#ska's ranting again
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I’m gonna go on a little rant about this theory. (If you wanna understand the theory more, check out the tags and @thatonesongyouretryingtoremember)
If Angela (aka Jane Ives) escaped the lab somehow without getting caught (idk how she escaped) someone would’ve had to put her into the system to where she would’ve gotten adopted. And since her name isn’t Jane Ives currently (1986), I could assume that when she was adopted, her adoptive parents decided to change her name.
We see how during El’s presentation, Angela was more concerned about how El’s diorama was about her dad than anyone. I’m sure everyone was confused for a second but let it go after a while, unlike angela who kept bringing it up and how he wasn’t a hero. She must’ve wanted some type of validation from the people around her, especially like teacher and it’s pretty clear to me. She smiles and nods when Ms. Gracey admitted that she was correct.
When El first walked into the class with her project, we see her dodging different students to get to her desk. One thing I noticed in that scene was that Stacy was standing beside Angela’s desk talking to her. They didn’t even look at El until she pushed past Stacy to sit at her desk.
El probably didn’t think to say “excuse me” so that Stacy would move and just pushed her. El didn’t even realize she did it and Stacy just brushed it off. As for Angela, she gave El a harsh side eye and looked pissed. A second later, Jake blew a spit ball at her threw a straw, so I’m guessing he saw it happen too.
Here’s a vid
If you pay attention to Angela’s face she does not look happy at all. Its possible that that could’ve been the reason.
Now if i fast forward to the scene where Angela tripped El we see her make some comments about Mr Fibley and then walking away. She didn’t even try to go anywhere near her project, I don’t think she even cared that much. But we do see Jake pass Chad (blonde dude) the project before he steps on it, ruining it completely.
They all walk away until El calls Angela. Now angela didn’t have anything to do with the project being stepped on but she was still called.
El throws her hand out and screams. everyone starts laughing. We can also assume that El screamed so loud that it caused Ms Gracey to come out and check on her.
Ms Gracey saw Angela with her face down and assumes it was her who broke it, she grabs Angela’s arm and i guess took her to the office.
Angela does everything she can to convince Ms Gracey she didn’t do anything but it didn’t work.
So what I’m saying is she probably called El a snitch because when the teacher checked on her all she did was look at Angela, which told her everything. Angela could also be upset because she’s getting in trouble for something she didn’t do (breaking the project). She was the only one who got in trouble when all of her friends were involved. We can assume she got in trouble because of that. (Calling her parents, detention, ISS when they get back from break, we don’t know)
When El picks mike up from the airport, we see that both El and Mike are being fake. El is wearing make up and trying to act “cool” or “normal”, she’s trying to be like Angela. Angela wears makeup, and she has a boyfriend. At the airport, El wears makeup and she’s seeing her boyfriend. She lies to mike about Stacy and Angela being her friends. She smacks Will with her flowers when he says “what friends” mike definitely saw that, he says nothing.
At the skating rink, everything is fine except she lies to mike again saying that she goes to the skating rink a lot but Will doesn’t. That could also be interpreted by saying “Angela goes to the skating rink a lot but I do not.”
They’re in the same class, El sits behind Angela, I wouldn’t be surprised if she heard her talk about going to the skating rink with her friends. Angela also has her own skates, she doesn’t rent them.
Will calls her out for lying and El acts like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They all get on the rink to skate and Will is by himself, El is focused on mike and they don’t notice Angela and her friends walk in.
Angela notices El and Mike almost instantly and points them out. Jake comments about mike by calling him a “twig”. After a while, they all have their skates on now and Angela goes up to El’s side of the table.
El is frowning now and Mike is looking at Angela but also looking over at Jake. Angela introduces herself and calls mike “handsome” assumingely to sort of get under El’s skin. Mike mentions that it’s good to finally meet “Jane’s friends” to which Angela makes a face and goes along with it. She grabbed her hands and took her onto the skating rink, we see that Jake took her milkshake.
El looks confused while she’s skating with Angela, Angela stops in the middle of the rink and tells her to stay put.
The whole circle thing happens and when the skate guy says “wipeout!” Jake skates up to her and throws the milkshake, causing El to fall back.
Chad caught it all on camera and we see that it was around 2:36 (important)
El goes to hide in the staff closet and looks out of the window to see Angela and her friends laughing at the video of the whole thing.
El walks out to try and make Angela apologize and tell Mike that it was a joke (which would never work anyway because I doubt Angela would want to talk to Mike, plus that isn’t something your friends do to you). That would also mean convincing mike that they ARE friends. Angela doesn’t want to and brings up El’s “mean stare” and laughs. She says sorry for el because she can’t cry to the teacher (Ms Gracey), so she tells her to cry to daddy, which she knows el can’t do and says “oh wait, can’t do that either.” They laugh and walk away.
Now at this point, she’s brung up Hopper twice, and this is OUT of school. She learned that hopper was dead the day before and still brung it up. Angela had to have been thinking about that for a while to bring it up again.
At this point El is pissed at Angela. She criticized her project, tripped her, embarrassed her, and brung up her “dead” dad.
She grabs a skate from a random boy and walks behind Angela, who doesn’t know what’s about to happen. El finally calls Angela’s name and when she turns around she hits her with the roller skate.
El feels bad after and mike and will rush over to see what happened. Mike is paralleled to Brenner when he asks what El did.
At the beginning of the next episode, it’s dark outside, meaning it has to be around 5-7 pm. I mentioned before that when chad was recording it was 2:36 exactly, which means Angela probably got hit around 3pm. Its still spring when this happens so it gets dark fast. Like I said it was really dark outside when the next episode starts and we hear sirens outside of the skating rink and a paramedic talking to Angela.
We still don’t know who called the cops for Angela. She had a grade 2 concussion so I doubt she’d be on the phone. I think it’s more likely that when her parents picked her up from the hospital, they made her explain what happened and then came to the realization. “Oh shit, my daughter was assaulted.” And decided to press charges for assault against El.
We don’t know who called the police but that’s what is best to assume. It shows that Angela definitely has some type of issues. She won’t let go of hopper, if she’s adopted, she could be insecure about not knowing her bio father or mother. Terry can’t interact with people and Andrew (Jane’s father) died in the Vietnam war. It that case, she’ll never know her biological father and she could only “see” her biological mother. In my opinion that’s enough to fuck somebody up to the point where they start acting like Angela was.
But that’s the end of this post for now, I have much more to say but a lot of it is going to be under the tags.
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Meeting and Dating James T. Davis
(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- You first met James when the two of you were young. He was a friend of your older brothers and had; on account of this, spent countless days at your house.
- He relentlessly teased you and; at times, completely infuriated you, but he could also be a sweetheart when he wanted to be. Like the time he’d driven an hour out of his way to pick you up after your date; whom he had told you from the start was an asshat, bailed on you or when he’d tutored you for months on end so that you could pass physics.
- While he oftentimes adamantly denied it, it was obvious that he cared about you; though at first it was in a purely platonic, brotherly way. It was when the two of you were in highschool that that all changed.
- Your brother had graduated the year before leaving both you and his best buddy behind in your crappy highschool. James was in his senior year and you were a sophomore.
- Your brother had asked James to keep an eye on you while he was off at college; not that he really had to since the boy was planning on doing so anyway. Because of that, you and the boy started to hang out more and more which is why you were comfortable shyly admitting that you had a crush on; and a budding romance with, a boy in your class
“Who?” James wrinkled his nose, squinting his eyes as he scanned the parking lot of your highschool, hands stilling inside his backpack where they were once fishing for his car keys.
“Don’t be so obvious!” You whisper yelled and he glanced down at you for a split second before moving his eyes to search for the boy once more. “He’s the one by the red car, the one with the denim jacket.”
“Him?” He’d asked as though it were ridiculous that you liked him.
“Yes him,” you replied defensively. “Why? ...what’s wrong with him?”
“Nah, nah, nothing,” He told you initially though the way he said it betrayed the words. “C’mon, lets go. I can see the drool starting to show and I don’t want to mess up my shoes.”
- That night, James laid in bed, staring at his ceiling, an indescribable feeling washing over him. His mind ran through everything you told him, touching upon this and that and wondering why it all made him so ...angry?
- Sure that was part of it, but there was something else to it, something much more complicated. He glanced at the clock in his bedroom and sighed; it was going to be a long night.
- He took a few days to watch you closer detail and think things through. It was during that time that he came to a realization.
- He wasn’t sure when it all started but he’d begun to find you ...cute, and not in that “oh she’s such a cute little girl” sort of way either, he found you pretty, beautiful even. Perhaps that was part of the reason why it made him so angry to see another boy pursuing you and why it bothered him so much that you seemed to like him back.
- His feelings for you grew more and more, or maybe he was just more perceptive to them now that he knew how he felt about you. Either way, he’d officially fallen for you and had begun to think of ways to ask you out.
- Everything came to a head the day you found out your crush; and the boy who flirted with you, got himself a girlfriend. You felt silly getting upset over it but you couldn’t help it. You felt stupid, you felt like you weren’t good enough for anybody.
- It was enough to make you feel sick, so much so that you weren’t even lying when you went to the nurse to tell her you didn’t feel good. You’d walked home in the middle of the school day after the nurse excused you from class and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.
- James came to check on you after school, a bit worried that something had happened after you didn’t meet him for a ride home. He let himself into your house, knocking on your bedroom door until you hesitantly and weakly called for him to come in.
- The minute he saw you, he immediately asked what was wrong and refused to let you deny that you weren’t upset until you finally admitted everything. A little ways into your explanation, he’d made himself comfortable on your bed and pulled you into a hug, all but cuddling you as you ranted to him miserably.
- He interrupted you as soon as you began to put yourself down, softly telling you that the kid was an idiot if he chose someone else over you and listing off a bunch of things that made you a “total catch”. You sniffled and laughed as he made a light hearted joke, resting your head on his shoulder as the two of you sat in a comfortable silence.
“Hey, y/n?” He asked and you’d replied curiously. “...Did you really like that kid?”
“I don’t know,” You answered truthfully. “I think; more than anything, I liked him because I thought he liked me.”
“...I like you.”
“I know.”
“No y/n, I mean I like you,” he straightened up, letting go of you in the process and turning so that you were facing each other. “Listen, I know that this might come as a surprise to you and that it might be a bit strange but I can’t help it.”
“I know I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes and that I don’t drive a stupid looking Oldsmobile fiesta; how could you look at that thing and still want to get in that guys pants is beyond me.” he shook his head as though he were clearing his thoughts.
“But I do like you, no, I love you. And if you like me, even if it’s just a little bit, then I would appreciate it if you told me so that I can stop feeling so stupid and at least get my ass beat by your brother for a good reason.”
- You should have seen his smile when you admitted that you’d always thought he was kinda cute. He asked if you’d like to go do something with him and you smiled for the first time that day. You spent the next couple of hours driving around town and stopping to do whatever the two of you thought looked fun. You doubt that you could ever have as much fun just mindlessly wandering around with someone as you did with him.
- The two of you shared your first kiss on your third date. You’d gone to a carnival with him and he’d insisted that he could win you the big teddy bear prize that one of the games had had. You didn’t get your hopes up but a small part of you did get a little excited.
- Much to your surprise, he actually won and you were soon the proud owner of a four foot tall stuffed animal.
“Think that earns me a kiss?” He asked teasingly.
- You most certainly did.
- He’s always happy to touch you so don’t expect him to hold back when you’re out in public. He wants his hands on you constantly, usually in an innocent way though he does get an inexplicable urge to smack your ass in public.
- That being said: ass smacks, usually out of nowhere.
- Long hard kisses, especially after not seeing each other for a while or after he’s had a really rough day.
- Slow makeout sessions. He likes savoring the time he spends with your lips pressed against his, his hands wandering and the world around you disappearing.
- Hand kisses. Whenever you grab his, he’ll pull your connected hands up to his face and press a kiss to the back of yours.
- Long hugs.
- Ruffling each other’s hair.
- Soft punches and play wrestling.
- Dancing to records together.
- He’s got a thing for brunch. The two of you go out; at least, every week and get it together.
- Tons of nicknames, namely sweetheart and angel; he’s particularly fond of those.
- Private Joker, obviously he’s a pretty funny guy. He always seems to know how to make you laugh or smile. And he loves hearing you laugh, it’s like music to his ears.
- He leans his head on your shoulder whenever you’re sitting together. It’s sort of funny since; considering his height, he needs to bend completely out of shape or sit a good foot away from you to do so.
- Lazy mornings spent in bed. He always wakes up really early but usually just glances at the clock and groans, cuddling closer into you as he falls back asleep. He definitely spent like a full three days just sleeping after he got back from Vietnam, only taking breaks to eat, go to the bathroom, and give you a kiss.
- He refuses to sleep on his back once he gets home from the war. He cuddles close to you, wrapping himself around you like he’s giving you a bear hug in his sleep. Every now and again his arms will tighten around you the slightest bit more or he’ll wake up with a start, nuzzling closer as he tries to steady his breathing.
- Comforting him after nightmares. Sometimes you’ll just sit and stay awake with him for the whole night because he doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He insists that you don’t have to but you wouldn’t feel right just leaving him by himself like that.
- He doesn’t talk a whole lot about the time that he spent in Vietnam or recruitment camp but he does tell you about Cowboy and some of the sights that he saw.
- He most likely brought you back something when he was discharged; maybe some pressed flowers or coins, a knickknack, something like that.
“Either my eyes are going or you’ve gotten even more beautiful since the last time I saw you.”
- He moans over your cooking. He’s had to eat shitty MRE meals everyday for months so anything else is a blessing to him.
- Clingy boy, especially after he got back. He didn’t have the company of a decent woman for a long time so he feels like he has to make up for it, although, even before he left for war, he was still a touchy, needy little shit.
- Sometimes, he likes to act like he’s some big tough army guy; a trained killer and all that jazz, but he’s actually just a huge softie, especially when it comes to you. You can baby and tease him all you want and half the time he’ll just lay down and take it contentedly.
- Anytime you ask him those embarrassing coupley questions, he always replies with a shy “I am” and an uncontrollable smile.
- He likes when you put your hand on the side of his face. Feeling your touch; so soft and warm against his own skin, always makes him feel content.
- He likes going out and doing things for dates. Amusement park and carnival visits, bowling, mini golf, roller skating, going to the movies. He’s fine with sitting alone, and on some days he prefers it, but generally, he likes adventures.
- Watching westerns together.
- He’s always there to help you when you need it and he’s always the sweetest about it too. He never belittles you for what you don’t know, he just shows you how to do it/explains it and praises you when you learn.
- He likes helping you get ready in the morning/night: brushing your hair, helping you put on your coat, etc. He knows you don’t need him to but sometimes he needs it, the monotony and closeness of it calms and soothes him.
- So many compliments. You get; at least, one a day from him. R.I.P. your ears when he catches you feeling insecure, he’s going to list every single thing that he loves about you until your ego is so inflated that you could pop at any minute.
- Looking over his writing for him. I’m convinced he got a job in journalism.
- Exchanging letters when he’s active duty. He; quite literally, kisses them whenever they arrive, a big smile plastered across his face.
- He carried a photo and/or wore something of yours; like a ring or bracelet, wherever he went while he was deployed. It helped him to not feel too homesick and remind him of all the good things he has waiting for him at the end of the line, specifically you.
- You may or may not be the star of his erect nipple wet dreams and great homecoming fuck fantasies.
- He enjoys annoying you, but in an endearing way. Goofily attacking your neck with his lips as you squeal and push him away, messing with your hair, talking about stuff he knows you dislike (like insects or gore). He likes getting a rise out of you.
- There’s no way he got out of the war unscathed and without any lingering trauma. I’m sure he gets his fair share of nightmares and days where he’s far worse for wear; both from his time spent in combat and his final day at the recruitment camp.
- For a long while, he didn’t know if he was gonna last until thirty so he’s thankful for everyday he gets to spend with you.
- He’ll occasionally get jealous for real but mainly, he finds people being attracted to you amusing; because he has you and they don’t. He’s so smug about it too, pulling you into a kiss right in front of them and giving them an arrogant smile once you break apart.
- Overprotective. He’s lost a lot of people that he’s cared about so he never wants to drag you into anything dangerous or see you; potentially, get hurt in any way. So, while some of the things he disapproves certainly won’t kill you, you can sort of understand where he’s coming from.
- Having to hold him back from fighting people; he can be a bit of a hothead at times. As stressful as it can be, you can’t say that it isn’t attractive when he bites his lip and breathes all heavy.
- The two of you don’t fight very often; he can never stay mad at you. He’ll try to give you the silent treatment but it isn’t long before he caves and talks to you. If the two of you get really riled up, he has a tendency to smash his lips to yours and release all his pent up frustration in other ways.
- Depending on the situation, he’ll be a bit reluctant to apologize but will at some point, usually when he can’t stand not talking to you anymore. Although, sometimes neither of you will apologize; especially if you use an ...alternative method to release your frustration.
- He says he loves you all the time, mainly because he values you above everything else and never wants you to doubt that he does. Even though he tends to say the words with a lingering, joking tone, you still know that he means them from the way that he looks at you.
- He’s had a bit of time to think about what he wants to do with his life and you’ve been a doll: loyal, loving, caring. He can’t wait to marry and start a family with you. He can’t think of anyone better to spend the rest of his life with.
#80s movie imagine#80s movie headcanons#80s movie headcanon#full metal jacket x reader#full metal jacket headcanon#full metal jacket headcanons#full metal jacket imagine#James t Davis imagine#James t Davis headcanons#James t Davis headcanon#private joker imagine#private joker headcanons#private joker headcanon
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“Why did Keynes' promised utopia—still being eagerly awaited in the '60s—never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn't figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we've collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment's reflection shows it can't really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the '20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.
So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, ‘professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers’ tripled, growing ‘from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.’ In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be.)
But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world's population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning of not even so much of the ‘service’ sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza delivery) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.
These are what I propose to call ‘bullshit jobs’.
It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don't really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.
While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organizing or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.
(...)
This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one's job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.
(...)
If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc.)—and particularly its financial avatars—but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3–4 hour days.”
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This is gonna be so rambly I'm just ranting about a lullaby and some emotions around it.
It's called "vargsången" in Swedish and "the wolf song" in English (it's how I got the lyrics)
Vargen ylar i nattens skog
(The wolf is howling in the forest at night)
Han vill men kan inte sova
(He wants to, but cannot sleep)
Hungern river i hans varga buk
(The hunger is scratching his wolfen guts)
Och det är kallt i hans stova
(And it’s cold in his burrow)
Du varg du varg, kom inte hit
(Wolf, wolf, don’t you come here)
Ungen min får du aldrig
( I will never let you take my child)
Vargen ylar i nattens skog
(The wolf is howling in the forest at night)
Ylar av hunger o klagan
(Howling from hunger and grief)
Men jag ska ge’n en grisa svans
(But I will give him a pigs tail)
Sånt passar i varga magar
(That’s what the wolfen stomach needs)
Du varg du varg, kom inte hit
(Wolf, wolf, don’t you come here)
Ungen min får du aldrig
( I will never let you take my child)
(There's a few more verses, with slight changes to why he's howling and what shall be offered, but you get the core of the song)
The last verse go: sleep my child in the bedding with mum, let the wolf howl in the night, (last offering, the refrain again)
And for some reason, this song is stuck with me. I didn't sing or hear it for like, four years and could still sing most of it just like that, it's so ingrained into my brain.
I've loved it since I was baby, it's still a comfort song for me, if I feel down, I like to sing or hum it, and I can't help but analyse it.
The song itself is obviously about a protective parent, a mother, comforting her child, and in the book it's from, it's even more obvious where the mother who sings it is more or less a bandit queen who sings it to her child, Ronia, the main character, and is kind and nurturing throughout the story while supporting her daughters decisions and giving advice.
But I can't help but think it's. A bit smothering? Overprotective?
Like. It's still a huge comfort, but for some reason, I feel bad about listening to it??? Maybe because I'm a teen and is meant to be more independent now, but for some reason I feel skeevy when listening to it sometimes??? "Yes yes, stay with me and never deal with your issues alone" like, it's addressed to a child, of course it's to comfort and helping her child, why shouldn't it be?
Why am I like this.
I think this may tie into my issues about feeling like I never grew up, instead I just got jaded and cynical. I feel like I never do anything myself, but also, I don't want to do anything myself so.
I'm most likely projecting.
There's also the fact that I'm reading into the lyrics a bit more. Like, in the story, it's a mother who lives in the middle of the forest comforting her child who's scared of the noises in the forest at night, meta it can also be read as, like, "beware of predators" ya know? But also, sometimes minorities are villainized as predators, so what was the authorial intent? I'm assuming the in story one, but stories have messages, but this story is about acceptance, but it's like Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending where the characters are on roughly equal footing and it's just the families having a spat, does that change the meta reading?
H*CK IF I KNOW. THIS IS BARELY COMPREHENSIVE ANYWAY.
Anyway. If you made it all the way here, and you haven't, then listen to it. None of the songs I've found online compares to my mum's dramatic act singing, too airy and light, but it's a pretty good song and belongs to a pretty sweet story. Ronia Rövardotter, Ronia bandit-daughter, by Astrid Lindgren, it's a Swedish classic. There's also the fairly new CGI cartoon/anime that's on Netflix (it was there on the Swedish Netflix last time I checked anyway). I preferred the older live action one, but idk where to find it and it might be the nostalgia talking.
#Rant#Vent#I guess?#Ronia rövardotter#Hear hear as a knight is speaking#Hear here as a knight is speaking
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hfgjfnmgmgf someone on my old blog asked me my opinion on like All H*mestuck Trolls a while back & i cant stop thinking abt it because so many of my onions have Already Changed Drastically & i also feel like i got like too tmi on it but i also refuse 2 look at it again because i went on a like 300 page rant abt my old hangups with vr*ska and its all just making me Cringe i want 2 redo it all........ itd be kinda weird 2 just start going off unprovoked but also hmm i kind of Dont Care i love talking 2 myself anyhow i might just blast the fuck off 4 fun lol
#zees#DO READMORES STILL NOT WORK ON MOBILE ID HATE 2 BOMBARD A POOR BITCH ON MOBILE WITH A 700 PAGE ESSAY ON FGAMZEhajndjdsJUDSHSJF#look i just . have a Lot Of Thoughts . ugh maybe i should just . do it during the reread#i can probably wait . like when each chara shows up i just Blast Off . hmm#nah ive already gone too far i couldve talked abt the humans 2#also god thatd be Longer actually id b using Images#HSDJMFKMDF IDK !!!!!#i will Think Abt It .
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Listed: Flat Worms
Flat Worms—that’s guitarist Will Ivy, drummer Justin Sullivan and bass player Tim Hellman—arose out of a fertile LA punk scene in the mid-teens. Band members are well-connected, having put in time with Sic Alps, the Ty Segall Band, Kevin Morby’s band and Thee Oh Sees, and Segall has helped record all three of their albums. But for their latest, Antarctica, Steve Albini was enlisted to give their dystopian Fall-esque rants an extra vigor. In her review, Jennifer Kelly observed, “The sound is harder, more precise and altogether more of a sock in the gut.” All three members of Flat Worms contributed to this hard-hitting Listed.
We decided to share some of our “van favorites” from being on tour. Here are our picks.
Tim:
Moondog—H’Art Songs
youtube
A semi-straightforward 1979 release from the Viking Of 6th Avenue. “Do Your Thing” and “High On Rocky Ledge” are beautiful standouts.
Bill Evans/Jim Hall—Undercurrent
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Music to soothe souls even in the most relentless metro traffic.
Various Artists—BMN Ska and Rocksteady: Always Together 1964-1968
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A wonderfully curated comp that keeps the spirits in the van elevated.
The Wire—Complete Series
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The greatest tv show. 60+ hours of your life worth sacrificing, especially if those hours are tour van hours.
Justin:
Billie Holiday—Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia
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This is my favorite thing to put on after a show or for any night drive on tour.
Sam Cooke—Ain’t That Good News
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Any and all, always. Though on the last European tour we did in June 2019, the Ain’t That Good News album was a definite van staple.
Will
The Fall—Hex Enduction Hour
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The Fall is a Flat Worms mainstay, so I felt they had to be included. I remember listening to this one driving out of Leeds on one tour.
Dirty John Podcast
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We listened to this podcast on a tour of the southwest we did with Ty Segall and the Freedom Band. We were so gripped by the story we were actually excited to get back in the van every day.
Simon Reynolds—Rip It Up and Start Again
This was a great read and gave me a lot of excellent context and stories about a lot of post punk bands and records I love, as well as exposing me to new bands or re-introducing me to bands I hadn't spent much time with previously.
Joe Carducci—Enter Naomi: SST, LA, and All That...
Another great musical tour read. The story of the life of resident SST photographer Naomi Peterson, with a lot of great SST history. Includes a lot of great flyers from shows during that time and photos by Peterson.
#dusted magazine#listed#flat worms#will ivy#justin sullivan#tim hellman#moondog#bill evans#jim hall#BMN Ska and Rocksteady#the wire#billie holiday#sam cooke#the fall#dirty john podcast#simon reynolds#joe carducci
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David Graeber:
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it. […]
In our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)
I loved this piece. The parts of anthropology that hold up a mirror to modern ways of living are fascinating to me (probably why I find Alan Watts and Simon Sinek so compelling). We take a lot of our way of life for granted, but when you look closer it becomes clear how badly we've messed this whole life thing up.
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Why Candy Coated Fury by Reel Big Fish is the best breakup album ever-a song by song analysis that no one asked for by me
A few years back my first relationship ended...roughly(not abusive or toxic, just one-sided and unfulfilling, and I broke it off), and a big reason as to why I was able to move on and laugh about it was because I spent the first few months listening to this album non-stop, allow me to go over each song and explain why:
1. Everyone else is an asshole: Okay, so technically this song isn’t about breakups or love or whatever, but it being the first song on the album gets you into the proper mindset.
People are shit, that facts makes you feel shitty and angry, and you wanna talk about and maybe laugh about it.
It’s also a super cool song if your just in need of venting some anger on account of someone rubbing you the completely wrong way.
2. Punisher: That’s more like it. Again, not a song specifically about love, but about a person who just can not take a hint and LEAVE.
Perfect for those ex-partners that just can’t seem to leave you alone even though you have made it clear that it is over. Or maybe towards people who don’t seem to get that they’re not your type and are Not Welcome.
It’s quick, it’s angry, and most importantly, petty as all hell for when you just do not have the strength to be polite about it anymore and decide to be honest about your feelings, very cathartic.
3. She’s not the end of the world: The first proper breakup song, and it’s not angry or spiteful, but regretful as all hell.
It tells of a guy who’s girlfriend just broke up with him and he is not taking it well at all, he’s talking with his friends (the backing vocals) about it, begging them to put him out of his misery because he just can’t wrap his head around the fact that she’s left him.
He actively wants his friends to change his mindset about this and convince him that, well, “she’s not the end of the world”. Except that he can’t change how he feels about it, he’s just bummed out and, right now?, she is the end of the world as far as he’s feeling, his friends joining him on the final verse to indulge him in his sorrow in solidarity. Funny, overly dramatic, and heartfelt in a way that makes you wanna sink into your couch and sigh, perfect.
4. Don’t let me down (Gently): Okay so this one is a cover of a song by a band called The Wonder Stuff (I think) so listen to that version too but I still think Reel Big Fish’s cover is super cool.
A couple is on the verge of breaking up, the singer is very well aware of it and has already mostly accepted the eventuality of this relationship not lasting much longer, and just wants his partner to get it over with and get to the point.
A song to hear when a relationship has reached full on burnout and you lack the energy to keep it going, when you don’t want your feelings to be spared and just want both you and your partner to move on with your lives. Bittersweet and sarcastic tinged with resigned acceptance.
5. I Know You Too Well To Like You Anymore: A bit of a curve ball! And my personal favorite song on this album. Not a breakup song, but a love song disguised as an anti-love song!
A once lovey dovey couple has since grown embittered and jaded about each other and their relationship, and have decided to uh...”air their grievances” so to speak. And both sides have plenty to say to each other, letting each other have it with no restraint and no tact whatsoever.
The girlfriend’s possessiveness, the boyfriend’s absurd expectations of her, her violent comments, his lack of maturity, on and on they rant and rave until the very last verse devolves to the both of them firing petty insults at each other back and forth culminating in them shouting “I wish you’d go to hell!”
But...in the end the fact that they still love each other, despite how much they piss each other off, is the thing they lament the most. Because this song isn’t about a couple hating each other, not really, instead it’s about the time after the “honeymoon period” during the start of a new relationship, when it’s truly tested in the face of the annoying habits of your partner that you just can’t ignore anymore, and the mental image in your head of that person breaks apart.
You don’t like them anymore...but now you love them. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?
6. Hiding In My Headphones: One of 3 songs on the album that don’t really fit the theme directly in anyway, but is still a pretty cool song.
A short and relaxed Ska/Rap about the singer making the whole world go away when they have their headphones on, a brief escape from the anger and sadness of the previous songs to give you a breather.
7. I Dare You To Break My Heart: Back to business, a straight up Anti-love song.
A guy in a brand new relationship lets his bitterness over past pain get the better of him, he believes that this will end just the same as always, and only tries to enjoy what he can while angrily daring his new partner to try and make him feel something when she leaves.
A distinctive message of sour grapes if I ever heard one, the singer makes all sorts of excuses over how this time won’t be any different, even going so far as to say that, even though he’s enjoying this, he’s resolved not to let this hurt him this time, even if it ends up pushing his partner away.
Self inflicted tragedy hidden under angry bitterness...also super fun to shout along to the chorus while you’re driving.
8. Your Girlfriend Sucks: An outsider perspective this time, and honestly probably the funniest song on the album for my money.
The singer’s friend has an absolutely awful girlfriend, hence the title, and the singer is making it his mission to try and get his friend’s head back on straight before their friendship suffers for it.
It is hilarious start to finish, the singer has no filter whatsoever as he regales his friend with the myriad reasons that his partner is a fucking monster, perfect for when your friend is in a sucky relationship and they don’t see it.
8. Don’t Stop Skankin’: Another song that doesn’t fit the theme and...yeah I got no idea.
It’s a, mostly, instrumental piece that’s just kinda...there.
It is actually pretty catchy...y’know, for an intermission piece, next!
9. Famous Last Words: And the last song that doesn’t fit the theme! Ah, well, least it’s good.
A singer laments a writer’s block and/or the feeling that he’s reached the end of his rope, creatively speaking.
Another good song to get you in the melancholy mood.
10. Lost Cause: Back on track with this rockin’ song. Sad but oh so catchy.
The singer is in a relationship that’s on the rocks, and he feels like his partner is starting to give up on before him and he feels more than a little helpless, but tries to argue his case any way.
He grows more and more desperate as the songs continues, singing more and more loudly hoping to change his partner’s mind, only to admit at the last moment that “I’m a lost cause.”
Very Cathartic when you feel like you’re the only one who cares and don’t know what to do about it.
11. I Love/You Suck: In a similar vein to “Know you too well”, but significantly more bitter and less hopeful.
A singer complains about how his once happy relationship has fallen apart and his partner has grown cold and mean spirited. And more than anything he despairs over the fact that he knows he needs to end it, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.
The whole song is him building up the strength to say what he feels without justifying it with a half hearted “I love but”, focusing on how everything went to shit in their relationship, eventually just ending on him repeating the phrase “I think you suck” with what can only be a relived smile as he finally got it off his chest.
For those feeling very conflicted over your partner and need to get your thoughts in order
12. P.S. I Hate You: The most straight up aggressive and angry breakup song on the album, and the most triumphant.
The singer, fresh out of a horrible relationship with someone he just hated, decides to let his ex know exactly how he feels about her and what they were, and how glad he is to finally be rid of her and how awful she made him feel.
The whole song is one giant middle finger to the ex, the singer utterly unapologetic in his anger and makes no bones that, right now, he is more happy and giddy than he has ever been with her.
The last chorus is just the singer belting out his angry and unwavering goodbye, shouting at the top of his lungs as he leaves to start his life anew.
The absolute perfect song to hear after you end a bad relationship with an asshole, treat yourself and scream the chorus at the end with all the pent up anger and frustration your ex had ever given you, you’ll feel loads better after.
13. The Promise: And in sharp contrast to the rest of the album, the previous and first songs especially, the very last thing you hear is a simple and gentle love song.
A new relationship is is blooming, and the singer makes a promise to his partner. He promises that, what ever might happen in the future, what ever bumps there may be on the road, he’ll always try his best to be there and love her as much as he can.
So long as she trusts him and loves him back, that’s it.
He promises to help whenever her temper gets the better of her, to apologize if his own temper escapes him, and to always be a friend to her. It’s tender and vulnerable and adorable.
It might be in conflict with most of the rest of these songs, but its a good one to end on, giving you hope and reminding you that, for all the anger and strife that a relationship can bring, it should always start from someplace good and loving and happy, which I think is a great message to end off on...before you start the album over and sing about how everyone except for you is an asshole
IN SUMMATION: This album has a great variety of songs looking at the subject of love/relationships/and breakups from all sorts of angles and perspectives, making more likely that you relate to at least one thing on here, and it even has a few outliers to keep you from getting too stuck in your head while you listen.
So yeah buy this album somewhere if you can, it’s great.
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I now have a Ko-Fi account! Y’all don’t have to, but it’d be much appreciated! I also welcome fanfic prompts and requests! And if you want to hear more from me and my friends, you can always check out our podcasts!!!
High Roll Cast: Itunes, Spotify, GooglePlay Music
High Ground Cast: Itunes, Spotify, GooglePlay Music
High Ground Cast is currently on a long hiatus (but I’m trying my best to bring it back, as two of us are extremely busy and the other is teaching in japan)
The HRC is being released as fast as humanly possible (for me) with my rigorous school schedule. There is a decent backlog of episodes and THEN we worry about recording with our friend, who, again, is currently teaching in japan.
HGC is a movie/tv show/nerd culture type podcast where several people of all different backgrounds talk about their interpretations and how the media affects them. It’s an honest and fun conversation amongst good friends and it’s immensely fun!
HRC is a DnD actual play podcast with 5 players and a DM. It is actual chaos incarnate. A tiefling paladin named Legion, A (half-?)elf sorcerer named Gandy, Dragonborn Cleric named Maru, Bisexual Nonbinary Dragonborn Druid named Flingeraldoth, and a half-elf Bard named Ebb, the vengeful popstar that plays vaporwave ska music?!?! Anyway, it’s immensely fun and we enjoy doing it But like... We’re also doing both podcasts on borrowed or second-rate equipment so like... We don’t have budget to make it sound amazing.
Anyway, thanks for listening to the rant and shameless plugs and if you wanna support me and my crew in our future endeavors, I would love y’all a lot!!!
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Cant upload the latest recordings.
Anti psychotics works fine.
Feels like I am becoming more stable, have more sane thoughts, I can think in the future, I can look back, I feel myself, I know myself, I am myself.
Amongst other whatever..
I dreamed of being chased by all the hollywood horror murderers.
Somehow me and another killed michael meyers.
Ezyyyyyy..
Voorhees got his ass kicked to.
Bunch of cunts.
I got myself some new clothes, in the middle of it to.
The elevator, back and forth, running from an ex, while he pretends to be the tank from left for dead.
Always pops up when I get to be myself.
Then he pops up and is fucking annoying.
Even in wake state.
That guy.
I woke up, fell asleep again. Meet my cousines friends at a hiphop clothing store.
Fun meeting her.
Alot of other things happend.
Being chased by all the murderers while having a super fun time. It was kinda weird.. because I and the others were never afraid.
We played through it all. Taking them out one by one.
..
I just want to move, far away from this hell whole called sweden.
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Fortsätt ljuga om mina diagnoser. Du slängde ändå ut en på gatan när du kunde hjälpa en till psyk eller skaffa medicin.
Du vet inte ett skit, bör hålla käften med.
Douchebag delux w crooked teeth (liar).
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Jag vill inte veta av någon av er. Önskar att jag aldrig lärt känna er.
Thats all.
I guess.
Det har tagit mig tills fförra månaden att hitta rätt medicin.
Alltså ,I typ 2 år. Har jag gått runt med samma panik, ångest, hat, vrede med mera.
Tills jag fan en vän. Inte genom vården. Dom har jag slagits med tillräckligt för att inse att dessa idioter kommer aldrig hjälpa.
10 stygn för att få en antidepp.
Tänker inte bevisa för dom igen hur långt en kan gå för att få lite ro.
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"Fyyfan". Ba de.
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Men du var nära.
Borderliiiine.
Ena sek bra. Andra dö.
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Jag äter godis för jag är fucking bäng och får ibland blodsockerfall.
Inget som behövs lika mycket när en är nykter.
Bam. Problem solved.
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Why the fuck would I ever believe in you or l?
You dont know shit. Bs. Trash talk. And lies all the fucking time.
You have been proved wrong, many times.
Sabotage everything.
No reason to believe.
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Freddy kruger..
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Och det är rätt uppenbart att en hamnar i depression när
4 st dör(1 var en välsugt nära vän, förut),
1 hamnar i koma
hela bunten stänger ute en för en är i den paniken en är.
spricka i revbenet
mosad av ett gäng poliser
måste flytta upp och ned
arbetar för den som har varit i koma
minimal od (ser emily rose i spegeln när en borstat tänderna, svimmar av synen och slår bakhuvudet i badkaret.
från ena sekunden är allt normalt till att se allt (allting ifrån ärr till piratlappar över ögonen till skuggor, besökt av häxor. Lila gubben. Med mera).
av och på.
Folk från söder fittar med en.
Folk påpekar att en behöver hjälp, konstant. No shit jag söker typ hjälp varje dag. Det krävdes 10 stygn för att bli hörd.
Ryter en tillbaka är en psykopat. även om det var dem som blänger och påpekar som började bråka.
blåst på över 10 lax(om en räknar med internet).
Detta är bara en bråkdel av allting som hänt. Men definitivt dem största impakterna. Och det är inte bara en impakt som du ser. Det är mer än dessa 11 punkter.
Det är rätt uppenbart att en blir depoig och arg.
Och det blev aldrig bättre av att flytta till umeå heller. För det blev bara värre. Och det är därför jag fucking hatar er och hatar just dig för att jag känner att jag blev utslängd när jag egentligen behövde hjälp till en klinik.
Jag gick dit själv i umeå. Nä, kan säga att det inte hjälpte någonstans alls.
Ni har sämre vård. Men med stöd kan det tas allvarligare.
Neeeeemen istället sitter jag i en bur på 15 kvm ovh ruttnar i damm och mitt egna hat.
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Jag hatar er.
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Det finns inget att tala om. Onda ögat över dig och din familj och allt annat.
Fuck you.
Fucking kör över dig med en lastbil.
Dumma fittungar.
Ni är minst lika fula, ni döljer det bara bättre.
Jag kan däremot inte dölja det. För jag är den jag är och känslig som ett jävla sär.
Det kallas inte för bipo. Du kanske får ett hum om vad.
Att hamna i depression efter något sånt där är rätt logiskt och det behöver inte vara bipo heller.
Om dina föräldrar dör. Och du blir deprimerad. Ska jag påpeka att du är dum i huvudet och är bipolär.
Fucking idioti på hög nivå.
Cancer, om jag får uttrycka mig själv.
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Betala resan till himmelen.
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En fick 1100-1900 kr i över 5 månader.
Även när en hade möten.
Resan dit kostade 86, mötet 200, resa tillbaka 86.
1/4 av det en fick i peng av soc.
Därav hatar jag er.
Den mängden en fått låna och betala tillbaka, var jäääävligt dryg den med.
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Att sätta sig i en arbetsposition var också omöjlig för att.
En kunde bli 2, samt skuggor, aura, flygande färger ur ögonen.
Typ som det kan vara i en svamptripp.
Och jag trippade inte sen kollektivet.
Blir du sur? Du har ingen jävla aning om hur förbannad jag är.
Jag vet att jag var en riktig surfitta.
Du däremot, ser dig själv som någon jävla hjälte utan att du vet vad du ställt till med eller gjort.
Vilket gör mig ännu mer förbannad.
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Jag kunde inte tänka längre än
Detta ex. IGEN
Drog ner på stan. Skulle handla mjölk på ica, fanns ingen mjölk = hepp, får väl vänta tills nästa vecka då det finns mjölk/fanns inte mjölk någon annanstans i världen.
Om det ger dig ett hum om hur kort jag kunde täka, gratulera. Jag kände mig helt jävla efterbliven.
Den vreden, cloudade bort all rationalitet, logik och handling.
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Kan inte förklara eller beskriva det en går igenom, för någon.
Kunde jag prata korrekt så var det nästan en guldstjärna för mig
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Att kunna gå normalt, gav mig också en guldstjärna.
Då jag hade brist i allt från b12 till mnga andra saker.
Hela jävla sinnet var förvridet.
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A skämtar om att jag ska bli offrad på O's födelsedag.
Ett grönt rutnät överallt.
Ingen markering=ingen fara.
Skämtades om bara förra veckan att jag skulle bli offrad. Ingenting hände.
Jag tog det ÄNTLIGEN som ett skämt.
= jag behövde antipsykotiska hela jävla tiden.
Det skulle aldrig vara normalt, "normalt", igen om inte jag letat mig själv till denna medicin.
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Några andra vänner blir inlaggda av liknande eller andra skäl.
Chain reaction?
Varför är det så många som går igenom någon form av identitet till vad är verkligt och vad en vill med livet?
Kaan någon svara mig VARFÖR det har skett flera stycken, som även en är bekant med?
IT DOESN'T MAKE FUCKING SENSE.
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Alla drömmar och mardrömmar som har haft en röd tråd i sig.
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Det slutar med
"Ja, jag kanske är helt jävla schiz".
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Därav, och, ja, jag vet att det är flera som skrattar/kunde inte bry mig. Jag fucking hatar dig. Jag hatar er.
Jag vill inte tiklbaka i erat liv och jag vill fan inte ha er i mitt liv heller.
Ni sitter på fröet "det ordnar sig, det löser sig, det bli bättre, blicka framåt".
Är du dum i huvudet?
Inte bara bokstavligen, är du helt jävka hjärndöd?
Blir du lack?
Kanske ditt egna samvete som säger någonting.
Fuck off. Är du snäll?
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HAT ÄR MITT FÖRNAMN.
"Oj vad mycket jag självömkar"
Jag vill se dig gå igenom mina 2 år och det du får tillbaka av andra är ett liknande "håll käften" eller ett rant av "håll käften".
Som jag ser det?
Jag blir bränd framför er alla till döds av en slukande eld. Vissa kastar stenar på mig. Vissa kastar ägg och tomater.
Ni ser mig dö för jag tror på något annat.
Det är så jag ser det.
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Jag lär aldrig ha ett hjärta som förr. Stängt, svag tillit, råmycket kärlek som inte delas med så många andra, empati för allt, backstabbad av det som fanns.
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Rör mig inte, jag sa stör mig inte, jag sa fucking flytta på dig.
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Ett annat typiskt hur det varit för mig är.
Bodde i sthlm tills förra veckan.
Mmmm vad fan äre som händer. Jo rören under sinken börjar läcka efter att jag handdiskat, typ, 5 objekt.
Det är tydligen mitt fel. Jag "måste" ha slagit rören under sinken, inte löst/väldigt hårt.
Och eftersom jag var där, så får jag skiten och ska ut ur lägenheten inom 2 timmar.
Även fast jag försökte bekskydda golvet, genom att springa fram och tillbaka med handdukar och hinkar.
Det finns en anledning till varför det finns rörmockare. Jag visste iaf inte hur en stänger av vattnet.
Och det jag får är
"Är du dum i huve, idiot"
Med mera. Och hör jag det så kan en ge dig fan på att en får höra saker tillbaka.
Jag HATAR dom orden, jag kan tänka mig att det är extra jävka jobbigt att höra det som diagnoserad.
Ärr en för speedad, ska en sakta ner, även fast en inte kan.
Är du depp, är du lat.
#personal#nä. nu får du lugna dig. för jag kan inte ta detta och jag trodde du bara var skit.#yä fuck you too dude.#ditt pissiga samvete.#heavy thoughts#skyll på spliffarna.
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A last word
Lutteoficweek Day 7: “It’s very rude of you to make me fall in love with you. Inconsiderate, really.”
This went over way too fast but it was a lot of fun and stress but everything is stress to me lately and I want to thank everyone who liked and tagged and spread some love! Love you all ❤
Her parents might have named her after the moon, but all her life Luna heard how she was more like the sun, always shining and warm and genuine, always brightening up a day. However, even someone like her could get mad and Luna was this close to exploding. The reason, naturally, stood in front of her in person of an arrogant Italian boy and wore the cockiest grin she’d ever seen.
“Matteo, what was that supposed to be?”, she lamented because he had added some new moves again, and it got on her nerves too much to keep ignoring it. “What did it look like?”, he teased her but she refused to give him the satisfaction of another banter.
Instead, Luna rolled her eyes and simply put on the music, hoping he’d get it right this time.
Since Juliana assigned them both the main roles for the next competition, Luna had to put up with twice the amount of training and twice the chico fresa. Now they used the empty rink for the last half an hour before closing time to “get into the story, to feel it”, as Juliana put it earlier. According to her, the dance told the stories of two lovers and if Luna was being honest, she felt that part way too well when she skated with Matteo. In fact, she felt it around him all the time, skates on or not.
Okay, maybe not right now, since he drove her insane with his inability to stick to the choreography. Either he pulled her too close or lifted her up or whirled her around when it wasn’t what they were supposed to do. At all.
Of course, he repeated these moves and of course she found herself too close to him when they finished the sequence. Looking up, her eyes settled on his lips before she got lost in the sweet comfort of his brown eyes.
Luna broke away.
He had to stop messing with her like this on purpose. She needed to learn these moves by heart if she wanted to impress their trainer and flirting with him certainly wasn’t the way to go.
“You can’t always do that, Matteo, there are rules. You know how strict Juliana is, you can’t just change the steps all the time!”, she growled. He chuckled, unnervingly amused. “You need to relax, chica delivery. I’m only improving the choreography.”
With crossed arms, she snorted and took a step back, increasing the space between them just to be sure. “Improving? That’s what you call it?”
Still nothing but a stupid grin on his face. “Look, I get it”, Luna went on, sick of the training, sick of dealing with him, sick of fighting back her feelings, “You don’t want me to be your partner, but can’t you just tell me now, or go to Juliana and ask if you can skate with Ámbar? You’re her little favorite after all, she’d probably do everything for you. But I can’t afford to screw up, okay?”
Finally, the grin disappeared. However, the astounded expression replacing it didn’t make sense either. “Wait, who says I don’t want you as my partner?” Luna huffed. “Well, you certainly act like it.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” He mirrored her, crossing his arms as well, his mouth drawn into a stiff line. She should have seen it coming, Matteo’s mood changed faster than the Argentinian weather, but in this moment, all it did was piss her off more. Why did she have to develop these messy, complicated feelings for him?
“It means you’re rude,” she snapped. A rant built up inside her, one she had no idea hid in her. Like a hurricane in its beginning it spread out until she felt it ripping through her skin. “Rude? Me?”, he shot back, obviously offended.
That’s when she seriously was done. The most done.
“Yes! You’re rude! You stick neither to the rules nor to the choreography and you don’t care if that means you’re disrespecting Juliana and you always want to have the last word, and then, then you skate around here like you own the goddamn place but guess what? You don’t. Or you’ll ask me something and expect me to spill out all of my secrets while at the same time you never tell me anything. You’re so secretive, like what, I don’t deserve to know the real Matteo? Is that your way of telling me I annoy you?”
Her breath went hard and quick, being the only sound cutting through the silence. Matteo stared, his jawline clinched and she realized his walls were up, way too high for her to reach out. How she despised him in this moment, how she despised his attitude and the way he looked down on her like she could never compare to him and the way it still looked so hot although it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all, arrogance was not supposed to be so attractive.
A grunt escaped her mouth. “Ugh, whatever, I am done here.” With that, she skated off, not looking back, not seeing how his eyes followed her until she disappeared and not seeing how his walls crushed down to reveal a baffled and broken-hearted boy.
She kind of expected him to ignore her the next day.
He had every reason to, Luna figured late at night when their conversation ran through her head repeatedly while she tried to fall asleep. He had every reason and yet, he acted completely normal – normal as in like the snob he was – when she bumped into him in the hallway. It got even worse, in fact. Every time he ended up in her view he shot her those long glances, and winked and raised his eyebrow and it made no sense. Why did he look at her like that, even when she had said all those harsh things?
Shouldn’t he be fuming with anger? Shouldn’t he be running to Juliana first thing after school and ask her to switch partners?
None of this happened, though. Instead he waited for her outside, standing in the sun like a perfectly crafted statue from Ancient Greek. Only as their eyes met and it was too late for her to turn around and run away, he moved and walked up to her. “Matteo, eh, hi”, Luna stammered. “Going to the rink, chica delivery?”, he wanted to know, his voice so soft she wondered if she dreamed. Or hallucinated.
Hesitating, she nodded.
“Uh, about yesterday – I’m sorry. I overreacted and… sorry, really. I had no right to say all that stuff.” With her glare stuck on the ground, she didn’t dare to look at him. “It’s okay”, Matteo replied with what sounded like a smile on his face, “We’ll just practice it again and do it your way if it makes you feel better.”
Now she had to check. Indeed, he smiled. Weird. But whatever was going on, she had to admit she kinda liked it.
It felt like a switch had turned on inside of Matteo overnight. He no longer invented new steps or tried to “improve the choreography”. He focused on her as if she was the sun in the sky, the fixpoint in the galaxy that he revolved around. There was no shyness in his compliments, no resentment in his explanations when he told her where she went wrong and how she could fix it. Within half an hour, he lifted her spirit until the skates under her feet turned into wings taking her up high, higher than ever.
Although somehow, she still waited for him to lash out at her or at least tease her. However, nothing. During one of their short breaks, Luna just felt compelled to ask: “Why aren’t you mad at me?”
A grin slipped on his mouth. “I can’t really be mad at you for caring about the competition or me, right?” Luna stared at him, speechless. A knot settled in her throat as she discovered the mischievous spark lighting up his eyes. How did he…? “I do not”, she meant to disagree, but he interrupted her right from the top. “Aww, you don’t have to deny it, it’s alright.”
Luna had no idea how to reply to that, how to get out of this without lying or worse, admitting the truth. Because she cared about him, of course she did, just letting him know that felt too soon, too uncertain in its consequences. “Hey, do you want to go through the song once more?”, Matteo proposed upon realizing she wouldn’t respond. She nodded with a relieved smile on her lips.
Luckily, no one else skated on the rink, because ending up so close together already embarrassed Luna enough without any spectators. Usually his brown eyes drew her in, made her forget about the world around them. Not today. Today they awoke her senses, awoke every cell in her body until she felt them all buzzing from excitement.
“Beautiful”, he whispered. His hands offered her the support she so desperately needed when this tiny single word caused her knees to tremble.
“You know what’s the rudest thing you do?”, she muttered, lost in the moment. Immediately, he pulled back, hands gone, mouth drawn into a stiff line, walls up. Again. “There is something else? And I thought you had listed everything already.”
Luna smiled at him, tried to reassure him she wasn’t in the mood to pick another fight. “The rudest thing is that you make me fall in love with you and it’s not fair and inconsiderate and you need to stop.”
“What?”
At his wide-eyed startled expression doubt reached out to her heart, grabbed it in its cold strong hold. “I have to go.” The words stumbled over her lips and then, her feet were stumbling away from him. How foolish she’d been, confessing her feelings without thinking, without paying any attention to the possible outcome.
“Wait, Luna, no!”, suddenly Matteo moved behind her. Next thing, his hand grabbed her arm, whirling her around. “Did you just say you’re falling in love with me?” She shook his hand off. “I… I really need to go. Right now.”
“Luna, you can’t just drop a bomb like this on me and then leave. We need to talk about this! Please.” A certain despair painted his voice, but he still didn’t return her feelings and she still wanted to crawl under her blanket and hide there forever. “There’s nothing to talk about, let me go”, Luna shouted. Her cheeks burned like fire and she wanted him so bad to tell her he liked her too, to save her from this humiliation. Except for once, he wouldn’t save her.
She skated off the rink.
“And what if I told you I’m in love with you too?”
Her feet froze on the spot. “You’re not”, Luna mumbled. “I know, yesterday you said I’m rude because I always try to have the last word but believe me, I am. I am so, so, so much in love with you.” And because nothing worked better to guarantee he indeed had the last word, he kissed her.
She didn’t mind him being a rude boy anymore.
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“trustafarian”
part 12: delivering the wingier wing
March 4, 2016 8:56 pm
The tomato/lentil curry stew thing Bruce made was really hitting the spot. The green stuff was knotweed from someoneother’s window microgreen grow. It went on top with some recently expired plain yogourt Bruce assured him wouldn’t make him sick with some new thing. Dan had seen the container in the second fridge the other day or whenever it had been, and overlooked it after assuming off the bat that, like at his parent’s place, there would be a few mouthfuls of some mouldy leftovers inside. If he’d known it was yogourt he still wouldn’t have gone for it. One it was from the trash, two it was unflavoured, three he didn’t eat yogourt. Wasn’t that for lady tennis players or whatever? But it was good with this. He’d slowly eaten a bowl sitting at the kitchen island while Bruce ran around Painting The Living Room Ready. Or red-y, Dan wasn’t sure what the pun was there; either way it involved rummaging around in the tin box-shed thing built off the back of the skate ramp, and pulling out a big tyedyed sheet. This was followed by a red loveseat that looked like it was just the big square cushions off some larger piece of furniture structured together with single wall sections of milk crates and pallet slats. The sheet went up on the wall by hooking the beam it was all wrapped around and stuck to at one end, onto a latch thing that was on a rope with a pulley dial doohickey up by the ceiling on the wall. Then he pulled out a projector from somewhere inside the halfpipe/shack storehouse of wonders. And lo and behold, appeared the laptop from behind its slider cubby-door in the wall.
It played movies for them all from the projector sitting on a pulled-up barstool, because Mouse had finally reappeared from his little room behind when the food smell got to him. He’d been talking to himself and banging things and listening to some kind of soviet ska since finishing his half-Russian (for all Dan knew) rant about Bruce’s improper labelling on the way in. Dan had been feeling exceptionally magnanimous since eating Bruce’s food again and drinking some filtered water from the pitcher that had been filled, but he’d stayed out of it entirely when Mouse sniped about it again before eating, which seemed fair. At this point, from his point of view, it was really a nonissue and he was happy to not get upset about it by proxy. Turned out he’d just been clowning himself by drinking the water from the sink for hands, which (of course) didn’t have a filter on the tap-end, because (of course) it was for hands, and steaming, and whatever. Bruce said they filtered it again through biochar or some crackpot sounding thing, Dan had been only halfway paying attention to the human attention-craving hummingbird Bruce had become with two somewhat willing, somewhat captive “out-of-actionses” to fuss over, and was more interested in how movies looked on the resplendently ridiculous backdrop of the tyedye. It was like a sunflower field if you looked at the patterns long enough, but all lucky charms colours and every-petal-a-rainbow type sunflower field. For some reason Bruce had decided to show them lawnmower man and was gabbing incessantly about it. The laptop’s audio naturally went through all the various speakers around the place and with the sound too low to really hear over Bruce even though it was everywhere, the effect was a kind of entertainingly lyrical din. A din to which Dan managed to eat more soup, at an increasing rate until he’d blown through several tentatively self-portioned half-bowls. He suspected Bruce being perched on the top of the halfpipe he liked and blowing bags of volcano vape everywhere, was “somehow” giving him an appetite.
Sometime after dark Jean-Paul had shown up, and Dan thought it was because Bruce texted about the predicament of the two lost little lambs. Or, whatever-Mouse-is. A snarling little lamb on a snarled little settee that looks like a llama, honestly. Despite all his rage he was just a guy too high to reasonably leave le Mais-on for the moment on his le Mouse-own. The maze… he squinted through the haze the room had taken on, watching Jean-Paul’s expression.
Dan was feeling a lot better than Mouse seemed to be, and he was glad to see Jean-Paul, who seemed nonplussed by the whole situation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mechanical separation, he thought. Mechanically separated was the only phrase he remembered now from the zine he’d pondered briefly in the kitchen, thinking instead mainly of the pictures. Dan asked himself why, what it was about the phrase. Jean-Paul is explaining about his job: Dan tried to focus. It was riveting really, but he was really unclear on why his friend of lo these ten years had chosen tonight to explain that he ran around having sex for money. And that it ran in the family, so to speak, which explained everything about the weird moment he’d had with Andreah last month and maybe something about why she hadn’t tried to get in touch at all. But that wasn’t the case, he realized, running it by himself a few times; she had played it off really cool, she must have understood that Jean-Paul used to say whatever, to his old friends. People he was scared wouldn’t “get it” or whatever. Dan wasn’t sure he got it. Andreah hadn’t been sure he’d get it, or wasn’t sure she was supposed to tell him. Since he didn’t know. Apparently it wasn’t worth bringing up unless he was all juiced up on The Brew. Maybe he’d seemed relaxed or something. He had felt pretty relaxed, now that he was feeling much less high and much more level. Mouse still seemed agitated as all get-out but hadn’t left, or seemed interested in anything that was going on aside from the movie playing directly over his head and occasionally begrudgingly responding to something Bruce was on about in the background, over all their heads. Jean-Paul had perched himself on the halfpipe itself, in a square he cleared in the rummage against the short pallet wood leg of the second segment of strawberry red “couch” that Dan had been lounging on fully extended for some time before Jean-Paul had arrived. He had been feeling like a big happy cat, all snug in its basket or whatever. The couch was holding together pretty well, like two big armless Adirondack chairs conjoined, it didn’t shift and it sandwiched Dan pleasantly in the middle. He still felt snug, but now it was sort of like, he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. He went about not feeling like he’d rather not bail.
"So, I mean, how do you...Did your mom give you like, a welcome basket of …rubber gloves and condoms when you were legal or something?"
"What?" He sounded quite scandalized, but amused. Dan guessed this was going better than he’d anticipated.
"I was picturing some like, eyes wide shut scenario," he'd never seen it, didn't know how the sexmask club recruited, "or something. With y'know, welcome baskets and… business cards. With italic font...fancy...in cursive..." he waved his hands vaguely, splashing it out in lights: "club ...somethingorother."
"The Moulin Rouge," Jean-Paul laughed at him. "Alice linked me up, actually. I mean obviously I always knew, about my mom, like she never hid it from me, but I understood to repeat whatever job she said she had, when it came up. I'd never really thought about following in Ma'mere's footsteps but I'd never thought up any other backup plan for the band manager thing falling through. That was sort of step one in a whole...career I had planned out. Apparently I'm bad with setbacks." Maybe Jean-Paul had secretly been waiting to retire since before even starting. Dan had always wanted to retire, himself. Maybe he'd dropped out of retirement. For the first time. He was technically a freelancer. He was freelancing. If he factored in the cost of his room and board, if it had been in a rentable place of equivalent amenities, he was doing really well. Astronomically well, even. It wasn’t a penthouse downtown or anything but he’d really only been in town three months. Or two months, that always confused him. He counted forward from January on his fingers, and was surprised to find that it had only been two months.
"So, how'd it, how'd you end up asking Alice...about it," he frowned at his accidental echo. Go ask Alice, he heard Andre tell him in the past, again, still there, next to the dumpster Bruce was in. The bike was there.
"She parties around town, there's places where you meet clients pretty easily, which is to say, where you make friends who look like bankers even naked and they give you various drugs people don’t really do anywhere else, and later you hit them up for rent when they,” he made a noise like was considering how “iffy” to be about it, ”require further service. Female-identifying people get in free so Alice is all over it, I’m not really one for the sex bar scene. I go to my bar, where I know people, with people I know, and I don’t take dates there. Anyway Alice and I have a similar enough client base, or, there's enough overlap where she was able to set me up with a few guys who weren’t looking for what she’s offering now. So there’s a nice wingman thing in it for my friend, too; she gets to say there’s a brand they can switch to, they in turn might forward whoever, to her.”
Well, that seemed to explain that. Dan wasn’t sure where to go from there. Was he supposed to check that Jean-Paul was okay or something? He seemed fine. No more not fine than anyone else he knew. Generally pretty poised and in control. It seemed pretty condescending to get all weird, so he tried “Okay. Well, cool? Are you …all good?”
Jean-Paul laughed and looked at him sidelong. Dan realized there were easy entendres there and he felt his face groan. Graciously Jean-Paul overlooked the joketake and said “overall it’s, ah, quite a fulfilling occupation, actually. I encounter some very,” Dan saw his mouth shimmy as he pursed his lips in a sort of fond way “interesting older gentlemen. All groovy, ground control,” he said.
Bruce screeched “good morning starshine the earth says hellooooo,” over at them, obviously and obnoxiously eavesdropping.
With a wave of his hand, Jean-Paul ignored Bruce and continued, “it’s excellent work, honestly” sounding extremely honest. Dan wasn’t sure whether to believe him, and chose to reserve judgment. He had found the word “overall” dubious. He supposed Jean-Paul’s clients never yelled at him in bars. If anything—Dan cut the power to that thought, blinked and decided the movie was interesting again, because it was a different movie, a movie so interesting he had no idea what he’d been about to think, even, or why that would’ve mattered. Jason was in space in this one, huh?
“Pete says he’ll be here in a couple hours if we order a sumptuous Chinese meal in the betweentime.” Bruce continued to pester-yell, sounding very happy. “I have a twenty I found on the ground! All freaky and new! I think the machine 3d prints them from plastic bag pellets! Don’t quote me! I can get more out if you all are gonna stay away-ay-ayyychk?”
Staying awake for Pete sounded like kind of a-hurdle-too-many for him, but he didn’t want to run away just when Jean-Paul had come out to him or whatever about his line of work. Seemed like that might come off as overly mindboggled about it, which would probably mean he wasn’t really that cool with it, in the light of day. This all swam into his mind as he stared at the projected square on the wall and at everyone, the others. Mouse and Bruce and Jean-Paul, all together in his line of vision, their heads looking sort of cherubic in his fading potion-paisleyed view. He felt a sort of conduit of sympathy between them run in a circuit, then, and breathed out so he didn’t startle, feeling like he might. He had a funny sense of the others as ectoplasms or something, like visible souls. The scene seemed like an apparition of a stage play, with four ghostly players, watching an even ghostlier play as it played out on its own borax box. The space ship or whatever it was, satellite or something, in the movie, reminded him of their house, all compartments of a unit. He was trying not to pry into the others in some way, by focusing away from them. It immediately seemed overly intimate to investigate them too intently. Instead he thought back to the question he’d been asked, so long ago it felt like but it couldn’t have been, Bruce had just asked and was distracted again. They were on the same setting now, it seemed. The same frequency. It came back to him, hadn’t Bruce said something about that on an episode of the podcast? He had intuited what Jean-Paul would think if he bailed, because Jean-Paul was thinking it. And Jean-Paul had realized he’d realized because Dan been thinking it. And the others knew too, or it felt like—it had felt like they had. He felt like the best option was to be circumspect about his drug-fuelled revelations, but, not wanting to bet on being wrong, he finally announced that he couldn’t pitch but had been planning on eating more of what Bruce had made anyway.
“It is very homey,” Jean-Paul commented his way, watching the movie. He had brought his knee up in front of him one at a time, alternating after a while, since sitting, and was now on the left one, hands clasped in front of it.
“Did you just call my cooking HOMELY,” Bruce wailed in feinted anguish. He was rolling around on the strip of halfpipe next to Mouse’s perch, between two pile-esque rows of whatheverthehell (looked like big sheets of fabric, paint rollers, chairs of various folding types, just a bunch of random shit like you’d see in the back of a school multipurpose room or a scout hall, which was probably exactly the type of place it had all come from originally), holding his balloonbag of vapor like an otter with a clam.
“Like home cooking,” Dan clarified redundantly, to contribute some chatter for its own sake. For the sake of homeyness, and homieness, he figured. It kind of felt like Bruce figuring it. He was probably spending enough time around him for it to be catching, he smirked to himself. Thinking of things catching brought him back to the almost electric jolt he’d felt earlier, when he’d had that sensation like they were all conducting something back and forth and it was an impressionistic soup of stuff, and he’d thought about how Jean-Paul was doing, or how he’d feel if Dan left, which brought him back to a half-had idea from before Bruce had distracted him, and he said “I can trade you spots so you’re not on the floor, or move my feet or something,” to Jean-Paul.
Jean-Paul opened his mouth, seeming to reply, but sounding a lot like Bruce cutting him off. “Don’t bother I was gonna-unna go get Pete and me and him some padding. I’ll get you another bowl too so you can stay a warm little patty all sandwichy and full of spices.”
“Are you calling me ginger,” Dan wasn’t heard, or if he was he wasn’t answered. Bruce had bounced his way over the lip of the curved ramp and down the other side, and now he was in the kitchen, bustling. “Thanks,” he told Bruce with feeling, receiving more delicious mush on what he took to be a b-line to the second floor for supplies. Supplies. He’d been thinking about asking about something from in there, but he couldn’t remember what it had been. Somehow, though, it reminded him to ask Jean-Paul for clothes, since he did remember wanting to ask about clothes. He tried to think of what the other thing had been, and amended to ponder it in a shower, after asking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He wasn’t sure whether Jean-Paul would still be upstairs with them when he got out of the shower, and thought that if he wasn’t, if he’d gone back to his own floor, Dan’d do the same, except that his floor was right below where this impromptu slumber party was taking place. Bruce pretty much had him corralled either way, he realized, sudsing his scalp with someone’s old Lush product. It looked filmed in dust enough to belong to no one who was there to care. When he came back out, towelling his hair with a hand-towel while he held a larger towel around his waist with another hand, he spotted the new additions to the landscape he’d been wanting; a change of clothes was on the back edge of the red couch thing. But he also felt himself deflate slightly at Jean-Paul’s absence from the scene. Cast adrift, slightly, he tried not to scurry his way over despite feeling the wintery chill of the evening, wondering where Bruce was as well. Mouse was still posted up on the settee, looking angry and watching the movie. The cloth of the towel felt surreal somehow, like if he’d been higher he’d have taken on its properties and melted. He wanted to have on things that didn’t need holding.
“Uh, did you want more,” he asked Mouse when he came back clothed. “While I’m standing,” he added. It wasn’t his plan to get back up. In fact, he planned to eat another half bowl himself and pass out in the chair thing, so he wouldn’t seem avoidant like it felt going down to his room now would be. He wasn’t sure about being high around Pete, it seemed like it might quickly max out his always taxed ability to tolerate white people. Passing out seemed prudent, and so it was his plan. Otherwise who knew what would happen, maybe Pete would convince him somehow to run out into the night to host some kind of live event only to chide him for never learning to use a turntable.
Looking churlish at best Mouse said “no.” Dan decided Mouse was also reaching max on an always taxed ability of some sort, or, whatever was going on it looked like getting into it would hurt. Like it would result in a fist to his face or something. Mouse seemed to find him as fun as he found Mouse. Not very. But he liked Mouse, also. He didn’t want to be annoying, but he couldn’t become unannoying by going away, because he’d be conspicuous somehow as the hole in the floor, he still felt like. It was at this juncture that Jean-Paul came back, followed by Bruce, both of them lugging spare futon-type things. One seemed to be foams in a duvet cover and the other looked circular but otherwise futonlike. The circle was slotted into a cleared space on the halfpipe next to Mouse, between which and Dan a square longboard had been laid across two milkcrates of some cymbal stand stuff and pedals and random guitar strings and piles of melted wax. The foams in a duvet went up on top of the halfpipe next to the silver vape, that ziggurat of canna-conveyance.
“Can I get that—” Jean-Paul started to say to Bruce.
“I’m on it,” was already being shouted back from behind the divider wall. Bruce was making noise like he was going through the stuff on the back of the divider. He came back in short order, waving a smushy, folded stack of melted-looking clear green plastic. Bouncing up onto the back of the halfpipe from the back end, he appeared like a gargoyle, curling his legs and feet under himself neatly. Dan was impressed by his dexterity and recalled the other day, when he’d turned out to not be two-litre-jug-hoisting strong, lately. He made a raincheck-resolution to make a resolution with himself when the weather changed for real, to get back to normal as soon as humanly possible. He felt vague about what he had intended to do in the intervening time that wasn’t getting back to normal, and it seemed like the answer was, because he had some music to backlog for Bruce first. While the backlogging was good. Before whatever seismic shift in reality that everyone seemed to wait all winter for, occurred. He remembered Andre telling him he should see it in the summer. The pace would change after the lousy smarch weather stopped, he understood, but he wasn’t sure how that new pace looked or what it would mean for him. But it sounded like a lot of distractions. Dan was distracted just now in fact, by Bruce using an attachment to make the volcano inflate the smushy pile, which was an armchair, in fact. He tossed it over Dan in an arc, eventually, and he watched it sail sort of like a forlorn beachball at a very empty, dark rave, over to “JP!” who Bruce reminded “head’s up,” after the fact.
Jean-Paul toed wider the space he was using for seating and dropped the chair into it. It seemed really incongruous to Dan that he’d be using a chair that seemed both conspicuously fragile and attention-grabbingly lacking in taste. In his mind Jean-Paul would leave a room before sitting on a piece of furniture like that—something so contrary to his essence—like tackiness was contagious. That was the same note of surprise he always hit with Jean-Paul, now. Here. Maybe it’ll stop being surprising sometime, he tried to log in his mind, so it’d stick. Jean-Paul made kind of a production out of seeming more fastidious and fancyminded, than he actually was. Dan had no idea why really, it was the opposite of what everyone tried to do in his experience, except for his ex and her family, but that was because she was like that. Bougie. He thought everyone hated that. Everyone who wasn’t like that, anyway. He’d always found it sort of annoying about his ex, himself—and at times acutely mortifying, depending how annoying someone she wasn’t paying attention to found her as they provided some service to her. She was really transactional about everything, he recalled. It seemed like a counter-intuitive affectation to give people the impression that people like his ex were more similar to yourself than they were, particularly in the context at hand, in which Jean-Paul existed as a part of some broadly inclusive “anti-authoritarian” community. Then again, Dan realitychecked himself and noted that for months, he’d been wearing clothes his ex had picked out. And they made him look kind of, if not fancy then different, in a not-homeless way. He had no idea if he looked bougie or not. He knew they wore clean clothes all the time. His ex almost never took laundry out to get it done, she usually just bought another store-washed vintage thing and threw it on one of the piles when she was done. Probably bougie people threw away clothes that needed mending, he realized. Besides, “fitting in” didn’t really seem to be the point of being an anti-authoritarian, so dressing to fit in seemed kind of counter-intuitive, itself. Which meant anyone judging him based on his group sameness score probably fit in less than he did, in the relevant way, so he could forget about what his clothes said and speak for himself. His current wardrobe said, Jean-Paul repainted his place beige at some point, or did something else that got some of his ninja-monochrome clothes smeared in paint. There was a terrycloth hotel robe as well, for extra wrapping. He felt very snug and dry, and the increasingly gentle, circular ribboning of his psychedelic musings was diffusing some edge of tension that apparently had been propping up his eyelids. He felt himself drifting in and out of a hazy sleep, half an ear open to the room as Bruce’s chatter bubbled into it like a pump-looped fountain in a midrange sushi restaurant bathroom. Bruce was intermittently reading through a paper menu he had from some place off St. Clair a few blocks over, and bickering affectionately with Mouse, who sounded impatient about delivery arriving, now, as opposed to ambiently murderous to have found himself on a surprise detour into his brain’s own toon town. Mouse insisted the food was better from the Vietnamese places at the Runnymeade intersection and Bruce insisted Pete hadn’t said a sumptuous Vietnamese meal so they had to order from yum-yums or wherever. So on and so forth. Apparently there was a congee place way further north up Keele that would deliver via some thirdparty courier app, but it was vetoed for hassle despite the nearby place not having congee. Whatever that was. This all reminded him an awful lot of making similar calls with his ex. He tried not to let the remindedness roll in like a fog and contaminate the evening for him. This wasn’t like then. This was an actual gathering of friends being friendly. Which was fun, not fatiguing. Dan was fatigued, but not emotionally. Which was a weightlessness he’d been waiting for possibly forever, but at least since before his relationship had started to hit turbulence. Maybe it was the same feeling has Magic card gatherings in highschool. Sort of closeby, like different tints of the same hue.
By the time Bruce’s chunky old flip-phone was letting them know food was outside by blasting a midi of reggaestep at them indiscriminately, Dan had managed to get all the way over to the other side of the waking divide, and he felt himself swimming back up to the other world ponderously, unsure of the way and feeling like it was easy to get lost somehow. To cul-de-sac in a somnambulistic sub-realm somewhere before where eyes open.
The food-smell did the whole job of getting him online again, and he sat up, watching Bruce spread out the array of vessels. There wasn’t enough space on the longboard and he ended up decamping three items to his perch on the halfpipe. It was precisely at the most convenient time for a buffet haul, and Pete chose it as the time to show up, appearing from the direction of the bedrooms, where he might or might not have been sitting around alone waiting to eat. Dan assumed he’d texted Bruce his part of the order. It looked like more than twenty dollars worth of food and it looked like it was supposed to feed more than just Mouse and Bruce and Pete. This was confirmed for him by Jean-Paul rotating several little cartons toward himself to check the sigil expressing their contents on each, before snagging what seemed to be his own individual order of deep fried tofu in chili sauce. Dan guessed that was his version of junkfood. The rest of the spread was closer to his own, minus what was later revealed to be a container of green beans in sauce, which everyone seemed to treat as what Jean-Paul called a crudité. Dan still wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but it seemed to be small portions of healthy stuff you could eat as finger food. Maybe cooked didn’t count, maybe that was how tapas was different. His ex liked tapas. That was right up her alley; small portions, fancy name. Bougie. She’d have been hard pressed to pick something out of tonight’s line-up, although, she’d have been the only one. There were two kinds of glistening barbecued meats to tantalize the appetite, as well as pineapple fried rice, two orders of fries and three boxes of chicken wings in varying preparations. Bruce had also ordered a bunch of cans of soda even though there was soda down the block for less, and there was water to drink in the Maison. Really going all out hosting the big ball, he thought at Bruce. Just as he thought it, Bruce’s head rotated unerringly toward him and he found himself being beamed at, maximum beam.
“Mange, mange!” Bruce shouted over from his spot, making a rotating eat-eat gesture with his hand in front of his mouth as he did. It reminded him of Andreah ordering take-out on that snowy night in Kensington, and a ghostly gust of cold air made him shiver. He should really do some reaching out textwise before Andreah decided to forget his name when she saw him again. It seemed like only a week ago that they’d had breakfast, less than, even. But no, here it was, days into March. Soon a month would’ve passed since they’d talked. That seemed both wrong in the sense that it was rude or kind of cold or whatever, and in the sense that she was the only person he knew who didn’t live in the same building as him but might be willing to let him stay in hers for whatever arising reasons might be forthcoming but premonitions of which were unforthcoming to Dan in the moment of consideration. He wasn’t sure she was a great escape route but escape routes were the kind of thing you wanted to keep track of, he’d learned that the hard way from his breakup; turned out he’d never even thought about it before needing to, and that Jean-Paul had been his only escape route. He’d been lucky, so lucky, in all this, he re-affirmed to himself. He’d felt a lot less lucky about it since moving in here, but that wasn’t really on the people or the place, since they all seemed to click together tidy-as-all-get-out. Figuratively tidy. Feeling dejected and out of sorts all the time because he found the environment stressful was a stupid way to interface with free housing that had come along when he needed it, Dan made another point of it to himself while he ate his way through a chickenwing. It was sublimely greasy in the most fantastically covert way, the savoury tide of runny melted fat being held around the muscles and bones by a faintly fryer-popped mantle of crisp fried skin that was seasoned delectably with something very salty and faintly sweet, salt and MSG and some kind of spice; he vectored in on it out of appreciation, feeling high on chicken. He was pretty sure there weren’t wings like this for delivery in Vic. The closest thing he could think of was the little deep fried wings at kfc, which came frozen and preseasoned unlike all the other bone-in chicken, and dropped in the fry oil station baskets in the prep area, away from the piece production kitchen. The wings were pointedly small and yet, pointedly expensive, so no one who didn’t eat them for free ever got them, but they were leagues ahead of anything else on the menu in terms of their desirability to Dan and their actual nutritive food-value by weight. And the wings from this place a few blocks away were at least twice as good as those wings, if not three times. And it wasn’t just because they were three times larger for the same price, or that he was embedded currently in the process of wasting away from not eating enough. They were actually just, better. Freshness, he found the attribution. They sell these things all night every night, that’s why it’s perfect.
Pete had been making quick work on his own wingfeast, piling up bones on a container lid as he went, looking pleased. “I know, right,” he said to Dan cordially over the longboard table, as if he’d heard the whole thing, that whole line of thought about the wings. It felt comfortably and uncomfortably like he had. Pete had that way about him, Dan realized. He assumed it was a skill Pete had developed on purpose to keep people on edge, seeming confidently aware of what you were thinking. His older-older sister did it too, she was usually bluffing. Dan knew how to bluff along, he could play it by ear.
“Not the worst wings I ever had,” he agreed back.
“‘Not the worst’,” Pete quoted him, laughing. This made him feel really sharp and conversationally functional for a second before he realized that was stupid and told himself to get a grip and learn to not-care-one-way-or-the-other better. He’d been working on not-caring-one-way-or-the-other for a long time. It should have been paying off, by now. “That’s so, uh, wasp-y, why can’t you guys ever just like things. Openly. Honestly. Directly. This is why you don’t get chicks—if that’s like, something you wonder about.”
“Yeah well, let me know when you figure out how to keep them,” Dan started, and stopped, noticing Pete was not a person with a face like he was having some fun banter with a friend. Mouse, however, suddenly exploded with barks of laughter, spraying micromorsels of sumptuous Chinese meal into the air around him for a few seconds, mercifully derailing whatever horrifying social snafu had been about to go off in place of a spit take with a laugh track.
“I believe you have just gotten served,” Mouse chortled at Pete, clearly annoying him. Bruce seemed to be chiming in with some giggles about it as well. Dan didn’t turn his head to look at Jean-Paul’s read, but interpreted the dense silence near his feet to mean a tongue was being bitten over there, or his friend was just apprehensive about the sudden decline in ambient camaraderie.
“You can make volleyball analogies when you’ve finished highschool equivalency. Or started it,” Pete groused at the small crumple of person just over his left shoulder, sounding like he was trying to land a hit on a sore spot.
“You are a cunt,” Mouse announced back, still sounding amused with himself and the situation. Bruce made hooting noises at them and chanted that they should fight. Dan couldn’t tell if it was serious or not, the goading.
“Takes one to get some,” Pete primly deflected. “Eat some fries, you look thin.” He handed a box of no-longer-steamyfresh fries over. Mouse had only eaten meat so far, picking at each different kind in turn.
“Disgusting,” Mouse told him, eating fries anyway. Dan wasn’t sure he meant the fries. It hadn’t occurred to him before now to wonder about who Mouse thought about dating, if anyone. Now that it had, he assumed it was a short and fraught list, if it existed at all.
So this is it, the thought gelled, this is a night in at Maison Rokkoku. He watched the currently-playing movie for a second, trying to get his bearings in the image as it traversed another image, the sunflowers. He couldn’t make sense of what the action on screen was. A fight or something, or some kind of choreographed routine. Oh it was sports; he finally hit on the swing of things and magic-eye style it all settled into coherence. They were watching some old football team underdog, come-from-behind, island of misfit toys-type romper room feelgood fan favourite or whathaveyou.
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Life By The Throat – Eve Steele
It’s a pleasantly warm and sunny evening. I’m having a stroll around the streets near Battersea Bridge and the park – streets vaguely familiar to me from a long-gone childhood of chip shops and giant Palm Toffee ads. I’m
feeling good. Then it hits me. Out of the blue. An angry fist straight into the throat. A back-handed slap in the gob, an indiscriminate kick in the shins, a baseball bat rammed into the gut and – the coup de grace – an unforgiving knee buried in the groin. I double up, fall to the ground and through the old Young’s Brewery fuggy daze I see images of that other aspect of my childhood – the Teds with razor blades displayed in their top pocket and fishhooks stitched into their sleeves.
Yes, I’ve been mugged. I didn’t see it coming, I wasn’t prepared – I mean, Battersea’s got gentrified since my day, hasn’t it? Mugged not by one of those Teddy Boy ghosts from the past but mugged by a slip of girl (I use the phrase advisedly, with apologies to the Sexism Police), a firebrand female whom I imagine eats fishhooks for lunch. I’m on the ground – not those well-worn paving slabs of Battersea Park Road but on the floor of a theatre, Theatre 503, upstairs at the Latchmere pub, an old style London pub, thankfully unchanged in configuration since I stood outside waiting to return beer bottles for the deposit.
The mugger is Eve Steele and she is performing her self-penned play Life By The Throat. I never expect anything from a show except the unexpected and this one took me totally unawares. It’s a one-person show, a seventy-minute typhoon-tirade, a poverty-porn-poem delivered with shock-jock ferocity, a full-frontal assault on our senses, our prejudices and our deeply lurking trepidations.
Steele is a one-woman tour de force who plays a babe-kid- boy-teen- youth-lad-dad- man-alco with passion, empathy and understanding. Her creation, James Joseph Patrick Keogh, is a mad-little-brained Hulme Mancunian of Irish extraction and despite being a top athlete at School runs the full gamut of thieving, smoking, drinking, soft drug use, sexual abuse, borstal time, heavy drug use, jail time, drug dependency and alcoholism. Steele gives us every nuance of this beleaguered life, the highs, the lows, the very highs, the rock-bottoms, the drunken rages. She (and again, I use the term advisedly) is James, her every action, her every gesture her every glance, her every aside gives us the complete package of the man she is depicting and it’s very, very convincing. It feels like taking on a kick-boxer, a cage fighter and an MMA exponent all rolled into one: a hard-hitting, no-holds- barred, gut-wrenching relentless diatribe telling the truth about life below the poverty line in this country today.
Yes, the show can be filed under Ken Loach but it’s not overtly political, overtly socialist in its outlook – though socialists may well want to claim it as their own: it’s just overtly Life. And channeling Oscar Wilde – “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” – as part of the repetitive prison sequences adds a literary perspective through which we can view the sordid, tawdry life that Steele is delineating.
Steele’s partner in crimes in this production is director Ed Jones – together they form Most Wanted Theatre Company. Jones demonstrably shares Steele’s empathy for the subject and his direction is subtle yet brash, nuanced yet very much in-yer- face. I’m not going to allow him to escape scot-free from what is blatantly a joint mugging: it’s very much a perpetrator-and-mastermind relationship. Particularly smart is the use of sudden loud music for Keogh to chill/rant/dance/fight to. It’s a clever mix of ska-reggae- club classics and anyone who incorporates the Althea and Donna classic “Uptown Top Ranking” is going to get my vote every time.
The trip south of the river to Theatre 503 is always rewarding – an innovative and stimulating Fringe theatre that rarely disappoints. This is Artistic Director Lisa Spirling’s first season and she has bought into 503’s well-established New Writing pedigree with an eclectic and stimulating collection of shows.
Scheduling Life By The Throat into the mix is an inspired decision though Ms Spirling may need to check her Public Liability Insurance to see what the cover limit is for muggings.
Review by Peter Yates
The remarkable life of Jamie Joseph Patrick Keogh is channelled in this one-woman show inspired by interviews with and acting as a celebration of men who have been involved with drugs, been through the criminal justice system and had to cope with adversity.
Born into poverty and madness, Jamie is a force to be reckoned with. He survives on wit, laughter and ingenious schemes. Whether it’s sprinting on sports day, chasing oblivion or running away from cops, it seems to be only a matter of time for him before a crash comes.
In an age when masculinity is in crisis, this is both a show about it means to be a man from a broken background and what it means to be a woman who has loved a man like that. The show celebrates the ingenuity of the thief and the chancer – the bad boy – but also reaches out to him with love, compassion and understanding, aims to give colourful insight into the lives of those living on the edge in society.
Most Wanted in association with LittleMighty present
Life by The Throat
Award-winning writer-performer and former Coronation Street star Eve Steele performs one man’s life from birth to death in this gritty, true-to-life performance exploring class, gender and living life on society’s margins
Written and performed by Eve Steele | Directed by Ed Jones
UK TOUR: Tuesday 18 April – Saturday 20 May 2017 (further dates to be announced)
Company
Written and performed by Eve Steele Produced by LittleMighty
Directed by Ed Jones
http://ift.tt/2ouAzqs | @MostWantedShows | @littlemightyUK | #LifebyTheThroat
Running time: 1 hour approx | Age restriction: 14+
http://ift.tt/2pGgguV LondonTheatre1.com
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