@winchesterprincessbride replied to your post “I was heartbroken to learn that SPN is going to end after S15... and...”

@zmediaoutlet Just curious....what are you (barely) hopeful they will fix? Just curious if our lists match, LOL

I don’t really have a ‘list’ necessarily, it’s just...

In the movie Trainspotting, there’s this scene where Spud sleeps over at his girlfriend’s house and accidentally shits the bed. Then, when he carries the sheets downstairs to try to hide the evidence, a Humorous Snafu ends with shit being splattered all over the girl’s parents and the breakfast table. In this analogy, the executive producers and the writing team are Spud, the writing of the plot arcs is the shit, and we’re the poor breakfast table, splattered and confused.

That’s mean. And yet, that’s how it has felt, the last few years. Plans half-made, abandoned half-done. Characterizations thought of and then not followed through, at all. Random one-offs that seem clever and then aren’t referenced again. It’s kind of embarrassing and cringey, in the same way as that Trainspotting scene--like, really? This is what you chose to do? Was it on purpose? How on earth could it have truly been on purpose?

So, s15, knowing the end date, I hope there will be a real plan. Arcs that can satisfyingly conclude. Interesting things to pluck at and change. I haven’t watched yesterday’s episode yet, but I understand that Mary bites it--that will help. No more halfbaked characterization to forget for months at a time and then come back and pretend it mattered. Nick’s gone, too, I hope permanently, and that will help a lot too. No more Lucifer nonsense. I want--Sam and Dean, and a conclusion that feels earned and not haphazardly stumbled into. That’s really it. That’s the entirety of my list. 

I’m a big believer in any premise being believable, successful, etc, as long as you earn it. You bring back Mama? Okay, fine. You make Lucifer have a kid? Sure, okay. It can be made to work, as long as you put in the effort to do so. That doesn’t seem to be the writing model, this last little while. Maybe, hopefully, if everyone’s aware that this is the last hurrah, real effort will be made.

Honestly--in retrospect, President Whoever of the CW saying that they’d get an automatic renewal as long as Jared and Jensen wanted to keep going, that itself might have been the death knell. After all: if there’s no reason to try, why try?

Interview

Olly Alexander on success, sanity and It's a Sin: 'All those hot guys. I loved it!'

Simon Hattenstone

The Years & Years frontman is starring in Russell T Davies’ new drama about the Aids crisis. He talks about bulimia, his ‘dark’ clubbing days – and how he learned to enjoy filming sex scenes

Mon 11 Jan 2021 06.00 GMT

Olly Alexander was so certain he was destined for success that he saw a therapist to help him prepare for his future fame. It was 2014 and his band Years & Years had just signed to Polydor when he visited the shrink.

“I said: ‘The album’s coming out and I really want it to be successful,’ and he said: ‘What happens if it isn’t?’ I said: ‘Well, that’s not an option because I have planned it in my diary since I was a teenager.’”

That diary was less about chronicling the present than a series of promises he made to himself. “I planned my life till I was 25. I would be a famous musician ’cos musicians were the coolest people in the world. The biggest thing in the list was buying my mum a house, and I did that. That was the coolest thing to be able to do with my money.” He smiles. “That was the coolest thing ever.”

Now Alexander might well benefit from another visit to the shrink because he’s about to become a lot more famous. He stars in It’s a Sin, the brilliant new TV drama by Russell T Davies, about a group of young gay men living and dying through the Aids epidemic in the 1980s. The five-part series is funny, vibrant, sexy and heartbreaking.

This is by no means the first time Alexander has acted – he has appeared in the TV series Skins, films such as Bright Star (about Keats), Gulliver’s Travels and Great Expectations, and on stage in the West End alongside Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in Peter and Alice; a pretty impressive CV. But with It’s a Sin, he knows he has struck gold. “Some actors would wait their entire careers and not get such a good role,” Alexander says, and he’s right. Davies has made a habit of creating groundbreaking TV series (Queer As Folk, Bob and Rose, Torchwood), and this is his best yet.

Alexander’s character, Ritchie Tozer, is an aspiring actor/singer who has just moved to London from the Isle of Wight in search of fame, fortune and a good shagging. He embraces his new freedoms with promiscuous abandon, while also struggling with his sexuality. Ritchie is equally cocky and vulnerable, lovable and insufferable.

Although It’s a Sin takes place in a time before Alexander was born, he says there are so many ways he relates to Ritchie’s life. There is one crucial difference – whereas Ritchie is secretive, Alexander is an open book. If there’s anything to tell you, he’ll tell you, even if he is embarrassed a second later about his indiscretions. It’s an endearing quality, and one that makes him great company.

We meet in his agent’s east London office in December, when Tier 4 restrictions are yet to kick in. Alexander is a boyish 30 – half punk, half catwalk model, with orange hair, earrings, multiple rings, stylish khaki trousers and a handful of inky tattoos. He is garrulous and giggly with a huge toothy grin.

Like Ritchie, Alexander was a stranger to city life when he came to London. He was born in North Yorkshire, went to primary school in Blackpool and Gloucestershire, and a comprehensive in Monmouth, south Wales. He was a natural performer who wrote his first song at the age of 10. “I performed it in my year six assembly.” Can he remember it? He squirms. “Yeah!” Let’s hear it then? “No!” Oh go on! “OK, OK. ‘The leaves are falling outside my window. I’m lay here all alone,” he sings quietly, in that delicate falsetto. He giggles, blushes and continues. “And now I’m a knowin’, the way it’s goin’, we won’t last for ever, for ever my love.’”

Wow, those lyrics are pretty sophisticated – and melancholy. He giggles again. “Oh thanks. It’s about unrequited love. Doomed love. I was getting in early on my themes. I had a bit of help from my dad.” He wrote it after experiencing his first pangs – for a boy in his class.

At secondary school Alexander was a victim of homophobic bullying. He responded with elan. “I would still come to non-uniform day in eyeliner.” Did he fight back? “Sometimes I would scream. I was not a good fighter. We did rugby a lot at my school – a Welsh school. The one time I scored a try, on the way back to the changing room the two popular boys from the year put their arms around me and said: ‘Well done, Olly,” and I was like: ‘I can’t believe it, this is it!’” He pauses long enough for me to get a glowing feeling. “Then they tripped me up and pushed my face into the mud. That was hard to live down.” After that he never went to another games lesson.

When he was 13, his parents separated, and from then he was brought up by his mother, events organiser Vicki Thornton (his real surname – Alexander is his middle name). His father had been a talented but disappointed singer-songwriter who made a living marketing theme parks. Although he gave young Olly a lifelong passion for adventure rides, there were tensions between the two of them. After his parents split up, he broke off contact with his father. When Alexander became successful, his father tried to rekindle their relationship via Twitter. Alexander wasn’t impressed.

With the sod-you eyeliner and supreme belief that he would make it, he sounds incredibly robust. So what else was in that teenage diary? “Pppprrrr.” He blows his lips as if feeling a sudden chill. “It’s a bit dark. I used to write that I really wanted to be skinny.” He exhales deeply. “My mantra was always: I’m not going to eat this again, I’m not going to eat cake again. I’m never going to eat pasta.” He was barely into his teens when he became bulimic and started to list the things he wouldn’t eat. Actually, he says it was worse than that. “I was writing down: don’t eat, don’t eat, don’t eat. Did he have a weight problem? “I was a little chubby at primary school, but no.” What does he think it came from? “It was something I could control. I felt very out of control in the rest of my life. I was struggling with my sexuality, my parents were divorcing, and I wanted to punish myself.”

I want to give him a hug, but I’m not sure he would appreciate it, particularly in the pandemic. Why did he want to punish himself? “It was self-loathing. I didn’t want to be gay. I was convinced I was the reason my parents were splitting up.” He never considered that their divorce may have had nothing to do with him.

He started to cut himself, too. Has he still got the scars? He points to his upper arms and thighs, “because people can’t see there. I was deeply ashamed of doing it. I wanted to hide it.” Are there many scars? “No. A friend saw a plaster on my arm and jokingly asked if I’d been cutting myself. After that, I was so embarrassed that I mostly stopped doing it. Bulimia carried on well into my 2os, but it became less and less frequent. It’s really hard to hold down any kind of job if you’re throwing up food all the time, and ultimately you have to choose.” It becomes a full-time occupation? “Yes, it’s all you think about. And you’re doing so much damage to your organs. I got taken into hospital once with my mum because I had this irregular heartbeat, which can happen through constant purging, and that really scared me. I thought I’d done something irreparable to my body, and my mum was so distraught. She couldn’t understand why her son was throwing up all the food she was trying to give him. She found out because I hadn’t cleaned the toilet properly.”

After studying performing arts at Hereford College of Arts, he moved to London and was liberated. He had a heady time of it – more drugs, clubbing and sex than even he had hoped for, while also getting regular work as an actor. But there was a downside. He saw friends struggle, sacrifice themselves to excess, fall by the wayside. “Everything was about going out and connecting with people at the clubs. I had a great time, but it was also a dark time. A lot of people took too many drugs. A few friends attempted to take their lives and one succeeded. That was devastating. You can see how easy it is for a party lifestyle to turn into something negative.”

Alexander has a strong survival instinct. There was his destiny to fulfil, the house to buy for his mother. He still struggled with his mental health, so he cut down on the destructive stuff. Today, he says, his main drug of choice is the antidepressant sertraline. “I was worried about longterm use, and the doctor said: ‘Well, the latest research shows it can promote neurogenesis, and I was like that’s the coolest thing ever.” Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain. “She was basically saying antidepressants are giving you superpowers, and I was like: ‘Amazing, I’ll keep taking them for ever.’” He starts giggling, and he can’t stop. “Neurogenesis – ooh, I love that. I’m going to be neuro-supercharged.”

Years & Years formed in 2010. Founder member and synth/bass/keyboard player Mikey Goldsworthy heard Alexander singing in the shower and asked if he wanted to become lead singer. When Alexander joined, Years & Years were a five-piece band, before shrinking to an electropop trio (Alexander, Goldsworthy and fellow guitarist and keyboard guru Emre Türkmen). Alexander, the main songwriter, has an ear for great sweeping choruses (think Sam Smith meets Pet Shop Boys with a dash of New Order). Their first album, Communion, went to No 1 in the UK, while the song King topped the singles chart and its follow-up, Shine, reached No 2. Many of their songs are about yearning and doomed love – particularly on their second album, Palo Santo – just like the first one he wrote aged 10.

Alexander also became known as an LGBTQ campaigner. He made a documentary, Growing Up Gay, for the BBC in which he talked to his mother in a tear-filled exchange about coming out; he also interviewed people about struggles with their sexuality, the pressure to be promiscuous and take drugs, and addressed schoolchildren about homophobia and mental health problems. Does he think of himself as an activist? He shakes his head. “It does a disservice to actual activists. There’s a tendency to use that word for anyone in the public eye speaking up about any issue. Going into schools and talking about mental health isn’t activism. I like doing that. If I can be helpful, I want to help.”

The week before we meet he was named celebrity of the year at the British LGBT awards. He doesn’t know why – he says he didn’t do anything in 2020. “Maybe they heard about my upcoming role and got in there early!”

He says he has learned so much from making It’s a Sin – not least about acting, and how tough it can be. “Doing an acting job where you have to turn up every day is really challenging. I was so used to my musician lifestyle, which is usually: get up late, get in a car, get driven to an airport, get on a plane, fall asleep, arrive somewhere, get driven to the venue, roll out of the car and do the show. It was too much like hard work every day. I thought I’d got past this!”

We see a lot of Alexander in It’s a Sin – in every sense. He gets more than his share of sex scenes, and says it was fascinating being taught how to do them properly. So he enjoyed them? “All those hot guys. That aspect I loved! And going into it I thought, I’m going to have so much fun doing this, I’m a confident-ish guy, love having sex, it will be great.” That’s so refreshing, I say, to hear actors admit they enjoy sex scenes.

Ah, well, he says, it wasn’t quite that simple – he initially became self-conscious. “I broke down into hysterical tears, like ‘don’t fucking touch me’. I found it really hard.” Then the intimacy coordinators got to work on him. “They were a life-changing experience. Intimacy coordinators are there for safety ’cos there’s a lot of shit that can go wrong between what a director wants and what an actor wants, and boundaries being crossed. They’re there to rehearse everything beforehand with the director and the performers. You talk about animals you might imitate, the sounds you make.” He pays tribute to intimacy coordinator extraordinaire Ita O’Brien, who introduced the Intimacy on Set guidelines in 2017 and worked on Normal People as well as It’s a Sin. “Anything with sex in it, she’ll be involved. She’ll be on all fours at one point, saying: ‘Now I’m going to be like a cow and moo in ecstasy.’ She’s amazing, amazing, amazing.” And yes, he did start to enjoy the scenes.

Did he find them arousing? Now it’s my turn to blush and I apologise for the question. Did he start to enjoy it too much? “No, that’s what I want to know. What if someone gets a hard-on – how embarrassing would that be? Ita said: ‘It’s natural and normal for certain body parts to get excited and if you get an erection that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not appropriate for the workplace.’” He adds a caveat: “Depending on what kind of job you’re doing. And she said: ‘If that happens, you just take a time out. So you’re all there thinking, OK, how embarrassing – because you say time out and everybody knows it’s because you’ve got a hard-on. Hahahhaa!” Did he have to take a time out? “No!” Did anyone? “Not to my knowledge.”

Who did he have most fun with? “I’d say best kiss was the guy who plays Ash [newcomer Nathaniel Curtis]. Great kisser.” And the best shag? “Sexual simulation,” he corrects me. “Best sexual simulation was Roscoe [Omari Douglas, another relative newcomer].” Has he told them? “It’s all coming out in this article, Simon.” And I can sense him calibrating what he has just said. “It’s going to ruin my standing!” But a second later he changes his mind. “No, that’s a compliment right? I compliment them both. Hahahaha!” And he laughs giddily.

I ask about the future. You sense he’s not sure where to go from here, acting-wise – that it can’t get any better than It’s a Sin. Fortunately, he owes the band an album’s worth of songs. He had them done and dusted before the pandemic. “But all that time in my flat going insane made me realise I didn’t like any of the music, it didn’t feel relevant. I just wanted to start again, which is what I did. Now it’s almost ready – again.”

It will be only their third album in seven years. “I know,” he says. “It’s embarrassing. Ariana Grande has had about five out in the time we’ve done one.” In the meantime, he says, Türkmen has had one baby, with another on the way.

What about his own love life? “It’s pretty dire.” Sex? “I’m hopeful to have more sex … it’s very difficult in the age of Covid if you’re single. I actually tried to lock someone down who would be my ‘friends with benefits’ sex buddy, because I saw that Holland were advising people to do that. In the first lockdown I said: ‘Look, we can just have sex with each other. I trust you, you trust me, we’re not together, but this is an arrangement. I’ve not had sex in six months, what do you think?’ But he said no. I was quite upset. So yeah, not a lot of sex in 2020.” For a split-second, the puckish Alexander looks forlorn. Then he grins his toothiest grin yet. “But I’m hopeful that it will pick up in the new year!”

It’s a Sin is on Channel 4 on 22 January at 9pm

I recommend reading @occamshipper‘s post here [x] that does a whole lot to further unpack some spn fandom dynamics, beyond what I touched on myself earlier today, but more, discusses the evolving nature of SPN itself. Which got me thinking further (as you do).

With 6 episodes left of SPN left on the clock, it seems like a good time to talk more about my love for this series as a whole, and my perspective on the earliest seasons of SPN vs later seasons. 

I’ve tried to articulate this on various platforms at different times, but it’s sometimes hard to explain, because it’s a dichotomy but not mutually exclusive.

People will make all kinds of assumptions just because I’m expanded cast friendly, because I’m a Cas fan, because I’m ride or die Team Free Will, because I ship Destiel. Some will think but of course I couldn’t possibly have loved S1-2 with a bone deep love, couldn’t possibly have internalized Sam and Dean and relate to them and see my own weaknesses and strengths reflected there, didn’t have 15 years of emotional roller coaster with SPN. Not just 15 seasons, 15 years. I did have to step away a few times and took breaks from it but not years-long, so I have witnessed every stage of fandom and every stage of canon as it unfolded.

Min brought up in her post how earliest SPN started with archetypes. While the characters were also layered characters, they mostly stayed in their archetypal boxes. Not just how they mirrored archetypes of other media SPN has always been a response to (Dean is Han, Sam is Luke and so on) but how they fell into archetypes established of themselves. Early SPN had a start on overturning those self-created archetypes and expectations, a beginning. Dean in particular very quickly turned out to be not what even the show’s creator expected and they ran with it. Kripke created a show he envisioned as being about monster hunts, like Kolchak, like X-Files, and it was Bob Singer who said no brah it’s about the emotional bonds, it’s about the emotional story, that’s our unique hand to play, and whatever issues I have with EP Bob Singer later on, I respect how right he was about that. 

The irony of Dabb era constantly being ripped down and attacked for...being that, simply because it’s not only the brother bond any more. 

One popular negative meme in spn fandom involves complaining SPN isn’t scary any more. True, the style of its horror changed, it changed visually, and I do appreciate the early visual style, but the flip side of that statement is that SPN started out relying on jump scares and mere style for its frights, when even in the earliest seasons it was clear the most horrifying or wrenching moments were going to be emotional. As I said on twitter, over time SPN became an increasingly complex study of its main characters, with escalating moral quandaries, and increasingly a rumination on emotional horror, conquering of inner demons, and most of all the importance of love of all kinds. 

See, the thing is, I really really REALLY loved S1 and 2. No you really can’t even know how much I loved SPN in those seasons. It had a gestalt that cannot be recaptured, and I dove in head-first. The dusty back roads, the intense familial emotional storylines, the haunted houses, the monsters, the dilapidated or forgotten places, the cursed apple orchards, the abandoned buildings, the brothers, the tears. Yes, it’s gorgeous. Let’s light a candle and remember it fondly.

When I rewatch it holds up well enough...it also feels claustrophobic. Limited. Small. So small. Yes still beautiful. But much as I loved the Winchesters and their story and their family already then, a lot of that love is also bleedback because of learning so much more about them. So much more. After that. 

When I rewatch anything before Carver era it feels like that, too small, and I miss the full breadth of what the characters became. I do have some issues with Carver, but he did a lot of great things too. 

By S3 the magic was dwindling for me a little. S3 is when I started to think I was going to just get tired of the show and that was bewildering tbh, because S1-2 were just SO DAMN AMAZING to me. But that’s how it goes sometimes. 

S4 banged the doors open and blew my mind. It wasn’t just Cas’s arrival, but Cas was a herald of it. Cas the most of any member of Sam and Dean’s extended family got the closest to them, could carry stories of his own, and most embodied some of SPN’s biggest themes. But it wasn’t about Cas’s arrival alone.

I thought I knew all SPN was capable of and S4 showed me otherwise and I was a giddy, proud SPN fan about S4. LOOK AT WHAT OUR LITTLE SHOW DID. The canvas got bigger, the character stories got even stronger, more powerful, and more painful. Let’s pedal to the metal and see what she can do.

Season after season and showrunner after showrunner. Even my least favorite showrunner had something more to show me about these characters, something more to learn. (There are a few arcs with every showrunner where I did feel like SPN was spinning its wheels, I’m talking in aggregate, by era, although I don’t love every era the same). 

When I rewatch earliest SPN I miss the Sam and Dean I’ve gotten to know because of course they aren’t there yet, they are just beginning. I have a mirror to that with Cas. When I rewatch S4-6, even parts of Carver era. S4/5 Cas is still exciting. Those are his beginnings, like S1-2 are Sam and Dean’s. But I miss all Cas became. I miss how far he grew. Watching Sam, Dean, Cas on screen while also missing Sam, Dean, Cas. They also don’t feel complete to me without their earliest seasons in my mind to build forward from.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about the goodness of modern SPN, but they could at least admit that the SPN they loved left the building long ago, eons ago, instead of staying around season after season just to tear down, to hate, to attack. Everything from character development existing as a concept to the basic easy to grok idea that people can love more than one person to *insert repetitive wanking here on how Dabb ruined SPN by utilizing themes SPN has always always had there since the start and took them farther* to just being mad that S15 isn’t S1.  Modern SPN gets torn to shreds for being SPN only stronger with more complexity, more character pov, more emotional unpacking, more and more about family and how family is constructed, and with a rich visual language and use of symbolism that can hold its own with earlier seasons, and it’s just plain fact, this vitriol was  aimed at Carver as well as at Dabb, FYI, and I have my own issues with both of them. 

Is it really REALLY necessary to hate on a show that has always been billed at being about family for being...about family. Really? Do people even go here?? What is UP with that. Season after season of hard core stans preaching “SPN is about family” and now they’re pissed that...SPN is about family. Upteen repetitions of whining about “too soap opera.” As others have pointed out, if you didn’t already figure out that SPN was and is a family soap opera with monsters, there isn’t much help to be had for you. Upteen repetitions of whining that SPN grants redemptive arcs. What show have folks even been watching all these years????? Upteen rages because on a 15 season show characters grow, things change, and S1 and S15 are not the same.

SPN has always been about the characters most of all, it’s always been about the emotions most of all, it’s always been about relationships most of all. 

SPN is not eternally 2 boys in a car shooting monsters in the face on a back road dilapidated barn while those 2 boys repeat their first look archetypal roles, undisturbed in an endless loop. I can recognize how beautiful S1-2 were without discarding all that came after, and I’m realizing more and more how Dabb era is making me reflect over the whole series run, and giving me a new perspective on the long journey of the characters. 

Speaking as a fan who has loved this show since September 2005, but is also intrigued by current storylines, that melding of old and new, of new light shed over the past, while bringing the story forward, moving the characters forward, is also beautiful to me.

New Morning

Released: 21 October 1970

Rating: 8/10

Phew, he’s back. Just 4 months after ‘Self Portrait’, Bob makes it very clear that his last record was either purposely terrible, or a rare slip up in an otherwise stellar career thus far. This album is another change in sound, though less drastic that those before it, featuring much more piano and backing singers, and less harmonica and guitar. Dylan still had his Nashville crooner voice, though his song writing seems much more mature and minimalist, yet also incredibly jubilant. This album is a almost entirely a celebration of life, focusing on love, satisfaction, and having fun. Though glimmers of the old Bob still shine through, with a 1965-style attack song, and a ‘John Wesley Harding’ like fascination with religious imagery.

1) If Not For You - The album opener sets the mood for most of the album, Bob returns to his ‘Nashville Skyline’ theme of being happy and besotted with Sara and his young family. The lyrics are an outpouring of love, without ever becoming soppy, although the country sound of the last 2 albums is toned down a bit. George Harrison, who originally played guitar on the first few takes of the song, did a lovely cover of this track, as did Olivia Newton-John, but the less said about that the better.

2) Day Of The Locusts - Written about Bob’s experience of reluctantly collecting a worthless honorary degree from Princeton University in June 1970. It’s clear Bob hated the formalities and was, by all accounts, very anxious and upset by the whole affair. The titular locusts reference the infestation Princeton suffered from for almost two decades, and is also a swipe at those involved with the event. This is a fantastic song, a return to Dylan’s caustic lyricism and taking aim at those he took issue with. I always enjoy this seemingly happy and upbeat song, which is actually a giant ‘fuck you’ to one of America’s most famous universities and the pompous ceremony surrounding it. I’m glad that settling down hadn’t dampened Bob’s cynicism and ability to call bullshit in the most beautiful way.

3) Time Passes Slowly - Dylan has always been underrated as a pianist, and this track shows how adept he is on the keys. This is another love song about being content and happy, it’s a heartwarming tune which is just gorgeous.

4) Went To See The Gypsy - Written about a (potentially fictitious) meeting with Elvis Presley, this is a slow track with an impressive vocal performance by Bob. The song as a whole is brilliantly written, also featuring a rare mention of his hometown, and again the piano is the real star of the show.

5) Winterlude - A lighthearted love song, with some nice, but basic, piano accompaniment. Bob’s voice is quite croonerish, but it suits the tune well. It’s not the most complicated song in his catalogue, but I do always smile when I hear the line ‘winterlude, this dude, thinks you’re fine’.

6) If Dogs Run Free - This is an incredibly weird jazz song with scat singing in the background. It’s a completely new genre for Dylan and unfortunately it doesn’t really work. He’s seemingly talking nonsense over some impressive piano playing, but it is so out of sync with the rest of the album and it stands out in a negative way. I appreciate Dylan is trying something different, but this is a low point on the record and a song I always skip.

7) New Morning - Probably my favourite song on the album, all about waking up with your lover and life being just perfect. The music is incredibly uplifting, Bob’s voice sounds brilliant, and I’d recommend playing this song on repeat when you need picking up.

8) Sign On The Window - Another slower track revolving around Dylan’s piano playing, I adore this song. In under four minutes, Bob tells the tale of a man shutting out people initially, to then accepting and enjoying his new family life. The singing is understated and is the best example of his crooner voice elevating his unique vocal style. It’s just a beautiful song, the type you zone out to and enjoy in a dreamlike state.

9) One More Weekend - This track sticks out a bit, it’s much more ‘electric’ than the rest of the album. That’s not a bad thing though, it’s a welcome change of pace with some brilliant guitar licks and an enjoyable piano performance. It’s still on the theme of love and happiness, and the whole song has a buzz about it which is very fun.

10) The Man In Me - Immortalised by ‘The Big Lebowski’, this is a very happy song punctuated by Dylan’s cheerful vocalising. The lyrics are lovely, all about Bob becoming the man his lover believes him to be deep down. Alongside the upbeat arrangement, this track always puts me in a great mood, mainly because it reminds me of one of my favourite films.

11) Three Angels - Slow church organ music. Bob’s spoken poem about angels. Weird imagery that makes little sense. This ‘song’ is awful and definitely should have been left off the album. Unfortunately, it’s another one I always skip and, along with track 6, prevents this record from being top tier Dylan.

12) Father Of Night - Bob’s take on a Jewish prayer, and the shortest song he’s recorded (thus far), this is a strange album closer. Easily the better of the two religiously tinged tracks on the record, it’s enjoyable and well performed, yet almost instantly forgettable. It at least removes the bad taste of the previous track and ends the album on a more lively note.

Verdict: Despite a few missteps, this is an amazing album. Whilst it falls just short of masterpiece, it’s one of Dylan’s most stylistically ambitious records and is a complete joy to experience. No other album in his discography sounds quite like this one, and it could be argued that this is Bob’s last truly happy record. It would now be 3 years until Dylan released another album, and whilst his marriage and family life still had a few happy years left, a creative dry spell and messy contract issues were rounding the corner to create the first of many turbulent times for Bob.

WIG REVIEW: THE PROM

You guys. Remember when just last week week I LOLed at my mom when I told her I had finally watched the lesbian holiday movie (The Happiest Season) and she thought I meant The Prom and I told her (and then you, dear readers!) that it would take me forever to hate watch that. WELL I JUST HATE WATCHED THAT. There is a lot to discuss, you guys. ALSO WIGS.

We begin in “New York City” or the CGI hellscape replication of it. Nothing about this movie is authentic except for maybe NY1′s theater reporter, Frank Dilella at the opening of a fake musical called “Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical!” which is meant to be a hilarious joke (it is not) starring Meryl Streep as Eleanor and James Corden as FDR and JOKE IS ON THEM AND US because why are they in this terrible movie and why the hell am I watching it? Oh right: THE WIGS. YOU GUYS THE WIGS. Meryl, who is truly slumming more in this than any other actor in this garbage also has to endure the very worst wig. SHE DID HAVE AN EVEN WORSE WIG IN MARY POPPINS RETURNS. But here this wig is so very much a bad wig that I struggled for a while wondering if this was going to be a wig within the narrative but no. Sadly, it looks like a castoff from some QVC Liza Minnelli wig collection.

AND EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE THEY ARE DRESSED IN A QVC LIZA MINNELLI NON-HALSTON SEQUIN COLLECTION GHOSTMARE (Liza should probably trademark that tho). I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY SEQUINS OUTSIDE OF DAVID GEST’S GUEST HOUSE. Also, after the fake Eleanor musical opens, Meryl and James retire to “Sardis” or the CGI version of it where they discover that their show got (gasp!) bad reviews. EVERYONE LEAVES IMMEDIATELY except Meryl, James, Andrew Rannells who is another actor/bartender and NICOLE KIDMAN.

SHE IS ALSO WEARING SEQUINS AND HAS A BAD WIG. But we are talking about Nicole Kidman, so the chances of her wearing a bad wig are 110%. I couldn’t honestly tell you what her role is in this other than “another Broadway actress”(?) Her wig is likely the same one that Joanna Lumley wore for 10 seasons as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous which has in the last decade or so been slowly decaying in a crawlspace somewhere only to reappear on the head of Nicole Kidman in the role of “another Broadway actress” in this movie. Anyway, all these washed up randos decide they need to stop acting and start activist-ing and pin all their hopes on a lesbian in Indiana who wanted to go to the prom and got the whole prom shut down due to smallmindedness. They travel to Indiana in a non-equity Godspell touring bus during which time my husband asked me who designs bus seats and truly: that is a question more profound and interesting than anything you will find in this “film.” But I do have many questions! If these actors have all been on Broadway and Meryl’s character has a few Tonys even, why do they need to bus it to Indiana?!?!

Anyway, over in “Indiana” (all places are actually LA or a set or a CGI hellscape), there is a big community meeting or something which is still all about not having a prom, because the only damn thing that matters in this community is THE PROM. The NYC actors show up and turn the meeting into a musical extravaganza with Meryl and her tragic wig center stage. More questions!! As a theater piece, it would make sense for this whole meeting to suddenly become a musical performance complete with spotlight entrances and sparkle curtains because it is already all fantasy. Ryan Murphy has no interest in creating a more realistic presentation in this new medium and just lets that happen here too? Sure - I guess the actors could have just arrived with all stage cues and crews to make this happen (LOLOL NO THEY COULDN’T) and this is honestly exactly why most stage to screen adaptations rarely work (though to be very fair - I had just about as much interest in seeing this on stage as on TV - negative 1000%). All realism, logic, quality, are not at all what this “movie” is aiming for. JUST SEQUINS! CONSTANT GODDAMNED SEQUINS! 

It should be noted that Kerry Washington plays the conservative PTA mom at the center of canceling prom and bitch got away with the very best wig! Also the big spoiler here is that her daughter is the secret lesbian love of the lesbian she is trying to stop from going to the prom! GASP! Kerry also made really terrible career choices this year between this and Little Fires Everywhere which also involves secret lesbians. 

Also those lesbians have a love song that looks like this - aka that one scene in the loathsome La La Land which was itself completely derivative. There are many (many!) derivative scenes in this movie - a later one on a staircase with Nicole Kidman is a clear nod to that one staircase scene in All That Jazz (RIP ANN REINKING!) This was all done intentionally for us theater nerds but also all the movies it ripped off I also hated so? NO THANK YOU THE PROM. ALSO THE MAIN LESBIAN’S GRANDMOTHER IS PLAYED BY MARY KAY PLACE AND I LOVE MARY KAY PLACE FYI. 

Anyway! The NYC actors start their very ill-advised get-back-the-Prom campaign at......CGI monster truck rally wherein Andrew Rannells wears THIS GODDAMNED COAT. Trying to find any logic or realism in this movie is about as foolhardy as being Andrew Rannells wearing this coat and singing a musical theater song at a CGI monster truck rally in “Indiana.” 

Also! Keegan Michael Key is in this (WHO I LOVE ALWAYS) as the liberal principal who is trying to make prom happen. He also is a HUGE MUSICAL THEATER FAN though that doesn’t actually translate to being gay - it translates to him being obsessed with Meryl Streep who is his favorite stage actress. Sure! It all turns into Keegan Michael Key being a love interest with Meryl Streep which I DID NOT SEE COMING but I would love to watch an actual rom com with the two of them and not whatever this is? THEY HAVE A DATE AT AN APPLEBEES YOU GUYS HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

At said Applebees (or “Applebees” more accurately because I’ve never seen one that sparkles like this), Keegan has a nice ballad which I couldn’t possibly hum for you now where he sings about the escapism of THEATRE and there is a flashback to him seeing Meryl in a musical called “Swallow the Moon” which is a pretty hilarious title and the whole thing looks exactly like another Liza Minnelli fashion show - this time with maybe a circus theme? At any rate, Meryl’s flashback wig is longer and more of a fashion bob but is still very fretful. 

I would like to take this opportunity to say that although I never saw The Prom musical on Broadway, from the pictures I have seen, Beth Leavel’s wig (in the same role as Meryl) is vastly superior in every way, despite the fact that stage wigs are allowed to be different/inferior as they are viewed from further away and not in bitter bitter closeup. 

Meryl looks great in close-up by the way BUT THAT WIG!!! I couldn’t find a good picture of it, but the hair part (if you can call it that?) is a dangerous ravine of mysteries none of which have anything to do with looking like real hair. MERYL HAS MORE OSCARS THAN ANYONE HOW WAS SHE GIVEN THIS WIG?! HOW!!!!!

Anyway, back to the “plot” of this movie, the PTA somehow agree to having a prom and all the kids go around prom-posaling (which is an awful horrible thing that I’m glad I was never part of) and which truly begs the question: if the kids hadn’t prom-posaled (UGH) to begin with, how did word get out that two lesbians were going and how did this prom get derailed in the first place? WHY AM I ASKING ABOUT PLOT HOLES WHEN THIS ENTIRE THING IS A PLOT HOLE?!?!?! So they have the prom, but it’s all an elaborate and cruel ruse and the real prom is at some hotel and the fake prom only for this one sad lesbian is a really depressing affair in the school gym (THIS PART OF THE MOVIE IS LEGIT HORRIBLE AND SAD). So Nicole Kidman, in the very important role of “another Broadway actress” that definitely needed to exist, decides to tell her to just “razzle dazzle ‘em” (WHICH ABSOLUTELY MEANS NOTHING IN THIS CONTEXT) in a very Fosse inspired (AND INCREDIBLY NIGHTMARE INDUCING) and also very confusing number. Also Andrew Rannells convinces a bunch of teenagers in a mall to like gay people! Mazel!

ALSO TRACEY ULLMAN IS IN THIS MOVIE AND NO ONE TOLD ME AND SHE HAS AN AWFUL WIG! So ok - James Corden, who I normally adore, plays a gay character with an American accent and in conclusion, is very miscast in this role. One of the few things Ryan Murphy has done which I actually liked was the revival of Boys in the Band (the play - I have yet to watch the movie!) And the entire cast was gay men playing gay men. Not sure why he then cast James Corden in this role because it’s not like we’re having a shortage of gay men who can sing? A friend of mine rightly pointed out that this character should have been played by Titus Burgess and VERY YES. Anyway, that’s not what happened and anyway, Tracey Ullman plays his mother who he reconnects with and I’m pretty sure the wig she wears was from her own collection from one of her past sketch shows and though I applaud wig recycling, bitch deserved better.

So yes - all these Broadway actor characters inexplicably are still in Indiana just TRYING TO MAKE THE PROM HAPPEN and Meryl, who somehow has both a celebrity ex husband and a Hamptons house (AGAIN WHY DID SHE TAKE A BUS TO INDIANA) uses both to get the main lesbian a forum on TV but she doesn’t take it and instead makes a singer-songwriter YouTube video which everyone on earth simultaneously watched!!! We are supposed to believe that this random video got 8 million views and she decides to use that leverage to make her own inclusive prom. This is a very lovely idea but again: not based in reality so Keegan is all: girl we need $$ to have a prom and somehow she doesn’t immediately make a go-fund me from all those YouTube views she got and instead all these actors throw down their credit cards to fund The Prom which is really horrifying knowing about real events which will totally make all those actors very unemployed (#2020) and YES I KNOW THIS MOVIE IS THE OPPOSITE OF REALITY BUT STILL.

In the end, ALL OF LIZA MINNELLI’S NON-HALSTON SEQUIN COLLECTION QVC FASHIONS get their own damn prom and even Kerry Washington shows up in the most outrageous sequined number after her daughter finally comes out to her and everyone dances it out and life is reaffirmed and Meryl’s wig IS STILL A PILE OF GARBAGE AS IS THIS MOVIE.

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

Although the last episodes of SU Future don’t come out til Sunday and April 5 for my region, I want to thank all the folks who worked on this show for giving me immense amounts of inspiration. I’m gonna talk a bit (cough cough understatement) about my experience with Steven Universe these past 7 years so feel free to read or not.

Like everyone in this wonderful community, I will miss SU so much and it will always be a series that will be cherished in my heart for years to come!

It really is over, isn’t it?

This is almost like a recap of when my life started haha. 2013 was an important year for me; like all preteens, I was going through so many changes. I found comfort in watching anime and cartoons. My earliest experiences with Steven Universe was watching the Season 1 episodes and laughing. But Cartoon Network kept replaying episodes and SU became background noise as I played games on the computer and I forgot about the show for a year (thanks Five Nights at Freddy’s 2014 ftw).

Fast forward to March 2015 (around the release of Jail Break but before Full Disclosure) I discovered that Garnet was a fusion the whole time and me, being unware of events since the slice-of-life first half of S1, forgot what a fusion was (ironically, Giant Woman was the episode that replayed the most). Who was Jasper? And who was this Peridot and was she gonna rap?!?! Confused but eager to learn about what I missed, I binged the episodes on YouTube (back when you could watch entire seasons of stuff on there haha). I was caught up and in love with the series again.

Season 2 contained some of my favourite episodes EVER and that was probably because of the gREAT AND LOVABLE PERIDOT! Yes, my blog became Peridot spam. 2016 was the year of Peridot. I loved all her episodes and her arc and I am proud to say my younger brother and I watched “Catch and Release” numerous times in a row until we basically memorized all the lines (I can’t remember anymore but I still love that ep). “YOU CLOD” became a go-to diss. The hiatuses were unbearable but the Stevenbombs made up for them. Oh wait I almost forgot about SARD YARD OH HO HO!

When Lapis came back in Season 3 ... I just fell in love with her. I secretly loved Lapidot a lot because of this vid of Peridot and Lapis singing to “What Is This Feeling?” from Wicked (this leads to more things but I’m focusing on SU ahha). I didn’t tag Lapidot stuff as Lapidot bc of ship discourse but I just fully embraced it at some point. Now, I love that Peridot is aro/ace and I love to think of Lapis and Peridot as platonic besties who goof around haha but will kill you if harm their friends (+Bismuth makes it way more fun). Back to Lapis, I think her Bob persona just got me. Hit the Diamond is another fave episode (I doodled her a lot after this ep). This season was filled with so MUCH... Bismuth, Jasper and some good Beach City folks eps. AND SMOKY QUARTZ AHHH! My favourite fusion design *chef’s kiss* got some development for Amethyst! MWAHHH!

Season 4 was crazy. I remember feeling like ... EHEH.. So Rose wasn’t as great as we thought she was. .. and then Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond aHHH. And also Pink Diamond WHO?! Is Pink ROSEEE theories.. good times. ARE YOU MY DADDDD?!??? So much speculation about Pink and Rose. I think this season was an okay transition to more plot related episodes.

Season 5 oh gosh the hiatuses. Let’s see.. early/mid 2017, various points in 2018, and finally January 2019... dang. I think while waiting for the next episodes to come, I was busy getting into other series but kept SU somewhere in my head. I feel like I started to draw fanart less as my blog became a site for me to dump all my fandom stuff hehEH 00F. But this season was filled with some great episodes and memorable stuff. Lars big OOF, we learn about what truly happened to Pink, WEDDING TIME (I bought the DVD bc I LOVE), and all that Diamond stuff at the end.. super all over the place but I love it.

And then the movie happened and now HERE WE ARE IN THE FUTURE. (I didn’t talk about songs but know that I love them all haaaaa and even learned a few ukulele chords HAha).

Oh geez, I feel like I just relived some major moments in my life and now I feel woozy ahaa~ Nevertheless, I consider Steven Universe to be one of the important plot points in my life. It really helped me become more knowledgeable in the aspect of LGBT issues and representation and even my own identity. Despite some negative things in the fandom, there were still some positives to it. To all these amazing artists drawing fanart, super cool cosplayers, singers, and other talented folk who are a part of this beautiful fanbase, thank you. And thanks again to the Crewniverse and others who have worked on this show! Now I feel like crying ... and I’m smiling while I type this .. memories.. feels.. 

*Lapis voice* Okay. Bye.

Obey Me! MC Character Sheet

Thanks to @kyungi-i for the spred sheet! I've seen others do it and thought why not me?

Name: Alisa Moreno

Nickname: Ally, Lisa, Li-Li, Al, Isa, Moreno

Age: 18

Height: 5'3

Weight: 170

Race: Human

Gender: ♀️

Birthday: April 13

Star Sign: Aries

Hair Color: Brown (pink streaks)

Eye Color: Brown

Skin: Brown/freckled

Demon brother, she is most to least like:

1. Levi

2. Belphie

3. Satan

4. Lucifer

5. Beel

6. Mammon

7. Asmo

Personality: she's pretty cynical and pessimistic, she also seems very aloof but somehow has a way of knowing a little bit of everything that's going on. When she wants to be she can be very observative and dedicated to her work, otherwise, she can come off as lazy, or disinterested just as much as aloof. Her snide personality comes off subtle mostly due to her wallflower and nerdish appearance. And she does have trouble getting to know other people due to her self-consciousness, low self-esteem and social anxiety; all of which she masks under witty remarks, jokes, and sarcasm. She puts up walls and its difficult to get to know her past surface level, despite it all Lisa does have a soft side and softens up around people that have a natural kindness and positivity about them or are straightforward. She has a good sixth sense, which helps her be an extremely good judge of character more often than not she is correct about her intuition regarding others' intentions towards her. Lastly, she has a bad habit of acting out and deliberately going against authority, she doesn't like feeling controlled and being told what to do. She'll usually follow the rules because she can't be bothered with the effort to break them but if she feels like someone's trying to control her or that she's being patronized then she will deliberately go out of her way to break the rules.

Background: Before coming down to Devildom, Lisa, despite only being 18 had already finished all her schooling, including higher education. Back on earth, she was recognized as a child prodigy in her research on historical documents and records, despite her early achievements at such an early age, the pressure of being placed on such a high pedestal career-wise eventually got to her and she fizzled out. Growing up an orphan without a past or family, the academy she worked for and her work was all she had, after she cracked due to the pressure she ran away hoping to live out the youth she felt she had never experienced in childhood. At age 16 she was a runaway and going under a different name. She lived on the streets and squatted in abandoned buildings for a few months before she met some people that offered to help her. During this time she developed an interest in music seeing as the people who helped her were a musical band full of teens just like her.

In order to stay with them, she lied to them about the truth of who she was and why she ran away. She stayed with one of the band members she had become close to during her initial days of having met them. While she stayed with them she learned how to play several instruments and eventually sing as well. She went on to perform with them but after two years of playing with them musical difference surged and a fight broke out, after which Alisa decided to run away again. It was during her second night of squatting in an abandoned house that she woke up in Devildom.

Hobbies: Music; Singing, Electric Guitar, Violin.

Likes: Sweets, Reading, Music, Animals, Writing, Video Games and drawing.

Dislikes: Liars, being lied to, math, meddling (Ironically), cruelty, injustice/unfairness and short tempers. Words that sound one way but are spelled another, or that sound like they mean one thing and then mean something else.

Appearance:

She's fairly average height. She's on the plump side, with a rounded face that makes her look baby-faced. She has freckles but due to her brown skin they're difficult to notice. Her eyes are rounded and large despite the dark circles brought on by years of bad sleeping. Her hair is short in a bob cut and wavy/curly, usually, she has a singular braid running down her left side. She wears glasses to see and prefers to wear loose-fitting clothing except for at performances. She tends to dress on the nerdy side.

Casual Clothing -

• Top: Sky Blue sweater rather loose fitting sweater over a white button up blouse.

• Bottom: plaid moss green skirt. Over the knee length, style is somewhat pencil skirt. Black tights under skirt.

• Shoes: Brown Boots.

• Accessories: star-shaped hair clip, silver necklace with a star pendant, a bunch of woven, or leather, or beaded bracelets. 

• Glasses: Yes. Black plain.

Uniform:

Alterations?

Not many, she wears the uniform properly a skirt version with the same black tights underneath the skirt. And a light blue tie on her uniforms blouse.

• Mother: N/A

• Father: N/A

• Siblings: N/A

• Pets: A black cat she adopted during the first time she ran away, she found her in one of the abandoned buildings fed her and the cat kept following her after that. Her name is Pandora.

• Friends: Prior to joining the band Alisa had none, after joining the band she made 2, Lydia and Florence. The lead singer and drummer of the band, respectively. She stayed with Florence and her grandmother during her time in the band.

• Past Relationships:

She had a mentor/advisor who eventually became a colleague when she finally started working with the academy. She was very close to her and was her only actual relationship. Her relationship with Dr. Aver was the closest she's ever had to a familial relationship. In the early stages of their relationship Aver became endeared with a rather small and young Alisa and tried to offer her the closest thing to a family she could through her and her husband. While they had a solid well-going relationship, they hit an obstacle when Aver was offered a position teaching at a highly prestigious institution abroad. Aver tried to keep connected long distance but it all came to an end when Alisa ran away.

Alisa dated three times during her time in the band the first relationship was bad from the start and ended badly, the second and third one ended with Alisa self-sabotaging herself due to the first bad experience. All occurred relatively back to back during the first year and half of her being in the band.

The first one though was the longest one, which lasted for 9 months. The last two were relatively short-lasting about a month to two each.

Sexuality: Unsure, possibly Pan.

Have they been in love before?

Because of her first toxic relationship and overall young age, at the time Alisa is hesitant to say that she ever was truly in love in any of her past relationships. But she was the most heartbroken with the ending of her 3rd relationship. Prior to her third relationship, the other two were mainly out of curiosity for exploring with dating than actual love.

How easily do they gain crushes?

Not easy, she wasn't aware of her feelings towards her third (future) partner until she was in her second relationship, her feelings for her 3rd future partner had started amidst her 1st relationship when it started going downhill.

Do they believe in love?

She doesn't really have an opinion on it, she's rather cynical and with her negative past experiences you would think she doesn't believe in it anymore if she ever had, but honestly, it's not something she's thought about that much. She's just experiencing life as she goes, maybe someday...

What's their type:

Alisa is the type of person to look for what she's missing in her life in someone else; she's typically drawn to kind, warm-hearted people, more likely than not optimists with positive personalities. You get the sense that she's into the "angelic" type (thus her third ex/first love) with a strong moral compass always set on doing right. Of course, this being her type doesn’t mean it’s what suits her the best. Mixed with her low self-esteem, a relationship with her ideal type may turn out to be hazardous as she might end up over-idealizing the person or self-sabotaging once again due to low self-worth as well.  

Which of the 7 brothers is her favorite?

That's a tough one she likes both Mammon and Levi but couldn't pick a favorite between both. Although Beel is also a strong contender for her favorite.

Why?

Mammon, despite not being honest about what he truly thinks about her is easy to read and has always been there for her when she's truly needed him, he's stepped in to save her multiple times and she knows he clearly worries about her. She's grateful to him despite his antics, and is able to look past the big cool guy/bad boy facade he puts on and appreciate him for being there when she really needs him.

Levi, she actually sees a lot of herself in him. Especially, a lot of her from prior to her first run away. She relates to his hermit-like personality because prior to running away she was like that as well. She can also sympathize and empathize with his obvious insecurities and wants to more than anything be there to reassure him and help become more secure of himself. Despite not being a total weeb like Levi, during her time in the band she did develop some interest in anime and manga, just not as passionate as Levi's.

What do they look for in a partner?

Ideally, she likes kind-hearted, empathetic people but speaking practically she'd prefer an honest straightforward person easy to read that doesn't try to play mind games or control her. Someone patient and that can reassure her when she doubts herself, and most importantly someone that will call her out when she needs to be. She doesn't want someone that will coddle, pamper, or try to spoil her like a little doll and let her get away with things that are prick-ish. She's good at keeping herself in check but she'd like the reassurance that someone will call her out if she slips up without noticing.

General -

Fav. Food: Tamales, but she also loves Cheeseburgers and Milkshakes.

Least Favorite: Meatloaf, Eggnog, Rasin Muffins, Salmon.

Favorite color: blue & green

Least Favorite: White or Neons

Sociable or Recluse? Both, she can be something of an ambivert but prefers to be more reserved due to her majority introvertness.

Favorite Movie Genre: Droll Comedy, or Action Political Thrillers/govt. conspiracy, K-drama's

Reader or not? Very much a reader, liked it and eventually it was what her job required of her in order to conduct her research.

Favorite Animals: She likes cats and dogs, but she also has an ample love for animals of all kinds but especially the ones that can be found in the woods; Owls, Raccoons, Wolves, Crows. Her favorite however has to be the Fox.

Favorite Music Genre: Rock, though she's big on ceremonials and sea shanties as well, and loves testing her vocal range with gregorian chants and Hymns.

Least Favorite: Country

Do they like sweets?

BIG YES.

Do they like spicy food?

👌👌👌👌

Do they like school?

Not so much like but she was good at it, and a majority of her life was dedicated and depended on it, overall she doesn't have bad memories about school perse, so I guess you could say that she does.

Pet Peeves:

Loud food chewing, bad breath, meddling in her business, being patronized, people pointing out her baby face, people trying to manipulate, use or lie to her.

Why Misha chose destiel

One heller was very affronted that I was critical of Misha.  Now, on Tumblr there are many anti tags.  Jensen has one.  Jared has one.  Even little Jack Kline, poor baby, has one.  Only the Misha fans demand passionately, as to how we could possibly see anything wrong with this ''smol bean''.  They are very shocked with others for having an anti-Misha tag.  And they get angry with me for not using the anti-Misha tag and blasting his bad behavior in the public domain.  Why should there not be an anti-Misha tag?  And why must you go in there, read all the posts and then complain?  And why must you complain to me about not using the anti-tags?  Hellers are very confusing people.  Anywho, this one, who thinks Misha is ready for sainthood, sent me many messages about a post where I exposed another heller for going into the anti-tags and hijacking the post.  That post is called ''Looking for negativity in the anti-tags and screeching when you find it''.  You can read her drivel there.  This is one of the messages. 

Why is heller hate Misha's fault?

Misha has been on the show for ten years.  In those ten years, Jensen never told him about NJCon?  He never told Misha about Jaxcon?  He never told Misha about the incessant shipping questions that he deals with.  Misha never asked J2 why there is no shipping and sexuality questions allowed at cons?  Really?  I think he did.  And I think Misha said the same thing heller snowflakes say.  "But Jensen, if you don't go along they will call you a bigot."  And they do.  They kicked up such a fuss about it, and mass media became aware of it.  Universities are aware of it.  Jensen's reputation is in tatters.  So Jensen [Misha's best friend, apparently] never told him about the homophobia accusations.  What kind of a person lets his friend roast on a spit like that, but still saying things like this to incite his filthy goons ''Jensen and I don't write much destiel because we live it''.  Oh, it's so funny.  Misha is such a kidder, right? 

One weird thing I noticed about Misha is that he never distracts from destiel.  Even when he was asked about Megstiel, he said two things.  First ''Meg is the only one who ever flirted with Cas, well other than Dean'' [This is queer baiting]  and second ''Cas has eyes only for Dean''.  He actively killed the Megstiel idea despite the fact that it was his only legitimate canon ship, in favor of a non-canon ship.  What a stupid thing to do?  Why would you do that, if you don't have any agenda?  I have noticed he never pushes sastiel, his only other pairing, unless Jared is on stage with him, flirting with him, in good fun.  Because, with Jared right in front of him, he cant push any destiel and he cant ignore sastiel.  But when he is by himself, he doesn't like to push sastiel.  And I always wondered why.  I mean, Jared is sexually a little more brave than Jensen.  Jared is certainly more touchy-feely than Jensen.  Jared is more likely to kiss another guy on the mouth and not blush about it the way Jensen would.  If Misha had pushed sastiel and not destiel, I think Jared would be less shy in helping to make it canon.  Jensen is shy and no, that is not homophobia.

So why not push sastiel.  I think its because when Misha first came to the show.  J2 and wincest were the big pairings.  If he wanted to create a niche, he had to choose one J or the other.  Although,  he stumbled onto destiel first because that is what he said.  But then when you realize that there is another better ship available with a less shy co-star, why not take that one?  Why take the abrasive, difficult one who doesn't want to be touched?  Misha angers me but I would never call him stupid.  He is not stupid.  He was smart enough to intern at the white house.  So the guy is an idiot.  If he goes up against one J, he is essentially competing with the other.  Even though I protect both my boys equally, I am going to do something that the stans will hate.  I am going to pick up faults in the Js.  Just bear with me okay.  I have to do this.  Besides, no human being is flawless.  Jensen is extremely standoffish.  His personality is a litte cold with people he considers strangers.  However, between the two Js, he is the one that has the most recognition in his field.  Jensen has collected many nominations and awards during his acting career than Jared has.  Jared has equal footing with Misha.  Jared and Misha have the same amount of accolades attached to their acting careers. 

Dean is a louder, far more showier character than Sam is.  In fact, despite being of different ''species'', personality-wise Sam and Castiel are very similar.  Jared suffers from clinical depression, and as someone who suffers from a similar condition, I know something obscure about our types.  We are sometimes disheveled creatures.  Unlike Jensen who is healthier and always makes an appearance, with every strand of hair in place, Jared is sometimes completely untidy and wears a beanie.  Sometimes his clothing looks creased.  I can actually gauge how healthy he is during a panel, just by looking at his attire.  Misha is probably not aware of this.  And this is not a critique of his view on mental health.  Although I have receipts of his hellers mocking mental health.  Between the two Js, Jensen is the one who is difficult to compete with, because Misha is going to have to compete with his acting, his character and his looks.  Jared [and by extension Sam] is an easier option. 

Did they discuss destiel in private?

That is a good question.  Have anyone on staff ever discussed destiel.  Because the only one who seems enthusiastic about it, is Misha.  When Jensen was asked but the Dean Cas dynamic at a previous Jib panel, he said that there have not been that many Dean Cas scenes, which he enjoyed, because he felt the Dean Cas thing was getting out of proportion, and he knew he and Misha didn't play their characters like that.  When Misha was notified of this, he exclaimed ''that motherf*cker''.  So you tell me.  Why the discrepancy?  Why is Jensen saying one thing and when Misha is confronted with it, he reacts terribly.  Oh but he's just joking right? 

Misha was told that there was no need to entertain shipping questions.  He waves that rule during his panel and I have noticed at the recent Denvercon, that nobody asked him about destiel so he nonchalantly mentions Cockles.  Why would you do that, but when you are asked a destiel question, you call the shippers perverts?  You are the one encouraging them.  He doesn't respect the destiel shippers.  He uses them to keep him relevant.  What do the other people affiliated with Supernatural say?  Look at their tweets.  Jim Michaels, Guy Norman Bee, Adam Glass, Eric Kripke, Chad Kennedy, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles all say that there is no destiel.  The only one who says otherwise is Misha Collins.  When Samantha Smith was asked about destiel, she didn't acknowledge it and the fans attacked her on twitter.  Didn't she notify Misha of this?  She kept it to herself?  For what?  The only person who doesn't amend or dispute destiel [as far as I know] is Bob Singer, a slithering snake in the grass, and Sera Gamble's hugest headache whilst she was the show runner.

Does Misha enjoy any harassment that is caused by his meddling?

I have receipts of abusive tweets sent to Jared where he was also tagged.  Jared doesn't respond.  There may be two reasons.  Firstly, unlike Misha, Jared is a full time actor of Supernatural.  He simply doesn't have the time to look through thousands of tweets per day.  I have receipts of Misha reading his tweets and responding to them.  Another equally feasible reason might be that Jared [and I know my condition so I can vouch for this one] has no control over his mouth.  Even though he has the full right to call out bad customer services, there are other tweets that I acknowledge that he shouldn't have sent.  Jared is one of my babies.  But I can acknowledge when he has put himself in a difficult situation.  That is why he constantly says that Jensen tells him ''Dude, you are better than this''.  Jensen even said during a panel ''don't just acknowledge that you will do wrong.  Learn from your mistakes.''  I think Jensen sat Jared down and spoke to him about this.  I think Jared listened because apparently, Jared's online activity has dropped dramatically since.  Personally, I think people like Jared and me shouldn't be on twitter etc.  Its not good for us.  Studies show that SM actually exacerbates depression. 

Jared said, at a recent con, that he is aware that he cant please everyone, so he wont.  I am happy to hear that, because it means heller's online taunts are not messing him up the way they used to.  The biggest proof of Misha's awareness of the situation is William Shatner.  Shatner tweeted that Jared is aware of fans who want him off the show.  Shatner called them out as destiel shippers, and boy did the hellers converge on him for it.  Receipts are on other posts.  So Shatner is friends with Misha, he even participated in Gishwhes, and knows the truth which he blasted on a media outlet, and despite following Shatner and Jared, Misha still doesn't know any of this? Really?  Shatner never spoke to Misha about this?   

So Misha follows Jensen on Twitter, but didn't get an inkling of the filth being spewed at Jensen, only by Misha's fans, because Jensen said Destiel doesn't exist at Jaxcon?  So he read nothing?  And Jensen didn't tell him?  But they are supposed to be good friends, right?  Wouldn't you tell your best friend that you were being bullied by his fans?  What kind of friendship is that?  When Jensen broke down behind the scenes at Jibcon, when he met a fan [that is the officlal explanation] Misha witnessed it, so why would he bring up the same topic when Jensen is on stage, already emotionally fragile.  And then he sits there and watches Jensen fall apart.  It happened in front of his face, backstage.  Why would he pick up the topic again when he is onstage?  If you are such a loving, caring person [and destiel is cockle's fault apparently] why would you do something that heartless.  Fans, including myself, were angry that Daniela came on stage, and poured them brimming glasses of whisky.  She never did that before, to my knowledge.  They had always poured their own drinks and never so much. 

Some people guesstimate that Daniela shipped destiel too, which is why Jibcon was such a ''dance monkey dance'' type of environment.  Remember Misha's fake orgasm and the Hitch dialogue reading.  They didn't choose that.  Jibcon is planned the way it is.  That is probably why 6 months after Jaxcon, Jensen wasn't looking forward to the panel, and he fell apart as soon as it arrived.  Either Daniela poured them alcohol to make Jensen lose his inhibitions more, or she could see that he was tense and wanted him to loosen up.  We may never know because after so many years of Jibcon being seen as a destiel con [a perception she never corrected] after Jensen broke down on stage and Jared cut the panel short, suddenly Jibcon was never a destiel con.  Suddenly she banned shipping questions at Jibcon.  Suddenly the Cockles panel became the J2M panel.  I think Jared told her off after the last Cockles panel.  So suddenly she is neutral now.  And Misha saw none of this?  Really?  He must be the dumbest person ever to have all this happening around him, that he doesn't know.  So he doesn't follow Daniela online?  He didn't see the fighting?  Stop making excuses for him.

“It humanizes Lucifer a little bit...

...although at his core he’s still Lucifer.” - Bob Singer

I’ve seen polemics about this concept expressed in the promotional video for 13x13 and in general about the current storyline regarding Lucifer, and I must say that I don’t really agree with the negative interpretation of what the show is doing right now.

In the video, Singer and Dabb are talking about the fact that Lucifer finds himself in a position where he’s forced to ask for help, which is something extraneous to him and “humanizes” him. People have been protesting against the idea of “humanizing Lucifer”, but I think it’s actually a good point.

It’s like the universe is pushing “humanity” on Lucifer - and the point is that he keeps rejecting it and despising it.

Remember, if you were around, the general fandom vibe towards Lucifer before he was reintroduced during the Carver era? I remember all the “Lucifer isn’t so bad” comments, the “in this fandom we love Satan” jokes, all the “the devil is misunderstood” posts. But I’m not here to polemicize with that. It’s just our starting point.

The revelation that Lucifer had been the original carrier of the Mark of Cain, the original lock and key for the Darkness, placed the character in a position where it was easy to paint Lucifer as a force of light whose essence was corrupted and wasn’t, ultimately, responsible for his choices and actions.

Dean had fought against the influence of the Mark, people pointed out, but he’d carried it for a couple years, not ever since the dawn of creation! Can we even hold Lucifer responsible for the consequences of his corruption? The Darkness has no longer influence over him, but he’s carried the Mark for eons, and those effects seem to be irreversible, right?

For a little while I also wondered if the show actually was headed in that direction - if not the redemption, at least the salvation of Lucifer, sort of à la Darth Vader, the idea that the darkness had taken a toll on him so large that it was ‘too late’ for him to revert to the light, the subtle reveal that there was a wistfulness in him, a level of awareness of being some sort of victim to a process of corruption that didn’t entirely came from within.

But this show’s favorite thing is to subvert your expectations, and instead of presenting Lucifer as a noble creature victim of his own eagerness to do good for his father (by accepting the great burden of the Mark), instead of painting him as a tragic figure (like he had tried to paint himself in season 5, after all), the show is continuously presenting him to us as an utterly unlikable, pathetic creature.

Remember all the “Lucifer isn’t so bad, the actual Worst(TM) is Metatron!!” posts after the end of season 8 and through the next couple seasons? Ho ho said Dabb. Remember how the Carver era made Metatron human to reveal his core as miserable, despicable and pathetic, in a contrasting parallel to Cas’ own experience with humanity? Well, says Dabb, we’re putting a spin on the theme with our very original Castiel major parallel, Lucifer.

Because Metatron, unlike Lucifer, had a deep sense of reflection, and that inclination to reflect on himself and others ultimately allowed him to find a nobility from his own flaws. Lucifer, on the other hand, has the self-awareness of a fuckboi. Also, while directly experiencing humanity didn’t change Metatron very much, but his respect for his father’s creation including, in fact, especially, humanity led him to his ultimate moment of elevation. Lucifer does not respect humanity, and that’s the whole point. Cas, Metatron, Lucifer all found themselves homeless and alone and facing a plethora of human sensations that were alien and shocking to them. They have had arcs regarding angel grace and change and choices, and choice brings us to the big question of responsibility and accountability for one’s actions. 

Lucifer the grand archangel, force of light, who loved his father to the point that he accepted the greatest burden -- that’s easy to keep to a different scale of judgement than a human. But the show pushes his non-human characters towards humanity for the very reason of putting them bare and ultimately reveal their core. And this is what’s happening with Lucifer. He’s been experiencing physical and emotional sensations close to a human’s, he’s been confronting himself with experiences and people who could potentially offer him some kind of insight (the people around Vince Vincente, Kelly, Anael), but he keeps rejecting humanity. As Singer said, no matter how much humanity we put on Lucifer, his core his still... Lucifer’s.

Humanizing Lucifer means giving him a chance. Giving him choices that maybe he didn’t have as an angel. Stripping him of his angelic attributes, which include the whole corruption via the Darkness thing, means that he has a chance to re-elaborate his self, to experience the world and humanity without the layers formed by his experience with carrying the locked Darkness. It means saying, okay, this is Lucifer. Forget about God, forget about the Darkness, forget about the Mark. This is Lucifer and it’s a vile, wretched creature that does not deserve our sympathy, unless maybe in the form of the homeless guy with the injured leg who very gently told Lucifer that he gave off a repellent vibe and invited him to share a meal with him by the dumpster because the homeless guy was friendly and helpful, not because Lucifer deserved it.

It’s like the universe is giving Lucifer the tools to understand - “I had that experience, I didn’t like it. Hunger. Cold. Loneliness. I don’t know how they keep going” - but he rejects the opportunity and chooses to stick to a certain version of his self - “Lucifer the great and terrible. I don’t know why I said that. Stupid. I mean, it’s like pretty soon, I’m not gonna feel anything, you know. I mean the more I do this, the stronger I get, the more me I become. Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. King of Lies. I’m back, baby”. He does not accept the possibility of changing. Unlike Cas, who embraced change and who only takes steps back if he feels that he has no other choice if he wants to protect Dean/humanity and feels bad about it (season 6, reacquiring angel grace...). Not really unlike Metatron, who never really changed, but still reflected on it and admitted his flaws and saw the good of humanity, and there lies all the difference in the world.

So yeah, let’s humanize Lucifer and show that is core is miserable and pathetic. If this season is about revealing ‘who we are’, there, that’s Lucifer.

“Herb is the healing of the nation, alcohol is the destruction.”

Hanna Katz

Rel Studies 101

Rastafarian Religion in today’s time:

“Herb is the healing of the nation, alcohol is the destruction.”

This Bob Marley quote “Herb is the healing of the nation, alcohol is the destruction.” exemplifies the spreading of values in the rastafarian faith, as well as his opinion on marijuana versus alcohol being destructive in society. This religion believes that god was originally bestowed upon the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie in 1930. Followers of this faith also see Haile himself as the return of Jesus Christ. The major preachers of this religion are called “Rastas,” or “head-leaders. Bob Marley was a Jamaican singer-songwriter who passed away in the 1980’s, and Bob himself was a  Rasta in the Rastafarian religion. Bob Marley’s popularity in the music industry allowed him to spread his positive ideals and Rastafarian values to a more worldly audience. Throughout his life Bob practiced and preached the newly formed, indigenous religion of Rastafarianism and the power of music. Learning about the Rastafarianism religion, there is a great focus on the non-oppression of others, the preaching of strong ethnic pride, pride in one’s culture, and the overall avoiding of “Babylon,” which is any negative space in someone's life. A popular saying in the Rastafarian religion is that God is  good, and everything that is “god made” is good. Focusing on this value, the marijuana plant, also referred to as “ganga”,is looked at as good because it is “god made.” Bob Marley and the Rastafarian faith is applicable to events going on in today’s time. Bob Marley focuses a lot on the positive outcomes of marijuana. Although today, marijuana is not a legal drug everywhere, it’s becoming more accepted in the United States. Recently is the gradual legalization of marijuana in the United States. As of this year there are now nine states that have legalized the production and consumption of recreational marijuana. The states that have legalized the recreational use have done so in hopes that it will lead to job and tax revenues. Bob Marley’s quote stating, “Herb is the healing of the nation, alcohol is the destruction” can also relate to the economic “healing” of the nation.

Solo Albums, Hiatus, and World War 3: The Rolling Stones in the 1980’s

If there was one decade that the Rolling Stones would just assume skip, then that would be the 1980’s. For the most part, this decade was incredibly unkind to the band causing them to almost break up. Something happened in the 1980’s, which changed the very nature of the band for the worse. The question now arises as to what specifically plagued the Rolling Stones from 1983 to 1989. Looking back, the decade did not start off all that badly. In 1980, they released Emotional Rescue, which hit number one just like every other album they did in the 1970’s. Following that album, they went on a massive tour of America and Europe that was the blueprint for the big stage shows we still see today. A year later, they released Tattoo You, which also went number one. Yet, this did not represent original material, but instead music left over from the previous decade. Unfortunately, cracks were already beginning to appear with the band.

The first cracks begin to appear as they completed the massive tour that supported the Emotional Rescue album. Although, they had one more album to do for their previous record deal, the band signed a new contract with CBS records for $50 million. The deal emerged as the largest in music history at the time. They were to do three albums, but in making the deal with CBS Mick Jagger also negotiated a contract for a solo album for himself. This irritated Keith Richard to no end, even today. He would say in a CBS This Morning interview that Mick was using the Rolling Stones as a way to leave the band. “He wanted his own separate agenda and was riding on the Stones fame to do it.” Things did not escalate until after the release of their next album, Undercover. This emerged as the first album not to go number one in a very long time for the band. The album became merely a moderate success. They changed things up for that album in keeping with the change in music of the 1980’s. The album was unlike anything the Rolling Stones had ever released, which for their diehard fans disappointed them because it seemed to remove the hard rock from the music. This emerged as the Rolling Stones going a bit new wave, but from there on out their albums would be primarily defined as corporate rock. After that album was completed, Keith Richards wanted to do a tour, but Mick refused. For the rest of 1984, Jagger worked on material for his solo album, instead of participating in any tour. She’s the Boss would be released in 1985, which went on to become fairly successful. Around that same time, the Rolling Stones began work on what would become their 1986 release, Dirty Work. Upon its completion, this would forever be known as the band’s worst album. Keith Richards practically wrote the entire thing himself because Mick Jagger had simply checked out completely from the band. As noted previously, they could not even be in the same recording studio together. Jagger would come in to record vocals separately making sure that Keith was no longer there. The only reason the album got done at all was because Ron Wood acted as peacemaker between the two allowing for a very limited amount of communication in order to finish the record. That same year, Mick Jagger appeared at Live Aid with Tina Turner. Not to be outdone, Keith Richards and Ron Wood did a number with Bob Dylan, no less. Yet, the two barely spoke to each other at the concert. In 1986, Dirty Work was finally released, but once again Mick Jagger refused to tour. This time he planned to tour on his own, but also including Rolling Stone songs in his sets. Keith Richards would refer to this time as World War III because of the amount of anger he had towards his singer. In interviews later, Jagger plays it off as if it was nothing because the others had done other projects as well, so it was only fair he got his turn. Yet, the one thing Jagger would never admit or maybe did not realize that by that time with MTV being everywhere going solo was a major threat to the livelihood of any band. Especially a band led by a guy like Mick Jagger. The other aspect to all of it was that Keith Richards’ number one priority in life represented the Rolling Stones. He quit heroin for the Rolling Stones, so Mick’s actions even later gave him very little reason to be in any way sympathetic to his plight. To this day, Mick Jagger will refer to the mid-1980’s as a needed break, but he is the only one that looks upon it that way.

In 1987, Jagger would release a second solo album, as well as go on a tour in support of the album. In a way, he had forced Keith Richards hand to go solo too. The guitarist did so with his band called the X-Pensive Wino’s releasing an album in 1988. The irony was that his album went gold and reached higher on the charts then Jagger’s 1987 album. The one thing that came out of this hiatus emerges in the fact that Mick Jagger learned that he needed the Rolling Stones more than the Rolling Stones actually needed him. Every band member did a solo project during that hiatus, but as noted in a documentary about that time, he was the only one that did not grow musically. The only thing that Jagger did during that time was learn that he could not be the same superstar on a solo record that he was on a Rolling Stones record. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact Keith Richards was no longer writing his music. The band was forever changed now anyway. Years later, Keith Richards would not refer to Mick Jager as a friend, but rather a brother. The sting of writing material not intended for the Rolling Stones still cut him pretty deep more than 20 years later. In his 2010 autobiography Life, Richards would refer to Jagger numerous times throughout the book in a very negative light calling him “unbearable.”

The question now becomes what actually brought the Rolling Stones back together and what circumstances got Mick and Keith talking again, which led to the recording of Steel Wheels. From what I read, there really was not too much to getting Mick and Keith talking again. They seemed very willing to start working together again when they met in Barbados just before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Keith even accompanied Meg to local disco ‘s, so the ladder could go dancing. I think at the time both of them had been very willing because of a couple of factors. Mick Jagger realized that his solo turn was not going to bring him the epic popularity that he saw in his friend, Michael Jackson. Another part of it was quite plain and simple, money. Without touring, the band did not make the kind of money that they had probably been used to for years. I am sure Keith Richards for the most part definitely felt this way. In contrast, Mick Jagger probably had investments that brought in money, but I just do not think at the time Richards had planned that far ahead. Almost immediately upon meeting up, Jagger and Richards started to produce a bevy of new songs. They were more than ready to start collaborating once again as noticed by the sheer number of songs they came up with in a short period of time in Barbados. The one major hit from that album was “Mixed Emotions,” which had lyrics speaking to their complex relationship over the entire decade. The decision to start recording together again happened just as the band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Perhaps, the band felt a wave of nostalgia letting bygones be bygones as well. This induction perhaps showed them that they have been together a long time through a lot of ups and downs.

Coming back from hiatus, the band did have a major change. Mick Jagger now ran the entire show, when it came to any tour. This is what Keith had to agree to because earlier in the decade his and Ron Wood’s drinking had come into question. In interviews now, this is largely forgotten as being a factor at all, but at the time it was a fairly big deal. For his part, Jagger wanted a more professional approach to the tour because there was so much money at stake. The band became less of a artistic venture, but more of a commercial one. In an interview, Jagger would think of himself as CEO of a virtual company that would start up every few years with a major tour. Why would Keith Richards agree to give Jagger more control over the band? Once again, the answer was pure and simple, money. He just wanted to tour again, while at the same time making money. And years later, I think Richards would regret giving away this level of control of the band, but at the time he simply preferred not being hassled with business decisions leaving them up to Jagger. In the end, the Steel Wheels tour was larger than any other tour that had ever taken place for any band. They made millions of dollars, which became just the tip of the iceberg as each tour the Stones tours got bigger and bigger. They became a corporation unto themselves, but unfortunately their artistic side began to fade quite a bit. They would make only one more number one album in 1994 with Voodoo Lounge. They were no longer feeling any pressure from the record company to make money from their studio albums because they made so much money from touring. Creatively, the band would never be the same anyway because of the change in the power structure with Jagger and Richards. The singer seemed to take a larger measure of control over everything including the songwriting. Most of their music from then on would take on a quality of corporate rock that embodied the very generic. On albums like Bridges to Babylon and Bigger Bang would get many songs that had all the qualities of a Rolling Stone song, except it simply was not as catchy or hook laden. Perhaps that is a quality that most musicians must go through anyway, when they simply run out of really good ideas. The difference being with the Rolling Stones, it took almost 35 years.

B. J. THOMAS: CELEBRATING 50 EPIC YEARS OF RAINDROPS

B. J. THOMAS: CELEBRATING 50 EPIC YEARS OF RAINDROPS

B.J. Thomas is a legendary singer who has experienced a brilliant career recording hit records and performing live for several generations of fans.  And now in this absolutely crazy and unpredicable year of 2020, one of his biggest hits Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head celebrates a 50 year anniversary since going straight up to Number One.  Written by the esteemed songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head was the theme song from the movie Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  B.J. Thomas would even find himself performing Raindrops at the Academy Awards that year in a full Broadway style production, right before they all won the Oscar for Best Original Song!

Highwire Daze recently had the honor to interview B.J. Thomas to discuss this very special anniversary of Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.  We also spoke about Hooked On A Feeling and what he really thought about the Blue Swede version of the song that was recorded a few years later.  Read on…

Before we talk about Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head, you had a hit song a year before called Hooked On A Feeling written by Mark James, who also wrote songs for Elvis. How did that song come about and what do you think of the Blue Swede version? Well, I had a few hit records from ‘66 and I had my first million seller then – and I was just not doing too much in ’67. Mark James, the writer, called me from Memphis and said, “Hey, what are you doing?” I said, “Man, I am just hanging.” He said, “Man, you need to come up to Memphis. We have got a bunch of writers up here. They’re making hit records on everybody.”

So, my brother and I, we drove up, and I started hanging out at the studio.  And I got in there singing with the American Studio Band, and we just fit together so perfectly. That’s when Mark started writing songs for me. I had a song called The Eyes of a New York Woman, and then the next one I cut was Hooked On A Feeling with the sitar performer by Reggie Young.

Mark was trying to write me a kind of an up-tempo kind of a lively song. That’s where Hooked came from. Just one of those really simple, but really effective songs and probably one of the favorites that I’ve done. It’s like people who are coming to see me, they really respond to Hooked on a Feeling. “Hey, I love the song!”

Now, Blue Swede. I don’t know man. I think that the Blue Swede record is a great production. I think it ‘s a very well done record. And of course, it went Number One when my record only went to Number Five. So I cannot say anything negative about it. Although, I thought they kind of covered my song a little quick, but they did a great record and it is done quite well. So, it is appreciated.

Now, on to Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, which is 50 years old. What was it like working with the legendary Burt Bacharach and Hal David team? And how did you wind up becoming the singer for that song? I was with Scepter Records in those days. Their mainstay artist was Dionne Warwick. Mr. Burt Bacharach and Hal David produced and wrote most of Dionne’s music. When they had the song they wrote for Butch Cassidy, it needed a male singer. It was not anything they could do with Dionne and they were kind of looking around for somebody to do it.

I had moved up to New York in ’68 and I had been working a little bit with Mr. Bacharach and we have been going over songs and trying to find the right song to record. So when Raindrops came up, it was just a great fit and they gave me the shot.  So I flew out to California, I did the song. And by the way, it was awesome to work with them.

I was always in awe of Mr. Bacharach and Hal David. They are some of the best people I have ever known. They would great to me. I flew out and did the bicycle scene in California. And a few weeks later, we recorded it again for the version that became the Number One record. It is just awesome to work with them. They were fantastic.

Is it true you had laryngitis when you first recorded that song? Yeah. I did. I had just finished three weeks of one-nighters through the Midwest. When I got to California, Gloria and I got in and man, I cannot hardly talk. My throat was killing me. I went to a private doctor that would see me on a Saturday. I had rehearsal with Mr. Bacharach on that day, too, and I was really worried. I went and saw the doctor and he said he did not want me to even speak for two weeks and that I had to wait. He said I had the worst throat he had ever seen. I said, “Man, I’ve got a rehearsal and then a session tomorrow.”

It wasn’t like I was not going to show up. But I was really afraid that he would not say, “Hey, man.” That he would think it wasn’t going to work. But I showed up and he liked it. My voice was kind of rough and kind of hoarse sounding, and he liked it. He thought it was really effective for what he was going to put it in the bicycle scene.

As it turns out, I sang it five times for the bicycle scene. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it anymore because I am not sure I could have done more than I did. But he loved it, and obviously, it worked out really well. We re-recorded Raindrops about six weeks later for the version that became Number One. But it worked out.

You know, just about everything connected with Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head – it worked out perfectly. The experience, the movie was a great movie.  The song sold over ten million copies. Everything with that song is a great memory.

You performed Raindrops at the Academy Awards with those bicycles riding all around you.  Tell me what that experience was like, and were you scared? Oh, yeah. I was absolutely scared to death. But you know what, in rehearsal when the song was such a big production about 12-13 minutes long, and I thought, “Hey, man. We may win this thing because they’re really doing have big number on it.” As it turns out, they did win the Academy Award. I love doing it. I love wearing the Sundancer’s costume to do the song. The whole experience was really wonderful. It was great.

Did you get to meet Bob Hope who introduce you guys? Yeah. Subsequently, I didn’t know him then, but I did get to know Bob.  Bob did certain personal appearances and did his comedy, and I did about six or eight of those shows with him over the years. I would go and sing before he came on and everything. He was a wonderful guy. His wife, Dolores, she was a great lady and he was just great guy. You know, a legend.

Your latest recording to date is The Living Room Sessions. What was it like working Lyle Lovett on that version of Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head? Lyle Lovett was really good. Lyle was appreciated and respected across the business. We were picking out people that we wanted to join us and add something to the record, and he did his vocal performance in New York. I wasn’t there for that. It’s the one thing I regret. I was not there when he sang, but he did a great job and that particular album was a lot of fun.

Just going back for a minute, did Jim Morrison or The Doors ever hear or comment on your version of Light My Fire? No. Cuz actually, my version was more connected to Jose Feliciano’s version. We were doing an album and it was going to be one of the songs— we picked it would be one of the songs on the album and that version we did was Jose Feliciano’s version. I have never heard from Jose either. (Laughs) But no, I have never heard from Jim Morrison. That would have been very cool!

Do you have any new recordings or projects on the horizon? Well, you know we’re obviously in a kind of a bad period and everything has been shut down for the most part, and especially the music industry. I had a session that was scheduled for the middle of this month of July that we’ve had to set back.

I’m going to record in Muscle Shoals with Dan Penn and Billy Lawson. We’re really excited about doing it, but as to when, we don’t know right now. We don’t know exactly how this thing is going to run out and when we can get the vaccine. If we can get the vaccine and we’re not in any danger of becoming ill, then we will go right in and do it. But we’re really so excited about doing it and kind of stressing through and getting through this period of time. We’ve got some great songs and we’re really looking forward to doing them.

Complete this sentence, if I have to sing Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head again live, I’ll…? I’ll thank God and feel honored that I have the chance to do it. I’m not one of those guys where a lot of my peers say, “I am tired of this song. I am tired of that song.”  I have such a good memories and emotions tied to most of my music. I really don’t ever get tired of doing them, especially Raindrops. I love to do Raindrops.

Do you have any messages for your fans who are reading this right now? Well, I want to be sure and say thank you. I appreciate the fans for keeping me around all of these years and still wanting to hear my music, and helping me be successful with my appearances. I never imagined that things would work out so well for me in my career. So I thank the people, and I thank you for thinking about me. It has been wonderful and I hope to see everybody soon.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

B.J. Thomas Official Home Page

OOR, Holland, by Bertvan der Kamp, August 1994

Subhead: A new, huge musical talent has come forward and his name is Jeff Buckley. Questionmarks (appear) on various faces. The music-scene once knew a gifted singer-songwriter who died way too soon. Yes, Jeff is Tim’s son, but he doesn’t like to be compared with him. He is very right to do so, because even without the special family-tie, Grace is one of the best CD’s from this year. After having spoken with both John Lennon’s and Bob Dylan’s son, I’m talking to the son of a third favorite “popstar” of mine. What to do in such a situation? First you try deliberately not to talk about the “old man”, but eventually you’ll wind up doing so. Jeff’s situation is somewhat different from the other sons of famous fathers, because his parents split up when he was barely 6 months old. When he was 8, he spent the Easter holidays with his father who, 2 months later, died of the consequence of a fatal combination of alcohol and drugs. Jeff has always been much closer to his stepfather, who also had a great influence on the development of his musical taste. However, the genes play a role as well and although Jeff sounds different, there definitely is some resemblance in the composition of his songs and in the intense, passionate performance. Grace surely isn’t easy-listening. Just as on the previously released mini-CD Live at Sin-é he doesn’t keep the songs within the 3 minute “limit”, But that surely isn’t disturbing. Jeff has produced the album together with Andy Wallace and he plays with his own, new accompanying band, consisting of Michael Tighe (guitar), Mick Grondahl (bass) and Matt Johnson (not the guy from The The, drums). JB: We played together for the first time 5 weeks prior to recording the album. We did a few gigs as a trio, before Michael joined us. Thereafter we went into the studio and recorded the 10 songs relatively fast. BK: Buckley works with various, digressing styles, from almost whispered, sweet ballads to firm rock songs, in which he seems to be challenging Robert Plant, a childhood hero (of Jeff’s). JB: I have been a fan of Led Zeppelin ever since I was five years of age. My stepfather had all their albums. My mother and stepfather shaped me musically, as a child. They loved The Beatles, and so did I, but the sound of Led Zeppelin sounde much more “anarchist” to my ears. The range of that music was impressive and it “opened me up”. After that I grew to love other music as well, but those earliest influences remain to be very determining. BK: His “glowing” way of singing not only reminds of his father, but occasionally of someone like Morrissey, with his emotional and almost “shameless” performance. At the mention of that name, Jeff reacts immediately: JB: His work with The Smiths hasn’t been equalled up ‘til now. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics and the performance. What Johnny Marr and he did was fabulous, nobody can beat that. If I’d ever start a rockband, I’d want to approximate that level. BK: To my question about whether he was looking for a musical partner like Johnny Marr, he responded: JB: I prefer working solo. Although my songs are created in many different ways, I am the constant factor. Morrissey needs a partner because he can’t play the guitar himself, but I can sing and play guitar. BK: Grace contains 10 songs, from which 3 are remarkable “covers”, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, Nina Simone’s “Lilac Wine”, and “Corpus Christi Carol”, written by the classical com[poser Benjamin Britten. Although 2 of these songs suggest some religious association, Jeff denies there is a “reli-hang-up”. JB: Whoever listens carefully to “Hallelujah” will discover that it is a song about sex, about love, about life on earth. The hallelujah is not a homage to a worshipped person, idol or god, but the hallelujah of the orgasm. It’s an ode to life and love. The “Carol” is a fairytale about a falcon who takes the beloved of the singer to an orchard. The singer goes looking for her and arrives at a chamber where his beloved lies next to a bleeding knight and a tomb with Christ’s body in it. My friend Roy introduced me to the song when I was still in high-school and now I’m singing it for him. BK: How important are the lyrics anyway? JB: You can listen to my songs solely for the sound or you can go deeper into them. Both are okay. To me it’s important what I’m saying. If a lyric doesn’t mean a thing to me, I can’t sing it. Music, lyrics, voice and rhythm are equally as important. BK: There are remarkably many love songs on the album. JB: I’m a rather romantic type. BK: Especially with the longlasting “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” he reaches great heights as a troubadour of love. It is also a song about ageing, I fancy to derive. Jeff agrees with me on this: JB: It’s not about aging as a chronological fact, but more in the sense of gaining experience. You can sometimes gain experience in a very short time and age fast in that way as well. Sometimes I feel very old. I already felt like that at high-school. I sometimes felt like an outsider, too old for my age. Leaving things behind and accepting you’re somewhere else, thats what growing up means, according to me. The advantages are enormous because you can let go of things that are of no use to you. Someone’s age forms a shield towards his youth. In that way someone can get older and yet still stay young. Picasso always tried to keep in touch with his inner child. If you don’t do that, you’ll eventually lose hold on yourself and slowly pine away. Or you can get completely deranged and kill yourself. It’s very important to understand this. (deep sigh) BK: This seems like the right time to talk about his biological father. As soon as I mention his name, I’m being interrupted: JB: He was one of those who didn’t make it. BK: Right… “He was one hell of a guy,” I continue. “I’ve met him twice and spoke to him briefly.” Jeff listens silently to my story and when I tell him that, in my opinion, he has succeeded his father(’s work), if only for the great intensity of his performance, he reacts reservedly: JB: Those are your words, not mine. BK: “The lyrics on 'Dream Brother’ intrigue me,” I continue imperturbably. “It could be a song about him (Tim).” JB: It’s a song about a friend of mine, who led a rather excessive life, due to which he has lost the “callosity on his soul” (couldn’t find a proper translation here). He is in trouble. This song is for him. I know what self-destruction can lead to and I try to warn him. But even I am one big hypocrite because when I called him up and told him about the song I’d written, that same night I took an overdose of “hash” and woke up the next day feeling terrible. It is very hard not to give in to one’s negative feelings. Life’s a total chaos. BK: Buckley doesn’t shun (from) exposing serious themes, which makes his music less accessible to the masses. Some further explanation wouldn’t harm. I just have to mention a song-title such as “Eternal Life” and it’s hard to stop him (talking). JB: What I want to say with a song like “Eternal Life” is: If you’re one of those people who thinks he has to spend energy in putting down and discriminating others or passing on racist ideas to children or playing games with everyone, just to cover up your own lack of self-respect, then you’re lost forever. There are so many other goals in life. There is so much to learn about life itself. Why waste your time with all that bullshit? Try to see people as people and don’t fixate on the color of their skin, status or sexual preference. I get very upset about that because I see it as one of the biggest threats nowadays. There is a giant desintegration going on, but that offers unknown possibilities of growth as well. From the ashes of chaos, you can “arise” bigger and stronger. JB: All that talk about the independent music-scene and the so-called Generation X is a symptom of the confusion. Everything is being labelled, but nobody knows what it means. There is fear of the unknown and that’s the reason for labelling everything. Even I don’t know what Generation X means, but to me it could mean: get out or get de-x-ed. BK: If you hear Jeff talking like that, you’d conclude it’s tough to be young in these chaotic nineties. What does he hope to change about it with his songs? How does he see his role as an artist? JB: I can’t do anything more than writing songs and whether people want to hear them is up to them and not to me. I realize that, as a listener, you have to invest something to get out out of my songs what’s in them and I don’t know how many people are prepared to do that. I don’t think I can save the world. I look at the world and conclude it doesn’t want to be saved. People want to be bossed around. At my concerts you can do whatever you want. You don’t have to listen, you can drink a beer if you’ve had enough (of the music). I don’t have the intention to be crucified.

John K Samson, Chaka, and Virtute the Cat

Personally, I find that one of the best, or to be more strictly accurate, one of my favorite ways to handle negative feelings is to find music that fits the feeling and let the song bleed it out of me.  A year or so back, I was having a particular rough time, and none of the music in my arsenal was cutting it.   I don’t know why, perhaps because most of the depressing music I know revolves around heartbreak, and my marriage is one of the few parts of my life that doesn’t drive me into despair.  So I start searching around for songs for or about depression and nothing is really hitting me.  I’m finding, you know, a lot of slick slow ballads with vague lyrics and predictable changes and it’s all very sad-by-design and  that’s just not what’s going to latch on to my heart so I decide to look for depressing punk songs.  I find, maybe on a reddit thread although I haven’t been able to relocate it, two recommendations that absolutely hit the spot.  Off With Their Heads and The Weakerthans.  I don’t think two artists ever sprung so quickly to the list of my all time favorites.

The song in particular that was recommended from The Weakerthans is “A Plea From a Cat Named Virtute” which is from the perspective of a feline whose human companion has begun to neglect her as he spirals deeper into apathy and alcohol and isolation.  She urges him to reconnect with the past,  and promises to help take care of him if only he’d reverse course.  The lyrics are absolute poetry, equally art and craft, and of course they hit me particular hard seeing as I am a cat loving person with tendencies towards isolating myself when the going gets rough (”sad songs about cats are kind of my jam, I said when explaining my Vivat Virtute shirt). Both characters are incredibly full and relatable and one is a cat and the other doesn’t speak.  And of course, the whole album Reconstruction Site is incredible.  He’s constantly writing about settings and surroundings, particularly in his hometown of Winnipeg (one great city amiright?), in a way that makes it clear that he’s really singing about whatever emotion is too hard to face.  I start playing it daily to get me through the work day.  I start looking into the singer/songwriter, John K Samson.  I find that no less an authority than Frank Turner has said that the only songwriter who gets close to Samson’s level is Leonard Cohen (I got extremely happy once to see a picture on Facebook of Samson, Turner, and Fat Mike, three of my all time favorite lyricists). I google Virtute the Cat to find more takes on this incredible song.  I find out there’s a sequel.  It’s called “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure.”  My heart slides out of my chest and runs along the floor.  I find the song and it is even sadder than the title would indicate.  This is exactly what I needed.  The song brings instant tears to my eyes every time I hear it and it washes away all of the crap that builds in my emotions.  I keep finding new lyrics in their catalog to relate to, to obsess over.  Throw away my misery, it never meant that much to me. In love with love and lousy poetry.  Enlist the cat in the impending class war! (which I later find out is an early throwaway reference to Virtute herself) Then, in the best possible version of getting into a show right before the new season comes out, I learn Weakerthans frontman/songwriter John K. Samson has a new solo album which will contain 2 new songs which will complete the song cycle.  I honestly believe hearing the last song had a huge step in bringing me out of the seemingly never ending anxiety attack I had over the course of years.  Of course it was beautiful, of course it was perfect.  I may write more about the Virtute saga later, but this may make it redundant.

The last time John K. Samson played in New York I had to miss the show to give my best friend a ride the night before she left for Africa.  I just got to see him for the first time on Halloween at City Winery.  He played solo on electric guitar, no backing band.  He wore a black t-shirt and jeans and a hat he placed on his amp for the duration of his set.  Keeping in the Halloween theme established by headliner Craig Finn, he has a Paul Stanley star painted around one eye. He doesn’t talk much between songs, but he does refer to himself as a “Canadian singing Marxist sober Quaker”, he credits his ability to perform to the two anti-depressants he is currently taking, and he admits to stealing parts of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” for his own “When I Write My Master’s Thesis.”  Simply, he is the living embodiment everything I’d want in a songwriter.  He played a 45 minute set while waitresses tried to take drink orders without disturbing the music, and sirens and DJs could be heard every time he silenced his guitar.  Somehow this seemed appropriate, shining the light on the realistic and very emotional lives of the people he sings about. Thankfully every note he played and every word he sung were crystal clear, both Weakerthans classics and some of the better numbers from his recent Winter Wheat album.  And yes, he did the all the Virtute songs, starting with “17th Street Treatment Center,”  which reveals how Virtute’s nameless companion does eventually find help for his problems.  And yes, I started tearing up when that song started, and that only increased when the runaway feline forgets her name (Latin for strength!).  But not as much as I feared.  This was after all a happy occasion.  Everyone at my table was also there to see Samson, and left either before or not long into Craig Finn’s set.  Unfortunately, that means they missed the encore, for which Samson joined the band (all in full Paul Stanley makeup) for 2 covers and 1 Weakerthans song (”Aside,” during which I stood up in my stool and raised my hand for the aforementioned reference to lousy poetry).  It’s pretty rare that the main act of the night invites the opener to do one of his songs.  (Finn introduced Samson by saying he felt like he knew Winnipeg already the first time he was there, and later realized it was from listening to the Weakerthans so often).  Another thing Craig Finn talked about during his set was that the ideal situation for both artist and audience is when the audience feels like the artist has taken something from their own life and expressed it for them.  Samson does this for me over and over again.  I feel very lucky to have found yet another artist to add to my ever expanding list of favorites.

★Spark★

  In a location unknown, beings of every color, shape, size, and gender were gathered. In a small, musty smelling, and damp room; that was practically dark, except for a few small lights that emitted a faint purple glow. These people were trapped in this terrible room because they were prisoners. They weren't criminals, just an average citizen who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been captured and used as leverage when the enemy needed it. Some had been in this room for nearly a year, while others had only arrived a few days before. Though everyone in that room shared the belief that there was no hope for their futures, so they all just sat in silence, squished together like sardines in a can, waiting for the embrace of the Grim Reaper.

  Although there was one prisoner who found the all this silent brooding to be irritatingly maddening. A young girl who had arrived at the tiny hell hole recently. She craved for some kind of noise: Vocalized sulking, fighting, delusional plans of escape, anything really! As long as it was more than the occasionally exhausted sigh, depressed whimper or the patter of water droplets crashing into the tiny puddle located in the corner of the room. She had attempted to make conversation with her fellow inmates in days past but had no luck. The girl would only receive downhearted expressions, puffy red eyes filled with tears or an exhausted gaze that basically said, "Get lost kid, I've nothing to say." So in an attempt to stretch her sanity a bit further, or simply amuse herself, she began to sing.

  "When you're rife with devastation There's a long ass explanation: You're like a puppeteer's creation Trapped inside a crystal ball

And whichever way he tilts it Know that we must be resilient We can't let them break our spirits As we sing this silly song"

  All the prisoners had overheard the young girl break out in this oddly cheerful song that honestly didn't sound all that bad. And they couldn't help but look her way. Some with expressions of confusion, others with curiosity, though almost everyone was intrigued to hear more. The young girl noticed how she had caught everyone's attention, and a smile broke out on her lips.

  She stood up, and as she did the tiny glow of the lights shone down on short jade colored hair making it appear to shine a lighter color. The same effect happened when the light caught a glimpse of her already pale complexion. As she stood, others took note of how short and young she was. While the others were all at least adults, she appeared to be only fifteen with a height of five feet at best. The indigo colored rags that everyone was forced to wear, were huge on the girl and were practically falling off of her. She continued with her song once she was on her feet beginning a dance with what extremely tiny room she had.

  "You see: When I was a little kiddie, a broken economy practically destroyed my family So they shipped me off to the trailer homes. Said, 'Sorry kid but you're on your own' So I dug one thousand holes and cut up rugs with orphaned souls, now Memories are blurred, and their faces are obscured, but I still know the words to my song!

When your feelings drop one after another And your loved ones kill each other Listen to all the notes flutter From this airy voice that speaks

'Cause these chords are hypnotizing And the universe's harmonizing So please dear friends stop your crying And just sing along with me!"

  By the end of her song many had perked up, some even wore smiles that matched the young singer, and a few were even bobbing their heads and along with her melody. They all clapped for the performance and some even wondered if she could do more. Though a young man in his early twenties with a nice build and hair the color of charcoal, who had been leaning in the eastern corner spoke up above the quiet murmuring of everyone else.

  "Cute performance, and nice singing too. But what's with the lyrics? I mean that bridge to what I assume to be the chorus was.." The man tilted his head ever so slightly and raised an eyebrow in thought. "Kind of dark, to put it lightly."

  Everyone quieted down and the girl stared at the man for nearly a minute before she nodded and answered.

  "Yeah, I won't argue with you there. But I suppose I can share with you the reason why. You see, I wrote the song myself, and I used to sing it to a friend who'd often forget the good in life as a way to cheer them up. Though the song was also a coping mechanism for me since it helped me open up about some of my past. I sang it here because the message was simple enough, and honestly, you guys needed something cheery."

  "So you went through all of that?" An older lady who sat next to her asked.

  "Yes, ma'am. All started at the age of seven when my biological father lost his job and then two years later I was evicted from my house and sent to live in a tin can for the next three years of my life. All the while dealing with a bunch of other fun shit that I'm sure no one gives two craps about!" The girl finished her statement with an earnest chuckle, which had everyone in that room shocked.

  Most were staring at the girl intently, wondering how she had survived this long, or if she had just snapped. Although before a silence could settle in again, the charcoal-haired man spoke once again.

  "You got a name hon?" The man spoke firmly yet remained gentle and sincere. The girl felt a warm feeling of comfort wash over her when he spoke. This is how she wished her biological father acted towards her.

  "Miyako. Miyako Stinheart." Miyako's eyes twinkled as she spoke her last name. She had taken on that name a few years back when a young woman who lived nearby found her hiding from her abusive parents and took her in as her own, so she absolutely adored that last name and always spoke it with pride. "How about you fine sir?"

  The man opened his mouth to speak when the door slammed opened, revealing two soldiers fully armored and with weapons in hand.

  "You there!" The soldier closer to the door exclaimed, pointing at the man. "Get over here, you're going to the arena."

  All the prisoners looked to the man with expressions that contained various negative emotions. Miyako didn't really know what "The Arena" was, but she too felt afraid for him. The man just let out a low grunt and headed towards the guards. Miyako wished she could go with the man so he wouldn't be alone. Though she regretted it when the same guard pointed at her and ordered her to come as well.

  "We're taking you to the labs to make sure you don't have anything deadly or contagious." The guard explained.

  That didn't change how Miyako's heart had dropped and didn't stop her stomach from doing flips. The legs that had moved with such elegance and grace just minutes before now shook violently and threatened to collapse with every step that Miyako took.

  Each guard took one of the prisoners as they stood in the doorway, and shoved them out into the hallway, before shutting the door harshly and cuffing the two's hands behind their backs. The hallway had much brighter lighting than the cell the two were just in, so it took a moment for their eyes to adjust. As they walked in silence, Miyako took in her surroundings. The lighting was now clear, though now the walls were a dark purple. The floors were smooth and like ice against Miyako's bare feet, and when she stared down she realized they were black tiles, out of what she assumed was obsidian. Her gaze then wandered over to the man walking besides her, as she began to take in his features. He was nearly a foot and a half taller than her, had a strong jawline, and cool gray eyes that reminded her of clouds before a heavy thunderstorm. He had a few tiny scars on his face that were barely noticeable, and one prominent one that was across the bridge of his nose. She wanted to ask how he had received those scars, but knew now was definitely not the right time. Her gaze then lowered to the clothes he wore. His uniform was far more torn and tattered than hers and covered in crimson stains. Miyako could assume that those stains were blood, but whether it was his or someone elses, she didn't know and frankly. she didn't want to. If she hadn't just been talking to and joking with this man, she would've been intimidated by him, if not fully fearful of this man. She then returned her stare upwards, only to find him looking at her.

  Miyako's eyes widened in a panic, as she began to wonder what he was thinking about her this very second. The man noticed Miyako's sudden distress and gave her a small smile as if telling her not to worry. Miyako subtly nodded, calmed down, and returned the smile.

  They continued to walk for a few minutes before one of the guards grabbed Miyako and roughly twisted her in a new direction.

  "Come on, the labs are this way." The soldier ordered in a gruff voice, much different than the other one who spoke before.

 Miyako's whole being was enveloped in fear, as she took one last glance at her companion while being taken away. The man simply nodded and gave her one more comforting look as if to tell her,

  "Go on, don't worry. We'll see each other and talk again soon I promise."

 As Miyako was escorted away, she kept the man's look engraved into her mind. She involuntarily swallowed, though it felt like her heart had moved up to and into her throat since it was so hard. As she and the guard approached a door that with a sign reading, "Medical Labs" Miyako silently prayed for her safety and the safety of the man, and just hoped they would both make it out of all this alive...

Bristol born singer-songwriter Katey Brooks, whose music fuses soul, folk, blues and country, is noted as a clear-eyed rebel in an industry that demands consistency. The unabashed songwriting talent has been delivering audiences with her most honest and authentic work to date. Although the wandering troubadour defies easy classification, what is certain is her ability to allow listeners to delve into her own world, through contemplative lyricism and hypnotising melodies.

Growing up inside a cult, as a child Brooks found refuge in song. "It was a very chaotic upbringing, full of some pretty colourful and sometimes unsavoury, characters. But when I sang, I felt free and connected. For as long as I can remember, it’s been my way of getting what I need to say out”, she reveals. "When I was 22 my mum got ill and she died. And then not long after that, my lifelong best friend went missing and she also died. That’s definitely had an effect on the course of my life and my writing. I guess I’m lucky that I have songs that I can write, as a means to deal with things”.

The highly anticipated self-produced album REVOLUTE is inspired by love, loss, learning and rebirth and is the result of needing to break out and reclaim one’s self and one’s autonomy. Brooks confides, “Completing these tracks is not only the closure of a difficult chapter for me, but the exciting beginning of something new, with my freedom finally found”. A perpetual theme throughout the 11 track release is truth. Bleeding into every song, the songstress is an advocate for being your most authentic self.

Mastered by Ryan Smith (Adele, Bob Dylan, Talking Heads) and mixed by Paul Quinn, Tarrant Shepherd and Clint Murphy, Brooks set out with the desire to inspire others to love themselves fiercely. REVOLUTE was crafted to act as a reminder that life is too short to live with regret and negativity. Drawing comparisons from the organic instrumentation of Jeff Buckley to the abundant vocal harmonies found in The Staves and Fleet Foxes, Brooks music is simple and unpretentious - just heartfelt, honest songs.

The album features songs such as ‘All of Me’, a stunning soulful ballad which surges with true emotion. Narrating calling someone out on their ambivalence. "It was inspired by a personal situation with someone I was prepared to give my world to. They proclaimed deep love, but then proceeded to behave in ways that were completely incongruent with that proclamation”, professes Brooks. ‘All of Me’ highlights honest lyricism, organic instrumentation and heart-wrenching melodies.

Then there is ‘In Your Arms’, a raw love song evoking the emotions of expressing your love for someone. Sonically, the single showcases Brooks authentic musicianship, with soulful choral vocals, warm tones and ethereal soundscapes. ‘Never Gonna Let Her Go’ was the result of being shamed for her sexuality. Brooks preaches, “Judge me for my true failings, ask me to change those things that actually effect you, and I'll hear that. But one thing I'll never change, and one thing that is definitely not wrong with me is my love for women".

Brooks has found success recording with the likes of Brian May (Queen), Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones) and Paloma Faith. She has played some of the world’s biggest festivals including Glastonbury, WOMAD, the 2012 Paralympics, and Australia’s National Folk Festival, as well as garnering acclaim from publications such as Billboard, Gay Times, The Advocate and The Independent. Each of these milestones have brought Brooks to the place she is today, with the confidence and freedom to showcase REVOLUTE to the world. More than ever before, the mercurial songwriter is determined to do things her own way, with REVOLUTE currently available worldwide.

Links www.facebook.com/kateybrooksmusic twitter.com/KateyBrooksOFCL instagram.com