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antoniamarshall24 · 7 months

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‘’This is the beginning’’ |Staying alive| Chapter one

I remained motionless my eyes were glued to the scene that was unfolding before me. A group of police officers had pounced on Easton and led him in handcuffs to the car. The last few hours' events were a blur, but one thing was clear: Easton had been arrested for murder. He was one of the suspects in Reed’s death and other deaths…

“He is the murderer?’’ Said a voice beside me, making me look to my right, where I saw Nicole. Her expression was sad but at the same time relieved. Relieved that after so long we finally found out who killed her.

“I don’t think he’s the murderer…’’ I said, looking back at Easton. He looked at me with a sad expression but gave me a reassuring smile as if to assure me that everything would be all right. His hair was a mess, and judging by the look on his face, he seemed exhausted. There was some blood on his grey T-shirt.

As the car pulled away with the man, I fell in love with earlier this year; I felt a hand on my shoulder. Looking to my left, I saw my older brother, Sawyer.

“Are you all right?" he asked, trying to comfort me, and I just shook my head.

“No... But I will be. I need to talk to someone about what just happened.''

After that, I ignored Sawyer calling my name and ran to my car to drive to the police station. I knew exactly what was going to happen and who to talk to.

“You might want to wash your face and change your clothes first," Sawyer said as he held the car door open. He was right. I rolled my eyes as I got out of the car and went back into the house to change.

------

As I walked down the hallway of the police station, I stopped in front of a desk next to one of my old friends, Connor Calloway, a man in his late thirties with blue eyes and short chestnut hair. He was unhappy, but if I'm honest, I can’t remember the last time I saw him truly happy.

“Any interesting case for today?’’ I asked with a smile and took a sip of my coffee while he looked annoyed at me. Sometimes I wonder if this man has something against joy and happiness, and I wonder… How can I be friends with him?

Connor just handed me a folder of photos and sticky notes. “Remember this case? Well, they finally caught a suspect. Most people think he’s behind all this. And you, of course, get to take care of it.’’

I gave him a small smile and began to walk down the hall to the interrogation room when a voice stopped me.

“Uncle James!’’

Turning around, I saw my niece running toward me, breathing heavily as she stopped in front of me.

“What do we have here? My beautiful niece is all grown up. ‘’ I said, looking down at the folder in my hands.

Maeve was fifteen years old the last time I saw her; my brother didn't want to put Maeve in dangerous situations. But when I saw her now, she reminded me of her mother, Blair, except for her sea-green eyes.

''I have no time for jokes.'' She said, looking at me sternly, still breathing heavily.

''It is about one of your cases, a current one, I believe.'' She continued, looking at me. It looks like she still likes to play the role of the detective.

''And yet I thought you had come to see me. Maeve, my cases are confidential, you know that.'' I told her, trying to be serious.

When she was younger, Maeve wanted to be a detective, and sometimes I would let her read about some of my cases, which, of course, had nothing to do with a murderer.

''Just one question. I swear, just one.'' Said Maeve, looking at me with her big, green puppy eyes.

She knew perfectly well that I couldn’t say no to her puppy eyes, so I just nodded and looked around the hall, then back at her.

‘’Easton Morgan, is he here? Is he your case?’’

''How did you find out? Maybe because I’m the best detective?''

I was joking when I noticed Maeve take on a serious expression. That was not a good sign. More importantly. How did she know this guy?

''You are investigating these crimes that happened last year?'' Maeve said in shock. She took a deep breath and brushed some hair behind her ear before looking at me again.

“You have to listen to me, okay? Easton is not the killer, he is innocent.''

"You act like you know exactly what happened. How do you know he's innocent?’’

Maeve looked away, avoiding my gaze for a few seconds. ''I can’t tell you… But you have to trust me, please.'' She said with a serious expression on her face. That made me realize something. The way she was talking about the boy…

''You’re in love with this guy, aren’t you?’’ I asked, and when she didn’t answer, I was sure. This was the first time I saw Maeve in love with someone, and that someone is the first suspect in a big case of murder and other terrible things.

“Maeve, you know I usually trust you. But this guy is a suspect and could be a murderer. Do you realize that?’’ I asked, avoiding her gaze, my eyes fixed on the folder in my hands, which I now hold even tighter.

When I looked up at Maeve, her whole face was covered with sadness as she looked down at the ground.

“You’re young, do yourself a favor. Stay away from people like him, okay? All they do is ruin your life, or worse, end your life. And you don’t want that, do you?’’

I walked down the hall to the interrogation room before she could even answer. When I opened the silver, metal door, I saw a man with messy brown hair and green eyes sitting at the table across the room. His facial expression revealed that he was confident, exhausted, and worried.

“I’m Detective James Kazansky, and you must be… Easton?’’ My voice was clear and loud, and my blue eyes locked on him, unsure of his intentions.

''Easton Perceval Morgan, that’s me.'' He said in a full, affirmative voice as he sat up in his chair and watched me with a smile on his face. Was this whole situation just a game to him?

‘’Well Easton, I hope you can answer some questions for me.’’ I faced him and flipped open the folder of photos and sticky notes. I noticed Easton looking at them intently. That was the evidence; everything was in there, everything the police knew…

“Look, I’m just trying to understand what happened in this city, and from the reports here, I infer kidnapping, stalking, and multiple murders. And you are one of the suspects.''

“Well, detective, I’m not the killer. But I think I know who is.’’ He replied with a superior smile on his face.

God, what did Maeve see in this guy?

“You think you know who is behind all this?’’

“What can I say? It's been a wild year.'' He laughed softly and propped his chin on his palm without taking his eyes off me for even a second.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened here? From the beginning.''

“I hope you have a lot of time, detective, because this could take a while.’’

------

1st September 2018

As I stepped out of my father’s car, my white boots touched the smooth, cemented sidewalk as I glanced at the new place, I would from now on call home. A big white house with lots of windows and a black roof. Maybe it was a good idea to make a new start in a place where no one knew you.

“Come on writer, let’s get all this stuff inside.’’ Sawyer’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

My brother didn’t want to live with us anymore, it took some time to get used to this, but he wanted to spend his time alone, so he rented a small apartment in a building near our house. I went next to him to the trunk and helped him get all the stuff out.

“Do you two need help?’’ Asked my father as he carried a box to the front door.

“We got it!’’ I replied with a smile on my face, which also made him smile. My father needed this fresh start after all he had been through, so I wanted to do my best to support him.

''This place seems nice,'' Sawyer said with a gentle smile on his face.

I nodded as we both watched Lydia get out of the car, her eyes fixed on her cell phone. She wasn’t our sister. Her father was my father’s best friend, and when Lydia’s parents died, my parents adopted her.

It was quite obvious that we were not related; Lydia was a beautiful girl with smooth olive skin and hair black as ebony and chocolate brown eyes. me on the other hand, was completely pale and had sea-green eyes and light brown hair.

“Lydia, are you going to help us?’’ I asked her while holding a box in my arms.

She turned and looked at me briefly before continuing toward the house without answering me.

“Don’t bother, Maeve. This girl will never help you with anything. She’s incapable of compassion and caring.'' Said Sawyer as he walked past me into the house.

As I entered this new house, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was walking in my own personal hell. I walked toward the big light coming from the living room, leaving my suitcase by the door as I went in. The walls were white, just like the rest of the house, and so was the new furniture we had brought with us.

Lydia had chosen the two leather armchairs in the center of the room, separated by the black leather sofa. In front of the couch was a small coffee table, and on the opposite wall hung our large TV. Lydia, Sawyer, and my father entered the room as I looked around. My father had a broad smile on his face, while Lydia kept looking around and frowning.

“What do you think?’’ My dad asked, looking at me and Lydia, but before I could answer, she beat me to it.

“You already know what I think.’’ At least she didn’t use ‘we’ I watched her silently while Lydia kept talking, “This city is small and probably full of strange people.’’

My father sighed while Sawyer rolled his eyes. Dad looked at me for a few seconds before looking back at Lydia. ‘’It will be good for us to be here. To have a fresh start.'' Said dad with a gentle smile and put one of his hands on Lydia’s shoulders, whereupon she just rolled her eyes.

“Grow up, Lydia. Would you? If you don’t like it, you can always get a job and rent an apartment or wherever you want.’’ Sawyer said, visibly annoyed by Lydia’s behavior.

After that, the whole room was silent, and my father began to open one of the boxes we carried in and pulled out a lot of framed family photos. I know he had a hard time looking at them. My parents' divorce took a toll on my dad, so he wanted a fresh start, and Sawyer and I understood that well.

‘’I think it’s a nice place to live.’’ I told my father with a gentle smile, then I left the room, picked up my suitcase, and began climbing the wooden stairs to my new room.

As I did so, I noticed the small kitchen with white tiles and black cabinets. The second floor was not as large as I had expected. It was more like a small hallway with a few doors that probably led to the bedrooms or bathroom, but there were also many windows. I knew which room could be mine simply because my father mentioned that I had a balcony.

So, my room must have been the last door in the corridor. I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath because the strange feeling in my chest was back. I slowly opened the door and closed it behind me after I walked in. It was much bigger than I had expected.

The door to the balcony was on the wall in front of the door, the walls were a beautiful light shade of purple. On the left side of the room was a small window with a white desk in front of it, perfect for writing while also being able to hear the birds chirping from outside. Also on the left side was a dark closet where I could store my clothes, and a door that probably led to my bathroom. On the right side of the room was the bed, covered with light pink sheets, and a small nightstand next to it.

When I turned my gaze back to the desk, I suddenly saw a black cat sleeping on the desk. This was strange because when I went in, there was no cat. I walked up to it, wanting to pick it up and take it out of the house. But as soon as I went to touch it, my hand went through it as if it wasn’t even there.

“What the hell?’’

“The living cannot touch the dead. It is strange, however, that you can see Mr. Whiskers.'' Said a voice behind me.

Turning my head in the direction of the voice, I noticed a girl, about 16 years old, sitting on the floor with her back to the bed, looking up at me. Her flawless skin shimmered divinely amber in the sun's rays that fell through the window into my room, while her blonde strands of hair cascaded down her back. Her soft, caramel eyes were filled with wonder as her gaze landed on me.

“What the hell? How did you get in here?’’ I asked, confused and also a little frightened.

I didn’t even hear the door open; how did this girl and her cat get into my room without me even noticing them?

“You can see me?’’ She asked in surprise, rising from the ground.

"Why I wouldn’t be able to see you?’’ I asked, as she passed me and took her cat in her arms. She looked down at the cat, apparently Mr. Whiskers, before looking up at me.

“Who are you?’’ I asked, without taking my eyes off her, not even for a second.

Am I hallucinating?

“My name is Nicole Leblanc. This is my cat Mr. Whiskers, and you should not see us, no one sees us’’ She said, looking around the room.

“What do you mean that no one sees you?’’ I asked as the door to my room opened and Lydia sat in the doorway looking at me for a few seconds before looking at her phone again.

''Dad says the food is here. He ordered something online.''

“Wait, Lydia, you don’t see her?’’

“See who?’’

“Nicole. Nicole Leblanc and her cat.’’

Lydia looked up from her phone and rolled her eyes as she looked around my room.

“Let me guess: you have just created a new fictional character for one of your books, named Nicole, who has a cat for a sidekick. But now you started seeing her? I think you’re going crazy.'' She said frowning before leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

What if she was right? Maybe I am going crazy.

“She was so mean," said Nicole, who was now sitting in the chair with her cat asleep on her lap. For a second, I thought I was imagining everything, but this girl was standing right in front of me.

“Am I going crazy?’’

“No, you don’t look like a crazy person.’’

“Then why do I see and hear you?’’

“That’s what I’m wondering too! This is new for me, but also so cool.’’

She seemed happier now and looked at me with a broad smile. But this situation was strange for both of us. At least not only for me, that was a bonus, I think.

“Why couldn’t she see you?’’ I asked although I had the feeling that I already knew the answer. But I want to be delusional and hope for a logical explanation. Don’t ask me to give you one, because I don’t have one. That’s why I’m asking Nicole to do it.

“Because I’m dead. That’s why people shouldn’t see me. But you do.’’

Yup, that was the answer I was thinking of. But how the hell was that possible? I never believed in stories about ghosts, I always thought they were just stories to scare little kids. But this girl was standing right in front of me.

Before I could say anything else, I heard my father calling me from downstairs, so I hurried downstairs and sat down at the dining table.

"Sorry, I lost track of time," I apologized with a small smile on my face. I noticed that Sawyer had already left, probably to his apartment.

“Lydia said you already started writing something new?’’ My father asked.

Crap, now I need to think of a good lie to excuse the fact that I asked Lydia if she saw Nicole.

“Hm? Oh, not really. It’s complicated.’’ I’m not a good liar. At this moment I wanted to just slap myself for what I just said.

Thankfully, my father only nodded and began to eat. Lydia ignored me as usual and pretended I wasn’t even there. We don’t talk much, only when she needs something from me.

As soon as I finished eating, I excused myself, saying I was tired, and went back to my room. That was not entirely a lie, but at the moment I was more worried about the ghost in my room.

“Nicole?’’ I asked as I entered the room. Maybe she was gone; maybe she wasn't here at all. Yes, maybe I was hallucinating because I was exhausted.

“Yeah?’’

Nope, she was right there, sitting in my chair, looking at some of the pictures I had with my mother, Sawyer, and my father. Do ghosts know what privacy means? I hope they do.

“So, you’re dead…’’ I said the most obvious thing, good job Maeve.

“I am.’’

“And for some reason, I can see you.’’

“That’s new for me too! But it’s so cool! Now I can finally talk to someone.’’

How long has she been a ghost? Has she been trapped here? Can she leave the house? If I wasn’t so scared and confused, this could be a great story for a book. 'The Girl Who Can Talk to the Dead' wait a minute…

“If I can see you, that means I can see other ghosts as well?’’

“Keyword: ghosts. Some people after they die, can go to the afterlife— maybe Heaven or Hell. We, ghosts, are people that are stuck here. Some of us have unfinished business here.’’ She said as she walked around the room looking at my stuffed animals. She had a sad expression on her face when she realized she couldn’t touch them.

“You can leave the house?’’

“Yes, but where would I go? I only know this house. I don’t remember much from when I was alive.'' She replied sadly.

It was good that she could leave the house, maybe we could try to find out why she was here.

“When did you die?’’

That made her pause, and she bit her nails as she looked down.

''May 1st, 2015'' That was three years ago…

‘’How did you die?’’

''I don’t know.’’

That’s why she was stuck here; she needed to know how she died. Maybe that was her unfinished business. I felt sorry for her, I couldn’t send her away. She was still a child. Well, a ghost, but still a child who needed help, and I was the only one who could help her.

“All right… We will figure something out. Don’t worry about it.'' I said with a gentle smile on my face.

It was a bit strange living with a ghost, but we just have to get used to each other.

“I can imagine you want to have some rules. You can sleep on the bed; no one can see me, so it's easy to hide me from your family. But you should hold your cell phone to your ear when we talk, or you’ll look like a crazy person talking to yourself.’’ She said laughing.

“Tomorrow I have to go to work. You can come with me or stay here.'' I said, sitting down on my bed and looking around the room.

I remembered that Bradley Sharman and his mother Carol had also moved here. Bradley had been my friend for as long as I could remember, and his father was also in the Navy, like mine. Unfortunately, his father died when Bradley was two years old.

Sawyer and Bradley were close in age, while I was two years younger than both of them. The first time I met him? I was four years old, and his mother brought him to visit my father. I remember my parents were inside, along with Bradley’s mother and Lydia’s parents.

We were all in the backyard; everything was fine until Lydia decided to play catch. You guys are probably thinking that's not such a bad idea, right? Well, it was my ‘turn’ the whole time, no matter who I caught. And believe me, at four years old, it was a little hard to keep up with the older kids.

At one point I got frustrated, sat down in the middle of the yard, and started crying. I remember Lydia calling me a baby and Sawyer pushing her before throwing up his arms in exasperation and going into the house to get a snack.

Lydia frowned and ran after Sawyer; ready to tell her parents how mean Sawyer was for pushing her and ruining her beautiful yellow dress with white polka dots.

The only one who seemed to care that I was still there with tears running down my cheeks was Bradley. He came up to me, held out his hand, and helped me get up off the ground.

Bradley never treated me like Sawyer’s little sister, but always like a friend. That was probably why the two of us later became such close friends.

And here we are now. Bradley moved to this little town with his mother. Carol knew a nice woman here named Bridget who owned a nice coffee shop where Bradley and I could work before college started and after we finished our classes.

I got a job, which was a big step forward, a nice one. Lydia, on the other hand, spent all her time at home or with her ‘friends.’ She never introduced them to my dad or me, but that was fine with me. Her friends could be a little… let’s call them problematic, shall we?

------

2nd September 2018

“Maevey! Breakfast is ready!’’ I heard Lydia’s voice from outside my room as I was getting ready.

It was a Saturday morning, which meant Bradley and I would be working at the coffee shop until the afternoon today. I took one last look in the mirror and fixed my hair before heading downstairs.

It was a warm day, so I decided to wear just a pair of blue jeans and a light purple T-shirt, and I would put on my blue jacket later in case I got cold.

“Maeve! I’m not telling you again!’’ Lydia shouted from the other side of the door, which made me roll my eyes.

“She can’t keep her mouth shut, can she?’’ Nicole asked with a furrowed brow, which had just woken up.

“Unfortunately, no. I’m sorry you had to hear that. But now that you’re awake, maybe you could come with me to the café," I said with a smile, while Nicole just shook her head.

“Maybe I will come later, but for now I want to get some sleep." She replied and went back to sleep.

I packed my notebook in my little black backpack before leaving my room, because I knew if I made Lydia yell at me again or wait any longer, she would ruin my morning, and I would probably take out all my frustration and anger on the poor customers of the coffee shop.

''What took you so long, Sleeping Beauty?’’ I knew she was trying to get under my skin with her comments; I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me frustrated or angry.

''Some of us work and have to look presentable. Not all of us can stay home all day.'' I said before passing her and hurrying down the stairs to the kitchen.

My father was already there, reading the newspaper and eating his eggs and bacon.

''Did you sleep this time, Maeve?" he asked, not looking at me, but a little amused. He knows I sometimes stay up late and lose track of time while writing.

''I did.'' I said as I sat down on a chair and ate some of my food before getting up from the table with a soft smile on my face, putting on my jacket, and kissing him on the cheek.

''I’ll see you this afternoon or tonight, depending on if Bradley has any plans.'' I said with a smile and put my backpack on one of my shoulders, ready to go.

''You haven’t even finished your food yet!" he said a little annoyed, knowing full well that I had taken it from him to leave for work early.

''I’ll eat something at the cafe, don’t worry.''

With those words, I didn’t wait for an answer; I just left the house and walked down the street to the café, wondering how exactly I should help Nicole. Should I tell Bradley about her? Or Sawyer? Would they think I’m crazy?

While I was thinking about this messy situation, I didn’t even notice myself arriving at the café until Bradley came out of the café. ''Good morning, sunshine! How are you today?''

His excitement so early in the morning was already making me tired, but I smiled anyway and put my backpack on a chair, then put my hair up in a ponytail.

''You know, the usual. Meaning, I’m fine, but I am a little exhausted.'' I said with a smile, watching him look around before whispering.

''Don’t let Bridget hear this. She would probably send us both home and then do everything herself. She works enough when we are not here.''

I nodded quietly, picked up my backpack, and went inside to put it in the employer’s room before going back outside to Bradley.

Forks is a small town surrounded by forest, beautiful, but not as big as San Diego. However, the café was located in the center of this small town, right next to an office building owned by a company, Morgan Industries.

''Has Lydia finally gotten used to this place?’’ Bradley asked after serving a brunette girl with ice-blue eyes.

In the morning, we didn’t have many customers, just this girl who came every day when Bradley and I were working, and I had a feeling that maybe she had a crush on him. Maybe she was too shy to say anything, while Bradley was a blind fool.

''Not yet. She's still talking about wanting to go back to San Diego. But she doesn’t want to move there alone because she hasn’t found a rich guy yet to spoil her and pay her rent.'' I replied as Bradley joined me at the table.

When we didn’t have customers, Bridget would let us sit at the table and talk. She was a very nice woman.

Before Bradley could answer, he was interrupted by loud noises, a mixture of loud music, and the powerful engines of some cars. Turning around, we saw three sports cars parked perfectly in front of the office building. All of them looked like the cars you only see in the ‘Fast and Furious’ movies, two of them were painted in bright colors. However, the black car caught my attention, I do not know why, maybe because it is different from the others.

I thought the cars had surprised me and Bradley, but then two guys got out of the painted cars, laughing and acting like they owned the place. But they were wearing ripped jeans and black T-shirts, one of them wearing a red plaid shirt over his black T-shirt. I saw him walking toward the black car with a big grin, "Come on, buddy! We still have work to do!’’ He shouted with amusement as he hit the hood of the black car hard.

When the passenger door opened, Bradley and I saw a blonde girl getting out of the car and looking at the other guys in a superior way. She kind of reminded me of Lydia when we lived in San Diego, wearing a short skirt and pretending to be better than everyone else. ''I bet that’s Lydia’s role model.'' Bradley whispered to me, almost making me laugh. I don’t know why he whispered; it wasn’t like these guys would hear us.

After a few moments, the music suddenly stopped, and the driver's door also opened, and out of the car stepped a guy with dark hair, just like the others, dressed all in black and with a snake tattoo around his wrist. ''And Lydia’s dream guy.'' I replied, still in a whisper, as we both kept our eyes on the people across the street. He walked in front of the others, propping his leg on the edge of the low hood. His expression was serious, a mixture of harshness and boredom. I tried to avert my eyes because I did not know why Bradley and I were suddenly so focused on these guys. This felt like a scene from a bad movie. He grabbed the blonde who had gotten out of his car, pulled her rudely towards him, pressed his lips to hers, and clasped her ass with his hands, and not in a gentle way.

For some reason, I wasn’t at all surprised that she was his girlfriend. ''Looks like Lydia lost the man of her dreams before she even met him.'' Bradley commented again, and this time the brunette girl had to giggle. That gave me the weird feeling that she probably knew these guys. When she noticed me looking at her, she looked away a little embarrassed.

Bradley, on the other hand, was still looking at the blonde girl and her boyfriend. Probably to make sure they wouldn’t cause any problems? Looking back at them, I could see the girl eagerly snuggling up to him; her short skirt would ride up if she continued to mount him. Her clothes were so colorful compared to his that it was a bit strange; probably their personalities would be completely different too.

''Who the hell are these guys?’’ I wondered aloud, obviously; Bradley didn’t know them either.

''The Morgan brothers, their friends Andy, and Gwen.'' Said a voice behind us, and when Bradley and I turned around, we saw Paige, Bridget’s daughter.

Paige was a fourteen-year-old girl with beautiful red hair and brown eyes. I wasn’t quite sure if she was a natural redhead or if she had dyed her hair, because Bridget was blonde, and her husband Paul was also a blonde, as was their son Lando. As far as I know, Paige, Bridget’s daughter is from a relationship long before she met Paul, so maybe her father was a redhead?

''You know them?’’ Bradley asked, looking at Paige. She glanced at the brunette girl before looking at ‘the Morgan brothers and their friends’ with a cold expression.

''It’s better if you avoid them. They ruin everything. Andy is not that bad; Reed is a real psychopath but no one sees that because his father wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.'' She said as she sat down at our table, pointing with subtle movements of her head.

Andy was the guy who had hit the hood of the car. His hair was a little long, and he had a large tattoo on his right arm, from this distance I couldn’t make out exactly what it was, and also half of it was covered by the sleeve of his shirt. He also appeared to have a couple of bracelets on his left wrist. His hair was black and messy, I could see him watching the couple in front of him, Gwen and her boyfriend, Andy seemed completely annoyed and bored by the sight in front of him, before turning his eyes to Paige for a few seconds, with a soft smile on his face, before the guy next to him asked him something.

At that moment, Andy’s smile instantly disappeared and he looked at the man next to him. Reed was wearing a pair of ripped blue jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. His hair was dark brown, and his eyes seemed to be a light shade of brown. He seemed like a charming guy, one who could have any girl he wanted, but the look on his face… He was kind of dark. He had a serious look on his face, watching Gwen and her friend with annoyance, maybe even jealousy.

The blonde was Gwen, she and Lydia would either get along or be good friends, or they would be at each other's throats fighting for the attention of the boy dressed all in black.

''And Gwen is… how do I put this nicely?’’ Paige spoke again, resting her face in her hand, with a bored and disgusted look on her face, ''A bitch who only wants the richest and most handsome guy in town. And she has him… for now.'' Paige said and Bradley looked at her confused, ''For now?''

The fourteen-year-old girl nodded, ''Look at her neck, see that ‘EM’ there? It’s from Easton Morgan, Reed is just as rich as Easton since they are brothers, but one day when their father dies, Easton will be the head of the family and take his father’s place in their company.’’

''He tattooed his initials on the girl’s neck?’’ I asked in amazement or disgust how possessive can this guy be? Is this some kind of ‘she's mine so back off’ thing? Paige just nodded bored, "He does that with every girl he goes out with. If the girl has his initials on her neck, you know he’s done with her.''

I looked again at the man in front of me who was letting the thirsty blonde touch him, she looked so desperate, it was embarrassing. ''So, his name is Easton?’’ Bradley asked uncertainly, and Paige just nodded. ‘’Easton Perceval Morgan.'' She added, now looking at him as well. The tattoo story made sense now, because watching them, it didn’t seem like he and Gwen were in a relationship, but just enjoying her body and company.

After a short while, he let go of Gwen, pinching her butt, but tossing her aside like a used rag. Gwen, however, didn’t seem to mind or be embarrassed by this, on the contrary, she seemed to be used to this kind of action. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, which made his muscles stand out even more than before. He had a different charisma than Andy or his brother, he laughed when something amused him, but not like his friend or brother did, he emphasized his status as leader with his superior smile.

''Easton is a complicated guy.'' Paige said, to which both me and Bradley looked at her, ''He can be a calm and sometimes nice person, but he can be deadly as a snake when he’s angry.'' She added, averting her eyes from him. I looked at Paige for a few seconds before looking back at Easton.

‘’That’s the thing about snakes, Paige. Angry snakes lash out. That makes chopping off their heads much easier.'' I told her, and suddenly Easton’s smile faded, had Andy told him something stupid that upset him? He stood there staring into space for a few seconds, and then turned his attention to me. This was driving me crazy. There was no way he could hear me, considering the distance between us.

I didn’t expect that, guys like him don’t notice me. I felt like a little doe, frozen in front of the big bad wolf, I wanted to look away or get up and go into the café with Bradley and Paige, but I couldn’t. So, I took a deep breath and gave him a few seconds to study my appearance. Forks is a small town, so people here probably knew each other, and it was obvious to him that me and Bradley were new to town. It was a normal reaction of his to watch me curiously and then mind his own business, walking into the building or looking at his girlfriend, who was even more beautiful than I was.

But Gwen was busy checking her makeup now and did not notice that her boyfriend was past the normal time limit for looking at a stranger. Damn it! This was something bad, I could feel it. What was I getting myself into? I should have walked right in when he got here instead of staring at him. A handsome stranger, as Paige called him, ‘the most attractive guy in town’ and nothing attractive or sexy is without danger.

__--💙--____--💙--____--💙--__

Author's note: I can't believe I'm finally posting this here. This book it's special to me and is a bit hard to write, so knowing your opinions would mean a lot to me.

Tomorrow I'm starting college, so I don't know how much time I'll have for writing, but I will try to post once a week. I have 4 chapters done, 3 without including this one. I also want to apologize for any mistakes, I have dyslexia and English is not my first language.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about the book.

Masterlist

#wattpad #charles lecrelc #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x reader #freddy carter #lucas till

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cryingoflot49 · 5 months

Text

Book Review

The Last Days of Louisiana Red by Ishmael Reed

There is a chapter in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra portraying a tightrope walker. The tightrope walk is an attempt the man makes to leave the commonplace behind, to explore new possibilities, to see new lands, to expand the parameters of life, to move on to something better...a higher state of existence. However, below the tightrope is the audience, made up of the masses of the narrow-minded, the simple folk, the ordinary citizens, the littlepeople, the flies of the marketplace as Nietzsche calls them. They aspire towards nothing but mediocrity and the maintenance of the status quo. These people resent the tightrope walker’s attempt at finding a new way of life, so halfway through the stunt, they pull him down from the rope so that he dies in the fall.

Ishmael Reed, in his novel The Last Days of Louisiana Red, transplants this dilemma to a different context. He applies it to the African-American community in Oakland during the 1970s where the politics of the New Left, Black Power, and the feminist movement are in full swing. I don’t know if Reed consciously borrowed the allegory of the tightrope walker from Nietzsche or not (probably not), but it does serve as a legitimate point of comparison. Ed Yellings, the businessman who starts the Gumbo Works business, can easily replace the tightrope walker; Ed Yellings gets murdered early in the book, but as it is, he stands in for the upwardly mobile element of the African-American community in the post Civil Rights Movement era. He represents the builders and founders of an African-American economic class that is self-deterministic and independent of white America. And s the envious mediocrities of Nietzsche’s town, the ones who kill the tightrope walker, correspond to the Moochers, Reed’s portrayal of the radicals and activists, some of which come from privileged backgrounds, who refuse to build a better society and instead insist on simultaneously destroying the society that exists while demanding that everything be given to them because they are an oppressed minority. This conflict might sound shocking to younger readers who weren’t alive in the 1970s, especially considering it is being articulated by Ishmael Reed, an African-American author, but he is addressing a real social problem with detrimental consequences in the real world.

Ed Yellings’ Gumbo Works is an instant success. The gumbo is sold in a restaurant and manufactured in a factory but little is said about these establishments. This lack of detail is, I think, one of the many flaws in the novel. The business is actually a front for a secret voodoo operation which involves the defeat of Louisiana Red who is not actually a character but more like a spirit of sorts that brings negative energy into the African-American community. Ed Yellings becomes a millionaire and raises a family of four children in a mansion. Wolf grows up to be a business man, following in his father’s footsteps in preparation to take over the company. Street is a Black Power-type radical and criminal who is obviously a caricature of Eldridge Cleaver. The passage about Street committing murder then fleeing to Algeria where he is given a villa free of charge by the government is lifted directly from that Black Panther Party leader’s life. Sister barely figures into the story but probably represents the Back to Africa ideal of the 1970s since her clothes are African-inspired and she associates with a Nigerian friend. Minnie is the one who plays the most prominent role in the story. Based on Cab Calloway’s classic jive anthem “Minnie the Moocher”, she is a prominent member of the Moochers, but she falls out of favor with them because she shows up at rallies to give speeches about ontology and epistemology and other pseudo-intellectual crap that puts people to sleep. She represents the feminist element of the radical Left and insists she is entitled to take over Gumbo Works even though she has no knowledge of business. The inclusion of all these representatives in one family is of symbolic importance. Not only do African-American people bond by colloquially referring to each other as Sister and Brother, but but the idea of the community as an extension of the family makes Reed’s whole point more clear. He is depicting the African-American community as a family which is supposed to be closely knit and supportive of each other despite their individual differences yet at the same time he is showing how this family is one that is dysfunctional.

Ed Yellings gets assassinated, his factory gets burned down, and the two brothers shoot each other while Minnie insists that she inherit everything her father left behind. This is not the way families are supposed to work.

So far it sounds like a lot of interesting and legitimate ideas are introduced into the story. And it is true, a lot of them are interesting and legitimate and there is an abundance of them. A lot of them barely go anywhere after being introduced though. Sister is the easiest example of this as she only makes two brief appearances and doesn’t contribute in any significant way to anything that happens. Street and Wolf are not developed much more as characters either. Street’s only purpose in the book seems to be for the sake of mocking Eldridge Cleaver without mentioning him by name. Some of the supporting characters actually do a lot more than the main members of the family. Nanny, a woman from Louisiana, gets hired to raise the family but her ulterior motive is to groom Minnie for the sake of disrupting Gumbo Works. Nanny is a representation of the old, southern African-American way of life that the urban professional class wants to leave behind. She is actually a practitioner of voodoo and intends to spread the chaos of Louisiana Red through the Oakland Black community.

Nanny’s opposition is Papa LaBas, a houngan who is brought in to replace Ed Yellings as head of the Gumbo Works corporation. The two are engaged in a magical combat that is an updated version of the voodoo war between Doc John and Marie Laveau. The history and folklore surrounding those two legendary figures from New Orleans is sufficiently explained in one chapter. You might remember Papa LaBas as a catalyst of the action in Ishmael Reed’s previous, and far superior novel, Mumbo Jumbo. Aside from running the company, his most memorable part is when he gives Minnie a marsh and misogynistic lecture about how Black women should stay in their traditional places. His twisted logic is that women are already powerful because they provide men with sex, something which makes men obedient and submissive. I suppose that line of reasoning works if you are the type of sex-obsessed man who thinks with the wrong head, but for those of us with a more diverse range of interests, it comes off as a rather infantile view of sexuality and power.

The author’s misogyny is extreme, even by 1970s standards yet it is totally in line with what a lot of African-American men were thinking at that time. Black hyper-masculinity and sexual potency were big components of the Black Power movement and those were the progressives of their time. Read up on the Black Panther’s approach to women and sexuality if you don’t believe me. One Black Panther, I forget who, famously said, “The only place for Black women in the Revolution is on their backs.” The more conservative members of the Black community then, as represented in this story, were even more traditional and domineering in their approach to sex and gender politics.

By far, the most interesting characters are Kingfish and Elder, representatives of the lumpenproletariate who Reed despises. These two clownish characters refuse to work and survive by collecting welfare and committing petty crimes like stealing, burglary, scamming, and begging. They are obviously capable of being useful but refuse to indulge in thing like employment, instead paying for beer and weed by swiping tips off the tables in restaurants. “Owning a business is something that Black people don’t do,” says one of them. This is the type of attitude Ishmael Reed is addressing in this novel in an attempt at correcting it for the sake of his people. Kingfish and Elder stand out here because they are the most direct and clear criticism offered up by Reed and they work well as comic relief.

The least successful character is Chorus, a man who acts as the chorus of the story, explaining what is happening and what is yet to come. He provides counter-narratives about Isis and Osiris, the Egyptian deities, and Antigone, the Greek daughter of Oedipus. These plots correspond to what is happening with Minnie, Ed Yellings, and Papa LaBas. But the stories are confusing and poorly narrated. The purpose of a dramatic chorus is to clarify a story, but in this case Chorus muddles the narrative to the point where skipping these chapters might actually make the book easier to read.

I am wondering if this novel was originally intended to be a play written for theatrical production. The inclusion of Chorus, as well as a scene in a theater where Minnie heckles the performers (sound familiar Leftist millennial students at Berkeley?) are obvious references to the theater. But the whole story is told through dialogue the way a stage performance would be. Even the assassination, the shootings, and the fire at the factory are explained through conversation rather than shown as part of the narrative. This might have been conceived of as a play but written as a novel for some reason I can’t comprehend.

The aforementioned lack of detail is a real weakness. As previously mentioned, the violence and the fire are relayed to the audience by speech. There is also no description of the restaurant or the factory. Even worse, for a book about voodoo, it is disappointing that the actual rites and ceremonies are not described. Rather than having these things talked about in casual conversation, actually showing them visually bulks up the writing, fills in the blank spaces, and makes the story more complete. It allows the audience to experience these events emotionally and creates depth by drawing us into the environment and the action. If the characters only talk about these things than we just move on to the next page without really connecting with them in our imagination.

The other big problem is that Reed introduces too many ideas but never follows through on them. The different characters all represent different aspects of the African-American community but they are little more than hollow receptacles of ideas. What they symbolize is obvious but beyond the symbolism they have no life of their own. With such underdeveloped characters and themes, it is hard to tell if Ishmael Reed is being fair in his critique or not. You can find plenty of things to criticize in the Black bourgeoisie, the Back to Africa ideal, the gangster, the Black Power movement, and the feminists but there are a lot of things those people got right too. By not addressing all sides of these issues, the author does a disservice to his claims by making his criticism look shallow, uninformed, and rudimentary.

The Last Days of Louisiana Red is the follow up novel to Ishmael Reed’s most celebrated work Mumbo Jumbo, a novel that deserves all the praise it gets. The main idea of that book is that if white people stand back and give African-American people enough space then their culture will grow and thrive. I think the main idea of The Last Days of Louisiana Red is that, now that Black people have sufficient space to grow and thrive, they have to deal with some problems internal to the Black community. Notice how prominent a role the white people play in Mumbo Jumbo and how marginal the white people are in Louisiana Red. Reed has progressed to a new set of parameters here. But this latter novel is less successful because he introduces too much information into those parameters. It is like a chef making a pot of gumbo and using every ingredient he finds in the kitchen so that no individual flavor stands out and whatever is there in the pot doesn’t blend in with everything else. Reed could have left a lot of the content out to give more room for the important ideas to take hold or he could have expanded the novel to three times its length to fully develop everything he introduces. Otherwise, he does raise a legitimate issue, that of some members of the African-American community working against its greater interests. even if Some of his criticisms, particularly of feminism, are not entirely justified. I like to think that Reed is too good an author to write this kind of book since he certainly showed what he is capable of in Mumbo Jumbo, but in comparison this just ends up being another novel that doesn’t live up to its potential.

#book reviews #ishmael reed #vintage books #vintage paperbacks #african american fiction #postmodernism #american literature

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radicheart · 5 months

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Character Stat Framework

Name: Alastor Guillory Nickname(s): Calloway, Cal Age: 35 (at death); 124 (chronologically) Birthdate: April 10, 1898 Species: Sinner Demon; human (formerly) Gender: Male Sex: Male, but can shapeshift if he desires to Preferred Pronoun(s): He/him Romantic Orientation: Aromantic Sexual Orientation: Asexual Parents: Travis Reed (father), Desdemona Reed-Guillory (mother) Siblings: Josephine Reed (younger sister) Significant Other(s): Verse dependent Children: Verse dependent Eye Color(s): Red Hair Color(s): Red & black Height: 7' Body Build: Hourglass

Tagged By: @lethality-and-lust (thank you!!) Tagging: Whoever wants to do this and use me as their tagger!

#( dash game )#( headcanon )

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wild-stdreams · 7 years

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PARAGALTAI + CLIZZY ⇢ aka the awesome foursome @lydamartin

“Clary, welcome to our badass girl gang.” I said, my expression staying impressively straight where Izzy and Evie’s faltered as they tried not to laugh.

“Girl gang?” Clary questioned, raising an eyebrow at me while the other two began to snigger.

“Yeah y’know, no boys allowed, sneaking into each other’s rooms at midnight to gossip about boys, painting nails and braiding hair... the lot.” Evie piped up, making a flippant hand gesture as though it was basic knowledge that Shadowhunter females were required to be part of a ‘girl gang’.

“What these two mean is, we’ve got your back Clary.” Izzy said then, rolling her eyes at Evie and I.

#mine #paragaltai #anya cartwright #evie calloway #friends ocs #for others #kinda #shadowhunters #shadowhunters fanfiction #shadowhunters au #clizzy #chloe bennet fc #crystal reed fc #shadowhunters oc #the mortal instruments #lydamartin

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hellizens-a · 2 years

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HUGE COMPILATION COMING UP!

Alastor sometimes goes by the nickname of “Cal” to differentiate himself from his alternates. “Cal” is short for “Calloway” - a reference to his breaking into Heaven to get an alternate some signed Cab Calloway records.

Alastor's father’s name is Travis Reed. Alastor killed him when he himself was only ten years old. Travis is indeed in Hell, and occasionally their paths will cross. It always ends with Travis getting killed.

Alastor's mother’s name was Desdemona, maiden name of Guillory - which is the name he's taken to using for himself. She died as well, but she’s up in Heaven, so Alastor doesn't have any sort of contact with her.

Alastor had a little sister named Josephine. She was born when he was four, but died in a drowning accident when she was six.

Alastor's mother gave him a porcelain doll as a Christmas gift that his father destroyed later on. For Christmas of 2021, an alternate managed to find and restore the doll before giving it to him as a gift.

Alastor once nursed a baby alligator back to health when he was a child.

Alastor enjoyed playing with a homemade slingshot as a child, and he was actually quite a good aim with it.

Alastor hosts one scheduled broadcast every week on Sunday nights from eight to ten in the evening. Each one is closed out with a single song request sent in by his listeners.

Alastor hates sweets because he has a sugar allergy. Just a little is enough to get his tongue tingling. If he eats too much of it he can (and will) experience hives, stomach cramps, and vomiting. The tingling is enough to deter him, though.

Alastor writes his journal entries as letters to his mother. She may be long dead and unable to read them, but he still likes to do it as a comfort for himself.

Alastor has planted a rose bush near his radio tower in memory of his mother, with a plaque bearing her name. It’s tucked away from the public eye, in a little clearing in the nearby woods. He takes very good care of it and would fly into a rage if he ever caught someone trying to pick its flowers.

Alastor has a nervous habit of tugging at his cuffs. If he’s not wearing something easily tuggable, he’ll wrap a hand around his opposite wrist and scratch. Sometimes he leaves marks due to pressing down too hard with his nails.

Alastor is not covered in scars; they're only on his forearms and back. His arms have scratches and dog bites from when he was trying to defend himself the day he died, and as a child his father would beat him so often and so hard that there are now permanent marks slicing across his back.

Alastor is not afraid of dogs. He just really dislikes them, mostly because of their involvement in his death, but also because he never seems to get along with them. And the bigger they are, the more that dislike grows. This dislike does not transfer over to hellhounds or other dog-like demons, though; he discerns the difference.

Mirroring his disliking of dogs, Alastor absolutely adores cats - literal or sinner.

Alastor's hands get cold so easily during the fall and winter months. Even with his gloves on, they tend to be chilly at best, freezing at worst.

Alastor’s minions are actually rag dolls he made by hand and then infused with some of the souls he’s collected over the years. Making these rag dolls takes up a decent chunk of his time when he’s not doing broadcasts or working for the hotel. If he makes a rag doll of your muse, he likes you. If he gives that rag doll to your muse instead of keeping it on his shelf, he really likes you.

Alastor occasionally enjoys smoking both cigars and cigarettes. For cigars, he prefers the Montecristo 1935 Anniversary Nicaraguan. For cigarettes, his go-to brand is Lucky Strike, and he specifically tends to buy the Lucky Strike Reds.

Alastor's shadow’s name is Rotsala, which is just ‘Alastor’ spelled backwards.

Alastor has a pet possum given to him by an anon that he’s named Moonshine. He doesn’t know its sex, and in all honesty, he doesn’t care to know, so he always refers to it with gender-neutral pronouns.

Alastor tends to get uncharacteristically gloomy on his death day (November 6th).

#longpost tw #headcanon: alastor (main verse).#do not reblog.

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smiledotdeer-a · 2 years

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HUGE HEADCANON COMPILATION COMING UP!

Alastor had a little sister named Josephine. She was born when he was four, but died in a drowning accident when she was six.

Alastor once nursed a baby alligator back to health when he was a child.

Alastor enjoyed playing with a homemade slingshot as a child, and he was actually quite a good aim with it.

Alastor hosts one scheduled broadcast every week on Sunday nights from eight to ten in the evening. Each one is closed out with a single song request sent in by his listeners.

Alastor writes his journal entries as letters to his mother. She may be long dead and unable to read them, but he still likes to do it as a comfort for himself.

Mirroring his disliking of dogs, Alastor absolutely adores cats - literal or sinner.

Alastor's hands get cold so easily during the fall and winter months. Even with his gloves on, they tend to be chilly at best, freezing at worst.

Alastor's shadow’s name is Cotton.

Alastor dislikes sweets because he is allergic to sugar - sucrose, to be specific (aka the white granulated stuff you spoon into your coffee or put in your cookies). Fructose and lactose are perfectly fine. Symptoms vary based on how much he eats, but even a tiny amount will get his tongue tingling, which is enough of a deterrent for him. More serious symptoms include breaking out in hives, having stomach cramps, wheezing, shortness of breath, and eventually vomiting.

Alastor tends to get uncharacteristically gloomy on his death day (November 6th).

Alastor can play the piano, organ, harpsichord, and violin! He would like to learn the guitar, but he never remembers to get around to it.

#headcanon -.-. .- .-..#do -.-. not .- reblog .-..

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down-the-rabbith0le · 4 years

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A Continuing List of Just Really Good Reads

Anna Borges - I Am Not Always Very Attached to Being Alive

Steve Bogira - They Came In Through the Bathroom Mirror

Natalie Beach - I Was Caroline Calloway

Jessica Pressler - How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People

Anne Helen Peterson - Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen

Patrick Strudwick - High on Hate

Daniel Richards - The Abandoned, Apocalyptic Architecture of One Bold 1970s Retail Chain

Alex Tizon - My Family’s Slave

Shannon Keating - Netflix's New Lesbian Documentary Misses The Mark

Rutger Bregman - The Real Lord of the Flies

@endlessyarning - (The Real Lord of the Flies) A Twitter Thread From a Tongan Perspective

Linda Pressly - Cheran: The town that threw out police, politicians and gangsters

Matt Stevens - Good Movies As Old Books

Alexandra Pollard - Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma

The Forgotten Tale of How Black Psychiatrists Helped Make ‘Sesame Street’

Chelsea Fagan - Minimalism is Just Another Boring Product Wealthy People Can Buy

Jason Fagone - What Bullets Do To Bodies

John Lewis - Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation

Court Danee - Queen & Slim Isn’t For Black People

Josie Duffy Rice - The Abolition Movement

Indi Samarajiva - I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There.

Sarah Kurchak - The Martial Arts Legacy of Tura Satana

Astead W. Herndon - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Biden’s Win, House Losses, and What’s Next for the Left

Katie Schmid - Why Would Anyone Ever Want To Be A Wife?

dream hampton - Thank You, Frank Ocean

Rosalind Jana - Mark My Words: The Subversive History of Women Using Thread as Ink

Tim Kreider - I Know What You Think of Me

Jess Zimmerman - What If We Cultivated Our Ugliness? or: The Monstrous Beauty of Medusa

Charles Warnke - You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Case for Reparations

Anne Helen Peterson - How Millenials Became the Burnout Generation

Colin Stokes - Frog and Toad: An Amphibious Celebration of Same-Sex Love

John Reed - My Grandma The Poisoner

Ijeoma Oluo - Poor People Deserve to Taste Something Other Than Shame

Daniel Mallory Ortberg - Everything What’s Wrong of Possums

Stephanie Clifford - The Journalist and the Pharma Bro

Mehreen Kasana - The call for pandemic productivity is class warfare in disguise

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight - The Fabulous Forgotten Life of Vita Sackville-West

Adam Serwer - Civility Is Overrated

Mary Retta - The Slow Burn

Tim Kreider - The ‘Busy’ Trap

Abby Norman - Gene Wilder Was Right: Gilda Radner Didn’t Have to Die, and We Need to Talk About Why She Did

Ayesha A. Siddiqi - I’d Like This to Stop: Praise for a Promising Young Woman

Melissa Segura - Detective Guevara’s Witnesses

Chris Geidner - Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson's Plea For Help Nine Weeks Before He Died

Rachel Aviv - What If Your Abusive Husband Is a Cop?

Melissa Fay Greene - The Romanian Orphans Are Adults Now

#to be continued #essays #reading

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parttimerper · 4 years

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misc muses

Ok I have joined in the past those indie groups, where you could have as many characters a you wanted. Because of that, I’ve created a looooong list of muses I never got to play much, but would lot. So under the cut are those I’d be most interested in trying out again. If you’d be interested in playing against one of them, please message me!

Alessandra “Sandy” Caravalho: Camila Mendes fc, cisfemale(she/her), panromantic asexual, actress(most principally in musicals), quite popular but she tries to act and live as normally as possible.

Amber Jackson: Emily Browning fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, “looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you” trope, acts like a vigilante, I also have a superpower AU in which she has pyrokinesis.

Angelica Cain: Crystal Reed fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, inherited the family business which includes a crime ring.

Anthony Powell(Anton Popov): Skeet Ulrich fc, cismale(he/him), heterosexual, part of the Russian mafia, was expatriated to the States for his own safety, had a daughter when he was 18 that he loves a lot but the mother is now deceased.

Arina Kosolova: Natalie Dormer fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, kinda Black Widow inspired, she moved to the States after the Russian organization she worked for was disbanded.

Beverly Jordan: Vanessa Morgan fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, a science nerd, she ran away from home because of a gang harassing her and had to stop her studies, she now works as a cashier.

Bianca Rutherford: Caitlin Stasey fc, cisfemale(she/her), homosexual, a hacker with a thing against men, I have a vampire AU for her in which she was turned by a men who manipulated her centuries ago.

Bradley Hines(Patrick Langford): Zane Holtz fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, an hired assassin/spy, he was hired to track a specific target, get close to them, and take them down.

Cassiopée Monaghan: Lily Collins fc, cisfemale(she/her), heterosexual, has a twin, her father was a big time criminal in Russia but her mother moved her and her twin to the States to protect them, totally boy obsessed.

Cecelia Rose: Shailene Woodley fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, a writer who took time off to travel the world after her mentor overworked her to the point she couldn’t write anything anymore.

Charles Myers: Matthew Daddario fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, a police officer dating his work partner’s kid.

Darren Bates: Ryan Mccartan fc, cismale(he/him), homosexual, a quite popular model who’s been on/off with his non celeb boyfriend for a long time, kinda stupid.

Elliott Whitley: Luke Bilyk fc, cismale(he/him), homosexual, was kicked out of his house and now works as a bouncer, definitely dates girls just to cover up the fact he’s gay.

Emely Lindner: Alexandra Daddario fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, a ballerina dancer turned model, she moved to the States in order to find out who her real father is.

Evan Rendall: Harry Lloyd fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, Norman Bates inspired, owns a motel that rarely gets clients, and the clients often disappear.

Felicia Porter: Elizabeth Olsen fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, an overly sweet journalist who got pulled into a polyamorous relationship and is trying to make it work as best as she could.

Finlay Ainsworth: Jack Falahee fc, cismale(he/him), pansexual, a recovering addict who now works as a waiter in a restaurant, I have a supernatural AU in which he is a hybrid.

Gail Erickson: Katie McGrath fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, an artist who opened her own little gallery, but she also does forgery.

Isabella Perez: Becky G fc, cisfemale(she/her), homosexual, comes form a dysfunctional family, ran away many times but always came back home, but now it’s been almost a year and she doesn’t plan on going back soon, works in a movie theater.

Janet Montrose: Evangeline Lilly fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, a con artist who doesn’t trust anyone.

Kavia Desai: Naomi Scott fc, demigirl(she/her/they/them), homosexual, an ex popular soft child turned rock singer, she has a twin sister.

Kieran Doyle: Aidan Turner fc, cismale(he/him), demiromantic bisexual, part of the Irish mafia, also a forensic pathologist, I have mythology AUs for him in which he’s either a son of Thanatos or Thanatos himself.

Laurence Juneau: Bryce Dallas Howard fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, a fashion designer with a growing brand across the country, has definitely designed a dress for a celeb at one point.

Madeleine Stokes: Kylie Bunbury fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, Regina George is her idol, complete bitch with an actual burn book, became a weather girl for the visibility.

Monica Hunt: Felicity Jones fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, stupid/innocent girl who was abandoned by her parents, she still thinks they’re coming back soon, works as a barmaid now.

Natalie Calloway: Jenna Louise Coleman fc, cisfemale(she/her), heteroflexible, a corrupt detective, married to a criminal and helping him in secret without him knowing that.

Natasha Grimes: Danielle Campbell fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, Michelle Richardson inspired, she was in a toxic relationship and just got out from it, but is lowkey still into her ex.

Philip McGee: Dacre Montgomery fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, has anger issues he got from his dad, his mom abandoned him when he was a kid because of that, but he’s actually a softie.

Preston Wagner: Cody Christian fc, cismale(he/him), pansexual, a college student who was facetiming his ex when she was murdered.

Raphaelle Delong: Zoey Deutch fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, a personal assistant who takes her job very seriously, definitely needs someone to make her loosen up.

Rebecca Blackstone: Eliza Taylor fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, had a kid when she was 19 and has been struggling a lot with money, single mom who changes job often.

Robert Jefferson: Tom Hiddleston fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, a politician son who was forced into this life even if he doesn’t want it.

Timothy Watts: Landon Liboiron fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, soft boy who got mixed in the wrong crowd and now has a bad reputation, he’s a mechanics.

Valda Blake: Chloe Bridges fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, an ex pageant queen and Queen Bee who fell down and now works as a barmaid, still a total bitch.

THE FINAL GIRLS: they’re a group of sorority sisters, and the only survivors of a serial killer targetting their sorority. They’re also heavily inspired by Scream and Scream Queens characters, obviously.

Alyssa Mullins: Carlson Young fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, she was the mayor’s daughter and vice resident of the sorority, she never got over the incident and stopped her studies to become a stripper.

Lea Cole: Billie Lourd fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, a ‘bastard’ child with a criminal father, her emotions have always been a little dissociated but she’s working on that, during the killings, she was saved by someone who had a crush on her so she’s been trying to explore that possibility, she’s an on-set assistant for tv shows.

Phoebe Newton: Abigail Breslin fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, she was kind of the idiot of the sorority, the one they made fun of, but she had money so they wanted her, after the incident she started studying in pre-med.

Seraphina Brisbane: Willa Fitzgerald fc, cisfemale(she/her), bisexual, the only reason the sorority wanted her in the first place was because she was smart and pretty, but she didn’t come from a privileged family like any of them, she has a lot of PTSD and has continued her journalism and criminology studies.

THE CONFECTIONERY BROTHERS: just two brothers who started a confectionery because they felt there weren’t enough of those in their town.

Edward Hale: Luke Benward fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, the soft one in the two, he grew up in the shadows of his brother, he usually work the front of the shop since he never pursued studies after high school.

Terrence Hale: Glen Powell fc, cismale(he/him), pansexual, a complete mess, but a smart mess, studied accounting because that’s what his parents wanted, decided he wanted a confectionery after watching Harry Potter.

THE RUNAWAY SIBLINGS: they have a complicated backstory, he was taken at 7, she was 1, and she ended up in an orphanage. When they finally found each other, they just ran away.

Elena Richmond: Alycia Debnam-Carey fc, cisfemale(she/her), pansexual, at 10, her parents were murdered in front of her, and she was taken to an orphanage, she was always troubled and went out to find her brother when she was 18, thinking he’d abandoned her.

Tyler Oaks: Nicholas Hoult fc, cismale(he/him), bisexual, he was taken from his family at 7 and was forced into the mafia and hitman life, very mentally troubled with the only goal being to find his sister.

#wanted muse #wanted #look they've mostly all lived in my head for so long i need to write them now

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bcwallin · 5 years

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One Big Joke

Four years after the end of World War II, there was still rubble on the streets of Vienna. The shockwaves of war were still being felt. Terror was apparent in the understanding of how low man could sink, how evil humans could become. This is the world of noir thrives: one of distrust and darkness. Filmed on the location of the war’s aftermath, The Third Man utilized the time and era to tell a classic noir tale. Director Carol Reed created a nightmarish world where morality is as warped as the shadows and the dark characters who hide therein. Everything in the story is plausible, and yet, there are hints of a shift in reality where black magic alters the Viennese streets and everything above or below.

Reed’s film is almost all a big joke. The beginning unravels with the visual of zither strings below the credits, evoking the ever-present shadows of cell bars in film noir, yet the sensation is immediately dispelled by the cartoonish tones played by Anton Karas. The music is followed by the narration of Reed himself. Title cards are displayed above the strings of a zither that is plucked to play the theme of the movie while the names pass by. The lines of the strings evoke common symbolic imagery in film noir. Resembling the bars of a jail cell, these ever-present shadows are depicted in this film over a cartoonish instrument that plays repeatedly without the accompaniment of other instruments.

As the credits end, the music continues and meets up with a narration spoken by Reed. The director effectually informs the audience that he is going to tell them a story by presenting a dead body floating in a river. “Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs but, well, you know, they can't stay the course like a professional,” he remarks. This dark humor—mixed with the comedic music and the director’s own depiction of this story—apprises the viewer that this is all a joke in more ways than one. Though his voice does not return again in the movie, it sets a darkly comedic tone for the film that can be seen when the narrator suddenly introduces a character: “Oh, I was going to tell you, wait, I was going to tell you about Holly Martins, an American.” After the introduction, Holly Martins is seen in a train that is moving toward the left side of the screen. This is important to note since, in the classic language of cinema, this indicates a regression—a journey backwards—as the western eye is accustomed to reading from left to right. Martins is then seen heading towards his friend, Harry Lime, but walks under a ladder—a notorious symbol of bad luck. He enters Lime’s home and the person to whom he speaks to can barely speak his language. That person is the porter and he tells Holly, while pointing upwards, that his friend is in hell.

Each of these elements is building the world for Holly Martins to enter. It is a strange world where four different nations live together and struggle to understand each other. It is a place of bad luck for Holly, one where he has regressed backward from the American world of idealism to the cold streets of Austria. Even heaven and hell are confused in this place, as ambiguity clouds judgment and language acts as a barrier.

Holly Martins later walks with Anna, Harry’s lover, to a planned meeting with the porter. At his arrival, he is greeted by a crowd of people and the message conveyed to him in broken English is that the porter “is kaput.” Suddenly a child, the son of the porter, approaches Holly Martins and begins to cry out in German. Everyone—with the exception of Holly—realizes that he is being accused of murder. When Anna informs him, Holly runs away from the crowd with her, followed by the boy, in a demented game of hide-and-go-seek. This game is played out over and over with Martins being chased by racketeers, Limes by Martins, and eventually, Limes by the combined armed forces of Vienna. While a sting is being set up for Harry Limes, an old man tries to sell balloons to Major Calloway. A meeting between Harry and Holly takes place on a Ferris wheel. Shadows are distorted to look like those of giants. Rubble distorts the street itself. Simultaneously, a zither plays along, laughing at the idealist who is laughing at the audience. It keeps on laughing, like the impish smile on Harry Limes’ face when he gets caught in what he sees as just one elaborate prank. It’s a world where “there isn’t enough for two laughs,” and yet, the film itself seems to be laughing anyway. It is a horrifying and carnivalesque sense of humor—one characteristic of film noir.

The hero of the noir film tends to be one that is pessimistic and lacking morals. There is no true hero in noir and the protagonist of this film is one who does not belong in the world of the film or in its genre at all. He is an idealistic author of “cheap paperback novelettes.” He sees himself as a cowboy, and the army, led by Major Calloway, as the sheriff. In this world, which he writes about, there is a simple balance of good and evil how heroes are recognizable by the outfits they wear and everything is solved by the time the final page is turned. Nonetheless, the streets of 1949 Vienna are not suited for Holly Martins; yet he seems to be the only one who doesn’t realize this. Military men attempt to send him on a plane while Anna tries to tell him to return home. Even a crowd of art enthusiasts walk out on him as he fails to properly answer a single question asked of him. As Holly Martins walks the streets of Vienna, he is being watched. The porter’s wife keeps her eyes on him as he goes over the crime scene of Harry’s “death,” while Baron Kurtz observes Limes’ friend at the former’s funeral. The camera repeatedly shows Holly Martins in angular shots, emphasizing how out of place he is and how surreal the world is around him. The film captures the bombarded scenery of the streets of Vienna, which The Third Man develops a language that says: “Go home. You are out of place in this strange, strange world.”

This idealistic man, protecting his friend to the very end comes to learn of the power of corruption when he hears that Major Calloway was trying to catch his friend. Holly asks him why he wasn’t chasing murderers and the Major responds: “Well, you could say that murder was part of his racket.” It is an arrogant response to stand up for his friend, Limes, who he believes was just mixed up in some bad business. Martins tries to hit him, again and again. It is only when he sees the bodies of children harmed by watered-down penicillin is he able to understand the truth and how little he had really known. Then he turns on his friend, waiting to trap him while drinking at a local bar.

Harry Limes is very reminiscent of the character Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He is a racketeer, he calls his friend “old man” repeatedly, and he holds his friend’s fascination. Even his famous grin can remind a viewer of Leonardo DiCaprio’s smile as the titular character in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Yet, once again, the world asserts itself. In the 1920s, a Gatsby figure was the American Dream personified. He could be idealized and appreciated, but in a world of corruption and a lack of morality, the suave and smiling trickster becomes a sociopathic near-murderer trying to make a buck.

Just then, a cowboy enters a town ravaged by war and greed. Riding in on a steel horse, he plans to find a position of import, so he can protect the people and return these shambles to their former glory. The only problem is that the cowboy is not a cowboy, the horse is a train that is taking him the wrong way, the position is nonexistent, and there is no chance to fix the town. Holly Martins is a man out of his element and everybody else knows it. He has come to a world of cruel games—one without heroes or clear villains. This world continues to laugh at him throughout his visit as Carol Reed tells the audience about the “poor chap.” By the time the music winds to an end and the leaves begin to blow away, even the viewers begin to laugh at him, as he foolishly waits on the side of a road for a girl who is not stopping. For a girl who keeps on moving forward into a world that is not meant for him.

Originally published on Refract Magazine

#refract #film #bc wallin #the third man #orson welles #noir #gatsby

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Who Was Ma Rainey’s Real Band?

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is one of those rare films with only one major setting: a Chicago recording studio in 1927. The entire film, and the play it was based on, tells the story of four backing musicians waiting for Madame “Ma” Rainey (Viola Davis) to arrive and cut some sides. According to the label on the 78, Rainey’s 1927 recording of “’Ma’ Rainey’s Black Bottom” and her remake of “Moonshine Blues” of that year was done by “Ma” Rainey and her Georgia Jazz Band.

The Musicians

There are no session notes on the musicians who played on the title song of the Netflix film. Indeed, when Den of Geek sat down with the cast of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom actor Glynn Turman told us, “We found photographs of her band members, but that was the closest and most detailed information that we had. Not so much as any particular story about any one of the band members, but we did see photographs of the groups, and the sometimes different groups.”

However, Ragtimedorianhenry.com does at least list three of the four musicians who backed Rainey on her ode to bootleg hooch. Albert Wynn played the tuba, which was translated into the upright bass for the film. The bassist in the film is named Slow Drag (Michael Potts), and according to a synopsis for the play it’s based on, Slow Drag got his name from a gig where he slow-danced with women for hours for money. Conversely, low register horn player Wynn fronted many of his own bands: Al Wynn And His Gutbucket Five, Al Wynn’s Gutbucket Seven, Albert Wynn’s Creole Jazz Band, as well as filling a seat with Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra.

The clarinet player on the record is Artie Starks, a steady reedman who played with outfits like Albert Ammons and His Rhythm Kings, Preston Jackson’s Uptown Band, Richard Jones and His Jazz Wizards, and Starks Hot Five.

Levee (Chadwick Boseman) is the “talented and temperamental trumpet player” of the band, according to the playbill. He is the youngest, and is doing time playing in Rainey’s group until he can put together his own band. The cornet player on the actual recording is Shirley Clay.

Clay started playing when he was a teenager in St. Louis, Missouri, sometime around 1920. His early gigs included touring with John Williams’ Synco Jazzers. By the late 1920s and through the 1940s, he was a sought-out session player, backing artists like Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and The Mills Brothers, and swinging with Benny Goodman. He led his own band from 1944 to 1951.

The piano player is listed as unknown. While Rainey also worked with pianists Claude Hopkins and Willie “the Lion” Smith in this period, based on the date of the recording sessions, the pianist was probably Lillian Hardaway Henderson, the wife of cornetist Fletcher Henderson, who became the leader of Rainey’s band. The play synopsis says guitar and trombone player Cutler (Colman Domingo) is the leader of all the other instrumentalists.

The film and play’s piano player is Toledo (Glynn Turman), who doubles as the band philosopher. He loves books and believes style and musicianship are the main contributors to performance. Rainey’s pianist also loved to read, and preferred musicians who could read notation.

Thomas A. Dorsey was also Ma’s manager, and musical arranger. He spotted the talent for Rainey’s touring ensemble, the Wild Cats Jazz Band. The musicians played blues, but also performed written sheet music for contemporary jazz numbers. Dorsey entered Rainey’s world in 1924. He left the touring band in 1926, but is credited in later sessions, including her last in 1928, for the songs “Black Eye Blues,” “Runaway Blues,” and “Sleep Talking Blues” with guitarist Hudson “Tampa Red” Whittaker.

“Georgia Tom” Dorsey is best known as “the father of Gospel music,” writing 3,000 songs, including “Peace in the Valley,” and working with legends like Mahalia Jackson.

Most of “Ma” Rainey’s songs were recorded under the name of “Ma” Rainey and her Georgia Jazz Band, which changed personnel frequently. It included such musicians as trombone players Wynn, Kid Ory, and Charlie Green and Al Wynn; reed players Don Redman, Buster Bailey, Coleman Hawkins, and Johnny Dodds. Rainey was also backed by pianist Jimmy Blythe and blues guitarist Blind Blake, as well as 12-string guitar player Miles Pruitt on the August 1924 eight-bar blues song “Shave ‘Em Dry.” Rainey was backed by trumpet players Tommy Ladnier, Artie Starks, Joe Smith, and Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong played cornet on her songs “Yonder Comes the Blues,” “Jelly Bean Blues,” “Moonshine Blues,” and “Countin’ the Blues.” When Rainey recorded her blues masterpiece “See See Rider Blues” in a New York studio in mid-October 1924, the lineup was Armstrong and Buster Bailey on cornet, Henderson on piano, Charlie Green on trombone,and Charlie Dixon on banjo. Armstrong never knifed anyone over a pair of shoes, but he kills on those songs.

The Studio

The sign outside the studio in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom says the label is Hot Rhythm Recordings, a play on a nickname for the “rhythm and blues” and jazz music of that era. In truth, however, Rainey recorded with Paramount Records between 1923 and 1928. Formerly known as Black Swan, the company was founded in 1920, and was the second Black-owned record label in history. It was bought out in January 1924, by M. A. Supper, changing it to a white-owned company. But its output throughout both eras was called “race records,” and they made bank.

“Ma” Rainey was immensely popular in the Southern theater circuit. She’d been a popular solo performer before she teamed with her husband William “Pa” Rainey, forming together the “Assassinators of the Blues.” In 1916, Rainey separated from her husband and toured with her own band, Madam Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Sets. Her tent shows featured a chorus line, a Cotton Blossoms Show, and Donald McGregor’s Carnival Show. Talent scout and recording session supervisor Mayo “Ink” Williams brought her in for her first Paramount recordings in 1923, three years after the first blues singles were recorded by Mamie Smith.

Williams was the first Black producer at a major record label, and the most successful blues producer of his time. He earned his nickname because he was very successful getting African American musicians signed to recording contracts. He’d move on to Decca Records in 1934 where he produced or wrote songs for a wide range of artists and genres, including jump blues, which became rock and roll.

Rainey was 37 years old when she signed with Paramount in December 1923. Rainey wrote 38 of the 92 songs she recorded, and her first session was recorded with Lovie Austin and Her Blue Serenaders. She and Lovie also recorded with Louis Armstrong for the label.

Bigger genre labels like Okeh Records and Columbia Records, where Bessie Smith was signed, had much better studios. This complaint makes it into Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom several times, especially when a perfect performance never makes it through the needle because of a faulty microphone. Sound quality for most of Rainey’s recordings suffered at Paramount. The company went bankrupt in the 1930s.

While recording at Paramount, the studio did arrange a very successful promotional tour. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom includes scenes from Rainey’s run at the renowned Grand Theater on State Street in Chicago. Rainey was the first country-style blues artist to play the venerable room. This context is something the movie explores at length.

Culture

Ma Rainey’s Life and Reign as the Mother of the Blues

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Ending Explained

By Tony Sokol

About that Windy City setting, Turman also tells us, “You got to remember, there had just been a race riot in Chicago [before the movie is set] because a young Black boy had gone swimming in the lake there. And there was a section that he was not supposed to cross as a result of the discrimination. And so they would not let him swim back to shore and he drowned… so we had to forge these characters with a certain amount of steel in their backbone, because these were guys who were going into an area that anything could happen to them at any time.”

Over a period of five years, Rainey performed and recorded with her Georgia Jazz Band, her Tub Jug Washboard Band, and female bandleader and jazz pianist Lovie Austin and the Blues Serenaders.

As the movie points out, Rainey never stopped performing live. “Ma” toured with her Wild Jazz Cats on the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit consistently. The recordings were secondary, after all the sessions. “Ma” Rainey stayed on the road until she retired, and even then, she ran two theaters.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom premieres on Netflix now.

*Additional reporting by Don Kaye.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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hollywoodfamerp · 4 years

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LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD, CICI, YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED AS YOUR FIRST CHOICE, CARLOS VALDES!

* PLEASE SEND US YOUR ACCOUNT WITHIN 24 HOURS, BE SURE TO HAVE YOUR CELEBS FULL NAME IN THEIR BLOG BIO AND HAVE YOUR ASK BOX OPEN. IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE LET US KNOW.

** PLEASE MESSAGE US TO FIND OUT IF YOUR FC HAS ANY PRIOR HISTORY AND FOR THE OOC BLOG LINK

NAME/PRONOUNS/AGE/TIMEZONE:

cici - she/her - est

FIRST CHOICE AND FC AGE:

carlos valdes - 31 years old (april 20th, 1989)

SECOND CHOICE AND FC AGE:

jordan calloway - 29 years old (october 18th, 1990)

GENDER YOUR FC IDENTIFIES WITH AND PRONOUNS:

male

FC OCCUPATION:

actor, singer-songwriter.

RULES PHRASE:

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

the people he’s worked with on the cw! stephen amell, katie cassidy, darren criss, etc.

PARA SAMPLE:

—

WHO ELSE DO YOU PLAY IN THE ROLEPLAY:

caity lotz & crystal reed.

OTHER:

carlos had a daughter last time that he adopted, hallie grace valdes. she’s 4 years old and was born march 14th, 2016. i’ll send her instagram. :)

#hollywood rp #hollywood rpg #celeb rp #celeb rpg #plotless rp #accepted #submission #carlos valdes

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junker-town · 4 years

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The PGA Tour has its own cheating saga that just won’t go away quietly

Patrick Reed and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in January of 2017. | Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Like the Astros and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, Pat Reed and the PGA Tour continue to be a hot target for criticism months after Reed flagrantly cleaned up his lie and was meekly punished.

Imagine MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s only comment on the Astros cheating scandal engulfing his sport was “I believe them” in response to the players’ denial that they promoted, orchestrated, and were fully in on the scheme. Then imagine one of Manfred’s deputies responsible for maintaining a level playing field in the league went out of his way to make sure you knew the Astros were “complete gentlemen” during the investigation of their cheating.

These are the lines we’ve heard on Patrick Reed’s December adventure in the sand from dignitaries at the PGA Tour, the other American professional sport with a cheating scandal thought to be disposed of months ago. At the Tour’s first event of the calendar year, Commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the incident publicly with a defense of Reed. “I’ve had an opportunity to talk to Patrick at length,” he said. “I believe Patrick when he says that [he] did not intentionally improve [his] lie.” Monahan leaned on Slugger White’s (now of “complete gentleman” fame) adjudication and penalty (it’s never “cheating” in the parallel PGA Tour universe) at the tournament and said, “To me, that was the end of the matter.”

It was only the end of the matter for Reed’s scorecard, as we saw this week with the incident bubbling back up thanks to comments from one of the Tour’s marquee players and one of its familiar broadcasting “partners.” First came Brooks Koepka, winner of four of the last 11 major championships and a leader in pro game, directly stating “Yeah” when asked by Sway Calloway if Reed was cheating in the “sand pit” back in December. Then the increasingly acerbic Koepka added, “I don’t know what he was doing, building sand castles in the sand but, you know where your club is. I mean, I took three months off and I can promise you I know if I touched sand.”

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Koepka is adding to the chorus of those who play and played the game at the highest level vehemently asserting that there is no credibility to Reed’s “unintentional” defense. There may be in the commissioner’s office, but not among the players in his league. “It’s one of those things where you know, if you look at the video,” Koepka added, “obviously he grazes the sand twice and then he still chops down on it.”

Following Koepka was Peter Kostis, respected swing coach and longtime CBS walking reporter who was let go from the network at the end of last year. Kostis was a man on fire on the No Laying Up podcast, calling out his former employer and the Tour for a variety of issues that he feels illustrate their indifference to the end product on television. But on Reed, he was more pointed and specific, testifying that he’d seen this similar maneuver multiple times in the course of his duties with CBS.

“I’ve seen Patrick Reed improve his lie up close and personal four times now ... You can go on YouTube. It’s the only time I’ve ever shut McCord up, he didn’t know what to say when I said, ‘The lie that I saw originally wouldn’t have allowed for this shot’ ... Because he put four, five clubs behind the ball, kind of faking whether he’s going to hit this shot or that shot — and by the time he hit a freaking 3-wood out of there. Which, when I saw it, it was a sand wedge layup originally, right?”

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Kostis went on at length about Reed’s propensity for improving his lie and cited the places he’d seen it happen.

“I saw him, I was in the tower at 16 at San Diego on the par-3 during a Golf Channel telecast and he hit over the green, and he did the same thing. Put three or four clubs behind and it was really a treacherous shot. Nobody had gotten it close all day long from over there. And by the time he was done, I could read ‘Callaway’ on the golf ball from the tower. There was another incident at Hartford and another incident at San Diego. I was there, and I saw them all.”

As we’ve seen with the avalanche of MLB player comments from spring training sites across the league and with the near-unanimous mockery of Manfred in recent weeks, the absence of what’s perceived as sufficient punishment has only prolonged the matter. Like the Astros scandal, the outcry over the limited punishment for Reed feels like the easy vessel to holler about the Tour for a variety of underlying issues. He was already a polarizing figure. This is red-handed video evidence. The punishment was minimal and larded up with laughable quotations about class and gentlemanliness. Let’s yell about all the ways the Tour failed here and is failing elsewhere.

We’re closing in on three months since the original incident and the commentary continues to trickle out well beyond just the immediate embarrassment at the Presidents Cup that followed the week after Reed’s excavation. There, International team member Cam Smith used the word cheating, for which he was admonished by the PGA Tour. If you are more offended by Cam Smith calling it cheating than your are the actual cheating, then we’re starting in a very bad place. Team USA members also seemed to make light of their teammate’s misstep and adamantly stated it was behind them. This happened before Reed made sure it was not behind them, mocking hecklers by mimicking a shovel move during a match he lost and before his caddie (also his brother-in-law) hauled off and punched another heckler. Reed was heckled again in his first start back on U.S. soil, a typically subdued vacation of an event on Maui.

Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR via Getty Images

Reed scooping away some sand in a low-stake December tournament is not an existential threat to the PGA Tour, so you can almost understand the commissioner’s line that it was the “end of the matter.” While it’s odd that the Tour tripped over themselves to staunchly defend the honor of Patrick Reed, someone with a history of sketchiness and not exactly a marketing whale for the PGA Tour, there were issues of far greater concern to get to for the commissioner, like fending off an avalanche of Saudi cash trying to poach his league’s best players. You may think the Reed’s cheating has been a stain on the game and illuminated a host of issues with PGA Tour management. But it seems fairly obvious from this that Monahan does not view “protecting the game” as a job priority. Protecting his specific league’s business interests and its members, who he ultimately answers to, are the priorities. Get your TV rights cash and leave the other holistic greater good stuff to the USGA, Augusta, and others. It’s similar to what Michael Baumann at The Ringer wrote of Manfred this week, “One thing that’s become crystal clear as this scandal has unfolded: Manfred’s job is not to look out for the sport.”

That Presidents Cup setting, while adversarial, may have been the softest of landings Reed could have hoped for among his peers, who were teammates that felt compelled to either defend or turn a blind eye. Since then, his teammate that week, Bryson DeChambeau came out and said “Yes, he cheated” on a Fortnite Twitch stream, a forum not exactly subject to the Tour’s PR guardrails. And then Koepka added his opinion on the matter this week, adding that he’s seen this happen with other players at other times on Tour.

This seems like a more significant issue for the Tour than a single incident in the Bahamas from a guy used to playing the villain. Kostis is saying he’s seen it multiple times from Reed (some of which we have video evidence for) and Koepka is saying he’s seen it out on Tour from others but kept his mouth shut.

This is a league running into the warm embrace of legalized gambling and perhaps here’s where the punishment of Reed, or lack thereof, could become more of problem than just negative PR the Tour can weather. They’re licensing all their Shotlink data for gambling purposes and are set to collect buckets of more cash. Gambling is going to become part of its culture and DNA. Now you’re answering to more than just your members when it comes to a level playing field and disclosure of information. After this nagging Reed drama that won’t go away, what happens the next time someone is caught fluffing their lie? What if it’s not on camera but just alleged from a playing partner? What happens if it’s Reed again or someone with a cleaner reputation? Has the reaction to this from players like Koepka changed the way this will be handled in the future? Two shots did not seem enough in December and it doesn’t seem enough in the future. Right now, as both Kostis and Koepka illustrated this week, it feels like those safeguards are not fully in place in a clear way.

The rules of golf are full of mind-numbing and counter-intuitive inanities but everything branches out from the simple core starting point of “play it as it lies.” It’s a basic tenet like a hitter not knowing the exact pitch that’s coming. So if you’re betting on the PGA Tour you’d want to know that it’s a level playing field and those who deliberately and repeatedly alter their lies might be punished for it. Or, for instance, that players’ drivers are being consistently and regularly tested for trampoline effects over legal limits (there is still no real oversight for this). The Reed saga, and this is part of the reason why it’s still a topic months later, has left the Tour with the air of a place where the rules are not a priority or, at best, are not clearly defined.

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darnellsutton-blog · 7 years

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HWAL, Hollywall Entertainment announces Soul of America

Hollywall Entertainment, Inc. announces the re-scheduling of the 58th Presidential Pre-Inauguration- Soul of America event

January 17, 2017 Washington D.C. - Hollywall Entertainment, Inc., (OTC Pink: HWAL), announces the rescheduling of its live production of the 58th Presidential pre-inauguration event entitled, “Soul of America” originally scheduled for taping on Tuesday, January 17th at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). It has now been rescheduled for production to resume during Black History Month (February) at the NMAAHC.

Soul of America is a planned two hour live event production to be taped for a future network broadcast. It has been developed in conjunction with the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), the National Black Republican Council (NBRC), the National Black United Fund (NBUF), the Republican National Committee and the 2016 Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC), along with the generous support of numerous corporate partners and donors. Soul of America will celebrate the historic accomplishments of some of the world’s greatest sports, entertainment, business and political Legends of our time, told thru the historic Lens of the Museum with star- studded stage performances in dance, music and spoken word tributes, as well as recognize the tremendous growth of some of our nations great American cities, as told by the voices of America’s Mayors thru live and video presentations.

Further, in conjunction with the Soul of America production, Hollywall Music will launch its much anticipated digital distribution platform, with the first of its many greatest hits taken from its vast music library--starting with the Soul of America Classics music compilation, to be released during the production and broadcast featuring, Classic Soul, Classic R&B and Classic Jazz with performances by recording legends and composers: Ray Charles, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, John Lee Hooker, Barry White, Quincy Jones, Nat King Cole, Percy Sledge, Al Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Dee Clark, Betty Everette, Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, Fats Domino, Tina Turner, Maurice Williams, Jerry Butler, Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight, Little Richard, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Jacksons, Louis Armstrong, Brook Benton, Jimmy Reed, Roberta Flack, Cab Calloway, Bo Didley, Howlin Wolf, Ace Cannon, Etta James, Lionel Hampton, Marian Anderson, Dinah Washington, Otis Blackwell, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Sam and Dave, The Coasters, George Benson, The Drifters, and The Platters. The Hollywall Music library of Master recordings, has been preserved in a vault for over twenty years and contains some of the rarest and most coveted unpublished recordings from these and countless Legendary Music Recording Artists.

Soul of America is being produced by Hollywall Productions, (HWP) and co-produced by Encore Live. It is being Executive Produced and Directed by Hollywall’s CEO/ Chairman, and veteran television producer, Darnell Sutton.

The (NMAAHC) Museum opened in September 2016 on the National Mall in Washington DC near the Washington Monument. The museum features a variety of exhibits and educational programs on topics such as slavery, post-Civil War reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement. The new museum is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history and culture. It continues to be a highly anticipated attraction that continues to draw record crowds from around the world, as well as an expected global television audience.

The United States Conference of Mayors is a national organization representing over 400 mayors of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. For more than 75 years, the conference has taken the lead in calling national attention to the challenges faced by, as well as the possibilities within, urban America. www.usmayors.org. There are 1,408 such cities in the country today. Each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor.

The National Black Republican Council, (NBRC) is the largest and most influential minority Republican organization in the country, representing over 50,000 members in 44 states. NBRC became an Official arm of the RNC in 1974 when Chairman Fred Brown merged his membership of the New York State Black Republican Council into NBRC. Chairman Brown coordinates the national office of NBRC in Washington, D.C., the state council organizations and is the Republican District Leader of the 77th Assembly District of Bronx County, New York. Chairman Brown has been a Delegate to the National Republican Conventions of 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. Mr. Brown has been a National Convention speaker during the previous seven (7) Republican National Conventions and he has actively participated in every Republican Presidential campaign since 1980.

On a most recent conference call with Hollywall’s CEO/ Chairman, Darnell Sutton, the US Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director, Tom Cochran and the National Black Republican Council Chairman, Fred Brown along with the each organizations executive staff,

NBRC Chairman Fred Brown stated “As Chairman of the National Black Republican Council, NBRC and the Executive Board of Directors representing NBRC's State Council nationwide, I am extremely honored and excited to continue the many years of successful services of Hollywall Productions and its most excellent Chairman, the Honorable Darnell Sutton in his role as Executive Producer of the NBRC sponsored event, Soul of America. The NBRC has extended its appointment and engaged the services of Mr. Sutton in celebration of Black History Month at the world famous Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Mr. Sutton has done an unbelievable and outstanding job in putting this historic event together. Mr. Sutton and his team have secured the support, attendance and participation of the US Conference of Mayors for this historic Black History Month Celebration in February. I am excited and looking forward to this monumental event with the participation of more than 400 Mayors, and other attendees from across America. I, and many Americans from every city are excited and looking forward in support of President- elect Trumps economic and development opportunities designed to rebuild our inner cities of America and make America great again, under the dynamic partnership of the US Conference of Mayors.”

Hollywall CEO Darnell Sutton states, “I am thrilled for Hollywall to be in this most desired position to serve our nation in such a dynamic and awesome manner. The appointment of this significant role as Executive Producer of Soul of America and to have the opportunity to work with such venerable long standing organizations and individuals, is quite humbling and truly a dream come true. We count it a blessing to be able use our gifts and talents to tell the story of this great moment in time in history, as we celebrate our nations time honored tradition of another historic transition of power, in welcoming the new administration and paying tribute to the most extraordinary and remarkable contributions of some of the greatest African American Legends of our time. We will forever remain grateful for the ongoing vision, fortitude and inspirations that continue to emanate from the womb of the greatest stage in the world...the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.”

About Hollywall Entertainment Inc.

Hollywall Entertainment, Inc., www.hollywall.com., is a multifaceted media and entertainment company engaged in maximizing rights to its music, film, television, home videos and software game libraries. The company is developing a digital distribution and verification system to improve customer delivery, quality control and revenues for artists, writers, content developers, copyright owners and shareholders. Hollywall owns exclusive and non-exclusive rights to market, manufacture and distribute over 17,500 songs from Music Recording Masters. Hollywall's recorded music master rights consist of all the “Proprietary Rights,” as outlined in its original contracts on file. The master recordings contains performances by such legends as Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, The Jackson 5, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Tony Bennett, The Bee Gees, Chicago, Platters, George Gershwin, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, The Who, Janis Joplin, Rolling Stones, Emmy Lou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frank Sinatra, Bill Haley, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Alabama, Buddy Holly, Linda Ronstadt, Mickey Gilley, Willie Nelson, Neil Sedaka, Rod Stewart, Dennis Yost, Bob Wills, Steely Dan, Engelbert Humperdink, Lee Dorsey, BJ Thomas, Starbuck, ABBA, Hank Williams, Joe South, Jose Feliciano, Roy Orbison, Johnny Paycheck, Eric Clapton, Mac Davis, Tammy Wynette, Ralph Stanley, Box Car Willie, Bobby Darin, Sha Na and other multiple platinum selling acts. The music master recordings include songs that have never been released in addition to songs that have been released by other record companies which hold similar licensing rights to market the songs.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), and as such, may involve risks and uncertainties. These forward looking statements relate to, amongst other things, current expectation of the business environment in which the company operates, potential future performance, projections of future performance and the perceived opportunities in the market. The company's actual performance, results and achievements may differ materially from the expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements because of a wide range of factors.

Contact Info:

Hollywall Entertainment, Inc

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615-257-0780

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