to work to help save a part of the city that was vanishing before his eyes. Catapulting off of the viral success of his Instagram — which has 472k followers, attracting attention from the New York Times and celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Chloe Sevingy—Nico launched contests such as Best New York Mask, Best New York Photo, and Best New York T-Shirt, that raised nearly $300,000 for charities such as God's Love We Deliver, Color of Change, and The Campaign Against Hunger. Since the pandemic, Nico launched the #MomNPopDrop hashtag for quirky and iconic small businesses that were struggling to stay open. He started with Army & Navy Bag on Houston Street by going down to the store and taking a photo of its owner. Then for the next week or so, lines began forming outside his shop. “When I saw the response to that, I was like, holy shit. These posts are making a huge impact,” he said to Elle. For Highsnobiety, Nico photographed, as an extension of his practice, various scenes in the daily life of New York City: dog-walking in the streets, vendors, business owners. An ATV driven by a Chucky doll. All photos were shot on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G, which was convenient enough to take with him for unexpected moments on the go that, with a clunkier machine, he would have missed just seconds later. And what moments these were — a testament to what keeps New York strong, the New York that he loves, which he believes will survive the pandemic.

KYLE NG

SHOT ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FOLD2

DOWNTOWN NEW YORK

(JUN — AUG 2020)DOWNTOWN NEW YORKDOWNTOWN NEW YORKKYLE NG IS A CONNOISSEUR OF THE T-SHIRT. “IT’S LIKE A BILLBOARD FOR WHO YOU ARE,” HE SAID IN SSENSE. HE’S THE FOUNDER OF BRAIN DEAD, A STREETWEAR BRAND RUN BY A LOS ANGELES-BASED CREATIVE COLLECTIVE OF ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS, WHO FEATURED IN OUR JULY EDITION OF

THE NEXT 20

“The best t-shirts are ones with an approach, a perspective, and a culture already around it,” he went on. Simultaneously, the t-shirt for Ng is a signal of individuality that defines itself as part of a collective and a cultural context. This year, when the Black Lives Matter protests began in Minneapolis and spread around the world, Ng had the idea of making none other than a t-shirt to both commemorate the moment, and raise money for the Movement for Black Lives. He contacted Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, and designed a shirt in two hours, putting it for sale the next day. It made $500,000. Ng did what he does best: putting the times in a graphic. Brain Dead is celebrated for immersing itself in the cultures of post-punk, skateboarding, and underground comics. Comfortable with collaborating, Ng has worked with brands such as The North Face, Levi’s, and even Shake Shack. Yet as international as his brand’s reach is, he is still attuned to LA at the local level. As a research practice, Brain Dead works with the people involved in a particular culture, which makes fashion and community organizing one and the same. With the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G’s “flex mode,” Ng is able to toggle through multiple windows at once, in the smartphone’s tablet mode, and compare designs and photos. It’s a boon for his Covid-era productivity, where sales (perhaps unusually) have been up 120%. For Highsnobiety, Ng photographed himself and his collaborators with the Z Fold2 in and around his studio, where he recently worked on a series of t-shirts inspired by horror movies for Halloween. Other scenes are more quotidian: journeys looking for mushrooms at the market, his dog. Perhaps most iconic of the moment, one photograph shows his mail-in ballot with the “I Voted” sticker an image emblematic of the brand itself and some of its core values.

ALEX JAMES

SHOT ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FOLD2

DOWNTOWN NEW YORK

(JUN — AUG 2020)DOWNTOWN NEW YORKDOWNTOWN NEW YORK“ROCK ISN’T A TREND FOR ME NOR MY BRAND. I DON’T WEAR A SLAYER OR MOTÖRHEAD T-SHIRT BECAUSE I THINK THEY LOOK COOL, I WEAR THEM BECAUSE I’VE BEEN THRASHING TO THAT MUSIC IN MY BEDROOM LONG BEFORE THESE LAMES WERE AROUND,” SAYS ALEX JAMES, THE OWNER OF PLEASURES.

It’s a streetwear brand known for its DIY aesthetics drawn from music subcultures like metal and new wave, and has attracted the likes of The Weeknd, Kylie Jenner, A$AP Rocky, and Kim Jones. Growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey to working class parents, James came of age during the ‘80s and ‘90s, immersing himself in the music scene of New York that would hail this period the last of its kind, before the Internet and Giulani killed the underground. This was an era defined by Sonic Youth, CBGB’s, Chloe Sevigny in Kids. The last bastion of Gen-X culture. PLEASURES, which was launched in 2015, began as a way of making affordable clothing inspired by vintage band merch. Yet as laconic as he is about his design choices, James cares a lot about accessibility. “PLEASURES is an inclusive brand. We want to include everyone and not alienate our consumer,” he said in GOAT. This harkens back to his younger years spent rummaging through thrift stores and estate sales for clothes, and hanging out all day at record shops. Hence the touch of nostalgia in PLEASURES’ designs. The culture that it represents is of a recent past that might be seen as dead if people like James weren’t dedicated to preserving it. “Rock was around first and will be here forever,” he says. For Highsnobiety, James shot surprisingly intimate photos with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G of scenes from his home life. Some of the smartphone’s features, like its hands-free shooting (all you have to do is wave at the camera and it’ll take a picture) allows for users to appear in portraits with others in front of the camera, like James does with his child. Other shots show scenes from his home, like his intricately woven carpet, or a bouquet of flowers. It’s a reminder that some of the most inspiring scenes in daily life are those closest to you.

JOE FRESHGOODS

SHOT ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FOLD2

DOWNTOWN NEW YORK

(JUN — AUG 2020)DOWNTOWN NEW YORKDOWNTOWN NEW YORKIT WAS A BAD SITUATION THAT TURNED INTO A GOOD ONE. IN 2018, JOE FRESHGOODS — THE DESIGNER WHO CO-OWNS THE FAT TIGER WORKSHOP STORE IN CHICAGO—HAD A CONTRACT WITH ADIDAS TO RELEASE TWO SNEAKERS AND AN APPAREL COLLECTION, BUT THE DEAL FELL THROUGH LAST MINUTE.

The clothes were already made, so Freshgoods, who was able to retrieve the dead stock, went ahead and put it for sale for a 40 percent markdown at a drive-through fundraiser for public schools in Chicago. His hope was to raise money for the laptops, tablets, and headphones kids need for remote learning during quarantine. His dedication to Chicago runs deep. When Freshgoods drops a t-shirt at a pop-up in the city, lines stretch to over 90 minutes to cop them. It goes back to when he used to sell his own branded t-shirts secretly while he was working for the Chicago streetwear shop Leaders. People trust him because he’s committed to the city. Since the pandemic, he introduced Community Goods, a charitable brand that raises funds for small Black-owned businesses in Chicago and The Greater Chicago Food Depository. While working at Leaders, he met Chance The Rapper, whom he considers an old friend. In 2017, Chance went on to wear one of Freshgoods’ hoodies when accepting the award for Best Rap Performance. (It reads “Thank you.”) The exposure catapulted Freshgoods to a new national platform—raking in collaborations with McDonald’s, Nike, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago Bears—yet he has stayed true to his Chicago roots. Shot entirely with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G, Freshgoods’ photos for Highsnobiety give us a look into his creative studio. The smartphone’s hands-free shooting also makes it even easier to take self-portraits, with having your arm awkwardly jutting to the corner of the picture. More shots show scenes from the Fat Tiger Workshop, and all its swag and splendor. It’s a space he co-owns with Terrell Jones and Desmond Owusu, and has been a stalwart in the local community. “We’re a community store,” he said in The Fader. “We’re like a barber shop.”

#samsung #joe freshgoods #kyle ng #brain dead #los angeles streetwear brands #chicago streetwear brands #american streetwear #streetwear designers #alex james #pleasures #pleasures now #new york nico #minority fashion designers #streetwear collaborations

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greycloudsandsilverlinings · 4 years

Text

On Tuesday, August 11th, 2020, I started feeling feverish after working 24 hours in 2 days. I still went out that night because my friend and I had not hung out alone in a while and I love her company. I was tired and felt awful but still pushed myself to smile and hang out for a few hours.

The following day, Wednesday, August 12th, 2020, I felt worse. I called off of work early in the morning on the notion that I was going to take my grandmother to the doctor. She had an appointment later on that day. I tried to rest at home but found that I wasnt well enough to take her. My mother took her instead.

I fell asleep and woke up from my nap at approx. 4:03 pm with blue lips and cyanosis. I freaked out and asked my mother to take me to the hospital. I went, they put fluids in me and prescribed tylenol and motrin to control my fever.

The following day was spent trying to manage my symptoms. My mother was uneasy and sensed that something was wrong.

On Friday, August 14th, 2020 my mother took me to my family doctor. He said I was going to develop symptoms of COVID-19 and to go get tested again. I had already been tested negative on Wednesday at the hospital. He ordered an abdominal ultrasound and I did that the same day. My mother, frustrated with the fact that he did not give any advice to alleviate my symptoms, gave me an antibiotic.

I started taking them every 8 hours.

I recieved the results for the ultrasound on Saturday. I felt fine. I was even hyper that night.

Sunday, August 16th, 2020 I asked a friend to take me to the hospital. I woke up pale-yellow and feeling awful. On our way there, I tried to be pleasant and alive with my friend. She didn't know how awful I felt. The hospital we went to was about 45 minutes away from my home. It was recommended by just about everyone.

She stayed with me until they told her she had to leave until I was tested negative again for COVID-19. I told her she could just go home, we had already been there for 6 hours.

My blood results came back fine. There was no explanation for my fever. The doctor ordered a lumbar puncture a.k.a. a spinal tap. I refused at first, worried that it would hurt long term and/or cause me an infection.

The doctor told me that if I don't do the lumbar puncture, I could risk dying instead. My mother was on the phone. I was scared now, I agreed to do it.

The procedure itself isn't horrible, just traumatic. I vomited all over myself during it. The feeling of violation from a needle being inserted between my vertebrae and into my spinal column was absolutely horrific.

I had to lay down flat for an hour afterwards.

The results came back negative for COVID-19.

The results came back positive for meningitis.

I was immediately started on antibiotics. The migraine worsened. It felt like the rubberband around the watermelon challenge around my head.

My mother now joined me for the time being, she was terrified. I was terrified.

CT scan was done. I was clear.

I was admitted into the hospital. I was on the 8th floor. I had been in the emergency room for 14 hours.

All night, blood work was taken. Tests were conducted. I didn't get much sleep. My migraine was getting worse with the lack of sleep.

Over the next few days, I was pumped with antibiotics, steroids and pain killers to keep my symptoms under control.

Over the next few days, we waited for my test results.

I tested negative for any and all viral infections. They feared the worst. Bacterial meningitis can kill you much faster than viral meningitis. My cultures came back inconclusive. The antibiotics I took on Friday were likely the cause.

I was discharged on Wednesday, August 19th, 2020. The cause of my meningitis still unknown but the hospital claimed that it did all it can for me. They dubbed it as a viral meningitis although I know it probably wasn't. It was really bright and the car ride home was almost too much to bear.

On Thursday, August 20th, I could barely leave my bed. I couldn't tolerate any light or noise. It would send me reeling in pain from the constant migraine.

Just imagine a knife and a hammer, both in their respective general verbiage of stabbing or hitting on a drill, circulating around your head and forehead and everytime a noise or light or some sort of stimuli happened it would get more intense. It was awful.

Family came to visit me. Congratulating me on my safe return and recovery. I couldn't stand them. All I wanted to do was sleep. I was grateful and appreciative. They understood that I was still recovering.

Friday, August 21st, 2020, we called my family doctor. We explained to him what had transpired and how the medication given to us by the hospital wasn't helping. He told me that I was lucky to be alive and prescribed me my regular migraine medication.

When he said that it sunk in. It started to burrow in me that I could have died. I didn't think much of it. I didn't really care before. Holy shit, I could have been dead. Is that why everyone was so sympathetic? I had no clue. I was scared something might be wrong. I just never really though about how I could die.

I don't think anyone will get it. It's a weird dream to me. Today is Saturday, August 22nd, 2020. I still have migraines. I still have to go to work in Monday. There is just a lot of thinking I've got to do about my life.

I'm not ready for that yet.

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