damn my journal/diary entries are so fcking dramatic. like you could put this shit in a book or a movie level dramatic and it would make for a great scene. the writer brain is still active when u journal lol. i should transcribe some of the handwritten ones and scrape em for parts and pieces to use in my writing.

 Hey, all so I am on a bit of a David Tennant binge, and I think that as an actor and a role model for me, there are a lot worse people I can be looking up to, but seeing the conversation around him, it’s an interesting thing to see the conversation and to realize that we don’t know him. 

But this has article I found this when I couldn’t sleep and I now understand the assumptions about him as this article was a wild ride from start to finish we see that he is known as a very clean-cut, family guy, but we all know that wasn’t the case and that all of us have history’s with others and the one that got away and I have that and due to my disability I do have some other factors that I don’t have a significant other at the moment.

I also see that he has some amazing growth from Dr who to now and we would expect that of anyone, but GQ does its homework, and from watching his video diaries when he was filming Dr. Who, listening to the Confession podcast, and watching other interviews with him, and seeing Georga’s content with him we see that.   There are a couple of things that we see that he has admitted before he was married.

 He has Aspergers and I don’t know if this was a joke comment but with other comments, he has said it makes sense he would as he is honest to a fault has anxiety and struggles with imposter syndrome.

So, this is something that with the shoelaces incidents is a typical Aspergers/ ADHD due to sensory issues and we see that at comic cons and on camera he has talked about being over stimulated I know anyone can be over stimulated but the way he talks about it, it seems like he has had a diagnosis. When he received his honorary doctorate of Drama from his Drama college, we see that when they were reading out his academic achievements, they said that he was extremely above average academically and that they knew he was going to succeed in any chosen career.

We also see that he has a couple of hyper focuses this being Shakespeare and Dr. Who, we know that he has a passion for Shakespeare and that he is very passionate about it, we also see that he can cook and that they did show his flat in Cardiff that he rented out when he wasn’t filming Dr who.

But the one that stunned me and it does now make sense as Drama school would have taught him how to mask is that Billy Piper mentioned that he was well-known in the Cardiff gay scene,  I know that there are some people who has picked up clues but I didn’t know that Billy piper essentially has let the world know he is Bi sexual, not just a flamboyant gay man, and that he

[i]

I know that this seen isn’t really gatekept, and it is a very discreet place but it now makes sense to a few comments and behaviours that he has and one endearing one that makes him more relatable to me is, his being at parties and award show’s and putting his foot in it, this is something that I find I do as well it as he has admitted it is imposter syndrome due the anxiety he battles.

I am also seeing and we need to be aware we only see a curated version of him this is where Georga’s saying when he purchases new clothing or he parades them around so this is a kind of performance and I when my housemates do it after about 3 days it does get tiring, but we see that, he has a bit of an old school showman's ship flair and that can come across as flamboyant, and I see that straight men are now getting interested in fashion and during the lock down he did have the extensions from filming but then grew his hair I am sure he would have had access over zoom to hair styles but he has mentioned he does like the longer length.

Also, I do see that he has a non-binary child there are a lot of links with non-binary, [ii]people who often are autistic and we know that there is a possibility that in his private life, he keeps secret that he might use non-binary pro nouns but with what is happening in the USA and the UK about gender-affirming clinics, we see that there is a bit of backlash for adults who support their children, but I am sure that others in his life that he would have got advice and Georgia has mentioned that they are following conservative advice.

But I have left the links below and let’s remember that he is a human and has made his decisions and that most couples do go through some rough patches in life and it’s how they handle them but in being in the gay seen it seems to me that his wife was very aware of that and being married to an actor and keeping family life happen is something she needed to be very aware of, as when the children where very young he went from being everywhere on social media to not having it at all, we see that he does have a smart phone from him playing wordle and that you need that linked to Facebook but you need an account but don’t have to post and he has mentioned that he would be constantly chasing the dopamine high, and he mentions he often gets either into a state of hyper focus or where he can’t concentrate due to anxiety and being wound up.  

Also, him being so lanky yes, we know he keeps fit, but I do wonder if that is from taking medication for anxiety or stimulants for ADHD as we all have seen very ADHD traits and Aspergers/ Autism goes hand in glove with ADHD.

But putting this together and him playing gay and bi roles very well, yes, he is a trained actor but that’s a whole other blog post.

[i] https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/gq-tv-david-tennant-interview-doctor-who

[ii] Non-binary link to autism - Neuroscience News

The Venture Bros. #20: “Twenty Years to Midnight” | August 6, 2006 – 10:30PM | S02E05

In this episode: Brock stumbles on a box of old shit. Among the items is a video left behind of the senior Dr. Jonas Venture relaying a message to his son with instructions for assembling an important device. It will involve Team Venture going to several locations to secure various parts for this machine. Thank god it's not season one, because this'll require a lotta new backgrounds, baby!

I don't call this one a favorite, but I do think it's really good and has a lot of things going for it. The design of the episode is fairly elegant; it has the plot of a very solid sci-fi adventure film (quietly ignoring that the ending is basically a parody of Contact). The second act has a few strong funny scenes that barely have anything to do with the story. Jonas Jr. and the ghost Pirate from season one (whom we learn is now working for Jonas Jr.) visit a drug-addled Jonny Quest who is living in some kind of underwater pod. Hank and Dean visit Colonel Gentleman who is apparently passed away in his bed. They read his diary that's filled with nonsense.

I'm just observing where the episode COULD be stronger, which is not necessarily the same as complaining. Actually it's exactly the same as complaining. I just don't want to get yelled at. These scenes are funny but I always remembered them separate from this episode. This episode has a strong story and those scenes are fun detours, but it’d be nice if those characters had more bearing on the plot and not just there as a goofy obstacle. They're mostly just stuff happening, driven by the location of a macguffin. I actually found myself saying “oh! So THIS is the episode where this scene comes from!”.

I still consider these scenes a net positive for the episode. It's just imperfect in my eyes because this could be a very good standalone adventure and a gateway episode for new viewers, except for the fact that it does wind up being a bit of a previous-episode-reference fest. This episode directly references events from “Ghosts of the Sargasso” and the third act is a sequel to “Ice Station Impossible”. This could actually have the opposite effect; further intriguing people into visiting the backlog of the series. There WAS a season one DVD for sale.

Actually... now that you mention it: that might be what happened to ME. No shit! I actually remember sort-of half-watching this episode. I was a “person who did not watch Venture Bros.” mostly because of the bad pilot episode and the lukewarm first regular series episode. I did have a positive experience watching the first Burger King Have It Your Way marathon, which included a small handful of season one Venture Bros. episodes. I do credit that night for helping thaw the freeze-out I was perpetrating on my now-beloved brothers.

I remember half-watching this episode, and hearing Stephen Colbert's voice, and thinking “wow, Stephen Colbert is on this show sometimes? I should probably watch it?” (NOTE TO YOUNGER READERS: Before Stephen Colbert did limpdick lib comedy for CBS he was a highly-respected subversive comedy writer and performer that none of us knew was a Christian). Even though I remember having this thought about this episode, I still considered this the “try before you buy” phase.

Somebody else already made this point, which is why I'm tacking it onto the end of my write-up: The scene where Hank and Dean discover Colonel Gentleman dead (or is he?) and go through his stuff, they leaf through his journal and find a bunch of inane lists, like “TOYS HE WISHES HE HAD AS A KID”, “GOOD NAMES FOR AN IMAGINARY FRIEND” and “HOLLYWOOD ACTRESSES THAT COULD USE A GOOD PUNCH IN THE MOUTH”. The very smart point, which I nearly passed off as my own until I remembered somebody on twitter did already, is that this is basically what clickbait articles are now. That guy was ironically presaging the future of the internet. It somehow wasn't badly writing up cartoons for a tumblr blog that nobody reads.

Oh! Also: the Jonny Quest scene was maybe the last explicit reference to the Ventureverse and the Questiverse being one-and-the-same. They kept this character but only refered to him as “Action Jonny” after this, I’m pretty sure. Remember when I promised to watch every episode of Jonny Quest in preparation for this? Whatever happened to that idea? I wonder.

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Ed's Burger King "Have It Your Way" Lineup (August 5, 2006)

Speaking of the Burger King “Have It Your Way” marathon! This happened! It was all anime. The end! Nothing else to say! Bye bye Ed!

22 Things that I did at the age of 22!!!

Hey how are you???

I am going to tell you 22 things that I have done at the age of twenty two!!!

I worked with a mentee. I helped him to build his confidence, to use his AAC more. I really enjoyed it!!!

I made Sign of the week videos for my work so my work posted them on their Facebook @atmentors if you interested in watching them!!! I came up with the ideas and edited the videos.

I went to Blackpool which was fun. I went with Alex and my gran and papa.

I went to Turkey for the first time for a family holiday!!! I did one of the things on my bucket list which was to spend time with dolphins!!!

I went to Brendrigg with Alex and Cheryl which is a disability treatment facility where you can do all kinds of things like Crate Stack which I love!!! I went with people from Sign Out Loud.

I went to Manchester three times. The first time with Alex. I got to meet my work colleagues, explore Manchester and celebrated their 10 years anniversary!!! The second time with Cheryl, I went to dinner with some of the team, my work’s Christmas night out and a mentor day where I got to do a presentation on the service. The third time was just last week (30th of June until the 3rd of July) for my birthday with Cheryl and Alex. It was amazing as we got first class on the train, a singer sang happy birthday to me and I got my makeup done.

I went to a Mamma Mia Drag Show with Alex and it was so amazing and funny!!! I got pictures with the cast!!!

I went to Leeds twice. The first time was for Communication Matters conference with Cheryl and Natasha which was amazing. I got to meet new people, I got to do two presentations and I got to be on a interview with Cheryl about Cm focus group. The second time was for the cm awards. I got to meet new people, I went to the circus which was amazing!!! perform with Sign loud out and got to meet The Lost Voice Guy!!!

I went to two concerts. The first one was Florence and the Machine with my Mum, Cheryl and Natasha which was amazing!!! The second one was Disney On Ice with Natasha which was amazing. I love Disney!!!

I got my first tattoo. It’s Ariel from the Little Mermaid as it is one of my favourite movie.

I went to the dancing (club) in Manchester. It was great fun!!!

I joined a dance class for people in wheelchairs!!! It is great fun!!!

I completed a level five creative writing course.

I completed an assertive course.

I done lots of art.

I went to Cardiff with my Mum, Damian, Alex and Cheryl for pride which was amazing.

I reconnected with old friends.

I went to the shops myself so I am independent.

I found my own style.

I have new friends.

I have read/ listened 27 books!!!

The best thing that I did at 22 is that I completed my first ever novel and published on Wattpad!!! If you want to read it please check out the link!!!

healing my inner child.

as a kid, I loved doing just about anything as long as it wasn’t being dragged to the dentist or the doctor. I was such a creative child, constantly making videos or parodies with my friends. music videos, making up songs/lyrics, anything like that I loved. I loved being in the presence of my friends and my family members when they were around. walking to kylie’s house to play outside with the other kids on her street, playing cops and robbers on layla’s block, going to Rockies for the weekend and making stupid skits on my iPad. I loved going to the park with my mom or dad and swinging on the swings while talking. or hanging out in my grandma’s room when she lived with us at my house and playing on her iPod touch or her laptop. and don’t even get me started with reading her my diary of a wimpy kid books out loud before going to bed and her and I cracking up. I've always loved being in the presence of others that I loved. playing with toys, sitting in my living room playing guitar hero world tour with my mom on the drums and me on the guitar. I even remember when I was very little playing like I was an acrobat in a carnival and my dad and mom would throw and flip me around on our sectional couch and I'd land my stunts I'd do like I was a mini performer. I loved going down the street to Sweet Tooth in downtown highland to get blue moon ice cream with my dad. I loved going to Florida on vacation with my whole family and playing in the pool all weekend and playing mini golf at the resort. I loved visiting Canada and either swimming in the hotel pool or down the street at the community pool when I’d stay at my dad’s mother’s home. When I became older, but was still a child, I loved writing and reading and losing myself in pieces of art. I’d get lended books from Mr Gough and I’d read them front to back and would be so excited to share my thoughts and get new books to fly through. I loved escaping into music and daydreaming about all the concerts I’d attend one day. I even really liked music as a young child. I’ll never forget my cousin showing me YouTube when I was little and watching so many music videos and weird al parodies. I remember I had a little portable CD player with headphones and would bring them with me anytime I’d have to be in a car. I was in my grandpa’s pick up truck sitting in between him and my cousin, with my headphones in and my portable CD player in my lap. I was, apparently, singing out loud with no shame along to the songs that were playing into my ears. I believe they told me to stop... or they laughed at me. I can’t remember. I remember learning all the lyrics to On The Floor by Jennifer Lopez on YouTube and then gathering all my family around so I could perform and sing them the whole song. I really had no shame. I was just having fun. I loved writing make believe stories like I was an author and I remember even indulging into poetry in middle school (which I have grown to hate, a lot.) I loved doing just about anything.

From all these activities I loved doing as a child, I honestly love doing them all still to this day give or take the family members and friends who aren't in my life anymore. I think if I as a kid knew the people who aren’t in my life anymore, she’d be really sad. I came across a photo of me from a family vacation last night. It was dated December 24th, 2008. I was eight years old and I was happy and I was surrounded by family; My mom, dad, aunt, cousin, grandma and grandpa. If eight year old Camryn knew that majority of those people were strangers to her now, I don’t even want to know what she would think. I probably would’ve acted un-phased because, well, that’s what I ended up doing once each person left my life one by one. I acted like I could care less. But growing up, that was far from the truth. If eight year old Camryn knew her whole life was going to flip upside down just a year after that vacation, she would be semi shocked. Her dad has left before, but he always ended up coming back home. But if she knew that last time he left that he’d never be back, I wonder if things would’ve happened differently between my dad and I’s relationship. If eight year old Camryn knew she was going to go from being “daddy’s girl” to only having her mom in the picture as her caretaker, she’d probably feel weird... It’s sad because before the age of eight, I have no core memories with my mom. I really was conjoined at the hip with my dad. If eight year old Camryn knew that nineteen year old Camryn wasn’t even going to be slightly phased by the death of her grandpa, she would’ve been disgusted. it was sad having to see my mom go through those emotions, but I had none. at the end of the day, we weren’t close and I never got to know him once I grew older. that’s not my fault, but eight year old Camryn would never be able to understand. If twelve year old Camryn knew she would go back and forth with being friends with Layla, she wouldn’t believe it. She probably wouldn’t even imagine the hurtful things we have said to each other now. If fourteen year old Camryn knew she was going to end up going to college for writing, she’d be so proud.  But she’d be confused as to why I don’t write or read as much anymore. What fourteen year old Camryn doesn’t know is that my brain is fried out now. That creativity I once had has unfortunately escaped my body. But it’s okay, she is on the journey to getting it back. If seventeen year old Camryn knew that reaching out to her grandma would result how it did, holy fuck she would be destroyed. Me and my grandma were always so close and she was always my favorite family member. If she knew how badly that relationship wasn’t there anymore once she was back in her life later on, she’d probably never would've  reached out to her in the first place that one night. And that’s really sad. One thing that eight year old Camryn would be happy to know if that she still has an amazing friend group that is there for her always. So at least that hasn’t changed.

If I could say anything to my thirteen year old self, I’d tell her it’s okay to let people into your life. You’ll learn life lessons through everyone you let in and it even allows you to learn more about yourself, which is necessary. When I was younger, I was so avoidant to meeting new people and hanging around new people. I really only talked to those I was already close with and others I did not trust for a second. I grew out of that by the time I was in high school thankfully. But I’ll never forget when I was thirteen, I would say I was never going to get married or have children. I just wanted to be an independent woman and support myself and not have to rely on a single soul for comfort. My thoughts on that have changed, maybe not fully, but I’m still growing. But it’s definite that thirteen year old Camryn was just scared to let anyone in. What was the point of letting people come close to you and depend on them for anything if they were just bound to leave? Honestly, I don’t blame her for thinking that way and I almost even salute her for being grown enough at such a young age to think that way. Although it’s sad because there were under lying issues as to why I felt that way, it’s nice to know that at a young age I didn’t need to rely on others for myself. But I’ve learned, even though there are inevitable bad parts of letting others close to you, there are endless great parts about forming relationships with others. No matter how long those relationships last. 

If I could travel back in time, into my childhood, I honestly wouldn’t change anything. I always go back and forth with this idea but I think I always end up coming to the conclusion that everything happens for a reason and I wouldn’t change anything that I have ever done in my life. Without doing everything I’ve done in my past, and going through events I’ve had to go through, I wouldn’t be who I am today. my father leaving was inevitable, but if I had any power to stop that from happening, I honestly don’t think I would. if he never left, I strongly believe I would've turned out to be such a brat. I would've continued to get spoiled and I would probably turn out like the type of people I hate now. and that makes me cringe. if he never left, I wonder what type of relationship I would've ended up having with my mother. I was not close with my mom whatsoever when I was growing up at a young age. I remember when my dad left, I felt like I was living with a stranger. now I cannot imagine if me and my mom weren't as close as we are to this day, and I still sometimes think that me and her could be even more close than we even are to this day. still to this day, our relationship is growing and trying to find a happy place where we don't hurt each other as much. but I wouldn't want to have it any other way than that. if he was still in the picture, she could still be considered this “stranger” in my head, and that’s a crazy thought to even process. if I could go back in time and keep in touch with my grandma whenever she distanced herself from my mom, resulting in her distancing herself from me as well, I probably wouldn’t have kept in touch. when I was little, I didn't understand my mom and grandma’s relationship with each other. I didn't understand why they fought all the time and why my grandma disliked my mom so much. and honestly, until I was older, I always believed it was my mother’s fault. once I became older and learned the lore behind all of that drama, I always had my mother’s back. and I would never beat myself up for not reaching out. I was a child. fuck, even if I could travel back to my first love interests, I wouldn't do anything differently. I learned valuable lessons about others and myself that I would never trade for anything. all these events have made me the person I am today and I am okay with who that person is today. 

starting today, I need to realize that everything that happened that damaged my inner child was out of my control. I think I put this emphasis on my younger self that I could’ve made everything turn out differently, but I really couldn't. I wasn’t an adult, I was a child. and no child deserves to have to grow up and be the adult in a world full with adults. I beat up my child self for not reaching out, not answering my dad’s phone calls, for not trying harder to maintain these relationships that I lost throughout life. but that wasn’t my job to do. I was a child. I grew up too fast which makes me view my child self as an adult. but no matter how grown and mature I felt, I wasn't an adult. I was a child who spent her youth watching the relationships of adults crash right in front of her and thinking she was a reason for it. and she wasn’t. and she didn’t deserve to ever feel that way, ever. you can’t expect a child to end an already broken family that was broken long before she was around. and I think I need to finally come to an end with those thoughts. it’s not fair for eight year old Camryn and she deserved ten more years of feeling how she felt when she was eight and not feeling like she did when she was nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and so on. child Camryn did nothing wrong and I wish I could go back and tell her that. but starting today, she knows and she will continue to grow, learn, and prosper. 

Start

So I've been thinking about starting a diary for quite a while. Just letting out my thoughts to people who have no idea who I am as a way to vent or share things that happen in my life so why don't we just start with this?

All you gotta know for now about me is that I'm a trans woman living socially as a man at this moment and I'm a chef. Let's start with today.

I work my shift from 12 pm to 9:30 pm 5 days a week. Today was just a usual day in the Kitchen. I wake up around 40 minutes before my shift starts, I shower, smoke a cigarette and pack my chefs jacket and pants. They're still wet because I only hung them up at like 4 am but that's usually not too bad.

The day goes by pretty fast, had a lot to do during dinner service while we weren't a lot of us in the kitchen, as usual we get through it and I jump from my station to doing pass and help everyone clean their station since I'm usually the first one done. Being on starters. The sous-chef has to do some last minute orders for the next day and the old lady on sides is still doing her station, since I wanna get out fast I'm cleaning the floor and saucier by myself. The sous-chef thanks me for it and I'm just left confused, I'm still new here amd helping your co workers so I can get home faster is just what I do...i guess, never struck me as something worthy of praise. Maybe I can just not deal with praise very well, I usually deflect or just try to move on from it. Even caught myself just walking away like I had to do something really important. I like when people praise my cooking and I like to show it off but at the end of the day I don't think I'm doing anything groundbreaking. Anyways I get to leave on time because of my excellent and outstanding performance and grab some energy drinks and tobacco on the way home. When I get home none of my friends are online, it's been like that for a couple of days. Everyone just doing their own thing,we used to hang out every night, or rather afternoon for them since my main friend group lives in America so I'm a bit ahead in time. Pony was the first one who started showing up less and less, then it was A. Fairy and Bunny hop and Aram used to still hang out quite a lot but it's becoming more rare it feels like. Fairy gotta deal with her move and a shitty job, I wanna ask her to hang out but I feel like she wants to be left alone for now,do her own thing, watch her shows and play Minecraft. Bunny hop has been super tired after work so she usually takes a nap after work but it's not just that I got the feeling somethings bothering her. Aram mostly is just there when Bunny Hop is there since they live together and they're engaged. I can't help but to think us hanging out less is my fault, like maybe they're getting sick of me or I did something to piss them off or I'm not active about asking to hang out. My mom always taught me that if something wrong or feels wrong that it's probably my fault.

So I just spend my after work hours watching the new Cyberpunk anime and play some video games. I find myself listening to the outro a lot "Let you down" wonderful somber song. Now I'm just laying here and writing this, it's almost 4 am so it's time for me to sleep so I can actually crawl out of bed this morning.

Goodnight and thank you for reading.

"Hold on to your wishes

If you can't hold on to me"

More k-dramas y'all should watch

So, at the end of 2017, I created a post going through my favourite dramas of all time. Obviously, I have watched more dramas since then so I have a few more dramas that everyone needs to watch!!

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon

This is an obvious one, so if you haven't watched it, have you been living under a rock?? When I first heard of it just before it came out, I thought it was going to be a rip off of weightlifting fairy Kim bok joo. But boy, was I wrong!! This drama has the perfect amount of romance, comedy, thriller and crime, so it is a good all rounder drama!! The whole cast (not just the leads) had amazing chemistry. The only flaw with this drama is that it does queerbait a little. I wish they either didn't add it in the story or fully went with that the main lead is Bi.

The story surrounds a girl with superhuman strength who wants to be a video game designer. She has always hid her strength due to fear if hurting others and losing her power. She in a unrequited love with her childhood friend who is now a police officer. She then crosses the path of a CEO of a video game company and her starts to become more chaotic. With a serial killer on the loose, Do Bong Soon needs to decide if she will keep a low profile or use her powers for the better good while also falling in love on the way.

While You Were Sleeping

Again, an obvious one, but it has to be watched!! Like strong woman, I was a little apprehensive of this one. Mainly because I hadn't heard good things about Suzy's acting before this came out. But it really surprised me and I really loved it! I'm a sucker for anything crime related, so with a really cute love story as well, it was amazing!! It has really good chemistry and likable characters. The second male lead is also amazing!! I usually don't get second male lead syndrome, but damn I felt it even though I also really loved the main lead. I can't really find any faults with it.

The story surrounds two people who can see the future through dreaming. This includes good and bad things. When the female reporter about dying while on the job, she quite her job to try and changes her fate. A prosecuter move across the street from her, initially they do not get on and their bond starts to grow. Together, they use both of their skills and their power to help change the future and solve crimes along the way. They also soon realise that this is not the first time they have crossed paths.

Psychopath Diary

I cannot recommend this drama enough!! Honestly, it is so underrated!!! Yoon Shi Yoon's performance is incredible, he really embodies the role here. It is so funny, and sweet. You also see a serial killer low key but high key fall in love with the male lead, so there is major gay vibes. The only issue I have with it is, I wish there was a little romance involved. But it is a not a major want.

The story surrounds a pushover who is working at a stocks company. After a major issue arises, he becomes the Scapegoat of the company and is being blamed for it, even though he tried to prevent it. Due to this, he decides that he will end his life. On the way to do this, he witnesses a murder and accidentally picks up the serial killer's diary. While trying to escape, he gets hit by a car and gets amnesia. When he wakes up and reads the diary, he believes that he is the serial killer.

Honestly, please watch this drama, it is so so so funny, the chemistry of the whole cast is incredible. It also possibly has one of my favourite villians in any drama.

Your Honor / Dear Judge

Yes, I am a simp Yoon Shi Yoon. He is just so good and thus role just confirms it! His acting is incredible, king of the double roles! He plays twins and you really tell when either pop up on screen which one he is. This is a really wholesome drama that makes you cry. It has some really sweet moments in it, the leads have such good chemistry. This only issues with this one is that the ending felt rushed. I hate that the TV company changed it from 20 eps to 16 eps.

The story follows a set of twins. Twin A is a top judge in Korea, who is incredibly smart and is living a rich life. Twin B is a criminal who has been screwed over multiple times by the justice system and Twin A. Their mother always sides with A and will tell B not to bother him. When A goes missing, B goes undercover and takes his brothers place. He soon learns about the corrupt world of the court system and his brother. B meets a law student who is meant to be shadowing A. Like B, she has also been affected by the corrupt system and is wanting to be a judge to convict those who have wronged her. Together they fight the system while also falling in love.

Because This is Our First Life

This is a slice of life drama so will have some heavy moments in it. But on the whole, it is just so lovely and cute. The acting is incredible, they really take on the role. It also has one of the best female friendships which is not toxic, they all genuinely care for eachother and want eachother to achieve their dreams. It also has some true badass moments in it as well! I feel like all slice of life dramas have this, but it does have some frustrating moments where the characters are almost purposely making their life's difficult

The story focuses on a woman who is a drama script writer. Due to her patriarchal family who always favour her brother and being let down by her crush, she wants to move out. She ends up moving in with a friend of a friend of a friend. It is to her surprise that the person who she is moving in with is a man who is very much stuck in his own ways and likes to stick to routine. Due to their own desires to be on their own, they decide to get married to relieve the pressure that their families are giving them. This (of course) causes issues and both have to learn about their new feelings for eachother while trying to get through the struggles of life.

Thirty but Seventeen

This drama is the definition of wholesome and cute. I feel that while I was watching it, it went by so quickly and I always had a smile on my face. The romance is so cute and lovely and you could tell they really cared about eachother. The side characters were also amazing and sweet. Honestly, the acting is incredible. The female lead does an amazing job.

The story follows woman who as a child was involved in a bus accident and fell into a coma. She wakes up over ten years later and learns that her family have stopped coming to see her. While on the search for her family, she resides with a man and his brother who are now living in her old family home. The two soon learn that there are more connected than they thought. With the man trying to push her away, the more his feelings grow for her.

Introverted Boss

This is a revenge to love story. It on the whole is a really cute drama where you get to see the leads grow for the better. The acting is incredible and you really fall in love with the leads and the support cast (except for the second lead). It is not a perfect drama, but it is a really easy watch with an interesting story.

The female lead is a stage actress who quits her job to work at a marketing firm. This firm happens to be where her sister used to work. She is out to get revenge against the CEO of the company who she blames for her sister's death. She learns that the CEO is extremely introverted and becomes confused by how he was responsible for her sister's death. As the story goes by, she becomes more intrigued by him and focuses less on revenge and more on helping him open up.

Vincenzo

Ahhhhh, how do express my love for this one!! It is just amazing!! The story was so well thought out and the actors did a fantastic job. It was so satisfying to watch, I wanted to be a member of the mafia lol. The villians were also incredible, like I just love this drama so much. Like Your Honor, the only issue with this one is that the ending felt rushed.

The story surrounds a Korean man who was adopted into an Italian family and became the consiglerie of the mafia. After an issue with his adoptive family, he travels back to Korea in search an insane amount of gold bars which happens to be underneath an unsuspecting block of flats. He then gets involved with a major legal court case with a pharmaceutical company. As he delves deeper into the case, dark secrets start to get revealed.

now that the season is over here are chuang2021 moments i cannot believe are real, a list that only gets longer and in no particular order: 

- that entire bit of them choosing their dorm rooms, including but not limited to:

lin mo copping his double room only to lose it + his mental breakdown after that

almost 20 of them fighting to have hiroto stay in their room

nine and patrick's 'we break up' (only for patrick to move in after 1st round of eliminations) 

ak: ‘does rikimaru snore?’ santa: ‘yeah, very loudly’ ak: ‘oh NOOOO i’m scREWED’ 

- hanfu shop owner liu yu

- han meijuan training base: 

yu gengyin’s ‘i am a proud fishie swimming into your heart’ 

also yu gengyin: ‘i’m a little scared that the debut lineup will end up being 11 han meijuans’ 

zhang xinyao dropping it low. that’s it. 

han peiquan: ‘look at that santa, he can dance so well but can he do this? he can play the drums but ask him to come here, can he do it? no way’ 

the entire “just go where you want” performance including their intro + mentors comments + xie xingyang’s slogans

but even more so “just go where you want” 2.0 LIVE AT THE FINALS 

- the mentors dancing along to ‘vote for me xoxo’ during “just go where you want” 2.0 before carrying and promptly drOPPING zhou shen onto the floor before the rest of them pretend like nothing happened in time for the ending pose 

- “when i’m with you”, “unbreakable love”, “just go where you want” > the actual theme song all day every day 

- don't be shy @/tencent , give me all the clips of gan wangxing singing jing long's “lost you” (diu le ni) + more of the both of them dancing to crab dance backstage

- zhou shen, to shao mingming on the verge of having a meltdown over mean comments about him as practice for “i don’t care” stage: ‘do you want to hear the next comment?’ shao mingming, as the others start laughing: ‘plEASE NO’ zhou shen, reading the comment anyway: ‘he only knows how to cry’ cue maniac laughter from all of them 

- just hanjiang, really 

zhang xinyao, on “feng ding” stage: ‘it was so good. also i wanna add hanjiang you look like huluwa’

to wu yuheng after “i don’t care” team’s performance: ‘there’s only one word to describe you - handsome. first time i saw you i went, woah, handsome. saw you on stage performing - woah, handsome. seriously, handsome’ 

xue bayi, backstage: ‘i think he’s said that to me too’ 

when called up at 2nd eliminations: ‘what’s manga-like man?’ another trainee: ‘ means you look like you came out of a manga’ zhou zhennan: ‘yeah it’s like fei yang yang came out of the page into real life’ 

domineering ceo with all of them either screaming or looking mildly uncomfortable 

literally scREAMING to get people to join “zui kuen” team 

more importantly hanjiang’s dad imitating him scream to get people to join “zui kuen” team to a dAMN T 

- patrick: ‘hello everyone i am your ocean prince patrick!’ wu hai: ‘and i am the ocean’ [for non-chinese speaking fans of chuang, the hai 海 in wu hai means ocean] + the continuation of this on wu hai’s dorm diary

- “unbreakable love” 2.0 !!!! put it on spotify right now !!!!!

- da-geTM bo yuan 

fu sichao, on bo yuan getting 9th for 2nd eliminations: ‘that feeling when your own old man (laughs for a bit) when your old man gets a really good grade, it’s indescribable happiness’

amu: ‘bo yuan’s like my grandpa, and he might as well be’  

eisho’s ‘bo yuan gege’ 

hiroto getting other trainees to call him da-ge on dorm diary but having bo yuan as his da-ge 

or alternatively, yuan-shu [uncle yuan], as seen after using the term fanersai（凡尔赛）[literally means versailles, a slang that means the same thing as flexing / humblebragging in english] 

- gan wangxing unintentional comedian

han peiquan, on his first impressions of gan wangxing: ‘he’s such so good-looking, and then he opens his mouth (disbelievingly rolls his eyes) i almost died right there’ 

on being 11th for 2nd eliminations: ‘in the past, my life plan was that after graduating from university, i’d find a stable job and live a nine-to-five life. and i used to fantasize that in my future i’d be able to find a wife early, drive a car to bring her travelling, we can listen to some music and lift our heads to see the stars’ 

other trainees: laughing and going ‘oOHHHH’, notably including xie xingyang: ‘he’s still fantasizing!’ 

also other trainees, after seeing the video his family sent to cheer him on: ‘where’s the wife? where’s the wife!’ 

also ‘hello, look at me’ coming up everytime he shows up

case in point - the mentors erupting into laughter when gan wangxing steps forward to do his evaluation, notably zhou zhennan: ‘kill me with it!’ [i’m not sure how to translate what he actually said in a better way than that], nene following up by simply going ‘hello’, zhou zhennan immediately picking it up while still laughing: ‘look at me’

holding the umbrella for nene at the end of “it’s raining and i’m thinking of you” stage just for all the trainees backstage to go ‘why’s it you!’ 

Very Passionately telling gong jun what jing long taught him on singing

- ‘andy lau has come to visit our zoo!’ 

- wu yuheng’s quest for chilli sauce in his dorm diary:

wu yuheng and fu sichao terrorising a staff member for chilli sauce until the staff goes to wu yuheng ‘if you wake him (fu sichao) up every morning i’ll make sure you get your chilli sauce’ to which fu sichao says to wu yuheng ‘you know what chilli sauce isn’t that great let’s go’ 

wu yuheng straight up drinking zhou keyu’s chilli sauce because i could never 

- liu yu confessing to lin mo as a dare from shao mingming but lin mo’s in the toilet so liu yu has to awkwardly do it standing outside the cubicle door while shao mingming and xue bayi eat the drama up 

- oscar’s reaction to people finding out his real name + the entire ‘xiong xiong’ saga 

- lelush with a pearl earring 

- rikimaru moments that deserve a segment of their own 

having the first comment on his first solo performance be ‘drop your skincare routine’ [essentially] because the mentors didn’t have anything to critique on his performance 

at the start of his speech at 3rd eliminations, when it was clearly evening: ‘good morning’ 

getting very sad over the fact that yumeri didn't send him a video to cheer him on + being jealous every time someone's sister showing up in the videos

- speaking of sisters, the guys simping over amu's sisters + amu, asking the mentors when trainees had the chance to dedicate a few words to each other during the final livestream: 'can my sisters come next year?'

- santa, on preparation for nana party stage: ‘she (mao xiaotong) learnt the choreography really fast, and even if she made mistakes she’ll be like *makes cute expressions* so even when she did i’d be like “it’s ok! no problem!” she’s so cute’ the staff interviewing him: ‘is this the santa we know?’ 

- “the adventure” team making fun of their female guest before finding out said female guest was meng meiqi aka goddess incarnate AND had been watching them make fun of her through the cameras 

- lin mo’s bat song

- xie xingyang discreetly stealing food from the staff on their movie night that was originally supposed to only be for those who used their beans before a whole group of them [led by jing long, consisting of xie xingyang, wei ziyue, hu yetao and others] just go and outright take it with nine hugging the staff member to let them take the food that entire bts video is a mess and you know what? that’s what i’m here for

- zhou zhennan’s constant ‘wtf’ face 

- that chuang x GQ beach video 

- gong jun’s entire time on chuang, but especially the moments with zhou shen. felt like a fever dream tbh 

which of the members do you think are hopeless romantics ?

I think being a hopeless romantic and actually being romantic are two different things 😅

I think JK might be the only hopeless romantic in BTS. Taehyung and Jimin seem actually romantic people.

I think you're a hopeless romantic when you're young. I used to be a hopeless romantic. I read a lot, I've been reading novels since I was 8 years old and I always loved writing and I would write all my dreams and hopes in my diaries. I still keep them and I read them like once a year, so not only I remember how I was but thanks to my diaries, there's proof that I was severely hopeless romantic. I loved pride and prejudice; I read the book when I was 10 and I was OBSESSED with it, I wrote so much about Darcy on my diaries 😭 and I dreamed of love like that. The next year I realized I like women, didn't see that one coming. Until I was around 14 I used to daydream excessively about love. I used to daydream about being Lizzie McGuire and sneaking out the hotel window and meeting Paolo and being a worldwide star simultaneously and then kiss my best friend under the stars and know that had been the love of my life all along. All these dreams were about men, too. At that age I never consciously made the association between romance and women. I knew I wanted to kiss girls, I just never daydreamed about marrying and being swept off my feet by Ms. Darcy. It was always a Mr.

In my experience, that's being a hopeless romantic person, and I think JK is that type. He said he'd watched Titanic and thought "ah, so this is what love must be like" 💀 I mean if you think so 😨 but I honestly never thought of him as an actual romantic guy. Sure! He has moments where he is romantic, there are quite a few, but just like I said the other day about having moments of jealousy, it doesn't make him a romantic person by definition imo. I know BTS have said that he's romantic because he cries watching movies which... that's being sentimental at best, or like I said, a hopeless romantic. It's hopeless, it doesn't actually have any chance in reality.

I think Jimin had moments of being a hopeless romantic, too, like telling Jungkook "I'd go to the moon with you", that phrasing was very much hopeless romanticism. They'll never go to the moon, but Jimin wanted to say that he'd follow Jungkook anywhere. Jimin posting a video of them watching the first snow together was also very hopeless, cinematic, idealistic romanticism. Jimin saying that if he were stranded on a deserted island, he'd want Jungkook to be with him.

Jimin has some of those moments of hopeless romanticism, they are very very few tho. I actually see his explicit actions and words as romantic. Getting close enough to kiss JK's neck while asking him for food. "The thing I enjoy the most these days is waking up and seeing Jungkook" I MEANNN... I know a lot of us would be blushing and kicking our feet at having someone say that to us (just like the be jealous I'll keep holding Jimin). When he touched JK's chin and told him I love you in the New Jersey 2019 live. That time in 2019 while filming an end of the year performance that fans said that Jimin went to sit on the stairs and he was like "Are you guys army? My favorite member is Jungkook." PLEASE 😭 Pretending like he's still in Paris and then showing up at JK's birthday party. That time in 2018 he was in Japan for schedules with vhope and only Jimin came back to Korea for Valentine's Day and the next day he was out with JK and sungwoon. Like I don't even think they were dating back then but even as a friend is a very romantic thing to do.

I think it was romantic of him to keep his hand on JK's thigh for almost the whole dinner.

Him kneeling for JK. And this actually happened so many times in the few last concerts, it didn't happen only during BWL. (on the last day he knelt for everyone in BTS too).

Yeah 🥲 I'm not even sure Jimin would describe himself as a romantic person, but a lot of what he says and does it what romanticism means to me so I see him as romantic.

I think Tae is also romantic, tho a different kind of romantic from jimin. I imagine Tae as the type who would do the whole expensive dinner dates in Paris, the cruises, the exotic beaches, the first snow, the Christmas eve beside the fireplace and the candle lit roses on bed anniversary night.

In short, I'd say JK is the hopeless romantic who's more idealistic and imaginative than actually romantic in real life. Jimin is the type of romantic with everyday interactions and small and big gestures and words, stuff you actually see and can measure. His commitment and loyalty, his attention and care are what's romantic for me, even if he will never bring you home a bouquet of roses. Taehyung is a romantic of grand gestures for special occasions, probably not an everyday thing.

Then I have a feeling that Hoseok might also be the type of romantic that Taehyung is, tho I don't have a lot of "proof" for it, it's just a general vibe I get from his personality, the way he always gives presents to the members, and how he's openly attentive and caring to them. I think that he also might do the candlelit Christmas Eve by the fireplace.

I first saw Slipknot at age 14.

No one knows how I managed it. I'm not sure I even remember. These days, you have to be 16 or 18 to get into Standing areas. I do know I had to buy tickets on the phone, back in the old days (2005, that is). A singular ticket, too - none of my friends, not even the classmate who had gone with me to see Linkin Park the year before, was that into Slipknot.

But I HAD to see them. This was the Subliminal Verses tour cycle, and Vol. 3 was my first and favourite Slipknot album, even to this day. It's the reliable old warm blanket for my soul whenever I need it. It's on right now, as I write this.

My memory isn't that good, but luckily I unearthed a livejournal (livejournal!) diary entry about the event I made the next day.

August 16, 2005. I went right after school. I went to a very conservative Anglican secondary school, too. I tried not to get caught in the bathroom, as I coloured my nails black with permanent marker (I know, don't laugh) and changed into my standard metalhead baby outfit - Slipknot band shirt, black cargo shorts, and my pride and joy: steel-toe boots I somehow managed to cajole my parents into letting me own.

I caught the bus to the open-air war memorial park where the gig was going to be. I got there at 4pm, 4 hours early. A couple other maggots were already hanging around. I found myself surrounded by tombstones, and I read them all. It was the middle of the Hungry Ghost Festival, too - a very fitting time for Slipknot to pay a visit to this godforsaken hellhole of a small town I lived in. (Especially given the paranormal circumstances surrounding the making of Vol. 3.)

While I wandered around the venue (no security or sound guys were around at all), I spotted two white vans pull up to the stage, in the middle of a clearing. It was them! I spotted Joey and missed him by a hair's breadth. I was quickly ushered behind the stone archway entrance by security then.

(Funnily enough, while walking around, I got mistaken for Joey more than once. I am the same height as him, had the same long black hair, same pale skin, and was wearing almost exactly what he had been. One person claimed from behind, I was a dead ringer, apart from when I turned around, and they realised I was Chinese.)

It was soundcheck time. A sound guy testing the mics would say random things, like "testing one two three two one.... fudge fudge, I like fudge...." The band even did Purity, so us earlybirds were given a rare treat, and we screamed along from the entrance, and drummed our fists on the sides of nearby porta-potties. I hope no one was in there at the time. Whenever we got a glance of any of them, we'd scream and cheer. Finally they left again, but were soon to return.

This was the first time I'd been a part of the metal community. I was barely allowed internet in those days. But here, random strangers were friendly, striking up conversations like they'd been friends for years. Two big guys, called Trevor and Ted, looked out for me the entire gig after, keeping other big dudes from crushing me too much (I'm 5'3, remember). Other people commented on me being so baby, because I was only 14, and said they would take care of me.

When we were finally let in, right after the usher cut the rope, I ran in, screamed "WOOOHOOO!" along with a few friends I'd made. I only briefly stopped to receive this RoadRunner Records compilation CD from a roadie, then resumed running like a madman screaming and dashing into the VIP cage.

I was right up against the barricade - the first time I would ever be at a gig. People from assorted magazines and press took photos of us, and I think I got my photo taken about 10 times at least.

(This is how I got in trouble with my parents the next day. My photo had ended up in a local paper - you can see examples of that here. They had no idea what I'd been to see the night before, and were horrified when they saw what Slipknot looked like.)

We saw Sid filming us from the stage with a camcorder and screamed at him. We saw Jim and screamed at him too, and he flashed the victory sign back at us. I remember Metallica playing at the time, another one of my favourite bands.

The concert was a brutal religious experience I will never forget. People with their arms outstretched, crying and screaming out loud, moving like the devil possessed them.

The new friends around me made sure I was alright after every song! There were huge guys fainting behind us who had to get carried out, but I endured, a tiny 14 year old child. We got a family speech as per tradition, of course. "Are you guys out there all looking out for each other? We're all one big family, and we gotta look out for each other." What Corey said held true - strangers hugged, shook hands, talked, and made friends. I was heartened by how close-knit the maggot community was. It really did feel like a family, and it's felt like that ever since.

Of course, I did my first Jump The Fuck Up. It is possibly the most euphoria I've ever experienced all at one go. (Later, in 2020, I was extremely disappointed that I didn't get to do it again in London.)

They did the death masks for Vermilion, and I remember Chris helping Sid fix his mask and shirt when they'd changed back. Sid hung out near Clown's drums for most of the time too, and hugged him from behind and just latched on at one point. It was pretty adorable.

Fun fact: The version of Eyeless you hear on the 9.0 Live album is from Singapore, as is Eeyore. There are very few photos and videos from the crowd of this gig, because in 2005, very few people had camera phones. The crowd at the Slipknot gig in 2020 was a sea of arms with phones, filming the gig rather than experiencing it. Yes, I'm going to be that cranky old geezer who complains about the good old days.

Joey as usual, was fucking amazing and never failed. However, due to the fact that I was right up front, only his tiny head was visible behind his vast drum set, I couldn't see him the entire gig.

Amazingly, the government told Slipknot they were not allowed to do obscene gestures, curse, vomit (possibly due to the decomposing crow pre-show ritual), simulate humping on objects, throw faeces, or jump off stage (looking at you, Sid). I don't think our totalitarian government knew who they were dealing with, because watch what happens next.

Near the end of the gig, Corey tells the crowd “your government has given us a laundry list of things we aren’t allowed to do, your government has told us we are not allowed to swear”. Crowd goes “BOOOOOOOOO” and Corey goes “BUT WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK!!” And they launch into Surfacing, the last song. Everyone riots. Best night of my life.

You can find the setlist from that gig here. It had everything I wanted and more.

This story later got immortalised when Kerrang asked maggots for gig stories, for an article which came out in 2020. I had forgotten entirely, until people began messaging me to tell me, and one friend sent me a scan of it!

On the way out, I managed to get a shirt. I remember calling my best friend at the time, and got everyone at the merch booth to go "IF YOU'RE 555 THEN I'M 666" for her. This shirt has since been lost to the landfill, because my Christian mother took it upon herself to dispose of it the first opportunity she got. Needless to say, our relationship is not very good.

After that, I even managed to get that Roadrunner compilation album they were giving out signed. The band was staying at the Carlton. Unfortunately, Joey wasn't there, neither was Clown, and Mick was swarmed by guitar nerds so, 6/9 it is. It is a great regret of mine that I'll never have anything signed by him, nor will I ever get to see him perform ever again.

The next day, I went to school, my head swimming. Yes, I went to see Slipknot ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. I was a giant bruise, from my ribs and my chest, to my hips and knees, from being slammed into the barricade like a screen door in a hurricane. Most of all, my sore, headbanged-out neck could barely hold my head up. Classmates thought I had been in a fight. I was torn between battle-scarred exhaustion and hyperactive ranting about the most amazing gig of my short life (it still is, to this day). When teachers spoke to me, I wanted to reply, "Fuck trigonometry! I've just seen SLIPKNOT. Do you not understand that my world is different? Do you not understand that *I* am now different?"

My country was a small, conservative town that Slipknot had graced with their unholy presence. Corey Taylor once said that where he grew up in Iowa had a way of making a 16 year old boy feel like a 36 year old man (or something to that effect). I felt that in my weary bones as a teenager, being from a place just like that. Years later, Watain would run into worse trouble, and wouldn't even be allowed to perform. The Christian stranglehold is stronger than ever. It was a good thing that back then Slipknot had the element of surprise, striking serpent-fast and choking this society by the neck for a too-brief time, before they departed.

After that, my desire to play the drums only grew like a weed. Joey Jordison had, has, and will always inspire me as a drummer, and seeing the beast live (or what little I could spy behind the massive riser) had only spurred me on. I had always been a noisemaker, be it driving my parents mad with chopsticks on pots and pans, or driving my teachers mad with pencils on my desk. But of course, my parents wouldn't have any of it. I'd have to wait a good 14 more years before I'd be able to afford lessons and later, a kit of my own. Better late than never, right?

There will never be enough words to describe the impact Joey has had on my life. And it isn't just Slipknot, either. I could write another essay on his time with the Murderdolls and its influence on my own gender-non-conforming ways. Suffice to say, my wardrobe doesn't look too dissimilar to his during the early Dead in Hollywood days.

I told my boss I could not come into work today. I was grieving. I said that my music teacher died, as I didn't think she'd understand the magnitude of my loss. In a way, it's true. And I am not the only one Joey has nudged on the path to being a musician, that much is certain. To the rest of us, I wish strength and love for you in this difficult time. The best way to honour Joey, who truly loved music, both the creation and appreciation of it, is to pass that gift on. Teach it to someone. He is the reason I picked up the sticks in the first place, and one day, they'll be handed on, the heavy metal baton for the next generation.

And finally: remember that the ones we have lost are never truly gone.

Vinnie

P.S. See if you can spot me in the crowd photos in this post!

Since people liked rsl interview on dps, I’d like to share one of my favourite interview by him. I think it’s one of those rare interview where he wasn’t joking around that much but discuss acting quite seriously haha

So enjoy:DD

(Credit)

____________________________

1990 New York Times

Young Actor's Life Has the Makings of a Movie

by Lynn Mautner

New York Times

May 20, 1990

It would make a good movie. A 15-year-old sophomore at Ridgewood High School is playing the Artful Dodger in the musical ''Oliver'' with the school's theater group, New Players, when he is discovered by a casting agency secretary and whisked off to Broadway and the movies.

That's exactly what happened to Robert Sean Leonard, now 21, and a star of the 1989 film ''Dead Poets Society,'' which received an Oscar for best original screenplay.

''My mother took me to New Players' summer performances when I was 10,'' he said, ''and I loved the camaraderie of people, rehearsing and singing. I began spending more time there, painting signs and moving furniture, and soon became an element of the company, with small roles in 'The Miracle Worker,' 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,' 'Barnum.' ''

Starting as an understudy for three roles at the New York Public Theater (he never got on stage), Mr. Leonard amassed credits that include ''The Beach House'' with George Grizzard for the Circle Repertory Theater, television movies, ''Brighton Beach Memoirs'' and ''Breaking the Code'' on Broadway, plays at the West Bank Cafe on 42d Street and the recent ''When She Danced'' at Playwrights Horizons.

He has just completed a part as Paul Newman's and Joanne Woodward's son in the movie ''Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,'' filmed in Kansas City, to be released in August. ''I age from a 15-year-old Eagle Scout to 22, coming home from World War II with a mustache,'' Mr. Leonard said.

Mr. Leonard, who received a general equivalency diploma when he was 17, lives in New York City and attends Fordham University between performances. Soon to return from the Cannes Film Festival with his fellow actors in ''Dead Poets,'' he is next scheduled to go into rehearsal for the film ''Married to It,'' a romantic comedy.

Q. Do you remember when you decided on an acting career?

A. I never decided to pursue an acting career. It just has happened. I still think it's going to stop and I'll have to get a real job soon, but I'm afraid to question it because if I do, it will disappear.

Q. How do you think your theater experience in high school has helped you?

A. It was a great teaching experience that prepared me in a lot of ways. We did 10 shows in 10 weeks, so there was no time to think about method. It was running for the stage, hoping you'll make it in time for your entrance. In Steven Soderbergh's new book of his diaries when directing the film ''Sex, Lies and Videotape,'' he said that on a film set there should always be a chain of command, but never a chain of respect.

At New Players, those three to four years, everyone was given the same respect. You had to, because you'd be the lead one week and painting sets the next. That's a luxury that is not available in New York, unfortunately, because of the unions. You're an actor and that's it.

Q. Have you taken any acting lessons? Do you recommend them for others?

A. I've taken two classes - a video acting class to help me get from stage to film, with Marty Winkler, currently my manager, and an acting class at H. B. Studios.

Acting classes are tricky. It's like asking someone in therapy if they'd recommend going to a psychiatrist. For some people it's great; for some it's not necessary; for some it's harmful. The best way to learn acting is just to do it.

There's a danger to the classroom, because it's safe, and you can get addicted to it. The clique of people are there, and you might tend to remain with them and never go out on your own. So it can give you the safety net which can eventually strip away your courage to go out and really try. On the other hand, you can get a wonderful teacher who brings out the best in you and gives you the courage to go out and dazzle everybody.

Q. You went from high school to Off Broadway. What were your feelings and fears during your first professional performance?

A. The first time I performed in New York - in ''Sally's Gone, She Left Her Name'' - I played Michael Learned's son. I think I was too young. I wasn't even aware of reasons to be afraid. I was just there for the fun of it. Fresh out of New Players, I knew it to be fun. I've never worried about lines. In ''Brighton Beach'' I should have been tense, because it was Broadway. I was nervous, but not racked - more excited.

Q. What do you enjoy most about acting?

A. The people, and opportunities to learn, to travel, both physically and emotionally. To look at people other than myself and try to figure out what makes them tick.

Olivier said you never play a villain; you play a man considered to be a villain; that you have to justify everything he does first; you have to know that what you are doing is right and find a way to make it right - even murder.

I just played a conceited piano player in ''When She Danced,'' and I had to figure out what would make a person be conceited and make that O.K. with me. I learned where conceit comes from - from confidence and talent.

Worst thing you can do is play someone and judge him at the same time, saying: ''Here I am. I am so conceited.'' First you have to understand why you're that way so that people interpret you as conceited.

Q. Do you consider acting an escape?

A. I don't look at performing as escaping, as really becoming another person and leaving my problems for two hours, so I don't have to deal with me, because I don't become another person. I work, so that when I am working, in a way it is me at my best. I'm not leaving myself; in fact, I'm more focused on myself than ever. I don't become that person, but I fully understand him, fully explore him, as to why he does what he does and justify it.

You can't play a fool to play Bottom, who's the opposite of fool in Shakespeare's ''Midsummer Night's Dream.'' What makes people fools is that they're completely confident in what they're doing. They don't think they're fools; they think they're right on track, which makes them so funny and makes them look like fools.

Q. Who influenced you the most?

A. I have not had one person or experience that stands out that's a turning point. Every step in acting relies heavily on the one before. Everything I've learned colors everything I have known before, and suddenly changes it.

I have learned a little bit from everyone I have known, whether about acting itself, or living and working as an actor. Like a good detective novel, for every clue that is solved, two more appear. Every time I learn something, it opens two other doors. In ''Dead Poets,'' the rooftop scene, where I throw the desk set off, was improvised. Are instincts then a part of acting?

Q. Are there desirable qualities to have as an actor?

A. Concentration, perseverence, lack of inhibitions. There's no room for self-consciousness on stage. Also, there is an element in acting that is not fair. Whatever talent is, part of it can be learned and part can't. There are people that audiences like to watch or don't. In Soderbergh's book, he says that talent plus perseverance will equal luck. But I don't know what talent is; it is beyond definition.

Q. Do you learn by watching other films and plays? Your own? Other people?

A. Sometimes I watch for directing; sometimes for performing. There are lines in ''Dead Poets'' I would do differently, if given the chance. For example, Todd said: ''You talk and people listen to you, Neil. I am not like that.'' I answer, ''Don't you think you could be?'' I think I could have made it clearer. I don't get much from observing strangers, because although I see what they do, I don't know where they're coming from.

Q. What are the main differences between stage and film work?

A. I feel that as an actor, you should start in theater, to learn the process of creating a character, in rehearsal. Film is an arena for people who already know that, because on the set they expect you to know the character inside out.

Film work is harder, because this tangible part has to happen in your head before filming takes place. And it's more solitary. You create your character alone, without the give-and-take of other actors.

Q. What tips would you give young, aspiring actors?

A. Read plays aloud with friends at home; do any work you can do in high school. Hang out with jocks, leatherheads, and see what makes them work. Don't be a theater rat and only talk to actors. Read a lot. You really have to feel it; really want it; then take it. Don't take no for an answer. Seize the day.

___________________________

There’s another one I really want to share as well, I’ll bring it with me at some point:))

Olly Alexander Is Done With Shame

Like the character he plays in “It’s a Sin,” the actor and singer struggled with being gay. Now, he tells the world everything.

By Anna Leszkiewicz

Feb. 19, 2021Updated 9:22 a.m. ET

LONDON — When Olly Alexander burst into tears shooting a scene of “It’s a Sin,” no one was very surprised.

Making the show, which came to HBO Max on Thursday and follows a group of friends embracing the gay culture of ’80s London under the shadow of AIDS, was emotional for many of the cast and crew — and Alexander is as comfortable showing his vulnerabilities as the character he plays, Ritchie, is at deflecting them.

“I was a complete mess after the first take,” Alexander, 30, said in a recent video interview. “I was sobbing.” Peter Hoar, the director of “It’s a Sin,” paused filming.

The scene in question, which comes after Ritchie and his friends are arrested protesting the British government’s inaction on AIDS, is one of many in the show that explore how the epidemic devastated gay men’s lives.

When we meet Ritchie, he is an impishly confident but naïve 18-year-old who has just moved to London, with dreams of becoming an actor. Alexander also moved to the capital from rural England at 18 and scored his first movie role, but today he is better known as the lead singer of the band Years & Years. “It’s a Sin” is his first acting gig in six years.

Years & Years’s music often explores the relationship between desire and shame, and is heavily influenced by ’80s bands like Pet Shop Boys. (“It’s a Sin” takes its title from that group’s song of the same name.) So when Alexander heard Russell T Davies, the show’s creator, was interested in him for the lead role, the opportunity “made poetic sense,” Alexander said.

In an interview, Davies said the show was “cast gay as gay, which is my policy.” For Ritchie, he added, he wanted an out actor who already had a big profile in Britain. “That almost narrows it down to a field of one,” he said. “It was the simplest audition of my life.”

Alexander’s arch performance as Ritchie suggests that the character’s ambition and bravado are reactions to fear and self-loathing. “I realized straight away, ‘Oh, I know who Ritchie is,’” Alexander said. “He’s trying to get onstage and shine and dazzle: I’ve done that.”

But whereas Ritchie masks his vulnerabilities, Alexander has spoken frankly in interviews and onstage with the band about his experiences of bulimia, anxiety, self-harm and depression.

“I’ve said just everything about myself,” he said. “My life is kind of out there now.”

Alexander grew up in Gloucestershire, in western England, where his mother founded a local music festival. His father, an aspiring musician, worked in amusement parks.

It was a creative household, Alexander said, but his father had mental health problems and substance abuse issues that led to a difficult atmosphere at home. When he was 14, his parents separated; he’d only seen his father a handful of times since, he said.

School was an even more fraught environment, and Alexander experienced homophobic bullying from age 9. “I had long blond hair, and I acted quite feminine,” he said. “That made me a target. And kids can be so cruel.”

As Alexander recalled his younger self, he started to cry. It took many years until he could look back at the child he was with compassion, he said. “But that’s the biggest thing I’ve tried to do,” he added. The impact of his childhood is something he’s still processing in weekly therapy, he said.

When Alexander’s high school classmates went to college, he moved to East London and became a jobbing actor while babysitting and waiting tables. A pale, skinny teenager with a nest of tight curls, he landed roles as the tuberculosis-ridden younger brother of Ben Whishaw’s Keats in the film “Bright Star,” and an anguished drug user in Gaspar Noé’s trippy art movie “Enter the Void.”

Alexander had been living in London for a couple of years when he met his Years & Years bandmates, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen. Though they started out making high-minded, Radiohead-inspired electronic music, Alexander pushed the band toward synth-pop, with big, melodramatic choruses full of longing.

In 2015, the band’s exhilarating but anguished song “King” — about the strange thrill of being treated badly in a relationship — reached No. 1 on the British singles chart, and its debut album, “Communion,” topped the album charts, too.

“His songs are his life,” said the producer Mark Ralph, who has worked with Years & Years from the band’s earliest days “If you want to know what’s gone on in Olly’s life, then you just read all his lyrics.”

“Love takes its toll on me,” Alexander sings in “Sanctify,” a song about a secret liaison with a straight man. “And I won’t, and I won’t, and I won’t be ashamed.”

When the band performed the song at the Glastonbury Festival in 2016, soon after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., a rainbow-clad Alexander told the crowd, “I’m here, I’m queer, and, yes, sometimes I’m afraid.” But, he added, “I am never ashamed, because I am proud of who I am.”

The speech caught the interest of TV producers, and, in 2017, he fronted a BBC documentary called “Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay.” In it, he returns to his family home and leafs through teenage diaries full of references to bulimia and self-harm. On camera, he tells his mother about the bullying at school for the first time: Through tears, they discuss how it led him to mental health problems in his teenage years.

“It’s a lot to ask someone to bare their soul on national television,” said Vicki Cooper, the TV movie’s director. “But those difficult conversations created the best moments in the film.”

That documentary, and Alexander’s openness about his own mental health, mean he gets a lot of messages on social media from fans who are struggling themselves. He used to try to respond to them, he said, but the quantity has become impossible to keep up with.

Through those messages, though, Alexander had “seen a really emotionally vulnerable side to a lot of people,” he said. “That’s a precious thing, actually.”

Alexander had also been humbled by the positive response to “It’s a Sin” in Britain, he said. The show broke records for the streaming service All4, where it aired, with 6.5 million streams.

“It’s a Sin” first appeared on All4 during National H.I.V. Testing Week; on social media, the show’s cast encouraged viewers to get tested. The Terrence Higgins Trust, an H.I.V. nonprofit, said that the number of people taking tests through their service had almost quadrupled in the weeks afterward.

“People living with H.I.V. now can live normal, healthy lives: It’s so important to get that message out,” Alexander said, adding that treatments for the virus had transformed since the ’80s. “I’m really grateful that these conversations are happening, because, honestly, lots of people really didn’t know what was going on in this period of history. They’re shocked to learn about it now.”

That era is also having an influence on Alexander’s music. He is currently recording new material with Years & Years, inspired by the ’80s dance anthems of the “It’s a Sin” soundtrack and beyond: Donna Summer, New Order, Pet Shop Boys.

“During the pandemic, I wanted to listen to super upbeat club music that made me dance around,” he said. “I found myself wanting to create the fantasy and the energy that I haven’t necessarily been experiencing.”

As well as working on new music, Alexander said he had spent the lockdowns in England watching “Real Housewives” episodes, and playing Animal Crossing. “I used to be so, so driven,” he said, but now he was putting less pressure on himself.

He was happy, he added, to think back on what he’d already achieved, and how much has changed since he was a little boy who wished he wasn’t gay.

“I’ve kept a diary since I was 13 years old,” he said. “Sometimes I look at it and think I can tell this kid: ‘You’re going to do amazing things. You’re going to get to where you are now. It’s OK. You got this.’”

Hugo Yangüela contributed additional camera operating for photographs.

1. What is your favorite shade of blue? Pastel blue, teal, Tiffany blue, baby blue, powder blue, sky blue, turquoise. 2. When's the last time you bought something just because? I bought some room sprays and hand sanitizers from this place that makes Disneyland/World scented things because I was missing Disney and wanted to bring some of it to my house. 3. What Ozzy lyric describes you best? I only know Crazy Train and I mean, I do feel like I’m on a crazy train. 4. When was the last time you went for a walk without a specific destination in mind? I don’t do that. 5. Do you daydream? Yeah. My mind wanders and I zone out a lot.

6. What was your last daydream about? Random stuff. 7. Ever won the lottery? No, I wish. 8. How much did you get for your high school graduation? I think around $300 and my parents my threw me a nice graduation party. 9. What was the most important decision you made that screwed up your life the most? Not taking care of/putting off some things and neglecting myself.  10. Do you know what your Chinese horoscope is? Nope. 11. What is love really about? Encouragement, support, growth. 12. What's the most you ever made in a year? I’ve never had a job. 13. Do you have an online diary? You’re lookin’ at it. 14. What's the biggest pot you've won in poker? I’ve never played poker. 15. What's your most prized possession? I love all my things. 16. What Metallica lyric most describes your life? I don’t listen to Metallica. 17. Ever been to Ozzfest? No. I take it you’re an Ozzy fan. 18. How many concerts have you been to? I think I’ve been to 7. 19. Which one was your favorite? All of them were fun, but the Jonas Brothers concerts and the Green Day concert were my favorites. 20. What shade of purple most describes your feelings right now? I don’t know. 21. Pick a shade of a color. Now describe it to me and name it. Nah. 22. Sun tea or brewed tea? My mom used to make sun tea during the summers growing up, which I liked. I haven’t had that since then. Nowadays I just throw a tea bag in a cup of hot water and let it steep for a few minutes.  23. What's the most illegal thing you've done? I haven’t done anything serious. 24. Ever get busted by the cops? What for? No. 25. What's under your bed? Nothing. 26. Vacuum or dustbuster? Vacuum. 27. How many people are on your buddy list? Aw, the days of AIM. 28. How many pairs of rollerblades do/did you own? I’ve never owned a pair of rollerblades. 29. Ever wear out a CD? What was it? No. 30. What's your favorite card game? I like card games like Uno, Apples to Apples, and Cards Against Humanity. 31. Who was the most annoying person you've talked to on the phone? I’m not a fan of talking on the phone in general. 32. What's your favorite fast food meal? Wingstop’s boneless garlic parm and lemon pepper wings with their ranch and a a side of lemon pepper sauce. 33. Where is the best restaurant you've ever eaten in at? This Mongolian BBQ place was my favorite back when I could eat spicy food. 34. Lamb chops or pork chops? Neither. 35. How many roses have you received/given? I’ve never received or given roses. 36. When's the last time you mowed the lawn? Never. 37. Washed your car? I’ve never had a car since I don’t drive. I have participated in several car wash fundraising events for Girl Scouts and the psych club I was in in community college, though. 38. Ever have a tornado in your town? No, thankfully we don’t get tornadoes. --- 40. What state is your wardrobe in? Uh, it’s fine?  41. What's the last article of clothing you bought? A cute Valentine’s Day themed Baby Yoda shirt from Boxlunch. 42. How many trash cans can you see right now? One. 43. If you HAD to pick ONE song to listen to for the rest of your life, and that would be the only song you ever heard, what would it be? Ah, I don’t know. 44. Ever heard of Shinedown? Yeah. 45. They rock, don't they? I only know one of their songs and I don’t really care for it much. 46. What size is your bed? It’s a full. 47. When's the last time you had pigs in a blanket? I have no idea. It’s been several years. I don’t particularly care for those. 48. Have you ever painted the ceilings in your home? No. We haven’t painted anywhere in this house. 49. What does your lawn furniture consist of? We just have a bench in the backyard. 50. Ever live off of canned soup and ramen noodles for weeks at a time? I do have my nightly bowl of ramen, but it’s not the only thing I eat. 51. What flavor of jelly are you? *shrug* 52. Ever take any of those online personality quizzes? I’ve taken several. 53. What musical group/artist do you love, but hide from other people? I don’t hide any of the musical artists or bands that I’m into. 54. What's on the floor in your bedroom? Nothing. 55. What is the first meal you remember eating? Pfft, I have no idea. 56. Ever been to a drive in? Yeah, a few times. I wish those would make a big comeback. 57. What was the first movie you ever saw? I don’t remember. 56. What's in your keepsake box/scrapbook? I don’t have like a designated box and I don’t have a scrapbook, but I’ve kept a lot of things throughout my life and a ton of photos all stored away in various places.  57. Describe your first date. It was dinner and a movie. 58. Would you recognize most of your classmates 5 years after graduation? Not from my college graduations. 59. What percentile of your class were you in? I have no idea. 60. When was the last time it rained while the sun was shining? I don’t recall. 61. What did you score on your SATs? I never took the SATs. 62. When was the last time you saw a rainbow? It’s been several years. 63. Name your favorite artist/song from before 1990. I have many favorites. 64. Do you think there should be new genres of music to encompass some of the newer rock performers out now? I don’t know, man. 65. What colors is your lava lamp? I don’t have a lava lamp. I did have one as a kid, though. I think it was blue. 66. What's the strangest thing you've ever hung on the wall? I haven’t hung up anything strange. 67. When's the last time you did laundry? My laundry was done a few days ago. 68. How many hammers do you own? I don’t personally have any hammers, but my dad does. I could use one of his if I needed to. 69. Can you name every place you've ever had sex? Yeah, nowhere.  70. How many speakers are in your bedroom? My laptop, TV, iPhone, and my Nintendo Switch.  71. DVD or VHS? I just watch movies through a streaming service. 72. What's the most important thing you ever lost and never found again? Myself? Lost her a few years ago...still haven’t found her. 73. What forms of birth control have you used? Abstinence (I’m a virgin). 74. How many webpages have you created, and can you still find them all? I’ve made a few back in the day, but no I don’t remember any of them. 75. You have .30 in two coins. One of them is not a nickel. What are they? One of them is not a nickel, but the other one is.  76. What's your pet peeve when cleaning the house? I don’t enjoy cleaning in general. 77. Do you use sponges or dishcloths when doing the dishes? We use a dish washing brush. 78. How many people are in your family portrait? Four. 79. How many times have you moved? A few, but only once that I’m old enough to remember. 80. Handcuffs or rope :D? Neither. 81. What season best describes your temperament? Whatever one best goes along with irritability and moodiness. 82. What's the last thing you had to drink? Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink. 83. Ever been so drunk you blacked out? No, but parts of my memory from one night when I got too drunk are spotty. 84. What's your favorite song on the top twenty right now? I don’t even know what the top 20 is right now. I haven’t been listening to music.  85. What do your light fixtures look like? I have a ceiling lamp and a floor lamp. 86. How many jobs have you held for more than a month? I haven’t had a job. 87. Ever punched a wall? No. 88. When's the last time you really lost your temper? It’s been a long time. 89. How do you cope? Good question. 90. What's your antidrug? My go-to distractions ASMR, watching YouTube videos, scrolling through Tumblr, checking my social medias, doing surveys, reading, watching TV, coloring, sleeping... 91. Ever grown any plants before? What were they? Nope. 92. Ever own a director chair? No. 93. When was the last time you camped out? Never. I have no interest in camping. 94. Went swimming? It’s been like 7 years now since I last went swimming. 95. Went fishing? I’ve only done it once and very briefly. 96. Oust or Glade and why? Glade.  97. Ever thought you (or a girlfriend) were pregnant, but it was a false alarm? Nope. 98. If 97 is yes, were you glad or sad? -- 99. Do you have a red-eye mouse or one with a ball? I don’t have a mouse, I use the trackpad on my laptop. 100. What do your doorstops look like? Uhh those springy ones. I don’t know how else to describe it. The ones that make a lot of noise if you accidentally bump into it. 101. What was the last conversation you had with someone before they died? I was by my grandpa’s side when he died and I was just telling him how much I loved him, thanked him for everything, and comforted him; letting him know it was okay to go. 102. What do your drinking glasses look like? We have various glasses and mugs. 103. How many bottles/containers are in your medicine cabinet? We don’t have a medicine cabinet, but we have a medicine drawer full of various medications. 104. How many funerals have you been to? Three. 105. How many states have you been to? Five, including my own.

106. What was the last bug you killed and what did you use? A gnat. I just swatted it. 107. What does your country need right now? Unity. 108. Are you creative? I wish I was. I don’t have any creativity, artistic abilities, or good ideas. 109. How so? -- 110. How many computers in your household? Two. 111. Ever help to solve a crime? No. 112. Who is in the picture frame on your bedside table? I don’t have any photos on my bedside table. 113. How many CDs does your player hold? I don’t have a CD player. I haven’t had one in many years. 114. What is one thing you'd like to do before you die? Get my shit together and do something with my life. 115. Do the good die young or do they die before they have a chance to be bad? That seems to imply that everyone ends up bad. 116. What's your favorite totally cliche' saying? Blah. 117. Ever go out of your way to exact revenge on someone? No. I’m not a vengeful person. 118. Was it worth it? I don’t think it would ever be worth it.  119. Ever get pulled over by the cops and get away without a ticket? I don’t even drive, so no. 120. What's the weather like right now? It’s currently 50F. 121. What was your first legal alcoholic drink? Tequila shots. 122. Do you have a door/doorknob to your room? Yes. 123. Name one thing you regret? I have a few regrets. :/ 124. Ever get published by one of those poetry groups? No. I don’t even write poetry. 125. What's the furthest distance you've moved? Across town. 126. How many friends from high school/college do you still talk to? None anymore... 127. Where is your home/heart right now? Right here. 128. What's the most expensive things your parents ever bought you? Many things throughout my life and even still.  129. What's the most expensive thing you've bought? My first MacBook back in 2009.  130. How many hangers are in your closet? Uh, a lot. I’m not counting. 131. If you died right now, would you feel cheated or happy? I haven’t accomplished anything. :/ 132. How many times did you intentionally start to commit suicide? Zero. 133. Ever spent the night in the "loony bin?" Don’t call it that, first of all, and no. 134. What's wrong with society? Ignorance, close-mindedness, greed, hate, violence... 135. How many crazy ice cream trucks are in your area? Uh, I’ve never considered any of them to be crazy. Anyway, lately there’s been an ice cream truck coming through my neighborhood, which is is the first in many years. What a random time, though. 136. What is your favorite cover song? I love the cover of George Michael’s, Fast Love, that Adele performed at an award show after he died in honor of him. I always describe it as hauntingly beautiful. It was just so good. I wish she would have released a studio version of it. 137. Does the weather ever seem to reflect your mood eerily? I’m always moody, so when it’s rainy and gloomy it does. 138. Are you more psychic than most people? I don’t believe in psychic abilities.  139. What's your inspiration? I don’t know. :/ 140. What's the longest relationship you've been in? Whatever it was Joseph and I had lasted 3 years, which is longer than technically the only relationship I had that lasted just a few months. What I had with Joseph felt more like one as well in a lot of ways. 141. Did you ever drop out of school? No. 142. Ever raise a child that wasn't your own for more than 3 months? No. 143. What is your favorite piece of jewelry? Probably the stuff I have with birthstone.  144. Ever help someone cheat on someone else? Absolutely not. 145. Are you a cheater too? No. 146. What was the last dessert type food you've eaten? I had some mini funfetti muffins yesterday. 147. Fill in the blank: I'm a ________aholic. Coffeeholic. 148. When's the last time you went to a hairdresser/salon? Last February. I’ve over a year due now.  149. Strangest medical procedure ever performed on you? I had to wear this thing called a halo, which is a weird thing that gets drilled into the front of your head (I have two tiny circular scars above each eyebrow from that) and on the back are some weights attached to it that hang down. It was put on after my spinal fusion surgery and is meant to keep your back straight and things in place. It was awful. And heavy. When it was removed I had to wear a neck brace for a bit because my neck was weak. 150. Do you own any appliances? Yeah, we have several appliances. 151. Do you have an "egg crate" on your bed? Yes. 153. Last time you went to the laundromat? I remember tagging along as a kid with my grandma before. 154. How many hinges are on your front door? I’m not sure. 155. Can I be done yet? Yeah, I think you’re good.  

I’ve spent the course of COVID lockdown cycling through hyperfixations while also trying to engage in some much needed therapy (lolsob), and I’ve been essentially encouraging myself to try and do more things I can enjoy without feeling shame. Anyway, that’s a short way of saying I decided to blog about all the music videos of Depeche Mode for reasons of science.

The science is that my basic premise is that most of the videos are pretty bad in ways that I find to be pretty strange. Full disclosure is that I spent my teen years being a huge Cure fan and there’s an overlap there? Of songs with very niche high-concept ideas that don’t necessarily map onto a model of popular music but found mainstream success in the rise of new wave music in the wake of the collapse of first wave punk and amplified by the creation of music videos and music video TV. And I owned all the Cure music videos and played them on my iPod Nano because I was a very strange child. But to get back to my central thesis, many of The Cure’s videos are very stylised and fun and memorable in ways that are good. And yet, despite existing in the same sphere and having an overlap of fans, the music videos for Depeche Mode mostly stay bad until the end of the eighties, a fact I will prove by watching them all.

Can you tell that I am bored because i have lost my job and my mental health is making me fixate on strange shit currently because that is absolutely the case right now

Speak & Spell

Dreaming of Me (Feb 1981)

The single art is really lovely - the red/yellow contrast is very striking against the white, and I really love the design. Hey remember when people used to go out and buy singles and you would appreciate them and the work that went into them? I don’t think I’ve bought a physical single since I was about sixteen. I used to buy them from the Woolworths music department because it was cheap and all my friends worked there, so they had a pretty lenient attitude about what exactly constituted paying for things. Woolworths policy of only hiring teenagers is probably what destroyed their business.

Anyway, Dreaming of Me did not chart super well, getting to number 57 and having no official music video - or actually getting onto the album. It wasn’t included on Speak & Spell in the UK until the 2006 re-release. So, there was no music video for me to look at…

Apart from this video I found from local TV in 1981 to promote the song. It’s a maybe-music video. Because music videos had only been around for about six years and MTV didn’t exist until later in the same year, my guess is that Mute Records were pretty cautious about putting money into a medium that might cost more than they would get in publicity. That’s only a guess. I don’t have a crystal ball for forty years ago. 

Anyway, here are some children recording music.

If i was 19 and someone offered me a recording contract I would have taken it without thinking (like i took on all those student loans without thinking through any consequences wompwomp) but now I am nearly thirty I watch this and think, ‘These children shouldn’t be outside unaccompanied’. The passage of time has made a fool of me.

They go bowling and play Space Invaders which, hey, still sounds like a great night out to me, but I’m guessing that because this is very clearly aimed at teenagers the TV producers didn’t want to encourage teen drinking by showing them performing a gig at a club night.

I call it high fashion. The all-grey really sells it.

This reminds me so much of a advice column in teen magazines - when they’d have problems set out in a little faux-comic strip of still photos? ‘My best friend stole and read my diary’ ‘My crush found out about how I feel and now he’s going out with my best friend’, that sort of thing. That is also a classic carpet pattern. I think my grandma’s living room had that carpet. 

The video is very naive! It’s the sort of thing we would all see now on Youtube from bands just starting out and it is wild to me that this went out on TV. It’s very un-glossy and normal, the stuff that bands put out on YouTube now because of DIYness.

New Life (June 1981)

This is also a really great piece of single art. It’s very bold and striking - it would definitely be the standout record in a sea of other 7’’ released the same week. It also doesn’t particularly match the tone of the single but eh, it looks pretty cool. New Life did much better than Dreaming of Me and got up to number 11 in the UK singles chart. Still no official music video, but the charting meant that the band got onto Top of The Pops! ToTP was cancelled when I was a wee baby teen, because the BBC decided to stop caring about yoof viewership and promoting music was circling the drain everywhere as streaming hit, but it was the place to promote music so was definitely a sign that You Had Made It.

So, last video was silly and made by children, but now they’re wearing see-through mesh shirts, leather trousers, and leather hats with a design that I am a little bit dubious about. I grew up on the oi/punk scene and let me tell you about how many first wave punks wear iconography of bad regimes for faux edginess reasons because I met a LOT of them in my time.

Oh boy do i have thoughts about that hat. It also looks like a Leather Daddy hat which, well, let’s leave that thought to one side. Most ToTP performances were lipsynced. Playing things live would sound weird in the studio, be picked up strangely by the audio equipment and the cameras, so 99% of performances were mimed to the single. Now, some acts would deliberately play up to the pretence and refuse to act like they were doing anything that corresponded to the song - The Jam, The Communards, and The Cure are literally the first examples that come to mind who would just… not do anything close to pretending it was real. 

This is not that. It is very earnest and awkward and serious, which sort of makes it very sweet.

Just Can’t Get Enough (September 1981)

Right, that is shibari, isn’t it? I’m not blind, am I? It’s a very striking image that 99.9% of people would not recognise other than being a striking black and white image. 

I don’t think I can overstate how… innocent, in a way, this point of time was? As in the general level of knowledge about non-conventional stuff in the wider public at large. As in my mother, an almost teen at this point, saw George Michael walking with his boyfriend in central London and had no idea he was gay until he came out. It’s actually the widest cultural gulf I can think of between her teen years and my teen years because I was very aware of queer people from a young age.

Anyway, moving on, I feel like it bears repeating that this song fucking slaps. It’s the last single to be written by Vince Clarke and the last single until 2006 to be written by someone other than Martin Gore. This is one of those songs that just works on every level. Can you imagine coming up with this for the first album of your band? That blows my mind. It’s so overpoweringly good that it was probably for the best that it was saved for last - coming out the gate with a guaranteed fucking banger was been the nail in the coffin for a lot of other eighties synth/electronica bands. They scored a huge hit and then nothing after that managed to be as good or meet the hype. Depeche Mode had built up a far bit of radio play and interest before dropping this which turned out to be very good in the long run!

This got to number 8 on the UK charts and the first to get a music video! It is the only one with Vince Clarke. Full disclosure in that I had this song on my iPod through downloading the video to my computer (that’s how we got songs without using stuff that would give us viruses because i got a ton using bearshare for rare cure demos) and I remember watching the video, all of sixteen years old, and thinking, ‘Man, all these people look so grown up, compared to me, I can’t wait to be an adult!’.

Twelve years have changed my view, somewhat.

Look at this little baby man. Were you in one of my A Level classes - as in, ones that I have taught, not ones that I have been in.

Vince Clarke, however, has had a significant glow up in the six months and now looks like he is the bouncer in a leather bar. This is the One Adult in the room.

Ahh, I see it’s Open Mic Night at the local leather bar. You know what I was saying about how teens in the eighties tended to be significantly more naive about what we might call certain signifiers? Because what this outfit says to me, a queer woman in 2020, is susbstanitally different than to my mum and her friends watching this when it first came out. She would read this as ‘This is totally rebellious and cool!’ while I go ‘Someone just joined the university kink club and spent all their bursary’.

I don’t remember the member of Blazin’ Squad that wore a slave harness. (Now, there’s a reference that shows my age. A Blazin’ Squad reference in the year of Our Lord 2020. Hoooo boy.)

I read somewhere (that I can’t find now because, of course I can’t) that these are the band’s girlfriends and I always remembered that because it made me think, lol, same. One of my closest friends is the Head of London, so she’s in every band in London and if she’s not in yours yet give her time, and my partner was in a locally successful metal/hardcore band for about a decade and being connected with any sort of band means you will be helping out hugely behind the scene constantly. I have held lights, moved speakers, picked up instruments, been in music videos, and have bought tearaway trousers and glowsticks for gigs. You get called in to help all the time which is a lot of fun, so that fact always just stuck with me. It also makes sense financially because then you don’t have to hire any professional backing dancers, you can rely on people who will happily do it for free (while looking pretty rad while doing it!).

Anyway, the band look like those generic raiders that you run into when randomly walking across the map in a Fallout game.

I love awkward choreography in music videos. It feeds me.

Filming a night out provides A) Great footage and B) Can be done for limited overheads, leaving more money to be put into promotion. 

I always like seeing this sort of footage in music videos. I tend to see a lot of it, given the DIY punk scene, and it always charms me. I am easy to please. And all those women have the most amazing eye makeup that makes me super jealous because it all looks so good.

That hat is on point. This looks like a still image for some sort of cyberpunk big band style swing revival that, sadly, lives only in my dreams.

It took me so goddamn long to screenshot this shot probably because i was also blasting dream nails whoops

Anyway those are my reactions to Speak & Spell’s one solitary music video with some other things thrown in and this took me way too long. I make myself laugh though, that’s the main thing. I will do A Broken Frame… at some point. I think I have a bunch of vinyl for A Broken Frame? My mum actually bought all the singles for that album and I stole most of her collection years ago. I will have to search and see what I can find.

Making Performance Blog : Post 1

The first monologue by Chris Tope, is about the brutal revenge of one man. After being sexually assaulted by another man who “tea bagged” him ( placing ones gentians over another). The man returns home that night and retrieves a golf club, then returns to the party and attacks his assaulter violently. The narrator then switches to give his focus on his interactions with a girl he meets inside a pub. The girl then begins to describe his hands as, almost having a mind of its own, and how she could watch them. What follows is what I  believe is a suggestion that the girls and man enjoy certain toxic or dark traits in one other and heavily hints that their relationship may have not been consensual and may have been aggressive,“she’s the one I went for”. However it then suggests there whatever kind of relationship they had was not meant to be,“she couldn’t watch forever”. This implies that the intensity of their relationship was too much for the woman to handle. The overall narrative and themes of the the narrator are summed up in a description of him by his old coach “a lot of power with no control”. The monologue focuses on one mans ability to change the lives of the people around him, through methods that don’t help him. The second monologue written by Hannah Silva focuses on a conversation between a daughter and farther. At first the dialogue can be very jarring, often talking at once with the layering and voices and the disorganised order of the monologue, focusing on the discussion of a “city in flames”, “inappropriate laughter” and a “metal door inside his brain”. Although the monologue can feel obtuse near the end of the piece the cluttered pieces of the puzzle fit together to form a piece dealing with dementia. The piece aims to focus on the mental health issue and the family struggles that can come with it with family members often forgetting their close relatives. This is expressed in the form of the the odd dialogue and the dream like imagery, which in mine opinion suggests the farther reliving his time in the Second World War during the blitz. Thirdly Chloe Moss delivers a monologue on 12 year old girls issues with anxiety in the 1980’s. The monologue takes the point of view of a memory as the girl struggles with her anxiety at school, which then she leaves school as she cannot stay in the schools bathrooms, which as she says is “the last thing she would do”. Although saying that the girl runs to the beach, and discusses her irrational fears of “great white sharks” and “quick sand”. The monologue gives a great a feeling of empathy towards the girls anxiety often expressing it through some levels of comedy eg wondering how best to tackle an old woman and thinking that someone who is approaching her is a serial killer. The young girl begins to converse with the old woman and the two begin to help each other, one with the old woman’s grief and the young girls anxiety. Overall the monologue gives a realistic portrayal of what can be seen as the struggle with anxiety and OCD. Zia Ahemed writes a love stricken piece about the ending of a two year relationship between a white woman and a Pakistan man. The monologue focuses on the difference that can occur between two people. The monologue shows the couple discussing how the woman knew that the two of them were different moments after they met each other she was willing to fight for it. However the man believes that she wouldn’t able to understand the struggles he faces, he is a “Londoner” as he would be recognised as something insulting by people not from London and also having to deal with the lack of approval from the woman’s farther. But the man continuously says “I love you” throughout the piece. Emphasising something important when it comes to relationships, which is that sometimes relationships don’t work sometimes and not out of a hating motivator or a lack of love but just purely the circumstances for which we have no control off. The last monologue makes quite literally no sense. It follows the story of a man who recalls the time he was arrested. Because he stole a push bike after leaving a party. The man then begins to describe how he imagined himself becoming a duck and think about different kind of duck thoughts. To be honest I believe this monologue is just truly pure absurdism at work and there no deeper meaning.

For me I would say the language surrounding the hands of the Narrator from the first monologue really sticks with me. The way they are described as “having a mind of their own” gives them a feeling of having their own entity. It’s not that there is any description of the mans hands themselves. Which allows the audience to make their own assumptions of the what they may look like. For me it’s a vivid image of slightly large hands that are well kept with maybe a small cut on the finger from where he’s been fidgeting with his pocket or a large cut on his knuckle from where he may have cleaned his hands too roughly. However I also I see them just surrounded with a dark presence, one that can be seen as welcoming to some with similar niche or darker intentions, but very intimidating to those who are not into the same mind set. Second image that sticks in my head is the description of “ city on fire” not purely for the destructive real life chaos it describes. But the idea it’s the thought of a man that has now seen the hardship first hand consistently replayed in his head as a vast empty void with just this one memory on loop. Finally the description of the man attacking the man with the golf club with a “splash”, the use of the word splash gives such horrific imagery that the man hit his sexual assaulter with such force that enough liquid was realised to form an audible and physical impact to the attack, mainly I can vividly see a golf club lodged in a mans head

The first video used frame or screen very interestingly as a video interview. Although it didn’t mention COVID it still clearly references and could be suggesting of leading from the past to change the future. In the second video it’s filmed as a video diary to her child as her she has to isolate her self from her child. The video is a expressive modern way to perform under COVID conditions. Almost replacing the original idea of performing a diary scene on stage eg through reading and writing aloud or some sort of audio-able narration meaning to represent some sort of inner thought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahmed, Z., 2016. Lah-di-dah London. [Online]

Harris, A., 2010. Come To Where I’m From Cardiff. [Online].

Moss, C., 2019. Quicksand Liverpool. [Online]

National Theatre of Scotland. 2020. Scenes For Survival Launch Collection | National Theatre Of Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/latest/scenes-for-survival-launch-collection> [Accessed 5 October 2020].

Silva, H., 2013. Come To Where I’m From Plymouth. [Online].

Thorpe, C., 2010. Come To Where I'm From Manchester. [Online].

381. It Came From the Daily Show: one episode from August 1999, and one from September 1999

(June and July here)

August 26, 1999

I have a treat for the episode for August -- I uploaded my vhs copy of it!

 By August, Jon is still walking to his desk at the beginning of the show -- I still can’t remember when he stopped doing this. Jon has to get through the show quickly tonight, it’s their back to school episode, and he has to go out and buy notebooks, binders, and toughskins. Sometimes he chafes! Ya’ll are like what on earth are toughskins? Toughskins were these ugly pants for kids that Sears used to sell in their catalog back in the day. They were supposed to be more durable, but I can’t imagine they were very flexible. Here’s a commercial.

Headlines - Pilot to Coke-Pilot : American Airlines employees caught smuggling cocaine. There may of been an incident of cocaine leaking out onto the food in a food cart...”resulting in an entire coach section running up and down the aisles with sandwiches held aloft screaming, ‘WOO-HOO! HAM AND CHEESE! YEAH!’.”

American Airlines had to change their slogan: 

Clinton Vacation Diaries: Day 5 - Bill is on vacation golfing at Martha’s Vineyard. People were watching him and began singing “God Bless America”, which is creepy. 

Tough Glove - Little League World Series heats up. Kids from all over the world come to a little town in PA to learn new ways to call their teammates homophobic slurs. Hey, Jon said it, I didn’t. Winners will either be sent to their rooms ... or their looms depending on where they are from. This is one of the crueler segments that I’ve covered from this series, and something Jon and crew got away from come late ‘99 and into 2000. 

Correspondent Piece - Stilt Stalkings: Stephen Colbert interviews Uncle Sam who says that his ex wife is stalking him.  “I want you to leave me alone!” he says. 

Stephen: Did you ever go through his garbage?

Ex-wife: no....

Stephen: Good, because he peed all over it. 

After commercials, Jon asks, “...is it a bad sign if someone in the audience says to me, ‘GET IN MAH BELLY!’?”

Other News - Going Going, Gun : “Los Angeles bans gun sales at gun shows. Gun Lobbyists say, ‘gun shows don’t kill people, people shows kill people.’”

Interview - Nia Long: I usually skip the interview in these entries, due to time constraints, but this one is special. Nia teaches Jon what a ho bag is. Nia lost her luggage three times on this promotional tour. However, she says that he mother always told her “no matter where you go, always carry your ho-bag”.  

Nia: you know, your toothbrush, your condoms, a clean pair of underwear, your protein drink...

Jon: My apartment is a ho-bag!

Jon was just reading Family Circus. 

This Just In - Nice Cans:  Campbells introduces a new soup label. Because that was news in 1999. I love this stupid thing so much, Jon and Crew makes something as trivial as soup funny. This was the Daily Show I loved for years that sadly went away.  

“Many say collectors will be rushing out to stores to buy the old cans, and place them on a trophy shelf alongside the bittersweet dream that was Crystal Pepsi.”

“The new label also features a photo of soup in a bowl, which will come as a revelation to the millions of consumers who up until new always ate their soup of out a hat!” 

I actually remember those new labels, haha. The Campbells can had stayed the same all my life until then. So when that changes, you notice it. 

Out at the Movies - Summer, 1999 wrap up: Jon says in the introduction that Frank will tell us why the Summer of 1999 movies went so “horribly, horribly wrong” -- but I’ve read articles where people declare 1999 as one of the best  years for movies. Maybe 20 years ago, people were focused on the disappointment of The Phantom Menace, and Eyes Wide Shut? I mean, in the How Did this Get Made podcast episode about Lawnmower Man, Jason Mantzoukas even says that he CRIED when he saw how bad Phantom Menace was. 

[from my hometown newspaper, Daily Press]

September 30, 1999 -- I uploaded this one from my old tapes too.

Here we are, bby. This is one of my all time favorite episodes. Jon learns all about Garth Brooks’ alter ego, Chris Gaines. Oh boy, Chris Gaines. Garth Brooks like, wanted to be a rock n roll star, and star in a movie or something so he created this character named Chris Gaines? Garth even went to make believe land, and gave him a whole backstory. I remember one was his mom or his dad coached swimming in Australia? There was even a faux Behind the Music on VH1 about Chris and how his bandmates died?! It was seriously one of the dumbest things from 1999. By the way, The Lamb never became a movie. 

Headlines - Alter Egomaniac: Garth puts on a TV concert of his alter ego, but he performs on stage as Garth? Will he ask himself for an autograph of Chris Gaines?

I found the entire interview that played in between songs for the special, including the music video for Chris’ first band Crush (because that’s an original name for a band). Garth is totally lost in Chris Gaines when he’s explaining the faux musical video. You have to watch it. The bizarre “did you know?” about Chris’ fictional life are also in the clip. Was this music video made for the movie that never got off the ground? So many unanswered questions.

Jon says we can’t care about this stuff because CHRIS DOESN’T EXIST. 

Media Responsibility -  The correspondents are here to criticize the media.  Yada Yada, this is all Chyron jokes: 

It also includes a clip of a guy in a bullfight where his pants were removed by the bull. Classic Daily Show clip. 

Stephen Colbert has to go freak on some bones? I wanna know where that shower was. Is it the one in Jon’s dressing room? Did they got to a co-workers apartment just for that shower scene? 

Ooh! This episode has its commercials intact! There’s gonna be an SNL marathon Friday night in honor of Superstar. Also, a Phantom Menace Playstation game came out about four months too late.

Other News - Web of Receipts: amazon.com becomes an internet flea market with the launch of z shops. They’re gonna offer more than just books n cds. e.

(the interview is missing from my clip)

Out at the Movies with Frank DeCaro: For the Love of the Game - My boy Frank didn’t like it. Kelly Preston looks like Lisa Loeb, Kevin Costner has a bunch of crow’s feet. 

“Isn’t this a long way to go just for a full head of hair?”

--

For more entries similar to this, check out my Daily Show favorites from 1999-2001 zine over at my etsy shop. 

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