"spots story is inconsistent because he has a different hairstyle in it than what was in the picture of him"

ok so im about blow yalls minds right now:

did you guys know people can get haircuts.

Why Nobody Cares About Showboat Film

Why How To Make Independent Films are Booming

Table of ContentsWhy The Greatest American Independent Movies are So PopularThe Only Guide to Independent Filmmakers You're Going To NeedHow Sundance Film Festival are Changing the World

e., cooperating the profits), but possession still resided the founders. As the years passed and the characteristics of business transformed, these "producing companions" drifted away. Goldwyn and also Disney left for RKO, Wanger for Universal Pictures, as well as Selznick for retired life. By the late 1940s, United Artists had practically discontinued to exist as either a manufacturer or supplier.

Selznick, Alexander Korda, as well as Walter Wangermuch of the same individuals who were members of United Artistsfounded the Society of Independent Movie Producers. Later on members included William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and also Hal Cockroach. The Society aimed to maintain the rights of independent producers in a sector overwhelmingly managed by the workshop system.

The most amazing guide to American Indie Filmmaking

In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The grievance implicated Paramount of conspiracy to regulate first-run as well as subsequent-run cinemas in Detroit. It was the first antitrust suit brought by manufacturers against exhibitors affirming monopoly and also restriction of profession. In 1948, the USA High Court Paramount Choice ordered the Hollywood flick studios to sell their theater chains and also to get rid of certain anti-competitive methods.

By 1958, several of the factors for producing the SIMPP had actually been corrected as well as SIMPP closed its workplaces. The efforts of the SIMPP and the introduction of low-cost mobile cameras throughout The second world war efficiently made it possible for anyone in America with a rate of interest in making movies to create, produce, and direct one without the aid of any kind of significant movie studio.

Filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs with little or no official training began to explore brand-new ways of making as well as firing movies. Little Fugitive came to be the initial independent film to be chosen for Academy Award for Ideal Original Screenplay at the American Academy Honors. It likewise obtained Silver Lion at Venice.

The top 5 things Best Independent Films can help with

As the 1950s advanced, the brand-new low-budget standard of filmmaking got increased recognition globally, with movies such as Satyajit Ray's critically well-known (19551959). Unlike the films made within the studio system, these new low-budget movies can manage to take dangers and explore new artistic territory outside the classical Hollywood narrative.

16 You Always Wondered About Independent Film Directors

Based upon a typical idea that the "main movie theater" was "running out of breath" and also had actually become "morally corrupt, visually out-of-date, thematically superficial, [and] temperamentally boring", this brand-new plant of independents formed The Film-Makers' Cooperative, an artist-run, charitable organization which they would make use of to distribute their movies with a central archive.

When he went back to America, Ken Rage would debut a number of his essential works there. Mekas as well as Brakhage would certainly take place to found the Anthology Movie Archives in 1970, which would certainly likewise show vital to the development and preservation of independent movies, also to this particular day. Not all low-budget films existed as non-commercial art endeavors.

Low-budget movie making promised exponentially better returns (in terms of percentages) if the movie might have an effective run in the movie theaters. Throughout this moment, independent producer/director Roger Corman began a sweeping body of work that would certainly come to be epic for its frugality and also grueling shooting timetable. Until his supposed "retirement" as a supervisor in 1971 (he remained to produce movies even hereafter day) he would certainly produce up to 7 movies a year, matching as well Source as typically exceeding the five-per-year timetable that the execs at United Artists had once believed difficult.

Corman's instance (which of others like him) would assist begin a boom in independent B-movies in the 1960s, the principal purpose of which was to generate the young people market which the major studios had actually lost touch with. By assuring sex, wanton violence, substance abuse, and also nakedness, these movies wished to attract audiences to independent theaters by offering to reveal them what the significant workshops might not.

All The Things Influential People In Independent Film Has Changed

As these tiny producers, cinemas, and also suppliers remained to try to damage one an additional, the B-grade shlock film quickly was up to the degree of the Z movie, a specific niche group of movies with production worths so reduced that they became a phenomenon in their own right. The cult audiences these pictures brought in quickly made them optimal prospects for midnight film screenings focusing on target market involvement and cosplay.

Romero shocked audiences with, a new kind of intense and also unrelenting independent horror movie. This movie was launched just after the desertion of the production code, however before the fostering of the MPAA rating system. Thus, it was the initial and also last movie of its kind to take pleasure in a completely unlimited testing, in which little ones had the ability to witness Romero's new brand of highly sensible gore.

With the production code deserted and fierce and also troubling films like Romero's getting popularity, Hollywood opted to pacify the uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA rankings system, which would place constraints on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the manufacturing code, this score system positioned a danger to independent movies because it would certainly impact the variety of tickets they might offer and also reduce right into the grindhouse cinema's share of the youth market.

Nevertheless, having a movie audience-classified is strictly volunteer for independents and also there's no lawful impediment to releasing films on an unrated basis. Nevertheless, unrated flicks face barriers in advertising because media outlets such as TELEVISION channels, newspapers and also sites usually position their own constraints on films that do not featured a built-in national score to avoid providing flicks to inappropriately young audiences.

Most Unusual Indie Film To Studios facts

Widescreen processes and technological improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo noise, 3-D as well as others, were created in an effort to preserve the diminishing target market by providing a larger-than-life experience. The 1950s as well as very early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historic legendaries, and also other movies which gained from these breakthroughs.

Motel on the Mountain, 1977 Memory

CLIPPED FROM The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,  06 Oct 1977 

‘GAYLA OPENING’ OF UNIQUE MOTEL

By Richard Ben Cramer Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer

HILLBURN, N.Y. - It was, on the whole, not the standard world premiere. The men in the crowd, for example, tended less to black tie and more to gold lame with high-heeled pumps.

Still, it was quite a partying night, and Beth and Frank Cavallo were feeling great. They had left their two-year-old daughter at home and had traveled with two of their friends, Jay Young and Bill Hiller, to the Gayla Opening of Motel on the Mountain, a homosexual resort in Rockland County, N.Y. on the way to the Catskills.

Now, in the wee hours, with everybody loose, Frank celebrated by giving Bill a big kiss.

Beth, bemused, looked on. She is straight but tolerant. She learned to adjust when Frank "came out" shortly before the birth of their child, Jennifer.

Anyway, Frank still likes "fish," as gay men call women, and to prove it, he pulled his wife toward him, and soon she was entangled in his arms and Bill's with everybody trading kisses around.

On the dance floor at the front of the disco room, one of four rooms provided for the opening-night crowd, a man and a man who looked like a woman were dancing belly to belly while strobes revealed their-movement in a series of dramatic stills.

Another mannish form, attracted by the dance, leaped into the light and danced up behind the womanish form until the sandwich was moving through the crowd in perfect synchronization.

From the end of the bar, in a straight three-piece suit, Tommy Esposito squinted through the smoke and flashing lights at the crowd near the stage and smiled a small smile of private satisfaction.

Tommy is straight. ("I'm not gay, I'm Italian," he says.) And until this weekend, he was the proprietor of a hotel and resort property that seemed headed for collapse.

The Motel on the Mountain built 22 years ago overlooking the New York State Thruway, was at the time the wonder of this small community, about 45 minutes from mid-Manhattan by car.

Its clever landscaping in the Japanese style and engineering that gave every room a view of the large wooded valley below won the motel several architectural awards.

But the motel has been going downhill, so to speak, since Esposito acquired control four years ago. Twice during those years, preliminary bankruptcy papers were filed. The complex looks a little down at the heels.

That is all past now, according to Esposito, who expects the Motel on the Mountain to be a trend-setter for other resort properties, a crucial breakthrough in the social liberation of homosexuals in America and, most important, a tremendous commercial success.

He paused in the task of erecting new signs ("Gay Life at Its Peak," they proclaim) at the bottom of the winding road up the mountain, to put the event in proper historical perspective.

"Hey, we're living history now," he said. "A place as famous as Motel on the Mountain? A gay resort? This is a sociological breakthrough."

His own motivation was not sociological.

"Well, put it this way," he said. "Summer of 74, I called the Summer of American Graffiti good name, huh? The movie was just out, you know, and I had all the biggest oldie names in the business the Drifters, the Orlons, everybody . . . Didn't work.

"In 1975, I open up with a dinner theater, the Roar of the Greasepaint. ...Didn't work.

"In 1976 . . . Variety Showcase . . . ventriloquists, magicians, comedians, everything. . .. Didn't work.

"So, I said, 'Hey, -why not?' You know?"

On the main street of Hillburn, an inconspicuous valley town of inconspicuous charms, W. S. Jones, 62, was remarking in front of the fire hall that he sure to heck knew why not and he just didn't know why it had to happen to Hillburn.

“Tell you the truth, I think they're all sick," said Jones, a retired postal worker. "That's just my opinion, but I know one thing. If it'd happened back a few years ago, when all the big people were here, the big church people, it never would've even got a foothold."

Jones' opinion was echoed by most in a joint town meeting for the residents of Hillburn and Sloatsburg, a neighboring village.

"If we don't stop these people from getting a foothold right now, it will be too late," said Sloatsburg resident Robert Latke. "They'll be running up and down the streets of our village, flaunting it."

Hillburn's Mayor Brian Miele, who runs the 1,100-person town's business after teaching his school classes for the day, said that he did not know if a law existed to prevent the motel's conversion.

But he and about 25 other Hillburn and Sloatsburg residents showed up at the Gayla Opening last weekend with picket signs that read "Queers Go Home" and the like, in an effort to decrease the turnout for the night.

About 25 gay patrons came down from the lounge to stage a counterdemonstration at the bottom of the motel's entrance road, and for a while it looked as if the situation might get ugly. A plea from Esposito to his customers and the arrival of the Rockland County Sheriff's Department avoided trouble.

Now the residents of the town say that they want to bring in Anita Bryant, the singer and orange-juice peddler who helped defeat a local Florida ordinance preventing discrimination against homosexuals.

"Let her come, oh yes," said" Allan Ross, the motel's new consultant on gay affairs.

Ross, who was talent scout and master of ceremonies for the Gayla Opening, thought that the first night was "fabulous, oh definitely fabulous."

In his red ruffled shirt, red pants and red high-heeled shoes, he looked rather fabulous himself. From the back of the stage, he introduced a series of female impersonator acts mimicking Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, Pearl Bailey and Diana Ross.

The crowd around the stage, dressed in a lot of satin and leather, capes and hats, mostly colorful and mostly quite tight, cheered and called out unprintable remarks. Most stayed until 3 or 4 a.m., and most said that they would be back.

At the end of his act, the Sophisticated Silhouette of Diana Ross - Leslie London dressed in high heels and a divine scarlet sequined see-through gown, said that he would definitely be back.

After seven years in the business, he knew he would rarely see a crowd of 1,500, and so sympathetic!

"Oh, I've played sweet sixteens," he said, wrapping himself around a young Manhattan boy, "rock 'n' roll revivals, bar mitzvahs . . ."

Bar mitzvahs?

"On Long Island, darling, of course."

_____

We are pleased to share this piece of 🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ History in honor and recognition of PRIDE month.

_____

This event was the subject of a chapter in Joe Kennedy’s book “SUMMER OF '77: Last Hurrah of the Gay Activists Alliance.”  

Joel T. Schumacher

(August 29, 1939 – June 22, 2020) was an American filmmaker. Schumacher rose to fame after directing three hit films: St. Elmo's Fire (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), and Flatliners (1990). He later went on to direct the John Grisham adaptations The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996). His films Falling Down (1993) and 8mm (1999) competed for Palme d'Or and Golden Bear, respectively.

Director of films, including: The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 1981; D.C. Cab, 1983; St. Elmo's Fire, 1985; The Lost Boys, 1987; Cousins, 1989; Flatliners, 1990; Dying Young, 1991; Falling Down, 1993; The Client, 1994; Batman Forever, 1995; A Time to Kill, 1996; Batman & Robin, 1997; 8 mm, 1999; Flawless, 1999; Mauvaises Frequentations, 1999; Tigerland, 2000; Bad Company, 2002; Phone Booth, 2003; Veronica Guerin, 2003; Phantom of the Opera, 2004. Director of television movies, including: The Virginia Hill Story, 1974; Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill, 1979.

Awards:

National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) ShoWest Director of the Year Award, 1997; NATO ShowEast Award for Excellence in Filmmaking, 1999.

Sidelights

After more than three decades in the film industry, Joel Schumacher has earned a reputation as one of the most respected and well–liked mainstream

Joel Schumacher

filmmakers around. Schumacher's films are glossy; he delights moviegoers with his staggering sense of style. Movie companies love Schumacher as well because he completes his films on time and on budget. Over the years, the costume designer–turned–director has generated a long list of credits to his name, including the 1985 hit St. Elmo's Fire, which helped launch the careers of the "brat pack" kids, including Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez. His biggest blockbuster was 1995's Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer in the feature role and Jim Carrey as his nemesis, The Riddler. That movie grossed $184 million at the box office. For Schumacher, it is a dream come true. "I'm very lucky to be here," he told Jim Schembri of the Age. "I have a career beyond my wildest dreams. I've wanted to make movies since I was seven. I have my health, I conquered drugs and alcohol.… I've survived an awful lot."

Schumacher was born on August 29, 1939, in New York, New York, and grew up an only child in the working–class neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens, New York. Speaking to the New York Times 's Bernard Weinraub, Schumacher referred to himself as an "American mongrel." Said Schumacher: "My mother was a Jew from Sweden; my father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee."

When Schumacher was four, his father died. To make ends meet, his mother went to work selling dresses. She worked six days a week and also some nights. "She was a wonderful woman, but, in a sense, I lost my mother when I lost my father," Schumacher told Newsweek 's Mark Miller. By the time he was eight, the unsupervised Schumacher was on the street taking care of and entertaining himself. He found comfort reading Batman comics and spent long afternoons in darkened movie theaters watching Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant on the big screen. "Those were my two biggest obsessions before I discovered alcohol, cigarettes, and sex," Schumacher told Miller. "Then my obsessions changed a little bit. I started drinking when I was nine. I started sex when I was eleven. I started drugs in my early teens. And I left home the summer I turned 16. I went right into the beautiful–people fast lane in New York at the speed of sound. I've made every mistake in the book."

As a child, Schumacher also dabbled in entertainment. He built his own puppet theater and performed at parties. To help his mother make money, he also delivered meat for a local butcher. Walking the streets, Schumacher became interested in window displays and volunteered to dress the store windows in his neighborhood.

After he left home at 16, Schumacher lied about his age and landed a job at Macy's selling gloves in the menswear department. From there, he became a window dresser for Macy's, as well as Lord & Taylor and Saks. Later, Schumacher worked as a window dresser at Henri Bendel's and earned a scholarship to the Parsons School of Design in New York City. He also attended that city's Fashion Institute of Technology. Next, he worked as a fashion designer and helped manage a trendy boutique called Paraphernalia, long associated with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick. In time, Schumacher found work with Revlon, designing packaging.

With a keen eye for style, Schumacher became a big star in the fashion world, but sunk lower into drugs. He favored speed, acid, and heroin. Schumacher refered to this period of his life—the 1960s—as his "vampire" years, according to Newsweek 's Miller. He stayed inside all day, covering his windows with blankets. He only went out at night. One day in 1970, something snapped, and Schumacher quit the hard–core drugs. "I guess it was the survivor in me," he told Weinraub in the New York Times. "I just knew I had to stop." He did, however, continue drinking, a problem that plagued him for two more decades.

In 1971, Schumacher relocated to Los Angeles, California, and got his foot in the film industry door when he landed a trial job as a costume designer for Play It As It Lays, which was released in 1972. From there, he picked up jobs as a costume designer for movies like Woody Allen's Sleeper and Blume in Love, both released in 1973. Through these movies, Schumacher made contacts and landed his first directing job for the 1974 NBC–TV drama The Virginia Hill Story. He also began writing screenplays, including 1976's Car Wash, and the 1978 musical, The Wiz. Finally, in 1981, he got his first shot at filmmaking, directing Lily Tomlin in The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Reviewers frequently commented on the atypical color scheme he chose for this film.

One of Schumacher's early successes was a 1983 film about a metropolitan cab company run by a group of misfits. Called D.C. Cab, the film featured Mr. T. Other early hits included 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, and 1987's The Lost Boys. The latter film, a vampire flick, helped launch the careers of Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, and Kiefer Sutherland; it was a hit with the teen audience. He followed up with the 1990 thriller Flatliners, and the psychological drama Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, in 1993.

By the early 1990s, Schumacher was coming into his own. Legendary author John Grisham asked Schumacher to adapt his best–selling legal thriller, The Client, for the big screen. Schumacher cast Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon in lead roles in the film that told the story of a street–savvy kid in danger because he had information about a mob killing. The movie, released in 1994, was well–received and Sarandon received an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Next, Schumacher earned directorial rights to Batman Forever, released in 1995. The first two installments of the series were directed by Tim Burton, but were thought to be too dark and serious. Schumacher was charged with brightening the series. Val Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as Batman, and Jim Carrey joined the cast as The Riddler. Under Schumacher's direction, the movie became the blockbuster of the summer, raking in $184 million. Batman & Robin followed in 1997 but was terribly unsuccessful, putting an end to the Batman series.

Over the years, Schumacher has become known for his perceptive ability to cast unknown actors and turn them into hotshots. His films have given rise to the careers of the "brat packers," as well as Matthew McConaughey, cast in Schumacher's 1996 adaptation of another Grisham novel, A Time to Kill. Schumacher also "discovered" Irish actor Colin Farrell, giving him the lead in the 2000 Vietnam drama Tigerland, which proved to be Farrell's breakthrough performance. Schumacher later cast Farrell in his 2003 suspense thriller Phone Booth, which was shot in an amazing 12 days.

Another actor who gained prominence under Schumacher is comedian Chris Rock, who starred in 2002's Bad Company. Like many actors, Rock enjoyed working with Schumacher and was amazed by Schumacher's ability to handle the whole operation of movie–making. As Rock told Film Journal International 's Harry Haun: "Joel is like a general, like Patton or something. He really knows how to whip up the troops. Doing a big movie is a lot of directing. It's coordinating a whole town. It's like being a mayor, and he's totally up to the task—of being a general and making it artistic."

What makes Schumacher stand apart from other directors is his eye for style. Characters in his films appear polished and classy, yet sexy. According to Haun, a Movieline article by Michael Fleming once proclaimed, "Why Don't People Look in Other Movies Like They Look in Joel Schumacher Movies?" For that, Schumacher credits his childhood spent in movie theaters where he inhaled a steady diet of films with stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Cary Grant, and Marilyn Monroe. As Schumacher explained to Haun, "You went to the movies and saw—Grace Kelly—these staggering images on the screen, so I think my early film influences are these archetypes—Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper. It's very much how I see film."

With about 20 films under his belt, Schumacher has had nearly every kind of review possible but says, for the most part, that he ignores them. Speaking with Film Journal International 's David Noh, Schumacher said he does not read reviews. "Woody Allen taught me a long time ago, 'Don't read them. If you believe the good, you'll believe the bad.' When they think you're a genius it's an exaggeration also, so somewhere between genius and scum is the reality of life."

After his foray into the blockbuster, high–budget world of the Batman series, Schumacher pulled back from big–name titles and returned to making grittier, chancier films. In 2003, he branched out into true crime, directing the film Veronica Guerin, which starred Cate Blanchett as the Irish journalist of the title. Guerin was killed by a heroin kingpin in 1996, who was angered by her investigative reporting. Schumacher made the movie in Ireland on a budget of $14 million—whereas $70 million is the average cost for a studio film. Once again, Schumacher was like a general. He kept everyone focused, shooting at 93 locations in 50 days.

The film won praise for its straightforward approach to the topic. Schumacher refused to glorify Guerin post–mortem, a trap many directors fall into. Speaking to the Age 's Schembri, Schumacher spoke about true stories this way: "You want to be sure that you're approaching the subject matter with integrity and not just trying to glorify the person, but trying to be honest with the facts, even if it upsets some people." Schumacher has also tried his hand at producing a musical. His film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera, was set for release in 2004.

Schumacher is also openly gay but refuses to get into discussions about how his sexuality affects him in the movie business. "It never was an issue," he told Film Journal International 's Noh, noting he does not believe in labels. "I think we're all villains and victims, as long as we live in a culture which keeps defining people as African–American lesbian judge, gay congressman, Jewish vice–presidential candidate, etc. You would never say that Bill Clinton was a Caucasian heterosexual WASP president, you just say he's Bill Clinton. That means the only norm is white WASP male, because everyone else must be defined. I'm totally against that."

Despite his success, Schumacher has no plans to rest on his laurels. Though he is considered a veteran filmmaker by many, Schumacher still sees himself as a student. As he told the Guardian 's Peter Curran: "I hope I haven't made my best one yet, I'm still trying to learn on the job. So I keep stretching and hopefully I keep making better and better films.

The Thoughtpocalypse | Dollhouse Review

So there’s this show from the late oughts called Dollhouse that you've undoubtedly heard me talk about before.

It’s been around for a long time and nobody got it in it’s first run so I’m just gonna spoil the whole goddamn thing because I’m tired of it being overlooked.

** MAJOR SPOILERS** FOR DOLLHOUSE ** MAJOR SPOILERS **

Ready?

Are you sure? I’m spoiling it all, are you sure? Okay.

Dollhouse was about the Apocalypse. 

Big whoop, right? We’ve had tons of shows and movies about that. But most people don’t get far enough into this show to find out what it was actually about. It sold itself as a sexy sci-fi thriller about a futuristic brothel. The idea is that, for a hefty price, a “Dollhouse” could make someone into anything you wanted via advanced technology. It erases their memories and replaces them with new ones. A spy, a lover, a consigliere, a wet nurse, whatever you want.

And if that sounds immoral and disgusting? It’s supposed to. 

This show got a reputation as one of those porny, “pretty people doing evil things” soaps. (Like the scandalous prestige television that’s, hey, winning awards for HBO and AMC nowadays!) But it’s actually a show about how man’s inhumanity towards man will lead to the end of the world. Because the Dollhouse isn’t the real story here, it’s just the tip of a very scary iceberg. 

“There are over twenty dollhouses in cities around the world. They have ties to every major political power on the planet. [...] The Dollhouse deals in fantasy. That is their business, but that is not their purpose.” -- “Man On The Street”

The company that owns and runs all the Dollhouses is called the Rossum Corporation (the name is a red flag reference to “Rossum's Universal Robots”). They use the Dollhouses to fund and test technology that would go on to be used for slavery, global warfare, and immortality for the wealthy and powerful.

We focus on the L.A. dollhouse for a number of reasons.

For one, it’s where the technological breakthroughs originate -- the lead programmer there, Topher Brink, (Franz Kranz) refined the “imprinting” process from analog cables writing imprints chronologically over the course of hours into a micropulse signal dumping imprints in all at once in a matter of minutes.

Because of him, Rossum’s tech advanced to the point where it could create monsters if even slightly mishandled.

One such monster was called “Alpha,” (Alan fricken Tudyk) an early dollhouse guinea pig who started misbehaving due to his former life... as an irredeemable, violent psychopath. They plucked him out of prison to experiment on him and didn’t see it coming when he lost his marbles and started attacking people. When they tried to run a diagnostic on his prior forty-eight imprints to see which one could’ve caused his violent streak, they accidentally dumped all of them into his brain at once, something they later dubbed a "composite event".

Alpha escaped, plotting to eventually take another doll out with him. With his new super multi brain, he invented a pulse gun that could wipe a doll of their imprint remotely. Something that wouldn’t be possible without Topher’s micropulse imprinting.

This tech directly led to a dystopian near-future wherein world powers with the technology could send a blanket signal imprint over the radio or really anything with a speaker, creating a nation of idiots or an instant army of millions “programmed to kill anyone who’s not programmed to kill anyone.”

Topher never meant to hurt anyone, his intentions weren’t sinister. He just had the brains and imagination to see beyond the limits of science and the hubris not to wonder whether we should move forward. But he wasn’t the only guilty party.

Adelle DeWitt (played by my forever-wife, Olivia Williams) was the head of the L.A. house. As a terribly lonely, misused person with trust issues and a job that didn’t allow for a social life, Adelle engaged a doll companion herself and was naively convinced that the Dollhouse would truly help people, save them, and give them what they needed, emotionally. 

At one point, Adelle made an exception for a very wealthy, middle-aged friend of hers and imprinted her onto a pretty young doll posthumously, so she could attend her own funeral and solve what she assumed was her own murder. It all worked out but it set the precedent. Before long, Adelle would be informed that “upgrades” (your personality imprinted into sexy young bodies that don’t belong to you) would be service available to their wealthy clientele.

The character who tries to turn the tide back is Echo (Eliza Dushku). She was originally an idealistic young woman and eventual eco-terrorist named Caroline who accidentally found out Rossum was experimenting with humans and dedicated her life to taking them down by any means necessary. When she eventually got caught, Adelle offered her the chance to clean the slate by signing away five years to the dollhouse.

As an “active” (someone given the hollow mental architecture an imprint can be built over) Caroline had her memories copied, stored away, and then wiped from her mind, making her a simpleton. Between engagements, she would be kept as an innocent, carefree dumbass in a spa-like new home.

Unfortunately, she caught the attention of pre-composite Alpha, who became obsessed with her. When he found out another doll was more popular than Echo, he mutilated her with a pair of pruning shears.

Eventually, after Alpha killed a whole mess of dolls and bolted, Echo would go on to be the most requested doll in the house. But there was something different about Echo. For some reason, she was slowly becoming immune to the imprinting and wiping process, retaining her memories of her life as Echo, and eventually, of her engagements.

And underneath it all, she was still Caroline, the girl who wanted to save the world and lead people to freedom. but because Echo had the self-awareness to protect herself by protecting the dollhouse, Adelle allowed her to flourish, unwittingly creating her worst nightmare: a renegade doll immune to the imprinting process.

If you, like some others on the netty webs, saw a few episodes of season one and wondered who you were supposed to sympathize with in this amoral mess, the real answer was basically, “Not us. Humans ought not to be monkeying around with brainpans.” All of the questions you have get answered and all of the characters who do wrong pay for their crimes in time, most of them even coming around to making amends.

Dollhouse was about hubris and the disasters we can cause by disregarding others’ rights to autonomy. In an age where undreamt-of tv excellence comes standard, his show doesn’t deserve to be remembered as trash...

I had to get all that off my chest. 

I dunno, I guess I’m bitter that, in the years since Dollhouse was canceled, the tv landscape  proves viewers will identify with and even root for incestuous serial killers, wild west sexbots, ruthless cannibals, meth kingpins, post-apocalyptic warlords, and Don Draper, but a show about why it’s not okay to screw with humanity’s ability to say “no” was just too sketchy.

PS: I first wrote “sex bots” with a space between words and Grammarly just corrected my spelling.

Winner Spotlight: “Re:scam” by Netsafe & DDB New Zealand

September 26, 2019

2019 APAC Effie Awards 2 Gold - IT/Telco & Brand Experience - Services

Netsafe is an independent, non-profit online safety organisation. It provides online safety support, expertise and education to people in New Zealand. It’s been around for more than 20 years, founded in 1998 to help New Zealand’s internet users stay safe online.

After noticing the growing influence of technology in their respective areas, the New Zealand Police, Ministry of Education and several not-for-profits teamed up with telecommunication organisations and IT industry partners to create an independent body focussed on online safety. Together they created the Internet Safety Group (rebranded Netsafe in 2008).

In 2018, Netsafe wanted to curb the alarming increase in phishing attacks - fraudulent attempts to obtain personal information through hoax or scam emails. Between 2015 and 2018, phishing attacks had grown by 65% worldwide, and just in New Zealand, $257m per year was being lost to cyber crime - and that’s just the reported amount. The shame and humility victims feel after falling prey to an internet scam means most attacks go unreported.

So Netsafe partnered with DDB New Zealand to create the “Re:scam” initiative, a crew of AI chatbots designed to respond directly to scammers’ tactics. Since launch, the bots have saved thousands from falling victim.

“Re:scam” earned 11 Effies – including seven Gold – in the 2018 Effie Awards New Zealand and 2019 APAC Effie Awards competitions, in categories including IT/Telco, Data Driven, Limited Budget, and Experiential.

Below, Rupert Price, Chief Strategy Officer at DDB New Zealand, explains how it worked.

Effie: What were your objectives for “Re:scam”?

RP: The objectives for the “Re:scam” campaign were relatively straightforward.

First, make people aware of the dangers of internet phishing scams. It was important to educate New Zealanders on the telltale signs of email scams and also to reassure them that they weren’t alone. By demonstrating that this was a widespread problem, we could show New Zealanders there was no shame or humility in being the target of an email scammer – it happens to all of us. This would be measured by earned media coverage, as we had no budget to buy media exposure.

Second, give internet users a tool to fight back against phishing scams. Not only did we want to reduce the number of people falling prey to such scams, we also wanted to discourage the scammers in the first place. By showing the scammers that people were on to them, although outside of legal jurisdiction, we wanted to show them people were prepared to fight back. This would be measured by the level of direct engagement with the campaign.

Third, make people aware of Netsafe’s role in keeping Kiwis safe from harm online. We wanted New Zealanders to know there was an organization protecting their interests online and to show them that they had somewhere to turn if they had any concerns about online safety. Knowing you are not alone is powerful encouragement when fighting back against cyber crime. This would be measured by visits and enquiries to the Netsafe website.

Effie: What was the strategic insight that drove the campaign? 

RP: Obviously email scammers rely on the art of disguise, exploiting people’s inherent sense of trust through pretending to be someone they’re not. To succeed, this scheme relies on most people to be trusting, which most New Zealanders generally are. 

Our big insight was, of course, that this ‘bond of trust’ has to work both ways. Not only does the email recipient have to believe they are dealing with a credible sender, but the scammer also has to believe they are dealing with a gullable and willing recipient for the scam to work.

This breakthrough insight gave us our big idea. We were going to beat the email scammers at their own game. If they were going to impersonate people with an ‘offer too good to be true’ then we would impersonate a willing and gullible victim to waste their time - without wasting ours.

Effie: What was your big idea? How did you bring the idea to life?

RP: An AI-powered chatbot that imitated human victims, wasting scammers’ time and protecting real people from harm. Re:scam was an AI-based initiative that gave people a tool to fight back against scammers. When someone received a phishing email, they could forward it to [email protected]. Our program then picked up the conversation and replied to the scammer based on the email. Replies were designed to lead scammers on for as long as possible with exchanges that wasted limitless hours of their time.

Effie: If scammers were busy talking to a robot, they weren’t talking to real people.

RP: This was a good first step, but at its heart Re:scam was a faceless entity, not built to be shared en masse. Because we had no media budget, if we wanted to give ourselves a chance of breaking into culture and driving mass awareness, we needed to give the bot some personality. Or rather, multiple personalities.

We introduced AI cat-phishing to the world with a deliberate blend of human and computer-generated creativity.

We engaged IBM’s AI ‘Watson’ to help analyse the content of messages and formulate responses, and created a digital video as the centre-piece of our communications. This mirrored the multiple personalities of Re:scam by showing different C.G. faces and voices flickering in and out.

To show that anyone could be a victim of an email scam, Re:scam was created to mimic various types of personalities. With deliberate spelling mistakes and malapropisms, each “character” had their own backstory and unique way of talking.

From the retiree asking “The Illuminati” if they had a bingo night he could join (and who sent his bank details through One. Number. At. A. Time), to the single mother who was excited to win big money, each was programmed to be as frustrating and time-consuming as possible, while remaining human enough to avoid detection. Sometimes our bots would accuse the scammers themselves of being bots.

Every time they got a response, they now had to second guess themselves.

Effie: How did you measure the effectiveness of the effort? Were there any surprises in the results?

RP: Being a campaign designed to directly encourage consumer interaction (for the campaign to work, it required people to do something), primary measurement was relatively simple. The campaign would succeed or fail based on the number of people who forwarded on their phishing emails and let the Re:scam AI bots to do their thing. 

The thing that surprised us most was the sheer volume of responses we received. 210,000 scam emails were forwarded onto us over the campaign period. Most of these were from New Zealand but many were from overseas also. The big learning for us was that an entirely earned and owned channel campaign in today’s media landscape is a truly global campaign, if the idea is strong enough.

The secondary measurement of the campaign, the objective of which was to raise awareness of the issue, showed the earned media coverage for the campaign was everwhere. Through New Zealand news media outlets Re:scam reached an audience of 4m+ across all networks, (that’s nearly the entire population of NZ, by the way). However, the campaign’s global reach was in excess of $300m+ through media outlets as diverse as The BBC, The Guardian, El Pais and CNN.

Effie: What was the greatest challenge you faced when creating this campaign, and how did you approach that challenge?

RP: The greatest challenge we faced with the Re:scam campaign is that we had no media budget. As Netsafe is a non-profit NGO, its primary channel of communication is though the news media. It relies on the ‘newsworthiness’ of the issues to get picked up in the news media and carried to the audience.

Of course, this is a high-risk strategy. There was no guarantee the news media would be intrigued by our initiative, and depending on the news cycle of the day, other stories might take precedent. The news media creates interest, which is then amplified on social media. Since pickup from news channels is vital, we must always push ourselves to come up with ideas that create interest beyond the issue itself. In the case of Re:scam, we knew internet scamming and phishing tactics was a topic of public interest, but we also knew that our unique and innovative AI bot solution would be of equivalent news interest.

Of course, we also had to build the AI Bot, which was no mean feat itself!

Effie: What lessons can marketers take away from your work?

RP:

Don’t be afraid to try something that has never been done - someone has to be first, so why not you?

If it doesn’t exist, be prepared to build it yourself.

Don’t let a lack of a budget hold you back - great ideas will always prevail if there’s enough will and conviction behind them.

Make sure your campaign or initiative ‘adds value’ to your audience in some way. If it’s not through utility or enlightenment, at the very least entertain them along the way.

***

Rupert Price is the Chief Strategy Officer at DDB New Zealand/Interbrand New Zealand.

Rupert’s career in advertising spans nearly eighteen years in London’s most pre-eminent agencies and now nearly eight years in New Zealand. In the UK, Rupert worked on brand and advertising strategy with Y&R, AMV BBDO, JWT, Saatchi&Saatchi and Ogilvy. 

Beginning with local projects for companies including Kellogg’s, Unilever, The Army and Sainsbury’s, Rupert broadened his skill set to take on global strategic roles for BP, SAB Miller, Unilever and American Express amongst others. In 2010, Rupert relocated with his young family to New Zealand. 

Now working with DDB and Interbrand, Rupert has delivered strategic projects for Westpac, Lion, The Warehouse, Lotto NZ and now Vodafone. Rupert has won numerous IPA Effectiveness Awards, Effies and APG Awards and has been involved in highly awarded advertising campaigns including Persil ‘Dirt is Good’ and Dove ‘Campaign for Real Beauty.’

Awards earned by “Re:scam”:

2019 APAC Effie Awards: GOLD – IT/Telco GOLD – Brand Experience - Services SILVER – Data Driven

2018 Effie Awards New Zealand: GOLD – Limited Budget GOLD – Most Effective Use of Digital Technology GOLD – Most Effective PR/Experiential Campaign GOLD – Best Strategic Thinking GOLD – Most Progressive Campaign SILVER – New Product or Service SILVER – Short Term Success BRONZE – Social Marketing/Public Service

Read more Winner Spotlight interviews >

2018 Effie Awards New Zealand judge Mark Earls shares his thoughts on “Re:scam”

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

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Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/eod-drinks-dan-aykroyd-crystal-head-vodka/

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

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Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

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2018 Silver Nationals Reportage #wewinstuff

What a season it’s been. Scozzie’s 7th season since its 2011 foundation and it’s been another epic journey. Silver Nationals is always a Scozzie favorite and holds some of our favorite all time memories. Firstly congratulations to the 21 who qualified. This season has seen age divisions deeper than ever and it was a huge achievement in itself to make it. The 2018 edition was going to be no different and 21 Scozzie’s embarked upon Baltimore ready to write the script. Would we have another fairy tale ending or was it finally time for a heartbreak ending…

National Champions Scozzie of the Week and probably the most deserving award dedication, take a bow Mr Tom Hogan. Entering the event as the 13th seed, no one could have predicted this ending. His draw couldn’t have been tougher, but if you know Tom, that became an even bigger motivator to succeed. Let’s take you through his match by match roller coaster, en route to a record breaking National title (We have US Squash checking the records to see if any 13th seed has ever previously achieved it)!

The Journey R1 – a war against Scozzie team mate and close friend Nikhil. The 3-1 scoreline didn’t represent the ruthless rallies, but it was a true battle. R2 – the first upset against rival school SCH’s number 1 and former top 10 seeded 5 for this event. 3-0 but close tiebreaks and again, Tom showing his resilience under pressure and ability to deliver in the clutch. Quarters- the dream began to become reality. A destructive 3/1 win to reach the semis and Toms looking physically, mental and skillfully very strong! Semis- a huge upset opened the draw wide open, as the number 1 seed drops in a shock. Tom capitalizes and wins another 3/0 (more tie breaks) to achieve the unthinkable- a National final and guaranteeing points which would be more than double his current average. FINAL – this match had it all. A bad start, frustration, a red hot opponent… this match looked one step too far for Tom as he lost the second game 11/0. The phrase ‘nerves of steel’ doesn’t do this man justice. He picked his head up, loosened the shoulders, got his running shoes on and began the slow grind back. 11/3, 11/6, 11/1 after losing games 1 and 2 11/6 and 11/0?!?! It was one of most remarkable and impressive comebacks seen in recent US Squash history. Aged only 15, his mentality on court is more impressive than some of the pros. This guy has it and delivered it on the biggest stage against all odds. What a tournament and a memory to last a lifetime! National Champion from seed 13 position – unlucky for some, not for Tom!

Charlotte But hold on, 1 National Championship wouldn’t suffice… Scozzie was hungry for more. Luckily our hunger transpired through to the players and after achieving 7 quarter finalists, we amazingly had 3 finals on Sunday afternoon. Up stepped Charlotte in the GU13’s carrying all the pressure of being the top seeded player. Normally, seedings are relatively consistent, but Silver Nationals are notorious for upsets. There isn’t a tournament close to it, with ratings extremely comparable from the top seed right through until the 32nd.

Charlotte survived a huge R2 scare, when she found herself 2/1 down on a skiddy court with a pinball for a squash ball. Showing tremendous resilience, she battled back to win in 5 and that was the break through she needed. From there on in, her confidence was at a new level high and she played JCT level squash from there onwards. The final was the one the crowds wanted to see – #1 vs #2, but our girl was number 1 and she was ready to prove it. 11/4, 11/6, 11/9… it was the dream final and fitting end to what has been a breakthrough year for the 12 year old sensation. We’re all very proud of Charlotte, who was the standout on and off the court, keeping the coaches entertained all weekend with her humor and jokes! National title numero duo!!!

Charlie Our third final featured Charlie S in the BU19, looking to build a 2nd National title after winning Bronzes back in 2016. This was Silvers though and an extremely deep U19 field saw our other two representatives John and Nick fall in the consolations. Charlie however, was a man on a mission… this guy came to play! He incredibly made it to the final without dropping a single game. His semi final performance was the best of his career and ticked almost every box (including an exhilarating game 3). The final was the perfect match up, rematch from PSC Gold where these guys battled for 75 minutes and had the longest recorded game of the US Squash season – 27 minute 4th game which was 19-17!!! Unfortunately this time through, Charlie couldn’t find his top game. He battled back to win Game 3 and built a lead in Game 4, but Eli was too strong on the day and deserved the National title. Charlie again was the model performer for being gracious in defeat and if there was a sportsmanship award for Silver Nationals, this guy would win it every time. A great tournament for him and a big step forward despite the tough final. Big things ahead for the next 6 months before he begins freshman year at Amherst!

Quarter Finalists Sameer, Jacqui, Rubens and Ethan joined the trio of finalists as quarter finalists and each should be extremely proud of their efforts. Rubens came a whisker from defeating the top seed there and Ethan lost out in heartbreaking fashion after holding numerous match balls in his quarter final. Sameers victory in the Classic Plate to clinch a top 6 finish was one of our favorite matches of the weekend.

Sunday Survivors After a brutal day of battling on Friday and Saturday, special mention to Albert and Nikhil for making top 12 and surviving until Sunday. Both boys are in down years and gained tremendous experience from the weekend which will unquestionable bolster their preparations leading in to an up year, where both boys should have a huge year ahead.

Beating seeding Nothing is more satisfying than the ‘mini victory’ of finishing higher than your seeded position. Here are some of our highlights of our guys ‘beating seeding’; – Michelle defeating number 48 and a top 8 seed in her first ever Nationals. – Matt K 3/0 R1 win over number 13 seed -Zoe had match balls against the number 1 seed in R2 and came so close to one of the biggest upsets of the weekend -Dhivya fought back from 2-0 down in R2 to almost seal a sensational victory in GU17s -Phil 2/1 up over someone 0.3 higher rated and then had a great victory in the Plate.

This weekend truly had it all. The coaches were proud of the effort in preparations and then for delivering a weekend where by everyone left everything on court. We gave all we could, the success will be enjoyed and there will be learning from the mistakes made. Next weekend sees the season concluding US Bronze Nationals hosted in CT, where we will have Scozzie’s looking to join Meghna, Tom and Charlotte as 2018 National Champions!

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THIS IS WHY TYRES ARE BLACK IN CARS & OTHER VEHICLES

THIS IS WHY TYRES ARE BLACK IN CARS & OTHER VEHICLES

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November 18, 2018

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Tyre technology has come a long way since the Ford Model T first rolled out of the factory in 1908. Modern tyres are not only different in dimension, compound, and overall structure, but they’re also a different color. That’s because early tyres were white, and only around World War I, did they turn black. Here’s why.

I suppose I should say what started me down this path, as tyre color probably isn’t something anyone thinks about much. When my dad came to visit Detroit back in March, I took him to the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum, the first Ford-owned factory, and the hallowed spot where the Model T was conceived and initially assembled.

“Original tyres had a lighter shade because of the natural color of rubber,” a company representative told me. “Carbon black [a fine manufactured soot] was added to the rubber compound in [circa 1917] and produced a tenfold increase in wear resistance.”

This increased longevity is confirmed by award-winning chemical engineer Jack Koenig, who says in his book Spectroscopy of Polymers that a tyre without carbon black would last “less than 5,000 miles.” Consider that most tyres are driven between 12,000 and 15,000 miles a year and are meant to last three or four years or more, and you get how low that was.

Tyre company Coker also gives credit for tyres’ black appearance to carbon black in a blog post titled “The History and Timeline of Whitewall Tyres”, mentioning that the strengthening properties of carbon black are key. Goodyear’s Hug the Road blog also mentions improved resistance to ozone and increased conductivity to help transfer heat away from the tread and belts as benefits key to the blackening material.

So now it’s worth asking:

WHAT IS CARBON BLACK?

Carbon black is the product of a hydrocarbon that has gone through incomplete combustion, and whose “smoke” has been captured as fine black particles consisting almost entirely of elemental carbon.

But in the 1870s, as noted in the thrilling tome Developments in Rubber Technology, Volume 1, came a breakthrough called the channel process. Essentially, it involved burning natural gas up against water-cooled H-shaped metal channels and collecting the carbon deposits. This new process, and specifically the finer particles it yielded, was apparently an important step in yielding stronger tyres for the auto industry, as Orion Engineered Carbons writes in its brochure:

But channel black wasn’t particularly efficient or environmentally friendly, as you can see in the below picture of the stuff getting made. These were called “hot houses,” and their smoke could be seen for miles.

Today, the primary method of obtaining carbon black is called the “furnace process,” which involves taking a heavy oil or natural gas feedstock, and injecting it into a furnace wherein natural gas and pre-heated air have combusted (see image below). The high temperatures of this reaction cause the feedstock to “crack” and turn into smoke, which is cooled by water and filtered out as tiny carbon black bits from the gas.

Carbon black powder is extremely fine, and to see the true shape of the material requires the use of an electron microscope, which reveals tiny particles, generally between 10 nanometers and 500 nanometers, that have fused together into chains of various shapes. According to major carbon black manufacturer Birla Carbon, the size of the particles, as well as that of the fused-together “aggregates,” and overall shape affects things like a rubber’s abrasion resistance, tensile strength, blackness, conductivity, and weatherability.

Different grades of carbon black tend to be categorized based on their surface area, as well as on their effect on the cure rate of rubber. Here’s a look at a number of different grades, which are used for a variety of different rubber applications like motor mounts, conveyor belts, and high-performance tyres.

HOW A WORLD WAR I SUPPLY SHORTAGE COULD BE THE REASON FOR BLACK TYRES

The history of how tyres got their black color is complex and fascinating, but also a bit murky. I spoke with Jack Seavitt, a member of the board of trustees and also a tour guide at the Ford Piquette plant. While he later admitted that he and his colleagues had different stories on how it all went down, his take was that tyres may have turned black as a result of a World War I munitions shortage.

In particular, he said that in the early 1900s, tyre makers figured out that they could add magnesium oxide to rubber to increase strength. “But magnesium oxide was needed in the munitions industry during World War I,” he told me, saying it was used as a propellant, and that brass for artillery shells was also in short supply. “So they said to the automotive industry: You can’t use brass anymore, and you can’t use magnesium oxide in tyres.”

A bit of browsing on the internet brought me to Crayola, makers of crayons and markers. Crayola used to be a brand under the company Binney & Smith, named after Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. These two were the son and nephew, respectively, of Joseph Binney, founder of New York-based Peekskill Chemical Works, which sold charcoal and lampblack—the aforementioned deep black powder obtained by collecting soot deposits from burning oil. It was used to make pigments and inks.

After Joseph retired and Edwin and C. Harold started Binney & Smith, the company became known for red oxide paint, which was used to decorate barns throughout America, and after the turn of the century, Binney & Smith introduced innovations like dustless chalk for classrooms and affordable crayons branded “Crayola.” More importantly, by this time, Binney & Smith had become a world leader in the production of natural gas-based carbon black, selling it as ink under the “Peerless” brand, which won a gold award at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

According to an article written in 1992 in the American Society for Testing and Materials’ newspaper Standardization News by a Michelin quality guarantee manager, Thomas Hancock—founder of the British rubber industry—and Charles Goodyear—discoverer of the vulcanization process—had patents from the 1830s dealing with adding lampblack to rubber for coloring, but it wasn’t until later that tyres actually changed color.

The author, Jeffery A. Melsom, says the true rubber-strengthening benefits of carbon black was discovered by S.C. Mote, a chemist for the Silvertown, England-based India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Cable Company, in 1904.

So, where does World War I come in? Well, Jack Seavitt from the Ford Piquette plant may have had a point about a munitions shortage, though I think he mixed up magnesium oxide with zinc oxide. I say he might have had a point because I came upon a December, 1988 issue of Fortune Magazine that mentions a munitions shortage:

The market for carbon black exploded after World War I. Until then zinc oxide reinforced the rubber in tyres. When the production of brass for shell casings consumed the available zinc, chemists chanced on carbon black, which worked even better.

I also came across this paragraph in Reinforced Plastics magazine:

The date of this discovery is quite ominous as this occurred on the eve of the start of World War I. Zinc oxide had been used as a reinforcing agent in tyres, however, zinc is a component of brass and was needed for bullets, munition, and armament components. This set the stage for carbon black to move from a small black pigment business to a global industrial specialty chemical business. The volume of carbon black supplied to the market sextupled from 1915 to 1924 as a result of this new innovation…

And there’s this passage from the book The World Rubber Industry, which discusses why carbon black in tyres didn’t catch on until well after its benefits were discovered, in part because of weak tyre structures being tyres’ major failure points, not rubber tread:

…tyre carcasses at the time were so weak that improving the tread alone offered little benefit. But then the improvement of tyre carcasses through cord casing, the great upsurge in tyre consumption, and the shortage in the First World War of the zinc oxide previously employed for tyre reinforcement, facilitated increased use of black, and demonstrated its superiority.

Michelin’s spokesperson told me the company’s first black tyres, launched around 1917, were called “Universal Tread Covers,” and were advertised as tyres built for “all roads and all weathers.”

So it’s not totally clear how much World War I factored into tyres becoming black, as it appears that knowledge of carbon black’s strengthening power had existed well prior, as did a vast supply of the microscopic black particles thanks in part to Binney & Smith and the Pennsylvania oil rush.

It seems like a bit of a convergence. At the same time, cars were becoming widespread in the first years of mass production, and tyres were becoming strong enough to make long-lasting carbon black reinforcement worthwhile, and other chemical alternatives were restricted during the war.

Still, the fact is that starting just around World War I, carbon black took over from zinc oxide, and tyres became black. But more importantly, they became more durable, and still, keep that color to this day.

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How to make a sexy sea monster and other 'Shape of Water' secrets revealed! (exclusive)

Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fairy tale The Shape of Water represents a breakthrough in human-fish relations. That’s not just because this lovingly crafted homage to classic ‘50s creature features is up for 13 Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. It also pushes the envelope well past love stories like Splash and The Little Mermaid, where men and mermaids enjoyed relatively chaste romances. In contrast, The Shape of Water’s lovers — mute janitor, Elisa (Sally Hawkins, a Best Actress nominee) and South American river god (Doug Jones) — get hot and heavy during the course of the film, instantly making them one of the most memorable interspecies couples in movie history.

Del Toro recognized early on in the production process that his love story hinged on audiences finding the Fish-Man as attractive as Elisa does. So, he devoted more than a year — and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own funds — towards sculpting a version of the creature that was, to put it bluntly, a total stud. “It needed to be very attractive, a creature you could fall in love with,” the director remarks in this exclusive behind-the-scenes clip that Yahoo Entertainment is premiering today. (Watch the video above.) Del Toro handed that challenge off to top creature designer, Mike Hill of Legacy Effects, who built a suit for Jones that was further enhanced in post-production by Dennis Berardi, head of the visual effects company Mr. X, which oversaw the effects work for The Shape of Water.

Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones as the lovers in ‘The Shape of Water’ (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The technique was pure hybrid,” Berardi explains to Yahoo Entertainment in a separate interview. “Generally speaking, when you see the body and head movements of the Fish Man—or the asset as we called him — that’s Doug Jones in a suit. But whenever you see him underwater, then he’s animated. I would also say that every single shot where you have the creature onscreen, the eyes and brow area are digital, because the way the mask worked, the eyes were a thick resin plug that didn’t articulate. Our methodology was to work from the eyes out, preserving as much of Doug’s performance as possible. But every single shot has varying degrees of visual effects in it, from micro-expressions like eye blinks to full-body animation.”

Unfortunately for Berardi, visual effects was one of the few Oscar categories in which The Shape of Water missed out on a nomination, with nods instead going to Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and War for the Planet of the Apes. But he and his team absolutely share a role in the movie’s success, infusing the creature’s costume design (which is up for an Oscar) with additional life. Having collaborated with Del Toro on both Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak, Berardi has regularly enjoyed a front-row seat to the director’s creative process. Read on for additional trade secrets behind The Shape of Water and its strapping Fish-Man.

It started with a sketch. Berardi’s first glimpse of The Shape of Water‘s aquatic heartthrob was as a two-dimensional sketch in one of the notebooks that Del Toro always has on hand to jot down ideas and images as they pop into his brain. (Some of those notebooks have been published in anthology collections.) “He showed me a sketch of their embrace,” the effects supervisor remembers, referring to an early version of the clinch between Elisa and the “asset” that appears on the movie’s poster. “It was such a romantic image, and he told me, ‘This is a movie that’s in love with love.’ You had a creature that had to be a leading man that Elisa had to fall in love with and that the audience had to fall in love with. He told us right at the beginning that this wasn’t a monster — it’s an intelligent being with a soul, and eyes that had to be soulful and deep.”

The creature also had to be a top-notch swimmer whose movements read as pure poetry in the water. To aid with that, Berardi had his team study Olympians like Michael Phelps as a starting point. “Those guys are powerful and swim somewhat gracefully, but nothing as graceful as what Guillermo really wanted. So then we looked at dolphins, sea lions, otters and seals, and settled on this hybrid of a humanoid swimming, with a bit of a dolphin kick. Seals actually became a lot of inspiration as well, because they move slipstream through the water very gracefully.”

Junk in the trunk In one of The Shape of Water‘s standout sequences, Elisa and her lover act consummate their powerful attraction in a bathroom that she transforms into a makeshift water tank. It’s an erotically-charged moment and del Toro takes full advantage of his R-rating, allowing the two to see, and touch, each other’s naked bodies like any homosapien couple would. Boundary-pushing as this scene may be, it stops just short of the final frontier: merman genitalia. And that’s just fine for Berardi, who would have been responsible for helping imagine what the creature’s junk might look like. “Guillermo’s got too much taste for that,” Berardi remarks with a laugh, pointing out that Elisa and her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) instead discuss her lover’s size after their intimate encounter. “His inspiration for the movie was when he was six years old watching Creature from the Black Lagoon and hoping that the creature gets the girl.”

That’s a note that del Toro passed along to Hill as well. “This thing has to be attractive to a woman,” the creature designer remarks in the above clip. “My directive was that I wanted to make him handsome.” For his part, Jones clearly appreciated the matinee idol physique that Hill crafted for his aquatic alter ego. “My lips are a little fuller, there’s a strong jawline and the body they sculpted on me is very athletic. He’s handsome in a fish-like way.”

Hawkins and Jones in an embrace in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

The shape of (digital) water If the Fish-Man was a hybrid of practical and digital effects, the water he calls home is almost entirely digital with one notable exception — the aforementioned love scene in Elisa’s bathroom. “That’s the only scene where we had the actors in water, ever,” Berardi reveals. “We had a water tank that we built and submerged the bathroom set, with the actors, in the tank. It was done in such a safe way that they could just be hovering around the surface with footholds and handholds. They’d film for 20 or 30 seconds, and then come back up easily because the water level was just above their heads. Sally and Doug were both game.” Everywhere else, though, the H20 was all CGI, and even with all the advancements that have been made since The Perfect Storm — the movie that Berardi cites as a breakthrough for digital water effects — simulating water is still one of the most difficult jobs for an effects house.

Interestingly, the most challenging shot involved another tank of sorts, the iron lung capsule that serves as the creature’s prison as he’s transported from South America to the Baltimore research facility where the film’s events unfold. “There was no water in that capsule,” Berardi says. “It would have been way too unsafe to have Doug in there. But we had to see water sloshing around through the glass while the asset is in there. The creature also had to slam his hand on the glass, so his digital hand would have to come through the digital water and hit the glass. All of that is 3D and volumetrically rendered. That was the shot that kept me up at night.”

Richard Jenkins and Jones in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

Here kitty, kitty Cat fanciers will be happy to hear that no real felines were harmed in the making of The Shape of Water. The same can’t be said for the computer-generated cat that the creature chows down on while hiding out with Elisa and her friend, Giles (Richard Jenkins). And the Fish-Man is a messy eater, too, getting blood all over the floor and himself. That may sound like a big turnoff, but del Toro felt it was crucial to showcase his hero in his less glamorous moments. “Guillermo didn’t want to make a traditional Beauty and the Beast-type story where the beast can’t really be himself. He’s eloquent, strong and heroic, yes, but he also needs protein!”

For the first part of the scene, Jones worked with an on-set cat wrangler to provoke a flesh-and-blood feline into a hissing fit. When the time came for the creature to open the cat’s head like a Pez dispenser, Berardi’s team took over. “We put a green sock puppet in Doug’s hands, replaced that with a digital cat and then severed the head. We went through about 25 iterations about what the cross section of the neck needed to look like, and showed Guillermo the grossest ones we could devise — anatomically correct with the spinal cord, nerve endings and all that stuff. We totally went there with it. That was also a moment where we took over Doug’s head and did it digitally: we fluttered the gills and had water spray off of them. That was probably one of the most fun things for us to animate.”

The Shape of Water is currently playing in theaters and available on digital services. The film arrives on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 13.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

How ‘Wonder’ completely transformed kid star Jacob Tremblay… and earned an Oscar nod

‘Wonder Woman’ wasn’t alone: 15 great movies dissed by 2018 Oscars

Charlize Theron addresses calls to play first female 007

DealBook: Money, Morality and a Challenge to Silicon Valley

Good morning. On our radar: L Brands is said to be close to a deal to sell control of Victoria’s Secret to the investment firm Sycamore Partners. (Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

‘Where is my money coming from?’

Silicon Valley is abuzz over a series of tweets from Chamath Palihapitiya, the venture capitalist and provocateur, suggesting that investment firms and start-ups should look more closely at who’s giving them money.• Referring to investment firms’ limited partners, or investors, he tweeted: “What if the LPs money was stolen by an autocratic leader? What if their family made guns or alcohol or tobacco? What if they believe in Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice or No-Guns vs Ok-Guns?”• “The best GPs should know that they can pick their Capital partner and I would encourage them to ask tougher questions of their LPs.”• “Why make the Harvard endowment any more money? What systemic bias do you perpetuate?”Mr. Palihapitiya’s tweets were inspired by a WSJ investigation into how the Mormon Church secretly built a $100 billion investment portfolio. (He added on Twitter that he has “ZERO” issues with the church.)Andrew’s take:• This conversation started over a year ago around Saudi Arabia’s investments in Uber and SoftBank’s Vision Fund, after the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in a Saudi consulate.• But the decibel level is getting louder, and such questions may become a larger part of big investors’ decisions.A programming note: Marcelo Claure, SoftBank’s C.O.O. and WeWork’s chairman, will talk with Andrew on “Squawk Box” at 8 a.m. It will be Mr. Claure’s first interview since WeWork named a new C.E.O. — and comes amid reports of trouble for SoftBank’s next Vision Fund.____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York and Michael J. de la Merced in London.____________________________

Globalization, not streaming, won the Oscars

Netflix might have hoped that this year’s Academy Awards would be its breakthrough. It came away disappointed.• Netflix was up for 24 awards last night, but won two: best supporting actress for Laura Dern in “Marriage Story” and best documentary for “American Factory.”• And it had spent an estimated $70 million selling Oscar voters on its nominees, which included “Marriage Story” and “The Irishman.”• The big winner instead was the South Korean satire “Parasite,” which became the first non-English-language movie to win best picture.Victory for “Parasite” was “a defining moment,” writes Kelly Gilblom of Bloomberg, “in the globalization of Hollywood, which had previously favored homegrown films over foreign-language fare.”But don’t feel too bad for Netflix. As Ryan Faughnder of the LA Times notes, the streaming giant plans to spend $17.3 billion on content this year. And all those nominations had already burnished its street cred. So what’s an extra $70 million?More: Jeff Bezos came in for some ribbing by Chris Rock: “Jeff is so rich, he got divorced and he’s still the richest man in the world. He saw ‘Marriage Story’ and thought it was a comedy.”

Looks like the White House isn’t buying Bill Barr’s Huawei plan

The attorney general made waves last week when he suggested that the U.S. back takeovers of Nokia or Ericsson, Huawei of China’s European rivals on 5G networking — or buy them outright. But his colleagues in the Trump administration don’t seem keen.• Larry Kudlow, the president’s chief economic adviser, said the U.S. “is not in the business of buying companies, whether they’re domestic or foreign,” according to David Shepardson of Reuters, though he added there was “nothing to prohibit” American tech companies from making the move.• And Vice President Mike Pence said the administration would follow a plan laid out by the Federal Communications Commission’s chairman to free up more 5G spectrum.Those comments probably dampened investors’ hopes for a takeover or two. Shares in both Nokia and Ericsson jumped on Friday — but were down in trading this morning.

Goldman’s goal of being the next Blackstone takes a hit

Goldman Sachs has made it very clear that it wants to be known for more than investment banking and trading. But some impending departures may set back its private equity ambitions.• Sumit Rajpal and Andrew Wolff, two of the three heads of a big private investing unit, are retiring, Dakin Campbell of Business Insider reports. The division will now be run by the remaining head, Julian Salisbury.• Mr. Rajpal and Mr. Wolff were expected to lead Goldman’s latest private equity fund, which was scheduled to begin formal fund-raising this week with a target of $8 billion.Goldman’s C.E.O., David Solomon, was warned this might happen when he decided to combine several investment teams into one division, Mr. Campbell reports.• Rich Friedman, the chairman of the private-investing unit, had “resisted the plan from the start.”Why it matters: Goldman has hoped to raise $100 billion more in private equity assets over the next five years, Liz Hoffman of the WSJ points out, challenging the likes of Blackstone and KKR. Infighting probably won’t help.

The news Silicon Valley will pay for

The Information, which Jessica Lessin founded in 2013 to dive deep into tech news, costs $399 a year. But the tech elite doesn’t seem to mind ponying up, another sign that subscriptions can sustain a healthy news outlet, Ed Lee of the NYT writes.• “She pays competitive salaries (albeit without equity) — as much as $180,000 or more for some top reporters,” Mr. Lee writes.• The site has regularly broken big stories, like sexual harassment allegations against a venture capital mogul and management problems at Google’s Nest division.• Subscribers include James Murdoch and Laurene Powell Jobs.What Ms. Lessin doesn’t do is take advertising or venture capital, though she started The Information with “less than $1 million” of her share of her family’s fortune. (She and her husband, Sam Lessin, are the children of wealthy investors.)But she still has hurdles to clear. She might have to hit 40,000 paying readers by this year to meet sales objectives — when she only passed 20,000 around the middle of last year, Mr. Lee reports.

That time when Gates beat Nadal

Of course, it didn’t hurt Bill Gates to have Roger Federer as his doubles partner. And the match was for charity.That said, Mr. Gates “played one pinpoint lob volley that the announcer described as ‘the billionaire’s touch,’” according to the AP.

The speed read

Deals• Alibaba and other Chinese investors are pulling back from Silicon Valley. (FT)• Henry Ellenbogen, the former star start-up investor at T. Rowe Price, has raised about $6 billion for his new investment fund. (FT)Politics and policy• President Trump is set to unveil his budget proposal today, which cuts $4.4 trillion in spending, but keeps a federal deficit until 2035. (NYT)• The economy is exactly where Mr. Trump wants it. (Upshot)• Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to the economist “Milton Keynes” over the weekend, merging two wildly different men into one English town. (Daily Mail)Tech• Ransomware attacks are increasingly crippling cities and businesses. (NYT)• A deep dive into QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, and its consequences. (NYT)• Employees at SoftBank’s Vision Fund reportedly often feel pressure to do deals, even ones they think ill-advised. (Information)Best of the rest• Real estate industry groups are challenging New York’s ban on rental broker fees. (NYT)• Doug Hodge, the former Pimco C.E.O. given nine months in prison for his part in the college admissions scandal, writes, “I should have listened to my conscience.” (WSJ Opinion)• The first speaking engagement for Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, since stepping back from British royal family duties? A JPMorgan Chase investment conference in Miami. (Page Six)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Read the full article

WEEKLY REPORT: US Permanent Coup /// Mifsud's Blackberries /// The Event

Published Date: October 21, 2019

WEEKLY REPORT

TRUTH///AWAKENING///DISCLOSURE

US PERMANENT COUP, MIFSUD'S BLACKBERRIES, THE EVENT, COMPRESSION BREAKTHROUGH

Turkey / Syria Cease-Fire, Hong Kong Protest Escalate, New Brexit Deal, New Interstellar Comet, CIA Operation Mockingbird, 5G Radiation Alarms, SpyMaster Fiona Hill, Navy Seals Free 2,100 Children, New US Crop Failures The US In a Permanent Coup “The World Turned Upside Down” whose lyrics include the phrase “If ponies rode men and grass ate the cows...Just what tune was in the air when The World Turned Upside Down?”—an ancient ballad that echoed with full and terrible force into our modern-day world a fortnight ago when a likewise ragtag Yemeni army obliterated the bulk of the Western armed Saudi Arabian army killing and capturing over 2,500 Saudis soldiers—the stunning repercussions of which saw the Americans rushing troops to Saudi Arabia to save it from collapsing, the first of which they had to rapidly deploy from Syria— Obama is the first President in modern history not to have built a Presidential Library to memorialize his time in office—and who is facing likely criminal charges for directing the coup plot against President Donald Trump.

According to this report, the most lucid and frightening document describing the current events now occurring in America has recently been released by Matt Taibbi—the award-winning international journalist for Rolling Stone Magazine whose grimly worded article titled “We're In A Permanent Coup” warns that Americans might soon wish they just waited to vote their way out of the Trump era—and from his first-hand historical knowledge writes: I’ve lived through a few coups. They’re insane, random, and terrifying, like watching sports, except your political future depends on the score. The kickoff begins when a key official decides to buck the executive. From that moment, the government becomes a high-speed head-counting exercise. Who’s got the power plant, the airport, the police in the capital? How many department chiefs are answering their phones? Who’s writing tonight’s newscast? We have long been spared this madness in America. Our head-counting ceremony was Election Day. We did it once every four years. That’s all over, in the Trump era.

Further worth contemplating for its strategic value and understanding, this report continues, is Taibbi’s critical analysis of this “Permanent Coup”—the most noticeable and important points of which are: The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped. The agencies’ new trick is inserting themselves into domestic politics using leaks and media pressure. The “intel chiefs” meeting was just the first in a series of similar stories, many following the pattern in which a document was created, passed from department to department, and leaked. A shocking number of these voices were former intelligence officers who joined Clapper in becoming paid news contributors. Op-ed pages and news networks are packed now with ex-spooks editorializing about stories in which they had personal involvement: Michael Morell, Michael Hayden, Asha Rangappa, and Andrew McCabe among many others, including especially all four of the original “intel chiefs”: Clapper, Rogers, Comey, and MSNBC headliner John Brennan. Russiagate birthed a whole brand of politics, a government-in-exile, which prosecuted its case against Trump via a constant stream of “approved” leaks, partisans in congress, and an increasingly unified and thematically consistent set of commercial news outlets. Imagine if a similar situation had taken place in January of 2009, involving president-elect Barack Obama. Picture a meeting between Obama and the heads of the CIA, NSA, and FBI, along with the DIA, in which the newly-elected president is presented with a report compiled by, say, Judicial Watch, accusing him of links to al-Qaeda. Imagine further that they tell Obama they are presenting him with this information to make him aware of a blackmail threat, and to reassure him they won’t give news agencies a “hook” to publish the news. Now imagine if that news came out on Fox days later. Imagine further that within a year, one of the four officials became a paid Fox contributor. Democrats would lose their minds in this set of circumstances. The country mostly did not lose its mind, however, because the episode did not involve a traditionally presidential figure like Obama, nor was it understood to have been directed at the institution of “the White House” in the abstract. Trump, at least insofar as we know, has not used section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor political rivals. He hasn’t deployed human counterintelligence “informants” to follow the likes of Hunter Biden. He hasn’t maneuvered to secure Special Counsel probes of Democrats. I don’t believe most Americans have thought through what a successful campaign to oust Donald Trump would look like. Most casual news consumers can only think of it in terms of Mike Pence becoming president. The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spook world brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation. CIA/FBI-backed impeachment could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Donald Trump thinks he’s going to be jailed upon leaving office, he’ll sooner or later figure out that his only real move is to start acting like the “dictator” MSNBC and CNN keep insisting he is. Why give up the White House and wait to be arrested, when he still has theoretical authority to send Special Forces troops rappelling through the windows of every last Russiagate/Ukrainegate leaker? That would be the endgame in a third world country, and it’s where we’re headed unless someone calls off this craziness. Welcome to the Permanent Power Struggle. Mifsud's 2 Blackberries Confiscated by John Durham John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut tasked with investigating the origins of the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign, has obtained two cell phones belonging to Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud. Mifsud, who disappeared from public view shortly after his name was outed in the media in 2017, has been cited as having played a key role in events that led the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. The news of the cell phones was first made known on Oct. 15, 2019, filing by Sidney Powell, the attorney for Trump’s former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. In the motion, she requested that the U.S. Government be ordered to “produce evidence that has only recently come into its possession.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V5nirYajVk The evidence being requested were two Blackberry phones—including all data and metadata—that had been “used by Mr. Joseph Mifsud.” Powell noted that the information on the phones is “material, exculpatory, and relevant to the defense of Mr. Flynn” and claimed that “OCONUS LURES” and “agents of western intelligence” were tasked against Flynn “as early as 2014.” The term OCONUS lures, shorthand for spies “Outside the Continental United States,” was featured in a Dec. 28, 2015 text from FBI agent Peter Strzok, the lead FBI agent on the Trump investigation, to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, asking, “You get all our oconus lures approved?” Powell later disclosed to the Washington Times that it was Justice Department (DOJ) investigator John Durham who obtained the two phones. The phones could provide crucial pieces of evidence for Durham’s ongoing investigation. Mifsud was described in the final report by special counsel Robert Mueller as a “London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016.” However, there have long been questions about Mifsud’s ties to Western institutions, many of which are detailed in a May 3, 2019, letter from Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). “The Special Counsel’s report further omits any mention of a wide range of contacts Mifsud had with Western political institutions and individuals,” the letter reads. “Moreover, photographic evidence shows Mifsud has been in close proximity to influential Western political and governmental officials and organizations, and that such officials and organizations participate in Link Campus University events,” it continues. “If Mifsud has extensive, suspicious contacts among Russian officials as portrayed in the Special Counsel’s report, then an incredibly wide range of Western institutions and individuals may have been compromised by him, including our own State Department.” If Mifsud was indeed a Russian asset, it would be surprising for the DOJ to have been able to obtain his devices. An analysis of the full record of Mifsud’s ongoing texts and calls during the period when he met with Papadopoulos could provide evidence as to whom Mifsud was working with. If Durham successfully determines that Mifsud was not a Russian asset, as has been alleged, it would provide a major blow to the credibility of the launch of the FBI’s probe as well as the integrity of the Mueller Report. Durham’s acquisition of Mifsud’s phones also begs the question of how he was able to obtain them so quickly when the investigation led by Mueller failed to do so after more than two years of work and more than $30 million in costs. The “Event” is the Moment of the “Compression Breakthrough” on Earth

It is a cosmic EVENT HORIZON created by big solar waves reaching the Earth from the Galactic Central causing the activation of  “The Compression Breakthrough”, this is when the light forces from above the surface of the planet and from below the surface of the planet meet in the middle, that is on the surface of the planet. The date of this Event can not be predicted. There are many groups involved worldwide, and many pieces of information have to remain secret for now to guarantee the safety of the operations. All we can say is that we are getting close. This is why this information and support networks are being put in place so that the population can be prepared. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=PjEj8DdFQ1A It is the End of a Long Era of Captivity: Earth and the inhabitants have been in 25,000 years of imprisonment and quarantine (black hole). We have been controlled and manipulated by the dark side – or as we call them, The Cabal. We are now to exit the black hole after 25,000 years of prison. Our planet is the last one in the galaxy to be liberated. This exit is the EVENT HORIZON or THE EVENT.  THE EVENT will be a moment of breakthrough for the planet which will be physical and non-physical. On the non-physical plane:  there will be a “big wave or flash of Divine energy and light coming from the Galactic Central sun going towards the surface of the planet”. (A galactic central sun is an object in the Sagittarius constellation.) The energy from the Central Sun will stimulate a flash or special kind of light from the Sun that permeates the earth and humanity, raising the frequencies of all living entities on the planet. It will calm humanity in the light of love energy and end duality. It’s a magnificent energy not seen or felt before on earth. Everyone on earth will feel and know something has happened. It will be a surprise as to when it will happen, even for us. It’s never happened before. It will not be a major shock event, it will be a positive event. On the physical plane there will be: The arrest of the Deep State / Cabal (already started, Military Tribunals). The re-set of the Financial Systems. new Gold Back Currency / US Dollar Disclosure – FISA, Clinton Foundation, Obama Admin, the release of ET information. The beginning of a new, fair financial system with prosperity funds (120 trillion) for all humanity. NEW Government/Political system, Education system, Health care system, etc. Release of 6,000 DOD classified patented technologies. Awakening of humanity slowly and gradually to the existence of positive non-terrestrial races and our galactic connections. Introduction of new advanced alien technologies. The release of spiritual growth and healing for every human being on the planet. There is much, much more to look forward to.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           I hope that we all agree that there are certain factions that support the light and support the liberation that exists inside of the solar system.  There are some factions that support the light and the liberation of the planet that are existing below the surface.  They’re progressing towards the surface of the planet because the surface of the planet is the main battleground is the main focus of all this situation that is not just limited to the planet Earth.  When this breakthrough happens, this is what we term the Event. The Event is actually many things at the same moment.  It is when the light forces take over the mass media and release intel about ET involvement, about the crimes of the Cabal, about the advanced technologies, so FULL disclosure.  This is part of it. The other part of it is the mass arrest of the Cabal/Deep State.  The other part of it is Financial re-set that the Eastern alliance has been preparing for quite a long time. And of course, we have been gradually going towards the first contact which is actual official contact between the earth civilization and other positive ET races that exist throughout the galaxy.  And the Event is a trigger point that begins that process. That’s the short overview of what the Event is.  And of course, we have the pulse from the galactic central sun.  The galactic central sun is a living entity and it times the pulse of energy according to our global awareness and the level of that awareness and the level of the awakening.  And when we have this compression breakthrough the level of awakening is high enough for humanity to receive that pulse of increased energy from the galactic center This Week's Report At a Glance 8kun.net tests: Access Forbidden – Remote DDoS Mitigation by VanwaTech CDN. Ron Paul: Washington doesn’t understand that our intervention only makes matters worse. UK Prime Minister says a ‘Great New’ Brexit Deal is done. US may invite Putin to next year’s G7 Summit – Acting White House Chief of Staff. German arms sales to Turkey hit 14 years high before being slashed over Ankara’s Syria Op. Demonstrations are hotting up in Catalonia, fires in the streets of Barcelona, and more action on the way. EU, London reach Brexit deal. President of the Commission urged the EU leaders to endorse this agreement. Turkey to halt military operation against Kurds in northern Syria, a ceasefire will last for 120 hours. Media and politicians didn’t care about the chaos the US caused in Syria for years, but now that Trump can be blamed, they’re outraged. US jets bomb their own base in Syria as troops retreat. Facebook’s Zuckerberg in China as a defender of free speech. Southwest delays the return of its Boeing 737 MAX jets to February. US Military is unlikely to withdraw from Syria’s key oil fields. Chinese Government insisted NBA Commissioner fire Houston Rockets GM over a tweet supporting the protesters in Hong Kong. Slime Mould (Physarum polycephalum), a single-celled organism forming over tree chunk has no brain but is able to learn (…) and if you merge two, one transmits knowledge to the other. Notorious Portland Antifa activist dies under mysterious circumstances. Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov visiting our solar system is like nothing ever seen before. FBI abused NSA mass surveillance data in 2017/18. In 2017 FBI conducted over 3.1 million NSA database searches including activities of US citizens. South Korean national and 100s of others charged worldwide in the takedown of the largest darknet child pornography website, funded by Bitcoin. President Trump spent a good deal of time with the Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Airlines Split on how to inform customers once-troubled 737 jets return to skies. President Trump sent a letter to Turkish President warning Erdogan that he will destroy his economy if Turkey continues to bomb indiscriminately in the region. Amazon cloud computing arm is making an aggressive push into one of the most sensitive technology sectors: U.S. elections. Kim Jong-un is planning “a great operation to strike the world with wonder”, NK state media has said after he found inspiration during a horse ride to the top of the nation’s most sacred mountain. Democratic leaders walked out of a meeting with Trump on Syria also attended by top Republicans. Strongest EQ in Europe M2.9 Greece Strongest EQ in US M3.4 Northern California Strongest EQ on the Planet M6.4 Philippines Strongest EQ in Europe M3.9 Greece Strongest EQ in US M4.7 155km WNW of Port Orford, Oregon Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.5 Papua New Guinea Thank you to our readers and subscribers for your continued support.  If you would like to further help the Great Awakening Team and our efforts, you can donate, sign up for a paid subscription, or purchase something from the GAR shop. - The Great Awakening Team FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES DOCUMENTARY LIBRARY / 32 UNIQUE CATEGORIES / 300 DOCUMENTARIES Arts /// Photography /// Music /// Videos The Journey of Awakening The Great Awakening Map User Guide Menu User Guide /// Our Positive Outlook /// The Big Picture  /// Overview - Summary /// Topic Descriptions /// Great Awakening Map /// Deep State Map /// Programming /// Article Classification  

"Hot Topics"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY7B_THWsM8

Global Awakening

Impeachment Inquiry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bbNOL1_Ebg Global Trafficking & Corruption    Geopolitical The Deep State Map Global Weather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvqY2NcBWI8 Health Watch The Healing Web https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDg7tlEJD64

True History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWr2jnmSl4U

Cosmic Disclosure

Hidden Truths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9iQ4BWuRMA The Event  Spirituality  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtkej3FJhAQ Path of Awakening https://exploringyourmind.com/romantic-passion-and-creativity-related/ WATCH LIST October Global Crisis; the bankruptcy of Goldman Sachs/Deutsche's Bank, Global Debt Bubble Crash,  US Dollar Currency Gold Standard Reset, Partial Disclosure Fake Alien Invasion / Draco Reptilians, the introduction of AI Cryptocurrency controls. Impeachment Inquiry, US House of Representatives skips the Vote on procedural articles of Impeachment moving forward with an Inquiry only? The House Committee chairmen have changed the rules regarding whistleblower testimony to include "hearsay" and the exclusion/barring of any Republican Congressional questioning of all witness subpoena to testify before all committees regarding Presidential Impeachment Inquiries. Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler a stone-cold traitor guilty of spearheading a highly organized conspiracy to commit treason and overthrow the POTUS, Schiff is also guilty of lying testimony in front of Congress with regards to Trump's phone call with Ukraine's President and fomenting war with Russia based on a patently false pretext and bogus allegations.  The Mueller Report exposes Adam Schiff who "Knowingly" leaked and reported false information to the press. Global Trade Wars are a cover for neutralizing all tariffs in order to usher in new global currencies backed by gold. The Global Reserve Banking System will be dismantled and the SWIFT Global Trading platform will be replaced with GESARA. Internet and Social Media Alternative News Censorship lockdown continues across all platforms. Google, FB, and Twitter. Look for President Trump, the DOJ and 30 plus US State AG's to file class-action and anti-trust lawsuits in Federal Courts. New Earthquake swarms in northern CA increase predictions for the Cascadia Subduction Zone and New Madrid Fault Line.  New Government Reports on the increase in midwest earthquakes and oil fracking effects. A Russian scientist has issued a new prediction for the US to experience a 9.0 earthquake in 2019. UFO Disclosure is heating up, as daily sightings are being reported by US Navy and Airforce pilots. There is insider talk of a Fake Alien Invasion set for October? Timing is tied to change the MSM narrative upon negative breaking events; FISA Declass, Clinton Foundation, Comey IG Report, etc. Nick Pope reviews all the evidence. Antarctica continues to reveal anomalies and evidence of advanced civilizations. Disclosure of Pre-adamites going back 55,000 to 65,000 years ago. Testimony suggests well-preserved cities and advanced technologies. China Lake earthquakes to reveal the destruction of a large underground city. Run by the Deep State using the cover story of a secret Navy Weapons Military Base. New testimony will reveal a secret MK-Ultra mind-control training lab for 10s of 1,000s of kids held in cages. Facebook whistleblower blows the lid-off in a newly released Mark Zuckerberg Dossier.  Sighting abuse of the child prodigy using MK-Ultra techniques, and a controlled asset of Larry Summers President of Harvard, Financial Advisor to President Clinton, connected to DARPA and CIA programs.  Sheryl Sandberg assistant to Summers, COO of FB and Mark's direct handler inside FB. IG Report on James Comey,  Comey got a pass from AG Barr on leaking classified information to the press but will be indicted and prosecuted for multiple criminal violations dealing with his signing off on 4 FISA requests. This will begin the process of disclosing Spygate, and all its conspirators. The Structure Change / Alliance Exposure Mass Corruption Now Ready to be Revealed to the General Public, starting with economy crisis looming, closing the Federal Reserve/Central Banking  System, voter fraud in key Congressional & Senate seats, FBI & DOJ false Russian collusion, and the release of 300 pages of the Carter Page FISA redactions will lead to the much greater exposure of the Obama Administration's corruption, treason, and evil practices from the Deep State/Shadow Government. As of 4 Quarter 2019, the IG and DOJ Investigations have been completed by John Huber/IG/Horowitz/AG Barr on the Clinton Emails Scandal & Foundation Violations, FISA Abuse, and Spygate/Obama Administration Collusion. FISA Report Presidential Order to release 300 supplemental pages of redactions to AG Barr, said to be released in the Fall of 2019. Mass Arrests total 121,848 + Sealed Indictments, 35 US Judicial Districts (increases in indictments averaging 5,000 a month) Continued Mass Global Resignations 9,334; Government Senators & Congressmen, Fortune 500 CEO's, and Banking Execs. Global Peace Initiatives vs War Threats: North Korea, Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, Syria, and Israel/Saudi Arabia signs of the total collapse in Deep State controlling influence in 3rd world governments. Exposure & Defeat of The Deep State/Shadow Government/Cabal/Illuminati/Syndicate Global Deflationary Markets Crisis / Global Currency Reset/return to the Gold Backed Standard Currency / RV / Replacement of NESARA/GESARA for SWIFT Trading System / Global Debt Jubilee / Refund of 21 to 71 trillion in confiscated Deep State/Cabal funds Global Trade Agreements Naturalized tariffs with EU, Stalled Talks with China, Russian, Canada, and Mexico agree to neutralize all trade in a new agreement. Trade War with China exposing more than just Trade, global naturalized tariffs, Technology Thefts, Political Tampering with US Elections and US Congressmen and Senator's payoffs. Congress Approves Legislation to release sealed 911 documents, exposing the Deep State inside job. Remaining Sealed CIA Kennedy Assassination Papers to be released, along with 911 Saudi Arabia collusion docs & Pearl Harbor papers from WWII Rouge Planetary System moving through our Solar System, bringing CME's, Planet X Solar System, Nibiru, Meteorite Showers, EMP, Alien SpaceCraft Sighting,  Closings of Planetary Observatories, questions regarding New Mexico's Observatory Increasing Global Geophysical Volcanic & Earthquake Activity, Hawaii, Pacific Rim, Latin, and South American, Antarctica (Galactic Energy Waves increasing Sun's activity) Global Geomagnetic Storms increase in larger magnitude CME's from Sun (The 1000x Galactic Flash in the nearest star system Alpha Centauri was recorded by NASA) Global Weather: 2019 escalating Droughts, Hurricanes, Sahara Sand Storm, Heat Waves, Rising Oceans Levels, Flooding, Solar System Planetary Climate Change, Chemtrails / Terraforming, HAARP Weather Wars. Health & Wellness: Truth About Cancer, The Plant Paradox, Truth About Vaccines, Big Pharma Industrial Complex. Earth History: 3,000 Global Pyramids, the cover-up of Ancient Giant skeletons by the Smithsonian Institute, Ancient Civilizations Ruins discovered between 1,000 to 6,000 feet below Sea Level. Disclosure: Secret Space Programs, 10 Programs, DOD $6.5 - $21 trillion missing. Partial vs Full Disclosure, Alliance agreement as to Solar Warden partial disclosure. Science/Technology: Department of Defense suppression of 6,000 patents, reversed technology, antigravity, warp drive, zero-point energy, cures for all diseases, age regression, replicators (all foods/clothing/metals, etc.) NASA: Plasma Energy Cloud, Energy Waves, Galactic Flash, 26,000 Year Grand Cycle The Path of Awakening: Global Mass Meditation, Jared Rand participant count now over 500,000 worldwide. 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Didn’t we do well?

What a summer it has been for cricket – from England winning the World Cup to Ben Stokes’s heroics at Headingley – and it has also been one to remember at the Meadow. The 1st XI enjoyed their most successful season since 2013, finishing in 3rd place in Division 1 of the Two Counties Championship and winning silverware as Suffolk’s leading club.

After several years of struggling near the foot of the table no one could have predicted how Ben Wallis’s team would perform, but two additions have made a huge difference. Our overseas player Kudzai Maunze has been a dream. He  scored over 1,200 runs, including seven centuries, and took 38 wickets. After a slow start he found his form, ironically, after breaking a finger, and since July has been almost unstoppable, reeling off ton after ton. When he only got 50 against Ipswich the shock was palpable. He has made a great impact with his coaching too - and as everyone could judge at our end of season bash, he’s got some moves! We have already signed him for 2020.

On his return to the club Dom Manthorpe has also been exceptional, making 700 runs and taking 37 wickets with both spin and seam bowling – sometimes in the same spell or even over!

Mind the windows Archie!

The 2nd team also joined in the fun, finishing in 6th place in Division 5. They have also endured some lean seasons but from almost the very first ball at Maldon in April this was to be a different story. Three wins at the start were followed by five out of six at the end, including a thrilling 1-run victory over Harwich in August. 14-year old Isaac Toombs has batted superbly all summer, scoring 500 runs at an average of 35. Elder statesmen Simon Gladwell (26 wickets) and Bloss Tampion (29 wickets) have once again carried the burden of the bowling, but they are looking at the progress of Oliver Clark with interest, with the hope of a little less work to do!

Archie Wilkinson had a few games at the back end and upstaged everyone. 90 at Ipswich was just for starters, as in the final game at Earl Stonham he produced a phenomenal innings of 181. He hit 14 sixes, almost hit his own car, did smash the windscreen of someone else’s car, and was only out going for six sixes in one over. This was the 3rd highest individual innings by a Hadleigh player of all time, and the 7th best in the entire kingdom on that day!

 We also reached the finals of both T20 competitions. Our Under-19s were beaten by 44 runs by Woolpit in the final played at Hadleigh, and the boys will rue the 50 extras they gave away in Woolpit’s huge total of 194. The seniors beat Woodbridge in their Plate semi-final but Haverhill were too strong for them in the final. But both teams can be proud of how they have performed. Considering there were lengthy debates about whether we would be able to run either side, let alone both, they are great examples of what we can achieve when we put our mind to it.

The Ladies had something of a stop start season and didn’t win as many games as they would have liked, but were not always able to call on their strongest players. Nia Evans had a breakthrough season with the bat, scoring 152 runs, only being dismissed twice and finishing with a Smith-like average of 76.

Here are our 2019 award winners, in all their glory (nice shirt Simon).

From left to right (top): Dom Manthorpe, Isaac Toombs, Oliver Clark, Nia Evans, Simon Gladwell, Matt Kent.

Off the field we finally completed the pavilion project, replacing the 55-year old windows and doors, built a new paved area for players to sit (which, remarkably, they did!), and the bar, taking inspiration from the Secretary’s batting and fielding, went contactless. We held many fun events including Cocktail, Karaoke and Race nights, and had many an enjoyable evening watching sporting spectacles unfold on the new big screen.

Much of the latter would not have been possible without the herculean efforts of our social chairman Martin Grayling. He didn’t stop working all summer, from social media content that would grace most digital agencies, to photography sessions and event management, which culminated in a fabulous end of season party under a marquee at the Meadow at which former England star Allan Lamb was the star guest. Martin deservedly won the Wilson Cup and for once was in front of his own camera!

The biggest ovation of the night was reserved for a true HCC legend, Roy Plumbly, who was presented, much to his surprise, with the club’s first Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Kingsley Healthcare. We’ll let the Facebook post we shared speak for itself. It’s not only at this club that “Mr P” is so beloved.   

It's been a fantastic season, one of the best. Let's do it all again next year!

Eduardo Camavinga: Europe’s next generation of star footballers shine

But despite their inevitable departure appearing on the horizon, the sport looks to be in safe hands as several of the world’s most promising stars shone for their teams across Europe’s top leagues this weekend.

Some of the best performances came from Joao Felix, Kai Havertz and precocious 16-year-old talent Eduardo Camavinga.

Angolan teenager Camavinga — appearing in only his 10th senior game for Ligue 1 side Rennes — played a starring role in the victory over powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain, assisting for Romain Del Castillo to head home to winner.

After a few breakthrough games last season, his performances this term have really started to turn heads as Rennes narrowly lost to PSG in the Champions’ Trophy and opened its Ligue 1 campaign with back-to-back wins.

Camavinga was born in Angola and moved to France at the age of two, reports L’Equipe. He was spotted by Rennes playing football in Fougères, 50 kilometers from the city, at the age of 13.

READ: Liverpool holds on for win against Southampton despite Adrian howler

READ: Without Lionel Messi, Barcelona stunned by Athletic Bilbao in La Liga opener

He signed his first professional contract with Rennes in December and, in an attempt to tie down his future at the club a little longer, signed an extension this week until 2022.

Though a native of Angola, L’Equipe say Camavinga is in the process of becoming a French citizen with a view to playing for the national team.

Before Sunday’s win over PSG, Rennes manager Julien Stéphan warned of the exposure — and subsequent necessary protection — Camavinga will need.

“Exposed, because if he repeats the kind of performance that he achieved against Montpellier (1-0 on the opening day), he has chances to take a greater place in the team,” Stephan explained.

“But also protected, because he is not yet seventeen years old, he is still building himself on a muscular level and he has not experienced a Ligue 1 sequence of matches with the intensity it requires yet.”

Camavinga was on the receiving end of several cynical fouls from frustrated PSG players — many of who cost tens of million of dollars — who rarely got anywhere near the ball when it was at his feet.

He may be tall for a 16-year-old — standing at six foot — but Camavinga’s frame is slight, though it’s not a part of the game his boss worries about.

“He’s a very well-built person,” Stephan said after the physical match. “Who knows how to question himself, who knows how to do the right thing.

“He has a very interesting game, I’m going to have to deal with it. I will talk to him so that he can grow up in conditions of serenity.”

Felix’s flair

In Spain, Felix showed no signs of being weighed down by his hefty $142 million price tag as his dancing feet ran Getafe’s defense ragged.

Diego Simeone made the teenager the fifth most expensive player of all time in the summer but so far the Benfica academy product looks worth every penny.

After receiving man of the match recognition in the 7-3 pre-season demolition of city rival Real Madrid, Felix began his La Liga career with a performance that showcased his immense talent.

Atleti’s new signing Kieran Trippier crossed for Alvaro Morata to head home the opening goal, before Felix’s trickery — a run which started with a nutmeg inside his own half — won a penalty in the second period.

Morata failed to convert but Atletico held on for victory at the first attempt in the post-Antoine Griezmann era.

Kai shines for Bayer

Bayer Leverkusen star Kai Havertz is by now accustomed to breaking records.

In 2016 he became the youngest debutant in Bundesliga history; in 2018 he became the youngest player to make 50 Bundesliga appearances; and last season he hit 17 goals to become the highest scoring teenager in a Bundesliga season.

After narrowly missing out on the German player of the year award to Marco Reus, reports suggested several of Europe’s major clubs would try and prize Bayer’s star possession away.

But the 20-year-old remains at the club and scored a delightful chip in Saturday’s opening-day 3-2 victory over Paderborn, becoming the second youngest player in history to reach 25 Bundesliga goals.

Big things are predicted of the youngster this season, who seems more than likely to eclipse his performances from last season.

Timeless talent

Though this article may be about the stars of the future, a word has to go to 38-year-old Aritz Aduriz — the veteran striker who continues to defy Father Time.

Playing in his final season of professional football, he came off the bench with two minutes remaining in the opening game of the La Liga season.

But two minutes were all he needed, scoring a stunning bicycle kick to inflict an opening-day defeat on Barcelona.

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15 Years Ago, Daddy Yankees Barrio Fino Set The Template For Reggaetons Big Rise

By Lucas Villa

When Puerto Rican reggaetonero Daddy Yankee hopped on Luis Fonsi’s 2017-conquering hit “Despacito,” the pair kicked off a historic run. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a record-tying 16 weeks (with some help from Justin Bieber) and is often credited for sparking the Latin-music explosion in pop that continues to thrive today thanks to vibrant artists like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and more. But “Despacito” was hardly the beginning for Daddy Yankee, who laid the groundwork for the genre’s big breakthrough 15 years ago with the release of his album Barrio Fino in July 2004. Superstars in his wake like Ozuna, Maluma, Bunny, and Balvin were able to rise up after Barrio Fino‘s biggest hit “Gasolina” (which charted at No. 32) warmed up the world to reggaeton music. “Gasolina” wasn’t just the fuel; the song also lit the fuse for the larger música urbana movement that’s still blazing brightly.

Daddy Yankee, born Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, spent the ’90s and early 2000s getting his name out in the Latin-music industry alongside fellow Puerto Rican rappers like Tego Calderón, Don Omar, and Ivy Queen, now known as the queen of reggaeton. He released his first album, No Mercy, in 1995, and grew his audience with subsequent releases like his El Cartel compilations and 2002’s El Cangri.com. Reggaeton connected at home in Puerto Rico and later with Latinx audiences in the U.S., but the rest of the world took notice when Daddy Yankee dropped his third album, Barrio Fino, in 2004. Loaded onto the record are hits built for perreo, a dance with Puerto Rican origins that involves lots of grinding, like “Lo Que Pasó, Pasó,” “No Me Dejes Solo,” and the Glory-featuring “Gasolina,” which became ubiquitous.

“Gasolina,” Spanish for gasoline, became a worldwide hit. The dembow-riding banger pulled off a rare feat for a fully Spanish-language song at the time by peaking at No. 32 on Billboard‘s all-genre Hot 100 chart and at No. 5 on the U.K. singles chart. The music video features Daddy Yankee at a drag-race track, and little did the OG reggaetonero know that he would be behind the wheel of his genre’s international victory lap. As Salute magazine noted last year, the lyrics in “Gasolina” were simple and repetitive, but made it something that people could connect with whether or not they knew Spanish. “I think the song was so popular because there was a lot of different meanings for the song,” Daddy Yankee told Rolling Stone. Naturally, its rhythms also helped this dance song become a universal club staple.

Colombian superstar Shakira, who was previously known for her more rock-leaning releases in Spanish, changed lanes in 2005 for the Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 album and with the reggaeton-influenced “La Tortura,” featuring Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz. “La Tortura” climbed to an impressive No. 23 on the Hot 100 chart while “Gasolina” was making similar moves. To highlight the undeniable popularity of reggaeton, the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards invited Shakira and Sanz to perform their hit live. That night, MTV also made history as Omar, Caulderón, and Daddy Yankee performed their biggest hits together, marking the first time that Spanish-language songs were performed at the VMAs.

KMazur/WireImage

As the 2000s gave way to the 2010s, Latin music on a global scale hit a valley as EDM and empowerment pop both reached their own stratospheric heights. But Daddy Yankee helped the genre reach a new peak in 2017 alongside fellow Puerto Rican singer Fonsi with the “Despacito” remix featuring Bieber that shattered more records for a mostly Spanish-language song. It became the first Latin song since Los Del Rio’s “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” in 1996 to top the Hot 100 chart. Since then, the new generation of reggaetoneros have landed more hits in Spanish — J Balvin’s “Mi Gente,” the “Te Boté” remix with Ozuna, and Maluma’s “Felices Los 4” all made appearances on the chart. As reggaeton music rides again, música urbana has become more of a force with other subgenres like Latin trap, and traperos like Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny and Anuel AA are scaling the same charts.

As one of the vanguards in reggaeton music, Daddy Yankee remains a power player in the genre. He recently outpaced the success of “Gasolina” with his latest hit, “Con Calma,” featuring Canadian rapper Snow and Katy Perry, which reached No. 22 on the Hot 100 chart. He’s still got that gasolina to get going and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

In February, Daddy Yankee performed his biggest hits with contemporaries like Puerto Rico’s De La Ghetto, Zion y Lennox, and Yandel alongside J Balvin and Ozuna at the Premios Lo Nuestro awards. The medley was an early celebration of Barrio Fino‘s 15th anniversary. After saluting Daddy Yankee and reggaeton’s beginnings on last year’s hit “Reggaeton,” for the grand finale, J Balvin performed “Gasolina” with his hero in one of the live tribute’s best moments.

Following the performance, J Balvin presented Daddy Yankee with the honorary La Trayectoria award and said to him in Spanish, “Without Daddy Yankee, there wouldn’t have been reggaeton in the world. J Balvin would not exist if it weren’t for Daddy Yankee.” Daddy Yankee then spoke about how far the genre has come since Barrio Fino‘s breakthrough: “Our genre has grown because there is a union. There is a brotherhood.”

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